It was almost three in the morning on one of those really magical (tequila-fueled) dates, when we were having sucha good time, and we were so comfortable with each other, and everything was so fuzzy and woozy and affectionate and warm, that all of a sudden I had an overpowering urge to Let Myself Be Known. I did this, as is my wont, with a diatribe on What Exactly Is Wrong With the New Pope.
Now, I'm not great at explaining LiberationTheologysober—but my tall and urbane editor could!—so on five shots of DonJulioand a couple of margaritas (rocks, with salt), my explanation centering on how when you read that Jean-BertrandAristideof Haitihad been “defrocked” it was because of Ratzinger,and when Fr.CharlesCurran(now of Southern Methodist University—Methodist!) was told he could no longer teach theology because of his dissenting views on Vaticanpronouncements, that too was Ratzinger, and the Inquisition, and Liberation Theology, and last month's dead-nun-in-Brazil and some more about Haiti, and wasn't it great when we actually used our military might to install the democratically elected leader (and remember when the NationalGuardhelped scrub birds and rocks after the wreck of the ExxonValdez?), and Ratzinger, and stuff (I was so busy not-explaining Liberation Theology, I didn't even starton when bishops under the sway of Ratzinger said anyone who voted for fellow Catholic JohnKerrywouldn't be eligible to receive Communion), my date just smiled and nodded and said “Uh huh?” While I suspect he may have been thinking of other things—say, a two-ton suspension or my delightful bosoms—his responses were really just perfect, and while he confirmed the next morning that he'd tuned out after “Haiti,” I appreciated his pretending to listen at all. A word to the wise? Don't ever, ever date me. Really. Just don't.
And thus we felized CincodeMayothe way it's supposed to be felized: two drunk gringos (Gustavo Arellanosays only gringos call gringos gringos;Mexicanas call gringos gabachos;but I am not a Mexicana) rolling around and yelling about dead nuns.
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I would have been delighted to celebrate VEDayand Mother'sDayand HolocaustRemembranceDayin much the same way, replacing the tequila with boilermakers, sherry and schnapps respectively, except it turns out Cinco de Mayo wasHolocaust Remembrance Day, and nobody bothered to let me know.
Oh, the lengths to which I could have expounded on the topic “WhatExactly Was Wrong with the Holocaust”! Just about all of it, it turns out!
Exhibit A? Hitler.
Exhibit B? Charles Lindbergh, when he beat FDRand then started with the pogroms against the Jews, which worked just about everywhere except Newark(where myJew daddy grew up). That was rough.(It's true! I read it in PhilipRoth'sThePlotAgainstAmerica!)
Exhibit C? When I explained to my date that I like daisies for what they stand for: “simplicity, of course, but then there's always the great Daisies of American literature,” which is just the kind of thing a damn Jew would say.
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There's a rumor flying 'round that the good folks at TheOrangeCountyRegisterare planning to explain to prospective advertisers for their prospective fake-weekly (which will be the Ashleeto our Hole) that (a) we hate George Bush; (b) we run nasty, icky porn ads; (c) we have a column called Commie Girl; and (d) all our money flows back to our New York overlords in Village Voice Media—overlords with names like “Schneiderman” and “Goldman-Sachs” and “Saul O'Semite McJewison Schmidt.”
Which is so totally what Charles Lindbergh did when he beat FDR and started with the pogroms against the Jews, which worked just about everywhere except Newark, because the Jews were already totally assimilated into American life there, like my daddy, who didn't even celebrate Passover, much less with matzos made from the blood of Gentile boys.
Please. Everyone knows that's the Mexicans.
And that's why I'm so glad that our Austriangovernorhas come down so strongly for the Minuteman Project, protecting our border from future Wal-Martworkers, and it's why I'm also glad he refuses, as the LosAngelesTimespointed out last week, to say whether he worked while here on a visa “that barred him from earning a salary” in 1968. Like GeorgeBushrefusing to admit to drugs so as not to suggest that you can, in this man's America, snort coke and become president. I wouldn't want anyone else to get the idea that we should tell the truth about our own experiences, because that would give license to “the children” to do the exact same things we do and did. Like drugs. And sex. And illegally working on the wrong immigrant visa. And the drugs and the sex. Damn. Looks like Arnoldmay have hit the trifecta.
But we were speaking of Mexicans, which is good because I was celebrating Cinco de Mayo (and Holocaust Remembrance Day—and sort of VEDay,the remembrance of which prompted our Prez to bitch to VladimirPutinabout Yalta,which maybe makes me think he would have been for Lindbergh beating FDR and joining the Axisinstead of the Alliesbefore he started with the pogroms against the Jews), although not in the presence of any actual Mexicans except JJ,suave owner of the proud Mexican Elvisbar Azteca,where all our tequila was drunk.
And my point about the Mexicans is this: they should be more assimilated, like the Jews of Newark, even though despite the fact that the Jews of Newark were totally assimilated, Lindbergh sent them all into the heartland anyway, the better to “assimilate” them by isolating them from friends and family. I had a boyfriend who tried to do that once; coincidentally, late one night, he even threw a Kristallnachtfor one.
That learned me but good!
Also, Mexicans shouldn't try to drive cars, and Arnold should step up the rhetoric every time his poll numbers start slipping (you know: like the president ratchets up the terror alerts), so he can stay on the good side of John N Ken—not to mention The Orange County Register: now with 24 percent less Jews!
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