Rebooting

Big Guy came into the staff meeting this morning with big news. He said he'd been talking to Toes's brother, Ari, who is a big-wig entertainment lawyer out in Los Angeles, and it got him to thinking. Why can't our White House be more like Hollywood, especially since he's a bigger movie star than most movie stars, Big Guy wondered.

So the logic goes, since the first couple years of our administration hasn't played as well as we would've like, why don't we reboot the whole thing? And who better to re-boot a failed franchise than the guy who everyone in Hollywood uses as an example of how to reboot stuff?

That's right. Big Guy is going to announce that he's appointing Christopher Nolan as his new chief of staff, pending his availability due to his shooting schedule for the next "Dark Knight" film. This, will, of course, mean a darker, grittier White House than the one most folks are familiar with. No more sunny garden shots. And Big Guy is going to have to drop his voice about four octaves, but he's willing to stretch as an actor to get this role just right.

The only person unhappy with Nolan's appointment is Lady M., but that's just because we'll be shooting in hi-def and IMAX, which adds an extra five pounds on to the ten the camera already piles on. And in her case, she fears it'll all be in arms.

Mumbai-bye Baby

Well. it's been an awful lot of fun here in Mumbai. Big Guy and Lady M just danced and danced and danced, and that was just on the flight over here from Washington. Some of us, who were a little more subdued given the lashings voters gave our team last Tuesday, thought may it was kind of like delayed stress being released. Now, after watching the two of them boogieing down the hallways of Air Force One, I'm wondering if they just don't care and are just happy to be along for the ride ... literally.

Then, when we hit the ground in Mumbai, there was more dancing to be had because of the religious holiday, Diwali. Big Guy knew all about this holiday, not because he's particularly attuned to Hindu customs - Muslims hate the Hindus, or so he says - but because he said he'd been heavily briefed on the issue. Which explains this video link I found on his laptop, and also explains why he didn't get in line at the Diwali potluck at St. Xavier University.

I blame off this confusion, and the bloated cost of this trip, on the lack of a White House chief of staff. I hate to say this, but since Rahm left, things have just been chaos. And the fact that Big Guy just let the IT guy move into Toes's office just shows how crazy things have been around here. I mean, with Pete sitting in there, he never uploads my software upgrades and my screens on this trip have been getting a lot dirtier, what with everyone wanting to touch me given my celebrity status.

The highlight of the trip for Big Guy wasn't really a highlight at all, but it just shows how out of touch he seems to be with what's been going on. Given the amount of development going on in India, global warming is actually viewed as a good thing, particularly since no one wants to tell one of the poorest countries in the world that it's not allowed to build up its economy by polluting the air, water and building stuff as fast as it can. So when a little girl at a development held up a picture she'd drawn of a growing Indian village, he saw a windmill and an eco-friendly town. When reporters looked at it, it was a giant daisycutter taking out trees, and villagers building an office park for outsourcing American jobs.

We'll be headed to New Delhi next, and spend the next few hours rehearsing our big speech there. Unless Big Guy stages a Hindu Halloween on AF1 tonight.