2 cents

Thursday, November 13, 2008
****************************************
JACK S. AVANAKIAN
********************************************
After the first profanity, I stop reading. If you have read one garbage-mouth anonymous Jack S. Avanakian, you have read them all. They might as well be xerox copies of one another.
*
Never call a self-assessed Armenian genius an inbred moron. If you do, he will be so blinded by hatred that in his efforts to prove you wrong, he will spend the rest of his life proving you right. That's because hatred makes a man stupid, and no one can be as stupid as a self-assessed genius.
*
I remember a friend telling me: “Do you know why there are no famous Armenian mountain climbers? Armenians are jumpers. They want to reach the top with a single jump.”
*
When a fanatic speaks of patriotism, he means love of country and contempt for countrymen who do not share his fanaticism. Give such an Armenian enough power and he will start by exterminating his fellow Armenians before he tackles the Turks.
*
Being Armenian looks easy only in Saroyan’s fiction. In reality it is such a demanding enterprise that most Armenians give up the effort and assimilate, and I for one do not blame them.
*
There is a type of Armenian who thinks just because he is an Armenian he is also an expert in Armenian affairs, which is like saying, just because an elephant is an elephant he is also an expert in zoology. Did I say elephant? Make it jackass.
#
Friday, November 14, 2008
****************************************
MY TWO CENTS
********************************************
The worst way of solving a problem is by silencing those who speak of it.
Likewise, the only way to be positive is by ignoring or covering up the negative.
If I am classified as negative it may be because the only way to be positive in our environment is by lying. And the beauty about political lies is that more often than not you don't even have to invent them, it will be done for you.
*
“The Russians are our Big Brothers.”
“Mer hairenik, azad angakh.”
“We are Armenians!”
I have always wondered what the hell that meant.
“We are all Armenians!”
Odian makes fun of that one in his COMRADE PANCHOONIE: “'We are all Armenians, we are brothers. Why can't we live together? Why must we fight?' That filthy bourgeois kept repeating, not being able to comprehend that conflict is the basic condition of life...'” thus Panchoonie in one of his regular reports to the Central Committee that invariably end with the immortal punch line: “Mi kich pogh oughargetsek,” which is now the favorite mantra of our dime-a-dozen fund raisers.
“Mart bidi ch'ellank!”
I see more truth in that punch line than in all the speeches and sermons delivered by our windbags.
*
When told to “give them hell,” an American presidential candidate (may have been Truman) is quoted as having said: “I don't do that. I tell them the truth and they think they are in hell.”
You may now draw your own conclusions.
#
Saturday, November 15, 2008
****************************************
ASSH***/s
********************************************
When Nixon called Trudeau “an assh***” Trudeau is said to have commented: “I have been called worse names by better people.” Meaning: If I can survive the verbal abuse of good men, why should I give a damn what riffraff think of me?
*
The eminent Canadian poet Irving Layton on his critics: “Just because they have an assh*** they think they are entitled to an opinion.” He delivered this line to an audience of librarians, schoolteachers, and students.
*
For a year I worked in a chain of department stores, first as a stockboy then as an assistant to a manager who expected me to adopt him as a role model. Once he bragged about being the youngest manager in the history of chain stores in Canada. Shortly thereafter Wal-Mart drove our chain stores out of business.
*
“You are a fool,” a gentle reader informs me. I suspect this reader will hang himself on the day he decides to read a wise writer. But if history teaches us anything it is that when a truly wise man appears, all the assh***s of the world conspire against him. Perhaps I owe my survival to my limitations.
*
There is a new book out titled DO ANTS HAVE ARSEHOLES? -- AND 101 OTHER BLOODY RIDICULOUS QUESTIONS. (The answer, by the way, is yes, they do.)
*
I for one do not underestimate the cunning of fools – after all, they run the world.
#