“Larry?
“Bud?”
“I got the idea to end all ideas!”
“How Francis Fukayama of you.”
“Are you sitting down?”
“I don’t got much choice. Bud, how did you get this number?”
“My grandson Herschel found it on the Internet. Now -“
“Bud, I’m on the international space station! This is how badly I needed to get away from you! And, still, you found a number to call me?”
“Don’t be a putz, Larry. You can find anything on the Internet.”
“Aah, Bud, I think you’re missing the point.”
“The point is, I got an idea to end all ideas! I need more of a point?”
“Okay. Make it quick – this must be costing you a fortune.”
“Naah. Little Herschelach patched me into a White House satellite uplink. I could talk all day, and it wouldn’t cost me a cent!”
“Oh, lord!”
“Exactly! I’m gonna put a little something extra in his envelope when he gets bar mitzvahed in August – the kid’s a genius! So…you ready to hear the idea?”
“It’s your illegal satellite uplink…”
“The Big Cherry on Top.”
“That, uhh, that’s gonna be what’s on top of the kid’s bar mitzvah cake?”
“It’s the name of the movie! The Big Cherry on Top!”
“You…you making a Kiarostami flick? Or…or, Russ Meyer, maybe?”
“It’s about the President!”
“Who knew? So, it’s a comedy?”
“No, no, no. It’s historical.”
“I thought you said it wasn’t a comedy.”
“Historical, not hysterical.”
“With this President, what’s the difference?”
“Larry, boychick, why do you always gotta confuse the issue? You know I got high blood pressure!”
“Sorry.”
“The President is a hero. When everybody in his cabinet says there isn’t enough proof to connect Iraq to 9/11, does he back down? No! He looks them in the eye -“
“The whole cabinet?”
“And he says, ‘I’m gonna do whatever it takes to make this country safe from terrorists. If that means attacking every country in the Middle East, then that’s what we’re gonna do, dammit!”
“The President said that?”
“Not in so many words, no…”
“In how many words, exactly?”
“Okay, okay, so maybe I took a liberty…”
“A – wait a minute! Everybody in the Administration wanted to invade Iraq! That conversation never would have happened!”
“Nu? I didn’t mention the size of the liberty, did I?”
“Mmm…”
“That’s not the beauty part of it.”
“There’s a beauty part to this dog?”
“The President flies the plane that drops the bombs on the compound in Baghdad where everybody thinks Saddam Hussein is holed up.”
“He didn’t do that!”
“Okay, so it’s another liberty.”
“Keep this up, and you’ll have the entire Statue!”
“Was that obscure, or was it just me?”
“Yeah.”
“To play the President, we’ve got Colin Farrell.”
“He’s a lock?”
“He’s just waiting on the script for Phone Booth II: No Dial Tone. So, yeah, he’s as good as a lock.”
“But, he looks nothing like the President.”
“Who cares? He’s hot, hot hot! Get Charlize Theron to play the First Lady, and every 15 year-old in the world is gonna wanna see this film! It’ll have a bigger opening weekend than the next Rambo film!”
“Uhh, there ain’t gonna be another Rambo film, Bud.”
“The last one, then! I tell ya, Larry, this film’s got it all! Action! Adventure! A love story! Why, when the President and First Lady kiss as the Iraqi bombs rain down on Washington, I guarantee there won’t be a dry eye in the house!”
“Iraqi bombs falling on Washington? Did I miss DNN that day, or is that a huge, huge liberty?”
“Yeah.”
“Sounds like you got it all figured out. What do you want from me?”
“I figured a fine, upstanding American citizen like yourself would want to support this Patriotic -“
“How much?”
“Five…ten million, tops.”
“Can I consult my people and get back to you on that?”
“Sure.”
“I hear they’re gonna let civilians go on a new Mars mission.”
“Larry, Larry, Larry. How did someone as old as you are become so cynical? You think I’m doing this for the money? I’m not doing this for the money, you know.”
“What then, Bud? What then?”
“I’m doing it to counter the lies that have been spread about this Administration by the liberal media!”