ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
• CHOCOLATE SAINT PAUL: "Let me try to elucidate what Chocolate Jesus is really
saying here"...............................................................................................
.......pg 11
• YOU DECIDE: Has Katie Couric Already Passed ‘Peak-Perky’? Take THE POLL......pg 13
• Got a Clearer View of the Stars in the Night Sky? Thank KEITH RICHARDS:
"I snorted the Oort Cloud"................................................................................pg 17
• The Democratic Primary Candidates: Which One is Least Evil for America? .........pg 23
• Do the Poor Have Too Much Free Time?.................................................................pg 31
Last week I published some selected excerpts from the long-awaited Premiere Issue of my periodical, American Weekend.
The featured article is an Exclusive Interview with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, published here in full:
WASHINGTON D.C., March 29th -- There’s still a faint taste of Winter chill hanging in the air, but the hopefulness of Spring is signaled by the suddenly abundant burstings of cherry blossoms. The nation’s capitol is dappled with color, and awash with fragrance.
I stroll along the mall, taking in the sights and sounds, breathing in the life of this shining city. In one hour’s time I would be sitting down to an interview with the Attorney General of the United States of America, Alberto Gonzales.
After getting my security clearance, I wait no more than ten minutes in the lobby of the Attorney General’s fifth-floor office at the Department of Justice. As it happens, Mr. Gonzales himself returns from a quick jaunt to a local Indian restaurant, packages of take-away tandoori under his arm and a convivial expression when he greets me:
"American Weekend?" he asks.
"That’s right, sir", I reply.
I’m faintly embarrassed for him as he bobbles the packages in his effort to shake my hand. But we both laugh, and I’m grateful that it’s broken the tension.
I follow him down the hall to his office, and he emits a satisfied grunt as he shoulders the office-door open.
Along the way, I thank him profusely for the opportunity for our sit-down, which he waves off with spritely good humor. I realize I need to reconfigure my assumptions of how this interview will transpire; I’m frankly quite surprised at his apparently carefree demeanor. He had to have been pulverizingly aware that at the very moment of our appointment, one of his deputy staff, Mr. Kyle Sampson, was giving testimony to the United States Senate on the mysterious firings of eight U.S. State Prosecutors.
The Attorney General pushes papers and briefs out of the way to make room for our shared lunch.
"I know it’s not the Four Seasons", he admits with a modest working-man’s grin. "The boys in the West Wing keep me busy 25/8, if you know what I mean... I’m afraid that, more often than not, I find myself dining ‘al desko’."
The Attorney General's office is just as one might expect: it smells of leather-bound judicial tomes, it reeks of hard work. I casually glance around, and with an unabashed glint of pride Mr. Gonzales shows me his examples of origami that he makes from the Bill of Rights: a swan, a lotus, a pinwheel. One of them simply looks like a crumpled-up piece of paper, which he insists is G. Gordon Liddy, and when I can’t quite see the resemblance, I catch a hint of what would be brief flashes of testiness amidst his otherwise congenial timbre:
"Fine, I believe you’re here for an interview. I’m a busy guy if you haven’t noticed."
I try to smooth out the tension by helping him un-pack the Tiger Prawn Vindaloo.
"Smells scrumptious, doesn't it?" he coos, and I sense that I've recovered my footing with the nation's top cop.
I realize, being in such close proximity, that the AG has a charm that's infectious; I'm not smitten yet, but I want to be. He's got that trademark boyish half-smirk, all a-quiver on his upper lip, with which he keeps the world guessing, Mona Lisa-like, if it's because he's just about to burst into tears and confess that he’s aiding and abetting the mass-murder of many thousands of innocent people, or if he just thought of an ingenious new way to comb his wilting pompadour.
The AG laughs it off when his secretary brings in the third gift-package of the day. He bobs his head, half-pretending to enjoy the attention as he un-wraps it, but the redolence of defeat has already started to waft from his body like sushi that was supposed to have been discarded and fed to raccoons, like, last week.
He reads the accompanying card out loud: "The fish rots from the gills down, Fredo!" he exclaims with a chuckle that seems labored. "Those kidders!" he shouts. He presses the box to his head before opening it, squinting his eyes, affecting a playfulness that appears overly rehearsed. "Let me guess -– a guillotine!"
I’m doubly surprised, not just that the AG has uncannily described the contents of the gift -– a plastic model guillotine, complete with working "blade" -- but that he would get such a curious delivery in the first place.
"No, no, no," his secretary explains to me; "These are coming in at a rate of about ten per hour since three weeks ago. Guillotines, toy hatchets, a fake 'scalp', a Marie Antoinette costume -– me, I gave him an axe with a big pink bow on it."
After the AG and I get settled into our seats again, he tries to convey the situation at hand:
"See, this is just the way this town works. You’ve got to be tough here. ‘We don’t abide sissies’, as it says in the Declaration of Independence. You don’t realize that these very people who are tugging my chain by sending me these gag gifts are the ones who are going to really pull through for me when the Dems try to put my head on the chopping block."
"Are you sure about that?"
The Attorney General of the United States gets a bit of lint caught in his eye, and tries to blink it out. As luck would have it, two burly deliverymen are shown to his office door; they’re carrying a cut-off tree stump. On its surface is spray-painted the words: "Place head here".
....Later, when I once again gently press the issue about the Senate Inquiry, Mr. Gonzales glances at his watch, murmuring, "Yeah, that is today, isn’t it?"
I’m intrigued by the possibility of catching a few minutes of the televised hearings with the United States Attorney General himself.
I’m elated as he pulls out a portable black-and-white TV from a closet, and sets it up next to our modest feast of Sag Aloo and Papadum. The horizontal hold is slightly off, but we’re able to tune in the C-Span coverage of the hearings.
I try to rattle through my questions while keeping an eye on the proceedings. "I’ve never seen this before in a Senate hearing", I offer. Mr. Gonzales shrugs, only making fleeting glances in the direction of the TV, while ingesting his Beans Bhajee with what strikes me as unnecessarily emphatic stabs with his spork.
I’m surprised at the line of questioning by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who, in a live congressional hearing, is setting out groceries in a row. The deputy Justice Official, Kyle Sampson, has a sheen of sweat on his face that appears as a shock of ‘white noise’ on the old b-&-w television.
Sen. Whitehouse: "Have you memorized the eight items on this grocery list, Mr. Sampson?"
I notice now that Mr. Sampson has his eyes clamped shut.
Sampson: "I need more time, I need more time -- I can’t just keep all these things in my head -– I can’t..."
Sen. Whitehouse (rising forcefulness): "Have you properly aggregated the information, Mr. Sampson?"
Sampson (expression contorted, soaked in perspiration): "I can’t do it! When the wife makes me do the grocery-shopping I need a list! Please, please let me say that my lower left pants-pocket is a "drop" file, and let me make a list -– show some humanity!"
Sen. Whitehouse finally explodes. He thrusts all the grocery items into a brown bag, and bellows at the quaking Justice Deputy: "Recite the items, Mr. Sampson!"
It's impossible to determine if the rolls of water squeezing from the creases around Mr. Sampson's fiercely clamped eyes are continuously breaking waves of sweat, or if the man has officially burst into tears:
"I don’t recall, I -– I just remember milk and eggs -– after that it goes blurry -– wait, there was a lambchop -– and, and some diapers -– right? I see diapers -- Please let me go home!"
The Attorney General and I watch, aghast at this spectacle. The full-body sweat-lubrication of Mr. Sampson causes reflected bursts of bright white light from the old TV as the man literally writhes in his chair. This torment seems to go on for solid minutes. The AG and I cheer him on when he manages to remember a full seven of the eight items. The suspense becomes truly unbearable; the AG and I finally start chanting "Broccoli!" at the television to gain a reprieve from the harrowing tension.
But the nervous energy goes through the roof when Senator Whitehouse insists that he will now have Mr. Sampson aggregate not eight, but ninety-three, grocery items in a live Senate hearing. Congress erupts. Gavels are pounding to no avail. In the mayhem, an observant C-Span cameraman zooms in on a distraught Senator Orrin Hatch, following him onto the floor.... The Republican Senator from Utah begins wailing above the din:
"I resent any man that would dare force this poor little lamb of innocence into the extreme stress-position of having to recall these Democratic grocery lists! Why do they hate America?! Why?! Why?!"
In a valiant yet ultimately fruitless attempt to assuage the bawling Mr. Sampson, Senator Hatch crawls under the witness table and begins sucking on Mr. Sampson’s penis. Senator Whitehouse will have none of it. He booms:
"The question stands, Mr. Sampson! Do you recall when you became aware of the need to throw all these perfectly good groceries into a dumpster?!? Answer the question, Mr. Sampson, ANSWER IT! Was the goat-cheese ever even informed that it was not ‘tough enough’ on immigration?!?!"
IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Kyle Sampson
Kyle Sampson, in his appearance before the
United States Senate on March 29th, 2007
Kyle Sampson, in younger, happier days, newly enrolled in the College Republicans during his freshman year at Jesus Lord of Greed University.
Mr. Sampson as he appeard during his short-lived stint in the quasi-Reality TV Show "Survival of the Rat-Fuckers", a mad-cap look behind the scenes at the Halls of Justice in our Nation's Capitol
Kyle Sampson, in a photo dated approximately ten years in the future
Alberto Gonzales On Why the Republicans Feel This Scandal is a Non-Starter :
I’m told by the Attorney General that the hearings don’t matter, that no one is watching the unraveling of the United States government other than a handful of leftist bloggers in their crusty boxer-shorts and maybe Charles Manson.
"It’s interesting -- lots of guys in prison become experts on the nitty-gritty; it’s either that or go to the back of the cafeteria to get Abu Ghraib-ed with a broomstick. So a lot of them choose the former."
On Surviving :
I ask the Attorney General how he keeps his stately aplomb while the heartless sharks of the political world smell blood in the water; I’m craving some insight into what it feels like to be a living chunk of raw hemorrhaging chum. Were there any occasions where the Attorney General felt he might lose his cool under this excruciating pressure?
Mr. Gonzales confides that he was indeed involved in a minor dust-up:
"....I attended a recent meeting in McLean with some of the key members from Project for a New American Century. It was one of those dreadfully boring cocktail get-togethers, where they endlessly pontificate on the merits of Straussian philosophy and eat lightly sautéed brains from the sawed-off skulls of infants.
"Long story short, I’m in the Kristols’ pantry, looking for paper towels to clean up a spill -- yes, yes, I know all about James Baker being the greatest consiglieri in the History of American poltics, but the man is, like, 120 years old and freakin' incontinent -- so I'm down on my knees looking for some old rags, or a mop, whatever, and out of nowhere Douglas Feith calls me a 'garden-gnome with a man-tan'. I mean, think about that. Do you know what it’s like to have your manliness called into question by the likes of Doug Feith? Hay-soos Christ..."
"Did you call him on it?"
"Damn straight. I asked him if he wanted another glass of chardonnay."
I gave this some thought. "How is that calling him out...?"
"I’d been pouring Riesling for the man all night. Put two and two together. He felt the sting, I’m sure he did."
Combing through my pre-interview notes, I recall Mr. Gonzales' Official Bio posted on the United States Department of Justice website:
FULL NAME: Alberto Torturamos Gonzales
"NICKNAMES": Gonzo, Fredo, Speedy, Lil' Bert, Abu Gonzales, Sharkbait
SS CODE-NAME: VO-5
FATHER: Richie Valens
MOTHER: Eartha Kitt
FAMILY HISTORY, in Mr. Gonzales' own words:
".....As with all minority families in America, music was very big in our home. In fact, it was a requirement, at least at that time, to show on one’s papers at the border; if one was from South America, one must play the timbales; if you’re from Hawaii, one must know the ukelele, and so on. This was an Anglo-American’s best means of differentiating immigrants, providing guidelines for properly placing one’s slurs. Well, needless to say, I was singing even before I could speak.
"Believe it or not, Eisenhower had personally written a letter to my father in 1959, and said ‘I like your music, and I like how you have uplifted America’s Spanish community by emigrating to this great land of ours, and singing songs in your native Peruvian tongue.’ It’s true. Apparently Ike was a big fan of ‘La Bamba’, and had his best translators ‘crack the code’, so-to-speak. As we all know, bamba is the ancient Latin word for bomb, and Ike felt that the song was an implicit message begging the United States to kill Castro with an exploding cigar. In the letter he goes on to say:
‘I understand that Soy Capitan translates from your native Uruguayan tongue as "Captain Tofu", and I respect that kind of flavorful confluence of militarism and bean-products.....’ Now, admittedly, he wasn’t precisely correct on the linguistics, but his heart was always in the right place.
"He then gave my father a cryptic warning: 'Don’t fly in small planes. Especially with Buddy Holly, or, God forbid, the Big Bopper...’ The rest, of course, is history...... a warning that went unheeded."
Now at our sit-down, I ask the nation’s top legal eagle about his own formative years, and how it set the mold for the man he is today. Without much prompting, he waxes nostalgic:
"...My first big splash, as everyone in America now knows, was as a child pop-star in Menudo. They felt Alberto was too ethnic-sounding, which, even as a kid I thought was curious, since the whole point was that we were aimed at under-represented Hispanics. Nevertheless I was called 'Little Bert' in the high-flying days of boy-band glory. I got way more fan-mail than Big Bert or Medium Bert, so whatever you’ve read in their tell-alls is straight-up crapolla. By the way, ‘crapolla’ is Portuguese for ‘Scalia’.
"...Of course that was all just a flash in the pan, but they were already grooming me for mainstream sitcoms. Of all the 46 kids who sang in Menudo, I was the only one who was chosen by our white male overlords to be ‘Timberlaked’ into a second career; see, during the mid-1800’s there had been a TV show called the Bowery Boys; they wanted to update it, so I was to be one of the lovable young toughs in ‘The Barrio Boys’; I was going to play the ‘Snatch’ character, but they modernized it as ‘Snatchollo’.
"No, that never came to pass..." The Attorney General looks out the window wistfully. "I still have the head-shots."
The Attorney General seems to snap out of his reverie:
"But look, at this point I was old enough to legally drink malt liquor. A man’s got to work, he’s got to put food on his family. So, sometimes you need to re-evaluate your standards. If it means giving up your dreams of being the cloyingly saccharine token Hispanic tweener in a brainless warmed-over sitcom, then hey, you jump on it when some Patrician Mafiosos come to you and say ‘we want you to be our sacrificial goat in the destruction of the American Constitution, and the official poster-boy for torture and mass-murder in the name of Big Oil -– sign here’."
On The Future:
It's time to wrap up my sit-down with the Justice Czar, so I try to shift gears by taking this all out of the realm of the personal, and get his take on how this will play with Americans in the next election cycle.
"You’ve got to admit," I tentatively chide the AG, "this isn’t looking too good..."
As I speak, Little Bert and I both notice the proceedings on the TV: Kyle Sampson is now spitted on a gigantic rotisserie, naked except for his boxer-shorts that are festooned with frolicking baby elephants. He’s being basted liberally with honey-glaze, and the apple is already in his mouth. Utter chaos swirls all 'round the hapless Mr. Sampson, whose pasty, coagulated flesh on the slow-cookin' rotisserie makes him resemble a gigantic worm turning.
Amidst the pandemonium, Senator Charles Schumer has now taken up the refrain, barking commands at Mr. Sampson to divulge the identity of the mastermind who has ordered the concocting of a grocery list that is not a list:
"Do you hate goat-cheese, Mr. Sampson?!" the Senator booms. "Do you!?! Because we believe this was all a ploy to take attention off the cheese, isn't that right, Mr. Sampson?! You come here claiming that every single goddamn grocery item had gone bad -- even the canned beans -- but it was all to take our eye off the goat-cheese, now wasn't it, Mr. Sampson!?! Wasn't it! You should be ashamed, wasting all this perfectly good food just because, as you claim, a few selected cheeses have purpled with mold -- Who ordered the hit, Mr. Sampson!?! Do you know that my office has evidence that White House staffers are devouring blackberries as we speak -- are these on a different list, Mr. Sampson!?! HOW HIGH DOES THIS GO!?!"
Kyle Sampson squawks incoherently; sweat squirts from the pores in his eyeballs. He seems to mentally rove around the chambers in his own private delerium.
As if this were not enough, The AG's secretary hands him a stuffed voodoo doll with a dozen or so knives in its back; third one today. I hear an almost imperceptible sigh emitted from Mr. Gonzales' quivering smirk-hole as he lifelessly switches off the TV.
"Bottom-line..." he says to me with a weary exhalation. "You want a scoop, well here it is."
I get my pen at the ready as the Attorney General divulges something that’s shockingly candid:
"....I’d slipped away for a moment during a presser that the Boss was conducting in the Rose Garden. ‘When nature calls’, that sort of thing. I’m totally startled when I ease my way into some shrubbery out of camera-view, and right there in the foliage is none other than the Veep himself. Evidently, this is his ‘office’ when dealing with highly sensitive issues."
"I figure, this is a nice casual moment to talk turkey with the man who runs the show. So, as I’m urinating, I ask the Vice President straight-away how much time he honestly thinks I can survive this ordeal. ‘Are we talking days, or weeks, or...?’ I remember saying to him. The Veep slaps me on the back and says ‘I’m thinking of a number, let’s say four-hundred’.
"This reassures me; I said ‘Really? You think I’ve still got four hundred days; that’s almost a full year’ and then he sort of cackles, and pats me on the head. He tells me: ‘Days? Ha! We’re talking breaths, homeboy, breaths!’ Even in the face of a political firestorm, the man has a wonderfully wry sense of humor; I admire that.
But I’m desperate for a serious answer, you know? Was the big guy talking pre-emptive pardons, like his Poppy did for Cap Weinberger, or maybe a Medal of Freedom.... I was feeling vulnerable, I mean, sweet chocoalte Jesus, I needed for them to just throw me a bone. So I press him again, and he suddenly grabs me by the collar, doing that classic snarl, and he flies into this venomous attack:
‘You’re the cork in the dyke, got that, hombre? You just twist in the wind like the half-beaten caramel-colored piñata that you are! We need to run out the clock whatever way we can, so quit your belly-aching, you little shit-brown swamp-toad! You're quaint, you're obsolete -- Can you fucking understand that!?! You’re nothing to us, nada! And don’t you ever urinate in my office again, you Chihuahua, you little Shetland Erik Estrada!’
He pushed me to the ground and storms off, and I could still smell the fumes blasting from his mechanical heart-pump -– it’s like petroleum mixed with hate...."
The AG seems to be re-living the trauma as he recounts it to me, trembling. I feel compassion welling up inside me.
"It was like torture..." he confides.
I nod sympathetically.
"But that’s when I knew everything would be alright." I look up from my pen that scurries across my notepad, confused.
The AG spells it out for me:
"If he’s able to be so light-hearted in the midst of this whole crisis, then I know we’ll weather the storm. This was Dick Cheney’s way of saying: ‘I’m going to take care of you’, just like he has been taking care of America. The man is unflappable."
: )
IN NEXT WEEK’S EDITION:
Nancy Pelosi Defies President Bush by Visiting the Ladies’ Room
Special Guest Contributing Writer David Broder: "....What was she doing in there? What is she trying to prove? Where might we expect her to go next -– late 1930’s Germany? Another hot-button foreign country like the South Bronx? And this nonsense from the liberal media that GOP congresswomen have also used the Ladies’ Room is a smokescreen, as the President has already given them his blessing to urinate and defecate on an as-needed basis. In the President’s own words: ‘You can shit wherever the fuck you want, so long’s you stick a miniature flag in it when you’re done’.
Where’s Ms. Pelosi’s flag?"
Remember:
Don't Just Have A Good Weekend.
Have Yourself An American Weekend.