A Zombie Johnnie Cochran (a Talking with Bob interlude)

I was hanging out with my friend Bob; Bob was, unsurprisingly, grumbling as he read the newspaper.

At one point Bob sighed heavily. “O.J. Simpson is back in the news again,” he said testily, “why can’t that guy go away and leave us alone?”

“O.J. just needs some crack legal help,” I said. “He needs to hook up with Johnnie Cochran again…that’ll do the trick.”

Bob sighed again, more heavily than before. “Michael, you do know that Johnnie Cochran is dead, don’t you?”

I took no umbrage because I knew that on some level Bob thought I was an idiot and we’d long ago made our peace with that. “Yes, Bob, I know that. But I was thinking that O.J. should go find himself a good voodoo woman and have Johnnie brought back for one more hurrah!”

“So you’re saying that Simpson should get a zombie Johnnie Cochran to come back from the dead to defend him?”

“Exactly!” I replied excitedly. “That would be so cool!”

Bob rolled his eyes and went back to the paper. “I don’t know what the problem is with people in so-called “professional” sports. You got that idiot baseball player who hurt his own stupid self because he let somebody get him riled up beyond control. You got that bicycle guy who lost his title because of ‘performance enhancing’ drugs. And don’t get me started on…Michael…Vick…” Bob’s words trailed off as he looked over and saw me staring off with goofy grin on my face. “And you’re not listening to me at all, are you?”

I shook off the reverie. I knew that the truth wasn’t the answer Bob wanted to hear but I decided to go with it anyway. “Um, no I’m not. Sorry, Bob.”

Bob cocked an eyebrow. “You’re still thinking about a zombie Johnnie Cochran, aren’t you?”

I smiled, almost laughed, and nodded. “Yes! I’m mean, come on, you have to admit that it would be something cool to see!” Can’t you just see zombie Johnnie Cochran in court, skin rotting away under a sharp $3,000 suit?” I shifted into a spooky voice. “If it rains you must feed me more brains...”

I thought I saw Bob stifle a smile. “You need help, Michael,” he said as soberly as he could. “Besides zombies don’t talk that fast.”

“Zombie Johnnie Cochran would be as glib as ever,” I opined confidently. “…until the jury delivers, I needs me more livers…”

“Stop it,” Bob protested, though I could tell he was desperately trying not to laugh.

“…when the feasting starts, I’ll have three human hearts…”

“I’m not listening to you anymore…”

6 or 7 (a Talking with Bob interlude)

My friend Bob sighed. Bob always sighed whenever he read the newspaper so I didn’t bother to pay much attention to it. “Man, I wish some of these guys would get out of the Presidential race, there’s almost too many of them to keep track of.”

I shrugged. “C’mon, Bob,” I said, “what’s the big deal? There’s only like 6 or 7 of them, right? What’s so hard?”

Bob put his paper and turned to face. The incredulous look on his face let me know that I had just said something stupid that he was going to need to correct. “6 or 7?”

I shrugged again. “Yeah,” I insisted, “there ain’t that many of them. The Democrats have Bill Clinton’s wife, that black dude, and the guy with the hair and the teeth. The Republicans have Mayor Rudi, that cranky old guy, the Mormon fella, and, sooner or later, my pal Fred.” I paused and looked at Bob. “Seems easy enough to me, Bob.”

“Michael,” Bob as patiently as he could, “those aren’t the only candidates. Haven’t you seen all the other people onstage during the debates?”

I frowned. “Well I don’t really listen to the debates that closely but from what I can tell those other folks never get to say much. I thought they were just there to make the stage look fuller. Are you sure they’re real candidates?”

Bob started to say something but, for once, he seemed to not have a comeback. “Well,” he said finally, “given the way the media treats them, you sort of a have a point. It’s a moronic point…but not completely incorrect.”

I felt quite pleased with myself. “Well, odds were that I would get something right sooner or later, Bob.”

Bob sighed again…that one was for me but I didn’t mind….and went back to reading the paper while I stared out the window idly humming the theme from Law and Order.

Our Long National Nightmare (a Talking with Bob interlude)

I was checking my e-mail and happily making plans for the millions of dollars that was coming my way from all of the sweepstakes that I had won without remembering when I had actually entered them and from all of the inheritances I apparently had coming from people I didn’t know all over the world. Images of my new luxurious life were dancing in my fevered head as each wonderful e-mail scrolled across the screen.

My friend Bob was on the other side of the room grumbling and cursing as he perused the day’s newspaper. Bob had a fluorescent marker at the ready as he carefully searched for factual, spelling, and grammatical errors. “Aha!” he exclaimed every time he found such an error, gleefully highlighting each one with a ragged yellow circle. Bob said “aha!” a lot every time he read the paper.

When he was done Bob, the undisputed master of the scathing letter to the editor, would turn his outrage and disgust into missives of poetic invective and withering, carefully-crafted vitriol and send them sailing into the ether and on to the screens of the poor interns tasked with sorting through such communications. Bob was something of a legend among said interns.

A breaking news alert caught my eye and I scanned it; the news sent waves of relief coursing through my very being. “At last,” I said aloud, “our long national nightmare is over!”

Bob’s eyebrow shot up and he looked over expectantly. “What? What is it? Is the war over?”

“War? No, Bob, not the war,” I replied as patiently as I could (Bob had strange priorities sometimes.) “The unjust incarceration of our queen is over, man. Paris is free!”

Bob’s eyes grew shaded. “Paris Hilton? You think our national nightmare was Paris Hilton being in jail?”

Ignoring the skepticism in Bob’s voice, I nodded. “Well yeah…it had to be hell for that sweet girl. No makeup, no cell phones, no photo ops…I hope she’s not permanently scarred because we need her so much.” I paused and sighed heavily. “C'mon, dude, even you have to admit that it’s been so very hard on all of us.”

My friend Bob glared at me silently for a long moment and then he shook his head. “You say these things just to hurt me, don’t you?”

“I too am America, Bob,” I said with an impish grin.

“Yes,” Bob agreed glumly, “unfortunately you are.”

“Hey,” I said reading from the news, “Barbara Walters said that Paris has found Jesus…or Buddha…or something…she’s a new, enlightened Paris following in the footsteps of Jesus, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Oliver North, and, I'm sure, Scooter Libby and turning her oppression into something that will enlighten us all!”

Bob rolled his eyes in righteous disgust and turned back to the paper. “I’m not listening to you anymore, Michael.”

“Ooo, she's going to tell all to our pal Larry King! This is gonna be so hot!” I gushed as Bob resumed his hunt for errors to bring to the attention of the newspaper’s interns.

Decision '08 (a Talking with Bob interlude)

My friend Bob burst into my house with a mission. He was, I noted with some chagrin, in his crusader mode. “Who are you gonna vote for?” Bob asked without any preamble.

I wracked my brain. American Idol was over and I didn’t think that So You Think You Can Dance had opened their phone voting yet. I frowned and gave him my best puzzled look. “Vote for?”

“For President! President of the United States of America! Maybe you’ve heard of it???” Bob said with exasperation. “Who are you gonna vote for?”

I sighed to myself. Political conversations with my friend Bob were never a pretty thing. “Hadn’t really thought about it that much,” I replied truthfully. “Especially considering that this is June of ’07 and I don’t really have to make a final decision until November of ’08.” I knew that this was the wrong answer before I’d finished speaking but I was already committed so I went with it.

“No! No! No!” Bob raged indignantly, the veins in his forehead throbbing impressively. “This is the most important decision in the history of this country and you can’t sit on the fence until next year! The good people of New Hampshire are on the verge of moving their primary to Halloween of this year so that they can have the first say in who gets to move on! You have to choose and you have to choose now!”

I suppressed a smile. “Calm down, Bob,” I said solicitously.

Bob grabbed me by my lapels and drew me so close that I could tell that he’d had Hawaiian pizza for lunch. “A name, Michael,” he said, his eyes glowing wildly, “give me a name!”

I suppressed a laugh and shrugged. “Okay. Fred Thompson.”

Bob’s eyes went wide and then he frowned. “Because you agree with him on the issues?” he asked warily.

“Nah,” I said, extricating myself from my friend Bob’s grasp, “because he has the coolest theme song. They’re going to play the Law and Order theme everywhere he goes and that’s going to be so cool.”

Bob’s mouth fell open. “You…you…you…” he sputtered unable to grasp my seemingly flippant attitude to the most important decision in the history of this country. “I can’t talk to you anymore,” he said his voice low and icy.

“Gah!” Bob exclaimed, throwing up his arms as he spun on his heels and marched towards the front door.

“Nice talking with you, Bob,” I said not bothering to suppress a smile as I began to hum the theme from Law and Order.