What a Riot

Is London burning?

That's what the headline in some paper somewhere asked. I didn't think anybody still read the paper, like, the actual paper paper until I went to Dublin and saw a shit-ton of people in cafés and on benches and just sort of hanging about, reading the actual paper paper.

Most of those people were reading about the riots.

They were reading articles about who burned or broke what and how many police cars were torched and who fucked who's shit up and how badly. They read about who communicated with whom and how they did so. They read about BlackBerry Messenger and Facebook and Twitter and Foursquare-- the means to the end. The modern-day, techno-handy rallying cry. The 21st century's bugle's call.

Zoot-Suit Riot.

(Riot.)

As the riots quieted down, as riots do when people run out of vitriol and steam and gasoline for their petrol bombs and zeal and motivation and interest, the articles people read in the paper paper centered more around reporting the minute-to-minute fires and lootings, and switched to that more in-depth, introspective blame-assigning that journalists and politicians love to engage in, because, let's face it: it makes it look like they're doing something.

Also, it's fun.

Predictably, blame got assigned to the police. Scotland Yard. The Metropolitan Police Department. The bobbies on the beat. Once enjoying a trusted reputation among the GBP (Great British Public) the police are now perhaps the single most despised uniformed collective of fellows-- aside from the Pakistani cricket team.

A "New York Times" article tried to explore why that shift happened, but it didn't do a very good job.

I suppose assigning blame to the rioters would be too simple-minded. No-- wouldn't be much of a story there, I guess. After all, it's not open-minded, fashionable, politically-correct or intellectually-engaging to place blame for mayhem and destruction at the feet of mobs of angry young people holding fire-bombs and running into stores and carrying out electrical goods in the name of a young, armed man who died at the hands of the police.

Blame the rioters? But that's just crazy.

It's a sad thing: watching any community tear out its own asshole like a tick-ridden bloodhound because of poverty, racism, frustration, anger, fear, and blatant opportunism. These riots had nothing to do with the traffic stop and slaying of Mark Duggan (whose unfortunate death, it certainly appears at this stage, was the result of his own actions) and to couch violence, looting, murder, and wanton destruction under the guise of political unrest or protest is a despicable slap in the face to the memory of any man-- justly slain or not.

Could the police officers charged with keeping order in Tottenham and Hackney and other cities and towns have engaged in different tactics to minimize the devastation that occurred last week? Perhaps. Were they competently outwitted by tech-savvy, mobile and spry mobs? Most definitely. Will the department, bruised as it is, learn valuable lessons from these terrible days and apply them in the future? Certainly. Will we as a society continue to refuse to place blame in the hands of the perpetrators of violence in favor of clamoring energetically for academic and removed sources to assign culpability? Yeah. We probably will keep doing that.

Because we're petrified of starting a riot.

The Fourth of Jew-ly

Don’t worry, loves, I didn’t forget to write about Independence Day. The early-onset dementia hasn’t progressed that badly, though, when my mother asked me on the phone what I did the day before, this was my answer:

“Um… (very long pause) …hmmm….. yester… day….”

I’m sorry, Alan—what were we just talking about? Oh, right—no cheddar, please. Goes right to my tits.

So, I didn’t write about July 4th on July 4th because, well, I just wasn’t feeling it. Independence Day is hard on us American Anglophiles. It’s like if they invented a Self-Hating Jew Day. I mean, sure, I’d march in the parade, but I’d feel guilty about it.

Sometimes I feel like maybe I don’t deserve July 4th. I mean, I was practically suckled on John Cleese’s teat (no cheddar, please—his family’s last name was actually “Cheese”—honest to wikitits. Wow, sorry about all the breast humor thusfar…) and we all know about the G&S fetish, and so Independence Day has always been a little tricky for me.

You remember what July 4th is all about, right? Poppin’ caps in the asses of the fuckin’ redcoats. Shovin’ corncobs in their bagpipes. Calling them fags an’ shit.

Well, excuse me if I just kind of, you know, don’t join in with your little fag-calling holiday.

I tried, of course. We tried to buy a new oven, but, like, the store wasn’t open. We’ll get it soon, though. It’s a GE Hotpoint. Hot. Point.

I go to fireworks, of course, because I’m basically twelve, but, really-- I’d rather be at home on the couch with my wife, eating a box of Hobnobs (“with oaty nobbly bits”) watching an episode of “Father Ted.” Maybe even without wearing… you know… trousers!

I know it’s not especially popular to be a britter-lover these days, you know, since that annoying company kind of ass-raped the Gulf, but disclaiming my love for Merrie Olde Englande simply because of BP would be like cutting off Volkswagen because Hitler GE Hotpointed my people.

And I just won’t do that. In fact, just today, I purchased four vintage VW print ads to hang up in our office. I’m pretty sure the seller is American, though, if that makes you feel better.

It’s hard to believe we were ever at war with England, isn’t it? It’s even harder to believe that we were English. Well, my people weren’t—but your people may have been. There is no HP Sauce in my bloodline, and I know that makes me an errant poseur, but what can I say? Can you tell when you sit across from me on a blanket at the fireworks? Can you see it in my face? The… Un-Americanism?

It’s hard to be all schnazzed up about being American. I think we got pretty close on the 4th, though. Even though we failed at buying a large kitchen appliance, which would have made us very American, my wife wore a red-and-a-white striped shirt with blue shorts. I, um, didn’t, but I did eat a rib-eye steak for dinner—and, even though I was supposed to eat grilled hotdogs and hamburgers, a steak is pretty fucking American, isn’t it? A friend of mine who is a farmer in Vermont gave it to me when she came down for a visit, and I was so scared of cooking it that I hid it in the freezer for five months. Finally, on the 3rd, I bravely emailed her for instructions.

I'm not one to get terribly excited about holidays like this one. I always get labor day and memorial day confused-- can't keep them straight at all. When I was dating a Catholic girl in college, a whole new collection of strange holidays got thrown into the mix, and I was very fucked up for a while. I mean, who knew that Holy Thursday and Maundy Thursday were the same thing?

Not I.

As you may remember, I was relatively ambivalent/depressed about my own birthday, so if you think I'm going to get all slick in the shorts about America's birthday, well, you're just a silly goose. Go take a green shit by the lakefront.

I remember many 4ths of July as a child. I think that was where I honed my antisocial tendencies. The next town over would hold a fireworks display that was pretty decent, and people came from miles around to congregate on the local baseball diamond, smell each other, sit on each other's blankets, drop corndogs and shit on each other, and get burned by the black ash that would fall from the heavens because the people running the fireworks didn't really know what the fuck they were doing.

I enjoyed these fireworks, but, after one year experiencing them with the rest of the mouth-breathing masses was enough for my family. Moved my my zeal for patriotism and exploding things, the next year, and every subsequent year of my youth thereafter, my father would drive us to the parking lot of the John Wanamakers, spread a blanket on the roof of the Oldsmobile or the Buick or the (once he got a clue) Camry and he would seat my sister and I up on top of the roof and, in that vacant department store parking lot, we would get a clear, unobstructed, crowd-eschewing view of the fireworks. And then we would go home and I would watch "Life of Brian" on VHS in the basement.

Of course, we all know that July 4th isn’t about stabbing British people through the head with bayonets or about cotton candy, or fireworks or parades with pretty fire-engines or painting big banners that say, “FUCK YOUR CORNHOLE, CORNWALLIS!” And it isn’t even about kitchen appliances.

It’s about three-day weekends.

Oh, and drinking lots of alcohol. But I’m cool with just the three-day weekend, thanks.

I wish a three-day weekend was long enough to go to England. I also wish we could drive the Volvo to England.

Happy 4th, America. God bless you and stuff.

Their Stodgy Old Cuteness

I think it's probably pretty likely that, when most Americans think about English culture, if they ever do, the word "cute" wouldn't immediately leap to mind as an appropriate adjective to describe the British. We tend to think of them as stuffy, boring, uptight-- that's the overwhelming American stereotype (sorry, Sebby-Debs, but it's true). Our minds turn to pomp and pomposity. If we're old enough, we think about the Coronation. If we're not quite that old, we think of Charles and Diana's wedding. If we're younger still, we think of Diana's funeral and, any way you slice those memories and television broadcasts, the word cute is still pretty far afield from what we perceive is the English way.

As many of you know, I am a dedicated anglophile, and my condition as only worsened with age. I first suspected the English of being a cute culture when I began my love affair with Gilbert & Sullivan operettas. There, W. S. Gilbert created an adorable world of parliamentary faeiries, sailors who never swear (well, hardly ever), pirates who are duty-bound and weep when they hear someone is an orphan, police officers who are sensitive and sentimental, and Japanese people named "Pish-Tush," "Pooh-Bah," and "Yum-Yum."

Could this notoriously bombastic, proper, conservative British gentleman with silver-colored sideburns and walrus mustache, clad in his dark frock coat and beaver top hat be harboring the trappings of a cute culture in disguise? Mate his precious characters to Arthur Sullivan's sparkling, glittering, whimsical melodies and there can be no doubt.

If you are wanting for further evidence of the covert cuteness of British culture, go into a bakery there and order a cupcake. Just remember to call it a "fairy cake."

Speaking of food, last night my wife and I were fortunate enough to visit a supermarket located in the next town over, you know, where the "goyim" live! She confronted me upon my arrival home from work and announced that we had "NO FOOD!" in the house. Concerned as I was by this bold pronouncement, I was loathe to venture out to the supermarkets located in our Jew 'hood, as yesterday was the day before Rosh Hashanah, and every Jew in the neighborhood would be at the supermarket, haggling over the expiration dates on their mackrel coupons. I couldn't deal with that.

"Let's go to the market in the goy neighborhood. Deal?"

"Deal."

While we were at this supermarket, we wandered into the "ethnic/foreign" food aisle. You've been there. Lots of Goya products-- frijoles, rice-n-beans, taco shells, and then there's the plethora of soy-and-soy-related sauces, bean sprouts, shrimp-flavored chips, ramen noodles, and the odd Indian meal. And, even in the goy market, there was gefilte fish and matzah, for the wandering Jews who happen to wander in.

"Oh my God, Bobber-- look at this!" my wife squealed. "They have a faggy British section!"

My wife always knows just what to say to me.

I stared in disbelief. Kippers. Fucking kippers. Unbelievable.

There was HP Sauce, which I had read about in "The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4," back when I was basically the same age. There were Jaffa Cakes, which I had heard referenced in the British mockumentary "People Like Us," a brilliant and almost totally forgotten-about show that I discovered on BBC America in college. There were Ryvita crackers, which Sybil offered to the health inspector in an episode of "Fawlty Towers." There was salad cream, unforgettably offered by Basil to an unctous little bastard in the dining room of another episode of "Fawlty Towers."

Basil: "We don't have any salad cream. The chef made this freshly this morning."

Boy's Mother: "He likes salad cream."

Boy: "That's puke, that is."

Basil{through clenched teeth}: "Well at least it's fresh puke."

As you can probably tell, I was in Brit Heaven. All of my fond, warm memories of the books, TV shows and films I enjoyed as a boy were coming back to me in that supermarket last night.

"Well, we have to buy something from this section," I said to my wife.

What recession?

I settled on the Jaffa Cakes. I don't know why-- I guess because "People Like Us" was the last British program (ahem, "programme") that my wife and I watched together, in which WPC (that's Woman Police Constable, for you yanks) Jane Thorpe offers some Jaffas to her male partner on the force. It's her solemn duty to offer the male constables tea and cakes, apparently.

As I looked over the box of Jaffa Cakes, (soft, cake-like circles with a dollop of orange jam half-covered in chocolate) I couldn't help but laugh, right there in the supermarket, thinking that the conclusion I had begun to form about the underlying cuteness of British culture way back in my early obsessional days with G&S was still true today. Here's how the Jacob Fruitfield Food Group (which is based in Ireland, by the way), advertise Jaffa Cakes on the box:

"10 Spongy Cakes with the Squidgy Orange Bit."

---------

I'm sorry-- the squidgy orange bit?

Wait. It gets better.

With this box, you get "Bigger Jaffa" and "NEW recipe with lots more orangey centre yippee!"

ORANGEY CENTRE YIPPEE, MOTHERFUCKERS! ORANGEY CENTRE YIPPEE!

I don't know how the English culture, by and large, feels about its inherent cuteness. I suspect it makes certain members of the population a tad uncomfortable. I can imagine Sir William Schwenck Gilbert, all 6'4" of him getting hot underneath his celluloid shirt collar at being referred to as "cute." Maybe only his Lucy could get away with that, but I suspect it's one component of British culture that often flies beneath the radar.

Look at the Japanese-- stern-faced businessmen in black suits walking around with "Hello, Kitty" cellphone charms attached to their Nokias. Cuteness is out there, folks, and it's not just for children. We lose many things in this world when we grow up, and I think that's what J.M. Barrie, another Englishman who was often moved to flights of cuteness, was fighting against as his immortal Peter Pan shouted out, "I WON'T GROW UP!" He was fighting against the loss of cuteness that we so often suffer from as we age. It doesn't have to be.

But, in America, it so often is. Americans, especially men, feel this extraordinary lust for machismo. We need to drive fucking trucks. We need to wear camo. We need to drink 74 ounces of coffee in the morning. We need to eat breakfasts referred to as "The Lumberjack." We need to wear boots, even if we don't work outdoors. We need to wear scruff. We need to scratch our asses and our balls.

I don't know what that's all about, but that's what we're all about. So I guess I'll just sit back with my Jaffa Cakes and enjoy the squidgy orange bit while I sit cross-legged on the sofa with a cup of tea and Utopia, Ltd. plays merrily on the record player.

Join me, if you please. I'll even save you some McVitie's Hobnobs. Be careful, though-- "one nibble and you're nobbled."