“God’s here again Dr. Tannenbaum.”

“Oh dear. Show him in Miss Partridge.”

“He set fire to the chair again.”

“Thank God we have insurance… Ah hello Jeho…”

“Don’t use my name.”

“Sorry. So what have you been doing for the last week?”

“Well I created a heaven and an earth…”

“Of course you did. In seven days.”

“Six. On the seventh…”

“You rested, of course. So what seems to be the problem?”

“Nobody believes in me anymore.”

“Come now that’s not true…”

“I remember when I was the most popular thing on the planet. People feared me then, they really feared me.”

“Well you moved in a mysterious way.”

“Oh that was just an accident, I sprained my ankle creating a giraffe, they’re tricky things.”

“You asked your followers to kill their children.”

“Only Abraham. And that was just a gag.”

“Well you were pretty scary with all that Hell thing.”

“Yes that was good wasn’t it. They really feared that. Eternal damnation, what a concept.”

“So what went wrong?”

“Science. I told them to burn that Galileo, but the Inquisition was useless.”

“But now surely we have science we see Galileo was right.”

“What’s right got to do with it? I’m God. I made it all happen.”

“The night before the 23rd October 4004 B.C.?”

“Yes. It was a Tuesday I remember it well. I thought I’ll just pop out and let there be a bit of light, and then I started to tinker around and in a week I’d created all the heaven and the earth and all the living creatures therein and the waters and the trees and the animals, and then I created Adam and Eve. And then I rested.”

“That’s not strictly true is it?”

“Yes it is. It’s in the Bible.”

“Look Jeho…”

“Don’t use my name.”

“Every schoolboy knows that 13.6 billion years ago the entire Universe exploded out of a microscopic atomic singularity which contained all the matter and enough energy for the whole expanding Universe.”

“And they say my version is hard to believe!”

“Have you been taking the Prozac?”

“No I couldn’t find any water. My Son keeps changing it into wine.”

“How is He?”

“Well He’s half the problem, with all that peace and love bull. Christians want guns, semi-automatic weapons. Fear is what they love. But no, my Son has to be some kind of hippie appealing to a new generation. Forgiveness? I never forgive. Turn the other cheek? Crazy. Sin? I invented it. Why would I forgive it? It made the Church a fortune.”

“Have you ever thought of PR?”

“That’s what the Pope does.”

“Sadly the Pope needs his own PR, they’re up to their hassocks in law suits. Have you ever considered a Make Over?”

“What?”

“Change the costume, find a decent PR firm, go on Oprah, cry a little, maybe shave, dye the grey hair, you look like you just wandered in out of the Desert. And ditch the sheet. Go to Gap and get some Daks and lose the sandals, they are so not today.”

“I’m not going on Oprah.”

“Well Doctor Phil, he’s right up your alley.”

“I’ve got plans for him.”

“Alright then Kimmel, show the lighter side of yourself. Ferguson’s great with guests.”

“How about Letterman?”

“Not right now, wrong for your image. Dave is too revered. You’ll come off looking second best.”

“But I started the Top Ten List.”

“Of course you did and the Ten Commandments are still really good, but they need updating. No one covets ox and sheep anymore. Maybe a new Aston Martin…”

“Leno?”

“Almost certainly won’t have you, unless you have a Sitcom on NBC.”

“Fox?”

“They have an exclusive contract with the Devil.”

“How about E?”

“Chelsea won’t take you. She thinks you’re against women.”

“I am. I don’t know why I created them, they’ve been nothing but trouble.”

“How about a few Website appearances, maybe Nerdist and Reddit, do a Podcast, you should have a Twitter account, certainly Facebook, and they may be able to get you on the Simpsons.”

“Look I’m God, I don’t want to be on a stupid cartoon show. Doesn’t anybody Fear Me anymore? I get no respect.”

“Don’t use that phrase, it’s a Rodney Dangerfield line.”

“A philosopher?”

“A comedian.”

“That was my big mistake, permitting comedy.”

“I’m sorry Time’s up.”

“I created Time.”

“Just take the Prozac and I’ll see you next week. And do you mind not setting fire to the furniture on the way out?”

I found some more lyrics from an uncompleted musical.

The Queen of Mean

I’m the King of Gossip

I’m the Queen of Mean

Though I’m not the worst one

I’m the first one on the scene

I dish the dirt on those who flirt

Have implants or new teeth

I pull back the red carpet

And reveal what’s underneath

I tell you all who’s screwing who

Who’s doing what with whose

Which dope likes smoke

Who’s doing coke,

Who’s rude about the Jews.

If I wasn’t here you’d miss me

I sniff you like a dog

Be careful and don’t diss me

Or you’ll turn up in my blog.

People in show business

Aren’t the same as you and me

They’re rich assholes

Who sell their souls

To get their face lifts on TV

To have their pictures published

Looking skinny by the sea

And for that they all depend

On bitchy little me.

I ferret out the gossip

I’m deep throat,  a spy, a mole.

Celebrities down on their knees,

Exposure is my goal.

So beware because I’m out there

Stalking the A list

I’m an un spin doctor

A show biz proctologist

You can learn more about a Star

Than the half-truths sold by their PR

Duck me if you’re under stress

Suck in the sweet smell of excess

Fuck me and you’re in the press

For I’m the Queen of Mean.

c) Rutsongs

2/17/2009.  From Closure 4^th Draft.

Updated:1/17/2013

A thing I do from time to time is to review unfinished work.  Recently I found some old lyrics from an abandoned musical, that I had forgotten about, and  that I quite liked.  Here is a poignant song about the death of a writer!

Only A Writer

When somebody famous

Falls under a bus

It makes us feel better

That it isn’t us.

If there’s one thing we love

It’s celebrity death

We turn on and wait

For that last final breath.

Yes celebrity death cheers everyone up

It makes us feel better that no matter who

The rich and the famous must also die too.

But though I loved Freddie

And I’m in PR

The name of a writer

Won’t go very far.

Yes though he was kind

And no one politer

Still and all Freddie

Was only a writer.

Only a writer

How sad and how tragic

And though yes there is still some kind of magic

Yet although his soul he quite frequently bares

He’s only a writer

So nobody cares.

Only a writer

So nobody stares

Only a writer

So nobody cares

With all of their money

And all of their fame

Celebrities die

Like us, just the same.

When stars pass away

The future seems brighter

But nobody cares

If it’s only a writer.

For Stars and their sex lives

The internet hums

But for only a writer

Nobody comes.

c) Rutsongs

1/6/2010   Say No More

He was drinking again.

What did it matter?  Nothing mattered any more.

God had clearly deserted him.   God who had told him what to do all along.   God who had virtually begged him to become Leader; who had let the infidels maul his armies, blow up his cities and permitted hurricanes to make him look like an incompetent fool.  Bloody God!

He hurled an empty vodka bottle at the White House dog.  He’d have to remember to find some gasoline from somewhere to burn it and Laura’s bodies when they were done.   Perhaps Halliburton would come through with a gallon or two after all he’d done for them.  He’d shoot Laura and then take the pills.  It wasn’t that he was a coward, he had just never cared for pain.  Always preferred inflicting it.

Where was Rumsfeld anyway with those regiments?   Phantom regiments,  he had called them last night, when Bush moved them neatly into position on the big map.   Phantom?  What was he talking about.   They were the finest National Guardsmen ever sent abroad to attack others in defense of their country.  Far better than hanging around inAlabama getting drunk.  Or sitting waiting for some local disaster in case they might be useful.   How often did hurricanes hit anyway?  Better to be out there searching the streets of some Arab town for improvised explosives.   So what a lot of them hadn’t come back?  What had they got to lose?  OK , a few neurotic parents had complained about the senseless waste of youth.  But who hadn’t senselessly wasted their youth?  Why some nights in Houston he had been so drunk he could hardly hold the cocaine bottle.  Now Rumsfeld was claiming he had no regiments left.   Well, duh, Herr Rumsfeld, get some new boys.  Stick some twelve year olds in uniform. They like uniforms.  Get them some new automatic weapons and a Hummer and put ‘em out there on the streets of oldBaghdad.  Can’t be more dangerous than dealing with gang wars in Philadelphia.  They wouldn’t mind dying in defense of their country.  He hadn’t particularly cared to do that himself, but then he had much more to lose.  Easy to squander your life when you’re not rich, but his Pappy had always tried to keep him out of the firing line.  His dear Pappy, who had tried to warn him.   “You can’t just ignore everyone.  Even the French can be useful” he had said as he uncorked a Chateau-bottled Saudi, another nice gift from Bandar.

Where was that Rove?  Sniveling coward.  Keeping a low profile as usual, avoiding the paparazzi and trying to figure a way to sneak out of the White House Bunker without being caught.   It was all his fault.   I can make you a great Leader.  Blame it on the left.   Blame it on the media.  Blame it on the Jews.   Just blame somebody and then they’ll all cheer.  Then go to war, and label your enemies traitors.  Been done before a million times.

So what went wrong?   They’d had it made.  Corporate sponsors kissed his ass, billions of tax payers dollars to spend.  The Democrats dull, dim and defeated, and now this.  This ingratitude.   They all deserved to die.  Americans.  They weren’t worthy of him.  Not man enough to stand and let the country die for him?  The fact was they didn’t deserve him.

That god damn rat Cheney had had the gall to ask him if he could slip off toSouth America last night.  Muttered something about a new heart attack medication that he’d heard of in the jungle, but that was bullshit.  He was just running.  As usual. Whenever there was trouble.   It was always me who had to go and stand in front of the troops and say how well we’d done after each disaster.  Not Dick.   Oh no, Dick would be bunkered down in some safe base running the country.  Well fuck Dick.   He was a prick.  A greedy bastard.  Sure, if you’re gonna run a Country like a Company better to have a Company you know run it, but how many billions had he made?   And how much had he really passed along to the poor geek that they had got to speak for them.  Not nearly enough.

A call from Powell. To say goodbye.  Well that was nice of the chap.  He’d never thought much of him.  Too much of a soldier, but still.  Where was Rumsfeld and his regiments?  They’re going to lose me this war, he said, forgetting for a moment.  The war on terror.  His legacy.  Finally a war against a decent noun.  A war that need never stop. Terror?   He’d shown them.  Remember Shock and Awe?   Well that showed thoseBaghdad bastards who was who?   Stupid bleeding heart civilians holding up bloody babies and whimpering to CNN.  Surgical strikes, that’s what his Air Force said.  And only afterwards had the pictures seemed a little less certain.  Perhaps a bit more like surgery, with missing limbs.  He chuckled at his joke.   But those fabulous distant days of good explosions on TV, now they were ratings.   In those days he could do no wrong, looking stern, watching the planes lift off from carrier decks in the dull dawn.  Blair on the phone saying “Yes, yes, we can do it. Go Baby.  Go Baby Bush!” At last the rush he’d not felt since the cocaine days.  Now even the voting machines were turning against him.

He could hear the secretaries crying in the bunker corridor.  What was so bad for them?  He was the one leaving.  He was the one they’d be watching turn to toast in the Rose Garden.

Condi came in to ask him what she should wear for his funeral.   The black or the red?   There’s not going to be a damn funeral.  We’re having a simple family cremation.  The previous night there had been some loose talk about Cheney poisoning his wife and children.  Now wouldn’t that have been nice?  But he had been lying of course.  His jungle retreat apparently was ready.  They had a pool.  Jacuzzi.  Life support machine.   The finest stuff KBR could provide.  Corporate jet standing by.   Bastards!

From Bush:  The Last Ten Days.