A man greater than myself, and I realize that does very little to thin out the herd of possible candidates, once told me that the title was the single most important part of a literary work: “It reaches out your potential readers waving its arms wildly crying ‘read me, read me!’ Even though at the time, I thought it, and still do think it gay how he said it, I’ll accept it just this once for a test drive.

No, I don’t think I’m the best writer on this site, but much like being in Delta, every dog has its day, or the way I used to describe it: ‘One time you, one time me’ suggesting that there was such an even playing field that there was never just one genetically superior entity that was constantly cleaning house in training competition; one day you beat me, the next day maybe I beat you. Competition was tight.

sofrep-bk-afsoc
The actual BK Actual in a post beer moment of clarity; say pal… you gotta light?

BK Actual, Brian “Don’t Get Me Started” Kimber

I remember the day, I am pretty sure it was a Sunday if not mistaken, the trophy went to Burger King Actual, as I like to affectionately title him… the extant Brian Kimber (and a great hush fell upon the audience).

“How come Brian Kimber gets to use profanity in his writing and we don’t—is that fair?” I asked one day to the imaginary Jack McMurph sitting in front of me, only because Brandon Webb was gone Southbound on a intended Northerly azimuth somewhere over the Bermuda Triangle, in a Chinese-built single-engine piper cub. I don’t know about you, but the Triangle is a really really (no kidding really) great place to bring the logistics aphorism: “Two equals one, one equals none” into play. Brandon was rumored to be out on an airborne search for an allusive tribe of Pygmy indig known as the Bermuda Shorts.

Jack didn’t answer. Well, because he was just imaginary, so I drew my own well-thought-out conclusion. After many hours of painstaking laboratory analysis involving painstaking and complex differential calculus invocations, the answer just slapped me hard, square in the face. Of course… a child could have figured it out. Ray Charles could see that it is simply because that is how BK rolls when he writes, dawg.

Yep, BK gets away with it because BK can pull it off. The analogy that springs to mind is, and I deliver this somewhat in the style of the great BK, “Guys, it’s like this: at the beach the fat chick wears the one piece bathing suit, while the skinny chick wears the skimpy bikini. Why, you might ask… because the skinny chick CAN, that’s why.” So Brian does it because he can. The rest of us ash and trash continue to get our pee-pees whacked, and our potty mouths edited heavily by his excellency the Copy Editor Revieweur/euse.

The Odyssean may come to mind as an intermittent exception, having read one of his latest posts on the media exploitation of young Omran of Syria. The expletives in that essay made blood seep from my eyes. The fact is, the Odyssean had a pass from BK to use the profanity that he did, in the way that he did. It was a full-blown legal instrument drawn up and ratified by SOFREP’s general legal council, signed by both parties and their witnesses. How the Odyssean pulled that hail Mary off, we’ll never be sure, but I have it on good faith with Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost that a pretty fine penny made a one-way transfer… wink-wink, nod-nod.