The world's greatest living avant-garde poet, responsible for masterpieces such as "Dog Faced Pony Soldier" and "No Malarkey," has continued his national tour with another spell-binding performance in South Carolina, a state that is named after the lower part of a woman.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has raised concern after he delivered a confused campaign speech in South Carolina, saying he was a “candidate for the United States Senate” and that people could “vote for the other Biden” if they did not like him.
His speech at the First in the South Dinner on Monday came ahead of the presidential primary in the state on Saturday.
A video of Mr Biden’s speech shared widely on social media showed him saying: “My name is Joe Biden. I’m a Democratic candidate for the United States Senate. Look me over, if you like what you see, help out. If not, vote for the other Biden.”
Biden is justly world-renowned for his effortless ability to spout "surreal gibberish" like this, which breaks through the surly bonds of time, space, and pedantic logic to take us to a higher plane of profound if confusing spiritual meaning.
Here are a few other spouts from this much-loved font of genius:
On Barack Obama
"A man I'm proud to call my friend. A man who will be the next President of the United States—Barack America!"
On Being Announced as Obama's running mate
"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."
On Obama's "stick"
"I promise you, the president has a big stick. I promise you."
On Television in 1929
"When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, 'Look, here's what happened.'"
On Irish PM Brian Cowen's Mum
"His mom lived in Long Island for 10 years or so. God rest her soul. And—although, she's—wait—your mom's still—your mom's still alive. Your dad passed. God bless her soul."
On Counting and Spelling
"Look, John's last-minute economic plan does nothing to tackle the number-one job facing the middle class, and it happens to be, as Barack says, a three-letter word: jobs. J-O-B-S, jobs."
On Being Vice President
"Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America. Quite frankly, it might have been a better pick than me."
On Ambition
"My mother believed and my father believed that if I wanted to be president of the United States, I could be, I could be vice president!"
On Vice in the Presidential Sense
"Isn’t it a b*tch? This vice president thing?"
On How to Win Over an Audience
"I guess what I'm trying to say without boring you too long at breakfast—and you all look dull as hell, I might add. The dullest audience I have ever spoken to. Just sitting there, staring at me. Pretend you like me!"
On Hinglish
"You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent....I'm not joking."
On Greeting the Disabled
"Stand up, Chuck, let 'em see ya."
On the Republican Plan to Reintroduce Slavery
"Look at what they [Republicans] value, and look at their budget. And look what they're proposing. [Mitt Romney] said in the first 100 days, he's going to let the big banks write their own rules—unchain Wall Street. They're going to put y'all back in chains."
On Corn Pop
"I learned a lot. And I learned that it makes a difference. This was the diving board area, and I was one of the guards, and they weren’t allowed to – it was a 3-meter board. And if you fell off sideways, you landed on the damn, er, darn cement over there.
And Corn Pop was a bad dude. And he ran a bunch of bad boys. And I did and back in those days – to show how things have changed – one of the things you had to use, if you used Pomade in your hair, you had to wear a baby cap. And so he was up on the board and wouldn’t listen to me. I said, ‘Hey, Esther, you! Off the board, or I’ll come up and drag you off.’ Well, he came off, and he said, ‘I’ll meet you outside.’
My car this – was mostly, these were all public housing behind us, my car – there was a gate on here. I parked my car outside the gate. And I – and he said, 'I’ll be waiting for you.' He was waiting for me with three guys with straight razors. Not a joke. There was a guy named Bill Wright Mouse the only white guy and he did all the pools. He was a mechanic. And I said, ‘What am I gonna do?’ And he said. ‘Come down here in the basement, where mechanics – all the mechanics – where all the pool builder is.’ You know the chain, there used to be a chain that went across the deep end. And he cut off a six-foot length of chain, and folded it up and he said, ‘You walk out with that chain, and you walk to the car and say, ‘you may cut me man, but I’m gonna wrap this chain around your head.’
I said, ‘You’re kidding me.’ He said, ‘No if you don’t, don’t come back.’ And he was right. So I walked out with the chain. And I walked up to my car. And in those days, you remember the straight razors, you had to bang ’em on the curb, gettin’ em rusty, puttin’ em in the rain barrel, gettin’ em rusty? And I looked at him, but I was smart, then. I said, ‘First of all,’ I said, ‘when I tell you to get off the board, you get off the board, and I’ll kick you out again, but I shouldn’t have called you Esther Williams, and I apologize for that. I apologize.’ But I didn’t know that apology was gonna work.
He said, ‘you apologize to me?' I said, ‘I apologize but not for throwing you out, but I apologize for what I said.’ He said, ‘OK,’ closed that straight razor, and my heart began to beat again.
On Being a Blonde
"By the way, you know, I sit on the stand and it’d get hot. I got a lot of — I got hairy legs that turn blonde in the sun, and the kids used to come up and reach in the pool and rub my leg down so it was straight and then watch the hair come back up again...I love kids jumping on my lap."
