LITERARY PIZZA

Random Thoughts while Watching the
“I Love the…” Series on VH1

by
Geoff Wolinetz

“I Love the 80s!”

by
The Reagan Administration




Edwin Meese: You know, I really dug that show “Max Headroom.” Why isn’t it on cable? Somebody on the ’Droom fan-club message boards told me it used to be on the Sci-Fi Network, but I don’t think it is anymore. Maybe it’s on DVD? I should check that out.


John Poindexter: I’ll tell you something you don’t know about Ed Meese. He used to consume his entire weight in Crisco twice a week.


John Sununu: Sandy O’Connor and I went out a few times. Nothing ever came of it.



Sandra Day O’Connor: Sununu told you what? We went to dinner once. Once. In 1985. Man, I can’t believe he’s still holding on to that. He spent an hour telling me about how he could fly for free all the time. What a tool.


Caspar Weinberger: Hi, I’m former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, and these are the Rogues’ Gallery of Villains Whom I Wanted to Nuke in the 80s:

• Mikhail Gorbachev!
• The Ayatollah Khomeini!
• Manuel Noriega!
• 36 spellings of Momar Qaddafi!
• Fidel Castro!
• Miscellaneous Cuban nationals!
• Saddam Hussein!
• Yassir Arafat!
• Walter Mondale!
• The students of Grenada!

And those were the Rogues’ Gallery of Villainy of the 80s!


William Rehnquist: I’m quite proud of the fact that I got to take part in so many of the list items crammed into the final verse of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” You know what else I liked? “The Downeaster ‘Alexa’.” Beautiful song.


C. William Verity: Hi! I’m C. William Verity. I was your Secretary of Commerce from October of 1987 all the way through January of 1989. Those were the most exciting 15½ moths of my life! Even better than my junior year of high school when I went steady with Rhonda Perkins! Who? Only the prettiest girl in school. Captain of the cheerleading squad? What do you mean you don’t remember Rhonda Perkins? Oh, I’m so trivial in the course of world history that Google can’t find a scrap of useful info on me. I sure am happy to be getting VH1’s 400 dollars, though. I’m gonna buy me an iPod, I am! Hey, let me ask you something: What happens to those uneaten snacks and drinks at the end of the day? You guys just throw ’em out or what? ’Cause I’ll take ’em if…


George H. W. Bush: I’m sorry. I can’t participate in your little nerdboy nostalgia idiocy right now because I’m pretty darn busy orchestrating vast and intricate machinations to maintain some fucking order in this once great nation currently doddering on the brinky-brink of a major smiting from on high, you filthy heathen anarchist leftie Jews. Er. Um. I meant “liberals.” I mean “Zionists.” I mean... “Jews.” End communiqué.


Donald Regan: Hey, folks! Big Donnie Regan here, former Secretary of the Treasury (a.k.a. “Mr. Big Cash-Money.” Bling, bling!) Boy, oh, boy, them 80s was some wicked good times! I’m talkin’ cuh-rrrrazy wicked! So much coke! So many hookers! But, as I’m told is sung by some “rap” hipster: mo’ money, mo’ problems. See, I was exploiting my position as master of all the cash-money in the whole wide world so I could help out some Contra pals of mine in exchange for bags and bags of primo cocaine, which I was reselling to li’l Georgie W. at a ludicrously inflated markup, thus proving that axiom about the separation of fools and their money, and also inadvertently inflating the cost of living like a blowfish by means of trickle-down ca-ching! I’m Mr. Big Cash-Money, sucka! Bling, bling! And so on. Anyway, those schmucks in the mailroom couldn’t read the scratchy penmanship of a one-armed Nicaraguan guerilla and, long story short, a package addressed to “Donald Regan” wound up on the desk of someone with a very similar name. Yikes! You shoulda seen how pissy Nancy got. That bitch is cold! Ah, the 80s. What a decade. Hey, did you know Rosalinda, my nurse, was born in the 80s? Did I say nurse? I meant baby-mama. Bling, bling! Cash-money out.


Mikhail Gorbachev: Ha, ha, yes! I remember 80s! One time I watch “The Cosby Show” on bootleg videocassette and the red phone is ringing! Your President Mr. Ronald Reagan is screaming and yelling. I say “Mr. President, why is you yelling?” He demanding I take your comedian Mr. Yakov Smirnoff back or else he will be blowing up my city of Minsk. “Right off the map” he is saying. I say “Why, Mr. President, why you ask me take him back? He no is funny.” Mr. President Reagan he yells more loud and he say he is counting down numbers backward to zero and if I do not accept the comedian he is launching his nuclear missiles. And then he is laughing! Is not President. Is comedian Rich Little! He is pulling pranks! How does he get the number of my secret red phone? Ha, ha, yes! The 80s is good time.


Alexander Haig: Remember the day Reagan was shot and I told everybody I was in control of the country? That was the best. Don Regan bet me twenty bucks I wouldn’t do it. But I did!


John Hinkley: Dude, I’m, like, so over Jodie Foster. As a 14-year-old whore in Taxi Driver she was pretty hot, but at 40, no thank you. I mean, Anna and the King? Sommersby?!? Yeggcch.

But, hey, have you seen that li’l British bird who plays Hermione? Yowza!

I Love “I Love the 70s,” “I Love the 80s,” “I Love the 90s,” and “I Love the 80s Strikes Back”

Parts I, II, III, & IV
by
Josh Abraham, Donnie Boman, Bunsen, Dennis DiClaudio,
Nick Jezarian, Christopher Monks, Mick Stingley, Matthew Tobey, & Geoff Wolinetz