MONDO EXTRAS

Mighty Big Memorandum
TO: Wing Chun, Head of Programming, Mighty Big TV
FROM: Strega, Network Executive
RE: article about Martin Sheen in St. Anthony Messenger

As I may have mentioned to you, recently a copy of the magazine, St. Anthony Messenger, featuring a cover story about Martin Sheen's role on The West Wing, came into my hands. To be slightly more specific, a friend of mine noticed the magazine while attending a wedding and, ahem, liberated it for me. When I expressed shock that he had stolen reading material from a house of God, he insisted that there was a pile of copies on display, and that interested people were almost certainly welcome to take one. Since this friend is, at least ostensibly, a good Catholic, his identify will remain secret. Needless to say, we're all praying for him.

Regardless of the moral questions surrounding my acquisition of the magazine, I looked forward to preparing a humorous essay regarding the article. A summary of its points, with some additional sarcastic commentary, and perhaps a few cheap shots at Rob Lowe, would provide the legions of The West Wing fans with some much-needed new reading during the long, hot summer reruns. Admittedly, there have been other stories about the show in periodicals such as Brill's Content and Entertainment Weekly, as well as major (and minor) metropolitan newspapers. However, without casting aspersions upon anyone's character, I suspect that the St. Anthony Messenger is not regular reading for most of our readers, and so a summary of this article would be more likely to provide them with information they had not already seen. In addition, publishing a new piece as an "Extra" would help to shore up my depleted bank account, allowing me to restock my supply of Flaky Flix cookies. (I generally have to bribe people to ship them to me, since they're not available on the East Coast. They're worth it, though. Silly name, I admit, but they're the very definition of chocolatey goodness, and well worth the expense. But I digress.) For all of these reasons, I looked on the article as, if you'll forgive my saying so, manna from heaven. Upon review, however, I have encountered a few difficulties with this project, which I will detail below.