INTRO TO THE FORENOTE

You are currently staring at, if not studying, a re-issue of documents originally published in the 1980s. Thanks to a small change in technology since then, it became possible to include vintage video clips of Mr. Shrub here, most of which have never been seen.

The sequel to this volume (Singing CIA Agent George Shrub Explains the World Away, 1991-2011 – available here) includes many documents never before published.

Please send any questions, comments, or mild recriminations via email by way of david3 at lippnet dot us. If they’re sparkly enough, they’ll be added to this book on this site, on the “dust jacket” page. You can also do so at the Shrub facebook page.

NB: Use the red bar at the bottom to navigate to next or previous page. Or use the table of contents to jump around.

FORENOTE TO THE PREFACE

There’s a saying in the wacky world of standup comedy that as a comic, each time you grab the mike, you either kill or die. Now of course there’s nothing remotely humorous about the CIA*, despite the efforts of the singing CIA agent we encounter here. And no one would ever refer to George Shrub as a standup guy. That said, it is often said that in his years of performance tours, he often killed—massacred, even—the truth. And if the audience happened to die laughing, that was just collateral dommage.

It’s a dubious pleasure for me to be able to present Shrub’s collected musings and Anal Isis, collated for the first time with video clips from his Counter-Intelligence Cabarets, at which attendance was of course voluntary, but strongly suggested.

Dave Lippman
April 2022

*When asked about the similarity between his name and that of a former CIA Director, he brandished a redaction marker and suddenly disappeared.

PREFACE TO THE FOREWARN
by George Shrub

There follows an attempt by a self-styled “anti-interventionist” “songwriter” to ease the reader into my complex but entirely Right presentations of the Committee to Intervene Anywhere’s perspective on current events in Our World. Don’t take him too seriously. Not only are his views skewed, but he openly practices a form of international intrigue known as “satire.” (At press time this was still legal, with certain exceptions.)

Mr. Lippman was selected by the Committee to be closely observed over a period of time during his extensive travels. Due to the rigors of the road, we devised a cover: the agent must appear as a singer himself. Thanks to my not inconsiderable talents at verse and oratory (which had not been of much use in more traditional Committee work), I was chosen for this assignment. The rest is history, but I won’t trouble you with that here. After all, those who do not understand their history will have the opportunity to repeat it.

FOREWARN
by Dave Lippman

I’m sorry. I’m sorry that George Shrub has been foisted upon an unwilling world. But as long as he’s here (and it’s already been too long), I may as well tell you a little about him.

George Shrub, M.D. (Monroe Doctorate) first surfaced as a backstage manipulator of the Reagan for Shah Campaign in 1980, working with such groups as the Ladies Against Women, Students United for Apartheid (SUFA) and the Coalition Against Central America (CACA). The result was the coronation of His Affluence Ronald I.

When the agent re-appeared at the time of the Grenada Rescue, it was clear he had been re-assigned to the cultural front. I came to know him all too intimately as he tailed me around the country, demanding equal time at my concerts. As my songs tend to be critical of United States foreign policy, whether implemented abroad or at home, he felt obliged to set the record Right. I was obliged to give way to his peculiar brand of anti-folksongs and interventionary anthems.

As the audiences seemed to be amused, if not enlightened, Dr. Shrub felt emboldened, and began speaking out without rhyming—that is, in sentences that ran to the Right margin and thus by definition could not be considered poetry.

Many of the documents collected here were first delivered as addresses at what I still maintain were my concerts. Other articles appeared in the various newspapers around the country that could be strongarmed into printing them.  Enjoy, if possible. And learn as little as possible. The more you learn, the less you know.

Copyright 1985 by Dave Lippman