Did I ever tell you about how McDougal lost a leg in Vietnam? No??!! Now why the fuck... Oh, I think I was saving this story for Veteran's Day, but then I forgot. And next Veteran's Day is so far away...

Well, McDougal was at a forward recon post in LaChoy (McDougal's memory of Vietnam is somewhat fuzzy, particularly in regards to place names. This is a direct result of the copious amounts of weed he was smoking at the time. It didn't help that he was also deeply involved in a personal scientific study of the psychotropic qualities of various jungle frogs. So now, when he tells stories about Vietnam, if he can't remember the name of a town he just calls it "LaChoy" rather than delay the story struggling to remember the real name. This can be very confusing when he's telling a story about something that happened on "the road from LaChoy to LaChoy" for example) when they came under heavy rocket attack. McDougal burst from his tent carrying his M-60 machine gun and ran to his defensive position. He fired that gun until the barrel melted down. They managed to repel the North Vietnamese assault that night, but at some point during the attack the gooks breached the perimeter and ransacked several tents. One of these was McDougal's. They made off with some inconsequential paperwork, a few maps, ammunition, grenades, other assorted explosives... But what really stung was that they got away with McDougal's leg.

He loved that leg. He didn't like to go anywhere without it, but that night he left it behind in his footlocker. He was afraid it might get damaged during the gunfight. McDougal thought he locked his footlocker before he ran out the door (flap?) but in his haste it must not have latched properly. The leg originally belonged to a Merchant Marine named Johaanson. It was hand-carved teak from India. Johaanson lost his leg (his real one I mean) during the Korean war when his gunboat came under fire. The Navy issued him a substandard replacement leg. It was uncomfortable, wobbly and the hinges squeaked. After joining the Merchant Marines, during a port call in India, he met a craftsman who promised to make him an artificial leg that was almost as good as the flesh and bone that he lost so many years ago. The woodcarver was an Untouchable, blind in one eye and disfigured from being doused with acid by bullies from a higher caste. None of this mattered to Johaanson of course. All he wanted was a leg that didn't rub his stump raw when he walked. And boy did the Indian woodcarver deliver. Johaanson swore that leg was actually more comfortable than the one he was born with. But if he loved that leg so much he should have folded. Instead, one night, while playing cards with a group of mysterious Americans in a Philippine whorehouse, he laid that leg on the table and a mountain of a man named McDougal called his bluff.

To this day McDougal is offering a reward of $75,000 to anyone who can return his leg. Several schemers have tried to pass off fake legs to McDougal. Most haven't been seen since. The real leg has the name of the Indian Untouchable woodcarver burned into the upper thigh in Hindi script, along with the name Johaanson and, underneath those, a small symbol that McDougal himself carved in. He refuses to reveal the nature of this symbol, and uses this as a test for authenticity. So why all this trouble for a leg he doesn't even really need? I've wondered that myself, and I have a theory. See, I've spent some time searching for this leg. It's not that I need the money, but... Well, I'm just curious. Some men search for Atlantis, some for Blackbeard's treasure. Call it a hobby. Two decades ago I managed to track down that Indian woodcarver. He actually remembered that leg too. He said there was a hollow cavity in the thigh. It didn't lock, not in a conventional sense, but it would take a very clever person to figure out how to open it. Someone more clever than that sailor Johaanson. Those gooks probably never even realized what they had. But someone like McDougal, especially with a belly full of mind-expanding frog toxins...

But like I said, it's only a theory...

The Great American Novelty

I have to admit, I was a little worried that McDougal would still be angry with me about that stunt I pulled at Mardi Gras. But when I brought it up over drinks yesterday (we were at McDougal's favorite strip club, you know, that one over by the nuclear power plant) he just dismissed it with a wave of his hand. I shouldn't have been concerned. After all, McDougal has a great sense of humor. Most people don't realize that, I think because the joke is often on them. But if you step back and look at it from an outsider's perspective, it's often quite funny. I'm sure you've all heard the one about the guy who gets drunk and goes to a hotel with a prostitute, only to wake up in a bathtub full of ice, missing his kidneys. Yeah, that was me. McDougal set the whole thing up. He gave me my kidneys back and we shared a laugh. Actually, I only got one of them back. He gave the other one to the prostitute in exchange for her services. I hope she got a fair market price for it. I wouldn't want her feeling like she was ripped off. Apparently while that little Filipino surgeon was working on me in the bathtub, McDougal was in the other room working that hooker through his version of The Aristocrats.

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but McDougal used to actually run a joke shop in Santa Monica. This was after college, and the big man knew he wasn't cut out for a job in the square world, so he thought a career in novelties might be the way to go. The merchandise was all pretty standard stuff: ice cubes with real malaria-infected mosquitoes inside, spring loaded peanut cans that, when you opened them, would spray out broken glass, official-looking army stationary that could be used to send people letters indicating that a loved one had been killed in Vietnam... Like I said, the usual kind of things. The police were convinced that he was selling drugs out of the back, which of course, he was. But ever since he was a young boy McDougal has maintained an intelligence network so elaborate that it makes the NSA look like an old lady trying to listen through a door with a drinking glass. When the cops kicked in the back door all they found were a few dozen cases of rubber vomit and a prototype pair of spectacles that shot out real X-rays.

McDougal later successfully sued the police department for the damage to his property and emotional distress. He made quite a bit of money from what I understand. Combined with his drug revenue it would have been enough to keep the shop open for years, even in the face of all the lawsuits against McDougal (it turned out users of his Genuine X-Ray Specs were reporting an alarming frequency of brain cancers). But McDougal's heart really wasn't in it anymore. He felt that his greatest joke was the one he played on the local police, and that really wasn't the kind of thing you could sell.

Anyway, we had a good time at the strip club last night. What those girls lack in looks, they more than make up for in enthusiasm. I said goodnight to the big man and went home without a care in the world. I should have been a little more wary though, because that prankster McDougal got me back good. I got up early this morning to get a round of golf in and while I was gone McDougal burned down my house. That crazy-ass McDougal! Ha ha ha!

Although, now that I think about it, I don't remember telling him I would be golfing this morning...

Pork v Prok

I want to know why everyone thinks McDougal has something against the pork industry. Let me tell you bloody fucking porkers a little story about when I was in the Army with McDougal.

It was the summer of '84, and we were holed up near Phnom Penh. We were surrounded by peasant zombies, who were intent on eating our brains. McDougal's mind was blown on a pound of premium Iranian hash and CIA-issued brake fluid, but he was still sharp as a tack.

I looked up at him and he had this kind of half-smile, half cryface on and he was listening to Suite: Judy Blue Eyes on his Sony "Walk Man". I was making sweet love to a buxom Irish barmaid we brought along for entertainment, and the rest of the troops were making a hollandaise sauce in the puptent, so to speak.

"Buck Rogers, stop fucking the irishman and get ready, here come a shitload of flesh eating zombies."

I hear the telltale swishing and groaning of the approaching zombies and fear strikes me temporarily flaccid. McDougal is still perched up on the gunnery wistfully singing CSN&Y. All at once he is shooting in 40 different directions, his body a blur of fire and metal as he mows down a hundred slack jawed zombies. I see one creeping into the mess tent and getting his rotting mits into the hollandaise sauce. "McD!" someone yells as his head is being ripped off, "the sau--" and Bam, McDougal is on him like shit on grass, the bullets tear the zombie from his ill-gotten ladle and before I can pull a scream from my throat Tullis and Pettyjohn are getting the ladle back into the pot and cleaning out the pieces of zombie from the sauce and surrounding cooking area. Then I hear another creak and off to my left in the latrine there are three zombies building a Jenga tower with toilet paper tubes "MCDOUGAL" I scream and he's launching a rocket into their fucking faces one for each one of their goddamned stupid fucking faces....

I'm sorry. Every time I let my mind go back to that place I ... I'm sorry.

So anyway, I hope that makes a difference.

Wait, wait ... McDouga'ls a Meaty?

I've been out of the country (Mogadishu -- [again]) and just got back to this.

Let me make sure I understand -- Our old pal McDougal is running for President {AGAIN}? This time under the MEAT party banner?

Isn't the MEAT Party the one whose leader won't even say his name in public?

Isn't that the ticket Walken's running under?

Has there even been confirmation that McDougal has accepted the bid?

Last I heard, he was summering over in the extreme Southern Pacicific -- like down where it doesn't matterif it's the Pacific or the Atlantic. Seriously, has anyone even heard from him in the past three weeks?

And you guys remember what happened last time McDougal ran for President, right?

What? You don't?

You don't remember the barbed wire-laced jeeps in Grant Park?

You don't remember the cracked heads, the tear gas, or the police lines advancing through demonstrators on the nightly news?

You don't remember a man named Hubert Humphrey, who McDougal and his band of social anarchists abducted, raped and sodomized over the course of 16 days in late August and early September of 1968?

Well, let me refresh your memory.

Shortly after McDougal killed Bobby Kennedy and Sirhan Sirhan, the Democratic party was in shambles. And that was just the way McDougal wanted it.

He was living with Abbie Hoffman in Massachussets - though he was a staunch, Anti-Yippie at the time. When Hoffman hitched a ride to Chicago to protest the convention, McDougal tagged along. Hoffman, like most Americans, was unaware that McDougal was running for President. McDougal, who'd been shut out of the primaries in 1968, held a grudge for not being selected -- or really even allowed to participate at all.

Hoffman was up in arms about the war in Vietnam, and was participating in the riots outside of the convention with some SNCC peace activists. McDougal wasn't too interested in peace, as he was making a pretty hefty sum from the CIA for his activities in Cambodia and Laos.

So he branched out on his own. McDougal somehow managed to hook up with Dan Rather during hte convention, and was given press passes -- pretty much giving him free reign over the entire convention center. He was also spotted with members of the Illinois Nazi Party (INP) and Mayor Dailey during his six days in Chicago (August 26-September 1).

While McDougal's political views did not align in the least with those of the Democratic Party of that era, he felt certain that he was a lock for the party's nomination for President that year. He figured with Bobby Kennedy out of the way, he was the clear choice.

McDougal over-estimated the Democratic Party's progressive stance. He'd been misguided -- perhaps by Dailey, or maybe even by Hoffman. So when Abraham Ribicoff delivered a speech nominating George McGovern for President, he sent McDougal over the edge.

He ordered Dailey to subdue the protestors "by any means necessary", which those inside the Dailey administration say started the riots outside of the convention.

When McDougal's name wasn't even included in the Humphrey/McGovern debates, he decided to raise the ante. After the party ultimately nominated Humphrey for their Presidential candidate, McDougal raised the stakes again.

"There can be only one Mc in this campaign," McDougal told a reporter for the New Anarchists Times. "Humphrey's gonna pay for this one."

While McDougal never clearly explained why he believed Humphrey was to blame for the presence of two Mc's in the Democratic party in 1968, poor Hubert suffered the brunt of McDougal's rage, which many people credit for ruining Humphrey's chances in the '68 elections, propelling Richard M. Nixon to the nation's highest ofice, and launching the careers of Hunter S. Thompson and Margaret Thatcher in the process.

I wasn't there during the two-plus weeks in which McDougal and his band of anarchist thugs held Humphrey captive (per my attorney's instructions), but I have from a reliable source, a detailed account of the occurences during that period.

Humphrey was forced to wear a dress and/or Army-issue combat boots for the entire duration of his captivity, during which time he was subjected to ritualistic and intense anal rape in between six-hour sessions in which he was forced to memorize and repeatedly recite the Social Anarchists' creed, which reads:

"We believe strongly in that. We are not going to withdraw from that effort. In my opinion, for us to withdraw from that effort would mean a collapse not only of South Vietnam, but Southeast Asia. So we are going to stay there."

While it is unclear what this passage has to do with Social Anarchy, it was important to McDougal.

So when you tell me, "McDougal's signed on with MEAT", well I just don't know that I buy it.

Can we please get some manner of confirmation from the man himself before we go half-cocked into the political process yet again?

Is America ready for another '68? Is America ready for McDougal as its Commander in Chief?

These are serious questions, and I for one shall not throw my support toward McDougal until I hear from the man himself.

Lunch Plans

I just got back from lunch with McDougal. We went to Godzilla's Drive-In & Eat on Highway 18. It's run by this old Vietnamese guy, who mostly serves hot dogs and loose meat.

I had three chili dogs, a bag of Funyuns, and a vanilla shake. McDougal ate a little town in the Gansu Province of China.

After lunch, we stopped by McDougal's new house. There were about half a dozen contractors there widening the doorways, and putting the entire house on floats.

Later this summer he's gonna sail the whole thing over to China, where the villages are a lot fresher.

Minjas

Do you guys remember when McDougal went on that big kick about the Minjas?

He put together that crazy ass business plan and everything.

I told him it was a hair-brained idea, but he wouldn't hear it.

"Nipsy," he told me, "there's a whole class of little people who maybe feel inferior because they don't measure up to societal norms. And there's a whole other class of people out there who spend their days freakin' puttin' the bad karate on hapless saps -- generally killing them in the process. Let's put 'em together and see what shakes out."

"It'll never work, McDougal. Let's get back to work," I said.

But damn if he didn't up and quit right there.

Walked into Bossman's office, spit in his face, and jacked a wad right there. Told him, "You eat my nut, Bossman, or I walk."

Of course, Bossman ate the nut.

But McDougal walked anyway.

Told him he'd send Bossman a fresh batch for severance.

He went off, got all liquored up, and put together this business plan.

He was gonna breed midget ninjas to be sold on the open market for personal use, tactical operations, espionage, and corporate security.

He went to a couple of VC guys, and they laughed him out of their offices.

Fortunately, he was able to hook up with the Chinese mafia, and they gave him $2MM in Mezanine Financing for his project.

I bet those VC guys rethought things in the last moments before they were beheaded by crazy ass midget ninjas.

I don't know what kind of money McDougal ended up making out of the deal, but he moved a few hundred of 'em when all was said and done.

I still have a couple of them, but due to a genetic defect, they age six times faster than regular ninjas, and after three or four years, they aren't any good for ninjonics anymore.

I use mine as personal valets and lawn decorations, mostly.

Sometimes I bring them in and have them jack me off a little bit, but mostly they sleep outside with the Vietnamese boy McDougal sold me back in '82.

Auto Repair (Part One)

Before he joined the Marines, McDougal took a course in auto/body repair at the local junior college.

He dropped out after two days. When the instructor told him he'd never amount to anything, McDougal stole the guy's car (an old Chevy Nomad), stripped out the engine and did some work on it.

He ended up designing the next generation of rocket technology that to this day is more efficient and powerful than anything Lockheed Martin or McDonnel Douglas have been able to come up with.

He entered the car in a drag race up in Rock Hill and set the world land speed record that still stands to this day.

Later, when the military contacted him about his engine, McDougal said he couldn't tell them how he designed the engine because he'd shredded the plans, pissed on them, and fed them to his auto/body repair instructor's dying mother on her last day on this earth. He then sold the car to the Chinese, and lost all the profits in a craps game at some seedy indian reservation casino in upstate New York.

The Pentagon tried to bring him on as a rocket scientist, but you know McDougal. He ended up going infantry. Near the end of the war in Vietnam, he killed and ate his entire platoon. The Marines still gave him an honorable discharge, and they even gave him a medal.

When they tried to pin it on him, crazy old McDougal took the medal and stuck it in a falcon's eye and set it free. The falcon flew straight up into the air about half a mile. Then he burst into flames and came plummeting back to the award stage. McDougal slowly stepped out of the way just before the bird landed. Ended up killing two generals and a colonel.