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And I'll Provide The War
Issue 21.7: Journalistic Integrity
Posted: April 14, 2006

Fear and Loathing with Jim Henson

Brought to You by the Letters L, S, and D

Chas Carey

Mike Bredin
When I watched S-Street it had K as the special guest!
We were somewhere near the Triboro Bridge on the Upper East Side of Manhattan when the drugs kicked in. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded, maybe you should drive…” And suddenly there was this terrible roar all around us and I saw visions of Camilla and the chicken coop back home rushing after me. I began to scream uncontrollably. Half of my passengers were unfazed. The other half, a kid we’d picked up along the way since he apparently knew where he was going, crunched himself into a ball.

    My associate, a two-hundred pound bear wearing a bowler hat, tie and little else, lay back in our rented convertible. “As your attorney,” he was telling me, “I advise you to throw the kid off the bridge.”

    The kid in question quivered in the back seat. “I know the way!” he kept saying. I offered him one of the marijuana cookies we’d prepared for the day’s journey. He refused, breathing heavily. “Find my way, to where the air is sweet...”

    I swung around, pressing my nose firmly up against the leather headrest and letting my feet take the wheel. “Can you tell me how to get-” I began, but trailed off as we nearly plowed into a cement mixer. “Cazart!” I screamed.

    “How to get to Sesame Street?” chimed my associate. “Look, Gonzo, we left the theatre an hour ago. How are we going to get there and back in time for you to blow the horn through the giant ‘O’ when the show starts?”

    “That’s my business,” I snapped. “The frog and his nephew can go fuck themselves. They gave us the company credit card and Dr. Teeth gave us a dream.”

    My ursine associate turned to face our passenger. “Ernie, Dr. Teeth gave us more drugs than God, Vladimir Putin and Hugo Chavez combined. If we were arrested now, we could only accept a plea deal that involved us giving our lives for science.”

    Ernie let out a quiet moan of desperation. “Oh, Bert…” he whispered. I whipped around.

    “Unless ‘Bert’ is short for ‘Bertrice,’ I’m having a difficult time believing this ‘friend’ who you’re ‘living with’ is such,” I snarled.

    “We sleep in different beds!” gasped Ernie. “Please watch the road!”

    “As long as he’s comfortable, why give him the grief? It’s not like it matters whose bed they’re doing it in, wakka wakka…”said my associate.

    “Ernie,” I said, sternly lecturing our young charge, “Fozzie Bear would have you believe that denial is okay, with his Micronesian Moon language ‘wakka wakka’ talk. But when I came here from the planet Strange, I knew, from day one, that I wanted nothing more than a quiet clutch of chickens for plucking, fucking, and a steady job. You came to Sesame Street, home of monsters and giant birds and dubious animations designed to teach children basic mathematical and verbal skills, all you should want is to be happy. The Children’s Television Workshop,” I continued, swerving down a Queens alley not meant for automotive vehicles, “is a neo-Nixonian fascist housing community, Ernie, trying to separate you and your buddy Bert from the loving life the pair of you deserve.”

    “As your attorney,” began Fozzie, but I cut him off.

    “You’re not my attorney!” I howled. “You’re a two hundred pound quasi-naked bear!”

    “And you’re a Weirdo,” he replied.

    “Ernie, what Fozzie is saying is true. I am a Weirdo, from the planet Strange, and I think we’ve covered this before. Shit, we’re looping. We’re fucking looping, Fozzie!”

    “My client is saying you really should have some drugs,” said Fozzie.

    “Rubber Duckie, you’re the one…” murmured Ernie, his googly eyes wider than ever.

    “There’s a rubber duck involved?” I howled. “If you’re rubber ducking around with Bert, Ernie, you have every right to sleep in the same bed, visit him in the hospital if he’s-”

    Around this point we slammed into a cluster of trash cans. I flew through the windshield and was left with my coat shredded and my blue nose comically crumpled on the pavement. Ernie leapt out and ran towards me.

    “I think you killed Oscar!” he screamed. “This is why you should always wear your seatbelt!”

    “This wreck,” I said calmly, my nose firmly wedged in a storm drain, “was brought to you by the letter two, the number of the beast, and a preponderance of ether.” Fozzie Bear removed the keys from the ignition and gave them to a green monster lying in a trash can we’d crumpled.

    “Here,” he said. “Don’t let her out of your sight, it’s very important we get her back without a scratch. It’s not ours, it’s Jim Henson’s.” The monster groaned.

    As Ernie ran into his tenement, Fozzie and I shared our cookies on the stoop. A blue, rolly-eyed creature lunged towards us.

    “Hey guys,” he yelled. “You got cookie?”

    Fozzie and I looked at each other. “Investigative journalism,” I said, “is always mutually educational.” Fozzie sighed and handed the box to the blue blob of questionable biology, who proceeded to scarf down the whole thing.

    “You’re going to be passed out for a good forty-eight hours,” laughed Fozzie.

    “C is for cookie,” the monster informed us.

    “Also for ‘cannabis,’” I reminded him.

    “That’s good enough for me,” he said. In an hour’s time, he wouldn’t remember a thing. I sighed and thought back to the days when they’d started to build these tenements. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, over thirty years later, you can go up on a stoop on Sesame Street and look over the boarded-up remains of Mr. Hooper’s store, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark – the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.