​My great-grandfather, Orville Slack I, was born in a cave. This was somewhere in the panhandle of what is now Texas, Oklahoma, or Kansas. At that time the region was part of Mexico, which accounts for the fact that I have a bit of Hispanic blood coursing through my veins—or, to be more accurate, I had Hispanic blood etc. before my martyrdom and subsequent cremation. But I still have a quarter teaspoon of tequila every evening, which has to count for something with the Hispanic voter.
 
Do I speak Spanish? Sí. And more than un poco.
 
About the cave. Orville Slack I was a semi-orphan. His father, a dissolute Englishman, skipped the light fantastic out of panhandle country upon hearing of his mistress’s pregnancy. Abandoned by her lover of three months, Slack I’s mother was forced to fend for herself. This fending consisted of moving to the cave—there was no room for her in the inn—and living on cooked sagebrush, homemade tequila, and the occasional jackrabbit or armadillo she was able to gun down with the amazing accuracy that has been passed along to her child, her grandchild, her great-grandchild, and her great-great grandchild. (The latter would be me.)
 
Slack II, my grandfather, worked himself up from cave life to what must have appeared to him as a mansion: a sod hut. His work consisted of developing the art form he had learned from his father, the art that has come to be called “begging off”—the set of techniques I later developed to the highest pitch. After contracting with a sod hut builder, he refused to pay. In fact, he threatened a lawsuit on the grounds that there was an admixture of cactus in the sod. The builder folded and was run out of town.
 
My father, Orville Slack III, continued in this tradition, working himself up to a shack, which he shared with my mother until she ran off with a circuit-riding minister of the Gospel. It was at this point that the Slack family developed a small following. I distinctly remember the neighbors missing church of a Sunday morning and coming over to our paintless shack to ask for Papa’s advice on how to deal with medicine pushers and that type of con men. We’d all sit around the stove and discuss the problem of evil and how to fight it. Papa’s quick mind was always “running like sixty,” as they used to say in the Model T Ford days. His most perceptive advice would invariably cause the advisee to flip a quarter into the ten-gallon hat he always inadvertently left at his feet.
 
With the money I inherited from Papa, as well as the money I earned after he was shot in the head by a disgruntled creditor, I was able to purchase a small bungalow—ironically, this modest home had belonged to the creditor, who had been hanged by a righteously indignant mob consisting largely of Papa’s disciples. Unfortunately, the papers detailing this transaction have mysteriously disappeared from the county courthouse.
 
And this, my fellow Americans, is a short but accurate account of Orville Slack IV’s humble background, a background that would be the envy of Abe Lincoln.
 
I seek your vote as VP of the Dead Rights Party.
 

Every vice-presidential aspirant has his or her detractors and admirers. Unfortunately, a considerable number of them write books. Seldom do we find a fair, measured, objective account of the strengths and weaknesses, the outstanding attributes and foibles, of the candidate under scrutiny.
 
Fortunately, The Orville Slack IV Story, by Ab Ennis, belongs in the latter category. The prose is lucid, simple, and elegant. The facts have been thoroughly researched. The aspirant for the second-highest office in the land, Orville Slack IV (1898-2003), was, in the interview conducted for this book by Mr. Ennis, the esteemed author and presidential candidate of the Dead Rights Party, accurate, unsentimental, and humble. What we have in this volume is, in a phrase, Pulitzer material.
 
Mr. Slack comes from humble circumstances. Born in Prairie City, straddling the Kansas- Oklahoma border, in or around 1898, which used to be referred to as turn-of-the-century times, he recalls sitting on the respective knees of Orville Slack, Sr., Orville Slack Jr., and Orville Slack III on the unpainted, rickety porches that in those days rotted the landscape of Kansas and other Oklahoma wide spots in the road.
 
It was from his salt-of-the-earth ancestors that he imbibed the values that make America somewhere between pretty damn good and great. Among those values, indeed the one that sticks out in his still-lucid mind, was the one for which he was to become noted if not quite a celebrity: the art of begging off. Though he quickly concedes that this value is seldom if ever cited by observers as the quintessential American value, he is equally quick to insist that, when practiced according to his advice and on a widespread scale, begging off would make the American empire the superior of those that preceded it: the Egyptian, the Ming, the Ashokan, the Assyrian, the Babylonian, the Ottoman, the Ching, the Aztec, the Mayan, the Alexandrian, the Roman, the Holy Roman, the French, the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Japanese, the British, and indeed any others that he might have omitted or misspelled.
 
His, however, is not a life without a twinge or two of regret. He would have liked to have had a legitimate son to carry on his traditional wisdom. He would have liked to have had a lovely wife to anticipate his every need. He would have liked to have had a few mistresses. He would have liked to have become mayor of Prairie City, then Governor of Oklahoma. He would have liked to have become born again, though on further reflection he drawled that now that his urn is outfitted with the robotic apparatus provided by the Myles Junior Cremation Service and spiffy clothing from the Children’s Wear Section of Sears, this wish has been fulfilled beyond his wildest dreams.
 
(Disclosure: this forthcoming book is in its first draft.)

Today I am using the blog I have been writing since announcing my candidacy for the office of the POTUS to defend myself against the vile, untrue, erroneous, fallacious, distorted, inaccurate, concocted, fabricated, invented, and just downright false accusations that my political competitors have hurled against me.
 
Unlike those competitors, including several of my fellow columnists, most of the regulars at the Hôtel Cherokee Watering Hole, and, not least, the strategists of the two major political parties of this great nation, I am, have always been, and will always be, an honorable man who (a) consistently tells the truth and, like my role model, George Washington, (b) never tells a lie.
 
As anyone who knows me well, including my deceased friend and Platonic lover friend Betty Bedwell (1960-2006), will swear or attest on a stack of all the sacred literature the great prophets have penned under the influence of divine inspiration, I am a man of my word.
 
These are my words:
 
I did not have sex with Ms. Bedwell on the night of her decease! Nor did I have anything to do with her passing on to her next life as a Buddhist monk. Though she was found dead in my bed, I swear before God, the gods, the fairies, nymphs, and all such invisible entities, dead or alive, that I did everything in my limited, robotic power to revive her from whatever it was the coroner of Small Southwestern City found to be the cause of her death.
 
I also apologize to Ms. Bedwell’s husbands, past or present, for any pain I might have caused them by her untimely demise.
 
What is more, any and/or all statements I might or might not have made concerning any possible part I might or might not have had regarding her tragic passing were made either (a) in jest or (b) under the influence of the teaspoon of rotgut that the bartender of the aforementioned bar mistakenly or mischievously poured over the burnt cerebral cortex that has stood me in good stead ever since my late wife Lydia, or whatever she was called, had me cremated.
 
It was, at most, an accident. (I refer to the aforementioned demise of that great lady, Ms. or Mrs. Bedwell, who was, incidentally, planning to stand by my side as I accepted the nomination for President of these United States under the much-abused, ragged, semi-incinerated flag of the Dead Rights Party.)
 
Besides, she probably, or possibly, deserved her fate.
 
Let me restate the above paragraph. Betty Bedwell had, as her life’s prime goal, a transmigration into the chubby, saffron-robed body of a Buddhist monk. And, as a serious student of the great religions of the world, I am now at liberty to reveal that she attained that goal. As my private and esteemed psychic, Signore Mentore, revealed in a recent séance, “I hear her loud and clear.” [Translation mine.]
 
I now consider the case closed. After my sentencing later this month, I plan to follow the advice and pleadings of my many devotees and continue to seek the highest office in the solar system in the year 2016.
 
I will take no more questions.

​It is a universal truth, acknowledged by all, that there is nothing like a good, solid liberal arts education.
 
It is equally true, as a hefty minority have learned, that the best place to pick up such an education is in the serene safety of a bar. And knowledgeable aficionados of such establishments agree that a Western bar is more than the equivalent of an Ivy League university, especially where the basics of debate and public speaking are concerned.
 
I speak as an authority on bars.
 
The first one I entered, at the age of 21, was in Kiev, South Russia. I was making my escape from the Czar, via the underground railroad, and heading for America. That particular bar, I believe by informed hearsay, was typical of Russian bars. Men of all ages sat around in a pose that could be mistaken for meditation, drinking vodka while staring into space. The word that comes to mind is “stupor.”
 
German bars have a charm of their own. The decibel level in, say, a Bavarian establishment is an indication of stout, healthy intellect at work. But if I recall, back in 1906 you could not emerge from a bar with your head held high unless you knew your Hegel and Marx. In a pinch, an acquaintance with the works of Dostoevsky would keep you in the game.
 
English and Irish pubs need no comment.
 
I sailed directly from Hamburg to New York, the bars of which have an excellent reputation for the drink-think-talk combination. As I recall, a slight knowledge of English—say, an ability to use the words betokening agreement or disagreement, would go a long way toward maintaining a reputation as being a person with an active mind.
 
But your Western bar—it beats all. Only in such a place as the Hôtel Adobe Watering Hole can you find an elderly gentleman carrying a briefcase in which is stashed the first draft of a manuscript concerning the history of the Dead Rights movement. The working title of this 70-page would-be tome is The History of Dead Rights.
 
I did not have the opportunity to read that manuscript with the care it deserved. In fact, if memory serves and the truth be known, I did not have the opportunity to read anything but the beer-stained cover page. What I did have the opportunity to do was hear the gentleman—his name escapes me—hold forth on the contents of the manuscript he was peddling about to agents and a large smattering of pretenders to that trade.
 
His main point was that dead rights, especially the right of an ex-American to vote, is not a new thing. It has a long tradition, beginning with the era of city bosses, rising to its highest peak in the 1960 election, in which the mayor of Chicago, Hizzoner Richard J. Daley, extended the franchise to dead Democrats, thus creating the Camelot from which America has never recovered.
 
A must-read book. In fact, I recall having composed a note to myself to read it before I placed my candidacy for the position of President of the United States before the American people, ex-people, and talking parrots.

​On my desk is a book by Anonymous, entitled Dead Rights Candidate Deserves His Fate and published by Prune Juice Press. The subject of this poorly-designed, cheaply-bound, grammatically obtuse, 933-pages of lies and distortions appears to be the candidacy of Ab Ennis, a dead man who is currently running for the highest office in the land on the platform of the newly-formed Dead Rights Party. Its purpose is to nip Mr. Ennis’s surging popularity among both red- and blue-blooded Americans, not to speak of talking American parrots, in the bud.
 
(Full disclosure: I am the one of whom Anonymous speaks.)
 
The back cover of the book tells it all.
 
“Talk show hosts and newspaper columnists of all stripes have made an industry out of incessantly plugging the rapidly-rising Dead Rights Party and its weird candidate. In this book, Anonymous cites Ab Ennis for everything from moral decomposure to a soft approach to death. In Dead Rights Candidate Deserves His Fate, the author dissects a baker’s dozen of the most persistent, glaringly incorrect, positions taken by Ennis’s small army of insects. Each chapter begins with an Ennis quotation (e.g., “Dead people are smarter than the living because they’ve been around longer”; “Parrots have been telling us for years that they have avian rights”), which is then picked apart using statistical evidence, common sense, and detailed analysis that is at once philosophical, theological, and astrological. This contemporary movement, in the opinion of Anonymous, is not the last hope of the literary caste that it continually claims to be. On the contrary: it is an efficient, well-heeled group of neurologically damaged urn-bound robots that take their marching orders from a Russian-born peasant whose father raised swine for a living.
 
“But Anonymous does more than offer refutation. He/She goes deeper, descending into the psyche of Ennis, where he/she finds a vicious dose of vagina envy that has been there from the get-go. A must-read for every living American, imbecile or genius.”
 
Well. Read no further. I didn’t. Any book on the back cover of which appears the locution, “neurologically damaged urn-bound robots that” instead of the grammatically proper “neurologically-damaged, urn-bound robots who,” deserves an early death.

The practice of having an author review his or her own book is commonly frowned upon.
 
In facing that fact, I must give cause, reason, justification, explanation, validation, rationalization, and excuse for engaging in this practice.
 
This I do with no hesitation. I am reviewing my own book because it is too late in this election year for any pundit to read it with the care and critical eye it deserves, let alone to write a thoughtful, penetrating piece that will give the discerning reader the confirmation of his or her decision to vote for Ab Ennis in the 2016 presidential election.
 
The first volume of The Incomplete Works of Ab Ennis runs 933 pages, not including the front matter, the endnotes, the bibliography, the index, and the admiring blurbs composed by Mr. Ennis’s distinguished colleagues at the Hôtel Adobe Round Table. Each and every one of those pages is in fine, elegant, 8 point print. The discerning editors at Don Quixote Writes Again, Inc., have chosen the elegant Baskerville as the font. A source close to the editor-in-chief, Mr. Arthur Unknown, has whispered it about that the alternative was the equally elegant but lesser-used Papyrus. It seems to us that this choice was wise, at least for the present volume, which, given the guaranteed longevity of the author, promises to be the first in a series of thousands.
 
In the Author’s Foreword we learn that Mr. Ennis started writing at the age of two. His first of many novels was completed eight months later. Unfortunately, it was rejected by the Russian publishing house, Nyet! on the grounds that the plot was too reminiscent of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Unconvinced by this reason, Ennis courageously plowed ahead, finishing writing his second novel at the age of four and sending it to the German house, Ja? Though the editors at Ja? all read it, one of them vetoed the submission on the grounds that the three main characters could barely be distinguished from the brothers Karamazov.
 
Undaunted, the intrepid Mr. Ennis honed his writing style and shortened his stories. The results were spectacular. At the age of five, Ja? accepted his third work, a collection of short stories, proclaiming it the work of “the next Chekhov.” Unfortunately, Ja? went down the tubes just as the print was being set.
 
Volume One of what promises to be a long and distinguished series of tomes consists of three works, originally written in Russian but translated by the author himself: War and Truce, The Brothers Raskolnikov, and The Collected Stories of the Next Chekhov.
 
This hardback edition will run you $35, though there is a 50% discount for dead American citizens and voting-age English-speaking parrots.
 
The publisher, Don Quixote Writes Again, Inc., reports that audio versions of these youthful masterpieces are in the works. Word has it that they will be R rated.

It is necessary and proper for every candidate for the highest office in the land we genuine U.S. patriots call America the Beautiful to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about his or her whereabouts during the Vietnam War.
 
I am proud to announce that I spent the entire war in an urn.
 
This urn was placed on the mantle of a fireplace. I am certain my wife would vouch for me, if she were alive and still daily soaking me in a small teaspoon of my favorite food, a blend of anise oil and rotgut. It was her recipe. She had it copyrighted and patented. My lawyer is trying to locate it as I write.
 
My wife also kept me abreast of the conflict, reading me the latest from Stars and Stripes. I was proud of what our heroic boys were doing, and I remain proud of their courage under fire to this very day. I have only two regrets: that we lost the war and that I could not join our brave, noble troops in this losing cause.
 
My opponents in this campaign have raised doubts about my patriotism. I resent this. I also feel called upon to set the record straight.
 
When America entered World War I, I was 33 years old, married, and the father of two children, a pair of girls who still live and phone me every other week, telling me the same damned things over and over. Despite my age and family status, I went to the U.S. Army Recruitment Office and tried to enlist. My wife disapproved of this patriotic act—not because she was anti-American but because she had just been pregnant with our second daughter—and followed me down to the aforementioned office, armed with a loaded rifle. It was this act of courage on her part that prevented me from serving my country during that horrendous war.
 
When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on the day that will live in infamy, I was 58 and fit as a fiddle. Again I attempted to enlist, this time in the Marines. Again my family disapproved of this attempt on the grounds that I had two living grandchildren and two in the oven, as we used to say. Again I was followed down to the Recruitment Office, this time by my eldest daughter, who was also an accurate shot. It was this act of courage on her part that prevented me from serving my country during that equally horrendous war.
 
As for the Korean War, it was really only a police action. Though some of my best friends are cops, I have run across many a sheriff who has treated me rudely, and I did not care to be associated with that crowd.
 
This, I trust, will set the record straight. I swear to Almighty God that I have never sought or received a student deferment, enlisted in the National Guard, or faked an injury to avoid further combat. In this respect I share a common bond with Honest Abe.
 
This pamphlet is a must-read, and you have read it.

​Every presidential candidate has his or her detractors and admirers. Unfortunately, a considerable number of them write books. Seldom do we find a fair, measured, objective account of the strengths and weaknesses, the outstanding attributes and foibles, of the candidate under scrutiny.
 
Fortunately, The Ab Ennis Story: An Autobiography, belongs in the latter category. The prose is lucid, simple, and elegant. The facts have been thoroughly researched. The memory of the author, Ab Ennis (1883-1958), is clear, accurate, unsentimental, and unencumbered with detritus and unashamed self-promotion. What we have in this volume is, in a phrase, Pulitzer material.
 
Many a candidate takes pride in laying claim to immigrant parents. Ennis does them one better: he himself is an immigrant. And not just from the favored countries, such as Greece and Italy. Ennis is a Russian immigrant who, in 1906, escaped that czar-infested country carrying nothing but a full suitcase and his brother’s passport.
 
Many candidates also boast of their humble beginnings. Ennis, the candidate for president on the Dead Rights ticket, arrived at Ellis Island with only five rubles in his underwear. He was forced to get a job in a Connecticut factory to make ends meet. When they finally did, he hopped a freight to Kansas, then to Idaho, where he homesteaded and began climbing the social ladder; he ended up playing cards with the richest man in the county.
 
Always a patriot, Ennis volunteered for service in the First World War, withdrawing his application when his wife pointed out to him that she could not bear the thought of becoming a widow, nor could their two-year-old daughter stomach the prospect of being a semi-orphan. He courageously acceded to their demands.
 
An honest man, Ab Ennis admits that he does not remember the Vietnam War, giving as his plausible reason the fact that he was at that time dead. Regarding the coming presidential debates, he has promised not to make either that war or the fact of his decease an issue. Clearly, this candidate possesses a logical mind.
 
Nor does he waffle or change his mind without good reason. Though the eventual candidates of the two major parties will almost certainly make much of Ennis’s death, he will almost as certainly point out that he functions as well as the majority of living citizens, a fact that makes him the functional equivalent of a live person. He writes fluent English and composes his own speeches. As proof thereof, he can point to his one-year stint as a columnist of a major e-mag.
 
A book that, when it finally appears, should not be avoided by the American electorate, living or dead, former person or former parrot.