by Larry Doyle
Welcome, Brother. Let’s eat.
Is There a Problem Here?
Due to numerous factors that retailers can’t control, 2008 has been a challenging year and it seems this pattern will continue throughout the crucial holiday shopping season.
—Bill Martin, cofounder of ShopperTrak
Yes. Yes, there is. I go to the trouble of driving all the way across town, through three restricted zones, one of them Magenta, just to do my Christmas shopping at your mall, and you expect me to pay for parking?
So then the only space I can find is next to Macy’s, which is still on fire, by the way, and a mile from any of the open stores. Do you know how aggravating it is running past all those cars in primo spots, abandoned and overrun with snakes?
Radio Shack is out of everything: generators, shortwaves, water-filtration units, Tasers, Kevorkians, D batteries… Dude says try the Hammacher Schlemmer, and then just starts laughing. They won’t even let me in the Gap. You have to be a registered Christian to wear their clothes now, apparently. Girl explains it’ll make it easier for Jesus at the Rapture. And Petco only has “humane” snake traps. Screw that.
Anyway, the main reason I’m here is to acquire a little Christmas cheer for the wife, and, while I’m at it, something to maybe perk up our love life, which took a major hit when we lost the bedroom furniture to marauders. Victoria’s Secret is empty, on account of The Great Sloughing, I suppose. But I still can’t get any service. The girl behind the counter, vacant, practically drooling, shows no interest in my wife’s particular lingerie needs. Instead, she offers to take me into a dressing room and try on some outfits for me, at which point I realize, duh, she’s a zombie, and I have to take her out. The manager yells at me for not using my silencer, and then says they don’t accept American Express, or anything American.
Oh, and hey, that Santa of yours? A lot of kids going into his little house, not a lot coming out. Zombie. I’m just saying.
I decide to grab a bite from your food court before I go, because, you never know, right? And that’s when I started screaming and shooting things until you came over here. Look at this Southwest Wrap.
What’s wrong with it is you’re not supposed to taste the snake.
No, you’re not. Someone forgot to put on the Special Masking Sauce.
Well, if you’re out of Special Masking Sauce you should put up a sign or something. And check out these Curly Fries.
They’re not curly. They’re barely even twisted. Watch. When I hold one up, it goes completely limp. But you don’t care.
You asked, Is there a problem here? There’s your answer. That’s the problem. When you stopped worrying about the curliness of your fries, when workers like you stopped worrying about the curliness, or creaminess, or deadliness of their respective fries, that’s when this country got on the wrong track; that’s when the bankers and CEOs all disappeared into that underground paradise they’ve been building since the eighties; that’s when women’s skin started falling off; that’s when the Treasury Department, in a last-ditch effort to solve the financial crisis, certified all Monopoly and other board-game moneys; that’s when the rivers ran red, and gelatinous, with what many thought was strawberry Jell-O but really, really was not; that’s when the post office finally followed through on its threats to stop Saturday delivery; that’s when dogs mated with cats, producing a pet that was unfriendly yet still slobbered all over you; that’s when the president and the Congress went on a fact-finding mission to Subterrania and never came back; that’s when baboons gained speech but only used it to make hurtful comments; that’s when the dead rose and flooded the job market with cheap, disposable labor, and the serpents, seeing an opening, took dominion over this once great nation of ours.
You and your uncurled fries.
Oh, yeah, sure. And the asteroid. Let’s all blame the asteroid.
Pieces Left Out of This Collection
Selecting pieces for a humor collection is a bit like choosing which of your children will live or die, less histrionic perhaps, but still tricky. Do you exclude a piece simply because it is poorly written, or not funny? Evidently not. But to include everything would require several volumes, printed on fine Bible paper handsewn into black calfskin with bound-in silk bookmarks, no skimping on the gilt. And that won’t be happening with my current publisher.
On the following pages is a small sampling of the hard work that I decided, drinking heavily, to leave out of this collection. You may disagree. If so, I encourage you to call Rupert Murdoch and insist these pieces be included in the next edition. And mention the calfskin.
You Won’t Have Nixon to Kick Around Anymore, Dirtbag
Some jokes don’t age well. Like ones premised on the World Trade Center bombing (the first, hilarious, one). Or which attack a disgraced public official who has since become beloved, on account of being dead. Or which make a reductio ad absurdum argument about American capitalism, never a good bet. Including such a ludicrously outdated piece in this collection would have only served to remind readers that the author is old, making them sad.
A Government informer and the man charged with leading a foiled plot to bomb New York City targets discussed abducting former president Richard M. Nixon … in a hostage-taking scheme aimed at winning release of Muslims being held in Federal custody in connection with the bombing of the World Trade Center last February [1993].
Mr. Nixon, who lives in New Jersey, could not be reached for comment.
—New York Times
LOS ANGELES, Sept. 20—“The Taking of the President: The Terrorist Abduction of Richard M. Nixon,” a political thriller to be written by Mr. Nixon, will be on sale December 6, Simon and Schuster announced today.
The book, as yet unfinished, will be published in trade paperback as part of the Richard Nixon Library series, under the publisher’s Touchstone Books imprint, according to Touchstone spokeswoman Lynda Coover.
“Taking,” based on an alleged real-life terrorist plot to kidnap Mr. Nixon and exchange him for Muslims being held in connection with the World Trade Center bombing, will chronicle the hypothetical abduction and the former president’s presumed subsequent daring escape, said Ms. Coover, who spells her given name with a “y” for professional reasons.
Mr. Nixon has written eight other books since leaving office in 1974, but Ms. Coover emphasized that this was the first time the former president has dabbled in fiction.
“Though I hesitate to call it fiction,” she added. “As I understand it, they [the alleged terrorists] had discussed this, perhaps even planned it—I don’t know. But what Mr. Nixon has done, is doing as we speak, is reconstructing the actual events as they might have actually transpired. Call it ‘speculative nonfiction.’”
Simon and Schuster was criticized this summer for publishing Joe McGinniss’s “The Last Brother,” a biography of Senator Edward Kennedy that included thoughts and emotions the senator had not had, but Ms. Coover maintained that Mr. Nixon’s book would be different. “It will contain only Mr. Nixon’s authentic thoughts and feelings, captured as he is thinking or feeling them while writing the book,” she said. A movie based on the book is also in the works, said Kym Brooder, a spokeswoman for Paramount Communications Inc., Simon and Schuster’s parent company. “We find the idea of a former American president as action hero to be very, very exciting,” said Ms. Brooder, who changed the “i” to a “y” as a teenager and it simply stuck.
“Executive in Action: Expletive Deleted,” based on Mr. Nixon’s screenplay and scheduled for release in early summer 1994, will be directed by Sidney Pollack, who helmed Paramount Pictures’ 1993 summer blockbuster “The Firm.” Mr. Pollack was criticized for taking liberties with John Grisham’s bestselling book, but Ms. Brooder did not see that issue arising in this case “because Dick’s not a control freak.”
In the film, which will emphasize action elements of the book over its geopolitical insights, the part of Mr. Nixon will be played by Dan Aykroyd, star of “Coneheads,�
� another Paramount release. Mr. Aykroyd, whose affectionate portrayal of Mr. Nixon on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” made an indelible impression on the former president, stepped into the role when Mr. Nixon’s first choice, George C. Scott, was unavailable. Instead of relying on time-consuming and cumbersome makeup to transform Mr. Aykroyd into Mr. Nixon, “morphing” technology will be used to superimpose Mr. Nixon’s face directly onto Mr. Aykroyd’s. “The face will be Dick’s but the acting will be all Dan’s,” Ms. Brooder said.
Next fall will also see Mr. Nixon’s book turned into a four-part, six-hour syndicated miniseries, according to Paramount Television spokeswoman Lyssa Dooley, who swears that’s how it’s spelled on her birth certificate. Ms. Dooley promised that the television version would differ significantly from both the book and movie version in that “it’s set five hundred years in the future, for starters.
“Also, the story will involve several characters and settings from ‘The Next Generation’ universe,” she said, referring to Paramount’s immensely popular syndicated series, “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Mr. Nixon, reportedly “a big Trekker,” will pen the teleplay, and is “noodling with” the notion of doing “a holographic cameo,” Ms. Dooley said. Plot details have yet to be worked out, she said, but added that the Muslim terrorists would likely be replaced by “some sort of alien entity.”
“niXon: the X-President #1,” a 32-page full-color comic book to be written and drawn by Mr. Nixon, will debut in November 1994, according to Paramount licensing spokesman Byll Germane, who admits it’s “a bit of an affectation.” “niXon” will mix elements from the book, movie, and series, in addition to which Mr. Nixon will have as yet undetermined superpowers. Images from the comic book will also be reproduced on a set of Day-Glo posters and in a series of Bahamian commemorative stamps.
The Christmas 1994 shopping season will feature covertaction figures based on the comic, Mr. Germane said, as well as a multiplayer interactive online game based on the miniseries, and, based on the book itself, toys for the tub.
Farewell, My Chubby
Had I included the following piece in this collection, careful readers might have complained about similarities between it and “Freezer Madness” (p. 211). They might even have speculated that after failing to sell a tasteless Roald Dahl rip-off that makes light of a notorious double murder, I changed the title and lead quote, recast it as a drug-education spoof, and foisted it on unsuspecting editors at Esquire. But this kind of debate is more properly dealt with in a dissertation, or monograph, or hagiography, and has no place in a perhaps awardwinning humor collection.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: Officer, would you agree with me that the best evidence of the condition of that ice cream, when you first saw it on that night, would be a picture of how it looked? Isn’t that correct?
OFFICER RISKE: A picture of when I actually saw it, yes.
COCHRAN: When you saw it, yes. We don’t have that, do we?
RISKE: Not that I know of.
COCHRAN: What kind of container of ice cream was this?
RISKE: It was like a cardboard Ben &Jerry’s container.
COCHRAN: Ben & Jerry’s?
RISKE: Ben & Jerry’s.
—The People v. O. J. Simpson
CHUBBY HUBBY—Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Filled Pretzels in Vanilla Malt Ice Cream Rippled with Fudge & Peanut Butter
—New Ben & Jerry’s flavor
He was in there, getting fatter. From the kitchen she could see only a couple pounds of him, his big fat head bulging out atop the chair, his little fat fingers hanging like sausages off the armrest. Beyond that, there was only the television, and football, again.
It had been like this ever since ScrImage Online. The football you want. When you want it. And he wanted it all the time. Their Internet bills were ridiculous. Today it was the ’73 Bills against the ’63 Bears in old Soldier Field, for the third time this week. O. J. Simpson had just broken a Mike Ditka tackle, and Ditka was standing there, his helmet lolling strangely back, the front of his jersey turning a glistening ruby red.
—Jesus Christ, is anybody gonna call that? her husband yelled at the screen, the top of his head bobbing up and down excitedly like, it occurred to her, a monkey’s butt. She giggled. It would only be a matter of time now. He would scream. For ice cream.
Chapter Two
As she swung the huge stainless-steel cart around the corner and to the long gleaming freezer case, she realized she hated him. He hated all the flavors. He would eat them, of course, but he would complain the whole time. So she had spent two hours in her grocer’s freezer section searching for a flavor he had never had. He had had a lot of flavors.
Forget the Classics: vanilla, strawberry, chocolate. Those aren’t flavors, he said, they’re ingredients. She moved on, quickly past Literary—Huckleberry Sinn, Glacé Menagerie—“egghead cream,” he called them. And also past Bestsellers—the Bridge Mix of Madison County, the Celestine Recipe—he mocked her for eating those, but she knew: they made him feel stupid as well. As she passed Mystery, she looked away, hating him. They had once curled up together with a pint of Double Chocolate Indemnity and two spoons, but now the sound of her spoon clicking his gave him an ice cream headache, he said.
Over in the next aisle, more his speed, was Movies and TV—Mama Gump Chunk, Yum ’n Yummer, NYPB Blue—but nothing he hadn’t had a hundred times in the past month. The same in Celebrity—Madonna Cioccalato—and Current Events—White Chocolate Bronco, Uncle Newt’s Old Fashioned Vanilla ’n Cream. Ate it, hate it, ate it, hate it, ate it, she pre-scolded herself, clawing through the pints, her fingers burning with cold. Leaning over, she dug deeper, to the frost-crusted containers in the back. She scraped the ice away with her thumbnail: Kerrigan Krunch. Doesn’t anyone check the expiration dates on these things? she thought, tossing a Bobbitt Split back into the freezer case. A stack of Chewy Buttafuoco toppled over, and then, there, in white type on a black label:
CHUBBY HUBBY
There was one left. She grabbed it and read the label. Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Filled Pretzels. It made her feel ill. He would love it. It was only then that she noticed how heavy it was. And hard.
Chapter Three
—Ice cream! he screamed.
—Ice cream, she chirped back, hopping off her stool. She giggled again as she opened the refrigerator door. It had been in there all afternoon, in the very back of the freezer against the coils, getting harder. He would have such an ice cream headache. Later, when the police arrived, it would be soft enough for spooning. Perhaps the nice officers would like some. Like in that horrid flavor, what was it called? Roald Dahl’s Murder by Sweet. She couldn’t stop giggling.
She reached in, pushing aside the long-abandoned Lean Cuisines, deep into the freezer. Stifling a cackle, she pulled out the container. It was empty. The spoon was still inside. She Hello, we’re Ben and Jerry, and we really must protest at this point. We know what the author is trying to do, and we don’t like it one bit. To our knowledge, a Ben & Jerry’s prepacked pint has never been used in the commission of a first-degree murder. And let us reiterate that the link between premium ice cream and violence is tenuous at best. Millions of Americans enjoy our fresh, delicious ice cream regularly and the vast majority of them do not kill their spouses.
Protecting Your Baby Investment*
It’s not always easy to tell when you’re creating child pornography. Back when I was at the National Lampoon, I got this idea for an illustrated satire of achievement parenting and the DIY movement. The lawyer informed me if the piece ran, however, what few advertisers we had left would storm the office and stomp us dead. He cited a wacky child pornography spoof they had run years earlier, involving adult midgets pretending to be toddlers and engaged in various sex acts. I felt my piece wasn’t that bad. Yet even though it never ran, and I was fired shortly thereafter, the magazine was still stomped dead less than six months later. So, obviously, I couldn’t take the chance of including it in this c
ollection.
Congratulations! You’re a new father! Let’s have a look at your investment so far:
$27,585.75
Of course this does not include start-up (e.g., courting costs, rings, wedding expenses due to father-in-law default, honeymoon, etc.), which must be amortized across future babies, nor does it take into account baby-driven increases in your overhead (e.g., moving to a baby-friendly neighborhood, upgrading the help). Nevertheless, even as a lowball estimate, this figure should make one point exceedingly clear: you’ve put a whole lot of money into this baby. And right about now you may be asking yourself, “Was a baby the smartest investment we could have made in these uncertain times?”
The answer, unequivocally, is yes. A baby is always a smart investment, because a baby continues to grow regardless of the economic climate!
But there’s one important caveat: to capitalize your baby, you must carry it for a term of eighteen to twenty-one years, and sometimes more, until it reaches full maturity. Expect some rough sledding along the way; babies are extraordinarily vulnerable ventures, particularly in the first six to eighteen quarters when they are subject to any number of risks, including but not limited to electrical outlets, stairs, and open fire pits. Protecting your baby investment therefore requires diligence, ingenuity, and more than a little old-fashioned elbow grease.
YOUR BABY’S HEAD: THE HEART OF THE OPERATION
While there are certainly some exceptions, your baby’s head—and specifically its brain—is a crucial factor in determining longterm future dividends. Unfortunately, your baby’s “profit center” is ill-protected by its natural casing, which, due to a manufacturing defect, is soft and mushy. One way to compensate for this structural flaw is to buy commercial infant headgear (available at most baby sporting goods stores) and have your baby wear it at all times. Bear in mind, however, that in July 1991, a woman in Ojai, California, stopped her bicycle suddenly to avoid hitting a squirrel, turned around, and was horrified to discover her twenty-two-month-old son with his Babyguard® ToddlerTopper™ dangerously askew. While it’s true that this product was quickly recalled and that the company was subsequently litigated out of existence, it’s also true that no infant headgear on the market today has been designed using your baby’s precise cranial specifications.