Talking Heads
Conspiracy blogger Glenn Michael Beckmann was already distracted from his Ghost CIA mission to assassinate Donald Trump, hard at work to find the hidden links between the deaths of David Bowie, Antonin Scalia, and Harper Lee. Only one group stood to gain from the death of all three! But Beckmann had not yet figured out who that was....
1) Bowie had been an alien, capable of cross-dressing and procreating hybrid spawn with men or women--there was no telling how many might be out there! The melodies came from his galactic overlord, and the saxophone solos were how Bowie had reported back about life on Earth. But had his mission ended? Was his real alien self beamed up? Were more of his kind coming? Nobody would say!!
2) Scalia had spent a career building flawlessly logical legal arguments based on biased starting points provided to him by Richard Nixon's mafia friends--who also provided his special cigarettes! (Scalia had also spawned a lot of offspring, but they appeared to be human.) No autopsy! Who was the last person to see him alive? Nobody would say!! Beckmann had already been to see Scalia's body lying in state and knew it was a fake--where was the real corpse??!! Nobody would say!!
3) Lee's body had not, apparently, spawned any offspring, but why not? Everybody knew it had been the Kennedy's and the Harlem Globetrotters who had convinced her never to publish a sequel to "To Kill a Mockingbird", but with them all out of the way, a shady family attorney was able to squeeze out "Go Set a Watchman" for the attorney's own pecuniary gain. But why kill her now...unless the movie rights had already been sold??!! Where was the movie??!! Nobody would say!!
Music, aliens, Italian opera, drugs, Persian cats, cancer, cross-dressers, New York values, grandfather clocks, people obsessed with the Deep South, the irony of Hillary Clinton's being too honest to tell a reporter she never told a lie--Beckmann was sorting through a myriad of possible factors looking for the link because, hey, it wasn't old age!
He took a break to turn on his former girlfriend's web series, "Juice With Giuliana". Like most of the seminal events in his life, the romance and break-up with NoMA lifestyle guru Giuliana Sunstream were now a muddled series of sketchy memories to Beckmann, but he was fairly certain they had never done weed together! And yet here she was, showing today's guest, famed dog whisperer Sebastian L'Arche, how to make a smoothie with pomegranate juice, chia seeds, yogurt, winter cabbage, Virginia honey, and marijuana oil!
"I call this 'Chia Pet' because it gives you that sense of well-being that comes from taking care of a pet without all the hard work," said Giuliana, laughing at her own joke.
"Um, you know I work with live pets, right?" asked L'Arche, wondering how he had let his business partner Becky Hartley talk him into doing this appearance on a local rip-off of "Cocktails With Khloe"
"Oh, don't get me wrong, Sebastian! I love pets, and I wouldn't trade Vegas for anything in the world!" She picked up her toy Maltese for a big kiss. "But some people have allergies or other issues which just make it too hard for them to have pets. A little cup of Chia Pet boosts oxytocin levels, healthy omega fats, helpful gut bacteria, hay fever fighters, and Vitamin A. And it tastes delicious!"
"Alright," said L'Arche, giving it a sip. "But I'm really not sure people should be drinking this every day."
"All good things in moderation!" cooed Giuliana. "Now let me show you how I make doggy sweaters from cardigans I pick up at the Good Will Thrift Store."
A few miles to the north, Angela de la Paz was sitting in the back of the Basilica, eyes closed. The funeral mass for Antonin Scalia was over, but he was lingering in the Dream Time. "You can move on now," she said.
"No, they're still talking about me!"
"Well, that might go on for awhile," said Angela.
"I can't stand it! The reporters! The Senators! I hate the way they talk about me and how to replace me! I'm a soul! You can't replace a soul!"
"Do you feel like a soul?" asked Angela.
"Of course I do!" barked Scalia. "I'm a good Catholic!"
"Then let the dead bury their dead, and the living--"
"Don't preach to me! There's too much at stake! Nobody can do what I did!"
Angela nodded sadly. "Your legacy will speak for itself."
"No, they can't get it right! Even my son!"
"Because now you would explain it differently, wouldn't you?" asked Angela. Scalia looked around the DreamTime, confused. "Take my hand," said Angela. "There are a lot of souls in here you need to meet." She could already see Justice Brennan next to Scalia's mother. "Don't worry--this will be the best oral argument of all!"
Angela gave him a final gentle push, and he turned away from the world. She visited her loved ones for a few more minutes, then left the DreamTime and opened her eyes. An usher was picking up stray papers and tidying books in the pews. A few clusters of women were praying the rosary here and there. A few clumps of VIPs were finishing up their whispered conversations before heading out into the sunlight. It will only get uglier. She said one more prayer and headed out of the Basilica.
A few miles to the south, psychiatrist Ermann Esse was in his downtown office, scratching under his cursed Rolex, listening to a normally dull Justice Department attorney sputter in fury about the looming Constitutional showdown between the Legislative and Executive Branches over the vacant Supreme Court seat. Dr. Esse had spent months telling patients exactly what he thought of their appalling excuses for lives, and nobody listened to his advice! Why did they come? What did it matter what he said to them? He drugged them, hypnotized them, slept with them--all for nothing! Now his patient was saying something about ignorant blobs of humanity and bedrock legal principles, and his eyes were practically bulging out of their eye sockets, and the demon Rolex was strangling the shrink's wrist, and the droning nasal voice of his patient was driving him insane.
"Well, if Scalia can be murdered, any of them can be murdered!" shouted the psychiatrist.
"Murdered?!" gasped the patient.
"It doesn't matter who gets appointed or doesn't get appointed! We're all puppets until we get murdered and another puppet is put in!"
"Um, I seem to have upset you, Doctor Esse--"
"And so now you're going to report me?"
"I didn't say that."
Dr. Esse pulled his emergency Taser out and started shocking the patient until he was dead. The shouting and screams brought the next patient running in from the waiting area, and Dr. Esse quickly grabbed the next patient, put the Taser into her hands to get her fingerprints all over it, ran out of the office, locked the two patients in it, and called 911 to report a murder.
"Didymus", the ghost of Robert McNamara, had seen everything. "You killed him!"
"Where did you come from?!" shouted the psychiatrist, looking around wildly to see if there were any other witnesses.
"I'm early for my three pm appointment."
"I'll kill you, too, if you don't get out of here and keep your mouth shut!"
Few ghosts had progressed into spiritual life as slowly as the ghost of Robert McNamara, but this time, the light bulb actually went off.
"That watch is haunted!" cried Didymus. "It's evil!"
"Don't be ridiculous! It's a classic!"
"Take it off!" shouted Didymus.
"I'm the expert here!" retorted Dr. Esse.
"For God's sake, man, how much more blood do you want on your hands?! Do you think there is anybody in the world who knows about that like I do?"
Dr. Esse suddenly heard the screeches of the woman he had locked in the office with the corpse, and the sound of approaching sirens. He looked down at his wristwatch hand, dripping in blood from the raw scratches under the Rolex. He ran out into the hallway to the men's room, flushed the bloody Rolex away, and washed his hands furiously.
Across the river, the letter carrier was delivering a gift to the Arlington Home for the Mentally Challenged: it was a ventriloquist dummy from the estate of Larry's late grandfather. Larry pulled the dummy out, sat it on his leg, put his hand in the way he used to see his grandfather do it, and waited for it to talk.
1) Bowie had been an alien, capable of cross-dressing and procreating hybrid spawn with men or women--there was no telling how many might be out there! The melodies came from his galactic overlord, and the saxophone solos were how Bowie had reported back about life on Earth. But had his mission ended? Was his real alien self beamed up? Were more of his kind coming? Nobody would say!!
2) Scalia had spent a career building flawlessly logical legal arguments based on biased starting points provided to him by Richard Nixon's mafia friends--who also provided his special cigarettes! (Scalia had also spawned a lot of offspring, but they appeared to be human.) No autopsy! Who was the last person to see him alive? Nobody would say!! Beckmann had already been to see Scalia's body lying in state and knew it was a fake--where was the real corpse??!! Nobody would say!!
3) Lee's body had not, apparently, spawned any offspring, but why not? Everybody knew it had been the Kennedy's and the Harlem Globetrotters who had convinced her never to publish a sequel to "To Kill a Mockingbird", but with them all out of the way, a shady family attorney was able to squeeze out "Go Set a Watchman" for the attorney's own pecuniary gain. But why kill her now...unless the movie rights had already been sold??!! Where was the movie??!! Nobody would say!!
Music, aliens, Italian opera, drugs, Persian cats, cancer, cross-dressers, New York values, grandfather clocks, people obsessed with the Deep South, the irony of Hillary Clinton's being too honest to tell a reporter she never told a lie--Beckmann was sorting through a myriad of possible factors looking for the link because, hey, it wasn't old age!
He took a break to turn on his former girlfriend's web series, "Juice With Giuliana". Like most of the seminal events in his life, the romance and break-up with NoMA lifestyle guru Giuliana Sunstream were now a muddled series of sketchy memories to Beckmann, but he was fairly certain they had never done weed together! And yet here she was, showing today's guest, famed dog whisperer Sebastian L'Arche, how to make a smoothie with pomegranate juice, chia seeds, yogurt, winter cabbage, Virginia honey, and marijuana oil!
"I call this 'Chia Pet' because it gives you that sense of well-being that comes from taking care of a pet without all the hard work," said Giuliana, laughing at her own joke.
"Um, you know I work with live pets, right?" asked L'Arche, wondering how he had let his business partner Becky Hartley talk him into doing this appearance on a local rip-off of "Cocktails With Khloe"
"Oh, don't get me wrong, Sebastian! I love pets, and I wouldn't trade Vegas for anything in the world!" She picked up her toy Maltese for a big kiss. "But some people have allergies or other issues which just make it too hard for them to have pets. A little cup of Chia Pet boosts oxytocin levels, healthy omega fats, helpful gut bacteria, hay fever fighters, and Vitamin A. And it tastes delicious!"
"Alright," said L'Arche, giving it a sip. "But I'm really not sure people should be drinking this every day."
"All good things in moderation!" cooed Giuliana. "Now let me show you how I make doggy sweaters from cardigans I pick up at the Good Will Thrift Store."
A few miles to the north, Angela de la Paz was sitting in the back of the Basilica, eyes closed. The funeral mass for Antonin Scalia was over, but he was lingering in the Dream Time. "You can move on now," she said.
"No, they're still talking about me!"
"Well, that might go on for awhile," said Angela.
"I can't stand it! The reporters! The Senators! I hate the way they talk about me and how to replace me! I'm a soul! You can't replace a soul!"
"Do you feel like a soul?" asked Angela.
"Of course I do!" barked Scalia. "I'm a good Catholic!"
"Then let the dead bury their dead, and the living--"
"Don't preach to me! There's too much at stake! Nobody can do what I did!"
Angela nodded sadly. "Your legacy will speak for itself."
"No, they can't get it right! Even my son!"
"Because now you would explain it differently, wouldn't you?" asked Angela. Scalia looked around the DreamTime, confused. "Take my hand," said Angela. "There are a lot of souls in here you need to meet." She could already see Justice Brennan next to Scalia's mother. "Don't worry--this will be the best oral argument of all!"
Angela gave him a final gentle push, and he turned away from the world. She visited her loved ones for a few more minutes, then left the DreamTime and opened her eyes. An usher was picking up stray papers and tidying books in the pews. A few clusters of women were praying the rosary here and there. A few clumps of VIPs were finishing up their whispered conversations before heading out into the sunlight. It will only get uglier. She said one more prayer and headed out of the Basilica.
A few miles to the south, psychiatrist Ermann Esse was in his downtown office, scratching under his cursed Rolex, listening to a normally dull Justice Department attorney sputter in fury about the looming Constitutional showdown between the Legislative and Executive Branches over the vacant Supreme Court seat. Dr. Esse had spent months telling patients exactly what he thought of their appalling excuses for lives, and nobody listened to his advice! Why did they come? What did it matter what he said to them? He drugged them, hypnotized them, slept with them--all for nothing! Now his patient was saying something about ignorant blobs of humanity and bedrock legal principles, and his eyes were practically bulging out of their eye sockets, and the demon Rolex was strangling the shrink's wrist, and the droning nasal voice of his patient was driving him insane.
"Well, if Scalia can be murdered, any of them can be murdered!" shouted the psychiatrist.
"Murdered?!" gasped the patient.
"It doesn't matter who gets appointed or doesn't get appointed! We're all puppets until we get murdered and another puppet is put in!"
"Um, I seem to have upset you, Doctor Esse--"
"And so now you're going to report me?"
"I didn't say that."
Dr. Esse pulled his emergency Taser out and started shocking the patient until he was dead. The shouting and screams brought the next patient running in from the waiting area, and Dr. Esse quickly grabbed the next patient, put the Taser into her hands to get her fingerprints all over it, ran out of the office, locked the two patients in it, and called 911 to report a murder.
"Didymus", the ghost of Robert McNamara, had seen everything. "You killed him!"
"Where did you come from?!" shouted the psychiatrist, looking around wildly to see if there were any other witnesses.
"I'm early for my three pm appointment."
"I'll kill you, too, if you don't get out of here and keep your mouth shut!"
Few ghosts had progressed into spiritual life as slowly as the ghost of Robert McNamara, but this time, the light bulb actually went off.
"That watch is haunted!" cried Didymus. "It's evil!"
"Don't be ridiculous! It's a classic!"
"Take it off!" shouted Didymus.
"I'm the expert here!" retorted Dr. Esse.
"For God's sake, man, how much more blood do you want on your hands?! Do you think there is anybody in the world who knows about that like I do?"
Dr. Esse suddenly heard the screeches of the woman he had locked in the office with the corpse, and the sound of approaching sirens. He looked down at his wristwatch hand, dripping in blood from the raw scratches under the Rolex. He ran out into the hallway to the men's room, flushed the bloody Rolex away, and washed his hands furiously.
Across the river, the letter carrier was delivering a gift to the Arlington Home for the Mentally Challenged: it was a ventriloquist dummy from the estate of Larry's late grandfather. Larry pulled the dummy out, sat it on his leg, put his hand in the way he used to see his grandfather do it, and waited for it to talk.
posted by washingtonwaterwoman | 1:54 PM
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