Slack II worked himself up from cave life to a sod hut, which in bygone days was considered the American equivalent of a castle. His calling was to further develop the art form he had learned from his father, the art that came to be called “begging off”—a set of techniques the candidate himself was later to perfect. After a down-on-his-luck builder had mounted a sod dwelling atop a sequestered cave strewn with ancient jawless fish from the mid-Ordovician period, Slack the Second refused payment. In fact, he threatened a lawsuit on the grounds that there were several discernible bits of cactus admixed with the sod. The builder, caught in his evil ways, folded and was run out of town, leaving Slack II to live mortgage-free for the remainder of his many years. Not much is known of his first wife, Marie Antoinette du Ojibway, of the Quebec Ojibways, except that she excelled in archery and had one helluva temper.
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Subsequent to this episode, Qi and Orville the Second eloped to the primitive version of what is currently Las Vegas, then returned with a thousand dollars, which Qi had earned with a lucky twist of the wrist. On their reappearance in Panhandle County, they lived in the cave of his birth, now empty due to the death of his mother Margarita from food poisoning, that poisoning having been caused by her intake of a kettle of rancid sweet and sour pronghorn. To augment their ill-got Vegas coin, they set up a mom-and-pop market catering to the illiterate crowd. Eventually Qi gave birth to a son, Orville Slack, Junior.
From Small Southwestern City Picayune/Advocate/Intelligencer
April 1, 2024 Mr. Orville Slack IV: The Family Tree By Mr. Myles na Gopaleen, Jr. As befits a candidate for the Number Two spot on a presidential ticket, the circumstances of Mr. Orville Slack IV’s lineage and life were of a humble nature. Slack I was a semi-orphan. His mother was a Mexican tap-dancer named Margarita. Shortly before his birth, his father, a dissolute Englishman named Jack Slack, decamped from Panhandle County, leaving his wife to fend for herself. This fending consisted of moving to a nearby cave and living on cooked sagebrush, homemade tequila, and the occasional jackrabbit she was able to gun down with an amazing accuracy that was then passed along to her son and their line of sons. Legend has it that Margarita could shoot the end of a squat cigar out of the mouth of a deputy sheriff at fifty paces. There was not a bank teller in Panhandle County—or so it is said—who did not fear Grass-Widow Slack. Indeed, a good part of an aspiring Panhandle County bank teller’s training came to consist of mastering the art of petitioning a Supreme Being of his, or on rare occasions her, choice. (To be continued) Ah’m also proud as punch that Ah not only de-sisted from th’ tem-tations to join them snake-oilas, Ah also fought ’em. But not in the tooth-an-nail tra-dition. Mah maythod was much more subtler. Ah followed the tra-dition of muh great-granddad, Orville Slack I, of muh granddad, Orville Slack II, and of muh de-ceased fathuh, Orville Slack III, by learnin’ the tricks o’ the beg-off trade. Matter o’ fact, Ah lifted that tra-dition to the highes’ peach.
It was this skill that emptied the churches o’ a Sunduh mownin’ and brawt the pa-rishioners of differn’ de-nominational puhsuasions t’ muh fron’ poach, where Ah held fowth on the evils o’ the snake-oil trade and did case-by-case analasees o’ the tricks of battlin’ thayt evil trade. This is how Ah made muh good-got gains. Not that I made a pile: a hat on the floor can hold only so menuh nickels and an oc-casional dahm, an’ Ah stood well within th’ law by ownin’ jus’ one hayet. Ah still own that hayet, which was o’ the ten-gallon va-rietuh. O’ course Ah was pore. Fack is, Ah was tem’ted t’ hold midweek services t’ keep the books balance’. But seldom did Ah yield to that tametation. Once or twice a month, yep. Ever’ week, nope. An’ Ah did it as a public service. Story goes that th’ so-called converts to muh cause made peri-odic attempts to nom’nate me fer sainthood. But they nevuh suc-ceeded. One excuse for overlookin’ muh good works was that I was under-qualified. Ah was not a Cath-olic. Ah considered joinin’ that de-nomination, but then Ah foun’ out that manuh Catho-lics atten’ their masses on Sunday, which was muh work day. An’ yessiree, Ah de-sisted, ’cause o’ their piety and the good works they pre-sumably per-foamed. Ah knew a bit o’ Latin—thayt was not the problem, as muh opponents have taken to say in their slanderous, snake-oil ways. Tha’s ’bout it, folks! From SSCTV
March 29, 2024 ANNOUNCEMENT: paid for by the Kachina Round Table Mr. Orville Slack IV, Candidate for VPOTUS, Dead Rights Party Mos’ vas pres-dential canny-dates don’ have no reckud o’ ’complish-mun’. Ah’m proud ays punch t’ announce that in this re-gard, Ah’m jus’ ’bove avage. Back ’n Panhandle Counta, Ah wuz ’proached on num-rous occasions to run fer office awn th’ Beg-Off ticket. Using muh no-torious skills, howeva, Ah was able t’ ’void public service. Ah’m proud t’ announce that Ah followed the firs rule for all them sawbones: Ah did no homm. Nothin’ that went rawng was muh fault. Thus Ah have no need o’ excuses. Muh competi-tors will say, o’ course, that back in Panhandle Counta, nothin’ went on. They will tell yuh that if nothin’ went on, nothin’ could go rawng. Ah refuse to haggle with muh esteemed compete-tors on this point. But Ah will say that somethin’ did go on back in Panhandle Counta. We had ar share o’ snake-oil salesmen, as they was called back in them days. Fac’ is, that’s how are beloved counta got its name. It was either that or Politi-cian Counta. We main-tained ar dignity by ’voidin’ the latter. Ah’m also proud as punch that Ah not only de-sisted from th’ tem-tations to join them snake-oilas, Ah also fought ’em. But not in the tooth-an-nail tra-dition. Mah maythod was much subtler. Ah followed the tra-dition of muh great-granddad, Orville Slack I, of muh granddad, Orville Slack II, and of muh de-ceased fathuh, Orville Slack III, by learnin’ the tricks o’ the beg-off trade. Matter o’ fact, Ah lifted that tra-dition to the highes’ peach. FromThe Small Southwestern City Picayune/Advocate/Intelligencer
March 26, 2024 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR From: Ab Ennis As the candidate for president on the ticket of the Dead Rights Party, I will soon compose my best-selling autobiography in anticipation of the bombs that will be lobbed in my direction. This massive volume, to be entitled My Life in a Coconut Shell, will appear sometime between the day after all the votes in Florida and Cook County have been recounted and the day of my inauguration as the president of these United States. There is good reason for this revolutionary step. I am already dead. The scandals and peccadillos of my past are behind me. I have been cremated and thus purified for more than half a century, though I should note that this act seems to have had no ill effect on my ability to arrange just the right words into something resembling a phrase, a clause, a sentence, and the occasional paragraph. I have already taken steps toward writing this book. My first step was to choose from among the myriads of agents who have sought to represent me. My second step was to come up with a book proposal. Publishers are funny about that. They want to know what the book will be about! I have had to tell them that it will be about my life in the pre-ashen state. Thus the title of this piece. Before signing a contract, the publisher wished to have more information. He wanted to know more about my life. To this request I could not say No. So I set aside fifteen minutes from my busy poker schedule to outline on a small card what I wanted my editor to say about me. This outline is as follows: 1. Enemies list (someone or something, preferably a vast centrist conspiracy, to blame for any indiscretions uncovered); 2. Brief chapter on religious convictions (e.g., fervent belief in existence of God; sense of being chosen by same); 3. Hardships encountered (e.g., birth in a mud hut to an unwed teenager); 4. Courageous acts performed (e.g., singlehandedly, and under intense stress, rescuing, one by one, a large legion of children, ages two months to twelve years, from an impending earthquake); 5. Courageous acts yet to be performed (rid the world of terrorism without resorting to bloodshed, get all the peoples of the earth to love America, grant suffrage to dead folks and talking parrots over the age of eighteen). Though the candidates of the two other parties will almost certainly make much of my death, I must point out that I function as well as the majority of living citizens. I do not suffer the pains and pangs that are said to debilitate the frail elderly. I also write fluent English and compose my own speeches. I am so accomplished that I once put in a stint as an award-winning columnist for the Lava Hot Springs Sentinel. Nor is this all. Another member of the KRT might see fit to present the platform of the DRiP to a skeptical electorate; the logical choice would seem to be the worthy chairwoman, Ms. Talia la Musa. She, or someone of her choosing, might also conduct a poll of likely voters, or perhaps delegate this task to another or others, thus lending a modicum of legitimacy to the campaign. Yet again, she might arrange for the inclusion of the DRiP candidates in the presidential debates that are traditionally held post-Olympics.
In order to avoid any error that might be deleterious to the integrity of this enterprise, I deem it wise that the two candidates solicit critical comments re their statements from the other members of the Kachina Round Table. Put differently, all statements should be thoroughly vetted by the compeers of the candidates before publication. From: Leticia Ladrona, Esq.
To: Members of the Kachina Round Table, Hôtel Adiós, Small Southwestern City, Large Southwestern State Re: Advice to Candidates Having encapsulated and considered the results of Ms. Horney’s analysis, I have determined the following: The candidates might want to initiate their campaigns w/ a short, comprehensive statement of the major events and accomplishments of their lives, following the stock yet effective formula, “from rags to riches.” These statements should begin w/ an account of a humble birth, move on to describe the travails suffered along the way, and end with an account of eventual success, achieved through heroic and/or audacious expedient. Nothing is more important to a successful campaign than a candidate’s “story.” Both gentlemen must furnish full, candid, reliable, scrupulous statements re their war records. Though it might appear to some that both should furnish full, candid, etc., statements re other matters—major policy points, histories of the aborning political party under which the two are purveying their ideas, notions, etc., answers to scurrilous charges, family trees containing diversity re ethnicity, gender, etcetera, religious beliefs, sexual history—my counsel is that these statements, though on the whole necessary to any successful political campaign, should be apportioned logically, i.e., according to the principle of relevance. That is as much as to say that each candidate should give statements on matters of their own choosing. Following this principle, and after my interviews w/ both gentlemen, I propose, in nuce, the following. As the head of the ticket, Mr. Ennis might wish to answer scurrilous charges by persons, named or anonymous, whose “opposition research” has been biased, faulty, or otherwise fallacious. As the running mate in this election, Mr. Slack should be content to “fill in the gaps,” so to speak, that have been left to him. He might, for example, choose to give an account of his religious beliefs (if any); and/or “come clean” on the matter of his sexual indiscretions, real, imagined, or, not quite impossibly, nonexistent. March 15, 2024
From: Leticia Ladrona, Esq. To: Members of the Kachina Round Table, Hôtel Adiós, Small Southwestern City, Large Southwestern State Re: Analysis of Candidates FYEO (For Your Eyes Only) Copy: Ms. Analia Horney, Psy.D., New York City Herewith the results of analyses of the two candidates, as conducted by Ms. Analia Horney. Mr. Ab Ennis appeared serene, even stoic, in demeanor. His vocabulary is extensive and redolent of the educated class to which he manifestly belongs and of which he appears to be proud to be a member. He eschews curses and blasphemies and does not punctuate his speech w/ detritus (e.g., “uh,” “well,” “I mean,” “like,” clearing of throat, and so forth). When questioned re points on which the media might find fault w/ any or all of his past actions, he offered that his flight from Russia using his brother’s passport might cause embarrassment to either his campaign or his reputation, or, he thoughtfully added, to both. Mr. Orville Slack IV enjoys talking. He speaks with a twang consistent w/ his claim to having been brought up in the intertwining panhandles of two of the most eminent of our southwestern states. His vocabulary and overall idiom are consistent with the geographical area to which he is clearly indebted for his formative years, an area he is wont to refer to as “muh breedin’ grouns.” When questioned re points on which the media and/or his enemies, real or imagined, might find fault w/ any of his past actions, he referred to those actions as “too menna ta menshun.” Any and all embarrassing traits and/or past behaviors could, he averred, be turned into “net plusses” in the coming campaign. Note: One concern I would have from my extensive interview with the latter gentleman is that he exhibits an occasional verbal and/or somatic tic, which might be consistent w/ a later appearance of mental senescence. Given his longevity (b. 1934; resurrected some short time ago or less), this is rather to be expected. N.B. Neither candidate smokes, either tobacco or what Mr. Slack refers to as “the happy weed.” Neither is overweight, as would be expected of those whose bodies are composed largelyof narrow-gauge aluminum. Both are beyond the age of erotic craving; indeed, neither possesses a virile male member. (Here I am making an assumption; I did not consider it seemly to inspect closely whatever was covered by their clothing, which, at least in Mr. Ennis’s case, I would regard as dapper.) Neither consumes alcohol to excess; in point of fact, Mr. Ennis’s dosage of daily “rotgut” is commonly limited to a single quarter-teaspoon of that beverage, admixed with oil of anise—apparently an old family recipe. March 10, 2024
From: Leticia Ladrona, Esq. To: Members of the Kachina Round Table, Hôtel Adiós, Small Southwestern City, Large Southwestern State Having received a request from Ms. Talia la Musa to serve as advisor to the campaign of Mr. Ab Ennis (deceased) and Mr. Orville Slack IV (also deceased), I hereby respond in the positive. |
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