The King Did Not Hang

Thank the gods for Silvio

Mon, 14 May 2012 21:04:40 -0400

As the trials of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi adjourned for a month, Roman stonemason Giuseppi Luponi, was preparing the billionaire media magnate’s bust for its official unveiling in Rome’s Pincian Gardens next week.

Prosecutors’ have charged that “a relevant number of young women prostituted themselves with Silvio Berlusconi in his private residences and were paid money by him in return…”

In court this week, according to the Daily Telegraph, Melania Tumini, 26, described an evening at Berlusconi’s villa in August 2010 as “a gathering of whores.” The women, some dressed as nurses, others as police officers, “were allowing themselves to be touched by the prime minister,” Tumini told the court.

Another woman, 20-year-old Chiara Danese, testified that Berlusconi had the young women simulate oral sex with a Greek statue at his Milan mansion. The women called him “daddy” as they kissed his private parts, Danese said. Other girls nearby chanted “Thank God for Silvio.”

The 16-acre green outside the Villa Borghese is the oldest public park in Rom. It honors more than 200 famous Italian men whose lives spanned 25 centuries - statesmen, artists, scientists, writers, philosophers, anarchists, generals – all of whom also had bizarre hobbies.

Some of Italy’s towering figures whose company Berlusconi will soon keep, thanks to Giuseppi Luponi, in the Pincian Gardens:

Maurizio Bufalini
1787-1875
Physician
One of Italy’s first doctors and practitioners of social pedagogy. Established the kingdom’s first teaching hospital, in Florence. Trained rare, leaf-nosed bats to hang from his pee pee.

Gaetano Filangeri
1753 to 1788
Jurist
Legal reformer whose seminal work of jurisprudence, the Science of Legislation, utilized Montesquieian separation-of-powers theories to question feudal aristocratic exploitation of the people during the rule of Charles III of Bourbon. In 1788, the polizia found 10 million lira in Filangeri’s Rome apartment, and on each 1,000-lira note was a slightly differing depiction of a nude Marie Antoinette holding a frog in one hand and some Jack Links cheddar-cherry beef jerky in the other.

Alessandro Vessella
1860 to 1929
Composer, conductor
Conducted Rome’s premier chamber music orchestra - La Banda Comunale di Roma - from 1881 to 1921. Taught wind music at Rome’s famous Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Known for his devotion to Wagner’s early stage operas, Die Feen and Das Liebesverbot. Vessella was beloved in his time, not only by high society, but also by the contadini, the peasantry, which embraced the artist’s more populist compositions that dealt directly with rural life in late 19th century Italy. Songs like A-F-F-A-M-A-T-O è Qualcosa Che Sento, Ma non Può Incantesimo (“S-T-A-R-V-I-N-G Is Something I Feel, But Can’t Spell,”) Poveri Uomini Meritano il Sesso una Volta Ogni Tanto, Troppo (“Poor Men Deserve a Good Rodgering Now and Again, Too,”) and Dio Mi Stracciato a Prendere Merda Maiale Dalla Mia Scarpa di Legno e Usarlo per Insegnare ai Miei Figli Chi Regolamento Governativo di Assistenza Sanitaria (“The Lord Showed Me How to Scrape the Hog Shit Off My Wooden Shoe And Use It To Teach My Children About Government Regulation of Healthcare”) made Vessella a household name from Arsoli to Zuccarello.

Antonio Canova
1757 to 1822
Sculptor
Shrugged off the notion of the empty vortex core central to Baroque sculpture made famous by Bernini, and returned sculpture to the ideas of Hellenistic greats like Phidias, whose Zeus at Olympia was one of the ancient world’s Seven Wonders. Canova was the very first member of Di Spessore come Ladri-e (Thicke as Thieves), the Italian Alan Thicke Fan Club. Prego!

Stefano Porcari
15th century
Actor, insurrectionist
Wealthy Roman actor who felt poets - not churchmen - were society’s moral leaders. Accused Pope Callixtus III of taking more than his share of indulgences during Porcari’s wildly popular performances of Due Uomini e Mezzo. The tragedy, about a writer of sacred chants whose libidinous lifestyle is turned upside down when his brother - a blood-letting leechist - and young nephew move into his house on the Amalfi coast. Porcari considered himself superior to any other Roman in education, influence and battle-tested bayonets. He challenged Callixtus to fisticuffs in his octagon, and taunted the pope’s “droopy-eyed, armless children.” After repeatedly ingesting a combination of figs, turbot and honeyed herb liqueur, Porcari attempted to lead an insurrection against papal control, demanding, in appearances throughout the city, that he was a “bitchin’ count from the House of Bourbon,” with a “battalion of warlock Samurai,” whose “fire-breathing fists” coursed with “the blood of one thousand ocelots.” Hearing of Porcari’s meltdown, Callixtus banished the actor to Bologna.

Ennio Quirino Visconti
1751 to 1818
Archaeologist
Conservator of the Capitoline Museums in Rome and catalogued antiquities for the Vatican. Foremost 18th century expert on ancient Roman sculpture, who eventually became antiquities curator of the Louvre. Visconti’s love for Hungarian busby hats, ribbon-trimmed knee breeches and silk, striped Rococo capes made him a bit favoloso for the all-male rapier fencing clubs that dominated the he-man culture of Italy’s late Baroque period. Also, he invented the sweater vest.

Pietro Verri
1728 to 1797
Satirist and economist
As a young satirist, Verri provoked Milan’s high society with his literary salon, Societa dei Pugni - the Fist Society. Later, in his work Meditazioni di economia politica (“Meditations on Economic Politics”) Verri’s arguments about the quantity theory of supply and demand echoed John Locke’s in England. In his magazine, Il Caffe, he published numerous articles that scandalized 18th century Milan. “Hey Milano, 18th secolo, si masturba!” (“Hey, 18th century Milan - You Jerks!”) did not create much of a stir. But “Milano è di circa attraente come le mie palle” (“Milan is about as attractive as my balls”) upset the local chamber of commerce, and “Hey Milano, Non mi ricordo dove ho nascosto tutte le prostitute che ho ucciso” (“Hey Milan, I can’t remember where I hid all the prostitutes I killed”) scandalized the city’s adult entertainment industry. After an outcry, Verri apologized in the Il Caffe article, “Hey Milano, placare gli animi il cazzo verso il basso. Sono un autore satirico. Hai bisogno di me per definire la parola per voi. Jeez.” (“Hey Milan, everyone calm the fuck down. I’m a satirist. Do you need me to define the word for you people? Jeez.”)

Paolo Mascagni
1755 to 1815
Physician
Anatomy professor at the University of Pisa whose work concentrated mostly on the lymph nodes. Foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and president of the Fisiocritici Academy in Siena. In his free time, Mascagni entertained wealthy European opera buffs on the Grand Tour by performing - live, on stage, for cash - the central operation that produced Italy’s much-loved castrati. Mamma Mia!

Antonio Nibby
1792 to 1839
Archaeologist
Noted 19th century expert on ancient Roman art, professor at the University of Rome and consultant to the Vatican. Nibby’s knowledge about the walls of ancient Rome made him a natural choice to lead the excavation of the Roman Forum and Circus Maximus. In addition, Nibby founded a secret society on an island off the north coast of Calabria where men dressed as women, and women dressed as Hägar the Horrible.

Count Vittorio Alfieri
1749 to1803
Dramatist
Considered the founder of Italian tragedy, Alfieri was brought up in an affluent household, and inherited his uncle’s vast wealth. Years spent in the gloom of Scandinavia’s forests, and atop the damp crags of its fjords, in search of inspiration for his plays altered a once bright outlook into something more melancholy and black. Early dramatic efforts like Io Non Posso Credere a Quanto Sono Felice (“I Can’t Believe How Happy I Am”) and Vi Meritate un Arcobaleno en Tua Boca Ogni Singolo Minuto (“You Deserve A Rainbow in Your Mouth Every Single Minute”) gave way to harder, searching fare such as Grigio Norvegia (“Gray Norway,”) Mi Fanno Male Per un Segno Che Tutti i vostri Blaterare Cesserà Presto (“I Ache For A Sign That All Your Blathering Will Soon Cease”) and Se C’è un Dio, Perché c’è Anche Alan Thicke? (“If There Is a God, Why Is There Also Alan Thicke?”)

NYT Book Review — Children’s Best Sellers (Election...

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 14:59:08 -0400

NYT Book Review — Children’s Best Sellers (Election Year)

Super PACs for the rest of us

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 17:12:29 -0400

Mitt Romney’s Make Us Great Again. Newt Gingrich’s Winning Our Future. Ron Paul’s Endorse Liberty. Rick Santorum’s Red White and Blue Fund. Barack Obama’s PrioritiesUSA Action. They’re called Independent Expenditure Committees. They’re also called Super PACs. Six of one, a half billion of the other, they’re the result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission which allowed unlimited corporate funding of political campaigns in the name of the First Amendment. The rise of the Super PAC is not limited to contenders for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination. In the free-speech spirit that drove the high court’s 5-4 Citizens United decision, many ordinary Americans are filing the paperwork indicating they will accept donations of unlimited amounts for their causes. Here, a look at some of those filings:

Committeee Name: Our Country Deserves Better Boyfriends for Lindsay Applewhite
Opposed to Candidate: Lindsay Applewhite’s Previous Boyfriends
Slogan: “Get a Job. Lose the Sweatpants. Turn Off the Xbox.”
Mission: Our Committee seeks to widen the range of prospective boyfriends for Lindsay Applewhite in the public square and bring to the attention of the American public the horrible attitude and selfishness and sloppiness and rudeness and general assholeness of Lindsay Applewhite’s three previous boyfriends: Kyle Rachsenhauser (pervert), Robbie Wren Hastings (very cute, but a cheater) and Sam Farminghouse (yech). Support Lindsay Applewhite’s search for a better boyfriend. Support Freedom.

Committee Name: Patriots for Justice at the Airport Bar in Phoenix
In Support of Candidate: Scott Kipps
Slogan: “You’re Killing Me Over Here.”
Mission: Patriots for Justice at the ABP is dedicated to the singular goal of getting Scott Kipps a Dewar’s and soda before his 5:50 connection to Chicago. We understand the difficult climate at the Phoenix airport during the late afternoon/early evening rush. We understand that the bar at Dick Clark’s American Bandstand Grill is two deep, and that Judy and her swarthy bar-back, Rich, are in the weeds. But we also understand that Scott Kipps really needs a fucking drink. For the sake of Liberty, each and every American must acknowledge that Scott Kipps has been holding out his $20 bill for what seems like 25 minutes, and that Judy has looked straight into his eyes at least three times before serving someone else. It’s not too late. Final call for boarding at Gate 14A is at least ten minutes away. You can still make a difference. For Truth. For Country. The time is right for Scott Kipps in Phoenix.

Committee Name: Concerned Americans for the Theory of Quantum Decoherence
In Support of Candidate: Wave-particle energy duality
Slogan: Definitive Values. Spherically Symmetric. Right now.
Mission: If Einstein taught us anything at the Fifth Solvay Conference of 1927, it was that the quantum revolution could not be declared dead before the reasons behind space-time mechanics were satisfactorily explained. Look outside your window - any window in America - and you’re likely to see a public program. Throw a stick and it’s likely (based on its inertia [1/3]ML^2, combined with an upwards velocity KE .5mv^2v traveling on a rotational axis, and assuming basic kinematics plus government waste) to hit an entitlement or a handout. The current administration is lying to the American people with its suggestion that quantum decoherence leads inevitably to wave-function collapse. Patriots know the truth: That QD only gives the appearance of wave-function collapse. Quantum decoherence worked its way up from an impoverished, difficult early stage to an entangled state filled with uncertainty principles and electro-weak space. Its story of harnessing Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem, and turning a total collapse of its wave packet into harmonic oscillators that reordered the phase angles in each component of the quantum superposition is the most American of stories. Wave-particle energy duality needs your help. And America needs the corpuscular theory of light. America needs Quantum decoherence now.

Committee Name: Standing Together to End Baby Showers
In Support of Candidate: Midge Rikkles
Slogan: “Stupid Games. No Booze. Wait, Seriously - No Booze?”
Mission: On September 23, 2011, Midge Rikkles opened a light blue envelope in her pile of mail. “Oh, Baby. It’s a Shower!” read the card inside. It was an invitation to celebrate the pregnancy of Gerri O’Dwyst, a horrid and very fertile woman Midge Rikkles knows from The Yoga Pit. Since 2008, Midge Rikkles has attended 312 baby showers. And today she has the guts to say “no more.” It is time that we restore our country’s Future by supporting young women like Midge Rikkles who have better things to do with their hungover Saturday early-afternoons than sit around playing “Baby Bottle Bowling,” drinking shitty mint tea and using phrases like “onesie,” “diaper cake” and “mucus plug”- the tired language of a dying ritual. Midge Rikkles believes in an America that should not be held hostage to special interest groups like Babies “R” Us, Baby Wal-Mart and Frito-Lay Baby. If you’re cool with babies, but hate the people who have them, Stand Together with Midge.

Committee Name: Voices for a Fiscally Conservative Phil Jackson-Phil Collins Alliance
In Support of Candidate: Jackson-Collins 2012
Slogan: “I Can Feel It Coming in the Mahābhūta Tonight.”
Mission: Across the cultural and political spectrum, the warning signs about a degraded, undignified, soft America are everywhere. Who will come to our rescue? Who will have the courage to engage in real, meaningful debate about what our children can expect from this country? Who cares? As Americans across this great country, from Miami to Midtown Miami, face questions about the future of healthcare or blah blah, the rest of us can concentrate on something of import: What would happen if Phil Jackson and Phil Collins got together to go jogging, or shop for radicchio at the farmer’s market, or chat over Dragon Sprout tea? First of all, where would they go for tea? Would Phil J. order first, and offer to pay for Phil C.? Would they sit near the window so passersby could see them (are The Phils sort of show-offy?), or would they find a quiet spot in back by the tea infusers and tea socks and “Rise & Grind” coffee spoons? Would they talk about music? YES. If so, would they talk about Lady Antebellum or Philip (Phil?!) Glass? Jesus Christ, it is so goddamn exciting.

Committee Name: Americans For An America Without Spacemen PAC
Opposed to Candidate: Spacemen
Slogan: Real Spacemen. They’re Coming. Holy Shit.
Mission: The Obama administration and Congress are aiming for a $17 billion NASA budget over the next five years. That might sound like a pretty penny but lawmakers haven’t considered how many Middle Class jobs will be lost when the spacemen arrive on February 16, 2012. Most Americans believe that the spacemen are coming because they’d been secretly summoned to earth 19 years ago with the Wrecksx-N-Effect song, “Rump Shaker.” Wrong. The spacemen are coming because America’s current conservative leadership has failed to devise real solutions to real problems. They are coming because the reach of Obamacare is so long that they fear the unconstitutional individual mandate will force them to buy insurance as far away as where they live: in space. Before the spacemen arrive, you can help. Join Americans For An America Without Spacemen, and together we can defeat Barack Obama and show the spacemen that Russia would be a better place to go to raise taxes and eat baby brains.

This is important art that will heal a broken world.

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 20:55:18 -0400

This is important art that will heal a broken world.

Wonton

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 21:36:45 -0400

Wonton

Taken in a hotel parking lot. Quality Inn, indeed.

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 20:04:20 -0400

Taken in a hotel parking lot. Quality Inn, indeed.

Ron Hagglesoap Forms a Presidential Exploratory Committee

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 18:13:00 -0400

On the evening of May 6, 2011, Ron Hagglesoap called a press conference to announce he’d formed a Presidential Exploratory Committee. Ron Hagglesoap, a cable car operator in Patoka, Ind. had never called a press conference before, but he felt sure that calling a press conference was the correct thing to do immediately after forming a Presidential Exploratory Committee. And so he did.

Billy Furt, of the weekly Patoka Waxwing, was the only reporter to show for Ron Hagglesoap’s press conference, which Ron Hagglesoap had - perhaps somewhat rashly - called for six o’clock the next morning.

It was likely that the only reason the Waxwing sent a reporter to cover the press conference was that Billy Furt had been sitting next to Ron Hagglesoap at the bar the previous night at Ye Greene Sheepe when Ron Hagglesoap formed his Presidential Exploratory Committee and subsequently called the press conference.

Also, that next morning Billy Furt woke up on Ron Hagglesoap’s living room pull-out sofa bed, parched like you fucking read about and without his car keys, so he needed Ron Hagglesoap to give him a ride back to the Sheepe so he could get his keys back from the tavern’s proprietor, Shifty Hooker, and collect his ’88 Hyundai Zebedee.

In return, Billy Furt agreed to cover Ron Hagglesoap’s press conference, during which, it was rumored, Ron Hagglesoap would announce the formation of a Presidential Exploratory Committee.

Also, Billy Furt was, technically, the only reporter in Patoka (Roberta von Crispp was regarded by most everyone in town as a celebrity bloggist, not a proper reporter) and the only employee of the Waxwing.

Both Ron Hagglesoap and Billy Furst arrived at the press conference nearly 18 hours late. They had been on their way to the Patoka Community Center & Ice Arena where the press conference had been scheduled, when Ron Hagglesoap realized they were passing Ye Greene Sheepe, and that Shifty Hooker’s rusted out Mitsubishi Pentateuch was parked out back. Shifty Hooker (real name was Palsy) sometimes opened for brunch on Sundays, and on this Sunday Ron Hagglesoap and Billy Furt stepped in for some caramel corn and gin.

When Ron Hagglesoap and Billy Furt finally made it to the Patoka Community Center & Ice Arena, a little after midnight, Ron Hagglesoap made the announcement that he’d formed a Presidential Exploratory Committee. And then he opened the floor to questions.

Billy Furt began with the obvious press conference opener: Did Ron Hagglesoap have Billy Furt’s winning Quick Draw Keno ticket from the night before? Ron Hagglesoap checked his pockets and announced to Patoka’s press corp that he did not now, nor did he ever, have Furt’s winning Quick Draw Keno ticket from the previous evening.

Billy Furt was a natural reporter, a curious truth-seeker who had covered Gibson County politics for three of the last seven years, and so he asked Ron Hagglesoap a follow-up: Could Ron Hagglesoap please check his jacket pockets for the Quick Draw Keno ticket?

Ron Hagglesoap produced the crumpled Quick Draw Keno ticket from the left pocket of his Pacer’s windbreaker. Veteran beat reporters like Billy Furt know that persistence pays off. When no one else in the gaggle is willing to ask the obvious, it’s sometimes that softball question that forces the source of the question itself - the act of questioning itself - to locate the root of all answers. And if some reporters are willing to plumb those depths while others stand on the edge of foamy darkness, if some reporters are willing to travel low to the dirty dirt floor of the valley and then, after that, travel way up high to the top of the much cleaner valley top, like to the clean roof of the valley…

Billy Furt sat down on the floor at the Patoka Community Center & Ice Arena. He’d had fourteen Galliano shots at the Sheepe, and he wasn’t thinking straight. It was after midnight, the tail of a six-day bender, and he was confused. He was forgetting things. He’d forgotten, in fact, what Ron Hagglesoap’s Presidential Exploratory Committee was exploring. Could Ron Hagglesoap please remind the assembled press about the reason this committee was being formed?

Ron Hagglesoap looked stricken. Ashen. White as a white, white ghost that’s has been in a bleach bath for four hours because it hadn’t been quite white enough to be so scary. For a moment Ron Hagglesoap pretended not to hear the question. Then he mumbled something about freedom and America and turkey gravy, which was confusing. But then, the entire scene at the Patoka Community Center & Ice Arena was confusing. Finally, flustered, Ron Hagglesoap left the podium, yelping about exploring Billy Furt’s dumb cranium for brain cells. Also, he threw up. And then Ron Hagglesoap drove Billy Furt back to the Sheepe in his ’97 Pontiac Pleroma for five more Galliano shots before last call.

The headline, above the fold, in the following week’s Patoka Waxwing was - most Patoka citizens agreed - unkind.

“Local cable car operator forms Presidential Exploratory Committee to test…what waters? He doesn’t really know. And then he threw up on me.”

It wasn’t one of Billy Furt’s best headlines, but he’d always had trouble editing himself, and since there were no copy editors (or any editors at all) at the Waxwing, he was left to crush his own dreams. From Ron Hagglesoap’s point of view, things didn’t really improve in the story itself. The lead of Billy Furt’s story - most Patoka citizens agreed - was cruel.

“An explorer traditionally sets out exploring for something other than his own ass. Not local cable car operator, Ronald Hagglesoap.”

Waxwing subscriber, Shemmie St. Yachtthrottle, read the paper that morning and felt horrible for Ron Hagglesoap. First of all, before they’d split three years earlier, she’d been married to Billy Furt for what seemed like fucking ages. And, secondly, Shemmie St. Yachtthrottle had once been a member of a Presidential Exploratory Committee. She knew how these things worked, and she knew the process wasn’t pretty.

She called Ron Hagglesoap. Hey, she said. I can help. I’ve got experience in the Presidential Exploratory Committee sector, and I have a friend from class who is itching to lead a Presidential Exploratory Committee. This guy has ideas, Shemmie St. Yachtthrottle said.

Ron Hagglesoap appreciated the sympathy, and even the offer for help, but he wasn’t sure. After all, he’d already been humiliated in the media. Why put himself out there again, when - if he was honest with himself - Billy Furt was right? He really didn’t have anything worthy of presidential exploration in mind.

I read the Waxwing story about your press conference, and from what I understand, it sounds like your passions have something to do with freedom and America and rabbits and chalk, Shemmie St. Yachtthrottle said. Those are ideas I can get behind. I believe in you, she said. I believe that you believe. As long as you believe, then I believe in you and your campaign for chalky American rabbit gravy.

This is crazy, thought Ron Hagglesoap. A week earlier he’d decided to form a Presidential Exploratory Committee, then he called the press together to announce his intentions…of nothing. And now here he was, on the cusp of really forming a Presidential Exploratory Commitee; of having believers. Yes, it was crazy. But if there was never a crazy, Ron Hagglesoap thought, then Thomas Edison would never have been a member of Mumenchanz.

Let’s do it! he said to Shemmie St. Yachtthrottle. But she had hung up while he was trying to remember the difference between Thomas Edison and Benjamin Franklin. So he called her back and said, Let’s Do It! very loudly into her ear. What the fuck?!! Shemmie St. Yachtthrottle asked. And then Ron Hagglesoap apologized for screeching like that.

So Shemmie St. Yachtthrottle brokered a meeting between Ron Hagglesoap and her friend, Morris Kraptost, whom she’d met in continuing-education crystal calligraphy class at Patoka College, and who was studying for an advanced degree in Panda Math - the discipline of teaching linear algebra and (later) game theory to pandas. The Chinese bears.

Morris Kraptost had, indeed, led a Presidential Exploratory Committee, he told Ron Hagglesoap. The year was 1987, and the candidate was Heather Skrylbottum who had launched a campaign for election to the Eleventh Presidency of the World Garlic Council.

It had been Morris Kraptost’s idea to set up a fake organization, Pelt Children with Garlic - or PCwG (pronounced “pee see smalldoubleyou jee”) - which advocated throwing bulbs of garlic at children whenever that opportunity presented itself to one.

In its fake mission statement, PCwG said garlic “should be thrown at children because children represent innocence and who wants to look at that anymore?” Morris Kraptost’s strategy had been to heighten, then corral, parents’ anger against the PCwG, and finally provide an anodyne to their pain via Heather Skrylbottum. A mother herself, Heather Skrylbottum - in remarks during the committee exploration phase of her bid for the Eleventh Seat of the World Garlic Council presidency - denounced, in no uncertain terms or words or phrases or other words, the irresponsible assault on American children by anti-garlic forces whose only goal was to eliminate a child’s basic right to grow up without bulb bruises.

The disintegration of Heather Skrylbottum’s Presidential Exploratory Committee came after garlic-industry beat reporters were tipped off to Morris Kraptost’s scheme by children in his own neighborhood whom Morris Kraptost had been pelting with garlic as he “hid” behind a small spruce in his front yard.

This was exactly what Ron Hagglesoap had been hoping to hear. Morris Kraptost was the kind of leader who could bring together an effective Presidential Exploratory Committee. More importantly, Morris Kraptost had the experience to be able to find some kind of presidency for which Ron Hagglesoap could form an exploratory committee.

Ron Hagglesoap threw a fist in the air. Rock ‘n Roll-a! he said. He’d never said Rock ‘n Roll-a! before, and he wasn’t quite sure where he’d first heard it. But things were coming together for his Presidential Exploratory Committee, and it felt great to yell Rock ‘n Roll-a! as he threw a fist in the air. It was energizing and it gave him the kind of morale boost he’d need to make it through what was sure to be a brutal campaign.

At that moment, Ron Hagglesoap determined that Rock ‘n Roll-a! - with not one, but four fist throws (one for each syllable) - would be the official motto/arm movement for his Presidential Exploratory Committee.

Since veteran political consultant Morris Kraptost was sitting right there, Ron Hagglesoap consulted with him on the motto/arm movement idea. Morris Kraptost said he loved it, especially the throwing of the fists straight up in the air, above one’s head, rather than straight out in front of one’s chest - horizontally, parallel to one’s shoes. Or parallel to, say, a bottle of Galliano tipped on its side on the Sheepe’s floor and in danger of being stepped on, it’s long, delicate neck shattered and all the syrupy, golden liqueur seeping into the months of grime, vomit residue and dried urine coating the floor to the right of the bar next to the Golden Tee Golf coin-operated video game.

One wouldn’t want to throw one’s fists straight out in front of one on the campaign trail - lest one punch a baby, or a member of a minority group in the head, Morris Kraptost said. The support of mothers and Buddhists is crucial in the exploration phase of any presidential run, he explained to Ron Hagglesoap.

Ron Hagglesoap was uncomfortable with all of Morris Kraptost’s talk about Hindu fist babies, and he was really weirded out when Morris Kraptost started in on how “one” would do this, and “lest” this happened. What was he, Dutch?

So Ron Hagglesoap fired Morris Kraptost on the spot and determined he’d turn spilled milk into lemons by basing his first Presidential Exploratory Committee television ad on the bold move of firing Morris Kraptost. Better the devil you know than bark up the wrong tree, he figured. A house divided against itself paints a thousand words. And then he asked Morris Kraptost to pay the $6.95 for the fancy grapefruit he’d just eaten at Froederich’s Fancy Cafe while listening to Morris Kraptost’s pitch.

I totally understand, Morris Kraptost told Ron Hagglesoap after his job had been eliminated from Hagglesoap’s Presidential Exploratory Committee after recent streamlining. It would be difficult for the American people to get beyond the fact that in my past I fired hard-necked rocamboles at children for political gain, he said.

But Morris Kraptost had become a believer in Ron Hagglesoap’s cause. You need help. That’s much is clear, Morris Kraptost said. Let me introduce you to my Presidential Exploratory Committee network. They’re good people.

The list wasn’t long, but it was gamy. It was nosey. It was all sun-boiled tartar sauce and cigarette butts. Morris Kraptost kept that list hidden under the passenger seat of a ‘03 Suzuki Sheol that had been abandoned - windows down - by the overpass at Interstate 41, near the airport. The two men walked out of Froederich’s arm-in-arm to retrieve the document, and to make a dream come true.

Ron Hagglesoap, Ron Hagglesoap thought, was on his way in the zippy, kaleidoscopic world of Presidential Exploratory Committees.

Hejji Rammelkhark
EXPERIENCE: Selection of Indiana’s first Presidential Exploratory Committee in 1978, when his son’s Little League team - the Palmyra Phantoms - was absent a coach. Refused to be called “coach” because of his aversion to “faux-thority,” but embraced the prospect of exploiting his new position to bang Rose Marble, shortstop Richie Marble’s divorced mom, who came to all the games in a black Corvette with a white rose painted on the hood. Yes, Sir!
DRIVES: ’88 Subaru Parousia

“Spaghetti” John Cazzpouge
EXPERIENCE: Gathered members of the famous Rensselaer Riggle Piggle Six carpool team together before the 2007 decision to name Rita Schweart coordinator (ie. president) of all Riggle Piggle carpool schedules for the 2007-2008 school year.
DRIVES: ’06 Honda Chrysostom

Camille Horfle
EXPERIENCE: As the first female butcher in Indiana to win three of the five competitions (stunning, exsanguination, dehairing) at the annual Indiana Great Slaughter of Animals Festival in North Vernon in 1996, Horfle led the search for the next head of the state’s Hot-bone Slaughterhouse Oversight Board.
DRIVES: ’85 Buick Jebusite

Richie Sbuk
EXPERIENCE: Consistently decided who would go first in shuffle board during a family Puta Hermosa Cruise Lines vacation from Panama City to Cancun.
DRIVES: Mom’s ’99 Ford Apostasy

Sue Corkenflap
EXPERIENCE: In 1993, voted Most Likely to Fall Over Because She’s So Dumb by her sisters at Alpha Epsilon Theta Delta Epsilon at Indiana University.
REDEMPTION: First woman in Indiana to sit on fourteen Presidential Exploratory Committees, including for Youth Cigar Team in Covington, Hop Scotch and More Scotch Club for nurse practitioners at St. Vincent Catholic Hospital in Terre Haute, and Radial Rotations Day at the Tire Rack in Elkhart.
DRIVES: ’04 Lincoln Ecclesiastic

This ad warns German women that if they get Lyme Disease they...

Sat, 07 May 2011 13:44:49 -0400

This ad warns German women that if they get Lyme Disease they will have to marry an old man.

Trailer for the most frightening movie ever made. Ever.

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 21:41:59 -0500

[Flash 10 is required to watch video.]

Trailer for the most frightening movie ever made. Ever.

Bauman Really Rare Books

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 17:01:00 -0500

My second humor piece in Esquire landed in this month’s (Nov. 2010) edition. If you didn’t catch the first one, it’s here.

Here are the ones included in the magazine - followed by a few that didn’t make the cut.

——-

Why Print Still Matters

A sampling from our new catalog of hard-to-find titles.

—-

Barbara Eden
My Story, 1989
First edition, first printing of Eden’s classic take on the challenges of being a television genie in love with an astronaut in the 1960s. Boldly inscribed: To Willie von Straat, who has changed the coagulant-membrane-filtration industry, by Eden’s coauthor, Guy Erikson. $6.95

C. Fortenz Milloy
It Is So Interesting, 1837
“Behold in the light borne of the Lord, that which we find, shall be left unfound in time immutable when the night flees daybreak. It is in this morning light when Truth will shout, shout, shout.” Fine three-volume edition of Milloy’s landmark nonsense work, handsomely bound in nineteenth-century iguana. With engraved portrait. $9.50

Trish St. Hammerapple
What We Talk About When We Talk About Talking So Much All the Time, 2007
One of only four copies printed on the Xerox machine at S&A Metal Forming Machinery, Inc., in New Brunswick, New Jersey, by St. Hammerapple. Late example of the most controversial and important masterwork by this winner of the Constantin Pudârma-Dresleaba Prize for Moldovan-American Violent Science Fiction. One of St. Hammerapple’s only known signatures. On anything. Folio. $5.69

Reginald Kipple
The Works of Reginald Kipple, 1999
Only copy of Kipple’s 894-page spiral-bound thoughts about everything from the trash-collection districts of unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, to why women are allowed to wear pants these days. A seminal turn-of-the-century volume, recently found by his son Roland under some sheets near a fondue set in Kipple’s basement. $2.50

Ben Vereen
I Was Tenspeed, 1986
Important contribution to the Vereen canon. The best, most complete volume, which also includes “I Was Pippin” and “I Hate Jeff Goldblum.” First edition, one of only twenty-nine copies, illustrated and signed by Robert Guillaume. Includes thirteen copper-engraved folding plates. $12.49

Wilhelm von Straat
Coagulant Membrane Filtration & Me, 1989
If there’s one name most people think of when they think of coagulant-membrane filtration, it’s Kyle Sommersheld. This book, by Sommersheld’s onetime assistant, tells the “true story,” in von Straat’s words, of the coagulant-membrane-filtration wars of 1982. In the scarce original first-issue dust jacket, warmly inscribed by him: Hagman, you seriously have to give me Barbara’s number. $0.99

Aleksei Alekshaskin
The Horrid, Immoral Life and Grisly Butchering of Pyotr Petrovin, 1956
A children’s classic; first trade edition, among the earliest issues of Alekshaskin’s lovely first book, with color illustrations by him. A beautiful copy in the bright original dust jacket. $11

Ron Toofhart
Make Cheese in Your Shoe TODAY! 1994
A title perennially at the top of the American Cheese Society’s “must buy” list, this lavishly illustrated volume remains an influential statement on making cheese in your shoe. $2.95

Greta Schurrd
The End of Books, 2009
First edition of the first volume of Schurrd’s dystopian fantasy, set in a frighteningly realistic - and eerily immediate - future when the written word has been completely digitized. In Schurrd’s darkly comic telling, all information is conveyed through a personal screen called the Pad. As the author’s towering devil figure, Jobs, tells his slaves: “All that you need, the Pad will give you. Trust the Pad. The Pad knows you. The Pad loves you.” Extremely rare presentation copy; full Moroccan-gilt binding with woodcut illustrations. $1.29

Scads McMartin
She’s a Hag, Man, 1977
“In so many ways, she was joyous, and in so many others, she might as well have been a gimp.” So begins the title essay in McMartin’s Fapper Prize - winning collection. Exceptionally fine first edition with striking sepia-toned photographic plates. Includes “You Didn’t Hear It from Me but Eden’s Got Scabies,” “If You’re Really Giving Me a Choice, I’ll Have a Shasta Lite,” and the surprising “Low-Concentration Phage Ms2 Flocculation Pumps and You” (regarded by some as the “greatest piece of membrane-filtration literature in existence” - Lawrence Hagman), none of which appeared in subsequent editions. $4.99

A few that didn’t make the cut…

Hal Sork
How to Manage a CiCi’s Pizza Buffet Restaurant, 2004.
“It sounds bad, but honestly? First thing you do is hire hot teenage girls.” A timeless management classic with Sork’s signature tipped in. Finely bound and inscribed by Sork while he served two years of an eight year prison term for arson to Cindee for all your support and also for all your top(less)ings. $3.75

Cassandra Bolinpuck
Lithographs, 1967.
First edition of the first volume of the catalogue raisonné of Bolinpuck’s lithographs. Earliest obtainable edition richly illustrated with 12 original lithographs, signed and inscribed by Bolinpuck during a time when she was going through some serious shit with White Crunch meth (”respect”). With folding maps. $14.95

Chester Arthur
Beans to the Pendleton Act, 1883.
The 21st president supported the Pendelton Act, which established a bipartisan Civil Service Commission, forbade levying of political assessments against officeholders, and provided….Who’s asleep? Everyone? Yes. This timeless tract by Arthur shows heartfelt frustration with his incredibly boring presidency. Extremely rare presentation copy; includes full 15-line text of “Chinamen and Lunatics Get Out,” Arthur’s poem detailing his immigration stance. $16.00

The O'Callaghan Awards

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 16:58:00 -0500

For O’Callaghan Awards, another group of…ummm…iconoclasts?

By Sage Warlockheart
Herald Staff Writer

NEW YORK - A chef who whimsically combines scraps of used latex yoga mats with benzocaine to feed out-of-work circus podiatrists; an Austrian poet based in Brazil who uses dental floss to suspend live bullfrogs over pools of ketchup; and Lucy from “Peanuts” are among the 14 recipients of the $385 “abstruse grants” to be announced Tuesday by the Lochlan P. and Marta P. O’Callaghan Foundation.

While no one has ever heard of most of the fellows, a few are so obscure it was difficult to confirm whether they were even real people. They include Pishel Hoal, a 66-year-old former gemologist who lives underground near Coober Pedy, Australia, and who occasionally surfaces from his hole to wander about.

“Four of the kings have been beheaded and the rest have followed me here,” Hoal said in an interview conducted via Skype from the Opal Blossom Hunan Buffet in Coober Pedy. “If I tell them we have the goats, they’ll be still. They’ll be still.”

This year’s O’Callaghan fellows range in age from 6 to 93 and are evenly divided between men and women. As in past years, most either have struggled with emotional problems or have been in prison. This year’s judges stuck to the O’Callaghan awards tradition of naming fellows whose accomplishments square with the foundation’s stated mission to “shine a light upon work that seems unimportant to the rest of the world, only because it is unimportant.”

All 14 fellows will receive $27.50 a year for five years, and must use the grant to purchase either playing cards or cat food. Since the inception of the program in 2007, 18 people have been named Lochlan P. and Marta P. O’Callaghan fellows.

Besides Mr. Hoal, other winners this year include retired lepidopterist Belinda Pandoe-Crapht, 56, whose study of the Common Blue Morpho, the Red Admiral and the Camberwell Beauty butterfly species has informed and influenced her music as lead singer of the punk-metal outfit Ass Typhoon; Trisha Bloorkie, 23, a Sacramento prostitute who also serves on the board of the Santa Clara Valley Water District; Robert Simpote, 44, who enjoys US Weekly and is thinking of subscribing; Maladraiga Hernandez-Mushi, 78, a pioneer in the Electric Boogaloo, Popping and Crazy Legs movements of the 1970s; Maxim Dityatev, 49, a mixed-media artist who works mainly with Sour Apple Berry Bubble Yum, ejaculate and chicken skin; Jennifer “Zothecula” Miller, 15, a Goth teenager known for cranking up The Sisters of Mercy and wearing eyeliner to bed; and Herbert Rae-Boney, 48, a protégé of Dutch physicist Gerardus ‘t Hooft, whose theoretical work on gauge theories, quantum gravity and black holes earned him the Nobel Prize in 1999.

Mr. Rae-Boney left Mr. ‘t Hooft’s laboratory ten years ago to study circumplanetary dust physics, but instead has spent much of the last decade managing Ron’s Do-Nuts at the corner of Vineland and Conroy in Orlando with his wife, Cathy Rae-Boney.

Another fellow who failed to live up to his promise, Gillie St. Warche - an entrepreneur whose idea of putting “a professional water polo player in every home” has yet to pan out - said he would use the money to buy either playing cards or cat food. “I don’t have a cat, so I guess I’ll buy some playing cards,” said Mr. St. Warche, who was named a fellow because of his “extraordinary ability to read Proust while simultaneously lighting squirrels afire,” according to the judges’ notes. “Or I guess I might buy some cat food, because I have a friend who has a cat. And she could give the cat food to her cat.”

While all of the fellows do pointless, inexplicable or boring things with their time, the O’Callaghan grants are distinctive because they reward the truly inane. “I think it’s real fun,” Teague O’Callaghan, the foundation’s president, and grandson of Lochlan P. and Marta P. O’Callaghan, said of discovering and naming the fellows. “It’s fun, and it’s also funny. Both.”

As examples, Mr. O’Callaghan cited Sharon Haavish, 93, who has a different colored track suit for every airport she visits, and Kyle Ballantone, 28, a liquid helium salesman from Alfalfa County, Okla., whose cross-stitch embroidery designs of Grand Duke Leopold I and other members of the House of Baden-Durlach have captured the hearts of Swedish people everywhere, though mostly in Sweden.

Mark Sixypotch, who, at the age of 19 has already translated several seminal herpetological books into English - including (from the original Marathi) “The Snakes of India and Pakistan,” by K.G. Gharpurey; “Japanese Venomous Snakes,” by Seiichi Takahashi; and (from the original Azeri) “Amphibians and Reptiles of Azerbaijan” by A.M. Alekperov - is so gay.

“I have no idea what to think about winning this award because I’ve never heard of it and I’m quite sure no one else has either,” said Mary von Pahrtenfur, a junior at SUNY New Paltz who is well known on campus for her notion that a new pan-global alphabet could bring about world peace and get people to finally realize that Alan Thicke is the devil.

Wayne X. Hashago, 55, a familiar figure in journeyman tool and die making circles, called the award a “piece of shit.” Hashago has six fingers.

Similarities can be seen in the work of three fellows: Annette Fordol, 42, who has walked in circles around her own house in Lapeer, Mich. continuously for four years; Jaishree Dhurvasula, 29, whose musical compositions transcend classification, but range somewhere between Cambodian trip hop and traditional oom-pah; and Sebastian Pelicago, 81 who fashioned a popular line of pre-school toys out of used tattoo needles, carbolic acid, shards of glass and meat.

PHOTO: Maxim Dityatev: Mixed-media artist

"Let's Move" is only latest First Lady initiative

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 16:37:00 -0500

First Lady Michelle Obama recently outlined her initiative to eliminate childhood obesity within a generation. In her kickoff speech for what the Obama administration is calling the “Let’s Move” campaign, Mrs. Obama said “the physical and emotional health of an entire generation and the economic health and security of our nation is at stake.”

“This isn’t the kind of problem that can be solved overnight,” she continued. “But with everyone working together, it can be solved. So, let’s move.”

The administration has been putting the “Let’s Move” campaign together for over a year, and dismissed several other possible projects for Mrs. Obama along the way, including “Let’s Dance,” an appeal to resurrect post-disco, synthesizer-driven dance music from the early-to-mid 1980s; “Let’s Seriously Get Way Baked,” which was deemed too close in substance to Nancy Regan’s “Just Say No” appeal, and “Let’s Get It On,” a challenge to elderly Americas to don their rain coats more speedily.

Mrs. Obama’s “Let’s Move” initiative continues a long tradition of U.S. presidents’ wives taking up a social or political cause. Some of those efforts were either rejected by administration officials, or have simply been lost in the annals of presidential history.

—-

Martha Washington never lived in the White House, but some historians have claimed that her hobby - and later commercial enterprise - of crafting dental implants from cherry wood was the first cause, of sorts, promulgated by a First Lady. Owing to an unspecified, but profound childhood trauma, the taste of cherry wood, gave President Washington an intense rush that allowed him to concentrate more fully on matters of state. Mrs. Washington realized that she’d stumbled into a money maker, and was soon peddling the inexplicably popular, “Martha’s (Splinter Free!) Cherry Bomb Chompers,” in Battery Park.

Despite the rechristening of the Red Room as the Goofy Foot Room in 1809 when the Madison’s moved into the White House, few in Washington knew about Dolley Madison’s fascination with surfing. The “Bro, That is Perilous!” campaign sought to improve surfing etiquette on the increasingly crowded east coast shoreline. “I’ve inquired about promised sick big water off New Symrna Beach, for my plans are to depart on the morrow by carriage and I don’t mind reporting to you, Brosef, that I am so amped,” Mrs. Madison wrote in an 1802 letter to her friend, Margaret Rawlson Pauling. “And yet when last I was there, I spent the better part of sunrise turning my spy-glass in every direction, watching with unwearied aggro, hoping to discover the approach of some epic crunchers. But, alas! I descried only dick draggers in all directions. When those ass clowns get worked, they can cause full on dings in my stick and - Heaven forgive me - I pray a rip the size of a Redcoat regiment will take them far to sea.”

Elizabeth Monroe became a foodie in France where her husband James had been named U.S. Minister by President Washington in 1794. Twenty-three years later, when the Monroes moved into the White House, Mrs. Monroe had become addicted to red meat. In 1821, she discovered a sublime steak sauce created by the head chef of England’s King George IV, and secretly began importing cases of it into Washington for her own consumption, and for presidential dinner parties. When the king found out about Mrs. Monroe’s fixation with his steak sauce, he ordered her supply cut off, partly in retribution for his father’s defeat in the Revolutionary War. In response, Mrs. Monroe founded an initiative promoting American-made steak sauce and called it, “Are You Fucking Kidding Me? British ‘Food’ Is Fucking Disgusting Anyway. Go Fuck Yourself, King Whatever Fuck Your Fucking Name Is.”

When Sarah Polk and her husband James arrived in Washington from their native Tennessee in 1845, they brought with them a style of southern charm to which the White House has since become accustomed. But Mrs. Polk was wary of big city ways, and bristled at whispered insults about rural life in the south. To combat what she considered northern ignorance, Mrs. Polk undertook an educational campaign called “My Kinfolk Is Your Kinfolk.” The campaign highlighted the achievements of backwoods cornfed yokels to sophisticates in Philadelphia and New York. A favorite of Mrs. Polk’s was a poster depicting a young hillbilly, half his overalls unbuckled, urinating in a jug while shooing away a critter, and the tagline: “See? A American Did That.”

Abigail Fillmore - “Who Doesn’t Love a Poached Egg?”

James Buchanan, president from 1857 to 1861, is still the only president who never married. As First Lady, he chose Harriet Lane, his favorite niece. The two had been inseparable during Buchanan’s years as minister to the Court of St. James, where Queen Victoria gave Ms. Lane the rank of ambassador’s wife. Soon after Buchanan (or “Nunc,” as Ms. Lane called him) and his niece moved into the White House, Ms. Lane became the toast of social Washington, and launched “It’s Not Weird!,” a campaign aimed at de-stigmatizing intimate uncle-niece relationships across America.

Lucretia Garfield was First Lady for only six months before her husband James died in office after being shot in 1881. While Mrs. Garfield did not have much time for causes during her husband’s presidency, she had always had two, unrelated, joys in life - lye and sad clowns. In the middle of June, three months after moving into the White House, Mrs. Garfield asked her husband if she could embark on two social crusades as First Lady - one to be called “Lye!” and the other to be called “Sad Clowns!” “Sure,” President Garfield responded, but then it never came up again and then he got shot and died.

Epilepsy was a constant in the White House life of Ida McKinley, and her husband William. Perhaps because her own serious illness was such an obstacle to a normal, healthy life in Washington, Mrs. McKinley focused her public attention on an issue she believed would boost the spirits of Americans saddened by the plight of their First Lady. But Mrs. McKinley’s crusade promoting tiny shower caps to protect babies’ hair-dos, called “Keep Her Pretty,” was met with befuddlement rather than approval, and it was soon scuttled by President McKinley who called his wife’s idea “looney,” “batty,” “zany,” “moofie,” “shaapie,” “truggly” and “garbanzo.”

Her years as an Army wife in a variety of posts around the world prepared Mamie Eisenhower for the many heads of state she and her husband Dwight would receive at the White House in the 1950s. But it was Mrs. Eisenhower’s concern for a domestic crisis that would lead her to declare her own personal war on the Chordettes. The songs “Mr. Sandman” and especially “that goddamned annoying ‘Lollipop’ shit,” were enough for the First Lady to create, The Whoredettes, a group of four slutty teenagers with terrible voices and worse hygiene that toured the country parodying the Chordettes and spreading rumors on stage about the original group members’ sexual dalliances with old women, donkeys and Mao Zedong.

Bad Scene, Vol. II: "Battlefield Earth"

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 16:28:22 -0500

“Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000″ (2000) written by J.D. Shapiro and Corey Mandell. Based on the novel by L. Ron Hubbard. Directed by Roger Christian.

Starring John Travolta as TERL - fresh off well-regarded performances in “A Civil Action” and “Primary Colors.” Seven years before “Wild Hogs,” nine years before “Old Dogs” and 11 years before “Wild Hogs 2: Bachelor Ride.”

Starring Forest Whitaker as KER. Yep. Long after “The Crying Game” but long before “Last King of Scotland.” Oh, Forest. Why?

Starring Barry Pepper - only two years after “Saving Private Ryan” - as the earthling hero, JONNIE GOODBOY TYLER.

Starring Michael MacRae in a star-making, scene-stealing cameo as DISTRICT MANAGER ZETE. Veteran of motorized 70s/80s TV dramedy like “Starsky & Hutch,” “The Dukes of Hazzard,” “Knight Rider,” “C.H.I.P.S.,” and “Hardcastle and McCormick.” Yes.

Starring Shaun Austin-Olsen as PLANETSHIP, chief bureaucrat and Psychlo functionary of the goldmine where TERL is head of security. In 2008, Austin-Olsen played First Counsellor in “Magic Flute Diaries.”

About the behind-the-scenes creators:

Director Roger Christian won a set decoration Oscar for “Star Wars” in 1977. Interestingly, in his official bio, Christian lists, among other directing work, commercials for Chrysler and Taco Bell before mentioning “Battlefield Earth.”

Corey Mandell now teaches film writing - correct - at the UCLA Extension Writer’s Program. He says his classes there “explore the essential elements of successful premises, flexible story structure, and deeper and more realistic characterizations.”

His co-writer, J.D. Shapiro calls himself a stand-up comic. His writing credits, pre-B.E. (B.B.E.?) included “Robin Hood: Men in Tights.” Post-B.E. (A.B.E.?), Shapiro is credited with two films: 2008’s “X-Treme Biography: Santa” and “Knights of the Not-So-Round Table: The Lost Tapes of 524 AD.”

***

The following words scroll up the screen - ala “Star Wars” - at the beginning of the movie:

IT IS THE YEAR 3000 AD

EARTH, ONCE MANKIND’S HOME, HAS BEEN RULED FOR THE PAST 1000 YEARS BY A CRUEL ALIEN RACE FROM THE PLANET PSYCHLO.

AS THEY HAVE DONE ON COUNTLESS OTHER PLANETS ACROSS THE GALAXIES, THE PSYCHLOS MINE EARTH’S METALS AND TELEPORT THEM BACK TO THEIR HOME PLANET.

GOLD IS THE RAREST AND MOST VALUABLE METAL OF ALL.

THE DWINDLING HUMAN POPULATION IS RIGHTING TO STAY ALIVE. HIDING IN POCKETS, IN RADIATED AREAS, THEY ARE ON THE VERGE OF EXTINCTION.

***

BAD SCENE 1

In the following scene, JONNIE GOODBOY TYLER, along with a handful of other humans, has been captured and brought to a gold mine run by the Psychlos. As they exit the slaveship, JONNIE GOODBOY TYLER shoots a Psychlo guard and escapes. But he runs right into the large paws of TERL, the mine’s security chief, who lifts JONNIE GOODBOY TYLER by the neck, eager to find out which of his guards let the human escape.

Scene…

TERL: Who is responsible for allowing this man-animal to run around unsupervised?

GUARD: The man-animal shot Durango, sir

TERL: I’m a little pressed for time. Why don’t you save the going-away jokes for later. (throws JONNIE GOODBOY TYLER to the ground.)

GUARD: It’s not joke, sir, I swear. The man-animal somehow got ahold of this gun (shows gun).

TERL: Really? Show me.

GUARD: Sir?

(TERL grabs gun from guard. Gives it to JONNIE GOODBOY TYLER.)

TERL (To GUARD): Reach for the gun.

GUARD: But sir, I might get shot.

TERL: Sure you might. And I might suddenly grow a third arm.

GUARD: But sir I swear it shot the wrangler.

TERL: The report filed today still has my name on it. And you are out of your skull-bone if you think that I’m going to write on the report: “Shot by man-animal” as the cause of death, unless I see it.

GUARD: If I obey your command, I may get killed.

TERL: And if you don’t, it’s a certainty that you will be killed. (beat) Reach for the gun.

(GUARD reaches for the gun, and JONNIE GOODBOY TYLER shoots him.)

TERL: Well. I’ll be damned. (Begins maniacal laughter.)

…and, Scene.

***

BAD SCENE 2

In the following scene TERL, a graduate of Psychlo’s prestigious military university, expects to hear from DISTRICT MANAGER ZETE that he’s being promoted and can return to his home planet.

Scene…

(DISTRICT MANAGER ZETE is teleported onto earth from Psychlon).

TERL: It is a pleasure to see you, Your Excellency. I would be honored to expedite your clearance through security.

ZETE: Please, call me Zete. Does all of Earth look like this?

TERL: Oh, I’m afraid so, sir.

ZETE: Pathetic. All the green, and the blue sky. They told me this planet is ugly, but this has got to be one of the ugliest crapholes in the entire universe.

TERL: I couldn’t agree more.

ZETE: I hate these puny, undersized planets. The gravity is so…different.

TERL: Well, one does get used to it.

ZETE: The human animals, grossly undersized.

KER: They don’t make very good eating, Your Excellency.

TERL: Ah, yes. My executive assistant, Ker.

KER: Thank you.

TERL: He has been fully trained to replace me as Chief of Security. As soon as my transfer goes through.

ZETE: Well, Ker. Once we finish mining out this miserable, little planet, let’s do the universe a favor. Let’s exterminate the lot of them.

TERL: (Maniacle laughter) Oh, you’re too much.

ZETE: So they tell me.

TERL: Please, come this way.

(The group repairs to a conference room)

PLANETSHIP: I am honored by your vist, Your Excellency

ZETE: Thank you, Planetship. You’ll be pleased to know, that I’ve approved additional labor resources. I’ll have them sent here by the end of quarter-cycle.

PLANETSHIP: Thank you, Your Excellency.

ZETE: What else? (to TERL) Oh, your long, overdue transfer. You must be looking forward to getting off this disgusting excuse for a planet.

TERL: I just want to do what serves the Corporation best, sir.

ZETE: Admirable. And, I must say, you’ve done a first-rate job here as Interim Security Chief. (Applause and “here, here”s.)

TERL: I do what I can.

ZETE: Which is why we’ve decided to keep you on for another tour of service.

(pause)

TERL: There must be some mistake.

ZETE: Home Office does not make mistakes.

TERL: Of course not. But have you looked at my file, sir? It explicitly says that this is a temporary assignment. Yes. Are you not aware, that I graduated (said with a flourish) top of my class?

ZETE: Quite an accomplishment.

TERL: I don’t mean to second-guess the Home Office, but surely I could better serve the corporation…

ZETE: Home Office is well aware of your academic achievements, and obvious talents. That’s why we’ve decided not to keep you here for another five cycles.

TERL: (Maniacal laughter) Oh, thank you, sir. I don’t know if I could have kept my sanity being here another five cycles.

ZETE: We’ve decided to keep you here for another fifty cycles! With endless options for renewal (echoes 3 times - endless options for renewal, endless options for renewal, endless options for renewal - followed by maniacal laughter.) Those options, of course, being at Home Office’s discretion, not yours. The Senator has a lot of friends.

MINUTES LATER - TERL AND GUARDS ESCORT ZETE FROM THE BUILDING

TERL: Please tell the senator, that if I had even an inkling that that was his daughter…

ZETE: Watch your tongue. (pause). The Senator’s exact words to me were - and I’m quoting - “If that blasted Terl tries to talk his way out of it, have him vaporized on the spot. But cheer up. There’s one bright side to this. One day, you’re going to die. And when you end up in hell, at least it will be a step up from this place. (Maniacal laughter.)

…and, Scene.

***

BAD SCENE 3

Out near the mines, TERL’s ship has landed, and after a struggle, he’s outnumbered by man-animals - JONNIE GOODBOY TYLER’S crew, and a group from the woods that has joined them. JONNIE GOODBOY TYLER manages to grab TERL’S gun and points it at TERL, who is on the ground. In this scene, JONNIE GOODBOY TYLER has learned the Psychlo language, and believes he knows how what’s left of the human race can rid themselves of the Psychlos forever. But when the group gets an unexpected chance to kill TERL, he must convince them that his long-term plan is better than easy revenge.

Scene…

ROBERT THE FOX: Let’s give this demon what he deserves.

Cheers from the group…yeah, yeah.

CARLO: Kill it, kill it. Kill it, then we’ll run.

JONNIE: Then what? What kind of life is it to run? Always living in fear of being hunted. What about the others we’re leaving behind? What about them?

CARLO: There’s nothing, nothing we can do for them. Only the gods can free them.

JONNIE: Ohhh. You think the lights in the night sky are gods waiting to come down and save us? Do you? Those are planets. Planets like this one. The great villages were built by our people. By millions of men and women just like us. Willing to fight to the death for one thing about all else. Their freedom.

OLD GUY IN THE CROWD: Do you think no one has tried? You can’t defeat them. (echoes 3times - You can’t defeat them, You can’t defeat them, You can’t defeat them.)

JONNIE: Yes we can. Yes we can. But we have to go back. We go back and learn about their weapons and their machinery. Our race is slowly dying, and will soon be gone forever. Let it be said that we took this one chance…AND FOUGHT!!! Are you with me? ARE YOU WITH ME???!!!!!

CROWD: YES! WE FIGHT! WE FIGHT!

ROBERT THE FOX: If you’re fighting the beast, me and my men are with you.

JONNIE: Thank you. It’s good to have friends out here.

ROBERT THE FOX: May the gods be with you.

(With whoops and shouts, they return to the woods.)

…and, Scene.

Coincidence?

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 16:22:59 -0500

Coincidence?

Bad Scene, Vol. I: "Staying Alive"

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 16:17:14 -0500

“Staying Alive,” (1983) written and directed by Sylvester Stallone (music by Frank Stallone)

Starring John Travolta - reprising his role as Tony Manero from “Saturday Night Fever” (1977)

Starring Finola Hughes - who 20 years later would become a QVC home shopping network star - as dance diva and Manero’s paramour, and fellow cast member, Laura

Starring Cynthia Rhodes - who would one day star in a Richard Marx video, then marry Richard Marx - as Manero’s long-suffering girlfriend, and fellow cast member, Jackie.

Starring Steve Inwood as director, Jesse.

***

REALLY BAD MONOLOGUE # 1

JESSE, DIRECTOR OF THE BROADWAY SHOW IN WHICH TONY MANERO HAS BEEN CAST, IS FRUSTRATED WITH THE QUALITY OF EARLY REHEARSALS.

Scene…

CHOREOGRAPHER
One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight
One-two-three-four…

JESSE
(Shakes head)

That’s it. Relax.

(The cast stops dancing.)

What we’re dealing with here is a conceptual interpretation problem. Which is easy to overcome if you just forget the fact that you’re dancers working for a couple of bucks. You are translators of body language. That’s all dancing is. It’s body language. So don’t waste my time going through the motions of emotions. You gotta feel what the hell you’re doing here. For those who forgot, the show’s called “Satan’s Alley.” It’s a journey through hell that ends with an ascent to heaven. And you might think it’s simple. But if it’s gonna work, you gotta bust your asses.

***

REALLY BAD MONOLOGUE # 2

MANERO THINKS HE HAS A SHOT TO TAKE OVER THE MALE LEAD FROM BUTLER IN “SATAN’S ALLEY,” AND PRACTICES ALL NIGHT WITH JACKIE.

THE FOLLOWINGDAY AT REHEARSAL, MANERO SEES HIS CHANCE AND ASKS JESSE TO GIVE HIM A SHOT OPPOSITE FEMALE LEAD LAURA.

MANERO WOWS ‘EM AT FIRST AS THE REST OF THE CAST LOOKS ON. BUT THEN HE FUMBLES HIS MOVES, ANGERING THE (VERY BRITISH) DIVA, LAURA.

Scene…

LAURA
(to Jesse)
Is this a dance or a bloody circus?

MANERO
(to Jesse)
Forget it, man.

MANERO STORMS OFF. JESSE FOLLOWS HIM INTO A HALLWAY.

JESSE
Wait. (PAUSE) I said wait.

MANERO
I don’t want to talk about it, man.

JESSE
Don’t walk outta here and expect to come back.

MANERO
Oh, is that right?

JESSE
That’s right. You walk out the door now, you’re over.

MANERO
(incredulous)
Ahright. What would you do?

JESSE
Don’t worry about what I would do. I’m not the one that’s on the line. You are.

MANERO
I dont’ want anyone ever laughing at me.

JESSE
Who are you, somebody special? What’d you ever do that mean’s anything? What’d you ever do?

CLOSEUP ON JESSE

JESSE
I give you a chance for a lead in a Broadway show, and you walk out the door?

MANERO
Oh, who cares?

JESSE
Who cares? Nobody has to care. In this business, I don’t have to care about you. And you don’t have to care about me. And if you can’t follow that, follow this: You wanna dance here, you follow my rules. It’s not a democracy. You know, you are not the best dancer to ever hit Broadway…(PAUSE)…What you have is anger. And a certain intensity, and that’s what I need to make this show work. What’dya think you’re so terrific you’re gonna go out and you’re gonna score another show? Is that it? The best thing that you ever scored in your whole life is Laura, but you even blew that cuz you got too heavy with her. You’re different kinds of people. And no matter how much you carry on, you’re never gonna change that. If you had half a brain in that thick skull of yours, you’d stop worrying about trying to change other people, and start worrying about changing yourself.

MANERO
(PAUSE)
Everybody uses everybody, don’t they?

JESSE
Go to hell, Manero.

A message for our clients

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 16:13:00 -0500

August, 2009

Dear [client’s name],

Gambatte kudasai! That’s what our intern Keiko - whom we had to fire in June - would say to us when things looked bleakest. Keep your chin up, she’d say with a smile. And then we’d close our door.

Autumn is nearly here and as dire as things may seem out there in the publishing world, we are committed to representing your projects, at least through the rest of 2009.

The last thing we want is for you to fixate on layoffs at Simon & Schuster, salary freezes at Penguin, imprint mergers at Random House or that silly acquisition ban at Houghton. HarperCollins may have shut down a couple divisions, but they were non-fiction divisions. Remember - you make stuff up, Artist. Dismal days at publishing conglomerates can’t matter to your creative process. They matter only in that we’re going to have trouble selling your ideas.

Your representatives here at Chazz Kopplerbach Hoarb Literary Agency don’t want you to have to think about any of that. We want you to keep envisioning big, ambitious, important. Bring us your novel and we will do the rest. That’s our pledge to you. We will sell your manuscript. I swear to God we will. Seriously.

Without further adieu, The List. As our disclaimer goes each year, these are only premises to get those creative juices running. These are ideas that we Professional Literary Agents who lunch with Professional Book Editors every day (yes, these days at Gray’s Papaya), know would sell. As always, we don’t want to stifle your own mojo, but these are good plots in search of a great writer. That’s you.

So take a look at these ideas: Pick one up. Play with it. Toss it around. Bounce it off a wall. Give it a bath. Run over it with your car. Squish it into your kids’ knapsack. Take it to shul some Shabbos. Watch an episode of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” while it sits next to you on the couch.

A quick straw poll around the office (really quick, I mean, like, in the last ten minutes) suggested a strong collective prediction that Fall 2009 is going to be the Autumn of historical fiction involving kings. Following are some royal historical plot sketches we’d love to see blown out big and bold by someone with your talent.

Good luck!

What really happened between Suryavarman I and Jayavarman V after the death of the Khmer Empire’s King Udayadityavarman I 998 A.D.? Suryavarman I, of course, captured the Cambodian throne, but at what cost to Rithisak, the woman he and Jayavarman V both loved?

When Queen Maria II of Portugal returned from exile in England in 1834, she knew - even at the age of 15 - that she would have to stand up to her uncle (and husband), Prince Miguel, who had pronounced himself king in her absence, and trashed the Constitution her father had composed. But her heart wasn’t in it. In fact, her heart was in Swanage, on the Dorset coast, with Jerome - Yak Boy. He had been Maria’s playmate as a child, and she had longed to stay in Swanage with Jerome and his yaks forever. But civil war was raging in Maria’s homeland and she was damned if she would let her uncle-husband turn Lisbon into Vienna.

When Canute, son of Sweyn Forkbeard, was only 17 and taking part in his father’s conquest of England in 1016, he had no idea he would become the first Danish ruler of the British Isles. He also had no idea the fulsome women of Wessex would welcome him and his father’s band of tired, strapping warriors with such vigor and enterprise.

In 454 B.C., Xerxes II, son of King Artaxerxes I, was just 16 when he was captured by his father’s enemies. The men who opposed the king’s imposition of Zoroastrianism as Persia’s state religion were ruthless, and the only light during those dark years was a little girl who came every day to the walls of Xerxes Babylonian prison and tossed a pomegranate over the fence to save him from starvation. One day, he dreamed, they would marry and make a life together - maybe in Scottsdale. Two weeks after Xerxes was freed, he refused the Persian crown and went looking for the girl who saved his life. But then he died of a staph infection he got from rubbing himself with a rotting blanket.

Cuacuauhpitzahuac’s mother died giving birth to him in the hills of Tlatelolco in 1388. Each year on that date - his birthday - Cuacuauhpitzahuac honored his beloved mother by killing someone else’s mother. The Aztec press dubbed him Nantli Temictiloni, or the Mother Killer. Cuacuauhpitzahuac was never caught, and died of a massive stroke, just minutes after his 89th kill. How did he hide his deadly secret while carrying on his duties as Tlatelolco’s king? Did he have accomplices inside the royal palace? A thrilling tale of courtly intrigue, murder, ancient killing, baronial slaughter, deadly regal butchery and Mummenschanz.

On the surface, Erik Bloodaxe, son of Harald Fairhair, was like every other 10th Century Norwegian king - he loved beer, he loved the ladies, he loved elf sacrifice - but he was living a lie. Though Erik had to hide it even from Queen Gunnhild, poetry was what he loved most. To whom might Bloodaxe bare his balladist soul? To whom? Whom? Who? What? Huh?

Khan Chagatai was already 45-years-old when he and his brother Tului took over the Mongol Empire after their father Ghengis died. Which was sort of awkward since their father had been only 13 himself when he had taken over his own father’s tribe. Then Ghengis just happened to create one of the largest kingdom’s ever known to man. And now Khan would have to share power? With his idiot brother? Sure, Tului was, technically, adept at conquering vassal states. But the way he did it was so…inelegant. Who marauds an entire village, sparing all the Merkits, but raping all their pet marmots? That is seriously fucked up.

Burma was a desperate place at the end of the 19th century. With the constant threat of a British incursion across its borders, King Thibaw Min sat in the capital of Mandalay wondering how to protect his people. A treaty with France was one option. As was a big, huge wall of fire along the country’s borders. What about torching the royal elephants and having them march in a circle around the country trunk-to-tail? What about serving the British troops really hot soup? Or some sort of mirror trick?

PHOTO: Wayne Hoarb of Chazz Kopplerbach Hoarb, LLC

Notes on Contributors

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 16:07:23 -0500

My Esquire piece, “Notes on Contributors,” landed on the magazine’s website Saturday. You can also see the real, live print version in the current November issue - Halle Berry on the cover - on page 170.

The editors chose eight “Notes” but I’d submitted a bunch more. Here are the rest:

————-

Paul Gaggerns and his wife live in a gully outside Houston where they raised three children and enjoy pot roast. In earlier times he trained ferrets and cats to get along better; more recently he’s made his living juggling turnips at the Houston Zoological Gardens and has taken to wandering about.

Geoff Hachis is an editor and fisherman. His Poetry for the Shower in English (translated by Crane W. Holler and Mike Toops) is forthcoming. Hachis is the founder and managing director of the Slippery, Sweaty Bicycle Seat Foundation in central Latvia. The purpose of the Foundation is to study the entire written historical record of the bicycle seat with the goal of making them less sweaty and slippery.

Carlotta Ixelsh co-edits the online poetry review, BloodFireTwighlightTwighlightFireBlood. Ixelsh visited Bolivia once, where she contracted typhoid. She has photos of herself, passed out drunk in the Cochabamba bus station, strangling a cat. In 2005, she organized a festival in her hometown of Jacksonville, Fla. celebrating Bolivia’s agreement to supply 2 percent of the antimony for China’s cable sheathing industry.

Maude Mish has finally purchased something she thinks she’ll wear more than once. Her forthcoming collection of collected collections will be collected next year by The Collections Collective (London, Mumbai). Sometimes a poet, always a dialectical behavior therapist in private practice, Mish lives in Rathdrum, Idaho with her two puffins, Ollie and Smacker.

Sarah von Neaden, of the famous Skyler Chronicles Poets, is 88 and specializes in beading and poetry. She has earned a PORP and has taught by invitation at 11 universities and 28 writing labs. She is presently building a fiction workshop in Bisbee, Arizona with lumber donated by Bisbee High School writing students. She is also writing four books: Snails in the Copper Pot (fiction), What Do You Think Of My Toenail Polish? (poems), Rabbit Hole Roundhouse: Quantum Mechanics and Superstring Theory in the Post Cohen-Tannoudji Age (2-vol. set) and Skin Feels Freda, a memoir of her days siphoning gasoline from rental cars at the Avis off S. Garfield Ave. in Orange County.

Bill “Wetlands” Omat received his M.F.A. a long time ago. He has served on the Mayor’s Council for Friendly, Non-Controversial Art in Charlotte since 1997. His poetry collection, Numb is Night, Feel is Day, is available at Carolina Taco Source and carolinatacosource.com.

Ronnie Pupples teaches Dreamscapeture at Mollysapp Community College on the edge of western Vermont where he’s also maintained a watertaxi business for the last 14 years. He is a British citizen and is a regular contributor to British Writers Quarterly, British Writing Is Better and Would That We All Were British. Pupples has seen his verse published in Tapioca Review, Liver and Sue Baten’s Shorts. He lives on a radish farm where he continues his lifelong study of ponds.

Marge Radael’s chapbook, Feel It In All The Ways won the 2001 Skooch Prize for Chapbook Brilliance from the Greater Metropolitan Fresno Chapbook Association. She teaches writing and sentence diagramming at Fresno City College. Last year, she was one of seven chapbookists chosen to read before Dwayne L. Hortense, founder of the Kaliope Stuttgart School of Chapbook Arts.

Rory Riverlovely credits an early-career dalliance in low-cost prostitution with her ability to bring disparate interests together around a focused goal - attaining a high score in Galaga, for instance. Riverlovely’s essays and photographs have been published primarily in Skintag and The Bad Mamma Jamma Review. Besides a serious interest in kale and other kinds of cabbage, she enjoys zephyrs and a good rubbing.

Simon Romazzle has published poems and short stories in Kiddiepool, The Delano Journal of Wheat, Shiver Me Timbers, Kyle is Wrong and Pickle Farm. As Lyman Tompazzle, he publishes and edits batpatio.com, a website for those hoping to attract more bats to - and around - their patios.

El-Ando Sorel submitted her novel, Velvet Rattles You And Again, for a Pulitzer Prize for “distinguished fiction by an American author” in 1981. She was not a finalist - and, come to think of it, never got a return receipt confirming delivery - but the award did go to a dead person that year, so she felt better about that. One of her private journal entries, May 17, 1994, has been staged as musical theater.

Joan Crispee Tille’s most recent CD, a compilation of curling sounds called Violate the Hog Line, was released in January 2003 to tremendous critical acclaim. Between 1974 and 1992, Tille took a notation each time she fell down. The collected notations, Down (Calf Creek Zipperman) won the 1997 Pardon Low Johnston Wonderfully Rich Notes Award.

Cara Ulish is co-director of the Florence L. Shipplebottom Institute for Writing Excellence in Pencil at the University of Guelph-Humber. Most recent works are published in The Scaly Fish Review, Moral Voice for Californian Little People, Spaghetti: Journal of Pasta and Sauce, and Spaz’hole. Her chapterbook, Follow Me, Dear One, Into the Darkest Corners of My Chevy Lumina, was awarded third place by the National Society of Crime Writers for Peace Contest, Ontario Chapter.

Memo to NYSE traders on “Oh, no” body language

Mon, 03 Jan 2011 20:12:29 -0500

MEMO

TO: Floor traders

FROM: NYSE Group, Inc. Communications Team

RE: Body language/facial expressions during Big Board free falls

————————————–

Gentlemen,

As you all know, these are difficult times for Money. And when Money is hurting, America turns to Wall Street to gauge just how much.

That’s where you come in.

When Money is screeching in pain, as it has been in recent weeks, banging its little green fist on the floor for mercy and bleeding zeroes from every orifice - people around the world want to put a face on that anguish.

As part of your audition to become a floor trader, you sat on a stage and gave us your best “Oh, dear God” reaction to an 800-point Dow nosedive. You were subsequently trained in proper eyebrow fluctuation, sunken shoulder dejection and, of course the bottom-has-fallen-out knee-drop.

It’s only a matter of time until the electronic markets swallow your job. The one thing keeping you employed at the moment is your humanity - so show a little of it. We can’t imagine that you’d need motivation these days, but if you’re having trouble summoning the proper and necessary horror, just imagine you’re a Cubs fan.

A quick refresher for sessions when consumer confidence is at an all-time low, monthly retail sales numbers are in the toilet, housing starts are at 19th century levels and hobos have begun to burn the Beige Book’s pages in a big steel drum to keep warm:

Dig the palms of your hands into your eye sockets. Hard. You are weary.
Fold your left hand into your right armpit. Put your ID badge or the tip of a pen into your mouth with your right hand and look down at a monitor. You are concerned.
Exhale in an exaggerated, exasperated breath with lips pursed. Your are flummoxed.
Look up at the board with both arms in the air - like you’re Willem Dafoe getting shot in “Platoon.” You are desperate.
Place both hands behind your head and look up at the board/God. You are resigned.
Put both arms in your lap and your head down on a keyboard. You are napping.

Think about what floor trader Michael Rutigliano told the Associated Press recently. Mike said when he steps on the NYSE floor, it feels “like walking on to the field of the Yankee Stadium of the business world, complete with lights, referees, uniforms, hand signals, and scoreboards. There’s a palpable energy, a sense you entered the premier business arena in the world.”

Use that, people. Remember - the world is watching. No one wants to see Money wounded and weak. But when Money is wounded and weak, America wants to see that sense of catastrophe in the rutted brow, the contorted death mask, the boozy tear drop.

Hey - let’s be expressive out there.

If car marketers went to divinity school

Mon, 03 Jan 2011 20:08:26 -0500

When I was in graduate school, I kept a list of terms that I thought would make great car names:

Buick Jebusite
Subaru Parousia
Mitsubishi Pentateuch
Cadillac Invictus
Chrysler Crusade
Dodge Pharoah
Kia Qoheleth
Oldsmobile Monte Casino
Toyota Tormentum
Peugeot Citeaux
Ford Apostasy
Mercury Hosea
Rolls Royce Hijra
Honda Chrysostom
Pontiac Pleroma
Mazda Didache
Lincoln Ecclesiastic
Nissan Old Saxon
Chevy Septuagint
Hyundai Zebedee
Suzuki Sheol
Volkswagen Tetragrammaton