Pontiffinale
When the pope dies,
I hope I hear the news
from Sylvia Poggioli.
She is a rock
(and I love the way
she rolls her Rs).

Sylvia Poggioli said the
papal camerlengo
(oh, how she pronounced
that word!)
will strike John Paul on the forehead
with a silver hammer
and call his name three times
to prove he is dead.

I admired how
she did not speculate about
the pope's condition just
before that hammer business.
You can tell Sylvia Poggioli
has a keen sense of
suffering-induced redemption.
"Bang bang Maxwell's silver
hammer came down upon his head,"
she did not sing but had
stuck in her head, I bet. An earworm
at a time like this!

Thousands of news people
slither at St. Peter's Square,
where penthouse views
of the chimney have been
sold out for years. It's no Thunder
Over Louisville but it's still a
pretty good show.
I just hope that
I don't hear the news
from Brian Williams or Jim Lehrer
when the pope dies.
I hope I hear the news
from Sylvia Poggioli.

Woo-hoo! Thunder! Get Your War On!

Those of you who live in my beloved Louisville probably noticed the recent telethon to raise money to support Thunder Over Louisville, the fireworks extravaganza and air show that takes place each year as part of the Kentucky Derby Festival. Even though corporate sponsors pay for the show, Derby Festival officials raised another $71,000 from the public thanks to the "Thunder Funder" telethon broadcast on seven local TV stations. Festival board chairman Dan Owens told the Courier Journal that public response was "truly heart-warming." To which I can only add, What in the godDAMN HELL is WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? You just wasted 71 THOUSAND dollars on fireworks! Are you fucking inSANE?

Our community is besieged with homelessness, poverty, pollution, under-funded schools, high cancer rates, police brutality, a brain drain, and a butt glut, and you picked up the phone to pledge money for Thunder Over Fucking Louisville? AFTER Ford Motor Co, UPS, Caesars Indiana and Chase Bank already committed to foot the bill?

GodDAMMIT sometimes people make me CRAZY!

What must that decision-making process have been like for donors? "Well, gee, there are starving-yet-somehow-morbidly-obese, mentally retarded children with cancer and muscular dystrophy and gout and acne and heart disease and Christ's Own Colic in our community, but those purty lights are gonna flash for 35 MINUTES, man! And they go pow! pow! pow! You take Visa?..."

On the plus side, the CJ reports that, thanks to the Thunder Funder, there will now be more toilets than ever. Which will come in handy when everybody needs to vomit over this year's music theme: "A tribute to 50 years of rock 'n' roll." Gosh, if there's one thing that doesn't get enough tribute paid to it, it's fucking classic rock. I wonder if they'll play the Beatles.

Freebird!

(By the way, is it just me or is "Chase" a hilarious name for a bank? I bet their motto is "Catch me if you can!")

Now here's an idea that'll raise even more money for Thunder: Let Halliburton pay for it. Since Thunder is a day-long glorification of war and the military anyway, why not? It's the least they can do. Besides, it would ultimately be good for business: Get the kids hooked on the military ethos early and there'll be plenty of big wars for decades to come! Hey, it works for McDonalds.

Plus, if the Department of Halliburton got behind Thunder, we could really do this thing up right. Basically, Thunder is now a celebration of old-school military -- your bombs-bursting-in-air pow, pow, pow -- and 20th-century military -- your B1-bomber, stealth-aircraft, and Apache-helicopter pow, pow, pow. With some serious jack from Halliburton, we could afford to really go all the way in our public make-out session with killing, while celebrating warfare's bright future.

Some ideas:

The Zambelli Mushroom Cloud

Get the Pow Designers at Zambelli Internationale to design a fireworks display in the shape of a mushroom cloud. With our innumerable nukes and Bush's fuck-you policy aimed all over the world, it's only a matter of time until a nook-ya-lar holocaust. Why wait til then to celebrate Derby-style?

Abu Ghraib Genital Electrification Booths

Nothing says Derby like genital electrification! We erect booths all over the Great Lawn for Thunder and let the kids find out all about torture, American style!

Where's Osama?

A fun hide-and-not-seek game for the whole family! At Thunder, kids of all ages can gather to not look for Osama bin Laden (actually WHAS meteorologist Ken Schulz in costume) and focus their attention instead on:

Bombs Over Baghdad

We've got all kinds of bombers flying up the river for Thunder anyhow, right? Why not let them actually bomb something? I say we convert Six Mile Island to a miniature Baghdad and bomb the living fuck out of it with:

Daisy Cutter Beer Bombs

Who wouldn't like to get bombed by a Daisy Cutter Beer Bomb? After the bombs drop on miniature Baghdad, the bombers can cool off the crowd with a bajillion megatons of Bud Light.

Parade of Humvees

Nah, too much like every day on Highway 42. Never mind.

Whack A Muslim For Jesus

This variation on the popular "Whack a Mole" arcade game features real Muslims! And since nothing benefits more than Christianity in the United States' holy war, 10% of game proceeds go to faith-based initiatives!

It's time to think big when it comes to Thunder. Enough of this mamby-pamby, bird-choking, air-polluting, sissy-ass fireworks and military dry runs! Maybe ol' Dick Cheney himself would be willing to swoop in, sneer at us, collect his cut, and jet off to an undisclosed location.

Hmmm... I wonder if Mel Gibson is available to direct...

[OK, back into retirement.]