Notes from the Anglo File

The bumper-sticker (custom made, mind you) says it all:

"WARNING: Gilbert & Sullivan Freak Behind Wheel"

You know, even if you're just some random schmoebert driving behind me, that I'm a little, well, off.  I'm a little, well, smitten with all things Britain.  I'm a little looney.

Just a li'l.

(To be said with a traditional Cockney glottal stop.  Of course.)

Anglophiles are a unique breed, and we're all a bit muddled, a bit befuddled, because, see there's the whole identification issue-- identifying with your oppressor.  After all, Good King George did try to fuck our shit up for daring to take flight, lest we forget.  But for an American who is, after all, half-Israeli and 100% Jewish to boot, that whole dynamic seems almost a bit irrelevant.

I fell in love with English culture years and years ago.  Too much "Monty Python's Flying Circus" exposure at a time when the brain was extremely soft, malleable, and porous.  It's settled some now, but the damage has been done.  And it was done unto others.

Our elementary school had a program where 5th graders were paired up with 2nd graders.  The purpose of this was that the 5th graders would get together with their 2nd grade "book buddies" in the library once a week and read the 2nd graders stories.  Mentoring at a very young age.  It worked-- my book buddy and I are Facebook friends.  And she's fucking hot as balls now, but I digress.  Anyway, I can still vaguely remember reading young Carly "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs."  It was a swell time.

Anyway, the culminating event of the Book Buddy program was that we 5th graders were to write a book specifically for our 2nd grade book buddy.  Every page of the book would be laminated (in case, I guess, our book buddy became violently ill while reading it) and spiral bound by the school librarian, and entered into the permanent school library collection, for future impressionable youths to enjoy.  Some 5th graders wrote their takes on traditional fairy tales, some wrote stories where vegetables came to life and some wrote about things that had happened to them in their own lives, like breaking bones or getting puppies.

My story concerned Queen Elizabeth II getting kidnapped by members of the IRA and being hidden away inside the clock tower of Big Ben, and then rescued by members of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guard, assisted by Detective Inspectors from the London Metropolitan Police Department.  That Carly is Facebook friends with me today, and that, to my knowledge, she has never been the recipient of inpatient psychiatric treatment, is nothing short of miraculous.

I'm the kind of Anglophile who believes that everything coming from the British Isles is better than things in America.  Hobnobs taste better than Chips Ahoy.  The English Ford Focus is cooler than the American one-- at least it was for years, until the latest American restyle.  G&S is better than American musical theatre.  The monarchy is cooler than the presidency.  British comedy is funnier than American comedy.  British men's clothing is sharper than American men's clothing.  The British are more refined, more tasteful, more... correct than Americans.

That last point, however, gave me a moment's pause today as I looked through a slideshow from the Queen's Jubilee celebration.

Observe:

Mm-hm.  And let's not ignore...

And that, my friends, is how an American Anglophile gets bloody well humbled.

God Save the Queen.

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.