This is a dreadfully rude and unpleasant story, kiddies, for which I sincerely apologize.
Sometimes real life is like that.
It must have been Christmas 2003. Nancy had invited me to stay at the St Cloud Road house for a few weeks.
We had a lovely time together catching up, although it did take a while to get used to Nancy’s little habit of getting her secret service agents to position Ronnie in random places around the house in order to scare the maids. The new cook resigned on the first day I was there, soon after she walked into the pantry to find him hanging by his feet from the top shelf singing “I’m the Batman”. I’d been sitting on the toilet for 30 minutes one morning, and only realized that Ronnie was propped up in the shower stall wearing a sombrero when he called me “Mommy”. I got over my little constipation problem faster than you can say “Rush Limbaugh is a big fat pedophile.”
Please don’t think that Nancy was being mean. I think she was just bored all alone in that big house, and she said it gave him something to do with his time.There wasn’t much of Ronnie left, and what there was was basically a sweet four year old boy, so it was hard to dislike him, even if he did enjoy playing tricks.
Nancy and I had first met back during her Hollywood career, although of course it wasn’t so much an acting career as an early version of “The Bachelorette” – just Nancy hanging around on set and swilling champagne in the hot tub until someone asked her to marry them.
We used to write each other every month, although our friendship waned a little during the “Just say NO” years, when Nancy used to call Gloria V. and me and rant about us being “drug-addled hell-bitches” every time we got our photo in Vanity Fair.
Anyway, come Christmas time, Nancy decided to invite the Bushes (both 41 and 43) and the Cheneys and Karl Fucking Rove to fly in for a barbecue. I suggested this was like inviting all of the characters in “Whatever happened to Baby Jane?” into your living room, but she said that she liked to keep an eye on the latest tenants in her old house.
Of course, once they arrived, I realized I had gotten the reference wrong. Lynne Cheney might look and behave like Bette Davis coming down from a three week whisky-and-blow bender, but the rest of them resemble nothing so much as the cast of the Tim Burton version of “Gilligan’s Island”. Nancy and I would have to fight over who gets to be Ginger, and Ronnie could give a special guest appearance as the SS Minnow – thick as a plank and leaking at the seams.
Nancy and Ronnie and I were seated at the table in the garden when the guests arrived en masse – W wide eyed and giggling a little when he said hello to Ronnie, Lynne eyeing off the cutlery, and Dick gurgling as usual when he walked as the bile and shit and other viscous fluids redistributed themselves within his carapace. Barb and Nancy managed to shake hands without biting each other, which was a nice change.
I had the butler hand out the special drinks which I had prepared – bright-green vodka gimlets with Grammy’s special garnishes. The cheap vodka, of course – I was scarcely going to waste Nancy’s good stuff on that lot. I was going to slip some Valium into Laura’s glass, but she had pre-anesthetized herself, so it hardly seemed worth the bother. Not much was getting past her pink haze, although she still flinched, just a tiny bit, whenever W spoke. We sat her at our end of the table and gave her a spoon to look at and she seemed quite happy.
The Ipecac and Dulcolax Slings I’d made for Lynne and Barb took them out of the equation pretty damn quickly. W and Dick and Rove were all seated around Ronnie and were laughing about the invasion of Iraq and how they were going to find the WMDs any day now. The butler had only just put the shrimp cocktails on the table when suddenly Lynne made a face like a cow having a special visit from the vet, leapt from her chair and ran off in the wrong direction. Barb was standing up and laughing like a drain until, in mid guffaw, she vomited so hard it came out her nose. She headed off across the garden too, crashed into Lynne and then they both fell into the pool, spurting all the while from every orifice.
The secret service boys fished them out eventually and that was the last we heard of either of them for the rest of the day. No one else seemed particularly concerned. Nancy said something about hoping that the shrimp were ok, nodded at me happily and went on chatting to Bush Senior.
We finished our shrimp. W and Rove were talking about finally finishing the job in Iraq, which got them a nasty look from 41. I could see from our end of the table that Cheney had gotten bored and was entertaining himself by seeing how far he could poke his fork into Ronnie’s leg before Ronnie complained. Ronnie was rolling his eyes and fidgeting, so after I had summoned some more drinks I wandered down to pat his hand and reassured him that it was all going to be ok. By the time I got back to my seat, Ronnie was fast asleep and W and Rove had both chugged their new drinks. Cheney sipped his more carefully, looking at it suspiciously every now and then, but it all went down eventually.
A few minutes later when the entrees arrived, the speed in Rove and W’s drinks had kicked in and they were both sweating like Bill Donohue at a gay sauna. Rove said something about waterboarding and they both laughed and punched each other on the shoulders. Cheney poked at his steak with the point of his fork, then watched it carefully for a while, as if he might catch it breathing. 1000µg of lysergic acid diethylamide all in one go can tend to make one a tad paranoid.
At that point Nancy, bless her soul, started telling a long story about her last visit to her new psychic, Helmut. Helmut was a strange German man with an eyepatch and a squint of whom Nancy was very fond. Instead of reading tea leaves, he charged Nancy a thousand bucks a week to read the grains of salt in the bottom of her afternoon margaritas. On her last visit he had warned her that the dead spirits of those who had hated her in life could follow her around and do her mischief.
At the time, Nancy had laughed and said that she should be fine as long as Barb Bush and Rosie Carter hadn’t yet shuffled off the mortal coil.
However, now she made a big thing of how her psychic had told her that the spirits could seek their bloody revenge, which she described both in great detail and with that particular relish that Nancy always brings to descriptions of suffering.
Cheney was staring at her. His eyes were glassy and wide, and he twitched occasionally. As she went on, he started looking from side to side over his shoulders and mumbling about it all being Condoleeza Rice’s fault. His nervousness started to get to W and Rove and they started giggling nervously and asking Cheney what was wrong. He kept telling them to be quiet because he couldn’t “hear them coming with you fuckers talking”. Eventually, they had all worked themselves into such a state that when the butler brought round the chocolate mousse they all almost jumped out of their chairs.
In the middle of dessert, Ronnie coughed and woke up. W let out a little squeak like a startled prairie dog and, I suspect, also a little bit of wee.
Ronnie’s eyes slowly swam into focus. He blinked twice, and peered across the table. His hand came up off the table and every eye in the room was fixed on it as it pointed, quite deliberately, first at Rove, second at Cheney and finally at W.
They all leaned forward, swaying and sweating and vibrating, yet eager for the words from the lips of the Great Liberator to banish their terrors and absolve their sins.
Ronnie raised his head just a little, carefully licked his lips and, looking again at each of the three in turn, just as deliberately said, “Asshole … Criminal … Gilligan.”
Ronnie smiled, farted and then promptly went back to sleep.
Just then Nancy’s Mexican gardener José wandered through from the pool. Cheney took one look at him and dived under the table screaming that the dead Iraqi hordes had come to get him with their terrible trowels of vengeance. W fainted and toppled backwards, while Rove crapped himself with a thunderous noise like Chris Christie’s girdle coming undone. Cheney pulled W in under the table and sheltered under him, making that screeching noise that pigs make when they are being slaughtered.
Soon afterwards we shepherded them all off the property, looking for all the world like the unsuccessful gold ticket holders at the end of a particularly sadistic version of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”.
41 stayed behind and we all went and had some more gimlets – made with the good vodka, of course. I quite like 41 – he can almost out-drink me and he does a hilarious impersonation of Newt Gingrich that involves two forks and a salt shaker.
Now, Ronald Reagan may not have been a very nice man. My nephew Kevin tells me that Ronnie was a monstrous and genocidal maniac who really only found out how wrong he was when he arrived in Hell and was assigned fifteen specially-created demons, each with the face of Anita Bryant, whose job was to gnaw out Ronnie’s entrails every day for the rest of eternity.
I think that’s a little cruel. I’m sure they let the demons have a day off every now and then.
I’m not sure why Kevin hates Ronnie so much, though I have no real reason to disagree with his assessment.
However, even at his most dribblingly senile, even once his once-average brain had crumbled to a level slightly below that of Bonzo the fucking chimp, even then Ronald Reagan knew what amoral, cowardly, evil bastards looked like when he saw them.
[Picture: Adolphe Jourdan (1825-1889) – A Summer’s Picnic] [Cross posted at Sarah, Proud and Tall.]
Bob D
This is an extremely crude entry that should not have been posted.
Downpuppy
My carapace shook & vibrissae quivered with joy.
Ridnik Chrome
…suddenly Lynne made a face like a cow having a special visit from the vet…
Thankful I was alone in the office when I read that…
Just Some Fuckhead
Funny stuff!
Ash Can
::applauds::
Anne Laurie
You have outdone yourself, Ma’am! Every time I murmur the phrase “Asshole … Criminal … Gilligan.” to myself, it will bring a little spark of evil joy to my shriveled heart…
Scott
She headed off across the garden too, crashed into Lynne and then they both fell into the pool, spurting all the while from every orifice.
I can’t stop laughing at this sentence.
geg6
Heh, indeedy.
bryanD
“Rush Limbaugh is a big fat pedophile*.”
I’ve been waiting for a Hustler/Rolling Stone/Salon expose’ of Limbaugh’s Dominican sex safari FOREVER. But, Nooooo!
Meanwhile, we get the writing above, which could use an Angry Mickey Rooney middle scene BTW***.
*I’m guessing ephebophile.
***SAG President Reagan (in cahoots with Lew Wassermann of MCA) was directly responsible for screwing actors out of their precious residuals as old movies were first leased for television broadcast. Mickey PISSED! Mickey fucked Lana Turner! Don’t underestimate Mickey!
Yutsano
@Anne Laurie: Rotating Tag. Yes.
Jazz Superluminar
Fuck, this was the funniest thing I’ve read anywhere in a long while, and a great improvement on the recent spate of dire posts and comments rounc here. Well done, Sarah. What is your favourite tipple by the way, I feel I should mail you a bottle or six over at Shady Pines.
kimalanus
Should I admit how much I miss Hunter S. Thompson? ’cause I do miss him, I do….
Hawes
I think we can all agree that dementia improves most GOP politicians.
Joey Maloney
Has anyone checked to see if Hunter Thompson actually killed himself? Maybe he just got tired of being a tourist attraction at Woody Creek, and went underground.
grandpajohn
@Bob D: )f course its crude. How the hell could you lampoon this bunch of amoral assholes without being crude. Crude is their middle name
geg6
@kimalanus:
Go on ahead and tell it. I miss Dr. Gonzo, too. Badly. But I do think he’d have loved our dear Sarah. Think of the fun they would have had together.
Sarah, you don’t have any good stories about being in Vegas with Gonzo and Raoul, do you?
beergoggles
@Hawes: Dementia is too good for most GOP politicians – it lets them forget all the evil they have done; especially Ronnie. Bone cancer for a decade before he died would still have been too kind to him.
james
@Bob D:
who is this person and why am i forced to ignore her writings every few hours?
canuckistani
It’s as if the cannon-fired ashes of Hunter S. Thompson drifted into someone’s cocaine. Brilliant.
geg6
@Bob D:
People without a sense of humor really should stay away from Balloon Juice. It’s dangerous here without one.
Oh, and I recommend staying away from anything written by Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Wouldn’t want you to get the vapors twice in a day.
Yutsano
@Bob D: Did you not read the caveat at the beginning? You were warned it would be crude AND YOU READ IT ANYWAY. If I’m supposed to feel bad cause your delicate fee-fees were hurt by you not paying attention…yeah not so much.
@geg6: Heh. Yup. This.
artem1s
this would be AWESOME! If Hollywood can’t do anything but churn out CGI explosions and vapid remakes of 70s TV series then at least give me a remake/director mash up with some teeth!
we need a thread on the director/remake we most like to see.
Sarah, marvelous post BTW, always love them.
trollhattan
You had me at, “I’m the Batman.” Lurved every lurid bit of it.
TaMara (BHF)
I’m wondering if we need a #snark requirement to distinguish the trolls from the average BJ-er portraying what a troll would say. Just in case @Bob D. was in the latter not former category.
Southern Beale
Oh, my. This WhiskeyFire post on Ann Althouse is just incredible. Almost as incredible as this LGF post on Pam Geller.
Go have some fun!
Jewish Steel
@Bob D:
This is a question I hope all the FPers ask themselves: Crude? Should not be posted? Good, then it’s ready.
Still The Great Communicator.
My grandfather, the son of a North Shore grandee, dated Nancy Davis briefly. No foolin’.
Jazz Superluminar
@TaMara
I see what you’re saying, having fallen on the wrong side of that distinction myself many times, but it would ruin the whole spoof-trollery aspect of this place. I like ambiguity, ambiguity is good.
jacy
@artem1s:
Lately whenever I think of a Gilligan’s Island remake I always think of Bobby Jindal as Gilligan and Haley Barbour as the Skipper. There wouldn’t be a Professor though, because none of that bunch is clever enough to make a coconut telephone.
Jewish Steel
@TaMara (BHF): The burden is on the snarker and not the snarktarget to make his or her irony/spoof/sarcasm clear.
That’s my vote, at least.
JGabriel
Paul Ryan has hurt fee-fees:
Ryan was later heard firing back to Gingrich, “I’m rubber and your glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you!” Then he cried for his mommy.
.
maya
Tom Brokaw is not amused. After all, he honed his journalist skills at the teat of Ronald Reagan, or something like that. I heard him say so during RR’s funeral week festivities. Many times.
Comrade Darkness
Sweet sweet stuff.
JGabriel
Sarah, P&T @ Top:
Biting’s excellent. It’s like kissing, only there’s a winner.
(tm Neil Gaiman/Doctor Who)
.
Church Lady
Sarah is one sick fuck. Unless, of course, one finds Alzheimer’s funny.
Myles
Is that a painting by Watteau?
c u n d gulag
This is a work of sheer genious.
It will live forever!
PS: Did you use Nancy’s Helmut to write this?
Who did you channel – Hunter S. Thompson?
Juicetard (FKA Liberty60)
@Bob D:
FIFY
Citizen_X
So much win. I loved this part:
@Church Lady: Reagan started going senile while he was in office, and still wound up being sanctified as the Great Communicator by the Right. Said Right now regularly churns out word-salad generators such as Dubya, Palin, Cain, or Bachmann, who are promptly hailed as leaders.
Do you sense a theme here?
Evilbeard
This was totally dumb and totally unnecessary. Please don’t do it again Balloon Juice.
Don
Brilliant. As kimalanus implies, Hunter Thompson would be proud.
asiangrrlMN
Ms. Sarah, I do so love your little tales of debauchery and spiked drinks. Thank you so much for a bright start to my day. Now, if you could actually write a story that would make Tim Pawlenty look interesting, you could make some mad monies.
@Evilbeard: Then. Don’t. Read. It.
eemom
@asiangrrlMN:
hey, asiangrrl — I was poking around ABL’s blog and saw your pic. Hope you don’t mind if I mention you are a total cutie. [blush]
Yutsano
@eemom: Yes. Yes she is.
@asiangrrlMN: She’s getting PAID for this gig? Where’s mah royalty check then?
Studly Pantload, now with enhanced schmuckosity
Oh, Balloon-Juice, have no sacred cows?
No. No, I guess you don’t.
And don’t you ever flippin’ change.
David Brooks (not that one) is a richard skull.
An interesting piece of internal evidence about SPaT here. She is certainly of British upbringing (well-established from phrases she habitually uses that I recognize as comong from My People). But she knows about Gilligan’s Island.
Back in the day when the Brits had airtime to spare but not enough talent to fill it with, we took the best American shows. Lucy, Dick van Dyke, the Flintstones, later MASH – we got the best. But Gilligan’s Island never made it across the pond. I’ve been here since 1983 and I don’t recognize a single Gilligan reference, to my shame.
So Sarah was in England long enough to habitually use our terms, and has been in the US long enough to know Gilligan.
92? I think she’s older than that.
EIGRP
Is SPAT a Rude Pundit pseudonym?
eemom
@Church Lady:
Or, if one finds the mockery of some of the greatest monsters in American history not just funny, but gratifying.
Are you sure you’re not a ruler-wielding Catholic school nun from the 1950s who fell into some kind of time warp? Cuz you gotta be one of the dreariest trolls I’ve ever seen.
anna missed
VEEEERRRRRYYYYY Interesting. You’re not that I’m Eating My Husband’s Soul lady are you? If not, you’ve got company. Maybe a new literary genre emerging.
I like it.
And, want more.
BeccaM
I was enjoying the post, laughing every now and then, when this: “Dick gurgling as usual when he walked as the bile and shit and other viscous fluids redistributed themselves within his carapace” — made me completely lose it.
Oh sweet Jeebus, my sides hurt.
BeccaM
@asiangrrlMN: Suspension of disbelief can only extend so far. ;-)
Cassidy
@Church Lady: Only if you tell them a different backstory every day. Then it’s hysterical.
montana
You, dear woman/man/thing are an oasis in this forlorn habitat we call the intertubes.
Jewish Steel
@Church Lady: Do you mean “sick fuck” in the sense the kids mean it? Cuz that’s kinda personal.
geg6
@Church Lady:
Having had more than one close family friend and family member die of Altzheimer’s, you don’t get through it without laughing at it. But then, it’s you and we all know you have NO sense of humor. Not to mention your having the sanctimoniousness of an archbishop telling the gays to atone for their sins as he struggles to pay off all the pedophilia lawsuits of the diocese.
MikeB
Hilarious, creative, unique, great work SP&T!
Church Lady
@geg6:
Yeah, the six years we spent watching his favorite uncle go from being a brilliant Oncologist to an empty shell when he died had my husband and I giggling all the time. His aunt and cousins found it hysterically funny too.
Fuck off geg. There is nothing remotely amusing about Alzheimer’s. It is a vicious disease and the most heartbreaking one to watch. Anyone making fun of anyone with the disease is less than human.
travis
It is a horrible disease…unless it is used in the noble aims of karmic justice. If your uncle was responsible for the brand of governance that has relegated vast numbers to poverty and hopelessness with the promise of the same for generations to come, then I would have no sympathy for him. Since that is unlikely, I wish that I could have changed that fate for him.
quaker in a basement
the rest of them resemble nothing so much as the cast of the Tim Burton version of “Gilligan’s Island”
‘at’s funny raht thar, I don’ keer who y’ar!
Just Some Fuckhead
There once was a churchgoing lass
Who had a corncob screwed up her ass
She would glower uptightly
At what she judged unsightly
But at least we don’t have to put up with Lob1aws sass.
SP&T, you know you can ban Church Lady, right? It’s all the rage these days.
someguy
@beergoggles: @Hawes:
Fixed.
Church Lady
@Just Some Fuckhead:
That’s excellent. And funny too!
geg6
@Church Lady:
Fuck off, yourself. I believe I mentioned your lack of any sort of sense of humor (let alone a gallows one) and thanks for validating that.
Good thing for me that my friends and family aren’t you. Hell, my mother could find humor in her situation as she lay dying of bone cancer. Good thing she didn’t have Altzheimer’s like my grandmother, aunt, and my mother’s two best friends or she wouldn’t have remembered that she had one.
eemom
see, she DOES have a sense of humor after all. And what a good SPORT.
Church Lady
I have a sense of humor. It’s one of the few things that keeps me coming back here. Many of the comments are funny. Unfortunately, sometimes the postings are in bad taste. This was one and I was not the only person to think so.
I don’t find the misery of others amusing. Even people I don’t like. Things like cancer, HIV, and Alzheimer’s are not funny to those it happens to or to the people that love them.
And I’m quite grateful my friends and family aren’t you either. It would be almost as bad as having a fatal disease.
Just Some Fuckhead
In a contest between Church Lady and eemom, I root for injuries.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Church Lady: Sometimes eemom has a sense of humor. Other times she is outraged. Other times, she is cold-bloodedly murderous. It just depends on what she thinks will get her the most mileage at the time.
You ladies have a lot in common. You should do tea or something.
eemom
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Crossfire ‘n such, fuckie. The injuries would be yours.
eemom
@Just Some Fuckhead:
sure, fuckie — I’ll give ya consistency. You are ALWAYS boring as shit.
Just Some Fuckhead
@eemom:
I know I am. That’s why you follow me around here begging for my attention like the little 7 year old girl across the street does to my son. She hits him all the time too.
jinxtigr
Oh my God, between that and Cheney’s carapace I’m in awe :)
eemom
@Just Some Fuckhead:
um, what?
Who started up with who on just THIS thread, for example?
Who pores obsessively over old threads to find my old comments? (besides Stoned, that is).
You got a case of the dyslexics, Fuckster. You’re the follower, not the followee.
Now run along to the archives and see what you can find.
Stan of the Sawgrass
Sigh…..
I’m way late to the party, but my gut reflex* is to agree with Bob D. Sort of.
I read Bloon Jooce for political snark and fact-derived irony, plus a certain camaraderie/affection for the community. Since the first S.P.&T. post, I’ve skipped most of them. It’s not that I don’t have a sense of humor**, it’s just that I’d prefer to know if Senator Ensign went hiking on the “appellation trail” to invent a new term for “shakedown payoff from my Mom and Dad”, or if he came all over Mrs. Hampton’s dress. Red, in this case, not blue.
I’ll give “her” a try after this, though. Last thought: remember, Sarah: brevity is the soul of wit. Well, TRY dear, please!
Two final words: The Big Jewel.com (Ok, three words and an extension.)
*(yes, I’m aware of what “peristalsis” is– it’s a metaphor, dammit.)
**(somebody’s going to make me back this up. Well, it’s kazoos, clown shoes, and blow guns with poisoned darts at 20 paces. Grenades optional, but you’ve been warned.)
Just Some Fuckhead
@eemom: See #63. You aren’t very bright, are you? Seriously.
CynDee
@Bob D: Yep, I’m with you and the minority. We used to sign onto BJ and find pics and antics of Lily, Tunch, and then Rosie, problems and all, and lots of highly readable brilliant irreverence from posters and commenters. This post, for all its creativity is one I should not have chosen not read; a) too long, b) too sick, c) a bit too fond of its ability to disgust. The BJ spirit, to me, is not this unfeeling or sadistic. My level of sophistication is not quite up to Sarah’s Tallness, so I will will just read around her posts in future. The art was pretty; glad it was included.
CynDee
@geg6: Not everybody who has lived through a loved one suffering has the same sense-of-humor capacity that you talk of. Sarah apologized to us kiddies up front, however; so next time I see that in front of her posts, I will definitely find something else to spend my time on.
eemom
@Just Some Fuckhead:
ummm……..that wasn’t ABOUT you.
JHC, how stupid are you? Or do you crave my attention so very badly that you’ve become delusional?
Seriously.
Chuck Butcher
SPaT,
Dear, you should remember that making fun of St Ronnie is verbotten. Americans do NOT want to be reminded of the truth of that man nor the truth of their election/re-election of the dogwhistling plutocratic tool talking head. I’ve lost family and friends to Alzheimers and the only thing I find obnoxious is St Fucking Ronnie’s deification by ignorant halfwits and media tools.
Church Lady can decide which circle of hell I’d put her in given such powers given her overwrought sensitivity about this fiction and her fuck you to actual suffering…
ah hell; there’s no point
Sarah Proud and Tall
@Chuck Butcher:
Love you, Chuck.
Cassidy
Is Alzheimers funny if it’s a clown?
Ecks
Sarah, my dear delightful woman,
You had me at “constipation”.
It may not be, as the grumps contend, quite in the normal vein of balloon-juicosity, but it is carried by such a wave of ineluctable narrative genius that it would be a crime to banish it from these pages. It is SEIZED by genius, I tell you. And also by bodily fluids. But that is age’s privilege.