To fill the gaping wound created by our newly found political interest now that the election has come and gone, we must turn to something similar but much less exciting. The American public has spoken and the methadone to our heroin shall be: relentless speculation as to who Obama will appoint, pick and deem to be our cabinet members, committee chairs and superior alien overlords. It is actually JUST LIKE that episode of West Wing where they show where everybody was when they were asked to join Bartlett’s staff. Remember how CJ fell into her pool? Good times.

Unfortunately, we are still months away from an Obama white house and little is certain as to who will comprise this federal dream team. What we do know however is who will not be asked to serve at the pleasure of the 44th President of these United States. The man who took the roundhouse kick off the streets and into our living rooms, the legendary actor/sportsman/hot air balloon pilot: Chuck Norris.

At the premiere of Madagascar 2: Escape to Whateverwhocares on Friday night, Norris leaked to VH7’s VJ Kinney McTranny that he was promised a spot in McCain’s cabinet. “Nothing was set in stone, mind you, but the phrase ‘Secretary of Defense’ was being kicked around,” said Norris. Norris went on to express disappointment at McCain’s loss and trepidation of an Obama presidency. “I will run in 2010 if I have to!” Norris yelled into a camera at one point during the interview.

Norris is one of many celebrities who has of late found themselves getting involved in political matters. While wildly popular amongst Hollywood elites, the citizens of Main Street, USA seem to prefer their celebs to stick to the gossip pages. All this was inferred by watching Norris’ ratings dip on Pollster.com. And so Norris will remain, as wed prefer he did, safely within our television sets, far, far from having real politcal power. Can you imagine what would happen if we actually gave an action hero poltical power? For some, this dream might have already become an all-too-real nightmare (I’m looking at you, California) but for our nation at large, it is not too late to hope. Hope that Norris stays the hell away from Washington, D.C.

The species Surpribus noritus, or South African spotted wild frog, is a tiny purple frog that was thought to have died out in the late 1980s. They once thrived in the dusty slopes of Cape Town’s Table Mountain. Overpopulation in the area and special protections made by hunters for the blue winged table grouse, a common predator of the spotted wild frog, decimated the species. Or so we all thought.

Published in the New England Journal of Anthropology last week was a second-hand account of a frog spotting. A now deceased rogue “Norrist,” while studying the habits and rituals of action superstar Chuck Norris, apparently became dazed and wandered too close to his subject. Once in the fist span of Norris, he spotted several purple lumps amid Norris’s virile chin adornment.

As if this revelation was not shocking enough, the nature of the frogs’ reproductive processes is so strange that it has been Wikipedia-ed more times than “Clay Aiken gay.” The frogs are of the “gastric brooding” variety, meaning that they lay eggs in their own stomachs. They then turn off their gastric juices, birth the eggs, and carry them through the larval and tadpole phase. The bizarre creature then births the young frogs, fully formed, out of their mouths.

Scientists asked to comment on the finding shared shock, dismay, and in one case, an eerie knowing. “It is quite strange,” conceded Dr. Wyland P. Frank, “and yet it makes total sense. I can’t think of anywhere one would be more likely to find a frog vomiting out other frogs than in Chuck Norris’s beard.”

Since the discovery, rumors have been flying that Columbian druglords want the frogs in order to smuggle cocaine over airplanes. The “biochemists” supposedly possess the technology to reverse engineer the genetic makeup of the frogs so that their stomachs will support large amounts of cocaine, while hiding it from drug sniffing dogs. These rumors have mostly been coming from the Chuck Norris camp. Mr. Norris, the man himself, held a press conference Tuesday morning to announce that while he is extremely honored to be the chosen sole ecosystem for this species, he simply cannot allow them to continue to exist due to the threat they pose to International security and American liberties.

Norris, the 68 year old martial arts champion and media star, says that he has always found the opera to be a “beautiful, moving tribute to Enlightenment philosophy and the triumph of the human spirit, even if it was written by a Kraut.” He thanked Steel for giving him the opportunity to broaden himself and try something he had always dreamed of as a boy, but never imagined he could have achieved: directing opera.

“Many people don’t know this about me,” said Norris at the announcement of his directorship, “but for a lot of my childhood, I was a complete pussy. Obviously, I’m no pussy now and that means there’s gonna be a few changes to the Magic Flute. If any of you have any complaints about that, I have no qualms whatsoever with kicking you into next week, waiting around until I catch up and then kicking you right back here. Take a look at that guy bleeding in the corner. I already did it to him.”

“I will also kick anyone that complains about my use of the space-time continuum,” added Norris, addressing that there is much that might confuse those who are not masters of Chun Kuk Do, the martial art he himself created.

In the original opera, Prince Tamino is saved from a serpent by the lady assistants to the Queen of the Night. The Queen then enlists Tamino’s help in freeing her beautiful daughter Pamina from the sorcerer Sarastro by promising the young prince Pamina’s hand in marriage. Tamino is given a magic flute that can change men’s hearts and he sets out with his sidekick Papageno to win his lady, enduring several trials before the lovers are finally united.

In the updated, “Chuckified” version, the fight with the serpent will dominate the first Act, ending with Tamino destroying the beast with lasers from his eyes. The Queen of the Night, impressed with his fighting skills and his animal magnetism, will beg to sleep with him and ask that he free her daughter. Tamino will refuse her advances in an eloquent speech about the inherit evil of premarital sex, but agree to free her daughter only because the challenge against Sorastro is so great. In Act II, Tamino fools the sorcerer into an epic martial arts competition, which he wins by doing a back-flip onto the sorcerer’s shoulders and crushing his skull by flexing his thighs. Tamino and Pamina are then married and the opera ends with Tamino winking at the audience as his blushing bride leads him to the bedroom.

“Besides changing the plot,” continued Norris, “I think I’d like to maybe see about translating it into English so we understand what the hell they’re singing about. And the music’s a bit dated, frankly. I’m thinking about getting the guy that does the music for Law and Order maybe. I don’t know, it’s all a bit up in the air.”

Mr. Steel, who spent most of the announcement on the side of the stage with his head in his hands, simply shrugged when he was asked why he had given so much power to so unusual a director. “We can’t keep performing operas if no one comes to see them,” he said. “We’re trying to reach out to the general public and spread a love of opera to people who normally wouldn’t come watch it. Mr. Norris has the ability to get many levels of the public excited enough to keep our company from bankruptcy, regardless of whether we have to sacrifice all our artistic integrity or not.”

After a three-week run at the the Music Hall in Dallas, the opera will tour public schools throughout Texas. Educators are hopeful that some scrap of the original material will remain to inspire their students, though it seems less than likely. Martial arts trainers, on the other hand, are ecstatic.

“We’ll be providing all of the stunt training for Chuck,” says Bryce “Lee” McDowell, owner of Kung Pow Fighting School. “The man himself will actually be in our school for a special tutorial on November 12th, so mark your calenders, kids, and come meet the man who can watch an entire 60 minutes program in only 20 minutes!” McDowell continued, quoting from a popular website called The Truth about Chuck Norris that encourages readers to send in made-up “facts” about the legendary figure.

The opera is expected to draw the largest audience the Dallas Opera Company has ever seen. If things go smoothly and the Chuckified opera is well received, there are talks of adapting it for an ice show in winter. Tickets for the Magic Flute, running at the Dallas Music Hall for the first three weeks of November, are on sale now.

Moments later, sweaty but with a mouth fun of Funyuns, I sat down with McBride on the porch of her Los Angeles bungalow. Eyes bright and glittering, she recounted for me the exciting afternoon five days ago when her life changed forever. The sun was setting over the City of Angels, the thick layer of smog on the horizon caused the evening light to take on a warm, reddish glow. I had just finished my Funyuns, thrown the crumpled bag half-heartedly towards the gutter and wiped my greasy fingers on my khakis. I breathed in deep, the aromatic smells of car exhaust at my nostrils and leaned back, my elbow making a head-on collision with the prize saguaro of the McBride Family cactus garden. After several minutes of cursing and Mrs. McBride chastising me while pulling spiny little knives of my arm, I decided I wasn’t getting paid enough for this and drove my Yugo the mile back to my house.

Once there, I logged onto the internet. I thought, what better way to express this intriguing little bit of news than going straight to the source? I mean, the first lesson of journalistic integrity is to get it from the horse’s mouth, right? Lesson Number Two is how to Copy & Paste. I didn’t go to Journalism School or anything but I’m pretty sure that’s how this works. So. Without further ado:

Hey everyne: Sk8trLvr69 here. Check it out! K. So I;m just like totally walking down Venice Blvd right cause I have this thing on my arm, it;s like totally gross I won;t even go there but that’s where my doctor is. So I;m walking walking walkingboring and I pass McFishy’s Fish Shack with has like this totally rad outdoor seating area I guess you’d call it a patio and I see this guy. Red hair. Beard. Sunglasses. You know wear this is going, I know! IT”S CHUCK FREAKING NORRIS!!!!! I could not believe it. I totally whipped out my phone to take a pic but then I realized he woudl totally see me and I have to act chill for the Nor-man, right? He like invented kicking ass. And dude. The best part. He is like eating a fish sandwich. Just totally chowing down. He must LOVE fish sandwiches. It was totally the highlight of my lfie. Ok gg. So Sorry I didn;t get a pic but you wouldn;t either if you were in the pressence of the Nor. My brother Jaime is like this totally amazing drawer and he’s going to sketch a pic later which I;ll totes post asap. Peace out for now.

McBride posted the above commentary at 2:34pm and it immediately became an internet phenomenon. By 3:45pm that same day there were seven Facebook groups dedicated to the sighting, with “Fishy Norris” and “Chuck + Cod = <3” competing for most members. By 4:30pm a T-shirt depicting Norris punching a fish and reading “Gotta have my sammies” was sold out and McBride’s post had been accessed more times than the Otter Holding Hands, Lion Hug, and Panda Sneeze videos combined.

Norris, who climbed to fame in the 1980s with such media classics as Cooking with Norris and Chuck’s Buck: A Critical Look at the Global Economy, has released his plans for a new multi-media system that threatens to turn the art community on its head. The system is a comprehensive educational tool that promises to teach, train and certify Joe, Jane and Jimmy Q. Public in the ways of Antique Appraisal. “Charles’ All-in-One Antique Appraisal Entity” includes instruction DVDs, Internet classes, bi-annual colloquiums, and Norris’s patented “Learn-a-thon” workbook. Purchase of the $29.99 system–which comes in a tall, extremely heavy, brass cylinder–also grants the owner free and unlimited access to ChatWithChuck.com, Norris’ website for 24 hour Q&A and Appraisal Troubleshooting. When asked why the purchase price remains so low, Norris explained that he believes antique appraisals should be available to all, regardless of income level. Representatives from Norris, Inc. cited his generous and charitable spirit, showing the crowd a photo-essay depicting Mr. Norris donating several ornate ottomans to families in need.

Norris waxed lyrical earlier this week, expressing his heart-felt desire for the American public to embrace “the infinitely fulfilling science of appraising,” emphasizing its ability to “connect each and every one of us to the past that bore us into this present” as well as our ancestors “for those of us who have ‘em.” After a twelve-minute tangent about the emotional poverty of orphans and what we can all do to help them (“sedatives”), Norris returned to his topic of antiques. In a move that was both shocking and inane, Norris declared that his first love, commonly thought to be his late horse Daffodil, is in fact finding, appraising and restoring antiques, particularly Civil War era weaponry and Yuan Dynasty textiles. The Texan Ranger went on to assert that appraising is his “one true super power,” shattering widely held beliefs among twelve year old boys that Norris can make himself invisible at will.

Hailed by many commoners with gleeful and blind reverence, this news was ill-received by members of the art world near and far. Many at the press conference were visibly shaken and appeared unable to mask their reactions. Several prominent critics were in tears and more could be heard muttering French and German curse words. Appraisers and Dealers Union Local 378 released a statement Tuesday morning expressing fear and anger over Norris’ “ignorant and utterly foolish disregard for our elitist hierarchy.”

Norris, Inc. has not offered to respond to the ADU’s comments at this time. Although an anonymous source from inside the Norris camp hinted that the ADU should check their mail, as they are likely to soon be receiving “a portmanteau full of whoopass.”