Did I ever tell you, my dears, about the time that Ayn Rand lost her shirt to the mafia?
I suspect not. Now, let me see.
It was, I think, 1965. Times were hard for Ayn. Bitsy Trump had banned her from her home after the unfortunate Christmas party incident (you all remember that one, dears) and the time she came home to find Ayn hiding in her walk-in pantry with two hams and a kilo of beluga stuffed down her raggedy old knickers. As you know, once you were off Bitsy’s invitation list, you were about as popular as Sidney Poitier at a Klan debutante ball. Ayn was even reduced to buying her own food.
However, worse was to come.
Ayn had gotten herself involved with two legitimate New York businessmen, both members of the Inaffidabili family, and both young men on the make. The Inaffidabili had previously focused on such honorable trades as running queer bars and shaking down shopkeepers. However, a few months previously, an up-and-comer called Vito had become head of the family – the two prior incumbents having eaten something which rather disagreed with them (to wit, their own tongues). Thereupon, word had come down that new blood meant a new way of doing business, not least one in which the ability to breathe was considered a discretionary benefit.
Frankie and Gianni Inaffidabili were Vito’s nephews, and were at the forefront of the modernization and diversification of the family’s business holdings. Frankie was the brains, while Gianni was, to put it charitably, not. Gianni’s talent was more in the area of graphic ultraviolence, usually involving the aforementioned tongues.
Gianni loved amusement parks, and a few months before he had, to his joy, visited Disneyland. Frankie went along to make sure that Gianni behaved himself, after an unfortunate incident the year before when a naked Gianni had humped Donald Duck in the middle of the Macy’s parade.
Gianni had had a wonderful time throwing up on the teacup ride, loitering outside the performers’ change rooms throwing steamy glances at Chip and Dale, and almost capsizing the boat with excitement during the fifty-seventh rendition of “It’s a small world after all”.
Frankie, however, had spent his time more profitably. He eyed up the lines of sweaty square-staters with their wallets open, and the screaming children lugging around sticky, dusty stuffed mice. He tried the food and sidled up to a few of the more disreputable looking employees to check on their rates of pay.
Frankie recognized that he was witness to a scam beyond the wildest dreams of the Inaffidabili, and returned to New York full of ideas.
Ayn was, as everyone now knows, an inveterate, if ceaselessly unlucky, gambler. The woman would bet on two flies on a dog’s arse, and would invariably end up putting her money on the one with the dicky wing and no sense of direction. As a result, she usually owed her bookie big time. Even more usually, although she had scads of cash stashed away under the floorboards of that monstrosity she called an apartment, she didn’t pay up, on the basis that debt was something that happened to other people.
Other people, for example, like her bookie, who also owed money to his bookie, who in turn owed money to a rather ineffectual member of the Inaffidabili family called Donkey. (Due, I understand, to his laugh, which sounded like an ass on heat, and not to his ten inch cock. Just a coincidence, apparently.)
Anyway, as a result of what today would be called a “leveraged buyout” by Frankie – the “leverage” referring to the crowbar Gianni used to tip Donkey and his new concrete shoes off the boat and into the Hudson – all of the former Donkey’s debtors were called upon by Frankie and Gianni for a little chat about their ongoing ability to have little chats, and its unfortunate dependence upon prompt payment.
Ayn was, at least in the short term, lucky. Gianni was a devoted reader of her demented potboilers, having had only a copy of Atlas Shrugged to read while hiding out from the law a few years earlier. When he saw her he fell to his knees and kissed her lumpy fingers, all the while babbling to Frankie about what a genius she was and how she had thousands devoted followers “just like me”, and then babbling to her about how this was as good as, no, even better than Disneyland.
In an instant, Frankie had an idea, a moment of (if you will forgive the pomposity) afflatus, the plan appearing whole in his brain as if put there by the gods.
They would build “The Ayn Rand Experience”. Right here in Ayn’s apartment, her devotees could pay for the opportunity to live her life, to be, even for a few shining moments, their heroine. I must add that Frankie was not entirely convinced that there were, in fact, hordes of sweaty palmed, developmentally-delayed furry-fetishists* willing to fork out ready money to sniff Ayn’s bedsheets. Either way, it didn’t matter. Even if they didn’t come, it wouldn’t be Frankie’s cash that was on the line.
In short, Frankie saw here an opportunity to combine interests both new (theme parks) and old (taking avaricious arseholes to the cleaners) in one tasty package.
With a few soft words that spoke of worship and profits and the difficulty of typing novels with no fingers, Frankie reeled her in. Within a few short minutes, Ayn was the non-silent partner in a new and glorious enterprise, and found herself forking over several hundred thousand rather dusty dollars untimely ripped from below her floor.
Within a few short days, Ayn’s apartment had been transformed. Outside, on the street, there was a neon sign that flashed, and a little canvas booth from which tickets could be purchased. The punter, having forked over a disgusting amount of money, would be escorted to the lift (now renamed the “Taggart Comet”) by a man dressed as a train conductor, who would make choo-choo noises as the lift … sorry, Comet flew them to their destination on tracks made of the finest Rearden Metal.
Stepping off the “train”, our brave adventurer would find himself facing an enormous cut-out head of Ayn Rand, which had been affixed around the door to Ayn’s apartment, with the door inside her gaping mouth. More than one laborer felt a frisson of terror when they were installing that, let me tell you. It was like coming face to face with a baleen whale with a grudge.
Inside, if one dared enter, there was a cavalcade of delights – Ayn’s office, where the discerning reader could see hundreds of signed first editions of her books; the toilet with a little bronze plaque commemorating the place where Ayn first had the inspiration for Atlas Shrugged; and even the typewriter room, where Ayn kept the monkeys chained up while they churned out her next opus horrendum.
The main bathroom was turned over to educational entertainments for the children (on the assumption that even devotees of Ayn Rand must reproduce every now and then by simple blind luck). Outside the door there was a cutout of Howard Roark with his hand about three feet off the ground and a little sign that said, “If you are not this tall, you are a failure and may not ride.”
Those who were worthy to enter were able to sit in a plastic tub in Ayn’s bath and float around while a score of identical little animatronic children in business suits sang a jaunty tune called “Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification”. A dozen repetitions of that ringing in their heads and most children were ready to believe anything. Afterwards they could see the holy relics of St Ayn – the little collection of yellow toenail clippings she kept in an eggcup on the shelf and the plug of manky hair in the sink.
In the spare bedroom, automata (made by the same manufacturer as those in Disney’s Hall of Presidents) endlessly acted out the rape scene from, well, it wasn’t quite clear which of Ayn’s books it was from, but frankly it could be any of them, amirite?
In the main bedroom, one was free to roll around in Ayn’s bed, although for maximum of ten minutes and one’s pants had to stay on. For an extra ten bucks, an actor dressed as Ayn would roll around with you in simulated coitus, making hooting noises and weeping just like the real thing.
At Gianni’s insistence, there was even an animal mascot called Dagny the Dog – some poor schmo being paid a buck an hour for the privilege of wearing an animal suit, prancing around the foyer and fending off the increasingly lusty advances of Gianni.
Sadly for Ayn, the whole thing was not a success.
There were few visitors at that time willing to fork out a three days’ pay in order to live the Ayn Rand experience. Gianni went through about seventeen times, but as he didn’t have to pay that really didn’t help the profit figures.
Gloria Vanderbilt and I visited on the second day it was open, just so we could say we had experienced the full horror. It was a fine, crisp Saturday day and yet, besides the two of us, the paying public consisted entirely of a young couple from Idaho who had gotten awfully lost on their way to Coney Island, and Alan Greenspan, who spent his entire visit in the bedroom moistly fapping away in the corner.
The rest of the world showed its indifference. I think Truman rather caught the vox of the populi when he said, “Sarey dear, if I wanted to feel like a talentless freak who everyone laughs at, I’d go home to visit mother.” **
Within days, the Experience was closed down, Gianni stripped Ayn’s apartment of anything of actual worth to “recoup Frankie’s expenses”, and most of the apartment had been transformed into a cocaine refining facility. Ayn was allowed to keep her bedroom, but only because the chemists who worked there said that the room gave them the heebie-jeebies after about ten minutes.
I visited her at home once after that, but that sad little room, with its bed made out of remaindered novels and the single candle guttering on the cold radiator, along with Ayn’s sad bitter eyes, was just too depressing. I hustled her out of there and took her shopping at Tiffany.
After I’d bought myself a nice new necklace, we went to Central Park, where I bought her an ice-cream and then, when she was distracted, kneed her in the groin and pushed her into the duck pond.
Happy days.
Shortly after that, Ayn decided that the only way to make some money was to hold a charity auction. However, that’s another story…
* Please note that I am not suggesting that all furries are sweaty palmed devotees of Ayn Rand. I know that most of you are perfectly normal and charming people, if a little too fond of polyester. However, I am sure you will admit that the addition of mindless devotion to Ayn Rand turns an otherwise quite sweet little fetish into something entirely repulsive.
** I asked him what the Truman Capote Experience would be like and he said that no one was going to pay fifty bucks to be insulted and roughly sodomised in the back of a truck, when they could have the same thing for free all weekend in the meatpacking district.
james jordan
god, this sucks dick.
Sarah Proud and Tall
@james jordan:
Why, thankyou dear. As a cocksucker of long experience, I take that as a fine compliment.
JPL
If there were no Ayn Rand, the right would invent her.
soonergrunt
That was amazing. I think I need a cigarrette and to bask in the afterglow.
Neddie Jingo
Frankie and Gianni…. Genius!
Thank you, Sarah, for this brill anecdote. Where’s Gianni now, the inquiring mind wants to know…
Brachiator
Saw “The Ayn Rand Experience” once, by mistake, in 1968. Hated their cover of Crosstown Traffic.
Sarah Proud and Tall
@Neddie Jingo:
I heard he became an investment banker.
Professor
@Sarah Proud and Tall: Do you think the Americans know anything about the Kray Twins? BTW one of them was teh gay! They were the crime overlords of the East End of London.
taylormattd
@james jordan: Why must everything suck “dick”? (I mean, I know why I do – it’s fun!) I do not understand, however, why the “dick” part is necessary to complete the insult.
Omnes Omnibus
@Professor: Ronnie.
Neddie Jingo
@Brachiator:
Yeah, but “‘Scuse me while I kiss this guy” took on whole new subtle shades of meaning.
Litlebritdifrnt2
Cole is tweeting. Gonna be a fun night.
Gin & Tonic
@taylormattd: Well, that’s the original etymology, isn’t it? Are you saying “dick” is implied, or is it that it’s ambiguous, and it could suck hairy donkey balls. I think “sucks” with no object is just a euphemism, so the 6-th grade set can say it without Mom getting upset.
Omnes Omnibus
@taylormattd: Some things suck ass.
taylormattd
@Gin & Tonic: I don’t know. I realize there is an implied part of the insult. But it has not always been “dick” or “cock”. I’m pretty sure I remember Grandma getting pissed at a guy in a truck in the Safeway parking lot and telling him to “go suck eggs”.
taylormattd
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes, good point.
Villago Delenda Est
@Brachiator:
Was that on the same album as “Purplesque Haze”?
Villago Delenda Est
@Neddie Jingo:
Great minds, etc.
/highfive
Villago Delenda Est
@Professor:
You mean like the Piranha Brothers?
Jenny
Times Square sure looks prehistoric in that 1965 Donald Duck photo.
Gin & Tonic
@taylormattd: Interesting etymology on the egg-sucking. I’ll let you google it. But not nearly as insulting as I think “suck” has become in my lifetime.
Neddie Jingo
@Villago Delenda Est: Yours was Objectively much funnier.
MikeJ
@taylormattd: “The weazel Scot
Comes sneaking, and so sucks the princoly egg.”
piratedan
OT: yet, these made me smile….
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2011/11/03/funny-pictures-kitten-album-covers/
Neddie Jingo
The earliest example I’ve ever been able to find of “sucks” as a pejorative was The Mothers of Invention’s “We’re Only In it for the Money” (1968) — “Flower power sucks.”
Perhaps unbelievably (we’re talking about Frank Zappa, after all), there doesn’t appear to be a sexual component to the expression. No direct object to that verb, if you like. (“Sucks” what?)
Just puttin’ it out there.
Martin
The Ayn Rand Institute is not far from me. Maybe burnsey and I should roshambo to see who should drive by and see what it’s all about.
Spiffy McBang
Grammy, you tell the best stories. I wish I could snort coke off as many asses as you have.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: I always assumed it was rochambeau.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: Wikipedia has it as roshambo.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: I guess I am too much of a francophile.
Gin & Tonic
The French spelling makes sense to me, as he spent a year in RI and there’s a statue of him in Newport and a library named after him in Providence. But I never knew that was another name for the game.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic:
@Omnes Omnibus: Urban Dictionary backs me.
Lojasmo
@taylormattd:
Homophobic slurs are fun too…derp.
Seriously, I have always said “suck it”. (well, I did when I was fourteen) and I never really associated it with fellatio.
scav
Weirdest side effect from reading SPAT that I can imagine. I read “sucks what?” and immediately segue into “Sucks dust from Michele Bachmann’s crotch.” I need to go lie down and recover.
fleeting expletive
I think I knew once that the first utterance of “sucks” on tv in the sense it is used today was on the old Maude tv show. Rue Maclanagan said “that sucks scissors!” and it was meant to be very, very shocking.
Southern Beale
We’re watching “Boss” on TV. Kelsey Grammer plays a cold, ruthless dick really well.
Unless he’s not playing.
Southern Beale
I always thoought “sucks” as a pejorative had something to do with sucking a lemon …
RossInDetroit
At our house it’s “sucks ditch water through a short straw”.
I have no idea where that came from.
inventor
I always thought it was a shortening of “sucks eggs”. Somewhere in the late ’60s – early ’70s “sucks eggs” became simply “sucks”.
Also, another great ride from Sarah. Thanks!
stickler
@Gin & Tonic: Wikipedia is wrong. It’s Rochambeau.
And carbonated sugar drinks are all “pop.”
And that meandering stream in the pasture is a “crick.”
Get off my lawn.
Southern Beale
@inventor:
Oh yeah, “go suck an egg” was an insult back in the 1930s or something. I think it meant you were one of The Poors.
If you can’t trace the origins of a pejorative any more, perhaps it’s safe to assume that it no longer functions as a racist/homophobic/etc. insult.
Gin & Tonic
@stickler: Let’s let Wikipedia and Urban Dictionary go out back and fight it out.
Frankly, I could not care less.
Except if you ask for a “pop” around here, it won’t quench your thirst.
Anne Laurie
@Southern Beale: My Irish-born granny used “Go suck a bad lemon and die of it” as an all-purpose insult. I don’t know whether she picked that up during her Orange girlhood, her refugee years in Montreal, or from her Yiddish-speaking neighbors in uptown Manhattan. When I first read Little Women, I did wonder if the Civil-War-era fad for pickled lemons had anything to do with Granny’s bad-tempered dismissals.
MikeJ
@Anne Laurie: Preserved lemons are yummy.
Reality Check
Car-bon Di-ox-ide. Yes, indeed. You hear the most outrageous lies about it. Half-baked goggle-box do-gooders telling everybody it’s bad for you. Pernicious nonsense! Everybody country could stand to fire up 10 coal power plants a year! They oughta have ’em, too.
RossInDetroit
@Reality Check:
You’ll be thinking about a plate of shrimp, and just then…
THE
So there’s this python in Florida that ate a 76 pound deer.
Just thought I’d mention it. No special reason.
Edit: 76 pounds equals 34.5 Kg for the non-metrically challenged.
Maude
@THE:
Did he have fries with that?
That’s one happy snake.
Reality Check
@THE:
I’m usually against regulation but in this case…yeah. Just ban all private ownership of dangerous exotic animals already between that and what happened on Ohio the other week.
RossInDetroit
I for one welcome our hungry reptile overlords.
Gin & Tonic
@Maude: “Was” happy. Until he was shot and killed and slit open. I won’t link, but you can find pictures if you like that sort of thing.
THE
@Maude:
Not any more — they shot it.
james jordan
this is frustrating.. in my earlier comment i was merely describing how terrible this posting was. i was hoping to spark a discussion of how awful a writer (and probably person) sarah proud and tall really is, and that we should all agree to run her out of town.
yet you people have instead chosen to focus on the etymology of the word “suck”. what a disappointing start to my weekend…
Maude
@THE:
Poor snake.
Steven Rockford
Great piece of writing Sarah.
The best I’ve seen in quite some time.
Gretchen D
I think James Jordan sucks, but I don’t know what exactly.
Cliff
This was the hit I’ve been needing. Thanks, Sarah.
I also don’t understand how every time SPT posts a story, some hater jumps out of the woodwork to insult her.
Do they just sit around all day waiting for her to put something up so they can piss in her Cheerios?
Gin & Tonic
@james jordan: Please accept my most humble and abject apology for spoiling your weekend. Bless your heart.
james jordan
@Cliff: no cliff.. it’s just that cole is such an interesting blogger, as are some others on here.. but you have to wade through SPT, ABL, and DougJ’s lolcat-like baby talk (e.g., “murica” “rethuglicans” joos), etc.. just to get to the good stuff. it’s a damn shame.
Gin & Tonic
@james jordan: In my browser, there’s a clickable link labeled “Next post >>” Is that missing in yours?
james jordan
@Gin & Tonic: but abl and spt have their own blogs.. why do we need them here? i shouldnt have to click on 6 straight next posts just to find cole’s latest… yeah it’s his blog.. but still a shame.
Southern Beale
Don’t know why the Chicago traders have been bigger dicks about the Occupy movement than the Wall Streeters but here’s the latest:
soonergrunt
@james jordan: Well, it was either that, or spend three hours posting about entitled jerk-ass commenters who need to be entertained with every post and put up shitty comments when they can’t have their way.
So I’m guessing you’re better off with the way it actually did happen.
Southern Beale
@james jordan:
Whine whine twang twang as we say in Nashville. I’d like an open thread but that doesn’t mean I’m getting it. This isn’t our house, we’re guests.
james jordan
@soonergrunt: that’s true. i long for a non-entertaining internet, where all comments are positive.
RossInDetroit
@Southern Beale:
That’s actually funny but the trader who did that is just hurting his own cause by reinforcing the image of snobbish pricks.
Omnes Omnibus
@james jordan: Well, that just sucks, doesn’t it?
Gin & Tonic
@Southern Beale: From the few Chicago Merc and CBT guys I’ve known, “dick” is the first line on their job description. The Goldman guys have all been entitled all their lives, from Exeter to Princeton to Wharton to Goldman, and probably grew up as 1%’ers, so maybe don’t have to prove something every day. The Chicago guys are more likely to be the sons of firemen and bus drivers who made it big in commodities, where you have to shout and push to make a dollar, and can’t understand why not everyone else is doing that.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: See, I thought that was too easy, which is why I didn’t do it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: That is about right.
@Gin & Tonic: Someone had to do it. Might as well be me.
Neddie Jingo
Please do go suck yourself, Thank you!
carlosthedwarf
Sarah, this is brilliant, and I heart you.
Cliff
@james jordan:
I don’t know what to tell you.
There are people who like Tim F’s and mistermix’s and Kay’s posts. I usually find them to be too wonky, or they just flat out don’t suit me.
So what I do is, I scroll past them until I get to something that interests me. Instead of, you know, telling them to suck a dick. It’s not goddamn brain surgery.
Evolving Deep Southerner (tense changed for accuracy)
@james jordan: Just a shame, I tell you. A shame.
God damn, sir. Please do you and everyone else here a favor and abandon this blog. John Cole’s drunken ramblings simply aren’t worth it.
handy
@Evolving Deep Southerner (tense changed for accuracy):
I like his drunk ramblings.
Cassidy
@james jordan: Kinda what happens when you’re first post screams “I’m a douche”.
Cassidy
@Evolving Deep Southerner (tense changed for accuracy): I’d disagree. The [*getting more] frequent drunken ramblings have been the highlights lately. Not that all the other posts are bad, but even DougJ can’t top an anecdote that includes the family being forced to listen to “My Dick” at a will reading.
*not implying anything negative
G
@james jordan:
I say good sir, demand a full refund for the money you paid beyond your internet provider’s cost to read this stuff that bores you.
I mean, really why shell out the cash for the paywall and all that if you hate it so. Really, I can only imagine wanting to pay for only the writers that you read, much like I’d like to only pay for the cable tv I watch, I mean I pay for freaking fox “news” and I have it parental control blocked, what kind of crap is that?
Oh, my wife informed me the blog is free and you don’t run it. Sorry, it’s hard to refund free. I think you just may be SOL
Yutsano
@Cassidy: Sidearm away good soldier. :)
Lysana
To be fair to furries, not all of us are prone to have sex in fake fur (as you note, polyester isn’t kind to a body). But considering Rand’s own fetish for fucking in a mink coat and nothing else, it’s definitely a fair play. Not to mention how many furry fans I’ve known who are Rand devotees.
asiangrrlMN
I love you, Ms. Sarah. This story warms the cockles of my shriveled heart. Except for the Alan Greenspan part. Ew.
keestadoll
“The woman would bet on two flies on a dog’s arse, and would invariably end up putting her money on the one with the dicky wing and no sense of direction.” OR:
“Outside the door there was a cutout of Howard Roark with his hand about three feet off the ground and a little sign that said, ‘If you are not this tall, you are a failure and may not ride.’”
Miss Sarah, my brain is so fucking jealous of your brain it’s not even funny–BRAVO! LOLOL
Larissa
@JPL:
Somehow I doubt that the right would invent an advocate for atheism, abortion, the individual liberation of women and sexuality, and the right of the individual to live (rationally) for his own sake.
I suggest that you, and the writer of this drivel, go and do something you don’t normally do: read book.
Jeff
Not a single word about her philosophy. It figures. In the finest tradition of political muck racking. You got nothing so you try to do the side-step. What are you afraid of?
Sarah Proud and Tall
@Jeff:
I’ve read Atlas Shrugged. Well, half of it, because life is only so long and I wanted to move onto more pleasurable things like cutting off my own fingers with a cheese knife.
Atlas Shrugged is a turgid mess, an overwrought potboiler with no discernable message other than contempt for humanity.
What about it is there to be afraid of, beyond the risk of siezures induced by its rank prose and wooden characters?
Joe
“Frankie and Gianni” — Sarah, I love you.