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Robert Hix here for Samuel Bachman.

Hello fans of ShowBiz Today,

this afternoon we are in the backyard

of Hollywood schlockmeister Samuel Bachman.

Please, call me Sammy.

As I was saying Sammy Bachman has Hollywood all abuzz

because in a dazzling bid of showmanship,

he managed to outbid the entire town

for the rights to the national bestseller, Angels on Tap.

So tell us, how did you pull of this coup.

How does Sammy Bachman, formerly best known

for such straight video schlock as Wuthering Heights,

A Gool of My Dreams and One Man's Poison,

win out in a bidding war that ultimately pitted you

against the legendary Harvey Weinstein

for the rights of this modern comedy classic?

Well, if I do say so myself, when Sammy Bachman

sets his sights on something, he's a regular bagel.

A bagel?

Yeah you know the southern dogs

with the good nose and the flop ears.

Do you mean a Beagle?

Bagel, Beagle, potatoes, potatoes, listen,

all I knew, once I quit horsing around

with those measly 10 grand raises

and I raised ol' Harv a cool mill, he plots.

Plots?

Yeah you know, plots, like fold up,

the way something folds up

when you raise it a cool mill, uhn yeah.

Like a Harvey Weinstein.

Yeah like that.

Aren't your worried that he'll seek revenge.

Rumor has it Mr. Weinstein does not like loosing.

Who likes loosing?

Did that English guy Lord Nielson,

did he like loosing at Waterloo?

Actually it's Lord Nelson and he won at Waterloo,

it was Napoleon who lost.

It was.

Well that's not the way we had it

in the Wild Women of Waterloo.

Our ending is better, if he'd lost,

Napoleon would have been in no mood for a full scale orgy.

Yeah getting back to Harvey Weinstein,

aren't you worried that you've made yourself

a dangerous enemy.

Yeah, are you kidding, me and ol' Harv,

we're like this, believe me,

it's just a coincidence I hired a food taster.

I think our audience would like to know

what it was about this story that touched you so much

that you would, if the rumors are true,

'caused you to sell off your entire art collection

in order to buy the rights.

Those rumors are true.

I had to sell off all my Monits, and my Daidies

and even my precious Suzzanies.

I believe you mean Monets, Dolly's and Suzanis.

Did you ever own one?

No.

My point exactly.

Okay well out of all the books out there,

what, why did you need to turn Angels into a movie.

Because it was so darn magical.

You haven't read it have you?

No, I'm a pretty busy guy.

Yeah sure, you probably spend hours a day

messing with that hair.

Not hours, hair like this doesn't grow on trees.

Don't I wish, trees I have.

Let me tell you about the book and maybe you'll understand

why I had to buy the rights.

Relax Bobby, you wanted to know why

I had to sell off my art collection,

I'm gonna tell you.

So it starts out, this poor dumb shmuck

is driving home from work.

It so happens, he's a reporter,

always had dreams of writing a bestseller,

but like someone else I know, he never had the time,

but what he really lacked was a story worth telling.

Anyway so he's driving home from work

and his car begins to act up so he pulls off the freeway,

think he's gonna call Triple A,

he finds that his cell phone is dead.

So he spots a bar, he figures, have a groosky,

call the Auto Club, while he waits for a tow.

He steps inside, and what does he see?

I don't know, I told you I didn't read the book.

Angels.

Angels?

Real live angels, like I told you, it's magical.

Now I'm gonna tell you

exactly how I see the movie in my head.

Now you might thing it would be a rather startling sight,

maybe you're even thinking

he wouldn't notice right off the bat,

even if you weren't worried about your car

and whether the Auto Club would arrive

before the second coming

or whether there'd ever be peace in the Middle East

or whether my red socks would ever have the

to carry themselves through July for once,

what you need to remember is everyone in the bar

from the bartender to the customers alike,

they all had wings

and under those circumstances,

it might not be as obvious as you may think.

Anytime enough people are doing the same thing,

whether it's the wave or watching dancing

with their husbands,

it just might not be as startling as you may think.

So there was Prelutsky, nursing a beer

and surrounded by all these wings.

He was trying to play cool but it wasn't easy,

I mean we've all seen wings but they've been attached to

birds and airplanes and hospitals.

Seeing them attached to a room full of people

is another matter,

he didn't want to be rude and stare,

one can't help but peeping.

I gotta give the guy credit, if it was me,

I would have run out of the joint

and check myself into a mental ward

and had myself checked out by shrinks,

could you imagine being surrounded

by an entire room full of angels.

Not really, I mean, what makes you think that

he didn't just make it all up?

I met the writer, Prelutsky, he's not that smart.

Hi, I'm Gabriel.

Am I dead?

No, we are.

Oh, beginning to wonder why I was seeing so many angels.

Lots of people see angels,

but it's usually just one at a time.

You're a reporter aren't you?

Well how did you know that?

You'd be surprised what we know.

Give me a year and I'll tell you what happened?

1513.

Yeah, hmmm, nothing.

You don't remember 1513?

Oh I remember it, but nothing memorable happened,

it was a lot like 762.

Every once in while a year comes along

that is so boring, the best thing you can do

is lie down and take a nap.

I know what you mean, I was that way in 1997.

Yeah, that was the snooze.

Ask me about 1398.

What happened in 1398?

Jan Hus was lecturing on theology at Prague University.

And that made it memorable?

You bet, because Jan Hus

was the most boring speaker in the world.

10 minutes into his talk, 500 people would fall asleep,

if he rehearsed his speech at home,

his dog would fall asleep,

even birds would fall out of a tree.

Gee and I thought Jeff Bush was bad.

I should tell you, you're not the only writer to stop by.

I'm not.

A lot of guys have been here

but nothings ever gotten published,

Shelley tried it with the signs,

Homer with the Greek tragedy,

I'll tell you what I told them,

it's just a bar, it's a bar like any other bar

except all the customers are angels,

which means they have wings but no pockets,

so don't expect a lot of tips.

This is a story that has to be told.

But it's never gonna be published,

they're gonna laugh at you son,

they are gonna say it's unbelievable.

They published The Bridges of Madison County,

anything is possible.

What's with the black wings, is that a fashion statement?

Some of the angels think it makes them look thinner.

And that was the beginning of the story

that changed his life.

On the spot, he immediately began interviewing

the entire flock of them,

flock being the appropriate word by the way.

You got a den of thieves, pride of lions

and a flock of angels.

Just in case you ever wake up one morning

and you find yourself on Jeopardy.

In short order he commandeered a corner table

and let it be known that the drinks were on him

as long as the angels answered all of his questions.

He wanted to know who they were, what their jobs were

and whether or not for the most part

angeling was a good job.

How does one become an angel?

Back in the old days, I mean God created em,

more or less from whole cloth.

But after people started began all of that,

the angels couldn't keep up,

so God solved that one by appointing human beings.

Dead ones.

Yes, that was the one pre-requisite.

So what's the procedure?

Well first you die and then if your papers are processed,

they'll give you an assignment.

What sort of assignments do you get?

Well most of us are supposed to look after people,

but only in certain restricted areas.

So you're all specialists.

Exactly.

Do you think your friends would agree to be interviewed?

I don't see why not, as long as you're buying,

they talked to all the others.

Who were the others?

Shakespeare, Milton, Twain, Melville, Poe, Tolstoy,

not to mention Hemingway and Spillane

They all stopped by.

Shakespeare.

Right here at this spot.

Or was that Bacon.

One of those two plum guys.

Two plums?

Yeah one for wearing and one for writing.

Twain and Belvo, I can't believe they've all been here.

That's the problem, nobody could believe it.

They all wrote stuff about us

but they couldn't get it published,

I mean you won't be able to either.

Well don't be too sure about that.

Hey if William Shakespeare and Mickey Spillane struck out,

what chance do you think you have?

People are a lot more open today

and a lot more broad minded

accepting things they can't see.

Do you mean gullible?

I just mean there's a lot more interest

in the spiritual these days

and people are ready,

even eager to believe in the unbelievable.

I know what you mean,

I've seen some of those TV infomercials.

Name's Wully.

Food and beverage are my line.

I didn't know that heaven was involved with such things.

Well officially I work for the food and beverage division

of the health department.

That woman over there by the pool table

running in place is Joyce,

she's the angel of jugging,

and that good looking guy over there hoggling her is Shawn,

he's the angel of dieting.

Ours is one of the few departments

that's actually expanding.

Right off the top of my head I'm thinking, Robin Williams,

would be terrific as a food and beverage guy,

do you remember how funny he was in Mrs. Doubtliar.

Doubtfire.

And I'm afraid Mr. Williams died a while back.

Oh.

Yeah.

You miss Variety one week, you can never catch up.

Hello, what's your name.

Cyrus.

You have something to do with travel.

I've got everything to do with it.

And believe me it's not easy.

What with all the different timezones, half the time

I don't know if I'm coming or going.

You travel by plane?

No, clouds.

Used to be the best way to fly, slow, stress free,

you could really stretch out, you could read on the way.

One trip I read all of Mark Twain,

got half way through Pruist.

What are your duties?

Cars and buses, jet planes and helicopters,

motorcycles and roller blades.

And as if all that weren't enough, cigarette boats,

parachutes and bungee cords, it's all madness.

The trip itself used to be part and parcel

of the travel experience.

People used to voyage and journey.

The very words themselves

suggest an experience of self discovery,

people set sail, they cast off, they even sally forth.

These days people's idea of a trip is a ride at a carnival

that combines the west elements

of speed, noise and weightlessness.

Today travel is strictly

a matter of moving from point A to point B

and back to point A in as pointless a way

as mechanically possible.

If someone ever devises a way to transport human beings

through noematic tubes, he'll make a fortune.

The casting possible in it

is enough to make my head explode.

I mean this could be another Around the World in 80 Days

because basically we've got like, 14 or 15 cameos.

I mean nobody could try to hold us up for 20 million

when they're only gonna be in the picture

for five or six minutes right,

everyone's gonna want in.

Would you mind answering a few questions?

Not at all young man.

You seem to be enjoying that magazine, what is it?

TV Guide.

It's my bible.

You understand that's just a figure of speech.

You must really enjoy the articles,

I've never realized they were so funny.

I don't read the articles, I read the listings.

When I read the little blurbs, they remind of the episode.

Like I was just reading about this episode of Frasier,

the one where Niles winds up setting fire

to Frasier's favorite couch.

You've memorized every episode of Frasier?

I've memorized every episode of every show.

Wow.

Yes, I believe that television

is the greatest invention of all time.

That's why I'm so proud to be associated with it.

A lot of people regard it as a terrible waste of time.

Well I think a lot of people are a terrible waste of time.

What's the best thing about being an angel?

It's a job.

Is it like being alive though?

Oh yeah, in some cases it's all the way better.

We never have to punch a clock.

And what's the worst?

No paid vacations, no bad mouthing management.

Can't you complain to anyone?

Of course, it's a god given right to gripe,

unfortunately it's a right that god reserves for himself.

You should hear him when he gets started.

You would think nothing ever worked out the way he planned.

Really, like what?

You name it.

Sex.

Big mistake, total accident.

I mean Satan completely blind-sighted him on that one.

The truth, I don't think god's ever gotten over it.

How did god expect people to reproduce without sex?

I mean let's face it Horace, without sex,

Adam would have been the first man and the last man,

I mean surely god didn't expect human beings

to be a mere footnote in the history of the universe.

Actually he did.

Really.

Sure, if you ever run into him, don't bring it up.

I mean learn from my bitter experience,

don't get him started.

According to Horace,

each of you has a specific area of responsibility,

what's yours?

I'd rather not say.

Why not?

It's embarrassing.

Why don't I tell you something embarrassing about myself,

then it's your turn.

Fair is fair, my middle name is Beagle,

my mother raised them.

Well you're right Beagle boy, compared to that

my secret's pretty puny stuff.

I'm responsible for the fine arts.

What's so awful about that?

Just look around you.

In the blink of an eye the world has gone

from Bach and Beethoven to reggae and rap,

we've gone from Run Brand and Da Vinci

to pop art and graffiti,

think how that reflects on me.

How would you feel if everyone held you responsible

for the fall of western civilization?

Do you have anything to do with professional wrestlers

or log?

Well not directly but,

nobody I dear say is immune to my influence.

Oh really?

Oh yes, I'm Lydia the angel of romance.

At least romance used to be my field.

Now of course it's faded away like an old rose,

pressed between the pages of a diary.

It's really so sad.

Keltrastess, in olden days, romance meant a lover

scaling walls, or slaying dragons of one sort or another

and pledging himself to his true love.

Are you talking about chivalry,

isn't that a bit old fashioned.

And what sir is outdated about eternal bliss?

What's uncomfortable about lovers

pledging their troth to one another?

Their what?

That's another thing,

people used to know what troth meant.

Now their lawyers hammer out pre-nuptials.

Once upon a time we had soulmates

and two hearts that beat as one.

Now they're significant others.

Men snooker about hooshers and women giggle about butts.

How can romance flourish when you treat one another

like so many interchangeable body parts like Chevys

or the Colonel's Chicken.

Uncle Sydney.

I'm afraid not sunny boy, my handle's Harry.

I did know an Uncle Sydney once

but he was my uncle, not yours.

It's just that you look so familiar.

I think I look a bit like Ziegfeld, a little taller,

better looking with wings.

I'm thinking maybe George Clooney,

he's pretty cool isn't he.

Oh yeah very cool, he also has very nice hair.

Again with the hair, just listen.

What is your job Harry.

What job don't I have, I've done it all.

Best of all I've done it my way.

I invented show business, it's my life,

or at least it would be if I had a life.

Before me, people knew there was something

missing in their lives

but they didn't know what.

They sat around for hours on end on rocks,

scratching and moaning.

Well how did you go about it.

Well I began with the women,

every night I'll get them to go up

to their husbands and say,

you never take me out, we never do anything together.

Within a week, Harry, the first entertainer,

was packing them in.

Doing what?

Harry used to throw 19 rocks in the air at the same time.

And that's how we got joggling?

No that's how you got dodging and ducking.

Joggling came along much later,

it involved three oranges.

My name is Minerva young man,

and my field of expertise, if I might call it that

without appearing immodest, is athletics.

I would have never guessed.

Actually, I'm relatively new to the job.

Formerly, I was in charge of what used to be known

as the social graces.

But there has been less and less call for my services

until finally I was as redundant as an appendix.

Well what happened?

I was hoping you would tell me.

All I know is that etiquette used to be quite important,

and then one day it wasn't.

My name is Alexander, please don't call me Alex.

You wouldn't possibly know a 37 letter word

for Villeinage, would you?

No I don't.

I didn't expect you to.

Let me be so bold, you seem a bit dispirited.

Certainly discouraged.

Not the crossword puzzle is it?

Hardly, the 'cause for my lethrege

is that for all intents and purposes,

I've been out of work for 60 years.

Well that's a problem.

What is it that you do or did?

My job was guiding geniuses.

Hence I've been unemployed since April 18, 1955.

What happened on that date?

Einstein died.

I guess you're a happy angel.

Oh why is that? Do you know something I don't?

Well I thought that although romance and the arts

might have been going to the dogs

that you can't knock modern technology?

You can't, not if you know what's good for you.

It could knock back and really hurt you.

You're not a fan of progress.

Do you realize they now have a lethal gas

you can't see or smell.

With just two ounces,

you could wipe Southern California off the map.

I see you're smiling.

Just visualizing.

Be that as it may, Mr. Wisenheimer,

my point is that one man's progress

is another man's poisoned gas.

What a very good point it is.

Where did we go wrong, how could we have been so blind?

It wasn't our fault George.

We were darn fools.

We were no such thing, we were idealists.

Why are you being so hard on yourselves?

Don't blame us, god knows we tried.

There there dear, I'm sure the nice gentlemen

realizes that we did the best we can.

More is the pity.

Please excuse us, it's just that when we started out,

we had such high hopes for the future,

we actually believed there could be such things

as perfect nurturing parents.

And don't forget those wonderful loving tots.

We believed in them too.

What is it that you do?

We oversee parenting.

Anyone could see our next subject

was trying to drown his sorrows and possibly himself

at the rate he was downing shots ,

it was as if he was trying to finish off

the work began decades earlier

by carrying nation

but instead of waging on boos by shutting down distilleries

through the 18th amendment, or sing an ax

to break bar tops into kibbling,

he was on a one man mission to deplete the entire bar stock.

What's your name?

Who told you to sit down?

You were sleeping.

Well wake me up next time, my name's Al,

actually it's, Aloicious Jailmally,

my friends call me Swifty,

at least that's what they used to call me

when I still had friends.

They died?

They did.

Any of them here.

I'm afraid not, none of my boys made it.

Actually I guess I'm lucky to have snuck through.

You were a politician.

No, no no no, I was what you call an arranger.

I helped arrange it for other people to get elected.

And now?

Well my official duties are to oversee politics,

but mainly what I do is overlook.

Overlook.

As an angel I try to guide them,

encourage them to do the right thing.

Did you ever hear such a flap doodle in all your life.

We all want to have representatives

in congress and in the white house

that we can respect and look up to.

The only politician the people should look up to

is the one that's hanging from the gallows.

Finally a cheerful angel.

Well indeed I am,

do you suppose that's because I only deal

indirectly with humans?

Who do you deal with?

Why dogs of course.

Dogs.

Of course, why do you sound so surprised.

I never imagined that poodles would have their own angel.

Well isn't that like a human being,

to think that heaven is more about them than their pets.

They're just poor dumb creatures.

Oh I know,

that's why we always try to make allowances for people.

I was talking about the dogs.

I know.

What about Meryl Streep.

Oh what about her?

Is she alive?

Oh yes yes, she's alive.

She'd be terrific as a dog angel.

Yeah oh my, she's always terrific.

Basically, we'll be guaranteed

at least one Oscar nomination,

I mean the lady sneezes and she gets nominated.

That is so true.

What do you do for relaxation?

Once in a while I do go rainbow sliding.

What's that like?

They're like those water slides at the theme parks,

except we don't have to buy tickets

or stand in line all day.

Didn't even realize they had TV in heaven.

It wouldn't be heaven without it.

The only problem is some angels don't feel that way.

So I often have to mute it.

That must make it hard on you?

Fortunately I can read lips,

besides they're mostly re-runs, so I've seen them before.

How many times have you seen the Frasier episode

that you were just reading about.

Roughly 400 times

but it just keeps getting better and better.

I guess it's because I'm getting to know

the characters so well.

I think I love Roz best of all.

What forms of entertainment are most popular in heaven?

Usual things, Celetial Quaz, Hop Concerts,

lots of re-runs of I Love Lucy.

What do you think of the television medium?

Well to quote the great arch-angel Frenal,

they call it a medium because it's never done well.

What form of entertainment do you enjoy the most.

Well in my book you can't beat modern film.

I mean dog acts, Ventrocus, Tumblers, Arge Comics,

German Comics, Sister Acts, Barbershop, Quartets,

the whole razzmatazz, before that all you had

was wandering minstrels and court jesters.

Give me a dog that dances on its hind legs anytime.

Perhaps just well,

but how much real satisfaction can there be

in overseeing the affairs of creatures who pee on trees

and go pop.

And who are fearless, loving, gentle and loyal

and who don't start wars,

lie, cheat or betray their friends,

whose simple goodness

and piety is an example for the saints,

and yet here you sit truly astonished by the fact that,

we all have a special place in our hearts for them,

see I find that totally astonishing.

And it may further shock you to know

that their place in heaven is secure

while the human race is skating on thin ice.

I never imagined.

Well that's because it's not their way to brag.

Here on earth even, when a dog wins a race or a blue ribbon,

he doesn't hug the limelight,

he's very willing to share the glory with his people.

So it's basically been your responsibility

to wean us off of bark and onto burgers.

It's not as easy as it sounds.

You people talk about developing a taste

for olives and grand flakes

but can you imagine how long it took me

to convince the very first person to try a lobster?

plus keep in mind that butter hadn't been invented yet.

I bet it was even harder to get us onto snails.

I got lucky on that one.

Butter or no butter,

at the rate those little rascals reproduce,

if some French gardener hadn't had a brainstorm

and decided to call them escargot,

you'd be buried in by now.

How'd you like to coax someone into trying yogurt

before the stuff even had a name.

How'd you manage?

I found this lost soul wandering in the Gobi Desert

for two weeks, dining on sand in his sneakers.

Even at that, it took another five days before he caved in.

And are you telling me that there's no other geniuses.

Nothing much to speak off.

Find that hard to believe.

Of course you do.

That's because human beings throw the word around

as recklessly as rice at a wedding.

By actual count in the history of the world,

there have been nine geniuses.

But, if you believe say People Magazine,

they're as plentiful as flees on a bloodhound.

Everyone who ever directed a movie that turned a profit

or been a lawyer for a celebrity criminal

or made a financial killing on Wall Street

or made the cover of People for that matter,

qualifies for their pantheon.

As it is, the last person

who actually saught creative inspiration was Andy Warhol,

I'm afraid he misunderstood when I told him

that to be a great artist,

he might have to eat Campbell soup to survive.

If it has you so upset,

why don't you do something about it.

I am a muse and clearly you are unaware of a muse's role.

What happened? Get all mused out?

It's you people.

You stopped wanting to be divinely inspired,

writers stopped writing great novels

and started writing bad TV shows.

Composers lost interest in symphonies

and concentrated on jingles selling soap and potato chips.

Architects stopped designing cathedrals like Notre Dame

and started designing towers like Notre Trump.

There used to be hundreds of us in the Arts Department,

it was thrilling.

More than a mere job, it was a calling.

Every time you turned around, voila, another masterpiece.

What happened?

What always happens.

Funding for the Arts dries up.

The usual cut backs take place and here I am,

Helen, the lone surviving muse.

Every time I read that chapter I break up.

Everything she says is so darn true.

Don't you realize she's talking about people like you,

people who produce movies like Wuthering Heights

and the Wild Women of Waterloo.

Of course I realize that,

that's why I had to make the ultimate sacrifice

and sell my Monets and my Susannies and my Dailies.

That's why I have to have my name on Angels on Tap,

don't you understand?

I'm trying to save my soul.

Do you miss the old days?

I sure do.

If only we can turn the clock back.

Ever relaxing carriage rides, train trips,

long sea voyages, and on occasion,

an exhilarating gallop across the meadow.

Once in a great while, for a refreshing change of scenery,

a scent in a hot hair balloon.

Today you get hit with so many rushed jobs,

we're all on shooting stars.

I'll never forget the day the wheel was invented.

There was such excitement.

Did they have any idea what to do with it?

None whatsoever.

That's what made it so exciting.

Everyone sensed they were onto something big

but they had no idea what.

Was it one person who made the discovery.

Of course, it's always one person.

As soon as you get a second person in the room,

all he'll do is tell the first person to stop horsing around

and get a real job.

So who was it that discovered the wheel?

It was a guy named Benny.

He was just fooling around one day with different shapes.

It's very fortunate he finally came up with round.

What do you mean?

Well for the longest time he got hung up on triangles.

Can you imagine driving around on four steel rim triangles.

I guess you could say that

we were just a bunch of general practitioners.

Back then, there wasn't a lot of trouble

that people could get into.

So, just as long as they didn't mix it up with witches

and they remembered to say their prayers

30 or 40 times a day, the job was a sab.

What did it consist of?

Mostly hovering.

Hovering?

You've seen it in all the pagans, like cat.

We hovered a lot.

Whenever anybody important was born, there we were

hovering over him.

Likewise, when they died, I mean,

we'd show up at weddings and crucifixions

and most of your bigger shit takes.

Can you tell me about

some of the great painters you have known?

Well I hate to drop names but perhaps

you've heard of Michael Angelo.

I imagine he's one of the greatest of them all.

Certainly the laziest.

How can you say that?

A lazy man painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel?

He only took the job because he could do it lying down.

Still it was a tremendous achievement,

didn't it take him four or five years.

Of course, that's because he kept napping.

Anyone else would have had it finished in two weeks tops.

Frankly, in all honesty, I have to admit,

I outdid myself that time.

How so?

Maybe you think it's easy being museful,

when every time you come around, the artist

is 200 feet up in the air, snoring like a bear.

I am amazed that you have to oversee all the fine arts.

I would think that painters alone would keep you happy.

Hoping mad.

Somewhere along the line the art of painting

turned into the art of framing.

People put frames around dots and drips and smudges

and the stuff sells for millions.

Without the fancy frames, they're the sort of things

that parents of very young children

attach to their refrigerators with little magnets.

You know our biggest mistake?

Was letting parents keep the children around

even after the children were bigger than they are.

It breaks down the natural order of things

when a parent gives a command

and the child is like, oh yeah,

who's gonna make me, or worst of all, you and who else?

Sounds like you're talking about teenagers.

Oh the awful T word, try not to say it.

It's a modern aberration you know.

Both the word and the thing itself,

they're an offense to mother nature.

Kind of like a butterfly turning back into larvae.

But haven't we always had teenagers?

Of course not?

But how can it be avoided.

In those happier days there was simply

no such thing as a teenager.

You went straight from being

an adorable little six year old to a very short coal miner.

I always say there's nothing like a 16 hour work day

to keep the young tikes out of mischief,

if you know what I mean.

What are your duties?

Well let's just say if it weren't for Old Wully,

people would still be gnashing on twigs,

grass and small rodents.

When you put it that way,

I guess I owe you a pretty large debt.

I'd say so.

Though I actually feel mice were considered delicacies

until just recently.

Heck fella, it wasn't that long ago that you folks

gobbled up acorns like they were bear nuts.

Well what has changed?

It was decided that there weren't enough differences

to distinguish human beings

from owls and bears and wild boars

and that perhaps diet might be an area worth exploring.

Who was the greatest genius.

Well that's easy, it was Ag.

Never heard of him.

Of course you didn't,

for one thing he never made the cover of People

and for another he was quite a while before your time,

several million years before.

What made him such a genius?

He invented the alphabet.

That's quite an accomplishment.

It was even better before he caved in to outside pressure.

What happened?

He had a wife who thought she was creative.

Q, X and Z were her ideas.

So Ag compromised.

Well it was either that

or sleep outside with the Tyrannosaurus.

Genius is a demanding mistress

but it's nothing compared to a pushy wife.

I had a wife like Ag's.

In what way?

Pushy.

Mrs. Bachman number one.

And that divorce cost me almost as much as this book,

but it was money well spent.

How so?

It taught me that marrying someone

just because they look good on your rom

is a lousy reason to get married.

Much better to go out and buy something

that looks good on your wall.

Like a Suzani.

Yeah.

When did things start to go downhill for you?

After Edison.

I'd have to say it stopped being fun.

You admired Edison?

He flabbergasted me.

He had a brain on him the size of a bowling ball.

They say the legs are the first to go,

but if you got a brain like Edison's,

it's the neck.

I take it that you've been on a first name basis

with some of the biggest brains in history.

Is there any one moment that stands out for you?

No.

Come on, there must be something.

I mean the supper where Socrates

expanded on the meaning of love,

the day Shakespeare drafted Hamlet's Soliloquy,

Isaac Newton's discovery of gravity.

What you think, Newton was one of the nine?

Well I assumed.

The man was just lucky he fell asleep under an apple tree.

If it had been a palm tree,

a coconut could have fallen on his head.

And let me tell you,

fella gets beaten by one of those babies,

his big concern isn't with the laws of nature,

it's his health insurance.

Still, he discovered gravity.

He didn't discover it, all he did was name it.

What, you think he was the first person

who ever noticed things didn't fall up?

One idea that really knocked me for a loop was the car.

I still can't get over it.

You mean the internal combustion engine.

Oh good gracious no.

That's just noisy and messy.

I mean what made the fellow plunge ahead?

How could he possibly imagine that others

were going to invent paved roads,

signals, street lights, speed bumps, gas stations,

tow trucks, and those big fuzzy dice,

just to accommodate his nutsy notion, what an ego.

With an ego that enormous, you half expect

to see a bunch of guys named Lars

climbing up and planting a flag on it.

I imagine that you've met

all the greatest artists that ever lived.

I knew them all, except for Roca.

Who is Roca?

He was the first one to do cave drawings.

By the time I realized it was art and not vandalism,

it was too late to meet him.

Why, what happened?

A dinosaur ate him for breakfast.

And so art criticism was born.

Who was the first professional comedian?

The first professional comedian was Henry Youngfellow

but his career didn't last long.

Every other line out of his mouth was,

Pretty, taketh thee my wife.

I always thought that court jesters lived by their wits?

In a sense they did.

Their job, you see, was to fall down laughing

every time the king made a joke.

The louder the laughed, the longer they lived.

That's why people started thinking

that laughing was good for your health.

Weren't any of the jesters funny?

Well some laughed funnier than the others.

But even the jester known as Agus the Hilarious,

never had a better line than,

she is no lady, she is Lord Hashford's wife.

Who do you regard as the greatest romantics?

One who readily comes to mind is Shah Jahan

who built the Taj Mahal as a mausoleum,

when his wife, the lovely Mumtaz Mahal passed away.

Well the Taj Mahal was a heck of a gesture.

But nothing compared to the Taj Shirley.

The Taj Shirley, never heard of that one?

It was the house that Shah Jahan

had to build for his second wife

when she got a gander at the tomb he built for number one.

As Shirley put it, and rightly so if you want my opinion,

that woman's living better than me,

and she's dead.

The place must have been spectacular.

Oh my yes.

Not only was it twice as big as the Taj Mahal,

but the reflecting pool was indoors.

Say what you will about Shirley,

she definitely knew what she wanted.

Which invention impressed you the most?

Where to start?

There are so many you couldn't count.

The safety pin was a real doozy.

Very simple but a real money maker,

and baseball cleats were another.

Without the cleats,

nobody would have ever gotten to first base.

Half way there, they'd fall down.

It's a very slippery game baseball.

Without the cleats, it would have been ice skating.

The escalator is a snappy idea.

And the juicer is a pip.

Nothing I enjoy more in the morning

than a nice fresh glass of orange juice.

Do you like orange juice?

Sure.

Everybody does.

But do you ever go to a park and see a statue

of the smart guy who made it all possible?

And what about the fellow who invented popcorn?

I never thought of popcorn as an invention.

It doesn't exactly grow on trees but technically speaking

you're right, popcorn's always been around.

But it wasn't always food.

It was packing material.

In fact, it was a guy with a warehouse full of this stuff

who made it all possible.

One night he sat up in bed and shouted,

butter and salt.

Scared his wife half to death, but he made millions.

And that's where you got the saying,

one man's packing material is another man's snack.

I think you may need this more than I do,

oh yeah never mind, I don't want you to have that.

Now now listen, what made the old days bearable

were the bosses.

But weren't they all corrupt,

I mean surely you don't long for the return of Tammany Hall.

These days the people have to bribe the politicians

to get anything done.

In the old days the politicians would bribe the people.

Two bucks per vote, if you voted for the right party.

On election day a go getter could really score.

He could get himself 10 bucks, 10 bucks.

Now that'd feed family of four, for a week.

Surely you don't think life was better

back in those dark ages do you?

It was if you were a parent.

You're too young to remember I suppose but,

there was a time when youngsters were grateful

to find an apple in their Christmas stocking.

I should say so.

They were grateful for the stocking.

It's the thought that counted.

When do you think things started falling apart?

When parents started giving their kids spending money.

And the car keys.

Cable.

Store bought clothes.

Their own phones, their own beds.

Their own opinions.

Their own bathrooms, and one thing led to another.

Their own bathrooms.

Yeah that's right mister.

They began feeling entitled to the modern luxuries of life

and they hadn't done anything to earn it.

They didn't milk the cows or till the South 40.

They didn't even take out the trash

or bring in the newspaper.

Or say thank you for all that matter.

And still their parents went on treating them

like little Dalai Lamas.

But at least teenagers

now have a sense of their own worth.

An overinflated sense you mean.

Why do you think people persist in having children?

The perpetuation of the human race.

For their pelts.

For their pelts.

What do you consider the biggest problem with air travel?

Leg room.

People keep getting taller and seats keep getting smaller.

Do you see a solution?

Oh sure, but it will first mean

soaking passengers in olive oil.

What's the best thing about being an angel?

We get to sneak in all the movies for free.

What's the worst?

The movies.

Who would have known that the movies

would catch on the way they did?

I mean I just thought it was a novelty,

a fad, like the yo-yo.

I thought when Mary Pickford hung up her coals,

it would all blow over.

Seems like just yesterday, you paid a nickel

and saw eight acts that would knock your socks off,

not to mention, chorus girls with meat on their bones.

Now you pay 10 bucks to watch Jim Carry

make faces for two hours.

Why is it, if travel is so much bother,

people still insist on taking trips?

I myself blame it on the movies.

I don't see the connection.

In the movies they don't show you

any of the bad or boring parts of travel.

People in the movies never spend six hours

going through customs

and they never strip search because they look a tiny bit

like a fugitive terrorist.

In the movies people never get sick from the water.

Their hotel rooms are always ready and waiting

and the telephone always works.

In the movies people spend all their time falling in love,

not trying to track down their lost luggage.

The clinture though is that in the movies,

people can spend their entire holidays in Rome,

eating pasta and drinking wine and never gain an ounce.

And when you get right down to it,

the worst thing that ever happened to tourists in the movies

was that they got seduced by Rossano Brazzi.

Now that you mention it,

he did pop up in an awful lot of those movies.

The man did more for the travel industry

than honey roasted peanuts and drownmin combined.

Do you have a favorite show?

Wouldn't that be like asking a mother

if she has a favorite child?

Each in its own way is special.

But just between us, I must confess,

I have a special soft spot for quiz shows.

Really, why do you think that is?

I believe it must be because they're so educational.

Some people actually believe TV destroys brain cells.

I wouldn't want to sound judgmental,

but those people don't have two brain cells

to rub together if you ask me.

I must say for someone in the love game,

you don't seem to have your heart in it.

Don't you believe in your own product?

Of course I do, but you people are hopeless.

Lust has long replaced love as the governing emotion

and romance has given way to pornography.

Why wouldn't I be a pessimist?

I truly believed the world sought what I had to offer.

Now the scales fell from my eyes

and I see the tunnel at the end of the light.

Is there nothing that can be done?

Well I can't speak for everyone but I managed to get by

renting Casa Blanca.

And Now Voyager every few months

and a little white wine never hurts.

Tell me, who thought up applause.

No one thought it up, it was an accident really.

You see, in the beginning, when people liked a performer,

they stayed quiet.

The more they liked it, the quieter they were.

Then one night, some musician was making music with rocks

and mosquitoes the were driving everyone nuts.

People were slapping themselves so hard,

made such a racquet you couldn't hear the music.

But the musician kept on playing.

So in one fell swoop you got rock and roll,

applause and encores.

Is there any one person whose contribution

seems to be greater than all the rest?

Absolutely.

Henry Ford, the Wright Brothers.

H.G. Wells.

Why H.G. Wells? What did he do for travel.

He dreamed up the time machine.

A person sat at home in a chair

and time did all the traveling.

You wanted to go somewhere

you flipped a dial and it came to you.

The next best was Gutenberg.

The Gutenberg who invented the printing press.

There was another Gutenberg?

But what's the printing press got to do with travel.

After Gutenberg, if people suddenly decided

they wanted to go visit Timbuktu

they could read about it first.

After 20 pages they got bored, they could put the book down

and they were home.

No packing, no catching the next plane out,

no worrying about the city flyers.

Some people say travel is broadening.

Sure and some people like cannibals,

there's no accounting for taste.

As someone once pointed out,

if travel were all that broadening,

stewardesses and buzz

wouldn't be the smartest people on earth.

I probably shouldn't tell tales out of school,

but the possibility of pulling the plug on the human race

has been discussed more than once.

No.

Yes, yes.

The ones that were in favor of it

thought that it would be more merciful in the long run

because of the damage they're doing to the planet

and the other inhabitants.

But it never came up to a final vote

because the dogs went to bat for you.

I don't know why, heaven knows they have a soft spot

in their hearts for people.

It may sound like so much bow wow to you sir,

but it was only their eloquence that saved your bacon.

Gee.

Gee indeed.

The only thing they haven't been able to figure out is,

why, if they're your best friends,

the way you always claim they are,

why so many of you insist on paling around with cats.

Don't look at me, I'm allergic.

Ms. Mary.

Yes.

You wouldn't happen to know

a little Schnauzer named Whiskers would you?

Yes I do.

It took me weeks to heaven break that little dickens,

but he was worth it, he's a love.

Would you tell him that I said hello.

My pleasure.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Remember when the reporter was talking about his dog.

Yeah.

That could have been me.

You had a Schnauzer named Whiskers.

Not exactly.

You had a dog named Whiskers?

Not exactly.

Did you even have a dog?

Not exactly.

My dad didn't like dogs.

I had an invisible friend named Lenad.

But I couldn't have loved him any more

if he had four feet and a tail.

What happened to him.

One day he chased a ball into the street

and he got hit by a car.

I still miss him.

He'd be 52 years old today

if he didn't stop to scratch himself.

Who came up with the idea of eating three meals a day.

The English.

In the 14th century, there were two princes.

Harold the fat and Bertrum the Bulimic.

Harold felt that five meals a day was just about right.

While his brother Bertrum

argued that one was quite sufficient,

especially if you didn't swallow.

Before a war broke out between the two factions,

their father, Arnold the Moderate,

worked out a compromise.

It was Arnold who gave meals their names.

Breakfast was so called because it broke a fast.

And dinner was named after the bell they rang

when it was time to eat.

And lunch?

Named after the Duke of Lunch.

The man who said, just because it's too late for breakfast

and too early for dinner,

doesn't mean we've gotta starve.

I suppose people simply decided that it simply

didn't matter which fork they used.

The tricky part was getting people

to use forks in the first place

for something besides scratching their back.

But why were the rules of etiquette so elaborate?

So that people could relax, knowing exactly how to behave

in every social situation.

Is there nobody these days

that you think even has a spark if genius.

The pickings are awfully slim

but I suppose if I had to come up with one name,

it would be Oprah.

Oprah Winfrey is a genius.

Let me put it to you that turning lead into gold

used to be considered a big deal.

This woman managed to turn drivel into two billion dollars.

I think even Ag would have been impressed.

Who else comes to mind

when you think of the great romantics?

Norman Couperman, makes right there up at the top.

What did he do?

It's what he didn't do.

During World War II, PFC Couperman got to see Marlana Ditrig

at the Hollywood canteen.

She kissed him on the cheek

and he never again washed his face.

Now that's what I call romantic.

It's not very hygienic.

Well that's true.

But should I remind you romance isn't for sissies.

Look at Van Gogh, for love he gave up an ear.

And Edward you may recall,

even gave up the throne of England.

If it doesn't come at enormous sacrifice,

it's not romance dear boy,

it's just dating.

Obviously you've seen them all,

but who would you say is the greatest entertainer

who ever lived.

It's hard to put a finger on one person.

I mean did Will Rogers play the musical saw?

Did Fanny Brace Juggle?

If Gallagan Sheen tap danced, I missed it.

Did Gipsy Rose Lee do impressions?

Who cares, now if you wanted the loudest voice,

that would be Carooser, the guy had lungs like watermelons.

The funny thing about Carooser though

he could never whistle.

When he tried to whistle

it'd sound like he had crackers in his mouth.

That's why the guy never owned a dog, you can look it up.

Now if it's whistling you wanted,

then you had the choice between Widama's Birds

and Al Johnson.

Even that was a toss up.

I mean Johnson had more range.

But the birds were Husbrock.

In your opinion who was the greatest of them all,

was it Garbo, Tracy, Gabel or Herper.

In my opinion, the best of the bunch,

the one who impressed me the most was Esther Williams.

Esther Williams?

Who else, that broad was a big star,

never got out of the pool.

You think that was easy?

You try doing a performance in eight feet of water.

The Chlorine alone could kill you.

And that made her greater than say Sir Lawrence Livia.

There was no comparison.

He acted in the west end you noticed.

But never in the deep end.

How was it decided that you of all angels

would have been assigned to sports.

Well I don't know for certain.

But I would venture that they looked around

for something else

that had lots of rules governing conduct.

Rules after all, are my meat.

Do you oversee all areas of sports

including basketball and football?

Oh, so you can still distinguish between the two.

You really must be paying close attention.

But to answer your question though,

basically all physical activity

asides from sex and channel surfing

falls within my domain.

I'm not questioning your qualifications,

well actually I guess I am questioning your qualifications.

You just don't strike me as a jock.

I suppose that's why I got the job,

they were looking for a civilizing influence.

What has been your greatest single challenge?

Actually there are two.

The first was artichokes.

Took me over a thousand years to figure out how to eat em.

But the real toughy was alcohol.

The stuff tasted awful, it smelled worse

and it played tidly winks with the old kidneys.

All that being the case, why'd you bother?

Just because it made us laugh

when you folks would get drunk

and start arguing politics and religion.

Even if I grant that running for political office

can be a pricey enterprise,

surely that's money donated with no strings attached.

The lobbyist doesn't walk around with a bag full of money.

They advise where to invest this money

and that senator gets to vote on getting it done.

What about the ones who already have money?

Nobody ever seems to have enough money.

You don't see Bill Gates

picking up his pension check do you?

You make it sound so tawdry.

The fact remains that no matter how poor a guy is

when he first gets elected,

by the time he retires, he's wealthy

and all because he knows how to vote on the job.

Sounds to me like the real problem is the lobbyists.

He's just providing a public service.

The question is why should anyone

give a contribution to a candidate

unless he expects to get it back a thousand fold.

And yet some people do.

I've contributed to a few political campaigns.

I mean, I wasn't expecting any favors,

I just felt the candidate

would have best represented my concerns.

There's a word for people like you.

Responsible citizen.

Sucker.

Would you agree that nothing beats organized sports

for turning young boys into real men.

I'm just a little old lady angel,

so what do I know of such matters.

Still, it always struck me as a whee bit odd

that organized athletics

called for 30 to 40 robust young men to shower together,

when everyone knows that's the main reason

10% of them join the team in the first place.

Looking back over your career,

who are some of the other artists that stand out.

Picasso was almost as cute as he thought he was.

Dali, crazy as a poodle.

Remprant never took a bath.

Wooslier was a mama's boy.

And the biggest pain in the neck was that Botticelli.

Why was that?

He's the one who insisted on painting us angels

in those sappy robes and the big halos.

The flowing ribbons and all the rest of that silly faldural.

But you're not dressed that way now.

That's because we're not working.

When we're on the job, we have to be in full regalia,

it's how people expect to see us,

all because of his goofy paintings.

The man wasn't an artist,

he was a costume designer with a paint brush.

If we showed up not looking the way he painted us,

people assumed we were just ghosts

or the end result of too many dry martinis

but if we appeared looking like something whipped up

by a French pastry chef,

people took us seriously.

Did Botticelli become an angel when he died?

Why do you ask?

I just thought it would be very ironic

if he himself wound up having to spend all of eternity

looking like a piece of wedding cake.

Yes, I suppose that would have been ironic but,

ol' Botticelli didn't exactly get his wings,

what he got were his just desserts.

What happened to him?

He's busting tables at the cafe limbo.

I bet he wishes he stuck to landscapes.

Too late now.

What ol' Botticelli didn't get I'm afraid,

is that angels don't get irony, we get even.

I was wondering whatever happened to Christopher,

the one who used to be the patron saint of travelers?

Ever since the demotion, he was plenty bitter.

Only time he'd even leave the house

was in the middle of the night when he'd run out to airports

and mix up people's luggage.

So he is the one.

Yes but he's okay now.

Ever since he and the Mrs, got cable,

he seems satisfied to stay at home

and watch old travel logs.

Well in the old days after all, things were pretty brutal.

With the Mayans, the loosing athletes were sacrificed

to appease the, you should excuse the expression, gods.

These days, if worse comes to worse,

they get traded to Milwaukee.

There are those who feel that winning is everything,

are you one of those people?

Hardly, I am firmly of the opinion that it doesn't matter

if you win or loose, it's how you play the game,

unless of course you're an ancient Mayan.

Who are some of the great chefs you've known?

At the top of the list Charles of the Ritz,

famous for his toasted cheese sandwich.

He invented it?

No, but he did perfect it.

He was the guy who first burnt the cheese

around the edge a little.

The man was genius.

There are people who claim

it is immoral for us to eat meat,

do you agree?

That's really not my area.

The way I look at it, if it tastes good, eat it.

You're saying morality doesn't enter into it?

Keep in mind that,

what appears to be a question of morality

is very often only a matter of geography.

Cows are held to be sacred in some places,

in some dogs are considered snacks.

Or take bugs, in one country they're pests,

in another they're protein.

When you start talking morality,

you get into a big gray area, for instance,

there are definitely those, and I count myself among them,

who saw it as a giant step, up the evolutionary ladder,

when people started eating mutton

and gave up dating it.

I don't know if this comes under

the category of air travel,

but I am curious about one thing?

Don't ask, I still don't understand

how frequent flyer miles work.

No, it's those people who you read about all the time,

that get hit by trains,

they can't all be committing suicide.

I have a newsflash for you.

None of them is committing suicide.

Then how do they get themselves killed,

I mean a train doesn't sneak up on you,

a train for god's sakes is bigger than a herd of elephants,

louder than a teenager's boom box

and they can't jump off the tracks and chase you down,

so how does it happen that trains kill more people

than disgruntled postal employees

and botulism put together.

Does the number 49 have any significance for you?

Bill O'Reilly's hat size?

Close, but no cigar. No.

That's the average IQ of people

who get run over by choo choos.

In the wild kingdom it's referred to as thinning the herd.

Do you have a favorite sport?

Professional wrestling, nobody gets hurt.

Which sport was the worst?

Christians Versus The Lions.

Even the bookies didn't care much for that one.

What's the strangest sport you've ever seen?

Without a doubt, that would have to be early Water Polo.

Really, why is that?

It took them a while to figure out

it just wouldn't work with horses.

Finally, Ms. Minerva,

if you weren't in charge of sports,

what job would you like to have.

Well lately,

I've been thinking of giving real estate a whirl.

What would you do in real estate?

First I'd send Donald Trump to Milwaukee.

Do you have hope for the future?

Of course I do, why wouldn't I?

Sometimes I worry,

that technology is moving too fast for us

and that, I worry that it will do away with us.

No matter how big the machinery or how intelligent

or how powerful, that will never happen.

At least not so long as we remember one thing.

And that is that we were created in god's image

and that there's a spark of immortality

in each and every one of us.

No, the one thing we mustn't ever forget

is to always include an off switch.

When the next pair of angels stood before him,

he looked around, and he realized,

they were the last angels left.

He tried to figure out what their roles were but,

what was left?

The angels of medical mal-practice?

The angels of insurance injustice.

The angels of small household appliances.

In the end he was to learn,

that not only do cocker spaniels and chihuahuas

have higher standing in heaven than we humans,

but so do toaster ovens and electric blankets.

How have things changed over the years.

Well we've certainly had to adapt.

To go along with the flow as it were.

Along the way we found the need to expand

to include philosophy, mythology, dietary law.

And don't forget military strategy and medieval torches.

It's certainly been a broadening experience.

Yeah, I'm sure you could have guessed

but it was getting late

and he had quite an evening.

That's why he was rather taken aback

when Julie and John told him that their arena was religion.

Yeah yeah yeah, sure you would have guessed.

Right, have it your way.

I'm sure you also would have guessed that Mary

was the dog angel.

Well in the old days there were very few religions,

nothing fancy.

Truth is, if all of the services

had been conducted in Latin,

then you would have closed your eyes,

you'd never know where you were.

Yeah. But you know how people are.

Complicated.

Well, let's just say not too bright.

So before you could say Moses and the bull rushes,

there were more religions, cults, sects and covens

than you could shake a stick at.

Tempted as you might be.

They just sprang up like toad stores.

It seems like every time you turned around,

there was people speaking in tongues and channeling

and reading backwards, twirling around in circles,

playing with snakes.

What's religion like in heaven,

I mean do you go to church, does god give sermon?

No.

Why not?

We don't need it.

The main point of religion

is to remind people that god exists.

We don't need reminding god exists.

And if you need reminding, try turning your stereo on

sometime after midnight.

If you could tell people one thing, what would it be?

I think people should remember

that although god answers all prayers.

Sometimes they have to accept that the answer is no.

The only thing wrong with people,

is they keep on asking questions,

long after they've been provided

with all the answers they'll ever need.

You mean the 10 commandments?

Yeah.

The trouble with most people, if you ask me,

is that they seem to think that there are six commandments

and four suggestions.

John, Julie, there's one thing that I have to ask.

Of course.

You wouldn't be human if you didn't ask.

God, what's he like?

The waitress.

God looks like a waitress.

God is the waitress.

God is the waitress.

Hey guys, I didn't just fall off the turnup truck.

Suit yourself, but that's the truth.

If you don't believe us, just ask her.

If she is god, then I'm a monkey's uncle.

Close enough.

Come on honey, let's call it a night.

Now we get to my favorite part.

Prelutsky doddled.

I love that word, couldn't you see him doddling.

He's worried that John and Julie are playing a joke on him

and he doesn't want to embarrass himself

by asking an old woman if she's god.

But how could he resist.

I mean, as Prelutsky writes, what could it hurt on a night

where I've already met a room full of angels

to ask an elderly waitress if she's god?

I'm yet to meet a waiter in the Jewish

who wasn't half convinced he was god.

So what did he have to loose?

I don't mean to be rude,

but those two told me that you were god.

So, what's the question.

My question is, are you her?

By her, do you mean me?

Well I do, if you're her.

Well if I'm not, then who is?

So you really are her.

So help me, me.

Are you telling me that god

is waiting tables in crummy bar?

I've seen worse.

In fact, right at this moment, I am sweeping up a cafe

in downtown Beirut,

makes this place looks like Versailles.

That's not the point.

God waiting tables in a bar, that's outrageous.

You're right, I suppose,

and to tell you the truth a little hard on my feet

but, I soak em good when I get home.

But it's honest work, we got a nice clientele,

and I get Sunday's off.

What was that all about.

Oh, you noticed I left.

Wasn't I supposed to.

That was a darn good trick.

I must be slowing down.

It used to be, I could be everywhere all at the same time.

Where were you just now?

A giant comet just crashed into Siberia.

Comets, volcanoes, tidal waves, I just love all that stuff.

What are you doing here?

Mostly staying in touch with my workforce.

Like a CEO who is lunching at the company cafeteria?

That's the idea,

it shows that you're just one of the gang.

It's supposed to boost morale.

I read all about that in a book

about modern management techniques,

oh and I just joined a bowling league,

I can't tell you how hard it is for me not to throw strikes.

Speaking of books.

How would you suggest I go about getting published.

I heard about all those hot shot writers

that tried and failed,

and if they couldn't get published, how can I?

Frankly, I wouldn't mind a little positive publicity.

Lately, the only time I see my name is in print,

is when Time Periodicals announces my demise

or some crazy cult leader says that he has me on hold.

What do you think I should do?

When you write your book, you give me holler,

I'll make a few calls.

You know people in the book business?

I wrote a bestseller you know.

I forgot.

So did they.

I'm still waiting for my first royalty check.

Oh, by the way, your car is ready now.

I have to admit that is quite the tale.

Now you understand why this book

is so important to me.

I guess I do.

Look, I know I'm a joke.

I've owned paintings,

and I don't even know how to say the names of the artists.

But that doesn't mean I didn't appreciate their beauty,

believe me, wallpaper would have been a whole lot cheaper.

But I love beautiful things,

and I want Angels to be a beautiful movie.

Good luck.

Sometimes, I know this is gonna sound nuts,

but sometimes I feel like my mom

was standing as close to me as you are

and she's been gone for nearly 20 years.

She is the real reason I bought this book.

So I could dedicate the movie to her.

She is the real reason that I know that angels really exist.

She'd like that.

Well it was nice meeting you.

Thank you.

Peace.

From your mouth to my ear.

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