Phutatorius

Well, I finally picked up my Pneumatic Walker air cast for my ankle today (broken, by the way, for those of you who regarded me as less than a trouper in recent weeks).

The P. Walker, christened DAS BOOT by the Wife, has many virtues. Its chief purpose is, of course, to immobilize my ankle when I walk on it. But I like Das Boot for other reasons, chiefly because it enables me to crush my enemies.

Take, for example, the boot's ribbed sole. Not only does it provide durability and traction for the walking wounded, but it is also ideally configured for grinding the bones of my enemies to powder.

What is more, Das Boot comes with a handy-squeeze sphyg momanometroid air pump. This accessory has two settings, INFLATE and DEFLATE, and its purpose is to calibrate air pressure inside the boot — you want enough air in there to preclude lateral movement in the ankle, but you don't want so much that you cut off circulation in your leg. So you INFLATE and DEFLATE until you get it right.

But the pump has other uses as well: I can set it to DEFLATE, thread the valve through the graying lips of my fallen enemies and draw out their last breaths with three squeezes of the rubber bulb. Or I could clamp Das Boot just under the diaphragm of my fallen enemies, hold their noses closed with my Williams Sonoma barbecue tongs, and INFLATE their lungs until they burst.

Sure, Das Boot's product literature touts the therapeutic benefits to the wearer: "provides pneumatic support," "is effective in managing edema and fracture healing." It doesn't say how my enemies will cringe in fright when I stomp over the horizon, cyborgish, with my armor-plated boot on my right foot. And it's a good thing, too. The government already had me register my Steely Glare as a deadly weapon. It took three weeks for the Bureau of Self-Promoting Deadly Weapons to process the application, and I had to wear sunglasses that entire time.

But Das Boot comes marching in under the radar. No paperwork, no interviews with police are required. All I had to do was swing by the hospital during working hours and hand over my prescription. And voila! Indomitability.

So crumple before me now, my mortal enemies — you know who you are — and beg leave to coat Das Boot with your penitent kisses. The boot will be available for groveling exercises between 9 and 10 a.m. Monday through Wednesday, after which time I'll be at work, and you'll have to get in touch with my assistant to make an appointment.

The voices in my consciousness aren't mine. They're billions in number, they flare up at random and they interchange components. They're you and yours and with the rest of everyone else they add up to me, and the sumtotal, substantially less than its parts, hates and fears them.

And now, a word from our sponsor.

The Olympics only come along once every four years . . .

[FACT-CHECKER: every two years, Boss.]

Yes, right — every two years. The Olympics only come along once every two years, but let me tell you, they might as well be lighting that torch inside my sinuses, because I am FEELING THE FEVER. The five golden rings; "higher, faster, louder"; over 100 athletes from at least 50 countries competing this year —

[FACT-CHECKER: um . . . never mind.]

With all that goin' on, how can you not get caught up in Athens 2004: the Hundredth Olympic Games?

[FACT-CHECKER: . . . ]

I've got my bowl of popcorn and Honey-Baked Ham on the coffee table in front of me, and the television will be on for the duration of the Festive Fortnight. One of the things I like most is the opportunity to watch American (and preferably attractive American) athletes compete in familiar sports — you know, the kind you see on non-Olympic television all the time. Because my view is that if you can't make an assload of money playing it, marketing it, or televising it, then it's not really a sport now, is it?

The NBC telecasts, as usual, have been nothing short of fantastic in their coverage selection. Only five days into the Games and I've been able to catch tennis, basketball, swimming, beach volleyball, and gymnastics on prime time. But there is always room for improvement. For my part, I think they should rerun the Team USA basketball games. Is there anything more exciting than watching NBA players try to conform their game to the Olympic court, with its trapezoidal key? Screw the 200-mph shuttlecocks of championship-grade badminton — there might be someone up at 4 in the morning who didn't see the U.S.-Puerto Rico game.

The Olympics are about star power, baby. Star power. So I could do with a little less of Bob Costas's poetry recitals and a little more of Allen Iverson talking smack. In fact, I'd like to see Iverson in the booth, composing impromptu raps about how all the foreigners suck. It could be something like California Girls, but more globally focused:

The Italians may have trounced us last week,
But aren't our tattoos great?
And the puertoriqueños wiped the floor with us,
But when will they become a State?

I leave the rest to you, AI. Drop a kickin' hip-hop beat behind that sass and run it in the promos in place of that dull Olympic Fanfare theme. I guarantee a ratings boost in the 11-15 age demographic.

Speaking of Italo-American relations, I don't know if any of you saw the scrum at the end of the U.S.-Italy volleyball match, but it really disappointed me. Right after Italy scored the winning point, and the Americans challenged their team to a fight, I overheard one of those awful Italian players say, "F**K YOU! WE WIN!" To me, that's stepping over the line. Of course we're going to throw a tantrum and challenge the winning team to a fight. That's the American competitive spirit at work. If we liked to lose, we wouldn't be better as people than everyone else in the world. So put up your dukes, Mr. I-talian, and fight like a man. Or is there a reason we had to come save your country in Some War or Another back in the 1800s?

[FACT-CHECKER: . . . ]

[FACT-CHECKER: . . . ]

And then you thank us by sending your criminals and Communists over here to gun down our hard-working blue-eyed citizens and stuff us full of harmful carbohydrates.

F**K ME, Mr. Pasta-Eater? F**K YOU.

Really, though — there's nothing uglier and more un-American than obscenity, and I hope the IOC suspends that dago wop for saying that awful word when he knew there were microphones around to pick it up.

But otherwise, I'm right on-board with this Olympic experience. Let's bring home some gold from Athens!

I wrote the last line of my novel today:

In her review Martha Cadwallader is going to write that she's just ripping off Spider-Man. But Martha Cadwallader can go fuck herself.

Let's see if we can't get us some Mos-lems today. Let's get That Other Guy We Busted and cut a deal with him. We'll tell him to go find us a mosque and take some Mos-lems' temperature on a money-laundering scheme. We'll have The Guy say he's trafficking in missiles . . .

We don't have any missiles, boss.

Dumb-ass! Of course we don't have any missiles. But we're not busting these Mos-lems for their missiles. We're busting them for money laundering.

Oh, sorry.

That's the beauty of it. We'll send our guy in talking about missiles, see if he can get these guys to bite on a conspiracy to launder money. And when they do, we'll bust the crap out of them. And then we'll have us some Mos-lems.

Why do we want Moslems?

We want Mos-lems so we can say we're cracking down on terrorism. What, are you really that stupid? That's why we're sending the guy in talking about shoulder-fired missiles . . . They're the kind of missiles you can shoot an airliner down with. Do you get it?

No.

Well you're just thick. Let me spell it out for you. The news will report that we busted us some Mos-lems, some A-rabs, who were going to launder money for a guy who had missiles he could use to shoot down an airliner. Now do you get it?

But there was no guns or money laundering.

Boy, you're just the thickest kid I've seen on the Bureau this week. The point is we'll have got us some Mos-lems now. We'll have caught us some genu-wine, bona fide mu-ja-hee-deen for the newspapers. Now get on the phone and call That Other Guy We Busted. Get him down here and wire him.

Uh, yes sir. But I have to ask: what was the crime again?

Well, I found myself going once . . . going twice . . . and SOLD! for $475 in Saturday night's Internet Personality Benefit Auction — not a half-bad haul for A Day with Phutatorius, when you consider that

(1) sex with the high-bidder was OFF-LIMITS, as everyone knows I'm a happily married man,

(2) many of the bidders (the wastrels!) had blown their wads on other folks by the time my lot came up, and

(3) due to a scheduling glitch, I could only make myself available to the buyer for the following Sunday afternoon, whereas a lot of the others put in for the long Labor Day weekend.

I mean, look: Washingtonienne herself only pulled in $1400 for her three-day "Sexy Getaway" on the French Riviera. So I have to feel good about my selling price.

But really, let's put all competitiveness aside and talk about what a great event this year's auction was. That Juvenile Gout Foundation really knows how to put on a show. As many of you know, Aldo Nova was the emcee, and let me tell you, he's just one heck of a guitar player. They say he wrote his own jokes, too. You would think that a man with all that talent would be stuck-up, but backstage he was so down to Earth! All the time he kept saying, over and over, "Remember, people, it's all about the kids here. And the kids' feet. It's all about the kids walking on healthy feet, without pain. That's what we're here for." Guys like Aldo Nova really restore my faith in celebrity.

Now you always take the stage at these auctions with some trepidation. The self-doubt creeps up on you: What if no one bids for me? What if Aldo has to lower the minimum bid amount just for me? Well, I have to thank the good people in the audience for doing me a solid on Saturday. They really gave me just the warmest greeting, and let me tell you, they bid like a pack of jackals swarming on a carcass. I can't tell you how good I felt as I watched the market price for A Day with Phutatorius soar higher and higher.

And even Bobo got in on the act — playfully raising the bidding paddle when Yours Truly was on the block, and with that gesture egging on the real bidders to increase their offers. (And it's a good thing intern chimps are disqualified from the bidding — or else the role-reversal might have found me stuck with syringes all of Sunday in our laboratory's subzero chamber. I don't think Bobo would have pulled any punches there, God bless him.)

Gushing aside, though, there is always room for improvement, and the other celebrity guests might be too delicate to say so, but the buffet was shit. I mean it really was shit. What kind of cheap-ass charity puts chicken nuggets on a black-tie benefit spread? It was an insult to all of us who have the money and maitre d' connections to be eating good food somewhere else. I say this not to be a prima donna, but because I think some of us might not be coming to subsequent events unless the Foundation switches caterers.

And finally, the JGFers might consider running a background check on its contributors before inviting them to the benefit. The couple that bid for me seemed worldly and engaging enough — pleasant company for a Sunday afternoon. I was envisioning we'd pass the time with a nice late lunch and some lively conversation over dessert, and I didn't appreciate having to spend all day cleaning the dead insects out of their porch lamps. And just because you plunked down money to have your way with me for six hours doesn't mean you can hit me in the face with a broomstick like that. I'm pretty sure that gash on my chin will leave a mark.

But otherwise: great event for a great cause, and count me in for next year.