03. teddy - Sick Sacraments

03. teddy

Teddy:  So is it true? I heard this book almost never got published 

because of a dispute between the authors.

Martha:  Yeah Teddy. I wanted to write a novel about abuse of power. 

You know, basically about man’s assumption of a god-given 

right to control nature. Icky, I mean K.Y. Sorry, I keep on 

forgetting. Anyway, he wanted to write about paperclips and 

powerful laundry detergents. I couldn’t see the relevance.

Bill: There’s nothing wrong with paperclips and laundry soaps. We 

have subdivisions outsourcing both items I mean, who do you think is 

sponsoring this show?

Mother: Darling! As soon as they learned that I could cook, clean and 

operate a computer, they all wanted to marry me. They are just boys. 

When will women learn to teach their sons to take care of themselves.

Bud: Wait a minute. Am I in it?

K.Y.: Yes, I think your name shows up somewhere at the end. Look, I 

see the book as my doctoral thesis. And since I’m self-taught, I gave 

myself an equivalent Ph.D. From now on you can call me, Dr. K.Y. 

Pretty cleaver, huh?

Teddy:  I heard Martha that you had quite a difficult time deciding 

on a name for the book.

Martha: Yes. That’s true, Teddy. We wanted to call it ’The Olives of 

Wrath’ but olives have nothing to do with Sacramento. ’The Almonds of 

Wrath’ would have worked, but when it came down to it, boredom and not 

wrath was the essence of what we wanted to portray. So consequently 

‘As I Lay Bored’ was our next try but that didn’t swing with the 

publisher, either. Other ideas were ‘Of Tomatoes and Rice,’ and 

‘Trailer Park Row’, but they were also rejected.

Bill:         I didn’t have to think hard when naming my company. Megahard 

was natural choice.

Mother:  I love Hemmingway, I love Steinway. I love Vaulkner. I 

would’ve loved to have shared a bottle of Sutter Creek with any them, 

picked their minds and plucked their fruits.

Teddy:  So what are your next plans?

Bud: To move to a town where no one knows me? To retire? I don’t 

know. You tell me. I know one thing though, I’ll never get a hard on 

in a public toilet again.

Martha:  Were you asking me? Well, we didn’t want to write about the 

middle-east crisis, christian dogmas, the holocaust, urban politics, 

or the slaughter of indigenous peoples by the white man. We don’t 

know much about religious hatred and bigotry, we’re native 

Californians. We just like to talk about ourselves, wear period 

clothing and take Fotoroids, if you know what I mean.

Dr. K.Y.:  Yeah, Teddy. We spent a lot of time gettin’ high, trying 

to figure out the logistics between christianity and the number of 

the beast. But up to now we‘ve found no correlation between the two, 

except maybe in the case of ultra-rich white supremacists, or the 

president. We haven’t given up though. We continue to search for 

concrete evidence for use in future books.

Martha: That’s right K.Y. I’m not saying doctor to you. We have come 

to the conclusion that the number 666 is a self-destructing mechanism 

built into institutionalized monotheistic religions. 666 is the 

excuse that enables them to save grace even while they are denounced 

for subversive and horrendous acts against humanity. How’s that?

Mother:  Very good, darling. I know this. Men are subversive. They’ve 

made a fortune exploiting me. I went along with it in the beginning 

because, of course, I had no idea that they were using my good name 

for money-laundering and illegal stock transactions.

Teddy:  So I heard that the book is going to be made into a movie?

Dr. K.Y.:  Where did you hear that?

Martha:  Didn’t you know, K.Y.? Teddy owns Hollywood.

Bill: No. I told him, I own Hollywood.

Martha: Oh well. The pussy is out of the sack. There is talk about a 

movie starring Moses Reed and Jennifer Foreal, a Silverstone 

production. But we’re not debating cultural integrity here. It’s not 

like we’re selling out. We just want to make sure that we don’t get 

whitewashed to prove their point and not ours. You understand, Bill? 

Don’t you?

Teddy:  Certainly. Certainly.

Dr. K.Y.: Yeah. We’ve been negotiating in and out of courts for a 

while now. It seems that everyone is suing us because we forgot to 

change the names of people we wrote about.

Bill: You certainly forgot to change mine.

Bud: And mine too!

Teddy:  You mean the whole story is true?

Dr. K.Y.: Yeah, it is. We felt like it was time for the story to be 

written by those who didn’t win. It’s not as if we’re losers. It’s 

all relative, you know. We’re just cautious about having our book 

being chopped up and put through the pop blender. We want to do it 

our way.

Martha: Yeah, the truth is always better than fiction. So we wrote 

about the police state where money equals god. We are not sorry. We 

do not pray that way.

Mother: As far as I’m concerned, the most potent spirituality is to 

be found in food, in everything from the lowly beet to the exalted 

white truffle. If you want to live well, you’ve got to eat right. 

Slow food. Respect your Mother. She knows best.

Teddy: Okay Mother. How would you top off a sumptuous dinner?

Mother: With a glass of Almanac and, of course, my famous chocolate 

lady-fingers.

Dr. K.Y.:  I was going to say cinnamon sticky buns, but come to think 

of it, your chocolate fingers are pretty good.

Bud: Mother’s chocolate fingers. They’re my favorite, too.

Martha:  You know, Teddy, I eat what I want and take the time to 

enjoy it. As for dessert, I prefer pineapple upside-down cake.

Bill:         I only eat what I own. Burger Queen.

Teddy:  That’s a good point, Bill. It’s time for a break. So don’t go 

away. We’ll be right back after a word from our sponsors.