CAPTURED!

First off, I'd like to apologize for the lack of activity here on the Friends of McDougal blog over the past few weeks. We have a good reason for this. As you all know, McDougal disappeared into the wilds of America following a traffic accident while en route to the Superbowl. As we tracked his movements, it was our desire to keep his fans updated on his whereabouts. However, McDougal is incredibly internet savvy. In fact, most people don't know this, but McDougal was the founder of the internet's third pornographic website. He was also the inventor of the pop-up ad and is believed to have composed the first Nigerian Banking Scam email. Oh, and you know how sometimes people will alternate capital and lowercase letters? McDougal invented that too. At any rate, McDougal quickly discovered that we were tracking his movements. We converged on Sheridan, Wyoming, expecting to capture McDougal there, only to find the empty wreckage of an Indiana National Guard Helicopter, which had been twisted into a crude representation of a giant hand with the middle finger defiantly extended.

You might not guess it, but McDougal is a skilled woodsman. Once, when we were out poaching caribou in Nahanni National Park we became trapped in the mountains by a sudden snowstorm. The bitter cold quickly sapped my strength and I became too weak to travel on. I told McDougal to continue on without me. And he did. I had tossed aside most of my gear earlier, hoping this would allow me more freedom of movement, so McDougal left his spare clothing and blankets with me. He also left me his rifle, "for when the wolves come." But McDougal returned a few hours later dragging the carcass of a huge grizzly bear, which he had killed with his bare hands. He devoured the entire bear in one sitting, then began lashing the bear's skeleton into a triangular framework using tendon and sinew. McDougal then stretched the bear's hide over the framework and, picking me up under one arm, we hanglided to safety. That bearskin hanglider is now in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution, however it is not currently on display. Apparently the Museums of American History, Natural History and Air & Space all feel that they have the most legitimate claim to this artifact, so until this debate is settled it remains in storage.

Knowing what McDougal is capable of, I gave up on the idea of capturing him in the midst of his journey. Instead, I selected a likely destination and set an ambush for him there. You see, yesterday was Fat Tuesday, and McDougal hasn't missed a Mardi Gras since 1957 (it pained him greatly to miss that one, but he was hiding out in the Sierra Maestra with Che Guevara and didn't wish to abandon his comrades). The City of New Orleans was very helpful with organizing my trap. It wouldn't have been possible without them. The New Orleans Saints cheerleaders loaned me one of those pneumatic cannons that they use to fire T-shirts into the crowd. Inside of it, I placed one of those gigantic hypodermic syringes that are used to inject seasonings into a deep fried turkey. Instead of Cajun spices, however, this needle contained rhinoceros tranquilizers generously donated by the Audubon Zoo.

The Big Man's head stuck well above the rest of the crowd along the parade route, so I had a clear shot at his neck. Not that I needed any help locating him. He was completely naked except for a skirt made of Mardi Gras beads and painted head to toe in stripes of purple, green and gold. Topping it all off was a giant neon-lit crown, which I'm pretty sure used to sit atop one of the Casinos in Las Vegas that was bulldozed to make room for the MGM Grand. Several empty beer kegs rolled around McDougal's feet. From my position, hidden within a Mardi Gras float with the unlikely theme of Judas Iscariot betraying Jesus, I took aim and fired...

Before the drugs took effect, McDougal managed to destroy one New Orleans police cruiser, which I have included a photo of. The police were willing to forgive this, provided we removed McDougal from the city before the sedatives wear off. I was more than happy to do this. I think their city has been through enough. McDougal is currently being transported North in an unmarked semi trailer with a highly skilled crew of handlers, who are keeping his skin moistened with bourbon during his journey.

A week has gone by, and still no sign of McDougal. Apparently he never attempted to make it to Detroit. The agents from the Department of Homeland Security who were stationed at the Michigan border would have found him if he did. The big man's average body temperature runs at 102.4 degrees Fahrenheit. He would have glowed like a blast furnace on their thermal imagers.

I've enlisted the McDougal for President campaign interns to help me figure out McDougal's whereabouts. I had them start by searching the newspapers for any articles about an increase in Sasquatch sightings in the Seattle area. That didn't pan out, but they did point out a few other articles that, when looked at together, form an interesting pattern:

• Drug rehab centers all over the Midwest are being overwhelmed by a sudden influx of meth addicts. According to police, the methamphetamine supply in several Midwestern states has dried up completely. Law enforcement is taking credit for causing the shortage through aggressive enforcement. I don't believe that for a minute. The shortage is obviously the result of McDougal wandering into several drug markets that aren't used to supporting his level of consumption.
• A military helicopter was stolen from a National Guard unit in central Indiana. There are no leads in the case, but the government does not believe the theft to be the work of terrorists. Several empty bottles of drain cleaner and a tattered size XXXXL Carolina Panthers football jersey were found at the scene.
• Hog farmers in Southern Illinois have reported a rash of animal mutilations on their farms. The pigs have been ripped completely apart, with many parts never recovered. One of the farmers, who asked not to be named, said that he believes it to be the work of extraterrestrials who are being aided by the U.S. government. "I seen one of them CIA helicopters hanging around here," the farmer claimed.
• A distiller in Kansas City, who manufactures alcohol for industrial use, reported that someone drilled a hole in one of their storage tanks and drained the contents. The owner blamed the theft on one of his competitors. "Someone doesn't just walk off with 1200 gallons of alcohol." In the photo accompanying the article it is pretty clear that the hole in the tank was not drilled, it was ripped into the tank. We sent the photo to our lab for comparison with McDougal's dental records. They were a nearly perfect match.

If you experience a McDougal sighting please report it to this webpage immediately. Do not attempt to approach McDougal under any circumstances. He is to be considered insane and dangerous. He seems to be following a Westerly course. If you are in the path of McDougal please board up your windows and lock your doors. He is attracted to light and cooking smells, so keep your shades drawn and eat only cold foods.

Superbowl Shuffle

I had completely forgotten that I promised McDougal I would drive him up to Detroit for the Superbowl tonight, so he called at 3:30 this morning to remind me. I was a little bit nervous about taking him, considering that he is still under the impression that Carolina will be playing tonight. But I knew that I would be better off facing his wrath over being lied to than breaking my promise. One think McDougal does not fuck around over is transportation.

I showed up at McDougal's house this morning in a rented Lincoln Town Car. It was roughly as big as a Navy minesweeper. No less than fifteen cows gave their lives so that the interior could be covered in luxurious leather. If you are going to be traveling with the Big Man you need a correspondingly large automobile. In the trunk, I had a few gametime refreshments. Beer, tortilla chips, nacho cheese, pizza rolls... The usual. McDougal marched out of the house carrying an armload of the supplies he requires for football viewing. A gallon of turpentine, a bucket of mashed potatoes, an uncooked pork shoulder, a Remington 870 tactical shotgun and a large cylinder of nitrous oxide. As he tossed the cylinder into the trunk I heard it crush my bag of chips.

McDougal was dressed in full Carolina Panthers regalia, complete with facepaint. If I were going to tell him that Carolina wasn't actually in the Superbowl this year that would have been the time. I didn't though. It turned out alright though, since we never made it to Detroit anyway.

McDougal lowered himself into the passenger's seat, which he ratcheted back as far as it would go. He still seemed displeased with the amount of legroom. I expected him to rip the seat out and sit in the back, which I have seen him do before, but instead he pulled his knees in close to his chest and fired a savage mule kick against the car's dashboard. It rocked the whole car. McDougal began to pull his legs in for a second kick.

"Careful McDougal," I yelled, "there are airbags in there!"

He shot me a contemptuous glance, but lowered his feet to the floor.

Somewhere in Ohio is where it all went to hell. We were flying up I-75, McDougal hanging out the window, loudly pledging his allegiance to the Carolina Panthers at the other motorists as we passed them. Anytime he saw a car with Michigan license plates he would hurl a handfull of mashed potatoes at it, believing that to be the state where Seattle is located. As I pulled around a large dump truck full of rocks, the truck in front of me (one of those three-long semi trailers that weaves down the road like some mechanized nightmare centipede) blew out a tire. We were suddenly engulfed in a cloud of white smoke and shredded rubber. Temporarily blinded, I failed to negotiate a gentle curve in the road and ricocheted off the guardrail, directly into the path of the dump truck which bumped us from behind. It wasn't a hard hit, but it was just enough to knock the valve off of McDougal's cylinder of nitrous. There was an explosion from the trunk of the car. Suddenly the whole interior was filled with bits of leather, foam padding, tortilla chips and ice cold nitrous oxide. With one end open, the cylinder had fired off like a rocket, blasting through the back seat, between McDougal and I, then exiting through the windshield. The nitrous fumes dissipated quickly due to the rush of cold air blasting through the bowling ball sized hole in the windshield, but I still began to feel a bit foggy. McDougal was laughing like a maniac, not because of the gas I think, but because he actually is a maniac and watching the cylinder transform into a missile pleased him greatly.

Speaking of that cylinder, if I hadn't been feeling the effects of the gas, and if the windshield hadn't been spiderwebbed beyond transparency, I would have noticed that same cylinder skittering around directly in the path of our left front tire. There was a tremendous thump as the impact shredded our tire, removing the last ounce of control I had over the large automobile. We bounced off the guardrail one more time, spun completely around twice, then rocketed over a ditch, finally coming to rest wrapped up in a barbed wire fence. McDougal's airbag failed to deploy, probably as a result of the vicious kicking he gave it. When his face bounced off the dashboard it left a perfect greasepaint mirror image of a panther. I thought this was pretty funny, but kept it to myself out of fear for my safety.

When the police arrived they found McDougal to be incoherent and uncontrollable. They tried pepper spray, but that just made him angry. They tried a Tazer, but McDougal just grabbed the wires and yanked the weapon right out of the cop's hands. The last I saw the Big Man, he was running off into the woods, screaming that he would destroy the whole city of Seattle for this outrage. I used this opportunity to sneak off before the State Troopers started asking me questions. Tonight I plan on watching the Superbowl from this shitty Ohio motel, that is, if I can adjust the rabbit ears to get some kind of reception. Maybe I will try tin foil.

Oh... And if you see McDougal, tell him Carolina won. He might be willing to spare Seattle (or some town in Michigan that he thinks is Seattle) if you do.

Patriots

McDougal LOVES American football. And by "loves," I mean he's never actually watched an entire football game. But he loves the concept.

So when he invited me to accompany him to the Rose Bowl, I was (to say the least) equal parts excited, confused, and scared for my life and for those of the Trojans and Longhorns. But I wasn't about to sit back and watch this bit of curiosity on the tele when I could have a ringside seat for what would surely end in sortid debauchery, crimes and misdemeanors, and most likely - cannibalism.

Of course, we never made it to the game.

McDougal said he had to stop and make a small withdrawal, which I knew before he even said anything meant "rob a small rural bank in Farmville, KY."

So there I was in the passenger's seat of McDougal's 1977 El Camino with a 40-pound bag of dogfood in my lap and a sawed off pump action 12 gauge fixed on a uniformed police officer, while McDougal went inside to make his withdrawal. Three states and two hours later, we were in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where McDougal believed the Rose Bowl was to be played, with a duffle bag full of small unmarked bills and two exploded dye packs, and a dead hooker in the bed of the cruck.

McDougal was hopped up on pills, incoherent, had eaten the entire bag of Puppy Chow, and shat himself at least three times in transit.

"What now, Dougal?" I asked him -- not really expecting a response.

"Wait for it," McDougal says.

So I do. For three days, I wait. Then McDougal spots a small private jet on the horizon.

"That's our ride," McDougal says.

Minutes later, the craft - an old school learjet Model 23 - landed in a pasture and McDougal says we have to run for it. I'm not sure what the hurry is after sitting in that shit-stinkin' car for three days, but the big man insists, so I follow orders. I was slowed because he forced me to carry the duffle bag and the whore, who it turns out wasn't dead at all - just very tired.

We board the plane and are greeted by a man I recognize as Handsome Jimmy, a disbarred Florida lawyer who flew in Che Guvera's air force in the mid 60s. Handsome Jimmy doesn't speak, as his larynx was ripped out in a bar brawl in Des Moines, Iowa in 1982. He's got a midget sidekick who does all his spoken word communication for him. He calls the midget tattoo (in sign language), but his name's really Fast Mike. I knew Fast Mike from the Army of the Revolution. We fought together in the Battle of the Sexes. He's a good man. Shifty as hell, but a good man at heart.

Nine hours later, we're in Helsinki, Finland. Handsome Jimmy and Fask Mike are dead (bitten to death by sharks somewhere over the Atlantic), and McDougal is in respiratory failure. Thank God the dead whore knew how to land the plane. We were greeted by a fleet of Interpol officers, who resuscitated McDougal and helped us launder the dye stained cash.

McDougal and I just watched the NFC wildcard game on a 52" plasma TV. I told him we were at the Rose Bowl. He doesn't know. Looked like the Panthers were going to pull it out, but I'm not sure because McDougal ate the TV at the beginning of the third quarter.

If he asks, tell McDougal that the Panthers are the champs, and it was a great game. You might tell him that you ate your TV, too.

The Huxtables

The one thing McDougal really hates is Pi. I don't mean Pi to the 10th or 11th decimal, I mean Pifuckin' Pi, like out to the 80th or 90th place.

So one day we're riding the train into Tegucigalpa and I'm raking in about $60K in whatever the fuck they use for money in Tegucigalpa, maybe chickens or rocks. McDougal is playing the part of out-of-town rube, and I'm pretending to be a tungsten miner from outside Comayagua.

I don't speak a word of Honduran and the game was not going well, but in typical style The D plays it off by standing up and announcing, "cortamos las tarjetas, el hombre con la tarjeta más grande me soplaremos" which brings down the house. Two of the guys are spitting mad, and it's all the train conductor can do to hold them back. A few other guys and this one naked chick are kind of into the offer though, and so they put down their ante.

Next thing you know, we're doing coke and eating clams with Ahmad Rashad and the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Now just stay with me, this is where Pi comes into play.

So we're all splayed out in the pool, and McDougal has this huge chicken breast on a stick. Natrone Means (#30) swims up and splashes McDougal, getting both the chicken and his big pile of coke all wet. The Big Man just kind of coughs out a laugh, and drinks the poolwater-cocaine slush off his belly as fast as he can. This was bad luck for the Jaguars because of two reasons:

1. cocaine and chlorine do the following in your brain:

N2(g) + 3H2(g) ↔ 2NH3(g) + ΔH


and

2. McDougal, in this instance, was forced as he twisted diagonally on his raft into the pool to guesstimate the circumference of the arc of his chicken breast on a stick as it flew in the opposite direction.

So in this 3 second span of time - I want you to try to imagine this - you can see McDougal's face run from bliss (chicken/coke) to surprise (Jaguar/splash) to fear (cokechicken/fall/pool) to sorrow (cokepool) to dawning realization (chicken/arc) to incredulosity (arc/math) to wrath (Pi) to murder (Natrone) and back again to bliss (eating/Natrone).

Rashad and I were laughing to beat the band at this split second display, just laughing til tears poured down our cheeks. And that's why to this day crazy ass McDougal will smash any TV that is playing the Cosby Show, or that show with Theo Huxtable with dreadlocks.

Showboating

McDougal's been on a bit of a tear lately -- ever since he lost his job at the Pentagon. Me and McDougal and the boys were at O'Toole's the other day, when Scotty pipes up with, "Well I had no idea you used to play pro ball, McDougal!"

I don't know why I didn't jump up and sprint out the door at that very moment. I'd heard this conversation 300 times if I'd heard it a once. And it never ended well.

McDougal hears this, then does that weird thing with his brows. It's not quite a furrow. You know the look I'm talking about, right? The one where he kind of rolls them (or really the single brow) into a sort of a rolling sea of unkempt facial hair so that it kind of looks like a symbol they might use for Nessie if they were to erect a "Loch Ness Monster Crossing" sign.

And McDougal says, "Aye, lad. I did, indeed."

Scotty says, "Well who'd ya play for then?"

God help me, why didn't I leave the place?

"I played for the Memphis Showboats," McDougal says. "Under the fine tutelage of the infamous Pepper Rogers."

Poor stupid Scotty. That poor dumb bastard. "The Showboats?" Scotty guffaws. "What the hell are they?"

God, why did I stay? Why, why, why?

McDougal comes to his feet, but was still not fully perturbed. "They were the finest squad in the finest league ever to don the uniform of professional athletics. They were the true champions of the USFL."

I didn't even seek cover. I just sat stupified over my ale. Why, Zeus? Why not guide me in this moment of terror? Why not set me free?

Scotty takes a long pull from his stein and mumbles under his breath, "The USFL? That's worse than the Canadian Football L -"

And those were the last words dear old Scotty proclaimed before leaving this life.

McDougal picks up the table (one of those 250-year-old solid oak jobs that have been in O'Toole's since the Battle of Falkirk), and in about two and a half seconds, he gnaws the table down to a spear, and runs it clear through Scotty's gullet.

He then lops off Scotty's head with the back the back of his fist and impales it on the end of the spear. He grabs me by the forearm and hauls me outside -- though I'd done nothing wrong, I was now inexorably linked to this terror.

McDougal rips off the roof of Scotty's Mini, yanks his car keys out of the dead man's trousers, directs me to sit in the passenger's seat and hold the spear topped by Scotty's severed head, and climbs into the driver's seat. When he realizes the car's too small for his massive frame, he rips out the driver's seat, and plops into the backseat, and starts the car.

"We're going to America," he says.

And off we go.

Six hours later, we're in Miami, and McDougal has ordered me to walk six steps behind him, displaying Scotty's severed head, and singing his favorite Peter Morrison tune, whilst strumming the fiddle.

The Roomba

McDougal invented the Roomba at a Super Bowl party back in '87. He called it the Soulsucker Seven after his wife at the time. The number 7 because he was in his early twenties (this is where the story gets hazy). He claimed to have an advanced robotics degree from the local 4H club, but I couldn't help but notice the device was crafted from a tape dispenser, shaved meat, and the cowl intake off a 71 Cuda. Is was loud as hell, but the thing worked.

Auto Repair (Part Two)

As we all well know McDougal hates the Chinese. So one day we're sittin around watching Superbowl porn and he jumps up out of his beanbag and tells us he's going to take 30 Chinese and build himself a street rod. Damned if he doesn't have it, 2 hours later, the fastest machine you ever saw built entirely out of Chinese body parts and boxes of oatmeal. The fucking thing ran on 3 cycle oil and he had painted it fire engine red, Lord, it was a sight.

So he snorts a line of coke from the hood clear to the back bumper, says, "Let's go to Vegas," and throws her into gear and drives straight into the ocean. My eyes popped straight out of my head, literally, when he took that thing down to the bottom of the Marianas Trench and fucking laid open a castle full of snacks and video games. One of the Chinee, the one that he used his intestines for belts and an exhaust pipe, was hollerin and screamin but you couldn't hear him of course cause we were under about 20,000 feet of water. So McDougal, crazy ass McDougal, takes one of those weird ass deep sea sightless albino squid things and fucking goes to town on it, I mean TO TOWN, oral, anal, weird shit with spoons, I can't even remember it all. Next thing you know we're sitting back on the docks in New Jersey and he's bitching about the equator. God damn he's something else.