FREE LOBOTOMY REVISTED REDUX MBE RSC AA

WARNING ADVISORY: NO HAPPY ENDING BUT WELL WORTH THE RIDE

BIRD: What’s all this about you having your frontal lobe shaved?

BUFF: Dude, they opened a Free Lobotomy Clinic in the Motor City.

BIRD: Yes, and?

BUFF: Dude, it’s FREE.

BIRD: So’s Mad Cow Disease, you berk, but who the fook wants it?

BUFF: Look, I’m having a very marginal life so far. . . and I’ve had it up to HERE with friggin’ poverty. Plus, the last two weeks have been a veritable bee-yotch. It’s either the lobotomy or a one-way bus ride to the new Ethical Suicide Parlor they just erected next to the Family Planning Clinic.

BIRD: I can’t believe you’re thinking about offing yourself. I thought you were this close to financial independence or Nirvana or some such fookwit thing?

BUFF: Possibly, but that flaming arsehole Walter Ego Snr has messed up my head really bad, dude. It’s enough to make a bloke take up strong drink. The other night I drank GIN right out of the bottle. A new low – although, come to think of it, I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy…

BIRD: That’s the spirits! Gin, eh? I thought, being a Yank and all, you were more of a Bourbon man. . . Jack Daniels and all that.

BUFF: Jack’s all right, but as I said in the one and only “personals” ad I wrote in moment of extreme weakness. . . hold on, dredging the memory banks here. . . uh, something, something, “the sound of rain and Cocker Spaniels. . . a gal who knows that Jim Beam beats Jack Daniels. . . “ It was better than that, but it’s gone like the flamin’ wind, dude.

BIRD: Lovely, Buffo.

BUFF: Wait, there’s more. . . “A kindred soul who loves the songs of Leonard Cohen and knows the sound of one oar rowin’…”

BIRD: Pure Zen, Buff. T’would bring a tear to the eye of David Carradine himself.

BUFF: Thanks, Grasshopper.

BIRD: The gin has me worried a bit, though.

BUFF: It’s an ethnic thing, Birdy. Dutch Courage, like.

BIRD: But you’re a Belgie, Buff.

BUFF: Aye, but Flemish, not one of those smarmy frog-arse-kissin’ Walloon sonsabitches. The Flems and the Dutchmen are from the same racial stock, my avian friend. We’re like Brits and Yanks, one people separated by a common language.

BIRD: Dutch and Flemish are the same, then?

BUFF: Virtually, though the Dutch say the Flemish sound like inbred hillbillies, while to the overly sensitive ears of the Flems, the Dutch sound high-falutin’, as if they have large wedges of Gouda cheese jammed up their corn holes. . . pardon my French.

BIRD: Sounds a bit anal.

BUFF: True, butt, dig it. . . when the Queen of the Netherlands visited Holland, Michigan, a pack of drunken Buffaloes from Detroit drove across the state to hold up a huge banner on the parade route.

BIRD: I shudder to imagine it.

BUFF: It said, in Flemish, “Welcome to the Queen of the Cheese Eaters!”

BIRD: Sacre bleu.

BUFF: Yeah, they say she nearly passed a watermelon, or was it a wheel of Leyden? Mercifully, I’ve forgotten. Bloody gin, it’ll do yer mind every time.

BIRD: So, you’re off the lobotomy, then?

BUFF: I suppose so. . . bloody nuisance. . . but what a bargain, Birdy. It would cost an arm and a leg if you had to pay for it.

BIRD: True, what’s a little gray matter compared to a limb? It’s so dumb. On the other hand. . .

BUFF: I have four fingers and a thumb.

BIRD: Precisely! So what’s the plan, then? Still churning out the old marketing copy, are you?

BUFF: Actually, me gulliver’s been too out of sorts lately to write much of anything except pure mindless drivel.

BIRD: There’s a difference?

BUFF: Point taken. Still, if there’s a chance of earning an honest crust, I’m obliged to gopher it, or so I’m told.

BIRD: So, where are you, in a physical sense?

BUFF: The local library. Things are too unquiet at the Carfax Arms. The bass beat from the rap music is bad enough, but the bloody Bosnians are playing some horrible fookin’ dreck that sounds like a dozen tom cats being emasculated by an electric cheese grater.

BIRD: Blimey. That must be rather unnerving.

BUFF: Tell me about it, dude. No wonder they’re all bonkers over there. Music manufactured to curdle milk. Cheeses me off no end.

BIRD: So, any action at the old Bibliotech?

BUFF: There’s a certified MILF sitting across from me. Very distracting. Bloody miracle if I get any work done. May have to retire to the Coney Island for coffee and baklava.

BIRD: Uh, oh, isn’t that where that Albanian siren waitresses?

BUFF: Yeah. Dude, she’s like the Egyptian chick in “Riders of the Purple Wage” – she totally melts my butter; and dig it, she’s very impressed that I’m a writer.

BIRD: You told her you’re a WRITER? Sorry, laughing uncontrollably here, Buffo!

BUFF: The heck with you, you closet porno queen. Actually, I told her I’m a screenwriter. Made her nips go full mast.

BIRD: I think I see where this is headed. . . is there a casting couch in her future?

BUFF: I wish. . . you know the story about the blonde who aspired to be a movie star, don’t you?

BIRD: Guess not, but enlighten me.

BUFF: My agent told me this one when he called me the other day. This blonde ingénue was so clueless she slept with the writers.

BIRD: Your AGENT called you?

BUFF: That’s it! If I wanted abuse I’d go visit my ex-wife, you wonker. Why don’t you go buy yourself a new brassiere or something, you filthy old degenerate.

BIRD: Write me the cheque momma!

BUFF: Sigh. . . I get NO respect. Where’s that coupon for the Free Lobotomy Clinic?

BIRD: Chin up, Buff, have a shot of Flemish courage.

BUFF: Argh! Bloody Limey cross-dressers!

BIRD: Fat Belgian Bastards!

BUFF: Ouch! Okay, a fair cop, but at least we're not lousy frog-sucking Walloons!

BIRD: Film at eleven?

BUFF: No way, go back to your Victoria's Secret catalog, you East Fenwick Drag Queen!

BIRD: Hmph. Professional jealousy.

BUFF: Arf, arf!