Oarsman Bob

Captain Sam and his crew of oarsmen where pulling through the ocean when the Captain noticed something strange going on in the boat. One of the oarsman, a fellow named Bob, had taken out a small hand auger and was making ready to drill a hole under his seat of the boat.

“What the hell are you doing, Oarsman Bob?” Captain Sam shouted.

Bob looked up to see if the commotion had something to do with him. “Me?” he asked innocently. “I’m drilling a hole under my seat in the boat,” he replied matter-of-

factly, and returned to work.

“You can’t do that!” Captain Sam hollered back.

Oarsman Bob looked surprised, not really understanding the gist of the question. “Of course, I can. It’s my seat and I get to drill a hole under it if I want to,” he said, stating the obvious. “It’s my right as an oarsman.”

“No, it’s not,” Captain Bob said.

“Well, yes it is,” Oarsman Bob replied, surprised he had to explain himself. “It’s my seat. And my drill, I might add. I have a right to a drill, don’t I?”

Captain Sam was incredulous. “Oarsman Bob, why would you drill a hole under your seat in the boat?”

“Because my feet are hot and very uncomfortable,” Oarsman Bob replied. “Some nice, cool water would be very refreshing. I find the absence of a hole under my seat hot and confining.”

“Oarsman Bob,” the Captain said sternly, “If you drill a hole under your seat in the boat, the boat will sink,” Captain Sam said, stating the obvious.

Oarsman Bob scoffed. “Oh, here we go – the boat will sink,” he said, a mocking sing-song. “There are people who disagree, you know. Some say not drilling a hole in the boat is just something Captains say to keep their oarsmen under their control. I say, give the information to the oarsmen and trust them to make an individual decision.”

Captain Sam maintained his calm. “Captains know boats will sink if people drill holes under their seats. We don’t need oarsmen to make a judgment about that. We have plenty of experience with boats sinking.”

“Who has all this experience?” Oarsman Bob countered. “A bunch of Captains? How good can a Captain be if he’s an expert on boats sinking? In fact, a boat can sink for any number of reasons – there could be a typhoon, or some unseen navigational hazard, or even because of demon sea monsters!”

The mention of demon sea monsters led to a wave of consternation among the other oarsmen.

“In fact,” Oarsman Bob continued, “I’ve heard far many more boats are lost to demon sea monsters than to oarsmen drilling holes under their seats. But you never hear about boats being sunk by demon sea monsters. Why is that? Who’s covering it all up? In fact, I was at the tavern before we left shore and a fellow there told me not many boats sink at all for whatever reason, and many of those that sink with very minor inconvenience and no loss of life, and that if I was worried about my boat sinking, not drilling a hole under my seat was in no way proven to be a foolproof way of avoiding it. As I see it, you can’t let your boat sinking dominate your thinking.”

Captain Sam was incredulous. “Some fellow in a tavern told you what to do?”

“Now just hold on there, Captain Sam. Nobody tells me what to do! But all those supposed experts telling us not to drill a hole under our seat in the boat – what do they really know?” Oarsman Bob turned to his mates. “I say we have rights, my fellow oarsmen, and one of those rights is the right to drill a hole under our seat in the boat.”

“No, you don’t,” Captain Sam said. “I expressly prohibit any of you from drilling a hole under your seat the boat.”

Oarsman Bob became quite cross. “You see! Exactly what I told you!” he shouted to his fellow oarsmen as the Captain watched. “That’s what Captain Sam wants – to take away our rights as oarsmen. Pretty soon, they’ll be telling we oarsmen we can’t have drills! Well, you may not believe oarsmen such as ourselves have rights, but I do. And I wager were we to ask the other oarsmen on this boat whether they had rights they would agree with me.”

Captain Sam withered. “The question isn’t whether you have rights, Oarsman Bob. The question is whether one of those rights is drilling a hole under your seat in the boat at the expense of the well-being of everybody else around you.”

“Well, let’s see what the other fellows think, then,” Oarsman Bob proposed. “Who thinks oarsmen have rights, and if they want to drill a hole under their seat in the boat then that’s their prerogative?”

A commotion arose among the oarsmen. “Hell, yes, I have rights,” one of the oarsmen said.

“I’m with Oarsman Bob,” said another.

“They keep telling us ‘Oh, the boat will sink,’ but there are sinking boats just about everywhere. Who knows why?” said a third.

"And what about the demon sea monsters?” another oarsman yelled. “Why aren’t you protecting us from the demon sea monsters?”

“There are no demon sea monsters!” Captain Sam sputtered, gesticulating towards the monsterless sea.

“It’s the principle of the thing!” yet another oarsman shouted. “Of, sure, it’s easy to give up your rights because your boat might sink, but once you lose your rights, good luck trying to get them back. First it’s don’t drill a hole in your boat, then it’ll be not drinking the salt water, then we’ll have to pull our oars at the same time, and then, who knows what? – maybe we’ll lose the right to piss in the boat!”

The Captain began to argue there was no right to piss in the boat, but by now the oarsmen had rallied around Oarsman Bob’s cause and asserted their right to have cool and comfortable feet, and attacked the Captain’s indifference to the threat posed by demon sea monsters. In short time, the auger had been passed around and almost every man had exercised his right as an oarsman to drill a hole under his seat in the boat.

“Well, are you satisfied?” Captain Sam finally said. “Now we’re sinking.” And, sure enough, water was quickly filling the boat to the gunnels.

“Well, we may be sinking,” Oarsman Bob replied. “But I think we made our point!”

And the other oarsmen shouted triumphantly as they sank into the sea.

Pharaoh

Archeologists at the Gamal Nasser Center for the Study of Antiquity at Cairo University have completed the translation of a previously undeciphered wall of hieroglyphics in the tomb of Pharaoh Ramses II, providing invaluable insights into the administration of his regime.

TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE OF

MS. “BIRD BIRD ARM BIRD SNAKE,”

COMMUNICATIONS VIZIER FOR PHARAOH RAMSES II

MS. SNAKE: Good morning. I’d like to talk about this Pharaoh’s triumphant efforts to combat the rash of plagues now underway in Egypt.

Egypt has never experienced a challenge like these plagues, but thanks to Pharaoh Ramses, we are defeating the plagues and reopening our economy. When the rivers turned to blood, some people – notably the Scribes and the Scholars and the Hebrews -- exaggerated the threat out of partisan political animosity to the Pharaoh. But then the rivers turned back into rivers, despite many predictions to the contrary by the so-called augurers. Then there was a rain of frogs and there were similar predictions of disaster. But we can now say definitively those were not Egyptian frogs.

I’ll now turn to questions.

QUESTIONER ONE: The rivers turned back to water and the frogs went away, but now we have flies, unimaginable swarms of flies. What is your comment on this plague of flies?

MS. SNAKE: Look, we’re Egypt, we’re a great, great dynasty, but we’re going to have flies, we have flies every season. It’s hot and flies like the heat, everybody knows that. When Ra the Sun God lowers the sun in the sky in the coming winter months, it will be cooler and the flies will disappear, just like that. It will be a miracle, just as Pharaoh Ramses has predicted.

QUESTIONER ONE: If I may follow up. Our cattle are now being devastated by pestilence --

MS. SNAKE: That’s a highly offensive word for it. It would be more accurate to say the cattle are indisposed. Pharaoh Ramses has a very good relationship with Egypt’s cattle – the cattle love him and he loves them. You should be ashamed of questions like that.

QUESTIONER TWO: How does the Pharaoh respond to the Scholars of the Library of Alexandria who point out other nations in our region – Nubia, Libya, Sheba – have not had anything remotely similar to our plagues, and that the concentration of plagues in Egypt is direct evidence they arise out of the conflict between Pharaoh and The Lord of Hosts?

MS SNAKE: The idea that these plagues come from some unseen and likely imaginary Lord of Hosts is an insult that endangers the lives of the Egyptian people. As Pharaoh has said, they should call him The Lord of Hoax. As Pharaoh has made clear, these other countries have falsely denied the existence of the plagues within their borders at the cost of countless Egyptian lives. It is beyond question those nations hid the truth about the plagues and they are responsible for them. These frogs could well have been Moabite frogs, and the lice Assyrian lice. But no Pharaoh has ever been tougher on the Moabites and Assyrians than Pharaoh Ramses has been. And just look at the record -- more people have survived plagues in Egypt than in any other country.

QUESTIONER TWO: But that’s because we’ve had more plagues than any other country.

MS SNAKE: The data speak for themselves. I won’t dignify your question with an answer. Next question.

QUESTIONER THREE: How does Pharaoh Ramses feel about the disproportionate incidence of lice, flies, and boils among the Hebrew slaves? The Scholars of the Libraries of Alexandria have argued that the slaves work in very close proximity to each other and are particularly vulnerable.

MS. SNAKE: With regard to the Hebrew slaves, let me point out the Hebrew slaves usually live in squalor and make other poor hygiene and diet choices that leave them susceptible to these various ailments, be they boils or vermin or flies or the invasion of the body with evil spirits that cause acid reflux and sinus congestion, from which many of their race suffer. Moreover, the Hebrew slaves are doing essential work, construction of the Pyramids. Pharaoh Ramses appreciates the contribution of the Hebrew slaves, and I can assure you the Hebrew slaves want the Pyramids to remain open so they can complete their work that is so important to Egypt.

QUESTIONER FOUR: With the plagues being visited upon us, the Egyptian economy is collapsing. What is Pharaoh Ramses’ plan for bringing the economy back?

MS. SNAKE: First, let’s remember that Pharaoh Ramses has built the greatest economy ever known to human history. When Pharaoh Ramses dreamt seven fat cows would came out of the Nile and then be eaten by seven skinny cows, he got the synod to store grain for seven years and then release it, leading to our unprecedented prosperity. And, he cut taxes.

QUESTIONER FOUR: But now our strategic stocks of grain are empty! Was Pharaoh Ramses negligent in not maintaining a larger strategic stockpile of grain?

MS. SNAKE: The stockpile was depleted by previous Pharaohs. Besides, it’s the responsibility of the provinces to maintain these stockpiles, not the Pharaoh’s. And let me also point out that the architect of these economic policies was the Pharaoh’s viceroy, Joseph, a Hebrew. The Hebrew slaves have never had it better than under Pharaoh Ramses, which is why he enjoys their support.

QUESTIONER FIVE: Are we any closer to a cure of these plagues?

MS. SNAKE: Our Scholars at the Libraries of Alexandria are working day and night to come up with a combination of herbs, incantations, and sacrifices to Isis that will prevent people from catching the plagues. The Pharaoh has promised a cure before The Festivals of Opet and Kohiak.

But Pharaoh Ramses believes what many priests are saying – that a regular program of prophylactic scorpion stings and snake bites will help people avoid catching the plagues.

QUESTIONER FIVE: But isn’t it true that scorpion stings and snake bites kill large numbers of their victims? Most scholars dispute the idea --

MS. SNAKE: Let me answer by disclosing to you that Pharaoh Ramses has personally been getting stung by scorpions and bitten by snakes for two weeks now, under the care of his own personal healer, Arm Man Snake Wavy Lines Bird, and has shown no signs of side effects other than an inability to walk down palace ramps and hold his water chalice with one hand. More importantly, he is yet to experience any of the plagues. How do you sleep at night after asking a question like that?

QUESTIONER SIX: There have been reports of some provinces experiencing a second wave of plagues, including outbreaks of hail, locusts, and darkness. Does Pharaoh Ramses have any comment?

MS. SNAKE: I’m not going to comment on unverified reports, but I will say it’s the job of the provinces to decide how to manage themselves, although it is very important that the Temples of Amun-Ra and Horus remain open at this critical time. As Pharaoh has said, Egyptians should not be afraid of these plagues, or let them dominate their lives.

At this point, a messenger enters and gives a scroll to Ms Snake, which she opens and reads.

MS SNAKE: I have just been informed Pharaoh and many of his viziers, high priests, and courtiers have been infested with lice, boils, and vermin, and that Pharaoh’s eldest child is feeling indisposed. Pharaoh’s Royal Wife, lesser wives, and concubines are quarantining themselves in the Palace while Pharaoh is being moved to the Temple of Osiris for observation. Pharaoh Ramses feels fine, and I know the people of Egypt are praying for – wait! There are lice on my arm! And boils!

At this point, the hieroglyphic evidence ends.

Jack Sprat Speaks!

He walks out the paddock door; his gait is gangly, brisk. Your first thought is the one everyone has -- Jack Sprat is still lean.

“Oh, sure,” he says, sitting angularly on a nearby bench. “I still hear it all the time — lean, boney, lanky, gaunt, scrawny. But however you say it, that’s me,” he says, an ever present smile accenting the lines in his drawn cheeks. Traces of an Elizabethan accent still sparkle in his speech.

He extracts a smoke and lights it. The smell of the nearby stables pervades the air. Sprat has worked these last twenty years as a hot walker at the track at Santa Anita. “I had to get away,” he sighs with a trace of sadness. “Ma Goose might as well have been Ma Bell by the time I left. The operation had gone corporate. I could see the writing on the wall. Think about it – they’ve all sold out, haven’t they? -- Mickey Mouse, Santa Claus, the comic book twits. How could we not be next?

“I would’ve ended up like Beauty and the Beast – sanitized and commercialized. They were lovely people, you know – the Beast played piano nicely and Beauty could sing, and we’d sit around evenings at their place and pass the time over cocktails. You can imagine how they felt about being turned into a plastic toy kids use to clog up their parents’ toilets,” he sneers, flicking his ash. His teeth are a smoker’s yellow. “But if I left Goose, what then? Cartoons? The old cat-and-mouse stuff? Sticking the firecracker up the poor cat's ass? Not me,” he says, shaking a close-cropped head.

So, when others would have gone with the program, Jack Sprat walked. “Ma Goose begged me to stay – begged me. But you can’t buy my art and you can’t buy me.”

What of the famous partnership with his ex-wife — the Nichols and May, the Burton and Taylor of the Goose register?

“Oh, back in the day, it was ideal,” he smiles nostalgically. “We were the top two-man act in the industry. Our numbers were better than Jack and Jill’s every year.” He scoffs lightly. An early publicity still shows them together — she, in pigtails, with spoon, hovering over a banana split, he leering behind her in a derby hat, his needly fingers reaching around her for the banana.

“You see, originally, I was a solo act, but it wasn't going anywhere. My rhyme went something like this;

“Jack Sprat can eat no fat

It aggravates his ulcer

When gravy’s passed his way, he asks

“May I have something else, sir?”

“So, they came to me and they said, ‛Jack, this isn’t going anywhere, how about a partner?' And in walks Dora and I thought to myself, ‘That’s a lot of woman’.”

A wedding picture shows her resplendent in white, beaming, happy, as her gnarled, tuxedoed husband stands beside her, knobby wrists and hands extending far past the sleeves. Sprat’s eyes sadden. “But she became so self-destructive -- lard, tallow, all the time. I said, ‘There are medical procedures now,’ but she cut me off. Then, one night I found a piece of suet hidden under the sofa. That was the end. I couldn’t watch her hurt herself anymore.”

Three thousand miles away, Dora Sprat is sweating. Not the dissipated moisture of the stout, but the glowing, vigorous shine of an athlete. A stunningly short black dress covers much of the middle of her more-than-ample frame. Her hair is a radiant purple, her eyes flash from under glitter shadow. An archipelago of studs, hoops, and bangles runs down her right earlobe. On stage, she moves in every direction at once as she vocalizes growlingly over thumping bass rifts and distorted power chords. Her fans throw pork rinds. She snatches one out of the air with her generous lips and the crowd goes wild.

Her band, Big Ass, is the hottest item in Williamsburg today.

Sitting at a table between sets, she swirls a frozen Kahlua, then gulps it down lustily. “Oh, he got quite testy at the end. He’d hide my food, wanted me to eat crudités with him. ‘Dora, you’re killing yourself,’ he’d whine. But look at me!” she commands. “This is my body! This is how God made me! I’m getting bigger all the time and I’m just beginning to live!”

So, when Jack split for California, she stayed East and joined the music scene. “These young people don’t judge you the way others do,” she says, as a second drink is placed before her. She makes quick work of it. An album, Lick Me Clean, is due next year.

She is unafraid to show her bitterness. “I wanted to stay with the Goose people, sure,” she says. “All those musty children’s books – it was old, man. We were finally going to have a big payday. But Jack wouldn’t hear of it — he was true to his art, he said.” She laughs derisively. “They tried to pair me with Wee Willie Winkie but it didn’t work. He was small, really, rather than skinny. It’s not the same thing.”

And are the rumors true? Is marriage to Jack Horner around the corner? “We’re good friends,” Dora smiles coyly. “But I love his plums!”

Back in California, a jockey leads a laconic mare past the bench where Jack Sprat sits. “I don’t worry about the future,” he says. “I like what I do. And I have plenty of options.” A film deal was said to be in the works, but now looks unlikely. “Roseanne was interested, but no one will touch her now, so then it was going to be Melissa McCarthy. They wanted Joaquin Phoenix to play me, but I said, ‘But he’s not lean.’ I said, ‘Malkovitch, how about Malkovitch? Or Bale?’ but they said, ‛Too dark.’” He shrugs and his skeletal hands light another smoke.

Does he stay in touch with the others? Absolutely. “Jack’s passed. He and Jill hung it up a while back. By the end, Jack just couldn’t function, the sauce, y’know. Here’s something you don’t know -- they weren’t even supposed to tumble down the hill like that, but Jack was so deep in his cups that day he stumbled and fell, and it worked so well they kept it in the act. The old woman who lived in a shoe, she’s good. She owns an Italian restaurant in the Bronx. The dish and spoon work for her.”

He takes another drag and contemplates his old colleagues. “Of course, there’s also Tom, the Piper’s Son.” His eyebrows arch reflexively. “He’s doing 18 months in federal, securities fraud. He was trading pork bellies and doing alright, but his old ways resurfaced. They found incriminating messages from him on the phone of a Congressman from upstate New York. But they went easy on him, knowing who he was and all…”

He sighs and collects himself. “Still, I’m alright. I still do personal appearances — mummy and daddy want all the little nippers to see me. Mall openings, school auditoriums, that kind of thing. I lecture the kids on good eating habits. And I’m doing public service spots about eating disorders. Want to hear one?

“Jack Sprat still eats no fat

You'd think that he'd get pallid

But he stays well and rosy-cheeked

On veggies, fish, and salad.”