17-02-2020, 02:11 AM
Whatever Gets You through the Night Pt. 18
"Shelley and Keats were out in the street.
And even Lord Byron was headed for Greece.
While back at the Hilton, last but not least,
Milton was holding his sides.
Saying 'Bravos'd better be ready to fight
if we're gonna make it out of East Texas tonight.
For the trail is long, and the river is wide,
and my ride's here.'"
-Warren Zevon, "My Ride's Here"
*
Reminder: If you have an issue with a writer putting personal politics that do not perfectly align with your own into their Mind Control-Based International Political Murder Mystery Action-Adventure Thriller, you're not really the sort of person I want reading my stuff anyway.
RealPresidentIMeanIt @NoReallyIAm -- 1hr
Hearing bad things happening in San Finzione! Very Bad Place! You won't find one of MY resorts in San Finzione!
That had been the President of the United States' initial gut-tweet about events in San Finzione for the past two days. Mander drove Bessie and Contessa Helena de San Finzione looked at her phone as the two talked along the way to their destination.
"I'm afraid it won't work." She told Mander. "It's gonna be one of those after-college toy commercial action cartoons. I won't really get to be 'La Fucking Contessa.' I'm pretty sure they're not going to let us call Mander Force's enemy globe-spanning terrorist organization out to conquer and/or destroy the world 'W.A.N.K.E.R.S.;' no matter what you make it stand for."
Mander thought on that.
"What about 'T.O.S.S.E.R.S.?'"
Helen thought on it.
"Might be able to slip that one past legal. No signal down there; I should reply before we go in."
As they pulled into the parking lot of the San Finzione Caverns' Visitors' Center and Entrance in the old yellow-and-black Edwardian roadster, Helen replied to the First Twitter Page.
Contessa Helena de San Finzione @CFinzione -1 s
I just came up with the slogan for our next tourism campaign: "You won't find one of HIS 'resorts' in San Finzione."
"Ok," she told Mander, getting out and grabbing her black Prada Arcade bag. "That should buy us a couple of hours while someone explains whether or not I'm insulting him and to come up with his 'Oh YEAH???' retort. He's not used to fighting people who swing back; won't know what to make of it. Notice how there was no press about my little stop-in at the White House on our way out of the country?"
"You ain't worried he's gonna try ta nuke you like you're a hurricane or something?"
Helen laughed as they approached the man with the clipboard, who recognized La Contessa and let the owner of the studio and her bodyguard pass.
"Someone will talk him out of it like always. Oh, I'm sure he'll try some 'I call upon all Loyal Americans' shit. No, I'm a crowned... well, tiara-ed monarch, Vincenzo's crown is in the vault, La Contessa gets a tiara. But no, I'm the one who gets to CALL UPON The People for stuff. Pipe. Bowl, Fiddlers Three, the Death of an Enemy of San Finzione; all that. He's supposed to be an elected official but with all the shit America puts up with from him, you wouldn't notice. HE gets to ask nicely for things and maybe we'll see. Let him call me 'unfair' like everything else. That's what every bully who's been told he's no longer allowed to bully always calls it: unfair persecution to him. He won't do anything that his boss on the other end of the Red Phone doesn't tell him to, and Don Nessuno's meal will be an appetizer for what I'll make HIM eat."
"So, like yesterday? Only rednecks who'd burn shoes they spent good money on to make some kind of dumbfuck statement are gonna listen? I know they don't like being called that, but let's face it, if you're burning your own damn shoes, yer neck AIN'T a lovely shade of Turquoise!"
They made their way into the stone passage of the caverns proper, past the wood and sheetrock of the entrance. It had been expanded to both display local artisans' work and widen it for tourist traffic. Because the center was closed until filming was done, their footsteps' echoes carried down the long halls. The recordings didn't play that explained to tourists how, before being restored to their natural beauty, these caverns had been the sole source of San Finzione's long-defunct emerald-mining industry. How the mine was depleted, and no further emerald deposits had been found anywhere under the land since, but their place in history as the Royal Color of San Finzione and the jewels of La Contessa's Tiara would last forever! The speech was then followed by a disclaimer from the Ministry of Science assuring tourists that thorough geological surveys have confirmed that no further emerald deposits exist in San Finzione and that anyone offering to sell maps to lost emerald mines is attempting to defraud them.
"Shelley and Keats were out in the street.
And even Lord Byron was headed for Greece.
While back at the Hilton, last but not least,
Milton was holding his sides.
Saying 'Bravos'd better be ready to fight
if we're gonna make it out of East Texas tonight.
For the trail is long, and the river is wide,
and my ride's here.'"
-Warren Zevon, "My Ride's Here"
*
Reminder: If you have an issue with a writer putting personal politics that do not perfectly align with your own into their Mind Control-Based International Political Murder Mystery Action-Adventure Thriller, you're not really the sort of person I want reading my stuff anyway.
RealPresidentIMeanIt @NoReallyIAm -- 1hr
Hearing bad things happening in San Finzione! Very Bad Place! You won't find one of MY resorts in San Finzione!
That had been the President of the United States' initial gut-tweet about events in San Finzione for the past two days. Mander drove Bessie and Contessa Helena de San Finzione looked at her phone as the two talked along the way to their destination.
"I'm afraid it won't work." She told Mander. "It's gonna be one of those after-college toy commercial action cartoons. I won't really get to be 'La Fucking Contessa.' I'm pretty sure they're not going to let us call Mander Force's enemy globe-spanning terrorist organization out to conquer and/or destroy the world 'W.A.N.K.E.R.S.;' no matter what you make it stand for."
Mander thought on that.
"What about 'T.O.S.S.E.R.S.?'"
Helen thought on it.
"Might be able to slip that one past legal. No signal down there; I should reply before we go in."
As they pulled into the parking lot of the San Finzione Caverns' Visitors' Center and Entrance in the old yellow-and-black Edwardian roadster, Helen replied to the First Twitter Page.
Contessa Helena de San Finzione @CFinzione -1 s
I just came up with the slogan for our next tourism campaign: "You won't find one of HIS 'resorts' in San Finzione."
"Ok," she told Mander, getting out and grabbing her black Prada Arcade bag. "That should buy us a couple of hours while someone explains whether or not I'm insulting him and to come up with his 'Oh YEAH???' retort. He's not used to fighting people who swing back; won't know what to make of it. Notice how there was no press about my little stop-in at the White House on our way out of the country?"
"You ain't worried he's gonna try ta nuke you like you're a hurricane or something?"
Helen laughed as they approached the man with the clipboard, who recognized La Contessa and let the owner of the studio and her bodyguard pass.
"Someone will talk him out of it like always. Oh, I'm sure he'll try some 'I call upon all Loyal Americans' shit. No, I'm a crowned... well, tiara-ed monarch, Vincenzo's crown is in the vault, La Contessa gets a tiara. But no, I'm the one who gets to CALL UPON The People for stuff. Pipe. Bowl, Fiddlers Three, the Death of an Enemy of San Finzione; all that. He's supposed to be an elected official but with all the shit America puts up with from him, you wouldn't notice. HE gets to ask nicely for things and maybe we'll see. Let him call me 'unfair' like everything else. That's what every bully who's been told he's no longer allowed to bully always calls it: unfair persecution to him. He won't do anything that his boss on the other end of the Red Phone doesn't tell him to, and Don Nessuno's meal will be an appetizer for what I'll make HIM eat."
"So, like yesterday? Only rednecks who'd burn shoes they spent good money on to make some kind of dumbfuck statement are gonna listen? I know they don't like being called that, but let's face it, if you're burning your own damn shoes, yer neck AIN'T a lovely shade of Turquoise!"
They made their way into the stone passage of the caverns proper, past the wood and sheetrock of the entrance. It had been expanded to both display local artisans' work and widen it for tourist traffic. Because the center was closed until filming was done, their footsteps' echoes carried down the long halls. The recordings didn't play that explained to tourists how, before being restored to their natural beauty, these caverns had been the sole source of San Finzione's long-defunct emerald-mining industry. How the mine was depleted, and no further emerald deposits had been found anywhere under the land since, but their place in history as the Royal Color of San Finzione and the jewels of La Contessa's Tiara would last forever! The speech was then followed by a disclaimer from the Ministry of Science assuring tourists that thorough geological surveys have confirmed that no further emerald deposits exist in San Finzione and that anyone offering to sell maps to lost emerald mines is attempting to defraud them.
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