CommandoBob
AbstractArt
The wood paneled room was croweded with people. Some, but only a handful, were sitting behind and away from the dais at the far end of the room. A few more were clustered around a set of tables that faced the dais. The rest, mostly men in cheap suits, sat in rows behind the table, facing the platform. Most carried notepads and pens and carried badges that labeled them as journalists.
Around the table and on the raised platform technicans waved to the background, signalling that the various microphones were working properly. Large, bulky movie-style cameras were placed around the room, but only a few. The major news organizations had let one network record the proceeding since there wasn't enough space for everyone to have their own camera and crew present.
A herald came forth.
'All rise for the Committe of Investigation,' he spoke into a microphone.
There was a rustle of clothing and scraping of chairs as everyone not standing rose to their feet.
The men that now entered were garbed in ceremonial robes, made up of large amounts dark blue, almost black, fabric, with stripes of light blue that made them only slightly less intimidating. Their faces were somber as they entered the room and slowly took their places.
'This Committee of Investigation is now in session,' intoned the herald, 'Sir Kunigas of Finland presiding.'
'You may be seated,' said Sir Kuningas.
'Gentleman,' he began, 'you are still under oath from yesterday to tell the truth. Answer us truthfully, even if what you must say could be considered offensive. We would rather hear the truth, however unpleasant, than swallow a lie.
'Yesterday, we learned that our good will tour of Gong had been funded by donations from the people of FREE. It was a private endavour and recieved no government support. The government did not express an opinion about the good will tour, but made no effort to obstruct it. Our own people gave of their time and effort to raise money for this, with many schools having penny drives and walk-a-thons to raise the needed funds to send a select few of our citizens on a peaceful mission of congeniality and friendship to our neighbors to the north, the Republic of Gong. We have heard how the team was composed of you, Empiremaker, one Peter Schickele, CommandoBob, Aluka, Pinman and a host of others; their names are in the attached notes.
'Is this correct?'
'Yes, milord, it is,' replied Empiremaker.
'Proceed.'
'Yes, milord. As you know, our plan was to tour the coastal cities of the Republic of Gong. Despite our best efforts, The Song & Dance Men, as they call themselves, have never been very friendly to us and we hoped to change that. We thought that by only planning to see the coastline we would avoid being called spies. That sorta worked and it sorta didn't. They didn't think we were spies. They thought we were hicks. They assummed we were there to absorb something they called culture.'
'Let me get this straight,' interrupted a member that sat next to Sir Kuningas. 'You knew that you might be considered spies?'
'Yes, milord Elephantium, we did.'
'Were you spies?'
'No, milord, not really. For most of us, this was our first time to visit another nation besides FREE. And so we couldn't help but notice things. But none of us has served in the military, and only three of us completed college. We were nosey and curious, yes; who wouldn't be in a strange place? But trained agents, like that Bond fellow? No way, sir, no way.'
'Thank you. Please continue.'
'As I was saying, they thought we were hicks and that had come to gather culture, which they were very generous to give us some. The people of Gong are a well educated, articulate and a compassionate sounding people. They have many more musicans, painters and sculptors than we have. They read a lot, even books of poetry. They have many beatiful buildings called temples and cathedral, and you've got to see these things to believe how overwhelming they are. Our palace, with all the years we've spent making it better, is just a hovel compared to their opulent and cherished seat of government. There is a lot to like about them.'
'However,' said Empiremaker as he sipped some water, 'the feeling was not mutual. We were tolerated and weren't really made to feel welcome. You could tell. Time and time again we would make an observation or ask a question and be told "That's so FREE", like we were ignorant yokels fresh off the farm. Every town, every city, we got the same put-down and the same little wrinking of the nose and flaring of the nostrils. We were guests and we would be treated properly and correctly, but only out of duty, not from any regards as to who we were as people.'
'Could you expound on that last point?' asked a rather young looking man from the end of the raised platform.
'Certainly, milord Rodent. For instance, we call them Gongers for short; they call us FreeZers. I admit, that's rather innocent. They also had a whole series of jokes where we, FreeZers, were made fun of. Here's a few of them.
'This image is from a chalkbooard.
'It shows two FreeZers walking abreast.
'These images are from a typical FreeZer Wedding. First the couple....
...and then their wedding cake.
'"A man is at a fancy restuarant and sees that the specials of the day include a pound of Saberite, a pound of Councilor and a pound of FreeZer. The price for a pound of Saber is 10 gold pieces. A pound of Councilor is 15 gold. A pound of FreeZer is 50 gold. So he asks the waiter, 'What makes FreeZer meat so expensive? Are they that hard to find?' To which the waiter replied, 'No, they are not hard to find, but, did you ever try to clean one of them?'"
'"Why does Hell have demons but we have FreeZers? Hell got first pick."
'"A giant hurricane demolished Freedom Central. Did 20 gold pieces of damage."
'"A Saberite, a Councilor and a FreeZer walked into a bar...."
'Thank you, Empiremaker, we get the picture,' interrupted Lord Kuningas. 'It appears obvious that they do not like us. While I am sure we agree that is probably a sad decision on their part, it is their decision to make and we cannot change that. So tell me, how did the team respond to their evident disdain?'
'Well, at first we tried to laugh it off. Aluka and CommandoBob even tried to play off it by modifying some of sayings of St. Bill of Engvall and St. Foxworthy. That did not work as expected. In less than a week Gongers were selling "Heres' Your FreeZer" bathroom wipes. And the innocent and, well, cutesy, "You might be a FreeZer" twist the Aluka put on St. Foxworthy's statements soon became degraded and depraved. I will mention just a few.
'Despite all this abuse on our good name, we tried to make the best of it.
'At the Gong city Ring of Fire we decided to surprise them with our national anthem. This was close to the end of our tour and we hoped-'
'Uh, wait a minute,' said Lord Kuningas, 'National anthem? I didn't know we had one.'
'Well, offically, we don't. We haven't voted on one. But our people have adopted one song as the national anthem. They sing it at the start of most sporting events, high school graduations and other special events. That is the song that we "made" our national anthem.'
'Just for the record, Empiremaker, could you sing that song for us?'
'I can do better than that, milord. I've asked the Coastal Geeks Glee Club to be present today to sing this song. Gentlemen.'
From the back of the room about 40 men, dressed in overalls, plaid shirts and carrying farm implements, came and gathered around the one microphone. One of them pulled out a small instrument and blew a short note. All the men hummed the note and then one began to sing.
In this fair land of the Evaackkian Empire,
From North to South and East unto West,
We love our rivers and snowy capped moutains,
We do believe that ours is the best
At this point the soloist nudged the closest singer with his elbow and all the rest of the choir joined in.
Free, oh Free, we're free tonight
Our land is surely the freest of all
We searched the world over
But never found better
We live in Freedom and
Phht! you do not.
'I appluad you on your decision for our national anthem. Pray tell, how did The Gong respond to this?'
'Thank you, milord. The people of Gong were, well, offended by it, especially the 'Phht!' portion.'
'What?' asked Lord Elephantium. 'They were offended by a child's spitting sound? But it was okay to make fun of our women and degrade us? That is ridiculous!'
'It is even worse than that,' said Empiremaker.
'How?' queried the visibly upset Lord.
'Our next stop was in the capital city of Graceland. It turned out to be our last stop, too. On the first night we were treated to two very important culural events. We attended a symphony in the afternoon and an opera that evening. The symphony was impressive. The offical name given by the composer was "Symphony No 5 in C minor, Opus 67" but commonly called by the Gongers as "Beethoven's Fifth', with Ludwig von Beethoven being the composer. It is a magnificient piece of music. The opera was written by a fellow named Wagner and it was named Lohengrin. It was sung in a foreign language, foreign even to most Gongers; they had to refer to written translations of what was being sung. Before the start of the first and third acts there was an insturmental prelude. The first prelude featured a lot of stringed instruments and was pretty but rather boring. The Prelude to Act III featured a lot of brass instrument and was very catchy and invigorating. Some of us, myself included, began to move our hands as if directing the orchestra and whistling along with them. That was considered boorish behaviour by our hosts, as we found out afterwards.
'At this point, Schickele and CommandoBob got together and were able to convince the orchestra to join again for our peformance the next evening. They didn't share what they had planned.
'That night, after we were introduced, Schickele took over. He began by talking about how nice it was to have notes that explained things about the music being played, but then noted that those things were useless once the lights were turned out. He had a solution to this problem and wanted to share it. He called it "New Horizons in Musical Appreciation". He then sat down at a table on stage, with CommandoBob at his side; each of them had a microphone. He then nodded to the conductor, who began to play the piece they had played before, namely Beethoven's Fifth.
'As soon as the first notes were done, Schickele said, "And they're off, with a four note beat." And through out the first part of this piece, he and CommandoBob acted like sports commentators, talking about inner-league competition, conducting averages, how no one really wanted to take the four note theme and do anything with it and so on. We FreeZers thought it was great, even if we didn't all understand music.
'The Gongers had other impressions. When the music ended, with a gunshot, just like the races, they were a trifle upset. I heard them shouting things like "Impertinent!", "Disgraceful!", "You sir, are a cad!"
'And then we all realized something. The Gongers didn't have a true sense of humor since they could not laugh at themselves.
'I was dwelling on that impression when I heard some yell, "They're not fit live, flithly FreeZers!" Then a man jumped up on stage, knocked over the table and started hitting Schickele in the face. We jumped to his defense but that only made more Gongers jump to his defense. We were outnumbered and were soon overcome. It took twenty minutes for their police to arrive and another half an hour before they got Schickele and CommandoBob loaded into ambulances and taken to get medical treatment. Most of us took a licking, but being farm boys we gave as good as we got. But those two were unprepared for the attack and they were the main focus of the Gonger's rage.
'Then Gong kicked us out, made us pack up that night and put us on the tramp trawler that brought us home.'
The silence was thick.
'And what about this Schickele fellow and CommandoBob? I trust they are being taken care of and their wounds tended to?' asked Kuningas in an icy voice.
'Milord, I don't think so.
'According to the police that escorted us, once their wounds are healed they would be charged in a Gong court with Crimes Against Culture, which is a captial offence in their legal system.'
'They wouldn't dare!' said Lord Rodent.
'Milord, their punishement for this crime is called Death by Karaoke, but I was given no details.'
'So,' said Lord Elephantium, 'we have two prominent citizens of Free, on a good will tour, beaten up by an out of control mob for pointing out to that mob that the mob has no sense of humor? And that these two citizens of Free are going to be put to death because the Gongers are too stuck up to laugh at themselves? Is that the situation you describe?'
'Yes, milord, that is the situation.'
'My fellow lords,' said Elephantium, 'and respected Overlord Kuningas, I think I speak for not just myself but for everyone present when I say that we must quote the Bunny.
'Specifically, when he said,
'You realize, of course,'
and he paused to catch the eyes of the other lords, as they in unison said.
'This means War!'
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The FREE national anthem, in it's original form:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iqnm3A10m8I
For more on Peter Schickele:
http://www.schickele.com/
For more on the Bunny:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD34_K1SgIQ&feature=related
Around the table and on the raised platform technicans waved to the background, signalling that the various microphones were working properly. Large, bulky movie-style cameras were placed around the room, but only a few. The major news organizations had let one network record the proceeding since there wasn't enough space for everyone to have their own camera and crew present.
A herald came forth.
'All rise for the Committe of Investigation,' he spoke into a microphone.
There was a rustle of clothing and scraping of chairs as everyone not standing rose to their feet.
The men that now entered were garbed in ceremonial robes, made up of large amounts dark blue, almost black, fabric, with stripes of light blue that made them only slightly less intimidating. Their faces were somber as they entered the room and slowly took their places.
'This Committee of Investigation is now in session,' intoned the herald, 'Sir Kunigas of Finland presiding.'
'You may be seated,' said Sir Kuningas.
'Gentleman,' he began, 'you are still under oath from yesterday to tell the truth. Answer us truthfully, even if what you must say could be considered offensive. We would rather hear the truth, however unpleasant, than swallow a lie.
'Yesterday, we learned that our good will tour of Gong had been funded by donations from the people of FREE. It was a private endavour and recieved no government support. The government did not express an opinion about the good will tour, but made no effort to obstruct it. Our own people gave of their time and effort to raise money for this, with many schools having penny drives and walk-a-thons to raise the needed funds to send a select few of our citizens on a peaceful mission of congeniality and friendship to our neighbors to the north, the Republic of Gong. We have heard how the team was composed of you, Empiremaker, one Peter Schickele, CommandoBob, Aluka, Pinman and a host of others; their names are in the attached notes.
'Is this correct?'
'Yes, milord, it is,' replied Empiremaker.
'Proceed.'
'Yes, milord. As you know, our plan was to tour the coastal cities of the Republic of Gong. Despite our best efforts, The Song & Dance Men, as they call themselves, have never been very friendly to us and we hoped to change that. We thought that by only planning to see the coastline we would avoid being called spies. That sorta worked and it sorta didn't. They didn't think we were spies. They thought we were hicks. They assummed we were there to absorb something they called culture.'
'Let me get this straight,' interrupted a member that sat next to Sir Kuningas. 'You knew that you might be considered spies?'
'Yes, milord Elephantium, we did.'
'Were you spies?'
'No, milord, not really. For most of us, this was our first time to visit another nation besides FREE. And so we couldn't help but notice things. But none of us has served in the military, and only three of us completed college. We were nosey and curious, yes; who wouldn't be in a strange place? But trained agents, like that Bond fellow? No way, sir, no way.'
'Thank you. Please continue.'
'As I was saying, they thought we were hicks and that had come to gather culture, which they were very generous to give us some. The people of Gong are a well educated, articulate and a compassionate sounding people. They have many more musicans, painters and sculptors than we have. They read a lot, even books of poetry. They have many beatiful buildings called temples and cathedral, and you've got to see these things to believe how overwhelming they are. Our palace, with all the years we've spent making it better, is just a hovel compared to their opulent and cherished seat of government. There is a lot to like about them.'
'However,' said Empiremaker as he sipped some water, 'the feeling was not mutual. We were tolerated and weren't really made to feel welcome. You could tell. Time and time again we would make an observation or ask a question and be told "That's so FREE", like we were ignorant yokels fresh off the farm. Every town, every city, we got the same put-down and the same little wrinking of the nose and flaring of the nostrils. We were guests and we would be treated properly and correctly, but only out of duty, not from any regards as to who we were as people.'
'Could you expound on that last point?' asked a rather young looking man from the end of the raised platform.
'Certainly, milord Rodent. For instance, we call them Gongers for short; they call us FreeZers. I admit, that's rather innocent. They also had a whole series of jokes where we, FreeZers, were made fun of. Here's a few of them.
- How do you drive a FreeZer crazy? Put him in a round room and tell him to sit in the corner.
- What's the difference between trash and a FreeZer female? The trash gets taken out twice a week.
- How many FreeZers does it take to change a lightbulb? 'Lightbulb! What's a lightbulb?'
'This image is from a chalkbooard.
'It shows two FreeZers walking abreast.
'These images are from a typical FreeZer Wedding. First the couple....
...and then their wedding cake.
'"A man is at a fancy restuarant and sees that the specials of the day include a pound of Saberite, a pound of Councilor and a pound of FreeZer. The price for a pound of Saber is 10 gold pieces. A pound of Councilor is 15 gold. A pound of FreeZer is 50 gold. So he asks the waiter, 'What makes FreeZer meat so expensive? Are they that hard to find?' To which the waiter replied, 'No, they are not hard to find, but, did you ever try to clean one of them?'"
'"Why does Hell have demons but we have FreeZers? Hell got first pick."
'"A giant hurricane demolished Freedom Central. Did 20 gold pieces of damage."
'"A Saberite, a Councilor and a FreeZer walked into a bar...."
'Thank you, Empiremaker, we get the picture,' interrupted Lord Kuningas. 'It appears obvious that they do not like us. While I am sure we agree that is probably a sad decision on their part, it is their decision to make and we cannot change that. So tell me, how did the team respond to their evident disdain?'
'Well, at first we tried to laugh it off. Aluka and CommandoBob even tried to play off it by modifying some of sayings of St. Bill of Engvall and St. Foxworthy. That did not work as expected. In less than a week Gongers were selling "Heres' Your FreeZer" bathroom wipes. And the innocent and, well, cutesy, "You might be a FreeZer" twist the Aluka put on St. Foxworthy's statements soon became degraded and depraved. I will mention just a few.
- If you live next to a cesspool and call it your swimming hole...you might be a FreeZer.
- If your brother and father are released from prison at the same time...you might be a FreeZer.
- If you mother was a crack-house whore and your father a child-molester...you might be a FreeZer.
'Despite all this abuse on our good name, we tried to make the best of it.
'At the Gong city Ring of Fire we decided to surprise them with our national anthem. This was close to the end of our tour and we hoped-'
'Uh, wait a minute,' said Lord Kuningas, 'National anthem? I didn't know we had one.'
'Well, offically, we don't. We haven't voted on one. But our people have adopted one song as the national anthem. They sing it at the start of most sporting events, high school graduations and other special events. That is the song that we "made" our national anthem.'
'Just for the record, Empiremaker, could you sing that song for us?'
'I can do better than that, milord. I've asked the Coastal Geeks Glee Club to be present today to sing this song. Gentlemen.'
From the back of the room about 40 men, dressed in overalls, plaid shirts and carrying farm implements, came and gathered around the one microphone. One of them pulled out a small instrument and blew a short note. All the men hummed the note and then one began to sing.
In this fair land of the Evaackkian Empire,
From North to South and East unto West,
We love our rivers and snowy capped moutains,
We do believe that ours is the best
Free, oh Free, we're free tonight
Our land is surely the freest of all
We searched the world over
But never found better
We live in Freedom and
Phht! you do not.
'I appluad you on your decision for our national anthem. Pray tell, how did The Gong respond to this?'
'Thank you, milord. The people of Gong were, well, offended by it, especially the 'Phht!' portion.'
'What?' asked Lord Elephantium. 'They were offended by a child's spitting sound? But it was okay to make fun of our women and degrade us? That is ridiculous!'
'It is even worse than that,' said Empiremaker.
'How?' queried the visibly upset Lord.
'Our next stop was in the capital city of Graceland. It turned out to be our last stop, too. On the first night we were treated to two very important culural events. We attended a symphony in the afternoon and an opera that evening. The symphony was impressive. The offical name given by the composer was "Symphony No 5 in C minor, Opus 67" but commonly called by the Gongers as "Beethoven's Fifth', with Ludwig von Beethoven being the composer. It is a magnificient piece of music. The opera was written by a fellow named Wagner and it was named Lohengrin. It was sung in a foreign language, foreign even to most Gongers; they had to refer to written translations of what was being sung. Before the start of the first and third acts there was an insturmental prelude. The first prelude featured a lot of stringed instruments and was pretty but rather boring. The Prelude to Act III featured a lot of brass instrument and was very catchy and invigorating. Some of us, myself included, began to move our hands as if directing the orchestra and whistling along with them. That was considered boorish behaviour by our hosts, as we found out afterwards.
'At this point, Schickele and CommandoBob got together and were able to convince the orchestra to join again for our peformance the next evening. They didn't share what they had planned.
'That night, after we were introduced, Schickele took over. He began by talking about how nice it was to have notes that explained things about the music being played, but then noted that those things were useless once the lights were turned out. He had a solution to this problem and wanted to share it. He called it "New Horizons in Musical Appreciation". He then sat down at a table on stage, with CommandoBob at his side; each of them had a microphone. He then nodded to the conductor, who began to play the piece they had played before, namely Beethoven's Fifth.
'As soon as the first notes were done, Schickele said, "And they're off, with a four note beat." And through out the first part of this piece, he and CommandoBob acted like sports commentators, talking about inner-league competition, conducting averages, how no one really wanted to take the four note theme and do anything with it and so on. We FreeZers thought it was great, even if we didn't all understand music.
'The Gongers had other impressions. When the music ended, with a gunshot, just like the races, they were a trifle upset. I heard them shouting things like "Impertinent!", "Disgraceful!", "You sir, are a cad!"
'And then we all realized something. The Gongers didn't have a true sense of humor since they could not laugh at themselves.
'I was dwelling on that impression when I heard some yell, "They're not fit live, flithly FreeZers!" Then a man jumped up on stage, knocked over the table and started hitting Schickele in the face. We jumped to his defense but that only made more Gongers jump to his defense. We were outnumbered and were soon overcome. It took twenty minutes for their police to arrive and another half an hour before they got Schickele and CommandoBob loaded into ambulances and taken to get medical treatment. Most of us took a licking, but being farm boys we gave as good as we got. But those two were unprepared for the attack and they were the main focus of the Gonger's rage.
'Then Gong kicked us out, made us pack up that night and put us on the tramp trawler that brought us home.'
The silence was thick.
'And what about this Schickele fellow and CommandoBob? I trust they are being taken care of and their wounds tended to?' asked Kuningas in an icy voice.
'Milord, I don't think so.
'According to the police that escorted us, once their wounds are healed they would be charged in a Gong court with Crimes Against Culture, which is a captial offence in their legal system.'
'They wouldn't dare!' said Lord Rodent.
'Milord, their punishement for this crime is called Death by Karaoke, but I was given no details.'
'So,' said Lord Elephantium, 'we have two prominent citizens of Free, on a good will tour, beaten up by an out of control mob for pointing out to that mob that the mob has no sense of humor? And that these two citizens of Free are going to be put to death because the Gongers are too stuck up to laugh at themselves? Is that the situation you describe?'
'Yes, milord, that is the situation.'
'My fellow lords,' said Elephantium, 'and respected Overlord Kuningas, I think I speak for not just myself but for everyone present when I say that we must quote the Bunny.
'Specifically, when he said,
'You realize, of course,'
and he paused to catch the eyes of the other lords, as they in unison said.
'This means War!'
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The FREE national anthem, in it's original form:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iqnm3A10m8I
For more on Peter Schickele:
http://www.schickele.com/
For more on the Bunny:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD34_K1SgIQ&feature=related
