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Chapter 2
March 7, 2010
The Pundit Without Honour
INT. GLENN BECK'S DRESSING ROOM - DAY
GLENN BECK is sitting in front of a mirror, inspecting his nose for stray hairs.
ANNOUNCER: (over) He haunts the hallways of New York's news studios like stale cabbage. Wherever an opinionator distorts the truth to serve a political agenda - HE IS THERE. Whenever a bloviator uses personal attacks to mask the paucity of his arguments - HE IS THERE. Whenever a pretty talking head pulls facts out of her patootie - HE. IS. THERE. Is he a contemporary of Murrow who fell from grace? Is he a blogger who took money to promote a politician he didn't believe in? Nobody knows. He is...the Pundit Without Honour.
MUSIC: stab.
The PUNDIT WITHOUT HONOUR (PWH) appears in the mirror behind Beck.
PWH: Glenn Beck.
BECK: Put the fan mail down on the couch - I don't have time to read it right now.
PWH: Oh, I'm here to deliver, Glenn Beck, but it isn't fan mail.
Beck turns to face PWH.
BECK: You...look like a raccoon in a smart business suit. Who are you, masked man?
PWH: I am...the Pundit Without Honour.
MUSIC: stab.
BECK: Nice stab.
PWH: I beg your pardon?
BECK: Music can be such an important part of overall dramatic effect, but do you think my producers get that? No. They'll only let me have credit and transition music. A good dramatic stab every few minutes in the body of the show would really pound home my points.
PWH: I'm not here to discuss incidental music with you, Glenn Beck.
BECK: What are you here for, then, eh, Panda Without Humour?
PWH: Pundit Without Honour.
BECK: Oh, yeah? Who are you? I mean, really. Behind the mask.
PWH: I am you.
BECK: Noooooo, I'm pretty sure I'm me.
PWH: You don't understa -
BECK: I mean, when I look in the mirror, there I am!
Beck looks in the mirror. There he is!
PWH: No -
Beck turns back to PWH.
BECK: That would be pretty hard to do if I wasn't me.
PWH: LISTEN! I am the personification of every pundit who adapts his opinions to serve a crude ideological agenda, no matter how inconsistent that makes him...
BECK: That doesn't sound like -
PWH: Or spews dangerous nonsense to incite hatred in small minds without concern for the consequences simply to collect a pay check.
BECK: Oh. Okay. That sounds like me. (pause) It's a pretty honking big pay check, though, if that makes a difference.
PWH: It does not.
BECK: Didn't think so. Soooo...if you're the personificator of...all that, does that mean you're O'Reilly, too?
PWH: Yes.
BECK: And, Sean Hannity?
PWH: Absolutely.
BECK: And, Gretchen Carlson?
PWH: Certainly.
BECK: So, you're a cross-dresser?
PWH: Yes. WHAT? No.
BECK: Then, is Gretchen Carlson really a man?
PWH: I...I have no idea.
BECK: Because I would have thought that, if anybody was a man, it would be Ann Coulter.
PWH: You...you're not very bright, are you?
BECK: Maybe not. (tears over) But, I...I love my country - SOB! - and, I...I fear for her.
PWH: You see! That! That's exactly the kind of bull puckies I'm here to call you on!
BECK: (immediately sober) Oh, okay.
PWH: (confidential) Do you do that crying thing by putting gel in your eyes?
BECK: (conversational) No. I use sense memories.
PWH: Really? What memories do you find most effective in bringing on the waterworks?
BECK: Memories of how poor I was before I had my show.
PWH: You know, that's another thing I'll have to call you on when we come out of this aside.
BECK: Do what you must, man. Do what you must.
PWH: (brisk) Glenn Beck, you incite hatred against President Barack Obama, something you would have called treason had anybody done anything similar to President Bush. Worse than this, you do it not out of political conviction, but just to make money. Have you no shame, sir? At long last, have you no shame?
BECK: Nope. None at all.
PWH: No sense of guilt or responsibility for what some people, taking you at your word, will do?
BECK: Nope. Crazy people are not my problem.
PWH: Well then...there's nothing I can do here.
PWH turns and walks out.
BECK: What a strange character.
Beck shrugs and turns back to the mirror. Yep - his nose is still there.
ANNOUNCER: Be with us next time when the Pundit Without Honour takes on his most difficult foe: Boss Rupert!
FADE TO BLACK
Welcome, Science Fiction Fans!
If you came to Les Pages aux Folles curious about my writing thanks to science fiction or fan fiction, welcome! You can find the complete text of Alternate Reality Ain't What It Used To Be and What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children's Toys in the Archive Section, as well as three new Alternate Reality News Stories every third week in the New Section. They are clearly marked [ARNS] for easy identification. And, please feel to browse through the other writing, cartoons and miscellaneous oddments - you never know what you might enjoy!
You may already be a winner? Well, actually...
It is with great pleasure that I can announce that I have taken first prize in the Swift Satire Writing Competition. This was for a poem called "Love Amid the Construction. The official announcement can be found here. Details of the contest, including, at some point soon, my winning entry, can be found here. What can I say?
WHOOT WHOOT WHOOT!
Do Not Adjust Your Eyes
The Weight of Information: Episode One: The Realities Leak is now available on YouTube! This pilot for a radio series is based on stories out of the two Alternate Reality News Service Books, Alternate Reality Ain't What It Used To Be and What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children's Toys (or, as one online used bookstore has it, What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children - don't ask). Click on this link to listen to Part One and this link to listen to Part Two. Interdimensional travel has never been so...multidimensional!
You May Already Be A Winner Redux
The Alternate Reality News Service, in conjunction with the Grasping for the Wind Web site, is running a contest! The readers who submit the best questions to either of the Alternate Reality News Service columns (which, regular readers will remember, are Ask Amritsar and Ask the Tech Answer Guy) will win free autographed copies of What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children's Toys (or, as one online discount bookseller has it listed, What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children - don't ask). Click on the link for the rules. Enter now, enter often!Ira Speaks!
Sal Monaco, the Oracle of Enlightenment who now does interviews at Think Twice Radio, conducted an interview with me at Polaris 24. Don't think twice: go to Sal Monaco's Think Twice Radio Web page and give it a listen!
The Alternate Reality News Service Grows Up
Have you ever wanted to know what goes on behind the scenes at the Alternate Reality News Service? Of course you didn't! But, now that the question has been raised, it sounds intriguing, no? Okay, probably not. Still, here's the thing: there is now a Facebook group called The Alternate Reality News Service Cafe. If you go there, you will automatically receive a tri-weekly newsletter full of exclusive information. It is also a place where you can contribute to the Alternate Reality News Service and even, perhaps, work your way up the ARNS ladder until you are given a journalistic beat all for yourself. Doesn't that sound exciting?
Don't answer that.
Would you be interested in immortality?
As you may have noticed, there is a weekly feature on Les Pages aux Folles called The Daily Me. Each article in this feature is a collection of bits and pieces of interest to a different person. I probably won't be shocking any of my readers when I say that, to date, I have made the persons up. (If you are shocked, I hear the Girls With Eyepatches site is nice this time of year...) Well, a future Daily Me could feature...you!
Simply send me an email with your name and the names of three or four publications you regularly read and three or four issues/subjects in which you have an interest. Then, let me digest them and, two or three weeks later, The Daily Me could be The Daily You! Your name will appear in my writing...forever! No complicated creams! No messy cryogenic devices! Immortality has never been easier! What are you waiting for?