Quinn the Eskimo, Godot and Barack Obama
Are the same person. Discuss.
Here’s what we know about Bob Dylan’s Quinn the Eskimo a/k/a The Mighty Quinn (and don’t even pull that Manfred Mann version crap on ‘Puter): “Ev’rybody’s in despair, Ev’ry girl and boy, But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here, Ev’rybody’s gonna jump for joy.”
Here’s what we know about the unseen Godot from Beckett’s En Attendant Godot. His two claimed compatriots spend much of the play speaking of Godot, but “in fact hardly know him, admitting that they would not recognise him were they to see him.” Eventually, the two compatriots descend into despair, knowing they will not see the Godot they expect.
Here’s what we know about P.E. Obama. He was a Rorschach Blot prior to election, in which people saw what their minds predetermined he ought be. On the basis of his actions post election but prior to O-nauguration, the people who claim to have known him best now claim not to recognize him at all. Gays are furious because Obama does not support gay marriage (and by extension on Proposition 8), and now because Rick Warren is providing a benediction at the O-nauguration. The Leftie Wingnuts are irate because Obama has made “centrist” (actually, center-left) appointments to his Cabinet, foreshadowing continuing on in Iraq.
Short answer, Quinn the Eskimo is Obama in all his pre-election (pre-doing-anything-at-all) Hope and Changeyness, where Obama sat back and let people think they knew what he would do. Just ask the lady who thought if Obama was elected, she wouldn’t have to pay her mortgage or for gasoline anymore. Paraphrasing, “When O the Savior’s in D.C., Everybody’s gonna ride for free!” Godot is the long expected Obama who never shows up. Ask the gays and lefties described above.
Who is Obama really? Neither fully Quinn the Eskimo nor fully Godot, that much is apparent already. We’re just going to have to wait for Obama to start governing to find out.
Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.
’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.
The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.
His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.
He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.
Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.
‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.