Category: humor

by Sissypuss the Blog Kitty

The Cosmos Club wasn’t packed. The power elite of Washington gather rarely, and the guest list for this little party was the sort who value space and privacy almost as much as power. Getting into a joint this posh had meant infiltrating at a truly unreasonable hour, and staying well hidden.

The room had a stage at one end, an eating area in the middle, and seating at the other end. Real plants in large urns, along with the subdued lighting, made staying concealed fairly easy. The party was a raucous Bacchanalia, the kind that requires a Cone Of No Paparazzi. My sharp eyes took in Tony Scambilloni in his tux with the rest of Chin Music on the stage, playing world-class chamber music, while the crowd and the conversation steadily got wilder.

Unable to keep up with the heavy partying, Joe and Jill Biden sat down on the couch in front of me. In between the Bidens and Scambilloni was a who’s who of Progressive elites. Jon Corzine, so mysteriously incapable of showing up on film, had a flute of champaign. Tom Steyer, of course, held a scotch as he held forth on the weather. Jonathan Gruber must have been trolling for customers–I’d have thought him too small-potatoes for this crowd. Was that a Budwiser?

In the opposite corner of the seating end of the room, under a pile of nubile flesh, was Dominique Strauss-Kahn, clinging bitterly to his clothes and the club’s rules of decorum. More bitter than Strauss-Kahn was Bill Clinton standing nearby, threatening to leak from his eyes, mouth, and elsewhere at the sight of so many young women. Bitterest of all was Hillary, standing next to Bill in a pantsuit. Who had done her hair in a Nurse Ratched? There was no need for my Egyptian charm to read any of these minds, even if it had this sort of range. Conspicuous in their absence were the Obamas, but no one seemed to care a whit.

Harry and Landra Reid made the scene, and there was a subtle shift in the party, an expectation. Harry looked as comfortable as a Haisidic Rabbi at a Madrassa. Grey suit, blue tie. Even if the guy wasn’t Mormon, he’d still be the antithesis of a party animal, regardless of age. The room was all: “Why’s HE here?” as the music paused.

And then SHE entered. Monica Lewinsky. No: a jet black cocktail dress. Afar off, Tony nodded, and Chin Music leaned into “Kashmir”

Monica looked at Harry, standing there with a diet ginger ale, and lifted a microphone:

Weren’t my son put beatdown on my face, stars filled my head,
I’m a legislator of both crime and farce, to say what I have said.
To sit with elders of the Progressive race, this world has seldom seen.
They talk of debt for which they sit and wait, when Cthulhu’ll be revealed. . .

First of all, the lady had taken some singing lessons since the Clinton administration–my ears can detect any soundboard trick. Second of all, Reid had all the popularity of a Y chromosome at a feminist conference, even amongst his ilk. The tipsy room threatened to roll over laughing at Reid’s embarrassment.

Reid’s face went very dark, but what was he to say? The people who owned his dented little peach pit of a soul, who had paid Tony to afford him such personal attention, were in this very room. He bowed his head and sulked. There was no humanity left in the room, as one who had ruthlessly built power so many decades was rejected without hope of redemption by his peers.

The band continued expertly through the rest of the tune, oblivious to the human wreckage that was Harry Reid. Lewinsky sang on, but not a word I heard could I relate–the story was quite clear. Until Monica started slinking toward her old boss. It didn’t sound like she was doing a parody anymore, exactly:

Ooh, yeah-yeah, ooh, yeah-yeah, when I’m down…
Ooh, yeah-yeah, ooh, yeah-yeah, well I’m down, so down
Ooh, my baby, oooh, my baby, let me take you there

Let me take you there. Let me take you there

It almost seemed as though Lewinsky had some sub-textual meaning going on, but I couldn’t quite figure out what it might be. Whatever it was, both Bill and Hillary were both fire engine red, though I think for different reasons.

The song ended, and the spell was broken in a crescendo of applause. A dust mote that may have once been Harry Reid blew toward the exit. He warbled over his shoulder: “Romney didn’t win, did he?“.

And then I heard Joe Biden say to Jill: “Wow. I never new Bruce Jenner had fronted Black Sabbath. But at least the transition seems to be going nicely.”

by Sissypuss the Blog Kitty

I got word via Her Majesty’s spy network (what’s a little ‘stealth outsourcing’ between frenemies, eh?) that Tony Scambilloni had a flight booked for Dulles. This within hours of the surprise announcement that Harry “the Cadaver” Reid was not intending to transition from un- to fully-dead right there on the Senate floor, railing about the Koch brothers or some other invented anti-Progressive bugbear. No, Poor, Poor, Pitiful Reid would leave his final trail of embalming fluid in the Senate halls after the 2016 election, and return to afflict Searchlight, Nevada with his lousy personality.

In stark contrast, how can you not love a Renaissance thug like Tony, whose art forgeries cost almost as much as an evening engagement with his chamber quartet, Chin Music? Of course, he had no hourly rate for his “professional services”, which ran the gamut of consulting from matters of body, to mind, to soul.

Access to the 5th floor ventilation in the Hart Building, especially on such short notice, would have been relatively hard for anyone bigger than a feline. Especially without the correct connections. However, arrangements were made, and a helpful security guard “let the cat out of the bag”. (Oh, shut up! You’d’ve used that gag, too.)

The wait was less than an hour there, behind the ventilation grill in the corner of room 522. Harry sat at his desk, illuminated by a banker’s lamp, his good side in profile, one chair and the door in view. Reid, shaking and wheezing, worked at a stack of paper, and swore with more rhythm and passion than one would have thought him incapable of mustering, based upon the usual stream of porridge he emitted on the Senate floor.

The door opened abruptly, with a precisely measured fury. The hall light flooding the room mostly shadowed a man in a black suit bearing an instrument case. Tony.

Reid’s remaining good eye got squinty. “What the philharmonic are you doing here?” he demanded, as Tony shut the door firmly, then strode over to sit in the visible chair. He could have been visiting a junior college professor, and not the United States Senate Minority Leader, for all the waves of disdain exuded. The instrument case occupied what I presumed was another chair on the opposite desk corner. The light of the banker’s lamp on the desk somehow moved Tony’s look away from Robert DeNiro and more toward a Harvey Keitel.

Credit “The Cadaver”: he came out with guns blazing. “You tell Sam Nazarian that, if he wants to see his dreams realized, he’d better learn to be patient.”

Tony never took his eyes off of Reid, but leaned over toward the other chair. I heard the latches thump open, and my heart raced. Had there ever been violence in a Senator’s office? Tony raised an object to his face, and I thought it was some sort of barrel pointing at Reid until the bow started into a slow, perfect rendition of Lux Aeterna by Clint Mansell, from Requiem for a Dream.

After a few minutes, the ever-cultured Harry Reid was having none of it. “Who in the name of Robert Byrd do you think you are?” Tony paused while Reid drew breath. “You come into my office–where is my security?!?!?!–like you came into my home, threatening me with this Charlie Daniels crap, and I’m supposed to take you seriously? I don’t fear you. If they wanted me dead, I’d be room temperature. If they want me to carry through on the deal, they can just quit sending your to bully me, and let me get things done!” Reed took off his glasses and threw them on the desk. Taking Tony out of focus was one way to deal with the sudden wave of fear washing over him. Tony stood, and carefully set his fine instrument and bow back in the case.

Reid was visibly trembling as Tony turned abruptly and leaned over the desk. His bow hand came down flat on Reid’s glasses, deliberately crushing them, before he whisked the debris off the desk to SLAP! against the wall. Tony got in Harry’s face “Catherine Cortez Masto had better understand that, if she assumes your seat, she assumes your debt.”

“There’s no way she’s going to have the skill to work off that kind of dead horse,” said Reid with a mixture of realism and pride. Oh, and a jigger of fear.

“She’s your disciple, isn’t she? Tell her it’s a student loan.” With that, Tony swung brought his left arm around slowly, and touched the ravaged right side of Reid’s face with his pinky finger, eliciting a gasp.

“Here,” said Tony, handing Reid an invitation. “Since I ‘accidentally’ broke your glasses, I’ll help you. It’s for tomorrow tonight at 9 P.M., at the Cosmos Club. Come hear a little Chin Music. Bring the wife. She deserves a little culture for having to tolerate a pernicious swine like you.”

I made good my escape from the Hart Building. Once outside, I laughed like Joe Biden convincing an unwitting child to pull his finger.