After five years of toil as second banana, Dick Cheney was burning the midnight oil at his office. Suddenly, there was a flash of light, and a tower of smoke burst from the floor. Satan stepped out of the smoke, and addressed Cheney:
"I understand you'd give absolutely anything to become President," said the devil, "So I've come here with an offer. I'll make you President, but in return I will take the souls of your wife, your parents, your children, your grandchildren, and all of your friends."
Cheney looked puzzled and thought hard for several minutes. Finally, he turned to Satan and asked, "What's the catch?"
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Bush Goes to Hell, Part Deux
When we last left the soul of the late George Bush, a mysterious phone call helped secure his release from Satan’s claws and an eternity of suffering in Hell (2/26/05). However, before you could say, “Fool me once and…uh, but fool me twice, but…can’t fool…uh…,” George is back in the presence of the Prince of Darkness.
SATAN
Well, by my cloven hooves. George Bush.
BUSH
(Standing, brushing himself off) Beezlebarb.
SATAN
That’s Beelzebub. But who cares? You’re back. Food not to your liking?
BUSH
Very funny.
SATAN
Come on, George.
BUSH
You have to do this idiotic “Life Review” before you get an entrance pass. So, okay, things are dicey from the beginning, with the booze and privileged life and yada, yada, yada. I was still thinking I had a chance, though, as we got up to the last few years of my life. But after becoming President, it started going downhill faster than a California mudslide.
SATAN
Fascinating. Go on.
BUSH
Oh, you know. The war, the economy, secret wire taps, the lying…the typical liberal smears. But the camel that broke the straws back were the photos of me and Abramoff in a hot tub….
SATAN
That’s it?
BUSH
…buck naked…
SATAN
Mmmm.
BUSH
…with Gina and Dixie…
SATAN
Oh my.
BUSH
…and two empty bottles of Jack Daniels….
SATAN
Ouch.
BUSH
…spanking each other with packets of $100 bills.
SATAN
Priceless. Is that it?
BUSH
That’s it. So, here I am.
SATAN
Well, I can’t say it’s totally unexpected, but welcome back anyway, George.
BUSH
I wish I could say I’m glad to be here, but I’m not.
SATAN
Oh, I don’t know…you did live in Texas. How much worse can this be?
BUSH
You got a mouth on you, Satan.
SATAN
Thank you. I do have some news for you. While you were trying to bluff your way into heaven, your good friend and special “turd blossom” Karl Rove brought his stellar political career to an abrupt end with a midnight dip in the Potomac. His swimming buddy, a fifty-pound concrete block, turned out to be…less than helpful.
BUSH
Karl’s here?
SATAN
He’s right behind you.
BUSH
(turns around to face Rove) Karl!. I’ll be damned.
KARL
Well, that makes two of us. (they embrace) Good to see you, Sir.
SATAN
So touching when people find their soul mates. Perhaps I can arrange for you two to pour boiling oil in each other’s orifices. You’d be together….
KARL
(to Satan) Can I have a minute in private with the President?
SATAN
(smiles) It warms my heart to know you haven’t given up on your devious, mischievous ways, Karl. Go. Talk amongst yourselves
Karl and Bush turn their backs to Satan and talk in whispers.
KARL
Okay. Briefly, here’s where I’m at, Mr. President. I’ve started a whisper campaign in circles two and three that call into question the Devil’s commitment to pure evil. It charges that there is credible evidence Satan was not cast out of heaven, but left voluntarily to start a children’s petting zoo in Arizona. God thought Satan wasn’t living up to his potential, there were arguments, insults exchanged, and the rest is history. Second, I’ve organized a group of sycophants and panderers who swear that in the war against good, the Devil has grossly and dishonorably exaggerated his accomplishments. I call them the Swift Goat Soldiers for Truth. Finally, I’ve found a guard who will swear that Lucifer sleeps with a stuffed animal named Pookers. The man has photos!
BUSH
Karl, you are a freaking genius.
KARL
It won’t be long before he’s helping pack our bags.
SATAN
Boys. Oh, boys. Let’s break it up now. Your pitchforks are getting cold.
BUSH
(turning and smiling) Sure, Satan ol’ buddy. You’ve got our undivided attention. Right, Karl?
KARL
Let the games begin.
SATAN
Well, by my cloven hooves. George Bush.
BUSH
(Standing, brushing himself off) Beezlebarb.
SATAN
That’s Beelzebub. But who cares? You’re back. Food not to your liking?
BUSH
Very funny.
SATAN
Come on, George.
BUSH
You have to do this idiotic “Life Review” before you get an entrance pass. So, okay, things are dicey from the beginning, with the booze and privileged life and yada, yada, yada. I was still thinking I had a chance, though, as we got up to the last few years of my life. But after becoming President, it started going downhill faster than a California mudslide.
SATAN
Fascinating. Go on.
BUSH
Oh, you know. The war, the economy, secret wire taps, the lying…the typical liberal smears. But the camel that broke the straws back were the photos of me and Abramoff in a hot tub….
SATAN
That’s it?
BUSH
…buck naked…
SATAN
Mmmm.
BUSH
…with Gina and Dixie…
SATAN
Oh my.
BUSH
…and two empty bottles of Jack Daniels….
SATAN
Ouch.
BUSH
…spanking each other with packets of $100 bills.
SATAN
Priceless. Is that it?
BUSH
That’s it. So, here I am.
SATAN
Well, I can’t say it’s totally unexpected, but welcome back anyway, George.
BUSH
I wish I could say I’m glad to be here, but I’m not.
SATAN
Oh, I don’t know…you did live in Texas. How much worse can this be?
BUSH
You got a mouth on you, Satan.
SATAN
Thank you. I do have some news for you. While you were trying to bluff your way into heaven, your good friend and special “turd blossom” Karl Rove brought his stellar political career to an abrupt end with a midnight dip in the Potomac. His swimming buddy, a fifty-pound concrete block, turned out to be…less than helpful.
BUSH
Karl’s here?
SATAN
He’s right behind you.
BUSH
(turns around to face Rove) Karl!. I’ll be damned.
KARL
Well, that makes two of us. (they embrace) Good to see you, Sir.
SATAN
So touching when people find their soul mates. Perhaps I can arrange for you two to pour boiling oil in each other’s orifices. You’d be together….
KARL
(to Satan) Can I have a minute in private with the President?
SATAN
(smiles) It warms my heart to know you haven’t given up on your devious, mischievous ways, Karl. Go. Talk amongst yourselves
Karl and Bush turn their backs to Satan and talk in whispers.
KARL
Okay. Briefly, here’s where I’m at, Mr. President. I’ve started a whisper campaign in circles two and three that call into question the Devil’s commitment to pure evil. It charges that there is credible evidence Satan was not cast out of heaven, but left voluntarily to start a children’s petting zoo in Arizona. God thought Satan wasn’t living up to his potential, there were arguments, insults exchanged, and the rest is history. Second, I’ve organized a group of sycophants and panderers who swear that in the war against good, the Devil has grossly and dishonorably exaggerated his accomplishments. I call them the Swift Goat Soldiers for Truth. Finally, I’ve found a guard who will swear that Lucifer sleeps with a stuffed animal named Pookers. The man has photos!
BUSH
Karl, you are a freaking genius.
KARL
It won’t be long before he’s helping pack our bags.
SATAN
Boys. Oh, boys. Let’s break it up now. Your pitchforks are getting cold.
BUSH
(turning and smiling) Sure, Satan ol’ buddy. You’ve got our undivided attention. Right, Karl?
KARL
Let the games begin.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Don't Quit Your Day Job
I just quit my day job. I’m out of work in two weeks. Do I care?
What is a job anyway but the dead zone between coffee and cocktails? People who really like their jobs scare me. If God wanted us to like our jobs, we’d be getting paid for having sex and watching The Family Guy. Instead we glumly exchange physical and mental wellbeing and self-esteem for dribbles of lucre and less vacation time than anyone else in the universe.
My horoscope for today read: “Pleasure awaits you by the seashore,” which I instinctively understood to mean, “Quit your job.” (I have a gift that way.) So I did. And now, I will have time to focus on the really important things in life: my sweet Katharine, my writing, regenerating my body and soul and finding a new job before bald men with baseball bats track me down.
I’ve already mapped out a grueling “at home” regimen for myself: Wide-eyed and ready to go at noon, wash down an Egg McMuffin with a Corona, watch two hours of The Man Show, put on clothes, nap, win a couple of levels of “Red Faction” on the PS2, write for twenty minutes, watch some financial show on some channel, you know, to really get my chops ready for that next big job, fall asleep on the couch. Yes, it’s brutal, but believe me, it’s what I have to do to set myself apart from the rest of the pack.
So the bottom line is, don’t be afraid to be a quitter. There’s life after work...until you run totally out of money, but that’s another blog for another time.
What is a job anyway but the dead zone between coffee and cocktails? People who really like their jobs scare me. If God wanted us to like our jobs, we’d be getting paid for having sex and watching The Family Guy. Instead we glumly exchange physical and mental wellbeing and self-esteem for dribbles of lucre and less vacation time than anyone else in the universe.
My horoscope for today read: “Pleasure awaits you by the seashore,” which I instinctively understood to mean, “Quit your job.” (I have a gift that way.) So I did. And now, I will have time to focus on the really important things in life: my sweet Katharine, my writing, regenerating my body and soul and finding a new job before bald men with baseball bats track me down.
I’ve already mapped out a grueling “at home” regimen for myself: Wide-eyed and ready to go at noon, wash down an Egg McMuffin with a Corona, watch two hours of The Man Show, put on clothes, nap, win a couple of levels of “Red Faction” on the PS2, write for twenty minutes, watch some financial show on some channel, you know, to really get my chops ready for that next big job, fall asleep on the couch. Yes, it’s brutal, but believe me, it’s what I have to do to set myself apart from the rest of the pack.
So the bottom line is, don’t be afraid to be a quitter. There’s life after work...until you run totally out of money, but that’s another blog for another time.
Friday, January 13, 2006
Is Wrong Right?
What if you were always wrong? Not even wrong most of the time, but always wrong. Can you imagine what a miserable existence that would be? Some of us (myself included) have days or even weeks when we feel like we can’t do or say anything right, but at some point the pendulum swings back and you win a few small victories or experience the emotional satisfaction of an “I told you so.”
It’s not easy always being wrong, what with chance and dumb luck, but one major group of people has managed to be on the wrong side of virtually every issue related to the evolution of humans since the dawn of time. Conservatives. That’s right. What is today considered a political ideology was once simply a state of mind, an inclination that has always afflicted a fluctuating portion of our species. It’s not a glass-half-empty or half-full issue, but more about who has control over the glass and its contents. If I have it, I want to keep it. Anything that might change that situation is bad.
I can imagine a conversation in our distant past going something like this:
Grok
Bork, Tark has made fire.
Bork
Made fire? Only the gods can make fire.
Grok
Tark has made it at the entrance to his cave to keep warm.
Bork
The fool. He will set himself on fire.
Grok
No. It is a small fire and he does not touch it.
Bork
Our ancestors survived without fire. When the gods want us to have fire, they send it from the sky.
Grok
But Tark can make fire anytime to keep him warm during the cold days and nights of winter.
Bork
Do not contradict your elder. It is not our way. A fire maker is a troublemaker. Soon there will be fires in every cave and no one will want to leave their caves to hunt. Hear me. Fire will lead to the death of us all.
Sound familiar?
Bork could be talking about allowing women to vote, regulating child labor, civil rights, Galileo, anti-poverty measures, a radical preacher named Jesus, environmental protection, the wheel…you fill in the blanks.
Nothing is certain in life except that conservatives will always be on the losing side of human advancement. Always. Yet there they are, eternally sniffing at change, stubbornly dismissing the latest leap forward as a fad or lower class affliction, until it washes over humanity in its inescapable truth.
Then, long after the fact, the conservative will embrace it as a given, pretending to have had a hand in generating such obviously beneficial change. They will feign shock, shock I tell you, if you should intimate they might have had a racist, intolerant or curmudgeonly bone in their body.
Perhaps, just perhaps, humanity needs conservatives. In the same way that repetitive resistance with weights builds muscle, it could be that repetitive resistance by history’s champions of the status quo actually helps foster the environment for change. Are these willing dupes the cow shit that fertilizes change or are they merely full of shit? Consider that for every Martin Luther King, Jr. in history there is always a J. Edgar Hoover. You can’t have a comedy duo without a straight man.
It seems possible that Bill O’Reilly and Ann Coulter, the Zeus and Athena of conservative cranks, actually serve a useful purpose.
But of course, I could be wrong....
It’s not easy always being wrong, what with chance and dumb luck, but one major group of people has managed to be on the wrong side of virtually every issue related to the evolution of humans since the dawn of time. Conservatives. That’s right. What is today considered a political ideology was once simply a state of mind, an inclination that has always afflicted a fluctuating portion of our species. It’s not a glass-half-empty or half-full issue, but more about who has control over the glass and its contents. If I have it, I want to keep it. Anything that might change that situation is bad.
I can imagine a conversation in our distant past going something like this:
Grok
Bork, Tark has made fire.
Bork
Made fire? Only the gods can make fire.
Grok
Tark has made it at the entrance to his cave to keep warm.
Bork
The fool. He will set himself on fire.
Grok
No. It is a small fire and he does not touch it.
Bork
Our ancestors survived without fire. When the gods want us to have fire, they send it from the sky.
Grok
But Tark can make fire anytime to keep him warm during the cold days and nights of winter.
Bork
Do not contradict your elder. It is not our way. A fire maker is a troublemaker. Soon there will be fires in every cave and no one will want to leave their caves to hunt. Hear me. Fire will lead to the death of us all.
Sound familiar?
Bork could be talking about allowing women to vote, regulating child labor, civil rights, Galileo, anti-poverty measures, a radical preacher named Jesus, environmental protection, the wheel…you fill in the blanks.
Nothing is certain in life except that conservatives will always be on the losing side of human advancement. Always. Yet there they are, eternally sniffing at change, stubbornly dismissing the latest leap forward as a fad or lower class affliction, until it washes over humanity in its inescapable truth.
Then, long after the fact, the conservative will embrace it as a given, pretending to have had a hand in generating such obviously beneficial change. They will feign shock, shock I tell you, if you should intimate they might have had a racist, intolerant or curmudgeonly bone in their body.
Perhaps, just perhaps, humanity needs conservatives. In the same way that repetitive resistance with weights builds muscle, it could be that repetitive resistance by history’s champions of the status quo actually helps foster the environment for change. Are these willing dupes the cow shit that fertilizes change or are they merely full of shit? Consider that for every Martin Luther King, Jr. in history there is always a J. Edgar Hoover. You can’t have a comedy duo without a straight man.
It seems possible that Bill O’Reilly and Ann Coulter, the Zeus and Athena of conservative cranks, actually serve a useful purpose.
But of course, I could be wrong....
Thursday, January 05, 2006
No cause for alarm, officer. I'm a Republican.
January 5, 2006
Ken Mehlman
Chair, Republican National Committee
Washington, D.C.
Dear xxxx,
Thank your for joining the Republican Party. We need patriots like you who appreciate the greatness of this country and support our efforts to turn America in the right direction. We are in a daily struggle with the dark forces of liberalism, atheism, socialism and pornography, and we thank you for joining the army of steadfast, courageous conservatives who are willing to stand up for goodness and decency.
Now that you are a registered Republican, you will enjoy the benefits of being a member of the Grand Old Party. Listed here are the advantages you can expect as “one of us."
- You will never be forced to turn on a fellow Republican no matter what he has done and he will never turn on you.
- You can enjoy all the hypocrisy you can stand because your cause is holy.
- Lying is no longer a bad thing, but a vital weapon to be used against the liberal media and snotty college kids home on break.
- You do not have to acknowledge any contradictions in life.
- Ignorance is bliss. What you don’t know doesn’t matter.
- Republicans acknowledge the spiritual anointment of wealth by God, unlike Democrats who remain in denial.
- You are not bound by ethics. “Ethics” is a liberal construct designed to tie the hands of society’s entrepreneurs and visionaries.
- Because your motives are always good, occasional lapses into sinful behavior are quickly forgotten.
- Guilt is a sign of weakness. You may now toss that book out of your library.
- Finally, you can rest in the comfort of knowing that no matter what the facts are, no matter how many people disagree with you, no matter what the scientific evidence is, no matter what you see with your own eyes, you are always right. Isn’t that wonderful?
God bless America, and God bless you for joining our cause.
Sincerely,
Ken Mehlman
Hell To Pay
By John Andreini
A full-length play. Dark comedy.
"This is a puzzling world, and Old Harry's got a finger in it." George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss
SYNOPSIS:
Advertising account executive Danny Laws is having a devil of a time. He's on the verge of losing his agency's biggest client, and, as a result, his job and reputation as New York's hottest ad man. When things look bleakest, he's offered a deal that could save his hide, but cost him his soul. What begins as a simple Faustian contractual arrangement ends up becoming the biggest potential deal Danny could ever dream of--an ad campaign for Hell. All he has to do is make a presentation to Old Harry and the deal is in the bag. Problems arise, however, when a second agency gets involved and Danny is pressured into accepting conditions that put his dreams in jeopardy. Damned if he does and damned if he doesn't, Danny and his colleague/lover Lisa prepare the mother of all presentations. But are they actually presenting to the Prince of Darkness and his enigmatic assistant or a couple of devilishly clever con men? Either way, Danny and Lisa use every weapon at their disposal to dispatch the evil duo and rescue their pride, pocketbooks, and perhaps, their souls.
Read more about "Hell to Pay" by going to http://www.playscripts.com
A full-length play. Dark comedy.
"This is a puzzling world, and Old Harry's got a finger in it." George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss
SYNOPSIS:
Advertising account executive Danny Laws is having a devil of a time. He's on the verge of losing his agency's biggest client, and, as a result, his job and reputation as New York's hottest ad man. When things look bleakest, he's offered a deal that could save his hide, but cost him his soul. What begins as a simple Faustian contractual arrangement ends up becoming the biggest potential deal Danny could ever dream of--an ad campaign for Hell. All he has to do is make a presentation to Old Harry and the deal is in the bag. Problems arise, however, when a second agency gets involved and Danny is pressured into accepting conditions that put his dreams in jeopardy. Damned if he does and damned if he doesn't, Danny and his colleague/lover Lisa prepare the mother of all presentations. But are they actually presenting to the Prince of Darkness and his enigmatic assistant or a couple of devilishly clever con men? Either way, Danny and Lisa use every weapon at their disposal to dispatch the evil duo and rescue their pride, pocketbooks, and perhaps, their souls.
Read more about "Hell to Pay" by going to http://www.playscripts.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
