Presentational Speaking

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a common enemy. And that enemy is ignorance. See, back during the Peloponnesian War, both Athens and Sparta vied for control of the Internet (at that time known only as "Asia") so as to absorb knowledge and become omniscient. But the Internet is not a dump truck that you just put stuff on, as the Athenians so painfully learned. It's a series of tubes. And by the end of this speech, you'll all be plumbers!

The first thing you need to know about the Interweb is that it's always a good idea to disseminate fallacious information about yourself. Put your house up for sale online, and write about how a Civil War buff once told you your house is built over a confederate graveyard. The best part is that it's impossible to fact check this kind of thing, and there are a bunch of really creepy rich people who would pay a king's ransom to live over a graveyard. Seriously, this one time, I was down at the nickelodeon (not the station, but an actual 19^th century nickelodeon) and this really old guy walked up to me and started asking about my precariously perched Gist Manor. Not wanting to offend the good sir, I told him the mansion was home to a host of calamities, ranging from attacks by a traveling cult of star worshipers to the origin of the stock market crash of 1929. Ha, I sold it to him on the spot for a whopping five bucks! And it wasn't even my property!

Like they say in France, no refunds. I never gave the fool his money back, and I used those five dollars to finance the first Trans-Neptunian Oktoberfest. Why would I do something like that? Imagine eating a delicious chunk of bratwurst. Now, imagine eating it on the icy slopes of Pluto! See the difference?! No? Well, you'd taste the difference, that's for sure. I'm positive that Oktoberfest will be made more festive by extraterrestrial flight; it's a gut feeling, you've gotta trust me. Trust me because deep, deep down in your gullet, you know what I'm saying is true. And that concludes this portion of the speech. I hope you learned a truckload about the Internet pipes; see you at the party!

Fingerpainting

Ever since the Great Wall of China was put up, we've all had a certain morbid fascination with fingerpainting. I know that as a child, I was forced to paint picture after picture of birds and trestles, until I could stand it no longer. It made me the monster I am today. Y'all see, way back in the 70s, fingerpainting was the only fashionable way to make a quick buck. Down at the broadwalk, I would fingerpaint as Edmonde danced for Roosevelt dimes, playing his benchmark accordion. The people would stop and laugh, and I'd hand them poorly crafted works of postmodernist art; sometimes they'd let me take their boats for a spin.

But mostly, they'd just tip Edmonde while I sat in his shadow, peeling pecans. Once, and I remember this distinctly, a fat man in a red suit with a white beard came by. He saw how dehydrated I was and tried to give me a bowl of water, but Edmonde chased him off, yelling "Thief! Thief!" I never saw that man again, but I've always hoped he'd return to finish the job. I even built a little shrine out of an old barrel, so that I could practice various forms of primeval meditation. You know that I'm a spiritual guru, don't you? I mean, I've said it plenty of times that I am. Four years ago I won an award for being so spiritual, from the polytheists of Connecticut themselves.

Connecticut has always been a place of perpetual renewal. Though their polytheism is looked down on by the New Hampshirites and Vermontiers, by the light of the harvest moon, they're exquisite fingerpainters. The state seal of Connecticut itself is a patchwork of handprints from over 50 generations of corn-shucking pilgrims, starting with the colony's founder, Colonel Chickenpox the First. The Colonel Chickenpox I work with (or as he's more commonly known, "Bohemius B. Barnstrom") is the last descendant of Connecticut's royal scion (excluding his children and grandchildren). Blue blood flows though the colonel's veins, chocking him full o' fingerpaintin' ancestral power. Even now, the urge to fingerpaint... overwhelms his military sensibilities. It's not like he hasn't been overwhelmed like this before... back in the Crimea, his fingerpainting gave away his position and led his entire cavalry unit to be captured by wild turkeys. Not Turks, but actual turkeys. They've got quite the revolutionary movement going on, in the hidden barnyard underworld.

Groundbreaking Ceremony

Today marks the beginning of a new era. For over twenty years, our little community has been bound by the iron will of Mayor Edmonde. I can see now that dissolving the town council and appointing him "Mayor for Life" may have been a bad idea, but I stand by my 20-year-old decision to do so. He may have turned out to be evil incarnate. He may have turned out to be a fiscally irresponsible fool who fakes magic tricks to get out of traffic jams. He may have even been one of the pod people; we can never know now.

One thing is certain in this time of great upheaval: we will prevail. I ask all of you to join hands... do it! I command you to join hands and be happy! Do it! Do it now! Okay. There you go. Now, where was I... yes, the ceremony. Edmonde has been a thorn in all our sides, what with the spending of our tax dollars on his forty foot catapult. I think we can all agree that when we elected Edmonde, we only wanted a twenty foot catapult. He thinks more is less, but I say that more is simply more. You can't sugar coat that.

Believe me, I've sugar coated many things. But I prefer deep frying them instead. I mean, when you coat things with sugar, you've got to use some kind of wax anyway. If you don't, the sugar just falls off. With deep frying, I can turn almost any substance into delicious sugary treats. See that pile of rocks way over yonder? No, you don't! That's a sample of Sugar Pebbles, next year's most popular breakfast cereal. At least, it could be if my deal with Kellogg's go through okay. And it's no surefire thing; many an entrepreneur went into the deep-fried cereal business only to be burned in the end.