Problem Addict

I thought he said Taliban

2011-11-23T17:15:00.000-08:00

I thought he had said Taliban.

I thought that when Eric Greenwalt leaned into the microphone, cleared his throat, held up his finger, started coughing, said “Excuse me,” drank some more whiskey, and leaned back into the microphone, he had said, “This next one is called The Taliban.”

Eric and I had talked about the reading earlier in the week. After he’d laughed for an uncomfortably long time regarding at my inability to finish stories in a timely manner, he’d told me that he was going to write about a subject that he knew nothing about, that he was going to broaden his horizons. Actually, he’d said that he was going to kick those horizons right in the teeth.

I listened as Eric took another sip of whiskey and leaned back toward the microphone. He paused, before speaking in a voice that sounded like a gravel fight, fixing a hard look at the audience.

“Hey Mr. Tally Man, tally me bananas.”

If you’d told me earlier that week that my friend, Eric Greenwalt, wasn’t going to write about the Taliban and would instead lift his first line of dialogue from the song Dayo, also known as the Banana Boat Song, popularized by Harry Belafonte and that audience members wouldn’t whisper “Isn’t he directly quoting Harry Belafonte’s Banana Boat Song?” I would have hoped that I was not drinking liquids, because those liquids would have come out my nose with the force of a non-water-saving showerhead.

If you were to tell me that the subject of Eric’s story was a young New Zealand girl finding love with a poor tally man on a Honduran banana plantation in 1884, I would have said, “OK, you’ve had your fun, why don’t you just drop it now?”

If you’d told me that the girl’s name would be Sassy, I would have told you to shut your mouth.

I thought I knew what to expect from Eric’s stories, every one read in a voice so deep that could vibrate quarters off a table: stories that ripped out your heartstrings like a ditch digger pulling out tree roots. Eric’s stories were scratch tickets of rage and betrayal, stories about drunks ground out like cigarettes, autobiographical stories set in a harsh desert where God never failed to disappoint, and his noir detective stories with Callahan, Sam Callahan, where someone always had to die. But nothing he had ever written prepared me for a period romance set on a 19th-century fruit farm.

I mean if you had told me that nowhere in his story set on a banana plantation would there be a machete fight or the slightest sniff of machete-based violence, and, in fact, the most erotic part of the story had the Tally Man removing Sassy’s corset tenderly with the aid of a machete, I would have shouted that you to stop filling my head with lies.

If you had would have told me that I would not laugh every single time Eric said “buh-nuh-nuh” because that’s apparently how New Zealander Sassy pronounced “banana,” I would have shoved you hard because I was unable to articulate how upset that pronunciation made me.

I looked around as Eric read, his voice as booming and ominous as a tractor-trailer coming down mountain pass at night with bad brakes, and the audience was enthralled. But if you told me that I would not have started coughing up bile when the evil foreman is stabbed with a banana, or that I would not shout out “You’re killing me!” when the character of Sassy says that the Tally Man’s heart is like an overripe banana, black on the outside, but sweet and soft on the inside, I would have put my fist right through a bathroom door in frustration.

When Eric read the last line of the story—where kind, old Mr. Charles patted Sassy’s shoulders as she wept over her dead lover, the Tally Man having been fatally bitten by a tarantula from one of the banana bunches Sassy herself picked—that last line of dialogue where he says, “Do you know why I love bananas, Sassy? Because when you turn them on their side they look like a smile,” if you told me that I would not jump up and scream, “Are you fucking kidding me?!” and instead I’d fall to my knees in pain for Sassy’s loss and thinking that a banana is really, actually, like a smile, I would have leapt from my chair, run directly into the wall, and then slid down it slowly, weeping in rage and confusion.

And, if you would have told me about the intense, dark jealousy that would boil up inside me when Eric Greenwalt wrote an amazing love story set on a Honduran banana plantation, I would have said, “That doesn’t sound like me”—but inside I would know that sounds exactly like something I would do.

The Surrender Committee

2011-11-15T01:51:00.000-08:00

Nobody noticed the signal from space at first. It was coming across on the AM radio band for nearly a year, and nobody said anything because the AM radio audience was too small and too used to men yelling incomprehensibly about subjects they did not understand. But scientists finally discovered that the voice that announced it was coming to Earth to enslave humanity, belonged to the Grand Mott, the commander of enormous space fleet from the planet Vitoopria.

Of course, when the majority of the population heard about this message, they did what people do when an alien species announces its malevolent intentions, they panicked. There was looting, a huge uptick in liquor sales, and more than one fundamentalist father praying for guidance on whether he should mercy kill his oldest child first or start with the youngest child to save them from the aliens. Though, it’s true that the looting might have had more to do with societal injustices, the liquor sales might have been due to Daylight Savings Time, and the fundamentalists, well, anything could have set them off. But, even then, there was still panic.

In the midst of this hysteria and fear, scientists made a very important discovery. They had pinpointed the location of the fleet, and in doing so, realized that the Vitooprians weren’t going to arrive for another 300 years. The scientists announced that not only was there time for people to live happy and die peacefully, if that was their wish, but there was time for the next seven generations of their family to do the same. Plus that was 300 years for the worlds’ militaries to think up horrifying ways to kill aliens.

It was also at this point that it was decided that there must be a response to the Vitooprian message, which would require some delicacy, as it had suggested that the Vitooprians might not know that they had 300 more years of travel.

People who tuned in for this first communication between the people of Earth and the whatever Vitooprians were, turned on their televisions and saw a split screen, with one side featuring a small green room. Sitting at a conference table were two women, one older and very pleasant looking, one younger and slack-jawed, and between them, a middle-aged man with uneven patches of frizzy hair and sweat stains the size of basketballs under the arms of his short-sleeve shirt.

A moment passed with the three blinking blankly toward the camera, and then the Grand Mott fuzzed into clarity on the other side of the screen. An enormous Gila monster-looking creature with a tall starchy vampire collar, he narrowed his terrifying yellow eyes and hissed at the screen, “Who dares...”

“We surrender!” blurted the man with the weird hair and the stains, and then, after the older woman whispered into his ear, he added “Unconditionally!”

The Grand Mott snarled at being interrupted, “Who dares address the Grand Mot, lizard of lizards, copulator of planets, drinker of blood and other fluids?”

“I apologize from the bottom of our collective hearts, Grand Mot,” the harried-looking man on the other side of the screen said, bowing his head to the table, “My name is Roy Flanelle, these are my associates, Mary Richards and Veronica Saturday. We’re the Earth Surrender Committee.”

“I will snap your bones in my teeth, Fishburg. Only death awaits you,” hissed the alien lizard.

“Write that down, Veronica” the man told the younger woman.

“Only death,” the woman said slowly, as she transferred the words from her head to paper using a pencil.

“What are you doing?” the Grand Mott asked angrily.

“Well, as your liaisons for Earth surrender, it’s our job to streamline the enslavement of humanity, to make it more of a satisfying experience for you.” the man now known as Fishburg explained. “As our civilization is based on customer service, it would be our greatest achievement to make someone, in this case, you, Grand Mott, happy.”

That just made the big lizard with the giant collar chuckle.

The Surrender Committee was a group of toadying lackeys and cowards seemingly delighted to handle the administrative work for an evil extraterrestrial who had vowed to send them to the nuclear mines of MagMok 9. As embarrassing as it was to the people of Earth, it warmed the Grand Mott’s persecuting little heart, because he simply loved the power of ordering people around.

What the Grand Mott did not know was that the Surrender Committee didn’t have any power because The Surrender Committee was an hour-long comedy on Showtime, starring John C. Reilly as Roy Flanelle-slash-Fishburg. His associate, Mary Richards, was portrayed by the always-delightful Mary Tyler Moore, and the role of Veronica Saturday was handled, for the most part, incompetently by Rene Zellweger.

However, everybody agreed that the true star of the program was the Grand Mott, or as he was sometimes called, the Mott. A preening, self-centered lunatic who preyed on the weak and thirsted for the subjugation of the human race, he was the perfect villain. Sure, he was an actual psychopath, but he was a psychopath who was more than 175,000 miles from Earth. And that’s what made the show funny.

Thanks to the Grand Mott’s habit of talking about his own genius, it was discovered that the thanks for the coming invasion belonged to Voyager I. For those unfamiliar with Voyager I, it was a probe launched into the deepest reaches of space as a welcoming beacon. As it was launched in 1977, it had a kind of feel-good, “Free to Be You and Me” vibe, and a golden record attached that included pictures of violins, paper-making demonstrations, and senior citizens with balloons tied around their wrists. As the probe passed the planet Vitoopria, the images convinced the Grand Mott that Earth was a planet of weaklings, pushovers, and feeble misfits. Interestingly, the one photo that could have been a deterrent, that of a man measuring a dead alligator, the Mott interpreted as a spa treatment. In the his defense, if you based your knowledge of Earth on the images sent with Voyager I, you would never know of the existence of tanks, aircraft carriers, and AK-47s, or, for that matter, unsmiling people.

On a side note, thanks to this information, a decision was made to launch another Voyager immediately, but this time images of children smelling flowers were replaced by a throat-crushing montage featuring Darth Vader, footage of Mechagodzilla blasting Tokyo, and that scene from Miller’s Crossing where a guy is hit in the face with a shovel and his eyes explode.

Back on The Surrender Committee, the show got even better when the Grand Mott had Saturday-Zellweger beheaded because he just wasn’t “feeling it.” Her last words “Wait, what?” were comedy gold, though the delivery made middle school drama teachers cringe. Interestingly, the Grand Mott was just as trusting as he was tyrannical and he took it for granted that Saturday-Zellweger, much like the other 10,000 people he’d ordered killed, had been executed immediately after she’d been dragged from the room still saying, “No, really, wait, what?”

John C. Reilly’s character, Fishburg, had a special talent for provoking new levels of sputtering rage in the Mott. One favorite subject involved a monument that the lizard of lizards had ordered to be built prior to his arrival. The Mott had demanded that it involve 500-foot-tall statue of him standing on a mountain of human skulls. The statue, he explained, had nothing to do with poor treatment of slaves, it was simply a piece of public art that involved one million human skulls.

This culminated in an episode that started with Fishburg explaining that the statue had been finished. As a smile wrinkled around the corner of the Mott’s mouth though, Fishburg stuttered that there had been some unforeseen difficulties. At this, the Grand Mott’s smile unrolled just a smidge. What began with light bulbs of the wrong wattage and poor signage went downhill from there. And each time the Grand Mott would open his mouth to comment, Fishburg would awkwardly interrupt with another misfortune thing that had happened to the statue. The Grand Mott, a true master of the slow burn, looked more and more enraged, as his fangs started to dribble with poison.

It was toward the end of the show that Fishburg mentioned that the Mott’s head had been knocked off by some careless wrecking ball work and had then rolled into a poorly placed dynamite shed, which Fishburg helped explain with explosion hands. As his heat glands began to turn red and throb, the commander of the Vitooprian began to growl, but before he could say a word, Fishburg interrupted, “Oops, that’s all the time we have for this week” and the Surrender Committee side of the screen went blank. On the other half, the look on the Grand Mott’s face was priceless.

It was the comic genius of The Surrender Committee that got an alien sworn to the enslavement of humanity to spend all his time selecting high school bands for his victory parade and discussing the size of his “Mission Accomplished” banner. Combine that with the Grand Mott ordering an entire high school band from Michigan beheaded for poor choreography and it was People’s Choice Award gold.

There are those that The Surrender Committee and the popularity of the show are an indictment of humanity. That maybe people at heart, are mean-spirited jackasses with too much time on their hands. That by telling the Vitooprians that they need to turn back before they die in the cold reaches of space, it would actually be saving humanity from its own worst impulses. And while their arguments may have had some merit, the question you have to ask these people is, where’s the fun in that?

And then, on occasion, I make a movie.

2011-11-01T13:30:00.000-07:00

Several weeks ago, there was an incident involving my good friend, Mr. Greenwalt, and the door of the men's room at a bar called Vermillion. We decided that the best way to deal with the effect of this occurence was to have a fundraiser at the same establishment involving a short reading by Mr. Greenwalt and a movie production of my own (with many thanks to Grant, Chelsea, and Eric). Typically, you will not see the words "rousing success" alongside the words " though only five people showed up." That is also true for our event. My friends, please allow me to present The Hole.

Animals with Hangovers

2011-10-12T08:56:00.000-07:00

I almost forgot that my book "Animals with Hangovers" is coming out today. It's a book of animal photographs with captions. Since that last sentence is descriptively barren, allow me to explain one of the images: A medium-size polar bear dominates the frame. One of it's eyes is slightly googly, but for the most part this is an average medium-size polar bear. Now that bear is somehow sitting on a lawn chair, though sitting might be the wrong word and it might actually be a park bench. Somehow (and this is when it gets good), this polar bear is wearing a t-shirt that says "World's Best Dad." And the caption, which is written in a soft yellow color, says...eh...this isn't working. The next time you're at your local bookstore, why don't you pick up the book and take a look for yourself? I'd be greatly appreciative. And, if you like what you read, it's a great gift for pet owners and drinkers. It's also the perfect intervention gift as it's a light-hearted way to tell people that they drink too much. Also, please note that there is no photograph of a polar bear wearing a t-shirt.

A Short History of Rainier Beer

2011-09-21T18:59:00.000-07:00

Rainier, or as it is sometimes known: Alibi Juice, the Carbonated Facial, and the Great Emancipator, was originally brewed in Seattle in 1884.

The company was also known for employing the most beautiful women in the city to swim naked through the beer to give it that little extra lilt. Some of these women, in search of greater economic freedom, took other jobs in Seattle as well. This probably had something to do with the “Ring of Rainier,” a distinctive set of sores that surrounded the mouths of Rainier drinkers at the time.

In 1901, the brewery was sold to a man named Adolph Hitler—Wait, I’m sorry, I can’t read my own writing, it actually says the brewery was sold to a man named Kenneth Blumenthal. Under Blumenthal’s direction, the brewery grew and focused sales on the fringe groups that appreciated it the most: transients, drifters, and women. For this same reason, Rainier beer cans began bearing the slogan, “Rainier: Your first step to a very dark place.”

Blumenthal sold the Rainier brewery to a California businessman who sold it as a De-gumming agent.

Five years later, that same California businessman was killed in a train yard by Charlie Chaplin in the world’s first comedy snuff film before anyone realized that there should be no such things as comedy snuff films. The horrifying footage was re-edited and became the delightful Chaplin classic “The Tramp.” Soon after, Rainier was sold to a company back in Seattle.

In 1927, to reduce costs, Rainier started to be made with water from the Duwamish River, a river known for its many “pudding-like” qualities. Some worried that this would alter the taste of Rainier, since fish continually vomiting a combination of DDT, fiberglass, and rusty nails makes up 3 percent of the Duwamish. But any worries regarding Rainier were allayed when health officials realized that 4 percent of the Duwamish is actually Rainier beer caused, sure, by industrial dumping but mostly careless urination.

In 1934, Rainier was briefly sold as “Goodnight Medicine for Overactive Children.” This practice was stopped when overactive children started stabbing people for “goodnight medicine.”

In 1951, the first Rainier was exported to Japan. Japan sent it all back.

In 1967, a publicity photo shoot for Rainier coincided with a downtown riot. Needless to say, a man wearing a Rainier can costume was thrown through a plate glass window by looters. This influenced the new slogan printed on cans and bottles, “Rainier: We don’t want any trouble.”

Between 1975 and 1977, due to complaints, the Center for Disease Control actually listed Rainier beer as a virus. It had a place in the CDC’s sample refrigerator between rabies and rickets. During this time, cans of Rainier were forced to carry a Mr. Yuck sticker.

In 1980, a second Rainier brewery was opened in Newark, New Jersey to increase the beer’s national distribution. This was closed weeks later when it was discovered that, given the choice, nobody else in the country ever chose Rainier.

In 1999 when the brewing facilities were being moved down to Olympia, a beer salesman, who is basically like a car salesman without a inch of soul, told me that Rainier was no longer going to be produced with corn syrup. Also, the brewers were going to “try harder.” I think the beer suffered as a result of both decisions.

Throughout the years there has always been the rumor that Rainier is full of carcinogens. I’d have to ask you, “What isn’t full of carcinogens?” And then you’d say, “Most things” and then I’d change the subject.

Rainier is now made in Irwindale, California with water from Irwindale, California. Some of the highlights of Irwindale, California? Guy Lancelot’s Museum of the American Drinking Straw for one. The 99-cent movie theater is the other.

Rainier is brewed in the parking lot of a Irwindale Jack in the Box by people who have a choice between picking up roadside garbage or brewing Rainier beer. You can taste their aversion to work in every sip.

Looking back at Rainier’s long history in Seattle, it’s hard to imagine the two separated. It might legally be considered poison, but it’s local poison.

So, I’d like to raise a toast to the swift return of Rainier and the knowledge that, like a bad penny or herpes, Rainier will always come back.

Cheers.

I thought God was 7

2011-09-21T18:55:00.000-07:00

It’s been nearly two years since everybody found out that God was a 14-year-old girl named Gwennie. And not just God, she was also Vishnu, Yahweh, Zeus, Odin, and whomever else people felt like praying to.

As an atheist, Gwennie was kind of an unpleasant surprise for me. It’s one thing to bet on the wrong horse, it’s completely another to deny the existence of horses.

My first experience with Gwennie was in front of my house. She had her hair caught in the passenger door of a minivan that was parked there. There was nobody around, so I asked if somebody was helping her. That’s when she started sobbing. I insisted on helping her, partly because I believed at the time that not helping a child in this situation might be a felony. Since I don’t own scissors as a personal rule and a stipulation of my parole, I used toenail clippers to gnaw away at her hair.

“Shanks, mishter,” she sniffled, as she walked away.

The next day was the holy crap moment, when every single person on the planet realized that they had encountered Gwennie the day before in similar situations to my own, whether they got her tongue unstuck from a light post in Finland or helped her up after she was knocked unconscious by a coconut in American Samoa.

Gwennie had a speech impediment, wore a retainer, and had a cast on her left arm with hearts on it. She was absolutely awe-inspiring, like a puppy with an eye patch and a tiny little crutch.

How’d I, like many others, find out she was the Supreme Being? She told me.

“I created the heaven and the urf,” Gwennie read from a card. “I’m all-powerful and om… How do you say zhis?”

“Omniscent, Gwennie.”

“On-me-science.”

“Omniscent. It means you’re all knowing, Gwennie.”

“Shanks, mishter, I dinnit know zat.”

Like I said, she was teeth-grindingly adorable.

Sure, everybody had questions. Big questions such as what did the dinosaurs do wrong, why is there so much evil in the world, can you point at the chosen people, and does your arrival mean that this is the Final Judgement, but then Gwennie fell off her bike, broke her collarbone, and had to wear one of those head halos for six months, and nobody wanted to bother her.

One subject never mentioned by anybody was Jesus. Sure, Gwennie had created the heavens and Earth and everything that inhabited them, but the idea that a 14-year-old girl had a son was kind of wrong. Plus, you tended to forget those larger theological questions when Gwennie sent out the cutest all-cap text messages like “SUPRDUPR” or “KITTIES!”

So, what did religions do after they picked their collective jaws off the ground? Did they disband, now that there was one truth that was plain to everybody. Nope, they all tried to grab a special piece of Gwennie’s heart by appealing to the things she liked best. So that’s why one major religion became the Wizards of Gryffindor after the Harry Potter books. They weren’t alone, other religions morphed into Charm Braceletists, Nail Polishers, and the Church of Jewelry Box Ballerinas. Of course, some religions were always going to get it completely wrong. For example, the Latter Day Unicornists creating an entire religion based on one unicorn poster that was eventually replaced with a poster featuring the kids from that Glee show. Worse was the Church of Universalist Clowns betting that all children love clowns.

Some people complained quietly about an entire culture based on the whims and desires of 14-year-olds, but that was happening long before Gwennie showed up.

If there was a problem with Gwennie, it was her best friend, Marcie, who was loud and laughed like bagpipes. When I paid Gwennie $10 to do yard work, goddamned Marcie ran over a brand new hose with the mower. The two of them thought that was pretty darn funny.

Of course, two years ago seems like a distant memory now. Now we’re standing on the eve of Gwennie’s Sweet Sixteen party, and while I wouldn’t say the streets are running red with blood, they have certainly been stained by blood and have had to be pressure washed.

What happened? Gary. Gary is a 17-year-old jerk, who everybody thought was a cool guy and now realizes is a complete tool. He was supposed to take Gwennie to the Sophomore Graduation Dance. I think we could argue that sophomores don’t graduate anything, but it’s the school district’s idea. Anyway, the night before this so-called graduation dance, Gary broke up with Gwennie for this girl Amelia. Apparently, Amelia’s flower of womanhood had bloomed a bit early.

If there’s a lesson in this it is don’t gamble the existence of all of reality, time, and space on a 17-year-old’s ability to keep his dick in his pants. That is a bet you will always lose.

After the Graduation Dance debacle, Gwennie got moody. She spent a lot of time on park benches, sullenly listening to her iPod. There weren’t cute text messages anymore. Instead you get prank phone calls and there is nothing worse than getting a call with the Supreme Being breathing heavily on the other end of the line.

She ditched Marcy for the cool kids. Needless to say, everybody misses Marcy and her terrible laugh.

Then Gwennie joined the JV cheerleading squad, which was really bad for everybody, because JV cheerleaders were like the four horseman of the Apocalypse, except there were 14 of them and they had less mercy.

For example, I didn’t see them coming when I was mowing the lawn last week and suddenly on of them starts yelling at me, “Hey you fat piece of chalk, put a shirt on!” They all laughed while screaming “Dance, marshmellow, dance!” Then they threw a Slurpee at me. And I couldn’t say a thing because the 15-year-old who created the universe was just standing there, sneering at me and popping her gum.

Some people believed that Gwennie would snap out of it eventually, that she was just hanging out with the wrong crowd. I didn’t know.

Trying to assuage her anger, religions dedicated themselves to giving Gwennie the best Sweet Sixteen party ever. There seemed to be a belief that the best party givers would get the best place in heaven.

So now we are going through the Party Planning Wars as religions are pitted against each other in an international battle for crepe paper, streamers, and conical hats.

This morning, I turned on CNN and watched an argument over a smoke machine between the Latter day Unicornists and Universalist Clowns that quickly devolved into bloodshed. If there is one thing scarier than an adult in a clown suit, it is a burning adult in a clown suit. Watching this, I asked myself why any of this was worth it. Who wanted to believe in a god like Gwennie? A god that was nice one day and in whose name people were burning clowns the next. Why would anyone want to bet on this horse? It made no sense to me. No sense at all.

Then, Gwennie appeared, sitting next to me on the couch typing furiously on her phone. I assumed that I didn’t have much time left.

That was confirmed when I got a text from her of a sideways frowny face. At least, she made eye contact when she deleted me from her Facebook friends.

I wondered what there was to say in my last moments of existence. And then the right words came to me.

“You owe me $10 for a hose.”

Julianne Moore

2011-01-28T15:29:00.000-08:00

In the interest of catching up, here's some audio from the November 20 Bar Room Writers Offensive. We decided to mix things up a bit, so each writer read one piece of another writer's work. My good friend, Mr. Greenwalt, got my piece, "Julianne Moore." I warned him to read it ahead of time. He ignored my warning and I think the results were completely worth it. My friends, may I please introduce the voice of Eric Greenwalt...

Dibs on his first day of watercolor class

2010-08-30T19:44:00.000-07:00

On the first day that time machines were sold to the general public, Sorgum, Minnesota Quilting Hall of Fame member, Peggy Jesperson, traveled back to 9:53 am on April 30th, 1945 and repeatedly stabbed a knitting needle into Adolph Hitler’s eye, killing him, by no means, instantly. Hitler had been about to end his own horrible existence in the dismal confines of his Berlin bunker, but Peggy beat him to it. She had waited overnight at the Apple Store to make sure she was the first to get a time machine and as she watched the Nazi leader’s dying spasms, she was completely satisfied with her purchase.

However, at 9:52 am, April 30, 1945, Levi McHenry of Lower Sorgum, Minnesota, who had been waiting in line behind Peggy, went back in time one minute before Peggy’s arrival and sliced Hitler’s head in half using a samurai sword he had bought at the Sorgum Center Mall’s cutlery kiosk. Even though she was miffed about the intrusion, Peggy still agreed that it was impressive that a mall-bought sword could actually cut a human head in halfsies. Then a minute earlier, Sharona Seidelman, an All-American ice hockey player from Brandeis University, pushed Levi out of the way and uppercutted Hitler in the crotch with a hockey stick so hard that it sounded like a water balloon filled with apple sauce hitting a road sign after being thrown from a car going 135 miles per hour.

Everybody wanted to kill Hitler. In a way, it wasn’t a surprise because everybody had always said that the first thing they’d do if they ever got a time machine was to kill Hitler. However, what was surprising was that everybody actually followed through on this promise. Especially when they could have gone back in time to high school and talked their younger selves out of huffing gold spray paint right before their aunt’s open casket funeral.

So as soon as history recorded another oddly-dressed person showing up unexpectedly in Nazi Germany and killing Hitler in some horrific manner, another time traveler would go back a few minutes earlier and do it themselves. So five minutes before Sharona and her genital-imploding swing, Stanislav Raskovic traveled back to the underground bunker and yelling “Niespodzianka tyłekotwór!” (Polish for “Surprise, asshole!”) dumped a bucket of gasoline over the Fuhrer’s head, followed by a lit Zippo. The lighter was given to Stanislav by a great-uncle who had fought in the Warsaw Ghetto. Unfortunately, a minute before that, Sugarmouth Camden of the Harlem Globetrotters replaced Stanislav’s gasoline-filled bucket with one filled with confetti. The Globetrotters were not so much pro-Hitler as pro-Globetrotter, evidenced by the front of Sugarmouth’s jersey that stated that the Globetrotters were “Available for Corporate Events and Functions.” Needless to say, this was when people started cheering for the Washington Generals.

Alan Alda killed Hitler earlier that day, during the filming of the PBS program, “Scientific American Frontiers: Can One Man Ruin a Mustache Style?” Mr. Alda was supposed to just shave Hitler, to see if the stunted toothbrush mustache was the source of all evil, but ended up shoving the Nazi leader down a flight of stairs. His actions were for naught, however, as the History Channel, realizing that they were being deprived of the person who accounted for 83 percent of their programming, including the programs “Footwear of the Fuhrer” and “What Would Hitler Have Had on His iPod?” had traveled back moments earlier and hastily placed a “Stairs Out of Order” sign.

Two days before the History Channel’s intervention, the Israeli Air Force sent a cluster bomb dressed as a nun back in time, a plan that went awry when the Catholic Church, claiming a level-five sacrilege, sent a priest back to cut the blue wire. Due to immense world pressure, the priest then gave Hitler a seriously inadequate verbal scolding. To protest, the Israeli government immediately sent a small group of highly-trained commandos back to applaud at the Crucifixion.

By this time, there were quite a number of memorable Hitler killings. Jamiqua Wilkes, for example, traveled back in time to when Hitler was watching the sunset at the Eagle’s Nest, his mountaintop retreat. As Hitler was admiring nature, drinking a cup of chamomile tea, and probably feeling pretty smug about destroying most of the planet, Jamiqua took a running start and kicked him right in the jodhpurs. To say Hitler flew off the side of a 6,000-foot-high peak would be an insult to the concept of flying. Saying he plummeted while screaming like bad brakes in a 1972 Dodge Dart be much more accurate.

In actuality, everybody liked the funny Hitler killings the best, such as the time rocket skates were attached to his feet when he was visiting a bayonet factory, or when he asked Himmler, “Ist dass Scott Joplin?” immediately before a piano playing “Maple Leaf Rag” was dropped on him from an eight-story building. In fact, the History Channel stopped trying to interfere when they discovered that “Killing Hitler: The Bloopers” was the most popular show on basic cable. In addition, the video “A trampoline, a ceiling fan, and Hitler” has been watched over seven million times on Youtube.

The problem over time was that killing Hitler had become a logistical nightmare. The person tying Hitler to the railroad tracks was stepping on the toes of the woman who had just baked the Fuhrer a cake with dynamite candles and ruining the fun of the guy who was using a trail of schnitzel to lure Hitler into a leg trap chained to a V2 rocket. Hence, the creation of isittimetokillhitleryet.org, a nonprofit website dedicated to scheduling the demise of the worst person in history on a regular basis. This ensured that the 4.3 billion people waiting to kill Hitler would get their chance, and that more importantly, that for every single moment of his miserable life, Hitler is getting killed.

In fact, right now, back on September 28, 1939, Lucy Schrempf of Bluetail, Alberta is insisting Neville Chamberlain put on a poncho, because she is about to release Lindy Mae, the Hitler-mauling grizzly bear.

Then, five minutes earlier a kid named Stavros Tsocanos is going to dress up like a ghost and scare Hitler when he’s stepping out of the bathtub on to a greased tile floor. That should be pretty good.

Most importantly, there is one thing that everybody who has killed Hitler agrees on, no matter if they hammered him into the ground like a roofing nail with a 122-foot pine tree or made the last two things he encountered a pile of marbles and a running wood chipper.

Killing that jackass always puts a smile on your face.

(From the September 2009 Bar Room Writers Offensive. By the way, we've got another one coming up in October.)

The Boys in the Room (from the last edition of the Bar Room Writers Offensive reading series)

2010-06-29T20:33:00.000-07:00

The current disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is unprecedented in the both the size and scope of destruction. It’s important at a time like this that the victims of this tragedy, those on the frontlines and beaches, understand that British Petroleum is fully committed to finding a solution.

Within nearly a week of the Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 men, representatives and interns from BP were tasked with finding the most qualified individuals to stop an oil spill nearly a mile under the surface of the Gulf. They searched the world for the best and brightest minds in the field of underwater spill suppression and brought them together to pool their expertise in finding a solution. Absolutely no expense was spared in setting up headquarters at the business center of the Houston Airport Ramada.

“I want you to know that nobody in this room has complained. Not once,” says Kevin Kezmin, a vice president of public relations for BP, who has agreed to give us a peek at the center of crisis management. “They’ve been here for almost eight weeks working like cheese waffles—excuse my language I’m very tired—to get a handle on this situation. They’ve been away from their families, they’re tired, and not one complaint. Frankly, I’m about to introduce you to a roomful of heroes.”

As Kezmin leads us into the conference center, one is first struck by the sheer amount of activity, a “buzz” if you will, of the amassed brainpower. But looking around the room, you can also see that searching for an end to the Deepwater Horizon spill has taken its toll on all of them.

We watch one man, his hair sticking up, shirt untucked, push an office chair angrily back from the center table. He rips a piece of paper from a pad and tears at it with his teeth it, muttering, “Dammit, Bill, think…”

Bill Chambers smiles tiredly when we’re introduced. He’s characteristically blunt when asked what he is working on, “The solution, obviously. I’ve been looking at the data from the spill everyday and I honestly believe that if we could get a sea creature, a dolphin most probably, to jam itself into the pipe, we could seriously hamper the flow of oil. What I’m working on right now is developing a process to A) get a dolphin to swim fast enough to lodge itself in the pipe and B) have that dolphin be willing to commit suicide.”

“It’s too bad we don’t have Aquaman to talk to that dolphin,” says the famed director James Cameron, from across the room.

Chambers, the writer on the Aquaman comic book, chuckles. It’s easy to see that the men that BP feels are most qualified to stop a mile-deep oil spill have an easy camaraderie, strengthened by the time they’ve spent together.

“Jim and I kid around,” explains Chambers. “But actually, Aquaman is physically, very powerful. He could crush the pipe closed with his arms, if he, in fact, existed.”

Cameron motions us over to an enormous high-definition display running an incredibly realistic animation of the underwater gusher. We compliment Cameron on the crispness of the image, telling him that it almost feels like we’re watching 60,000 barrels of oil a day escape into the Gulf of Mexico.

“No, it’s not… Here, put these on,” Cameron says, passing out 3-D glasses.

The second we put the glasses on, it is immediately obvious how right Cameron is. The difference is striking. It’s as if we’re literally drowning in a swirling cloud of darkness. When we start screaming, Cameron turns off the display and chuckles.

“Eventually, we’d like to use this technology to come up with possible solutions,” he explains. “But, I need to perfect it first. There is no use skimping on the visuals.”

As we thank Cameron for his time, we are a drawn to a side of the room dominated by white boards. Just the sheer number of dry-erase boards indicates how serious BP is about finding a solution. At one board, Paul Coffey, former defenseman for the Edmonton Oilers, is diligently working. Coffey’s tongue sticks out of his mouth slightly, as he slowly and patiently draws question mark after question mark around an image of a gushing oil pipe.

“Keep at it, boyo,” crys noted actor Daniel Day-Lewis as he slaps Coffey on the shoulder.

Day-Lewis is a handsome man with a bright smile, a smile made even brighter by the fact that he has covered his head and naked torso with crude oil. He takes a moment to sit cross-legged on the conference table and explain a bit about why he is doing what he is doing.

“This oil is part of my thinking process, to give me a feeling of the immediacy needed with this problem. If there is one thing I learned during the filming of There Will Be Blood, it’s that oil is a pet boa constrictor. One moment it’s curling itself sensually around you at a disco as a circle of dancing ladies applaud, and the next moment, it’s strangled the cabana boy. You have to be wary of it, respect it, but you cannot allow yourself to surrender to its oily seduction. By covering my body with oil, I’m empowering myself, and by going up to my room every night and vomiting for hours as my personal assistant bathes me in Dawn dishwashing liquid, I’m also acknowledging the oil’s power.”

Kevin Kezmin tells me that the actor’s intensity has been an important addition to the room, “Here you have this Oscar-winning actor and, on occasion, he acts just like a normal guy.”

If the crisis headquarters has a class clown, it’s Denny Scafaldi, lead singer of 12 am Black Gold, a Midnight Oil cover band from Providence, Rhode Island. As we watch, Scafaldi hides a banana in the lace-up crotch of his ostrich leather pants and then insists that everyone in the room look at his groin. Day-Lewis claps delightedly.

Giving us a little background, Kezmin tells us that BP had originally contacted Peter Garrett, the original singer for Midnight Oil.

“As it turns out, after he left the band, he went on to become a lawyer,” Kezmin explains. “Now, if you can believe it, he’s Australia’s Minister for Environmental Protection. I mean, that’s great for him, but BP felt that having Mr. Garrett here would have skewed the group dynamic a bit. I mean a “Minister for Environmental Protection” is going to come in with preset ideas on how to stop an oil spill, we were looking for people who were more open minded to a journey of discovery on how to stop an oil spill.”

When Kezmin introduces us to Denny Scafaldi, the singer makes a point of telling us that he would have not done the “banana crotch bit,” if Maggie was around.

At our confusion, Kevin Kezmin explains that Scafaldi is referring to 8-year-old Maggie Jacobs, who is at a local Gymboree gymborcizing. Maggie’s gift for stopping oil wells was discovered when she sent BP an image of a unicorn plugging the hole with a gigantic cork.

“From the minds of babes. It’s almost unbelievable that we didn’t think of it,” laments Kezmin, who explains that they are still trying to obtain a large enough cork, as well as find a way to genetically weld horses and narwhals.

Scafaldi, now putting a second banana in his pants, says that he feels that it’s his responsibility to keep the mood in the room light.

“Especially since I know absolutely nothing about stopping oil spills,” he tells us.

“You shut your ugly gash of a cake hole, you two-bit ditchdigger,” roars Daniel Day-Lewis, as he stalks across the room, droplets of oil flying from the ends of his mustache.

“I will not allow you to denigrate yourself like that,” the actor loudly continues. “You know just as much as anybody else in this room.”

“What is the one rule we have in the room?” Day-Lewis asks quietly, poking Scafaldi in the chest.

Scafaldi smiles sheepishly before muttering, “You can’t call an idea stupid until it doesn’t work twice.”

It’s hard to reconcile the sight of the whites of Daniel Day-Lewis’s angry eyes contrasting against his oil-soaked body with the media-driven perception that BP doesn’t care about the current situation. Impossible, really.

We notice one man sitting off by himself in the corner. Kezmin explains that it is Darnell Tapp, who wrote for the show MacGuyver. Tapp was the mind behind the Junkshot attempt to stop the well.

“He’s been really hard on himself the last couple days with the Junkshot not working,” Kezmin tells us. “But I’ll tell you this, Darnell’s got to keep his chin up, because everybody thought it was a winner. I mean how is pumping rope, old tires, and golf balls into a broken underwater oil pipeline not going to work?”

Tapp has gained the attention of the newly-energized Daniel Day-Lewis, who has perched himself on a chair next to the TV writer. “Laddo, as the good Lord is my witness, I will turn that frown upside down. And if we both perish in the process, I will still sleep at night.”

As we are getting ready to leave, we take a last look at some of the white boards that are filled with the proposed solutions that may turn out to be the answer, from “Invent Oil Magnet” to “Some Sort of Laser” to “Wait Until It Stops, Then Pounce.”

We notice that at the top of the list is “Tactical Nuclear Device.”

“It’s the first thing we wrote down,” says James Cameron. “And, if necessary, it’ll be the last thing we cross off. We are that serious about stopping this spill.”

We ask Daniel Day-Lewis if he has any words for the suffering people of the Gulf Coast region and he doesn’t hesitate.

“I’ll tell you this, friendo,” says Day-Lewis, defiantly gnawing on an oil-stained bagel. “I don’t care if every creature in the Gulf is floating belly up, the people need to believe that we’re going to stop this spill. Even if it takes us 100 years to find out how, we’ll do it.”

“Right now, we’re looking at a minimum of 100 years,” Kevin Kezmin says, clarifying Day-Lewis’ comments. “But if we can get our hands on that giant cork, who knows?”

(Author's note: You can also listen to a recording of the earlier version of this story read at the Bar Room Writers Offensive at Barca Lounge on 6/26/2010. I think the newly edited version is better, but I can't tell you what to do.)

I heart shape word clouds.

2010-06-29T20:29:00.000-07:00

2010-06-10T19:02:00.000-07:00

The latest Bar Room Writers Offensive is coming up on Saturday, June 26. Hope to see you there, my friends.

One Last Hurdle to Health Care

2010-04-25T17:50:00.000-07:00

From the latest Bar Room Writers Offensive on 4/17/2010, a choice for those interested. This time, you can read my story (see below) or listen to it through the magic of tiny digital recorders (see belower). For those who listen to the audio track, you get the added bonus of listening to 25 seconds of me silently wrestling a mummy for my story.

Thanks as always to Barca for the hospitality, Dan for being the face and pouring arm of said hospitality, Phil Petrocelli for taking care of the sound, Soultheft Records, and Doug Nufer, Mortimur K, Cristien Storm, and Eric Greenwalt for sharing the same table.

And with that...

One Last Hurdle to Health Care

It’s so exciting to be here on the edge of adequate, affordable health coverage in the United States. I think everybody here can really be proud of what they’ve done and all the work they’ve put into this. What we do here this evening is a single pebble dropped into a calm pond, and those reverberations of that tiny pebble will resonate for generations to come.

Kind of a beautiful image, isn’t it?

Anyway, all we’ve got to do is roll up our proverbial shirt sleeves, put on your actual ski masks, sprint across this parking lot, ignore the woman with the bullhorn telling us that we’re making a terrible mistake, then avoid getting snagged in the razor wire. At that point, you just need to throw a trashcan through those glass doors, overwhelm the trained Blackwater contractors with your rudimentary karate skills, and drag the last insured people in all of Seattle out of that Starbucks and beat the living coverage out of them. Because, once those green aprons have been subjected to the horrors of freeform mob-based violence and their health insurance is canceled, we win.

That’s right, we’re going to fix the health insurance system by destroying it.

I know that not all of you have been with us since the very beginning, so let me bring you up to speed on our logic. You have to think of the health insurance problem as a circle. Here at the top is our goal of getting everybody adequate coverage. But, six months ago, we were down here and the system wasn’t working. Some people were getting to go to the doctor. Meanwhile, uninsured hemophiliacs were dying in the streets due to paper cuts. Have I met any of these hemophiliacs? No, but as an uninsured person with bad asthma and a tendency to use antidepressants as both an ice cream and salad topping, I could understand the fuzzy details of their supposed struggle.

Anyway, back to the circle, there were a lot intelligent people trying to figure out how to fix health care, basically how to get from here at the bottom to here at the top. But it wasn’t working. The insurance companies were way too powerful and a certain Nebraska senator’s vote on reform hinged on his state getting federal funds for a spaceport. Meanwhile, the uninsured were limping through the streets of Seattle like zombies, moaning about neck pains and stiff arms, and bringing their respirtory diseases on public transportation.

And that’s when a group of us came up with an idea.

OK, prepare yourself for the simple solution. The genius moment, if you will.

What if we went in the opposite direction?

Because, if you keep moving around the circle, you’ll eventually get here, to nobody having health insurance. And guess who’s the next-door neighbor of nobody having insurance? Exactly what we were looking for, everybody insured. We realized that once you arrive here, all you need to do is hop over that little fence. Problem solved.

Some have asked why we’d use the circle to illustrate our plan. It’s actually quite simple, my friends, if we used a straight line and having insurance was here on one end and not having insurance was on the other, our plan wouldn’t make any sense.

Also, I know some of you in this crowd have expressed skepticism about this “little hop” and how exactly this miraculous transition from a broken health care system to an affordable, equitable model is going to work. All I can tell you is that maybe you should have shown up for some of the earlier planning sessions. It’s a little late to discuss process when we’re in the parking lot of this Starbucks hiding behind a burned out truck on a night punctuated by random gunfire and the unheeded cries of newly-orphaned children.

Really, I don’t want to be a jerk, but the last night of a revolution is a little late to bring up your serious concerns. My apologies for shoving the truth in your face and telling you to smell it, but really, come on.

By breaking the system to fix the system, we were following precedent. Just like when a person gets struck in the head and loses their memory or consciousness. The way to help that person is to hit them in the head again. It’s also exactly the same as fighting fire with fire, despite what the “fire department” will tell you about the limitations of that strategy.

Anyway, once we had a solution in mind, the only question was how we were going to get to the point where nobody had insurance. Now, if “the people” were reasonable, they would have canceled their coverage when we put up those fliers on the telephone poles. Of course, “the people” were set in their insured ways and absolutely resistant to canceling their insurance. The only way to make our plan work was to get the insurance companies to drop them, and the only way the companies were going to do that is if their customers cost too much money. Ultimately, the only way to help the “people” was to hurt them.

In the beginning, we just tried to figure what would work. We licked forks, sneezed under sneeze guards, and got our friend “H1N1 Charlie” a job at the IKEA ball pit. But, we quickly realized that some diseases and injuries were better than others, in terms of health insurance resources used and the cost of those resources. We needed to make things happen to people that involved as much gauze, MRIs, heart paddles, evacuation helicopters, and batteries of tests as possible. We couldn’t just hurt people, we had to hurt them badly.

I myself spent an hour rubbing a single pecan on the workspace of an insured officemate with a tree nut allergy. Let me tell you that I took little joy in this, because anaphylactic shock is only funny for the first three seconds, when it seemed like we were playing charades and he was trying to convey “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.” I expressed my remorse to him later, after he was diagnosed with a coma. I’d like to think that he squeezed my hand gently, as a way of saying “I forgive you.”

Dropping a handful of consumers who were costing too much didn’t mean much to the insurers at first. They found other ways to compensate for lost customers. For example, a lice diagnosis now required a broken tongue depressor and a colonoscopy. Trauma patients in the emergency room were asked if they preferred to live, thus officially making life-saving procedures elective surgery.

We had to up our effort and that meant we didn’t have an hour to rub our nuts on a co-worker’s World’s Best Dad mug…

Wait. That came out wrong. I really do not want you picturing me desperately rubbing my testicles like a scratch ticket on other people’s possessions.

Anyway, we had to expand our effort and that’s when we came up with the three most effective and expedient methods to further our cause.

1. Pushing people down the stairs
2. A strain of antibiotic-resistant syphilis
and
3. Bear Traps

I can see by the limping and jagged scars that some of you are familiar with this last one. In any case, I want you to know that your pain had a purpose. Believe me when I tell you that there was no malice in what we were doing. I mean if you could save someone’s life by hitting them in the face with a 2x4, hopefully you wouldn’t think twice. I know that in the same situation, I didn’t.

Have things, at times, gotten out of hand? I really don’t want to draw a box around “out of hand.” Certainly, in any great endeavor, mistakes are made and for that I will apologize by bowing for three seconds.

One Mississippi, Two Mississippi, Three Mississippi.

That’s better. Those of you familiar with apology culture will realize that there are deeper, longer bows that symbolize a greater remorse, but you can only be as sorry as you are sorry, and I know we did our best.

Also, in claims of excess involving a certain group opposed to our desires. I believe what we did were reasonable responses to their poorly spelled threats and ever-present Hitler mustaches. I will go no farther on that particular subject, except to say that they asked for it.

Just remember that all of that brought us to this wonderful moment. A moment when we stand up and say, “no more.” By the way, nobody actually stand up because there are snipers on the roofline over there.

Now, let’s acknowledge that elephant in the corner of the burning parking lot. There is no question that some of us are going to get shot. But 70% of people who get shot, get shot in the fleshy part of their no-dominant arm. What you should focus on is that if we accomplish what we’re here for, you’ll be able to have that bullet removed later. Only the dedication and devotion you show today is going to get that bullet out—that and a surgeon.

But let’s not think about being shot.

OK, I can tell by your faces that some of you are still thinking about being shot. Well, I think we’ve come a little too far for those concerns, but I’ll try to give you a couple encouraging words. For the sake of the mission, it would be best to pretend the next words are just for you.

Let me be straight with you. Don’t make eye contact with person next to you because this is message just for you. Just keep looking straight ahead with a kind of glazed look on your face.

Excellent. Anyway, I made up those gun shot statistics. Those Blackwater dudes are pros and once they’re done with this group, it will look like Gallagher went amok in a melon patch.

But somebody has to go first and the only way the rest of these people are going to throw themselves over that fence is if they think they’re the one who is going to survive. I want to assure you at this time that you will survive. Why? Because someone has to be the hero.

You might, at this point, be thinking about the lifetime of poor decisions that have brought you to this moment or maybe you’re regretting drawing a burglar mask on your face with a Sharpie. But please just focus on this moment and realize that you are exactly where you need to be.

If it will make you feel better, take a moment now to look at the person next to you and wish with all your heart that this person dies before you. You don’t have to do this in a negative way. Just encourage their slaughter, not yours. Don’t feel bad about it, it’s only natural. Plus, if you are already contemplating their demise it will make it easier when their contents of their head hit you like a truck driving through a puddle.

No, please don’t look at them all teary-eyed. Give them just 10 seconds of dignity before the inevitable terrible happens. They don’t need your pre-grief, especially since if we are going to do this, everyone has to believe that they are going to make it through this. Let them think it, just as long as you know that you will come out of this completely unscathed.

Just promise me one thing. In the future, when you visit your publically optioned physician and people ask you about what happened here, please remember to tell them about the people who perished today. Sure, I’m getting ahead of myself because they’re standing here and not dead yet, but they will be soon.

Tell them that you did this so they could use their real name the next time they went to the emergency room. Tell them that we did this so they wouldn’t have to drink whiskey al night with a broken hand, just waiting for the morning, when they could clock in at work, fake an injury and claim worker’s comp.

Make sure to tell those future people that while this group wasn’t made up of the smartest people, they were dedicated. Tell them that while we didn’t have the best ideas to fix health care, at least we followed through on them. Also, nobody here probably realized that they were the first wave of a planned fifty to storm this particular Starbucks.

I think that’s it.

Oh, wait, someone suggested zig-zagging across the parking lot might help. If you think that will make you feel better, zag away.

OK, on three.

One, two, GO!

The Last Thought That Crosses Your Mind: Bar Room Writers Offensive reading 1/16/2010

2010-01-22T14:17:00.000-08:00

A recording of my story The Last Thought That Crosses Your Mind from the latest Bar Room Writers Offensive on 1/16/2010. Thanks as always to Barca for the hospitality, Phil Petrocelli for everything from sound to awesome poster design, Soultheft Records, and Doug Nufer, Mortimur K, Cristien Storm, and Eric Greenwalt for allowing me to read with them, as well as use the same chair.

Bar Room Writers Offensive reading

2009-09-17T23:19:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday I had the pleasure of reading with Mortimur K, Cristien Storm, Doug Nufer, and my very good friend, Eric Greenwalt. Thanks to our good friends at Barca for having us and to Phil Petrocelli of soultheft records for handling the sound and creating some amazing fliers. I'm happy to say that after a week of ineffectually throwing myself at a brick wall, I figured out how to get audio files posted. The process was very similar to the plot of Tron. In any case, here are the two stories I read that night, the first is "Dibs on his first day of watercolor class," and the second, longer piece is "They threw snowballs at Santa Claus."

CTHULHU TAKES A HOLIDAY

2009-07-17T01:19:00.000-07:00

I'd like to tell you a story that uses the same Cthulhu mythos as my friend, Ruth Fischer, in her movie Long on the Island. To those unfamiliar with the work of H.P. (Herbert Pencil) Lovecraft, Cthulhu is an interdimensional, three-story octopus jammed on top of a Tyrannosaurus Rex-body with laser eyes. In any case, before I begin, I would like to issue a dire warning. What you are about to read is a horror story, a horror story so terrifying that it might kill you. Actually, it's definitely going to kill some of you. I just have no idea who. Please stay aware of any fainting, intense feelings of dread, pre-mature greying, or embolisms. If you have a pacemaker, please stay away from all microwaves. With that in mind, allow me to introduce...

CTHULHU TAKES A HOLIDAY

Cthulhu's terrible gaze cast over the dark, rolling ocean as his dreams of unholy terror reached out toward innocent minds.

That's when the volleyball hit him in the side of the head.

"Oh geez, are you OK?" asked Barb, squinting up at him, the throbbing redness of her nose and cheeks hinting strongly at a second-degree burn.

"Point," shouted Ryan the dentist triumphantly “Next one's for the match.”

Cthulhu wanted to rip off Ryan the dentist's genitalia and flay him to death with it while screaming, "Stop hitting yourself, Ryan, stop hitting yourself," but he'd promised Barb that he'd leave the unspeakable horror at home while they were on their Sandals' resort vacation. He'd sworn not to shove anyone through the thin veil of sanity and she’d promised not to call her mother.

He'd met Barb, a red-head with legs that went all the way up to her shins, at a Miskatonic Community Center Single Mixer. She was the only woman who had not run screaming into the wall when he'd forced his palpating mass of ooze and flaccid tentacles through the door. In fact, Barb had proceeded to inform him, the seed of a million nightmares, that he was standing in front of the fruit punch jug. He'd asked what kind of adult drank fruit punch anyway and then looked down at Barb with her jam jar glasses and her fruit punch mustache and all he felt with lust.

They'd made great use of that lust over the four months that they'd been seeing each other, though Barb had recently initiated a four-tentacle groping rule, which meant that he had 9,996 idle tentacles waving embarrassedly in the air. She'd also made him drink a 64-ounce bottle of Listerine before oozing in bed. But she withheld comment when he went to the petting zoo to eat the goats, so he really couldn’t complain. When she suggested a vacation shortly after he’d turned an Oklahoma City retirement home into a pit of mindless despair and screaming, seeping, octogenarian demon whores, he was all for it.

They'd been introduced to Ryan the dentist and his wife, Anne, at dinner on the second night of the vacation. The couple was celebrating their second anniversary and the dentist had remembered to bring business cards to hand out to everybody at dinner. "Very classy," Cthulhu had whispered to Barb, as he slurped at the insides of a lobster with his slobber-encrusted mandibles.

Cthulhu and Barb had run into the dentist and wife again at the shuffleboard courts the next morning. And while Cthulhu had never cared anything about shuffleboard before, something about the dentist made him want to win badly. Maybe it was the dentist's overuse of the phrases "boo-yah," "get there, baby," and "where is your fucking head at, Anne?" But as much as wanted to, he and Barb didn't win, they lost terribly. The dentist had pumped his fist and started singing, "We are the Champions." Cthulhu had stared at the dentist unblinkingly and as the sky began to darken, the dark fog started to roll in, and the fabric of reality started to rip at the seams, Barb elbowed him.

"Don't you even start," she'd said between clenched teeth, which caused the clouds to roll away, the fog to burn off, and reality to come back together like Velcro. Cthulhu sulked all the way through that night’s Caribbean luau, even though the bartender had given him double umbrellas in his Mai Tai because of his maraschino allergy.

Over the next week, there'd been more sporting contests against the dentist and his wife. Horseshoes, inflatable kayak races, mini-golf, that weird wooden paddle beach tennis, and quoits had all been losses. Terrible, one-sided losses. And every time the dentist danced and sang his little song.

And through all these horrible defeats, Barb had stood by him. Outside, in the sun, frying much like an egg. Looking at her now, she with her floppy hat, her oversize t-shirt that had “Freaky Deeky” airbrushed on it, and her sun goggles typically worn only by elderly drivers, he felt terribly guilty. He, who had devoured 1,000 universes, felt guilty because even with the three coats of SPF 30, Barb, much like Maverick, Iceman, and Kenny Loggins, had flown into the danger zone.

"Did I get too much sun?" Barb asked. "I feel cold and think I'm going to throw up."

"Oh, Barb," he said, "you really don't want to scratch your nose like that."

“Cthulhu,” she questioned, waving her hand in front of her face. “Do you see flashes of colored light in front of you?”

“Yeah, babe,” he replied, patting her on the back.

“Cthulhu,” she asked. “Does everything smell like 7-11 hot dogs to you?”

“Sure, Barb, sure,” he reassured her, while taking note to mention that particular symptom at the visit to the local emergency room that had swiftly become inevitable.

But all these thoughts were replaced by the dentist saying, "And for the gold medal in volleyball and the sweep of the Sandals resort olympics…" as he prepared to serve. Cthulhu and Barb were leaving the next morning and something in his head snapped. He just wanted, no needed, to win one game. He lost his mind.

So when the dentist served the ball, Cthulhu leaped past Barb and smashed it back to the other side.

"It's tied," he said, grimly, pointing a pincer-like appendage at Ryan the dentist.

The dentist, after chewing out his wife because she missed the block, served and again He of 10,000 Agonies mercilessly crushed the ball back.

"Advantage us. And it’s our serve," Cthulhu said. And then he saw Barb scowling up at him. Shame dripped through his heartless mass.

"It's just a game," she said.

"You're right," he sighed, shrugging many thousand flaccid tentacles.

Barb was right, of course. It was a stupid game. Anyway, the dentist had given him his card. After vacation was over, Cthulhu would visit his office and rip the flesh from his bones before putting it back on in the wrong order and then strip the remains of Ryan the dentist's sanity like an ear of corn. He chuckled at the thought of the doctor's brains igniting like a match dipped in jet fuel.

Barb interrupted his reverie. "You're drooling," she said. "Just serve the ball."

Cthulhu slapped weakly at the ball sending it over the net. The dentist’s wife swatted it to Barb.

"Hit it!" Cthulhu yelled to Barb, as the ball floated towards her.

And she did hit it, in a long, lazy arc that floated to the other side of the net.

"Cheese and crackers," cursed Barb as the dentist looked at the ball greedily.

"Ball," Ryan the dentist shouted, shoving past his wife, Anne.

When the dentist, at the apex of his jump, hit the ball, it exploded off his hand like a rocket, turning into a white blur. Cthulhu felt his one hundred acid-filled pus chambers get a bit more acidic.

The dentist was probably not aiming for Barb, but that's who the ball hit when the white blurry line of the ball intersected with the space her head was located. Hitting her square in the face, a tiny hiss of air escaped both the ball and Barb, who thudded to the ground. Cthulhu wasn't sure if it was the intense sunburn or the trauma to her skull, but Barb was clearly unconscious. But more importantly, the ball was still in the air. In fact it was the perfect set, he'd tell her later at the island's hospital as she hit her morphine button like a game-show buzzer.

As he leapt toward the ball, glancing down momentarily to make sure he didn't land on Barb who was drooling onto the sand, time seemed to stop for Cthulhu. Over by the cabanas, he could see Jean-Andre the towel boy gasp, and best of all, he saw fear in Ryan the dentist's little stupid eyes. It was comfort food for Cthulhu's twisted soul. He roared as he spiked the ball for the win.

He raised his terrible appendages above his head and roared in triumph. Out in the bay, dolphins squeaked in terror and seagulls fell dead.

In a million years of destroying dimensions he had never heard anyone yell, "Yay, Cthulhu!" Of course, that might be because this was the first time he'd gone to a resort with an activity director as endlessly encouraging as Becky.

Becky was also nice enough to draw him a map to the nearest emergency room, as he carried Barb in his tentacles. Carefully, he wiped blood, sand, spit, and what was probably vomit from her chin. He leaned close to her ear and whispered.

“We’re winners, baby, winners.”

It Sounded Good

2009-05-17T20:17:00.000-07:00

From A Body: In Three Parts, a reading I did on May 2, 2009 with Doug Nufer, Mortimur K, and Eric Greenwalt. Each writer's piece had to mention a corpse, rain, a dinner party, and NPR. One point I'd like to make is that I decided to rewrite the entire story starting at 2 am on May 2, 2009. A side note, I'd also been drinking on an empty stomach. With that said…

It Sounded Good

First of all, I’d just like to throw out a general apology to everybody involved in this terrible incident, just a universal “my bad.” Mistakes were certainly made, terrible, horrible, unforgivable decisions, and I definitely deserve my portion of the blame. Having had the time over the last couple months to think about it, I believe my part of the blame comes out to about 4 percent. But now is not the time to discuss how little at fault I am, because in the end, I shouldn’t have done what I did, I shouldn’t have listened. It’s just that she made it all sound so good.

I thought that every word that came out of Marisol Blithington-Ort’s mouth was a little, delightful present. She was the voice of KUOW and made Terri Gross, Sylvia Pajoli, and other public radio people sound like butter knives shoved into paper shredders. When Marisol spoke, nobody doubted that what she was saying was reasonable and knowledgeable and true. It didn’t have to be reasonable, knowledgeable, or true, and it rarely was any of the three, but nobody cared. That was Marisol’s magic.

As a coworker of hers at KUOW, I can attest to her amazing ability to make even the worst ideas sound great. That’s how she talked the station into letting her host the only public radio show dedicated to murder and local dining, the terribly conceived Homicide Dish.

This special talent of Marisol’s was also how we came to be there the night in question, broadcasting live from the home of the last victim of the Tote Bag Killer.

Let me just read from Marisol’s introduction to that night’s show.

"Doris Kimmelwick had the life choked out of her in this very house, in the very chair I’m sitting in. Or at least within 20 feet radius of where I’m sitting. Probably. Why was she killed? Because she was arranging a séance that was going to reveal the identity of the Tote Bag Killer. On tonight’s Homicide Dish we’ll discuss the bloody trail of sickly death that’s been cut through the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle by the Killer. We’ll also take time to dig up information on some of the victims with the people who knew them best. All that and we’ve got a great recipe for flan. Support for KUOW comes from the Jazz-nasium, where you can shed pounds and inhibitions to the intermittent sounds of improvisational jazz. We’ll be right back.”

To me, that night, it all sounded reasonable. I remember how pleased Marisol looked at that moment, as she leaned back from the microphone, rain falling against the French doors behind her. Then, she punctuated her words with a lightning bolt sound effect, just to make everything sound a little bit cooler. Typically on a Friday night, Marisol and her guests would sit in the studio and discuss the worst details of horrific area slayings and swap brocollini recipes. Ratings showed that the show was extraordinarily popular with the slightly deranged, the inappropriately snacky, and the housebound or those in home detention. The plan for the Capitol Hill show was not supposed to be any different, it was just being broadcast live from a house covered in police tape. Marisol, using her gift, had convinced the police that by ducking under the police tape, or in her case, busting through it like an Olympic runner, she could “enlarge the discussion” and “help focus the spotlight of truth” on the Tote Bag Killer case. Don’t get me wrong, I might sound a little doubtful now but when she brought up the idea of a location show, I was all for it, especially the truth spotlight, which sounded awesome.

Station management agreed with Marisol that it was important to reach out to the Capitol Hill neighborhood, especially since, as everybody knows, every one of the victims of the Tote Bag Killer was from the neighborhood and had been strangled with a KUOW tote bag. The other connection among all the victims, besides the tote bags over their heads, was the fact that they were all previous donors who had not given to the station this year. Of course when this information was made public, people were falling over themselves to donate as life had suddenly become a public radio premium, at least at KUOW. 150 bucks for a handy travel mug and your continued survival seemed like a small price to pay. Of course, people needed the Tote Bag Killer to know they gave, so shows that had been sponsored by the Creskie-Bortwood Foundation and the Center for Continued Research were now brought to listeners by, "James Hillman, his slightly paunchier life partner, Eric, and their miniature schnauzer-collie, Nuggy, who currently reside at 1806 Prospect Street, the little blue house with the cream-colored shutters."

As a employee of the station, I’ve got to tell you that with the exception of the brutal deaths of long-time listeners, KUOW had never been in better shape.

But I’m getting off track. Let me just read another part of the transcript of that night.

"Doris Kimmelwick was strangled with a tote bag commemorating the 47th anniversary of the Benny Hill radio show. One can only imagine that the last thing that poor woman saw before the onset of complete darkness or God, if you’re one of those nuts, was the reverse image of Benny Hill frantically patting a small bald policeman's head. And that is not funny. If you’re laughing at home, I’m going to have to ask you to stop. Moving on, I’m sitting here with some people who were close to the four victims to discuss their terrible losses and enjoy a delicious submarine sandwich donated by our friends at Hazel’s No-Hate Sandwich Center located on the eastside of Green Lake."

I think these words prove that Marisol’s relationship to reality was never really a strong one. In fact, that’s why I was at the house with Marisol and Stevie the Sound Engineer, to help write an apology, if needed, at the end of the show. In this case, the victim's name was actually Cybil Kerning, she was found in her garage during a sunny day, and the life had been choked out of her by a Golden Age of the Three Stooges bag. I guessed that the last thing she ever saw in life was Larry Fine losing a little bit more self-respect as another hunk of hair was ripped from his scalp. Also, police reports said that Ms. Kerning was preparing for a dinner party, not a séance, in fact the table we were sitting at was still set for dinner.

As far as Marisol’s guests, who were eating a six-foot sub on a dead woman’s finest china, they were not exactly close to the victims. Sensibly, families and friends of the deceased had refused to come on. So, Marisol had gotten the people who weren’t so close, like one victim’s Pottery Coach, another’s Dog Walker, and a man whose business card said that he was an Organic Composting Czar. Of course, what bothered me most was Marisol saying Cybil Kerning was the fourth victim. As you now know, Ms. Kerning was the third victim of the Tote Bag Killer, the fourth was, at that point, wedged in the hall closet of the Kerning house, behind the vacuum cleaner.

Why would we hide a body in the hall closet? I really wish I had a better answer for you, but when we found that poor man on the porch earlier that afternoon, strangled by an “Alan Alda Reads The Dead Sea Scrolls” tote bag, Marisol said that the closet was the logical place to put him, because he would “keep better.” I’m just trying to get you to understand the power of Marisol’s words and exceedingly poor decision-making skills coupled with my inability to say no. So when I insisted that we call the police and she told me that we couldn’t because the police would ruin her plan, it seemed like a reasonable request. And when Marisol told me that tonight was the night she was going to enact an elaborate plan to catch the Tote Bag Killer it seemed completely plausible to me. If a normal person had said the same kind of things, in their broken clown horn of a voice, there would have been no question these were bad ideas, very, very bad ideas.

In my defense, I originally refused to help move the body, but then Marisol, blaming a bad back and wet stairs and a slight breeze created by a passing UPS truck, dropped the body down the stairs. Only then did I help Stevie the Sound Engineer pick him up, and as Marisol convinced me, the closet was only a few steps further.

Let me tell you, I now know that was the wrong thing to do. Moving a dead body is unacceptable, except if it’s about to be run over by a train or lying on top of you. Also, I go forward with the knowledge that damaging a corpse is a felony. Lesson learned. Believe me, the sound of that body’s head bouncing down the stairs will haunt me every time I hear a melon or pumpkin fall.

I’m sure that you’re thinking that I’m crazy to let all of this happen. But I was powerless against her words. I’ve already told you how great she sounded on the radio, but in person her voice was all good things. It was the verbal equivalent of pizza parties, unicorn posters, hand jobs, and Sweet Tart-flavored alcohol, all at the same time. Her words were like velvet dipped in ether. Once I'd made the mistake of listening to the show while driving home late. According to accident reports, my Honda left the interstate and plowed through seven acres of corn before, ironically, running out of ethanol. I was awakened the next day by migrant workers screaming and making stabbing motions at me with ears of corn. Their anger can be explained by the fact that I passed their sub-standard poorly-insulated mobile housing unit the night before going 110 miles per hour.

But I digress. You are probably wondering if I had a sexual attraction to Marisol. Certainly, every time she spoke I felt a yearning to put my Mr. Happy in her baby window, but again it all comes back to her voice. It certainly wasn’t her hair that appeared to be styled by one of her pet ferrets or that dress that looked like it had been wrestled off a thrift store mannequin or her misshapen men's plaid jacket that was last worn without irony in the 1960s. It definitely wasn’t her personality. I should have listened when a deaf coworker told me that she was an Amazonian dipped in hate and roofing nails.

It’s only when Marisol decided to take a bathroom break and silence ensued, that I realized the entire situation was not ideal.

For example, the closet corpse being covered in blood, even though it had been strangled. I can explain that. Namely, Stevie the Sound Engineer and I had different interpretations of the “On 3!” count. I pre-lifting without his assistance, accidentally fell over the body, driving my knee heavily into the corpse’s tote-covered head breaking the nose of a dead man.
Stevie can tell you how remorseful I was, even before blood started to leak out of the tote bag. I just want you to know that it was Marisol’s decision to stuff cocktail onions up the corpse’s nose to stop the bleeding. Let me throw in an extra apology for that now, too. There is no dignity is death, and even less with onions up your nose.

But back to that moment of Marisol’s absence and the fog of her words had momentarily cleared. And that the Tote Bag Killer was close. Why did I not use this moment to call the police? Well, I decided that the corpse was already in the past tense person-wise and I felt my best chance at survival was to call the pledge line instead of the police.

I understand there is a recording of my call to the pledge line, which only makes sense. You’ve got to understand that when I pledged one million dollars and demanded that they mention my name on the air, it was a donation fueled by fear and confusion. No, I didn’t have the money, but I really, really didn’t want to die. And when the Operator told me that the station did not accept checks, it was my mortality I was considering when I started yelling. That woman did not deserve to be called a “douche waffle” or a “fuck tractor.” In my defense, I will say that while these are cruel words, I really don’t know what they meant, so I think that discounts a bit of the venom with which I said them.

As far as the crying and the bargaining, I don’t think anybody sounds good haggling. I offered 20 dollars, the Operator offered to mention my name in the next 36 hours. I moved up to 30 bucks, she said she could fit me in 35 hours. I called her an awful, awful whore and she said she was going to hang up. As you can hear, we finally agreed to the 75 dollar level, they would mention my first initial and full last name will be mentioned during the next pledge break. Plus, I would receive a CD of the Comprehensive Audio History of Belgium program along with a handsome matching tote bag. I asked her to keep the tote bag, but she told me that it was not an option before hanging up.

As I’m sure you’ve listened a tape of the rest of the show, you know that the first hour or so of the program was for the most part typical Homicide Dish fare. Marisol discussed the people who had died, relating that the first victim, a Mr. Mung was found face down on 14th and Prospect, being dragged by his leashed herd of little, white, fluffy dogs, his head covered with a tote bag advertising Ken Burn's radio documentary on the history of bread. She spent a great amount of time talking about how Diane Vlasic was strangled with a Chairobics: Sit Your Way to Fitness tote bag and left lounging in her Lazy-Boy. Sure, none of this was true, but, as I keep telling you, when Marisol said it, it certainly sounded like the truth. Then she spent ten minutes describing the correct consistency of flan.

Was there a point during the flan discussion where I began to lose confidence in Marisol’s plan? Psychologically, no. Physiologically, I had started suffering the symptoms of what I thought might be a heart attack.

That’s the moment she pounded her fist on the table, startling her guests and shaking me out of my coronary incident fog. "By the way," she announced. "This is a trap. One of the people sitting at this table is the Tote Bag Killer.”

It’s also the instant that we all discovered that Marisol had brought a gun. Actually it seemed like she had brought a selection of guns, because she rifled around in her bag before pulling it out. She began shaking it back and forth, like a drunk with a cigarette, demanding that one of her guests confess to being the Killer. The gun, apparently, was the “elaborate plan” of which she had spoken of earlier.

Should I have said something as she pointed the gun at her guests? Certainly, getting “involved” in the situation is one school of thought. However, in this case, I thought my best course of action was to pretend that nothing was happening. Plus, I just thought that her 1970s detective show reasoning that the killer always returns to the scene of the crime sounded logical.

Marisol seemed unconcerned that it was revealed within 45 seconds that none of her suspects could have done it. The Dog Walker had just been released from the hospital after a traumatic surprise Irish Setter humping, the Composting Czar had spent the last two weeks at a Horrors of Composting conference, and the Pottery Coach’s clay-addled carpal-tunneled hands could barely make a shallow ashtray, much less strangle the life out a person. That’s the moment when things started going downhill a little faster.

As you know, the Dog Walker decided to make a run for it. Unfortunately, she picked the wrong door and ran into the hall closet. Even though I knew at the moment she turned that doorknob that a bruised pants-less corpse with onions up its nose was going to somersault out of the closet and knock her to the floor, I still shrieked.

Marisol, of course, pretended that this was the first time she had seen the corpse. Shoving everybody back, she picked up the arm of a person she knew was dead and looking at the space on her own arm where a watch would typically be, pretended to take his pulse. Then she asked which one of them had killed him.

It was the Composting Czar who suggested that since there was no tote bag on the deceased’s head, so it couldn’t have been the work of the Tote Bag Killer.

The Dog Walker, probably still flashing back to her traumatic dog humping and even more recent corpse entanglement, claimed it must have been some sort of bizarre sex crime since the corpse was wearing a shirt, but no pants. “Donald Ducking-it,” I think is the term she used.

Again, let’s take a step back and I’ll explain why we decided to wash the tote bag and my pants, as well as why I was currently wearing the deceased’s pants. Because Marisol told me to. That's all I needed.

Just a quick side note, it’s when we were moving the corpse over to the dining table that I pulled off his finger. I can only say that I assume corpse fingers are like bananas, the longer the body ripens the more likely they are to pop right off. I definitely did not “pull” or “yank violently” as some have suggested since.

Anyway, that’s when Marisol went back on the air.

"If we reach the $3,000 level before we the end of this hour, I will reveal the true identity of the Tote Bag Killer. If not, well, that’s a whole different story. You are listening to the Homicide Dish on KUOW. The time is 7:46."

Did I know she was going to do this? No. Did it sound like a bad idea to me? How many times can I tell you people no? I was on the Marisol train and that’s also why I did not question her decision to waterboard her three suspects in the kitchen sink. I think I understood as I dragged the Composting Czar towards the kitchen sink that none of them was the Tote Bag Killer. It’s simply that we reached a point where we needed one of them to be the Tote Bag Killer.

And that’s when Stevie the Sound Engineer announced that the Tote Bag Killer was on the line. I can still hear that distorted voice come over the speakers demanding to know where the body was and claiming that it was about to kill again. I find no shame in starting to weep inconsolably. I just wish it wasn’t so loud on the recording. You’ve got to realize that I thought my life was going to end shortly. Additionally, I had just pulled a man’s finger off.

Despite the Tote Bag Killer being on the phone, Marisol was not convinced. She, using her reasoning skills that had been so evident that night, decided that one or more of her guests/suspects/hostages was a ventriloquist.

Finally, the French doors behind Marisol wrenched open to reveal a small woman, water dripping from her dark bangs on to the carpet and a Comprehensive Audio History of Belgium tote bag that she clutched in her right fist.

“It's me,” she said exasperated, in a familiar voice.
That’s when I screamed “The Operator!”

I wouldn’t say that Marisol was angry, so much as she refused that somebody outside her suspect pool could have done it. In fact, she ignored the fact that I was being chased around the dining table by an Asian woman wielding a tote bag like a butterfly net. You can hear the Operator screaming “Your credit card was declined! Put on your premium!” and that’s me yelling “I don’t want it. I don’t want it” over and over again, as I tried to put an uncooperative Stevie the Sound Engineer between the Operator and me.

I would assume it takes a lot to shock a psychopath and when I saw The Operator turn and get a glimpse of the pantless, bruised, dry blood-encrusted corpse, I think that was enough. I don’t know if she noticed the missing finger, but her face fell. That’s her on the tape asking, “Dear lord, what did you do to Kenny’s body?”
“Well, at least we have a name for a corpse” and “I hope she doesn’t realize that I’m wearing his pants” were the two things I was thinking when Marisol shot her.

Thinking back on it, did I think that Marisol would shoot somebody? In retrospect, looking back at the night, I find it hard to imagine her not shooting somebody.

Of course, the Operator could not just die. No, she had to lay dramatically dying on the carpet as rain poured in the French doors, demanding to tell us and the radio audience why she did what she did. I really had no interest, but Marisol held up the microphone to her mouth.

As it turns out, the Operator had volunteered for the pledge drive for years. Her love for public programming was similar to my devotion to Marisol’s voice. Apparently, all you needed to do was look at the back of her Volvo or every gardening t-shirt she owned to know how much KUOW meant to her. So when neighbors didn’t contribute, it hurt her deeply. And when they kept listening for free, it killed something inside. So when her neighbor, Diane Vlasic told her that she didn’t need any more tote bags, she brought one more over. My declined credit card could not have helped.

“I loved public programming so much,” the Operator said, coughing up blood. “I couldn't stop myself. Have you ever listened to Car Talk?”

I’m not proud that the next voice you hear, which is me saying, “Shoot her again!” That’s really not the type of person I am.

Anyway, that’s about it, I think the rest is public record. The police arrived and were a little angry at first, especially a certain bicycle cop who kept telling me to “shut my hole” as he fished rubber gloves out of his crime-fighting fanny pack. But then they talked to Marisol talk about she’d caught the Tote Bag Killer using the techniques of the Scooby-Doo gang mixed in with a little Bronson Deathwish. They even gave her a Junior Detective Badge normally reserved for easily-impressed children, which I thought was a little tacky considering that the Operator was getting her heart massaged at the time.

Since then, I’ve gotten out of jail and have been asked by my state to testify against Marisol in her case. And I thought about it, because as I’ve said, there were terrible mistakes made that night. It’s just that Marisol left a message on my voice mail explaining why that was a bad idea. I listened to her message about 20 times, masturbated to it three amazingly pleasurable times, and I’ve come to the realization that what she says makes a whole lot of sense.

2009-05-06T21:10:00.000-07:00

I wordled (Wordle.net) my latest story. I'll be posting it soon.

All a Loan

2009-02-16T15:34:00.000-08:00

"Hello," the loan officer said coldly, straining across her desk to shake my hand. Her hand, in my opinion, was too bony and slightly frigid. But I assumed that was perfect for someone with her job. I attempted to not be so ham-handed with my return shake as my hand enveloped her raccoon paw of a hand. She half-smiled and I sat, trying to remember if you are supposed to unbutton your jacket when you sit down.
"What can I do for you?" she said, placing her palms palm-down on her orderly desk. Behind her a tan, sea foam, and sky blue seascape did its best not to be noticeable.
"I'd like to apply for a loan to fight monsters," I said unbuttoning my jacket and then, on second thought, re-buttoning it.
"Well," she said, chuckling, "you've already applied, so you can chalk that up as a success. This meeting is to determine if we give you that money."
She smiled, but it still felt like she just shoved me toward a cliff, poking me in the kidneys with a broomstick.
"Monsters, as you know, are the number one threat to our area," I explained, starting into my pitch.
"When you say monsters, you mean like the ones that disemboweled the high school cross-country team and ate the mayor's legs?"
"Yes, in fact those particular monsters are first on my list to kill, with financial assistance from your bank."
"OK, are you currently employed in the monster hunting profession?" she asked, opening up a file.
"No, but I have had extensive contact with monsters."
She looked up from the file, "But not fighting them?"
"I have opposed monsters, mostly verbally. I wouldn't say that I fought them. I've have thrown things at them from a distance."
"Things?" She questioned.
"Rocks and garbage, mostly," I replied. "Once, dog crap."
The loan officer nodded several times and then took her time writing something down. She continued well past a point that I thought was well mannered. Finally, she looked up and half-smiled, "What, then, makes you think that you are qualified to fight monsters? What makes you special?"
"Well, I don't think I'm particularly special," I said to the growing frown on her face. "But I don't see anybody else answering the bell."
"The newspaper has written some nasty anti-monster editorials, but for the most part, what you are saying is true," she agreed, still writing. "Do you have a plan?"
"That I do." I handed her the business plan that I'd put together with the help of my Internet business class. I also offered her the headphones to my iPod. "There's music to go with the plan."
Unfazed by the request, she put on the headphones and I hit PLAY. She listened for about 10 seconds before pulling them back off.
"Is this Kansas?" she asked.
I nodded, as it was indeed. She put the headphones back on again.
In my Internet class, they called this, "Achieving an Emotion." Not only was the loan officer reading about decapitating monsters, but her emotional connection to what she was reading was heightened by Carry On Wayward Son. Then as the song from Top Gun kicked in, I saw her smile. I know I'd hooked her. She finally took off the headphones.
"While you music is completely awesome, your plan is barely comprehensible," she sighed.
"Well, I tend to disagree with my word processor program's spellchecker. But you didn't even appreciate the charts?"
"There's only one pie chart and all it says is that you are 95 percent ass kicker and 5 percent human lover."
"I think love is essential when you're protecting humanity," I said sincerely.
"Plus, you don't conceal the fact that you have absolutely no experience killing monsters."
"Ah, but I do have the instincts to do it."
"How am I supposed to calculate instincts?" she asked, flipping through my business plan.
"Fair question," I replied. "Pretend you're a monster."
"That doesn't sound like something a bank officer should be doing," she said. "But OK, RAWrrr!"
She stood up behind her desk and raised her arms above her head, monster-style. I saw a look of complete malice come over her face. It could have also been slight bemusement.
Instantly, my monster-killing instincts kicked in and I grabbed her desktop organizer tray and whipped it at her, Frisbee-style. The tray hit her in the face, pens and paper clips exploding in all directions. It there had been a look of bemusement on her face, it was now gone.
"Sorry, that's what instinct looks like up close," I said, as the gash on her forehead started to drip blood.
"Alright, what if I were, let's say, an electric monster?" She asked as she calmly ripped the cord out of her desk lamp and separating the wires. But stepping toward me, the short cord pulled out of the wall.
"Even if you had an extension cord, I still have water balloons and a squirt gun in here. You wouldn't have a chance," I said, indicating my utility plastic shopping bag that contained all my monster-fighting materials.
She sat down on her desk and took a long swig of the Diet Coke that was sitting on her desk. "Whu if I wuh a poson sputtun monstuh?"
"A poison-spitting monster?" I asked, at the same moment she spit out the soda and I clicked open my utility bag umbrella, deflecting the Diet Coke. I was steeling myself for a potential scotch tape attack when the lights went out. Suddenly, in the complete darkness, I heard the door lock.
"Of course," the loan officer's voice came from behind. "Electric and poison monsters are just your run-of-the-mill enemies. Common monsters." She spat the word "common" like it was a cat hair in her mouth.
"You greatest threat," she continued, her voice now up and to the left, "is creatures from the other side, that emerge from the darkness to eat your very soul. Just setting an eye on them will plunge you into an eternity of madness. What's your plan then, monster hunter?"
"That's a valid question and one I am almost prepared to answer…" I started, before what I assume was the neutrally-colored seascape was smashed over my skull. Then she was on me, one leg over the back of my shoulder, her other foot kicking for a foothold on the back of my pants. Her arms wrapped around my head, her fingernails dug into my temples.
I started spinning, hoping that centrifugal force would plaster her wall like cooked spaghetti, but her fingernails only scratched deeper and she bit the top of my head hard.
"I'm eating your brain, fuck-nugget!" She screeched, kneeing me in the spine.
I tried backing toward the wall, or where I thought the wall was, to knock her off, at the same time as I reached for my utility bag that held the camping shovel I planned to hit her with. There was nothing there. I dropped to my knees and crawled around on the floor, patting around the broken glass. Still nothing.
"Did someone steal your magic bag?" The loan officer, one hand ripping at my scalp, rode me like a monkey on a sheep. I tried to buck her, but her heels cut into my thighs.
I started praying, "Oh ominous domino…"
"I'm a creature from another dimension, moron," she yelled, slightly hysterical, as she stapled the top of my ear to my head, "Monotheism probably doesn't even exist where I'm from, so your mangled Latin prayers aren't going to do anything."
I straightened out on the floor and tried rolling, but in the darkness, and with unseen chairs and desk, I was humiliatingly only able to lurch back and forth slightly.
"You're going to die here, ass-waffle," she screeched. "In the dark. Alone. Loanless."
"Argh, get your finger out of my eye!" I shouted.
"That's a tentacle. I'm a monster with thousands of tentacles! And one giant eye! If I were to turn on the lights right now, you would scrape your eyes out with a dull spoon to punish them for beholding the horror of my existence," the loan officer hissed, laughing evilly. "Are you ready to quit?"
"I'll tell you this," I panted. "I can't comprehend everything that you could do to me, the horror that you could perpetrate on my sanity and genitals. But I do know two things, you aren't welcome in the third dimension, if in fact, that is where we are currently located, and I never give up, even when it's reasonable to do so. Until the moment you kill me, I'm just going to keep getting up, even if I'm insane and eyeless, and coming right for you with the penknife and Cyalume lightstick I've got duct-taped to my hairy ankle and I am going to f your s up."
The loan officer pulled her heel out of my ear and climbed off my back. She turned the light back on and dropped what looked like a crudely fashioned pantyhose garrote.
"Well, everything looks in order," she said. "How much are you going to need?"

The Story of Crouchmas, Seattle 1883: A Very Special Holiday Story

2009-01-04T03:31:00.000-08:00

1883 was, as they all had been, a rainy December in Seattle. Swivulets of frigid rain came down like tangled fishing line on any sucker daft enough to step outside, the weather ensuring its victim hours of cold misery. Cold, bitter drops fell on exposed necks, enlightening their victims on the inevitability of suffering.

In respect to the people and dogs of Seattle, this kind of kind of weather was not unusual; they had always been neck deep in watery depression. It was into this wretched environment, this distressed city where a woman could get her boot sucked off by syrupy mud in the morning and not realize until she tried to take off her shoes at night, that the poorly conceived story of Crouchmas was created.

During the first week of December, 1883, Helen Molder-Phosphate, editor, publisher, and sole contributor of the "Phosphate Illuminator" wrote an editorial entitled, "Yes, Helen Molder-Phosphate, there is a Borpo Crouch!" in which she described, in great detail, the legend of Borpo Crouch, a Seattle-specific Saint Nicholas-type figure. According to Molder-Phosphate, during December nights, Crouch would unscrew the hinges on Seattleite's doors and do odd jobs around their houses, as well as leave fried sweets and other food. She also mentioned that, in a very Seattle-like twist of pessimism, Crouch always left some sort of household hazard behind. This latter supposedly some sort of lesson, though the meaning of this lesson was not explained by Molder-Phosphate. This kind of half-assed, sparsely-facted story was typical of the Illuminator.

Surprisingly in a city mired in communal depression, the legend of Borpo Crouch caught on like a mudslide. Instead of believing in a day when it wouldn't rain (a date that would not occur for another seven years), Seattleites decided to put their faith in a person who did odd jobs. It seemed like a minor-enough miracle to happen in Seattle.

It should be said that all of this excitement came as a great surprise to Mrs. Molder-Phosphate's neighbor, Borpo Crouch.

Crouch had not read Molder-Phosphate's article, but when he started receiving scraps of paper with instructions on where the outhouse needed to move and what kind of roofing tin to bring, he decided to seek out the newspaperwoman. A few days later, when he found himself walking next to Helen Molder-Phosphate in the street, the two of them dumbly staring into the distance and tempting pneumonia, he asked her where the idea had come from.

"I was sleeping peacefully," Molder-Phosphate explained to him, "which is extraordinary because typically the holes above my bed make it feel like Christ is crying on me, and I thought to myself, 'Helen, did someone fix your roof?'

I seized upon this idea and I thought everyone should experience this kind of selflessness. That's why I wrote the editorial. As it turned out, an unconscious raccoon had fallen on my roof that night, plugging the typically open holes with its wet, burglarous body. The next night I returned to misery as Jesus wept. Anyway, I chose you because you made me a leek, scallion, and onion pie last October when I was laid up with the Hacking Cough. I thought to myself, 'Helen, wouldn't it be wonderful if somebody did something nice for all these people? And I thought, yes, since you don't have time Helen, I think Borpo is your man.'"

Borpo was confused by a mention of pie, and rightfully so, because Helen's other neighbor, Elijah Jesperson had made the pie. But Jesperson, a fisherman with an unfortunate fear of fog horns and buoy bells, was in equal parts generous and anonymous, so no more mention need be made of him in this account.

Borpo Crouch moved to Seattle in the way many other people had, he and his wagon of "masculine anti-chaffing ointments" had become mired in the mud and his mules were smart enough not to risk pulling their ass muscles in the outrage that was Seattle streets. Since becoming bogged down, Borpo had worked jobs that were easily wandered away from, drank beer, and sulked. A hulk of a man, he was not a bad person, but he was also not a generous or patient man. For several days after talking to Molder-Phosphate, Crouch decided to approach the story in a way that was familiar to all Seattleites: avoid eye contact and hope it, whatever it is, would all blow over.

Then one drizzly afternoon while drinking, an idea began to ferment within Borpo like a poorly cooked salmon. He realized that he wanted to be loved by Seattle, he needed to be loved, because with love came favors such as people fixing your wagon wheel or lending you their slightly more enthusiastic mules. Crouchmas and a reasonable road surface could be his ticket out of Seattle.

The next evening, Borpo inaugurated Crouchmas with a visit to the Kefferniki's, a Finnish family of Lapp heritage celebrating the traditional Feast of Humility, where the men in a family went trouserless for the day and the rest of the family was allowed to throw items on the floor and demand that they be picked up. After taking the large part of an hour to get the Kefferniki's door off its hinges, Borpo walked into the house, dourly took notice of the Feast, and started the family's requested task: sanding down their floors as the wonders of humility bobbed past at eye level. His mood soured considerably when the family performed a traditional Lapp dance for him. Borpo began to throw hard candy at them, but unfortunately for him, this was just something new for the Kefferniki menfolk to stoop over for. Intending to visit five or six homes an evening, Borpo decided instead that the Keffernikis would be enough for the first day and, as a household hazard, left their door off its hinges.

On the second night of Crouchmas, Borpo's difficulty getting the screws off the Linus-Salk's door was made worse by the sounds of snickering children inside. Not a patient man to start, things only deteriorated when Borpo grabbed an axe and started to hack at the door. Knocking out a chunk large enough to put his arm through and reach around for the lock, he was deterred by the Linus-Salk children who giggled as they beat on his hand with wooden spoons. Borpo put his face through the hole, "I'm bringing a holiday miracle into your home and there is nothing you can do to stop me. I'm Borpo Crouch!" This statement immediately preceded the moment he was struck across the forehead by a broomstick.

When conscious again, a frustrated Borpo chopped at the window with his axe, making much quicker progress through the glass than he had through wood. The Linus-Salks, newly aware to the seriousness with which their visitor undertook Crouchmas, huddled behind a bed crying as Borpo angrily scoured their pot-bellied stove, ducking when he threw hard peppermints at them. The Linus-Salk's household hazard was a kerosene-soaked outhouse burning odiferously despite the steady downpour.

At the next home, Borpo kicked at the door and yelled, "You know why I'm here!"

Unfortunately, the Sylvester family did not know why he was there and moved a china cabinet in front of the door. Much more unfortunate for them was that even a blockaded door was not enough to hold back Borpo Crouch, who climbed up on the roof to go down the Sylvester's chimney. He only got madder when he slid off the rain-slicked roof, and again decided to come through the window.

Coming to the Sylvesters was a clerical error on Borpo's part, but they were loathe to tell him that when he stood dripping in their sitting room, axe in hand, and demanding to be given a Crouchmas job. Thinking that a simple task might pacify him, Ellen Sylvester requested a single scrambled egg. She would regret this choice an hour later when her kitchen was filled with the unnatural squawks of chickens and Borpo howling, his sleeve was on fire and the kitchen pervaded with acrid smoke. Even worse, he insisted he watch her eat his culinary abomination. Ellen Sylvester would never voluntarily eat eggs again. His household hazard for the Sylvester family was an out-of-control grease fire.

Crouchmas continued to go downhill as a furious Borpo was increasingly in the sharing spirit. The horrors of his reign of giving cannot be overstated: dogs were milked; creepy foot massages were forced on the weak; floors were swept, but not mopped; a cookie called the Satan's Turd was created; children were glued together; a potato imploded; an unwilling woman was given a piggyback ride; onions were peeled into nothingness; a young man was knocked out by a thrown spittoon; family portraits were hung askew; windows were painted shut; a house slid into Puget Sound; a small boat hit a tree and inexplicably exploded; rugs were bruised, but not beaten; a duck was forced to sit on a perverted pirate's shoulder; and innocent goats were exorcised.

Seattleites tried to hide as best they could, scrambling out back doors and windows at the sound of Borpo struggling with their door's hinges. For weeks, most spent their nights in the woods or remained as quiet as possible under the floorboards of their homes. Crouchmas finally ended when Borpo, who was French braiding a mule's tail because he couldn't find 9-year old Cecilie Moot, was kicked through a barn wall and hitching post by the aggravated mule. The people of Seattle seeing that Borpo had been knocked out, briefly celebrated and decided that it was truly a holiday miracle. Then they beat him with sticks, stuffed his body into a black burlap sack, and shipped him to a non-existent post office box in Estonia. Which is why to this very day, every December night you can find Estonians trembling in their homes and listening for the sound of a poorly-utilized screwdriver on hinges, still fearful of the story of Crouchmas (Though the Estonians call it "Pieliektiemas" and Borpo Crouch is represented by an enraged talking burlap sack that is traditionally beaten with a 2x4).

The White Elephant in the room: My hypothetical conversation with you, in which I convince you to buy my book

2008-11-23T22:31:00.000-08:00

Dave: I need people to buy my book.

You: Why? Didn't you already get paid, Dave?

Dave: Yes, I did, but the better "Make the Bible Work for You" sells, the more likely a publisher will want to put out another book of mine. And I've got great ideas for the next book, ideas such as "How to Fight Zoo Animals" and "Which Animal Hates Me Most: A child's guide to the zoo."

You: I have always wondered how best to defend myself at the zoo. Those animals give you such hateful looks.

Dave: Exactly. So, I need to ask you a favor.

You: You can't borrow my car. It still has burn marks on it from the last time you borrowed it.

Dave: I'm sorry, I ran out of gas and I panicked.

You: The time before that, you tried to drive it into the lake.

Dave: I couldn't figure out how to get AM stations. Don't worry, this has nothing to do with your car.

You: Then what?

Dave: I would like you to help me turn "Make the Bible Work for You" into THE white elephant gift of the holiday season.

You: You certainly put a lot of emphasis on the word "the."

Dave: Yes, I did. I hope I didn't alarm you.

You: No, I tend to look perpetually astonished. But why make your book a white elephant gift? Why not just a holiday gift?

Dave: Amazingly perceptive question, my friend. I think that the more people who see the book, the more that might purchase it. And what better place for a lot of people to see the book than a white elephant gift exchange?

You: Dammit, Dave, that's a tremendous idea.

Dave: Thanks. So, I would ask you to seriously consider purchasing "Make the Bible Work for Me" and then gifting it away.

You: Well, I don't want to be in a jerk, but I have to ask, what's in it for me?

Dave: That's a fair question and I've got three answers for you. Number one, it makes economic sense.

You: What the f?

Dave: Think of it this way. Let's say you go to a novelty store and buy some crappy plastic gun that shoots little plastic sheep.

You: Unless you want me to throw this wind-up fire-breathing nun in the direction of your face, you won't further belittle novelty stores.

Dave: I'm not, I'm just saying that your sheep gun present is going to get two possible laughs. Once, when it's opened. And the second time when somebody at work accidentally gets shot in the eye.

You: I can't argue with your analysis. Go on.

Dave: There are 160 different humor-style entries in "Make the Bible Work for You." That gives people more than 150 chances to read something that they think is funny, even more if they have poor short-term memory or have a concussion.

You: Hmm, I'm looking at my calculator watch and your numbers don't lie.

Dave: Secondly, it will give people something to look at, rather than at each other. Holiday parties can be orgasmic jamborees of awkwardness, where coworkers desperately try to find something in common beyond workplace proximity. The more people are looking at my book, the less they're talking to each other.

You: Yes, I can see how that could be valuable. And number three?

Dave: Nothing is more fun to talk about at holiday parties than religion.

You: OK, you've sold me. Your arguments are well reasoned and compelling. Anything else I should know?

Dave: One more thing, when you're talking to friends in the next month and they're complaining about having to find a white elephant gift, why don't you mention "Make the Bible Work for You" to them? You can tell them that it's going to be THE white elephant gift of the season.

You: I asked you to stop shouting "the."

Dave: Sorry. By the way, you smell terrific.

My reviews of book reviews of my book "Make the Bible Work for You."

2008-11-17T00:20:00.000-08:00

"Make the Bible Work For You…is a slender -- and hugely diverting -- volume devoted to using the Bible to justify our worst behaviour. A must-have for a small book stand next to the toilet paper." The National Post (Canada)

- An accurate and well-conceived review. I also give the author kudos for the classy spelling of behavior. Just a sidenote, the books I keep in my bathroom are The Catcher in the Rye and a first-edition of Milton's Paradise Lost.

"A tongue-in-cheek guide to 'justifying your bad behavior through specially chosen biblical quotations.' The Reverend Hellenback actually is Seattle humorist Dave Johnston." The Seattle Times

- I'm actually very touched to be referred to as a humorist and a regionally-attached humorist, at that. Hopefully this means I will no longer have to cheapen myself by continually yelling "Wokka wokka!"

"Funny, yes." Sacramento Book Review

- What I say: Thank you, Sacramento. I enjoy your dry climate.

Make the Bible Work for You, my first book, is out!

2008-09-19T13:30:00.000-07:00

In bookstores and book websites as of today, my first book Make the Bible Work for You. Do me a favor and the next time you're in a bookstore, pick it up and take a look. There's nothing wrong with looking and there is definitely nothing wrong with buying. Buying is your right as a citizen of whatever country you're a citizen of, so exercise your rights. Here's a link to the book at Amazon, if that helps.

Piddles

2007-10-28T23:30:00.000-07:00

"In recent weeks, intelligence operatives have arrested 14 squirrels within Iran's borders." - Islamic Republic News Agency

I'm up to my haunches in a land of hot sand and strange languages, hunted for who I am. Five months ago, I was in the shade, living in a nice sugar maple outside of Langley when I got caught in a Hav-A-Heart trap. I didn't need that Dixie cup of dry-roasted peanuts; I just wanted them very, very, very badly. Well, I got the peanuts, a dart in the side of the neck, a speech about how great America is, and a ticket to Iran. I've been here for the last couple weeks in the employ of the Central Intelligence Agency. Let's say my name is Mr. Piddles.

*CHITTER!*TIK!*

The Iranians are not bad people, there's just like Americans but with a completely wrong belief system.

I'm not the only one in country, the Company sent 14 of us. I knew all of them growing up, just with different names. We don't use those old names anymore. Part of the training is forgetting your past. My only question is why use us, the ones who got caught? Wouldn't our free-roaming, more elusive pals been better suited for this kind of job?

I can't talk about what I'm doing in Tehran. The Company doesn't like loud mouths and all it would take is one bad acorn to shut me up forever.

**SQUEAK!!*CHITTER!**

It didn't take us long to realize the Company's big mistake. There are no squirrels in Tehran except the 14 of us.

*CHITTER!*

There's 13 of us left. Mr. Peeper's ate a bad fig from a cart at the bazaar. Mr. Jingles said we're better off without Peepers. My hate for Mr. Jingles only grows.

I can tell you why there aren't any squirrels in Iran. There aren't any goddamn acorns. I tried eating curried pistachios and ending up pissing fire for two days. I hate the people here, they're weird and loud. They also tend to more than their fair share of fist shaking.

The light hurts my eyes and the dryness is eating up my sinuses.

*TIK!*TIK!*

I keep seeing monkeys around the markets here. They're the biggest losers in the animal kingdom. Opposable thumbs and all they've figured out is how to pick fleas off each other. A waste of tree space, if you ask me.

I was watching television today and saw an Iranian newscaster with a picture of a squirrel with an American flag behind him. The squirrel appeared to have television antenna coming out of its ass. I said a silent thank you for the miniaturization of digital technology.

The Iranian secret police have staked out every public park in the country. To me, palms are just not trees.

I spent three hours hiding under a fez.

*CHITTER! CHITTER! *

I'm on my own now. The Company, as promised, has disavowed any knowledge of this operation. I saw Senor Dribbles a week ago under a cashew cart in the central market. We agreed that it was best to split up. Two squirrels are a crowd in Iran.

I could have been out of this hellhole a week ago if it weren't for my indecisiveness crossing roads. I've always had this problem. I'm somewhere in the middle of a street when I start thinking about life, my family, acorns. Brenda, my case officer in Langley, said this would be the death of me. I'm beginning to think she's right. All I know is that everyday when the minaret's loudspeakers announce the call to prayer and the pious face Mecca, I'm tucking my bushy tail between my legs and bounding in the opposite direction.

*FURK! FURK!*

_______________________________________________________________________

A Criticism of the Preceding Story

The author of the above story is obviously an unrepentant moron. The piece is filled from start to finish with grievous factual inaccuracies. It disgusts me that the writer has not done the most basic research, and when I say basic I mean sources such as A Children's First Abridged Dictionary for Dummies or the Disney animated film, Aladdin. Some of the errors:

1. The city of Tehran is not located in the desert, but rather among snow-covered mountains in Northern Iran. It is unforgivable that the author did not know this. He should be ashamed for presenting this story for public consumption.

2. The Tehranian landscape is not covered by palm trees. Tehran is a major metropolitan area, not an oasis in the middle of the Gobi Desert. If the author's life goal is to be entirely ignorant of the world, then mission accomplished.

3. This mistake truly disappoints me as the fine people of Iran are not even in the top 10 of angriest nationalities (They are actually 11th). Just a side note, the angriest nation is Denmark. The Danes are known for a common irrationality fueled by ignorance, fear, and Aquavit. At any moment, including the one you are reading these words, there are thousands of Danes in the streets of Copenhagen fighting each other with bottles and broken chairs.

4. The author's ignorance of culture and place is appalling. Not only are there acorns in Tehran, but they are the city's leading source of oak growth.

5. I have come to realize that anyone who would include this many errors in a manuscript is most probably suffering from some form of diminished mental capacity. How could we denounce someone who cannot even summon the brainpower to know that the fez is traditional Moroccan headwear? Obviously, the author is trying as hard as he can and should be congratulated for this flawed attempt. The word that best describes an author writing on a subject that he has clearly no knowledge of and has done no research on? Heroism.

Ninja Preparedness Guide

2007-09-30T21:04:00.001-07:00

What to do in case a ninja is in your house

1. First of all, determine if a ninja is in your house. Is your home completely silent? Are all the windows and doors locked? If so, there is probably a ninja in your home.

2. It is best to not show fear with a ninja, but panicking inwardly is always suggested.

3. Have you tucked a cookie sheet under your shirt to protect against throwing stars? Sorry, that really should have been rule #1.

4. Don't call the police. Unless your local department has a ninja squad, they will be of no use to you.

5. Open a bag of potato chips and pour it on your floor. By removing a ninja's ability to move silently you might completely demoralize them.

6. Do you know karate? This might be a good time to use it.

7. Dial 9 and 1 on your phone. Prepare to push 1 again.

8. Ask yourself what you have done to anger this ninja in the first place. Is there anything you can say or do that will rectify this situation? No, probably not, I'm sorry I brought it up.

9. Have you ever thought about jumping out a window? This might be the time to try it. After landing, turn back at your house and shake your fist. This, your fist says, is not over. Then seek immediate medical attention.

Ninja Fun Facts: Most ninjas are water signs. There is a yearly ninja convention which last year attracted almost 2,000 ninjas to a seemingly empty ballroom.

Dear Sugarhugs,

2007-08-05T18:04:00.000-07:00

You're probably wondering what happened to the condo. Well, sweetness, I was in the shower this morning, after you left for work, and I kept using that little sliver of soap in there until it was so infinitesimally tiny that I split an atom and the building imploded around me.

I know what you're thinking, how does this happen to the same person twice? That's what I asked the Irish Spring people when I called them. Just like last time, they explained that it was impossible to damage an atom while using their soap. I told them they should tell that to Mr. Bumpers, a cat who will never be able to tell how wide things are because he lost his whiskers in an atomic explosion. Luckily, they put me through to Chuck Grundhoff. Remember him? He was the lawyer from last time. Anyway, Chuck said that'd he'd put a check in the mail for the damages. And I'm getting an extra ten thousand to never use Colgate-Palmolive products again, which is a plus. Chuck is a good guy; he even offered to call the Army radiation people for me.

I'm happy to say that all the pets in the building survived. I think, like earthquakes, animals can detect imminent atomic explosions. They were all out on the lawn waiting for me when I climbed out of the tub with Mr. Bumpers. I think Mr. Bumpers knew, too. I mean how often does a cat get into a shower with you and jump around scratching at your hands? Twice, I realize now.

Do me a favor and tell the neighbors that they won't be able to have any of their stuff back because it's been exposed to dangerous levels of atomic radiation.

I hope you had a good day at work. I'll give you a call as soon as the doctor removes Mr. Bumpers' claws from my genitals.

Love and cuddles,

A potential scenario regarding the horrific crimes that have been committed in the last month

2007-05-02T00:21:00.000-07:00

To start off, this is not a confession or an accusation. It's just a possibility.

It wasn't until I was standing under the bus shelter yesterday with the rain pouring down that I realized I recognized the three victims whose photos were on the front of the Post-Intelligencer. Their faces were also on the front of the Times, but that's a crappy paper with numerous spelling errors. Staring at their photos of the victims (on the P-I), I realized that I might know the thing that connected them all together, and that would be my dog and her tennis ball.

The first victim was a guy we had run into at the park. Him, his fat ass, and his dog, Max, whole stole my dog's tennis ball. I know it is ill-mannered to speak of a man who headless body was found jammed halfway through a doggie door, but this guy kept saying, "he's just playing," as Max taunted my dog, let's call her S, with her own tennis ball. For five minutes, S had sat motionless as Max played, motionless except for a slight, violent tic at the end of her tail. I noticed that they had found the guy's head half buried in an undisguised hole, but there was no mention of Max.

The second victim I feel terribly for, he seemed like a very nice guy when we met him. S dropped her tennis ball at his feet and he threw it for her a couple times. But then he did that fake throw thing a couple times and laughed. Now I believe that he was laughing with her, but watching a shadow pass over her face and seeing her expressive Labradorian eyebrows knit together ominously, I don't think S got the joke.

The third victim was a woman who had been playing tennis on the park. S had stood at the chain-link fence and watched a long volley as a stream of drool dripped from her mouth. As I pulled S away by her collar, her eyes never left that ball.

I mean maybe there were signs that something like this could happen when I adopted S three months ago. In a full animal shelter, she had been flanked by two empty cages, and the three pens across from her were vacant as well. That was in addition to the yellow caution tape perimeter. But right in the middle of all that was S, with her tennis ball between her feet and wagging her tail wildly. I just knew I had to adopt her when I saw her do her little happy dance as a shelter worker removed her from her cage with one of those ten-foot poles with a wire lasso on the end. The entire shelter staff had applauded as I took S out the front door. "God save you!" suggested a very nice lady. I'm not a religious person, but I do appreciate when someone tries to send one of their deities to watch my back. I gave her a thumbs-up.

Speaking of fingers, S did bite the top-third of my left index finger off last week, but that was a misunderstanding that I chalk up to natural canine instinct. Clearly, S was protecting her poop from me picking it up in a baggie. Either that, or she thought I was going to steal her tail.

Anyway, if (And that's a big IF!) my dog is responsible for these crimes I would not say she is necessarily what some would call a "bad dog." Misdirected? Yes. Evil? No. I mean, would an evil dog be house trained?

I will, of course, put a stop to all of this if S is responsible. The problem with dogs is that they only have something like two minutes of memory, so I'm sure if S killed these people she forgot it almost immediately. With dogs it's important to let them know they are doing something wrong the moment that they are doing something wrong. So, if I catch her killing somebody, I will discipline her. Just in case, I've started carrying a rolled up newspaper around with me on walks. If S goes for a jugular, I will respond with a firm thwack to her ass. That and a firm "NO!" Of that, I promise you.

Until that possibility happens and I have my doubts it will, I've suggested strongly that my housemate not wear his lime green sweater.

Down of the Dead

2007-02-22T16:53:00.000-08:00

Dear Mr. Johnston,

As a motion picture producer, I think I’ve seen, or been told about, everything you can do in a movie. Which is why I started screaming obscenities in my backyard when I read the opening scene of your script Undeath from Above. I didn’t care about the dirty looks I was getting from my neighbors or the parents in my three-year old’s playgroup, because finally someone (you) had shown me something different, something new. Let me tell you, there are few things that I consider true genius. Velamints. Big Country’s hit single "In a Big Country". Leonardo Da Vinci’s Da Vinci Code. And now I’m adding you to this list. I mean you have this poor guy jumping out of an airplane. All he’s worrying about is if his parachute opens. What’s the absolute last thing in the world he is expecting? To be attacked by a zombie in mid-air. Nobody has ever done that. I mean when George Romero sees this movie he’s going to punch himself in the head. Rest assured that this concept is better than Jimmy Stewart finding rose petals in his pocket or Rocky Balboa killing that bionic Russian. I told my assistant that this first scene is like a perfect cheesecake. It’s the lightest thing I’ve ever tasted, like taking a bite out of an edible angel. Plus it’s got a graham cracker crust, none of that gingersnap crap. Which is too bad, because as good as the beginning of Undeath from Above is, the rest of it is like being hit in the crotch by a runaway moped.

Zombies falling from the sky? Fantastic. Their bodies hitting the ground and exploding like watermelons? Not so great. Really, the only people these zombies threaten are skydivers and anybody who isn’t looking up. Why the heck can’t you have one of these zombies hit a pillow factory or a trampoline? A bale of freaking hay or a soft tree might even work. What you need to remember is that once you have an intact zombie, the fun begins.

Besides the low zombie survival rate, I also have some other concerns. You know that scene where that little blond kid, the one eating the drippy popsicle, is watching as a tiny dot in the sky becomes a flailing zombie plunging through the clouds, and that groaning gets louder and louder until the zombie is impaled on a flagpole? Then the camera pans up and there is the American flag covered in goopy zombie guts? Here’s my question about that, what the hell? Are you making a political statement? Because if you are, don’t, I’ve already optioned a script called An American Zombie in Baghdad. Here's how we can fix that: what if the camera panned up and there’s no flag? Instead, flapping in the wind, is the zombie’s pants. Then you can have this impaled zombie moaning "paaaants". That way when you have the big zombie fight finale at the end (you’re going to have to add a zombie fight finale, by the way), you’ve got this pantless zombie still going "paaaaaaants". It brings the joke full circle. Kids are laughing their butts off in the movie theater, elbowing their friends, saying stuff like, "Remember that zombie from before? His pants were on the flagpole." Anyone can tell you, if there’s one thing that kids love it’s cyclical humor. You know what else the kids would like? If you had the heroine (who you’ll have to create, too) knock the zombie’s dick off with a broomstick. Just a suggestion.

By the way, I’ve explained that you’re writing this for the kids, right? I mean they are a zombie movie’s target audience. Reading your script gives me the feeling you’re writing for Scandinavians with Seasonal Affective Disorder. Which might account for why your characters are so unresponsive to the whole zombie crisis thing. I mean you have a guy hosing zombie guts out of his driveway and then he washes his car. Does he get crushed? No. Does he get attacked? Nope. Does he spend five minutes waxing his car? Yes. Do you know what the audience is doing at that point? They're getting a refund or sneaking off to another part of the multiplex. Why? Because zombie movies are not supposed to have ennui. You know what they should have? Eviscerations, disembowelments, random gouging, and comic decapitations. So get to work on that.

Oh, and another thing, at no point during a zombie film should a hero ever utter the lines, "I’m so tired," or "My calves are sore and tender." Remember, a "hero" is not just the guy we see the most, a hero needs to be doing things that involves a wildly swung shovel and a zombie face.

While you’re fixing up Undeath from Above, you might as well add some sexy zombies, or as I like to call them, ZILFs. What you’ve got to remember is that the kids of today are sick. They'd do it with a zombie, if they got half a chance and zombies existed. Really, if there were any justice, kids would all be declared mentally incompetent and institutionalized. As the father of two, I’m allowed to say stuff like that. Anyway, just remember that kids are tiny, crazy people with disposable income who like awesome movies about the undead, so let's make one.

Best,
Ken Trott, motion picture producer
LazerEyze Studios (Not affiliated with LazyEyes Pictures LLC)

P.S. How come nobody questions why the zombies are falling from the sky? I mean, sure, you have that priest who says, "I guess heaven is overflowing." What the frick? Heaven is full of zombies? If so, terrific, expand on that. Also, FYI, I'm changing the name of the film to Sky Zombies. It works better for Marketing.

The Weatherman

2007-01-25T03:38:00.000-08:00

The Weatherman knew about Global Warming. I was standing there at the coffee shop by the station and I saw him read the article. Gretchen, my girlfriend, said that he might have been reading anything, a bombing in a country whose location I was unsure of, or that article about Seattle schools and their lead pipes making children stupider, stupider than if they had been running around naked since birth, animal children scraping bark from trees with their tiny fingers. But I knew the Weatherman had read the Global Warming article because it continued on page A-16 and that’s just where he turned, and as his brow furrowed in reading comprehension, he made a “hmph” sound, a kind of non-verbal ‘Who would have thought?’

I knew about the Weatherman reading the Global Warming article because I had gotten close to him, close enough that a day earlier, I had ironed his on-air ties and warmed up his BMW when it was cold outside. I had become his intern.

I had applied for the internship because I wanted to know how he could slap up all those happy, smiling magnetic suns onto the “Big Weather Board” while the Earth was in crisis. I wanted to know why he never spoke about Global Warming. This, after all, was the man who had originated the phrase “sun tease”. I had chosen the name “Geoffrey Sol” for my intern application.
“Sol? Like the sun in Mexico?” the Weatherman had asked as he had given me a technically perfect handshake.
“Exactly like the sun,” I answered “Speaking of the sun…”
“Or like the beer?” He asked as his eyebrows rose like helium balloons.
“Like the sun…”
“I love beer.” He said, and then looking kind of wistful, “But who doesn’t? I think I’d shoot someone with a slingshot full of nails if they didn’t like beer.”
That the last time he used my name, disappointing to me because it had taken so long to come up with a fake one. Instead, the Weatherman called me “Tern”, because he swore by the power of monosyllable names, like the one he had picked out for himself when he joined the station.

The Weatherman was not an actual meteorologist, that was Judy’s job at the station. She handled all the real weather and he was smart enough not to screw with the mouth that fed him the weather.
“Good morning, Judy. Do you want Tern to get you a bagel? Maybe a neck rub or a five-dollar bill?”

Most people wanted to know if the Weatherman was a meteorologist.
“I was one credit short,” he’d tell interested parties on the street. If people recognized him he’d treat them like a free sandwich that had just been teleported into his hands.
“Jesus, look at you!” He’d say and go in for a hug. It was too much, too embarrassing. But for the Weatherman it was an effective way to deflect the hard questions. The Weatherman didn’t ever break the happy character. I only assumed his condo was flooded with tears.

“How come you never talk about the greenhouse effect?” Asked a large man wearing a reddish plaid wool jacket and a hat with earflaps.
“How come I never talk about the greenhouse effect? Listen to this guy!” And then the Weatherman hugged the man a second time.
“You didn’t answer my question.” The man stammered over the Weatherman’s close shoulder, who turned his head to the side and kissed the man on the cheek.
“I love you.” He said, looking into the man’s shocked eyes that seemed to be having trouble focusing on the surprisingly loving Weatherman.

“You know who loves the Earth?” He asked a couple blocks later, without looking in my direction. He didn’t wait for an answer. “Me.”

“What about the greenhouse effect?” I asked. The Weatherman stopped abruptly, made a fist, and kissed it. He looked at me seriously.

“Are you accusing me of not caring about the Earth? Is that what you are doing? I just told you I loved it.” During newscasts, the Weatherman had a disquieting habit of putting his finger to his head and making a “POW!” noise. That is what he did to me as we walked down the street. When he did it on the news he made a happy “POW!” sound, when he did it to my head it sounded more like a real gun.

“All I’m saying,” I continued, as this seemed to be the moment I had been waiting for, “is that since the polar ice caps are melting, it might be a good idea to take the smiles off the suns…”
“You know, Tern, I wish we were canoeing right now…” I imagined us at that moment, canoeing under the 520 bridge. A duck family went by quacking contentedly. “…so I could kill you with a paddle.” He let out what I interpreted to be a long cleansing breath. “Come on,” he said, pointing to the station.

I followed him back to the station, if only because I had left my hat there.

“Do you know why I do the weather?” The Weatherman asked as we stepped into the elevator.
“No..”
“This is not a participatory conversation,” he interjected, “The reason I do the weather is because I’m a people person. I like to see people happy and I want to make them happy. But you know what? The weather here is not happy. It’s sad, depressing, kick you in the crotch and take your credit cards weather. And there are hundreds of thousands of people out there roaming around like fucking living zombies and the rain is driving them nuts. They’re not going to see the sun in the sky, you understand that? You know where they are going to see some fucking sun? Right here.” He poked himself in the chest as we stepped off the elevator.

“Listen. Me, Chuck Born, and Lacey Mach,” he said naming some other local weather personalities, “are the only people keeping this city from mass suicides. Jesus, Tern, have you seen the weather outside?”
“I have…”
“Stop. Come into my cubicle, I have to show you some of my drawings.”
Opening his desk, he showed me a slightly off scale pencil drawing of a child carrying a teddy bear in one hand and a skull in the other. In the background were destroyed buildings, cars, and a mushroom cloud.
“This is what I am holding back. Chaos is at the door, Tern, and I’m the one sticking the chair under the knob.” Then he cocked his head to the side and stared at me. I debated my options.
“Thank you?” I ventured.
“You’re welcome.” Then he put out his fist. After a second he was already annoyed.
“Punch it.” The Weatherman insisted, nodding his head towards his fist. So I did.
“What the hell, Tern?” He asked in a high voice, shaking his hand wildly. I told him that he had told me to punch his hand.
“I know what I meant,” he said “and that’s not what you did.”

Just at that moment, Mona Peaceking stuck her head into the Weatherman’s cubicle.
“Hey…” and here she paused “…fellas. Come seen the new electronic weather thingy.” Mona Peaceking was the star anchor of the local news, a handsome woman on the screen and terrifying in the flesh. Her head was as huge as a cardboard box and her neck was the pencil that it balanced on. Her eyes looked to be about twice the size of regular eyes and it looked like she could unhinge her jaw to eat. Have you ever heard that thing about if they ever made a human-size Barbie Doll its utter freakiness would make little girls everywhere sob hysterically? Then you know what I am talking about.

We followed Mona out to the news set where Judy was standing in front of the green screen. She was motioning in loopy circles with what looked like a remote control with a ping-pong ball on the top. On a video monitor to my right I saw Judy standing in front of a map of the West Coast. Clouds followed her magical weather wand wherever she waved it and then by hitting a button, the wand could control the sun and rainstorms.
“You’ve got to try this,” she said, noticing the Weatherman staring into the monitor.

“I don’t like this,” he hissed at me. Watching him work on the green screen I knew that he wasn’t within a football field of comfortable with the new electronic weatherboard.

“Look at me, I’m fucking Luke Skywalker,” he yelled before accidentally throwing the weather remote control into the wall for a second time. The Weatherman’s shoulders slumped as he walked past me, “I can’t do this.”

I followed him into the station’s kitchen. Someone, maybe Judy or Mona, had thrown some of the old weather magnets onto the refrigerator. Happy suns were stuck over dour rainstorms, and a blowing wind fell off as we stood there. The Weatherman paused before opening the freezer. “Looks like we’ve got a cold front coming in from the north,” he said in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear. I nodded. Then he said it again, holding the freezer door open, looking for some sort of recognition.

“Shut the door, I’ve got popsicles in there.” Mona said.

“I’M SURPRISED YOU DON’T KEEP THEM UP YOUR PUSSY! IT’S PROBABLY COLDER UP THERE!” the Weatherman shouted.

That was the last day for both of us. I’d never seen someone break. It was like walking up to an intersection the second before a four-way crash.

They were actually quite gentle with the Weatherman as he rolled up all his drawings and put them into a cardboard box. For him, it was all sun magnets or nothing. I nodded to him as I left. He pointed his gun finger at me. Mona, as frightening as she was to stand close to, handed me a doughnut wrapped in a napkin, a sort of parting gift I assumed. In the end, it didn’t matter, I had gotten what I’d come for. The Weatherman knew about Global Warming.

Attempting your first stunt: An E-Z Guide to Incredible Achievement

2006-12-06T20:19:00.000-08:00

For your first stunt, let’s start with an easy one, jumping off a building.

Step 1) Get on top of a building. Since this is your first stunt, start with an easy one in the 3- to 5-story range. You might experience some difficulty getting to the top of the building, what with the obstacles people throw in front of you, like doors and locked doors, but nobody ever said that stunts were easy.

Step 2) Stunts are easy. Go stand on the edge of the building. See the ground? Just the fact that the ground is there means that this stunt is possible. All you have to do is take a deep breath and step off the building.

Step 3) Before stepping off the building, let’s review your clothes for the stunt. Are they loose-fitting? Mechanic coveralls and yoga clothes are excellent. But, what should you wear on your head? Here’s a quick list:

Bad headwear: Stocking cap, bike helmet, child-size firefighter hat

Good headwear: Stocking cap with pom-pom, motorcycle helmet, child-size firefighter hat with “#1” written on it, any inflatable hat.

Okey-dokey, you are ready to fly!

Step 4) Flying is really the wrong word for what you are about to do. What you are seconds away from doing is a controlled fall. Where does the “control” come in? Personal choice. Yes, really. A side note, by this time the police may have arrived, make sure that you do not look them in the eyes. All you would see is jealousy, which is not a good way to begin a stunt. Now just close you eyes and let go.

Step 5) It is essential that you keep your eyes open during descent. You need to zero in on your landing spot, unless you are planning to jump off the building backwards, in which case feel free to look up at the sky or close your eyes.

Step 6) Just before your landing, tuck your chin in.

Step 7) If you have performed the stunt correctly, there will be no pain, just adrenalin surging through your veins. You can actually pick up a car. For reals! If you have performed the stunt correctly and are still in pain, seek medical attention immediately.

Step 8) Do not bow to passersby. Bowing is for bigger stunts, like ones that involve broken glass and sharks. Maybe, if you have really accomplished the stunt well, do that thing with your finger when you pretend it is a freshly shot gun and you are blowing the smoke away.

Step 9) Go look in the mirror and say hello to the beautiful/handsome stuntperson. (That’s you.)

The 13th Labor of Heracles

2006-07-01T11:35:00.000-07:00

Let me tell you, Heracles, that was terrific. The way you cleaned out the stables of those devil horses with a river. And beating the Cyclops of Minot to death with his own testicles? Genius. Really, Hera and I were awfully impressed. You can ask her, I was laughing my ass off when you black and blueballed that Cyclops to death.

Hey, listen here for a second, and I’m not any happier about this than you are going to be, but we’re going to have to ask for a 13th labor. I know we talked about 12, but we’re going to need one more. Sure, sure, I’m the king of the gods, but I’ve got management all over my ass on this one. Believe me, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. And I know I don’t tell you this enough, but you are doing an absolutely fabulous job. Kudos.

Anyway, this 13th task is a self-examination. Yeah, yeah, I know, I was like, what the f? What they are asking for is a personal inventory, a head to toe, inside and out, of Heracles. We want you to just let us know how you’ve been doing. Not now, you can hand a report in tomorrow. First thing in the morning would be great for me. So, just let us know what you’ve been up to with the whole 12 labors thing. Nothing too crazy, just a moment by moment report of how you’ve been doing. Nothing too long, I don’t have time to read my toothpaste tube, if you know what I mean. Basically, a concise, detailed breakdown of how you accomplished the 12 labors and what you’ve learned from the experience.

And one more thing, and believe me, I fought for you on this one, we ‘re going to have to assign you a supervisor. I said to those guys upstairs “No freak’n way, are you f’ing kidding me?” But you know, they’ve got my ass in an ass tightener on this one. You’ve met Pantoffales before. He started a couple weeks after you, is that right? Anyway, speaking of tight asses, I know he is one, but it could have been worse. Believe me, it could have been worse! I don’t even want to get into who they were suggesting, but I was like “Oh hella no!”, I mean I was all up in their chops on this one. And Pantoffales might be incompetent, but get through this and you’ll be golden. You’ve got my word.

Hey, look at me, I’m not blowing anything up your ass. Blowing things up people’s asses is not how I roll. Hey, look at me here for a second. I’m a straight shooter, and as you’re moving up in the Greco-Roman world of heroing, you’ll appreciate someone like me. I’m on your side, don’t ever forget that. Oh, and we’re going to need you to come in for a few hours on Sunday and kill a centaur.

Excerpt from my upcoming science fiction novel (Working title: Laserville: Population Me)

2006-04-27T15:21:00.000-07:00

I had just gotten off home from the Orthochron factory. Blast Wickins, my supervisor, was all up in my face, about what he considered my sub-par robotic manipulation. Well, I wanted to tell him where I could program that robot arm to go (up his ass!), but I did not. Blast doesn’t think I care about the Orthochron customers, but he doesn’t know my secret, that I, too, am a sufferer of long-term foot pain, due to irregularly shaped-feet. I think he would be horrified if I took off my shoes. Luckily for Blast, the factory laser clock signaled the end of the day, with lasers. I decided to save my foot unveiling for another day.
Took the laser bus home, some loudmouth passenger was eating fried chicken and slurping at his fingers. I considered laser-macing him, but I, Trace Vortex, am a little too handsome for laser jail, what with my thin, attractively quivery chin and my hemophilia.
When I got home to my laser condo, after a little laser bouillon, I sent a video message to Glargagon 7, because as we found out late last year, there were aliens on other planets, jerky aliens, who are sending a massive battle fleet to destroy Earth. Of course, the Glargagons are three galaxies away, so it was going to take those methane-breathing mouth breathers about a thousand years to get here. So, in the mean time, patriots like myself sent them instant messages making derisive comments about their sexual habits and the paltry selection of vegetables available on their planet. I enjoy seeing them get so mad that their tentacle-like appendages swell in outrage. Funding for a massive Earth battle fleet has failed three times in public initiatives, because other people, like me, don’t feel like supporting a massive battle fleet that isn’t going to protect their laser-tanned asses. What did people do before lasers? I’m guessing poop in the woods, and watch bears do the same.

Freedoms and Rights that you may not have realized were taken away from you by the Bush Administration.

2006-04-13T22:46:00.000-07:00

(subtitle: Way to go, Idiots!)

The Freedom to pump your fist up and down in an attempt to get truck drivers to hit their horns. – The National Traffic Safety Board has determined that in difficult times like these, it does not want to dilute the warning value of a truck horn. Anyway, if you want to have fun on the road, maybe you shouldn’t be driving.

The Right to yell, “Watch out, behind you!” at movie theaters. – The government has decided that only people shouting, “Watch out behind you!” at movie theaters should be approved Homeland Security agents, and that it is your responsibility as a US citizen to do so immediately.

The Freedom to wear flip flops. – Starting June 1st, 2006, all US citizens will be required to wear those Greek sandals that tie around the ankle. Approved sandals may be purchased from Foot Flavors, a division of Halliburton.

The Right to refuse fries with that. – The Food and Drug Administration has determined that answer to all fries related questions will now be “yes, please”.

The Freedom to shuffle around densely-populated urban areas with your pants around your ankles. – President Bush believes that there is no societal good achieved by “Donald Duck-ing” it. He believes that if you truly feel the need to walk around sans Sansabelts, there are other countries that would be happy to have you. And when he says other countries, he means Canada.

The Freedom for men to cry. - Since men should not be crying anyway, this Freedom is not a great loss.

The Freedom to take a book out a library with the words “Buttwad” or “Precious Juggies” in it. – Smut is just one of many ways the terrorists win.

Peanut

2006-04-12T19:07:00.000-07:00

Peanut, my deputy, got shot in the face today, and I’ll tell you this, it came as a genuine surprise to me.

I had given Peanut the job of riling up the Plounkett Gang. Just so I could get an idea of what they’d do when provoked. Normal sheriff stuff. Looking back at the events of the day, I realize now that Peanut and I should have gone over the parameters of the riling, before he started.

For instance, I should have told Peanut that it was inadvisable to spit on his hand and rub it on Abe Plunkett’s jacket.

Also, I should have told Peanut not to repeatedly shout “Who wants a piece of this?” while holding a blueberry muffin over his crotch.

During all of this, Peanut might have mistakenly interpreted my laughter as encouragement, but it certainly was not meant to do so. Sometimes I laugh inappropriately, like the time Peanut was in the outhouse when it was dynamited. The same goes for when Peanut started into his bit about the Plounkett ladies smelling like daschund bellies dragged through puddles of weasel urine. My shock relating to the graphic imagery of Peanut’s words came out as laughter. Believe me, inside where it counts, I was not laughing.

There were several other misunderstandings today, including when I yelled, “You’re on a roll, Peanut! Keep going!” In no way did this mean that I wanted him to continue his aberrant behavior, I was merely ironic. Unfortunately, my irony was lost on Peanut.

In fairness to myself, I did try to bring a halt to the proceedings. “Stop! Stop!” I yelled, as I slapped my knee and sasparilla shot out of my nose.

And, when I noticed that the Plounketts were getting restless, I did take the blame for everything. “Hey, don’t look at me, it was his idea”, I said. In retrospect, I see that the Plounketts did not realize that I was doing an imitation of Peanut talking about me. Perhaps, I didn’t get the timber of Peanut’s voice right.

Finally, I should have insisted that the riling not take place at Annie Plounkett’s fifth birthday party. Children that young should never have bared witness to Peanut slapping his bared buttocks with a wooden spoon. And I have no excuse for shouting “Hit it like a piñata!”

Still, it should come as no mystery that when the Peanut-centric shooting began, I was shocked. I did not see it coming, and I can say with absolute surety, Peanut didn’t see it coming either. Or he probably would have ducked.

Creative Exercise #2

2006-01-24T17:29:00.000-08:00

Names of the horses belonging to the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

- Apple Blossom
- Lazy Eye
- Sugar Pie, Destroyer of Dreams
- Marshmallow

I blame Wikipedia.

2006-01-21T15:18:00.000-08:00

This will be my last email from this address, jdunowski@cranberrytreepublishers.com, as I have lost my fact checker job here at the magazine. Of course, I will still be available at my home email, mobstahlobstah420@monkeyninja.com.

How did I lose my job? I blame Wikipedia.

I first discovered that Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia site, had some factual inaccuracies when I was reading Wikipedia. The problem was that the website implicated some poor guy in both Kennedy assassinations, assassinations in which he, apparently, had no involvement. I’m not sure what role he didn’t take in the Kennedy assassinations, but it was probably wheelman. Of course, this error also called into question Wikipedia’s claim that John F. Kennedy foretold his own death and that his last words as President of the United States and living person were, “See? What did I tell you?”

What went wrong with Wikipedia? Like Soylent Green, ultimately the problem with Wikipedia was people. It was people who miscounted the number of states in the United States (there are only 50), guesstimated that the speed of light was one gazillion miles per hour (less than that), and, in short, sullied what could have been a beautifully informative website. Who did I think was writing the entries? Robots? I don’t know, maybe, I’m leaning heavily towards yes.

As a fact checker, I should have known better than to use Wikipedia as my primary research source. A mistake compounded by the fact that it was my only source.

My editor, Tracy, first became suspicious of my research methods and Wikipedia’s failings when she received several hundred Letters to the Editor informing her that dogs did not actually have voice boxes, nor was stubbornness the only thing that kept them from talking. As Tracy told me, mistakes like that might be okay for some small backwoods pet-centered magazine, but for Pacific Northwest Pet Owner, such errors cannot be tolerated.

Later in a written reprimand, Tracy said that the talking dog thing was my first strike. Strikes two and three came a week later when I green-lighted an article that said Tasmanian Devils traveled by tornado and made enchanting pets for small children.

I beg that you learn from my mistakes. Use Wikipedia with caution, no matter how attractive and juicily fact-packed it seems. Believe me, the pain caused by having your employer knock on your forehead, asking “Hello? Is this thing on?” is not worth it.

Even with all the problems, and when I say problems I’m focusing on the job loss, I still adore Wikipedia. Never have I learned so much, whether it was true or not, in such a rapid manner. Quick knowledge, easily obtained, is as intoxicating as peppermint schnapps and a beer chaser. Without that wonderful website, I would have never learned that there are five household appliances that are hotter than the Sun, that the natural enemy of unicorns are pegasii, or that pegasii is the plural of pegasus. I would never have known that Ulysses S. Grant was not a drunk, he was just suffering from a terrible concussion, and that when I close my eyes, I’m invisible.

I’ve got to say goodbye now, as Tracy is sitting on what will soon be my former desk, ripping off the head of my troll doll, and asking me how many times I have to be told to leave.

I only wish she still trusted me, because I checked with Wikipedia and the answer is four.

An Apology

2006-01-11T01:07:00.000-08:00

Well, here it is, the court ordered apology that you’ve all been waiting for. Let me start off by saying that contrary to editorial opinion, I am not a monster. I am person, like you are. I do people things, I watch television and I enjoy eating.

This was never about the publicity for my television show. Sidney Martin’s Excitement Hour was always about the journey, a half hour journey to entertain and, possibly, edu-tain people who were up at 5:30 Monday morning. But Sidney Martin’s Excitement Hour was more than the entertaining and the people. It was about art. The art of grabbing people by their noses, putting them in a rocket car, and then taking them on a trillion mile per hour thrill ride. Because if people weren’t supposed to live lives of action then our forebrothers and foresisters wouldn’t have started off by leg whipping sabretooth tigers and strangling pterodactyls. That’s just the way it is. Sorry if the truth tastes a little bitter.

So that’s what I was doing last week for my former stepbrother, Carl, who was in dire need of a million mile per hour thrill ride, or a drinking intervention. I expected Carl who is twenty five years old and deeply enthralled with alcoholism to be making his way home from Loco Toro Blanco’s Tequila Tuesday. I thought that if I could hold up a mirror for Carl to see, that it might highlight some of his failings, failings such as Tequila Tuesday, Melonball Wednesday, and whatever the special was on Thursday.

Which is why I dressed like a ninja. People, I believe, learn best when they aren’t expecting an education. So that is why I somersaulted out of a moving van with a chainsaw and an airhorn. I was trying to kickstart Carl’s life.

I was just as shocked as Mrs. Dellacanos and her niece, Freebie when they weren’t Carl. Because, in reality, senior citizens are not expected to be out at that hour. Adding to the confusion was the fact that I was wearing a child’s hockey mask. It was ill fitting and I could only see out of one eyehole. I have written a letter to the manufacturer.

An important point to make here, despite what a local reporter claimed, the chainsaw was not running. If I’m going to do a somersault out of a moving van with a chainsaw, that chainsaw is going to be off.

I do completely agree that the airhorn was too much. I’m sure the ringing in Freebie’s ears, or tintinabulation as doctors call it, will diminish, and perhaps eventually disappear.

Ironically, it was Carl who then jumped on me and repeatedly hit my head on the curb. From stumbling drunk to local hero in seconds, thanks to me.

So that is what happened. It wasn’t a crime but an attempt to help Carl, who doesn’t need any help because he is now a hero. A drunk hero, but nobody seems to care about that. I would have apologized on Sidney Martin’s Excitement Hour, my popular pre-morning television show, but it was canceled for “legal” reasons. So there goes the Constitution down the crapper.

Now that I’m finished apologizing, I think there is some more blame to go around. Jonah’s Ark All-star Bagels, I gave you three years of my life, I think I deserved a little better than I got, which was not my job. Knocksborough Police Department, maybe I wouldn’t have lost my job if you hadn’t felt the need to taser me in the middle of my shift. Also if you were trying to hire jerky, red faced, loose cannons, congratulations, Officer Marcie LePage is your woman. It’s a miracle that she has not shot a child or pet. Centennial Cable, you guys seem very hardcore about the rules and the “law” now, maybe you should have explained them better at the orientation. To my lawyer, Paul Heehan, your ads promised “qualified representation”. Time to get a new ad, pal. Also, my current stepbrother Brian, who filmed the incident and ran away without being implicated, well, you’re implicated now, see you at home.

Yours,
Sidney Martin

P.S. Enjoy me while you can. As soon as my house arrest is over, I am out of this town. And believe me, this tracking anklet might keep me within one hundred and fifty feet of my mother’s house, but it can’t monitor my spirit. Which remains, as always, super free.

Again yours,
Sidney Martin

Episodic Accounts of Seattle: 1880-1889, The Mayor of Turtle Town

2006-01-06T15:17:00.000-08:00

Seattle’s first floating neighborhood was known as Turtle Town, named after the almost one hundred wooden boats that housed its populace, huddled together at the bottom of Pirate’s Landing. The “Turtles” looked like a wooden rowboat turned upside down and put onto another rowboat, small wooden tortoises. They could house one person in relative comfort, two in extreme discomfort, or three in horrifying Third World(1) conditions. Each turtle had a small wood stove, a fold out table and a bed, enough for basic housing.

And while the turtles could float, even in the heaviest swell, they weren’t designed to go anywhere. Attached to the docks with long sea chains that had nametags on the dock end, if someone had business with a Turtle Town resident or simply wanted to annoy them, they could just pull their chain, and drag their business partner or victim bumping through the crowded boats of their neighbors to the shore.

All the turtles were built by a laconic Danish boat builder named Tor Malamud Tuga in a small, cramp workshop that stood on the pier that overshadowed Turtle Town and formed its southern boundary. Tuga had a trap door built into the bottom of his workspace, and every five days or so, residents of Turtle Town would hear the familiar creak of the trap door’s gears and then an echoing “ka-thunk” as a new Turtle plopped into the water.

The boatbuilding provided a nominal living for Tuga, but he had a secret reason for building the Turtles, which was that he was creating a new voting district in an attempt to become Mayor of Seattle.

There was a certain amount of difficulty as, even with the relative affordability and Tuga’s newspaper ads that exhorted readers to “Be Your Own Skipper!”, not everyone was built for life on a boat. Turtle Town lost residents to chronic unseaworthiness, tight space fright, occasional stove explosions, as well as those who didn’t appreciate the smell of wadded rope and tar that filled in the cracks of Tuga’s boats.

There was constant turnover, which did not help with Tuga’s secret plan. Another problem was that nobody actually knew Tor Tuga wanted to be mayor. Only his journal, covered with tar fingerprints and written with tiny anchors over the i’s, let know his true feelings.
“My plan is to surprise them, like Job out of that whale’s arse. Come out of nowhere, rise from the water and squash the Landies. It will be a magnificent crushing. I hate the smell of wood.”

Unfortunately for Tuga, a mayoral race was never held in his lifetime. The current mayor had been sentenced to the post for his crimes against the common good and a woman named Gladys Muchomp. Tuga knew this, but for some reason, probably some sort of Danish cultural misunderstanding, still thought being the mayor was a worthy and attainable profession,

And so he built his boat and his voting district every day come rain or slightly more rain, waiting for the day Dan “Big Don” Lollie was either acquitted or paroled. In his journal, Tuga went so far as to prepare campaign materials, including a stump speech.
“I stand before you a humble Danish boat builder, I might have even built a boat for you. In fact, if I squint I might be able to see someone I’ve built a built for, like the two hundred people over there. [Wait for laughter to subside.](2) But this country, West Denmark(3), is built by the bodily sweat of boat builders, dynamite stuffers like my friend, Martin Anthus over here, and diseased orphan handlers like Jerome Whasmatis. And I think New Copenhagen deserves to have a man used to work to work for you. Which is why I am putting my hat in the ring, [Put hat in ring.] and naming myself Mayor of New Copenhagen!(4) [Await spontaneous roar of crowd. Bathe in glory, then motion sheepishly about too much applause. Wait for silence, then put hand to ear in the “I-can’t-hear-you” pose and rile crowd by waving other arm. Chuckle delightedly.]”

This speech is evidence of Tuga’s long-term exposure to tar, which according to spectrographic evidence, he made himself using a cornucopia of toxic chemicals. This exposure was dulling and sometimes re-routing the synapses in his brain.
Despite these increasing ravages of brain damage, Tuga did not stop his constant building. At its height, Turtle Town was made up of about three hundred boats, though the occasional one or fourteen got crushed by pirvate Friday night raiding parties or sunk by yet another industrial accident at the two ton weight factory which sadly was built on the unfortunately thin-planked pier across from Tuga’s workshop.

But Tuga never gave up his dream. In fact, he made a sign that said “Mayor or Turtle Town”, which nobody paid attention to, despite his constant pointing.

Tuga built Turtles until the day he died, keeling over on a newly finished boat at the age of 79.

“Do-gooders” from Turtle Town put him in the boat, doused it with various chemicals they found in his workshop, set the whole affair on fire, and then released the trap door.

Unfortunately, unfamiliar with the workings on the trap door, it didn’t open, and the flames quickly spread engulfing the workshop and the pier. The fire continued for hours and at one point onlookers and lookers-on saw Tuga’s naked(5), flaming body fall through the floor of the workshop, sans boat, and crash spinning into the water.

Which would have been horrifying for Tor Tuga, who left behind a tranquil gravesite underneath a maple tree with a granite headstone that said “Mayor at Last”.

Footnotes:
(1) During the early 1880’s Seattle was actually considered a part of the Third World, occasionally dipping into the Fourth World on weekend evenings.
(2) Tuga normally wrote reaction notes in his journals. He constantly told himself to “look more stoic”.
(3) Nobody knows what Tuga was talking about here.
(4) Again, no idea.
(5) It is assumed that the “do-gooders” undressed Tuga to look at his tattoos.

If only I'd asked what the word "monorail" meant

2005-12-16T02:59:00.000-08:00

Why didn’t I just ask someone what the word “monorail” meant?
That is a good question and one that I’m not sure I know the answer to. The truth is that I let it get away from me, I let the world overwhelm me and now I’m sorry. Not that I’ll ever tell anyone except you, diary. Here’s hoping that tiny novelty lock holds.
When was the first time I heard the word “monorail”? It must have been during my mayoral campaign. One of the attractive, smaller television reporters asked me whether I supported it or not. And I don’t know what it was but the second she said that word there was a sound in my head, like the sound the television makes at three in the morning after the national anthem. Static. This sound in my head was just like static. Also, I think I smelled electricity.
My handler Jim was not paying attention. Perhaps he was looking at a woman or wandered off to wash his hands. I can’t remember now. His absence might have had something to do with the smell of electricity in the air.
So I looked to the people in that press conference at the Marriott, I mean I really looked at them. I think they were getting a little uncomfortable with the fact that I wasn’t talking. But I kept staring and praying that I could see into their minds and figure out whether or not I supported something I’d never heard of. I had already forgotten the word “monorail”, what with being overwhelmed by the strong stench of electricity and all.
Anyway, I couldn’t read their minds. And one man with curly hair, who I think was a supporter, stood up and pointed to his ear.
“Did you hear the question?” He asked.
“Is your ear all right?” I asked back, focusing on his movements, rather than what was coming out of his mouth.
And then the small reporter repeated her question, which I thought was a little rude since I was having such an intense moment with the curly-haired voter. And in my eyes, she became a little less attractive.
“I am against it.” I said, making a fist and placing it against the podium gently. Why did I choose against? I wish I knew how to answer that. Maybe because no always seems easier than yes.
And saying no made half the room at the press conference happy. Which is not terrible odds for a politician. If I had ever seen Jim the handler again I think he would have been proud.
I repeated that I was against the monorail at several more campaign stops that day, once to a man standing next to me at a urinal. Then he tried to debate me, so I moved down a urinal.
I could have asked someone that night. Why didn’t I? Maybe, Diary, it was because I was too proud.
Couldn’t I have learned in context? I wish I could have, but when I was a child I was in a bike accident where I lost my sense of context, as well as my sense of smell. Which makes the electric smell when I heard the word “monorail” even more troubling.
By the next day, I was in too deep. My phone started ringing, there were reporters knocking on my door. People wanted to know what I thought about the monorail. The sense of shame was horrifying. My stomach and colon were a mess for weeks. Worse than burning oil fields.
Didn’t I see the pictures? They were everywhere, pictures of me looking angry right next to pictures of the train. But I didn’t understand, I couldn’t make the connection. At first, I thought the train was just going through the pictures, that the monorail was somewhere in the background, but then I realized that the monorail must be something on the train. Which is when I purchased the magnifying glass, so I could stare at newspaper photos looking in those tiny train windows for clues, but all I could see was smudged ink.
As time went on, all people wanted to know about was the monorail. Where was the monorail? What about the monorail? Had I talked to the monorail? Diary, I started to hate the monorail. I started to hate it with all of my guts. At staff meetings I would slap my hands against my desk when anyone questioned my monorail position. I’d point angrily and gesture inappropriately. I wish I could tell them that it was my own fear that was making me do that. I wish I could take all of those threats back.
But it’s too late. If only I’d asked, we could have had a monorail. Which would have been great, now that I know that “mono” means “one” while “rail” means “train”.
I would have loved that “one train”. It would have been great in this city. I would have ridden it for hours, my head pressed heavily against the glass, and watching Seattle whirl by at a thousand miles per hour.

What the fever dreams have taught me

2005-12-06T17:27:00.000-08:00

- That children are not our future. Also, they should not be allowed out at night to beat sleeping sick people with whiffle ball bats.
- That hell is both burny and freezy, like a McDLT.
- That all of you people are against me.
- That you all can read my mind, which may be why you are all against me.
- That contrary to popular wisdom, paranoia is not a self-destroya, instead it’s all that stands between me and local youth with bats.

Creative Exercise #1

2005-11-28T16:34:00.000-08:00

Names of Racehorses that should not be bet on

- Goiter
- Old Lead Paint
- Ingrown Hoof
- Katie The Two-Legged Horse
- Heart Murmur
- Feeble Bastard
- Kenneth
- It’s Actually A Donkey

My child goes to school with a thousand killer robots

2005-11-25T19:45:00.000-08:00

Dear Superintendent Banershreeshi,

My child goes to school with a thousand killer robots. That, in itself, should make one question the bussing priorities of this district.

I realize that having moved to Cherrystone recently, that Lyle might not get his first or second choice among schools. It is apparent to anyone who talks to Lyle for five minutes that he will not be attending any of the magnet schools in the area. Believe me, I love my son and he tries as hard as he can, but due to the stunted DNA of my ex-husband’s family, Lyle’s brain will probably always operate at 60% capacity.

But is Lyle’s only choice really the school for killer robots? Come on! I hadn’t even realized that there was a school for killer robots in the district. It certainly wasn’t on the selection list sent to us by the school district. Why would we even have killer robots in the district?

I shouldn’t need to tell you that things are not going well for Lyle at school. Every morning I watch that short yellow bus pull out from the curb, with Lyle pounding on the back window screaming, and I feel horrible. Then in the afternoon, he gets off that same little bus, shaking like one of those toy breed dogs. Superintendent Banershreeshi, I know how important an education is, but is it worth my son’s health? His pediatrician tells me that his little heart beats so fast that it just makes a buzzing sound and, while I am not a medical professional, that can’t be good.

Lyle has been placed in all the remedial classes, which he attends with a toaster oven and a Crock-Pot. I’m concerned by the fact that Lyle regularly comes home with second-degree burns, which school faculty assures me are the result of “horseplay”. What I want to know Superintendent Banershreeshi is this, when Lyle comes home with a third-degree will that also be considered “horseplay” or “assault”? Actually, I am unsure which one of these it would be.

Another concern of mine is that Lyle is constantly being derided, even my faculty members, for having to ingest solid food and liquids. Speaking of liquids, the school has no bathroom facilities, forcing Lyle to refrain from using the toilet all day, which may account for the shaking I mentioned above.

Social interactions are a constant difficulty for Lyle, who being the only mammal student, is the center of abuse. Lyle has told me that some of the killer robots aim their targeting lasers at his head during gym class. I’ve talked to his principal, D:DRIVE 5000, who has assured me that nearly the entire school has been reprogrammed not to kill him, but is “nearly all” enough when it comes to my child’s safety?

I don’t want to be a troublemaker, but my son’s best friend is a calculator with a broken solar cell whose limited vocabulary includes the words “BOOBS”, “HELL”, and “HELLBOOBS”. Superintendent Banershreeshi, I want more for my child.

I implore you, please allow Lyle, to transfer to another school in the district, if only for his safety and my peace of mind.

Thank you for your time and attention,

Deborah Kleinman

Death Watch: New for Sharper Image!

2005-11-23T17:04:00.000-08:00

Date: November 23rd, 2005 4:15 PM
For Immediate Publication:
Refund Offer for the Tempus Fuget Death Watch™ from Sharper Image

Sharper Image would like to announce a refund offer for our Tempus Fuget Death Watch Pro™. While one of the more popular items this holiday season, perhaps the must have gift of 2005, we realize that not everyone wants to know the exact moment, right down to the millisecond, of their death. Sharper Image will happily refund the purchase price for those dissatisfied with the first quality chronograph, available in both dusky pewter and teeth white gold, to accurately predict the moment of life cessation.

While we are offering a refund for the Tempus Fuget Death Watch Pro™, Sharper Image would also like to emphasize that the wonderfully crafted watch, offered in both mens’ and womens’ sizes, is a great way to tell loved ones that you want to spend time with them and using the Tempus Fuget Death Watch Pro™ they will know exactly how much time that is. It also makes a terrific stocking stuffer.

The Tempus Fuget Death Watch Pro™ is also completely recyclable, perfect for a treasured family heirloom, though we suggest swabbing it with rubbing alcohol between uses. There is no reason a relative or friends should go to the grave with a finely crafted timepiece flashing zeroes, when you could be making the most of the time you have left.

Sharper Image would also like to suggest that there are some people who are better able to function under the impending shadow of death than others. For example, the last words of a consumer who recently purchased the eye-catching Tempus Fuget Death Watch Pro™ were “Is this working?” If we could answer that customer, our answer would be yes, the Swiss-made Tempus Fuget Death Watch Pro™ does work and that Sharper Image cannot be held liable for appointments or travel plans made after the appointed time.

At this time, Shaper Image cannot comment on the claims that the Tempus Fuget Death Watch Pro™ is unable to differentiate between brain death and death death due to an ongoing lawsuit. We could reiterate that the stylish Tempus Fuget Death Watch Pro™ is a tremendous product made by the Swiss and maybe brain death is death death and who are we to challenge the Swiss, but we will not.

Finally, the tiny skull that dances across the face of the watch twenty minutes prior to death can break off and be a choking hazard for smaller children, so Sharper Image suggests that any children wearing the watch be supervised. Also, apparently children are terrified of death so perhaps the Tempus Fuget Death Watch Pro™ would not be the best present for our younger customers. They might be bettered served by the ever popular Sharper Image Ball of Electric Lightning Plasma.

Thank you and Happy Holidays from Sharper Image Incorporated, L.L.C.

The Philadelphia Flyers Have A Time Machine: Installments 1-5

2005-11-23T01:36:00.000-08:00

www.mcsweeneys.net/2004/4/5johnson.html
www.mcsweeneys.net/2004/12/13johnston.html
www.mcsweeneys.net/2005/1/13feature.html
www.mcsweeneys.net/2005/4/15johnston.html
www.mcsweeneys.net/2005/9/16johnston.html

Nov 23 - My Living Will

2005-11-23T00:28:00.000-08:00

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how I’m going to wrap up my mortality. Because I have definite preferences about how I want to handle and I’d be happy to explain these preferences with my last breath. But what if death visits when I’m bound and gagged or I have a mouthful of pie? My friends would be in charge. And while I love them, I wouldn’t let them pick out a bagel for me, much less handle my end of life sidework. So I have created this living will, instructions for various scenarios, and as much as a dead person can bend people to their will, I want my wishes followed, or else.

I, like most people, do not want to be inhabited by an evil, alien force. If my eyes start to glow orange and there is an alien-shaped hole in my stomach, there is a strong chance that I have been possessed. If I start saying hooey like, “Dave is in here, but he can’t hear you”, then I am definitely inhabited. Please feel free to destroy my body at your convenience. What’s the best way to do away with me? I guess it really depends on the otherworldly creature, though I’ll tell you this, my first choice would be a shovel. If my eyes glow yellow, there is a chance that I have hepatitis and should be taken to the doctor immediately.

If I die doing something oddly heroic I don’t want any potentially uncontrollable mobs at my funeral. Recently I’ve seen several funerals on television where such mobs are so smitten with a dead person that they knock down the coffin and tear the body apart. While I would appreciate the outpouring of feeling, I don’t want those people within grabbing distance of my lifeless husk. I never let strangers touch me in life, why would I let them after life? Also, discourage people from firing guns in the air because those bullets have to come down somewhere.

Please don’t tell people that “he would have wanted to go that way”, unless I am hit by a leaky morphine truck while eating a corndog. Please note, “eating a corndog” is not a euphemism.

If I a mysterious, wealthy benefactor wants to freeze my body cryogenically, don’t just let them freeze my head. While I’m sure the future will have cures for many diseases, I doubt they’ll have a cure for beheading.

I don’t necessarily want my last words repeated, especially if they are “Look what I can do!” or “Watch this!”

If I am, again, lured into the sea otter exhibit at the aquarium and this time I am eaten by said otters, I would like those otters killed by tigers who have been teased with sea otter puppets.

If, as I expect, I am crushed by a ball of frozen urine dropped by an airliner, I don’t want a big deal made of it. Don’t tell anecdotes about it and definitely don’t call those hacks at the local television news. Death is bad enough without the humiliation of having my corpse soaked with the urine of strangers.

Finally, I don’t want to be buried or cremated. I would like to be smeared with peanut butter and put out in the woods. And I’m not talking about some city park or an underpass, I’m talking the wilderness. Unless, of course, noted scientists believe that my body smeared with peanut butter would turn turn ordinary forest animals (squirrels, chipmunks, baby rabbits and skunks) into insatiable flesh lusters and thus a threat to lovers of the outdoors and joggers.

Please note, that the above wishes should be disregarded in the following cases...
1. If I appear in a dream telling you not to kill me.
2. If I am only pretending to be gravely ill.

As always, racing towards death,

Schmeattle