Dear Victor,

            Here’s a little offbeat play I wrote, you know, more of the crazy stuff I told you about. Hope you enjoy it.

The title of the play is: The Politics of Conflict: A Group Discussion. That’s the title of the play, the name of the game, and it’s dedicated to everyone out there, my fellow humans and dear cofactors…

Joe Snow: Cool. Hey, I have an idea about how to conference.

Juan Ramirez: A, so do I! First we set an agenda, then come up with various strategies, then choose the best options.

Johannes Schusten: I think we should set a budget after the agenda, and then think about strategies!

Johnny Clay: Wait a minute, guys. First we have to agree who’s going to participate in this conference, then set out an agenda.

Johannes Schusten: I thought we already agreed that conflict resolution has no boundaries, making this an open conference.

Johnny Clay: No, this is a preliminary meeting. The open conference on conflict resolution must commence only after we set out an agenda between the key players.

Johannes Schusten: So you do want an agenda now!

Johnny Clay: Between ourselves I said!

Johannes Schusten: And who’s these “ourselves” that you said?

Johnny Clay: That’s what we need to decide on first!

Johannes Schusten: How will we decide anything without setting out an agenda, please explain.

Jimmy Changa: Oh, jeez. Cut it out, will you? We haven’t even started yet. Will you cool it?

Joe Snow: He’s right. Stop arguing. It won’t do any good. Listen, I have a separate proposition to make. How about I preside over the proceedings? Someone’s got to take charge or no solution will ever be found. Back home we say that “all words and no play never save the god damn day.”

Gianni Giovanni: My milkshake, it’s better than yours. Damn right, it’s better than yours.

Crack…

John Earl Llewellyn: You've spilt my milkshake, o sorrow of sorrows! Get serious, won’t you?

Slash…

Johnny Clay: You cut my straw, you piece of shit! He’s right! Stop fucking around. Get serious or else I—

Boom…

Gianni Giovanni: Sorry! I meant to push you little, not throw you offa chair. Oa, take it easy, ok? You are too serious!

Johnny Clay: You god damn—

Jack Meister: Hey, take it easy.

Johnny Clay: What the fuck do you want now?

Jack Meister: You, sir, are out of line. Your attitude is undermining this conference. You’re scuttling every chance of success we have with your vulgar language. But let me note, everyone, please, listen up… let me note that I respect your point of view, no matter how wrong I think it is. So I’ll bear it in mind. In the meantime, let’s just try and get along, shall we?

Johnny Clay: Wh-what’s his angle? What the hell’s he on about? Is he on happy drugs or something!

Jimmy Changa: He’s got a point, you know! Put aside our differences and try to get along? All of us? It’s not a bad idea if you really think about it.

Johnny Clay: Is that so?

Jimmy Changa: Yeah! What’s the use of getting all hot-headed about things? All he did was show a cool head and a little common sense.

Johnny Clay: Oh, he did more than that. He’s an appeaser and a coward in the face of danger and challenge… talking loudly and then backing out, giving more than an inch… giving mile after mile. That’s what he did!

Jimmy Changa: Maybe so, but he still has a point.

Johnny Clay: Maybe so, but he’s still a coward and a traitor.

Jimmy Changa: You’re the traitor… a thick-headed traitor douche bag!

Johnny Clay: Who’s the douchebag? You’re the douchebag. Traitor!

Jerry Douzback: I am not a traitor, and how many times do I have to tell you that my name is Douzback! I want to—

Jimmy Changa: No one’s talking to you dickhead!

Jerry Douzback: My name is Douzback, not Dickhett!

Joe Snow: Right, the Tower of Babel was never completed. So one language for all. Assimilation! It’s the only way. Who’s with me? You’re either with me or against me!

Yussef al-Jazeeri: All, ah, we here all, ah, agree with this concept. With one small, ah, detail. We want our tongue to be the one you all coulda speak. Without exception, without mercy from us all, ah, the merciful. Thank you for the great ideal, ah, though.

Joe Snow: I see. You’re clearly against us!

Yussef al-Jazeeri: You are damn right we are against you, and we shall, ah, take over your dominion and enforce our system of beliefs everywhere with brute force!

Joe Snow: You’re the Axis of Evil!

Yussef al-Jazeeri: You are the Axis of Evil, ah!

Jimmy Changa: Will somebody stop these two lunatics from dragging us into another fundamentalist ordeal?

Ivan Tsakatsarov: Alright everyone! Let’s all have nice bottle of vodka and relax. It passed through 15 different countries before it could be made into such fine product. They could have been more countries… never mind now. This vodka is called ‘Mujahedeen Heads,’ and is inspired by the life and death of extremists who were funded by agitators to attack us.

Joe Snow: You started it, goddamn it!

Ivan Tsakatsarov: And you used devil to beat devil! The greatest damage our hammered union ever did to your spangled union was drag it into our dirty game.

S. Prompter: It’s a vicious circle everyone… tit for tat and slap for kick till everything gets totally out of control.

John Earl Llewellyn: Let’s have some warm ale, shall we?

Jean-Jacques Loir: No! Let’s have some wine. It is good for the heart, is it not, mon ami?

John Earl Llewellyn: It most certainly is not, I say!

Yāo hàn Ming: Rice for one dollar anyone? Plenty of rice for one dollar each. One dollar!

Yochanan Aaronson-Epstein: Silence! I am the Chosen One, and I shall rule over this conference, together with my kin. God said so. Who said that not having a chair for 2,000 years is that bad? Look at us. All chairs are our chairs now. God was right.

Yussef al-Jazeeri: We think that all, ah, all, ah, all of us are right too. Our God says so.

Johnny Clay: Pipe down, will ya? Now, come on everybody. Let’s have a Bud, the king of beers while we beat this thing out. What do you say? There you go. There’s plenty where that came from!

John Sindu Khan: Don’t forget me! I have brought cashmere to keep you warm. In case it gets really really cold in here.

John Saleem Khan: I beg your pardon but that cashmere is mine to offer for sharing.

John Sindu Khan: No it is not! It is my cashmere.

John Saleem Khan: I am sorry but it is not! It is my cashmere!

John Sindu Khan: It is not yours! It is mine!

Yahya Mehmet Gurgül: Don’t worry about that my dears. I have brought a deployable steam bath. Look… it is called ‘The West-bound Crescenstar,’ AKA the ‘X-Tarmeniator.’ We can warm ourselves in there all together, get in please, please… get in!

Jack Meister: Wait… Did someone say traitor?

Johannes Schusten: Traitors? Down with the traitors!

Jimmy Changa: Did someone say king a while ago?

Jaan Laasen: The Kings are alive. Long live the Kings!

John Earl Llewellyn: Shhh! Quiet. Do you want the whole world to know?

Juan Ramirez: Blow? Yes, I got some pure ‘blow’ delivered this morning.

Johnny Clay: Yeah. Now you’re talking! Let’s get down to business… sniff – sniff – aaaah…! Yeah! YEAH!!! WHO’S WITH ME? WHO’S WITH ME?

Jack Meister: Enough! Perhaps we can develop a common language through informed cooperation. That’s the best way of smoothing out the edges of inescapable conflict in opinions… the best way of bringing out the positive aspects of pluralism. Our subject is still conflict I believe, isn’t it? Integration then! That’s the solution.

Gianni Giovanni: But some will be left behind, no? What we do then, eh? We leave them behind and move on?

Jack Meister: Well, what do you expect? That we all magically agree on a perfect solution? Some have to adjust to the rest. It’s the downside to informed discussion, well-examined enquiry, and fruitful cooperation. At least this way we shall reach an agreement through a majority vote and mutual consent, not through swords and scimitars. Thus, we shall also come to a better and more efficient solution regarding how to deal with our differences and with conflict.

John Earl Llewellyn: Hey you over there, what’s your bank account number? I would like to wire you a small donation.

Jean-Jacques Loir: Hey you, yeah you… if you turn a blind eye on this, I do the same for you.

Joe Snow: Hey you… yeah, listen… if you don’t vote for me, I’ll embargo your behind, understand? No more soup for you.

…!

Welcome to the futile coordinates of nihilism, where it makes no difference where you go or what measures you take… where things always respond in exactly the same way, and nothing ever really changes while nothing ever really stays the same, leading down the road traveled to ruin…

Down the path of conflict and interest…

Into entropy! Systems breaking down, reaching states of natural chaotic equilibrium…

Everything collapsing…

Relapsing.

Many have given up on purpose here and retracted; others have just gone crazy or committed suicide. The spiral is vicious, merciless and mad, and it can send you spinning to the depths of senselessness (or sense).

The reason of illogic or the unreason of logic?

That’s the question—one of them, anyway.

And the dance continues. Back in the loop, and here we go again till late, grabbing partners, tossing round, smashing them on jagged walls and tossing them on liquor stalls. That’s how it is and that’s how it will stay till we evolve beyond the state that has to compulsively pass from all the stages of eye for an eye through fire and sword and tit for tat till dog eat dog.

Until then the merciless spiral keeps recycling. From the green grass comes manure. A perspective held by pessimists. The optimists don’t agree with it of course. They see the upside instead. Out of manure comes the green grass. What do they do about it though? Nothing. They just go about their business, waiting for it to grow while the pessimists tell them it won’t.

Then there’s the other kind of optimists and pessimists, the ones that make a choice… the ones that pick a side, make a stand and go for gold. ‘If the bash never ends, if nothing makes a difference anyway… and if it’s all up to the perspective one holds… then might as well do my own thing.’

And so they do.

Some become great leaders. Others become monsters. But they all go for gold, leaving their rivals behind.

The question is, though, ‘At what price?’

And the questions keep rising, bibbidi-bobbidi-boo. Does great leadership depend on how many people have been helped on that highest of pedestals…?

Or do the methods employed make a difference?

Do the ends justify the means?

Must they?

Let’s return to The Politics of Conflict: A Group Discussion and find out…

Yussef al-Jazeeri: Hey… you! Vote for me or go to hell!

Yahya Mehmet Gurgül: No, vote for me or I shall make a small nation in your country and force you to vote for me!

Yochanan Aaronson-Epstein: Shout all you want, you are all voting for me whether you like it or not. You just don’t know it yet.

Yāo hàn Ming: Voting! Such an unnecessary thing…

Yussef al-Jazeeri: Hey you, to hell, ah, with you, to hell with all of you! In our tongue the answer is, ‘Death to the infidel, ah.’ Blow…? No my friends! Blow up!

Joe Snow: Is that so? Well, I hereby proposition the use of nuclear weapons against heathens… I mean against terrorism. For the sake of democracy and liberty! Meanwhile, the absolute monarchy in Saudi Arabia is to remain intact. For the sake of practicality. So… who’s with me?

John Earl Llewellyn: I most certainly am, old boy.

Johan Hiyippii: Warmongers! You think that you can stop the turmoil by blasting the others to bits?

Joe Snow: Shut up you hippy liberals! You think you can stop the turmoil by graciously retreating, retracting, and pretending to be Good Samaritans?

S. Prompter: It’s a double whammy everyone… both fists have connected with each other’s face, and they’re both down, warmongers and peacemongers alike.

Yussef al-Jazeeri: All, ah, all, ah, all of us are getting what we wanted. You are fighting amongst yourselves and your democracy is being eroded in order to fight us effectively. Our people, ah, don’t all agree with us or our tactics—at least it appears so—but we try to convince them all, ah, to support us. You are helping very much. And yes, leave Saudi Arabia as is. An absolute monarchy. Continue supporting it. Keep making your nose brown on it. Help us all, ah.

Johnny Clay: Is that so? Why don’t the Saudis wage their own revolution if things are so bad on their stinking-rich peninsula? Why do we have to wage it for them? 

Jean-Jacques Loir: Wait. More wine anyone, mes amis?

Yāo hàn Ming: Rice? One billion plus and getting bigger. Stronger. Better. Hungrier.

Yochanan Aaronson-Epstein: Me and my kin are the Chosen Ones, we make the rules. We make them, you follow them. God said so.

Joe Snow: That’s right fellas. With only one difference: I make the rules here! I got enough armed bodyguards who agree with me. Don’t make me call them in! Now will someone turn the heat up? It’s getting cold in here. Freezing. Will someone turn the god damn heat up!

John Sindu Khan: …I said that this cashmere sweater is mine, I said.

John Saleem Khan: …I beg your pardon. This cashmere is truly mine, I have to insist.

Jimmy Changa: Great. Time to pop the world’s cherry and go for—

Jerry Douzback: My name Jerry, not Cherry… I—

Jimmy Changa: No one’s talking to you, moron!

Jerry Douzback: My middle name is Mauron, how did you know?

Jimmy Changa: Will somebody shoot this guy?

Yahya Mehmet Gurgül: Hmmm, now that everyone’s preoccupied, perhaps I have time to clean up my car, my darlings. Spray some of that nice “Kerdliminator” disinfectant before I invite the Eunion Convention members to take a ride with me.

Ivan Tsakatsarov: Relax everyone. Nazdarovia! There is nothing like good drink to warm someone up, except more good drink of course. So… more vodka anyone?

John Earl Llewellyn: Can’t say no to a drink, it would be uncivilized!

Ivan Tsakatsarov: Good, good. Now here, let’s—my God! Catastrov! I have lost my precious ‘Mujahedeen Heads!’ My vodka is missing!! Where is it?

Yussef al-Jazeeri: Well, ah… What do we have here? We are not supposed to drink, none of us all, ah, but we make an exception for you. Time to light up the volatile fuel. Time for blow up. To your health, to your hell, ah.

Everyone: No, to hell with you! You want to blow something up? Blow yourself up in the middle of nowhere, you fucking freak! That’s why the whole world’s against you! You’re blowing up civilians… women and children. That’s why you’ve already lost the fight you fucking ass hole!

Jack Meister: He’s right. But let me add something. To hell with all those who blow people up, wherever they come from. To hell with all killers.

Johnny Clay: And to hell with all those who don’t fight back to defend themselves and their team, too. To hell with all cowards.

…

Warning. The last statement has brought us dreadfully close to a catch.

It’s twenty two past nine.

It’s time to take a break and listen to a message from our sponsors…

‘…Hello everyone and welcome to the Watch, the most concise, precise and pretty much unpredictable-as-dice entertainment show on the planet!

‘We’re happy to inform you that the terrible play The Politics of Conflict: A Group Discussion is taking the world by storm. It’s a cracking blockbuster. We’ll return to it right after this. Here’s a world report, brought to you by Stringular, the best piece of yarn money can buy:

‘A cat was rescued off a very tall tree in Smallville while a bus fell off a cliff in the Himalayas. One hundred and twenty six people are dead in Baghdad from insurgent bomb raids, six hundred and twelve wounded in the latest wave of sectarian violence to hit the country. Our president was called Satan in open congress today by a throng of burka clad demonstrators, who were escorted away by police, while the cartoonist of a controversial cartoon regarding the Prophet and a camel was found dead in the streets of London, Britain. Scotland Yard are suspecting it was a religious act, mainly because his head was found in a telephone booth two hundred yards away with a note in his mouth saying ‘Blasphemy is a sin, call God for penance.’

‘Scotland Yard’s official position for now is that the cartoonist was the victim of extraordinary metaphysical reprimand rather than anything else. They’re precluding any form of ordinary crime as it’s currently inadvisable to criticize anyone with links to Islam for fear of offending them and infringing on their rights to believe that they’re above the law and infallible, indelible, and unaccountable to anyone but their God. Freak accident has not been ruled out either, since the aforementioned cartoonist was an avid collector of blades and may have unintentionally tripped on a “Renegade Edition” Swiss Army Knife while taking notes for a religious cartoon in the middle of a fast stroll.

‘On a related topic, paralegal activity is on the rise. But not the kind you think. Specifically, Sharia courts have been found to operate systematically in a number of countries of the western and eastern hemispheres, passing sentences contrary to the given states’ laws.

‘In some of these states, human rights groups and other civil liberties organizations have gathered up to condemn these clandestine courts. Other such groups and organizations have gathered to defend them, rushing to argue that Sharia clerics have the right to challenge the law and argue for their beliefs in court, for this is what democracy’s all about.

‘On a related subject, a group called Freedom Is Holy, Religion Is Free (FIHRIF) went down to the Middle East last week to campaign for freedom, religion, and people’s right to exercise their religious traditions no matter how unsavory some of their customs may be… but their members were ironically arrested in Dubai two days ago because they were wearing a t-shirt with the design outline of two breasts, attire sponsored by a sister organization campaigning against breast cancer. The attire was deemed “offensive and sacrilegious” by the Dubai court and the offenders were sentenced to one month in jail.

‘This just in… sixty three more dead in Baghdad and one hundred and eight wounded in a blast at a food market. The war rages on and the debates rage even wilder on whether we should pull the plug on it, and in all the commotion we forget that the news-shows over there can say whatever they want about the matter, without much regulation regarding the contents of their reports and the hatred they stoke, not to mention the incendiary preachings from mosque parapets and the teachings in halls behind closed holy doors in which mullahs of questionable character and considerable influence have been known to say things along the lines of, “The devilish West has struck us again, planting bombs through its operatives while aided by traitors. It is about time we slay this infidel devil and its accomplices. I, Mullah Rahta al-Fakhtrim proclaim once again, assuring you, faithful servants of God, that those of you who blow yourselves up in the middle of a busy Western street or on a full passenger aircraft will be greeted by seventy two virgins in heaven. I give you my most solemn guarantee that those of you who choose this glorious ending will not only be rewarded in heaven but that they will also be rewarded here on earth, for I will take a personal interest in your families, your wives and daughters—I mean children… yes, once you’re gone. I also ask you and all believers to donate generously to help the holy war and strengthen Islam’s armed organizations. All donations are to be given to my mosque clerics or to my lieutenants, and to no one else. Understand? My people are everywhere, and they are watching you… watching out for you. They can be easily identified by the phrase ‘Peace be upon you,’ to which they always reply ‘Death to the rest,’ which they pronounce in a very special way. Let me demonstrate…” And so on and so forth. Atchoo…

‘Excuse me!

‘Now… these are the poisoned words spoken day in day out in the streets and megaphones of Islamic territories by a big number of people, you’ll be surprised how many. We also forget that these are the poisoned words that recruit suicide bomber after suicide bomber, and why this morbid recruitment is spreading with even more morbid success. We’re sorry to have to repeat these words, of course, or even utter them in the first place, but there’s no other way to bring them to surface and make a point about them. If you’re offended by them, then please be offended when they’re spoken over there every day, and not when they’re mentioned here on the Watch. Then again, this is of course precisely indicative of a greater problem we’re now faced with in our society. We have our priorities all screwed up. We just live our merry lives grazing the grass under the culturally-sensitive canopy of everyone’s right to do and say whatever they want without challenging them one bit—unless of course we’re dealing with once repressed or sidelined minorities, in which case not only is everyone prohibited from saying anything about them or what they do, but they—the sidelined, now turned specially privileged—can in turn summon hell for their cause if they so wish, with our blessings of course.

‘Oh, and when we do eventually challenge them for something totally extreme they’ve said or done, well, we do so through double standards which are rotten to the core. Coz we, too, are assholes.

‘Excuse me… the editor’s just informed me that we’re not assholes… yes, we just have many of them in key places, just as they do in Islam. The question is, of course, the editor informs me now, whether we can make the non-asshole trunks of our culture find common ground with the non-asshole trunks of Islamic culture so that we may grow on this ground together. Free speech and equal rights for women seem like a good starting point I think… the editor’s just informed me to not go there and shut up! Swell! This, my dear audience, is how oppression of free speech has spread from across the waters to our shores: through the censoring of what we can say about those whose culture deems censorship as part of their tradition. Good luck with finding that slippery common ground or setting foundations for a reasonable and conducive to free—’

‘Excuse… excuse us for the interruption, this is Studio 2 of the Watch… there seems to be some trouble with the feed from Studio 1. The broadcast will continue from here.

‘Um… Studies reveal… what? No, we’re on air…! Yes…

‘Excuse me… Studies reveal that the West and Islam can coexist peacefully. They can achieve this by coming to the table and acknowledging each other’s sensitive spots. The West, for example, can allow Islam some breathing room on civil liberties and religious law, while Islam can allow the West to pursue its path in the democratic, non-theocratic way it likes to follow.

‘In particular, the West on one hand has shown signs of being able to incorporate deeply religious people in its midst without having to convert them to secularism, which has worked well for everyone involved. Meanwhile Islam, on the other hand, has issued a decree instructing its people that infidels are not dirty and that their souls are not contaminated, as was once preached in a great many places. Infidels are to be allowed to live and work on Islamic territories in greater numbers, and may even be allowed to practice their own customs there. This will take time, of course, for we have to be extra sensitive to the intricacies of religious sensitivities abroad. These religions have every right to hold on to their customs and to apply their traditions as they have been doing for centuries, and we have no right to infringe on them or to demand that they open their doors to us from one day to the next. If we are to be guests in their culture, we have to respect their customs, just as they respect ours. A government official who wishes to remain anonymous has said that this can be done through some careful planning and a new social agenda. Some cultures, he declared, are indeed too resistant to naturalization and integration with the societies their immigrants are setting minorities in, and this phenomenon is nothing more than an anticipated trend of culture economics, one which we can address by adjusting our system to their needs and—’

‘Hello… yes, we’re back… Hello, greetings from Studio 1 again. Studio 2 seems to be experiencing technical difficulties and has lost transmission. We will send someone over to help them deal with it soon enough. Meanwhile, the Watch is to continue from here.

‘As we were saying, all those who think that they can impose their values on others by force are gravely mistaken. They’re closing their mind to the truth, all of it, and we’re not willing to allow them to shake us off our course or duties. We have a job to do, and that’s to make the world a better place. We’re not going to tolerate anyone who stands in the way of our great values and, with right on our side, we will—’

‘Testing… yes… This is Studio 2 for tonight’s Watch. We apologize for the mix up. Studio 1 is off the air for good and Studio 2 is happy to pick up the baton again and finish the program.

‘As we were saying, the world is an intricate place. It’s time to trust, to reveal our weak spots to each other. It’s time for each side to expose itself and trust in each other that we’re not going to use this information unfairly, for we’re all in this together. And being the world leaders that we are, we have the moral obligation to show good faith, for lack of a better term, and take the first step. So here goes. We’re happy to announce that we’re now ready and willing to reveal to our rivals, in all good faith, that the numero uno weak spot in our great country’s framework, and paradoxically our greatest strength too, is—’

‘Hello…

‘This is Studio 3, coming to you live from a different location. Studios 1 and 2 have jammed each other’s wave transmissions and are off the air indefinitely. We’re going to be plugging the gap while they sort out their difficulties.

‘We seem to be running out of time, folks, so let’s skip to the editorial straight away.

‘Tit for tat. A nuclear explosion for a nuclear explosion… If 9/11 was bad, think giant mushrooms on TV, loads of them.

‘Sounds outlandish? Maybe. Complicated? Obviously. Impossible? Not at all.

‘“But no one… nobody in their right mind would be stupid enough to detonate nuclear bombs!” some say. “Who would do such an idiotic thing?”

‘Well, here’s the thing:

‘First, idiots are aplenty. There’s more than enough to go around.

‘Second, it doesn’t matter who’d detonate them. That’s important only before the nuclear bonbons go off. Once they do… well, priorities change. For the vast majority anyway. So stop worrying about who would do such a thing and start thinking of what will happen if they do.

‘Take a moment, please.

…

‘With those visions fresh in mind, do you now reckon it’s about time to change some things from the bottom up before some idiot hijacks the whole shebang? Do you reckon it’s gone about as far as it could possibly go without chiseling large percentage chunks off the territory with each blow? The cartographers and demographers can stay put. We can’t afford their industries and sectors to boom. Not all business is good business.

‘Now, if you’re still unclear about the issue of unwanted booms and distressing business, see your local undertaker and ask how business is doing. If she tells you, “Never been better; people are dropping like flies,” then you might get a knot in the stomach and feel a little ill at ease—unless you own a chemical factory or the only real estate left in the arena, which will make you a very busy and wealthy person too!

‘Not all business is good business, this reporter thinks. And it’s this report’s firm and intractable view that wealth is only worth the ground it stands on and the future it creates. Take that ground and future away and nothing is worth anything anymore.

‘Suffice to say that a point of no return looms on the misty horizon: after a certain level the methods employed and the number of people helped onto the highest pedestal doesn’t matter anymore coz there won’t be a stadium left. There won’t be an audience. Whoever the number ones are, they will be celebrating a Pyrrhic victory, standing on a singed pedestal and waving their radioactive medal to a swarm of fear-ridden mutants.

‘Perhaps we can’t altogether avoid mutating to a new state after all!

‘Still, if we are to change so drastically, let our mutations come through anything but radioactive conflagration… it wouldn’t be advisable. Our stylists wouldn’t approve.

‘On second thoughts, though, we shouldn’t really worry. A thermonuclear hydrogen bomb is clean of radiation. Those who’ll survive the detonations will not have to worry about claws growing out of their foreheads.

‘Now isn’t that a comforting notion?

‘And with that little brainteaser we have come to the end of this hour’s Watch. Stay tuned for the closing part of The Politics of Conflict: A Group Discussion, which critics have called the best terrible play to hit the globe since Sodom and Gomorrah.

‘From the Watch and its underground bunkers, goodnight.’

Juan Ramirez: Want a sip of my milkshake while we wait? It’ll perk you right up. I got some premium grade vanilla in it!

Johnny Clay: Yeah, but my milkshake… it’s better than yours. You're damn right, it’s much better than yours.

Splash.

Johnny Clay: You spilled my milkshake, damn it! Come here…

Slash.

Juan Ramirez: Hey, my straw, you piece of shit!

Slap.

Johnny Clay: Did... did you just bitch-slap me?

Juan Ramirez: Yep!

Johnny Clay: Did this guy just fuckin’ bitch-slap me?!

Jean-Jacques Loir: Yes, he did!

Johnny Clay: No one’s speaking to you, dingbat! Pipe down. And wipe that smile off your face, will you?

Jean-Jacques Loir: I am going to smile as much as I want to.

Johnny Clay: Really! Why don’t you come close and tell me that to my face?

Joe Snow: Now listen here, all of you…

Johnny Clay: Shut the hell up!

Grab your partners, toss ’em round…

Xavier