How to Swallow a Pig Page 8

  THE STOOGE BY-LAWS

  It is illegal to poke a stooge in the eye. Falling to the floor and running in a sideways circle is prohibited. There will be no hair-pulling in the common room. Please do not bring pliers into these premises. It is forbidden, while running on the spot, super-fast, to exhale steam from the nostrils. There will be absolutely no pulling out of chunks of hair. No excoriating the eyes. It is wrong to punch the lungs out. Anyone caught laughing at violent acts will be expelled. Until further notice, all pies are strictly forbidden in the cafeteria area. It is a crime to seat a stooge in a catapult. A stooge may not give final unction. No electrocuting stooges. Anyone caught hanging a stooge will be suspended.

  THE THREE DISCIPLE STOOGES

  Curiously, the only censored version of the Stooges is the rarely screened “The Three Stooges in Galilee.” This episode is rumoured to show Curly in Jerusalem, spending an entire day stealing fish from various merchants. Larry, elsewhere, pilfers loaf after loaf of bread from all the bakeries. Moe, meanwhile, has ingested a magic mushroom of some kind while scarfing the Messiah’s abandoned stew. As he stands on the table extemporizing to the gathered masses about lilies and things, Curly and Larry successfully deliver, beneath the table, the loaves and fishes. The miracle is ready. After the sermon, when the bakers and the fishmongers see the banquet that has been prepared for them, they recognize their pilfered wares and rise up to crucify all three.

  MY THREE STOOGES

  In the equally rare “My Three Stooges,” Moe is a father and Curly and Larry are little kids. And he still beats them! In these episodes it’s not dames that Curly’s always after — it’s Mom. Moe, as in all versions of the Stooges, repeatedly pops both children in the eyes. The sonic effects, however, have been altered. They are squelchier now. A little painful to hear, but still possibly funny. Arse kicks have a little coccyx crack-and-crunch undertone, while the two-in-a-line, double child-face-slap is actually the sound of a wet seal being thwapped by fishermen on a marble floor, twice! Curly and Larry have learned to laugh a lot of the physical stuff off. They are geniuses at turning their shock, the deep sense of betrayal, into big, camera-hogging hams that are truly hilarious. These are great child actors! Because it’s the old days, we are not allowed to actually see Moe when he thrashes their asses. He takes them in a room off-camera. And the kids are great. They’re trembling great. There’s water in their veins. Their bowels are going. Moe is going to beat them. The next time we see them, their asses are in buckets and there is steam rising from them. They have obviously been crying. Curly, even though his voice is hoarse from screaming, manages the first mock “Nyaah ahah,” making Larry pull his goo-face. During the filming of this series, Curly Howard, the actor who plays Curly, succumbs to a stroke and is unable to perform. But Curly is replaced by older brother Shemp. Shemp dies, also of a stroke. The final Stooge is Joe Besser. Joe takes on the moniker “Curly Joe,” and keeps the part until the show is cancelled due to poor ratings.

  THE THREE SEXUAL SURVIVOR STOOGES

  In a bizarre twist, we have uncovered a case of Stooge sexual abuse. And it’s still funny. In this series, instead of poking Curly in the eyes, the aptly named Moe gives him rapid pokes up the asshole. Larry suffers repeated penis yanks, twists, scrunches, whacks, and hammers. All with extremely unexpected sonic repercussions. “Doing! Dwang! Floompf!” Larry’s penis is cut, burnt, yanked, or twisted off an average of seven times an episode. Fortunately for Larry, his penis seems to have more regenerative properties than Wolverine. Ever-reborn and newly sensitive, Larry is an immortal abuse victim. And it’s still funny. In the episode with the elephant, Curly, Larry, and Moe have all been locked, bare-bummed, into stocks. When the elephant sees the large pot of Vaseline, it fucks each of the Stooges with a big, popping, tearing sound. Moe as usual moans “Nyaaaa aaaaah!”, while Curly goes “Wooo wooo wooo.” And it’s still funny!

  BLADERUNNER STOOGES

  In this episode, Moe is an android doomed to die. His hair has only just started to fall out. It is a young Moe, more handsome than we would have thought possible. He has seen the cargo ships on fire off Orion. He has seen things you’ve never dreamed, but now, at his peak, he must die. It’s part of his programming — unless he can find Curly and Larry. Curly and Larry invented Moe. And a million more Moes. Moes everywhere all over the stars like little lumberjacks building the brick shit-house of interstellar commerce. And what if some of these android-Moes should get ambitious or go crazy? Well that’s why they had the built-in time limit thing. It was written into the materials of their genesis. It is them — this early death. How Moe hates it. How enraged he is at these little men who have made him. Who are less than him. In the end he finds Curly and Larry but they assure him haughtily that he is untreatable. They make offensive platitude-like remarks drawn largely from self-help books they have only just read and therefore believe. Moe says, “Pick two fingers.” Curly stupidly complies. Moe rapidly pokes them in Curly’s sockets, deep past his eyeballs, into the soft brain stuff behind. Too-red blood runs out. Moe turns to Larry and says, “Pick two fingers.”

  THE IMMORTAL STOOGES

  Due to some Satanic deals, no one at this particular banquet can actually be killed. They can, however, be maimed, exploded, and pierced. So Moe pulls out the double-barreled twelve gauge shotgun and says, “Hey Larry, take a look in the binoculars.” Moe’s gone a bit far this time. He lets Larry have it, full blast, in both eyes, basically disintegrating the top two-thirds of Larry’s head. Some of the slushy, pink stuff still caught, hangs from the remaining hair, flip-top-box-like. Larry, unable to see, lets Moe have it in the guts. Unfortunately, it’s not Moe. It’s the fat diplomat who has just bent down to bow to the finicky lady. This gentleman is outraged when his buttocks are blasted open. En masse, his seven sons open fire on the Stooges. Unfortunately, they are terrible marksmen. Curly is going “Wooo Wooo” as fast as possible. He has been sped up or something. He has transformed the gunshots into bells and buzzers as he dekes and ducks, still expertly pulling faces. Moe, however, is being rammed again and again against the blood-spattered walls as he is repeatedly shot by the brothers. Each time, he rises back up more and more raggedly. Unfortunately, so does the small boy who has been putting glass in the punch. So does the overly dignified lady in the green lamé gown. Now several comedians pull out really big hand cannons and, laughing wildly, begin to blow away as many heads as possible, exploding them like watermelons. Guns are coming out everywhere; exploded, wounded, immortal people are shooting wildly — everyone’s being drawn in. The whole place is just strings of guts and guns, implacably engaged in hatred and rage. Only Curly still dodges the inaccurates. Only Curly — immaculate, unkillable, and still funny.

  CURLY, LARRY, AND OSWALD

  In this episode it is Curly who rides beside Jackie in the Cadillac on that fateful day. Instead of sitting back in a dignified way, however, Curly is standing and cupping his hands high in the air over his head while people cheer. As the car turns into Dealey Plaza and the bullets strike, there is a sudden piercing sound of school bells and big chunks of Curly’s head come flying off. Curly, who has been knocked ass-over-tips right off the back of the Cadillac, gets up from the bloody mess he’s in and starts running around, trying to find bits of his brains, while Larry and Moe conduct an investigation. Afterward, Curly, who is immortal in this episode, is put in a box and never let out.

  THE PRESLEY TWINS

  It is widely known that Elvis was a twin. Official documents tell us that Elvis’ identical twin brother, Caan, died at birth. But baby Caan never really died. There were always two Presley boys. When one appeared the other disappeared. When one emerged the other hid. Mrs. Presley liked it that way. A kid in the closet and a kid on TV.Usually, it was Caan who was kept in the closet; but when Caan came out Elvis went in, and that’s how it was from day one, for God had sent the two down and no one else knew but Vernon and Lou. Elvis had the raspy voice, the one that sang “Jailhouse Rock,” t
he one that sang “Hound Dog” — that hacksaw thing in the throat. Then he would leave the stage and Caan would come on and do the “Love Me Tenders,” the “Don’t Be Cruels” in a sweet, milky voice and no one knew. No one knew but Vernon and Lou and no one ever suspected. After the fame came, Caan started to want to come out of the closet but Mother wouldn’t allow it. There were threats, scenes. The brothers started fighting. Then, when he was drafted, it was Elvis who did all the time while Caan slacked off. This was when Caan started doing prescription drugs — all the pharmaceuticals he could get his hands on. You see, Lou was the Doc and the Doc knew, and he thought he was prescribing for two but Caan was scarfing the lot. The twins began to look different. That is why, after the army, Caan and Elvis did so little TV. There is a moment in the Elvis Live from Hawaii video, though, that is very telling. You think it’s live and uncut but those who saw the original remember “Elvis,” after sleazing his way through “Love Me Tender,” asking to be excused. He gets up laughing and leaves the whole world hanging for four minutes as he goes to the washroom. What is now evident is that the real Elvis was in there wearing an identical outfit. He came out and did that great hacksaw vocal on “One Night With You.” This is Elvis at his best. He can’t stop smiling. There is no self-deprecation now. But notice his right hand; the familiar knuckleduster is no longer present — began to be more and more physical differences between the two men. Sometimes Elvis would start a gig thin and confident, then Caan would do the second night, already starting to bulge. The cheap American pharmaceuticals had begun to break down his capillaries. Elvis withdrew and watched helplessly from the sidelines as his brother slipped into the puffy, pathetic narcosis of the famed last days. The man who died on the toilet that day — his body should never have been found. He was to have been discreetly buried, out of the way finally, so that Elvis the survivor might emerge at last: miraculously thin, confident, pelvic, and laughing, to conduct the greatest comeback of all time. But the body was found. And to all the world this was Elvis. Stricken with the loss of his brother, the real Elvis saw his chance at freedom. Without telling a soul, he headed for the nearest shopping plaza. And that is why there are so many sightings. Do you really think that many people could be wrong? It is Elvis that they are seeing. He is out there. Still.

  PARALLELVIS UNIVERSE 2003

  Saddam demands the U.S. turn over Elvis Presley. The U.S. says “No, we couldn’t, even if we wanted to. Elvis is no more. Elvis died.” But the Iraqis claim they have numerous reports from defectors. It is well known — Elvis has been seen at supermarkets. Not just Elvis, but numerous Elvises. A proliferation of Elvises, unstable, explosive. If Elvis is unleashed again the effect on the masses will be destructive. They demand the turn-over of Elvis or they will attack. It is asserted repeatedly that Elvis died of a heart attack on August i6th, 1977. The U.S. provides documents: death certificates, coroners’ reports, photos, but they are disbelieved, mocked as forgeries. The United Nations confirms there has been absolutely no sign of the living Elvis for years. Reports of there being a still-living Elvis are considered to be mass fantasies thought up by freaks. Wouldn’t he have told his own daughter, Lisa Marie? They send a team to look for Elvis. They interview Sam Phillips. Still no Elvis. But, they say, that’s just because people are afraid to tell them where Elvis is. Finally, despite world protest, the Iraqi army comes up from Mexico, immediately securing the Texas oil fields. They quickly conquer America, but when the dust settles neither Elvis nor Bush is anywhere to be found. The American people are very thirsty; their water supply has been shut off by the war. Their children have been murdered. It’s reported that Iraq deliberately lied about Elvis being alive. “It wasn’t just about Elvis, anyway,” says Saddam. “George Bush was evil. He was never democratically elected. He executed more people in the state of Texas than all the other states combined.” They leak stories about the Nazi past of Bush’s ancestry. Everybody agrees that America does seem a lot more relaxed now that Bush is gone. Anyway, the capture of Elvis is considered imminent. There is a report that Elvis is likely in Canada. Canada denies having Elvis. Iraq warns Canada that they will treat harbouring Elvis as an act of war. Saddam makes a big speech, saying that the U.S.A., Canada, and Britain are part of an “Axis of Elvis.”

  THE NEW CRUISE MAN

  He walks in calmly over the mountains, at first very wooden, but then more and more smoothly as he goes down a prescribed road to a prescribed city, and there, with a wide radium glow in his eyes, he joins in polite cocktail conversation, waiting for someone to say the word “orange.”

  THE COMBINATION CRUISE MAN AND WOMAN

  Both of them have been given a very strong impression of a location. It is usually an embassy or a beautiful public statue or garden. Coming from different directions to this spot, a tug greater than that of the atom bomb to Nagasaki will draw them together. They will veer in, arms flailing helplessly toward each other like dead cracking planets, a deep sonic boom when their hands touch. Then, the real threat being their ensuing exhibitionism, they will begin to perform slow, persuasive, public foreplay. Eventually, after much musical, but overtly sexual dancing and rubbing up against one another, he will draw first one, then another, of her black stockings down. There, on one knee, with a smooth upward swooping of his gold-dust hands he will stroke her breasts as he rubs his tongue into her nucleonic heat. Not till his big, atomic, techno-gristle, all glowing and red, finally pops out with a tear from his flannels, will people finally begin to shout at them. But by then it will be too late. She will arch over backward; he will insert the big black dinger into her glowing crack. And when the first zero flickers in the egg’s eye, the whole locale goes up like the wings of a thousand thrushes.

  THE SURREALIST AIR FORCE

  For some reason the item in the universe most amenable to longdistance accuracy is the pig. A two-tonne pig, when it is hurled from the sky, breaks open in a great gush. That’s why we are dropping the pigs, dropping the pigs. All our swine production goes into this. No one eats bacon. Every drop of pig’s blood is for your country. A man loves his pig but it’s just a bag of blood for the war effort. We need your pig! One of millions to drop squealing. But then a two-tonne pig hits a mosque. The entire Arab world is outraged. It has been claimed that the pigs were strategic, accurate, state of the art. But an entire neighbourhood is killed by falling pigs. They threaten to drop Cher. There is a massive protest. All around the world people march to stop them from dropping Cher. They say, “No decisions have yet been made about dropping Cher.” Then they drop Cher. She falls screaming, “If I could turn back time.” They threaten to drop Madonna. There are suggestions they may drop Mariah Carey. She will fall doing the high note. They are dropping comedians over glass houses now. How they shriek. How they wail. We are losing at least a celebrity a day to this insane war. All you have to do is hand over Elvis and we will go away. We have the right to protect ourselves from Elvis. They drop blue fish, spring-loaded bibles to nip our nuts. To snap our vaginas shut. They drop broken clocks, blood magnets, poisoned crosses, Pope hats with fire alarms. Down with the elephants. The whales. How the mighty tigers fall, those great claws useless in the naked air. How the jellyfish sail. How the household dogs plummet. From a mile up, a falling cat can kill. Babies — burst open, limbs askew, broken on the barricades, spattered on the training places, smeared on tanks — 5000 bombers, a thousand times a day, so that no area of the city is left untouched. So that the sky is never empty of falling babies. Babies away! Pre-frozen babies never touched but for this one shove. Stiff blue babies who bang like bells and split open in agony when they hit the ground. Starved babies with explosions in their eyes. We are dropping the preemies. Missiles full of quints. Launching the sextuplets. But we’re falling behind in baby production. We are fucking like mad trying to keep up with the bloodbath. We need more babies. Have you considered having a baby? Uncle Spam needs you — to have a baby.