The Flatbutts, not the honorary new members of the tribe. Which is imaginary. But I'm the queen of it so don't piss me off or I will whap you with my magic wand and scream 'You're a toad! You're a toad!' until you cry.
(Extensively revised because I felt like it.)
I am Native American. What tribe? The Flatbutt tribe. ( like the flatHEAD tribe from the upper clatsop region. get it? huh?)
See, thats a joke.
I can make these HYSTERICALLY AMUSING jokes because I am a Native American. Just like I can say honky ofay, and exactly like I'm always calling the catholics a pile of twats because I'm part white and I was raised catholic. See? Using the same logic, you will never find me referring to the spoos, the slipperheads, the kites or the eelshoes because I made those up.
THE HISTORY OF THE FLATBUTT TRIBE-SAVAGE INVESTORS OF THE OLD WEST
Back , back, my children, back in the dim mists of time, the Flatbutt tribe lived their charming, primitive lives undisturbed by the passing parade, amid the peaceful ponderosas high in the hills. It was a time of innocence. The mighty Flatbutts stalked game (mainly Twister, sometimes Monopoly) in the primeval forests. They made highly sophisticated pottery and are known from the archeological record as the inventors of the sippy nipple booby mug. They were particularly known for their greeting cards, which they imbued with powerful magic charms and a strong, greasy aroma.
The children of the Flatbutts were reared with a keen appreciation of something. Nobody knows what exactly. They spent much of their youth high in the elms, waiting for salmon to pass beneath and attempting to hit them with water balloons.
Life for the young Flattbutt was idyllic, and most of all, unhygenic. When a Flatbutt lad or lassie came of age they were initiated into adulthood by members of the tribal Amish Death Metal Society...felled from their lofty aeries and then flung headlong into the mighty Lager river, which ran strong, foaming and yeasty, through the center of their ancient tribal lands. For days afterwards those living downstream tasted, and knew.
Using long pointy sticks, the newly-made adults were then rescued from the malty torrent and greeted by the tribe. A huge bonfire using wildcrafted sofas was set ablaze. The next three days were passed in feasting, catered by Port O' Subs, attempting to light off damp fireworks with gasoline, peeing for distance, fart tag and Twister. During this time, and for some afterward the buffalo were wary.
The adult male Flatbutt was of average height, not counting the additional inches added by the pirate hat and cuban-heeled boots it was their custom to wear. Each man also wore a penis sheath, a ribbed length of dryer vent decorated with feathers and crackerjack prizes, held fast to the body with duct tape and many inches longer than was entirely necessary. This article of clothing, it was believed, aided the hunter in attracting the police.
Sometimes in bad weather the males would cover themselves in fried eggs and burrow deep into the forest duff in search of Playboy magazines cached earlier in the year.
Women customarily went topless (inspiring the tradional indian war cry WOO WOO), wore raffia platform shoes with cherry toe clusters, and midlength circle skirts adorned with poodles, eiffel towers, and frenchmen riding bicycles. No ensemble was considered complete without the traditional Hermes bag where the scalps and genetalia of their enemies were carried.
Then came the pioneers... those europeans banished from their own lands by a populace sick to death of their constant whining about being too cold and too wet and too muddy and oo, can't I have another blanket and oh dear the thatch is leaking again and could somebody bring me something hot to drink? and maybe a magazine? and could you turn the channel before you leave?
They crossed the plains leaving trails of used tissues, and the rumor of their passage was told in the sudden increase of postnasal drip among the tribal peoples with whom they traded for vicks vaporub and aspirin along the way.
The first doomed meeting between the two peoples happened on Friday.
Last Friday.
Everyone was settling in for a nice picnic lunch and maybe later a swim in the river if it wasn't too chilly (making certain they waited the traditional one sacred hour after eating to appease Paul, the giant monster lager lizard who was rumored to live on the bottom of the channel eating the Adidas of the unwary) Without warning, from over the rolling hills in the distance appeared the Chevrolets and Pontiacs of the settlers, drawn by tired oxen.
Without so much as a howdy do the feverish pioneers unhitched their beasts and simply allowed them to trample oxishly towards the river heedless of the noshing natives, who scattered willy nilly and hither and yon and Simon and Garfunkle and Seigfried and Roy, only before Roy got his head ate by a tiger, and then into the very river itself, where the thirsty beasts drank their fill, promptly passed out and floated away downstream.
The Flatbutts rallied. Gathering up their blue tarps and styrofoam coolers they waded in, chunking rocks and bottles, sandwiches and eight-track players in a valiant attempt to sink the beasts, and finally, desparately, pelting them with the used diapers of their own children.
Sadly, there really never was any hope.
And so history was played out on the sage-strewn stage of the painted praries. Intermarriage alloyed the pride and strength of the Flatbutts. Competition for cigarettes drove the price up. Korean investors swept in like locusts on really big fast things and bought up the primeval forestlands for a pint of pee and built Outback Steakhouses where once proud Flatbutts had hunted in proud and flatbutted nudity. Although that naked part was supposed to have been a little Flatbutt secret.
But a ray of hope gleams through the crack in the bathroom stall of history, blocked though it may be by the wadded up toilet paper of Caucasian revisionism. Today, using laptop computers which they cleverly assemble from sticks, rocks, squirrels, and some of those cardboard tubes that paper towels come on*, the Flatbutts are slowly regaining their former status as the savage investors they were of yore.
Given time, a clearly written pattern-preferably Bernina- and the right yarn, they will rise again.
WHITE MAN, PRAY TO JESUS THEY HAVE YOUR CORRECT SIZE.
*a perfect example of Flatbutt injun-uity.
*a perfect example of Flatbutt injun-uity.
I don't want a Birkin Bag from Hermes anymore. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteYou know, you really do make history seem like it really happened.
ReplyDeleteara: well where are you going to carry your scalps and genetalia then?
ReplyDeletehendrix: henry ford said 'history is bunk'. of course, he said it in the past, so it's bunk too. i forgot what i was talking about.
I'm married, silly. He carries the luggage.
ReplyDeleteThe Book Shop has aqcuired an absolute gem on ethnopsychiatry - you'd love it: mid 20th century Freudians trying to understand various phobias and mental 'illness' in the Shoshoni tribe. Lots of on-the-spot interviews and a great section on warrior scalping phobia.
ara: phobic about being scalped? it took a psychiatrist to figure that out? i kind of figures everyone knew that getting the top of your head peeled with a stone knife sucks.
ReplyDeletegimme the title, darling - i HAVE to read this!!!
No, no - Shoshoni warriers who were elected by the tribe to carry out scalping the enemy, developing a phobia about it afterwards. I'm off to work AGAIN tomorrow, so I'll get you the details.
ReplyDeleteAre you and Cher sisters????
ReplyDeleteAre you in anyway related to Elvis or Tonto?
Hey... I've seen this somewhere before...
ReplyDeleteExam week, please exuse lack of wit.
wow...I am so glad I became and honourary flatbutt. I mean the history of my chosen people...fascinating.
ReplyDeleteI have half a mind to jump into thjorsau and be carried by the river downstream...just so I feel truly part of this. But you know, the river is a bit chily, especially since it comes down from a glacier and I just had a haircut too and it would probaly ruin my nail polish...otherwise I really would :)
That was such a fun read...maybe there is more to us?
Is there any body modification involved with being a Flatbutt, or is it genetic? Because, personally, I'm still trying to figure out how I got to be a whitey with a hottentot ass.
ReplyDeleteooh. Amish Death Metal.
ReplyDeleteI could get behind that. They're probably a very angry people...hmmm.