KY Medicaid becomes ‘The Hunger Games,’ Kid Rock needs Kentucky teeth

Great comedy is all about the timing, isn’t it?

A remarkably clichéd insight, most notably because you wouldn’t know a joke if one came along and punched you in the face. But I’ll indulge you. What are you gibbering on about?

So the Frazier History Museum opens its “Hunger Games” exhibition just as our learned governor introduces real hunger games for Kentuckians with toothaches. You couldn’t make it up.

So you’re a fan, are you?

Of Bevin and “The Hunger Games,” no. Of the Frazier, very much so. Most underrated museum in the city if you love Bernard Cornwell’s books, although I’d prefer it if they got rid of that awful diorama of the War of Independence, which doesn’t appeal to my Rule Britannia sensibilities.

If you ask me, Bevin’s changes to how Medicaid gets dished out are nothing to do with healthcare and everything to do with him proving his chops as a cruel-enough bastard to get national Republican recognition. Too many wimps in the House to get anything suitably barbaric passed nationally, so he does it here and gets to say “Ain’t I bad motherfucker?” Makes perfect sense.

Bevin for president, 2024?

If that’s not what he’s already got his beady mincer on, I’ve got a Trump University Ph.D. in Healthcare Economics to sell you. The starting point for modern Republican politics is merciless inhumanity, and he’s got it in spades. His popularity outside Louisville is untouchable, thus proving beyond all doubt that most of this state is populated by people who are little more than masochistic lemmings.

There was doubt?

Look, there are thousands of reasonable, compassionate, decent people in Kentucky. The problem is that they’re vastly outnumbered by people who think horrible shit will happen to brown people when, in fact, it’s going to happen to them. I don’t know how you get around that.

Of course, us being Brits means that access to dental hygiene is very low on our list of priorities. My brother’s a dentist, as it happens, so while I may not have a Tom Cruise-like set of pearly whites, I do get very affordable treatment when I visit home. You know — free to those who can afford it, very expensive to those who can’t.

Well, for anyone under the poverty line, dentistry is once again going to be a punch in the face — unless you perform whatever circus trick Bevin wants you to perform. All in the name of personal responsibility, natch.

But hey, it’s Derby Week, so all other worries are cast aside. Got a tip for the race?

Yeah, same tip as I’ve had every year since I’ve been here: Watch the football, and don’t waste your silver supporting animal cruelty.

Here we go again. Although I haven’t picked a winner at the nags since I moved to Kentucky a decade ago, I suspect that’s not about to change. Most of my picks have run straight off the track into the glue factory lorry. So I’ll pass this year. I will say, though, above-average celeb guest list for the Barnstable-Brown party this year.

You’re having a giggle, aren’t you? Assorted Z-listers and reality show zombies that I wouldn’t even send to your house.

Larry David? Tracey Morgan? I don’t know, to me just those two make it a banner year. With a bit of luck they’ll get shitfaced and give Kid Rock a crash course in Kentucky dentistry.

All right, I’ll give you that one. Better than most years — although the flip side is that the quality of the Parade has hit rock bottom with a plastic-surgeoned television fitness instructor as the chief. I guess Richard Simmons was unavailable.

Mate, I’d go and cheer Richard Simmons on any time. Absolute legend. We’re getting Google Fiber: Why can’t we get anyone decent to do the parade?

Because while we’re getting Google Fiber, we still lack the cultural awareness to recognise that the entire festival and the parade are 1950s anachronisms in search of capital conclusions. I was hoping our merciless governor would put his Louisville hatred to good use and end these cringeworthy displays of provinciality, but no luck so far.

Meh, I kinda like the parade. High school marching bands that haven’t polished their shoes or cleaned their uniforms in months always work for me. But Google Fiber, though, how exciting is that?

Right? And real sports being played in a dedicated stadium as opposed to a bunch of entitled kids stealing jobs from hard-working kids in scuffed-up shoes who actually have to study and practice something non-height-related to win scholarships.

Whatever. I can’t wait to unleash the full potential of my virtual-reality goggles.

Wank Speed, Mr Sulu.

Like I said, all in the timing.

This article appears in May 3, 2017.