Author: SugarFree

  • The Hat and The Hair Extended Universe: Uncle Joe

     

    “Pussies are bullshit,” Uncle Joe whispered into the child’s hair. Her mouth opened and a wailing gurgle began.

    “Oh, I think someone’s a little overexcitabled,” he said, looking up at the parents. An aide whisked the child and parents away as the cameras continued to flash.

    “Reminds me, reminds of the time I played the Santa for a bunch of bla-black kids in the barrio, which is what we used to call Starbucks,” Joe said. An aide sat another child in his lap to break off the incipient ramble.

    “How are you, young man?” Joe asked the child loudly. The smells of denture glue and Hai Karate enveloped the little boy as Joe snaked both his arm around his thin torso hugged him until his ribs ached.

    “Mr. Vice President,” an aide said sternly.

    Joe’s eyes opened. “Did you get what you wanted for Channhooka, young man? Do you want to learn to swim?” He kissed the boy on the side of the head. “You don’t taste like you can swim. I have my own pool.”

    The boy didn’t say anything. Fat tears were running down his face.

    “Mr. Vice President!” another aide said. There were a dozen arrayed on either side of him. All armed with low-powered tasers.

    “I love drinking pool water,” he told the reporters as the child was taken away. “Refreshing. I remember summer where I drank nu-nu-nothing but pool water. Hot pool water. Full of vitamins and sunlight!” He smiled his toothy grin, then frowned. He laughed suddenly and loudly. The low warning crackle of a taser could be heard.

    “What do you want for Christmas, little girl?” Joe asked, pawing for the mother of the next child. He caught her wrist and pulled her into his lap before her husband could react.

    “You’ve got fantastic tits for a 2nd grader,” he told the back of the woman’s neck. He rocked her tailbone against the base of his erection and moaned.

    “The Vice President has a very full campaigning schedule,” tallest Secret Service agent barked. He helped the woman in Joe’s lap to her feet, a red flush across her neck and upper chest. The agent passed her to a waiting aide. He never bothered to learn the aide’s names. They rarely lasted more than a week.

    “Don’t smoke The Devil’s Lettuce, kid!” Joe called after the visibly distressed woman.

    “You either, bucko,” he said, pointing to the next child in line. “Don’t even think about asking Ol’ Saint Joe for intravenous drug bongs. I don’t go in for that sort of stuff, Jack!” The little boy took off running, evading the aide trying to put him on Joe Biden’s lap.

    “Look at that little picaninny go,” Joe roared. “We got ourselves a track star!”

    “We’ve been over this, sir,” an aide sat urgently into his ear. “You cannot use that word any longer!”

    “TRACK STAR?!?” Joe asked loudly. Campaign workers were breaking up the line of waiting children and parents. “I can’t say TRACK STAB! Anymore?!?”

    “‘Track star’ is fine, sir,” said the aide. “‘Track stab’ less so. No picaninny. Or mulatto or quadroon or octoroon or Negro or…”

    “They love my leg hair, goddammit!” Joe said, pushing the young man away.

    “Firebird is sundowning,” the aide said into his wrist. “I repeat, Firebird is sundowning.”

     

    In the rendition room, Secret Service agents in clown masks read Trump Tweets to the parents of the children in order to keep their votes.

     

  • The Hat and The Hair: Episode 141

     

    Words appeared on the screen as Donald slowly typed:

    THE WHITE HOUSE
    WASHINGTON

    December 17, 2019

    The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
    Speaker of the House of Representatives
    Washington, D.C. 20515

    Dear Madam Speaker:

    I write to express my strongest and most powerful protest against the partisan impeachment crusade being pursued by the Democrats in the House of Representatives. This impeachment represents an unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of power by Democrat Lawmakers, unequaled in nearly two and a half centuries of American legislative history.

    “Good start, Donald,” the hair said, peering at the screen over the President’s barely conscious eyebrows.

    “Strong opening,” the hat agreed. “‘Unprecedented and unconstitutional’ is perfect. Bitches love alliteration.”

    The Articles of Impeachment introduced by the House Judiciary Committee are not recognizable under any standard of Constitutional theory, interpretation, or jurisprudence. They include no crimes, no misdemeanors, and no offenses whatsoever.

    “Straight from Rudy, that part,” Donald said proudly. The hat and the hair both um’d and ah’d in agreement.

    Donald typed furiously, backspaced just as furiously and retyped furiously.

    You have cheapened the importance of the very ugly word, impeachment!

    “Boom. Kill shot,” Donald chortled.

    “Cheapened something ugly?” the hair asked.

    “Quiet, you!” the hat snapped.

    By proceeding with your invalid impeachment, you are violating your oaths of office, you are breaking your allegiance to the Constitution, and you are declaring open war on American Democracy. You dare to invoke the Founding Fathers in pursuit of this election-nullification scheme—yet your spiteful actions display unfettered contempt for America’s founding and your egregious conduct threatens to destroy that which our Founders pledged their very lives to build. Even worse than offending the Founding Fathers, you are offending Americans of faith by continually saying “I pray for the President,” when you know this statement is not true, unless it is meant in a negative sense. It is a terrible thing you are doing, but you will have to live with it, not I!

    “The last sentence seems a little petulant,” the hair said.

    “Petulant?” Donald asked. “What does that mean?”

    “Just ignore him,” the hat said. “He’s just jealous.”

    “OK, done with all the legal whatever,” Donald said.

    “Biden,” the hat growled. “Hit them with Biden, “Hit ‘em hard!”

    You know full well that Vice President Biden used his office and $1 billion dollars of U.S. aid money to coerce Ukraine into firing the prosecutor who was digging into the company paying his son millions of dollars. You know this because Biden bragged about it on video. Biden openly stated: “I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars’…I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.” Even Joe Biden admitted just days ago in an interview with NPR that it “looked bad.” Now you are trying to impeach me by falsely accusing me of doing what Joe Biden has admitted he actually did.

    “Aw, yeah, muthafuckas!” the hat bellowed triumphantly.

    “Good job, Donald,” the hair said.

    Good job,” the hat said in a breaking falsetto. “Good? It’s perfect! PERFECT!”

    … Ambassador Sondland testified that I told him: “No quid pro quo. I want nothing. I want nothing. I want President Zelensky to do the right thing, do what he ran on.”

    “Yeah,” the hat said, rubbing himself against Donald’s sagittal crest through the hair.

    “Stop. That’s disgusting,” the hair said, trying to buck the hat off.

    “I wish I could jizz right in your eyes,” the hat said, clenching in anger.

    They began to wrestle on Donald’s head.

    “Can you guys calm down?” Donald asked. “I trying to fucking type here.”

    “Just cut and paste what Rudy wrote,” the hair said, rising like a kraken from under the hat to straggle it with many split-end tentacles.

    “I’m adding to it!” Donald said, swatting at them both.

    You have developed a full-fledged case of what many in the media call Trump Derangement Syndrome and sadly, you will never get over it!

    You view democracy as your enemy!

    “Good additions, Donald,” the hat said, chewing on one of the grasping tendrils of the hair.

    “The next part is tough,” Donald said. “And my fingers hurt from typing. And my Chicken McNuggets are cooling down.

    “Consult the notes we made, Donald,” the hair said, beating at the hat with balled-up fists of prehensile locks.

    Speaker Pelosi, you admitted just last week at a public forum that your party’s impeachment effort has been going on for two and a half years,” long before you ever heard about a call with Ukraine. Nineteen minutes after I took the oath of office, the Washington Post published a story headlined, “The Campaign to Impeach President Trump Has Begun.” Less than three months after my inauguration, Representative Maxine Waters stated, “I’m going to fight every day until he’s impeached.” House Democrats introduced the first impeachment resolution against me within months of my inauguration, for what will be regarded as one of our country’s best decisions, the firing of James Comey (see Inspector General Reports)—who the world now knows is one of the dirtiest cops our Nation has ever seen. A ranting and raving Congresswoman, Rashida Tlaib, declared just hours after she was sworn into office, “We’re gonna go in there and we’re gonna impeach the motherf****r.” Representative Al Green said in May, “I’m concerned that if we don’t impeach this president, he will get re-elected.” Again, you and your allies said, and did, all of these things long before you ever heard of President Zelensky or anything related to Ukraine. As you know very well, this impeachment drive has nothing to do with Ukraine, or the totally appropriate conversation I had with its new president. It only has to do with your attempt to undo the election of 2016 and steal the election of 2020!

    The hat repeated every name of every one of their enemies and muttered a curse to blind or bind or wither their genitals into bitter roots and foul hollows.

    Congressman Adam Schiff cheated and lied all the way up to the present day, even going so far as to fraudulently make up, out of thin air, my conversation with President Zelensky of Ukraine and read this fantasy language to Congress as though it were said by me. His shameless lies and deceptions, dating all the way back to the Russia Hoax, is one of the main reasons we are here today.

    “Schiff,” the hair said, muffled yet full of contempt.

    “Put that picture in where his mouth looks like a butthole,” the hat said, trying to smother the hair.

    “It’s not a blog post, dipshit,” the hair said. “It’s a formal letter to Congress.”

    “That’s it, you’re through. Through!” the hat screamed.

    “Put in the next cut and paste,” the hair grunted, struggling. “All the good stuff we’ve done.”

    “I can’t concentrate!” Donald said as the hat and the hair battled on his head.

    Donald began to read out loud as he slowly typed:

    “There is nothing I would rather do than stop referring to your party as the Do-Nothing Democrats. Unfortunately, I don’t know that you will ever give me a chance to do so. After three years of unfair and unwarranted investigations, 45 million dollars spent, 18 angry Democrat prosecutors, the entire force of the FBI, headed by leadership now proven to be totally incompetent and corrupt, you have found NOTHING!”

    “NOTHING!” the hat echoed. “HA!”

    “Few people in high position could have endured or passed this test. You do not know, nor do you care, the great damage and hurt you have inflicted upon wonderful and loving members of my family. You conducted a fake investigation upon the democratically elected President of the United States, and you are doing it yet again.”

    “Exclamation point, Donald,” the hat said. “You can never have too many!”

    “You are the ones interfering in America’s elections. You are the ones subverting America’s Democracy. You are the ones Obstructing Justice. You are the ones bringing pain and suffering to our Republic for your own selfish personal, political, and partisan gain.”

    “Oh, nice repetition,” the hair said, pulling on the bill of the hat.

    “Stop fighting!” Donald said.

    “Never!” the hat said, and then to the hair, “From Hell’s heart I stab at thee.”

    “Stop quoting Wrath of Khan at me,” the hair said and let out a piercing squeal.

    Moby Dick, asshole!” the hat yelled, “Moby Dick!”

    Donald snatched them both from his head and threw them to the floor.

    “Both of you, shut up,” he said. “There’s still a lot to cut and paste!”

    Before the Impeachment Hoax, it was the Russian Witch Hunt…

    The hat and the hair lay on the Presidental Crest on the Oval Office floor, breathing heavily, barely moving. They listened to Donald type and mutter for a while.

    “Ha!” he said. “HA! Listen to this one.” He read from the screen:

    “More due process was afforded to those accused in the Salem Witch Trials.”

    His typing got faster and louder.

    He began to read again after some thirty minutes had passed:

    “No intelligent person believes what you are saying. Since the moment I won the election, the Democrat Party has been possessed by Impeachment Fever.”

    “IMPEACHMENT FEVER!” he repeated in triumph. “I mean, right? Perfect, just perfect.”

    The hat and the hair lay utterly still on the carpet as he starting typing again.

    “And now,” Donald said, “the Coupe Degrace!”

    “One hundred years from now, when people look back at this affair, I want them to understand it, and learn from it, so that it can never happen to another President again.”

    “Uh, oh yeah, go Donald, oh yeah,” Donald cheered himself.

    “Sincerely yours, Donald J. Trump President of the United States of America yadda yadda yadda,” he said to himself.

    In the now silent Oval Office, he thought he heard the hat speaking quietly to the hair but he couldn’t be sure.

  • Thursday Afternoon SugarLinks – Mostly Pictures Edition

    California’s new employment law has boomeranged and is starting to crush freelancers

    Jeremiah LaBrash, 36, works as a tech programmer for a telecom by day and as a freelance cartoonist for media companies on his time off. Sometimes he brings in half of his annual income from his freelance work.

    That changed when Assembly Bill 5 passed in California and Gov. Gavin Newsom signed it into law on Sept. 18. The law requires most companies to reclassify contract, freelance and contingent workers — the backbone of the gig economy —as full-time employees eligible for benefits, a guaranteed $12–$13 state minimum wage and protections under the state’s employment law.

    LaBrash, based in Los Angeles, suddenly found potential projects drying up when he submitted onboarding paperwork to potential clients and they discovered he lived in California.

    “I’ve had them hire me and then come back and say they’re no longer interested,” says LaBrash. “All of a sudden, someone I’ve never talked to says, ‘We’ve decided not to move forward.’ I’ve never had that happen before this year.”

    LaBrash can’t be certain the reason is AB 5, though he believes it is. He has seen a 40% decline in his freelance income since the law passed in September. “My savings are stagnant,” says LaBrash. “I really can’t look into buying a house. The housing market here is hard already.”

    Even if employers hire him for freelance work, he is limited to 35 annual submissions per client before they have to put him on payroll, he notes. It’s a limit under the law. That’s not a large amount for regular contributors to media companies. “You’re going to hit your quota and they won’t want to hire you,” he says.

    Law created to destroy the gig economy is destroying the gig economy. Let’s all act surprised!

    Intended Consequences Are Intended


    Totally stable and normal Kayne West.


    Quickly deleted, but hilarious none the less. She got to pretend to care about dead Jews and take a swipe at Trump. Too bad pesky reality had to intrude.


    “Thank you for doing my laundry,” confused old man tells uncomfortable voter.

    “Now I’m not really sure we were lovers
    “Or if it was just some kind of car crash”

  • The Hat and The Hair: Episode 140

    “Impeachment!” Donald bellowed from the Presidential Shitter. He flushed the toilet again and groaned and then flushed it again.

    “Two articles!” the hat told him, inching away from the open door of the bathroom. Donald had stopped closing the door on the advice of counsel, but Rudy was never around to have to experience it.

    “Can’t you leave me on the desk?” the hat heard the hair ask wanly between flushes. Then the gold toilet roared again.

    “Ten flushes! Ten!” Donald yelled. “This is ridiculous!”

    “We are going to have to prepare a defense for the Senate,” the hat said.

    “I want a better toilet!” Donald said. “The President of the goddamn United goddamn States should have the most powerful toilet in the Free World!”

    “It already flushes like a jet engine,” the hair shouted over the toilet flushing again.

    “Then why isn’t it working?!?”

    “Big Mac casserole?” the hat asked quietly. “Three pounds of pardoned turkey meat?”

    “Poke it with something,” the hair said.

    “With what?” Donald asked. “Poke it with what?”

    “Don’t you have a poop knife?” the hair asked.

    “Poop knife?” the hat asked, horrified.

    “Still back in the old country,” Donald said. “The other side of the family ended up with it.”

    “Poop knife?” the hat asked again, not wanting to believe his little fabric ears.

    “It’s a knife you use to break up turds, you uncultured brute!” the hair shouted. “All the best families pass them down as heirlooms.”

    “Is this a thing?” the hat asked. “Are you just fucking with me?”

    The toilet flushed again and again before the hair answered, “Why would I make something like that up?”

    “OMG, Donald! More fiber in your diet!” the hat screamed.

    “I hate fiber!” Donald yelled. “It makes me shit!”

    “THAT’S THE POINT!’ the hat yelled back.

    “This is all pointless! You’re being IMPEACHED!” the hair told Donald.

    “I HATE PEACHES!” Donald screamed.

  • Monday Afternoon Links – Cancel Culture Edition

    Walmart Apologizes For Sweater Showing Santa Claus With Lines Of Cocaine

    Walmart is apologizing for selling sweaters that appear to show Santa with lines of cocaine.

    The sweater says “Let It Snow” and includes three white lines on a table in front of Santa.

    Part of the description said: “The best snow comes straight from South America” and that “Santa really likes to savor the moment when he gets his hands on some quality, grade-A, Colombian snow.”

    Cocaine Santa? CANCELED!


    Richard Jewell Turns a True Story Into a Libertarian Fable

    Pop culture’s recent reconsiderations of ’90s tabloid figures have tended to flatter liberals’ belief in the left-leaning arc of the moral universe. Documentaries like O.J.: Made in America (about Simpson) and Lorena (about the Bobbitt case), as well as dramatizations like I, Tonya (as in Harding) and The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story (as much about prosecutor Marcia Clark as Simpson himself), have excavated histories of abuse and recontextualized the scandals in light of newer, more nuanced understandings of gender, race, and power. But hardly any of these projects, which implicitly celebrate the social progress of the past two decades, hail from conservative points of view. That makes Clint Eastwood’s Richard Jewell, about the Atlanta security guard falsely accused of bombing the 1996 Summer Olympics, a notable exception, if not necessarily a notable film.

    A movie shows a person harassed and victimized by the government and media being harassed and victimized by the government and media?!? Goddamn you, Clint Eastwood, you crazy Republican Man!

    I don’t advise it, but if you have never subjected yourself to Slate’s Inkoo Kang it might be worth reading it. She’s one of the worst movie and television critics around. She doesn’t review movies and television so much as subject them to a struggle session to see how well they conform to her little red book. And most are found wanting.

    Clint Eastwood? CANCELED!


    Work in Progress Redeems Saturday Night Live‘s Traumatic ‘Pat’ Character

    Work in Progress is a loosely fictionalized version of the foibles of Abby McEnany, a 45-year-old Chicago improv scene stalwart who identifies as a “queer fat dyke” and, in the first episode, struggles with mental health hurdles that include lining up 180 almonds gifted to her by a “fuckin’ bitch” at work. If her life doesn’t improve by the 180th almond, she tells her therapist, she is going to take her own life. One problem, though, is that her therapist has literally died during her session, almost gleefully staring at the ceiling, maw agape, as Abby details her suicidal ideation. “Are you fucking kidding me?” whispers Abby, once distraught, after lightly kicking her shrink’s leg. It creaks, rigor mortis set in.

    It’s a credit to McEnany’s comedic skills that a scene that could have been overly maudlin, even cliché, is actively hilarious, never belittling the depression her character is experiencing but skilled enough to contextualize it with an unpredictable sort of gallows humor. In the pilot episode, which McEnany shot for $3,000 and screened at Sundance before Showtime picked it up for a series, Abby balances a sort of resigned gloom about her future with bursts of often-awkward hope, like when she ends up on a date with Chris (Theo Germaine)—a cute, much-younger trans man working at a lunch spot—after her sister Alison (Karin Anglin) gives him Abby’s phone number.

    Traumatic. Trauma. Like being shelled by the enemy for three days straight. Like watching your friends starved to death in a prison camp. Trauma. Oh, the lives destroyed by sketch comedy!

    Comedy Sketch from  25 years ago? CANCELED!


    Did the car consent? Did anyone even ask it?

    Tawny Kitaen from 1987? CANCELED!

    (Side Note: Kitaen’s first cinematic starring role was in the sword and sandals gigglefest, The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik Yak

    Flip through the photos on that imdb link. It looks fantastically bad.

    Seriously, what in the damn hell is going on here?
  • The Hat and The Hair Extended Universe: Hillary and Huma

     

    Huma lay across Hillary and sighed as her lover rippled and writhed with transformations under her.

    “Kamala,” Hillary croaked, her lips ballooning in and out with every sluggish heartbeat.

    “Yes, my love,” Huma said. “Dropped out with no warning.”

    “She was chosen, shown the mysteries,” Hillary said thickly.

    “Peace, my love,” Huma whispered. “Peace. Anger is dangerous now.”

    “I want her dead!” the bulk howled. “Dead. Bring me her betrayer’s head!”

    “She is retreating to California,” Huma said. “You never have to deal with her again.”

    Hillary grunted and farted melodiously through multiple anuses. “Dead!” she screamed again.

    “Peace, lover, peace,” Huma said. She ran her fingers through a cluster of clitorises that had sprouted in Hillary’s armpit overnight, and a roiling shudder nearly bucked her off to the floor.

    “We must coronate a new heir,” Huma said, bending to nibble the hood of each one.

    “Who? Who? Who?” Hillary hooted. “Chelsea is weak, a crippled branch that should be pruned.”

    “Biden?” Huma asked, exhaling a slow hot breath on a labial wound opening over Hillary’s left floating rib.

    “The Groper. The Sniffer. The Unsuccessful Bill. He sided with Obama against me. He carries The Blackamoor Taint,” Hillary said, a human quality returned to her voice. She groaned as Huma began to part the wound in her side with patient fingers and tongue.

    “Warren and Sanders are already in an alliance,” Huma said. She hooked a fingernail under the mucus plug within the ribgina and teased it out. She caught the pus that ran out in her mouth.

    “Ashes. They taste of ashes. They deserve one another. I reached out to Warren. I told her of the power…” Hillary reached with a shaking hand and made a feeble fist.

    “I want them dead after the election,” Hillary, fixing a milky eye on Huma. “Dead. I want them all dead. Bernie can have that heart attack he has earned. Her… Something worse.”

    “There’s a special place in hell for women that don’t support other women,” Huma said. She twisted her hand into the silent duck and plunged it into Hillary’s side.

    “Cancer!” Hillary cried out. “Cunt cancer! Let her health plan pay for coring her out!”

    Clenching and unclenching her fist around an organ roughly analogous to a liver, Huma said, “That doesn’t leave many people to back, my love.”

    “Who is left?” Hillary moaned.

    “The Jews,” Huma said, queefing her distaste. “And the young LGBTQQIP2SAA from Indiana.”

    “Lugbetkewpissa?” Hillary rumbled.

    “Gay,” Huma said. “The gay man.”

    “I shall back no Feculent,” Hillary said flatly.

    “And he’s white,” Huma told her.

    “White?” Hillary hissed.

    “At the end of the day, a white man is still a white man,” Huma said and then licked the line of suppurating nipples that ran down Hillary’s chest.

    “And there are no women left?” Hillary asked. “None at all?”

    “Not a one,” Huma lied. “Not a single one.”

    “Then I know what I must do,” Hillary whispered.

    “Yes, yes!” Huma cried, squeezing erotic bile from the quasi-liver.

    “Yes, yes!” she screamed as Hillary’s flipper slapped against her Weiner-blighted crotch.

    “Yes, oh, yes!” as Hillary took both of Huma’s baby-gnawed breasts into her mouth and chewed.

    “I MUST RUN!” Hillary bellowed as Huma yelped and collapsed.

  • The Hat and The Hair: Episode 139

     

    “Mr. President! Mr. President!” the reporter called.

    “You’ll have to speak up!” Donald replied.

    “MR. PRESIDENT!” the reporter screamed.

    “I can’t hear you!” Donald said, smiling, having heard the stick-thin Buzzfeed reporter just fine.

    “MR. PRESIDENT! WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR THANKSGIVING?!?”

    “I love the troops. I just love them,” Donald replied. “Tremendous people. Just great. Salt of the Earth.”

    “THANKSGIVING!” the Buzzfeed reporter yelled. Four other reporters joined him, their tiny lungs and vocal cords straining.

    “Oh, Thanksgiving? Great holiday, just great. Christians love it. L-O-V-E IT!” Donald replied. “I pardoned the turkeys yesterday. They are resting comfortably in Bethesda Naval Hospital.”

    “WE’RE THE TURKEYS INJURED DURING THE PARDONING CEREMONY?!?” ten of them asked, holding out their iPhones to record the President’s reply.

    “I love turkey! You can’t overcook it enough me for. Gravy and rolls. Just a great holiday. Invented by Indians, I think.”

    The Buzzfeed reporter fell on the ground and began to convulse.

    “WHAT ABOUT THE IMPEACHMENT HEARINGS, MR. PRESIDENT?!?”

    “I don’t like Indian food. Gives me gas. ‘The curry slurry shits’ I call ‘em,” Donald smiled and starting waving to the Secret Service.

    “IMPEACHMENT!” they all yelled.

    “Fake hoax nonsense scam. Have you seen Adam Schiff? Have you seen this guy? Have you seen him? Total disgrace. Worst-looking guy ever,” Donald said. “No one who looks like that can judge me. Imma perfect genius. He looks like his own asshole!”

    “MR. PRESIDENT! MR. PRESIDENT!” started another reporter, a tiny woman who jumped up a down and waved her arms.

    “You, the spinner in the back,” Donald said, pointing.

    “You accuse Hunter Biden of…” she started.

    “Hunter Biden is a cocaine junkie. He’s disgusting. He’s worse than his Dad’s fake teeth!”

    “On October 27th, you tweeted…” she said.

    “Tweeted? Who can even remember what I tweeted? I had lunch with a hero dog the other day; why not write about that? Huh? Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy?”

    “THE DOG CONAN IS FEMALE, MR. PRESIDENT!”

    “DON’T DEADNAME MY DOG!” Donald screamed back.

    “MR…”

    “Dogs and turkeys!” Donald yelled as he turned to walk back into the White House. “Thanksgiving! Stuffing!” he yelled over his shoulder. “Big Mac casserole!”

  • The Hat and The Hair Expanded Universe: Bernie and Sandy

     

    “Your breasts are a common good,” Bernie said, never breaking eye contact with her chest. It was two hours until their rally and he had insisted they come to the stage alone to discuss strategy.

    “OK, Boomer!” Sandy said brightly. She contorted her face and took a selfie, and then did it again and again.

    “I am not a boomer,” Bernie said, the left side of his face sagging. “I’m the greatest generation. The greatest. Just the best.”

    “Aw,” she cooed. “You’re so cute, like an old Granpa raisin.” She tried to smooth some of his hair into place but danced back as a trembling hand reached for her left breast.

    “Naughty,” she said and smiled, her large teeth sharp in the lighting of the stage.

    “‘From each according to her ability, to each according to his need,’” he said in a reedy voice and then licked his gummy lips.

    “OMG, is that Oprah? I could totes see Oprah, like, saying that,” Sandy squealed.

    “Marx,” he said roughly. “That’s Karl Marx.”

    “Is he on Instagram?”

    “He died in 1883.”

    “So he’s not on Instagram?”

    “This is, like, basic stuff,” Bernie said, his face drawing into itself as a wave of pain crossed his chest. “I thought you were a Democratic Socialist.”

    “Hashtag socialism,” Sandy chirped. “Hashtag social justice, and like, hashtag lifegoals.” She scratched idly at her crotch through the thick material of her dress and giggled to herself.

    “Do you even know what any of that means?” Bernie asked, massaging his left arm.

    “Socialism means that you, like, should be all nice to people and stuff,” she said, smelling her fingers and wrinkling her nose. “Rich people are so mean. Be nice, not mean.”

    “‘Be nice, not mean,’” he repeated.

    “That’s my 2024 slogan! Hashtag PresidentSandy!”

    Bernie closed his eyes and sighed.

    “Selfie!” she said, throwing an arm around the elderly man and snapping a picture.

    “My eyes!” he said. “The light!”

    “I didn’t use the flash,” Sandy said. She pried a wad of gum from her back teeth and stuck it to the back of one of the leather chairs on the stage.

    “I’m so happy your breasts are here to support my campaign,” Bernie said.

    “I’m, like, more than, like, just, you know, my breasts, Bernie,” Sandy said. “I also have an Instagram feed and my Twitter account is just, like, killer.” She held her phone out for the old man and scrolled through pictures of brunch and selfies with Illy and Sheedy.

    “I see you know a Negro,” Bernie said. “Very progressive. I knew a lot of Negros growing up in Brooklyn. Great people, just great. You know I grew up in Brooklyn, right?”

    “And I, like, grew up in The Bronx. We both have a lot of street smarts.”

    “A street-tough Jew like me should be President,” Bernie said.

    “Ew. You’re Jewish?” Sandy asked. “I thought you were just white.”

    “You got a problem with Jews? Huh? Do you?” Bernie asked, puffing out his aching chest.

    “Illy says Jews are ruining the country and Sheedy says they run Fox News. And that Fox News is bad.”

    “You need better friends, I think,” Bernie said gruffly.

    “Hashtag SquadGoals!” Sandy whooped.

    “Karl Marx was a Jew. Jews have always been at the forefront of the Socialist movement.” Bernie said. Red-faced and gasping, he sat down heavily into one of the chairs on the stage.

    “So Jews are nice?” Sandy asked doubtfully.

    “Very nice,” Bernie said in a strangled voice.

    “You seem nice,” Sandy said. “At least when you aren’t yelling.”

    Bernie slumped forward in his chair.

    “I said ‘At least when you aren’t yelling,’” Sandy repeated, louder, and kicked the side of his chair.

    “They shouldn’t have given us leather chairs,” Sandy said as his medical support team rushed the stage.

    “Cows are friends, not food,” she said over the whine of the defibrillator charge. “Or chairs.”

    “Moo,” she said over the shouting and scramble. “Moooooooo.”

     

    Sanders Couldn’t Stop Laughing at Report of Bezos Asking Bloomberg About Presidential Run

  • The Hat and The Hair: Episode 138

     

    “Beto is out! He’s out of the primary race!” the hat crowed. He farted with manic glee.

    “Who?” Donald asked.

    “Beto O’Rourke,” the hat said.

    “Who?” Donald asked again.

    “Tall guy, goofy-looking, got the panties of the Dems all wet? Especially the guys?”

    “This guy is gay?” Donald asked.

    “No, straight, just attractive to all the hopeless romantics in the left media.” the hair said. He was stretched out flat on the floor, basking in a sunbeam.

    “But one of them is gay, right?” Donald asked.

    “Mayor Pete,” the hair said lazily.

    “And he’s barely gay,” the hat said. “He has a husband and so I assume he’s technically gay.”

    “Like census form gay,” the hair said.

    “Raising your hand and saying “present” sort of gay,” the hat said.

    “Sleeping in pajamas gay,” the hair said.

    “This is confusing,” Donald said.

    “Unfabulously gay, Donald,” the hat said. “Respectable gay.”

    “The sort of gay that dresses up for Pride by taking off his suit jacket,” the hair said.

    “Barely detectable by our most sensitive gaydar units,” the hat said. “Even Warren–who longs to be a lesbian just so there would at least be something interesting about her–put on a rainboa for Pride.”

    “Rainboa?” Donald asked himself, mystified. “Warren?” he asked the others.

    “Elizabeth Warren?” the hair prompted. “We’ve been reviewing debate strategies against her for months?”

    “Pocahontas, Donald,” the hat provided. “Big Chief Dripping Clam.”

    “Ew,” Donald said. “Her. I will never sign a treaty with her. Not even one I know I’m going to break.”

    “OK, good job, you got it,” the hat said encouragingly.

    “So then who is this ‘Beto’ character?” Donald asked.

    “Cory Booker’s boyfriend,” the hat said, chortling.

    “I thought you said he wasn’t gay?” Donald asked.

    “Everyone’s a little gay for someone, Donald,” the hair said.

    “Like you’re gay for Big Macs,” the hat said.

    “I like their secret sauce,” Donald said.

    “That’s what Cory said about Beto!” the hat said loudly and laughed.

    He kept laughing about his own joke for a long time, finally letting it dwindle to an occasional self-satisfied chuckle as the business of the Oval Office continued around him.

  • Subaru Horror Theater, Vol. 10: Old Friends

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q1dZ92EbZ8

     

    One Week

    “Backyard,” I bark. “Backyard, backyard.” The gate bangs against the post again and again. I scratch at the door.

    “Banjo!” she says from the couch room. I bark again.

    “I’m coming,” she says. “Calm down.” She is still in sad-face and I am supposed to be on the couch with her. I want to be on the couch with her. I know she needs me. I chuff when I see her and bow with my front legs. I am hers and she is mine.

    “You have to go pee-pee again?” she asks, rubbing my head.

    “Out, out,” I whine. I wag my tail, love love love swishing back and forth.

    “Stay close,” she tells me. “I couldn’t bear anything happening to you too.”

    I run out into the yard and patrol the edge of the fence, head down sniffing sniffing sniffing. There is nothing new. I come to the unlatched gate and I open it with a paw. The scent is coming to me from across the fields. I run toward it, smelling constantly: Grass. Dirt. A chipmunk rotting away. Running, my paws digging into the soft earth. The scent. The scent is there. I have the scent. I know it like my own. I run harder.

    Gasoline. Cows. Cut grass. But I ignore them all for the scent. It is clear and bright, rich and complex. Love. It smells like love. The wind shifts a bit and a new scent mingles with it. A human. A man. Food. He has food. I stop and smell his food. I lap up some of his food. He says something. Not angry. He touches my head. I sniff him all over. The scent I want is there, under his scent. I am trying to pry the scents apart when the familiar car sound comes up behind me.

    It is her. I love her. I ran to her, wiggling all over. I barked “Hello” and “Hello” and “There is something here” and “There is something here.” She puts me in the car. She is angry with me. I can always tell. I watch her talk to the man. I whine. I growl. I bark.

    She opens the door and I catch the mingled scents again. I spin in the backseat in frustration.

    “I told you not to run off,” she says. She is shaking and crying. I lick the hot tears from her face. She laughs. The first laugh in a long time.

    “At least you made a new friend,” she says. As she drives away, I stare at the man and growl softly.

     

    One Month

    “Hey, there Banjo,” the man says, coming out of the barn. I had only snuffled part of his yard. I bristle. His clothes smell of smoke and detergent and fresh earth and coffee and cooked meat and dust and grease.

    “Got out, again, did you?” he asks. There is something wrong with him. Underneath all the human scents there is something metallic and sharp. Something like burning. I let him pet me and lick his hand. He tastes wrong. Makes my tongue hurt. He laughs and kneels down. Same taste on his arm and face. Wrong-taste.

    Crunch of gravel. She has found me again. Why can’t she understand?

    “I am so sorry,” she says as she gets out.

    “Oh, it’s no problem. We’re just becoming friends,” he says. I sneeze because they are talking about me.

    “C’mon, Banjo!’ she said. She pulls on my collar. I want another sniff of him. I want another taste. She wrestles me into the car

    “I am so sorry to hear of your troubles,” he says to her.

    She freezes. Fear smell flows out of her.

    “Th-th-ank you for that,” she says. She closes the car door and walks toward him. The window is barely open. I howl for her to get away from him.

    “Shush,” she commands. They talk. I keep my nose in the sliver of open window, trying to catch the wrong scent again. Grass and grease again, chickens and far-off sheep.

    She gets in the car. “I don’t know what I am going to do about you,” she says. I chuff and she smiles so I chuff again.

    The wind shifts as she drives away and a whole new scent floods my nose. It is new and old at the same time. I howl for her to go back to the farm. I need more. I howl and I howl.

     

    One Year

    New gate. New lock. I press my nose to a knothole in the fence to see if I can catch the scent. I dig under the fence all summer. The ground is hard. She fills in my hole twice. After a good long rain, I find I can get under the fence. I run as fast as I could. I will avoid him this time. I will find the scent. Almost there. I will find–BALL! HE THREW A BALL! BALL! BALL! BALL!

    I collapse on his porch panting. So much ball time. She is already there to pick me up. I have failed.

    “It’s been a year now,” he says.

    “A year,” she says. Sad face. I whine.

    “Sore subject,” he grunts. He turns the ball over and over in his hand.

    “There’s still…” she begins as he threw the ball.

    BALL!

     

    Five Years

    Behind the barn. It is behind the barn. He finds me digging and kicks me. I growl at him. When she touches the sore spot when we are on the couch, I yelp and she kisses me.

     

    Ten Years

    I have never forgotten. I cannot get out of the yard. I have never forgotten. I stare at his farm. I smell the wind.

    “You want to go see your friend?” she asks. I look up at her. She glows. My tail thumps on the floor.

    “Who wants to go for a ride?” she asks. My tail thumps harder. Sometimes that thing has a mind of its own. “Does Banjo want to go for a ride?”

    Go. Ride. I get up off my bed slowly and walk to wear the leash hangs.

    “Good boy, you are such a good boy,” she says.

    I do not know where we are going until she is almost at the farm. It has not changed. She lets me out. It hurts to get to the ground. The gravel hurts my feet. I start sniffing things.

    “Hi!” she says. He is sitting on the porch. I can barely see him. But I know his sour smell.

    They talk. I let him pet me. They talk. I whine.

    “You need to go potty?” she asks. “Go potty,” she says, “Go on.”

    They talk. I hear my name a few times but I do not turn back. I get to the edge of the barn and I pause to look back at them but they are not looking at me.

    The ground behind the barn is soft and wet, but the digging still hurts. But this was the place I smelled her last. This was where he kicked me. I keep digging. She isn’t deep.

    I can hear them talking as I get closer to the porch. I want to bark. I want to howl. I want to growl.

    “It’s been so long,” she says. “She would have started her senior year this August.”

    “Has it really been that long?” he asks. Through my good eye, I see him show his teeth.

    Up the porch steps, each one hurting. I cannot hear their words any longer. My blood is roaring in my ears. I bump my head into her leg and the blood noise stops.

    “What did you find, boy?” she asks.

    She screams when I drop the small skull of her daughter at her feet.