Jack Tretton: It's a great honor to introduce our next guest. He is a world-renowned autho—
Ernest Hemingway: That's unnecessary, Jack. An introduction from you is an insult.
*Tretton shrinks away*
My name is Hemingway. I'm a writer, a sportsman, and a man. I've been called here today to introduce
Sony's Wonderbook. I've been paid handsomely for the job, but had I been given a photograph of this crowd, I'd have come at no cost.
Your faces impress me. I see children where men should sit.
*drinks*
You lot of reprobates. I was never so young!
You, there—in front. I've traveled the world and have seen no face like yours. It's the face of an
adult child. Yes, that's right.
Don't shy away! Look at me!
No man who has labored in the sun could give your impression. There'd be no lurching, no paleness, no coyness. They'd be sitting straight! Faces brown, eyes proud, hands clutching psalmbooks. But not you. You clutch a cellphone. Find me one in the hands of a matador!
"Puck." May I call you that? Tell me, Puck—do your veins pulse with blood? Come up here, then, and spill me a little. Spill some of mine if you can. I have your puberty in my fist. Don't you want it? No?
*hearty laugh*
*drinks*
I've only one question for the rest of you:
*stares out at crowd*
Have you nightcrawlers never looked into the eyes of womankind? Or can't you do it?
No, I don't imagine that any of you have charisma enough to woo the female sex, but if you ever impregnate a whore, the rats that crawl out of her backside will require some help. From you, they won't get any. From me, they just may.
That's why I'm here! The Wonderbook! It will morph your bastard pinkies into functioning humans. How, you ask, will it perform this shining miracle?
*appears onscreen: "Ernest Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon"*
With literature!
Literature is nothing like the shit you read today. You'll find no wizards in it. In literature, your children will learn to fear nature! They'll learn to smell blood!
My book will firm their handshake! My book will give them BALLS! When their wives ask a favor, they'll growl, "NO! I was conceived on a LUCKY DAY—my father was a miserable softie and I won't be the same! It was Hemingway! Hemingway taught me what it means to be a man! Do the job yourself, you bitch."
*blasts air through nose*
So I plead—if you MUST reproduce, and so roll the dice against posterity, then purchase the Wonderbook for the sake of our dying nation.
Then give that unlikely child a glass of cognac and sit him by the TV.
You can curl beside him in the fetal postion. Cover your eyes if you must. Just make sure that bastard pinkie finishes the book, and becomes more of a man than my new girlfriend, Puck.
*drinks*
Good night, and god help us.
*exits stage, drinking*
Jack Tretton: Wow, that was just great.
