You can reach the author at basementfiles@hotmail.com

Thursday, March 20, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Basement Files: Bush's voice mail

President Bush spent the past week working feverishly to shore up support for his war on Iraq. According to presidential aides, Bush worked the phones day and night trying to assemble a nine-vote majority among the many undecided U.N. Security Council member states.

Call to Paul Biya,

President of Cameroon

Tuesday, March 11, 6:15 p.m.

Hey, Paul, it's George. I think Yoko's destroying us. All right, it's 6:15, my time, which makes it about...Jesus, late as shit your time, I guess. Sorry, dude. Hey, listen, thanks for the CD. Just some killer shit on there. I mean, Tommy Bolin's "Post Toastee"? Are you shitting me? That's a bold move, my friend. It takes some balls to put a nine-minute cut on a mix CD. But, hey, it works. Hey, who's that guy singing that ballad about "bringing it home" or "bringing it on home" or something? It sounds a little like Jeff Buckley during his Greetings from L.A. period, but not quite. It's like the fifth or sixth song...do you remember?

Oh, check this out...Wolfowitz and I put together this killer mix CD for Chirac. You ready for this theme? Cities, alphabetical. Okay? So we open with Little Feat's "Oh, Atlanta." A little predictable, but a killer groove. It was that or Chet Atkins' "Abilene," which is a total energy suck. Then we segue to Randy Newman's "Birmingham," which is a hell of a lot more somber than you're probably remembering. I hate having a moody cut for your second song. It's dangerous. But we pull out of it with Sinatra's "Chicago." Again, kind of predictable, but just a ton of fun. For D, we went with Jimmy Dale Gilmore's "Dallas," from Joe Ely's Musta Notta Gotta Lotta. Remember that? Have you ever seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night? Anyway, you get the point. So we're stealing crap from Kazaa like mad...(transcript ends)

Tuesday, March 11, 6:20 p.m.

All right, I got cut off by your goddamn machine. You know, the thing about these theme CDs is you get so excited off the top and you think they're gonna be perfect. But then you see you've hamstrung yourself by making it too narrow. And then you get desperate enough to start making these crappy compromises and you'll put any shitty song on the CD just for thematic purity. Like for K, we had to go with "Kokomo" by the Beach Boys. Well, that blows. If that song sucked any harder, I'd date its sister. And then when you get to the boneyard of the alphabet, XYZ, you'll do anything. Like, we went with "Xanadu," a shitty Olivia Newton John song about a mythical city. Does that still qualify? Can you use fake cities? That's the kind of shit you don't think about when you start out. And then we end with "Yakima" by Millhous and Bing Crosby's "Road to Zanzibar." I mean, just to stay with the theme, you'll go with these jarring goddamn songs that don't belong to each other. You paint yourself into a corner with some of these mix CDs. Hey, speaking of painting yourself into a corner, I wanted to ask if you might consider...(end of transcript)

Tuesday, March 11, 6:24 p.m.

Goddamnit, Biya, you and your "brief messages." Let a guy rant, would you? It's my dime. Okay, so maybe I'm obsessed with this CD thing, but here's my point. We put a lot of effort in on this thing. Wolfie was downloading shit for a week. We courier it to Chirac and you know what that fucktard does? He sends us the best of Jacques Brel. I'm serious. Are you believing this shit? I just fucking hate the French. I'm sorry, but I do.

So, Paul, listen, a bunch of us are getting together in the Azores this weekend for some beer-to-beer networking, if you know what I mean. Maybe watch some NCAA ballin' and get a jump on the bracket pool. Nothing formal or anything, not a big deal if you can't make it. If you want to call Angola, bring him along, that's cool too. I was gonna call him, but he's really more your bud. I like him, don't get me wrong, but...(end of transcript)

Tuesday, March 11, 6:27 p.m.

Hey, you know what I just noticed? You're one of those intro gaspers. Know what I mean? Those people who take in the giant breath right before they start their outgoing message, one big audible air-suck like they're about to slip under water. You know why I think they do it? I think the outgoing message is as close to public speaking as most people get, so they vapor lock a little. They've got this little spiel in their head and the pressure of keeping it straight, remembering the right order of everything, sort of paralyzes the diaphragm. So you get this giant gust like...whooooosh...you've reached 643.7892. I hate it. It's amateurish. Take your time, slow down and modulate your breathing. (Click) Oh, Christ, now I've got a call. I'll call you right back. (end of transcript)

Tuesday, March 11, 6:43 p.m.

(long pause) Well, I never heard a beep so I've either waited too long to start talking and you've already hung up or I'm gonna get halfway through this message and it'll finally beep. I hate those few seconds of uncertainty where you don't know if you somehow just didn't hear the beep or if you're caught in some kind of serious voice-mail malfunction. And people can hear in your voice that you've got no conviction that this message is even being recorded, so you sound all hesitant and...(beep).