Embalmed, Blotto and Owled: Moving from Dry January into Dry Martini February

 

Edmund Wilson; a man who doesn't look like he enjoys his work.

Otherwise known for more high-fallutin’ work, writer Edmund Wilson did some of his best work when he compiled The Lexicon of Prohibition, in 1927. He said the list was arranged “in order of the degrees of intensity of the conditions which they represent, beginning with the mildest stages and progressing to the more serious…” I’m not certain I agree with Wilson, although what 'half screwed' meant in 1927 may differ from how we see it now. 

Lit, squiffy, oiled, lubricated, owled, edged, jingled, piffed, piped, sloppy, woozy, happy, half screwed, half cooked, half shot, half seas over, fried, stewed, boiled, bent, sprung, crouched, jazzed, jagged, canned, corked, corned, potted, hooted, slopped, tanked, tight, full, wet, high, horseback, liquored, pickled, ginned, shicker (Yiddish-can be either an adjective or a noun), spifflicated, primed, organized, featured, pie-eyed, cock-eyed, wall-eyed, glassy-eyed, bleary-eyed, hoary-eyed, over the Bay, four sheets in the wind, crocked, loaded, leaping, screeching, lathered, plastered, soused, bloated, polluted, saturated, stinko, blind, stiff, under the table, wapsed down, paralyzed, ossified, out like a light, passed out cold, embalmed, buried, blotto, lit up like the sky, sit up like the commonwealth, lit up like a Christmas tree, lit up like a store window, lit up like a church, fried to the hat, slopped to the ears, stewed to the gills, boiled as an owl, full as a tick, loaded for bear, loaded to the muzzle, loaded to the plimsoll mark, to have a bun on, to have a slant on, to have a skate on, to have a snootfull, to have a skinful, to draw a blank, to pull a shut-eye, to pull a Daniel Boone, to have a rubber drink, to have a hangover, to have a head, to have the jumps to have the shakes, to have the zings, to have the heeby-jeebies, to have the screaming-meemies, to have the whoops and jingles, to burn with a low blue flame. 

As of this writing, I'd move "fried to the hat" to the top of the list. Or is it the bottom?

 

Stormy Daniels: Super-Heroine

Stormy Daniels: Space Force 

 

 

If you're basing a comic book and an animated cartoon series on a sex scandal, who are you gonna choose for your hero? Will it be the always frisky ex-Presidential contender Gary Hart? Jerry Falwell, Jr. and his ménage a trois? What about basing it on humiliated family values and abstinence crusader Representative Mark Souder? 

 

The eventual winner, it turns out, easily outpaces Hart, Falwell, Mills and their tawdry peccadilloes. For that heroine is none other than Stormy Daniels, adult film star and real-life antagonist of a man easily cast as evil overlord: D. Trump.

 

The publisher, TidalWave Comics, describes its brainchild Stormy Daniels: Space Force this way: “Captain Stormy Daniels commands the for-hire U.R.E. Helix, a United Republic of Earth starship.  Led by OrDon, a self-proclaimed “very stable genius” and Ruler for Infinity, the U.R.E. seeks to exploit the galaxy’s untapped riches with little regard for who – or what – is out there…Only Captain Daniels, her second-in-command, Dax, her droids, and the mysterious alien, Munch, can save us.”

 

Co-creator Stormy is excited: “What girl doesn't want to be a sexy comic book character?! I never thought in a million years this dream would come true much less that it would turn out so amazingly! I am so excited to share Space Force with everyone...and not just because it will piss off you-know-who!”

 

The question we must ask, however, is whether this will actually piss off you-know-who. History says otherwise. The entire sordid tale, one would have thought, might have been enough to penetrate the armor of Trump and his voters. The source of the $130,000 in hush money Daniels was paid by Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen is still not accounted for and may have come from the campaign fund. Trump and co. colluded with National Enquirer owner American Media to keep the story out of the media. A California judge ordered Trump to pay Daniels' legal fees as the prevailing party. None of this made a dent and the fact that Trump was an adulterer, of course, isn’t even an important part of the story. Oh Evangelists, where art thou?

 

We will see if Stormy Daniels: Space Force is a worthwhile scion of venerable adult comics by the likes of Ralph Bakshi, Larry Welz or R. Crumb. I have a feeling it’s likelier to be closer to Playboy magazine’s Little Annie Fanny and Penthouse 's Oh Wicked Wanda. Still, in an era where humor is circumscribed in the extreme, I welcome something with at least a whiff of transgression. And to be honest, I am curious about that mysterious alien, Munch.