REVIEW OF THE WEEK
by
BAO DAI OF HOLLYWOOD
Recently I, Bao Dai of Hollywood have been attempting to get insured up to the hilt.
No, it's not because the method by which an associate instructed me on how to get the shell out of the chamber of my Charleton Heston Autograph model "Home Protector" Shotgun sounds like a good way to blow off my something like, say, my forearm, which would likely cause me to bleed to death as I heard the whine of the ambulance (or just die if I felt cheap, knowing they'll charge me fucking $600 bucks to take me a mile in the ambulance dead or alive); it's not because, due to my ineptitude with the old computer meets Internet I may have accidentally ordered Xanax daily for three weeks thinking it was Zantac (hey, they say benzodiazapines won't kill you, but they don't mention what happens if you REALLY got to pee and are too zonked out to even wet the bed or floor); it's not that the ineptness of my #1 Sister's lawyer, who I swear works for the fucking IRS on the side, is likely to drive me into a hostage taking situation which will result in my getting picked off by a sniper and smiling Joe Lazara getting quoted in some cheap scandal sheet like the LA Times about his "nightmare with the drug crazed heir to the House of Nyguen"; and it's not because, according to commercials which may or may not have stopped running on Howard Stern I have 60 pounds of toxic fecal matter in my colon.
In fact it's not life insurance at all.
It's just recently I've seen too many accidents where the "victim" ended up like a squashed fly and the insurer offered its policy limits of $15,000 (the state's minimal to drive) and the dead fuck's lawyer refuses to take it. I need a head ache like that the way I need Hanoi Bao's Lawyer calling me up to ask a question I already answered (at $275/hr).
So, after Hanoi Bao's insurance agent expressed no interest in over insuring me, I stumbled into the local Auto Club -- the Interinsurance Exchange of the Automobile Club (a/k/a the AAA) -- which, after I fakely resigned from the Board of a Vietnamese version of the Ravenite Social Club, was only too happy too sell me insurance... and on the cheap. Hey, I've got like $2,000,000 in coverage now for something like a grand a year ... on the house, on the cars, and on my boat (which i don't even own).
Now before you get any ideas about suing me, know the Auto Club will make any claimant wish they were in labor with quintuplets all trying for through door at once before you see a dime (in fact, that's its little known motto).
But that's not why the coverage is so freaking cheap.
No, seems that the Auto Club Board is in a proxy fight and they intend to win. The first thing on walking in the door with which one is hit is a petition/proxy assignment (I think) in favor of the existing Board. Next, they practically give you insurance. Finally (or maybe not), today in the mail I got another Proxy statement, and in a second, unmarked envelope, a check for $32.00 from the Interinsurance Exchange of the Automobile Club for, uh... well, nothing... no reason... I doubt my check for the insurance has even cleared.
But they can do that. The guys trying to take over the Board can't afford to send all insureds $32. Hell, I don't even know who the fuck they are... I just signed the thing they shoved at me because I liked the picture of the man in charge... he looked to be near 60 and I just couldn't bear helping to put him out of work.
So that, boys and girls of America, is why those in charge tend to stay in charge. They have access to not only us, but huge slush funds to pay us off and large paid staffs to (probably) mischaracterize what the would be replacements are all about.
That's part of why Rex the Junky will always live in a card board and Hefty Bag home (well, that and his insatiable appetite for intoxicants. It's why the guys I just gave my proxies to will probably retire within a year or so with platinum parachutes.
It may be why be why all these kids are using their local schools as shooting ranges (although that could be why the guy who owns the gas station where I was finally able to get a smog check on Hanoi Bao's car done can't get his son's college grades over the phone... that's his theory -- but then he sells cigarettes and beer to minors and his idea of "work" is wandering about fooling with his Rolex and bothering customers with his theories on school violence so they won't realize his concept of 20 minutes is in fact two hours... but while that's another example of the effective exercise of power (e.g. his statement "if i had bomb I blow that building up!" without identifying the building or realizing the idiot (me) he tells knows we are standing on a mini-Hiroshima of petrol and that it wouldn't take much for him to make a bomb) is another story.