Americans Boycott France, Coherent Thought

triking a blow for bandwagoneers everywhere, Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) recently directed the House of Representatives cafeteria to change the name of “french fries� to “freedom fries� on their menu, teaching the rogue nation of France a powerful lesson once and for all. Restaurants across the country have followed suit, and Americans everywhere are boycotting French and French-sounding products in a bold move that sends a message to the rest of the world: Americans are fucking retarded.

“The French? A bunch of gay-asses,� opined truck stop chef Holman Weathers. “This is how they repay us for bailing them out in WWII, by having their own opinion? Maybe we should’ve just let the damned Germans win. See how they like that. No way the fuckin’ Germans would have wimped out on us on the whole Iraq thing.�

“Wait. Really? The Germans?� Weathers questioned with a note of disappointment in his voice when this reporter pointed out that even the Germans had gone the gay-assed route on this one.

“I’m glad they changed the name of Fren- these things, since I love fries but I always felt a little weird supporting such a bad country by buying food named after them,� confessed housewife Heidi Wartak as she sat munching a fresh batch of freedom fries in her mammoth Ford Excursion SUV, while the vehicle idled and sucked down enough gas to keep the Iraqi Republican Guard in munitions for a month. Asked if she thought supporting Middle East dictatorships through excessive fuel consumption might be a greater evil than uttering the name of a peace-loving ally, Wartak stood her ground. “I don’t buy french bread either. I mean freedom bread.�

“All I know is I’ve drank my last bottle of Evian,� boasted NASCAR enthusiast Glen Riddle. “That’s French, right? Somebody told me they actually bottle that stuff out in L.A., but I don’t know if that’s true. Come to think of it, I don’t like L.A. either, so I guess it doesn’t matter.�

Riddle later admitted that he’d never actually drank Evian, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to start now.

Dissenting opinions are rare, as anyone caught exhibiting coherent thought in the current national climate is in grave danger of being branded unpatriotic and voted off the island, i.e., hit with a brick.

“The French provided significant military help to the Americans in their campaign against the British in the Revolutionary War, and supplies of French gunpowder are widely believed to have secured the decisive American victory at Saratoga in 1777,� informed University of Wisconsin history professor and Denny’s patron Judd McClintock as he ducked under a flying brick. “If it weren’t for the French we’d be British right now, and for that even the biggest France-basher owes them continual blowjobs forever.�

“If those blue, white and red pinkos want to mess with the U.S., all they need to do is listen to our country music to know we won’t stand for it,� warned part-time window washer Steve Lideen from across the restaurant, in response to a waitress offering French dressing as an option for his salad.

Plans remain in the works for a series of public service announcements suggesting teens partake in “face-fucking� rather than French kissing and that anyone who is unable to boycott the upcoming Tour de France should refer to it as “That Big Gay Bicycle Ride� or else face sanctions, including having their Home Depot membership revoked.

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I am furious. Perhaps you are not aware of this, but the network has canceled The Drew Carey Show. You all know how accustomed I am to being outraged, but this time it's even greater. Outrage, plus 1, I call it.

Worse yet, they canceled it even though I haven't watched it in two or three years. It was my favorite show! How can they cancel it without warning everyone and doing a dramatic send-off? When they canceled that Friends show they gave them a huge two-hour good-bye. It doesn't take me that long to say good-bye to real friends, although none of them have ever co-starred in Bruce Willis films. I couldn't get one lousy newspaper article telling me that dear Drew Carey fellow was leaving, too? Fuck you, Friends. Drew Carey was my friend and your big to-do party distracted everybody that he was going.

From the first time I saw it, I identified with The Drew Carey Show. Here was a fellow who worked in an office, much as I do, and drank beer. I do that all the time. Like Drew Carey, I have tons of friends and a portly arch-nemesis at work. At least he seems to be an arch-nemesis, he doesn't return my hellos when I pass by the newsstand. It was like they saw my life and put it on the TV, and paid me nothing. Here was a show worth watching!

Of course, I'm a busy man, and I couldn't really watch it every week. But I did tape it with one of those video echo machines, whatever they're called. I never watched the tapes, but I knew they were there. So now, instead of a limitless supply, I have maybe three or four years worth of Drew Careys to hang out with, then it's all gone. And I haven't even remembered to tape it in the past few years—like I said, I'm a busy man. But just because I never watched it and can't remember the names of any of the other characters doesn't mean I wasn't the show's biggest fan.

A lot of you are probably saying, "Get over it, Rok. It's just a TV show. They all get canceled sometime." That's just like you, Camembert, siding with the network now that you and your new Elvis girlfriend are always going to the movies and no longer watch television. Well, forget you, I stole your favorite coffee mug and put it somewhere you'll never find it. The Drew Carey Show was more than a TV show to me. It was a video tape, too.

I've been into a great many TV shows over the years. The Rifleman, Charles in Charge, and that C-SPAN show. Why do they always get canceled? Or else become filled with wise-cracking youngsters, like that C-SPAN show. Why can't they leave perfection alone? When will they realize America doesn't want new TV products, giving us fresh spins on old situations and making our drama more and more like our actual lives? We want the formulaic, the uninventive, and the comfortable, predictable world of sitcoms and cop shows. I say more shows where an ex-cop is framed for a crime he didn't commit. More shows where the characters work out their problems after getting locked in the basement. And anything with Tony Danza, I love it.

The worst part is, Drew Carey went away and I didn't even get to say good-bye. Just like my father, only Drew Carey probably wasn't clawing his way out of a burning strip club. But then again, I don't know, I didn't see it. I suppose I should look on the bright side, that even though one bright television star has faded out, we still have a sky full. Craig Kilborn isn't going anywhere, at least.

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The first time someone saw two men slapping their palms together in greeting, one single thought inevitably bubbled its way up from the primordial ooze:

What the fuck was that?

Yes indeed, what the fuck was that? And more importantly, who started this crazy shit? Good question, and good of me to ask it. However, one cannot begin to discuss the history of the high-five without first exploring the origin of its parent gesture, the handshake.

The handshake is a gesture with a long and storied history, dating back to ancient times when everyone hated everyone. Mothers and sons, fathers and brothers, anyone could kick your ass and take your muffins at any time. These were brutal times and people behaved accordingly, ruthlessly exploiting the weak and dickless. It was a bad time to wear open-toed sandals.

During these harsh times, whenever two people approached on a country road, or in the livingroom, there began a dance where the participants would circle each other cautiously, right hands at the ready on their weapon of choice, be it a sword, a dagger, or a book of pithy puns. If, in the verbal parrying that ensued, it was determined that the threat of being beaten into fruit leather was acceptably minimal for both parties involved, the two people would then extend their empty weapon-hands and shake them, as a way of saying "I'm too tired to kill you today" or "I can't get this smell off my hand."

Eventually, after hundreds of years, the traditional handshake began to fall behind the accelerating pace of modern life. Basketball games were slowed down unacceptably since entire teams were constantly stopping the game to shake hands after a successful slam dunk. And in normal public life, too many jokers were doing that thing where they rub their middle finger on the inside of your wrist while shaking hands, which feels really perverted. An increasingly homophobic population was also growing less comfortable with the thought of men touching each other's hands for entire seconds at a time. Could a cockshake really be that far off?

The time had clearly come for a new, modern greeting, something quick, violent, and devoid of intimacy. Nature wasted little time filling this vacuum in the form of University of Louisville forward Derek Smith in 1980. Angry over being pantsed by fellow teammate Hubert Sanders on the previous play, Smith took a running leap at Sanders mid-court, in an attempt to punch Sanders' nose into the back of his shorts. Due to Smith's poor motor control and Sanders' serendipitous choice of that moment to wave to his girlfriend in the stands, the would-be beat-down resulted instead in a thunderously loud palm-on-palm slap that all present mistook as intentional.

So dramatic and unexpected was the gesture that it energized the crowd and soon caught on nationwide, with Smith and Sanders playing along since Sanders had no idea what had happened and Smith didn't want anyone to know he was that big of a gimp. The truth didn't come out until years later, when Smith was pantsed at a book signing in Michigan in 1993, and responded by high-fiving an elderly woman in the face who was waiting in line to buy a John Grisham book on tape.

Since that fateful day, the high-five and its low-five and non-altitude-specific variants have become ubiquitous in modern life, from urban culture and youth sports leagues to the embarrassing climax of many a John Tesh concert. Due in no small part to the gesture being co-opted by such blanchingly uncool impostors of the funk as Tesh and living duck decoy Bob Sagat of television near-personality fame, intricate and complex handshakes, complete with high and low slaps, snaps, fist-hits and pointing were developed in the inner cities to keep white people everywhere feeling lame and inadequate for the foreseeable future.

In recent years, the gesture has continued to evolve, with the traditional high-five now being used almost exclusively in sporting events and corporate seminars. In hip-hop culture, the high-five has been replaced entirely by the fist-hit, a "less-faggy" gesture residing more comfortably near to the border between violence and greeting. At our current pace, by 2050 we'll have come full-circle with the re-acceptance of the "kick in the face" greeting popular in ancient times. And with any luck, I'll be long dead by then, or at least cryogenically frozen in a threatening pose. Good day.

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