Reconciliation. This week, I read about the woman on the Texas School Board who thinks Barack Obama is going to open the doors for terrorists. And I saw all three anti-gay amendments pass in state elections, presumably because hearing the word ‘gay’ might make innocent people turn gay. RedState has begun its Operation Leper, so they might throw out all the reasonable voices in the GOP and turn it into a teeny-tiny echo chamber of Sarah Palin and her ilk (and her elk, presumably.)
And let’s not forget that the President-Elect is a Marxist/Islamist/Radical Black Christian and Dick Cheney planned 9/11. There are crazies all around. Enough crazies to fill a small city (although the right-wing half of them would rather stay in small towns.)
So I give you this. It’s rough. It needs many, many revisions. And I did NOT pick the craziest of the crazies. But I think it’s not so terrible. Let me know what you think.
Come back later tonight/this weekend for my on-time wrapup. I’ll have links to the other sketches then. But for now, please enjoy mine. And comment! Comment! Comment!
Extremes Attraction
INT. SPACESHIP PASSAGEWAY – PERMANENT NIGHT
Curved plasteel walls stretch into the distance. The thrum of the Keeslar-Morales drive is just audible. With a WHOOSH, a door slides open and SUB-COMMANDANT BILL O’REILLY enters in his skin-tight utility uniform. He is followed by ARCH-LIEUTENANT MICHELLE MALKIN, sashaying in her skin-tight utilities, unzipped provocatively, exposing cleavage.
MALKIN
Sub-commandant! You can’t let them on the ship, they’ll infect us all!
O’REILLY
It’s a risk we’ve got to take!
INT. SPACESHIP TRANSPORTER ROOM – PERMANENT NIGHT
CHIEF RUSH LIMBAUGH tests the limits of his kevlar-spandex uniform standing at a control panel.
O’REILLY
Bring them over, Limby.
LIMBAUGH
Aye, Sub-commandant.
Limbaugh pushes buttons, turns dials, and slides a lever. Twinkling lights and tinkling chimes fill the room and three forms take shape. KEITH-O in a custom tailored suit, JANEANE in hemp clothing cut like potato sacks, and AL FRANKEN in tweed appear.
MALKIN
Look out! She’s got a gun under her burka!
TWO SECURITY OFFICERS appear out of the corners and tackle Janeane.
MALKIN (CONT’D)
Good job! She was–
SECURITY OFFICER #1
It’s just a hooka, sir.
MALKIN
That’s just as bad! She was going to make all our children smoke
(whispering)
mar-ee-wan-ah.
LIMBAUGH
You’d better let me search her. No telling what other drugs she may be carrying.
O’REILLY
Belay yourself, Chief! Doctor Phil tells me you’ve been spending quite enough time in sickbay.
(beat)
I’m Sub-commandant O’Reilly of the Earthship John Wayne. Welcome aboard.
KEITH-O
You’re a terrible person, O’Reilly. Truly. The. Worst. Person.
MALKIN
Maybe we shouldn’t have responded to your distress signal then!
Janeane and the security guards get up and she gives each of them a little baggie.
JANEANE
We responded to yours, you bimbo!
MALKIN
Don’t be rid–
O’REILLY
–Can it, Michelle! It was our distress signal. I told you that.
MALKIN
But you told me–
O’REILLY
You have anyone like this?
AL FRANKEN
(sighs)
We’ve got Sharpton.
O’REILLY
I’m actually truly sorry.
(beat)
Okay, here’s the problem, our jump drive computers are fried.
KEITH-O
Don’t you have a backup?
O’REILLY
The backup computers are all infected with a virus. Our morale officer, Bennett, installed poker on all of them, but the software was a Trojan Horse. We’re practically drifting. All we’ve got is our Hadron drives for maneuvering. We’re stuck sub-light.
LIMBAUGH
We’ve only got six months supply in the mess!
AL FRANKEN
(looks at Limbaugh)
I’d guess only three.
JANEANE
What do you want from us, O’Reilly?
O’REILLY
Can you send over your Systems Officer to assist with a complete overhaul of our network? Ours isn’t up to the task.
AL FRANKEN
Why’s that?
O’REILLY
No one properly vetted Ensign Palin. Apparently MIT was not one of the many schools she attended.
KEITH-O
We’d like to help, we honestly would–.
MALKIN
But you won’t right? Typical. You elites just want to take and take from the hard-working people and–
KEITH-O
–but we don’t have a Systems Officer, per se.
O’REILLY
What do you mean?
JANEANE
We don’t have ranks or titles. Everyone just pitches in on the Gaia. From each according to his abilities…
AL FRANKEN, JANEANE, KEITH-O
…to each according to his needs.
JANEANE
It works pretty well, other than all those course corrections. Someday it would be nice to reach a planet.
O’REILLY
You need to have a clearly defined chain of command.
AL FRANKEN
We don’t really believe in that. That’s why it took us an hour to come over. We had to get the crew together and debate who should come. Then we had to debate whether to bring the talking stick or leave it back on the Gaia.
MALKIN
(under breath)
Gay-uh is right.
Limbaugh snickers like a schoolboy and minces in the background for Malkin’s benefit.
AL FRANKEN
I guess we could ask around and see if anyone’s got any experience with this sort of problem.
INT. SPACESHIP CONFERENCE ROOM – PERMANENT NIGHT
O’Reilly, Malkin, and the three from the ESS Gaia are joined by JOSEPHINE JONZZ, mid-20s and transgendered, wearing a skimpy dress and JOE WURLZ, late 30s and bald, wearing a gray jumpsuit. O’Reilly frequently leers at JOSEPHINE.
MALKIN
Do you have a lot of experience with computer systems?
JOSEPHINE
Nah, not really. Sometimes I’d cash out customers at the salon, but I’d usually make a mistake and the owner’d have to come help.
AL FRANKEN
It was her or Steve Jobs. Even I don’t hate you enough to do that.
MALKIN
Joe, why don’t you take him/her/it down to the computer core.
JOE
No.
O’REILLY
Are you disobeying a direct order, mister?
JOE
Sub-commandant, arch-lieutenant…all due respect, but I can’t work with *that*. Back when I was a Telephone Sanitizer I wouldn’t even have cleaned its phone. Just spit on it when it wasn’t looking.
JOSEPHINE
Hey, that’s not nice!
O’REILLY
(leering again)
No, it’s not nice Ms. Jonzz.
JOSEPHINE
Josie. You can call me Josie.
O’REILLY
And you can call me Papa Bear.
MALKIN
Oh, get a room! We’re spinning out of control here.
A communicator on the table dings and Malkin presses a button.
MALKIN
Go ahead.
TECH (FILTER)
Arch-lieutenant, the Gaia has docked with us!
MALKIN
You see! I told you they were going to come over here and kill us all and introduce Sharia and make us get gay married and take away our guns!!!
AL FRANKEN
All at once? How would…never mind.
JANEANE
It must be hard to be you.
O’REILLY
What’s the meaning of this, Franken?!
AL FRANKEN
I have no idea. We never discussed docking.
TECH (FILTER)
It appears that our computer systems are back online. They’ve networked with the Gaia’s. There’s–
A hologram – much like the CNN hologram – shimmers into view. BARACK OBAMA and JOHN MCCAIN stand arm-in-arm.
OBAMA
We hope you’re all enjoying your accomodations.
MCCAIN
Is Sarah doing well, I hope?
OBAMA
You might wonder why we’ve brought you all together.
MALKIN
You had nothing to do with it! We take personal responsibility for our actions!
OBAMA
(laughs)
Yes, of course you do, Michelle. Anyway, we brought your ships together so we could say goodbye one last time.
AL FRANKEN
What? I don’t understand! I supported you!
OBAMA
Yes Al, thank you for that. I know you did. But America needs to come together now, and voices like yours are part of the old, divisive ways.
MCCAIN
We don’t have the time or room for any more of the extremes to be tearing the middle apart.
KEITH-O
And Senator McCain, sir, do you believe you are in the middle? You are not, sir.
MCCAIN
What can I say? I’m a maverick. Always bouncing around. I woke up and realized America needs to move forward, not rightward or leftward.
O’REILLY
So the world we were supposed to be colonizing? The one filled with willing slaves?
MCCAIN
That was a lie to get you on the John Wayne.
JANEANE
And the one we were going to, with universal healthcare and legalized pot and no corporations conspiring against us? That was a lie, too?
OBAMA
“Lie” is such an ugly word, Janeane. Let’s just say it was a campaign promise that didn’t come true.
MCCAIN
Your ships are now in a decaying orbit around the sun. You have another day before the boys in NASA say the heat will be too much and the hull will vaporize.
MALKIN
I thought we were hundreds of light years away!
OBAMA
Well, Michelle, perhaps if you had paid a little more attention in your science classes and not believed every silly anti-scientific fantasy that crossed before you, you would know that isn’t possible. And now we’d like to say our goodbyes. Have a pleasant journey and know that your sacrifice is going to make America and the world a better place.
The hologram cuts out. Silence. The thrum of what clearly are NOT Keeslar-Morales drives is audible.
Joe the Phone Sanitizer looks at Janeane.
JOE
You wanna?
JANEANE
Sure.
Joe and Janeane leave with lust and despair in their eyes. Al Franken nods to Keith-O and Michelle Malkin.
AL FRANKEN
Not much time left. Whatdya think?
The three of them leave the room. Michelle looks like a schoolgirl, giddy with the knowledge that she can drop the act.
O’REILLY
(To Josephine)
Right here on the table works for me.
BLACKOUT