But before I go into a lengthy rant against anyone's religion, I think it's important I take a moment to remind Blah-ugh! readers that this Blah-ugh! is less about bigotry and intolerance than it is about trying to create buzz around my new e-novel SPACE CASE, which as you all know is the racially tense story of a bigoted earth woman who's forced to mate with a black man from outer space. (Please understand that the term "black" is appropriate in this case, because this alien's ancestors are NOT from Africa, as may be the case for the typical misconstrued African-American earth dweller who is incorrectly referred to as "black," but instead he hails from a region on the planet Visnoid where skin pigments come in a remarkable range of vibrant colors, including one stylish shade of ebony that would put a vain panther to shame.)
Now, I've completely forgotten what my point was, because I began it so long ago, but you can bet the Irish had something to do with it. Or was it the Italians? This reminds me that I meant to get Italian food for lunch today and completely forgot to, opting instead for Chinese. I can only imagine that this sort of experience is the kind of thing that perpetuates the stereotypes surrounding the Chinese and their craftiness. Of course, there's a good chance that Italian laziness also played its part, along with my own Polish stupidity.
The nice thing about the Polish is that the word is also "polish," which has a nice, clean, well-groomed sense to it. It's a much better moniker than, say, Latvians, or Urkutskians. I'm glad I'm not from Urkutsk, which for a long time I believed was only a region in the board game Risk, but now I think may actually really exist, although its natives are probably ashamed to enter the U.N. because it's such a silly name.
Other countries have silly names as well, including ours. In a sense, we don't even HAVE a name, which is REALLY annoying. I wish we were called SOMETHING, like Featherland ... or Vermeel ... or Kasha ...
Which reminds me of something many of you may not have known, or perhaps cared about -- Did you know Soviet Union translates to mean "States United." Now, does that make any sense? It's moot now, but really, what were we all thinking throughout the Cold War, with such comically juxtaposed names?! U.S. / S.U. !! But what kills me is that no one noticed. I mean, even I didn't for a long time, although I was only born in the sixties, so at least I have that excuse for the early post-war years. What about YOU?!
How did we get on this? I was setting out to make fun of the Jews -- the Sephardic, not the Ashkenazi. I mean, what's with Hanukkah?! It starts on a different day each year. Who designed this religion?! The Polish?
No, but seriously, I'm still trying to figure out if my rampant prejudices and stereotyping are a good thing or a bad thing. (If you're laughing, by the way, they're a good thing, but if you're taking steps to have my book banned in schools, we'll need to reshape this post ...)
In a sense, I feel like a valuable museum-like period piece from another era -- meaning the Cold War -- still an example of that strange, sometimes bitter, sometimes hilarious time when fictional characters like Archie Bunker and Fred Sanford were teaching us not only to be aware of our differences, but to celebrate them with humor and embarrassed arrogance, especially if we felt deep down that our differences were better than those of others, or at least not QUITE as different ...
One nice thing about pre-judging people is that it saves a lot of time. And who has ANY time these days, what with text messages to send and millions of emails bouncing each way and Snooky getting pregnant and all the conversations we've got to HAVE ABOUT Snooky and her pregnancy and her being Ho -- (or a Hoe, depending on your stereotyping decisions) -- and all the new facts bombarding us about other television shows and the magazines about people who are ON television shows and ... It's just crazy!
And that's why there comes a point where we have to just cut corners in some area of our lives in order to make a finer showing ...
So why NOT blame the Irish this month? It'll help balance the joyous festivities of their holiday ... And then next month, we can blame someone else for the warm weather -- perhaps the Arabs!
