Vic Socotra

30 October 2010

Crazy

(Batman, Robin and Civilian at Willow, Halloween, 2010. Photo Socotra.)

I sometimes complain that I am overcome by what is going on, but this is an extraordinary morning. It is crazy.

The two comedians, liberals, I think, who masquerade as conservatives, are having a rally for sanity on the Mall today. It is a good thing, I think, the whole sanity thing. We need more of that.

It is going to be crazy downtown the whole weekend. The Marine Corps Marathon is tomorrow, thousands of people in town for that, and they are crazy, and there is apparently a disaffected possible ex-Marine out there with a penchant for shooting up buildings.

The DC sniper thing is still too close for comfort, so I am putting that out of my mind for now. There is too much other craziness. Toner cartridge bombs on FedEx airplanes? The Saudis kindly tipped us off on that, since we are not at war with their Sunni government at the moment.

I am not sure about al Qaida on the Arabian Peninsula, who apparently have moved on from weaponizing underwear to Hewlett-Packard office products. Don’t those lunatics know that one of these crazy plots will succeed, and it will make us really cranky?

Think it through. Of course they do. They want us to react. They want more senseless carnage. They will continue to try until they get it.

The President told us, just like the previous President did, to relax and go shopping and carry on like everything is normal. We are supposed to think that some pissant cleric in Yemen or Afghanistan or the isn’t already plotting the next crazy scheme to kill a bunch of us.

So, patriots that we are, we will. I am going to a football game over in College Park today, and was sautéing green and red peppers and onions to garnish the brats and hot Italian sausage for the tailgate at the Maryland-Wake Forrest game. It will be the only football game this season I watch, and for no particular reason except the Admiral has season tickets and the weather looks good.

It was crazy yesterday, too, and we appear to be riding a wave of it. I was Jimmy Olsen, Cub Reporter, at the Fall meeting of the Professionals, in which the Chairmen inked the consolidation of the Foundation (our charitable arm) and the main body of the organization. That is good, I think, and will yield economies of scale.

Which led to the next event on the crazy Friday calendar. I downloaded the photos from the digital SLR Canon I bought to document our collective decline. I stopped by Big Pink to pick up the tunic of an imaginary Marshall of the Red Army that I bought in Moscow, years ago, just after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

I put on the tunic, jingling with badges and pins, a garrison cap festooned with odd enamel relics of the great Socialist Experiment, and then motored back to the office, with the intent to proceed in costume to Willow, for the restaurant's Halloween Party.

There was something very curious about my passage as a Marhall of he Soviet Union from the Bluesmobile up through the Westin Hotel, across the bustling lobby and across the street to our office building.

(Tunic and Garrison Cap. Photo Socotra.)

The Russians who sold me the tunic knew it was a joke- the badges were from sports clubs, not combat, and the hammer-and-sickle was presented in crazy irony. It was an inside commentary on the bankruptcy of the old system, and a self-satisfied testament to my satisfaction in being an instrument of its destruction.

Wearing it on the street, garrison cap and the dark khaki tunic completely covered with jangling enamel badges, khaki shirt and pants, black uniform tie, plain-toe brown shoes, I found that no one even glanced at me as something out of the ordinary.

I suspect that most Americans are so far away from the military and our culture that they just saw someone in a uniform and ignored the collective humor of the Russians and the Yanks who had struggled so mightily and for so long. Irrelevant.

It was pretty crazy at the bar. Sabrina was done up as Ray, from the Japanese Anime Sailor Moon. Jim the bartender was Bob Marley with dreadlocks. Debbie was the Wicked Witch of the West, and Peter was an convincing and muscular Robin, the Boy Wonder.

The busboy Daniel, the diminutive busboy, was a mini-Batman. It was surreal and fueled by exuberance and a certain inspired lunacy.

It may be crazy out there, but only if you think about it.

I think the festivities went on someone else's tab. I hope so. Otherwise Willow will be looking for me next week.