Make Love to Johnny Law, Not War

Skirmishes between policemen and citizens are nothing new. Why, it seemed a daily occurrence that the local constable would rap at my door to accuse me of shorting the neighborhood prostitute her rightful pay. Pauper to president, we relished these tussles. Grover Cleveland famously said of the Haymarket Riots, “Jolly good fun, too bad I bet on the police!”

[Thanks to the Haymarket Riots I only had to pay my workers in pipe tobacco]

Yet this recent and most tame spat between an officer and University man has garnered a grave response from the president, which has beguiled him with much grief from your media (Speaking of which, who needs both an “Op” and an “Ed,” anyway?)

To ensure you don't get pinched in your vestibule, I have drafted some helpful tips for dealing with lawmen:

1) Compliment the constable’s mustache. Its thickness, its auburn hue, the way whistle spittle glistens on it like moonlit raindrops on a thatch roof. These will all do.

[Sir, your lip hair is so magnificent I can't promise I wont pleasure myself to the thought of it later]

2. If he be a bachelor, offer him a drink. If he be married, offer him two!

[Women drive men to drink]

3. Give his horse a carrot. If he does not have a horse, give him yours. If you do not have a horse, that means you are probably an immigrant and will be arrested no matter what you do.

[Be as intimate as possible whilst awarding his steed with said carrot]

4. Remind him that you are a wealthy landowner. Follow this with a clear explanation of the proven and trusted dynamics of social Darwinism.

[Keep procreating, wealthy men!]

Congratulations! You got out of that jam like a congressman’s son gets out of the Philippine-American war.

(NOTE: These tips only work if you are white.)

Sleep Well, Popular Music King

The recent death of your King of Popular Musicians has led to a surprisingly long two week mourning period. Forgive me for being brash, but in the 1860’s a mother’s allotted window for grieving her newborn child’s passing was a swift forty five seconds, or as long as it took to re-impregnate her. Whichever came first. Huzzah! Double entendre!

[Verbal joust!]

I was preparing to mock your century’s queasiness over death, but as I began to examine the works of Mr. Jackson, I too felt myself a tad enchanted by the lad.

His Songs Had Words



Revolutionary! And words about things other than riverboat travel! In my day, when an artist wanted to convey that he was “Bad,” he had to keep his harpsichord on the angered side of G minor. Your Michael Jackson was able to achieve the same result with mere words and the occasional out-of-court settlement. Brilliant!

Dancing without the aide of tap shoes.



I love a St. Louis Toodle-oo Cramp Roll as much as the next chap, but Mr. Jackson’s rhythmic gyrations were the first dance steps I have seen without the accompaniment of specialized shoes. And his crotch grabbing was the fiercest I’ve seen since a bachelor’s exit from an Irish house of ill repute.

Zippers!
Look at all those zippers! I had previously only seen them adorning riding boots, but on a jacket? After months in the year 2009, I finally feel like I am in the future.

What is most astounding is that this lad who was so renown, so often in the public’s keen eye, somehow managed to stay out of trouble and keep his reputation sterling.

We all can only hope for the same.

Rest in peace, you King of Men.

Advice from Putnum Monthly's "Best Dressed Man, 1889"

Back in my prime, I was regarded as quite a sublime dresser. In fact, I was the first man ever to not wear a hat.

[The fellows were not laughing when they saw six strands of flowing silver hair!]

My other sartorial pioneering includes winter coats that rose above the ankle and toning it down to merely three-piece suits in the summer.

Your century could learn a thing or two from a dashing, fashion-forward squire like myself. While I’m here I might as well pass judgment on your moderne stylings. Follow thoroughly or else you might be red-in-the-face wearing last fall’s morning coat!


Whoa there, Mr. Casual! I see one of your famous music-men, Kenneth West, thinks he can gallivant around town without a vest. There’s so much shirt exposed here I don’t know whether to avert my gaze or direct him to the nearest bathhouse!


Oh dear. I don't care how famous you are, Mr. Lopez, words and pictures are meant for railway advertisements and socialism newsletters—not “T” shirts.


I can’t help but bellow a hearty laugh, but you must admit seeing a lady in men’s swimwear is an almighty hoot! Pity for her, she will have to pay the full men’s fare at the boardwalk this summer!

Econ-Oh Me Oh My!

It seems as if you folks are exhibiting much vexation over the state of your various monies. Not to be bashful, but I was a sound investor in my day. Couple that with my child-employed and ran salt mines, and I acquired a fortune in the millions. A million-aire in my day was, in essence, wealthier than God’s boss.

["Hey God, just a reminder: when I send out company-wide emails don't hit 'reply all' unless you want everyone to see."]

I was merely the son of a college professor yet I came to be one of the wealthiest chaps in the Middle West. Follow my guide and you too can be rolling in Morgan dollars like E.H. Harriman.

[E.H. Harriman: Could run a railroad but could not impregnate his wife]

Invent!
It is a dandy way to make some copper pennies. You could create time-stamped railroad nails. Or an aeroplane. Possibly even a time-machine, should you have the wit.

My apologies, but I have already invented all these things!

[Time-stamped railroad nails, reason #247 why I am the fucking man]

Invest!
Namely, invest in Chanute Bros. Wood Preservation Co.

[No-body keeps wood like the Chanute Bros.!]

Marry into wealth!

Sure, the shabby lasses have the comliest bussom, but they can’t pay your carriage fair to Kansas City, am I right lads?

[I'm going to need you to blow out every last candle and keep the hat on]

Rape the third world!
The delicious tea you are drinking, the rubber on your stamps, those diamonds encrusted in your cane; they all came from honest, hard-working colonizers who weren’t afraid to get their hands dirty while committing mass atrocities that will take centuries to heal.

[It just tastes better when it's made against their will]

When you are sporting the flashiest fawny at the next ball, you'll have your pal Octave Chanute to thank! And if someone offers to sell you a bridge for your newly-acquired wealth, take it! Bridges are fantastic investments.

Abstain!

It looks as if the daughter of your former candidate for vice presidentress has found herself in quite a fix. She has been going from tele-vision program to tele-vision program with her child on her lap promoting abstinence, assuring that it is a dandy way to prevent pregnancy. Why, that is like someone who had a piano fall on them travel around under-neath said piano declaring gravity is a hoax!

[A vice presidential candidate would never be allowed to even have a daughter in my day, it was a sign of weak seed]

She and her huntress mother cite religion. Poppycock! I come from a time when men thought the devil be responsible for sunsets, but if his mistress' belly swelled you’d better believe he sent her on the next oceanliner to Europe for an abortion.

[Ah, Paris, capital of romance. Not to mention the quietest abortions this side of Alsace-Lorraine!]

Look at the picture of me on the left of your screen. I looked like that in my twenties and spent all my time designing bridges, yet I still couldn’t stay abstinent.

[If the one with the bird cage telegrams asking for me, I'm not here]

Of course you can follow the scripture and guide of the bible, but the last time I checked that’s the same book with a character who’s 969-years-old.

[Fuck Yeah!]

Damn You, Swine!

Forgive me for turning up my nose (pun fitfully intended!) at your “pandemic,” but 109 cases of swine flu in one household did not stir alarm in my day.

[Surgeons didn’t even wear these in 1909. However, one did have a 90% chance of dying in surgery]

Your swine flu seems more like a mild case of typhoid than the premier hog-related ailment of my time: full-on pig-transformative syndrome. If one contracted PGS, he would literally turn into a boar. Why, Grover Cleveland’s Secretary of State James G. Blaine was a pig for the last two years of his tenure.

[Blaine modified the Clayton-Bulwer treaty to include “slop, much slop”]

I hear your cries: “Dear Octave, how do you manage to stay so fit whilst the masses are peaked amongst you?” Be not afeared, for I have a few helpful remedies.

Blood-letting:
I just went through a two-hour session myself, and huzzah! I feel tremendous. Accompanied with gin assures a deep and satisfying slumber.

Burn tar:
In a large (45 cubit) container, set tar ablaze and inhale the fumes. Also works for shortness of breath.

Lavender:
Eat it, smoke it, rub it on your skin. This shit is the best!

Psyllium seed husks:
Provides for rapid, painful, and often purple defecations. Not a cure, but I just love the taste.

On my word, if you follow these remedies you will be as happy as a pig in shit! Inappropriate, I know, but it is the only colloquial allusion I have picked up.

Man Alive, Pirates!

Curious twenty-first century citizenry are begging to hear my opinion on the matter, and yes, I too am surprised at the recent increase of pirate-based intrigue. Blackbeard and the like were the subject of children’s tales in my day, and nary did I hear of real-life algerines. I salute the naval sealmen (who seem to be the result of twisted, Gregor Mendel-inspired cross-breeding) that smote the maritime bandits.

[What a cozy-looking pirate, all wrapped in fleece]

What I am most perturbed by in these swashbuckling tales is the presence of a plague I dedicated so much of my life to eradicating: boats. Come on! I pioneered the strut-wire braced wing structure for a God damned reason—that all travel from thereon out would be of the aeronautical persuasion. Why the hell are you still using these floating death traps?

[Boats were invented 40,000 years ago, which unsurprisingly coincides with the advent of homosexual intercourse]

I didn’t hold the International Conference on Aerial Navigation at the World’s Colombian Exposition just so one hundred years later people would still be loafing around on some rusty, buoyant piece of excrement.

[So close, halfway there]

It has also come to my attention that your president is going to spend billions of dollars on American railroads. Don’t misinterpret my wrathy disposition; I worked with and very much enjoyed trains—in eighteen sixty fucking seven!

["Goodbye, all of Octave Chanute's hard work and genius towards the progress of flight"]

All I hear is guttersnipes kicking about complaints when asked about aerial travel. “I have to pay fifteen dollars for a checked bag,” “they make me take my shoes off at security,” “the food is bad.”

YOU JUST TRAVELED AT 500-MILES PER HOUR IN A 200,000 POUND METAL TUBE FROM CHICAGO TO NEW YORK, QUIT YOUR PESTULANT WHIGNING.

[What's the deal with Jewish comedians making fun of efficient, expedient, aeroplane travel?]

How long would it take in a boat? Oh yes, pardon my forgetfulness, YOU COULDN’T MAKE THE VOYAGE IN A BOAT.

But yes, bully job quelling those pirates.

Zounds, Failure!

What a dreadful day! My last correspondence was written with much hope, for I was led to believe that I would soon have the wealth and means to purchase the cocaine needed to power my time machine for a return to 1909. It seems a cocksure scallywag pulled a ruse; hoodwinking me into thinking he was a descendent of King Arochukwu. It has been nearly four days since I wired funds to be returned twenty-fold, but no response. I can only hope this doesn’t sour US-Obong Okon Ita relations.

[I haven't been robbed like this since I was pick-pocketed whilst gazing at Ferris's Wheel. Rest assured, it was worth it. My Heavens, a wheel that spins!]

To make matters worse, it seems as if Glock Deez, the chap who had arranged the cocaine for parceled delivery, is upset as well. His tone is mightily stern, but I must admit I am having trouble with the dialect. He keeps shouting he is meaning to “clap my ass.”

[Pardon me, Mr. Deez, but I do not own a donkey. Even if I did, I surely would not allow you to give it chlamydia]

Alas, I am stuck in this dreadful year, when everything is horribly awry. I cannot go a minute in 2009 without being utterly confounded.

[A telephone is supposed to be a status symbol!]

I am saddened that I now am doomed to live in a time when an honest traveling salesman can’t hire the services of a lady of the night to placate his loneliness.

[We have all been there, Vincent]

Why, I was a traveling salesman once; I sold elixirs that sent scrotal lesions on their merry way. The only thing that calmed my demons on my journeys was the company an impoverished, sinful dollymop. Although, it must be said the chap made a mistake: he should have known better than to kiss a prostitute!

My Time Machine is Nearly Repaired!

Splendid news, friends! It seems as if my short stay in 2009 is soon to be over. I had a bully of a stay, but I feel I must return to a time when the name Octave Chanute actually carried some water! Heavens, I cannot continue living in an age when a simple Armenian gypsy child is more famous than a prestigious engineer.

[What is the origin of this rubenesque young lady’s notoriety? Fame should be awarded to the deserved, such as skilled marksmen or hotel heiresses]

How have I procured means to return to my erstwhile century, you ask? Allow me to explain. Unlike your modern day mechanisms, my time machine uses neither petroleum nor refined crude oils. To be honest, we only used that crap to light our lanterns and flavor our jams.

[Benjamin Silliman, the first man to distill petroleum. He was a fine man. Did I say “a fine man?” What I meant was, “an untrustworthy, manic-depressive opium addict”]

The genius of my time-traveling device is that it harnesses the power of the medical world’s favorite anesthetic: cocaine!

[I don’t have a toothache, but Goddamn, I could go for some cocaine right about now!]

I must have in my possession three hundred cubic pounds of dried, pressed and processed cocoa leaves to make it back to 1909—with a little left over for a celebratory oral application. Unfortunately, obtaining the needed fuel has proven harder than catching a weasel asleep; every alchemist I have encountered has declined my request or threatened to call the local constable (there must be a limit to how much one depot can administer).

[I apologize, officer, I was merely attempting to purchase cocaine]

Thankfully, a pert young man who goes by the moniker “Glock Deez” overheard my pleas to the pharmacist and has said that he, given some time, can provide me with “the shit I need.”

Huzzah!

Unfortunately, the value of the medicine is $5 million. Although I am unfamiliar with the effects of a century’s inflation, it is surely an amount I do not possess…yet.

Rejoice, for the fates have intervened! A descendent of my old Nigerian cohort, King Arochukwu, has telegrammed to inform me that there is a fortune of millions waiting to be transferred to my accounts!

[I owe you one, King Arochukwu]

Watch this space, for my departure is imminent!

Dubious Acts of YouTubery

O my! I write excitedly of the most marvelous invention: moving pictures without the aid of thumb nor nickel! I had thought I’d seen it all—travelers’ cheques, rubber, cold cereal--until a virtuous child showed me “You Tube.”

[Like we used to say: "look out, bowels, here comes that bullyhoo, shredded wheat!]

Upon exploring this vast and wondrous wilderness, I couldn’t begin to fathom the possibilities that moving photography could offer man. Given a choice, what is the first thing anyone would want to see? Trains, of course! I typed in my inquiry, and discovered this:




HOLY SHIT!

O, my palpitations! As a boy I mistakenly wandered onto the tracks of a Union Pacific freighter, only to be rescued by my best mate Calvin Hayes. I never got to repay young Calvin for his most heroic deed; he died of cholera that winter. O, that reminds me, I played a wondrously humorous ruse on Calvin—I had my Uncle Tobias, who was ill with cholera at the time, defecate in the Hayes family well. I was a regular O'Brien & Havel!

[The bit in which Havel portrayed a courier who couldn't muster the strength to lift O'Brien's trunk had me in raptures!]

To calm my nerves after that most terrifying locomotive collision, I decided to view a flipbook. I loved flipbooks, but nary had room in the budget for such luxuries (despite being the preeminent railroad executive of my time!):



Hilarious!

King Frederick’s ghost! This has garnered 590,000 views! Why, that’s nearly the entire population of Prussia! You can imagine my alarm when I saw that some videos have earned over one hundred million viewers! These must be true feats of creativity and wisdom! Perhaps a dancer whose grace confirms the very existence of God or inspirational words from the nation’s most pious preacher.

I have stumbled across the second most viewed moving image of all time. It is entitled "the evolution of dance" and is billed as “the funniest 6 minutes you will ever see!” My eagerness and joy cannot be contained, commence hilarity!



Why, this is lamest buffoonary I have ever witnessed.

I come from a time when dressing up as a member of a class you didn't belong to was considered the most hilarious thing in the world, and this video still isn't funny.

This fellow is so gay he makes Thomas Edison look like Buffalo Bill Cody! And no, I don’t mean “gay” like “cheery” or “mirthful.” I mean it like this guy is a fucking Nancy.

Your age is truly baffling.

March Madness

Contrary to what you may believe, we had March Madness in my day; it was what we called a particularly feisty springtime syphilis outbreak.

[Somebody invent penicillin and administer it to these young men!]

This tournament of collegiate Basket-Ball appears to be all the rage. I’ve been known to pepper the peach basket, mind you. Of course, we called the game “Duck on a Rock” and it was played on a 1/3 furlong X 32 cubit fairground. The goal wasn’t to score the most points, but rather who could suppress the most factory workers from forming unions.

[The Annapolis Hobgoblins: Nearly ruined the game with their showboating]

Who is my pick to pin the blue ribbon to their tailcoat at this year's “March Madness?”
Arizona. Sounds exotic.

The Polynesian Chap in the White House

Upon seeing me standing next to a broken-down time machine in a petroleum-stained waistcoat shouting, “Please help, I am from the year 1909 and lack devices to return to my age,” one would think most people would ask about my predicament. Instead, I get asked one question, and one question alone:

"How surprised are you that we elected a black president?"

I will have you know I am not surprised one bit! In my day we had two black Senators. Blanche Bruce and Hiram Revels, ever heard of them?

[Hiram Revels: Like Barack Obama, except he never had to worry about earning a single female vote]

These rapscallions ask me if I am surprised they elected a black president, begging for adulation under the guise that it was by their will he became elected. I campaigned for Rutherford B. Hayes, you don’t see me boasting as if I single-handedly earned a Methodist the presidency.

[Three cheers for President Hayes. Take that, Samuel J. Tilden!]

I hear this Obama fellow is from the kingdom of Hawaii. Nobody tell King Kamehameha III that one of his subjects has emigrated to the balmy shores of the Potomac!

[In all seriousness, nobody tell King Kamehameha III. His majesty is a vengeful cannibal]

So I will carry on as I would with a president of any persuasion, for I am just a simple turn-of-the-century industrialist whose time machine is in dire need of repairs.

I am surprised and saddened, however, that you have elected a filthy Irishman vice president.

Greetings, 2009!

Oh my! A rousing number of gentlemen and fair-looking women have shown quite the interest in yours truly.

Perhaps it is my handsome moustache, or my (admittedly) foppish dress. Or, it could be my frantic pleas for help in fixing my time machine, which has broken in your year, 2009.

Alas, I have conversed with many folks, some garish, some obscene in appearance and language, but all terribly curious why the 19th century’s premier civil engineer and railroad executive would want to travel one hundred years into the future. What was I supposed to do, travel 100 years into the past and watch the Battle of Athos? I will allow you time to sew together your terribly split sides.

[The Battle of Athos]

My motives were selfish, I will declare: I wanted to see what honors have been bestowed upon me, Octave Chanute. By the horn spoon! Woe is the lack of recognition for I, chief engineer of the Alton railroad, scribe of Progress in Flying Machines!

[Who is that handsome rube with the flying machine?]

When I introduce myself, men and ladies look most quizzical. Yet, when that sodomite Thomas Edison is mentioned, people swoon as if the butt pirate was Jesus fucking Christ. Yes, we said “butt pirate" and “Jesus fucking Christ” in 1909!

[Fact: Thomas Edison invented the light bulb so he could see his male lovers better at night]

Despite my chagrin, I have found the inhabitants of 2009 hold much curiosity of my thoughts and persona. So, until my time machine is repaired and I can return to 1909, I will bow to your unspoken cries:

"Allow Octave Chanute a forum to discuss current events, modern curiosities, and Octomom!"