Thoughts from the ammo line

Ammo Grrrll rarely says “can’t,” but here we go: I CAN’T EVEN… She writes:

The useful phrase in this title has come to mean that what follows is so depressing, or just so gosh darn unbelievable, that you lack the will to finish the sentence. “You can’t even” do that much. Some days are like that. In fact, most of them since November.

But, then, I read about the new supermodeling career of Ella Emhoff, who happens to be the stepdaughter of the Vice President of the United States, though I’m sure that’s just a wild coincidence. And I perked right up. Could there be a new career for ME, I wondered? I am not (yet) quite chubby enough to be a “Plus-Size Model,” and I know that the only runway a 4’11” elderly woman is likely to be on is at O’Hare when she has been thrown off the plane for refusing to wear a mask. But this Ella girl has given me new hope.

Because, apparently, the fashion world – like the academic world before it — has abandoned all pretense of any kind of standards. Think Christie Brinkley; think Gisele Bündchen; think the gorgeous and elegant Melania Trump; think a very ordinary-looking, scrawny, sullen waif with hairy armpits and stellar connections. Wait, what? As Morgan Freeman used to sing in The Electric Company, “Three of these things belong together, three of these things are kind of the same…but one of these things doesn’t belong here…”

Now I have seen some very nasty things written about this young woman’s looks and I think there is no point in being cruel, okay, team? She is average-looking and would be prettier if she ever smiled, but smiling is evidently uncool. However, like most of us, a supermodel beauty she is not. Dressing her in the ugliest designer clothing ever produced since top-stitched, polyester leisure suits, and having her flaunt her hairy armpits as some sort of furry badge of courage is just sad. When Dr. Jill eventually employs Tonya Harding to have a little chat with Kamala, poor Ella will be lucky to plug ginzu knives on late-night cable.

First of all, hairy armpits in women have been around since at least the 60’s here in America and are the rule rather than the exception in Europe. The old Olympics – when American athletes were so clueless they were actually proud to represent the United States — would feature the East German women swimmers doing their warmup exercises and exposing their bushy underarms. And not a few of them tried to hide their package in front as well. (Politically incorrect joke from junior high school: “How do you tell the bride at a nonspecific ethnic wedding? She’s the one with the braided armpits.”) See? Hairy armpits are so yesterday.

When 20th century feminism raised a few legitimate inequality issues and a lot of dreadful ideas, it became de rigeur for any radical feminist to the left of, say, Betty Ford, to cease and desist with any attempt at sellout attractiveness – get the crewcut , stop shaving your legs and underarms, and try to smell like a goat. I knew many of these women. They hated men and also hated the women who did not go along with the program, especially the women (sometimes referred to derisively as “The Breeders”) who were still attracted by and, worse yet, ATTRACTIVE TO, icky toxic men. Count me in!

Moving right along, I am sorry to inform dear readers and commenters that my art career in homage to the talented stripper-fancying, coke-snorting, Ukrainian utilities-advising son of the “President,” is evidently not going nearly as well as his career. Not only are my “Tulip Fields Seen from the Bezos Space Penis” collection for $500,000 not moving well, I have not even sold one of my legendary leftover epic Pictionary failures for $50. I’m beginning to fear that without being a son-of-a-B (iden), my art is going to go unnoticed.

The one area where I think I could do well, even without a parental officeholder, is in the arena of voice-over work or, better yet, writing the ads themselves. We like to listen to Pandora while we work. About four times an hour since well before the 2020 Autumn vote harvest, the same tedious ad for Black Lives Matter comes on.

A sanctimonious black woman’s voice alerts us that “Black. Lives. Matter.” Emphasizing and punctuating each individual word, in case we had never heard that sentiment before. Then she exhorts, “Now is the time to take a stand. Now is the time to amplify EVERY black voice in EVERY community.” Really? EVERY single black voice? Jeepers, that’s a boatload of voices that already seem pretty darned amplified, shrieked even, to the point of tediosity.

She goes on to say that “Since 1879” Pillsbury United Communities has been promoting “societal and generational change” with extremely vague but impressive-sounding stuff like “programs”, and “social enterprises.” Wow! That’s 142 years! You’d think they would have solved any problems by now with all those “programs” and, if they haven’t, I am very skeptical that my giving them more money is going to get the job done.

I think the very definition of “insanity” is doing the same thing over and over again and getting the same failing result. So it’s possible that 142 years of even the most well-intentioned “programs” and “social enterprises” are actually making things worse. Here are my ideas. I may be a failure as a runway model; I may be a failure as a commercial artist. But I am a happy person who knows EXACTLY what to do to succeed in life and I am willing to share these ideas gratis with the lady constantly interrupting my Pandora:

Stay in school; pay attention; learn enough either to go on to more school or to work.

All work is noble. Show up on time. Work hard. Get paid. Save as much as you can.

Do not drink alcohol to excess; do not do drugs at all.

Selling drugs is deliberately promoting and profiting from an insidious form of SLAVERY.

Do not be a criminal. It isn’t nice and will corrode your soul.

If possible, get married to a loving person and THEN make as many babies as you can support.

You were never a slave and nobody alive ever owned one.

ALL LIVES MATTER.

There, Pillsbury. Fixed it for you. You should maybe stick to making excellent flour and abandon social engineering. Mine is a proven “program” that works about a thousand times better than the much-vaunted “Midnight Basketball.” Who needs MONEY for that? You got a ball, you got a hoop. That’s it. We kids of the 50’s played “8 p.m. basketball” until you couldn’t see the ball or until our parents called us in. For the love of God, at midnight, young people should be studying or asleep. But, if you want to contribute to a grifter buying more California real estate for herself, be my guest. Just not with any of my money.