Raoul Dunkin, Embedded in Paris

aoul Dunkin, insert your own slanderous insult here, reporting for the commune from Paris, France. Somehow my job is to cover a war in the Middle East, though your guess is as good as mine on how to do so from Paris.

The best explanation for how I landed this assignment is that dullest tool in the drawer Ramrod Hurley, Acting-Editor and possible Bachman-Turner Overdrive member, thought anti-American sentiment runs so high here I'd be ripped apart upon stepping off the plane. Having already sent danger magnet Ivan Nacutcha-whatever to the front lines, this probably seemed like the best option for getting me rubbed out, as I have no doubt the lunatic thinks I'm bucking for his job.

Fortunately for this commune whipping boy, I speak fluent French and my own anti-American sentiment runs so high I fit in pretty well with the locals. I've joined in a few local protests at the local McDonald's, but mostly I've been spending my time drinking the world's best wine, smoking thin cigarettes, and living the high life on Ramrod's expense account. Did you know you can actually buy some of the paintings at the Louvre? Surprised me, too.

Anyway, by the time Bagel gets back and has a look at all the damage Hurley's done I wouldn't be surprised if he finds himself the new public enemy number one. Fine by me. I've had enough shit from those yokels to last Bagel's lifetime. Oh, by the way, if you should ever get to France and they don't ridicule you back to the stone age for being American, you should try some of the cuisine. The women are exceedingly naughty, too. Hot mamas.

I suppose I should report on the war at any rate. Not much to say, to tell the truth. I'm looking out a window facing the western sky right now and I can see no sign of impending missile attacks or bombing raids of any sort. I thought I heard an air raid siren sounding an hour ago but it turned out to be a couple of cats getting familiar with each other. I threw a block of cheese at them (or fromage) and they ran off. No reports of any cat casualties or anything.

I asked the concierge and some other folks about the possibility of chemical weapons, and while there is some notable body funk in the air, I don't think there's too great a risk of attack. I'm still going to go down and buy a canary tomorrow. If there is a chance of a biological weapon attack, it will be an early warning sign, but mostly I just want to some company.

Yesterday I thought I saw a small group of Iraqis surrendering in front of the hotel, but they were actually just selling souvenirs. I bought a T-shirt with the Eiffel tower on it and they retreated into Baghdad. Baghdad Café, that is, a little coffee place up the street. Nice guys, very fair.

As you can see, it hasn't been extremely eventful in this area. But I promise to stay with this story until news breaks, or until my plane ticket demands I return home. For the commune, this Raoul Dunkin, snickering his ass off.

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The original television probably wouldn't impress your average 21st-century American, who is used to all manner of razzle-dazz and flippety-flupp in the delivery of passive, couch-slumping entertainment. No, the first TV was a humble device, nothing more than a telephone attached to a small easel that held a pad of paper. The caller would call to tell an acquaintance about something that had happened, and while he verbally described the scene the answering party drew it up on the pad of paper. It was a rather stupid invention, but it was all they had back then and was wildly popular because it was new. Everyone marveled at the "Fourteenth Wonder of the World" (everything was a "Wonder of the World" back then, even Tommy Smothers) but social critics warned that the television would be the end of us all, with youths aimlessly doodling away the days and sending dirty pictures back and forth by way of description.

But after a few years, America's love affair with television began to wane, and by the mid-1930's Americans began to feel the seven-year itch for new technology. Many thought it would come in the form of a talking train, and a series of popular books were written on the subject. But the powers-that-be knew they had to get the ball rolling on a new, improved television, unless they wanted to continue running all over to hell and back every election year, shaking hands with every sweaty yokel that crawled out from under a rock somewhere. No chance! The talking train would have to wait. The time had come for television.

No one knew this better than President Roosevelt, and he wasted no time shining the big, lightbulb-shaped searchlight into the sky, signaling for all of the inventors to come out of their basements and backyard sheds and insane asylums and come to their country's aid.

Roosevelt gathered all of the nation's inventors together in a large hall that smelled strongly of cabbage, which everyone blamed on the room but all knew was the stink of the inventors themselves. They were given their mission, to re-invent television, and the inventors took to it with relish in their hair. Right off the bat they formed inventing teams, which they gave tough-sounding names like "The Genius Gang" and "The Eureka Dukes" and they invented chants that they used to taunt the other inventing teams. Before long there was a tug-of-war and a sack race to determine exactly which inventing team was the best, and within a week the President had to send in the National Guard to break it up because the inventors weren't getting any inventing done. But by that time the inventors were entrenched in a bitter clan war, and operatives from the fledgling Central Intelligence Agency had to be sent in to infiltrate the gangs and break them up by starting rumors about who exactly was stinking the place up like cabbage.

The government then wisely sent the inventors on their separate ways, and hunkered in to hope for the best.

The early returns were not promising, as most of the inventions that were submitted revolved around grafting telephones to sundry household devices, such as a hat rack and an ironing board, with the notable exception of one inventor who somehow managed to build a working telephone inside of a live pig.

Several other inventions of lasting importance were created during this quest for television, however, by inventors who either didn't understand the assignment or who thought the easel-pad television worked fine. And though the patent office was at first disappointed to receive them, inventions such as the burp-counting clock and disease flypaper would eventually have profound effects on American life.

The first invention that the office received which came anywhere close to improving on the original television was Monasto Farbie's Dream Beam Television. Farbie was an RCA employee of sub-normal IQ, who nonetheless did quite well in life by smiling constantly and only opening his mouth to agree with what more important people were saying. Farbie's invention involved a complex series of mirrors and magnifying glasses designed to shoot images over a distance of up to nine feet. It didn't even do that well, but being that it was the only new patent submitted with the word "Television" actually in the name, it was seen as a step in the right direction.

Out of this mess appeared Solace Mertz, an inventor from Idaho who hadn't been present at the President's meeting because he'd spent that weekend trapped in a box. Mertz arrived, seemingly out of nowhere, with a fully functioning television camera and screen in tow. When asked where he came up with the idea, Mertz told a long, detailed story about a dream he'd had one night where hyper-intelligent panda bears had come down out of a flying cocoanut and taught him how to make a television.

No one present knew what to say after he finished his story, except the CIA, who acted quickly by kicking Mertz in the teeth and telling him that if he didn't go along they'd tell everyone that he had married his cousin. Which was true, though Mertz had cleverly avoided detection for years by marrying all three of his cousins, so that nobody could say for certain which one he was married to and curious parties eventually got confused and gave up.

Roosevelt then quickly announced that Farbie had invented the television, and the nation was spared the embarrassment of awarding medals and honorary degrees to some Moonie who talked to panda bears. Everyone was happy: Farbie was famous, the nation had a new reason not to clean out their rain gutters, and politicians never had to go to West Virginia again. Mertz returned to his humble Idahoan life and lived quietly for years, until the night the panda bears returned to his dream and told him how build a ray gun that could remotely induce a cerebral hemorrhage in a head of state, which is a story for another column.

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Hey folks, and welcome back for another episode of Reflections of a Goocher, taped live before a recently-alive studio audience. We're here talking to celebrity housewife Susan Lutwidge, this year's recipient of the Lutwidge Family Prize for Drama.

SU: Good to have you here, Susan.

SL: Good to have been had here, Stu.

SU: So, is it true what I've been hearing about your recent plastic surgery?

SL: Well, if you've been hearing the truth it is.

SU: Good point.

SL: But yeah, I recently went in for Botox treatment, since my face was starting to look like Ed Asner's couch.

SU: I was going to say something.

SL: Good of you. But the thing is, when I got there I found out that Botox is extremely expensive. Go figure. Really makes you wonder about all those Vietnam vets who were paralyzed for free. So anyway, instead the doctor turned me on to Reebox treatment, which is where they inject your face with space-age sneaker rubber.

SU: It looks great.

SL: Thanks, Stu, I feel great. And it's comforting to know that the next time I fall while jogging, my face is going to bounce off the pavement like a superball.

SU: Talk about "saving face"!

SL: No shit.

SU: Okay Sue, we're low on time here so I'm afraid we're going to have to skip straight to the bonus round. Your question, for a chance to win all the tea in Denmark: Who is the tallest man ever to win the Noble Prize?

SL: Uh, Nelson Mandela? Dude's black, right?

SU: No, I'm sorry, the correct answer is Steve "The Stork" Goodgee, who won the Noble for Frisbee Golf in 1997. You may have been thinking of the lesser-known Nobel Peace Prize, which is awarded every year for outstanding achievement in the field of keeping the peace. The Noble awards those who keep it real in the face of being spanked in the nuts by a flying projectile. Thanks for playing.

We'll be right back after this commercial break.


Hey there Ricky, sorry to hear your dad got arrested again.

Yeah, my life sucks. This is the worst family vacation ever.

Come on, look at the bright side. Maybe your dad didn't do it.

Yeah, but they caught him with her jammies and everything.

You're probably right. Hey, wanna play doctor?


Holy Jehovah, we're back! And now it's time to check in with Hank Spankman and Johan Sebastian Crackersnatch, RoaG's own professional conversationalists:

HS: So, Johan, I hear you bought a bike recently.

JSC: That's a balled-in-the-face lie.

HS: Well you know what they say, there's a crayon of truth in every lie.

JSC: I always heard it was a train of vermouth in every life.

HS: That makes me very thirsty.

JSC: Me too, but I can't eat that much cheese.

HS: Chee—You know the thing about you? You're exactly like a cross between Bob Dylan and Bob Denver.

JSC: Well, you're like a cross between Bob Hope and a vacuum cleaner.

HS: I think I vacuum cleaner than you.

JSC: I vacuum naked.

HS: Do you always remember to wash behind your gears?

JSC: So we're back to the bike thing again? Okay, I'll admit it. The bike bought me.

I'm afraid that's all the time we've got this week folks, and I'm also afraid of spiders. We'll go into that some other time.

—closing theme, AKA "Can't Hug the Love Bug" by Styx—

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