
All the World's a Stage - Shakespeare
Master Bates Himself
As the Psychopomp for Wealth Bondage, Master Bates is responsible for stage sets, lighting, costumes, props, and extras. He constructs simulacra of University Classrooms, Confessionals, Altars and Pulpits, News Desks, the Steps of Congress, Aircraft Carriers in the Gulf, Mock-Ups of MT Rushmore, Scenes of Wanton Destruction, Toppled Statues, Cheering Crowds, or whatever a particular client requires. He procures the books in the bookcases behind politicians in scenes marked with gravitas. He provides whips, chains, clamps, police truncheons, tear gas, gas masks, protective riot gear, nuclear blast protection hats, handcuffs, straight-jackets, zip ties, rope, electric prods, gurneys, medical tables, various instruments of torture, fruits, vegetables, pillories, stocks, dunking stools, spanking benches, benches of justice, gags, spreaders, crosses, meat hooks, as well as office furniture, a podium with microphones and backdrop with the key words punched up in Big Type; he gets the gunny sacks, guillotine, electric fences, barbed wire, ball and chain, Fortune's Wheel, and much else.
Master Bates is also in charge of procuring whatever Hot Amateur Talent may be needed for a particular scene of Wealth Bondage Power Exchange. Adjuncts, Full Professors in Academic Regalia, policemen, delivery boys, speech writers, students, children, dogs, horses, cats, nonprofit executives, Jesters with Bells, secretaries, clerics, Nuns in Wimples, newspaper reporters, dust-covered soldiers, hot and sweaty football players, cheerleaders, traveling salesmen, Farmer's daughters, weeping mothers, Sisters in Pigtails, neighbors, pundits, dock workers, feminists, gamekeepers, Supreme Court Justices in majestic robes, marginalized Mexican groundskeepers, sissy maids, butlers, chauffeurs, dog-walkers, trust officers, philanthropic consultants, tax attorneys, CPAs on the take, hookers, babies in arms, bar-keeps, stooges, stool pigeons, and more.
Master Bates is best known as the agent and handler for Pony Boy, having taken him from a Dude Ranch in Palestine, TX where he was giving pony rides to the local kids, to the Blue Grass of KY, where he won top honors as a gelding. Pony Boy under the Guidance of Master Bates is always Running for Something. A polished Trotter, Pony Boy gets $400,000 a night just to pace himself around and around the Oval Track here at Wealth Bondage. With Mistress Candidia in the sulky, he is the odds on favorite to win the Derby again this year.
Master Bates likes to watch. Although WB would not be possible without him, and each of our scenes shows his adroit hand, he works out of sight, for the most part, in the control booth, bringing up the footlights, directing the music, calling in the special effects, cuing and fluffing the actors and actresses, seeing to last minute changes of costume, plumping his gelding's empty codpiece, and whatever else it takes to keep our Viewers on the Couch, spellbound, until they too are called to enter the Dance of Life and Death at Master Bates' command. For this is theater in the round, Reality TV, where the boundaries between actors and audience are blurred.
In short, Master Bates pulls together the many pieces needed to make our Masquerades a rousing success, and to keep you coming back for more. He creates the illusion that is reality -- for upon this stage we enact the entire world.
One more point, for the benefit of our other quests, please turn off your beepers and cell phones. Anyone who disturbs the illusion, will be dealt with summarily by Brothers Ashcrop and Chainy. Brothers and Sisters in Bondage, put your hands together for Master Bates!
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