<MSTing>Pt3"Windmills"
the...@my-dejanews.com
Mike and Bots file back into the theater
>2
>
TOM: So what was the final tally?
MIKE: I think the motion was officially pantsed.
CROW: Whoo-hoo!
> Paul Ellison said, "I'm going to need a lot of help from you, old
>friend."
CROW: Wow, that's way more than President McCartney got by with.
> "You'll get it," Stanton Rogers replied quietly.
> They were seated in the Oval Office, the President at his desk with
> the American flag behind him.
TOM: Hey, that's the flag George Bush wrapped himself up in!
CROW: No, it's the flag Bill Clinton spat on as a covert KGB agent in the
60's.
MIKE: That's it, no more Pat Robertson newsletters for you.
>It was their first meeting together in this office, and President Ellison
> was uncomfortable.
MIKE: Would it help if we used your full name a lot?
> If Stanton hadn't made that one mistake, Paul Ellison thought, he
> would be sitting at this desk instead of me.
CROW: Yeah, yeah, we read the first chapter, OK? We get it.
MIKE: The President may as well have turned on a flashing neon
sign saying "IRONY!!! All you can eat!"
> As though reading his mind, Stanton Rogers said, "I have a
> confession to make. The day you were nominated for the presidency,
TOM: -satire died.
>-I was jealous as hell, Paul. It was my dream, and you were living it.
MIKE (laughs like The Amazing Colossal Man): They call this living!
>But do you know something? I finally came to realize that if I couldn't
> sit in the chair,
CROW: -I'd stand on it and do a striptease!
>-there was no one else in the world I would want to sit there but you.
> That chair suits you."
> Paul Ellison smiled at his friend and said, "To tell you the truth,
>Stan, this room scares the hell out of me. I feel the ghosts of
> Washington and Lincoln and Jefferson."
MIKE (scared laughter like Shaggy): Zoinks! Huh-huh! Like, I just
remembered, I gotta attend a deposition for our suit against Jabberjaw,
Spirit of '76, and Josie and the Pussycats!
> "We've also had Presidents who-"
> "I know, but it's the great ones we have to try to live up to."
> He pressed the button on his desk, and seconds later-
CROW: Detroit was in ruins.
TOM: Like they could tell. Heh-heh.
>-a white-jacketed steward came into the room.
> "Yes, Mr. President?"
> Paul Ellison turned to Rogers. "Coffee?"
> "Sounds good."
> "Want anything with it?"
MIKE: Yeah, your job, nipple-dip.
> "No thanks. Barbara wants me to watch my waistline."
TOM (as preppy): Don't you have people for that, old man?
> The President nodded to Henry, the steward, and he quietly left the
>room.
> Barbara. She had surprised everyone. The gossip around Washington
> was that the marriage would not last out the first year. But it had
> been almost fifteen years now, and it was a success. Stanton Rogers had
> built up a prestigious law practice in Washington, and Barbara had
> earned the reputation of being a gracious hostess.
CROW (as Barbara): Welcome to our damn home. What a lovely damn dress.
Would you care for a damn hors d'ouerve?
> Paul Ellison rose and began to pace. "My people-to-people speech
> seems to have caused quite an uproar.
MIKE: You mean the part where you bit the head off a live bat? That
ruled, man!
>I suppose you've seen all the newspapers."
TOM: Oh, can anyone ever really see ALL the newspapers?
> Stanton Rogers shrugged. "You know how they are. They love to
> build up heroes so they can knock them down."
> "Frankly, I don't give a damn what the papers say.
CROW: Oh, Rhett!
>I'm interested in what people are saying."
TOM: Ha, ha! No you're not.
> "Quite candidly you're scaring the hell out of a lot of people,
> Paul.
CROW (as wife): Next time, take the avocado-oatmeal mask off before giving
a major speech!
>The armed forces are against your plan and some powerful movers and
> shakers would like to see you fail."
MIKE: Movers and Shakers? That's U-Haul and the Pennsylvania Dutch, what
do they care?
CROW: I don't know, what do any of us care?
> "It's not going to fail." He leaned back in his chair. "Do you
> know the biggest problem with the world today?
TOM: AIDS? World hunger? Overconsumption by the industrialized West?
>There are no more statesmen.
TOM: Oh, of course, how shallow of me.
>Countries are being run by politicians. There was a time not too long
> ago when this earth was peopled by giants.
MIKE: HBO presents President Shelly Duvall's Faerie Tale Theater!
>Some were good, and some were evil- but by God, they were giants.
TOM: President Lawrence Taylor reminisces.
CROW (sings, Tom sings counterpoint): They Might Be Giants! (boy) They
Might Be Giants!
>Roosevelt, Churchill, Hitler, and Mussolini, Charles de Gaulle and Joseph
>Stalin. Why did they all live at that one particular time?
TOM: Well, if they lived at all times, they'd be Billy Pilgrim!
>Why aren't there any statesman today?"
> "It's pretty hard to be a world giant on a twenty-one inch screen."
MIKE: So your poor leadership skills, overt partisanship, and lack of
vision are all due to television.
CROW: Well TV does shorten attention spans.
MIKE: I find that hard to believe.
CROW: You find what hard to believe?
MIKE: D'oh!
> The steward appeared, bearing a silver tray with a pot of coffee and
>two cups, each imprinted with the presidential seal.
ALL: Arp! Arp! Arp!
>He skillfully poured the coffee. "Can I get you something else, Mr.
>President?"
> "No. That's it Henry. Thank you."
> The President waited until the steward had gone. "I want to talk to
>you about finding the right ambassador to Romania."
TOM: Norm MacDonald?
MIKE: Gilbert Gottfried?
CROW: David Spade? Oh please send David Spade...
> "Right."
> "I don't have to tell you how important this is. I want you to move
> on it as quickly as possible."
> Stanton Rogers took a sip of coffee and rose to his feet. "I'll get
>State on it right away."
MIKE: What? If you didn't want coffee, why did you waste Hank's time?
TOM: This may explain why the budget deficit and profits for Starbucks are
so closely linked.
* * *
> In the little suburb of Neuilly, it was two A.M.
CROW: Or as those of us who didn't cut English know it, 2:00 A.M.
>Marin Groza's villa lay in ebon darkness, the moon nested in a thick
> layer of-
MIKE: -rich milk chocolate.
> storm clouds. The streets were hushed at this hour, with only the sound
> of an occasional passerby rippling the silence.
TOM (as studious boy reading book): Do you enjoy rippling?
CROW (as young flirt): I don't know, you naughty boy, I've never rippled.
>A black-clad figure moved noiselessly through the trees toward the brick
> wall that surrounded the villa. Over one shoulder he carried a rope and
> a blanket, and in his arms was cradled an Uzi with a silencer and a dart
> gun.
MIKE: Oh, man, it's OJ! Can you autograph my golf ball? OJ?
>When he reached to wall, he stopped and listened. He waited, motionless,
> for five minutes.
TOM: Yeah, and I'll betcha Sheldon stopped and counted to 300 before he
resumed typing.
>Finally, satisfied, he uncoiled the nylon rope and tossed the scaling
> hook attached to the end of it upward until it caught the far edge of
> the wall. Swiftly, the man began to climb.
CROW: Is this what happens when you hang up on a telemarketer?
MIKE (shudders): There's a thought I could do without.
>When he reached the top of the wall, he hung the blanket across it to
> protect himself against the poison-tipped metal spikes embedded on top.
MIKE: It was an asbestos blanket, and he died of lung cancer on the way
down.
>He stopped again to listen. He reversed the hook, shifting the rope to
> the inside of the wall, and slid down onto the ground. He checked the
> balisong at his waist, the deadly Filipino folding knife that could be
> flipped open or closed with one hand.
TOM: Then he was shot, and died. Meanwhile, back in Perho...
> The attack dogs would be next. The intruder crouched there, waiting
>for them to pick up his scent.
CROW (as if on $25,000 Pyramid, Mike imitates clock): Um...
Shakespeare... Hitchcock... uh, Dashell Hammet...
TOM: Oh! People Who In Their Careers Created As Many Cliches As Appear On
This Page!
MIKE: Yes! Next!
>There were three Dobermans, trained to kill.
ALL: GOOD!
>But they were only the first obstacle. The grounds and the villa were
> filled with electronic devices,
MIKE (as little girl): Can't say which ones. That'd be telling.
>-and continuously monitored by television cameras. All mail and packages
>were received at the gatehouse and opened there by the guards.
TOM (as panicked guard): It's a fruitcake! Everybody down!
>The doors of the villa were bombproof. The villa had its own water
> supply, and Marin Groza had a food taster.
CROW: Shouldn't you really have two food tasters? 'Cuz when the first one
goes...
MIKE: We got it, Crow. We know.
>The villa was impregnable. Supposedly.
MIKE: Yeah, you teenagers think you're impregnable, but all it takes is
one time.
>The figure in black was here this night to prove that it was not.
> He heard the sounds of the dogs rushing at him before he saw them.
TOM: Kittes'n'Flesh, Kittles'n'Flesh, I'm gonna get me some
Kittles'n'Flesh!
>They came flying out of the darkness, charging at his throat.
CROW (like Willard): TEAR HIM APART!!!
TOM: Ha! Good Willard, Crow.
CROW: Huh? I'm not doing Willard, I'm just saying, TEAR HIM APART!!!
>There were two of them. He aimed the dart gun and shot the nearest one
> on his left first,
MIKE: Call Betty White!
>-and then the one on his right,
TOM: Call PETA!
>-dodging out of the way of their hurtling bodies. He spun around, alert
> for the third dog,
CROW: -whom he finally met on a Ferris wheel in Vienna.
TOM (as Orson Wells): The cuckoo clock!
>-and when it came, he fired again, and then there was only stillness.
MIKE (as dying dog): Ruff... Beware the man with... with... with...
with... with...with....
> The intruder knew where the sonic traps were buried in the ground,
> and he skirted them.
CROW (Scottish): Ach, 'tain't no skirt, it's a KILT ya festering yob!
>He silently glided through the areas of the grounds that the television
>cameras did not cover,
MIKE: Well what was the point of the cameras then?
TOM: Ivory Soap Security. 99 44/100% safe!
>-and in less than two minutes after he had gone over the wall, he was at
> the back door of the villa.
CROW (as teenager): Whoa, now all I gotta do is tiptoe into bed, an'
mom'll never know I broke curfew!
> As he reached for the handle of the door, he was caught in the
> sudden glare of the footlights. A voice called out, "Freeze! Drop your
> gun and raise your hands."
MIKE: Oh, no, the community theater police!
TOM (through bullhorn): Put your hands behind your head and sing "I Don't
Know How To Love Him"!
> The figure in black carefully dropped his gun and looked up. There
>were half a dozen men spread out on the roof, with a variety of weapons
>pointed at him.
CROW: Oh, look. Tylenol, a Suzuki Samurai, undercooked chicken, an apple
coated with alar...
> The man in black growled, "What took you so long? I never should
> have gotten this far!"
> "You didn't," the head guard informed him. "We started tracking you
>before you got over the wall."
TOM: We let you kill the dogs because we were out of paté!
> Lev Pasternak was not mollified. "Then you should have stopped me
>sooner. I could have been on a suicide mission with a load of grenades
> or a goddamn mortar."
MIKE (whining): I could have pricked myself on the rosebush and got
tetanus. Then you'd be sorry!
>I want a meeting of the entire staff tomorrow morning, eight o'clock
> sharp. The dogs have been stunned. Have someone keep an eye on them
> until they wake up."
CROW: Don't want them playin' any of them sneaky dog tricks on us.
>Lev Pasternak prided himself on being the best security guard in the
> world. He had been a pilot in the Israeli Six-Day War, and after the
> war had become a top agent in the Mossad, one of Israel's five secret
services.
TOM: The other four are for keeping track of the holidays.
> He would never forget the morning, two years earlier, when his
> colonel had called him into his office.
> "Lev, someone wants to borrow you for a few weeks."
> "I hope it's a blonde," Lev quipped.
MIKE: Why yes- John Tesh!
> "It's Marin Groza."
> Mossad had a complete file on the Romanian dissident.
TOM: Which they could access if Windows 95 would stop giving them that
damn blue screen!
>Groza had been the leader of a popular Romanian movement to depose
> Alexandru Ionescu and was about to stage a coup when he was betrayed by
>one of his men.
MIKE: Boy, Ted Kycynski's brother sure gets around.
> More than two dozen underground fighters had been executed, and Groza
> had barely escaped the country with his life. France had given him
> sanctuary.
CROW: Then immediately turned him over.
MIKE: Running to France to escape betrayal is like diving into the ocean
to escape a flood.
>Ionescu denounced Marin Groza as a traitor to his country and put a price
> on his head. So far half a dozen attempts to assassinate Groza had
> failed, but he had been wounded in the latest attack.
> "What does he want with me?" Pasternak asked. "He has government
>protection."
> "Not good enough. He needs someone to set up a foolproof security
>system.
TOM: Preferably a fool.
>He came to us. I recommended you."
> "I'd have to go to France?"
> "It will only take you a few weeks."
MIKE: And don't bathe- you'll arouse suspicion.
> "I don't-"
> "Lev, we're talking about a mensch. He's the guy with the white hat.
CROW: A Good Humor man! He'll wait... and wait... and wait!
>Our information is that he has enough popular support in his home country
> to knock over Ionescu. When the timing is right, he'll make his move.
> Meanwhile, we have to keep the man alive."
TOM: Hey, cryogenics! We could cut his head off and stick it in the
freezer!
MIKE: Nah, we're out of Reynolds Wrap.
>Lev Pasternak thought about it. "A few weeks, you said?"
> "That's all."
> The colonel had been wrong about the time, but he had been right
> about Marin Groza. He was a thin, fragile-looking man with an ascetic
> air about him and a face etched in sorrow. He had an aquiline nose, a
> firm chin, and a broad forehead, topped by a spray of white hair.
MIKE: Oh, no, even beneficent rebels are using spray-on hair!
TOM: Hair in a can. Because life's too short for dignity.
>He had deep black eyes, and when he spoke, they blazed with passion.
> "I don't give a damn whether I live or die," he told Lev at their
> first meeting.
TOM: Good, neither do I.
CROW: It's nice having a boss you see eye-to-eye with.
>"We're all going to die. It's the when that I'm concerned about. I have
> to stay alive another year or two.
TOM: I've got to see the new Planet of the Apes movie!
>That's all the time I need to drive Ionescu out of the country." He ran
> his hand absently across a livid scar on his cheek.
MIKE: There's a sentence you won't find in Beatrix Potter.
>"No man has the right to enslave a country.
CROW: -though lord knows Newt Gingrich is trying.
> We have to free Romania and let the people decide their own fate."
TOM: Groza should just go on Larry King and take over this country.
> Lev Pasternak went to work on the security system at the villa in
>Neuilly. He used some of his own men, and the outsiders he hired were
>checked out thoroughly. Every single piece of equipment was state of the
>art.
MIKE: There's the Van Gogh communications system- the left speaker's
shot.
CROW: That's the Jackson Pollack radar over there- kinda hard to read.
TOM: The Roy Lichtenstein alarm is in the shop- damn thing would rather
die than call Brad for help.
> Pasternak saw the Romanian rebel leader every day, and the more time
> he spent with him, the more he came to admire him. When Marin Groza
> asked Pasternak to stay on as his security chief, Pasternak did not
> hesitate.
> "I'll do it," he said, "until you're ready to make your move. Then
>I'll return to Israel."
CROW: As Michael Flathly- Lord of the Dance!
> They struck a deal.
> At irregular intervals, Pasternak staged surprise attacks on the
> villa, testing its security. Now, he thought, some of the guards are
> getting careless. I'll have to replace them.
MIKE: Oh yeah, and the gutters. Definitely time to replace the gutters.
> He walked through the hallways, carefully checking the heat sensors,
>the electronic warning system, and the infrared beams at the sill of each
>door. As he reached Marin Groza's bedroom, he heard a loud crash, and a
>moment later Groza began screaming in agony.
> Lev Pasternak passed Groza's room and kept walking.
TOM: Man, it is so sad what he does for attention.
CROW: You gonna die now, baby, huh? Go on and die. 1-2-3, die!
>
>3
>
> Headquarters for the Central Intelligence Agency is located across
> the Potomac River in Langley, Virginia, seven miles northwest of
>Washington, D.C.
MIKE: Three blocks from Stuckey's.
>At the approach road to the agency is a flashing red beacon on top of a
>gate.
CROW: So the CIA's in the red light district. Bravo, "Reinventing
Government".
TOM (as Gore): Before we moved to the red light district, lunch hours took
half a day.
MIKE (as Clinton): Now we save taxpayers $300,000 a year by maintaining a
full staff of hygienic, professional whores.
>The gatehouse is guarded twenty-four hours a day, and authorized visitors
> are issued colored badges giving them access only to the particular
> department with which they have business.
MIKE: I have a Technicolor yawn badge?
TOM (secretary): Senator Kennedy will be with you in a moment, sir.
>Outside the gray seven-level headquarters building, whimsically called
> the Toy Factory,
CROW: That's where Buzz Lightyear's from!
TOM: Naw, that's that stupid movie where Robin Williams and Joan Cusak are
stuck in a Renee Magritte painting.
MIKE (French): "C'est non cine."
CROW: Could we now perhaps stop riffing for anorexic bohemians in Doc
Martins, please?
MIKE: Sheesh. Sorry.
>-is a large statue of Nathan Hale.
MIKE: Oh, Nathan Hale! He hung out with Thomas Hardy!
>Inside, on the ground floor, a glass corridor wall faces an inner
> courtyard with a landscape garden dotted with magnolia trees. Above the
> reception desk a verse is carved in marble:
> "And ye shall know the truth and
> the truth shall set ye free"
TOM: All truths are equal, but some are more equal than others.
CROW: Oh, please, if the CIA brushed against the truth, they'd need a
gallon of hydrocortisone to treat the rash.
>The public is never admitted inside the building, and there are no
> facilities for visitors.
MIKE (whining): But I gotta go real bad!
>For those who wish to enter the compound "black"-
CROW (indignant): I'll enter "African American", thank you!
>-unseen- there is a tunnel that emerges onto a foyer facing a mahogany
>elevator door, watched around the clock by a squad of gray flanneled
>sentries.
TOM (singing): Gray flanneled sentries, seven swans a-swimming...
> In the seventh floor conference room, guarded by security aides
> armed with snub-nosed thirty-eight revolvers under their business suits,
MIKE: Are thirty-eight revolvers really safer than one revolver?
TOM: Well, provided you don't trip...
>-the Monday morning executive staff meeting was under way. Seated around
> the large oak table were Ned Tillingast, director of the CIA; General
> Oliver Brooks, Army Chief of Staff; Secretary of State Floyd Baker; Pete
> Connors, chief of counterintelligence;
CROW: -Rose Marie, and Maury Amsterdam!
>and Stanton Rogers.
All groan, bored and disappointed.
TOM (harsh whisper): I thought we weren't inviting that pantload!
CROW (female whisper): We didn't! He must've found out from Susan, the
little witch!
> Ned Tillingast, the CIA director, was in his sixties, a cold,
> taciturn man, burdened with maleficent secrets.
MIKE (maleficently): Soylent green is made from people, heh-heh!
> There is a light branch and a dark branch of the CIA.
TOM (as Yoda): The light branch is my ally- a powerful friend it is.
>The dark branch handles clandestine operations, and the past seven years,
>Tillingast had been in charge of the forty-five hundred employees working
> in that section.
MIKE: With four weeks dark vacation, lots of dark overtime, and
comprehensive dark dental coverage.
> General Oliver Brooks was a West Point soldier who conducted his
>personal and professional life by the book.
CROW: So did Tim McVeigh.
>He was a company man, and the company he worked for was the United States
>Army.
MIKE: Well I'm with an army, and the army I work for is the NRA!
> Floyd Baker, the secretary of state, was an anachronism, a throwback
> to an earlier era. He was of Southern vintage, tall, silver-haired, and
>distinguished-looking, with an old-fashioned gallantry.
TOM (old genteel Southerner): You may burn the first cross, sir.
MIKE (same): No, no, I went first at the lynching, you'll recall.
CROW (as belle): Why oh why do the Yankees denigrate our culture?
>He was a man who wore mental spats.
ALL (hysterical): WHAT???
TOM: He's got athlete's head!
CROW: I bet Stanton Rogers got one of them Nike Air Heads you pump up
before meetings.
>He owned a chain of influential newspapers around the country, and was
>reputed to be enormously wealthy.
MIKE: Oh, great, it's Citizen Kane II.
>There was no one in Washington with a keener political sense, and Baker's
>antennae were constantly tuned to the changing signals around the halls
> of Congress.
CROW (like antenna picking up signal): Beep-be-deep-deep... Protect
incumbency.
TOM: Beep-be-de-beep... Pay raise!
MIKE: Beep-beep-beep... Secretary's butt!
All (excited): Secretary's butt? Secretary's butt! Secretary's butt!
Logo. Commercials. This Halloween, everyone's favorite murderous doll...
has come back one time too many.
"UP CHUCKIES'"! Opens Friday in theaters near you!
<End Part III>
E-mail... E-mail needing e-mail... is the luckiest e-mail in the world.
peasporr...@hotmail.com
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