Captain Asshole's Corner

Saving The World Though Breath Support!

In the spirit of generosity, we here at the Comfy Chair have decided to give a little web space to the thoughts, hopes and dreams of a little-known but well-loved superhero, Captain Asshole. His aim is to save the world through bitching, whining, and breath support. He's the superhero who saves the day, then stands there afterwards showing off on the clarinet.

Game Overview:

Court

The original court is a standard double-diamond rectangular court officially measuring 50' wide and 100 feet long. This version of the game may be played in a court 1' X 2'.

The game is designed for up to six balls and one dozen cherry tomatoes, and may be played with any number of players from two to six. There are always either three balls and six tomatoes on each side.

A game usually requires from one to two hours to play to its conclusion - that is, until one of the players or teams has "staked out" by scoring all the wickets and striking the Finishing Stake with all the balls on its side. However, fights are encouraged, shortening the game.

The Sides

There are always only two sides, with the "hot colors" (red/yellow/orange) competing against the "cool colors" (blue/black/green). When only four balls are played, the sides are blue/black against red/yellow. However, bystanders may take part in the game if they are properly armed. Proper armament for bystanders includes three pieces of grape jelly bread, a whoopee cushion, a jar of mayonnaise, 12 yards of dental floss, and a 36B size bra.

The Players

When the number of players equals the number of balls on a side (croquet balls, that is), each player plays only one ball throughout the game, unless the player is bigger than anyone else there, in which case he plays whatever ball he damned well pleases. When the number of players does not equal the number of balls (croquet balls, that is) on a side, extra players are sent inside to watch reruns of The Saint.

In addition to the players, one person will be the designated dufus. The dufus stands inside the court and wanders around aimlessly, as if in a blind stupor (sighted stupors are not cricket, so to speak), occasionally tripping over and moving balls or picking them up to see how pretty they are, hacking up phlegm, and begging for grape jelly bread from the other players when it's their turn.

The dufus may be dispensed with by a well-aimed whack on the head with a mallet when he's not looking. However, due attention must be made to the direction in which he will fall because, once knocked senseless, he may not be removed from the court.

The funniest looking player on each side is team captain. The team captain is mainly responsible for popping popcorn and making noises with body parts or blades of grass and his mouth.

Players may confer to decide which ball should be played in each turn. However, conferences are discouraged. It is better if the decision is made by whining about it until someone is worn down.

Starting The Game

The person who is most capable of being a pain in the ass is given the choice of playing first or second to keep his mouth shut. When the decision is made, the onlookers cry out "O you kid!" twice loudly, indicating the beginning of the game. Then the first player stuffs one of the cherry tomatoes in his left ear and bends down to hit the ball (also known as "whacking the son of a bitch").

Each of the balls must be brought into play in the first round of turns, in the order of the colors on the stake: blue/red/black/yellow/green/orange or tomato. The starting "tee" is one mallet-length in front of Wicket #1, or fifty feet south of the corner of 54th and Clark Avenue in Cleveland.

The Turn

A legal turn consists of one stroke plus any additional bonus strokes earned by the ball in play. Any additional strokes that the player can sneak in are what is known as "gravy." After the first round of turns, a side may play any one of its balls in each turn unless he can get away with more.

Illegal turns consist of mistaking a member of the opposing team as the ball, yelling "I hit the ball! I hit the ball! without actually hitting the ball, taking four years off to finish your Ph.D. dissertation, or doing the Tom Cruise "Werewolves of London" routine from The Color of Money with the mallet.

At the conclusion of a turn in which a wicket or stake point is scored, the wicket clip of the color corresponding to the ball should be placed on the next wicket or stake to be scored by that ball. If your set does not include wicket clips, you may use colored clothespins. (Of course, you're never going to be able to find colored clothespins, and you know it.)

Bonus Strokes

There are three ways to earn bonus strokes: by scoring wicket and stake points, by hitting (also called "roqueting") an opponent's ball with the ball in play, or by blinding your opponents with mace and taking the strokes while snot runs out of their noses and they scream "I can't see! I can't see! I'm BLIND!"

Wicket or Stake Bonus Stroke

One bonus stroke is earned for passing through your proper wicket in the order of the course. One bonus stroke is earned for striking the Turning Stake after scoring Wicket #7. These strokes must be played from where the ball lies after the point is made. No bonus stroke is earned by a ball that "pegs out" by striking the Finishing Stake. "Pegging out" is also known as "screwing up."

Additionally, you can earn a bonus stroke by proclaiming loudly that you don't have the slightest idea what the preceding paragraph means and going off to make a sandwich.

Roquet Bonus Strokes

You get two bonus strokes when your ball hits (or roquets) a ball of the other side.

1.The Croquet Stroke is the first of these, played either in contact with the roqueted ball or from one mallet-head's distance, The contact Croquet Stroke is played by placing your ball in contact with the ball you hit (roqueted) and striking your ball to make both your ball (the striker's ball) and the other ball (the croqueted ball) move. If you wish, you may place your foot on top of your ball to keep it place while you strike it, sending the croqueted ball in the desired direction. This is not advisable, however, if you are playing on quicksand.. And don't mistake a fresh cow pie for your ball. Everyone will laugh at you. (Southwest Virginia Rules only)

2.The Continuation Stroke is the second of the two roquet bonus strokes, and it is played from wherever the striker's ball lies after the Croquet Stroke. At the beginning of every turn, a player is eligible to roquet any opponent ball(s). (Have you ever had your balls roqueted? Damn!.) Each opponent ball may be roqueted for bonus strokes only once in a turn, unless the striker scores a wicket, a thicket, a doublet, a cuvette, a sublet, a cornet, a bassinette, a paraquet, a sonnet, a baronet, a serviette, or a Plantagenet (or the Turning Stake). Scoring a point entitles the striker to roquet each of the opponent balls again, and a skillful player may score several wickets in one turn as long as there are enough opponents with balls left.

Bonus strokes may not be accumulated: Only the last-earned bonus stroke(s) may be played. On the Croquet Stroke, if the striker's ball clears a wicket, the Continuation Bonus Stroke is lost, and only the Wicket Bonus Stroke may be the played. On the Croquet Stroke, if the striker's ball roquets another ball on which it is entitled to take bonus strokes, the opponent picks up your ball, spreads grape jelly all over it, and stuffs it down your shorts..

If your ball clears a wicket and in the same stroke hits an opponent ball on the other side of the wicket, the hit does not count as a roquet, and you become a dufus; you may, however, choose to then roquet the opponent ball with your Wicket Bonus Stroke.

There is one exception to the rule against accumulating bonus strokes: If you're bigger than anyone else playing, you can bully them to let you have more, or if you're smaller, you can whine in a high-pitched voice or offer them the sandwich you made earlier as a bribe. You may earn two bonus strokes by scoring two wickets in one stroke or by reciting all the words to It's a Long Way to Tipperary.

If another player sends your ball through its proper wicket (or into its stake), your ball does score the point, goddamn it; however, there is no bonus stroke, goddamn it. Bonus strokes may be earned only by the ball in play during its own turn, the bastards. Rover Balls Rovers are balls which have completed all the course except for striking the Finishing Stake. Rovers may be staked out - that is, driven into the Finishing Stake - with any legal stroke by any player at any point in the game. Winning the Game

The side which scores all the wickets and strikes the Finishing Stake with all its balls wins the game. In timed games, the side with the most points wins when time is called; each wicket or stake scored by each ball counts for a point. If there is a tie, keep playing until one side scores a point and thus wins the game.

Boundaries

String or other marked boundaries for the nine-wicket court shown in the illustration are not essential. Natural boundaries such as a sidewalk, a precipitous cliff, the surf line, or the neighbor's petunia bed will work as well. To forestall disputes, make specific agreements on boundaries before starting.

Boundaries designated by a string or special markings should be at least 6 feet beyond the outer wickets and stakes.

Boundary Balls

All balls sent out of bounds are brought to the point where they crossed the designated Boundary and placed one mallet-length inside the court before play resumes. There is no penalty or loss of strokes for sending any ball out of bounds. Out-of-bounds balls are simply placed in bounds, and play resumes. All balls that come to rest within the Boundary Margin - closer than a mallet-length to the Boundary - are immediately replaced on the Boundary Margin, with the one exception of the striker's ball still in play on a Continuation Stroke or a Wicket Bonus Stroke, which is played from from wherever it lies within the Boundary Margin.

Faults and Penalties You must strike the ball only with the face of the mallet. The mallet may not touch any other ball except the striker's, nor may it strike a wicket or stake, nor may it "crush" a ball against a wicket or stake to make the stake or wicket bend or move.

There are no penalties for faults, other than personality faults. Out-of-turn plays and all faults should be corrected by replacing the balls to their positions before the fault occurred and replaying the shots correctly.

However, you and I know that that won't happen. Cheating, proffering jelly sandwiches, cash, and intimidation are more effective.

Unless there is a previously appointed referee, the word of the striker should be accepted in disputes, mainly because he's carrying the revolver.

In disagreements on replacement of balls to replay fouled strokes, the offending side must accept the judgment of the opponent unless the offending side consists of some big, mean, ugly bastards who resent having to play this sissy game in the first place.

At the end of the game, discard the cherry tomatoes.

It's not often in one's life that one's life course changes because of an idea rather than by outside forces. Usually it's a twist of fate that changes your direction: a reaction to an outside stimulus rather than something self-generated and self-guided. Certainly, this has been true of my own life. I didn't set out to be a superhero. It just happened because I was born with 12 genes for herois and because I was encouraged to go public, spreading crankiness, egoism, and breath support as I make my way through life. For the first time, though, I've decided to make a change solely based on a philosophic stance, not on direct social or economic pressure, and I want to announce it here.

Captain Asshole will be leaving the United States in about seven years to hang his superhero shingle in another country, Canada, Britain, perhaps. Why am I planning this? The superhero business is thriving, but the I'm getting out of here for ideological reasons.

I've come to dislike the American people for their sheepishness, skittishness, and lack of attention span..

The government is becoming more oligarchical every day.

Personal freedoms are being taken away piecemeal.

We've lost our desire to think independently.

We have no privacy anymore. (Urine tests for employment as a stock boy?)

In a Little Rascal movie, there was a character who for some reason or other, kept vociferously repeating to a policeman who was intervening in some conflict or other, "I'm a tax payer, and I demand my rights." Given the context, it was comedy, but I think about the policeman's scripted reaction, which was to try to quiet the guy down. If that same scenario happened now, how would the script writers write the scene? Well, if it was a script for "Cops," the guy would be muscled to the ground and arrested. No form of dissention

We're cowards.

The lawyers are taking over.

The U.S. is fast becoming an occupied country.

Our politicians hate us, think we're stupid, and treat us like

The middle class-the real middle class-has become doctrinaire.

There is no logic and there is no reasoned altruism anymore.

I expect that this column will put me on some watchdog's list-the CIA, FBI, or some anti-terrorist (read "dissenters") list, though I'd be really surprised if the government didn't know who Captain Asshole is in real life.

If Superman were alive today, he could just keep his cape on because the government would have cracked his identity as Clark Kent long ago. My telephone calls and numbers are in a big database. My personal and economic history, with all the related minutiae, has been collected and is pretty much open for anyone's perusal. My urine has been tested for drugs, and though I don't really know if there's any DNA in urine, if there were, I'm sure that someone would have some reason to sequence it and record the results. Kroger knows when I buy Q-tips, and distributes that information to Johnson and Johnson--for a fee. Should I buy a half ton of fertilizer, because I'm not a farmer, the details of my purchase are reported somehow or other so that bells probably go off somewhere, indicating that there's a potential bomb manufacturer lurking. Any and all information that I provide to a merchant winds up being sold to anyone who wants it.

To those who might say, as a dolt whom I worked with at Gateway would, "If you're not doing anything wrong, why worry?" I submit that few of the people in Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany were doing much wrong either, not to mention Cambodia, Iraq, Iran, Uganda, or any of the other hundreds of countries whose oligarchies remedied threats to security with bullets in the brain, a little gas here and a little gas there, or a few machete slashes.

The people who run the U.S., and Bush, their pugnacious, illiterate poster boy, only know force and nationalism. They do not know or care about liberty other than liberty that is self-service, power-based, and money-based. .

What the McCarthyites started, the Reaganites, the Bushists, and their descendants will finish. My estimate is that the U.S. Constitution will complete its transformation within the next 20 years, if it's not abandoned altogether. My guess is that we'll evolve into a nation much like China: totalitarian. My guess is that we'll all wave a flag on July 4th because we'll be afraid not to.

For the first time in my life, I don't believe what I used to say: "The United States may have its faults, but it's the best place in the world to live."

It's been over a year already that one of the people I really respect for his intellect and wit wondered out loud to me if psychotherapy was worth anything. His contention was that "studies show" that talking to a good friend can be just as helpful as going into counseling with a professional therapist. "Besides," he said, "we're finding more and more every day that mental 'illness' and personality is biochemical and biomechanical. If that's true, then 'talking therapy' is a waste of time."

Well, he hasn't said anything wrong here--exactly. Both statements are true--to a point. It's the "exactity" and the point to which they are true that are the problems.

Can a friend help as much as a good trained therapist? Sure--in some cases. But for it to work, this friend must not only be in a relationship with the person that let's therapy happen, but the friend has to have the skills to be therapeutic.

Our friend needs to be in such a relation with the person who needs help that he (sorry, but I ain't going to do "he/she" and so on) can risk his relationship with the person. He needs to be free of HIS need of the person enough to be able to discuss with or say what needs to be said when and if it needs to be said, even though it may change or even end the friendship. Not many friends can do that.

Our friend needs to be able to be aware enough about the psychological dynamics of what's going on in the person's head to be able to interpret clearly what's going on, unencumbered by preexisting notions or clouded by the relationship. Not many lay people are that aware.

Our friend must have the skill to be able to frame his part of the dialogue in such as way that what's communicated is meaningful and helpful to the person. Not many lay people can do that.

Our friend must be savvy about human behavior, human motivation, and human thought processes. Not many lay people are.

Our friend must have the knowledge and the practice and experience using that knowledge in real-life situation to know what to do, what not to do, when to do it, and when not to do it. Not many lay people have those.

Our friend must know when to quit and when to detach and when to challenge and when to back off and when to be directive and when to be passive. Not many lay people know these "whens."

Our friend must be able to relate to the person and choose precisely which technique or set of techniques to use to help the person, whether it be some paradoxical intervention or Rogerian non-directive technique, or something in between. Not many lay people have these abilities.

Our friend must be willing to set his own desires and needs aside, and be able to see and counsel with only the person's well-being in mind, regardless of the consequences to himself. Not many people in a friendship, truth told, would be willing to do this, nor could the do this even if they wanted to.

Can a friend do the same thing as a good therapist? Sure, it's possible--but not very likely.

Aren't there shitty therapists out there that might screw things up worse than a layman? Sure there are. But if I need help and I was concerned about the odds of a favorable outcome, I'd bet on the professional. There's a helluva lot more "ineffective therapy" going on with laymen than there is with professionals.

Now, the second objection.

It may very well be that we're completely biochemical and biomechanical beings. Maybe an operation or a pill can fix our problems. But we're not to that point yet, are we, that we can dump psychotherapy for a pill or a stint under the knife.

Got a pill to to fix someone's feeling of sexual inadequacy? Found the place in the brain that you can dig out that will turn a person who is afraid of heights into a rock climber? Have a shot that will make someone still mourning over the loss of a loved one ten years later go on with his life?

No. we have pills that will turn people with psychological problems into zombies, make them sleepy all the time, or flatten their feelings so much that they don't experience any emotions at all, but right now, we don't have any of the magical cures that will zero in on any of the thousands of particular problems people have and cure them. Psychopharmacology and neurology still only have guillotines microtomes are needed. Psychopharmacology and neurology can take over the profession of counseling when their tools are precise enough to make "talking cures" obsolete, but not until then.

Last night I had to do the dreaded food shopping for Thanksgiving.

The WOMEN were out in full force, their reaction times honed, their thirst for blood at its peak, anxious to ram my Achille's tendons with their shopping carts and cripple me forever.

Did you know (well, you must know, if you're a woman) that in supermarkets women hunt their prey (single middle-aged men) in packs? They identify us by our lonesome look of ineptness and lack of a wedding band, and it's open season all year 'round.

I think they all have Global Positioning Systems (which took the place of the simple intuition and primal blood lust of their pre-digital female ancestors) that they use to maneuver us men into cul de sacs in the aisles.(Or, when there are no dead ends, they create their own by having Team A plug one of the ends of an aisle up with carts while the phalanx, Team B, bears down on us from the other direction. (Team A tries to pretend that all five of them have become extremely interested in the price per ounce of pickled baby corn, but I know better. Team B talks among themselves while they're targeting me, but I can see their beady little eyes gauging the angles and distances.)

So food shopping has its perils, and I'm not foolish enough to think that I'm going to be able to duck and dodge successfully forever. I'm aging. I'm slowing down. If I can manage to survive until I'm "elderly" instead of "middle-aged," I'll be okay. When that happens, I'll be to women in the supermarket as salmon after the spawn are to fishermen: failing fast and not worth the effort. But until I hit about 65, my life isn't worth a used Q-tip unless I keep my wits about me and can still jump and run fairly well.

Men don't live as long as women. This is one of the reasons why.

- We'd be very interested in knowing how this related to your theories on the battle tactics of little girls. - B

According to the New York Times, the average taxable income for the four hundred wealthiest taxpayers in the U.S. in 2000 was $174 million dollars. This is taxable income-income reported after contributions to charity and the thousands of write-offs that only the rich can take.

Think of it! One person making $174 million a year makes as much as 3,867 people making $45,000 a year each or 4,971 making $35,000 per year!

At $45,000 per year, the money that these 400 make could employ 1,546,666 people. At $35,000 per year, that money could employ 1,988,571 people.

If the next 400 wealthiest taxpayers only made half that taxable income, the average for the 800 would be $130.5 million. That could support 2,320,000 jobs at $45,000 per year, or 2,982.857 jobs at $35,000 per year.

The official unemployment rate is 6.4%. Estimating a population of 280 million (which, by the way, includes children, retirees, students, and other people who can't work or don't have to work), that makes the number of unemployed 1,792,000. (There was no count of the people who are underemployed--in my opinion, a single person making less than $30,000 per year or a family of three making less than $35,000 per year.)

Take all but a million bucks a year from the top 800's income and give people who need it $45,000 per year for training and jobs. That will wipe out unemployment, and there will be enough money left over to train and pay an additional 528,000 full-time workers or to train and subsidize incomes for at least 1,548,000 of the underemployed.

Why don't we do that? Why don't we demand that?

The politicians say that that would stifle charitable donations. But most of them only give money because they get write-offs, and they don't give that much anyway, proportional to the amount they amass.

The politicians say that that would stifle investment. But investing is a game that the rich like to play, not a way of increasing their own quality of life.

The politicians say that that would kill capitalism. Capitalism relies on the motivation to work, innovate, and take risks, but what motivation do the rich have to work, innovate, and take risks?

The politicians say that it would tromp on the individual's right to property. Not distributing the wealth more equitable tromps more on people's ability to HAVE property.

The politicians say that that would kill the incentive to work. But work isn't the motivating force in amassing this kind of wealth, it's greed.

There's not much more you can buy after you make a few million for a few years. Any more is simply greed money or power money. The rich are doing the rest of us no favors.

Let's put a limit on greed, shall we? There's a point at which enough is enough. Any fool knows that.

I came across a Miami Herald newspaper article today on an online news service that intrigued me.

Apparently, some advertising agency has come up with a new technique: "ad spying" or "covertisement."

What happens with ad spying is that an agency hires an actor who mingles with people in targeted public locations and acts as if he or she is one of them, and then covertly pushes a product. The newspaper gave as an example a woman who carries a pizza box for some local pizzeria near a driver's license agency, eats the pizza on the street, and comments to the teenagers around the place how good it is. Because they don't know she's hired to do what she's doing, they're supposed to "bite" on the word-of-mouth endorsement from this "normal" person going along with her daily routine and frequent the place.

Another example:

The advertising agency hired an ad spy for a nightclub owner. This ad spy, a scantily clothed model, wandered the beach looking for young men with whom to strike up a conversation, using an opener such as, ''Do you have the time?'' At some point in the ensuing conversation, she begins talking about nightlife, and eventually starts gushing about the nightclub she's shilling for.

Isn't this immoral? Isn't this disgusting? I think so. Advertising has become so invasive and so interwoven with everything that soon, if the ad spy thing becomes popular, you won't be able to escape it at all. Anyone may be shilling for an ad agency, turning advertising into "personal preference" statements. "Hey buddy, got a light?" "Sure! Here, use my fantastic FlameBoy butane lighter. It never misses."

Who you gonna trust?

Thinking back on the model on the beach, you can bet that, when the pitch was finished, she took her leave as soon as possible, and the guy who'd hoped for romance wound up with none. Even her friendliness was feigned. A fake come-on, an advertisement, and then, zoom, she's gone.

I want to be around to hear what happens when condom manufacturers start trying "ad spys."

"O, baby! I want you now! I can't wait! I'm SOOO HOT! Here, use this. It's a HugeManStud Ultrabarrier condom for hunks like you!" Then she jumps out of bed, throws on her clothes, and she's out the door! Zoom!

Advertisus interruptus.

Memorial Day

I was thinking about my father yesterday, Memorial Day, during the "services" that Bet talked about in her blog.

He was in the Army during WWII, on the front line for pretty much 144 days straight: Normandy, Ardennes, Belgium (Battle of the Bulge), Southern France. Four bronze stars. Promoted to sergeant twice because of his abilities on the front line. Busted back to PFC twice, once for clipping a snooty officer and once for going AWOL for a few days to see his girlfriend in Luxembourg. In his early 30s, he was older than almost all the other soldiers. He was a quiet, unassuming, modest, unselfish, tough son of a bitch. He died in 1979.

Anyway, I had it in my mind that you might be interested in hearing what he would have said about the Memorial Day service, so I decided to interview him.

C.A: Hi, Dad.

L.H.M: Hi. How you been?

C.A: Okay.

L.H.M: Good. So what did you want to talk to me for? We'll have plenty of time for that in about twenty years.

C.A.: So there's life after death…and time to sit around the kitchen table and reminisce!

L.H.M: No. No life after death. I was just joking. But there are kitchen tables.

C.A.: Well, I wanted to know what you thought of the Memorial Day service yesterday. I had the feeling that you were watching.

L.H.M: The clarinets sounded good, but I heard some really funny noises coming from the saxophones.

C.A.: No, not the band! The rest of the service.

L.H.M: Damned silly. I hate that shit. And that jerk Army officer that gave the speech! A goddamned boy scout, just like all those other "veterans" who spout all that crap.

C.A.: What do you mean, "boy scout"?

L.H.M: I mean these guys are boy scouts. They're playing being war heros. They're playing at having been big, bad combat soldiers when my guess is they never fired a weapon outside of basic training, much less shot at anyone or got shot at. I'll tell you, when I was alive, you'd come across some VFW guy giving a speech at a Memorial Day service or spreading his fat ass over the bar stool at the American Legion afterwards, and spouting off about how he fought for his country in the BIG ONE, and you could pretty much bet he never saw action. If they're veterans and politicians, you could have bet your life on it.

I hated that bullshit.

C.A.: Tell me more about that.

L.H.M: Listen, you run up a beach with your best friend, explosions around you so loud and bright you don't know which end is up, bullets zipping around you two inches from your face, and then you hear a kind of a splat, and look over to find that your friend's head is gone.

Arms here and legs and heads there. Guys screaming. Guts piled in the dirt. Blood soaking everything. Some guys brains dripping down a tree. You glance to your right and see some guy cut in half as he runs. The two halves fall down.

You freeze your ass off in Belgium, and the only way to get your rifle to fire is to urinate on it to unfreeze the action.

Pinned on the side of a cliff at Normandy, with shells screaming in and hitting all around you, hour after hour.

You march all the way from Normandy to Luxembourg in mud.

You smell because you haven't even taken off your clothes in a month or more.

Cold K-rations in the field and hot "shit on a shingle" if you're lucky enough to get back from the line for a few hours.

Nights in foxholes, ten below, and no place to take a shit, unless you want to get out of the hole and let a sniper get you while you're squatting.

Then for the next 35 years you wake up screaming almost every night because you never got over the artillery shells exploding all around you. You don't go to July 4th fireworks with your son because it sounds so much like artillery landing and you're afraid you'll drop to the ground on your stomach or start digging a hole with your fingers so you can crawl in it. Maybe you'll lose it altogether and start shaking or screaming.

You just don't want to think about it anymore, much less talk about it. Guys who want to talk about it all the time either weren't there or weren't in it-or are so screwed up they can't remember it anymore.

I hated 'em. I wouldn't drink with them, I wouldn't let them buy me a beer, and I wouldn't even talk to them. I stopped going to V.F.W. and Am. Vets because of these kinda guys. Red-faced loudmouths waving their flags…and their lips. Maybe they've changed since I died over twenty years ago, but if they haven't, screw 'em. I didn't want to hear their bullshit anymore.

C.A.: But don't they have a right to be proud? They enlisted to serve their country. L.H.M.: Maybe some of them enlisted only to "serve their country." Most of 'em enlisted because everyone else did, and because they were 18 or 19, and because they thought it would be fun, or because they wanted to test their manhood. Me? I enlisted because it was the thing to do and because I didn't want to get drafted; everyone else was doing the same thing. But if they were in combat for more than a day, they stopped thinking that way. It was only the guys who came back from their jobs at the motor pool or behind a desk, or after their discharge for hernia or flat feet who spout all this patriotic "sacrifice for my country" horseshit.

The only thing to be proud of is that you made it through and maybe that you helped someone in your outfit from getting killed or maimed.

C.A.: Well, let's get to the Memorial Day service.

L.H.M: Yeah. Let's get to it. I hated them, and I hated that one, and you want to know the main reason why?

C.A.: Sure.

L.H.M: Because I hated to hear "gave their lives for their country" and "paid the ultimate price" and "supreme sacrifice" and all that crap. None of the poor kids who got shot up or blown up were thinking "For my country, I'm going to take a bullet in the brain," or "For my country, I'm going to let shrapnel tear my jugular and watch it all go dark as I bleed to death." Of all the men I saw die, did I ever hear one of them say, "I'm going to die now so that my country will live on"? Hell no.

Any sane man who ever risked getting killed did so for the people around him, not for his country. Any sane man who threw himself on a live grenade did it to save his buddies, not for the country. I doubt most of the guys who did things like that really expected to die anyway.

Other guys-95 percent of our guys--who were never in a situation to save their buddies but who got killed anyway got killed because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time or did something stupid. It was only morons or mental defectives who waved the flag as they were being shot at. Thank god (who doesn't exist, by the way) there were so few of those and they didn't last long.

You know, when you're 19 or 20, you think you'll live forever, deep down. So when I hear this crap about "sacrifice" over and over and over again, I want to shit. Most guys who die in war die because their bodies met a bullet or a shell. Others died because of accidents or disease. They didn't know it was going to happen. They didn't want it to happen. Most didn't think it would happen. But no man who didn't already have a death wish volunteered to "give their lives for their country."

Find some poor jerk with a sucking chest wound and a ragged string of raw meat where his arm had been ten seconds earlier, his blood spurting out of an artery near where his balls used to be, and ask him if he's glad he'll be known as a sacrifice for his country during Memorial Day observances. Be that stupid. Be that silly. Be that cruel.

C.A.: So you don't have any respect for the soldiers in Iraq now, who are selflessly "freeing Iraq"?

L.H.M.: These guys now are hired assassins. Mercenaries. All you hear from most of them is that "I want to do my job." Is that enough? I mean, all that most of them know about why they're there is what the Army told them.

In my war, we knew from the news about what was happening in Europe. (People read newspapers then. Even me, and I quit school after 8th grade.) There was Pearl Harbor, too. But these guys? You wave a flag, show them two minutes on Fox, say "sic 'em," and they kill to order. They're so damned stupid that when their cub scout leader, Bush, tells them that the U.S. is in danger from a third-rate dictator ten thousand miles away, they swallow that bullshit so that they can justify their aggression and get to play Rambo. The rest of them, the ones who don't want to play Rambo, are missionaries out to convert the heathen…through the muzzle of a rifle.

Iraq is no Viet Nam. No dissenters there. No bitching. No draftees. No "other viewpoints." Just people "doing their job." (Eichmann claimed he was just doing his job too, you know.)

Today's Army! "Be all that you can be." Be an aggressive, ignorant, blind, snot-nosed kid with raging hormones who prides himself taking orders, and who carries a big gun. Or be a "patriot" missionary who thinks the U.S. gets all the answers directly from God, with George W. Bush as his prophet.

What an outfit! It would be funny if it weren't so immoral.

C.A.: Anything else about the Memorial Day service?

L.H.M: Yeah. Change it or get rid of it.

C.A.: How should we change it?

L.H.M: Remember the people who were killed. Imagine what they went through. Imagine the pain. Imagine the sorrow. Remember your own loss. Remember what a piece of shit war is. But don't wave a fucking flag and make it into the patriotic sideshow hawks like Bush and his co-conspirators want.

Memorial Day should be about death and loss, not saber rattling, "patriotism," self-righteousness, and puffed-up chests. Memorial Day shouldn't be an opportunity for self-congratulation for the living, when the people who are supposed to be what Memorial Day are all about never had a chance to choose if they wanted to be a part of it in the first place, and can't talk back when they and their lives are misrepresented by preachers, "patriots," politicians, and the like. Those people should be ashamed of themselves for presuming to speak for the killed.

If anything, a Memorial Day gathering should be a peace protest.

C.A.: Thanks, Dad.

Oh, by the way, what did you do with your medals? You never told me you had any. I only found out about them when I finally saw your discharge papers a couple years ago.

L.H.M.: I sold them in New York City right after the troop ship brought us back.

Captain Asshole's List of Books that Need to be Written

"Giving Up: A 12-Step Program"

"Harry Potter and the I.N.S."

"Stop Eating and Get Fat"

"Pilcrows and Octothorps: Memoirs of a Technical Writer" (in six volumes)

"Drink Your Way to Financial Security"

"You Are What You Rub on Your Face"

"Men Are From Mars, Women Don't Let Them Forget It"

"Everything You Always Wanted to Know About What You Never Knew About"

"The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Eructations"

"How to Get Any Girl to Go to Bed with You, Then Install a New Garage Door Opener"

"The Icelandic Sagas as Told by Eminem"

"Marco Polo's Travels in West Virginia"

"Julia Child's 'Mastering the Art of Frenching'"

"Everything You Need to Know About What You Thought You Knew, but Really Don't"

"Stop Thinking and Live!"

"Moby Dick II: Further Adventures of a Pissed Off Whale"

"Fred: Biography of a Late-Blooming Gnostic"

"You BASTARD! You ASSHOLE! FUCK YOU AND THE HORSE YOU RODE IN ON!: Primal Curse Psychotherapy"

"Ahab Meets the Snuggle Bear"

"It's All Leif Errickson's Fault: A History of Victimization In America"

"A Pocket Full of Miracles: The John Holmes Legacy"

"Anthology of Humanism" George Bush, ed.

"Hindu, Schmindu!: A Popular Guide to American Cultural Diversity"

"Pimple Cream for the Soul"

"Wilbur: The Pope Whose Name Nobody Can Remember"

"Dante's McDonald's"

"A History of Bad Violin Playing" (in 1295 volumes)

"The New Jersey Guide to Elocution"

"Much Ado About Doodily Squat"

"How To Make 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' Appear out of Nowhere and Other Magic Tricks: A Guide for Presidents With Hard Ons"

"Huckleberry Bowles"

This right here is the reason Captain Asshole is my superhero. -B

While waiting for work at TheCompanyIConsultFor, I glance over the news articles on the one Web site that TheCompanyIConsultFor lets lowly contractor access, and I came across an article about a bit of jazzy medical technology. It's a little pill-sized and pill-shaped camera. Patients swallow it with a glass of water, and it takes pictures as it travels through the alimentary canal, whence it's retrieved from you-know-what when it's excreted, and the pictures are uploaded into a computer.

It's a nifty little gadget, for sure, but the name is niftier: M2A. That means "Mouth to Anus." To the point, certainly, and much better than the silly acronyms that companies usually come up with.

I suspect it's going to make diagnosis an easier job and much more accurate, but one thing troubles me: What if our Commander-in-Chief becomes ill and his physicians want to use the M2A? Where will it be introduced, given that it's so hard, with Bush, to discriminate between his M and his A?

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