P.J. Eats Some Poor Irish Babies

One of my all-time very favorite authors is political commentator P.J. O'Rourke. He is awesome, largely because of all the sacred-cow-taking-on. Peej once compared flying over a war zone in the Middle East to overlooking a gigantic "Clue" gameboard (and bear in mind, I'm paraphrasing wildly here): "Winning answer?" he wrote. "Everybody, in every room, with an AK-47."

I got to meet him, at college, when he cemented himself in my Pantheon of Author Awesomeness after graciously accepting a speaking engagement at Stepan Center, largely notable for possessing the worst acoustics on the face of the Earth. On the outside, it looks exactly like the exterior of a halved whiffle golf ball; but things vastly improve once you step inside, which looks exactly like the interior of a halved whiffle golf ball. And when P.J. took the podium, he said, "Thank you for inviting me to your school, and this very attractive building." Standing O for P.J.! Please do insult our misguided architecture!

I met him afterwards, where he signed one of my books and, when I asked him for some Advice To A Young Writer, he said, "Dental school."

He was a major collegiate point of contention for me, Mr. O'Rourke. I was invited into an extremely prestigious honors seminar as a senior, for which we were all asked to nominate a book for the class to read. The usual overrated tripe was slung into the syllabus: Sylvia Plath, The Kennedy Women, the perennially God-awful Beloved. My suggestion, predictably-- P.J.'s hilarious and touching memoir chronicling his slow transformation from an anti-war demonstrating college student to a libertarian with an income, Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut--was the only proposed book not accepted into the curriculum. I sincerely doubt the professor took the trouble to look past the author credit before clutching his pearls and tossing the vile thing out, out! lest his students' pretty little open minds come into contact with 1) an opinion in any way contrary to that which had been shoved down our throats throughout the past three and a half years 2) an extremely well-written examination of a personal journey as well as a unique perspective of a way-too-glorified era that my generation desperately needs to hear, authored by 3) a live white male, which is, clearly, the only thing worse than a dead white male. So I declined the invitation, which was unheard of, and dropped the class, which was a relief.

Well, Peej had the following to say in the Wall Street Journal today, which I actually went out and bought during my lunch hour, on purpose, with real money:

"We will be loved again," P.J. writes. "Imagine a world where American manners and mores set the standard almost everywhere, where American fashions, American ideas and American lifestyles are universally sought out and copied. A world where people avidly listen to American music, eagerly watch American TV and movies, and try to imitate Americans in every way. Imagine a world where the USA is so admired that people by the millions want nothing more than to come to America and rescue themselves from global entanglements."

Imagine, indeed, John Lennon.