Napalm and Silly Putty (22 page)

I would start by improving the coin toss, by making it a full-contact event. While the coin is in the air, the team captains should be allowed to kick the officials. It would get things going on a positive note. Remember, this is a sport that owes its origin to the practice of English soldiers playfully kicking around the head of a Dane during the lulls in combat.

Now, to the game itself. I think football should limit itself to only one rule: Each down begins in an orderly manner. That’s it. After that, the players should be allowed to do whatever they want. If there’s a fight, you move it off to one side of the field. Let it run its course; no restrictions. If several 300-pound linemen are crippling a placekicker, fine. Let them continue. We shouldn’t be trying to suppress the natural exuberance of athletes. Keep in mind these men are physical freaks, full of drugs and anger, and they’re here to entertain us. They enjoy being injured; let them go about their business.

So much for upgrading the violence. Here’s my suggestion for adding excitement. Currently, each team is allowed forty-five players on the squad, but most of them stand around watching the game from the sidelines. If I were in charge, this would not be happening. Instead, I would have all ninety men out on the field at all times. Offense, defense, special teams. Everyone. What football really needs is ninety steroid monstrosities geeked on amphetamines racing around the field trying to hurt one another.

Here’s another way to spice up the game: leave the injured players on the field. Let them lie there. These men are supposed to be tough, you can’t coddle them just because they break something. Let the other guys play around them. If they get stepped on, tough titty. These macho pinheads are always talking about how it’s “a big war goin’ on out there.” Fine. Let the Red Cross come around and pick them up.

And regarding this taunting behavior that so many people find offensive, I don’t see the problem. In fact, I don’t think taunting goes nearly far enough. In my opinion—and I’m certainly no professional athlete—after a good hard tackle the defensive player should be allowed to pull down his pants and masturbate on the man he tackled. It seems like a simple thing, but it would change the whole tempo of the game. And if he can’t ejaculate because 60,000 people are watching, you hit him with a 15-yard penalty for delay of game.

I end my suggestions for improving football by taking a look at one of those game-end rituals: the pouring of Gatorade on the winning coach. To my mind, this is far too fruity for football. It’s barely appropriate for a sixth-grade dodgeball team. What ought to happen is the winning team should be allowed to come across the field and spike the losing coach. Just spike him. Four linebackers turn him upside-down and pile-drive him headfirst into the ground. Give him an incentive to work a little harder on the next week’s game plan.

? HYPERLINK “file:///E:\\Documents%20and%20Settings\\Dom\\Desktop\\1791_NapalmSillyPutty%5B1%5D\\Napalm_body-contents.html” \l “TOC-86” ??CAPITAL PUNISHMENT ?

Many people in this country want to expand the death penalty to include drug dealers. This is really stupid. Drug dealers aren’t afraid to die. They’re already killin’ each other by the hundreds every day. Drive-bys, turf wars, gang killings. They’re not afraid to die. The death penalty means very little unless you use it on people who are afraid to die. Like the bankers who launder the drug money. Forget dealers. If you want to slow down the drug traffic, you have to start executing some of these white, middle-class Republican bankers. And I don’t mean soft American executions like lethal injection. I’m talkin’ about crucifixion, folks. I say bring back crucifixion! A form of capital punishment the Christians and Jews of America can really appreciate.

And I’d take it a step further: I’d crucify these people upside-down. Like St. Peter. Feet up, head down. And naked! I’d have naked, upside-down crucifixions once a week on TV, at halftime of the Monday Night Football games. The Monday Night Crucifixions! Shit, you’d have people tunin’ in who don’t even care about football. Wouldn’t you like to hear Dennis Miller explain why the nails have to go in at a specific angle?

And I’ll guarantee you one thing: you start nailin’ one white banker per week to a big wooden cross on national television, and you’re gonna see that drug traffic begin to slow down mighty fuckin’ quick. Why you won’t even be able to buy drugs in schools and prisons anymore.

Personally, I don’t care about capital punishment one way or another, because I know it doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t really do anything, except satisfy the biblical need for revenge. You know, if you read the Bible, you see it’s filled with violence, retribution, and revenge. So capital punishment is really kind of a religious ritual. A purification rite. It’s a modern sacrament.

And as long as that’s true, I say let’s liven it up. Let’s add a little show business. I believe if you make capital punishment a little more entertaining, and market it correctly, you can raise enough money to save Social Security.

And remember, the polls show the American people want capital punishment, and they want Social Security. And I think even in a fake democracy people ought to get what they want once in a while. If for no other reason than to feed the illusion that they’re really in charge. Let’s use capital punishment the same way we use sports and shopping in this country: to take people’s minds off how badly they’re bein’ fucked by the upper 1 percent.

Now, unfortunately the football season only lasts about six months. What we really need is capital punishment year-round. Put it on TV every night with sponsors. Ya gotta have sponsors. I’m sure as long as we’re killing people, Dow Chemical and Marlboro cigarettes will be proud to participate. Save Social Security.

And not only do I recommend crucifixions, I’m also in favor of bringing back beheadings. Wouldn’t that be great? Beheadings on TV, complete with slow-motion and instant replay. And maybe you could let the heads roll down a little hill and fall into one of five numbered holes. Let the folks at home gamble on which hole the head is gonna fall into. Interactive television snuff-gambling! Give the people what they want.

And you do it in a stadium, so the rabble can gamble on it too. Raise a little more money. And, if you want to extend the violence a little longer—to sell a few extra commercials—instead of using an ax, you do the beheadings with a handsaw. And don’t bother getting queasy at this point, folks, the blood’s already on your hands; all we’re talking about now is a matter of degree. You want something a little more delicate? We could do the beheadings with an olive fork. That would be good. And the nice part is, it would take a real long time.

There are a lot of good things you could do with capital punishment. When’s the last time we burned someone at the stake? It’s been too long! Here’s another form of state killing that comes from a rich religious tradition: burning people at the stake. Put it on TV on Sunday mornings; the Sunday-morning, evangelical, send-us-an-offering, praise Jesus, human bonfire. You don’t think that would get big ratings? In this sick fuckin’ country? Shit, you’d have people skippin’ church to watch this stuff. And then you take the money from the prayer offerings and use it to save Social Security.

And whatever happened to boiling people in oil? Remember that? Let’s bring it back. On TV. First you get the oil goin’ good with a nice high rolling boil. And then slowly, at the end of a rope, you lower the prisoner, headfirst, into the boiling oil. Boy, you talk about fun shit! And to encourage citizen participation, you let the rabble in the stadium control the speed of the rope. Good, clean, wholesome family entertainment. The kids’ll love it. No V-chip to spoil the fun. And all the while they’re enjoying themselves, we’re teachin’ them a nice Christian moral lesson. Boiling people in oil.

And maybe, instead of boiling all these guys, every now and then you could French-fry a couple of ’em. French-fried felons! Or dip a guy in egg batter, just for a goof. Kind of a tempura thing. Jeffrey Dahmer never thought of that, did he? Jeffrey Dahmer, eat your heart out! Which is an interesting thought in and of itself.

All right, enough nostalgia. How about some modern forms of capital punishment? How about throwin’ a guy off the roof of the World Trade Center, and whoever he lands on wins the Publishers Clearinghouse?

Or perhaps something more sophisticated. You dip a guy in brown gravy and lock him in a small room with a wolverine who’s high on angel dust. That’s one guy who’s not gonna be fuckin’ with the kids at the bus stop.

Here’s a good one. Something really nice. You take a high-speed catapult, and you shoot a guy straight into a brick wall. Trouble is, it would be over too quickly. No good for TV. You’d have to do a whole bunch of guys right in a row. Rapid-fire capital punishment. Fifteen catapults! While you’re shootin’ off one, you’re loadin’ up the others. Of course, every now and then you’d have to stop everything to clean off the wall. Cleanliness! Right next to godliness.

Finally, high-tech! I sense you’re waitin’ for some high-tech. Here you go. You take a highly miniaturized tactical nuclear weapon, and you stick it straight up a guy’s ass and set it off. A thermonuclear suppository. Preparation H-Bomb. Boy, you talk about fallout! Or, a variation: You put a bomb inside that little hole on the end of a guy’s dick. A bomb in a dick! And when it goes off, the guy wouldn’t know whether he was comin’ or goin’! I got a lotta good ideas. Save Social Security.

? HYPERLINK “file:///E:\\Documents%20and%20Settings\\Dom\\Desktop\\1791_NapalmSillyPutty%5B1%5D\\Napalm_body-contents.html” \l “TOC-87” ??FARM SYSTEM: THUGS, PERVS, NUTS, AND DRUNKS ?

Here’s another one of my really good ideas. I’m going to save us a whole lot of money on prisons, but at the same time I’m going to remove from society many of our more annoying citizens. Four groups are goin’ away—permanently!

First group: Violent criminals. Here’s what you do: You take the entire state of Kansas and you move everybody out. You give the people a couple of hundred dollars apiece for their inconvenience, but you get them out. Next you put a 100-foot-high electric fence around the entire state, and Kansas becomes a permanent prison farm for violent criminals. No police, no parole, no supplies; the only thing you give them is lethal weapons and live ammunition. So they can communicate in a meaningful manner.

Then you put the whole thing on cable TV. The Violence Network. VNN. And for a corporate sponsor, you get one of those companies that loves to smear its logo-feces all over the landscape. Budweiser will jump at this in half a minute.

Second group: Sex criminals. Completely incurable; you have to lock them up. Oh, I suppose you could outlaw religion and these sex crimes would disappear in a generation or two, but we don’t have time for rational solutions. It’s much easier to fence off another rectangular state. This time, Wyoming.

But this is only for true sex offenders. We’re not going to harass consenting adults who dress up in leather Boy Scout uniforms and smash each other in the head with ball-peen hammers as they take turns blowing their cats. There’s nothing wrong with that; it’s a victimless hobby. And think of how happy the cat must be. No, we’re only going to lock up rapists and molesters; those hopeless romantics who are so full of love they can’t help gettin’ a little of it on you. Usually on your leg.

You take all these heavy-breathing fun-seekers, and you stick them in Wyoming. And you let them suck, fuck, and fondle. You let them blow, chew, sniff, lick, whip, gobble, and cornhole one other . . . until their testicles are whistlin’ “O Come All Ye Faithful.” Then you turn on the cameras, and you’ve got . . . the Semen Channel! And don’t forget our corporate sponsor. We’re going to let Budweiser put little logo patches on the rapists’ pants: “This pud’s for you!”

Next group: Drug addicts and alcoholics. Not all of them, don’t get nervous. Just the ones who are making life difficult for at least one other person. And we’re not gonna bother first offenders; people deserve a chance to clean up. So, everyone will get twelve chances to clean up. Okay okay, fifteen! Fine! That’s fair, and that’s all you get. If you can’t make it in fifteen tries, off you go . . . to Colorado! The perfect place for staying loaded.

Each week, all of the illegal drugs confiscated in the United States—at least those drugs the police and DEA don’t keep for their own personal use—will be air-dropped into Colorado. That way, everyone can stay stoned, bombed, wasted, smashed, hammered, and fucked up around the clock on another new cable channel: Shitface Central. This is the real Rocky Mountain high.

Now, I’ve saved my favorite group for last. The Maniacs and Crazy People. The ones who live out where the buses don’t run. And I always take care to distinguish between maniacs and crazy people. A maniac will beat nine people to death with a steel dildo. A crazy person will beat nine people to death with a steel dildo, but he’ll be wearing a Bugs Bunny suit at the time.

So you can’t put them all away. You have to keep some of them around just for the entertainment. Like the guy who tells you the King of Sweden is using his gallbladder as a radio transmitter to send anti-Semitic, lesbian meat loaf recipes to Marvin Hamlisch. A guy like that, you want to give him his own radio show.

No, the Maniac Farm will be used strictly for hopeless cases. Like a guy who gets a big tattoo on his chest of Madonna taking a shit. You know? Then he tells you that if he flexes certain muscles it looks like she’s wipin’ her ass. A guy like that, you wanna get him into custody as quickly as possible.

Now, for the Maniac Farm I think there’s no question we have to go with Utah. Easy to fence, and right next to Wyoming and Colorado. And Colorado is right next to? Right, Kansas! And that means that all four groups of our most amusing citizens are now in one place. Except for the big electric fences. And, folks, I think I have another one of my really good ideas for cable TV. Gates! Small sliding gates in the fences.

Think what you have here. Four groups: degenerates, predators, crackheads, and fruitcakes. All separated by 900 miles of fence. And here’s how you have some fun: every ten miles, you put a small, sliding gate in the fence. But—the gates are only ten inches wide, and they’re only opened once a month. For seven seconds.