THE TOMARKEN INTERVIEW SERIES Saddam Hussein in Middle America C. S. V. Boyairre, Intervalist 04.07.03-First Wendy’s® Old Fashioned Restaurant Ever Established-Downtown Columbus, OH

A got a Western Union® a few days ago which was odd because not only have I never received a telegram before, I thought Western Union was only the fastest way to send money®, not invitations. The message was simple and was as follows: —
Mmr. Boyairre-
I read yur Osama Bin Laden interview over years ago time. I like way you do things. I think it time to do one myself. Meet me around 2:30 at the Original Wendy’s® location 257 E Broad St.-Columbus, OH, across from former Center of Science and Industry-I be there to answer your questions.
See you there or be the square-Saddam Hussein, Iraqi President
P.S. Come alone or no interview!! You have 10 minutes or less–*also must wash hands, S.H.
—

Original Wendy’s® Old Fashioned Restaurant Stand-Downtown Columbus, OH

I arrived at Wendy’s around 2 PM. I waited at a table. I was too nervous to eat anything that might make my hands look dirty. In conducting an interview under such hostile conditions with consideration to the 10 minute time or less limit and the obviously eccentric nature of this subject, I had to walk the fine line of getting the information that I needed to know without somehow prompting the man to leave. He, as with any political subject, certainly had something in mind that he wanted to use me as the conduit to propagate through out the land.

I must also mention that while my mother and other mothers alike might prefer that I kill Hussein instead of interviewing him, the following conditions prevent me from doing so:

1) How will I really know for certain that this is the real Hussein?-I ain’t going down like that…like that. 2) What information might he hold that the world will be at a loss without it being recorded? 3) He may be a murderer but I certainly am not. 4) What about the future journalists and their prospects to enact information from the crazies that will undoubtedly live to live another day? And what is the definition of crazy anyhow? Is Boosh crazy in his love for Texas? He certainly loves Texas more than I do and I was born there! We, journ-Os must remain neutral despite the attempts of our crack-pot intelligence agencies to try to determine otherwise.-at least for the sake of the children…its always about the children even when its not.

Here’s what I was able to conjure up…not my best work, but here goes…hammer if you will, but please no hurt me.

MMR. Boyairre:>President Hussein…or I guess I should call you Mr. Hussein? Do you think that is a good idea to be out in public like this? Why did you pick Wendy’s of all places?

SADDAM HUESSIEN:>Call me Saw-domm, not Sad-damn…I am not sad, not happy, sometimes quite mad, but I would always use a saw if I have too. These sayings are only propaganda of Boosh present and his father before he to make everyone think that I am ‘sad’ when I am not. Also, despite my secular nature, I prefer not to be damned by your crusadoning President even if it is his hoggywash-I am the DOM the big cheese you know?-sounds like Don—The bucks stopping with me!

I come here to Wendy’s®….I wanted to see what it was like for a collaspaed regeme to keep on running in the absence of their leader. Are his picture’s still up on every wall? Will the standardsza of the Quality that is in the recipe still remain the same-you know what I meaning?

MMR. Boyairre:>So you are claiming credit for taking the life of Old Fashioned innovator Dave Thomas!?

Dave Thomas, Founder of Wendy’s Old Fashioned Restaurants(R), 1932-2002

SADDAM:>Look, he was a dic-tat-tor..was he not? He took the lives of more people, more indiscriminately and much more slowly and painfully than I ever could-very wise this man was. Everyone eats Wendy’s® in this country, the kurds won’t eat my food and have always been a problem. I admired this Dave Thomas…we were similar in a great many ways. We both were orphaned children, we both put our pictures up everywhere, we both started a family business in a small provincial town that would eventually take over the country, and we both had an incredible distrust for dirt, unseemliness. I tried to form an agreement with this man, and he just laughed about it. I felt he was threatening Iraq. Now did I kill him personally did you ask? Mr. Thomas had many many enemies throughout the world. Why don’t you go and ask the Australian Prime Minister John Howard how he was able to keep Wendy’s out of his country?

(At this point he got up and left the table without saying a word. I called after him but he didn’t answer. I didn’t know whether or not our interview had concluded or not, but I decided to sit and stay nonetheless. He came back 10 minutes later with a FROSTY Brand® Dairy Desert-this was the only item Mr. Hussein purchased at Wendys® during out time there. He tried really hard to suck the FROSTY through the straw…but I offered him a spoon, which after he carefully inspected the integrity of the plastic wrapper, then refused help as he struggled to finally open the darn thing and then wiped the spoon inside vigorously across the front of his shirt–he began digging in…)

MMR. Boyairre:>You’re talking to me now in somewhat understandable English. Didn’t You need translators during the Dan Rather interview?

Dan Rather, CBS News

SADDAM:>Dans Rather is an old timer and he likes doing things the old fashioned way-like Dave Thomas. I respect Dans Rathers because they call him crazy, they call me crazy. We both crazy together. But who is this that can call crazy>? The crazies or the people who think they can tell the difference. I don’t know what crazy is and Dans Rathers don’t know what the truth is. Those people who call us crazy, those people who can touch crazy! They ones who are crazy…not me, not Dans, them crazy callers in the middle of the night! I let Dans translates in any funny voices he wants too–we one and the same!

(Heussien slammed his FROSTY® brand desert on the table, causing the sides of the yellow cup to roughly crumple and some of the dairy desert to spill out over the sides onto his hands. He apparent didn’t care to notice the mess he was creating)

MMR. Boyairre:> So I guess the big question that’s on everyone’s mind these days….Are you shocked and awed by what many consider to be the quick downfall of your regime-one in which you barely put up a fight for your own survival, one in which you used no chemical weapons of which you were supposed to posses in dangerous quantities?

SADDAM:> You think I stupid? Saddam not stupid, maybe you stupid or people you run around with in the middle of night. Saddam not stupid-NO! Is this an inconvenience for me and my family, sure yes it is. But, you know, I put away some money and there it is…when you’ve got good friends you’re never alone and when you’ve got good money you always have friends! I’m of the upper class of this world, as is your BOOSH!

Ho-ho-ho-ho….Its always the middle class that gets stuck with it…isn’t it? I mean you’re a reporter or you look like one. You knowa whata I mean. The poor people think they’re too poor and they don’t give a shit and are too stupid to think about things anyway…we own them. The rich and powerful may not know what’s going on everywhere, but they know what’s going on in their, how-do-you-say throata of the woods and so all the rich people get together at the cocktail parties and there you go.

No but the middle class-they get sker-roooed if you ask me. They’re the ones who are stuck there not I. They’re the ones who used to be rich and are still educated but are living with drinking water for piss!!

(saddam started looking a bit nervous after this last answer, looking like a guy who just said too much. He began shuffling in his seat, looking around, almost mouthing the Matchbox Twenty Song Its 3 AM and I’m getting lonely that was playing in the foreground)

MMR. Boyairre:>One last thing I gotta ask you…A lot of people say a good sign of a madman is the Mustache. I mean look at Stalin, Hitler, most people who live in Pittsburgh and now you..so what’s with the stache?SADDAM:>Everyone wants to call me mad! I’m not MAD…look you can’t get the ladies with the bare face you look weak! The beard is for the yutzes like Castro and you know I’m not like Castro and of course for those loser hippies! Where have all their flowers gone–to their funerals-HO-ho-HO! Lets getta little more serious now… I’ll be the first one to admit that I like the ladies…I feel that your authoritative Katie Couric and I have a lot in common-you know the way that we act like we’re joking, but from the look on our face you know they we really are thinking in our minds I’m going to kill you until you are dead and then until your dead ancestors are dead too!. Pretty much me any of those chix from your Va-gin-nia in your south and I have a lot in common. I like the way that their faces resemble horses, like the horses that I like to ride when I go shooting the fish.

(At this point he threw over the table in my direction splattering the rest of his Frosty® all over my new Tomarken® hooded sweatshirt that I recently purchased on the internet at Tomarken 4 sale. It’s a good thing that they are so durable and washable and loveable that the Frosty® mess is not a worry! Before I could get my wits about me I noticed him heading for the woman’s bathroom. I followed shortly after but he was gone. The woman inside the single stale screaming said I was the only person to come through there as she slapped me and started hitting me with the door of the stale. There were no windows in the bathroom…no obvious way out besides the door and the through the toilet this woman was sitting on which I obviously could not examine thoroughly enough as this woman was beating me. As I was able to crawl away bludgeoned and all, I crawled out to the street and saw no trace of Mr. Huessien. Gone in a cloud of innuendo like Hitler, Elvis, Yakov Smirnof and Fonz before him.

-Tomarken Flashback-
My Dinner with Osama Bin Laden…