Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To

Tag: jenkins (Page 2 of 9)

NYC’s Got The Biggest Ball Of Them All

“Jenkins!”

“Yes, sir?”

“I had a ball-related notion.”

“I’m not falling for that again, sir.”

“Non-testicular! I’m talking about New Year’s.”

“Ah, yes. The famous New Year’s ball-drop in Times Square, of which we are in charge for some reason.”

“You present a premise like no other, Jenkins.”

“Thank you, sir. What about the ball?”

“Let’s get rid of it.”

“People are expecting it, sir.”

“People expect happiness, too. People are dumb. Let’s ditch the ball and go for pizzazz.”

“Like what, sir?”

“What if, at the stroke of midnight, we gave the crowd herpes?”

“How would that even work?”

“Drones.”

“We shouldn’t give anyone herpes, sir.”

“How about we chuck frisbees at people’s heads?”

“No, sir.”

“The heavy ones hippies use to play frolf with. We could break some tourists’ noses, Jenkins.”

“Why would we want to do that, sir?”

“Everybody hates a tourist.”

“Sir, I don’t think that will work.”

“I’ve got it! We burn Steve Harvey in a wicker man.”

“Oh, God, no. Like, 25 teevee shows would need a new host.”

“The man is all over the dial, Jenkins!”

“And, besides, I think his suits are at least flame-retardant, if not outright fireproof.”

“Forget Steve Harvey. Let me ask you a question about Dick Clark.”

“Is the question about digging him up?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No, the question assumes that we’ve already dug him up.”

“We’re not exhuming Dick Clark for any reason, sir.”

“Well, who can we exhume?”

“No one!”

“Goddamned Democrats.”

“Sir, let’s just stick with dropping the ball. It’s been going on since 1907, which qualifies as ancient in America. It’s a static comfort in a time of change and confusion. The music evolves, and the hosts retire or die off, but the ball drops. Everybody counts down and just for the length of the drop you might be someone different next year. Someone better. The ball is hope, sir. We need the ball.”

“You said ‘ball.'”

“Weren’t listening to any of that, were you?”

“Not a scootch! I have a new plan, but it depends on what the plural of mongoose is.”

“Whatever it is, you cannot release them into the crowd.”

“No, no. Not ‘release.’ I shall shower the crowd with mongeese.”

“Mongooses?”

“Neither sounds right. What about monsgoose? Like attorneys general.”

“It’s all beside the point, sir. We cannot rain foreign weasels onto Times Square.”

“Democrats!”

“I think that may be a bipartisan law, sir. The ball is all we need.”

“Hmmph. I don’t suppose we could take it off the pole and fling it down onto Broadway?”

“No, sir.”

“Mourn for me, Jenkins. I am a showman with no theater in which to display my spectacle.”

“Okay.”

Ruble The Robot

“You look very robotic, Russian Jenkins.”

“No one’s going to buy it, sir.”

“Bosh. I thought that it was your head on top of an artificial body for a second. Like in The Fly. I thought maybe there had been an accident with the teleportation devices.”

“We don’t have any teleportation devices, sir.”

“Of course we do. Invented them the same week as the robot.”

“We haven’t invented a robot, either, sir. You had R&D–”

“Rudyevski and Dave.”

“–3D print a janky War Machine costume, got me drunk, and stuffed me into it.”

“I had to get you drunk, Jenkins. To alleviate the pain of being Russian.”

“Literally nothing goes right for us.”

“Since Prince Oleg himself. Anyway, let’s see your dance.”

“My what, sir?”

“Your dance. I believe it is eponymous.”

“I don’t want to do the robot, sir.”

“I’ll beatbox. Do I start with the wikki-wikki noise or the heavy breathing? Oh, for fooey’s fortune, I’m just going to let loose and go with it. Get out on the dance floor, Jenkins! I’m beginning with wikki!”

“Sir.”

“WIKKI WIKKI.”

“Sir.”

“Whoopity Scoop. Jenkins, you can’t cause a commotion if your booty ain’t in motion. Get to stepping, son.”

“I can barely move in this ridiculous outfit, let alone dance, and I keep receiving small but horrible shocks on my testicles.”

“It’s a robot, Jenkins. Bound to be some electrical problems at first.”

“It’s a suit, sir. There shouldn’t be any electricity involved. They installed the power source and arranged the wiring specifically to zap my goolies.”

“Those scamps.”

“No one’s going to buy it!”

“Not if you don’t sell the performance. Acting, Jenkins! That’s what we need. It reminds me of the story once told about the great Sir Laurence Olivier and the slightly-less great Dustin Hoffman. They were filming Marathon Man, which is a lie of a title. Not a numbered bib in sight.”

“Yes, sir.”

“They are shooting a scene in which Hoffman’s character was supposed to have been awake for 24 hours. And so the actor did. On the set the next morning before the cameras rolled, Olivier noted Hoffman’s haggard appearance. Upon being informed of the reason, Olivier leaned close to Hoffman, and grabbed his crotch, and said, ‘That’s prime Jewish cockmeat.'”

“I don’t quite take the moral of the story sir.”

“The Jew is a decadent parasite.”

“Sure, sure.”

“Jenkins, listen, this is an easy gig. We’re going out there, you’ll schmooze, and we’ll sell a million units to the Russian Army. Ooh, could you do an ED209? That would play really well over here.”

“How would I do that? I have no weapons. I can’t even see with the helmet on.”

“Rudyevski and Dave have an upgrade for that.”

“Which is?”

“They’re gonna cut holes.”

“I formally protest, sir.”

“Yeah, how well does protesting usually go in Russia?”

“Hand me the helmet.”

“For the Motherland, Jenkins.”

 

 

 

I don’t make this shit up.

A Command Decision

FORT WINFIELD SCOTT, SAN FRANCISCO – 1960 

“Jenkins!”

“Yes, General?”

“Have the homosexuals entered city politics yet?”

“Not for another 20 years, sir.”

“Good, good. I have a second item.”

“I shiver in anticipation, sir.”

“What the hell is that thing?”

“That soldier there?”

“The lumpy one with the giant beard.”

“Ah, yes. Sir, that is Private Garcia.”

“He looks like something an ugly cat coughed up.”

“He is not fulfilling the uniform standard, sir.”

“He’s not fulfilling any standard! I think he’s wearing tennis shoes.”

“That does appear to be the case.”

“Did we run out of boots, Jenkins?”

“No, sir. We’re the Army. We have boots.”

“So he was issued the proper footwear?”

“He was, sir, yes.”

“And?”

“Lost the first pair. Used Wite-Out to draw the Dead Kennedys logo all over the second pair.”

“It is a bitching logo, Jenkins.”

“Credit where credit is due, sir.

“Third pair?”

“Traded for beans.”

“Magic beans?”

“Just beans.”

“Ah.”

“I gave him the fourth pair personally. I set them on the table, and he said ‘That’s great, man,’ and wandered out of the room. And now we’ve caught up to the present.”

“Jenkins?”

“Sir?”

“Is he smoking?”

“It appears so, sir.”

“WHILE HE’S ON GUARD DUTY?”

“It is an almost impressive act of insubordination, sir.”

“How can you smoke while you’re on guard duty? No soldier in the history of soldiering has been allowed to smoke while he guarded. That’s not even a rule; it’s just assumed. My God, is he leaning against a wall!? He may as well be reading the racing form.”

“I don’t think he’s a gambler, sir.”

“He’s a turd in the dryer, that’s what he is. You know what a turd in the dryer does, Jenkins?”

“No, sir.”

“The shit gets everywhere. That private is not Army material. I don’t even think he’s Air Force material, and they have Casual Fridays over there. Something must be done. What about 60 lashes to the mast?”

“We’re the Army, sir. We don’t have anything with a mast on it.”

“Then we’ll tie him to a jeep and beat him. I don’t care about the specifics, Jenkins.”

“Corporal punishment has been forbidden by regulation for a hundred years, sir.”

“What about Corporal Punishment?”

“He transferred to Fort Dix.”

“Good fit. Dix will love Corporal Punishment. Oh, for God’s sake, he just laid down. Bring me a pistol.”

“No, sir.”

“Fine, a rifle.”

“We can’t shoot Private Garcia, sir.”

“Why is he even here?”

“He stole a car and the judge gave him the option of joining up.”

“Goddammit, the past is stupid.”

“Should not be available to jurists as a sentence, no. Completely amateur-hour.”

“Have we made any progress on recreating the Super-Soldier formula?”

“We have, sir, but it just amplifies the subject’s natural tendencies.”

“His beard would be enormous.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fire cleanses all.”

“Or, sir, we could just discharge him.”

“Oh, fine. But before he goes, make him shave. Just to annoy him.”

“Private Garcia shaves every morning, sir. Full beard by lunch.”

“Get rid of the mutant, Jenkins.”

“Yes, sir.”

Attention, Shoppers: The Mall Will Be Closing In Fifteen Minutes

“Jenkins!”

“Yes, sir?”

“How’s the day’s take from our fish, chip, and Royal Family merchandise shop located here in the world’s most lucrative mall?”

“Good, sir. And you really do set up a premise wonderfully.”

“I get that from my mother. I get different things from your mother, Jenkins.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Mouth things. The woman’s got the salivary glands of six St. Bernards.”

“Was there anything else , sir?”

“Yes! We’re leaving the mall.”

“What? Why? And how?”

“Exiting the mall, Jenkins! Or as I call it–”

“Mexit.”

“–Mexit! Don’t get ahead of me.”

“This is a terrible idea, sir.”

“Pish-tosh! Pish-tosh and pete-tosh! Your jaw just jabbers, boy. Wonderful concept, Mexit. We strike out on our own. All of these ninnywhompers in here have just been holding us back. The haute couture place, the furniture place, the spaghetti-and-supercar place: all crab-like and envious of our glory.”

“They’re valuable business associates, sir.”

“Have you seen the food court lately? The tapas bar is a nightmare. I’m not even going to mention the gyro joint.”

“Gus and Taki at Holding Out For A Gyro are going through some tough times, yes, but they’ll bounce back. They’ve been there forever.”

“Cut them loose, Jenkins! They’re barnacles on our hull. And you know the Greeks. They’ll eat barnacles.”

“Please don’t be racist, sir.”

“They’ll eat anything that washes onto shore, the Greeks. And boy assholes. By the truckload, they’ll eat boy assholes, Jenkins.”

“I said ‘please,’ sir.”

“Mind is made up! I won’t abide by these rules made from God-knows-where.”

“The mall’s office, probably.”

“Do this, don’t do that, shan’t pull it out at Wetzel’s Pretzels. I shall, dammit. I shall pull it out at Wetzel’s Pretzels. And then I shall use the butter-flavored topping for purposes.”

“Purposes, sir?”

“Dark purposes, Jenkins. Dark and funky purposes.”

“Sir, a Mexit would be a terrible idea. A great deal of our business depends on the access to the walk-by traffic that only clustering a whole lot of shops together in one place can provide. Plus the parking and the security and the maintenance to the physical structure of the building are all cheaper when shared among a group.”

“Oh, we’re keeping all that.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m negotiating with the other owners now. I plan on maintaining access to the lot and security guards and everything else. While still leaving the mall and not paying them any more.”

“How are the negotiations going?”

“Terribly! My demands were met with universal laughter. Even the place that sells chocolate and watches, and they don’t have any discernible sense of humor.”

“I have to say I understand their position, sir. Why are we even doing this?”

“Because I am the captain of my fate. I am the something of my soul.”

“Master.”

“‘Sir’ is fine, Jenkins. Let’s not get all psychosexual about our relationship.”

“But what is the benefit to leaving the mall, sir?”

“We shall stand alone! And, then, through a series of cunning maneuvers–”

“Oh, God.”

“–we’ll get the franchises back.”

“We’re never getting the franchises back, sir. That’s over. It’s just us now.”

“Everyone loves a comeback, Jenkins. Like Rocky. Rocky made a million comebacks.”

“Sir–”

“He just came back again. And he’s black now.”

“Sir–”

“That’s a strong comeback. That’s a comeblack.”

“We will not make a comeback, sir. We’re not quite the business we used to be, and it’s to our advantage to remain in the very wealthy consortium we’ve been a part of for so many years now. Do you remember what it was like before we joined the mall?”

“That terrifying woman was manager and you had a mohawk. It was dreadful.”

“Right. And we don’t want to go back to that.”

“But the music was so vital.”

“Sir, I beg you not to do this. There’s still time to turn back.”

“Never!”

“Never?”

“Maybe. Whichever way the egg rolls, let’s go rampage through the haute couture place for old time’s sake.”

“I’ll get my longbow, sir.”

I Heard You Liked Planes, So I Put A Plane On Your Plane…

“I have no idea what this is, General.”

“It’s a plane! Well, technically, it’s 12 or 14 planes bolted together, but I think they’ve formed a gestalt. It’s a Voltron situation, Jenkins.”

“What?”

“And the part in the middle that looks like a doctor’s office?”

“Yes, sir?”

“It was a doctor’s office.”

“Did the landing gear used to be boats, sir?”

“Good eye, Jenkins! All that blasting of them we’ve done hasn’t affected your ocular acuity. Very acute occles on you. The boys in R&D–”

“Rudy and Dave.”

“–kit-bashed this beauty together with whatever we had lying around the base.”

“The doctor’s office was on the base?”

“Or right next to the base. In the basal area. It was a matter of national security, damn you! The Army is allowed to confiscate buildings if necessary, like a cop commandeering a civilian vehicle.”

“They actually cannot do that, sir. Strictly a Hollywood convention.”

“I went to one of those once. Paid ten dollars for Gary Berghoff’s autograph. Then I paid Gary Berghoff ten more dollars to leave me alone. Needy man.”

“Not that type of Hollywood convention, sir.”

“Why must you dither, Jenkins? You dither hither, and you dither thither. Whither do you do that?”

“‘Whither’ means ‘where,’ sir.”

“Whitherfore do you do that?”

“Checkmate. Sir, what is the point of this gargantuan mess?”

“City-killer, Jenkins. Ever see a city and think, ‘I’d like to murder it?'”

“No, sir.”

“Liar! I know you’ve been to El Paso!”

“Okay, once, but it’s not a good thought to maintain, sir. We try not to feed those impulses, sir.”

“Who be dis ‘we,’ white man?”

“Oh, sir, please don’t do your streetwise negro character, Skinny Dice.”

“Good gravy, Jenkins, everything is racist to your generation. Skinny is a tribute to the hard-working men and women that Mac Davis so perfectly described in In The Ghetto.”

“Can we just talk about the plane, sir?”

“No one understands the black more than me, Jenkins. Maybe Joni Mitchell.”

“The plane, sir.”

“City-killer.”

“That phrase is a war crime, sir.”

“We fly in low, we fly in slow, and then we eat souls. Nummy souls, Jenkins. Look how many soul-collectors R&D put on the Here Comes Death.”

“That sentence inspires at least a half-dozen questions about wildly differing topics.”

“Shoot.”

“The soul thing.”

“Mm?”

“Metaphor?”

“I’m back into the occult.”

“Ah. Moving on: the Here Comes Death?”

“I named it in a comedic fashion in order to add insult to injury. I’m considering painting it polka-dotted.”

“Of course. Sir?”

“Jenkins?”

“Does it fly?”

“On paper? Like a bird.”

“What about in the sky?”

“In the sky, the Death also flies like a certain subset of bird.”

“Certain subset?”

“Mm.”

“Penguins?”

“Penguins would be included in the subset, yes.”

“Ostriches?”

DOUBLE EYE-POKING LIKE THE THREE STOOGES USED TO DO NOISE

“Ow!”

“Your eyes needed a blasting, boy!”

“Uncalled for, sir.”

“Oh, no. Thoroughly called for. Your behavior demanded reprisal. Perhaps I was harsh, but to say that you did not deserve a thrashing is to tell piggy little fibs. Is that what you think of me, Jenkins? That I’m a piggy-fibber?”

“No, sir. Fibs are small lies. You don’t tell those.”

“Capital response, Jenkins. I do feel a twinge of remorse over the punishment, however necessary the rebuke was. I might have only poked one eye.”

“You’re halfway there, sir.”

“Let me make it up to you. Tooty Frooty on me.”

“Where is there ice cream?”

“On the Death. R&D put in a Baskin-Robbins. Full-service, shakes and the whole deal.”

“There’s an ice cream shop on the warplane?”

“We’re going to be up there for ages, Jenkins! Circling around Moscow or Beijing for hours and hours blowing holes in the infrastructure and population! I put an arcade in, too.”

“With video games?”

“And an air hockey table. You’ve never beaten me at air hockey, and you know why?”

“No, sir.”

“Because you lack character.”

“Is that why? Thank you, sir.”

“And there’s a roller skating rink. I know it’s silly, but I had the ice cream shop and the arcade and just decided to go full-on 80’s teen movie.”

“I think maybe I see the reason why this catastrophe won’t get off the ground, sir.”

“A hex?”

“The weight, sir. You might note that very few warplanes have roller rinks installed within them.”

“It’s not my fault the other planes suck. The roller rink converts into a disco at night. Look at all the weight we saved there not building two separate venues. That was Dave. Rudy wanted to put in a light-up floor like in Saturday Night Fever.”

“Sir.”

“I think Rudy’s getting high again.”

“Sir.”

“He can’t stop fingering himself. Man’ll just plunge his butthole while he’s talking to you.”

“Sir.”

“He’s taking sex drugs.”

“I’m just going to push forward. Sir, are those six-inch guns?”

“Eight!”

“And there are ten of them?”

“You count like the wind, Jenkins.”

“Thank you, sir. What happens when you fire all of them while the Death is flying?”

“The Death stops flying. We may have inadvertently discovered a new principle of physics.”

“That any physical action produces an equal and opposite reaction?”

“How did you know!?”

“Lucky guess.”

“Come take multiple looks at her, Jenkins.”

“What?”

“Wow, we never get two pictures in one dialogue.”

“Stop being meta-fictional, you oaf. Glory at Death. Praise her, Jenkins.”

“Sir, I don’t know.”

“Praise the city-killer, Jenkins!”

“Hey, plane. Looking hot.”

“Pitiful. I wish I had a lake of vomit to throw you into. Look at this beautiful beast. Her elegant lines. Her sleek shape. Her lethal bosom. Jenkins?”

“Please don’t say it, sir.”

“I want to fuck this plane. And I’m a general, so I can. And I will. I’m going to fuck Death, Jenkins. I’m going to fuck Death hard and long and then I’m going to cum all over Death, Jenkins. I swear to you this. I will cum on Death.”

“This is such an odd place for the conversation to have wandered to.”

“Jenkins, fetch me a map of the world and some darts. We’re taking her up.”

“What about your roller skates?”

“Bring those, too.”

I’ve Made A Huge Mistake

“Saudi Arabian Jenkins!”

“Yes, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman?”

“I think I fucked up.”

“I didn’t want to say, sir.”

“It’s not fair! Putin kills journalists constantly. I kill one little asshole and everyone loses their minds!”

“The world conspires against your beneficence, O Scourge of the Infidels.”

“But it’s not looking good, Jenkins.”

“Nooooo.”

“The janitors walking in with the mops and buckets? That was bad optics.”

“Off-brand visuals. Yes, sir.”

“Not to mention the fucking recordings of the actual murder.”

“That was a bad beat, Your Mellifluousness. Who could have foreseen that an embassy would be bugged?”

“Man, Turkey got those tapes out in a hurry, didn’t they? The body wasn’t even cold. And, you know: it was chopped into little pieces. You lose a lot of heat that way.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Turkey’s piiiiiiiissed.”

“Big time.”

“My hand to Allah, I thought they’d be cool with it.”

“Perhaps it was a tactical error to not run it by them, Protector Of The Koran Who Dances Among The Suras Like A Lithe Young Boy.”

“Next time. Lesson learned! What are our options going forward? What about more murder?”

“No, sir.”

“Don’t dismiss it outright. Sometimes the problem is that you haven’t killed enough people. Maybe one won’t do it this go-round.”

“No, Your Wholesomeness. We must not kill anyone right now.”

“What about Yemenis? Can we still keep killing Yemenis?”

“Oh, of course. No one gives a shit about them. I meant that we can’t kill anyone who works for the Washington Post.”

“What about the Times? What if I had the Op-Ed page of the Times murdered?”

“No, sir.”

“I’d be doing the world a favor, Jenkins.”

“You would, sir. Praise your generosity which flows from you like boysenberry syrup over a short stack of buttermilk pancakes.”

“I regret allowing IHOP to open up in Riyadh. It’s all you talk about.”

“Sir, you know I spit on the American devil.”

PTOO

PTOO

“But he makes an incredible breakfast.”

“What about a body double?”

“Of whom, Your Gloriosity?”

“Khashoggi. The pain-in-the-ass. And, you, know, that’s another thing: no one understands how terrible that man was.”

“A monster spawned in hell, if we have one in Islam.”

“A Djinni

“Oh, sure, let’s go with that.”

“The man wrote mean things about me!”

“No one is saying he did not get what he deserved. At least, they’re not saying it in front of you.”

“Anyway, we get a body double. Someone who looks like him.”

“I feel we’re veering into wacky sitcom territory here, sir.”

“Scour the streets for a man who looks like Khashoggi. We’ll present him to the world! We’ll say he was mugged or something on the way into the embassy and hit on the head and wandered off, but now we’ve found him and he’s safe. No harm, no foul.”

“This will not work, O Quencher Of Thirst.”

“Why not?”

“The tapes of him being murdered, for one.”

“We’ll say it was a prank.”

“Second of all, once we produce the body double…then what? Do we send him home to Khashoggi’s family?”

“No problem. We just–”

“Don’t say that we murder his family.”

“–murder his family, too. Whyyyyyy?”

“I cannot begin to describe how counter-productive murdering his family would be right now.”

“How about he’s hiding in the closet and won’t come out? And, you know, we’ve tried yelling but it didn’t work.”

“No one will buy that, sir. The whole world knows that Khashoggi is dead.

“What if we say it was an accident?”

“An accident, sir?”

“We’ll say that he was eaten. We have a tiger in the embassy, and the tiger got loose and ate him. People will believe that. Keeping a tiger in an embassy is a very Saudi move.”

“I can totally see us doing something like that, but it’s a non-starter.”

“Can we blame it on someone else? What about the Jews?”

“I do enjoy blaming things on them, O Comfortable Blanket Of Mercy. But I don’t think so.”

“Illuminati?”

“No.”

“Islaminati?”

“Is that real?”

“I don’t know. Torture some people and find out.”

“Your will be done. What about we pin it on someone else in royal family?”

“Brand your tongue with the hot balls of camels, boy! How dare you speak of the House of Saud in such disrespectful tones! I’m closing the IHOP!”

“No, sir! Punish me, but don’t punish my taste buds! Plus, we can’t afford to piss off any more American companies right now.”

“Well, you’re banned from the place for a month. And I’m going to call over and speak to the manager to make sure.”

“Your kindness is beyond both language and mathematics, sir.”

“Blame it on a family member! The impudence with which you vomit up your poison, Jenkins! You filthy baby girl! I rebuke you harshly!”

“But it we were to go with your idea…Ahmed would be my choice.”

“Excellent selection, O Palatial Soul.”

“I mean, he’s got better falcons than me. What the fuck, right? I’m the King. I’m supposed to have the best falcons.”

“It is your divine right, sir.”

“We frame him for the murder. Say he was acting all on his own. Execute him. Take his falcons. This is a win-win, Jenkins.”

“It’s a Hail Mary at best sir.”

“Hey, if they don’t like it, I’ll just switch us to the Yuan and be besties with China. Those mean bastards don’t care how many reporters you murder.”

“China don’t give a fuck.”

“Ah, shit, I have the Trump call coming up.”

“Deny everything and try to buy more fighter jets.”

“Should I mention all the blackmail I have on Jared?”

“Not necessary yet.”

Hell Of A Ride

“How does it feel, Jenkins?”

“It feels like I’m gonna die, sir.”

“You are. But the fleep allows you to take the enemy with you.”

“I’m setting her down, sir.”

KLOMPABANG

“She sets down sexy, Jenkins. Like a lion mixed with a hooker.”

“General, I don’t know what this thing–”

“Fleep!”

“–is even for.”

“Reconnaissance.”

“It’s incredibly loud, sir.”

“Transport.”

“Only carries around 300 pounds, sir.”

“Chicks dig it.”

“General, this jerry-rigged potluck of bad ideas–”

“Fleep!”

“–is not gonna work. Sir, please let’s come up with another name.”

“Flying jeep! Fleep! Have you not received your portmanteau training, Jenkins?”

“I must have been sick that day in Boot Camp.”

“Jam two words together and boom you got a new one. Words are unique in that fashion, Jenkins. For example, if you jam two hamsters together, you don’t get a new hamster. Still two. And now they’re angry. Or dead. Depending on the velocity of the together-jamming.”

“Sir.”

“Or gerbils. Same rules apply to gerbils as did to the hamsters. Mice. Any rodent. Let’s say any rodent.”

“Sir.”

“Fleep!”

“It’s just a terrible name, sir. It’s too cute. It needs to be ferocious and scary. We’re in the Army.”

“Are we?”

“I assumed so.”

“Well, we’re not wet. So we’re not in the Navy. And we’re speaking in complete sentences, so we’re not Marines. I refuse to recognize the Air Force on principle. Yes, we’re in the Army.”

“Well, there you go, sir. We’re a fighting organization. Maybe the name should be something tougher.”

“The Disappointed Father.”

“Not emotionally tough, sir. Physically.”

“Yes, Jenkins. Excellent idea. We’ll call it the Childbirth.”

“Not what I was saying, sir.”

“Childbirth is one of the most difficult ordeals the human body can undergo, Jenkins! It’s like shooting a rugby ball out a garden hose!”

“Y’know, the fleep isn’t a bad name, after all. Sir, can we get past what it’s called and get back to what it does?”

“It flies, boy. Like a bird made out of clouds. It conquers the sky, that’s what it does, and he who controls the sky is but unto a god. This is written, Jenkins. It has all been written.”

“In the Field Manual?”

“In the souls of the pure and plain.”

“Sir, is this vehicle some sort of offering to any otherworldly beings?”

“Noooooooooooooo.”

“No?”

“Maaaaaaaaaaaaybe.”

“Oh, sir.”

“Jenkins, are your eyes prepared for the blast? Have them call their families, get their affairs in order. Make your eyes ready!”

“They’ve made their peace with the situation.”

“Blast your eyes!”

“Consider them well blasted, sir. Now back to the matter at hand: what occult machinations have you made this machine for?”

“Don’t ever alliterate in my presence again, Jenkins.”

“Noted, sir.”

“Have you any idea of the history of the dark magicks in war? Hitler was up to his ball in it. Collected all sorts of artifacts and doohickery and weebo-jumbums. None of it came to anything, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Because Hitler was as bright as a Philadelphia Birdnest.”

“I’m not familiar with the phrase, sir.”

“A dog turd someone has flung into a tree.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Because they live in Philadelphia, Jenkins. Keep up or prepare your eyeballs for reblasting.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Hitler couldn’t tell his dick from a field full of barley. Once sent an entire battalion tramping through Italy looking for the Eldritch Spaghetti. The man didn’t do the reading.”

“Hitler had many flaws, sir.”

“He didn’t think big.”

“That was not one of the flaws, sir.”

“The fleep isn’t some trinket, Jenkins. We’re putting high-grade in the tank. No more Abandoned Gods for us. Minor demons? Not for us, thank you, we’re major leaguers. All the way to the penthouse with this one. The fleep will let us make contact with the big guy.”

“God?”

“Oh. No, the other one.”

“Please don’t make a deal with Satan, sir.”

“But we need to defeat Communism!”

“Not that way, sir.”

“Too late to call anything off now. The Dark One has already been alerted to us via the fleep’s very existence.”

“I don’t understand, sir.”

“It’s a flying jeep, Jenkins. I can’t think of a bigger middle finger to God.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now help me prepare for Satan’s arrival.”

“A ritual?”

“No, we need to put out a spread. I’m thinking lox.”

“Yes, sir.”

Run Of The Millennial

“Saudi Arabian Jenkins!”

“Yes, Mohammad bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, First Deputy Prime Minister, Honorary Fire Chief, three-time Sheikh of the Year recipient, Tamer of Seas, Sculptor of the Dunes, Defender of Some of the People?”

“We would never pay off Western journalists, either in straight cash or through elaborate junkets, would we?”

“Oh, no, sir. That would be wrong.”

“Gotcha. So, call the Western journalists we’ve paid off and tell them about the new plan.”

“Plan, sir?”

“I’m getting a Gay Eye for the Straight Guy. And then immediately executing the homosexuals, but I’m looking forward to the makeover. Jenkins, I’m talking to several publicity companies and they all say I should be more beloved.”

“Publicity companies?”

“Branders. Jenkins, did you know I was a brand?”

“I didn’t, sir.”

“I totally am. I need a logo. Are those kosher in Islam? Find out about that, Jenkins.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So me and these publicity companies sat down and you would not believe the things they were telling me. Laid out a path from today to global domination. Starts with the Insta.”

“I would imagine.”

“The Insta is its own world, Jenkins. There’s science involved. What time you post. Which content gets posted when. Captions. May the buzzards choke on my sandy bones the captions! There’s math, too. All sorts of ratios. How much professional bling to behind-the-scenes ‘just chillin’ out’ shots?”

“I wouldn’t be able to imagine.”

“It’s evolving as we speak. The followers want to see the real you, but they also want the glamour. Now I’m handicapped in that area because 60 or 70 percent of glamour is ass. I post a shot on the Insta of me and cousin Tookie with the hyenas? I get a couple hundred thousand likes. Those are pity likes, Jenkins. They’re sarcastic.”

“You’re reading a lot into this hypothetical.”

“But the same picture with, like, a fine female standing there displaying all sorts of pulchritude? That’s millions of hearts. That’s the gold. That’s engagement and now folks are becoming part of the Mohammad bin Salman story. Oh, you know what the publicity guys said? I should get a dog.”

“That would not play well with your base at all, sir.”

“Cat?”

“Much better.”

“Great. Cat gets a name and an Insta account, too. Make it happen, Jenkins! Faster than the Prophet flew from Mecca to Medina!”

“Sir, slow down.”

“We’ll need several camera crews, and editors, and some computer nerds, and all of them need a boss and a place to work and equipment. Chop chop!”

“Why? Why are we doing any of this, sir?”

“Because we can’t get the reality shows without the base from the Insta. I have a great relationship with Andy Cohen. See him every time I’m in Los Angeles. I pitch, I pitch, I pitch. I tell him, ‘Fuck it, I’ll buy all the ads myself.’ Still won’t do it. ‘Build up the base on the Insta,’ he says. Maybe he’s right? Very smart, good guy. I invite him here all the time.”

“Andy Cohen is a publicly declared homosexual and Jew.”

“Oh, I would have him executed, but I still have to invite him. Rude not to.”

“Your manners are rivaled by none across this arid land! Your tent is open to the four winds, and your robe is open to the breeze. The Umayyads look upon your rule from the ancestral heights and say, ‘We should have done it like that guy.'”

“I’m in a good mood today, Jenkins, so I’ll ignore your mockery. We have a whole schedule for fame and notoriety and celebrity and infamy.”

“Didn’t those words used to mean different things?”

“They used to, yes. Anyway: I burst onto the Insta. The yacht. The ice. Drop a video talking about my favorite ride, the custom Ferrari, and how it was my way of reminding myself to navigate around the haters. Sometimes it seems the world’s a highway full of haters, Jenkins. You want to tell them, ‘I bought this castle for all of us,’ but they don’t listen and instead now you got versions. That’s going to be my catch phrase.”

“Sir?”

“Oh, now we got versions? You understand the meaning, correct?”

“Yes, sir. There’s a disagreement over fact and everyone involved has a different perspective, or version.”

“And maybe there will be a sound effect. WH-PASH! Now we got versions! Or perhaps a bell is rung.”

“Uh-huh. Lion of Islam, Sword of Allah, Idol to Millions, Fashion Plate and Knower of Several Languages and Understander of a Couple More–”

“Get on with it.”

“–Performer of Pitch-Perfect Celebrity Impressions Crown Prince, who will you have these beefs with to the point where you are declaring ‘versions’ in public?”

“Cardi B, Germany whoever.”

“Oh, sir, no.”

“I’m gonna get the beef broiling.”

“Please don’t broil a beef with Germany via Instagram, sir.”

“You haven’t let me finish.”

“Flog me with whips made from the skins of infidels.”

“After the beef runs its course, we show love. That’s a Same Page Alert. Whereas before we had Versions? Now we are on the Same Page. And this makes me so happy that I, like, build a children’s hospital in New Mexico or something. And also we take pictures. with the hyenas.”

“I don’t think we should let Cardi B near the hyenas until she’s had her baby.”

“Ooh, good call. Those hyenas would be uncontrollable. How long has she been pregnant for?”

“Year-and-a-half, at least.”

“Okay, and now check this out: I build the base. We’re not talking bots here. Real followers. The Salmaniacs are showing me so much love. The beefs are thriving. And then: boom. rehab.”

“Camel milk and biscuits, would it be a terrible idea for you to go to rehab. That would be a bad look in one of those frozen hippie communes where the government pays you to walk around all day shooting dope into your dick. But here? It’s a bit more conservative, sir.”

“Well, we’re not gonna call it rehab, turkey-dick. I’ll go falconing or something. But here’s the important thing: I’m gonna release a note on the Insta being honest about my struggles with mental health and anxiety and depression and whatever. Millennials love that shit.”

“The mental health confession is becoming a well-worn trope amongst the generation, sir. Again: why are you doing this?”

“Because right before I came up with the plan to rebrand myself as a hip, cosmopolitan Millennial, I came up with a plan about Yemen.”

“What was that, sir?”

“What if there just weren’t any Yemenis? Like, none at all. That would solve so many of my problems. I wish I could just snap my fingers. Jenkins–”

“The Infinity Gauntlet is not real, sir.”

“Just keep checking Ebay. Anyway, I realized I was gonna need a lot of PR cover if I wanted to…what’s a nice way to put what I want to do?”

“Besides ‘genocide?'”

“Obviously. Nice. What’s the nice way to say it?”

“Creating an instant buyer’s market in real estate.”

“Good.”

“The Scouring of Sana’a.”

“That’s ominous. What are we, goths? Whatever, we’ll come up with something. But, yeah, I wanna kill 27 million people and I need everyone to love me to do it.”

“Why didn’t you just say that, boss?”

“I shouldn’t have to explain everything to you, Jenkins.”

“We’re going on Insta. Should I reach out to DJ Khaled?”

“I’m shocked you haven’t already.”

Stop Dragon Eyeball Around

“Jenkins! Come in here!”

“Sir, for the seventh time now, I am not discussing whether or not you have–”

“Big Dick Energy.”

“–big dick energy. I will not submit to the conversation.”

“Big Dick Energy, Jenkins. Capitalize it. It’s important.”

“That’s not how English works, sir.”

“Damn your descriptivism! Damn it with shameful zest, Jenkins!”

“I shall, sir. As long as I’m here, we need to discuss the poster for Shoreline.”

“Poster! Never! Not again! What we’ll do instead is sell golden eagle chicks, and the Deadheads will raise the birds to know war and to love the hunt, and then when we come back to Shoreline next year, everyone will bring their eagles back and all the eagles will fight each other to the death during Black Muddy River. Isn’t that better than posters?”

“No, sir. That’s far worse.”

“Fine. Jenkins, let’s bear-bait.”

“That’s terrible, sir.”

“Moose-bait.”

“Terrible and racist against Canadians.”

“Rat-catching.”

“Where the terrier gets chucked in the ring with a sackful of rats, and everyone bets on how many it gets in a given time?”

“Yes.”

“No. Good God, no, sir. No animal involvement of any sort, especially direct abuse thereof.”

“A cute dog. We get a cute dog and it just sits there.”

“Sir, your idea is to substitute posters with ‘a cute dog and it just sits there?'”

“Am I in your office, or are you in my office?”

“The second one, sir.”

“Procure a dog.”

“Sir, which set of medications are you on? The good set the doctor gave you, or the other set you find yourself?”

“I’ve combined them.”

“Of course. Sir, we need to make a poster.”

“Poster! Jenkins, why don’t we use our powers for good? Instead of art, we’ll use the space to print up an infographic lesson about the Battle of Sevastopol. Or the History of the Neck. It was discovered by the Greeks, you know.”

“The neck?”

“Oh, yes. A guy figured it out with a stick and a shadow. Amazing minds, the Greeks. Boff each other like crazy. Amazing boffers, the Greeks.”

“The fans have grown accustomed to artwork, sir.”

“The fans have grown accustomed to it not being the Night Of The Hammer, too.”

“Please stop talking about that, sir.”

“Hammer to the face! Hammer to the face! Hey, there, brother: have a good show. And have a hammer to the face!”

“That is not a scenario to joke about, sir.”

“I would wear hammers in twin bandoliers, like John Popper’s harmonicas. In case a hammer got stuck in someone’s face, you see. You must assume you’re going to lose several hammers in people’s skulls. You could get the claw stuck in an eye-socket. Whatever. You need more than one hammer to pull off a Night Of The Hammers is my point.”

“The task we’re performing should not be this arduous, sir. We’re making all of our own work. There can be no deviation from the concept of ‘selling posters.’ We may not redefine either term.”

“I still say we accept trade. We’d have a Bartertown-type situation within hours. And we’d have all the posters, Jenkins. We’d be gods. Come sit on my shoulders and run Bartertown with me.”

“Let’s circle back to that after we discuss the content of the poster.”

“Poster!”

“Yes, sir.”

“A dragon. No. An eyeball. Wait.”

“I’ll figure it out.”

“A bunch of Dead bullshit.”

“Look, I already wrote that down.”

NOTEBOOK SHOWING NOISE

“We’re such a team, Jenkins.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Join me in worship at the Fatal Altar. Speed along the world until the Night Of The Hammers come!”

“You gotta stop with that. Man to man on this one. Knock it off.”

“Only if you take me to the place with the disco fries. And you have to pay, and when I get disco fries on my face, you have to wipe them off.”

“Deal.”

“And your brother’s social security number.”

“No deal.”

“Just the fries.”

“Let’s go, sir.”

And I Would Have Gotten Away With It…

THE JURASSIC PARK UNIVERSE – AROUND LUNCHTIME

“Jenkins!”

“Yes, sir?”

“I had an idea.”

“Sir, I’ve told you this a thousand times: there is already a miniature version of golf. It’s called miniature golf. It’s right in the name, sir.”

“This is a different idea, you flippant boob. My mind’s racing with them. I don’t know why people talk bad about this fentanyl. It’s rooty, it’s tooty, it’s fresh, and it’s fruity. Top notch Hero Juice.”

“Are you calling fentanyl Hero Juice now, sir?”

“Makes you feel like a damned Superfriend! Look out, I’m Green Arrow! I’ve got you in my sights!”

CHAIR THROWING NOISE

“That was a chair, sir.”

“Chair arrow.”

“You called me in about an idea, sir?”

“Ah. Yes. Jenkins, do you know anything about genetics?”

“We’re not making dinosaurs again, sir.”

“Oh, why not? They’re so cool and it’s always so much fun.”

“Because the same thing has happened all five other times we made dinosaurs.”

“Jenkins, by ‘we’ you mean DINO-REX, the Department of INternational Operatives: Resuscitation of EXtinct animals? The secret organization that was secretly behind all the other secret organizations that have created dinosaurs since the initial 1997 trial?”

“Thank you for taking the exposition, sir.”

“I felt a little bad about the chair thing.”

“What chair thing, sir?”

“Oh, there’s my Jenkins. Now be a pal and get to work on the dinosaur plan.”

“I can’t, sir. We can’t. Maybe we as a business need to pivot. What about mammoths? People would absolutely pay for mammoths.”

“Mammoths are just hippie elephants, Jenkins. They’re not sexy. No one is flying to an island to see a shaggy Dumbo. ‘Look, children. It’s lumbering over there.’ Where’s the pizzazz? No, no, no. Dinosaurs.”

“They’re going to eat people again. They’re going to get loose almost immediately and at the worst possible time, and then they’re going to eat people again. That’s their whole act, sir.”

“Not the plant-eaters. Don’t paint the duckbills with the allosaur’s brush.”

“Ah. No, sir. The plant-eaters did not eat any people. You have that right. They have, however, killed dozens over the course of the five trials. A triceratops ran through a crowd last time. That’ll kill you just as good as being eaten. And a brachiosaur straight-up stepped on a guy once.”

“Nostrils on the top of their skulls. Wild design, the brachiosaur. Let’s make a bunch of those this time. Ooh, give me a stegosaurus, too. Wait, wait! Two! Two stegosauri and I wanna watch how they do it. How do you think they do it, Jenkins?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Carefully.”

“There you go.”

“Jests notwithstanding, that’s a calculated risk going in for the steg puss. You gotta want it.”

“Please, sir.”

“You gotta want it bad. Reminds me of my first wife.”

“Wasn’t she eaten by a dinosaur?”

“No. Wait. Yes. She was. I thought you were talking about my second wife.”

“Who was also eaten by a dinosaur.”

“Partially eaten. Not consumed. At least not the top half. We found her top half, and thank God we did.”

“A sense of closure.”

“Insurance purposes.”

“They always get out, sir. We’re trapped in a cycle of retelling the Frankenstein story. Every time we make the dinosaurs, the dinosaurs get out and behave rudely.”

“Ah, Jenkins, but who is the true Frankenstein: Frankenstein or the dinosaurs?”

“What?”

“Get to cooking! Bring me the phone that has B.D. Wong’s phone number in it. He vibes me.”

“B.D. Wong does not vibe you, sir.”

“He lets me know. Many men of his persuasion have advertised their feelings to me in a similar fashion. I thank them with a firm handshake and a pre-printed business card listing the eleven reasons I am not a homosexual.”

“You really had those made?”

BUSINESS CARD HANDING-OVER NOISE

“Oh, sir. Number one: not sexually attracted to men. Okay, I guess that’s fair.”

“I’ve experimented, Jenkins! Been to clubs in the part of town you don’t tell your mother about. I have been squeezed and fondled. Passed around like a basketball when the Globetrotters do their famous Magic Circle.”

“You never know where the ball’s going to go, sir.”

“Precisely. I was set upon. There was a gang of them, and they were the meat chunks and I was the gravy.”

“I don’t know what that means, but it’s disgusting.”

“But! No attraction. I performed sexually out of politeness, curiosity, and intoxication. And personal satisfaction, Jenkins.”

“Number two: homosexuals always telling me not to make dinosaurs.

“Straight people, too, but I don’t have to turn down their advances. Forget about that card and focus on my dinosaurs. We need a cover story. Let’s just do theme park again.”

“No one will buy another theme park so soon. The armies of the world would send warships to bomb the island to rubble followed by drones armed with hellfire missiles. We gotta wait another decade before we pull the theme park gag again.”

“We breed them in secret and sell them to the military.”

“We’ve done that, like, three times already and the military guys get eaten. Each time. Why would an army even want a dinosaur? Wouldn’t any organization competent enough to afford the ludicrous overhead of housing, feeding, and training militarized raptors also know a squad of War Dinos was just the worst possible idea?”

“You would think! But, no. They keep coming back. I had a breakthrough, though.”

“About the dinosaurs?”

“Oh, yes. Those new islands that China just created.”

“That would create an international incident, sir.”

“Of course it would. It’s fucking dinosaurs, Jenkins. Everybody on the planet would hear about it. All the countries. Chinese Navy protects us. We promise that the dinosaurs won’t get loose in Shanghai.”

“Are they going to?”

“Immediately. I’m thinking about skipping the island and shipping the suckers straight from the lab right into the city center. In transport, of course, Stick Protocol is in effect.”

“Stick Protocol, sir?”

“We poke the animals with sticks.”

“Why, sir?”

“Angers them! Oh, it’s going to be wonderful. I’m gonna airdrop an ankylosaur on a family.”

“Won’t the Chinese be mad?”

“Oh, yes. Steaming. We’ll get Goldblum to make a speech at them, and maybe they’ll sign on for another trial. The Saudis will let us do anything we want. You know that. Madder than a rooster in handcuffs, the Saudis. They’ll build us another island. And while they’re building it, I’ll siphon off enough money to build a couple of other islands in secret and populate those with genetically-modified raptors or whatever.”

“Please don’t ‘or whatever’ genetically-modified raptors, sir. Are you modifying raptors’ genetics again, sir?”

“Again? No, I’m no doing it again. I never stopped.”

“Dammit. Stop making supermonsters, sir.”

“It’s so easy and fun! My new one can teleport up to 18 yards.”

“Jesus, don’t make that. Sir, please. Let’s use our mind-boggling science abilities to help humanity. Or let’s use them to make money in a way that doesn’t end with people getting eaten.”

“That’s every business, Jenkins. The Hoover Dam ate men! The assembly line at Ford ate men! That’s capitalism, Jenkins. It is industry and it is not some theory about the world. It is the way things are, Jenkins. Life is tough. Men get eaten.”

“Literally, sir. Literally masticated between another creature’s teeth while friends and family look on in horror. Repositioned in the mouth. Thrown back down the throat. Eaten.”

“A metaphor is the same thing as the real thing.”

“That’s a trap. That sentence is a trap and I won’t follow you down that alley. Sir: we cannot keep making dinosaurs.”

“And yet we must! Jenkins, allow me to quote from the Rabbi Hillel: If not us, who? If not now, when? Jenkins, I believe the rabbi was talking about making dinosaurs when he said those words.”

“He wasn’t, sir.”

“Damn you, boy, I’m gonna make dinosaurs and set the fuckers loose in densely-populated areas until the day I die, most likely via dinosaur. This is my destiny, Jenkins. For I am Doctor Jurassicpark, the secret villain of all the Jurassic Parks and mwah ha ha HAHAHACCCHHH.”

“You okay?”

“My cough is back. I’m gonna have a nip of Fenta.”

“Fenta?”

“Fanta with fentanyl in it.”

“Should’ve guessed.”

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