In Which Lost Starts A Race War In Its Season Premiere

White Paradise

by DICK CHENEY

Lost

Season Six

Kaltxì. Ngaru lu fpom srak. Fì-skxawng-ìri tsap’alute sengi oe. Tsun oe nga-hu nì-Na’vi pängkxo a fì-’u oe-ru prrte’ lu.

What's that? You haven't taken the Introduction to Na'vi course I've been offering at the Learning Annex since Jesus's birthday came and went? No matter, as soon children will be communicating entirely in Na'vi, a language that has no word for pedophile, champion, and, strangely, sandwich.

let me help you dig her grave - we can make a kissing game out of it With Lost back on the airwaves, I am back on This Recording with a contract that permits me to make fun of Lambert for being a ginger as often as I like. Since my thoughts about how revolting I find Evangeline Lilly haven't graced these pages in awhile, much has changed. My Obama jokes are no longer as amusing since our country Chinua Achebed all over my pantaloons. This is a time for all Americans to live together or die alone like Shepard Smith or Jennifer Garner in Valentine's Day.

In response to the revolutionary debut of Avatar, two serious changes have come about in my post-vice-presidential life. First, my dietician now knows exactly what I'm talking about when I tell him I want Sam Worthington's body. Second, the white majority that produces Lost is finally realizing that it's OK to be racist. Racism is the only thing that can save us from four more years of BO apologizing for the billions he gave to banks during his State of the Union.

Outward racism is all the rage these days. Vanity Fair highlighted the most promising eating disorders in Hollywood and they didn't even tab the girl from Precious. On a scale of one-to-ten how surprised would you be if you found out Graydon Carter owned slaves?

what's the na'vi word for three-way? Lost has taken up the James Cameron-related charge to make fools of people of color with the most naïve aplomb since Joss Whedon told Fox execs that everyone would enjoy Dollhouse. Last night's two hour long Lost premiere began with Jack on a plane, condescendingly observing the show's only interracial couple, regaling them with smiles and plaudits alike. He was about five seconds away from handing Rose and Bernard a nickel - Everything That Rises Must Converge-style.

From there we went back to the island. Somehow detonating a hydrogen bomb didn't fix everyone's problems, although it did work wonders as a time travel device, taking the cast from 1977 to 2010 with everyone alive and Kate somehow in a tree. In the ensuing fracas, Sawyer blood-kissed Juliet and it was astonishingly only the third most awkward kiss of 2010 after Margene and Benny Hendrickson's Big Love smooch and Jenna Elfman kissing anyone.

"let's watch keeping the faith on DVD and observe how hot I was before scientology!"Hugo Reyes, the show's only surviving Latino character, is continually depicted as a slow-witted consumer of chicken who despite great verbal faculty in some areas, reverts to "dudes" and "come on" faster than B.J. Novak tricks girls. Don't get me started on the show's Asian characters. I'm not exactly well-educated enough to completely explain why depicting a Korean man as a glorified thug and an Asian-American as a medium is more objectionable than giving the native population on Pandora dreads for hair, but it just feels wrong.

why didn't I think of sending messages like this? how the f do you subpoena an ankh?Now that we know the man in black is in fact the smoke monster, his battle with Jacob is starting to more closely resemble a race war than a feud between two gods. AWB (Acting While Black) on Lost is considered a faux pas at best. When I was in Cali for the Chargers game a few weeks ago I saw the character formerly known as Walt at a tumblr meet up. It was so depressing I wanted to fly him to Waikiki and play chess with him for hours.

This wasn't the only thing that felt a little awry last night. The dramatic opening pan through miles of underwater CGI looked awful, and the rest of the two hour episode was shot on about three sets. Lost is starting to resemble the output of a very serious improv troupe with the director calling from offstage, "OK, Evangeline, in this scene Kate wants to run. Do you copy? She is going to run from her problems instead of dealing with them. Do you need a second with that?"

"lefleuer, your dick is about .038 oden. you're welcome"In many ways, this interminable premiere was a just a tying up of loose ends. Now that Elizabeth Mitchell has a new acting job staring at CGI spaceships (ABC tried to Avatar-up V with little success), she doesn't need to make vague and unhelpful suggestions about LeFleur harboring long lost feelings for Kate. She was a broken record with that stuff. If television has taught us anything, it's that the timely death of a lover opens up a multitude of romantic possibilities. At the very least, John Edwards has this to look forward to.

the long con beginsJosh Holloway looks like he's been chasing ass in L.A. since last season ended, and his obsession with Jack was never the show's most successful storyline. Jack isn't all that sympathetic, and Sawyer is about as appealing as a widower with blood all over his face can be. Jack's arrogant dismissal of Locke's paralysis was typical for doctors. They always think they're the best at everything. It's so predictable. Now that Sawyer is about as compelling as a Cabbage patch kid, this show needs a protagonist, stat.

if there is any one thing this show needs, it is ian mcshane Of course the most annoying moment of the premiere was when every d-bag in the world whispered to his friends, "That guy was on Deadwood!" when John Hawkes showed up to interpret the vague directions of the Asian warlord Other who controls the fountain of the youth. Jesus guys, even Ponce de Leon thinks that's a bunch of racist crap. James Cameron is cringing, and he invented racism.

"at least I'll be able to find acting work after this show ends"Also put out to pasture for most of the episode was Sayid. Despite the weird moment where he told everyone to get out of the way as he kicked down the bathroom door of Oceanic Flight 815 to save Driveshaft and Jack and the crew looked at him like he had a box-cutter, Sayid is the only minority with a slightly positive portrayal. Actually they've been portraying him as a vicious murderer and torturer for the last five seasons, so I take that back.

Reinventing yourself is a subject near and dear to my heart. Y'all knew me as a boisterous, controlling, megalomaniacal vice president who loved e-mail, gchat, and Lost spoilers. In my new life, I spend most of the day pounding Buffalo Trace and snacking on chimichangas. Lost may be insane and contradictory, but above all it is familiar. You always know where you stand with respect to Lost, which is more than I can say for my wife Lynne.

OK see you next week. I will spend every day between now and next Tuesday trying to believably photoshop myself onto Greg Oden's body.

Dick Cheney is the former vice president of the United States and the senior contributor to This Recording.

did our penises just touch

In Which It's A Question of Who Not To Kill

Ask DC

by DICK CHENEY

I don't what you heard about me...

Welcome back to Ask Dick Cheney. Who else will answer the hard questions about Lost, and other confusing stuff, like why Mario Lopez is now our president and he demands weekly pressers? Someone check Helen Thomas. Is she dead?

When I came into office, the first thing I did was banish Helen to the back of the room. Do you know she was born without human genetalia? Similar situation to Victor Navasky.

Let's get to your questions.

Has Lost now become a can-you-top-this wherein an episode is purely a form to make fun of other writers' plot twists?

Hurley has now lost any connection to the events. He's just along for the ride to make fun of the show. Lost has done things with plot not even Nabokov would attempt. Its latest creation is the plot turn in which a character suddenly realizes he HAS to do something completely nonsensical because it's his destiny.

Hey brainiac, maybe running into the middle of the Hostiles camp and asking for the vagina you came out of before she's given birth to you with a loaded weapon wasn't the brightest idea.

Neither was Daniel's pedo conversation with young Charlotte. Are the writers now just getting high and watching To Catch a Predator?

Did they sound the Adam alarm on American Idol just so now his fans think he's in trouble and start voting in droves?

Even my gay daughter is into Adam. He's kind of like Elvis, but if Elvis was an unemployed loser living in Echo Park. He's everything to me. But really, how can you focus on anything but the abortion of the performance that Jamie Foxx delivered onto the viewing public. He's the anti-Susan Boyle. He's actually becoming less famous as I'm talking about him right now.

jamie, my intuition is that you should never sing againDid Joe Biden see that you were in the running for Worst Vice President Ever and just want to run away with the title?

I resent that, and I wrote a firm e-mail to the person who sent in this question. There were far worse VPs than me. I mean, some of them owned slaves! For some reason, I was never permitted to own slaves. I did briefly toy with going back to that time, but I would have had to pack a lot of Rogaine, and I'm not keen on letting the media into any of my lighter treasons.

Still: "I would tell members of my family — and I have — that I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now," he said. "It's not just going into Mexico. If you're any place in a confined aircraft and one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft."

Let's not swear off Mexico so soon. Those people are the salt of the earth.

The White House was forced to issue a statement explaining that Biden really meant to say something completely different, and altogether reasonable:

"On the Today Show this morning, the vice president was asked what he would tell a family member who was considering air travel to Mexico this week. The advice he is giving family members is the same advice the administration is giving to all Americans: that they should avoid unnecessary air travel to and from Mexico. If they are sick, they should avoid airplanes and other confined public spaces, such as subways. This is the advice the vice president has given family members who are traveling by commercial airline this week. As the president said just last night, every American should take the same steps you would take to prevent any other flu: Keep your hands washed; cover your mouth when you cough; stay home from work if you're sick and keep your children home from school if they're sick."

What would be the appropriate rejoinder to J.J. Abrams if I were to see him on the street?

After this mind-numbing Jimmy Kimmel appearance, I would say a dickslap™ or maybe just a circumcision.

There's so many things I want to say to you, J.J. First off, who the fuck is named J.J.? 10 year-old boys and Harlem Globetrotters, mainly. I can't believe you did that to Star Trek. That was so, so stupid. You shouldn't have done that. This is like The Phantom Menace all over again. He's now not just ruining television shows that he's created; he's ruining other people's television shows.

What do next week's promotional photos tell us?

Somehow, Jack is back.

As Bill Simmons put it the other day: Fox has dueling "Guys, this is stupid, can't we just fast-forward to 2009 again?" and "I should be getting huge paychecks to star in crappy romantic comedies" looks on his face." This is sad but true. Let's just throw him into the 24 universe and never speak again of him on Lost.

On the other hand, maybe we can just fuse him together with Patrick Dempsey.

Who else can they kill to drive up ratings for season finale?

We can only hope they kill off Jin finally, as his sole function now is to contribute a line about how he'll do whatever it takes to get back together with Sun. This is so we can sob for realsies when he finally gets back with Sun, stroking her hair, we'll be like, "He talked about this in many previous episodes."

We can only pray they kill Kate, as she speaks solely in backstory, addressing Jack as "past partner" and shooting darts into Juliet with her doe eyes. Meanwhile Sawyer and Juliet are holding hands like bros. That's your girl, James. She's not your bro.

The end of this season is a slow build towards the detonation of a hydrogen bomb, which will effectively alter the timeline and prevent any of Lost from ever happening. Is this the secret wish of the show's producers, kind of like killing off the whole show — we can return them to the lives they might once have led. It's a morbid thought if you're Locke though. He may not want to let Jack alter the future like that. I smell a power struggle.

What would you do differently from Barack Obama if you had rightfully taken the Republican nomination for president in 2008?

Oh, I could never be president. When you're the president, you can't tell people to go fuck themselves.

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording.

lost: where it's okay to be a pedo"Blood Red Moon" — The XX (mp3)

"VCR" — The XX (mp3)

"Teardrops" — The XX (mp3)