Dick Cheney: Too Hot for TV

ice-President Dick Cheney unveiled a new "sassitude" last week, starting with Tuesday's off-color suggestion Sen. Patrick Leahy have sex with himself, and concluding with a spicier, not-ready-for-primetime Cheney fielding questions Friday from the White House press corps.

The VP surprised a number of political experts and average Americans alike by revealing a saltier disposition never before seen exhibited publicly by White House personnel. However, according to administration insiders, who crammed our doorways to volunteer information, Cheney has been quite the prick for years behind closed doors, so it was bound to come out sooner or later.

Things began innocently enough Tuesday morning, when on the Senate floor Cheney told Sen. Patrick Leahy to "fuck off," although some within hearing range claim the vice-president had been misheard, and he had actually said "fuck you." A senatorial class picture was being taken when the Democrat from Vermont fired a few barbs about Cheney's friends at the oil corporation Halliburton and allegations of abuse of power, and the vice-president responded with quite the filthy mouth, though some suggested Cheney's uncharacteristic response owed less to Leahy's comments and more to Sen. Mitch McConnell making bunny ears behind his head.

Plans had been made for Cheney to offer an explanation and possible apology for the remarks, when overnight White House polling showed drastic jumps in the VP's approval rating among males under 30, particularly African-Americans, a group Republicans have long struggled to reach. The vice-president responded via phone on CNN's Larry King Live.

"Balls to an apology, fuckface. I wouldn't piss a sorry on your freckled white ass. Leahy's a peckerhead and it's about time I laid down the law, put the smackdown him, bitch. 'Cause I'm for real." To which Larry King responded, "Is this Howard Stern screwing with me again?"

The Larry King interview caused some uproar among the FCC and some have speculated it may alienate some right-wing organizations, but Gallup polls reveal an even more distinct increase among young voters, including undecideds, so White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said Cheney would keep that shit up.

"Mr. Cheney is keepin' it real, folks," McClellan said Thursday. "If you don't like the heat, stay the fuck out the kitchen. It's the Veep's world, yo, you just visiting."

Friday, Cheney poured on more foul-mouth rancor, sporting sunglasses and wearing untied Nike sneakers. He welcomed questions from the press corps and gave reporters unwanted nicknames, including "Dicknose" and "Faghag." This particular reporter unfairly earned the moniker "Gramma Titties."

"I know you all think I'm fucking with you, but I'm for real," said Cheney, pausing to inexplicably perform "the Worm" for reporters. "It's a dangerous world, motherfuckers, and it's about time we stop pussying up the language and say fuck when we mean fuck. And don't even think about getting in my face, I don't give a shit if you're a Democrat or Republican or one of them Green Party queens—you act the bitch, I'll treat you like a bitch. Bitch."

Cheney then leapt from the stage and slapped White House reporter Helen Thomas with a harsh backhand, sending the correspondent—whom he had nicknamed "Grape Ape"—wheeling to the back wall.

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The list of sins I committed in a previous lifetime must still be rolling out somewhere, without end in sight. I can find no other explanation as to why I'm back here at the commune. I'm not sure if I feel more like Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now or Al Pacino in The Godfather III, but either way it's probably some Coppola movie that doesn't quite work.

You read that right: Back at the commune. My second dramatic exit, and my second crawling-on-all-fours return. There's no good explanation, other than fate driving by in a bus and waving its dick out the window. My fatal error was assuming I could leave this den in iniquity and make a clean break. I improperly assumed just because they hated me they wouldn't ever want to work with me again and get no satisfaction out of sabotaging my career. Guess who's the jackass, guys?

I should have done something sooner. I could see it coming like a freight train, how I was being set up for permanent commune employment. You see, the rest of these misfits, they're perfectly fit for working at the commune. They lack ambition, sensibility, any degree of talent—and while I'm being just plain insulting, they never pick up a check either. But I had a future, a rosy future I could practically smell. Well, I can smell it now, too, and it's more fertilizer than flowers. Over the years, Bagel and his co-conspirators torpedoed my reputation in the non-commune world with ridiculous insinuations I created the "reporting style" here at the commune, a style which is just shy of pure fiction, to tell the truth. I know a lot of commune enthusiasts are going to be outraged to hear that, but if you're a commune enthusiast, let's face it, you have bigger problems to confront.

My "involvement" with the commune reporting style is strictly like that of the involvement of a witness at the site of the Hindenberg disaster. "The humanity" indeed. What started as a joke memo about a funny Clinton story I had heard became the first published commune story I did, and apparently that loose corroboration of the facts and incessant needling of Republicans was just what El Capitan Bagel wanted. Yes, I have to admit, there's a "moron bias" here at the commune. Made by morons, edited by morons, all under the watchful eye of moron number one. Facts? You'll find more Vitamin D in a commune story than facts. Sad to say, but if we're being honest with ourselves, you'll admit you had some suspicions since day one. I say "you" because I'm well aware, despite our preposterous ratings numbers, there's only one commune reader, and we love you here, Emil.

If you're wondering how I can write such inflammatory things about the organization I've just come back to work for, I remind you, being fired from this nightmarish existence would be a blessing in disguise. I have always tried, despite my rocky relationship with the commune overlords and staff, to maintain a polite "work face" to get me through the day. My reward? A slew of titles that have insulted everything from my income to my penis size, crude insinuations about my mother and even my cat on the men's room walls, and being sent on numerous stories where my death was an expected outcome. These motherfuckers play hardball, in short. But I've had it. No more Mr. Nice Dunkin.

Red Bagel's hat is absurd. There, I said it. Consider it the first in many brutal doses of truth I will be handing out, in between the reporting assignments that put me in jeopardy. I'm back, commune, and this time, it's personal.

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Recently a famous musician friend of mine who will remain anonymous, his first name Beck, asked me, "Yo, Griswald—the guitar. What the dillio?" From these utterances I constructed a crude sentence asking me the history of the guitar, and it's a good one. For centuries no instrument has been strummed more by drunken frat boys to woo underage poontang to a house party. It is America's instrument.

The basic design came from an instrument in the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages were so called namely because pretending you were smart would get your lights punched out by the unenlightened masses everywhere—it was like our modern-day Washington D.C., though the tie had yet to be created.

The original design is believed to be the creation of Johann Crunch, who later went on to invent a cereal while serving in the military. Crunch had kids that would not shut up, yet he found by pulling his wife's hair taut and plucking on it to make sounds he could lull them to sleep, and keep his wife in line. All this went in the crapper, however, when Crunch's wife died of a self-inflicted arrow wound. Not wanting to lose his ace in the hole with the kids, Crunch put her head on the end of a broom and tied the hair to the other end. This allowed him to create complicated chords with his left hand, like Gmaj7.

Upon his death, the guys who killed him made off with the strange instrument, which they called a lute, because they were uneducated and couldn't spell "loot" correctly. As one became more proficient with the lute, they formed the world's first modern band, though of course they could never find a reliable bass player.

The lute was mass-produced by monks, and the first design change was to start making it out of wood rather than maiden's skulls, a more cost-effective manner of production, and to use nylon and silk for the strings, for a more sensual plucking style.

The Dark Ages gave way to the Middle Ages, then a brief period called the So-So Ages, often unmentioned in history and a lot like our 1970s. As all this progressed, the lute became England's most popular instrument, and was also imported to Europe where it helped create primitive Goth Tech bands in Germany. By the time America had its independence from England and its natives, the lute had been extended and transformed into the guitar, so called just because lute sounded stupid. A modern descendant of the original Guitar family claims his six-times great-grandfather (though friends say he was only half as great as built up) is the one to have created the first guitar, because his long arms would get cramped trying to play "Love to Thee Maidens" on the lute and his frustrated picking style resulted in the frequent breaking of strings.

By the early twentieth century, the refinement process for steel had become so fluid they could make aluminum foil and guitar strings. Since they already made the strings, guitar players went ahead and decided to try putting steel strings on the guitar. Though they hurt like hell to play, the twangy-twang sound allowed the creation of country-western music, which is often referred to as "strike two" against steel strings.

In 1951, extremely bored with the Ozzie-&-Harriet world around him, musician Freddy Fender attempted to create the world's first electric guitar. It didn't necessarily sound like a good idea, but was part of Fender's ongoing attempt to make an electric everything. Though his electric shoes caused calluses and toe rot and his electric water balloons killed instantly, Fender had apparently found his niche and lodged himself quickly inside it with the electric guitar. He made a fortune selling pickups and amplifiers alone. He also opened the door to Peter Frampton and other musicians who couldn't play a regular guitar to any degree of interest.

Today, you'll find an unplayed guitar in nearly every closet across this great nation, and it's no secret why. I put them there.

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