Archive of the Manhattan Reichstag Review

My other main site necessaryprose.com will probably be offline soon, so I've decided to archive some of it here on my blog. I'll start with some of the pieces posted during the glorious Bush years at my online journal The Manhattan Reichstag Review. I'll try to post one a day, starting with the Disassociated Press items.

MUTT Ch. 7--How it happened

There were dogs in her apartment too. Two of them were lap dogs, and the third was very big and friendly.

Motioning me to sit down, she went into another room herself. I played with the dogs while I waited. When she returned, she was wearing a blue silk robe. Then she was with me on the couch and our mouths were pressed together, our tongues playing against each other. It was all very casual, like in a French movie. Even more casual than that. I was kind of thirsty, but she didn't offer me anything to drink. I remember I felt it was kind of bad manners.

Soon I'm on top of her on the floor--me, who'd only been in the city two hours. There's a large, fine bamboo mat under us. She is very hot. But her dogs are right next to us, wagging their tails and smiling in that doggy way. They seem to know this game. I don't bother complaining about it.

But as we are making love, and as she is getting more and more aroused, the dogs are getting more excited too. The little ones are running around her head and feet, and one has even tried licking her face. How can I concentrate on this with these dogs around? But now she’s groaning and writhing against me, and there's no question of stopping to go to another room.

She has her hands down around my ass. She's pulling me into her according to a slow and precise rhythm, masturbating herself with my body. As she gets hotter and hotter, her voice breaks into a kind of breathless whimpering, then retreats again into the more relaxed groaning. And then whimpering again.

I’d be enjoying this myself, but the big dog has meanwhile started barking. He's barking rather loudly too, right next to us. It is making me uneasy. I'm wearing nothing, moving in and out of this big dog's mistress, and he's right there, standing behind me and over me, barking in a manner more and more worrisome as his mistress gets more and more excited. This is really too much! Does he think I'm hurting her? What if he decides to take my balls off with those teeth I've glimpsed now a few times over my shoulder? He sounds almost angry, that dog, and it has started to make me uneasy.

I'm moving faster now, but I'm not enjoying it one bit. The big dog is barking at the ceiling, and has even growled a few times. This woman beneath me has been close to coming for quite a while. Why can't I get her over the edge? I never should have come to this place.

She has wound the fingers of her right hand into the long golden hair that drapes down from the belly of one of the two lap dogs. I think this dog is called a Llasa. She’s finally about to come, the big dog is still barking at us, and now she has her fingers wound into the little dog's belly hair. The little dog is right there next to my face, and it keeps trying to walk away. But her eyes are closed and she's holding onto its fur for dear life. I can't help thinking of wily Odysseus and how he wound his hands into the belly hair of that big sheep so he could escape the cave of the Cyclops.

Damn this! The little dog is licking her face, then mine, then trying to get away again. She's on the very edge of ecstasy and I'm still holding up even though I'm afraid her big dog will lose it and attack me just as she starts to come. I'm hoping she doesn't cry out too much.

As she comes, she twists her fingers furiously in the Llasa's belly hair and he is yelping and screaming along with her. The big dog is barking at us vengefully, just as a dog barks before it's going to attack an intruder. Damn this!

But the big dog never attacks. Then she releases the Llasa, which retreats immediately over to the sofa.

As she begins to wind down, before she's even gotten her breathing back, I realize what a boil my blood is in, just how annoying all this is. My cock starts to come back to full power. She may have a cute nose, this bitch, but this was too much! I'm taking her into the other room and fucking her properly. This is no way to treat a guest.

I get her up from the floor and begin to pull her by the arm to the bedroom. She goes along, smiling and almost playful. I close the door behind us before the dogs get in. I pull her down onto the bed. She’s smiling seductively now. But then she holds up an index finger as if to say "Just a second!" and hops up from the bed toward what looks like a large dark wooden dresser. The light in the room is dim and bluish. What does she want on the dresser? Then I see it's not a dresser actually, but a kind of shrine or altar. I can make out a golden disk and above it two wolves' heads carved in relief and facing each other. She starts praying in front of it! What nonsense is this now! I get up to drag her back to the bed but she meets me halfway and leads me by the cock to the altar. I really shouldn't put up with this. But just as I’m thinking about pulling away she takes a little black canister from the altar, opens it with a twinkle in her eye, and starts to rub a kind of ointment on my cock, then begins kissing me passionately on the neck and on my chest. The ointment stings a bit. She is working her way slowly down me with her tongue. The ointment is potent stuff. It makes me so hot I almost can't stand still. Her lips are finally down around it, sucking softly. There is a kind of spinning and whispering and then suddenly an awful noise of howling. Then I'm in a bolt of lightning that doesn't stop striking. I begin to scream as I feel myself getting smaller, my shoulderblades drawing tightly up around the back of my head as if my sinews were the strings on a mandolin being tightened to breaking point. Then my arms begin shortening and my legs are shortening and hunching out behind me. I feel my jaw and face tightening and pushing out forward, and I’m still shrinking! Suddenly I'm below her on my hands and feet, looking up, and she’s laughing at me. What the hell is this? I feel my nose has pushed out before me, and my hands.... I look at my hands.... They’re paws! They look like dog's paws! I’ve become a dog's body! What. . . I am a dog!

I start running round the room, I'm yelling, or barking, I have to get out of here, I have to escape! She’s done something to me! I run and jump up against the doorknob, run to the bed, I growl at her. I am a dog. I plead with her, barking. But she is huge, above me, she is laughing the whole time. The crazy bitch! I’m a dog! Everywhere I run the dog's body goes with me. I don't have a body to shake it off. Where is my real body? I’m a dog! What kind of drug has she given me? I have to escape!

"Stop running!" she cried in English, still laughing. "Stop running! Listen!"

So she could speak English. So the bitch even cheated me on that. Not a word from the bank until now, and she starts speaking to me in English!

She pointed to where I should sit. I tried to sit still. I wanted to bite her. Why I didn't bite her I'm not sure. Perhaps I couldn't believe it was all for real. Perhaps, being a dog, I felt naturally obedient. I was so confused. Me--who'd only been in the city two hours!

"If you are a good boy," she said with a Chinese accent, "I will make you a man again. But if you are bad--if you bite or pee-pee on my floor--I will drive you in my car and put you in a village far away from here. Then I'll never make you into a man. You'll never find me again. Will you be good then?"

I was shaking all over. I wanted to escape. What was going on? How could this be happening?

She motioned me to come to her, and I did. She started petting me. I was growling at her--I couldn't help it. I really wanted to be good, but I also felt like biting her. So I couldn't stop growling while she petted me. She had experience with this, it seems. She tried to calm me down.

"To be a dog isn't very bad," she said. "Quiet, you. You will soon be a man again."

On to Chapter 8

Yep

Yep. It’s the end of an era.
No other way to put it.

New day dawning in our great nation,
time to shift gears.

New man at the helm.

Now I know there are those will say. . . .
Look--I've heard what some folks are sayin’.

That we made mistakes.

But time and tide waits for no man.
That's the truth.

Fact is we had tough decisions to make.

And we made those decisions.

We deliberated long and hard beforehand too,
I can tell you that.

Some of those meetings dragged on
more than an hour.

Course I can’t speak for everyone here,
but I myself, I get kinda antsy sittin' there.

Sitting there while they go at it,
While they all keep goin' over
the same old ground,
all of 'em saying the same thing
over and over in different ways.

So finally I had to take a stand.
You would of too.

No sense talkin’ everything
till you're blue in the face,
that’s what I say.

Besides, it was me
the people of this great nation
put there.

It was me at the head of that table.

And I'm not one to shirk responsibility.
No, sir.
Least not any more.

Cuz I'd been there, done that.

I'd taken that path,
and finally said,
"No, not for me.
Not any more thank you."

Cuz I was given a little lift up.

A little glimpse of the light.
A little helping hand
from One who doesn't let you down.

And I wasn't about let the American people down either.

So there I was,
sittin' there at the head of the table,
and a decision had to be made.

And I'd be darned if I wouldn't make it.

Course some of 'em sometimes
would start in with their "buts"
and their "howevers" and all.

But one thing I'm not is a man who listens
to these buts and howevers.

Never have been.

No, I'm a decider.

And most of the time
I'd already decided.

That's what I'd tell 'em too.

"Stop your hemmin' and hawin'.
I've already decided!"

Boy, once they heard that
they knew the course would be set.
It’d be set right there.

They knew from then on
we'd stay the course too.

They knew it cuz by then they knew
who was sittin' at the head of that table.

I was.

And why was that?

Cuz the American people put me there,
that's why.

It’s the wisdom of democracy.
The wisdom of the people decides,
and you get what you get.

Fact is we were answering to a Higher Authority,
hearing a voice from a higher Whirlwind.

And if that voice is on your side,
then no man can stand against you,
am I right?

I've said it before and I'll say it again:
History will judge how we did.

Right now the talk may be one way,
but history will eventually weed and sift things
and the talk might come out another way.

You never can tell.

So folks shouldn’t be so hasty to judge.
Cuz history is not into second-guessing.

But now it’s time to turn a page.

Yep. It’s time we moved on to other things.

Cuz now the reins are going to another man.
Just have to accept it.

And he's a good man too,
a man with a smart wife
and two beautiful kids.

I wish him the best,
I reallly do.

I know he'll have to make tough decisions
like I did.

And sit through those meetings
like I did.

And I know that finally he'll have to decide.

Cuz that's what we're made of,
men like him and me.

We're deciders.

But I know he'll face disappointments too,
let me tell you.

Cuz when you're sitting there
on the highest chair in the land,
disappointments are sure to come.

People let you down.

They sure let us down,
Dick and Don and Condi and I.

Us in the loop, I mean.

Folks didn't always do things they should have.

A lot of folks, to tell the truth.

It's something that isn't pleasant to talk about,
but there it is.

They let us down.

Saddam sure let us down.

You can't count on that guy for anything.

I always told the American people
he was a liar, he couldn't be trusted.

And I was right.

There he was
sayin' he didn't have any more WMD
and of course we knew
he had to be lying.

But go figure--
that was the one damn thing he wasn't lyin' about!

We thought he'd at least have
some of the stuff around.

Course we knew he couldn't have
all the stuff we were saying.

But at least he had to have some.

But look--the bastard couldn't even be trusted
to lie about the one thing
he should of lied about.

So in a way he was actually lying by not lying,
see?

They're slippery, those guys.

Comes with the turf over there.

Most of 'em,
you can't even trust 'em to lie straight.

But it's not just Saddam I'm talkin' about.
Nope.

Cuz some of the folks here at home,
they let us down too.

Yes, our own people,
fellow Americans.

Like some of the folks on Wall Street.

Folks we thought we could trust.

I mean, when we pushed through
all that financial deregulation.

When we pushed that through--
got rid of some of the old rules.

It was to make the economy stronger,
not to give the green light
to every scheme
these clowns could cook up.

Along with the freedom of fewer regulations
should come some responsibility, am I right?

But that's not how these folks saw it.

These CEOs
--who'd of thought?--
they all started behavin' right off
like their main business in life
was making money.

It's crazy what some of 'em got up to.

The more you look into it--
makes your head spin.

So: disappointment.
That's how it makes you feel.

My successor,
as I've already said,
I'm sure he'll find some of the same disappointments
I did.

Because people don't do what you expect.

That's a fact,
and it's one lesson I've learned
from my time in this great office.

But still we got to keep on.
Have to keep on fighting the good fight.

We have to keep fighting
even though we're switchin' gears.

And we are switchin' gears here,
make no mistake.

We're turnin' a new page.

Yep.

It's a proud time for our nation,
I really believe that.
It’s a time of new beginnings.

And I'm confident we'll meet the challenges
like we always have.

Cuz we are a special nation,
a nation that loves liberty
like no other.

We are a blessed nation.

I want you to know
I've always considered it a privilege
to serve as your Supreme Commander in Chief.

But I'm at the end of my show here,
I won't deny it.

This is the last time
I'll be addressing you
as your leader.

We had some good times,
we had some bad times.

It was a heckuva show
we had together, wasn't it?

We won't be forgotten any time soon.

And in the end
history will judge
how we did.

But I got to sign off now.

Got to move on.

Tomorrow I’ll be handin' the reins
to the next hombre.

Cuz that's the way it is
in America.

So adios and good night.

And God bless ya.

Washington, January 19, 2009

Caffeine Dreams

Damn strange. I must be getting old. Sometimes I wake up at five in the morning and have to go downstairs and drink a stiff cup of coffee so that I have enough energy to get back to sleep. Then I will usually sleep until nine.

It happened again this morning. And occasionally, if the coffee is strong enough, it will give me enough of a jolt to prod me into dreams.

This morning I dreamt I was teaching English to a large new class of adolescent students. The students were all Chinese, though for some reason the class was being held in a classroom in Madison, Wisconsin. As I taught I noticed that two of the boys in the class, obviously brothers, were Chinese with some admixture of something else: Middle Eastern blood of some kind.

I asked one during class: “I know it’s a strange question, but I’m curious. You’re ancestors aren’t all Chinese, are they?”

He began to explain when another student, whom I hadn’t noticed, piped up. I realized this third student, wearing gold-rimmed glasses and a white dress shirt, wasn’t actually a student, but the father of the two boys. He stood up and approached my desk, sitting down in front of me.

“You’re right,” he said. “We’re Arabs, from Saudi Arabia. I moved here to the States because, well, one has more freedom: one can live the way one wants. I want my sons to have that opportunity. It’s not that I hate my country--by no means. It’s just culturally a bit . . . Well . . .”

“A bit stiff?”

“Yes. And I married a very beautiful woman and moved here. Very beautiful.” He smiled as if he were going to take out his wallet and show me her photo.

Then I noticed something else. His gold-rimmed glasses had three lenses. Because the man, though handsome, had three eyes, one right above his nose.

But then as I talked to him he had two eyes again. The number of eyes kept shifting back and forth. Finally I started to feel I was spending too much time chatting with this father while the rest of the class sat idle.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I really have to go back to teaching.”

“Alright. Take it easy, maaan,” he said, using a hippyism that was completely out of character. He moved back to his seat.

Here in Taipei I’d recently taught the Cyclops episode in the Odyssey. There’s no doubt this was behind the shifty third eye above the man’s nose.

As the class dismissed later on, it turned out that one of the sons wasn’t an adolescent any more, but a university student going to a party afterwards. He invited me to go and gave me directions. I was to get on a certain bus in the underground bus depot right under the classroom.

I waited down there and watched, people getting on and off this and that bus, but couldn’t find the right bus and couldn’t figure out how the new Madison bus system worked.

In short, the dream ended as far too many of my dreams do: in a transportation tangle, myself late for some event or exam

Poll: Favorable opinions of Cheney rise

As Dick Cheney prepares to give a major speech on the battle against terrorism, a new national poll suggests that favorable opinions of the former vice president are on the rise.

But the Disassociated Press Corporation survey, released Thursday morning, indicates that a majority of Americans still have an unfavorable opinion of Cheney.

Seventy-nine percent of people questioned in the poll say they believe the former vice president should be bull-whipped then imprisoned for life. Fourteen percent say Cheney should not be bull-whipped before imprisonment, up 8 percentage points from January when he left office.

In the past two months, the former vice president has become a frequent critic of the new administration in numerous national media interviews.

"Is Cheney's uptick due to his visibility as one of the most outspoken critics of the Obama administration? Almost certainly not," says Brad Holland, DP polling director.

"After the threat posed by the Bush administration receded with their leaving office, people tend to become more forgiving," he explains. "They no longer feel the danger these people posed, so they are more lenient."

Holland cited one polling result which showed a significant percentage of Americans believe Cheney and other former Bush administration officials should just be highly medicated and institutionalized, not actually imprisoned for their crimes.

The new survey's release comes just a few hours before Cheney is scheduled to give a speech Thursday on the war against terror in the cafeteria at Washington, D.C.'s Belleview Psychiatric Ward.

"There are always a few hecklers in the ward, Larry and Ken mostly, who like to point out that Dick had been in office eight months when the 9/11 attacks happened on his watch,” said Belleview nurse Daniel Cather.

"But usually when Dick gets up to speak most of the residents just listen. Because he tends to get violent when people disagree with him."

The Disassociated Press--Better News than You Deserve

Bus Stop Proposition, Taipei

A small round woman in a shabby teeshirt and sweatpants approaches me at a bus stop and asks if I want her daughter. She speaks in a heavily inflected Chinese and at first I'm not sure I heard right. Dropping her plastic bag of household cleaning items, she reaches to shake my hand.

"Can we be friends?" she asks frankly, then repeats the query about the daughter.

I don't offer her my hand.

"Well at least look at her," she says, and gestures toward a girl about five paces away.

The girl is maybe twenty and is obviously retarded. She's grinning sheepishly at me. Rounder than the mother, she looks like an oversized Chinese steamed bun forced into mismatched house clothes.

The mother--she's finally managed to force her hand into mine--explains that she doesn't know what to do, the daughter never listens to her and always complains that she talks too much.

"You can take her if you want, do whatever you want with her, I'm not asking for much," she says to me through her four remaining teeth.

Noticing my eyes are on the gaps in her denture as she speaks, she points to the daughter and says:

"Oh, she's got better teeth than me, don't worry."

At this the girl frowns and sticks out her tongue at us, but then obliges by smiling widely to show her teeth.

In fact she does have better teeth: she has teeth.

"I'm fifty years old last month, and I've given birth to seven children. Two of the sons died, and a daughter died too, so this girl is one of the four I have left."

I don't bother to ask how her having four children left relates to the fact that she's trying to sell one.

I see my bus approaching and say, "Sorry. I've got to get to work."

"C'mon. Won't you consider it?" the mother says. "Just take her with you. I'm not asking for much."

She runs her hand over the brown paper Subway bag I'm carrying, as if to say, "Give me the turkey sub, and the girl is yours."

As the bus door opens for me to get on, the mother takes her retarded daughter round the shoulders and struggles to force her onto the bus with me. But the girl is stronger, and the ploy doesn't work.

As the bus pulls away, I watch them recede through the window, the mother cussing at the daughter and the daughter waving bye to me with her wide retarded grin.

ZEI: Odysseus Reveals his Identity

King Alcinous, having seen his mysterious guest troubled by Demodocus’ song of the Trojan War, asked him to explain. Wouldn’t he now tell his story? Odysseus saw it was finally time to reveal his true identity. But would the Phaeacians believe him? ZEI students guess how the hero might reveal himself:

YVONNE'S VERSION: “Dear, good Alcinous, just as you say, I have a painful memory from the Trojan War. Twenty years before, when the war started, I was a man who didn’t want to go, but I had to because of the oath. After ten years of fighting, we Greeks won the war, but we were too bloodthirsty: we slaughtered the Trojans without mercy. Our behavior made the gods and goddesses angry, and they made many of us die at sea on our way home. Just as Demodocus sang, some important chiefs are alive and back home. Only one, no one knows where he has gone. Is he alive or dead? And this one, this Odysseus, it is me. After the war, these ten years I have lived on the sea. Once I almost made it back home, but Poseidon sank my boat and drove me away again. Now you all know who I am. My story is over. I hope you can finally help me get back home again.”

JERRY'S VERSION: “Dear, good Alcinous, my name is Odysseus. When I was just a kid, I was out looting and got a boat. The boat was very big and I took it to sea. I moored it on an island no one knew. My friend Agamemnon and I went about exultantly on this boat. We wanted to get here, to Phaeacia, but that night the wind blew a different direction. Finally we disembarked at Troy. There we saw all the people playing a game called “The Trojan War.” Agamemnon and I joined the Greek team. So I killed the enemy quickly. Then I wanted to get to Phaeacia again. My boat sank, but, look, at last I’m here!”

MAY'S VERSION: “I don’t want to cheat you, such a great king. You have treated me so graciously that I don’t want to hide my secret from you any more. Therefore, I will answer all questions you asked. In fact, you just heard my name three minutes ago. Additionally, you all just listened to my story. The truth is. . . I am Odysseus, the real, genuine one, and actually exist. Please don’t be afraid, or look at me with hostile eyes. I lost most of my comrades in the Trojan War, and the others that survived with me from that terrible memory had different consequences each. As your eyes can see, during these twenty years I have led a miserable life, a life filled with sadness and shock. But now, meeting you, I feel that has changed. The Phaeacians kindness has also given me energy, helping me recover from my sadness. What’s more, when I see your friendly people, it reminds me of my home country, Ithaca. I hope to start my journey back soon.”


WILLIAM'S VERSION:

“Dear, good Alcinous, my name is Odysseus, and I come from Ithaca. And the truth is I love Troy. Please don’t kill me.”

This made Alcinous mad. “I’ve given you so much,” he said, “and you still think I want to kill you?”

“Dear Alcinous,” Odysseus said, “you are very gracious. But that I loved Troy is not all. The roads in your country here are very rugged. And sometimes I saw people looting--right here in your country. It means your country is bad. Even Troy, during the war, was better.”

Hearing this, Alcinous drew his sword. “Ithacan liar!” he said. “Shut up!”

He ran toward Odysseus, ready to kill him. But Demodocus stopped him.

“Please, my King, don’t!” he said.

“Alright, alright!” Alcinous said. “Put him in the jail!”

Odysseus was in the Phaeacian jail for four days. Then he escaped from the jail, and entered the palace at night, killing the guards. He took all Alcinous’ money and, stealing a ship, sailed to Libya.


EDEN'S VERSION:

“Dear, good Alcinous . . . Sorry, may I go to the bathroom first?”

“Yes, of course,” Alcinous said.

Then Odysseus ran to the bathroom, locked himself in, and thought about how to escape. But when he tried to open the door again, he couldn’t get it open: it was made of metal and he couldn’t break it. So he finally thought he had no choice. He jumped into the toilet and flushed it. After five minutes of swirling in the cold water, he came out in ZEI . . .

“Noooooo!” Jerry screamed, waking up, the cold air conditioning blowing on his back. “I had a bad dream again.”


SABRINA'S VERSION: “I’m Odysseus, the most genius, handsome, strong, smart, cunning, humble, wise, good-looking, talented, charming, having the greatest physique, the strongest muscles, excellent humor, the highest IQ and EQ, lowest dq., 8G of memory, faster than a speeding waistband, able to leap Taipei 101 without getting a wedgie, the most powerful hero of all the Greeks.”