I've commented around the infotainment superhighway quite a bit, some serious engagements and others drive-by offerings of my two cents in the toll booth. Never quite took it upon myself to start a blog or newsletter or what have you in spite of my frequent contributions here, there and everywhere.
So why start now? With all the thousands upon thousands of Facetweeters and BlogToks and InstaSpacers already amassing their own followings, what's one more echo in the wilderness?
Well it turns out all I needed was a little encouragement to carve out my little niche on a subject I'm really interested in. And I mean... really, really, totally interested, in a subject that's very easy on the eyes. Or, ehs as the case may be.
Simon of Montreal is a longtime blogger with a progressive bent expounding wittily — and with MAD Magazine style comic visuals — on various topics pertaining to public life in Canada. Around 2017 or so I started commenting there regularly, first as an anonymous and much later as "Jackie Blue," so named for the 1974 Ozark Mountain Daredevils hit about a female recluse who, like me, lives her life from inside of her room. It was someone over at the political comedy blog aka "nasty vile little snark mob" Wonkette who introduced me to Simon's blog, in the comments (which, according to a popular in-joke among the Wonker crew, are "not allowed") of a long-ago article fawning over then-recently-elected Canadian Prime Minister and extremely telegenic Trump antithesis, Justin Trudeau.
Like millions of Americans (and Canadians too... and, really, anyone decent of any terrestrial nationality or planetary origin), I loathe Donald Trump with the fire of a thousand burning suns that he is stupid enough to stare directly at during an eclipse. In fact, one of the biggest reasons I despise him so much is because of all the headaches and sabotage that he has caused for Justin Trudeau and for the people of Canada, who have up until now always been our close allies and friends. I did not vote for this rancid bastard but know full well that it will be Americans who will be saying "sorry" to Canadians until the St. Lawrence runs dry. I cannot wait until he is ejected from office, handcuffed, and shoved in a cell so cramped it makes the Koncentration Kamp Kubbyholes his thugs shoved refugee children in look like luxury suites at one of his urine-soaked hotels where the only thing being laundered on a daily basis is Russian mob money.
I couldn't even bear to follow the never-ending firehose of bullshit that he was shoving into the supplicant eyeball-starved press, and felt I had to distract myself from him as much as I possibly could to preserve my mental health. So as a much-needed psychological salve, I started getting really invested in the daily goings-on of the incredibly polite maple Adonis, even beyond the mere superficial viral photo-ops and "selfies". Eventually I pretty much got a crash course in Canadian politics through Simon's blog and #cdnpoli social media.
And as part of that crash course, I started to become the digital equivalent of American travelers overseas who pretend to be Canadian out of shame and embarrassment that their president has disgraced the country in the eyes of the world. A trend that started when the president was a racist Republican facing impeachment and on the verge of a nervous breakdown who sent tin soldiers to attack left-wing protesters, while his suave, handsome, progressive counterpart and diametric opposite in Ottawa was a Montrealer by the name of Trudeau.
Well, history may not repeat, but it sure does rhyme.
(And isn't it ironic, don't you think: Nixon himself gave a toast at a state dinner to the December-born infant scion who would someday become the prince of peace and king of kings — well, the 23rd prime minister of Canada, at least.)
Anyway, over time it felt like I had really immersed myself in Trudeau's Canada, through back-and-forth dialogue (sometimes heated!) on everything from electoral reform to gun control to the various "controversies" and palace intrigue of Liberal Party backroom lore. (You really had to have been Very Online™ during the SNC-Lavalin brouhaha to know what "Shamrock Twitter" is, and why.) I followed the pollsters, learned their names, and even came up with clever ones for the Tory-skewed ones that frame Trudeau and his party in a bad light ("Anus Reid," huh huh huh, Beavis). I started lurking on Twitter to read what other Liberal supporters (some, but not all, who might qualify as Trudeau "stans") were saying about the polls, the parties, the papers, the personality profiles. Needless to say, I became prolific in my prolixity. So around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic a Twitter follower of Simon's apparently mentioned me in her tweet and asked if I had a blog of my own.
Well, now I do. Now you may ask yourself what does that funny word mean?
"Fuddle duddle" is one of the more well-known Trudeauisms and artifacts of Canadian political nostalgia. It comes from a publicized incident in which Pierre Trudeau was cautioned about the possible use of "unparliamentary language" when heckling some of his Conservative Party rivals in the House of Commons. Wikipedia explains it thus:
The fuddle duddle incident in Canadian political history occurred on February 16, 1971, when Prime Minister of Canada Pierre Trudeau was alleged to have spoken or at least mouthed unparliamentary language in the House of Commons, causing a minor scandal. Trudeau mentioned the words "fuddle duddle" in an ambiguous answer to questions about what he may or may not have said in Parliament.
In February 1971, opposition MPs [members of Parliament] accused Trudeau of having mouthed the words "fuck off" at them in the House of Commons. When pressed by television reporters on the matter, Trudeau would only freely admit having moved his lips, answering the question, "What were you thinking, when you moved your lips?" by rhetorically asking in return "What is the nature of your thoughts, gentlemen, when you say 'fuddle duddle' or something like that? God, you guys!" Thus, it remained unclear what Trudeau actually mouthed.
As the Trudeau name has practically become as synonymous with Canada as Gretzky or (forgive me) Bieber, so too have the various quotes, anecdotes, and neologisms that have popped up over time in the "Tru-niverse" (except that one, I coined that and I don't expect it to become popular at all). Others include "just watch me," "because it's 2015," and "a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian." "Fuddle duddle" might be one of the most famous Trudeauisms and indeed, Canadianisms of all.
But here's where things get really interesting and where I picked my Blogger title from. As it turns out, Dr. Seuss published in 1958 a whimsical book of alternative alphabets called On Beyond Zebra. One of the characters personifying this unique letterset is a strange bird called, wait for it...
Miss Fuddle-Dee-Duddle.
Now to the best of my knowledge Dr. Seuss and Pierre Trudeau never crossed paths and the 15th prime minister never knew of this obscure fictional creature with the "unparliamentary" name. Nor did I, until someone else at Wonkette posted, for some long-forgotten reason, a graphic of the letterset in the comments which aren't allowed (you really have to be a diehard in that community to know what this even means). So here's the graphic with the Seussabet, where you can clearly see the letter Fuddle:
And here's the fashionable dame representing that glyph, Miss Fuddle D. Duddle. Sashay away.
I guess since she's a she, and she signs her singular name with just one symbol, that makes her kind of like Cher and Prince all in one. The Trudeaus are a family of cultural connoisseurs, and Margaret in particular was always quite the fashion plate, as is her now daughter-in-law Sophie. The men of the family were and are of course quite debonair themselves. Notice how many of these terms reflecting refinement and... haute couture are French? So I'm sure they'd approve of the "signature" style of this fine feathered Fuddle. And, of course, her nom de... plume.
I'm digressing a little bit, but now you know the origin story of how Miss Fuddle Duddle came to be, and how this Trump-fatigued Yank became an unsolicited opinionator on all things Canada.
Where will I go from here, though? Easy answer:
Just watch me.
