"I Think, Therefore I Ant."
July 29
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INT. OFFICE -- DAY
Dave
enters the Boss's office.
BOSS:
Ah Dave, glad you could make it up here so fast.
I have a question for you. How
would you like a raise? Say a
hundred thousand a year and all the perks you can eat?
DAVE:
Like it?
I'd love it!
BOSS:
Well you'll never get it here.
Pack up and get out. You're
fired.
DAVE:
Fired?
What did I do?
BOSS:
Nothing.
I just felt like exercising my power in a completely arbitrary manner
and you were the first person I saw in the parking lot.
Get the Hell out of here.
DAVE:
But you can't just fire me on a whim.
BOSS:
You know, you're right. Take two
weeks off, full pay and forget I ever mentioned it.
DAVE:
Thank you.
BOSS:
You're welcome...but before you leave, tell me...tell me you'd eat grass if I
told you to. Better yet, go
outside and eat some grass. I can
watch you from my window.
DAVE:
Mr. Heldon, I still have my pride.
BOSS:
Really? I'll tell you what.
I'll give you five thousand dollars for it.
I'll give you five thousand dollars if you eat grass and...wear your
underwear on your head all afternoon.
DAVE:
Go to Hell.
BOSS:
Then you're fired again...No, no you're not...yes, yes you are.
DAVE:
Let me make this easy for you. I
quit.
BOSS:
Wait...come back.
How about this? You leave my office right now and go back to work and I'll
ask nothing of you. We'll just
forget this ever happened.
DAVE:
I don't know...alright.
BOSS:
You're fired.
DAVE:
Fine! Goodbye!
BOSS:
Hold it...I mean it this time.
Go now, back to work and we'll forget all of this ever happened.
DAVE:
How can I believe you?
You're just toying with me.
BOSS:
You're right and I apologize.
Tell you what, I'm going to give you a raise.
A modest raise.
DAVE:
Alright...
BOSS:
I'll give you a modest raise provided I can call you a piece of shit before
you go back to work.
DAVE:
That's it! I quit!
I wouldn't work for you if this was the only job on the planet.
BOSS:
Not even if I gave you a company car?
DAVE:
Screw your car.
BOSS:
You know Dave, you're the only person who's ever stood up to me like this and
I'd like to say thank you.
DAVE:
I don't believe you. You're not
going to suck me in again. I have
my pride.
BOSS:
I know that Dave and I'm not going to
try and convince you to stay, all I ask is that you listen to one proposal.
You can walk out of here with two weeks severance pay and your pride or
you can walk out of here with two years severance pay in a dress...In a dress
singing 'I'm in the mood for Love.'
DAVE:
Goodbye.
BOSS:
Wait, Dave. I'm writing you a
cheque for two hundred, no half a million, and all you have to do is swallow
your pride, get down on your hands and knees and tell me I'm a God to you and
that if you were a woman you'd want me. The
beg for your job back, and I mean grovel.
Tears, Dave, I want tears. Do
that and this cheque is yours.
DAVE:
Alright...Sir, you are a God to me...
BOSS:
I've changed my mind. Get the
hell out, you're fired.
Your
Horoscope:
Aries:
Something is eating away at your ability to relax. Maybe it’s the unspoken
but undeniable knowledge in the back of your head that you’ve wasted your
life. Or maybe you’re just feeling frisky!
Taurus: No
matter how difficult the past few months may have been the entry of Mars into
your birth sign guarantees... well, actually, Mars is the God of war... Hmm,
forget that: Today you will drink several glasses of water.
Gemini: Because Gemini is such a sociable sign others take it for
granted that you will organize parties, do all the cooking and cleaning and,
when required, perform a striptease for the guests. That’s not asking too
much, is it?
Cancer: You will continue to view Gorgons as any of the
three sisters who had snakes for hair and eyes and that if looked into turned
the beholder into stone. You know your Greek mythology!
Leo: You have the reflexes of a rabbit.
And also like the rabbit, you live in a hole.
Virgo: See above.
Libra: Mars remains in your sign and that rash on your ass isn’t going
anywhere either.
Scorpio: You must keep your head today even though everyone else seems to
be losing theirs. That should be easy considering you’re the one with the
machete loping off heads.
Sagittarius: Today your underwear will bind.
Capricorn: Hang your wind chimes and continue to annoy the hell out of
your neighbours. Check your compass before sleeping because you’re a weirdo.
By all means pursue your Feng Shui harmony plan, after all, it’s not like
you have a job to go to.
Aquarius: Some say you can’t get blood from a stone. You know better.
All you have to do is slug a person over the head with a rock and there you
have it – Blood from a stone!
Pisces: As of late you’ve been getting poked with the wrong end of the
stick. But now you will get poked with the right end. Ah yes, that feels much
better...
This Week’s
Featured Album:
Geraldine and Ricky
Trees
Talk Too!
Liner
Notes.
All
Material by Geraldine and Ricky
* Unless Noted
Recorded
Live at The Belleview Hospital for the Insane
Side
One:
1.
Good Wood
2. My Hand’s Up Your Ass (And My Fingers Are Covered In Splinters)
3. Everyone Says I’m Crazy (To Love You)
4. Let Me Do The Talking
5. Shut Up Dummy
6. Trees Talk Too! (Crazy Bedlam Dance Mix)
7. Geraldine (If You Love Me, You Will Kill People!)
Side
Two:
1.
My Split Personality
2. Ventriloquism – Art Form of the Future
3. Once Again, The Children Are Crying
4. Notes on Ricky’s Schizophrenia, Extreme Paranoid Tendencies, Repetition
Compulsion, and His Many Other Mental Disorders *(written by Dr. Seymour
Rabinovitz)
5. The Bitch Wears White *(written by Ricky)
6. Do The Lobotomy *(written by Dr. Seymour Rabinovitz)
7. No More Voices (In My Head) *(written by Ricky and Frank Sinatra)
In my many years as a
clinical psychoanalyst, I had come across thousands of bizarre and disturbing
cases, yet none of them was ever so troubling and freakishly weird as the
split-personality case of Geraldine and Ricky. (Or Ricky and Geraldine,
depending on whom you talked to.)
Ricky and Geraldine were
brought to my office by their traumatized and severely alcoholic parents. They
claimed that Geraldine and Ricky’s relationship, while initially cute and
funny, was now bordering on the “weird and scary.” It was also implied
that the two had begun to “hurt people.” While drinking from a flask,
their mother blurted out that they shared a bed and were involved in
“unnatural activities” together. I promised to do what I could.
Right off the bat it
became apparent that Ricky was the dominant aggressor in the relationship. He
insulted me, broke my office lamp and swore like a turret’s victim.
Geraldine, for her part, tended to smile vacantly and look glassy eyed. The
fact that Ricky constantly referred to her as a “dumb bitch” and a
“controlling whore” demonstrated just how conflicted he was about
Geraldine, and her role in his life. The fact that his hateful words seemed to
have no impact on Geraldine whatsoever allowed me to conclude that she was the
“enabler” in this relationship, and, I suspected, probably also very
passive aggressive.
The first thing I did was
have them committed. I then began to creatively mix and prescribe mind-bending
drugs that would cure them. Large doses of powerful hallucinogenics would be
required! Ricky really seemed to take to them and talked endlessly about all
the “cool colors, man!” whereas Geraldine became listless and started
sprouting mustache hairs. I would
need to rethink my methodology.
My next brainstorm was to
put them in straightjackets and separate them. Again, the results were not
what I had hoped for. Ricky became silent and lay in the corner, inert,
refusing to eat, move, breath or talk, while Geraldine began forming an
extremely unhealthy relationship with a wooden chair.
One late night, while sitting in my office drinking and masturbating in
moderation, I finally arrived at what would ultimately be the perfect therapy
to help these two troubled souls slay their mental demons and find peace of
mind: Lobotomies all round!
Later, my secretary suggested that instead of carving out small pieces of
their frontal lobes, maybe I should encourage them to record an album. She
noted that I could then analyze the resulting creation and search for
psychological clues in the words that might serve as the root source and
foundations of their mental disorder. Since I couldn’t find my lobotomy
scalpel, I decided to go this route. Perhaps it might prove to be therapeutic.
The result was Geraldine
and Ricky’s “Trees Talk Too!” a combination of traditional gypsy music,
talk-therapy and ventriloquism comedy with some clinical observations by me.
I obtained some intriguing
insights into the brains of both of them through the material. It was obvious
that Ricky was the creative visionary whereas Geraldine was simply the
straight woman and Ricky’s goonish plastic-haired sidekick. Of course I had
to keep a lid on some of Ricky’s “artistic concepts.” His idea to have
Geraldine strip would have excited the other patients far too much, and there
was no way in hell the two of them were going to perform a “live sex
show.”
As the creative power
struggle became more enhanced between the two, so did their hopes of recovery.
Geraldine often talked of a sock puppet from her childhood that she wouldn’t
mind revisiting and Ricky began working on a solo stand-up comedy act about
insanity, wood products and his immense dislike of carpenters and termites.
By the time the album was
recorded (live, at our very own Belleview Hospital for the Insane) a rift
between the two had formed that would never be mended.
Shortly after the album
was recorded, Ricky met me for a private consultation and admitted that the
time had come to give up the “unhealthy act of ventriloquism” and “get
on with life.” He told me had discarded his puppet, Geraldine, and as far as
he was concerned I could toss her into the incinerator.
I asked him if he didn’t
want to have the Geraldine dummy as a keepsake (this was a test!), but he told
me it would just be an unpleasant memory of his troubled mental times. He was
free of the dummy and happier for it... I had solved the case!
I congratulated Ricky on
his incredible breakthrough and then when he wasn’t looking, I gave him a
lobotomy (I can’t help myself!) and sent him on his way.
I’m proud to say that Ricky is now a functioning member of society and a
small-time criminal and a petty thug at worst.
Geraldine, of course, was
nothing more than a stuffed puppet made of wood shavings, foam, glue, plastic,
and cheap pinewood. However she sits on an honored place on my office
bookshelf. Sometimes when I look into her glassy eyes I swear she almost looks
human...
Dr. Seymour Rabinovitz
Belleview Hospital for the
Insane (1972)
Cover photo: Hans the Orderly ©
1972 Bedlam Records
Corporate Fool
INT.
OFFICE -- DAY
GUS
is behind a desk in his posh downtown office.
His daughter NANCY paces in front of his desk.
NANCY:
Dad, when I agreed to come to work for you it was with the understanding that
I'd be taken seriously -- that you give serious consideration to my
suggestions.
GUS:
Alright, Nancy, I get the point...show me your little report.
NANCY:
Look, Dad, I've been working on this for three months, so don't just write it
off, okay? It's all there in
black and white: the filtration system needs a complete overhaul.
GUS:
Come on, honey, don't be silly...that idea will cost a fortune.
NANCY:
It would be money well spent dad. Besides,
I don't think we have a choice. So,
what do you say?
GUS:
I need another opinion.
NANCY:
Dad, please, trust me on this. I
know what I'm talking about.
Gus
presses an intercom button.
GUS:
Helen, have the Knave come hither.
NANCY:
Knave?
GUS:
Yes, David Flak.
NANCY:
Who's he?
GUS:
My Fool...you know, like in Shakespeare.
All the kings had them.
NANCY:
A Fool? Look, dad, don't you
think that given the cash flow problems we have that hiring yourself some
comic sidekick is just a little self indulgent?
GUS:
Nancy, this company is like my Fiefdom, and I am its ruler, or Fief, if you
will. And as such, I think I'm
entitled to a few pleasures. Besides,
if Ed Gorman at vacu-waste can afford a corporate fool, I can too.
DAVID
FLAK, the corporate fool enters. He
is dressed in medieval fool costume and leaps about manically.
FOOL:
Greeting my lord, alack, alas. Shall I sing or
prithee dance? Or speak a very naughty rhyme. Tell me and I'll waste no time.
NANCY:
This is utterly ridiculous.
FOOL:
S'blood. Who is this lass who
stands by you -- the lead from The Taming of the Shrew?
GUS:
Ha ha...cut it out Fool, that's my daughter you're talking about and this is
no time for jokes -- though he really nailed you there, huh Nancy?
Fool, I need your advice.
FOOL:
Beware! He who turns to fools for
thought, should not be teaching but instead be taught.
Still, if it pleases you to ask, I shall throw myself upon the task.
NANCY:
You can't seriously be thinking of asking him, dad.
What does he know about this company?
What does he know about anything?
FOOL:
It's true I do indeed know naught, but that is often quite a lot. Do not my
education shun, for I took Shakespeare 101.
GUS:
Fool...see these blueprints? I
have some toxins held up here...now our filtration plant is, well, some
bleeding heart pansies who like to make a big deal of toxic waste say it's not
quite up to scratch.
FOOL:
The poison place where people cry. And not from two, but from three eyes?
GUS:
Oh good. You know it...well, I
need to dump this stuff somewhere.
NANCY:
You don't need to dump it, dad...you need to clean up the mess you've got.
GUS:
That's what I said... Hey... What's that?
Gus
points at a spot on the blueprint.
NANCY:
A sewer...
GUS:
Allah be praised.
NANCY:
We can't dump into that, dad.
GUS:
Fool?
FOOL:
What? Oh sorry.
Right. Why spend money to
fix the drains, when you can poison people's brains?
If you are blind unto your crimes, who can stop you pumping slime?
Why think of those that you will hurt?
You've always treated them like dirt.
GUS:
I agree, smart thinking Fool. Nancy,
tell the contractors to tap into the sewer.
NANCY:
Dad, listen to me: this is a mistake. They'll
close us down.
GUS:
They've tried before.
NANCY:
Maybe I should contact the board.
GUS:
What? Never!
This is my company.
FOOL:
(To Nancy) Your words are wasted on his ears, for he is advanced in his
years... His mind is addled, his vision fails; he weighs out justice on broken
scales.
NANCY:
You're not giving me a lot of choice here, dad.
Maybe you should get some rest, let me take over for a while, until
you're back to your old self again.
GUS:
Traitor...conspirator...you're fired. Get
out!
NANCY:
You can't be serious.
GUS:
Get out before I release the hounds...
NANCY:
Dad, what are you doing? You're
acting crazy.
GUS:
Out!!!
NANCY:
But daddy...
GUS:
I told you to never call me that at the office...get out...ungrateful wench.
Sewage put you through University...good riddance to bad rubbish.
Nancy
exits office in tears.
GUS
(CONT'D): Damn it all! No one
understands what it's like to be in charge of it all.
You understand me though, don't you, my pretty fool?
Tell me a rhyme.
FOOL:
I'm on my break.
GUS:
I said tell me a damn rhyme!
FOOL:
Fine... It's platitudes that thou adores, and empty ones I have in store.
The bravery that you showed today, will help to drive them all away.
And a noble king you shall always be, with just one friend, and you're
paying me. So regal yourself and
have a laugh, and I shall write your epitaph.
And in it I shall duly say...You lived your life without guilt or fear,
but if only you had read King Lear. You
might have lived to see the day, when you did not play out the play.
GUS:
I like it...now change hats and drive me home.
I have a headache.
This Week's 10 Favorite Search Terms for
Avery Ant
The following are this week’s favorite 10 search
queries people used to get to www.averyant.com
(really!)
virgo
bong
how to have fun in one minute
pope ass
hurting burning nasty
going rotter in bed
rabid goat email
elmo gone bad
which dr. you visit for a hemorrhoid
happy clown no such thing
spanking and accountability
Please Watch This Incredible
Video... WARNING:L
http://www.bushflash.com/y2.html
(to the top)
To read all the other mildly
exciting editions of "Avery's Daily Journal" visit
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