Easy Street, here I comes...

The Lord works in mysterious ways, doesn't he? I was fortunate to receive a very timely e-mail today from the finance minister of a for-obvious-reasons-unnamed country regarding a certain 20 million smackeroos, seven or so of which have my name all over it. Worry not, my friends, as soon as the check clears, I will share my windfall with all of you.

Dr. Mansu Mukhtar is quoted below:

The FGN account has been debited in your favor to the tune of 7million USD, and you are advised to contact me immediately.

I like it when sums of money are referred to lyrically. It feels right. "To the tune of seven million"...

Of course, credibility and integrity are key when dealing in the high stakes world of inter-country finance, and you cannot trust just anyone. So you can imagine how my mind was put at ease when Dr. Mukhtar wrote:

We shall not tolerate those lackadaisical attitudes exhibited by some Beneficiary under my predecessor and we have eliminated some of those unscrupulous charges invented by some Officials

Truth be told, I would have rather the Minister eliminated all of those unscrupulous charges, but I'm quite sure he did the best he could.

The key to dealing with any government bureaucracy is knowing "the code". For example, if you receive a call from the IRS about last year's tax returns, simply say to the agent "Jack Ruby" and the matter will be dropped. If you're in Bangkok and are detained on suspicion of what we all know you were doing there in the first place, confidently and in plain English, utter the phrase "Hong Kong Phooey" and you'll soon be on your flight home.

The country of -redacted- is no different and the good Doctor made sure to include "the code" so there would be no confusion.

Please quote the Code: Blue Diamond on your correspondence for Pass Identification. Congratulations in advance.
Yours truly, Dr. Mansur Mukhtar
Honorable Minister Federal Ministry Of Finance

I certainly will quote the code when I speak with Dr. Mukhtar. Perhaps when he and I are finished with the business of him giving me money for no apparent reason, we could become friends. We may meet somewhere, say Switzerland, for expensive dinners and champagne. He, of course, will have left his wife at home and be accompanied by a cheap hooker he thinks is classy. The other diners will stare at us, wondering "who is that odd pairing?" We'll have a laugh before he retires to his room and strangles the poor hooker.

But I am getting ahead of myself. First things first. I have to dig up some details, bank account numbers and so forth to get this thing moving along.

We're goin' to a party!

At least one good thing has come out of the timely, proper, and decidedly un-tragic demise of the King of Pop: People are excited to attend the funeral. The lucky man pictured above (who may or may not be Fred Goldman--remember, from the OJ thing?) is overjoyed. How'd you like to be this guy's wife when she sees his picture in the paper? This guy's like a tweener at a JoBros concert. Geez. Creepy.

The crowd at the Staples Center will certainly be split. On the Jackson family side, mourners will celebrate MJ's life, and the four or so really big accomplishments of the man once dubbed "The White Michael Jackson".

On the opposite side of the arena, attendees will celebrate MJ's death. Closure of sorts for the Macaulay Culkins' and Bubbles' (wasn't he great in Webster?) and all of the other little boys that MJ admittedly slept with-but-in-a-sleepover-way over the years.

It's sorta like the crowd at an execution, where the mother insists David Wayne Lee, Jr. was a "good boy" who "fell in with the wrong crowd". On the other side, relatives of the family David Wayne Lee, Jr. carved up and buried in the basement. It'll be that sort of yin-yang dynamic.

Just another six months of so of 24 hour coverage and we can move on to more important things.

Karl Malden Dead, MJ 4ever...

The streets of San Francisco are filled with mourners after the news of Karl Malden's death. On the waterfront, silence. Mr. Malden died today from complications of being quite old. He was eighty or ninety.

In other news, Michael Jackson will live on in the hearts of people who think it's okay for an adult to compare wee-wee sizes with ten year olds. Spike Lee and Al Sharpton have eulogized nearly forty hours straight as neither has anything better to do. Like Michael Jackson himself, their best work is long behind them.

My respect for Mark Sanford has grown over the last few days. Any politician who acts exactly the opposite of the way their supporters demand gets my vote. He digs this chick, and ain't nothin' gonna change that.

Al Franken was declared the winner of the Minnesota Senate race seven months after the polls closed. And we're gonna lecture Iran?