Xmastime for President (You Could Do Worse)

Now that the elections are over, I was planning on getting back to talking about important things such as Mrs. Xmastimes and fried chicken. I was gonna list my "Fast Food Top 10" or "Mothers I Wanna Do" (Dina Lohan, I’m looking at you) posts, get back to being everybody’s loveable Road House-loving curmudgeon.

UNTIL

I just found out that if you’re President, you get $400,000 a year salary. Are you kidding me? $400k and, ironically, you never have to spend a dime of it while in office – your money is no good while you’re Prez! You get a house, your own jet, hundreds of staff to dote on you, whatever the fuck you want. $400 large! AND get this – upon further review, I see that there’s no particular schooling you need, no classes to take. Apparently the requirements are you have to be 35 years old (which I will be by 2008) and an American citizen (who’s more American than Xmastime?!??!?!?!!) fucking A! I can do that! So I am choosing this platform, at this date to say….

I, XMASTIME, OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCE MY CANDIDACY FOR THE OFFICE OF PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

No kidding, this is the first time I’ve ever applied for a job that pays $400,000 that I’m actually qualified for. And the best part is that there will be NO corruption, no funny business in my administration, no "fuzzy math" and no selling out to lobbyists under mysterious circumstances. Why? Cause there’s no fucking WAY I’m taking the chance of blowing a fucking gig like that! Straight as an arrow, like a retarded guy working at Mickey D’s who knows that it’s the highest paying job he’ll ever have. Is he slipping you extra McNuggets on the sly? HELL no. And neither will I. You don’t go from the Chinatown Bus to Air Force One without thinking "I better not blow this."

Now, as for my campaign, I realize that there must be some things I choose to run on, a few quick hits that let people know what I stand for and why they should vote for me. So I’ve come up with a short list to say to America "I am Xmastime, this is what I believe, please vote for me."

1) ELECTION DAY IS A HOLIDAY. People get Columbus Day off, you’re telling me we can’t get Election Day off? This will negate the possibility of so many people being kept from the polls because of their jobs. And don’t start with the "Oh Xmastime, why don’t we have Election Day on the weekend?" This means that you 1) have never had a job in your life and 2) don’t watch football, which makes you 3) gay. If I’m missing an afternoon at Hooters to step into a secret booth it’s not gonna be to vote, if you know what I mean.

2) NO MORE DANE COOK. Seriously. Unless this jackass actually says something funny between now and January 20, 2009 I’m sorry but he’s got to go. Let’s see, he yells at his audiences and isn’t funny – sorry, but that job is already taken.















So Dane has 2 years to say something that cracks me up or, just like the blacks if I get elected, bye-bye.

3) NO AUTOMATIC KETCHUP. How come unless I file an affidavit 2 weeks in advance signed by judges in 3 surrounding counties, every fucking thing I order from a fast-food restaurant comes drenched in ketchup? When did ketchup become our go-to condiment? "Oh, this guy ordered a burger, he’s from oh, let’s see…oh, Planet Earth, so I’d better squirt a pound of ketchup on this fucker." I can’t be the only dude in the world who doesn’t like ketchup, can I? Why wouldn’t you assume I like mayo on everything? Or mustard? Hey, since you’re able to read my mind, why wouldn’t you think to show me your titties while I’m waiting? And then they try to throw in 90 packets of ketchup while I’m leaving. I just said "no ketchup" on my order, and now you’re chasing me down the street to make sure I get a knapsack worth of this crap. We’re running out of oil and we can’t figure out how to run cars on ketchup? Please.

4) I WILL ACTUALLY MAKE EDUCATION A PRIORITY. During an episode of "The West Wing" a character says

"Schools should be palaces. Competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be getting six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge for its citizens, just like national defense."

I’m not so pie-eyed that I can let myself dream that all that is possible, I would settle for paying teachers more than what they make now. But oh, EVERY election we gotta sit through some numbnuts bemoaning what "heroes" teachers are - they can barely keep from full-body heaving, on the floor wailing while pleading with us to treasure these amazing angels sent from heaven, etc etc etc. Of course as soon as the election is over the teachers are back to picking lunchroom "chili" out of their hair while dreaming about saving up to get their VCR fixed. But oh, we tell ourselves, teaching is a higher calling, teachers do it cause they love it! They’d do it for free; they’re thrilled to be getting anything!!! Meanwhile we pay janitors at these schools twice as much – I guess we think of janitors as being an ambitious, money-hungry conniving bunch, so it’s okay to pay them. We applaud Wall Street hotshots who sit at a big desk moving money around on the internet and own three Porsches, but get bent out of shape whenever the people that stay with our children all day, teach them how to read and write, try to teach them right and wrong, protect them and drive them to away games get uppity and demand a real salary. We expect them to do all the above for almost nothing cause that’s the way it always has been (ie has historically been a woman’s job), and then we wonder why we’re getting dumber and dumber every year. It’s not that Johnny can’t read - it’s that instead of becoming teachers, the people who COULD teach Johnny to read took the job of placing those cakes in the urinals since it pays more and you get pissed on less. So instead of turning on some crocodile tears and inventing an aunt who "dedicated her life to teaching", I will bust my hump to make being a teacher a desirable career for the first time since "Wild Things."

5) ESPN CLASSIC will have to show a graphic AT ALL TIMES that lets you know why they are showing that particular game. This drives me nuts. I’ll flip to ESPN Classic and I’m like "Is this the game A-Rod had 10 rbis or the one that Bernie gets raped by wolfpups at the plate?" I’ve tried to make it through the same three-hour Yankees-Pirates game for the last 2 years and have no idea what made the game special enough to show on Classic. I’ll sit through 2 innings, nothing happens, I go back to scratching my balls. And by "scratching my balls" I mean "shoving my hand down my pants, placing my fingernails on my sack and moving my hand back and forth." And yes, as President I will spend a significant amount of time scratching my balls in "your house."

6) KEVIN BACON WILL HAVE HIS "JOHN TRAVOLTA" MOMENT. Have we as a nation forgotten Kevin dancing in ‘Footloose’? Seems like we have; why can’t he have a triumphant return to dancing, like Travolta did in ‘Pulp Fiction’? Extra points if in this movie he’s called "Stimpy." Hell, make ‘Road House 2’ and let him AND Swayze have their moments.

7) ALL CELEBRITY SEX TAPES will go through me for approval. Unless they’re ugly. This is a nice way of saying "Star Jones, keep it to yourself."

8) MY WINNING MEANS GUILIANI ISN'T PRESIDENT. Hey, I don’t wanna pile on Rudy since he won’t win anyways, but I started thinking today about the fact that the whole basis for Rudy running for President is his strength on security, that just like on 9/11 he will be there to take charge and protect us. Hmm. Hey, I know it’s against the law to question Rudy ever since that day, but aren’t there about 20,000 mayors across the country who could honestly say "Well…nobody came in and killed 3000 people in MY town…"? I’m not saying it was his fault or that anyone else could’ve done better following the attacks, but we’re all supposed to genuflect as if he wrestled the planes from the sky and saved us all. I can’t be the only one to think how ironic it is; the one mayor in the history of the country who lost lives to foreign attack, and now we’re supposed to cum all over ourselves in a blither about his record on "security." Wouldn’t this be like Bill Clinton running solely on his record on dry-cleaning? If there is one thing I….oh fuck it, I can’t do this anymore….I’m just crying like a bitch cause years ago Donna Hanover was one of my "Food Network Beat-Off Babes." Sigh.

9) WHOOPIE CUSHION. I promise you that ONCE in my 4 years as President I will, on live tv while delivering an address to the whole country, adjust myself in the seat so that PFFFFFTTT!! I sit on a whoopie cushion!!!! Camon, don’t tell me a nicely-laid wet one wouldn’t have you on the floor howling. And think about it: if I’m live on national tv, I’m PROBABLY delivering bad news – what better time to let one rip??!!! "see the President last night? Boy, this country really HAS gone to shit heh heh heh!" Might be at my first address, might be my last…but you’ll tune in to every minute to see, won’t you?

10) THE GOVERNMENT WILL FUND 6 FIRST DATES per year for every dude who makes under $40,000/year. If you’re a woman or a dude with money, you can go on as many dates as you want. Rich dudes cause they have the money, women cause they don’t need to pay anyway; they both can "serial date" - ie go on an endless stream of "what the hell, you never know" dates. Dudes with not that much money, not so easy. Many is the time we think ‘gee, I’d like to ask that girl out." But first of all, you have to make sure that you have enough money for a classy first date should she accept. And you have to do so without letting yourself think "oh shit, what if she wants to go on a SECOND date??!!" You know what your dating budget for the week or month is, so you have to be VERY selective. Sure, this chick you just met might be great, but what if she isn’t? Too bad, cause you’ve blown your big date money on her when you could’ve asked someone else out. See what I’m talking about? So I’d have a program that, upon qualifying, gives you $100 for a first date (up to 6 per year.) That should be enough without going too crazy; maybe we can have an emergency "I’m About to Close the Deal but Need $20 for a Cab/Condoms/thing you shake up and it snows inside" fund – you can punch in a code at an ATM to get this cash. Whatever, but this will at least partially level the playing field. And it’s for first dates ONLY; if you decide to go on a second date with anyone, you’re on your own. You may need to stall til the next payday with some old favorites like "why don’t we just watch a video at your house, get to know each other?" or the "Im outta town for work" line. At least by this point she is way into you and totally blind to your coming over to her house and eating all her food while spending so much time in the bathroom with her sister’s high school yearbook.

11) I WILL PULL OUT OF IRAQ IMMEDIATELY. That is, of course, if we’re still there in 2009 – I can’t help but notice that after YEARS of being 100000% absolutely certain that "staying the course" was THE right thing to do (Jesus said so), Preznit Dubya has given that mantra up the second he realized he didn’t have absolute power and might have to actually answer to somebody rather than just shoving it down our throats. Really, I mean please…the one thing everyone agreed about him was his stubbornness due to absolute righteousness – while I’m glad because it means we’ll start pulling troops out of a war about which we were lied to and I personally was against, if you were one of his steadfast supporters or, even worse, the family of a soldier who was harmed or killed while being told that it was a sacrifice borne of majestic morals and in the end would be justified by the spreading of flowers, apple pie and the Yankees, wouldn’t you feel a little hoodwinked? For all that moral high road talk, now that he doesn’t have unchecked power he’s not even willing to fight for what he has pretended to believe in all these years? My kid died for some sort of righteous democracy halfway around the world, and now you’re saying "fuck it" cause it’s probably too much work now? Hey, I know I’m piling on and crying/whining, should let it go cause change for the better is good no matter how it eventually happens, but someone has to say it. But as for when I’m President: I have no idea how things work over there, and neither do these so-called "experts." While I might work with other nations to stop things from getting out of hand visa vis nuclear weapons, I feel my job is to not waste time with things I can’t control - like the Middle East, or Naomi Campbell.

12) I WILL GIVE HOCKEY BACK TO THE CANADIENS. The NHL season is 17 games old…has anyone noticed? Christ, I’m in New York City with three teams, and Opening Day got as much press as when a non-white girl disappears while on a school trip. We hear all about how hockey-crazed Canada is, yet here we are with 24 out of the 30 NHL teams in America. How the fuck did this happen? What the hell is going on up there; how long can these people mourn John Candy? Get over it and take these fucking hockey teams back, please! But the Canucks seem to be very quiet about this, don’t they? We strip them of their national identity, and they don’t say a word. Matter of fact they seem quiet about everything….it’s as if they’re watching us spend all our time on the Middle East and illegal Mexicans…all while up there quietly scheming our gruesome, violent end. Canada is like that quiet neighbor that nobody really knows that eventually snaps, no? "Canada was real quiet, kept to itself, then one day I looked out my window and they were spraying the place with uzis." So I will give hockey back since 1) it will end Canada’s silent, deadly fuming and 2) we don’t give a shit about it anyway. Plus that will leave us more time to dedicate towards keeping soccer out of my country.

And these points, my fellow Americans, are the very things I will spend my four years in office fighting for. I thank you for your vote and look forward to meeting you out on the campaign trail!! And don't be offended by my not kissing your babies...thanks to a certain fuckwad judge in Petersburg, I'm supposed to steer clear of babies thanks to my "poor judgements." whatever...XMASTIME IN '08!!!!

XMASTIME