Monday, September, 2002
If there is one thing we are guaranteed as Americans, failing all else, it's the right to sue. Even the prisoner in the darkest and dingiest cell has the right to file a lawsuit through a two-bit shyster claiming the prison conditions have done irreparable emotional damage which requires financial compensation.

I'm going to exercise that right, fellow Americans, because I have just seen a play so obviously based on my life that they should have called it Ching! Ching! I Owe Red Bagel a Lot of Money. Oh, sure, they tried to disguise it, calling the play instead Ching! Ching! I Owe Fred Scarsdale a Lot of Money, but I recognize my life when I see it re-enacted for me in proscenium stage setting.

First off, and this is so obvious it doesn't bear pointing out: Fred Scarsdale? It rhymes with Red so plainly I needn't go any further. The judge will hear that and throw the book at the playwright, and it will be a Michener book, I can tell you that much. Plus, I've been to Scarsdale one time to research my theory about the Grand Canyon being the ass crack of a giant rock creature, though that didn't really pan out. But that's in the play, too, if you were wondering.

Second, the play is about a tyrannical journalist and editor (me) with a mysterious background (me) and high standards that none of his staff can meet (also me) and who they plan to murder in his sleep for his reign of tyranny (bound to happen), and, as a subplot, fails in all his relationships with women because of strong mother issues (me, too) and his inability to maintain an erection. This final part is the only fictional element in the play, though if the judge starts to doubt the authenticity of my claim I can perhaps produce a couple of doctors who would verify the similarities.

The playwright is some hotshot former journalist and M-TV veejay just known as R. Dunkin. Though the name sounds a little familiar, I must admit, I have no idea where I would cross paths with someone who could write. My business usually limits me to meeting with conspiracists and Washington insiders, publishing experiment results from scientists with poor methodology, and bossing around reporters and columnists. Rok Finger attempted to write a play once, but I hear it was so poor he ended up giving it away, and it reappeared years later as Rent. Even if I thought Finger possessed the babymakers enough to write a play about me, I know it wouldn’t be as powerful and well-written as the Fred Scarsdale thing, and it also completely lacked music.

I’ll get to the bottom of this before too long, and when I do, there better be a big fat change purse waiting for me. I am not the sort of man who displays his life to the public for a minimal price in a community theater setting. Someone out there owes me a fat shiny copper and I’m going to get it or my name isn’t Fred Scarsdale. Or Red Bagel, I mean.

In the meantime, as much as I hate to admit it, you should really go see Ching! Ching! I Owe Fred Scarsdale a Lot of Money at the Appleberry Theater in Vlanch, Pennsylvania. It is a well-done rendition of a man corrupt with power until, like King Lear, he is reminded of what is important by the hero of the play, Rafael Tumpkin. And if you’re not big into drama or anything, you should still check it out because of the hot love scenes between the main character Fred Scarsdale and his strumpet reporter Jill Tumken. This stuff is too good to be true.

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The truth is that John Walker and John Walker Lindh are two separate people. Whoa, eh? Blew your mind out your ass, didn’t I?

We're Through the Looking Glass, People
We have turned a corner, loyal readers. We’ve opened a door to a room or a lid to a box that we can’t close again. We’ve stripped the spark plug where we can take it out, but can never put it back in. We’ve unscrewed the top to the jar and you’ve gotten peanut butter in my chocolate.