Pardon My Juice: October 2005

Wednesday, October 26

The Saddest White Sox Fan

75-year-old Tyrone Williamsburg is the saddest man in Chicago tonight: you see the White Sox won the World Series.

Decked out in a retro White Sox gear that was top-of-the-line design when he bought it, he's crying in his beer at Mickey's, a bar two blocks from his house. While the rest of the city is in an uproar and fireworks are going off around the city and the Cubs and their fans feel like the biggest chodes in the world, Williamsburg takes big sighs, cracks his peanuts slowly and pats the tears away with shamrock drink napkins.

You may be asking why a Chicago citizen who's loved the Sox since he could remember would be sad tonight, easily the greatest night in White Sox history.

"My whole life has been rooting for the cursed White Sox. I've wrapped my whole life around them losing," he says while staring outside the window at the near riot. The curse he's referring to goes back to 1918 when the 1917 world champions threw the game for some bookies.

"At some point, I realized I was actually rooting for them to lose. Not to say I wanted them to lose, but they always did. And, you know, I had to be happy somehow."

The turning point, he says, came in 1959 when they made it to the Series and lost.

"I was just turning 29 and the world was going to hell and I realized I putting a lot of effort into something that wasn't working out. But I had all this shit," he tugged at the vintage jersey, "I had to make it work, you know." He added that at the time the engagement to the love of his life fell apart, although that had nothing at all to do with it.

"Maybe I'll become a Cubs fan. But the way things are going, they'll win next year. Actually, if the Cubs win next year I'm sending all my money to the Pope and I'm going to start going to confession again. If the Cubs win next year, I wouldn't be suprised to see the four horsemen play inner field and be managed by the Anti-Christ."

Sunday, October 16

The Gay Flu

(a riff both jazzy and militaristic with a glaring "Worldwide Weekly News Network" graphic triumphantly dropping into the screen)

RUFF MCDOG, NEWSANCHOR
In a speech in the White House's East Room, President Bush said today that the United States is not ready to face a Gay Flu like the one ripping its way through Communist China and Turkey and directed the federal government to prepare for the worst in case of a Gay Pandemic. We go to our Washington correspondent, Hewlett Packard, outside the White House:

PACKARD
That's right, Ruff, and he compared the death a Gay Flu would cause to fifteen Katrina-sized hurricanes and said that American cuisine and fashion would be never be the same.

(a long clip of one the President's long silences)

The President seemed to say with that extended pause that for our children's future, and so we don't face the same fate of Communist China, we have to take steps now to prevent the spread of this horrible, horrible Gay Flu. He said that if we can learn anything from the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina is that the government is worthless and ineffectual and that our medical infrastructure couldn't handle a disaster like the one they're facing in Communist China. He directed, in his words, the "bloated federal government" to research ways to prevent an outbreak like the one seen in Communist China. At one point in his speech he directed a question directly at the press corps asking, "You don't want to be like Communist China do you?"

(a different clip of one the President's longer silences, preferably in a different location)

President Bush closed the speech with that pregnant pause, wordlessly inveighing the magnitude of this threat of the Gay Flu.

RUFF
Did the President give any indication on the sort of direction he'd like, as he calls it, "the costly bureaucracy" of the federal government to go?

PACKARD
No, Ruff, he didn't. He said he expected a report from every department, bureau head and secretary by the same time next year. He told them that while the Gay Flu was urgent, there was no need to hurry.

RUFF
Thanks, Hewlett. But even as the President challenged this nation, defenders of the President were forming petition committees in every state that allows the initiative process to ban Gay Flu Marriage. A press release from the national headquartes of "Man Flu + Woman Flu = Flu Sanctity" they said that Gay Flu Marriages, like the one's seen earlier this year in Vermont and Oregon, were the first steps to the fall of Western civilization and said that this Gay Flu Marriage is a more indisious threat than Fascism or Communism. The group who vigorously supported President Bush in 2004, asked that if Gay Flu Marriage is allowed, what's to stop the marriage of cows to geese or man to beast? What's to stop marriage between brothers and sisters?

In unrelated news, the death toll on American soldiers in Iraq is approaching 2,000...

Friday, October 14

The Creators of South Park Go Too Far

Trey Parker and Matt Stone admit it: they've gone too far.

A South Park episode slated to be aired two weeks from now was suddenly pulled from Comedy Central's planned schedule yesterday. Most people didn't notice or care, but a few die-hard fans demanded answers. Comedy Central, fearful that it's producers would think they were censoring content released a press statement stating that it was pulled at the request of the show creators.

"You know that Frank Sinatra movie about how he's going to kill the president, the one that he made before JFK was shot and then JFK got shot and he tried to buy all the copies of the movie and refused to allow it to be shown? Well, it's like that, but ten times worse," said Stone.

Added Parker: "We're known for leaving no sacred cows unslaughtered, but some cows are meant to live. I guess."

What exactly made these fearless satirists a little fearful? They refuse to say. Parker and Stone have gone so far as to make legal arrangements with themselves and the entire South Park creative team that states the any release of information concerning the episode would be cause, not only of losing their jobs, but a five million dollar fee.

"We thought for a minute that five million bucks is steep but then we watched the episode again and thought that it was too low. I normally don't laugh after a show's actually been made, but this one didn't even make me smile. It was atrocious. Dreadful. Despicable. Inhumane. Inhuman. Unfathomable. Awful. Where my mind was when we wrote that one--well, I don't think I want to go back there again," Stone said with wide eyes while gently shaking his head.

"It was so bad that we had to go to a thesaurus to get all the words that Matt just used to describe it," Parked added to Stone again.

Some fans wonder if its just a marketing ploy to create a "lost episode" of South Park, something that will live in pop culture lore like what Brian Wilson's Smile would have sounded like if he hadn't gone crazy.

Parked became visibly agitated at the idea, "If someone thinks that, that's cool, I guess. But they're retarded."

Stone added to Parker, "And if someone suggests we just didn't do an episode because we're lazy, I'm going to beat the living shit out of them."

Comedy Central said in its press release that free creativity for its talent is an utmost concern and that it was more than happy to pull the episode. "No one at this company would want to do something to frustrate or irritate anyone at one of our most popular shows."

The network also said that they would run the previous night's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart for ninth time in the unaired South Park slot.

"We get a ratings spike no matter when we air The Daily Show."

Sunday, October 9

Excerpts From the Personal Notes of Dr. Edward F. Morningwood

September 31, 2005
...It appears that Terrett is slipping further and further into an inexplicable insanity. Medically, psychologically, even spiritually, we can identify no clear cause. So far, all that we can ascertain is that an event surrounding, or the action itself, is at the start: his brother Christian destroyed his favorite vinyl copy of Ziggy Stardust. We've tried to elicit a response from him by playing the record but all that happens is that the spew of words both verbal and written stops and he becomes listless and sings tunelessly along with the words...

October 2, 2005
...I tried dressing as David Bowie circa Ziggy Stardust and interviewed Terrett, thinking that Bowie might represent some kind of priest or god-like figure but, like a cat afraid of a snake, Terrett skittered away and hid in a corner. The results of this therapy were only negative. He stayed in the corner for a full three hours after I left his padded cell. Then, lacking any form of writing utensil, he defecated into his hand and starting drawing a picture of, I think, Cerberus, the three-headed dog that guards the Acheron in Hades, on the wall. That, or he didn't get the head right twice. He sat quietly and admired his work before the servants cleaned it up... my wife thinks I should diagnose Schizophrenia for Terrett, but what the fuck does she know about psychology, the ignorant slut... listened to Ziggy Stardust today. There is something dusky and attractive about it, a world someone could get lost in...

October 3, 2005
...I'm avoiding any comparison to the Marquis de Sade with Terrett just because he'd like it so much... he was unusually quiet today... requested a copy of The Giver by Lois Lowry, unsure of its meaning...

October 4, 2005
...In full voice, Terrett recited all of Henry V from memory. Thinking Shakepspeare would be a key to get him to speak with us, I enlistened Dr. Glove, therapist and Shakespeare afficianado to speak with him, Terrett spoke with great knowledge and love about Shakespeare but refused to speak about anything else. His problem is unique, the DSM gives me no help of any kind, the treatment is therefore entirely my own...

October 7, 2005
...Mumbling something about a lightsabre, Terrett stabbed himself in the leg and screamed bloody murder. Passed out, awoke and was entirely coherant and logical. We had no choice but to release him, but I'm afraid he'll only experience more episodes of his unique psychopathology....

Monday, October 3

Darby Conley Assaulted

Darby Conley, creator and author of the popular comic strip 'Get Fuzzy,' was assaulted outside his home yesterday by a disgruntled fan. The disgruntled fan, 22-year-old University of Oregon undergraduate Kellen Terrett, waited outside Conley's home and then attacked him.

"He was sitting on my doorstep when I got back from getting some groceries. He asked me if I was Darby Conley and if I wrote 'Get Fuzzy,' then he punched me in the face and started shouting at me," reported Conley. "It didn't hurt very bad, though. I think he was pulling his punches."

Conley reports that he shouted things like "You've given up your edge," and "Write funny comics again." Conley thinks he was commenting on his recent string of public-service-announcement-like comics about the history of cats and dogs and the nature pet overpopulation problem in the US.

Terrett hit Conley several times in the face and chest and kicked him twice when Conley fell to the ground. Conley's only injury was a black left eye and a bruise on left thigh.

A neighbor called police who responded quickly. They pulled Terrett off Conley and handcuffed him.

"We had to forcibly push him into the sqaud car," said Sherrif Ray Atkins, "all the while he was shouting: 'Don't give up your edge, Conley. You used to be so funny. You're all I have left. Don't go down like Charlie Schultz or Jim Davis. Remember the lessons of Gary Larsen and that guy who wrote Calvin and Hobbes! Don't give up, Conley, don't give up!' It was really depressing."

Terrett appeared later that evening at the county jail. He was placid and had a far away look in his eyes. "It really was all I have left. Now I have nothing. Nothing at all." When asked what he was referring to, Terrett refused to give any details. He responded with "It's been a hard few weeks; a hard few weeks."

In a suprising move, Conley willl not be pressing charges.

"He's right, I have lost my edge. I really don't want 'Get Fuzzy' to become like Garfield, where it was funny at first but totally sold out and was really not funny at all. I mean did you see that movie with Jennifer Love Hewitt? And what was Bill Murray thinking?" Conley said.

Pardon My Juice