Das Kops

Montage of Nazi Stormtroopers busting people. Nazi regalia, but modern production values. The soundtrack plays Bob Marley's "Bad Boys" -- but with a Germanic, oompa-band arrangement.
INT APARTMENT - NIGHT

We hear TV noises in background. Standard news broadcast, standard talking head voice in background, just subliminal, nothing unusual about it at first.

VOICE: ... looking back on the often painful history of the century that went before. Today itself the...

Camera slowly pans past row of books on shelf -- lotsa dystopian literature from first part of 20th Century (“The Iron Heel,” “It Can’t Happen Here,” “Brave New World,” etc.) also fair amount of leftist stuff from same time period. (Ideally, all titles should be printed before 1944.) Camera keeps panning...

MALE NEWSCASTER: ... 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of New York City which led the United States to unconditional surrender and a swift end to the war. In a lighter note, Youthkorp troops 24 and 36 marked the anniversary with a bombing of their own -- water balloons!

Bookshelf ends. Camera tracks across wall to edge of door. We see it’s locked up with massive, redundant system of deadbolts, locks and chains telling us whoever lives here has done serious job barricading themselves in.

FEMALE NEWSCASTER: I guess he’s all wet.

MALE NEWSCASTER: (chuckling) I think you’re right, Helga. I --

Sound of TV changing channels. Camera continues past door to edge of wall tracks at extreme CU over plaster pattern, maybe some old revolutionary poster, to end of wall which doglegs into a room.

VOICE: ...Reisfenstahl film festival all this weekend.

Camera enters room. We hear but don’t see it’s the source of sound from TV. Camera goes in on stunned looking guy on couch watching TV. (Since he’s watching TV and camera is dead-on his face we infer TV is directly behind camera.) He sits there, unblinking, holding TV-clicker; pill bottles and empty whiskey bottles surround him on the couch. TV babbles in background. Camera goes into his face. Something dead, burnt-out and defeated about it. Ideally, a Steven Wright type. Camera zooms into one eye. Sound of clicker clicking Go to --

COMMERCIAL:

Shots of aggressive, evil-looking SUV lifted from somebody else’s real commercial.

ANNOUNCER: Strength through joy, with the Panzer, the Reich’s most popular sports utility vehicle!

Go to: happy Aryan-looking family in one. Dad pops head out window.

DAD: And now with 50% more livingspace!

ANNOUNCER: It’s the superior choice for superior...

CLICK:

Bavarian oompa band version of “Bad Boys” cops theme.

Title graphic: GESTAPO!

ANNOUNCER: Brought to you live-as-it-happens by the Ministry of Public Information -- as always the people you see are not actors.

Go to Stormtroopers inside police car.

POLICE RADIO: 411 in Oyster Bay, 411 in Oyster Bay.

STORMTROOPER #1: (explaining to camera) 411. That’s harboring inferior races.

STORMTROOPER #2: Submen.

STORMTROOPER: Yeah, whatever you call ‘em. Over 50 years now and they’re still some of em clinging on, hiding out. Real hard to kill ‘em.

STORMTROOPER #1: Well they don’t wanna die -- from their perspective. In a way you can’t blame ‘em.

STORMTROOPER #2: Yeah. Like blaming cockroaches when you spray em. Raid!
(Both laugh)

STORMTROOPER #1: But what really bothers me is when people of Aryan blood help them out. It’s like they don’t know what we fought for all those years. That really bugs me.

STORMTROOPER #2: (Holding picture -- some kind of print out -- for benefit of camera) This is the guy we think they’re hiding.

STORMTROOPER #1: What's that, some kinda Indian or something?

STORMTROOPER #2: I dunno. Hawaiian, or maybe he’s just in a Hawaiian shirt.

STORMTROOPER #1: OK. This is it.

Go to EXT shot. handheld camera following GESTAPO.

STORMTROOPER #2: (going up to door -- whispering to camera) This is the part I hate.

Kicks in door. They both rush in

STORMTROOPER #2: Raust! Raust! On the floor!

Terrified family does. STORMTROOPER #1 examines their faces. STORMTROOPER #2 roots behind a display shelf. Finds something ...

STORMTROOPER: Everybody looks Aryan. You got your papers?

STORMTROOPER #1: (holding Kachina doll) Whatthehell is this?

CLICK

Go to guy on exercise machine. Horst Wessel theme.

ANNOUNCER: The Nazi track!

CLICK

MALE NEWSCASTER: ... 60th memorial book burning in Island Park.

FEMALE NEWSCASTER: Most of these books are props, I understand.

MALE NEWSCASTER: Right. But it’s important to re --

CLICK

(INT police car)

STORMTROOPER #1: ... intellectuals are the worst. Talk about cockroaches...

STORMTROOPER #2: But they always give themselves away.

STORMTROOPER #1: Yeah. Can’t keep their mouths shut. Is this the address?

STORMTROOPER #2:: (reading paper) Yeah.

EXT, APARTMENT BUILDING - NIGHT

They get out, walk down the hallway carrying a battering ram, then stop at one of the apartments. Check apartment number on slip of paper. Yep. Right apartment number. Start battering door with battering ram.
INT, APARTMENT - NIGHT

Go to guy on couch. Camera pulls back. We hear pounding sounds in background. Camera goes out, tracks across wall back to doors. We see the door shuddering as, obviously, STORMTROOPERS on other side are pounding it in. The camera continues to track, returns to the bookshelf and the soon-to-be-burned books. We hear the door shatter and the STORMTROOPERS crash in.

Unbearable commecials

I hate commercials with bears in them. There are currently two commercials out there where a pair of friends encounter a bear and one of the friends sets the other friend up to get mauled by the bear so he can get all the goodies, (Smirnoff Ice, Planters Peanuts, or whatever the hell it was.) Are the people who write this shit sitting in cubicles directly across from each other and ripping each other off like lazy-ass SAT cheaters?

“Bears! Yeah!”

There’s one commercial where a cartoon bear is taking a shit in the woods. The bear gets a scratched-ass look of pain on his face due to Brand X toilet paper. Another bear turns him on to Charmin Ultra Soft. The bear takes another shit, then wipes himself with the nice toilet paper. The bear gets a look of deep, ursine, anal gratification — the look of pleasure is unmistakably sexual. 9 times out of ten, they show this when I’m eating. A cartoon bear deriving intense pleasure from wiping soft things on its ass is not something I wish to contemplate when I’m eating. Not to mention ever.

On the other hand, if they’re going to go this route they might as well go for it. Something like...


Warning! X-Rated Bear Comedy!

Ken Keseywulf

Unlock the word horde
Tell of Kesey, son of Paine
Of Oregon came he, wild wideeyed
Down from tall trees, stobs skin ripping
Word world wielding
Further far of faring he
Intrepid tripster!
Speak now of bus-bedecked with psychoswirl
Cassidy, sire of Babydriver, at the wheel
Moriarity!
John the Baptist who lost his head
On and on and on in final frame per second
Super-8 and Ampex sucking light and life into their pools
Is this trip really necessary?
Kesey!
Set forth -- into the right now naked
Set forth -- bullbare bright skull opened
Reddy Killowatt bulb burning
In dark time of closed minds inward turned around him
When freedom’s hall was clasped
In Combine’s grasp of Grendel talons
Military madness, monster of might
A time when knightmares gripped the skin
When sons of William the Wild, he the son of Donovan
Offending Cosmo the Bright One
Said “let us bring the war within the skull
Make mouse fight cat and cat cower”
Of fruit of ergot did they forge
Sandoz physic, herb of mind’s door opening
War’s weapon of weakness wielded in skull
Of this he took but did not cower
Eyes open, surrounded by the broken ones
In Grendel’s depths, pool of death
He saw there peace, not war, clear water
Fountain not laid by hand of man
No sword but hand of light there
Lady of the Lake, Liberty’s arm restored in light
Holding torch bestowing light like diamonds
Shining stabbing down to Uncle Sam blue deep in dungeon’s depth
Shining crying “get the fuck out of there”
For he shocked the skull to enter
Skull within skull, keep of Faust
Entered down and in tomb’s womb
Found hard within soft, yin in yang
The pool of fire, Fire on the Lake
As spoken in the tossed bones
Pools of Bibbit’s eyes where dead men dwell and dying live
For light in darkness lies and in prison freedom
Yet down in deepdown dark where monsters are
Nurse Ratched, Grendel and Bubba fucking mommy
Down he dove there, down to dark depths
Into death’s black pools dove he and fucked the monster
And passed the Acid Test
Owsley!
Fuck the speed limit!
Let perception’s doors open!
Set forth the grateful dead!
Drink skyblue fire and dance in light!
Cross country in your chariot!
Pranking yanking chains and rattling cages
Flute freedom unspelling doom damned dumb
Set Turtle Island swimming free in Ylem
Worldsea of anarchy, Occam’s Ocean ringing
But death dies not when bottom line is clasped
And Combine holds the ledger
(For red is dead and dead not better)
You wanted to look at the books? Here, look at the books!
The numbers must add up
Numb to numb and dumb to dumb!
Mouse will be eaten and cat kill
Dance stilled, songs shushed, writers silenced
The King must die
Is ye natural order of things
Back and to the left, back and to the death
Too many RPMs -- slow down!
We plant the pot, we bronze the shoes, we set you up
For law is power, power law
Combine’s skullfuck on your orbitals
Here’s prison’s prism, hippy -- go refract yourself
But death from death did Kesey steal
Faking suicide died, sort of
Wrote note, left car on cliff, was born again
Dying born into land more dead than dead
Namely Mexico, under the volcano and to the left
In Puerto Vallarta, wreath writhed in excess
But the Combine wasn’t fooled
Mouse roared, cat’s corrned, quaking
But no big shit
For Grendel fucked the knights of the revolution
As they lay sleeping in dayglo Mead Hall
Psychedelic dungeon where phony hippies meet
Even as Kesey did time in Chino
Of knights’ plucked fucked skulls did Grendel gather
All skulls piling into marketing display at JCPenney
Released . . .yeah, right
Out of prison, it was all prison
Miles and miles of unmade movie and books unwritten
Woodstock jumped in the water and drowned
Revolution aborted while rude beasts slouched
Nixon unto Reagan and all of Grendel’s children
Yet what is written has been written
The seeds are in
The mouse is out of the bag
Grendel has been fucked and unfucked can never be
Go to sleep, it’s time to live; wake up, it’s time to die
No problem
Backward turning Kesey never wanted
Further onward, further further
Furthermoreforevermore
No turn unstoned, no bridge unburned
For the flute is always playing
And death is just part of the trip
Of last word heard as gearstripping bus
Was burning turning into
Hall of the Bright One, place of final acidtest, mead indeed
The word unlocked was one last prank
You’re free, you stupid fuckers -- just too dumb to know it
Dumb, damned, free
Furthur!

The Death of Irony

EXT, CEMETERY - DAY
Assembly of weeping mourners at outdoor funeral. Each represents a rhetorical trope.)The headstone reads: IRONY. A Preacher speaks from the lectern. 

PREACHER: Irony ... is dead.

BATHOS: (Weeps insanely)

PREACHER: He is survived by his cruder brother, Satire.