Is This What The Beatles Had In Mind?

The Dubster and The Hillster have something in common: both his attempt to charm the Saudis into bringing down the price of black gold/Texas tea and her crusade for the White House can be postmarked "Fat Chance, Arkansas." Today, the resident redneck for the local fishwrap wrote a funny column about The Dubster in Arabia. John Kelso has been in Texas for a little more than 30 years and he pretends to be a good ol' boy. One of his faves, Larry The Cable Guy, also pretends to be a good ol' boy. Kelso is from New Hampshire and The Cable Guy is from Nebraska. However, Kelso and The Cable Guy are entitled to their personae. After all, look at The Dubster, born in Connecticut, and The Hillster, born in Ambition and Denial. As for me, I am the Popeye of the Blogosphere: "I am what I am and that's all that I am." If this is a (fair & balanced) search for authenticity, so be it.

[x Austin Fishwrap]
Bush Holds Hands; Saudis Say "Don't Hold Your Breath"
By John Kelso

Copyright © 2008 Susan Walsh/Associated Press

If Bush wants the Saudis to pump more oil he should blow in the king's ear.

I wonder if George W. Bush would have run for president if he'd known he'd have to hold hands with a hairy guy.

Holding hands with a hairy guy is part of the Bush economic stimulus package. So far, it's not working. Last week, Bush traveled to Saudi Arabia to beg the Saudis to increase oil production, the assumption being that if the Saudis started pumping more oil, gasoline prices would go down.

On Saturday, a photo on the front page of this newspaper showed Bush holding hands with Saudi King Abdullah. But it didn't do any good. The Saudis told Bush to go pack sand and said they were already pumping enough oil.

This might have worked out better if Bush had sent King Abdullah a dozen roses. Like former NFL great and FTD pitchman Merlin Olsen always said, "Say it with flowers." Or how about chocolates? Maybe gas prices would drop if Bush had gone out to the mall and picked up some Godivas for the king. That is, until the Arabs found out Godiva was a chick who rode around nekkid on a horse.

This occurred to me Sunday morning when I took my Lexus to the Genie Car Wash on William Cannon Drive in South Austin to get it washed and filled up with $3.74-a-gallon gas. At those rates, I figure Bush should invite King Abdullah to dinner and a movie.

"He could probably go a little further," joked Kelly McDearmon, the Genie Car Wash worker who wiped down my car. "Flowers and a kiss, probably."

It's a daring gesture for a conservative family values politician such as Bush to be seen in public holding hands with a dude who could use a shave. Especially since the picture of those two clasping pinkies showed up in the paper the day after the story about California OK'ing gay weddings. That means Bush obviously cares about the American way of life being destroyed by gasoline prices.

One thing you could do to make ends meet is just quit buying groceries. Find out what stores have free samples and take the kids out to dinner there. Or you could just stay in the house with the air conditioner off. Or you could vacation in Pflugerville.

Now, I realize that it is supposedly an old Arab custom for men to hold hands. (Put another way, I'll bet you don't see Larry the Cable Guy on the Saudi comedy channel.) On the other hand, what if this is a practical joke and the Saudis are, as the kids say, punking Bush?

What if the OPEC execs got together at a board meeting and said, "I know how we can goon this dude. Let's tell Bush it's an old Arab tradition for dudes to hold hands in public. I'll betcha the dummy will fall for it, and we can take pictures of him doing that, and we can get them run in the newspaper and make him look like our stooge."

Just a thought.

[Kelso has worked for the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman as a humor columnist since 1977. Before coming to Austin, Kelso worked at several newspapers: The Manchester (N.H.) Union-Leader; The Boonville (Mo.) Daily News; The Palm Beach (Fla.) Post and the Racine (Wis.)Journal Times. Kelso has been a general assignment reporter, a copy editor, a sports editor, and an outdoor writer. His column appears thrice weekly: Sundays, Tuesdays, and Fridays in the Austin Fishwrap.]

Copyright © 2008 The Austin American-Statesman

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