The Dating Game


Bachelor #1: Hello. Miss America

Bachelor #2: Hi ya Miss America

Bachelor #3: Just plain good evening, Miss America

Rush Limbaugh: OK. well you have three different answers. Have your questions all set, Miss America? Ok, then have a seat if you would my dear. Make yourself comfortable and fellows good luck. The winner will become ruler of the new Iraq and Miss America’s bedfellow. As soon as we reveal those bed-wetting liberals for the fools they are and liberate the Iraqi people and all the other envious, oppressed peoples of the world.

Miss America: OK, General Nizar Al-Khazraji, I mean Bachelor #1, I am a firm, very firm, very tight believer in World Peace. When I see the little children suffering around the world, I get all misty moist. What is your opinion of World Peace?

Bachelor #1: World Peace? Hmm…I think it’s a wonderful idea, Miss America.

Miss America: Very good. Brigadier-General Najib Al-Salihi, umm…I mean Bachelor #2, what do you say?

Bachelor #2: I say World Peace is the most noble goal in the world.

Miss America: Very very good. Ahmad Al-Chalabi, I mean Bachelor #3, can you improve on their answers?

Bachelor #3: Yes, I believe that World Peace is such an important goal that I would be willing to kill anyone to achieve it.

Miss America: (Blushes) A man after my own heart. Anyone?

Bachelor #3: Why yes.

Miss America: American and Iraqi soldiers? The innocent Iraqi citizens? Even Iraqi little children?

Bachelor #3: There are certain sacrifices that must be made for World Peace to be achieved.
And besides these are very poor people. Their blood is what greases the machinery of the Global Economy. Without their noble sacrifices, the world would stand still.

Bachelor #2: I’m afraid Mr. Chalabi is a charmer, Miss America. He has no actual experience in killing. He was convicted for embezzling millions of dollars from the Petra Bank. He must go back to Jordan to serve his sentence.

Miss America: (Beaming) An intellectual then? A possible CEO candidate? A man who knows how to distribute the wealth…Now Bachelor #1, President Franklin D Roosevelt once said of the brutal Nicaraguan dictator, Anastasio Somoza, ' He may be a son-of-a-bitch,' but he's our son-of-a-bitch.’ What do you think of this?

Bachelor 1: Ah yes…son of a bitch is good. The biggest son of bitch rules world. You are the biggest…no, not you my dear…your uncle…you are the loveliest piece of…the loveliest woman in world. The Statue of Liberty! Who shall free us all. I, too, am son of a bitch. I am the one with the most killing experience! I am wanted in Denmark for war crimes! Like your man Pinochet who you put in place of the democratically elected socialist Allende…I will be true! I am your man! In 1988, I led a 48-hour chemical weapons attack which poisoned and burned 5000 Kurdish civilians in the northern town of Halabja! I am bigger son of bitch than Saddam! I am your man! I even kicked a little Kurdish child to death who tried to rebel! I am your man! I am strong! And faithful! I also have the best plan to overthrow Saddam!

Miss America: Very good Bachelor #1. What do you say, #2?

Bachelor #2: Son-of-a-bitch is good. But stupid son-of-a bitch is bad. You cannot trust stupid son-of-a-bitch. I forced 1.5 million rebels to flee their homes when they tried to rise up against Saddam after the US defeat! I crushed those unfaithful bastards! Now, I live in U.S. I can see the handwriting on the wall. I am smart son-of-a-bitch. Stupid son-of a bitch will bite the hand that feeds you! I am not ambitious man! I will not bite the hand that feeds me! I love U.S. I love C.I.A. I love American Idol and Survivor. I am Survivor. I love big American hamburger! You wash my back. I wash yours! And my plan is far better than Bachelor #1’s.

Miss America: Very nice. Bachelor #3?

Bachelor #3: I am yours, baby. Do with me what you will. I'm a much better lover than Tony Blair. I’ll do whatever it takes to satisfy you.

Miss America: Oh golly…I’m getting a tingle here…what makes you tingle, Bachelor #3?

Bachelor #3: Your creamy thighs, Miss America. I’ll make sure the proper contracts are signed and dotted; the rebels put in their place; the bad guys thoroughly crushed. You can count on me, baby.

Miss America: Bachelor #1, what makes you tingle?

Bachelor #1: My dingle mostly. But uhhh I could say there are other things that could make me tingle. Like the smell of flesh burning from chemical weapons.

Miss America: OK , Bachelor #2, same question.

Bachelor #2: Bachelor #3 makes me tingle just from what he said makes him tingle. I don't know. I don't even remember what your question was.

Miss America: Ok, I don't know why, but weird things happen to me on my dates. If at midnight I turned into my mother and there you were with my overbearing mother in your arms, what would you do?

Bachelor #2: Your mother in my arms, I'd be very unhappy. But, uh, I've had some weird dates and I've been having some weird dreams lately. For instances, just the other night, I dreamt I was a watermelon and when I woke up there were pits in my mouth. But I would never spit you out.

Miss America: Ok…#1?

Bachelor #1: I’d crush any bastard that said you were ugly.

Miss America: Very good. #3?

Bachelor #3: I love you in the morning with no make up. I love you in all your forms, Miss America.

Miss America: (Blushes) Ohhh. Bachelor #1, we're two cave people and you're just about to sing me the first love song. Let's hear it.

Bachelor #1: You club me I club you. I pull your hair. You pull mine. Yeah yeah yeah.

Miss America: Ok , #2?

Bachelor #2: Ahh gog gog gog gog Ah gog gog gog gog I’m goggga over you.

Miss America: Thank you very much. OK, Bachelor #3, can you do better?

Bachelor #3: The girl of my dreams, is the only girl for me, (then spoken) and I'm sure you'd be the only girl if we were cave man and cave woman.

Miss America: OK thank you, very good.

Rush Limbaugh: Ok, we’re about out of time. Have you made your decision, Miss America?

(At this point, George Bush Jr. runs in chasing the fleeing Tom Daschle)

Bush: You coward! You Un-American Commie Bastard! You want an intellectual debate! I’ll give you one! I went through the UN! I asked you guys OUT OF COURTESY! OUT OF COURTESY YOU UNGRATEFUL COMMIE BASTARD! I’ll teach you some respect!

(They run off the stage)

Miss America: Yes, Rush…it’s Bachelor #3.

Rush Limbaugh: Ok, what was the deciding factor?

Miss America: Money and Power and Charm. Kinda sexy, ya know?

(Daschle runs in screaming. Bush chasing wildly)

Daschle: SECURRRRRRRRITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTY!

Bush: THAT'S RIGHT! NOW YOU KNOW WHAT I'M TALKIN' ABOUT!

Two beautiful soul-searching pieces:

Heather Snow's sitting in the ashes of youth, of grief, of growth...

and Tom Bolton's Exegesis

The Transcendental Blues

'Backroads never take you where you want to
Leave you standin' there with them ole transcendental blues' Steve Earle

nirvana and nothingness meet in the eyes of the idiot
smashed in by a couple of drunks
just for kicks, thinkin' they are smarter than he
in an alcoholic stupor that merely numbs
the envy of god's own sponge
behind bars the rest of us in between;
lenny doesn't know his strength;
crushes every soft thing he loves;
george has to take him down like some dog
behind bars with the rest of us in between;
and i don't know why the glimpse is not enough
or if wonder's refrain will ever come back 'round;

she was aborted
but through some fiery will
to escape the void
is born from the mass
to other parents
at the exact same moment
she was aborted;
at the first slap
she realizes her mistake;
too late; spends the rest of her life
reaching out for her true father
to find or lose these transcendental blues

jack took it on the road
romeo followed juliet down,
alan walt into the ground;
jesus walked on the water
brian whistled on the cross
in a case of mistaken identity
elvis blew out the tv
his body and mind
all over the tree
that is Buddha
grass grew in spring
beards everywhere
from the alpha and the delta
where lenny caught a glimpse
in the woman; howls
like a breeze
Johanna never showed.
Why do we doubt
its gentle refrain?
top top top
the rain
falls asleep
with the transcendental blues.
Go Speed Racer, go!

The Metaphor

The playful muse tugs
once, pulls and is on
the highwire extendin'
beyond the circus tents
fools madmen clowns
feelin' the tug follow
cords stretched
to the limit, strainin'
to see, balancin'
on the highwire beyond
the circus tents she flips
Michelangelo's finger
which hangs like some
anachronistic foot soldier
in somebody else's war.
People come and go
and praise the polish.
God says pull my finger.
Something is amiss
All fall down.
Nietzsche laughs
and proclaims it
from the hills.
He rests in eternal
footnotes in
academic valleys.
And yet flowers
still bloom
Leaves continue
to fall
People come and go
their necks noosed
in matter the muse
escapin' with
the lost metaphor.