I Don't Want To Grow Up

Geoffrey the Giraffe, mascot of the late twentieth century retail behemoth Toys R Us, was dragged down a back alley near Wall Street in 2005 by Bain Capital,  KKR and Vornado Realty Trust and stripped of his solvency by a form of financial rape called a leveraged buyout. This form of vampire capitalism rose in the 1980’s where buyout bats buy a controlling portion of a company’s shares with borrowed funds using the company they are acquiring as the collateral and straddling it with the debt. 

Not all leveraged buyouts are hostile takeovers and some restructure and save brands that were falling behind the times as Toy R Us was to Walmart but often these “investors” act more like buzzards paying themselves huge salaries and fees while selling off assets, killing jobs, screwing smaller shareholders and leaving behind an empty shell. What Wolf Bain and its partners originally intended is outside our knowledge but many point to the two small wounds on the giraffe’s neck.

Satire1 takes to the corner of 14th Street and Oblivion in our nation’s capital where Toys R Us began in 1948 as Children’s Bargain Town to harvest the views of those of a tender age and the overcooked.

Gen Xer

“My parents took me to a store once. I can’t remember what kind of store it was. Maybe books but it had a cafe and people were looking at magazines instead of their phones. Creepy.”

Actress Xer

“Donald took me to FAO Schwartz across from the Plaza one Christmas when one of his wives was knocked up. I looked for the giraffe but a clerk told me Geoffrey worked at Times Square.”

Woman with big hat

“I only buy my children sex toys. They teach the kids self esteem and that growing up isn’t the end of the world. Even though it is.”

 Four year old girl with dolly

“Geoffrey and his herd were a stampede on local Mom and Pops from the fifties through the nineties but TRU also supported local small manufactures and were distribution centers for Toys for Tots and other charitable organizations. But have you ever smelled giraffe poop?”

Three year old boy in spacesuit

“Their website wasn’t customer friendly and when the deal with Amazon fell through they were up the Amazon without a paddle.”

Cop on the beat

“Giraffe poop smells like my dog Rocky’s when we feed him tacos.”

National Archives Beatnik

“Internet, cheaper, delivered, click. Or, a little girl stands in front of that gigantic stack of dollies staring blankly through the hard cellophane. Her adoring public. You can just click but you can’t give her the experience of going into the sea of dolls at Toys R Us and coming out with the special one she found herself.”

Ham Sandwich

“More money was spent on pads and phones for eight year olds than for toys last Christmas. The screens own them before they hit double digits.”   

Redskins fan

“I don’t want to grow up.”

Senator Rick Slick of West Dakota

“I don’t want to grow up.”

Mean Teen Queen

“Who grows up?”

Don Arrup

Satire1

Forward Pass or Roy Moore of the Same

Critics of the accusers of His Honor Roy Moore are correct to resist the trial by newspaper, television and Internet of the Republican nominee for special election to replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions as one of the Alabama United States Senators. If every man, woman and child in the state and the other forty nine accused Roy of pedophilia he is still innocent until proven guilty. 

The age of consent is as young as fourteen in some states and as old as eighteen in others. Those are four big years. In Alabama first degree statutory rape is when someone sixteen or older has intercourse with someone under the age of twelve.

I’ve read the entire Bible including the Gospels and don’t recall Joseph and Mary discussing their sex lives. If Joseph and Mary didn’t have intercourse they were not married according to Jewish Law and by the standards of most religions and governments. My Roman Catholic upbringing taught us that The Holy Ghost later renamed The Holy Spirit knocked Mary up. Whether carpenter Joe ever put the wood to her after that is not covered. 

I am no fan of Mitch (the bitch) McConnell but reporters really have no business asking him if he believes women he doesn’t know talking about a man he doesn’t know. You might as well ask me if Roy is guilty. And I don’t know. 

I’m not suggesting for a moment that this country (and I would imagine most countries) doesn’t have an ongoing culture that tolerates extensive sexual bullying in almost every manner of social and economic interaction. Even I was harassed a few times by men and women when I was younger. As much as some feminists portray the entertainment business as male dominated the first and second lines of gatekeepers are casting directors who are almost always female. It isn’t testosterone that corrupts. It’s power.  

Though I found it depressing and frustrating I was never lured or groped anywhere and never feared for my safety. And I only experienced it a couple of times in as many decades.  

Satire1 celebrates the courage and solidarity women are showing in voicing their experiences but fears comedians, pundits and the folks on the street we hear assuming the guilt of individuals before their trials. The floodgates are open and it is long overdue but rushing to judgment is not justice and the citizens of Alabama are free to elect who they please.

Don Arrup

Satire1

The Art of the Steal

Despite their best technical efforts neither The People’s Republic of China nor The Glorious Kingdom of North Korea has been able to get Satire1 off their party line. 

Kimmie

Hello? My secretary told me this is an official call from President Xi Jing Pingpong of China. 

Pingpong

Kimmie, baby, what’s the countdown in special K?

Kimmie

The fireworks did their job. Now it’s time to mix messages. Even louder bang.

Pingpong

You mean the olive branch you shoved up Donald’s ass?

Kimmie

Negotiation is penetration. Just like you taught me.

Pingpong

Donny’s a total bizbot. He drops everything and his pants if he smells a deal.

Kimmie

I’m thinking of leaking to the Japanese your suggestion.

Pingpong

Let him put up a couple of hotels on your side of the rock?

Kimmie

My big hats agree with you. Donald would never bomb anyplace where he has holdings.

Pingpong

Bombing is bad for business. 

Kimmie

We don’t have very many good locations to offer so I was thinking maybe one in our capital and another in the north. 

Pingpong

How about one along the Yangtze River. A little cover for the Mandarins who gave you the idea.

Kimmie

Don’t worry about that, Pingpong. We’ve already built the models for a Trump Yangtze.

Pingpong

He’ s going to want to build a golf course.

Kimmie

I don’t know, Pingpong. Golfers dress funny.

Pingpong

It’s the pants. They’re counter revolutionary.

Kimmie

The shoes are worse.

Pingpong

I can’t talk golf shoes with you on an unsecured line.

Kimmie

My bad. Hey, I heard you were setting yourself up a tenure like mine. 

Pingpong

Yeah, Emperor Xi, but it means I have to live with the consequences of whatever I do.

Kimmie

Not like American presidents who just kick grandma down the road if her teeth look bad.

Pingpong

That’s how your family whipped the Americans. 

Kimmie

Whoever the clown is we just lie until they fly.

Pingpong

Your ear.

Kimmie

Your’s.

Pingpong

You can be as ridiculous as you want with Trump if it’s just life and death but if you start to cut a business deal with him then we’re talking money.

Kimmie

Yeah, Donny can see opportunity even in Armageddon but you just pinch his bottom line and he won’t sit down for it.

Don Arrup

Satire1

Greenhouse Asses

Environmental scientists estimate that a little under one fifth of greenhouse gases are animal produced methane. The world’s exploding population has an even more exploding appetite for meat which has increased cattle populations by more than Mickey Mouse. Some recent studies suggest that a steer’s methane is more burped than farted but as anyone with a nose can tell you this theory just doesn’t smell right. 

Some biologists estimate that with their current numbers and the way domesticated cattle are fed and their lay about, fatten up lifestyle that they could be producing near the same amount of methane today then all the animals that have roamed the earth previously combined. 

This sounds about right to anyone exposed to a domesticated husband who in the course of a few hours each evening can turn any living room into a World War One trench horror. Given the commonality of this scourge many researches are only beginning to look into not only machine manufactured gases but human biologically manufactured gases as well. 

Satire1 goes to the hallowed halls of Harvard Community College in Stafford, Texas to speak to the nation’s future elite in the eating of meat. 

Freshman Jack Ham

“My mother won’t let one of my uncles in the house anymore. He cut a fart so bad on her couch that even the dump wouldn’t take it.”

Administrative Assistant Gia Beehive

“My husband’s friends are all welcome anytime the Dallas Cowboys are playing because we can set up the TV on our deck. But between what their beer and nachos and jerky produces that’s it for our lawn till next spring.”

Senior Jeff Vegetable

“My dad barbecues everything on his nights to cook- even the salad. I try not to eat too much meat because I think it’s bad for post secondary education but I don’t want to reject him either. So I eat it all and the rest of the night I feel like I’m sitting on a balloon.”

Continuing Student Dale Whale

“I eat too much. And I fart a lot. But nobody looks at my up side. A fly in July won’t survive an hour in my house and if I’m over your house for even just lunch you can throw your roach spray away.

Don Arrup

Satire1