What's Been Going On In Des Moines Lately, Probably By Gary Britson

Now that summer is over and everyone is back from the Green Day tour, I thought I'd go over some of the stuff that's been happening in Des Moines lately, if you're still interested.

Legal Update: I am pleased to announce that the City Council has finally outlawed Dixieland bands from the County Fair if two or more members of said band are retired accountants. There were just too many of them and they were getting in the way.

My dog Oates: She wasn't really lost. She was just over at the union hall, digging up Jimmy Hoffa again. I didn't mean to worry everyone when I sounded the alarm last spring, but she's just about the only one around here who'll give me the time of day any more since I went on probation.

My brother Earl: Now that he's back from his tour of duty overseas, we're doing just what his doctors told us to do: Keep him supplied with plenty of cold Old Milwaukee and don't make any sudden noises. Let him sit by the TV and sop up the suds and take it easy. Since this is pretty much the way he'd lived before he enlisted, things around here haven't changed all that much. Earl is considering various options, such as furthering his education. Right now he's got it narrowed down to the DeVry Institute and Harvard Divinity School. Depends on which one will give him adequate funding. Personally, I'd go for the technical training, as there isn't much call around here for theologians, now that everyone has cable and can watch Believers Voice of Victory whenever they want.

Besides, we've got old Elmer Rudge down to the Seventh Day Adventists, and like my Dad always said, one Duns Scotus expert in a town is enough. I always liked medieval scholastics, but they do tend to go on a bit.

Thomas Pynchon: He really got everyone's dander up at the County Fair last summer, setting up that autograph booth right next to the ball park and giving free autographed first editions of Gravity's Rainbow just to spite me for not letting him on the softball team, on account of I didn't want him hanging around my sister any more. I just don't think he's a good influence on her. When word got out that he'd be doing a nightly book signing, all those skinny girls from the junior college descended on the town and folks wanting to go to the softball tournament couldn't find a place to park. I'd rather have a shortstop who can't discuss postmodernism than some stuck-up little geek who won't even accept an invitation to appear on Oprah. It's not my fault he can't hit a change-up.

The Nobel Peace Prize: Once again the community has banded together to formally nominate our own Sheriff Roy Albrecht for the Nobel Peace Prize. This year we got it submitted in the right kind of envelope and to the right address. The ladies of the church got together and did the calligraphy and also provided the ribbons. Anyone who can keep the peace five years running at the Zoo Bar deserves some recognition. I know Roy's not as famous as some of those laureates, but I don't see how you can give a Peace Prize to someone who's never even run for sheriff.

Annals of Justice: You probably saw in the paper how our own Ames Nickeslworth got his plumbing lethally ventilated by a blast from the shotgun of his neighbor, Walt Croolly. Walt was convicted of murder one two years ago, as you know, but over the summer the homos on the Iowa Supreme Court said he didn't do it after all and gave him a new trial. Of course, all the real men were out of town for the summer following the Green Day tour and who was left to man the jury? Bunch of socialists and Seventh Day Adventists and kids working at Wal-Mart. I mean, get real. Anyway, Walt got a new trial and they convicted him of manslaughter, a real slap on the wrist. He'll be out of prison in a year or two. Word has it that down to the prison, his dance card has been pretty full the last couple of years.

My Little League Team: We changed our name from the Wildcats to the Badass Mutant Disciples, but we still lost to St. Mary's 21-3. It was closer than it sounds. We'd have made the playoffs if we'd won a game, I'm convinced.

Health issues: Have you noticed that since AIDS came and went, nobody ever talks about getting the clap any more? They used to talk about it all the time, especially Nestor, but I think he was just bragging.

Probation: It's not as bad as you might think. My probation officer is a pleasant lady, but I have to call her Ms. Sanderson and she won't go to the movies with me. She says she'll have me revoked if I ask her again. Women. Go figure.

The arts: The high school production of The Phantom of the Opera hit a snag, on account of they couldn't get the rights. They decided to do it anyway. Shirley and her sister had the album and their Aunt Melanie over in Omaha saw it and remembered a lot of the talk, so they just put their heads together and figured out some stuff to say between songs, but after a couple weeks of rehearsals they got a call from a guy who claimed that the guys who wrote the show would sue our eyeballs out if we sold tickets, on account of the rights hadn't been purchased and are not, in fact, even available. So we wrote him a nice letter saying we'll do Carousel instead, but then we'll go ahead and do The Phantom of the Opera anyway. I personally don't think a bunch of fruits in New York give a rat's wazoo if we do The Phantom of the Opera anyway. They just wanted to get a nice letter. There's nothing much in this world that can't be fixed with a nice letter. It always worked with my Aunt Sally and it will work here, I am sure. Actually, I like Carousel better anyway. My favorite is still Anyone Can Whistle, though, but I have never been able to drum up any interest in it around here, on account of what happened at the gym the last time Steve Sondheim came to town. The less said about that the better, in my opinion.

Meanwhile, pre-production plans for my long-awaited staging of Dialogues of the Carmelites are almost complete. Mindy's doing the sets and Ed is looking for a guillotine. He thinks there's one in his Uncle Lyle's barn. I wouldn't be surprised. Old Lyle has always gotten a funny look in his eye around Bastille Day.

Law: Sheriff Leo was arresting guys for speeding and driving drunk and then they were going downtown and getting the charges dropped on account of the deputy kept forgetting to show up for the trial or the evidence was tainted with suppressions or some such. So Leo hit upon what appears to be a good idea. He arrests a guy and then instead of taking them to Court he just brings them over here and lets Harold give them a good talking to. After five minutes of his admixture of The Synoptic Gospels, Thomas Pynchon (again, that guy just won't go away) and his speech about Hillary, the poor guys always end up paying about what they'd pay in court, only we get to keep the money for beer. I'm thinking about going to law school, but Mom says I have to finish high school first. Between coaching little league, shooting the breeze with my probation officer and keeping Thomas Pynchon away from my sister, I don't have time to go to high school. Life is one thing after another.

Amelia Earhart: She died last month, in case you're interested. She'd lived out to Smiling Cedars Care Facility. She worked there, you know, for about 50 years as a nurse's aide and part-time water-skiing instructor, and then when she took sick she became a patient. She came to town because she had heard that Des Moines was a nice quiet place to write one's memoirs, but what with nursing and water-skiing and what-not, I don't think she ever got around to it. Judge Crater came to the funeral, but hardly anyone else. Don't tell him I told you.

The Maynard Boy: He got back from Iraq in August. Seems fine, except he appears to think he's George C. Scott in the first reel of Patton. Spends most of his time at the Legion Hall, talking about the Battle of El Alamein. He'll be fine after we have a church supper for him next Saturday and he has a double helping of Alice's Chicken Tetrazzini with sauerkraut and beer. Anyone's ever been a little out of touch with reality, that always brings them around. Everybody's welcome, but this may be one of those events that is not suited for family viewing.

The Rossman Boy: He came home from Iraq last Friday. Services will be Tuesday at eleven, with a church supper in the basement after. Edith's making pie.

CEOs May Ditch Jets & Carpool to D.C.

CEOs May Ditch Jets & Carpool to D.C.
_________

The private jets were out. The Detroit auto executives decided to car pool to Washington, D.C., for their next round of beggin-- negotiations. Alan Mulally insisted they drive in a Ford. Rick Wagoner demanded they travel in GM vehicle. Robert Nardelli played peacemaker and suggested they travel in a Nissan. "So nobody can accuse us of using the occasion for free advertising," he explained. The truth was, he couldn't think of a Chrysler product that could make the journey.

After 50 hours of negotiations involving a phalanx of 32 corporate attorneys, it was decided that Rick Wagoner would take the first shift driving. Another two days of negotiations, with 29 lawyers, was needed to determine their route to Washington, D.C. At the end of which, Alan Mulally smilingly said to his CEO brethren, "This is the kind of 'get-er-done' spirit we need to show Congress!" But he had spoken too soon -- it took another three days of intense negotiations to settle on who would ride shotgun first. Mulally won that fight, though Nardelli vowed to take the case to court when they returned.

And so, on November 30th, the "three blind mice" as the blogosphere referred to them, struck out on the road in a Nissan Altima headed for the nation's capital.

About two hours out of Detroit, Robert Nardelli -- sulking in the backseat, arms folded, complaining that he was cold -- sighed for twentieth time and said, "My stomach hurts in a way that means I need to eat some food."

Wagoner and Mulally exchanged looks. "You mean you're hungry?" Mulally said in a mocking tone.

"This is when my P.A. gives me a muffin and a can of red energy drink," Nardelli said.

His statement was met by silence.

"I said, 'This is when my P.A. --'" Nardelli began again, but was cut off by Wagoner: "Well, your P.A.'s not here. What do you want us to do?"

"Gimme my muffin and energy drink!"

"The lawyers hit a stalemate on what snacks we'd bring and who would pay for them," Mulally said. "We don't have anything." What Mulally didn't say was that his P.A. had hidden a cooler containing a lobster meal, a thermos of cognac and a $1,000 cigar in a rest stop MENS room along the way.

"I need something to eat!" Nardelli shouted. Hearing the frayed note in his voice, Wagoner thought it best to appease Nardelli. He figured any person who would kibash employees' health care at Home Depot so that he could walk away with a $210 million severance package, might try to take a bite out of the side of his head.

Wagoner found an exit that led to a strip of fast food restaurants and gas stations. "So, where do you want to go? McDonald's? Taco Bell?"

Mulally said, "He wants a muffin, so we should go to Dunkin' Donuts."

They pulled into a Dunkin' Donuts parking lot. Nardelli didn't move.

"You going to get a muffin, or what?" Mulally said.

"What?" Nardelli said. "Don't they bring them out to us?"

"No," Wagoner said, impatient. "I've seen this on television -- you go in there and tell them what you want."

"Go in?" Nardelli said, uneasy. "The place is filled with Plebeians. They'll see who I am and tackle me, and rob me . . . and perform strange sexual rituals with my penis."

"Neither of us is going in there for you," Wagoner said. "My gawd, man, what're you gonna do when you have to use a rest room?"

Nardelli looked nervously at Wagoner in the rearview mirror. He then reached into a pocket and pulled out a large ziploc baggie. "My P.A. gave me this to go in."

"Are you going to get a muffin, or what?" Mulally said, testy.

"Forget it," Nardelli said, caressing the ziploc baggie. "The place is full of Plebes."

* * *

Soon, it was Mulally's turn to drive, as per the 139-page legal agreement drawn up by the corporate lawyers. His P.A. had briefed him on what "rest stops" were and at which one the cooler with the lobster meal was hidden. If it wasn't for the fact that his P.A. feared for his life every moment he was in his boss's presence, Mulally would have thought his P.A. had been joking about these so-called "rest stops". Could there really be a designated area along an interstate highway equipped with toilets and maps and something called "picnic tables"? Mulally had one of his kids do an Internet search on it and now carried with him a print-out of the Wikipedia page on "Rest Areas." He hoped these were the same thing.

When he pulled into the rest stop, Wagoner and Nardelli looked at Mulally as though he was an astronaut proposing to leave the capsule without putting on a space suit.

"You're going out there?" Nardelli asked, horrified. "What if you catch the AIDS? You'll bring it back here and kill us all!"

"Have you thought this through?" Wagoner said, trying to mask his own dismay. Mulally assured him he had and got out of the car. When he looked back, he saw Nardelli opening the large ziploc baggie -- readying it for use -- and saw Wagoner cringing against the passenger side door, aghast.

As Mulally approached the rest stop MENS room, he made a silent vow to have his P.A. disfigured and then fired. The rest stop was a primitive, box-like structure, and it appeared to have absolutely no security. Mulally would immolate his P.A. for sending him into a place that had no security.

Inside the MENS room, he found the stall with the OUT OF ORDER sign on the door. He went into that stall and found the cooler fastened to the back of the door. He set the lid on the toilet seat and sat down, and then feasted upon lobster and mussells and king crab, sipping cognac from something called a "thermos." When his meal was done, he sat back and lit the $1,000 cigar. What would the gents at the Club think if they could see him now? Just like the pioneers on the wagon trains that discovered America, he thought blowing smoke dollar signs into the air.

* * *

It was only when Nardelli took his turn driving that all three executives learned he could not drive. He weaved all over the highway, alternately flooring the accelerator and jumping onto the brake. A chorus of car horns surrouned them.

"Why are you cranking the steering wheel when all you have to do is go straight?" Mulally shrieked from the back seat.

"I think one of us should take the wheel," Wagoner said.

"No!" Nardelli screamed. "I didn't wrack up thirty-thousand dollars in legal fees over the driving schedule to have you take my turn away from me!"

"But you can't drive!" Wagoner said as Nardelli swung wide around a transport truck, nearly side-swiping a minivan.

"Gawddamned minivans," Nardelli growled.

"If you kill us," Mulally shouted, bracing himself with a hand on one of the back doors and the other on the ceiling, "your ex-wives will get everything!"

It was only then that Nardelli allowed Wagoner to help him steer to the side of the highway to change drivers.

* * *

As night fell, they were hardly halfway through the state of Pennsylvania. By this time, all three executives' stomachs hurt in a way that meant they needed to eat some food. After hours of arguing and rounds of arm-wrestling on the hood of the car at the shoulder of the highway, it was decided Rick Wagoner would incur the cost of calling his P.A. on his cell phone.

"I want some food to eat," Wagoner barked into his phone. His P.A. back in Michigan used a computer to locate Wagoner's position using the GPS chip in his cell phone. When he determined his boss's whereabouts, Wagoner's P.A. ordered a pizza, paying for it with his own credit card.

Half an hour later, headlights appeared behind the Nissan Altima at the side of the highway.

"It's the Plebeians!" Nardelli croaked. "They've tracked us! They're gonna pull us out of this car, strip us naked and mutilate our penises!"

"If they do, it'll be all your fault!" Mulally shouted, unhinged. "Jeezus, man! That Home Depot golden parachute was so gross, it actually embarrassed the rest of us!"

"You're just jealous!" Nardelli shot back. "You're all jealous of me! Everybody is! Everyone wishes they were me and they hate me for it!"

"No, they hate you because you're you," Wagoner said, watching a person get out of the car behind them. The person carried a wide, flat box.

There was a knock on the rear, driver's side window. The three executives gasped with horror. Wagoner's cell phone rang. He pulled the phone out of his pocket with a shaking hand. It was his P.A. telling him his food had arrived.

"What do I do?" Wagoner moaned into the phone.

"Just open the car door and accept the food," the P.A. said.

"Open the door? Are you insane?"

"Then roll down the window. He won't hurt you. It's probably just a teenager."

Deciding in that moment to have his P.A. mangled, regardless if the person outside the car was just a teenager or a crazed murderer, Wagoner said, "OK."

He opened the window and the delivery guy passed a pizza box through. The smell of warm food filled the car immediately, supplanting the rank baseness that permeated Nardelli's well-used ziploc baggie. Wagoner opened the box and shoved pizza into his mouth.

"Hey, pass some up here," Mulally said.

"Fuck you!" Wagoner said around a mouthful of pizza. "This is my food!"

"That's my food!" Nardelli said, who assumed that anything anyone possessed in his presence was, in fact, his. "Gimme my food!"

Mulally and Nardelli pulled at the box. Wagoner leaned back and flailed with his feet. Mulally dove into the backseat and Nardelli followed him. They flattened the pizza as they punched and scratched Wagoner. Soon, the pizza carton was ripped open and all three executives clawed the pizza, shoving handfuls into their mouths, and fighting each other with their free hands.

In the midst of the melee, Nardelli's ziploc bag burst open.

* * *

At Pittsburgh National Airport, three private jets belonging to Ford, Chrysler and General Motors, landed. An army of personal assistants disembarked and hurried into waiting cars, which immediately took off to locate the Nissan Altima containing their chief executive officers.

The corporate leaders were found in a dreadful state: bruised, reeking of human waste, covered with scratches and pizza toppings. Each entourage wrapped their respective executive in a blanket and whisked him off to the nearest Four Seasons Hotel. Each had his own floor reserved so that there was no chance they would run into one another.

The executives were attended by their personal physicians, psychoanalysts, hypnotists and mistresses. After being propped up with duladid, morticians' make-up and cortezone shots, the three blind mice were ready to face Congress. Three lookalikes had been arranged to drive a Nissan Altima into Washington, D.C., feigning completion of the carpool trip. The executives were flown into Dulles International Airport in their respective corporate jets. This time, when questioned by reporters, each flight crew was instructed to say that the plane was, in fact, owned by John Travolta.

* * *

The hearings before Congress opened with Robert Nardelli addressing the legislators, "We come before you a united force ready to harness our synergies and shift the paradigm. We are the corporate leaders who will use this money most wisely."

A visit with The Ice Cream Man

Yesterday, Joel had a two hour meeting about our show En Route with a guy I like to call The Ice Cream Man. I call him that because this guy is like the Good Humor man of scripts. I imagine his office as a cart -- a cart made by Alfa Romeo -- which he wheels through Beverly Hills neighborhoods. Rather than children running and calling after him, waving dollars, screaming for ice cream, it's TV and film executives running on pilates legs, all George-Hamilton-tanned like leather easy chairs at Gardner White Furniture, speed dialing on glinting, titanium cell phones, vying for the best product The Ice Cream Man has percolating within the sleek fuselage of his cart.

Why would the primped and pampered go running after The Ice Cream Man? Because his product is unlike anyone else's.

First, The Ice Cream Man has a connoisseur's eye for the scripts he takes on. And to paraphrase Orson Welles as he once intoned in Gothic television commercials: "The Ice Cream Man will sell no script before its time."

Second, The Ice Cream Man is a skilled editor. He knows what it takes to bring a script in line with industry standard; knows how to craft the work to suit the production audience it's geared toward. Which directors appreciate camera angles and stage directions? Which ones are looking for stripped down shooting scripts? The Ice Cream Man Knows.

Third, The Ice Cream Man knows which neighborhoods to take his script cart. He has connections. He's not chased by dogs. He's never harassed by bargain-shopping cheapskates. He knows the scriptose intolerant streets and avoids them.

Joel sat with him for two hours, who was educated in Michigan. They talked about the Detroit Lions whose woeful losing season served as a handy point of connection for them. Then it was down to business. Our script packet was handed over, and it's now in the reading phase. We should hear back in a week or so, maybe a little longer, whether it will find its way into the sleek fuselage of the Ice Cream Man's Cart.

Nobody's Walking in L.A. . . .

. . . they're at home in their beachfront chalets reading the En Route script packets. At least, six producers from various productions are this evening.

In fact, the script packets are printed on paper of such high quality and durable workmanship, they could even be used to smother flames should anyone's home, unfortunately -- knock wood, gawd forbid -- be on fire. The script packets could also be used as an effective fire blanket for anyone who happens to be eight-and-a-half by eleven inches in size. It's California -- you never know.

So now, the waiting game. And what a game it is. No game board. No game pieces. No rule book. No play money. No limits on the number of players. But it's a game that can be played in the living room, by the fire with the television on MUTE. It's a game that I know well. In fact, I practice playing it every time I go to the doctor's office. Except, now it's for real. It's "game on", except there is no waiting-game-court, field, pitch, lane, green, diamond or grid-iron. It's more like a psychological game in which the normal attributes of a game are absent, such as fun, entertainment value, socializing, problem-solving. But there are "winners" and "losers." That's where the game part comes into the "waiting game." Joel and I are now waiting to see if we are winners or losers. Winners -- someone shows interest in our idea/script. Losers -- well, that's harder to determine because we could actually still think the waiting game is being played by the readers of our scripts long after those readers have converted the script packets into doorway hammocks for their schnauzer-doodles.

Part of the waiting game is telling people about it -- like I am right now. Earlier, my wife told my mother that we are now playing the waiting game with the script packets, and my mother reacted as she usually does regarding my creative work: sounds as though I've missed parole -- again. "Oh? That's nice." Joel's family is the same. On the surface this may not appear encouraging, but you have look beneath the shiny veneer of "Oh? That's nice" to see that it's actually a cannon blast of support. You see, if you want to truly encourage something, you should discourage it. In Ireland, for instance, a hundred years ago, speaking Gaelic aloud was not only outlawed, teachers were paid by the British not to teach Gaelic. The result? Gaelic flourishes through Ireland today. There's even an all-Gaelic TV channel. How about religion? Tell a group of people they cannot worship and you'll see that order give birth to an unstoppable tide of underground services and prayer sessions. If educators today were truly interested in promoting reading, they would ban books. Tell kids they can't have them and kids would sneak out at night to congregate in alleys and parks to trade books among themselves.

So, it's clear that our families are behind us 100 percent and want nothing more than to see us continue working on En Route, and do whatever it takes to sell the script. It's so obvious, I'm embarrassed telling you right out like that.

Now for the part of the waiting game where I go and get more green tea . . .

The New John McCain -- Doesn't Miss a Beat After Losing Election

After losing the federal election, John McCain wasted not a moment re-inventing himself into an entrepreneur that will surely rival George Foreman.

With the economy in desperate trouble, John McCain sought to lead by example and started his own business: The John McCain Signature Candy Apple Maker. Teaming up with life-like sex doll maker, Erot-o-Co., life-like John McCain candy apple stands have been cranked out in the hundreds since the Republican nominee was defeated by Barak Obama.

"My friends," John McCain said to this interviewer after the night's disappointments were brought to a close at the Arizona Biltmore Resort, "the way of the future is candy apples!"

The former Navy pilot and P.O.W. says that The John McCain Signature Candy Apple Maker will hit retail outlets in time for Christmas.

Election Day Blog: The All-the-time Campaign

Following the 2008 U.S. presidential election, both political parties blanketed the country with candidates for the 2012, 2016 and 2020 presidential races. There were hundreds of millions of dollars to be raised, opponents to be denounced, thousands of hours of empty television to fill and mortal fears and national security threats to be created and propagated.

Alaska governor, Sarah Palin, immediately took to the campaign trail in December 2008, touring the northern states in a reindeer-drawn sleigh. Promoting a platform of smaller government, high cheekbones and equal access to guns and cosmetics for all, Sarah Palin traveled the country as "Railin' Palin." Although she didn't ultimately win the presidency four years later, she did land a lucrative contract as spokesmodel for a nation-wide chain of women's plus-size clothing stores.

On December 31st, 2008, in the Smithsonian Institute, standing before the infamous Unabomber shack -- mistakenly believing it was the log cabin in which Abraham Lincoln was born -- Hillary Clinton, dressed as Baby New Year, announced her candidacy for president in 2012. "Although I have the highest regard and utmost respect for President Obama," Clinton said, "the sad fact is he has not done for this country what he promised to do. We cannot live with four more years of broken promises."

When Senator Clinton was reminded that President-elect Obama was still twenty days away from being inaugurated into office, she labeled the reporter sexist and banned him from all Clinton campaign vehicles.

"So much for eloquence!" shouted Don Summershyne in his stump speech. "So much for the audacity of hope!" Summershyne was at the start of the 2010 Senate race -- which he launched in February 2009 -- when he claimed a goldfinch landed on the window sill of his home in rural Iowa and spoke to him the word of Gawd. "This Whamma-Bamma-Thank-You-Mamma Obama fella has not delivered on any of the grandiose promises of the past two years!"

When it was pointed out that President Obama had not yet been in office one hundred days, Summershyne barred that reporter from the Senate campaign bus, which was, at that time, being converted into a presidential campaign bus. Another reporter, riding on the candidate's temporary bridge-between-Senate-and-presidential-races-bus, asked about Summershyne's experience: "You hadn't yet been elected to the Senate, but now you've shifted gears and are running for President. With no political experience, how do you feel you can make this leap?" To which the reporter was branded an elitist and whose TV station was barred from all future Summershyne events.

The 2024 bid for the White House heated up in 2013, when Democratic nominee, Kelowna Eukele, named Israel Burcitis as his running mate. The campaign grew even more exciting in 2015, when Burcitis declared himself an independent and campaigned against Eukele. Such political backstabbing and maneuvering hadn't been seen since 2011 when Reverend Heino Rike, the eleven year old Missouri evangelical running for the 2032 presidential election, replaced his mother with his dog as his running mate.

In 2014, Clint Fayette, independent candidate for the 2020, 2024 and 2028 presidential races, formally changed his first name to "President." Soon afterward, every person entering politics -- whether it was for dogcatcher, alderman, justice of the peace, sheriff or drain commissioner -- changed their first names to "President."

Among the numerous notable political stories of 2014, was the spectacle of the 2024 Democratic nominee debating the 2028 Republican nominee at an event organized for the 2016 nominees. Although a rigorous and spirited dialogue ensued, three days had passed before anyone realized the wrong candidates had debated. President Shawn Nepal, 2016 Democratic nominee had been off conducting a townhall meeting in a high school gymnasium in Fontainbleu, Montana, and President Conrad Guilfoyle, the 2016 Republican nominee spent that evening presiding over a gymnasium meeting in the townhall of Brittlebrook, North Carolina. Both candidates declared their events "a roaring success."

The 2016 presidential election was overshadowed by breaking news that Lout and LeRoy Palin-Johnston -- siamese twins born to Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston -- had thrown their hats (or, rather, single large hat, as they were joined at the cranium) into the ring for the presidential race of 2036. The seven year old candidates could not, however, decide who would head the ticket. The headmaster of their Alaskan montessori gun club suggested a duel might be the only honorable way to solve the dispute.

"Madam, is it not a fact -- a lamentable, bald-faced fact -- that if elected you intend to allow an open border to exist between Colorado and Kansas?" bellowed Judge President Monty Dwyer, Republican vice presidential candidate for the 2028 election. He directed his question at his opponent, President Kitty-Porn Fnu, Independent presidential candidate for the 2028 presidency.

"Colorada and Kansas are both part of the United States," President Kitty-Porn said. "Of course they should have open borders."

"Not after President Conrad Guilfoyle takes office in three years and expels Colorado from the republic!"

"But that's years away!" President Kitty-Porn protested. "And hasn't even happened yet."

To which Judge President Monty Dwyer turned slowly to the debate audience and said, "So much for you being 'The Candidate of the Future'."

By 2017, most major networks had their own spin-off presidential campaign channels. Fox News' Campaign Infinity channel featured shock jock, George W. Bush, who painted his ideas about candidates' strategies on clear Plexiglas using a brush and his own brand of BBQ sauce. The cornerstone of the Campaign Infinity channel was Shem Mountainson, former Idaho alderman, and the man whom many believed should have been chosen as John McCain's running mate in the archaic presidential campaign of 2008. The show was called Shem's Shithouse in which Mountainson separated "the wheat from the shit" for his viewers, telling them for whom to vote and whom to hate. CNN's campaign offshoot became a popular twenty-four-hour a day cycle of campaign infomercials. MSNBC reimagined itself as Playday with the Politicians, offering shows with candidates competing in American Gladiator-styled contests of strength and agility.

By the 2020s, much of the U.S. economy was predicated on elections. Citizens either worked for one campaign or another, or in the exponentially expanding industry of campaign marketing. Professional athletes and film stars tried moving into the political arena. They were shunned, for the most part, as rich, privileged people whose egos had outgrown their original venues. Voters preferred rich, privileged people who came from the guts of the campaign industry. Activists poured money into campaigns and campaigns funded activists. Citizens made their tax-deductible donations to the campaigns and worked on the pay-rolls that were funded by those donations. The print industry couldn't keep up with the demands for lawn signs. Ordinary citizens earned top dollar renting out their salt-of-the-earth domiciles to politicians seeking to film commercials around the Great American Kitchen Table.

Elections became like Christmas, the Oscars and the Super Bowl rolled in to one -- hours after the great event, operatives from both parties began planning the next one. By 2024, the U.S. presidential elections had its own stock exchange: the U.S.E.S.E.. Within five years, it was out-performing the Dow Jones Industrial Index.

By the 2032 U.S. presidential election took the same turn as the Olympics -- it was deigned to occur every two years rather than every four years.

People from the quaint old days of the early Twenty First Century may have been confused by the ever-tightening spiral of presidential campaigns. American citizens of 2036 embraced the political maelstrom: peoples' lawns were filled with signs trumpeting the names of dozens of candidates; Jerry Springer-like debates occurred in which the candidates often came to blows on the carpeted stage, tearing each other's clothing off as the audience roared; the foreign wars launched by each president made for great TV -- so much less demanding than quiz and dancing dog shows. The country and the economy and campaigns spun on and on. If a journalist from the quaint early Twenty First Century actually investigated this overheated dynamo of all-the-time-campaigns, they would have discovered that many of the candidates in whose names hundreds of millions of dollars were raised, for campaigns intended to stretch a dozen years into the future, didn't, actually, exist.

An industrious journalist from another time would have found that the country was like an unlubricated engine that had long ago fused into a single block of jagged, unintelligible metal and plastic. The illusion of its continued function was kept alive by the single level of government that never had any checks or balances. That level of government was Henry Kissinger. By the 2050 presidential election, the hundred and twenty-seven year-old Kissinger was proprietor of all the bank accounts of all the presidential candidates -- none of whom existed. After dozens of organ transplant operations and extensive steroid therapy, Henry Kissinger lived quite well in his palatial condominium within Cheyenne Mountain.

As Winston Churchill once said, "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried", but there was no denying it made damned good business sense.

Country First: John McCain is deliberately throwing the election

Late, very late into the night after the second presidential debate, John McCain sat in the lounge area of his hotel suite with his face in his hands. Cindy was asleep in the bedroom. Wherever Sarah Palin was that night—in the muddle following the town hall debacle with Barak Obama, John couldn't recall the city where she was campaigning—was no doubt sleeping the untroubled sleep of the righteous. For his part, John felt sick to his stomach.

There was a tap the door, and then the door from the hallway opened. John didn't look up; he knew who it was: Blade, billionaire philanthropist, P.O.W. in the Hanoi Hilton from 1966 to 1973, and currently working on the John McCain presidential campaign as . . . as one of the many middle-aged guys milling about who looked important, but whose actual role was never really defined to anyone.

"Need a drink?" Blade asked. John leaned back in his chair. He looked exhausted and on the edge of tears. "Yeah," John said, forcing a smile. "Strychnine with a twist, please."

Blade sat down and slapped John's knee. "Country first."

John nodded grimly. "Country first."

* * *

There is really no question that John McCain is throwing the presidential election. If nothing else, the Republican party is realistic about its chances of winning a presidential election following the disastrous and immensely unpopular administration of George W. Bush. In short, whoever runs on the Republican ticket following Bush would effectively be thrown into a furnace of voter discontent, anger and outrage. Few people within the Republican party are as hated by the party as John McCain. Who better to throw into that furnace?

Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee were put out there to make the nominee campaign look credible, but with John McCain in the mix, there was really no question who was going to take the figurative bullet for the party—McNasty himself. So, John McCain's failing and nearly bankrupt campaign was put back onto its feet, and John pointed toward the finish line. After spending a king's ransom on his own run, Mitt Romney was told to withdraw. Giuliani and Thompson fizzled like cut-rate fireworks. And Mike Huckabee traveled the country like a conservative Richard Simmons speaking about his weight loss, and how he would similarly strip the country of its fat and flesh.

Which left only one—John McCain, a man so rightfully bitter over the political mugging he took in South Carolina during the 2000 presidential campaign that he didn't vote for George W. Bush. He was so disillusioned with the Republican party that he thought about becoming a Democrat. That is, until he was approached by his old military and P.O.W. friend, Blade.

"You should be talking to Al Gore," John McCain said, distracted and demoralized, the day of George W. Bush's first inauguration.

"I have," Blade said. "We've got all the documentation on how the Republicans used a company called Choicepoint to purge tens of thousands of eligible voters from the Florida rolls, thus highjacking the vote."

"And?"

"He passed."

John McCain chuckled derisively. "Of course." He shook his head. "Every time I think about crossing the aisle for good, the Dems pull one more spineless puss-out that makes me wanna spit."

"Well, if you have the patience, we've got a plan," Blade said.

"You know I have the patience."

"Good. We're looking at 2004 . . ."

* * *

The plan to challenge George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election was nixed by 9/11. John McCain was no stranger to disappointment and to interminable waiting.

* * *

The night of Tuesday, August 10, 2004, John McCain stayed up long after Cindy had gone to bed. He wept in the sitting room of their hotel suite. There was a tap at the door, and then the door from the hallway opened. Blade entered.

"You motherfucking cocksucker," John McCain hissed at his friend.

Blade sat down. "I know."

John McCain wiped his eyes and glared at him. "I've voted with this child president, just as you asked. I've publicly agreed with him on policy that makes me wanna puke. But to hug him?" McCain's voice rose, but he caught himself and clenched his jaw. "But to hug that spoiled fratboy douche-bag? You had to have me do that, too?"

"Yes. I'm sorry." Blade paused, pained. "If 2008 has any shot of working, we've got to lay the groundwork now."

"I know," John McCain said. "But I want to vomit when I think of how the image of me hugging that soulless, monstrous miscreant is going to proliferate. I'm going to be hammered with that until I'm dead."

"Yes," Blade said. "But your country needs you, John. If 2008 is going to work, we need this."

"I understand," John McCain sighed, resigned.

"Country first," Blade said.

"Country first," John McCain echoed.

* * *

In early March 2008, Blade made one of his late-night visits to John McCain. "John, you're going to like this about as much as you enjoyed The Hug."

John McCain seemed to smile and wince at the same time. "Hit me."

"We're hiring Karl Rove to work on your campaign."

John McCain barked laughter. "Of course we are." He shook his head. "Will anybody buy it? I mean, come on. Everybody's going to see through that. I want that cocksucker's head on a pike, not on my pay-roll."

"I know, John, but if this is going to work, we need Rove on board."

"Well, if we're going into the heart of darkness, we may as well go all the way. Why don't we hire that fucking schmuck Steve Schmidt while we're at it."

Blade offered a cockeyed smile. "That was my next bit of news—we already did."

John McCain laughed. "Nathan Hale might've lamented having only one life to give for his country, but I'm giving every layer of skin on the way to giving my life." He paused. "I'll go down in history as one of our country's biggest fools—and we've produced some beauts."

"It's what the country needs, John."

"I know. Country first."

Blade nodded. "Yes, country first."

* * *

Going into the Republican convention, John McCain summoned Blade to his suite one night after Cindy was asleep. "Give me this," John McCain said. "I've given you The Hug, I've hired Rove and his band of gutless mercenaries. I've mangled nearly every position I've ever held. Give me this."

"Well, we do have that hurricane working in our favor."

"I don't care what the cover story is. I will not share a stage with Bush and Cheney. It's not going to happen. We've got some wonderful conniving minds on the payroll, put them to work on this."

Blade did and managed to divert Dick Cheney from the Republican convention altogether, and to limit George W. Bush's presence to a televised speech.

Later, backstage, as John McCain listened to Fred Thompson's gushing speech, Blade brushed by his friend. John said, "You know how Kevin Costner was cast as the dead guy in The Big Chill, but was ultimately cut out of the movie?"

"Yes," Blade said.

"They should've cast Fred Thompson as the corpse. This guy makes Styrofoam look interesting in comparison."

Blade looked at Thompson at the podium. "Yeah. Fred's got his strengths. Nobody's figured out what they are, but I'm sure he's got his strengths."

"He's an organ-donor-buffet, and you know it," John McCain said. He and Blade laughed.

* * *

The night following his address at the Republican National Convention—accepting his party's nomination as its candidate for president—John McCain stayed up late watching the news. At one point, a commentator spoke about the backdrop used during McCain's speech. Amid the lights and audience sounds, John McCain had paid no attention to the large video image cast against the screen behind him. The TV commentator pointed out that the image was of Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood, California and wondered if this was possibly a gaffe on the part of John McCain's staff—that they showed the image mistakenly believing it was Walter Reed Medical Center.

John McCain laughed and raised his glass of diet Fresca to the TV. "Cheers, Blade."

A figure stepped out of the shadows by the rest room. "Did I hear my name?"

John McCain whipped around in his chair, spilling his drink. Blade stepped into the lamp light. McCain relaxed. "Jesus, man, you scared the shit out of me."

"Sorry, but I wanted to be a fly on the wall when you heard about our flourish with the backdrop."

"You've got a flair for the absurd—I'll give you that."

"Glad you feel that way," Blade said as he sat down. "Because I've got another request."

John McCain grimaced. "Not another Hug."

"Yes, I'm sorry."

"What . . . ?" John McCain said, eyes shut, pained.

"Your running mate."

"Right, well Lieberman oughta piss off Rove and Co. pretty thoroughly."

"Oh, he would, but we have a better candidate in mind."

"Who?"

"Sarah Palin."

"Who the fuck is that?"

"She's governor of Alaska and by all accounts, she's George W. Bush in a skirt."

John McCain brought a hand up to his face. "You've gotta be kidding me."

"I'm afraid not."

"Will I have to hug her?"

Blade laughed. "No, it'll be strictly hands off. When you see her, though, you may regret that rule."

"She's hot?"

"She looks good, sure, but what a basket of vipers hiding within that MILF ‘hockey mom' exterior!"

"Does she have experience?"

"None whatsoever."

"Baggage?"

"A handful of scandals brewing, and a teenaged daughter who's five months pregnant."

"So, the true tanking of my candidacy now begins."

"It's been happening for a while, but yeah, we definitely step it up with Sarah Palin." Blade slapped John McCain's knee. "Hey, you'll love this one graphic we've got ready for circulation on the Internet."

"Yeah?"

"We have a caption under one of her pictures that reads: ‘Finally, a beauty queen who doesn't want world peace.'"

John McCain laughed in spite of himself. "I like it."

* * *

Although John McCain had never in his life entered a campaign or competition to lose, he rationalized the annihilation of his candidacy on election day as a win for America. The presidency of George W. Bush had been so catastrophic, so far-reaching in its malignancy, so damaging to the country, it was nearly impossible to pinpoint any one policy or gross misstep that eclipsed the rest: Allowing the 9/11 attacks to occur, allowing Osama Bin Laden to escape in Tora Bora in the autumn of 2001, the anthrax attacks, the Iraq war, outing CIA agent Valerie Plame in retaliation for an op-ed her husband, Joe Wilson, wrote about "yellow cake uranium" from Niger, domestic spying, the Mission Accomplished debacle aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln—seeing W. in that flight suit was almost enough to make John McCain join the Anarchist Party of America—Abu Ghraib, hurricane Katrina and "You're doin' a heckuva job, Brownie!" The execrable list went on and on until the reasoned mind simply turned away from the unchecked, unmitigated outrage.

These were the things John McCain kept in mind the next day when he introduced Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.

The final nails in the coffin of John McCain's candidacy came in the flood of op-eds, both in print and on television, proclaiming him to be a man who looked like he'd sold his soul; that he was running the most discreditable, unprincipled presidential campaign in American history. Even Karl Rove—soulless imp of soulless imps—said that some of John McCain's advertising didn't pass the truth test.

"I couldn't look at him," John McCain said, exhausted, the night following the first debate with Barak Obama. "I just couldn't look at him. I can't stand this!"

"I know," Blade said. "It's like one of our old missions—if you succeeded, nobody would ever hear about it. If it went badly, you got all the blame and hung-out to dry."

"But the polls," John McCain said. "How am I even in the running? The American people aren't stupid. What are they thinking? I thought Sarah Palin would have voters running away from me in droves—and here she's energizing the base! It doesn't make sense."

"You know the party," Blade said. "The leaders dictate, the followers follow. And by God, the followers will follow them right off of a cliff, if need be, all the while believing themselves to be the truest blue of patriots."

"That's not what this country fought in World War Two for," John McCain said, shaking his head. Then he chuckled. "I wonder if Limbaugh and his band of latrine-lickers are choking on my candidacy as much as I am?"

Blade laughed. "I'll bet he is, though that $400 million contract he signed may be some kind of consolation."

"Well, if I'm going to be hated, I may as well be hated by assholes." John McCain sipped his diet Fresca. "I guess we've got the age-old cover of ‘Who would ever believe this, anyhow?' don't we?"

Blade smiled: "John, you know, conspiracies don't happen in this country."

"Yeah, tell that the Martin Luther King and the Kennedy brothers."

"At least, your being crabby with the press is helpful to the cause."

"That's the only part that's not an act. I don't want to talk to anyone—don't want to see anyone. Jesus, to sit there taking questions from reporters about why my campaign's changed, and I've gotta say I don't know what they're talking about . . ." He trailed off.

"It'll soon be over."

"Yeah, but I keep worrying, ‘What if I win'?"

"Then you govern like you ought to govern. Prosecute Bush and Cheney. Jail the CEOs behind the financial crisis. Get this country the fuck out of Iraq."

"But if I win, that means Palin will be Number Two. You know as well as I do, that swaggering, ambitious cunt will bump me off before I'm finished my first bottle of Geritol as president."

"We've thought of that."

"Oh?"

"Of course. We've always had to plan for the contingency of you winning. Don't you worry, a few of those investigations in Alaska will bear fruit and Palin will have to resign as vice president not long after your first hundred days."

"But that gives her a hundred days to garrote me."

"Don't worry, John, you've got people looking out for you. And you'll be happy to know something else," Blade said.

"What's that?"

"We're announcing that we're pulling out of Michigan—all but conceding it to Obama."

"I like it." John McCain paused. "I won't cut and run in Iraq, but I'll abandon Michigan. If that doesn't pull me out of the running, I don't know what will."

"You betcha!" Blade said like a cast member of the movie Fargo. He and John McCain shared a belly laugh.

Shem Mountainson: The Man Who Should've Been John McCain's Running Mate

As Brendan Gill said of someone, "He took what he could not help about himself, called it a principle, and congratulated himself on practicing it."

---

Being a conservative in America is like attending a Russian fashion show: whether the models don evening wear or swim wear, it's all just a gray smok. And no matter what you want out of life, conservatism precludes you from thinking about or questioning your party's choice of leaders or policies. For much of his campaign, John McCain was vilified and ridiculed by conservative commentators. Now that he's the Republican pick for president, he's known to walk on water and raise the dead. And can turn water into Diet Fresca. Rather than flaunting these powers newly attributed to him by conservatives, John McCain has merely chosen a pretty woman from Alaska as his running mate.

And Republicans have embraced her as their own!

When Sarah Palin couldn't name a single newspaper or magazine that she reads, conservatives trumpeted: "She's a free-thinker! She doesn't want to endorse any one newspaper or magazine!" When she claimed she had foreign policy experience because she could see Russia from her home, conservatives nodded and accepted that because, yeah, life is that easy -- that absurdity affirmed their quietly held belief that they, too, could fly an airplane without training because they'd seen one fly, or be a movie star because they'd watched a movie, or hit a home run because they'd seen a baseball game.

I wish we could go back in time to the night before Sarah Palin was tapped as the vice presidential candidate, when McCain awoke in bed and said to the aides surrounding him and Cindy, "Let's piss off Karl Rove and choose someone from Alaska as my running mate! A fucking woman!" I would go back to that moment, and have McCain choose, instead, Idaho alderman, Shem Mountainson; a cross between Ed Gein and George "The Animal" Steele. Shem's six foot five, weighs all of 400 lbs, chews tobacco, wears voluminous overalls, and trudges around in workboots clumped with pig shit. Shem -- who believes in "freedom" -- brews his own booze, pays taxes when he feels like it, and wins every argument -- political, religious and sports-related -- with his irrefutable rejoinder, "Shut yer stupid mouth!"

Revising Recent History

McCain chose Shem as his running mate, and soon after every conservative in the country was joyfully shouting, "Shut yer stupid mouth!", driving around in SUVs with bumper stickers that read McCain/Mountainson '08 "Shut yer stupid mouth!"

Shem was intoxicated during interviews with Charlie Gibson, Sean Inanity and Katie Couric. The New York Times published op-eds lamenting Shem's public drunkenness, his tobacco spitting and free use of profanity during the interviews, saying it showed a lack of respect for the campaign process, for the office he sought, as well as for the voting public. Glen Beck responded that evening, "Respect is for the dead. Let Shem be Shem!"

At the one-and-only vice presidential debate, Shem entered the stage wearing stained overalls, leading his pet goat by a rope leash, and trailed clumps of pig shit across the carpeting. Mid-way through the debate, as Shem inebriatedly explained that he possessed foreign policy experience because he could identify a globe as "the earth", he spontaneously vomited onto his podium. Debate moderator, John Roberts of CNN, didn't notice this, but left-wing bloggers certainly did. Shem continued with the debate, and by the time of the nightly news afterward, everyone was talking about what had come out of his mouth.

"How low can Shem go?" Keith Olbermann lamented. "Ridiculous!" cried The Huffington Post. "Did you check the tits on the hottie in row fifty-three?" wondered TMZ.

Republicans being a party of uniters, circled their conservative wagons around Shem. "What? You've never vomited?" Bill O'Reilly sneered during his Talking Points. "Elitists!" cried Rush Limbaugh. "Only elitists don't puke!" And from Anne Coulter, "I'm so conservative, I vomit after every meal."

In a speech the following day, Nancy Pelosi was seen wearing an outfit that was growing in popularity among Democrats -- a pair of overalls overtop of her pantsuit. Halfway through the speech, she went into a strangely contrived coughing fit. Later, conservative bloggers accused her of trying to vomit during her speech. Pelosi adamantly denied the charge, claiming offense that anyone would think her capable of such shameless pandering.

During an open air event, wearing an enormous pair of brand new overalls over top of his business suit, Ted Kennedy vomited copiously while making a case against the election of John McCain as president. One teary-eyed observer who identified herself as a life-long Kennedy-admirer said, "He's still got it in him!"

When John McCain was asked about his running mate bringing a goat onstage during the vice presidential debate, the Republican nominee replied, "What goat? There was no goat. That's a conspiracy theory floated by far left-wing bloggers and propagated by the corrupt and compliant maintream media!" He closed his eyes, regained control of himself and said, "I dispute the premise of your question that there was a goat there in the first place." When asked about his running mate appearing drunk during interviews, McCain growled testily, "When I was a prisoner of war in Hanoi for five and a half years, I wished I had the opportunity to get drunk!" There was a lengthy pause as reporters sought to understand what McCain was talking about. When asked about his running mate vomitting on his podium during the vice presidential debate, McCain abruptly left the room.

President McCain

After winning the election, John McCain celebrated at his victory speech by feigning a heart attack. There was a moment of "ooh"s and "ahh"s throughout the ballroom, but all turned to joyous laughter when the new president straightened up, smiling, and approached the microphone. There were hoots and hollers. McCain gave a thumbs-up and bellowed, "Shut yer stupid mouths!" The applause redoubled.

But scandal followed Shem Mountainson into the vice presidency when The Smoking Gun published photographs of him making out with his seventeen year old daughter. Tucker Carlson, Marv Albert and Bill O'Reilly leapt to his defense, but for a day there were even conservatives tsk tsking Shem's behavior. When it was revealed that he was making out with his seventeen year old step daughter, The Drudge Report posted an unflattering photograph of Camile Paglia on its home page with the heading: "Ya Burn!"

One of the first declarations John McCain made as president was that the nation's economy was "as strong as Henry Paulson's voice," and lustrous as his hairline. The markets reacted negatively, but with the inauguration over with, and George W. Bush and Dick Cheney having long ago cashed out their chips in the $700 billion bail-out of Wall Street, who gave a shit? No one. Dennis Miller proclaimed John McCain "America's funniest president."

Breaking with the convention of pardoning criminals upon departing from office, John McCain jailed David Letterman upon entering office. Letterman was placed in gen-pop at New Jersey's Rahway prison wearing a dress and make-up and a sign that read, "Ugly girl." When asked about this complete break with tradition, and about the violation of Mr. Letterman's rights, McCain Administration spokesman, Toby Keith, looked squarely into the press pool TV camera and drawled, "Shut yer stupid mouth!"

John McCain's appointees

After the death of Chief Justice John Roberts in a waterskiing accident, Judge Judy was made Chief Justice. John McCain attempted to pardon Chief Justice John Roberts, but it had to be explained to him that he could only pardon crimes, not actual physical death.

Ken Lay was made Treasury Secretary after he revealed that he had faked his death in order to avoid prosecution in the Enron scandal. John McCain quickly pardoned him and then gave him an awkward hug.

Penn and Teller were made Attorney and General for their many years of conservative devotion. Their first act upon taking the post was to make the Constitution and Bill of Rights actually disappear. For once in their careers, they did not reveal how the trick was done.

Bill O'Reilly was made Information Czar and given the chairmanship of the F.C.C.

Rush Limbaugh was made the Archbishop of Canterbury.

And blogger Andrew Sullivan was welcomed back into the conservative fold and appointed as President McCain's liaison to the gay community and made Secretary of Indian Affairs.

As a parting gift to George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condeleeza Rice, Alberto Gonzales and, of course, Karl Rove, President McCain sent them on an all-expenses-paid trip to Camp David. There, an air-raid siren screamed in the middle of the first night and the group was whisked into the site's lead-lined bomb shelter -- and then the entire complex was filled with cement.

* * *
The question must be asked: What's wrong with conservatives? They're on a sinking ship but only think, "Jeez, the water's getting closer. I can see my reflection even bett--"

America the Affable

America the Affable nation is a large, loud, red-faced man of 350 lbs, his Applebee's/Ben-and-Jerry's/McDonald's girth straining against the front of his XXXL Polo shirt, torturing the belt that holds up his khaki pants. He stands at a bar buying drinks for other nations: England, Estonia, Italy, Australia . . . once in a while, Canada cadges a drink. All America wants is to be liked, so he tells jokes:

"You know how you can tell an elephant's been in your fridge?"

Kyrgastan, Turkey and Morocco shake their heads.

"You'll find his footprints in the butter!" America bellows laughter, casting a needy eye at his audience. Seeing their fun flagging for even an instant, America pulls out his gold card again and orders another round of drinks. Except, the bartender comes back and whispers to America that the card has exceeded its limit. Pained, smiling to hide his confusion and embarrassment, America turns to China, sitting far off to the side, and gets a new gold card from him. The bartender gives it a try and its credit limit is good to go -- more drinks are had by all.

Amid the drinking, in between the jokes, America gets serious, speaking about the lone gunman who killed his beloved president, John F. Kennedy, in November 1963. The other nations share glances; a few roll their eyes, silently saying, "Whatever you say!" knowing full well that that the CIA assassinated President Kennedy. So, America bellows another joke: "You know, I wouldn't want to join any club that would have me as a member!" A few of the English speaking nations chuckle, more out of a desire for another drink.

"You know, that 9/11 and those goddamned terrorists," America says in a serious moment. "Diabolical, how those 19 hijackers managed to outwit NORAD!" Canada, England, Germany and France exchange looks, as if to say, "Yeah, right!"

American continues: "The world's a better place without that asshole, Saddam Hussein."

Estonia raises a glass to that.

"All we want to do is bring freedom to the middle east," America says. "Is that so bad?" Tadzykistan would have replied, "No," if he understood what was being said. The countries who do speak English put down their drinks and make their move to get away from America. But America -- affable, if nothing else -- senses his duties as host are momentarily neglected, and promptly orders another round and a pile of appetizers. Who can pass up free drinks and cheese-and-garlic snazzers? No one.

"I've got nothing to hide," America says, his speech slurred by his eighth or ninth Harvey Wallbanger. "So, if the guv'ment's gotta listen to my phone calls or read my mail, I don't care. If it catches even one terrorist, it's worth it!" Belgium finishes his drink and slips away.

"The terrorists are using our freedoms against us!" America says, pounding the bar with his hand. "They hate our freedom, but they use it against us. So, the guv'ment wants to take away some freedom. I say, great! Take it! Cuz, who the hell knows where the next attack's gonna come from?" Canada finishes his drink, but is too ineffectual to leave the bar. Canada stands there, a patient, distracted, quietly disagreeing audience.

"So, if we gotta bomb I-ran," America goes on, "and all its friends and network, then we'll do it! Cuz, it's about freedom, and . . . and . . ."

"Democrazy," Kyrgyzstan offers in broken English, clacking the ice in his empty glass, hoping for another free drink.

"Yes!" America says. "It's about democracy! And if people have the chance to vote, they'll vote for freedom, just like we do in the U.S. of A!"

England and Italy, France and Germany have finished their free drinks. So have Poland and Sweden and Iceland and Denmark. The moment they set their empty glasses on the bar, America senses their desire to leave. Switzerland consults his wrist watch. Germany clears his throat and edges away. The group moves for the door.

"Wait!" America shouts. "We've still got chicken wings and potato skins coming! You can't leave now!"

The nations claim other responsibilities require attention.

"Ah, hell!" America says. He looks at Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, whose drinks -- for some reason -- were never mixed properly by the bartender; they had spent the evening sending drinks back, arguing with the bartender, demanding their drinks be made as ordered.

"But who the hell mixes cranberry juice with Jim Beam?" the bartender says, exasperated.

"Hey," America says, "freedom's all about getting what you want, when you want it. Ever hear that the customer is always right?"

"Sure," the bartender says, "but I'm not going to mix drinks in my bar that'll make people sick."

"If they wanna be sick," America says, "they have the freedom to be sick!"

"Not in my bar!" the bartender says.

"What kinda business are you running here?" America demands.

Having imbibed too many gin-and-tonics -- which the bartender gave him, instead of pineapple juice and sambuca -- Afghanistan punches Pakistan in the face.

"Hang on a second!" the bartender shouts. "There'll be no fighting in here!"

Pakistan grabs Afghanistan by the shirt and head-butts him in the face, breaking his nose. The bartender jumps over the bar and wields a baseball bat. As he tries to break up the fight, Iraq drinks his nineteenth Bloody Caesar. He'd been ordering drinks in a mumbling, heavily accented voice all night; the only word the bartender understood was "blood." He was partially correct -- Iraq was ordering blood and apple juice; the bartender gave him Bloody Caesars.

Iraq grabs a handful of peanuts from a dish on the bar. As he chews them, one slips down his throat, causing him to choke. Amid his choking, he proceeds to puke up the last eighteen Bloody Caesars America bought him. America stands away from the fracas between Pakistan and Afghanistan, looking at Iraq, seeing $223 in drinks vomited down his shirt and pants, the bar and floor. All of the other nations take this opportunity to exit the bar.

The bartender manages to separate Pakistan and Afghanistan, sending each on his wounded way. After surveying the hopeless mess that Iraq made, the bartender goes back around the bar and cashes out America. The bartender slides the gold card through the credit card machine, but with the huge, uneaten orders of chicken wings and potato skins and jalapeno snappers and blooming onion and nachos-with-five-cheeses and pizza poppers and garlic jabbers and grease grabbers, bacon sliders and cheese slammers, along with all of the drinks, has exceeded the gold card's limit. The bartender discreetly advises America about this.

America, red-faced and with no laughter left, goes back to China, who sits off to the side. China hasn't ordered a thing all night. They exchange a few words and China hands America another gold card. America returns to the bar and pays his tab. Turkey, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Tasmania linger with hopeful expressions, trying for more free drinks by sheer force of silent will. America looks at them and begins to tell a joke, "A priest, a rabbi and a minister go into a bar . . ." Turkey, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Tasmania turn and leave.

Alone at the bar with a drink's receipt long enough to wrap around his immense waist, America picks at the appetizers laid out before him like a redneck wedding banquet. He's in the middle of quaffing one of the potato skins when China approaches. "We leave now," China says in three, militaristic syllables.

"But looka all this food," America says. "There's kids starving in Chin -- in India. I can't leave all this!"

"We leave now!" China says.

America shoves some pepper snazzers and pizza bloaters into his pockets, jams a handful of nachos into his mouth and follows China out of the bar. Outside, China climbs into the back of a rickshaw. "We go!" China barks. America, still chewing his last handful of nachos, lumbers to the front of the rickshaw, bends down and picks up the two pulling handles. He grunts with the effort; feels his drinks and masticated food welling in his throat.

"We go!" China barks.

America starts down the road, pulling the rickshaw, winded after half a dozen steps.

"Faster!"

America swallows the last of the nachos. His ulcer pokes at him from the inside-out.

As he passes a gaggle of pretty girls in halters and mini skirts walking down the sidewalk, America sucks in his gut and picks up the pace. He can't wait to get home to his hovel, to his pain relievers and heated pads, to his ointments and analgesics -- to all the remedies that are scientifically tested and government approved to make him feel better.

Das Phelps Phenom

Much as I've been trying to avoid the bloody Olympics, there's no getting away from news of this Phelps porpoise who's won eight gold medals. It's interesting, when Michelle Smith of Ireland was having similar success in the 1996 Games, she was immediately accused of doping -- even though she passed all of the tests. Phelps performs this feat and all anyone talks about is his 12,000 calorie-a-day diet. In the same way it took years for Marion Jones to be caught for her steroid use, I'm sure the same thing will happen to Phelps. But with Iraq going so badly, Afghanistan consistent ugliness on the periphery, everyone should enjoy Phelps' success. But I have no doubt he's merely on some new steroid for which there isn't yet a test.

In the Neighborhood

Throughout the summer, for reasons I can neither guess nor discern, every weekend night is punctuated by fireworks. Sometimes it's just the anemic pop of neighborhood fireworks going off just after sundown for some kid's birthday. Other times, though, they are the full-on artillery barrage fireworks sounding in the distance; the din of thousands of dollars per explosion. Sometimes leaves me wondering what I'll find of the city Monday morning.

I went for a bike ride with my wife this morning to Tim Horton's for coffee.

As I pumped our bike tires with air, our bland born again Christian next door neighbor was outside with her son. He's an adorable little two year old who's apparently talking and quite animated. I heard him speaking and making some interesting sounds, so I called over, neighborly, to her and said, "Wow, he's talking up a storm!" She gave a wan smile. I then commented to my wife, "Huh, the baby talks more than she does." Since I telephoned her and her husband one night last year, accusing them of being inconsiderate assholes for having their hot tub underneath my bedroom window and waking us up one night splashing and carrying on in the urinal font with friends, this cold fish has been one frigid carp. Her husband pieces together a pretty sturdy living between a tool and die shop and being a pilot-for-hire. As a consequence, he's never home. Can't blame him.

As we rode down our street this morning, we saw the remnants of the Philistines' night last night. The Philistines are a gaggle of harmless, noisy beer-drinking neighbors who have turned their three or four properties into a sort of impromptu collective; a sort of Scientology camp for factory workers and women who shout with men's voices. Every weekend night, they light a bonfire in this one driveway -- why they don't go into the privacy of the backyard, I'll never know, other than to guess that nobody could observe them having their wonderful fun time back there -- stoking up particle board and other assorted scavenged flammable objects in a metal fire pit apparatus. They gather around it like a tribe from ten thousand years ago, doing strange hoofing dances in the orange light, imbibing intoxicants, bellowing laughter over statements that are just not funny.

This morning, the driveway around Philistines' metal fire pit was littered with charred bits of what could have been wood or a human femur, beer cans, I'm sure I saw a few teeth glittering in the sunlight. Over our air conditioner and fan last night I heard a few rumblings from that direction. I had the feeling if I'd gone over there right then I'd have found them devouring the right leg of the mail man.

Further down the street are the Rocket Scientists who didn't quite make it to the space program. Instead, these men-children build, fine-tune and test-fly ultra-mini mini bikes: motorbikes a little bigger than your average coffee maker. Everyone should have a hobby. I don't care how others amuse themselves. My only beef with the Rocket Scientists is they haven't yet perfected an ultra-mini mini bike that doesn't roar like a garbage truck when they do laps around the neighborhood. Seeing these louts on the contraption almost makes up for its wretched roar -- grown men crouched on this toy-like vehicle that goes just fast enough to break a collar bone or flatten a nose if someone took a corner too tightly. Then I conjure the mental image of one them riding it down to the gas station for a fill-up, cradling the ultra-mini mini bike in an arm like a little terrier, as he gently applies the gas pump handle to its wee fuel orifice. The ultra-mini mini bike is probably bathed in the kitchen sink, evenings, and probably has its own blanket-lined box in the garage. When it comes to repairing or calibrating this pet vehicle, I imagine the Rocket Scientists affixing a jewelers' monocle in an eye and working on the thing with watchmakers' tools. Everyone should have a hobby.

Coincidence Theorists

I'm just after watching a program on TVOntario hosted by Steve Paikin, Conspiracy Anyone? Below is an e-mail message I just sent to TVO regarding this program and my opinions about how it handled its subject:

The premise of the TV show Conspiracy Anyone?, about conspiracy theories, was flawed at its base. The host operated from the idea that the official stories of great historical happenings, such as the JFK assassination and the 9/11 attacks, are true, and who are these nuts who believe otherwise.

Why did George W. Bush need 9/11? The U.S. public would never have supported an unprovoked war with Afghanistan. Nor would it have supported the war against Iraq -- and Iraq was absolutely tied to 9/11 by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and the rest of that corrupt bunch. Also, look at Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine. In moments of great trauma like 9/11, legislation like the PATRIOT Act are rammed through with no opposition. That never would have succeeded without 9/11. Nor would the Total Information Awareness network or George W. Bush's warrantless wiretapping of Americans. 9/11 occurred to give America a supposed enemy, it occurred so that constitutional rights could be suppressed, so that Guantanamo Bay could be turned into a concentration camp. 9/11 did just what the attack on Pearl Harbor did -- it brought America's focus to a fine point, a concentrated point of accepting war. If you look at who has benefited more from 9/11 -- George W. Bush or Osama bin Laden -- I think it's very safe to say that George W. Bush benefited greatly. Multimillionaire Osama is living in a cave somewhere. Also, the failing presidency of George W. Bush was buoyed immensely by 9/11. Look how the Republican Party moved the date of its 2004 national convention to very nearly September 11th. The Republican Party took on 9/11 like a celebration, wrapping themselves in the flag, drowning out dissent with the singing of patriotic songs.

There are more people questioning official stories these days because mass media rams these events down our throats. Also, there are people who have the time to ask the tough questions (bloggers and independent journalists, like Barry Zwicker -- regarding 9/11, for instance, why were some of the supposed hijackers said to have been aboard the planes that perpetrated the attacks found alive and well abroad, horrified that their names and pictures were on the FBI's widely disseminated picture line-up; the numerous people (firemen inside the buildings) the head custodian of the Twin Towers, heard bombs exploding in the building; the stand-down of the military; the insane coincidence of five sets of war games occurring on that day. Why aren't reporters asking these tough questions? Access. Look what happened to Helen Thomas in the White House press pool when she asked tough questions of George W. Bush. She was frozen out -- no longer seated up front and granted the first question any longer, but seated in the back and completely shunned. Thomas is a veritable institution in the media, so she could weather such retribution. A lesser known reporter would have probably just lost his job. When Peter Jennings died, it was reported that he was worth $51 million. I posit that Peter Jennings had 51 million reasons not to ask the tough questions. He was extraordinarily successful taking the soft, scripted route, working for the Disney Corporation.

The Internet film Zeitgeist appeals to people because we have come to learn our institutions aren't trustworthy. The host of Conspiracy Anyone? operates from the premise that our institutions are beyond reproach and who are these crazy, marginalized people who'd question the honesty of corporate executives, clergy and greatest of all, politicians. Each institution has been proven time and again not only to be corrupt and self-interested, but often more so than anyone would have guessed or feared: the Gulf of Tonkin fantasy, the pedophile priest scandal, Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Was cover-up and collusion involved in these cases? Yes. It's all proven, painfully proven in the public domain.

The mindset that I feel is much more worthy of examination is that of "coincidence theorists;" those people, like this show's host, who believe that anomalies that prickle the curiosity of onlookers are all just a series of coincidences. Certainly, coincidences occur, but the number of anomalies surrounding the JFK murder, for instance, cannot be credibly chalked-up to coincidence: the speed with which Lee Harvey Oswald was identified and captured, the vast suppression of witnesses, the staggering number of material witnesses who died unnatural deaths (murdered); the disappearance of evidence, i.e. President Kennedy's brain, for god's sake, from the national archives! To believe all of these circumstances are just coincidental is not a credible view of the event.

Yeah, I guess people who ask tough questions are scary to people like this show's host, who earns his living towing the line, maintaining the status quo. The evidence is there. Look at Jim Garrison's book On the Trail of Assassins. Look at the questions Mark Lane raises in Rush to Judgment. Listen to the testimony of first-hand witnesses. . . One of the guests on Conspiracy Anyone just mentioned that the Warren Commission Report on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy was the same size as the Encyclopedia Britannica. Do you know what prodded Jim Garrison to investigate the assassination? He read the Warren Commission Report. He found so many inconsistencies and contradictions and gaping holes in the evidence that he had to look into it. And the more he looked into the matter -- because Lee Harvey Oswald lived in New Orleans mere months before the assassination -- the more strange characters, like David Ferrie, Guy Bannister and Clay Shaw, Garrison uncovered. Most interesting of all was that the deeper Garrison looked into the JFK killing, he soon found himself "dancing with the Central Intelligence Agency" (to quote Garrison), which blocked his way at every turn. Those are not the imaginings of a madman. Those are the experiences of a conservative, rational, sober officer of the court. Garrison was a former FBI agent; hardly given to the ludicrous thinking he's been accused of.

Unfortunately, Conspiracy Anyone? was very superficial, operating from a faulty premise offered up as legitimate. People have every reason in the world to want to believe in their institutions, but have every reason in the world not to. Enron, Watergate, the pedophile priest scandals are just three touchstones that takes the pins out of each. To pretend that these were anomalies is to present oneself as utterly uninformed, utterly blinded by an agenda, or simply seeking to keep one's job, like the host of this program or like Peter Jennings.

Ask Halliburton, Kellogg, Brown & Root, Dow Chemical, McDonnell Douglass, Boeing, Blackwater and the Carlyle Group how much 9/11 and the Vietnam war has hurt or helped them. And who are the major investors in these companies?

Genocide Games -- Beijing Time Machine

Air quality the enemy of the games.

Sports reporter, Miles Blank, has just returned from the future where he attended the 2008 Genocide Games in Beijing, China. He now presents his report for those sports fans who wish to avoid commercial interruption and nationalistic slant (no pun intended) that usually mar coverage of international games.

Here now is the Blank Report:

Time travel may have caused a growth in the base of my skull to severely metastasize, but it was well worth this slight wrinkle in my mortality to witness the Genocide Games first hand and bring it back to you. Due to high levels of smog, most of the outdoor events had to be viewed via infrared monitors that tracked athletes' body heat because they were not visible from more a few feet from the event areas. Infrared viewing is not an optimum way to experience athletic competition at this level, but it was all that was available.

I suppose I will begin by spoiling the suspense and reporting the winners of events. In a first in Olympic history, the host country swept every medal in every event. It was an unprecedented performance. There was grumbling by malcontents who felt that Chinese athletes had an unfair advantage because they were accustomed to the free-floating sewage their government calls "air." My response is to ask, "What about all the years Chinese athletes competed in countries with clean air? Didn't they deal with that disadvantage in a quiet and dignified manner?" The answer: yes, they did.

So, with the winners out of the way, I will share "next best" results in some of the more high-profile events.

* Rowing teams from Canada, Australia, Estonia were attacked and swallowed by a sea monster, which oceanographers are telling us was exponentially nourished by a strange influx of algae in the competition area in the months leading up to the Genocide Games. All other rowing teams simply disappeared in the smog.

* The fourth place time in the 100 meter sprint competition was 3 minutes 29 seconds, because the Bulgarian runner was unable to see the finish line due to the pollution. Three runners died during the sprint and one disappeared entirely.

* Next best performance in the marathon was a Mexican distance runner who died at the one-mile mark. All other runners died within 200 meters of the Start line, most of their corpses have not yet been found, but a thorough search by U.N. investigators of surrounding restaurants is underway.

* Next best performance in the swimming events was the German swimmer who completed two laps before his body completely dissolved in the free-floating sewage the Chinese call "water."

* In the diving competition, the fourth place finish was a Japanese diver who managed two dives before her skeleton was entirely unsheathed from her flesh by the hard water of the swimming pool.

By the end of the Genocide Games more than 678 athletes died, another 3,000 disappeared, though the Chinese government flatly refutes these figures. In fact, the Chinese government insists that a surplus of athletes is leaving the country: 12,532 athletes arrived in Beijing to compete and 13,144 are leaving -- none of whom are Chinese defectors. "How can you beat that?" asked Chairman Hu Jintao. "Countries are getting their athletes back -- with interest!" Unfortunately, the "with interest" aspect pertains more to the growths, tumors, ganglion and intestinal worms traveling home with athletes.

The Global Association of Respirologists (GAR) touts the Genocide Games as a roaring success -- for business, at least. "We'll be treating these athletes and visitors for asthma, emphysema and lung cancer for decades to come," says Dr. Arthur Mallory, association president. "The Genocide Games should be held in Beijing every year!"

Sam Kolan of Toronto, Canada, one of the few visitors to Beijing who safely returned from the Genocide Games, says, all in all, he enjoyed his visit. "I'm sad, certainly, that my family died during our time in China from smog inhalation and being mistaken in the haze for political dissenters -- and thus shot on the spot -- but the stadium the Chinese built was amazing!" Among other cultural aspects Kolan observed in China was the miracle of its economy: "What's happening in China is truly miraculous. I'm a business man and I think they're really on to something harnessing economic practicality of slave labor. I wish our government in Canada was as progressive!"

The Genocide Games of 2008 were a genuine breakthrough for international relations. Now that irrelevancies, such as human rights and pollution, are off the table when choosing future venues, the list of host country candidates has exploded. Leading candidate sites for the 2016 Games are Darfur, Chile and Libya.

That's the Genocide Games of 2008! I must return to my oxygen tent, but hope you will tune in again for more reports from the future.

Now we'll see if Bill Hicks was right about Jesse Helms: "I always wondered about Jesse's collection of little shoes."

From CNN: "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, a North Carolina Republican who became an icon to conservatives, died Friday at the age of 86, a senior congressional source said."

Comedian Bill Hicks is no longer with us, but he pays tribute to Jesse Helms from beyond the grave in the audio clip posted below. It's a tragedy that Bill lived only 32 years, but given his passion and fury against stupidity, inequality, corruption and greed. I can't see how he would have lasted any longer than he did. In George W. Bush's America, Hicks would have self-immolated on a nightclub stage.

No one lampooned the poor and less fortunate like Jesse Helms, and no one lampooned the likes of Jesse Helms like Bill Hicks.

Draft Evader Makes Good!

I'm honestly happy for Rush Limbaugh, who recently signed a $400 million deal to continue his radio show through the year 2016. From the always-accurate Drudge Report:

The American broadcast industry is rocked, realigned and blasted into a new orbit, yet again, by Rush Limbaugh, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

In what is being described as an unprecedented radio contract, Limbaugh will keep his syndicated show on-the-air and e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e through 2016 with CLEAR CHANNEL and PREMIERE RADIO.

Already host of the most lucrative hours since radio's inception, Limbaugh's total package is valued north of $400 million, according to media insiders.

The NEW YORK TIMES will claim this weekend that Limbaugh, marking 20 years this summer as a national host, has secured a 9-figure signing bonus for the new deal, newsroom sources tell DRUDGE.

MORE

In its controversial profile, the TIMES reports that Limbaugh is buying a new G550 jet and is making an estimated $38 million a year.

Look, that's a ton of money that Rush can share with his wife and his numerous children. It makes his evasion of service in the Vietnam war much less reprehensible -- particularly given his rabid support for the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- because had he died in Vietnam (and there's no question the blubbery, awkward, myopic, unathletic Limbaugh would have been KIA within his first hours in-country) he would not be setting salary records in the dying industry of radio, nor creating the jobs he has created by staffing his popular show. But God saw fit to bestow on Rush a boil on his ass in the form of pilonidal cyst. Hence, no service in the military. Oh well, that just saved him to do what he was born to do: earn money.

OK, yes, he looks like an utter douchebag when he's fellating a cigar -- I'll give you that. And his radio show has all the journalistic integrity of two dozen clowns springing out of an Austin Cooper. He's virulent, ignorant, hateful and a purveyor of hatred and ignorance. But if you look at him another way, he's merely the McDonald's of political discourse; the R.J. Reynolds of radio. He appeals to the masses, he's poisonous, but he's poisonous in a way that society tolerates. That's why we fought the two World Wars.

Update

Uh, it seems that Rush Limbaugh has no children. This has to be a mistake, so I'll continue researching. Surely, someone as virile and passionate as Rush "Polyorbid" Limbaugh would have dozens of children out spreading the Word of God and GOP. Surely, someone who has been such a bastion of family values, such a purveyor of the Christian-way-of-life would have armies of children. And some character-assassin has posted on the Internet that there are no less than three ex-Mrs. Limbaughs. This absolutely can't be true. Because Rush isn't a quitter. He spent years in broadcasting with people telling him he'd never amount to anything, only to prove every one of them wrong. When it comes to the holy institution of marriage, there's no way you're going to make me believe that Rush would spit in the eye of God by getting a divorce.

So, I will continue to congratulate Rush and his gaggle of children and his loving, devoted wife in their latest flourish of good fortune.

HillBillary Clinton

HillBillary Clinton is about the wealthiest, most educated pair of hillbillies on the block. In the 1990s, I was a fan of the duo. There's no question President Clinton had his foibles and made some outrageously stupid missteps, giving his numerous detractors copious amounts of ammunition against him. And for all of her cold, Nancy-Reagan-ness, Hillary struck me as a brilliant and capable person. It was so interesting to hear her criticized back when she had fired the staff of the White House travel office. Clinton detractors screamed about her interference and overstepping her bounds. Meanwhile, nobody disputed that she had done the right thing in firing a pack of wasteful bureaucraps. Heaps of criticism has been shoveled upon her over her attempts to jigger (semi) universal health care in America in the early 90s. She may have made many mistakes along the way, but at least she made the attempt.

Two years ago, when the notion of Hillary Clinton running for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States was still in the rumor stages, it sounded to me like the best news imaginable. After the failed siege of George W. Bush and his klan of misanthropes and incompetents, Hillary Clinton would be like Moses coming down from the mount to clean up the mess. When the campaign began, Barak Obama also looked and sounded great, but I almost wished -- at that time -- that he wouldn't even waste his time because Hillary was all the country needed to get back on track. And then I watched the Democratic campaign for the nomination unfold, as every other newshound has in the past 18 months.

People have moaned about the campaign taking so long -- Christ, haven't we had enough of "drive-thru" democrazy with Herr Bush and his gang of rapist thugs? -- but I think this was a good thing. The most notable revelation to come out of this campaign is that Hillary Clinton is a shrill, bitter, ambition-tortured megalomaniac who would still be a vastly better president than George W. Fratboy, but who has displayed a shocking streak of putting her own ambitions ahead of everything, such as the truth, the country, and her party. And Bill Clinton on the campaign trail has embodied the adage "With friends like that who needs enemies." It's been a comical farce watching him torpedo his wife's campaign with his outlandish lies -- that Barak Obama saying he opposed the Iraq war was a "fairy tale," that Hillary's hilarious and bizarre oft-repeated recollection of being under sniper fire in Bosnia was something she said just once and while tired at the end of a long day. Bill's involvement in the campaign was the painful part of this fiasco because I finally came around to seeing him exactly as his detractors see him: as a base liar who will say, literally, anything, and who appears to have the personal honesty and integrity of a wharf rat.

Hillary's speech last Tuesday, when Obama essentially clinched the party's nomination as presidential candidate, reminded me of the year Julia Roberts won the Oscar for her role in Erin Brokovich. I don't rightly know if anyone was actually rooting for Julia Roberts that Oscar night, but there was the palpable feeling in the air that people were frightened of rooting against her. It was a foreordained occurrence. There was no way Julia Roberts wasn't going to win the Oscar that night. Not because her performance in Erin Brokovich was so stunning -- it wasn't; I liked her better in Mystic Pizza -- but that it was quietly understood that Julia Roberts would have clawed the eyes out of anyone who stood between her and that Oscar. And how Julia went on to thank her agent, her accountant, dog groomer, hair stylist ... everyone except the actual Erin Brokovich. That same sense of shrewish entitlement poured off Hillary at the beginning of the campaign, and resurged last Tuesday, like a pungent blast of jungle BO. And now there is talk that Obama must offer Hillary the position of his running mate, if only so that she can turn it down. Hillary supporters say she has "earned" the right to be Obama's running mate; that she deserves it. Bullshit. But this illustrates the ferocity of her rancid sense of entitlement, that the race was hers, the drama wasn't supposed to last much longer than Super Tuesday . . . Maybe in George W.'s 'Merica campaigns are scripted and elections mapped out long in advance. America -- and the world -- is trying to pull itself away from the malevolent vortex of W.'s 'Merica.

How I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall after Bill's latest misstep, ranting about a Vanity Fair journalist being "sleazy" and a "scumbag." The verbal slap-back he must have received from his wife could probably have been measured in kilotons.

It's been a long campaign and I'm glad Barak Obama has won his party's nomination. I went from believing Hillary would have made a great president to believing she really doesn't make a good human being. She and Bill should be immortalized as a salt and pepper shaker set of caricatures, each with a missing front tooth and both clad in overalls sitting on the tables of truck stops everywhere. At least in that context we could trust what comes out of them.

Weather as a power source?

So, the wind's blowing like hell around my neighborhood this evening, and as I was closing some windows around the house, I thought to myself, Man, am I ever glad that we don't have tornadoes around here. It's tragic how they rip through a town and tear apart peoples' homes. I can't even imagine how awful it would be to have everything I own -- and the lives of loved ones put in jeopardy -- by something lunging out of the sky with virtually no notice.

People wonder why tornadoes seem to prefer trailer parks, never realizing that land that's proven to be so dangerous tends to drop in value until it's the only thing people living in trailers can afford. I realize that tornadoes can't be predicted with any certainty -- and surely there much more about them that we don't know, than we do. But an area of the United States has long been nicknamed "Tornado Alley." I wonder, with our global energy crunch tightening by the day, squeezing us all, why we don't build some kind of massive generator, or whatever, that could harness the lethal energy of tornadoes. Or hurricanes. Could we not build a couple of power plants equipped to harness the insane power of one of these monsters?

We're surrounded by almost otherworldly power sources. I've heard that flashes of lightning are either hotter or brighter than the sun, I can't remember which of those. I have no idea how a scientist would determine that, but if it's even close to being true, what interesting potential that could have as a power source. Again, it's inconstant as hell, utterly unpredictable, but surely some large aluminum towers could be erected in areas of the country most prone to lightning strikes and the energy of these strikes converted into power (and the United States is the world capital of lightning strikes according to meteorologists). How interesting it would be that my computer could be powered by lightning, rather than shitcanned by a lightning induced power surge during a storm.

Or waves. My family has home movie footage of me as a one year old sitting on the sandy beach out front of a friend's house, trying to catch the small waves of Lake St. Clair as they rolled in. Every time I've been near a body of water of any size, I'm continually amazed by the unstopping metronome regularity of the waves. Is there no way to harness this very regular, predictable, unending source of water movement?

I'm sure all sorts of people have thought of these things, and maybe each idea is laughable. But I can't think of anything more inexcusably laughable than continuing down the road we're on -- burning oil and coal for most of our fuel, with nuclear power waiting in the wings like a plutonium-faced Oz monster, just waiting until we're all desperate enough to say, "Throw the switch! Who cares!" I think we're closer to that than we'd like to believe.