Don Imus has been disinterred and placed inside another cable television studio. Relocating the corpse makes sense for Murdock’s infotainment empire: Display faux cowboy as waxy prop atop faux business channel.
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Ray Downen would prefer “different” faculty members replace current MSSU employees. Assuming that Ray is part of the re-hiring process, I trust he finds my unique credentials an improvement over prevalent liberal infestation.
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Last week I went to the library, hung around the basement for awhile, and eventually limped over to the coffee shop/lounge. Wearing my gray herringbone sport coat, I made my best effort to appear professorial. Although pipe smoking is forbidden, I sucked on my unlit Peterson anyway, hoping the herringbone and Irish briar combination might entice a lovely lass to think I was the newest English Department rake. (Had I planned the excursion with greater care, I’d have tucked my fake beard into the cracked leather satchel. An exact replica of George Bernard Shaw’s, the flowing gray whiskers strike the perfect balance between artistic asceticism and cocky nonconformity. Through trial and error, I’ve learned not to combine turban with fake beard. This particular affectation does not bode well if swerving upon a late-night sobriety checkpoint. But that is a different story*).
I did have my vintage English tortoise shell glasses. Pretending to read “The Old Devils”, pausing every now and then to gaze about in absent-minded bemusement, I hoped to attract the attention of a literature junkie with unresolved daddy issues. Whether it was the florescent lighting playing hell with my failing eyesight or the link that I had muffed an hour earlier finally gaining on breakfast gin, I thought several young ladies were sneaking peeks in my direction. Because I needed another latte refill -- and my wounded right patella cannot withstand prolonged right angle immobility -- I hobbled away from the table and toward one of the young ladies in question.
“Ah, excuse me,” I said in my best Monty Python accent, “would there be a tavern within close proximity to campus?”
The comely raven-haired co-ed replied, “No”.
“I see. Let me rephrase the question. By close proximity…”
“Look, I’m busy”.
“Sorry to bother you. I’m unfamiliar with the area and…”
“I don‘t know your name but I have seen you in the Blackthorn."**
Her icy stare (eerily similar to the one perfected by my mother-in-law) immediately doused the charade in bracing water, leaving me no recourse but to beat a lurching retreat.
Stuffing Kingsley Amis back into the cracked leather satchel, I fled the coffee shop/lounge -- assuming that cripples can adequately approximate the act of fleeing.
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*The short story can be found in “This Isn’t Good: Gruesome Tales of Motoring Mishaps and Bail Bond Miscues”.
**Evidently, I’ve been in the Blackthorn on more than one occasion.
Juan Don
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