Cruel Summer

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While waiting to get off the ferry in Port-aux-Basques, Farfour is noticed by a keen ferry security-guard named Frank Paine: “Hey, didn’t I see you in the New York Post?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” Farfour says meekly. “I didn’t realize you got international tabloids here in the Maritimes.”

“I read it online. And didn’t anyone tell you – you’re not in the Maritimes anymore, mouse. This is THE ROCK!” says the guard, his cellphone squeezed against one of his outer chins. As he finishes saying rock, he drops the cell and puts the startled little mouse into a headlock, while two of his coworkers prepare a tranquilizer needle.

Farfour wakes up a few hours (days?) later in Parc Lafontaine in Montreal. Gay men bask in the Latin sun, while children and their trendy parents scream, play sports and interact with post-modern playground equipment. Farfour notices a man is sitting beside him taking pictures of the lake.

“Hey, how did I get to this nice park, and who are you?” Farfour asks the speedo-clad slim-but-athletic man. Farfour is intrigued by the fashionable man’s studied masculinity and elaborate vocabulary.

“Oh, I’m Julien. I’m the helicopter pilot who flew you here from that moldy ferry terminal in Newfoundland. That’s not all I am, of course. I’m also an Aquarius with a Taurus ascendant.

Oh, I saw how sad and innocent you looked, and I couldn’t bear to hand you over – to let those goons fly you off to some illegal prison full of abused children – like they did to Omar Khadr. One well-publicized crime against an innocent Muslim teenager is enough. We get it. Flying you to Guantanamo to be abused and tortured wouldn’t be helpful to anyone.”

Julien takes the cap off his coconut butter tanning lotion and rubs some on his nose.

“That smells delicious. I feel like I haven’t eaten in days,” says Farfour as Julien offers him the beige plastic bottle.

Farfour Meets the Borat Jews

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“What brings you to North Sydney, Mr. Farfour?”

Shona McIsaac has the most charismatic voice of any hostess on Island Television. She’s been interviewing celebrity tourists for the daytime lifestyle show “Northside Today” for the last five years on a voluntary basis.

Farfour likes the affable glee in Ms. McIsaac’s Irish eyes. “I’m still waiting for my flight to Beirut, and I’m not supposed to leave Canada for a few weeks,” he says beaming from ear to shiny ear. “I really like the people here in Cape Breton. They remind me a lot of my friends back home in Palestine. Do people call women lassies over here?”

“Oh no. They only use that word in Scotland, not in Nova Scotia. Though there are some people here who still speak Gaelic out in the countryside. I guess the English couldn’t get rid of them all . Haha

But back to you and your exciting trip, Mr. Farfour… I hear that you’ll be traveling with a family of Borat Jews. How in the world did you meet up with them?” She smiles and holds out a large, furry mike.

Farfour has been advised in an email from his lawyers that he ought to keep away from political discussions.

“Well, Ms. McIsaac… (his smile is back) they’re Muslim just like me, and it’ll be a blast praying together on the ferry.

Just then, a faux-wood-paneled Caravan arrives carrying one of the two families of local Borat Jews.

“Farfour! Farfour! How ‘s she goin’? The kids have been right excited knowing we were gonna be traveling with the one and only Farfour!” says the father of the family – Omar Kazhaki. Four years earlier, he was a television writer from Staten Island. Then – like many other Borat Jews – he converted to Islam and changed his name to sound Kazakh after reading about the phenomenon in People magazine while waiting in line at his unemployment office.

“You must be Omar, bye. And these boys must be Abdallah and Marat. And… oh. Aren’t you the sweetest little dear. Julia. is it? I watched your gymnastics routine and your school pageant on Island Television.”

Farfour looks at his swatch. “Hey, it’s almost five o’clock and the ferry leaves in a half hour. Where’s your sister at?”

Omar silently points to another faux-wood-paneled Caravan arriving behind Farfour.

…

Omar’s older sister Gyuzyal is driving, while her husband, Yerzhan sits in the backseat with their twin sons who are only two and need to be attended to every few minutes.

Farfour walks over to greet them along with Omar and the kids.

Gyuzyal immediately asks: “Hey, Omar. Where’s Nikole? Did she fly up alone on Monday so she doesn’t get sea sickness like she said she was gonna?”

Omar replies: “Yeah, when it’s her own health, my wife will gladly send the rest of the world to hell. But other than that, everything’s nice, al hamdulilah.” He knocks on the faux wood of the van.

They all laugh as a reflex, and then join Farfour and the kids and shuffle into the ferry terminal to buy their tickets and get their vans weighed.

Farfour likes to talk while waiting in line. “So why are you guys going to Newfoundland? Is it your first time there? Are you excited about going to see the new Sacha Baron Cohen Museum of Jewish Humor in Gander?”

Gyuzyal answers: “We decided to look around for somewhere else to live. Seems like the entire Anglosphere called the big witch-hunt on Muslims – it’s no friggin’ place for Borat Jews likes us. The Wasps say we’re radical Muslims. The Jews call us traitors right to our faces. The comedy writer’s guild called us flakes and lice in a full-age advertisement in the New York friggin’ Times. Upstate New York was hell those last years. North Sydney’s nice and everything, but it’s too small for us . We want our kids to get away from all the Hollywood shit here on the mainland.”

Farfour looks at them, “This isn’t really the mainland. But is that why you’re moving to St. John’s? For the culture?”

“Yeah. Dat and for the freedom. They gots the great sense of humor down there, and that friggin’ comedy guild has no influence down there neither,” answers Gyuzyal while changing the twin’s diapers on a folding IKEA Loorstenoll table. ”

Down home in Newfoundland, people makes their own jokes, and hopefully there, our ethnic group won’t always be the friggin’ butt.”

“Hey, byes!” shouts enthusiastic Yerzhan as he gets back with their tickets. “Youse is gonna be taking the HMS Demi Moore that leaves in two hours so we got time to do some last-minute shopping at the Galilee Shopping Centre. More, more, more! Haha!”

Farfour grabs Yerzhan by the collar and speaks softly but with some force: “We’re not going to that mall. We’re getting on the boat. We don’t have time for More, more, more. Do I make myself clear?”

The younger children are frightened by Farfour’s sudden change of mood and aggressive eyes. But then their mom talks to them about the evils of shopping and gives them each a Quran-themed pacifier.

After Farfour finally sets a wrinkled Yerzhan back onto the floor, the whole gang gets onto the ratpack-dedicated ship and heads off to Newfoundland.

U.S.S. Enterprise

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Farfour and Bananarama have been standing on hot asphalt for over an hour waiting to get onto the USS Enterprise ride at Canada’s Wonderland.

A young boy eating a clodhopper ice cream notices the smiling mouse and his three female companions, and slowly approaches them, eying Farfour carefully. The celebrity mouse seems to be the only one who is dressed age-appropriately.

“Excuse me, aren’t you that activist mouse on Palestinian TV?” asks the little tike as he clutches a yellow Tonka truck in the kangaroo pocket of his name-brand hoody.

“Yeah! You must be Nourdine, the boy from the embassy. Am I ever glad to see you!” Farfour had called the Palestinian Embassy in Ottawa as soon as he found out his flight to Hebron with Bananarama had been diverted from London Heathrow to Canada.

“So,” Nourdine asks between licks of the nougat in the candies that punctuate his cone, “why are you in Toronto and not in Hebron for the concert?”

Bananarama’s North American corporate connections have already dispatched an army of emergency PR people to Toronto to clear up the spin mess that came out of their flight being rerouted. The No-fly lists are getting out of control; Bananarama find themselves on it for scheduling a charity concert in the same venue that Hamas holds its annual karaoke night.

“Well, they told us there were technical problems on the plane, and that we’d be safer coming to Toronto for a special routine maintenance check up. In a few days, we’re gonna fly directly to Beirut, and then connect to Hebron and do the concert a week later than scheduled. So far, there’s only been a 5% cancellation rate,” Farfour calmly explains. He hasn’t heard about the political reasons for the rerouting of his plane, and blissfully imagines that things are happening exactly as they should.

Meanwhile, the girls are signaling for Farfour to hurry up and get his furry little mouse ass onto the friggin’ ride! Sara is sitting in the front, while Siobhan and Keren sit behind her, patting the second-place spot for Farfour, as if he were a dog. Time for the shy little mouse to ride the Enterprise with his celebrity girl-singer heroes from England!

The USS Enterprise is a vintage amusement park ride that has been recovered from the CNE’s old fairground when the CNE was closed down to free up some prime downtown land for more metallic condo towers.

This thrill-ride is composed of a flat, horizontal wheel, with hinged missiles hanging along its circumference, each missile holding three or four passengers.

…

As the wheel accelerates, the missiles swing outward until they are in a completely horizontal position, held there by centripetal force. Then the entire 20m-diameter wheel begins to slowly rise until completely vertical. When it is at its vertical apex, the missiles at the top are completely upside down. They call this part of the ride “the change loosener” and it brings big tips to attentive carnies. The entire ride usually lasts 2 to 3 minutes.

Farfour and Bananarama spin around and around for their three minutes of total acceleration in the vertical wheel position. But as the wheel begins to make its decent back down to horizontal, something snaps and the entire wheel, loaded with dozens of spinning-upside-down passengers flying around in circles at high speed, suddenly slips a few meters off its decent with a loud and jerky thud. Scared riders begin to scream loudly and constantly, and the operators below scramble with cellphones and monkey wrenches to raise the wheel back up to the vertical position so they can – maybe – repair it and spare the lives of Bananarama, Farfour, and the regular schmoes in the other missiles.

The girls are in hysterics. The ride isn’t stopping! Ever! They’re just going around and around and around… Siobhan’s stomach gives out, and she projectile-vomits all over Farfour’s ears and Keren’s freshly permed black hair.

If they ever get off this thing, Sara swears, there’ll be no more carnivals and zaniness for Bananarama, no more decadent thrill-seeking and silly videos full of half-naked dancers. They’re off to Palestine to belt out a few disco tunes and maybe – just maybe – to bring some sunshine into the lives of a few unhappy children.

Kentucky’s Lips

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Waves of ambient heat from the spotlights are burning the skin on his furry forehead. Still, Farfour is glad to have been chosen to judge this year’s Miss America contest, even with all the media controversy. That Miss Palestine was allowed to participate – with the Geneva Conventions as justification –  strikes many pundits as an example of blatant tokenism. Some would add that it’s an example of blatant tokenism in bad taste.

That being said, he is only one of the four judges, and the others were all chosen the traditional way – by who they know and how much money they control. Farfour is the first Miss America judge to be appointed using Nevada’s new MAVC law – Minority Advancement Via Culture – approved in a state ballot referendum as Proposition 208. So here he is, standing beside three North American media moguls – trophy brides at their sides, face-lifts ready to explode under the glittering TV lights.

Robert Iger leans over to tell the other judges that Miss North Carolina – a crowd favorite – is about to perform in the talent part of the pageant.

As the notes of Miss Carolina’s brand-name plastic recorder fill the sound studio with the pleasant chords of Pop Goes the Weasel, Farfour wonders if pageant-noob Miss Palestine has remembered to put vaseline on her lips so her smile is as large and natural-looking as the others.

Miss North Carolina’s song is over, so it’s time for her to drop the recorder and put on her thinking cap to answer a question from one of the judges. Her question is about maps and education, and Farfour tunes in near the end, just in time to hear her say, “…could really help America grow!” to thunderous applause from a crowd of retirees and visiting soldiers from Iraq and other recalcitrant colonies.

Now it’s Miss Palestine’s turn.

A performance artist who has studied at the London School of Economics, Fatia Pharoan – twenty-year old Miss Palestine – hopes that her thoughts and talent will compensate for her lack of cosmetic surgery enhancements or blond Aryan hair.

“Tonight, America, I want to talk about cup-holders,” she opens, as she mounts a unicycle suspended on a wire string about 30 meters above the glamorous stage.

As she rides the unicycle across the tightrope juggling flaming model cars, she recites her slam poetry: “America needs cup-holders because we are a bored and dehydrated people. Our cup-holders are never close enough or plentiful enough anymore. Our coffee is never strong enough or close enough not to spill. We are drinking ourselves to death in our glass bubbles….”

As she stops suddenly at the word “bubbles,” she jumps from the tightrope and a small parachute made of Afghan silk opens, softening her landing. Momentarily frozen – as if in pain – Fatia suddenly rises from the stage, smiling and radiant. The performance is over and another success.

“I didn’t like the amateurish bikini wax,” comments Canadian mogul Leonard Asper, as he prepares to give her a 3 out of 10. “Christ, if you’re gonna be on Miss America, you get a decent professional wax job. Know what I mean, mouse?”

“You’ve been judging these contests for a number of years,” Farfour respectfully remarks, as he writes his ‘9’ in black felt-tip marker. “Who do you think is going to win?”

“Well,” Leonard scratches his chin, “Miss Kentucky’s got nice lips.”

The Meme Police

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(Please note that this story has been tagged by Mice Media Watch for inaccuracy, inappropriateness, and political bias)

Hungry Farfour is waiting for a vegetarian falafel platter at a cafe in Nablus, when Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky notice a giant mouse eating alone, and decide to finally meet their most famous Palestinian fan.

“Hi, you must be Farfour,” Naomi says, trying to break the ice like Julie on the Loveboat.

“Oh my gosh. You guys are both famous  writers, aren’t you? Would you like to have lunch and chat a bit?” Farfour does his best to hide his excitement, but he has been out of work for over a year now, his tiny little mouse home has been demolished to make way for a rat colony, and 400 members of his immediate family have been forced to live in an Israeli-funded lab that tests pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.

A Mossad spy – Agent Greenwash – notices the bookish celeb duo chatting with Public Cartoon Enemy Number One, and the spy discreetly plunks himself down at the table next to theirs, disguised as a plant.

Farfour looks perplexedly at Noam, and asks: “Has that potted plant been sitting at the next table for a long time?”

Noam, sensing a bit of tension, quickly makes a joke:  “It’s probably an Israeli news reporter manufacturing dissent, Farfour. Get it? I said dissent instead of consent. Am I clever or what?”

Farfour decides that it is best not to speak loudly as their safety may be in danger, and the group spend the rest of the working lunch silently passing text to each other on napkins.

After a few hits on their table-side bong, he forgets that he has been using the napkins as manuscripts, and wipes some delicious garlic humus off his mouth with an entire conversation about controlling public opinion through media filters.

Noam and Naomi later drove home together with paparazzi following close behind in a black Volvo  SUV – a “We Support the Kiss Army” sticker positioned right above the rear kangaroo bar.

Luckily, the minor kerfuffle with an Israeli spy didn’t stop these two smart kids from North America from posting eye-opening articles for the alternative press about their meeting with this “brave refugee from children’s TV.”

Rumor

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Thanks to the miracle of an Israeli time machine, Larry King succeeds in uniting Hitler, Sitting Bull, and Farfour to take part in a week-long, five-part soundbite extravaganza called I Heard A Rumor on PBS – just as the homeless little network is about to go under because of lack of funding.

The following excerpt is from Part 4.

01:11:07:15
Hitler: …yeah, it’s true, my book lead to a lot of bad press for the German people – and for European texts in general in the rest of the world, but Farfour, seriously… your unauthorized biography… what is it again? – Ass Gerbil?… What a disgraceful piece of sensationalism. It’s just 400 pages of rimming and caca jokes.

01:11:27:06
Farfour: Let’s not go there again, Adolph. And… well… it’s a bit ironic that you – of all people – would resort to attacking my character based on a poor translation of a forged biography. As if you are in any position to judge someone based on the propaganda of an opponent. Like I said yesterday, I didn’t write the fucking book – I wasn’t even asked to contribute!  It was written by that wealthy translator… that MEMRI guy… and they are well documented…

01:11:49:12
Sitting Bull: (interrupting) Can we not get into another book-hating JO session, you two. I feel like we’re missing a real opportunity to really get to know each other’s stories, instead of just attacking each other for 23 prime time minutes while our sponsor slowly goes under. We’re acting like caged animals here rather than like the free people we really are. We’ve been given a real opportunity to get some brilliantly nuanced historical information out there, and to save a popular and democratic medium at the same time!

01:11:59:10
*Sioux translator whispers something to Sitting Bull*

Hasselman’s unauthorized biography explores the foamadermic mouse’s secret sexual liaisons with Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein

01:12:14:22
Larry King: (looks out at audience) You’re the reason we do this, folks. You’re watching I Heard A Rumor in your comfortable living rooms because of generous donations from yourselves.

So whether you’re sitting in a lay-z-boy recliner watching Hitler give it to Farfour, or recording Sitting Bull to watch with your native friends later, remember to pledge as much as you can. Qualified canvass-workers are standing by the phones. We’re going out to the Lincoln, Nebraska phone team right now to talk a bit with Sherry Hathburne in Accounts Receivable…

01:12:38:05
*cuts to Sherry Hathburne in Accounts Receivable*

Shy Mouse

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Shy around women in general, Farfour was particularly embarrassed to be talking to these beautiful young cheerleaders from Ohio so soon after “the scandal.” These happy, healthy young women had all seen a very stoned mouse emerging from Saddam’s anal cavity on CNN and the other networks – played over and over and over on a loop – just a few months earlier. How could he ever overcome such a humiliating (and genre-limiting) international media debut? Was he destined to be a shy boy forever?

The cheerleaders were all a lot taller than he was and most of them were blond and pretentious. Farfour figured that their height and pigmentation difference might explain the girls’ lack of empathy for his situation. Two of the gals removed their iPods and pretended to be interested in what he was saying.

“I never said for anyone to kill Israelis in the show, I said that the soldiers were hurting everyone in my city. Those weren’t my words that they translated. It was the words of a well-meaning but nationalistic Israeli translator at MEMRI. He misrepresented my texts.

Misrepresentation in a media product translation is worse than lying. It’s a form of structural lying that stuffs lies into someone else’s mouth. It’s like writing History in a skewed way that suits your own agenda. It’s creates false discourse and this makes everyone a bit dumber. If only we could…” Farfour started but then caught a reflection of the gum-balloon that the smart one was blowing with her huge, inflamed wet lips.

“This is the best remix of Bootylicious ever!” shouted Candy Amsterdam, as seriously as she could while dressed in her 50s rollerskate fashions. The strawberry scoop of her two-scoop sugar-cone bobbed up and down between her words.

Farfour felt the familiar tingling of hopelessness and defeat, like he’d been beaten down by his own lack of confidence. The text had enslaved him yet again.

But how much longer could it keep him down…