Dastardly Dan

Today Organ­ic Mechan­ic mag­a­zine brings you the first install­ment of the vil­lain­ous side of our Heroes and Vil­lains of the New Mil­len­ni­um Series. Pre­vi­ous inter­views with Cap­tain Spacepants and Side­kick Suck have now been linked to.

Organ­ic Mechan­ic: Das­tard­ly Dan, that is an inter­est­ing name. How did you come up with Das­tard­ly Dan?

Das­tard­ly Dan: Well, I was born Richard Klipslophski…er, well, the cat’s out of the bag now isn’t it? See? That is why I nev­er do these inter­views. I just end up say­ing things I should­n’t, like my legal name. Now what? Great. So, any­ways, yeah, now that the cat’s out­ta the bag, I was born Richard Klip– Wait. Can you? Will you edit this part out for me? Not put it in the inter­view? I mean seri­ous­ly. The last thing I need is some­one know­ing my for­mal name. You know, I may be a crim­i­nal mas­ter­mind, but I, too, am fear­ful of iden­ti­ty theft. Plus, on top of that, I am still want­ed for some pet­ty theft I com­mit­ted when I was 18. So, could you edit…

OM: We could.

DD: But will you?

OM: I’ll check with my edi­tor.

DD: Ok, thanks. I’d appre­ci­ate that. And you don’t know how much I would appre­ci­ate that. It’d be a big help to me, real­ly. I just don’t want my name out there, you know. Once it’s out it’s like a whole big thing I don’t wan­na have to deal with, real­ly. Every­one will swarm on my fam­i­ly, and mom and pop don’t real­ly need that. It’s best that I just go by my new name Das­tard­ly Dan. So. Can we start this inter­view again?

OM: Sure.

DD: Ok. And, thanks again. I real­ly appre­ci­ate it.

OM: So, Das­tard­ly Dan. That is an inter­est­ing name. Where’d you get it?

DD: Well, I was born Richard– Dammit. DAMMIT. See. Now I did it again. This isn’t… Ok, can we pick up from here? You’ll edit this out right?

OM: Sure.

DD: Ok. Well, I have gone by oth­er names. In my youth I was Pete the Wicked, but that sound­ed too pirate-like. Then I changed my name to Sal­vadore the Slip­pery-One, but the guys at the Vil­lian Local 134 gave me hell about that one. When I start­ed steal­ing nuclear waste from pow­er­plants in Super­trop­o­lis, I went my the name “Green Meanie,” but that did­n’t catch on and I was lam­pooned in the papers all the time. Then, going through a fam­i­ly scrap­book, I found that my great uncle was a cat­tle rustler dur­ing the McKin­ley admin­is­tra­tion, and he went by the name Das­tard­ly Dan. I fig­ured I’d adopt it and bring the tra­di­tion back.

OM: But you don’t steal cat­tle.

DD: No. My plot is to take over the world, hav­ing all of its inhab­i­tants turned to slaves, min­ing for salt­peter in an effort to build a gun pow­er­ful enough to shoot a rock­et-sized bul­let at the moon, caus­ing the said satel­lite to explode, send­ing mil­lions of frag­ments of the once heav­en­ly body into orbit around the earth, mak­ing the night sky on this plan­et the dark­est it has even been, and then rul­ing the world with pure evil.

OM: Sounds like quite a plan.

DD: It is.

OM: And how do you finance all of this.

DD: I have a Mas­ter­card.

OM: A Mas­ter­card?

DD: Yes, see, it’s right here (Takes out card. It’s account num­ber is 3445–4500-0000–6666.)

OM: I see.

DD: Yes. It’ help– Wait. You did­n’t write down the account num­ber did you?

OM: The account num­ber?

DD: For the Mas­ter­card?

OM: No.

DD: Ok. Well, you’d need the expi­ra­tion date, too, 9/08. Wait, I should­n’t have said that. Can you…?

OM: Edit? I’ll check with the edi­tor.

DD: And you DIDN’T write down the account num­ber, right? I thought I saw you writ­ing some­thing…

OM: Just what you say, real­ly. Some notes.

DD: Ok.

OM: So you are well known for your evil laugh. Can we hear it?

DD: Oh, come on, I’m embar­rassed?

OM: Just once?

DD: Ok. Ok. (bash­ful­ly) Mwa­ha­ha­ha­ha­ha­ha­ha­ha! (echoes)

OM: That is some evil laugh. Chill­ing, real­ly.

DD: Thank you.

OM: Some­thing both­er­ing you?

DD: Yeah. Are you sure you’ll edit out the part with my for­mal name?

OM: Sure.

DD: And you did­n’t take my cred­it card num­ber, right?

OM: Just some notes.

DD: Ok. I just wor­ry. I have a rep­u­ta­tion you know, for evil. It’ll be hard to focus on my evil exploits when I am wor­ry­ing about iden­ti­ty theft and things like that.

OM: Under­stand­able.

DD: I have an appoint­ment to keep. How long will this inter­view last?

OM: As long as you want it to.

DD: Ok, one more ques­tion.

OM: Ok. Giv­en the cur­rent socio-polit­i­cal cli­mate in the Unit­ed States, and giv­en the fact that a scant 35% of all reg­is­tered vot­ers actu­al­ly reg­u­lar­ly take part in the elec­tion process, to what do you account the fact that the nation, which sta­tis­ti­cal­ly is so polit­i­cal­ly divid­ed, is actu­al­ly rep­re­sent­ed in the media as a left-lean­ing, lib­er­al soci­ety, most like­ly to accept things like gay mar­riage, gun con­trol, and abor­tion rights?

DD: (blank stare)

OM: Thank you for your time Das­tard­ly Dan.

DD: You are SURE you will edit this?

OM: Thank you, Das­tard­ly Dan.

DD: Ok. Yes. You are wel­come. God, I hope you edit this.

This inter­view was con­duct­ed by one Eric M., a man in all ways juici­er than your aver­age avo­ca­do. The views expressed in this arti­cle are not nec­es­sar­i­ly the views held by any­one any­where at any time. This inter­view is under his copy­right. It just appears here. Yea ver­i­ly, all your base are belong to us.