(KIELBASABLOG NOTE:  Through it’s sources, KIELBASABLOG has obtained the following rough draft copy of a farewell speech to supporters to be delivered by Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who is expected to announce her departure from the 2012 Presidential race sometime in the next few weeks.  KIELBASABLOG has not yet been able to corroborate the facts stated herein, or to absolutely confirm the document's authenticity.  

However, because this is the internet, we are going to publish it anyway.)




WORDS FOR THE TEAM




--(Enter room.  Stand at podium.)


Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you again, really, thanks, thank you...


--(Wait for thunderous tidal wave of adoring applause to subside)


Thank you, thank, thank you...


--(Bask in the glow.  Continue to wait.  Nod.  Shrug.  Shake head in amazement.  Randomly point at faces in the crowd as if you know them. ...NO HOMOs!  This is a good time to fart if you need to.)


My dear fellow Americans, ....particularly those of you who are of Christian European descent, I come to you  tonight with a heavy heart, ...not as I had hoped, ...not as I had ever expected, ...not as I had ever planned,  but instead with a message I never wanted to deliver:

  
“...The owner of a blue Toyota Corolla, Florida license plate #XG7-898, your vehicle is blocking the dumpster and is about to be towed”


--(Wait patiently for tsunami of hysterical laughter and loving applause to subside)


Ha-ha-ha!  I’m so sorry.  I couldn’t resist.  I always wanted to do that bit, ...or “schtick” as we used to say on the Kibbutz.


But seriously folks, of course, tonight is not all about making jokes, or enjoying ourselves, or gratifying my personal needs.  


(glance at husband)  ...God forbid. 


Instead, tonight is about the reality and about the responsibility of being a total object failure.  For sadly, the end is here and the writing is on the wall, ...literally...it’s in the ladies room, and it is in Sharpie.  So in case you haven’t been in the ladies room, or been reading the polls, I’m here to tell you that tonight I am removing myself as God’s first choice among candidates for the office of President of the United States.


(...Pause...  Stand stoically quiet until bloodcurdling panicky screams of outrage lessen.  Do not acknowledge gunshots in parking lot and sound of vomiting)


I know, I know, and I understand.  ...You’ve been shtupped.  And nobody appreciates how degrading that is better than me.  (glance vaguely in husbands way)  And that is something that is difficult to hear and to realize, let alone watch replayed on video.  But it is something we must accept, ..for now anyway, and move on.


And to help us do that I think it is important that we take a glimpse into the rear view mirror of reality here, where failure is always closer than it appears, and take a look back at where we came from.  


For instance, I come from Iowa, which is one of the fifty American states that lies, or perhaps it’s “lays”, between Canada and the tribal areas south of the equator.  Of course, I don’t remember much about Iowa, I think mostly because there really isn’t very much there that is memorable.  A lot of corn.  Also, we moved to Minnesota when I was 13, and at the time I was pretty much totally focusing all my attention on suppressing all these really weird feelings I started having at the time.  


It was difficult, and sometimes it was messy.  But I did it.


So the first thank you I have tonight is to my parents for moving us out of Iowa, because, ...really, ...corn?  Really?  And thank you, Mom and Dad, for getting me to Minnesota which seemed like the Promised Land, compared to freakin Iowa, anyway.  I thrived in my new land, with it’s Scandinavian heritage and it’s rich Nordic culture and clear white skin and that awesome mall with the roller coaster.  And who could forget the cheese?  I learned to love Minneapolis and St. Paul, I actually lived just down the street from Mary Tyler Moore, she was so Bohemian what with her Jewish friend and all, ...sometimes we’d walk downtown together and throw our hats up in the air, and I learned to love the Twins and the football Vikings, who as you know, named themselves in honor of the famous luxury kitchen stove, that, correct me if I’m wrong, was invented right here by the founding fathers soon after they crossed Lake Mishagan to get here on the Mayflower.


So thank you, thank you, thank you Mom and Dad.


Now, though, with menopausal sadness, as I look out at this sea of familiar faces, most of whom are genetically non-threatening, I am brought back in my mind to the humble origins of this noble campaign, to the days of freewheeling debate, the days of challenged intellect, to the days of yore.  (“Gay marriage?  Yore crazy!  Birth control?  Yore dreaming!”.)


(Pause again.  Cheerful applause coming...  Wait for it...  Wait for it...)


And I recall with great joy, the spirit of our dream, our quest, our malfeasance.  And for that I have so much thanks for so many people...many of whom have probably never been thanked by someone like me before.  Thank you, little ones.  Muchas Gracias.  Ocuna Muntada.


Next, I’d like to thank for all their love and patience and support, ...my family, up to and including Marc, my “fabulous” husband, who...well, ...you know, ...did his best.  And of course our kids were great, and even our dog Adolph, who put up with a lot of chaos and never lost his cool except for that one time when he tried to bite Anderson Cooper.


You’re a great, great family.  We should have dinner sometime.


And it wasn’t just my family, it was all of us.  Through it all we kept on believing, especially you, and we’ll never forget it.  (Pretend here to be making direct eye contact with somebody.  Really sell it.  Do the Newsweek cover thing.)


And I’ll always remember the hard work my incredible staff contributed, hours and hours of painstaking research trying to figure out where in New Hampshire Columbus landed his sailboat, and many many late night strategy sessions and a lot of pizza, including one desperate night when we were forced to order from Godfather’s and most of us ended up with the squirts.


And also, I’ll always remember all the wonderful former friends and vague acquaintances from places like the IRS and the Anoka High School Drama Club who stepped out of the shadows and sometimes the closet to lend their support and voice their concerns and press a copy of their resume into my trembling hand when things were going well, so that I would know they were there if I ever needed anything, especially if it meant making sure that pregnant 14 year olds appreciated the special opportunity that God has given them to parent a future freedom fighter in the War on Christmas.


And thanks to Fox News.  With you I could get my freak on.


And thanks to all the so called “fringe” supporters.  Hey you guys from that zany bunch of coconuts at Oral Roberts U., YOU know who I’m talking about!  Boones Farm Apple Wine???  WHAT???


Thank you as well.


And thank you, Eric Estrada, for that nice autographed photo and for all the inspirational infomercial work you did selling Florida swamp land, and on CHIPs.


And of course I would be remittance if I didn’t take paws to thank the lower echelon supporters who showed their support to me in so many extraordinary and affordable ways; From Hector, the campaign bus driver who wasn’t afraid to get creative with his log book so he could work 80 hour weeks behind the wheel of a 12 ton motor coach for a flat fee, to what’s her face (Rosa?  Rosita?), the little Mexican hunch back campaign assistant who ran for my Cokes and stayed up nights washing out my delicates.  The day Hector backed up over you was one of the saddest.


And then of course, there is the smack talking campaign staff quitters who stabbed me in the back up there in New Hampshire.  Don’t think I’m going to forget about that.


But of course, as a true fan of JC, I’m all about turning cheeks.  So now it is time for me to pack my Spanx and  to bid a mountain dew to those who truly believed in me, and to those who just wanted a taste, and to wonder aloud...How good could this all have been, Grand Old Party?  I came to you as a friend, as a soulmate, as a lover.  Total dedication.  Total commitment.  Total quality management.  Wonder Woman in a bright red blazer.  I gave everything to this cause, but in the end the cause tiptoed out of my life carrying it’s shoes, and never called me again, that bastard.


What can I say?  America doesn’t know shit.


Go ahead and vote for the Mormon.










©  2011 J. Mark Rast

Here is a message for all the nit picking negative ne’er do well nay-sayers who want to tax and spend us into hell.  Here, more importantly, is a message for all the God loving job creators out there, who are in need of a strong shake of the hand and a hearty slap on the back.

America is on the mend.  Our next golden age is just around the corner.

Just in time.

For there has been much consternation here in America recently regarding the decay of the American dream, the disintegration of the American economy,  and the fate that awaits it’s increasingly Godless citizens.  Everyone is scared, and everyone is wondering, “How can we turn this mess around?”  

The answer is, of course, flying cars.  

Total Jetson shit.

Because, let’s face it, every economy on the planet is built around motorized personal transportation, and we’ve taken that business model just about as far as it can be taken, and what it really comes down to now is “Will it get me laid?”, and if it is a flying car, the answer there is, “Yes”.  So, when the flying car finally does get invented everyone is going to want one and everyone is going to spend whatever money they have on getting one, even if it means letting a less essential family member or two starve to death.  (Sorry, Gammy...but you had your chance.  No ventilator for you.)

And the nation that is forward thinking enough to pioneer and develop and control the flying car industry will attain ungodly girth and will grow to rule planetary economics for the next 1 billion years, and for all of eternity everything about living in that nation will be perfect for all it’s citizens, even the really dumb and ugly ones, even the ones who don’t belong to a gym.  Even the ones with flaccid abs.

Okay, that might be an exaggeration.  Ugliness and ignorance are actually pretty difficult to overcome, and lack of abdominal muscle tone is really just natural selection being brutally honest.  So achieving absolute total cultural perfection by compensating for these flaws may require a few additional tweaks.

Like developing a breed of flying monkeys to go along with the flying cars.  

Of course, ordinary flying monkeys, though oddly attractive, would be pretty much useless.  

(Amusing and often times alluring, flying monkeys, if you’ve never dealt with one, tend toward the self-absorbed.) 

 So these would have to be flying helper monkeys.  We could train them to do all kinds of helpful thing besides feeding quadriplegics and going out to get the mail.  We could train them to take out the garbage, and remove asbestos, and laser derm unwanted hair, and model lingerie, and we could train them how to put together Power Point presentations because that is going to become very important because as our economy explodes with growth and an unprecedented demand for flying helper monkey housing solutions, we are going to need a lot more meetings and a lot more Power Point.  So that would be an additional industry that would be helpful to develop and invest in and would contribute a lot to the Gross National Product; the breeding and training and educating of Power Point capable flying helper monkeys.

And that’s just the beginning.  There are many more industries of opportunity where we could make great strides forward in our quest to crush the spirit of the wicked Chinese people who, along with their little Korean friends and sly Japanese buddies and everyone else on that side of the planet, plus the Amish, are responsible for ruining everything that we love about the good old US of A, especially our right to work in underpaying lethal sweat shops.  Because let’s face it, those weirdos are basically the cause of everything that’s gone wrong with the amazing system of capitalism that our heroic leaders on Wall Street have built for us over the last 240 years.  

And chief among those yet to be developed industries of opportunity that are just sitting there waiting to be developed, is the business of Drive-Thru services.  

To date, Drive-Thru services has been a sadly neglected growth sector that has been just dripping with frustration, waiting to be inseminated with the love jizz of American entrepreneurialism.  Short sighted business people have tended to dismiss Drive-Thru kiosks as nothing more than delivery systems for getting fatty fast food into fat people fast.  This is short term small thinking based on nothing more than a stereotype.  The big boned people proved long ago they are perfectly capable of parking their cars and waddling...uh...walking across parking lots into take-out restaurants to get their french fries, fried chicken, and Diet-Coke.  But Drive -Thru’s could be used for so much more, particularly in the golden age of flying cars and helper monkeys.

Imagine...you’re on your way in your flying Ford F150 to drop off some left over enriched uranium at the local orphanage for the kids in the Atomic Bomb Club to play with in their reactor (...a totally safe past time, now that (with the help of flying helper monkeys) scientists have developed an anti-aging skin cream that cleans your colon AND reverses the effects of radiation poisoning.  Suddenly you remember you wanted to get a heart valve replacement, but forgot to make an appointment.  The solution?  Of course!  Head for the Cardiac Surgery Drive-Thru Crisis Center.

You pull up to the menu board...

“Good morning.  Welcome to AstroPlasty  Would you like to try one of our limited time Halloween Pulmonary Pumpkin Heart Stents?”

“Not today, thank you.  Can I just get an adult male left ventricle, please?”

“Synthetic?”

“Pig.”

“Please pull forward.”

OR,

...You’re on your way to a big night of black light speed dating.  Sadly, while picking up your refill of prescription grade Monistat 7, you notice your toenails look like shit.  You haven’t got time for this.  You’ve got to get there early, or all the good breeders will get away.  (Last time you were late you ended up with a guy who looked like Jabba The Hut after a fry-o-lator accident.  (Although, ...in fairness,...he was pre-med.)  

You’ve got a pedicure emergency and you need help, fast!

Your head snaps back and forth as you look for help.  Your Garmin explodes.  You become disoriented, and as you hover at a six-way intersection, you lean out of your flying Fiat to ask the nearby helper monkey crossing guard for directions.  It is then that you spot it ..., NAIL ME!...The Drive-Thru Nail Salon.  With 4,000 franchise branches nationwide, NAIL ME! is America’s number one choice for below-the-waist-care on-the-go.  You pull up, order the #7, hang your legs out the window, and in no time at all you are pedi-perfect and on your way.  Your nails look beautiful, and you’ve gotten a to-die-for Brazilian at 10% off.

Compelling, eh?  But Drive-Thru technology is just the conspicuous tip at the top of the career opportunity iceberg.  Below that surface float enormous chunks of big time success potential, just waiting to rip a gash in the hulls of economic revitalization disbelievers.  

Total Jetson shit.  Total 21st century make me a rich dude industries like:

• Breast recycling.
• Helper Monkey Personal Fitness Training.
• Moon Colonization.
• Cat farming.
• Vampire Hunting.
• Organ harvesting.
• Liposuction Home Care Technology.
• Albino Management
• Hormonal Cooking.
• Methane Management for Underwater Lifestyles.
• Homeopathic Nursing.
• Male nursing.
• Wet Nursing.
• Helper Monkey Wet Male Nursing.

...And many, many, more.

So the ball is in your court, job creators.  It’s time to take the initiative, put on your “O” face, seize the fiscal reins from the Obamic doom and gloomers ...and help launch the next American Revolution!

And the best part of all?  The cost.  Entrepreneurial start-ups in the 21st century cost mere peanuts.

Which shouldn’t be a surprise. 

You’re employing monkeys.

©  2011 J. Mark Rast

Are you handy?

For the young person going through the experience of purchasing their first home, there comes a moment when it becomes imperative for that person to stop, pause, reflect, take a long sober look in the mirror and ask themselves that very question..."Am I really handy?"

If the answer is no, but you're lucky, this moment of non-handy awareness will occur for you sometime before your closing, when there is still time for you to come to your senses, plead insanity and try and get at least some of your deposit money back. 

However, if the answer is no and you are not so lucky, then this moment of non-handy awareness will occur for you at 3 a.m. on the first sub-zero Sunday in the deepest darkest depths of February, when you will find yourself with a flashlight and a plunger standing knee deep in a basement full of bad smelling water, which will be of questionable origin with all kinds of strange things floating in it, and you will know, deep in your heart of hearts that maybe, just maybe, this has something to do with way you installed that used Sri-Lankan made garbage disposal you bought for a dollar last summer at a yard sale, and that perhaps you haven't been completely honest with yourself about this handy thing.

The truth is that some people have very few mechanical skills.  Some people have zero.  Some people have less.  I happen to fall into this latter category, and I have spent most of my adult life proving it.

Like the time I somehow got the notion that I was handy enough to re-tile my bathroom floor.  The smiling sales clerk in the do-it-yourself tile store told me it would be " a real fun, real easy, real do-it-yourselfer type of project!!!"  I believed her.  I subsequently spent two weeks on my hands and knees with my head wedged behind a commode breathing the noxious fumes of toxic adhesives while breaking big expensive tiles into useless little tile crumbs that never fit anywhere they were supposed to.  When it was done my floor looked like the Albany Street on-ramp to the South East Expressway.

Then there was the time I thought I was handy enough to take a shot at replacing some of the wood trim that was rotting around the roofline of my aging two-story house.  It became what can best be described as a learning experience.  The first thing I learned is that there is an interesting variety of ferocious winged stinging insect indigenous to New England that likes to nest in the rotting trim around the rooflines of aging two story houses.  The second thing I learned is that you can survive a two-story leap from a ladder if you hit the ground running fast enough.  

And then there was the bathroom fan incident, which involved my cutting a badly measured hole into the ceiling of my bathroom and shamelessly pretending that I knew something about home wiring, which I do not.  In fact, I know more about angioplasty than I do about home wiring.  As a result, shortly after it's installation, my wife and I began to suspect that the glowing bathroom fixture dangling by a frayed wire above our bathtub was possibly a bit too dangerous to operate.  Our fears were confirmed the first time we turned it on and the toaster exploded.

Now in case you're wondering, I didn't get to be such an accomplished klutz merely by chance.  It has a lot to do with genetics, as well as years and years of practice, careful observation and diligent study.  And believe me, I studied under one of the best. 

My father. 

In his defense, let me first say that my father was wonderful man.  He was kind, intelligent, honest, forthright and fair.  But when it came to home repairs, there are brain-damaged gibbons running around rain forests with greater natural aptitude.

My father’s principal philosophy was that there was no problem so minor that it couldn't be cultivated into a dangerous crisis if you just had the patience to ignore it long enough, and the resolve to always use the wrong tool.   Consequently I grew up in a household where wood screws were hammered into plaster walls using the butt ends of electric drills, where blown fuses were identified by jamming screwdrivers into electrical outlets, and where disconnected fuel lines were located by leaning into darkened engine compartments holding a lit match.  My father once spent an entire year driving us around in a car that had it's rear view mirror taped onto the inside of the windshield with black electrical tape, until a concerned gas station attendant offered to tighten the single screw that had caused it to come loose.

The net effect of all this, of course, was that my siblings and I grew up with a particularly acute awareness that we should enjoy and appreciate life while we had it, because we never knew when Dad might be in the basement cleaning the furnace pilot with oily rags and gasoline.  We learned to savor life's simple pleasures, like enjoying an entire day without arterial bleeding, and to take pride in practical achievements, like learning CPR.

Those are valuable life lessons, the kind they don’t teach at the Saturday morning “Carpentry Kids” workshop down at Home Depot, but the kind I’d like to teach my children just the same, because let’s face it, I’m sure as hell never going to be able to teach them how to safely use a router. 

My life mission then, is to keep my family safe and warm, not just in a motel or Red Cross shelter,  (which by the way, is where they ended up the last two times I tried to thaw a frozen pipe), but in their own home.  A home where the water looks like water, the electrical outlets don’t make noise, and the CO2 alarm only goes off when the battery dies. 

And if that means swallowing my pride and paying some stranger to come in and fix something that my Mr. Know-It-All next-door neighbor could no doubt fix himself, then so be it.  Because when it comes to home repairs, the handyman can,

…but I can’t.