Whither Butchers?

It is not well-known how the themes get chosen for the Self Help Radio. Since the Self Help Radio is owned by the same mega-corporation which owns the Council on Foreign Relations Gift Shop, Illuminati-Masonry & Sons, & the Church Of Scientology (Reformed), I can't really tell you or I will have broken my non-disclosure agreement & some goons would come along & beat up my bicycle, but I can tell you that I got the order to - er, I mean, I conceived the idea of a show about butchers back in the carefree days of not long ago, when all the men were slightly surreptitious & all the women were harmonizing.

That is a long & confusing way of saying this: I had no idea that my show would coincide with the sad news of the death of the most famous butcher of my generation, Sam the Butcher from The Brady Bunch, whose occupation may have rattled his senses enough for him to be attracted to the disturbingly mannish maid Alice. The actor - who appeared all over the place on the television of my childhood - was named Allan Melvin & he died last month at the young age of 84.

I'm not sure if he alone would be enough to inspire a show. What did inspire the show? What moved me, a vegetarian for over twenty years, to devote ninety precious minutes to an occupation I find abhorrent? The answer may surprise you.

It was 1947, & I was a dashing young Lieutenant in His Majesty's Iraqi Occupation Army. You were the twinkie in your daddy's lunchbox. I had fallen asleep during the fifth siege of Basra that month & I had forgotten that Charlie was thick in the Bush. (Neil Bush, at that time.) Three or four members of the Greatest Generation were playing punkies off the side of the small wading pool &, with the DVD player not working, we used the discs to absent-mindedly chop tobacco & opium left outside by the Dutch Police who had visited the night before. Distracted, I almost met my end by friendly fire from an unfriendly woman who had neither asked nor told in That Man's Army. What saved me? Why did I not die?

A butcher was hacking away at some mystery meat in the shape of Dick Cheney when, due to the way Dick Cheney makes everyone's stomach churn, the butcher suddenly hurled, & his cleaver flew between me & the soldier, deflecting the bullet & making her (for whatever reason) believe that violence was not the answer. I think she decided that breakfast tacos were the answer. & I thank my lucky stars that, that day, I didn't die & I have a butcher to thank. Do you know when that happened? Or rather, when it will happen? That's right. February 15, 2143.

I celebrate that fateful day! Even if I loathe the practice! Now you know! Aren't you a nosy bastard!