UNREMITTING FAILURE

Back In Print

Our Wallflowers review is going be posted on the Vinyl Distict at 2:45 pm, and the editor is promising us we'll get more shit than we ever got for our infamous Fugazi article.  We're hoping it will be the first of many reviews we write for TVD, as we've had the itch to write on music since we blew up our career years ago.  Anyway, check it out if you want, and be sure to write something horribly negative.  Better in the gutter than on a pedestal, as E.M. Cioran once said.

The Bedside Manner of Dr. Quagmire

The Bedside Manner of Dr. Quagmire

The Bedside Manner of Dr. Quagmire

Ask Baby Hitler

Ask Baby Hitler is an irregular feature here at Unremitting Failure.  Needless to say, the opinions of Baby Hitler are his own, and are not shared or condoned by this blog or its parent corporation, the Spassky Organization.

Dear Baby Hitler:  My house is small, very small.  I am dissatified with its smallness, but don't know what to do about it.  Any suggestions?    Ian from Andersonville

Dear Ian: A man needs Lebensraum, Lebensraum!  I can only tell you what I did when I decided my house was too small.  I invaded Russia.

Dear Baby Hitler:  My wife has an odd fascination, I might even say love for, England Dan and John Ford Coley.  Strange, right?  It has put a strain on our marriage, as I find their music unconscionable.  The question is, what can I do about it?  John from Denver

Dear John:  I had a similar situation--he was a Duran Duran fanatic--arise with one of my subordinates in 1943.  I sent him to the Eastern Front.  I suggest you do the same with your wife.  That'll cool her jets, I guarantee it.

Dear Baby Hitler: I have a running argument with my spouse about which song is better, Stairway to Heaven or Hotel California.  I say Stairway to Heaven.  Is there any way you can settle this argument for us?  Angie from Angola

Dear Angie: I certainly can.  I can send you both packing to Dachau.  Everybody knows that Free Bird is better than both those songs put together.  Long live Lynyrd Skynyrd!

 

The bedside manner of Dr. Quagmire

Money for Nothing

It's a grand lie that this country is filled with people who want something from their government for nothing.  They want something from us for nothing.  Just this morning on our way to work we got hit up 3 times for money, and Scrooge that we are we said no each time.

And it's not just money.  It's cigarettes too.  We have a strict policy--we give away one cigarette per day.  It's a rare day that we don't meet that quota.  Why, just the other day a guy had the gumption to ask for two cigarettes.  He put 32 cents down on the bench we were sitting on, and said, "The other cigarette is for my friend.  He's not retarded or anything."  We didn't see what his friend's intelligence or lack thereof had to do with anything, but the fact remains that the guy wouldn't take no for an answer.  No matter that 32 cents hardly covers one cigarette, and we didn't want his 32 cents to begin with.  He just wanted two butts, not one, and our explanation that we only ever give away one cigarette per day made little impression on him.  Why, we were on the verge of demanding the first cigarette back when he finally stalked off in a huff.

Offering to buy a cigarette is a well-known tactic here in DC, elsewhere probably as well,  We've never actually accepted money for a cigarette, but sometimes we're tempted to see how much the prospective buyer is willing to pay.  Someday we're going to ask for a dollar, just to see what reaction we get. 

We weren't always such a scrooge, and we still give money to the occasional beggar who strikes our fancy.  It helps if they say they want the money to buy beer.  But the fact remains that you move to the city with the milk of human kindness in your heart, and you give away dollars like they're going out of style, and then one day you just stop.  You've become hardened and inured to the hardships of people who, however brazen they are in asking for something for nothing, are down and out just like you could one day be down and out. 

It's a pity, and you rationalize your parsimoniousness whatever way you can.  "I can't help them all you say," and in so doing you help none of them.  And in so doing you avoid the truth that you've become a hard-hearted bastard, who looks away from the suffering of others who may or may not (the odds are not) be too lazy to find real work.  So what most of them are looking for cash to buy booze or crack or heroin or crank.  They've got a pain in their heart, and they're doing the best they can. 

Alternative Sentencing

The court specialized in alternative sentencing.  For instance, they sentenced me to a year working at a Renaissance Faire.  There, I was assigned to being a pawn in the human chess board.  It could have been worse, I could have been assigned me to play the lute.  Still, I'd have preferred prison.  Instead, I was condemned to standing out in the hot sun, moving one square at a time.  How good it felt to be taken!  And it's not like being a human chess piece attracted any tail.  Just fat girls in medieval garb.  I finally cracked and got into a fight with a rook.  He had an attitude, and we got into a shoving match.  So they moved me to the food concession, where I served giant turkey drumsticks.  Who eats a whole turkey leg?  The fatties at Renaissance Faires, that's who.  The worst part was I had to do renaissance speak.  Like, "Hail prithee, would ye care for a turkey drumstick?"  Talk about demeaning.  It killed me to talk such nonsense.  So I stopped doing it, and the boss got all over me.  So I hit him with a drumstick, really clubbed the bastard.  And that was that.  They sent me back to the court, where instead of sending me to jail they gave me one last chance serving the giant steins of mead.  The problem was I had to talk like a renaissance doofus again.  The good part was I was able to sneak enough mead to make it possible to talk like an asshole.  I was half smashed all the time, and the boss noticed.  But he didn't want to get hit with a turkey leg again, so he kept his trap shut.  A full year I worked there.  It was the worst year of my life.  They knew better than to let me do any jousting, because I'd have been a real danger with that long pole.  I'd have probably killed somebody, I would have.  The thing is I haven't broken any laws since then.  That Renaissance Faire scared me straight, it did.  And it could have been worse.  I know a guy that the court sentenced to play in Fotheringay. 

Wrong Animal