http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOJXE1DWLAc
This is the year 2111! Much has happened since the Zecronian triumphs of 2100-2105. The Crasstalk Nations have inflicted upon the Aquamaranian Zecronians great defeats, in open battle, alien-to-manchild. Our pre-destructive offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the Kuiper Belt and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war (by which we mean the ever glorious cheese biscuit bomb) and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory! Don’t blame me! I voted for Kodos! That is why we must fight! That is why we must win! I have full confidence in your courage, your devotion to duty and your skill in Insult Battle 3000. We will accept nothing less than full Victory over our savage and brutal enemy! Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of the Almighty Aubrey Plaza and the Almighty Joseph Gordon Levitt upon this great and noble undertaking. Let the Aquamaranians be told once and for all that they should have listened to their Fuschia sisters! Up with Earth! Down with Zecron! Up with people! Down with LiGeMen!
- Don’t Let Me Down, Mister!
It’s Life, Death and Violence! America’s Favorite Column About History’s Mistakes, Herstory’s Errors and Why We Should Continue to Make Them!™ Danger! Destiny! Despair! Decadence! Delirium! Doilies! Destruction! Don Draper’s Dick! It’s D-Day, little birds and we are ready to storm the beaches of Lake Huron and go swimming because, man, is it hot!! Summer has finally arrived here in Fabulous Detroit, Michigan. Dwight Eisenhower co-wrote today’s monologue. Are you noticing the thread yet? Today’s all about the letter D, birds. Shall we get started? Joseph will be upset if you let him down, so we better get started.
LIFE!
(or, Dapper Dan Dislikes Ducks, Doesn’t Dislike Darla’s Decolletage)
Dukes! Dukes start with the letter D! What a screwup! Wladyslaw (how do you even pronounce that? wi-LAD-is-law? wool-haggis-LAW? George?) of Legnica, born in 1296, was the third and final son of Henry V the Fat. You know, I’ve always found myself intrigued by the “the Fat” moniker, but then I remember the whole “fat=food + leisure=money, thin=no food + exercise=poor. Wladyslaw’s older brother took the poorest and least important region in Daddy’s kingdom, Brzeg, so that his brothers would be forced to finance his cash-strapped ass. Guess what? Wladyslaw, who took the middle kingdom of Janbradia Legnica, couldn’t pay his share, so his brother took Legnica away from him and put him in time out for that and some mental disorder that our dear friend Wikipedia refuses to divulge, so we’re going to say he was schizophrenic. A few years later, he became the Canon in his rich older brother’s duchy, Wroclaw (WAR-claw? RO-claw?) after failing to repay his debts and regain his land. So what does he do ten years later? He runs away to Masovia, marries some girl named Anna and breaks his holy vows. Like I said, what a screwup! And when he couldn’t get her dowry (because dudebro goes through money faster than Cher Horowitz at a sample sale), he left her, ran away to Bohemia (don’t we all just want to run away to Bohemia? Isn’t that what Rent taught us?). He sold John of Luxembourg, King of Bohemia, Legnica, even though he didn’t really have the right to do. The rich older brother regained control and Wladyslaw blew through the funds that Johnny B gave him and so he started looting his brother’s lands. He was imprisoned, then released and given a pension (idiots!). He died sad and alone and in the winter.
Dancer! Dancer starts with D! And you know who was a dandy dancer? This lady, Ninette de Valois, born in 1898 and known as the godmother of English ballet (even though, shhhhhhh, she was born in Ireland. You know how those two like to fight). Prepare to feel like a failure, birds. Ninette was appointed the principal dancer when she was 21, went on to the Ballets Russes when she was 25, promoted to soloist, and founded her own ballet school when she was 29 and formed her own repertory company when she was 31, The Vic-Wells Company. Overachievers, man. Right? Her first major triumph was Job: Or, Why God is Such an Asshole, the first ballet to be produced by an entirely British creative team. Her choreography received mixed reviews, though many of the dances are now considered iconic pieces of the British form. What we find most interesting though is her 1937 one act: Checkmate. 
Here’s what happens: Chess pieces come to life and at out human emotions. The Red Knight falls in love with the Black Queen and (Spoiler!) she ends up stabbing him in the back because she’s a total bitch. Because the Red Knight failed to kill the Black Queen, she ends up surrounding the Red King and stabbing him, killing Love. Chess, man, it’s just like real war, only with pieces carved from alabaster.
Ninette died a decade ago at the age of 102. She was awarded a crap ton of medals and awards, including the DBE which made her a Dame Commander of the British Empire. Dame! Dame starts with D!
Dutch! Dutch starts with D! Louis Andriessen, born in 1939, was born in a Utrecht Art Store (but not Big Red Building Utrecht on Woodward. That’d be silly. Why? He’s Dutch, not American!). Anyways, he teaches at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague which is also where he studied and after listening to a little bit of his piece “Haags Hakkuh” or “The Hague Hacking,” well, we’re bored. Like, call us philistines if you must, but, for reals, yo, it just sounds like a cacophonous mess. He refuses to write for conventional orchestra apparently, so maybe that’s why we’re a bit off put. Like, give us a Tchaikovsky concerto any day. Anyways, yes, we’re listening to Hague Hackers right now and the second half of the first video (it’s in two parts and I have no idea if it’s because it’s in two movements, but given that a movement, is, what, 20 minutes long, then I’m going to say it’s one movement, two parts, so that would make this end of the first half), we mean, yeah, it’s getting better. It’s getting less Phillip “Look at How Conceptual I Am” Glass. Ugh. Phillip Glass. Don’t even get us started on, what’s it called, Three and a Half Minutes or whatever? Ugh. Back to Louis Andrestrong here. We suppose we owe you some facts and not stream of consciousness ramblings, even though that’s generally what this entire column ever is. He recently won an award for his multimedia opera “La Commedia.” What a lazy name for an opera. The Comedy? Really? And this is coming from a guy who’s revising a play called The Champagne Play where people just sit and drink champagne. We know lazy titles when we see them, yo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAum1WCgNfQ
DEATH!
(or, Death! Death Starts with D!)
Drama! Drama starts with D! If we were Gerhart Hauptman, dead in 1946, we would have fired the artist we commissioned to do that portrait for creating such an unflattering image. “You pushed me down the stairs!” she might reply in her defense. He won the Nobel Prize for literature with his 1911 work about Mr. Magoo’s Rodent Friends, titled The Rats. He also had a play about New Jersey Hairdressers called The Weavers that was a rousing success. His daddy wanted him to be a farmer, but, the country? No way, man! He ran off to the city, and entered art school with the hope of being a sculptor before he dropped out, went to another school, got married and decided to focus on a literary career because, you know, this was back when writers could actually support themselves by writing. Oh, how times have changed. He got divorced, married a younger woman, had a kid and had an affair with a 17 year old. Men in their 40s: Something that never changes. He died in Poland, but Poland made his relatives bury him in Germany. We don’t really understand why, especially since the Reds thought it best for Gerhart to be buried in the town in which he lived.
Democrat! Democrat starts with D! [tasteless Kennedy joke] [tasteless Monroe joke] [tasteless LA joke] [apology] [touching final tribute on the tragic tragedies of the Kennedys] [tasteless Nixon joke] [1968]
One of these guys died. Guess. We’ll give you a hint. Starts with D.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmdPQp6Jcdk&feature=related
Trick Question: Dave Rowberry, dead in 2003, didn’t join The Animals until 1965.
VIOLENCE!
(or, D-Day. D-Day starts with D!)
- 1862: Union soldiers send Cher to Memphis. Cher conquers.
- 1944: Guys in uniform, land on a beach in France, start shooting. Guys in uniform conquer.
- 1984: The Russians employ Hail Mary tactics in a last-ditch effort to destroy the American peoples which it has fought frigidly for forty years. That’s right, Tetris. The plan backfires when everyone, Russians included, fall prey to it’s deliciously delectable dangers. Dastards!
OTHER NEAT STUFF THAT HAPPENED!
(or, Things That Don’t Necessarily End for 800, Alex)
- 1644: Dynasty! Dynasty starts with D! Qing hates Ming, conquers Beijing.
- 1752: Devastation! Devastation starts with D! Moscow burns down.
- 1808: Nepotism! Nepotism starts with N! Joseph Bonaparte is crowned King of Spain.
- 1889: Devastation! Devastation starts with D! Seattle burns down.
- 1892: [Chicago joke] The El begins service [NYC subway joke].
- 1933: Driving! Driving starts with D! Drive-in theaters open, mononucleosis rates rise.
- 1934: Dealings! Dealings Starts with D! FDR creates the SEC. Little Bernie not so happy.
- 1939: Missing! Missing starts with M! Missingest Man in New York is declared dead. Declared! Declared starts with D!
- 2005: Doobies! Doobies starts with D! SCOTUS finds pot to still be illegal. California riots.
[heartfelt closing monologue about how y’all beat the crap out of those darn Zecronians]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3f0U9IPOb4
