Actually, I guess I shouldn't make fun of the French. I mean, yes, they are responsible for a lot of recent tragedies, like all that nuclear testing stuff, that 5-year-old rapper kid (Have you heard him? He raps in French about how hard it is to be a baby. I just pray that he and the Olsen twins never get together. It'd be enough to make a Care Bear barf...), and, of course, waiters who believe that their jobs would be so much more pleasant if annoying customers didn't keep -- get this -- asking them to do things and their only recourse is to make fun of their French.
Waiter: Qu'est-ce que vous voudrais? (What the hell do you want?)It's at this point that, no matter what we order, the waiter will bring us snails.
Customer: Ehhh... (Ehhh...) Un biere. (A beer)
Waiter: Ha! Votre Francais est a mauvais a la carriere de Jocco, l'homme d'Energizer batterie... (Ha! Your French is as bad as Jocco, the Energizer guy's career.)
Customer: (Trying to call him an oaf) Tu es un oeuf. (You are an egg.)
But the French are responsible for some very important cultural achievements. Of course, I'm talking about the topless beaches. I also understand they have a museum or two. (And the last time I was there, they had re-runs of The $6,000,000 Man on TV. Cool, huh?)
The reason I'm making fun of other countries is that I'm writing this on The 4th of July, although by the time I edit it, correct all my typos, and stick it up on my web page, you'll probably be reading it in November. (I'm just kidding, of course. I never correct my typos.) This is a very important holiday for us Americans. At one point, it was known as Independence Day, but was changed to the 4th of July (known in Mexico as "Cinqo de Mayo") after it was discovered that nobody really knew how to spell "independence".
Independence Day, for those of you who know little about American history (which is pretty much limited to... well... Americans) is the holiday when the American colonies declared freedom from evil bug-eyed aliens in flying saucers. Oh, no, wait a second. That was the movie Independence Day. In real life, we declared freedom from Great Britain (known at that time as "Totally Super-Duper Britain"). This leads to the famous document known as the "Declaration of Indapen... of Independanc... uh... of Not Being Part of You Guys Any More" written by Thomas Jefferson, (played by The Fresh Prince) which went something like this:
Dear England,The British, naturally, tried to stop this by sending in soldiers and using the amazingly brilliant strategy of "Hey! Let's have all our guys dress up in bright red!" and they got the crap kicked out of them at the Battle of Lexington Green. (Fought at Bunker Hill.)
- Your food really sucketh. Just one Taco Bell -- that's all we ask.
- Don't you think, just once, the royal family couldn't look like a bunch of total doofuses in the tabloids?
- Stop sending us re-runs of Absolutely Fabulous. Okay, it was funny for a while, but it's getting a little old.
- Monty Python is still okay, I guess.
- Now if you'll excuse us, we're gonna drink lots of Sam Adams beer and start some cool explosions.
Personally, I think a really patriotic spirit is a good thing, because it makes movies much more enjoyable. As an example, I was watching Rambo III the other day, and it contained a scene that went something like this...
Evil Russian: You know I am an evil man, because I am speaking with a thick foreign accent. Now tell me where the missiles are.Yes, that was the kind of fine screenwriting we had back in the '80s. And if we had seen it in a movie theater back then, everyone would be cheering, chanting "U-S-A! U-S-A!" and setting off fireworks in the theater. But I recently saw this on videotape, and the people I was with had a much different reaction, which was something like, "Huh? Wouldn't that hurt?"
Heroic Army Guy: They're somewhere close.
Evil Russian: I knew it! Where are they?
Heroic Army Guy: They're in....
(I think we all can see what's coming...)
Heroic Army Guy: They're in your ass.
And I think that's the problem with America these days, besides the fact that we're all way too literal. What with the Soviet Union turning into the Confederation Of Smaller Areas That Spend Most Of Their Time Fighting Like Bitter Couples In A Divorce Over Who Gets To Keep The New Sofa, we don't have any cool enemies anymore, and therefore, no patriotic spirit, which suddenly makes Rambo III a really bad movie. (We're talking, really bad. As in, don't admit to anybody that you actually chose to watch this movie. Say something like, "Yeah, I meant to turn on Terms of Endearment, but I tripped and fell on the remote control, which turned the TV to Rambo III and then broke, so I couldn't turn it off." As for myself, I watched this movie in a laundromat, so my only other choice of viewing was to look at my boxers spin around and around for an hour. I think I made the wrong choice.)
Clearly, what we need to do is get in a war again. Not a real war, of course, which has some bad side effects (most notably, death), but some sort of cold war with lots of propaganda and people yelling "USA rocks!" whenever Sylvester Stallone hurts anybody. Personally, I thought it would be cool if we declared war on power-crazy bouncers who clearly are compensating for their really small penises by giving young-looking guys at clubs a hard time, not that I am bitter. I decided against this plan once I realized all these bouncers were much bigger than me. French waiters were out, too, because they might spit in our Coq au Vin. ("Chicken served in a van")
Therefore I propose that we as a country declare war on hamsters. Think about it; they're small and harmless enough that they won't actually hurt anybody. It would keep the CIA out of trouble who, as I understand it, has gotten kind of annoying now that they don't have the KGB to play with.
CIA: Hey! Wanna go spy on Canada?Pro Wrestling would give us a new villain, "The Iron Hamster," to root against. All of us would cheer in movies when Tom Cruise or Keanu Reeves or perhaps Molly Ringwald beats the crap out of the hamster army. It would be patriotic. Americans would love it. And, most importantly, it would keep Stallone busy enough that we'll never have to see Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot! Part 2
President: No, not really.
CIA: How about Finland? Can we go incite a revolt?
President: No, that's okay.
CIA: Hmmm... Hey, wanna see the Pamela Anderson video? We've got a copy here...
President: No. (Pause) Well, okay, maybe just once.