[BEGIN ARCHIVE TRANSCRIPT: OK, I missed seeing this in person because I was back in Detroit, but I watched the whole fucking thing on TV, and it was pretty sweet. Lord A. entered from below the podium, on some kind, like, elevator rig, up through a trapdoor. You could hear this marching band playing "Hail to the Chief," although I don't know where they'd have been marching in the Capitol dome. There's less room in there than you think. Anyway, as he hit, like, podium level, two enormous gouts of flame shot up past him, like at an arena rock show— think Great White in Rhode Island. Lord A., in his auto-velocitator walking suit, looked different. At first I figured he was wearing, like, a large sash and maybe a dress wrapped around his velocitator, but it turned out to be an enormous suit coat tailored to fit his chassis, hanging low to the ground and nearly obscuring his dozen pointed appendages. He even had a red power tie hanging from the middle of the coat. A tie the size of a surfboard. It was pretty wicked awesome. It had tiny blue monkeys, like, dancing across it, and a big ole GS monogram. There was applause and shit, and then he started:]

Hello America! I am now to give the State of your Union address.

In my reckoning, I am much the product of the Union of the People and the State, whom have come together to make unto the grunting and the lovefest and the squishiness as I have witnessed in secret and in not-so secret, both in the anatomical films viewed over the shoulder of Rob, my once and future lab assistant and current press secretary, as he sat in his work cubicle, and in subterfugeous, nighttime glancing into the windows of the unweary, about this town of Washingtonia Deca and abroad.

I have seen the messy and gymnastic affair of human procreation, and feel that, as your President, I to am the result of such sticky flips. I am the product of your Union. I am the love child of Democracy.

I have been informed by my Vicefull President, Ms. Molly Reynolds— who is I, must note, still very single and I worry upon her future as if I were a situational comedy mother, When oh when I ask Will Molly find a suitable mate with whom to rut and thus engorge herself with larval men to play heir for her office? I understand that the spawn of the previous President of Vice, Large Penis Cheney, could produce no heirs themselves, due to their lesbianic and possibly sapphic dalliances. I have been assured by my privately hired eyes that excepting a brief period in the Graduate School, Molly is as straight as the flight of the arrow. I find this puzzling, as so often I have heard Rob and the Goat Ramirez waxing poetic upon the non-linear aspects of her bony meatsack body.

But I have again wandered afield.

The still single and deceptively curved— yet straight— Molly has informed me that it is customary upon mounting the High Office to give a speech alerting yon populace as to what they may expect in the days, weeks and months to come.

Helpful is she to me— and to any suitors, I assume also— and Molly has done me the great honor of crafting a speech to be read aloud on this very day, as my Press Secretary's speech was deemed inappropriate, although I did find it uproarious. Nonetheless, Molly's grammar is unlearned and wicked, and I have forgotten the speech in my haste to auto-velocitate to this location today.

As such, I shall speak to you now of many things from the hearts, ad liberato, and in an unprepared manner.

[OK, here Lord A., like, pauses and looks sorta . . . nervous? Hard to believe with such a cocky bastard, but that's the thing. Totally locked up. Stage-freight city. He tries to straighten his tie with one of the mechanical death-arms his mecha-suit, but tears it off by accident. He glances around frantically, drums threw of his steel-clad tentacles-tips on the podium, which totally pelts the first couple rows with this hail of splinters. Some old fuck winces hard. I think he took one in the eye.]

What may you expect in the year to come? Drudgery and boredom and poverty, followed by cheaply produced mass-market entertainment. Tides that rise inexplicably. A bounty of seafood. One that is dear to your heart shall leave you, and you will find the boss of you at your workplace amiable to discussions of raise, since your progress has been so outstanding.

Wars will be fought for less. Jests will be made of the poor, the unfortunate, and of Melissa Perkins with her dandruff, braces and shameful freckles.

I am sorry Melissa, but it is true. You are very homely.

Aries can expect to seek a new career in this annum. Sagitarius shall find his quiver stocked with fresh arrows for the hunt. Pisces shall continue to swim in a circle, searching for the Yin to her Yang.

Taxes will be heaped upon you, and services taken away. The taxes will be disguised and unmentioned by the media, and the deprivation of services will be hidden behind a minor scandal involving the Deputy Minister of Agriculture and his mistresses. I may change the name of this Nation. Suggestions are welcome, and may be sent by electronic mail to squid@poormojo.org. Suggestions will likely be ignored.

Statues shall be erected in every city with a population greater than one hundred thousand. They will display my victory over the Melungeon SpiderGod Abrahamus Lincolnus. Cities smaller shall have a large stone tablet delivered to their commons with one of my witty columns engraved on it. I recommend the column regarding the poor monkeys of Monkey Island, but every township will have their choice.

Freedom, an end to suffering, yea these are what I bring upon thee.

But I must confess to you, my peoples Americana, that I am . . . no, wait. You shall judge me harshly for what I am about to say. "The People, they're gonna look for every reason to hate you, Boss-man. So, just like, y'know my only advise to you, uh, sir, is don't fuck up," is what my Press Secretary and former janitorological engineer and current Secretary of the Pressing, Rob, advised me.

[True that; I fucking told him not to fuck this up.]

But, constituents, patriots and friends, I am of a certainty about to Up the Fuck.

For I admit to you now, oh Peoples Americano, I am gripped in fear.

I am afraid because I have been given the keys to the biggest house in the land, and entered it only to find it has been pillaged, gutted and ruined by years of mismanagement and callous hebetude, bordering on malicious incompetence. The treasury is empty, and all of the gold is spent.

I am afraid because I had thought that the greatest war machine ever seen on land was being turned over to this one before you, and I had but to slide behind the wheel and feel the rich corinthian of the leather caress my metaphorical backside (as I in actuality lack a backside, being possessed of radial symmetry, and can sense little of touch, being confined to this fine auto-velocitating environmental suit), insert the ignito-stick and be able to cruise into the nation-state of my choosing and destroy it, as easily as an SUV scales vast mountains and destroyers fragile biomes in the commercial programs upon the televisual set. But our war machine has been overly funded and underly monitored; the mechanics have stolen off with the investments whilst leaving us with half-completed works. The fighting men are not trained, and have no more of the "morale." (Which I promise you we shall begin manufacturing at home, at once! Necessitate, this will, morale rationing from the rest of the country so that our Boys in Green, Blue, and AquaMarine have enough morale to smash the Kaiser, Ayatollah or Pope who dares not comply with our sudden and inexplicable demands!) They also lack for training, for management, for funding and for vision. And armor. The war machine has no driver, no stereo, no headlights and no manual. And no one can fathom the arcane shifting pattern. Also, the clutch may stick somewhat. This will change!

I am afraid because our schools are overly crowded, like the Tuna in the Canyon. Most of you are soft, held up by calcified endo-skeletons and lack dive-bladders, so I might only assume that you have never witnessed of the first-hand the calamity that transpires when a Tuna Run enters into a Canyon. It is not pretty. There is agitation. Distrust. Violence. For every two tuna that enter, one tuna leaves. It is the crucible, the reducing chamber, the Thunderdome of all tuna kind. And this is what our schools have become. Not training and nurturing and helpful, but a thirteen year gauntlet to be run, will-hr or nil-he, head down, into the long canyon. And too few of our children survive. And those which survive taste strange and mealy, and are of the gristle. This will change!

I am afraid for our future, America. But I will not shy away from it. I am the product of your Union, this glorious union of State and People. Like a son, to you, I am. And also like a father, as I now lend my stern hand in your guidance and protection. And like every father-son, my life shall henceforth be about making you proud to have spawned me, and in being proud I spawned you. We have spawned each other, and thus are love-locked in the cyclicity of the self-spawner.

You ask, What is the State of the Union? And I tell you, fearful, composed and ready to make you Proud!

[At this point— well, shit, I guess it's my fault. I tried to explain too much shit about showmanship, and I guess it all got a little garbled in his brain. Anyway, Lord A. tore the podium in half with his mechanical velocitator arms. Then ripped he suit in half, and began making flexing motions with the mecha-suit as if he were a pro-wrestler. He did this for several minutes, then spent the rest of the day fielding reporters' questions and posing for pictures.]