The Laboring Men

Fine; it's been a year.

And where have I been, you say? You want your apology? For all your pain and your life that isn't my damn fault, dammit? You want your blankey, for God's sake? Fine. Let's just say that myself and The Dutch came to an understanding between gentlemen.
After making a substantial donation to their organization, I was allowed to leave my filthy garrett in The Hague, to decamp to Bad Spa, in Germany. Despite the name, it is actually quite good, as most German things are.

As a condition of The Agreement, I no longer have to do this. I am doing this out of the goodness of my heart and because I am honor-bound to do so. I don't believe I've ever seen any of You People do the same for Me! You act like you invented Ethics, or something. I did that, you bastards!

Now, it has been brought to my attention that there are some of you out there who feel that I have used the rest of you badly, in my efforts to acquire Wealth. That maybe those of you who did The Digging didn't really get what you might have, considering what fortunes were made. Well, I would gladly have given you a Christmas Party. That doesn't mean you had to...Oh God...

WHY MUST YOU TRADE-UNIONIZE? It is unconscionable to me that this arrangement we had would be unacceptable to you! We were like Family, with Me the Father and you The Help! Don't you remember the Good Old Days, when we made hay while the sun shone and at Midnight as well? A lot of good people got rich, and a lot of You People were employed!

And right about the time when you were going to get everything you asked for -no, no sense it looking for it now: you spoiled it- you just had to go and Syndicalize, didn't you? The Market would have eventually got around to you. It's smarter than you, and knows what you need. It just does not do to have you get it too soon.

So, profit-sharing, the forty-hour work-week, "benefits"? Child-rearing leave? Not having eight-year-olds mining coal? A Pilates dungeon in every break room? Breaks? You wanted these things? Well, why didn't you ask? It's this kind of immature behavior on your part that makes us get in fights like this, and I'm sorry that you feel you need to be this way about it.
No; if the only way that I am to lose complete control is by ceding minor aspects of control to some damned Intermediaries, I will simply locate my plants on Ursa Major. I can do that, you know.

No, no. Your destiny and Mine is intertwined, and have always been as such. I can no longer leave this place that provided us with Uranium and Plutonium than you can turn your back on cheap domestic Brew. You and I are stuck here together, and we may wish to make some sort of entente cordiale. It is mandatory at a minimum that I keep things being dug up and turned into other things, then packaged in some sort of way and thence conveyed to a marketplace. You? You need...TO STOP COMPLAINING, IS WHAT YOU NEED TO DO!
No: you need to put food on your families, and take them to the World of Disney. You need to continue to make babies. Please stop engaging in activities that do not result in the making of babies, in fact. For this, I recognize that you must eat. Then, the babies are born, and then they must eat! Would you like a job making Food? I hear tell that it's a growth industry!

Some break time has been designated as a thing that may keep a person healthy enough to go back to work. You need a Vacation! It is said too that war is good for the soul/Economy. Please stop engaging in things that might make a person not want to go to war. War makes jobs, and people always breed more right after them. And please: take a break, why doncha? Take a load off!

I respectfully request that you stop telling me what to pay you. I know- Feudalism remains a fresh memory in many of your minds, as does Slavery. This does not mean that you need to bleed dry your Papa, Who Loves You Very Much. I made a place for you to come and be. To do, and I'm not certain that you would have gone and done that on your own. It's possible that I know more than you do: just entertain the option.

We are two sides of a coin that I own more of; let's put it that way. No, let's don't put it that way. Perhaps let it be said instead that The Unions are just an extension of Me. They take from you to fight Me, or so they say. They are often in talks with Management/ are an extention of Management/ Are Management? Perhaps. It would seem that all things eventually turn into something that I can work with.

Not to say that you shouldn't do it! No, no! You should trade-unionize all you want! Chant slogans! Wave signs! Form a picket! Whatever it is You People do when you're not fighting wars and making babies!
Just remember who gave you Labor Day. Just remember who gave you everything you asked for... Eventually, after a lot of litigation.

Remember who stopped lynching you, finally. Castrating your wives and whatnot (I'm sorry if that wasn't exactly what happened: My Thugs don't often get specific about exactly what it is they do in order to see to it that Copper gets smelted, for example). Recall if you will that these days the Government is forcing you to Eat Healthy. I enjoyed sausage the way it was made in the 1890's, but hey- The Law's The Law, right?

No, you just go and do your little thing now. The check's in the mail. I'm sorry, but at least you're not Chinese.

The Earth

You know, one of the most shameful, sissified, short-pants aspect of this whole damn thing I have to do here is having to apologize to people who diddled me every bit as bad as I did them. To wit: this week's apology, which is addressed to someone I spent far too many years With, if you will.

That's right: The World Court is far, far more cruel than even The Divorce Lawyers. They have me apologizing to someone between whom they and I, more than a little water has gone under the bridge. I apologize for how sloppy that last sentence was, but dammit, I'm flummoxed here! And apoplectic with rage! My ex-wife is suing for recognition by the highest court located on Her, and I'm just going to say it right here: To all who know her, shit of this sort comes as no surprise.

Gaia and I had what you'd call Love At First Sight, if such a thing existed, much less back then, when very little existed at all. Oh, but there were rather a lot more stars in those days, as some rotten poet once chose to put it, and so we have this Marriage of Inconvenience that we're discussing the fallout from here, today.
After the Honeymoon period was over (what geologists refer to as the Pre-Cambrian, I believe), we both set our eyes on what we each had wanted. She wanted children, I wanted Mineral Wealth. So at first, we seemed to have mutual needs and gain. Oh, if only I'd seen what was coming next.

We had The Kids; a slovenly sort who were indeed just the right type of creature for the inevitable plowing of the soil and digging deep inside My Wife for The Mineral Wealth...And little else. Their intellectual capacity was somewhere on the scale of Zero to None, and I suppose that what happened there is no great surprise.
It's hard for kids not to bond more deeply with their mother, it turns out, according to The Child Psychologists. Pretty likely that The Teat you suckle will hold a great attraction for You, and you will quickly develop a hard-wired iron connection to whoever's on the other end of said Teat.
So religion, even in its first gleamings, was ugly. The Kids had a great reverence for My Wife, and thought of Me not at all, it seemed. This made me sullen and withdrawn. Also, being the type of person that I am, it made me start scheming and plotting a Vicious Revenge.

As the amount of Offspring grew and grew, there started to occur some mass migrations, eventually leading to people being born where one might suspect no sentient life above The Polar Bear would choose to live. These people born in Hard and Miserable Places were, by definition, Tough Cookies. They were less interested in celebrating this Kind and Giving Mother, which to Tundra Dwellers seems both insane and a Cruel Joke.
This made them so damn angry, in fact, that when they heard about all these half-wits and jokers carrying on down south, in the Warmer Climes, they strapped on their antlered helmets and polished their brass. It was time for some Take-Back.

So you see, the sad story of this Match Made In Hell (where do you think we spent our Honeymoon?) is pretty much The River of Life, which is The Story of Us All. I despise poetic constructions of that sort, especially when used to describe Actual Things, but the "sensitivity training" I have been receiving from the jack-booted ghouls who run this place compel me toward suchlike pettifoggery. I must say such things because I must say such things.

I hate her, she hates me. I despoil and tear cruelly within her, leaving her hollow, and she sends tsunamis and earthquakes. I rip off the top of mountains seeking The Mineral Wealth and a place to put more roads, she gives me Ebola. It just goes on and on this way, and shall until we all die, choking on disposable diapers at last. I don't make the rules.
Well, some of the time I do. But when dealing with The Feminine Principal writ large, as Gaia is, one must be prepared to deal with emotional blackmail of a sort that should frankly be made illegal. (To be truthful, I have long striven to actually make that particular personal wish come true.) Her mood-swings were a thing of wonder and horror, but nonetheless I stood staunchly by, bringing home The Bacon, and wondering idly what Venus was doing this week. She no doubt had similar thoughts about Vulcan, or somebody.

After so long, the admirers of The Mother have made a resurgence of sorts, but it hardly matters. Such minor betrayals are part and parcel of being who and what I am. Besides, by their nature, they are marginal, and marginalize themselves: I scarcely need to care.
For I am The Father, and played a large role in the birthing of The Son. And I don't care to get into what The Holy Spirit actually is (cough Profit cough). At various points in His-story (hey...), there will be revolts against Me and my campaigns of outright brutality mixed with coercive market manipulation. But look here: people are, by their nature, Me. They don't know any other way, and think it's natural. They love a strong leader, and hate a smart one.

So, if self-appointed bureaucratic types from amongst The Dutch (what promise they showed, early on, for what disappointments they are now!) wish to put me through some sort of charade of kissing Mommy's Titty, then fine. I bow before you, O Great Ladyship, and will celebrate each hairy mole on your hideous visage. Lunch Lady of The Universe, I swear to you my undying fealty, despite how little you actually deserve it.

I'm sorry, Gaia, and as always, the check's in the mail.

The Other White Men

I got a letter from The Amish, the other day. I opened it and read it, and said they were bastards.What in the living hell did I ever do to them? Nothing, goddamn it; Nothing. But on the other hand, that's what happens when you ring the big triangle that says: The line for the Victim's Trough forms over here! Come n' Git It! All of a sudden, you have all sorts of people who haven't had that bad a go of it, really, when you consider. They just understand that Victimhood has a certain cachet to it...And it's profitable.

That's why I'm not taking any goddamn more chances with this thing. Some of you have lawyers! And maybe the worst thing that ever happened to you was feeling a little sorry about something sometime, but that's neither here nor there, friend. I apologize: that's why I'm here.

So I say to Other White Men: from the bottom of my tired old heart, I'm so very sorry. Can you please forgive me? Where shall I begin?

Oh, maybe giving you a world so very suited to your very existence that it causes others to resent you automatically, even though you wear The Dreadlocks and really are A Pacifist? But on the other hand, you are what you are, and you want what you want. It turns out that you, my Impastafarian friend, want convenience.

Well, now that you've noticed that entire civilizations perish whilst you seek your Doritos, and wish to blame someone else for it, please accept my deepest apologies.

Or! Or: you note that perhaps The Earth is suffering, and you wish to score some easy points, causing you to get Laid. Who to blame? Oh, I don't know; Me?

You, my lad, could have been partaking in This Fine-Looking Buffet here, but no: you'd like us all to know how very sensitive you are. Well, congratulations, and welcome. You're no better than Nader, you know.

Oh, and you might well have noticed that you have somewhat less of a life-expectancy than The Women. Allow me to quote from The Romans:

“Fellow citizens, this day at dawn Romulus, the father of this city, glided down from heaven and presented himself before me. As I stood before him awe-struck and abashed and prayed it might be lawful for me to look directly at him,”

(I am sorry. This will pick up in a moment. But you have to admire the orderliness of a man confronted by an apparition from beyond the dead whose only thoughts are of the accepted law on the subject. Read on:)

“He said, 'Go proclaim to the Romans it is heaven's will that my Rome shall be the capital of the world; accordingly they must cherish soldierliness, and they must be assured, and they must transmit to posterity the assurance that no human power can withstand Roman arms'.

“So saying, he departed on high.”

Well, maybe it's the translation that failed to convey my point there. But 'soldierliness' is indeed what we are striving for, and I'd like to thank You as The White Men for going right ahead and being Just That, at all times.

It causes ulcers, heart attacks, insanity (plus the high possibility of actually dying in wars), but such things keep the ship streaming ever triumphantly forward. If you were not exactly that sort of thing that appears insane to so many Others, you would not be where you are today, i.e. Undisputed Master of All You Survey!

To be sure; The Wife doesn't understand you. The Children resent you. You are hated and reviled in those Pygmy Nations elsewhere. You must turn to liquor and whoremongering to quell your rage and well-suppressed doubts, and even those things don't preclude your wandering into The McDonald's with an automatic weapon and liberally peppering the crowd with buckshot. But you are a true hero, and when I hear some of you say that both biology and nationalism have made you into hulking wrecks, I despair.

Without you, who shall build the chemical plants? The munitions factories? Who would staff the prisons that are necessary for housing the increasing numbers of miscreants? Who would coach the Little League, be Den-Father to Boy Scouts and provide the special teachings to young men that only a member of The Clergy can?

So I say to you on this day: be proud, and never falter! To those who suggest otherwise, question their sexual preferences! Go play football, and ridicule those who would not! Set foot in taverns, and try to entice the woman half your age behind the bar into sexual congress with You! When she fails to respond appropriately, you may then get in A Big Fight with one of your fellows! Then when you are at home (or in the drunk tank), you may tell all how they don't appreciate you at all, and how it's about time that you got a little gratitude around here!

When you are done beating a little gratitude into them, you may nestle your drunken, scarred head against the pillow and dream the dream of a true conqueror. Crying a little, perhaps. Wake up tomorrow and go back to work at The Chemical Plant.

You've Earned It. I'm sorry.

The Gays

You know, I feel like I already dealt with this one-OH! OH! Let's go see:

"The Queers: sorry for how religion has pretty much scotched any chance that you ever had at equal representation both under the law and in everyday life. In particular, those 'Kill A Queer for Christ' bumper stickers: I thought they were rude and ill-mannered.
But a lot of people would say here that white men came up with the whole queer thing, and I'm not saying they're wrong. It's true that some of your monkeys do it too, but it's pretty much expected in the prisons (another one of mine), private schools (ditto) and The Church. So-sorry, and you're welcome (?)."

So anyway, here in my Cell here in The Hague (didn't tell you that part, did I?), I watch a great deal of the Cable Television. It turns out that there's a lot of The Gays.
What can I tell you? I LOVE THEM! It would seem that they were put there just to entertain me with their goofy antics! They're frivolous, and concerned with Shallow Things, and Ill-Informed! Often Jewish! What is there, specifically, that someone like me wouldn't like?
And in the interest of Full Disclosure, I myself have often enjoyed the special love that comes of patronizing Musical Theater, Interior Decorators and Hair Stylists. While I sometimes evinced A Curiosity about such things, I remained A Consumer, above all else.

So what I don't understand is why this is a thing I might be accused of making into a problem. With my Great Love of The Gays, I have given them a place to stay, here among the great majority of Americans. The Goofy Uncle (tm), the Flamboyant Co-worker (R), the Broadway Star with a Penchant for Cravats (patent pending): these things are comedy gold, and our national discourse is the richer for it.
These are My Employees, sir, and I will not stand to see them criticized! They serve Hollywood, Broadway and Burbank in equal measure, and not just as themselves, but as vital Stereotypes which must be maintained!

So many of them in "real" life do it too: it's like they've seen too many movies, plays, musicals and The Television. You'd think, based on my experiences in certain Bars and Coffee Shops, that here indeed were a bunch of little boys who grew up to play the roles they most cherished. But instead of The Cowboy, The Astronaut, The Crusading Lawyer and The Communist Killer, they decided to play the Comic Sidekick. Often Jewish.
By combining everything that is laughable about Men and deplorable in Women, they have given all of us something to both feel Cool in enjoying and also feel Righteous in hating! Another win-win!

Did I, in some way, give rise to the hatred, in the liturgical writings of The Past? No. That was tribal taboos of The Bronze Age (which, I might add, didn't produce nearly enough Bronze to turn A Profit), and the unending stupidity of The Aramaics, who I feel are the ones who really ought to be sitting here rotting in this cell (actually a ComfortInn[tm] Courtyard Suite in Rotterdam-ed.) .
What those people had a problem with was the idea that maybe just maybe there would be less people to work the fields and worship the gods of mud they had fashioned with their own paws, were men to lie with men and so on. Now, what with the fine State Apparatus I have given you, these sorts may adopt! At least in places where The Aramaics don't hold the keys to the State Legislature.

There will always be enough people. I myself figured that out a long time ago. What a Public Figure like myself needs, on the other hand, is enough of the right type of people.
What do I mean? Well, if I may give away a Trade Secret, without economic injustice, there is no Profit. Without an Oppressed Class, there is no potential for Value Added. Like bananas, do you? Would you like to pay what they are worth to some Island Dweller who views them as sacred, then?
No? Well, let's all have cheap bananas for Mister Sir, there. The Lord of the Lounge Chair needs his potassium hit with attendant sugar rush, does he? Well, as it happens, they breed like rabbit monkeys, mister. It's not that they don't have The Gays too (everybody does), but really, they are just Savage Primitives, and for the most part just have The Sex all the time, which statistically produces many Baby Children.
So: taking a bit to long to make my point, perhaps, if white, middle-class, generally college-educated Americans want to make a big deal about what kind of sex-haver they are, fine! They weren't going to work on my banana plantation anyway.

Indeed: they're my accountant. They're the county commissioner I need to woo. They're the advertising executive I work with, and yes, they are my Personal Trainer.
And they are also the Closet-Case Preacher I occasionally need to utilize to win Elections for those who I feel best forward My Agenda. They are the queer-baiting Republican with a fascination for the Public Baths.
And for that, I am so, so sorry.

The Money

Another week, another-YES, I KNOW, DAMMIT! It has been several weeks since my last grovel on the front steps of The Political Correctness. Well, I'll have you know that after my last one, I had some additional apologizing to do to a bunch of nice kids...THE LAWRENCE WELK FAMILY OF STARS STILL LIVING, THAT IS!
Sure: Bob Ralston at the Yamaha Organ and Victor Kesner with the Magic Stradivarius are gone, but there would seem to be a legion of formerly young Gals who host the rerun show every week, and quite without meaning to, I brought a tear or two to their highly-made up eyes, and caused (ever so briefly) them to cease their eternal smiling and good cheer.
I hate the fact that old friends of mine must be made to suffer by The Dutch (who will never-never-be getting anything along the lines of an apology from Me. Hey Woodenshoes! Let's talk about The Congo!). I am sorry, and clearly meant no disrespect toward the man who I feel was the premier entertainer of The Cold War Years.

I suppose last time you got your credit report, you took my damned name in vain. Your report showed you to be a slovenly sort of type character who cannot be trusted with finances. And you no doubt shook your tiny fists at the cieling of the flop-duplex that you proudly call "my house" and yelled something unkind about Me. Then you were so mad, you 'decided' again not to pay your Rent.

Well, I'm sorry about that. You know, if Money had not been given to us by God, we would have had to invent something just like it. In fact, there is such a inherent need on the part of all homo sapiens to commodify everything, that before there was Money, there was Cowrie Shells.
So for those of you snickering little nay-sayers who would suggest that some of us tend toward the inhuman in our love of Money, I would posit sir (or madam!) that to be paid for goods and services is the most human of all activities. I made a tidy pile of Shells, and then I moved up!

Oh? And now I'm hearing some of you with a modicum of 'educatedness' talking about the inherent goodness of Small and Local economies. First off, I detest E. F.Schumacher, and never should have let him develop The Handsomest Head of Hair in Microeconomics.
And furthermore, I needn't remind you that to continue thriving, an organism must continue to grow. I am sorry that we don't accept 'grass' for services rendered anymore, and suggest further that maybe you have again overestimated the market demand for homemade soaps, batik and goat's milk.
But more importantly: did you want Me to starve? Once I had seen to it that you all were employed in the Making of Things for me to sell (so I could later sell you all the goat's milk you wanted, I suppose), there then came the problem of Redundance. If everyone were all fat and sassy with their full meal-pails and jet-pack in every garage, then maybe I who bring you Everything would find myself gone wanting.

So I expanded my interests to cover the whole of The Earth (apology forthcoming, by the by-ed.), and set my sights on making Money off of Money.
Who do you think first conceived of the Value-Added fee? Me. Because you are lucky enough to take advantage of my Services, you should pay. Did you set up some sort of viable alternative to global commerce? I think not.
And if some sort of rapscallion decided to burn down your hut? Insurance, my friend. And then there's mortgages, refinancing of 'real estate' and 'amortizing' that will help you. In fact, the laws on the subject make it impossible for you not to take part in these things, in some small way. You're welcome.

And Credit? Well, what exactly do people like You like better than Imaginary Money? If I had My way, there would only be Abstract Capital. What are we? Still digging in the dirt with A Stick? You may trust that your cowrie shells are all in a safe place, and all you need do is continue to spend in a medium that I find pleasing, and is Efficient. More credit means more credit loaning companies which means more money spread around which means Jobs, mister (and Ms.!).
If perhaps the credit reporting bureaus routinely make mistakes, that is simply because I haven't been given the go-ahead to run the entire enterprise with Robots yet. If perhaps the people who run said bureaus stand to gain far more from your debt than your credit, so be it. No one criticizes The Platypus for its unlikelihood, do they? I thought not. The seeming backwardness of this system is only your localized myopia.

And some of us will have The Money, and others will go without. Some of us located our bootstraps, sir (and-ladies...), and deserve to benefit both from the system we created and from The Doubt. I have seen where a couple of you malcontenteds note that the creation of My Wealth would never have happened without many millions of somewhat-lesser-paids doing the nuts-and-bolts creating for Me. And also that this gap is inherent in the creation of wealth, so tales of how Anyone can become rich in a free society are really just fairy tales fostered by the likes of...Me.

To this I say...MINE! MINE! IT'S ALL MINE, AND YOU CAN'T HAVE IT, SIR/MADAM! I HAVE GIVEN YOU THE LOTTERY AND THE INDIAN CASINOS; WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT? I SUPPOSE YOU WOULD LIKE A SUPERCOMPUTER ON YOUR DESK AT HOME FOR THE EASE OF DOWNLOADING THE 'PORN'? YOU'RE WELCOME! A MASSIVE VARIETY OF CORN-BASED CHIPS ON WHICH TO SUP? THERE YOU ARE, YOUR HIGHNESS! I SIMPLY ASK THAT YOU LEAVE ME TO ENJOY MY MILLIONS IN PEACE, AND WITH THEM THE UTTER CONTROL OF ALL ASPECTS OF THE WORLD, MOST IMPORTANTLY THE MILITARY, GOVERMENTS AND THE LAW! I-
I'm sorry.

The Popular Music

I try to take a vacation, occasionally. When I go to the South Seas Tropics for a few weeks worth of drinks served in halved coconut shells with many Straws and Umbrellas by topless Maidens, I think (incorrectly, it turns out) that I leave the responsiblities of my Office behind.
But it would seem that the rest of the Boys at the World Court at The Hague spent a little time watching old reruns of Lawrence Welk, and fell into an incoherent, bellowing rage. How exactly I am to apologize for Larry, a lifelong friend and highly talented artist, I do not know. He overcame being a German American with a pronounced speech impediment to become the dazzling impressario (and legendary cocksman) that he was, the odds be damned.
The complaint, as laid out to Me by Vice-Commissioner Nieuwschlander ('Gliek', to his friends), was that my people had taken something as elemental as the human desire to sing and make others happy, and turned it into another item in a crass marketplace, oftentide supplanting those who had written or popularized the songs with those who featured a better understanding of contract law.

Well, DO YOU BLAME ME? Well-I suppose that we're here, aren't we? So, you do. But I think I should at least have My Say before I start grovelling and whimpering for your forgiveness.

IT WAS THE JEWS! No, I'm sorry. But really: the fallout of years and years of making Jews the only ones who touched the filthy, filthy money was that The Chosen became especially good at managing the filthy filthy money. Later, we attempted to correct this imbalance, but somewhere in there, the idea of selling entertainment came into being, and We scoffed, at first.
And of course, The Jews got in on the bottom floor, and it was their game for a good long while.

Later, it would occur to the rest of us that a lot of money was to be made in this arena, and especially in the songs The Poor sang to each other to comfort themselves against the wretchedness of their lives. To this end, we started recording each and every bit of feeling-sorry-for-yourself music we could find.
The Poor Whites made some awfully soulful stuff. It reminded the older among us of the days of the madrigal and minstrel, albeit with a mouth full of chaw terbacky and a mind utterly destroyed by cheap hooch. So that was good. It was even better when made into something a Marching Band could play.
The Poor Blacks, on the other hand, made some stuff that frankly scared us. Or made us disturbingly aroused, one of the two. It made us want to both dance and pass anti-miscegenation laws, to be frank. And smoke Marijuana. And pass laws against the use of Marijuana.

Yes, the stuff that You People like to tell yourselves when you're feeling "blue" are the stuff of market gold, for some reason. It's possible that pathos is universal or something. I do not claim to know from Art, but I do know a thing or two about Markets.
When I wandered into this, all that was ever on a record disk was John Philip Sousa, or any number of recordings of old, dead Europeans. When The Poor people made music, it was in the back of some cracker barrel mart, some stinking gin pit, or some damned Church somewhere. Not a one of you had thought to put it down for others to hear and Buy.

Well, I knew some people, and they knew some people. At first, we sold Colored (or "Race") music to the Coloreds (or "Racials") only, and the hillbilly music to whoever would buy it, since hillbillies don't have money, and the stores I own won't take shiny pieces of broken glass, pig intestine or bandanas as Legal Tender.
But then we noticed something sly and wondrous happening: The Consumer liked the music the Poor Black made, and wanted to buy some. But there was a problem: The Consumer was supposed to strongly dislike The Poor Black. This in no way prevented many Consumers having lots of Quadroon and Octoroon babies, but still, appearances must be kept up.

So-we learned that if you cleaned up a performer of the lower class of Whites, put a suit on him and greased back his hair, he could both sing the songs of the Poor and Black, and still threaten abolutely no one with the ignominy of appearing to like Poor People. It was a win-win!
And the win-winning continued! There was among The Blacks a man who ironically referred to himself as a 'Duke'. He took what he knew of classical white music, Dixieland, Sousa and field calls to make a whole new thing now that everybody, in theory, could like.
I didn't like it. It scared the pantaloons right off of me, and I believe history has more than borne me out on this one. It was nice enough music, though not as Martial as I feel all music needs to be. The problem was that it was so nice, it was going to lead to Mulattoism and Reefer Smoking in all corners, clearly. Given a couple of decades, boys would be wearing their hair like girls, and you wouldn't be able to tell which Race was which anymore.

The Market had given, and now it was about to do itself in with a surfeit of maddening efficiency. But first; More Profit.
We had learned early in the game that if you promised enough whiskey to kill an honest man, or a fine automobile to these 'artists', they'd gladly take that in lieu of payment commensurate with what We were making on it. Furthermore, they probably thought (as a lot of us did) that this whole 'recorded music on a wax disc' phenomenon was some fickle Trend, so they needn't concern themselves with Posterity, and Future Profit.
And besides, if they saw fit to complain, we could still just take their songs and not pay even the mule that we promised them. Frank Sinatra could do that song of yours. So could Pat Boone! Maybe Elvis Presley is your boy. The point is, They didn't own The Courts, We did, and so...Maybe Willie Dixon depresses you anyway, so here's Led Zeppelin!

But what I needed was something to live forever. Here's where Larry Welk comes in. For years and years, we'd been packaging the misery of Others into songs suitable for a decent cocktail party. But maybe just maybe we could make it seem that this had always been our music, and we would rightfully celebrate this fact on a weekly basis, on Television.
The music of the Poor White and the Poor Black now made equal amounts of sense when delivered by a young White person who kept smiling directly at the camera, and oftentide set to a polka beat. Misery, pain, longing and pretty much any human emotion whatsoever were leached out of this Wheat that we had found, and processed it into Wonder Bread for the soul!
Music and The Market had always been about finding a place where we could all agree, and so we felt that maybe the agreement was made more likely if everything were made Nice.

There would be a fair amount of Blacks to tap-dance, and occasionally sing songs, given that they would have to sound completely indistinguishable from the Whites who largely captained Larry's show. We found many that did nicely.
The fact that many of the Blacks later learned that they could own their own work developed a wrinkle of sorts in the plan, but not really. Maybe some 'gangsters' own their own record labels where they release songs about killing each other, but that fits nicely in with the plan anyway, and even so, most of your multi-nationals could scarcely be said to be Black-owned.

In the end, many an enterprising young person of affluent background had learned how to write a song just as if they were a Poor, and we put these people to work in the business of cranking out songs like any other Product. The results, I think you'll all agree, were satisfying in the supreme.
There was even some who said that The Music had grown into its own entity, capable of sparking the spirit of Revolution in The Masses again. I suppose one could view it that way, but it would be hard to say, since that was still my recording studios, radio stations, record labels and stores that said how much one could say, so I doubt it strongly.

No, what was wrought was a place of true community that is much better, and will stand for the ages. It is a place where Engelbert Humperdink and Johnny Mathis stand, hands clasped, side by side, for all the ages. Where Andy Williams and Ben Vereen may share a spotlight.
Racial equality has been achieved, yet again, by The Marketplace doing what it always does: making the work of actual people into salable product.
You're welcome. And I'm sorry.

The Non-Christians

This will probably take a while. But in my own defense, let me say: if you had the indisputable truth, wouldn't you try your very damnedest to make sure that everybody in the world heard it, even if the next thing that happened was their being sent on a quick trip to hell via being roasted alive on a spit?

And what were the alternatives You People were proposing? Oh yeah: God is a squinty-eyed Asiatic. Or some kind of living hunk of rock/enchanted goat thing. Or all powerful yet never-to-be-depicted, for some damn reason. Well, good luck with all those. I really liked the one with hundreds of breasts, myself.

But of course: I'm sorry for all of it. The Crusades, The Holy Inquisition, The Hundred Years' War...Hm. You know, come to think of it, there's every bit as much reason to apologize to Christians here as the Non-Christians. So, sorry for the Albigensian Crusade, the sack of Constantinople, what happened to the Bogomils as well as the Anabaptists, the many years of internecine warfare at the beginning, as we tried to hammer out doctrine...And the Copts: I don't remember doing anything bad to you per se, but just in case, sorry.
And I suppose that if anyone needs to take the blame for the Mormons, that's me too: if ever there was a white man's religion, that'd be the one. But of course, I also need to apologize to The Mormons, for lynching you and all that. No hard feelings?

Matter of fact, this just gets deeper and deeper I get into it. The Queers: sorry for how religion has pretty much scotched any chance that you ever had at equal representation both under the law and in everyday life. In particular, those 'Kill A Queer for Christ' bumper stickers: I thought they were rude and ill-mannered.
But a lot of people would say here that white men came up with the whole queer thing, and I'm not saying they're wrong. It's true that some of your monkeys do it too, but it's pretty much expected in the prisons (another one of mine), private schools (ditto) and The Church. So-sorry, and you're welcome (?).

The Women-but I already apologized to The Women, goddamnit! Sorry for making you have to cover your heads for centuries, in most of The West (okay, still the case in some denominations, I know). That was-ALRIGHT, DAMMIT! THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MATRILINEAL PROPERTY RIGHTS AGAIN, I HEARD YOU THE FIRST TIME! Christ! And let's see: pretty much told you that you were inherently evil, only recently let some of you rise to posts of any importance in the church...

I have been told to apologize specifically for Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Ted Haggard, Jim Bakker, 'Dr.' Laura Schlesinger...You know, I have a Two-o'-Clock tee time, and I didn't expect to be here ALL DAMN DAY, which is what will happen if I start having to itemize the above bungling morons!
Besides, there is no possible apology for Dr. Laura. We all know this.

The brutal stamping out of native religions worldwide, and continued evangelism to stamp out more? Yes, but THE ISLAMICS ALSO-okay, dammit, I'm sorry.
But you know, if more and more of these complicated issues are laid at my wing-tipped feet, I'm really going to have to bring Satan into this thing. I personally blame him (AND AM WAITING FOR MY APOLOGY, DAMMIT!) for a lot of this, and furthermore spent a lot of my time fighting him FOR THE SAKE OF ALL OF YOU PEOPLE, leading to some of the aforementioned Poor Choices that I still must say made sense to me at the time.
"Social Darwinism" as an adjunct of my White, European, Christian ethno-centrism? WELL, IT HAS THE NAME 'DARWIN', IN THE TITLE, DOESN'T IT? And he hated God, or so I'm told!

But I'm sorry: what would You People have done differently, had you been running the show? I mean, next I'm supposed to take the blame for The Wheel, or something, leading to all the trouble that Automobiles have-OH GODDAMMIT, NO! YOU CAN'T POSSIBLY BE SERIOUS!
Okay: next time, The Wheel.