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Squid #146
(published August 7, 2003)
Notes From The Giant Squid: Candidate Squid

Who is Poor Mojo's Giant Squid?
Dear Giant Squid:

Which is scarier?:

Living in a society with:

1) Giant squids who hover (somehow) about 1 foot off the ground. They can't do any real harm to you unless you come directly in contact with them, and they are not angry or violent. There are enough floating around that you might see 1 or 2 a week.

or

2) Skeleton monkeys with glowing yellow eyes. They would act just like monkeys, but they are only skeletons. They would be as common as squirrels?

Thanks, I'll take my response offline,
Brian


Salutations to you, Voting Citizen Brian,

Allow this noble Architeuthis to break with established patterns and to put forward to thine own self a question:

"What would your course of action be, if you had spent nigh unto a century plotting for the ruling and taking over of America and the world, and but then observed with shock and terror and much anxious squirting of the ink, that America and the World were being destroyed while you watched?"

or:

"When a plan you have spent many long Squid-hours pouring over and working upon—much like one brings to boiled a frog, with slow incremental increases in his bathing water's temperature— is suddenly under great jeopardy by the vicious, piratical actions of a small cadre of elected officials?"What would you, as a lesser human organism, do?

It is obvious, now, to any who watch the current appointed President and his surly Cabinet of Stinkchimps and Thiefslugs that they care nothing for the infrastructure of this country most glorious. Each passing solar-rotation and news cycle brings ever increasing information as to their pilfering of the treasury, their destruction of the most vital of social services, their raping and devouring of our supple sons and daughters.

As always, dearest readers, I have a solution.

I have studied and watched the so-called Democratic Full-of-Hopes strut and parade about, thrusting outward their chests and exposing their teeth and genitals in mammalian displays of aggression. They all appear to be part of the same aristocratic ruling class that has held power in this country for too long.

I have conducted polls. Market research has been undertaken by my plucky and put-upon intern, Molly. Rob has "beaten the streets" in an effort to get the opinion of the "Laid Person."

Our results are as suchly: 95% of those polled would prefer a "vast, superior intelligence whose nature is unknowable to small, monkey minds" over any of the current electorate.

And, 85% would in specific prefer "a vast, super-intelligent Architeuthis Rex Mundi (nee Architeuthis dux), he of the razor-beak, the chromatographicly-variable dermis, the powerful and long tentacles, who is known to feast upon the flesh of the unwary and wary both, and to have absolute dominance over all he surveys" over "a human born of ape-kin, destined to live in knuckle-scraping misery and to inevitably breed with his close relatives and to sit, masturbating, in the mud."

So you see! The "People" have uttered! I am "in-shoe" to win this next election!

Hereby and forthwith I toss my headgear into this metaphorical arena!

Call me Citizen Squid! Call me Candidate Squid! Call me PRESIDENT SQUID!

I will run on a platform supporting the American People!

I am for Freedom, Liberty, Equality! I am for 40 acres of mules, and a dog head in every pot! Eight hours of work, eight hours of sleep and eight hours of prolonged suffering! Viva la revolución!

Currently, only the wealthy have free access to the health cares, leaving the poor and the merely normally employed a dearth of services, these of low quality, and general excluding medically-necessary body modifications and beautificacians, as well as a curiously tight-fisted attitude towards the pharmaceuticals of Schedule I. This is unfairness clear. Under my rule most just and fair, all will enjoy the same denial of basic health cares, even the very rich, sickly, pale-skinned and male. If not a single mud-ape receives health caring, there can be little accusation of unfairness. As this turn in policy would reflect no change in coverage for 65% of American voters, I forsee little meaningful resistance to mine most magnificent Universal Health Caring Plan.

Taxes, I am informed, are often a point of soreness among those with currency in their hands, or the expectation of currency in the future. I propose we follow the roadmap laid out by my fore-monsters in R'yleh, and repeal all taxes of the excise, the use, the vice and the income, by repealing all symbolic currency and holders of value. After converting to a system of Universal Suffering (a great value among highly evolved representational democraticians such as we Americans True), we will thenceforward trade freely in enslaved labor and cruelty, as is our birthright and great inheritance on this earth. Once again, for nearly 70% of Americans, this is no substantive shift from their current lot of pittance-payment, revolving debt and declining true-wages. Under my rule, we shall have no money (for, does not Puff the Daddy Combs teach that with less money comes the less problems?), but all will be fed and housed and issued Atari to amuse theirselves.

I believe, with firmness and conviction in War—most specifically, war against all those who oppose my views or restrict my markets. So, in this respect, I am in complete accord with the current administration, and take this time to politely applaud their good efforts in advancing the field of War.

The RIAA will be done away with, as an annoying inefficiency. The Architeuthian Administration will employ an elite cadre of musician-slaves who will make beautiful patterned noises for the populace at large, who may choose to attend to this concatenations of sound, or ignore them, as they themselves feel fit. The successful musicians, much loved, will be rewarded with laurels, concubines of their choosing and small, gold-plated trophies. The failures shall recieve slightly smaller faux gold trophies, and then be fed to sharp-of-toothed sperm whales. Puff the P.DiddyDaddy shall be exempt from these proceedings, as he shall be serving as my Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Britney the Spears shall in no way, shape or form be permitted an exemption. The Olsen Twins shall also compete as gladiatorial musicians, although they will not be given an opportunity to produce patterned, euphonious noise, and shall simply be issued their faux-gold trophies immediately and led to the Sperm Whale Arena. The Arena shall be live-telecast 24 hours per day, including holidays secular and religious. All citizens may suggest musicians who may well be dipping below par, for consideration as faux-gold trophy recipients and whale fodder. A toll-free telephonic number will be arranged for this purpose, as well as a website with submittable form.

All corporations will be nationalized and controlled by a central cephalopodian government. Employment will remain in our country and will be overseen by trained apes armed with whips and pikes. They will be sadistic and injust, but will continue to permit 6 weeks of vacational respite per year, a minimum 40 hour work week to all those who are bipedal and able to be employed, and one 15-minute break per two hours work. In the interest of keeping parity with the current system, the ape-overlords will start by honoring a schedule of late arrival to the office, two-hour alcohol-laden lunches and no less than 2-weeks of vacation time per annum. This will slowly be cut back, so that the executive-apes can greater torment the slave class. The musicians in my trobadourial army will suffer much a similar system, with dolphins (cruel bastards!) in place of apes and fewer breaks.

This, too, is a marked improvement over the state currently "enjoyed" by many of you americo-citizenial readers, and is well worth considering. Consider the Squid Option.

"But," you may slur, saliva dripping from your protruding, idiot-manchild lips, "You are no natural citizen. Our idiotic monkey laws prevent you from being our supreme ruler!"

And here you may have been right, my dear furry milk-bearers. This is the lynchpin that could have derailed my auto-train. But, as I waspondering this very conceit I overheard, on my surveillance system, my mechano-savant, Spider, procuring citizenship for other non-natural citizens.

I approached Spider Ramirez with my plan, and how his aid could be a crucial in my vie for office. He was uninterested in my overture. Emotions ran high, and amidst the dispute, I happened to impute that one might find his citizencial loyalty questionable, considering his general willingness to falsify and forge identification papers.

"Disloyal?" he set to shouting after his Spaniard way, Aztec blood set to boil by my impertinence, "Disloyal?!? Joo callin' me a disloyal 'Merican citizen? I ain't just a loyal 'Merican citizen— check the papers, ese; I be three diff'ent American Citizens. Whachoo thinka dat?"

After a gentle coaxing and a demonstration of the preternatural sharpness of mine most vicious beak he acceded to my demands and now— long story foreshortened— I am a "legit americano!"

And, dear readers, if you are ever approached by members of this last Human government, and they wish to know where the Great and Terrible President Lord Architeuthis Rex Mundi was born, the answer is "Kettering, Ohio." I was a meager four tons, and only five meters in length— the veritable runt of the litter of five bourne by my mother. My parents are Jonathan and Martha Architeuthis. August the 19th of 1954 is the heralded day of my arrival and birth. One can only assume that the choruses of worshippers and prophets were especially loud on that most blessed of days.

By reading this, you have been sworn to secrecy upon pain of the scuttlecrabs and spiny teethfish who are amassing as we speak off American Eastern Seaboard, waiting for my inevitable orders to sweep down upon this land and to devour those who vote against me, starting in New Hampster, and spreading South-Westerly hence.

So remember citizens: Vote Early, Vote Often. But most of all, VOTE SQUID!

Looking Fore-ward to a Life-Rule of Service, I Remain,

Yours in Candidacy,
GS

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see other pieces by this author | Who is Poor Mojo's Giant Squid? Read his blog posts and enjoy his anthem (and the post-ironic mid-1990s Japanese cover of same)

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