Reconciliation<\/b>. This week, I read about the woman on the Texas School Board who thinks Barack Obama is going to open the doors for terrorists. And I saw all three anti-gay amendments pass in state elections, presumably because hearing the word ‘gay’ might make innocent people turn gay. RedState has begun its Operation Leper, so they might throw out all the reasonable voices in the GOP and turn it into a teeny-tiny echo chamber of Sarah Palin and her ilk (and her elk, presumably.)<\/p>\n
And let’s not forget that the President-Elect is a Marxist\/Islamist\/Radical Black Christian and Dick Cheney planned 9\/11. There are crazies all around. Enough crazies to fill a small city (although the right-wing half of them would rather stay in small towns.)<\/p>\n
So I give you this. It’s rough. It needs many, many revisions. And I did NOT pick the craziest of the crazies. But I think it’s not so terrible. Let me know what you think.<\/p>\n
Come back later tonight\/this weekend for my on-time wrapup. I’ll have links to the other sketches then. But for now, please enjoy mine. And comment! Comment! Comment!<\/p>\n
<\/i>Extremes Attraction<\/b><\/p>\n INT. SPACESHIP PASSAGEWAY – PERMANENT NIGHT<\/p>\n Curved plasteel walls stretch into the distance. The thrum of the Keeslar-Morales drive is just audible. With a WHOOSH, a door slides open and SUB-COMMANDANT BILL O’REILLY enters in his skin-tight utility uniform. He is followed by ARCH-LIEUTENANT MICHELLE MALKIN, sashaying in her skin-tight utilities, unzipped provocatively, exposing cleavage.<\/p>\n MALKIN<\/p>\n Sub-commandant! You can’t let them on the ship, they’ll infect us all!<\/p>\n O’REILLY<\/p>\n It’s a risk we’ve got to take!<\/p>\n INT. SPACESHIP TRANSPORTER ROOM – PERMANENT NIGHT<\/p>\n CHIEF RUSH LIMBAUGH tests the limits of his kevlar-spandex uniform standing at a control panel.<\/p>\n O’REILLY<\/p>\n Bring them over, Limby.<\/p>\n LIMBAUGH<\/p>\n Aye, Sub-commandant.<\/p>\n Limbaugh pushes buttons, turns dials, and slides a lever. Twinkling lights and tinkling chimes fill the room and three forms take shape. KEITH-O in a custom tailored suit, JANEANE in hemp clothing cut like potato sacks, and AL FRANKEN in tweed appear.<\/p>\n MALKIN<\/p>\n Look out! She’s got a gun under her burka!<\/p>\n TWO SECURITY OFFICERS appear out of the corners and tackle Janeane.<\/p>\n MALKIN (CONT’D)<\/p>\n Good job! She was–<\/p>\n SECURITY OFFICER #1<\/p>\n It’s just a hooka, sir.<\/p>\n MALKIN<\/p>\n That’s just as bad! She was going to make all our children smoke<\/p>\n (whispering)<\/p>\n mar-ee-wan-ah.<\/p>\n LIMBAUGH<\/p>\n You’d better let me search her. No telling what other drugs she may be carrying.<\/p>\n O’REILLY<\/p>\n Belay yourself, Chief! Doctor Phil tells me you’ve been spending quite enough time in sickbay.<\/p>\n (beat)<\/p>\n I’m Sub-commandant O’Reilly of the Earthship John Wayne. Welcome aboard.<\/p>\n KEITH-O<\/p>\n You’re a terrible person, O’Reilly. Truly. The. Worst. Person.<\/p>\n MALKIN<\/p>\n Maybe we shouldn’t have responded to your distress signal then!<\/p>\n Janeane and the security guards get up and she gives each of them a little baggie.<\/p>\n JANEANE<\/p>\n We responded to yours, you bimbo!<\/p>\n MALKIN<\/p>\n Don’t be rid–<\/p>\n O’REILLY<\/p>\n –Can it, Michelle! It was our distress signal. I told you that.<\/p>\n MALKIN<\/p>\n But you told me–<\/p>\n O’REILLY<\/p>\n You have anyone like this?<\/p>\n AL FRANKEN<\/p>\n (sighs)<\/p>\n We’ve got Sharpton.<\/p>\n O’REILLY<\/p>\n I’m actually truly sorry.<\/p>\n (beat)<\/p>\n Okay, here’s the problem, our jump drive computers are fried.<\/p>\n KEITH-O<\/p>\n Don’t you have a backup?<\/p>\n O’REILLY<\/p>\n The backup computers are all infected with a virus. Our morale officer, Bennett, installed poker on all of them, but the software was a Trojan Horse. We’re practically drifting. All we’ve got is our Hadron drives for maneuvering. We’re stuck sub-light.<\/p>\n LIMBAUGH<\/p>\n We’ve only got six months supply in the mess!<\/p>\n AL FRANKEN<\/p>\n (looks at Limbaugh)<\/p>\n I’d guess only three.<\/p>\n JANEANE<\/p>\n What do you want from us, O’Reilly?<\/p>\n O’REILLY<\/p>\n Can you send over your Systems Officer to assist with a complete overhaul of our network? Ours isn’t up to the task.<\/p>\n AL FRANKEN<\/p>\n Why’s that?<\/p>\n O’REILLY<\/p>\n No one properly vetted Ensign Palin. Apparently MIT was not one of the many schools she attended.<\/p>\n KEITH-O<\/p>\n We’d like to help, we honestly would–.<\/p>\n MALKIN<\/p>\n But you won’t right? Typical. You elites just want to take and take from the hard-working people and–<\/p>\n KEITH-O<\/p>\n –but we don’t have a Systems Officer, per se.<\/p>\n O’REILLY<\/p>\n What do you mean?<\/p>\n JANEANE<\/p>\n We don’t have ranks or titles. Everyone just pitches in on the Gaia. From each according to his abilities…<\/p>\n AL FRANKEN, JANEANE, KEITH-O<\/p>\n …to each according to his needs.<\/p>\n JANEANE<\/p>\n It works pretty well, other than all those course corrections. Someday it would be nice to reach a planet.<\/p>\n O’REILLY<\/p>\n You need to have a clearly defined chain of command.<\/p>\n AL FRANKEN<\/p>\n We don’t really believe in that. That’s why it took us an hour to come over. We had to get the crew together and debate who should come. Then we had to debate whether to bring the talking stick or leave it back on the Gaia.<\/p>\n MALKIN<\/p>\n (under breath)<\/p>\n Gay-uh is right.<\/p>\n Limbaugh snickers like a schoolboy and minces in the background for Malkin’s benefit.<\/p>\n AL FRANKEN<\/p>\n I guess we could ask around and see if anyone’s got any experience with this sort of problem.<\/p>\n INT. SPACESHIP CONFERENCE ROOM – PERMANENT NIGHT<\/p>\n O’Reilly, Malkin, and the three from the ESS Gaia are joined by JOSEPHINE JONZZ, mid-20s and transgendered, wearing a skimpy dress and JOE WURLZ, late 30s and bald, wearing a gray jumpsuit. O’Reilly frequently leers at JOSEPHINE.<\/p>\n MALKIN<\/p>\n Do you have a lot of experience with computer systems?<\/p>\n JOSEPHINE<\/p>\n Nah, not really. Sometimes I’d cash out customers at the salon, but I’d usually make a mistake and the owner’d have to come help.<\/p>\n AL FRANKEN<\/p>\n It was her or Steve Jobs. Even I don’t hate you enough to do that.<\/p>\n MALKIN<\/p>\n Joe, why don’t you take him\/her\/it down to the computer core.<\/p>\n JOE<\/p>\n No.<\/p\n><\/p>\n O’REILLY<\/p>\n Are you disobeying a direct order, mister?<\/p>\n JOE<\/p>\n Sub-commandant, arch-lieutenant…all due respect, but I can’t work with *that*. Back when I was a Telephone Sanitizer I wouldn’t even have cleaned its phone. Just spit on it when it wasn’t looking.<\/p>\n JOSEPHINE<\/p>\n Hey, that’s not nice!<\/p>\n O’REILLY<\/p>\n (leering again)<\/p>\n No, it’s not nice Ms. Jonzz.<\/p>\n JOSEPHINE<\/p>\n Josie. You can call me Josie.<\/p>\n O’REILLY<\/p>\n And you can call me Papa Bear.<\/p>\n MALKIN<\/p>\n Oh, get a room! We’re spinning out of control here.<\/p>\n A communicator on the table dings and Malkin presses a button.<\/p>\n MALKIN<\/p>\n Go ahead.<\/p>\n TECH (FILTER)<\/p>\n Arch-lieutenant, the Gaia has docked with us!<\/p>\n MALKIN<\/p>\n You see! I told you they were going to come over here and kill us all and introduce Sharia and make us get gay married and take away our guns!!!<\/p>\n AL FRANKEN<\/p>\n All at once? How would…never mind.<\/p>\n JANEANE<\/p>\n It must be hard to be you.<\/p>\n O’REILLY<\/p>\n What’s the meaning of this, Franken?!<\/p>\n AL FRANKEN<\/p>\n I have no idea. We never discussed docking.<\/p>\n TECH (FILTER)<\/p>\n It appears that our computer systems are back online. They’ve networked with the Gaia’s. There’s–<\/p>\n A hologram – much like the CNN hologram – shimmers into view. BARACK OBAMA and JOHN MCCAIN stand arm-in-arm.<\/p>\n OBAMA<\/p>\n We hope you’re all enjoying your accomodations.<\/p>\n MCCAIN<\/p>\n Is Sarah doing well, I hope?<\/p>\n OBAMA<\/p>\n You might wonder why we’ve brought you all together.<\/p>\n MALKIN<\/p>\n You had nothing to do with it! We take personal responsibility for our actions!<\/p>\n OBAMA<\/p>\n (laughs)<\/p>\n Yes, of course you do, Michelle. Anyway, we brought your ships together so we could say goodbye one last time.<\/p>\n AL FRANKEN<\/p>\n What? I don’t understand! I supported you!<\/p>\n OBAMA<\/p>\n Yes Al, thank you for that. I know you did. But America needs to come together now, and voices like yours are part of the old, divisive ways.<\/p>\n MCCAIN<\/p>\n We don’t have the time or room for any more of the extremes to be tearing the middle apart.<\/p>\n KEITH-O<\/p>\n And Senator McCain, sir, do you believe you are in the middle? You are not, sir.<\/p>\n MCCAIN<\/p>\n What can I say? I’m a maverick. Always bouncing around. I woke up and realized America needs to move forward, not rightward or leftward.<\/p>\n O’REILLY<\/p>\n So the world we were supposed to be colonizing? The one filled with willing slaves?<\/p>\n MCCAIN<\/p>\n That was a lie to get you on the John Wayne.<\/p>\n JANEANE<\/p>\n And the one we were going to, with universal healthcare and legalized pot and no corporations conspiring against us? That was a lie, too?<\/p>\n OBAMA<\/p>\n “Lie” is such an ugly word, Janeane. Let’s just say it was a campaign promise that didn’t come true.<\/p>\n MCCAIN<\/p>\n Your ships are now in a decaying orbit around the sun. You have another day before the boys in NASA say the heat will be too much and the hull will vaporize.<\/p>\n MALKIN<\/p>\n I thought we were hundreds of light years away!<\/p>\n OBAMA<\/p>\n Well, Michelle, perhaps if you had paid a little more attention in your science classes and not believed every silly anti-scientific fantasy that crossed before you, you would know that isn’t possible. And now we’d like to say our goodbyes. Have a pleasant journey and know that your sacrifice is going to make America and the world a better place.<\/p>\n The hologram cuts out. Silence. The thrum of what clearly are NOT Keeslar-Morales drives is audible.<\/p>\n Joe the Phone Sanitizer looks at Janeane.<\/p>\n JOE<\/p>\n You wanna?<\/p>\n JANEANE<\/p>\n Sure.<\/p>\n Joe and Janeane leave with lust and despair in their eyes. Al Franken nods to Keith-O and Michelle Malkin.<\/p>\n AL FRANKEN<\/p>\n Not much time left. Whatdya think?<\/p>\n The three of them leave the room. Michelle looks like a schoolgirl, giddy with the knowledge that she can drop the act.<\/p>\n O’REILLY<\/p>\n (To Josephine)<\/p>\n Right here on the table works for me.<\/p>\n BLACKOUT<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reconciliation. This week, I read about the woman on the Texas School Board who thinks Barack Obama is going to open the doors for terrorists. And I saw all three anti-gay amendments pass in state elections, presumably because hearing the word ‘gay’ might make innocent people turn gay. RedState has begun its Operation Leper, so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[99,182],"class_list":["post-142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sketches","tag-humor","tag-sketch-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sketchwar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sketchwar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sketchwar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sketchwar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sketchwar.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sketchwar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sketchwar.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sketchwar.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sketchwar.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}