Mind Thoughts... with Michael Ian Black - I Will Kill You

The New York Times published an article a couple weeks ago detailing a government “kill list,” which is a list of enemies targeted for assassination, personally approved by President Obama. Some people will want to debate the morality and legality of such a list. Not me. Instead, I’d like to offer my services as an assassin.

To be clear: I have no fighting skills, have never served in the military, am opposed to violence, don’t exercise, have no knowledge or skills related to weaponry, require comfortable accommodations when I travel, and am 40 years old. Which means I am such an unlikely candidate to be a top-secret government assassin that I am actually A PERFECT CANDIDATE. Nobody would ever suspect an out-of-shape, C-List basic cable comedian with limited organizational skills to be a world class killer.

President Obama, please let me kill our enemies, foreign or domestic. I am available to kill terrorists, militants, communists, anybody who might stand in our way of winning Olympic gold, vendors of bad sandwiches, and any contestants in the popular Eurovision song contest. I will NOT kill women or children, although this is negotiable if it’s REALLY important or if I get a bonus (I will leave the amount to your discretion).

Lest you think I am just some goofball with visions of assassination grandeur, let me outline my methods for killing, say, a top-level al-Qaeda operative/Eurovision song contestant. It would go down like this: first I would gain his trust. Second, I would kill him. Finally, I would make my escape by running across rooftops and then jumping to catch a dangling ladder hanging from a dirigible.

I know it probably sounds crazy to receive this sort of offer through the pages of an online magazine, but that’s what makes it so brilliant. Terrorists don’t read VICE. Nobody does. If anybody is looking at VICE at all, it’s because they are looking for pictures of boobs. We both know you only found this article because the NSA tracks all online communication with the keywords: ‘terrorist,” “assassination,” and “Eurovision song contest.”

The moment this article hits the web, some faceless government flunky will pluck it from cyberspace with a big red sticky on it that reads, “TOP SECRET.” From there, it will work its way up the chain of command until the Spymaster General presents it to you with this question: “Should we take this guy seriously?”

Yes, Mr. President. Yes you should.

If you’ve ever seen my work, you know I am a tremendous actor/comedic improviser. (See: me fucking the shit out of Bradley Cooper in Wet Hot American Summer. I was not attracted to the future People’s Sexiest Man Alive, but I acted like I was.) Think about how valuable an asset a tremendous actor/improviser like myself could be to your targeted assassination program.

Example: some terrorist and I are walking along the Champs-Elysees discussing plans to detonate a nuclear warhead over New York City. We stroll past a Hermes shop.

Terrorist: That handbag would look gorgeous with my balaclava.

Me: No, that handbag is bourgeois capitalist filth.

Terrorist: You passed my test and have earned my trust.

Cut to: Two seconds later. That fucker is lying dead in the street and I am leaping from a rooftop onto the ladder of a dirigible.

This is just one example.

Look, Barack, you don’t have to give me a yes or no right now. I will be waiting. Waiting until you need me. Until then, you know where to find me. At home. In my sweatpants. Eating pretzel twists out of a bag while watching Spongebob. Thinking about freedom.

And death.

But mostly I’ll just be eating pretzels and watching Spongebob.

Previously - Let's Not Fuck, Shall We?

Hunting terrorists? Try these:

What Is al-Qaeda?

The Mungiki, the Taliban, and Me

@michaelianblack