A Swashbuckling Fool

Once upon a time, there was a book and a movie and then another movie and even another movie called The Three Musketeers. Why such popularity? They were superheroes seventeenth century style.

“If you are going to swash your buckle, why not swash it for the Musketeers,” D’Artagnan advised his son. That is exactly what D’Artagnan Junior did. It was his heart’s desire to go off and become the latest in a long line of swashbuckling D’Artagnans to swash their buckles for the Musketeers.

On his way to becoming a full-fledged swashbuckling master of the Musketeer kind, he fought beaucoup number of fights, lost his virginity and had three or four duels. With Musketeers, of course. Only a Musketeer could duel a duel. Otherwise it was not much of a duel. It was a rout. No one else in all of France had enough umph to duel. Only a Musketeer had the duelling umph. ‘Cause that was what Musketeers had for breakfast. Umph with milk and a large mug of black coffee.

Since Musketeers hung their hats in Paris, it was off to Paree for our young D’Artagnan. In case your French ain’t so good, D’Artagnan means “From Artagnan”. In other words, he was from Gascony in Southern France down around Spain. It was a nice enough place to grow up. But if you wanted to be a Musketeer swashbuckler, Paree was the place to be.

That in itself is enough to get an ambitious young fellow into trouble. After all, he was a country bumpkin who dressed country-bumpkinish and rode a country-bumpkinish horse. Even if he did not look the part, he sure sounded like a hick. He would have benefitted from Madame Suzette’s Speak-Like-A-Parisian. And she, being partial to young swashbucklers, would have taught him the latest dance craze, the minuet.

But no, our young friend was of the impatient breed. Like the old saying goes, “when you gotta go, you gotta go.” D’Artagnan just had to go. To Paree, that is. So he was off to the Emerald City. Only they did not call it the Emerald City. It was The City of Lights. That’s ’cause it was well-lit four seasons a year just like Camelot by command of the king.

In case you have a hankering for some swashbuckling your own self, remember to take some advice from a very wise man. “Use the Force, Luke, use the Force.” Or is that the Farce? I never can remember.

What swashbuckler do you think lives up to the name “swashbuckler”?

George Washington Slept There, And So Did A Few Others

When GW, and I am not talking Bush here, when GW moved into the White House, do you know the first thing he asked the Secret Service? “Where’s the cherry trees? I think I need another set of teeth.”

When John Adams moved into the White House, he tried to find the cherry trees.

When Tommy Jefferson moved into the White House, the first thing he did was check out the female staff…I mean, books.

When Jimmy Madison moved into the White House, his wife, Dolley, went to decoratin’. She was nowhere pleased with Abby Adams’ choice in furniture. “That Franklin stove has to go.”

When Jim Monroe moved into the White House, he asked that booze be named after him. That is why we have a fifth. (He was the fifth President, you know.)

When John Quincy Adams moved into the White House, he requested that folks quit calling him Quince. ‘Course nobody listened. Nobody ever listened to him.

When Andy Jackson moved into the White House, the first thing he went for was the booze…and the dueling pistols.

When Martin Van Buren moved into the White House, he put in a cabinet in the kitchen.

When Tippecanoe moved into the White House, he died.

When John Tyler moved into the White House, he moved Texas in too.

When Jimmy Polk moved into the White House, the first thing he looked at was the maps. He wanted a country to invade, and Canada was out of the question.

When Zack Taylor moved into the White House, he died too. Need I say more?

When Milliard Fillmore  moved into the White House, he didn’t stay. He was moved out after one term.

When Franklin Pierce moved into the White House, people kept forgetting his name. When he passed them in the hall, his staffers would say, “Oh, there goes old what’s his name.”

When James Buchanan moved into the White House, he still couldn’t find a wife. Or an intern, for that matter.

When Abe moved into the White House, he asked about the Lincoln bedroom. He had heard so much about it. Then he discovered that the bed was too short.

When Andy Johnson moved into the White House, he became the first Johnson to move into the White House.

When General Grant moved into the White House, he made sure the typewriters had an S. After all, it was his middle initial. He didn’t want the country to confuse him with Ulysses W. Grant.

When Rutherford B. Hayes moved into the White House, he left saying, “You won’t have Rutherford B. Hayes to kick around anymore.”

When James A. Garfield moved into the White House, well, he didn’t stay.

When Ben Harrison moved into the White House, he sang, “Here a billion. There a billion. Everywhere a billion.”

When Grover Cleveland moved into the White House, he said, “I’m back. Did you miss me?”

When William McKinley moved into the White House, he said, “Send in Teddy. He’ll take San Juan Hill.”

When Teddy Roosevelt moved into the White House, he brought that big stick he’d been talking about.

When Willie Taft moved into the White House, he threw his weight around.

When Woodrow Wilson moved into the White House, he retired the big stick and started talking. He kept making his point. In fact, he made it fourteen times.

When Warren G. Harding moved into the White House, he dated his secretary. And her secretary too. He is also famous for saying, “Who put the pineapple juice in my pineapple juice?”

When Calvin Coolidge moved into the White House, he quit talking.

When Herbert Hoover moved into the White House, he got depressed.

When FDR moved into the White House, he decided to stay.

When Harry Truman moved into the White House, he charged everybody a buck to see him. After all, the buck stopped with him.

When I-Like-Ike moved into the White House, he told Dick Nixon, “There’s only room here for one President and I am it.”

When JFK moved into the White House, so did Jackie.

When LBJ moved into the White House, so did his hound dawg.

When Dick Nixon moved into the White House, he asked the Secret Service, “Where can I buy some tape? Preferably eighteen minutes long.”

When Gerald Ford moved into the White House, he tripped.

When Jimmy Carter moved into the White House, toothpaste sales went sky high.

When Ronnie Reagan moved into the White House, he congratulated himself on getting back into show business.

When George H. W. Bush moved into the White House, the broccoli moved out.

When Bill Clinton moved into the White House, he started the internship program. “Give a girl a good start in life,” he said.

When George W. Bush moved into the White House, he put in a direct phone line to God.

When Barack Obama moved into the White House, he discovered that George Bush had taken out the phone line to God and moved it to Texas. Rick Perry needed it.

When Mitt Romney moved into the White House, oh, that’s right, he didn’t move into the White House. After all, he was part of that 99% of people who ran for President and lost.

When Donald Trump moved into the White House, he moved the darn thing down to Mara-a-Lago in Florida.

When Joe Biden moved into the White House, he forgot to stand up when the White House Band played “Hail to the Chief.” He thought they were playing it for somebody else. After all, he’d lost all them other times he ran.

Happy President’s Day everybody.

The Rediscovery of Sex

I was watching an old 1930s movie recently. A couple got married. They never had a honeymoon. The husband carried his blushing bride over the threshold, dropped her in the living room, then went off to work. The wife went shopping.

In the one scene in the bedroom, there were twin beds. Both husband and wife wore pajamas. They gave each other a good night smooch, then each crawled into their twin bed and went off to zzzz-land. No time in the movie did the couple even hint at the s-word.

Since movies are a very good reflection of real life, none of the thirties romances had sexual activity. If couples were having sex, they kept it on the q.t. Guess that was why it was called the Great Depression.

It got me thinking. How did they avoid sex? I mean, these days sex is everywhere. It’s on magazine covers. It’s in the ads. It’s in the movies. It’s on tv. It’s in the music. It’s even on the evening news. We can’t seem to get enough of it. So just how did our forefolks avoid sex? Why would they want to anyway? Why did it take a World War to bring back sex?

Big questions. Recently Uncle Bardie came across an ancient tome called  “The Real Kinsey Report” that explained much that has been hidden from history. Lord Byron was one of the last two people in England in the Nineteenth Century to enjoy a ménage à duet, his female partner à duet being the other people. As the famed Lord was making a strategic withdrawal, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were engaged in hanky panky on the HMS Queen Mary. The thing is there was more hanky than panky.

Vickie and Bertie were off on their honeymoon. Of course, you do know that the origin of the word “honeymoon” was Anglo Saxon for “tiddlywinks”.  As soon as Bertie showed his blushing bride his tiddly and she showed him her winkie, they both realized this would never do. She said, “Ewwww.” And she meant it. He said, “Yech.” And he meant it. That was the end of sex as our forefathers and foremothers knew it. The end of foreplay. And afterplay too.

They returned to Buckingham Palace and declared that there was to be no more sex in the land. To make sure that their command was obeyed, they proclaimed a proclamation and they decreed a decree. Every female over the age of twelve not only had to wear a girdle. She had to wear a corset, even when she went to bed. Especially when she went to bed.

Unlike Prohibition, the new regime of non-coitus dilecti was widely popular. The Germans loved it. The Russians loved it. The Chinese loved it. The Greeks loved it. The Americans loved it. The Italians, not so much. Only the French resisted. And the Canadians who were half French anyway. The Canadians just shook their heads and thought, “Are they crazy? How are we to keep warm, eh?”

Late in the century, the French came around. We all know the details. It was the Albert Dufus Affair. Seems that A D was messing around with the Can-Can. Needless to say, it was uncanny how candid the Can-Can can.

The Can-adians never came around. Oh, sure. They too had a coitus interruptus with the Yukon Gold Rush. It was a brief run. Why have all that gold and not have anything to spend it on? So it was soon back to the business of coitus-ing all over the place. Like they say, nobody can the way a Can-adian can-can. Canada, what a country.

Since men and women didn’t make whoopee during the Great Sex Out, they didn’t need to smell good either. So no one took a bath.

Talk about Weather Changes and Global Warming. For almost one hundred years, Earth was bathed in a certain smell. Scientists blamed it on the Industrial Revolution. The truth is it came from the lack of bathing. The smell almost destroyed the ozone layer. The planet was carbon dioxiding all over the place.

For ten years after the Anti-Fornication Act of 1840, there were no babies born. “Why no babies?” the Victorians queried. Everybody liked babies. Oh, sure. There was the poop. Good thing the babies outgrew that. Not the pooping. Changing the diapers they pooped in.

The Victorians did not equate pregnancy with sex. They believed babies were delivered by storks. But there wasn’t a shortage of storks. So. Why no bambinos? It just wasn’t natural. Before they could say, “We’re really screwed,” a solution appeared on the horizon. It came from a most unusual source.

The North Pole. And it was not Santa Claus who presented a solution. Everybody presumed it was Dr. Livingston. But Dr. Livingston was deep in the heart of Africa presuming.

It seems that the Sir Rutherford Rutherford returned from his Great Balloon Exploration into Wild Blue Yonders of the Outer Atmosphere with an amazing artifact. You’ve heard of the iPod. He brought back an ePod.

A what? Yes, you heard me right. I said an Extraterrestrial Pod, known as an ePod. Extraterrestrials were born from ePods and it had been going on for centuries.

When ePods were first introduced to the rest of the planet, people were very skeptical. Some even afraid. Here is some footage taken at one of the first Royal Society meetings:

Soon the Victorians calmed down and realized this was the answer to a prayer. No sex and beaucoup babies. Before you knew it, most families were raising a crop of ePods in their backyards.

There were those who resisted like Abraham Lincoln. “Fourscore and seven years ago” was not about the Declaration of Independence. Abe was talking about the wild sexcapades our forefolks had back in the Olden Days. The Boston Tea Party was a protest, not over a tax on tea, but a tax on condoms.

I bet you thought Manifest Destiny was about increasing the size of the United States westward. It was not. It was about spreading the ePod Gospel. Custer and his Cavalry were taking a wagonload of ePods into Indian country. Sitting Bull had seen the future and he wanted none of it. It was every Indian’s right to have babies the organic way. None of that genetically modified babies for the Sioux.

Despite the resistance, the ePods became the way children came into this world by the beginning of the twentieth century. Oh sure, there were rebels without a cause like D. H. Lawrence and his Lady Chatterley. FDR was rumored to have said to Eleanor on their first night as a married couple, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

This was the way of things until World War II. The War destroyed most of the ePods. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, they wiped out the ePod Supply of the entire United States. FDR wasn’t kidding when he spoke before Congress and said, “This is a Day that will live in Infamy.” He really meant it. By the end of the war, the Atom Bomb radiated the few ePods left.

For the next few years, the world was in despair. What to do? What to do? The Korean War was fought because the Allies believed the North Koreans were hoarding ePods. They weren’t. So the Allies lost interest and declared a Truce.

No one seemed to know what to do. Then Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr parted the waters.

Burt and Debbie showed us the way. Sex was back. And this time it was here to stay.

At least, till another ePod outbreak.

Marie Antoinette

It was a real bummer
The French took her dog from her
And let her keep nothing from home at all

She was Marie Antoinette
And she really loved that pet
But she was at everyone’s beck and call

She was all German
But still determined
To learn to speak French as her duty royal

She was the dauphine
And soon to be queen
Of France until they watched her head roll and fall

Her job, to be pretty
And just a bit witty
A regular eighteenth century Barbie doll

Royal down to her toes
She wore the finest hose
And dressed to the nines for her garden strolls

They say she was spoiled
But nightly she toiled
To get the Dauphin to get on the ball

To give the king an heir
Or even a pair
But all that prince ever did was stall stall stall

Until late one night
They turned out the lights
The Prince gave the greatest performance of all

Underneath the sheets
He gave his queen a treat
Nine months later the doctor made a house call

“Holy smokes,” they said.
“The Prince is a dad
And Antoinette is our queen with her hair so tall.”

So she done her duty
And she done it truly
Then she spent the French out of home and alcohol

Down came the Bastille
Up the People’s will
And a budget that gave her no hat or carryall

They said goodbye to a queen
At the guillotine
Where Antoinette made her final curtain call

And now that you’ve heard
All that occurred
Do you think she deserved to lose that dog at all?

Tudorama

“Double double toil and trouble.” Oops, wrong story. Just a sec. Oh, here it is. Right where I put it. Amazing what you can’t see without your glasses. So here goes.

In Merry Olde England, there was a very happy couple. He called her Puddin’; she called him Dumpling. Would have called him her Doughboy, but that one had already been taken by the King of France. Francis One.

Annie Boleyn met Henry on a blind date. She was a sub for her sister Mary Beth. When he walked into the Great Hall of Boleyn Estates and her two peeps saw him, it was love at first sight. It was true that he did look like a doughboy. That was the charm of King Hal. Plus there was that twinkle in his eye, and he was a regular party guy.

Within hours of his arrival, King Hal had a party going at Casa Boleyn. It was a toga party. After all, Hal was a regular practitioner of toganomics. If a courtster was unwilling to wear a toga at court, he was on his way outster. The outster for most was Scotland where the lord in question was condemned to wearing a kilt without underpants. One could get a chill and catch the flu.

Pretty soon Annie eased up close to Hal. She wanted a little kissie-poo as she called it. The king was real accommodating with the kissie-poo, but soon he was wanting more. He was wanting Annie to share her boudoir. She may have been the partyingest of party girls, but she wasn’t about to give Hal the key to her chastity belt for free. She’d heard stories. He even said, “Pleeeze with a cherry on top.” But Annie wasn’t about to give in.

“I’m not that kind of girl,” Annie said. She was not about to be easy, even for a king. Annie being Annie, she had found her Daddy Warbucks in Hal and that was all there was to it. Opportunity came knocking, and she was ready to open the door. But Hal had to purchase a ticket to walk through that door. And her ticket was not cheap. It was a 500 carat diamond wedding ring.

Hal was devastated. This was definitely a true love he had for Annie. He could feel it in the way down yonder. He said, “Don’t be a heartbreaker, Puddin’. Don’t you know I’m a hunka hunka burning love?”

Annie’s response was a smile and a few words. “I really would like to give you the key to my heart, Dumpling. But I will need a ringie-poo pretty please with pudding on it.”

Hal could give his Puddin’ the sable she wanted. He could give her an Astin Martin. He could even give her the Queen Mary. But that wedding ring was out of the question. He already had a wife. If Hal had been a Middle Eastern potentate, he could have potentated all over the place and married as many women as he wanted. Deep down in the heart of Texas, Hal wanted a harem.

His wife was Catherine of Aragon. Thing was, Cate was no Annie Boleyn. She had her daddy’s looks and her mother’s hygiene. Like her mom, Isabella, Cate hated to take a bath. She wasn’t partial to showers either. So the odor coming from her boudoir was a bit overpowering. Not in a good way. At one time, Hal sent in the fumigators. But the smell returned within a week. Add to that, Cate wore one of them smiles upside down. So much so she was called Sourpuss, or SP for short. She was the original SPCA, short for Sour Puss Cate of Aragon.

On top of everything else, each fortnight she walked around the castle like Hamlet’s ghost, mumbling, “I can’t get no respect.” It was true. Cate got no respect. Hal wanted a boy and all he got from Cate was a Mary.

“So what to do?” Hal asked himself one dark and stormy night. “What to do?” Then with a flash of brilliance it came to him. “I know. I will get a divorce,” Hal said, and he said it where everybody could hear.

“A divorce?” one courtster said.

“A divorce?” another courtster echoed.

When the echoing finally settled down, King Hal commanded the Pope to give him a divorce. After all, Hal was the Pope’s right hand man in England and Defender of the Faith. But the Pope wasn’t up to the job. He had other things on his mind. Like Cate’s brother, the King of Spain. King Charlie had an army close to Rome and he wasn’t hesitant in using it.

Besides that, it would set a precedent. Precedent is legalese for all those things that come before everything else and give folks permission to do a thing. Like, if you marry a virgin, she has to be a virgin in order to get a divorce. Cate was no virgin. She had a kid name of Bloody Mary. And, no, she was not mixed with vodka. Mary was a teetotaler all the way.

Pretty soon any earl or lord would want a divorce. Before you knew it, the papacy would be so overloaded there wouldn’t be any time left for infallibilities, bulls and indulgences. What if the Pope wanted to profligate a Papal Bull or two, he wouldn’t be able to rope the darn thing and ride him all the way to Rome. No, the Pope had decided. Divorce wasn’t going to happen. So Pope said, “No way. Pretty soon we’d be backed up with all that paper work.”

Hal’s motto was “Esse rex bonum est.” He had a coat of arms to prove it. Now he felt like he was in Nowheresville.

“What to do?” Hal asked everybody. “What to do?” he even asked himself. No one had an answer.

Then he received a letter from far far off. It was across the Channel. It was from Germany. Unfortunately it was written in German and no one could translate it. Hal and his subjects could barely read Latin. But German? Nobody, but nobody could do German. Then Hal realized, “My portrait painter Hans can. Yes, he can can, can he not?”

“Of course, he can can,”” a duke said. So did an earl. In fact, it was the Duke of Earl.

Hans translated the letter. It was from one Marty Luther. “Hal,” Marty wrote, “Is not your motto, esse rex bonum est? Of course, it is. It indeed is good to be the king. As king, you have the right to a divorce. If the Pope don’t like it, he can go out and start his own church. That’s what I did.”

Before Cate could spell it, she was singing D-I-V-O-R-C-E. When asked by a reporter years later about the whole thing, all she could say was, “Yes I have no bananas today.” There was even a rumor that she was zombified in her later years. But I think it was Mary, Queen of Scots, who pushed that gossip.

Anyway Hal got his divorce and a church to boot. He also got the key to Annie’s chastity belt. On their wedding day, King Hal increased every Englishman’s sheep allowance two-fold. That’s twice in today’s lingua franca.

For a while, Puddin’ and Dumpling were just as happy as two finches in a birdbath.

Well, y’all know what happened next. Annie gave Hal a Liz, not a Tom, Dick or Harry. And certainly not a Richard Burton. So his smile turned upside down. Annie delivered a girl. Yes, you heard that right. She gave birth to an eight pound two ounce little darling. Called her Elizabeth, or Bess for short. But oh boy, no boy.

Again Hal was what-to-do-ing all over the place. Then he came up with a plan. Let’s call it Plan B. Hal would get another divorce and then get married again. He already had a victim, I mean a queen picked out. After all, Hal could have the pick of the litter. And Jane Seymour, not the actress, but the daughter of John and Margery, was his Queen for a Day.

So what was Hal to do with Annie? Here’s where Plan Boleyn came in. Annie would be accused of consortin’ with those she shouldn’t be consortin’ with. Treason with a capital T. A trial, Then she would be singing “Going out of my head”. The executioner would do a Lizzie Borden.

But the truth was that Hal couldn’t bring himself to truly rid himself of Annie. She was his Puddin’. She was his One True Love. At the Archbishop of Canterbury’s suggestion, Hal got a sub for Annie. No one would know the difference. Except for the sub. Sub would wear a hoodie. Annie would hide out in a nunnery down the way. Only there weren’t any nunneries left in England. Instead Archbishop would start a Home for Wayward Girls and Annie would supervise. Then once a fortnight Archbishop would slip Annie in the back way to Windsor Castle and up to Hal’s room.

And that’s the real story. Not.