Apr. 22 - The Moron’s Alamanac is ordinarily the kind of place where history and literature are dredged up and kicked around for laughs (and where this moron often tends to his own mental health by blowing off steam on the political, social, cultural, and religious idiocies of the day).
But today all that changes. Today instead of mulling over the news, or hating on it, or parodying it, the Moron’s Almanac has the great good fortune of being able to make it. Because today we’re able to provide the transcript of our interview with the 96-year old Bui of Bent Tree, an authentic Papua New Guinean who witnessed the events that followed the May 1944 downing of the American A-20 carrying President Joe Biden’s “Uncle Bosie.”
The Moron’s Almanac (TMA): Hello.
Bui of Bent Tree (BBT): Hello yourself.
TMA: Thank you for allowing us to record this conversation.
BBT: Thank you for paying for my coffee.
TMA: It seemed like the least I could do.
BBT: I ordered a whole breakfast, so yeah, it was probably the very least you could do.
TMA: Your English is surprisingly good.
BBT: Yours too.
TMA: Well, I’m American.
BBT: That’s what makes it surprising.
TMA: Leave the jokes to me, please.
BBT: Who’s joking? My English is good because I moved to America when your mother was in diapers. Come on, let’s get this thing going, I haven’t got all day—I’m ninety-six, I may not even make it to lunch.
TMA: You claim to have witnessed the crash of the airplane carrying the president’s Uncle Bosie.
BBT: That’s right.
TMA: Eighty years ago next month. That’s quite a long time ago. Are you sure your memories are accurate?
BBT: I lost my virginity that same month. Sela of the Crescent Bay, and I could still tell you things about her body that her own mother didn’t know! And that girl did things with her mouth, do I remember?!—
TMA: Just tell us what you remember about the plane.
BBT: It crashed.
(Pause.)
TMA: Maybe a little more detail?
BBT: It was flying along, way the hell up there, just flying along, fly fly fly, and and then BLAM! It crashed.
TMA: Into the ocean.
BBT: You bet. A real splashy crash.
TMA: The American Department of Defense says there was only one survivor.
BBT: That’s right. Eventually just one.
TMA: The others were assumed drowned.
BBT: You think my clan would watch a plane crash into the ocean and just let the survivors drown? What do you think we were, savages?
TMA: Well, actually. . .
BBT: We rowed out there right away, yes sir, we rowed out, we fished them out of the sea, and we brought them ashore. All except the one that swam away. Hell of a swimmer, that one, didn’t want anything to do with us. People can be so judgmental.
TMA: And what happened on shore?
BBT: We dried ‘em off, warmed ‘em up, tended their injuries, fed ‘em, gave ‘em some nice clothes—the girls gave ‘em some pretty shells because, you know, girls—and sent them on their way.
TMA: And that’s it?
BBT: What else were we supposed to do? Validate their parking?
TMA: You didn’t. . . They weren’t eaten?
BBT: Eaten? Eaten? What the hell kind of question—eaten! No, no. Never. Well, okay, maybe a nibble.
TMA: And that was all?
BBT: Absolutely! A few little nibbles and we sent them on their way.
TMA: They never made it home. They were officially lost at sea. You told me you’d witnessed what actually happened to them.
BBT: Oh, that. Well, sure. We followed ‘em right to the edge of our territory, then the Asmats came out of their territory, and hoo boy!
TMA: Asmats?
BBT: The worst tribe. Oh, man. The most vicious, aggressive, violent—crazy people, really, you know, the kind you see them coming toward you, you cross to the other side of the river. Even if you can’t swim.
TMA: And what did they do?
BBT: Well, I mean, obviously: they welcomed the Americans, big hugs all around, showered them with gifts, threw them a big party.
TMA: Really?
BBT: No. Really they slit their throats, drained their blood, carved them up, roasted ‘em on a spit, and had a feast.
TMA: The Asmats did that.
BBT: The Asmats, you betcha, I tell you those Asmats, you gotta watch yourself pretty carefully around them, watch those fingers and toes!
TMA: So you witnessed all that but had nothing to do with it.
BBT: Nothing at all! I would never. Our tribe, we weren’t like that—that kind of savagery, disgusting, vicious, awful—it was the Asmats, I tell you! I mean, sure, we stuck around for the cracklings, but that’s hardly cannibalism, that’s just—it’s good manners, that’s all, you don’t throw someone’s hospitality back in their face, do you?
TMA: So when the American president says his uncle was eaten by cannibals, he’s actually telling the truth?
BBT: Mostly by cannibals. Sure. We done?
Fools Russian In
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov was born on this date, April 22, in 1870. He later became Lenin, invented the Communist Party in Russia, and made himself first Chief Bastard of the Soviet Union.
To understand Lenin’s genius or insanity, consider this: in March of 1917, a week into the Petrograd uprising, the Tsar having abdicated, Lenin was so desperate to get back into Russia from his exile in Zurich that he wrote to his financier friend Yakov Ganetsky, who was in Stockholm pulling strings to get Russians repatriated into Russia:
I cannot wait any longer. No legal means of transit available. Whatever happens, Zinoviev and I must reach Russia. The only possible plan is as follows: you must find two Swedes who resemble Zinoviev and me, but since we cannot speak Swedish they must be deaf mutes. I enclose our photographs for this purpose.
I’m not making this up. It’s documented in Robert Payne’s biography of Lenin (The Life and Death of Lenin). And if you’re thinking that’s not merely insane, but also perhaps the worst idea you ever heard, just wait. When Ganetsky was unable to find two Swedish deaf-mutes who resembled Lenin and Zinoviev on such short notice, Lenin came up with an even better idea, which he sent to his friend Karpinsky, the “capable manager” of the Russian library in Geneva:
Please procure in your name papers for traveling to France and England, and I will make use of these papers while passing through England (and Holland) to Russia. I can wear a wig. A photograph will be taken of me in a wig, and I shall appear at the consulate in Berne wearing the wig. You must then disappear from Geneva for a minimum of a few weeks. . .
In the end, Lenin needn’t have strained his little gray cells. The German government, at war with Russia, made the necessary arrangements to help Lenin back into Russia, more than happy to send that destructive virus into the circulatory system of their enemy.
Within a few months, Germany may have been thinking that had been well played—very well played, indeed.
Just a generation later, Lenin’s USSR, by then under the iron fist of Stalin, would join forces with the United States and Great Britain to crush Germany.
Moral: karma’s a bitch.
Interesting side note: Alexander Kerensky, the leader of Russia’s provisional revolutionary government in 1917 until overthrown by Lenin, was born on the same day as Lenin, only eleven years later.
Unlikely they ever celebrated their birthdays together.
One hundred years ago today, Robert Oppenheimer was born. Mr. Oppenheimer is best known for his role as the dreary half of Barbenheimer, and is also known as the father of the atomic bomb. Its mother has never been identified to anyone’s satisfaction, which only underscores the lax security at Los Alamos.
On April 22, 1451, Isabella I, Queen of Castille, was born. She also became Queen of Aragon in 1479. She was Christopher Columbus’s patron, and must therefore share some of the responsibility for the many thousands of casinos across America.
Besides the aforementioned celebrants, today is the birthday of Peter Frampton (1950), Jack Nicholson (1937), Glen Campbell (1936), Aaron Spelling (1928), Yehudi Menuhin (1916), Eddie Albert (1908), Vladimir Nabokov (1899), and Immanuel Kant (1724).
It’s the last Monday of the week, so kick up your heels!
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