You know me. The name Jimmy B. Jimmy is almost as famous as Mickey Mouse, especially after last November when I was elected President of the United States by the largest margin in American history.
But that’s not why you know me. You know me because for twenty-five years I’ve been the infomercial guy who sells anything and everything. The orbital car waxer. The Japanese knives. The vibrating mop-broom. The CD player that eliminates the vocal track so you can sing along. You even know my catchphrase
I happened to get lucky. I was in DC applying for an illustration job at the Washington Post-Dispatch the very day their Pulitzer-winning cartoonist keeled over dead at his drawing board. Sensing an opportunity, I took my portfolio up to the editor. It was a tasteless thing to do, but he liked the drawings and hired me on the spot, albeit without a contract.
I’d been to art school and had a knack for caricature, a necessity for a cartoonist. You study the person you’re drawing and decide what they’re most embarrassed about, what they’re trying to hide. Then you make it the biggest thing about them. That’s why that Herblock cartoon was so successful. Nixon was always trying to prove he wasn’t a lowdown crook, so drawing him as a sewer rat was perfect. Nixon never forgot it.
I even had the killer instinct, that crucial ability to go for the jugular. But even with all that, I wasn’t any good at cartooning. I had no sense of subtlety, or even of common decency. My cartoons were crude and insulting. My editor told me everything I drew was in bad taste. I couldn’t argue. Hell, I didn’t even know what good taste was.
Thus, I wasn’t terribly surprised when they fired me a few weeks later. All the same, it hit me hard. Failure is tough to swallow at any age, but it’s worst on the young man who’s never had reason to doubt himself. I was crushed.
Those next few years I went on the drift. Did various odd jobs. Construction, roofing, a season as a carnival roustabout. I liked most of what I did, but found my true calling as a door-to-door salesman. I had some kind of knack I could not explain. Time and again, a woman who might slam the front door on her own children would allow me into her living room to try and sell her something. Most of the time I would, too. I’d not been working for the Brush Company two months before I was shattering all their sales records. The territory manager told me I was the best salesman he’d ever seen.
I received a promotion, but my knack didn’t extend to management. I failed miserably and they transferred me back to sales. Immediately the old magic returned and within a few weeks I was again the top salesman. I spent a couple decades traveling around the country, working for different companies. I couldn’t settle down. I felt like something was missing.
Out in Los Angeles I got a call from a young fella fresh out of Stanford, Edgar Bagman. He told me he’d read an article about me in a trade magazine and looked me up. He wanted to talk to me about doing informercials. I had no idea what those were, but I agreed to meet anyway.
We met at a diner on Sunset where Edgar told me about this new thing called cable TV that piped dozens of channels into homes all over the country twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. He believed some of the less-expensive half hour blocks could be used as commercials for various products.
“You’d be a natural, Jimmy,” he said. “Everybody loves you.” Then he reached into his briefcase and produced a contract guaranteeing me 50% of all sales revenue generated from any product I represented.
“Half?” I asked. “I usually get 20%.”
“Half, Jimmy. That’s how bad Our Sponsors want you.”
I was so excited that I signed without reading the rest of it.
The infomercials were wildfire. My sales knack worked even better on television, especially after I developed what I called my Mr. and Mrs. act. You know the one? A married couple debates whether or not to buy the product at hand. I play both parts, always being sure to make the naysayer seem ridiculous by exaggerating certain gestures and mannerisms. It’s a lot like cartooning, except I’m good at it.
Our Sponsors had hundreds of different products, and I sold most of them, usually making one or two informercials a week. We always used a live audience, and the shows got so popular we had to run a raffle for tickets. My God, the money just poured in. I had everything I ever dreamed of, and more.
But I was so successful it got damn boring. After all, how many houses can a man own? How many suits? I needed a change.
You recall I mentioned the contract I’d signed without reading? I must’ve showed it to every lawyer in Los Angeles, looking for a way out. None of them could believe anyone in his right mind would ever sign it, this lifetime contract that could only be terminated by Our Sponsors, a vast offshore holding company that owned majority shares in most of America’s largest corporations but themselves were cloaked in impenetrable layers of mystery. The lawyers all told me the same thing: I might have more money than I could ever spend, but I’d never have enough to buy my freedom.
That was when I decided to try to get fired. I began to introduce new characters into the infomercials, all the crudest racial stereotypes––an old Jewish lady, a blackface Amos n’ Andy type with a lazy southern drawl, a sleepy Mexican in a sombrero.
But the lower I went, the more popular I became. Sales would immediately increase in locations where a tasteless informercial was aired, sometimes by 20% or more. I got so famous that I couldn’t go anywhere without hearing my own slogan shouted at me by fans: But just you wait! There’s so much more!
Which leads me to the August day when I found Edgar and a pretty young woman waiting for me in the studio office. “This is Kim Cabbagehat,” said Edgar. “She directly represents Our Sponsors and has flown out from Washington with a proposition I think you’re going to love.”
Knowing I had no choice but to love it, I gave her my biggest fake smile.
She smiled back, her teeth whiter than my sink. “Mr. Jimmy, I’ll cut to the chase. Our Sponsors want you to run for president.”
“President?” I said. “Of what?”
“The United States,” said Kim, taking a stack of reports out of her briefcase and spreading them on the conference table. “Poll after poll shows you to be the most popular celebrity in the country. Not only does everyone know who you are, everybody loves you.”
“I’m not qualified to be president.”
“Pish posh,” said Edgar. “It’s already been decided. Per your contract.”
Kim then revealed her political doomsday weapon: the political infomercial, half hour blocks starring me that would air all over the country at all times of day and night. The only difference was that I would use my Mr.and Mrs. act to pretend to be my opponents.
It was in the contract. I had no choice, but I decided I’d try to make it as short a campaign as I could. I would max out on my tastelessness, hit my opponents below below-the-belt. The campaign had carefully researched my primary opponents, so I had access to all their scandals and dirt. Gay son? Divorce? Drunk Driving? All were fair game, so I expanded each to be the single most important thing about the candidate. And if they happened to be scandal-free, I made something up. Candidate One beats his dog. Candidate Two shoplifts ladies’ underwear and masturbates into it. Candidate Three had a retarded child out of wedlock and sent it to the state home.
Of course, you know the rest. The lower I went, the more popular I became. One by one, my opponents dropped out, and halfway through primaries I had the nomination locked up. I felt more trapped than ever.
After the Republican National Convention, I was again asked to the DC office.
“No more dark money,” said Kim. “It’s your new campaign issue.”
“How will we pay for all this, then?” I asked, hoping we wouldn’t.
Kim reached into her bag and pulled out a red jumpsuit completely covered with logo patches like a NASCAR racing outfit. High on the right sleeve was the American flag. “Ta-da!”
“You want me to wear that?” I asked. “In public?”
“We don’t want you to ever take it off,” said Kim. “It’s going to be your signature. See? Each patch represents a company owned by Our Sponsors. The more they contribute, the better placement they’ll get. Over your heart is best. Probably reserve that one for Huwei or Google.”
“And that’s just the start,” said Edgar. “After the election, Our Sponsors will pay for all the things the government now does. What do you think of Energizer-Yosemite National Park? How about the Target Smithsonian? Sure, at first people might not like the Washington Monument branded to look like a Vick’s cough drop, or the Apple logo on the military aircraft, but wait until they see their low, low taxes!”
“Actually, most of the tax breaks go to Our Sponsors,” said Kim. “But people will love it anyway. They’ll have to.”
I probably don’t need to remind you of the rest; the celebrity-studded fundraising galas that packed stadiums across the country; the debate with my Democratic opponent, distinguished Senator Anne Jefferson Lincoln, where I called her fat and pretended to squeeze into a girdle while the audience roared with laughter. She bolted from the stage so fast I couldn’t tell if her tears were from rage or shame. How about my inaugural address where I kept asking Justice Roberts to repeat himself, mugging to the camera with that exaggerated stage shrug I used so many times in my commercials?
By now you’re probably used to seeing the Tide logo on your social security check and the Facebook flag flying alongside Old Glory on all the public buildings. Maybe you’ve even started to call the Capitol the IKEA Building. My poll numbers are in the high seventies, and whenever they start to sag they make me put out another informercial. I don’t want to, but it’s in the contract.
But I recently discovered my contract only forbids me working for direct competitors. I can still freelance in unrelated industries. That’s why I’m launching a new comic strip about life in the White House called President Jimmy. I’m going to stick to the facts and not exaggerate anything. Lifelike depictions of myself and the Vice President, the Senators, and, yes, Our Sponsors. I’m even putting in Kim and Edgar.
The whole truth. We’ll see how they like that.