NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3

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Path: sparky!uunet!charon.amdahl.com!amdahl!rtech!pacbell.com!ames!sun-barr!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!spool.mu.edu!hri.com!noc.near.net!news.bbn.com!news.bbn.com!news From: rrizzo@BBN.COM (Ron Rizzo) Newsgroups: soc.motss Subject: Ruinsbury, Compleat Summary: long, rather, not to mention tendentious Message-ID: <lmejcbINNei1@news.bbn.com> Date: 28 Jan 93 03:05:47 GMT Reply-To: rrizzo@BBN.COM (Ron Rizzo) Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA Lines: 3186 NNTP-Posting-Host: archive.bbn.com Folks, Ditto Ruinsbury. Here are all 32 installments, my testament to soc.motss (I hereby bequeath......;^) ). If I am laid off tomorrow or Friday, then the band of political animals in my head wish you all a very gay 90s! Regards, Ron Rizzo ************************* Incision here. ***************************** JERK IN PROGRESS: "RUINSBURY" by Elliott Levesque (pseud.) Our shame knows no limits. We now offer an alternative version of that alternative strip, "Doonesbury" by Gary Trudeau, sans visuals. Think of "Ruinsbury" as the verbal DTs of a yuppie pauper turned frustrated pulp novelist. M. Levesque fumbled the first "strip" below by mistakenly assuming John Sununu was Finnish-American. He currently lies prostrate between two large magnets in electronic detox. We fully expect further installments of "Ruinsbury" to appear upon the author's speedy recovery. Ron Rizzo Exclusive agent for Elliott Levesque Productions "There are facts, truths, metatruths, and truly outrageous propositions." ********************************************************************** [My apologies for any offense given below to Finns or Finnish North Americans. I made some attempt to reduce the invidious references to a still little-known nationality. If I were completely sincere, I suppose I wouldn't have used any. But I just couldn't resist. So color me bigot and sleaze for hyperborean climes. There must be a special purgatory for (pseudo-)humorists. --Ron Rizzo] RUINSBURY 1 by Elliot Levesque "Sisu* by Sununu*" [The starred items have footnotes.] Panel No. ----- 1 [Late December. A view of a White House bay nestled between foliage with a snowy lawn in front, as seen perhaps from the sidewalk through the wrought-iron fence.] 2 [A pack of naked middle-aged men scamper between the bushes whacking each other with birch branches.] 3 [A view of a White House bay nestled between foliage with a snowy lawn in front, as seen perhaps from the sidewalk through the wrought-iron fence.] 4 [The Oval Office: Sitting in an armchair, Mr P gazes out the window at the lawn. Chestnuts roast on the fireplace to his left; 2 pairs of gaily embroidered stockings hang from the mantle. Mr P To Be stands in the middle of the floor, quietly observing him.] 5 Mr P: Those old fools are heading toward the Potomac! John hasn't even finished the sauna yet. Mr P To Be: The cabinet wanted a practice run. The project's roused memories, Mr P, of youthful vigor, fraternity pledges, L Street Brownies, the Bohemian Grove.... 6 Mr P: ....Skull & Bones. Damn! I had a regiment of secret service men cordon off the reflecting pool. Mr P To Be: Why, those beefy guys don't mind the cold! 7 [Mr P casts Mr P To Be a baleful glance. Then:] 8 Mr P: Could you tell John to stop dropping gobs of reindeer blubber* into our morning decaf? I'm all for learning about other cultures, but it's very upsetting to Nancy. Mr P To Be: I'll talk to him Mr P. [Chuckle!] It's a little like barbequeing ol' St. Nick! 9 Mr P [sharply, if that's possible]: George! Don't invoke demons in the Oval Office. It'll bring bad luck. Mr P To Be: Gee, sorry, boss. FOOTNOTES *Roughly translated as "tenacity" or "perseverance", sisu is regarded by Finns and others as Finland's characteristic virtue. *John Sununu, Republican governor of New Hampshire, is Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Tufts University in Medford, MA. and is Finnish-American. He has a reputation as a "moderate conservative", a skillful politician, and a talented administrator. He's also gained notoriety for his vehement support of the Seabrook nuclear power plant. And he has willingly signed anti-gay legislation into law, though to my knowledge he's never resorted to overt homophobia in his politicking, unlike many of his colleagues in the GOP and the Granite State. *In northern Finland, many Finns have adopted the Lapp custom of taking reindeer fat with their coffee. *********************************************************************** RETRACTION I hereby retract the ethnic attribution that the irreal John Sununu is Finnish-American. For years (I'm a Tufts graduate) I assumed "Sununu" was a Finnish name solely on the basis of its appearance. In fact, "Sununu" is Arabic for "little bird"; thus, as a friend quipped, we'll soon have "two little birds in a bush" to rule over us all. In 1958 Sununu's family emigrated to the US from Havana. His father is Lebanese- Salvadorean-Cuban-American. Nevertheless "John Sununu" will finish building that White House sauna. Greatly humbled, Elliott Levesque ************************************************************************ [Art Director's Note: We wanted to cancel the series but the accountants vetoed it. At our lawyers' urging, we've appended apologies.] RUINOUSVERY 2 by Elliot "le Fou" Levesque "Sauna Tech" -2 [Messrs P, P To Be, V P To Be, Sununu, cabinet au naturel, plus extras, all crowd into the middle of the Oval Office. They face toward panel left, as if listening.] Voice of the Art Director: "Remember, guys, the policy is still no outtakes. And we're staying with the Finnish angle. OK, resume positions. Lights.... -1 [The poli' 'toons begin to disperse off-panel.] Sununu [mutters]: I'd like to punch out that Cosmic Keypuncher's lights! Voice of the Art Director: ....(Watch the blasphemy, John, or He'll demote us to 300 baud) ....pinkies.... 0 [Sununu leaves, with nimbus overhead. Mr P and Mr P To Be slide into armchairs with sudden alacrity. Mr V P To Be remains standing, looking confused.] Voice of the Art Director: ....typos! Panel No. ----- 1 [Late December. A view of a White House bay nestled between foliage with a snowy lawn----OOOOOPS!!!! Voice of the Art Director: Yank it! ************************************************ * * * Technical difficulties --- please stand by * * * ************************************************ ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? *********************************************** * * * Resuming regular broadcast--thank you for * * your patience. * * * *********************************************** 1 [Same day, Oval Office. Mr P and Mr P To Be each occupy an armchair on either side of a blazing fireplace. Mr V P To Be stands on the throw rug between them.] Mr P To Be [calling to panel right]: Well, if it isn't my favorite Finn! 2 [Mr P and Mr P To Be each continue to occupy an armchair on either side of a blazing fireplace and Mr V P To Be still stands on the throw rug between them.] 3 Mr P To Be [shouting to panel right]: WELL, IF IT ISN'T MY FAVORITE FINN!! 4 [Clad in carpenter's coveralls and painter's cap, carrying a handsaw and a pine board, John Sununu glumly trudges in, panel left.] 5 Mr V P To Be [slaps Sununu on the back, earnestly inquires]: So, John, Mark Twain wrote about your family! Are you directly descended from Huck? 6 [Loosed from his clothes by the slap, clouds of sawdust and powdery plaster envelop Sununu.] Mr P: I hear you've used saunas as an instrument of policy. 7 [Sununu is hidden in a cloud.] Voiceover [from panel bottom]: We use 'em religiously in Concord*. Works wonders with our looney fringe: relaxes 'em something beautiful! 8 [Sununu is still eclipsed by dust.] Voiceover [from panel bottom]: I tried for years to get Gordon Humphreys* in for a good sweat. You know how uptight he gets sometimes. Bad for health! But, no go. He said, "Only homosexuals use saunas!" 9 Mr V P To Be: Gee, I thought the guys at my health club were just being very physically expressive. Mr P To Be [irritated, waving arms at viewer]: Cut, cut! This ISN'T going to work. Sununu WALKS if he doesn't talk. And Dan, WHAT have YOU been smoking? 10 Mr P: Now, George, chill out. Things work themselves out, believe me. I've been in the business forty years. As for Dan, the lad's no different than you were in '81. Mr P To Be: Gee, Mr P, you think so? FOOTNOTES (2) *Concord is the capital of New Hampshire. *Senator (R-NH) who, along with Newt Gingrich, Jesse Helms, et alia, staffs the Paranoiacs wing of the Congress. ASSORTED APOLOGIES [My apologies for any offense given above to Finns or Finnish North Americans. I made some attempt to reduce the invidious references to a still little-known nationality. If I were completely sincere, I suppose I wouldn't have used any. But I just couldn't resist. So color me bigot and sleaze for hyperborean climes. There must be a special purgatory for (pseudo-)humorists.---Ron Rizzo] [Ditto for Lebanese or North American & Circum-Caribbean Lebanese. Ditto for temperate zones and horse latitudes.---Ron Rizzo] ********************************************************************* ROONSBERRY 3 by Elliott "le Futebol" Levesque "An Exultation of Turkeys" Panel No. ----- 1 [A balmy Thanksgiving morn, courtesy of the Greenhouse Effect. A shot of a scoreboard]: Hi Tech Hi School Football Classic Period 1 2 3 4 F Bournemouth Algorithmics 14 17 Assawompsett Entrepreneurs 0 0 DRINK MOXIE! 2 [Closeup of the stands: on an aisle a 40ish woman, next to her a 40ish man, she in a splashy Italian ski sweater and fedora set at a rakish angle over long chestnut hair pinned into a pile, he in a black leather jacket, knotted silk scarf, and Irish crumble hat, peering through opera glasses. On a seat directly behind them are two 30ish women flanking a very tall girl; the woman on the aisle wears a football helmet with faceguard and chin strap plus a basketball jacket emblazoned with kanji, the girl's in a hooded sweatshirt printed with the words "Alan Turing was no Enigma", and the other woman sports a deerstalker cap and tweed suit.] 3 Fedora: What a glorious day! Silk Scarf: It's a new morning in America. 4 Fedora: Darling, there's something you must know. [Pause] I voted for Bush. Silk Scarf: Honey, that's wonderful! So did I. I've wanted so badly to tell you! 5 Fedora: Me too! [They embrace.] Finally, free of guilt and at one with the zeitgeist. Silk Scarf: Isn't victory liberating? 6 Silk Scarf [shouting toward field]: Awright, you Womps, let's bruise some pigskin! Fedora: GO-O-O-O-O, Treppies! 7 Deerstalker [to Helmet]: Yups discover the Dark Side. Isn't prejudice grand? 8 [Male Fan turns around, eyes narrowed, and reads the slogan on the Very Tall Girl's chest.] Silk Scarf: Hmm. Turing---a riddle wrapped in a conundrum inside a perversion. 9 Helmet [to Male Fan]: I've passed my Turing test. Have you? ********************************************************************** RHEUMSWORRY 4 by Elliott "les gauffres glacees" Levesque "Signs of the Times" Panel No. ----- 1 [Still in the stands at the Hi Tech Hi School Football Classic. As before: on the aisle sits a 40ish woman in a splashy Italian ski sweater and fedora set at a rakish angle over long chestnut tresses wound in a spiral, next to her a 40ish man in a black leather jacket, knotted silk scarf, and Irish crumble hat, peering through opera glasses. On a seat directly behind him is a very tall girl in a hooded sweatshirt printed with the words "Alan Turing was no Enigma", flanked on either side by two 30ish women, the one on the aisle wearing a football helmet with faceguard and chin strap plus a basketball jacket emblazoned with kanji, the other sporting a deerstalker cap and tweed suit.] Very Tall Girl: [a flutter of hands] Deerstalker [to Very Tall Girl]: Good grief! Is that "yuppie"? 2 Helmet [to Deerstalker]: No, Sher, she wants to buy a pretzel with mustard. Deerstalker [to Very Tall Girl]: Wait 'til halftime, OK, princess? 3 Silk Scarf [to Fedora]: I hope she doesn't drool. Fedora: Kirk! She's just de----hearing impaired. Those two high school girls deserve credit. 4 Deerstalker [to companions]: The grapevine says Lenora Tuareg of Nueva Alianza will get a major post in the new administration. So we'll have at least one progressive amid the rot. Helmet: I think your grapes are fermenting, dear. How can you swallow that Alianza crud? 5 Very Tall Girl: [a flutter of hands] Deerstalker [to Very Tall Girl]: Ha, ha! Bush could use some occupational therapy, especially on his head bone. Helmet [to Deerstalker]: You're setting a bad example for Di Grace. 6 Fedora [to Silk Scarf]: Still, I feel sorry for those poor Democrats. Silk Scarf: Let's face it, Moira, they just don't know how to talk to people. They're social retards. 7 Fedora: It's sad. It's like when I got accepted by Bryn Mawr. Suddenly all my high school friends were history. You knew they were destined to play bit parts. 8 Silk Scarf: It's called upward mobility. Remember pizzas with the Bergmans? We haven't seen them since Middlesex offered me tenure. Boris still slings Chaucer to sophomores at State. 9 [Two cops ascend the aisle, escorting a recalcitrant boy between them.] 10 Fedora: Horton! Where have you been? Cop: We found him under the stands. He was eating ants*. FOOTNOTE * Name and behavior stolen from Theodore Sturgeon, THE DREAMING JEWELS. ************************************************************************* RUINSVERYOFF 5 by Elliott "Reamur-Sebastopol" Levesque "Miracle on 57th Street" Panel No. ----- 1 [Upstairs at the Russian Tea Room* in New York City. At the back on a dais is a lavishly hung Xmas tree behind an opera prop of a throne. Down the room's center, cleared of tables, stands a reception line of glitterati and their children en costume. Tree right, at a table by the stairs, are three burly men in shiny blue leisure suits, each with a pink mum in his chest pocket. Tree left, at another table, sit Warren Beatty and Kim Basinger. A waitron departs each table.] 2 [The Basinger-Beatty party: he wears a transparent plastic oxygen mask strapped to his face, his hands are under the table and his arms jiggle; she wears shades.] Miss Basinger [in a furious whisper]: Warren, will you please take off that mask and get rid of the filthy scrap of velvet you've been pawing all day? Such affectation! Mr. Beatty [breathily]: Kim, Dennis Hopper swears by it. He says it's terrific for getting centered. Don't worry, pretty lady, it's mucho cool. 3 [The table of burly men: six bottles of Stolichnaya between them, they slurp vodkas straight up.] First KGB Man: Our waiter looks shifty. Second KGB Man: We should feel him up. Third KGB Man: Garcon! 4 [In the middle of the room.] Waitron Yaroslavl Who Is Really Shaun: Orwell's finest over there are gulping down the potato juice like beached belugas. Waitron Jorge Who Is Really Jorge: Tut-tut, my boy. Don't slander the clientele. Remember, you're still on probation for serving the Cardinal condoms in aspic. 5 [Santa Claus appears at the top of the stairs shouldering a lumpy bag of "toys", accompanied by the Soviet First Lady in a gown and platinum antlers. The KGB men appear startled.] Mr. Beatty: GORBY! Glitterati: Ahhh! <clap!> <clap!> <clap!> .... <clap!> 6 [Ronald Notrump, entrepreneur extraordinaire, materializes from the solid mass of bodyguards clogging the stairs behind Santa.] KGB men [kneeling, arms open, in hushed tones]: Little father! Notrump: I'm touched, gentlemen. Really! Santa [sternly, to KGB men]: Nix, tovarishchi! <Nix, comrades!> 7 [As scores of bodyguards stampede into the room, they jostle and shove the glitterati, decking some with a thud.] Santa: OSTANTE! <STOP!> Notrump: All right, folks, here's Old St. Nick to hear your Christmas wishes for peace. 8 Mr. Beatty [to no one in particular]: Gorbachev's a genius at being informal. I hear he's taken a correspondence course on The Method* from Lee Strasberg. 9 [Now first in line is a mysterious woman dressed* like Garbo in NINOTCHKA, but shod in black pumps. Santa is enthroned. Raisa stands beside him. "Ninotchka" mounts the dais....] Santa [grinning]: Yes, my rare beauty, what is your desire for.... 10 [....and plops down into Santa's lap.] Santa: ....oof! Mystery Woman: I fervently desire peaceful coexistence and human rights for.... 11 Mystery Woman [plucking off wig and rubber breasts]: ....all the marvelous lesbians and gay men of the You-Ess-Ess-Are! Mr. Beatty: It's Joel Grey! HEY, JOEL! 12 [Santa lurches, "Ninotchka" falls off his lap, pushing both him and the throne into the tree, which falls on top of him. Raisa shrieks.] Raisa: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Miss Basinger [fingers in ears]: My eardrums! 13 [Gorbachev's on the floor, coiled in festoons of pirogies*, tinsel shreds and blinking tree lights, and flanked by burly men who dumbly stare. Jorge Who's Really Jorge helps "Ninotchka" to her feet.] Yaroslavl Who's etc.: Whaddya know, noodles neo-Romanoff. Mr. Beatty [stands up, beaming, loudly addresses Santa]: Man, you are SO SUAVE*!! FOOTNOTES 1 For all you helots, here's the layout of the joint: a small intimate two-storey cafe-restaurant next to CARnegie (capitals indicate proper accent) Hall on West 57th Street, the Tea Room is run by ancient Russian emigres, some of whom are named Patrick, Giuseppe or Jose. Gilded samovars glint against verdant walls crammed with genre paintings, crimson banquettes enclose cosy tables draped in screaming pink cloths. Celebrities tank up on RTR's rocket fuel, the 2 dozen vodka drinks listed on the menu. Most of the waitrons sport slavic monikers on their nametags. 2 Fashion czars of the net, FYI, she wears a velvet suit consisting of proletarian jacket and trousers, formican formal dress circa 1936. 3 That is, "method" acting. Unlike the Stanislavskii technique, in which you emotionally try to "get inside" a role, with The Method you elabo- rate character through many little behaviors. Actually, I'm told the two techniques are similar in ways, and some view The Method as more pedantic. 4 A pirogi is a savory but doughy steamed dumpling stuffed with egg, onion, or minced meat. 5 Line abducted from the movie BLUE VELVET. ******************************************************************** The widow and children of "Pogo" creator Walt Kelly have approved two Chicagoans, Larry Doyle and Chris Sternecky, as cartoonists for the revival of the famous comic strip, which will reappear nationwide on January 8th in 75 newspapers after a hiatus of thirteen years. The following pirated pilot installment lobbies, sort of, for a socially relevant strip. *** WARNING: THE RULES OF SPELLING CEASE TO OPERATE BELOW. *** DISCLAIMER to dialectologists, dialecticians, dianeticians, dieticians and people who torment words: Any resemblance of the dialogue below to any known dialect, or set of dialects, living or dead,, human or 'toonish, is purely coincidental. RUINSBURRS 6: >>>Commercial Break<<< by Elliott "la reine de Yoplait" Levesque, instigator & compiler of this advertisement, who has no affiliation, monetary or otherwise, to the Kelly Fambly, American marsupials, political graffitti artists, or the Bureau of Swamp Affairs. 1. PRELUDE -5 [In an empty warehouse a spotlight flicks on. Its glare whitewashes a cinderblock wall, against which hangs a canvas backdrop painted with a wetland vista. On the dusty floor in front of it are two fishing poles and a picnic basket.] Voice of the Art Director: Release the hostages onto the set! And, please, no rough stuff. -4 [A moment later, a bound & gagged Pogo 'possum hops into the cone of light....] -3 [....followed by Albert the Alligator hefting an iron ball which is chained to his anklecuffs, Porky 'pine spinning in a strait jacket, a blindfolded Howland Owl groping his way, while Churchy La Femme holds Owl's shoulders from behind, a brown paper bag over his head. From the shadows other denizens of Walt Kelly's mental marshland shamble into view.] -2 Porky [suddenly sedentary]: Wait 'til the Syndicate* hears about this! Voice of Hibbs [magnified, from overhead]: Friends, just do the benefit performance as we discussed, and you'll be freed. -1 Albert [shouts to ceiling]: SHAME on you, beastie boy! [to Pogo] I hates it when a aminal betrays his own kind. Voice of Hibbs: Remember, fellahs, the Gay Mafia wants to set the Kellys straight, so knock their socks off. 0 [Pogo and Albert recede into the backdrop....] Voice of the Art Director: Dammit! Will someone remove their restraints? Get ready to roll 'em.... 2. FRUG "Pogo: The Same Ole Generation" [Lifted holy without permission from the Fort Madge Must] Panel No. ===== 1 [Pogo the 'possum and Albert the alligator stroll through the woods carrying fishing poles and a picnic basket. Albert chomps on a cigar.] Albert: Do Wade Davis* know wut the Kelly fambly done did to us po' swamp critters? Rudely awakenin' the pleasantly de-ceased! Ole lady Kelly musta em-ployed a cut-rate bokor*: I can't git this dangnab see-gar lit! 2 [They reach the edge of an inlet. In the distance over the water rises the sillouette of a camping platform*. Albert is transfixed by the sight.] Pogo: Albert, this here stretch o' swamp is "No Smokin'". And kindly address Miz Kelly as Ms. Kelly. Albert [awed]: I sure doesn't recall them rocket pads. I think we been snoozin' a good long whilst, Pogo. 3 [They clamber into their shallow-bottomed boat.] Pogo: Why they's fer turrists. We gotta row out and tell 'em 'bout the blessed event! Albert: Why, them space aliens might brunch on our faces! Can't we beam one o' them Eee-mail messages to th' planet Turr? I says use th' 'vailable tic'n'allergy! 4 [Pogo stands and starts poling. Albert lounges, peering into the picnic basket.] Pogo: Ain't 'vailable here. All them gizmos is up in She-cargo. 5 [On shore Wiley Catt, the devious lynx, peeks from behind a swamp oak.] Wiley: Eye o' Newt* an' toe o' Jesse! Accursed lib'rals trod the quiverin' earth agin! Albert [spots Wiley, rises, points an accusing finger]: Ahoy! A intruder skulks! Scat, you 'publican varmint! Back to yore moneypots! 6 Wiley [scampers off, muttering]: Veronica's veil! Th' Sandinistas have attained the Okee! They'll be marchin' on Atlan'a 'fore the week's out. 7 [The boat floats by Porky who is standing on a finger of land.] Porky: Pogo, how come you dint run for prezzy-dent? Pogo: I wuz on cry-o-genic hold, Porky. Folks don't want a chief 'xecutive who ain't warmer n' a frozen pizza. 8 Porky [climbs into the boat]: Heck, they coulda microwaved you, like they do all them other candy-dates. 9 Albert: Speakin' o' politicking, how we gone UP-date this here strip? They's matters o' race, gender, sex an' sexuality t' redress. Ole Walt for th' mos' part ducked civil rights, segregation, an' Black people. I hates folks thinking we crackers all these years! Porky [sitting down, fishing]: Aminals don't come in a han'ful o' races. We is all specious an' genius. 10 [Owl falls into the boat from an overhanging branch]: THUD! Albert [cowers]: YIKES! 11 Owl: Yeah, I's a genius, fer instance! Porky: Comics is so darn 'maginative we can't change a single figger wit'out makin' a passle o' fans PO-sitively rampant. Why, TV, wit' all them Reals, jes' croaks a cha'cter when it wants out. Mebbe we kin bribe Hanna th' Barber? 12 Owl [sputters]: I wants t' know WHY they cants matricoolate us all to FOND MEM'RIES an' let ignoorant neo-fights take this creakin' medicine show on th' road agin?! At my AD-vanced age I CRAVES tranquillity. Albert [bitterly]: And them Reals out there envies our degrees o' freedom. Bah! [Peers into the basket] A 'toon's life ain't no picnic. 13 Pogo: We been called up, friends, t' serve our country in an hour o' need. Albert: I wants a defurrment! How far you reckon it to the Canadian border, Owl, as a crow flies? Owl [taking the other fishing rod]: Why ask me? Now, as a owl or a Boeing 747 flies, that a diff'runt matter. 14 Albert: As long as they don't tries t' IMPROVE me, maybe I'll stick aroun'. Some folks don't needs RE-upholsterin'. 'xample, our esteemed pilot: you is incorrigibly gay, ain't you, Pogo 'possum? Pogo: Albert, I'm a o-possum, not a 'possum. They's a world o' diff'runce 'tween th' two. 15 Albert: Hot damn! T' think all these years I scarcely knowed ye. Pogo: That how my contract go. O'possum is th' PRE-cise fizzical opposite o' 'possum. Owl: 'doubtedly, a constriction o' oppo'possum. 16 Pogo: It explain why I in-VETerate bach'lor. If I ever wuz t' blissfully ig-nite with another 'possum, why we mutually anNI-hilate each other, releasin' a mighty gush o' injury. Albert [drops the basket lid]: Oog! Thinks I just mislaid my appy-tight. 17 Pogo: No, Albert, Churchy La Femme's our gay blade. I thought it wuz obvious. Pirates you-shally are gay. Owl: An' here's some more 'stoundin' facts: Mam'selle Hepzibah's a pow'ful feminist an' Mz. Beaver's Lipstick lovuh! 18 Porky [stands up and hollers shoreward]: GOT THAT, YOU SCIENTIFICAL BUSYBODIES?? 19 [In a pith helmet and clutching a clipboard, Deacon Mushrat stoops behind a rhododendron and stares through a telescope mounted on a tripod.] The Deacon: CURIOUS behavior. Piling into a precarious primitive craft and heading for deep water in order to quarrel. QUITE ritualistic, though hardly advantageous from an evolutionary standpoint.* 20 Albert: Blasted consultants! We topheavy wit' ethologists, sociable biologists, an' ragged darwinians. Porky [snorts]: They near' inflicted th' Ant Man* from Harvard on us! Owl: Ain't no privacy anymore wit' a voyageur in every shrub. 21 Owl [waving a fist, yells to shore]: Pervert! 22 Pogo [gently chides]: You wants high production values, you abides technical staff. Albert: We don't jamb easy into THEIR pet theories. They's more single-parent critturs, bach'lor marsupials an' spinster reptiles in this here swamp than any ecologist kin imagine! 23 [The boat nears the platform. A green head tied in a bandanna cranes over the edge.] Albert: Why, if it isn't my favorite turkle! 24 Churchy: It IS your favorite turkle! Hain't you lazy bones made th' announcement yet? Owl: My, we plumb fergot. This intellekshool intercourse we been havin' is downright pernicious. 25 Beauregard Hound [appears above]: You brung the chandeliers, I hopes? Pogo: Who else up there? 26 Churchy: Come on up, y'all! It `Out N' Okee!', th' annual Floating Feast of Swamp Gayz, our lesbian & gay outdoors club. 27 [The boat's occupants scramble up the platform's ladder. On top a mob of critturs cavort, burnished by the westering sun.] 28 Churchy [shouts]: It time to holler, folks! Let's make it a wrap. 29 One an' all [in a roar]: HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYBODY!!! SEE YOU JANOOARY 8TH, WHEN "POGO" RETURNS TO 75 O' TH' CHOICEST NOOZE RAGS IN TH' LAND. LYRICS BY LARRY DOYLE AN' PIKCHURES BY NEAL STERNECKY, TWO FINE YOUNG SCRAWLERS HAND-PICKED BY TH' ESTIMABUBBLE KELLY FAMBLY. 30 Albert: Who cruelly parts a reptile from his stogie! Pogo: Shush, Albert! --<)OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO(>-- FOOTNOTES 1 That is, a comics syndicate, eg, King Features. 2 Wade Davis is a Harvard ethnobotanist who discovered the fish toxin used in Haiti to create "zombies". 3 A bokor is a vodoun ("voodoo") priest. 4 Georgia's Okefenokee is a National Wildlife Refuge with half-roofed wooden camping platforms over the water spaced about a days' canoeing apart. 5 Newt Gingrich (R-GA), that is, a Senate crazy. 6 Forgive the lapse from authenticity, but I don't have Gothic typeface. 7 Sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson, famed for studies of insect societies. NOTE: I consulted the daily and periodical press, asked people, but I could not learn the name of Bush's UN Representative-designate. So I've indicated her in angle brackets as an algebraic unknown or logical constant or malformed Backus-Naur expression. --- Ron Rizzo, starving research assistant ******************************************************************* RUINSBURY 7 by Elliot "la petite baigneuse" Levesque "Twelve Naked Men" Panel No. ----- 1 [Early January. The White House. A sauna. Twelve naked men.] Naked Man laboring over pocket calculator: We may have a quorum. Naked Man with cellular telephone: Boys, I've created four new cabinet positions. 2 Naked Man with clipboard: Mr. P E Lect, Liz Dole and <UN Rep- designate> protest their exclusion from this meeting. Cellular: Dammit, we've made UN rep a virtual sinecure for the gals! What do they want? I can't let them in here. Why, the Old Man himself couldn't attend. 3 Clipboard: <UN Rep-designate>'s understudy, Miss Tuareg, says you're uptight and that the unencumbered body is nothing to be ashamed of. Cellular [in disbelief]: Sheesh! OK, 'Laugh, it's all yours. 4 Naked Man with toy pitchfork: I'm John McLaughlin, your Media Mauler. I'll also chair most staff con-fabs. Cellular: He gives good meetings.* Pitchfork: Thank YEW, my flowery Shrub. Next! 5 Naked Man with piece of sushi: I'm Ronald Notrump, Impresario of Trade. We borrowed the idea from Japan. Just call me shogun. Pitchfork: Way to go, Low-No! 6 Naked Man wearing stringtie: I'm H. Ross Perot, fellow Texan, and Invisible Man, aka Secretary of Altered States. I'll operate Air Valkyrie, our sky 'napper fleet. BTW, George, Qaddafi's offering us more oil rights in exchange for state-of-the-art armaments. 7 Cellular [brightening]: Really? We could give him some Minutemans. Is he holding any hostages? Stringtie: No, GB. 8 Cellular: Nuts! Naked Man wearing red beret: I'm Dr. Fred Altman, PhD., from Nueva Alianza. As the President's Analyst, I'll massage our geopsychic strategy. 8 Cellular [to himself, dialing]: Love to rag the Little Guy! Gets him hoppin' mad. Pitchfork: The Secretary of Real Estate Development has a question. [Assorted chuckling.] 9 Cellular [into mouthpiece]: Hello, Mike? How's Beantown? The cabinet and I have been talking.... Pitchfork: Ready for the snap, Jack? Don't goose the center! [General chortling.] 10 Naked Man with football [leering]: I'll do anything for a Mc'Laugh, har, har! Cellular [into mouthpiece]: ....and we'd like to offer you the ambassadorship to Turkey. 11 Football: Seriously, guys, we need a decent locker room for these meetings. Naked Man with flashcards: With shower stalls. 12 Football [to Flashcards]: Attaboy, Dan! Clipboard [to Cellular]: Mr P E Lect, are you alright?? Cellular [crestfallen]: He accepted! FOOTNOTE 1 Line stolen from Woodie Allen's "Play It Again, Sam". ******************************************************************** RUINSBURY 8 by Elliot "le grande guignol" Levesque "El Beso Del Norte" Panel No. ----- 1 [Still early January, the White House, a sauna, twelve naked men.] Naked man with toy pitchfork [falling into stride]: Awright, you maggots, what're we gonna do about Ollie? Mister North Star? Tattle-tale? That honor-marinated marine? 2 Naked man with calculator: Well, Walsh has proved amenable to reason. The unknown quantity now is defense counsel. Any ideas, Mr P E Lect? Naked man with cellular telephone [mutters]: What's Dukey's angle on Ankara? [Looks up] Huh? 3 Naked man with clipboard: Sir, we're worried North will talk to reduce the common criminal charges against him. Cellular: Jeez! Can't the wimp take his punishment like a man? 4 Pitchfork [intones]: Let he who is without sin cast the fu'st stone! [to Cellular] Is it not ESPIONAGE to deal in secret with a self- avowed enemy, one who creates a Mecca for the most vicious terrorists, is imperialistic abroad and Hitlerian at home? Clipboard [nervously]: I don't think 'Laugh's used to dry heat! 5 Pitchfork [lowers voice]: Is it not HIGH TREASON to endeavor to give that enemy sophisticated weapons of mass destruction? TREACHERY to lie about it to Congress and the people? Utter CONTEMPT for law to destroy and suppress all evidence? Calculator: Damn! Where are the temperature controls? 6 Pitchfork [more animated]: Gross BETRAYAL of the public trust? ABANDONMENT of our vital interests? SUBVERSION of national security? Unpatriotic? Turncoat? [Rising, pointing at Cellular] I put it to you, sir, are you and the Old Man not FOUL TRAITORS?? 7 [Silence. Then....] 8 Cellular [smiling & frowning at the same time]: Heh, heh. Is that a rhetorical question, 'Laugh? 9 Naked man with flashcards: Say, Mr McLaughlin, you've really got a point. Cellular [to Flashcards]: Oh, SHUT UP, Dan! ******************************************************************** RUINSBURY 9 by Elliot "la-bas" Levesque "Heat Treatments" Panel No. ----- 1 [Still early January, the White House, a sauna, twelve naked men.] Naked man with cellular phone [fretting]: Can't we 'nap Ollie in an Air Valkyrie chopper, Aych? 2 Naked man wearing stringtie: Whole 'copter fleet's currently in use backing up blackbag jobs at abortion clinics and bringing sick nuke plants on line again. Why not use those spooks you're stuffing State with? 3 Naked man with clipboard: That reminds me, GB: the press claims you've made the CIA and Social Register prerequisites for civil service appointments. Cellular: So what's wrong with that? We want good people, don't we? 4 Cellular [to Clipboard]: Besides, have I got an executive order! It bans clearances for deviants. The fag Democrats will be apeshit! Congress will froth and won't notice anything else we do. 5 Naked man holding toy pitchfork: It's de-wimping time, vermin! [Jabs Cellular in the ass with pitchfork.] Cellular [drops phone, falls off bench]: OWWWWWWWW! 6 Pitchfork: Time to howl! Pledge of Allegiance, backwards! 7 [They all stand on their benches around Pitchfork.] Tutti [shouting in rhythm]: LAH!-ROFF!-SITSUDGE! Pitchfork [yelling]: SIIIIIIIIR! Tutti [quaking]: SIR! 8 [They all face the walls.] Tutti: D'NAH!-EETREBILL!-THEW! SIR!! Pitchfork [beats chest, loudly moans]: Veni, veni, immundissime spiritus, horribile visu!.... 9 [They all bend over, mooning Pitchfork and each other....] Tutti: DOG!-REDNOO!-NOITAN!-ENO! SIR!! Naked man with flashcards [squealing]: Gosh, this is exciting!! Pitchfork [cries out]: ....adjuro te, diabolo ridendo!.... 10 [....revealing American flag tattoos on every buttock.] Tutti: SIDNUTS!-TEE!-CHEW!-ROFF! SIR!! Pitchfork [screaming]: ....Milhouse! Milhouse! Milhouse! 11 [Some time later on the snowy White House lawn. A man in a fur-lined parka lays a nude body at the end of a row of them. They stir slightly. A man sporting a stethoscope and a raccoon coat oversees the operation.] Raccoon coat: They fainted, John, probably from hyperventilation. The fresh air should revive them. Parka [depositing a body]: Oof! Thanks, Doc. I appreciate it. 12 [Sauna doorway. Man in parka drags out an inert form by the feet, a toy pitchfork clenched in its fist.] Parka [grumbles]: One more cabinet meeting in the sauna and I'm heading back to the Granite State*! FOOTNOTE 1 Ie, New Hampshire. ******************************************************************** RUINSBURY 10 by Elliot "le garcon aux chiclets" Levesque "De Re Glutinosa, or, Sticky Bits" Panel No. ----- 1 [Late February, State House rotunda, Boston. Michael Dukakis, ambassador-designate to Turkey, stands with aides at a mike in front of a movie screen, crowded by reporters.] PBS reporter [in herringbone & JFK hairdo]: Governor, when did you first suspect you were addicted? 2 Dukakis: Well, Chris, I've been chewing Stimorol(R)* only since Inauguration Day. I'd been receiving abusive phone calls daily from the Democratic National Committee. But watching that dude ranch dropout slide his mangey paw over the bible---er, I mean, the swearing-in was very traumatic for me, Chris. PBS reporter: We've heard first stop's Costa Rica. 3 The Duke: I've enrolled for a month of rehabiliation at The Chicle Institute's clinic in San Jose. My doctor, state coroner Loud Coffins here, says I've developed a "mandibular dysfunction." Loud? [Coffins has gray hair and is dressed all in black: leather derby, leather tails, leather pants, leather cravat, leather turtleneck with "Anthrax" silkscreened on it.] 4 Dr. Coffins: Mr. Dukakis suffers from hyper-ruminative mastication, popularly known as "saw jaws." It's a perpetual shuttling of the jaws, accompanied by feelings of regret and constant mental replay of traumatic events. The sufferer is driven by an urge to revise past decisions. [On screen is Dukakis in an interview from last fall saying]: Let me clarify that point, Ted. 5 PBS reporter: And the afflicted person resorts to chewing gum as a palliative? Dr. Coffins: Precisely. Mix with stress and it's wicked addictive. PBS reporter [earnestly]: Will the Governor seek damages against the Danish crown? 6 Dr. Coffins: No. His prognosis is good. I've prescribed hydrosolar silicate therapy at the Institute's coastal facility. PBS reporter: In other words, sun, surf and sea breezes. Dr. Coffins: You got it, Chris. 7 PBS reporter [craning neck]: I understand there's a Stimorol(R) representative present. [A tall radioactive blonde in a Danish sailor suit, haughty cheeks and horsetail fall of hair steps out from behind Coffins.] Horsetail: Ja, Soren Stunning here, Nord Atlantik liaison for Dandy Chewing Gum Forbundet. 8 PBS reporter: Europeans have always been freer with toxins. Is your company regretting its incursion into the American market? Stunning: Our research labs confirm no ingredients are narcotic. Vee believe the tremendous freshness and stimulating taste of Stimorol(R) make it the chew of choice, even among those predisposed to gum neurosis. 9 Dukakis: Is that why it costs so much? Stunning [hands Dukakis a cellular phone]: Vee have cable hookup now. 10 Voice from phone [lots of static]: Hallo? Dukakis: Hello, Your Majesty. This is Michael Dukakis. Just call me Duke, I mean, Mike. 11 His Majesty's Voice: Listen, Mike, vee're really sorry about your problem. Believe me, vee know vut high office can do to vun. By the vay, vill you sue? 12 Dukakis [pauses; then]: No. His Majesty's Voice: You're a prince of a fellow! You know, Lloyd's tripled Denmark's liability premiums last fall after vee lost 50,000 tourists and the city of Kobenhavn for two veeks in a Baltic fogbank. Vee had to drop Groenland from coverage. Such a pity! 13 [A short bespectacled young man in a blazer moves next to Stunning.] Blazer: Hi. Stunning: Hallo? 14 Blazer [staring at the Dane]: Did you keep tropical fish as a boy? Stunning: Vut? FOOTNOTE 1 Stimorol(R), or, more precisely, The Stimorol Experience(R), is "Danish chewing gum", awarded for "excellence in export" by His Majesty King Frederick IX. When it first came out, coy ads suggested the gum made you high. ******************************************************************** RUINSBURY 11 "Office Chaotics" by Elliott "holy Toledo" Levesque Panel ===== 1 [An office in the Capitol. A gray-haired woman in double-breasted pinstripe suit sits at one desk intent on her work. A gangly gray-haired man in horn-rimmed glasses, silk shirt, and polka-dot bowtie sits at another lost in thought, while a short bespectacled young man wearing a polo shirt & drawstring linen pants types at a Macintosh(C), an outsize blue blazer hung over the back of his chair.] Phone on woman's desk: Ring! 2 Pinstripe [picks up phone]: Representative Bratwurst's office, Miss Pepsi speaking. Youngman: Where's Taylor Caldwell's CONSERVATIVE'S THESAURUS? 3 Miss Pepsi [to Bowtie]: J. Millard, it's for you. Rep. Bratwurst [picks up phone]: Legislation without taxation! Hello? J. Millard Bratwurst, Radical Liberal Conservative Party, Ohio chapter, at your service. 4 Miss Pepsi [to youngman]: Rod, have you finished his speech for the Gymnosophists Jamboree? Rodney: Almost, Anna. I need a few more adjectives. Caldwell's awesome. The synonyms have been sanitized, but the antonyms are positively filthy. The book's a godsend. 5 Miss Pepsi: More likely an infernal lure. I told Millie it was wicked of him to buy it for your birthday. I wish we dropped the slash and burn rhetoric. Rodney: We live in media-drugged times, under conditions of total information overload. You have to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater to get anyone's attention. 6 Rep. Bratwurst [putting down phone]: It was Leroy, Rod, calling from the Kennedy Center. He couldn't talk. He said he's working late, a teamster dropped Athens, it shattered, there's pork stew, mandoo* and fresh kimchee* in the frig, 'wave it for 2 minutes. Rodney: We've eaten that stuff for the last 2 nights! Thanks, JM. 7 Phone on Miss Pepsi's desk: Ring! Miss Pepsi: My, aren't we popular! [picks up phone] Pepsi for Bratwurst. Why, hello, Mr. Poland. Rod, it's your paterfamilias. 8 Rodney [stands next to Miss Pepsi's desk, talks into receiver]: What's up, Dad? Phone voice [choked]: Son? I have something to tell you...SOB!.... 9 Rodney: Uh, is something wrong? Phone voice: I've...HIC!...I've done something.... Rodney: Dad, have you been drinking? 10 Phone voice: Huh? Oh, just a coupla beers. I guess I've wanted to... OH GAWD!!...to do it for years.... Rodney: Dad, you're scaring me.... Phone voice: Thought I could handle the remorse (sniff!).... 11 Rodney: Please, Dad.... Phone Voice: Damn, why is this so...SIGH!...hard? Rodney, your mother and I...we.... Rodney [hysterical]: Yes?? Yes?? 12 Phone voice: ....voted for Bush. FOOTNOTES 1 Mandoo are pork dumplings, smaller than Peking ravioli. 2 Kimchee is Chinese cabbage pickled in chili peppers, an everpresent condiment in Korean cuisine. **************************************************************************** RUINSBURY 12 "The President's Birthday Suit" by Elliott "couturier celeste" Levesque Panel No. ----- 1 [Early January. Dusk. The snowy White House lawn. A nude prostrate form.] Mr P [leans on an elbow]: Yawn. Brrr! My, it's gotten chilly in here. 2 Mr P [sits up, looks at lap]: Jesus, I'm naked! 3 [He scampers across the lawn to the White House.] 4 [Louvre door]: Rattle! Rattle! Mr P [yanking knob]: DAMN! I'm locked out. 5 [A leafy mass rises out of a nearby shrub.] Foliage: Greetings, mortal. Mr P: Aaaah! 6 [A crusty head wrapped in old socks pokes through the leaves.] Head: I am Titania, witch of the Lawn. Mr P [teeth chattering]: And I'm freezing! 7 [Arms appear plucking frilly undergarments from the clump of foliage.] Titania: Here, child of clay, I always carry spares. 8 [Later that evening. Mr P is clothed head-to-foot in green plastic garbage-bags secured by rubber bands. The two crouch outside a White House window, chandeliers ablaze inside.] Titania [tossing leaves over his head, hissing]: Arise, spawn of the Lawn, born again in fescu and loam! 9 [Mrs. P bustles into view inside, followed by an aide.] Aide: Ma'am, Sheik Yamani and Chancellor Kohl have just arrived. Mrs P: Where is that wimp now? All right, I'll see them in the Oval Office. [Exeunt.] 10 Mr P: I can't let Barbara see me like this! Titania: Sigh. Tomorrow we'll buy you an inorganic wardrobe at Morgie's. But tonight we must gather alms. 11 [Still later that night. Titania and Mr P stand in front of a well- appointed bar, a fancily scrolled "Help Wanted" sign in the window.] Titania: You have no aptitude for begging, sprite. Mr P: Gee, I'm sorry. I'm used to hiring people who do it for me. 12 Titania: I see. Perhaps you'd prefer indoor work? The pay's kinda low. But the boys are dears. They'll treat you right. Why, I hustled drinks here myself for 3 years. Though I missed the fresh air life, the open park lands. So I'm on sabbatical. Besides, I'm a teetotaler. 13 Mr P [looks up, reads]: P Street Pub. It looks nice enough. **************************************************************************** RUINSBURY 13 "Imps of Inkworld" by Elliott "en su tinto" Levesque Panel No. ----- 1 [A beach on the shores of a midnight sea under a louring sky of swirling black cloudmasses that fuse with the water on the horizon. Faded newsprint patterns the sand and waves leave great scallops of inky gray wash. We are at The Rim. A large hangar looms behind the dunes. It is Storyboard, Ruinsbury's R&D lab.] 2 [Inside Storyboard, a view from the rafters: a large bathyscafe, "Squid" stencilled on its hull, lies beside a giant glass cannon filled with black liquid. A small group clusters next to it.] Voice of Helmet: Away team assembled! Imps reporting for duty. 3 [Zoom to hangar floor: dressed in favored headgear and silver jumpsuits blazoned with "Imps", Helmet, Fedora & Silkscarf (aka The Polands), Ronald Notrump, Soren Stunning and Shaun "Who Was Yaro- slavl" O'Shaunnessy stand at attention facing J. Millard Bratwurst, who sports a flight cap.] Bratwurst: People. Our destination is the Syndicated Worlds. Away team: Gasp! 4 Bratwurst: Aim #1 is to rescue Andy Lippincott. I'm sure you know why. Silkscarf: Abuse of tokenism, Millie. Trudeau's axing his only gay male character, slowly, for laughs. It's so depraved! Fedora: Isn't stealing 'toons in poor taste? Helmet: I think this whole strip's in poor taste! 5 Notrump: Couldn't Legal figure a way to break Mr. Lippincott's contract? Bratwurst: Nope. We'll have to snatch Andy. You've all travelled through hyperstrip before? Shaun: Yeah, the ratpack took me on a joyride through some weird metalle urteille last month, flaming carrots & ninja turtles. We're not gonna transmog, are we? It gives me headaches. 6 Bratwurst: Only a table lamp or two. Just recite your mantra if you feel nauseous. We'll raid Bloom Country on the way back. Aim #2 is to acquire some small mammalian comedians. Boss says they're hot right now. See if any meadow critters want to bail out early*. We offer attractive fringe benefits. 7 Shaun: Such as? Stunning: Vut about Pogo? Bratwurst: His swamp opera's in full rehearsal. 8 [Imps board the Squid.] Bratwurst: Careful, imps! Bow and stern are sheathed in gum arabic. One touch and you're wiped. And THAT means a painful redraw. 9 [Rafters view again. The Squid bobs in the cannon's pool.] Bratwurst: Raise the Schaeffer and launch! 10 [The "Schaeffer" squirts an arc of fluid through now-open hangar doors high over the beach.] 11 [Inside the Squid.] Stunning: Vat do you see, captain? Helmet [peers thru 'scope]: We're in white ink now....with froth. Weird turbulence, kinda bouncing. 12 [From above]: Creak! Fedora: Was that thunder?! 13 ['scope view: above, through leaping suds, peers a giant sausage- shaped head backed by a sunburst, repeatedly enlarging and shrinking.] Voice behind head: Adam, Mr. Basset just phoned. He's ready for the next panel. Head: Collect Katy and Clayton, Laura. I'm on laundry alert. There's a sub in my linens. Helmet: Full speed ahead! FOOTNOTE 1 Berke Breathed will discontinue Bloom Country in August. ***************************************************************************** RUINSBURY 14 "Boudoir Bash" by Elliott "Le bleu et le noir" Levesque Panel ===== 1 [A bedroom deep in Adams-Morgan* in the District of Columbia. Rodney and Leroy in their four-poster bed. Rod writes, OED* volumes strewn on his lap; Leroy thumbs through Art News.] Lee: So how was Boston, baby doll? Rod: I caught Duke Michael's bon voyage speech. 2 Lee What are you writing? Rod: Uh, nothing. Just a letter to my folks. 3 Lee [reads over Rod's shoulder]: "Wholesome, straight-appearing gee emm...." 4 Lee [grabs the letter]: "....young, attractive, ambitious, and well- dressed,...." Rodney: Hey, give that back! 5 Lee [fends off Rod]: "....seeks lipstick dyke for escort to public functions. You are sophisticated and discreet and possess advanced social skills." *** NOTICE: To allay fears among chaste readers that visualizations of *** *** this strip are meant to be lewd, we shall enumerate our modest *** *** handling of exposed erogenous zones in each panel. - E. Levesque *** 6 Lee [rises to knees on bed, glares]: You lousey chickenshit!! Rod [pouts]: It's private. [A lolling pillow point blocks Lee's lavish loins from view.] 7 [Lee literally kicks Rod out of bed]: Thump! [Lee's hips swivel to lift a manly flank over his airborne privies. A bedpost bisects Rod's daunting derriere.] 8 Lee [pursues Rod around room]: Ashamed to be seen with me? Social misfit, am I? [The tapered frond of an enormous succulent blooming out of a chamber pot droops across Lee's genitalia. Rod scuttles on all fours in demure sillouette.] 8 [Rod cowers in the kitchen under volume 5 of the OED.] Lee [bounds into room]: Bumpkins are contagious! Lying next to my uncouth carcass each night may ruin your poise! [Volume 4 massively aprons Rod's crotch. A cheescloth dangling from a brass tack veils Lee's dynamic pelvis.] 9 Rod: So what's wrong with cultivating the arts of genteel intercourse? Lee: Hah! [Volume 4 slides a bit. A soaring bouquet of plush calla lilies gloves Lee's gonads.] 10 [Rod sits at the kitchen table reading the OED.] A door: SLAM! Lee [behind door]: Quasimodo will sleep alone! Rod [mutters]: I'll finish the letter zee before I share air again with that lout! [A mini-tablecloth teases only the prurient viewer with shadowed mysteries.] 11 [In the bedroom, resting on a chair arm, Lee gazes at an opened night- table drawer.] Lee [shouts]: What's this gift-wrapped package? "Stimorol." Are you taking drugs now?? [A massed buttock presses the chair arm. Only one!] FOOTNOTES 1 A residential district of Washington. 2 The Oxford English Dictionary. **************************************************************************** RUINSBURY 15 "Nasty Notions" by Elliott "Valentine Sanguinaire" Levesque Panel ===== 1 A telephone: Ring! Ring! 2 [A tiny rundown office. A battered file cabinet totters over a cramped desk in front of a narrow window revealing a tatty skyline and bobbing cumulus. Behind the desk sits a young woman with a mohawk, ear staples, nostril jewels, and face paint. She picks up the phone receiver.] Mohawk: Hello! Nasty Notions, Janet speaking. We help you communicate better. 3 Phone voice: Hello? I'd like to lower the boom on my, on a, on someone I know. Janet: Of course. First let me read you the riot act. We do not traffic in slurs relating to race, religion, ethnicity, sex, sexuality, physical appearance or handicaps. However, everything else is fair game: gross moral failures, crushing personal inadequacies, shocking lapses, debilitating quirks. 4 [Split screen: Janet and Leroy on the horn.] Janet: What did you have in mind? A mal mot to get the blood boiling, or something truly devastating? Leroy [huskily]: I've been betrayed. I want to get even. 5 Janet: A tree'd be nice. Leroy: A tree? 6 Janet: A genealogy. We work backward from current generation and implicate victim's forbears in increasingly baroque sexual unions with assorted members of the animal kingdom. It's very thorough. $5 per family member, or $12 per generation, minimum of 3. Colla- teral lines are extra. 7 Leroy: That may let him off the hook. Janet: Well, there's the Blowhole. It's expensive, but you get it all off your chest in one massive discharge. 8 Leroy: I'm running over budget this month. Janet: We have affordable generic communiques. NastieGrams by Rustcruft. For example, their Dirty Deeds stationery is festooned with a charming decorative border of rather alarming death threats. 9 Janet: Or perhaps you favor Haytmail by Hallmurk, "when you care enough to send the very worst." Or our Misfortune Cookies: feed him royally, then watch his jaw drop after dessert. 10 Leroy: I want to make him really sorry. Janet: I have just the thing: Complex, by Prince Machiavelli. *************************************************************************** RUINSBURIED 16 Special Edition "The Merchant of Venality, Act I" by Elliot "A nous la liberte" Levesque News Item 7/9/89 Washington, DC -- "Hanging" Judge Gerhard H. Gesell of US District Court fined ex-Marine Colonel Oliver L. North $150,000 and ordered him to perform 1,200 hours of community work over the next 2 years. North had been convicted of 3 felonies in the massive Iran-contra scandal---destroying & altering official documents, aiding & abetting the obstruction of Congress, & accepting an illegal gift---which carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and $750,000 in fines. Gesell spared North a jail sentence because he thinks community service will improve North and overcome his "elitism". "I want the community to get the benefit of your organizational and administrative skills," said the judge. "I believe....that you are a caring person." North will coordinate "private and public resources for a new, experimental antidrug program to counsel, train and educate young people in Washington's inner city." Destruction of official documents "carries a mandatory prohibition against holding US office" and "also means North will lose his Marine retirement benefits. However, the Navy announced yesterday that it will ask the General Accounting Office whether the pay can somehow be restored." "At the end of his 10-week trial last May, North was found not guilty of 9 other felony counts....including lying to Congress, lying to the attorney general and conspiring to defraud the Treasury." [compiled, quoted without permission from Fred Kaplan's 9/9/89 Boston Globe article, pages 1 & 15.] Panel No. ===== ACT THE FIRST: A Better Mousetrap Advertisement 1 [Poster outside the Ford Theater]: 0>-<0>-<0>-<0>-<0>-<0>-<0>-<0>-<0>-<0 v v | Churls of Thespis present | ^ Hon. Gerhard Gesell ^ 0 Ralph Nader 0 v Brendan Sullivan* v | in | ^ ^ 0 "The Merchant of Venice" 0 v v | an amateur performance | ^ to benefit the ^ 0 Just Say No Teen Crusade 0 v of Washington, DC v | | ^ ^ 0>-<0>-<0>-<0>-<0>-<0>-<0>-<0>-<0>-<0 Scene 1 2 [A star dressing room backstage at the Ford Theater. Judge Gerhard Gesell en role wearing an elaborate wig, rouge, lipstick & mascara, & ermine robes, sitting at a little table strewn with tiny vials & jars of cosmetics, mugging at his cracked mirror.] Judge Gesell: "...It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven"..ahem!.. "It blesseth him that gives and him that takes....'Tis mightiest in the mightiest...."* 3 [Door opens and man with silvery swingbang in foppish 16th century garb leans into room.] Fop: Your honor, you're gorgeous! Judge Gesell: Fie, Brendan! Virtue's in the eye of the beholder. But beauty? Pah! [aside to mirror] Tho', 'struth, I fear your honeyed tongue, that make this old cynic bawl like a babe. 4 Counselor Sullivan: Huh? Anyway, we have a FULL HOUSE tonight. The Reagans, Thornburghs, Doles, Scalias & Mr. North are here. Judge Gesell: Nay, there lies a knave o' hearts that breaks our purpled hand! 5 Counselor Sullivan [leaves]: Er, yah, sure. Razor wit, judge! Five minutes to curtain. Scene 2 6 [Out front: A still-uniformed Excolonel Oliver L. North in a box seat, arms around Faun Hall who sits on his lap clutching pens and stenopads. She wears a halter top, slit dress & patent leather boots with stiletto heels.] Excolonel North: Jeez, Faun, 6 dinners* & 30 hours a week (hang out with the bloods for 10 & bill 'em for 20 more) and I'm home free. Not bad, eh? I needed a rest. 7 Ms. Hall: I've booked you on the Monday morning flight to Bogota. I charged the air fare to the drug program--- Excolonel North: Antidrug program, poopsie. 8 Ms. Hall: ---oops, antidrug program, as you requested. Excolonel North: That's my girl! [kisses her] Smack! 9 Ms. Hall: Carlos, your deeyabull--- Excolonel North: Diablero, sweetheart. He's like a chiroproctor. Ms. Hall: ---oh---will send his limo to the airport to pick you up. 10 [A man in a pastel suit slips into the box. He wears totally opaque glasses.] Pastel suited man: !Ola, mi capricho gamino!* Excolonel North [beams]: Speak of the devil! Cuomo ess-star, Don Cabal-oh? 11 Don Carlos Caballo: Can you get the napalm? Excolonel North: No sweat, miyombray! Now why did you want it? Don Carlos: To provide an extra incentive for our more---how do you say it?---"recalcitrant" clients. 12 Don Carlos [hands North a little present]: For you, Colonel. A mere trifle. Excolonel North: Aw, you shouldn't of! 13 [North excitedly unwraps the gift.] Don Carlos: A token of my appreciation, for beginning what I am sure will be a productive professional relationship. They are sunglasses, you call them "shaydes", no? Wrought from pure Colombian gold. You should wear them every day. Keeps out glare, yes? 14 Excolonel North [wearing shades, grinning]: Muchas Gracias, senor. Eat your heart out, Don Johnson! Don Carlos: Do I know this Johnson? Ms. Hall: He's a star of Miami Vice. Don Carlos: Ah. We deal directly with the northeast. 15 Don Carlos: Oliver, you are Roman Catholic, no? Excolonel North: Si, senor. 16 Don Carlos: Good. Then'll you attend our little opening ceremony after you land. It's a black mass. Excolonel North: So you live in an integrated parish? 17 [John J. Cardinal O'Connor* appears through box curtain, in red biretta, satin vestments, and large crucifix on a necklace. Carlos vanishes.] O'Connor: Ollie? [North bolts upright, toppling Ms. Hall]: CRASH! 18 O'Connor [extends a ringed hand, gazes into space]: Let us give thanks that Our esteemed son of the Church was brought safely into port by the Grace of Our Lady. [North and Hall bump heads as they both endeavor to kiss O'Connor's ring]: Crack! Excolonel North, Ms. Hall: OW! 19 O'Connor: You are a shining example to Catholic youth everywhere, Colonel North, a true hero, a martyr to obedience, who bears pious witness to the Faith in these Godless times. Excolonel North: Your Eminence, each morning during my ordeal I entrusted my life and liberty to the guidance of Holy Mother Church. 20 [Down on the floor a contingent of young men in blue tuxes and leather approaches the box, one member waving a sign that says "Yeah!!! Love ya, guy! GOP Pages for Ollie."] 21 Excolonel North [snarls]: Get outta my line o' sight, ya friggin' fearies! O'Connor [interposes crucifix at arm's length, frowns in fright]: Exorciso te, immodest spurts, uh....shoo!* 22 Page wearing a stetson [in disgust, to North & O'Connor]: Assholes. [to be continued] FOOTNOTES 1 Brendan Sullivan was North's trial attorney. 2 From Portia's climactic speech which begins "The quality of mercy is not strained...." 3 North charges $25,000 per banquet as a keynote speaker. 4 "Mi capricho gamino" means (I hope) "my wayward urchin". Gaminos is the name given to the hordes of homeless children who live in large bands on the streets of Bogota, a phenomenon dating from the 1960s. 5 Roman Catholic archbishop of New York City and virulent homophobe. 6 The Roman Catholic rite of exorcism begins "Exorciso te, immundissime spiritu....", which Aldous Huxley gives as "I exorcise thee, most unclean spirit...." **************************************************************************** ROONSBERRIED 17 "Run On Rushmore" by Elliott "premiere dame" Levesque Panel No. ----- 1 [Late February, President's Night at the P Street Pub in Washington, DC. Everyone's in drag. A bartender with big falsies & kewpie doll face; a customer in 50s ensemble & plastered curls with "I Like Ike" button; a waitron in a black wig, cowgirl shirt, skirt & boots & beauty mark; they cluster at the bar.] Patron: You're stacked more like Dolly Parten than Dolly Madison. Bartender: And you'll have to swill a lot more gin to keep up with Mamie. Why, you ain't even halfways to shitfaced. [Pours him another drink.] Tonight you don't drive: I'll call an ambulance. 2 Bartender: Where's Martha, Lady Bird? Drink orders from the beach are piling up. Waitron: He's in the john, Big Girl, cussin' into the mirror, as usual. 3 Patron: I know he must have problems. Still, I've never met a street person so foul-tempered. Bartender: Customers complain about him constantly. He does lousey work. The toilets are filthy. But Jack feels sorry for him. 4 [Dressed as Martha Washington & holding aloft a silvered frisbee as a a tray, George Bush bursts through a swinging door, scowling.] Waitron: Heeeere's Loretta! Bush: Alright, what jackass swiped my bonnet? 5 Bartender [places 2 drinks on frisbee]: Martha, take these Pernods down to P Street beach. Ask for Steve. Bush: Are you trying to give me pneumonia? Waitron: Oh, please. You're wearing more layers than an onion. 5 [As Bush exits, J. Millard Bratwurst, in a pasta-salad wig & hoopskirts, races on-panel, pushing a terrified Anna Pepsi in a wheelchair at full tilt. She's in pinstripe, fedora & hornrimmed glasses, clenching a cigarette in a holder between her teeth.] Miss Pepsi: We have nothing to fear except fear itself. SHRIEK! Patron [dives under barstool]: It's a gorgon! Avert your glance or she'll turn you into cinder blocks! 6 Rep Bratwurst: Wrong, moo-gal, it's Mildred Pierce as Miss Bette Davis. Miss Pepsi: Dammit, Millie, I need a drink. Hit me with a Shirley Temple, Big Girl. 7 [Bartender slams a vivid drink down on the bar:] Bang! All except Miss Pepsi [in raspy drawl]: DRINK YOUR DIN DIN. Rep Bratwurst: And don't blanch. 8 [Enter Rodney in a limp purple dress with lace fringe, beads, rickety heels & bobbed S&P wig. He wears a button that says "Sappho was a marvelous woman."] Miss Pepsi: Eleanor, dear. Why so glum? Rod: Lee and I quarreled. 9 [A deep dark sylvan glade along a stream. P Street beach. Cold silvery light from street lamps high above filters through the foliage. A tent- like figure gropes its way.] Bush [stumbles]: Ouch! What a stupid place for rocks. 10 [A youngish man in moustache, plaid shirt & 501s suddenly appears.] Youngishman [hushed]: Kleine Mutterchen! How go the wars? Bush [loudly]: Where's Steve? 11 Youngishman: The night has many ears. You need only whisper his name. A whistle [from panel left]: Too-whit, too-whit, too-whit! 12 Youngishman [exits panel left]: Hoerst du? Der Ruf der Nachtigall. 'Abend, Mensch!* Bush [loudly hisses]: Steve! Whisper [panel right]: Ten feet off your leeward side, mother. FOOTNOTE 1 "Do you hear? The call of the nightingale. 'evening, fellah!" ************************************************************************** ROONSBERRIED 18 "Brief Encounters of the Worst Kind" by Elliott "le Cadet spatiale" Levesque Panel No. ===== 1 [The bathyscafe Squid streaks through inkworld's Sea of Tincture in hypercomix drive on its way to rescue Andy Lippincott from DOONSBURY.] 2 [Aboard the Squid. Soren Stunning peers through the 'scope.] Stunning: Captain, I've sighted a large yellow mass floating off our starboard side. Closing rapidly. By Tycho's table*, it's as big as a blotberg! 3 Helmet [taking over 'scope]: Let me see. Huh. It's flailing wildly. Silk Scarf: Omigod. A giant octopus! We're doomed to digestive juices. Shaun: Where's a good sushi chef when you need one? 4 [A huge stupid eye appears at a porthole.] Tutti: AUGGGGGH! 5 Helmet [still at 'scope]: This invertebrate has dirty paws. It's just a spastic canine, albeit an enormous one. Goddess, is it ugly! Silk Scarf [hands to head]: Spuds Cerberus, pit bull from hell. We're at the gates of Hades in a splatter strip! Fedora [to Silk Scarf]: Will you please stifle yourself? 6 [A deafening roar permeates the vessel. It's a voice. Imps freeze in terror.] Voice [coos]: MUMMY WUMMY WANNA SEE WIDDLE GWIMMY POO DOO HIS WIDDLE DOODY. Notrump [dashes about]: Jeez, it's a close encounter. Where's my Berlitz tricoder? I've got to call my broker. 7 [Imps frown as a sizzling sound envelops the hull]: Hisssssss! 8 Fedora: Acid attack! Sir, we're corroding. Helmet: Open detergent jets and accelerate! 9 [In a bubbly blur the Squid races ahead through hypercomix.] 10 [Inside again.] Fedora: We're becalmed, cap'n. Instruments indicate zero velocity. Helmet: Impossible. Besides, I can feel movement. 11 [Outside: a great stipple-scalped being sits in a water-splashed torus & clutches the Squid in a chubby hand. Beyond arches lawn, evergreens, sky & clouds, all packed in babyfat.] Great being: IZZ BATH HEIGHTECK? MY SOHPTOK!+ Voice from above: PASQUALE! THAT'S A GRENADE. 12 [Inside the Squid.] Stunning [looks out porthole]: Vee're in a different concept now. Fedora [peers through 'scope]: Yeah, but whose? 13 [Outside: a greater being in square spectacles, blouse & floral coveralls stands over Pasquale, hands on hips, facing panel right.] Greater being: THIS IS DISGRACEFUL. WHO'S HANDLING PROPS TODAY? Pasquale: I DARESAY WE ARE, OLD THING. WE'LL MAKE A BIG SPLASH IF IT'S LIVE, CHORTLE! OOPS. KIN GETTUSA EXRAY TING?+ Voice from panel right: IT'S JIMBO'S SET, ROSE. HE'S ARM-WRASSLIN' WITH THE CATERER. 14 [Inside.] Silk Scarf: Are the monsters menacing us? We must convince them we aren't edible. Shaun: And guess how we do that? Notrump [at porthole]: They appear to be arguing. Maybe they'd be open to a little horse trading? 15 [Outside.] Rose [shouts to panel right]: FER CRISSAKES, WE'LL LOSE OUR AUDIENCE! THIS ISN'T SOME MASOCHISTIC 'TOONISH FREAK SHOW! Pasquale [chucks the Squid]: TEZTIN, WUNTOOTREE!+ Tiny voice from the Squid: Warp nine, Mr. Danish! FOOTNOTE 1 Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe was fond of food. He often held vicious entertainments while he dined. TRANSLATIONS 1 "Is this bath high tech? My soap talks!" 2 "Can it get us an X rating?" 3 "Testing, one, two, three!" ******************************************************************** ROONSBERRIED 19 "This Old House" by Elliott "la petite concierge" Levesque Panel No. ----- 1 [Late February. President's Day. A view of a White House bay nestled between foliage with a snowy lawn in front, as seen perhaps from the sidewalk through the wrought-iron fence. Scaffolding obscures the windows.] 2 [A cement-mixer truck rumbles across the lawn. Carpenters and painters toting planks, saws and brushes mill about.] 3 [A White House corridor. Barbara Bush in a hardhat, John Sununu in coveralls & painter's cap, and David Frost* leading a camera crew, saunter down the hall.] David Frost: This is David Frost on location with Barbara Bush in the East Wing of the White House. 4 Mrs. P [in closeup]: We've replaced the louvre doors of this wing with revolving ones to facilitate traffic. 5 [Pan to revolving doors: Above them hangs a large plaque inscribed "Friends of the First Family".] 6 [Mrs. P sails through the doors, the others lurch after her.] Mrs. P: The wing's historic rooms are now time-share condos for visiting moral guides. John? 7 [They stroll down a corridor, crew members stumbling over each other. Vending and change machines alternate with numbered doors.] Sununu: We've equipped each suite with portable altars, cold showers and futons. Bernie Law* worked closely with the interior decorators to insure there was no phallic imagery in the furnishings. 8 David Frost: Are the apartments personalized? Mrs. P: Oh, yes. Delightfully so. Jeanne Kirpatrick wallpapered her bedroom with gorgeous Georgia O'Keefe prints. John Silber*'s quarters are just to our left. 9 [They lean into a doorway. Beyond is a deep parlor whose ceiling is covered with nude cabbage patch dolls that have been nailed to it.] Mrs. P: Sigh. President Silber has dedicated his suite to The Unknown Fetus. Sununu [mumbles]: The carpenters were apeshit and threatened a wildcat. Jack Kemp calmed 'em down with Superbowl yarns. Mrs P [mildly reproves]: Shame, John, such uncouth language. 10 David Frost: We're wondering about all the change machines in the corridors, Mrs P. Mrs P: George hates collecting rents. So every lock and switch is coin-operated. That way there's no fuss. It was Maggie's idea. She's such a clever woman! 11 Mrs P [radiant]: And it's given us a wonderful new hobby. I've already found three Indian head pennies. 12 David Frost: The renovations must cost a pretty penny. Will it be franks n' beans for state banquets? Mrs P [still radiant]: Heavens, no! It's all paid for by a line item bonus for George in the CIA budget. Executive mansion security, I believe. 13 Mrs P [glides away]: We'll take it as a tax credit. Besides, the improvements will add considerably to the building's resale value. David Frost: I beg your pardon? [scurries after her] I say,....Mrs P! FOOTNOTES 1 Brit Frost is a famed TV interviewer of political celebrities. 2 Bernard Cardinal Law, archbishop of Boston & hidebound reactionary. 3 "Long John" Silber, combative president of Boston University. ******************************************************************** ROONSBERRIED 20 "Abduction from the Seraglio" by Elliott "Rondeau a la Turc" Levesque Panel No. ===== 1 [Andy Lippincott's bedroom. A Turkish divan with Tootsie Roll (C) bolsters & calligraphic quilt, flanked by a glass cube nighttable with a Mac on top and a director's chair with "Cukor" stenciled in gold lame' across the backrest; a halogen feather lamp on the floor teeters over them all. Out an arched window rusting trees toss in a wind barreling out of a cobalt sky. It's the Sunday coloroto edition.] 2 Lamp [strobes once]: Psst! Chair: Creak! Excuse me. Who's there? Notrump? Lamp: No, Shaun. The lamp. My head's pounding. 3 Chair: "Kirk Poland" here. Are you turned on? Lamp: What kind of crack is that? Chair: I mean your tungsten wire may be overheating. 4 [Andy Lippincott strides into the room, cane over his shoulder.] Mr Lippincott: Sniff! What's that burnt smell? Chair [whispers]: Time to transmog, people.... 5 [A puff of smoke eclipses the panel]: POOF! 6 [The materialized imps surround Andy. They scratch & fidget: they're all drawn a la Trudeau: blase' expressions, battened-down eyelids cum mascara underbar, pencil noses, bad posture, dozing horizontals.] Mr Lippincott: Are you a rogue cel from Saturday morning teevee or last night's burrito? 7 Notrump [agoggle]: NICE design sense, Andy. WHERE did you find the bed? Ivan scoured the souks of Stamboul but we had to settle for a beddo from Osaka. 8 Mr Lippincott: I mailed 5,000 taffy wrappers to Turkish Delight* (C) when I was 12. Had false teeth & diabetes at 13. [Rustling off-panel like waves, leaves, rain]: Shush, sough, sweep! Helmet: Canned laughter? 9 Mr Lippincott: No, actually, folks, my ex, Suleyman Scott, he's a bouncer, one night Soolie & I slathered ourselves with a quart of Filippo Bertoli Extra Virgin olive oil. I took him to the mat* 2 falls out of 3 & won the thing. He'd swiped it from an old flame who runs a gaybar in the Plaka district of Athens. Notrump: The connoisseur's oily touch. 10 [Voice of stagehand off-panel]: Har, har, hoo, ha, hee! Helmet [to reader]: Jeezuz. [A microphone dips into view at panel top.] FOOTNOTES 1 "Turkish taffy" candy bars made in the US. 2 Turks smear themselves with olive oil before wrestling, Greeks after. ************************************************************************** RHUNSBERET 21 "Imp-lications" by Elliott "bonjour!au revoir!bonchance!" Levesque Panel No. ===== 1 [Still in Andy Lippincott's bedroom on a Doonesbury soundstage. It's still the Sunday coloroto edition.] Notrump: Fab digs, old boy. Mr Lippincott: Thanks! Though I hope the lease runs out before I do. On the other hand, I've always wanted an Irish wake. It'd be one helluva lease-breaking party. Just call me Finnegan.* 2 Notrump: The famous gallows humor! Fedora: RONALD! Mr Lippincott, we're here to rescue you from Mr Trudeau's abusive storyline. You're his only gay character and he gave you AIDS. Just say where. 3 Mr Lippincott: And become an unemployed 'toon again? Sorry, but I like it here. Gary appreciates my work and the pay's great. Have you ever hustled haha's on street corners? You know how humans hate free laffs. 4 Shaun [grabs Andy]: Let's go, Mr Lippincott. We're taking you away from all of this. Mr Lippincott: Hey, leggo! 5 Mr Poland: It's for your own good, man! Shaun, pin his arms; I'll grab his legs. Mr Lippincott [struggles]: Keep your filthy paws off me! 6 Helmet [tackles his waist]: Fedora, fetch the straitjacket. Mr Lippincott [punches & kicks]: HAAAALP! FOUL MURTHER! ABDUCTION! Shaun: Quiet! You'll wake Trudeau. 7 [Fedora gags him from behind....] Mr Lippincott [squeals]: Mmmmmmmmmmmpppph! [....as he brings his cane down on Mr Poland's cranium]: WHACK! 8 [Poland sits on the floor, dazed. Shaun & Helmet pick themselves off furniture. Andy, free, brushes off his clothes.] Mr Lippincott: Hooligans. 9 Mr Lippincott: So how many of you play PWAs in Raspberry? Notrump: That's Roonsbury (I think). Er, no one. We don't have any. 10 Mr Lippincott: My, my. Better lawns through chemistry. 11 Shaun: Our art director shies away from grim issues. Mr Lippincott: May I make a suggestion? Ask him to design a strip that deals with AIDS. Then come see me. 12 Helmet: That's fair. Frankly, the omission's disturbed me. Mr Lippincott: I'm glad to hear it. So who'll volunteer to play a PWA? 13 [Imps abruptly rouse themselves.] Notrump [glances at watch]: Gee, it's market closing. Gotta run, guy. Shaun: Darn, I have to hop the shuttle to Bloom County! 14 Fedora: Um, nice meeting you, Andy. We must do this again. Helmet: Imps, prepare for launch! We're overdue at Storyboard. It was a pleasure, Mr Lippincott. Take care! FOOTNOTE 1 Irish wakes are boisterous affairs. In FINNEGAN'S WAKE the deceased carouses with his mourners. ************************************************************************* RUINSBURY 22 "On the Beach" by Elliott "la sylphide" Levesque Panel No. ----- 1 [Night. A deep sylvan glade along a stream. Silvery light filters through the foliage from street lamps high above. P Street beach, February. A darkened figure leans against a tree to the right, another sits on the ground against a rock to the left.] 2 [A commotion of breaking branches and violently disturbed foliage issues from panel left. Both figures look up.]: Snap! Crack! Rustlerustlerustle! Snap! Snap! 3 [A large cabbage-like mass rolls out of the bushes, tumblers shatter on a rock, a tray sails through the air]: Crrruuuunnnch! CrashCrash! Whirrrrrrrrrrr.... 4 [A flushed George Bush sits up on the sand, hand on forehead.] Bush: Gasp! Let me set a spell....damn those Pernods! Figure to the right: We ordered Aquavits. Bush: Steve? 5 Figure to the right: No, Adam. Figure to the left [reclines on side]: I'm Steve, Adam's rib. 6 Adam: Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. He shall be called Man, for from man hath he been taken. Bush: You're talking in riddles. 7 [Adam sits behind Steve, his arms draped around his shoulders.] Steve: Now the city's sleep is dreamless in the shrunken nights. The king's forest dies; the game's fled to wild ravines, farm fields, the outskirts of towns. Adam: In the first age, the tribes dwelt among the great trees. 8 Steve: And gardens bloom like graveyards, embalming love. Bush: Don't you want to order another round? Adam: Under heaven's dark roof they tended its sacred fires. 9 [Steve takes Adams' hands in his.] Steve: Awake, we met each night in one another's waking dreams. Dreams dreamed by day, now faded like a dream. Adam: And staged bright combats on the land. 10 Steve: The world's become a mantrap laid by men. Bush: Say, how about a tip? Adam [staring into space]: There were giants in the earth. ******************************************************************** ROONSBERRIED 23 "Calumny of Cato" by Elliott "en derriere garde!" Levesque Panel No. ----- 1 [Night. A deep sylvan glade along a stream. Silvery light filters through the foliage from street lamps high above. P Street beach. 3 darkened figures: Adam & Steve embrace while a dowdy George Bush looks on. It's still Presidents Day.] 2 [A commotion of breaking branches and violently disturbed foliage issues from panel left. All figures look up.]: Snap! Crack! Rustlerustlerustle! Snap! Snap! Crowd sounds: Hub-bub sillabub, hubba-hubba, bub! 3 [A band of revelers in presidential masquerade breaks through the shrubbery. They cavort about a woman in 3-corner hat & purple-hemmed toga over breeches & boots, 2 duelling pistols stuck in her belt. On a leash of iron links attached to a spiked dog collar she leads another woman dressed as Blue Boy, satin jacket & trousers bursting with lace ruffs that pout from throat, chest & wrists. Both sport chrome nose plugs & aluminum ear staples.] 4 Bush: What dynasty are they? J "Mildred Pierce" Bratwurst: Early Pouf, I think. That's Gore Vidal as Aaron Burr dragging a humbled William F. Buckley, Jr. as Alexandra Hamilton to his just deserts. 5 "Chester Arthur": Tie the miscreant to yonder tree! "James Madison" [sniffs a hankie]: Now dare your words take flight, young Ham, while hemp, no silken cords, makes fast thy form. 6 [Strapped to a tree, breasts bared, "Buckley" leers defiance, eyes agoggle, nose heavenward. "Vidal" struts a few paces off.] "Vidal": Awright, you snake, we'll give you one more chance to admit it. 7 "Buckley" [suavely, flicking tongue in & out]: I categorically deny (flick! dart!) your imputed &, may I add, extremely vicious, calumny, & repeat, once agayn, that I do not, never have, & never shall, indulge your bestial tastes. I am not....(flick! flick!).... 8 "Buckley": ....a fag! "Vidal": You heard him. Fire away! 9 [They shoot him with suction-cupped darts]: Sproing! Pop! Pop! "Buckley" [writhing, rolling eyes in ecstasy]: Ah! Ah! Ah! Bush [rising]: No fair! Junior Buckley's a good egg. 10 [Back at P Street Pub. "Jackie Onassis" approaches the bar in dress suit, heels, purse & leopardskin pillbox hat.] Waitron "Ladybird": Jack-leen, word is your protege' just assaulted a couple of customers down at the Beach. Jack: What? Bartender Big Girl: He picked an argument, then tried to mug two of 'em afterwards. They beat the crap out of him. 11 Jack: Great! Just what I need, a holiday brawl. Where's George now? Big Girl: In the downstairs bar. They carried him up from the Beach. He raved all the way, saying he was president. 12 Jack: Sigh! I thought he'd gotten over that. "Ladybird": Whatever happened to "Napoleon" or "Anastasia"? Now those delusions had class. Who for heaven's sakes aspires to be George Bush? ***************************************************************************** ROONSBERRIED 24 "Five Card Stud" by Elliott "Jeu des cartes" Levesque Panel No. ----- 1 [Presidents Day, P Street Pub, DofC. Manager Jack, dressed as Jackie O., stands over a bedraggled & bruised George Bush, still in Martha Washing- ton's weeds.] Jack-leen: They tell me you've been a very naughty boy. Bush (mutters): I ought to have this pansy gin-mill raided! 2 Jack-leen: George, this pansy gin-mill rescued you from park benches, mildew and worse. Bush: Mr. President to you (you transvestite thug). Jack-leen: What did you say? 3 Bush (looks up, defiantly yet cowering): READ-MY-LIPS! Jack-leen: That's it. You're fired. Big Girl, show him the door. Bartender Big Girl: Gladly. Mr. President.... 4 [Big Girl dangles Bush by his collar in front of the door.] Big Girl: ....this is a door. It has 2 sides. This is one side.... Waitron Ladybird: Give my regards to Dr. Albee, Martha George.* 5 [Upstairs Anna Pepsi is FDR in a wheelchair, Rodney is Eleanor Roosevelt, and a sloshed patron sitting at the bar is Mamie Eisenhower.] Rod [fingers baubles]: I hate it when Lee & I fight. Patron [hands Rod a bun]: Have a burger, hon. (Burp!) You'll feel better. I'll order you a drink. 6 Rod [refuses drink]: No, thanks. I'm on the wagon. In fact, Sobering Words meets tomorrow night at the Ethical Culture Society in Falls Church. Miss Pepsi: What's that? 7 Rod: It's a gay&lesbian al-anon group for congressional speechwriters. Our motto is "reach for the mot propre, not the vin ordinaire." [Patron falls off stool]: THUD! 8 [Rod & Anna glance at "Mamie", lying insensate on the floor. Then:] Miss Pepsi: Egads. Eleanor, join Millie & I for supper afterwards, and tell us all about it. 9 [A Washington boulevard. A lumpy mass shambles by. Beyond a streetlamp's cone of light a gaunt figure leans against a wall.] Bush [mumbles]: I need decent threads! But the tips tonight were miniscule, as usual, and I drank my last paycheck. 10 Gaunt figure: Psst, buddy. Wanna get in on a high-stakes poker game? Bush: That's an idea. I warn you, friend. I'm a real cardsharp. 11 [Later. On a sidewalk grate over a steam vent Bush and 3 bums sit in a circle, absorbed in their game.] Bush [fans cards at bums]: I win: three aces. Bum to left [tosses in hand]: Full house. Take off your apron. 12 [Much later. A watery sun dawns through a crack in the overcast. One bum snores, collapsed on a pile of ladies' undergarments. Another dozes, upright, a 3rd is bleary-eyed. Both are half-buried in a blizzard of bodices & aprons. A wizened George Bush is clad only in huge bloomers. A few raindrops plunk on the grate. Through the wrought-iron fence behind them the White House dozes.] 13 [With a flourish Bush flings down his hand]: Slap! Bush: Hah! Five jacks. Bum to right: Yawn! Strait flush: five deuces, all spades. Off with yer knickers, bub. 14 [In a downpour, sillouetted against shrubbery, a completely nude figure streaks across the White House lawn, screaming.] Bush: BEAT HIM, HE'S NAKED! BEAT HIM, HE'S NAKED!* FOOTNOTES 1 George & Martha, are the main characters in Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" 2 Line stolen, with gender altered, from spontaneous chant at 1968 ADA (Americans for Democratic Action) meeting. See Jerry Rubin's DO IT! ***************************************************************************** RUINSBURY 25 "Summer Stock" by Elliott "vague thermale" Levesque Panel No. ===== 1 [July. A lunch counter in Washington, DC. Backs of 2 men in gray suits sitting on stools slurping coffee.] 2 Suit right: George still a runaway? Suit left: Yep. Barbara wanted to put him on milk cartons but Secret Service nixed the idea. Too many people would know what he looks like, and with all the kooks in this country... 3 Suit right: Ha ha! We could get Robert Stack to do a special on him for Unsolved Mysteries. Suit left: Who cares? No one misses the creep. Unlike that bumbling actor, who never COULD remember his lines yet insisted on improvising, Georgie Boy promised to stay out of our hair if we let him play with the social legislation. 4 Suit right: Looks like he kept his word. That look-alike you hired any good? Suit left: Naw, too liberal! Suit right: Folks in the administration like him. Why, they forgot he wasn't George after only a couple of days. 5 Suit left: People are funny. They vote image, so they want a facade. As long as you maintain production standards, they're happy. Suit right: Isn't the stand-in using George's material from the '80 primaries? Suit left: Yeah, but he tries to "interpret" everything, like some stiff just out of drama school. GAO must've pulled him from summer stock. 6 Suit right: What's his name? Suit left: Manfred. Suit right: Jeez. [From under the counter]: Ring! Ring! 7 [A middle-aged Black woman wearing a lace cap and a white apron over a black silk pleated dress lifts a phone onto the counter.] Waitress [into receiver]: Hello? Dunbar's Coffee Shop. Florence speaking. 8 Florence [hands phoneset to suit left]: It's for you, Mr White. Mr White: Thanks, Flo. White speaking. Ms. Bergman, my favorite Angeleno! (It's Manfred's agent.) Tinseltown getting scorched? 9 [Split screen: Bergman & White clutch receivers.] Bergman: Manfred wants to declare an embargo against the PRC for the Tiananmen massacre. White: He can't do that!! We've already decided the president's position. (Manfred wants to boycott Peking.) [Suit Right from offpanel]: God damn bleeding heart! 10 White: We can't stifle free enterprise or jeopardize the China market. Absolutely forbidden. Anything else? Bergman: Manfred wants a week's vacation to attend a rodeo in Reno. White: Fine, just give Barbara advance notice. 11 [The Suits leave, White dropping a coin on the counter. A high school student enters, a pile of books under one arm.] White: Theater people. Bye, Flo! Student: I'm home, Ma. 12 Florence: Ell, Lee Park phoned from the Kennedy Center. They need you tonight to work on a set. Ellington: Great! [Nods toward the door] Ma, why are you so nice to those zombies? 13 Florence: Zombies pay the bills. Been coming here for years. Ellington: Sometimes I think this town's one of George Romero's bad dreams. ************************************************************************* RUINSBURY 26 2nd Annual Thanksgiving Edition - Part 1 "Cold Turkey" by Elliott "Ou sont les neiges d'aujourdhui?" Levesque Panel No. ===== 1 [An Aeroflot jet streaks through a blizzard on its descent.] 2 [A tiny huddle of animals bundled in thick overcoats, muffs and towering faux-fur hats, and surrounded by luggage, stands in a snow bank, wrapped in fog, occupying a tiny patch of a vast white space.] 3 [A taxi mounded in snow screeches to a halt just beyond them....]: Ssssssqqqqquuuuuueeeeeeeallll! (lurch!) 4 [....dropping its load of snow on top of them]: Plop! 5 [Only a gator muzzle, & a dialog balloon, protrude from the mound.] Albert: Kin you deliver us to th' Gorky Tearoom?? Voice from cab: Da! 6 [Inside the taxi Albert, Pogo, Ma'mselle Hepzibah, Mz. Beaver, Porky 'pine & Churchy Lafemme are crushed together in the back seat.] Cabbie [a mink]: Amerikanskii, da? 7 Mlle. Hepzibah: Oui! Artistes. Pogo: We is a fragment o' th' touring company for OGOP!, a musical. Mz. Beaver: Goin' to a rend-daze-view wit' our Eye-talian producer. 8 Cabbie: My name Lavrentii. [Waves a paperback at them] Sell MY SECRET LOVES by Kosygin. Very good! Like buy? Pogo [frowns]: No, thank'ee. 9 Lavrentii [waves thicker volume]: Maybe samizdat guide to city toilets? Albert [snatches book]: Now that's real handy! So's not to embarass present company when you harken to th' call o' nature. 10 Lavrentii: Hundred rubles. Albert: Tarnation! Ain't got no rooples. We hasn't switched our monies. Lavrentii: Trade for rugby shirt of little one. 11 [Mz. Beaver unbuttons Pogo's coat, Churchy yanks off his shirt.] Churchy: It's a deal! Pogo: Hey, mmmph! Mlle. Hepzibah: Pogo, I geev you blouse. FOOTNOTE 1 Irrelevant observation: it snowed in Massachusetts on Thanksgiving eve & morning. Cape Cod got a foot+. *************************************************************************** RUINSBURY 27 "Games of Chance" by Elliott "bonne hazard" Levesque Panel No. ===== 1 [December. Earls Court district of London. Storefront of Pride n' Prejudice Bookie Parlor, hung with xmas lights & catenaries of tinsel. Taped to one window is a blownup map of Europe, the east portion luridly colored, taped to the other a sign with huge block letters that read:] CHEAT HISTORY! PLAY THE DOMINOES DERBY 2 [Inside, a woman with chestnut brown complexion and a jet-black brush of hair, decked out in punk finery, talks on the phone.] Dark woman: Yeah, we've rated Moldavia. 20-to-1 it secedes, 25-to-1 it brings back the grand vizier. How much you puttin' down, mate? 3 [A tall pink-skinned man in Regency silks & tumble of auburn curls sticks pins on a huge diagram of the family trees of European royal houses.] Dark woman: Right, Estonia never had a king. Mick, what's the chart for Estonian monarch's dynastic title? Michael: Oh, dear. You've raised a most vexing question, Parv'. We think Tallinn likes German but opts for Swedish: Caroline 3 to 2, Gustav 5 to 4. Et cetera. 4 Parvati [into receiver]: Short odds, mate. You won't clean up in the Baw'tics. Michael [fussing]: I pray the Germans don't bring back all those tatty halfmad electors. They'll crumble the continent into a fractal. 5 [A little later.] Parvati [hand over receiver]: Cripes, Mick, I've got a bloke who wants to put 5 MILLION pounds sterling on Albania! Michael: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Most risible. 6 Parvati: Mick, he's in dead earnest. Michael: Oh, dear. Most distressing. 293 to 1, Parv'. The wastrel should love those figures. 7 Parvati [into phone]: We'll need some sort of guarantee. Yeah, that's adequate. (He just offered East Texas as security.) Michael [perched on stool in a slouch]: Uncommon depressin', how the better classes fail to check the profligacy of their offspring. 8 [Same day. Washington, DC. Office of the Secretary of Altered States, a Shadow Cabinet member. H. Ross Perot sits behind a huge desk, eating a chili dog on a silver service & talking on the phone. An aide dressed as a ninja waits on him.] SASs: I'll fly over to collect my winnings. G'day. 9 SASs: Harlan, put the chopper fleet on standby. And clear these dishes. Ninja: No problem, Aych Ross! 10 [Ninja busses]: Clatter, clink, rattle! SASs: I want the Spiders at full combat readiness by midnight. Doesn't Fred Altman speak Albanian? Ninja: Why, I believe so, boss. He won first prize a few years back at the Enver Hoxha Invitational in Tirane. 11 SASs: A chess pro, eh? Ninja: No, Aych, it's a spelling bee. ************************************************************************* Your Imaginary Friends at RUINSBURY wish you all A HAPPY CHANNUKAH, MERRY CHRISTMAS & FROLICSOME YULE HAPPY NEW DECADE MAY YOU HAVE A VERY GAY NINETIES! ************************************************************************* RUINSBURY (approx.) is a lesgay corruption of Gary Trudeau's BOOMERSAGA, aka DOONESBURY, minus pictorials. We resume our story a year later. 11/26/90 ->0<->0<->0<->0<->0<->0<->0<->0<->0<->0<->0<->0<->0<->0<->0<->0<->0<->0<- 3rd Annual Thanksgiving Edition RUINSBEERY 28 by Elliott "le sportif gentilhomme" Levesque "After the Miracle" Panel No. --- 1 [A warm wet & foggy Thanksgiving morn, courtesy of the amazonization of New England. A dense ground mist swirls beneath wired sprays of treetop. Muffled noises issue from within the cloud]: HissTHUMPTHUMPhissBUMPsighHONK! 2 [Closeup of a cracked & peeling scoreboard, draped with leathery ivy, along whose top one lizard scrambles after another]: Hi Tech Hi School Football Classic Period 1 2 3 4 F Bournemouth Algorithmics 2 2 2 Assawompsett Entrepreneurs 2 2 2 DR NK MOX E! 3 [A pan of the stands behind the Algorithmics bench. Cheerleaders in jumpsuits dirtied with partial derivatives twist & shout as a block of disheveled fans intones]: Kick those Ass'es! 4 [Angleshot of stands in back of the Entrepreneurs bench. Cheerleaders hula in skirts made of shredded junkbonds while a dozen rows of fans in sleeveless doublebreasted thermal jackets chant into cordless phones]: Shut those 'mouths. Shut those 'mouths. 5 ['rithmics stands again: frowning cheerleaders hoist placards over their heads that spell]: K I L L T H E M 6 [A few rows above the Treppie bench, a closeup: on the aisle a 40ish man, next to him a 40ish woman, he in a cracking black leather jacket, knotted silk scarf and sock cap, peering through Swedish Army field glasses; she in a faded Italian ski sweater unravelling at the wrists and a battered fedora shoved down over her brow. She glances with mild disapproval at a grizzled man beside her in a stained flakjacket.] Flakjacket [grimaces]: Drown those spreadsheet mucksuckers! Punt 'em to the Shatt al-Ayrab! 7 [As Fedora stares icily ahead, Flakjacket swigs from a lunchbag]: Ssslurp! Silkscarf [to Fedora]: Duncan Carob, systems architect. Out of work since June. Very bright guy. Fedora [to Silkscarf]: Fortunately not from 'wompsett. 8 [We can see people in the row directly behind them: two 30ish women flank a very tall girl, the one on her left in a football helmet with dangling chinstrap, the other in a frayed deerstalker. The girl wears an orange rainslicker with "Isaac Favored Fallen Fruit" lettered in blue across it.] A flushed fan in front of Carob: Numb those nerds, hic!, with a Baghdad bonsai! Carob [leaning forward]: Yep, I'd say that Trep front line's good for about 3 flowerpower. 10 Fan [turning]: Why, Dunk, you old bitpincher. Ulp! Consorting with the enemy before dinner? Carob: Protecting my investments. Sowing discord and spying for Coach Crossbar. Still selling sensors to the Shi'ites, Taylor? 11 Taylor: Nope. Laid off las' month. Carob [claps Taylor on the shoulder]: Welcome to the country club, Mr. Turbinado! Watch out for that 19th hole---it's a bitch. [fieldwards] CHASE `EM TO BULGARIA! Fedora: This is depressing. From offpanel right: Womp, womp, womp, womp. 12 [Beside Turbinado are 2 young men in faux-raccoon coats studiously ignoring him. Up the aisle comes a teenager in a tux flanked by a middle-aged woman & man in woolens hefting bursting briefcases.] Teen [touts]: Send a Treppie to Yale. Play the varsity betting pool. Check out our pointspreads. 13 Teen [to Silkscarf]: Sir, would you like to place a bet? We also have state lottery forms. Doris or Kyle can take your selection. Silkscarf: Disgraceful! Racketeering for college. Doris: All lottery proceeds benefit SOY (Save Our Yups), the emergency fund for unemployed computer professionals. Kyle: Like us. 14 Raccoon coat right [turning]: Dad, they're worthy causes. Raccoon coat left: I don't believe it. Teen: Sir, everyone's doing it. So we won't have to sell our grandparents junkbonds or underwater condos to pay back our student loans. 15 Kyle: He's right, folks. My son Warren had to indenture himself to Century 21 when they assumed his personal debts. With today's real estate market, he'll be lucky if he's sold his quota when he's my age. Doris: Would you like to buy a ticket to the Hacker's Ball? [continued] NOTE: Inclusion of games of chance as a story element above does not in any way constitute an endorsement of gambling or team sports. ************************************************************************* [Starred items have footnotes.] 3rd Annual Thanksgiving Edition (cont.) REUNSBARRY 29 by Elliott "le scrimmage rouge" Levesque "Romancing the Oblate Spheroid" Panel No. --- 1 [Midfield. Still Thanksgiving morn at the Hi Tech Hi School Football Classic. Headlights from ambulances spotlight a deli-sandwich mound of players that radiates groans. Paramedics ferry prone footballers on stretchers. Treads arc across 5-yard lines. Mist swirls.] Human mass: Grunt! Moan! Owww! Nnnh! Wheeze! Mmmf! Cough, cough! Oooh! 2 [A limping player props up another who hops on his shoed foot. A third swaggers in pain behind them, hand flattened against thorax. 2 paramedics hustle a stretcher past them with a bareheaded player on it, forearm over his face. In the background a smaller body pile rises in the fog.] Hopper: Ouch! Let's see, 2 broken toes, maybe a fractured kneecap. I can taste blood. Mmmthp. All choppers reporting for duty. Limper: I thigk by dode id broked agaid. Straggler: Aaaah! Damn, I inhaled. Left side's on fire. I'd say 3 more bruised ribs. 3 Hopper [turns head]: Way to go, man! That's 9, isn't it? You're gonna break Bruno Splint's record. Stretchercase: Mom? Dad? Where am I? MOM! Paramedic: After we dump him, there's 3 more. 4 [Closeup of Treppie stands: two 30ish women flank a very tall girl, the one on her left in a football helmet with dangling chinstrap, the other in a frayed deerstalker. The girl wears an orange rain- slicker with "Isaac* Favored Fallen Fruit" lettered in blue across it.] Helmet: Well, the wimp finally got his war. Deerstalker: And we paid for it with 2 years of nothing. 5 Helmet: I wouldn't call 2 more years of the House of Reagan nothing, Sher. Deerstalker: Dimples, George One has the nerve of a slug and the brains of a gnat. All he can do is swarm and sting. Very Tall Girl: [a dance of digits] 6 Helmet [to panel's ceiling]: Hey, can't Levesque learn ASL*? Deerstalker: Right on, Kath! 7 Very Tall Girl: [fists and judo chops] Helmet and Deerstalker: GROAN! 8 [The Treppie bench. One player is helmeted, with mohawk sprouting through a slit along the top. The rest are bareheaded and have no necks, except for a tousled blond down on all fours, combing the grass with his fingers.] Benchwarmer [to blond]: I saw some critters at the 50-yard line, Horton. Horton: Thank goddess we can't afford astroturf. I scarfed some campanoti* under the stands. 9 Benchwarmer: Rookie, you're mighty strange, but we love ya! Horton: Gotta maintain my levels of formic acid, Rubba. 10 [An airborne mass of 5 players & a bobbling pigskin crash into the Treppie bench, as a 50ish man, with crewcut in ballooning garments stuck with decals, slaps their derrieres with a dripping paintbrush. His other hand grasps a swinging bucket of paint, dayglo chartreuse.] Benchwarmers [diving]: Scatter! Crewcut: SWAB THOSE BUTTS! Ha, ha! That's 2 more tagged. Where's Rubberduck? 11 Neckless player: Przeprasem* reporting, coach. We'll punt. D-squad is ready. Coach [hands him brush & pail]: Here, Rubba, take this. Remember: asses & thighs. And don't miss their backfield. 12 [A quarterback crouches doggie-style over a center, head turned in profile, nostrils flaring, ear to small of back, arms buried under linesman in an imploring gesture. Across quarterback's shoulders "QUEERBOY" is written in block letters.] Quarterback: Zeta, eff, of ex, sub eye.... Off-field voice: Cream 'em, Colin! 13 [Midfield again. Headlights from ambulances blaze on a pastrami of players oozing groans. Paramedics ferry prone footballers on stretchers. Treads arc across 5-yard lines. Mist swirls.] Human mass: Grunt. Moan. Owww. Nnnh. Wheeze. Mmmf. Cough, cough. Oooh. 14 [Next to ambulance a man in worsteds wears a stethoscope, brow mirror, and hefts a large flashlight. He talks to a man in a plasticized jumpsuit embroidered with the integral of Crossbar.] Doctor: Most of the brain damage is recoverable. But the foot's mangled. He'll be in therapy for months, Curt. Crossbar: But ready for next fall? He's only a junior, Doc Coffins. TO BE CONTINUED FOOTNOTES 1 Isaac Newton. 2 American Sign Language. 2 Surname pronounced "pzhe-pra-shem," I think. 3 Carpenter ants. ******************************************************************** Emergency Edition RUINSBURY 30 by Elliott "levant garde" Levesque "War on Wednesday" Panel No. --- 1 [Monday, January 14th, 1981. In the desert outside al-Mubarraz, northeast of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Inside a tent with open sides, canvas violently flapping in a stiff wind: a mustached American captain pores over maps spread on a card table. A whiskered corporal peers over his shoulder.] Captain: To reach Kuwait, Phil, we only have to wade through layers of Syrians, Egyptians, Saudis & Kuwaitis, Moroccans, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Nigerese & Senegalese at the border.* Corporal: Rick, Colonel Tariq Alawi, the Syrian commander of the Qurdaha regiment at the border, will let us pass through only if we promise not to enter Iraq. Otherwise he'll admit only Saudis & Kuwaitis. 2 Rick: So we get multiplexed by Syria at the border? Hi tech warfare. What about the Egyptians? What will they do? Phil: A song & dance. They're entertaining allied troops with a variety review tonight. There's a drag queen from Port Said lip- synching as Nefertiti and a punk rock group from Alexandria, the King Farouks. 3 [A lieutenant enters & salutes, a thick computer printout under one arm.] Lieutenant: Left-tenant Evelyn Hill reporting with divisional battle orders, Captain Orth, sir! Captain Richard Orth: At ease, Ev. Corporal: Practicing your Oxford accent, Hill? 4 Hill: Subroutine 259, calling program "air assault"... Shall I orally list the code, sir? Orth: No way! In plain English, Ev, if you could. And, please, I'm Rick, not Sir. Hill: Very good, sir! Orth: Better take notes, Corporal Laconick. 5 Hill: First, global conditions: US & Canada move to border, picking up UK & France. Syria and Belgium won't enter Kuwait. Egypt won't enter Iraq. French & Italians won't fly. Saudis & Kuwaitis won't wait for us to cross.... 6 [An hour later.] Hill: That's all, Captain. Orth: Piece of cake. Hill: It's tactically impeccable, sir. 7 Laconick: What if this glorious shuffle takes place after dark? Hill: Huh? Laconick: Hill, the sands aren't paved with fluorescent hexagons. Orth: Thanks, Ev. Dismissed. 8 [2 women, a sargeant & private, enter, saluting. Hill leaves with printout.] Rick: Billy Joe, Patty. What's up? Patty: Private Fiesole here just kicked some Wahhabi* ass. Billy: Sargeant Kaufman means I righteously chastised a snotty little religious cop. The mutawain* mutant tried to fondle my calves. 9 Rick: Jeez. Another incident. Liaison's gonna scream. Patty, next time just walk away. Don't say or do anything. Patty: Damn. Alright. But it goes against my grain. Billy Joe: Rick, there's been more anti-Semitic incidents & sexual harassment of women in B regiment. Some drill instructors are using lingerie ads for bayonet practice. 10 Phil: 13 recruits in our regiment assaulted 2 MPs this morning for no apparent reason. The 2 are kabuki. Rick: Isn't HQ monitoring Nazi skinheads? 11 Phil: We're all skinheads here, Rick. Word is the skins are recruit- ing. Between fundies, Klan and NRA* they could have hundreds of symps in our division alone. Intelligence says there's talk about fragging* g&l* officers. Supply's missing hundreds of automatics & ammo. Rick [throws down papers]: That's just fucking wonderful! 12 Billy Joe: Shit. And Israel's admitted it has no real defense against Iraqi missiles. They're relying on US pilots taking out missile sites in western Iraq. It's only 300 miles to Tel Aviv and the missiles have a range of 390-550 miles. Cairo is only a couple hundred miles more in the same direction. Patty: If Iraq clusters 30 missiles with chemical or germ warheads to hit a small area in a surprise attack and they fall near Tel Aviv, it could be horrific. 13 Phil: Then Israel may retaliate with Jerichos armed with nuclear bombs: bye bye, Baghdad. It's worst-case, but.... Rick: And Bush simply must have a war now. 14 [An MP enters & salutes.] MP: Good news, Captain Orth. We caught the thieves. They're all NRA types. Rick: Why did they raid the depot? 15 MP: The idiots said we'd never use all those weapons, Arabs would steal them anyway, and they only wanted souvenirs. They said they were gun hobbyists and would take good care of them. Phil: How considerate. Save those objets d'art from the sand. 16 [Sunset: Patty, Billy Joe, Phil & Rick are in sillouette against a burning sky.] Phil: So, guys, do you think we'll see the desert turn to glass? FOOTNOTES 1 The armies are layered for political reasons. Islamic forces hug the Kuwait border. Behind them is a pocket of French, to the south a large blob of Americans, studded with Canadians and an island of Brits. Turkey and Syria have huge forces along their borders with Iraq. 2 King Fahd's theocracy is Wahhabi, an Arabian tribe whose puritanical revolt in a previous century eventually resulted in the fundamentalist Saudi state. Riyadh is the largest city in the Wahhabi region. 3 Mutawain are Saudi religious police, all male, who publically & privately enforce strict observance of fundamentalist religious law. Eg, they carry small whips to strike the calves of women whose skirts aren't ankle-length. 4 National Rifle Association. 5 "Fragging" is murder of officers by their own troops; it was common among American GIs during the Indochina War. 6 g&l = "gay and lesbian" ******************************************************************** 3rd Annual Thanksgiving Edition (cont.) plus War Cartoon REUNSBARRY 31 by Elliott "le chien irlandais" Levesque "Huddle, Hurdle and Hurtle" Panel No. --- 1 [It's still Thanksgiving morning. We're in the 'rithmics stands now: a couple in pea-jackets & yurt*-shaped lambswool caps. He holds leashes to 2 Irish wolfhounds who strain fieldwards, ears cocked. She pours steaming liquid from a thermos.] PJ-female: Here, Boris, have some hot buttered kvas*. PJ-male: Not now, Natalie. I can barely restrain the dogs. Roald, Ingolf, stop pulling! 2 Natalie: They've been restless since halftime. Boris: Something's spooked them. [Lurches.] Did you see that, Nattie? A green flash, down on the field. It's gone now. Natalie: On second thought, maybe I should drink it. 3 [Behind Algorithmics' bench: bracketing a hunched row of neckless teens is coach Curt Crossbar, and his quarterback, bulging shoulders stencilled with "QUEERBOY", hand on hip, weight on one foot. A man in snapon tie and awry suit rushes up.] 4 Man awry [frantically pumps Queerboy's arm in handshake]: I'm Franklin Face, sports reporter for the Weekly Retch. Great quarterbacking, Queerboy! Will you continue your rushing game? Queerboy [eyes narrowing/coldly]: That's "cur bee," pronounced the same as "kay eye are bee why." 5 Face: Gee, I'm sorry, Kooweer---Colin. Queerboy [turns to Crossbar]: As for OUR offense, do we have any running backs left who can walk, Curt? 6 [Apotheosis: a wheel of faces, all but one helmeted, stares out, wreathed by mist. Ants-eye view of a Treppie huddle.] Face: We're gonna fake 'em out. You take the snap, Poland--- Horton: Roger, Roger. Roger: ---then lateral to me, and I pass long to Stickyfingers. 7 Stickyfingers [croons]: I'll....BE there.... for you, Ro. [Twisting, they snap fingers in unison]: Cnick, cnick! Roger: Let's do it! 8 [A rumble of movement: behind 'womp' linesmen squatting against the shock of looming 'rithmics leaping like bulls, the backfield canters, listing to one side, as Horton corkscrews the ball to Roger, hands armatured* open.] 9 [In a stance like Zeus Roger hurls the pigskin into the fog as the teams smash into each other, scattering equipment, and the backfield asymptotically escapes]: Fling! SLAM! Snap, crackle, pop! CONTINUED FOOTNOTES 1 A Mongolian tent, circular, with a roof shaped like a curly brace. 2 Beer made from Russian black bread. 3 Armatures are iron rods inside the joints of a statue that support its limbs. ******************* mandatory war cartoon ****************************** Hot From Riyadh NoNews Central Manic Motifs presents "All Quiet On The Eastern Front" 1 [Briefing room in the Ritz Riyadh.] General Schwarzkopf: Any questions? [pointing] Yes? Reporter: Herb Quake, Obseqious Wire Service. Sir, why aren't we getting any information from the front? 2 Schwarzkopf: Don't know, Herb. That's outside my province. I'll hand it over to my Adjutant Factbuster. Captain Crunch? 3 Factbuster Crunch: Why? Because you don't deserve any. Besides we own the rights to the information and telling you would be in poor taste. Quake: Then why do you hold these daily briefings? 4 Crunch: To manage your ignorance. Schwarzkopf: Har, har! That's all, folks. ******************************************************************** 2/19/91: In conformity to Directive No. 273-0045-839-4F of the Office of War Propaganda*, Imageless Animation Division, Department of Commerce, we now bring you 2 short subjects and a tactical weather report. Patriotic Bumper Stickers ************************** * Loose hips sink ships. * ************************** **************************** * "I want your body." * * --- Your uncle Sam * **************************** ************************* * "Don't eat Iraq, man. * * --- Bart Simpson * ************************* RUINSBURY 32 "War Cartoons With Weather Report" by Elliott "L'histoire du soldat" Levesque Panel No. ===== Hot From Riyadh NoNews Central: Funny Fugues presents "Displaced Persons" 1 [Pete Williams & a platoon of Factbusters enter the briefing room at the Ritz Riyadh as reporters murmur.] 2 Williams: Ladies and gentleman, I have an announcement. The allies hereby declare that the war is over. There will be no more briefings. King Fahd has issued free first-class air tickets to all members of the foreign press corps. He thanks you for your loyalty. 3 Reporter from Nonesuch News Network: But I'm on assignment! Factbuster Paul Schredder: His Majesty has revoked all visas, as of the day after tomorrow. 4 Reporter from Rooters Wire Service: Who won? Williams: We did. Reporter from Agence Pressed Duck: Does Baghdad know it? Factbuster Skip Solvent: Yes, we broadcast it on CNN at lunchtime. 5 NNN reporter: So we're not going to push Iraq out of Kuwait? Williams: Of course we are. The land assault begins after midnight tomorrow. APD reporter: Then the war isn't over! 6 Williams: Oh, yes it is. Factbuster Schredder: That's all, folks. Have a pleasant flight. **************************** Hot From Riyadh NoNews Central: CRAZY CANONS presents "Casualties of Peace" 1 [In the sacristy, antechamber to the briefing room at the Ritz Riyadh. Pete Williams stands at a pinball machine, attentive to the clangor of its bells & whistles. Captain Crunch enters in a rapid stride.] 2 Crunch: Bad news, sir. We lost 5 Factbusters at the border. Williams: Did they step on a syllogism? 3 Crunch: No, sir. They were on a mission to take out a data nest when their flight of fancy was downed by a tautology launched from a logic battery. Williams: Were they captured? 4 Crunch: No, sir, they were refuted. Williams: Damn! 5 Crunch: They'd survived the crash by issuing official denials, but their suits were ruptured and they were exposed to lethal doses of empiricism. Williams: Well, at least they were spared being prisoners of truth. ********************* Tactical Weather Report* ************************ brought to you by Avalon Hill, makers of fine war games for civilians. AH "helps you make war better." 1 [In front of a molten matte background like Jupiter's gas clouds stands a pencil-miked meteorologist, with pastry-dough coif and shortsleeved fatigues painted like Jammies (R).] Weatherwizard: Hank Hairspray with today's forecast. First the Mideast. 2 [The background clears like melting ice, revealing a glaring satellite fractal of terracotta deserts sewn with silver rivers and nestling pools of aquamarine. Hairspray: It's a beautiful day for bombing! Today the region will have blue skies with 150-mile visibility . Baghdad will be a temperate 65 degrees Fahrenheit with a refreshing breeze off the Tigris River. 3 [Background zooms through a barrel-rolling 3D animation of Baghdad from the air, the Rashid Hotel rapidly growing on the horizon.] Hairspray: There'll be fine viewing for western correspondents. Those naughty cumulo-nimbus that are so upsetting for our pilots and strategic planners will be nowhere in sight. 4 [Background is painted with a gun-metal gray smear like dirty snow dolloped with the blackened pendants of the Great Lakes.] Hairspray: Now the Midwest. I'm afraid that wonderful toasty weather we've been enjoying thanks to Global Warming has been driven out by a nasty arctic air mass barreling down from Hudson's Bay. [Sound effect of howling wind]: Screeeeeeeech! 5 [Behind Hairspray is a huge photo of upright corpses in Lake Erie encased in ice to their navels.] Hairspray: The city of Toledo has frozen solid, killing 71 vacationers at the beach. The mayor of Indianapolis has cancelled the Walk for War at the Speedway, turning away some 12 and one half million walkers. 6 [Background displays a frightened-looking man encrusted with medals.] Hairspray: Tomorrow I'll be joined by special guest General Walt Walt, chairman of the Remote Sensing Department at the National War College. 'til then, sportsfans, happy gaming! FOOTNOTES 1 Finally someone is contesting the unprecedented censorship of the 2nd Gulf War: believe it or not, Walter Cronkhite will bring the matter before Congress. 2 I kid you not. Each morning CNN broadcasts a Middle East weather report before the North American one. ********************************************************************