by Dave Barry
“THERE IS ONE GOD!” he bellows.
“No!” shouts a protester. “Two!”
“That's right!” shouts another. “Two gods!”
The speaker informs them that they will go to hell (presumably via the “10” and the “405”). He then asks if there are any questions.
“Yes!” shouts somebody. “Where did you get your hat?”
“YOU CAN GET IT AT A SAFETY-SUPPLY STORE!” bellows the speaker.
As I walk away, the speaker and the protesters are arguing about the Third World.
“THE THIRD WORLD DOESN'T KNOW WHAT TOILET PAPER IS!” bellows the speaker, his words echoing across the parking lot. “THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT A TOILET IS!”
“You're a toilet!” shouts a protester.
And so it continues, the vital ideological struggle for control of the Protest Area.
Meanwhile, in the convention hall, Democrats, at least the ones who got buses, have boldly come out in favor of both prosperity AND children. They put these positions right in their platform, which places them in stark contrast with the Republicans, whose platform calls for worldwide depression and the shooting of children for sport. Both parties' platforms will, in accordance with tradition, be buried in a landfill in New Jersey and never surface.
In other political news, we have these updates on the Democratic ticket:
• AL GORE UPDATE: Al is practicing for his big speech, which according to one of his aides will feature “several near-human hand gestures.”
• JOSEPH LIEBERMAN UPDATE: Senator Lieberman, who has been critical of Hollywood's lax morals, apparently has softened his stance after a nine-hour meeting in a luxury hotel suite with the cast of Sex and the City. “This issue is WAAAAAAAY more complex than I thought,” he told the Los Angeles Times, moments before passing out.
Joe Goes Hollywood As Al Plans to Be “Riveting”
LOS ANGELES
In a surprise development Wednesday night, vice presidential nominee Joseph Lieberman, continuing to soften his previously harsh stance on Hollywood morals, delivered his entire acceptance speech without pants.
“I love this crazy town!” he told the delegates, adding: “Jennifer Lopez, please call me back!”
But the real highlight of the convention is expected to come at the grand finale tonight, which promises to deliver all of the drama, passion, and high-voltage excitement conjured up by the words “Al Gore.”
According to a source in the Gore camp, the vice president has prepared a “riveting” speech, featuring some “challenging views” on how the America of the Twenty-first Century “can recycle a larger percentage of its mulch.” During the speech, which is expected to draw a nationwide television audience of Tim Russert, Los Angeles riot police will surround the convention hall to prevent delegates from escaping.
Speaking of security: A group of cartoonists and I have discovered an excellent way to get into lavish parties that we are not invited to, which is the main function of journalists at political conventions. Our secret is that we made friends with the mayor of Los Angeles, Richard “Dick” Riordan. I am not making this up.
We met Mayor Dick for breakfast at a restaurant he owns in downtown Los Angeles called the Pantry, which produces an estimated two-thirds of the world's cholesterol. Mayor Dick is a plain-spoken type of person who enjoys a good joke and would not mind seeing the Los Angeles Times destroyed with tactical nuclear weapons. During breakfast, he told us that he was going to a party that night, and we asked if we could be his security detail, and he said sure.
So at 9 P.M., seven of us met at the party site, dressed as security personnel. We wore dark suits and sunglasses, and each of us had a cord plugged into his ear. These were coiled cords, taken from our hotel telephones, so you can imagine how professional we looked.
For security purposes, we gave ourselves code names. Mine was “Magenta Eagle.” The others were: “T and T,” “Kitchen Magician,” “Thrusting Rod,” “Booger,” “Pocket Fisherman,” and “Eggplant.”
We stood in a small professional bunch in the parking lot, discussing security-related matters (“What's my code name again?”) and surveying the crowd of arriving party guests, which was not easy because it was dark and we were wearing sunglasses. Finally we located Mayor Dick (code name: “Sourdough”) and his wife (“Pork Chop”).
We surrounded them in a standard clot formation and approached the party entrance, talking in code into our hotel phone cords. They let us all walk right in.
As dedicated professionals, we continued to provide vigilant security for the mayor and his wife all the way to the bar, at which point they were on their own.
I would say the highlight of the evening came about a half-hour later, when it was time for the mayor and his wife to leave for another party, and she said, quote, “Sourdough! Sourdough! We have to go!”
The low point came when one of our agents, Pocket Fisherman (“Chip Bok”), found that he had inserted his phone cord so far into his ear that he couldn't get it out.
And people think journalism is easy.
Now It's Safe to Do Some Unconventional Thinking
LOS ANGELES
The Democratic convention ended on a high note Thursday night as Al Gore accepted the nomination with a speech that really “rocked the house,” especially the unscripted, totally spontaneous moment when he called Tipper onto the podium to help demonstrate a new organic composting technique.
Al's moment of triumph was tarnished only slightly when his running mate, Sen. Joe Lieberman—continuing to soften his criticism of entertainment-industry morals—announced that he is quitting the Democratic ticket to get hair plugs and take a role in the forthcoming movie Porky's XI.
“It's a part that I feel will help me grow, as an actor,” he told the Washington Post, adding, “I play a girls' gym teacher.”
So there is no question that Gore, already trailing in the polls, faces an uphill fight. But the polls are not everything. Remember that in 1984, Walter Mondale was also trailing in the polls, and he went on to defeat Ronald Reagan in several parts of Minnesota.
So nobody really knows what will happen this year when the American voters—who so far have been snoozing through the presidential race—wake up, take a hard look at the candidates, and fall back asleep.
For now, though, the important thing is that the conventions are finally over. Once again, you can safely click through the TV channels without running the risk that the screen will suddenly be filled with the face of James Carville, permanently traumatizing your children.
So this is a good time for us to reflect on the American political-convention system, and ask ourselves what we could do to make it less stupid.
Here are my suggestions:
1. ELIMINATE THE DELEGATES. I frankly have no idea why these people attend. They make no decisions other than whether to wave their signs up-and-down or side-to-side (somebody else decides what the signs actually SAY). They also clog up the hotel lobbies and consume vital taxi resources needed by professional journalists trying to get to corporate-sponsored parties.
2. HAVE ANTI-CLICHÉ RULES FOR CONVENTION SPEAKERS. For example, if a speaker began a speech by saying, “As I stand before you . . .” or if at any point in his speech he mentioned “the Twenty-first Century,” a trapdoor in the podium would open and the speaker would drop like a bag of cement, never to be seen again. A strictly enforced anti-cliché policy could cut the total combined speech time for an entire convention to under fifteen minutes.
3. HOLD THE CONVENTIONS IN LAS VEGAS. Picture this: It's prime time on the final night, and the nominee is scheduled to make his acceptance speech. The convention hall is rocking, the networks are broadcasting the scene live, but . . . the nominee isn't there! Because . . . he's winning at the craps table! Wouldn't that be GREAT?
4. CREATE SOME KIND OF FEDERAL AFFIRMATIVE-ACTION PROGRAM TO SUPPLY CELEBRITIES TO THE REPUBLICANS. All they have now is Bo Derek. The Republicans dragged that poor woman to EVERYT
HING; it will take her several face-lifts to fully recover. Meanwhile, at the Democratic convention, you couldn't open a car door without hitting, at minimum, Jimmy Smits.
5. REQUIRE PROTESTERS TO BE ABLE TO GIVE A CLEAR EXPLANATION OF WHY THEY ARE PROTESTING THAT DOES NOT INVOLVE SHOUTING AN INCOHERENT SLOGAN ABOUT “THE PEOPLE,” WHICH THEY LEARNED ON THE INTERNET.
So yes, the system could be better. But it's still pretty darned good. And although I have “poked some fun” at both the Democrats and the Republicans over the past few weeks, I think it's important for us all to remember, as American voters, that BOTH major parties, whatever their faults, think we're morons. So don't forget to vote!
And Joe Lieberman, if you're reading this, please call your agent.
Call Security: The Torch Is on Fire!
SOMEWHERE IN UTAH
The mood is very festive here, as tens of thousands of fun-loving people have gathered for the Winter Olympics, along with an equal number of fun-loving, bomb-sniffing dogs.
Yes, security is tight here, which is why I cannot tell you exactly where “here” is, lest the terrorists find out about it. All I can reveal at this time is that we are in a city next to a large, salty lake. At least they claim it's salty. For security reasons, they are not letting anybody taste it.
The intense security has already caused an unfortunate incident involving the Olympic torch, which, after being painstakingly carried more than 10,000 miles from Athens, Greece, was extinguished upon crossing the Utah state line by suspicious security personnel, who noticed that it was—and this is a direct quote—“on fire.” Also, it did not have a photo ID. Fortunately, this misunderstanding was straightened out, and the torch is expected to be released any day now from its cell at the Guantánamo Naval Base.
But such minor “snafus” will in no way put a damper on these Olympic Games, which are very important to Utah, whose residents hope to use the international spotlight to show the world that there is more to their state than just Donny and Marie Osmond. In the words of Utah governor Michael O. Leavitt, “There was also little Jimmy Osmond, and the older brothers . . . let's see . . . Jay? Billy? Wait, it'll come to me.”
Utah was chosen to host these games by the International Olympic Committee after carefully weighing numerous wads of cash supplied by local organizers. But as far as I'm concerned, the bribery scandal is “ancient history,” and I do not plan to mention it again, unless I can think of more jokes about it.
Besides, these Olympics are not about scandals. These Olympics are about answering a burning question, a question that has been asked for as long as there have been athletes competing in sports: Will the press corps be able to obtain alcohol?
This question arises because Utah is the headquarters of a large religious organization that, out of respect for its privacy, I will refer to as “The Episcopal Church” (not its real name). Even though the Episcopal Church pretty much runs Utah, it's trying to keep a low profile during the Olympics. This is kind of like Godzilla trying to keep a low profile in Tokyo, but I'm not going to argue.
Anyway, the Episcopalians do not approve of alcohol, so it is not that easy to obtain here. Ironically, heroin is sold openly at convenience stores.
No, seriously, the Episcopalians also do not approve of drugs, caffeine, spicy food, or the party game “Twister.”
This strict atmosphere has the international press corps alarmed. The international press corps did not come all the way to the Winter Olympics to watch the biathlon sober.
Needless to say, I will be delving deeply into this issue over the next two weeks, and reporting my findings to you. Time permitting, I will also report on sporting events, if I can get into any.
And of course I'll be reporting on life in this exciting city, while being careful not to reveal its exact location. Because then I would have to kill you.
Part Three
* * *
Next we have some columns that I wrote while covering the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2002. I love the Olympics, because they enable people from all over the world to come together and—regardless of their political or cultural differences—accuse each other of cheating.
* * *
Frozen Lips, Barefoot Skaters—and Who Let All Those Dogs Out?
SALT LAKE CITY (DON'T TELL ANYBODY!)
The Winter Olympics got under way Friday night with a spectacular and very cold opening ceremony featuring some of the world's top entertainment artists, including country artist LeAnn Rimes, R&B artist R. Kelly, pop artist Sting, hip-hop artist Yo “Yo” Ma, and art artist Vincent van Gogh. These artists wowed the crowd by almost perfectly synchronizing their lip movements with recordings of themselves, although at one point Miss Rimes's lip gloss froze and bonded her mouth shut, forcing her to finish lip-syncing her song via hand puppet.
The only other glitch came when a technical foul-up forced the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, which was supposed to perform a medley of inspirational songs, to instead lip-sync “Who Let the Dogs Out?” But they pulled it off beautifully, because that is the kind of tabernacle artists they are.
The Opening Ceremony also featured a huge ice rink, on which eight hundred ice skaters did a synchronized routine that was hindered only slightly by the fact that they had to perform barefoot, because their skates could not go through the metal detector. The added security was necessary because the ceremony was attended by President Bush, or somebody who looks a lot like him. Vice President Dick Cheney also made a brief appearance in the form of a hologram.
Without question the most spectacular moment was the lighting of the Olympic flame. As usual, the details were kept “top secret” until the last minute, when the Olympic torch entered the stadium and, in a dramatic climax that brought a roar of approval from the crowd, ignited a twenty-five-foot-high stack of Enron executives.
But the most meaningful (in the sense of longest) part of the ceremony was the Parade of Athletes, in which competitors from many nations marched around the stadium and stood together, reminding us that the true meaning of the Olympics is international understanding, which means not making fun of foreign people because they have funny names. Among the Olympic athletes whose names we should not find amusing are (I am not making these up): Momo Skokic, Assen Pandov, Angel Pumpalov, Radek Bonk, Meelis Aasmae, Marku Uusipaavalniemi, Dagny L. Krisjandottir, Gatis Guts, Ganbat Jargalanchuluun, Frode Estil, Irina Slutskaya, Peter Pen, Beat Hefti, Miroslav Satan, Assol Slivets, and, of course, Picabo Street.
Speaking of which, the streets of Salt Lake City are teeming with helpful Olympic volunteers, who constantly ask you if they can help you, and then, whatever you want to do, helpfully inform you that, for security reasons, you cannot do it.
On a more positive note, it turns out that, contrary to the rumors, you can get beer here. All you have to do is ask. And then take a simple blood test. Then you must fight the giant snake.
No, really, it's no big deal to get a beer. Unfortunately, because of strict Utah laws, the beer has roughly the same alcohol content as Yoo-Hoo. The press corps is finding that it must consume massive quantities before it is prepared to face the biathlon competition.
I mention this not for personal reasons, but because I believe that it will be of widespread general interest to whoever reviews my expense account.
But never mind the finances. The important thing is, the games have begun. Soon the mountains will echo with the traditional Olympic cheer:
“Radek Bonk, he's our man!
“If he can't do it, Ganbat Jargalanchuluun can!”
For a Weird Cult, They're Pretty Friendly
SALT LAKE MAXIMUM SECURITY COMPOUND
Any day now, I promise to report on an actual Olympic sporting event. But first I want to tell you more about this fascinating place called Utah, which is nicknamed “The Beehive State,” and for a very good reason: All the other nicknames were taken.
The main thing I've noticed is that most people here act very friendly. They even act frie
ndly toward the news media, despite the fact they suspect (correctly) that WE suspect that they are members of a huge weird religious cult featuring multiple wives and secret underwear. We suspect this because downtown Salt Lake City is dominated by giant mysterious Mormon buildings that we're not allowed to enter. Naturally, we wonder what's going on in there. Human sacrifice? Nude Jell-O wrestling?
TRUE FACT: Utah leads the nation in per capita Jell-O consumption.
The thing is, all religions seem weird if you're not familiar with them. For example, as a child in Armonk, New York, I attended St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, which had an unusual tradition, which I am not making up: On Easter Sunday, every member of the congregation was given a potted hyacinth, and then we'd sing a song with a lot of “alleluias” in it, and on every single alleluia, we'd all raise our hyacinths over our heads. If Mormons had walked in while this was going on, they'd have naturally assumed that we were a bunch of flower-worshiping wackos getting ready for some kind of bizarre cross-pollination ritual.
So, far be it for me to make fun of anybody's religion. But I will admit I was concerned because of stories I'd heard about aggressive Mormon proselytizing. I was afraid that I'd be walking past one of the giant Mormon buildings when—WHOA—a sidewalk trapdoor would open and I'd fall into a secret basement proselytizing dungeon equipped with torture instruments and (even worse) lime Jell-O.
But nothing like that has happened. In fact, the only person who has approached me in a remotely proselytizing manner on the streets of Salt Lake City was a man named Yan Sun, who's with Falun Gong, a Chinese spiritual group that's being persecuted by the government of China. I know this because Yan Sun attached himself to me, barnaclelike, and stayed with me for five blocks, talking relentlessly, and the only way I could make him go away was by promising to write about his cause. So here goes: