by David Cross
I had a moment to think and calm myself down, and it was then that I again noticed the feeling in my seat like a mild shock, but it felt slightly stronger now. I tried to ignore it but couldn’t. I debated whether to tell someone but ultimately decided against it. I didn’t want to give the impression that I was nervous or, worse, crazy and just trying to deflect the charges. I started to interject and then the shock became unbearable. I lept up out of the chair and yelled involuntarily. As I did this, Bill jumped up as well (as if in anticipation) and grabbed my arm. While the other guest ducked, Bill pulled me toward him, saying, “Look, you little punk, you want to go a few rounds with me? Fine! You name the time and the place, and I will bury you, but I won’t let you try to subvert my program!!” With that he pushed me back into my chair. The electrical charge shocked me once again and I jumped up immediately but this time made a sound that was closer to “owww” than the first sound, which was more like “nrgggh.” O’Reilly ducked under his desk and then came up with a wooden table leg that he yanked off from the bottom of his desk. He lunged at me, swinging the table leg at my head. I managed to duck and grab onto the table leg with my left hand. I flipped over while still holding onto the leg and twisted his arm, dislocating his shoulder. I am hard-pressed to tell you what was more disturbing, the quiet crunch and pop sound from his shoulder or the girly scream of pain he shrieked out. He muttered some obscenities, saying, “Fuck it! We’ll do it live!” before staggering to the back wall clutching his arm. Another guest was shooting the whole thing on his cell phone camera, which seemed odd as we were in the middle of taping. The floor director and producer came running over to me to see if I was all right. “I’m fine,” I said, catching my breath. “Just a little shaken up. I’ll be fine. Can I get some water and… holy shit! Look out!!”
O’Reilly had gotten back up and started running for the producer, a woman named Michelle. He was holding a razor-sharp copy of Atlas Shrugged, which he whipped at Michelle’s neck. I checked Michelle against the wall and out of the way while hoisting myself up onto the desk and kicking the book right as it sailed overhead. It rose up and sliced a cable, which brought a 300-pound light crashing down. Bill, exhausted, slumped down and started to whimper. I walked over to him and knelt down. “Hey… what are you doing?” I asked. “What is this about?” Bill started sniffling, and his sobs became deeper and harder for him to control. “I don’t know! I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m scared! I’m afraid I won’t get into Heaven. I have sinned. Oh dear sweet Jesus, forgive me for all the pain I’ve caused. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” I patted him on his good shoulder. “Hey, it’s all right. We all get like that from time to time.”
“No. no, it’s not all right. I’m a monster. A greedy, self-absorbed monster who doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about half the time, and the other half, when I do know what I’m talking about, I’m lying through my teeth.” Despite some misgivings, I gave him a hug. I gave Bill O’Reilly a hug. He thanked me and hugged me back. I could feel his hot tears soaking my sweater. “Okay, it’s okay, let it out.” He squeezed even harder. And then he slipped a hand down the back of my pants, which had become loosened during the ruckus. “Okay, none of that, now.” He took his middle finger and slid it down the crack of my ass, which was slick with sweat. With one fluid motion he shoved it up to the second knuckle into my asshole. I jumped, which just made it worse.
“I love you,” he whispered through sobs. I was very confused and also in a strange place comprising both pain and pleasure. “You need to take your finger out of my ass.” He bit my earlobe and then said, “I’ve got a present for you.” He stood up, with his finger still in my asshole, and haltingly, with his bad arm, undid his belt buckle. His pants dropped to the ground, revealing a pair of bloomers with a cartoon of a depressed duck sitting slumped over at a desk, saying, “I’m so happy I could just shit!” He wiggled his way out of the bloomers, revealing a gnarled but adorable penis, no bigger than half of a ladybug. Even from the ground five feet away I could smell what seemed to be a combination of raw sewage, scallions, and menthol. He waggled his tortured cock over my face and grinning said, “Don’t worry… it gets slightly bigger.” This was starting to get crazy. As I punched Bill O’Reilly in the nutsack and spat on his nub in disgust, the FOX security force finally got there. I was immediately relieved and gladly allowed them to force me up and handcuff me and drag me back to the green room where Neil Cavuto was getting audited by a pilled-up Greta Van Susteren. I can’t say it was the greatest day of my life, but hey, how often do you get to punch Bill O’Reilly in the nuts? Even if only in a story, it’s still very, very satisfying.
How to Play “Mafia,” the Funnest yet Most Unnerving Game Ever Invented
LISTEN, I LOVE GAMES JUST AS MUCH AS THE NEXT FELLA, BUT I, like you, tend to get a little apprehensive when one of my friends decides to hold “game night” at his or her (or its—not leaving you out, hermaphrodites!!) apartment. “Yay! We’re gonna order pizza, y’all! And Brian is gonna bring his DVD of that duck getting shot by that kid on the lake!! You HAVE TO see it! It is BEYOND fucked up!!” If you are not logged into Evite, then please do so now.
Game nights usually start off a little slow and often a little awkward, then you kinda get into it for a bit, and then, once the beer has run out and talk turns to making a liquor store run, it peters out and you just want to take one more hit for the road and leave. Right? Of course I’m right! I’m talking to me! My personal favorites are Scattergories, Celebrity, Apples to Apples, shit like that. I guess because there’s hyper, time-sensitive arguing that goes along with them. But… But…
But what if I told you there’s a parlor game that blows those games away? This game makes those games feel about as exciting as attending a day-long seminar on something as mundane as how to paste photos into a scrapbook and what color crepe paper you should use to border said photos (by the way, the photo is of you and your family standing in front of Nebraska’s largest potato salad). I, right here and now, am guaranteeing you a fun, emotional, exhaustingly good time. NO! Great time! Yes. Here it is:
And believe me, I know it sounds like the corniest Christian-camp-organized fun you could imagine, but seriously, please trust me; you will instantly become addicted to it, guaranteed. The game is called “Mafia,” and a Russian psychologist developed it in the early ’70s. Here’s the deal: you get a minimum of twelve players (you can play with up to eighteen) and you sit in a circle. I know, I know, sitting in a circle is already pushing up the queer quotient, but bear with me. Everyone in the circle is part of the Village. One person acts as the “Mayor” who basically runs the show. I suggest making a male the Mayor as men are smarter at this kind of thing, and there’s no danger of getting menstrual blood all over everything (Ed. note—a White male would be even better, no?). The Mayor then has the Village “go to sleep,” which entails simply everyone closing their eyes and putting their heads down. The Mayor will then walk around the circle and, without making a sound, tap three people on the head. These people are now the “Mafia.” The Mayor will ask the Mafia to QUIETLY open their eyes and acknowledge each other. * When this is done, the Mayor (again, it’s important to have a man do this because a woman will start to silently think about everyone’s shoes and get distracted) will have the Mafia close their eyes again and will then walk around the room, this time tapping one person, announcing “You are Detective #1.” Then the Mayor will walk around some more and tap one last person, announcing, “You are Detective #2.” The Detectives do not have to open their eyes. For reasons I will explain later, they do not want to reveal themselves.
Okay, now the hijinks begin. Basically the goal is simply this: the Village needs to kill off the Mafia before the Mafia kills off the Village. There are two rounds consisting of “day” and “night.” At nighttime the Mayor (after announcing “It’s nighttime; Village go to sleep”) will have everyone close their eyes, then the Mayor (I can’t stress how serious I am about making
the mayor a guy, because at this point a woman will start to bitch about something she read in Us Weekly and take everyone out of the game) will have JUST the Mafia wake up and ask them to SILENTLY choose one member of the Village to kill. The Mafia quietly does this and, once the Mayor confirms the victim, close their eyes again. Now the Mayor will ask Detective #1 to wake up. The Detective is allowed to pick one person and ask the Mayor (again in silence) if he or she is in the Mafia. The Mayor either shakes or nods his head, tells the Detective to go back to sleep, and then awakens the other Detective. This action takes place each round until the Detectives are killed off. * More on this later, but right now it’s time for the second stage—“Morning.” The Mayor will now say, “Village, wake up; its morning,” and everyone opens their eyes and lifts their head. Those new to the game that have been picked to be in the Mafia usually make a big show of “waking up”—it’s a pretty good sign of guilt, trust me. Now for the fun part. After a brief pause, the Mayor continues, “Village, wake up; its morning… Brian, you’re dead.”
Oh, shit!! Now Brian (and all “dead” people) may not say a fucking word. They have to get up and out of the circle immediately without any of that, “Oh man I TOLD you it wasn’t me! It’s April! I’m telling you!” None of that. It is the Mayor’s job to strictly enforce this rule, because some stupid people inadvertently give shit away as they’re leaving. Brian will now stand outside of the circle and observe the mechanics of your friends lying to your face. This becomes, second to none, the best part of participating, once the game is moving along and the paranoia starts seeping into the room like so much Zyklon B. Now things start to kick in as the Village all talk amongst themselves, trying to suss out who’s in the Mafia. Accusations are flung far and wide. Sometimes with some expertise and sometimes its just a bunch of “I don’t know, you just seem suspicious the way you’re sitting there all un-suspicious-like” bullshit. The Mayor lets the Village prod and discuss for a few minutes and, then, based on the Mayor’s discretion, will step back into the circle and call the Village to order.
Now it’s time for people to make formal accusations as to whom they think is in the Mafia. If someone seconds someone’s accusation, then the accusers explain why the accusation has been made. Then the accused is allowed to defend themselves. Usually there are two to four people accused per round. Then, when everyone is satisfied that they’ve had their say, a vote is taken. You only get to vote once each round, and you can’t change your vote unless there is a revote. The person (let’s call him Jaleel) with the most votes is killed. Again, they have to leave immediately and can’t say ANYTHING! They can’t do that half-mumbly “This is bullshit. I know Amy’s in the Mafia, I’m telling’ you. You guys fucked up.” The Mayor will then turn to the Village and say, “Jaleel was… [pause for nail-biting, hanging on the edge of your seat, dramatic effect . . . ] NOT in the Mafia (or IS, if that’s the case). Also, if Jaleel was a Detective (Ed. note—a BLACK Detective?!), the Mayor will note this as well. Now the shit starts to get weird. The Mayor should immediately have the Village go back to sleep. Sometimes you have to yell at the top of your lungs, “Village, it’s nighttime! Go to sleep. Go to fucking sleep, for Christ’s sake! Judy, this means you. Judy, shut the fuck up! Now, Mafia, open your eyes and choose somebody to kill.” Well, this goes on and on until either the Mafia kills off the entire Village or the Village kills off the Mafia. As you can imagine, it gets really intense toward the end, especially if out of five or four players left, two or three Mafia remain among them. You get to see people pleading their innocence as if they were hostages. Husbands and wives will turn on each other and lie to each other’s faces with an earnestness and stoicism worthy of Patrick Henry.
The real beauty of the game comes when you’re playing your third or fourth consecutive game (each game lasts anywhere from half an hour to forty-five minutes, give or take) and you’ve had an opportunity from the sidelines to watch how slick or not so slick your friends who are secretly in the Mafia are.
Truly the best moment in the game (outside of being alive and on the winning team at the end) is, after you’ve been killed and have taken your place outside the circle, and your anger has subsided and you’ve gone to the kitchen with the other dead people milling about pleading your case, and you’ve guessed incorrectly as to who’s in the Mafia and then the Mayor says, “It’s nighttime, Village; go to sleep… Mafia, wake up and pick somebody to kill.” And you watch as the people you weren’t even close to guessing slowly and quietly raise their heads and pick off one more Villager. “I can’t believe its Tonya and Patrick and Leslie?! Those fucking assholes! Can you believe that line of shit she was feeding everybody about being too tired to be in the Mafia? FUCK! I can’t wait to play again!”
I Don’t Have Children
I DON’T HAVE CHILDREN, AT LEAST NONE THAT I KNOW ABOUT. HA ha! High-five me! (And by “know about” I mean that have survived.) But I imagine someday that I will. And I suppose that I will face the same difficult moral challenges that all parents face. And I suppose, too, that I will find those challenges, mistakenly, to be unique to my generation. What life lessons will I teach them? What lessons should be better left to television to teach? Where do I draw the line at individual freedoms? What little white lies will I tell about my past, and what dirty truths will I reveal? Should I leave the room when their generation’s equivalent of Keeping Up with the Kardashians comes on TV? Or should I act as an addendum to the show and explain that if you want to attain a respectable level of celebrity in our culture, then there is no better, easier, faster way than to be videotaped sucking cock like a champ.
“Honey, I know you’re only thirteen, and you’re going through a lot of changes, and since your mom chose to leave us after learning how to drive, I have had to be both a mother and father to you. As well as a great-aunt, which I will explain when you’re older, but come here, sit down. I wanna talk about something.
“Honey, I want you to know how proud of you I am, and how much I believe in you. And I know how much you’re looking forward to going to American Idol Camp this year and learning to yell that one song from Dreamgirls, but if you really want to be a ‘superstar’ and live the American superstar dream of having people with low self-esteem and a marked lack of creativity wait on you hand and foot regardless of your treatment of them, eventually leading you to own a makeup line exclusively for puppies and angels, then you really need to abandon any kind of self-respect that I’ve hopefully instilled in you and get down to that silly Hollywood restaurant that Ashton Kutcher, Jeremy Piven, Sienna Miller, and the Church of Scientology own (it’s called Prey, I think?) and get busy with the right people, if you know what I mean. Here, I want you to take this. This is a copy of The Best of the Pseudo-Celebrity Sex Tapes, Vol. III. Study it. Imitate it, and practice it. And sweetheart? Be mindful of the teeth.”
Hopefully I’ll be wealthy by the time my children are born, and they will turn out to be white and male, thus decreasing by 75 percent the “life’s unfair” speeches I will have to give. But maybe they won’t be. Maybe they will have a life that I could only gloomily daydream about (i.e., I, unlike my mother, would not raise them to be Jewish). Perhaps they will grow up to reject all things thoughtless and unjustified and find their way to my old punk albums and shitty mix tapes that I will strategically leave around the house for them to discover. Maybe at age 14 they will want to put on a bunch of black eyeliner and go to some all-ages straight-edge punk shows at the rec. center. Will I stomp and stammer and have a 1950s/2005-era Christian Parent freak-out? Nope. I will excitedly point them in the direction of the club, help pay for their fake ID (they’re not all all-ages shows), and gas up the car. Then I will wait at home for them and sit back proudly, knowing there will be at least one less asshole in the world. And with that comfortable blanket of parental satisfaction warming me in my den, I will secretly jerk off to the latest rackaliscious Jessica Simpson video. See! Everyone’s a winner!
Good night, sweethear
t.
A Short List of Videos with Babies in Them that I Have Not Seen on the Internet but Most Likely Exist and I Would Like to See at Some Point
A compilation of babies eating the poo of their household pets.
A compilation of babies being fed their pets’ poo by the boyfriend of the mom of the baby.
A horse fucking a baby.
A baby throwing up in a stranger’s mouth.
A boyfriend of the mom of a baby throwing up on it (the baby).
The incredible “no-armed, no-leg baby” (from Iraq).
A precocious baby, quoting H. L. Menken.
An entire greased-up baby being squirted out of a gay biker’s asshole during a weird gay biker sex ritual. I guess the word weird isn’t really necessary there.
A drunk baby trying to stand up and walk across the room.
A baby dancing to the cast recording of Mama Mia.
A baby dressed up as G. G. Allin for Halloween swearing at people for candy.
Three babies balanced on top of each other.
A roomful of babies and one defanged tarantula.
A baby surfing and/or snowboarding with sunglasses that are too big for its face.
Two babies getting married for real.
A baby sitting in the toilet while rednecks laugh at it.
A baby duct-taped to a large dog that barks as the baby cries hysterically.
A baby tandem sky-diving.
A baby walking out of a public toilet stall who has been coached to say “Don’t go in there!”
A baby who has been coached to say “Show me your tits!” during Mardis Gras.
