SOMEWHERE OVER THE BELTWAY

SOMEWHERE OVER THE BELTWAY

Ancient Tales from the Land of Nod 3

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away in the Land of Nod, King Barry was pondering what to do next. He had temporarily won over the Trolls by besting their champion in match play 5 mulligan’s to 4 (being black Irish, King O’Bama had the obvious advantage having taken lessons from a kinsman, Sir Rory McElroy of the Orange Irish, who just happened to be in town that week).

To succeed in saving Nod, King Barry had to win agreement from the Ogres who lived on the Hill closest to the King’s palace, the white house mentioned earlier. The Ogres were a fractious, ill tempered, unpleasant lot…and that’s when they WERE drinking. The Ogres were sort of like the Delts from “Animal House” with many of their “members” on double secret probation (see John Ensign, David Vitter and the guy with too wide a stance).

When the Ogres were sober, which, fortunately wasn’t often, things really got bad. They’d throw brickbats, bon mots, soliloquies, filibusters, gerrymanders and the occasional Lutheran at the White House, but like most noxious gas, it evaporated before causing much damage, other than grinding the process to a halt.

Like their Troll counterparts under the bridge, Ogres were divided into Right Handed and Left handed. They, too, could not get much done without help from the other hand. Unfortunately one hand usually didn’t know what the other hand was doing, so nothing substantive was accomplished. Because there were only 100 Ogres, each Ogre had more power than the average Troll (1 of 485). He believed he was “entitled,” “special,” “unique,” more easily “bribed” err given campaign contributions with no strings attached “wink, wink, nod, nod.” They usually dressed in Panama hats and Seersucker (the name says it all) suits, unlike the Trolls, who wore little, apparently not caring when they exposed their shortcomings.

The top Ogre was a Left-handed dude named Harry, whose home turf, outside the Beltline, had been founded by three guys named Guido and their “family” (cue music from Godfather 1 here). The “family” figured Land of Nodders would fly 2,000 miles to a god-forsaken desert to throw their shekels, guilders, and Benjamin’s down a rat hole as long as Ye Olde Rat Pack performed and their rooms got comped. And to no one’s surprise, the rat hole in the desert became THE vacation destination for the folks of Nod and the wide world. The “family” got filthy rich, sold out to corporations (read: and you think the “family” are crooks, fugittabodit), and moved to Antigua.

Though Sir Harry was not a “family” member, he definitely kissed a lot of ring (well, I couldn’t very well say ass), ate a lot of ziti, and dressed like he was from Jersey (another mystical land populated with aluminum siding contractors, guys named Antonio and women named “Snookie”). Because of that and a lot of sucking up to the Mormon’s, Sir Harry got to be Top Ogre. He could deliver to King Barry an agreement. But at what cost to our hero? Do the words “get out of jail free card for your “family” buddies under federal indictment” sound familiar?

Tune in next time to find out these and other questions like why is Sir John of Stewart a more trusted news source than Faux News and why is there air, on of Ancient Tales from the Land of Nod in SOMEWHERE OVER THE BELTWAY.