Behind the Scenes Week - Bonus Sunday Edition!

Hello from the Writers Room!

We have been informed by the Legal Department that we have to do one more Behind the Scenes Week post. The original week contained six days of posts, which we thought was plenty. But the douchebag lawyers are mad because we made them do one of the days. They threatened to contact our union about it, because apparently that is some sort of violation to have non-union writers fill in. They said it has to be a Sunday post, since there was no Sunday post (softball league) in the original week. We tried to argue that it would be a violation of our Constitutional rights, because our religion views Sunday as a day of rest. The lawyers sent back an email that said, "Then we'll see you in hell." Apparently, since we had posted on Sundays in the past, it set a precedent that a "week" for this weblog includes all seven days. So it was either do a Sunday post, or get fired.

They can make us post another day, but they can't make us work weekends. Fuck that.

This is the Sunday post. We are requesting that nobody reads this until Sunday. We cannot be held responsible for the actions of the reading public, if they choose to read this post a few days early.

There, that should cover our asses...

Now, on to the letters.

Our first letter is another incoherent rant from Josh Williams:

I do not question Mr McDougals quality's as a man and human being to be
worthy of the office "President of The United States of
America" however I do wonder if his past may haunt him and his many enemas
who will surely betray him. Does "Friends of" and his worker bee's realize that
McDougal has so many enemas?

What the fuck? OK, I think I can make a tiny bit of sense from that poorly written bullshit... McDougal has no concern whatsoever about those who consider themselves his enemies. He has crushed out the souls of better men than them, 100 times over. Don't believe me? Consider this... In December of 2001, Saddam Hussein borrowed McDougal's "Caligula" DVD. He was supposed to return it before Valentine's Day, but he never did. Look where Saddam is now.

Our next letter comes from Carl Spackler, who asks:

has mcdougal ever been married...is he divorced...does he have kids?

McDougal has been married dozens of times. We've written about a few of them here. If you click on the "marriage" tag at the bottom of this post, you will be able to read about a few of his marriages. McDougal has never been divorced, but he has been widowed many times. His brides have a habit of dying under mysterious circumstances. McDougal has somewhere in the neighborhood of 938 children. Most are illegitimate, born to prostitutes and other loose women. McDougal is incredibly fertile. There are several medically verified instances where McDougal has walked past an ovulating woman during a strong windstorm and accidentally impregnated her.

The next one comes from Damnsle, who writes:

Tu me dis qu’elle est melo, ou tu me dis qu’elle aimait l’eau?

Um... Punt?

Our final letter is a late entry from Sombrero11, who writes:

I often suffer from crippling writer's block. How is it that you are so prolific?

Well, Mr. Eleven, we have a whole writing staff here at FriendsOfMcDougal. Most of the time, if one of the writers is blocked up, the other writers can pick up the slack. However, occasionally all of the writers will be hit with simultaneous cases of writer's block. When this happens, we will just throw in some filler, like a funny picture or a couple of reader-submitted letters. Sometimes a writer will hit on an idea that seems promising, but they can't quite make it work. Most of the time, they will just pass the idea on to another writer and let them finish it. But every so often someone comes up with an idea that no one can make work. Here is an unfinished and unedited draft of one such story:

I am a Friends of McDougal from the Mycenaean Era.
He went by a different
name then. Your history books call him "Agamemnon."
I was sadly killed,
however, when Agamemnon (McDougal) incurred the wrath of Artemis (the goddess,
not Artemis Gordon from Wild Wild West). Fortunately, I was washed overboard in
port as McDougal's fleet prepared to sail for Troy, and never received a proper
burial.
Imagine my surprise, when I was revived eleven months ago by none
other than AgaMcDougalnon at a truck stop outside of Dubuque, Iowa. Aside from a
terrible headache and the predictable problems associated with my 3,600-year-old
military attire. The headache was fortunately a result of a hefty dose of crank
McDougal had served up as a revival peptide. And the fashion situation was
remedied by a quick stop at a Bass Pro Shop.
It would seem that the world
has changed considerably more than McDougal initially let on in the past four
millennia. While McDougalmemnon tried to keep me shielded from the trappings of
modern society, I have recently been granted my freedom and have discovered ...

We really tried to make this one work, but no one could do a damn thing with it. It makes a good chunk of filler though, doesn't it? I hope this helps you.

Well, that's it for Behind the Scenes Week. Stay tuned for more info on the Official McDougal Presidential Campaign Internship Contest!

Why McDougal Hates Poets

Brother McDougal called me in a fever and recited the following 37 reasons why he hates poets:

1. Chompers. Poets can't be doctors.

2. Poets can't even pay their water bills or submit their own shit to get published ...

Well, the really hungry and really bad can.

3. Poets generally can't get out of bed before noon and seldom keep appointments.

4. If two roads diverged in a yellow wood and you beat a poet to death with a
large rock, would anyone care?

5. Poets do not feel compelled to brush their teeth because their words are too pretty to be corrupted by halitosis.

6. Poets favorite movie is always Orca.

I know, a lot of people thought I meant Jaws, but nope. Orca.

7. Poets masturbate frequently and for long intervals, usually using massage oils and aloe.

8. Poets smell like patchouli, teak, cigarettes, and halitosis.

9. Poets move slowly and are not safe drivers.

10. If they can put a man on the moon, why can't they put a bunch of 'em up
there? And why can't all the people they put up there be poets?

11. Poets sometimes pretend to be fishing, but really they're just contemplating the flow of the river.

Oh, and they're high.

What the fuck? Dude, they don't even have a fishing pole. And HOLY CRAP! That one's naked.

Fucking fags.

12. Without poets there'd be no rabid cougars.

13. Poets pretend not to like bacon, but then they'll write six verse odes about the way it sounds and smells when cooking.

Oh, then when they're alone they eat BLT's almost exclusively.

14. Poets don't have any marketable skills and look down at those who do.

15. Google doesn't like Polish poets.

16. Poets hate war, but will fight to the death over an adverb.

17. Patti Smith is a poet and performer. She can barely remember to breathe.

18.
Q: What's the difference between a poet and a mime?
A: Who cares? God hates fags.

19.
Q: What's the difference between a poet and a cat burglar?
A: Poets smell like shit.

20.
Q: What's the worst thing you can do to a poet?
A: Kill his family with a stove pipe.

21.
Q: What do you call a poet with a job?
A: That fey quiet bitch who smells like ass.

22. I have to leave my job. (Hey, poet, a job is when someone pays you money in exchange for services.)

23. Challenging a poet is like telling a feral cat to run away when you approach it.

24. Poets love nature, but loathe sunburn. They don't use sunscreen b/c the thought of smearing chemicals on your body is repulsive. They frequently burn their forearms in August.

25. Poets hate cell phones, but not because they're against technology.

It's because they're fucking poets and no one ever calls them.

26. Poets are frequently gassy, but would sooner die by incestual rape than expel gas in an audible manner.

27. Poets don't bake. The oven says 400 degrees, but they don't believe it's really all that accurate, and they frequently burn cupcakes.

28. Poets seldom venture outside. Most only go out in the rain so that they can dramatically show up at a coffee shop or bookstore soaking wet and incredibly disheveled, clutching a handful of ruined papers.

They hope that people are whispering "he's a poet" as he orders his plain black coffee -- whatever the coffee of the day is, let's not be pretentious.

29. Poets, like whores, are only hated by each other.

30. Poet gas smells like cod liver oil and feet.

31.
Q: How can you tell when a poet's been in your house?
A: What the fuck rhymes with "humped the cradenza"?

32. Poets have dainty bowels and clammy palms. They feel like they should maybe sue someone, or at least go see a doctor.

33. There was once a city fueled by the burning corpses of Renaissance poets. It was the most beautiful city in the world, but everyone eventually moved away and the city was overrun with rats and alligator gar. When Jesus comes back, he will live there. And he will announce, "All poets burn in hell."

34. Poets are easily upset by spiders and revolutions.

35. Poets love space because they hate Mexicans.

36.
Q: What do you call the poet laureate of Kentucky?
A: Who gives a fuck? He's from Kentucky ... and he's a poet.

37. A poet would think it was funny to wear rubber boots in the shower, but not if you did it just because you thought it would be funny.

I don't really know what that last one means.

Campaign Update

"I'm bleeding," she said.

"That's because McDougal just punched you in the mouth," I said. I didn't tell her I was sorry. I wasn't the one who punched her in the mouth. I don't suppose I really had any reason to be sorry. Other than that I was sorry for her ... for her existence ... for what she had already and was about to endure.

"That wasn't a punch."

No. No it wasn't a "punch." He kind of just cupped her a bit with the back of his hand. She wouldn't be conscious had McDougal actually punched her. She was in the back seat of a 2001 Ford Winstar that McDougal had won in a back alley game of three-card monty. The van wasn't actually ever thrown into the pot, but McDougal's got this thing where he won't handle money. He calls it "filthy lucre" and has grown fond of quoting anti-currency Bible verses -- you know, that one about the moneyhandlers getting kicked out of the temple. Only, in McDougal's version, they are not just money handlers. They are shapeshifters.

McDougal is convinced that there are only about 1 million people on the planet. 400,000 of them are shapeshifters, he said. And their sole purpose in life is to deceive the other 600,000 of us.

She made the mistake of asking McDougal WHY he thought this was the case.

Jesus Christ, you just don't confront a paranoid delusional maniac when he's on the tail end of a six day meth jag. Why couldn't she just keep her mouth shut?

"A billion people in India," McDougal said. "That's my ass."

I wished he'd look back at the road. That Windstar was wound up. The speedometer was broken, but based on the cars we'd passed, I guessed we were probably cruising at about 110. And McDougal hadn't looked at the road in at least two minutes. Granted, it was a fairly straight patch of I-40, and the traffic was light, but I was starting to get nervous.

I looked at the handle and once again considered the potential for surviving a tumble from a minivan at triple-digit speeds.

"So then how do the shapeshifters get from one country to another so quickly? Or are you implying that there are only like 30 or 40 of them in the U.S.? Because I totally don't buy that," she said from the Ford lounge chair behind McDougal.

When the semi ran over her flipping, rolling body, I could still see most of what was happening in my sideview mirror. It was definitely the front left tire that first crushed her, then it was her hitting the underbelly that ripped her limbs off and sent her flying in all directions onto the median. Then I lost sight of her pieces, and turned back to the radio.

McDougal wasn't exactly pissed, just incredulous ... indignant. "Fucking Ann Coulter."

"I don't think that was Ann Coulter, McDougal."

"No shit, Sherlock," McDougal said. "That's the point, isn't it?"

I didn't follow.

"Nobody's Ann Coulter. There is no Ann Coulter. There is no Bob Woodward."

"You mean Bob Edwards," I corrected him.

"No," McDougal said. "No Bob Woodward. Edwards is one of us."

"One of us?"

"He's not a changeling."

"Oh," I said. "I thought you meant a Democrat."

"Don't be a faggot," McDougal warned.

I wasn't.

Slings and Arrows

Just once I'd like to leave Vegas like everyone else does... In a car, or in a plane, hung over, maybe with a small to medium sized regret... something like gambling away the company's money from the Hiller account, or maybe cheating on my wife with a prostitute. If, right now, you are thinking that those seem like pretty big things to be regretting... Well then, a weekend in Las Vegas with McDougal would probably twist your tender soul, leaving you in the dirt, crawling and screaming... wretched.

Me, I'm a Friend of McDougal. My soul is nothing but a mass of callouses and scar tissue, with a few cracks on the outside where coarse black hair sprouts through. I've seen it.

May you live 1,000 years and never have to see your own soul.

Pills, you know?

A Friend of McDougal exits Vegas like Frankenstein's monster, except, instead of villagers with pitchforks, it is a V formation of Ford Crown Victorias from the Las Vegas Police Department. I bet they would be taking it a little easier with those shotguns if they knew what was inside this tanker truck... And Frankenstein's monster only had to hide from the light of a few dozen torches. Easy... I, on the other hand, am having a hell of a time trying to hide a Peterbilt semi, in the open desert, from spotlight-wielding helicopters of the Nevada National Guard.

But I'm getting ahead of myself...

I guess because I don't remember how this began.

I remember doing shots of absinthe laced with angel dust at the Luxor with Sebastian Bach...

And I remember doing lines of gunpowder off a hookers ass at the Chicken Ranch with Todd Bridges...

Or maybe it was the other way around...

What I know for sure is, we got kicked out of the Stratosphere because McDougal stood up on the rollercoaster. But it was worth it to see him arc a massive stream of piss halfway down the strip, giving a golden shower to the entire crew of the pirate ship that sits in front of Treasure Island. Amazing... The big man's bladder must hold 140 gallons. I could have done without the smell though. You know how your piss stinks when you eat a lot of asparagus? Multiply that by a factor of ten, then add in a paper mill and a Georgia hog rendering plant. In August.

That is what I have pieced together from memory. A quick review of my surroundings reveals a few more things.

I know, at some point, we were in the Mirage. I know this because there is a dead white tiger strapped to the hood of this truck I am driving. The tiger has on lipstick and eyeshadow. The broken-off handle from a slot machine is jammed into its eyesocket, almost up to that ball at the end. There is a "McD " branded onto one of the tigers flanks.

I know that I am completely naked, except for a copy of this morning's Las Vegas Review-Journal, that is wrapped around my waist. Fortunately, the front page is facing out, and not something else, like the personals or Family Circus. From this I am able to learn a few more pieces of the puzzle.

I now know that this afternoon McDougal set off a controlled implosion, demolishing one of the smaller hotels on the strip, as part of his plan to open up a 73 story, 2,555 room hotel, casino and underground nuclear waste storage facility (the first of its kind outside of China). I know that the owners of the hotel that was demolished were very upset. McDougal really did intend to buy the hotel, if it was for sale, but he never got around to checking on that.

But all that is McDougal's problem, not mine. So why...

Ah, yes...

Now I remember...

I spoke of regrets... Yes. I am having one right now.

I don't regret agreeing to manage the waste disposal segment of McDougal's operation. No. That was a great opportunity for me. I started getting paid two months ago, and the money is great. I never expected McDougal to actually finish the facility anyway. I get paid either way. No regrets there.

What I do regret, is agreeing to take delivery of the first shipment of waste. I think I kind of jumped the gun on that one...

Chutes and Ladders

When we got into the elevator to go up to McDougal's suite on the top floor of the Bellagio, the car's cables groaned excessively. I hate riding on elevators with the big man, since he always flirts with the weight limit all on his own. Another would-be passenger was waiting nearby, and I tried to discreetly wave him off, but he apparently didn't see, because he squeezed into the elevator with us.

He was a rumpled little balding man in his mid-50s. The type of guy who works long days and spends his evenings in his Bible study group, but he saves up his money so that once a year he can travel to Las Vegas with his wife to really cut loose. By which, I mean eat at the free buffet every night, spend his days photographing all the big hotels on the strip and maybe catch Wayne Newton's show.

As the elevator began its trip up, the little man cleared his throat. I cringed and tried to signal him again, let him know that McDougal is not the type of guy you make small talk with. But since we were on opposite sides of the big man, his view of my gestures was completely obscured.

I tried to will him into silence. "Please don't talk. Please don't talk. Please -- "

"Boy, it's a hot one out there, huh?" he posited.

McDougal turned slowly, gazed down at him and retorted with, "When God comes back to judge the living and the dead, he will judge them on one thing. Do you know what that is?"

He guessed, "Religious piety?"

"Nope," McDougal said.

The man fidgeted for a moment and moved as if to respond again, but McDougal cut him off.

"The size of their cocks."






What seemed like an eternity of silence passed. The man shifted uncomfortably. I could tell he was trying to work up a response. It seemed silence was too much to ask for from this one.





Finally, he looked up at McDougal and asked, "What about the women?"

"They can burn in hell."






I felt like I had to do something. At that moment I was the only person who could save that man. Otherwise, this one elevator encounter would leave him a ruined shell of his former self. I looked up at McDougal, and by the expression on his face I could tell that he was done with this little fellow. I seized the opportunity and leaned forward, peering around McDougal's prodigious belly, and spoke.

"Boy, it's a hot one out there, huh?"

The man looked right into my eyes and with the same stoic delivery we'd just heard from McDougal, he said, "When God comes back to judge the living and the dead, he will judge them on one thing. Do you know what that is?"

It was too late. Oh God, no.

I swallowed hard and said, "Religious piety?"

"Nope," he said.

"Where is he going with this?" I wondered. Then out of left field, came his response ...

"Ejaculate velocity." He announced this sternly just as the bell rang and the door slid open. He exited confidently, shoulders back and head held high.

Jesus Christ, this guy had a pair. I had no idea how McDougal might respond. The man had just deftly countered McDougal's shock line with his own healthy dose of profane banter.

As the doors slid back closed, McDougal chuckled softly.

He turned to me and whispered, "At first I thought he said 'viscosity.' Now THAT would have been awkward."