Cheesespread

Cheney suffers 19th heart attack in Nixon Library
Vice President Dick Cheney suffered another heart attack last week—his 19th—while on a walking tour of the Nixon Memorial Library in San Clemente.

During the half-hour episode, Cheney reportedly thought he was dying and began talking candidly as he lay slumped against a corridor wall beneath a framed portrait of Nixon at a dog neutering clinic in Decatur.

Remarkably, a 14-year-old junior-high-school student working for his school newspaper The Capistrano High Pine Needle Press, stayed to hold the VP’s hand while Secret Service went for emergency assistance.

“He was all white and sweating really hard,” the boy told reporters afterwards. “Then he started talking crazy, like he was seeing things. It seemed like he was talking to Mr. Nixon on the wall. He said things like, ‘You knew. You knew the people were idiots. They don’t know any better. They can’t handle the truth.’ Also, how he offered the Taliban a ‘carpet of gold [Mideast oil pipeline] or a carpet of bombs.’ I was kind of creeped out because he kept asking me to forgive him and if I wanted to be his massage boy in hell or something.”

Unfortunately, the boy’s comments can’t be confirmed because of a tragic car accident that occurred later that day, when several tires on his mother’s Ford minivan simultaneously exploded, sending the vehicle spiraling off a 300-foot cliff. There were no survivors. A special team of FBI investigators has since blamed the boy’s mother for poor tire maintenance and characterized her as “a drunken former prostitute who hated the president.” The boy had planned to write a school editorial about his experience with Cheney entitled “Hell Is for Children.”

For his part, Cheney called his attack just another “scare” and says that it will in no way affect his ability to fight in court for the right of this administration to keep secrets from the American people.

“This is wartime, and people are dying every day,” said a stern Cheney. “We owe it to our soldiers to be as crafty as possible with the truth. We’ve already disbanded the Ministry of Misinformation because you [reporters] whined so much—but this battle with Walker [comptroller general of the U.S.] is about principle. And the principle is: You guys do not need to know what goes on behind closed doors. Especially when it could spell trouble for this great country and the omnipotent corporations that control it.”

Weekly props
1. Will Oldham (pictured) at the Senator (April 6)
2. Omara Portuondo (Buena Vista), 4/4, Laxson
3. Robert Pollard on J. Will at Guided by Voices show in Oak Park ("He’s a punk hotdog. That’s actually the name of our next album.")
4. Tikkun.org (Jews for the end of occupation)