Monday, December 21, 2015

What 10 Popular Christmas Presents Would Cost if Martin Shkreli Controlled Prices.

Martin Shkreli was named The Most Hated Man in America when he raised the price of an AIDS/cancer drug Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per pill. That's a hike of approximately 5000 percent

Here's what top Christmas goodies would cost if Shkreli bought the companies that made them and jacked up the price by 5000 percent:

1. Star Wars light saber

     Market price: $35
     Shkreli price: $1750

2. Star Wars Wookie Feet Slippers for Men

     Market price: $25
     Shkreli price: $1750

3. Jennifer Anniston Eu de Parfum Spray

     Market price: $39
     Shkreli price: $1900

4. Fitbit Flex watch

     Market price: $100
     Shkreli price: $5000
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10th Anniversary Edition

"A cross between Ferris Bueller and William S. Burroughs...A hilarious and twisted coming-of-age story" --New York Times.


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5. Tie for Dad

     Market price: $9
     Shkreli price: $450

6. i-Pad Air

    Market price: $400
    Shkreli price :$20,000

7. Disney Frozen Doll

    Market price: $15
    Shkreli price: $750

8. 10-Pound Christmas Ham
   
    Market price: $20
    Shkreli price: $1000

9. Star Wars ticket

    Market price: $9
    Shkreli price: $450

10. Scalped Adele concert ticket

    Market price: $4000
    Shkreli price: $2000!

Bonus:

    Typical credit card APR:   18 percent
    Shkreli credit card APR:  900 percent

                                                                   ####
   

Saturday, December 19, 2015

Inside $100 million plan to convince Adele to eat Oreos onstage.

     An in-depth My Urban Fantasy investigation has uncovered a secret plan to convince Adele to eat delicious Oreo cookies between songs on her upcoming world tour. In return for an astronomical $100 million payday.
     According to an unnamed insider, whose wish to remain anonymous we will respect as long as he/she doesn't reveal the debauched circumstances under which our interview took place, Adele's "people" have been approached by numerous corporations.
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10th Anniversary Edition

"A cross between Ferris Bueller and William S. Burroughs...A hilarious and twisted coming-of-age story" --New York Times.


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     Said the insider, "These companies want to place their products on stage or have Adele mention them by name. The theory is that Adele's adoring fans will snap up anything their idol endorses or stands beside when she sings a song.
    "For example, it's rumored that Apple wanted her to sing "Hello" over an i-Phone. And Carnival Cruise Line begged Adele to relax in a miniature cruise ship as she sing "Rollin' in the Deep."
     "These attempts to commercialize Adele's world tour were rejected immediately as crude and crass.
     "However, a member of our team came up with the idea for Adele to eat Oreos onstage. Oreos seem like a perfect fit. They're scrumptious. Don't  take up much space on stage. And Adele can toss a few into the crowd.
     "Our plan is to ask Oreos for $100 million to have their product placed on stage. Once that deal is sealed, we'll cut a deal with the milk industry.
     "Of course we'l have to run this all by Adele first. Unfortunately she's more into music than milk and cookies.
     "Maybe Taco Bell will be more up her alley. Being English, she may never had had really good nachos. I'd love to see Adele eating nachos during encores."
   
     Keep checking My Urban Fantasy for updates on this breaking news.


Wednesday, December 16, 2015

How to Devastate Fox News Loudmouth Bill O'Reilly in a Debate.

By: Peter Fenton


     I have a confession to make. I was punk’d by Bill O’Reilly. My wife was too. And I didn’t know to stop—let alone top—him. But I’ve got the skills now, thanks to a master who’ll show you how to whack O’Reilly back.  Over the next couple of pages, I’ll impart that knowledge to you. 
     Still love me?
     Hope so. 
     Because if you read on, I promise you’ll become a hero to me and the long parade of suckers—er—guests humiliated by that balding, soft and sedentary man in a suit.
     First, let me explain the guy to those of you who watch TMZ for the “news.” In the world of talking heads, no cranium is more swollen than Bill O’Reilly’s. After a checkered early broadcasting career, including a stint on tabloid TV news show Inside Edition, Bill moved to Fox News in 1996, where he now hosts The O’Reilly Factor, the number one cable news show, with over two million viewers. And while that’s only a tiny fraction of, say, The Mentalist’s 20 million, O’Reilly has parlayed his odious charisma into a huge paycheck and national notoriety.
     My own history with O’Reilly is brief and painful. In 1997, my wife and I wrote a little book called I Forgot to Wear Underwear on a Glass-Bottom Boat, about the extraordinary secrets of ordinary Americans. Not exactly political, unless you consider a story like “I Threw Up on a 20-Topping Pizza and None of My Fraternity Brothers Even Noticed” an argument to raise the legal drinking age to 30.
     So how’d we wind up on a Fox News show then called the O’Reilly Report? I have no idea. I also had no idea, at the time, who Bill O’Reilly was. Fox News was slightly more than a year old and our local cable provider didn’t carry it.
     Nevertheless, we soon found ourselves in midtown Manhattan, burly Fox News security guards ushering us into a “green room” the size of a coffin where we hobnobbed with Adam West, the original TV Batman and another guest of even lesser celebrity wattage. As you can see, O’Reilly wasn’t big time yet.
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                        Eyeing the Flash: The Making of a Carnival Con Artist
10th Anniversary Edition

"A cross between Ferris Bueller and William S. Burroughs...A hilarious and twisted coming-of-age story" --New York Times.


                   
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     I was completely relaxed. I mean, when you’re promoting a book about secrets, you don’t expect a third-degree grilling, right? Plus, a pair of O’Reilly’s producers had prepped us with the questions he would be asking.   
     In fact, I was already looking past the interview to a meal at our junior publicist’s favorite gourmet restaurant—all on our generous publisher’s tab.
     Boy, did I ejaculate prematurely.
      Let me put it this way: Have you ever been surprised by a tap on the shoulder? Then, when you turned around with a stupid smile on your face, you got punched out by a superhero with a 2,000 pound concrete fist? Me neither. But that’s the best way I can describe the mugging that transpired from the moment we set foot on the O’Reilly Report’s cheap, vinyl-clad, cable-access-level set.
     My wife puts it more prosaically. Take the mic, baby:
     “Bill O’Reilly was pompous, arrogant and dismissive, yet he wasn’t even man enough to look me in the eye. He leafed through our book, dropped it back on his desk, sneered, and didn’t ask a single question his producers had prepared us for. Clearly, that a**hole had higher ambitions. He was only sharpening his claws for the pursuit of bigger game than us and f***ing retired TV Batman!”
     Since then, O’Reilly has turned a host of actual luminaries into quivering jelly, from Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman to—yes—Barack Obama. (And if you don’t believe he did, You Tube probably has the tapes.)
     I don’t know how President Obama feels about O’Reilly, but I’ve been dying for payback since 1997. And in you, avid reader, and the gentleman I’m about to introduce you to, I think it’s gonna happen.
     After months of sleuthing, I finally found “Floyd Yeltsin” hanging about the lurid confines of an infamous New York topless bar with the incongruous name of “Happy Feet.” I’d been told it was here that he loudly debated any and all comers about subjects ranging from nuclear disarmament and the existence of God to whether management watered down the cocktails during Happy Hour. Floyd was a legendary, Harvard-, Sorbonne- and Oxford-educated, once-renowned, now-disgraced high school debate coach, fired from his last job for employing controversial techniques including:
     *Magnetizing the braces of an opposing debater so he couldn’t open his mouth.
     *Requiring one of his buxom charges to flash her breasts and “throw off the rhythm” of the other team’s debater.
     *Developing a list of 25 pro/con topics, all of which revolved around one aspect or another of teen-age sex.
     *Blinding a competitor with a laser light as he was making an important point.
     *Filling the opposing team’s water pitcher with a 40 percent solution of vodka.
     *And the final straw: Jerking down on an opponent’s tie in a failed attempt to smash his forehead on the lectern.
     In subsequent years, Yeltsin had briefly published a self-described “edgy” scholarly debating journal called Blunt Force Talking, the basic theory of which was that actions spoke louder than words. The publication advocated an extreme form of debating in which polysyllabic words were disallowed. It was discontinued when a prototype competition ended in an unscheduled riot.
     When I located Floyd, he was on the third couch to the left of the center stage pole, nursing a Gin Fizz, the signature drink of his coaching heyday. In the dazzling light of a disco ball, he appeared to be about 45 going on 70, with sallow skin, unwashed gray hair and an unevenly-trimmed dyed-orange goatee.
     Our first exchange did not go well. “Your mom gives better blow jobs than your dad!” Floyd screamed, after I introduced myself and my quest to vanquish Bill O’Reilly. “Which side you want? Pro or con?” Before I could answer, he unleashed a five-minute stream of invective that was both surprisingly personal and profoundly disturbing. I was thrilled. The rumors were true: Bill O’Reilly had modeled himself after Floyd Yeltsin, toned down for TV. He’d had no choice, because Floyd, unfiltered, was too strong for public consumption.
    Then Floyd gummed a toothless smile, clapped my shoulder and added, “You will need the hide of a rhino to beat O’Reilly. My first suggestion is for you to prepare for battle by getting a loved one who knows you intimately to excoriate you in the vilest possible language, exposing your every physical flaw and psychological weak point for a minimum of five minutes twice a day. But before that, consider this: O’Reilly has lost every shred of human decency, and that’s what makes him so effective. Only by losing your own sense of decency can you beat him. Are your readers ready to take that step?”
     “Without a doubt.”
     “Wonderful. That ingrate O’Reilly stole my act and he’s terrified about debating me directly. This way, I can put him back in his rightful place—kissing my feet—because I am his master.
     Floyd then regaled me through two shifts of dancers about how “absolutely anyone can devastate Bill O’Reilly in a debate. What you need are the right techniques, not the right position.”
     Here, in capsule form, are Floyd Yelstin’s devastating debate tips:
     Pre-Debate:
1.      Rid yourself of every shred of human decency and compassion.
2.       Have a loved one loudly identify your every flaw for at least five minutes, twice daily.
3.      Stand on a street corner in your city’s toughest neighborhood and pick arguments with total strangers.
 Debate:
4.      Bring O’Reilly to your home turf, whether that’s a “topless bar, crack house or     public men’s room,” says Floyd. “At Fox News, the game is fixed so that only O’Reilly can win. He throws bean balls at every batter and gets away with it. Truth be told, his whole show is a racket. O’Reilly is allowed to violate every rule of ethical debate while maintaining the pretense that’s he’s fair and balanced.”
5.      Pack the crowd. “On O’Reilly’s set, the guest is surrounded by hostile Fox News employees. It’s like being trapped behind enemy lines. The entire scenario is carefully constructed to O’Reilly’s benefit—even his chair is raised up so that he towers over you. Exploit your own home field advantage by packing the audience with muscle-bound friends possessing one or more felony convictions.” 
6.       Offer O’Reilly a carrot on a stick. “Every guest who appears on The Factor holds his tongue in return for the opportunity to expose his ideas to two million people. Disarm O’Reilly with a similar incentive like a post-debate lap dance with a broad in the back room. Not that he’d ever indulge…”
7.       Act like a psychopath. “Scream and rant at every opportunity. Instill fear. Make it appear that a single wrong word out of O’Reilly’s mouth could launch you on a homicidal rampage.”
8.       Answer every O’Reilly question with another question. “It’ll drive him nuts. In addition, smile condescendingly or laugh uproariously at every point he tries to make.”
9.      Finally, your ace in the hole: “Visualize a man of O’Reilly’s age, stature and appearance masturbating in a hotel room as he engages in phone sex with an unwilling young assistant. Superimpose that image over the real O’Reilly during the entire debate.  That’ll bring him down to size.”
10.  Declare victory the instant the debate ends. “Perception is everything. Leap from your seat into the arms of your admirers. Perform a victory dance—then rub it in by patting O’Reilly on the back and congratulating him for finishing second.”
     I thanked Floyd for his help, bought him a Gin Fizz and exited Happy Feet. Later in my hotel room near Fox News, I discovered a note he had slipped into my shirt pocket. On it he had scrawled a practice debate topic: “If God really exists, why is there Bill O’Reilly?”


     The podium is yours.

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

15 Celebrity Predictions for 2016. And More!

   

   

   1.  University of Phoenix will be admitted to the Ivy League
  1. Southern California will be devastated by a massive 8.7 earthquake after a rupture in the fault lines of Renee Zellweger’s plastic surgery scars.
  2. A famous DJ will decapitate a fan—with flying vinyl!
  3. Banned in city after city, plastic shopping bags will soar in value. An elderly woman will sell her collection of 200 mint condition Safeway bags for $5,000 on Pawn Stars.
  4. Outsourcing will reach absurd heights when vagrants hire illegal immigrants to panhandle for them.
  5. Revlon will release a new men’s cologne designed to enhance male bonding. Called Bromance, the brand will mimic the scent of stale PBR and Dennison chili farts.
  6. Dr. Drew will be exposed as a practicing drug, alcohol, gambling, internet and sex addict. He will then cure himself in a 10-part reality show by playing bass with recovering addicts from Guns ‘n Roses, Motley Crue, Ratt, Warrant and other VH1 Classic bands too numerous to mention.
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"A cross between Ferris Bueller and William S. Burroughs...A hilarious and twisted coming-of-age story" --New York Times.




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  1. Terrorists will kidnap Justin Bieber to widespread public approval. No search will be  undertaken—and in an incredible reverse ransom the puzzled group will be paid a huge sum to keep him.
  2. This watershed event will inspire the creation of Celebrity Kidnap, a hit Fox Network reality show in which audience members decide which annoying celebrities they want abducted.

  1. A fraternity member will throw up on a twenty-topping pizza and none of his frat brothers will care! 
  2. Texans will vote that individuals can determine their own tax rates, decide if they are too drunk to drive and when it’s O.K. for them to commit adultery.
  3. California environmentalists will launch L.A. to S.F. stagecoach service. Travelers will appreciate the leisurely 6-week journey.
  4. Five-pound rotary dial mobile phones will become Japanese rage.
  5. Adam Sandler will say something funny.
  6. English will be declared the “official 2nd language” of the United States.



Monday, December 14, 2015

Inside Atheist Plan to Ruin Your Kids' Christmas.

A 2-day in-depth investigation by this blog has unearthed an atheist plan to make millions of children to cry during the 2015 Xmas season.

In an exclusive interview, a leading member of a previously unknown Atheist cult revealed, "We've been flying under the radar, but now it's our time to come out. Across the country, thousands of our members have been secretly hired as mall Santas, even though, as  practicing Atheists, we don't believe in Him either.
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                                                            10th Anniversary Edition!
                           Eyeing the Flash: The Making of a Carnival Con Artist
                                                      By Peter Fenton
                           “A contemporary carnival classic” –Library Journal
                           
                           “A cross between Ferris Bueller and William S. Burroughs…
                            a hilarious, twisted, coming-of-age story—New York Times

                           “An engrossing read…in depicting his eccentric family,
                           the author’s wit crackles”—PEOPLE

                                               Published by Simon & Schuster
                                             Buy online now at amazon or BN
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"Our members are now embedded as mall Santas in key markets across the nation, including the previously impregnable Bible Belt. And when eager kids climb onto their laps, they'll be whispering in their ears the bitter truth that Santa does not exist!

"Sure the kids will cry. And we feel bad about that. But if children are told at an early age that Old Saint Nick is a big lie, they'll be less likely to fall for the whopper myths about dead people sitting on clouds and that sort of crap.

"Our fervent prayer is that within 20 years no American believes in Santa Claus or that other old dude with a white beard."

copyright, My Urban Fantasy


Friday, December 11, 2015

Trump Nabs Top Con Man Honor on Eve of CNN Debate

 I created the Carnie Awards ten years ago to honor the nation’s carnival-style hucksters, barkers and bull artists. Identifying the best has been a daunting task, as there is never a shortage of noted Americans whose activities in politics, show business and commerce make them strong candidates for the award.
     This year’s winner is Donald Trump, who has relevant achievements in all three categories cited above.
     Considering he was up against the likes of Dr. Oz, the Kardashians, the founders of Fitbit and Rachel Dolezal, that’s a stunning victory.
     A bit of background: I was a carnival con artist in my late teens and early twenties. Bookish and painfully shy, I was an unlikely candidate. But a friend’s dad owned a carnival ride manufacturing business and a traveling midway. I fell under the spell of the latter. I continued to earn straight A’s. But duplicity became my extracurricular activity. Under the guidance of my talented friend, I rose through the ranks. I moved quickly from cadging small change from children on the Balloon Toss to winning sizable sums of paper money from adults on games too complicated to describe here.
     

     I confessed my sins in a book  Eyeing the Flash: The Making of a Carnival Con Artist (Simon & Schuster) and long ago abandoned my evil ways.
     But I continued to be fascinated by midway hucksterism and how it had gone mainstream. The carnies are less obvious now, but their methods are unchanged.
     Some may say that today’s media-savvy Americans are too hip to be conned by cheap carnival-like come-ons.
     I disagree. Millions of people are just as gullible today as they were back when housewives bought snake oil from fast-talking hucksters while their husbands gawked at strippers in dimly-lit tents. While the sales pitch may arrive via cable TV or social media, it may still be laden with bull.
     Past notables to be honored with Carnie Awards include Paris Hilton, Steve Jobs, Homer Simpson and Honey Boo-Boo.
    Below are the top five 2015 recipients, along with my brief rationale for their inclusion:

Donald Trump:
     Donald Trump is P.T. Barnum with a significant difference. The 19th century ballyhoo artist featured dozens of attractions at Barnum’s American Museum in Manhattan, including General Tom Thumb, a dwarf, and famed Siamese twins Chang and Eng. On the other hand, Trump has a single exhibit on display: himself.
     Another difference: P.T. Barnum was a twice-elected Connecticut state legislator. Donald Trump leads the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. The Republican establishment is less than impressed, but the yahoos are buying his trash talk. And even if Mr. Trump—a self-proclaimed deca-billionaire-- fails to win, supporters of more modest means can memorialize his valiant attempt by purchasing one of the Trump tchotchkes highlighted on his web site.

Dr. Oz:
     In the 21st Century a snake oil salesman no longer needs to hawk his elixir from the back of a horse-drawn wagon or moth-eaten tent. TV and the internet now provide the platform, insulating the pitchman from the irate suckers when his miracle remedy doesn’t work.
     Afternoon television is now home to a pair of medical shows: The Doctors and Dr. Oz. A recent study found that approximately half of the recommendations made on the shows lack evidence to back them up or are contradicted by the best available evidence. And that potential conflicts of interest are rarely addressed.
     Dr. Oz is the more prominent of the two.  Since 2009, Mehmet Oz, an actual real live M.D. has used his show to pump a host of remedies—most famously, a weight loss potion made of green coffee extract that was later found to have no weight loss benefits.
     The scandal led to a Senate grilling and a call for Oz to be removed as a Columbia University faculty member. But Dr. Oz talked his way out of that jam--surviving to pitch for another day.

Fitbit Founders:
     I was ten when I sent away for a pedometer. Measuring my steps seemed pretty cool at the time and the cost was only a few cereal box tops. Ages later—actually four to six weeks—the pedometer arrived. Crushed beyond repair inside the flimsy mailer.
     That horrifying experience may color my take on Fitbit. After all, the whole line is digital. And the devices do more than count steps. Depending on the model, they track stairs climbed, calories burned, distance walked, elevation, heart rate, active minutes and how long and how well you sleep. All the stuff of a kid’s dreams. For $250 and under and no box tops.
     But unless we’re a nation of stair-counting obsessive-compulsives. I suspect that future yard sales will be featuring trays of Fitbits alongside the VHS tapes and CDs.
     That aside, Wall Street now values Fitbit at just under $10 billion, making founders James Park and Eric Friedman very rich men.

The Kardashians:
     More traveling sideshow than family, Kardashians have succeeded in monetizing every commonplace aspect of life, including sex, marriage, birth, getting dressed, getting undressed, putting makeup on, taking makeup off, exiting a car, exiting a restaurant, exiting a gym, exiting a nightclub, talking to a sibling, refusing to speak to a sibling, crying, making someone else cry, hiding a baby bump, showing off a baby bump, sleeping, eating, smiling, frowning, waking up, going to sleep and having a horribly bad hair day. 
     It’s hard to put a finger on just how many reality shows the Kardashians have, as each one seems to beget several others.  At any rate, the Kardashian media empire continues to metastasize, without any sentient being knowing quite why.

Rachel Dolezal:
     The blonde Caucasian who identifies as black has yet to cash in on her notoriety. But there’s the sense that the attention Rachel has received is reward enough. She’s been given the star treatment in Vanity Fair, with flattering photographs of her at home. And that’s a big deal for a former part-time instructor at Eastern Washington University.  Rachel wants to write a book, so it’s likely we’ll be subjected to further enlightenment from the serious activist/sideshow attraction.


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Saturday, November 7, 2015

The Next Mass School Shooting: Ben Carson Joint.

     The Next Mass School Shooting: A Scenario Inspired by Ben Carson.

     Gunman enters community college classroom, armed with AR-15, AK-47, two Glock G40s and an assortment of antique Winchesters in pre-teen daughter’s pink backpack.
     The Winchesters, well, he’d been hoping to unload them on eBay to buy a gift for his estranged wife. But then the divorce became final and she left with their kids, her kid from a previous marriage and his from same. He kept pickup truck, sit-down lawnmower and two dogs until truck was repossessed, lawn mowing business went south and he had to let one dog go and kill the other.
     The remaining weapons are locked, loaded and ready for bear.
     Gunman is dressed in black parachute pants, black Gold’s gym t-shirt and red hat because he couldn’t find his black one on the spur-of-the moment. Suffering from the effects of the quart of vodka and the twenty-seven Oxycodones he stole from ex-wife’s purse as she was moving out, gunman stumbles. Despite this, gunman heroically (his perception) squeezes off a few rounds, three pockmarking the cinder block wall, one exploding the instructor’s knee.       
     It should be mentioned here that this is an adult education gardening class and the gunman is solely there to kill his instructor, who had spent most of the previous session talking smack about the “morality” of keeping a lawn in the midst of a drought without regard to how no lawns might affect the ability of a fellow citizen to earn a living.
     Instructor, who owns a concealed weapons permit, removes snub-nose .38 from belly pack, fires twice. One shot mortally wounds gunman, the other pierces the aorta of a 79-year-old student and grandmother of six. Her emphysema-wracked husband, who had accompanied wife to school to insure her safety, rises, moves forward with the aid of walker and finishes the instructor off with a single shot from his 1955 Smith & Wesson snub-nosed Chief’s Special.
     A passing nursing major, startled by the report, peeks through the open door, sees the elderly man hovering over the instructor’s corpse and withdraws a pearl-handled .22 target pistol from her purse. Screaming—because this is the first time she’s fired at anything but black silhouettes—she empties the gun. Three slugs enter the old man. One penetrates his oxygen tank, causing it to explode. The deafening blast disorients all inside the tiny room. Flying shrapnel maims three.
     Chaos reigns in the hallway. One student conceals himself behind a locker door and begins recording the scene blindly. Others, too terrified to think straight, begin texting their friends, loved ones and the media. “Rick,” star of the school’s highly-regarded intramural Extreme Frisbee team, expresses fear that another suicide bomber may still lurk inside, preparing to pull the cord on yet another bomb. He enlists several teammates to raid the room. They neutralize all remaining members of the adult education gardening class with an assortment of legally concealed firearms and a steel chair. Grim high-fives ensue.  
     There’s a five-minute lull. Then, alerted by school officials and social media, a SWAT team and seven members of a survivalist militia arrive.  Unfortunately, the militia members, who have been preparing for such an emergency since before most of the SWAT members were born, appear first. With shotguns, deer rifles and a single scythe, they make short work of the still-celebrating Extreme Frisbee volunteers.
     Moments later, the SWAT team makes short work of the survivalists. The classroom, though stacked with bodies like cord wood, is declared cleared.
     Relative silence ensues. Local media arrive. A business student buys two cases of off-the-shelf Mylar balloons, emblazoned Get Well and Feel Better Soon. Sets up shop on the main road leading to campus. Grieving coeds text orders to florists. Word spreads that Anderson Cooper himself is rushing to the scene; confirmation the body count is, indeed, newsworthy.
     An understandably rattled city councilman exclaims, “This is going to put our little town on the map.” He’s repeatedly slapped. Later, he will survive a recall bid, resign from his seat and accept the paid position of county tourism chief.
     Meanwhile, the sole surviving member of the survivalist group, who’d been completing the restoration of his Vietnam-era M48 Patton at the time of his compatriots’ ill-fated raid, fires up the tank. He clanks towards campus, laying down suppressing fire with his .50 caliber turret gun. Overwhelmed by the task of steering and shooting at the same time, he makes a wrong turn in the direction of the town’s only high school.
     Panic grips the winding two-lane road. Word quickly passes from neighbor to neighbor to the police chief to the county sheriff to the governor’s mansion: a coordinated sneak attack on the nation’s heartland has been launched by Al Qaeda, ISIS and the Democratic wing of the federal government.
     The governor, herself a Democrat but afraid to appear weak, makes the fateful decision to scramble National Guard jets. In a tribute to National Guard readiness, only eight minutes pass before four F-15 Eagle tactical fighters are streaking south at just-above tree level. A scant ten minutes later, the target is identified two hundred yards short of the high school and closing in fast. The M48 is instantly stopped in its tracks by 20 mm Gatling guns and 500-pound JDAM bombs, one of which accidentally tumbles into an idling school bus. Fortunately, school has yet to let out. The driver, incinerated beyond recognition, is instantly termed a hero. His pre-incinerated face soon appears on t-shirts, buttons and Mylar balloons.
     Fresh rumors blossom. One in particular takes root in the rustic imagination:  The federal government—again the Democratic wing—under the guise of “saving water,” has banned all green lawns. Because of this, thousands of lawn-mowing entrepreneurs will lose their jobs.
     The furious sound of small arms fire intensifies and spreads from one anonymous small town to another. Rural America is speaking in the only language the big shots understand!
     Dawn arrives. A cautiously optimistic all-clear is sounded. For as far as the eye can see, which isn’t far because the horizon is smoky, not a single federal unit stains the land. No National Guard. No Marines. No Army. No IRS. Can victory be declared?
     Level heads say no: More and heavier weaponry will be required for the inevitable counter-attack. Not to mention food. Communications gear. And water trucks to re-hydrate critically-injured brown lawns.
     A consortium of state militias, ranchers, snowbirds and bike gangs tries and fails to obtain billionaire backing. Despair follows. Then, in one of those miracles that could only happen here and not over there, a freckle-faced five-year-old Nebraska boy sets up a GoFundMe account in support of the cause. Millions pour in.
     It is now clear: This will be the first revolution in history financed entirely through a web site.
     Scant hours later, copy-cat big city “special interest groups” (yeah, the usual suspects), fearful of the spreading prairie fire, launch their own GoFundMe accounts, raising funds, purchasing arms—for defensive purposes only, of course.
     Alas, their efforts only give the contagion critical mass. Weapons manufacturers hire extra help as orders pour in. Factories operate 24/7, churning out every weapon worthy of the name. 
     Week-after-week, suburb-after-suburb, metropolis-after-metropolis succumb to the chatter of small arms fire, the whoosh of RPGs, the distant thump or too-close thunderous crack of IEDs.
     That is, until the revolution, now waged on uncountable fronts for manifold reasons, reaches the quiet seaside town of Baltimore… 
     …Where presidential candidate Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon with the low-key bedside manner of a morphine drip, is once again in line at a Popeye’s, hoping that potential voters will see him in the act of being a regular guy. He’s accosted by a masked gunman.
     The gunman, a heavily-armed landscaper, is there to confront the manager about why he replaced a 2-foot-square patch of decorative fescue with artificial turf. And because Ben Carson is the only one around wearing a suit, he must be the manager.
     As every future 3rd grader will know, in the same way they’ll know what Lincoln said at Gettysburg or the words Washington uttered after chopping down the cherry tree, Ben Carson tells him, “I believe you want the guy behind the counter.”
     What happened next in that Popeye’s will be the subject of debate as long as the Union holds.
     This, of course, we do know:  The contagion, the fever, call it what you will, broke at that point, just as spontaneously as it had begun. That’s right. Every single m.f. small town, big city, race-creed-color m.f. laid down his/her m.f. arms.
     So does Ben Carson become president? Hell, ask any future 3rd grader!

                                                                      END

By:
Peter Fenton
special to My Urban Fantasy