Welsh Losser makes a surprise appearance after returning, eerily changed, from trip to Venus
All right, there, Billy Lee, I’ve got the mockup of that full-page PR ad for the Kyiv Post-It.
Wuz that you call me, Hos?
What I done alluz called you – Billy Lee, as in Billy Lee Hill-Williams, Chairman of the self-promotin’ Kyiv-based PR firm, the Hill-Williams Group, and the CE of O of the Kyiv Post-It, the only leading English-language newspaper in town, also fondly and widely known as The World’s Window Through the Ukraine.
Fis of all, I ain’t never heard o’ no such thing, Hos, as me ever being referred to as no Billy Lee Hill… wuz that you – ah, never mind, ‘cause I am and alluz ha’ been Boss Bo Lard, of the self-promotin’ Kyiv-based PR agency, The Boss Bo Lard Bolard Blohard Group, and I don’t know where you pull that one from.
Uh, from our last episode in Kyiv Commix of the alternative Kyiv Unedited website that’s been givin’ us so much complication troubles, Billy, uh, I mean, Boss Lard, that weez been tryin’ to fight with these here PR consultation tactics you done a-hired me for to give you.
Kyiv Un-who? Never heard o’ no such thing. And wuz that you call this heeya newspaper I be the proud C of EO at?
Uh, the Kyiv Post-It…?
Haw! You breakin’ up on me, Hos? Thaz the Kyiv Poster – alluz wuz, alluz will be – that is, if it don’t get any smaller than its current new postage stamp-sized 16 pages – hoowee! And you jes go ahead and call me Boss Lard from now on, jes like everyone else do – you hear? ‘Cause whatever you gots for me, boy, it’d better be worth the price a admission.
Yessir.
Or is you trying to depict me as some kind of half-brain half-wit hillbilly who don’t have a scintilla of sense in his head, ‘xcept for banjo-pluckin’, jug-thumpin’ and jew-harp-twangin’, stickin’ his fingers under his suspenders with his bare feet up on the desk lookin’ out the window on this lil’ shit-kickin’ town like I jes done conquered it and it belong to me, and I ain’t got no more…
The remainder of this seamless interchange in the midst of Boss Lard’s identity crisis has gone missing [Editors].
So, Hos, let’s see that dang full-page PR mockup now you taken all the Billy Lee Hill-Williams references out of it, substitutin’ them with Boss Lard, all right and proper-like.
Okay, fis we gots the name of the services you be a-launchin’, thaz the Boss Lard Executive Rehash.
Yez, thaz right, Hos. Go on.
Next, under that, you gots a big quarter-page picture o’ your man in Moscow looks like a Boss Lard version a you, serious like all get out, sleeves rolled up, tie that don’t match his shirt loosed up, with a paunch hangin’ o’er a pleated dark-gray pant a-showin’ he real serious and workin’ hard, and he be intensely enumeratin’ – that’s e-nu-mer-a-tin’ –
I knows the word, Hos, you doesn’t has to spell it out for Boss Lard.
Uh, enumeratin’ points on his short, stubby fingers, givin’ a power lecture to a client who listenin’ to him real hard. Next to the client’s head is one of them big paper drawin’ charts showin’ like the vertical-horizontal factory-phase-phase system going ‘round in a self-completin’ cycle through the GTE, RR, OPR sectors ‘round the EM-AU-somethin’-or-other core…
Haw – thaz good, Hos, thaz real good. Now you’s gettin’ on my good side! Go on!
Now, at the top right-hand corner, you gots a picture a you in profile givin’ a serious talk, makin’ a point ‘bout how businesses ‘round heeya shouldn’t be buyin’ no stories in the press, spendin’ their money on purchasin’ space in newspapers and the dangers related thereto, a-gesturin’ forward-like wi’ yo’ hands, motionin’ all serious-like wi’ all you know-how, knowledge an’ ‘xperience at a executive dinner, elbows crowded in by pork chops, bread rolls, mashed potatoes, sliced fruit, fancy napkins, and pitchers o’ water –
Now you’s really talkin’, Hos!
But best of all, along the bottom right you got this railroad o’ pictures a the main players in you Executive Rehash, ‘cludin’ you, a-course, but ‘specially, jes below that… Welsh Losser!
Yeah?! Les see that picture a ol’ Losser. Yeeess, yeah, there he is – it’s perfect, Hos, I tell ya, is perfect – with that dark-blue suit, good airbrushing job on the ol’ walleyes, now they be peerin’ straight at you, all intense debonair, lady-killer and suave-like – hoo-wee, hoo-wee, dang, Hos, that’s intense, and you see jes the start of that expensive-looking watch I awarded him for 10 years a loyal service, not the whole thing, just peeking above the wrist, and then the picture cuts off, all teaser-like – thaz perfect, I tells you, Hos – jes perfect!
Why, thankee, Billy L… ah, Boss Lard! Hey, who that?!
Why, Welsh Losser, Boss Lard says, how long you been standin’ there in the door? Where in tarnations have you been?
Nyoo-ar-bkowerdk-slaaa – I’m just back from Venus – but that’s not what’s important now. Who’s this in the office. I don’t like the likes of him talking about me like that, as if I were some kind of clown or joke to be bandied about, and I don’t intend to be –
Now, Welsh, we wasn’t sayin’ anythin’ bad ‘bout you or nothin’ – jes the way it is – all impressed-like and such with that picture a you – aw, heck, forget it, boy. This here’s Hos, my PR consultant I hired, and I’d like you two to make each other’s acquaintance, all civil-like. I expect you two to cooperate – you know, work together, bring me your ideas as joint effort projects. So, Welsh, you somehow managed to insinuate yourself into, aaahh, that is, get yourself into that hoax-like Ukraine-cum-Western sponsors commercial mission to Venus, without me even knowin’ – gettin’ all independent-like, I see. Do you mean to tell me that out of all the millions of people who threw their names into the raffle for the once in a lifetime chance to be chosen for a trip to Venus, OUT OF ALL THOSE PEOPLE, it was YOUR name they pulled out of the tumbler? That’s just a little too hard to believe.
I don’t like him. No, no, I don’t like him one bit, not at all. Nya-e-e-e-hoooo… ar, ar, ar…
Putting his space helmet down on a small end table next to Boss Lard’s office door, Welsh Losser walks aggressively toward Hos.
Filed by Jack Step, June 15, 2013