NEW EVIDENCE PROVES CARTER STEVENS IS AN ALIEN

FINALLY – PROOF THAT CARTER STEVENS IS AN ALIEN

Associated Press January 24, 2012 In a startling news conference today that rocked rural Pennsylvania, Barnaby McNabb, the Mayor of the Township of Pocahontas, stated for the record that he had proof that one of Pocahontas’s residents, a Mr. Carter Stevens was, in fact, an alien being. Long suspected of unusual behavior, Mr. Stevens posted a suspicious photograph of himself on a social networking web site. “The minute I saw that picture, Stevens’ goose was cooked”, claimed Mayor McNabb. “That pink helmet was a sure-fire giveaway. With those two antennae on his head, Stevens was obviously able to communicate with others of his ilk, and we’ve been listening, believe me”. McNabb claimed that local and State authorities have intercepted encrypted radio messages transmitted from the area of Stevens’ home. “He’s talking with some guy named Klaatu something-or-other. It’s all in some Nikto-Shmikto alien mumbo jumbo, but our boys are getting to the bottom of it, you can bet on that”. Stevens first came under suspicion when local livestock began to disappear. “Cows, chickens, goats – you name it. And those farm boys all claimed the same thing – a strange, bright light in the sky, and some kind of light beam that hit their barns, and faster than you can say Jack Robinson, there goes Ole Bossie”

Mayor McNabb further asserted that the disappearance of  livestock began shortly after the arrival of Mr. Stevens in the Pocahontas community. “We had a real peaceful little town before that creature showed up. Then everything went all kerfluey, and critters began to disappear. First the farm animals, then the girls”. The Mayor seemed reluctant to explain details, but said that within a month of the first kidnapped cow, the young women of Pocahontas began to disappear, one after another. “I guess Stevens and his alien cohorts experimented with the livestock, before moving on to the town’s young women. God only knows what he did with them. I shudder to think what those poor girls went through”. Each of the abducted women reappeared after a period of three days, but according to friends and family members, their behavior had become quite different. “They were all from good Christian families. God fearing folks. Church-goers, every one. But you’d never guess it from the way they acted, once they escaped from the clutches of that alien maniac”. The clue that broke the case wide open, according to Mayor McNabb, was a photograph that Mr. Stevens posted on his Facebook page. “The first thing I noticed was that pink helmet, a dead giveaway if there ever was one. But then I saw the vest. He was wearing a black leather vest. Some kind of space-garb, I guess. But when I had a look-see at what was painted on the back, I near to had a heart attack. It was the spitting image of Elsie Bronkowski, a girl I’ve know since she was in diapers, and the first young woman to disappear”. The Mayor claimed that the Bronkowski girl, like all the rest, reappeared three days after her abduction, but had gone through some kind of alien makeover. “Elsie was a devout Seventh Day Adventist. Baked seed cakes for the church socials. Did you see that drawing of her on Stevens’ vest? Naked as a Jaybird. Some kind of restraint devices on her wrists and ankles. God only knows what they put her through. And now, well let’s just say she’s become a daughter of Satan. Works at the Peek-a-Boo Lounge, over in Stroudsburg, dancing naked for the truck drivers. A good Christian girl, abducted by Stevens and his alien cronies, and now look at her – all sweaty and naked. Shaking her booty for those perverts”.

Although he would not go on record as saying so, Mayor McNabb suggested that law enforcement personnel had made a covert visit inside Stevens’

Pocono retreat. “Let’s just say we came up with the clincher, evidence wise. These aliens are crafty, I’ll tell you that. We found, what looked like some kind of toy. You know, like a top, that a child would spin. And it had some kind of writing on it – foreign writing. Like nothing from this earth. Here it was – the language from another world. Some kind of intergalactic gibberish. And then it hit me. This is how they learned about space travel. How they

invented the flying saucer. As young mutants, they would spin these toys, probably on some kind of alien Holiday, and watch them spinning, and out of the minds of these space kids came the flying saucer. And now, everyone in Pocahontas is hiding behind locked doors. No one is safe. And young girls I’ve known since they were kids, are flagging down sixteen wheelers at truck stops. And it’s all because of Stevens. First it was Roswell, now it’s Pocahontas. And next? It looks to me like world conquest. And how did they do it? It all started with that little top. The one with the funny writing all over it. And now, the world as we know it, looks like it’s coming to an untimely end. Goodbye, my friends”.

A tearful Mayor McNabb left the press conference, an obviously shattered man. Phone calls, made in an attempt to confirm the Mayor’s remarks, to the Pennsylvania Governor in Harrisburg, and to NASA, went unanswered.

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© 2012 Shaun Costello

GINGRICH “SPONGEBOB” RANT ANGERS PARENTS

GINGRICH “SPONGE BOB” RANT ANGERS PARENTS. MIGHT COST HIM NOMINATION.

ASSOCIATED PRESS December 4^th  During a news conference today, Republican Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich stunned reporters with an angry outburst aimed at the hugely popular children’s animated TV program, SpongeBob Square Pants. Taking questions, after making a speech before the Florida Businessmen’s Alliance in Tampa Florida today, the former Speaker of the House was asked whether he was aware of recent tweets suggesting his physical similarity to the beloved animated character, SpongeBob Square Pants. An angered Gingrich rebuked his questioner, “I know of no such suggestions, and if I did know any such suggestions, this is hardly the time or place to address them. This is just another example of the liberal press attempting to smear a Presidential candidate by comparing him to a ridiculous, and I might add, dangerous animated character in what is alleged to be a children’s TV series.” When asked what he meant by dangerous, Mr. Gingrich replied, “SpongeBob Square Pants is a subversive, and suggestive piece of socialist propaganda, aimed at convincing innocent children that sea sponges, and other creatures live harmoniously beneath the world’s oceans, in a world of happiness and tranquility, far removed from the contentious realities of everyday life. A child growing up being fed that kind of hogwash will have no chance whatsoever of successfully dealing with the harsh realities that confront today’s adults”. Asked what he meant by the show being suggestive, the former Speaker said, “The Square Pants family, and all of the other silly anthropomorphic anomalies in this show live in the fictional undersea town of Bikini Bottom. Need I say more? I think we all know what’s in a bikini bottom gentlemen, and that’s not the kind of place where the innocent minds of children need to dwell.”

 Mr. Gingrich, who in recent weeks has spoken out about fixing school budgets by firing the janitorial staff and giving mops and brooms to the kids themselves, and institutionalizing the children of welfare families by placing them in orphanages, did not waver in his tough-love approach to education. “You can bet that the funding for socialist propaganda like SpongeBob, is deeply rooted in the National Endowment for the Arts, which has, as studies have shown, a Marxist/Leninist agenda.” Mr. Gingrich refused to take any further questions, and left the podium. Calls to the Gingrich for President campaign headquarters, attempting to confirm today’s comments, have gone unanswered.

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© 2011 Shaun Costello

A BRONX TALE

 

A  BRONX  TALE 

A couple of kids from the Bronx dance their way through the depression.

 by Shaun Costello

 My mother and Uncle Tommy were born in the Jewish/Irish Tremont section of the Bronx – Tommy in 1917, and his younger sister Catherine, two years later. Their parents, Nan, and Black Jack Dowling made a living of sorts on the Vaudeville stage as a dance act. But New York was where you played once you had made a name for yourself, and the Dancing Dowlings were far from being headliners. So, once my mother was old enough to walk, they picked up stakes and headed for Norfolk Virginia, a hub in the Southern Vaudeville circuit, where, shamelessly billing themselves as New York’s dancing sensations, it would be easier to get bookings. Norfolk was the venue of choice for another reason as well – it was home port to one of the United States Navy’s largest installations, employing over seventy five thousand Naval personnel, many of whom, when pay day rolled around, wasted no time losing

their hard-earned pay in the myriad of floating crap games and poker sessions that so often seemed to find men in uniform, whenever they had money in their pockets. My grandfather, Black Jack Dowling, when not booked to entertain Vaudeville audiences with his dancing feet, was more than happy to swindle recently paid sailors out of their cash with his practiced slight of hand. Wearing a stolen sailor suit, my grandfather, a predator with portfolio, armed with marked cards and loaded dice, rode the trains into and out of Norfolk, systematically separating the sailors from their pay, often just one step ahead of the local Sherriff, and occasionally that Sherriff’s guest in the local jail house.

Trained by their parents in the art of stage craft, Tom and Sis, now incorporated into The Dancing Dowlings, dazzled all who saw them with their high stepping and showmanship – they were naturals. With the kids carrying the show, the family act seemed to stay booked, and performed throughout the Southern Vaudeville Circuit on playbills with Fanny Brice, Buck and Bubbles, Jack Benny, Burns and Allen, Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, and just about everyone who toured back then. But success couldn’t keep a card sharp like my grandfather out of regular incarceration for his nefarious railroad hijinks, and his absences became more frequent, until finally, he disappeared altogether. The act, unbookable without its patriarch, made the journey back to the Bronx, in search of employment for my grandmother, and education for her kids.

While still in High School, Tom and Sis continued to do what they did best, and they danced and danced, until people began to take notice. They starred in school productions, and spent all their spare time at a famous Bronx jazz club called the Club Fordham, where they entertained the musicians by improvising dance routines to any kind of music. Though not employed by The Club Fordham, they were encouraged by the

club’s owner Maurice Reidy, and performed their dance routines until they became crowd favorites. There was a buzz about them now – who were these kids? Reporters began to make the trek up to the Bronx, to watch, and to write about those kids at the Club Fordham. Photo shoots for magazines followed – ‘how to’

spreads with Tom and Sis demonstrating the latest dance craze for a dance-crazy generation of readers. Using the photographs from one of these sessions, the editorial staff at Ladies Home Journal hired an illustrator to create a likeness of ‘the kids’ for the cover of the August 1938 edition. So there they were, Tom and Sis Dowling, a couple of depression era Bronx kids, right there on the cover of a national magazine, doing their thing.

Within a year they had made the seamless transition from The Club Fordham, to Manhattan’s Stork Club, where they became favorites

of the owner, Walter Winchell, who both promoted and protected them. Now, this was the era of the ‘Big Bands’, and band leaders often hired dancers to demonstrate the latest dance trends to their music, for an ever-eager public. Winchell had mentioned Tom and Sis to his friend Horace Heidt, one of the era’s biggest band leaders, and, after seeing them dance up a storm at the Stork Club, Heidt offered them a contract to perform with his band, “Horace Heidt’s Musical Knights”, one of the

 biggest bands of that decade. The gig with Heidt was followed by

gainful employment, dancing with Tommy Dorsey’s Orchestra, and Benny Goodman, as well. So now ‘the kids’ were getting paid to do what, until then, they had done for free.

In between performances with big bands, they would return to the Stork Club, where they had become audience favorites, until that fateful night in 1939, when Darryl Zanuck and Bill Goetz happened to see them dance, and

offered Tom and Sis an invitation to come to Hollywood as contract players for Twentieth Century Fox. Their Bronx days behind them, ‘the kids’, cheered on by the gang from the Club Fordham, boarded the train for Hollywood, and the next chapter of their lives. 

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© 2011 Shaun Costello

REMEMBER – THE J-GOD IS CANTANKEROUS AND HE KNOWS WHERE YOU LIVE

ATONE – YOU’LL BE GLAD YOU DID

 

GOYBOY SHABBOS GOY SERVICE opens its doors and lends a helping hand on this day of atonement. All of our helpers are certified graduates of the GOYBOY Shabbos Goy Academy.

 

YOM KIPPUR IS UPON US, and, once again, it’s time to atone. Remember, the J-God is a cantankerous, and vengeful God, and he knows where you live. Use your toaster, and expect a lightning strike. Play it safe – call for GOYBOY.

THE MACING OF AMERICA

AMERICA – YOU’RE GETTING MACED, YOU’RE GETTING HOSED, AND YOU’RE GETTING NOWHERE!

 

Thanks to our extraordinarily right of center Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this year, Americans have no shot whatsoever at campaign reform in the next decade. Publically funded elections? Sure, a nice idea. Go tell it to the Supremes. Not only is Congress in bed with the corporate colossus, but the Federal Bench climbed in, as well. And that bed is getting pretty crowded. Comparing these Wall Street demonstrations, as many have done, to Vietnam era unrest is not only naive, but patently untrue. Instead of rolling up their sleeves and making Congress accountable, thousands of well intentioned, albeit naively so, Americans are camped out in tent cities in urban parks, participating in a preposterous re-enactment of Woodstock. Young people are being maced, while the Wall Street brokerage community spends weekends sipping pina colada’s at their beach houses in the Hamptons. The individual citizen has NO capability to impact the Banking Community, but we DO have the power to hold Congress, which sanctions the Banking Community, accountable, if only Americans could understand that and act on it. The source of America’s plight is the malignant curruption in Washington. Do you know your Senator’s voting record for the last year? I’ll bet you don’t, even though that voting record is readily available over the internet. I guarantee you that that voting record will surprise you. Even the ‘good guys’ in Congress vote against the welfare of their constituents from time to time, because that’s how the system functions. That’s how deals are made. That’s how corrupt the system is.

HOLDING CONGRESS ACCOUNTABLE! Doesn’t sound like much fun, does it? Nowhere near as entertaining as holding signs,

 shouting protest rhetoric, getting maced, singing folk songs, squatting in urban Tent Cities, and experiencing a sense of communal righteousness in the re-enactment of the political upheaval of a long-gone era. And what exactly do these protesters think will come of their exhausting, and well-intentioned efforts? Do they actually think that, way up there in the air conditioned forty third floor offices of Goldman Sachs, brokerage executives are looking down at the spirited upheaval of sign-waving demonstrators, and having second thoughts? Do you really think that the CEO of Goldman is calling the CEO of Bank of America to tell him, “You know Brian, maybe these people are right? Maybe we should clean up our act. Change the way we do business”. Do you really think that’s happening? Yeah, right. That phone call will be made on one condition, and one condition only – that Congress finally listens to the American electorate, and votes to sanction the Banking Industry into compliance with the law. Then, and only then, will America find its economic balance again. So, it’s up to you, people. You’re getting maced, and you’re getting hosed, and you’re getting nowhere. It all starts on the Hill – with Congress, You people voted those people into office.

Don’t you think it’s about time you held them accountable? 

 

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© 2011 Shaun Costello

 

MAKE GOVERNMENT WORK

MAKE GOVERNMENT WORK

 

It can be an instrument of good. It can’t be ignored. It can’t be replaced.

Do the work. Make it work!

 I truly believe that, when all is said and done, these Wall Street protests will prove fruitless. Also, it’s the lazy way out. Do you want to see change? Do you want to make a difference­? Do you want to clean up Wall Street? Then hold your elected representa­tives accountabl­e. Pay attention to what is going on in both houses of Congress. And I mean every vote that Congress makes. The majority in both houses is re-elected­, on a regular basis, with the helping hand of corporate America. The Banking Lobby. The Tobacco Lobby. The Oil Lobby. The Mining Lobby. Big Pharma. They fund the Congressio­nal campaigns of these clowns, and when an important vote happens, they want payback – and they get it, at the expense of the American consumer, and the American taxpayer. General Electric pays less in tax than the average fire fighter in your home town. That ought to piss you off. America isn’t easy.

Stop making useless noise. Get up off your ass. Roll up your sleeves. Put in the time. Pay attention to what is going on in Washington. These idiots work for you – or have you forgotten? Morons put flags on their cars, and think they’re patriots. They’re just lazy. Do you want to practice good citizenship? Then make sure you are registered to vote, and when Election Day rolls around, know the issues. Find a candidate whose goals and values resemble your own, and vote for him/her. Then make damn sure that every campaign promise made is kept. And if not, then never vote for that person again. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Then, why are Americans letting this mess continue? For God’s sake, people – HOLD CONGRESS ACCOUNTABLE – AND I MEAN BOTH SIDES OF THE AISLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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© 2011 Shaun Costello

ANN COULTER IS AN ALIEN

“ANN COULTER IS AN ALIEN”, claims Lou Dobbs.

ASSOCIATED PRESS September 26, 2011 In a shocking revelation today, former CNN anchor Lou Dobbs dropped an emotionally charged bombshell on the already fractured landscape of Republican politics. In a sometimes tearful recounting of his four year affair with Right Wing Barbie Doll Ann Coulter, which evidently began during the Iowa Caucus in 2007, and ended at that same political venue four years later, Dobbs went into great detail about his fatal attraction for Coulter’s bellicose beauty, and the eventual, and inevitable break-up that occurred in Des Moines last month. “When I found out the truth”, said Dobbs, “I tried to stay the course. I mean, I loved this woman, or whatever she turned out to be. I knew I couldn’t go on without her. But there is only so far a man can go when confronted with circumstances beyond the pale of any acceptable form of human behavior. When I found out the truth, I was devastated”.

Dobbs recounted the early blissful days of their affair. “Love sometimes makes you blind. I knew there was something different about Ann, that she was not quite normal, but I let it go. Then that night in Wilkes Barre, well, that’s when Ann’s charade ended, and my world turned into a living nightmare”. Dobbs and Coulter were attending a fund raiser for then Senator Rick Santorum in Wilkes Barre Pennsylvania in October of 2009. “We shared a room at the local Holiday Inn. I was awakened by an odd noise in the middle of the night. I instinctively reached for Ann, but she was not in bed. As I sat up, I noticed an intense light coming from under the bathroom door. As I approached the door, the sound grew louder – like a thousand voices speaking a hundred different languages all at once. Not speaking really, but kind of chanting. Chanting in a hundred languages, rhythmically, like some kind of pagan ritual. I quietly cracked open the door just a half inch or so, just enough to see inside. And that’s when I saw it. That’s when my life came crashing down around me”. Dobbs claimed that the bathroom was filled with smoke, and bright flashing lights. “And there she was, or it was, right there in those bright lights. It was Ann, and then it wasn’t Ann.

 She kept changing shape, and shifting into different colors, and then it happened. Her head changed shape as the chanting grew louder, turning and changing until it was unmistakable. I stood there, frozen with shock and fear, but there it was, right on Ann’s unmistakable body – it was the head of J. Edgar Hoover. And his mouth was moving – the chanting sounds coming from somewhere inside. And then I heard a voice in the middle of all that babble. A voice singing in English, and the head started changing shape again, and the flashing lights like strobes in a disco became even brighter, and the song became recognizable. It was God BlessAmerica, and suddenly the head morphed into, it was horrible, and yet it was so familiar, and right there on Ann’s beautiful, slender body was the head of Kate Smith singing God BlessAmerica. And I was so horrified that I must have moved and somehow pushed the door open, and in a furious nanosecond of rearranged reality, the lights disappeared, and the chanting too, and the form in front of me changed shape rapidly right before my eyes, until all that was left was Ann. She was naked, and covered with sweat, and breathing heavily, like someone who had just run a marathon, and we just stood there, me in the doorway, and Ann in the center of the bathroom, and the only sound was Ann’s gasping for air”.

Boggs claims that Coulter revealed everything to him that night, at least everything she knew. She told him of her earliest memories, as a child-like form, without structured memory or familial connections, who was from another world, but she didn’t know where. She wound up in foster care and was then adopted, never revealing her true alien indentity to her new family. At a young age she had discovered that she had the ability to shape-shift during certain lunar cycles, and morph into those people she found heroic. She told Dobbs of her great loneliness, longing for someone to know the truth, and love her in spite of it. And then they met that night in 2007, at the Iowa Caucus.

“She wanted to tell me the truth, but she was afraid of my reaction. So that night in Wilkes Barre, I found out everything. But I loved the girl, so what could I do? I know this sounds crazy, but I decided to try and stick it out. I mean, she didn’t look like an alien most of the time. Just every so often she got all smarmy and noisy and morphed into her heroes. So what? Nobody’s perfect”.

According to Dobbs, her morphing habits changed abruptly about six months later, when she dissolved into Ronald Reagan during the act of sex. “I’ve never been so horrified in my life. I mean, there I am porking the woman I love, and right at the best part, I mean just when I’m about to come, she morphs into the great communicator, and Ronnie starts sticking his tongue in my mouth. Hey, there are limits, you know?” Coulter’s sexual changeling conflagrations became more frequent, yet somehow Dobbs managed to remain intrepid. “It was humiliating. Ann’s need to become her heroes now happened every time we had sex. One night I’m boinking Dwight Eisenhower, and the next night it’s Roy Cohn. And then the dressing-up and acting-out started. I’ve got to admit, Ann was pretty hot in black leather, but not when she turned into Richard Nixon, and made me crawl around on all fours on the floor and eat a can of Alpo while he told me how he had been unfairly crucified by an unfriendly press, most of whom were employed by the Kennedy’s. I guess I must have boffed just about Ann’s whole heroic line up: Joe McCarthy, Genghis Kahn, Ted Bundy, Donald Rumsfeld, Margaret Thatcher, Al Capone, Vlad the Impaler, Torquemada, Ma Barker, even Dubya, and each one with their own particular quirky sexual needs – boy, it was exhausting.”

Dobbs then talked about events at this year’s Iowa Caucus, events that would bring his extra-terrestrial love affair to a sad end. “And there we were, in Des Moines for this year’s caucus. In the same hotel where it all started four years ago. Seems like yesterday, but then again it doesn’t. I had just hung up on my editor, a little difference of opinion on my new book, “In God’s Way”, when Ann came out of the bathroom in some silky thing that clung to that luscious, tight body of hers like nobody’s business. Well, one thing led to another, and we were going at it hot and heavy, and all the while I’m thinking, ‘Please don’t turn into Mussolini’, but it keeps getting better and better, and Ann’s all worked up like she’s been stuck between floors for an hour in an elevator filled with Democrats, and I’m just about ready to unload when, all of a sudden Ann’s head starts growing and growing, and splitting in two, and I start hearing music and, low and behold, growing out of Ann Coulter’s delicious body are two heads in cowboy hats, singing, ‘Happy trails to you, until we meet again….’, and I realize that I am staring into the faces of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. And I’m still boinking away, as unfazed as possible, under the circumstances, when I hear the unmistakable sound of a horse whinnying. And old Roy looks me right in the eye and says, ‘Ok Lou boy, time to turn yourself around and make Trigger one happy Palomino.’ Well, that was just about all I could take. I loved this Coulter woman, or whatever she was, but I’d be damned if I’d give it up for Trigger”.

Dobbs claims that he got dressed, and stormed out of that hotel room, made a call to the AP, and arranged this Press Conference. “I wanted to get out my side of the story before Coulter made with the extraterrestrial machinations to the Press as these alien creatures will do. It’s weird story I know, but the God’s honest truth. Why, I’d stake my reputation on it”. Calls made to Ms. Coulter, as well as NASA were not returned. Both the Republican National Committee and Fox News refused comment.

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© 2011 Shaun Costello

NON CHIEDERE, NON CHIEDETE

January 10, 2012 Associated Press. In Rome today, Cardinal Vincenzo Pantangelli, The Vatican’s Director of Information, made a startling announcement to the world’s gathered press. “Ina order to addressa the misconceptzione that homosexuale activity is conadoned ina the Holy Mother Churcha, and at the directa wishesa ofa Il Papa himself, I ama announcing a new polizia that willa take affecta froma this momento. We are calling thisa new polizia ‘NON CHIEDERE, NON CHIEDETE’. So any of you that hava any questiones, about a thisa sensitive subjecta, pleasa to remember, that any homosexuale activitiesa of any ordaineda personsa ina the Holy Mother Churcha comesa under thisa new polizia, ‘NON CHIEDERE, NON CHIEDETE’, Whicha translatesa in English asa ‘DON’T ASKA, DON’T ASKA’. Thatsa right, ‘DON’T ASKA, DON’T ASKA’. This only makes sensa, because for sure, ‘non abbiamo intenzione di dirvi merde’. Anda you can figure that outa for yourselvsa”. This announcement puzzled the correspondents gathered at the Vatican’s Press room, who were later informed by The Church’s translators that, “Non abbiamo intenzione di dirvi merde”, translates as, “We’re not going to tell you sh*t”. The American Ambassador to the Holy See refused comment.

DICK CHENEY SPEAKS OUT

Associated Press December 12, 2011 In an exclusive interview granted to Heywood Sargent of the Associated Press today, former Vice President Dick Cheney is pressed to respond to tough questions about his new book, his relationships with Former Secretaries of State Colin Powell, and Condoleezza Rice, the American presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his alleged suggestion to then President George Bush in 2006, that America should not rule out a full scale invasion of France.

Sargent…Mr. Vice President, in your new book, ‘In My Time’, you suggest great attitudinal differences that existed between the Bush White House and the State Department, under both Colin Powell, and Condoleezza Rice. Could you elaborate?

Cheney…Attitudinal, huh? That’s a good one. You don’t mind if I tuck that away somewhere and use it later, do you? First of all, you’ve got to get this ‘Chain of Command’ thing straightened out. The President hires the Secretary of State. The President is the boss, and the Secretary is, well, not the boss. You follow me so far? First of all, the President would come to me, as his father instructed him to do, and he would say, “Vice?”, he always called me that, a term of endearment and respect, and also my title back then. “Vice”, he would say, “We’ve got to get this blame thing about Iraq worked out. I mean, if we’re going to incinerate their country, we’ve got to make it seem like it’s their fault, you see what I’m saying?” I told him we had Saddam dead to rights. He had the nukes, and he had the gas, and the rockets too, and we could prove it. And he said, “Look Vice, I talked with Colin this morning. He wants to go to the United Nations with this thing. Have them investigate. Get the goods on the towel heads. Then we’re in the clear – good to go – bombs away”. I explained to the President that we had a schedule to keep. We had to coordinate the vacation plans of several of our key Generals, and then, there’s The Masters. You can’t have a war going on when they’re playing The Masters. I mean, I’m a member down at Augusta National. I’ve got a locker with my name on it, and everything. If we were going to blow Iraq to smithereens, we had to adhere to a reasonable timetable, and the UN would take their dear sweet time with this thing. Look, you hire a Secretary of State, and of course you ask his advice. But you don’t want him getting creative on you. You want him to tell you one thing, and one thing only – what he thinks, you think, you want to hear. Not what he actually thinks. You get what I’m saying here? I mean, you look back at the Nixon White House. Boy, those were the days. Haldeman had scripts written for the Cabinet meetings, and he rehearsed them. Every Secretary of every Department in the Government had to know his lines. That’s my kind of White House. My kind of government.

Sargent…You criticized Condoleezza Rice for being President Bush’s lap-poodle. You also alluded to some connection between Secretary Rice and Muammar Gaddafi. You mentioned inappropriate gifts being exchanged. Given the recent discovery of Gaddafi’s Condi Shrine and suggestive photo album, could you expand on these statements?

Cheney…First of all, let’s set the record straight on this Condi Rice business. Secretary Rice is an outstanding and loyal American, and one of President Bush’s most important and historic appointments, being the first African American to ever hold that office.

 

Sargent…Mr. Vice President, Ms. Rice followed in the footsteps of Colin Powell, as Secretary of State, and of course, Colin Powell is also an African America.

Cheney…You’re kidding. Colin is colored? I always thought he was Armenian or something. You live and learn. About Condi, look, I don’t want the hired help getting creative, but Condi took condescension to a whole new level. I mean, the President would ask her, “Condi, I want your input on this ‘weapons of mass destruction’ business. Does this hummus-eater have ‘em, or what.” And her robotic response was, “Mr. President, on January 21^st, you made a statement condemning Saddam Hussein for having huge stockpiles of fissionable material, with the intention to use it againstAmerica and her allies. I whole heartedly agree with that statement, Mr. President, and all other statements made by you on all matters foreign and domestic, during both your Presidency, and your tenure in Austin as governor of Texas. And also your statement to the New Haven police after your DUI arrest when you were a student at Yale, that your father covered up.” Look, I don’t want them getting creative, but Jesus.

 

Sargent…And Gaddafi?

Cheney…Oh, that. Well, let’s just say that the boys over at the NSA hear it all. Secretary Rice had made a diplomatic visit to Tripoli, which had to be extended for a few days, because Gaddafi evidently had the hots for her. There were some, well let’s call them inappropriate gifts exchanged. My favorite was the life sized, anatomically correct Colonel Gaddafi inflatable doll. What she did with it is anybody’s guess, but it was the subsequent phone calls that aroused interest at the NSA. I remember one call in particular. They played it back for me. I can remember it almost verbatim:

 

Gaddafi…Oh, my LeezaLeeza, My African Queen of the night, you must call me MooMoo, and in our love-tent we will make harmonious music together. Yes, MooMoo and his LeezaLeeza, in the harmony of the love motions. We make the music of the romance.

Rice…Listen Colonel, I like your outfits, but I draw the line at baby talk. Let’s just put on some Barry White, and get funky.

Well, you can imagine the NSA boys getting a kick out of this. I’ve got the tape around here somewhere.

Sargent…In your book, you mentioned the hunting accident, back on 2006, and you said you missed. What did you mean by that?

Cheney…That was on a quail hunt down in South Texas with Happy Harry Wittington. Hap was a contributor to my campaign. Always smiling and joking around. Real fun guy. Ever been around somebody who’s always smiling? It can get on you nerves, believe me. So I got to thinking – what if I put a couple of pellets in Hap’s behind? I bet that would wipe that smile off his face. So Hap’s about twenty feet ahead of me, and I yell, ”Over there, Hap. Over the trees” And when old Hap turned to shoot, I accidentally/on purpose unloaded in his direction. I meant to aim just to the left of him, so he’d just catch just a few pellets. Hell, everybody catches a few pellets in the behind, once in a while. But I stumbled, and the gun went off pointing right at the smiling son of a bitch. Wound up in intensive care. Jesus. I’ll tell you something though. I went to see him in the hospital. They had him all wired, on life support – lots of tubes. And there was old Hap, doing his Cheshire Cat thing. Quite a guy. He still contributes.

Sargent…I was wondering if you saw Oliver Stone’s film “Dubya”, and if you thought it was an accurate depiction of the Bush White House?

Cheney…I did see parts of it. It won some awards, didn’t it? Like Best Documentary, or something?

Sargent…Not exactly. It was a dramatization. The characters were played by actors. Your own roll was played by Richard Dreyfuss.

Cheney…Actors? Richard Dreyfuss? I don’t know what you’re talking about. The scenes I saw were all real. It was in the Oval Office. All of us were there: The President, Colin, Condi, Tenet, Rummy, and Carl Rove too.

Sargent…Mr. Vice President, that wasn’t Carl Rove. It was an actor named Toby Jones. You yourself were portrayed by Richard Dreyfuss.

Cheney…Actors? Now, wait just a minute here. I saw what I saw. It was us. I lived it. I saw it played back. That’s what happened. This some kind of  journalistic trick? I wasn’t born yesterday, Mister. Besides, I’m better looking than Richard Dreyfuss.

Sargent…With the 2012 election just around the bend, could you size up the GOP’s candidates, and their chances. How about Michele Bachmann?

Cheney…Certainly. First off, let me say that the entire GOP field is made up of outstanding Americans, who understand the meaning of Capital Gain, and all that that entails. You won’t find a wuss in the bunch. Ms. Bachmann has an outstanding record in the House, and comes from a dairy state, which never hurts. But I’ll tell you, this homophobic thing she’s got happening is going to come back and bite her in the ass. So what if a guy’s light in the loafers. My daughter is an openly gay woman. Nothing wrong with that. Look, I’m not saying that I’m going to play the back nine at the Congressional with any homos, but they should have the same rights as the rest of us., or at least it should seem like it. And I’ll tell you one thing about your average homo that escapes Ms. Bachmann – he votes.

Sargent…Mit Romney?

Cheney…Governor Romney did some fine things up there in Massachusetts. Good looking guy too, which never hurts with the female voters. He’d run America like a fine tuned corporation, and that’s the way it should be. But I just don’t know about this Mormon thing. I mean, this is America, where every man can realize his dream, but a Mormon in the White House? These people have polygamy on the brain. Did you ever read the Book of Mormon? If it were a movie, it would be a cross between The Day the Earth Stood Still, and Starman.

 

 

Sargent…Rick Perry?

Cheney…Governor Perry’s got that Texan cow puncher spirit, I’ll tell you that. Americans respond to a man in boots and a Stetson. Evokes that pioneer spirit. A sense of toughness and independence. Conjures up images of John Wayne, even Ronald Reagan. Hell, Reagan took on the Soviet Union – face to face – mano a mano – And Mr. Gorbachev blinked and that wall came down. Yessir, never go one on one with a man in a fine set of boots. Of course, Governor Perry wears Tony Lama’s. They’re OK, I guess, but it’s a mass produced boot, the kind of thing you can pick up at Sears. A real Texan only wears a Lucchese boot. Made in San Antonio. Old world craftsmanship in every stitch. I’ve sent the Governor memo’s about this, but he’s still strutting around in those Tony Lama’s. Reagan wore only Lucchese, and look where it got him. And the American voter knows the difference, believe me.

Sargent…Mr. Vice President, are you saying that the outcome of the election can come down to the brand of boots a candidate wears?

Cheney…If the shoe fits.

Sargent…Newt Gingrich?

Cheney…A fine American in every way. As Speaker of the House he took out a contract on America. Remember that? My kind of guy. That’s the way to run the country. Take no prisoners. But if a few stragglers do wind up in your camp, interrogate the hell out of them. That’s the way you find things out.

 

 

 

Sargent…Sarah Palin?

Cheney…Ms. Palin is a fine conservative, and an attractive woman. Sure, she had some minor glitches, like that bridge to nowhere, when she was Governor, up there in Alaska. And keeping an eye on the Russians, across the Bering Straight, from her office window. But she’s got this soccer mom thing happening, and that could bode well for her, come election time. But those names she gave her kids. Track? Bristol? Willow? Piper? Trig? What’s up with that? I mean, would it have killed her to name one of them Robert, or Delores, or Mary Sue – you know, names people can relate to. She might as well of named one of them Dump Truck for all the good it will do her at the polls. Sounds like a bunch of God damned hippies. Excuse my French.

Sargent…And speaking of France, you mentioned in the book that, back in 2006, you advised President Bush to not rule out a full scale invasion of France. Could you elaborate on that?

Cheney…Certainly. You know, 2006 was not a good year for us. Iraq was not working out the way we planned. The Taliban were making a comeback in Afghanistan. Secretary Rice was preoccupied, having a lurid affair with that towel-head fruitcake in Tripoli. Wall Street was in the throes of collapse. The American electorate was looking for someone to blame, and that’s never good when you’re in power. America needed a diversion, and I was all for giving it to them. It’s like, the television networks know how to do this. The scheduled programs show their last episode in the Spring. So now, the people have nothing to watch. What do the networks do? They present the Summer shows – something completely different, like a sitcom where a homo couple complete their odd family picture by adopting a chimpanzee. They could call it “Chumps”. I like that. And the viewers forget that their favorite shows won’t be back on until the Fall. That’s what I wanted to give the American voters – a Summer show. And I thought, why not invade France. Hell, they’re an arrogant bunch. Don’t agree with us on anything. We saved them from Hitler, and what thanks do we get? The French adoration of Jerry Lewis. France is a socialist country anyway, so why not invade them. And that means we could take prisoners and interrogate the bejesus out of them. And here’s the best part, we’ve done it before. We’d just do the Narmandie invasion all over again. I figured the plans for D-Day must be in the basement of the Pentagon somewhere. It would be a piece of cake.

Sargent…So, what happened?

Cheney…Well, we were ready to go. The President was on board one hundred percent. Carl Rove and Rummy thought up a whole bunch of crimes that France had committed against the world. You know, to justify obliterating a third of their population.

So what happens? Some jerk-off bureaucrat at the Pentagon misplaced the D-Day invasion plans. We’d have to start again from scratch. The boys at Central Command said ‘No can do’. Well, that was that. America never got the Summer show it so needed and deserved.

Sargent…Five dinner guests?

Cheney…That’s easy. Let’s see – there’s George Patton, old blood and guts. There’s a lot you can learn from a guy like that. And Julius Caesar, of course. And the Romanian, Vlad Dracul, also known as Vlad the Impaler. I sure would like to pick his brain on his interrogation techniques. He made water boarding look like scrabble. And someone funny. I know, how about Ayn Rand, with that pungent sense of humor of hers. She’d keep the conversation moving. Oh, and for the fifth, Mickey Rooney.

Sargent…Why Mickey Rooney?

Cheney…Balance. With a crowd as distinguished as that, I’d like to know that there’s at least one guy at that table who’s shorter than me.

Sargent…Thank you Mr. Vice President.

Cheney…My pleasure.

*

© 2011 Shaun Costello

A TALE OF TWO MOVIES

A TALE OF TWO MOVIES

Two films I recently saw that were shot on shoestring budgets, and that took two very different paths in story telling. One I liked, and one, well………………

By Shaun Costello

 

 

NOVEMBER

Greg Harrison   2004

 

This low budget indie made quite a splash at the 2004 Sundance Festival, and was well received the following year at the Festivals in LA and Seattle. Considering its budget, November is visually dazzling, but there’s much less here than meets the eye. When a director on a low budget film decides to compensate for lack of funds with dizzying camera tricks, editorial gimmickry, and story telling razzle-dazzle, the result is usually disappointing, and lovely-to-look-at though it is, November is no exception.  Who exactly died here? Did he die? Did she die? Did they both die? Do I really care?

This Lynchy, Shyamalanesque, neo-Roshomon attempt runs out of steam early on, and becomes unforgivably derivative and imitative. On the evening of November 7, photographer Sophie Jacobs (Courtney Cox, who does not change her facial expression once throughout the film) and her attorney boyfriend Hugh (James LeGros) go to dinner at a Chinese restaurant. As they travel home afterward, Sophie develops a craving for “something sweet” and stops their car at a convenience store. While Hugh is in the store buying some chocolate for Sophie, an armed man (Mathew Carey) arrives and holds up the store, shooting the store clerk, his son, and Hugh dead. He runs away as Sophie arrives.

Sophie sinks into a deep depression, and cannot bring herself to erase Hugh’s voice from their apartment’s answering machine. She consults her psychiatrist, Dr. Fayn (Nora Dunn), about persistent headaches that she has been suffering from since his death. She tells Dr. Fayn that the headaches started to occur before the incident at the convenience store, and that she had been having an affair with a co-worker, Jesse (Michael Ealy). After Hugh’s death Sophie has dinner with her mother, Carol Jacobs (AnneArcher), who accidentally knocks a glass over.

During a college photography class that she teaches, Sophie sets up a slide projector for the students to showcase their best photographs. One slide in the slide show depicts the exterior of the convenience store on the evening of November 7. Sophie contacts Officer Roberts (Nick Offerman), the head of the investigation into the shootings at the convenience store, who is as puzzled as she is as to who is responsible for the photos. Sophie’s headaches continue, and she begins to hear strange noises coming from within her apartment building and mysterious voices on the phone. Later, Officer Roberts discovers that the photo of the convenience store was paid for with Sophie’s credit card.

The film presents two more different versions of these events, and Sophie must figure out which is real before she loses grip on her sanity, and her life. The second version suggests that Sophie was present at the shootings and was only spared because the shooter ran out of bullets, and the third suggests both Sophie and Hugh were killed. In the words of Cox, her character “goes through three phases. First there’s denial. Then she feels guilty and sad about the situation. Then she has to learn to accept it.” According to Greg Harrison, the events in the film were Sophie’s memories as she and Hugh lay dying on the floor of the convenience store: “Each movement of this memory was her process of coming to terms with the terrible trauma, which was that she was killed for absolutely no reason, and it was some random act of violence she couldn’t confront”. He added he felt November was “open-ended” enough that he hoped viewers would “come up with the most beautiful stories themselves that are very different from how I saw it.”

Really, Greg?  As each version of the story unfolds, the plot becomes almost laughably confusing, and ultimately unsatisfying. By the last shot, of the two lovers, hands extended toward one another in some cinematically sculpted mini-apocalypse, lying in pools of blood on the convenience store floor, I had long since stopped caring what had happened to whom, and why.

Oddly, I both liked and hated this movie, and am glad to have seen it, if for no other reason than Nancy Schreiber’s hypnotic visuals. Shot on mini DV at 24 FPS, the ‘look’ of November is worth the time spent watching it. If only Greg Harrison knew how to tell a story.

http://www.moviefone.com/movie/november/17619/video/november-trailer/1352858

 

 

PLEASE GIVE

Nicole Holofcener   2010

 

 

I was hooked 15 seconds into the credits, which are supered over a montage of breasts being squeezed and flattened onto mammogram plates at a radiology center, scored to the Roches’ hilarious and wise song, “No Shoes”, with its litany of self-mocking complaints, “I had no shoes and I complained/Until I met a man who had no feet.” Please Give is a wonderful example of movie-making on a budget, without resorting to gimmickry.

The last words in “Please Give,” Nicole Holofcener’s latest comic drama of spiky manners, are “you’re welcome.” They’re uttered by Kate, a New York malcontent played with complex appeal by the wonderful actress Catherine Keener. Kate’s daughter, Abby (Sarah Steele), a stridently truculent teenager, has in a rare instance of filial generosity just thanked her mother for agreeing to pay for a pricey pair of jeans. From the near-beatific look on Kate’s face, it seems that after struggling to make amends for some vague, unarticulated wrong — by doling out cash to homeless people, for instance — she has found her moment of grace.

 

Few American filmmakers create female characters as realistically funny, attractively imperfect and flat-out annoying as does Ms. Holofcener, whose features include “Friends With Money” and “Lovely & Amazing.” You may not love them, but you recognize their charms and frailties, their fears and hopes. They may remind you of your friends, your sisters or even yourself, which makes them attractive and sometimes off-putting, an unusual, complicated mix. We don’t necessarily or only go to the movies to see mirror versions of ourselves: we also want (or think we do) better, kinder, nobler, prettier and thinner images, idealized types and aspirational figures we can take pleasure in or laugh at in all their plastic unreality. The female characters in Ms. Holofcener’s films don’t live in those movies: they watch them.

 

“Please Give” involves a cluster of such women, including Kate and her only child, the 15-year-old Abby, and their irascible next-door neighbor, Andra (Ann Guilbert), a nonagenarian with two granddaughters, Rebecca (Rebecca Hall) and Mary (Amanda Peet). Kate and her husband, Alex (Oliver Platt), expect to take over Andra’s apartment when she dies, a macabre objective that they compensate for with strained smiles and by running an occasional errand for her. Kate and Alex also own a store specializing in midcentury Modern furniture, lamps and the like, which they stock from the apartments of the dead. It stings when a customer calls them ambulance chasers, but there’s a touch of truth to that remark.

Given how unpleasant Andra is, you can almost understand Kate and Alex’s impatience, though I don’t think that is exactly what Ms. Holofcener had in mind when she gave her characters so many thorns. Kate and Alex want to expand their already spacious Upper West Side apartment, a desire that slightly embarrasses them and creates tension, particularly during a birthday party that Kate gives for Andra. Mary, who comes with so many spikes she could star in a “Hellraiser” sequel (as Mrs. Pinhead), and has had too much to drink (as is her habit), urges Kate to explain her renovation plans to everyone, Andra included. It’s an uncomfortable exchange, but like too many scenes, it also feels rigged for maximum outrage.

 

Most of Andra’s needs are met by Rebecca, who works as an X-ray technician taking mammograms. Ms. Holofcener doesn’t overdo the scenes of Rebecca tending to the patients, who might soon learn the worst. But the delicacy of Rebecca’s touch speaks a great deal about a woman who is also so depressed or repressed or something that she can’t even admit that she wants to see the leaves turn colors in the fall.

 

What’s eating Rebecca? What isn’t? Certainly she doesn’t have it easy. Her mother died when she and Mary were young, and their dad soon headed out the door. (Maybe he was running from Andra.) Having been raised by her grandmother, Rebecca now buys Andra’s groceries and doles out her medications, living with Mary in a dreary, sterile apartment where they eat microwave dinners and watch television amid sisterly sniping. A sloppy, mean drinker with a quiver full of insults, Mary works in a spa and spends far too much time browning in a tanning bed — she looks like a Creamsicle. Neither sister seems to have any outside friends or, initially, a love life, which strikes a false note until you get to know them.

 

Generationally, Abby, Mary and Andra embody the ages of woman — youth, adulthood and old age — a sort of variation on Gail Sheehy’s “Passages.” But because they’re so unmodulated, barely saying a kind word among them, they become tough to take. (Ms. Peet, nonetheless, keeps you watching and engaged.) The appeal of Ms. Holofcener’s films, which are visually unmemorable, rests almost entirely in her characters, so the lack of shading among these three throws the story off balance. Rebecca lacks a similar modulation until she meets a guy, Eugene (Thomas Ian Nicholas). Men might not make women happy here, but left to their own devices, women tend only to make one another unhappy.

 

The more you get to know these women, the less time you want to spend with them — they’re so full of complaint that it feels as if Ms. Holofcener were worried about making them false, turning them into movie characters. The exception is Kate, because she comes with the most dimensions and is played by Ms. Keener (a Holofcener veteran). No one in American movies does difficult women better than Ms. Keener, who’s fearless when it comes to nasty, cold roles, yet resists caricature. (At her most withering, she can recall George Sanders.) Her character in “Please Give” isn’t acerbic, but Kate has bite, along with a lot of underexamined — by her and by Ms. Holofcener — guilt, most of which appears to have something to do with being bourgeois.

 

Kate’s habit of giving money to homeless people, along with the film’s title, suggests the scope of Ms. Holofcener’s intentions. There’s so much hurt in the world, and Kate wants to help. But she’s a rotten volunteer, weepy and self-conscious, and she doesn’t seem to see the pain closer to home. She’s the definition of the guilty white (presumed) liberal and might have been a rich source of comedy and pathos. But only if we saw her working through her issues (and her narcissism) with more obvious intelligence and greater self-awareness, wrestling more thoughtfully with life the way that Ms. Holofcener herself has tried to do in this likable if frustrating film. Ms. Holofcener didn’t need to come up with answers for Kate — the ones in the movie are less than satisfying — but it would have been nice if she had let Kate ask some harder questions.

That said, I really liked this movie.

 

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZQEu7bTwIc

  

© 2011 Shaun Costello