“You’ve really done it this time,” muttered the political pundit Stumpy Wagers as we sat on bar stools at Denny’s Pub on McDonald and Church avenues. “Insinuating that white board members installed a black face for show to lead their progressive political club. No wonder readers are plucking chicken feathers and boiling up the tar for ya.”
I took a gulp of beer and swallowed hard. “Maybe I went a bit far, but it was tongue in cheek. Attempting political satire in this day and age of political correctness is more difficult than finding water in the desert. Johnathan Swift and Voltaire, let alone Mike Royko and Hunter Thompson must be turning in their graves. You may as well hash tag me too.”
“What did you just say?”
“That political satire is dead.”
“No, you said hash tag me too. That is the most degrading objectifying insult that ever vibrated my ears. You obvioulsy don’t understand the plight of women? Do you realize how many women have been sexually assaulted, raped, groped, winked at, flirted with at bars and tried to be picked up at laundromats? How dare you even whisper the words, ‘me too’.”
“I… er didn’t mean any harm to neither women nor non-gender specific people. I was just talking about political satire.”
“Don’t you I…er me. There’s no excuses. None! I swear you’re an apparition to journalism.”
“You mean aberration, Stumpy. If you’re talking about apparition that’s a bit insulting to ghosts, goblins and witches. I’d say you need to be more inclusive of supernatural spirits, particularly with Halloween around the corner.”
The Stump man motioned the barkeep for a shot of whiskey with a beer chaser. “Aberration, apparition. You’re talking semantics.”
“I have to take a disagreeable knee on that, Stumpy. Pundits, like writers, must say what they mean and mean what they say. All semantics matter.”
Stumpy tossed the whiskey down his gullet and threw his hands in the air. “Wooooo doggie, you’re skating on cracked sidewalks,” he said. “Don’t even accentuate you being black as a white man in America. You’re insulting the entire #BlackLivesMatter movement with that quip.”
“I’m stumped, Stumpy. Your butchering the English language worse than a farm hand in a pigpen on molly. Your word usage has even me not caring about semantics.”
Wagers bellowed loud enough to wake the drunk on the corner stool, “Now why you be insulting the Jews.”
“But I didn’t even mention Jews.”
“Yes you did. You’re an anti-Semantic.”
“But I’m Jewish.”
“Yeah, that’s right. You’re one of them self-loathing Jews.”
“Perhaps you need to lay off the brown-colored sauce tonight and stick to the clear-colored stuff. It will make you less mean.”
“I just want you to admit it. Admit everything.”
“Admit what?”
“That you’re appropriating the profession of journalism.
“Appropriating journalism?”
That’s right. You’re nothing more than an apple-polishing, apologetic, appalling, a-pinionated, apparition and aberration of a journalistic appropriator.”
“Apparently,” I replied. “But that’s easy for your to say.”
