Pamphlets, Poison, & Power Plays

 “Pamphlets, Poison, & Power Plays,” Episode 232 Welcome back to Perswayssick County… where politics are poisonous, pamphlets are weaponized, and nothing is ever as it seems. 🐾🛸📜 In this explosive new episode of Perswayssick Radio: Unearthly Comedy, stranded Earthling Nicki Rodriguez finds herself trapped in the middle of a courthouse showdown as Diroctor Bizzig “Zig” Gneeecey attempts to manipulate Referendum 345 — and the future of the county itself. What should have been a routine public meeting quickly spirals into alien gangster intimidation, corporate corruption, environmental scandal, and full-blown democratic rebellion when the sinister, amber-skinned Markmen storm the Knapsackville County Courthouse with glowing spider-web ties, glossy propaganda… and threats. 😳🕷️As citizens push back against toxic mierk, shady mining interests, and Gneeecey’s desperate power grab, the fierce twin sisters Verna Vlott and Vlotta Vern lead a poetic, rhythmic rebellion that rocks the courtroom and exposes the truth. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, deals are unraveling, tempers are flaring, and Gneeecey is discovering what happens when you underestimate a fed-up populace. 🔥⚖️With corrupt CEOs, endangered children, secret ballots, glowing neckties, alleyway confrontations, and even microscopic football-playing birds, this episode blends absurd comedy, surreal sci-fi, political satire, and cinematic audio drama into one unforgettable chapter of the Perswayssick saga. 🎧 If you love: Surreal comedy & absurdist humor, Sci-fi fantasy audio dramas, Satirical political storytelling, Eccentric characters & wild world-building, Bizarre aliens, corrupt officials & rebellious citizens…then you are exactly where you belong. 🐕👽🎭 👉 Subscribe, like, and join the chaos as Perswayssick County barrels toward Octvember 68th and the people finally find their voices.  Because in Perswayssick… change is dangerousical. 😏💥…this episode is for you. 🎧 LISTEN NOW! https://perswayssickradio.buzzsprout.com  We thank Marysol Rodriguez, Sal Solá, Sandi Solá, Marcellina Ramirez, Rick “El Molestoso” Rivera, Brunie Cariño, Toni Aponte, & Aileen Bean 4 being generous supporting members via BuyMeACoffee.com. Artwork by Vicki & ChatGPT 

Transcript

Transcript / “Pamphlets, Poison, & Power Plays,”  – Episode 232, by Vicki Solá. 

All content © 2026 Perswayssick Radio: Unearthly Comedy. 

SFX: [Scary Ambience]

NARRATOR VICKI SOLÁ: In last week’s episode, Perswayssick County Grate Gizzygalumpaggis and County Quality of Life Commissioner Diroctor Bizzig “Zig” Gneeecey was pretty sure he had the upper hand as he presided over a critically important meeting. The canine-humanoid was especially relieved when he saw his sinister, amber-skinned alien gangster Markmen march into the Knapsackville County Courthouse, armed with pro-mierk pamphlets—and more….

SFX: [Magic Spell]

NICKI RODRIGUEZ:  A hush came over the crowd when a couple dozen waxy-faced men burst in through the courthouse’s side door, wearing three-piece steel gray suits, white shirts, and winking, blinking luminescent spider’s web-patterned neckties.
 Gneeecey wiped the perspiration from his grimy fur brow. “Welcome Mark, Mark. Mark, Mark an’ Mark! An’ Mark, Mark an’—”
 “Let’s get on with this!” demanded Steve Squiggleman, the tall, gaunt human proprietor of Squiggleman’s Plumbing.
 “Just a stinkin’ minute!” 

Five Markmen—as Cleve and I had begun calling them—approached Gneeecey, bearing armloads of pamphlets. Three others surrounded Justin Imbroglio. A tall, brown-haired
 Markman bent down and whispered something that wiped the grin off the reporter’s face.
 As Imbroglio leapt to his feet, a blond, big-nosed Markman jabbed something concealed under his jacket into the suddenly quiet newspaperman’s ribs, and escorted him out of the courtroom.

SFX: [Orchestra Cliffhanger] [Magic Spell] [Crowd Group]

NARRATOR VICKI SOLÁ: And here’s where our story picks up….

NICKI RODRIGUEZ:  Gneeecey watched, smacking his palms together with glee. From across the room, Cleve’s eyes met mine. He glanced over at Imbroglio’s empty seat and shrugged. No one else seemed to notice the journalist’s forced departure.
 “Since it’s so early,” announced Gneeecey, reaching under his judge’s robe and stuffing papers back into his T-shirt pocket, SFX: [Rustling Papers], “we’ll hafta tempooporarily table my propooposition to rename the Leopold Underpant Causeway after me, in order to make it a hysterical landmark.”
 Squiggleman stood. “Let’s just get to Referendum 345!”
 “345!” chanted attendees. “345! 345!”
 “Order! Order! SFX: [Wood Demolition Bang x 3] We’ll disgust our final item, this whole no-brained issue of the upchucking election refooferendum, Question 345—”
 “345! 345!”
 “Order! Order! SFX: [Wood Demolition Bang x 3] Accordin’ to this latest informative information I’ve jus’ receiverated, from very reliarable sources,” said Gneeecey, waving one
 of the Markmen’s colorful brochures, “that junk ya wanna replace our beloved mierk wit’—y’know, that dopey zodd—it’s hazardous—to us, an’ our county’s aminals an’ plaaants.”
“Can you document that?” inquired twin sisters Verna Vlott and Vlotta Vern, as they rushed up front.  SFX: [Squeaking Sneakers]
“And,” asked Verna, “are aminals a new type of organism indigenous to our county?”
“Yeah an’ yeah. Zodd stinks, an’ aminals are real new an’ indigoogenous.” Gneeecey tossed a couple booklets at the identically dressed women.
Vlotta examined her leaflet, then frowned. “You’re just pulling these statistics out of a hat!”
“Yes,” agreed Verna, scanning her tract. “Why, zodd couldn’t hurt a cat!”
“No, dear sister, not like the bite of a ravenous rat!”
“Nor the nip of a slovenly, slog-swigging gnat!”
“Or the surreptitious nibble of a bureaucrat!”
“Not even one wearing a blue bowler hat!”
“By our uncle’s carbunkles, we’ll both swear to that!”
“Yes, to change our minds, you’ll need a report very fat—against this bunk, we’ll both go to bat!”
 “Hey!” protested Gneeecey. “Youse two can’t—”
 “You’ll have to take us down to the mat—we assure you of that!”
 SFX: [Applause] “Ay! Ay! Ay! Ay! ” 

Heads held high, the councilperson and county freeholder marched back to their seats. SFX: [Sneakers Squeaking]
 Gneeecey hammered his gavel. [Wood Demolition Bang x 3] “I’ll sanitize youse both for contemptible replooplication of vowels an’ consonants!”
 All twenty-four Markmen stared the sisters down as they chomped on Rindom Doodles.
 Gneeecey spat his cigar to the floor and began chewing up and down his right forearm.
 I stifled a yawn. My writing hand had gone numb.
 Massaging his shaved, cucumber-shaped head, Steve Squiggleman tapped his gold watch. “Look what time it is.” It was the annual season of Blirg, and it was getting earlier and earlier as time ran backward.
 “I’ve gone without breakfast,” complained Manny Meantwell’s brother harry, patting his protruding belly, “and won’t get any sleep before dinner.”
 “We’ve been fighting for hours,” said Burt Shisskey. “Let’s just leave 345 on the ballot. Let’s leave this for election day—let the people decide.”
 “With all due respect,” added Mary Shisskey, “these pamphlets are just glossier editions of the old ones—they’re not saying anything new.”
 “Or,” called out Verna, as she marched back up front, “anything that makes sense!”
 “Right,” concurred Vlotta, pointing to Gneeecey. “Some folks are so dense!”
 Applause thundered through the courtroom. SFX: [Applause]
 Gneeecey, who’d run out of gavels, removed his left sneaker and pounded it until reeking clouds of dust obscured his face. “Vlotta an’ Verna—or whoever youse stinkin’ are—I’m sicka your snarkasm. I’m citin’ youse for contemplation!”
 “Yeah?” shrilled Verna, competing with donkey-humanoid intern Stu Pitt’s screechy feedback. SFX: [Mic Feedback]
 Jaw clenched, Vlotta sprinted back up to the microphone. SFX: [Sneakers Squeaking] “You think we’re that mealy?”
 “You,” the twins crooned, “wanna find out what we’re made of, really?”
 “Youse two threatootenatin’ meee?” asked Gneeecey.
 “Enough!” proclaimed Jacob J. Qwertyuiop, portly basset hound-like canine-humanoid president of the Alphabet Exchange, and the commission’s usually affable, if not invisible, vice commissioner. “Like Mr. Shisskey says, leave 345 on the ballot—let the people decide. Seems
 we’ve got a vocal minority here that just won’t quit. We’ll never reach consensus this morning.”
 “Morning’s over,” grumbled Squiggleman. “It’s past dawn. It’s almost night.”
 “I do want to go on record,” added the bespectacled Qwertyuiop, “and state that I agree with what most of our citizens say in the latest poll—”
 “Whaaat poll?” demanded Gneeecey.
 “The Pooper-Scooper newspaper poll that came out today—says we’re not happy eating, drinking, breathing, or wearing mierk. My son Jacob, Jr. is only six, and his fur’s coming out in patches. His teacher says he’s having trouble concentrating. Mierk is poisoning our—”
 “Look, Qwertyuiop,” interrupted Fred Seemingwhale, the Humpty Dumpty-like CEO of MierkoZurk mining. “You say we should stop arguing, then you start all over again—”
 “A man’s allowed to express his opinion,” countered Qwertyuiop, “and his concern for his family and community.”
 “Mierk is safe—our Grate Gizzygalumpaggis, a scientist himself, says zodd poses the real threat—”
 “Seemingwhale, you mine miercoles, and you process it in that polluting eyesore of a mierkolatory, then you pump the by-product, the mierk—into everything—”
“You lie!”
“You slop up the riverbanks and cause inversions,” continued Qwertyuiop, remaining cool. “In fact, the other day, on the thruway, the mogg was so thick, I couldn’t see the nose on my face, much less the car in fronta me—”
“We wish we couldn’t see the nose on your face—” SFX: [Audience Laughter]
“You and your companies are posting record profits,” charged Qwertyuiop. “Why in Bogelthorpe’s name would you want to change anything?”
And you just happen,” added Squiggleman, “to be a voting member of this commission. Smells like a conflict of interest.”
“Our employees have been coming down sick,” said Manny Meantwell. “Might be from working with mierk. Let’s get to the bottom of this! I make a motion calling for full public disclosure of MierkoZurk and its subsidiaries’ financial records, plus the names of all board members, officers and major stockholders.”
 “And silent partners,” chimed in Harry Meantwell. “I’ve always said we need a regulatory oversight agency, y’know, like that SEC they have on Earth!”
 Gneeecey began gnawing on his wrists.
 Qwertyuiop nodded. “I second the motion.”
 Squiggleman sprang out of his seat. “Passed! And I move that Mr. Seemingwhale recuse himself from today’s vote!”
 Seemingwhale leaped up. “Hey!”
 “I second that motion!” exclaimed Harry Meantwell, as Seemingwhale’s beady eyes inflated to the size of grapefruits.
 “Passed!” snapped Qwertyuiop. “we need to change how we do business around here!”
 Gneeecey’s mouth finally opened. “Change is dangerousical!” he wailed, wringing his hands. “Change is baaaaad!”
 “Change! Change!” roared the crowd. “No more mierk! No more mierk!”
 “Order in this crummy court!” screeched Gneeecey, pounding an extra gavel he’d managed to find. [Wood Demolition Bang x 3] “Let’s read our pampooplets again—everybody, turn to page two.”
 “How mehny tiams can vee keep rrreadin’ deeese tings? Vhut eeet says herrre is naughtin’ nyeeeuw,” objected Ingabore Scriblig, Gneeecey’s therapist and proprietor of Ingabore’s Vegetarian Meatball Express. The stocky, gray-haired human woman, born in Planet Eccchs’s Bozovian region of Yuckenstadt—proud home of legendary composer Zirbert Shriekensobb, and Flea, Flubbubb, and Gneeecey—hadn’t lost her heavy Eccchsian accent.
Squiggleman threw his hands up. “We agreed to call it quits!”
“Look, Steeevoooven,” said Gneeecey, “we’ll vote to removerate 345 from the ballot. Then, all the trouble will be over—we can go home!”
“Surely,” Vlotta Vern shrieked, “he doesn’t think he’ll have the three-quarters majority needed!”
“Evidently,” added Verna Vlott, “my lunchtime remarks went unheeded!”
“Okay,” began Gneeecey, “all in favoovor of remooveratin’ 345, shout ‘ay’! If we all say it fast—wit’out even thinkin’—we can leave!”
The good diroctor’s nerdish, soprano “ay” contrasted with the Markmen’s deep, unearthly rumblings, and Seemingwhale’s defiant, elongated tenor utterance as everyone else remained silent.
“Don’t hear no ‘nays’!” whooped Gneeecey. “‘Ayes’ got it!”
Mary Shisskey jumped up. “Just a minute! You never gave anyone a chance to say ‘nay’! And those guys in the gray suits aren’t members—they’re not authorized to participate!”
Burt popped out of his chair. “And as Grate Gizzy—and head of the commission—you’re not supposed to vote either.”
“And neither is Mr. Seemingwhale,” added Mary.
Grinning, his eyes narrowed, blond, big-nosed Mark aimed a plump index finger at the Shisskeys and pulled an imaginary trigger.
Squiggleman rose. “Diroctor, you sure tried to pull a fast one!”
Gneeecey’s kisser opened wide, but his vocal cords didn’t vibrate.
“Keeping 345 on the ballot,” explained an impassioned Verna Vlott, “lets the people decide whether or not to enforce a moratorium on mierk, and clean up our shameful waste sites!”
 “Yes,” agreed an equally fervent Vlotta Vern. “Mierk bites! Let the people decide whether or not to redevelop our riverbanks and make them beautiful once more!”
 “Yes,” said Verna. “Let the people say what they’re for! Removing 345—no way!”
 “I hereby move,” proposed Vlotta, “to have all members not in favor of removing 345 from the ballot, shout ‘nay’!”
 Verna smiled. “I second that motion—then we’ve all got a say!”
 Jacob Qwertyuiop rose. “I third it!”

SFX: [Nay]
 “Order! Order! Order! Order!” squeaked Gneeecey. [Wood Demolition Bang x 3] “Youse can’t dooo this—youse ain’t followin’ corrugated parloolimentary proceeedure!”
 “We are,” replied Verna. “All members in favor of not removing Question 345 from the ballot, say ‘nay’!”
 The naysayers nearly blew the roof off the old courthouse.
 Victory flashing in their pie-sized eyes, Verna and Vlotta joined hands and pranced in circles, singing, “a coupla strong daughters, way more’n three-quarters! We won, we won, we hit a home run!”
 Gneeecey’s yapper opened so wide, a 747 could’ve zoomed inside.
 Qwertyuiop adjusted his steel aviator frames. “Election’s on Octvember 68th. I move that we meet Octvember 64th, to begin official proceedings, demanding full disclosure, as Mr. Meantwell moved, from MierkoZurk, PassGass, and everyone else involved here. I also move
 that we adjourn and go home!”
 Burt Shisskey raised his hand. “I second both motions!”
 Fred Seemingwhale shot Gneeecey an icy glare, then marched toward the side exit.
 “Qwertyuiop,” yelled a middle-aged man, “for Grate Gizzy!”
 “An’ whaddabout gettin’ us home, back to our planet?” shouted a Rottweiler-like canine-humanoid.
 “We want Verna an’ Vlotta!” cried several beagle types, raising their fists.
 “They’ll get us back!” squeaked a Chihuahua-like woman.
 “Woof!” exclaimed Gneeecey.
 “C’mon, ya Iggarooney,” snarled Gneeecey, sneaking out through the courthouse’s back door.

SFX: [Door Open]
 Gneeecey stopped short when he saw the mob of Markmen puffing away on cigarettes in the dark, dumpster-scented alley. SFX: [Scary Ambience]
 Red-haired, broken-nosed Mark—a frequent visitor to the mansion—loosened his flashing necktie. “Ya told us ya had all the votes lined up.”
 Gneeecey wedged his left sneaker underneath one of his wet armpits. “Thought I did.”
 “You’ll hafta do better’n this,” warned a tow-headed Markman, whose Blirg-lit buzz cut glowed lavender.
“Yeah,” agreed a curly-haired, graying Markman, looking Gneeecey up and down. “Ya got beat up by a coupla girls.”
I bit my tongue.
The redhead blew smoke in Gneeecey’s face.
“Careful wit’ them cigoogarets,” advised the good diroctor, coughing as he pulled his left sneaker back on. “Youse guys catch fire easy. I eat my cigars.”
 “Don’t worry ’bout us,” replied blond, big-nosed Mark, unbuttoning his tight vest.
“An’ we’re thinkin’ ‘bout chargin’ ya for them pamphlets,” said the brown-haired creep who had cooed sweet nothings in Imbroglio’s ear.
“An’ your driveway,” added the blond. “Even your good buddy Seemingwhale jus’ told us ya better get’cha act together, or else.”
One by one, each scowling Markman stepped up to the curb, stamped out his cigarette, and stole away into the Blirgian night.
As Gneeecey fumbled with his laces, a blue-helmeted sparrow—chased by two green-clad adversaries—slammed into his snout. Their microscopic football bounced into his wet eyes. SFX: [Football Referee Whistle]
“Lousy birds!” he yowled, walloping his schnozzle until the feathered footballers rocketed up into the violet, cloud-streaked skies.
“C’mon, Diroctor,” I whispered. “let’s go home.”
A tear trickled down his dirty cheek. 

SFX: [Cinematic Boom A] [Music Logo Big Band]

We hope you enjoyed this week’s episode! We thank Marysol Rodriguez, Sal Solá, Sandi Solá, Marcellina Ramirez, Rick “El Molestoso” Rivera, Diane L., Brunie Cariño, Toni Aponte, and Aileen Bean for being generous supporting members through BuyMeACoffee.com.

And thank you for tuning in to “Perswayssick Radio: Unearthly Comedy.” We hope you enjoyed traveling to this loopy dimension with us and that you’ll come along again! Our new episodes drop every Tuesday morning! Please make sure to tell a friend! And keep on laughing! 

Frank: It’s a Gneeecey thing! [SFX: Door Slam] ###