Predator Press

[Mr. Insanity]


LOBO was released from ICU within about four weeks, and Glenda and I picked him up. Glenda commemorated his "release" in a black sequin gown and stiletto heels that punched holes in the ground under her 260 pound frame.

LOBO had just spent four weeks restricted to a hospital bed, getting dubious hospital food and sponge baths from hot nurses, watching Hee Haw on cable and reading Louis L'Amour.

He gained about eight pounds in those 33 days.

They treated him like veal.

So LOBO busts out of his assless hospital gown with a visceral passion, badly craving non-hospital veal.


***
The best "veal" in town is Rocky's. At Rocky's, cute little chubby live baby lambs are kept behind a glass in full view --plainly labeled "veal"-- and you pick out your own. And at Rocky's, if you give the waiter an extra five bucks you can beat the shit out of it first.

Belching, the three of us lit some Cuban cigars I was saving for a special occasion. LOBO doesn't know or care that the "best veal in Pianosa" lacks the main ingredient: I heard him once tell a farmer that the goat wandering around on his property was "without question, the ugliest dog he had ever seen". Contemplative, LOBO draws on his cigar. Leaning back in his chair, he folded his hands behind his head as the aromatic smoke wafted around the almost post-sexual grin.

He has a special ability when it comes to enjoying moments, and this was a good day for the little bastard.

"You know Dash is getting out Thursday?" asks Glenda innocently, making small talk.

LOBO puffed his stogy. "Who's Dash?"

"Dash Cunning. The guy you kicked in the nuts."

"Twice," I added.

LOBO sat bolt upright. "Dash is still in the hospital!?"

"Sort of," I explained. "There was evidently some confusion when those ambulances came for you guys. One took you to the emergency room, and the other Dash to a mental institution."

"Oh my GOD!" says LOBO. "Dash is crackers?"

"So it would seem."


***

LOBO was clearly distraught. "We have to do something nice for Dash when he gets out," he decides flatly.

"We?"

"Yeah. He's spent a month getting his brain relentlessly picked over by other crazy people. Psychiatrists. He's going to need to blow off some steam."

"Want to send him flowers?" asks Glenda. "I know where he lives."

"You know where Dash lives?" says LOBO, increasingly animated.

"1212 Meadow Lane", she says. "The gate guy's name is Steve."

"Okay," says LOBO. "Here's what we do."


***

I'm not really sure why LOBO thought Dash might enjoy having his lavish estate renamed The Dash Cunning International Airport.

But LOBO is a vehement racist when it comes to dead people, and regularly reads the Obituaries, gloating: "Lookit that! This guy was a football quarterback in college, and then a decorated war hero in World War Two. A millionaire by thirty. Two Nobel Peace Prizes. And I outran the fuckin pansy! What a loser!"

Roundly opposed to naming it after any more "boring and worthless" dead people, he picked "The Dash Cunning International Airport".

And so it goes. Within two days, The Dash Cunning International Airport had a Duty Free and four Starbucks.

LOBO was complaining about the price of his Frappuccino when Dash pulled up.

With Dash's questionable mental history, the FAA and Homeland Security almost didn't let him on the premises until Glenda, in a silk blouse and hotpants, rushed out to reassure them that Dash was no threat.

After a brief spontaneous and gratuitous cavity search, Dash was allowed to enter. He was so impressed with all the remodeling, he started crying and popping these potent little "mood stabilizers" like candy. He pulls up in his driveway, but is blocked by a colorfully-painted DC-9 with "Aloha" written on the hull.

"Surprise!" says LOBO gleefully, welcoming Dash with open arms, spilling Frappuccino on the CB radio marked The Dash Cunning International Airport Control Tower.

Dash fainted.

Memphis Belle

Predator Press

[LOBO]

[I know you don't hear this from me often. But when I say it I mean it: This is a TRUE STORY.]

One of the major problems with working for Swift Transportation was constantly being misinformed of delivery times. I have a hard time "relaxing" until all the work is done, so I would often find myself days ahead of schedule and with little to do.

So with sixteen hours to kill in Memphis Tennessee, I had done everything. All my laundry was clean, I was fed, showered, had fueled up, gathered supplies, and detailed the inside of my truck. My truck was usually filthy on the outside, but the inside of my sleeper cab --cleaned daily-- was immaculate in contrast.

So out of boredom, I'm uncharacteristically wandering around a truck stop. They are hidden cities unto themselves. And at night, while hundreds of subdued deisel engines idling as the drivers sleep, the ground seems to shake in the face of the awesome slumbering horsepower.

An arcade provided some amusement for a while. But eventually I decided to get some postcards and retire to my cab writing my friends back home.

Nancy was the cashier. She was about 25 and absolutely stunning: the kind of girl that takes great effort to politely not outright stare at. Her pastel flowery-patterned blouse seemed to want to burst, and the exposed midriff showed a sexy, tight belly. A form-fitting slitted skirt accented her curvy hips, and her shapely, long legs suggested both grace and athletic prowess.

She was, in all simplicity, truly magnificent.

So I'm making all the postcards dizzy, spinning the display stand and plucking out this and that. It's a running gag that, no matter where I am I always sent postcards of girls in bikinis that you can essentially get anywhere. "Dear Tammy," it might say. "Niagara Falls is beautiful, but check out these hooters!".

But against type, I do grab some scenic stuff every now and then. Setting a small pile on the counter, Nancy chattily rings me up. She's very nice and outgoing, and has a sexy southern belle accent. Before long, we've been laughing and talking for about twenty minutes in the empty store.

Leaning against the counter, she flips through my postcards. I've never been to Memphis before, and the way Nancy is selling it to me, there's all kinds of stuff to do and see normally. But unfortunately, it's like two in the morning. Suddenly she flips a card at me. "Hey!" she smiles. "This is a lookout point about two miles from here. Want to see it?"

"Sure," I says. "But I have this massive truck that makes for lousy sightseeing."

Nancy looks at the clock. "Well, I get off in a few minutes. We could go in my car."

I'm starting to like Memphis.


A lot.

***

Small talked soon trailed off as we looked down over the dark highway. The overlook was completely empty, and the warm, starry night seemed to draw us together as we sat on the hood of her car. Playful touching evolved into a tangled embrace, and then into a savage heat. Soon I was in her hand and she worked me with such an animal ferocity, I was concerned I might be injured with one false move; I was ready in mere seconds, and she knelt to "finish" with her mouth.

I set her on the hood of the car, and she complied willingly as I opened her long, lovely legs. Tilting her hips forward into my searching hand, she cried out softly at the contact. I pushed her on her back, and worked my way down her belly.

Her hiked skirt revealed moist, white panties that conformed tightly to her every curve. I could not wait for her to slip them off ... I put a finger under the delicate seam, and tore the panties away without effort.

I then proceeded to "return the favor" with a ruthless zeal I rarely enjoy, and her soon her pelvis undulated involuntarily to every subtle nuance my mouth could provide as she desperately clutched at fistfuls of my hair. One arm holding her convulsing thigh over my shoulder, I worked on a condom with my free hand. And immediately after her satisfied cries began to subside, I penetrated.

We were like a well-oiled primal machine.

I didn't even see the headlights pulling into the lookout.

Nancy starts abruptly, and pushes my off. "Quick!" she says, sitting up and buttoning her blouse.

My pants are around my ankles.

Despite my haste, Officer Jones got a full moon.


***

We went over everything in detail as he went over our IDs. Officer Jones picked up Nancy's panties on the end of a pen, and she flushed as she insisted I was not an attacker. The Officer seemed to delight in make her squirm over it, but at long last he lets her go.

I'm thinking he just wants to humiliate us --massive prick that he is-- but based on this he'll let me go too at some point. Now she's gone and I'm two highway miles from my truck with no ride. Oh Officer Jones, you're a disciplinarian scream, aren't you?

Officer Jones' obvious disgust with me has multiplied considerably just because I'm from out-of-town. But when he finds out I'm a trucker, he ramps it up even more. "Just what kind of name is 'Curr' anyway?" he demands. "Sounds like some kind of Polack Punk name to me."

He starts to read me my rights.

And I'm completely shocked.




***

So. For the first time in my life, I'm handcuffed and in the back seat of a patrol car, heading for an overnight stay in jail. I'm booked, fingerprinted, and sent to a holding cell, all the time cooperating with them on a level that borderlines ridiculousness. "Yes sir, No sir" all the way, hoping that at some point, cooler heads will prevail. Someone will stand up and say, "this guy is in jail for what?" and we'll all laugh about the over-reaction. Maybe even give me a ride back to my truck.

None-too-gently I'm shoved into the holding cell containing Remmy, the drunken Elvis impersonator. I'm tired, and I could sleep. But Remmy has an axe to grind, and he's banging stuff and shouting obscenities at the cops. I lay on the "bed" --worrying helplessly about lice-- and cover my eyes with my right arm, "tuning him out".

Now, one of the "traits" you pick up as a truck driver is the ability to sleep on demand. Anytime, anyplace. Even in hostile and noisy conditions, within seconds you're snoozing.

I woke with Remmy seizing my shirt at the chest, screaming.

Hot, awful breath.

Shock.

My "lizard brain" kicked in, and I knocked out one of his front teeth. I hit him so hard, I would find out days later I broke my third knuckle.

Both of us are sent to separate cells, hands handcuffed behind our backs.

I slept like a baby while Remmy sobbed and moaned.




***

My court appearance was for nine-fifteen in the morning.

I'm irritated. Unshowered. Would have shaved.

Whatever.

Sure, I'll admit it was dumb. Yeah, theoretically it was possible for a family to have pulled up rather than the cop --at two-thirty in the morning-- scarring the googly eyes kids forever with the sight of my pasty butt.

But there was no victim here.

And while I politely wait and hope for common sense to rear it's head, it never does; with a life of it's own, it was already moving under it's own momentum.

I'm actually going in front a judge for this Barney Fife bullshit.

They call my name.


***

"Mr. Curr," says the judge in a thick, southern drawl. I'm waiting for more ethnic slurs. "You stand hea in Mah courtroom accused of Public Indecency, Lewd Conduct, ... "

Yeah, yeah, upsetting the precarious balance of your precious little world ... go on ...

He flips through the stack of police reports with obvious disinterest. Doesn't even look at me. "How do you plead?"

I don't miss a beat. "Lucky, Your Honor."

The courtroom, fifteen or twenty studious-looking stiffs, bursts into suppressed laughter.

Annoyed at the decorum breach, now he looks at me. Down his nose, through his glasses, like I'm some alien enigma. I'm thinking I'm the first human being those eyes have seriously looked at in weeks. "Mr Curr," he repeats blandly. "Are you aware that if you are found guilty of these charges, you will be registered as a sex offender?"

Now, sidebar: I didn't really know what all that meant at the time. In fact, I'm thinking "sex offender" might really punch up my resume in some of the more uninteresting points ...

"Cool," I replied.

The courtroom laughs again.

The judge glares. "Where is your accomplice, Miss--" he flips through the report. "--Stillson?"

"I don't know sir," I replied. "Officer Jones let her go."

The judge frowns. "He let her go." Pause. "Unfortunately, some of these charges require --" he parses his words carefully. "--a companion."

"Judge," I says. "She's not a criminal. It would be completely unnecessary to--"

"I don't see any information on her in this report," he interrupts. I'm breathing a small sigh of relief. "Mr. Curr, this just might be the luckiest day of your life. I'm going to drop all charges on the condition that you never, under any circumstances, ever set foot within my city limits again."

"Deal," I says.


***


In the taxi, the driver insists that the newspaper is released in a few hours. And in spite of being "invited to leave", I wait three more hours hoping for a souvenier of such a bizzare experience.

The Police Blotter from that day should be framed on my desk.

... And someday, that story should be told.

Omega Dogs

Predator Press

[Mr. Insanity]

It's a common misconception that I'm only 14 years old, due largely to LOBO's inability to do math. I'm actually 44.

Having misread my job application, LOBO has since been searching the pictures on milk cartons for a way to cash in. By using childhood photos of me, he's auctioning hair follicles containing my DNA on Ebay, and artificially jacking up the prices by bidding against the families.

But I get %15 of the profits, and exclusive rights to the book deal.

Glenda's gotta eat, you know.

Rejection

Predator Press

[LOBO]


Well, Steven Spielberg has officially rejected my screenplay "Schindler's Full Black Down Metal Hawk Jacket". It came back in the mail today with a rejection letter, smelling suspiciously like urine.

Which basically leaves me with $200 to fund the Predator Press Space Program, the Topless Holistic Online Medicine and Cancer Research Institute, and The LOBO Foundation for Sickly, Dying "Hungry-Yet-Hard-Working Orphans with Gambling Problems".

I'll have another $25 once Mr. Insanity clears his debt on that Lakers debacle. The spread was only four points ... that kid's an idiot.

But we are not defeated, O Loyal Reader! I have found a way to capitalize upon our fame to generate the necessary funding. If you look on Ebay, you will find TONS of the widely-sought after Predator Press memorabilia you just can't live without. And not that T-Shirt and signed photo crap, either! We're talking history here.

We're selling:

* 1 Bundle of Bic Lighters used by Ethan, all rendered environmentally safe as butane-free (flints are still guaranteed to spark),
* Six Plastic Cool Whip Tubs, (while they provide storage for a remarkably wide variety of things other than Cool Whip, we will be unable to use them on the Mars mission as planned),
* A Lock of Ethan's Golden Hair hermetically sealed in dry ice,
* Sixty Feet of Standard Cannon Fuse initially intended for the 2003 Republican National Convention,
* One Original, Framed Court-Certified Temporary Restraining Order, permanently prohibiting me from entering Memphis Tennessee or coming within sixty feet of any registered Elvis Impersonators,
* Season Two of Chuck Norris' Revenge of Delta Squad: Operation Osama Bin Loadin on VHS,
* Four Pedigreed Dust Bunnies, complete with papers, captured in the wild frontier under my refrigerator by Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin hisself while in a yellow biological suit crawling with poisonous and deadly Croatian vipers.

There is no reserve, but continental US shipping and insurance for each of the above items will be around $8,000

Happy Bidding!

Inception

Predator Press

[Mr. Insanity]

LOBO says this blog is pretty funny "once you catch the flavor of it."

He calls it "FLOGGING".

Industrial Complex

Predator Press

[LOBO]


Trapped in the confines of the Zane Warehouse, it’s easy to forget there is a sky.

You look up to see a steel roof about eight stories up, with miles of random, dusty pipes winding their way across it.

It's a quarter of a mile square. The complex is so huge, it takes fifteen minutes to walk to some work stations from the parking area. It is sectioned by steel shelving to the ceiling, like giant stacked milk carton caddies --into which merchandise pallets are raised by “reach” trucks so the storage capacity of merchandise is maximized. The floors above are crisscrossed with catwalks made of the same steel flooring. It’s a rigid fence-like pattern, so you can see through them; if you look through the metal cobwebbing, you can see people working above and below you.

Dizziness and disorientation are normal for the first few days.

People with height phobias take a little longer.

But before long, you just forget about the mammoth and elaborate size of your complex cell, and you walk and climb and try to second-guess where the cheese is this time.

I’m thinking of this now, because I’m looking out a window.

There were no windows to look outside this warehouse.

Or so I thought.

***

I’ve admittedly never been in Dashel C. Cunning’s office before. It’s on a central point along the East wall, above three flights of these steel fence-like stairs. For your reading enjoyment as you climb, the walls are peppered with multiple variations of "Work Safely" posters, all space at equidistantly intervals at perfect ninety-degree angles.

I was summoned for my Annual Evaluation.

Ethan is supposed to be here. He’s not.

Favoring my right foot, I drop my helmet on Dash’s desk, and limp over to stare out Dash’s window. First I’m wondering if Dash had it put in specifically. Because the window looks out over the parking lot: Dash has a clear view of everyone entering the complex through the security checkpoints. There’s a large, accurate clock immediately to the left, and I’m imagining him making lists of the stragglers late for their shift.

Because Dash is just that kind of guy.

Dash, meanwhile, is just to my right, doubled over on the floor, writhing and moaning. I push my finger under my ponytailed hair to my ear. “Ethan.” I ask.


***

Even in the parking lot, you can see the diversity of the workforce. From Dashel's "secret window", you see the sexy classic cars from the sixties and seventies, mighty and curvaceous art forms. And then you see some sort of repentant self-flagellation in the eighties and nineties cars: cubicle, outwardly unattractive, non-aerodynamic boxes. And then, for the last fifteen years or so, the cars started looking like pastel lozenges. More attractive, true, but impossible to distinguish from one another.

And then my eyes fall to the "Reserved" parking, the closest row. The executives. The guys who work so hard they can’t walk as far as the guy stuffing 40,000 lbs of Zane products on a truck by hand.

Their cars, the “cutting edge” latest models, intrigue me.

SUVs, Hummers, whatever … a supervisor that drives those is generally not as smart as they think they are, but they have huge frail egos to massage. And they bitch about gas prices like they had no idea that an urban assault vehicle might not be the most practical consideration they might have made.

I simultaneously love the retro-trend in new sports cars and revile it. These baby-boomers, with all their “peace and love” bullshit, sure did get a fingernail into a piece of that pie when the subject came up. People that fought governments and corporations. People that had “love-ins”. People that blew weed and took psychedelics. People that defiantly rebelled against hideous effigies of what they were invariably to become themselves.

Those cars --those ’69 Mustang Boss 429s, those ‘57 Chevys-- they meant something wholy unlike these bastardized incarnations. And buying one of those wasn’t the equivalent of buying a small house.

I have been enslaved, and some of my heritage has been co-opted under a thin guise of "conspicuous consumerism".

I touch my ear again. “Ethan?” I repeat. “Wake up!”

My job at Zane is pretty simple. Trucks pull into docks on the south side, and the cargo is unloaded and disseminated throughout the building. Eventually, the stuff makes it to the north side of the building --where the loading docks are-- and it’s re-assembled into trailers there. Then truck drivers hitch up to the north side trailers, and bring them to the docks on the south side so they can be unloaded by the next shift.

Lather, rinse, repeat.


***

“Ethan!”

“What?” Ethan says groggily.

“I just kicked Dash in the nuts.”

“What!?” more alert.

“We got a building-wide uniform annual raise, based on production.”

“The evaluations were today?”

“Yeah,” I says.

“So did we get our raise?” Ethan inquired.

“Yeah,” I repeat.

“So what, a buck an hour?”

“Who are you talking to?” chokes Dash between anguished cries.

I ignore Dash. “Uh, noooo—“

Ethan pauses. “Fifty cents?” I can sense his rising ire.

“Twenty-five cents,” I exhale sympathetically.

Ethan runs the numbers through his head. “That’s ten bucks a week. Before taxes!”

“Yeah,” I says.

“Kick him in the nuts again!”


***

“Shit, I think he passed out!” I says. I could feel that shot right through my metatarsal boots. “Now what?”

“Anybody see you?”

“Well, Dash and I are alone here, but I was paged to his office—" Looking out the window, I spot the Safety Coordinator, Craig Deeks, routinely climbing the stairs to Dash’s office. “Ah Christ. We’re busted. It’s Deeks.”

Craig Deeks is quite obviously the guy that went to college on a heroic football scholarship. He walks in a half-running, right shoulder forward gait, and carries his surgically-attached clipboard carefully guarded under his arm.

“Oh my God!” he says, spotting Dash on the floor.

I then toss my helmet tantalizingly out of reach over his head. Dropping his hallowed clipboard he leaps for it, and comes down groin-first into my heavy boot.

“Did it work?” Ethan asks.

“Like a charm!” I says enthusiastically.


***

I grab a bunch of the paperwork from Dash’s inbox --and his handy "late" lists-- and attach it to Deeks’ clipboard which had spiraled off into the corner of the office. Putting on my helmet, I exit the office.

“See anybody else?” asks Ethan.

I glance quickly as I descend the stairs. “I see Beth.”

“Kick her in the nuts too!”

“But I like Beth!” I protest. Beth just got a boob job six months ago. And God Bless that woman, you just couldn’t keep her shirt on anymore during after-hours parties. “I’m not doing it.” I chuck Craig’s thick clipboard, Dash’s paperwork, and my helmet into a handy grinder on the way out.

“Well, that’s fine,” Ethan continues. “Now just drive to the hospital about those involuntary leg muscle spasms. You’ll be out for at least four weeks on a Section-8.”

“Cool!”

“In fact, you’ll probably be able to sue them.”

“Can I make it six weeks?” I ask, sliding my timecard at the exit. “I just got an X-Box 360.”

“Oh yeah. Six weeks will not be a problem.” Says Ethan.

I step outside into the warm sunlight, and take a deep breath. “God bless those Liberals, Ethan.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “God Bless ‘em.”

Extra Why Chrome

Predator Press

[LOBO]


So I'm sittin in the IHOP, mindin my own business, and I'll be damnned if Sapphire didn't stroll in. Looking disheveled and disoriented, she walks right by the line at the "Please Wait to be Seated" sign. But nobody says anything about it, most likely because she's carrying a Winchester 12 gauge semi-automatic shotgun. Or maybe it's the bandolier of grenades. Who knows?

"Taking a shotgun into a restaurant?" I'm thinking, "My God woman, this isn't Dennys!".

So she walks by not seein me, and I can see her limping along, making faint whirring and clicking noises. The past few weeks have not been kind to her. Indeed, she looks like she's been hit by a truck. I'm thinking "Did she fall in with a bad crowd? Is it drugs? Did she fall for some self-absorbed jerk that is treatin her poorly?" I'm getting furious just thinking about it.

But suddenly I'm surrounded by four big guys in khakis.

"You LOBO?" demands the guy.

I lean back in my booth, tough-guy like. "Maybe."

"We're from the Oxford Lacrosse team," he says leaning into me, menacingly.

"What the hell is lacrosse?" I growl. I'm hoping it's chess or knitting or something.

"We have reason to believe you know where Mr. Insanity is."

"Well, I have reason to believe that 'Overboard', starring Kurt Russel and Goldie Hawn, is probably one of the most underrated movies ever made. The truth is, as far as 'light and fluffy' romance comedies it's very well conceived and written. The acting is well-executed. Plus you get to see Goldie Hawn in this freakin' kickass thong--"

The Oxford Lacrosse guy rips the nailed-down table out of the floor, and roars as he holds it over his head.

Oh, it's on bitches.

Catching the little pitcher of maple syrup in midair, I splash it right in this jerk's face. All six Lacrosse thugs go down clutching their heads, screaming.

Alarmed, Sapphire flicks off the shotgun's safety and summersaults behind a load-bearing support beam. (Yes, I know IHOP doesn't traditionally have load-bearing support beams in their dining rooms ... we're going to get Pixar to edit it out).

Charlton Heston, dressed in sandals and a tattered bathrobe, stands in mid-sausage, grabs these two menus and yells, "Stop!".

I see a little glowing red dot on my chest. After a second, it drops to my groin.

Charleton Heston the hurls a menu, knocking Sapphire's shotgun to the floor. "Guns don't kill people!" he says. "Apes kill people! Damn dirty apes!" He then impales the cook with the half-sausage on a fork. "IHOP sausage is made of people!

By now the ten lacrosse players are starting to "come to". I spot a eight-year old public school student crying and cowering in the next booth. I reach into his bookbag, and sure enough right under the heroin I found his tech nine. I hurl it at the load-bearing support beam, and the place implodes around us in flames.

***

Well, this sucks. I was supposed to get Mr. Insanity's uneaten meal and bring it to the dog. But I look at it, upside down on the floor, covered in shrapnel and stucco dust and, well, flames, and I'm thinkin "I'm not paying for this garbage ..."

Suddenly the waitress stumbles over and puts me in a wrist-lock. "But it's my birthday!" I protest, weeping openly.

"This ain't Dennys bitch!" she says. She drags me to the counter by my earlobe and slams my head into the counter.

Sapphire's hand stabs up out of the rubble.

I sobs to the waitress "I'll give you a hundred-dollar tip if you tell me you love me."

She shrugs, and blandly says "Okay jerkoff. I love you."

Sapphire stands, smoldering IHOP rocks and plaster rolling off of her.

She cocks the shotgun one-handed.

I look at the waitress smirking.

But then the crazy shrew starts shooting at me!


***

I hold the waitress in front of me to avoid getting hit. "I knew you were nuts the second I met you, you crazy bitch!" I yell o'er the hail of shotgun bullets. "All my friends told me you were a totally possessive and jealous psycho!" a shotgun blast pings off of the waitress's order tablet. "Did I listen? No! It's always about you, you, YOU!"

Sapphire stops shooting. She drops the shotgun and falls to her knees, crying.

"Baby," I says, suddenly. "Don't cry!" I walk over and hug her.

"I'm so sorry!" she sobs.

I embrace her tightly, rocking softly. "It's okay sweetheart. Happens to everybody. Hey, stay here for a second. I've got a present for you."

She looks up into my eyes, space mascara running, "Really?"

I've never actually pulled a grenade pin before, so I'm proud to say I got six of 'em in my palm as I bolt the smoldering battlefield that once was a flourishing IHOP.

Now how the hell am I going to get home?

Not-So-Fast Food

Predator Press

[LOBO]


Mr. Insanity, our new fact-checker, was all Predator Press could afford thanks to all you readers' latent back subscription fees.

Ethan let me hold the $100 bill for a minute, and I kissed and hugged it tightly.

"Know what we can buy with that $100?" Ethan asked me.

"A present for 100 of our closest friends at Dollar General?" I suggested.

"No, try again," replied Ethan.

I guessed. "Two fifty-dollar hookers?"

Ethan winced.

"Fifty two-dollar hookers?" I was getting excited.

"Fact checker" he says, exhasperated.

Fiddle-fuckin-sticks.

***

So we go to Harvord, Stanford, ... hell all the Ivey-league colleges that end in "ord", but none of the prospective applicants were falling for the old "$100 bill-on-the-ground-tied-to-the-end-of-a-string" trick.

Except Mr. Insanity. He bent over and seized the thing, an holding it up to the sky, he proclaimed "HA! A STRING!" Well, that's what was going to happen, but fearing losing our string, Ethan hit 'im high and I hit him low. Soon, the 187-pound drooling, moaning, burlap-bagged bundle-o-joy was flying cargo-class home to Pianosa.

We forgot to cut air holes, but the kid's still pretty talented as far as we can tell. The main drawback is that every three or four days the kid whines for food nonstop like he was dyin or something. (You deadbeat readers should be ashamed of yourselves, as outlined in the class-action lawsuit subpoenas you will be receiving in the mail Monday.)

For example. Having eaten a leftover donut that was licked clean of icing by a dog four days ago, Mr. Insanity decides to do a story on Online Dating. He's only fourteen years old, and I'm wondering if this is some pre-pubescent curiosity manifesting ... or maybe just a side effect of eating a leftover donut that was licked clean of icing by a dog four days ago. Either way, I don't really think he's old enough for an adult story like that, you know? He's liable to freak out over his overactive adolescent hormones and make a completely humiliating public spectacle of himself, and be traumatized forever over it.

So here's what happened:

Glenda32, a self-proclaimed "Domestic Goddess Vixen With A Wild Side", turned out to be Glen64, a hairy unemployed pervert from Des Moines.

This really sucks because I can see Mr. Insanity through the IHOP window, apparently pre-occupied with reading the menu instead of watching for the subtle "OHMYFUCKINGGODABORT!!" signal we worked out. In a chauffeur’s outfit --completely oblivious to everything-- he's waiting by the door of the Volkswagen Rabbit I borrowed, to open the door classy-like for me and what was supposed to be a hot Russian blonde nubile circus contortionist, defecting from the Motherland or someplace. Then Mr. Insanity was to drop us off at Casa de LOBO, where I could properly woo her out of her scandalous lack of citizenship, military secrets, and finally, virtue.

So when "Glenda32" --in dire need of a shave-- walks in and spots me in my Tuxedo, multiple simultaneous and violent aneurisms prevent me from fleeing until it's far too late. "She" sits and crosses her nyloned, hairy legs Sharon Stone-style and say's in squeaky, supressed baritones "LOBO?"

"No", I say stammered quickly. "Uh, LOBO's waiting for you outside." I blurted, pointing through the window at the oblivious Mr Insanity.

"Hm", says Glenda32 wistfully, eyeing the pup like a steak.

"--And if his bitch ass don't get me $200 today," I said, thinking quickly "I'm sending him back to that Monastery in Rome once and for all."

"Glenda32" lets out a feminine gasp and gives me $200. I count it as she leaves. "Give him a Chicken McNugget every six hours or so. The kid's a damn fool for Chicken McNuggets."

As the screeching tires and screaming faded off into the distance, my blueberry pancakes arrive. If my buddy ever sees that Volkswagen Rabbit again, he'll probably want to burn it. But he's probably insured, and I didn't care much for the color anyway.

I smiled, warm and fuzzy, knowing that my efforts have made so many people so very happy today. Ethan gets a fact-checker, Glenda finds love, Mr. Insanity gets his story, My buddy gets a new car, and I get $200.

My pancakes were delightful.

Cosmic Background Explorer

Predator Press

[LOBO]


Cobe and I don't get along very well.

But we have some mutual business interests, so we extend a certain "professional courtesy" to our relationship, which is a euphemism for keeping a wide berth of each other.

I'm far too lazy to pick fights anymore. What do I do to stay in shape, you ask? I basically cling desperately to my skeleton as the Earth hurdles through the universe at blistering speeds.

I'm getting tired just thinking about it.

But today, Cobe is in charge ... the "regular guy" is out sick. And to be honest, I'm kinda impressed. Cobe has made good calls all day. Everything is going smooth, and for once we're way ahead of schedule. Inevitably, we get stuck in a car together. He's driving, and I'm in the passenger seat. At some point, he waves at somebody, and I reflexively look.

It's a carload of teenage girls.

Now Cobe has got twenty years on me ... I get the creeps. "Damn Cobe," I wondered aloud, "Got a thing for those low-mileage babes?"

He looks at me confused, and then notices the girls in the car next to us. "Oh Christ no!" he replies, suddenly realizing what I meant. "Steve made this light and just passed us." He points at the tail car in the next lane, and sure enough there's Steve.

Steve's wavin back, laughing.

Okay ... Cobe is vindicated, and I relax a little. But then Cobe says something that really throws up red flags. "Oh God don't even joke about that," he says, taut as a goddamn drum. "If my old lady even thought that I was screwing around she'd blow my head off!"

Okay, it's creepy again. I look at him and his eyes are fixed on the road ahead, suddenly a little pale. He's dead serious.

So I start musing. Cobe is a fairly successful guy that's been married for thirty years. Is the secret to a successful marriage deciding that, while divorce is not an option, murder is? Is honest, hardworkin Cobe just one "Do you think she's pretty?" from gettin his skull turned into some kind of macabe bird feeder? I started to feel bad for good 'ol honest, hardworkin Cobe.

But then, with a "captured audience", Cobe made me listen to country music.

For forty minutes.

An hour later I get home totally crushed over some girlfriend I never had, and a pickup truck I never owned. That night I found myself serving my guests Scoopable Fritos and french onion dip in a polished hubcap, weeping openly about the plight of Catherine Bach.

I had lost six full IQ points.

I checked.

Right after Hee Haw.

So to cheer myself back up, I'm and planning to leave Cobe messages on his wife's answering machine. Something like "Hey Cobe! You can't just up and leave me with these horndog chicks. And you still owe Jasmine fifty bucks!" Who knows? Maybe this will be the one crippling lost consumer the entire country music industry can't withstand: It could all spontaneously collapse --in a furious God-smiting tempest of rhinestones, bad footwear and Stetson cologne-- to a teeny morose singularity that can be banished from our grateful planet completely with some Simple Green and paper towels.

I'm doing a public service here.

But I walk in the house my roomie has got this internet story up about this guy in Florida that got a hand axe buried in his forehead by his wife for cheating. The woman hacked the guy into chunks, and then fed the chunks to a bunch of prizewinning chinchillas she was breeding.

Righteous and joyous mayhem oh so tantalizingly close ... my goddamn roomie is always online when I need to make a phone call! Is there no God?!?

So what the hell is a "chinchilla"? And can you buy them bulk?

Hi MOM!

Predator Press

[LOBO]

Well, my mom can't find Predator Press.

An English teacher at a major college --where hoits meet toits and discuss "Shakespeare" and "Interest Rates" and whatever-- she can't risk any personal email at work under penalty of death.

It's in the School Charter.

Curious about her little 150 lbs bundle 'o joy, she asked me to slip her a cleverly-disguised email containing a link to it.

I wrote:

Deer Teecher,

Here is wherefore the writing sample what I had wrote:

http://predatorpress.blogspot.com

Anyways, thanks for teachin me stuff and English and makin me write it real good now ... I will never fergit you wuz the best teacher that what gimmee my Litrinary Talent!

Your pal,

Sincerely,

Thanks,

PS: LAW SCHOOL IS AWESOME

Your Fourmer Student,

Chuck Norris

Pay-Per-VIEW?

Predator Press

[LOBO]

Okay, so the hot blonde that banged the lucky pup in Florida got caught. And to stay out of jail, the defense presented was "She's too pretty for prison".

This was initially treated as great news by me an Ethan ... heck, we're freakin gorgeous.

But then I started to think: If we aren't jailin hot chicks anymore, what happens to those hot women's prison films?

This is distressing. I don't want to rent "Cellblock 69" or something and havin it star Liza Minnelli and The Fantastic Moulah ... Jeez even the thought of that's enough to make a guy wanna switch teams.

Us beautiful people can't have our cake and eat it too. I suggest we take all the hot chicks and lock em up in the "stoney lonesome" for one last week with cameras everywhere. Paris Hilton, Lucy Liu, Porshe Derrasi, et cetera.

And as for the host, I'll even volunteer to "take one for the team".

I'll go from cell to cell with a Governor's Pardon and bark "Pamela Anderson! Tell me Newton's Second Law of Motion!"

And Pamela Anderson will answer, "The relationship between an object's mass m, its acceleration a, and the applied force F is F = ma. Acceleration and force are vectors; in this law the direction of the force vector is the same as the direction of the acceleration vector."

An I'll say, "I'm sorry, you must answer in the form of a question. As punishment, you are to be summarily sentenced to death by pillowfight!"

We could totally make this a Pay-Per-View.

Dog's Day

Predator Press

[LOBO]

Has anyone seen the commercial for the 'Doggie Stairs' product?

The thing is like a two foot tall set of carpeted stairs, so the little poodles and puppies -stricken with stubby lil legs by an unmerciful God- can get up on your bed and into your car, et cetera.

Given that one of the major selling points of this thing is not having to bend down to pick up your dog -and all the dogs in the commercial are between five and ten pounds- where would one find a consumer base that would shell out $40 and haul this thing around instead?

Mr. Insanity let me visit his trailer park to do some research. Clearly this is another instance that we could demonstrate the trademarked glorious and triumphant technologically-superior improvements for which Predator Press is world-renown: Humanity demands yet more of our artful manifestations, and once again we are drawn upon for our ingenius crafts of elegant scientific form and function.

Now the problem with trailer parks is that they tend to be a little cramped: very few people in these tightly-packed communities own poodles and puppies between five and ten pounds ... Our original concept of a Doggie Escalator was doomed to failure as all we could find in them were Pit Bulls and Dobermans.

But luckily, Mr. Insanity had a V-8 motor hanging by chain from a tree over his El Camino. And with all that extra horsepower, we developed the Doggie Centrifuge.

Equipped with the patented harness, you can launch a full-grown German Shepard into your bed from idling speed: at full choke this thing will put a pissed Saint Bernard safely into the fourth-story window of a PETA office building with surprising accuracy, even without with the optional scope ($400).

Think about it! If you have a friend in a neighboring trailer park that also has the Doggie Centrifuge you could just fire the happy pooch back and forth rather than taking those long tedious walks.

The Doggie Centrifuge is still being tested as we're having problems with the nitrous attachments, but we're expecting to be in full production by summer.

The expected retail price should be around $3,000-$4,000, and we are taking advance orders from anyone with a VISA.

Predator Press

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Derek B. recently inquired if "Beautiful White Stallion", the character in A Fairy Tale, was inspired by Eddie Murphy's character in Shrek II.

Actually, the oldest draft of A Fairy Tale I can find was written in 1999 --back in the day when our primitive ancestors were bloggin on Etch-A-Sketches-- two years before the original Shrek came out.

I'm still waitin for my check, Pixar ...

Jumpin Jack Trash

Predator Press

[LOBO]

Must've been a helluva Saturday night ... there's a waffle jammed in my CD changer.

It's not my fault! I was drunk. And hungry. The stereo --brandishing a slot and an electric cord-- seduced me with promises of perfectly-cooked, lightly browned fluffy waffles.

I don't know if the warranty covers this, but the waffle sounds amazing ...