“A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon.” – Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
PODCAST COLD OPEN: I’m Guy Razz, host of How I Broke This. Not to be confused with that other podcast by that other guy, Guy Raz, called How I Built This.
INTRODUCTION: Ineptitude … Failure … Inanity … Stupidity … MURDER … MURDER … MURDER! This is How I Broke This.
SFX | CARTOONISH BROKEN SPRING: Boing.
GUY: Welcome to my narrative journey about business ineptitude and the failed leaders who failed to learn from their failures. In this episode I talk with Litigious Cheesebrew, former head librarian of the failed Buzzard Roost Public Library, Anywhere, USA.
LITIGIOUS: FYI, Guy, I am still in charge, and the library is still open – it just doesn’t have books.
GUY: A book-less library?
LITIGIOUS: I love the smell of suppression in the morning.
GUY: Tell us about your journey?
LITIGIOUS: First, I was as a member of the Buzzard Roost Friends of the Public Library coalition. It was a great way to infiltrate … er … I mean … worm my way … er … volunteer. During my first Friends meeting, my recommendation to ban Fahrenheit 451 was shot down. In essence, they censored censorship, which is the worst censorship of all. That’s when I embedded myself deeper into the organization and played along with their hypocritical mind games. I volunteered at the library, stocking shelves, and covertly deterring kids from reading books.
GUY: Such as?
LITIGIOUS: Frog and Toad Are Friends.
GUY: Wait … what?
LITIGIOUS: Trust me, Frog and Toad are MORE than FRIENDS. Just read the chapter, “A Swim.” The blatant nudity! The splashing and frolicking of a skinny-dipping frog and a toad in a one-piece, full-bodied, male swimsuit. It’s basically Call Me By Your Name.
GUY: Are you insinuating that Frog and Toad are—
LITIGIOUS: Shush! You SHAN’T say that word.
GUY: Wow, you’re both a shush-er and a shan’t-er!
LITIGIOUS: Actually, I’m chapter president of The Order of the Sleepless Shan’t-ers. Our children shan’t be subjected to amoral, amorous, amphibious characters! Those frolicking frogs threaten moral order, Guy. Unfortunately, the idiotic assistant librarian opposed my proposed Frog and Toad ban.
GUY: Didn’t she eventually die in a mysterious bookshelf toppling?
LITIGIOUS: Her lifeless body was covered by hundreds of books that were included in a special display during Banned Books Week, which Buzzard Roost Library created to promote the crackpot notion of the freedom to read. The coroner said it was To Kill A Mockingbird that delivered the final, fatal blow. That vile book killed more than a mockingbird … it killed an assistant librarian. See how dangerous books really are?
GUY: You were hired as the assistant librarian replacement. That’s when rumors really started to fly.
LITIGIOUS: Shush!
GUY: Did you dump the bookshelf on her, Ms. Cheesebrew?
LITIGIOUS: Of course not. The bookshelf collapsed from the weight of so many banned books.
GUY: Darn. A murder confession would’ve given me a nice podcast ratings bump.
LITIGIOUS: Unfortunately, the head librarian was also resistant to my book police aspirations. So, unbeknownst to her, I burned Frog and Toad out back, but not before checking out the book with her library card. A year later, she was forced to resign for failing to pay the fine for an unreturned, overdue book. The library board declared her conduct to be unbecoming of a head librarian. As her successor, I banned book after book until every shelf was emptied.
GUY: Why did you ban Alex Haley’s Roots?
LITIGIOUS: I didn’t intend to ban the entire book … just the pages alluding to slavery. My assistant subjected it to a good old-fashioned page ripping, page after page, until all that remained was the book’s borrowing card that was placed in the pocket inside the back cover.
A DISRUPTIVE SHOUT FROM OUTSIDE: Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. Pull!
S/FX: The sound of gunfire followed by cheers.
GUY: Did I just hear gunfire?
LITIGIOUS: Don’t worry, Guy. That’s our firing range out back.
GUY: You have a firing range?
LITIGIOUS: The Board denied my lifelong dream to hold a public book burning …
A DISRUPTIVE SHOUT FROM OUTSIDE: Of Mice and Men. Pull!
S/FX: The sound of gunfire followed by cheers.
LITIGIOUS: …but they didn’t say anything about a book shooting. We launch books in place of clay pigeons. Our public book shootings are quite popular with the semi-automatic weapon rights people.
A DISRUPTIVE SHOUT FROM OUTSIDE: The Things They Carried. Pull!
S/FX: The sound of gunfire followed by cheers.
GUY: Ms. Cheesebrew, are you sure you didn’t assassinate the assistant librarian?
LITIGIOUS: Shush! The only thing I am the murderer of are the perversities of literature.
GUY: Now that you’ve gutted the Buzzard Roost Public Library, what’s next?
LITIGIOUS: Believe it or not, I’m going to write a book … The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Censorship.
GUY: The title says it all.
LITIGIOUS: But first I need to learn how to read.
A DISRUPTIVE SHOUT FROM OUTSIDE: Maus. Pull!
S/FX: The sound of gunfire followed by cheers.
Contact: scottsaalman@gmail.com