My mother Donkette is retired from the defense contracting industry, which along with that other noted industry of death and destruction, The Movie Business, built the shining city on the hill where she lives out her quiet years, just down the street from the 5th generation gangbanger and his mijos, and directly across from the up and coming, not to mention well rehearsed, death metal thrash glam band SuckerFucker.
I only wish Nathanael West had met Donkette before he offed himself. He might still be living out his twilight years with her there in the barcalounger at the end of the courtyard in the crumbling pink stucco shack that in West's time would have been called a "bungalow."
Donkette used to thrive on Benson & Hedges and valium. Today its all media all the time. Donkette has attained a cable induced nirvana. There is no knocking her off stride.
"Hey, ma, cant we watch the basketball game?"
"Is Kobe playing?"
"No."
"Then, sorry dear. Nancy Grace is on Larry King tonite, mud wrestling with Dominick Dunne."
"Dominick Dunne is an old queen. Why can't they get a younger queen, like Shep Smith?"
Donkeytale has no idea about the sexual predilections or pecadilloes of either Dunne or Smith, but he knows that both are exulted in Donkette's pantheon, and that he, her son, is not.
Donkette is used to her eldest son's carping criticism of everything and parries his cynical barbs with ease.
"Didn't you always say you wanted to be a writer and a journalist, dear? How is that going for you these days, dear?"
"Mother, you know damn well that I am an exulted and Important Contributor to the Daily Floss, an online weblog dedicated to the advancement of progressive causes."
Luckily, Donkeytale knows Donkette will never be in a position to actually verify whether he is as successful and noted a blogger as he claims, because Donkette is more likely to take in some horny old codger looking to snooker one last good woman before he bites it and sticks her with the tab for his funeral, than she is likely to ever go online.
Luckily, too, references to blogs and the Daily Floss have appeared on cable news and in Vanity Fairies. For Donkette, mention on FNC or in VF is more important than having your name written in the Book of Life.
Today, Donkette is a little downcast and irritable. She tends to get that way when the news cycle grows stale. There will be so much time to kill before the runaway bugeyed bride stands trial on Court TV...
"There will always be war from now on Mother, so don't worry about it. Nothing keeps the news livelier than a good War, especially one where we are so clearly in the right morally against the evildoers."
"I am sick of this war."
"But Mother, you supported it! Are you backing away because its not going well?"
"No, I am backing away because I'm sick of seeing that Ollie North all dressed up in battle fatigues. The closest to combat he ever came was when his poor wife caught him shacking up with Fawn Hall. That guy should be in jail for what he did to his poor wife AND his secretary."
Note: the facts and opinions expressed by Donkette are her own, and Donkeytale assumes no responsibility for anything comes out of her mouth, ever.
"Mother, might as well face it. Cable News demands fulltime war. Once an audience gets a taste of something good, they can never live without it again. Look at OJ. Now we must have murder trials, celebrity trials nonstop. It will be same with the Iraq war. Now that we have seen war up close and personal via the videophone we will never again want to be without one. Trust me on that, Mother."
"Trust YOU? HAHA. Thats a good one."