The Ratfuck Bastard Conspiracy Part Nineteen

     Moe Lieden, forty-sixth President of the United States, hoping to be called forty-eighth President on January 20, 2025, daydreams about a sexual encounter he had at age fourteen with Mary Ann Beltravers, a sophisticated pink-cheeked flirt, a year ahead of Moe, terrible at math, asked the Freshman boy for tutoring.  General Beak, Chief of Space Force, sits opposite the President, staring at the man, wondering if he'll snap out of his reverie from his own will, or if an interruption or a clearing of the throat might be needed.  Beak has aged since first meeting Moe Lieden.  Then Vice President Lieden was a sharp man, vicious and dull, with secrets pertaining to his son Happy's shady business ventures in two controversial countries.  General Beak did not then regard Vice President Lieden as worthy of attention.  Beak appreciates Lieden's willingness, though, to fulfill Beak's space-dreams of future exploration and conquest.  The Space Force General has by now convinced Moe Lieden that a race of aliens, called the Gorka plan to attack our Solar System anytime in the next ten to fifteen years.

     We must be prepared, Mr. President!  Beak thundered.

     Moe Lieden goes along with every Beak idea, including the construction of a planet-killing superweapon of mass destruction.  Yes, an SMD.

     Moe: (Coming out of his reverie) Damn, haven't thought about her in a long time.  Ever have a girlfriend, Beak?

     Beak: Yes, Mr. President.  About G Project--

     Moe: What's that again?

     Beak: Wormhole creation using an Eaglefist-9 Hydrogenated Aluminum Coil With Industrial Strength Argitt, Sheathing Code 9M-58T.

     Moe: Next question.  Do we have one of these 9T3755 Rheumatoid Arthritis Coil Code--

     Beak: The name doesn't matter to such as you!  You don't have to fill out the request form!  I had to keep checking what I was writing to make sure I got it down right!

     Moe: Why don't they just call it, Somethin Or Other.  Hey Somethin or Other, I bet you fit nice in this 

Warm Slot.  Get in there, you rascal!  Doesn't that feel good?  Does it remind you of--  

     Beak: Mr. President.  I need more concentration from you.  The mash of pills given to you only fogs your brain, I guess.  Try only eating yogurt and Grape Nuts for one week.  Put a little sand in the cereal.  You need to alter your routine.  Eat more fruit, beans, and for indulgence, vanilla milk shakes.  

     Moe: No candy bars?

     Beak: No.  

     Moe: Licorice?

     Beak: You must shun sugar.

     Moe: Bubblegum?

     Beak: Sugar, Mr. President!

     Moe: Cookies?

     Beak: If the cookie has no sugar, yes.

     Moe: Beak, I order you to get me some sugarless cookies, pronto.  Come on, get to it!

     Foggy Bottom.  Perpetual fog without motion outside Secretary of State Arthur "Artie" Sneffen's office.  He sits with Hector Farrbarrhuber, jack of all trades man, including snuffing out people for pay.

     Sneffen: Your hair is even greasier than the last time I saw you.

     Hector: A new product I'm trying out.  

     Sneffen: Is it animal fat based?

     Hector: Fuck if I know.

     Sneffen: I want you to kill a man.

     Hector: Tell me more.

     Sneffen: He's an important man--

     Hector: Stop right there.  How important?

     Sneffen: Rising politician important, but most importantly, he's a burr in a certain VIP's bottom.  

     Hector: The VIP wants this done, you're not having it done for yourself?

     Sneffen: Does that matter?

     Hector: If it's for you I'll charge more.

     Sneffen: How much more?

     Hector: Who is it?

     Sneffen: Congressman Jarv Mitchell-Strong, Democrat, Oregon.  

     Hector: A tall order.  Give me a million dollars.  It'll get done, though not be me.  I'll hire someone to do it who will do it and pay him from the million.  

     Sneffen: That's too much.  Half a million.

     Hector: Forget it.  I'm not gonna budge.  Kill him yourself for free if you have to.  Find a meth head, give him a hatchet and some cash for a bunch of fixes.  

     Sneffen: I'll gather the million.  I want this professionally done, with patsy included.  

     Hector: I suggest you find someone high up in government to be the patsy.  That will distract the news media.  They'll overlook Jarv Mitchell-Strong's yacht parties.  Maybe blame it on the Blades.

     Sneffen: You know about the yacht parties?

     Hector: We all do.  It's like with Terry Stein.  When you hear about a guy who fucks twelve year olds you figure the people he's seen with, like Billy Boy Blade and Don Richman, also fuck twelve year olds, or at least they know Stein does and they don't do anything about it.  

     Sneffen: This talk has nothing to do with your assignment.

     Hector: It does.  Are you part of the yachting group?

     Sneffen: Absolutely not.

     Hector: That's a yes?

     Sneffen: Get back to me soon, as in tomorrow or the day after about your progress.  The subject must perish by Saturday.

     Hector: See?  A million dollar assignment, with a time limit.  How do you and the President know Jarv doesn't have a deadman's switch?

     Sneffen: We've considered it--wait a minute, who said anything about President Parris?

     Hector: We just did.  If Jarv has the deadman's switch he's rumored to have, the world will know about your perversions on a boat where the rich and famous get their rocks off raping teenagers and not even teenagers.

     Sneffen: It's not rape.  They're well-compensated.

     Hector: Don't tell me anymore.  When I have to testify at your trial I'd rather not be on the witness stand for a whole afternoon.

     Sneffen: People like me don't stand trial.

     Hector: While people like me get shot while in police custody?

     Sneffen: Exactly, Mr. Oswald.

     Billy Boy Blade sits in an armchair before the President's desk.  President Parris wears her most expensive pants suit, a blue one with a red stripe at the bottom with white five pointed stars, an alteration on how the American flag is laid out. 

     Billy Boy: My intelligence network caught wind of your plot to eliminate Jarv Mitchell-Strong.

     Parris: You have an intelligence network?  Why am I finding about it just now?  What else have I not been briefed on!?

     Billy Boy: You're not going after Jarv.  Jarv has a deadman's switch.

     Parris: Nobody's gonna care where you put your pecker, Billy Boy.  

     Billy Boy: You cared when it was in you.

     Parris: Just the one time.  Doesn't count.  I was mad at Doug.

     Billy Boy: You're always mad at Doug.

     Parris: He drives me crazy sometimes, but he's lovable.  He worships me.  He wrote a twenty page poem praising my breasts.

     Billy Boy: They are nice.

     Parris: He's already working on his book about being the first First Gentleman.

     Billy Boy: What's it called?

     Parris: First Man in the Nation by Douglas Gard, with whoever writes the book.

     Billy Boy: I wrote mine.

     Parris: Nobody read it all the way through.  It's sixteen hundred pages.

     Billy Boy: Only fifteen hundred and twenty.

     Parris: You must've thought you deserve so much ink.  

     Billy Boy: And more.  Why don't you take your clothes off and come sit beside me?

     Parris: I refuse, Mr. President.  I've decided to take my marriage vows seriously.  No more men.  Only one man.  Sure, a flawed man, a bit on the crazy side, but he's my man, not yours, not anyone's!  Doug Gard, my man!  My Herman Munster to my Lily.  My Mike to my Carol Brady.  My Zeus to my Hera!

     Billy Boy: Hera, yeah.  Ursula Andress in Clash of the Titans.  Never got to be with her.  Doctor No, boy, when she comes out of the ocean in that bikini.  I nearly blew my load when I saw her on the screen at the 3rd Avenue Bijou back in sixty-one.  I worshipped John Kennedy.  I miss that role model.  He made enemies.  They acted.  Boy, did they act.  Officially I'm supposed to keep my mouth shut about what I know about that day in Dallas.  Well, someday I'll blab it out, maybe on The View.  "Hey Whoopi, would you like to hear about what really happened with the JFK assassination and the killing of Lee Harvey Oswald?  No?  Your producers won't let you hear the truth?"  

     Parris: What are you mumbling about?

     Billy Boy: Daydreaming, little lady.

     Parris: Don't call me that.

     Billy Boy: I wasn't talking about your ass.

     Parris: Pig.

     Billy Boy: A little bad Billy Boy never hurt anyone.  You'll beg for it with me again.  Your devotion to Doug won't last.  The adrenalin rush of banging someone after bombing another country or ordering the destruction of a cult's headquarters and everyone inside is inescapably alluring.  Give in.  Give Billy another try.  One more indiscretion before going on the Doug wagon.

     Parris: Exit my office.

     Billy Boy: Okay, I'll leave.  Know this.  If harm comes to Congressman Mitchell-Strong there will be serious consequences.  The Senate and House will look like a Swiss cheese with so many members retiring in disgrace, maybe doing time.  Your husband, you know, frequented Jarv's yacht on at least two occasions.

     Parris: So did Artie Sneffen, and probably every horny rich motherfucker in D.C., New York, and Hollywood.  I'm tired of this kind of thing, Billy Boy.  I intend to expose it, to eliminate a thorn in America's side.

     Billy Boy: You're confessing to a crime.

     Parris: Go be horny elsewhere.

     Billy Boy Blade on secure (probably) phone with Arthur Sneffen, the latter at home entertaining the Gabonese Ambassador to the United States.  Sneffen takes the call in his bedroom.

     Sneffen: Yes, Mr. President?

     Billy Boy: You sound so obsequious, your go-to when you know the purpose of the call, but wish to seem adaptable and obedient.

     Sneffen: You have more to lose than I if Jarv Mitchell-Strong's audiovisual evidence drops upon the entertainment news world.

     Billy Boy: Prison sentences for such as ourselves, although we live in a world where justice doesn't apply to the great.  

     Sneffen: Amen.  Mr. President, and I mean that this time, this Jarv Mitchell-Strong is a rising star.  The longer he's around, the more endangered our position becomes, for what he possesses gives him leverage.  Let's not let him enjoy his power over us.

     Billy Boy: Sounds reasonable.  You've got it covered?

     Sneffen: You're looking at the man who helped the Woman in the Polka Dot Dress escape the country.

     Billy Boy: Don't want to know.

     Sneffen: You changed your mind on this rather quickly.  

     Billy Boy: I'm untouchable.  Look at the Terry Klein situation.  I was on his plane twenty-six times.  People think I'm a dirty old man, how the hell does that affect me?  

     Lieden Campaign Headquarters, Scranton, Pennsylvania.  Moe Lieden sits at his desk with Sherm Gladhand, marketing wiz, and General Beak, special advisor to former President Lieden.  Beak wears full uniform, jaw cut from steel, eyes holding steady, unready to forgive incompetence during crucial moments.

     Beak: Mr. President.  I implore you to withhold your announcement of your candidacy for the twenty-four election, at least until after Don Richman announces his.

     Lieden: He already has, Beak!  Didn't you hear the news?

     Beak: Richman's running?  He said so?

     Lieden: Words came out of his mouth to that effect, yes.

     Sherm Gladhand: A very inspiring speech.  He's the Comeback Kid.

     Beak: (To Gladhand) Are you serious?  President Lieden will destroy your billionaire comeback kid on the debate stage.

     Lieden: I intend to find a lavatory before I go on another debate stage.  Last time with Shronk Blanders, that last debate when we were afraid a virus was going to kill everybody on the planet, except the bats, I guess.  Anyway--

     Beak: Mr. President.  Will you set back the date of your announcement?

     Lieden: What announcement?

     Beak: Your announcing of seeking the Democratic nomination.

     Lieden: I'm doing what now?

     Beak: YOU'RE RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT, MAN!!!!!!!!

     Lieden: President.  Now that's a good idea.  I'm going to announce this Friday at the rally in Wilmington.  My mind is set, like a trap.  Horse caught his hoof in a bear trap.  Bad scene, had to kill the horse.  My Dad made me witness this.  I was three.  Explains my psychopathy, I guess.

     Sherm Gladhand: (To Beak) Let me try, General.  Mr. President, you're the kinda fella who makes friends easily, am I right?  Of course I am.  Just between you and me, I've never been wrong.  

     Lieden: You don't say.

     Sherm: Not only do I say, I do.  I have set up for you 927 billboards across this great state of Pennsylvania.  "Moe Lieden Is Back!"  "MOE!"  "See Moe Run!!!"  "Moe 24."  And, to confuse and cause a rush of time wasting on Twitter, a billboard saying "Moe 42."  Enigmatic, right?  Or do you want straightforward?  You seem like a straightforward guy, you remind me of Eisenhower--

     Lieden: Damn right I am!

     Sherm: A straightforward guy!  Moe--may I call you Moe?  Or is that presumptuous?

     Lieden: Call me Moe, you wildcat (grins at Beak).  Where did you dig up this entertaining--hey, are you a jester?

     Sherm: No, sir, I'm your marketing man, you hired me five months ago.

     Lieden: Hey Beak!  Shuffle this guy to Buffalo, I don't like the way he squints at me!  He's acting like he knows me!  Wants to put up billboards of my scaly wrinkly mug, puh!  I'll do my own marketing.  I'll work the phones, I'll roll up my sleeves, I'll bring my deodorant, Ambrosia Stick, you use that, Sherm?

     Sherm: I don't use deodorant.

     Lieden: Why not, Hippy, why not?  I'm startin to want to slap you silly, long-hair peace freak!  

     Sherm: I don't understand your sudden hostility, Moe.

     Lieden: (Stands, veins bulging) That's Mr. President to you!

     Sherm: Mr. President, sorry.

     Lieden: Kiss my shoe.

     Sherm: What?

     Lieden: Do it or you're dead to me!

     Beak: Mr. President, please stop this.  Mr. Gladhand, you're dismissed.  Please forgive the President for--

     Lieden: For what, Beak?  For not liking this loquacious thing sitting before me, polluting my office space?  I'll need all the secretaries to come in here to enliven the room's tainted environment with their lovely feminine presence.  The hair, Beak, you know what I'm saying?  Meanwhile, exit this feces out of my office, indeed, out of these campaign headquarters, unless he'd like to volunteer his services for the campaign?

     Sherm: Sir, that is what I've been doing, but with irregular pay.

     Lieden: So it's a matter of money, huh?  You want a living wage, is that it?

     Sherm: Of course, but, you never fired me and I never intended to quit.

     Lieden: What kind of malarky is this?  

     Beak: Your afternoon nap should have begun twenty minutes ago, Mr. President.

     Lieden: Thank you, Beak.  Always on the ball.  

     Sherm: May I return to the noble duty of serving you with my billboards?  

     Lieden: Who are you?

     President Dinah Parris in the Oval Office.  On the couch are two important men.  The President of France, Napoleon Vyvivarondo and an unnamed representative of C.O.I.T.U.S., Combat Operational Intelligence and Tactics Under Surveillance, a branch of the Army created in 2013 by President Bongo to try out psychological warfare techniques in Syria.  This man, known simply as F, wears a rubber mask covering his face.  He hasn't covered his pale blue eyes.  The skin around his eyes is pale.  He looks strong, big shoulders, thick thighs, a muscled demigod, President Parris muses, admiring the man's physique, longing to explore it at her leisure.

 

     Napoleon: I think we can agree, Madame President, that we will stand by Ukraine no matter what.

     Parris: Even if it's a cinder, absolutely, one hundred percent.  

     F: Madame President, is there anything to drink?

     Parris: What would you like, dear?

     F: Cocoa, with a splash of brandy.

     Parris: Mmm! That sounds good!  I'll join you!

     Napoleon: I would like a glass of champagne.  The whole bottle, maybe.

     

     Parris buzzes her secretary.

     Parris: Esther?  I've got two thirsty men in here and this gal here is parched, too, so why don't you just get the kitchen to send up two hot cocoas with a bottle of brandy, make it Napoleon, and a bottle, no, two bottles of Dom Perignon.  

     Esther: A magnum, then.

     Parris: A what?  No!  Two bottles of Dom Perignon, is that difficult to understand?  Do I need to fire your ass after only three days working for me?  Doing a pretty shitty job, too.  Okay, you got that order? 

     Esther: Yes, Madame President.

     Parris: Only call me that if you mean it.  (Disconnects).  Whooo!  Some aggression adrenalin!

     F: I can get by without refreshment.  I didn't mean to cause a fuss.  

     Parris: Fuss! (Slaps his arm gently) Listen to this lunk!  Thinks he's a big problem, sitting on my couch, wearing a rubber face mask, looking pretty weird, frankly, but that's okay, I'm tolerant.  I love your muscles!  Napoleon, you are coming to the party tonight?  

     Napoleon: I'm the guest of honor, so, yes.

     Parris: We celebrate two-hundred-fifty years of friendship, coming to each other's aid in need.  Friendship, it feels kinda good.  France, America's oldest ally.  America's mentor.  America's--hey, tell me why Frenchies like Jerry Lewis?

     Napoleon: He's like a silent film comedian but for a modern, as in fifties and sixties, audience.  The Nutty Professor, in my opinion, is his masterpiece.

     F: Boeing, Boeing.

     Napoleon: Quels sont ces mots? (What words are these?)

     F: It's the name of the movie.  It's his best one.

     Parris: I saw one he did with Marilyn Monroe.  He lives below her in the hot New York summer.  He has air conditioning, she doesn't.  They spend time together.  Sweet.

     Napoleon: That's The Seven Year Itch.  Marilyn Monroe, yes, but Tom Ewell plays the man with the air conditioning. 

     Parris: I'm pretty sure that was Jerry Lewis.  

     Napoleon: No, absolutely not.  Tom Ewell.  

     Parris: Ah well, if I weren't employed in such a difficult and time-consuming job, I'd Google it and prove you wrong, Monsieur...What's your name again?

     Napoleon: Vyvivarando.

     Parris: Five syllables, wow.

     Jarv Mitchell-Strong walking to get a slice of Rocky Rococo sausage and mushroom pizza at the Congressional Campus Rocky Rococo, starting pay $8.95 per hour, consider signing up for our five year plan for you to become a Manager!  

     Hector Farrbarrhuber intercepts Congressman Mitchell-Strong.

     Hector: Congressman, a word?

     Jarv: Which word?  Freedom?  One of my favorites, but I've heard it.  What do you want, man?  I'm on my way to fill the emptiness inside my stomach.  I've spent three of the last five hours in that nest of vipers  called the Capitol Building and I'm mighty starved!

     Hector: Your life is in danger.  President Parris wants you offed.

     Jarv: Don't be ridiculous.  Is this a prank?

     Hector: You're to die by Saturday.  

     Jarv: Who are you?

     Hector: Someone who's been paid to tip you off about your impending death.

     Jarv: You're serious.

     Hector: I don't joke about death, sir.  I'll buy you a slice at Rocky Rococo.  My favorite is the pineapple pizza.  I like pineapple by itself.  Why wouldn't I like it on pizza?  Oh, and there's a certain window in this Rocky Rococo I like to sit next to.

     Jarv: Fine.

     Jarv and Hector, window seat near the drinks dispenser in Rocky Rococo, slices before them with sodas and bread sticks.  Half the customers are Congressmen and -women as well as Senator Hacker Bigman (Republican, Florida), expected to become Senate Majority Whip in January 2023.  Bigman reads a paperback, Heretics of Dune by Frank Herbert.

     Hector: You should expose this plot against you; also, do you have a way of revealing your extensive blackmail information in case of your death?

     Jarv: You know about that?  You must be a spook.

     Hector: I operate in their circles, I guess.

     Jarv: A man of mystery.  I feel special.  Let's eat our pizza, cogitate, then resume the conversation.  It's a nice day for November.

     Hector: I do feel a little vulnerable sitting at the same table with you.

     Jarv: No one's going to off me, Hector.  I'm untouchable.  The most dangerous man in America--I don't know you well enough to say why, but Invincible is my middle name, or it would be if it weren't Alvin.

     Hector: Like the guitarist from Ten Years After.

     Jarv: Yes.  Who?

     Glass shatters, a bullet blows off the top of Congressman Jarvis Alvin Mitchell-Strong's head.  Brains, blood, bone, the usual.  Screams, a little girl and her mother covered in the Congressman's blood and brains.  Blood pumping from the head wound.  The man has given his last speech, gaveled his last committee hearing.  Hector eases out of the booth, slips out the nearby back door.  Crossing the parking lot he takes out a burner phone.

     Hector: Arthur, that was a bit close to my head.

     Arthur Sneffen: You're talking about what?

     Hector: Mitchell-Strong.  He's dead.  Turn on the news, it'll probably get reported soon.

     Arthur: I'll inform the President.

     Hector: Tell her blowing a politician away in a restaurant is a clever thing to do.  The other politicians in there might think they were targeted, too.

     Arthur: Let them feel the fear.

     Hector: (Laughs) You should hear the sirens.

     Oval Office.  Dinah Parris sharpens fifty pencils.  Arthur Sneffen is shown in.

     Sneffen: Your order has been fulfilled, Madame President.

     Parris: Which one?

     Sneffen: Pertaining to a certain Congressman from the state where Chicago is the largest city.

     Parris: Illinois.

     Sneffen: Yes.  Do you need another clue?

     Parris: Try me.

     Sneffen: Popularly known as JMS.

     Parris: Jarv Mitchell-Strong?  What about him?

     Sneffen: He's been eliminated.

     Parris: By whom?

     Sneffen: Someone I...know, hired someone he knows.

     Parris: Oh, you're keeping this hush hush?

     Sneffen: You don't need to know the names.

     Parris: Ooh, I'm curious, though.  Who did something to Jarv?

     Sneffen: I will not say, I cannot say, but I will say your Jarv problem has been nullified, though Jarv may haunt many.

     Parris: Oh yeah, the alleged evidence of sexual transgressions.  Men, a few women, too, behaving badly?  Look, nobody cares about this.  They're interested in jobs, in building the wall, in fighting for trans rights, in arming Ukraine until there are no weapons and ammo left to give.

     Sneffen: In any case, Jarv is no more, per your order.

     Parris: Don't spread it around, Mister.  I can have you eliminated, too.  I'm beyond the feelers of justice.  I am the most powerful.  Artie, can you show me how to change my font size in Pages?  I've begun work on my memoir.  No ghost writer for this gal!

     Lieden Campaign Headquarters, Scranton, Pennsylvania.  General Beak and former President Lieden shoot the shit about the assassination of Congressman Mitchell-Strong.

     Lieden: Who did it, Beak?  More important: why?

     Beak: I detect the brushstrokes of Hector Farrbarrhuber.

     Lieden: That greasy little fucker works for us exclusively I believed!

     Beak: He's a freelance, Mr. President.  He has no morals, no ethics, no value for human life.

     Lieden: (Resentfully Boasting) Neither do I!!!

     Beak: The fact remains that the Congressman's death will create a shake-up.  

     Lieden: Must've been shocking for the families just wanting to enjoy a slice of delicious pizza.  Who would want to interrupt a nice family enjoying their pizza?  Interrupt them with an explosion of blood, brain, bone, skin, yuck!  "Is that a sausage on my pizza slice, Mommy?"  "No, honey, it's a piece of a man's cerebrum!"  When I'm President, Beak, I'm going to launch an investigation into this assassination of a Democratic politician, a supporter of mine, at least until he went along with my removal from my rightful job, that two-faced fucker!  Come to think of it, I'm glad his head did a JFK!  Fuck that motherfucker!  

     Beak: Speaking ill of the recently deceased, Mr. President, isn't a good look.

     Lieden: Recently?  I mean JFK!  Fuck him!  Totally overrated!  Didn't even fill out one term, what a Millard Fillmore type!  Did you ever hear the theory that Kennedy's death was the result of Spontaneous Cranial Combustion?

     Beak: Nobody killed him, then?  His head just exploded by itself?

     Lieden: So many thoughts in there.  So many broads' phone numbers to keep straight in his memory.  A lot on his mind; being President makes your brain hurt.  

     Beak: I'm certain President Kennedy was killed with good old rifle fire.

     Lieden: Yeah, that's more likely.  Hey, do you like waffles?

     Beak: When I've had them I've liked them.

     Lieden: There's an IHOP by the highway.  I'll buy.  We'll take two of the secretaries with us.

     Beak: I'll go, but let's leave the secretaries.  I don't want you to be seen in public with pretty young women with long shiny hair.

     Lieden: I saw a psychologist about that alleged fetish problem!  He assured me it's not a big deal!  He agreed with me that female hair is lovely to the touch--

     Beak: You should not touch it!!!

     Lieden: I'm eighty years old, Beak!  I'm harmless, just a little old man who takes nine hours to get it up.  

     Beak: Your sex life should take backseat to the Campaign, backseat to leaving a good impression on voters who wonder about your morals.  

     Lieden: My morals are impeccable!  I cried when Rhett Butler ditched Scarlett O'Hara!

     Beak: Are you sure you never paid a visit to Jarv Mitchell-Strong's yacht?

     Lieden: My memory says I never went there.  I also sometimes can't recall my ex-wife's name.

     Beak: Amanda, Mr. President.

     Lieden: That's right.  Not Mandy?

     Beak: You sometimes call her Mandy.

     Lieden: Like Mandy Moore.  I always thought she was the best of the four pop chick singers of the late nineties: Simpson, Spears, Aguilera.  Did you see the "Dirty" video by Aguilera, Beak?

     Beak: No, I prefer the classier Supremes.

     Lieden: Not a bad choice, but give me the "Dirty" video and the "Womanizer" video by Britney Spears, and anything with that Beyonce.  

     Beak: Mr. President.  Your billboards go up today statewide.  One of them is entirely black, except for the words, in white, "Lieden Two Four, Better Than Nothing."  

     Lieden: I am better than nothing, what's the problem? 

     Beak: It could be stronger.  "Lieden 24, Return to Sanity."

     Lieden: Dinah Parris is insane, I see what you're saying.

     Beak: I'm not saying President Parris is insane.  Corrupt, yes, though don't tell her I said that.

     Lieden: (Laughs) You think I speak with her?  Oh, the occasional phone call.  I wrote her a long single-spaced unreadable letter in blue pen complaining about her not campaigning hard enough for senatorial candidates.  That incompetent so-and-so lost the Senate.  

     Beak: She didn't lose it.

     Lieden: President Parris is for all intents and purposes head of the Democratic Party.  She shapes its putty.  Her word is influence, pure and simple.  

     Beak: It could be some Senators will be disgraced if Middleton-Strong's alleged evidence of illegal sexual activities on his yacht comes to light.  A new Senate may come about within a year.  

     Lieden: I intend on shaming every pervert who went on that yacht.  

     Beak: Including your son, Happy?

     Lieden: Don't talk about my son!

     Beak: He's one of the rumored yacht guests, especially in 2019 when you were commencing your presidential run.

     Lieden: Lies.

     Beak: Some solid journalism backgrounds it, Mr. President.

     Lieden: Happy's been through a lot!  His drug problem has made him not only a great man, but someone beyond criticism.  My son is off-limits!

     Beak: Not to the law, if it turns out he dallied with underage girls.

     Lieden: Shut your trap!

     Beak: I will drop it if you promise me you'll be open-minded if the truth turns out to be unfavorable to your son.

     Lieden: My son never did anything wrong!  He's perfect!  Who else can make a video of himself weighing crack and not get investigated by the DEA?

     Beak: A son of a President?

Vic Neptune

     

       

     

       

     

     

     

     

      

      

Twitter, Communications Pure and Impure

     Pitted against enormous amorphous forces, no way to comprehend all of it, a world citizen must sit in the target zone of corporate and society-designing minds, waiting for the next change, precipitated usually by a disaster (Covid, Trump's election, 9/11, JFK assassination, Pearl Harbor, USS Maine).  

     I've learned to balance these upsetting feelings of helplessness before our leaders' recklessness, consumed with power-seeking as they burn up the world to achieve ends fit only for them, but I wonder if they'll ever enjoy anything.  Enough isn't their word.

     Laughter, at zero pennies per pill, works best to counter these creatures of greed, power, money-grubbing; these practitioners of violence, obtrusive nosiness, and chronic lying.

     Liberals balk at Elon Musk's new ownership of Twitter.  Alyssa Milano let us know she's turning in her Tesla for a Volkswagen SUV.  Musk took a poll of Twitter users to determine if Donald Trump should be allowed back on the platform.  Determining free speech by poll, instead of honoring the Bill of Rights, pretty lame, Elon.  Trump shouldn't have been taken off of Twitter in the first place.  Twitter allows neo-Nazis on its platform.  It lets the 2016 election results-denying Hillary Clinton say whatever she wants on Twitter.  

     Musk reveals information about how Twitter conspired with the Democratic Party, the 2020 Biden Campaign, and mainstream news media individuals to suppress the Hunter Biden Laptop scandal.  Biden left his laptop at a repair shop.  The device ended up in the hands of a third party, the contents were written about in a New York Post article in early October 2020.  Joe Biden's and Hunter Biden's unethical business relationships in Ukraine and the People's Republic of China were on display.  Hunter Biden acted as a liaison between foreign business interests and his father, then Vice President Joe Biden.  

     Information on this was suppressed by Twitter in league with government and corporate allies.  Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook admitted that the FBI sent agents to speak with Facebook employees, persuading them to suppress the laptop story.  This evidence of Joe Biden's shady financial practices would've damaged him, perhaps, in his election bid, but it was pushed to the side, until 2022 when a paper that had called the laptop story Russian disinformation, The New York Times, revealed that it was Hunter's after all.

     Showed up nearly two years late to the party, fuckface, that's what I say to the editorial board of The New York Times.  They did their job, though, misinforming the public about a political candidate a few weeks before an election.  A misinformed public is best equipped to understand the world so they can make good choices when they vote.  Like when they voted for a fine upstanding pillar of integrity and truth, Joe Biden.  Sure, he lied about all of his campaign promises, he's endlessly arming Ukraine instead of helping the poor and homeless of his own country, he shafted the railway workers, he screwed the graduates with student debt after promising to relieve at least some of it before giving them nothing.       Great guy, honest guy, better than Trump, right?  Trump talked about "taking" Syria's oil, Biden is actually doing it!  Biden this year invaded Somalia.  What the hell are we doing in Somalia?  I'm sure if it was Biden's decision it must be a good, humane one.

     Haiti is looking to get militarily "saved" by the United States soon.  When it comes to war, Biden has less of a problem ejaculating his violent fantasies on more countries than Trump ever did.  

    Still, even if Biden runs in 2023-24, fighting off the slow gravitational force of old age, Democratic loyalists will vote for a man who has done nothing but harm America his entire political career.  Why?  The propaganda is just good enough.  Trump bad, Biden good, was the way of looking at it in 2020.  Now, though it should be obvious that Biden is very bad and always was, he has defenders who ignore his senility, never mention his mass murdering habit, and never criticize him for goading Russia to the edge of a nuclear war probability if we keep this insanity going in Eastern Europe.  

     Without Biden, the 2024 race looks as full of incompetents as ever: Vice President Harris, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Elizabeth Warren (?).  Throw a man in there: Adam Schiff, the Congressman who took on Trump, the Congressman owned by the weapons manufacturers, profiting from the war in Ukraine, what a great guy.  AOC will be old enough in 2024.  A President with an Instagram account.  A President who acts like she's in high school.  A President complaining often about her fear, about the death threats she gets, not realizing, apparently, that public figures get death threats.  

     My evident cynicism about politics in America shouldn't cloak my enthusiasm for life.  My liking for dogs and cats, squirrels and rabbits, birds and bees.  For science fiction, fantasy, detective novels, history and films, music, the art forms making life have an accent, a spice.  A child's drawing on a refrigerator has more value, ultimately, than any bomb.

Vic Neptune

       

The Ratfuck Bastard Conspiracy, Part Eighteen

     Martha's Vineyard.  The Bongo house.  Former First Lady Gabrielle Bongo hosts Secretary of State Arthur Sneffen for lunch: crab puffs, foie gras, kale salad with pine nuts, jumbo brownies, and a 900 dollar bottle of Chablis.  Lunch and dessert consumed, the two sit back, enjoying the new Autumn sunshine, the breakfast patio swept just that morning for listening devices.

     Gabrielle: How goes the war, Artie?

     Sneffen: Which one?  

     Gabrielle: The proxy war against Russia, honey.

     Sneffen: A mischaracterization.  We are not at war with Russia.

     Gabrielle: Weapons keep tumbling out of our spigot, bound for Ukraine, or wherever.  I don't just read the Post or the Times.

     Sneffen: You should be in the know, I suppose, if you want to be President.

     Gabrielle: How in the know is Dinah Parris?

     Sneffen: About?

     Gabrielle: The proxy war.

     Sneffen: I feed her a combination of authentic intelligence and coercive data causing her to favor aggressive actions taken against certain state actors and their sovereign territories.

     Gabrielle: If I become President--

     Sneffen: (Laughs indulgently) If?  When.

     Gabrielle: If or when I become President you will inform me of the truth of every situation we're involved in.

     Sneffen: Oh! (Laughs) You don't want to know the truth about everything!

     Gabrielle: I do.  I shall not be accused of not knowing my job, as Don Richman so often was.  

     Sneffen: If it should so happen that you run against Richman in twenty-four, I strongly recommend not using the Richman-is-an-idiot tactic.  For one thing, he isn't.  For another, his millions of supporters cannot be swayed by such an insult, and, as Cassandra Hartliss Blade found out, they don't appreciate being called "deplorable," especially by a woman whose husband was friends with Terry Stein--

     Gabrielle: As was Richman.

     Sneffen: Supporters of politicians overlook obvious objectionable facts.  Look at you.  Your husband bailed out Wall Street at the expense of millions of ordinary citizens, didn't punish a one.  Will that hurt your chance to occupy the Oval Office?

     Gabrielle: I didn't do that, Amare did it.  I told him at the time, "Lots of people are going to lose their houses.  You might not get reelected."  

     Sneffen: Not as powerful a statement as denying him your body unless he help the little people.

     Gabrielle: Dirty mind, yours!  Now what about Cassie Blade?  She's running in twenty-four, that's a sure thing, right?

     Sneffen: Americans are sick of the Blades, yet, they keep popping up.  I doubt she could beat Richman, but could she defeat you in the Primary?  A seasoned campaigner, a psychopathic ego, name recognition--

     Gabrielle: Well I have that too!

     Sneffen: Undoubtedly.  A triad of females: Blade, Bongo, Parris.  Corporate news organizations will eat it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and late night snacks!  Yet, I can't predict how it will turn out.  Elections can be fixed, and often are.  The Democratic nominee will be the one picked by the shadowy background figures, as was the case with your husband, with Jorge Arbusto, with Billy Boy Blade in ninety-two and ninety-six.

     Gabrielle: With Richman in sixteen?

     Sneffen: Oh yes.  America was ready to be entertained!  Distracted from its very serious problems.  You know, your typical American is better informed about Meghan Markle's problematic relationship with the Royal Family than they are about the money-laundering operation that is the arming of Ukraine.  That's as it should be.  Makes my job easier.  

     Gabrielle: I know politics is a dirty business.

     Sneffen: You have no idea just yet.  Still, you're married to a man who killed tens of thousands of innocent people.  That you have no problem with that means you can handle the job, if you're to be chosen for it.

     Democrats happy.  President Parris makes an evening speech on the White House lawn, lit up, invisible security presence.  Doug Gard, First Gentleman, the first to hold that title, stands nearby, hands folded before his erection as he contemplates the bed sports he plans to indulge in after this nonsense is finished.  So we won, Doug thinks, trying not to think about the photographers imaging his boner sign.  

     Think about baseball, dumbass!  Isn't that what you're supposed to do in such a situation?  This is going on C-Span!  I can't show my pants tent on C-Span!  It's more fitted for an outrageous comedy where a character has a boner in public, like now, with me.

     The boner, pixellated on news programs, will serve as the latest example of public notice of Douglas Gard's tending towards eccentricity.

     President Parris: (Behind a podium) It's late, people.  We've worked hard to achieve just this.  Retaining control, keeping that turd in.  The House of Representatives is our turd.  We shape that turd,  We are that turd, and more.  The American people, bless their hearts, go along with our bullshit most of the time, but lately it seems they're not buying what we're selling.

     Arthur Sneffen : (Stepping quickly to the microphone) Jobs are good.  Military recruitment is steady.

     Parris: And Covid is defeated!  Let's hear it for Doctor Grauchi!  Here he is, come on up, little man!  Say hello to your admirers at home and those present.

     Anthony Grauchi: Normally I would decline such an invitation, but I cannot resist the in-person charm of President Dinah Parris.  What those who don't know you don't know is that Dinah Parris is a friendly, warm, eager to learn, drop dead gorgeous lady with a sponge-like mind, not as vacuous as some have reported.  I find her to be as intelligent as any dumb broad who thinks she's the hot shit.  

     Parris: (Giggling)  Is this a roast?

     Grauchi: I no longer work for you motherfuckers, I"m going to speak plainly.  Yes, you may hear the word cocksucker come out of my mouth.  Now, for all you Covid-19 deniers, you anti-vax propagandists, spreaders of lies and misinformation, very dangerous to do that, all you misinformers, you pests, you gross persons, you Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hydes, you melon farmers, you mask wearers, you vaccine takers without doing research just accepting our word they're safe what's wrong with you?  All youse chumps, including me.  I believed in the vaccines.  I lied, I misinformed, nobody cares, see you all in Hell.

     Parris: Well that takes the cake.  I'm sure he didn't mean some of that.  Let's get on with the subject at hand.  Our Democrats won enough races to make us retain the House!  Cheer cheer cheer, for it is worthy of cheers.  Democracy has been saved!  Insider trading by politicians and their spouses has been normalized!  I'm on to 2024, babies!  I'm heading for victory.  Can you feel it!?  Can you feel my enthusiasm?  Truth to tell, sugar pie honey bear, I've gotten the hang of this presidency thing.  I'm handling the job quite well!  My approval rating rose to 43.  

     Reporter: What about the kids in cages at the border?

     Parris: We've taken care of the border.  I've been to the border.  The border is where I've been.

     Reporter: More kids in cages than during the Don Richman administration.

     Parris: So what?  These people need to stop coming here.  This ain't their country!  I'm a xenophobe, in case you haven't figured that out yet!

     Reporter: Then why aren't you an isolationist?  You urge strong ties with Israel, Colombia, Australia, Britain, Poland...

     Parris: Stop trying to impress us with your knowledge of country's names.  I seek an America that never feels the need to apologize for its actions, those good actions and those bad actions.  I make no judgment.  I neither approve of putting sanctions on Iran nor do I disapprove of it.  These things must be done.  A teacher shouldn't complain about her work load.  A President shouldn't complain about moral difficulties scratching the conscience.  The President must unleash holy hell, if necessary, upon enemies foreign and domestic.  A timid approach doesn't work, in fact, it makes the situation worse, more prolonged, more possibilities for suffering.  I am a pacifist.  Sure, I've drone-bombed, I've ordered bombing raids, artillery bombardments, a couple of assassinations, I gave the order to overthrow Charles Weatherup Goodman-Teddy, President For Life of Malabambia.  We now have their bauxite mines.  Aluminum, of course, is a valuable and much in use commodity.  It's hard to be president.  It's also a thrill.  I look forward to giving my next order to bomb some village I never heard of.  Doug, would you like to say a few words?

    

     Doug steps forward, hands covering the boner that's been seen by most of the people in the audience.  Rain starts to fall.

     

     Doug: It's quite the honor to be standing on the White House lawn, where JFK stood, and Lyndon Johnson, and Ronald Reagan, and Eisenhower, boy...When I was a kid I had a Dennis the Menace comic book, a full story about Dennis's trip with his parents to Washington, D.C.  On the back cover, a picture of Dennis with toy models of the Pentagon, White House, Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, U.S. Capitol.  I stared at that picture, boy did I stare at it.  I wanted a set like that.  Did Dennis's parents buy him these fascinating learning toys?  But he also resembled a giant overgrown boy, as in a 1958 low budget film I recommend, The Overgrown Towhead Who Broke Hoover Dam, with Mari Blanchard and Paul Newman as the state trooper who saves a town from being flooded.  Great disaster scene.  I want you all to know, before I go...I love my wife!  I love this woman so much!  I love and cherish every moment we spend together!  I love Dinah, oh my Dinah, I love her so!  Her skin tone, have you noticed the skin tone?  It's heavenly!  Earthy and warm, like oatmeal in the morning.  She and I eat oatmeal together, and yogurt, and oranges, and other items.  Tonight she and I will date.  Yes!  A date in that sense you're thinking and tittering over.  I see some of you tittering!  Don't try to hide it!  I'm open to your amusement at my expense.  It's not easy being First Gentleman.  I have responsibilities.  I have to not lose my shit in public.  Okay, my boner's gone.  I'll step away from the podium.  Thank you for your attention.  My wife wants to say something.

     Parris: Thank you, Doug, um, the information you provided to C-Span and these kind folks is part of our private life, you dummy.

     Doug: Your scent overpowers me.  Are we still on for later?

     Parris: Yes.

     Cassandra Hartliss Blade looks at her husband of forty-six years as they fly to the Davos Summit.  Billy Boy Blade, forty-second President of the United States.  He wears a snarling grin, looking out at clouds.

    

     Billy Boy: We took care of the Terry Klein double.  Terry himself wants out of the facility he's been consigned to since his reported death, the most unbelievable non-deliberate murder since that of Lee Harvey Oswald.

     Cassandra: Are you trying to make me want to have sex with you?  Forget it.  You're tainted meat, Billy Boy.  If I were to indulge in the carnal vice again it wouldn't be with you.  You're an overinflated balloon filled with dead air and an endless supply of sperm.  You're like something out of a Clark Ashton Smith story.  I'd like to see an H.R. Giger portrait of you.  I'd buy it.

     Billy Boy: Forty-six years of castigating me, yelling at me, judging me, telling me it makes you feel bad when I sleep with others, allegedly...

     Cassandra: Your point, dick brain?

     Billy Boy: Why don't you lay off?  Give me a break from your withering presence for five-ten minutes, then try it for twenty, then leave me alone for a day.  Then a year.

     Cassandra: A year!?

     Billy Boy: A month, how about that?  Let me not see you or speak with you for thirty days.  It'll do us good.

     Cassandra: Don't hump me when we get back together!

     Billy Boy: You'll want me biting your lip.

     Cassandra: Wolf's head!

     Billy Boy: GILF pussy.

     Cassandra: You utter pig!

     Billy Boy: Sit on my lap.

     Cassandra: I'm switching seats.

     Billy Boy: You want me.

     

     Cassandra gets away and murmurs to her Secret Service guard... 

     I'm going to sit back there.  If the President bothers me knee him in the nuts.

     

     Guard: Count on it.

     Later, in the back of the plane, they sit together again.

     

     Cassandra: These mid-terms victories bode well for us.

     Billy Boy: I lost a hundred thousand dollar bet.

     Cassandra: On what?

     Billy Boy: That the Dems would lose the House.  Don Richman won.  He contributed to some Democratic races covertly, for the sake of his run in twenty-four.  

     Cassandra: Did you use Global Initiative money again?

     Billy Boy: No, I altered our will, removed a hundred grand from our daughter's inheritance.  She won't miss it.

     Cassandra: Stealing from your own daughter!

     Billy Boy: She runs a news website, has access to anybody in politics, she's doing fine.

     Cassandra: Still, how would she like to hear what her Daddy did.  Stole from her!  Honest to God, your immorality surprises me sometimes.  

     Billy Boy: One of the guards likes to try to catch glimpses of me having sex.

     Cassandra: You don't fire him?

     Billy Boy: He's complicit in my adultery.

     Cassandra: Don't talk about your adultery with me.

     Billy Boy: It's the only part of my life I enjoy.

     Cassandra: Talking about it or doing it?

     Billy Boy: Hmm, both!

     Cassandra: You're vile.

     Billy Boy: Your ticket to ride, my dear.

     So much to put down.  Mid-terms happened, the Democrats retained the House, lost the Senate, Angie Crook, aging with worry for her husband after he was brutally assaulted, will step down as Speaker.  An Oregon Moderate Democrat, Joe Mandelayo, half Puerto Rican, half Scotsman, man of the people, family man, kids' soccer coach, two years Army service, most of it on a base in Bavaria.  He has competition, though; bass-voiced Illinois Congressman Jarv Middleton-Strong, "an Abraham Lincoln Republican blended with a George McGovern Democrat," though not really.  The Mandelayo contingent, including Dean Growth, Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, oppose Middleton-Strong's tactics.  He'd promise anything to persuade one of his fellows to vote his way, then renege.  

     A weasel, Jarv Middleton-Strong at age twenty-seven, inherited nine million dollars from his businessman father, Charles "Chic" Middleton, the fog machine tycoon.  Jarv used this money to buy a yacht aboard which he entertained rich business and political bigwigs who gladly took off their wigs, meaning clothes, to frolic with girls and women ages nine to ninety.  All shenanigans recorded visually and with Dolby sound.  Every grunt of the House of Representatives and the Senate is stored in a safe hidden somewhere in Jarv Middleton-Strong's office.  We may assume he has backups, and possibly a failsafe deadman's switch with mass release of incriminating material to all news media.  

     The most feared man in Congress, it seems likely Jarv'll receive the majority of votes to be next Speaker.  Why does any of this matter?  Rich and powerful lawyers, real estate business people, CIA and military veterans fill Congress and the Senate.  This must be the best a great nation can do.

     Oval Office.  President Dinah Parris has papers spread before her.  She takes off her glasses, addresses her Secretary of State, Arthur Sneffen, seated in one of the tall armchairs by the fireplace where a hot blaze crackles occasionally.  

     Parris: What do you make of the challenge by Jarv?

     Sneffen: He'll get his way.  Mandelayo knows about the illegal doings on Jarv's yacht, My Annual Bonus, yet he hasn't alerted the authorities.

     Parris: Accessory.  Maybe five years.  Make it ten.  I'm glad my Douglas didn't go on that boat.

     Sneffen: I saw him there once.

     Parris: You were on that boat?

     Sneffen: Many times.

     Parris: And why?

     Sneffen: Where else in the D.C. area can one perform cunnilingus on a forty year old Congresswoman while being fucked with a Fleshlight held by Billy Boy Blade.  It's the most wonderful depravity.

     Parris: You said my husband was there?

     Sneffen: Yes, I talked with him right before he went into the Anything Can Happen In Here Room.  

     Parris: He seems to have a secret life.

     Sneffen: Don't we all?

     Parris: So there's no getting around Jarv?

     Sneffen: Take him on his bluff and simply rub him out, then deal with the consequences.

     Parris: Well, I never went to that yacht.  Fuck those perverts.  

     Sneffen: Your husband is one of those perverts.

     Parris: Tell your hit man to study Jarv.  I want him out of the way by Saturday.  

     Sneffen: By the way you suddenly found those papers on your desk so interesting I can see you find giving an order to murder someone makes you feel uncomfortable, or excited perhaps?  

     Parris: What are you talking about?  I'm talking about practical realities.  We have a problem in Jarv Middleton-Strong!  If you come home and find there's a rat living in your house what do you do?  You get rid of it!  I will not have my authority questioned!

     Sneffen: I'm not questioning it, Madame President, this time.  I perceive your pleasure when you give the most serious order.

     Parris: If you were Doug, I'd be fucking within this minute.  Yes, I am turned on.  War and chaos turn me on.  Helming this ship of state at this time in our nation's many crises turns me on.  Yes, I'm a turned on patriot! (Salutes)  Goodbye Jarv, you should've kept your nine million, invested it, and avoided politics, because you're going to your grave because you tussled with America's lawmakers and showed their naked raw disgusting selves and I have to wonder if anyone will care outside of victims, but nobody cares about them. (Laughs)

     

      Doug, the First Gentleman, in his track suit with a towel around his neck, enters.

     Doug: Honey, I'm home!  I see you have a guest, or is it a turd?

     Parris: Darling, how was your run?

     Doug: Accompanied by six Secret Service men--well, one is a woman, Frankie she calls herself, though I believe her name is Frances, like the actress, not the talking mule.  She has a long face like a mule, fine Nordic stock.  What was I going to tell you?

     Sneffen: That your brain has become a very dark place?

     Doug: I believe all sentient beings will one day achieve enlightenment, but that is, not you, Arthur.  You will always dwell in the under shades, trapped deep in some alternate dimension where pain is king, and reaming your asshole every day is that king's hobby.

     Sneffen: Your armpits smell not of honest manly sweat, but the effusions of a monkey bred with a hillbilly who happened to win the Lottery.

     Doug: Put a bag over your head, vile Captain of State!  Your face offends me!  Its smug expression coupled with my knowledge of your weird appetites causes upset unto vomiting within this vessel called Doug!  

     Parris: Doug!  Settle down!  What did you want to tell me?

     Doug: How do I get YouTube on our bedroom TV?

     Billy Boy Blade's office in Harlem.  Gentrification?  What gentrification?

     Cassandra Hartliss Blade, seated opposite her husband.

     Cassandra: My book tour just ended.  Our daughter and I appeared on The View.  Did you watch it?

     Billy Boy: I can't stand those bitches.

     Cassandra: They're very nice, especially Joy.

     Billy Boy: She loves you the most.  You're not above being influenced by flattery, especially acknowledgement of your power.

     Cassandra: When you're dead, I'll make out fine.  I'll be President, you'll see, or you won't if you're dead.  I don't care if you live or die, fuckface.  Marriage of convenience, like Diana for Charles.  Now he's the King, Charles Number Three.  I got an invite to shoot things in Scotland with William and his dad.

     Billy Boy: Accept.

     Cassandra: I'm not going, because that's the weekend the Ratfuck Bastards are having their annual retreat in Pulaski, New Hampshire.  A skiing theme this year.  

     Billy Boy: (Laughs) You on skis!

     Cassandra: I've skied!  The Hindu Kush, Swiss Alps, French Alps, Aspen, Chamonix, Garbage Mountain in Oak Park--

     Billy Boy: That garbage mound covered in grass where we fucked the first time?

     Cassandra: The very same.

     Billy Boy: We bonded over rotting garbage.

     Cassandra: We are garbage. (Throws back her head and laughs)

To be continued....

Vic Neptune

     

     

  

     

       

       

      

      

The Sordid Ones

     All the humanity drained from her face, Hillary Clinton chuckled with MSNBC hostess Joy Reid about Trump's not accepting the results of the 2020 election.  Clinton and her team came up with Russiagate to discredit Trump, a nearly three year deception perpetrated on Americans, leading to increased vitriolic attitudes toward Russia and Vladimir Putin, the country and the man allegedly responsible for turning the 2016 election towards a Trump win.

     Putin reportedly preferred Trump over Clinton due to her significant role in the NATO and U.S. forces' destruction of Libya and Syria, both actions commencing in 2011.  Putin regarded Hillary Clinton as more dangerous than Donald Trump.  He was right.  

     Now she weighs in on Ukraine, telling Joy Reid we must support Ukrainians' fight against Russia, that Ukraine's government and President deserve U.S. and NATO support.  The possibility of a World War Three characterized by the use of nuclear weapons wasn't mentioned in the interview.  Nor did Clinton say she's a Nazi sympathizer.  No one in mainstream U.S. news media will put it that way, but rather they use the word democracy instead.  Ukraine, we hear, is a democratic nation.  It is so democratic that President Zelensky banned opposition news media, allows the suppression of Russian literature and culture, and works under the thumb of the U.S. government.  

     I write these things because I accept that the First Amendment to the United States Constitution is still valid.  One of my posts (not identified by Google) was put under a "warning to readers due to sensitive content."  I suspect it was the one entitled "Sixty Years After the Missiles of October," dated September 30, 2022.  My concerns about my country picking a fight with a nuclear-armed power shouldn't be controversial, but the intellectual climate these days does not allow deviation from officially accepted viewpoints, such as,

     Covid-19 was not created in a laboratory.

     Dr. Anthony Fauci is a kind, caring, compassionate man who would never harm another man or dog.

     President Zelensky is in complete control of his actions and is never influenced by outside forces or by, let's call them enthusiastic right-wingers in his government and armed forces.

     Taiwan is not part of China.

     Bill Clinton may have flown on Jeffrey Epstein's private airplane Lolita Express, but that does not mean he engaged in illegal sexual activities with underage girls.

     The January 6, 2021, Capitol Insurrection was worse than 9/11.  

     Jack Ruby really was just shooting Lee Oswald because of his concern for Jackie Kennedy and her poor children deprived of a father.

     Prime Minister Boris Johnson's trip to Kyiv last April did not have anything to do with Zelensky ending peace talks with Russia.

     U.S. arms manufacturers are not making money off of the Russia-Ukraine War.

     U.S. arms manufacturers are humanitarians chiefly concerned with the welfare of innocent children in Third World countries.

     It's good that Silicon Valley hi-tech corporations and the billionaires who run them get to judge free speech in America.

     Joe Biden is not senile.

     Kamala Harris's inappropriate laughter is not a sign of a twisted mentality.

     Senator Lindsey Graham is not a bloodthirsty maniac willing to sacrifice the lives of all Ukrainians to score points against Russia.

     Franklin Roosevelt was just as surprised as John Wayne when the Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor.

     The U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet aircraft carriers just happened to not be in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

     Adolf Hitler was sincere when he declared himself "a man of peace."

     Diplomacy is a bad idea, especially diplomacy between the U.S. and Russia.

     Nuclear war is a preferable option to Biden calling Putin to attempt to ease tensions in Eastern Europe.

     A presidential contest between Trump and Biden in 2024 will be good for America.

     Joy Reid and other shills for war on MSNBC really are nice people who don't privately luxuriate in their multi-million dollar salaries, earned from their work in glorifying humanitarians like Hillary Clinton.

     White Ukrainian victims of Russia count, whereas Yemeni Arab victims of Saudi Arabia, backed in its war by the United States, don't.

     Being successfully propagandized increases intelligence and discernment, boosts critical analysis abilities.

     There is no way the Democrats, desperate to hold on to the Senate and House, will cheat in the November 8, 2022 mid-term election.  

     Every election in America has been straightforward.

     Yes, Jeffrey Epstein's girlfriend and procuress Ghislaine Maxwell attended Chelsea Clinton's wedding but so what?

     Pfizer loves humanity.

     Enough.  My readers will get the point, if not those who decide whether or not to put a warning label on a post deemed "sensitive," as if all these subjects I write about in this blog are top secret information and not readily accessible to anyone with a computer and the use of a library.

     Here's something I've noticed since Joseph Biden became President: Censorship on social media platforms has increased, not decreased.  If you write a pro-war blog praising Ukraine's government and military the Biden era social media platforms have no problem with your work.  Criticizing the U.S. role in Ukraine, though, will unleash the trolls.  Nixon didn't like Vietnam War protestors.  Joe Biden isn't far from Nixon in his authoritarian viewpoints, nor is Kamala Harris.  

     Underneath their suits, their dresses, their pant suits, behind the shine of their American flag pins, behind their smiles and empty phrases, our leaders have the moral character of gangsters.  Corporate-controlled news media present them as worthy of our respect, even as they do nothing to remove the lead from Flint's drinking water, do nothing to give all Americans free health care, to redistribute excess police funds to benefit education, mental health and other social programs, and bring down the defense budget, as well as rein in the CIA and FBI.  

     We're at the mercy of psychologically diseased individuals, many of whom sustain seemingly endless tenures in the Senate and Congress, gathering self-glorification to themselves with each passing year during which they do nothing to help their constituents.  

     It seems appropriate that the so-called (by Tom Brokaw) "Greatest Generation" is dying out rapidly during these days of their country arming Nazis.  In 1944, those Americans fighting in Europe, my great-uncle among them, might have wondered, had they known the future of 2022, what the purpose was of their invasion of Europe to take down Hitler's forces from the West.  

Vic Neptune 

     

Certain Elements of A.E. Van Vogt's Science Fiction Are Coming True

      The Renaissance.  I grew up pronouncing it Ren-uh-saance, light accents on first and last syllables.  I hear more often the academic-sounding pronunciation, Ren-A-saance, long A, strong middle syllable accent, thrusting upward to a commanding view of surrounding language and letter-shapes.  So much more intelligent-sounding than the "uh" of my learned (in the 1970s) pronunciation of Renaissance, which means rebirth.  If you've been reborn who gives a fig about the proper pronunciation of Renaissance.  It's enough that it happened. 

     Arts flourished in Italy.  Politicians like Cosimo de Medici had his political job, which included being ruthless and the thinker-up of violent situations at times, but also he was a patron of the arts.  This is my minuscule understanding of him.  

     Coincident temporally with Italy's somewhat bloody arrival of riches mixed with politics mixed with painters, sculptors, writers, and rediscovery of no longer lost knowledge, scrolls, papyri, Ancient Greece and Rome came alive for Spaniards, French, and Italians.  Archimedes and his lever.  Math.  Were there plays preserved, like the other documents of the deep past going back some fifteen-hundred years, works of Sophocles and Euripedes?  Did an Arab copyist make manuscripts of a lost Sophoclean comedy?  Could the old writer smile?

     The culture north of the Alps resisted takeover by the Roman Empire.  No Romans in Pomerania.  Germans later, yes.  In Spain, a warmer place, Arabs preserved ancient knowledge.  In Alexandria, Christians mobbed the library, the world's largest repository of manuscripts at that time.  Most of Sophocles' plays were burned, including so-called Satyr plays he wrote, all lost forever.  In my memory I hear a teacher saying that a book or two of Aristotle's went up in the flames.  Around the time of that teacher, 1976 or so, I chose Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury for my book report in Reading Class, taught by Mr. Zagnut.  

     Part of what I wrote:

     "Ray Bradbury's use of the salamander as an identification patch on the firemen's uniforms represents the salamander's supposed origins in fire.  In the book, Mister Bradbury uses irony to great effect.  For instance, the whole premise of firefighters devoting their time to burning books, magazines, thus knowledge, bringing us back to the Stone Age, when people communicated via cave art, resonates with a special meaning, in that firefighters are not, I repeat, not to burn books, that is, in our world, the same planet Ray Bradbury is from, yet, these firefighters, hero of the book Montag among them, destroy knowledge.  They flame it thoroughly.  Crisping pages of Balzac, Sophocles, Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, you name it, every book is on the firefighters' kill list.  Ironic that firefighters are burning books instead of putting out fires?  Yes, I think so, this author writes sarcastically."

     Of late I muse on the end of the world.  Even if such would happen, say, in a year, would that prevent me from working on my writing, on my films?  Do one more collage?  I did many collages around the turn of this century.  Collages led to film (YouTube Channel John Berner), for cinema is the assembling of fragments of images, just as is collage.  

     King Crimson's song "Epitaph" comes to mind.  The last song on Side A of The Court of the Crimson King, has this line, "The fate of all mankind I fear is in the hands of fools."

     The creation of an iron sky through multiple detonations of hydrogen bombs in North America, Europe, Russia, China, Taiwan, Australia, everywhere except maybe most of Antarctica, unless that's the last hideout of the morons who will have destroyed more than seven billion possibilities. 

Vic Neptune 

       

         

Forgetting

     My mother's mother, near a late stage of her elderly life, didn't recognize my mother; had recognized her the previous visit.  

     A willful blindness may explain some in the news media profession not acknowledging President Biden's obvious senility.  Anyone who has lived with an elderly person, a parent, perhaps, who gradually loses more memory until they just have the past, should recognize Biden's symptoms:

     Absent-mindedness.  Brain fog.  Doesn't know where to go after making a speech, walks with lower arms projected before his body.  Sudden bursts of anger.  Clumsiness.    

     Philip K. Dick's 1964 novel, The Simulacra, has a U.S. President character and his very popular First Lady Nicole.  She's a telegenic personality, people tune in to watching Nicole, they never miss a Nicole broadcast.  A jug-playing duo join with a talent show the first prize of which is the chance to meet and play their jugs before Nicole.  The President, who the nation sees on occasional television broadcasts, is an android, while the real President is a sick old man who no longer runs anything.  In the novel there's a funny character named Chic Strikerock.  Dick never writes his name in a singular way, it's always "Chic Strikerock said," or "Chic Strikerock grated."  To grate, have an irritating effect, appears throughout Dick's novels and stories.

     The "Are We a Simulation" question takes new data, that U.S. forces, as in combat troops, are joining with other NATO forces to fight in Ukraine against Russian soldiers.  Okay, why don't we get to vote on this?  A plea for democracy.  Just because Risk is a fun game to play if you can find two more people to play it with, doesn't mean it's responsible and adult to play it for real on fields where the Soviet Army battled the Wehrmacht. 

     Meanwhile, Kamala Harris went to New Mexico to discuss the reproductive rights her Party failed to codify into law during four Democratic administrations, including hers.  Oh, and get this, she'll also "be making remarks at a finance event."  Fundraising?  Is she raising money for a Presidential race?  2024?  May I, like Dick Morris, speculate about such a juicy tidbit?  

     Morris wrote a book, hyping it on Fox and MSNBC, predicting Hillary Clinton would face Condoleezza Rice in the 2008 Presidential Election.  He got the sexes wrong, but really I think Dick Morris needed some thousands of dollars so he wrote a ridiculous book the premise of which would raise eyebrows, he has news media contacts, political contacts, he can sell the book, make a little bread, a wee bit of scratch to help him through a tough coming winter of no television appearances until he writes another book, getting a prediction wrong again, because that's what Dick Morris is, a man with no scruples.

     Still, his fantasy of a Rice-Clinton showdown is interesting to think about.  Condoleezza Rice has no charisma.  I saw her on The Daily Show.  For some reason the host (Jon Stewart or someone else) mentioned her interest in the music of Cream.  She said she listened to them in college and still enjoyed their music.  Fair enough, I like Cream, too, especially "Badge."  The host then had the booth play a Cream song, then Condi would identify it.  "Sunshine of Your Love," Jack Bruce's distinctive bass line of that song an immediate giveaway.  There was one other or maybe two other songs the former Secretary of State had to identify before she could leave.  Jon Stewart, or whichever host, applied the same technique used in American war films, such as when a soldier asks a suspect soldier from another unit if he knows who won the 1938 World Series.

     "Madame Secretary, thank you for exhibiting basic knowledge of three songs by defunct supergroup, Cream!"

     Elon Musk in an interview in front of an audience said he thinks a lot about how we may be in a simulation.  "I think about it a lot."  

     Could we live on Middle-earth?  Join in with the time of the War of the Ring?  Which side will Sauron pick?  We need his formidable Orc forces.  Or do we?  What about light and good?  The Kingship or Democracy is at stake, though!  

     King Joe Theoden, revivify!  Roll him out when needed, give the rest to First Lady Nicole.

     Belief in The Lord of the Rings:

     Elbereth, or Varda, Queen of Heaven, wife of the far-seeing Manwë, the Valar act like Olympian gods and goddesses, their remote world far from concerns of Middle-earth, except that Manwë, Ulmo, Nienna and Varda love Middle-earth, their long-ago creation, their joy, destroyed by the rebellious Vala, Melkor, who earned the name Morgoth, "Dark Enemy."  The Valar, emanations from the mind of Eru, live a seemingly timeless life.  Six days in Valinor is nine months in Middle-earth, a ratio I make up here, but essentially true.  

     The Rings of Power series on Amazon received harsh criticisms from reliable observers of popular culture and critics who don't work for corporate Hollywood.  The critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes made it seem as if the series is the best thing since "A House Divided," the 1980 cliffhanger episode of Dallas when J.R. Ewing gets shot.  And the writers of the Rings show don't write anywhere near as well as 1970s TV drama writers.  

     The series took a beloved character, Galadriel, the Lady of Lothlorien, and turned her into an irritable cunt.  How it's possible to destroy such a great character, replacing her with a horrible, unlikable elf woman whose nose twitched in one scene when she was mad, shows the shallowness of our culture, its depths easily digestible in the form of Ken Burns documentaries.  

     Tolkien overmasters this whole situation.  The weight of two novels and a book of interconnected tales, offering background to the novels, amounts to the main body of his achievement.  Those works, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, hold us now with their narratives, their scenes and symbols, individual moments standing out, different from one reader to the next.  

     Could Elon Musk be developing a Simulator?  He and whoever he wants to go with him, enter a simulation the size of a pea on the outside, painted green, too.  Inside, Musk is on Mars, it's terraformed, synthetically grown human males and females work the fields, perform domestic labor inside Musk's sprawling ranch. 

     The pea-sized Simulator, shot from a space cannon in the direction of where Triton will be in five months, contains just the first chapter of Musk's goal to colonize the Solar System, the Galaxy, even.

     Let's all take a deep breath.

Vic Neptune