November 1st.
It's too late for a Halloween story, you realize. It's the day after. It's too late.
That's never stopped me before, you realize. If it's one thing Spiral Reverie readers love, it's waiting forever for posts that may or may not be excruciatingly disappointing. The greatest thing about me is when I'm not there at all. All those spaces are left unfilled, overflowing with suffocating potential.
I'm my most intriguing when I'm a ghost. When the mystery thrives over whether or not the blog's finally dead. But it's never dead. It's one of the only things that'll outlast the end of civilization. Not even the end of the internet, the end of servers, or the end of language could destroy this blog.
No. The end is just the beginning. The beginning is never the end. Burgers are waffles. If those drums in your ears were timpani, you'd have headaches all the time.
And now in the spirit of whatever the hell that just was, another attempt at beginning to post content here again for a while. Starting with the nonsense from me you love most. ANOTHER RIDICULOUS STORY.
Showing posts with label Stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stories. Show all posts
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Sunday, December 25, 2011
The Tears of Caga Tió
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| Holiday cheer meets confectionery defecation! |
At any rate, though I was tempted to do a Krampus story this year - there will be a Krampus story yet - this year, you get a bizarre little short for the Spanish crowd.
Just earlier this month, the surreal, brilliant Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations Christmas special introduced me to a certain Catalan mythological character and holiday tradition - none other than Tió de Nadal, otherwise known as Caga Tió. In a sense, Caga Tió is the anti-Krampus. Rather than punishing children for being children - all children are terrible, remember, you parents out there especially know this to be true - like Santa's monstrous Germanic pal, Caga Tió's sole holiday task is to inevitably poop candy. Ideally, turrón.
Should the Caga Tió fail in this task, the children beat it with sticks. Savagely. See? I was right about children all along.
Anyway, your annual Xmas short story. The whimsy. The weird. All that noise. Go!
Monday, October 31, 2011
The House That Murder Built
Oh, right. Halloween.
Once again, I disappeared for over a month and a half. More blog posts are coming, but things are clogged up, and for reasons that are surprisingly reasonable for once. This time, anyway.
But hey, I tossed something horribly spooky at you last year, so this year, you're getting a goofier, weirder Halloween short story again. And not very long, unfortunately. But then, short fiction is short fiction. In the least, though my short story output has been much slower this year, it hasn't halted entirely.
With how infrequently I update these days - frustrating as that is - feel free to think of this blog as a ghost. Ghost blog. You lose, Ghost Dad.
Once again, I disappeared for over a month and a half. More blog posts are coming, but things are clogged up, and for reasons that are surprisingly reasonable for once. This time, anyway.
But hey, I tossed something horribly spooky at you last year, so this year, you're getting a goofier, weirder Halloween short story again. And not very long, unfortunately. But then, short fiction is short fiction. In the least, though my short story output has been much slower this year, it hasn't halted entirely.
With how infrequently I update these days - frustrating as that is - feel free to think of this blog as a ghost. Ghost blog. You lose, Ghost Dad.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Back from the Rapture!
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| This is NOT what it looks like. |
I know this is going to sound crazy, but the Rapture actually happened, guys! Back on May 21st, just like that Harold Camping guy predicted! I'm not sure what that 'family' radio stuff is all about, but I've totally been to that heaven everyone's always talking about.
And I've gotta tell you, totally overrated.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
What We Pretend to Be
Halloween afternoon. I was going to have two stories up for you today, but I keep trying to push myself to get more up here than I reasonably can in a single twenty-four hour period. I'm delaying the late-September story into early November, after the election - yes, yikes, but it has to be done.
Anyway, defying the norm, here's your October story, in October! Just in time for Halloween. The story's theme, no less! Could it possibly be more of a coincidence? (Yes.)
Hit that jump. It's short, but not quite as goofy as the previous three years' awkward Halloween stories.
Anyway, defying the norm, here's your October story, in October! Just in time for Halloween. The story's theme, no less! Could it possibly be more of a coincidence? (Yes.)
Hit that jump. It's short, but not quite as goofy as the previous three years' awkward Halloween stories.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Go Ahead and Try Not to Drown
Hey, what is this? Is it - is it a post of some kind? (Come on, man. What are you thinking?)
Mid-September's kind of crashed down on us, hasn't it? Crashed down like what, you ask? Silly readers, now that I've returned from my unannounced furlough, it's time for you to sing and dance - perhaps not too quickly, excessive exuberance can be a killer - but the time for metaphor is later. Perhaps. Yes, later. Let's say that.
So, where the hell have I been? Here, there, everywhere, nowhere. A good armload of meaningless, question-dodging answers - that is to say, I've been struggling with inspiration. It's been a messy summer and I still don't feel like I've fully normalized healthwise yet - now thanks in part to some worries about potential hypertension problems (Methinks it's time to get stricter about exercising more often again now. Let's hope I'm just faltering in the face of hypochondriac tendencies here.) - and otherwise, much of this week and past weekend were consumed by downward plodding toward the end of summer. This plodding entails the dropping of the temperature just enough to ensure the air conditioning isn't on much, which leads to my room - which has poor ventilation and circulation - becoming exceedingly hot, uncomfortable, and all around ovenlike, which can be a real sleep-killer. And of course, with the new TV season starting very soon (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia season six premieres on Thursday! Also, the new season means more of the usual blog fodder, of course.), I need to push myself to start normalizing my sleep cycle a bit more after how much of a mess it's been all summer. (None of this has helped my health, of course. So maybe that should be my primary reason for normalizing my sleep - at least compared to my currently wrecked cycle - as opposed to OH BOY TELEVISION.) Without those little slices of death, the big sleep comes much sooner than later, they say - I've got too much I still need to accomplish before I can let myself get that tired.
At any rate, there's been plenty this summer to write about that I haven't exactly taken advantage of. There was the Gulf of Mexico oil spill back in April, for one, which should have served as more of a wake-up call to the nation to begin reducing fossil fuel consumption and shift our focus to green energy sources. Then there was rampant anti-Mexican bigotry in Arizona, the manufactured Shirley Sherrod scandal thanks to professional liar Andrew Breitbart, and a visible explosion of Islamophobia centered around a proposed Islamic community center in lower Manhattan - just a couple of blocks from ground zero. ("Hallowed ground" in the sense that strip clubs, fast food joints, and the like are A-OK, but a community center is not because after years of implying it now, now many Republicans are openly conflating all Muslims with terrorists.) The usual September 11th (Celebrate Terrormas by buying gifts for your whole family and burning down the household World Trade Center replica TOGETHER! NEVER FORGET.) memorial was marred by open displays of bigotry, and a fixation on Florida pastor Terry Jones's trolling for media attention by planning a Quran burning just to be incendiary and lower the discourse even further. And of course, just yesterday the Democrats in congress folded on repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell in the face of a John McCain-led Republican party line filibuster. So much has happened in the past few months that's really filled me with overflowing faith in humanity. So, so much. (Ow.)
All that mind-numbing positivity aside, it's time for something different! Sort of. It's September 22nd now. Summer's about to end, and autumn's about to begin. All of you have been beating the war drums for weeks, demanding to know: WHERE THE HELL IS THAT AUGUST SHORT STORY!? There were reminders that I had pledged to post a short story a month on here - even if these short stories have often been delayed into early in the following month - back in February, and I've largely kept to my word. There were also some obscenities in there, but I chose to omit those because this is a fucking family-oriented blog. (You've got a foul mouth.) At any rate, just short of the end of summer, it's finally - finally! - finally time for the long-awaited end of summer ultra-late August short story.
Of course, after this long wait, you're undoubtedly expecting something simultaneously mindblowing, touching, and potentially deeply corrosive - if nothing else, you've always been able to count on my writing to be at least a little corrosive, if only in intent. What are you getting this time? Something even better - I ran out of ideas as we got into late summer, though I wanted to do another somewhat seasonal story as I largely have been all year long, at least in my mind. But after ending spring with death, hitting you with heat with the late-June story in early July, and hitting you with post-apocalyptic firefly sci-fi in early August for the late-July short story, I basically had nothing.
So now you're thinking, "If you've got nothing, why are you even writing this? Why are you wasting my time?" Reasonable questions. Reasonable questions deserve honest answers - they deserve accountability. And I've been predictably irresponsible in following through with achieving my own goals. I'd say addiction to underachieving is some kind of illness, but it's more of a personality thing bundled with excuses. And if I weren't good at making excuses - especially in hopefully becoming a regularly working writer within the next year or two with deadlines and the whole shebang - what kind of writer would I be?
Enough with the digressions. To end summer, you need an appropriately summery theme. What says "summer" more than the beach? Who spends more time on the beach than lifeguards? (Ignore the usual beachgoers, hermit crabs, certain jellyfish, etc.) Wouldn't a semi-allegorical internal monologue by a disgruntled lifeguard suffering some kind of PTSD be the greatest story ever conceived? Of course it would. (If nothing else, it might be kinda original. Kinda.) That's why I wrote this. I wrote it for you. All of you out there looking to bake your brains on itchy, sandy, summer-ending storytelling. You're welcome.
Consider this to be my sort of beginning the "fall season" of Spiral Reverie updates, in a manner of speaking. More productivity, more writing, hopefully some publishing, and continued agent query work lie ahead. Maybe I'll finally get out of here and make it someplace more interesting and inspiring within the next year, too. I'm pretty well past feeling like I could drop dead at this point, so with the autumnal equinox coming up in these next twenty-four hours, I hereby proclaim The Summer of (Anything terrible that starts with the letter S) at a close!
Now click the post title and jump down to the story itself. With all this other rambling as a preface, this one's pretty short - some concepts can only go so far before they risk transforming into something else entirely. This is just another experiment.
Mid-September's kind of crashed down on us, hasn't it? Crashed down like what, you ask? Silly readers, now that I've returned from my unannounced furlough, it's time for you to sing and dance - perhaps not too quickly, excessive exuberance can be a killer - but the time for metaphor is later. Perhaps. Yes, later. Let's say that.
So, where the hell have I been? Here, there, everywhere, nowhere. A good armload of meaningless, question-dodging answers - that is to say, I've been struggling with inspiration. It's been a messy summer and I still don't feel like I've fully normalized healthwise yet - now thanks in part to some worries about potential hypertension problems (Methinks it's time to get stricter about exercising more often again now. Let's hope I'm just faltering in the face of hypochondriac tendencies here.) - and otherwise, much of this week and past weekend were consumed by downward plodding toward the end of summer. This plodding entails the dropping of the temperature just enough to ensure the air conditioning isn't on much, which leads to my room - which has poor ventilation and circulation - becoming exceedingly hot, uncomfortable, and all around ovenlike, which can be a real sleep-killer. And of course, with the new TV season starting very soon (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia season six premieres on Thursday! Also, the new season means more of the usual blog fodder, of course.), I need to push myself to start normalizing my sleep cycle a bit more after how much of a mess it's been all summer. (None of this has helped my health, of course. So maybe that should be my primary reason for normalizing my sleep - at least compared to my currently wrecked cycle - as opposed to OH BOY TELEVISION.) Without those little slices of death, the big sleep comes much sooner than later, they say - I've got too much I still need to accomplish before I can let myself get that tired.
At any rate, there's been plenty this summer to write about that I haven't exactly taken advantage of. There was the Gulf of Mexico oil spill back in April, for one, which should have served as more of a wake-up call to the nation to begin reducing fossil fuel consumption and shift our focus to green energy sources. Then there was rampant anti-Mexican bigotry in Arizona, the manufactured Shirley Sherrod scandal thanks to professional liar Andrew Breitbart, and a visible explosion of Islamophobia centered around a proposed Islamic community center in lower Manhattan - just a couple of blocks from ground zero. ("Hallowed ground" in the sense that strip clubs, fast food joints, and the like are A-OK, but a community center is not because after years of implying it now, now many Republicans are openly conflating all Muslims with terrorists.) The usual September 11th (Celebrate Terrormas by buying gifts for your whole family and burning down the household World Trade Center replica TOGETHER! NEVER FORGET.) memorial was marred by open displays of bigotry, and a fixation on Florida pastor Terry Jones's trolling for media attention by planning a Quran burning just to be incendiary and lower the discourse even further. And of course, just yesterday the Democrats in congress folded on repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell in the face of a John McCain-led Republican party line filibuster. So much has happened in the past few months that's really filled me with overflowing faith in humanity. So, so much. (Ow.)
All that mind-numbing positivity aside, it's time for something different! Sort of. It's September 22nd now. Summer's about to end, and autumn's about to begin. All of you have been beating the war drums for weeks, demanding to know: WHERE THE HELL IS THAT AUGUST SHORT STORY!? There were reminders that I had pledged to post a short story a month on here - even if these short stories have often been delayed into early in the following month - back in February, and I've largely kept to my word. There were also some obscenities in there, but I chose to omit those because this is a fucking family-oriented blog. (You've got a foul mouth.) At any rate, just short of the end of summer, it's finally - finally! - finally time for the long-awaited end of summer ultra-late August short story.
Of course, after this long wait, you're undoubtedly expecting something simultaneously mindblowing, touching, and potentially deeply corrosive - if nothing else, you've always been able to count on my writing to be at least a little corrosive, if only in intent. What are you getting this time? Something even better - I ran out of ideas as we got into late summer, though I wanted to do another somewhat seasonal story as I largely have been all year long, at least in my mind. But after ending spring with death, hitting you with heat with the late-June story in early July, and hitting you with post-apocalyptic firefly sci-fi in early August for the late-July short story, I basically had nothing.
So now you're thinking, "If you've got nothing, why are you even writing this? Why are you wasting my time?" Reasonable questions. Reasonable questions deserve honest answers - they deserve accountability. And I've been predictably irresponsible in following through with achieving my own goals. I'd say addiction to underachieving is some kind of illness, but it's more of a personality thing bundled with excuses. And if I weren't good at making excuses - especially in hopefully becoming a regularly working writer within the next year or two with deadlines and the whole shebang - what kind of writer would I be?
Enough with the digressions. To end summer, you need an appropriately summery theme. What says "summer" more than the beach? Who spends more time on the beach than lifeguards? (Ignore the usual beachgoers, hermit crabs, certain jellyfish, etc.) Wouldn't a semi-allegorical internal monologue by a disgruntled lifeguard suffering some kind of PTSD be the greatest story ever conceived? Of course it would. (If nothing else, it might be kinda original. Kinda.) That's why I wrote this. I wrote it for you. All of you out there looking to bake your brains on itchy, sandy, summer-ending storytelling. You're welcome.
Consider this to be my sort of beginning the "fall season" of Spiral Reverie updates, in a manner of speaking. More productivity, more writing, hopefully some publishing, and continued agent query work lie ahead. Maybe I'll finally get out of here and make it someplace more interesting and inspiring within the next year, too. I'm pretty well past feeling like I could drop dead at this point, so with the autumnal equinox coming up in these next twenty-four hours, I hereby proclaim The Summer of (Anything terrible that starts with the letter S) at a close!
Now click the post title and jump down to the story itself. With all this other rambling as a preface, this one's pretty short - some concepts can only go so far before they risk transforming into something else entirely. This is just another experiment.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Before We All Burn Out
Oh hey there, internet! I almost forgot you existed for a little while there. (This is a baldfaced lie.)
As usual, I got caught up in this last month. Thus, more empty promises for more content and my lowest content month for the year on here. In the last, you shouldn't have any more Julys to dread here - content WILL increase again yet, I swear. Anyway, here's my late July story - late as usual. I was hoping to have it up late last week, before the beginning of August and technically on time for once. That obviously didn't work out.
This one's a little different in that I've spent about four days working on it rather than the usual one or two, and I've invested more time into proofreading and revising, so maybe there'll be some evidence of something more than the first draft that my short stories here usually are. Maybe not. Regardless, dig in. It's time to get strange.
As usual, I got caught up in this last month. Thus, more empty promises for more content and my lowest content month for the year on here. In the last, you shouldn't have any more Julys to dread here - content WILL increase again yet, I swear. Anyway, here's my late July story - late as usual. I was hoping to have it up late last week, before the beginning of August and technically on time for once. That obviously didn't work out.
This one's a little different in that I've spent about four days working on it rather than the usual one or two, and I've invested more time into proofreading and revising, so maybe there'll be some evidence of something more than the first draft that my short stories here usually are. Maybe not. Regardless, dig in. It's time to get strange.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Solstice Poultice
Oh hey, it's early July already. 2010's more than half over. Time sure does have a way of kicking us when we're down.
Yes, I've promised more regular and substantive updates on here this summer. So far, I'm still not delivering. In my defense, I've had some preoccupations lately that I think serve as valid excuse for why I've been so consistently inconsistent in recent months. It all began in early May, of course, when I fell ill for a month. I'm not sick anymore, of course - this is old news. Get on with it. Illness then has pretty much been the catalyst for all kinds of awfulness and unpleasant feelings all summer so far. After beginning the Summer of Sickness in early May - about a month and a half before summer actually began - more problems emerged. Being sick did a number on my stomach and digestive system, and I haven't been able to get back to eating fully normally since then. I've been working on getting past that and improving, but I still have quite a few pounds to gain back - thus began the Summer of Starvation. I've approached levels of weight loss since my illness wherein I've come dangerously close to possibly being hospitalized - something to avoid, considering that I'm uninsured. I literally can't afford medical care. The starvation hit an especially unpleasant turning point last week when I became more consciously aware of just how much weight I've quietly lost in the past near two months just before an unsuccessful trip to the dentist to get a broken filling fixed, having been hit by the third summertime hell whammy in the form of drainage from allergies that morning which, when compounded with the toll starvation has been taking on my system, made me far too physically unstable to get the work I needed done last week. This also isn't helped by the general mental discomfort that can overwhelm me when out of the house - I'm not even all that comfortable with riding in cars in motion at the moment now - after months of barely leaving the neighborhood. I'm getting a sense now of where agoraphobics are coming from, and a sense in general of the mental and emotional stress damage inflicted by months of being cooped up inside the house, rarely leaving the neighborhood, feeling like I could die most of the time. Mindfuckery ahoy. And since the allergy problems suffered prior to the dentist last week, my drainage has only gotten progressively worse, so I'm on a nasal spray and trying to find some effective allergy medication that won't mess me up too much in addition to my usual sinus rinse, in hopes of avoiding continuing to wake up choking on a substance I should be evacuating through my nose or not dealing with at all at this time of the year. On top of that, I've undertaken the overwhelming task of trying to clean up and dust the veritable hurricane that is my bedroom. I would like the Summer of Suffocation not to happen. And after having not felt normal or particularly well for almost two full months now, with all the additional psychological weight that comes with longer term health problems, I really, really want to be back to feeling normal and well by sometime during this month. Health problems have basically derailed everything in my daily life these past couple of months, and I can't afford for this to continue. Thus, my excuse for not posting here as much as I should.
Anyway, I obviously didn't get this end of the month short story up by the end of June as I'd planned to either. Naturally, here it is late. And as previously mentioned, it's now summer as of a couple of weeks ago. As such, you're getting a break from the norm in my end of month short story writing this time in the form of a sequel. After comments left made me think about actually continuing a short story on here for once, I've decided to go ahead and do something different this year in continuing one of these stories - Vernal Eternal - through the rest of the year.
Look forward to the third part in September, and the conclusion in December! Now click the post title here to jump to the story. I'll post some more soon. Let's all hope my body stops attacking itself and lets me eat, sleep, and breathe normally soon. The only health highlights as of late by contrast have been going swimming a couple of times for the first time in a decade-plus a few days ago and getting some sorely needed Vitamin D from sunlight and full-body exercise in the process, while somehow not getting reduced to a pile of ashes or turned into beef jerky in the direct sunlight. Of course, now I'm enjoying my whole body feeling like it's made of rubber, which should last for a week or so. The moral of my story - not the story after the jump, but my own personal one - is that being a sickly person isn't much fun, and I'm at least partially to blame for all of it.
Yes, I've promised more regular and substantive updates on here this summer. So far, I'm still not delivering. In my defense, I've had some preoccupations lately that I think serve as valid excuse for why I've been so consistently inconsistent in recent months. It all began in early May, of course, when I fell ill for a month. I'm not sick anymore, of course - this is old news. Get on with it. Illness then has pretty much been the catalyst for all kinds of awfulness and unpleasant feelings all summer so far. After beginning the Summer of Sickness in early May - about a month and a half before summer actually began - more problems emerged. Being sick did a number on my stomach and digestive system, and I haven't been able to get back to eating fully normally since then. I've been working on getting past that and improving, but I still have quite a few pounds to gain back - thus began the Summer of Starvation. I've approached levels of weight loss since my illness wherein I've come dangerously close to possibly being hospitalized - something to avoid, considering that I'm uninsured. I literally can't afford medical care. The starvation hit an especially unpleasant turning point last week when I became more consciously aware of just how much weight I've quietly lost in the past near two months just before an unsuccessful trip to the dentist to get a broken filling fixed, having been hit by the third summertime hell whammy in the form of drainage from allergies that morning which, when compounded with the toll starvation has been taking on my system, made me far too physically unstable to get the work I needed done last week. This also isn't helped by the general mental discomfort that can overwhelm me when out of the house - I'm not even all that comfortable with riding in cars in motion at the moment now - after months of barely leaving the neighborhood. I'm getting a sense now of where agoraphobics are coming from, and a sense in general of the mental and emotional stress damage inflicted by months of being cooped up inside the house, rarely leaving the neighborhood, feeling like I could die most of the time. Mindfuckery ahoy. And since the allergy problems suffered prior to the dentist last week, my drainage has only gotten progressively worse, so I'm on a nasal spray and trying to find some effective allergy medication that won't mess me up too much in addition to my usual sinus rinse, in hopes of avoiding continuing to wake up choking on a substance I should be evacuating through my nose or not dealing with at all at this time of the year. On top of that, I've undertaken the overwhelming task of trying to clean up and dust the veritable hurricane that is my bedroom. I would like the Summer of Suffocation not to happen. And after having not felt normal or particularly well for almost two full months now, with all the additional psychological weight that comes with longer term health problems, I really, really want to be back to feeling normal and well by sometime during this month. Health problems have basically derailed everything in my daily life these past couple of months, and I can't afford for this to continue. Thus, my excuse for not posting here as much as I should.
Anyway, I obviously didn't get this end of the month short story up by the end of June as I'd planned to either. Naturally, here it is late. And as previously mentioned, it's now summer as of a couple of weeks ago. As such, you're getting a break from the norm in my end of month short story writing this time in the form of a sequel. After comments left made me think about actually continuing a short story on here for once, I've decided to go ahead and do something different this year in continuing one of these stories - Vernal Eternal - through the rest of the year.
Look forward to the third part in September, and the conclusion in December! Now click the post title here to jump to the story. I'll post some more soon. Let's all hope my body stops attacking itself and lets me eat, sleep, and breathe normally soon. The only health highlights as of late by contrast have been going swimming a couple of times for the first time in a decade-plus a few days ago and getting some sorely needed Vitamin D from sunlight and full-body exercise in the process, while somehow not getting reduced to a pile of ashes or turned into beef jerky in the direct sunlight. Of course, now I'm enjoying my whole body feeling like it's made of rubber, which should last for a week or so. The moral of my story - not the story after the jump, but my own personal one - is that being a sickly person isn't much fun, and I'm at least partially to blame for all of it.
Monday, June 7, 2010
One-Note
So, addicted as you all are to my monthly short stories, I'm sure you've been wondering what happened to my end of May story. Here it is at last, a week into June. It's taken me a little while to get back into writing as much as I've wanted to, having spent nearly a full month dealing with illness. In the least, I can now report that I'm mostly better and starting to eat somewhat normally now. Progress is progress.
I've got a lot to do this month between needing to find a bunch of agents to get another 5-6 queries out, another short story here later this month (ON TIME), and ideally a decent short story submitted to a publication, since if I'm going to find representation, I probably need to focus on building my portfolio of published work beyond the one story and growing body of self-published little experimental stories here on this very amateur-looking blog. My usual E3 video game babbling is coming up next week, too, so I'll try to put together some non-gaming material to make that up to those of you reading who aren't interested in that topic. At any rate, following a month of illness, get ready to enjoy my warm, fuzzy first written work in nearly a month! (You always write about cheery things after long term illness.)
I've got a lot to do this month between needing to find a bunch of agents to get another 5-6 queries out, another short story here later this month (ON TIME), and ideally a decent short story submitted to a publication, since if I'm going to find representation, I probably need to focus on building my portfolio of published work beyond the one story and growing body of self-published little experimental stories here on this very amateur-looking blog. My usual E3 video game babbling is coming up next week, too, so I'll try to put together some non-gaming material to make that up to those of you reading who aren't interested in that topic. At any rate, following a month of illness, get ready to enjoy my warm, fuzzy first written work in nearly a month! (You always write about cheery things after long term illness.)
Friday, April 30, 2010
Divergence Day
Hey, it's the last day of April. This year's moving by far too quickly already. Other cliches, murmurs, musings, ramblings, interpretive gesticulations, and grumbling about the nature of the passage of time.
With the end of the month comes another weird story. I'm trying to keep up with a story a month these days. So far, I think it's going alright.
At any rate, give the post title a click to go on a fantastical journey to the future! A future where things kind of suck. In the most profound way, no less.
With the end of the month comes another weird story. I'm trying to keep up with a story a month these days. So far, I think it's going alright.
At any rate, give the post title a click to go on a fantastical journey to the future! A future where things kind of suck. In the most profound way, no less.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Vernal Eternal
The vernal equinox was a couple of weeks back, marking the end of winter and beginning of spring. You can imagine what a big fan of the season I am, from the content of my latest little monthly story here. But it is what it is - much like everything else I write. A goofy slice of seasonal change - or seasonal lack of change.
Yes, I do in fact need to write here more often. I know.
Yes, I do in fact need to write here more often. I know.
Friday, February 19, 2010
In Deference to Poor Decision-Making
Friday, December 25, 2009
Crimbozilla Appears: Festive Holiday Monster from Beneath the Sea!!
The ocean floor and its numerous volcanic vents have traditionally long since been one of the last things most human beings thought to concern themselves with - particularly around the holiday season. It's time to grab some wrapping paper and get your gift on, then maybe grab a little viscous courage in some egg nog and get your drink on. Upon imbibing enough of that courage, it's time to find some suspended leaves to hang out under and get your sexual harassment and slapped-in-the-face on. It's a holiday tradition. Most people need help.
This year, humanity could make no greater mistake than ignoring the wild realm of the bottom of the sea. No, the sand golems and see-through fish aren't rising up to enslave humanity for the fourth time - you'd think we'd have learned by now, but no - does the air pressure feel like it's drastically changed lately? Unless that happens, they're not coming back anytime soon. (Unless they invent some kind of specialized pressure-suits, in which case, we're all doomed.) The threat lurking beneath the waves at this, the end of the decade, is perhaps both the deadliest and most festive mankind has ever faced.
That is to say, the arrival of Crimbozilla! First detected by the USNOAA in 1997, the nature of Crimbozilla long remained a mystery until his sudden rise from the cover of miles of ocean to cross the Gulf of Mexico and set foot on land at the Florida panhandle. Local residents weren't sure what to make of the 100-foot tall red-and-green lizardman as it stomped their neighborhoods flat. Local gas station owner Vernon Hammett commented, "If that giant asshole ruins my light show, there'll be hell to pay!"
The scientific community was dumbfounded that such a creature as Crimbozilla could stalk the globe without their notice, having explored and mastered the seas in ways that would make Jacques Cousteau weep. As such, skepticism soon grew, leading scientists suspecting that Crimbozilla's timely holiday appearance and festively colored scales were planned - Crimbozilla had to have been engineered by some sort of nefarious Christmas mastermind.
When reached for comment at the North Pole, celebrated rogue Uncle Santa denied any link between himself and an aquatic genetic research lab recently discovered within the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch - despite the elves that staffed it all being card-carrying members of SantaCorp. When he was questioned further, Uncle Santa became belligerent and hurled a bottle of his patented Ho Ho Holiday Lager at a journalist from Reuters and ended the press conference early.
Three more journalists were later hospitalized after they were beaten senseless by surly talking reindeer who discovered them snooping around the outskirts of Uncle Santa's heavily fortified arctic compound. Such extreme actions are legally permissible in the private territory of Santaland where SantaCorp is headquartered, but only when said actions are carried out by legal citizens of the territory.
As Crimbozilla made his way further inland, he stomped through the city of Tallahassee, pausing only occasionally to pelt the skyline with hails of candy canes he breathed. (As opposed to fire or ice or anything remotely useful to a gigantic rampaging monster.) The children were overjoyed even as highrises collapsed around them.
The US military attempted to mobilize against Crimbozilla as he crashed through Georgia, only to find that there wasn't a single enlisted man or woman willing to take up arms against the lovable behemoth. Lieutenant Nathan Portly told The New York Times that, "I just can't shoot at that guy. My kids love him too much." All other soldiers interviewed echoed his sentiments, many of them overwhelmed with childlike nostalgia at the sight of the festive lizard monster. "I just want to climb onto his back and live there forever!" said Cadet Lindsey Merrick. Cadet Merrick was referring to the actual gingerbread village populated by apparently sentient cookie-people that made their home on Crimbozilla's back.
As Crimbozilla went out of his way to demolish every major city in North Carolina, he scattered his surroundings with snow laced with hormones inducing joy in all those subjected to it, causing the notoriously cranky hill folk and notoriously corrupt banking executives alike to emerge from their respective burrows to fill the air with the cheerily discordant sound of improvised Christmas caroling. This was reportedly incredibly annoying to all who did not celebrate the holiday, as well as those who'd taken the time to cultivate a taste in music beyond "whatever's on the radio."
Crimbozilla neared New York City by late morning on December 24th, causing many to both celebrate and dread the prospect of a Crimbozilla rampage through the city perhaps resulting in the greatest Christmas in human history. Many wondered, how exactly could you could you top a giant monster who spread happiness and joy with every bit of destruction he caused? In England, a quiet ceremony was held where the Queen knighted Crimbozilla in spirit, having been unable to draw his attention away from his unrelenting trek across the eastern United States at a time when the British isles were facing a paralyzing shortage of holiday spirit in the face of a devastating figgy pudding shortage.
Early that morning, Japanese researchers mobilized their own artificial monster to subdue Crimbozilla - Kuwako the 90-foot silkworm moth. Demonstrating an astonishing lack of foresight in their choice of giant bugs to engineer, as a domesticated insect, the docile Kuwako showed no interest in leaving her massive silk cocoon and only responded to offerings of mulberry leaves from the SDF. As such, Operation Tone It Down, Buddy, was a nonstarter.
When Crimbozilla at last reached New York City, he took an unexpected turn - knocking several Long Island homes into the Atlantic Ocean - and instead trampled Rochester into the ground. Nuclear supermonster experts suggested that avoiding the Hollywood cliche of wrecking New York City indicated a previously undetermined advanced intelligence in the jolly holiday beast. Several rumors began to circulate on the internet that Crimbozilla held the secret of eternal life somewhere in the gumdrop castle atop his head.
Shocking Americans with the notion that their nation was not the only one in the world, Crimbozilla crossed the Canadian border, leaving Rochester behind as a pit of overwhelming joy and peppermint-scented death. Crimbozilla sneezed a torrent of expertly-prepared and carefully-wrapped gourmet chocolates down onto Winnipeg before setting his sights on Toronto.
Toronto mayor David Miller teamed up once again with actress, director, and political activist Sarah Polley and staged a protest, forming a circle around the vicinity of the city to make it clear to the incoming Crimbo colossus that while they appreciated the cheer he stood for, they were a culturally diverse people and would prefer he respect that - also, nobody was too keen on the rampant destruction he brought with him everywhere he went. So moved by this heartful protest was the nation's beaver population that they converged on the city and constructed a glorious impenetrable domed dam structure as so to hold off seemingly unavoidable holiday horror. That dome - constructed entirely from love, and also really sturdy logs and some twigs - was the only thing Crimbozilla could not pass.
Following this show of unprecedented solidarity - completely one upping that time that moose looked at a disgusted Republican tourist from America threateningly when he set foot outside of Alberta - Crimbozilla once again turned northward. Just barely missing Ottawa, Crimbozilla crunched his way through the frozen snows of Quebec. The American media stopped covering Crimbozilla at this point, as there were far more important things - like after-Christmas sales - to cover. Besides, who cares about a giant monster traipsing across part of the globe if they aren't on US soil anymore?
To much disappointing, Crimbozilla ignored Montreal and made a beeline for the Labrador Sea. As it became more apparent that Crimbozilla's destination was somewhere in the arctic, the scientific community once again hurled accusations - mostly conjecture - at Uncle Santa, insisting that he knew something the rest of us didn't. In response, Uncle Santa affirmed that it was sheer coincidence that Crimbozilla was heading toward his territory, suggesting that perhaps Crimbozilla wanted to meet the grand ruler of the holiday season himself. When a BBC reporter crossed a line by asking Uncle Santa if he'd ever stop treating the public like idiots, he threatened to use his time machine to go back and cancel Christmas that day. That shut everybody up.
Crimbozilla disappeared somewhere in the arctic, leaving many to wonder if we wouldn't perhaps see him emerge again in time for the holidays in 2010. By the end of Crimbozilla's rampage, the body count was somewhere between five and six million. Nobody really seemed to mind too much.
This year, humanity could make no greater mistake than ignoring the wild realm of the bottom of the sea. No, the sand golems and see-through fish aren't rising up to enslave humanity for the fourth time - you'd think we'd have learned by now, but no - does the air pressure feel like it's drastically changed lately? Unless that happens, they're not coming back anytime soon. (Unless they invent some kind of specialized pressure-suits, in which case, we're all doomed.) The threat lurking beneath the waves at this, the end of the decade, is perhaps both the deadliest and most festive mankind has ever faced.
That is to say, the arrival of Crimbozilla! First detected by the USNOAA in 1997, the nature of Crimbozilla long remained a mystery until his sudden rise from the cover of miles of ocean to cross the Gulf of Mexico and set foot on land at the Florida panhandle. Local residents weren't sure what to make of the 100-foot tall red-and-green lizardman as it stomped their neighborhoods flat. Local gas station owner Vernon Hammett commented, "If that giant asshole ruins my light show, there'll be hell to pay!"
The scientific community was dumbfounded that such a creature as Crimbozilla could stalk the globe without their notice, having explored and mastered the seas in ways that would make Jacques Cousteau weep. As such, skepticism soon grew, leading scientists suspecting that Crimbozilla's timely holiday appearance and festively colored scales were planned - Crimbozilla had to have been engineered by some sort of nefarious Christmas mastermind.
When reached for comment at the North Pole, celebrated rogue Uncle Santa denied any link between himself and an aquatic genetic research lab recently discovered within the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch - despite the elves that staffed it all being card-carrying members of SantaCorp. When he was questioned further, Uncle Santa became belligerent and hurled a bottle of his patented Ho Ho Holiday Lager at a journalist from Reuters and ended the press conference early.
Three more journalists were later hospitalized after they were beaten senseless by surly talking reindeer who discovered them snooping around the outskirts of Uncle Santa's heavily fortified arctic compound. Such extreme actions are legally permissible in the private territory of Santaland where SantaCorp is headquartered, but only when said actions are carried out by legal citizens of the territory.
As Crimbozilla made his way further inland, he stomped through the city of Tallahassee, pausing only occasionally to pelt the skyline with hails of candy canes he breathed. (As opposed to fire or ice or anything remotely useful to a gigantic rampaging monster.) The children were overjoyed even as highrises collapsed around them.
The US military attempted to mobilize against Crimbozilla as he crashed through Georgia, only to find that there wasn't a single enlisted man or woman willing to take up arms against the lovable behemoth. Lieutenant Nathan Portly told The New York Times that, "I just can't shoot at that guy. My kids love him too much." All other soldiers interviewed echoed his sentiments, many of them overwhelmed with childlike nostalgia at the sight of the festive lizard monster. "I just want to climb onto his back and live there forever!" said Cadet Lindsey Merrick. Cadet Merrick was referring to the actual gingerbread village populated by apparently sentient cookie-people that made their home on Crimbozilla's back.
As Crimbozilla went out of his way to demolish every major city in North Carolina, he scattered his surroundings with snow laced with hormones inducing joy in all those subjected to it, causing the notoriously cranky hill folk and notoriously corrupt banking executives alike to emerge from their respective burrows to fill the air with the cheerily discordant sound of improvised Christmas caroling. This was reportedly incredibly annoying to all who did not celebrate the holiday, as well as those who'd taken the time to cultivate a taste in music beyond "whatever's on the radio."
Crimbozilla neared New York City by late morning on December 24th, causing many to both celebrate and dread the prospect of a Crimbozilla rampage through the city perhaps resulting in the greatest Christmas in human history. Many wondered, how exactly could you could you top a giant monster who spread happiness and joy with every bit of destruction he caused? In England, a quiet ceremony was held where the Queen knighted Crimbozilla in spirit, having been unable to draw his attention away from his unrelenting trek across the eastern United States at a time when the British isles were facing a paralyzing shortage of holiday spirit in the face of a devastating figgy pudding shortage.
Early that morning, Japanese researchers mobilized their own artificial monster to subdue Crimbozilla - Kuwako the 90-foot silkworm moth. Demonstrating an astonishing lack of foresight in their choice of giant bugs to engineer, as a domesticated insect, the docile Kuwako showed no interest in leaving her massive silk cocoon and only responded to offerings of mulberry leaves from the SDF. As such, Operation Tone It Down, Buddy, was a nonstarter.
When Crimbozilla at last reached New York City, he took an unexpected turn - knocking several Long Island homes into the Atlantic Ocean - and instead trampled Rochester into the ground. Nuclear supermonster experts suggested that avoiding the Hollywood cliche of wrecking New York City indicated a previously undetermined advanced intelligence in the jolly holiday beast. Several rumors began to circulate on the internet that Crimbozilla held the secret of eternal life somewhere in the gumdrop castle atop his head.
Shocking Americans with the notion that their nation was not the only one in the world, Crimbozilla crossed the Canadian border, leaving Rochester behind as a pit of overwhelming joy and peppermint-scented death. Crimbozilla sneezed a torrent of expertly-prepared and carefully-wrapped gourmet chocolates down onto Winnipeg before setting his sights on Toronto.
Toronto mayor David Miller teamed up once again with actress, director, and political activist Sarah Polley and staged a protest, forming a circle around the vicinity of the city to make it clear to the incoming Crimbo colossus that while they appreciated the cheer he stood for, they were a culturally diverse people and would prefer he respect that - also, nobody was too keen on the rampant destruction he brought with him everywhere he went. So moved by this heartful protest was the nation's beaver population that they converged on the city and constructed a glorious impenetrable domed dam structure as so to hold off seemingly unavoidable holiday horror. That dome - constructed entirely from love, and also really sturdy logs and some twigs - was the only thing Crimbozilla could not pass.
Following this show of unprecedented solidarity - completely one upping that time that moose looked at a disgusted Republican tourist from America threateningly when he set foot outside of Alberta - Crimbozilla once again turned northward. Just barely missing Ottawa, Crimbozilla crunched his way through the frozen snows of Quebec. The American media stopped covering Crimbozilla at this point, as there were far more important things - like after-Christmas sales - to cover. Besides, who cares about a giant monster traipsing across part of the globe if they aren't on US soil anymore?
To much disappointing, Crimbozilla ignored Montreal and made a beeline for the Labrador Sea. As it became more apparent that Crimbozilla's destination was somewhere in the arctic, the scientific community once again hurled accusations - mostly conjecture - at Uncle Santa, insisting that he knew something the rest of us didn't. In response, Uncle Santa affirmed that it was sheer coincidence that Crimbozilla was heading toward his territory, suggesting that perhaps Crimbozilla wanted to meet the grand ruler of the holiday season himself. When a BBC reporter crossed a line by asking Uncle Santa if he'd ever stop treating the public like idiots, he threatened to use his time machine to go back and cancel Christmas that day. That shut everybody up.
Crimbozilla disappeared somewhere in the arctic, leaving many to wonder if we wouldn't perhaps see him emerge again in time for the holidays in 2010. By the end of Crimbozilla's rampage, the body count was somewhere between five and six million. Nobody really seemed to mind too much.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
The Publishing World and Another Experiment
And just like that, it was February. It's a slippery bastard, time is. Since the last post, I got to enjoy not one, but two trips to the dentist for fillings. But I'm finally done with a bunch I'd been needing since last summer, and I seem to have a good oral hygiene regimen going these days as so to finally maintain healthy teeth and improve that thar smile. (One of these days, my smile won't cause the same reactions as the ark of the covenant at the end of the first Indiana Jones movie. One of these days. Someday.) So I'm pretty ecstatic about health improvements on that front. A good electric toothbrush, specialized enamel toothpaste, and fluoride floss can work wonders.
The snow last time didn't last long, either. It melted away within 24-48 hours, and we were back to the frozen earth. (Until this coming weekend, anyway. Looks like we'll be seeing 70-degree weather on Sunday. Thanks, but no thanks, southern climate. Not ready for spring/summer weather to dominate the rest of the year again.) We had a very light dusting the other night, but it didn't take its time melting either.
Project 27 Days progress was made in spades, though. I'm down to the final two chapters and epilogue now. At the rate things are going, I'll be finishing the first draft in the next week, and finishing the initial revisions to the final chapters over the week following. Then it'll be on to working on a final set of revisions to complete the manuscript and set it aside as I begin querying agents. From the wonderfully stressful research I've done on the whole agent-querying process through the latest issue of The Writer magazine, I'm not really expecting to realistically have a shot at getting an agent - let alone finding publishing - within 2009 now, but at least I'm finishing the manuscript soon (And will be moving on to working on my second novel then) and getting the ball rolling in the rather hellish process that is breaking into that literary world. Maybe I'm being conservative by expecting up to/over 100+ rejections by various agencies, but either way, I'm expecting the whole experience of finding a good agent interested in representing in my work will be taking a few years off my life. All I can do is persevere, though - all kinds of garbage gets published, and while I can't provide an unbiased perspective on the quality of my work (And I tend to be self-deprecating anyway), I can at least say that there's a tremendous amount of crap out there that's worse than what I'm doing, at least. (How's that for confidence? Yeahhh.)
At any rate, there's my grumblings/musings on the daunting challenge faced by new connectionless writers seeking publishing and entry into the professional literary world. Fun stuff, fun times, clearly.
And now, getting to the other purpose of this entry: In celebration of February, I hereby present for your amusement a different kind of writing exercise from my usual idiocy. This one's a little slice of life, inspired by a common weekday morning routine for me.
The barking downstairs signifies a vacant house. Only a foot off the ground, the dog's a behemoth. Only the freeloader's there to hear. He'd rather pretend he was asleep, but he and sleep haven't been close in years.
As he steps outside, the freeloader immediately regrets not wearing a coat. The dog's indifferent, of course. He doesn't care that humans lack fur coats. In fact, the thought's never even crossed his mind. He's a dog. Why should the matters of humans concern him?
The dog drags the freeloader across the yard, stopping at every bit of vegetation. The frost-laden grass crunches below the freeloader's feet. The air stings with every breath.
The dog ignores the freeloader and turns his nose to meet the wind as it picks up. A car passes by, ferrying another to their workplace. The dog watches. He has to make sure they don't intrude.
The freeloader tugs the leather leash lightly to get the dog's attention. Stubbornly, the dog refuses to move. He has to sniff every corner of the yard. He has to assess the state of his domain.
Sometimes the freeloader gives in. Sometimes he doesn't. Regardless of which choice he makes, the dog will bark again. He's harsher than most employers in the working world. Dogs have high expectations, after all.
Resigning himself, the freeloader takes the dog to the backyard and watches as he plows through a pile of dead leaves. In the morning chill, he feels the blood moving through his veins.
At society's perimeter, the dog and freeloader stand and stare and take time to breathe.
An odd little narrative experiment I felt like trying, anyway. Not quite a poem, and I'm feeling too tired to attach a specific category.
As things are, I'm feeling a little more bitter about the season this year and not really inspired to write more of the stupid "love-ly" comedy pieces I did for the Valentine's season last year. Instead, I think I'm going to be doing some movie talk about love-themed cinema worth indulging in. Keep an eye out.
Once this book's done, I'm resolving to work on writing here more often. In Spiral Reverie's third year, it'd be nice to be a more active blog and maybe get some more regular readers. (Just maybe.) After finally caving and joining Last.fm, I'm kinda tempted to start doing some occasional music blogging too. It's one of the few interests of mine I haven't really invested time in writing about yet.
The snow last time didn't last long, either. It melted away within 24-48 hours, and we were back to the frozen earth. (Until this coming weekend, anyway. Looks like we'll be seeing 70-degree weather on Sunday. Thanks, but no thanks, southern climate. Not ready for spring/summer weather to dominate the rest of the year again.) We had a very light dusting the other night, but it didn't take its time melting either.
Project 27 Days progress was made in spades, though. I'm down to the final two chapters and epilogue now. At the rate things are going, I'll be finishing the first draft in the next week, and finishing the initial revisions to the final chapters over the week following. Then it'll be on to working on a final set of revisions to complete the manuscript and set it aside as I begin querying agents. From the wonderfully stressful research I've done on the whole agent-querying process through the latest issue of The Writer magazine, I'm not really expecting to realistically have a shot at getting an agent - let alone finding publishing - within 2009 now, but at least I'm finishing the manuscript soon (And will be moving on to working on my second novel then) and getting the ball rolling in the rather hellish process that is breaking into that literary world. Maybe I'm being conservative by expecting up to/over 100+ rejections by various agencies, but either way, I'm expecting the whole experience of finding a good agent interested in representing in my work will be taking a few years off my life. All I can do is persevere, though - all kinds of garbage gets published, and while I can't provide an unbiased perspective on the quality of my work (And I tend to be self-deprecating anyway), I can at least say that there's a tremendous amount of crap out there that's worse than what I'm doing, at least. (How's that for confidence? Yeahhh.)
At any rate, there's my grumblings/musings on the daunting challenge faced by new connectionless writers seeking publishing and entry into the professional literary world. Fun stuff, fun times, clearly.
And now, getting to the other purpose of this entry: In celebration of February, I hereby present for your amusement a different kind of writing exercise from my usual idiocy. This one's a little slice of life, inspired by a common weekday morning routine for me.
--
Little Black Dog on a Brown Leather Leash
The barking downstairs signifies a vacant house. Only a foot off the ground, the dog's a behemoth. Only the freeloader's there to hear. He'd rather pretend he was asleep, but he and sleep haven't been close in years.
As he steps outside, the freeloader immediately regrets not wearing a coat. The dog's indifferent, of course. He doesn't care that humans lack fur coats. In fact, the thought's never even crossed his mind. He's a dog. Why should the matters of humans concern him?
The dog drags the freeloader across the yard, stopping at every bit of vegetation. The frost-laden grass crunches below the freeloader's feet. The air stings with every breath.
The dog ignores the freeloader and turns his nose to meet the wind as it picks up. A car passes by, ferrying another to their workplace. The dog watches. He has to make sure they don't intrude.
The freeloader tugs the leather leash lightly to get the dog's attention. Stubbornly, the dog refuses to move. He has to sniff every corner of the yard. He has to assess the state of his domain.
Sometimes the freeloader gives in. Sometimes he doesn't. Regardless of which choice he makes, the dog will bark again. He's harsher than most employers in the working world. Dogs have high expectations, after all.
Resigning himself, the freeloader takes the dog to the backyard and watches as he plows through a pile of dead leaves. In the morning chill, he feels the blood moving through his veins.
At society's perimeter, the dog and freeloader stand and stare and take time to breathe.
--
An odd little narrative experiment I felt like trying, anyway. Not quite a poem, and I'm feeling too tired to attach a specific category.
As things are, I'm feeling a little more bitter about the season this year and not really inspired to write more of the stupid "love-ly" comedy pieces I did for the Valentine's season last year. Instead, I think I'm going to be doing some movie talk about love-themed cinema worth indulging in. Keep an eye out.
Once this book's done, I'm resolving to work on writing here more often. In Spiral Reverie's third year, it'd be nice to be a more active blog and maybe get some more regular readers. (Just maybe.) After finally caving and joining Last.fm, I'm kinda tempted to start doing some occasional music blogging too. It's one of the few interests of mine I haven't really invested time in writing about yet.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Rudy Randolph: Red-Nosed Mafia Hitman
Hey!
It's technically Christmas day now, but it's still the night of the eve to me. I'm just up late, as usual. And this time, my late night ramblings once again serve a purpose. As I'm sure you've noticed, I'm a little late with the Xmas holiday season writing exercise/story this year. But fear not, fear not. I've been working on it, bit by bit, and though it isn't getting posted until Xmas morning at last now, you can finally enjoy having another holiday and classic festive children's story ruined by my sense of "humor."
Breathe easy, internet denizens. All's right with the world. (Not really.)
--
Rudy Randolph: Red-Nosed Mafia Hitman
Rudy Randolph was the man. Rudy Randolph had no plan. He'd spent his high school years doodling cartoons in class, imagining himself as "Gun Man," a new kind of superhero who solved all the world's problems through wanton gun violence. College art programs weren't too impressed by his fixation on a talking cartoon gun, but one professor decided to put it all on the line, getting him accepted into the prestigious "Yes, I CAN READ" University. All because he was impressed by the detail Rudy Randolph put into the gun holsters.
"We can mold this boy!" the professor proclaimed. "He'll be the next Garry Trudeau! Or at least some sort of Tony Millionaire knockoff!"
The professor was wrong. Professors are almost always wrong. Science didn't teach him anything. A mere two and a half years later, that same professor found himself buried in a hole at the bottom of the Earth. Never bet on Gun Man. You gonna get shot.
His mind stuck in cartoonland, Rudy Randolph slogged his way through a grueling six and a half years of education in the higher arts. Going against every wish in his body, Rudy Randolph transformed Gun Man into a metaphor. Gun Man became the representation of every force in the world that stole away our choices. Without choice, man became no more than a two-dimensional twig arrangement. The accolades poured in, and Gun Man was soon the icon of progressive, self-actualized thought in the world. Even Europe was getting in on that action - they usually ignored American rattlings, and rightly so. Gun Man had been twisted into the art of generational outrage - the new Che Guevara t-shirt, you could say.
As for Rudy Randolph, all he wanted was for Gun Man to shoot people. What purpose does a gun serve if not to end lives? (And also to punch holes in Coke cans, and make the holder look like Admiral Badass of the Mounted Cool Dude T-Rex Cavalry.) He launched a webcomic, the internet being the one canvas he had yet to paint, and introduced Gun Man to the world as a mild-mannered revolver with an unpredictable temper, fighting off the forces of disease, oppression, and poverty - which were led by a literal loose cannon - and saving the world with his bullets. Before the mystique of metaphor could drop away, several popular newsgroups denounced the comic as trash - like most webcomics - and insisted that it couldn't have been the work of avant-garde artist Rudy Randolph. There were trolls lurking on the internets.
Rudy Randolph struck back in a series of blog posts decrying those questioning the authenticity of his work. Gun Man was the genuine article. Gun Man was life - the ending part, at least. He even pointed a gun at David Letterman on national TV when trying to make his point during an interview. This got him sent to prison for twelve years, giving Rudy Randolph plenty of time to achieve commercial success with his comic, but at a price - his fans only read the comic and bought Gun Man merchandise to be ironic. Not a single person subscribed to Rudy Randolph's firm belief that guns and shooting were the highest zen known to man. And Rudy Randolph felt this without having owned or so much as held a gun even once in his life. His affinity for firearms came from something deeper than intuition or religious conviction. The fact of the matter was, Rudy Randolph was Gun Man. He simply hadn't been born properly equipped to fire projectiles from his body, and plastic surgeons laughed at the idea of crafting a human being into a massive gun. Damn the limitations of human flesh!
Comfortably wealthy and ill at ease with life, Rudy Randolph found himself seeking out internet newsgroups once again, this time achieving a modicum of peace in conversations held with fellow Sopranos enthusiasts. They laughed together at the idea that the mob didn't exist. They laughed together at the political power mafia groups must have held. They laughed together at the fact that none of them had gotten past second base with a woman. And they agreed that Fat Tony was the best character on The Simpsons.
Internet camaraderie can be a dangerous thing. Joey Burkhart showed up in their internet relay chat room one night and announced that he was autistic, as it could have been the only explanation for his failures with the opposite sex. (As opposed to his crippling body odor or sole pick-up line - "HOW 'BOUT FUCKIN' ME!?" - which he insisted would eventually not only work, but work spectacularly. He was wrong, of course, but you didn't need to be told that.)
"It's gotta be da Asperger's!" he typed. "Y'know, dem ass burgers. Dey always fuckin' things up." Yes, the individuals in this newsgroup even went out of their way to type as though they were no more than two-dimensional offensive Italian stereotypes, when they were all unmarried internet geeks nearing their forties with no real friends. And none of them were actually Italian, either. Such was the severity of their delusion.
"Yeah!" Jimmy Snackpack agreed. "I bets we all got dis shits. No wonda we get along so well! We should form our own mafia family! Then the world'd respect a buncha screws like us." Jimmy knew that 'screw' was an insulting term, but still liked the way it felt to pronounce the word far too much to treat it as such.
One by one, the other members of the newly formed "Aspie Mafia" decided that their poor social skills could only mean an accurate self-diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome. Rudy Randolph went along with the rest of them on this, simply because he didn't want to be left out of the group. As he lay in bed at night, he questioned his decision, repeating to himself, "Hey, I'm a gun, not some kinda retard."
For those offended by this point, let us remind you that there's no such thing as a politically correct gangster. Or in the least, that was one of the many ideas that Rudy Randolph and his group subscribed to. They were not only pitiable outcast victims of a cruel society that didn't understand their disorder, they were superior human beings because of their perceived suffering. None of them were simply insufferable, narcissistic pricks, oh no, not a one.
Following a few arranged meetings in real life, the members of the "Aspie Mafia" all began to wear gray trench coats and sunglasses everywhere they went - even at night. After going underground and anonymous, the "Aspie Mafia" began to take work from irate local geeks. This mostly amounted to being paid to rough up local Dungeons & Dragons games at several comic book stories, and paid well enough to keep these self-proclaimed goombahs well-fed and thoroughly sloshed. It also funded the purchase of Hoagina - Rudy Randolph's classic Webley Mk VI revolver, which he named in the feminine after a particularly good sandwich he'd recently eaten.
With Hoagina in hand, Rudy Randolph felt complete, invincible, like one a-spicy meatball. Nothing in the world could stop him. He could even take the lives of his own comrades if he so chose - they weren't nearly as good a shot, and preferred a good baseball bat to a sidearm in their line of work. Hit jobs began to roll in, and together with Hoagina, Rudy Randolph brought a hail of bullets down upon greater Milwaukee.
It was only this Christmas that doubts once again came to inhabit the mind of Rudy Randolph. That maybe he wasn't a gun. That instead, he might have just been better off actually sleeping with some of those women who'd thrown themselves at him back when he was still a respected artist and moderately attractive in his youth. Now he looked like something they'd cut off an obese Steve Schirripa impersonator. And after a particularly nasty hit, he wasn't sure his heart was in the work anymore.
"I don't know what to say," he said to the regular bartender as he drowned his sorrows in gin and bourbon. "You shoulda seen the look on those kids' faces when I plugged da guy."
"I hear ya," the bartender said, unsure as to whether he should ignore the man or call the cops on the unlikely hitman. From the outside, he looked like a deluded accountant, or maybe an out-of-work teamster.
"Who the fuck calls in a hit on a guy who dresses up like Santa? He seemed like a pretty stand-up guy, and da kids..." Rudy Randolph was finding it increasingly difficult to finish sentences. "Dey'll never b'lieve in Crimmass again." Rudy Randolph began to sob.
"Hey, look," said the bartender, feeling sympathetic on Christmas Eve. "How about I call you a cab, huh? You've had a little too much to drink, and I bet you'll feel better once you've slept this off."
"Yer not lishtening!" Rudy Randolph shouted. The bar was empty, so he could act out all he wanted. "I fuckin' KILLED a Shanta! I FUCKIN' KILLED HIM! IN FRONT OF CHILDREN!"
"Are you sure that wasn't just a movie you saw?" the bartender asked. "Maybe it'd be better if I took you to a rehab clinic."
"NO! I've had enough!" Rudy Randolph exclaimed, struggling to stay afloat as Gun Man threatened to consume him once more. "We keep killing people! We're a buncha no-good screwball murderers! The mob's nothin' to look up to! I jusht wanted to draw cartoons!"
"Whoa, slow down," the bartender said, raising his hands defensively as Rudy Randolph heaved Hoagina onto the bar. "How about I make you some coffee? We can go have a chat with the police after this. If you turn the others in, I bet they'd give you a good plea bargain."
"Who's gettin' a plea bargain, huh?" asked Tommy Hoffman, the de-facto leader of the "Aspie Mafia." He'd come in and taken a seat at the bar without anybody noticing during Rudy Randolph's tantrum.
"Oh god, make it shtop," Rudy Randolph cried, looking down at his half-finished glass. "I just don't want to hurt anymore. No more o' dis job."
"Chin up, buddy," said Tommy, giving Rudy Randolph a playful punch in the shoulder. "Worse things've happened. We'll getcha through this. Joey said you seemed kinda down lately. He's offering to take you in - give ya someplace to sleep and feel at home for a few days. How 'bout that?"
"I already squealed," Rudy Randolph said with a sniff. "I love youse guys, though. You're real pals, tryin' to help me like this." He was too drunk to really know what he was saying anymore.
"Of course, you also just made it clear that you can't be trusted to keep quiet about our little operation," Tommy said, tapping his fingers thoughtfully on the countertop. "Enjoy that drink there. You're finished."
"I retract that last statement about lovin' youse guys."
--
Wasn't that just another wonderful vaguely holiday-themed character exercise? It was indeed. And now that it's Christmas morning and all that, I suggest you go have a good one. Beats the alternative.
It's technically Christmas day now, but it's still the night of the eve to me. I'm just up late, as usual. And this time, my late night ramblings once again serve a purpose. As I'm sure you've noticed, I'm a little late with the Xmas holiday season writing exercise/story this year. But fear not, fear not. I've been working on it, bit by bit, and though it isn't getting posted until Xmas morning at last now, you can finally enjoy having another holiday and classic festive children's story ruined by my sense of "humor."
Breathe easy, internet denizens. All's right with the world. (Not really.)
--
Rudy Randolph: Red-Nosed Mafia Hitman
Rudy Randolph was the man. Rudy Randolph had no plan. He'd spent his high school years doodling cartoons in class, imagining himself as "Gun Man," a new kind of superhero who solved all the world's problems through wanton gun violence. College art programs weren't too impressed by his fixation on a talking cartoon gun, but one professor decided to put it all on the line, getting him accepted into the prestigious "Yes, I CAN READ" University. All because he was impressed by the detail Rudy Randolph put into the gun holsters.
"We can mold this boy!" the professor proclaimed. "He'll be the next Garry Trudeau! Or at least some sort of Tony Millionaire knockoff!"
The professor was wrong. Professors are almost always wrong. Science didn't teach him anything. A mere two and a half years later, that same professor found himself buried in a hole at the bottom of the Earth. Never bet on Gun Man. You gonna get shot.
His mind stuck in cartoonland, Rudy Randolph slogged his way through a grueling six and a half years of education in the higher arts. Going against every wish in his body, Rudy Randolph transformed Gun Man into a metaphor. Gun Man became the representation of every force in the world that stole away our choices. Without choice, man became no more than a two-dimensional twig arrangement. The accolades poured in, and Gun Man was soon the icon of progressive, self-actualized thought in the world. Even Europe was getting in on that action - they usually ignored American rattlings, and rightly so. Gun Man had been twisted into the art of generational outrage - the new Che Guevara t-shirt, you could say.
As for Rudy Randolph, all he wanted was for Gun Man to shoot people. What purpose does a gun serve if not to end lives? (And also to punch holes in Coke cans, and make the holder look like Admiral Badass of the Mounted Cool Dude T-Rex Cavalry.) He launched a webcomic, the internet being the one canvas he had yet to paint, and introduced Gun Man to the world as a mild-mannered revolver with an unpredictable temper, fighting off the forces of disease, oppression, and poverty - which were led by a literal loose cannon - and saving the world with his bullets. Before the mystique of metaphor could drop away, several popular newsgroups denounced the comic as trash - like most webcomics - and insisted that it couldn't have been the work of avant-garde artist Rudy Randolph. There were trolls lurking on the internets.
Rudy Randolph struck back in a series of blog posts decrying those questioning the authenticity of his work. Gun Man was the genuine article. Gun Man was life - the ending part, at least. He even pointed a gun at David Letterman on national TV when trying to make his point during an interview. This got him sent to prison for twelve years, giving Rudy Randolph plenty of time to achieve commercial success with his comic, but at a price - his fans only read the comic and bought Gun Man merchandise to be ironic. Not a single person subscribed to Rudy Randolph's firm belief that guns and shooting were the highest zen known to man. And Rudy Randolph felt this without having owned or so much as held a gun even once in his life. His affinity for firearms came from something deeper than intuition or religious conviction. The fact of the matter was, Rudy Randolph was Gun Man. He simply hadn't been born properly equipped to fire projectiles from his body, and plastic surgeons laughed at the idea of crafting a human being into a massive gun. Damn the limitations of human flesh!
Comfortably wealthy and ill at ease with life, Rudy Randolph found himself seeking out internet newsgroups once again, this time achieving a modicum of peace in conversations held with fellow Sopranos enthusiasts. They laughed together at the idea that the mob didn't exist. They laughed together at the political power mafia groups must have held. They laughed together at the fact that none of them had gotten past second base with a woman. And they agreed that Fat Tony was the best character on The Simpsons.
Internet camaraderie can be a dangerous thing. Joey Burkhart showed up in their internet relay chat room one night and announced that he was autistic, as it could have been the only explanation for his failures with the opposite sex. (As opposed to his crippling body odor or sole pick-up line - "HOW 'BOUT FUCKIN' ME!?" - which he insisted would eventually not only work, but work spectacularly. He was wrong, of course, but you didn't need to be told that.)
"It's gotta be da Asperger's!" he typed. "Y'know, dem ass burgers. Dey always fuckin' things up." Yes, the individuals in this newsgroup even went out of their way to type as though they were no more than two-dimensional offensive Italian stereotypes, when they were all unmarried internet geeks nearing their forties with no real friends. And none of them were actually Italian, either. Such was the severity of their delusion.
"Yeah!" Jimmy Snackpack agreed. "I bets we all got dis shits. No wonda we get along so well! We should form our own mafia family! Then the world'd respect a buncha screws like us." Jimmy knew that 'screw' was an insulting term, but still liked the way it felt to pronounce the word far too much to treat it as such.
One by one, the other members of the newly formed "Aspie Mafia" decided that their poor social skills could only mean an accurate self-diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome. Rudy Randolph went along with the rest of them on this, simply because he didn't want to be left out of the group. As he lay in bed at night, he questioned his decision, repeating to himself, "Hey, I'm a gun, not some kinda retard."
For those offended by this point, let us remind you that there's no such thing as a politically correct gangster. Or in the least, that was one of the many ideas that Rudy Randolph and his group subscribed to. They were not only pitiable outcast victims of a cruel society that didn't understand their disorder, they were superior human beings because of their perceived suffering. None of them were simply insufferable, narcissistic pricks, oh no, not a one.
Following a few arranged meetings in real life, the members of the "Aspie Mafia" all began to wear gray trench coats and sunglasses everywhere they went - even at night. After going underground and anonymous, the "Aspie Mafia" began to take work from irate local geeks. This mostly amounted to being paid to rough up local Dungeons & Dragons games at several comic book stories, and paid well enough to keep these self-proclaimed goombahs well-fed and thoroughly sloshed. It also funded the purchase of Hoagina - Rudy Randolph's classic Webley Mk VI revolver, which he named in the feminine after a particularly good sandwich he'd recently eaten.
With Hoagina in hand, Rudy Randolph felt complete, invincible, like one a-spicy meatball. Nothing in the world could stop him. He could even take the lives of his own comrades if he so chose - they weren't nearly as good a shot, and preferred a good baseball bat to a sidearm in their line of work. Hit jobs began to roll in, and together with Hoagina, Rudy Randolph brought a hail of bullets down upon greater Milwaukee.
It was only this Christmas that doubts once again came to inhabit the mind of Rudy Randolph. That maybe he wasn't a gun. That instead, he might have just been better off actually sleeping with some of those women who'd thrown themselves at him back when he was still a respected artist and moderately attractive in his youth. Now he looked like something they'd cut off an obese Steve Schirripa impersonator. And after a particularly nasty hit, he wasn't sure his heart was in the work anymore.
"I don't know what to say," he said to the regular bartender as he drowned his sorrows in gin and bourbon. "You shoulda seen the look on those kids' faces when I plugged da guy."
"I hear ya," the bartender said, unsure as to whether he should ignore the man or call the cops on the unlikely hitman. From the outside, he looked like a deluded accountant, or maybe an out-of-work teamster.
"Who the fuck calls in a hit on a guy who dresses up like Santa? He seemed like a pretty stand-up guy, and da kids..." Rudy Randolph was finding it increasingly difficult to finish sentences. "Dey'll never b'lieve in Crimmass again." Rudy Randolph began to sob.
"Hey, look," said the bartender, feeling sympathetic on Christmas Eve. "How about I call you a cab, huh? You've had a little too much to drink, and I bet you'll feel better once you've slept this off."
"Yer not lishtening!" Rudy Randolph shouted. The bar was empty, so he could act out all he wanted. "I fuckin' KILLED a Shanta! I FUCKIN' KILLED HIM! IN FRONT OF CHILDREN!"
"Are you sure that wasn't just a movie you saw?" the bartender asked. "Maybe it'd be better if I took you to a rehab clinic."
"NO! I've had enough!" Rudy Randolph exclaimed, struggling to stay afloat as Gun Man threatened to consume him once more. "We keep killing people! We're a buncha no-good screwball murderers! The mob's nothin' to look up to! I jusht wanted to draw cartoons!"
"Whoa, slow down," the bartender said, raising his hands defensively as Rudy Randolph heaved Hoagina onto the bar. "How about I make you some coffee? We can go have a chat with the police after this. If you turn the others in, I bet they'd give you a good plea bargain."
"Who's gettin' a plea bargain, huh?" asked Tommy Hoffman, the de-facto leader of the "Aspie Mafia." He'd come in and taken a seat at the bar without anybody noticing during Rudy Randolph's tantrum.
"Oh god, make it shtop," Rudy Randolph cried, looking down at his half-finished glass. "I just don't want to hurt anymore. No more o' dis job."
"Chin up, buddy," said Tommy, giving Rudy Randolph a playful punch in the shoulder. "Worse things've happened. We'll getcha through this. Joey said you seemed kinda down lately. He's offering to take you in - give ya someplace to sleep and feel at home for a few days. How 'bout that?"
"I already squealed," Rudy Randolph said with a sniff. "I love youse guys, though. You're real pals, tryin' to help me like this." He was too drunk to really know what he was saying anymore.
"Of course, you also just made it clear that you can't be trusted to keep quiet about our little operation," Tommy said, tapping his fingers thoughtfully on the countertop. "Enjoy that drink there. You're finished."
"I retract that last statement about lovin' youse guys."
--
Wasn't that just another wonderful vaguely holiday-themed character exercise? It was indeed. And now that it's Christmas morning and all that, I suggest you go have a good one. Beats the alternative.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Let Us Give Thanks
Holiday time again! I've got another gaming-related entry in the pipeline (Just what you were all waiting for, no doubt), but for now? You're getting another terrible holiday-themed short story - my first Thanksgiving story. That sound of silence? That's a million people entering cardiac arrest at the thought of such a story from an individual like myself - it's just that exciting a prospect.
There's a lot of important themes in this one - family, kung fu - actually, that's about it. But do enjoy nonetheless. It's my job to help you lose a few braincells while I in turn exercise my brain before turning it to soup on holiday events in Kingdom of Loathing, Guild Wars, and Animal Crossing: City Folk.
--
Let Us Give Thanks
"Good evening, Yorkies and filthy humans alike," announced the Grand Yorkie over the Johnson family's transistor radio. It was Thanksgiving here in New Yorkshire City, where the Yorkshire Terriers were king, and a breed quite nostalgic by nature. (Nikola Tesla might've owned a Yorkie at some point. Or maybe he crossed paths with one. Nobody knows for sure.)
"The pre-Christmas season is upon us already, so I just thought I'd remind you this year - as I do every year - to take a few minutes out to buy something once you've finished your dinners. Any citizen who fails to do so within 12 hours of the designated dinner hour will be punished by stoning." They called it stoning, but what the Grand Yorkie referred to was actually an established practice of bombarding offending members of society with little hollow plastic toy bones - a sight far more common in NYC than any actual stones. It was almost never fatal - so long as you kept your mouth closed and lacked particularly oversized nostrils - but it was quite an annoyance, and physically unpleasant enough to serve as an effective criminal deterrent.
"And remember to save a doggie bag for your household Yorkie! If you don't, it's punishable by death, but of course I don't need to remind you people of that! Yes I do." With that, the radio cut off, the Grand Yorkie's annual Thanksgiving address complete. He was one of the more loving and appreciative grand tyrants over the city's human populace - he even allowed the humans to speak of themselves as though they were still in control of society without punishment. "Even the smallest of creatures deserve some sense of pride," he'd said on the matter. The Grand Yorkie was a truly noble fellow.
"He's done, George," said Agnes Johnson, nudging her dozing husband with her elbow.
"What?" the aging military man snorted, awaking with a start. "Oh, right." George Johnson had done twelve tours on the moon, fighting for human control over the moon secessionists - like many of his fellow veterans, he referred to them as "moonies," a very politically incorrect term that none of you should ever make use of in your daily lives unless you're sincerely committed to offending your colleagues of moon descent - and spent the past six years in a moon prison camp. Most of these years were spent subsisting on government moon cheese and playing mini-golf - a pastime most frustrating in moon gravity. Some have even been known to call it a form of torture.
"Time for the holiday prayer, I guess," George grunted, pushing himself to his feet. Only Agnes held him in her gaze, the rest of his family a thousand miles away - mostly metaphorically. His twenty year old deadbeat son, Billy, was more concerned with the latest bootleg moon music and beating his heroin addiction than giving his dominating father the respect he felt he was entitled to. His twenty-seven year old daughter, Ana, was off in orbital graduate school, present only in hologram form - her holographic image hadn't refreshed in a full half hour. And George's mother - his poor, sweet old mother - was over 600 years old and not particularly concerned with anything going on around her anymore.
"Ahem," George cleared his throat dramatically. No response. Gritting his teeth, he placed his hands firmly on the table in a futile effort to draw the others' attention, and began to speak. "On this day, let us give thanks. Let us thank the original pilgrim family - the Thankertons, for whom the term is named - who first came to this great nation centuries ago bearing the gift of disease, which they spread across the land. From this bountiful disease we sprang, laying waste to the heathens who had yet to discover Jesus-in-a-bun. Jesus-in-a-bun! You eat it for breakfast and lunch, and if you even consider not eating it, you deserve to die. Jesus-in-a-bun! From Christco. Though we even now suffer at the hand of the Yorkies - er, kindly as they can be, it's really more our fault that we suffer - let us continue to curse the name of the swamp people who rose from the marshes of south Florida. Nobody likes those boggarts. Amen."
"Yeah, yeah, real touching," groaned Howell, the household Yorkie, who'd chosen the name for himself in developing a fondness for the human television relic known as Gilligan's Island. "Now how about horking some-a that turkey my way?"
"Now Thurston, you know that's not how we use that word," Agnes corrected the dog with a kindly smile.
"It's Howell! HOW-WELL! How many times are you going to get this wrong?" the dog bellowed, standing up and attempting to put his paws on his hips in emulating a human stance of indignation. Of course, being a dog, he just ended up flopping over.
George did his best to ignore the dog's usual antics. Under New Yorkshire City law, there had to be at least one Yorkshire Terrier in every home. The Grand Yorkie had to keep the humans in line somehow. And though humanity had lost its grip on society in that city long ago - turned out their grip was much more slippery than they'd thought - life hadn't changed all that much. Sure, the talking dogs took a little getting used to, but it's not as though the humans had been smart enough to figure out their language to begin with. While frequently not the most adaptable of creatures, humans do occasionally show a tremendous talent for being too lazy to care about things - the day the Yorkies began to speak is simply another example of this. Countless terrible children's movies may have made most people completely numb to the concept.
"So," George said upon once again clearing his throat. "Who wants the first cut? Billy?"
Billy wasn't listening. He was too busy rotting his brain with that hyper-techno music - the kind that just amounts to a bunch of random noise and screaming. He was also shooting a little heroin at the dinner table, but that just happened to be the way he rolled, to stick to archaic turns of phrase. (Family dinners made him shoot up. That was his reasoning, anyway.) Billy resented his father, falling into one of the two standard military brat archetypes as he had - the resentful and rebellious variety, as opposed to the aggressively pro-military, anti-thinking type. Both archetypes naturally serving as examples of humanity at its more annoying.
"Billy!" George shouted, losing his patience.
"Answer your father, Billy," Agnes smiled to him. Living with a husband suffering from not only post traumatic stress disorder, but future post traumatic stress disorder, was a trying ordeal for the aging woman. She placed her hopes in her children, and the idea that George might someday learn to keep his temper more in check, and maybe stop beating up people in the supermarket. But with the Earth government having cut funding for counseling and psychiatric help for soldiers to a mere micro-penny - quite literally, just to emphasize how little the regressionists cared for the notion of mental health - her hopes had faded considerably over the years.
"Whatevsers, old peoples," Billy grunted. "How 'bout you gimme some-a that breast meat and one-a them drumsticks?"
"The drumsticks are mine," George hissed, cutting into the side of the turkey.
"Ow!" The room fell silent as the turkey shuddered, having cried out in pain. Talking dogs, and even canine rule were one thing - talking turkeys were another.
"What was that?" George asked aloud, unsure just who he was asking.
"Geez, that stings," the turkey muttered, standing upright on its drumsticks. "Yowch. Seriously, man, watch it with that thing."
"Hey, you're Thanksgiving dinner - dinner doesn't talk to me like that," George said through clenched teeth.
"I think it just did!" Billy laughed. "Man, that was some good heroin."
"We already know you like heroin! Stop reminding us every five minutes!" George snarled, then turning his attention back to the turkey. "And you! Shut up and let us eat you!"
"How would you like it if I ate YOU?!" the turkey posited, shaking a wing in George's direction.
"What?! You can't eat me! You lack mandibles!" George said, waving a two-pronged fork at the turkey menacingly.
"You're talkin' like a moonie again, dad!" Billy called out. (For those wondering about Billy's uncharacteristically energetic behavior for a heroin addict, it all comes down to that they cut the drug differently in the future. Future-heroin's not the same. That's all you need to know.)
"I was a prisoner of war for six years!" George bellowed, stabbing at the turkey.
In a moment of inexplicable dexterity - especially considering that the turkey lacked any sort of digits with which to grasp objects - the turkey sidestepped George's lunge, pulling the fork away and stabbing it into the back of Grandma Johnson's hand, pinning it to the table. She didn't seem to notice. In fact, she didn't react at all - nor did she bleed. Another perk of aging: the gradual transformation of blood to sawdust.
"Who's to say I lack mandibles!?" the turkey defiantly asked. "I'm made of tofu!! I never had a head to begin with!"
"We're health-conscious in the future!" George shouted in a moment of angry unnecessary exposition to nobody. "If you're looking for a fight, turkey, you've found one!"
By this point, Agnes had left the apartment to get medical help, seeing as neither of the Johnson men were in any way useful when a crisis arose - as much of a crisis as you could really consider a grandma-stabbing, anyway. Ana had undoubtedly ditched the family dinner as soon as she felt she could fake technical problems, herself - a regular practice of hers during any family event at which she was expected to appear. One could hardly blame her.
"What, so I'm a turkey now?" The tofurkey probably would have had an indignant look on its face, had it actually had a face.
"Well, it is what you are."
"Racists."
"Hey, I may be a -" Billy's attention span failed him, as it frequently did. "Let's just kick this guy's ass."
"Watch it," the tofurkey warned the remaining Johnsons. "I'm a one-turkey army."
As the tofurkey spoke, Billy ran over to the stereo and put on The White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army."
"So now you're a turkey, are you!?" George demanded, pointing his knife at the aggressive tofurkey. "Turn that shit off, Billy! This is no time for classical music!"
"It's okay when I say it," the tofurkey said, just as Howell leapt up onto the table.
"Turkey time!" shouted the dog, plunging through the stuffing, his mouth gaping - only to bite down on air.
"Not this time, rover!" the tofurkey riposted, sending the dog flying through the window across the room with a solid tofu-drumstick roundhouse kick.
Taking the opening he'd been given, George followed the tofurkey's lead and sent him out the window after the dog with a slow-motion roundhouse kick of his own. (Because everything's cooler in slow motion.) This attack sent Grandma Johnson to the floor, taking the entire table with her. Predictably, the Johnson men didn't even notice.
"Looks like Thanksgiving dinner's ruined again," George mused. "Of course, we didn't get Thanksgiving back in the prison camp."
"Shut up, dad -" Billy's attention span gave way again. "We're in trouble anyway. The dog, y'know." Any failure to properly pamper one's household Yorkie was a punishable crime - any abuse of said Yorkie would be blamed on its owners, and regarded even more harshly.
"Yes, it looks like we'll be spending this Christmas working in the nog mines again," George said, resignedly. "This is what I spent those six years working for."
Billy walked over to the window, an almost-thoughtful look creasing his face. "Say, if we can't eat tofu now either, what are we supposed to eat?"
"I don't know, son," George said, placing a hand on his son's shoulder. "I just don't know."
"Don't touch me."
"Don't you tell me what to do."
--
So, as you saw, our dysfunctional family didn't pull together and learn to work together as a team because they secretly love each other and just wanted to pretend to be dysfunctional when they only were at a shallow level at best to simply make a one-dimensional narrative work - this isn't a movie. And now there's holiday-themed punishment looming overhead. Basically, the moral of this story is, whatever you do, stay on Yorkshire Terriers' good side. And also tofu might rise up and start wrecking cities someday - I'm not saying that it will, just that it might. (Note: This idea also applies to anything and everything else conceivable in our world.)
Being that it's Thanksgiving now, dinner likely some number of hours off for most of you - at least, speaking to the American readers (As for the rest of you, I guess you can take this entry as an admission that Horace Engdahl was right - American writers are too isolated and insular to be Nobel prize worthy. In fact, you can take every bit of this entry as evidence to that fact and treat it as though every writer in American history was involved. I insist.) - so go take it easy for a while. It's been a long year, and we have a rough holiday season ahead. Put your feet up, and gorge yourself on whatever you like to on this foodiest of holidays, whatever your personal dietary preferences may be.
There's a lot of important themes in this one - family, kung fu - actually, that's about it. But do enjoy nonetheless. It's my job to help you lose a few braincells while I in turn exercise my brain before turning it to soup on holiday events in Kingdom of Loathing, Guild Wars, and Animal Crossing: City Folk.
--
Let Us Give Thanks
"Good evening, Yorkies and filthy humans alike," announced the Grand Yorkie over the Johnson family's transistor radio. It was Thanksgiving here in New Yorkshire City, where the Yorkshire Terriers were king, and a breed quite nostalgic by nature. (Nikola Tesla might've owned a Yorkie at some point. Or maybe he crossed paths with one. Nobody knows for sure.)
"The pre-Christmas season is upon us already, so I just thought I'd remind you this year - as I do every year - to take a few minutes out to buy something once you've finished your dinners. Any citizen who fails to do so within 12 hours of the designated dinner hour will be punished by stoning." They called it stoning, but what the Grand Yorkie referred to was actually an established practice of bombarding offending members of society with little hollow plastic toy bones - a sight far more common in NYC than any actual stones. It was almost never fatal - so long as you kept your mouth closed and lacked particularly oversized nostrils - but it was quite an annoyance, and physically unpleasant enough to serve as an effective criminal deterrent.
"And remember to save a doggie bag for your household Yorkie! If you don't, it's punishable by death, but of course I don't need to remind you people of that! Yes I do." With that, the radio cut off, the Grand Yorkie's annual Thanksgiving address complete. He was one of the more loving and appreciative grand tyrants over the city's human populace - he even allowed the humans to speak of themselves as though they were still in control of society without punishment. "Even the smallest of creatures deserve some sense of pride," he'd said on the matter. The Grand Yorkie was a truly noble fellow.
"He's done, George," said Agnes Johnson, nudging her dozing husband with her elbow.
"What?" the aging military man snorted, awaking with a start. "Oh, right." George Johnson had done twelve tours on the moon, fighting for human control over the moon secessionists - like many of his fellow veterans, he referred to them as "moonies," a very politically incorrect term that none of you should ever make use of in your daily lives unless you're sincerely committed to offending your colleagues of moon descent - and spent the past six years in a moon prison camp. Most of these years were spent subsisting on government moon cheese and playing mini-golf - a pastime most frustrating in moon gravity. Some have even been known to call it a form of torture.
"Time for the holiday prayer, I guess," George grunted, pushing himself to his feet. Only Agnes held him in her gaze, the rest of his family a thousand miles away - mostly metaphorically. His twenty year old deadbeat son, Billy, was more concerned with the latest bootleg moon music and beating his heroin addiction than giving his dominating father the respect he felt he was entitled to. His twenty-seven year old daughter, Ana, was off in orbital graduate school, present only in hologram form - her holographic image hadn't refreshed in a full half hour. And George's mother - his poor, sweet old mother - was over 600 years old and not particularly concerned with anything going on around her anymore.
"Ahem," George cleared his throat dramatically. No response. Gritting his teeth, he placed his hands firmly on the table in a futile effort to draw the others' attention, and began to speak. "On this day, let us give thanks. Let us thank the original pilgrim family - the Thankertons, for whom the term is named - who first came to this great nation centuries ago bearing the gift of disease, which they spread across the land. From this bountiful disease we sprang, laying waste to the heathens who had yet to discover Jesus-in-a-bun. Jesus-in-a-bun! You eat it for breakfast and lunch, and if you even consider not eating it, you deserve to die. Jesus-in-a-bun! From Christco. Though we even now suffer at the hand of the Yorkies - er, kindly as they can be, it's really more our fault that we suffer - let us continue to curse the name of the swamp people who rose from the marshes of south Florida. Nobody likes those boggarts. Amen."
"Yeah, yeah, real touching," groaned Howell, the household Yorkie, who'd chosen the name for himself in developing a fondness for the human television relic known as Gilligan's Island. "Now how about horking some-a that turkey my way?"
"Now Thurston, you know that's not how we use that word," Agnes corrected the dog with a kindly smile.
"It's Howell! HOW-WELL! How many times are you going to get this wrong?" the dog bellowed, standing up and attempting to put his paws on his hips in emulating a human stance of indignation. Of course, being a dog, he just ended up flopping over.
George did his best to ignore the dog's usual antics. Under New Yorkshire City law, there had to be at least one Yorkshire Terrier in every home. The Grand Yorkie had to keep the humans in line somehow. And though humanity had lost its grip on society in that city long ago - turned out their grip was much more slippery than they'd thought - life hadn't changed all that much. Sure, the talking dogs took a little getting used to, but it's not as though the humans had been smart enough to figure out their language to begin with. While frequently not the most adaptable of creatures, humans do occasionally show a tremendous talent for being too lazy to care about things - the day the Yorkies began to speak is simply another example of this. Countless terrible children's movies may have made most people completely numb to the concept.
"So," George said upon once again clearing his throat. "Who wants the first cut? Billy?"
Billy wasn't listening. He was too busy rotting his brain with that hyper-techno music - the kind that just amounts to a bunch of random noise and screaming. He was also shooting a little heroin at the dinner table, but that just happened to be the way he rolled, to stick to archaic turns of phrase. (Family dinners made him shoot up. That was his reasoning, anyway.) Billy resented his father, falling into one of the two standard military brat archetypes as he had - the resentful and rebellious variety, as opposed to the aggressively pro-military, anti-thinking type. Both archetypes naturally serving as examples of humanity at its more annoying.
"Billy!" George shouted, losing his patience.
"Answer your father, Billy," Agnes smiled to him. Living with a husband suffering from not only post traumatic stress disorder, but future post traumatic stress disorder, was a trying ordeal for the aging woman. She placed her hopes in her children, and the idea that George might someday learn to keep his temper more in check, and maybe stop beating up people in the supermarket. But with the Earth government having cut funding for counseling and psychiatric help for soldiers to a mere micro-penny - quite literally, just to emphasize how little the regressionists cared for the notion of mental health - her hopes had faded considerably over the years.
"Whatevsers, old peoples," Billy grunted. "How 'bout you gimme some-a that breast meat and one-a them drumsticks?"
"The drumsticks are mine," George hissed, cutting into the side of the turkey.
"Ow!" The room fell silent as the turkey shuddered, having cried out in pain. Talking dogs, and even canine rule were one thing - talking turkeys were another.
"What was that?" George asked aloud, unsure just who he was asking.
"Geez, that stings," the turkey muttered, standing upright on its drumsticks. "Yowch. Seriously, man, watch it with that thing."
"Hey, you're Thanksgiving dinner - dinner doesn't talk to me like that," George said through clenched teeth.
"I think it just did!" Billy laughed. "Man, that was some good heroin."
"We already know you like heroin! Stop reminding us every five minutes!" George snarled, then turning his attention back to the turkey. "And you! Shut up and let us eat you!"
"How would you like it if I ate YOU?!" the turkey posited, shaking a wing in George's direction.
"What?! You can't eat me! You lack mandibles!" George said, waving a two-pronged fork at the turkey menacingly.
"You're talkin' like a moonie again, dad!" Billy called out. (For those wondering about Billy's uncharacteristically energetic behavior for a heroin addict, it all comes down to that they cut the drug differently in the future. Future-heroin's not the same. That's all you need to know.)
"I was a prisoner of war for six years!" George bellowed, stabbing at the turkey.
In a moment of inexplicable dexterity - especially considering that the turkey lacked any sort of digits with which to grasp objects - the turkey sidestepped George's lunge, pulling the fork away and stabbing it into the back of Grandma Johnson's hand, pinning it to the table. She didn't seem to notice. In fact, she didn't react at all - nor did she bleed. Another perk of aging: the gradual transformation of blood to sawdust.
"Who's to say I lack mandibles!?" the turkey defiantly asked. "I'm made of tofu!! I never had a head to begin with!"
"We're health-conscious in the future!" George shouted in a moment of angry unnecessary exposition to nobody. "If you're looking for a fight, turkey, you've found one!"
By this point, Agnes had left the apartment to get medical help, seeing as neither of the Johnson men were in any way useful when a crisis arose - as much of a crisis as you could really consider a grandma-stabbing, anyway. Ana had undoubtedly ditched the family dinner as soon as she felt she could fake technical problems, herself - a regular practice of hers during any family event at which she was expected to appear. One could hardly blame her.
"What, so I'm a turkey now?" The tofurkey probably would have had an indignant look on its face, had it actually had a face.
"Well, it is what you are."
"Racists."
"Hey, I may be a -" Billy's attention span failed him, as it frequently did. "Let's just kick this guy's ass."
"Watch it," the tofurkey warned the remaining Johnsons. "I'm a one-turkey army."
As the tofurkey spoke, Billy ran over to the stereo and put on The White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army."
"So now you're a turkey, are you!?" George demanded, pointing his knife at the aggressive tofurkey. "Turn that shit off, Billy! This is no time for classical music!"
"It's okay when I say it," the tofurkey said, just as Howell leapt up onto the table.
"Turkey time!" shouted the dog, plunging through the stuffing, his mouth gaping - only to bite down on air.
"Not this time, rover!" the tofurkey riposted, sending the dog flying through the window across the room with a solid tofu-drumstick roundhouse kick.
Taking the opening he'd been given, George followed the tofurkey's lead and sent him out the window after the dog with a slow-motion roundhouse kick of his own. (Because everything's cooler in slow motion.) This attack sent Grandma Johnson to the floor, taking the entire table with her. Predictably, the Johnson men didn't even notice.
"Looks like Thanksgiving dinner's ruined again," George mused. "Of course, we didn't get Thanksgiving back in the prison camp."
"Shut up, dad -" Billy's attention span gave way again. "We're in trouble anyway. The dog, y'know." Any failure to properly pamper one's household Yorkie was a punishable crime - any abuse of said Yorkie would be blamed on its owners, and regarded even more harshly.
"Yes, it looks like we'll be spending this Christmas working in the nog mines again," George said, resignedly. "This is what I spent those six years working for."
Billy walked over to the window, an almost-thoughtful look creasing his face. "Say, if we can't eat tofu now either, what are we supposed to eat?"
"I don't know, son," George said, placing a hand on his son's shoulder. "I just don't know."
"Don't touch me."
"Don't you tell me what to do."
--
So, as you saw, our dysfunctional family didn't pull together and learn to work together as a team because they secretly love each other and just wanted to pretend to be dysfunctional when they only were at a shallow level at best to simply make a one-dimensional narrative work - this isn't a movie. And now there's holiday-themed punishment looming overhead. Basically, the moral of this story is, whatever you do, stay on Yorkshire Terriers' good side. And also tofu might rise up and start wrecking cities someday - I'm not saying that it will, just that it might. (Note: This idea also applies to anything and everything else conceivable in our world.)
Being that it's Thanksgiving now, dinner likely some number of hours off for most of you - at least, speaking to the American readers (As for the rest of you, I guess you can take this entry as an admission that Horace Engdahl was right - American writers are too isolated and insular to be Nobel prize worthy. In fact, you can take every bit of this entry as evidence to that fact and treat it as though every writer in American history was involved. I insist.) - so go take it easy for a while. It's been a long year, and we have a rough holiday season ahead. Put your feet up, and gorge yourself on whatever you like to on this foodiest of holidays, whatever your personal dietary preferences may be.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Skeletons are Eating My Bacon Bits
It's Halloween, isn't it? (Of course it's Halloween, that was a rhetorical question. ... Those of you who unconsciously said "Yes" or even so much as nodded in response to the question - go have a cookie.)
As I prepare to finally post this, I'm writing from my new PC - a Dell Inspiron 530S, which I've christened Freyja, continuing my death incarnation theme in naming my electronics. Very sleek, far more powerful than my last machine (Not exactly cutting edge by today's standards still, but nonetheless very nice, after coming from a dated HP Pavilion in Enma-sama.), and as of far? While it's pretty odd going from WinXP to adapting to Mac OS X for the better part of a week to Vista, Windows Vista isn't too bad. (Though I'm glad I didn't get in on it while it was the wreck it was early on.) I'm pretty happy about all this, as you can tell, but I won't prattle on any longer - there're more important things to get to.
It's been quite a while since I last wrote a cheesy little holiday short story in here. I did it twice last year, and they never really got much of a response. I kind of doubt anybody read them. But I'm sure one of two of you - even if only in part, I can still add you together and pretend you equal at least one whole person - have been wondering if I was ever going to do any more of those. Inside, you've longed deeply for a third part in my series of holiday-themed "MAKE 'EM LAUGH, MAKE 'EM LAUGH, MAKE 'EM LAUGH (This is the part where you punch me in the face for obnoxiously singing this)" short stories.
Lucky for you, I've found enough inspiration to throw a third one together. Put your hands together for attempt number three! (It's genius, and you just don't realize it yet. That's okay, sometimes it takes people a while. Maybe a decade or fifty.)
--
Skeletons are Eating My Bacon Bits
I was having a pretty bad day when the skeletons first showed up. There was a power blink in the apartment complex overnight, so my alarm didn't go off and I didn't have time to shave before work. Then I got a flat tire and was late to work, where the boss chewed me out and I had to make up some excuse like that I was too unstable to drive properly and basically guilted him into letting me go home early. (I think that's about the third time I've done that now.) Of course, that didn't help too much - the in-laws just had to call when I was at my desk. They wanted to know when they could come pick up my wife's things.
"I was her husband," I told them. "I keep them! I keep them!" I spoke this way because I find that kind of bad grammar hilarious. But I didn't use any weird accents with it, because I didn't want to risk offending any coworkers in earshot. Harold Wong in Software Design was probably my only friend left lately. He was the only friend I'd had other than my wife since we got married. Her parents didn't find my response as funny as I did - but she probably would have laughed.
As I set my bag down on my bed after getting home from work, just wanting to eat my hamburger and watch some comedy on TV before bed, I saw my closet door open - out marched two skeletons. One was short and stout - his actual bone structure more resembling a cartoon character than an actual former human being - and the other looked more or less normal human-sized. I probably would have been bothered by this more, but nothing really bothered me lately. I just wanted to eat my dinner.
At first, I wondered if their emerging from my closet of all places wasn't some sort of weird vision representing some latent homosexual tendencies. But looking back, I was married for a good eight years before my wife's death a few months ago. (That was the first true grade-F July 4th I've ever had. Even when Uncle Earl had a coronary halfway through a hot dog four years ago, my burger turned out perfectly, making it a solid C-grade family gathering. Everything kinda balanced out.) We'd had a pretty healthy sex life - not once did I ever think to myself, "Man, this whole vagina thing's kinda overrated." Not that anybody would put it that way. I really loved her, after all. And I'd certainly made some good memories with my previous five girlfriends - save maybe for the one who wanted me to choke her. Things got pretty uncomfortable by the end of that relationship. So it definitely wasn't a sexual orientation thing - I was comfortable with who I was.
Then I wondered if perhaps these literal skeletons in my closet weren't that Jesus guy trying to tell me something. But then, last time I saw him at my door, I punched him out. I wasn't interested in their damn church gathering or their damn potato salad - I didn't really care that their congregation was looking for new local members. You do not try to sell your religion door-to-door. Then the woman holding the pamphlets for their "Cheezus Christ" pizza party started yelling at me about how that Jesus guy was just acting - yeah, like we didn't already know that - and how my behavior was completely inappropriate and they needed me to be responsible and take him to the hospital or something. I pretty much tuned her out halfway through. I had more important things to think about at the time - like where I could find one of those toy wind-up monkeys with the cymbals. My wife always wanted one of those.
The skeletons follow me everywhere these days. I really wish they wouldn't. The fat one - a skeleton can be fat, right? - keeps asking people to guess his name. When he tells them it's "Boner," they roll around on the floor laughing as though it was the funniest joke ever told. I've heard funnier. People are avoiding me at work these days, all because of these obnoxious skeletons. Mostly because of these obnoxious skeletons. I haven't exactly been a regular cheerbucket since my wife died. But I didn't really have many hobbies, so her death inevitably comes up in most conversations. Harold Wong won't even talk to me anymore. One of the skeletons keeps doing a "Chinaman" impression every time he comes by to chat. It's not cool.
I haven't visited my wife's grave at all in the past month since the skeletons showed up. I'd really like to talk to her and let off a little steam, but I'm pretty sure if I go there, these skeletons'll raise her from the dead and make her like them. As much as I'd like to see her again, I don't really like the idea of their doing that. I'm pretty sure the fat one would try to sleep with her - and I don't think skeletons are really capable of copulation, but I'm sure that one would find a way. My wife was a strong, brilliant woman - she deserves better than that. I haven't really slept much since her death.
I'm hoping these skeletons go away soon - at least back into my closet, or wherever they originally came from. I'm getting pretty tired of their antics and I'm starting to think it's about time I bought a gun. Guns are expensive. I haven't had much money lately.
--
Wasn't that equal parts spooky and holiday cheer-filled? Yes - yes it was. Now go have some candy to take the edge off. (No, none of that was melancholy. I don't know what you're talking about.)
As I prepare to finally post this, I'm writing from my new PC - a Dell Inspiron 530S, which I've christened Freyja, continuing my death incarnation theme in naming my electronics. Very sleek, far more powerful than my last machine (Not exactly cutting edge by today's standards still, but nonetheless very nice, after coming from a dated HP Pavilion in Enma-sama.), and as of far? While it's pretty odd going from WinXP to adapting to Mac OS X for the better part of a week to Vista, Windows Vista isn't too bad. (Though I'm glad I didn't get in on it while it was the wreck it was early on.) I'm pretty happy about all this, as you can tell, but I won't prattle on any longer - there're more important things to get to.
It's been quite a while since I last wrote a cheesy little holiday short story in here. I did it twice last year, and they never really got much of a response. I kind of doubt anybody read them. But I'm sure one of two of you - even if only in part, I can still add you together and pretend you equal at least one whole person - have been wondering if I was ever going to do any more of those. Inside, you've longed deeply for a third part in my series of holiday-themed "MAKE 'EM LAUGH, MAKE 'EM LAUGH, MAKE 'EM LAUGH (This is the part where you punch me in the face for obnoxiously singing this)" short stories.
Lucky for you, I've found enough inspiration to throw a third one together. Put your hands together for attempt number three! (It's genius, and you just don't realize it yet. That's okay, sometimes it takes people a while. Maybe a decade or fifty.)
--
Skeletons are Eating My Bacon Bits
I was having a pretty bad day when the skeletons first showed up. There was a power blink in the apartment complex overnight, so my alarm didn't go off and I didn't have time to shave before work. Then I got a flat tire and was late to work, where the boss chewed me out and I had to make up some excuse like that I was too unstable to drive properly and basically guilted him into letting me go home early. (I think that's about the third time I've done that now.) Of course, that didn't help too much - the in-laws just had to call when I was at my desk. They wanted to know when they could come pick up my wife's things.
"I was her husband," I told them. "I keep them! I keep them!" I spoke this way because I find that kind of bad grammar hilarious. But I didn't use any weird accents with it, because I didn't want to risk offending any coworkers in earshot. Harold Wong in Software Design was probably my only friend left lately. He was the only friend I'd had other than my wife since we got married. Her parents didn't find my response as funny as I did - but she probably would have laughed.
As I set my bag down on my bed after getting home from work, just wanting to eat my hamburger and watch some comedy on TV before bed, I saw my closet door open - out marched two skeletons. One was short and stout - his actual bone structure more resembling a cartoon character than an actual former human being - and the other looked more or less normal human-sized. I probably would have been bothered by this more, but nothing really bothered me lately. I just wanted to eat my dinner.
At first, I wondered if their emerging from my closet of all places wasn't some sort of weird vision representing some latent homosexual tendencies. But looking back, I was married for a good eight years before my wife's death a few months ago. (That was the first true grade-F July 4th I've ever had. Even when Uncle Earl had a coronary halfway through a hot dog four years ago, my burger turned out perfectly, making it a solid C-grade family gathering. Everything kinda balanced out.) We'd had a pretty healthy sex life - not once did I ever think to myself, "Man, this whole vagina thing's kinda overrated." Not that anybody would put it that way. I really loved her, after all. And I'd certainly made some good memories with my previous five girlfriends - save maybe for the one who wanted me to choke her. Things got pretty uncomfortable by the end of that relationship. So it definitely wasn't a sexual orientation thing - I was comfortable with who I was.
Then I wondered if perhaps these literal skeletons in my closet weren't that Jesus guy trying to tell me something. But then, last time I saw him at my door, I punched him out. I wasn't interested in their damn church gathering or their damn potato salad - I didn't really care that their congregation was looking for new local members. You do not try to sell your religion door-to-door. Then the woman holding the pamphlets for their "Cheezus Christ" pizza party started yelling at me about how that Jesus guy was just acting - yeah, like we didn't already know that - and how my behavior was completely inappropriate and they needed me to be responsible and take him to the hospital or something. I pretty much tuned her out halfway through. I had more important things to think about at the time - like where I could find one of those toy wind-up monkeys with the cymbals. My wife always wanted one of those.
The skeletons follow me everywhere these days. I really wish they wouldn't. The fat one - a skeleton can be fat, right? - keeps asking people to guess his name. When he tells them it's "Boner," they roll around on the floor laughing as though it was the funniest joke ever told. I've heard funnier. People are avoiding me at work these days, all because of these obnoxious skeletons. Mostly because of these obnoxious skeletons. I haven't exactly been a regular cheerbucket since my wife died. But I didn't really have many hobbies, so her death inevitably comes up in most conversations. Harold Wong won't even talk to me anymore. One of the skeletons keeps doing a "Chinaman" impression every time he comes by to chat. It's not cool.
I haven't visited my wife's grave at all in the past month since the skeletons showed up. I'd really like to talk to her and let off a little steam, but I'm pretty sure if I go there, these skeletons'll raise her from the dead and make her like them. As much as I'd like to see her again, I don't really like the idea of their doing that. I'm pretty sure the fat one would try to sleep with her - and I don't think skeletons are really capable of copulation, but I'm sure that one would find a way. My wife was a strong, brilliant woman - she deserves better than that. I haven't really slept much since her death.
I'm hoping these skeletons go away soon - at least back into my closet, or wherever they originally came from. I'm getting pretty tired of their antics and I'm starting to think it's about time I bought a gun. Guns are expensive. I haven't had much money lately.
--
Wasn't that equal parts spooky and holiday cheer-filled? Yes - yes it was. Now go have some candy to take the edge off. (No, none of that was melancholy. I don't know what you're talking about.)
Saturday, December 15, 2007
"Frosty" the Festive Holiday Zeppelin
I know you all missed me dearly while I was gone - ached for my next entry, even. It's been a long week, finishing up some assorted work, assorted seasonal stress, and so forth. Took a while for inspiration to strike me. Obviously, it's often more scarce than I'd like, but I got some more work on Project 27 Days done, which I'm still hoping to finish relatively soon and finally get published sometime in 2008, if I can manage to find an agent willing to represent me, and they, in turn, can manage to find me a publisher. At least, if all works out, I finally graduate today.
I hope none of you have been grievously injured or killed since my last entry - though my writing does tend to have that effect on people. I need readers, after all. ... Or do I?
Uh, anyway, without further ado, after the long wait, I now present to you a new enchanting tale of holiday cheer well representative of Christmas (Or Crimbo, as some call it.) in the modern world. Pass it down to your children, and in turn, their children. Burn it - scar it into their memories. This is a story of holiday cheer not to be forgotten. Or questioned.
To celebrate the 2222 NFL season, the Amherst team planned to send the crowd on a trip down memory lane by flying an old zeppelin painted to resemble famous historical figure Frosty the Snowman over the field at halftime. At this point, everything was just about good to go. The zeppelin had been painted white, and the front had been painted to resemble a snowman's face, though the Earth hadn't seen snow in over seven hundred years, so there were some mild concerns that the zeppelin may only confuse and anger the spectators when they were expecting to be entertained. It wasn't going to be easy outdoing the Denver Dinosaurs' halftime show with those girls and their magical musical orifices. That just took talent. And in modern America, talent involving various uses for one's orifices was the only kind worth having. Sigmund Freud might have had a stroke, were he to behold so many sexual psychological fixations displayed at once.
With Project Frosty nearly complete, Red Dodger and Dave Forkington were looking forward to kicking back with some brewskis and watching a human air hockey tournament. Manufacturing had just delivered the all-important giant hat to complete the Frosty-zeppelin, and for once, things seemed to be going according to plan - this rarely happened, as by 2222, most people had no attention span to speak of. Red was a rare exception, but then, he'd always been considered a bit slow in the cognitive faculties, and that's how you end up working for the NFL in the first place.
"I can't believe this is actually working out," Red said, as he watched Aaron the overseer direct the lowering of the hat onto the Frosty-zeppelin from the command center window at the Amherst NFL HQ.
"No kidding, looks like I may get to get this cancer treated a bit this year after all," said Dave, between walkie-talkie command relays to Aaron.
After the crane finished lowering it, the field technicians spent a few minutes securing electro-fasteners to the hat, ensuring that it wouldn't go flying away or falling off and killing anybody when airborne, and reinforcing its sonic defenses to render the giant mutant bats that filled the skies harmless.
"Beautiful," Red smiled somewhat sincerely. "This is the sort of thing that got me into this business."
"I thought it was because you couldn't find work anywhere else, what with people hating the way you talk - complete thoughts, and all. I know that's what got me here. I wanted to be a doctor. Maybe see if I could actually help some people. Maybe not die of cancer," Dave mused.
"We're all dying of cancer inside, Dave, we all are," said Red, watching the scene outside. He was right. Ever since the fallout, most people had at least one form of cancer at all times, but most had mutated enough to ensure their long-term survival. Cancer was just a real pain in the ass. Nobody got any cool side effects from their mutations either, just extra nipples or testicles, occasionally a secondary brain they'd have to carry around in a petri dish, lest they forget how to breathe.
Moments after the hat was secured, things went awry for poor old Red and company. The painted face on the front of the zeppelin sprung to life, and Frosty began to scream, "YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" And just kept screaming that over and over. Up close, judging by the technicians' state of panic, it must have been a terrifying sight to behold. But from the relative safety of the command center, it was really just kind of annoying, like a kid throwing a fit in a grocery store.
"Well, this is different," said Red, interested enough to raise one of his eyebrows - but only the one. Even the sight of Frosty shooting laser beams from his eyes and mouth, vaporizing everything it could in the area wasn't enough to make that second eyebrow budge.
"Hey, looks like there was a bit of magic in that old hat!" Dave exclaimed without a sense of irony.
"Shut the hell up, Dave," Red spat, "It's not old, we just got it in from manufacturing two days ago! You know how much trouble this's gonna cause?"
"Should bring a bit of cheer to the kiddies, don'tcha think?" Dave said, always the optimist. "If it doesn't traumatize them for life, that is. Or kill them."
"Well, they're not my kids," Red said, picking up the phone. "Keep an eye on Aaron, will ya? It'd be better if we could keep initial casualties to a minimum."
"Too late," Dave observed, "he just got vaporized by one of Frosty's eye-beams."
"So much for worker's comp - hey, Hank?" Red got through to manufacturing. "Yeah, yeah, we've got a bit of a problem here. I'm not sure what you guys were thinking, but this hat you sent us - yeah, that one - seems like it'd pose a bit of a thread to the spectators.
"No, I don't particularly like spectators, that's true. I'm more of an epic-porn man than a live sporting events fan, myself. Well, it just seems like killing them would still be a pretty bad idea. I'm no saint or anything, but I don't see how we can let Frosty fly now in good conscience. Anyway, Dave had an idea, so I have to ask - you guys make any new hires in the past month?
"Zarlock the Planet-Tainter, huh? You guys didn't, perchance, run a background check on the guy before hiring him, did you? No? Yeah, I get it, he sounds like a cool guy. I wish the dimwits I work with knew how to grow pot. Anyway, I'm pretty sure he's one of those evil wizards - you know, warlocks? - that kept turning up in the news a few years ago. No, I'm not being judgmental, I just think he might've put a curse on the hat, or some kind of black magic anyway. Yeah? Yeah, it does look pretty badass, but my job's on the line here. We want the stands full of children who'll grow up to be big boosters for the Chomskies, rather than distance themselves like what happened with the Philly Fuckwads last month. I'm not sure what they were thinking with that name either, don't ask me.
"Let's get back on topic though - could you ask Zarlock to maybe come out here to get rid of the spell? It's getting kinda messy and I've got a wife and kid to feed. No, I haven't tried calling the fire department yet. What're they gonna do, really? Come on, water has never beaten laser beams. Geezus, what movies do you watch? That has never happened - Napoleon was proven to have powerful optic lasers at Waterloo. Yeah? Shut up. I'm running out of options here, what do you expect me to do?
"What do you mean send him up without the hat? Without the hat he's just a big white smiley face! You know how many supremacists that could incite? Yeah, I know what happened in Charleston. That's what I'm trying to stop from happening here. What? Repainting it in blackface is entirely inappropriate. This is the damn twenty-third century, you think I want to reopen those wounds yet again?
"Great, just great. Well, I wouldn't even know how to suggest we get that hat off again - it's killing everything in a ten mile radius and nobody's even flying it yet! I'm not sure how we could even get a pilot over there in one piece. A bunch of lead shields, maybe... regardless, you guys are assholes, you know that? Yeah, fuck your mother too! Next time try doing some background checks before you hire even more warlocks, huh? Some of us have advertisers to placate!" Red angrily slammed the phone down.
"Any luck?" Dave asked.
"Nope. Apparently somebody already got in touch with corporate and they're blaming us for not checking for magical traps before installing the hat. Looks like Christmas is ruined. Again."
"Well, I was planning on jumping the Canadian border anyway. I'd rather take my chances with the giant beavers than stick around and risk losing my health insurance again," Dave shrugged.
Red simply glared out the window at Frosty, as it continued to devastate the surrounding city blocks. "This was a big waste of everybody's time, you know that?"
I hope none of you have been grievously injured or killed since my last entry - though my writing does tend to have that effect on people. I need readers, after all. ... Or do I?
Uh, anyway, without further ado, after the long wait, I now present to you a new enchanting tale of holiday cheer well representative of Christmas (Or Crimbo, as some call it.) in the modern world. Pass it down to your children, and in turn, their children. Burn it - scar it into their memories. This is a story of holiday cheer not to be forgotten. Or questioned.
---
"Frosty" the Festive Holiday Zeppelin
Behind as ever, Amherst, Massachusetts' local NFL game preparation team at the newly constructed Bart Simpson Stadium toiled away, hoping to make a memorable mark on the sporting television world at the Amherst Noam Chomskies' debut football game, just a few days off in early November - critically late in the holiday season, as Robot Santa No. 3 would soon be making its rounds in the AmericaDome. (Following mass global nuclear fallout, every nation sequestered its citizens from the rest of the world in a massive dome spanning the nation. Not that this did much to protect anybody from the nuclear zombie armies that rose up in America's southwest but weeks after the war began and ended - largely due to the growing boredom of all sides involved. These zombies did, however, make construction of the southwestern quadrant a real pain in the ass.) Nobody really liked Robot Santa No. 3, as it was voiced by reviled comic-beast Jeff Foxworthy, one of history's greatest monsters. But nobody really knew how to reprogram the Robot Santas - a minor inconvenience when Robot Santa No. 2 became self-aware and began eating children instead of dispensing gifts. Nobody had stopped him yet. That might have required using a baseball bat. And a small amount of force. That would constitute exercise, which Emperor Bushie IV decreed treason back in 2112 before he fell into an eventually fatal thirty-year coma from alcohol poisoning."Frosty" the Festive Holiday Zeppelin
These days, the holiday season seemed to be officially starting sooner and sooner every passing year. This year, it began in July. Families in America spent July 4th gathered around their televisions, taking in the splendor and wonderment that was the new holiday special, "Santa Sinks a Commie U-Boat." It was pretty violent and tasteless, but then, without these thematic elements, where would American family entertainment be? Fraggle Rock? They had to bomb that after hearing allegations that they might've been harboring some of the gays. (Later, it turned out someone misheard the last part of "Dance Your Cares Away.")
To celebrate the 2222 NFL season, the Amherst team planned to send the crowd on a trip down memory lane by flying an old zeppelin painted to resemble famous historical figure Frosty the Snowman over the field at halftime. At this point, everything was just about good to go. The zeppelin had been painted white, and the front had been painted to resemble a snowman's face, though the Earth hadn't seen snow in over seven hundred years, so there were some mild concerns that the zeppelin may only confuse and anger the spectators when they were expecting to be entertained. It wasn't going to be easy outdoing the Denver Dinosaurs' halftime show with those girls and their magical musical orifices. That just took talent. And in modern America, talent involving various uses for one's orifices was the only kind worth having. Sigmund Freud might have had a stroke, were he to behold so many sexual psychological fixations displayed at once.
With Project Frosty nearly complete, Red Dodger and Dave Forkington were looking forward to kicking back with some brewskis and watching a human air hockey tournament. Manufacturing had just delivered the all-important giant hat to complete the Frosty-zeppelin, and for once, things seemed to be going according to plan - this rarely happened, as by 2222, most people had no attention span to speak of. Red was a rare exception, but then, he'd always been considered a bit slow in the cognitive faculties, and that's how you end up working for the NFL in the first place.
"I can't believe this is actually working out," Red said, as he watched Aaron the overseer direct the lowering of the hat onto the Frosty-zeppelin from the command center window at the Amherst NFL HQ.
"No kidding, looks like I may get to get this cancer treated a bit this year after all," said Dave, between walkie-talkie command relays to Aaron.
After the crane finished lowering it, the field technicians spent a few minutes securing electro-fasteners to the hat, ensuring that it wouldn't go flying away or falling off and killing anybody when airborne, and reinforcing its sonic defenses to render the giant mutant bats that filled the skies harmless.
"Beautiful," Red smiled somewhat sincerely. "This is the sort of thing that got me into this business."
"I thought it was because you couldn't find work anywhere else, what with people hating the way you talk - complete thoughts, and all. I know that's what got me here. I wanted to be a doctor. Maybe see if I could actually help some people. Maybe not die of cancer," Dave mused.
"We're all dying of cancer inside, Dave, we all are," said Red, watching the scene outside. He was right. Ever since the fallout, most people had at least one form of cancer at all times, but most had mutated enough to ensure their long-term survival. Cancer was just a real pain in the ass. Nobody got any cool side effects from their mutations either, just extra nipples or testicles, occasionally a secondary brain they'd have to carry around in a petri dish, lest they forget how to breathe.
Moments after the hat was secured, things went awry for poor old Red and company. The painted face on the front of the zeppelin sprung to life, and Frosty began to scream, "YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" And just kept screaming that over and over. Up close, judging by the technicians' state of panic, it must have been a terrifying sight to behold. But from the relative safety of the command center, it was really just kind of annoying, like a kid throwing a fit in a grocery store.
"Well, this is different," said Red, interested enough to raise one of his eyebrows - but only the one. Even the sight of Frosty shooting laser beams from his eyes and mouth, vaporizing everything it could in the area wasn't enough to make that second eyebrow budge.
"Hey, looks like there was a bit of magic in that old hat!" Dave exclaimed without a sense of irony.
"Shut the hell up, Dave," Red spat, "It's not old, we just got it in from manufacturing two days ago! You know how much trouble this's gonna cause?"
"Should bring a bit of cheer to the kiddies, don'tcha think?" Dave said, always the optimist. "If it doesn't traumatize them for life, that is. Or kill them."
"Well, they're not my kids," Red said, picking up the phone. "Keep an eye on Aaron, will ya? It'd be better if we could keep initial casualties to a minimum."
"Too late," Dave observed, "he just got vaporized by one of Frosty's eye-beams."
"So much for worker's comp - hey, Hank?" Red got through to manufacturing. "Yeah, yeah, we've got a bit of a problem here. I'm not sure what you guys were thinking, but this hat you sent us - yeah, that one - seems like it'd pose a bit of a thread to the spectators.
"No, I don't particularly like spectators, that's true. I'm more of an epic-porn man than a live sporting events fan, myself. Well, it just seems like killing them would still be a pretty bad idea. I'm no saint or anything, but I don't see how we can let Frosty fly now in good conscience. Anyway, Dave had an idea, so I have to ask - you guys make any new hires in the past month?
"Zarlock the Planet-Tainter, huh? You guys didn't, perchance, run a background check on the guy before hiring him, did you? No? Yeah, I get it, he sounds like a cool guy. I wish the dimwits I work with knew how to grow pot. Anyway, I'm pretty sure he's one of those evil wizards - you know, warlocks? - that kept turning up in the news a few years ago. No, I'm not being judgmental, I just think he might've put a curse on the hat, or some kind of black magic anyway. Yeah? Yeah, it does look pretty badass, but my job's on the line here. We want the stands full of children who'll grow up to be big boosters for the Chomskies, rather than distance themselves like what happened with the Philly Fuckwads last month. I'm not sure what they were thinking with that name either, don't ask me.
"Let's get back on topic though - could you ask Zarlock to maybe come out here to get rid of the spell? It's getting kinda messy and I've got a wife and kid to feed. No, I haven't tried calling the fire department yet. What're they gonna do, really? Come on, water has never beaten laser beams. Geezus, what movies do you watch? That has never happened - Napoleon was proven to have powerful optic lasers at Waterloo. Yeah? Shut up. I'm running out of options here, what do you expect me to do?
"What do you mean send him up without the hat? Without the hat he's just a big white smiley face! You know how many supremacists that could incite? Yeah, I know what happened in Charleston. That's what I'm trying to stop from happening here. What? Repainting it in blackface is entirely inappropriate. This is the damn twenty-third century, you think I want to reopen those wounds yet again?
"Great, just great. Well, I wouldn't even know how to suggest we get that hat off again - it's killing everything in a ten mile radius and nobody's even flying it yet! I'm not sure how we could even get a pilot over there in one piece. A bunch of lead shields, maybe... regardless, you guys are assholes, you know that? Yeah, fuck your mother too! Next time try doing some background checks before you hire even more warlocks, huh? Some of us have advertisers to placate!" Red angrily slammed the phone down.
"Any luck?" Dave asked.
"Nope. Apparently somebody already got in touch with corporate and they're blaming us for not checking for magical traps before installing the hat. Looks like Christmas is ruined. Again."
"Well, I was planning on jumping the Canadian border anyway. I'd rather take my chances with the giant beavers than stick around and risk losing my health insurance again," Dave shrugged.
Red simply glared out the window at Frosty, as it continued to devastate the surrounding city blocks. "This was a big waste of everybody's time, you know that?"
---
Didn't you feel your insides just warm up and pickle from holiday cheer in reading that? If they didn't, you may want to contact a medical professional. Right now. And also do the same if your insides did pickle too. Better delicious than sorry.
What?
Anyway, that's enough from me for now. Hopefully you didn't end yourself after reading that. For this is an important story. You must remember that.
Yeah, I need to find some more worthwhile things to muse about rather than just writing even more stupid comedy. It's been a while since I last wrote something here that actually meant something. At least this entry was better than that last one, though, eh?
Didn't you feel your insides just warm up and pickle from holiday cheer in reading that? If they didn't, you may want to contact a medical professional. Right now. And also do the same if your insides did pickle too. Better delicious than sorry.
What?
Anyway, that's enough from me for now. Hopefully you didn't end yourself after reading that. For this is an important story. You must remember that.
Yeah, I need to find some more worthwhile things to muse about rather than just writing even more stupid comedy. It's been a while since I last wrote something here that actually meant something. At least this entry was better than that last one, though, eh?
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Important Business Meeting
Now, I know you're all wondering why I called you here... just kidding, you already know why I had to call you here, I just always wanted to say that. Now, if there are no questions - no, Wayne, there won't be bathroom breaks - let's get down to business.
Productivity is down 72% in the past month. Study figures show a continuous downward trend ever since I was transferred in to be your new boss nearly a month ago to the day. Obviously, there's some friction here, so we're going to hammer this out here and now, or else I'm going to have to find a new staff, got it?
First, let's take a look in the suggestion box.
"Who the hell do you think you are?"
"Fuck you."
"Why won't you die already?" - I'm assuming this one's from you, Reid. I get that you're the office joker, but putting arsenic in my coffee is getting pretty played out, don't you think?
These are but a few of the notes I've received in the past week alone. These are not constructive, people. Sure, some of you may doubt my capabilities in this position, but I am the boss for a reason - because I am better than all of you. I'm stronger, I'm smarter, I'm faster, and I have what it takes to move this division of Stillborn Staplers forward after that unfortunate incident that took Joe Gumbo's life. I know you all loved him, heck, even I looked up to the man, but it's time to start looking ahead. You can't go on mourning a freak stapling accident forever. I may not be Joe Gumbo, but like him, I am still better than all of you. This is why you should listen to me when I tell you what to be, what to think, and how to most efficiently eat your sandwiches in the break room. But you're looking at me the wrong way. You shouldn't resent me. You should look up to me, for all the guidance I can provide in your lives. Gentlemen, you should see me as a father. Ladies, you should see me as that cool, hot older brother your feelings for whom would be incestuous if not for that you're adopted. Trust in me, and I won't steer you wrong. And ladies, I can go all night if needed. By which I mean you should call me if you ever need anything, I'll do the best I can to make things right. And right can entail sexy. We should have that kind of workplace bond - it reduces sexual tension and brings offices together. I cannot, however, extend the same offer to the gentlemen - I'd be flattered, but I'm just not into that.
As your boss, it's my job to motivate you and get productivity back up. I'd promise some kind of profit sharing program, so you guys could earn a commission for every sale, and get a bigger raise when profits are up all around, but I spoke with someone in corporate just the other night, and he said he'd kill me himself if I made any promises relating to your income. That's old Bob Arkham, though, always foaming at the mouth over something. First his secretary gave him the clap, and now he's raving about possible layoffs. That old card.
I may not be too good at this whole motivating thing yet, but I can at least relate to you the meaningful words I've been granted in my life. My dad, for instance, always used to tell me "never do anything halfway," when I was growing up. Granted, I haven't seen him since he smashed that public mailbox and fled to Canada, but his words still hold true even now. Then there was my mentor, Cooper Burtham, who's still wanted in Wyoming for a misdemeanor involving a toaster oven. He always told me, "Ed, if you want to get anywhere in this world, you have to do it for the sake of doing it." He never did explain what "it" was, or get my name right, but he still amazes me when I visit him in the home on weekends with the incredible wisdom he has to share. And I'll never forget the important lessons of Socrates - specifically, legendary motivational speaker Bill Socrates, who wrote That Ain't a Monkey in Your Sock! and Turnip-Llama: Build a Better Future through Animal Hybrids. I bumped into him at a business convention at the Sheraton in Spokane four years ago, and five minutes before he died of a coronary in the lobby, he imparted to me, "There's nothin' sexier than the baby Jesus on a platter of cookie dough." I'm not entirely sure what this means, but I'm pretty certain it's the secret to maximizing our profit margins.
I know that the water cooler is a big issue, with all those angry, violent notes in the suggestion box that specifically mention it. But if you want full water cooler privileges back, you have to earn them. But at the rate you're all going, not only will I not be having the paper cup dispenser refilled, but I may have to have the cooler taken away entirely - the building owners are complaining about water damage to the rugs. What did I tell you about learning to catch the water in your mouth? Joan, as you'll recall, tried to cheat and used her coffee mug. And as you'll also recall, I had to fire her. She was a troublemaker, that one. Not a team player at all. If you don't shape up, you'll have to drink from one of the restroom sinks when you want water. No, I don't care that Perkins molests all the faucets. There's nothing in the company charter about that. If you have a problem, you can bring your own faucet from home.
Recently, I spoke with the nightly maintenance crew, and they aren't happy with things here either. As you can see, we're all unhappy, when we could be one big happy family. Someone's been leaving an unidentified white powder on the toilet seats in the men's restroom on friday nights. This can only mean one thing - one of you is suffering from a compulsive powdered doughnut addiction. Whoever you are, you should admit it and we'll all embrace and help you through this difficult time. I used to have an addiction too - I spent most of the '70s playing air hockey for hair gel. I just loved the way it smelled. But that was wrong, and after three years in rehab and several relapses, I finally beat my personal monster. And I know you can too. If you're not comfortable talking about it, however, at least leave a courtesy doughnut for the guy who cleans the bathrooms, would you? They're part of the Stillborn Staplers family too, after all. Just kind of like that uncle or cousin who always looked at you funny growing up and isn't invited to social occasions anymore.
You want things to get better? We need to learn to work together as a team and beat this productivity slump! Above all else, I want you to think of the customers. We're saving lives here! Sort of. So you want to treat them like kings. Then, if they were to meet us, they'd hug us and say, "Thank you, you've changed my life for the better like no one else could. You helped me hold my papers together." Who else can say that they've accomplished that? Not the paper clip people, that's for sure.
What do you mean "some people prefer paper clips?"
Productivity is down 72% in the past month. Study figures show a continuous downward trend ever since I was transferred in to be your new boss nearly a month ago to the day. Obviously, there's some friction here, so we're going to hammer this out here and now, or else I'm going to have to find a new staff, got it?
First, let's take a look in the suggestion box.
"Who the hell do you think you are?"
"Fuck you."
"Why won't you die already?" - I'm assuming this one's from you, Reid. I get that you're the office joker, but putting arsenic in my coffee is getting pretty played out, don't you think?
These are but a few of the notes I've received in the past week alone. These are not constructive, people. Sure, some of you may doubt my capabilities in this position, but I am the boss for a reason - because I am better than all of you. I'm stronger, I'm smarter, I'm faster, and I have what it takes to move this division of Stillborn Staplers forward after that unfortunate incident that took Joe Gumbo's life. I know you all loved him, heck, even I looked up to the man, but it's time to start looking ahead. You can't go on mourning a freak stapling accident forever. I may not be Joe Gumbo, but like him, I am still better than all of you. This is why you should listen to me when I tell you what to be, what to think, and how to most efficiently eat your sandwiches in the break room. But you're looking at me the wrong way. You shouldn't resent me. You should look up to me, for all the guidance I can provide in your lives. Gentlemen, you should see me as a father. Ladies, you should see me as that cool, hot older brother your feelings for whom would be incestuous if not for that you're adopted. Trust in me, and I won't steer you wrong. And ladies, I can go all night if needed. By which I mean you should call me if you ever need anything, I'll do the best I can to make things right. And right can entail sexy. We should have that kind of workplace bond - it reduces sexual tension and brings offices together. I cannot, however, extend the same offer to the gentlemen - I'd be flattered, but I'm just not into that.
As your boss, it's my job to motivate you and get productivity back up. I'd promise some kind of profit sharing program, so you guys could earn a commission for every sale, and get a bigger raise when profits are up all around, but I spoke with someone in corporate just the other night, and he said he'd kill me himself if I made any promises relating to your income. That's old Bob Arkham, though, always foaming at the mouth over something. First his secretary gave him the clap, and now he's raving about possible layoffs. That old card.
I may not be too good at this whole motivating thing yet, but I can at least relate to you the meaningful words I've been granted in my life. My dad, for instance, always used to tell me "never do anything halfway," when I was growing up. Granted, I haven't seen him since he smashed that public mailbox and fled to Canada, but his words still hold true even now. Then there was my mentor, Cooper Burtham, who's still wanted in Wyoming for a misdemeanor involving a toaster oven. He always told me, "Ed, if you want to get anywhere in this world, you have to do it for the sake of doing it." He never did explain what "it" was, or get my name right, but he still amazes me when I visit him in the home on weekends with the incredible wisdom he has to share. And I'll never forget the important lessons of Socrates - specifically, legendary motivational speaker Bill Socrates, who wrote That Ain't a Monkey in Your Sock! and Turnip-Llama: Build a Better Future through Animal Hybrids. I bumped into him at a business convention at the Sheraton in Spokane four years ago, and five minutes before he died of a coronary in the lobby, he imparted to me, "There's nothin' sexier than the baby Jesus on a platter of cookie dough." I'm not entirely sure what this means, but I'm pretty certain it's the secret to maximizing our profit margins.
I know that the water cooler is a big issue, with all those angry, violent notes in the suggestion box that specifically mention it. But if you want full water cooler privileges back, you have to earn them. But at the rate you're all going, not only will I not be having the paper cup dispenser refilled, but I may have to have the cooler taken away entirely - the building owners are complaining about water damage to the rugs. What did I tell you about learning to catch the water in your mouth? Joan, as you'll recall, tried to cheat and used her coffee mug. And as you'll also recall, I had to fire her. She was a troublemaker, that one. Not a team player at all. If you don't shape up, you'll have to drink from one of the restroom sinks when you want water. No, I don't care that Perkins molests all the faucets. There's nothing in the company charter about that. If you have a problem, you can bring your own faucet from home.
Recently, I spoke with the nightly maintenance crew, and they aren't happy with things here either. As you can see, we're all unhappy, when we could be one big happy family. Someone's been leaving an unidentified white powder on the toilet seats in the men's restroom on friday nights. This can only mean one thing - one of you is suffering from a compulsive powdered doughnut addiction. Whoever you are, you should admit it and we'll all embrace and help you through this difficult time. I used to have an addiction too - I spent most of the '70s playing air hockey for hair gel. I just loved the way it smelled. But that was wrong, and after three years in rehab and several relapses, I finally beat my personal monster. And I know you can too. If you're not comfortable talking about it, however, at least leave a courtesy doughnut for the guy who cleans the bathrooms, would you? They're part of the Stillborn Staplers family too, after all. Just kind of like that uncle or cousin who always looked at you funny growing up and isn't invited to social occasions anymore.
You want things to get better? We need to learn to work together as a team and beat this productivity slump! Above all else, I want you to think of the customers. We're saving lives here! Sort of. So you want to treat them like kings. Then, if they were to meet us, they'd hug us and say, "Thank you, you've changed my life for the better like no one else could. You helped me hold my papers together." Who else can say that they've accomplished that? Not the paper clip people, that's for sure.
What do you mean "some people prefer paper clips?"
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Boomer the Drunken Ghost
So, it's Halloween again.
What of it?
Stop looking at me like that.
I don't have to entertain you.
Fine, here, a terrible short story of sorts to get you in the Halloween mood. One might even say, it'd leave you feeling rather Halloweenie. See what I did there? Doesn't feel so good, does it?
What of it?
Stop looking at me like that.
I don't have to entertain you.
Fine, here, a terrible short story of sorts to get you in the Halloween mood. One might even say, it'd leave you feeling rather Halloweenie. See what I did there? Doesn't feel so good, does it?
---
Boomer the Drunken Ghost
Boomer the Drunken Ghost
It was a dark and spooky night. Not the "Oh god, please don't let anybody rape me" kind of spooky, but the "I sure hope nobody puts arsenic or razor blades in my candy!" sort of spooky. Both are pretty spooky in their own regard, though. Granted, this story takes place in Tallahasee, Florida in the late '90s, so it's in a locale with its own grade of spookiness. And that grade? C+. On a good day.
The Johnson family had just fled from a small town in Wisconsin a week prior - not to escape any deranged cannibals or even insurance agents, but to flee the encroaching population of the elderly. It wasn't that they particularly disliked old people, or that they didn't value the wisdom they brought to the town with their age, but when you had enough of them gathered together in small spaces like such little Wisconsin towns, a musty smell took to the air that nothing could dispel. As such, the Johnson family had no particular prejudices they were acting upon, simply an olfactory objection. The Johnsons had very sensitive noses, after all. They wouldn't realize until later what a mistake they'd made in moving to Florida. But this has nothing to do with the story at hand.
The Johnsons felt that their children's education was important, and so they moved into the Harper building on Voltaire Avenue. Previously Castro Blvd., the good citizens of Tallahasee voted to change its name in 1983, in order to show the world what a bastion of civilization and intellectualism a city in Florida could be. Some credit this particular decision for the city's continued successful growth. Others - mostly visitors from Ireland - look back on their visits and simply say, "That was no Sligo!" But this too is unimportant, like most things Tallahasee-related in life.
Having trusted their children - perhaps altogether far too much - to look out for themselves on Halloween, for the past two years, the Johnson parents had allowed their children to trick-or-treat alone. Most of the old people in their previous hometown had lacked both the twisted wit and physical dexterity required to properly poison and reseal the generic Werther's candy they passed out every year, so the health of the few children in that town had never been particularly threatened. Except by old Ned Levine - they say he wanted to organize a local marathon to support cancer research charities. They put a stop to that.
Not having lived in the Harper building long, and having been largely ignored by their new neighbors - they smelled like Wisconsin old people, so you can't blame them entirely - no one had warned the Johnsons about which apartment to avoid. Upon reaching it, the Johnson children balefully knocked on the door of apartment 12-C. It was kind of annoying, their balefulness. The door swung open and there stood the most terrifying sight they'd ever beheld - Boomer the Drunken Ghost.
"Whaddaya you kids want!?" Boomer demanded in drunken discord. He was about five foot six and balding, what hair he had on his head standing up garishly, like a lightning bolt extending to the ceiling from either hemisphere of his cranium. Tired and gaunt, he seemed to be leaning against the door frame in order to keep standing at all. Never before had the Johnson children seen a man so pale - and these were Wisconsin kids.
"Um, can-... can we have some candy?" Jimmy, the middle of the Johnson siblings asked. At eight, like most children bearing his first name, Jimmy wasn't all that bright. He even still believed in Santa Claus. Seriously, what's up with that?
"Candy? Do I look like the Easter Bunny to you?" Boomer glowered down at the kids, having just had to reference yet another holiday popular with children. That would irritate anybody.
Unfortunately, again, Jimmy wasn't that smart. "Sure you do, maybe, I suppose. Your hair, it kind of looks like rabbit ears, if you look at it at the right angle." But Boomer hated being compared to rabbits. He'd dealt with enough of it over the course of his life, having buck teeth and an unhealthy fondness for carrots. He'd always been told that if he ate his carrots, his vision would improve. But even now, he still had to wear prescription bifocals. Everybody hates a blind rabbit.
There was only one course of action. "Out you go!" Boomer shouted, hefting the middle Johnson sibling over his shoulder and out the nearest window. Jimmy would survive the fall, both fortunately and unfortunately, landing in a dumpster at the bottom of the building. He would repress this memory and twist it, recanting upon it as having been taught to fly by the Easter Bunny later in his life. He would go on to spend many years in therapy reckoning with that such an event never transpired. Unable to cope with life in a world that would not believe him, he would later take his life through a voluntary coronary - experiencing one whenever he wished would become a popular parlor trick of his after achieving a certain level of gross obesity in the midst of his lifelong depression. But that's okay, like most people named Jimmy, no one would ever love him anyway.
As Boomer did this, the other two Johnson siblings - Peter, the eldest, and Jeannie, the youngest - followed him into the apartment uninvited. "Gee, mister, was that really necessary?" Peter asked. Peter was slightly smarter than his younger brother, more of a B- student, if you will.
"Din'tchoo kids learn?!" Boomer groaned, collapsing onto his couch. "You don't bother Boomer the ghost on Halloween! All that doorbell ringin', gives a man the headache from hell!" Boomer was actually hung over. The Harper building apartments had no doorbells.
"You're a ghost?" Peter's eyes widened in amazement. He would go on to experience vision problems himself later in life, never quite learning to control the whole eye-widening issue as a child. His future therapist would go on to diagnose it as an unhealthy mental tick, but Peter would still have his own nostalgia about it.
"No, I'm fuckin' Louis Farrakhan, what do you think!? Why don't you get out of here, kid? Or do you want to go out the window, too?" Boomer growled irately.
"Yeah, I think I'm going to do that. This is getting way too stupid," Jeannie said, and immediately left. Jeannie was the smart one. Even at the mere age of six, she had a bullshit detector envied by even the most grizzled of adults. Unfortunately, her adolescence would stink, due to the pressures placed on young women to adhere to ridiculous standards of beauty in America, and onward into adulthood, she would learn to genuinely loathe herself, despite not being a bad person at all.
"Anything I can do to help you pass on, mister ghost?" Peter stuck around and asked. It has to be reiterated - Peter was not that much smarter than his brother.
"Get me a bottle of gin!" Boomer muttered into a pillow.
"Anything for a ghost! I won't let you down!" Peter said cheerily. The sort of cheer he would only experience as an adult through prescription medication.
After catching up with Jeannie - and later Jimmy - and finishing their trick-or-treating, Peter returned to Boomer the Drunken Ghost's apartment the next evening. "I found this in my parents' liquor cabinet!" Peter said proudly, thrusting a bottle he held towards the door as it opened. The man who stood at the door did not seem to be the one from the previous night. Instead, this new man had a bad comb-over, and wore the clothes of an accountant. "Boomer?" Peter's eyes widened in confusion.
"It's Stan. Stan Dworkin. What are you doing, kid?" the man sighed.
"Is Boomer the ghost here? He asked me to bring him a bottle of gin," Peter was confused and frightened. Where had his ghost disappeared to!?
"I don't know what you're talking about. There's no ghosts here. Go home," the man shut the door.
The Johnson family had just fled from a small town in Wisconsin a week prior - not to escape any deranged cannibals or even insurance agents, but to flee the encroaching population of the elderly. It wasn't that they particularly disliked old people, or that they didn't value the wisdom they brought to the town with their age, but when you had enough of them gathered together in small spaces like such little Wisconsin towns, a musty smell took to the air that nothing could dispel. As such, the Johnson family had no particular prejudices they were acting upon, simply an olfactory objection. The Johnsons had very sensitive noses, after all. They wouldn't realize until later what a mistake they'd made in moving to Florida. But this has nothing to do with the story at hand.
The Johnsons felt that their children's education was important, and so they moved into the Harper building on Voltaire Avenue. Previously Castro Blvd., the good citizens of Tallahasee voted to change its name in 1983, in order to show the world what a bastion of civilization and intellectualism a city in Florida could be. Some credit this particular decision for the city's continued successful growth. Others - mostly visitors from Ireland - look back on their visits and simply say, "That was no Sligo!" But this too is unimportant, like most things Tallahasee-related in life.
Having trusted their children - perhaps altogether far too much - to look out for themselves on Halloween, for the past two years, the Johnson parents had allowed their children to trick-or-treat alone. Most of the old people in their previous hometown had lacked both the twisted wit and physical dexterity required to properly poison and reseal the generic Werther's candy they passed out every year, so the health of the few children in that town had never been particularly threatened. Except by old Ned Levine - they say he wanted to organize a local marathon to support cancer research charities. They put a stop to that.
Not having lived in the Harper building long, and having been largely ignored by their new neighbors - they smelled like Wisconsin old people, so you can't blame them entirely - no one had warned the Johnsons about which apartment to avoid. Upon reaching it, the Johnson children balefully knocked on the door of apartment 12-C. It was kind of annoying, their balefulness. The door swung open and there stood the most terrifying sight they'd ever beheld - Boomer the Drunken Ghost.
"Whaddaya you kids want!?" Boomer demanded in drunken discord. He was about five foot six and balding, what hair he had on his head standing up garishly, like a lightning bolt extending to the ceiling from either hemisphere of his cranium. Tired and gaunt, he seemed to be leaning against the door frame in order to keep standing at all. Never before had the Johnson children seen a man so pale - and these were Wisconsin kids.
"Um, can-... can we have some candy?" Jimmy, the middle of the Johnson siblings asked. At eight, like most children bearing his first name, Jimmy wasn't all that bright. He even still believed in Santa Claus. Seriously, what's up with that?
"Candy? Do I look like the Easter Bunny to you?" Boomer glowered down at the kids, having just had to reference yet another holiday popular with children. That would irritate anybody.
Unfortunately, again, Jimmy wasn't that smart. "Sure you do, maybe, I suppose. Your hair, it kind of looks like rabbit ears, if you look at it at the right angle." But Boomer hated being compared to rabbits. He'd dealt with enough of it over the course of his life, having buck teeth and an unhealthy fondness for carrots. He'd always been told that if he ate his carrots, his vision would improve. But even now, he still had to wear prescription bifocals. Everybody hates a blind rabbit.
There was only one course of action. "Out you go!" Boomer shouted, hefting the middle Johnson sibling over his shoulder and out the nearest window. Jimmy would survive the fall, both fortunately and unfortunately, landing in a dumpster at the bottom of the building. He would repress this memory and twist it, recanting upon it as having been taught to fly by the Easter Bunny later in his life. He would go on to spend many years in therapy reckoning with that such an event never transpired. Unable to cope with life in a world that would not believe him, he would later take his life through a voluntary coronary - experiencing one whenever he wished would become a popular parlor trick of his after achieving a certain level of gross obesity in the midst of his lifelong depression. But that's okay, like most people named Jimmy, no one would ever love him anyway.
As Boomer did this, the other two Johnson siblings - Peter, the eldest, and Jeannie, the youngest - followed him into the apartment uninvited. "Gee, mister, was that really necessary?" Peter asked. Peter was slightly smarter than his younger brother, more of a B- student, if you will.
"Din'tchoo kids learn?!" Boomer groaned, collapsing onto his couch. "You don't bother Boomer the ghost on Halloween! All that doorbell ringin', gives a man the headache from hell!" Boomer was actually hung over. The Harper building apartments had no doorbells.
"You're a ghost?" Peter's eyes widened in amazement. He would go on to experience vision problems himself later in life, never quite learning to control the whole eye-widening issue as a child. His future therapist would go on to diagnose it as an unhealthy mental tick, but Peter would still have his own nostalgia about it.
"No, I'm fuckin' Louis Farrakhan, what do you think!? Why don't you get out of here, kid? Or do you want to go out the window, too?" Boomer growled irately.
"Yeah, I think I'm going to do that. This is getting way too stupid," Jeannie said, and immediately left. Jeannie was the smart one. Even at the mere age of six, she had a bullshit detector envied by even the most grizzled of adults. Unfortunately, her adolescence would stink, due to the pressures placed on young women to adhere to ridiculous standards of beauty in America, and onward into adulthood, she would learn to genuinely loathe herself, despite not being a bad person at all.
"Anything I can do to help you pass on, mister ghost?" Peter stuck around and asked. It has to be reiterated - Peter was not that much smarter than his brother.
"Get me a bottle of gin!" Boomer muttered into a pillow.
"Anything for a ghost! I won't let you down!" Peter said cheerily. The sort of cheer he would only experience as an adult through prescription medication.
After catching up with Jeannie - and later Jimmy - and finishing their trick-or-treating, Peter returned to Boomer the Drunken Ghost's apartment the next evening. "I found this in my parents' liquor cabinet!" Peter said proudly, thrusting a bottle he held towards the door as it opened. The man who stood at the door did not seem to be the one from the previous night. Instead, this new man had a bad comb-over, and wore the clothes of an accountant. "Boomer?" Peter's eyes widened in confusion.
"It's Stan. Stan Dworkin. What are you doing, kid?" the man sighed.
"Is Boomer the ghost here? He asked me to bring him a bottle of gin," Peter was confused and frightened. Where had his ghost disappeared to!?
"I don't know what you're talking about. There's no ghosts here. Go home," the man shut the door.
---
And that's where the story ends. Pretty spooky, huh? Aren't you feeling more in the Halloween mood now? Also, if you're looking for a moral to this story, it's thus: Don't listen to or try to help anybody. They're probably just drunk. Drunk on Halloween. Or whatever day it is when they're drunk.
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