Yearly Archives: 2007

NPR Interviews In Half The Time Or Less

By: Michael Fowler

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The NPR theme is heard, played on a classical guitar. Fast fade.

Melissa: This is National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. I’m Melissa Block.

Michele: And I’m Michele Norris. Ahmed Bey is a cabdriver working in Baghdad. Mr. Bey, you state that yesterday you picked up a very unusual passenger.

Bey: That’s so. I was cruising through Sadr City, looking for a fare, when I stopped near a flaming mosque to get a coffee. A man in a western suit jumped into the passenger seat behind me, having shot off my rear door. I turned to look at him, and found myself face-to-face with the vice president of your country. Before I could say, “Where to?” he said…

Michele: Mr. Kahn, thank you for talking to us today.

Bey: Huh. You’re welcome.

* * * * * * *

The NPR theme is played on a button accordion. Very fast fade.

Melissa: From NPR news, this is All Things Considered. I’m Melissa Block.

Michele: I’m Michele Norris.

Robert: And I’m Robert Siegel. There’s been an astonishing discovery in a cave in Old Jerusalem. Wine expert Abe Crocus and his team of archaeologist vintners claim to have uncovered a cask of the wine that Christ made from water two thousand years ago. Mr. Crocus, what can you tell us about this wine?

Crocus: Due to its miraculous nature, it has not decayed at all. As for its taste and bouquet, well, I’m just this second pouring myself a glass…now a quick sniff…and down the hatch she goes.

Robert: Mr. Crocus, thank you for taking the time to be with us today.

Crocus: Good Lord. In that case I won’t tell you what it tastes like, or describe the total absolution from sin I’m undergoing.

* * * * * * *

The NPR theme is played on a chromatic harmonica. Almost immediate fade.

Debbie: This is NPR Weekend Edition with Debbie Elliott. In an area of undeveloped brush near the coastal tourist city of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, a race of hominids has been discovered who have remained in secrecy and isolation for years, living on the sewage and dumpsters of a nearby Holiday Inn Express. Joanne Tickle is part of the anthropological team now embedded with the tiny, gentle people she calls Inn Men. Joanne, what can you tell us about the Inn Men and, I suppose, Inn Women?

Joanne: Having evolved and developed in total isolation for thousands of years in a harsh environment and only recently gained access to modern luxury trash, these people show some amazing adaptive characteristics and unexpected lifestyles.

Debbie: Joanne, thank you for being with us today.

Joanne: For example, they use discarded luggage trolleys to…Where’s everyone going?

* * * * * * *

The NPR theme is played on a claw hammer banjo. Instant fade.

Michele: Michele.

Melissa: Melissa.

Robert: Robert. Astronomer Ron has spent his adult life scanning the known universe for signs of intelligent life with the aid of a radio telescope. Ron, how goes the search? Quickly.

Ron: Possibly a breakthrough. Radio telescope picking up patterns in signals from Crab Nebula. Now, patterns indicate…

Robert: Faster, Ron. No wait, you’re finished.

Ron: Hold it a sec. I must refute the five reasons that some say support the idea that no intelligent life has evolved outside our galaxy. The first…

Robert: Get off the air, hog.

Ron: Listen, anchorman. Never again will I…

Robert: For All Things Considered, I’m…(abrupt fade).

* * * * * * *

The NPR theme is not played.

Melissa: This is National Public Radio. For All Things Considered, I’m Mi…

Robert: And I’m Robert. What were you saying, Mr….

Mr….: I was try…

Robert: And then…

Mr….: What seem im…

Robert: Thank you for…

Mr….: My plea…

Robert: And now the news.

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An Open Letter To O.J. Simpson From The Real Killer

By: Mike Richardson-Bryan

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Dear O.J.,

It’s me, the real killer. I bet you never expected to hear from me, and yet it was inevitable that you would. Allow me to explain.

I had committed the perfect crime. Two innocent people lay dead, victims of my murderous rage, and I had gotten away scot-free. The possibility that an innocent man might be wrongfully convicted for my crime was an unexpected but positively delightful bonus. Everything was going my way.

Imagine my surprise when, upon your acquittal, you dedicated your life to tracking me down and bringing me to justice. I had a good laugh about it, at first. “Oh, no,” I said to myself, feigning a tremble, “O.J. Simpson is gonna sleuth me out.” But the laughter soon gave way to panic when it became clear that you were serious. Dead serious.

I’ve been living on the run ever since, and it hasn’t been easy. Indeed, I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in twelve years — twelve years! — and when I do sleep, my dreams are haunted by the slow, soft, unrelenting tread of your Gucci loafers as you draw inexorably closer. Oh, how I’ve come to despise you and your noble quest.

And yet, I must also tip my hat to you. No one would have blamed you for retreating from the public eye and living a life of quiet dignity on your meager $25,000 / month NFL pension. But instead, you took to the streets, determined to clear your name and avenge your beloved ex-wife and what’s-his-name.

If only you knew how close you’ve come over the years.

You almost had me at that country club in Miami. I was so intent on my form that I didn’t even see you coming. If I hadn’t sliced into the trees off the third hole, you would have spotted me for sure. Fortunately, you stopped to belittle a caddy, and I, recognizing your commanding voice from afar, lay low amongst the dogwoods while you played through. Call it a mulligan.

You almost had me again at that Indian casino in Fresno. I was hitting the tables hard that night, trying to forget my troubles. I had just rolled a hard eight when you rounded the slots, your laser-like eyes scanning the room for signs of villainy. If those frat boys hadn’t accosted you for autographs, I might have had to ditch my chips in my mad flight for the exit. I guess Lady Luck was with me that night.

But you came closest of all at that spa in the Hamptons. I was working as a towel boy in order to get close to my next victim, a beautiful blonde hot-rock masseuse and part-time ear model from Newfoundland. I had just about won her trust when you appeared and ordered the works. Oh, you were good — even ensconced in a detoxifying full-body seaweed wrap, you remained in a state of cat-like readiness, set to pounce the moment I showed myself — but I hid in a hamper until you were gone. Another clean getaway.

The masseuse, like so many others, is alive today only because of your meddling. But do they thank you? No, to this day they condemn you for a crime you didn’t commit no matter how much any reasonable man in your position would have wanted to. Yet you press on, undaunted, like Batman or Spider-Man or Black Vulcan, as heroic as you are misunderstood. Perhaps when your doubters read this letter, they will finally understand.

The shame is that the two of us are a lot alike. In different circumstances, we could have been friends, if not brothers, or even twins, identical in every way except for the fact that I’m a cold-blooded killer whereas you’ve never killed anyone in your life, not even some ungrateful skank who totally deserved it and her poncy friend who should’ve minded his own business. But the cards are dealt and there’s no going back now.

And so, my worthy adversary, our deadly game of cat and mouse continues. I will never stop, driven as I am by murderous impulses not shared by yourself even when provoked. And you, in turn, will never flag or fail in your single-minded pursuit, driven as you are by a thirst for justice that no quantity of Cristal can quench. On and on we will go, hunter and hunted, predator and prey, until only one of us remains. So be it.

Good luck, and may the best man win.

Yours truly,

The Real Killer

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Notes for Mothra’s Memoir-in-Progress

By: Eric Ylst

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You’re probably used to thinking of me as a party girl. That’s how the press portrayed me for the first decade of my career, and I suppose there was more than a grain of truth to it. Hey, it was the 60s; who didn’t party? But as I got older, my priorities became clearer.

It’s the simple things, really: family, relationships. I didn’t know that when I was young. I had a lot of anger.

That’s probably what attracted me to Godzilla in the first place.

*******

My children are the most important thing in the world to me. I have 9,342 of them. Of course, 8,437 have moved out of Tokyo, but they still visit when they can, and I get to see the others often.

Those were my actual children who appeared in Godzilla vs. Mothra. But I discouraged them from staying in the business after that. I wanted them to have a chance at normal life.

I’m a grandmother now. That’s the best. They call me Gramothra and I spoil them with all the tour buses their parents won’t let them have. They’re so overprotective! But I suppose I was as well with the first thousand.

*******

I’m sorry I didn’t have more children. I would have, but I put off childbearing to concentrate on my career, and then once I finally started, my clock was already ticking.

*******

All right, I suppose this is the time for total honesty. Another reason I didn’t have more children is because of all those years I wasted on Godzilla.

The studios made us keep our relationship secret. They said it would alienate the fan base.

I loved him, but he just couldn’t commit. I deluded myself for decades. “Just give him more time,” I told myself. “He’ll come around.” Then one day I watched him batting an airplane out of the sky and all of a sudden it came to me, clear as day: “He’ll never grow up.”

*******

When I think of it now — all that time and love poured down the drain!

Gamera tried to tell me, but I wouldn’t listen.

*******

When I heard he’d died rampaging in Tokyo, I didn’t take it the way I thought I would. I wasn’t angry, or even sad. I suppose I had accepted his fate years ago when he told me rampaging was in his blood.

*******

But there’s no use dwelling on the negative. Those years with Godzilla made me who I am today, and even though looking back now, sometimes I feel foolish, I believe that sadness heightened my sensitivity, made me a better monster, and later, a better mom.

It made me a better friend to Gamera when he was finally ready to come out.

*******

So, I have no regrets.

*******

Well, maybe one. I’m sorry about destroying your city. But how could I regard that huge bug zapper as anything but a threat? Remember, I’d started my family at that point.

I had my children to think of.

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Barry At The Bat

By: David Litt

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The steroid case seemed airtight ‘gainst the Giants’ aging baller,

His head had swollen up in size, his testes had grown smaller.

But fans still came to watch him play, although his past was checkered,

For Barry, mighty Barry, might soon break the home run record.

In former years, Bonds made his name by swinging for the fences.

He’d shattered single-season marks, and also innocences.

So when the hulking player left the dugout where he sat,

A silent hush grew o’er the crowd — ’twas Barry at the bat.

The slugger strode up to the plate, and did not seem to worry.

He still had all the arrogance he’d shown to the grand jury.

For Barry’s ‘tude was tough and cruel, and Barry’s heart was barren —

He was, except for all his stats, the anti-Henry Aaron.

He set his stance, and flexed his arms, built up from God-knows-what

He’d put in a syringe, and then injected in his butt;

And also from designer drugs, known as the cream and clear,

Which both were taken topically, instead of in the rear.

This scandalous news, the BALCO case, had broken in oh-three.

The allegations ran in print, they echoed on TV.

Yet though all his denials sounded spurious and flat,

‘Twas Barry, guilty Barry, who remained there at the bat.

So countless thousands listened to the radios in their cars.

They gathered in the stadiums, they gathered in the bars.

They packed Pac-Bell and watched, and though they knew their right from wrong,

They could not help but want to see if Barry would go long.

And now the pitcher’s ready, and he takes the ball and flings it,

But Barry’s juiced-up muscles hold the bat, and now he swings it,

And now the ball is going, going, gone, over the fence,

And San Franciscans cheer for him, defying common sense.

Oh, somewhere in the distance is a cleaner world of sport,

Where drugs that boost performance are not there a resort.

Someday, perhaps, we’ll reach that place, at least that’s what we’re hoping;

But there is no joy in Mudville — mighty Barry has been doping.

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The Six-Month Benihana Job Evaluation of Mindfreak’s Criss Angel

By: Gladstone

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Date: March 14, 1993

Appearance:

At the time of Mr. Angel’s retention, it was explained that while Benihana hires employees of varied races, our customers have certain expectations regarding their chef’s appearance. To this end, many of our Latino and Filipino employees have successfully affected an air of “Japanese” through a combination of training, demeanor, and attire. Mr. Angel claimed creating such an illusion would be “wicked easy” because he had been “schooled by an ancient Oriental mystic.”

Despite our high hopes, however, Criss’s appearance has consistently failed to meet expectations. While we truly do “get it” that the late martial arts actor Brandon Lee was partially of Cantonese descent, we fail to see how coming to work in makeup influenced by The Crow is in keeping with Benihana’s goals, particularly as a Japanese restaurant. Furthermore, Criss’s more recent Kabuki-theater justification seems similarly half-baked.

Benihana would also like to stress that our continued insistence on hairnets is dictated by a faithful adherence to governing health code ordinances, and not this corporation’s desire to “slay [Mr. Angel’s] dragon spirit.” On a related note, we are fairly certain that Health and Safety Ordinance 114020 contemplated only soap and water when requiring employees to wash hands. Mr. Angel’s self-prescribed “fire baths” are not a safe or adequate substitute for this practice — nor do we consider Svarog, Slavic Spirit of Fire, a recognized authority on workplace sanitation procedures.

Rapport with Customers:

Benihana prides itself on being a family-friendly establishment. Customers come here for first-class food served with a dramatic flourish — not to have their “reality shattered by freaky awesomeness.”

Good customer service also means accommodating reasonable special orders. For example, many of our guests abstain from shellfish due to allergies or religious concerns. Accordingly, when guests refuse the shrimp appetizer, the appropriate response is not “Why? Did my flaying technique blow your mind?”

Clear speech is also an essential part of customer relations. As many of Benihana’s chefs speak English as a second language, we tend to be forgiving of indiscretions presented by the foreign tongue. Still, a Long Island accent coupled with a crippling lisp is simply beyond the limits of Benihana’s patience. After all, people come here to eat.

Dexterity Performing Required Tasks:

Mr. Angel has proven his dexterity in performing all required Benihana cooking presentations, or as Criss insists on calling them, “culinary freak-outs.” He executes the onion volcano flawlessly, and has never failed to catch a shrimp tail or balance a bowl of rice on a spatula. Still, Benihana continues to receive complaints due to Mr. Angel’s fundamental misunderstanding of both Teppanyaki-style cooking, and what constitutes entertainment in general.

Benihana has a proud tradition of praising employee initiative, but Criss’s innovations have brought terror in place of joy. For example, Benny Tsubo was promoted to head chef in 1979 when the flick of his well-placed spatula brought forth life from the heart-shaped chicken-fried rice and laughter from patrons nationwide. By contrast, no one is pleased by Criss’s ability to make the rice heart bleed. For one, it’s disgusting. And secondly, ketchup does not complement a traditional Japanese meal. Also, while Criss’s ability to insert a bowl of rice into his back and pass it out through his abdomen is impressive, it’s hardly surprising that no one is eager to eat said rice after this miraculous journey.

Attitude:

Employees should always provide supervisors with honest straight-forward answers to fair questions. Nevertheless, when asked about his frequent disappearances, Mr. Angel’s standard reply is, “a magician never reveals his secrets.” Such responses are wholly unacceptable, and, frankly, childish. Benihana also takes issue with Mr. Angel’s more recent practice of claiming to have been on the premises in invisible form and then producing a hysterical 16-year-old girl to attest to this miracle. While this display is strangely compelling, Benihana remains skeptical that such allegedly unbiased accounts could constitute credible testimony.

Summary:

Benihana will be refraining from its traditional practice of providing suggestions for improvement. Such suggestions would be moot as Mr. Angel has proclaimed repeatedly that he takes advice only from two men: The Highlander and Ronny James Dio. Accordingly, Benihana feels it is best to make a clean break at this time.

We hereby terminate Mr. Angel’s employment, effective today. His uniform and culinary tools were repossessed this morning, and when Mr. Angel emerges from the 15-foot block of ice he currently occupies in the meat locker, we ask that he be forcibly removed from the premises.

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My Name Is Jabba And I’m An Alcoholic

By: Tyler Smith

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This is my first time at an AA meeting. I’ve been sober for one day. First, I’d just like to say how moved I am that you all have agreed to hold this meeting in the gymnasium. I think we all know it would have been a little cramped in the Sunday school room. Oh, dang it, that’s embarrassing. I’ll pay for the chair. No, I’ll just lie here on the floor. Okay, well, I’ve been an alcoholic for, oh, I guess about six-hundred years, give or take a decade or so. I started drinking in high school with my friends on Tatooine. I’m sorry? No, it’s not outside of Sacramento. Anyway, I didn’t always look this bad. As a teen I actually did a runway show in Mos Eisley. But then, a few drinks with my pals became nights alone with a bottle of something blue, just listening to old Genesis records. What? No, before Phil Collins. Well, Peter Gabriel, of course. He absolutely was. No, I’m afraid there were a number of albums before Invisible Touch.

Look, I’m trying to heal here. No, you brought it up. So, after a while I fall in with some really bad folks. I mean, you find that denial likes company. If you surround yourself with people who all have a problem, you perceive there is no problem. So the next thing I know, I’m pushing about three-thousand pounds, drinking like a maniac every chance I get, roistering, sleeping around and eventually I’m head of this enormous crime syndicate. My wife left me about a hundred years ago. Excuse me? No, not three-hundred, three-thousand pounds.

Well, I appreciate that. I look thinner in beige. I did have a trainer for a while, but it didn’t work out. No, I ate him. I don’t blame you all for looking at me like that. I was so drunk, I’m ashamed of myself. I’m so ashamed. But that’s what it’s like, you know. Hell, a few years back I had this guy who owed me money frozen in carbonite. It’s like an alloy made from frozen carbon dioxide. What do you mean, “can you drink it?” It’s not like a margarita, if that’s what you’re thinking. Even if you could, you certainly wouldn’t want to. No, he managed to get out, actually. It’s not like I wanted him to escape. He had help, you know. He didn’t just waltz right out of the carbonite. Some kid called Skyscraper or Skymall or something. I don’t remember. Well, maybe next time you should try running a syndicate full of bounty-hunters, smugglers, assassins and criminals of every type along with the entertainment; the dancing girls, droids, the bitchy house band and enough reprobate aliens to occupy Cloud City! I’m sorry. I’m sorry. God, I get so tense. No, sit down, sir. Do I look like I could take it outside? Well that really hurts, sir. Would you like it if I called you a “poo-covered slug?” I didn’t think so. Can I continue? Please? Thank you.

Okay, uh, oh yeah. Take tomorrow, for instance. I have this thing tomorrow. I was going to have a bunch of people dumped into the Sarlac pit. No, it’s not in the woods. Just think of it as a big anus-looking thing with teeth, okay? Yeah, it’s kind of like a monster, but different. The thing is, I really want this process to work. I’m serious this time about staying sober for me. So, I’m thinking I might just call the whole thing off, you know? What better time than the present to change your life. It’s like what Goethe says, you know, “Nothing is worth more than this day.” I’m just so scared. I mean, the blackouts, the rum-shakes. It’s every single day. I’ve missed out on so much. I never learned to drive. I’ve never seen Lohengrin performed at La Scala. I’ve got a ski lodge on Hoth I’ve never even been to. No, it’s an opera by Wagner. Of course it’s good. I’ve never skied or snowboarded, so I don’t know. I’ve heard Aspen is nice. Too many tourists, you say? Well, what can you do? No, I’m not trying to be dismissive, it’s just been my turn to talk and you keep interrupting. Just because you’ve never been to Hoth doesn’t mean there isn’t one. I’m not trying to be pretentious. Look, I have a problem and I need support right now. Oh, that’s very clever. Yes, it probably would take the Chrysler Building to support me. I’m fat. I’m a drunk. I’ve done some terrible things, but one of the first things we said after the prayer was that we weren’t here to judge one another. We are here to admit we’re powerless against alcohol.

Okay, sir…I’m sure you do know the blue book better than I do; like I said, it’s my first day. I am legitimately proud of you that you’ve been sober for two years. Hey, I’m not trying to make it a contest. I just want to stop drinking. I wasn’t saying I knew more about Genesis than you do. Why are you so hell-bent on antagonizing me? I know he did “Shock the Monkey,” but before that he was in Genesis. Albums? Well, there’s The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, uh…Selling England by The Pound…I beg your pardon? Look it up then, dingleberry! You know what — I’ve had it with you. I’ve had it up to here with you and this group and that stupid chair in this stupid gym with this stupid meeting. Salacious! Salacious Crumb! Come in here and give me a hand, you little troll. No, screw you. Screw ALL of you. Ouch! Hold on, I’m not all the way in the harness. Oh, Jeez, I think my gall bladder just popped. No, I’m leaving. Take your twelve steps and shove them up your cans…Salacious, are Han Solo and all those idiots still up by the Sarlac pit? Well, come on. Stop fidgeting, you’re freaking me out. No, we’re doing it today. Today! Man, I need a drink.

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My Dog Custody Proposals

By: Greg Boose

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My friends David and Natalie are getting divorced and they have two beautiful and well-trained dogs. Because they don’t know how to separate the dogs or decide who should get them, I’ve come up with several proposals for who should retain custody:

1. David and Natalie should both procure experienced family law attorneys. After a series of meetings, the friend who was deemed the primary caregiver of the dogs throughout the duration of the marriage should retain custody of the dogs. If the process is too painful, then I could take the dogs off of their hands because they’re so much fun and know a lot of tricks.

2. Holding a butcher knife above my head, I will offer to cut the dogs into equal halves so that David and Natalie can each kind of own both. When one of my friends stops my down-swinging arm and says that they would rather the dogs go to the other person instead of getting chopped up, whoever is wearing the most orange at that moment retains custody of both dogs. If neither is wearing orange, then I take custody of the dogs.

3. In a well-kept park that is over 100 yards long and that contains at least 25 large trees and one circular fountain, David and Natalie will stand exactly 90 yards apart. In equal distance between my friends are their two dogs locked in a big cage that is covered with a dark blanket. (The dogs haven’t been fed in 24 hours.) When I shoot my pistol in the air, David and Natalie will commence yelling and whistling at the cage. The blanket is then lifted and I will open the gate, letting the hungry animals run loose. The first dog to reach either one of my friends is mine, and the second dog to reach one of my friends goes back into the cage. The blanket is replaced and I let my friends yell and whistle some more. After two blasts from my air horn, my friends are to get down on their hands and knees and start barking. I remove the blanket and open the gate, and whoever the second dog goes to owns him/her. If the second dog doesn’t reach either person in less than 15 seconds or chooses to eat the pile of raw meat from my hands, then that dog is also mine.

4. The friend who can best explain The Matrix Reloaded to my mother retains custody of both dogs. I get the dogs if my mother still doesn’t understand who the French guy is.

5. They play a best-of-11 series of “Paper, rock, scissors,” which I’ve renamed “Newspaper, tennis ball, neutering knife.” The winner of the series gets both dogs unless he or she forgets to call the neutering knife by its correct name. If that happens I get both dogs, and whoever misspoke has to pay for my first two visits to the vet.

6. At high noon, David and Natalie are to swim out to the middle of a lake and act like they’re drowning while both dogs are dropped onto the roof of my pet-friendly apartment building by a helicopter. If either of my friends shows up and rings my doorbell four times before 2 p.m., then that person gets the dog that’s closest to my backdoor after the second ring. The dog closest to me is forever mine. If the dog that is the closest to me is the same that is the closest to the backdoor after the second ring, then whoever can drink a 20-ounce bottle of Frost Gatorade the fastest without throwing up wins the saddest dog in the apartment and the never-been-used blue thermos in my cupboard that I keep forgetting about.

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Jaap van Ballegooijen Has Another Soda Shop Revelation

By: Michael Fowler

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Jaap van Ballegooijen is a man on the horns of a dilemma. Looks worried. Getting bald. Shell Oil is demanding so many barrels a day from his latest snake well shaped like somebody’s intestines. But it’s producing as badly as an overripe banana squeezed at one end. Shell Oil’s Global Smart Fields Programme Manager since 2006, with 30 years in the fossil fuel industry, Jaap knows that the solution to any problem comes from watching teens down at the soda shop drink with straws. They are so ingenious, these kids with their straws.

Jaap is the man who will stroll into McDonald’s and buy a round or two of shakes for every pimply youth in the place. Then he sits back and observes. A slurp here, a suck there. A cavalier twist of the straw. Before long one of those teens will display a novel straw technique that, before the kid can suck up his shake, Jaap will adapt to the oil well industry with revolutionary results.

“See that clownish guy over there with the straw stuck up his nose?” Jaap tells the Shell publicity lady. “After watching him pull the same stunt last year, I realized that, with the right rigging planted deep enough in the ground, we drillers could smell the petroleum down there. All we needed to do was suck it up and cash in. I bought the boy an order of fries, out of gratitude.”

Later in the day Jaap still wears that balding, hangdog look that comes with great fossil fuel responsibility. A Shell engineer has told him they have a bit of a new problem. Blocking the oil at Champion West Field offshore Brunei is a cap of solid granite a mile and a half beneath the earth’s surface.

As Jaap thinks, his frown lightens. He’s seen 14-year-old Andre at the Brunei Burger King already solve this pickle with a straw and a malted. Andre blasted through a lump in his chocolate malted by a sharp exhalation of breath into his straw. Jaap saw the analogy at once, the engineering technique that would yield millions of barrels. What a great day for drinking chocolate malteds. What a great day for Shell.

Even though Jaap is a multi-millionaire who never touches anything so filthy as oil, he always displays the sweaty, surprised look of a man who just stumbled forth from an underground cavity after being entombed in it for six months. Staggered to see daylight once more. And he’s got that male pattern baldness thing going. No amount of oil can cure that. It isn’t clear what effect if any milkshakes have on a receding hairline, either. But Jaap has other things on his mind. He’s a man in a tad of a quandary. Dr. Deep has called, and her ocean well in the Atlantic is sputtering dry like a grape on a grill. He heads off to Dairy Queen, looking for answers.

He sees a tow-headed kid with glasses attack his malted milk by burying his face in it and snorkeling through his straw. Snorkeling…Jaap phones in the solution to Dr. Deep, and the well is saved. These two Shell Oil action figures will share high-fives the next time they meet. And big bonuses.

But look, once again Jaap is in a sticky situation. A glorified well digger in a suit rushes up to him and says, calmly but with infinite concern, “The results aren’t what we wanted. We struck natural gas and the well ignited. Samuelson was running the drill. He survived, but he’s hopping mad.” Then Samuelson bursts in. Begrimed, tattered, burnt here and there, mercifully not dead. Of course it was the man’s own fault he had only a high school diploma and wasn’t trained in soda straw observation. And then Jaap knew how to deliver the stern messages to underlings. He dealt out the kind of blunt honesty that all his most lowly paid and least respected employees could count on hearing from him, no matter how uneducated and how subterranean in the Shell pecking order they were. “Let’s go grab a shake, old man,” Jaap says, “before you blow another well.”

At UDF, the exploding well continues to prey on Jaap’s mind. He observes the teens outside on the glassed-in patio, plying their shakes and malts. The swirling straw technique of a young boy with soft brown eyes and long lashes catches Jaap’s eye. The boy looks over at Jaap, starts to fidget, get alarmed. Jaap looks away at once, at a toddler with chocolate sprinkles all over its face. The trouble with watching teens eat ice cream is sometimes they get the wrong idea. He tells Samuelson this, and Samuelson has the solution. The men go watch women pole dance.

Jaap van Ballegooijen is a man with growing problems, despite his oil millions. One, his snake wells are drying up. Two, soda jerks all over the world now expect big tips for helping him solve the world’s energy problems. Look there. In the IHOP, Jaap just saw a girl do something remarkable to her sundae with a spoon. He ponders. Then he’s on the phone to Shell. Thanks to men like Jaap and ice cream-sucking teens, Shell will continue to meet the world’s demand for oil, which is expected to rise by 50 percent over the next quarter century. He leaves the IHOP waitress a five-dollar tip.

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Things Are Looking Up

By: Ralph Gamelli

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First, I’d like to thank everyone who has sent me good wishes during my lengthy recuperation. No one could have predicted the unlikely series of accidents and illnesses that led to so much physical difficulty on my part. Fortunately, even though I’ve still got a long way to go, things are beginning to look up. For example:

I can now wiggle my toes with no problem. Stopping them is another matter.

As of last week, I can turn my head to the left without it resulting in a gushing nose bleed. No luck turning to the right yet, but the doctors are optimistic.

The muscular spasms have almost completely subsided. If you come to visit, your chances of getting elbowed in the face have never been lower.

Opposable thumbs. Never thought I’d be able to say that again.

I have absolutely no memory of anything that happened to me before my thirty-fourth birthday. Luckily, everyone insists there isn’t much to remember.

I’m once again able to use my left buttock while sitting. Thank you to the anonymous donor.

The drooling has reached acceptable levels.

I can blink in unison again, as long as I limit myself to no more than one blink per minute.

The pain in my limbs is mysteriously lessened by a good fifty percent whenever I hear someone speak in French. As soon as they stop, however, the pain comes back full-force and is accompanied by dizziness, stomach cramps, and itchy back.

Good news: my eyebrows have grown back. Bad news: both of them are stacked over one eye.

The nightmarish prophetic visions have stopped. Now, whenever I touch someone, I only see a rerun of Gilligan’s Island.

I was having a bit of a midlife crisis before all this started. What’s the meaning of life? Why am I here? What’s the point of it all? I don’t ponder philosophical matters like that anymore. Instead, I prefer to focus all my mental energy on staying conscious.

I’m able to stand for several minutes at a time now, unless someone taller than me enters the room, at which point I collapse in a heap. Might be psychosomatic.

They managed to sew one nipple back on. They’re still looking for the other.

I begin to sweat profusely the moment the temperature hits seventy. Conversely, I get severe chills the instant it dips below sixty-five. Otherwise, I’m good.

That headache I had where it felt like someone was pounding an anvil with a sledgehammer? Turns out there was actually someone outside my window hitting an anvil with a sledgehammer.

That about covers it for now. As you can see, I’ve made some real progress. Unfortunately, it seems that it may soon be necessary to transplant my brain into the body of a gorilla. They tell me this is just one more step on the road to complete recovery, but I admit that I can only view this as something of a setback, as I’m not particularly fond of bananas.

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Firing Pretenses

By: Jim Stallard

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(Department of Justice conference room, sometime in January 2007)

Paul McNulty: All right, we have to move quickly on this. We’ve got to put something out there right away about firing these eight attorneys, so don’t get hung up on consistency, but everyone has to stick to the story.

Kyle Sampson: I’m still worried they’re going to start talking to the press and cause us problems. This could look pretty bad.

Monica Goodling: Are we allowed to cut out their vocal cords?

William Moschella: That’s an interesting question. John Yoo has written a memo arguing that the law doesn’t explicitly say vocal cords can’t be cut out. But you have to worry about blowback because of the lack of precedent.

Kyle Sampson: I feel funny bringing this up, but when we were all around the Ouija Board, sometimes it felt like Alberto was pushing the planchette toward the letters. Like it was really him spelling out the names instead of Reagan. I also peeked once and he didn’t have his eyes closed like we were all supposed to.

Paul McNulty: Regardless, this process allows the A.G. to state truthfully that the list was compiled — not by any actual person — and he simply approved it. You just aggregated the names and presented them for him to sign off on. But as I mentioned, the process is a little too faith-based for some Americans, so we’re better off finding some common trait among them that we can hang this on.

Kyle Sampson: You could make the connection that most of the attorneys are in border states, and DOJ is unhappy with immigration prosecution. Mexicans settling illegally in New Mexico, Arizona, and San Diego. Canadians coming into Washington state and Michigan. Mormons from Utah sneaking into Nevada, and heterosexual Hawaiians coming into San Francisco.

Monica Goodling: No, look, I have something more compelling. I plotted the districts of all the attorneys in the Western states on a map. If you draw a line from the New Mexico district through the one in Nevada, and then up to Seattle, and then draw a second line from New Mexico through Arizona, San Diego, and San Francisco up to Seattle, you end up with a crescent shape. One of the symbols of Islam. Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening —

Paul McNulty: Monica —

Kyle Sampson: What about Arkansas and Michigan? You left them out.

Michael Elston: I think we’re covered there. The Michigan woman did not aggressively prosecute jaywalkers. The Arkansas guy has credit card debt, according to paper we fished out of his trash.

Kyle Sampson: Speaking of Cummins, the Arkansas guy, that situation is very delicate and will be scrutinized to death because of Hillary’s run in ’08, but let me bounce something off you. I rented this movie, The Manchurian Candidate, the other night, and I was wondering whether we had a true Bushie all prepped and…wait, why are you all…Okay, forget I brought it up.

William Moschella: Let’s forget DOJ for a second. What about DOD? I thought they had technology that would bail us out of this.

Paul McNulty: No luck. My contact over in DARPA says the time machine is bollixed. They steered the contract to a big RNC donor in Alabama, who, it turns out, just makes vending machines.

William Moschella: Can we assume they invent it at some point and have already gone back and fixed our problem?

Paul McNulty: These are government personnel.

Michael Elston: Where’s Karl, by the way? Shouldn’t he be here?

Monica Goodling: They’re resurfacing the tunnel that leads from the White House to our basement. He can’t get through.

Paul McNulty: Can’t he just come above ground?

Monica Goodling: The sunlight…he can’t…

Paul McNulty: Oh, right. (Sighs.) Look, we can’t waste any more time on this. I’m going with Monica’s idea. It has an elegance that may distract enough people to buy us time. Just 18 months to go. Okay, we’re officially finished discussing this. Will someone go out into the hall and tell Alberto he can come back in?

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