Dying Is a Very Dull, Dreary Affair

It began like any other day.  By this, I mean that I had no idea how it would begin and I was frightened to the point of paralysis as consciousness slowly dawned upon me.   An incredible thirst began to rise within me from the loss of fluid as I cried uncontrollably at the prospect of having to go through the process of establishing a friendly truce with "reality", so I eased myself to my feet.  This in itself would prove to be a risky task, as the spinning of the room made my internal navigation monkeys work the controls a tad off-key.  Oh boy, here it came: barf.

So, I gave it one more try.   Swing the legs up, Clive!  That's it.  Let gravity tell you which way is up.  I let my legs fall lifelessly in the direction of the Earth, and after a good heave-ho, I was standing.  Not stable, by any stretch, but standing.  And I was outside.  Oh fiddlesticks.

Then I remembered.  The day before was St. Patrick's day.  So that meant I was either right outside the compound, or I had been sleeping on the picnic bench of an interstate rest stop.  Damn it.  Rest stop it was.

The night before had been a dream come true.  I had finally maneuvered my way through the narrow straits of legal and moral dilemmas implicit with my desire to hire live midgets, or "little people" as they nauseatingly wish to be identified, as live-action leprechauns for the holiday.  It was really Grandma Boddicker's lifelong ambition, and although she did not survive that falling crate of George Foreman Grills at the Price Club, I still felt that she had been there in spirit.  I could feel that cold, stern, joyless look of hers that she would get whenever she would momentarily forget the feelings of persecution and shame that she repeatedly reminded me that I had caused her.  Oh, how she would have approached a sense of what can be liberally interpreted as "joy" as the tiny green munchkins danced and sang and gave me every nickel's worth of the multi-million dollar payment in solid gold krugeraands I had paid them with.

I planned to spend the day after St. Patrick's day campaigning for the presidency.  My campaign manager, an amiable bloke named Edgar "Juicy" Rollins, had set up a campaign stop for me at McWhiffle's Irish Pub 'N' Grille.  It was supposed to be your standard "press the flesh" type of affair.  You know.  Mix with the riff-raff.  Get as much of the local stink on you as you can stand and get the hell out of there before you can't wash the scent away.  This gets votes, Edgar said, sounding a little differently than I had remembered.  And looking a little differently.  The third nostril seemed unlike him.  I'd been drinking pretty steadily for as far back as I could remember, a segment of time which wasn't as long as it should be in a mammal due to the liquor, so I wasn't up for questioning the man.  If the man wanted 3 nostrils, I wasn't in any shape to argue.

I knew that liquor would play an important part in my life for the next few days as I weaned myself as delicately as I could back into a non-alcoholically intoxicated state following the massive consumption on St. Patrick's Day.  Eldon has often referred to this period of time as "one of your benders" as he would angrily shake his finger at me and would usually produce photographic or video proof of the damaging effects of these episodes.  Honestly, even when looking at a photograph of myself vomiting into the vacant eye-socket of a one-eyed hobo, I can't help but just be completely enamored of my handsome face.   I am indeed handsome, be it sober, drunk, puking, or grunting.  I am a handsome man.

My planned morning of political hob-knobbing came to a grinding, gear stripping halt as I was in a bar full of drunken neo-hippy college students, because  Barack Obama was giving his "Perfect Union" speech.   I sat through it, mostly disinterested, but keenly paying attention to how the crowd would swoon and react.  They were all still pretty drunk from whatever their own festivities had been, so I felt I was relating to them on their level.   After my advances were continually shot down like world championship Space Invaders by almost every woman in the bar, I decided to try and achieve my own "Perfect Union" with an impressively drunk and "open minded" trio of young ladies who had been deeply touched by Mr. Obama's words by offering my own inspiring speech of unity and hope. 

Unfortunately, Obama's speech went on a good 45 minutes, and every time a feeling of inadequacy and jealousy would ripple through my guts like a slow-motion bullet I would douse the inner flame of anger with an emergency splash of Maker's Mark.  This procedure was carried out quite often that fateful morning.  So by the time Mr. Hopes-a-Lot got done waxing optimistic,  I was re-drunkened.

My speech was greeted with a rousing cry of "boo's" and "shut the fuck up and sit down's".  Now, I am a humble man.  I do not put myself above committing a faux pas.  I am not so delusional that I believe I can please all people at all times.  So I accept that my speech did not achieve its intended goal of uniting all races, colors, and creeds.  Nor did it achieve its goal of alerting the patrons of the bar of my very existence as a candidate or even as a human being occupying a particular point in space and time.  It certainly didn't score me that coveted 4-way with those Girls-Gone-Wild-Cutting-Room-Floor-Dwellers.  I do accept this all as the reality.  But it's not my "fault", understand.  I am, when operating at full capacity, quite capable of achieving any task which I set my mind to just short of levitation.  As capable as am, I am also, admittedly, an admirer of a constant, steady state of altered consciousness.  I achieve this goal through any number of chemical agents.  Uppers.  Downers.  All-arounders.  Bennies.  Binzo's.  Habby-Flabby's.  Yim-Yams.  Toot.  Reefer.  Yak-Sak.  Nug-Nug.  Trippy Green Mau-Mau.  Orange Sunshine.  Purple Barrel.  Tye-dye  Armadillo.   You name it, I smoke it, snort it, or absorb it through my eyeball, whatever.  But the one chemical that can kick my ass when I take too much is alcohol.  Blame the booze, is what I'm saying.

After my speech, I took care of a little "business" in the men's room.  Sometime later, after being revived with a stomach-pumping and a refreshing blast from the paramedic's defibrillator, I found myself looking up at the visage of Daryl Yakamoto.  I hadn't seen him since I, in the words of his lawyer, "egregiously assaulted and humiliated" him by forcing a full-on tongue kiss on him live on the air in California a year before.  Of course, my lawyers tore his to shreds and in the end he was sentenced to be my butler for a day thanks to a sitcom savvy yet sympathetic judge (a judgment which Mr. Yakamoto has thus far neglected to fulfill).  It had been a rocky year for him since.  The video had made its way onto YouTube, and from there it was in millions of annoying little CC's.  Daryl had spent the year fighting off the advances of Chuck "End Zone" Crowder, the first openly gay on-air ex-quarterback sportscaster, as well as  trying to ignore the calls of "hey smooches!" and "suck my kiss!" while in the fancy restaurants he's able to get into due to his local celebrity in the greater Fresno area.  This did beg the question: what's he doing here in Colorado Springs?

"Hey candy-lips," I said as I came to consciousness, "what are you doing in my neck of the woods?"

"Awww shit…" he hissed, waving his hand across his neck to signal "cut" to his cameraman.  "It's this asshole."  He yapped, waving his hand at me.

"Sweetheart," I laughed, getting to my feet to the paramedic's amazement, " I do believe you've got a day of doing my laundry and fluffing my pillows coming to you.  At least that's the opinion of the state of California's courts.  So please, dispense with the name calling, okay honey-tonsils?"

"Sir," a paramedic said softly, putting his hand on my shoulder, "please sit down.  You were clinically dead five minutes ago."

"Yeah, it's no biggie." I assured him.  Dead once, dead a million times is my motto.   I find it makes the heart a little healthier if it gets to take a break from beating every now and again.

I turned back to Daryl and offered him up a hug, but retracted the offer when he went into some newly studied Martial Arts stance.  He had been taking some classes to help rebuild his macho-cred.  I have to admit that I found his attempt at bad-assery to be a bit alluring.

"Come on," I laughed, "we both know you're gayer n' Gilligan and the Skipper!"   The topic had been explored endlessly in analysis of the video on various blogs.  Various "Yakamoto Kissed Back" discussions began.  It did wonders for my case in court.   Again, Daryl, not so much.

"You know," Daryl finally lashed out, "I know your lawyers did something to that judge!   No way that case wasn't fixed!  You know the F.B.I. is looking into that!"

It was true that rumors had spread about a certain law firm using photographs of bestiality to "leverage" the affections of the presiding judge.  But they were just rumors.  Any photographs of Judge Randall K. Petrowski engaging in sex with a horse are just rumored to exist in triplicate.  And any notion of it being in his and Seabiscuit's best interest to just keep his mouth shut and play ball is purely speculative.  Understand?

"Well, the law's the law." I smiled and shrugged.  "Tell you what.  I'll cut you some slack on the meal preparation on your Butler Day if you tell me what the hell you're doing here?"

Daryl almost got sassy, but he quickly checked himself.  He knew that was about as good a deal as he'd be seeing today.   So he gave in.

"That nutjob," he said, defeated, "Wendel Henry Holmes.  Remember him?"

I vaguely did.

"He was spotted in the area," Daryl continued, "he killed some dude and took his face… you know… his little 'signature' that you found so intriguing."

"You don't say?"  I popped a handful of bar nuts into my mouth and waved the bartender for another shot of Makers Mark.   The bartender was quickly informed by the paramedic that he should not serve me any more liquor.  "Who'd he kill?"  I asked, halfway interested, as I took a margarita from the hand of a homely young lass and washed down the bar nuts.

"Some ex-pimp named Edgar Rollins."

I sat a moment, working my tongue over my teeth, trying to scoop out nut-meat and lime-pulp from the peaks and valleys of my perfectly Baldwin-straight dental work.  I sniffed a little, twitching my head.  Somewhere in the distance of my conscious mind there was a crying out… a waving, jumping, panic-stricken little monkey in a sequined jumpsuit holding sparklers and a bull-horn, waving it's little monkey-paws at me and screaming for attention.  It had something to tell me, but it would require me meeting it half way in order to get the message.  And frankly, that would be a bit more mental labor than I had the energy to invest in at the moment.  But it was nagging on me enough to request some assistance.

"Connect the dots for me." I said plainly to Daryl.  He cocked his head, not understanding what I was saying.

"I don't know what you mean."  Daryl said.  "That's all there is to it.  Wendel Henry Holmes is in town.  He killed some ex-pimp named Edgar 'Juicy' Rollins."

The monkey put down its sparkler and gripped the bullhorn firmly with both little monkey paws. It then let out a primal shriek which sounded muted in the distance, even through the bullhorn, but soon became crystal clear and deafening as it was pulled within inches of my handsome face to point out to me in no uncertain terms that which should have been obvious.  Juicy!  Of course!  He never did have three nostrils!

Wendel Henry Holmes had been a minor annoyance in my life until this point.  He fancied himself some skilled, crafty evil genius with a knack for assuming the identity of his victims by wearing their faces as a mask.  I will happily give the man points for ambition, that's for sure.  However, he's just not that good at it.  While I tend to write off such facial deformities as "tri-nostrilism" as just another in the long line of imperfections that the non-Baldwinized must suffer, the rest of the world has a little more time to dedicate to noticing such freakish flaws.  It's probably my disinterest in his shenanigans that makes Wendel gravitate toward me the way he does.  However, even as drunk as I had been, I should have noticed that Edgar never did have three nostrils.  He was also usually about a foot and a half taller than he had been that morning.  He was also never that good at booking me venues to speak at such as McWhiffle's Irish Bar 'N' Grille.  In fact… he wasn't my campaign manager at all.  Damn you, whiskey!

"Oh crap."  I finally blurted out.

At first, my panic was due to the fact that Edgar had been my ride.  I was not feeling in any way like walking the six blocks back to the Boddicker Compound.  Then, I realized that it would be Wendel, not Edgar, that would be heading to the compound.  Probably to kidnap Eldon again.  Or Eldon would go willingly.  Again.  There's an inconsistency in the loyalty of the people I choose to keep in my life that suddenly depressed me.  But that was unimportant at the moment.  I had to find a ride.

"Which one of you cute little cupcakes wants to make out and give me a lift home?"  I shouted to the bar.  Wouldn't you know it, the drunken trio I had eyeballed for an isosceles love pyramid earlier came forward with a smile and a dangling set of car keys.

"Well that's just swell, gals."  I chuckled.  I grabbed the little brunette, who was the least non-attractive of the three.  "Okay bubbles, you ride in the back with me.  Maybe we can hit a Taco Bell on the way back too.  I gotta get my grub on."

The four of us piled into the grimey old station wagon.  The brunette, who I came to know as "Wendy", climbed in the back with me and produced a bottle of Don Julio tequila.  I looked her square in the eye and said "I love you".  I meant it, too.  At that moment, there was nothing more I wanted in the world than a few hearty chugs off of a liquor bottle to keep the clanging pots-and-pans of hangover from starting their shimmy in my skull.  I chugged from the bottle and let out a satisfied belch.

As the tequila brought the universe back into focus, I realized we had been driving for about half an hour.  I was quite sure that Taco Bell was only about two blocks away, and was on the way back to the compound.  I also noted that the interior of the car was a mess.  Smears of red and globs of maroon gore were everywhere.  The seats were upholstered, and I use the term loosely, with crudely tanned skins which I determined… yep… it was human flesh.  The "Lynyrd Skynyrd" tattoo on the back of the driver's seat gave it away.

"Hey," I said, drunkenness enveloping me quickly, "I know a dude that's into this kind of stuff…"

I chuckled a little.

"Yeah," Wendy smiled, "my brother, Wendel."

"Wow."  I said.  "Small world."  I took another drink from the bottle.  It was hitting me harder than usual, but I took another drink to make sure the drunkening would be complete.  "Wait a minute… so he's Wendel… you're Wendy?"

She nodded.

"God damn," I chuckled, "your parents didn't have a really big book of baby names to pick from when they had you two, huh?  They get stuck on the W's?"

Before I blacked out, I heard the driver make some crude comment about how she despises the Baldwin brothers.  Had I had the power I would had defended the Beautiful Brothers.  However, there was that familiar swoon of rufies coursing through my head.  All I could do was smile and try to thank the girls for the free booze and mickey.  So it wasn't a total loss.

I remember being taken advantage of by the three women in any number of ways in the public toilet of the rest stop.  This would account for my lack of pants.  I also remembered Wendel arriving and placing a 357 magnum revolver in my hands after the mutually satisfying and swift afternoon of my drug induced violation at the hands of his sister and two of their "groupies".

"Cool gun."  I giggled.  I waived it around, causing Wendel to shriek and drop to the ground.

"Easy, dude!"  He said, holding his hand in front of his face.   "That thing's loaded!"

"You handed me a loaded gun?"  I laughed.

"Oh shit!"  He suddenly said, snatching the gun from my hands and emptying out the bullets.  "There!"  He handed it back to me.  Now, Wendel is not a smart man by any stretch of the imagination.  So when he handed me back the weapon I knew there would be a small chance it would still fire, despite his attempt to remove the ammunition.  As I took the gun, I aimed it at his leg and pulled the trigger.  Sure enough, the gun let loose with a mighty, thunderous BOOM!  And off came Wendel's leg at the knee.

"God dammit!"  He screamed, then re-counted the shells in his hand, cursing himself as he realized he had left one in the gun.  "Well this is going to change things for me a little."

He got to one leg and, with the help of his sister, hobbled back to the car.  One of the groupies picked up the other half of the leg, and I heard rumblings of "sew it back on" as they made their way back.  The last groupie tenderly leaned in and gave me a kiss on the cheek.  I winked back at her, and could tell the gesture shattered her very soul, as she was now obliged to go back to her life with the one-legged tiny freakshow that was the Holmes family & company.

As they drove off, I finished off the bottle of drugged tequila, not wanting to waste good liquor or good rufies.  I was disappointed that I was stuck at an interstate rest stop, pant-less, and in possession of a gun which was used in God-knows whatever horrible crime.  But I had scored that 4-way with those chicks.  And even though that was just part of some psychotic and sadistic ritual of humiliation and abuse Wendel had hoped to bestow upon me, somehow it was satisfying just the same.  So it wasn't a total waste of a morning.

So there I was.  Coming to consciousness on the park bench of an interstate rest stop.  In normal people, rufies tend to erase the memory of what happened during the drugging.  However, I am not a normal person, and my memory was still intact, if only slightly fuzzy from the alcohol.  And as I looked around I was surrounded by several Colorado State Patrolmen, their guns drawn, all screaming "Drop Your Weapon!"

As I felt the cool mountain breeze caress my exposed buttocks, I momentarily assumed they were referring to my free-flopping "appendage".  Somewhat flattered by them calling it a "weapon", I waved my hand at it, preparing to downplay it's magnificence.  But, again, damn you alcohol… I was mistaken.  And they took my motion to be an aggressive one and fired a shot through my shoulder, causing me to drop the 357 magnum.

Thanks to the copious amount of rufies and alcohol in my system, my heart rate was slowed enough that I did not bleed to death as the sniper bullet tore through my artery.  It did, however, give my heart a little rest for a good twelve minutes.  And I spent another two weeks in a coma where I had wonderful dreams of the oiled, shining chest of Alec Baldwin heaving and lowering next to me as we watched the Alec Baldwin Film Compilation and ate handfuls of Percocet's and washed them down with Jim Beam and Everclear.  Little William and Stephen cherubs would fly through the room, delivering cans of Red Bull and tabs of acid at the snap of our fingers.  And Daniel, sweet, seductive Daniel, was crashed out on the couch, snoring behind mirrored sunglasses that hid his bloodshot eyes and reflected the open mouth of the bong his face was resting on while a half-nude stripper was equally passed out, face-down in his crotch.  Yes, for a moment, I did believe I was in the Christian Heaven of Biblical Legend.  And it was quite possible this was the case, as I had died several more times during my coma.

When I awoke, I was greeted by a sensation that did not agree with me.  My skin was crawling and all of these words and images were presented to me in a manner most unpleasant.  I knew this sensation, and I had worked tirelessly for several years to avoid it, as it was almost an insufferable state to be in.  It was sobriety.  Clean, clear, stone-cold sobriety.  I immediately took stock of the tube going into my arm and realized it's potential.

"NURSE!"  I screamed.  And soon enough, the morphine was dripping.  I could once again feel like myself.

It was explained to me that Eldon was shot in the head and would suffer some long-term psychological and physical effects.  Great, I thought.  Now he's got a doctor's note to slack off with.  Luckily, his surviving the gun shot, and my television exposure during the assault, meant that Wendel's attempt to frame me had failed.  Wendel sure wasn't good at the whole "evil genius" thing.  In fact, he was quite bad at it.  But he was still at large, so there's that little threat to contend with.

Eldon's getting out of the hospital soon.  Not soon enough if you ask me.  I've had to hire outside help to clean up the mess the Leprechauns had left in the Compound.  And there was the unfortunate business of the one that "didn't make it" that was found hanging upside down from the chandelier.  Luckily for me they blamed his death on acute alcohol poisoning, and my lawyers put up an iron-curtain around me keeping me safe from taking responsibility.  After all, I was busy having 4-way intercourse with the kin of a serial killer and their groupies at an interstate truck-stop at the time the little fellow gently wafted off to that great munchkinland in the sky.  How the hell could they hold me responsible?

So I'm preparing for Eldon's return.  And by "preparing", I mean I am making a list of all the chores he is to do when he gets home.  In the meantime, I'm enjoying my newly lowered tolerance to the various substances that keep me numb on a daily basis.  It's been such a long time since snorting six crushed up vicodins gave me seizures instead of just giving me a warm buzz for an hour.  I'm having a hell of a fun time going through my medicine cabinet and trying out new combinations.

So it wasn't a total waste of a month.

9:25 AM - 7 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

De-Personalization

Eldon Nugent opened his eyes.

It was bright out.  Early morning judging from the rays of light intruding through the window.  Nine-thirty, maybe ten in the morning.  Late for some, but not for Eldon.  It’d only been a week or so since the time-change stole an hour of sleep from him.  "Spring Forward" is what they say.  That’s how he remembered which direction to set the clock when the time changed.  Spring forward.  Fall back.  Clockwork.

Something else besides rails of harsh morning light pulled him out of his sleep this particular morning.  It didn’t jar him awake, like a sudden crashing noise.   And he wasn’t lulled out of his sleep by his soothing "Sounds of Nature" alarm clock.  He had simply opened his eyes, immediately aware of his surroundings, of the light of day, of the smells of liquor wafting through the house, and that something in the immediate environment required his conscious attention.  He backed up a step in his analysis, which was surprisingly sharp for having been awake for less than half a minute, and he realized that it was the scent of liquor.

It was the day after St. Patrick’s Day, and the implications of this had somehow been lost on him in the whiskey haze of the night before.  St. Patrick’s Day in the Boddicker compound was always a big deal.  Not that Dr. Boddicker himself was Irish.  Chances are he was far from it, however it was difficult to gauge any distinctive ethnicity in the Good Doctor because of the extensive plastic surgery he had endured.  St. Patrick’s day held the same fascination and level of importance to Dr. Boddicker that all holidays had.  He was not a man of faith, but he kept Christmas close to his heart.  And soon there was going to be a celebration of Easter which would see Dr. Boddicker dressed in a large Easter Bunny costume, handing out candy, Easter eggs, and DVDs of films from the Alec Baldwin library to children of the neighborhood. 

An outsider may see kindness and a sense of community spirit in these actions, but Eldon knew better.  He knew that Dr. Boddicker was simply going through the motions of what he perceived as normal interaction among humans.  That his notion of social interaction was built entirely upon a framework made up of television and movie clichés.  Where people celebrate holidays in all their ridiculousness, never really questioning what they were celebrating.  It kept in line perfectly with the Doctor’s belief in the value of physical beauty.  While he did have a keen eye for what was and wasn’t physically attractive, he didn’t really know why he found someone particularly attractive.  It was all gut, no brain, and Dr. Clive Boddicker remained blissful in his ignorance.  At his level of wealth, he could afford that luxury.

Of all the holidays, it was the day after St. Patrick’s day that presented Eldon with the greatest challenge of all.  This was due to Dr. Boddicker’s intense alcohol consumption the day before.  Of all drugs consumed by the Doctor, alcohol was the only one which carried with it debilitating after effects.  And the day after St. Patrick’s Day was like spinning the wheel of fate.  You never could tell.  You might get a happy, sedated Dr. Boddicker.  You might get a hung over, ornery one.  But this morning, Eldon smelled liquor.  And then he heard a sound; a clack-clack-clack sound of hard-soled shoes dancing, backed up with the faintest tones of high pitched chuckling.  And then it all came crashing back to him.

There were drunk Leprechauns in the house.

Dr. Boddicker’s drive for an actual "realization" of holidays was world renouned.  From his "Real Life Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" to his lifesize Bunny suit, it was Dr. Boddicker’s passion to make the myths of holidays as real as possible.  And every St. Patrick’s Day he had vowed to hire little people to dress as Leprechauns for the holiday.  In past years, he was usually too drunk to accomplish the task.  However, this year he had finally followed through, providing an actual pot of gold for the fellows and an unlimited supply of whiskey.  And as Eldon Nugent opened his eyes, he knew that the Leprechauns were still downstairs, partying heartily, as they had struck it rich with the treasures provided by a mad billionaire plastic surgeon.

Of course, Eldon was not feeling so festive.  His head throbbed, and the taste in his mouth was of a nature he did not care to investigate, which said alot considering some of the things he’s had in his mouth that he was perfectly aware of and at peace with.  He shook a Newport from a hard-top pack and lit it, taking a moment to enjoy the crackling sound of the burning tobacco and the rush of nicotine into his blood.  He decided that this was probably the most comfortable he’d be all day, so he took a little extra time to savor it.  Despite the spinning of the room and the metronome of pain in the core of his skull with each heartbeat, he wanted the moment to last just a little bit longer.  He’d soon have his fill of drunk dwarves in fake red beards and green suits, siphoning whiskey in mouthfuls before vomitting all over the rug.  He’d soon be seeing Dr. Boddicker’s joy, which Eldon actually found nauseating, but it would no doubt continue to prod on the little fellows’ festivities until their alcohol soaked bodies just couldn’t go any further.  He knew all of this.  So for just this one moment, he wanted to sit and enjoy his cigarette.

Soon, the moment passed.

"Holy fuck!"  A tiny little voice shouted from downstairs.  Eldon evacuated his lungs and crushed the cigarette into an ashtray next to the bed.  Dragging himself out of bed, he vowed to make a change, some day, to improve his life.  He’d get to sleep earlier.  He’d quit using so many drugs.  He’d get the hell out of Dr. Boddicker’s life.  That was the key.  Leave.  Leave this man.  He doesn’t love you, he told himself.  He doesn’t even like you.  You’re a slave, Eldon.  A slave.

"What’s the problem?"  Eldon asked as he walked down the spiral staircase to the large media room.  His eyes had to adjust for a moment, as he was unsure of what he was seeing.  But it soon all came into stark focus.  There were half a dozen little people, all dressed in green as he had anticipated (and barely remembered from the night before).  They each had a half-empty bottle of Makers Mark whiskey, and were circling a large black cauldron which was filled to the brim with solid gold krugerrands.  So far, it seemed to be all in proportion to his expectations.  He scanned the room a little more.  Puddles of vomit were randomly scattered around.  Check.  A few bullet holes in the walls.  Check.  One Leprechaun was nude and hanging from the light fixture with a green bow tied around his genitals.  "That’s about right", he whispered to himself.  So what were the guys so worked up over?

On the television, there stood Dr. Boddicker, live at McWiffle’s Irish Pub ’N’ Grille, giving some sort of speech.  It was a local channel, being reported on by Darryl Yakamoto, which was surprising considering the uproar that was caused by the "Soul Kiss" incident (and the fact that Mr. Yakamoto was not a local reporter).  Mr. Yakamoto had even tried to sue Dr. Boddicker for including the incident on the "Baldwin My Face" DVD set.  Fortunately for Dr. Boddicker, the law firm of Pinkerton, Duff and Graves is quite effective and Mr. Yakamoto had eventually been ordered by the court to pay Dr. Boddicker’s legal bills.

None of it quite made any sense.  Here was Dr. Boddicker, who traditionally spent the day after St. Patrick’s day at the compound, sleeping off the booze of the night before and making various forms of love to whatever warm body might find itself in his immediate grasp.  Instead, he’s on the television giving a speech. And it’s being covered by someone that could rightfully be considered an enemy.  At that moment, as Eldon’s confusion was beginning to swirl in his head and shiver it’s way to his gut, the doorbell rang.

At the door, standing casually and smiling gently, stood Wendel Henry Holmes.  It took a moment to register with Eldon who was standing before him.  He had to go back into his memory to determine exactly when the last time he had seen this man was.  He remembered the first time, that was certain.  It had been a year, and Wendel had almost killed him by feeding him leeches at the incident which became known as "The Bait Shop Massacre".  There were some bad feelings there.  But beyond that, they had become friends, at least for a while.  Wendel had noticed Eldon’s need to escape from Dr. Boddicker’s influence, and during the great "Lockdown" fiasco of the previous April, Eldon had made his escape with Wendel.  And here he was again.  Dr. Boddicker was obviously nowhere near the compound, and Wendel was.

"You ready to go?"  Wendel said simply.  Eldon felt a sharp sting of emotion working it’s way from his throat, flushing through his cheeks, and finally spilling from his eyes.  Without a word, he lunged forward, wrapping his arms around the squat little man whom he had parted ways with months earlier.  All was forgiven, as far as Eldon was concerned.  The killing spree that he had objected to was forgiven.  The impossible-to-escape machinations of the pyramid scheme that Wendel had gotten him embroiled in was wiped clean. Here, held tightly in his arms and sloppily chuckling as tears of joy and relief splashed between them, all accounts had come due and were made right.  That chasm in Eldon’s chest, which was only slightly soothed by his moment of quiet contemplation as he smoked his morning cigarette in bed, was now overflowing with fulfillment.  Eldon felt a sensation that had been eluding him for years, but it was one which he was aware of and striving for: Eldon felt whole.

"Let’s get the hell out of here."  Wendel laughed, then motioned to the front gate where a large Cadillac was parked.  Eldon smiled and didn’t even look back as he began walking to the car.  His pace quickened, and he could hear Wendel behind him.  He had almost reached a full sprint when he felt Wendel’s hand on his shoulder.  That hand, he reasoned to himself, is the hand of kindness and forgiveness.  A hand that makes all things right.  In that hand, he felt mother and father, brother and sister, and the loving grace and protection of God.  He took that split second to enjoy the simultaneous enormity and intimacy of that hand on his shoulder.  To lean gently into it, hoping that the radiating warmth was more than just the physical and could actually bestow upon him the sublime.  For a simple, quick moment, Eldon was at peace.

As the joy of the promise of redemption consumed him, and the vast expanse of a future that would help reconcile his grief and loneliness flooded his expectations, he did not hear the distinctive click-click of the hammer being pulled back on a .357 Magnum revolver.  Nor did he fully register it when he heard Wendel coldly say "you shouldn’t have left me, Eldon".  The shot rang out, startling six drunk little people in green Leprechaun outfits, and the bullet met the back of Eldon’s head with a sickening thud and crunch.

As Eldon Nugent lay on the sidewalk, his eyes remained opened, slightly pinkened by the burst of blood vessels in his head.  And he saw as Wendel walked back to the Cadillac and drove away.  For a brief moment, he was still overcome with that hope and happiness.  He was even still somewhat indulging in the peace he had felt just ten minutes before as he sat in bed and savored his morning cigarette. 

Slowly, it dawned on him what had happened; that a man whom he once considered a friend had returned to his life only to ruin it once more.  That the chaos of his existence precluded him from forging such strong bonds with any person, as imperfect as they may be.  Eldon felt the existential punishment of the perpetual outsider, never to touch another persons soul and never to have his soul touched.  All that he considered good within him would wilt once again; the petals of the flower of hope that had momentarily bloomed within him would become brittle and break into crinkled flakes on the winds of his inner despair.  The last thought that crept through his mind before he lost consciousness was: "Yeah... that’s about right".

Fortunately, the Leprechauns had the good sense to call an ambulance, and weren’t too drunk to perform some basic first aid as they waited.  It turned out that one of them was actually a paramedic.  Eldon woke up the next day in the hospital, and it was explained to him that the numerous surgeries he had undergone in the past, both voluntary plastic surgery and what he had endured following his car accident the year before, had made his skull a very resilient structure.  The bullet had broken through the back of the skull, then simply glided around the brain like a rollercoaster before resting in a large patch of hardened scar tissue.  At the same time, it also removed a batch of scar tissue on the frontal lobe that was undetected previously and had been pressing on the brain itself.  Essentially, the bullet had done Eldon a favor.  But he just couldn’t see it that way.

The doctor’s explained to him that a temporary side effect would be a "De-Personalization".  It was an effect of both the physical trauma, and the post-traumatic stress he was suffering due to his ongoing agony and despair and the newly introduced betrayal at the hands of Wendel.  Eldon would, they explained, begin to speak and write in the third-person.  He would not refer to himself in terms of "I" or "Me", but rather describe himself as "Eldon Nugent" or "He".

After a remarkably short recovery period, Eldon Nugent is doing fine.  He’s taking some time to write in the Baldwinization Blog.  He hasn’t yet read Dr. Boddicker’s speech, but he hasn’t heard very good buzz about it.  And Dr. Boddicker has not yet come to visit Eldon, but, it’s only been two days, and when Dr. Boddicker displays such insensitivities towards Eldon’s suffering, the only thought that creeps into his head is "yeah, that’s about right".  The more things change, he laughed to himself as he finished typing his blog, the more they stay the same.

10:33 AM - 8 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

A More Handsome Face For a More Perfect Union
Category: News and Politics

The following text is the transcript of Dr. Clive Boddicker’s speech given before reporters at McWiffle’s Irish Pub ’N’ Grille in downtown Colorado Springs.  Dr. Boddicker called this press conference after chugging a bottle of Absinthe while watching Barack Obama’s speech on racial issues.

Hello folks.  Thank you all for coming out this fine day after St. Patrick’s Day.  Many of you are still drunk from last night.  Some of you sobered up and are getting re-drunk.  Others are perpetually drunk seven days a week.  The rest of you are pansy-ass... (unintelligible)

Anyway... as I was saying.  It’s the day after St. Patrick’s Day.  And what does that mean to us as Americans?  We’ve just spent a whole 24-hour period indulging in the rich, vibrant culture of the Irish people.  And we did it by completely and utterly misrepresenting their culture.  I mean... I’ve been to Ireland, folks.  The beer here is like the sweat off of the balls of a corpse compared to the stuff they have there.  And this whiskey we serve in America?  You might as well dunk a shot glass in a leper’s bathwater.  It takes a bottle and a half just to get a buzz on!  When I was in Ireland, I caught a case of the whiskey-shits just sniffing the cap!  Jesus!... (more unintelligible rambling)

Now, besides the weak-ass liquor and draconian drug laws we have in America, there’s alot to like!  Our pornography is second to none.  Well, except for the Germans.  They’ve got some good porn there.

The point is... America is the land of opportunity. I mean, look at me.  I’m clearly a handsome man.  You see this smile?  This smile could make even the most hardened lesbian golfer into my personal sex kitten.  These eyes?  Do you see them, glassy as they may be from this piss-poor Vodka I’ve been swilling?  These eyes have seduced leaders of nations!  This chest hair! Look at this rich, flowing chest-mane!  A woman, or man, rubs their hand through this forest of pec-trees and they will find themselves lost in a wonderland of sensual delights which has only been hinted at in the promises of paradise by your big three faiths.  Look at me, folks!  I AM America!  I’m handsome, I’m rich, I’m intoxicated, and I’m promiscuous!  Isn’t that what we strive for?  Wealth?  Anonymous sexual encounters?  The occasional hit off of a $600 hookah?

Two hundred and some-odd years ago, a group of slave owning honkies decided that the price of tea was too high and British accents made them sound girly.  They wanted to find a way to maintain their hedonistic lifestyles without putting up with some crumpet-loving a-hole shaking their powdered-wig covered head at them for every little thing.  Thus, they set out to form a more perfect union... a union where all men are created equal.  They also wove into our nation’s fabric a very clever form of double-think which allowed them to keep their slaves by simply stating that the slaves were not men.  Bada-bing, you got the noblest of intentions and the letter-of-the-law nit-pickery that has helped define us as a nation.

It’s the same kind of courageous self-hatred that allows us to denounce our country as the most racist, hateful, and destructive collection of fat, inbred, un-educated rubes in the world while simultaneously extolling the virtues of the country for allowing us to hate it so freely and openly.  I love it, folks.  I gotta tell you.  No other country in the world allows such open dissent.  Except the Netherlands.  They’re pretty good there.  And drugs are legal.  And England.  They’re pretty good about allowing dissent.  Plus, you can swear on TV there.  But still... my point is that the healing power of absolute self-loathing cannot be underestimated.  I think that’s my point.  I’m pretty drunk.

I set out in this campaign to continue a tradition.  That tradition is as American as apple pie.  And it is as traditional as saying that apple pie is American.  The truth is, apple pie is about as American as Gérard Depardieu.  It’s French!  But, we like our lies!  We like to believe apple pie is American, and that the guys who founded this great nation had the noblest intentions for all races and creeds if only peer pressure hadn’t made them own slaves, and that going to Tyler Perry movies is enough to heal centuries of racial inequities and atrocities.  The tradition I speak of is the tradition of whistling past the graveyard.  The tradition of getting jiggy with it while the Titanic sinks!  Yes, folks.  It is the tradition of passing the responsibility to fix our flaws to our children!  The children are our future.  And if you ask me, the Jetsons had their shit together leaps and bounds more than we do.  So let them figure this crap out, just as our founding fathers did with their whole "slavery vs. our declaration that all men are created equal" quandary.  If we’ve learned anything in our time as Americans, it’s that the intentions of old dead white men have more weight than our own national conscience.

In the meantime, we need leadership.  Sure… you could buy into Barack Obama’s whole "let’s take responsibility for confronting our failings and doing something about it so we can advance as a society and be a shining example of the best of humanity for all nations to admire" approach.  But that sounds like a lot of work. 

No… what we need is a leader who will let the American people indulge in the deepest depths of their carnal desires and keep the inherent guilt associated with limitless debauchery at bay until it needs to be wielded for political gain. 

And I will be that leader. 

I’ve been asked many times, what will a Dr. Boddicker-run America look like?   Well let me break it down for you as best I can.

I will run this nation on the motto that "Who Controls the Past Controls the Future!"  I will help this nation replace its systemic self-hatred with systemic self-denial by ignoring our national failings and touting our national successes.  Future generations will know of our cultural tolerance by our love of the Macarena, and the multicultural glory of Taco Bell’s Mexican Pizza.  To achieve this, I will keep Americans so stuffed with drugs and Chili-Cheese Fritos that with each labored, queso tainted breath they take, they will thank the God of my choosing for having allowed me the opportunity to inflict my personal Utopia upon their vacant, meaningless lives!

Now you may say "But Clive, you handsome bastard!  You’re so devastatingly handsome, and the sight of those who are less than attractive causes your intestines to constrict so tightly that moving your bowels is harder than pulling a steam-roller with your cock!"  To that, I say yes, this is true.  But also keep in mind that not everyone will be granted the lifestyle of the slovenly ugly American, or "Prole" as they will come to be known.  No no.  Some, a small minority, will be chosen to be a part of an "Outer Party". They will be moderately attractive, somewhat intelligent, and financially solvent.  They will help run the infrastructure of this great nation.  They will be the civic workers, toiling to maintain the purity of my vision.  Enforcing this new way of life with an iron fist and a pleasing aroma.

An even smaller minority will be invited to the "Inner Party".  The workings of the Inner Party will be secret in nature, but know this: you shall know us by our Baldwin good looks.

(Dr. Boddicker pauses for a moment to vomit, then orders two more "Johnny Walker, neat")

Thank you, and have a pleasant day!

I gotta go flop a deuce in the john... is the microphone still on?  Shit!

12:01 PM - 5 Comments - 5 Kudos - Add Comment

Green

Friends, Americans, Countrymen.  Lend me your ears.  Then lend me a couple of bucks for the vending machine.  I've got me a wicked case of the munchies.  I'll also need some cash for the Shasta machine.  I'll work up quite a thirst horking down three or four bags of Cool Ranch Doritos.

Since announcing my candidacy for the President of the United States of America, I've been deeply touched, both in the physical and emotional sense of the word (as well as the biblical sense now that I think about it) by the outpouring of support I've received from all of you.  It has been an inspiration that you, the little people, the proletariat masses, have taken the time out of your day to pry your pudgy little sausage fingers off of the palm-sweat drizzled mouse on your obsolete-the-day-you-bought-it computers and used those stubby little digits to whack out a message of support on that donut-crumb and fingernail-clipping infested keyboard.  Truly, my heart is touched.  So much so that I decided to take my run for the presidency a little more seriously.

Originally, I took on this challenge for the tail.  Pure and simple.  I won't lie.  I figured that if today's rock stars, who write song lyrics that make a rich thirteen year old girl's poetry journal seem deep and introspective and sing those songs with a vocal style that is similar to the sound an alley cat would make if it tried to fuck a hot toaster, can get primo skank then surely the Mayor McCheese of this here FunLand would be skimming only the finest cream from the Ass Dairy.  Of course, as is usually the case, I did not do my homework.  Sure, Kennedy got some of the top shelf chick liquor, but the 20th century was rounded out with the horniest man ever to hold elected office, Bill Clinton, and look what he got.  There's more satisfying sex to be had in the public restroom of an inner city Phillips 66 station than the leader of the free world was getting in an office that has seen great men, and some idiots, wield the righteous sword of American might for over 200 years.

While I attempted to make this my campaign platform, I was hipped to the fact that such an issue does not make for good political discourse.  I then reached the conclusion that the quality of the bang-towel one gets as president is entirely up to them, and the key here is to actually achieve the presidency in the first place.  So I asked my campaign advisor, Mr. Roderick Billington, what I should do to win.  He told me that I had already made my position on the war blindingly crystal clear, my stance on immigration was the most in-depth and comprehensive yet among the candidates, and my ideas on tax reform were second to none.  But I was lacking in one area: the Environment.

"Who said what to who?" I snapped.  Enviro-wha?

Now, I've heard alot of stuff about this "green" thing.  Alot of holes under alot of noses like to flap gums about how we humans are dropping a big brown deuce all over the planet.  Somehow this just didn't click with me.  I thought "An Inconvenient Truth" was just an art-house feature-film version of "When Nature Attacks" on Fox.  But apparently, submerging most of the country under water is not the good thing that I believed it would be... after all, wouldn't your land be worth more if there were less land in the world AND it was ocean-front property?  Win-Win, baby!  But no.  Roddy Billington tells me I have to somehow get to first base with Mother Earth, so who am I to argue?

Roddy suggested I reach out to some college kids and "rap" with them a little about how I'd scratch them right where they itch when it comes to my Environmental Policy.  It sounded like a solid idea.  If there's one thing that college teaches, it's that rich, entitled white men are a friend to the young.  So I put a call in to "Gravy", a student at UC Boulder and a frequent supplier of only the highest grade hydroponically grown weed.  After I put in an order for three pounds of the sticky-icky, I told him to meet me along with some of his youthful comrades for a little jaw-session on what I can do to get their vote, and the vote of other like-minded dolts, so I can get my shit-gate planted firmly in that chair in the oval-office.  We set up a meet for the next day at a local park in Boulder, and with a little time to kill I spent the rest of the evening at a rave at a warehouse in downtown Denver where I proceeded to suck down a manly helping of ecstasy and cough syrup.

The next day, I rolled up to the park in my Hummer and was immediately confronted by five or six unkempt looking youngsters.  Even the two females of the flock seemed like they had not yet been introduced to the joys of the disposable ladies Bic razor.  As I stepped out of my vehicle, Gravy's little sidekick, a really tiny four-foot-three-inch Hispanic fellow named Manuel, approached me.

"Yo dude," Manuel said, his words slurring from an obvious pot-buzz, "that monstrosity of a car you got is half the problem with the world."

"Easy there, dolphin-safe," I said, backing away from the dumpy little chap, "let's not go puttin' the stink-eye on the Humvee.  I've tapped alot of hot ass-kegs in that vehicle and I think it's earned your respect."

"You know," another of the pigpens piped up, "if everyone drove a car like that, we'd, like, have no more air."

"Luckily," I said, raising a handkerchief to my nose to block the smell of a thousand missed showers, "if there were no air, you wouldn't be able to drive the car, as air is a vital component in the combustion cycle.  You see?  Balance in nature."

"Look," Gravy stepped forward, holding a nice big bag full of fresh greenery, "are you gonna buy this grass or not?  We've got shit to do."

"What the hell do you have to do?"  I scoffed.  "You're hippies!  What's so pressing?  Phish concert?  Drum circle?  Throwing pigs blood on soldiers?"

"I gotta get to work!"  One of the little unshaven maidens snapped.

"Ho-lee Bowling Moses!"  I laughed.  "What kind of job can you possibly hold down?  From the smell of you, I'd say you power-wash slaughterhouses!"

"I work up at Jitters coffee."

A smile crept on my face.  Now, you must understand that I am inconceivably handsome.  If there were a tax on being handsome, I would bear a tax burden which would only be exceeded by Alec Baldwin himself, and would be rivaled by the remainder of the Baldwin brood.  Luckily, no such tax exists.  This leaves me with a great deal of disposable income which I use to purchase vast quantities of Red Bull, Chewy Chips Ahoy, large bags of reefer, and small upstart coffee concerns like Jitters Coffee.  Being the sole owner of the coffee establishment that this diamond-in-the-rough worked at, I found myself in the enviable position of holding the livelihood of a young hippy in the palm of my hand.  I sized her up for a moment, and did a little mental inventory on her good and bad traits, and then did a little calculation on what it would take to turn this java-slinging street urchin into a porn-star caliber hottie.

I flipped open my phone and speed-dialed the manager of Jitters.  As it rang, I asked the girl her name, which was Starla.

"Doug!"  I said as the manager answered, "Dr. Clive Boddicker here.  Yep.  Your boss.  Yes.  Thank you.  I know I'm handsome.  Look, I've got young Starla here... yes, I know she's late for work... look, she's going to take the day off and I'm going to take her shopping for some sluttier clothes, maybe a few intensive rounds of waxing, and then we're going to smoke dope for a good twelve hours or so and watch the first season of '30 Rock' on DVD.  No... no... it's fine... in fact, when she comes into work next week she's going to be your boss... that's right... I'm giving her the store... okay... good... thanks Doug!"

I hung up the phone and flashed Starla another soul-crushingly attractive grin.

"So," I bent my right arm into a handle for her to grab a hold of, which she did eagerly, "now that you've sold right the hell out, what say I slap a few coats of skank paint on you, get you cleaned up a bit, and I pound home my environmental policy?"

"Hells yeah!"  She shouted.  I helped her into the passenger seat of the Hummer and turned to Gravy, snatching the huge bag of weed and dropping a wad of crumpled hundreds at his feet.  The whole gang of hippies just stood around, stunned.

"Hey," Gravy finally said, shaking his head, "can't you hook us up with anything?"

"Tell you what," I smiled, throwing on my shades, "once you guys have figured out the asking price for you to give up your core beliefs, you go ahead and give me a call."  I slipped him one of my business cards.

"I don't even have any core beliefs!" Gravy barked.

"You're in!"  I hitched my thumb at the Hummer, prompting Gravy to abandon the other rabble and jump in the back seat.  I gave a long glare at the remaining unwashed dunces, shaking my head.  "Go and do likewise, gents."  I flashed them a peace sign and then climbed into the Hummer.

Driving away, I looked into the rearview mirror at Gravy.  He was rocking back and forth, excited.

"Have you ever seen 'BioDome'?"  I asked him.

"Hell yeah!"  He laughed.  "Love that flick!"

"Then have I got a surprise for you!"

We spent that afternoon at various "trendy" clothing stores and beauty salons turning Starla into a woman more befitting being the disposable cone polisher of a President.  That night, as Gravy bitterly looked on from beneath the bandages wrapped around his healing Stephen Baldwin face, I made sweet, slippery love to Starla.  The following Monday, Starla walked into Jitters as the proud owner, and she further impressed me by burning it down the next day and collecting the insurance.

Roddy Billington was impressed at the lengths I went to secure the youth vote.  He informed me that a new "Abandon Your Core Beliefs, it Pays!" trend has been sweeping through the Boulder campus.  And that just goes to show you that my political philosophy works.  When you can't see eye-to-eye with the ideals of the people, get the people to abandon those ideals.  You're happy, they're happy, the country's happy!

This is Dr. Clive Boddicker from the campaign trail saying God Bless America, and may the asking price for the values of our youth be forever negotiable!

8:47 AM - 10 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

SWM Presidential Candidate, Seeks Running Mate, Intimate Encounters, Nudity Required
Current mood: inspired

Hello.  I'm Dr. Clive Boddicker.  I'm the creator, Chief Surgeon, and pulsatingly handsome recipient of the Baldwinization procedure.  In addition to being scandalously wealthy, mind blowingly intelligent, and possessing of a sex appeal rivaled only by Alec Baldwin himself, I am also running for President of the United States of America.  And I am here today to make my pitch to you, the American people, as to why I am the most qualified of all candidates to lead this great nation into an era of unrivaled prosperity, sexual release, and beautification.

Folks, our nation faces many challenges today.  War.  Poverty.  Disease.  Fat people.  Coke that is so stepped on that you might as well be snorting talcum powder.  These are things that erode our fragile union, brick by brick.  A few weeks back, as I was gently buffing the ass cheeks of a Craigslist escort while watching Fox News, I said to myself "Clive, you handsome bastard, you've got to throw your hat in the ring and show the American people your way, a better way, the Clive Boddicker way!"

Today in America, we find ourselves faced with many challenges.  We see our children attending underfunded, understaffed, and overcrowded public schools, having to share the same airspace with unattractive, dumpy little pumpkin kids wheezing and gasping for breath in between rounds of stuffing their chubby faces with the latest high-sugar, low-nutrition fad snack.  We see draconian drug laws keeping our athletes from achieving their greatest potential by punishing them for simply injecting powdered horse testicles and amphetamines into their biceps, further teaching our children that trying to attain the height of physical perfection will label them as morally corrupt.  We see a war that has not only claimed the lives of so many of our youngest and finest, but has also failed to lower gas prices or produce enough folly to base a "M.A.S.H."-style sitcom on once it's over.  There's not alot of laughs to be had in beheadings and waterboarding.  At least not by most people.

My fellow Americans, I can go on and on about what is wrong with the country, and the world.  But that would just waste valuable time, would kill your buzz, and frankly, I don't read enough news to truly understand any other issues.  So let me talk about the issues I do know for a moment.

On Evolution -

The women of America are currently the most attractive they have ever been.  Even the snaggle-toothed British imports of old have been replaced by specimens of sheer skeletal sexual splendor like Kate Moss.  Thanks to an almost institutionalized demand for physical beauty, the self esteem of our young women is under a constant attack from music videos, movies, television, magazines, and their peers.  This breeds eating disorders, teen plastic surgery, and suicide.  The attractive and affluent girls go on to breed while the ugly die or become cat ladies.  This speaks towards absolute proof of Darwinian evolution, and on that, I say "thumbs up"!  I am a pro-Evolution candidate!

On Immigration -

Seeing as how the immigration debate has been narrowed so as to only focus on Mexican immigrants, both illegal and legal, I will further muddy the issue to make it seem more complex than it needs to be, and thus stressing it's importance.  In order for people of any country to come to our great nation, they will need to previously have a "cultural ambassador" already established here.  For example, if Chinese people wish to come to America, we will consider Jackie Chan their "cultural ambassador", and bada-boom, bada-bing, they're in.  And speaking of bada-boom, bada-bing, if you're an Italian that wishes to come here, you can thank one Mr. James Gandolfini.  Now, the Mexican question is a tricky one, because instinctually their ambassador would be Cheech Marin.  However, Cheech is actually Iranian.  And as we all know, Iranians are on a different sort of list altogether.  But, a judgment has to be made here, and rather than risk inviting in a people that frightens middle-America to its very core, I will pass legislation that rules that Cheech Marin be deported to Iran, posthaste.  And the Mexican ambassador will be either Alberto Gonzales (for the hilarious performance he gave playing "Attorney General" in the last season of the reality TV hit "Bushes Presidency") or Carlos Mencia.  A 2-out-of-3 Rock,Paper,Scissors match will determine who gets the position.  As a general rule, no French will be allowed.  Ever.

On Taxes -

A sophisticated "take a penny, leave a penny" system of taxes will be implemented.  More on this as the system is worked out.

On the War -

The war will be renamed "The Struggle", and then downgraded to "That Thing", and eventually it will be replaced entirely with an "Under Construction" logo.  At that point, we will have pulled out all troops, and we'll let the region devolve into a bloodbath that will resemble something out of the director's cut of "Hostel Part 2".  Once Sharia law has been instituted and the Middle East falls under the cloud of an Islamic Caliphate, their own fear of technological progression and western mode of thought will turn them into an infantile civilization that punishes the pursuit of knowledge with stoning and lashes.  This will render them incapable of attacking any foreign entity, thus isolating the region.  At that point, we will storm in, wipe out the entire populace, take the oil, and open a series of mini-malls and theme parks on the bones of our vanquished enemies.  You want to know the future of the Middle East?  It's gas for less than a buck a gallon, Tilt-a-Whirls, Hannah Montana concerts, and all the Orange Julius you can guzzle.  Strap in, bitches!

Well folks, I hope this has clarified my positions on some of the most heated topics in the current political debate.  I have much more to say, but I am currently way, way too stoned on some primo bud I scored from some college dude named "Gravy" to write any more.  But rest assured, my quest for the Presidency has just begun!  I've got the cash, I've got the charisma, and I've got the orgasmically handsome face of Alec Baldwin to help pelvic thrust me all the way to the White House.  And when I get there, my inauguration won't be some pussy "swearing in" ceremony!  Oh no! It will be a rave, complete with X tabs for everyone, and Nine Inch Nails providing the tunes, and the Lincoln bedroom will serve as "the Grind Room" where I will tag-team the Olsen twins with the top contributors! 

So vote for me!  Vote for change!  Vote Boddicker 08!

Boddicker 5000.

10:52 AM - 18 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

The Passion of Fred Phelps

Hello folks.  Eldon Nugent here.  Yes, I'm doing well these days, despite the severe neurological damage I sustained from being hit by a car last year, and the repeated "rejections" my body has endured while trying to accommodate the plastic surgery used to correct my hideous disfigurement.  I do believe that I have set several records for the number of times my body has rejected my entire skull, not to mention the number of times I died and was revived.

In my misery and suffering, in between the blissful release afforded me by the various drugs which control my repeated organ rejections and crippling pain, I've had time to ponder life and all of it's meaning, and have consequently sought solace in the form of spirituality.  Surely, my life was not meant to be spent as the disfigured man-servant of a megalomaniacal celebrity-obsessed surgeon with unlimited finances and a penchant for anonymous sex in public toilets.  I mean, that's just not who I'm supposed to be.  Of course, before I was brought into the Boddicker fold, I was hustling sex for booze and drugs.  I'm not so sure that's who I was supposed to be either, but at least I still had my natural-born face.  Shortly after my association with Dr. Boddicker commenced, I suddenly found myself as a twenty-one year old man sporting the face of a forty-year-old Alec Baldwin, snorting powdered Red Bull and crank off of a midget stripper's ass and giving Dr. Boddicker an extra rusty rusty trombone.  And that was before I got mangled by a car.

So last week I was cleaning up the "Plate Room" of the Boddicker compound after the Doctor's bi-weekly "plate party".  It's a little complicated as to what that entails, but let's just say that the cleanup requires certain knowledge of HazMat procedures, a squeegee, and a power-washer.  This got me thinking about how I arrived at this juncture in my life, and that got me thinking of the time I spent with Fred Phelps.

Fred Phelps is best known for his protests held at the funerals of soldiers who have died in Iraq, and his various web sites such as "godhatesfags.com".  He's an older gentleman from Kansas with a large congregation of followers who believe that just about everything human beings do draws the ire of God and has collectively doomed us all to the eternal roasting fires of hell.

What most people don't know about Fred Phelps is that he is gay.  And I don't mean "happy".  I mean gay.  Homosexual.  And not just homosexual gay.  We're talking "bus station gay".  Just look at the cowboy hat he wears.  The man just craves he-meat like he's been poisoned and the antidote is in the balls of cowboys.  I first met Fred as a young man of 15 when I was kicked out of my parent's Kansas home for my own sexual proclivities.  I had a thing for Zack from "Saved By the Bell", and my dad had a thing for Jim Beam.  These things clash.  I was walking down the street, hitching a ride, trying to make it to Texas where I had some family.  Fred picked me up and began explaining his beliefs to me about how homosexuality is a sin.  He then proceeded to make violent, angry love to me.  Afterwards, he set me up a place to sleep in a chicken-coop on his ranch.

George Orwell wrote in "1984" of the concept of "double-think", where people can believe two conflicting ideas to be true simultaneously, such as "War is Peace", and this is the exact method Fred uses to justify his extreme religious convictions and his rampant, flaming, carnivorous, prancing homosexuality.  It's really quite simple.  For as much as he enjoys both giving and receiving any and all manner of sexual contact with other men, he must over-compensate tenfold in public.  He believes this will allow him to continue indulging in his "sweet tooth" (as he calls it) while at the same time negating these hell-worthy offenses in the eyes of God by outlandishly protesting the rest of the world's foibles. Now, he believes he's over-compensating, but the truth is that he has disproportionately measured his sex-to-ranting ratio.  He truly does believe that homosexuality condemns one to hell, but if he can just be a loud enough advocate for the cleansing power of God's hatred, then somehow God will give him a pass on all that gay sex he has.  And man, oh man... does Fred like his gay sex.

I finally left Fred's little microcosm after he tried to "brand" me.  Apparently, there are many supple, barely legal young men out there with "Property of Pastor Freddy P" burned into their buttocks.  I said my goodbyes to Fred "Dumper Pumper" Phelps and his whole whacked out family and made my way to Colorado.  The rest, as they say, is history.

But I'm always amused when I read about Fred Phelps in the news, protesting funerals, gay pride parades, etc.  It amuses me because I know that if he's opening his mouth about an issue, chances are he was opening his mouth up for some mustached ranch-hand the night before.  And if he introduces some new angle in his hatred, chances are he just indulged in some new sexual practice he had not yet tried.  When he introduced his "God Hates Sweden" campaign, I have it on good authority that he had mastered the "Hot Carl" the night before.  His whole "God Hates Ireland" was a direct result of a night of "Creaming the Corn".

In the end, despite all of Fred's organized hatred of homosexuals, it's still not enough to fully wipe the slate clean of all the gay stuff he's done.  It's like someone who eats three pizzas for dinner and thinks they'll balance it out by skipping their late-night snack.  So just keep that in mind. For every "unit" of hatred Fred spews, he has indulged in several more "units" of gay sex.  And the level of media attention he gets just emboldens him to have that much more hot man-on-man bum buggery.

**a note from the Law Firm of Pinkerton, Duff, and Graves**

The preceding statements were written by a young man suffering from many psychological and neurological disorders.  While we do not dispute the probability that Fred Phelps is indeed a voraciously active homosexual, the statements made by Eldon Nugent supporting this theory are simply the opinions of a deranged mind and should not be construed as factual accounts of actual events.  While rampant hatred of homosexuality has essentially been proven to be a sign of one's own repressed homosexuality, we must give Fred Phelps the benefit of the doubt, barring further proof, that he is in fact not homosexual and is just a really bitter old asshole.

12:08 PM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Boddicker Holiday Traditions

Doc Boddicker here! 

'Tis the season, and folks, I've got to tell ya, I love Christmas.  That's right.  While I am avowed atheist that believes life is cold, meaningless, finite, and ends in complete and utter destruction of all memories and experiences that constitute oneself, I must admit that I have a soft spot for this time of year. I'm not sure if there really was a Jesus, and if there was, what his whole "son of God" deal was, but I sure as hell love celebrating his birthday.  He could very well have been a divine being born of some supernatural money shot, or he could have been a stoned out hippy spreading some peace-and-love jive to a bunch of Manson-family-esque weirdos.  I don't care.  When his birthday rolls around, I'm celebrating it in style.

And folks, I go all out.  I have the Boddicker Compound decorated with enough lights to make it visible from a high-altitude orbit.  Sure, the extra stress I put on the power grid can get pricey, but this is no time to skimp on the swank. It's Christmas!  I even hire legion upon legion of midgets... excuse me... "little people" as one of them so forcefully reminded me before I fired his insubordinate ass... to dress up as elves and carry me, dressed as Santa, through the streets of Colorado Springs as I toss out DVDs of "Miami Blues", "Heaven's Prisoners", and "Glengarry Glen Ross".

One tradition I was introduced to as a young lad was hunting.  My Grandma Boddicker insisted that every Thanskgiving and Christmas meal be prepared only from animals slaughtered by the youngest of the Boddicker brood.  And for several years, until the arrival of my younger sister Helga, I was that youngest of the brood.  I enjoy hunting for food and having my in-house staff gut, clean, cook, and prepare a meal out of what I kill.  I intend to pass this tradition on to any children I may have fathered or may yet father.  There's just something so natural about claiming the life of an animal and having your help prepare a meal from it's remains. 

I keep the grounds of Boddicker compound stocked with delicious, succulent meals-to-be in the form of deer, elk, poultry, fish, and the occasional rodent (which makes a surprisingly tasty jerky).  One type of animal I will not hunt is the noble, giant bear.  It's not that I have any deeper respect for the life of a bear, I just heed Grandma Boddicker's advice: "Never hunt an animal that you cannot shoot execution style".  While logistically one could tranquilize a bear and then apply the coup de grâce to the back of the head, there's just too much possibility of one of those sonsabitches waking up and disemboweling me.  And besides... I don't like bear meat.   Tastes too much like dog.

This year, I had lined several freshly caught fish against a wall and was walking down the line, firing into the back of their heads with my Walther P38, when Eldon came running up to me like a mad man.  Maybe it's the disfigurement he suffered after being hit by that car, or the sixteen times he was pronounced dead only to be revived, but he's been so disagreeable ever since he woke up from his many comas.  So naturally, as I spun around, my smoking gun in hand, it was a reasonable reaction that caused my finger to squeeze off one more precious shot, given that he annoyed me so.  Luckily for Eldon, whose noggin was aligned squarely with the barrel, I had emptied the remainder of my clip into the brain of a trout.

"Doc!"  He slurred out through his newly re-Baldwinized mouth.  "Some PETA folks are comin' up here!  They're pissed about Rudolph!"

Ahh yes.  Rudolph.  Another of my dear Grandma Boddicker's traditions.  Ever since she first heard "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer", she believed that it was not so far-fetched a concept, and surely the rich and elite, as the Boddickers had always been, deserved to enjoy, in the flesh, such a novel Christmas idea.  Now, through the years, the do-gooders like PETA and Amnesty International have pissed all over my family's religious traditions.  In times past, we would celebrate Easter by actually crucifying a hobo... (without actual nails of course as that tradition got squashed before the Boddickers reached America, replacing the grace and beauty of the pounding of the nail with sissy ropes to hold the hobo in place) but still... come Easter nowadays there is nary a crucified bum to be found.  So now, the PC police have come around to crap all over my yearly Rudolph display.

Rudolph is not a very complicated or necessarily cruel tradition.  I'd submit that more trauma is inflicted during a busy weekend at a body piercing shack than our Rudolph is ever subjected to.  It simply involves a lantern battery, a red light bulb, some minor wiring, and some surgical know-how.  And bam!  You got yourself a red-nosed reindeer, lights and all.  Of course, such a modified animal, sans a functioning nose, isn't long for this world.  After the holidays we then proceed to kill Rudolph and make a variety of meat-based entrees to celebrate the New Year.  And the circle of life continues.  And to make things less cruel, we dose that sucker up with a generous amount of opium.  As Grandma Boddicker used to say, "If a fist full of opium can put a smile on a Chinaman's face during the Death by 1000 cuts, it'll keep that red nosed bastard giggling until it's time to make goulash out of him".  I do so miss Grandma Boddicker.

So there I was, a freshly reloaded Walther in hand, and a group of unshaven lesbian PETA chicks yapping at me as I stood between them and Rudolph, who was wandering around the gates of the Compound.  I tried to calm the situation by flashing them a devastatingly handsome grin, but, as these were militant lesbians (as a majority of your animal rights activists are), they were unmoved.

"Ladies," I said, again, flashing that grin to no avail, "let's lower our voices and have a dialogue here."

I scanned the group and selected two of the most attractive ones I could find.  They were a couple of particularly sexy numbers, all bundled up like little snow pixies in their winter coats.  I pointed to each of them: "You... and... you" and waved them forward.

"What?" The little blonde one said, annoyed.

"Okay... here's how this is gonna work."  I smiled.  "If you and Rosie-in-Training here want to come on up to my house and get all up on me," I motioned to the young brunette number standing next to her, "we'll work out a solution to our little 'animal cruelty' problem here."

With that, the brunette reared back and kicked me dead solid perfect in the balls.  I curled over and threw up a little... Red Bull and stomach acid burned my throat and nose, and I writhed around on the ground for a good five minutes while the lesbians all stood around laughing.

"Okay," I finally said, getting to my feet, "you win."  I strolled casually over to Rudolph and put my gun to the back of his head.  "You won't be guiding anyone's sleigh now, motherfucker!" I shouted and pulled the trigger.

Since Rudolph had wandered off my property, I was cited for discharging a firearm in public.   It's funny how much a mere ten feet can mean in the eyes of the law.  As for the lesbians, they ran screaming after Rudolph's head exploded like a melon at a Gallagher concert.  Thankfully, the officers who responded were fond of venison steaks, so they took a few pounds of Rudolph's carcass in exchange for not pressing any animal cruelty charges.  Of course, this breaks the Boddicker family tradition of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.  It's just as well, I guess.  For the amount of opium those reindeer suck down each year I could probably add a new wing onto the compound.

So a week until Christmas, and things are already a little different.  And that's something I don't like.  Tradition exists for a reason.  It's something you can count on to always be there, unchanged.  No more mutilated cyber-wired reindeers.  No more crucified hobos.  It's only a matter of time before my "True Corpse Graveyard" Halloween attraction comes under attack.

Eldon is bringing a nice juicy elk up to the house for me to hunt, so I've got to sign off and get prepared, as a close range elk "hunt" usually requires a poncho.  Until next time, have a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!

3:33 PM - 1 Comments -