for 28 August 2000. Updated every WEEKDAY.
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I've Been a Shriner for a Heart of Gold The Shriners piece, by Mr. Hatebath, is a wonderful thing. I expected to read an ironists gloss of this summer's Boston parade (which I also attended - and delighted in) and not much else. But Hatebath has managed to have his a cake and eat it too: he sure 'nuff sucked in readers with wisecracks about big guts stuffed into little cars, the kitsch "shabby Sheik" outfits, etc., but, by the end, he'd given us something that is both provocative and funny. (By the way, when the musette-toting chapter of the Shriners orchestra passed my part of the curb they were playing a medley of "The Marine Corps Hymn," "The Stripper Theme" and "The Mickey Mouse Club Theme Song" - that's a hard act to follow in anyone's book!) PS: Hipsters may "tsk, tsk" Mr. Hatebath's misspelling of Sam the Sham's "Wooly Bully," but the Shriners will forgive him, big-hearted guys that they are. Glenn Jones Cambridge, MA <gkjones@mediaone.net> Mr. Jones, Wow, I spelled "Wooly Bully" wrong. With the disappearance of jukeboxes from bars, I wasn't able to check. And I think that medley included about two dozen other songs, too. Luckily I didn't list them all. "Singin' in the Rain," "Satisfaction," "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "A-B-C" present unique spelling challenges as well, at least one of which I'm sure I'm not up to. All out of cake, Slotcar H.  Where in the world do you (and all the Suck writers) get your ideas? Do you have a mole network that covers the whole U.S. and shoots these ideas to you, or do you have a huge travel budget that allows you to go to Boston yourself? Also, how does anyone have time to link all the links that you link? Do you have a professional indexer working for your staff? I am more and more intrigued by the Daily Suck. Thank you, Mary Williams <maryangary@earthlink.net> Ms. Williams, Suck is a kind of wire service, like the Associated Press, with correspondents all over the world. Like the AP, we get our ideas exclusively from press releases and CNN. And evidently also like them, we've recently gone non-profit. Any donation you might send to our Manhattan office is tax deductible if you have a good accountant. Please send one immediately and in the Memo section of your check write "per Hatebath." I wish I had the time to go to Boston myself, but these days I'm lucky if I make it to Watertown. Stringers do that for me, and a Web fembot named Kim Parker finds all my links for me when she's not giving me a pedicure, making me a smoothie, or telling me to shut up. Thanks for reading, and look for further reports from me from Las Vegas and Grozny. Slotcar H. I enjoyed your piece about Shriners. Nice job. I didn't understand the last line, however, and wonder if you would explain what you meant. "Only a Shriner can heal the Burning Man" Jonathan <Jonathank@erols.com> Jonathan, How I begged, begged, BEGGED Terry Colon to draw a picture of a Shriner dumping a bucket of water over the Burning Man effigy at the well-known techgnosis festival in Nevada's Black Rock Desert. But no. Too literal, he said. And this from a man who is compelled to produce a picture of bacon every time it's mentioned. The Shriners help children who have been the victims of burns, as I think I wrote. Send them a donation so they can continue their work. Or better yet, join up. Then it will all be clear to you. Slotcar H. Slotcar, You mean to tell us that vintage-clothes-wearing, sitting in front of a video game all day, tattooed hipster guys are just trying to be like their vintage-clothes-wearing, sitting in front of video poker all day, tattooed grandpas? And that they should emulate instead the Shriners, oldsters who spend their free time not at casinos but riding scooters around and wearing fezzes, and building burn hospitals for kids, and plotting to overthrow the New World Order? Isn't that kind of sexist? How about a compromise: I'll wear a fez and ride a scooter, but in all other things I'll emulate one of those old ladies who feeds the pigeons in the park all day every weekday and then flutters around the priest (like a pigeon with the West Nile virus) at the end of the afternoon service every Sunday? Just think of all the doilies I could be crocheting to sell at the church thrift shop to benefit some other kind of hospital! Think outside the box, Hatebath! Matthew Wilson <mattdamon69@hotmail.com> Mr. Wilson, Are you implying that churchgoing ladies somehow infect priests? You're the one that seems a little sexist. Why are you so worried about priests, anyway? To make up for it, send a donation to your local Catholic Charities. Better yet, why don't you join up and become a priest yourself? The Shriners have a ladies' auxiliary that has all the rights and privileges the Shriners have, except one: they're not allowed to march or ride in the parades. Personally, I'm all for increased female participation in the rituals of the Mystic Shrine. It'll give all those neo-rockabilly chicks something to do two years from now. Now that they're having conventions in Las Vegas (site of next years Shriner Convention and Parade), those rockabilly folks might as well get a parade permit, too. After all, hair pomade and tress-damaging home permanents can cause scalp burn, and, let's face it, those vintage clothes are not exactly flame retardant. Any way you look at it, it sounds like those cats and kittens have got a fez in their future. In a few years, maybe we'll see the Flying Bettie Pages of the Syrian Shrine of Williamsburg, N.Y. or Go-Kart Go-Kats of the El Korah Shrine of Echo Park, Calif. There was a group of Shriners in the Boston parade called the Bunker Hillbillies, and the hillbilly motif was seen in a couple of other Shriner groups, too. Next stop, Memphis, if you know what I mean. Slotcar H. Nice piece of analysis, SH. But would you dare to don the Mystic Fez? Or are you too much the ironist? M.M. Dacey <mdacey@darkstar.ca> M.M., I've long harbored the desire to be a Shriner. To be admitted into their world of fezzes and black suits, of scooters and parades, of conventions and circuses and hospitals and burn victims: that is my dream of community, of civic responsibility, of dopey do-good glamour and out-of-town hijinks and sartorial splendor and cool-ride heaven. That is the fraternal organization for me. Maybe I need another dream. My intentions are honorable when it comes to the Shriners. My interest is sincere. It goes way back. I was shanghaied by a clown into performing a tug-of-war routine with another hapless kid at the Shriner circus when I was eight years old. It was a trick engineered to make it look like the clown was holding his own against both of us, but we were really pulling the rope against each other. Highly symbolic, I'd say. And open to several interpretations. It left me permanently scarred. But somewhere along the way I got off the parade route. I'm not happy about it. As I wrote, every Shriner I talked to asked me to join, and they actively recruit new members. Each Shrine puts a phone number on the side of its float, with instructions on how to join up. They want new members, and they make it easy to join. In any case (and leaving aside what they'd think of my piece on them), I don't think they'd want me among their ranks. They have requirements about how one should conduct one's life that I'm afraid I wouldn't meet. They're known to drop over to new recruits' houses to check that a clean and orderly life is being led there. They're into regular hours and home ownership and the basic family values that I seem to have misplaced. What they claim is their one real requirement - that new members publicly affirm their belief in a supreme being - might be a little beyond me as well. In the community of each individual shrine, the Shriners are a close-knit bunch. Being a Shriner takes up a lot of time. Shriners appear to have a three-fold life: their jobs, their families, and their charity work (which includes building little cars and learning to play "The Sheik of Araby" on the musette). In today's world, as I wrote, who can commit? It's a fact that the Shriner life was designed for 9-to-5 family men who strive to be important parts of the towns they live in. A lot of Shriners really pick up the pace of their Shrine activities after they retire. The Shriners are mostly old men, and the values they embody are fading. For me, joining would be the nostalgic act of a rootless person. I'd love to be a Shriner, M.M. Flushed with post-parade Shriner excitement, I tried to interest several friends in signing up with me, knowing how much they liked fezzes. This was the implication of their answer: Can't we start our own shrine where we don't really have to do anything except get together, drink, wear a fez, and work on scooters? The minimum commitment to community that Shriners ask, that you act goofy and raise money for sick children, is beyond us. I could join by myself, sure, and disappear into the Shrine. Maybe when I retire. But who retires now? People work forever, or quit when they somehow get ahold of scads of money. Those options don't accommodate Shrinedom, or any kind of civic organization. People donate to charity now, they aren't drummers for it anymore. So to answer your question, the only really good excuse I can offer for my unwillingness to join is that Penelope told me she'd stop going out with me if I did. If she tries to get me to join the Ancient Order of Hibernia when I'm old, I'm really gonna be pissed. Slotcar H. Slotcar, Thank you for your sensitive and unexpectedly non-cursory response. For my own part, I could not join the Shriners due to my rigorous esthetic standards regarding pop-culture Orientalism and supreme beings. I also lack a license to drive even a clown car. It's interesting, however, that you've connected the good works of Shriners with the implicit evil of clowndom. I suspect that the religious background of early America plays a role in that it would neither approve nor endorse clowning, celebrations of charitable works (the parades, conventions and circuses) and has never liked Masonry, except at the apex of America's social pyramid, where I believe most of America's "founding fathers" knew the name Hiram Abiff better than that of, say, Rousseau. It's fascinating to me that organizations and movements ostensibly dedicated to ideals of fraternity and charity, such as the Shriners, the Masons, Communism and the Catholic Church, to name a few, should engender the greatest suspicion and fear among those not of those organizations and movements. Of course, that set of track records speaks for itself, though, doesn't it? Keep up the good work, and thank you for the time you spent in responding to me. Should Suck require a Canadian correspondent, a somewhat meaningless distinction, I realize, in a cyberspace-based periodical, I would love to learn how to chuck essays over your virtual transom. Best wishes, M.M. Dacey <mdacey@darkstar.ca> M.M., Thanks for your thoughts. I'm sure the Shriners would take issue with your comparing them to Marxists-Leninists, however. As for Rousseau, I believe one of the Shriner patches is awarded for having read the Confessions. To submit a proposal to Suck, all you have to do is e-mail our Special Guest Editor with a query. Be careful not to tax his time. He's a busy man, and the world is too much with him. Thanks for reading and for writing in, Slotcar H. Knowing nothing previously about the Shriners except for the hats, I found your article very informative and thought-provoking. The parade sounds excellent. I have some questions for you however that you may or may not be able to answer. They are as follows: Can women become Shriners? If not, why? Are you a Shriner? If not, why not? Can you do stunts on a scooter? If not, why? Please reply. Susan Roe <sroe@world.std.com> Ms. Roe, You'll see I answered your first two questions elsewhere in The Fish, and the answer to your third question is Yes. Yes, I can do stunts on a scooter. My best one is falling off during an inadvertent wheelie. Slotcar H. slotcar- by far my favorite writer at suck! i am suspicious, though, that a very good friend of mine is your landlord. your column on shriners in boston is indeed incriminating. so, is it true that eric rosenthal and judith schlesinger own your charming apartment in jamaica plain, or is that another hatebath, distantly related, if at all? bhob rainey <bhobr@earthlink.net> Buh-hob, Everybody's a detective, even the comedians. Sorry to disappoint you, but I live in Brighton. If only I could afford the rents in Jamaica Plain! And it's my understanding that the apartment you refer to was recently vacated and is being let to the landlord's relatives at a cut rate. Oh well, it was too small for me anyway. I need a lot of space. Thanks for reading, and give my regards to the proprietors of City Feed & Supply, who, while I was writing the Shriner piece, told me that a jazz musician of their acquaintance has a father who's a Shriner of the Jester rank in Indiana. I understand he was in the parade and his son had to show him and his Hoosier confreres around town while they were in Boston. I cover the waterfront (not to mention the Riverway), Mr. Slotcar Hatebath (it's an anagram) That Shriner piece is one of your best. The analysis about why people of a certain age are drawn to industrial logo jackets rang true - and I collect that kind of stuff, bowling shirts, et cetera, though never with any conscious intention of irony because I do like the design and because they represent a link with the ever-eroding past. I didn't realize that the Shriners still rally - there hasn't been a Shriner convention out west for some time, or naturally I would have been there. I'm actually surprised that all the cocktail generation types haven't started buying up all the semi-abandoned IOOF, Elks and Eagles halls and reinvented them as the lodges of tomorrow - though, if it ever happens, likely there won't be the charitable aspect that there once was, just as you observed. Excellent piece. Sincerely, Richard Von Busack <regisgoat@earthlink.net> Von B., Your comments are appreciated as usual but I'm on my way to Maine so I can't praise the glories of the Mystic Shrine with you right now. FYI, next summer the Shriners hold their annual parade and convention in Las Vegas. Hope all is well. ASH The American Century 2.0 Mr. Blecht, The cure for polio was discovered by Jonas Salk, a Canadian. Otherwise, your article was hilarious and sidesplittingly satirical! regards, Brian Newton You know, with Senator Lieberman out there breaking down barriers, why is it we have to resort to name calling? Jonas Salk was born in New York City in 1914. And yet, despite the great gifts he brought to the world, some would still tear him down with the slur: "Canadian!" We at Suck reject your particular brand of hate, Brian. But at the same, we're delighted that even an angry Internet bigot like yourself enjoys our hilarious, side splittingly satirical, and stunningly accurate work. http://www.time.com/time/ magazine/archive/1995/ 950703/950703.obituary.html http://www.achievement.org/ autodoc/page/sal0bio-1 Bert Nice article — if it weren't for the painfully arrogant introduction. I read about American ignorance and arrogance back in a sociology class - but never thought I'd actually see something this appalling. Peter Fotheringham Strategic Policy Branch, Industry Canada <fotheringham.peter@ic.gc.ca> Sociology class? Who needs all that book learning when you can get real American arrogance free from Suck? Sorry you blew all your folks' money up there at Ottawa U., Mr. Strategy. What about Canadian arrogance? We cut you in on NAFTA and all we get back is thick bacon and attitude by the truckload. Next you'll be telling me Jonas Salk was Canadian. We appreciate your role as America's backyard and the beautiful landscaping job you've done on a continental scale - but who do you think it was kept you safe during the Mexican-America War? Who do you think kept Castro and killer bees out of your hair all these years? That's right, Uncle Sam. So show some respect. You want to know why I like America? Because here, as Senator Lieberman has shown, anyone can grow up to be President. Anyone, that is, except a Canadian citizen. Bert Thank you SO MUCH!!! Late night, phone shut off, bought building to try to pay off my own mortgage, Tenants Suck... You are a much needed breath of fresh air!!! 300% over Hunter T and PJ Orourke, or, more accurately, a much needed continuing from them.. Kathleen Celata <katjack@mediaone.net> Glad to hear from a real citizen like you Kathleen, a gal whose got her priorities figured out. Re: Tenants "rights," just turn off the heat sometime around Christmas. Let's see how uppity they get then. Bert There are a few things that grind with me in one sentence in your opening paragraph: 'Since 1900, we've won two world wars, a cold one, invented TV, atomic bombs, comic books, airplanes, put a men on the moon, cured polio, and saved the world time and again.' Now I'm going to whine: The TV was invented by Scottish inventor John Logie Baird, The Allies won WW2, Atomic bombs aren't things to be proud of, In summary, you are a cliche, you are the arrogant-American-fuck blinded by their own patriotism. Instead of perpetuating an ancient stereotype, why don't you try being even slightly original? Apart from that I find your work entertaining and worthwhile reading, keep up the good work. .oOo. Ilya Anisimoff .oOo. The Germans invented TV Send me a mark John Greeff <jcgreeff@mweb.co.za> Well, it's just this sort of nasty Euro-squabbling that started World War II, isn't it? Who invented TV? Who gets the Sudetenland? Most people don't know it but Rudolf Hess was shot down in Scotland while trying to set up a black market cable TV deal for the Fuhrer. When will you people learn? Maybe this will help: Television was invented by none other than American wunderkind (but aren't we all?) Philo T. Farnsworth: http://www.ideafinder.com/ history/inventors/ farnsworth.htm (PBS TV transcript) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh /amex/technology/ bigdream/bigdreamts.html (from some Australian tech school that disputes the Scotsman) http://www.ece.curtin. edu.au/titbits/cbjlb.html Ok, we didn't win WW II alone. Even Canadians helped out (chopping down trees with their beaver-like teeth for our fighting boys - thanks guys!), but why so proud of TV and not atomic bombs, Ilya? Have you actually seen "The FOX News?" Spend an hour with "The O'Reilly Report" and see how bad you want to hog credit for TV. Anyway, the winners get to write history, and America is the biggest winner of all, so here's a couple of other things we invented: The Pyramids goats, Italy, and fun. And be sure to pass on our thanks to the allies for all their help in the Pacific! Bert Blecht, Arrogant-American-fuck blinded my own patriotism - and I VOTE!! |
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