The Quite Bearable Lightness of Being a Jackass

His name is Victor which is kind of a sad name for a jackass. He moved to New York to attend college and never went home again. He wanted to be like all the chic people he saw. He wanted their clothes, their apartments, their lives. He cut his hair, colored it, too. Got a mid level job at a big company which he told everybody was much more important than it really was. "I'm the head of my division," he brayed to anyone who would listen, "My boss is a moron. She doesn't know half of what I do." Years went by and Victor got older. Still for all his striving, he felt had nothing and city life was getting him down. He decided to make some changes. He got some nice pills from his doctor which made him feel better about himself and he opined constantly as an expert on many subjects. Soon friends tired of him. "Look what I can do for you!" he said to empty rooms, "I'm really very important." Alas, Victor never noticed his own buffoonery and was doomed to spend the rest of his days nuzzling against the split rail fences of his own mind.

Fall Fashion: Don't.

I'm not sure which is worse; the woman clinging to the hope of eternal pregnancy or the one who wishes she had hooves.

The Baby Snuggie is tailored-made for the woman who refuses to give up the feeling that comes from being physically attached to another living being. Clearly a wish to forever remain in a self-imposed state of vulnerability and helplessness is behind this sartorial dementia.

The shoes below are from a Japanese website and only a Japanese man can explain the joys of seeing a tiny Japanese woman prance around the house in these little hoof-booties. The rest of us will have to remain blissfully in the dark until then.

Absurd despot.

Some Gamut stories write themselves.

From today's New York Times:

"CONAKRY, Guinea — At the military camp where he makes decisions — he does not care for government buildings — the captain who is president explained why he did not get to the political rally earlier this week that his soldiers turned into a bloodbath. Moussa Dadis Camara, 45, this nation’s erratic new leader, said he could not find the keys to his pickup."

The Times' story clearly showed a military leader who is too inept to attend the slaughter of innocent people that he had ordered and thereby ensured the smug superiority of their readers.

"If I had ordered the killing of dozens or perhaps hundreds of people you can be darn sure that I would have found my car keys and been there!" said Margie Hastings of Medford, NJ.

What the Times failed to explain is why so many African despots have such fantastic sun glasses. Do they take time off from their busy schedules of raping and murdering their own people to go shopping in Paris? The Gamut hereby defies anyone to find a single African junta leader who doesn't own a cool pair of frames.

Photo©AFP