(Written after sitting in a car for five hours listening to financial news stories.)
——-
Damn these subprime lenders, thought Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, barely keeping his balance on the wobbling skateboard. We can’t afford more debt. He snapped a grappling-hook-tipped quarrel into his crossbow as the skateboard slowed. When the country owes trillions and is asking for more, its shadowy creditors start calling in favors.
The crossbow twanged, carrying his climbing rope up the side of the Federal Reserve building. As he began his ascent, he reflected on the years past. I inherited a broken system, he insisted to himself. We’re simply doing what’s required to prevent a catastrophe. It’s not my fault.
He tossed his skateboard over the parapet and hauled himself over. He dropped six feet to the roof, landed heavily on the board, and trundled on into the night.
——-
From her perch in a tree across the street, the blogger watched through her blogoscope as Bernanke disappeared over the wall. She spoke quietly into her radio: “Subject is in the haybarn. The chickens are in danger of roosting.”
“Roger that,” came the reply. “Deploying Agent Harpsichord.”
——-
Inside, Bernanke moved along the wall like a shadow, elongating and contracting as the light sources shifted around him. In the midst of a sea of filing cabinets, he froze. He sniffed the air, then dropped to his knees, licked the floor, and paused. Yes, he thought, Greenspan was definitely here.
——-
The blogger had waited five minutes and was starting to get impatient. She picked up the radio. “Situation imminent. Pass the ducklings through the snorkel. Repeat: Pass the ducklings through the snorkel.”
“We are go for mode Sinatra,” replied the commander. “Reticulate core and set throttle to ‘cryptic’. Prepare to jitterbug.”
——-
Bernanke forced the door on yet another inner office, realizing too late that the light was on inside. The chair in the corner swiveled around, and Bernanke found himself face-to-face with Alan Greenspan. There was silence for a moment.
“You won’t get away with this,” said Greenspan, rising to his feet. “The Fed is subject to general congressional oversight. But you never understood that, did you?”
“Congress sold out the country, not me,” replied Bernanke. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”
“I wasn’t planning to,” said Greenspan. He flicked open a switchblade.
——-
The blogger peered once more into the eyepiece of her blogoscope. She threw the switch labeled “overlay building schematics.” The external view of the building disappeared, but instead of blueprints, she was presented with a green puzzle piece. “This view requires the Adobe Flash Player plug-in. Do you want to search for this plug-in now?”
Shit, she thought.
——-
Bernanke, trying not to slip in the patches of blood on the floor, struggled with Greenspan. The older man moved like a snake that moved like a former Fed Chairman who moved like a ninja. At last, Bernanke got a solid grip on Greenspan’s collar and hurled him through the fourth wall, knocking you to the ground.
Improvising a tourniquet from the remains of the snake left over from the earlier simile, Bernanke moved on through the hallways.
——-
The moonlight-bathed roof of the Federal Reserve building fell suddenly into shadow. A pair of night watchman looked up in alarm to see what had occluded the sky.
“Is that …” one whispered to the other, “… is that a blimp?”
——-
Bernanke reached the central vaults, accessed the Gibson mainframe, and began transmitting the requested files to his distant masters. He didn’t hear the gentle thud on the rooftop, the muffled explosive charges, or the sound of the door opening behind him. But at the last minute some sixth sense kicked in. He spun around just in time to see a golf-ball-sized lump of gold rapidly expanding in his vision. It struck him in the forehead, and he collapsed to the ground like a burlap sack full of scrapple.
Congressman Ron Paul retrieved the gold nugget from the floor and returned it to his satchel. “Try that,” he said, donning his sunglasses, “with a fiat currency.” He spun on his heel, cape swirling behind him, and swept from the room.
Read more of these adventures in the thrilling new novel, Ron Paul and the Chamber of Commerce — in bookstores now!
It’s midnight here, and everyone in my house is asleep except me, so I had to stifle what otherwise would have been uproarious laughter at those two lines.
I did, however, catch this:
I would guess that’s supposed to be watchmen, not watchman.
Thanks for a fun little read!
you sir must write a book, with skills like this it will no doubt be a best seller
This was the greatest blag post Ive ever read. I would definitely buy a hardcover version of Ron Paul and the Chamber of Commerce if it came out. Please write a continuation!
I would buy this book. Twice. And also give a copy to everyone I know.
Would have to agree with Spencer in regards to those two lines.
I 83% expected a pan-galactic gargle blaster joke there, at the end.
Scrapple!!!!!!
With all due respect, this was better than many of the comics themselves.
Please consider writing a book.
>“Try that,” he said, donning his sunglasses, “with a fiat currency.”
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!
Horace: I’m glad more people caught the David Caruso reference
Holy FSM that was awesome! moar!!
I can’t believe he HACKED THE GIBSON
*climbs through the broken fourth wall*
YES! I’m inside XKCD! w00t!
I’m in ur comic, xpl0iting ur hillarious literary devices.
but…where was Summer Glau? was she flying with Ron Paul and toying with the watchmen? she HAD to have been in here SOMEWHERE!!! *rushes back to find her hidden in the story…*
Summer Glau was totally the mysterious blogger hiding in the trees. She’ll be in part two.
Randy, I know I didn’t teach you about knives because I don’t generally try to scare boys who smile, but you don’t generally flick open switchblades. They are more exciting than that.
Why didn’t you just put this in comic form?
since life imitates randall, somebody simply MUST donate to ron paul a cape, satchell and sunglasses. preferably with gold nugget inside.
AHAHAHAHA.
I ROFL’d at the “previous simile” and “fourth wall” gags….PLEASE make the entire story.
AWESOME
Epic awesomeness. I love it. You really need to bag the comics and write books and columns and stuff. Like a modern-day Dave Barry. It’d be so awesome that… well, it’d be so awesome that there’s not an adequate metaphor to describe it.
Okay, maybe don’t bag the comic. I love the comic. But, I love your writing also (maybe more). Seriously, you should consider writing entire books filled with this awesome.
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Wow. Probably the best piece of literature I think I have ever read. Encore!
That wasn’t just an epic win
that was an epic win by orders of magnitude.
I couldn’t find “Ron Paul and the Chamber of Commerce” in any bookstores… this fact must be remedied.
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I constantly see similarities between me and Randal, but I also constantly keep wanting to me more like him. I mean, this is obviously a little taste of genius, as is most of his product…
May we revere him as some sort of Demigod?
“Oh Randall, our Xtremly Kool Comic Demigod, let us rub your head of genius and do bless us with red spiders and complex math equations… amen”
thank you
now i can get through class by thinking, what would this look like xkcd style and everything is so much better…until i realize its not but that’s what pie is for
Hey, MetaFilter linked to this! WooHoo!
Randall, that was genius. The Flash, the 4th Wall, the simile, all excellent. I would love to see some more literary output in the Blag.
That was just horrible, absolutely horrible. The blogger wasn’t making any sense at all, and you totally threw that skateboard in without any explanation. Also, what was with Ron Paul saving the day? You obviously don’t understand the fallacies behind Ron Paul’s “solution” for our economy.
Lastly, you belabored that snake simile and didn’t give the reader any context for the “Gibson mainframes” or mysterious blimps.
Don’t try to discuss serious news, Randall. Just stick to writing funny things.
Srsly.
-jdl
Awesome work, Randall.
JDL, I’ll provide the context for the Gibson mainframe. It’s Hackers. And as for fallacies in Ron Paul’s solution for our economy, once you understand why we’re in this mess in the first place, you’ll also see that part of the reason that Ron Paul has polarized so many people is that he’s one of a very few who aims to put us back on sound financial principles. Yes, it may hurt in the short-term, but the pain has already been created, it’s just a matter of how much more will get created before the necessary correction.
OH.
MY.
GOD.
This is Madness!
I count 79 positive responses, 1 clueless, and 1 troll. Not bad.
I didn’t get the blogger reference, and even after reading something about Gibson and hackers I don’t understand. Still, I linked it to everyone I know. HILARIOUS!
I love you.
So… Cory Doctorow and Ron Paul are members of the same elite order of blogger assassins. Or…
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“>Marvelous. You and Sam Hughes of qntm.org must collaborate.”
glad to see that I wasn’t the only one who thought this, or who’s read sam’s fine work =)
I want to make this into a short film. It deserves it.
Your blag runneth over with win.
@Serotonin, Intchanter:
I– I was joking. I thought the “srsly” made that obvious? Haha, the short story did make me laugh loud enough to get kicked out of the library, I just felt that after 79 adoring comments, a clueless and negative one needed to be thrown in.
You know. For balance. And laughs.
I was joking.
-jdl
I mean, all the things I pointed out in my comment were exactly what made the short story so funny!
Augh!
Irony, thou art a cruel mistress.
-jdl
Wow. Truly compelling reading. Better than a novel. But now i have to fix the damn fourth wall, and what the hell am i supposed to do with Greenspan!?
@ JDL:
Sorry dude, but have you seen Youtube comments? (see today’ comic!)
People say things exactly like that, in complete seriousness.
Irony and Sarcasm are harder to pull off on the internet. Unless you’re absolutely certain you can pull it off, I’d advise you don’t.
Even better the second time!
Man, the epic sunglasses, the fourth wall (OW! And I thought I was sore from rehearsal…) everything. Sheer genius.
Randall, you are an incredible person.
If you’re ever in San Antonio, I would love to have the opportunity to shake your hand.
Oh, sorry.
-jdl
“At last, Bernanke got a solid grip on Greenspan’s collar and hurled him through the fourth wall, knocking you to the ground.”
You made me shit bricks. Thanks.
At least I won’t have to feed the dog tonight.
I wholeheartedly support creation of this youtube comment virus.
I also loved the Firefly-esque dialogue between the secret blogents. It reminded me very much of the “Cry baby cry -” “-make your mother sigh” scene at the start of the Serenity Pilot.
So yeah, this is pretty much the best thing ever.
That was… awful! Lazy piece of storytelling the kind most folks write wqhen they’re ten or twelve, ridiculous jokes and a playing with language that just doesn’t seem to do anything without the subtlty and grace of writers such as adams or pratchet.
I could say more, the lack of real resolution, the poor characterisations and woeful misunderstanding of the short story medium.
But then I realise I’m being a bit of a dick, like people who put comments up complaining that the comic isn’t done with incredibly good artwork. To do so is to miss the point horribly (which I think I have done).
I guess it just bugs me as I see writing something as infinitely easier to drawing it in comic form and that having it as a visual thing just seems more real.
Does this make me a humourless bastard?
Guy: Yes.
Props to Mr’ Randall for an excellent piece of win. I hope the angry bloggers don’t get more jealous over this, wait, they already did.
I wonder if that guy at xkcdsucks makes any money off his blog about your blog, how sad, he can’t exist without you to complain about, it would be really annoying if he was profiting from such ugly parasitism, is he making profit off of complaining about you? I want to know cause then I can make money off complaining about him complaining about you.
I would totally read this as a book. Please write it?