Charles “Upchuck” Weldworth took care to button every spot on his suit. After all, his audience would notice if he looked even slightly unkempt, and they would never let him hear the end of it.
“You’re on air in five minutes!” his assistant exclaimed. “You must finish preparing soon!”
“I’m almost there, Clarisse!” Upchuck announced, finishing up his last button. Of course, before he got in front of the camera, it was only natural that he look at his reflection in the mirror. The parts of his outfit were all well and good, but the sum of all of these parts had to come together to constitute the perfect on-screen persona.
Sure enough, his gray hair stuck almost straight upward. There was no time to comb it, nor did Upchuck particularly want to comb it. It was best to look natural on set, for if he did not display confidence, his audience would lack confidence in him. It was a two-way street.
So Upchuck stepped out of the dressing room and strode briskly into the library. He always filmed his shows in front of a shelf packed to the brim with copies of his books. And yes, he was a bestselling author of no fewer than several (meaning seven) self-help and political titles, a Renaissance man if there ever was one.
Before the show could begin, Upchuck played the theme song for his show, which had been written last year by yours truly. He’d been watching one of those childrens’ Christmas specials and decided that there needed to be a patriotic version of such a song. Namely, one that taught its listeners to respect the Second Amendment. A pack full of heat means that you can’t be beat…
As the song played out in its entirety, Upchuck rocked his head back and forth like Rambley the Raccoon from that trending indie horror game. As fun as it was to congratulate himself for writing the tune, it wasn’t what he’d come here to do. When the song ended, he cleared his throat and began his spiel.
“Good evening, America!” Upchuck barked at the camera. “Before we get into the biggest news stories of the day, I want to let y’all know that, like tea on the ship in Boston Harbor on December 16, 1773, you’ve been chucked!”
He let out a long, cackling laugh at his own pun. It was far more than a chuckle, to say the least.
“I am the hardest-working man in talk radio, and you know it. And you know that whenever I come up with the top stories of the day - and I speak my mind unlike those cowardly RINOs at Fox News - I always choose a theme for that evening’s show. And I came up with this one all by myself - in excess, as there’s a lot of stories we need to get to! Get it?”
Upchuck turned his notes to the next page. He usually stuck to an approximate script during his shows, but when you were a human Energizer Bunny like Charles Weldworth, it was easy enough to come up with your next words on the fly. So that’s exactly what he did.
“Those of you who don’t get it are probably all culturally-ignorant liberals who don’t appreciate good music! You see, INXS were an Australian rock band most popular in the eighties - and I’m a rock guy! They have a song called ‘Mediate’ where all the words rhyme, and I’ve realized that the first four words fit right in with our biggest stories today! So here we go!”
Upchuck cleared his throat again. “The first word today is Hallucinate. You know what it means - to see things that aren’t there! And hallucinating is exactly what one student pilot allegedly did during his permit exam today! Allegedly? Nah, more like assuredly!
“Listen, we’re from Boston, the greatest city in the greatest country in the world! We’re strong enough to live in reality, where climate change is a hoax perpetuated by the liberals to sabotage our manufacturing sector! And we’re also strong enough to admit that fairy tales aren’t real!”
After laughing again, Upchuck glanced from side to side, envisioning his audience cheering from their cars on any number of the highways that worked their way across America like veins. And at the heart of all of it was Boston; too bad it was run by liberal, commie Democrats.
“Apparently, one among us is prone to hallucinating Pokémon! You know, those cute keychains that all those kids love to talk about! They’ve got a trading card game, an anime series with all those kawaii girls… haha! To think it’s real is just a big load of bullshit!
“Now, the young man with these visions was not named. Supposedly, HIPPA applied - that’s the set of medical ethics that enforces your God-given right to medical privacy! But when individual privacy gets in the way of national security, security must win out in order to keep! America! Great!”
Upchuck turned to his next page of notes, then gave the camera a grin full of artificially white teeth. “I’m telling you, this is what needs to happen! The flight school needs to release the name of this seer, because this man is a danger to the country! I’m telling you, put up a chyron right now saying THIS MAN IS A DANGER TO THE COUNTRY - it’s 100 percent true! One hundred percent!
“And while we’re at it, that criminal mastermind whom liberals call President…he probably can’t even keep from shitting himself! He should get some Tuff Like J6! He’s got dementia! He doesn’t know what he ate for breakfast, or which way is up! He needs to be taken out of the White House for his own sake, and for the national interest, and should then be arrested and taken to Guantanamo Bay!”
He let those words hang in the air a bit. It didn’t matter if the President truly was in a state where he couldn’t do the job anymore. The goal was to plant that seed in the audience’s mind so that they’d think Hey, maybe our President is too old to be there, and suddenly a seed of doubt would sprout into a forest of doubt that needed to be acted upon.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
But he was getting ahead of himself. The show wasn’t about President Fiddlesticks, it was about this anonymous man who claimed Pokémon existed.
“Take a look at those words down there - this man is a danger to the country. He might even be able to control our current President’s addled mind! Keeping him out of the loony bin is a threat to the integrity of the Republic!”
After clapping a bit, Upchuck continued to his next keyword.
“We’ll now talk about that word Desegregate. It might refer to what happened during the Civil Rights era thanks to our Grand Old Party, the Party of Lincoln. But in this context, we should not desegregate the population! I mean, if you’ve given yourself over to such a fantasy, who knows what you’re capable of! Those who believe absurdities can be made to commit atrocities - that’s a hundred percent proven!
“Look at this man’s extraordinary claims. I mean, it’s pure nonsense! He claimed the skies in his virtual training exercise were just like a stage called Poké Floats from a game called Super Smash Bros. Melee. That kid, if we were in a super -fierce melee with one another, I’d smash his head in until he cried for his bro! Hahaha!
“In the case of our wannabe pilot friend here, we’ll call him Top Dumb. Get it? Instead of Top Gun? Well, if he’s allowed to become a pilot, which they’ll probably hand to him like they did all those people invading from our southern border, he’s going to abuse that privilege, mark my words! He’s a loony idiot, and he needs to be sent to the loony bin! Hahaha! We need to take him out of our civilized society!
“Now, let’s go to our next word,” Upchuck continued, referring briefly to his notes. “That word is mediate! And I wrote this all today, because that’s just how efficient I am! I can come up with ideas just! Like! That!
“Our Founding Fathers were gods among men. Now, I’m not saying they were the capital-G God who sent Jesus Christ to Earth, whom I accepted as my savior many years ago! But they were chosen by our lord and savior to rule the greatest nation humanity has ever known - the United States of America! And I believe God granted them the wisdom to realize that we need a free press to mediate society - that’s where I, Charles ‘Upchuck’ Weldworth, come in!”
More laughter emanated from Weldworth’s mouth, his eyes opening even more widely and his hair sticking straight up as though he’d just been electrocuted. But Upchuck felt no pain whatsoever as he continued.
“Those idiots at CNN, those idiots at Fake News MSDNC…they don’t know a thing about how to hold the powerful accountable! Neither do those cowardly RINOs at Fox News! They’re hardly journalists at this point, they’re just party hacks pretending to be objective!
“So here’s what I propose: From here on out, the Fiddlesticks White House needs to provide full access to talk radio personalities like us. We need to be permitted outside every press event, every gathering of government officials, because we are the only people capable of holding our government accountable. In keeping with my theme song, no more reindeer games of sham investigations against political opponents. We definitely shouldn’t allow those who insist on having a red nose - by which I mean lying for attention - to join in those reindeer games! Hahaha!”
The uncontrollable laughter did not subside for a good thirty seconds. By the end of the gut-busting chortles, Upchuck was clutching his chest with his hand like someone possibly suffering a heart attack. But in reality, he was full of more life than ever before. After all, he’d gotten this new TV show past the age of sixty - had that ever happened before? No siree, and it was all thanks to the supplement that sponsored his show.
“The last keyword of today’s show is alleviate. Those bleeding-heart liberals claim that they want to alleviate all our country’s problems, but their open-border policies are going to do just the opposite. The policies pushed by those Marxist traitors will exacerbate the issues we face, and they’ll distract us from what’s truly important!
“So what is truly important? Well, it doesn’t do us much good to describe a problem without proposing a solution, so here goes: I say we should ban all Pokémon from public! If they’re banned, our little student pilot friend is going to recant his tale real fast! Hahaha! And then he’ll be in the loony bin, where he belongs! Isn’t that amazing?”
Upchuck cleared his throat one last time, then waved directly at the camera.
“That’s all for today!” he announced. “I know, it was a shorter show than usual. As much energy as I usually have, I’m suffering from the side effects of those dozens of vaccines the liberals keep pushing on us, dammit!”
In reality, this wasn’t true. Upchuck merely wanted his audience to think he had an excuse for ending the show early aside from the fact that he hadn’t been able to think of stories fitting the show’s theme. At least, not enough to fill the timeslot.
Once the cameras were no longer rolling, Upchuck headed into what he called the “control room.” The reason for that nickname was because it contained the “dashboard”, a screen displaying the analytics for all of the most recent shows, click numbers for all the most heavily trending topics, and more.
“Well?” Upchuck asked his analytics assistant, a man named Travis. “How did I do?”
“You spoke well, and you ended your speech with an excellent plot twist!” Travis exclaimed, holding out his arms as though he were going to embrace his boss.
Upchuck, however, rejected the hug. “I don’t know if I want to infect you with that vaccine” he said with a smirk and wink. That was how Travis was supposed to know his boss was joking.
Instead, Travis shifted awkwardly. “Right. Sorry. My bad.”
“Don’t worry about it” Upchuck stated. Then, looking at the graph: “It seems our show is getting the most views in Florida - lots of conservative patriots are moving down there.”
“Guess how you know they’re conservative?” Travis asked rhetorically.
Upchuck grinned. “Because the liberals think climate change is real and is leading to more hurricanes! How silly is that? But then again, those liberal elites are profiting off that big lie!”
Travis smiled in turn. “I’m so glad we understand each other. So what are you going to do now, Mr. Human Energizer Bunny?”
“I’m going to get dinner at one of those anime cafés and say that all the diners are perverts who probably want to be in one of those shows! Jesus Christ, sorry to use Your name in vain, but back in my day we had no weebs!”
For the umpteenth time that evening, Upchuck cracked up so hard he almost threw up. But that was normal for him, just par for the course. If he wasn’t so worried about the deadly side effects of that vaccine the liberals were promoting, he would have laughed hard enough to earn an eagle.
“Awesome” Travis said. “Yeah, you should show those liberal college elites what’s real! And Jesus is real - Naruto isn’t!”
The two men shared a good-natured chuckle at that, after which Upchuck made his way to the gas-guzzling Lamborghini that all those tree-hugging lefties wanted to ban. Weldworth, of course, would not give them his car to be converted to scrap metal. Not until they had to pry the steering wheel out of his cold, dead hands.