Two key members of the Dandy Goat team have returned to work after several weeks of leisure time in France, enjoying privileges afforded to them thanks to their race and gender.
Publisher Franklin J. Dubbles spent three weeks on a tour of Brittany in the western part of the country, eating delicious food and drinking cider, Breton whisky and a mead-like concoction named chouchen. While he enjoyed the fresh coastal air and savage, rocky landscapes, Mr. Dubbles says that he could not help but to be plagued the whole time by intense feelings of guilt.
“I feel bad that I paraded around France for three weeks like some haughty aristocrat pissing on the peasants, consuming all their goods and calling their sisters whores, but Brittany really is a strikingly beautiful place to visit,” he said. “From the 7000-year-old megaliths, to the cliffs overlooking crashing waves and distant islands, to the fair-skinned but dimwitted village maidens who refused to accept my vulgar solicitations in perfectly good English, it’s a fantastic little region and I would urge everyone to go there at least once, even if it means that you need to get a second job and sell a little plasma.”
“Yet I know what I deserve none of this life,” he added, the corners of his mouth still sticky from the salted French caramel that he ladled onto his crepes every afternoon. “But as my father used to say, sometimes you have to indulge in every advantage that you never earned to better understand those who have none. Trust me, if I could give away all my wealth, I would. But then I’d have nothing left to give away, and I don’t want that. Giving is everything.”
Dandy Goat non-paid intern Richard Omega, who accompanied Mr. Dubbles to carry his luggage, sort our travel arrangements, translate menu items and communicate orders to wait staff, says that during the three weeks of staying in five-star hotels and going from one stunningly gorgeous, wild beach to another in a rented Range Rover, he learned a lot about how wicked capitalism really is.
“I was gifted with one free afternoon while Mr. Dubbles got a four-hands massage from a couple of models he met while admiring a yacht in La Trinité–sur–Mer, so I walked to a nearby gift shop to get a hand-painted postcard for my mother,” he said. “Infuriatingly, they wouldn’t let have one unless I gave them a few euros, of which I’ve got none because Mr. Dubbles takes care of my expenses.”
“Until we overturn this exploitative system of exchanging money for things, the workers of the world such as myself will never be treated as equals,” he said. “I’ve got three master’s degrees, for fuck’s sake. I should be ruling the world.”
As a form of penitence, on the last day of their vacation they drove their Range Rover six hours up to a migrant camp in Calais, a port city near France’s border with Belgium, and handed out Dandy Goat merchandise and encouraged camp residents to share Dandy Goat links with their friends and vote for U.S. Green Tea Party candidate Bernie Cruz, should they become American citizens before the November elections for some reason.
Dandy Goat contributors Ichabod F.N. Herstal, I.M. Salmon and Ignatius Lennon have not been heard from and could possibly be striking in order to draw attention to the fact that they have never been paid. Still, they are encouraged to get in touch and submit more free content.