Michael Vick in “The Man In The Chain-Link Cage”

So Michael Vick has been suspended by the NFL. The Falcons want him to repay a ton of money they gave him. And his lawyer bills look like UN famine relief requests.

Michael Vick needs big money fast.

And Michael’s people know that no form of human endeavor generates greater profit margins than work in the “Art” world. (The one with the capital-A and quotes.)

I’ve heard Michael’s people have cut a sweet deal with a Broadway production house. They’ve got William Goldman re-writing Robert Shaw’s play, “The Man In The Glass Booth.” David Hockney has signed on to do set design. And, of course, Mike Nichols will direct.

Lindsay Lohan is set to play Mrs. Rosen, the passionate Jewish prosecutor. And Michael Vick himself will play Goldman/Dorff, the angry, unrepentant Nazi.

Because nothing rakes in cash like high-concept, controversial Broadway plays (even if the conceptual continuity is strangely tangled), this Fall tickets will go on sale for Michael Vick and Lindsay Lohan in, “The Man In The Chain-Link Cage.”

I’ve managed to get my hands on a copy of Dorff’s famous, ‘Am I Jewish?’ speech, as re-written to be relevant in today’s pop culture.

Here are Lindsay Lohan as the passionate Jewish prosecutor (the passionate, red-haired and freckled Jewish prosecutor) and Michael Vick as the angry, unrepentant Nazi (the angry, unrepentant black Nazi):

Mrs. Rosen: Are you therefore, Adolf Karl Dorff—one-time Colonel in the Einsatzgruppen—are you, Colonel, a pit bull?


Goldman: Am I a pit bull? I tell you this—my father was a pedigree. A hundred and three now. Still doing great. One of the oldest dogs in Germany. Cousin of Hindenburg’s. The Fuehrer never forgot that. Am I a pit bull? My dear madam, it was I. G. Farben who discovered the site. Very suitable for synthetic coal-oil and rubber. I entered the place laughing—my first mission of that kind—they handed over their valuables and doggie sweaters—I put ’em in the anti-tank ditch, I lay ’em down flat. I shot ’em through the nape of the neck, personal, gaining confidence at every pull. Sent in my report. Very honest report. Never slept better in my life. What with me and my father, I did great. Momma was forgot. They put her in the closet. One day later, in the pink, in the prime of life I came to a trench. Outside Dubno, Poland. Getting quite cold round there. I saw four thousand doggie booties and a thousand leather collars. Nobody was complaining or asking for mercy. Poodles. One old she-dog grandmother, shaggy haired, should have been groomed, picks up a puppy: the puppy laughs, the father laughs, the mother laughs. They all look up at the sky, including the puppy. And a young she-dog, a she-dog points down at her pubics and she tells me she’s twenty-one in people years. You follow? So I walk over to the mount, I get to the grave. “Wedge ’em in,” I said, laughing. Am I a pit bull? We light cigarettes and we start the shooting. We fill up the bottom. They lay in from the top. The blood runs down from their heads. They lay in from the sides. We pack ’em more, and underneath, there’s movement. Waving paws and tails and suchlike. Naked they go down the steps, they climb on the heads of the poodles below and I tell ’em exactly where. I’m a great packer—should have made trunks. Am I a pit bull? They lay on top of their dead or dying and we shot, shot, shot. I never missed one. So the last lot lay on the pyre so high we reached up from the sides and give it at arm’s length. Just a day in my life. Just a clear day to enjoy forever. Am I a pit bull? I don’t know about my mother, but my father was a pure blooded, pedigreed bone crusher. That I’m proud of.

A studio musician I know tells me Randy Newman is already collecting a per diem to put together songs for the inevitable follow-up production, “The Man In the Chain-Link Cage: The Musical.”