Pandemic Journal

Everybody has their best-of lists, so let me be humility-free and offer Pandemic Journal for consideration. It compresses the ridiculousness of 2020 into an hour of reading/guilty pleasure that generated laughter, outrage and a small amount of misguided anger among readers.

If you haven’t yet, check it out.

Grifters often have a blind spot when it comes to detecting one of their own kind, so we shouldn’t be surprised to see the latest chapter of the Wisconsin-Foxconn saga leave the state’s citizens holding an empty bag while the politicos who summoned ruin look for a side door.

A company whose employees use threats of mass suicide as a bargaining tactic might not seem like an ideal partner for the wholesome Dairy State, but a few years ago they simply had to mention “high tech” and “13,000 employees” to get then-governor Walker, a man whose notions about economics arrive in a fat envelope from the Heritage Foundation, to strap on his kneepads and do whatever had to be done.

Even the Carnival Barker in Chief got in on the act, because there was credit to be claimed without actually doing any work besides shaking a hand and grimacing at a camera. And so it came to pass that Wisconsin ponied up $2.85 billion in tax credits in exchange for Foxconn’s promise to hire 13K workers who would make next-generation LCD screens. A wise man would question why a manufacturer of electronic commodities would choose to plop down a new factory in Wisconsin, the state’s sudden love of cheap labor notwithstanding, but no one has ever accused Scott Walker of being a wise man.

Similarly, history buffs might have spoken up about past examples of Foxconn playing bait and switch with rubes around the globe, but I guess the economic cheerleaders in the state don’t believe there’s anything to be learned from the past.

The train wreck that will forever be known as Fox-Con has happened in exquisite slow motion. An empty “innovation center” distracted curious eyes from the lack of actual manufacturing, while “someday soon” became less of a promise and more of a doomed dream.

Yet, some hold on to that dream and boldly believe, against all reason, that manufacturing activity will crank up and Foxconn will add the 12,719 additional employees needed to meet their commitment. But grifters know never to hang around one town too long. To paraphrase a famous movie about swindlers, I guess Foxconn will move on and won’t be getting a straight job anytime soon.

Columbus Day finds the Pandemic Journal staff gathering in the lunchroom to raise a toast to a few hundred years of unfettered genocide. As is our custom, staff members are invited to share their favorite recipes. These range from elaborate dishes to fare you might find in “Microwave Dinners for One.” I would say we don’t judge, but we do, with the advertising team assigning scores on a ten-point scale to each dish. And now it’s my pleasure to share with you, dear reader, a few time-tested favorites.

Publisher’s Punch (from yours truly)
Pour a fifth of pure grain alcohol in a Swarovski Crystal bowl. Add a splash of bottled, processed lemon juice. Stick a curly straw in the punch and drink until the sweet relief of unconsciousness overcomes you.

Cabbage, Just Cabbage (from Frank in Accounting)
Take the only vegetable your wife left you in the divorce. Season with tears. Stab it with a sharp knife. Eat it. Or not. Who’s hungry, anyway?

Crab Cakes a la Sue (from Sue in Research)
Lump crab masks the taste of drain cleaner, so add plenty of both along with bread crumbs, Old Bay Seasoning, and two egg yolks. Mix well, form into patties, bake and serve to those jackasses in HR while quietly reminding yourself that you make 30% less than your co-worker Dale, who is an idiot.

Hot Pockets and More! (from Chuck in the Motor Pool)
Inject Ghost Pepper concentrate into frozen Hot Pockets. Microwave per Jim Gaffigan’s instructions (frozen on the outside, molten in the middle). Pop popcorn and watch the fun.

Let Them Eat Cake (that’s right, another one from me!)
My lifelong pursuit of privatizing gains and socializing risk means that sometimes the axe has to fall on a career. And if it happens during our company lunch the bad news comes complete with a luscious chocolate cake. Who says a life-upsetting event can’t be sweet!?

I’m feeling chastened to think that maybe my use of salty language is getting out of hand. So I’ve sworn-without-actually-swearing to tone it down a bit and only use words that will make a nun smile.

This new leaf also has me rethinking my attitude about various topics. “Smile and the whole world smiles with you,” an old friend used to say, and I look forward to reconnecting with him on Facebook so I can tell him how that worked out after I grinned at a Neo Confederate who was loudly asserting his belief that the South’s 0-1 wartime record is merely a historical quirk that will be corrected.

In the same manner, I vowed to test drive certain beliefs that haven’t sat well with me, wondering if a change of heart could turn my perpetual frown upside down.

I decided to first confront my fear of notions that “science” tells me are harmful. “Don’t fear gravity,” I said to Dave as I casually pushed him over the third-story railing of a parking garage. I count this experiment as inconclusive thanks to Dave’s inability to form sounds or facial expressions, and thus give me any useful feedback.

Pressing on, I put aside my fear of sharp objects, open electrical sockets and fire. An afternoon of fearless experimentation was painful but showed me that a little scarring is a small price to pay for having an open mind.

Fortified by pain, I sauntered among the many homeless in our community and reminded them that they didn’t have to go hungry if they could only summon up some pluck and expand their understanding of what makes objects “edible.”

But a life well-lived is about more than overcoming fear and helping others beneath us expand their horizons. It’s about seeing the world as a reflection of one’s own untroubled perspective. I’m learning to get there, but in the meantime I’ve covered my windows with plywood and play choral music at high volume to shield me from any ugliness that might come my way.

I’ve got to say it’s working for me. Alone with my happy thoughts, I feel a new peacefulness.

Editor’s note: Pandemic Journal staff has found it challenging to keep pace with the news. But some stories demand coverage, and word that White House Advisor Stephen Miller contracted Covid-19 is one of those. That’s why we’re running a fill-in-the-blanks preview edition of this ghoul’s obituary for your edification and pleasure, even as we send him our sincerest thoughts and prayers.

August 23, 1985-________

White House advisor Stephen Miller, who rose from the dead and used his vampiric powers to promote policies that did many a tinpot authoritarian proud, has left this earthly realm and returned to his underworld lair where his presence is undoubtedly giving Satan the heebie-jeebies. Covid may have been the cause, but for all we know he may have just decided hell suits him better.

Miller was born and attended school for many years in California, where his classmates regularly administered parking lot beat downs in response to Miller’s penchant for turning every tragedy into a right wing talking point. Ejected from the state for being a complete dick, he continued his studies at Duke University, where he was best known as a promoter and fundraiser for noted neo-Nazi Richard Spencer, as well as a first-class asshole.

Miller, who had every trace of his humanity removed in a groundbreaking surgical procedure in 2001, gained the attention of Nazi enthusiasts and casual fascists worldwide for his embrace of policies that wink at the notion of white superiority without saying it out loud too often.

Following graduation, he won an OAN reality show in which he strangled kittens for a continuous 72 hour period without stopping to eat or drink. The show remains the highest rated in OAN’s history.

Miller rose to become a White House policy advisor after demonstrating his abject cruelty to an administration that thrives on it. While he was known for separating migrant families and caging children, a lesser known fact is that these were not his official duties, but hobbies he joylessly engaged in for much of his life. In addition to his duties as liaison to the less savory elements of society, Miller was primary White House speechwriter despite his requirement that his overwrought screeds, which lacked any connection to reality, be translated from their original German.

Miller leaves behind his wife, also a horrible person, and no friends.

I became at volunteer Candy Striper at Walter Reed Hospital in 2019 because of my love of humankind and unflinching belief that I can make a positive difference in this world. Despite the personal risk it represents, I’ve upheld that commitment during the pandemic, serving a shift from 7 AM to 3 PM five days a week, without fail. And without pay.

While it’s not unusual for the president to appear at my workplace, the other day was a bit different. Perhaps it was his labored breathing and sweaty, panicked countenance. I don’t judge, though, and set about giving him the best care I could. Even when he, profanely and for far longer than necessary, demanded to know why he was there and whether his pal Vladimir sent me to rescue him.

Patients can become disoriented so I chuckled at his outburst, which set off another of what my mom calls “adult tantrums” and an uncontrolled coughing fit.

That caused a commotion and the president’s handlers and aides and all the doctors and nurses jumped into action and wheeled him toward the ICU. And I found myself alone. Typically, I would turn to comfort the spouse but in this case I think she was still sore about the “porn hooker” and didn’t come along.

I busied myself tidying up after the president and his entourage and immediately spied a black briefcase, which I recognized as the Presidential Emergency Satchel or what some folks call the nuclear football.

There was no one to hand it to and the end of my shift had long passed, so I figured I would take it home for safekeeping and bring it back the next day. I showed it to mom and she laughed and said the world would be a lot safer with the nuclear codes in the hands of any random juvenile than the president. She’s a kidder.

Anyway, I’ve been perusing pages of retaliatory options, teaching my parrot the nuclear launch codes, and prank calling Domino’s with the bag’s super cool satellite communications device. But I’m bored, on Reddit and have the nuclear football. Ask me anything.

Readers have faxed and telegraphed messages of concern about our editorial staff’s well-being after news of an outbreak of COVID-19 among the flat earthers who run this once-proud nation. Our readers have seen our masked scribes in close proximity to these yokels and worry that the spread of disease to our newsroom might interfere with publication of “Just How Much Does Melania Fucking Hate Christmas?” which we teased on our Times Square billboard.

Never fear.

Our staff epidemiologist immediately broke the glass on her emergency plan, which has been sitting in a dusty case waiting for just this moment. In a fashion that would make an Olympic-class synchronized swim team proud, we first pink-slipped all writers who had been in close proximity to anyone named Trump, so they might experience the American healthcare system from the perspective of the uninsured and write about it. Second, we tested all remaining members of our staff and their family members, and are relieved to report that every last one of them tested negative for sympathy.

Rest assured that publication of Pandemic Journal, including the upcoming photo feature of Letitia James smacking an eerily familiar piñata with a baseball bat, will continue without interruption.

“There’s always money in the banana stand,” Pop-Pop used to say. His sage advice stuck with me during the years the banana stand grew like wildfire, fueled by consumers’ insatiable appetites for frozen, oblong treats and Pop-Pop’s money laundering. His wisdom stuck with me when the banana stand burned, fueled by hastily hidden and highly flammable legal tender. And his wisdom lives in me today, guiding my stewardship of a global empire of wildly improbable, not to mention unprofitable, banana stands in far flung locales like Panama, Moscow, Scotland and Kiev.

Yes, although these banana stands are black holes for local currency, revenue-producing marketing deals mint mountains of cash for my web of enterprises. Every time my name and face are slapped on another Tiki hut staffed by teenage contractors hired by licensees, my banana stand empire shifts into a higher gear, sluicing dollars, euros and rubles through hundreds of interconnected offshore companies. It creates a lot of wealth, believe me.

Banana stand brand licensing and merch, as well as my star turn on the CW Network’s reality show “Top Banana” have made me a billionaire. Modesty prevents me from saying how many billions, but there are a lot. Many, many billions that I have had to protect through legally-dubious, one-sided agreements with a long list of ex-wives, bastard kids, hookers and mistresses.

Normally, I would let my billions speak for themselves, but news vultures have been flooding the zone with stories about me, the banana stand empire, and my considerable wealth. Based on dubious sources like public records and government documents, it is alleged that bad things were done. I’ll counter that they weren’t, or in the worst case, mistakes were made.

So I am setting the record straight on a number of points.

First, I am a billionaire. Would I say I’m a billionaire if there weren’t millions of banana stand customers who line up each day to attest to my wealth, genius and handsomeness?

Second, allegations about my paltry contributions to the US Treasury are false. The best taxes are no taxes, any taxes make my stomach hurt, and I have a perpetual stomach ache and uncontrollable flatulence every day. So I must pay a lot of taxes!

Third, I’m personally hurt that nasty people on the Internet say I’m a bad businessman. I’m a very, very good businessman and it’s only natural that when you’re trying to keep a thousand balls in the air–each of those balls representing an obscure LLC that serves as a financial conduit for ever-larger corporations’ cash flows–one of those balls, like a banana stand-themed casino, will eventually fall to the ground and take down a local economy. That’s not my fault.

Finally, it is not true that the banana stand is a house of cards backed by unknown actors who hold a fiscal sword of Damocles over my head, and that my only way out of financial ruin is to co-opt the operations of a good sized government and start squeezing ’em for cash. No, this is not true at all, but it’s an excellent idea.

Pandemic Journal was born during the halcyon years when politicians didn’t mess with those of us who purchased ink by the barrel, and readers had to put pen to paper to tell us what was on their tiny minds. The Internet may have turned this all bass-ackwards, but believe it or not we still have readers who like to perambulate to the end of the driveway or post office to retrieve the words they’ll sit down to consume with a Scotch chaser.

Six of them, in fact. I know their names, each and every one of them, and I’ll be damned if they don’t keep re-upping their print subscriptions just to piss me off.

But times are changing and so is the manner in which each weekly copy of Pandemic Journal will be conveyed to these Luddite dead-enders.

You’ve probably heard that the US Post Office is evolving – similar to the way your neighborhood ice cream shop evolved into offering a subscription model where the only flavors are Shit and Death. We’ve gotten a memo outlining how the new order will affect subscription delivery, and for the six (or maybe five, because Ted has been knocking on death’s door for a while now) readers who like to stain their hands with ink, I’ll offer an update.

Beginning this week, each print issue of Pandemic Journal will be one page, full of four letter words, stuffed in the smallest envelope we can find. We will post these envelopes each Monday for delivery at some random date in the future. Or never.

The fine people at the USPS tell me that each issue will now follow this route, on the way to subscribers’ doors:

A man driving a red, white and blue truck will pointedly ignore your issues for a minimum of five business days. Those that don’t end up behind industrial shelving will eventually be shoved into bins, loaded on the truck and dropped off at a multipurpose processing center, where mail goes for sorting and chickens go to be parted out for McNuggets. A woman named Cheryl may take one or more of your issues home to read.

If the processing center doesn’t burn down due to the historical neglect of routine maintenance, chicken-slime coated issues will be placed in a briefcase and hand-carried to randomly selected fields, where contractors selected for being the lowest bidders will send (via hot air balloon, I think) our carefully crafted prose in the general direction of our subscribers.

Schoolchildren across the nation will eventually find these issues, emblazoned with a notice of reward for swift return, spread across balloon wreckage sites. We will receive these returned issues via FedEx.

Finally, a representative of Pandemic Journal will call each subscriber with a delivery confirmation.

We hope that our six print subscribers will appreciate this enhanced service. In order to support this improved delivery initiative, we will raise the print subscription price by a modest amount – roughly 948% per annum. You’re welcome.