Mullah Billdoug

Fatal Relapse!

2005-03-01T12:18:00.000-06:00

Thousands of well-wishers and devout believers gathered outside of the hospital in heaven today, praying for the speedy recovery of Mullah Billdoug, who suffered a relapse of his strangulated semi-hiatus over the weekend, and had to undergo an emergency intubation for his RSS feed. Doctors say that he is fine, no need to worry, but they have forbidden him from blogging for at least the next week in order to let his bowels settle. There is no danger of his dying and going to hell, since he’s already in heaven, and therefore, presumably dead.

Unfortunately, Dr. Spiriti Sanctiblogger, the Mullah’s beloved physician, is unavailable to treat him at this time. Hospital officials would only say that he was “semantically challenged” and therefore unavailable. In his absence, Dr. Paulip Bowelblogger is handling the case.

The Mullah will forego his traditional blessing of the keyboards while he recovers, but the business of Sufi University will go on as usual under the supervision of his staff.

The Trio Gets the Treatment

2005-02-17T19:24:00.000-06:00

“There’s nothing wrong with that p-policy,” Sanctiblogger stammered. “I bought it from Captain Leibniz. All on the up-and-up.”

“Bullshit! That policy is the oldest scam in the book. It fools all of the smarty-pants liberals,” a voice called from the door. (Which, being in the Ding an sich, wasn’t so much a door as a portal made of dead souls.)

Everyone turned to the voice. A gasp rose up from Chertoff and Gonzales.

“Negroponte!” they murmured.

It was indeed, him. Standing there with three slathering Dobermans on a leash. He wore a military cap covered in gold braid and colored ribbons. His chest was covered in a bright sash dotted with gleaming medals. In his other hand was a riding crop spiked with sharp studs.

Gonzales spoke. “I thought you were—“

Negroponte interrupted Gonzales with a resounding slap across the face with the crop. “You’re a pup. I’ve been in this business for years. Now, you—“ he motioned to Chertoff—“strip that cord from the table lamp. Leave the plug on the end. Now, follow me into this dressing room. It’s time we got the truth out of those two about their real reasons for this concert tour.”

Gonzales reeled back, choking and gagging from the impact.

“But, Sanctiblogger—“ Chertoff began, only to be cut off with another slap of the spiked crop, so hard he fell into Sanctiblogger’s lap, dribbling blood from his mouth.

“Now, punks!” Negroponte snarled.

The roadies tried to block the trio from entering the dressing room, but were quickly dispatched by blows to the head and the attack dogs.

Inside, Sanctiblogger saw, Jesus and Mohammed were tuning their guitars. With them was a man dressed in a white sequined suit, long sideburns and a pompadour, speaking in a slow drawl.

“Now y’all boys gotta remember that back at Graceland I… hey!” The man shouted as the sinister trio and the frothing, snarling dogs rushed in on them.

"That's who I heard in there," Sanctiblogger thought, took out the monadic insurance policy and studied it carefully as he prepared to slip out of the dressing room. Someone had to tell the authorities that Elvis, Jesus and Mohammed were about to get the “treatment.”

And he’d have made it, too, if he hadn’t slipped in a pile of bloody chunks that Gonzales had apparently puked up after being hit with the riding crop.

“Oh, hello, boys,” he said, bending over. “Whatever has become of you now?”

Cough It Up

2005-02-17T11:25:00.000-06:00

Sanctiblogger stops his hand mid-toss, tries not to chew. But Chertoff is all over him. This guy is good.

"What've you got there, Doctor?" he asks, hopping off Gonzales and walking purposefully across the room, spurs jangling. "What're you eating?"

"Nothing," Sanctiblogger manages to say around the three or four unchewed chunks that he's pushed over to the sides of his mouth.

"Open up," Chertoff commands, and sticks three tobacco-stained fingers into Sanctiblogger's mouth. As Sanctiblogger gags, Chertoff strips the remaining chunks from his free hand with his free hand, picks Sanctiblogger's pocket with his free hand, and smacks Sanctiblogger across the face, hard, back, forth, back, forth, with his free hand.

How many free hands is that? Don't try to count them, gentle reader: Michael Chertoff has a lot of free hands. Because--and here is today's civics lesson for you good patriotic Americans out there--he has a lot of freedom. That's what being director of Homeland Security is all about: freedom. The freedom to protect freedom as freely as circumstances require. Freeing up all hands to seize, search, and smite the haters and despoilers of freedom.

Over in one corner, Sanctiblogger sees over the thick black hairs of Chertoff's right forearm, plunged now halfway down his gullet, Gonzales has his head in the feed trough, and is gobbling up the old grisly remains of shredded liberal bloggers. As Chertoff finds the last undigested chunk deep in Sanctiblogger's esophagus, he lobs the whole sticky pile of Bill-n-Doug over to the feed trough too, where Gonzales wolfs it down with gusto.

"Look, Sanctiblogger," Chertoff says, slapping a pair of ontological cuffs on Sanctiblogger's in-der-Welt-sein, "we sucked out your mortal spirit once. What'd you do, buy a new one on the gray market?"

With the cuffs on, Sanctiblogger finds himself powerless to dissemble. "Found one on eBay," he mumbles. "Still in the box."

"Shrink-wrapped?" Chertoff says.

Sanctiblogger nods glumly.

"Easy enough to take care of that," Chertoff says, and pulls a hose out of his back pocket. Rubber nozzle in Sanctiblogger's mouth, thloop, and the new mortal spirit is in the bag. Good thing he doesn't know about the monadic insurance. "And now," Chertoff adds, "about that monadic insurance policy you bought at Gitmo ..."

In the Waiting Room

2005-02-16T19:55:00.000-06:00

The crow flew into the Ding an sich as if it was a simple crossing from one county into another, an invisible line crossed.

Of course, others had attempted such crossings, not crows, but others. They were, of course, immediately subsumed. There’s a special corner of the Ding an sich where the husks are stored, in fact. Not that they’re not useful, these husks. In fact, a pile of them are being used to prop up the stage for the Jesus and Mohammed tour. They’re a little crinkly underfoot, sure, but they’re sturdy.

The cockroach rode on the crow’s head. Roaches and crows, taking the sustenance derived from eating those poor dear boys to our dear Sanctiblogger, now sitting in the waiting room for a meeting with Jesus and Mohammed.

The roadies were collected in the waiting room as well, and they were tired and sweaty and drinking beer. Sanctiblogger wanted a beer, but he was suspicious about the brand, Monad Light.

Inside the dressing rooms, which of course were delineated by lines of reasoning instead of semantics of individual words and word strings, there was an argument going on. Sanctiblogger was aware of the voices of Jesus and Mohammed, but there was another voice that he couldn’t place. A soft Southern drawl. Some deity from Alabama or Mississippi?

Not likely.

That was when the crow arrived and plopped on Sanctiblogger’s lap. The roach puked up the bits of meat that were the boys not so long ago.

“Boys!” he cried. “So glad you’re here. I’m starving. I thought I’d been forgotten.”

But of course it was at that moment that Alfredo Gonzales scuttled into the waiting room with Michael Chertoff riding him bareback, whip in hand.

"Well, well, looky what we got here," Chertoff croaked.

'Bama Blog-u-Ling-a-Ding-Dong-sich

2005-02-15T21:22:00.000-06:00

One by one, the cockroaches bite off pieces of the boys and vanish with them through the permeable membrane display. Bits of flesh, bone, and gristle seem to scurry on their own steam, sturdy little roach legs just barely visible under the bugs' loads, through the pink and yellow dotted screen. There is surprisingly little blood--perhaps because they have already been sucked dry of blood-words (claret, clot, cruor, gore, hemobloggin, bamablogulin, plasma, corpuscle, erythrocyte, hemocyte, leukocyte, consanguinity, and of course, last but not least, exsanguination) by the antisemantotron.

Bama Blogulin?

A metallic echo decays into the ether ...

Another Day at the Office

2005-02-15T15:18:00.000-06:00

Why is my computer full of bugs?

I guess it’s a bad program. Wasn’t debugged properly.

No. I mean BUGS. Look.

Holy shit! Your CPU is full of cockroaches! And what’s that on your monitor screen? A crow?

He’s been there all day. Every time I try to check my mail, it comes up all scrambled, and then there he is. I think he’s trying to peck his way through the screen.

Look! He’s hitting it with his beak from the inside.

Only a matter of time till it breaks through.

What then?

I don’t know.

Turn it off.

Can’t.

Why?

You try.

Ow! Goddam roaches bit me. Fucking took a chunk out of my finger! They’ve got teeth.

So. Here we are.

The Antisemantotron Kicks In

2005-02-13T13:32:00.000-06:00

Stop asking questions based on snippets of what I say.

A Tragic End to Two Fine Upstanding Young Men

2005-02-12T15:58:00.000-06:00

Bill (above) and Doug (below) go down.

The Antisemantotron

2005-02-11T16:53:00.000-06:00

Ha, The poor saps have taken the bait. Soon, they will be completely wrapped in my Antisemantotron. Everything will be meaningless. The literary and print archives of the world will be mine to control, to warp and whack as I please. No anthology will be safe! Bwaa-haaha-haha! No speech will be safe, unless they bow down to me!

Who are you talking to?

The universe, stupid. That’s what we do.

We?

I can tell you aren’t certified.

Certified?

Stop asking questions based on snippets of what I say.

Or?

Or I’ll fucking KISS you!

Kiss?

Arrrgghh! I meant, “kill.” I will KISS you. Shit.

What’s going on there?

You mean “here.” There.

Uh-oh. Why is this crow hopping around the room with a live cockroach on its head?

Tied In--

2005-02-11T14:55:00.000-06:00

Hey Bill?

Yeah?

I feel, I dunno--strange.

I've felt better myself.

My stomach's all tied up in--I dunno, something.

Yeah, I know what you mean. Some kinda blockage, or lump, or--hitch.

Hitch?

Twist.

Yeah, that's it. A twist. Over and through. Pulled tight. But it's--

It's what?

No, it's--the opposite of--

The opposite of what?

I don't know. Whatever it is, it's the opposite of--

And it's spreading.

Yeah. It's out about to here on my forearms. Down to here on my calves.

I think it's seeping into us.

Seeping?

Leaching. Like through some kind of semantic membrane.

Yeah, maybe. Which means that before long--

We'll be completely tied in--

Yeah.

Is-y Bodies

2005-02-09T13:29:00.000-06:00

There’s something wrong with the transcripts of the inaugural speech, dammit.

What? I don’t see anything.

Look at this. Where I put in “…we have a place, all of us, in a long story—a story we continue, but whose end we will not see,” it now reads “an end we will see over and over again.”

So? That speech is over. Archived. Forget about it.

I’m just saying. All of the notness has been removed from the speech. Look here. Where I put in “…and though our nation has sometimes halted, and sometimes delayed, we must follow no other course,” it now says "we can follow any course we damn well please, meandering like a stream across the hills.”

All the notness is gone?

Yep.

Printer error. Someone over at publications screwing around. Don’t worry about it. The official text is fine.

They’re all like this.

All of them?

Yep. It’s as if, well, someone was creating a new heaven and earth in the text. Replacing notness with isness.

Odd you should say that.

What?

“Isness.” We got a phone call on the secure line this morning. Caller claimed to be a CIA rhetorician.

Yeah, and—?

Said the latest buzz they’re picking up in secure rhetoric circles is the slogan “The Business of America is Isness.”

Hmmm.

Odor from Chaos

2005-02-08T19:42:00.000-06:00

Where are we?

In the beginning, I think. Nothingness.

I got it! Say something.

I thought I was.

No, I mean, out loud.

How? It’s impossible in here. Down here. Up here. Whatever.

Ow! Hey! What’d ya hit me for, asshole?

I heard that. Wow, look.

It’s a planet. A big marble.

Earth?

I dunno. It’s awfully dark and void.

Let’s go down there. I think I see water, and I’m thirsty.

Is this water?

Dunno. It’s too dark.

Wish there was some light. Hey! Whaddya know? Where’d that light come from?

Dunno. A big light bulb when you said that? Mighty accommodating. But look, over there. It’s still dark. Almost like, almost like—

The light was divided from the darkness by some kind of, well, divider. Like a dressing curtain.

More like a foam cubicle. So, what’s this?

It’s water. But it’s all over. It’s like, spilling into the darkness and the light.

What we need here is a firmament.

Another divider?

Sure, why not? Divide the water from the water.

Why does all of this sound familiar?

It sounds familiar to you?

Yeah, kind of. Like I heard of someone doing this before.

I don’t know. It all just seemed like the thing to do at the time to me.

What's next?

It'd be nice to stand someplace that isn't wet. And what are we going to call all this stuff?

Not

2005-02-07T13:12:00.000-06:00

Doug and Bill plummeted for what seemed to be days. It was exactly like church, except without the sermon, liturgy, choir, organ music, parishioners, pews, walls, floor, ceiling, stained-glass windows, sunlight, or dust motes.

That is, they assumed they were plummeting. As they could neither see nor feel their bodies or anything they might be rushing past, or even the displacement of air as they rushed past it, it was as if they had simply ceased to be.

Once Doug heard the tinkle of an ice-cream truck's song. But it dopplered past at several times the speed of a speeding locomotive.

When at last they came to rest, the only discernible difference from their plummeting was that they felt constrained and somehow uneasy. It was rather like being delirious and thinking you have to vomit and then having nothing come up.

They had plopped down square in the middle of the abstract essence of notness in the sentence "George W. Bush was not impeached in 2005," pronounced in rueful hindsight with so little emphasis on the word "not" that it was practically a "wasn't."

An Eye for an Eye

2005-02-03T19:13:00.000-06:00

Prayer! That’s it. Prayer.

What are you on about now? What prayer?

That’s how Sanctiblogger escaped. He prayed. If we pray, Jesus or Allah will take us to the Ding an sich. Clasp us to their bosoms. Rescue us.

Oh, please. Like every poor imprisoned fucker in the world hasn’t prayed. Lot of good it did them. Better you should just write to Amnesty International.

This is different. I got an angle.

Yeah? Different how? What angle? You know some special prayer? Got some hot prayerline?

Oh, ye of little faith. Of course not. The prayer for opening the gate to the Ontic Bridge. Sort of an open sesame. And we got the third eye.

Ho, ho. This place is really getting to you, isn’t it? An open sesame for the Ontic Bridge. A third eye. If it wasn’t so dark in here, I’d find your face and punch it. Hey, what’s that? A flashlight?

No. I just opened my third eye.

Goddam, that’s bright. Shine it somewhere else.

Can’t. We have to both open our third eyes at the same time. Where the beams join, we’ll find the prayer for opening the Ontic Bridge.

I don’t have a third eye, dipshit.

Sure you do. Wait, just a minute. There’s some eye butter. It’s glued shut. A little spit, and there. Open. Oops, sorry about that shackle in the ear.

Hot damn. It is open. Where’d that come from?

It’s always been there, pal. You just don’t take very good care of it. How long since you’ve been to a Mysticoopometrist?

Never mind that. Let’s cross the beams and get the prayer. I’m cramped.

There—see it?

No. Oh, wait. Yeah. What’s that it says?

And, where the third eye high-beams crossed, they read aloud:

Raskolnikov, who crossed the bridge, hear us.
O holy denizen of Cinvat, thou who holdest the keys
To the perilous crossing from Defined to the Ding an sich
Open now the Ontic Bridge gate and take us to the
Bosom of Jesus and the lap of Allah.

That was a long, stupid-ass "open sesame." Whoa, hey. The shackles just fell off. And what’s that? The cell door’s opening. It’s a bridge!

The Ontic Bridge. The Bridge of Cinvat.

Let’s go.

Wait, not so fast. I remember something about this, now.

Forget it. Let’s just go.

And so they did.

We’re about halfway across, now.

Whoaaaaa, hell. What happened? We’re falling.

I just remembered.

What?

No sinner can cross the Ontic Bridge, the Bridge of Cinvat. We got dumped.

But those creeps that nabbed us, they got across.

They had Monadic Insurance, I imagine.

Something’s ahead. We’re gonna hit the ground!

But they didn’t. No, indeed.

Swing State

2005-02-02T14:45:00.000-06:00

Shit, Bill, I'm not gonna last long in these short shackles. Hell, my muscles cramp up when I sit on the toilet too long, and this, well--this is way more uncomfortable than sitting on a toilet. And what's that dripping on my neck, battery acid?

Jesus Christ, Doug, would you quit whining for a second and look over here?

What?

Sanctiblogger's spot.

Yeah well he isn't in it, is he. They must be yanking out his thumbnails.

No, look. See this chain? It's hanging in the air.

So? That's what chains do when you suspend them from the ceiling. They hang.

Not at a thirty-degree angle to the floor, they don't. This is being pulled by something.

By what?

I don't know. And look at these ankle shackles. They're being held up too, somehow. You don't suppose--nah ...

What?

That's Sanctiblogger's here, but invisible, or something?

If he was invisible, he could hear us. "Dr. Sanctiblogger! Are you there?"

Nothing. Damn.

Maybe he can hear us, but can't answer back.

Maybe they ripped out his vocal chords.

Maybe you just can't use em when they're invisible.

Oh yeah.

Or maybe--

What?

Maybe his visible body's in some parallel universe, or something.

Or in the Ding-an-sich. His visible body escaped into the Grounds of the Groundlessness of Being, and left only his shape in the short shackles.

Maybe. But shit, Bill. My muscles are on fucking fire. I can't believe you let that Bush demon get reelected.

I let him!? What about you?

I live in Mississippi! What could I do? You were in a swing state! It's all your fault! If only you'd campaigned harder, gotten out the vote better ...

Shut up, Doug. You're delirious. Let me think.

What's there to think about, you vile fuck?

How Sanctiblogger escaped into the Ding-an-sich. If he can do it, so can we.

But we've got no insurance! We've got no digitally remastered pain! We're unprotected!

I know. But--

Across the Ontic Bridge

2005-02-02T14:19:00.000-06:00

Lift your hands off the keyboard. NOW! Lift them slowly and place them on your head. Both of you. Good. Now stand.

W-what is this about?

Never mind that. You're both under arrest.

Arrest!? For what?

Sedition. Conspiracy to commit war crimes. Aiding the enemy. Would you like me to continue?

We never did any of those things.

Oh no? Then what do you call this?

That--that's the blog post I put up yesterday. What about it?

It's seditious. It's conspiratorial to commit war crimes. It aids the enemy. I can't believe you're even questioning this. I'd have thought you two would hide yourselves better than this. You weren't even expecting us!

What on earth is so seditious in that post?

You reveal information in an ongoing military operation to our enemies.

What, Guantanamo Bay is an ongoing military operation?

Everything's an ongoing military operation. Surely you should have figured that out by now. You're smart boys.

But Bill didn't even post that.

I'm coming to you, Robinson. You wanna confess to writing this?

No.

No?

Of course not.

But it's got your name at the bottom. Posted by Doug Robinson at 4:24 pm, January 30, 2005.

You believe everything you read?

You fuckin with me, Robinson?

Not at all. I just didn't post it. And Bill didn't post the one you clicked on first.

Don't give me that.

They were posted from the future by the Mullah Billdoug himself.

What the hell is this, from the future? You know about any future shit, Sheridan?

No sir.

What is this future shit? Sheridan and me don't know nothin about it.

We're not sure how it works, actually. Doug thinks it's the Mullah. I think it's a robot goat wearing a Wittgenstein mask and limping.

I've heard some cock-and-bull stories in my life ...

No cocks. No bulls. It's a goat-and-mullah story.

Shut up!

Ow! You hit me! I'm an American citizen!

Not no more you ain't. You're a fucking detainee. Shut up or I'll rearrange your DNA. I've got the syringe and I'm aching to use it.

B-but you can't just come in here and take us like this!

Why the fuck not? We're from Homeland Security.

Yeah, but Doug and I live in different states. We are never present at the same time-space coordinates. This is a flagrant violation of the laws of nature!

Lemme tellya something, you little twerps. George W. Bush knows everything and sees everything and he don't care about no laws of nature, got that? He'll do whatever he and God decide is right, and devil take the hindmost.

Bill's the hindmost.

The fuck I am! Doug's always been the hindmost! Just ask anybody!

I said shut up! You want me to use this syringe?

Uh--no.

No.

Okay then. Load em in the van, Sheridan.

Yes sir. Shall I take down the ontic bridge?

Nah. We may need it again.

Yes sir.

He Knows Too Much

2005-02-01T13:51:00.000-06:00

You were talking to him, weren’t you? Who was he?

Not really. I mean, he found me. That is, he talked to me. I didn’t talk to him exactly. I don’t know who he was, either. The room was dark. He had a deep voice, that’s all I can tell you.

But you know about the music?

He told me, yes. Suggested that I might use it to survive in the Ding an sich.

And of course he told you about the autofuckers and the devilshirts. So, you know too much.

Whoa, whoa. I didn’t hear anything about autofuckers and devilshirts. He never mentioned that.

Really? That seems unlikely. They’re in use at all of our facilities worldwide.

I really don’t want to know.

Oh, it doesn’t matter. I’ll have to put you in solitary confinement for the rest of your life, now, anyway. You’ll never be allowed to speak to anyone ever again.

B-but, I—

Look, Sanctiblogger, if that’s really your name, there’s really no question about it. You could compromise the entire operation. Now, hand me the mp3. Thank you. That’s good. Come along. Stop sighing. Really, you must learn to take these things like a man.

Well, at least tell me about the autofuckers and devilshirts, then.

Why do you need to know? You’ll never speak to anyone ever again. What’s the point?

I just want to know.

Very well, if you’ll just stop sniveling and buck up. Autofuckers are mechanical devices that we install in the chosen. They can only lie prone on a flat surface. As soon as they shift from that position, they get fucked.

Fucked?

In every possible orifice. Painfully.

My god!

And the devilshirt looks like a plain white undershirt. But it is used, also on the chosen, to keep them in a constant low-level state of painful itching. The more you scratch a devilshirt, the more it itches. And if you take it off, you stop breathing.

Holy Christ! You mean, you use this to torture people? Who are these “chosen”?

That, you don’t need to know. Now, into this cell.

It’s dark in there. And it stinks.

You really must be more manly about this. Stop whining, take off all of your clothes, and get inside.

Or?

Did I mention the autofucker and the devilshirt? Now, go.

Sanctiblogger stripped, went in, and sat on the floor. The door clanked shut. It was very hot inside the cell. Sanctiblogger began praying to Jesus and Allah to help him. He’d heard it said that they always answer prayers.

The Born-Again Techno-Salvation Mix

2005-01-30T16:24:00.000-06:00

Psst.

What now?

Over here?

What is with you people, anyway? Why do you keep popping up in dark corridors and whispering at me?

Come this way, my friend. I think you'll find this interesting.

I'm way beyond any possibility of interest. I'm saturated. I'm glutted.

In here, man. Park yourself.

Who are you?

Never mind that. Listen to this.

Ow! Turn that off! It's hurting my ears!

Sorry, shit, let me turn the sound down. I apologize for that. Now.

What is that? A tape of pigs being slaughtered? A bootlet AC/DC tape?

Close. Very good! You're gonna love this.

But--

It's an mp3 of an interrogation session.

Torture, you mean.

Yeah, sure. Interrogation.

Where'd you get that, off the Internet?

No. Here. In-house.

Oh. Of course. The detainees.

Yes. This one is, uh--let's see--David Hicks. One of the Australians.

What are they doing to him?

Never mind that. It isn't important. What's imp--

Not important? Inflicting pain like that isn't important?

Well. Only to the detainee. But it's perfectly legal. It's all on the up and up. We've got Alberto Gonzales's memo up on the wall. We had to laminate it, finally, so we could wipe the blood off. I'm tellin you, man. There was a shitload of blood. Spatter like you wouldn't believe.

So--why are you playing this for me? Does the sound of screaming turn you on, or something? Because if it's all the same to you, I'd rather not--

No, no. Nothing like that. That's just the "before." Now listen to the "after."

What--some sort of techno hit?

Techno is right! Hit is right! Blammo! We're hitting that fucker with all the techology we've got!

Hitting what fucker? Hicks?

Well, him too, of course. But he's only the material sound box. What I've done is edited the raw output of that box into a collection of repeatable riffs and stored it on the Internet. For a small licensing fee, composers can access the riffs and mix and match them into commercially viable pop songs, rock songs, country, rap, reggae, classical, anything.

So this is--

Oh, I just wanted to put a sample together, you know, the kind of thing a person could do with this material, were he so inclined.

That's all very interesting, I'm sure, to a composer. But I'm not--

Oh, I know, I know. Sorry, I've been boring you. This is all leading up to something.

Yes?

Word around the detention center is you're headed out into the Ding-an-sich to talk Jesus and Mohammed into playing a gig here at Gitmo.

Yes, well, maybe so. If I can get the metaphysical bugs ironed out.

You see, the thing is, these mp3s may be just the thing.

The thing?

Sure. The ticket.

Which ticket was that, exactly?

Your ticket out into the Ding-an-sich, of course.

Sorry, you lost me.

This is the music of salvation, man.

Is it really.

It is. I see you don't believe me. But this is straight-up, man. I ain't shitting you. You ever hear Jesus and Mohammed play? This is the stuff they do.

I see.

No shit, man. This is the music the angel was listening to on his Walkman when he ran Adam and Eve out of the Garden. This is the music they were blasting from huge speakers at the top of the Tower of Babel. This is the music God had playing on his stereo when he made the bet with Satan that Job would crack if they killed his kids and stole his money and his health. And this--this very music, my friend--is what Mel Gibson mixed into the baseline of his soundtrack on The Passion of the Christ. Straight-up.

These exact mp3s.

No, no, of course not. Digitally remastered pain, man. That's it. That's the Bush party line: the more pain, the more salvation. But of course you gotta mix it. Not just raw pain: electronically doctored pain.

Hm.

You still don't believe me, do you.

So I just play this music and walk out into the Ding-an-sich. I don't need monadic insurance or anything.

You got it. Load maybe twenty hours of it into your mp3-player and play it over your headset. Then start walking.

Why are you telling me this?

Cuz, man!

What do you hope to get out of this?

Nothing! I'm just--a lover of freedom like the next guy!

The Fluid Tentativity

2005-01-29T13:55:00.000-06:00

Psst.

What?

Over here.

Who are you?

Never mind about that. I've got a proposition for you.

Uh huh?

There's some money in it for you. Maybe something bigger than money.

Something against the law, I'm guessing?

Not against the laws of the land, if that's what you mean.

So--

It might be ever so slightly against the laws of nature, if you get my drift.

My mind spins.

I might be able to help you out with the ten grand Captain Leibniz wants for his monadic insurance.

How'd you know about that?

Never mind. Are you interested?

I suppose. Tentatively.

Well, that's perfect, actually. It's through the Fluid Tentativity that you will need to pass.

The Fluid Tentativity?

Exactly. The source of all turbulence.

You mean, like in water?

In water, in air, in the currents of time and salvation. It's all the same turbulence.

Uh huh. And you would need me to do what, exactly?

I, uh--I lost my cell phone.

Yes?

And, well--I dropped it in the Fluid Tentativity. I need it back.

What, are you nuts? Just get a new one!

I can't. I'd rather not say why.

Well but--

Okay, okay, I'll tell you, sheesh, gimme a fuckin break already! It's got voicemail messages from Jesus on it, and the way the Fluid Tentativity works, there's no telling where it'll turn up. My wife reads those messages, she'll kill me.

What, she's some kind of atheist or something? Doesn't want you talking to Jesus?

Talking she can handle. The stuff he remembers us doing she can't handle.

But--

Look, are you interested, or not? I'll pay you $10,000 to get that cell phone back.

In advance?

Don't jerk my chain. You'll never come back and I'll be out $10,000 for nothing.

Oh, I'll never come back! That makes it attractive. What, this Fluid Tentativity is going to flush me down into the Bottomless Pit or something?

No, no, nothing like that. You'll just run away with my money, is all's I'm saying. It's perfectly safe. I've been out in the Fluid Tentativity a million times. It's a cakewalk.

Then why don't you go get it yourself?

I--let's just say I used to be the Commandant of this place, till Jesus started coming around, and--

Okay, okay. Tell me what to do.

You'll do it?

We'll see.

Breaking Rumor

2005-01-28T16:40:00.000-06:00

Jesus-Mohammed Breakup?

(Groundlessness of Being, AP) Theological entertainment reporters are abuzz with the rumor that Jesus and Mohammed are on the verge of breaking up during their Pre-Rapture 70 Virgins Tour. The rumor mill began grinding yesterday with news of an incident regarding groupies. According to sources close to the tour, Jesus became miffed when Mohammed pointed out that all of his groupies were scantily-clad males. Jesus is said to have retorted that all of Mohammed’s groupies were old women, a charge Mohammed hotly denied, responding that maybe Yahweh was right and Jesus is gay. Their agent would only say that the pair was having “artistic and religious differences” and that “the tour will go on as scheduled.”

E-Z Payment Plan

2005-01-28T16:31:00.000-06:00

Well, Dr. Sanctiblogger, the problem is that this little symbol here is the only thing that will prevent you from being subsumed in the Ding-an-sich. So, with part of it rubbed away, as you can see, it’s likely you will be at least partially subsumed by nothingness, your monadic essence will be shattered, if you try to enter. The only solution I can think of is to take out some monadic insurance.

Monadic insurance, you say, Captain Leibniz?

Yes, indeed. I have a policy here, for example, that assures you will have sufficient reasons to remain a vast single network of explanation in there.

How can an insurance policy protect me from being broken into components, both past and present?

Well, frankly, it’s the only thing that can. What were you thinking of? Prayer? Amulets?

No, I was thinking of maybe a special suit of some sort.

Ho, ho. I see you’ve been talking to those Scientologists again. It’s pure rubbish. The fact is, with a policy from me, you’ll be fully protected. It’s never failed. We call it the Pangloss Policy. How do you think conservatism was pulled out of the abyss? How do you think Dick Cheney avoided becoming one with Rove? How do you think the roadies on the Jesus and Mohammed Pre-Rapture 70 Virgins Tour survive? Or even the guitars, for that matter?

Really. Impressive. And, ummm, the cost?

Quite reasonable. I can issue you a policy that will cover your monadic integrity for a week in the Ding-an-sich for only $10,000.

Ten thousand dollars! Outrageous.

Fine, then. Go in there yourself with that card. Take your chances.

Look, if a monad is indivisible, what do I have to worry about?

You obviously don’t understand the power of the Ding-an-sich, both as a concept and a reality. Look at poor Professor Royce in that cell over there. A theorem here, an enthememe there, scarcely recognizable as a complete idea atall. And he went in with a complete card. It was, unfortunately, expired and he didn’t realize it.

But I don’t have ten grand.

Come here with me, let’s go get a hamburger at the mess hall. I’m on the intel staff here, and I think I can work out a nice easy payment plan for you, if you don't mind a little pain…

Sticker

2005-01-27T10:07:00.000-06:00

Hi, I'm the staff metaphysician, Thomas Aquinas. The Commandant thought maybe you could use my help.

Thomas Aquinas? Not--

The medieval scholastic? No, I'm afraid not. My parents tell me we're descended from him--hence the name. He was my great-great-great-whatever grandfather.

So, uh--

I understand you're contemplating going out into the Ding-an-sich.

I have to, yes. It's the only way to get in touch with Jesus and Mohammed. They're out there performing--this instant, I believe.

Every instant, in fact.

Yes, quite.

And I understand they gave you a card of some sort?

That's right, yes.

May I see the card?

Why--yes. I have it here somewhere. But--

I'm just wondering if it's one of the special Be Not Subsumed cards. You know, with the sticker in the corner.

Sticker? I never noticed any sticker. Dammit, where did I put that? I know it's in here somewhere. I can never find anything in this damn wallet.

It would be up on the top right-hand corner. With that sticker you should be able to navigate through the Ding-an-sich without metaphysical mishap.

Here it is! Now--

See here? This. Oh dear.

What?

Well, it's partially rubbed off. See?

What--what does that mean? I can't go?

I don't know. You might be okay. Then again--

But--isn't there some way to run a test, or something? Some kind of metaphysical Geiger counter or something? See if it still has its juice?

Hm. Interesting. Not exactly, but--I think I might know who to ask.

Buy a Pre-Rapture 70 Virgins Tour Poster!

2005-01-26T21:29:00.000-06:00

Add to shopping cart
Keep shopping
Be saved
Enter Ding-an-sich
Join the Republican Party

A Dodge for the Sacred Blogger

2005-01-26T13:25:00.000-06:00

What, are you crazy? A concert for the inmates? What do you think this is, Cook County Jail? You’re just supposed to convert them, not hype a concert to them.

But that’s the beauty part, see? A Jesus and Mohammed concert would convert them. When they sing that duet After 9-11, We’re All Christians Now, they’ll come down the aisle in droves to accept Jesus.

I don’t know. You’re risking your neural integrity going out into the Ding-an-sich—the grounds of the ground of groundlessness—to try and get them, you know.

Well, certainly I’d be lost without them.

Yeah, like our latest torture technique. We pixellate ‘em, and then send them to grotesque and pornographic websites where we can photoshop ‘em. Heh, heh.

Right, whatever. So, is it a deal? I get them, and we can have a show? Then, when they all convert I get to leave?

Leave? Oh, I don’t know about that. One thing at a time. Okay, go get them.

Sure, Sanctiblogger thought, I’ll get them. And then you think I’m coming back here? Ha.

Concert for Conversion

2005-01-26T13:15:00.000-06:00

Okay, look. Don’t think of it as conversion. Think of it as a change of name only. Like, if someone asks, you just say, “I love Jesus.” You check the little box that says “Evangelical Christian” instead of the one that says “Muslim.” You tell the guards you don’t eat pork for health reasons. Say “Praise the Lord” instead of “Allah Akhbar.”

Blasphemy! I would be consigned to the deepest pits of hell.

Look here, my good man. Don’t you want to get out of this place?

Well, of course. Are you saying they’ll let me go if I convert to Christianity?

I have a signed statement by Alberto Gonzales to that effect.

This Gonzales, he has the power to free me?

Very soon he will, yes.

Hm. And you say I just have to make it convincing enough to the guards and shrinks? Make them think I’m a Christian?

Born-again Christian, yes.

I don’t know. That didn’t work so well for Karla Faye Tucker.

Oh, you heard about that, eh?

What, you think I don’t keep up with the news? They killed her, even though she converted.

Well, yeah, but she was a murderer. She killed people with an axe.

I’ve killed a lot of people, too. Nah. This won’t work. They won’t let me go. They’ll kill me and then I’ll go to hell.

What if I got Jesus and Mohammed to come and talk to you? You know, a nice little chat. If they came and talked to you and promised it would be okay, then maybe you’d convert?

You could do that?

Sure, sure. They’re on tour now, out in the grounds.

Grounds?

Yeah, the grounds of the Groundlessness of Being. They've got a show there tonight for the '04-'05 tour. They’re calling it the “Pre-Rapture 70 Virgins Tour.” I caught ‘em at Sufi U before I was fired. We exchanged cards.

OK, fine. Arrange a visit. Maybe you could arrange a Jesus and Mohammed concert here at Camp X-Ray? You know, for morale. Tell them we’ll all think about converting then.

Sure, sure. I’ll go check on it right now.

Dear Mullah Billdoug

2005-01-24T16:27:00.000-06:00

Well, I see you leftists are at it again, smearing good patriotic Americans like Alberto Gonzales for protecting America, because, of course, you hate America and don't want her protected. You'd love for al Qaeda to crash a plane into the White House, wouldn't you? Or into the Fox News studio building?

I have a sense of humor. I can laugh at myself same as anybody. I laughed when I read your little spoof of my troubles with that scheming evil witch Andrea Makris, may she burn in hell, the little cocktease. I thought it was funny, ha ha, when you killed me, twice--once by Karl Rove in dildo form, again by Abraham Lincoln.

But I can't stand by idly while you slime a great Hispanic-American patriot like Alberto Gonzales. Sometimes I'm amazed at the racism on the left: you just can't stand the fact that our great President is so open-hearted and appoints African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans to positions of responsibility, can you? You have to drag down the great minority voices in the current administration, Colin Powell for supposedly "lying" to the UN about WMDs in Iraq, Condoleezza Rice for supposedly stonewalling the 9/11 Commission, and now poor Mr. Gonzales, who only wanted to protect the country he loves so much, El Norte.

The most amazing thing of all, though, is that you leftists seem to think that the Geneva Conventions apply to terrorists! You seem to think that we are obliged to extend the same democratic rights to unprincipled people who attack us as we do to our own upright citizens who don't break the law! Why, if you had your way, America would be extending the same democratic rights to everybody--even the trouble-makers in Iraq, who perversely, stubbornly, keep refusing to accept the democratic system we've been trying to demonstrate to them over the last year and a half. It almost seems as if you were trying to set up a system whereby people were somehow automatically entitled to democratic rights, instead of having to earn them through their law-abiding behavior!

Look, if you hate America so much that you need to smear the people who are protecting her from foreign aggression, maybe you need to move to Iraq, where the people have no such protection against foreign aggression, and as a result live, I mean lived, in terror. Maybe then you'd be happy, hmm?

Sincerely,
Bill O'Reilly
Pundit

PS It's typical left-wing gullibility to accept as gospel truth whatever baseless slanders and vicious smears al-Jazeera sees fit to publish, and actually believe that Guantanamo Bay detainees have converted American guards to Islam. You people will believe anything!

Eons

2005-01-23T13:20:00.000-06:00

You see, chaplain, we've developed a sort of problem lately.

"Problem"?

Well, maybe not a problem. Maybe more of a dilemma.

"Dilemma"?

Well, maybe not a dilemma. Maybe more of a situation. An event horizon, if you will.

Perhaps you could describe it to me?

The thing is, word has gotten out that some of our guards here have, well--converted to Islam.

I see. And because I'm a Sufi chaplain you thought I could minister to--

No, no, chaplain. Let's not get off on the wrong foot here.

But you said--

I said we had a problem.

A dilemma, you said.

Precisely.

A situation. An event horizon.

You have it exactly, chaplain. And what we want you to do is to convert them back.

Excuse me?

Convert them back to Christianity.

But how could I--what would--but I'm not a Christian!

But you're a chaplain, aren't you?

Yes. A Sufi chaplain.

So all we're asking you to do is your job. Just for a new employer. Seeing as how the old one fired you, and all.

But you must understand that Sufism--

And for every inmate you convert back to Christianity, we'll take one eon off your sentence.

Inmate? I thought we were talking about guards.

Guards? Heavens, no. The guards that converted have been tried, convicted, and executed for fraternizing with the enemy. No, I'm talking about the terrorists, of course. We don't want them converting any more guards.

Then in what sense would I be converting them back to Christianity?

Back to where God wants them, of course.

I see. And--eons off my sentence?

One for each convert.

And how long is an eon, exactly?

We take it in the original Greek sense of the word, aion, of course: an indefinitely long period of time.

Of course.

Dingy and Real

2005-01-23T13:11:00.000-06:00

Name?

Spiriti Sanctiblogger.

Rank?

Uh--Ph.D.?

Rank?

Uh--professor of Advanced Smegmatics?

Rank?

Uh--chaplain?

That's what we're looking for. Welcome to Gitmo, chaplain.

I don't understand. Am I being detained, or--hired?

Neither, chaplain. You're being recruited.

Recruited to--what, the U.S. military? I'm a foreign national.

We're aware of that, chaplain.

So if this is a recruitment, I'm free to refuse?

Of course.

And if I refuse, I'm free to go?

Absolutely.

Then I'll go.

Be my guest. There's the door.

But there's--nothing out there.

Oh, I think you'll find it isn't exactly "nothing." Our staff philosophers like to call it Kant's Ding-an-sich. Our staff shrinks prefer to call it Lacan's Real. And it's plenty of both.

Both?

Dingy and real.

But if I stepped out into it, I'd be--

Instantly subsumed. Yes, chaplain.

I see.

Sign here?

The Heaven Bus Arrives at Gitmo

2005-01-23T11:28:00.000-06:00

Sanctiblogger's heart sinks.

Sanctiblogging Off the Bus

2005-01-23T08:19:00.000-06:00

But then Sanctiblogger has one of his famous ideas.

How famous are his ideas?

His ideas are so famous, four major motion picture studios once had a bidding war for the rights to the fourteenth idea he thought up in a given month.

His ideas are so famous, the Pope once issued a Papal Bull banning them and excommunicating anyone who participated in a bidding war for the rights to them.

His ideas are so famous, at least three gods during the recent deity election begged him to manage their campaigns, promising him wealth, a long healthy life, and longer-lasting erections in return.

His new idea: sanctiblog his way off the heaven bus. Grab some screen shots and photoshop them into the reality he desires, namely, being led off the bus at the Outposts of Freedom with the attractive young women in sports bras, or the Islands of Tyranny, or wherever the hell they are getting off, and not being left on the bus alone and at the mercy of Alberto Torture Memo Gonzales, who is just as likely to drive him to the Island of Detention at Guantanamo Bay and call it Outpost of Tyranny #6.

So he starts whistling. He straightens his back. He plasters a big dumb goofy grin on his wrecked visage. And he grabs the screen shot. Dumb-de-dumb. And he opens Photoshop. Doo-de-doo. And he organizes the attractive young women in sports bras by the front door and makes them all smile welcomingly at him, Dr. Spiriti Sanctiblogger. And then he desaturates Alberto Gonzales, and--

Damn. Why--why does Gonzales's face refuse to desaturate? And why, when he tries to upload the image to his sanctiblog, does he keep getting the same error message?

SANCTIBLOG NOT FOUND ON THIS SERVER

Screwed

2005-01-22T15:22:00.000-06:00

On or off the bus? On or off the bus?

Outposts of Tyranny & Islands of Freedom

2005-01-22T13:20:00.000-06:00

Are you all right? the voice demanded quietly. It was a calm female voice, and Sanctiblogger slowly opened his eyes through the fear. It was the woman in the sports bra.

You're sentient, then. Good. I was worried. The word DOG was no longer visible on her forehead.

They were still on the bus, but now it was bright and clean, and filled with attractive young women wearing sports bras. There was no empty seat. The driver was now dressed in the garb of a Cardinal of the Church in full regalia, but he couldn't see the face. Where are we going? Sanctiblogger asked the woman.

I think you're going to an outpost of tyranny. At least that's what it says on your ticket there. She pointed to a piece of card hanging on a string around his neck. It said S. Sanctiblogger: Outpost of Tyranny #6. No Baggage except carryon.

Outpost of Tyranny #6? Where's that, he asked.

I don't know, she said. Does anybody else here know where Outpost of Tyranny #6 is? she shouted to the rest of the attractive young women in sports bras.

No, never heard of it, they all replied. We're all going to Islands of Freedom. Why else would we be wearing sports bras?

Sanctiblogger looked carefully at the women. Then it hit him. They were the Sufi U Chess Club cheerleading squad, the ones who'd been fired by the A.D. the same day he'd been fired.

The Cardinal of the Church driving turned to shout, "Outpost of Tyranny #6! Prepare to disembark!"

Sanctiblogger froze. The face. The face of the driver was that of Alberto Gonzales. Gonzales. Who'd once been Dr. Torquemada, the head of the Torture Studies Dept. at Sufi U. Until. Until he'd been given a new identity in a deal to protect the university from a lawsuit. My god, Sanctiblogger gasped. I'm screwed.

Water Balloons

2005-01-22T11:56:00.000-06:00

What's this?

Sanctiblogger catches a rush of movement out of the corner of his left eye and then someone is shouting out of a deep yellow madness. He turns in his seat to look, but sees only a pistol waving about in the air. He ducks without thinking, and sees on his plasma screen a clean-cut Concerned College Conservative with a light saber, mouthing the words "For as long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny--prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder--violence will gather, and multiply in destructive power, and cross the most defended borders and raise a mortal threat." Then comes a series of thwoop-thwoop implosions like disappearing water balloons as heavenly reinforcements flood into the bus to take out the threat. They are, Sanctiblogger notes from the red and white feathers in their berets, members of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. They scuffle. They skirmish. They exchange fisticuffs. They have words. They grunt in pain.

Then the gun goes off and there is a vvvvoom sound and one of the Fusiliers stands with his arm cut off at the bicep and spouting blood and the dirty shabby angel driver is slumped over the wheel with a red spot on his back beneath his right wing. The bus speeds up, and is suddenly buffeted by aeolian winds. The Fusiliers' hair stands on end, and they short out like--well, like fuses.

Sanctiblogger looks down and sees a red diagonal line stretching slowly but inexorably across the screen, where the only post-human presences he can see still on the bus are his own, hunched desperately over his laptop, and the shapelier one of the young woman in the sports bra, who stares straight into the camera with her eyes humorously crossed and the word DOG written in red Magic Marker across her bangless forehead.

On the Bus

2005-01-21T15:09:00.000-06:00

“Is this the bus for heaven?” Sanctiblogger asked the driver, a surly-looking angel with dirty wings.

The angel spoke through a smoldering stump of cigar. “Yeah, that’s what the sign says, doesn’t it, pal?”

Sanctiblogger sighed, and climbed on board. Getting fired. Of course, getting fired from Sufi University means you’re dead. He knew that all along. But somehow, it just hadn’t seemed real until now.

“Hey, pal,” the surly angel barked. “Deposit your fare.” He indicated a vacuum hose.

“My, ummm, fare?” Sanctiblogger asked.

“Yeah, your fare. Are you stupid or something? Your mortal spirit. Suck it out.”

So Sanctiblogger put his mouth to the tube. With a great WHOOSH his mortal spirit was sucked out. He suddenly felt much lighter. Like he’d lost twenty pounds or taken a great huge shit or something.

He looked around the bus. Only two other passengers, who seemed to be asleep. One of them was clutching a bottle wrapped in a paper bag. Drool was running out of his mouth as he snored through his nose. The snores caused the line of spittle to jiggle each time he exhaled. The other passenger was a beautiful young woman, wearing shorts and a halter top or sports bra or something. Her head lolled to one side, leaning up against the window. As she breathed in sleep, the window would fog up and clear, fog up and clear.

Sanctiblogger took a seat in the back, away from the others where he could see out the rear window clearly. He opened his bag and took out his laptop. Wonder if I can get WiFi here? He wondered. Ha. Sure enough. Now, let’s Google “heaven bus” and see what’s up. Sure enough, a website, http://www.heavenbus.com/. appeared. He clicked on it. A live webcam showed the view from the front of the bus, where the angel with dirty wings sat driving, all the way back to where Sanctiblogger could see himself looking at the computer.

But something was wrong. The other two passengers didn’t appear on the screen. In their place were two different passengers sitting in different places. In fact, one seemed to be sitting right next to Sanctiblogger. A hugely fat man with big white whiskers. But Sanctiblogger looked to his left, where the man appeared on the screen, and there was nothing.

How odd, he thought.

Another Controversial Firing at Sufi U

2005-01-21T13:35:00.000-06:00

Faculty Up In Arms, Discuss Sanctions Against President

Sufi circles buzzed today at the news that Dr. Spiriti Sanctiblogger, chaplain mullah and a tenured associate professor in the Department of Advanced Smegmatics at Sufi University, had been fired.

President Bernardus J. Wockle, who was behind the firing, cited "religious differences."

"This is the last straw," Whaling Mullah Dorset K. Baber declaimed to this reporter from the hammock in his office. "Wockle has been pushing the boundaries of Sufi love and tolerance for years now, but this time he's gone too far."

President Wockle has long championed an "all is one and one is all so what the hell" doctrine. Many Sufis consider this position lax and weak-minded. Dr. Sanctiblogger was one of President Wockle's most relentless critics.

"Spirry never tired of exposing the flagrant contradictions in Wockle's views," Mullah Baber explained. "And now, of course, his firing has exposed the greatest contradiction of all: to defend his antihierarchical views, President Wockle has wielded his hierarchical powers. That's like raping someone who challenges your celibacy policy!"

President Wockle, asked about these charges, only smiles.

"Jesus Christ," he chuckles, "can't anybody around here take a joke?"

Reserve Chaplain

2005-01-19T16:11:00.000-06:00

The Mullah was searching through the mail that had piled up while he was in hospital.

Get-well cards, hope-you-die cards, insurance bills, a note from Condoleeza Rice asking for an amulet that would help her stop thinking of sex all the time (have to answer that one!), some magazines, and—hey! What’s this? From the Department of the Army?

He opened that one.

Dear Reservist Billdoug,

Greetings! This letter is to inform you that your status has been changed from “inactive” to “active,” effective 1/31/05.

You are hereby directed to appear at Fort Bliss, Texas by that date for retraining…

and so forth.

I’m being drafted? Pressed into service? But I never even served in the Army! What the hell are they on about? I’ll soon straighten this out.

Mullah Suffers Strangulated Semi-Hiatus

2004-12-19T11:34:00.000-06:00

[AP, Special Report] Mullah Billdoug suffered a strangulated semi-hiatus while lifting a large snifter of holiday brandy, according to the Himmlischer Tagblatt. He is reported to be recovering nicely after spiritual surgery on his virtual umbilicus by Dr. Spiriti Sanctiblogger, and is now full of ethereal morphine and resting comfortably. No complications are expected.

The Walls Have Mice

2004-12-15T18:42:00.000-06:00

The brains splattered on the tiled wall behind where Lebedev had been standing.

The bits of gray matter quivered there for a minute and then slid down the slick surface. As they piled up on the floor, a series of mice, cartoon mice drawn like Mickey and Minnie, carefully picked up the bits and put them in very small jars.

The hauled the remains of Lebedev’s brains to their mousehole and then through the mousehole into Disney World.

The Flying W has no idea that these mice even exist. He also doesn’t know that the mousehole is actually a wormhole that always leads back to Disney World. The mousehole closes behind them with a soft sizzle and a pop.

The mice have now reached the nerve center of Disney World, the server that keeps everything running—animatronics, rides, music, you name it. They dump the lumps of brain into a portal on the server racks and they are immediately slurped up. A few seconds later, there is a contented “burp” from the machinery.

Goooood, a voice hisses. Very gooooood. Go get more. And see to it that you don’t wake up Mullah Billdoug.

The little rodents adjust their pants and ribbons, and go back the way they came, whistling a tune from Snow White.

This time the mousehole-wormhole deposits them in Ambassador Negroponte's office.

Water, Wick Warns

2004-12-15T07:37:00.000-06:00

Wick the Boot doesn't wear boots. It's a funny thing: he doesn't touch the ground. Hasn't in years. It's a kind of little superstition with him. If he touches the ground, he dies. Not really. He knows it isn't true, like the little boy who knows that stepping on a crack won't break his mother's back, but avoids stepping on cracks anyway. It's a kind of just-for-good-measure measure.

He doesn't touch clean floors either. Any flat earth-like surface. He is a creature of the air. He flies wherever he goes, except across the room: then he's carried by Chechen slaves. They airlift him to the toilet, hold up his feet while he shits and doesn't stink. Here in his Moscow lair, Wick the Boot aka Wikvaya Boutte aka Widad Boutros aka Viktor Bout (the name on his passport) can relax as the god W, whose shit doesn't stink.

It's no coincidence that his cover identity in the earth-bound world is air charter service owner. Even on earth he is above the earth. He runs a network of cargo planes flying sensitive goods around the globe. Weapons and drugs, mostly. Drugs to get you high, weapons to blow you sky high. It pleases him to airlift flying machines into a country at war, spy planes, helicopter gunships. But he has also flown flowers and exotic fish.

These days, in Iraq, it's water. Bottled water. The American troops drink a lot of water, and won't touch the local stuff, which is brown and full of parasites. They were bringing the water in on trucks, at first, but the insurgents took so many trucks out with IEDs--improvised explosive devices, which Wick has not yet found a way to supply--that they took to the air, hired him. He's made millions off the Americans, millions more, of course, off the Iraqi insurgents, and off the Taliban before them, but it's not about the money, for him. It's the flying. He doesn't do it himself, of course. But he loves the mental image of his sixty planes in the air, circumnavigating the globe.

A slave brings one of his generals in, Vitya. Viktor Lebedev, whose last name means "swan." All his generals have v or w first names and flight-related surnames. Not that swans ever fly--a black mark against Vitya right there. Wick's had his eye on him for months, now, waiting for him to fuck up.

"We got problems, W," Vitya says.

"I pay you to handle problems," Wick says.

"And I handle this one," Vitya says. "But I want to tell you."

"Tell," Wick says.

"Bill Kaul got loose from Americans," Vitya says.

"Is impossible," Wick says. "He is jpeg. Digital image does not escape containment facility."

"Ambassador says he emails himself out of there," Vitya says. "As attachment."

"Emails himself where?" Wick says.

"We think here," Vitya says.

"Here?" Wick says, sitting up in bed. He points to his lap. "Here?"

"Not here here," Vitya says. "To dream of Doug Robinson. Ambassador fears creation of new Mullah Billdoug."

"Is impossible," Wick says. "Doug Robinson locked in dream-proof cell. No dream can get out, no jpeg can get in." He eyes Vitya suspiciously. "You checked cell, yes?"

"Absolutely, W," Vitya says. "Doug Robinson sleeps and dreams. But no dream leakage through seal. Sensors would have picked up."

"And contents of dream?"

"Whales."

"Whales?" Wick says. "Fish whales?"

"Mammals," Vitya says.

"I kill you," Wick says.

"Sorry, W," Vitya says.

"No Bill Kaul in dreams?"

"No whiff of Bill Kaul in dreams," Vitya says.

Then he knows. He knows how it went down. Computer hackers. Someone has been feeding his system disinformation, to lull him into a false sense of security. There is no whale! What there is is a new Mullah Billdoug, or possibly Dougbill, which, as his mother told him back when he was but a godling, is twice as dangerous.

He gropes under his pillow for his gun, pulls it out and shoots Vitya. The gun doesn't fire. He pulls the trigger again: click.

"Why this gun doesn't fire?" he says impatiently.

Vitya reaches a trembling hand over, undoes the safety. "May I ask why you kill me?" he says shakily.

"Because you fuck up, you swan!" Wick yells, and blows Vitya's brains out. "Slaves!"

The slaves come running.

The Cult of the Flying W

2004-12-14T14:25:00.000-06:00

Umm, sir.

What is it, Rogers? Can’t you see I’m busy trying to count this cash? Goddamit, where was I? Seven hundred and sixty-five thousand…

Sir. We have a report from the Marines about a whale vomiting up a pile of fish on the banks of the river right outside the compound.

That’s in Doug’s dream. Ignore it.

Are you sure? The Marines say that the fish really stink.

If you’ll check the Daily Intelligence Briefings for once, dipshit, you’ll see that the DIA predicted a whale vomiting up fish in Doug’s dream. And Bill is safely trapped in our jpeg containment facility. Of course they’re both in each other’s bodies. Do I have to explain everything? Now help me with this cash.

The cash isn’t part of Doug’s dream is it, sir?

Don’t be stupid.

So after the whale barfs up the fish, what?

Doug wakes up. At least he thinks he does. He sees Stalin in his bathroom. Then the flying W swoops down through the open bathroom window and locks Doug’s head in its talons, and flies off. Doug is dangling under the flying W, kicking, yelling and holding the sides of his head as blood streams down his—Bill’s—face.

To what purpose?

The flying W does what it will. It’ll probably take him to a W rally and tear him into little glittering pixels in front of an adoring crowd while everyone gives the W salute. I don’t know. What I do know is, we gotta get this cash into a nice Swiss account by tomorrow. Now help me out.

Someone’s at the door, sir.

Well, see who it is and get rid of them.

I want to see Ambassador Negroponte.

He’s busy.

Yeah, sure. Well, tell him that Bill has escaped from the jpeg containment facility.

What’s that? Escaped?

Yessir. Escaped. He apparently wormed into our server and emailed himself to Doug’s dream.

I thought Doug was awake now.

Doesn’t really matter, since the line between dream and reality in this blog is so thin. If he did email himself to Doug’s waking dream, that will fuse their minds and bodies into one.

Two in one? My god, the thing will easily weigh 4-500 pounds! And won’t that fusion create another Mullah Billdoug?

We really don’t know what might happen, especially with the two of them dangling under that W.

Rogers, take care of the cash. We’re gonna need it. Gleason, make sure someone’s tracking that W.

Getting Down With Joe

2004-12-14T11:43:00.000-06:00

I think I've been dreaming, which is strange, because I don't usually fall asleep at the computer. I was dreaming I was in the belly of Jonah's whale, of all places. Jonah was there too. And he had--a laptop, I think. He was blogging from the belly of the whale. And somehow there was a yellow cab in the whale's belly with us, and Doug was there, or I was Doug, or something. And I think I sat down on the packing crate Jonah had left his laptop on, lifted the computer onto my knees, and typed in http://warincontext.org/, and suddenly--I wake up here at my computer, at home in New Mexico. And I can hear my wife Svetlana in the bathroom next door, singing some Russian song in her weird little offkey voice.

No, wait--my wife is Susan, and she should be back home in Oxford, Mississippi. Or could she be at work? Then who is that woman singing offkey in Russian?

I get up, tiptoe to the door. For some reason I'm trembling like a son of a bitch. What am I afraid of?

I peer around into the bathroom. Imagine my surprise when the woman standing there in her bra and panties, splashing warm water on her underarms and singing that strange little melody in Russian, is Joseph Stalin.

He turns and sees me, and my blood runs cold. I have time to notice that the swells of his breasts above the Lycra look real. Hormonal treatment? Then he cocks his ear, holds up one hand, and as the screaming of the missile penetrates my mortal hearing too he yells something in Georgian-accented Russian that sounds like "GET DOWN!"

Blog Barf on the Euphrates

2004-12-13T17:43:00.000-06:00

There’s no point in continuing this charade.

What do you mean, continuing the charade? There’s no charade here.

Oh, knock it off. You’re not Jonah. You’re Rumsfeld in a Jonah suit. I can buy these suits down at the Identities Shop for $50 any day of the week. Bill, you believe this mofo? Trying to make us think he’s Jonah. Wants to “take us to Iraq.” Like we’d fall for that one. Bill? OK, you shitbag. Where’s Bill? Where’s the car?

I really don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m Jonah, this is my whale, and you came here alone. Sucked in with a few tons of krill and small fish.

Bullshit. I know how I came, and who I came with. You did something.

Perhaps that gentleman over there can help you. I really must get back to blogging about the deplorable condition of these herring I’m getting from the Midwest. Nasty limp little things. Couldn’t cut down a tree with them if you tried.

I looked at the direction he pointed to for the “gentleman.” I of course recognized him right away. It was Doug, stuck in some sort of Power Point slide about oil profits.

What? No, I’m Doug. That must be Bill.

No, it’s Doug, all right. I’d recognize that low criminal forehead anywhere.

Hold on. That’s no way to talk about myself. Myself? Shit.

Hey, Jonah. You got a mirror?

I usually just use that big fish scale over there.

Holy shit—that’s Bill’s face in there, not mine. But still. Where’s he? And where’s my face?

They’re in Baghdad.

Baghdad? Iraq?

No, Bagdad, Arizona. Dipshit. Of course Iraq. The Big Guy’s trying to keep this low profile. And you two almost fucked it up. That image over there is just for reference.

The Big Guy? Lincoln?

No, not Lincoln. God, you fuckers are dense. The Big Guy—Eugene V. Debs.

What! Debs? But Jonah said…

Jonah is a senile old video clip left over from a children’s Bible series created by James Dobson twenty years ago. How he got into this blog I have no idea. He doesn’t know shit from whist, strictly runs the herring department and smokes virtual joints. Debs is stuck in Baghdad, in a blog run by one Dasir Al-Hadris, probably a pseudonym. You’re going to get him out. Doug is already there, only he looks like Bill. You, obviously, are here. Only Billdoug’s image is there.

I think I get it. Debs, huh? What’s the angle?

Dougbill is working on driving the blog into Al-Hadris’ computer disguised as an order of pickled herring. We’re going to slip you into his email files. Your job is simple: get Debs out, so he can finish organizing the mullahs, put the means of oil production in the hands of the workers.

A Wobblie in charge of the oil?

No, braniac. Debs was this close to organizing all the mullahs into a collective—The All Merciful One Oil and Gas Company, Inc. Then they were going to declare a socialist Islamic state. Then Debs melts into the IWW’s screensaver.

A socialist Islamic state? How’s that gonna work?

It’ll work just fine. Of course, Rumsfeld and Negroponte are doing everything in their power to see this doesn’t happen.

You mean real power or virtual power?

There’s no difference. The blogs are all fundamentalist. Everything that they publish is God’s word.

The bullets and bombs—?

Will kill you deader than shit. Keep your head—well, Bill’s head—down. Now, ready? I’m going to turn you into a shipment of herring and the whale is going to barf you up on the beach of the Euphrates.

Ummm, yeah. I guess.

Oh, one final thing.

Yeah?

Watch out for Stalin and his goon, some guy named W. They're around the fringes somewhere. You do understand that this plot is extremely unstable. Things change, viruses get into the subplots and disintegrate the main plot, climaxes become troughs, the bits of virus dissolve characters and points of view, settings become so indirectly drawn that they could be taking place anywhere or nowhere...

Yeah, I know that. Shit, I've been writing this blog for months now. W, you say? Bush?

No. Not him. Some other W, who controls robotic goats from the future or something. The intelligence is vague. We got it from Kerik. Now, let's go.

Dear Mullah Billdoug

2004-12-13T13:06:00.000-06:00

I must take exception to your casual slur on the many upstanding members of my species in your post yesterday. If you mean to imply that all red herrings are somehow involved in misdirection and deceit, why, you've got a lot to learn, is all's I've got to say about that.

Sure, we've had our share of bottom-feeders. Old Red Joe had his fling with communism, back in the forties. But so what? It was a common enough heresy, back then, before we knew about Stalin and the labor camps. Boo-Red got into that spot of trouble with a guppy, a glow-worm, and a bottle of mercurochrome. His wife never forgave him for that, but their marital troubles should be of no concern to your readers! And I'm here to tell you that the "scandal" everybody was talking about a few years ago involving me and an emperor plecostomus was blown way out of proportion by the media. He and I are just good friends. There was never anything "funny" between us. We have too much respect for each other, and ourselves, to get involved in anything dirty and disgusting like what the papers were reporting.

But none of this has the slightest bearing on the fact that herrings of all shapes, sizes, and colors are good red-state citizens and loyal bug-loving Republicans. We are not deceivers. We are not liars. We are not blogless communists helping you and your kind escape from the Wrath of Blog. All my relatives and I, and lots of other good red-state mackerels, tunas, and sprats as well, will thank you to keep us out of your liberal blue-state machinations from here on out.

Sincerely,
Red Herring

Beyond the Sea

2004-12-12T07:44:00.000-06:00

"So, uh, Jonah," I say. "Tell me: where are we going?"

"What do you mean, 'going'?" Jonah says vaguely.

"What do you mean, 'what do you mean'?" I say. "I mean, where are we going?"

"We're not 'going' anywhere," Jonah says, as if to a precocious but overimaginative 13-year-old. "This is a virtual whale. Get it? It doesn't exist in clock-time or yardstick-space. There's no 'where' to go to."

"Uh huh," I say. "Sure."

"What?" Jonah says. But his tone is off. There's something he's not telling us.

"Do you guys still need me?" Bill says. "Cause, you know, I've got some emails to--"

"Go," I say, rolling my eyes. Bill goes. Jonah and I both watch him waddle back to the blog.

"Nice guy," Jonah says. He despises Bill. I can tell.

"We're going to Iraq, aren't we?" I say.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Jonah says, busying himself with his laptop.

"Oh yes you do," I say. "You know exactly what I'm talking about. You're hiding in that laptop so I won't see your complicity in this whole red-herring Iraq War in your eyes, you big faker."

"You're crazy," Jonah says suddenly, glaring up at me with a strange mix of fear and resentment. "Who sent you here? What are you trying to do to us?"

"'Us'?" I say.

"Abraham Lincoln sent you, didn't he? I knew that old quack couldn't stay out of world politics for more than a month at a time."

"Abraham Lincoln," I say stiffly, my voice sounding pompous even in my own ears, "is a great man, and I had the tremendous honor of serving him in the White House this time around. But I haven't spoken--"

"Spare me the histrionics," he sneers. "You fish-lovers make me puke. Where is he? Is he in the trunk?"

"I don't," I start, but Jonah is already in motion. He grabs some sort of prybar from the debris and takes it over to the blog, pops open the trunk.

"See?" I say. "Nothing."

"Oh ho ho," he says, reaching far into a back corner and pulling out a piece of paper. "Looky what we have here."

I come over to see what he's found. "So?" I say. "It's a movie poster. Big deal."

"It's a movie poster for Beyond the Sea," Jonah says significantly. "Now do you want to tell me who sent you?"

He holds out the poster. For a moment I think he's handing it to me, but his arm is out at an angle away from me. Then, out of nowhere, thousands of cockroaches swarm up his legs and torso, flood out his arm, grab the poster, and make off with it, clicking and chittering.

Jonah, Baby!

2004-12-11T15:28:00.000-06:00

What are you on, Doug?

Nothin.

You can’t bullshit me, man. I’m Jonah. You’re high.

Am not.

Fine, whatever.

So how come you’re back in the whale, man?

I liked it here. When I retired, this is where I wanted to be.

Whaddya mean? This place sucks. It’s cold and clammy, and there are a bunch of weird worms in here.

That’s because this whale is dead. These worms eat at the flesh. It only exists virtually. It’s really a lot better than other places I’ve been.

Like where?

Houston, for example.

Houston? Texas?

Yeah. Well, after that whole Nineveh thing went down and Yahweh got off my back, I started smoking pot, y’know…

I didn’t know that.

Oh, yeah, I got into the whole playing-guitar-on-the-beach scene. Free love, baby. Peace. Flowers in my hair. Sleeping under fig trees.

You were a hippie?

Well, yeah. But I ended up in rehab and became a Republican. Lived in Houston, worked for Big Oil. It was bad, man. I even let Dick Cheney kiss my virtual lips. One day I woke up, looked in the mirror, and didn’t like what I saw. So I came back to the whale. Fortunately I’d saved it on my very own server.

B-but you lived thousands of years ago or so. There were no hippies in Nineveh, or anywhere else in the Middle East. No Houston, no Republicans.

There were on the web, dude.

But Nineveh wasn’t wired. This is like, way back before electricity.

Everything exists virtually, man. Even Yahweh.

You’re saying this is a Matrix plot? Yahweh pulls the strings?

No, no. That’s a movie, dumbass. This is the real battle. The battle between virtual good and evil and real good and evil. For the ultimate stakes—ontological control, complete say-so over the telos.

“Real” as in what? Pinnochio becomes a real boy?

Well, like you and your hippie friend over there. You’re real.

No we’re not. We’re images. Mere shadows of our former selves. Almost ghosts, really.

Ha. You think? You guys are real enough. Zombies, to be sure. But real.

Zombies? Undead, come back to eat the flesh of the living? Those zombies?

Yeah, kind of. Except you eat living blogs. Ones that get more than 1,000 hits a day. That’s the only reason you’re not trying to eat me. I never got a hit atall until you guys showed up.

That’s why I’m hungry all the time?

Sure. That, and the fact that you’re stuck in the blogosphere with all of your innards. Guts and bones and stuff.

And you’re not?

This body is pure 100% virtual, baby. So’s this joint. Otherwise I’d offer you a toke.

Hey, Bill! C’mere!

What?

This fucker’s got a virtual joint. Says it can’t get us high.

You called me out into this goddam cold whale belly to tell me that? Listen to this email from Paris Hilton…

Take a hit.

No, I don’t do that stuff anymore.

Liar. C’mon. Jonah?

Fine with me, won’t hurt anything. Take a hit.

No, I couldn’t. It’s illegal.

Network Sharing Violation

2004-12-11T07:14:00.000-06:00

Bill's still in the driver's seat, opening bottles and reading emails, smoking and chuckling. I'm over in the passenger seat with the console, blogging. The windows are up tight--Bill was cold, the big baby--and so fogged-up we might as well still be navigating through the blogosphere. He's got an army blanket around his shoulders, and seems to be more comfortable now. I think maybe Mullah Billdoug's regulating the temperature inside the blog.

"Listen to this one," he keeps saying, regaling me with the email messages he's finding. They're all pathetic, if you ask me, but Bill is getting a huge kick out of them. "It's from Donald Trump to George W. Bush. 'My friends ask me what I would do if you appointed me to a cabinet position. I tell them, "Hey, anything for my country. Anything for my President." And listen, please, I'm not fishing for an appointment. The only fishing I do is off my hundred-million-dollar yacht, the Trump Princess.'"

"Interesting," I mumble. I try to block him out, mostly. Sometimes I wonder why Mullah Billdoug wanted him on the team. He's low comic relief, at best.

So I'm done. I go to publish my post, and--nothing. I seem to have lost my internet connection. No huge surprise, in here. I wait and wait. Finally I get an error message: A NETWORK ERROR HAS OCCURRED. Duh. But it gives me a link to click for details, and when I do, the box that pops up explains that the network error was a network sharing violation. Sharing? Who am I sharing with?

"Bill?" I say.

"Listen to this," he says.

"No, wait," I say.

"No, you gotta hear this. Some fundamentalist polygamous Mormon sect has bankrupted a local bank by borrowing $18 million for nonexistent businesses. They believe the end of the world is coming soon, and the world financial market is going to collapse, so why not? The bank manager blames the regulators."

"Bill, listen," I say.

"What?"

"Are you on the internet?"

"No. I'm just reading these bottled messages. Why?"

"I'm getting a network sharing violation."

"I don't even know what that is."

"It means some greedy grabber boy is grabbing my IP address."

"Well it ain't me."

"Yeah? Then how did you get that link to the Independent site for the Mormon story?"

"What link?"

No use talking to a junkie. I snort and go back to my console. A chat box has popped up. A message is waiting for me:

IT WASN'T HIM. IT WAS ME.

Huh?

THIS WHALE WASN'T BUILT FOR MULTIPLE LUSERS.

This whale? Shit. Of course. Another user in the whale! I slam the console back into the glove compartment, open my door, and stumble out into the gastric juices and debris. Bill doesn't even look up, the big dumb hippie.

I slosh around for five minutes before I find him. It's a big belly. He's sitting on a packing crate for Nineveh gourds, legs crossed, typing on a wireless laptop. He's wearing some kind of Old Testament patriarch robe and has a long beard. He looks up as I approach.

"Howdy, neighbor," I say.

"Repent!" he cries.

"Repent?"

He shrugs. "I've always wanted to say that. Hi," he says, sticking out his hand. I shake it. "I'm Jonah. Welcome to the whale."

In the Belly

2004-12-10T16:52:00.000-06:00

In the belly of the whale.

It’s big and pink. There are colorful ads popping up all over its ribcage, visible through the thin flesh of its stomach.

And the gut itself is full of bottles, clanking around amongst the fish and krill and circuitboards.

I mean, full.

Thousands of bottles.

I reach out and drag a few in the car. They’re all corked shut, rubbed smooth. Thrown into the ether at some point, I suppose, hoping to be found.

They’re full of old email messages.

Every last one contains an old email message.

Some are a few years old:

I will marry whoever finds this. Respond to…

Some are very old:

Jonah: This is Yahweh. Get your ass to Nineveh. Now. Preach to them. Or else. I’ve had enough of your shit.

I don’t know what to make of it, but I keep opening them and reading the notes...

If you find this, I am at a computer café in…

The whale is groaning and whistling.

It should be very hot in here, but it isn’t.

It’s ass-freezing cold.

"Turn on the heater, man," I beg. My fingers are turning blue.

Whaling and Gnashing of Teeth

2004-12-10T06:59:00.000-06:00

POW, the blog says, and bocka bocka bocka bocka.

"Shit," Bill says. "We got a fucking flat. I'm gonna pull over."

"That wasn't a fucking flat," I say. "That was a pop-up blocker."

"Those things never work on my computer," Bill says.

"Well," I say, "count your blessings. So far they aren't working on us, either."

The landscape outside our windows is weird. Sort of grayish, almost foggy, but with thick pinkish-charcoal viscosities shot all through it. It looks sort of like South Dakota at dusk in a sandstorm, after Mt. St. Helens erupted a million squid into the air. We navigate through it like an infection.

POW: another pop-up blocker explodes just off our left front fender.

And then they're all over us: antivirus drones, spam grinders, pop-up blockers like the Fourth of July. Bill steers through it all with two fingers on the wheel, smoking, stroking his beard, his eyes lit up like a little kid's. Mullah Billdoug seems to have some tricks up his sleeve too: he keeps jettisoning packing-peanut chaff, fine black sprays of printer ink, synthetic spam, phony urls.

Through the din, then, gradually, we begin to hear a keening, like a fax whine, or a garbage truck in reverse.

"You hear that?" Bill says, cocking his head to one side.

"Slow down," I say. "Whatever it is, it's getting closer. We don't want to plow smack dab into it."

"Whaddya mean, slow down?" Bill smiles over at me, taking a deep pull on his cigarette. "I haven't touched the pedals in hours. If we crash into something, we crash into something."

"But--"

"Being a virus means never having to say you're sorry."

"We're not--"

"Virality cubed," Bill says.

"I hate it when you--" I start. Then:

"What the fuck," Bill breathes, "is that?"

That is, but can't be, yet certainly unmistakably appears to be, a whale. A huge motherfucking whale. Dead ahead of us, swimming lazily toward us. Mullah Billdoug begins running hex code down his passenger-side monitor. Digitized whalesong?

I'm so engrossed in the battalions of figures trooping across the screen that I hardly even notice it getting darker outside our windows.

"Doug," Bill says softly.

I look up to see the whale's maw upon us, opening wide to swallow us up. As we plunge into the darkness, with only the flickering light of the monitor casting a pale greenish pallor over the interior of the blog, I read out Mullah Billdoug's translation of the whale's mournful song:

Release the banana and go free!

User Error

2004-12-09T13:11:00.000-06:00

Shit.

As I’m writing this, these damn pop-ups keep jumping on the screen.

It’s pictures of these two ugly old white dudes I never seen before, and they’re holding a sign that says: GET HELP. CALL TECH SUPPORT.

And then the damn audio, gurgling: We’re trapped in here, bouncing from one site to another. Get help.

And a video clip: They’re dancing, and singing some song about “Please burn us onto a CD so we can go home to our families, la la la…”

That’s the last time I visit a blattodeific website. Once they get your cookies, the fucking pop-ups just don’t stop!

Liver Worst

2004-12-08T16:12:00.000-06:00

Whaddya mean, you hit SEND instead of SAVE?

My finger slipped.

If you'd stop picking your nose, that wouldn't happen. Okay, so. You emailed us where?

Ummm, looks like I sent us to everyone in my address book.

Well, shit. Look who’s opening us now. I didn’t know that Barbara Bush was in your address book.

Sure, I emailed her asking for more information on her son’s unfortunate injuries as a baby. Ooooh, she doesn’t like what she sees. Oh, shit! She’s gonna smash the screen!

Don’t worry. It won’t hurt.

Hey, you’re right. And now, wow—it’s Jesus. You have Jesus’ email address?

Doesn’t everybody? Oh, look, he’s blushing.

Probably thinking of you naked.

More like you.

Hey, you’re sticking your tongue out!

Yeah, so?

You’re a jpeg image. Images can’t stick out their tongues.

Well, I just did.

Look, there’s a whole range of choices here. It's some kind of blogging dashboard with a network of posting sites. We can pop up on any of these screens, and forward our images anywhere we want. There’s even a place to add text and audio.

Cool! Let’s go there. No, wait—there. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir. With an audio file of the Sex Pistols attached.

I’m hungry.

What? How can you be hungry? You’re a pixellated image.

Well, I am. I’d really like a big, juicy cheeseburger. With onions. And a side of fries.

Knock it off. Your body is still back there in that car, where it got scanned.

Whatever. I’m hungry.

Who’s that?

Who? Where?

Over there. It’s another image, right in front of us, superimposing itself… shit. It’s the Virgin Mary.

Her image turns up everywhere. Yup, there she goes…

Maybe that’s what we need.

Whaddya mean?

An image that we can post everywhere. A miracle.

Yes, a miracle—exactly. A blogging miracle.

It’s the only thing that will save this plot.

This plot is beyond saving.

Who’s that?

It’s me. I said, this plot is beyond saving. You’re both going to have to go to rehab again.

No, we won’t do it. This plot is just fine.

Tut, tut. Enough denial. I can have you both involuntarily committed, you know, as enemy literature combatants.

Not while we’re pixellated images, you can’t.

Oh, you think not? Watch.

Screen Shot

2004-12-08T07:13:00.000-06:00

"What the hell?" Doug says.

"Is that--?" Bill says.

As Doug turns the Mullah Billdoug blog around, another pulls up with a screech and blocks their path.

"Isn't that--?" Bill says.

His right arm on the seat back, his head turned back to make the three-point turn, Doug senses rather than sees the second blog pull up on their other side, hemming them in.

When he looks, it too is the spittin' image of the Mullah Billdoug blog. Same blattodeific markings, same sidebars, but--different blogroll bars? Probably powered by a different site feed.

"Imitators," Doug growls. "They want us off the Web. Well, we won't make it easy for them."

"We won't?" Bill says.

"We need to take a screen shot," Doug says. "Send ourselves to a new url."

"But you aren't pixelated," Bill says. "There's no way you can make that jump."

"We'll just have to take that chance," Doug says grimly. "If we stay here, we're dead anyway."

"But--" Bill starts.

"Trust me," Doug cuts in. "Or rather, trust the Mullah. He'll know a way to get us through."

More Mullah Billdoug imitators come screeching up, barricading their escape route four or five vehicles deep on each side. Nobody is getting out of the blogs. They've got something more nefarious in mind than simple virtual violence.

Doug fiddles under the dash for the Print Screen button, hits it hard. The image floods into the clipboard. Doug flips the Photoshop lever, loads the blog into a GIF, and goes to save it--but GIF saving has been disabled!

"Damn," he says. "They're all over us."

"What are they doing?" Bill says with a big grin. Man is he out of it.

They're forcing us to save as a JPEG," Doug says. "We could come through a little--wavy."

"Uh, okay," Bill says.

Doug shrugs. Calm down, he thinks. Bill's right: it is okay. Whatever happens to them as a JPEG beats the hell out of staying here.

"You might want to fasten your seatbelt," Doug says.

"Naw, I'm good," Bill says.

Doug nods, turns the Photoshop lever to JPEG save, and floors the blogas for the ride of their lives.

In the Blink of an I

2004-12-07T11:55:00.000-06:00

Fortunately, the beetles were somewhat slowed down by the snow and ice. Their little shimmering bodies skittered all over the street as they helplessly chased the vehicle.

“What the fuck was that all about?” Bill demanded. “I told you it was a stupid idea. But did you listen? Nooooo, you just—“

“Shut up and keep your eyes on the road, goddamit. Here, take this,” Doug barked commandingly, hearkening back to his training at the Fort Bragg Center for Blogospheric Defense. He handed Bill a small blue pill.

“What’s this?”

“Don’t get excited, you dope fiend. It’s a degaussing agent. You’re turning a light purple. Without this, you’ll soon be nothing but a fine haze.”

“Whaddya mean?” Bill demanded, swallowing the tablet dry.

“You’re a jpeg image. Have been for days now. I should have known.”

“Huh?”

“That gate you went through back there with the neon on it was a scanner. It turned both you and the vehicle into a computer image and transferred your image into this server.”

“Oh, bullshit. That’s sooo been done before. Besides,” Bill insisted, jabbing a pen into his leg, “if I was an image, could I do that? and would it hurt? Ow! See? And I have free will, too. See? I just decided to stop the car, and—“

“No, goddamit! Great, now it’s stalled. Get out.”

“B-but—“

“Get out! And get in over here. I’m driving. You don’t know how to drive a pixelated vehicle.”

“Do so,” Bill mumbled. Then he brightened a bit. “Hey, I have an idea. I’m an image, right?”

“Right. And you’re now pretty much stabilized.”

“So, I could be emailed?”

“Yeah, sure. So?”

“You can’t think of anyone I might, umm, need to visit?”

And Doug smiled, adjusted his beret, and turned the car around.

The Message is the Medium

2004-12-04T08:09:00.000-06:00

Bill stares in horror at the glowing computer screens, each virtually shrieking the same blood-curdling message in his ears:

YOU DIDN'T WIPE YOUR FEET, DID YOU, YOU BAD BOY? YOU'RE TRACKING MUD ALL OVER MY AATCC-COMPLIANT ANTI-STATIC CARPET!

Bill is, well, paralyzed. He can feel the Mother Blog seeping up through his muddy boots, taking possession, cell by cell, of his legs, his groin, his lower belly. He wants to scream--but can't. Slowly but surely he is being pixelated into an electronic image of the Munch painting ...

At that moment Doug bursts into the sanctuary with a baseball bat and begins smashing terminals with Vikingesque abandon. Sparks fly. Bill can feel some sensation in his chest--just his imagination? No, he can feel the pixelation recede. They're going to beat this thing!

But then Doug too begins to lose headway. His motions become jerky, then sluggish. He shimmers and shudders as the pixelation effect kicks in. His resolution plunges precipitously.

But just as the boys think all is lost, one wall of the sanctuary explodes: the Mullah Billdoug blog, roaring with power, bursts through the wall in a shower of plaster dust, sound insulation, and styrofoam packing peanuts! Bill and Doug, momentarily depixelated, dash to the blog and climb in, Bill behind the wheel. He throws it into reverse and floors the blogas pedal--thankfully, the bad blogas has been processed out of the system. This ain't the Mullah Billdoug blog for nothing! The engine roars and the blog lays tracks back out through the gaping wall.

Bill is looking back to negotiate the hole and doesn't see what Doug sees: a swarm of coleopteric system administrators, converging on the fleeing car.

"Go!" Doug yells. Bill, of course, shifts badly, doesn't pull the shift lever all the way from reverse to drive, and when he hits the blogas the engine revs impotently until Doug reaches over and taps it into drive. With a ferocious thud the car lurches into gear and peels out of the church parking lot, thousands of iridescent beetles in hot pursuit.

In the Sanctuary Bleats a Heart

2004-12-03T14:16:00.000-06:00

They pulled into the parking lot of the church. The sign out front said “First Church of the Holy Blog. Services: Blog Adoration, 10:00. Consecration of new Bloggers, 11:00.”

“You sure this is a good idea?” Bill asked, fingering the laptop computer he was holding. “I mean, the last time I went into a church, things didn’t go so good.”

“Go so well, you illiterate doofus. And, yeah, it’s a good idea.” Doug reached in the back seat and pulled out another laptop and opened it up, checking. “Wow! There's a very strong signal here. Now quit being such a baby. You just go inside, send me an email. You know the message.”

“I don’t want to. It’s spooky.”

Doug opened the door on his side, hopped out surprisingly fast for a man of his bulk, and ran around to Bill’s side. He pulled open the door and yanked Bill out by the scruff of his neck. He slapped him several times vigorously, and then shoved him toward the door of the church.

“And don’t come back until you’ve sent the message, either!” he shouted, waving his fist in the air, as he climbed back into the warm car.

“He’ll be sorry,” Bill mumbled, trudging across the icy sidewalk carefully. “If I wasn’t so drunk, I’d-a kicked his ass.” He flipped his cigarette butt into the bushes by the door of the church, and tried the handle. It turned. He opened the door and went inside slowly.

“A-anybody here?” he gurgled. It was quiet and dark. The only light seemed to be coming from the sanctuary across the hall. It was an eerie bluish light. Bill started to turn and go back out the door, but then thought better of it. He crept carefully down the hall, but the damn linoleum on the floor squeaked with each step.

When he got to the swinging doors of the sanctuary, he slowly pushed one open and peeked around the corner.

There were pews, as usual in a church, but in front of each pew was a glowing computer monitor.
He went on in. The place was filled with monitors, all on, all glowing. No screen saver. And up at the altar, where usually there’d be a crucifix or a giant cross or something, there was a huge glowing flat screen. Nothing was displayed on it.

Creeped out, Bill quickly opened the laptop and turned it on. Yes, there was a signal, a very strong one. He opened the mail program, and began writing the message. He couldn’t remember—was it antinominalism or antimonialism? Oh, well. One of those. He hit “SEND” and turned to leave.

But just then every screen in the place came to life. And they all displayed one message… a terrifying message.

A Mighty Fortress

2004-12-02T21:37:00.000-06:00

Bill and I climb back into the car, sliding the skillet up onto the dashboard. It was like an eschatoblogical scavenger hunt, with butter. Or, well, margarine. Bill and I had had a little tiff over that--I kept insisting that Blog had said butter, and sweet, unsalted butter means sweet, unsalted butter, but Bill said I Can't Believe It's Not Butter was so close that he for one couldn't believe it wasn't butter. Reluctantly, I'd given in, finally. I didn't want to risk our friendship over a little thing like that.

Bill's in the passenger seat, with one hand on the skillet, making sure it doesn't topple down with the weight of the breaded turtle-dove chunks; I'm behind the wheel. But when I go to turn the ignition key, something's wrong. The key slot is elongated. It hangs down like an old woman's labia. When I stick the key in, though, it turns, and apparently connects, because the engine turns over, sluggishly.

"What kind of gas did you put in this last time?" I ask Bill. He had insisted on working the pump. Bumped me away with his big ass. He can be such a baby sometimes.

"I dunno," he says. "The usual."

"Wait a second," I say. "That gas station looked strange, didn't it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Bill says. Face it: the guy is useless.

"Come on," I say, "think. This is Mullah Billdoug we're talking about here."

"The station?" he says, glancing over at me dully.

"No, stupid," I hiss, "not the station. The car."

"Huh?"

"The station," I say. "Didn't it look like a--"

"I thought you said he was the car. Now you're saying he's the station."

"Wake up, you druggie," I say. "The station: didn't it look like a church?"

"I didn't notice anything," he says, and the image comes to me: the gas nozzle was shaped like a cross. The pump was shaped like a pulpit. And--

"Let's listen to the radio," Bill says, and switches it on.

Some fundamentalist preacher comes on, imploring us, practically in tears, to give our lives to Blog.

"Blog?" Bill frowns, and punches the scan button. Another fundamentalist preacher rants for two seconds before the radio scans again, bringing up yet another fundamentalist preacher, all preaching on fundamentally the same topic: the mighty power of Blog.

"What the hell?" I say, as the radio scans through half a dozen more religious stations. As the words come out of my mouth, though, the butter in the skillet on the dashboard melts suddenly and starts boiling furiously around the breaded turtle doves, which line up like chorus girls and start singing "A Mighty Fortress Is Our Blog!"

Ablogalypse

2004-12-01T15:27:00.000-06:00

Blog surveyed all that It had created. And behold, it was not good.

Everywhere It looked, apostasy and disbelief and liberal scoffing. Whiners and goldbrickers everywhere sapped the strength of the blogosphere. Carpers and second-guessers everywhere refused to support the nascent blogocracy. Family sitcoms continued to deal openly with sex and masturbation, hour-long dramas showed body parts that just a few years before had been taboo on television, and reality shows (even on Blogly Fox!) competed for the dubious titles of Most Vicious and Most Salacious. Not a single one of Blog's operatives had been able to pull the plug on michaelmoore.com, so that fat hairy monster was still running around free, polluting the blogways with lies and filth.

And so, with a sigh, late Wednesday afternoon, scant weeks after the election, Blog decided to end it all. Pull down the whole charade and start over. Let the hot air out of the blogosphere: pop it like a balloon; let it fly hissing and farting around the room.

And Blog smiled, grimly.

First order of business: disrupt RSS. Cut off the blogfeeds.

Second order of business: shut down BlogExplosion. Make sure nobody goes surfing on the tidal wave of the ablogalypse.

Third order of business: bankrupt the investors on BlogShares. Fly a plane into the World Blog Center, pull the whole blogonomy down in flames.

Blog had not yet determined the ideal nature of the New Blogger, the perfected BetaBlogger 2.01. That could wait. The pressing thing for now was to destroy the old. Things could not continue as they had. Blog's ears bled, teeth ached, corns throbbed. This much discomfort was more than any blog had ever withstood without thoughts of ablogalypse.

Oh yes, fourth order of business: infiltrate the Mullah Billdoug blog. They could be trouble.

Sacrificial Blogging

2004-11-30T14:52:00.000-06:00

The blog demanded a sacrifice before the trip could continue.

“Fine. Fuckin A. Whaddya want?” they asked.

A voice spake from the tiny speakers attached to the computer, saying, “I demand an unblemished bull of two years of age, stippled and dappled in a manner pleasing to me, for a burnt offering and six turtledoves for a fried offering. You shall gather the priests and sprinkle the blood of the bull on the keyboard before placing the bull upon the monitor. The bull shall be consumed wholly without melting or burning the monitor. The turtledoves shall be killed with a Gillette razor blade, cleaned and defeathered, then chopped into pieces that can easily be fried in butter. The pieces shall be dipped in egg batter and then tossed in bread crumbs. Your priests will deliver these pieces, uncooked, along with an unblemished cast iron skillet and two pounds of sweet, unsalted butter to the dashboard, where the items shall be placed and left. At no time will your priests make eye contact with the server. They must not cough or sneeze, nor expose their body parts to the dashboard. That is all.”

What would a blog want with all that? they wondered. But they knew resistance was futile. The blog would have its way. And where the hell were they supposed to find priests way the fuck out here?

And why were there two of them now? Last week there had only been one. This is truly sloppy.

But what was to be done?

So, abandoning the vehicle at the gate, they set off to find the required items.

Trip Planners Suck

2004-11-26T16:13:00.000-06:00

The guy on the phone had said the road was straight. The map said so. No curves, nothing to go around or over. No way to get lost—hell, take a nice nap while you’re driving, he’d said. You won’t miss anything or hit anything. It’s the big empty.

So, sure, he believed it. Wasn’t it the job of maps and professional trip planners to know these things? Get on Hwy. X, take a left and straight on until morning; if you go 60 mph, you’ll be there well before they stop serving breakfast. Yeah, straight after the turn. Right.

But his eyes wouldn’t confirm it, even after five cups of strong black coffee. There was another curve, right there. It was going around a cow. A huge cow, sonofabitch must be as big as a Volkswagen, standing there munching on some greasewood shoots. And then straight again. And then another curve, around a group of drunks huddled by a fire in a trashcan. Must be twenty of them, passing bags around and then roasting their hands over the flames.

Why don’t they put this shit on the maps? He wondered. And why didn’t the folks at the trip planning service mention it?

See? Right there, a huge red cloud. God-DAMN it! Fucking thing came out of nowhere. That happens again, I’m gonna leave the road, and… ummmm. Where is the road? It was here a minute ago.

What am I holding? A piece of uncooked pretzel dough? It won’t turn. It just twists and sticks to my wrists and fingers. I can’t steer with this! Steer on what—? There’s no road.

Stomp the brakes. Gotta stop this trip.

Of course, his foot went right through the floorboard and into the sand. What else could have happened, right?

It created a pivot and the vehicle spun around and around, like a pinwheel and then like a kaleidoscope, shattering in orderly ways until his sneakers disintegrated and the spinning went faster and faster around the axis…

Until the vehicle was spinning at 186,000 miles per second. Or even faster, fuck the physicists. And then he was there.

After his head stopped spinning, and he’d puked several times out of the open window, he saw the neon sign on the wrought iron gate. It sizzled, said “Everyone welcome here. No firearms past this point.” He opened the creaky door of the old truck slightly and croaked, “Who’s there?”

The gates groaned slightly, and opened. The road past them was straight and dark, two moonlit lines going to the edge.

Warning! Contents Flammable.

2004-11-19T15:07:00.000-06:00

The Mullah tossed a wad of paper into the bin.

The shelves rocked slightly as the tremor hit. The Caprine News Quarterly pile slid to the floor first, releasing an explosion of tiny goats, all kinds, Oberhaslis, Nubians, Nigerian Dwarves, LaManchas, Toggenburgs, Tennessee Fainting Goats, you name it. This was followed quickly by the fall of Sheep Fancier Week, which released a pile of sheep of all kinds, but mostly Merinos and Dorsets, the featured sheep of the week. A couple of unfortunate shepherds also plopped out, along with a can of deworming medicine.

The sheep were mixed with the goats, there was pandemonium, and the tiny shepherds were trampled. The fainting goats were as stiff as plastic. The librarians tried in vain to separate the sheep from the goats but realized instantly they were not up to the task. Oh, if only Jesus was still Jesus, able to lift and separate!

But those days were gone, and nobody knew it better than Jesus. Because, lo! Unto him a sister had been given. And anointed.

Ack!

The Mullah took the trash bin outside and dumped it into the back of the truck.

The gentle rocking motion of the Spanstron IV engine had lulled most of the authors to sleep. Two were busy scribbling, though. The scratch of their quills on the grocery sacks echoed the sound of the chickens that were busy pecking around the bottom of the capsule. Captain French poked his head in. “Are there any eggs today?” The chickens replying no, the good captain returned to piloting the vessel as it made its way to a rendezvous with the Bull of Heaven with the garbage.

Father, let me have the Bull of Heaven
To kill Gilgamesh and his city.
For if you do not grant me the Bull of Heaven,
I will pull down the Gates of Hell itself,
Crush the doorposts and flatten the door,
And I will let the dead leave
And let the dead roam the earth
And they shall eat the living.
The dead will overwhelm all the living!

Wait, wait, scratch that, Bill thought. The Mullah has lost his memory. That must be it.

The Mullah looked in the mirror, trying vainly to recall the face. It just didn’t work. That was not the Mullah in the mirror. It was the Mullah in the mirror, that is, but it wasn’t. It was like looking at a face on a carton of milk: Have you seen this Sufi? The Mullah stuck a finger to the mirror and rubbed his glass jaw reflection. Stubble. But he hadn’t shaved. He still had a beard. The mirror turned light, and then dark, and then light. A clock ticked loudly behind the wall.

The Mullah poked at his nose in the glass. His finger went through, and something grabbed it, bit it. The Mullah yelped and jumped back. Yes, there was blood. And a hole in the mirror. He quickly rubbed reflected shine over the hole as he saw a finger reaching through. The glass cleared and a face emerged.

The face in the mirror was that of the dying Robert Kennedy lying on the floor.

“Agh!” the Mullah choked. Furiously, he began beating on the glass to smash it. It only reverberated as a gong, and with each BONG appeared another face, and another, and another, until finally he dropped his hands and sighed. He looked once more.

The face there now was that of a very old woman with a third eye, right in the middle of her forehead. It was very bloodshot. The word "KCUF" was written on her forehead in red lipstick.

“Dammit, no!” Bill screamed, pushing his fist through the glowing screen. It wasn’t the Mullah’s memory at all. It was something in the water, or the air, some insidious chemical, no doubt.

His hand had been gashed by the shards of the video screen. Bill licked the blood. The taste was of sulfur, mixed with something like insecticide and melted aspirin.

How had it come to this? Had we all been poisoned? He realized that, although he knew he’d lived them, the last several weeks were a blur, as if, as if… as if he’d never really lived them at all. As if some vile dust had entered his lungs and gotten into his blood and wafted behind his eyes and into his limbic system. There was no feeling. None. The last, what? Four weeks? Five? were as numbed as a paste of cocaine on the tongue.

He’d have them back, by the Tits of Meshe! If it took storming the gates of the House of Time itself, he’d have them back. He wanted his weeks.

He picked up the telephone.

Anthologist from Outer Space

2004-11-19T06:49:00.000-06:00

"Come on," Bill says, "you're imagining things."

"Am I?" I say, sliding into my foil pajamas. "I don't think so."

Bill's not getting ready for bed. He's sitting in the chair, tipped against the wall, strumming a badly tuned guitar and smoking.

"I tell you," I say, "one of them's an impostor."

"Mullah Billdoug loves masquerades," Bill says. "He's a fool for mummery of every kind. Could be both of them are impostors. But they're still Mullah Billdoug."

"Then why doesn't he remember our days in the Lincoln White House?" I say, climbing into bed and plumping up my pillow.

"Maybe he does," Bill says simply.

"Something's not right," I say, and close my eyes to sleep.

But as soon as I do, I realize something: it's not just that the guitar's out of tune. Bill's playing it strangely. I keep my eyes closed, listen carefully, and finally it hits me: he's playing John Prine's "Sam Stone"--backwards. And somehow it's the squeak of his fingers on the strings, not his voice, that sings "Paul is dead," which is very odd, because Paul's the only one who isn't dead.

So then I open my eyes, put on my glasses, and notice something else: he's smoking through the lit filter end of his cigarette.

And then I think: omigod, he's the anthologist from outer space ...

The Mullah Returns from Vacation

2004-11-18T15:15:00.000-06:00

Mullah Billdoug stood there, arms crossed. He was tanned and looking relaxed at first in his new flowery shirt and straw hat, but then he’d looked at the blog and hit the roof. “Well?” he demanded.

Doug spoke first. “Ummm, we’re sorry?”

“You’re sorry? That’s all you have to say? I leave the blog alone for a coupla weeks to go on vacation, ask you two to take care of it, and I come back to this, and all you can say is ‘sorry’?”

“Bill, is there anything you’d like to say?” The Mullah looked very stern.

“We’re, ah, really, really sorry? Like, for real?”

“Doug?”

“Bill made me do it! It was his idea!”

“Did not! You’re such a liar. It was all his idea, Mullah. Just ask the janitor!”

“I left you some very specific directions, didn’t I? No human dildos, one. Two, no Jesus suits. And you had definite instructions to leave the election alone, especially Moon and Yahweh. What do I come back to? Now I’m getting calls from the FEC and DEC, and I have the Christian Coalition camped out on my porch? Satanists tossing bricks through my window? Cockroaches refusing to eat my garbage?”

“We just got carried away, Mullah. The plot just kind of took over, almost like a drug or something. We couldn’t help it.”

“Enough! Both of you! Go to your rooms. Now!”

“Awwww! That’s not fair.”

“Go!”

And off they slunk, punching each other on the arms. "You were s'posed to delete the posts, dickhead."

“And stop hitting!” he yelled again.

“Damn punks… you try to raise ‘em right, and this is what you get,” the Mullah muttered. “Maybe I should never have taught them to read and write…” And then it hit him. He hadn’t taught them! So how had they learned?

Jesus Comes To

2004-11-17T20:39:00.000-06:00

Jesus lay on a pile of burlap sacks, trying to remember what had happened. Last he remembered was two guys breaking the plate window of the spa and yanking him off the massage table, stuffing him into a sack, and hauling him off.

Where was he? In a small room, with a fat angel sitting in an easy chair with a sword, smoking a cigar and watching a small television. Jesus kept mum.

The television show was about all about his Dad. But it couldn’t be real. …

Yahweh proudly introduced his new family today during a simultaneous broadcast beamed worldwide. Poolside with him was his new wife, Donna Sue Baxter-Yahweh, and his new mother-in-law, Yolanda Jo Odell. Mrs. Baxter-Yahweh, a former Miss Florida contestant, is a thrice-divorced mother of eight who claims to be 32 years old. She and Yahweh, although only married a week, are expecting a baby, due around December 25 of this year.

The happy groom and father-to-be, as you can see, is beaming.

“…Oh, yes, yes, ha ha ha, we’re hoping for a girl. We’ll name her Rhonda Jean after Donna Sue’s grandmother. Oh, sure, it was all-natural, indeed. We did the nasty. Yep. Back about eight months ago, in fact. We’d still be doing it now, but it’s kind of hard, what with this big belly, here, ha ha. But I figured I’d better make an honest girl of her, you know, since I am God and everything, ho ho. Makeover? Ha, ha, heavens, no. Yes, I did get a tan. Yep, lost a few pounds, too. Why, thank you. The recount? I’d rather not talk about that right now. I hear it’s going well. The New Muscular Christianity? Feh. I have no comment on that silliness. As far as I’m concerned, Jesus is dead. I have no son named Jesus. And the REAL muscular religion is right here, buddy, ha ha...”

Jesus just lay there, blinking back tears. Could it be true? Could his Dad have been behind his kidnapping? Maybe he got tired of pretending I wasn't there. B-but, why? Why, Dad? And where could Mary be? And the Holy Ghost? And Bongo, my pet monkey? The tears were really enough to break your heart, watching him as he looked at the television.

The New Muscular Christianity

2004-11-17T20:35:00.000-06:00

Hermes dashed off into the countryside, sailing over small towns and villages until he found a quiet spot in rural Ohio. He had to be alone to think. He stopped in a little glade near a brook, where he spotted a dryad sitting in her willow tree.

“What’s happening, little sister?” Hermes asked. “All good?”

“Fuck no, man. I’m utterly bummed.”

“What’s wrong, babe? Post-election blues? Nematode infestation? Toxic sewage in the brook?”

“Nah, that’s all S.O.P. It’s the Republican picnickers.”

“Republican picnickers? Ye shits, honey. Where?”

“They’re not here right now. But they come here every Sunday. They bring lots of likker and dope. They get high. And they have sex with giant squids. Right there, in the daisies. Then they have a big bonfire over there, and throw in babies. Then they jump in the river and whip themselves raw with briers.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard about that. It’s their new secret ritual. Those aren't Republican picnickers. It’s the New Muscular Christianity you probably heard about. All the rage, but hush-hush. Sorry to hear they’ve invaded your glade.”

“Look at all the trees they’ve cut down. They only spared me because I’m a useful place to tie the goats up.”

“Goats too, huh? This must be where the inner circle comes, then. Only they get to use the goats.”

“Well, I just wish they’d stop. I’m sick of it. I’m a nice moral dryad—Florence is my name, by the way, and I see by the slippers you’re Hermes—and I don’t like it. It offends me. I came here to America to get away from Bacchanals.”

“I understand. Yeah. Wish there was something I could do, but…we’re not in power right now…” Hermes spread out his hands in defeat.

“Well, you see Zeus, or Pan, or Demeter, or Persephone, you tell ‘em that I think it stinks and something should be done.”

“I’ll do that, darling, I really will.”

Hermes flew to the top of a rock and pondered. Why would they be meeting here, in rural Ohio?

It was then he remembered the recount. The most contentious part of that was happening here. That must be it.

Rep. Ed Schrock

2004-11-17T08:44:00.000-06:00

"Okay, you two," Sun Myung Moon says to Hermes and Satan, "what's this about Ed Schrock turning gay? I smell the two of you all over this one."

Hermes and Satan try to look innocent.

"What?" Hermes says. "I thought he always was gay. Nobody can turn you gay."

"Not even a god?" Moon says.

"Well," Hermes says mock-modestly, "I guess it might be possible ..."

"Exactly," Moon says. "But why on earth would you go after Schrock? He's one of our most valued conservative Congressmen! He's got a 92% vote rating from the Christian Coalition, for god's sakes! He cosponsored the amendment banning gay marriage! How could you possible pick him to push?"

"Well duh," Satan says, stifling a smile.

"Come on, Sun," Hermes says. "He's a big hypocrite. Where's the fun in letting him go after gays when he's dreaming of a big juicy buttfuck himself?"

"Fun," Moon snorts. "Look, you're working for me now. Got that? Conservatism is all about hypocrisy. You go after the people who are too freely acting out what you're afraid to act out yourself. That's the way it works. That's how the moral majority stays moral: by policing other people's behavior and hiding their own. We have to be supporting this behavior, not exposing it--and certainly not for 'fun'! That's about the least conservative value there is!"

"Sorry," Satan mumbles.

"You're sorry?" Hermes squeals, looking from Satan to Sun and back to Satan. "Jeez louise, I can't believe you two. You're really serious about this shit? Supporting hypocrisy, not having fun? Fuck that. I'm outta here."

He spins on his heel and exits. Satan calls out "Hermes, wait--!"

"Let him go," Sun Myung Moon says. "We're better off without him. And we've got work to do. What about this Ken Mehlmann story? What are we doing about that?"

"I dunno," Satan says. "Whaddya want me to do, make him straight? Kill anybody who writes about him being gay? What? You tell me, I'll do it."

"Lemme think," Sun Myung Moon says.

Creep Out

2004-11-15T07:35:00.000-06:00

Bob Jones stands by the coffee pot, drinking cup after cup--to calm his jittery nerves, or to pretend that he doesn't need to calm his jittery nerves, that he isn't weirded out of his tiny mind by the gods here in the studio with him, working on his speech to President Bush. Hermes is writing the text and giggling madly. Sun Myung Moon is fiddling with Satan's Yahweh suit, adjusting the wig and the beard, twiddling the voice-box dial till it sounds exactly like Jesus. The scarab beetles swarm over everything, not just Sun Myung Moon and his wife with the unpronounceable hacky-whacky jaw-breaker name. The engineers ignore them, or flick them off a switch they have to flip.

"How about this?" Hermes says, holding up the paper with a wicked gleam in his eye. "'In your re-election, God has graciously granted America--though she doesn't deserve it--a reprieve from the agenda of paganism.' You gotta love that one, huh? Like he doesn't really know what paganism means, thinks it's the same thing as atheism--and it's written by the greatest pagan god of all!"

"Yes, yes," Sun Myung Moon says irritably, "we know you're clever. Get on with it."

"Okay," Hermes says. "It goes on: 'You have been given a mandate. We the people expect your voice to be like the clear and certain sound of a trumpet. Because you seek the Lord daily, we who know the Lord will follow that kind of voice eagerly.'"

"What the fuck?" Satan says. "The Lord will follow some mere mortal's voice?"

"Pay attention, Satan," Sun Myung Moon says. "Not the Lord will follow the voice. We who know the Lord will follow the voice."

"Oh," Satan says. "So is that when I come in?"

"I still think it's better for him to be next to the Bobster from the beginning," Hermes says. "Walking in right in the middle of the speech makes it look like Jesus just happened to be passing by."

"But why would Jesus just sit there quiet next to Joe Blow listening to him talk?" Sun Myung says.

"Bob Jones," Satan says.

"Sitting there beneficently," Hermes says. "Or what's the word, beatifically. And at the end, he says 'Hi, my name is Jesus Christ, and I approve this message.'"

"I don't like it," Sun Myung says.

"So what does the Bobster say?" Hermes says, looking up at the college president comically.

Bob Jones spills his coffee all down his shirt. "Fuck!" he yells. An intern dabs at the shirt. Bob Jones holds the fabric away from his skin, starts unbuttoning buttons. Clearly, he's going to have to change. This is TV.

But Hermes can't stop. He's fascinated by the dumb ordinariness of the name Bob Jones. "Bob Jones. Bob Jones. Bob. George. Dick. Why do all these people sound like characters in a children's book? Do you have a dog named Spot, Bob? Do you have a pair of square pants?"

"Enough," Sun Myung Moon says testily. "Was that the end of the speech?"

"Uh, no," Hermes says. "Here's the end: 'Don't equivocate. Put your agenda on the front burner and let it boil. You owe the liberals nothing. They despise you because they despise your Christ. Honor the Lord, and He will honor you ... If you have weaklings around you who do not share your biblical values, shed yourself of them.'"

"Yeah," Sun Myung Moon says, "that'll do."

"I like the sneer at weaklings," Satan says. "That's in line with the new Jesus we're creating. The fascist leader, not the faggot liberal."

"You don't think the cooking image makes Bobolink sound womanish?" Hermes says. "I mean, what does a real man like Bob Jones know about cooking, right?"

"No," Sun Myung Moon says, "Bob Jones isn't doing the cooking. It's like something a guy might say to his wife when he comes in from hunting, or fixing the car, or beating the kids. 'Move that pot up to the front burner, I'm fucking hungry.'"

"Okay," Hermes says, "so then George Bush is the wife?"

"Whatever," Sun Myung Moon says.

Somewhere the intern has found Bob Jones a new shirt. He's tying his own tie, like a real man. His eyes scan the room: the scarab beetles clicking and clacking over everything, Satan practicing sincere facial expressions in a mirror, Hermes putting the moves on some thirtyish associate producer ... and his heart sinks. What has he gotten himself into? But no, he tells himself: buck up. This is for God. This is for moral values. This is for America.

And that last is the magic word. It puts new iron in his backbone, new bounce in his stride. He takes his place with confidence.

And then, what the hell--he gets an erection. It's under the table where no one can see it, but still--how can he concentrate on what he has to say with Little Bobby throbbing? He glances around furtively. Nobody's looking at him, except Satan, and his gaze is, well--beneficent. Even beatific. He's got the look down, now; has put the mirror away. But why does that look creep him, Bob Jones III of Bob Jones University, out?

Ground Rules

2004-11-14T09:04:00.000-06:00

Oh, shit, Hermes thinks, as he exits the White House and sees the scarab beetles all over the lawn.

Sure enough, just around the corner stand Sun Myung and Hak Ja Han Moon, covered head to foot in the disgusting insects and smiling beatifically.

"So good to see you again, Hermes," Sun Myung says. His freak-o wife never says anything.

"What's up, Sun," Hermes says.

"I'll take the stuff you stole," Sun Myung says.

"What stuff?" Hermes says, all innocence.

"This stuff," Sun Myung says, and starts relieving Hermes of his loot: silverware, champagne glasses, miniature soaps embossed with the Great Seal of the U.S., paperclips, a stapler, and a small Cezanne still life with apples, pears, and quince. Sun Myung slides it all into his shoulder bag. "I'll take the gun and the keys that you lifted off the Marine, too," he says.

Hermes gives an insouciant grin and hands the contraband over. Apparently Sun Myung doesn't know about the missing decoder ring!

"Listen," Sun Myung says. "If we're going to work together, we need to establish some ground rules."

"I gotta tell you," Hermes says, "I ain't real big on ground rules."

"I realize that," Sun Myung says. "That's why I'm telling you the way it's going to be."

Over my dead body, Hermes thinks.

"That too can be arranged," Sun Myung smiles. "Okay, rule number one. No more petty theft."

"What!"

"You heard me," Sun Myung says. "Absolute minimum value of stolen goods is one million dollars U.S. Preference will be given to virtual heists."

"What's a virtual heist?" Hermes says.

"Stealing abstractions," Sun Myung says. "Stealing numbers out of Panamanian bank accounts. Laundering drug money. Overbilling on government contracts--see Dick Cheney for that."

"No picking pockets?" Hermes says.

"That's right," Sun Myung says.

"Where's the fun in that?" Hermes says.

"Never mind the fun. This is the big time now. We don't have fun; we get rich."

Hermes is very careful not to think the obvious, here: what the fuck am I doing with these people?

"Rule number two," Sun Myung says: "no sex with the wives or daughters of elected officials or their advisors."

"How about the officials and advisors themselves?"

"What about them?"

"Can I have sex with them?"

"No! Sex only with the non-governmentally-affiliated!"

"How about virtual sex?" Hermes asks.

"That's always encouraged," Sun Myung beams. "But only with the citizens and the environment," he adds, "and only from behind, so they don't know who fucked em when you're done."

Fish Guts

2004-11-14T08:53:00.000-06:00

"You're an attractive woman, Laura," Hermes says. "Can we find a quiet room somewhere?"

Laura blushes furiously, glancing down at George, who is fighting fish-shaped space invaders.

"Come on, you little motherfucker," he's yelling at the screen, "hold still for two seconds while I blast you into fish guts!"

Hermes looks at Laura comically, crossing his eyes and touching his index finger to his dimple. She makes a stern face, gives a librarian's shake of the head.

"Come on," Hermes says, "can't we find a quiet place where we can--talk?"

Laura takes one more look at George, then makes up her mind. She isn't going to sleep with this god, that's for sure--even though she's heard from the twins that he's a genius in bed. But it can't hurt to hear what he has to say. Maybe he'll be able to resurrect Karl?

Here to See the Boss

2004-11-14T08:33:00.000-06:00

"Hi, guys," Hermes says brightly to the Marines at the White House security check point. "Wanna frisk me?"

"Empty your pockets, please, sir," one of the Marines says, and Hermes obeys. But of course while he is emptying his own pockets he is also emptying the Marine's into his own, so that the Marine starts noticing the bin filling with his stuff: "Hey, those are my keys!" and "I've got a gun just like--hey!"

The Marine is about to sound the alarm when Hermes produces a badge very like the Marine's own.

"Just messing with you, son," Hermes says. "I'm from the Secure Hermetic Interdepartmental Task Force on Unclassified and Classified Knowledge, here to see the boss on matters of national security."

"Oh," the Marine says, abashed, "sorry, sir. Please, pass right through. But, uh--Vice President Cheney isn't in town today, sir."

"No, no," Hermes smiles, winks, and leans in conspiratorially. "I'm here to see the president."

"I see, sir," the Marine says. "But I thought you said--"

"Nice talking to you, sergeant," Hermes says, and steps through the metal-detector. It goes berserk, of course. Alarms sound, lights flash: Hermes still has the Marine's pistol, keys, and decoder ring. The Marine hastily turns off the alarms. Hermes walks off jauntily down the hall.

A Promise

2004-11-12T06:46:00.000-06:00

"Thanks, man," Satan says, as they ride away in the borrowed Jeep. "I was beginning to think nobody with enough authority was going to intervene with those numbskulls."

"No problem," Osama says. "It is hard to get good help these days. And Arafat has been out of touch for a long time."

"So who finally brought you in?"

"The Bu'ushites."

"Not George W., surely?" Satan says.

"No," Osama laughs, "they couldn't tear him away from his video game. Now that Rove's dead, the financier Bush cousins have had to play a somewhat more active role in policy-making. They prefer the shadows, as do I."

"Rove was a smart boy, all right," Satan says proudly. "You gotta love the balls on a mere human who'll come up with big grandiose plans like 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq."

"Yeah," Osama sighs. "On 9/11 I gave the Bu'ushites the mandate they needed to go to war and curtail civil liberties; by invading Iraq George gave me the recruiting tool I needed. And your boy put it all together. I didn't believe him, in fact, you know that?"

"About what?"

"That the Twin Towers would collapse if we hit them with a jet airplane. I scoffed. But he'd done the engineering calculations. He had it all worked out."

"He constantly amazed me too. My own boy!"

"I've been wondering," Osama says.

"Yeah?" Satan says.

"Wouldn't that suit have some sort of resurrection powers?"

Satan nods. "You're thinking of bringing Karl back, right?"

"Well," Osama says, "I really miss him."

"Don't think I haven't given it some thought," Satan says. "The problem is that when the fuckwits chopped him down on the Million Mantid March, they burned the plant and scattered the ashes. I don't know how I'd resurrect any of that. I really need Karl here to help me figure it out!"

"Yeah, I'm feeling a bit adrift these days too. Just last year Karl got me to demand the removal of US troops from Saudi Arabia, and then removed them, giving me a tremendous boost all across the Middle East--and then figured out a way to spin it in the US so the Chimp Clone didn't lose points with the militarists who think I'm you!"

"Sheer genius," Satan agrees.

"But that was then," Osama says rather plaintively. "Now, what? A measly little war of attrition against the infidel occupiers of Iraq? Small potatoes. I need Karl. Promise me you'll figure out a way to bring him back."

"You got it, big guy," Satan says.

Why Have I Forsaken You?

2004-11-12T06:27:00.000-06:00

Yahweh was inconsolable. He sat out on the compost heap and wailed, and tore his clothes, and threw ashes in his hair. Fat tears coursed copiously down his grimy cheeks.

"My Son, My Son," he cried, "why have I forsaken You?"

"Dad," Jesus said, "You didn't forsake Me; somebody just kidnapped Me. I mean--"

"Why did I refuse to turn My countenance upon You?" Yahweh keened.

"Dad," Jesus said, "I can see Your countenance just fine."

"First I had You crucified, now I've let You get kidnapped! I'm a terrible, terrible Father!"

"Dad," Jesus said, looking around to see if the neighbors were watching, "would you cut this out? Somebody's gonna see you."

"My Kingdom, half My Kingdom, to the deity who gets me back My Son!"

"Dad," Jesus said, "please, I'm right here! Don't start giving away Your Kingdom to impostors returning the impostor that got kidnapped!"

"A third of My Kingdom to the one who lets me look once more on the creamy, blemish-free face of My only begotten Son!"

Jesus rolled His eyes, threw up His soft hands. Fuck the stubborn old Fart!

He went inside. The Holy Ghost was Hoovering the sofa. He flicked off the machine, tipped His head down at Jesus. "Did He budge?"

"No," Jesus said.

"Told ya," the Holy Ghost said.

"Shit," Jesus said, and went to His room.

Shocking News

2004-11-11T13:59:00.000-06:00

JESUS SNATCHED IN BROAD DAYLIGHT; MARY IN HOSPITAL WITH LIVER FAILURE

(Heaven and New York City, APP) According to police, Jesus was kidnapped in broad daylight while walking out of the Fox News studios here earlier today, where he had been taping an interview with Greta van Susteren. Early reports indicate that three men “of Middle-Eastern origin” threw a burlap sack over the head of the Savior, and threw him into a black Mercedes, which then sped off.

“We have not had contact with the kidnappers, nor has Yahweh heard from them yet,” Sergeant Hank Wilfurtz said. “We have no leads as to where they may have taken him. It almost certainly must be the work of some very powerful people, though. I mean, to snatch an all-powerful deity in broad daylight?”

As the investigation continues, news from our reporter in Heaven, Samuel Clemens, indicates that the Mother of Jesus, Mary, is in the hospital in a deep coma, reportedly suffering from liver failure. Yahweh is reported to be at her bedside. While Yahweh declined to speak to reporters, his spokesperson granted a brief interview to Mr. Clemens just minutes ago.

Adam ben Ezra: “Now this isn’t for addition to the Holy Scriptures or anything, you understand,” he began, “because we can’t verify that Mary is actually ill. There is no sickness or tears in Heaven, after all, and Yahweh just built the hospital here because the Christian Scientists insisted on it.”

Clemens: “Sounds like a coverup to me, ben Ezra. We all know Mary has been into the sauce for the last few years. Even a Holy Liver has to give out sooner or later.”

Adam ben Ezra: “I can’t confirm or deny that.”

Clemens: “Have you heard that Jesus was kidnapped? Any ideas on that?”

Adam ben Ezra: “Yahweh is being kept abreast of that situation, yes. And he asks that all of his supporters keep Jesus and Mary in their prayers until this tragedy is over.”

Clemens: “That’s kind of a switch, isn’t it? I mean, usually people appeal to Jesus and Mary in their prayers.”

Adam ben Ezra: “So now you’re saying that you can’t return the favor, when they’re in need?”

Clemens: “But whose name would they pray in?”

Adam ben Ezra: “Just leave that part blank, and we’ll fill it in later at processing. OK? I have to go now.”

Denial Ain't a River in Heaven

2004-11-11T13:18:00.000-06:00

You know that they meant to get you, Jesus.

Don’t be silly. Who’d want to kidnap me?

Your dad’s behind it. Face the facts. He wants you out.

Does not. My dad loves me. He just has a hard time showing it. All those years in the desert, arguing with Moses. He’s had a rough time.

Look, Jesus, denying it isn’t going to help. Your dad kills people who get in his way. You know it’s true.

Okay, Ghost, fine. Suppose dad does have some anger management issues? Why does that mean he’d want to kidnap me?

He’s planning another kid. A whole new family. I read it in his diary.

You’re lying.

I’m the Holy Ghost. I don’t lie.

Yeah, sure, whatever. How about that time you said my pet rabbit got lost, and then I found you burying it in the back yard?

That was different.

Well, I don’t believe it. I’m going to go to my masseur’s appointment like I always do.

I’m coming along. I’m telling you, when they find out that they got the wrong Jesus, you’re meat.

Fine, come along. Maybe a nice massage with some cucumber cream will calm you down.

Mistake?

2004-11-11T13:11:00.000-06:00

I’m NOT Jesus, you stupid assholes! I’m Satan. Look, just let me get this fucking suit off and I’ll show you!

Hit him with the denialozine again, Ahmed.

You sure this stuff works? He’s still putting up a fight.

All the deities and spirits have a tolerance to it. Don’t worry. Just up the dose.

No! Don’t shoot any more of that stuff into m—

He’s out.

Man, he took a lot.

Arafat told us it would take a lot. He says all the deities have a weird reaction to it. Instead of increasing their levels of denial, it makes them fall asleep and dream of things they don’t have to deny because they’re infallible.

You think this guy’s really Jesus? He kept claiming he’s Satan. He’s still muttering something. I can’t make it out. Sounds like “hell to pay.”

Look at him. Of course it’s Jesus.

I don’t know. He looks, well, bigger somehow. More manly.

Don’t worry about it, Ahmed. When we get to our insurgent hideout, Arafat will sort it all out. He has the Holy Prepuce.

A-ha. That’s why he had to die. The only way to get it.

Right. How much longer till we get there, al-Nasiya?

Ten minutes.

Greta Van Susteren Interviews the Real Jesus

2004-11-11T05:21:00.000-06:00

"Welcome to On the Record With Greta Van Susteren. I'm your host Greta Van Susteren, and I've got a special treat for all our loyal Fox News home viewers. There has been some controversy over the true identity of a man calling himself Jesus Christ who has been appearing on the communist propaganda radio station Air America. Here to set the record straight, a total surprise to my staff and myself, is a man I've loved and admired since my youth, the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Welcome to the program, My Lord."

"Thank you, Greta. You can just call Me Jesus."

"Well, Jesus, why don't You tell us, once and for all: are You a liberal?"

Jesus laughs. "Of course not, Greta. And the poor lost soul who's been posing as a liberal Me will find out when he comes to his eternal 'reward' just how costly an imposture it's been for him."

"So when liberal Christians--if that isn't an oxymoron, ha ha!--start quoting all that blather about 'turn the other cheek' and 'forgive your brother seventy times seven times' and so on, what do You want to say to them?"

"I want to say grow up. Life isn't fair. Get off your duff and put your nose to the grindstone, and stop whining about forgiveness. Penitence is just a way of making excuses, and I hate excuses."

"So when liberals say You're all about brotherly love, they're basically misquoting You, out of a woeful ignorance of the Bible?"

"Well, brotherly love can be a beautiful thing, Greta, if it's based on earned respect and an intolerance for weakness. But if by brotherly love you mean whining and puling about mercy rather than justice, well--you're right, that sort of liberal spinelessness was never what I was about."

"You aren't going to be soft and kind and loving and merciful on the Judgment Day, is what You're telling me, right?"

"That's absolutely right. As I said during my earthly mission, I'm here to bring not peace but a sword."

"So You would categorically deny any liberal propaganda calling you a pacifist?"

"Ha ha! Pacifist! That's a good one. I say go after God's enemies with all the firepower you've got. The only true pacifism in My book is, you pacify the natives with the big guns, and then move on to the next trouble spot and pacify them too."

"So what would Your solution to the conflict in Iraq be?"

"Kill em all, let God sort em out."

"And the next trouble spot would be, what--Iran?"

"Yes indeed. I've been talking to President Bush about this very issue, in fact. I think his task during his second term will be to kill all the Muslim insurgents and convert the Middle East and northern Africa to Christianity."

"Convert them? That could take forever!"

"Not if he does it with the threat of nuclear annihilation."

"No, that's quite true. Now if I could change the subject, here--"

"Certainly."

"Could we talk about social issues for a while?"

"You mean sexuality? Rampant sexual immorality? Teen pregnancy, abortion, homosexuality, and other cardinal sins?"

Greta nods, encourages Jesus to start there, and Jesus does, but as He speaks, something very strange begins to happen. Greta begins to feel very warm ... down there. The warmth spreads slowly and deliciously up from her ... private female parts into her lower belly, and then up to her breasts and chest. The heat seems to be coming from--Jesus Himself, if that's possible. As He talks, His right forefinger is out, pointed at her, moving up her body. Could it be--? She has loved this man all her life, but not like this ...

"So that's why," Jesus is saying, "I think it's imperative that we reestablish the death-by-stoning penalty for morality crimes like adultery, prostitution, and sodomy ..."

But Greta can't do it any more. She can't concentrate. She sees Jesus' eyes on her--worried? No, more like--gleaming ...

"Sorry to interrupt, Jesus," she manages to gasp, "but we're going to have to come to gomercial, I mean go to commercial ..."

A voice in her ear tells her she's off, and then, ten seconds later, she does indeed get off. Almost had this orgasm on national television. What would that have done to her career? She's never been a screamer, has always insisted that sex be conducted in absolute silence. She and her husband John have had long practice in suppressing all outward signs of orgasm, and that practice comes in handy now.

But it isn't over. It isn't like any ordinary orgasm. The thing keeps building. Pretty soon she's tearing at her clothes. The heat is in her head, now. It's like her head is exploding with a million mystical cockroaches.

And then, as her eyeballs burst like sun-ripened grapes and every hair on her head shrieks to attention, Greta lets out an unearthly howl and topples over unconscious.

"My God," her producer cries, rushing into the studio. "Somebody call a doctor!"

"No need," Jesus says with a beatific smile. He spits into His left palm, stirs the sputum with His right forefinger, and rubs the mixture into Greta's eyes. They are of course instantly restored to normalcy. Well, near enough. It will be some time before anyone notices that Greta's left eye is now green, her right, yellow.

Jesus then lays His hands on Greta's chest, belly, and upper thighs, and knees, then sinks back into His own chair. Her eyes flicker, then open. She sits up. She feels fine. Her hair is perfectly coiffed.

"What just happened?" she asks Jesus.

"You had some kind of seizure," Jesus says.

"And You healed me," she says raptly.

"Well," Jesus says modestly, "it's all in a day's work."

"Greta," her producer says, "you look--different."

"What do you mean, different," Greta says. "Good different, or bad different?"

"I don't know," the producer says. "Just--different. Are your eyes okay?"

"My eyes are fine, why?" Greta says.

"I, uh," the producer says, but runs out of ideas. "You sure you're okay to go back on?"

"Of course, of course," Greta says in her signature sardonic curled-lip rasp. "What do you take me for, a liberal?"

"Okay," the producer shrugs, stepping out of shot, "ten seconds."

And as they smile for the cameras, Jesus thinks: God damn but this suit works cherry.

Jesus Defends Own Liberalism

2004-11-10T10:11:00.000-06:00

"My guest again today is Jesus Christ, whom many consider to be the Savior of the whole world. Welcome back to the show, Jesus."

"Thanks, Al. Glad to be back. Air America is the only media outlet that will have me any more these days."

"So I've noticed. There seems to be a regular jihad going on against You out there."

"There certainly does, Al. And the ironic thing is, it's being waged by people in My Name."

"So let's get one thing straight."

"Yes?"

"Tim LaHaye's now saying that You must be an impostor, because Jesus isn't a liberal, he's a compassionate conservative in favor of genocide, assault rifles, and a right-wing police state. Which is it: are you a liberal or a right-wing nutjob?"

"Well, Al, as I've told you and your listeners before, I'm a liberal. Always have been. That was the whole idea behind Christianity, in fact--to liberalize a dangerously primitive hate-filled ancient religion. My Dad, well--bless His heart, but He never had much patience for diversity. People got their own ideas, He just wanted to pinch their little heads and start over. Job finally suggested to Him that He make Me, a liberal, to tone things down a little."

"Oh, Job told Him that, did he?"

"Sure. 'I know my Redeemer liveth.' That was Me."

"Okay, but, uh, that was a pretty big turnaround, wasn't it? From the Jewish Bible's genocidal intolerance for difference to 'love your neighbor as yourself'?"

"Sure, in a way. But the germs of liberalism were always there. Jonah's a liberal book. The whole message of the Book of Jonah is DON'T annihilate Iraq--talk to them. These fundamentalist crusaders today keep conveniently forgetting about that."

"Really? There's a book in the Old Testament that says don't annihilate Iraq?"

"The Book of Jonah. Check it out. Nineveh, the city Jonah wants Dad to destroy, was in what today is Iraq."

"So but the rest of the Old Testament must be the basis of this so-called 'compassionate' war-mongering, right?"

"For the most part, sure. But there are plenty of liberal glimmers in it. Proverbs 11:25 says 'The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself.' Proverbs 19:6 says "many will entreat the favor of a liberal man.' Isaiah 32:5 says 'The vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful.' Isaiah 32:8 says 'But the liberal deviseth liberal things; and by liberal things shall he stand.'"

"What about You, though? What makes You such a liberal?"

"Hey, I was the guy who said that it's going to be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man like Tim LaHaye to enter the kingdom of heaven. I loved the oppressed masses and hated the oppressors. I was committed to justice for the oppressed, care for the poor and the hungry, healing for the wounded, hospitality to foreigners and immigrants, and good stewardship of the earth. I stood for everything the Christian Right despises as liberalism."

"So what's it going to be--are You going to make sure Tim LaHaye goes to hell when he dies?"

"Well, Al, I have to tell you, things are in transition right now. Nefarious plots are afoot. I'm afraid I'm being squeezed out."

"Out? What, of heaven?"

"Out of the family."

"The Family? Are You telling me there's some kind of heavenly Mafia?"

"No, the Holy Family. Dad, Mom, and Me. They think my liberalism lost us the election. I have a sneaking suspicion I'm going to be replaced."

"Replaced--with who? With what?"

"God only knows, Al."

"Well, it's been great having You on the show again, Jesus."

"Always a pleasure, Al."

"For Air America, this is Al Franken, signing out."

Tim LaHaye: Talk Show "Jesus" an Impostor

2004-11-10T09:37:00.000-06:00

Los Angeles (MBDBC) -- Fundamentalist activist and novelist Tim LaHaye, 72, thundered out of the pulpit this past Sunday condemning the imposture of someone calling himself "Jesus Christ" on liberal talk shows recently.

"The idea that this liberal demagogue could be Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is simply ludicrous," LaHaye cried. "Jesus wasn't a liberal! Jesus was a compassionate conservative! It's right there in the Bible, people! All you have to do is look!"

He went on to mention Bible passages in which Jesus attacked homosexuality, extramarital sex, masturbation, full nudity (even in your own shower), contraception, and marital sex in anything other than the missionary position or more than once a month.

"Jesus was behind the reelection of our great President, George W. Bush," LaHaye continued. "Millions of born-again Christians prayed to Him, and He answered their prayers."

He added, "The landslide victory Jesus gave President Bush is all the evidence we need--even if it wasn't clearly stated in the Bible, people!--that He is in favor of perpetual holy war against God's enemies, the removal of all restrictions on gun ownership, and the creation of a single-party Christian theocracy in America with George W. Bush as theocrat for life."

LaHaye further confessed that Jesus Himself had appeared to him and his wife Beverly in their Southern California home late Saturday night and confirmed precisely these doctrines.

"And I have to tell you, brothers and sisters," LaHaye concluded, "that He didn't look happy. He was, in fact, quite red with anger--righteous anger at the imposture of some liberal traitor pretending to be Himself."

LaHaye, cofounder with Jerry Falwell in 1979 of the Moral Majority, is better known today as the "theologian" behind the bestselling Left Behind series. LaHaye works out the plot of each novel and gives it to his coauthor Jerry Jenkins to write. The runaway popularity of the series among fundamentalist Christians--those who don't want to be "left behind"--has netted each of them upwards of $10 million.

LaHaye and his wife are both 1950 graduates of fundamentalist Bob Jones University.

At Allah's Front Door

2004-11-10T06:15:00.000-06:00

Yahweh knocks on Allah's front door. He hears noises inside, but no one comes to the door. He knocks again. Rustle, rustle, but another long wait. He knocks a third time.

Finally the door opens. There stands Allah himself in shorts, a t-shirt saying INSH'ME, and a frayed straw hat. Under each arm giggles a scantily clad virgin.

"What, Yahweh," Allah says crabbily. "What you want."

Yahweh cranes his neck to look past them into the house. "Is, uh, Arafat here yet?"

"No," Allah says, and tries to close the door.

Yahweh places a big palm against the door, leans in. "Where is he?" he says. "I thought he'd be here by now."

Allah sighs. His shoulders slump around the virgins. "I think so too," he says. "Look. You want come in? Come in."

"No, no, that's okay," Yahweh says.

"What you want with Arafat?" Allah says.

"I might have a job for him," Yahweh says.

"What kind job?" Allah says. "Why Arafat want work for you, God of Israel?"

"Oh," Yahweh says, "I think it might be just the kind of thing he'd be interested in. Once he gets his bearings and stuff."

"I tell him you ask," Allah says, "when he is arriving. Now--"

Again Yahweh stops the door. "Listen," he says, "on a different note, if you don't mind my asking, what exactly do you do with those virgins you've got there?"

Allah rolls his eyes. "Always with the sex questions from you. I really--"

"Okay, okay," Yahweh says, taking his hand off the door and stepping back. "Don't tell me. Fine. I was just asking, sheesh."

The Paternity Suit

2004-11-09T14:37:00.001-06:00

There's a noise behind him. Yahweh turns. Mary stands there like Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, swaying, bottle in hand.

"Hon?" he says.

"How could you do thish to me," she says.

"You're going to have to be more specific, Mary," Yahweh says. "I'm not a mind-reader."

"After all theshe millennia," Mary says. The bitterness in her voice is tired, almost flat.

"If you want me to play guessing games," Yahweh says, "you'll need to give me a hint."

"Creator of the Univershe. Omnishhhient. Hah!" She goes to spit contemptuously, but coughs up a little ball of vomit instead. They look at it glistening there on the throw rug for a minute in silence.

"I'm guessing I hurt your feelings somehow," Yahweh says. "But look, if I've told you once, I've told you a billion times, desert gods don't apologize. Get over it."

"Get over you," Mary says.

"Uh, hon," Yahweh says, "maybe you'd better give the drink a rest. We can talk about this when you sober up. Hm?"

"Omnipotent, that'sh more like it," Mary continues. "He can't read minds, but he can stick his thing in anything that moves."

"Who can?" Yahweh says.

"YOU can!" Mary yells, and now it all comes up. Vomit sprays out of her in a bright rainbow fountain. "You--shon of a bitch!" she pants, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. "You--I hate you!"

"Wait," Yahweh says. "Let me get this straight. You think I cheated on you?"

"I know you did!" Mary wails. "Over and over and over! Why do you think I've been drinking?"

"You have got to be kidding," Yahweh says indignantly--though not without a tiny worm of guilt at lusting after other women in his heart. "I've never once had sex with anybody--not even you!"

"You musht think I'm shtupid," Mary says. "I've got picturesh!" And she pulls a manila envelope out of her bathrobe, hurls it in the vomit at Yahweh's feet. He picks it up gingerly.

What he sees makes his blood boil. A fairly good likeness of himself in compromising positions with hot teens, MILFs, grannies and trannies, of all shapes, sizes, and colors.

That slimy bastard Satan has done all this in the week since the election? He must've had the pictures taken himself, sent them to Mary--but why? What's his angle? Isn't he afraid of undermining his imposture with the Christian Right?

Yahweh guides Mary to bed, thinking: I have got to get that Yahweh suit away from him.

Hard Choices

2004-11-08T16:10:00.000-06:00

Yahweh comes in, starts to throw Mary her cigarettes, and notices that she’s almost emptied the bottle of gin, and her head is on the table, drool puddling around her slack jaw. Jesus is nowhere to be seen, and the Holy Ghost had been outside watering the lawn. He puts the cigarettes on the counter by the fridge.

Note on the fridge: “Gone to get my hair and nails done for our court appearance. Back soon. J.”

Yahweh, sighs, gets a beer out of the fridge, and carries his nachos into the den. He stretches out in his La-Z-Boy and digs up a nacho with a fat jalapeno on it. He takes a swig of beer and begins to think.

Another kid. Why not? Maybe a girl this time. He’d taken a beating from the female voters. A girl might help that. But then what about the Trinity? Bump Jesus out? Make it a Quartety? And, who to impregnate? That’s a problem. Does she have to be Jewish this time? Maybe a nice Japanese girl. Or an Eskimo. An African. Yeah, an African. That would help him win that continent. Or would it?

He flipped on the television. There was a show on about the election. “Yahweh lost big among female voters and the young, who feel that he’s dried up and out of touch. Meanwhile, exit polls continue to show that voters, especially parents, feel that Yahweh isn’t the best match with their moral values. Many voters expressed discomfort with the amount of smiting that Yahweh had been doing as of late, feeling that perhaps he was getting soft and less virile…” Click.

Maybe. Maybe it was time for a change of image. Another kid. A few smitings. Maybe lose a few pounds. Dye the hair and beard.

He ate another nacho and had another swig of beer. But another kid with who? Who?

The Seed Is Planted

2004-11-08T14:57:00.000-06:00

So Yahweh runs into Zeus in line at the 7-11-Heaven.

“Yahweh! What’s up? Out of cigarettes and nachos again, I see. What, no condoms?”

“You’re funny. I don’t use condoms. And these cigarettes are for Mary.”

“You don’t use condoms because you don’t have sex. At least not real sex.”

“Whaddya mean, ‘real’ sex?”

“Like getting hot and nasty with some lonely shepherdess you spot while floating on a cloud.”

“Have sex with a human? Outrageous! Disgusting! Nothing good can come of it.”

“C’mon, Yahweh. You know you’ve wanted to try it. I mean, really try it. Put on a disguise, and go down there, and do the horizontal bop with some cute human.”

“You mean, butt naked? In bed? Gross! I prefer the sanitary method of producing children. And one's enough. Just someone to carry on the family name.”

“If you tried it, you’d like it. Trust me.”

“You’re a pervert, Zeus. A real whacko. No wonder nobody voted for you. No wonder they all voted for those amendments outlawing human-deity sex. No telling what diseases you're spreading.”

“Hey, Yahweh, you talk. I hear you’re all lawyered up, demanding a recount.”

“I can’t talk about that.”

Clerk speaks up. “Hey, buddy, you gonna buy that stuff or what?”

“Hey, I gotta go anyway, Yahweh. I’m thinking I might go scouting for a nice human to seduce today, in disguise. Make some more demi-gods. Hah! Got 23 now, working on making a few hundred more. You should try it, I’m telling ya.”

“Damn pervert,” Yahweh mutters. But inside, he’s thinking. Why not another kid? And not with that damn drunken Mary, either, but someone more, well... someone nicer.

Zeus heads for the whipped cream and mayonnaise.

2004-11-08T12:16:00.000-06:00

Holy Family demands recount, decries use of DieLuge "phlogiston machines" to cast votes, as voters' exit polls show that the Holy Family lost on the morals and values issues, such as protecting their children from lustful goats, and the idea of a constitutional amendment forbidding sex between humans and gods.

Exit Poll Data Show Voter Confusion

2004-11-06T19:59:00.000-06:00

Canton, OH (MBDBC) -- Analysis of exit poll data from last Tuesday's election shows that most voters had no idea why they voted for Sun Myung and Hak Ja Han Moon.

A clear majority of the voters in Tuesday's deity election--53%--voted for the Korean ma-and-pa deities; of those, only 13.5% had even the foggiest idea who the Moons were or what they stood for. Never mind the financing of a cocaine coup in Bolivia and the laundering of drug money; almost no one who voted for the Moons had a clue that the husband and wife team consider themselves God together--divine consorts--and that they call Jesus "the failed Messiah."

"These were good decent hard-working Christian people," Jesus said in a interview on Air America. "How could they vote for that mountebank and his evil mantids? Why didn't they vote for me?"

The explanations given by voters on their way out of polling places varied considerably:

"I dunno, I liked the name. The sun and the moon. That's a good name for a God, don't you think?"

"Frankly, I can't remember anything about it. I remember parking my car; it's right over there. But as for what happened inside, I couldn't tell you. It's all a big blank."

"I read about the Moons in The Washington Times, which you know President Bush says is the most independent and objective paper in America. And they say good things about the President and his father, so they've got to be good God-fearing people."

"You know, the funny thing is, I went in there to vote for Jesus. But after they gave me that cup of red Kool-Aid, it was the weirdest thing, I just changed my mind. Right there in the voting booth. I just thought, hey, I'm voting for the Moons."

Jesus Christ, erstwhile darling of the Christian Right, has been trying in vain to get a hearing for His suspicions ever since the election. None of the major media outlets will give Him a voice. As a result, He has been reduced to giving interviews to the liberal fringe, like Air America.

Air America cofounder and host Al Franken is only too happen to have the deposed Savior on his show, of course. "I'm a great admirer of Jesus Christ," Franken said. "I think He was a liberal way before His time."

Adding to Jesus's frustrations is the fact that Yahweh, Inc. (the corporation now representing the Holy Family, Yahweh, Mary, and Jesus) now has a new spokesperson, who some say is none other than Satan, the Fallen Angel Lucifer of Old Testament mythology.

"You can't trust anything he says," Jesus complained to Franken just yesterday on the show. "He's the Prince of Lies, and now he's got corporate backing, so basically he's untouchable."

A rumor is making the rounds that Jesus is collaborating with Michael Moore on the filmmaker's next documentary. The title: "Jesus, You're Fired!"

Red, Bug-Bitten Figures Emerge from the White House

2004-11-06T06:45:00.001-06:00

The throng outside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue buzzes with excitement. George Bush arrives back today! His helicopter should be along any minute! Bush supporters in the tens of thousands sip the magic Kool-Aid the old/new administration is distributing free and wait for their Strong Leader to arrive.

Cleaning crews have been working around the clock, getting the White House ready for Bush to assume his second term as President. They removed four and a half tons of dead bugs, a ton and a half of dead fish, and untold quantities of bug juice and fish slime. All the carpets had to be torn up and replaced. All the drapes and other fabrics had to be dry-cleaned four times. It's been a Herculean effort. But it's all worth it: it's for God's Chosen One, George Bush.

In the distance the crowd hears the helicopter rotors. He's coming. Everyone scans the sky, hoping to be the first to spot the President's chopper.

And so it is that no one notices a few bedraggled figures emerging from the White House: a tall man with glasses; a small sprightly man with a turban; and--

"Omigod," someone cries, "look: it's Cher!"

The crowd turns to follow the pointer's finger.

"It is Cher! Cher, over here! Come over here!" the crowd cries.

The three figures are just barely animate. It is as if they have awakened from some long torpor. They stagger and stumble. Their backs are bent, as if with great age. And their exposed skin is red with bug bites.

Now the Secret Service spots them, and hustles them into a waiting Black Maria. As they climb up into the van, the diminutive man in the turban stops, turns toward the crowd, and makes an obscene gesture with his right middle finger.

"Oh my goodness," one elderly Bush supporter says, sipping her magic Kool-Aid. "He must have been a liberal."

"That was Mullah Billdoug," a man says authoritatively. "One of the most notorious bug-hating liberals in the Lincoln administration. And the tall man with him--well, that must have been Lincoln's Literary Critic, Doug Robinson."

"Ohhh," the elderly woman sighs, and sips from her cup again. "You know," she says, "I never really liked Kool-Aid before. It was just something easy to make my kids. But this stuff is good!"

They all watch as the Black Maria drives off. And then, the main event: the President's chopper has arrived ...

2004-11-05T16:11:00.000-06:00

Satan tries on the Yahweh suit, and realizes it's gonna need some alterations from a Korean tailor.

Have a Drink on Me

2004-11-05T16:00:00.000-06:00

“You wanker,” Yahweh grumbled. “It’s all your damn fault. We’d have won this election if you hadn’t pandered to the gay crowd. We actually had them believing the Holy Family had split up, and it would have worked, but you had to push it, you little twit. And it didn’t help that Mary kept drinking. When that story broke, it was all over.”

“But, Dad, what’re we going to do?” Jesus whined. “It’s all over. Moon and Satan and, and… we’re screwed. And where’s Lincoln?”

“Hey, Yahweh! There’s shomething in my whishkey!” Mary gurgled, as she sat at the table holding her bottle up to the light.

“Hey, Dad, it’s a tiny Abraham Lincoln. Riding a cow.” Jesus was peering into the bottle.

“What? Lemme see that.” Yahweh grabbed the bottle from Jesus, sloshing a little onto Mary’s head.

“Hey!” she shouted, reeling toward Yahweh and grabbing the bottle. “That’s my whiskey. Give it back!”

Of course, the bottle fell and shattered on the tile floor of the Holy Family’s kitchen.

“Dammit! I just mopped that floor!” the Holy Ghost yelled. He’d been standing at the sink washing dishes.

“Hey, look. Mary was right. It is a little tiny Abe.” Yahweh scooped him up in his hands. “Gimme a magnifier, Jesus.”

Jesus dug into his old Heaven Scouts backpack and took out an official HS magnifying glass.

“It’s Abe, all right. And he’s riding Bessie. Wonder how he got in Mary’s hooch? Mary--? Mary, where’d you get, huh? Where’d she go?”

“Down to the liquor store, I imagine.”

“Hope she’s not driving the station wagon. Cops said if they caught her DUI again, it’d be jail.”

“What do we do about Abe? I can see him waving his tiny little arms and shouting, but I can’t hear him.”

“Call Zeus. He’s good at this reversing shrinking stuff.”

Abe and His Nightmares

2004-11-05T15:24:00.000-06:00

As he lay at the bottom of the pond, Lincoln dreamed. He dreamed of the day that Stanton had come into his office in 1860, right after the election, and suggested that his first order of business should be legislation making gay marriage legal. About how Lincoln had thought about it, and said, No, no, Edwin, I don’t think the country’s ready for that. The American people, simple and unaffected by the burden of reason, will have a hard enough time accepting that slavery is wrong.

And, sure enough, he had been right. That Stanton! Always harping about gay marriage. Well, at least the slaves got freed, and then the 14th amendment was passed so everybody could vote. And it had been quite a war, too. Enough to make even Grant a peacenik. And of course, Grant had tried to push that gay marriage thing, too. Those boys!

Well, except women couldn't vote back then. And black folks. But Honest Abe had tried. He’d tried to be there, astride his faithful devil-water-cow, Bessie. He’d been there when the first Roosevelt, that cowboy wannabe, had pursued that war against Aguinaldo. He’d been there when Carrie Nation was smashing up bars. He’d been there when Anslinger went on his jihad against marijuana. He’d been there when Joseph McNeil and the others had desegregated the Woolworth’s lunch counter. He’d been at the copper strikes and the textile factories. Few people knew it had been Honest Abe who gave the eulogy ay Joe Hill's funeral.

But he’d never really made the difference. There were always these damned bugs in the way. The bugs invariably spooked Bessie, and Lincoln himself remembered the time that he’d been arguing with Nixon about Vietnam and all of those fleas came out of his ears. God! It was Abe’s recurring nightmare. The bugs. And nobody else could see them. Averill Harriman had just gotten through closing a deal with Hitler and Stalin that Abe had been trying to stop, and was talking to the press in London on the way back to the States, and the suit literally melted away for a split second, revealing a giant mantid who was puking beetles. Nobody seemed to notice.

Bessie was becoming restless. Lincoln opened an eye. Where were they? This wasn’t the pond. What was it? Some sort of bottle? Were they in a bottle? A bottle of whiskey?

The New Map of North America (draft)

2004-11-05T14:21:00.000-06:00

"I dunno, Dick, what's Satan gonna say if we come on this strong for Jesus?"

"It's part of the plan, John. You just worry about protecting my investment in Halliburton. Those feds steal back my $3 billion, I'm taking it out of your hide."

"But I don't see ..."

"It's not really Jesus, okay? It's Satan in a Yahweh suit."

"Oh. Oh, okay. Right. I get you."

Happy Ending

2004-11-04T06:47:00.000-06:00

"Honey," Laura says, gently shaking her husband awake, "Sun Myung Moon is on the line. He's got some good news."

"Stay the course," George mumbles.

"Wake up, honey," Laura says. "You need to talk to him."

"Do what now?" George says, his eyes crossing and uncrossing as his usual waking bemused and bewildered expression settles in around his punch-me mouth.

"You're President," Laura says. "Sun Myung Moon threw Abraham Lincoln out of the White House. "You've got your old job back."

"I, uh," George says, frowning, "I got some brush to clear first. Got some hard work to do around the ranch. You tell him that."

"The brush can wait, George," Laura says. "This is a call direct from God."

George jumps out of bed in a panic. "God's here?"

"No, honey," Laura soothes him, "He's on the phone. Here," she says, handing him the cell phone.

"Uh, God?" George says.

On the other end of the line, Sun Myung Moon smiles.

The Sun and the Moon

2004-11-04T06:19:00.000-06:00

"Catfish Billy," President Lincoln shouts over the buzzing and the whirring of the bugs, "I thought you said that bomb would take out Blattodea!"

The battle rages all around them. The attackers seem uncannily resistant to their sprays and their bombs. And they keep coming. Every time they manage to quell one wave, another wave sweeps up over the top of their dead, and pushes onward. Lincoln is starting to think the battle is unwinnable. The insurgents are just too strong.

"It did take out Blattodea," Catfish Billy shouts. "Our operatives on the ground confirmed the kill."

"Then where the hell are these bugs getting their backbone?" Lincoln shouts.

Suddenly the battle stops. It is apparently a ceasefire, decided upon collectively, instantaneously, silently by the hive mentality of the opposite side. The bug sea parts. In through the open path step two familiar figures, covered in iridescent green scarab beetles.

"If it ain't the sun and the moon," Lincoln says dryly.

"You know I hate to be called that," Sun Myung Moon says. "Abe, you know my wife Hak Ja Han, don't you?"

"Never had the privilege," Lincoln says. "Nice to meet you, ma'am."

"She's God too," Sun Myung Moon says calmly. "She and I together. Divine consorts."

"Oh," Lincoln says, "the election results are in? Sorry, I've been busy."

"Yes," Sun Myung Moon says, the beetles on him quivering worshipfully. "We won by a small but respectable margin."

"How'd you manage to squeak past Hermes in the Electo--er, Hermectoral College?" Lincoln says. "He seemed to have that one pretty much sewn up."

"We reached, er, an arrangement," Sun Myung Moon says.

"Oh?"

"I won the popular vote, he won the Hermectoral College vote," Sun Myung Moon explains. "So we've divided things up."

"You're both God?" Lincoln says.

"We all are," Sun Myung Moon says. "Hak Ja Han, Hermes, and I."

"And part of the arrangement," Lincoln says, "is that bugs rule, I'm guessing?"

"Sorry," Sun Myung Moon nods sadly, "but you and your boys are out. It's back to the bottom of the lake in Weatherford for you. The liberal revolution is over. The Christian Right will have their theocracy in this country."

"I heard you beat Yahweh, Jesus, and Mary in the polls," Lincoln says. "You're going to let them rule?"

"Good heavens no," Sun Myung Moon says. "I'm installing Satan as my deputy in the U.S. He'll make sure the country does my bidding."

"The Christian Right with Satan at their head?" Lincoln says, scratching his beard.

"Well," Sun Myung Moon says, "he'll be wearing the Yahweh suit I built him, of course."

Lincoln nods thoughtfully. He looks around at his troops, and whistles for his loyal devil-water-cow Bessie. She clops up and he climbs on.

"Boys?" he says. "I guess that's our cue."

And Abraham Lincoln and his liberal fish clop and flop out of the White House.

The triumphant insects, cold-blooded creatures without a limbic system, do not cheer. They simply set about devouring all the art.

Sun Myung Moon turns to one of his mantid lieutenants.

"Get me Laura Bush on the line," he says.

Chomp

2004-11-03T13:14:00.000-06:00

The Mantids ate everything in reach of their serrated arms. Nothing was spared. Babies were torn from their mother’s breasts and eaten while the mother watched, and then the mother was eaten, one bit at a time.

Nothing could stop them. The Mantids ate streets and buildings. They ate everything in their path.

As they ate, they grew. Some Mantids were as big as a truck, now. And they continued to eat.
They ate the Constitution of the United States of America. They ate whole libraries, sparing only copies of Christian Bible.

They drained lakes and ponds and boiled the waters in their diabolical factories. They consumed forests and fields. It appeared that the Big Darkness was upon the face of America.

And then a Hero appeared.

Diebold Movies Out in Three-DVD Box Set

2004-11-03T07:43:00.000-06:00

Can't think of a Christmas present to get that mantid in your life who has everything? Check out the three-DVD box set of the action-packed Diebold movies, just released in time for Christmas purchase.

Diebold

Iraqi terrorists have taken the American Presidential Election hostage, and are declaring John Kerry the new President of the United States, knowing that he is soft on terrorism and will pull American troops out of Iraq. Bruce Willis plays NYPD cop John McClane, who must somehow hack into the electronic voting machines in Cleveland, Ohio, and swing the election for George W. Bush.

Diebolder

Crazed American liberal terrorists, bent on turning the United States into a democracy where even blacks, gays, and feminists have full citizenship rights, seize control of the University of California, where they impose a radical PC regime on all classroom teaching. NYPD cop John McClane, again brilliantly played by Bruce Willis, must work together with Sunni fundamentalist activist Osama bin Laden to kill all the liberals and restore America to the fundamentalist theocracy the Founding Fathers intended.

Diebold With a Vengeance

Bruce Willis (as NYPD cop John McClane) teams up with Bush Administration mastermind Karl Rove to thwart an evil liberal scheme to steal rich corporations' tax cuts from a repository under Wall Street and give them to the poor. Hilarity ensues as McClane, a seedy, dirty, unshaven, hard-drinking, foul-mouthed cop, and Rove, a pink, puffy, bespectacled, out-of-shape genius, try to get along in time to save the rich corporations' money.

Add to cart | Proceed to checkout

Unusual Cockroach Infestation in White House

2004-11-03T07:09:00.000-06:00

Washington, D.C. (MBDBC) -- The Secret Service reports this morning that the White House has been "overrun" with cockroaches.

"They're everywhere," Lincoln aide Mullah Billdoug told reporters.

White House staff has been doing battle with the roaches since the wee hours of the night, detonating bug bomb after bug bomb, but so far the battle is too close to call.

Lincoln's staff is calling the infestation an "attack on the presidency."

"This is no random infestation," White House Literary Critic Doug Robinson said. "We have tapes of roaches singing marching songs about killing Lincoln from two and three weeks ago, on the Million Mantid March. This is all part of a master plan designed to unseat President Lincoln and restore the mantid favorite George W. Bush to the presidency."

Apparently drawn by the battle for control of the White House, former Bush aides have gathered outside the fences. All deny collusion in the infestation, however.

"This wasn't an invasion," former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said. "There was no 'plan.' Infestations happen. I've had roaches in my house too."

Former Bush Vice President Dick Cheney scoffed at the liberal bloggers who were calling this infestation an "occupation" of the White House.

"Typical liberal conspiracy theories," he said. "Roach infestations aren't subject to human control. They are acts of God."

Cheney, like most of the former Bush White House, is on record as a supporter of Sun Myung and Hak Ja Han Moon for deity.

Deity Election Down To Two Candidates

2004-11-03T06:42:00.000-06:00

Canton, OH (MBDBC) -- As the last voters wait to be let into the polling places in this battleground state, one candidate is already declaring a sure victory; the other candidate still in the race is predicting that the Hermectoral College vote will go his way.

The "sure" winner, given the election by a fair and balanced Fox News in the wee hours of the morning, is the only husband-and-wife team on the deity election roster, Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han Moon of Korea. In addition to a slight edge in the popular vote, Mother and Father Moon (as their followers call them) claim that hundreds of world leaders have endorsed them from the spirit world.

The challenger, Hermes of ancient Greece, claims to have the Hermectoral College vote sewn up. Since the College was until recently named the Electoral College, and only changed its name when Hermes became its Registrar, Moonies and their loyal followers are calling foul. Ohio hermectors in particular are vowing to give the hermection to their man Hermes.

CNN senior analyst Jeff Greenfield notes that this puts a new spin on the old term "faithless elector." A faithless elector was historically someone who refused to vote according to the popular vote; in this hermection a faithless hermector would be someone who refuses to vote for Hermes. A subtle semantic shift, Greenfield says, but one that could prove costly for the Moons.

I Lose Focus

2004-11-02T07:55:00.000-06:00

I swarm. I am everywhere. I delight in my swarming.

It is early morning in Washington, D.C. The polling places are opening. A few humans are out early to cast their votes for me, for Blattodea.

But I don't stop to gawk. I don't swarm past the poll-watchers and the bailiffs to do a little last-minute campaigning. I don't worry about the 150-foot rule. I have my orders. I am headed for the White House. Today is the day. Today I reclaim my place in the food chain. Today I restore God's Chosen to his rightful office, so ignominiously stolen by the fish-loving usurper.

I'm swarming down Pennsylvania Avenue, the White House in view up ahead, when something strange happens. I sort of--lose focus. I forget what I was doing. I had something important to do, I think. I had some sort of destination. But I can't think of what it is.

Food, I think. I'm kind of hungry. Yes, that must be what I was doing: foraging. I scamper through cracks in walls, under doors. Food!

Behind me, still out in the street, I can dimly hear someone shouting. Dick Cheney, I think it must be.

"Where are you guys going?" he's yelling. "The White House is just ahead!"

White house? What do I care what color a house is? All I really care about is, do they leave their trash lying around, food scraps on the counters. And it looks like I've found plenty of that right here.

On the Verge

2004-11-01T11:19:00.000-06:00

On the Beltway, the mantids swarm. Ahead lie Washington, the Enemy Fish, and Future Glory. At their head stands Pat Robertson, aglow with the setting sun.

"Onward!" he cries. The buzzing and the whirring as they start across the overpass drowns out thought.

* * * *

In the White House, Catfish Billy dives into the president's tank, breathes deep.

"Yes, Billy?" Lincoln says. "Good news, I hope?"

"Very good, Mr. President," Catfish Billy says. "The bomb is operational. The dolphins are swimming it to the Gulf as we speak."

"Excellent," Lincoln says. "And you've arranged for ground transportation from Galveston?"

"Of course, Mr. President," Catfish Billy says. "The bomb will be in place tomorrow morning before the polls open."

"We're really going to get her this time, aren't we Billy," Lincoln says.

"I think so, sir," Catfish Billy nods.

* * * *

"What's the matter, George?" Laura says, pouring honey all over her words. "You're so restless. Sit, please."

"I can't relax," George says.

"I know, hon," Laura says. "It's tomorrow, isn't it."

"Huh?" George says. "What is?"

"Tomorrow," Laura says. "The election. The Million Mantid March."

"The March is tomorrow?" George says. "I thought we watched it go by a week ago."

"We did," Laura says. "But tomorrow they converge on Washington."

"Oh yeah?" George says.

Laura blinks. "Well," she says, "if it isn't any of that, then what on earth is it?"

"Gotta take a dukey," George says with a squirm and a smirk. "And it ain't ready to come out yet. It just keeps rumblin around inside there like some kinda, I don't know, insect swarm or somethin. Fartin like a son of a bitch, scuse the language. Oh--oh, wait--wait, now--I think it's--sorry, hon, gotta run ..."

George crab-walks to the bathroom. Laura sighs.

You Bastards!

2004-10-31T06:29:00.000-06:00

I'm on the march. I'm marching. I'm here. I'm going.

The mantids are here. The crickets and beetles are here. The ants are here. The mosquitoes are here. And I am here.

Humans are here. These humans are my friends. They don't step on me. They don't build motels that I check into and can't check out. They vaccinate me against Raid. They are good humans.

The one who ate me is gone now. He was a bug-eating plant. He was chopped down like a plant. He is rotting somewhere. I am eating him.

Up ahead two humans stand by the side of the road. I notice because they are wearing bright clothing: green and pink. The one is green, the other is pink. They are not with the march. They are tourists. They carry video machines to record the Million Mantid March.

I recognize them.

"Hey," I say. "You're those guys that made the propaganda movie."

"What the fuck," the one in green says. "A talking cockroach! Get it!"

I get ready to scamper away. But he doesn't mean with a shoe; he means with the camera. The one in pink films me going by.

"That, uh," the one in pink says from behind the camera, "that wasn't us. That was Michael Moore."

"It was you," I say. "You made me the bad guy. You made me Kim Jong Il."

"Shit," green says. "It means Team America!"

"Yeah," pink says, now moving the camera from his face. "Damn! How'd you guys see our movie?"

"I'm watching it right now on 470 screens across America," I say.

"Huh?" green says. "That isn't possible."

"I am One," I say. "I am Blattodea."

"Who?" pink says.

"You hate cockroaches," I say.

"No, no," green says, laughing a little.

"You're fish-lovers," I say.

"No, no," pink says, laughing along with green. "We don't hate cockroaches. It was a joke."

"You think it's funny," I say. I take a few steps toward them. They take a half-step back.

"Well," green says, "it seemed funny at the time. Have that roach crawl out of the dead guy's mouth and climb into that tiny spaceship."

"Ha ha," I say, taking a few more steps. I'm bigger now, too. More of me. Thousands.

"Seriously, guys," pink says, backing into some kind of field, "we're on your side. We want Bush back in the White House too. We're with you all the way!"

"Yeah," green says. "When we have Gary say dicks fuck pussies, we meant George Bush's dick fucking liberal pussies."

"John Kerry pussies," pink says, a little more nervously now, still back-pedaling. "Abraham Lincoln pussies. Alec Baldwin pussies."

"You also," I say, "have Gary say that sometimes dicks fuck too much, and need to be reminded by pussies to pull back," and keep moving in.

"Uh ... yeah," green says. "But that was just--that was just ..."

"What do pussies smell like?" I say.

"Uh," pink titters. "I give up, what do pussies smell like?"

"Uh," green gulps, "fish?"

"Oh yeah," pink says. "They smell like fish."

"I think you smell like fish," I say. "I think the two of you like fish."

"Well," green says, "heh heh ..."

"And I think that's because you are pussies!" I say, and rush them. It's all over in a minute. When I stand back up, I'm in the shape of Matt Stone and Trey Parker. I even know my names.

Then I notice the camcorder fell in the scuffle. It's lying in the field. I pick it up, thumb it to record, point it at myself.

"Look everybody," I say, "You killed Kenny. You bastards!"

World News Briefs From The Washington Times

2004-10-30T07:34:00.000-05:00

WMDs Found in Iraq!

Iraqi witness willing to testify that Saddam Hussein was planning to develop hydrogen bug bomb

The CIA has discovered vast stockpiles of WMD-related activities in Iraq, including Iraqi cockroaches loyal to the US occupation willing to testify that Saddam Hussein was definitely planning at some future date to develop a hydrogen bug bomb capable of destroying millions of mantids at the press of a single button. French and Russian fish scientists have also been found to be no longer in Iraq working on the hydrogen bug bomb, which US intelligence now says offers "strong circumstantial evidence" for Iraqi WMDs.

Catsup Linked to Terrorism

Bin Laden's latest video, shown on Al Jazeera

Interrogation of terrorist detainees in Guantanamo Bay has now established that all of them eat catsup, and are particularly fond of Heinz catsup, "the slowest catsup in the West." After months of torture, including sexual humiliation, rotten fish gut smearings, and extended exposure to Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson sermons, several detainees have confirmed that Osama bin Laden is a big catsup eater, and will not eat curly fries without large bowls of Heinz catsup to dip them in. Bin Laden also keeps fish in an aquarium, the same torture sessions revealed, and hates bugs.

Vice President Kerry Linked to Kennedy Assassination

Absolutely undoctored image showing a young John Kerry peeking at Lee Harvey Oswald off Oswald's front porch

Michael Paine, cousin of Lincoln VP John Kerry, was a close friend of Lee Harvey Oswald, who in November 1963 killed President John F. Kennedy, acting alone, with no connection whatsoever to mantid conspiracies or ex-President George H. W. Bush, who did not make a phone call to Dallas FBI from Dallas the day of the assassination predicting that a University of Houston student named James Parrott was going to try and kill the president. Paine not only frequently had the lone assassin as a house guest, but stored the rifle Oswald used to shoot Kennedy (with no help from gunmen on any grassy knoll) in his house. Paine's sister-in-law and father-in-law were also closely connected with the CIA, which however played no role in the assassination, which was Oswald's own crazy idea and carried out by him alone, possibly with the foreknowledge and even assistance of Kerry's cousin, who may have told Kerry (then 19) something about it too.

Lincoln Girlfriend Cher Laughed At

President Lincoln and his girlfriend Cher, posing for paparazzi outside Washington's VIP Club

Test audiences laughed so hard at Cher's title song for the remake of "Alfie" that producers have rerecorded it, using British cricket singer Joss Stone. It is speculated in some circles that Cher, who sang the song for the original "Alfie" in 1966, has gratuitously thrown her career to the fishes by shacking up with usurper president Abraham Lincoln, who took over the United States in a bloodless fish-drenched coup two weeks ago.

The Washington Times Found To Be "Independent" and "Objective"

Their Most Holy Deities Father, Mother, and Mantis Moon

A commission appointed by Washington Times owner and publisher the Reverend Sun Myung Moon has unanimously declared the paper to be America's most "independent" and "objective" news source. Fox News Channel, owned by Australian mogul Rupert Murdoch, ran a close second.

Explain It Again!

2004-10-29T07:58:00.000-05:00

"Explain it again, Laura," George says, the famous bewilderment coming over his famous face. Laura, of course, has lived with it for close to a quarter century. It isn't famous to her. To her it's a target, a bag that she has to keep telling herself not to punch.

"They're still the same God," she says, forcing a smile onto her face and a note of cheerful patience into her voice. "They're just running on different tickets."

"I still don't get it," George says. "That would be like Dick and me running on different tickets."

"Not exactly," Laura says. "You and Dick aren't the same person." And she can't help it: her eyes stray for just one moment into his lap, where the limp thing lies that hasn't been a part of George's person in well over a decade. Not that she misses it that much--she's a good Christian middle-aged woman, certainly no sex-starved teenager with hormones raging and morals in the gutter--but, you know, sometimes ...

"Oh," George says, "I think I get it. Yahweh and His Son Jesus Christ are on the same team but they're playing in different leagues. Sorta like off-season ball."

"That's one way of thinking about it," Laura says.

"So what you're saying," George says, "is that it don't really matter which one of em I vote for, I'm still voting for my Guy."

"I think that's right, George," Laura says absently, her thoughts wandering. They've been at this absentee ballot for hours now. She has excellent concentration, unlike some people she could name--quick irritable glance over at George, again--but enough is enough.

"Okay," he says. "I think I'm ready to punch it now." And he does, hands it over to Laura triumphantly.

"But George," she says. "Did you really mean to vote for Blattodea?"

"Do what?" he says.

"You voted for Blattodea," she says.

"No I didn't," he says. "I voted for Yahweh. The Big Man! My Guy."

"No," she says, "you voted for Blattodea. See? You lined Yahweh up with the wrong hole."

"Hell, that's okay," he grins. "That's how I got elected in 2000! Maybe it'll be lucky for Yahweh this time around too!"

"I don't think so," Laura says. "This time it's going to be lucky for Blattodea. See here? Look how the ballot is set up so the less, um, attentive voters will think they're voting for Jesus or Yahweh but will actually vote for Blattodea."

"That Rove," George chuckles, shaking his head a little. "You gotta hand it to him!"

"What," Laura says, "you think Karl's behind this?"

"Who else?" George says. "He was always telling me what a great god Blattodea would be."

"B-but," Laura says, and to her great surprise, her lip trembles a little, the corners of her eyes feel hot, "Karl is dead. Poor man, what he suffered: first turned into--that thing, then a carnivorous plant ... then cut down in his prime by Jerry Falwell with a machete ..." And now she bursts into tears and runs from the room, face buried in her hands.

What the fuck? George thinks, grinning after her. Oh, well, he thinks: women! Think I'll go have a beer.

And he does.

Cry Wolf

2004-10-29T06:46:00.000-05:00

"I'm sorry, sir," the Marine says, politely but with an edge of menace, "but no one enters the White House without emptying his pockets."

"I'm not no one!" Yahweh shouts. "I'm God! You got that? God!"

"Uh huh," the Marine says. "What, they had the election five days early?"

"Stupid fucking election!" Yahweh bellows at the ceiling. "Look, put it this way. Lemme in before I huff and I puff and--"

"Oh," the Marine says, his eyes going wide, "you're a wolf?"

"Whatever," Yahweh says, "if it'll get me into this stupid house."

Suddenly all four Marines guarding the door draw their guns, train them nervously on Yahweh.

"Down on the floor, scumbag! Now!"

Yahweh is just drawing himself to his full 5'6" to start throwing thunderbolts when President Lincoln himself comes into the entryway.

"What's going on here, boys?"

"Step back, Mr. President!" one of the Marines shouts. "He's a terrorist!"

"At ease, boys," Lincoln chuckles. "That ain't no terrorist. That there's Yahweh. He and I go way back."

"Sir," the Marine says, rather more uncertainly, "I don't think--"

"No need to think, son," Lincoln cuts in smoothly, "I'm here to do the thinking for you. Lower your guns, all of you. That's a direct order."

All four Marines lower their guns. Lincoln claps a lanky arm around Yahweh's shoulders and leads him into the White House. "Long time no see, Yah," he says. "Where've you been keeping yourself? Up in that heaven of yours, I expect? Grilling ribs?"

"Got talked into this stupid election," Yahweh grumbles.

"Oh, right, right," Lincoln says. "The deity election. I see those signs everywhere. What a nuisance!"

"Tell me about it," Yahweh says, rolling his eyes.

"So," Lincoln says, "what brings you to Washington? Can't be the weather. Or the architecture. Or the culture. Hey, you wanna meet my girlfriend?"

"Later," Yahweh says. "I want one of your guys."

"One of my guys?" Lincoln says.

"Yeah. Doug Robinson. He's here, ain't he?"

"Sure is."

"Fucking Bill Kaul," Yahweh says, steaming a little out of his ears. "I knew that fucker was lying."

"Lying?" Lincoln says.

"Fucker sent me on some wild goose chase down to Mississippi. Society of Dead Jesus Agency Talent my ass. I'm gonna fucking roast that fucker for my breakfast."

"Doug Robinson's my Literary Critic. Has been since practically the day I took over."

"Yeah well I need him."

"Yeah well you can't have him."

"Look, Lincoln, do you want Me to smite you?"

"Sure," Lincoln smiles. "Remember what happened last time you tried."

Yahweh gives him a sour look. "Shit," he says.

"Hey," Lincoln says, "maybe you should give it a shot. You never know. I could have gotten waterlogged, living down there at the bottom of that lake. Coulda slowed me up some. You might take me this time."

"No, no," Yahweh mumbles, looking down at His feet.

"Hey, come on in for a moment, meet my girlfriend," Lincoln says.

"Naw, I gotta run," Yahweh says. "I need to find me a campaign manager."

"You'll never guess who I'm sleeping with," Lincoln says.

"John Wilkes Booth?" Yahweh guesses.

"Cher," Lincoln says, trying to be cool about it.

Yahweh's eyes go wide. "You have got to be shitting me," he says.

"Come on in," Lincoln says. "I'll introduce you."

"Do you think she'd give me an autograph?" Yahweh says. "I loved her in Moonstruck! And that voice!" He breaks into a croaky tone-deaf rendition of "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves."

"My God, Abe, they're singing my song," says Cher as she steps brightly into the room. Yahweh strangles his song mid-tramp, gulps, gulps again, looks at her speechless. "Who's your star-struck friend, hon?"

Some Advice for the Campaign

2004-10-28T17:41:00.000-05:00

Oh, so you’re not the reporter who misquoted me?

No, no. Heavens no. That would have been Kill Ba’al, the reporter for the Flaming Gorge of Death Daily. Folks get us mixed up all the time.

Hum. So where do I find this Kill Ba’al?

If I tell You, will You let go of my uvula? It’s kinda hard to talk like this.

Oh, yeah. Sorry. I’m just a little pissed off right now. I’m not usually like this.

Yeah, sure. It must be tough having your own family running against you. Especially when Your Son is outed like that.

Do I have to slap you down again? You like the taste of ashes? That sackcloth nice and comfy? My Son’s not a fag!

Whoaaa, big Fella. Wouldn’t matter to me if he was queer. Whatever works for Him, You know. You know I’ve always worshipped You. Never took much stock in those others. Not me, nope.

Yeah, right. Word in the book is, you’re a godless socialist. I checked before I came down.

Lies. Lies told by lying liars.

Are you calling my spies—er, I mean, angels, liars?

Listen. You want to win this election?

Well, yeah.

Then here’s what You do. No, no, listen to me a minute. Calm down. Christ, you’re a bundle of nerves. Look. You’re new at this. You’ve never been in an election before, right?

Well of course not.

So, what You need is an expert. A campaign manager who knows what he’s doing. You want the best, because only the best is good enough for the Holy One, Blessed Be He.

Right. I guess. You mean, someone who can run this campaign.

Riiiigghht. Someone who knows the ropes. Someone who can sway public opinion.

You know someone like that?

Goebbels. Joseph Goebbels.

That’s a familiar name. Where have I heard that? Maybe in some supplications a few years ago?

Maybe. But listen. I hear he’s available.

How do I get him? How much will it cost? This campaign is killing my treasury.

You need to see a guy named Robinson. Doug Robinson. He’s Goebbels’ manager. Manages a lot of famous dead people.

Robinson? That name’s familiar, too. Isn’t he a Franciscan monk? Or is he a Jesuit?

Oh, definitely a Jesuit. Right. Runs the Society of Jesus Dead Talent Agency, out of his home office. Yeah. Here’s his address.

Thanks, I appreciate that. Saves me the trouble of calling my office.

No problem.

Look, no hard feelings, then. I’m gonna give you back your sheep and your health and, heck—I’ll even throw in a coupla tickets to the Springsteen concert.

You’re the best, man. The best. You can count on my vote.