Slice-o-Life: For $69.95 (plus $9.00 S&H) you too can be the bush

Slice-o-Life: For $69.95 (plus $9.00 S&H) you too can be the bush
by Mike Madias, Clinical Sociologist and Columnist

September 23, 2002

Columnist Mike Madias In the September 9 issue of the New Yorker magazine, (a major competitor of Detroit HARDBALL) the editors ran their annual "Style Special" issue. They got advertizing from Salvatore Ferragarro; Prada; Georgio Armani; Louis Vuitton, Dior, Gucci and Calvin Klien. What the hell do all those poseurs know about fashion?

Hey folks! There’s a war going on. It is time to wake up and sniff the explosives or at least it’s time to wake up Rex, and have him sniff the explosives. Hu-ah! Double Hu-ah!

I would like to get a ghillie suit, go down to Comerica Park and make a fashion statement. But, if I can afford the highest quality ghillie, I might not get noticed at all. Someone might mistake me for shrubbery.

You see, a ghillie suit is a personal camouflage system used by the US Army. A soldier wears it and then cannot be seen. It is sort of a shaggy burkha for snipers. It covers the entire body save for eye holes. If you can, picture this: a member of the US Army Rangers, decked out like a deadly 200 lb. six foot Chia pet.

Ordinarily, one would wear a ghillie suit when, on "Operation Pointless Endeavor", an operator wants to take out a village leader who the CIA suspects to be the 475th hijacker.

But, hot lead, coming at close range from someone in a ghillie suit, who looks like the worlds biggest Triscuit, might not be the epitome of counter insurgent stealth. So the sniper will set up his nest one mile up wind from the head man’s abode. Apparently, from a mile away, a ghillie suit renders a professional killer almost invisible.

I am a large man. But they make ghillie suits in my size. In fact, they make Ghillie suits two degrees of extra large bigger than I. For me, wearing the ghillie would be a creative act; a modern dance, if you will. Here is my retro artistic inspiration. When I was a kid, there was a professional wrestler who used the nom d’ guerre "Haystack Calhoun." He could blow the bobby pins off of "Gorgeous George," and send "Dick the Bruiser" home to his mama. If you can imagine Calhoun actually looking like a haystack, then you can have a sense of the fashion statement I would like to make. It would be performance art, on the hoof. I could call myself the walking land fill.

Guillie suits are sold by Bushrag Camouflage System LLC of Studio City California; motto, "Be The Bush." This company provides camo accessories to many of Hollywood’s brightest stars. The basic model ghillie will set you back $69.95 with an additional $9.00 for shipping and handling. It comes in three terrorist colors: Woodland; Mossy; and Desert. Get one for your self, your wife, and all the little elite warriors in your family. If you are going to the video store in your Hummer, you might as well dress for the occasion.

But you don’t have to go all the way to LaLa-land to get your own ghillie togs. Bushrag sells its merchandise on the World Wide Web. The company brags that its site has had 156 thousand hits since mid June of this year. That’s a lot of ghillie. It’s big time, little buddy. For all I know, they might be negotiating a distribution deal with Old Navy.

For the discerning suburbanite sniper, homeland security means keeping folks like me from crossing 8 mile. A master of his domain could arm himself with a Wind-runner self defense device (SDD): a 50 caliber rifle-said to be the most unique firearm on Earth! With this thunder stick, someone can engage long distance targets with confidence.

The Wind-runner can be deployed in thirty seconds flat. It is easy to conceal and sneak to previously unobtainable positions like grassy knolls. To counter what might be a potential danger of a home invasion (like a rust bucket Coupe DeVille full suspicious looking city people) a citizen can unpack this baby, put it together, squeeze off a couple of rounds, and secure their own homeland. Then they could call up the authorities on their Citizens Band radio. It might take someone a few seconds longer if they install the optional silencer or have to put on their ghillie suit.

The Wind-Runner sells for $7250 with $98 for shipping and handling. The Wind-rider SDD is made by E.D.M. Arms of Redlands, California.

Bear market worries? Forgeddaboudit! Anyone can be a war profiteer.

I get my investment cues from Soldier of Fortune magazine. Here is a red hot stock tip. HQ-Govt. Surplus, a division of the Sportsman’s Guide Company- NASDAQ listed with the symbol SGDE.

The index might be down 20%, but not all NASDAQ issues lost their value. Sportsman’s Guide, the Barney’s of war surplus, has gone up from $2.20 a share a year ago to be trading at about $7.00 a share now. That is a 300+% gain in the last year. Major institutions hold 31% of the company’s common stock.

I assume that the president of SGDE wears a ghillie suit made with shredded $100 bills. I’ll bet he looks like a million dollars.

As for me, I am just another "G.I. Joe" (Hasbro Toys trade mark for its classic action figure). Just a free lance journalist, a war nonprofiteer, trying to cash in on product placement. Does this ghillie suit make me look fat?

Shalom,

Mike ***

"And goodnight Mr. Nobel, wherever you are."

Photo of Mike Madias courtesy of the author

A clinical sociologist living in the Metropolitan Detroit area, Mike's work has appeared in The Detroit News. He may be reached by e-mail at DetroitHardball@aol.com.