The Botendaddy

Zoya from Zlynka

I was born in the second year of the second five year plan.

My father was a luthier. My mother was a seamstress. We were Russian gypsies.

Today, in 1965, I Zoya! at 29 years of age, am the head of the Zoya! fashion house of Milan and New York one of the most influential in the world.

In April, 1945 der Kommandant declared that all the prisoners would be executed and disposed of before the allies could discover their crimes.

Only I was left of my once large family. By April 28th it appeared that the end was near for me and I called upon the Saint Moses the Black to ask the virgin to spare me from the National Socialist Entity.

On the 29th of April I lay down on the dirt and asked the Christ to help me. Then I heard gunfire and I assumed that the soldiers of the Entity were murdering the rest. I looked up and I saw St. Moses! But it was not Saint Moses. It was Sergeant Greer Franklin of Philadelphia. He picked me up and just then a photographer took a picture of him holding me. He took me back to his tank where his crew who all looked like St. Moses fed me and took care of me.

I stayed with them all the way to Pilszen. The I was given to the Red Cross. Greer wanted to keep me and take me back to America and raise me as his daughter but the authorities would not let a black man have a Gypsy child.

I ended up in refugee camps, finding my way to Italy where the seamstress skills I learned from my mother before she died at Dachau, enabled me to learn fashion. I studied at the University of Genoa as I built my modeling career.

As you can see, I am also very beautiful dark and tall. That is not my opinion. It is the judgment of my audience. I was selected to be a model and you know the last fifteen years I have prospered and become world famous and rich. I am on the covers of all the magazines. My designs are everywhere. All of this means nothing to me as I have not yet fulfilled a prayer I made through the holy St. Moses the Black.

My name is Taya Franklin of Northeast Philadelphia. I am 17 years old. I go to high school and I am obsessed with fashion, beauty and modeling. I have been in beauty contests since I was a little girl. I want to be like Naomi Sims. I also love Zoya! she is dark-skinned like me, but white, they say she is a Gypsy. She speak many languages she is educated. I want to go to Temple University. I have posters of Zoya! from Italian movies on my walls.

My father is Greer Franklin. He is a Veteran of World War II and the Korean War. White people respect and love him. He won a Distinguished Service Cross in Korea. Now, he works for the City of Philadelphia maintaining construction equipment. My mother is Deborah Franklin of Chester, Pennsylvania. She works for Bell Telephone in Ambler, Pennsylvania.

Our family is one of the oldest black families in Philadelphia, dating from before the Revolution.

My name is Bill Thompson. I am a news reporter from the second black newspaper in Wilkinsburg – The Ethiopian Intelligencer and Sunday News Register. I was contacted by a Signoré Vittorio Michelangelo s’Ghaliardhi of Milan. He advised me that he was in Pittsburgh and that he desperately needed my help.

I met him at the William Penn Hotel lobby where he told me a fantastic story of a black man who rescued a Gypsy girl from a concentration camp. She spent twenty years trying to find him until she found the photograph taken by Jim Thompson a war correspondent for this samesaid newspaper. I know him well I told Vittorio. He’s my dad.

We took the trolley to Squirrel Hill where my father works for Schwartz and Tennboim camera store and photography studio on Forwatd Avenue.

My dad advised Vittorio that the name of the soldier was Sergeant Greer Franklin a Korean War hero who lived in Philadelphia but he was 300 miles away.

He cabled Milan with the news and Zoya! caught a plane to New York.

My name is Greer Franklin. I was born in Philadelphia in 1920. In 1938 I joined the Army Reserve in a segregated unit. When the War started I was maintaining tanks. Then when I had the choice I joined and all black combat armor unit.

In Europe we fought against the National Socialist Shock Troops in the battle of the Ruhr and the race across the German heartland. I met Russian soldiers in Czechoslovakia.

I was involved in the liberation of several concentration camps. I served in Korea and I was recognized for valor in the Pusan perimeter. Now I maintain heavy vehicles for the great City of Philadelphia in the ancient Commonwealth of the belov’d Quaker William Penn.

My name is Taya. On July 3, 1965, I answered my door to see a white man in a very stylish suit. He took his hat off and he asked for my dad. I advised that he would be home from work at 6:00PM. He said a friend wanted to meet my dad. Then emerging from the car was the fabulous Zoya! I was shocked. My mother invited the pair in for coffee and cookies.

Zoya! Was at my table in my house! I showed her my room and my fashion clippings. She was very warm and kind.

Photo by RAJESH KUMAR VERMA on Pexels.com

My dad came home. He saw Zoya! In the living room. He was very perplexed as he had no idea who she was. She held up the picture and then she gave him a big hug and started crying. Then he understood who she was. Little Zoya from Zlynka.

This was many years ago and I have had my own very successful career in fashion. Thanks to a soldier who saved a little gypsy girl from oblivion.

Botendaddy is now ‘Shroake-a’! Launches Shroake-a-verse!

Botendaddy executive Bill Thompson announces massive reallocation of Resources to the stupidest idea possible showing ridiculous silly cartoon characters

‘We really think it has a lot of applications. You can use it while driving while downhill skiing at 80 miles an hour while performing brain surgery and for walking through terrain where there are lots of 500 foot tall cliffs – it should be perfectly safe despite the fact that not a single one of our testers has survived. We just can’t understand why we didn’t get FDA approval?’ Shroake a befuddled Thompson.

The new virtual reality Botendaddy promises the public that it will be the most ridiculous, idiotic, and stupid thing ever – a complete waste of money for no purpose imaginable.

Director of Sales Jane Wilson shroake: ‘literally no human being that ever existed ever wants this garbage nobody asked for it and it has no purpose whatsoever, but we don’t really care what people think because people stink and I hate them so now this is what they’re gonna get so shove off!’

Industry Froake Technology Magazine which no one has read since 1999 shroake in a recent article: ‘no one can figure out what the hell this is supposed to be. It’s absolutely perplexing. Silicon Valley venture capitalists regarded it possibly the most stupid idea of all time. Except for maybe ‘Gigli’.

Jim Smith of The Botendaddy marketing department has come up with a new slogan that they think is really gonna help: ‘Got Shroake?’

Film at 11

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The day that would not end by Rudyard Kipling

A long time ago in Africa there was an ape whose name was M’Jidwe.

He woke up in the morning and he began his day’s tasks.

He had to make breakfast for his wife N’Jenwe the baboon.

Then he had to clean the dishes and fix a hole in the roof of his hut.

Then he had to go meet with the humans in the hut and trade his fine baskets 🧺 for other goods.

The the humans had a meeting. It went on. And on. And on and on. M’Jidwe did as many tasks as he could whilst the meeting was dragging on.

He wove a basket cover.

He wove a basket.

He stitched a water bag out of Springboëk skins.

He had a nice long talk with N’Gamémé the Leopard 🐆. They worked together on a quilt for N’Geané the old sick Lion and former Chief of their animal village.

Now the day had gone on 247 hours and the meeting had gone on for 239 hours.

Then M’Jidwe had more and more things to do. Now the day had lasted for 137 billion fucking hours and he had more fucking shit to do. So he said fuck this fucking shit you fucking c***s and he buggered off into the Veeldt.

The end.

Photo by Ishara Kasthuriarachchi on Pexels.com

Slaughterhouse Five: A Parable of the Veterans who aren’t Heroes.

Being unstuck in time is about dissociation from a reality that you can’t bear to confront.

After World War II, in the United States everyone came home a hero of one sort or another. We were the good guys. We saved the world. Did other countries contribute? Sure there did, with our money and the fruit of our laborers who sent endless money, supplies and materiél. Don’t like that? Too bad.

We did a lot of bad things. We bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Tokyo not long after the Imperial Japanese Army murdered over 100,000 of our territorial citizens in Manila. We firebombed Dresden after the wanton deliberate murder of 13,000,000 civilians in Europe.

We have no moral ambiguity about that war any more than we have about the Revolution or the Civil War. Were we the bad guys in World War II? Ask the Russians, the Poles, the French, the Greeks, The English, The Dutch, the Chinese… No. There is no moral ambiguity. If you don’t like that then too bad.

Not everyone who served in the US military in WWII was a hero. Some were POW’s some were horribly wounded and hidden away. Some were cowards. Some were failures. But you weren’t supposed to talk about it. We were the winners.

Those who were in shell shock, battle fatigue, PTSD were not welcome to the party. They were a stain on our victory.

The 106th Infantry hastily thrown together draftees with a Reserve Headquarters failed dramatically at the battle of the Bulge. The neighboring 28th Division, the Pennsylvania National Guard fought to the death. The Active Duty 101st Airborne held out at Bastogne. So many heroes but one big failure.

Who was in the ill-fated 106th? A young Kurt Vonnegut.

Billy Pilgrim came home. He had a profession. He lived a suburban lifestyle, but his brain injury unleashed the PTSD from his humiliation and then witnessing the terror of Dresden. Something he could have never talked about. Heroes don’t surrender. Good guys don’t firebomb tens of thousands of civilians. Winners don’t admit weakness.

There’s not much to understand about the novel. It’s a tragedy not a comedy. It’s a uniquely American tragedy.

Peace be the Botendaddy

The Shroake Murders: Scene One Episode One

Opening scene. Winter. Bone-dry cold day January 23rd, 1977 – liminal space – The New Shraike Industrial Park Shroakeville, Pennsylvania, in rural Buchanan County.

8:34PM two lowlife 20-something derelicts are seated in a 1970 Dodge Polara outside of the Shroake Mart™️ convenience store at the truck stop off the brand new I-80 highway. The engine is running. The exhaust makes a cloud in the cold air.

A trucker, Ron Walters of Spokane, Washington, white make Caucasian, 52 and a non-passable transvestite prostitute Cindy Lou ‘Clyde’ Lewis mix-race male of Erie, Pennsylvania, are drinking black coffee at a table inside the convenience store. Pedro Alvarez of Albuquerque, Hispanic-American male, is manning the register. Nettie Holmes of Lackawanna, New York, black female is waiting tables. A couple from Washita, Jane and Jack Carter, native American male and female are filling up a white 1973 GMC conversion travel Van.

The pair are Mike Wilson and Dave Miller white male caucasian small-time ex-cons from Froake Crossing. A marijuana cigarette ‘joint’ is passed between them. They are discussing pulling a ‘job’. Newshroake Industries, Inc. A Dutch firm, supposedly has a safe where cash and precious metals are held for metallurgy and expenses.

10:37PM, An employee, John Peters, white male caucasian 34, is found dead at Kevorkian Measurements, Inc. Burned to death but no fire was seen. He is discovered by the night security guard Ellen Martin, a buxom white female Caucasian and 52 year old WAC Veteran of WWII in Europe. She calls her superior Tamara Bennett of Bennett Security. Tamara calls the police.

Bill Thompson, a 27 year old black male uniformed cop with Buchanan County Police is at Shroaker’s Diner at 11:37PM. The diner is famous for their BLT 🥪 and ‘Shroake Shake’. He is having dinner with Jim Smith, Physician, County Coroner and local front porch philosopher. Marilyn Fender white female caucasian 48, of East Blastboro is waiting tables.

There is the occasional crackle of calls on Bill’s belt radio. Accident on Route 32. Barn fire in Plaque Town. Break in at Froake’s Farm in a tool shed. Drunk and disorderly in the Shrieekville Main Street Tavern. Then a homicide.

The Doctor picks up the check. Bill walks out to his squad car. As his car leaves, a 1966 White Mercury Comet pulls in. It’s Sean Pauley of Phoard Mills, power company lineman.

Great American Anthologies

Americana is a genre (pronounced: ‘Jaaah’) of literature that expounds upon one or more of the pastoral themes or variations on the five immutable principles of Americanism.

These principles are related to the five themes of Americana. I have define what the five themes are.

I define it.

I am the Botendaddy.

Pursuit of The American Dream vs American Determinist post-Collectivist Nationalism

Identity & Self Discovery

Rugged hyper-masculine (regardless of gender) Individualism vs. Gesellschaft

Coming of Age

Man (Leute) vs Nature (Life on the Frontier)

What is an anthology? I define what an anthology is (exists as).

I am The Botendaddy. I define!

An anthology is a collection of the related works of an author compiled by the author, the author’s publisher or a later publisher who compiles works thus previously uncompiled.

If an author doesn’t have any other notable works and is defined by a series of related works, then I choose to define it as an American anthology. No one else’s definition is important – if you do have a different definition, then shut up.

The Leatherstocking Tales by James Fenimore Cooper

Cooper was the first writer in the American dramatic adventure style. To modern readers, please compare the Steven Spielberg style of dramatic, cartoon like movies, where he gives the audience everything they want.

The Complete Tales and Stories of Edgar Allen Poe

Obviously, in his lifetime, Poe did not curate his work nor place them into an anthology. However, his works very neatly fit (fit neatly, no-one knows that rule) into a chronological anthology. Poe is the godfather of the American macabre and horror genre. Everyone that follows (‘must needs’ – fake phrase) borrows from Poe.

The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson, of course did not curate his works, but Ralph Waldo Emerson is an essential read in order to understand foundational Americana.

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman**

Whitman is essential Americana if you want to learn how to write in this style. I am currently addressing my foreign readers who are members of The Botendaddy Foreign Press Association. You don’t have to be American to write Americana, you just have to understand the great frontier spirit of the excessively ‘Butch’ macho Theodore Roosevelt.

The Collected Writings of Ambrose Bierce.

Bierce may be the natural successor to Edgar Allan Poe. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, which was actually the pilot for the anthology series the Twilight Zone, is a seminal work of American macabre and horror fiction.

Collected Stories of O Henry

O Henry mastered the art of the short story with the unexpected but satisfying plot twist and moral fable. He subtly exposed the failures of Kapitalism in zur Neue Industrielle Geselleschafteren.

The Souls of Black Folk by WEB DuBois*

One of the first works of American literature that spoke to the American black experience in first voice.

Complete Poems by Carl Sandburg*

A wonderful collection of Sandberg’s work of optimistic Americana.

The Golden Shovel Anthology by Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Brooks and the Chicago school of Neo-Realistic American Naturalistic Optimism was the natural successor style to the work of Carl Sandberg. A must read to have any understanding of mid-century Americana writing.

The Lovecraft Anthology by H.P. Lovecraft

HP Lovecraft work speaks for itself. He created his own macabre American mythos.

My World and Welcome to it by James Thurber

Thurber’s works are a modern collection of slightly cynical commentary on American life. He does not exhort us to action like HL Mencken.

The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury**

Bradbury’s work is written in a classic pastoral Americana style combined with science-fiction and speculative fiction. Clearly one of the most readable works of American science-fiction ever written.

The Lottery and other Stories by Shirley Jackson*

Shirley Jackson has her own unique style of the American macabre which also explores the sometime sinister mysteries of common everyday life.

Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut*

This collection has inspired many speculative fiction and science-fiction copycat works. It is an easy, provocative and fundamentally brilliant read – very hard to put down.

Black Folktales by Julius Lester**

This is one of the most insightful American anthology collections. Eminently easy to read. Details the black American experience with humor and poignancy.

Flannery O’ Connor the Complete Stories

She exemplified the southern Gothic style. Many writers are inspired by her without even knowing that they are.

Delicate Edible Birds by Lauren Groff**

I’ve written before about Delicate Edible Birds. It is clearly the successor to many of these works. I’ve compared it to Bradbury’s illustrated Man and Vonnegut’s Welcome to the Monkey House. But it’s based on an entire pantheon of over 200 years of American literature.

What makes it so impossibly brilliant is that I did not think that any post-millennial modern American writer could possibly be capable of capturing the American humor and macabre genre so perfectly.

Groff is distinguished from many other readers by her very intense research and by research, by which I mean, she actually reads in depth. The texture of her work is no fluke, and it is based upon deep knowledge, not only of contemporary writers, but on a tapestry of American writers stretching back before the Revolution.

Note: One asterisk denotes the cooperation of the author in the publishing of the anthology and possibly in the selection of the work. Two asterisks (or Astericciaghlia) which denote not only the author’s selection of the works, but the sequencing and cadence of the stories.

Some of you may have suggestions and recommendations based on some of the anthologies that I may have not included.

Peace be the Botendaddy

Botendaddy disaster as sinister mustachioed arch-rival cartoon villain Tychy wins coveted Blog of the year at Les Montréal Bloggue Awards!

Every character in every Botendaddy American propaganda war film goes through three stages of catharsis in order to become a true American. Regardless of race, gender, faith, color, creed national origin, or sexual orientation each one starts out as a sniveling, resentful, angry unbeliever in the American way.

These individuals are stifled by their own disgusting self interest. But eventually, each of them through self sacrifice, they begin to achieve each of the stages of the five principles of Americanism.

All of their former allegiances, identities and oaths are cast away along with their repulsive self-centered, disgusting self interest.

By perishing for the survival of their team, squad or regiment or ship or aircraft the act of self-sacrifice exemplifies the five principles, and they thus die in corporeal form yet are then enshrined in the glory of the national secrets and the ancient mysteries of the sacred Repvblick of these very separate States United.

In glorious death, they can be honored in the pantheon of great Americanarvvmæ like Saint Abrahamvs Lincolarvm and thus achieve American immortality.

These are these five immutable principles.

Liberty/Freedom: Personal freedoms and independence.
Equality: Fair treatment under the law, equality of opportunity.
Individualism: Emphasis on the importance and rights of the individual.
Democracy/Republicanism: Government by the people, through elected representatives.
Nationalism/Patriotism: Love for country and shared identity

We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. These rights do not stem from some shrieking potentate or psychotic dictator, rather upon birth they are attributed to us escheated from and enfeoffed upon us by divine Providence.

Annvit Cœptis

Novvs Ordo Seclorvm

MDCCLXXVI

Movie Review « Le fat touriste » 1957 by Léonard de Ptschroackezac, Dir.

In this black and white masterpiece of the French nouvelle vague noir genre (pronounced ‘Dzjaaah’) a fat (3% bodyfat Leute was considered obese in France in 1957), a fat American tourist and his immensely obnoxious family travel to Paris where they break every possible protocol and breach all form of manners and good taste as flustered Parisians attempt to deflect their idiocy.

Their ludicrous attempts to speak 🗣️ French are so bizarre that the locals inform them that no matter what they say, the language itself will change so they will always be wrong. If they speak English, they are informed: « ici on parle français »

Horrifically bad fast motion driving scenes in shitty Citröen cabs in the Amélie style of unfunny Peter Sellers movie adds to the ludicrosity of this shitty film.

Rejected at Cannes and banned for thirty years it has had a huge revival with Gen Zed when French audiences realized that the Mime who steals their travelers checques is none other than a morosely unfunny and moronic Jerry Lewis.

Critics view the film as « unrivaled genius – de Ptschroackezac’s magnum opus – only fat stupid people and bloated Americanos don’t want to understand it »

-473.5 Kelvin rating for so bad it will be played at Alliance Française locations around the world where hors d’œuvres will have to be serving themselves.

Starting the 1906 Model Q

The original model Q ‘Shroakeabout Brougham’ was regarded as very easy to start and put into motion. The driver had to use both hands, both feet, their knees and teeth to start and operate the automobile.

First, one had to open the Engine compartment and set 21 different electrical, mechanical and combustion related components in an exact sequence.

This Car featured the double magneto. Literally no one who has ever existed has ever been able to define what a magneto is. Apparently it has like a magnet and does something.

The tires were made of rubber with a bizarre spring lattice interior and the wheels had ash tree spokes hardened in Louisville by Neo-proto Neanderthal immigrants from Sorbia wherever the hell that is.

Upon every setting in the engine, a different lever button or pull thingy has to be set pulled twisted or adjusted.

Once the car reaches the proper mode which also no one knows what that is, then the choke, clutch, magneto and throttle must be put into reverse Oakleaf cluster mode with sugar on top, then the hand crank must be cranked, and no one is sure what direction it has to be cranked in, but it requires the use of both arms and both feet.

Spark advance, timing and fuel mixture had to be adjusted for every change in speed, temperature due to unique spark gap magneto carburetor something thingy.

The other interesting aspect of this car is that there were seven different foot pedals, 11 different levers 14 switches, five pull thingies, a bunch of twisty thingies and some other thingies.

Once the car started moving by releasing the handbrake, foot brake and side brake and turning the magneto to double magneto then the hand throttle and foot throttle had to be pulled in exact sequence, resulting in the proper mixture of oil, gasoline, kerosene, and petroleum or the car would detonate like a tiny atomic bomb. 💣

No one in history ever got the car to move more than about 200 feet. Unfortunately, despite its price of 500 1906 dollars, which is 26 million of today’s dollars. The car did not sell as a matter of fact, the car was so bad that it almost single-handedly brought back the horse as a mode of transportation.

Hobbyists love this car and it is studied in mechanical engineering courses as a cautionary tale.

The designer of this automobile Pharquarious Quintonious Root went completely insane such that by 1913, he was appointed assistant to the secretary of transportation by President Wilson.

Photo by Princess Photography on Pexels.com

USS Shroaker, Garbage Scow

14 March 1918 0035 Hours. North Atlantic Convoy Patrol.

Kapitan Häär Baron Klaus Fölk von Phelkenstein Kriegsmarine Kommandant of U-Boat U-1427 is on patrol hunting Allied supply ships headed for Britain.

Der Kapitan shrieks Teutonic orders to his crew. Pong pong pong! Sound effects of sonar. He spots the American 🇺🇸 convoy. The U-Boat closed in. The first officer shrieks: JaWohl mein Kapitan! They are ready to fire torpedoes.

The watch led by ensign Miles deFroake of Portsmouth, Maine spots the conning tower of the U-Boat.

The USS Shroaker was a patrol ship commissioned in 1897. After the dastardly attack on the USS Maine it was given experimental armor. This armor would be put the use. The Ensign called general quarters and they signaled to convoy. The Captain Hilarious Pedro Ramirez of Albuquerque sent the ship full speed ahead to block the torpedoes.

The convoy is saved. The torpedoes exploded harmlessly against the armored hull. The ensign was awarded the Navy Cross. The the U-Boat was destroyed with depth charges. The Kapitan shrieking like a Wälküre.

Then the inter-war period. The USS Shroaker old and forgotten gathering rust and used to haul garbage – her valor forgotten.

Then came the dastardly attack at Pearl Harbor. One rogue Japanese Submarine commander Lt. Commander Ichiro Uweyuki Yakazuke, who had attended university in Arkham, Massachusetts where he was inspired by the Eldritch horrors! He was loyal, not to Bushido nor the emperor but the fabulous shocking Yog Sothoth!

For four long years the cruelly disgraced USS Shroaker hauled garbage from Hawaii to the Solomons to the Philippines. The crew was manned by ‘negroes’ and older naval reservists who were deemed too old for combat.

In 1945 as The US Navy closed in on the Japanese home islands fanatical Bushido Japanese submarines were ravaging American ships.

A double top secret sent the USS [CLASSIFIED NOFORN TSSCI CAVEAT IX] was sent on a mission so secret it cannot be revealed until 7 September 2045. But Captain Yakazuke due to a Japanese Intelligence intercept – was dispatched to stalk the ship. 🚢 . As the demonic Captain spotted the ship he began to grovel before Yog Sothoth a single drop of blood rolled down his forehead as he shrieked savage incantations!

Bad luck sent the secret ship into the path of the submarine, but good luck would also send the USS Shroaker in the same direction all caused by a massive storm that had not been predicted.

The USS Shroaker, disgraced, humiliated, was the only chance to save the war in the Pacific for America.

The new Captain, was Commander Bill Thompson of Oakland, California. A naval reserve officer with average fitness reports. His officers all 40-50 something World War I veterans. The crew African American Naval Reservists from the Bay Area.

This is their story. Now on Quetflix! Starring every shitty actor you’ve never heard of!

Can lightning strike twice?

Can the Shroaker reclaim her lost glory?

Can the intrepid US Navy save the secret spy ship?

Can the demonic Yakazuke be stopped?

Three boats. One storm. One chance at glory!

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