[NOTE: This quessay is cross-posted on HuffingtonPost.com]

*Big ups to Crispin Glover, who really should’ve run for president this year, and who once wrote an “essay” called “What Is It?” composed only of questions, with a subtly discernible anti-Steven Spielberg thrust to it. Subtly discernible, the way the media’s anti-Hillary Clinton bias is subtle. I’m paying homage to Glover’s genre*** and giving it a name**: Quessay (question essay). (Actually, so no one accuses me of stealing anyone else’s words, according to Google as of today ONE OTHER person, someone named Rockin80sChick4ever, has used the term quessay. And I think she meant something else.)

Why have we seen Chelsea Clinton but not Bill in the audience at the recent one-on-one debates, and why don’t Michelle Obama and her daughters ever appear at them?

Isn’t it strangely prophetic that Barack Obama, in his 2006 book The Audacity of Hope, after admitting his own “unusually — and at times undeservedly — positive press coverage,” (p. 120) cites only these two people as an example of right-wing bias in the media: “A vote or speech by Hillary Clinton that runs against type is immediately labeled calculating; the same move by John McCain burnishes his maverick credentials” (p. 124)?

What would you say if you knew Hillary’s mom’s married name and Barack’s mom’s maiden name both end in “-ham” (Rodham and Dunham respectively)? Are the Rodhams and the Dunhams related? Isn’t Barack Obama distantly related to the current vice president, Richard Bruce “Dick” Cheney?

Was Barack Obama’s maternal great-grandfather named Ralph Waldo Emerson Dunham? Did he die on October 4, 1970, the same day Janis Joplin died? Wasn’t Janis Joplin a drug addict?

Were rock stars Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison (rumored to have been) killed by the U.S. government?

Do Hillary Clinton, Mamie Eisenhower, Spiro Agnew, Laura Bush, Ralph Nader, Pat Buchanan, the late Bobby Kennedy, Michael Dukakis, Howard Dean, Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, Scarlett Johansson, Condoleezza Rice, Billy Graham and Maria Shriver all share a zodiac sign (Scorpio)?

Do Barack Obama, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Rosalynn Carter, Marilyn Quayle, Tipper Gore, Lynne Cheney, Bill Clinton, Phyllis Schlafly, Anita Hill, Fidel Castro, Loni Anderson, Caspar Weinberger, the late Jerry Falwell and Arnold Schwarzenegger all share a zodiac sign (Leo)?

Do scorpions sting themselves to death when cornered by an enemy, rather than be killed? Do lions roar a lot (“variations in intensity and pitch, rather than discrete signals, appear central to communication”****)?

Is it interesting that Barack H. Obama Sr. went to Harvard and earned a doctorate in economics, making Barack H. Obama Jr. a “legacy” student at Harvard? Did both Barack and Michelle Obama receive law degrees from Harvard, and did both Bill and Hillary Clinton receive law degrees from Yale? Who else went to Yale? Did any of Bill or Hillary Clintons’ parents attend Ivy League schools? Am I an Ivy League graduate? Was Bill Clinton the only person in his family of origin to attend college?

Is Barack Obama allowed, constitutionally, to pick Bill Clinton as his running mate?

Did Bill Clinton and Barack Obama’s fathers both die relatively young as a result of automobile accidents?

Do William J. Blythe III (Bill Clinton), John S. McCain III and Barack H. Obama II have numbers after their names that, all together, add up to eight (8), which is the same as the total combined number of books the three of them have been the top-billed authors of? Eight?

Does it surprise you that Hillary Clinton’s house in Washington, D.C., is the only one on the block with no house number displayed anywhere?

Where does Barack Obama live when he’s in D.C.? What’s his favorite restaurant? Is it the same restaurant favored by Richard Bruce “Dick” Cheney? If not, why not?

In their youths, didn’t Bill Clinton meet John F. Kennedy and Hillary Rodham meet Martin Luther King Jr.?

Will Barack Obama respond to those calling for him to pick Bill Clinton as his running mate?

**When I was in grad school I would make up words all the time, but one of my sour-faced professors (a German) tried to rid me of the habit by writing in the margin: “It’s not necessary to invent a new word for the purposes of a term paper.”

***I’m also paying homage to the lists of intriguingly paranoiac questions that certain commenters from both fringe ends of the political spectrum like to insert into comment sections (again and again). Except my quessay is different because I can spell.

****Schaller, George B. The Serengeti Lion: A Study of Predator-Prey Relations. University of Chicago Press, 1972. pp. 103-113. Via Wikipedia.

Read more SM SHRAKE at You Wanna Know What? and The Shrake-tionary.

My astrological sun sign is Scorpio, which starts today. I can already hear some of you groaning, “Oh, no, not the zodiac! Who believes in that hogwash?” Guess what? I don’t have any time for people who are not at least somewhat “available” to the occult. (By the way, the YMCA now offers a Necromancy class on Tuesday evenings; I’m going to sign up, maybe meet some new people.)

Who cares about you “logical” people, anyway? Arrogant! You probably don’t even believe in God.

This post is about superiority and inferiority. If you’re not interested, beat it, I don’t need your bad vibe.

Some people find out I’m into my own sign and immediately ask what I know about their signs. I don’t care about your sign. The only thing I know is a tidbit about each of the two other signs I’m compatible with: Cancerians are loving but emotionally fragile (luckily they have exoskeletons, like Scorpios), and Pisceans are dreamers. That’s all I know. Do your own research.

Others of you will groan just at the word “Scorpio,” for reasons that are well known to anyone but the biggest “I-don’t-know-what-sign-I-am” nincompoop. Guess what? The feeling’s mutual: We’re sick of you stereotyping us as evil, without acknowledging the good parts.

“Ugh, you’re a Scorpio? My last boy-/girlfriend was one of those. It was awful.”
“How long were you together?”
“Five years.”

Gee, I wonder what kept you around? What ever could it be? You’re OUTTA HERE, and believe me, if a Scorpio says you’re free to go, you’ve gotten off easy.

Now, whoever is left after I’ve gotten rid of the zodiac non-believers, those curious about their own signs, and anti-Scorpios: “Welcome.” This post is a private club for Scorpios and their fans. You are lucky I am telling you this stuff. Because Scorpios, like mafiosi, seldom talk to outsiders about what it’s like being a Scorpio—”this Scorpio thing of ours”/questa cosa dello scorpio di il nostro.

Interesting facts about me, me, me: On my birthday in 1775, the U.S. Navy was formed (Scorpio is a water sign!); in 1904 the NYC subway opened (I’d still rather cab it). I share my birthday, a few days before Devil’s Night, with explorer Captain Cook, composer Nicolo Paganini, President Teddy Roosevelt (one of only five Scorpio presidents: John Adams, James Garfield, Warren G. Harding and James Polk are the others*), manners maven Emily Post, artist Roy Lichtenstein, writer Sylvia Plath, Trump ex-wife Marla Maples and singer Simon Le Bon. Hey, you guys, let’s party!

(*Did you know that current presidential confidantes Laura Bush and Condoleezza Rice, as well as current and past presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Bill Richardson, Joseph Biden, Pat Buchanan, Bob Graham, Tom Harkin, Howard Dean and Ralph Nader, are all Scorpios? Does that scare you just a little? And remember that Election Day always falls right in the middle of Scorpio. Think for a minute about the personalities of the people in bold, and what they have in common…)

My friend Damon did my chart and found out I had an Aquarius rising and moon in Libra, a “double air.” I was horrified to have these two inferior (from a Scorpio perspective) signs so prominent in my chart. I have often remarked that if I were an Aquarian, I’d kill myself. My Mercury, Neptune, Jupiter, and Venus (yes!) are all in Scorpio, though. I do still wish I were a total Scorpio right down the line, so I could really do some damage.

“What kind of damage are you talking about, Scott?” Must not know any Scorpios, eh? Haven’t you ever been the victim of a Scorpioland hit? See, we’re about “death and regeneration.” Preferably your death and our regeneration.

Ever since I was a kid I’ve had to fight against the urge for total annihilation of an enemy. An example of an enemy is someone who drives too slowly in front of me or doesn’t answer one of my e-mails. The slightest provocation can make Scorpios feel murderous (but cold) rage. Murder is illegal in most places, so Scorpios will find a way to kill you that’s stealth and not so literal, but just as devastating and final. One thing we do is fish out your most shameful secrets and store them to use against you later. Much later. We serve our revenge as cold as possible. We also cover our tracks, like mafia hitmen. We do that by lying and getting other Scorpios to back us up.

Many have asked, “Can I convert to Scorpio?” No, you have to be born into it. When I was a kid, I wanted so badly to be in a witches’ coven, but then I read in a book that you have to be invited by someone who’s already a member. I was so hurt and angry at witches, for a while. I’m still that way about invitations.

One of the best things about Scorps is that we look out for other Scorps, and even for non-Scorps if we like them. If you’re in the organization, the FAMILY if you will, you’re set for life. What’s done to a member of my Scorpio tribe is done to me; the punishment for all transgressors is the same.

I like this masterpiece of understatement that I read on one of those zodiac sites: “Scorpios have complex forgiveness issues that people of other signs have trouble understanding.” Again, we’re talking about a secret society, with overtones of organized crime. And just as the young Meadow Soprano didn’t believe in the mafia even though she’s part of that tribe, all Scorpios are bound together, though some are too young to know it yet, and others can’t face up to their dark birthright.

By the way, I don’t read horoscopes. I’m not interested in that level of planetary monitoring, and most of them are just quackery anyway.

I just believe in the Scorpio mafia. Tribes and vibes: It’s all I’ve ever known, all I’ve ever needed.

Read more SM SHRAKE at You Wanna Know What? and The Shrake-tionary.