yustyoking

SOTU

  

            Well, it’s that time again. As we say in my family, “Another speech, another dollar.” The Bible warns us against the sin of pride, so I’m just going to say I am willing to be here. Not proud, but… I’m okay with it. It’s a pretty big building and somebody has to make the speech. I’m your man. Some of you complain that all I do is make speeches! Ha ha ha. To them, I say, look over there to the left, see those pretty young ladies? Those are my daughters Basha and Natasha. See! I made them, too. So once in awhile, yes, I do put my nose to the grindstone. Although the body part in question isn’t actually my nose and it’s not exactly a grindstone.

            Which brings me to every politician’s pride and joy, his wife.

            First let me welcome to this convocation local politician Ernst Stavro Glickman. I’ve known the Glickman for… oh… twenty… twenty-five minutes. We were introduced in the car on the way over here. I told him to tag along. I thought, “Here’s a way to show my contempt for this body of elected officials. I can invite some goofball of a local politician to join us.” What’s that movie about bringing jerks to dinner…? Same concept.

            When my family and I sit down at the dinner table and say grace, we always add a word of thanks for Leo Padurski, Chief of the NSA, America’s protector. He is the jockstrap of America, protecting our vital parts from enemy attack. Thanks, Leo!

            Which brings me to my wife, who is not joining us here tonight at this special occasion. She’s off gallivanting around [dripping with venomous contempt] Europe. I mean, if she was gonna gallivant, why can’t she do her gallivanting right here in the good old U.S.A.? Well, she was deprived as a child. America was not the multi-racial, multi-culti society of today. Little pickaninnies didn’t get to make that all-important summer college trip to Europe. So my wife is making it now. She’s not in college, it’s not summer, but… whatever. She ain’t here.

            Also attending… I could go on, yada yada yada, read from the Manhattan phone book, but you all know who you are. If not, well, hell, introduce yourselves! We’re all family.

            We live in perilous times, so I’ve asked General Hartman, sitting in the third row… See that switch he’s holding? If I start to give away the farm regarding Iran or something, I’ve authorized him to cut off the mike.

            If that happens, please, those of you at home, do not try to adjust your set!

            Now to the nuts and bolts of my speech here tonight in this glorious, historic hall of government. Many of you have hunkered down in your seats, ready for the long haul, the 65-minute speech-a-thon, filled with endless platitudes, vague arguments, warm-hearted assurances, emotionally-charged moments of deep, spiritual confrontation!

            Forget all that.

            My staff has timed this puppy— no offense to my doggie, Butch— and it clocks in at just under 10 big ones. That’s minutes, gentlemen, not hours! I’m not going to get up here and do a Fidel Castro.

            We all know what it’s like to be on the inside, looking out. We’re forced to sit here in the chambers of power, while the Occupy Movement protesters get to have all the fun, flouting the law, smoking dope and engaging in group sex. I’ve read the reports about those encampments! Hopefully— and I’m audacious enough to say this— by next January, this heavy burden will be lifted from my shoulders. Then, I too can take to the road, engaging in book tours and frank discussions everywhere. I look forward to camping out all over this great country of ours. I do not shrink from this challenge, I welcome it!

            This is where we get to the emotional part of my speech. I can’t help but think of the time Walter Cronkite, reporting live on television, wiped the tears from his eyes and soldiered on. Obviously upset, he didn’t let that stop him. I think that was when he announced the resignation of Richard Nixon. That was a very emotional moment, I am sure. President Nixon was the one who said— he said many things, a great memoirist, he recorded hundreds of his conversations— he said, on national television— and I quote— “Meat prices must not go higher.”

            That’s a sentiment with which we can all concur. Even Eric Cantor and the Tea Party should be willing to agree with us on this one little thing, right? That meat prices— metaphorically and otherwise— must not go, you know, higher. We must fight the tendency of our meat to rise… that is, the prices… our meat coming to attention at the sound of the president’s voice. You’ve seen the photos of those troops mobbing me! They love me! But I’m okay with it. The hot button that says, “Revere the presidency,” and all of us getting an erection over that. I know I do! And I’m the president.

            So, in conclusion, and I said we were going to keep this baby under 10 minutes, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs! There! I said it. Steve is no longer with us, a moment of silence for an industrial titan, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Steve Jobs.

            …

            This is a great country! God bless America!

*

 

The New Politics?

  

            On January 1, 2012, after 14 years on the Oxburg Town Council, Ms. Anna Bola resigns her position to become Attorney General of the Great State of Maryland. (Applause!) With only four people on the Council, the town by-laws require a special election. I could say, “This is that story,” but the truth is, I’ve been way too busy cleaning and repairing my mom’s house to pay any attention. Yard signs (!) for Suzanna Son have sprung up on every street corner. (I was the sign guy for the Bola campaign.) Robocalls clog the chip in our telephone answering machine: “Hi, I’m Ted Hugo and I want you to vote for Suzanna Son…I’m Derek Derrière, and I want your vote for Oxburg’s next Town Council member, Paulie Marple!… This is State Senator Leonora Pix suggesting you join me in supporting Marcia Weinglass for the Oxburg Town Council. Marcia has years of experience…” I’ll bet she does!

            One Saturday afternoon, as I pile rotting wood panels from our basement by the curb, Iraqi War veteran Taylor Mitchell, a chiseled black dude with a shaved head, crosses the street to speak to me. My equally shaved head and my dust mask, my worn camo pants and white tee bring a smile to the faces of both Taylor and the fat guy with a clipboard acting as his campaign manager. The fat guy’s black tee sports the slogan, in white letters:

                                                   ASK ME ABOUT IRAQ 

            Irritated at somebody selling something, unwashed and exhausted, I grouse, “Tell me what you need, gentlemen! Just tell me what you need!”

            That’s when Taylor explains his mission and gives me his colorfully printed cardboard flier.

            Taking off my dust mask, I smile and say, “You’re running for Town Council? Good for you! Some new blood would do them good.”

            “I helped form the Provisional Government in Iraq.”

            “Ouch!” I quip. “I wouldn’t tell people that in this neighborhood. They’re anti-military and we all know how things went with the Iraqi Provisional Government. Thomas E. Ricks’ Fiasco has practically been required reading.”

            Taylor’s face falls, but he soldiers bravely on: “We need to open a fresh front on the myriad problems facing this township! We need to marshal our troops and set our sights on clear goals. It’s time to direct our firepower—”

            “Look, just tell people you can bring a fresh perspective to a group of entrenched bureaucrats,” I suggest. “Don’t even bring up the fact that they are megalomaniacs.”

            Embarrassed, both candidate and campaign manager have the good grace to laugh. They check my address off their list and walk up the hill to try their luck with other woters.

            In the next two weeks, we get daily candidate fliers in the mail. Still thinking like an Iraqi, Taylor sends us a letter bragging about how many endorsements he’s received from state officials. One sentence is so far outside the box, I have to quote it verbatim: “I am currently employed by Arkan, LLS investigating war crimes and incidents of sexual assault by military personnel in Iraq.” Is that… American military personnel? Or the new Iraqi Army and police force? Maybe Taylor figures people will get so upset, they’ll get off their butts and visit his website. I sure wouldn’t have written that in my appeal. He’s also “Director of Central Maryland Black Veterans For Obama.” Well, Oxburg is in central Maryland, he got that right.

            So when our local rag The Oxburg Sentinel announces a candidates’ debate, I tell my mom to schedule an early din-din. I want to see these Joes in action:

             Suzanna Son – Asian-American, 20-something, the only millennial running for office

             Taylor Mitchell – black, Iraqi War vet

             Jeeter Johnson – the “other” black, a ghetto, breakout NBA star sidelined by a knee injury

             Ernst Stavro Glickman – the unabashedly Jewish candidate

             Marcia Weinglass – the women’s Jewish candidate

             Paulie Marple – Casper Milquetoast in a suit, he kept showing up to work on the Anna Bola campaign

            David Davis – Ph. D., Tea Party candidate, a fourth generation Ron Paul clone

            The Ye Olde Firehouse Museum debate is an extremely physical event: When David Davis castigates Ernst Stavro Glickman on-stage for his campaign slogan—“Don’t Be A Prick / Vote For Glick”—the Glickman pulls a cattle prod from a blue canvas bag at his feet and zaps Davis one. When Asian-American candidate Suzanna Son— easily the brightest person in the room— goes to work on Marcia Weinglass, Marcia empties the contents of her plastic water bottle on Suzanna’s head. Jeeter Johnson takes occasional swings at Paulie Marple, in between exchanging vituperative perjoratives and cracking  “Yo mama” jokes with fellow-black Taylor Mitchell:

            “Honky-lover!”

            “Who’s a honky-lover, you Uncle Tom?”

            “You about as black as O-bama, whiteboy!”

            “Yo mama’s mouth so big, it won’t fit ina trunk o’ mah car!”

              In the beginning, moderator and museum curator Sylvia Sims tries to stop the mayhem, but finally, she simply leaves the candidates to duke it out among themselves. She’s all dressed up, sporting a bouffant ‘do, so no one can blame her. “Decorum!” she occasionally shouts, but there’s no decorum.

                Taylor Mitchell, the only candidate openly touting his work developing a Provisional Government in Iraq—“Boy, we all know how that turned out!” sneers Jeeter—says, in lieu of an apology, “Listen, we candidates may seem a little boorish, but in Afghanistan, people shoot their political opponents!… At least we don’t do that! “ he quickly adds as people at the back of the hall make a beeline for the exits.

               (Suzanna Son, a jogger, sports a bright red water bottle that says, “Run For Your Life!”)

              “Harrumph!” grunts precinct captain Arthur Pascoe, grossly overweight, sitting next to me in the front row. “This is a motley crew to be running for Town Council.”

               “Even if we deserve better,” I whisper, “obviously we’re not getting it.”

               “It?” asks Arthur, perennially obtuse. “What does ‘it’ mean?”

               “A reasonable candidate for Anna’s seat.”

               “Aha!”

               “Aha? What does ‘Aha’ mean?” I wonder, but keep my mouth shut.

                Taking a page from Speaker of the House John A. Boehner’s playbook, Paulie Marple bursts into tears every few minutes. Not while he’s under attack and not while he’s speaking, but apparently he takes his cues from voices inside his head: Nothing the rest of us can see or hear accounts for this geyser of tears.

               Marcia Weinglass: “Oxburg’s school system is the second largest employer in the township, second only to the U.S. Government. I will fast track a solution to our school problems, even at the cost of delaying other programs!”

                Paulie Marple: “I won’t just go along with the majority. I want to hear divergent opinions!”

                David Davis: “And then you’ll side with the majority!”

               When asked to define what makes him an acceptable candidate for Town Council, Jeeter replies, ‘Whassa mattah, O-blam-a, can’t take it?”

              “That doesn’t really define you,” moderator Sylvia Sims complains.

             “Oh? I think it do!” counters Jeeter— and most of the audience agrees. “Yo’ want frostbite, lady, y’all go outside!”

              “You see,” Arthur wheezes, “normally that kind of speech would disqualify a person, but we’re talking about a position on the Town Council here.”

               I’m impressed in spite of myself. Instead of the usual dullards and burnouts, we have seven candidates who actually have something on the ball. Why they want to run for Town Council, God only knows.

               Looking up at the stage, Arthur says,” It really depends on who endorses you. The person with the best endorsement wins. Every time.”

               Huh? Is that true? It sounds like b.s. to me, but I zip my lips.

               Paulie Marple: “We have a tendency to redo everything, repave streets, rebuild schools, replant trees, replace park benches…”

               David Davis: “The town should provide basic services, not finance capital projects.”

                Suzanna Son: “Currently, we’re borrowing to finance debt. Raising our debt ceiling has to be a last resort. We’re already at 8% equity. At 10%, we risk losing our Triple-A rating… It’s time to bring everyone to the table on this.”

                “I be there!” booms Jeeter from the stage, flashing his Michael Jordans for us to admire. “I speaks my mind! I one hi-top dude!”

                “I’ve been to Russia!” counters Ernst Stavro Glickman. Although some in the audience wonder if this is a swipe at the Politburo mentality of the sitting Council members, Arthur shakes his head knowingly.

                David Davis: “This meeting is pantywaist! Why, the Occupy Movement uses Human Microphones. None of this electrical P.A. system crap. ‘Public Address,’ my ass! Human mikes! The speaker at the front says, ‘We need to send a message to Wall Street!’ People in the front row pass it on back! By the time it reaches the cheap seats, what they hear is, ‘What’s selling at Wal-Mart?’ You can’t buy that kind of democracy!”

               Taylor Mitchell: “Now that one dance company in our area is staging a satire on reality TV and another has choreographed a tribute to the agonies of the Vietnam War, I have asked the Le Favre Dance & Shoe Repository to step forward and— with your consent— they will now give us a three-minute interpretive dance performance regarding this special election.”

              Grunting audibly “We are the 99%,” three gray-clad, ghostly figures come marching up the side aisles. Wearing Kabuki masks and writhing sinuously, they have those of us in the audience squirming uneasily in our seats. Filling the open space between the front row and the stage, they present three minutes of sexually-charged gymnastics. After which moderator Sylvia Sims gulps, “Well, that was refreshing!”

             “This is something that gets me in a party-down mood!” adds Taylor.

              Ernst Stavro Glickman: “The Oxburg Sentinel considers me one of 2011’s Top 10 Twitterati! I don’t go to the bathroom without tweeting about it. I’ve already sent three tweets since the start of this debate!”

             “Let me explain why I oppose making The 1812 Highway into a 6-lane road,” says Suzanna Son. “Where are the additional cars going to go when they reach Rockville Pike on the one end and Natalie Woods Parkway on the other? Rockville Pike is already running at full capacity. Natalie Woods Parkway has plenty of unused potential, but as we are all too aware, Natalie Woods Parkway doesn’t go anywhere! It starts in Oxburg and ends seven blocks short of the backside of White Flint Mall. No wonder no one ever drives beyond Oxburg, north on The 1812 Highway! Zero instant gratification!”

              Finally, I think, someone with a degree of expertise!

             “I say, fuck’um,” jeers Jeeter.

             “Ah, now is that any way to talk?” demands Paulie Marple, the best-connected of the candidates. Paulie knows everybody. He and Jeeter dance across the stage, shadowboxing.

             Marcia Weinglass: “Since the year 2000, we’ve lost 2/3 of our affordable housing.”

              Jeeter Johnson: (still punching the air) “That what I talkin’ about!”

              Suzanna Son: “A third of our roads, all our major arterials, are state-owned and financed. The Maryland Department of Highways controls our streets and our lives!”

              Marcia Weinglass: “We have to use ‘soft power’ in our dealings with Annapolis, since we really don’t have any ‘hard power.’ A charm offensive. We need to remind the state legislature that the Greater Washington area is one of the economic engines of Maryland.”

              David Davis: “Soft power, my fanny! I was once one of those crappy Democrats! We have no friends in Annapolis and it’s time for us to admit it. Local initiative is the only way!”

              You have to give them some credit, they all belong to IFO, one of the few organizations outside the military that is totally honest right from the get-go: the International Federation of Opportunists. Talk about transforming a negative to a positive! Wise beyond their station, heeding the advice of their campaign managers, these clowns up on the stage can now proudly admit to the organization’s motto:

                        “We See An Opportunity, We Grab It!” 

               In today’s cloistered, cluttered world, that proclamation feels like a breath of fresh, mountain air.

             Of course, none of them sing R&B as prettily as Obama.

             Town Council, Town Council, compare these guys to the Republican candidates for president, each madly jockeying for position and constantly embroidering the message to fit what they hope is the opinion of the electorate.

             Ernst Stavro Glickman: “Governor Romney is not the unfeeling, wheeler-dealer corporate raider he is made out to be! He cried crocodile tears of remorse as he fired every one of those people.”

             Marcia Weinglass: “The entire system is warped. These early Republican primaries are in states that want their moment in the spotlight. You can’t tell me that Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina are representative of American political opinion. God help us!”

             Paulie Marple: “The best candidates are dropping by the wayside! I grew up with Beverley Hills 90210. I would have voted for Luke Perry in an instant! I’ve seen all his movies, even his made-for-TV movies!”

            David Davis: “To stand here and regret that a B-list actor like Luke Perry isn’t running for president is beyond incomprehensible. That boy wasn’t even born until 1966. He’s only 45 years old! We all know what happened this last time, when we elected a 40-something to the White House! Obama and his wife are the ultimate teenagers. It’s all an act. They’re poseurs. They never grew up. Raised by doting grandparents, little Barry Obama thinks he’s the cat’s meow!”

           Wow! Talk about “The emperor has no clothes.” Half the audience is on their feet shouting, “Wrong! Wrong! How dare you attack Obama?!”

           Taylor Mitchell: “I volunteer at the White House reading incoming mail. 95% of the letters are hate mail, but I don’t let it bother me. Personally, I think Brother Obama has overdone the entire speechmaking thing. He’s become boring. He’s our boy, but he be an earache.” [This is an actual statement by a volunteer.]

            Paulie Marple: “It’s not my fault Luke Perry was governor of Texas. A man with that kind of experience…

             Jeeter Johnson: “…and he an actor! That be important! We already has an actor in da White House!”

             Marcia Weinglass: “Excuse me, the governor of Texas was Rick Perry. A different Perry entirely!

            The silence in the hall was deafening. Scratch two candidates.

            Taylor Mitchell: “The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC, ‘America’s Pro-Israel Lobby,’ has become too powerful. They started the whole PAC thing. The super PACs are Israel’s fault.”

             Ernst Stavro Glickman: “Blame the Supreme Court. Hooligans versus Leeds United.”

             Marcia Weinglass: “Wrong! AIPAC isn’t powerful enough. When a government is out of control like this one, you need a strong lobby to maintain the pressure and, hopefully, reduce the damage. Beating up on the Israelis because the Palestinians refuse to come to the table! For shame! I completely lost my respect for Hillary. Keep the pressure on those creeps in the White House.”

             David Davis: “That was Nixon.”

            Marcia Weinglass: “What?”

            David Davis: “Creep, Committee to Re-Elect the President. Under President Nixon.”

            Taylor Mitchell: “He’s mad. Candidate Davis is a madman!”

            Suzanna Son: “We still don’t know the effect of the new ICC, the Inter-County Connector. It could bring big changes to Oxburg. The coming of Metro’s Purple Line will put us squarely on the map. I also foresee an expansion of light rail in Maryland.”  

            Marcia Weinglass: “This is a pivotal time for our community. Oxburg has divided into the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots.’ This town no longer works for everyone. I will always work for you! “

            That’s when we all realize, every man jack in the hall, that the fix is in. Paulie Marple knows simply everybody, but the heavy hitters are putting their money and influence behind Marcia. Granted, she is Jewish. Nationally, we’re only 4% of the population, although in Oxburg, the percentage is considerably higher. I look around. It’s Marcia Weinglass by acclamation! As the meeting breaks up, she’s swamped by Latinos. They know who will be the new voice on the Town Council. As Bob Dylan sang, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” I’m very disappointed! Suzanna Son marchers up to Arthur and asks, “How’d I do?”

            Introducing us, Arthur explains that Suzanna is the precinct captain for Oxburg High. “Kevin, here, let us down in the last election!” Arthur bitches.

            “Arthur does have a beef,” I admit, while Suzanna smirks wonderingly. “I couldn’t poll watch on Election Day because I had so many polling stations to monitor for the Bola campaign.”

            “Well, Arthur, there you have it!” says Suzanna, taking my side.

            Arthur then launches into one of his mindless monologues. Suzanna and I wait the obligatory two minutes and turn away for a private chat. “The others had good intentions,” I point out. “You, additionally, always brought a technical component to the mix.”

            “That’s the consultant in me,” she smiles, eating me up with her staring brown eyes.

            I assume that this is her way of working the room. I plow on: “The special election is going to Marcia Weinglass or Paulie Marple, probably Marcia. I’m discovering that the sad truth is, there’s nothing new in county politics. It’s the same faces endlessly playing musical chairs! I want you on the goddam Council. Get out and canvas doors. Send out a mailer! The yard signs are great, but we have to get your name out there! Buy a full page ad in The Oxburg Sentinel.”

            “You’re absolutely right. I only managed to knock on 1500 doors. But the election’s on Tuesday. No time to even send out a mailer,” she laments.

            “Seats on the Town Council will be contested as part of the general election in November. Here’s my card. I worked on the Bola campaign. We won with 58% of the vote. Not too shabby.”

            “Oh!” she chirps, “We’re exchanging cards!” Giving me hers, she says, “Would you mind terribly? There are people over in that corner of the room I have got to schmooze!”

            “Go for it!” I urge her.

            As she leaves, I wave good night to Arthur, thank Sylvia Sims for officiating and head for the exit. There is a stack of Paulie Marple yard signs leaning by the door. I look around for Paulie. I find him in a huddle with his people. “Paulie,” I ask, “can I take one of your signs?”

            “Of course,” he breathes excitedly. “Everyone, this is Kevin Feingold, the yard sign genius in Anna Bola’s campaign. I wish I had you doling out my yard signs!”

            I smile and quietly leave, discreetly taking the sign home— or as discreetly as you can wield a yard sign. I add it to my collection. What? You thought I was gonna put it in my yard?! Git outta here!

*

            Tuesday afternoon, 5 p.m., I take my 90-year-old mom to Oxburg High to vote. Taylor Mitchell has his supporters everywhere, inside the building and out, sporting his stick-on badges on both sides of their chests. This is wasted effort, people don’t arrive at the polls unless they already know for whom they intend to vote. In state-wide elections, campaign materials, stickers and posters cannot be closer than 50 feet to a polling place. At this intramural town scrap meet, there ain’t no such rules.

             During the last special election, mom almost collapsed for all the traipsing you have to do: One table checks you off the voting list. Another table has you sign a pledge that you are who you say you are and truly do reside in Oxburg. Then you go to a table where they give you a ballot. You fill this in behind the green curtain of a voting booth. Finally, at a fourth table, you shove your vote into a ballot box.

           When she was finished, she complained bitterly to the officials running the show. “Older folks can’t do this!” she seethed.  “People who walk with a cane— like me— or use a walker are being disenfranchised!”

            Having taken this message to heart, today they immediately offer her “curbside voting.” We enter the building, she gets to take a seat by the wall while volunteers bring her a pledge form, peruse her i.d., go inside and check her off the voting list, bring her a ballot on a clipboard, wait while she makes her choice, pop it into an envelope, seal the envelope, and carry it back into the school gymnasium and drop it in the box. She gets to sit through the entire process. “Curbside.”

            “They listened!” she marvels.

            Leaving her sitting out front, I walk down the hall past the candidates and their entourages to inspect the gym. Among the signs spread somewhat randomly throughout the room, I spy a large “Anna Bola For Attorney General” yardy. It’s leaning against a table. “Hey!” I tell Robyn, the stunningly beautiful brunette volunteering at the door, “I was the sign guy for the Bola campaign. See that sign? That’s one of mine!”

            “How exciting for you,” she cracks sardonically.

            “Yeah.”

            We both laugh. Yard sign guy gets a hard-on seeing one of his products in the Town Council election hall.

             Families keep streaming in, a huge turnout, considering it snowed the night before.

            On my way out, I josh with Paulie Marple. “Your robocalls are top notch,” I tell him. “You’ve got the voice! If you don’t win this election, you can always become a radio announcer.”

             Town Council Chairman Johnson J. Johansson keeps flouncing by in his charcoal gray suit, Mr. Executive, in charge of the polling, the heavy hand of the Town Council much in evidence. They have every reason to be scared!

            I have a long chat with Suzanna Son: “If you don’t get elected today and want to have a go in November, I am here for you. We need to get your name out there. You are so far superior to the other candidates, all you lack at the moment is name recognition.”

            “That’s the thing,” she whispers. A first-time candidate, she’s lost her voice from too many speaking engagements.” I don’t know if I want to go through this again. ‘Though all my supporters are pushing me to re-up.”

            “You don’t need to decide right away. Who knows, you may win this thing! Miracles do happen. It ain’t over ‘till it’s over! “

            We give one another a thumbs up. Suzanna is not only someone with ideas, she can actually master a fact sheet. In arguments with Johansson, she’ll be deadly.

* 

             And the winner is…? Marcia Weinglass, the Establishment favorite.

             Nothing has changed!

A Quick Fix

  

            As they say in the movie business, when the release of a film gets delayed for a year and a half, there are problems.

            In an attempt to do a re-make of The Prisoner of Zenda, things got a little out of hand at More Town Studios. In no way was it my fault that they ended up with such a bizarre shooting script. I have only been called in to help construct the trailer. My reputation precedes me: The love interest in my scripts tends to be either a dominatrix or a vixen. “You’ll be poifect to square this circle,” brays CEO David Groschen over the phone.

            I have been a little too generous of late to some of my lady friends. I need the money.

            Here are the bare bones provided by the studio:

                                         Trailer – The Prisoner of Zelda

             Josh (a Sam Neill type character): (close-up) “Let me go, Zelda!”

              Zelda: (close-up; laughing toothily) “No-o-o-o-o!”

                Everything else is action sequences: car chases, things exploding, even if one of the “things” is a guy’s underpants.

                I view the screener, pausing to jot notes. I’ve discovered that the impression I get on the first viewing— the details that stand out— are a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I can watch the movie a dozen more times, but I’ll never have as fresh a take.

                This motion picture is in serious trouble, and I don’t mean they risk missing Best Picture at the Oscars. A low-budget slasher movie, Zelda locks up men and saws off their limbs. Of course, the last 30 seconds before the closing credits have got to be in the trailer: An old-fashioned, Sigmund Freud type psychiatrist in a book-lined study all in tones of brown— the furniture, the leather chairs, the psychiatric couch. He says, “But my dear, you must be suppressing a terrible anger.”

                There it is! A movie for modern times. I telephone Groschen and pitch

                                          Trailer – The Anger of Zelda

                Narrator: “Never before has a motion picture dared immerse itself in the seething cauldron of emotions that underlie the most basic tenets of modern life— extremism, fanaticism, rage, anger. Zelda, society’s Everywoman, experiences it all! JOIN HER in facing the terror, the hopelessness, but above all, the anger.

               The anger.

               The anger of Zelda.

               Coming to a theater near you, August 2012.”

                “Okay,” I tell Groschen, “worst case scenario, we change the last sentence to ‘Coming to DVD.’ It floats. It works.”

               “I dunno,” David replies, but even from across the Continental Divide, I can hear the wheels turning. “Do the edit and send me the rough cut. You know the drill. I’ll run it by a focus group. We’ll call it Zelda’s Anger. It’s a sexy title, it’s potent, it carries a punch.”

              Which he does. Sonofabitch, we’ve got a sleeper! The focus group loves the trailer, the idea, the concept, the rough cut, my narration (I’ve got a passable microphone voice), you name it.

               That the movie itself stinks in no way diminishes the quality of the $10,000 check I happily receive from More Town Studios.

*

 

Convenience

 

            A tall, thin girl by the side of the road, long blond hair, a cute face, black slacks, a white down windbreaker, a black plastic garbage bag full of clothes at her feet. A blustery, cold day in January, she stands like a fashion model, her left leg arched forward provocatively. Naturally, I stop. I get out of the car and ask, “Is your ride coming?”

            “What’s it to you?”

            She looks like a suburban stray, but speaks with a hillbilly twang, not at all what I expected.

            “I can’t just leave you here, it’s cold.”

            She thinks about that awhile. “My boyfriend’s coming to get me.”

            “Good! As long as he comes.”

            A smile plays around the corners of her mouth. “You do this often? Stop and talk to strangers?”

            “Most strangers don’t look like you,” I confess. “You’re… stunning.”

            “Whatever.”

            “Have you called your boyfriend on his cellphone?”

            She gawks. “My boyfriend drives a pickup. He doesn’t have a cellphone.”

            “Oh, I’m sorry.”

            A radiant smile breaks out on her face. “Hey, mister, you got a cigarette?”

            “I quit. Awhile back.”

            “Huh? Why’d you quit?”

            “Burning up big bucks.”

            “Ha! That was dumb.”

            “Well…”

            “If you hadn’t quit, you could offer me a cigarette, jerko.”

            Looking into her lovely blue eyes, I say, “Yeah. I goofed. I… I’m sorry.”

            “Where is he? Do you own that car you’re driving?”

            “Yeah, that’s my car.”

            “Come on! It’s cold. I’m tired of waiting. Grab my stuff, wouldja?” she chirps, pivoting elegantly on one leg and marching off to my car. I grab her black plastic trashbag— which is unexpectedly heavy— and follow.

            “What’s in here, bricks?” I joke.

            “Why? What’s it your business?” she asks. She pops open the passenger side door and hops in my car.

            Plopping her bag on the back seat, I get in behind the wheel. “Where to, madam?” I ask in a cheeky chauffeur’s voice.

            “Hey, mister, just drive! I’ll tell you when I see a convenience store.”

            “What’s your name?”

            “Huh?” she grunts languidly, kind of floating in her seat. “Madeleine, but everyone calls me Maddie.”

            I drive. Stop light, stop light, gas station.

            “Oh, there’s a convenience store.”

            “Where?”

            “Right there!”

            “Oh. Right.” I pull into the parking lot.

            “Hey, mister,” she asks with a kind of stoner cluelessness, “do you ever do methamphetamine?”

            “What? No. Of course not!”

            “Huh? Shit, I do it all the time!” she assures me, leaning over the front seat, rummaging in her black plastic bag. First she brings forth a brown leather purse with a shoulder strap, very shiny, almost new. Then she dives back into the sack and pulls out a Glock 22 and points it at me. “Gimme the keys to your car.”

            “Cripes!” I swear.

            “Gimme the keys to your car! Look, Mr. Whoosis, I’m about to rob this convenience store. I got a gun. See?”

            “Oh, I see the gun, alright.”

            “What’s your problem? Give me the goddam keys to your goddam car. Get out an’ walk away. This here’s none of your goddam business. Let me do my thing and I’ll leave your car someplace public and, like, sometime soon you’ll get it back. Someplace in the tri-state area.”

            “What the hell is the tri-state area?” I dumbly ask.

            “Delmarva. Delaware-Maryland-Virginia. Now give me the goddam keys,” she rants, becoming hysterical.

            I feel like I’m locked in a closet with a rabid dog. I do the old movie trick and put my hand over the muzzle of the gun. I fully expect her to blow my hand off.

            “Take your hand away!” she howls.

            Quickly pushing the gun aside, I say very quietly, “No can do. I can give you money, Maddie! Money, money, money, as much as is in that convenience store. Why do a robbery when you can get the money handed to you on a silver platter, no crime committed?”

            “What are you, J. D. Rockefeller?”

            “Naw, but, yes, I’ve got some cash stashed.”

            “Where?”

            “In the bank.”

            “Get outta the car. We’re going into this store and gettin’ cash now !”

            “An ATM— “

            “Now! “

            I pocket my car keys. We get out of the car, walk across the lot and enter the store. The entire front window is neon signs, “Checks Cashed,” “Cold Drinks,” “Beer & Wine,” “Open 24 Hours.” It’s 5:30 p.m., just getting dark.

            “Yes, can I help you?” asks the Indian woman behind the counter. She’s dressed in a red and gold sari, a red caste mark on her forehead.

            But Maddie already has the gun pointed, her arms outstretched, all but touching the woman on the nose with it. “Just… give… us… all… your… money!” she recites.

            Frowning, the woman looks at me. “Aren’t you ashamed?” she asks. “We work hard. We have very small profit margins— “

            “Give me the money! “ screams Maddie.

            “She’s doped up!” I hastily explain. “You can’t reason with her. Methamphetamine.”

            “This is a very stupid thing,” says the woman resignedly, ringing up the register, removing bills from each slot in turn and extending the greenbacks to Maddie.

            “Take them! “ Maddie hollers.

            Not wanting the Indian woman to get hurt, I take the bills.

            “Do you want the coins?” asks the Indian.

            “What?” asks Maddie.

            “The coins. Quarters, half dollars, nickels, dimes, pennies.”

            “What about them?”

            “Do you want them?”

            “No, I don’t want them!” Maddie fumes, turning to me. “Take a cold drink.”

            “What?” I ask dumbly.

            “The sign out front says Cold Drinks. Get us a cold drink!”

            “Jesus Christ! What?! A Snapple? Grapefruit tonic? Coke Zero? Maddie! There must be a hundred beverages in here… Bottled water!”

            “Take that there!” she seethes, pointing with the gun at a cardboard case of bottled water. When she swings the gun violently back at the cashier, I fully expect a tragedy.

            None of us move. Somewhere in aisle three, I vaguely sense a customer, but whoever it is, they never show themselves.

            I grab the case of bottled water and say, “Okay, let’s go!”

            I open the door clumsily and back out. I stand on the concrete apron waiting for her. “Maddie, let’s just go!”

            She stands as if paralyzed, arms straight ahead, hands spasmodically clutching the gun in firing position.

            I re-enter the store.

            “Help me!” she screams. “I’m stuck!”

            I put the water on the floor, leave the dollar bills on top, approach from the side and gently raise Maddie’s arms so the gun is pointing at the ceiling.

            “You probably don’t even have bullets,” mutters the Indian cashier.

            “YOU BITCH!”

            “Please, don’t say a word,” I beg them, just managing to unpry Maddie’s right hand from the gun.

            “Okay,” Maddie sighs, seemingly back to normal, the gun in her left hand. Bringing it down to shoulder level, she gunbutts the Indian woman, who collapses on the floor. “Come on!” Maddie shouts, hightailing it out of there. 

            Feeling like an idiot, I grab the loose bills and the bottled water and follow her outside.

            “Quick! Into your car! Let’s go! Let’s go!” Maddie shouts.

            I mean, she still has the Glock.

            I pop open the back door, dump water and money, slam the door, hop in the front and… struggle to get my car keys out of my pants pocket.

            Watching me squirm, Maddie begins laughing hysterically.

            Eventually, I get us on the road. Maddie has me drive us to an apartment house in Virginia. “Shit!” she laments, “I forgot to get cigarettes!” I turn in at the parking area and pull up, the car idling in the middle of the lot. Maddie starts to get out of the car.

            “Just like that?” I ask. “Without a second thought?”

            “Why? Ya wanna do a Bonnie and Clyde? Now he wants a major crime spree! You think robbing people is a turn-on?”

            “Hey! I’m not the one robbing people.”

            “I need money,” she complains. “Nobody’ll hire me! I’m from the Ozarks and don’t have any skills.”

            “I wondered about the accent…”

            “Yeah, well, fuck you, mister!”

            “It’s Kevin.”

            “Oh, sure. Fuck you, Mr. Kevin. Leave me alone! “ she demands, hanging onto the open door. Interestingly, she just sits there, swinging the door back and forth. She doesn’t exit the vehicle.

            “Listen, Maddie…”

            “My boyfriend’s upstairs in an apartment on the second floor. If he knew I’d even spoken one word to you, he’d scalp us both! No foolin’. If you’re not gonna throw me outta yer car, I’d suggest we drive the hell outta here quick as the devil, mister.”

            Her car door hanging open, I hit the gas and spin the wheel left. Centrifugal force brings the door slamming shut. Maddie sits and sulks. “We better go to a motel,” she suggests.

            “Nah, that’s how you bring the police down on you like a ton of bricks. Do a robbery and check into a motel.”

            “So what are we gonna do?” she asks with that same stoner cluelessness.

            “We’ll drive to Maryland and park the car in a shopping center where I have my business. It’s a derelict shopping center. We can bed down in my office.”

            “Is that what you wanna do with me, Mr. Kevin? Bed down?”

            “Why do you think I picked you up?” I ask as she pulls the Glock from beneath her windbreaker and shoves the tip of the barrel against my neck.

            “Give me three good reasons I shouldn’t pull the trigger!” she drawls absent-mindedly.

            “Number one, I’m on your side, Maddie. Number two, I think I’m in love with you— “

            Frowning, she rests the gun resignedly in her lap.

            “Number three, I’m an accomplice. It’s my car, my license plate. I’m in this thing as deeply as you are.”

            “Pull over!”

            This doesn’t sound good, but I pull over. Not on the main drag, but at the first residential street we come to. Is she going to blow my brains out, dump my body and drive off in my car? She’s a meth head. The experts say their behavior is extremely unpredictable and their level of violence limitless.

            “C’mere,” she insists, the gun in her lap, reaching for me with both hands. She clasps my face and we kiss, long, drawn-out kisses, sucking air. She squirms in her seat, one hand drifting down to grab my swollen crotch. “You love  me,” she contends wonderingly. “You really love me!”

            “Yeah… yes, I do!”

            “That’s so… lame!” she laughs. “That’s so fucking lame! I rob a convenience store and you’re, like, totally turned on. Joey’ll die when he hears about this!”

            We kiss some more.

            “Pull down your pants.”

            “Put away your gun.”

            “Fuck you, mister,” she grouses, shoving the pistol back into the waistband of her slacks.

            I unbuckle myself, unzip and pull down my pants.

            “What’s that?”

            “Part of a sock. Keeps the nether regions warm and absorbs leaks.”

            “What leaks?”

            “Sometimes my dick leaks.”

            “Boo hoo hoo, poor man!” she jeers, tugging at my cock mercilessly.

            “We’d enjoy this more in the office,” I croak.

            “Why? I’m enjoying it now.”

            Fuck!

            We go back to heavy petting.

            “If I just kind of lean back on the seat here,” she asks, “will you drive us to this office of yours? I can’t sleep. Meth keeps you wired. But I’m tired. Or am I gonna wake up an’ find myself staring into a patrolman’s flashlight?”

            “I don’t think we’re going to see any patrolmen or their flashlights,” I reason, “but we’d better get a move on.”

            I take us to my office off Rockville Pike. The building is dark, although it wouldn’t matter if Boopsie and Jacqueline were there. Coworkers, we respect one another’s eccentricities. I all but carry Maddie into the building. I return to the car, which isn’t exactly hidden, but parked in the shadows along the side wall. I get her purse and the trashbag full of her worldly possessions. When I get to the office and turn on the desk lamp, she is curled in a corner of the room, seated on the carpet, both arms out stiff, pointing her gun squarely at my head.

            “What are we doing here?!” she demands icily.

            “Hopefully,” I admit, “we’re going to screw the daylights out of each other.”

            “Oh, yeah!” she yelps, throwing the gun against the desk. “Let’s make love!”

            Laughing, I pick up the Glock and lay it on the desk, go to the street windows and close the blinds, and return to find the spectrally white and creamy body of a 22-year-old female blond meth head who has just peeled off all her clothes. I follow suit.

            “Fuck me,” she chortles uncontrollably.

            “Truer words, rarely spoken.”

            …

            When I’m deep inside her, she groans, ”I wanted you because you’re so convenient.”

            I do her again.

            I sleep, in my clothes, her hand gripping my aching cock. She doesn’t sleep, of course, but she leans against me, resting, drooling spittle. At one point, she gets up, goes to the bathroom and does her thing. Groggily, I look up and see the yellow light outlining the bathroom door. I hear the water running. As I  drift off to sleep, I am rudely shaken awake.

            “I wanna go to Joey,” she says.

            “Sure, I’ll drive you.”

            I take her to the apartment house across the river in Virginia. After two minutes in the car, she’s like a zombie, staring silently out the windshield, her hands spasmodically writhing in her lap.

           “Can I turn on the radio?” I ask.

            “No noise! “ she screams.

             “Okay. Okay, Maddie. Okay,” I whisper soothingly.

              It doesn’t help. She’s almost jumping out of her skin by the time we arrive.

              “Hey! Thanks!” she says, brusquely grabbing her purse, the plastic bag and the dollar bills off the back seat, the Glock once again a conspicuous bulge beneath the hem of her jacket.

               That’s it, my escapade in crime. I watch as she flounces away at 3 o’clock in the morning to the barely lit entrance of a shabby, yellow domicile. I can only imagine what a desperate series of misadventures their lives must consist of.

               I drive home and go to bed. It’s cold enough to freeze a yak’s ass. The police awaken me at 11 a.m. the next morning, ringing the front doorbell. They’ve traced my license plate. Barechested, I invite the two of them in. “Let me go put on a shirt,” I suggest. I offer coffee. They decline. I heat a cup in the microwave and sit down with them at the dining room table to address their questions.

               “Your car was used last night in a robbery,” Lt. McKay enunciates clearly, glancing between his notepad and my face. “At first we thought it was a case of a stolen vehicle. You know. Not you in the car. Then— and here’s the bitch, here’s the kicker— we interview the proprietress and screen the surveillance video. That’s some footage. Who’s the dame?”

               “He means,” Detective Holt interjects, “who is the woman holding the gun? We’ve seen her on video several times before, but she continues to elude us.”

               So I give them a short explanation, meet woman, held at gunpoint, forced to participate in robbery.

               “It’s a carjacking,” declares Lt. McKay stolidly.

               “She did try to steal your car… and you resisted? And that’s when she made you enter the store? At gunpoint? Is that your story?” ask Detective Holt.

              “At gunpoint. When I wouldn’t give her the keys to my car. Yes.”

               They’re not even playing Good Cop / Bad Cop. They just seem intent on getting the narrative down pat.

               “What happened then?” asks the detective, while the lieutenant scribbles furiously on his notepad.

                I tell them about driving her to Virginia.

               “And that’s where you left her?”

               “Yup!”

              “Could you find this place again? That’s like, the clincher,” McKay  tells me. “Accomplice to armed robbery, driving the getaway car. Or, more likely, innocent victim forced at gunpoint to assist an armed felon.”

             “It’s not like you want to protect the lady or anything, right?” asks Detective Holt.

             “Gentlemen, let me get my shoes, my jacket, hat and gloves. Then we’ll take a ride across the river.”

              The two policemen exchange looks.

              “Okay,” McKay agrees.

               I never wrote down the address, but, yes, with only one wrong turn, I got us there. I mean, I’d already driven there twice. They kept me caged in the back of the cruiser while they called for backup. Eventually, Virginia law enforcement pulled stealthily into the parking lot and conferred with the Maryland police officers.

               Maddie and Joey looked appropriately disheveled and miserable as the cops led them from the building. I felt bad, but it was them or me, and whatever happened to me, nothing was going to get them off the hook. My going down would serve no purpose whatsoever.

              That was two years ago. I’m writing about it now because I just visited Maddie at The Montgomery Project, a halfway house. She is out on parole and looks as ridiculously angelic as always, ex-con or no. Creamy skin, long blond hair, perky blue eyes, plucked eyebrows, rosebud mouth, round dimpled chin, pert little breasts and those long, long legs. Until she smiles. Her teeth! The rotting stumps of a zombie apocalypse.  And she continues to have the distracted air of someone not  entirely in the room. Ouch!

              Since employment is such a big deal for those out on parole, I’ve hooked her up with a concert promoter who has her doing costumes, make-up and stage hand work, but he makes sure she stays out of his bed and he doesn’t let her get anywhere near the cashbox.

             So far, it’s working.

*

 

Our MLK Memorial

  

            Those of us living in Oxburg, Maryland have followed with great interest the erection, dedication and events surrounding the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial on the mall. We put up our memorial in 2001, a full ten years in advance of national trends. Actually, Vincenzo Panini, our local mafioso, and I put up the monument. One of my black buddies in the Army had informed me of the nice urn-and-eternal-flame monument erected in his Alabama hometown in honor of the Reverend Dr. King. Once planted, this seed took root. Lacking a ready network of contacts, I canvassed the PTA, the Town Council, the Better Business Bureau, the Oxburg Homeowners Association and even the Federated Oxburg Retailers Organization for help in launching a monument. No takers. Initially enthusiastic and intrigued, these stalwart assemblies each ran headlong into the political squeamishness of their members. Everyone agreed that a bright, shiny metropolis of democracy like ours should exhibit an ode to racial equality, yet no one group wished to be singled out as in the forefront.

            The only person unsullied by any such scruples was Vinnie Panini. “Wassa problem?” he groused. “Ya wanna putta up a statue, we raise-a the money and putta up these monument.”

            “They don’t want to be Politically Incorrect.”

            “’ do’ na! “

            Taking our cue from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, we accumulated construction funds through private fundraising drives, only petitioning the town for the actual plot of land to put it on. Relieved that they weren’t being called upon to spearhead the project, the Town Council readily coughed up a 4-foot by 6-foot rectangle right in the middle of the Towne Center Shopping Plaza.

            Great location! A paved, mauve walkway already in place, there were shops aplenty attracting customers, the hustle and bustle of traffic on the surrounding streets, and superb lighting to discourage vandalism or neglect.

            I love the work of Chinese sculptor Lei Yixin from Changsha in Hunan province, but our likeness required a weight (less than a ton), height (four feet) and cost ($250,000) commiserate with the shopping center. Anything too large or ostentatious could awaken the ire of the shop owners, who much preferred their storefront window displays to be the center of attention, not some dime store wooden indian depicting a last-century civil rights crusader known to have visited Oxburg only a single time in his entire life!

            “This is a very small suburb,” I pleaded with the retailers. “I mean, thank God that King and his entourage stopped here for gas and Cokes one day in 1962. I still feel we should spring for a memorial.”

            “Fine,” Milicent Palmer of Palmer Drugs agreed, “just put it over by the United Auto Service Center. That’s where they got their gas and Cokes.”

            See, even my supporters weren’t exactly helpful. For starters, we have no bones to pick with the blacks living in Oxburg, whether they live on The Palisades or in the Clearwater neighborhood. These are families who can trace their presence back generations to slaves and freed men from both sides of the North-South divide. The very farmland used to build the Town of Oxburg came from their holdings. Even the Dipple family, whose house occasions the only S-curve in The 1812 Highway, is viewed with humorous condescension, but no true animosity. If they want the constant roar of traffic and the stink of auto exhaust in their front yard, the choice is theirs. No entreaties could get them to move, not even the offer to relocate them and their house to 20 acres and a mule outside of town.

            We have no ambivalence toward the black community. Color isn’t an issue. The progressive, well-intentioned whites of our town are as oblivious of the blacks as they are of one another.

            Vincenzo and I commissioned local artist Tom de Witte to do a portrait likeness of King in bronze, 80% lifesize.

            “Why not 100%?” asked de Witte. “The cost is basically the same.”

            “Naw,” I explained, “a 100% lifesize bronze King would feel kind of creepy, like those wax figures at Madame Tussaud’s. We don’t want it to seem like a parody.”

            “I’m glad you told me that,” Tom exclaimed. “I thought you wanted a caricature. You want an actual photo likeness of Martin Luther King. “

            “Definitely.”

            “Jus’ make him looka good,” rumbled Vincenzo threateningly, ever observant of the niceties of negotiation.

            “Uh, Vinnie, relax,” I admonished him. “This is a friendly discussion.”

            “Sure! Jus’ so he make-a him looka good.”

            Tom de Witte assured us he would.

            Unlike the later, national monument, we didn’t fall into the trap of some lamebrain quote. On the side of our gray marble base, we had Jimmy the stonecutter simply inscribe, “I Have a Dream!”

            I understand that if the whole Martin Luther King thing on the mall doesn’t work out, aides to President Obama have expressed a willingness to have the block containing the head switched… to one resembling the president. Talk about “thinking outside the box”!

*

            The events of 9/11 overshadowed public attention, but on December 18^th in the year of Our Lord 2001, we held an unveiling.

            We invited President George W. Bush, of course, knowing full well that he wouldn’t come. We were shooting for Cheney or, if not him—in his green parka— at least Scooter Libby. Instead, an off-duty Secret Service black guy in a suit and an official of the Congressional Black Caucus both attended. From their grim inspection, it felt like they were there principally to ensure that we not make a mockery of King or his legacy.

            The ridiculously warm weather did have one effect, bringing a flock of seagulls wheeling down out of the sky to join us. Cawing noisily, they perched and defecated on our shiny new sculpture, giving Martin an interestingly mottled pate. Annoyed, we attendees took turns waving our printed programs at the birds to shoo them away.

            Thus, it seemed only fitting that bird-like, little Margaret “Maggie” Dipple, 94 years young, black as coal, gnarled as winter bark, dressed in a moth-eaten wool coat, should speak for the community. Croaking in a palsied voice, she announced: “T-T-T-Today, w-w-w-we c-c-c-celebrate the m-m-m-memory of ah-ah-ah-our bro-bro-brother M-M-Martin Luther K-King.” Overcome by emotion, unable to continue, swaying dramatically on her cane, she looked about to collapse. Several of us rushed forward, helping her to a seat on a nearby park bench.

            “Well,” Tom de Witte suggested, passing me the typed speech from Maggie’s trembling fingers, “it’s your idea. Why don’t you finish the eulogy?”

            So I did. “People will little remark nor long remember the words we say here today…”

            Boy, we sure got that right!

            “Never-the-less, this convocation celebrates our fond memories of, and the achievements of, a pillar of the black community, a man who was a symbol of all that is good and great in America.

            “Thank you!”

            Kind of a mixed metaphor, the Oxburg High School Marching Band then played a medley of songs from Alexander’s Ragtime Band while homecoming queen and winner of the Miss Oxburg 2001 title, blond Suzie Melnick with her tiny upturned nose, huge blue eyes, round chin and absurdly chunky body, broke a bottle of champagne against the base of the bronze statue. As if launching a ship. “I hereby declare you,” she lisped seductively, shouting to be heard over the tinny cacophony of her classmates in the band, “the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial.”

            A smattering of applause.

            That evening, well after dark, some boys in the local chapter of Sons of the Confederacy burned a cross on the grass verge a few feet from the statue. A county cop driving by in his cruiser stopped, got out and watched, but since there was no negative reaction from the community at large, no charges were filed.

            “Junior,” “Shorty” and “Midget Martin” are the most common references to the statue. Once a month, it has fallen to my lot to hose down both statue and base and then polish them with a bucket of rags. Otherwise, it’s just part of the shopping center, our very own Martin Luther King Memorial.

*

 

Movie Magic

            Hooray! My writer’s block has lifted and I am working on a new magnus opus screenplay, “I Am Uninterested… the Pink Version” (in Swedish, Jag är ointresserad… den rosa versionen).

            Synopsis: Lars, who has an identity crisis, wonders if he might secretly be Bjorn. As Bjorn, he is dating Camilla and building a major chateau in the countryside of Luxembourg. Easy to film, there are many castles in the countryside of Luxembourg. Meanwhile, as Lars, he is in a dead-end job as loading dock manager for a big box hardware retailer on Route 9 in Howell, New Jersey. Lots of “Fast and Furious” type action among the strip malls along Route 9.

            Cynthia, extremely sexy in a Dragon Tattoo way, has no reason to be in this movie, but breaks into Lars’ apartment, which in itself is amazing since there are, like, no apartment houses anywhere near Route 9 in Howell, New Jersey! OMG! Mile after mile of suburban developments, it’s all single-family dwellings. Go figure.

            For reasons of plot, Cynthia breaks into the apartment to steal the keys to Lars’ Lamborghini, a gift from Lars’ inanely rich and successful father (think of a character played by Christopher Plummer). Never mind whether the story line is credible, this gives us the op to show a luxury mansion, a Lamborghini, adult cigarette smoking and babes swimming in an indoor pool—all great for high-end product placement.

            Love those bikinis!

            Hans, friend to Lars (is the Swedish influence coming through here?), spirits him away on a mountain-climbing expedition up Mount Rainier. Ice axes firmly in hand, this adds suspense; think “Cliffhanger” or the slide scene in “Batman Begins.”

            Hans: (balancing one-handed on icy ledge)  “True story. In college, I had a girlfriend from West Virginia. I told her, ‘The British make fun of the French, the French make fun of the Italians, the Swedes make fun of the Norwegians, the Minnesotans make fun of the Wisconsonites and the Virginians make fun of the West Virginians. Who do the West Virginians make fun of?’ And she replied, ‘What?’”

          Eventually, they make it down from the mountain.

          Camilla announces she is preggies. Are we veering toward situation comedy? These couch-potato sequences of endless dialogue, clever repartee and a pet monkey alternate with “Boardwalk Empire” style activity—violent, garishly lit, clumsy—on the loading dock.

           Rich Monte Carlo gambling sojourn via father’s private Learjet adds James Bond spice to dragging middle of film.

            So far, so good. Enter the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services. Since Lars originally came to the U.S.A. on a 3-month tourist visa and has been living in this country illegally for umpteen years, he is given a choice: Flack for the C.I.A. as a planted informer à la The Democratic Terrorist (Jan Guillou’s Den demokratiske terroristen) or get deported. Lars chooses deportation.

           Bitter, he joins a madrassa in Brandbergen, Sweden and becomes a Muslim fanatic. Also, at 34 years of age, he finds it embarrassing to be studying Arabic and Islam with 12-year-old boys.

            His very first mission is to blow himself up on the train to Uppsala, Sweden, demonstrating once again to the West the implacable fanaticism and determination of the Muslim people, etc. On the train, his explosive vest strapped securely beneath his flowing robe, Lars comes face-to-face with Camilla and his infant son. She has come to Sweden looking for him and to take a two-year course in gynecological nursing at the University of Uppsala, etc.

            Should Lars blow up the three of them or not? Or is he secretly Bjorn? This is a very Swedish predicament. Talk about a cliffhanger ending! 

*

            This screenplay is currently available for option on a first-come or highest-bidder basis.

*