\n I wonder if\u00a0Japanese people look around American streets and get a kick
\nat the number of import cars. Do they take a certain pride knowing that
\ntheir people built all these things and, now, they dominate our
\nculture? I know I would. I’d be thinking Ho-ho. Got you round-eye. You
\nfirebombed my grandmother, several times. Then you nuked her. Then you
\nraped her for 50 years. Ho-ho, indeed, motherfucker.<\/p>\n
My grandfather fought the Japanese, but he didn’t get the chance to
\nfirebomb anyone. He wishes he did, but it just didn’t work out that
\nway. They did torpedo his ship, though, and he’ll rant about that. In
\nfact, all you need do is use the word “torpedo” or “Japanese” in a
\nsentence and he’ll launch into his “dirty yellow bastards” monologue
\nwhich, strangely, is quite amusing. You know – five dollar hookers,
\nmachine gunning Japanese submariners, torpedoes, planes with prop
\nengines, the world at war. That sort of stuff doesn’t happen anymore,
\nso the stories are rather quaint.<\/p>\n
Grandfather: And then we machine gunned 47 defenseless people and
\neveryone pissed into the water. Then old Shanks jumped in and started
\ncollecting ears! Har-har-har-har!<\/p>\n
Me: Jesus! Fuck! Holy God!<\/p>\n
The world before the media rampage is what it was. That’s why the
\nBritish Empire held on as long as it did – no CNN and no home video
\nfootage of little boys being cut in half with a sharpened spoon.<\/p>\n
My grandfather blames his bad hearing on that torpedo. He was deaf for
\ntwo weeks after the thing went off. After spending some time in the
\nocean, as well, he holds a fear of swimming in large bodies of water.
\n“Sharks” he’ll mutter, staring down at an indoor Olympic-sized swimming
\npool. He also blames his cancer on the secret work he did for the first
\nnuclear sub, shortly after the war. Apparently, it was a common joke to
\nleave Uranium in people’s lunch boxes.<\/p>\n
I should mention that he doesn’t have cancer. He says he has it, but Not a new idea. My entire family believes that everything is “So, I saw little Johnny take a pill the other day. He took them during the sleepover, too.”<\/p>\n “Oh, yes, well… Johnny has a congenital heart condition.”<\/p>\n “Really? I see, I see… And is it a threat to the other children?”<\/p>\n “Well, it’s…it’s hereditary…”<\/p>\n “Really?”<\/p>\n And, of course, I would never be allowed to interact with little Johnny again.<\/p>\n In high school, when my friend’s father died from an unexpected stroke, Nobody in my family fears death – in fact, we welcome it as, finally, Grandfather: And they’re all child-rapers and deviants because, you Everyone else at the table: (Horrified silence)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[352],"tags":[353,397],"class_list":["post-2452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gsarchive","tag-gs-archive-2004-2008","tag-rants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2452"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2886,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452\/revisions\/2886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nit’s dormant. It’s waiting for “just the right moment.” He’ll be 80
\nnext fall, so I’m not sure when the right moment will be. He says it’ll
\nstrike him whenever he’s “in the middle of something that finally makes
\nme happy.” As a consequence, he’s kind of like the Angel<\/em>
\ncharacter of our family – he must avoid a moment of pure happiness in
\norder to keep the cancer away. Further, he’s advised us all that cancer
\nis contagious and we, too, should avoid happiness and success.<\/p>\n
\ncontagious. When I was growing up, if any of my friends had something
\nwrong with them, they’d be taken off the board right away. I was
\nforbidden to socialize with them. Anyone who had a health defect had to
\nbe removed from the equation. My mom would even try to whittle out
\nhealth details when talking to other parents.<\/p>\n
\nI was forbidden to visit my friend for six months lest I “catch the
\nstroke.” I wasn’t at risk, of course, but I might become a “stroke
\ncarrier.” It was believed that, if I were exposed, I would put
\neverybody over the age of 50 at risk. Shake their hand and – bang! —
\nstroked out. Typhoid Mary, meet Stroke Nacho.<\/p>\n
\nan end to the meaningless nightmare of life. Jesus Christ, it’ll all be
\nover, then. And fuck having to worry about money or working or anything
\nelse. FUCK YOU IRS! That’s the general attitude throughout my family.
\nThe trouble is, death should come naturally. Death caused by someone or
\nsomething else is unacceptable. Stroke, cancer, murder, car accident,
\nheart attack… These are all things that represent weakness and we, by
\nGod, are not weak. Dying like that is for the poor, the unfortunate,
\nthe heathens, the lower classes. The dirty, yellow bastards can all die
\nlike that, writhing in radiation misery while their skin sloughs off.
\nBut someone in my clan? Oh, no, no. We’re going to live till we’re 112,
\npossibly pull off various criminal acts involving lots of money and
\nflawless escape plans, force our 20 year old nurse to strip down for us
\nthen get killed in a machine gun duel with a dirty, child-raping
\nRepublican.<\/p>\n
\nknow, they freed the slaves and all. If there’s one thing worse than
\ndirty yellow bastards running around, it’s having nigras think they’re
\nfree. Goddamnit, I can’t believe… Would you pass the mashed potatoes?
\nThanks. I can’t believe they let them nigras get away with all this
\nshit today! Is that cranberry sauce? Right, I’ll have some. And the
\nKrauts. Well, I liked those fucking bastards. They had panache! A noble
\narmy! Powerful! They wouldn’t have swallowed all this shit that the
\nNips and the nigras are shoveling out! What’s for desert? Pumpkin pie?<\/p>\n