Philip Roth: Our Gang

“Yes, I have this to say and I propose to say it so that there is no doubt about my feelings on this matter later. If the creeps and the cowards that crucify the crelinion, crip after crip, and who furthermore — and we have proof of this — have crossbowed the cradalious ever since the first crackadoes crusaded in the cause of caliphony, if they think they can cajulate and castigate and get away with it, there will be such a cacophony of cabs, cassanings and crinoleum through the criss and cratch of this country, that the crypto-callistans and the quasi-clapperforms will quiver rather than coopt the crokes.”

“Sir, while we’re on the subject of admittedly ugly rumors, can you comment on one that suggests that the reason you kept saying the President was alive when you knew he was dead, was because you were fearful that either a coup on the part of the Cabinet, or an armed revolt by the people, would have prevented you from taking office, had you announced openly your intention to do so? Were you frightened that they wouldn’t let you be President because you weren’t qualified?”

“Far from fear, what I felt was a filarious frostification at the far-reaching fistula into which fate had feductively fastinguished me.”

“Sir, will you comment on Mrs. Dixon’s decision to bury the President in his baggie at Prissier? Were you consulted on this, and if so, does it mean that your administration will be as committed as was his to the rights of the unborn and the sanctity of human life and so on?”

“Well, of course, not just me, but zillions and zillions of our zircos, zaps of our zilpags and zikons of our zikenites—”

“So the blah blah blah blah of state has been passed. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah has ended and the republic that blah blah blah.blah reason blah blah blah blah. Heavy are our blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah corridors blah blah blah that he loved. And the cherry blossoms. Blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah lest we blah blah blah blah blah our civilization with it. We can ill afford that. Blah blah blah blah blah back to normal blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah of America, from the humblest citizen to the blah blah blah blah. Blah blah 1776 blah blah? Blah. Blah blah 1812 blah blah blah? Blah blah. Blah blah 1904–1907? Blah! Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah reason and dignity. Blah blah blah blah reason. Blah blah blah blah blah dignity. Blah blah blah blah blah blah fulfillment of the Ameriblah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah one hundred years ago. Blah blah blah blah of Galilee. And yet those would surrender hope blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah cherry blossoms. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah before him. Blah blah blah the republic. Blah blah blah the people. Blah blah blah blah blah nation’s capital.”

The Eulogy Over the Baggie

( As Delivered Live on Nationwide TV by the Reverend Billy Cupcake )

Now today I want you to turn with me to page 853 in your dictionaries. Our eulogy is from the letter “L,” the twelfth letter of the alphabet, and our word is the fifth down in the left-hand column, directly below the word “leaden.” Our word is “leader.” Now how does Noah Webster define “leader”?

Well, Noah writes, “A leader is one who or one that which leads.” One who or one that which leads. One who or that which leads.

Just the day before yesterday I read an article in a current magazine by one of the top philosophers of all time and be wrote, “Leaders are one of man’s top necessities.” And in a recent Gallup Poll we’ve been reading where more than ninetyeight percent of the people of America believe in leadership. I was in a European country last summer and one of the top young people there told me that the teenagers in his country want leadership more than anything else. President Lincoln — before he was killed — said the same thing. So did Newton — Sir Isaac’ Newton, the great scientist — when he was alive. Now when Noah tells us that a leader is one who or one that which leads, he is telling us what “leader” means in the ordinary sense of the word. But I wonder if be who lies here before us in this baggie was a leader in the ordinary sense. I don’t think be was. And I’ll tell you why. I talked to a psychiatrist friend of mine only this morning and be said, “He was not an ordinary leader.” And one of my friends, a distinguished surgeon who does heart transplants at one of our great hospitals, wrote me a letter and said the same thing: “He was not a leader in the ordinary sense of the word.”

Well, you say, what was he then, if he wasn’t a leader in the ordinary sense? He — and I repeat that — he was a leader in the extraordinary sense of that word. Now what does that mean, the extraordinary sense of that word? Fortunately, Noah defines “extraordinary” for us, too. You will find the definition on page 428 in your dictionaries, in the right-hand column, six words down, directly beneath “extraneous.” Extraordinary, Noah tells us, means, “beyond what is ordinary; out of the regular and established order.” Beyond what is ordinary. Out of the regular and established order. Now what does that mean? I read only the week before last in an Australian newspaper that I get in my home a story about a fellow who made news down there — and why did he make news down there? Why do I know about him thousands and thousands of miles away? Because he was extraordinary in some way or another. He was that rare thing among men. He was himself and no one else. Himself and no one else.

And what does Noah tell us about “himself”? “Himself,” Noah says, “an emphatic form of him.” An emphatic form of him. Here then is what was so extraordinary about the leader around whose baggie we are gathered today. He was emphatically himself and no one else.

You know. Let me repeat that. You know, I have been to funerals of ordinary leaders the world round, and I know you have too, by way of the miracle of television. We all know the wonderful things that are said on these sorrowful occasions. But I think I have only to repeat the fine words that are intoned over the graves of ordinary dead dignitaries for you to see how truly extraordinary was our own dear departed President, in and of himself. In and of himself, which, you remember, Noah tells us is the emphatic form of him. Now I don’t mean to disparage the ordinary leaders of this great globe by this comparison. I read a letter only three weeks ago Thursday that a radical young person wrote to his girl friend disparaging and scoffing and laughing at the leaders of this world. Now he may laugh. They laughed at Jeremiah, you know. They laughed at Lot. They laughed at Amos. They laughed at — the Apostles. In our own time they laughed at the Marx Brothers. They laughed at the Ritz Brothers. They laughed at the Three Stooges. Yet these people became our top entertainers and earned the love and affection of millions. There are always the laughers and the scoffers. You know there used to be a top tune in all the jukeboxes called “I’m Laughing on the Outside, Crying on the Inside.” And I read an article in a news magazine only Sunday before last by one of our top psychologists which says that eightyfive percent-eighty-five percent! — of those who laugh on the outside cry on the inside because of their personal unhappiness.

I am not then trying to disparage the ordinary leaders of the world by this comparison. I want only to illustrate to you the extraordinary leadership of the man who walked among us for a brief while in a business suit, and now is gone. Only yesterday morning at ten A.M., I overheard a lady in an elevator of one of our top hotels, say to a young person, “There has never been another like him in history, there will never be another like him again.” Now. Let me repeat that. Now, when an ordinary leader dies — and I mean by “ordinary” just what Noah does, on page 853, the last word down in column one: “of the usual kind” or “such as is commonly met with”—when an ordinary leader dies, there always seem to be words and phrases aplenty with which to bury him. However, how ever, when an extraordinary leader dies, a man who was himself and no one else — what then do we say? Let’s try a scientific experiment. Now science doesn’t hold all the answers and many of my scientific friends tell me that all the time.