Jack Yeovil - Route 666

Hardacre: Hi guys, this is a manly news show for manly men, so kick that goddamn bitch into the kitchen where she belongs and pop a tube of ice-cold Pivo. Pull up your Lay-Zee-Boy lounger and open the front of your pants if that belt buckle is cutting into your gut. Feel free to scratch that itch. Go on, get your nails into it until your balls feel good. I know the bitch says it's disgusting, but she don't understand the itchy balls phenomenon on account of because she's a chick, right? Anyway, it's not like you got the preacher or the goddamn bank manager coming round to save your soul. Just get comfortable. You finished that first brewski? Hey, have another. I bet you're drinkin' Pivo, the high quality beer brewed from artificial hops by authentic Czechs in the Minneapolis vats of GenTech BevDiv.

You know what would go great with that Pivo? A big plate of Meskin Tortilla Chips slathered in guacamite. Remember, unless it has the GenTech ChowDiv logo, it's not real Meskin food. Sounds good? Well, give that troublesome female a yell and clout her until she dang well brings you a plate. Remember, to the moon, Alice! You're a guy, you work hard all day so she can put her feet up and watch all the ZeeBeeCee soaps, so the least she can do is bring you some dang chips when you're havin' a brewski or eight. Am I right or am I righteous? You surely, purely know I am.

Tonight's rap session is going to incite controversy, so feel free to yell at the teevee if what someone says riles the bejesus out of you. Direct your aggression at the rubberised punching patch to the side of your screen. Of course, for a monthly surcharge of only $3.50 at 14 per cent interest, you could order the new GenTech non-shatter screen. Made of high-quality porous plastic, this scans like your regular boob tube but gives like a punchbag. No longer need you restrain yourself when a whingeing geek comes on to whine that layabouts on welfare need to be re-educated rather than cattle-prodded. You can let fly with a good old guy-style haymaker and have the satisfaction of feeling face crunch under your fist without fear of damaging your knucks or your teevee set. Maybe you've always had a hankering to stick a couple of good right hooks onto one of those stuck-up Miss Priss newstrivia babes who you just know would spread 'em for some guy in a thousand-buck suit with a faggy haircut but would ignore a real man like you as if you were scumdirt in the sewer. Now you can bebop a Lola on that expensive nose without fear of personal bankruptcy. Call the toll-free number flashing on the vid right now for three months' free trial period of an abusable screen. If feelings of hostility last for more than 48 hours after you've hit the teevee, consult your family psychiatrist.

Hell, that's the goddang plugmercials out the way, let's get on with the freakin' show. We got three real guy-type guys up here today. If the boom mike gets in close, you'll be able to hear their balls clack even when they're sitting down. First up, is Mr Thaddeus Turner, a founding director of the Turner-Harvest-Ramirez Agency, the best-known and probably most effective Sanctioned Agency in the United States. And soon to become international, Tad?

Turner: Yes, indeed. We're opening T-H-R depots in London, Karachi, Tokyo, Moscow, Paris and the Antarctic.

Hardacre: So, foreign felons will soon fear the ScumStoppers of your legendary partner, Redd Harvest?

Turner: Yes, indeed. Ms Harvest intends, once she's cleared up outstanding business in the States, to do a tour of duty supervising the establishment of justice T-H-R style throughout the globe. Incidentally, Brunt, she sends regrets that she couldn't be here tonight, but she's out tracking down the last few stragglers of the Southwestern Maniax.

Hardacre: That's the feared gangcult you and the United States Cavalry just totally decimated?

Turner: Yes, indeed. We were proud, as Senator Redford will note, to work closely with federal agencies on this large-scale, supremely successful action.

Redford: Hrrmph grrmph frrmph.

Hardacre: I'm sure the senator has a deal to say on that point later. But not all Ops work for Agencies like T-H-R, with their luxury expense accounts, top-of-the-line equipment, vast infonet resources and a huge staff of back-up personnel. Many Ops have one- or two-man companies and go it alone against crime and criminals, like the gunfighters of the Old West or the private eyes of the '30s. One such is our next guest. Colonel Elvis Presley.

Presley: It's a pleasure to be here, suh.

Hardacre: Thank you. Colonel. Some of us have parents who remember your name in a different context, that of a popular entertainer in the '50s. How did you get from there to here?

Presley: I figure no one really recollects the old days, Mr Hardacre. It was a world of time ago. I went in the army and turned my thinking around, came out after my hitch was up, didn't like what I saw back in civvies, and went in again for a 20-year spell. I saw action in Central America. When I retired, I started up the Hound Dog Agency. I figured things had changed a whole bunch more, not for the better, but one man could make a difference. That's what I see as the job of the Sanctioned Op, making a difference.

Turner: Yes, indeed. I'd like to put in that I agree with Colonel Presley. In troubled times, Joe Citizen rests easier knowing Sanctioned Ops are out there, guarding the walls of civilisation against gangcults at the gates.

Hardacre: The client list of the T-H-R Agency is a mite different from the sort of folks who go to Hound Dog. You mainly represent multinats for fat fees or go after fugitives with big bounties on their heads, while Hound Dog advertises its services to folks with no other resources, widows and orphans and such.

Presley: I'd like to bet a dollar Mr Turner is going to say "yes, indeed".

Turner: Yes, in…ulp. Actually, it's true we service a different sector of the market. Diversity is what caring capitalism is about, Brunt.

Hardacre: And our third debater is Senator Robert Redford of California, the Golden Boy from the Golden State.

Redford: Good evening. Brunt.

Hardacre: I hope the camera crew remembered to take the glare off that grin. Senator. I've a nasty feeling your teeth just blinded a fourth of our viewers.

Redford: Very amusing. I was led to believe this would be a serious debate.

Hardacre: That's how we are at ZeeBeeCee, Bobby. We're funny as all get-out on a Tuesday afternoon, but we get to the heart of the issues and dig around until we're comfortable. Since this is supposed to be Nostalgia Newstrivia, we should start by reminding ourselves what all the fuss was about back in the '80s. I think it's fair to say the first four or five years of the decade just saw everything in America going all out to hell in a steam-powered handcart.

Turner: Yes, indeed.

Hardacre: I knew you'd say that, Tad. We hit 1980 with Spiro Agnew in the White House and the beginnings of heavy environmental problems. For reasons no one has got around to explaining, the whole of Middle America was seriously turning into the blighted desert we have these days. Some loons say it's all uncontrolled emissions from industry and toxic wastes from polluting plants, but that seems mainly to be anti-corp propaganda spread by dissatisfied eggheads. Others are suggesting that perhaps the climatic changes are more likely to be caused by uncontrollable cosmic forces. UFOs or whatever. Maybe even a sneaky plot by the Pan-Islamic Congress or the Central American Confederation to wreck our glorious ecosystem by pumping in desert germs. A lot of folks at the grassroots believe things like that, though there are less grassroots around these days.

At the same time, our country's law enforcement infrastructure was showing all the gumption of a dried-up cow turd. Tribalism became a force in American society and gangcults sprang up all over the place, at first mostly founded on religious or political splinter groups or simple style decisions. Old gangcults – like the Ku Klux Klan, Satan's Stormtroopers, the Sons of the Desert, the Los Angeles Crips, and the Amboy Dukes – became street-corner superpowers and began to run communities for their own profit and amusement. In 1984, gangcult-related violence was a bigger killer in America than lung cancer. New names blazed into the headlines in bursts of semi-automatic gunfire: the Virus Vigilantes, the Psychopomps, the Frat Boys, the Flying Circus. And the Maniax, a loose confederation of motorsickle crazies who rapidly absorbed lesser groups and became a bigger, better-equipped, more dangerous outfit than any other armed force based in the Americas. In 1985, it was estimated the average family spent as much on self-defence as on food, either by purchasing more of the weaponry that flooded the market or by subscribing to one of many protection-insurance schemes.