Sunday, April 22, 2018

The Civil States

The Civil States
May 1, 2018, 3:06pm Just finished the last round of touch ups on this post. Please prosecute and erase all violations of my copyright. Shortly after I shared this in 2007, Dateline must have falsely accused me of going to jail. But I can tell you liked my story about the Jankes because I saw that get stolen. And you must have liked my account of Lee's victories over Burnside and Grant because I saw that get stolen. And you must have liked my remark about being 97% African because I think Jay Leno stole that one for you, right? It was back when the reporters were calling him the funniest man in the world. And what did they call me again? Great reporting. The below portrait may also be a repeated work. I didn't spend long on it, and I'm still looking for a set of headphones that would fit the president.



After viewing Ken Burns' very comprehensive account of the American Civil War, it looks to me like it was started, more than any other single person, by Harriet Beecher Stowe. This is not to diminish the valiant efforts of abolitionists like Frederick Douglass, who publicly preceded her, or to understate the violent, catalytic role ultimately played by the radical John Brown, but such men had been stating their cases in political circles for decades without having much of an effect. This is a peculiar trait of Americans; needing a good story to help them understand a public issue. The evil of slavery eluded them until Stowe wrote her moving novel. It was the nineteenth century equivalent of appealing to the public on the Oprah Winfrey show. And it worked more effectively than all the combined efforts of the abolitionists who preceded her. Within a short time of publishing her book, the war started, and the slaves were freed soon after.

They probably told me in history class while I was asleep, but Lincoln had purely political reasons for freeing the slaves. He feared that England would intervene on behalf of the South, in order to recover lost cotton shipments, if America intended to keep its slaves. But England could not oppose a Union which promised to free the slaves and fall into line with England's own social policy of using orphans for the unpopular jobs. Emancipation would give the soldiers of the North a higher purpose to validate their sacrifices. Later on, the resource of black troops also proved to be valuable.

The cause of the war was clearer to blacks than to whites at the outset. Whites didn't want to admit that they were dying for their African brothers and sisters. In its first year, a unit of Northern troops was approached by a slave they'd just freed and asked where he could sign up to fight. He was bluntly told that the war wasn't about him and sent away confused. This happened a few hundred times before the white Northern troops caught on. Because Lincoln depended on their vote, he professed the same peculiar denial, insisting that the Northern cause was strictly one of unity. But his Emancipation Proclamation in late 1862, which stood to free the slaves and enabled the enlistment of black troops in the Union army, finally made the war's cause clear to everyone.

I think Lincoln was a highly astute politician and an extremely intelligent man. Coming out of nowhere to win the presidential election with a totally new party had to take considerable acumen. From there, he was faced with the task of preserving the Union through a prolonged and bloody civil war. He sensed that the country would have to change and fearlessly proclaimed the necessary measure. I had to draw his face in school one time. You start with a light bulb shape for the head, and put nice big flappy ears on the sides... I like the story about how his trousers fell down in front of the troops when he tried to dismount his horse. Then his hat fell off when he bent over to pull up his trousers. Such a lovable bumbler. Lincoln was a music fan, as well, who said he thought Dixie was one of the best tunes he'd ever heard. I bet he would have enjoyed Scott Joplin immensely. I can picture him listening to the Maple Leaf Rag through big headphones.

The word Yankee may originate from the Dutch Janke, since New York City started out as New Amsterdam. You've heard of the Janke brothers, right? Janke Anderson and Janke Vanderplug. They landed at Plymouth Rock, with their Heineken kegs loaded on wagons, and chopped down trees to make a corduroy road for their bicycles. It was a bumpy ride downhill to Manhattan. A couple of Virginians were spying on them from high up on the evergreens and heard the Jankes on the way down. Vanderplug dropped his handkerchief and Anderson picked it up after him, crying, 'Janke, your hankie!' Then Vanderplug looked over his shoulder and saw his brother getting too close and shouted, 'Janke, don't flank me!' By the next day, the news of the arrival of the strange 'Yankees' had travelled down the whole Mississippi. Southerners spelled it the way they'd heard it pronounced. They didn't care about the spelling.

I was surprised to see how close the South came to winning their independence. The 1864 election was a suspenseful moment in history. Will Lincoln win? Or will McClellan beat him and grant the Confederacy its independence? Success at the polls depended on success in the battlefield. The more destruction Sherman could report, the better Lincoln's chances of reelection. Sherman's ride through Georgia turned out to be very timely in this respect. The Southern view of the war was more focused on their political organization as a looser association of states with final authority resting in local hands. Perhaps, as an independent state, the Confederacy would still have been forced to abandon slavery later on, but, for the slaves, themselves, there was no time like the present. Laughably enough, the Southern army recruited at least one black battalion of hospital orderlies in 1865. Lee's appeal for black troops at this time attests to their high performance against him on the battlefield. As for localized political power, it may have some advantages, but I think it is unsound for a wide region like a country. A big country needs a strong federal government to hold it together.

Confederate Generals Lee and Forrest racked up the most impressive statistics, but the Union generals were more human. Grant was a boozer. Burnside was a crier, and so was Grant. Grant wasn't afraid to break down into loud, fitful sobs after losing seventeen thousand men at the Wilderness. He drank himself to sleep and was just fine the next day. Sherman hated reporters. He thought they were scoundrels. You know what Sherman said about reporters? He said that if he killed them all at sundown, there'd be news from hell by breakfast. Given my personal experience with reporters, I must declare him a poet.

Soldiers' letters home from the period indicate far more conscientious grammar than that exhibited by letter writers today. Soldiers wrote like poets back then. This ability seems to have deteriorated somewhat over the following century, as telegrams gained more and more against the written word as the method of choice for long distance communications. The videos soldiers send home on the internet now do nothing to improve their language skills. And TV shows like Saturday Night Live, that turn my words into images, deprive viewers of the chance to read thousands of amusing, well written scripts.

The men of this war usually spoke in fully framed sentences, typically with gruff voices. Both Grant and Sherman had a bourbon rasp, which was highly suspicious, given their ability to loot vast quantities of Jack Daniels from the states they occupied. Lincoln had a distinctly reticent, though gentle, voice. He spoke in calm, measured utterances, at a low volume that demanded total silence from the crowd. Bedford Forrest spoke with a heavy Southern accent. And contemporary historian, Ed Bearss, sounds exactly like Nixon. Is that an accent? I thought that was just Nixon. Oh well, I know he's not one of the others. Just wondering.

The soldiers of the South distinguished themselves as a superb fighting force. They came out of nowhere, popping up in cornfields or opening fire from treetops, inflicting enormous losses on the Union columns. But as Lee killed, Burnside cried, and the dwindling Union army edged inexorably forward. There was a short period where Lee ran out of bullets, which the North took advantage of to restore their badly depleted numbers under Grant. An exhausted Burnside was then sent stateside, eyes puffy, moustache drenched in sinuses. The war commenced, with Lee killing and Grant crying.

Once the Union forces were quite visibly depressed, up rose the women of the South, unleashing their fearsome glares of feminine reproach at the already demoralized Northerners. Plantation porches became as feared as land mines, as passersby were cut to ribbons, or dropped dead of shame, in the scathing path of their furious scorn. But their own president, Jefferson Davis, could have spared Georgia and South Carolina the costly ruin that came after Atlanta's fall if he'd simply surrendered when Lincoln won the U.S. election in November 1864 and the Confederacy's imminent defeat became obvious. The Southern women were out of line to punish Yankees for those losses.

On the alcoholic front, Confederates drank moonshine while the Union soldiers preferred homemade absinthe. The men made up names for their concoctions. For example, Southerners called their moonshine XXX, while the Northern men named their absinthe O Be Gleeful. It was also popular to smoke a green pipe tobacco called Don't Be Funny, while drinking, or snort lines of a fine white powder, known only as Skip to My Loo, which caused terrible insomnia. For music, both sides favoured psychedelic brass bands, especially during battle.

Grant made a memorable quote when he spoke of his solemn respect for Lee's dedication to the Southern cause, '...though it was, I believe, one of the worst causes for which people ever fought.' We now know from DNA studies that the original theories of racial purity are totally wrong. According to scientists, everyone is African. Africans went to Europe and got mixed up with the Neanderthals a little bit, apparently. Neanderthals may have been related to Morlocks, we're not sure. They were cold adapted, probably fair skinned and blonde, rather hairy, and with bright yellow eyes that glowed in the dark. Meanwhile, the Africans who traveled to Asia mingled with another tribe called the Denisovans. Denisovans were a streamlined, coastal people who were highly skilled in the water. Anyway, in this sense, Africans are the the purest humans. All it takes to show the African 97% of any modern human is one black parent. Hey, don't look at me. This is modern genetic theory. But I digress.

Only days before the final surrender of Southern forces, Lincoln was assassinated while viewing a play. The culprit was a wildly popular actor named John Wilkes Booth. Booth easily accomplished the evil deed, even taking time to stop by the bar for a drink immediately beforehand. Everyone trusted the star. How did this mentally unstable person gain such an inflated sense of his importance that he could pass judgement on the conduct of an entire country and find himself fit to punish it as a whole? Could it be from going on a stage and reciting other people's impressive words to adoring audiences all his life? Booth took himself as a hero for sneaking up behind the president in a theater and shooting him in the back with a little Derringer. When the public roared their disapproval, it truly took him by surprise. Of course, if Booth had limited his targets to artists and authors, rather than politicians, he would have got a lot farther with his efforts. Today's actors, such as those listed in my Copyright Issues page, are more careful about who they assassinate.

Blacks moved forward from slavery to segregation, which was an improvement, but still had a long way to go. And America became a stronger union, with one part of it that intensely hates the federal government. As for the name of the country, U.S. became acceptable, dropping the 'A' for America, but keeping the 'U' for United, in order to firmly supplant any further 'C's' for Confederate - or Civil, for that matter. Reviewing the Civil War offers an effective diversion from other wars and teaches one absolute lesson: slavery kills everyone. The U.S.A. learned this lesson by 1865, but Germany would still have to find out the hard way later on. And now I think I know why Eva and Adolf liked Gone with the Wind so much, because, to them, it was about poor white supremacists getting invaded by damn mongrel Yankees. But that's another war. Sorry.
  
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Saturday, April 21, 2018

The Impotence of Being Earnest

The Impotence of Being Earnest
I wanted to avoid posting a new blog today, but I needed to respond to the person who said something about being impotent. It's a further behind-the-back assault against me that proves the kind of treachery that has been holding me back from the beginning. Who would assault me now but one of the assailants who helped bring you so many hours of bogus entertainment over the last eleven years with material stolen from my online accounts? I hope you identify this person and interrogate her.

That's a nice attack on my manhood, too. I really deserve that. She must think they were big men to go on a stage and pretend they were me. I know my language gets a bit course from time to time, having to hear from such horrible people. I hope you can appreciate the stress it puts on me.

Backstabbing image violations, precisely like this one, calling me 'impotent,' are an indication of fraud with my music and/or comedy. They probably reached their peak in 2010, with the full support of lawbreaking networks and music labels. You can expect them from poetry frauds and music frauds and their wicked supporters in broadcasting. Those treacherous stinkers would stoop to any low trick. The rest of us should be on guard against them.

They use women against me a lot. Let's look at what this new attack is coming on the heels of. We could start in Christmas 2008, when a woman came to my door to try to lure me into a trumped up sex assault charge. I immediately suspected something, knowing how hated I was by women at the time - without knowing why, and closed the door in her face. She was a British brunette, very attractive. That was a response to my reconstructed Christmas post of the time - since replaced. I guess they wanted to throw me in jail for it. Then there was that song I wrote for my good looking neighbor from 2009. That night, she came to a spot below my window where she leveled constant insults. She made absolutely clear how repulsive she thought I was, but I was so used to being hated by then, I let her carry on with it until the man upstairs came out and scared her off. I was used to being hated by girls, too, like the girls who belonged to one of my passing room mates in 2009. They learned all they needed to know about me from the cool band that cruised by and swept them away in a limousine! Women and girls get a lot of information about me from bands and comedians. I can tell by when I ask them if I can use my computer and they tell me to go to my room. Or when they joke about how I found a new friend because I like playing with their seven-year-old brother. Or did they hear about me from Ellen? She's the one who calls me Dodgy Dave, right? Why would anyone need to come to me for anything about myself when there are so many others who can talk to them about me and tell them the most horrible, filthy lies they can think of?

Some women are attracted to me, too, but after an experience like that, you tend to leave your guard up. Maybe one day, I'll get over it, whenever people stop going to such irresponsible people for their information about me. Truth is brutal, but it does no good to avoid it. We must remember life's lessons as we go along. Look at my example. Forgetting that portion of my life which gave rise to my music and comedy, however helpless I was to avoid it, put me in a hole. I've been spending the last eleven years of my life climbing out of this damn hole that the TV and radio wanted to fill with a bunch of filthy fucking fraud and I'm not going to erase my account again ever. And keep track of the long line of superstars who all got more respect than me for having their lying name on a fraction of my work because that's how I arrive at the millions of dollars that I think I am owed.

And if anyone is commenting on this blog, I'll just repeat that Mike Myers sucks my cock, as well as MAD Magazine and all the stars in my Copyright Issues page. That's the business's own vulgar term for what they do, which they pummeled into my brain for many years, and I think it applies to the character of these offenders most aptly.
  
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Friday, April 20, 2018

Those Who Liked Your Song

Those Who Liked Your Song
April 21: One other thing I should ask about Mike Myers and Austin Powers, now that I recall the period of September 2007 so vividly from rewriting the last five comedy scripts here. When Myers first appeared on TV to promote Austin Powers earlier that year, I'd not yet recorded my first post of Redemption, nor had I developed the faceless, card carrying cartoon character, whose scripts provided some of the humor that ended up in the film. If I recall correctly, I'd been led to believe that Myers had been incarcerated as I produced these works, probably for other violations of my music and scripts, such as Seal of Doom, which parodies Orcastra. So, did Myers delay the release of Austin Powers until I'd inadvertently released him from incarceration by erasing my blogs in October or November? And then did he add material from my posts which had accumulated while he was in jail with all his star friends and the networks stayed quiet about it? That's what it looks like to me now. Horrible.

And, you know, I just finished reading a newspaper clipping from 1864 about slavery. It certainly looks to be full of shit now, but a lot of people believed what they read in newspapers at the time. I hope it doesn't take a hundred years for people to reach the same conclusions about the headlines of November 2007 in this instance. [End of insertion.]

I want to pick up from my last post in 2018 Song Posts. I was discussing the importance of thinking. Like everyone else, I'd rather not have to think about all this unpleasantness. In order to do that, I must think of some way that I can accept it all and move on. This is much easier for others, who can dismiss my affairs as being less important than their own, but it is impossible for me. It is impossible because I know I am innocent and that I did not deserve what happened to me. It should never have happened. But my brain still struggles to find some way to justify it so I can have peace.

Did anyone check the soundtracks on the other SNL stars' films? I'd be wondering about them now. And I think a lot of those propaganda clips from the last five shows were plagiarized by the same gang on TV again. It's taking forever to catch up with their crime.

I can't help but think of how YouTube used to tell me about people who liked my songs. They'd say, those who liked your song also favored Oasis, Nickleback, Blue Rodeo, etc. But that was when they were still my songs. So, I was wondering about those who liked Austin Powers. Did they also like Mean Girls? And they also like Blue Rodeo? And did those who liked Ellen also like Beyonce? And did those who liked the Simpsons also like the Crystalids and the Shards? And did those who liked Saturday Night Live also like MAD Magazine and MAD TV? And did those who liked George Carlin also like Nickleback (some of their songs)? And did those who watched Jon Stewart also watch Family Guy? And did those who listened to CBC AM also watch Comedy Central? And did they all make enough money? Did they make enough millions and millions of dollars with my hard work for five to ten years while they hung me with the image of a fraud?

That's what I got for thinking about it this morning. Better than average.
  
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Thursday, April 12, 2018

Nasty Networks

Nasty Networks
April 15: I think I now recall suggesting Redemption, my last YouTube music post, as being appropriate for backing credits at the end of a film. When those stars were released from incarceration in 2007, after the networks let us think they were free, did one of them help himself to this music to use for closing credits? Was he able to add more plagiarized content to this film than he'd had before he was locked up? How much money did they get you to pay to see my blogs get plagiarized, with my music playing in the background? Twenty bucks? I could have used twenty bucks. Geez, if my time is so valuable, why do they make me waste it all writing and rewriting ten years of blogs and songs? And if someone changed the sign on the Trump Towers to the Carlin Towers, would Donald Trump have to build a whole new towers from scratch before anyone believed him? Apparently he would, if the big networks were against him.

I'm not sure what you're getting to fill the gaps created by all the music and comedy I've repossessed from the TV and radio in the last nine years, but it's probably not as good. I wanted to extend my complaint about CBC here to include NBC and FOX and HBO and MTV and Comedy Central any other network that broadcasted my work without my permission since I first shared it. (They all stick together, anyway.) CBC, whose AM would broadcast recordings of my blogs being plagiarized and whose FM would feature performers like Seal stealing my music, is just the offender in closest proximity.

Of course, the more old work I recover, the more sadistic this crime looks. I'm angry with the broadcasters because they supported so much fraud with my music and comedy. It's a great pile of work, as my index, linked below, would show. That means it must have brought a great deal of pleasure to people. I know I would have appreciated it. And through all this joy, I was made to suffer far more than I did to author the work in the first place. Isn't this sadistic?

I think we're in trouble when a thing's appearance is appreciated more than its true form. It seems to be the world they want us to live in. And I'm only guessing, but I doubt that their viewers are as stupid as they want them to be over this crime with my work.

And not all stars are good stars. Bad stars are evil and should be destroyed. People who lie to children about their talent to trick women out of sex are perverts and psychopaths. And people who get thrown in jail or prison for fraud make poor role models. You may have heard otherwise from the networks and radio stations.

To see what I've been up to this year, and to track my thousands posts since 2010, you can always check my Chronoblog. (It is meant to display time, not volume of posts, which is measured by the indexes linked to the below Statements, Songs, and Scripts.) You may access the extension to this show at The Show Must Continue.
  
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Wednesday, April 11, 2018

The New Don't Steal Show: Episode XX

The New Don't Steal Show: Episode XX
This is the closing episode of this five-part series, much the same as when I first shared it - though I wrote it all from scratch, as usual. It's actually the fiftieth installment of a series that starts in my The Show Must Continue blog for thirty episodes and continues here, consisting largely of rewritten, previously lost work.

The music would be appropriate for watching a sunrise, I think, and, if I said so last time, I wonder if anyone used it as a soundtrack for a video of a sunrise on YouTube.


(A park. We share a picnic table by a pond.)

Myself: Hi, everyone. We're here in the park, with the birds and the flowers-.

Smuthers: And the transients.

Myself: (Carrying on, momentarily irritated) -in the spirit of the peace talks going on at this moment on Easter Island.

Smuthers: My, how quickly things change. Two days ago, you were ready to conscript the air cadets.

Myself: Well, why not? All our engines were down and they're the best glider pilots we've got.

Smuthers: And you were just saying, yesterday, that we should prepare the civilians for house-to-house fighting.

Myself: It was a totally different time. It looked like we were in for a long fight, but I'm glad we crippled each other's infrastructures so fast.

Smuthers: Yes, they have to get together to talk because they bombed all the phone lines.

Myself: Ah, there's nothing quite so reassuring as the calm that follows a violent and bloody storm. And our first guest is a diplomat with experience in treaty negotiations, who can give us a better picture of the process. Please welcome Madison L. Mountbanks, Esquire! (Applause. Enter Mountbanks, I lead him to Smuthers' side of the picnic table.) Good of you to come and throw some light on this topic for us.

Mountbanks: Not at all. There's not much to it, really.

Myself: What do you mean? National boundaries are being redrawn. I figure our side must have an advantage on an island named after a religious celebration.

Mountbanks: The atheists have another name for it. They call it Birthday Island.

Myself: Why do they call it that?

Mountbanks: They think the towering statues studding its landscape look like birthday candles from a distance.

Myself: Well, you won't catch me calling it that. Christmas Island, maybe, but that's as far as I'll go. I imagine the discussions must get pretty heated over such passionate issues.

Mountbanks: No, they're always dull and monotonous.

Myself: And what sort of men are the delegates? Are they like yourself, for the most part?

Mountbanks: I suppose so, just ordinary gentlemen.

Myself: Do you know any of them?

Mountbanks: I bumped into the chairman, once, while he was partridge hunting.

Myself: Oh? Where was that?

Mountbanks: The roof of the Waldorf-Astoria. (I frown.) Don't worry, we're not all like that.

Myself: I hope not. At least, you seem reasonably lucid. Why don't you tell us about the cease-fire that's been declared?

Mountbanks: The cease-fire? As far as I know, forces on both sides have agreed to cease hostilities as the talks proceed.

Myself: Does that mean the troops can come home?

Mountbanks: No, they must stay frozen right where they are.

Myself: Frozen?

Mountbanks: Absolutely.

Myself: Why?

Mountbanks: To protect them from getting jumped.

Myself: You mean, by enemy units?

Mountbanks: If they get up too close.

Myself: But wouldn't coming back here move them the opposite direction?

Mountbanks: They can't do that yet.

Myself: Why the hell not?

Mountbanks: Don't you know the rules? Because they've not yet been queened, old boy!


COMMERCIAL


Myself: Now that there's a break in the human casualties, we may stop to consider the harm inflicted on innocent wildlife by our devastating weapons. One resolute animal rights activist has been keeping a close eye on the problem. Let's hear it for Nina Petiolie! (Applause. Enter Petiolie, barefoot.) You must be very acquainted with the outdoors.

Petiolie: The sky is our connection to the cosmos. I dig your location.

Myself: Well, it's the only place in town that didn't get bombed, even though we bombed all their city parks.

Petiolie: Our bombs have gone too far this time. Whole populations have been obliterated.

Myself: But weren't a record number of people saved by early warnings and modern medicine?

Petiolie: I'm talking about the animal population. They weren't able to duck in air raid shelters like us. They bore the brunt of the blast.

Myself: (Sadly) You mean, no more chipmunks?

Petiolie: No, they were safe in the parks.

Myself: Rabbits?

Petiolie: No, they were safe in their holes. But their rodent cousins weren't so lucky. They got sucked in by the firestorms.

Myself: Who are those? The hares?

Petiolie: No the poor, helpless rats.

Myself: The rats? What's so bad about getting rid of them?

Petiolie: Whoa, hey, man, like, I'm not adjusted to that frequency. You should be concerned about the disruption to our ecosystem.

Myself: What ecosystem? It's a bunch of shopping centres. I'm not going to mourn the rats. Janie, do you want to mourn the rats?

Smuthers: I can't honestly say I'll miss them.

Myself: There. What else have you got?

Petiolie: The night raids killed the nocturnal foragers.

Myself: Aw? The raccoons?

Petiolie: No, the skunks. (I show disappointment. She tears up.) Didn't even give them time to raise their tails.

Myself: Okay, so we lost the rats and the skunks. Is that it?

Petiolie: The bats, too. They all starved to death. Horrible.

Myself: The bats?

Petiolie: Yes.

Myself: Which ones?

Petiole: (Trepidatiously) Vampire? (Silence.)

Myself: Sorry, folks. We'll be right back with our next guest after this important message. (Applause.)


COMMERCIAL: Cinder Blocks of Redemption

(By helicopter, a military crew lowers the new dome on a smashed cathedral.)

With the bombing halted, and all our men overseas, the task of reconstruction has been conscientiously taken up by atheist soldiers and engineers. Forced to improvise, they have, nonetheless, restored much of the skyline to almost its original shape. (The dome is crowned by a rooster shaped weathervane.)

(The church interior.)

Though they may be naive in their approach to some of our ornamentation... (Working from a Sesame Street colouring book, an atheist applies coloured felt crayons to a would-be stained glass window.)... their alien perspective also enables ingenious solutions. (In the bell tower, soldiers drop a bowling ball into the belly of a disassembled bomb casing, screw its tail back on, and hang it, clanging, by a rope on a pulley. Pleased with their success, they congratulate each other with handshakes.)

(A kitchen. A girl sits in front of the fridge with a soldier next to her.)

To make up for classroom time lost as we rebuild our schools, atheist pilots have even offered their services as home tutors. (Using kitchen magnets, the girl is corrected when she tries to conclude her human evolution chart with a butterfly. The pilot pulls it off and puts Mr Magoo in its place.) Careful, men, we don't want our students to know more than their teachers!

(A mass.)

With their mission accomplished, the former iconoclasts have erected a new temple where we can all belong. (Atheist soldiers flee their seats in the congregation when the priest holds up the cross with both hands.)

(A rec room. A soldier, engrossed in a video game, is tapped on the shoulder from behind by a child in pyjamas and reminded of the hour.)

You can do your part in the reconstruction by putting one up in your home. (He submissively lies down on the ping-pong table and pulls a blanket over himself.) Help them help us, and lay a cinder block of redemption today!


Myself: At a time like this, those who know the enemy language play a vital role as translators. Ladies and gentlemen, having just arrived directly from the peace talks, one such person is Elgin Frazier! (Applause. Enter Frazier.) So what's the final word? Don't hold us in suspense.

Frazier: An agreement has been reached. Peace is secured. (Wild cheers all around.) Now we must embark upon the arduous task of rebuilding, and try to get a good head start on the winter.

Myself: Did we lose anything?

Frazier: We almost lost you.

Myself: How could we do that?

Frazier: We were going to trade you for a small island chain in the Southwest Pacific. You've become quite valuable.

Myself: I have?

Frazier: Yes, and that took guts, sticking your neck out for your country like that. The enemy certainly noticed you. But don't worry, it was just an idea.

Myself: That's a relief.

Frazier: And I'm sure you don't have to worry about their warrant for your arrest as a war criminal.

Myself: For doing a show?

Frazier: They didn't like it.

Myself: Well, I certainly hope I can make it up to them. Maybe they'll like the imagery of my latest music video. Anyway, Elgin Frazier, folks! (Applause.) Placating music coming right up.


COMMERCIAL


  
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Saturday, April 7, 2018

The New Don't Steal Show: Episode XIX

The New Don't Steal Show: Episode XIX
Here's another inadvertent reconstruction of my past. Still quite well written. They can't go on forever.

(Our voices echo loudly in a torch lit cavern.)

Smuthers: So, how do you like your bombing strategy now?

Myself: Don't blame my strategy. I wanted to bomb their bombers.

Smuthers: They must have a hell of a lot of them.

Myself: Nothing we can't take on the chin, I'm sure.

Smuthers: They flattened our whole country.

Myself: Opened up the skyline nicely, though, don't you think?

Smuthers: And the ground beneath it. I suppose you're also fond of living in the stone age.

Myself: It has a certain Spartan appeal, now that you mention it.

Smuthers: What, huddling in a cave?

Myself: Think of it more as shielding yourself in the armour of the earth's crust.

Smuthers: You mean, dust.

Myself: I won't hear any more complaints about this location, okay? It offers exceptional acoustics. Now, are you finished? Can I introduce my guest? Because he's the vigilant radar operator who first spotted the enemy formation of heavy bombers which has since driven us all underground, Corporal Barry Piltdown! (Echoing boos. Enter Piltdown.) Oops, sorry! I forgot to ask them to welcome you.

Piltdown: They blame me. No one should blame me. I did all I could.

Myself: I'm sure you did. And a very important job it is. I hope they have someone covering for you while you're here.

Piltdown: Why? It doesn't matter.

Myself: What do you mean, it doesn't matter? Certainly it matters. With that post unmanned, we'd have no early warning.

Piltdown: I don't expect you to understand, captain. How did you get to be captain, anyway? Probably captain of your high school basketball team, right? (I wear a guilty expression.) Sure. Everything handed to you all your life. I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. My parents couldn't afford to lavish me with new basketballs and smart leather sneakers. And now you sit there in your captain's chair and you want to ask me why it doesn't matter?

Myself: Now, look, corporal, we don't have all day. As the C.O. of this show, I order you to answer the question.

Piltdown: Okay, then, if you're gonna pull rank, it doesn't matter because of officers. My commanding officer was a captain like yourself, sir. As soon as I sighted the enemy, I called him, long distance. He asked me how many planes there were. I told him that I couldn't tell because they formed a solid mass on my screen. He asked how long they would take to reach his position on the mainland. I estimated five minutes. He told me to keep an eye on it and he'd call me back in five minutes. (The crowd erupts in a clamour.)

Myself: (Clunking a steel hammer against my granite desk) Order! Order in the cave! (The clunks feed back into a deafening hum that forces everyone to cover their ears in pain. Voices cease under its slow decay, last words reverberating.) Please don't make me do that again.

Smuthers: What a bumbler. And I thought you were bad.

Myself: Sounds like a weak link in the chain, all right, but there's no need to slide into apathy. They haven't licked us yet. We're still free to practice the sacred rites of our ancestors.

Smuthers: In the catacombs?

Myself: Is that what I get for helping you with your history paper?

Piltdown: (After sighing heavily) We're doomed.

Myself: Doomed! How do you expect us to ever win with that attitude, soldier?

Piltdown: Only if the enemy has more officers than we do, sir.


COMMERCIAL


Myself: Since the big enemy push, we've been hearing horror stories about the brainwashing of our soldiers in captivity. One who was able to escape their clutches to tell us about it is Private Ruth Brinks. Let's give her a big hand! (Applause. Enter Brinks, in uniform, with no signs of injury.) Nice to see you up on your feet.

Brinks: Thanks. I feel great.

Myself: They said you were imprisoned in a hospital. How did you break out?

Brinks: On a stretcher.

Myself: Then you must have been eager to leave. What did those beasts do to you in there?

Brinks: They performed emergency surgery on me.

Myself: Good God! The butchers!

Brinks: No, it's all right, I needed it. Acute appendicitis.

Myself: You mean you let them cut you open? What if they put something in you?

Brinks: I doubt they'd do that. They're doctors.

Myself: You shouldn't trust them so much.

Brinks: They're really not that bad, sir.

Myself: They didn't molest you?

Brinks: Not in the slightest.

Myself: (Eyeing her with suspicion) Yes, you do appear rather pristine for a recently freed POW.

Brinks: What's that supposed to mean?

Myself: Just that you must have cooperated with them.

Brinks: I did! I laid right down on their table with my bursting appendix and let them save my life.

Myself: How do you know you didn't give away any important secrets under anesthesia?

Brinks: I'm a private, what could I tell them?

Myself: They didn't torture you when you came to?

Brinks: No, they took excellent care of me.

Myself: That will be quite enough high praise for those church bombing barbarians, private. It's as plain as day that they've turned you. Don't worry, though. You're young. You'll bounce back.

Brinks: If you don't mind me saying, sir, you don't appear to know the enemy as well as they know you.

Myself: Me?

Brinks: Yes, sir. You're a big star over there. Everyone knows your face.

Myself: (Smiling) They do?

Brinks: Yes, it's on all the target ranges.


COMMERCIAL: Underground Wonderland

(A father puts his young daughter to bed.)

Daughter: Tell me a story, daddy.

Father: Sure, kitten. Which one would you like to hear?

Daughter: The one about the bunny.

Father: Peter Cotton Candy?

Daughter: Yeah!

Father: Okay, get under your blankets and get ready. That's a good girl. (Begin animation.) Peter Cotton Candy was a funny bunny. He liked to pop out of his hole and surprise girls. They thought he was silly to live in a hole, but Pete hated the sleet. Then, one day, a buzzing cloud of girl eating locusts descended on the land. Soon, the girls all wanted holes where they could hide. One of them started digging in the field when out popped Peter. It looked like his hole was deep enough for her. To find out for sure, she stepped on it, and she started to fall and fall.

But she landed on a big, stretchy tent and it didn't hurt a bit. She looked around and couldn't believe her luck. She was in a colourful amusement park, with rides and games and music and as much free cotton candy as she could eat. Best of all, she was safe from the locusts forever. The girl was so grateful to Peter that she gave him a big kiss, and it magically changed him into a pink pony with silver butterfly wings. (A flute starts to pipe out a lullaby.) And she climbed up on his back and began the long ride to Sleepy Slumber Land. The End. (End animation. The story has put the girl to sleep. The man is about to go when her eyes open. Halt music.)

Daughter: Daddy?

Father: Yes?

Daughter: What's a cloud?

Father: (Patting her head) Nothing you need to worry about, kitten. Kiss goodnight? (Resume lullaby. He stoops to gently peck her forehead. The child smiles contentedly and closes her eyes. He turns from her, and steps into a large, empty bucket, which is suspended by a rope. Looking up, he signals with two sharp tugs, and is reeled up, out of sight.)

Announcer: Underground is safe and sound. Drop into an air raid shelter near you. (Conclude music.)


Myself: He's the hospitable donor of our quaint subterranean redoubt, no less a personage than the Canadian Count of Monte Python! (Enter a distinguished looking man in his fifties, sporting a black tuxedo under his long, black, flowing cloak.) You've done a great service to your country, your grace.

Python: (Transylvanian accent) I am only too glad to help. There is still plenty of room in my cave for newcomers, especially if they are as exquisite as the lieutenant here. (Smuthers blushes with pleasure.)

Myself: Your heart knows no bounds. Tell me, how did you come to be named after a snake?

Python: From our property. Monte Python is the original family island estate, off the coast of French Guyana.

Myself: Oh, does it have a lot of pythons?

Python: Yes, I'm afraid people are bitten there all the time. (He smiles, exposing sharp fangs.)

Myself: That's funny, I thought pythons were constrictors, non venomous. Anyway, I've often wondered what it takes to be christened a Canadian count.

Python: In my case, I imagine it was my considerable holdings.

Myself: In which institutions, if you don't mind my asking?

Python: The Federal Blood Bank, mostly. Pardon me, it's time to wind my watch. (He pulls out an old fashioned gold watch on a chain and dangles it in front of Smuthers.) Do you like it? It's antique.

Smuthers: (Her face goes blank.) It's very... shiny.

Myself: Well, the Blood Bank's certainly a valuable institution, especially during a war. It was truly noble of you to collect and share such a vital resource.

Smuthers: (Entranced and listless) I, too, am impressed by your generosity.

Python: (Eying her exposed neck) Don't be, darling. It always pays me back, every full moon.

Myself: Well, if anyone deserves it, it's a nice count like you. Let's have another big hand for the selfless and compassionate Canadian Count of Monte Python, for teaching us the true meaning of class. (Echoing cheers.) And we'll be right back after the break with a primitive chant and some ceremonial wall painting.


COMMERCIAL


  
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© 2007, 2018. Scripts and music by David Skerkowski. All rights reserved.

Friday, April 6, 2018

Corrupt, Evasive, Guilty

Corrupt, Evasive, Guilty
April 9, 4:37pm: I'm taking time off from scripting to put together some music, a kind of classical metal composition. It's sounds familiar, but it could be because I've had it in my mind for a long while now. I'll add it to (New) Episode XX. It should fit well, good marching rhythm. But I wanted to post this note on top here to ask CBC the name of that comedian who was acting out my Underground Wonderland sketch, from the above Episode XIX here. He left out some of the joke by removing it from its source, the purpose of the ad: the government's trying to make people accept living underground because the country's been bombed. In his hands, it's just a meaningless, silly gag. What a rotten thing to do to my work. And did CBC support this crime? And is that the one who has a brother? What's his name? CBC knows their names and I don't. But CBC knew my name, too. I don't see how it helps me when they always want to help people like that. And shouldn't I at least know their names, if only for my own protection? But I find CBC very evasive on these questions.

I know it's unusual to post a statement in one of these show blogs, but I needed to talk for real about something while I work on the next script. I vaguely recall producing something similar to the last two now, though I wrote them from scratch. I worked hard on them. And they appear to have been grabbed along with my other old works now. When it comes to my hard work, I get absolutely no respect from these broadcasters.

I invented the war scenario as a way to parody these old propaganda clips I've been viewing. I must have got the same idea when I first shared the show. I hope my next script turns out more original.

Broadcasters like CBC should hardly be boasting on billboards after what they did to me. How do you like a government supported broadcaster that sells out the country's talent to big U.S. broadcasters for their its own exclusive profit? How do you like the way they stick their heads in the sand to avoid the accusations of their victim? They're some of the most treacherous cowards on earth. They'd destroy us all to save themselves. And what do they call themselves now? Why do we tolerate boasting like that, especially from CBC? Do they use a mind-ray on us to hypnotize us? Here are three words I associate with CBC: corrupt, evasive, guilty.

They think I should spend my whole life laboring to write good material, so they can give it to their stupid friends to lie to us all with, to make us think that Nickleback is intelligent and Jay Leno is funny. Then they want everyone to think I'm a bum. But that wasn't even enough in 2010, when their fraud band tried to throw me in jail for sharing my own song. They do all that to me and then they turn around to you and boast about how professional they are. You can't blame me for getting upset.

As for my music, I never forced it on anyone. People came to me because they wanted to hear it. If it stood out on the radio as hits, maybe that's why. Maybe people got as tired of old classics or dumb, aimless guitar solos as I am.
  
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© 2018. Statements by David Skerkowski. All rights reserved.