the smartest guy alive in the world

Well for a couple years things had been getting pretty crummy in fact to tell the truth they were downright lousy and so finally everyone agreed they might as well figure out who the smartest person in the country was cause maybe they’d have some good new ideas maybe they could even go into government or something like that and it turned out to be a guy named Lungus or something like that of course it wasn’t ‘lungus’ exactly that’s not really any kind of name but it was something like that something with an L and well he lived in Lake Europe, Texas and he said his iq was somewhere in the range of 220 which could be the highest there’s ever been the newsman said and then the newsman asked Lungus if he was surprised to find out the news.

Surprised? I couldn’t be less surprised.

Surprised. I’m the furthest thing from surprised.

Well folks. He says he’s the furthest thing from surprised.

I couldn’t be less surprised.

Says he couldn’t be less surprised.

I wrote my first book at age three, for crying out loud.

You said age three?

Age three.

A whole book?

Soup to nuts.

Three years old,

and writing a whole book?

Tip to tail.

Well I’ll be. What was it about?

Baby stuff. 

Pureed applesauce,

snap onesies,

tactile playthings, you know.Miniature chicken sausages?

Absolutely.

Socks with rubber on the bottom so you don’t slip on a polished wood floor?

I believe those were covered, yes.

Everythin’ being bigger’n you?

Discussed at length, naturally.

Baby stuff.

Yes, that’s correct. That was the idea.

Well what do you think about all this stuff lately?

I don’t follow.

Everything that’s been going on I mean. How things’re going.

Oh it’s lousy. It’s grim crap and it’s major, too, it’s no laughing matter.

Yeah.

Dreadful crapola, frankly, and I’ll tell you what I’ve just about had enough.

Well were I a betting man I’d bet’n you having some theories for what we should do about it all

what with your iq being all the way up where it is

and all.

I don’t know about theories but just last week I put the finishing touches on my 

simple six step integrated roadmap

to get things back on track,

if that’s the sort of thing you mean.

Yeah that’s the sort of thing I mean, yeah.

I had plans to publish it of course but modern Academia—well I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, it’s a joke, frankly, I think we can all agree on that, at least those of us with half a brain in our heads and it’s a total snakepit to boot, I might add and to top it off Academia well modern Academia it’s a game for suckers.

Oh.

Worst of all creative thought is discouraged and publishing is the name of the game.

Oh

okay.

And it’s extremely political as I’m sure you know.

I didn’t know that.

Well

it is.

You could run for president or something couldn’t you.

Politics? And you wanna talk games for suckers?

Is it a snakepit?

No, it’s a game for suckers. 

Oh it’s a game for suckers.

That’s the American political system for you, Buster Brown, a game for suckers through and through, top to bottom. And I’m just about sick of the whole damn thing.

Yeah.

Good news is I’m thinking of condensing my six part roadmap to a five piece blueprint.

Real basics,

any idiot can do this, 

one simple blueprint, do it right and we’ll get everything back on track, that sort of thing, you know.

I’ll get it published in the daily planning section, too, so those academia squids can’t get their venomous little stick-o-mitts on it. Daily planning section falls outside their jurisdiction, you know. It falls under scheduling.

How about organization- does it ever fall under organization or personal organization even? 

No it falls under scheduling. 

Organization is a matter of psychology and well now look what you’ve done we’re back in the horrid land of academia and here look anyway

the point is scheduling is not an academic discipline and therefore it is privy to different rules. This is important, I want you to understand this because this could prove very fruitful for the country and should I publish this book I’ll make sure you get an advance copy because get this, it’s going to contain all the skills taught in my six part roadmap except two parts of the roadmap are now condensed into one piece of the blueprint and I know what you’re thinking, that chapter must be a regular old Jumbo Deluxe but get a load of this not only did it come out half the length but the prose sings like a Von Trapp. 

Oh okay. That’d be good-

Of course I’d need the damn publishers to back me and they’re- 

well I hate to say it but they’re a bunch of morons, 

rank morons to tell the truth I don’t know where on earth they find these guys, utter louts.

Publishers are no good either, huh.

No good. Ha. That’s the nicest thing you could say about the publishers.

That they’re no good.

Well how about

maybe

I just, well I had the idea that y’know since we’re on television and all

maybe you could share one of the five pieces from the five piece blueprint y’know even if it’s the least surprising one or something cause after all we’re on tv and all.

Least surprising? They’re all surprising.

Least surprising.

They’re all surprising.

They’re all surprising, you’re saying.

Every last one.

Each one a greater surprise than the last?

No well, now, hang on a second. Those weren’t my words.

I didn’t say that.

That’s not what I said. I never said anything about the pieces getting more surprising as you go on. Not          a word.

They get less surprising as you go on is what you mean to say then.

No- just, listen, damn it. 

Pay attention.

The point is that the five pieces have to be taken together. Out of context

well they wouldn’t make any sense.

Not a lick, huh. 

And moreover the point is they’re all equally surprising.

Well folks. You heard him. Sounds like a heck of a book.

Goh lee. 

Lungus did eventually publish his five piece roadmap and he did so in the daily planning section under the title ‘five piece roadmap for how to get back on track as a country or individual a daily planner by Frick Langley’ and each piece had its own chapter but the first page had a diagram with all the pieces along with instructions not to conceive of the five pieces as an ordered list but as actions to be taken simultaneously and in harmony with one another plus he said in his view if everyone did it and did it right we’d have it made.

Well everyone tried it and did their best at it but the five piece blueprint did not prove to be of much well frankly any help to the country’s varied ailments which all continued plus what’s worse is some of ‘em even got worse.

The next year everyone got all worked about some guy named milgo 

or it was michael or 

something.