I CAN’T BELIEVE I’M NOT BUTTERING YOU UP

By FABIO LANZONI, MARGARINE SPOKESMUFFIN

 

…and so, as the horses galloped towards the cliff, blinded by the Caspian sunset, I leapt off of the carriage, reins in hand, and… and…

I’m sorry, why are you yawning? Have you a sleeping illness? Myself, I was stricken not once, but twice during jungle shoots for my orangu-friendly line of…

Again! My dear lady, you have yawned once again! Speak, now, fair maiden, else the cruel winds of weariness tear us apart!

…I’m sorry, could you repeat that?

…not even a little?

My good lady, I am stunned. Stunned! That my entire cavalcade of appeal – my muscles, my hair, my accent, my de-buttoned blouse by Vincenzo of Mantua, my jaw – all of my seductioneering charm has failed to whip you into frenzied abandon…

No. Impossible, I’m afraid. You are mistaken. You are in a diabetic shock… well, perhaps in an amorous shock, whereby you have regressed to a stage of eroticism, and you taunt the one that causes your very soul to quiver, your bowels…

No, I am NOT crying. My stone-hewn cheekbones are but glistening with the oils of a thousand and one Arabian trysts, or the salty spray of loves left lying on Maltese beaches, or, or moisturizing patchoulis from my Arouse the World in 80 Lays balloon exodus! No, tears have no place in these, the eyes that have gazed upon the bosoms of princesses, and at a wink, catapulted the clothes from their sumptuous forms!

…oh, there have been princesses! There have been more princesses than non-princesses, I would imagine, if it were possible to keep count by this point.

No, no, a gentlesir never indulges in regiphilia and tells. …but, ah, yes! Perhaps, my graceful swan, you hint thusly to be made a royal in the ways of romance yourself!

…still no? Then pray, damsel, to lay upon one so humble the divine digits of your domicile, that when the great fortress walls built up around thine heart do crack and crumble under desire’s duress, your fair figure might find glorious release on the pillars of…

Fine. Fine. To err is human, after all, and we two are but humans, no? Take your leave, but do make mention to your sisters and chambermaids of my temporary residence at the Inn of Ramada.

Delay yourself, lass! Lass! Alas, the lass, she has forgotten her gloves. …ahh, I see. Coy girl, her game is intricate – like the bra hooks she intends me, and me alone, to tear asunder. Love’s light faintly glimmers on the horizon once again!

Barkeep! Hear my command – more “Maximum Ice!”

ART GALLERY OFFICIALLY GIVES UP

by Edward Petrenko

After years of wavering commitment to presenting thought-provoking, creative exhibits, the Wenigma Artspace announced this Monday that it has officially abandoned any further efforts in this direction.

“Fuck this,” exclaimed gallery founder and executor Gord Portnoy, speaking at a press conference given from the flatbed of his recently-acquired Ford F-350. Portnoy, formerly known as, simply, Lightbulb, explained his decision as the end result of a gradual disillusionment with the contemporary artistic community and corpus.

“First we had the exhibit where someone wrote the book of Genesis with their own hair trimmings. That was okay. Then, the next month, they came back with the lyrics to I Can’t Dance done in toenail clippings. That’s probably where the scale began to tip.”

According to Portnoy, at this point the general ethos of submitted work began to drift from socially, emotionally or intellectually relevant creations to “practical jokes, audience insults, locking patrons in the bathroom, and kinda just being assholes to everyone. That drove away a lot of the visitors, but the real diehards hung in there, drawn closer by the belief that they really got it on some deeper understanding. Or maybe they were just trying to have sex with the artist – you know, for a class project or something.”

Portnoy’s slight apprehension about this new, edgy ‘Eat Shit’ movement was ultimately to become amplified by the last major work in the genre (presented in Portnoy’s gallery, no less): Eat My Shit, which lured viewers into a room with the promise of a painting, yet contained only a bucket of the artist’s feces placed on top of the door.

“I admit, at first I was into it. When I first heard that it was okay to make works with your own shit, I was thrilled. I could double my output on any given day, and it cut down my water bill. The thing that no one predicted was that people didn’t want to spend time in a gallery that’s got pounds and pounds of shit smeared on everything.”

Portnoy’s distaste with Eat My Shit and the ensuing Bowel movement only grew over time, and the sour taste had yet to leave his mouth when subsequent movements arose, building on the lingering issues left in its wake.

“Jesus, that’s when it really started to suck. First, they dredged up every bodily fluid they could. Then, they dredged up every meaning they could find for them – every saying, every axiom, every play on words that they could find, they used. It’s almost admirable how much they got out of sputum.”

His disillusionment grew with each arriving movement, from “eating paint and shitting it onto canvas” to “celebrity statues” to “real dogs humping plaster cats” to “art about art about art for art’s sake”, until one event finally caused him to cease caring.

“I’d made a series of installation pieces about the habit of billionaires buying famous pieces to impress people – nothing special, just some cave art made out of money – when my gallery was robbed the night before the series’ unveiling. Everyone showed up to an empty gallery, and I got the best reviews of my career.”

Portnoy then closed the Artspace and entered what he dubs his “Binge Drinking” period, and promptly exhausted his funds. He has recently decided to reopen the gallery and take a new direction with his works, in order to finance his interests in alcohol.

“Since artistic appreciation has been entirely eclipsed by self-aggrandizing masturbation, I’m instituting a strictly bring-your-own-art policy. I can guarantee that there is absolutely nothing of any artistic merit in this gallery, and place any meaningful thought entirely in your stupid, stupid hands.

“I’ve got some ham radios going, I found some old posters in the trash, and I spilled some juice on the wall, so that should be good for now, but you might want more. So, if you’ve got some old shit you don’t need, just dump it down here. Old mattresses, paint cans, phone books – anything that’ll meet health codes, really. If you need some time away from the kids, drop ‘em off and we’ll keep them busy as an exhibit or something. If you need pot or shrooms, my cousin Josh should be back here from Vermont soon.”

Other artists are critical of Portnoy’s scepticism. FLOG, performance artist and long-time acquaintance of Portnoy, claims his change in attitude is the result of “piercing too far into the maddening depths of, and losing his intellectual bearing in, the whirl of ars universalis.” Portnoy responded to this claim by simply making reference to FLOG’s latest work, “Chuckie Qi”, wherein he manipulates marionette-styled Ken dolls engaging in sexually explicit actions on top of an Arby’s placemat.

Billionaire record producer and art collector David Geffen is more sympathetic to Portnoy’s iconoclastic take on today’s art. “We’ve argued the artist out of existence, we’ve argued the art out of existence, the only thing left is the wank, and there’s good money in that. More power to him.” Geffen, a frequent visitor to Portnoy’s gallery, has expressed interest in acquiring many of its new exhibits.

When asked about the directions he sees his gallery heading in the coming months and years, Portnoy is uncertain. “Probably a year or so of general disdain from the general public, yet endless praise from critics who refer to themselves in the fifth person. Then, after slowly filtering down through the subcultural hierarchy of college kids, I make it to small-share radio. Then, after some derogatory publicity in a national newspaper, the big time: MTV. Two months of flash-in-the-pan coolness, then I’m history, replaced with either a crasser British ripoff, or a more pleasant Canadian ripoff.”

“This, of course, is just speculation on my part,” concludes Portnoy. “If it goes how I’d like, I should have drunk myself into the pantheon of greats before the juice even stains the wall.”

P.R. MAN TRIES TO SALVAGE REPUTATION OF LOCAL BOARDING SCHOOL

By EVAN MILLAR

You guys are making too big a deal out of this whole “implications” thing. If you take away the context—which most people will forget within five or ten years anyway– then “YOUR CHILD IS IN OUR HANDS” is a great slogan for your boarding school.

 

From a marketing standpoint it is great: it lets parents know that their child is being cared for and looked after. People get nervous shipping their kids off to live in strange environments. It can be very unsafe sometimes – you guys read the papers– and this campaign will help to assure parents that your school is one worth trusting. I know that the recent molestation charges against some of your staff members might lend a bit of unsavory colour to the otherwise blemish-free apple that is my idea, but if we can all look past this for just a moment, you’ll see that what I am giving you here is more than an advertising slogan. Its a motto that your school can take to its grave. Just like the traditional latin ones: Amor vincit omnia.

 

I sense hesitation. You believe it will too likely remind the public of the events you would like us all to forget. This is unfortunate. No reason to cancel Christmas just because Jolly Old Saint Nick over there prefers the elves to Mrs. Claus. My apologies, Mr. Nicholas. I appreciate that you have recently come under some hard times, I really do. Or did you recently come hard for unders some times, which was it? Seriously though, I do not mean to make light of the situation. But let’s get honest here: Let he who is without sin resist a good joke.

 

And since I am seemingly the only person in this room who has never dingled a child, I think its high time you lot did your shares of resisting.

 

Back to beeswax: are we sticking with ‘No’ for option one? Thats totally fine. There’s plenty more to choose from.

 

“WE ARE BEHIND YOUR CHILD”

 

Yes, I understand that now, but I really think its subtle enough that it shouldn’t be a problem. Most people won’t even pick up on the connotation. Sure, it sounds obvious to you guys, but you gotta remember that you are coming at this from a particular vantage point. As molesters, you are predisposed to hearing the sick underlying meanings of sentences. To be honest I was kind of proud of that one. I thought it was clever how I slipped in that reference but if you don’t like it, BAM, its gone. After all, you guys are the experts on slipping it in.

 

Ouch. Remember folks, I’m not the one who’s on trial here.

 

Ok. Alright. Here it is, I got it:

 

“WE’VE TOUCHED YOUR CHILD.”

 

Spiritually. Emotionally. Boarding school can be a life-changing endeavor for youth. They need to be able to look back on their time at your school with fond memories. Lasting impressions ironed onto their minds. You guys have already tried one approach of creating lasting impressions, and I suppose it worked. Those children are not likely to forget their experience at Broadview anytime soon. But your angle was what might be considered “Negative” or “Immoral”. “Illegal”. “Disgusting”. We need to try to work the “positive” angle by developing a healthy academic environment of trust, comradeship and conviction. The good kind of conviction.

 

I’m thinking we go to T.V.–really get it out there. Envision this: Wide angle shot of the outside of the premises–bird’s eye view– looking right at the school. We get a zoom on one of the windows. Then we get inside that window. It’s a child’s bedroom. The kid is sound asleep in his bed, looking vulnerable. Cut to the stairwell. Now it shouldn’t be black and white per se, but dark—I’m talking real dark to give it a Hitchcock feel. String music in minor mode plays jarring chords as a shadowy figure ascends the stairwe—Oh come on hear me out you don’t even know where its going! Yes, it does end with the shadowy figure forcibly entering the young boy’s room and violently ravishing him while the boy nearly perishes in an uncontrollable fit of terror. But that’s not the point, the important thing is the sweeping compression shot I have planned out for that child’s face when he sees the horrifying sight of his history teacher undoing his belt. I’ve been waiting my entire career to use this shot. I tell you, if there were Oscars for advertisements, this would be a shoe-in.

 

Well how about this one then. Its simple, true and to the point:

 

“WITH ALL THE MEDIA ATTENTION WE’VE BEEN RECEIVING LATELY, IT WILL LIKELY BE AT LEAST ANOTHER TEN YEARS BEFORE WE MOLEST AGAIN. ”

 

No? Nothing to do with molestation, eh? You sure? And you guys are dead set on that? Well, you really have to give me something to work with then, because right now the molestation angle is the only one I got. To be honest, it’s all I know about you. So you drank from the fountain of youth, who really cares? Incidentally, I care—I think its fucking disgusting what you did and my thirst for your burning in hell is only sated by the knowledge that your afterlife will most definitely see an eternity of pain—but come on, its a catchy slogan! I’m tossing you guys nuggets of gold here and you lot are letting them sift right out of the pan and flow downriver because you’re looking for copper.

 

You people are taking the wrong approach entirely.

 

Let me tell you all about a man named Terry Fox. Terry Fox was an athlete. He was a tremendous athlete, but a disabled one. Now, when he ran all across Canada to raise money for cancer in the Marathon of Hope, did he hide his disability? Did he wear one of those phony legs that make it look normal? No. Well actually yes, he have a fake leg, but it was purely functional…he wasn’t trying to trick anyone so it doesn’t count. And he became a national hero. People, the point I’m trying to make here is this: go with your strengths. Don’t try to cover up, you will end up plummeting in the esteem of all. Stay strong. Stay who you are. People may not like you, they may not forgive you, they may not vote “not guilty” at your trial, but they will respect you. Well, actually they probably won’t respect you because you’ve committed an unforgiveable crime that no amount of mar–

 

I’m fired? No, you’re fired, child-fuckers.

BRATTY 10 YEAR OLD WHO, INFLUENCED BY HIS HAVING ONLY EARLIER THAT DAY FOUND OUT WHAT A “PERIOD” IS AND IT’S EFFECT ON MOODS, RECOUNTS HIS AFTERNOON

By EVAN MILLAR

Mom, I know you’re mad about having to pick me up from school early but its not my fault, I swear. Well who do you trust more me or Ms. Linda?

Yes I did hit Mike Dupont.

Yes it was in the face.

But you don’t understand. He deserved it. He was pretty much begging me for it.

Well, he kept bugging me all day about asking me if he could see my cards, but he was being a big period about it, so I said No.

Yes I did call him a big period.

I didn’t let him see my cards because they cost me six allowances and I didn’t want him to ruin them with his gross hands.

Well who knows, maybe they had blood on them or something. No he wasn’t bleeding. But you can just never know anymore.

Then he grabbed them anyway and said I couldn’t have them ever again so I told him I didn’t even want them and then I hit his face, but Ms. Linda saw me and she was being really mean about it and didn’t even care that it wasn’t my fault and she didn’t even care that he stole all my cards. I think she must have had a period or something.

So thats why Ms. Linda yelled at me. Because she was having a period. Thats why I got in trouble, I know you were wondering. So we are going to have to stop by Virtual Wizard’s Comic Warehouse and get me new cards because Mike Dupont took my old ones. Aww? Why not? But he got his gross period hands all over them! Its not fair if you don’t take me to Virtual Wizard’s Comic Warehouse, its not fair!

No, its ok. You don’t have to tell me. I get it. You’re having a period too.

Hey, do you ever think its gross that your privates bleed every month? I know I think its gross. If my wiener bled every month I would probably just cut it off. I know at first that would just make it bleed more but then it would stop after a while. I guess that wouldn’t work for a girl though because a girl’s privates is already like a cut-off wiener. Hey, maybe thats how they get girl’s privates in the first place. Hey mom, ever think about that mom? Did you cut off your wiener when you were my age and thats how you became a mom? Just joking.

You’re not paying attention to me. No, you’re not, I can tell. This is important. You never listen to me when I say the important stuff.

Mom, this must be your 1000^th period today. That’s too many. I’m getting worried about you. I think you have too many periods. It might be dangerous. You might bleed to death.

Is that maybe why dad left you? Because of all the periods? It is pretty gross. Hey, do you ever think its gross? I betcha it was why he left. I betcha a buck. No that doesn’t make sense. He left you because of a different woman, and all women have periods. Must have been for some other reason then. Unless she was so young that she didn’t have periods yet. She was more young than you right? I don’t know if you know this, but girls usually get their periods around my age. She couldn’t have been my age. Thats too young, even for dad. I take back the bet. You owe me a buck. I was right after all, must have been some other reason why he left you.

Don’t cry. Ok fine, you don’t owe me a buck anymore. Why are you crying? Actually, you don’t need to tell me. I understand. I learned all about it today.

GREAT DEBATES VOLUME 12: GILDERSLEEVE’S GOLDEN HOUR

By Edward Petrenko

The year is 1886. The place? Johns Hopkins University. Sunset, 6 PM. A hush falls over a rowdy crowd as hometown Prof. Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve defends his controversial statements on grammar’s role in symbol comprehension (in The Spiritual Rights of Minute Research) from an earlier barbed dismissal by visiting Prof. Lucian Müller. What results sent shockwaves throughout the fledgling world of semiotics. And now, here is Prof. Gildersleeve’s entire statement, reproduced faithfully, as recorded by the debate’s stenographer:

Hermes and Hermeneutics: Ancient Greek, Grammar and the Mind

A Scholarly Freestyle in Defense of de Saussure’s Semiotics

by Prof. Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve

Check it.

Oh no, oh no, oh no here it comes, bitch;

Rip out ya voice box, tear off ya gitch.

Doctor B-L-G wants a B-L-T.

Ain’t gonna slip up,

gonna whip up a rhyme-knuckle sandwich.

 

[comedic interlude]

See, moffuckin [sic] symbols ‘n shit, that’s all there fuckin is, man.

And grammar? Bitch, don’t get me moffuckin started!

Grammar is like the tight-ass thong on a tight-ass ass

that lets you know how fit that symbol snatch gon’ be.

If you ain’t knowin, then the pussy ain’t showin,

And some smoke outcha ass is what you been blowin.

[end of interlude]

 

You say my summary of Christian Greek is cursory?

I ain’t give a piss, got a huge coin purse on me.

You say I oversimplify, man I don’t give a fuck,

I drop more bills than a leprous duck.

 

And if ya old lady be all cold and ill,

‘s ‘cause she’s all up in the B-L-G’s grill.

An if you start feelin’ all sad ‘n bitchy,

‘s ‘cause you just got bitch slapped – veni, vidi, vici.

 

 

Whether or not this was the intended conclusion of the retort has been a matter of some lively discussion since the fateful evening. Further debate was rendered impossible by the eruption of gunfire – real and simulated – from the audience, and all Prof. Gildersleeve could communicate were his trademark, tenure-earning crotch-grabbing motions. But while it was Gildersleeve’s retort that was drowned out at the debate, it was Müller’s theories that were drowned out in the long run, as the rise of the neuroanatomical model and structuralism would see Gildersleeve’s crotch-grabs entirely academically justified in the following decades.

Join us next time for our newest installment: The Big Three and Yalta’s Famed Fart-Off.

TRAGIC AD CAMPAIGNS FOR BABY BOOMERS IN THE WAKE OF “MAYBE I’LL STICK WITH MY DIET PEPSI”

by LEE TIPTON and EDWARD PETRENKO

Diet Coke: Here’s to good friends, first loves, and the ever-widening chasm of time separating you from them.

Jolt Cola. It’s 4 AM… who are you kidding? Between your prostate and your bitch wife, you’re not getting to sleep any time soon anyway.

Labatt Wildcat: Your youth may be a faded memory… you might as well become a belligerent alcoholic.

7-Up: You know Child Services takes 8 minutes to get to your house. Time enough for a 7-Up.

Rolling Rock: Because you’re already going downhill.

Zima: Because you still own a fucking can of Zima.

Budweiser: For when your Carlsberg years finally change the locks.

Pepsi Jazz: Let’s face it: Drinking a Pepsi Jazz is the closest you’re ever going to get to sleeping with a black woman.

Perrier: You’re hip, you look European, and you’ve finally forgotten how to laugh!

Mountain Dew: Finally, an X-treme citrus excuse for your ever-dwindling sperm count!

PC Cola: Your stepkids will hate it.

RC Cola: Because you just can’t be bothered to give a shit what it is you’re drinking anymore.

STEVEN KARP FROM UNDECLARED USED TO THINK CHICKS LIKE YOU ONLY EXISTED IN MODERNIST PLAYS

I don’t want to wake you from slumber, sweetie, so let me simply whisper all manner of nice in the direction of your pale, awesome face. Chamomile Rosary McDinah, I’ve gotta tell you, this has been, without a doubt, the best relationship I’ve ever been in. I know this must sound trite, and that I’ve only been with two other girls, but you’re so different…and I mean that in my heart. You just do your own thing! You’re constantly wearing those beautiful satin party dresses, regardless of the occasion, and I love that wonderful shade of, like, really dark green, your eyes take on right before you start crying. I mean, it’s even kind of cool that you see the visage of your overbearing Scottish father in the lake where he drowned every so often. So many girls at my school just kind of pretend to be weird and troubled because they shop at Value Village and listen to Blur and stuff. Not you, though.

And of course, I don’t give one good damn about the age difference! Hell, I think it’s kind of cool! Call me old-fashioned, and I guess you’d know what that stuff’s all about more than I would, but I’m pretty sure there was a time when the perfect woman was a frail bourgeois-in-decline who struggles in vain against the ravages of her late thirties, and honey, you’re strugglin’ in vain like a real champ! We reeaallllly don’t even need to install those dimmer switches at my dorm, truuust me.

Besides, with age comes wisdom, and you, my – m’lady, have taught me so much. And like, I dunno, this is kind of weird I guess, but thanks for opening me up, you know, sex-wise. I didn’t really date a lot in high school or whatever, and I mean well – sheesh man, lets just say I’d never done it in a remote New England infirmary before! Frig, when you were done with my thirteenth distinct encounter with sex, let’s just say I wasn’t much more mentally prepped to leave that place than you were! And hey, kinda crass, but I’m throwing it out there: If you don’t count tears, that’s the most W-E-T I’ve ever seen you!

Sorry. Sorry I said that. That was…

Plus I mean it’s such a riot when we’re just chilling out in the common room and having a few drinks, y’know? God, I mean, finally, a girl who doesn’t mind reverting to literal childhood, in her mind, once in a while! It’s really been hella cool, sharing tumbler after tumbler of bourbon with you, watching the condensation drip from your glass as it shakes violently in your tiny, like, good-looking hands.

And I know you’ve been jerked around by a lot of your boyfriends in the past, but I’d like you to think that maybe I could be a fresh start for you. I think I’m just as good as any of those guys, anyhow. I mean, come on, I think I can compete with the business guy with syphallis, probably any of those sightless African-American stable boys, and even that Polish merchant marine you’re always shuddering involuntarily about. That dude sounded like this one bro-ey jock from my high school, Freddy something. I mean I guess sometimes I worry you’ve still got feelings for that Finnegan guy, his name taking up as it does nearly every single word you say when you’re sleeping with your eyes open. But dude’s been your half-brother for something like, what, 40 years? Why not let the new kid step up to the plate? Just saying is all.

Shit, man, it’s a little early to say so, but I kind of think we’re kind of, well, wicked for each other. I certainly won’t let fate intervene with me having a found a girl like you, no sir, not if this here fellah has anything to say about fate! Not money; not your hysteria; not my parents; not those decorative pistols on your mantle over there, loaded as they may be with symbolism and bullets. Nothing will separate us, not even, like, tons of morphine. No, there is no amount of soothing, self-administered morphine that could ever numb this love, is there, my sweet little Chamomile?

-LT

TO CATCH A PREDATOR: HOPELESS ROMANTICS

By EVAN MILLAR

CHRIS HANSEN (VO): Like lone wanderers to stunning mountainsides, they just keep coming. Thanks for joining us, I’m Chris Hansen. Its been three years since we started our series of investigative reports on online sexual predators. Tonight is Investigation # 9, this time we’ve set up our sting in a rented cottage in rural Lancaster, England.

Our decoy has just told this predator that she is going upstairs, leaving him to sit in contemplative silence.

 

CHRIS HANSEN: (enters) Have a seat over there. Are you surprised to see me?

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE: Yes, quite. Now what is all of this about?

CHRIS HANSEN: “By woman wailing for her demon-lover/And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething/As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing/A mighty fountain momentarily was forced”. Did you write this?

COLERIDGE: Yes, I believe I did.

CHRIS HANSEN: Very erotic. Is this an appropriate thing to be saying to a twelve-year old girl?

COLERIDGE: No. Who are you?

CHRIS HANSEN: We’ll get to that in a minute. Now, it’s better if you don’t lie. I have the manuscripts of your online conversation right here. What was your plan for this evening?

COLERIDGE: My plan? Well I was just out for an evening stroll to bask in nature’s inglorious immensity – I love nature – and I happened across an empty door which led to this dwelling where a young lady did appear to me undressed…

CHRIS HANSEN: And you just happened to stroll into an empty house, just by accident?

COLERIDGE: What is going on here?

CHRIS HANSEN: Were you planning on marrying this girl?

COLERIDGE: No! We were just going to stroll, maybe write each other letters. I promise this to be the extent of my intention.

CHRIS HANSEN So you are trying to tell me that you traveled eight miles by horse and carriage just to “stroll” with a twelve year old girl.

COLERIDGE: I swear! (breaks down in tears)

CHRIS HANSEN: Tell me, what exactly is “Kubla Khan”?

COLERIDGE: …the balls. my balls. stately pleasure domes. oh god, i’m so sorry. my balls. oh god…

***

Shortly after predator #2 has entered the house, the scantily clad decoy, whose frock has been pulled up to reveal her overstockings. Chris Hansen appears from behind a magic lantern projection and approaches the predator.

GOETHE: Who are you? Where’s Margaret?

CHRIS HANSEN: Margaret’s upstairs, have a seat. What’s that you have in your hand, a lovely casket filled with precious jewels?

GOETHE: Yes.

CHRIS HANSEN: Put it on the table. Tell me, what are you doing here?

GOETHE: We were just talking.

CHRIS HANSEN: What were you talking about?

GOETHE: Uh, you know, the futility of engaging oneself in scholarly pursuits…um, man’s, uh, insatiable longing for what can never be achieved, all the usual … stuff.

CHRIS HANSEN: Are you “Faust”?

GOETHE: Yes.

CHRIS HANSEN: Faust: “Once glance from you. One word, gives far more pleasure than all the wisdom of the world.” Faust:”An angel if she be as you“. It just goes on and on like this: “Nay! Do not tremble, love! Let this hand-pressure, let this glance reveal Feelings, all power of speech above; To give oneself up wholly and to feel A joy that must eternal prove!”

CHRIS HANSEN: Did you hold her hand?

GOETHE: No…yes.

CHRIS HANSEN: Did you ask her if you could call her “Gretchen”?

GOETHE: Yes…what’s going on here? Who are you?

CHRIS HANSEN: I’m Chris Hansen from Dateline NBC’s “To Catch a Predator”. How old did you think this “Gretchen” was?

GOETHE: 27

CHRIS HANSEN: Try again.

GOETHE: 19

CHRIS HANSEN: No use lying, I have the manuscripts right here. “Faust: She’s past fourteen”. Fourteen years old. And how old are you?

GOETHE: 258

CHRIS HANSEN: Whats wrong with you? Why can’t you hold hands with girls your own age?

GOETHE: (sobbing) They’re all dead.

***

CHRIS HANSEN (VO):

Meet Englishman Percy Bysshe Shelley. Using the screenname Bucksshot78 Shelley chatted with a decoy who told him she was 13. Shelley asks her about her breast size, and insist that she compare them to the vastness of mountains. He says he can make her “sing like a skylark” and promises to “unbind her Prometheus” which we can only assume is a promise to take her virginity.

DECOY: Come on in, I’m just going upstairs for a second. Did you bring the condoms?

SHELLEY: Yes.

CHRIS HANSEN:(enters) Well hello there, have a seat. Tell me, what was your plan for the evening?

SHELLEY: I don’t know…just friendship.

CHRIS HANSEN: That didn’t make sense.

SHELLEY: She’s just a friend.

CHRIS HANSEN: How did you meet this friend?

SHELLEY: Oh I don’t know, we were just talking online and stuff. I’m sorry, can I ask you something? Am I going to be in trouble?

CHRIS HANSEN: Well thats really not up to me. Were you going to perform oral sex on this young girl?

SHELLEY: No!

CHRIS HANSEN: Unfortunately for you, I’ve got the chatlog right here, so you should probably start telling the truth. Did you write: “Teach me half the gladness/ that thy brain must know,/ Such harmonious madness/ from my lips would flow”. Is that supposed to be romantic?

SHELLEY: Alright, I’m not going to lie to you. I have a problem. I’m a really lonely guy. I can’t help it.

CHRIS HANSEN: Why children? Whats wrong with girls your own age?

SHELLEY: Girls my age just aren’t interested in poetry. You hit thirty and the rushing torrents, vast caves, limitless woodlands and unfathomable peaks all just amounts to empty promises. To a child it all seems so glorious and whimsical. But once you’ve had your heart broken a few times you aren’t looking for a guy who can love you with the boundless ferocity of an everlasting river or the sublime eternity of an infinite sky , you really just want someone who pays the bills.

You start to see the poems as the lies that they really are: towering trees and fully bloomed flowers are just over-compensation for the withered and flaccid truth. Gushing rivers are no recompense for a flow that barely amounts to a dried stream. Its different with children. They’re not bitter. They’re still enchanted by the magic and majesty of my mountains. I guess I was just searching for an innocence that is lost irretrievably, you might say preying on an innocence lost irretrievably. I wanted to fuck an innocence lost irretrievably. But its not right, I know this now.

CHRIS HANSEN: Yeah, sure buddy. We hear that every time. The story is getting hard to believe.

SHELLEY: You know, in a way I think I wanted this. I think my coming here was my way of seeking help.

***

VO: William Wordsworth, who goes by the screenname “Sw0rdsw0rth69″ has been chatting online with our decoy who is posing as a thirteen year old boy named Michael. For weeks, Wordsworth has been e-mailing our decoy pictures of his genitals. The pictures become stranger everyday, his genitals painted different colours or arranged in different allegorical positions, speech bubbles photoshopped overtop of the pictures with captions such as “C U s00n?”

Here is a transcript of an earlier conversation he had with our decoy.

Sw0rdsW0rth69: i hop my c0ck isnt 2 big 4 u lol
lilmikeyman: how big is it? lol
Sw0rdsW0rth69: i bet it woud look bigger in yur mouth lol
SwordsWorth69: wanna fuck u wit sWords

According to Perverted Justice, William Wordsworth has had fourteen sexual conversations with our decoys during our mid-nineteenth century Lake District investigation. He is noted for his strange fetish, where he demands that the young boy dress up like his own father. Wordsworth, who has already made five separate appearances on our show, spotted our cameras immediately and started to make a run for it. But that did not stop the LDPD from bringing him to justice.

The officers surround him as he is running away. He dodges two officers and then tries to wear them out by running in circles.

WORDSWORTH: Awww (expletive removed)!

OFFICER: Stand still!

WORDSWORTH: Y’all ain’t never gun catch me! I’m too fast for y’all! Like a cheetah-a lightning cheetah!

OFFICER: Once again, we advise you to stand still.

WORDSWORTH: I wasn’t (expletive removed) doin anything I swear!

OFFICER: Sir, get down on the ground.

WORDSWORTH: I never even (expletive removed) didn’t do anything yet!

OFFICER: Get down on the ground!

WORDSWORTH: We was just talking!

OFFICER: This is the last warning.

WORDSWORTH : I’M GUNNA (expletive removed) KILL YOU!

Wordsworth, running with increased speed, balls his hands into fists and starts to charge the officers. Luckily, he is tasered before making contact.

I’M NOT GETTING ANOTHER ABORTION

By EVAN MILLAR

Baby, you know how committed I am to making this work. I love you so much, incalculably, more than I love love itself, which is a lot. My love for you is matched only by yours for me, which, albeit a subtler love, expressed seldomly and less verbally, is still crafted by our very heavens. There is strength in silence, or so I am told. And so your love for me must be the strongest there is, or so I tell myself.

 

I agree that we must have an equal and balanced relationship; that it is absolutely necessary for our survival as an integrated, loving unit. We must both shoulder burdens and responsibilities must be divided, this too I agree with. I also appreciate and respect your opinion that we should not be upholding the patriarchal norms of sexist biology. To an extent. However, when you claim that we must set the standards for a science that has yet to catch up to our progressive minds, that much I cannot agree with. I’ve had enough. I’m not getting another abortion.

 

Its not that I refuse to get another abortion. I understand that an outright refusal is a hypermasculine chauvinist impulse that turns a relationship into a sexist dicktatorship. So in the interest of making our relationship a realationship based on trust and acceptance, I have decided to phrase it as such: I would prefer not to have another abortion. We will work around your work schedule, spin class, Grey’s Anatomy. You will not have to miss a night on the town with the girls. You will not have to go if you are having a migraine—the pain of a headache is enough, to add to that pain the pain of an abortion would be insurmountable. But at some point in your free time, I would like for you to visit Doctor Melloon. So far every time you have been impregnated, it is I alone who has paid the price. In the interest of fairness, its your turn.

In case you think that I am being unfair, I have carefully outlined some of the reasons why I do not want another abortion:

1. It hurts.

 

It really hurts. All the scraping is so unpleasant. Its terrible. Its feels like my stomach is being run over by a ten ton truck that is delivering pure pain which crashes right into me and all the pain cargo spills in my insides. No, I’m not exaggerating. You’ve never even got one, so you have no idea. And Dr. Melloon never uses anesthetic because it will “hurt the baby”, which doesn’t even make sense and is just one of a thousand things that point to his incompetence.

 

You suggested that I “just suck it up and take it like a man”. Duly noted. I know that sometimes my reticence and lack of confidence leads you to question my manliness, which in turn forces me to question my own. Eager to play the role of the stoic husband I try to grin it and bear it. No I’m not gay. I have tried and tried but I have had enough. I know I’m in the right this time.

Which brings me to my next point:

2. Men can’t have abortions. Sorry if that is sexist, but its true.

3. Its not safe.

Next time we are at The Clinic, take a close look at the surroundings. A penknife to me does not seem like an appropriate tool for such a delicate procedure. There are only two working lightbulbs and no windows. There is no sink. There is a distinct smell of mold and fecal matter. The rats are frightening and unsanitary.

4. I’m not even sure it works. Each time I have had an abortion, you have had a baby.

5. I don’t think he is a real doctor.

I’m serious. If he is a real doctor, where are his certified credentials’? What the hell is a Ph.T? I don’t even know what he takes out of me every time I have the operation. I think he takes little pieces of my liver and sells them to perverts. Well what else could he be doing with them? Its disgusting; the thought of all those perverts out there, feasting on pieces of my liver, masturbating. Look, I’m sure there are people who get off on eating little pieces of uncooked human liver. I would know. Don’t ask me how I would know, I just know. No I did not try to buy my liver from the doctor. Why would I want to do that? No, for the last time, I am not a pervert!

6. I have suspicions that this child isn’t mine. I know that this a subject that risks upsetting our couples harmony and so I will not accuse you of anything outright. I am willing to listen to and accept any legitimate reasoning you will give me. Now hear me out. No please, hear me out. Its been eight months since you have agreed to have sex with me. I’m not sure, but I think this means you have had sex with someone who isn’t me. If this is the case, it signals dangerous things for our relationship. Our precious equilibrium has been offset in favor of you, the whore, and away from me, the loving husband who would do anything for you. I will not abort a child I had no part in fathering.

Whose is it

I’m serious

who

give me a name

if he’s so great then why don’t you ask him to get an abortion for you and see what he does he’d probably slap you and you’d like it