perfidy

As my neurons marinate in a vicious combination of a nice Côte du Rhone and potato vodka and limeade (organic!), I am stirred to ask a couple questions and state a couple actualities.

1) What do you call people from Massachusetts? There’s Vermonters, Connecticutian, Virginian, Floridian, Texan, Ohioan. But having gone native up here in the Bay State and being an avid amateur lexicographer besides, I am stumped as to the noun for “resident of Massachusetts.” Yes, yes, I know. Masshole. Very funny. But as devastatingly apt as “Masshole” may be, what do you say in polite company? “Bay Stater” is irritatingly glib, and “Yankee,” though sometimes used by other residents of New England to refer to us when they don’t want to be rude, has at least three other specific meanings. I hereby nominate as the official term for “resident of Massachusetts” as “Massachutsan.” Because I’m sick and tired of hearing “Masshole.”

2) Can any of my readers suggest a good to excellent barbecue restaurant in or around Savannah, GA? I’ll be going there late next week for a weeklong meeting of the North American Anti-Temperance League, of which I am a founding member, president, and chief yazoo. A boy’s got to eat, and when I’m in the south I prefer to eat nice slowcooked pork, preferably doused with judicious amounts of vinegar-based sauce. I expect I just opened a big can of whoop-ass with that last statement, so I will clarify. Barbecue is pork. Barbecue is pork with a vinegar sauce, though such sauce may be adulterated with tomato, molasses, mustard, or other spices if desired. Some pepper heat is preferred. Beef, though delicious made barbecue-style (especially brisket and ribs), is not in and of itself, “barbecue.” This assertion does not apply in Texas or Kansas City. I don’t want to be killed and slow-cooked over hickory by my esteemed coblogger and transplant Texan, Patton.

3) But I digress. The North American Anti-Temperance League is doing important work in the fields of lightening up and unclenching, but our budget is not limitless. Readers wishing to join the League – or offer us donations – may contact me at johno at perfidy dot org. We are always searching for a few good sots, and maybe you have what it takes.

4) I hereby declare my bass-player name (for I am in fact a bass player of immense funkitude) to be Chocolate Thunder.