Play That Funky Music

I need to apologize right now for the fact that in the last two posts I have been…well, a little angry. I live near Fort Meade, which has only one reason for being open, to wit, the fine people at NSA. As a result, I come into almost daily contact, there at my favorite watering hole, with some of the geekiest pass-the-buck “patriotic” sorts (“mega-dittoes, Mr. President, bwa-ha-ha!”) you could ever hope to drive over by accident, twice.

So I had to vent, is the point. Plus I was actually working on a new novel—the muse is a heartless and eccentric and time-insensitive bitch, and when she sez we work, well….

Anyway, anyway, anyway.

I promise not to get this distracted when I’m running this country. I have a plan, in fact, for helping me keep my focus, and also to buck up the flagging popular morale.

The second thing I’m going to do after taking the oath of office—well, the third thing actually: one I can’t tell you about (thereby keeping sacred the established holy writ of bullshit executive branch secrecy), and the second is firing Congress and replacing it, in its entirety except for really cute pages, with little yappy dogs. I have mentioned this part of the plan before, but I do want to add that the Majority will be Shih-Tzus, just because….

Anyway, anyway, anyway.

Oh, yeah: I’m going to hold a “Pick the First Lady Contest.” I occurs to me that a good first lady could be instrumental in helping a President keep his priorities straight--you know, that trusted someone who can always be counted on to tell you the unvarnished truth (“How many time do I have to tell you, George? First socks, then shoes”) despite the fact that you have the power to have her shot.

I haven’t worked out the specifics of how the voting will be handled—I’m thinking of letting Katherine Harris handle that—but you can be assured that there will be absolutely no Kennedy involvement, although I’ve already heard from Ted. Plus former President Clinton will not be allowed to participate, since his taste has always seemed a little…well, let’s just say that I’m sure ol’ Bill wanted to chew his own arm off on more than one occasion.

The thing is, I’m not at all sure that my public statements that I plan to marry actress Lauren Graham are having the desired effect. Let me say right now that I—unlike some Presidents I could mention—can admit failure, and it looks like the whole idea of becoming President Mr. Lauren Graham is a bust. I console myself by thinking it's because she’s still depressed about the ongoing vendetta against the “Gilmore Girls.”

I have frankly been thinking my friend Cindy, the Metaphor busgirl, might be a good alternate choice—we have a rapport, after all, and she already knows not only that I have issues, but also what they are—but when I brought it up she said, “I think I’m busy that day. Have you met my mom?”

So we’ll have a First Lady contest. I’ll let the public speak, within limits. I refuse, for instance, to even entertain the thought of convicted major crime figure Martha Stewart for the role, even though, let’s face it, the White House would look fantastic. Also, it should go without saying that Pam Coulter is right out. She'd strangle me in my sleep with my own roast beef sandwich the first night, just for laughs.

That said, no matter who else wins, I plan to listen to the voice of the people and do the right thing by her and marry her in a really big ceremony, broadcast live on all the networks and cable channels except Fox. There will be wardrobe malfunctions, right there at the reception, and we will have several bands playing, Lollapalooza style, including the White Stripes and a reunited Dire Straits. The main musical event of the evening, though, will be when Wild Cherry makes an appearance, following an Official Announcement, possibly by actress Lindsay Lohan, that “Play That Funky Music, White Boy” will replace “Hail to the Chief.” It occurs to me that the First Lady should also have a song that’s played whenever she enters a room; I’m thinking “She’s About a Mover” by the Sir Douglas Quintet, but we can have a vote on that, too.

I also promise that the First Lady and I will never use pet names in public. We had enough of that in the Reagan years to last a lifetime. Plus, I have a couple of friends who do that, and there’s nothing more nauseating than to hear a woman call her husband “my big baboo” while sitting on a barstool; I can only begin to imagine what it sound like at a State dinner.

I have to give the Bush Administration credit on that score: Not once have we heard Laura refer to George as, for instance, “little poot-poot,” and I think we should all be grateful. He has enough problems as it is; I think that shoes-socks thing is starting to get to him.