Bush Buys a Round.

The first week in July, replaced the vacationing Dick Cavett as narrator for the Broadway run of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. My old high school teaching skills came right back, since it was my job to ride herd on a raucously interactive audience that had grown up on midnight art house showings of the movie.

Parents brought their kids to the theater and, on ancient ritualized cues, yelled out the most scabrous things at me and the cast. Their children sat gape-mouthed at their parental units spewing forbidden obscenities. Brad: "Asshole!" Janet: "Slut!"

In an uptight First World, it was wonderfully, riotously transgressive. I encourage people to continue the tradition and give a shout whenever they hear the names of George or Dick or Rummy or any of the other horrors ranged before us.

During all of July, I breathlessly awaited the debut of the "new" CNN, which stood for Condit Nookie News. Its latest motto: "We're doing things different!" Forgoing adverbs? Muzzling Tucker (asshole!) Carlson? It wouldn't have hurt the network to do some actual investigative journalism to honor the memory of Katharine Graham by finding out what really happened to J. H. Hatfield. He was the author of Fortunate Son, the Bush expose conveniently squelched just before the election. Hatfield, forty-three, died of an apparent suicide, or so we were told.

Just as the corn was getting high as a GOP elephant's eye, I began celebrating the imminent arrival of my tax rebate check by doing voluntary rolling blackouts with Jenna and Barbara. Whoopee!

The tax rebate is a lot like Bush (I can't hear you!) down in some rough and tumbleweed Texas watering hole, buying a round of drinks for everyone.

It cost the IRS thirty million bucks to send out notices with that old punchline "the check is in the mail." As it turns out, the kickbacks are not for everyone. They are part of the Voodoo White House tax-relief-for-two-heterosexuals package, even though the Census showed that there are more NASCAR than nuclear families.

I loathe those who cavalierly say that $300 will buy them a moderately priced dinner in the Hamptons. Three hundred dollars is a hugely needed cash influx for some people. As if they will ever see it.

We've started our own renegade rebate group. Our motto is, "Payback is a bitch, so be one." We're pooling our money and going to choose one of the following group plans:

* Pay Dick Cheney's utility bill. Old Tick is hooked up each night to his recharger, and it costs. He wants the Navy--last I heard, one of those pesky government groups--to pay it for him. Hi Sailor! Want to see my three-pronged adapter? We'll cover his bill so the Navy doesn't have to do private fundraising luncheons on crowded submarines.

* Underwrite a month of Weight Watchers in the White House. Started in May, the group chaired by Mr. Karen Hughes meets every Tuesday, and has lost a total of 150 ugly pounds. Help them lose 180 more, and impeach George Bush.

* Hire our own private investigator to find out what did happen to J. H. Hatfield. We will not hire any investigators from the D.C. area. They are busy. They might get more done if they didn't spend so much time being interviewed by "fair and balanced" FAUX news.

* Make little grab bags for the Salvation Army Kettles come holiday time. I can't tell you everything that's in the goodie bag. Suffice it to say that the aroma will be more fecal than faith-based.

* Sponsor as many new voting booths as we can afford for Florida. One of our members wanted to have little gold plaques with "This is James-Baker-Free Space" welded over each entrance, but she was voted down.

* Invent a long-range TelePrompTer scrambler for widespread civilian use. The small hand-held device emits a laser beam that shuts down W.'s TelePrompTers, effective within a three-block radius.

Kate "Let's do the time warp again" Clinton is a comedian.