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2013.06.linuxmafia.com
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1999-01-13
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EURO SOPHISTICATES LAUGH AT PRUDISH AMERICANS
While the Lewinsky scandal continues to rage on the front of American
newspapers, a much different reaction has developed on this side of the
Atlantic. To world-wise, sophisticated Europeans, the spectacle is a
curious sideshow, and another reason to mock and disdain the puritan
morals of their American counterparts. "You feelthy Americans, you make
me seek," says sneering French graduate student Serge Tati, 47,
expressing a common sentiment.
Fashionably displaying a horizontal stripe t-shirt and skin-tight
Speedo, he was recently trying on the Lido with his mistress Yvette
LaFleur, 43. Like thousands of fellow French graduate students, he was
enjoying his annual 28-week vacation. "Beel Clinton, he is Euro, no?
He eez moderne, he eez now. He has joie de vivre. He ravages zee
young geerls. In my country, we geeve heem a medal, no?" asks Tati,
deeply drawing on a clove cigarette.
"Oui, like Jerry Lewees," adds the topless LaFleur, carefully combing
her leg hair. "And yet you treat heem like a common creeminal," noted
Tati. "Ptui! You I speet on you, pheelistine American peegs! Wiss your
'amburgairs and tailfins and your soap! Ha-ha, we laugh at you!" he
added, shaking his pinched fingers in a Euro-expression of disgust. The
interview abruptly ended when a nearby sunbather was angered after being
slapped by one of Tati's errant hand gestures. Tati and the sunbather
proceeded to engage in a furious kicking and slapping fight, before
fleeing in terror after spotting a German tourist.
At EuroDisney, many visitors were likewise perplexed by Americans'
scandal obsession. "Mitterand, he eez to having many affairs, no?
We adore heem as a god," explains Jacqueline Robespierre, 28, an adverb
specialist at the French Ministry of Language Purity. "You puny
insignificant Americans, you treat Beel Clinton as eef he were a
mere mortal."
Herve Souci agrees. Like thousands of other EuroDisney workers, Souci,
39, is on strike demanding government designation as an 'artiste,'
which, if granted, will translate into a 47 week annual vacation. "Zee
American -- how you say? -- right-wingair, he eez blind. He cannot see
zee simple beauty of Beel Clinton, of zee Jean-Luc Goddard feelm, of zee
European football," says Souci, removing the head of his Mickey Mouse
costume for a drink of wine. "Merde! How I pity and despise you," he
adds, pausing to kick two children attempting to cross the picket line.
Across the English Channel and long accustomed to their own lurid sex
scandals, Britons appear to find the Lewinsky affair somewhat boring.
At the Dog and Queen, a picturesque pub in London's Mayfair section, a
group of locals discusses the scandal over a traditional lunch of
boiled sheep pancreas, bitter spleen pie, rancid chocolate and warm
beer. "We do have a 'special relationship' with you Yanks, but I must
say you have gone a bit starkers over this Lewinsky business," laughs
Nigel Ealing, 32, a quality-reduction engineer at Jaguar. "It
positively reminds one of your obsession with plumbing, dentistry, and
shampoo."
Collin Framinghampton-Smythe, an unemployed soccer hooligan for
Manchester United, agreed. "Bloody 'ell, you 'aven't got a single
snapshot of 'er knickers." "Shut your bloody gob, ye wee bastard,"
added his friend Derek Hobson, playfully smashing a pint glass into
Framinghampton-Smythe's face, dislodging four of his remaining teeth
before vomiting on the snooker table.
In Amsterdam, perhaps Europe's most cosmopolitan city, the locals
openly laugh at the perceived puritanism of their American cousins.
"Americans, they must have hangups, many many hangups, not like us
open-minded Dutch," says leather-hooded, whip-wielding Mistress
Dominique, 67, a performer at Amsterdam's Elderslutz, a
government-operated live sex show featuring senior citizens. The
show was created by the Dutch government to provide jobs for
unemployed elderly prostitutes.
Bart TenBoek, 42, a government-employed heroin addict, agrees. "Bill
Clinton is a hero. He is a model of Eurostyle for the backward
Americans. No. Wait a minute. He is a tree. A big glowing, pink
tree. Flying across the sky making a beautiful, beautiful rainbow,"
notes TenBoek, laughing uncontrollably as he collapses into a fetal
position.
In Milan, where 'amore' is way of life, the citizenry is solidly
behind President Clinton. "Si, Beel Clinton is multi bello," says
Giancarlo Leone, 32, an unemployed movie extra and father of twelve.
"He is -- how you say -- my-a hero." "Ciao, bella! Bellisima,
Bellisima," he compliments a passing girl, pausing to make smooching
sounds as he pinches her hindquarters. "Ow!" he adds painfully, fleeing
on his rusting Vespa to avoid another flowerpot from his wife, who is
screaming from a nearby balcony.
In faraway Barcelona, Juan Ortega has similar sentiments. "Si, I tink
de Americans, dey not like Meester Cleenton too good enough," says
Ortega, who had a Coke concession at the 1992 Olympics, but has since been
unemployed. "Dey should love heem, like we love paella or Generalissimo
Franco."
Helga Ericksson, 54, an official with the Swedish Ministry of Furniture
and Suicide in Stockholm, agrees. "Yah, Americans are fascists. They
moost embrace Clinton. Like ve Svedes embrace depression and death."
Germans Dieter Schaden, 28, and Igo Reinholdt, 34, have a message for
scandal-obsessed Americans. "Ja, get mitten der twentiest century," says
the couple, between acts of their bondage and discipline show at a dark
Berlin discotheque.
Jane Kirschner, style editor at the New York Times and a longtime
Europhile, feels embarrassment over American scandalmania. "All across
the continent, they are laughing at our backward, prudish, puritan
morals. I almost feel too ashamed to go there anymore," she says, sipping
a cup of black espresso. Kirschner thinks the continentals are on to
something. "We have a lot to learn from them. "Americans need to become
more open-minded and jaded. We need to adopt sophisticated European
ways, like $8 per gallon gasoline and 145% tax brackets." The recent
election gives Kirschner some hope, though. "Apparently, Americans
aren't as hung up on this scandal as the media thought." "Thankfully,
we are becoming more like the Europeans."