Good evening, and
welcome to another session of Let’s Talk to Anyone with a Gizmo. I’m your host, Kathy Minicozzi. Our guests today are two of the most famous
political figures in the world: Her Majesty Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt and
His Majesty Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte of France. Welcome.
CLEOPATRA: Thank you.
NAPOLEON: Merci.
Let’s begin with
you, Your Majesty.
CLEOPATRA: Call me Cleo.
Alright … Cleo. If you were to advise a beginning politician
of today, what do you think is the most important thing you would say?
CLEOPATRA: Two things.
Get rid of any siblings and give yourself to a powerful man.
You are talking
about Julius Caesar, right?
CLEOPATRA: Who else?
He had the power and I had … well, you know what I had. If you’ve got enough of it to take a smart,
powerful man and turn him into a quivering mass of jelly who will give you
anything you want, it’s stupid not to bring it out and flaunt it in his face.
 |
| ... and hope the powerful guy looks like this! |
You were in Rome
when Caesar was assassinated, right?
CLEOPATRA: Oof!
Yes. I wasn’t expecting that to
happen. It was just supposed to be a
nice, romantic interlude in Italy. I had
to get away fast before someone came after ME.
I went back to Egypt, where I was queen and people had to do what I told
them. It was safer that way.
It certainly was,
and we are glad you escaped. Your
Majesty, Emperor Napoleon, what advice would you give to today’s inexperienced
politicians?
NAPOLEON: Mon Dieu!
What did she say about getting rid of siblings? No.
You don’t do that. You build up
an army, go into neighboring countries, conquer them and put your brothers on
the thrones of those countries! Family
is everything. It’s hard for a country
to rebel if your brother is the king.
You hear that, Joseph? Don’t say
I never did anything for you!
Well …
NAPOLEON: And I was the most powerful man! I did not have to seduce anyone in
power. Women fell all over ME!
Yes, well, I guess
the Italian family tradition was strong in your case.
NAPOLEON: Are you crazy? What Italian tradition? I am French.
Corsica was owned by France when I was born there, and it still is. Fifty million Frenchmen say that I am French,
so it must be true.
Yes, certainly.
NAPOLEON: Don’t forget that.
I won’t. Your Majesty … uh, Cleo … after the death of
Caesar, you took up with Mark Anthony.
What was the result of that?
CLEOPATRA: Well, I thought I had picked another winner,
but I miscalculated. That’s one of the
dangers of politics. You make what you
think is a good decision, and you wind up behind the 8 ball. It happed to Marky and me. He killed himself, so I did it, too. I didn’t want to fall on a sword like he
did. That would really hurt, and make a
mess. We had some snakes around for an
emergency, so I used one of them. Much
easier.
Your Majesty the
Emperor, you were eventually defeated in Russia, and you were finally, once and
for all, defeated at Waterloo. What
advice would you give?
NAPOLEON: Stay away from the Russians. They don’t mess around. That place is BIG and it gets really cold in
winter. You have never seen such snow
and ice. They don’t share their stuff
with invading armies, either. Don’t
expect them to welcome you with a nice bowl of borscht, unless they are trying
to give you a bad case of stomach gas.
Hmmm.
NAPOLEON: Be careful of the British, too. They’re tougher than they look. Wellington wasn’t just a pair of boots!
Well, our time
seems to be up. Thank you, Queen
Cleopatra and Emperor Napoleon, for your time and your expertise.
Please join us
next week when we will feature some unknown but hilarious humor writers who need
people to buy their books. Until then,
good-bye.
