Bob Odenkirk - A Load of Hooey

[ At this point, Harrison rises to leave —]

McCARTNEY: Don’t leave! Don’t leave, please, we need you to noodle around in the background! Where’s that sitar?

[ Harrison slams the door —]

McCARTNEY: Oh, no! Now who will noodle around? Nobody?

LENNON: Look, man, we get it, you wrote a perfect song. Congratulations, but really, I mean, what’s next?

YOKO: [ unintelligible “artistic” clucking noises ]

McCARTNEY: YOKO! Is Yoko here? There you are, dear, under the covers! Do you play the “bed” now? Is it an instrument?

Uh-oh, have I accidentally given you a new idea for a performance? Oh well, by all means please scream out one of your bloodcurdling antisongs to strip away the execrable beauty I just plastered all over the room because I just wrote the greatest FUCKING MELODY EVER FUCKING FUCK-WRITTEN! Let’s hear it one more time just to check—

[ Paul plays “Blackbird” again…and again, it is a perfect song. Note: no overdubs needed .]

McCARTNEY: Yup: THE GREATEST SONG EVER WRITTEN! Glad I double-checked! Hey, where’s everybody going?

[ The remaining Beatles have left the room. McCartney, exhausted, stays behind and plays “Blackbird” to himself three more times, smiling the entire time .]

I’m Rod Blogbert, candidate for Senate, and I approve this message.

Rape is an awful act. The other day, in a TV interview, I misspoke. I used the wrong words— guilty , and pleasure —in the wrong way, and for those words, in the order they came out of my mouth, I apologize. The letters in the words were also at fault for having lined up in such a manner so as to form those wrong words, but since I am going to need those letters to deliver this apology, I’ll go easy on them — this time.

As a candidate running for Senate, I want justice: both for the victims of sexual assault and for myself, for misspeaking. We have both been wronged.

I have a compassionate heart, and right now it hurts — for those victims, as well as for my political career. The mistake I made was in the words my mouth spoke, not in the heart I have. If my heart had its own mouth, it would never have spoken those words in that order.

But, I am sad to say, my mouth is not alone in its dastardly malfeasance. My lips formed many of the consonants I used in my interview, but they could not have done so without the cooperation of my teeth and tongue. Together, this “troublesome trio” conspired to misrepresent the intentions in my heart by forcing my mouth to emit sounds that in turn suggested that rape victims may experience something other than a horrible violation. I’m not certain how much my lungs had to do with all of this. I suspect that neither lung was aware of the scandalous, offensive, utterly retarded purpose that the air they expelled was put in service of during “The Great Misspeak.” Let me say that if I know my lungs, they would never have cooperated were they aware of what lay ahead for the air they were soon to expel through my vocal cords.

This leads me to the big one: where was my brain in all of this? I’ll tell you where it was: nowhere to be found. My heart is in pain because my brain had abstained. Hey, that rhymes. Anyhow, my brain really needs to “show up” for these events where my mouth is talking. I’m thinking of employing a “brain/mouth” rule if you choose me for Senate.

So let me be clear: I do not think that the words rape, guilty , and pleasure belong in the same sentence — or even paragraph. I probably shouldn’t have used the word retarded earlier, either, but I am typing this and my fingers may yet be attempting an overthrow. Oh, if only you all could hear what my heart is thinking!

This, then, is my apology, and I hope it suffices. I have been asked to withdraw from the race by my party, my friends, my wife, and my conscience, but my gut won’t let me.

Excuse me for jumping and shouting “Hooray!”

But I found a Jackson Pollock today!

It was under the stairs, behind some chairs.

It had been there for years, we were all unawares.

In a spare space a-clutter with old brooms and dustbins,

in rurally rural old rural Wisconsin!

At first I’d no idea, unsure what I’d found,

some old thing worth nothing, thought I—

nothing world renowned…

But now I know it’s a Pollock and here’s how I know—

all the splotches of paint are placed there just so.

They “pop” and they mingle to coax forth a mood,

they tell you a story, they force you to brood,

upon their deep meaning, there’s just something MORE there

than just splotches of paint that are going nowhere.

So I know it’s a real one—

a top-notch big deal one—

the kind that will hang in a Met or a Getty,

and when I know what it’s worth, will I sell it?

You bet-y!

But how will I prove it? There’s no autograph,

I might show it to everyone and everyone will just laugh.

I have searched for a fingerprint or a hair I could test,

to prove that my Pollock is ol’ Jack at his best.

I can’t find a one, not a single damn follicle—

but I know if I did it would surely be Pollockle!

Oh, relax, I am certain, no need to get colicky,

the experts will swear that my Pollock is Pollocky.

So, what was it doing in Grandmama’s storage?

Forgotten before I went out on my forage?

Let’s just say Grandma wandered, she roved and she mingled,

before she was married, back when she was single.

Famous names, it was rumored, she’d befriend and be-met,

she was the toast of New York,

and the belle of ’gansett!

(A side note: my Pollock was swaddled in paper,

with typing upon it I’ve just begun to decipher.

Some absurdishy prose about night and its mother

signed by a Kurt Vonne-something-or-other.)

But if finders aren’t keepers,

if that’s not enough,

to prove provenance and stop all the guff—

listen here, final proof is coming your way,

and you won’t put a roadblock in my big payday.

Grandma knew there’d be doubters, second-guessers, and pros

who would line up to back up each other’s big “no’s.”

A line of art experts, a doubt promenade!

So she wrote very clearly for whom it was made—

In the corner the dedication: “Bobby O., 2nd Grade”!

“ Know Thyself . Come on. Hurry up. We’re waiting. Oh, forget it.”

— Socrates

You are probably wondering where I got these amazing abs. They’re so ripply and rock hard, they’re difficult to fathom. If I were a character on a reality show about me and my middle-aged acquaintances, I might be nicknamed the Conundrum, in reference to these abs of mine. See, the abs don’t match the visage. My perturbed, puffy face sets you up for a blubbery gut. But then you see these abs, stacked like bricks, clearly delineated, and you have to ask, “Does he work out for two or three hours a day, or does he just work out all day?” Or perhaps you think I purchased them from a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills. My secret is simple — dynamic tension! Constant dynamic tension. Tension that is tense, and dynamic, and never ending — the best kind of tension there is! I have analyzed each ab and where it draws its tension from so that you, too, can get the abs you’ve always dreamed of!