Lightning Rod Gets The Zot

The Poet's Eye ^ | Lightning Rod

[Lrod]

A character like Christine O'Donnell presents a unique problem for a humorist. Few elaborations are called for since the caricature is self-embodied. All that is needed is a dead-pan Jack Benny look. You know, the one where he just stares blankly at the audience without saying a word and eventually someone titters and before you know it the whole place is in hysterics? Her very existence as a major party candidate for US Senate is the kind of comedy which arrives ready-written and would only be spoiled by embellishment. I mean, what can you add to rabidantimasturbationtarianism, rats with fully-functioning human brains and her famous Witches of Eastwick campaign ad that looks like it was produced by Tim Burton? I had fully intended to leave Ms. O'Donnell to the other comedians and the pundits who were wearing her out on cable TV. But then came the most recent revelation that she has claimed that her father was Bozo the Clown. Here I had to break my silence, not in the name of humor, but in the cause of veracity. This is a subject I happen to know something about.

Long ago, for one magic season, I was related by marriage to Bozo the Clown. I'm not making this up. My father was a semi-notorious lothario in the television and advertising business. Sometime after he turned 50, he married the 17 year-old daughter of one of his professional colleagues, Larry Harmon, the guy who owned the franchise to Bozo, the Most Famous Clown in the World. He was Bozo Primero, not one of the many FauxZos who were franchised in every major media market. I was much closer to the power center of the Bozo world than Ms. O'Donnell ever dreamed of being. It gave me an intimate glimpse into the backstage life of clowns. I knew little of the inside workings of the clown business in those days. Like a naive child, I had assumed that, you know, Bozo was Bozo. It never occurred to me that there was a school, like a Bozo boot-camp, where imposters went to learn how to walk like a Bozo and talk like a Bozo and draw the red rictus of a smile on their faces with greasepaint. It was like learning a dirty family secret and it was a big disappointment. When you go to see Bozo, you want it to really be Bozo, not some guy dressed up in a Bozo costume.

I hadn't thought about my brief inclusion in greasepaint royalty for years until Ms. O'D surfaced with her claims of actually being a blood relative of Bozo the Clown. The marriage between my father and Princess Bozo, which was chronologically challenged to begin with, barely outlasted the honeymoon. They had about as much in common as Christine would have in common with the 99 other US Senators. Suddenly the whole subject bubbled from my subconscious and made me wonder about franchises and politicians and the authenticity of clowns.

Since John Quincy Adams carried forth his father's political legacy, American politicians have campaigned on the richness of their family's past public service. Roosevelt and Kennedy and Bush all represent minor dynasties and it is entirely in keeping with this tradition for Ms. O'D to claim descent from Bozo. Clowning is as present in the current of American politics as populism, liberalism or conservatism. But in light of Ms. O'D's penchant for resume enhancement, she fibbed about her college career and has downplayed her wiccan studies, her claims to clownly ancestry are also suspect. While she seems like a natural and can certainly get a laugh and works well in the side-shows, one has to wonder if she is really ready for the Big Top, the center ring.

The US Senate is the Big League of Buffoonery. Even pros like Colbert have trouble hanging there. It's a tough room. Notice that Al Franken, even with all his years of practical comic experience, has been keeping mum in deference to the mime-masters of the Senate. These clowns can juggle, ride unicycles, do pratfalls and get shot from cannons, all with the perfect dead-pan of their painted-on media faces. They are consummate clowns adept with all the tricks, the seltzer bottle, the pie-in-the-face, the filibuster. I don't want to get all Stephen King on you but these aren't nice clowns. Ms. O'D should think twice before she alienates her witch constituency, she may need some strong juju to avoid the dunking stool. They'll make her the senator-punk-clown. Every troupe of clowns has one, the smallest clown, bottom of the pecking order, the one who all the other clowns slap and when there is no smaller clown for her to slap, she turns to the audience with her out-turned palms and pitiful Emmett Kelly frown and says, "I am you."

Two of the greatest Senatorial Clowns, Lloyd Bentson and Dan Quayle, in their famous vice-presidential debate in 1988 demonstrated the type of cut-throat comedy these jokers are capable of. When Quayle set the joke up by comparing his inexperience to the inexperience of Jack Kennedy, Bentson spiked it with this punch-line, "Senator," he said, "I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy."

The Poet's Eye would like to say to Christine O'Donnell in this same spirit, "Ms. O'Donnell, you say your father is Bozo. Well, I knew Bozo. Bozo was briefly my step-grand-father-in-law. Christine, your father was no Bozo."

Yes I’m stuck in the middle with you, and I’m wondering what it is I should do. It’s so hard to keep this smile from my face. Losing control yeah I'm all over the place.

Clowns to the left of me! Jokers to the right! Here I am stuck in the middle with you. ---Joe Egan and Gerry Rafferty

Visit The Poet's Eye

[Tax-chick]

I hear they make a nice pet.

[Darksheare]

The left handed fork that someone carelessly dropped.
*sigh*
Wonder what the bill for that repair will be.

[Monkey Face]

Ohhh! Shiny!

[sionnsar]

LOL!

[NicknamedBob]

"That door, unfortunately, eventually leads right back to us via twists turns and the underkeep.
Just stick to the right hand forks and you’ll be fine."

I have to apologize about the doors.

When we stumbled upon this site originally, having zotted and paved a troll, and then just sticking around for the after-zot partying and such, we knew that the place had a special ambience.

In retrospect, I think I understand. The residual "emanations" that perhaps drew the original poster of the Undead Thread to his "fate", and the unusual coterie of strange beings, including us, to do the excavating and tunneling around it, were produced by the special nano-circuitry of the crashed interstellar craft that produced the original crater.

Let me repeat that in more chronological order.

Many ages ago, an interstellar craft of unknown dimensions and capabilities crashed into an otherwise unremarkable terrain, completely destroying the craft and creating a moderate-sized crater.

Early aboriginal occupants recognized the "magical" properties remaining, somehow, as a residue of the original technology. This was an ancient holy place.

After our tunneling and excavations for the special jewels and other odd minerals, we used available materials to shore up the understructure, making a kind of basket for the Flying Castle so that it could be lifted.

As you'll recall, we followed the perimeter of fractured rock that marked the original crater.

That brings us back to the doors.

I chose an alloy of aluminum bronze for the door-frames, manufactured from materials on-site.

I think that's where the original nano-mechanisms got into our materials. The casting temperature for this alloy was insufficient to inactivate the nano-devices' structure, although it did appear to confuse their programming.

It's for that reason that passing through a door here, or as a paean to an old Science Fiction writer, a Door, one can be transported to odd locations. Apparently, the nano-devices had something to do with the ability to travel faster than light, or something. In any case, they do strange things to local space-time.

That's why we have at least one Door that leads to Key West.

And that's probably the only one we have mapped with accuracy.

The others seem to operate more locally for us, but at more or less random intervals. Mapping the results has been unsuccessful.

.

Anyway, that more or less explains about the Doors, at least as far as I can figure it out.

.

So it's my fault, okay?

.

Sorry about that.

Office of the Imperial Weatherman

[Monkey Face]

As long as you only make it rain when and where it will do the most good, I can handle the doors shifting and wavering and sounding like a Thinnie.

[sionnsar]

It’s snowing here.

[Monkey Face]

It snowed on Mt. Charleston last night, and probably the Sheep Range, but I’m not going outside to see.

Another storm is on the way, and the temp is 47 with wind @ 19 from the NW. Makes the wind chill about 29. No thanks!

[Anoreth]

Looks like more snow. They authorized sweatshirts with uniforms finally. It would be nice if there were winter uniforms.

[Tax-chick]

You never take *me* to Key West, boss! But under the circumstances, I think it would be better if you took Anoreth. She’s cold.

[Tax-chick]

Also, does that explain the temporal drift we’re experiencing? My previous post is stamped 11:11:01, EST, but my cell phone said it was only 10:57.

[sionnsar]

I think it would be better if you took Anoreth. She’s cold.

No doubt. She's in the local snow belt -- and if it's snowing at my house she's probably getting pounded.

[Monkey Face]

The army has “Snivel Gear.”
Silk or thermal underwear. My grandson spends a few weeks a month out in the field, and it’s COLD.

[Tax-chick]

Her grandmother and I will send her warm undies if she’ll just tell us the right size and where to send them.

Or, we can get you an LLBean online gift certificate and you can order your own after seeing the choices.

Did you pay your phone bill?

[Anoreth]

I’ll do that tonight. I have time if it isn’t due until next month.
I am thinking about whether to take leave next month or in March. The long term schedule is so messed up that I’m not sure if I can make it early next year at all. I want to make it for the show, but rumors suggest that we won’t be in port. I’ll have to see how much leave I’ve got. I may be able to come around for Christmas.

[Anoreth]

It isn’t snowing yet, but the sky has that look. 28 degrees.

[Tax-chick]

Whatever works best for you is fine with us. 60 here.

[Monkey Face]

29 degree wind chill here. Skies are beginning to look ugly again.

[fanfan]

I am not sure if I have been to the lower levels, how do you witch are the lower levels and the uppers level.

The doors and walls on the lower level 'shift'.

[fanfan]

Hmmm.

I’d like to clarify thet I was not making a bomb threat.