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The most popular song in the Republic of Lurchia.
Basic translation of lyrics: "Be a Lurch. Be a Lurch. Drink. Drink. Ay-yi-yi. Be a Lurch."



Since I've now reached rock bottom -- bored with my own sad narratives, I thought I'd try something completely different until such time as I can get my deep-doo-doo muse back. In the meantime, here's a little piece I am calling...



On Montenegritude
=========================


Background Checks

---

eRepublik is based on real life countries. Except that it's not. Not really.

For one thing, there's a bunch of countries missing.

And -- since a few RL countries' authoritarian regimes have banned our wonderful game in order to prevent eRepublikanism, what with its raging anarcho-democratic nudo-socialist e-hooliganism and stuff, from giving their populations bad ideas -- why, we've even got a few e-countries that are actually populated by players from entirely different RL countries! You know, little places like "China" and whatnot.

That's all cool I s'pose. You just have to be mindful that not everything in eRep is what it seems to be.


MMMMmmm! A Big OMc-Mac Catburger really hits the spot! Try it with a side of chicken-feet-O-McMcNuggets!



Then there's the PTO crowd. Unlike in RL, where "PTO" means "paid time off" and is A Good Thing, here in bizarro-world, PTO means "political take over" and it is A Neurotic Thing.

PTOers are players who are just anxious as spit to get onto one or another RL CIA/FSB/Mossad/PLA/Revolutionar-Guard watch list by showing off their awesome infiltration and "sleeper" skills here in good ol' Game World. Them's funny folk. Not into my kinda gaming. But, whatever. I mean, who really gives a good you-know-what anyway, right?

What's that -- you don't think those agencies pay attention to something like an online gaming forum. Haha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! You funny too!!


Yeah, this dang Montenegrin showed up on the eRep Hard Core PTOers Watch List! NO WAY is he running in the Boston Marathon -- EVAH!




Good old fashioned e-conquering, naturally, also plays mayhem with our loverly e-geography. Which brings me to today's topic: "Montenegritude".



The Real Negro Mountain

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Yeah. So. I was a-sitting here minding my own e-business. Was just wondering if I could come up with a completely made-up country that maybe we ask to have added to eRepublik. You know, one that would be appealing enough, you know, with enough of a back story and a real-sounding name, that people would actually believe in it and maybe let it into their e-consensus reality even if it only really existed only in their imagination.

And then -- what do you know! -- my Secret Socialist Wolverines Alert went off like a screaming banshee. I got in the ol' PQ-jet went e-flying on up to e-Wisconsin to save the cheese from some dastardly invaders. And -- lo and behold! -- it turned out that Wisonsin was being invaded by some country called "Montenegro". I was like "waaaahh?" and "R U kiddin me?" 'cause I was pretty sure this was one of those made-up deals like "Maryland". (For more background, see this important and ground-breaking article on Deleting Maryland).

Right? This so-called "Montenegro" was just put there for some kind of fun and convenience, right? But it's not really a real place, right?

OR at least that's what I thought. Until I did some research...



It turns out that the real story is much more bizarre than what I had imagined!


First of all, it turns out that "Montenegro" actually means "Negro Mountain" in one of those dying Euro-style languages.

When I learned that, Ha-ha!, I thought, so this really is one of the "Maryland" type deals 'cause, you know, that's where real life Negro Mountain (suppozubly) is...



...(I say "suppozubly" because if you actually believe Maryland really exists then you obviously haven't yet woken up to the fact that Wikipedia is just a vast conspiracy of made-up fictions, full of clever jokes like "moon landings" and "electricity" and "Maryland" and so on, in which case, well, sure, OK, wink, of course!, Maryland really exists and there really is a place there called "Negro Mountain". wink)



But all that aside, let's suspend our hard-earned rational disbelief for juat a minute. Let's assume there really is a Wikipedia entry for a Euro-Balko country named "Montenegro" and that that's what is being represented in-game as "Montenegro".

Furthermore, let's pretend to believe for now that Wikipedia is describing a "real" place (which is not the real "real" Negro Mountain, but another one). OK. Now let's pretend to believe there's a wee country tucked in between Peoples Democratic Albania, the Greater Servish Empire and the Australian-Hungro Empire. And, what the heck, let's even trust Wikipedia when it says "Montenegro" has a "port" on the Adriatic Sea named "Bar". (Snicker!)

Get it? A port? Named "Bar"? Yuck-yuck! God -- the Illuminati must think we are just complete morons. Anyway... moving on....



No Mountain Negros!

---

The real shocker in all of this is that, after doing a great deal of investigation into this so-called "Montenegro" place, I have determined that, in fact, it is completely lacking in Mountain Negritude! That's right. You heard me -- there are NO mountain negros in "Montenegro"!

If there were actual mountain negros from Montenegro, then I might not be so opposed to their invasion of Wisconsin. I mean, face it, all that really goes on in Wisconsin is a lot of cheese heads pretending to get all up in their "wolverines" on Friday evenings.


Side Bar: Those not well-trained in true religion need to understand that American High School Football is a metaphysical island of fundamental atavistic truth in a highly verbalized, disguised and spectacularized society. A throwback of 30,000 generations of anthropological time, for a group of tubby Wisconsin cheese heads, watching their teenaged weekend warriors plonk around the gridiron while screaming "Wolverines!!" at them evokes a feeling something not unlike riding with the Golden Horde as they sacked Baghdad, but with beer and cheese fries.


And by the way...

Cheese Fries are NOTHING like poutine, gawddammit!

Argh. Canadians. They're so disgusting. I mean really, they're all like "Oh, don't you love poutine, eh? Oh hey, I had poutine and beans for breakfast, eh? Pfffffffftt! Oh hey, let's have a warm Molson with our poutine, eh?" Ugh!

Crap. Where was I?...





Oh. Right. Mountain Negros.

Yes, if these "Montenegros" were bringing some actual negritude to Wisconsin, then I'd be all for it.

I mean, let's face it, negritude is awesome. And mountain negritude would be coming from an even higher place than regular negritude, so that would be twice as awesome, right?

But the reality is entirely different. Here are some comparisons of actual awesome negritude with fake/boring "monte"negritude to show you what I mean....



Singers with real Negritude: diverse, multi-cultural, world beat


Singers with fake "Monte"negritude: funky, smelly old beatniks



Sexy Negritudinous Art: rocking the rhythms of the world


Unsexy "Monte"negitudinous Art: boring white people with a wooden donkey





Well, I hope this has helped you to understand the awful situation being faced by e-Wisconsinners today. It's bad enough being in Wisconsin to begin with. But at least you have plenty of cheese and wolverines, right?

Then you get invaded (suppozubly) by mountain negros and you're like "Wow! This is gonna be awesome!!". Then you find out what these ersatz "Montenegro" people are really all about -- and, well, it's just a huge freaking let-down.





OK.






I'm gonna go outside now.