bizarreville

Bizarreville Studios has just announced plans to begin shooting a new movie in Washington, DC.  The movie will be another sequel to the Dumb & Dumber comedy series, with the working title “Dumbest, Period.”  PR people at the studio say that it will be the funniest yet, with hijinx and situational bizarrity galore.

The script, which is still in development with new hiliarious vignettes being written every day from real-life antics, will be about the Obama administration fumbling around with new programs, rules, and pronouncements out the ying-yang, but they never quite figure out that the real problem is Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.  Early in the movie, there will be a precious situation when the EPA Secretary tries to convince the President they will create 100 thousand new jobs with the so-called Cap&Tax program by increasing paperwork, permits, stupid reports, and general red tape.  Laughs become side-splitting as former productive factory workers stumble along trying to fill-out meaningless paperwork with work gloves on.

Then, the Treasury Secretary persuades the Cabinet that increasing taxes will increase jobs…by intentionally overcomplicating the Tax Code, eliminating those bothersome Short forms, so that no one can fill out their own taxes.  Hilarity is in abundance as regular Joes cuss, kick doors, and pee on the new forms before they finally throw in the towel.

But the best part of the story is when advisors keep telling the President that he should focus on Jobs…and within minutes, he develops temporary amnesia and keeps forgetting and forgetting.  His Aides have him write down “Jobs” on a piece of paper, but he keeps losing the paper.  Then he writes “Jobs” on his palm…but when he reads it back, he thinks it says “Joes” , and goes out for a seafood dinner.  Comedy hits its climactic peak when a football stadium full of people chant: “Jobs, jobs, jobs”, but the poor President thinks they are saying “Slobs, slobs, slobs” and just gets pissed.  The team on the field finally runs up to his box and dumps a bucketload of Gatorade on his head, as the scoreboard reads: It’s the Jobs, Stupid!!  And everyone ends up dancing on the field to the final song:  Take this job and shove it. 

Casting is well underway.  The Casting Director is looking for specific types of actors who can not only act dumb, but also just look dumb with a funny dumbness air about them…kind of like a 1950’s Jerry Lewis look.  The Director would like to hire some of the real officials in the administration for some of the parts, because clearly they possess the skills and personal attributes they’re looking for…and would be perfect in the roles.

The movie has a fairly small budget, but no matter:  They just plan to overrun it.  Would you expect anything less?

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction, even the ones that seem like they could be real.

Reeling from the Massachusetts upset loss, the Libs and Obama administration coalition forces have been meeting almost continuously.  Realizing that their Master Plan to nationalize the country’s Health Care system may go up in smoke, they have been frantically looking for alternatives.  Insiders say that the goal is still to nationalize at least 16% of the US economy, equivalent to Health Care…so Lib leaders have charged underlings to get out and find a new 16%…fast.

Obama officials are initially focusing on Banks, a huge element in the economy, and ripe for nationalizing.  The big banks have helped the President’s case  by paying billions of dollars in bonuses and other perqs to the incompetent boobs that nearly bankrupted their companies…resulting in a public outcry.  The administration has also done a remarkable job blaming bank freewheeling capitalist lending policies & ignoring accounting rules that triggered the 2008-09 economic collapse, which the gullible public has accepted as fact.  Both sides of the aisle in Congress don’t like bankers anyway, so there might not be much resistance to nationalization.

The first step could be passage of some new tough financial rules, affectionately known as Rules of Obnoxion.  The focus will be Punishment…punishment for making too much money, punishment for paying too many bonuses, punishment for executive desks too big, punishment for customer lunches too extravagant.  There will be punishment for lending certain people money who can’t repay, and punishment for NOT lending certain other people money who also can’t repay.  The new Bonus/Perq czar will work closely with the Lending Preference czar to ratchet up the pressure on the so-called fat cats.  By the time it’s all over, they’ll be overjoyed to become nationalized.

But just nationalizing banks will not be enough to achieve the goal, and sources say that anyone and everyone is fair game in the Nationalization Lottery.  One name that has popped up has been McDonalds Corporation.  Investigations have shown that McDonalds has been selling 3 sizes of fries with different size packets.  But it turns out that some restaurants put the same amount of fries in each one, regardless of packet size.  When this became public, outraged customers just said, “Nationalize those sons of a bitch!”  The company, scrambling, is considering Free Fries Fridays to prevent a stampede, and begin to repair its french fry reputation.

Opponents to Mac being nationalized point out that this would change the burger wars’ competitive landscape.  “This new “Feddie Mac” subsidized by taxpayers could cut prices on Big Macs, or start handing out free Apple Pies with every order,” a burger industry expert said.  “Burger King would have to find cheaper, lower-quality meat to stay competitive…citizens, chain your dogs.” 

It is possible that the administration might just have to nationalize the whole burger industry, maybe throw in the chicken restaurant industry, too.  Stay tuned.

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction, even the ones that sound like they could be real.

The Bizarreville International Cliche Association has voted “The Buck Stops Here” as the winner of the most ambiguous, wimpified cliche of 2010.  Association Chairman Max Mumpf admitted  that the President’s applying the cliche recently to the Christmas Underwear Bomber followup fiasco was the clincher.  The “Wimpy” trophy will be awarded at a special Rose Garden ceremony next week.

Last year’s winning cliche, as most will recall, was “Give it 110 percent”.  This cliche was hailed for the beauty in its ambiguity…concerning what numerical value constituted Full Effort by an employee.  It was beautiful to watch the judges debating, some thinking 110 percent was more than full effort, while some thought it was less than full effort.  It was also given a Special Award as the most de-motivating little phrase of the past 100 years. 

The Buck Stops Here is a famous cliche that goes back to the Truman administration, where it was used to denote that passing the buck (or blame for a bad decision) would end with Truman.  During those times, however, its context would have much too tough-minded, not nearly wet & wimpy enough to be a finalist for the Cliche Assn award.  The committee took into consideration that President Obama has personally redefined this formerly tough, historically-significant cliche and turned it into a milk toast of total ambiguity and confusion.  That made it a clear winner in the 2010 competition.

The judges noted that the President further ambiguated the cliche by making totally vague what the word “here” meant.  They were particularly impressed because normally the word Here is clear, straight-forward, and so difficult to make ambiguous.  Here is here, right here. “It takes a real silver-tongued devil to say Here, and mean ‘maybe here, maybe there, maybe Timbuktu, maybe nowhere’,” said the head judge.  “Most impressive bit of word-dodging since Clinton’s ‘depend on what the definition of is is’ fiasco.  Brilliant.  Bravo.”

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction, even the crazy ones that sound like they could be real.

The Association of Business Gurus (ABG) has just published a paper in the prestigious Important Business Stuff Journal, concluding that Talking-the-talk is now more important than Walking-the-walk.  This important finding could make thousands of business/management books gathering dust on bookshelves nationwide instantly obsolete.

For years, the ABG has preached that Walking-the-walk(WTW) was the critical leadership dimension, particularly when it came time to executing change programs.  They measured that TTT was valued at only 3.5 on the 10-point Business Wizardry Scale, compared to WTW at a hefty 8.5 rating.  This was based on 100 business studies, which found that blabbering and blabbering about change was not viewed popularly with people.  It was the leaders who led by example and made change an integral part of everything they did in daily actions that was ultimately meaningful.  Well no more.

In the new 12-month breakthrough study, the ABG determined that their hypothesis was totally incorrect.  One part of the problem was that no one was Walking the Walk, anyway.  “It’s just too difficult, time-consuming, and frustrating for Leaders to do all that walking.”  Most leaders said they now just email their troops marching orders…may even add a little bit of rationale if time permits.  A new popular fad among leaders is to put a Footer on all outgoing email that simply reads: “Shut up and comply.  Failure to do so risks immediate termination.”  Simple and to the point, why waste breath?

The study goes on to show that leaders tend to have much broader reach and quicker response with Talking-the-talk.  In today’s world, that is critical.  It points out that the President has used TTT to its pinnacle, and totally ‘walked away’ from real action, follow-up, accountability, or real performance.  Moreover, the public seems entralled by it all.  “Talking-the-talk fits perfectly in our Facebook Society,” commented Dr. Stuhl, Professor of Business Ergonomics at Bizarreville University, “why complicate matters on stuff that no one cares about?”

Another part of the study concluded that leaders who demonstrably show they care about a problem and use persuasive body language technique in showing compassion/care are more effective 2 to 1 than leaders who actually do anything about solving the problem.  A Survey of nationwide cynics concluded that, when confronted with a problem, most leaders can’t really do anything about it anyway… even if they could they’d probably louse things up and do the wrong thing…so, if they at least show that they care…well, that’s something.  ‘Wiping the fake tear from the eye’ continues to be the highest rated act of pseudo-compassion showing, followed closely by “I feel your pain’.

A special task force was formed last week to develop workable solutions and countermeasures to halt the growing fear of Sarah Palin in Bizarreville’s left wing community.  Even the nighttime TV talk show comic hosts can be seen sweating profusely when joking about her, prompting complaints from their guests about the host’s BO during the couch interviews.  “He might need to take a quick shower during commercial break…either that or start joking about someone less fearful during the monologue.  If not, I’m wearing a clothespin on my nose next time,” cracked one Hollywood actor recent guest.  “Hey, even I start sweating in the Green Room when her name comes up…almost caused me to forget my pitch lines for my upcoming movie ‘Brokebutt Mountain’.  Geez.”

Clearly, Sarah’s radical ideas of small government, accountability, fiscal responsibility, family, and patriotism do not play well in the left corners of Bizarreville.  The small government argument, in particular, seems to fan the biggest fear flames.  “We have worked for generations to create a huge bureaucracy.  Our gampaws and great-grampaws fought tooth and nail for every little new worthless agency, new goofball department, new half-baked program, new flaky handout.  Are we going to let all their hard work just get flushed down the toilet?  They’d be turning over in their graves, so unproud of our lack of guts to hold the line on these cuts.”

“I’ve heard Sarah talk, and she’s serious, just a little too serious, thank you very much.  I mean the other lame politicians would get up there and blabber about cutting down the size of government…blah, blah, blah, blah.  But we all knew they were just blowing hot air, and that once they got into Power, they’d fall right in line with our fine legacy of knuckleheads.  But I don’t think Sarah’s got the knucklehead in her.  This is a serious, serious threat…let me tell you.”

The task force main focus will be to continue to find absurd ways to make fun of Sarah…the old “make her look stupid, trashy, disconnected” ruse.  Some on the committee are concerned that that card has already been overplayed, and might backfire.  They want some new bold discreditation strategy, even if they have to make stuff up, or stage events.  “The Hollywood community has pledged to help us produce whatever films, videos, or other media to support this Bash & Trash strategy.” 

The task force has committed to issue their report including Marching Orders to the Left Wingers and Left Leaners by their May 1st Holiday.

Bizarreville leaders are perplexed about what next to do, now that unemployment has tipped over 10 percent.  They are belatedly all realizing that their so-called “stimulation” just stimulated themselves.  Citizens are getting pretty tired of watching all the self-stimulation by these guys, and are demanding something new.

One proposal was to do some work on Pothole Boulevard, a road that has fallen into major disrepair over many years.  The suggestion was made to have the Unemployed with shovels and wheelbarrows filling the 16 gazillion potholes that have turned the boulevard into a slalom course.  But critics argue that if you fill the potholes, we would have to change the name of the street, entailing huge costs of re-signage, new maps, GPS changes, retraining, and so on.  Besides, “Patchhole Boulevard” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Another suggestion was to have the Out-of-Work form clean-up teams to clean up the filth and grossness in some of the East side neighborhoods….trash, garbage, animal feces, beer cans, wee wee …just pick up the junk and power-clorox-wash the whole freaking place.  But opponents argue that won’t solve the root cause of the problem:  people treating their neighborhoods like pig stys.  It will all just get re-messed a few weeks later, and return to Filth-boro.

A third idea was to turn them into entrepreneurs by planting vegetable gardens at the Bizarreville Landfill, and setting up veggie stands to peddle their harvests.  But nay-sayers responded that growing any kind of food on that nasty landfill would probably be laced with carcinogens, mad cow diseases, and purple fungus.  “No one’s gonna eat that sh*!#.”

It was becoming abundantly clear that the unemployed really did not want to do this kind of stuff…much simpler to stay at home and collect unemployment checks.  “That kind of work is way beneath us.  We’ve come a long way, and no way we’re going back in that direction,” said an Association for the Unemployed spokesperson.  “Are those nacho cheese chips over there?  Yeah…pass ’em here.”

NOTICE:

Has anyone seen my grampaw Harry?  He turned up lost a while ago, after he ran away from home.  We did not feed him very well, so that’s why he may have run away.  He smells pretty bad, especially when his fur gets wet, and probably desperately needs a bath.  He doesn’t lift his leg, so he ends up going on himself each time.  We used to think he was pretty harmless, but lately he’s been known to bite.  If he starts snarling and barking, better back off before he starts chewing on you.  He’s a grizzly, ornery old goat, but we still love him and want him back.  He probably has identification on him somewhere.  If you see him, please return him before he hurts innocent people and/or does more damage.  Thank you.

The Nevada family

Bizarreville carmakers report that car thefts are down to a 20-year low, initially bringing about some excitement in Executive offices.  But, after further review, it became clear that pathetic design, ugly styling, and general car boringness were the biggest contributing factors to the decline.  Curiously, golf cart thefts have trended up in recent months.

The Car Thieves International Union (CTIU) agreed with the assessment.  “Yeah, dem cars are so freaking ugly, I for one would not be caught dead pilfering one,” commented the CTIU president.  The Union noted that even the stolen car parts were now harder to peddle, due to shoddy quality and lousy basic designs.  This has caused Fences to have to return the stolen merchandise for full credit.  There was even a recent case where a thief was clubbed over the head with a busted, defective tie rod from an unhappy Black Market customer who had frankly gotten fed up with poor quality goods.  “It’s becoming epidemic.  And it’s putting our entire  f#&*!$  business at risk,” cited an underground paint shop proprietor.

The insurance companies are naturally thrilled by the theft trend, and have gone on record to encourage all the car companies to go even further in adopting mediocrity, especially in car styling.  “Take that new model from Shanker Motors called the Thumb.  That car is so ugly my grammaw wouldn’t get inside.  It looks like a cross between a bratwurst and a…well…you-know-what.  But it works most of the time, and just doesn’t get stolen.  Would like to see more Thumbs out there, and other ‘Fingers’ for that matter.”  Insurers point out that this reduction in thievery will also eventually save money on insurance premiums…or at the very least, reduce the amount of the annual premium increases to the car owner…which they say is basically the same thing.

Meanwhile the car companies are just plain perplexed…but that is really nothing particularly new.  After all, they had thought they were making real cool cars, before they started realizing what was actually coming out the factory door.  “Hey, if the market wants junk, we’ll give ’em junk.  That’s something we know how to do (ha, ha),” an unnamed car exec said in jest.

Bizarreville elders have been following in earnest the goofy media flap regarding Rush Limbaugh trying to buy the St. Louis Rams NFL franchise.  The hot rumor was that the Owners would object to the buy because his cash was simply not green enough.

The Elders are going to try and recruit Rush to buy the Bizarreville Skunksprays football team.  “He would have been a mere minority owner in St. Lous, but would be a big-time solo owner here,” said Frank Spankhard, the current owner.  “He could buy the whole kit and kaboodle for a buck 2.80, and I’d even throw in an autographed picture of Herm Spurple, the Pro Bowl water bucket boy.”

The Skunksprays team value continues to diminish with its mounting loss record, now 0-7 for the year, and projections of another winless season.  Spankhard has considered just dismantling the team and walking away, but the League Board would not permit it.  In fact, just because he had the temerity to even suggest such a concept, they took away from him one 2nd round and one 5th round pick for the 2010 draft as a sanction penalty.  They also warned any further lip would cost him a 1st rounder.  Team management shrugged, smirked, and uttered a collective “Whatever”.

The Bizarreville Elders feel that Limbaugh could come in and revitalize the disgusting Skunkspray franchise.  He may be willing to pay (dare we say) market prices to get some non-pathetic un-bums.  Might even try to hire a coaching staff from somewhere other than Lame Brain Refrigerator College.  “Sure would be different having someone who actually knows how to attract an audience,” commented an arbitrary person off the street.

Opponents have responded: “Sure, maybe at first he might shell out dough.  But he’ll quickly realize that he’s paid a king’s ransom, and the team still sucks.”  When asked to serve up an alternative, a better idea, or any suggestion, the opponents just belched.

The elders have been calling the Limbaugh program all week, but haven’t gotten through.

Bizarreville leaders have continued to look for new/better ways to prevent the rascally public from reading and learning about upcoming legislation.  It’s been a challenge.  In spite of their sophisticated efforts to keep it all under wraps, information somehow has kept leaking out of cracks and crevices, as sneaky as a dutch oven at midnight.

A while back, Leaders had a brainstorm…they would write the bills in a foreign language.  Brilliant?  Not so… unfortunately, stupidly, they managed to pick simple-to-translate languages like Bosnian, Czech, or Mandarin, and in nano-seconds the translations were readily available on the web.  They tried a variety of security schemes, including using paper that would start smoldering the minute it was exposed to fresh air…even faster if the air was stale.  Still, the Underground found out that a natural, organic yellowish fluid would quickly extinguish the fire, and were able to foil that attempt.

But now they truly believe they’ve got it.  One nerdly staffer, recently uncloseted, discovered a unique ancient strand of Egyptian hieroglyphics, and wrote the current “Cap and Hoopskirt” bill in this obscure signology.  So far, no one has been able to crack it.  It’s premature, but there are some pre-celebrations happening in the hallowed halls.

Leaders are happy and relieved that their hard work of concocting convoluted, self-grandizing, earmark-loaded slimy bills will not be subject to a lot of cry-baby, hand-wringing, mamby-pamby scrutiny.  They feel that the whole “light of day” mumbo-jumbo is, and always has been, overrated…plus it undermines the critically important process of back-scratching, butt-kissing quid pro quo which defines how things work in this town.

Special security has been arranged for the Nerdball who discovered the ancient hieroglyphics.  He has been disguised by dressing him in a polo shirt, khakis, and dock shoes, taking away his well-worn leather briefcase and giving him a Blackberry…no one will ever suspect.

The Mayor was ecstatic when the News came out.  The distinguished Scandinavian-sounding gentleman on the other end of the line said he had just won the Nobel Peace Prize!  The Mayor was shocked and was tempted to say “Huh…errr, uhhh…for what?”  But he just thanked the person, hung up, and started dancing the Electric Slide around the room.

But deep inside, the Mayor knew he hadn’t done crap to deserve such an award.  Frankly, he was more known for stirring-up doo-doo, rather than building peace.  Promoting death panels for old grammaws, spending money like a drunken nuclear submarine crewmember on leave, handouts for any nitwit who whined on his shoulder, and spending all that money on that stupid low-cost 2016 Olympics proposition…just all created a lot of unrest in Bizarreville, not peace, certainly not peace.  The only thing he’d really done for peace was to buy one round of beers for 2 guys fighting in McFunk’s Bar…was that enough to merit such a prestigious award?  He did, after all, pop for imports  rather than cheap bland domestic beer brands….?

But then the truth came out.  The mayor had not won the Nobel Peace Prize.  He had won the Gobel Cheese Prize, an award recognizing a member of government who best provides fodder for comedians, humor/satire authors, and political cartoonists.  Named after 60’s deadpan comedian George Gobel, it gave special bonus points for nominees with a flair for pathetically understated fashion.  The mayor, normally seen wearing pants hiked up to his man-boobs, certainly scored high in that bonus category.

Turns out, the Mayor was nominated for the Nobel Prize, based on that bar incident.  But some English chap who had mediated a 6-person fight and bought the entire pub a round of pints got the nod for the prize.  “Yeah, that’s a legendary accomplishment in anybody’s book,” said the Mayor barely hiding his disappointment.  “Maybe I’ll get another chance to bust up a bar fight, and get rewarded for my Body of Work in the field…”

The Nobel committee had no comment.

Bill Cronie, Bizarreville’s fine upstanding pharmacist, is very upset.  “The continuing talk in the News about Cronies being appointed to critical positions in the Administration has thoroughly besmirched our family name beyond repair.  The incompetent goof-balls and tax cheats receiving these important appointments…none of them are Cronies, none are even distantly related to any Cronies, not even by marriage.  They are dirt-bag nimrods who are drawn together by their vacuum of character and held together by the sticky goo they spew.  But no…no…no way are any of them Cronies, trust me.  Please call them Nincompoops.”

Elwood Nincompoop could not be reached for comment.