By Guy Somerset

Copyright pravda

EXCLUSIVE! – By crawling, nude and well-oiled, across the internal air ducts of the Headquarters of ABC News your Intrepid Correspondent was able to surreptitiously obtain audio recording of negotiations to return comedian Jimmy Kimmel to airwaves this very week…Learn the Truth – Only Available Here!
*Hidden amid the altar of Disney HQ Media Lair, in a room hermetically sealed save devious observation by nefarious Muck Rakers heaving within its dank ventilation system, sits CEO Ignatius Iger across a teak desk piled with papers and contracts, faced by Jerome Kimmel, flanked by two burly security guardians*
CEO Ignatius: *smiling deviously* Welcome, Jim.
Comedian Kimchi *noxiously unshaven*: It’s Jimmy.
CEO: *suddenly frowning* It’s whatever I say it is…and since I’m not your Mother and you’re not ten years old, it’s Jim. You get me Sissy-Boy?
Comedian: *attempts to rise* You can’t talk to me that way! I’m a popular late-night talk show host!
CEO: *Goons shove Jim back down* Where do you think you are, sonny? The kid stays in the picture…
Comedian: But-!
CEO: While we’re at it, Jim. Here’s a Norelco electric razor. *places antiquated device on desk* You look like you live in the Warsaw ghetto circa 1925 over a corner apartment you share with your spinster sister in which is run a photography shop that specializes in taking portraits of children…at night…alone.
Comedian: Huh-?
CEO: I’m saying you look as if you’re a pedophile. It’s gross. NOT saying you are a pedophile, but you sure as Hell look like one. As face of ABC you’re gonna shave that Pedo-Beard right the Hell now…DO IT.
Comedian: Hey! You can’t make me…!
CEO: I can’t, but THEY can. *nods to Goons* Either you cut it yourself or they do it for you. SHAVE!
*the low hum of an electric shaver with a failing battery can be heard over soft whimpering*
CEO: Good. You look like a Man…well, at least MORE like a Man…anyway, you’re back on-air next week.
Comedian: Ha! I knew I was right to baselessly claim MAGA did the thing they explicitly did not do!
CEO: No, boy, you’re going back and you’re gonna make a sorry. Oh, you don’t have to say the WORDS, but you DO have to leave a plausible impression an apology has been made.
Comedian: *stuttering wildly* You-You-You can’t force me! *sniffles again*
CEO: What do you think we do here, Jim? Entertain people? Is that my position? You are under the impression I will soon perform a soft-shoe routine for The People of these states? Are you as moronic as you seem? We don’t do Entertainment here, we do MONEY here…and you’re f*cking with our money.
Comedian: But Muh Integrity! I’ve got a contract! You have to pay me $15 Million if I refuse to go on!
CEO: Jim, allow me to educate you. Disney is right now in the process of involvement in a Nexstar-Tegna merger. Those are affiliates, Jim. The deal is worth $6 Billion. Moreover, ESPN, which we own, is itself in the process of acquiring the NFL Network for a 10% stake in our companies. It’s all very complex – as well as HIGHLY lucrative for executives – but here are two things you need to understand…
One, none of this has been approved. It needs the Okay of Regulatory bodies. As for Regulatory, you just p*ssed off Trump, who CONTROLS Regulation, by insulting his deceased Best Friend…and Trump is a man what don’t have too many good-time Chums…
Two, $6 Billion is more than $15 Million…with your contract near tapping out and our sheckels only beginning to come in…also inclusive of further Billions into the future…then attendant stock increases should we pull it off…and, in case you are too stupid to realize…I get PAID in stock options.
Comedian: The First Amendments states…
CEO: Really? What’s with this fellah? *Glances amusedly at Goons who each chuckle* You make us laugh, Jim…only I don’t think you know you’re kidding. The First Amendment, which I am confident you have never read, only protects you from going to prison for Speech, not for getting put on the street.
Aside from which, the First Amendment is conditional, as in…try using those Rights for anything important and your behind will be conditioned into pulp by hired thugs.
Great Men have gone to the pokey for a LOOONG time for less. Eugene Debs got tossed in jail for speech trying to stop a war. You got suspended for telling a yuk-yuk. There’s a difference here, Jim.
Or are you under the impression you are a Great Man? Why, you aren’t even a very good Comedian.
Comedian: Hey! I’ve been doing my show twenty years!
CEO: And you have around 125,000 a night in the Key Demo. There are about ten times the 18-49 Group watching Alex Jones online a Tuesday morning than you get a Thursday evening before the Superbowl.
The only decent gag you’ve got is you take yourself seriously.
Comedian: I’ll go to the Guild! I’ve got friends! Everybody likes me! Lots of stars made a petition!
CEO: Who’s your friend? Howard Stern? The eighty-year-old wig-wearer broadcasting as he gets cucked from the other room? That’s who you’re counting on to ride to your rescue, boy?
Comedian: No! I’ve got big stars coming to my defense!
CEO: Jim, Jim, Jim…Who makes the stars? The studios. You know only around 10% of actors earn enough to qualify for health insurance? And that’s of those in the Union! Which means we got a talent pool of 90% both pretty enough to get a SAG Card and desperate enough to say whatever we tell ‘em.
By the way, Jim, you recall Arthur Godfrey? Ahhh, you never heard of him, have you? Well, he was big, and I mean BIG in a way that you never dreamed. He was on-air near 20 hours a week, every week.
Now? Piddlings like you don’t even recollect him…The Public has deep feelings and shallow memories.
Comedian: Boycott! We’ll Boycott! Cancel Disney+! Jimmy needs to eat! Jimmy needs to eat!
CEO: Exactly what country do you presume you are in, Pedo-Beard? Er, former Pedo-Beard?
Comedian: This is AMERICA!
CEO: Precisely! Only this is not Textbook America, this is Reality America.
Comedian: *confusedly blanched* How…How do you mean?
CEO: *looks to Goon 1, then to Goon 2* You! How much you earn last year? Ahhh…$250,000. Okay, but I mean how much before you began working for me? It’s alright. Don’t be embarrassed. Uh-huh…$45,000, that’s how I thought. Doing what? Digging septic tanks? Hard work.
Okay, now you. What’d you earn? About the same time, that is? Ohhh…$62,000, so you were doing awfully well? What business? Three jobs? Ah, that explains it then. Which was worst? Mopping the bar after a five-hour shift? Got it, I waited table myself.
Now let me ask you fellahs something…How’d you like to be a Millionaire? *Glances to Jim* Hey! Look, pally, we’re playing Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, only in real life! That’s something you never believed you’d see, is it? Anyway, how about it you two Goons? You wanna never work again?
Because I’ll give YOU a cool $7 Million, and I’ll give YOU another $7 Million…and all either you Goons hafta do is amble out of here with good ‘ol Jim and make sure nobody hears from him no more…
You…see how that works, Mr. $15 Million Contract? You got any concept of what a Working Man, not you, but a REAL Working Man, will DO for a Million bucks…let alone SEVEN Million…and the beauty? There’s still $1 Million left over for me to get the Wife something nice at Tiffany.
That’s America, Jim – Real America.
By the by, seems I heard word about you and your Sissy Cousin Sal talking on “retiring” and opening some Frou-Frou Food Truck or somethin’? You serious, Jim? ‘Cause I know you CAN’T be serious?
Allow me to make facts VERY clear…Nobody what ruins a $10 Billion Deal gets to retire cooking gourmet pizza or what-the-f*ck-ever…you hear me? You understand me? You clarified on matters?
Comedian: You…you…bowed to the pressure! The Public convinced you to let me back on air! *softly crying to himself under the dawning realization he is, indeed, a complete nonentity in the equation*
CEO: Jim…Permit me to expand…Every once in a while The People get riled up about something. Then we placate them. We let it die down. Allow it to settle. That was the initial thing with this Kirk Kid…only you were too idiotic to see half the country was upset…so I had to balance it by suspending your ass.
Now? The other half the country is getting riled over “Free Speech” or some hoo-haw…so I right the ship again, letting you return, given you do a song-and-dance about “unintentional offense” or such.
Smooth sailing all around…then after the merger I get a yacht…well, a bigger yacht.
Comedian: *desperately searching for tissue to dab his nose and the blood from the Norleco razor* But…What about me?
CEO: You run out your contract. Then? You’re gone. You’ve proved yourself too dumb to be trusted. Can’t keep a fool. Act right and we PERMIT you to go quietly. Otherwise…*nods to Goons with a smile*…
Claim you’re back for your staff. We’ll let you be the mensch. Make with some near-tears for the folks.
Jim, fact is, you’re not a person, and you’re definitely not a talent…you’re a palliative…a tool we use to keep the Plebs compliant…thinking what we want them to think so they don’t think for themselves.
Why the Hell else do we put you on to send them off to sleep at night? You’re only a sedative.
Anyway, the main problem here? You began to think you were bigger than the Program. It was never “The Jimmy Kimmel Program”. It was always the “Keep ‘Em Calm Program”. You didn’t understand the reality of TV, that it’s all scripted. An’ not understanding is a terminable offense…so to speak…
Comedian: If I do what you want…then I get to go home to my wife and kids?
CEO: What are we, animals? Certainly! You get in your plastic sauna or whatever little doo-dad you got fixed up in your fake marble and faux mahogany McMansion…but only after things are righted here.
If not? These gentlemen pay you another visit to keep that beard of yours trimmed…
Excepting they’ll use a straight-razor for the job.
You get me?
Comedian: Yes, Sir, Mr. Ignatius.
CEO: Good boy. Now go sell The People our Product.
Comedian: What’s that, Sir?
CEO: Complacency.
*At which, Somerset deftly makes his acrobatic escape, recording in satchel, bringing to Pravda Readers all over the Globe what used to be called “a scoop” back in the days of honest-to-goodness reporters*
Pravda Editor Note: Very likely none of this happened. None of it. Somerset goes on these little benders time to time, and since he usually makes deadline and returns with quality cigars, we let him get away with it. Yet, do not mistake this as anything other than complete satire and him being a general lunatic.
Guy Somerset writes from somewhere in America