Prime Ministers: Prim or Prime? A Humble Treatise by Sir Terry Toynbee Windus, gent.

Veni, Vidi, Dormivi--

It came upon me, last Thursday, that I returned home to Willy-Wompus-Whole-Upon-Hamptonshire in relatively good STATION. It seem'd, rather strangely, that the city churls of London were in a CURIOUS and LUSTY disposition, devoid of all SPIRITS, empty of all HUMOR, entirely set upon the task, for this and all times, of REMOVING our current Prime Minister, Lord Rathbone Comelywad, from office, RANK, and good ESTATE. Surprise be it to me that, crossing the stony threshold of my humble doorjar, I weighted and Lifted my money-purse to find it BORNE of a many folded BILLS and bountiful COIN. They had not bothered to rob me! I came into the kitchen, at a Gentle Jog, seeking Maragaret, to tell her of my luck and Rare Fortune, when I heard a FAINT and HOMELY sound from my nether-regions. "HARK! What be this?" I exclaimed, in shock and question, soundly ROBBED of my good cheer: "Who is this that sounds up to me from my Earthly Loins?"

"Me!" It shouted, not rude or lewd or at a clip UNKIND: "Me, your humble kidney-stone! Housed safely in your noble CROTCH, composed wholly of your noble seed and PARTICAL. Long, Lord Windus, have you drank full well and strongly in the city-pubs of London, in the Baker Homes of Southwark, and the gentleman parlors of Knightsbridge Row. And long have I sat couched within you, observing your SPEECH, your WORD, and Noblisse, being composed all the while from the wheaty germ of ALES and LAGERS that softly WASHED within you. The Times we've had, sir!"

"Yes, yes!" I managed, in Poor Condition, to resound. "London has been a gift, a respite from the DUTIES of home and WIFE and the all of Willy-Wompus-Whole-Upon-Hamptonshire. An ASYLUM, gentle kidney-bean!"

"Well, good sir, London is your duty now! Oh, how I've seen it bred into churlishness. DIPPED into ill-repute and SLOTH. No PAMPHLETEER, even with a golden tongue or gooseberry ink, or a weeks stay picking apples beneath Mount Parnassus, could TRUMPET the noble cause of reform like you, Sir Windus. How I beg you, good sir! WRITE! WRITE!"

And with no more word, I sat upon my desk to compose this HUMBLE treatise, so as to give our noble ISLAND, our Mother Home of ALBION, its hope. Long have our MINISTERS been all but PRIME, and this flippant list of their FOLLIES is all I could Summon to Ward off Comelywad's CORRUPTION and RAPACIOUS Scowling Composition. He is not so bad, as I shall show, and, in DESCRIPTION of our UNSCRUPULOUS PAST, I wish to show the ENGLISHMAN across our land that our nation will move forward. Comelywad is not so horrible a SCOUNDREL, just one upon a list of them. I pray you accept this simple BALM, a lotion to clear the crack'd pores of our collective country and disposition, with the SPIRIT, HUMOR, and EARNESTNESS with which it was created. Qui Tacet consentit--

1. Lord Rathbone Comelywad: It should be of no surprise or question, to any Good gentleman of sound character and CONSTITUTION, or to even a city street sweeper of the faintest familiarity with the Pure Blood Clan, that the Noble Comelywad's should Produce such an iminent Character as Rathbone Comelywad, and one fit for an office of entirely the highest order: Prime Minister. However, the great scallywag has proven his weight in stone, as we say in Willy-Wompus-Whole-Upon-Hamptonshire. Yes, he was a Just and Fair warrior, fighting in the Dutch Lowlands, and his Mighty Frame with its dragon-tipped musket and copper colored balls were Celebrated nigh-upon-only a year ago by the poet Rooker Robinson in his ballad, of the Irish style, "Rathbone's Copper-COLORED Balls and Shaft." But, pray, what has become of this Lusty Bachelor and his Celebrated Shaft? Just last week the Pugnacious Parliament convened to question his FITNESS for office. Where had the London Bureau city funds go? Had they really been STOLEN, REARRANGED, and used so Full Sinfully as to Fill Comelywad's estate with MARBLES? The City Planner swears by Mary's milky bosom that they had! Juniper! And his taste for Chocolate Truffles from Brussels is ASTOUNDING. All day, it is whispered, in unsavory and odiferous CORNERS of the city that it is Rathbone that stole the White Chapel Belgian Truffles for himself. STEALING truffles from ORPHANS! But, yay, Comelywad is not the worst, as my Lords and Ladies will observe and approve judiciously, I pray.

2. Sir William Houndstooth Pennybeggar: I trust I stand on Terra Firma when I say that never have we had such a scandal, an UTMOST headache Politic than when the Maggot Snuggling Lord of Essex Wessex's Land was APPOINTED to the Highest Office in the Mother Government at London. Imagine! Caught en flagrante delecto with his Bed Chamber Maid, an Irishwomen at that! Loud CARNAL pleasures not alone, the REGAL Pennybeggar was known to walk with his STOMACH angled outwards, in a PORTLY fashion, his nose pointed in the air, at no small degree, and on no more than FIVE occasions was caught walking past LADY PEN-STUART without giving the CUSTOMARY suckle of her left nipple. OUTRAGEOUS!

3. Tobias Trumbler aka. "The French Fop": What a sight! What a true GAGGLE of DISGRACE! To have a MINISTER, his hands fully ahold the reigns of our dear country, with hands in such a FEMININE and WOMANLY CONDITION. I swear, by Jove and Odin both, his HANDS were a'perfum'd and PAINTED, a powdery pink, not unlike a catomite's nipple! His manners were reformed, true, and FLATTERING, but his leaning was FRENCH, his education too broad, and his HAIR a dastardly BLUE! Well known it was, in MANY a circle, ranging far and wide as upermost as the NORTHERN Realms of Scot-a-land, that he lived in FRANCE for Fourteen years and may have been a COURTIER in Louis' Rapturous Palace. Never did he lay a hand to ALE, only sherry, and never was he seen with a Woman's breast gently nuzzled between thumb and forefinger, or even his MOUTH! His DEMEANOR was not atall WarLike, nor BOLD, and his SECRET TIES to France were not so SECRET a fin.

Aye--My strength has left me. I must go wind the clock. My Kidney-Stone be slaked, for want of words have I not succeeded, just lack of wit. I humbly REQUEST you take this HUMBLE composition as WHAT it is. None the more, nor the less. May God stroke your FORTUNES as he may. And may Jesus have mercy on our terrible SOULS.

Excuse Me Everyone, My Career Just Exploded All Over My Pants.

by Leonardo DiCaprio 

Goddamit! Not again. This happens to me all the time and, honest, I can't say why. Here I am just minding my own business, talking to my agent over the phone and--without shaking it or dropping it or anything--bam! my career just explodes all over my pants. Brand new Gucchi wool-crepe trousers, FYI. Trousers Martin Scorcese sent over for Earth Day (Martin Scorcese the director, not the toy-banjo retailer). Goddam...Sheesh-Kabob! Seriously, what the "F"? I see people like Ben Foster and Michael Richards drop their careers all the time. Just let them, "hey! oops!" fall on the ground and roll around a bit and dent and then, later, open them up and, whatta you know, nothing happens. Not me, though. I'm just doing my thang, not worrying about my career at all and here it comes up and explodes on me. Son-of-a-gun. 

I can't help it when my agent calls me up and tells me, "thank you Leo, thanks for being Leo DiCaprio." If he sends me rich chocolates and camomile in the mail, that's not my fault. If Daniel Day-Lewis sends me a scarf for Christmas, why blame me? Honestly, what did I do to deserve that kind of treatment? I know I grossed 56.3 million dollars at the box-office in 2006 but, golly, that was two years ago!

And the scripts! The scripts!!!! When will they stop! Ughhh! Look at me, look at my hands, Honest-Holly, I've got a stack of scripts this big. What am I supposed to do with all of these things? Sure, I dump a pile over at Ryan Gosling's every Saturday morning but that only gets me two, maybe three Scorcese-heads full of grade-A, riveting, Hollywood-homer scripts about charming loners and the worlds they're shut out from off my hands. I could probably dump a few trashbags of them over at Matt Damon's but that's just silly, right? Why me, God, why me!

And if I get nominated for one more Oscar I think I'm going to throw up. It makes me sick, really: all the praise and the accolades and the pats on the shoulder. Not to mention the hugs. It's like: "Hey Everyone. Stop hugging me, okay? I get it. I was great in Gangs of New York." And now this pants crap. I remember, when Scorcese called me on the phone about Gangs my career exploded instantaneously. Just all of a sudden. All over my desk and my computer and everything. At least James Cameron had the decency to let my career explode all over my pants after we rapped preliminary shooting. But that was a serious pain in the petunia. Every time a thirteen year old girl saw Titanic for the eighth time my career just erupted on me, wherever I was. That got kind of embarrassing. 

Up! Here's Tobey MacGuire calling. He probably wants me to team up with him and produce a small but compelling HBO series about detective cats in Myanmar. Okay. I got go. See you everybody at Revolutionary Road! 

Payback from Wayback: The Fall of Neaderthals, The Rise of Homosapiens, The Fall of Homosapiens, The Rise of Neaderthals

(The new serial in 9 parts spanning as many millenia by young Dr. Raymond Blatts, the distinguished geneticist and foremost figure in woolly mammoth and neanderthal re-incarnation studies as well as the author of such bestselling works as Geography's Alive and Goddammit, We Are Monkeys!)


PART I: First Things First,

There are no heroes in this story, only facts! But since we are all homosapiens here, alive in the childhood of our species and so therefore still almost universally bound to the narrow minded perspective-trap of "the good and the bad' along with countless other stupefying conventions, I will in the name of order - and if anything can be called good, it is certainly order - single out for my reader a protagonist. And even now as I write in my great, free-wheeling, intellectual ease it pains me to highlight one of our species's organizational shortfalls as I let slip from my Palm Pilot pen the understandably hackneyed "single out" (did you know that cuttlefish organize their world around multiples of 8?). We are, to be sure, talking about a 'single' organism here, but to say 'single,' although certainly useful in the sense of giving the idea of collective purpose, it does not do justice to the googleplectic complexity of our tale. Because our hero is not the organism of a person, but the organism of a whole people. And that people is the neanderthal!

Now, some of you readers might just have scoffed at this unveiling, and some of you may have been scoffing from the start, and others of you still might still be scratching your heads like a monkey deciding whether he ought not just masturbate and save himself the trouble of thinking a bit, so at this point I'll simply say damn you to hell, those of you scoffing, and put that away, those others of you! But for those of you still here who plan to listen closely and undividedly, I'll explain to you now why I've chosen the neanderthal as the hero, when it would be just as sensible to choose the homosapien, and why if I can choose a collective hero I can't go what seems to you the extra step in picking a few individuals. I've chosen the neaderthal as hero based on the age-old and naive conception - and, I say here emphatically, you must remember I'm singling out heroes here for the reader's sake not my own! - that those first offenders in a chain of retribution will for eternity be saddled with the greater bit of guilt simply because they were saddled first: it was the homosapien that happened to eradicate the neaderthal when it was only taking it's first breath as a species, when just as easily the Neanderthal might have managed to get the upper hand, if he'd grown up a bit faster and wasn't just hanging around with it on his hang-down all the time. As it happened, they didn't, and therefore as homosapien readers (ironically enough) we will itch for the time in our story when the homosapiens get there comeuppance (which according to my estimates occurs some time in the 6th decade of the 1st century of this millenium). As for the lack of individual heroes, which you no doubt feel will leave you without anyone to make friends with, and against which, surely, if you can't simply admit to being lonely, you argue with the question: "Well, then, who is driving this ship?!" Well, let me just say now as we untie are fast-lines from the safe dock of the universe-as-you-know-it that this journey isn't going to be easy, but if you're willing to stick it out, all will be revealed in time. And in answer to your question, which happens to be the question of all questions, I can only say that that which is driving the ship is that which has been driving the ship for all time and beyond. And yet, for the sake of order and that goddamn necessary evil of convention, I will allow to eventually evolve from the fabric of this tale those neandrathals who, so ordained by the unknown, shine with that cosmic brilliance that blots out those lesser bodies and draws unto itself our fickle attentions. But in the beginnings of our tale, even if I so wanted, which I most certainly do not - as I hope you will already have recognized - I couldn't choose a hero for you without indulging in the most fatuous form of fantasy. For these events - even though they are contained in that dust speck of time which is the whole lifespan of living things on our, as far as your concerned, infinitely old world - still fall outside our certain knowledge. And when I say 'certain' and 'knowledge' I do so conventionally.

Conclusion of Part I.

...Until next time give into every shallow desire of your infintisimal present, if you so desire, but know that if you do, you will be amongst that shady crew of sluts and bankers (etc. etc. etc.) that will be saddled up with the guilt of our downfall by those sad souls of us who manage to survive it by no special strength or goodness unique to themselves.

Have You Guys Heard of this Band "The White Stripes"?

by Gus Frerotte

Playing in the NFL for fourteen years, I've kind of built the reputation as a music snob. My teammates are always telling me: "Hey Gus. Knock it off with those headphones, my man." At least I think that's what they are saying: I usually play my music pretty loud (It's the only way to rock, right guys?). But playing for the Bengals, and the Vikings, and also when I went to the Pro-Bowl playing for the Redskins, you know, I always, always rocked out before a big game. Back in 1996 I tried to get everyone into this band I discovered, Lead Zep Ellin, on this new thing, the Inter Net, but everyone just ignored me, saying: "That crazy Gus. What lo-fi indie band will he discover next? Just how much music can that efficient and always reliable quarter-back man listen to on a given day?" Well, bear with me today, guys, because I think I've caught on to something special: Have any of you guys heard of this band "The White Stripes?" 

Strange, it looks like they've released, like, six whole albums or something and, let's see, made twenty-six singles! How has no one ever heard of this band before? It's crazy! I just kind of stumbled on them and I simply adore their roots revival attitude and no nonsense approach to studio recording and blues-punk fusion. I think I heard somewhere that this guy, Jack White, is like seventy-years old or something and lives on a farm in the Klondike. How interesting? How really thought-provoking? And the drummer, Margaret White, is like his sister or something? Maybe she's his wife and she used to fly Blue Angels in the military and may actually be the Duchess of York, that or Jack White's brother. Anyways, all I know is that not a living soul has seen their two faces in fifteen years, about as long as I've been averaging solid QB ratings in the NFL for struggling offensives across the league. 

These guys are going to really break out soon let me tell you. So get your copy of White Blood Cells or Elephant today so you can be ahead of the curve and really brag to your friends when the band explodes. I'm really going to stick it to Adrian Peterson when that happens. He's always saying Kanye West this and Neil Diamond that and how he discovered both three years ago. Oh man, when the White Stripes hit it big I'm going to let him have it. 

THREE YEARS LATER...

Have any of you heard of these guys "The Raconteurs?" 

Movie Review: Four Christmases

by Chet Isikoff, originally published in Entertainment Weekly

This is my agent's idea. Movie Reviews. A way to get my name out there, he says. He says Harper's doesn't cut it. No one reads it, he says. "Ditto" The New Yorker, his word. I'm a populist, he tells me, Sylvester, my agent. He says, let the people hear your voice. Entertainment Weekly. Movie Reviews. That's what people read, he says. It will be good for me. So I agreed. For me, it's a way to earn some extra scratch. Make sure the bourbon stream stays steady.

Thursday. Stop by Sylvester's to pick up the ticket for my first assignment: Four Christmases. Never heard of it. Don't care to, either. Just going to sit back in the theater, let the images wash over me, sip bourbon from my flask and hope it all makes some sort of sense, I decide.

Turns out the ticket is for a show that night. 10:15. It's 9:00. I hurry back to the Nightingale Hotel, my home, 813, to grab my flask. Half-empty. I refill it until it overflows. I lick the face of the flask, screw the cap and put it in my inside pocket. I walk fast to the theater.

9:30. Not sure why I hurried. I stand outside and smoke a cigarillo to kill time. Caramelos, the cigarillos are called. A hint of caramel sweetness. I get them cheap from my Argentinian neighbor. I don't ask where he gets them, the Caramelos. Just toss a Lincoln his way every week and they show up on my door step.

I read the poster for the movie I am not so eager to see. Four Christmases, it says. Vince Vaughn. Reese Witherspoon. The names mean nothing to me. It's 9:45.

Angela. That's a name that means a lot to me. Too much. And I see the body it belongs to coming up the walk confidently. Her walk. Unforgettable. She's wearing a cocktail dress in the dead of winter and couldn't look any warmer. Her high heels crush ice. She sees me and sees that I see her and comes up to me, close.

"Chet, baby," she says. "Let's go."
"I'm on assignment, darling," I say, and immediately regret our familiarity.
"What kind of assignment?"
"Movie review. 10:15 show."
"Plenty of time," she says, and swings her purse up onto her shoulder and walks away. It's 9:55. Of course I follow.

I convince her my place would be better. We're sitting in room 813 of the Nightingale, on my bed. She's smoking one of my Caramelos and twirling it with her index and middle fingers. Her other hand holds her head, propped up on her elbow, facing me. She stares at me deeply. She says, "Chet, baby. Let's spend Christmas together." She starts to drift. Each blink longer than the previous one. The Caramelo teetering between her fingers. About to drop and burn a hole in her slightly fuzzy thigh. Christmas. Never thought I'd celebrate it again. Especially not with Angela.

"Get out," I say, waking her up. "Get out now." I raise my voice. I rear my arms back and shove her to the very edge of the bed.
"Chet, baby," she says. She's confused and, frankly, so am I. I bend my knee and kick her in the stomach. She lets out a sharp groan, like all the air in her body has escaped in a split second, and tumbles to the floor.
"I'm the only one who sleeps in this bed, Angela. Now goddammit, get out," I say, sitting on the edge of the bed now, looking down at her. She's still wheezing, trying to stand. "Get out, dammit, Angela." I grab her purse from my nightstand and throw it at the door. It explodes in a cloud of knick knacks and drops to the hardwood. She's crying, trying to collect her things and shovel them into her injured purse.
"Dammit, Chet. Goddammit, Chet. I just wanted Christmas," she says. She gathers her purse in both arms and stands. "Chet, baby," she says through tears, and opens the door and runs out and slams the door.

I get up and scratch myself. My head, my stomach, my back. I take a shot of bourbon and rub the stubble on my throat. I see one item from her purse she failed to retrieve, lonely on my floor. A small wallet-sized. I pick it up. Our son. A '98 written on the back, his high school graduation year and the last year either of us saw him. I take out my movie ticket and place it on Tony's smiling face. Four Christmases. Four too many, if you ask me. 10:15. It's 10:30 now. I rub the ticket and the photograph together with my thumbs and index fingers. My hands twist and turn and I let the confetti fall to the floor.

That's a movie-going experience for you, folks. It isn't the kind you find in the cold, corporate comfort of a darkened movie theater. It's that of the cold, darkened recesses of the mind, the comfort that can be taken and savored amidst the destruction of one's own life. And I give it three and a half stars.

Tommy, Sally: Your Mother's a Bitch.

by Paul J. Lazarus

Tommy, Sally: Life is tough, let me tell you. Isn't that what I've always said? Didn't I say that when I was canned from that plush gig over at NESTLE? Tommy, you loved all those free Paydays, didn't you, Sport? And the Crunch bars, and the Bab-y Ruths, and the 100 Grand's. Yeah, those were plush, and I'm sure I said it then, like I'll say it now: life's a bitch. It's tough. Sometimes it just takes away your free candy bars. Sometimes it takes away your wife. And you want to know something else? You guys got it bad. That's somethin' your Mother and life got in common. Kids: sometimes your mom is really a bitch.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying all the time or...Tommy! Stop your sobbing back there and watch out for my papers. What's that Sal? Well, your the oldest so I'll shoot straight with you--Daddy got canned today. Yeah Tommy! Again! It's a mess back there so watch out. Let's see, where was I? Oh, yeah, your Mother's a bitch. Remember that b-day party five years ago, the one at Chuck E. Cheese. No, the second time. Yeah. I sweated my damn balls off trying to get you that stuffed zebra phone. I musta spent 75 clams shooting hoops and I even talked to the fuck nuts running the thing and I said: "Listen. We're all adults. I gotta kid here dying for that stuffed zebra phone there. Let me have it, goddamit." But no. No go. And then here your Mother comes, all high and mighty with her high-school-jump shot and wins you the damn thing. What a bitch!

What else...and now! Now your Mom goes ahead last week and gets herself a boyfriend. What nerve. What gaul. Goddamn, how insenstive can you be? No, no...don't get outta the car yet. Let's just take a drive back here a sec and just see what...OH! Lovely! How lovely. Really first-rate Julie. Nice work: What a pretty volleyball net kiddos! How'd your Mother afford that thing? Wha? What's that? Badminton? Well where are the raquets and stuff then? Oh. Smart...that's where I'd probably stash them. But look...I don't like the sight of that sedum there and Geez!!! Won't you get a look at those petunias? Maybe I should come by and trim those things and maybe cut the grass and, you know, ask you mother why she's such a...Tommy! Stop your sobbings. And Sally what're you sucking your thumb for? C'mon guys!

All right, All right: let me finish and stuff. I mean, this is what I'm talking about. About life and stuff. Sometimes your Old Man just goes nuts! I mean, it's crazy! It's absurd! Dad's do that and you can only look at life and say, what the bitch, man? Geez! I wish I knew why we live in a world where dads go nuts all the time, but I don't. Chuck it up to the universe or cosmic indifference. I'm outta answers, kids. Dad's are a real bitch, and it really makes me sore sometimes. I mean, that's exactly what I've been trying to say.

It's the Only Way to Live

My name is Georgie Porgie. I am named, as my mother likes to say, “after a drug-induced chant,” in her age-inappropriate, coquettish manner, usually followed by a cringe-inducing cackle. She always has a glass of vodka mixed with Red Bull in her slender, veiny hand. I escape to Burger King, a mechanical response to the discomfort that bubbles up in my stomach when I am around her. One of my many mechanical responses to many things.

When going to and coming home from Burger King, there is a street I must cross. A street that many people must cross. One day, I waited for the little sign to do its job: to signify when it would be safe to cross this street. The white-green man in mid-stride lit up and I mimicked his frozen-in-time movement. I was halfway across when I became ill. It suddenly occurred to me that I needed a sign to tell me what to do. A tiny white-green man was my temporary God. My legs moved with little conscious thought. I immediately stopped. My legs came together, side by side and stiff, and I felt robbed of humanness. I was still in the street, about a dozen feet from the curb. A line of cars started to form. I turned on my heels and faced them. I was headed east, toward home. Now I faced south, and the cars faced north, horns blaring, headlights intermittently flashing. I accepted the slew of slurs and epithets and expletives hurled in my direction, the faintest of which seemed to carry the most hateful weight. The line continued to grow.

The sun reflected itself in each windshield and punished my retinas. I could not place faces with the insults, only white-hot glare. The motorists’ anger was now collective, a globule of gross sound emitting from an immaculate line of cars, which was still growing. Funny, wasn’t it? No car broke the line. Everyone waited. They hated it, but they waited. They, the cars, each piloted by reflected sun, waited for me, Georgie Porgie, to make my move. And I realized that a line of human beings would not wait. A line of human beings, such as one outside a Wal-Mart on Black Friday, would jog around me, past me, would shove me and kick me out of the way. Would trample me once I was down until I was dead. But not so with a line of cars. Yes, this was human. This was the triumph of the human over the mechanical. I had the power to control the will of machines. This was my triumph. I was human. And so I walked away, to home, triumphant.

I made my way up to my room, after avoiding eye contact and chit-chat with my drink-sodden mother, and threw myself onto my bed, beaming proudly. I masturbated swiftly and efficiently and stretched out with my hands behind my head, still smiling. I took a deep breath and exhaled fiercely toward the ceiling. I was human. And I masturbated again.

O, How My Fleet Little Fingers Just Type Away!

An inexplicable submission:

Dear Cheryl,

I'm enjoying this new device by which I am communicating with you. Ralph called it a laptop upon my unwrapping of it on the first night of Chanukah, and I smiled and feigned knowledge of its "multitudes of capabilities," but really, just between you and me Cheryl, I'm as ignorant and useless when it comes to tech-dreck (as I like to call it, ho ho! Cheryl) as a one-armed, wholly-salt-water-based Latvian barber (I'd imagine that a barber whose genetic makeup is comprised solely of salt water would have trouble keeping the scissors from rusting over, not to mention his being one-armed and Latvian, well, those descriptors speak for themselves, Cheryl!). Anywhositz, I sat there (on that blue loveseat with the green stripes, you know the one, Cheryl) with the laptop on my lap (imagine that! Cheryl) and Ralph waltzed on over (O, I forgot, Cheryl! We had that loveseat reupholstered last Spring! And you haven't been by since the previous fall! O, Cheryl, you absolutely must rectify this! I was sitting on the loveseat that was olive-colored, the last time you were here) and just snatched up the laptop and put it on the desk. He thought I was going to break it! Why buy me a gift that you're afraid I will break, Ralph? (of course, Cheryl, I merely thought this in my mind. Never would I say such a thing to Ralph on the first night of Chanukah. You know how he gets on the first night of Chanukah. Is that why you haven't been by in a bit? Because of how Ralph gets?). And it's called a laptop, Ralph, you said so yourself. So I had it on my lap, where it's supposed to be. So what? Why go put it on the desk? It's not called a desktop, Ralph! O, my Ralph. After he went to bed I stayed up all night figuring out the various ins and the various outs of laptop use and safety, and finally feel comfortable enough to correspond with you through email, Cheryl. I know you've been on the internet for quite some time (has it really been seven years? O, Cheryl!), and I appreciate you putting up with my Luddism, Cheryl. Now we can "talk" "whenever" (although I really do think you should come by, Cheryl!). I'm very much looking forward to years and years of emailing with you, Cheryl (although I hope it isn't "years and years" before I see you again, dear). (I think Ralph's up) Anywho, Cheryl, I hope this email finds you well (Dear, that is him, rustling) and that I will soon be able to match your techno-prowess (he wants a midnight snack, and I haven't done the dishes yet!). Until next we correspond, Cheryl (or meet, Cheryl. Please let us meet. Why don't you come by? God, what is Ralph doing in there?!).

Love,
Lea

No One Stops Jason Bourne, No One Stops Matt Damon

From the desk of Matt Damon, DDS-

Now, I know what you are thinking: I don't even have to say it. Of course Jason Bourne is the greatest. Of course he can't be stopped. Of course my performances are nuanced and subtle and could quite possibly re-imagine the way action roles are written, performed, and conceived. What am I thinking? Well, I'll tell you what I'm thinking. I see these new James Bond films with their fancy Paul Haggis scripts and, you know, I'm not worried. No. No! I'm not worried at all. I only think I should get something straightened out before we can all go back to praising Paul Greengrass' innovative use of hand-held cinematography for action sequences. It's something I've been saying all along: Jason Bourne could kick James Bond's ass. I've made it nice and simple for everyone in a list and I think you'll all thank me later.

1. He gets points for being American. I mean, are we seriously supposed to believe a nancy Brit could beat up, even in his nancy dreams!, a 100% born, raised, and bred American bad-ass with comprehensive CIA training? Come on...As if! The first thing they teach you in screenwriting school, not that I went or anything, is believability. There has got to be some reality to your story. So, you know, a film where James Bond defeats Jason Bourne is just fundamentally wrong. It is inaccurate. Good. I'm glad we've got that settled.

2. Paul Haggis is Canadian!!! Can a Canadian write kick ass action scenes? No way but...well, before I get into any reasons let me just say: Paul Haggis can eat the haggis I've got right here (I'm grabbing my crotch, just so you know, and I'm nodding my head). I mean, Tony Gilroy and W. Blake Herron are just masters of the long-form action sequence. Masters. Sure, Paul Haggis has his oscars and his homo-beach parties on the strip, but Herron is one of the unsung heroes of action film writing. I mean, if I had actually gone to film school I'm sure there would have been an entire class devoted just to his early works. I take Herron over Haggis any day.

3. Robert Ludlum could kick Ian Fleming's ass.

4. When I wrote Good Will Hunting with Ben Affleck with relatively no formal training we both agreed "These characters have got to be GOOD. I mean, really fucking good." You know, we didn't win an Oscar for having Will Hunting shoot down Russian fighter jets, drink martinis, and sleep with a hundred German language tutors in one film. Instead, we said to ourselves, "Listen. Let's flesh this guy out. Let's make him round. Let's get to his fuckin' CORE." That's what we did and, hey, we won a fuckin' Oscar. I've got it. I can show you. And that's what I'm sayin' about Jason Bourne. This fuckin' guy...this fuckin' guy is round. Man! Let me tell you. He's got all this shit going on with his memory, and his fucking idenity, and his fucking parents, and even some latent homosexuality if I read between the lines right. I mean, the guy is intense. There is a lot of shit going on in his head. Not like Bond, though Haggis has down some nice stuff. Not like Bond who doesn't have feelings and shit. Bourne is believable! Going into American Embassies and disarming whole SWAT teams...That's all believable stuff because, you know, the CIA trained him and everything.

Now your welcome. No problem. No problem at all. Jason Bourne is the best and I am right and I know I didn't have to go to the trouble I just thought I should.

Grimace

I have a dream the other night involving Kobe Bryant. I ask him, "What made you do that Guitar Hero commercial? It was clearly, if not intentionally, gay." And he says to me, "I like your honesty, Louis. Nobody talks to me like that anymore. I need people like you around me. Come play point guard for me on the LA Lakers." I say, "That's what I've been saying for years." 

To start our friendship he invites me to have dinner with him and the "Vincents," a shadowy couple sitting in the corner of Chammmpps Sports Bar. I agree. But it is a dream so you know how it goes and the next thing I know I'm having sex with Katherine Hegel, walking through Lincolnwood Elementary, and eating a Turducken and then checking my watch and realizing I've missed the whole thing! I walk back into Chammmps and there is Kobe sitting at the counter, a candle lighting his face, counting peanuts on the bar. He says, "The Vincents left. They were tired of waiting." I say, "Listen. Kobe. I'm so sorry. But something came up." But he doesn't give me a high-five, like I expect, but instead turns on the stool to reveal the same pink dress shirt, charmingly disheveled, that he wore in the Guitar Hero commercial. "I guess you don't want to play point guard for me after all." And I say, "Now that is absolutely not true, Kobe." And he says, "I talked to Phil. We already got Devin Harris instead." I say, "That sonuvabitch???" And he says, "Yes. I know how much you hate Devin Harris." We fight all night.

A long story short I end up playing point guard for years and I score 15.6 points per game, with 9.8 assists. That's almost a double-double. So eat shit Devin Harris.