McSweeneys didn’t want what Tara and I wrote, but y’all do, right?

Excerpts from security briefings written from Golan Cipel to Jim McGreevey, discovered after the former was fired from his position as New Jersey Director of Homeland Security when an investigation into his qualifications revealed his resume listed him as an “Israeli poet.”

It’s a report that’s so dire that of hope you might starve
But New Jersey’s security, it just isn’t parve
(In fact, it’s a shanda. But I’ll fix it. So nu?)
–From the introduction to Plots That’ll Make You Plotz, February, 2002

From the south’s Atlantic City to the north’s Hackensack
The evilest doers are still planning attacks
From most public square to the most private bowers
From the unguarded coastline to our sort-of-tall towers
From your small private business or those large ports commercial
To that glitzy Bar Mitzvah of my brat nephew Herschel
If we can’t prevent it, they will just run amuck
And then who here will feel like the world’s biggest schmuck?
–From Let’s Be Honest: New Jersey Is, Like, America‘s Thirty-Second Most Likely Terrorist Target, March, 2002

They seek to disrupt lives and to progress forestall
Like a drive to the shul or a trip to the mall
‘Til we can’t even relax in our home’s own recliner
Or at the early-bird special at the Wall Township Diner
–From A Latke Good That’ll Do You, April, 2002

Wall Township Diner. Try the whitefish salad. It’s geshmak. Seriously.
–From Addendum to A Latke Good That’ll Do You, April, 2002

They are jealous, you see, of the freedoms we prize today
Of the Six Flags worth of adventure down at exit 7A
It’s too bad that Al Qaeda must surely abhor
Seven Starbucks in six miles along that stretch of Route 4
What a shame it would be to see Jersey fercockt
With our Mall at Short Hills full of bargains so stocked
We can’t let them lay waste to our miles of bright shmattas
And our record stores carrying Perlman sonatas
For them to come here is a pretty big shlep,
But they need to destroy us to keep up their rep
–From View From My Boss’s Limo On Our Way To The Shore On Memorial Day Weekend (dictated, not read), May, 2002

I don’t mind confessing, this job is the pits;
I try not to worry, but I still have to shvitz
It’s a worry I think all New Jerseyites feel…
So I’ll drop it here now, and just wrap up my spiel
Just go on, live your lives, let your summer begin
If give up our freedom the terrorists win
Our liberty’s trampled as if by bulls at Pamplona
When we’re armed soccers moms in our Kia Sedonas
–From Death Drives a Minivan, June, 2002

We’re none of us safe, whether straight or you’re queer
Whether John Q. Public or Golda Meir
To finance this fight, all must tighten their belts
Fighting terror’s not cheap; it’ll take lots of gelt
If only I knew I could derail Al Qaeda
By cashing in savings bonds sent from my Zeyde
–From Y’all Should’ve Known From This Moment That Something In My Résumé Was Horribly Awry, July, 2002

We’ll be vigilant until we’ve extinguished terror’s last spark
And so what if the power goes farkuckt, I’ll just sit here in the dark
–From Solutions To Common Terrorism Threats, As Proposed By My Mother, Ina Cipel, During A Trip To Pathmark To Buy Numerous Brown Foods In Preparation Of The Family Dinner For The High Holy Days, August 2002

From that terrible day when panic first swirled
When chai plus one terrorists changed our view of the world
For cowards and weaklings, the bastards mistook us
And then, ‘fore we knew it, they’d kicked in our tuchis
–From Go Fuck Yourself, Mohammed Atta (unfinished), September, 2002