close up of gate of buckingham palace

At The Races….and they are off!

brown horse
not the Kentucky Derby but a free image…

Politicians at the G7 are busy crowing and posing like Westminster dog show prize poodles waiting for pats on the head, slight adjustments of posturing by their handlers, mouths open to receive assorted treats. They stand whilst wagging their tails at each other panting “good boy? good boy!” as they proceed to fix absolutely nothing at all. It is a jaunt, a vacation, an exhibition: a roll around in the show ring of moral and political degeneracy, snapping off their John Wayne guts-poses and sturdy stylish wide shouldered grandstand-voguing while those that chatter hold up score cards for their shiny wives’ professionally-selected fashion choices.

Climate agreements that don’t go nearly far enough, accords between parties with little discord in the first place, trade talks that skate on the surface while the heavy lifting goes in between the sheets of the press pool and the country club machinations of various heavily educated and dedicated politico types, deep in the bowels of the kind of places that grubby little intelligence creatures make deals with devils of various flavors. What we have in the G7 is political confetti, mutual masturbatory congratulations and knowing nods between sympatico characters. It is “everyone in the water!” uttered by an alarmingly docile leader of the free world; it is good dishonest smarmy slick surface-scum fun, or at least as much fun can be summoned up by these people. I suspect these leeches wouldn’t know honest, clean, decent or good if it smacked them in their pampered fois gras greased chops.

Wheel out the dignitaries, diplomatic conniptions thrown by various new world snubs and failures to comply with protocol, and all back home in time for lashings of ginger beer to determinedly ignore the humanitarian crises blossoming from their lack of timely action and general political stagnation. There is a real lack of visible care for anything other than the status quo in the showring of these finely bred political bitches and good ole dawgs.

What is really needed is for Hunter S Thompson’s natural heir to turn up with fake press credentials, a headful of acid and a bottle of Wild Turkey and smash that scene right open. I am not suggesting anyone should drag the 85 year old Steadman out for a trip to observe the drunk-on-power in their natural habitat, but there has to be someone out there with a liking of ugly portraiture who could be bought off with the promise of some excitement or adventure. I heard the 2021 winner of the Kentucky Derby, Medina Spirit, tested dirty for dope – and that is just the damn horse. The name should have given him away at the gates as a stoned cold ‘head. Hunter S. would be disgusted. Plus ça change!

The Kentucky Derby has always been decadent and depraved, but the animals, man? Not the animals! It is bad enough that the horses are nekkid without them being high too. The Black Panther riots predicted by Hunter in 1970, in 2021 are BLM protests, shining a light on the still racist Louisville Police department, the cultural landscape on the outside looks so different, yet does not change at all, not really.

Jagger whispers into my ear about some chick making bets on the Kentucky Derby Day from the comfort of her car while he heads off to the basement with a needle and a spoon and another girl to take his pains away. I don’t think he meant to take horse down with little Susie, though, I mean I know they shoot horses, but I always presumed that was with a bolt through the brain when they break a leg, not shooting them up with dope so they perform better. Can you imagine the disasters? Cracked out ponies left right and center scattering into the crowd, or else nodding out in the starting boxes their desperate jockeys lashing them cruelly. Poor funky Medina Spirit. The indignity of it. That horse didn’t shoot itself, damnit, hooves are no good for that kinda deal. A horse failing two dope tests does not not look for the humans of Derbytown, doesn’t look good at all.

The dogs are getting it in Manhattan this weekend. It is all prancing owners and highly strung pinschers. Everyone is in the showring, it would appear. It is all gung ho as the G7 and the Westminster dog show wrap up for another year. I don’t know how any of the participants bear it, after this last year I am so tightly strung I feel as if I am going to snap at any moment, ping like a high e string and society around me, for once seems to match my emotional state. Something has to cut loose, or else there will be consequences. For me, it is a case of reckless saying what I think, and progressively short home-hair cuts, but I fear the dog walkers and the political aspirational poseurs might get a little more freaky. Before you know it bichon friese will be getting hot and heavy with the ubiquitous gun dogs and creating canine chimera of varying degrees of outlandishness. Perhaps the genetic soup needs mixing a little at this point, it’s all looking a little inbred up in Westchester Mansion.

Over in Blighty Biden tried to make nice with the Russian bear by ostensibly agreeing to the swap of cyber bad guys -Russians to the USA and American resident ones to Russia, before being yoiked back by his handlers to be reminded of the script (the US already holds such criminals to account and there will be no extradition to Russia), proving that things can go awry even at the most dignified of dog shows. Who knows someone might even cause outrage by trying to go to a banquet after the British Queen’s arrival or some other such imperialistic nonsense, causing meltdowns in theaters and opera boxes.

A little curiously non-embarrassed talk of finding the ‘origins of the virus’ after dismissing concerns that it was a bio-weapon out of Wuhan with such prejudice that anyone even questioning it was summarily dressed down as a tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist. Including me, for what little that is worth. That bat soup eating narrative was edible anti- Asian racism for the porch chair rocking crowd. Sell it to ’em with disgust, popcorn and a little culinary cultural supremacy and apparently the Man thinks little people will believe most anything. Insulting, isn’t it?

“America is back at the table”, declared Biden, Yes, yes, I wanted to reply, but did it have Bat for supper at that table a couple of years ago, or did it buy lunch for anyone who did?

I would pretend I didn’t care, at least for appearances sake, and you know how it all gets much of a muchness after a while, I would just appreciate everything calming down a little, taking down a notch, being a little less dramatic.

There is always the possibility of aliens. That might distract the bastards from destroying the planet, at least for a moment or two.

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