The Big Easy Heads East (Satire) by Norman Ball
The Big Easy Heads East
by Norman Ball
When New Orleans blues rose up on cloven hooves to become a corporate profit center, it should have been clear to all watchful souls that the devil had indeed acquired Prada shades. Verily, all hope was lost. Every good little bourgeois knows it takes Midwestern Methodists like Hillary Clinton to raise a village-for-the-ages and sixty-minute waits for a table at the Decatur Street House of Blues does not even come close Bubba.
Not if Mother Nature has anything to do with it anyway…
That’s why, reeling from the latest BP oil spill a mere five years after the catastrophic Katrina disaster, the State of Louisiana is considering geographical secession from the U.S. and a rapprochement with its old colonial benefactor, France, at a location approximately 300 nautical miles due-west of the Canary Islands. Constitutional scholars and geologists are divided on the feasibility of such a move.
This intrepid reporter found presently-charismatic-though-soon-to-be-paranoiac-island-strongman-in-waiting Governor Johnson in rare form. "The shrimp’s gone. The gumbo’s dead in the water. It’s a bad neighborhood on the butt-end of a photo-op. Plus we're tired of American Presidents overflying our misery and playing sock-puppet to the devastation. Relocation to the eastern Atlantic puts us beyond the reach of Air Force One, tropical weather patterns and deep-sea drilling." Johnson continued, "That Sarah Palin can’t find France on a map only provides an added benefit." Asked what the national food would be for the new island-state, the Governor huffed, "freedom fries…and South of France crawdaddies"
Before lapsing into all the usual French clichés, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers expressed his department's position on the transoceanic move in unusually salty terms. "We busted our asses on that new network of levees, not realizing that levee was a French word. If secession happens, then I guess it's water under the bridge. But they’re not getting our flotilla of camouflage-green barges. I say, send them up the gulfstream without a paddle."
To be sure, the logistical challenges are daunting. Al Qaeda munitions experts are expressing skepticism that sufficient IED’s can be assembled and placed along the Arkansas, Texas and Mississippi borders to dislodge Louisiana from its neighboring states. However they’re more than willing to help with the covert manufacture of said munitions. In the words of one operative, el Hussein “Pedro” Katani “we have a hundred crossing points along the Rio Grande.”
As even the most geographically challenged high school student will attest, no state in the U.S. has ever physically extricated itself from the continental shelf of the Union; though reportedly Maine will be monitoring Louisiana's progress with keen interest.
Preaching characteristically against the choir, the Right Reverend Pat Robertson is not one whit surprised. “Next to Haiti, Louisiana is the worst place for voodoo and black magic. I swear to God you can’t choke your chicken down there for fear it’ll be fondled by some High Priest in a Santeria ceremony. Inflicting Job-like misery on Louisiana’s already-poor and destitute is a sure sign of God’s retributive hand. I saith, let Carla Bruni have ‘em. We’ve got bigger catfish to fry.”
When New Orleans blues rose up on cloven hooves to become a corporate profit center, it should have been clear to all watchful souls that the devil had indeed acquired Prada shades. Verily, all hope was lost. Every good little bourgeois knows it takes Midwestern Methodists like Hillary Clinton to raise a village-for-the-ages and sixty-minute waits for a table at the Decatur Street House of Blues does not even come close Bubba.
Not if Mother Nature has anything to do with it anyway…
That’s why, reeling from the latest BP oil spill a mere five years after the catastrophic Katrina disaster, the State of Louisiana is considering geographical secession from the U.S. and a rapprochement with its old colonial benefactor, France, at a location approximately 300 nautical miles due-west of the Canary Islands. Constitutional scholars and geologists are divided on the feasibility of such a move.
This intrepid reporter found presently-charismatic-though-
Before lapsing into all the usual French clichés, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers expressed his department's position on the transoceanic move in unusually salty terms. "We busted our asses on that new network of levees, not realizing that levee was a French word. If secession happens, then I guess it's water under the bridge. But they’re not getting our flotilla of camouflage-green barges. I say, send them up the gulfstream without a paddle."
To be sure, the logistical challenges are daunting. Al Qaeda munitions experts are expressing skepticism that sufficient IED’s can be assembled and placed along the Arkansas, Texas and Mississippi borders to dislodge Louisiana from its neighboring states. However they’re more than willing to help with the covert manufacture of said munitions. In the words of one operative, el Hussein “Pedro” Katani “we have a hundred crossing points along the Rio Grande.”
As even the most geographically challenged high school student will attest, no state in the U.S. has ever physically extricated itself from the continental shelf of the Union; though reportedly Maine will be monitoring Louisiana's progress with keen interest.
Preaching characteristically against the choir, the Right Reverend Pat Robertson is not one whit surprised. “Next to Haiti, Louisiana is the worst place for voodoo and black magic. I swear to God you can’t choke your chicken down there for fear it’ll be fondled by some High Priest in a Santeria ceremony. Inflicting Job-like misery on Louisiana’s already-poor and destitute is a sure sign of God’s retributive hand. I saith, let Carla Bruni have ‘em. We’ve got bigger catfish to fry.”
Norman Ball received a BA from Washington and Lee University and an MBA from The George Washington University. His plans for follow-on study were derailed when an academic watchdog group falsely accused him of stalking the Father of Our Country. He currently lives in a tin shack adjacent to Mount Vernon with his English sheep dog, Martha.
No comments:
Post a Comment