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| J.J. Abrams' concept art of "R2D2" blows chunks. |
Showing posts with label astranot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label astranot. Show all posts
Thursday
Wednesday
Behind the Scenes: Nyota Uhura
Predator Press
[LOBO]
Life began unspectacularly for Nyota Uhura. And after years of hard work, she was set to graduate top of her cosmetology class. But due to a typographical error, she was recruited to the starship Enterprise as Captain Kirk’s Communications Officer and Chief Exfoliator.
“Communications Officer,” however, would be a sad irony for Nyota as she was wildly dyslexic: during Romulan and Klingon attacks she would run up and down the ship screaming, “Trela Der! Trela Der!” This directly led to the destruction of Enterprises I, II, V, Va, theVIIb, and the much ballyhooed IX.2 -as well as numerous models of the Reliant, a school bus, and at least four poorly-documented bicycles.
Soon thereafter, her arrest at a Star Trek convention for the assault of George Lucas made the papers worldwide. She would subsequently tell police, “I kept punching [Lucas] until my knuckles could feel the inside of the back of his head.” Uhura nonetheless denied any motivation involving the hot Star Trek v Star Wars rivalry. “I just wanted [Lucas] to stop making shitty movies. Somebody should have done that in 1983.”
Now experimenting with drugs, Uhura's behavior only became increasingly erratic. According to Wikipedia, “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock sees Uhura take an assignment in the transporter room as part of a plot to steal the Enterprise. After locking a colleague in a closet, Uhura uses the transporter station to beam Kirk, Leonard McCoy and Hikaru Sulu to the Enterprise so they can use it to rescue Spock from the Genesis Planet.”
Uhura’s prosecutors found this defense preposterous. “She locked a guy in a closet?“ said District Attorney Jorge Sackwood. “Okay. Forget that the future doesn’t even have bathrooms … but there is a closet in the Transporter Room? Why? Is it full of red shirts? Or is it simply there for Sulu to come out of?”
Disillusioned with her military career -and now hopelessly addicted to Fuzzy Navels and a myriad of over-the-counter cold medications- Uhura’s downward spiral would lead to feelance work with Vivid Entertainment. 2011 would see the release of a poorly-produced sex tape with NFL star Bret Lockett, something Uhura’s agent disavows as her having been “heavily intoxicated and exploited.” The agent would continue on to say, “Were she fully in command of her faculties at the time it never would have happened. She thought she was making a tape with Hines Ward.”
After an embarrassing appearance on History Channel’s Pawn Stars in an attempt to sell her tricorder and phaser, Ohura finally caught a romantic break and started dating Corey "Big Hoss" Harrison. And because she never did a film with Nicolas Cage or Rob Schneider, this was the same year she was awarded two Predator Press Oscars, six Predator Press Emmys, and three Predator Press Nobel Peace Prizes.
Ohura and Harrison intend to wed this year.
-As soon as they resolve the ongoing Tribble situation.
[LOBO]Life began unspectacularly for Nyota Uhura. And after years of hard work, she was set to graduate top of her cosmetology class. But due to a typographical error, she was recruited to the starship Enterprise as Captain Kirk’s Communications Officer and Chief Exfoliator.
“Communications Officer,” however, would be a sad irony for Nyota as she was wildly dyslexic: during Romulan and Klingon attacks she would run up and down the ship screaming, “Trela Der! Trela Der!” This directly led to the destruction of Enterprises I, II, V, Va, theVIIb, and the much ballyhooed IX.2 -as well as numerous models of the Reliant, a school bus, and at least four poorly-documented bicycles.
Soon thereafter, her arrest at a Star Trek convention for the assault of George Lucas made the papers worldwide. She would subsequently tell police, “I kept punching [Lucas] until my knuckles could feel the inside of the back of his head.” Uhura nonetheless denied any motivation involving the hot Star Trek v Star Wars rivalry. “I just wanted [Lucas] to stop making shitty movies. Somebody should have done that in 1983.”
Now experimenting with drugs, Uhura's behavior only became increasingly erratic. According to Wikipedia, “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock sees Uhura take an assignment in the transporter room as part of a plot to steal the Enterprise. After locking a colleague in a closet, Uhura uses the transporter station to beam Kirk, Leonard McCoy and Hikaru Sulu to the Enterprise so they can use it to rescue Spock from the Genesis Planet.”
Uhura’s prosecutors found this defense preposterous. “She locked a guy in a closet?“ said District Attorney Jorge Sackwood. “Okay. Forget that the future doesn’t even have bathrooms … but there is a closet in the Transporter Room? Why? Is it full of red shirts? Or is it simply there for Sulu to come out of?” Disillusioned with her military career -and now hopelessly addicted to Fuzzy Navels and a myriad of over-the-counter cold medications- Uhura’s downward spiral would lead to feelance work with Vivid Entertainment. 2011 would see the release of a poorly-produced sex tape with NFL star Bret Lockett, something Uhura’s agent disavows as her having been “heavily intoxicated and exploited.” The agent would continue on to say, “Were she fully in command of her faculties at the time it never would have happened. She thought she was making a tape with Hines Ward.”
After an embarrassing appearance on History Channel’s Pawn Stars in an attempt to sell her tricorder and phaser, Ohura finally caught a romantic break and started dating Corey "Big Hoss" Harrison. And because she never did a film with Nicolas Cage or Rob Schneider, this was the same year she was awarded two Predator Press Oscars, six Predator Press Emmys, and three Predator Press Nobel Peace Prizes. Ohura and Harrison intend to wed this year.
-As soon as they resolve the ongoing Tribble situation.
Saturday
New Mars Rover Convertible, Has Cup Holders
Predator Press
[LOBO]
Middle-aged men buy exotic sports cars in an effort to be more alluring to women.
It occurs that NASA, trying to find life on Mars, should adopt this same logic: perhaps they should build a rover that would be more alluring to aliens.
-You know. Fill it up with rednecks not wearing pants and carrying crappy cameras.
[LOBO]
 |
| "AM radio? Dammit Houston, the antennae is fucked up again." |
Middle-aged men buy exotic sports cars in an effort to be more alluring to women.
It occurs that NASA, trying to find life on Mars, should adopt this same logic: perhaps they should build a rover that would be more alluring to aliens.
-You know. Fill it up with rednecks not wearing pants and carrying crappy cameras.
Tuesday
Ragnarök
Predator Press
[LOBO]
I don’t really watch much prime time television –in fact I’ll wager 85-90% of what I watch is documentaries.
My favorite show, I guess, would be “The Universe” on the History channel.
At first blush this series appears to be a modern incarnation of Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos,” but it has one huge noteworthy difference: ‘The Universe’ is utterly devoid of the trademark feelgood optimism Sagan seemed to insist on. ‘The Universe,’ in contrast, makes it a point to scare the hell out of you: many a night I’ve found myself involuntarily rocking in an upright fetal position on the couch, making peace with Jesus while waiting for a rouge pulsar or quasar to incinerate the our atmosphere. Or perhaps an undetected black hole, swinging by at seven zillion miles per hour, pulling our solar system out of orbits around the sun. Or maybe just a good ‘ol fashioned colossal meteor strike that’ll bake the bones of the lucky to ash, and leave everyone else to slowly die in the subsequent nuclear winter.
Thusly rendered unable to sleep, over the next few hours I’ll try and relax myself with more uplifting material such as Forensic Files -a show often about solving unbelievably ruthless murders. This show typically runs back-to-back until about 5:00 am -at which point the rising sun will find me hiding under the coffee table, swinging the table lamp at anything vaguely resembling moving ankles with deadly precision. Everyone in the house –from Terri down to my cat Phil- now walks with a limp, but a few bruises are a very small price to pay for my personal safety. And if you think about it, what am I supposed to do? True, the house is probably oozing serial killers with ankles distinct in appearance ... but the last thing I would need is a bunch of selfish family members oozing nuclear fallout under the coffee table with me: if I get radioactive poisoning, who will be left to ensure the serial killers aren’t the only ones left to repopulate the Earth?
SO last night -with a 2-hour gap between intergalactic apocalypses and sociopathic killing sprees- I found myself deeply engrossed in a show highlighting the National Transportation Safety Bureau’s efforts to solve mysterious plane crashes. This was followed by another program dissecting the space shuttle Challenger’s final, fatal voyage.
And behind my bloodshot, riveted eyes, my brain started quietly working over the question Why am I doing this to myself?
I’m too young to remember Evil Knieval’s career when it was in it’s heyday, for instance. But I remember having the toy motorcycle [pictured], the Snake River Lunchbox, and a vague sense of hope that -whoever this lunatic was- he would somehow survive failing to jump something insane this week. Let’s face it: Knieval’s daredevil skills and stunts were in inverse proportion … the more his jumping skills seemed to diminish, the crazier his stunts became.
But at that age, I was out of the “media loop” and operating off of schoolyard legends. In retrospect, Evil Knieval’s daredevil career was already over … and this was probably good for Knieval: over a long enough timeline, him smashing headlong into the Sears Tower filled with half-starved piranhas, rabid ocelots and flame-spewing sulfuric acid in a futile attempt to jump it was inevitable. Imagine how many lunchboxes he would have sold after that!
Anyway. My point is I wasn’t hoping he would crash. In contrast, I was rooting for the guy to survive himself somehow. Was that just youthful naivety, or did I change? Or did we change as a culture collectively? Following my implied trend from Knieval, we see the dramatic rise of NASCAR –a sport enthusiasm for which I cynically suspect comes largely from the inevitable spectacular crashes. “America’s Funniest Home Videos” soon thereafter broke ground with the idea that watching a guy snap his femur in a bizarre trampoline accident would make we, the viewers, laugh and laugh and laugh. Add to the list the “Faces of Death” series and [admittedly poorly juxtaposed, but bearing mention] John Walsh vehicles. Today, we have websites and entire cable television networks wholly devoted to cataloging car crashes, tragedy, disasters, and general human boobery.
Don’t get me wrong ... I’m aware the Roman Coliseum was built for explicitly these same purposes. But haven't we evolved at all since then? Judging from the materialization of a lucrative schadenfreude-based, ShamWow-fueled economy, as a species we seem to love this stuff now just as much as we ever did -if not more.
But why?
[LOBO]I don’t really watch much prime time television –in fact I’ll wager 85-90% of what I watch is documentaries.
My favorite show, I guess, would be “The Universe” on the History channel.
At first blush this series appears to be a modern incarnation of Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos,” but it has one huge noteworthy difference: ‘The Universe’ is utterly devoid of the trademark feelgood optimism Sagan seemed to insist on. ‘The Universe,’ in contrast, makes it a point to scare the hell out of you: many a night I’ve found myself involuntarily rocking in an upright fetal position on the couch, making peace with Jesus while waiting for a rouge pulsar or quasar to incinerate the our atmosphere. Or perhaps an undetected black hole, swinging by at seven zillion miles per hour, pulling our solar system out of orbits around the sun. Or maybe just a good ‘ol fashioned colossal meteor strike that’ll bake the bones of the lucky to ash, and leave everyone else to slowly die in the subsequent nuclear winter.
Thusly rendered unable to sleep, over the next few hours I’ll try and relax myself with more uplifting material such as Forensic Files -a show often about solving unbelievably ruthless murders. This show typically runs back-to-back until about 5:00 am -at which point the rising sun will find me hiding under the coffee table, swinging the table lamp at anything vaguely resembling moving ankles with deadly precision. Everyone in the house –from Terri down to my cat Phil- now walks with a limp, but a few bruises are a very small price to pay for my personal safety. And if you think about it, what am I supposed to do? True, the house is probably oozing serial killers with ankles distinct in appearance ... but the last thing I would need is a bunch of selfish family members oozing nuclear fallout under the coffee table with me: if I get radioactive poisoning, who will be left to ensure the serial killers aren’t the only ones left to repopulate the Earth?SO last night -with a 2-hour gap between intergalactic apocalypses and sociopathic killing sprees- I found myself deeply engrossed in a show highlighting the National Transportation Safety Bureau’s efforts to solve mysterious plane crashes. This was followed by another program dissecting the space shuttle Challenger’s final, fatal voyage.
And behind my bloodshot, riveted eyes, my brain started quietly working over the question Why am I doing this to myself?I’m too young to remember Evil Knieval’s career when it was in it’s heyday, for instance. But I remember having the toy motorcycle [pictured], the Snake River Lunchbox, and a vague sense of hope that -whoever this lunatic was- he would somehow survive failing to jump something insane this week. Let’s face it: Knieval’s daredevil skills and stunts were in inverse proportion … the more his jumping skills seemed to diminish, the crazier his stunts became.
But at that age, I was out of the “media loop” and operating off of schoolyard legends. In retrospect, Evil Knieval’s daredevil career was already over … and this was probably good for Knieval: over a long enough timeline, him smashing headlong into the Sears Tower filled with half-starved piranhas, rabid ocelots and flame-spewing sulfuric acid in a futile attempt to jump it was inevitable. Imagine how many lunchboxes he would have sold after that!
Anyway. My point is I wasn’t hoping he would crash. In contrast, I was rooting for the guy to survive himself somehow. Was that just youthful naivety, or did I change? Or did we change as a culture collectively? Following my implied trend from Knieval, we see the dramatic rise of NASCAR –a sport enthusiasm for which I cynically suspect comes largely from the inevitable spectacular crashes. “America’s Funniest Home Videos” soon thereafter broke ground with the idea that watching a guy snap his femur in a bizarre trampoline accident would make we, the viewers, laugh and laugh and laugh. Add to the list the “Faces of Death” series and [admittedly poorly juxtaposed, but bearing mention] John Walsh vehicles. Today, we have websites and entire cable television networks wholly devoted to cataloging car crashes, tragedy, disasters, and general human boobery.Don’t get me wrong ... I’m aware the Roman Coliseum was built for explicitly these same purposes. But haven't we evolved at all since then? Judging from the materialization of a lucrative schadenfreude-based, ShamWow-fueled economy, as a species we seem to love this stuff now just as much as we ever did -if not more.
But why?
Saturday
The Westward Ho Bag
Predator Press
[LOBO]
Yes, it is true that Terri and I are indeed are headed to California.
I mentioned it before on this blog.
But I have also mentioned conspiring with space aliens for the overthrow of Humankind, indestructible fusion-powered robotic ex-girlfriends, and a dragon that plays spectacular Scrabble.
-If you weren’t taking me seriously then, I don’t think you people will take anything seriously.
I must say a tearful goodbye to my beloved Pianosa.
I will miss this place.
My initial reaction was what some people might call a bit selfish: If I can’t continue to enjoy Pianosa, why should anyone else?
I figured by nuking Pianosa to smithereens and starting Pianosa II in California, I would be doing everyone a favor.
-It is, after all, the most practical course of action. Instead of moving, I could just collect the insurance money and start all over with brand new stuff!
Unfortunately, some of my favorite people live in Pianosa I.
Bastards.
I would like to assure the following “former Pianosians” that they will not be burned to cinders:
1) Dantheinventoryman: Oh man, if anyone deserves to be burned to cinders, it’s you.
But I also intuitively know you would somehow survive the radioactive fallout and find us.
You are a map slut, and billions and billions of phone books would have to be recalled and reprinted to correct your reckless and wanton geographical infidelity.
Well I like trees, and I will have no part of this.
2) HST: I’ve been a member of the band Hot Sauce Tamales for over two years now. We do Red Hot Chili Peppers cover tunes backwards-masked with Satanic messages on six rubber bands stretched to varying lengths, an oscillating weed-whacker and a slide whistle.
Way ahead of our time.
We were far and away the most innovative music space-age polymers, a two-stroke engine, latex and Spandex could possibly provide.
The people just weren’t ready for us yet.
3) Ethan: Far and away the person I’ve least fantasized about killing with an ice pick. What am I going to do without my oldest, dearest friend and mentor?
[*sniff*] And what will I do with this ice pick?
Anywho, soon I’ll be engaged simultaneously in the three most hideous and horrible experiences ever known: moving, applying for jobs, and taking acting classes.
I'm taking acting classes are just in case I can't get any other type of work.
-But I sure hope Pianosa II has a Space Program.
[LOBO]
Yes, it is true that Terri and I are indeed are headed to California.
I mentioned it before on this blog.
But I have also mentioned conspiring with space aliens for the overthrow of Humankind, indestructible fusion-powered robotic ex-girlfriends, and a dragon that plays spectacular Scrabble.-If you weren’t taking me seriously then, I don’t think you people will take anything seriously.
I must say a tearful goodbye to my beloved Pianosa.
I will miss this place.
My initial reaction was what some people might call a bit selfish: If I can’t continue to enjoy Pianosa, why should anyone else?
I figured by nuking Pianosa to smithereens and starting Pianosa II in California, I would be doing everyone a favor.-It is, after all, the most practical course of action. Instead of moving, I could just collect the insurance money and start all over with brand new stuff!
Unfortunately, some of my favorite people live in Pianosa I.
Bastards.
I would like to assure the following “former Pianosians” that they will not be burned to cinders:
1) Dantheinventoryman: Oh man, if anyone deserves to be burned to cinders, it’s you.But I also intuitively know you would somehow survive the radioactive fallout and find us.
You are a map slut, and billions and billions of phone books would have to be recalled and reprinted to correct your reckless and wanton geographical infidelity.
Well I like trees, and I will have no part of this.
2) HST: I’ve been a member of the band Hot Sauce Tamales for over two years now. We do Red Hot Chili Peppers cover tunes backwards-masked with Satanic messages on six rubber bands stretched to varying lengths, an oscillating weed-whacker and a slide whistle.
Way ahead of our time.
We were far and away the most innovative music space-age polymers, a two-stroke engine, latex and Spandex could possibly provide.
The people just weren’t ready for us yet.
3) Ethan: Far and away the person I’ve least fantasized about killing with an ice pick. What am I going to do without my oldest, dearest friend and mentor?[*sniff*] And what will I do with this ice pick?
Anywho, soon I’ll be engaged simultaneously in the three most hideous and horrible experiences ever known: moving, applying for jobs, and taking acting classes.
I'm taking acting classes are just in case I can't get any other type of work.
-But I sure hope Pianosa II has a Space Program.
Wednesday
A CERN Talking Through
Predator Press
[LOBO]
I don’t get the fuss over the CERN Large Hadron Collider experiment.
Some mad scientists build a measly 17 mile long black hole generator, and here go all the whiny Liberals, “Boo Hoo! It could destroy the universe? Wah!”
These selfish pricks should just shut up. I might like having my own personal black hole. In fact, I’ve already compiled a list of things I would like to try it out on:
Leftover Brussels Sprouts
Mail Labeled ‘Occupant’
Nuclear Waste
Tom Brady
Cable Bill
Cats
Prince
Don Lewis
SEO Optimizers
People Named 'Travis'
Puppy that Followed the Kids Home
The CERN Large Hadron Collider (now that be cool, eh? Eh?)
And frankly, why bother fighting for this crap Universe? I'm not sure the complete destruction of this dump would be so bad anyway.
Now Alpha Proxima?
-That’s a Universe.
Thank you Miss Moneypenny CPU!
[LOBO]
I don’t get the fuss over the CERN Large Hadron Collider experiment.
Some mad scientists build a measly 17 mile long black hole generator, and here go all the whiny Liberals, “Boo Hoo! It could destroy the universe? Wah!”
These selfish pricks should just shut up. I might like having my own personal black hole. In fact, I’ve already compiled a list of things I would like to try it out on:
And frankly, why bother fighting for this crap Universe? I'm not sure the complete destruction of this dump would be so bad anyway.
Now Alpha Proxima?
-That’s a Universe.
Monday
Sleeping Dogs
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.
It would appear I have only one hope left for getting a movie made, and I’m banking all Terri's money on my secret weapon: The Scalding.
It’s an epic two page script about a buxom hot chick relentlessly tormented and attacked by a radioactive space toaster.
You should see the poster!
On the first day of shooting, the cast and crew effusively greeted me as I arrived on the set.
“Pleased to meet you sir,” says a homeless-looking guy. “I am the Producer of The Scalding, and I’m sparing no effort or expense to make this the greatest epic thriller since The Exorcist V." A thick bourbon smell complimented his whispers. "We are now filming the scene when Large-Breasted Scantily-Clad Chick Number One’s boyfriend arrives after his CIA mission."
"Oooh, goodie!" I says. "The part where the waffle iron spawns a second head?""Yes."
“Alright, everybody,” demands the apparent director. “Quiet on the set. Large-Breasted Scantily-Clad Chick Number One, this is your Big Scene. I want to see some fear. And ... Action!”
Large-Breasted Scantily-Clad Chick Number One cringes against the large picture window in the kitchen as special effects guys pull a rather un-menacing looking waffle iron crablike across the countertop with fishing line.
LBSCC#1 screams, mascara-stained tears raining down over her magnificent bosoms. She kicks at the waffle iron vainly with her stiletto heels. “You’re lucky my boyfriend isn’t here,” she cries.
“Alright, mark!” says the director. “Cue airplane now!”
A tiny plastic model airplane –also on fishing line— starts randomly spinning in a downward trajectory by the picture window."Hey!" I whisper to the producer. "That's supposed to be a stealth bomber!"
"Well to be fair sir," the producer says quietly. "How many kitchens have picture windows overlooking military airport runways?"
“There he is!”, exclaims LBSCC#1, pointing at the hero on a motorcycle. “He’ll stop you, you evil radioactive space waffle iron!” As she crosses off-screen, the click click click of her heels diminish audibly from the plastic microphone."Well," I concede. "She does have large breasts and is scantily clad."
Suddenly the airplane’s fishing line got tangled with the toaster's electrical cord. And after a few frenetic moments, the toaster flew up in the air and the two unlikely objects collide solidly. Both burst into flames, and -fishing line burned away- they fall to the ground with a hideous clang off camera.
“Cut!” yells the director. He stands. “That was brilliant! I'm already envisioning the 'Revenge of the Toaster' sequel!”
“What exactly is the budget for this production?” I ask.
“About eight bucks.” Says the producer. “You got a quarter? We need more fishing line.”
“Can’t any of you guys work with a budget?” I complain. “With six bucks, I’m funding 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 pay you that $50 Friday, sir," he says. "But please don't put me back in the Space Program!"
"It's not my fault you bet on the Lakers with only a six point spread."
My Alternate Personality is Ed Harris?
Predator Press
[LOBO]
Imagine my surprise when I found out.
My first tip off -well, my only tip off- was seeing this article in the Clay Pigeon.
Damn that looks familiar I thought.
And sure enough after scouring the Predator Press archives, I found it.
At first I was mad. And for a lot of reasons ... I mean Ed Harris is a great actor, sure ... but he's no LOBO. Does he really share my loathe for Hittites? Or was Ed merely trying to ride the coattails of my fame, wealth and notoriety?
-Maybe he was trying to topple the entire Predator Press Empire!
That couldn't be it. He would have to be totally crackers to attempt something so foolhardy.
Wouldn't he?
HOUR 1
As the principles of Ockham's Razor cast doubt upon my initial state of denial, a wide spectrum of emotion finally settles at acceptance. The evidence is pretty clear: Ed Harris [Parcher] plagues Russell Crowe's [John Nash] sanity for a full two hours in 'A Beautiful Mind'. He's certainly got the 'chops' to be my alternate personality.
"Surely not LOBO," you say. "John Nash was crazy. You are the sanest -and possibly the most handsome and brilliantest- individual on Earth!"
But who am I to argue? Hey, there's nothing funny about comedy pal: maybe Predator Press did get nominated for four Oscars, Two Saturns, and win the Critic's Choice award in 1996. I certainly don't remember forgetting doing it.
Do you?
HOUR 1.5
The evidence that finally clinched it for me was the caption on the Clay Pigeon story: it says very clearly, "Ed Harris has played a lot of astronauts."
Heck, I spent weeks getting kicked off of the Space Program!
HOUR 2
Maybe it's not so bad being Ed Harris (as long as he doesn't touch any of my stuff). I mean it could have been Nicole Richie.
HOUR 4
But it could just have easily have been Brad Pitt. I mean why not Brad Pitt? You know, the pre-Angelina Jolie Brad Pitt, before they adopted like 57 kids? Ah god, can you imagine what that place must be like now? Trust me: as a proud parent, you can feed 'em two or three times a week and it's still all bitch, bitch, bitch -I don't care how much you beat them. And hello: Angelina Jolie? What's with all the adopting? Does Brad have E.D.?
Wait ... "ED"?
Oh my God I think I just snapped the Space-Time Continuum.
[LOBO]Imagine my surprise when I found out.
My first tip off -well, my only tip off- was seeing this article in the Clay Pigeon.
Damn that looks familiar I thought.
And sure enough after scouring the Predator Press archives, I found it.
At first I was mad. And for a lot of reasons ... I mean Ed Harris is a great actor, sure ... but he's no LOBO. Does he really share my loathe for Hittites? Or was Ed merely trying to ride the coattails of my fame, wealth and notoriety?
-Maybe he was trying to topple the entire Predator Press Empire!
That couldn't be it. He would have to be totally crackers to attempt something so foolhardy.
Wouldn't he?
As the principles of Ockham's Razor cast doubt upon my initial state of denial, a wide spectrum of emotion finally settles at acceptance. The evidence is pretty clear: Ed Harris [Parcher] plagues Russell Crowe's [John Nash] sanity for a full two hours in 'A Beautiful Mind'. He's certainly got the 'chops' to be my alternate personality.
"Surely not LOBO," you say. "John Nash was crazy. You are the sanest -and possibly the most handsome and brilliantest- individual on Earth!"
But who am I to argue? Hey, there's nothing funny about comedy pal: maybe Predator Press did get nominated for four Oscars, Two Saturns, and win the Critic's Choice award in 1996. I certainly don't remember forgetting doing it.
Do you?
The evidence that finally clinched it for me was the caption on the Clay Pigeon story: it says very clearly, "Ed Harris has played a lot of astronauts."
Heck, I spent weeks getting kicked off of the Space Program!Maybe it's not so bad being Ed Harris (as long as he doesn't touch any of my stuff). I mean it could have been Nicole Richie.
But it could just have easily have been Brad Pitt. I mean why not Brad Pitt? You know, the pre-Angelina Jolie Brad Pitt, before they adopted like 57 kids? Ah god, can you imagine what that place must be like now? Trust me: as a proud parent, you can feed 'em two or three times a week and it's still all bitch, bitch, bitch -I don't care how much you beat them. And hello: Angelina Jolie? What's with all the adopting? Does Brad have E.D.?
Wait ... "ED"?
Oh my God I think I just snapped the Space-Time Continuum.
Tuesday
Pipsqueak
Predator Press
[LOBO]
Look.
Nobody gives two shits about any planets other than the Moon and Saturn.
Period.
And by virtue of finding this obviously scientific and compelling jpeg on the internet, Predator Press is finally weighing in on this ancient mystery.
You know what we found? Bitchy scientist trying to make it hard on kids. Like when you make them memorize all 15 of the Presidents of the United States: it's all just academic busywork invented as a reason to pour more government money into schools.
Nine planets? Bullshit. And I'm not even talking about that whole 'Is Mars Really a Planet?' crap; as we all know, RDO destroyed Mercury six years ago and replaced it with an International House of Pancakes.
Just tell all teachers and charlatans this : "As per Predator Press, from now on there are only four planets: Earth, the Moon, Saturn, and the Sun."
They will likely be annoyed.
... We're screwing them out of billions in Student Loans.
Saturday
In Space, No One Can Hear You Bitch
Predator Press
[LOBO]
Once it was discovered that I wouldn't stop throwing my wrenches on China, I was permanently removed from the Space Program.
Friday
A Dark Matter
Predator Press
LOBO
Standing there almost at the top of Mauna Kea, I didn't know shit about astronomy or physics; I was a tourist with a telescope, shivering at the top of a mountain, gawking at the stars and planets.
I have found away to be cold even in Hawaii, I remember snarking to myself.
When my friends suggested I go to the lookout point, I figured it sounded cool. Pianosa is pretty damn flat; even if the space stuff didn't impress me, I would probably enjoy just the scenery.
But the problem is you don't drive up a mountain to see stars during the day. The journey was an excruciatingly long and boring climb into darkness, saturated with what often felt like forced conversation; by the time we got there I was feeling irritable.
And then I saw the Universe.
It stopped my heart.
Staring down at clouds with your feet on soil alone would have been enough. But the sky...
... I just cannot find the words.
There's a reason the Keck telescope was built there ... you can see the rings of Saturn with your naked eye. At my friend's behest, I stared at the celestial beauty through his $20 binoculars, utterly amazed. And in a strange confluence of fortune, Jupiter was in view as well; I hogged the magnifying lenses shamelessly while I watched the moons visibly circling gracefully around the magnificent giant.
"What's that dark spot?" I asked, watching a dark orb swinging toward the colorful, living surface.
"That's Jupiter's Eye. It's the largest and oldest storm in the solar system."
"No," I says. "I mean the one swinging around it."
And even as I said the words, the object swung behind the massive planet.
"It's a moon."
"Really?" I says. "I thought moons would have nice, tight circular courses. This one just kinda screamed in, and went behind it."
"Yeah, okay," says the guy, searching the spot with his own binoculars. "You're seein UFOs?" he guffawed.
"I didn't say it was a fucking flying saucer," I says, still peering through the lenses. "I asked what this thing is."
All of us ogled the sky for a while in silence.
"It's a moon," the guy repeats, packing his binoculars audibly into his belt minutes later. "Do you have any idea how large something would have to be, being visible behind Jupiter?
"Not at this-"
There it was again.
I stared at the arching spot for a precious second to assure myself it wasn't my imagination.
"There it is," I says.
I could hear him receding in the background. "Darting about is it?" he says sarcastically.
"No," I argue irrationally. "It just came around the other side."
I force myself to remove the binoculars, and finally face this asshole.
"Son," the rather unremarkable guy says loudly in the distance, slamming a car door that reads Keck Telescope Personnel. Lowering his electric window, he adds, "Jupiter is about 25,000 miles wide."
Disinterested, I return to the view. The thing creeps beyond Jupiter slower and slower, until seemingly to stop. And escaping Jupiter's ambient light, it was almost invisible already.
I figured we have about 167 days.
Give or take.
Six months later, I feel I have done what I can to warn everyone.
I have warned the "proper authorities" ... but no one will listen. SETI has blocked my calls.
I took up mathematics and science, and proved that -by virtue of the bending of surrounding light- a gravitational giant had been slung like a Frisbee from Jupiter at our solar system, at a speed of approximately 30 miles per second.
No one listened because my mortgage was foreclosing ... but I could not work.
And my wife was leaving me because she thought I was crazy.
And only now, now that a tiny dark stain is visible in the blue sky, do people peer at it curiously. It's the antithesis of a star; almost like a growing period, punctuating a gun-metal grey sky with violent green and blue lighting jumping and dancing for it.
Today it's unseasonably cool, windy and dark.
People will want to watch the spectacular show.
Many will be barbequing.
Thursday
Ten Years Gone
Predator Press
[LOBO]
Believe it or not, there was a time when the world didn't have Predator Press yet. And without Predator Press around to document an accurate and quantified objective world history, little is know about these dark times: they are shrouded in legends and mystery.
Oh, sure. There are "history" books chocked full of fanciful and unverifiable claims such as the Lunar Landing, Women's Suffrage, and the existence of Australia. But remember what history books cost? Compare that to the price of your Predator Press subscription. Hell, at $50 or more a pop, I would be tempted to tell you stuff like 'the world is round' and Steve Gutenberg invented the movable type as well. I mean who the hell would need that?
We have integrity.
The reason this comes up now is because Lady Pyrate has recently uncovered some pre-Predator Press documents written by me. Doing my duty as a citizen, I first emailed the Smithsonian notifying them of the staggering significance of this find. But they have not yet responded, and I can no longer be part of such an obvious covering-up of The Truth.
So what follows is all we know about the Earth before Predator Press ...
***
Sunday: An Odd Request
When an old friend of some 16-odd years, asked me to submit something to a literary column, I was a little stunned.
Me? Literature? I told her that I would have no idea what to write ... and frankly wouldn't know literature if it bit me on the ass.
She was persistent. She even recommended a way to overcome writer's block: to start with a daily log. I found this equally laughable; I am as insufferably boring as anything on Earth. NOTHING interesting ever happens to me. And to tell the truth, I like it that way: all this "having a personality" and "being interesting" -cripes, that's a lot of work! I'm as lazy as a rug on valiums. Oh, sure, one day your just flitting around your "interesting life", then BOOM! Suddenly you're walking past the 'City Limits' sign on I-65 South at 2:17 am carrying nothing other than a caged, pissed-off possum. Then, a gang of well-dressed Yakuza screeches up in a Hummer, then leaps out of the bushes --just for effect-- kicks your ass into dog food, and then leaps INTO the bushes, peels off in the Hummer. WITH the possum.
Screw THAT. I'll stick with "Insufferably Boring", thanks. In fact, is there such a thing as "Excruciatingly Boring"?
But there's no getting around this I guess. Starting tomorrow, my tedious existence –and all of it's gloriously lackluster minutia-- will be racing out at violent speeds all over the internet, searing itself deeply behind some poor unsuspecting souls' retinas.
Sorry.
Monday: The Fallen
My suffering was complete and total --such that demons, flittering from the hated light in darkened alleyways, chattily whispering dark rumors before slipping from the senses of man altogether. I was destroyed: depilated under the fickle whim of cruel destiny. I remember it all as if it were only a few hours ago. It seems like ages. Now ... gasping and bleeding, repentant, and most assuredly dead within moments, I desperately tell my woeful tale, that no other follows in my footsteps.
I was unlocking the case for that accused sword -a three thousand dollar steal, reputed to have been cursed for at least as many years. The UPS driver who had delivered it had accidentally left his delivery van in 'neutral', and I was saved only by dumb luck and my well-rehearsed "Throw the UPS Guy Under his Runaway Van To Change It's Deadly Trajectory" ninja moves. God Bless you, Sensei Hector Gurerez Montero Phillipe Guada Lupe Von Dotson. May you rest in peace. But there can be only one!
I tried once again to unlock the impressive and ancient wooden chest before me. The key ... the heavy metal skeleton key, overly large and heavy, was beautifully engraved, and had a gem-encrusted skull on it. Still, this key seemed not to budge the delicate, ancient mechanisms inside the lock. I tried to peer inside the lock to examine it, and I swear, if not for the whimpers of the UPS guy distracting me, that poisoned needle shooting out would have poked my eye out. It landed authoritatively in the shoulder of the UPS guy. Poor bastard. Soon, a NASA satellite crashed into my house, completely blocking the driveway. Then a train plowed through the ashes and rubble. Then the rock band Great White held a concert on the remains.
I began to suspect that something wasn't quite right.
The sword! Of course! My heart leapt. I raced over to the charred body of the UPS guy, and grabbed the shipment paperwork. I tore at the envelope urgently, even as the Venusian invading alien armada began firing their plasma rifles at the Cryps, who were scouting out new territory. Bullets and plasma bursts ripped past my head as I read the bill of sale:
CONGRATULATIONS
You have won 'One Ancient Cursed Sword EXCLAIMER'.
Guaranteed full refund if not completely satisfied.
(Warranty void if item is actually cursed.)
Thank you for shopping on Ebay
Those bastards! I'm going to leave absolutely venomous ‘Feedback’!
It was then that I was then that I struck down ... cut in the full of my robust, athletic prime ... for as I through the bill of sale in anguish and frustration, the edge of the paper cut deeply into the pad of my right thumb. At first I didn't even notice, distracted by The Mystery Machine as it screeched into a fatal rollover accident inches to my left. Thelma screamed as it exploded in a fiery maelstrom of twisted metal, cheesy upholstery and dog parts. Daphne shrieked, and quickly thinking, she pulled her pink scarf over her mouth and nose ... but this aided her little when the VW Van's transmission came back down.
It was then I noticed the mild and uncomfortable prick on my finger. Even as I looked, the horseshoe-shaped outline welled with the red rivulet my very life's blood.
And it was very bloody life's blood.
And red.
Tuesday: X-Box Rehab
That's the last thing I remember. Then the triage unit was shining lights into my pupils and whisking me off to the ambulance. In my agony, I didn't even notice the violent jarring as they wheeled my stretcher over the UPS guy's head.
Poor bastard.
But now I am a mere shell of a man, completely incapable of playing either X-Box or Playstation II. Perhaps I should envy the UPS man. I can't shoot at anything. I just stand there helplessly in the dungeons of Diablo II, vainly trying to hammer out peace accords with the zombies. And everybody knows that zombies are Goddamn deadbeats!
The people here in X-Box Rehab Clinic are very nice, but I can see it in their eyes, in the subtle gestures: they don't have much hope for me. Heavily sedated, it's all I can do to flirt with the nurses. It's hard to flirt in a nightgown that doesn't cover your ass, but necessity is the mother of desperation.
They noticed I was getting pretty quick on that wheelchair, so pretty soon, they were upping my dosage. They started bringing the needle, clearly marked "Rhino" in on a creaking surgical cart. I would think "Cool! They got a Rhino!", and would patiently wait to see such a magnificent creature enter my recovery room. But then somehow the needle ends up in my arm, shoulder -whatever they can happen to hit with that dart gun, and things get kinda fuzzy again.
Goddamn it, what's it take to get some Jello here!?
I managed to palm a few doses: some Lithium, Darvon and Morphine. Luckily, my hot nurse Melody was addicted to Lithium, Darvon and Morphine. When she was changing my bedpan, I offered them to her in exchange for releasing my giant one-eyed purple worm.
I was surprised when they even let me in with that caged beastie ... I think they thought that a pet would have speeded my recovery. But my one-eyed purple worm, once released, burst through the walls of the X-Box Rehab, and trampled most of the facilities before it was finally put down by Sheriff Cassidy with a miraculous shot to the beast's brain. Poor bastard.
But by then, Melody and I had already vanished into the smoke and confusion.
Wednesday: The Chase Ensues
It's exactly midnight, and Melody and I are crossing the City Limits on Interstate 65 South pushing a wheelbarrow full of Lithium, Darvon and Morphine. The Rhino meds are evidently wearing off, because I'm suddenly very self-conscious that:
1)my thumb is mortally wounded, and
B) the hospital gown doesn't cover my ass.
--The latter mitigated by the fact that we were walking against the oncoming traffic.
During small talk I find out that she's a big Great White fan, and was very impressed that they had played at my house. She claimed through full, pouty red lips that nightgowns with no backsides on guys drove her absolutely wild. Excitement mounting, she finally dragged me into the bushes, deciding to show me "just what a freak she really was”.
Soon, there we were in the bushes, her pulling her shoes off. And sure enough, she was a freak indeed.
She had six toes on each foot.
"Wow" I breathed.
I never even saw the red bead of Sheriff Cassidy's laser scope zero in on my ass. Bang! Suddenly Melody throws herself in front of the bullet. Dying, she looks deeply into my eyes and says "I'll always love you!". And then she makes this choking kinda sound, and the creepy six-toed bitch dies right there in my arms.
Yech! Sheriff Cassidy was muddling with the deputy on just exactly how you stuff and mount a six-toed girl when I stole his car. I found that if you touched the doughnuts in a certain order -coconut, double chocolate, long john-I could reprogram the police computer too. (It could also call down a Death Ray from new law enforcement satellite "Justice IV", but I didn't know where Sammy Hagar lived). I put myself down as "nun" and Sheriff Cassidy as "Child Molester at Large". It's a game that's fun for all ages.
So I'm blazing down the road in a police car at 1:30 am, contemplating moodily the strange events of the past few days.
Well, that and thinking how creepy it was to be sitting bare-assed on a seat cushion that Sheriff Cassidy had doubtless dispersed untold numbers of White Castles and Busch farts into. Surely he MUST have had a spare uniform in the car!
Looking around, that's when I spotted PEG.
The steel box had holes in the top, and chains over the hinged doors which were clearly marked "PEG". I recognized it instantly. This was a specially-trained new military experiment: attack possums. This just wasn't any average garden-variety bullshit possum either; she was the model 6800, fully equipped with a rocket launcher and a super-secret stealth pouch on her belly (which I heard was developed by the CIA). Beside PEG was a small baggie marked "UPS GUY REMAINS".
PEG was a sly one too. All through the trip, she moaned and grunted for me to let her out. She wagged her tail and tossed a stick playfully. She whined, and licked my hand. The little tramp even offered to drive. But it was just me, lost in thought, blowing down I-65, foot to the floor in a stolen police car. With no pants.
"Dammit," I thought. "I want my goddamn pants!" so I screeched into a U-turn, and blazed directly back at the giant one-eyed purple worm corpse, nestled peacefully amongst the wreckage of what was once the X-Box Rehabilitation Facilities, on the horizon.
I don't know why I developed such a curiosity over "Spike Strips" that night. I certainly never should have begun messing with them in the front seat while PEG was driving 124 miles an hour, but at least I was wearing my seat belt. I've never seen a car actually explode before. It was kinda anticlimactic. Feul, steel, chrome, plastic, White Castle and Busch farts all just kinda Fffffoomph!
But I got it on video.
Thursday: A Letter
Dear NASA,
Your satellite is blocking my driveway. Again. Please have it moved in 48 hours, or I'll have it towed and crushed into a cube. Either that, or sell it on Ebay.
Thank you,
LOBO
Friday: Obligatory Nude Scene [Screenplay Version]
As predicted, the presence of a NASA satellite in my driveway has made the Venusians very nervous. Silly really ... the Cryps left the thing on cinder blocks three days ago. Still, I've seen the movie "Signs", so I'm stowing up Super-Soakers (while the Cryps aren't exactly model houseguests, at least they leave their shoes on when they walk on the carpet. Those Venusians leave snail-trails on EVERYTHING).
The peace talks continue. G Q P Doll, the Cryps' fourth Chief Negotiator, wants them to deal only on streets not currently "occupied" by the Cryps; unfortunately, that rules out most of the Earth except Singapore, Uruguay, and ever-shrinking portions of Antarctica.
The Venusians, on the other hand, having no idea what "dealing" exactly is, seem content having eaten the Cryps' first three Chief Negotiators.
For now.
The Cryps, it turns out, have not wasted all those years of complete law enforcement autonomy ... they had invented some pretty cool technology. It turns out that The Bloods had infiltrated Area 51 in '99, but Sugar Juice's bitch-assed-ho ran to the Cryps' after getting dissed at a pool party by Biggie Smalls via an Olympic sized Oijia diving board. She had intra-dimensional technology, 60,000 plasma rifles, enormous breasts, and a half dozen Krispy Kremes back at the crib.
So by this time, the Cryps had a interstellar cruiser and two blockade runners that could do the Kessel Run in -oops, they're already done-and 120,000 shares in Krispy Kremes as to finance their Galactic Empire.
More after I get coffee.
Saturday: Cheap Styrofoam Cups
I don't MIND being the token white guy on the Earth Pimp IV, but I DO mind wearing the red uniform. Using my "Stuff the Senior Science Officer Out of a Handy Porthole Without Messing Up His Uniform" ninja moves, (Curse you, Sensei Hector Gurerez Montero Phillipe Guada Lupe Von Dotson. May you rot with the rest! There can be only one!) I gained access to the Bridge.
Then, using my elevated security clearance, I demanded that a kickass uniform be designed for me, while drinking a Krispy Kreme latte. You know, "multitasking". This uniform had to be somewhere between "Han Solo" and Sting in that Dune movie. But it had to have a black cape too. And give me X-Ray vision.
Suddenly, I distorted the shiny Flange Reactant Capacitor in such a way that the glowing blue nuclear Whim-Jam flipped on the spiffy Sub-Entropic Whatsit generator couplers. (Well that's what they told me spilling my latte all over the dashboard did.) The Goddamn drink was like six bucks, and this engineering punk bumped into me in a rush to fix some stupid thing clearly labeled 'massive oxygen leak' or something. I ordered the self-important little asshole executed on the spot.
Now the Goddamn Bridge stinks of barbequed engineer. My eyes burn, but I can't tell if it's the smoke or my X-Ray vision kicking in. Just as I demand somebody vacuum up all the floating dust, the Venusians broke our flank, targeted the Inertial Compensators, and BOOM! We're spinning helplessly into the Godless void of space ...
I fucking hate when this happens.
Sunday: A Letter
Dear NASA,
SOS
No, I don't know anything about a missing UPS guy. But do you have any idea how to get latte out of a Flange Reactant Capacitor? Or maybe how to get engineer dust out of an Inertial Compensator?
Mayday. Mayday.
... Uh, no ... that's 'Latte' ... "L-A-T-T-E" ... Fuck! What are you NASA people, BARBARIANS!?
Monday: The Last Time I Even Thought of This "Science" Stuff, I Had an Evil Kenevil Lunchbox
Our distress signal was ignored. NASA was too preoccupied with the insidious wedding J-Lo and Ben Affleck. People were starting to suspect I wasn't the Science Officer too.
I thought maybe a caped Spandex uniform without ass cheeks might not be conservative enough. But the real giveaway was at breakfast when I opened my milk carton from the wrong side. God how embarrassing.
Luckily, the ship had a public library ... I could check out space porn while people thought I was researching "physics", "math", or some silly other thing. I made up "The Callistaplastic Y-Ray Dymicrophoric Theory" so people would stop bugging me with science questions. I mean, first of all, you would have to pronounce it properly. Then finally, after days of prying, I might finally admit that "Being subjected to these 'Y' rays might make your parents retroactively prone to promiscuity, dysfunction, bad budgeting and tastelessness."
No one ever asks about the theory twice.
Tuesday: Boring.
Today was just as dull as ever. I wish I had something interesting to write about.
… Maybe tomorrow
Wednesday: So I Meet This Space Chick
It took like all of five seconds to start getting Space SPAM. But from the SPAM, I could tell that the rest of the known universe is also dominated by the female. It's fairly elementary ... I deduced that if SPAM requests to "Enlarge Your Penis Twice the Size!", it's female dominated. If it says "Shrink Her Vagina Now!", it's male. Case closed.
But then this hologram cuts in and this tall, beautiful woman in a tiny latex outfit exclaims "Help me!," she pleads, chin quivering. One of her tears drips onto her tanned chest. Rather than rolling down to hang tantalizingly from a latex-covered nipple like a drop of heroin from a hypo tip, it disappeared between her sweaty, heaving breasts with a faintly audible steamy hiss. A damsel in distress!, I thought. And a freakin HOT damsel, with sweaty, heaving space breasts. I'll go you one further: she's a rich, scantily-clad princess, and desperately in need of rescue from a handsome brave hero type guy! And did I mention the space breasts!?
Offhand I couldn't think of a handsome brave hero type guy I could hire. But this poor helpless woman, caught adrift in the raging wake of cruel Cosmic Destiny ... armed only with her fierce, feminine courage, savage determination, and sweating, heaving space breasts ... I knew it was destiny.
Thank God the rare "can-do" kind of guy like me showed up.
The crew tried to talk me out of it, too. They tried giving me an android pleasure servant named Tulsa v1.1 who was drop-dead gorgeous, kind, unassuming, faithful, intelligent, well-versed in Van Halen music, free-spirited and bisexual, a gymnast and contortionist, an excellent cook --and a while a formidable 10th degree black belt bodyguard at the same time was as gentle as a fragrant prairie breeze. And she would never gain weight, have a period, be insecure or jealous, or age a day. She even came with a 100-year warranty never to have a headache, ask if she looked fat, if I thought another woman was pretty, or about my 'feelings'.
She was great. I really regretted jettisoning her into space. But when I found out you had to change her battery every seventeen to twenty years, I wasn't sure I was up to the commitment. I mean she was just too needy for me. The princess, on the other hand, was aloof, unattainable, moody, rude, boorish, and didn't have enough mental voltage operating to jump start a mouse trap. I was crazy about her. But space communication is regulated in a strange, alien way; to get the coordinates to rescue her, I evidently had to have a VISA. Where am I supposed to steal a VISA out here? The even rejected my final offer: 1000 hours of America Online internet service.
I wish I knew all this before I vaporized that engineer.
Poor Bastard.
Thursday: The Spanish Fly Industrial Complex
Okay, great. Now everybody is pissed at me. ME! All I did was lift a VISA off of my Assistant Chief Science Officer.
Like it was my fault. Come on ... he was obviously leaving it out to tempt me; there it was, staring me in the face every second I was rifling through his wallet, which was tucked in a sock under his dresser in a secret storage unit that could only be accessed by a short spacewalk on the underside of the ship.
Now, as if that wasn't bad enough, the Editor of this web page is complaining about my BLOG via email. Evidently, she doesn't believe a word of my experience a the X-Box clinic, the UPS conspiracy for my murder, me being Chief Science Officer of Earth Pimp IV ... She's like trying to operate this serious art page about serious artist doing serious art. So I figure I owe that to her and the literary-type readers. So for you poetry fans, here's a Haiku I wrote:
I once killed a man right there in algebra class
He tried to combine two unlike exponents
And then adding radicals without the same index
What a moron
Okay. Anyway. So there we are hurdling through space, helplessly outnumbered, and demanding the surrender of the Princess …
[LOBO]
Believe it or not, there was a time when the world didn't have Predator Press yet. And without Predator Press around to document an accurate and quantified objective world history, little is know about these dark times: they are shrouded in legends and mystery.
Oh, sure. There are "history" books chocked full of fanciful and unverifiable claims such as the Lunar Landing, Women's Suffrage, and the existence of Australia. But remember what history books cost? Compare that to the price of your Predator Press subscription. Hell, at $50 or more a pop, I would be tempted to tell you stuff like 'the world is round' and Steve Gutenberg invented the movable type as well. I mean who the hell would need that?
We have integrity.
The reason this comes up now is because Lady Pyrate has recently uncovered some pre-Predator Press documents written by me. Doing my duty as a citizen, I first emailed the Smithsonian notifying them of the staggering significance of this find. But they have not yet responded, and I can no longer be part of such an obvious covering-up of The Truth.
So what follows is all we know about the Earth before Predator Press ...
When an old friend of some 16-odd years, asked me to submit something to a literary column, I was a little stunned.
Me? Literature? I told her that I would have no idea what to write ... and frankly wouldn't know literature if it bit me on the ass.
She was persistent. She even recommended a way to overcome writer's block: to start with a daily log. I found this equally laughable; I am as insufferably boring as anything on Earth. NOTHING interesting ever happens to me. And to tell the truth, I like it that way: all this "having a personality" and "being interesting" -cripes, that's a lot of work! I'm as lazy as a rug on valiums. Oh, sure, one day your just flitting around your "interesting life", then BOOM! Suddenly you're walking past the 'City Limits' sign on I-65 South at 2:17 am carrying nothing other than a caged, pissed-off possum. Then, a gang of well-dressed Yakuza screeches up in a Hummer, then leaps out of the bushes --just for effect-- kicks your ass into dog food, and then leaps INTO the bushes, peels off in the Hummer. WITH the possum.
Screw THAT. I'll stick with "Insufferably Boring", thanks. In fact, is there such a thing as "Excruciatingly Boring"?
But there's no getting around this I guess. Starting tomorrow, my tedious existence –and all of it's gloriously lackluster minutia-- will be racing out at violent speeds all over the internet, searing itself deeply behind some poor unsuspecting souls' retinas.
Sorry.
Monday: The Fallen
My suffering was complete and total --such that demons, flittering from the hated light in darkened alleyways, chattily whispering dark rumors before slipping from the senses of man altogether. I was destroyed: depilated under the fickle whim of cruel destiny. I remember it all as if it were only a few hours ago. It seems like ages. Now ... gasping and bleeding, repentant, and most assuredly dead within moments, I desperately tell my woeful tale, that no other follows in my footsteps.
I was unlocking the case for that accused sword -a three thousand dollar steal, reputed to have been cursed for at least as many years. The UPS driver who had delivered it had accidentally left his delivery van in 'neutral', and I was saved only by dumb luck and my well-rehearsed "Throw the UPS Guy Under his Runaway Van To Change It's Deadly Trajectory" ninja moves. God Bless you, Sensei Hector Gurerez Montero Phillipe Guada Lupe Von Dotson. May you rest in peace. But there can be only one!
I tried once again to unlock the impressive and ancient wooden chest before me. The key ... the heavy metal skeleton key, overly large and heavy, was beautifully engraved, and had a gem-encrusted skull on it. Still, this key seemed not to budge the delicate, ancient mechanisms inside the lock. I tried to peer inside the lock to examine it, and I swear, if not for the whimpers of the UPS guy distracting me, that poisoned needle shooting out would have poked my eye out. It landed authoritatively in the shoulder of the UPS guy. Poor bastard. Soon, a NASA satellite crashed into my house, completely blocking the driveway. Then a train plowed through the ashes and rubble. Then the rock band Great White held a concert on the remains.
I began to suspect that something wasn't quite right.
The sword! Of course! My heart leapt. I raced over to the charred body of the UPS guy, and grabbed the shipment paperwork. I tore at the envelope urgently, even as the Venusian invading alien armada began firing their plasma rifles at the Cryps, who were scouting out new territory. Bullets and plasma bursts ripped past my head as I read the bill of sale:
You have won 'One Ancient Cursed Sword EXCLAIMER'.
Guaranteed full refund if not completely satisfied.
(Warranty void if item is actually cursed.)
Thank you for shopping on Ebay
It was then that I was then that I struck down ... cut in the full of my robust, athletic prime ... for as I through the bill of sale in anguish and frustration, the edge of the paper cut deeply into the pad of my right thumb. At first I didn't even notice, distracted by The Mystery Machine as it screeched into a fatal rollover accident inches to my left. Thelma screamed as it exploded in a fiery maelstrom of twisted metal, cheesy upholstery and dog parts. Daphne shrieked, and quickly thinking, she pulled her pink scarf over her mouth and nose ... but this aided her little when the VW Van's transmission came back down.
It was then I noticed the mild and uncomfortable prick on my finger. Even as I looked, the horseshoe-shaped outline welled with the red rivulet my very life's blood.
And it was very bloody life's blood.
And red.
Tuesday: X-Box Rehab
That's the last thing I remember. Then the triage unit was shining lights into my pupils and whisking me off to the ambulance. In my agony, I didn't even notice the violent jarring as they wheeled my stretcher over the UPS guy's head.
Poor bastard.
But now I am a mere shell of a man, completely incapable of playing either X-Box or Playstation II. Perhaps I should envy the UPS man. I can't shoot at anything. I just stand there helplessly in the dungeons of Diablo II, vainly trying to hammer out peace accords with the zombies. And everybody knows that zombies are Goddamn deadbeats!
The people here in X-Box Rehab Clinic are very nice, but I can see it in their eyes, in the subtle gestures: they don't have much hope for me. Heavily sedated, it's all I can do to flirt with the nurses. It's hard to flirt in a nightgown that doesn't cover your ass, but necessity is the mother of desperation.
They noticed I was getting pretty quick on that wheelchair, so pretty soon, they were upping my dosage. They started bringing the needle, clearly marked "Rhino" in on a creaking surgical cart. I would think "Cool! They got a Rhino!", and would patiently wait to see such a magnificent creature enter my recovery room. But then somehow the needle ends up in my arm, shoulder -whatever they can happen to hit with that dart gun, and things get kinda fuzzy again.
Goddamn it, what's it take to get some Jello here!?
I managed to palm a few doses: some Lithium, Darvon and Morphine. Luckily, my hot nurse Melody was addicted to Lithium, Darvon and Morphine. When she was changing my bedpan, I offered them to her in exchange for releasing my giant one-eyed purple worm.
I was surprised when they even let me in with that caged beastie ... I think they thought that a pet would have speeded my recovery. But my one-eyed purple worm, once released, burst through the walls of the X-Box Rehab, and trampled most of the facilities before it was finally put down by Sheriff Cassidy with a miraculous shot to the beast's brain. Poor bastard.
But by then, Melody and I had already vanished into the smoke and confusion.
Wednesday: The Chase Ensues
It's exactly midnight, and Melody and I are crossing the City Limits on Interstate 65 South pushing a wheelbarrow full of Lithium, Darvon and Morphine. The Rhino meds are evidently wearing off, because I'm suddenly very self-conscious that:
1)my thumb is mortally wounded, and
B) the hospital gown doesn't cover my ass.
--The latter mitigated by the fact that we were walking against the oncoming traffic.
During small talk I find out that she's a big Great White fan, and was very impressed that they had played at my house. She claimed through full, pouty red lips that nightgowns with no backsides on guys drove her absolutely wild. Excitement mounting, she finally dragged me into the bushes, deciding to show me "just what a freak she really was”.
Soon, there we were in the bushes, her pulling her shoes off. And sure enough, she was a freak indeed.
She had six toes on each foot.
"Wow" I breathed.
I never even saw the red bead of Sheriff Cassidy's laser scope zero in on my ass. Bang! Suddenly Melody throws herself in front of the bullet. Dying, she looks deeply into my eyes and says "I'll always love you!". And then she makes this choking kinda sound, and the creepy six-toed bitch dies right there in my arms.
Yech! Sheriff Cassidy was muddling with the deputy on just exactly how you stuff and mount a six-toed girl when I stole his car. I found that if you touched the doughnuts in a certain order -coconut, double chocolate, long john-I could reprogram the police computer too. (It could also call down a Death Ray from new law enforcement satellite "Justice IV", but I didn't know where Sammy Hagar lived). I put myself down as "nun" and Sheriff Cassidy as "Child Molester at Large". It's a game that's fun for all ages.
So I'm blazing down the road in a police car at 1:30 am, contemplating moodily the strange events of the past few days.
Well, that and thinking how creepy it was to be sitting bare-assed on a seat cushion that Sheriff Cassidy had doubtless dispersed untold numbers of White Castles and Busch farts into. Surely he MUST have had a spare uniform in the car!
Looking around, that's when I spotted PEG.
The steel box had holes in the top, and chains over the hinged doors which were clearly marked "PEG". I recognized it instantly. This was a specially-trained new military experiment: attack possums. This just wasn't any average garden-variety bullshit possum either; she was the model 6800, fully equipped with a rocket launcher and a super-secret stealth pouch on her belly (which I heard was developed by the CIA). Beside PEG was a small baggie marked "UPS GUY REMAINS".
PEG was a sly one too. All through the trip, she moaned and grunted for me to let her out. She wagged her tail and tossed a stick playfully. She whined, and licked my hand. The little tramp even offered to drive. But it was just me, lost in thought, blowing down I-65, foot to the floor in a stolen police car. With no pants.
"Dammit," I thought. "I want my goddamn pants!" so I screeched into a U-turn, and blazed directly back at the giant one-eyed purple worm corpse, nestled peacefully amongst the wreckage of what was once the X-Box Rehabilitation Facilities, on the horizon.
I don't know why I developed such a curiosity over "Spike Strips" that night. I certainly never should have begun messing with them in the front seat while PEG was driving 124 miles an hour, but at least I was wearing my seat belt. I've never seen a car actually explode before. It was kinda anticlimactic. Feul, steel, chrome, plastic, White Castle and Busch farts all just kinda Fffffoomph!
But I got it on video.
Thursday: A Letter
Dear NASA,
Your satellite is blocking my driveway. Again. Please have it moved in 48 hours, or I'll have it towed and crushed into a cube. Either that, or sell it on Ebay.
Thank you,
LOBO
Friday: Obligatory Nude Scene [Screenplay Version]
As predicted, the presence of a NASA satellite in my driveway has made the Venusians very nervous. Silly really ... the Cryps left the thing on cinder blocks three days ago. Still, I've seen the movie "Signs", so I'm stowing up Super-Soakers (while the Cryps aren't exactly model houseguests, at least they leave their shoes on when they walk on the carpet. Those Venusians leave snail-trails on EVERYTHING).
The peace talks continue. G Q P Doll, the Cryps' fourth Chief Negotiator, wants them to deal only on streets not currently "occupied" by the Cryps; unfortunately, that rules out most of the Earth except Singapore, Uruguay, and ever-shrinking portions of Antarctica.
The Venusians, on the other hand, having no idea what "dealing" exactly is, seem content having eaten the Cryps' first three Chief Negotiators.
For now.
The Cryps, it turns out, have not wasted all those years of complete law enforcement autonomy ... they had invented some pretty cool technology. It turns out that The Bloods had infiltrated Area 51 in '99, but Sugar Juice's bitch-assed-ho ran to the Cryps' after getting dissed at a pool party by Biggie Smalls via an Olympic sized Oijia diving board. She had intra-dimensional technology, 60,000 plasma rifles, enormous breasts, and a half dozen Krispy Kremes back at the crib.
So by this time, the Cryps had a interstellar cruiser and two blockade runners that could do the Kessel Run in -oops, they're already done-and 120,000 shares in Krispy Kremes as to finance their Galactic Empire.
More after I get coffee.
Saturday: Cheap Styrofoam Cups
I don't MIND being the token white guy on the Earth Pimp IV, but I DO mind wearing the red uniform. Using my "Stuff the Senior Science Officer Out of a Handy Porthole Without Messing Up His Uniform" ninja moves, (Curse you, Sensei Hector Gurerez Montero Phillipe Guada Lupe Von Dotson. May you rot with the rest! There can be only one!) I gained access to the Bridge.
Then, using my elevated security clearance, I demanded that a kickass uniform be designed for me, while drinking a Krispy Kreme latte. You know, "multitasking". This uniform had to be somewhere between "Han Solo" and Sting in that Dune movie. But it had to have a black cape too. And give me X-Ray vision.
Suddenly, I distorted the shiny Flange Reactant Capacitor in such a way that the glowing blue nuclear Whim-Jam flipped on the spiffy Sub-Entropic Whatsit generator couplers. (Well that's what they told me spilling my latte all over the dashboard did.) The Goddamn drink was like six bucks, and this engineering punk bumped into me in a rush to fix some stupid thing clearly labeled 'massive oxygen leak' or something. I ordered the self-important little asshole executed on the spot.
Now the Goddamn Bridge stinks of barbequed engineer. My eyes burn, but I can't tell if it's the smoke or my X-Ray vision kicking in. Just as I demand somebody vacuum up all the floating dust, the Venusians broke our flank, targeted the Inertial Compensators, and BOOM! We're spinning helplessly into the Godless void of space ...
I fucking hate when this happens.
Sunday: A Letter
Dear NASA,
SOS
No, I don't know anything about a missing UPS guy. But do you have any idea how to get latte out of a Flange Reactant Capacitor? Or maybe how to get engineer dust out of an Inertial Compensator?
Mayday. Mayday.
... Uh, no ... that's 'Latte' ... "L-A-T-T-E" ... Fuck! What are you NASA people, BARBARIANS!?
Monday: The Last Time I Even Thought of This "Science" Stuff, I Had an Evil Kenevil Lunchbox
Our distress signal was ignored. NASA was too preoccupied with the insidious wedding J-Lo and Ben Affleck. People were starting to suspect I wasn't the Science Officer too.
I thought maybe a caped Spandex uniform without ass cheeks might not be conservative enough. But the real giveaway was at breakfast when I opened my milk carton from the wrong side. God how embarrassing.
Luckily, the ship had a public library ... I could check out space porn while people thought I was researching "physics", "math", or some silly other thing. I made up "The Callistaplastic Y-Ray Dymicrophoric Theory" so people would stop bugging me with science questions. I mean, first of all, you would have to pronounce it properly. Then finally, after days of prying, I might finally admit that "Being subjected to these 'Y' rays might make your parents retroactively prone to promiscuity, dysfunction, bad budgeting and tastelessness."
No one ever asks about the theory twice.
Tuesday: Boring.
Today was just as dull as ever. I wish I had something interesting to write about.
… Maybe tomorrow
Wednesday: So I Meet This Space Chick
It took like all of five seconds to start getting Space SPAM. But from the SPAM, I could tell that the rest of the known universe is also dominated by the female. It's fairly elementary ... I deduced that if SPAM requests to "Enlarge Your Penis Twice the Size!", it's female dominated. If it says "Shrink Her Vagina Now!", it's male. Case closed.
But then this hologram cuts in and this tall, beautiful woman in a tiny latex outfit exclaims "Help me!," she pleads, chin quivering. One of her tears drips onto her tanned chest. Rather than rolling down to hang tantalizingly from a latex-covered nipple like a drop of heroin from a hypo tip, it disappeared between her sweaty, heaving breasts with a faintly audible steamy hiss. A damsel in distress!, I thought. And a freakin HOT damsel, with sweaty, heaving space breasts. I'll go you one further: she's a rich, scantily-clad princess, and desperately in need of rescue from a handsome brave hero type guy! And did I mention the space breasts!?
Offhand I couldn't think of a handsome brave hero type guy I could hire. But this poor helpless woman, caught adrift in the raging wake of cruel Cosmic Destiny ... armed only with her fierce, feminine courage, savage determination, and sweating, heaving space breasts ... I knew it was destiny.
Thank God the rare "can-do" kind of guy like me showed up.
The crew tried to talk me out of it, too. They tried giving me an android pleasure servant named Tulsa v1.1 who was drop-dead gorgeous, kind, unassuming, faithful, intelligent, well-versed in Van Halen music, free-spirited and bisexual, a gymnast and contortionist, an excellent cook --and a while a formidable 10th degree black belt bodyguard at the same time was as gentle as a fragrant prairie breeze. And she would never gain weight, have a period, be insecure or jealous, or age a day. She even came with a 100-year warranty never to have a headache, ask if she looked fat, if I thought another woman was pretty, or about my 'feelings'.
She was great. I really regretted jettisoning her into space. But when I found out you had to change her battery every seventeen to twenty years, I wasn't sure I was up to the commitment. I mean she was just too needy for me. The princess, on the other hand, was aloof, unattainable, moody, rude, boorish, and didn't have enough mental voltage operating to jump start a mouse trap. I was crazy about her. But space communication is regulated in a strange, alien way; to get the coordinates to rescue her, I evidently had to have a VISA. Where am I supposed to steal a VISA out here? The even rejected my final offer: 1000 hours of America Online internet service.
I wish I knew all this before I vaporized that engineer.
Poor Bastard.
Thursday: The Spanish Fly Industrial Complex
Okay, great. Now everybody is pissed at me. ME! All I did was lift a VISA off of my Assistant Chief Science Officer.
Like it was my fault. Come on ... he was obviously leaving it out to tempt me; there it was, staring me in the face every second I was rifling through his wallet, which was tucked in a sock under his dresser in a secret storage unit that could only be accessed by a short spacewalk on the underside of the ship.
Now, as if that wasn't bad enough, the Editor of this web page is complaining about my BLOG via email. Evidently, she doesn't believe a word of my experience a the X-Box clinic, the UPS conspiracy for my murder, me being Chief Science Officer of Earth Pimp IV ... She's like trying to operate this serious art page about serious artist doing serious art. So I figure I owe that to her and the literary-type readers. So for you poetry fans, here's a Haiku I wrote:
He tried to combine two unlike exponents
And then adding radicals without the same index
What a moron
Okay. Anyway. So there we are hurdling through space, helplessly outnumbered, and demanding the surrender of the Princess …
Oh No
Predator Press
[LOBO]
Anna Nicole Smith holds distinctions other than those Playboy "articles" that I read and reread from 1992-1995, some of 1997, and 3 times in public in 2001.
(Cops in Memphis are pretty uptight.)
Well, I miss her, and it all seems a lot less funny now.
Thank God there’s always the Space Program.
[*sigh*]
[LOBO]
Anna Nicole Smith holds distinctions other than those Playboy "articles" that I read and reread from 1992-1995, some of 1997, and 3 times in public in 2001.(Cops in Memphis are pretty uptight.)
Well, I miss her, and it all seems a lot less funny now.
Thank God there’s always the Space Program.
[*sigh*]
Tuesday
Wednesday
Crazy People with Cameras
Predator Press
[Mr. I]
I was drunk enough to get in my car with LOBO driving.
I'm not proud.
The only car I've seen LOBO drive more than once is his rusty, primered 1980 Plymouth Horizon. The vanity plate reads "WWID". But hammered as I am, I notice immediately that there's something odd about the little vehicle.
The interior is immaculate. Leather. Corinthian, I think. The stereo is amazing.
And this thing flies.
Gripping the luxurious back seat upholstery to compensate for the incredible inertia, I ask "What kind of engine do you have in this thing?"
"I dunno," he says, shrugging. "Whatever comes stock in a Porsche 911 GT3, I guess." "You put a Porsche engine in a beater Plymouth Horizon?"
"No, actually Ethan put a Plymouth Horizon body on a Porsche. He said he was sick of me being late for everything, and an actual Porsche might theoretically get me laid." LOBO shrugs, "Hell, insurance is cheaper, it draws less attention from cops, and I can pretty much park it anywhere. I don't even lock it most of the time."
Suddenly, at like 3:15 in the morning, the night sky lit up like it was day.
The Predator Press Distress Signal covered the whole damn thing.
"What the fuck is that?" says LOBO, pointing at the gargantuan Helvetica "PP" in the sky.
"That's the Predator Press distress signal" I slur from the back seat.
"Well, it's blinding me," says LOBO, looking straight up, nowhere near the road, both hands making small spots of artificial shade over his eyes. "Someone's going to have an accident, and we're going to get sued."
"We're contractually bound to respond," I says.
"And I am responding," says LOBO. "We're gonna get sued."
"No," I says, leaning forwards. "I mean we have to meet Ethan at the Press Room. Now. The deployment of that signal means it's a fucking bona-fide 'I don't care if you're naked-and-sleeping' crisis."
"Did we pay for that?"
"No, turd warmer. The fucking Marines paid for it."
Edward looks at LOBO. "Okay, so where is the Press Room?"
Through the mirror, LOBO looks at me.
"Oh come on!", I says to LOBO. "You don't know where the Press Room is?"
"Dude," says LOBO. "I want to know why the Marines are pissed!"
Edward looks at me. "Do you know where the 'Press Room' is?"
Angry and defensive, I bark "They've never published anything!"
***
"You better put your foot in it," says Edward, after phoning for directions.
"Yeah," agrees LOBO. Edward, who, despite being stone sober, is completely calm. "The big secret about Chicago is that it's totally traffic anarchy. Nobody gets pulled over for traffic violations anymore."
"Really," says Edward in his strange serene cool.
"Yeah. It's a big myth. Like 'Bigfoot' and the 'female orgasm'." He pulls his bangs away, lighting a cigarette. "Just crazy people with cameras."
... And here was LOBO ramping up to 115 on I-94.
After three funerals, and all the freakin tux rental bills that implies.
You explain it.
Earlier, LOBO had jazz music playing. I protested, but LOBO insists that this plinkety-plink, hoot-toot plink shit somehow suits the "ambiance" of the Chicago skyline at night.
Edward concurs and I'm outvoted.
But now, ratcheted up, it's the driving, machine-gun pulse of Pantera, Cowboys from Hell. Shooting out from that tunnel by Ohio street like a bullet from a gun, the high-performance, fuel-injected, duel-clutched, 480 horsepower turbo 1980 Plymouth Horizon roars through the city, narrowly zig-zagging around cars left and right. On the left rear bumper, there's an aged, dangling sticker flapping wildly in the wind that reads "My Other Car is a Piece of Shit Too".
I struggle against g-forces I can't anticipate, straining to secure my seat belt.
"I always figure this is how I'll die," LOBO continues, cigarette dangling. "Hitting a brick wall of traffic around a blind curve, consisting mostly of other people only recently enjoying some high-velocity anarchy. Just a huge sudden fiery molten mass of flesh and steel and bones, blood ... It'll just be wham, splat, fwoosh ... And the worst part is, I'll probably have a carload of people with me."
I heave bile into my own mouth. "You're going over a hundred miles an hour in a forty-five" I manage.
"I don't believe in the metric system," he says. "It's Goddamn unpatriotic."
"So what do you do for fun?" LOBO asks Edward.
"Nothing really," says Edward in that cool voice. "I spend most of my time studying and in classes."
"No shit?" says LOBO.
"Yeah, I'm studying Orthotics."
"Well you're a better man than I," he replies. "The thought of spendin my life elbow-deep down someone else's throat is pretty depressing."
Edward looks at me, and I shake my head: Let it go.
"Yeah, uh" Edward continues. "I graduate this year." Edward pauses. "Then those Student Loans kick in."
There it is, I'm thinking.
This cat's lookin for a job.
I'm simultaneously suspicious of Edward, and far too drunk to care really. Ethan, once he heard I beat LOBO with golf clubs until a freak accident actually killed the prick, hired me back on to the Predator Press staff. With back pay, and a substantial raise.
"Yeah," LOBO agrees "Christ, nothin is worse than a hard-core philistine."
Edward looks at me again. And this time I'm shaking my head even harder: Definitely let it go. "Orthotics, eh? Good money in that?"
"Well, I'm sure not going to do it out of the goodness of my heart," Edward replies.
"Some doctors are more interested in helping people than they are in money," I says, a little facetiously.
"No they aren't," Edward says. "My brother John is poor, and when his wife had her baby they had to do some routine gynecological test at Halifax Hospital in Daytona, Florida. My wife's doctor happened to be filling in at the hospital that day. This Doc, the sweetest guy in the world, he leads a group of interns into the hospital room. John protests of course; 'Hey,' he says, 'Are all these people really necessary?' And then that same noble, wonderful doctor, who kissed my ass through the birth of both my kids, he doesn't know John's my brother. He pushes John aside, not even looking at him, and right in front of the six or eight interns says, 'Maybe you should've thought of this before you decided to have babies on welfare'."
"Jesus Christ!" I says, hot breath filling the car. I need to eat something. Or maybe barf. "Did you brother complain?"
"No," Edward replies. "My brother ain't like that. I think he was just grateful for the medical care."
"Nice lesson for the interns too," LOBO growls. "Doctors and cops," he ads. "The whole world weeps for 'em when shit goes south, when the reality is they can be even bigger dicks than you can guess."
To Edward, I says "So, in your opinion, nobody does anything except out of self interest?"
Edward looks back at me, studying. "Yeah," he says. "That's it."
"What about Mother Theresa?"
LOBO and Edward exchange looks, laughing. "Look," says Edward. "God Bless her. I mean, the world is a better place because of her, fine. But don't you think she wanted to go to heaven?"
"Probably," I says, leaning back in my seat.
"And you don't call that self interest?"
I'm not comfortable with this conversation anymore.
The sky spinning doesn't help. I need food. Coffee. Something to sober up; the Predator Press building was still a half an hour out, but I'm getting cold sweats, and my vision is blurring. I roll down the window and stick my head into the maelstrom.
"How about people that are afraid of Hell?" Edward continues. "Coercion is still self interest if you really think about it. Unfortunately, the truth is that virtually any religion is primarily made up of whores. You want to find a decent human being? I would look someplace else."
I lean into the car for a second. "LOBO, do you know where you're going?"
"You mean during the Cosmic Dirtnap?"
"No, I mean right now," I says, 'now' containing about six 'h's. "As in responding to the distress signal." Nonchalantly, I add "But I need to stop someplace to pee."
"There's a Burgermania at this next exit," he says.
"Fine." My slurring is now out of control, and I decide to stick my head out the window again and shut up for a while.
Switching lanes, LOBO continues. He flicks his cigarette out the window, and it pings off of my forehead splashing fantastic arcs of light, landing in my lap. "Edward's right. Everybody's got some kind of monkey. Toys, money, sex, power ... "
"Fuck!" I says. Seeing double, I'm really having a hard time finding that cigarette butt.
"What's yours?" asks Edward.
"Oh, sex. Definitely more sex," states LOBO flatly.
"That's funny," says Edward. "I would've bet a thousand bucks you were a virgin."
"Well, that makes it a goal easy to attain," he says. "Baby steps. People set these high-pressure impossible goals and disappoint themselves constantly. I set goals like, 'Someday I will make a list of goals'."
"That would actually make you're primary 'interest' sloth," I point out, digging the hot embers out of my lap. The state of alarm seems to have sobered me a bit. "I guess mine would be comfort." I pause. "Southern Comfort!" I guffaw, slapping Edward's shoulder.
"That's such a chick answer," LOBO laughs. "Security, money ... where's your sense of adventure? Any pussy can throw money around to dilute life's little traumas."
"I would've thought it fair to say that mine was money, too," admits Edward. "But now that you mention it, it is really just a conduit to more sex and influence."
"That's pre-programmed Alpha-Male jackoff bullshit," says LOBO, shaking his head. "I sincerely doubt I'm going to be on my deathbed weeping that I didn't work enough."
"You don't want to be an 'Alpha Male'?"
"Fuck no," says LOBO. "I wanna be a Zeta. If there is such a thing. Alphas beat each other up, compete, have ambition ... that's too much pressure. We Zetas don't give a crap. We wake up, and the new Alpha has just eaten the old Alpha. Again. 'Oooo!' we say, 'a new Alpha. How original.' And then, odds are, by the time we've memorized the fucks name, he's been eaten by the next 'Alpha'. It's very boring."
What about Mister Hawly?" asks Edward. "He's a pretty wealthy guy. What makes him tick?"
"Justice," says LOBO, almost without thinking. "He's the slickest 'Alpha', period. He's a smart one, but maybe more importantly, he's a patient one. Rather than being a typical abrasive loudmouth, he lays low and pulls subtle little strings. Usually, when you see two idiots slugging it out, odds are he owns one or both of them. They just don't know it yet."
Curious. Dumb as LOBO is, he's smart enough to know who and when to defer.
Zeta mastery.
Measuring the distance to where the signal touched the ground over the horizon, Edward sighs. "Well, we've got some time to kill. And you guys have heard my story already. Let's here one that hasn't been told yet."
I take a deep breath and muster all the sobriety I can.
"Go ahead LOBO," he says, deflating me.
"What, you mean my life story?"
"Yeah. And how you met Ethan, got into publishing."
This should be interesting, I'm thinking. "Yeah LOBO. Why doncha enlighten us how you was whisked away from Plutonian space pirates by fuzz-fairies and blasted pastel goblins and stuff?"
LOBO frowns, eyeing me suspiciously through the rearview mirror. "I don't remember any goblins."
***
The really early stuff is excruciatingly dull, and it gives me time to sober a bit. With heavy paper sacks emblazoned 'Burgermania' in tow, he's still going on and on when I get back to the car.
"Ethan and I met in Junior High school, where he and his friends used to beat up me and my friends. He didn't stop until one day I warned him that if he didn't sell his Faberge Egg collection before spring of that year, he was going to be stuck with a whole lot of worthless crap that wouldn't even make a decent tacky jewel-encrusted omelet."
"Did he sell them?" asked Edward.
"No," replied LOBO. "And sure enough, a few months later, he took a bath in those things too. But by that time, I was long gone."
"Gone? What happened?"
"Well, firstly, my band took off. Vaginal Slide didn't really get much local traction, but we were huge in the Galapagos Islands. Monsters in Guatemala. Heard of us? 'Red Hot Chocolate' was our big one:
'Don't play like it's no sacrilege
that I got a rolls of toilet paper in my freezer, my fridge,
Farting, sharting stuff from Hell,
I oughta sue the balls offa Taco Bell
It's searing through my anus like an acid blowtorch
You can smell burnin flesh even on the front porch!
Red Hot Chocolate, screamin in the night
If Ida been a second later, Ida arc-welded my tailpipe
Red Hot Chocolate, five gallons deep,
If Ida been a second later I woulda melted my Jeep-'
"Is that the one that Pat Boone remade?" asks Edward.
"No. He remade our song 'The Ayatollah of Areola'. And ballads and love songs were huge that year, so he made a bundle. He later stiffed us on the royalties and the writing credit."
"Did you sue?"
"Couldn't." replies LOBO. "By that time the band had split up; dead musicians are notoriously unreliable. I think it's cuz we never could seem to get any airplay. And then the music industry changed. It wasn't like today where you ride a $1,000 bicycle to Barnes and Nobles, drinking $6 coffees and then stiff the store on the $10 book." LOBO pounds his hand on the dash. "We had suicide doors, steel dashboards and Vietnam to weed them fucks out. Now all we got is Metallica." He fishes around for the radio knob, and switches it to 'off'. "You know what sucks about the Porsche 911 GT3?"
We both shake our heads.
"Just try and get one with an 8-track player," he says. "The dealers just look at you like you're completely crackers." He lights another cigarette. "So where was I? Oh yeah ... I was complaining about my life story. Nowadays it's all seat belts and warning labels and lawsuits. Hell, I remember waitresses on roller skates with big-ass hair and no helmet, bringing Thalidomide-flavored fries out to your car in an asbestos crate, all the while stabbing Jets and Sharks left and right with her switchblade during the musical number 'cuz her numb chucks were confiscated."
"So what happened with the band?" asks Edward, trying to get him back on track.
"Vaginal Slide was on tour for our Fists of Furry record in Escuintla, and President Alfonso Portillo -big fan-flew us out to do some live recording at his palace. Who would have thought he would pick then to decide to have our lyrics translated? Turns out he gets so offended for some reason, he orders us all rounded up and executed. With phony papers and disguised as Nelson Mandela's brother, I narrowly escaped."
"Nelson Mandela's brother," I says incredulously.
"Yeah. Frank Mandela. You know, the one that drives the Camaro?"
"Go on," says Edward.
"Well, I only got partway back. My band slain, I had to start my life all over in the Communist Republic of Cuba. I got a job at Havana Bowling Alley, and kinda skulked around for a few months, all depressed. One day, while I was fantasizing about the pins hurdling the balls back at all these bald drunken assholes in funny shoes, I dreamed up this game where you throw a ball at a guy and he tries to hit it with a stick-"
"Oh, let me guess,," I says. "And then the guy who hit the ball runs around a big diamond."
"That's a bastardized variation on my game concept. Originally it was a square."
"So," I says, skeptical. "You're saying that you invented the game of baseball."
"Well, we didn't call it 'baseball' back then. We called it 'Hit the Ball with a Stick and Run Like Hell'."
"Oh brother," I says.
"Anyways, I gotta get back to the US from Cuba. So I stitch 834,993 Breton Corojo Vintage Lancero cigars together to make a raft, and set sail for Montreal where I found Ethan selling magazines. He remembers me. Asks me how I knew about the Faberge Egg market collapse, and I tell him I don't know. Now he's fully invested in this quarry, doing research and developing improvements on this new concept: the 'Pet Rock'."
"Ethan was behind the Pet Rock craze?" I ask.
"Indirectly," LOBO replies. "See, overall, the Pet Rock was a pretty mediocre pet when compared to dogs, for instance. While easily housebroken, the only command they ever seemed to learn was 'stay'. I mean even the Pet Sponge could learn to soak. But where the Pet Rock lacked the staying power of, say, the cat or the fish or the sponge, it did have a certain undeniable appeal to American culture. I recommended that he stay 'in' until DNA mapping began to evolve."
"DNA mapping?" asks Edward.
"Yeah. See, the Pet Rock had a lot of breeding issues. Fertility problems. Down in the quarry, you could put two rocks together, and months later you would still have only two rocks. In fact, you could put fifty rocks together, dim the lights, and play Barry White records over a megaphone until the cows came home and you would still have fifty rocks. A rock is a solitary and mysterious creature, whose reproductive habits are as yet still a mystery."
"What does that have to do with DNA mapping?"
"Well, we never got any rocks breeding in that quarry unless we had a lot of bulldozers and jackhammers and crap. Something about all that noise, I suppose. But when the Human Genome Project came along we started being able to clone stuff, and it was either give up or use .. Now, the market is totally saturated with rocks. Shit. Look around; they're everywhere. You can't throw a rock without hitting a rock now."
"So Ethan keeps you around as some kind of investment consultant?" I asks.
"'Social Barometer' is probably more accurate. But, from bell-bottom jeans to the internet stock boom to Tickle-Me-Elmo, we've been there on the ground floor."
"If all this is true, why aren't you rich?" Edward asks.
"Well, if you think about it, I don't pick the winning ponies, I just point out a good time to turn them to glue. Besides, I think affluence would kinda water down the experience and dull the edge. Keep in mind that rich people don't buy the bulk of stuff, the middle-class do. Rich people manufacture their own supply-and-demand problems, and there's plenty of sycophants to cater to that stuff already. Tiny foreign nations hand-crafting coats made of rare exotic fur with dinosaur eggs dipped in gold for buttons isn't particularly brilliant or exciting."
"It just so happens," I interrupt, "that dinosaur egg buttons are much better that conventional flat ones."
Edward looks back at me "You've got one of those?"
"Three of them." I says. "Very high quality stuff. Complete with the eagle feather inlay."
"Worn them lately?" asks LOBO, into the rearview.
"Well, no."
"See?" says LOBO. "There's no rationale behind it. Coats should keep you warm, not stuff your closet. You've created an artificial demand for something completely impractical for the sole purpose of easily recognizing the other stupid people with too much money. Then you mislabeled it 'Status' hoping nobody would notice. And let me guess ... just in case someone does notice, you increasingly insulate yourself in 'exclusive' activities, surrounded by only other like-minded people."
"You you've never been preoccupied with image, fashion, style--?"
"Sure I have. The difference is you buy yours. It's overly-elaborate, and more importantly, it's somebody else's." LOBO paused. "When Ethan and I met you, you were in jeans and a t-shirt. I'll bet what you're wearing now cost more than your rent was that month."
"What's your point?" I demand. "That I should be some broke loser-slash-philosopher? I don't see you curing cancer. You couldn't find your asshole with a flashlight and a funnel."
Edward laughs.
"I don't really know what I'm saying," LOBO confesses. "I think I'm a little disappointed, I guess. When you got fired and moved into that trailer, you just seemed more real. You got passionate. Angry. And not because you were told to be. I think Ethan and I were impressed with the fact that you embraced the whole thing with such totality. We were seeing glimpses of you minus all the distracting glitz and shiny objects again, and we realized we missed you." LOBO inspected the diminishing skyline in the mirror. "I guess I'm saying 'don't become the sum of your possessions'. It's beneath you."
"So I'm some corporate thrall?" Is that what Ethan thinks?"
"Take it easy, man," says Edward. "I don't think that's what he's saying at all. In fact, I think he's saying the opposite."
"But this asshole is a goddamn certified retarded lunatic!" I offer, pointing at the back of LOBO's head. "And he's in charge."
"Look," grins LOBO. "I went through the whole hip and image-conscious thing a long time ago. It was a goddamn disaster."
"Well, I'm shocked to hear it." I says.
"Yep. Believe it or not, I've made a few social blunders of my own."
"No," I gasp sardonically.
"Yes, really!" says LOBO all serious. "Remember the seventies? I used to troll around women's strip bars when they close-"
Edward interrupts "You're shitting me. You used to be waiting when a bar, full of drunken horny chicks poured out of a club at weird hours? My God man ... that's brilliant. A little pathetic, but brilliant ..."
"Yep," LOBO continues. "There I'd be in my immaculate white suit, wide open collar with my gold zodiac symbol chain, the works. My elevator shoes were so tall I'd get nosebleeds."
Edward and I laugh hysterically. "Oh my God," I manage. "I can totally see it. LOBO leaning on his car, tryin to look all 'cool'--"
"What?" LOBO asks, puzzled, looking back and forth between us.
Edward composes himself. "So did this 'Master Plan' ever culminate into any real action?"
"It might have. But to be honest, when it came 'time to strike' I was a little preoccupied. My elevator shoes had goldfish in them, and I couldn't figure out how you feed them. So there's my beloved little Simon and Garfunkle, floating belly-up in their little metatarsal tombs-"
Edward and I are laughing so hard, we're crying.
"And then I get approached by this chick, Lindsay Merigold. She says she's the editor for a big national magazine, and she'll give me $1,000 a week to write articles for her magazine about 'love and courtship in the 70's'. Up until now, I'm working in the bowling alley, a talentless hack musician. How hard could it be to become a talentless hack writer? Besides, I would get to kill a lot of trees this way. So I agree to the deal."
"So ..." says Edward, still fighting down laughter.
"Well, it didn't occur to me to ask why she wanted me to write this article. It turns out, that her finding me in a white suit and elevator shoes in the parking lot of a women's strip club was significant. The magazine I was to write for was named Gay Love."
"Oh God dude please stop." I have never laughed so hard in my life. "You're killing me!" After about twenty minutes, I finally choke out, "So did you take the job?"
"For $1000 a week? Hell yes!" he says. "The office was kinda creepy, but once you got used to wiping everything down you wanted to use or sit on, everything was fine."
"How long did this go on?" I ask between teary cackles.
"About a year," says LOBO.
"Wait a minute," giggles Edward. "You wrote for a gay magazine for a year?"
"No, I didn't says that. See, my first deadline was four days after I got my office. And for four days, I just stared at the blank paper. Nothing. The deadline passed, and nobody said anything. And I got a check for $1,000."
"No shit?" says Edward. "What did you do?"
"I started putting in for more assignments. Shit, before long deadlines were flying by me left and right."
"And you never got caught?" I ask.
"Yeah, I did finally. Lindsay Merigold called me in her office and demanded a story be on her desk by eight o'clock the next morning, or I was going to be prosecuted."
"Did you do it?"
"Of course I did! I titled it "Butt Sex: I'll Bet it Hurts-"
Edward and I, by this point, are both begging LOBO to stop. My stomach hurts, and Edward is threatening to piss his pants.
Noticing the searchlights closely and off to our left, LOBO slows the car.
"We're here."
[Mr. I]
I was drunk enough to get in my car with LOBO driving.
I'm not proud.
The only car I've seen LOBO drive more than once is his rusty, primered 1980 Plymouth Horizon. The vanity plate reads "WWID". But hammered as I am, I notice immediately that there's something odd about the little vehicle.
The interior is immaculate. Leather. Corinthian, I think. The stereo is amazing.
And this thing flies.
Gripping the luxurious back seat upholstery to compensate for the incredible inertia, I ask "What kind of engine do you have in this thing?"
"I dunno," he says, shrugging. "Whatever comes stock in a Porsche 911 GT3, I guess." "You put a Porsche engine in a beater Plymouth Horizon?"
"No, actually Ethan put a Plymouth Horizon body on a Porsche. He said he was sick of me being late for everything, and an actual Porsche might theoretically get me laid." LOBO shrugs, "Hell, insurance is cheaper, it draws less attention from cops, and I can pretty much park it anywhere. I don't even lock it most of the time."
Suddenly, at like 3:15 in the morning, the night sky lit up like it was day.
The Predator Press Distress Signal covered the whole damn thing.
"What the fuck is that?" says LOBO, pointing at the gargantuan Helvetica "PP" in the sky.
"That's the Predator Press distress signal" I slur from the back seat.
"Well, it's blinding me," says LOBO, looking straight up, nowhere near the road, both hands making small spots of artificial shade over his eyes. "Someone's going to have an accident, and we're going to get sued."
"We're contractually bound to respond," I says.
"And I am responding," says LOBO. "We're gonna get sued."
"No," I says, leaning forwards. "I mean we have to meet Ethan at the Press Room. Now. The deployment of that signal means it's a fucking bona-fide 'I don't care if you're naked-and-sleeping' crisis."
"Did we pay for that?"
"No, turd warmer. The fucking Marines paid for it."
Edward looks at LOBO. "Okay, so where is the Press Room?"
Through the mirror, LOBO looks at me.
"Oh come on!", I says to LOBO. "You don't know where the Press Room is?"
"Dude," says LOBO. "I want to know why the Marines are pissed!"
Edward looks at me. "Do you know where the 'Press Room' is?"
Angry and defensive, I bark "They've never published anything!"
"Yeah," agrees LOBO. Edward, who, despite being stone sober, is completely calm. "The big secret about Chicago is that it's totally traffic anarchy. Nobody gets pulled over for traffic violations anymore."
"Really," says Edward in his strange serene cool.
"Yeah. It's a big myth. Like 'Bigfoot' and the 'female orgasm'." He pulls his bangs away, lighting a cigarette. "Just crazy people with cameras."
... And here was LOBO ramping up to 115 on I-94.
After three funerals, and all the freakin tux rental bills that implies.
You explain it.
Earlier, LOBO had jazz music playing. I protested, but LOBO insists that this plinkety-plink, hoot-toot plink shit somehow suits the "ambiance" of the Chicago skyline at night.
Edward concurs and I'm outvoted.
But now, ratcheted up, it's the driving, machine-gun pulse of Pantera, Cowboys from Hell. Shooting out from that tunnel by Ohio street like a bullet from a gun, the high-performance, fuel-injected, duel-clutched, 480 horsepower turbo 1980 Plymouth Horizon roars through the city, narrowly zig-zagging around cars left and right. On the left rear bumper, there's an aged, dangling sticker flapping wildly in the wind that reads "My Other Car is a Piece of Shit Too".
I struggle against g-forces I can't anticipate, straining to secure my seat belt.
"I always figure this is how I'll die," LOBO continues, cigarette dangling. "Hitting a brick wall of traffic around a blind curve, consisting mostly of other people only recently enjoying some high-velocity anarchy. Just a huge sudden fiery molten mass of flesh and steel and bones, blood ... It'll just be wham, splat, fwoosh ... And the worst part is, I'll probably have a carload of people with me."
I heave bile into my own mouth. "You're going over a hundred miles an hour in a forty-five" I manage.
"I don't believe in the metric system," he says. "It's Goddamn unpatriotic."
"So what do you do for fun?" LOBO asks Edward.
"Nothing really," says Edward in that cool voice. "I spend most of my time studying and in classes."
"No shit?" says LOBO.
"Yeah, I'm studying Orthotics."
"Well you're a better man than I," he replies. "The thought of spendin my life elbow-deep down someone else's throat is pretty depressing."
Edward looks at me, and I shake my head: Let it go.
"Yeah, uh" Edward continues. "I graduate this year." Edward pauses. "Then those Student Loans kick in."
There it is, I'm thinking.
This cat's lookin for a job.
I'm simultaneously suspicious of Edward, and far too drunk to care really. Ethan, once he heard I beat LOBO with golf clubs until a freak accident actually killed the prick, hired me back on to the Predator Press staff. With back pay, and a substantial raise.
"Yeah," LOBO agrees "Christ, nothin is worse than a hard-core philistine."
Edward looks at me again. And this time I'm shaking my head even harder: Definitely let it go. "Orthotics, eh? Good money in that?"
"Well, I'm sure not going to do it out of the goodness of my heart," Edward replies.
"Some doctors are more interested in helping people than they are in money," I says, a little facetiously.
"No they aren't," Edward says. "My brother John is poor, and when his wife had her baby they had to do some routine gynecological test at Halifax Hospital in Daytona, Florida. My wife's doctor happened to be filling in at the hospital that day. This Doc, the sweetest guy in the world, he leads a group of interns into the hospital room. John protests of course; 'Hey,' he says, 'Are all these people really necessary?' And then that same noble, wonderful doctor, who kissed my ass through the birth of both my kids, he doesn't know John's my brother. He pushes John aside, not even looking at him, and right in front of the six or eight interns says, 'Maybe you should've thought of this before you decided to have babies on welfare'."
"Jesus Christ!" I says, hot breath filling the car. I need to eat something. Or maybe barf. "Did you brother complain?"
"No," Edward replies. "My brother ain't like that. I think he was just grateful for the medical care."
"Nice lesson for the interns too," LOBO growls. "Doctors and cops," he ads. "The whole world weeps for 'em when shit goes south, when the reality is they can be even bigger dicks than you can guess."
To Edward, I says "So, in your opinion, nobody does anything except out of self interest?"
Edward looks back at me, studying. "Yeah," he says. "That's it."
"What about Mother Theresa?"
LOBO and Edward exchange looks, laughing. "Look," says Edward. "God Bless her. I mean, the world is a better place because of her, fine. But don't you think she wanted to go to heaven?"
"Probably," I says, leaning back in my seat.
"And you don't call that self interest?"
I'm not comfortable with this conversation anymore.
The sky spinning doesn't help. I need food. Coffee. Something to sober up; the Predator Press building was still a half an hour out, but I'm getting cold sweats, and my vision is blurring. I roll down the window and stick my head into the maelstrom.
"How about people that are afraid of Hell?" Edward continues. "Coercion is still self interest if you really think about it. Unfortunately, the truth is that virtually any religion is primarily made up of whores. You want to find a decent human being? I would look someplace else."
I lean into the car for a second. "LOBO, do you know where you're going?"
"You mean during the Cosmic Dirtnap?"
"No, I mean right now," I says, 'now' containing about six 'h's. "As in responding to the distress signal." Nonchalantly, I add "But I need to stop someplace to pee."
"There's a Burgermania at this next exit," he says.
"Fine." My slurring is now out of control, and I decide to stick my head out the window again and shut up for a while.
Switching lanes, LOBO continues. He flicks his cigarette out the window, and it pings off of my forehead splashing fantastic arcs of light, landing in my lap. "Edward's right. Everybody's got some kind of monkey. Toys, money, sex, power ... "
"Fuck!" I says. Seeing double, I'm really having a hard time finding that cigarette butt.
"What's yours?" asks Edward.
"Oh, sex. Definitely more sex," states LOBO flatly.
"That's funny," says Edward. "I would've bet a thousand bucks you were a virgin."
"Well, that makes it a goal easy to attain," he says. "Baby steps. People set these high-pressure impossible goals and disappoint themselves constantly. I set goals like, 'Someday I will make a list of goals'."
"That would actually make you're primary 'interest' sloth," I point out, digging the hot embers out of my lap. The state of alarm seems to have sobered me a bit. "I guess mine would be comfort." I pause. "Southern Comfort!" I guffaw, slapping Edward's shoulder.
"That's such a chick answer," LOBO laughs. "Security, money ... where's your sense of adventure? Any pussy can throw money around to dilute life's little traumas."
"I would've thought it fair to say that mine was money, too," admits Edward. "But now that you mention it, it is really just a conduit to more sex and influence."
"That's pre-programmed Alpha-Male jackoff bullshit," says LOBO, shaking his head. "I sincerely doubt I'm going to be on my deathbed weeping that I didn't work enough."
"You don't want to be an 'Alpha Male'?"
"Fuck no," says LOBO. "I wanna be a Zeta. If there is such a thing. Alphas beat each other up, compete, have ambition ... that's too much pressure. We Zetas don't give a crap. We wake up, and the new Alpha has just eaten the old Alpha. Again. 'Oooo!' we say, 'a new Alpha. How original.' And then, odds are, by the time we've memorized the fucks name, he's been eaten by the next 'Alpha'. It's very boring."
What about Mister Hawly?" asks Edward. "He's a pretty wealthy guy. What makes him tick?"
"Justice," says LOBO, almost without thinking. "He's the slickest 'Alpha', period. He's a smart one, but maybe more importantly, he's a patient one. Rather than being a typical abrasive loudmouth, he lays low and pulls subtle little strings. Usually, when you see two idiots slugging it out, odds are he owns one or both of them. They just don't know it yet."
Curious. Dumb as LOBO is, he's smart enough to know who and when to defer.
Zeta mastery.
Measuring the distance to where the signal touched the ground over the horizon, Edward sighs. "Well, we've got some time to kill. And you guys have heard my story already. Let's here one that hasn't been told yet."
I take a deep breath and muster all the sobriety I can.
"Go ahead LOBO," he says, deflating me.
"What, you mean my life story?"
"Yeah. And how you met Ethan, got into publishing."
This should be interesting, I'm thinking. "Yeah LOBO. Why doncha enlighten us how you was whisked away from Plutonian space pirates by fuzz-fairies and blasted pastel goblins and stuff?"
LOBO frowns, eyeing me suspiciously through the rearview mirror. "I don't remember any goblins."
The really early stuff is excruciatingly dull, and it gives me time to sober a bit. With heavy paper sacks emblazoned 'Burgermania' in tow, he's still going on and on when I get back to the car.
"Ethan and I met in Junior High school, where he and his friends used to beat up me and my friends. He didn't stop until one day I warned him that if he didn't sell his Faberge Egg collection before spring of that year, he was going to be stuck with a whole lot of worthless crap that wouldn't even make a decent tacky jewel-encrusted omelet."
"Did he sell them?" asked Edward.
"No," replied LOBO. "And sure enough, a few months later, he took a bath in those things too. But by that time, I was long gone."
"Gone? What happened?"
"Well, firstly, my band took off. Vaginal Slide didn't really get much local traction, but we were huge in the Galapagos Islands. Monsters in Guatemala. Heard of us? 'Red Hot Chocolate' was our big one:
'Don't play like it's no sacrilege
that I got a rolls of toilet paper in my freezer, my fridge,
Farting, sharting stuff from Hell,
I oughta sue the balls offa Taco Bell
It's searing through my anus like an acid blowtorch
You can smell burnin flesh even on the front porch!
Red Hot Chocolate, screamin in the night
If Ida been a second later, Ida arc-welded my tailpipe
Red Hot Chocolate, five gallons deep,
If Ida been a second later I woulda melted my Jeep-'
"Is that the one that Pat Boone remade?" asks Edward.
"No. He remade our song 'The Ayatollah of Areola'. And ballads and love songs were huge that year, so he made a bundle. He later stiffed us on the royalties and the writing credit."
"Did you sue?"
"Couldn't." replies LOBO. "By that time the band had split up; dead musicians are notoriously unreliable. I think it's cuz we never could seem to get any airplay. And then the music industry changed. It wasn't like today where you ride a $1,000 bicycle to Barnes and Nobles, drinking $6 coffees and then stiff the store on the $10 book." LOBO pounds his hand on the dash. "We had suicide doors, steel dashboards and Vietnam to weed them fucks out. Now all we got is Metallica." He fishes around for the radio knob, and switches it to 'off'. "You know what sucks about the Porsche 911 GT3?"
We both shake our heads.
"Just try and get one with an 8-track player," he says. "The dealers just look at you like you're completely crackers." He lights another cigarette. "So where was I? Oh yeah ... I was complaining about my life story. Nowadays it's all seat belts and warning labels and lawsuits. Hell, I remember waitresses on roller skates with big-ass hair and no helmet, bringing Thalidomide-flavored fries out to your car in an asbestos crate, all the while stabbing Jets and Sharks left and right with her switchblade during the musical number 'cuz her numb chucks were confiscated."
"So what happened with the band?" asks Edward, trying to get him back on track.
"Vaginal Slide was on tour for our Fists of Furry record in Escuintla, and President Alfonso Portillo -big fan-flew us out to do some live recording at his palace. Who would have thought he would pick then to decide to have our lyrics translated? Turns out he gets so offended for some reason, he orders us all rounded up and executed. With phony papers and disguised as Nelson Mandela's brother, I narrowly escaped."
"Nelson Mandela's brother," I says incredulously.
"Yeah. Frank Mandela. You know, the one that drives the Camaro?"
"Go on," says Edward.
"Well, I only got partway back. My band slain, I had to start my life all over in the Communist Republic of Cuba. I got a job at Havana Bowling Alley, and kinda skulked around for a few months, all depressed. One day, while I was fantasizing about the pins hurdling the balls back at all these bald drunken assholes in funny shoes, I dreamed up this game where you throw a ball at a guy and he tries to hit it with a stick-"
"Oh, let me guess,," I says. "And then the guy who hit the ball runs around a big diamond."
"That's a bastardized variation on my game concept. Originally it was a square."
"So," I says, skeptical. "You're saying that you invented the game of baseball."
"Well, we didn't call it 'baseball' back then. We called it 'Hit the Ball with a Stick and Run Like Hell'."
"Oh brother," I says.
"Anyways, I gotta get back to the US from Cuba. So I stitch 834,993 Breton Corojo Vintage Lancero cigars together to make a raft, and set sail for Montreal where I found Ethan selling magazines. He remembers me. Asks me how I knew about the Faberge Egg market collapse, and I tell him I don't know. Now he's fully invested in this quarry, doing research and developing improvements on this new concept: the 'Pet Rock'."
"Ethan was behind the Pet Rock craze?" I ask.
"Indirectly," LOBO replies. "See, overall, the Pet Rock was a pretty mediocre pet when compared to dogs, for instance. While easily housebroken, the only command they ever seemed to learn was 'stay'. I mean even the Pet Sponge could learn to soak. But where the Pet Rock lacked the staying power of, say, the cat or the fish or the sponge, it did have a certain undeniable appeal to American culture. I recommended that he stay 'in' until DNA mapping began to evolve."
"DNA mapping?" asks Edward.
"Yeah. See, the Pet Rock had a lot of breeding issues. Fertility problems. Down in the quarry, you could put two rocks together, and months later you would still have only two rocks. In fact, you could put fifty rocks together, dim the lights, and play Barry White records over a megaphone until the cows came home and you would still have fifty rocks. A rock is a solitary and mysterious creature, whose reproductive habits are as yet still a mystery."
"What does that have to do with DNA mapping?"
"Well, we never got any rocks breeding in that quarry unless we had a lot of bulldozers and jackhammers and crap. Something about all that noise, I suppose. But when the Human Genome Project came along we started being able to clone stuff, and it was either give up or use .. Now, the market is totally saturated with rocks. Shit. Look around; they're everywhere. You can't throw a rock without hitting a rock now."
"So Ethan keeps you around as some kind of investment consultant?" I asks.
"'Social Barometer' is probably more accurate. But, from bell-bottom jeans to the internet stock boom to Tickle-Me-Elmo, we've been there on the ground floor."
"If all this is true, why aren't you rich?" Edward asks.
"Well, if you think about it, I don't pick the winning ponies, I just point out a good time to turn them to glue. Besides, I think affluence would kinda water down the experience and dull the edge. Keep in mind that rich people don't buy the bulk of stuff, the middle-class do. Rich people manufacture their own supply-and-demand problems, and there's plenty of sycophants to cater to that stuff already. Tiny foreign nations hand-crafting coats made of rare exotic fur with dinosaur eggs dipped in gold for buttons isn't particularly brilliant or exciting."
"It just so happens," I interrupt, "that dinosaur egg buttons are much better that conventional flat ones."
Edward looks back at me "You've got one of those?"
"Three of them." I says. "Very high quality stuff. Complete with the eagle feather inlay."
"Worn them lately?" asks LOBO, into the rearview.
"Well, no."
"See?" says LOBO. "There's no rationale behind it. Coats should keep you warm, not stuff your closet. You've created an artificial demand for something completely impractical for the sole purpose of easily recognizing the other stupid people with too much money. Then you mislabeled it 'Status' hoping nobody would notice. And let me guess ... just in case someone does notice, you increasingly insulate yourself in 'exclusive' activities, surrounded by only other like-minded people."
"You you've never been preoccupied with image, fashion, style--?"
"Sure I have. The difference is you buy yours. It's overly-elaborate, and more importantly, it's somebody else's." LOBO paused. "When Ethan and I met you, you were in jeans and a t-shirt. I'll bet what you're wearing now cost more than your rent was that month."
"What's your point?" I demand. "That I should be some broke loser-slash-philosopher? I don't see you curing cancer. You couldn't find your asshole with a flashlight and a funnel."
Edward laughs.
"I don't really know what I'm saying," LOBO confesses. "I think I'm a little disappointed, I guess. When you got fired and moved into that trailer, you just seemed more real. You got passionate. Angry. And not because you were told to be. I think Ethan and I were impressed with the fact that you embraced the whole thing with such totality. We were seeing glimpses of you minus all the distracting glitz and shiny objects again, and we realized we missed you." LOBO inspected the diminishing skyline in the mirror. "I guess I'm saying 'don't become the sum of your possessions'. It's beneath you."
"So I'm some corporate thrall?" Is that what Ethan thinks?"
"Take it easy, man," says Edward. "I don't think that's what he's saying at all. In fact, I think he's saying the opposite."
"But this asshole is a goddamn certified retarded lunatic!" I offer, pointing at the back of LOBO's head. "And he's in charge."
"Look," grins LOBO. "I went through the whole hip and image-conscious thing a long time ago. It was a goddamn disaster."
"Well, I'm shocked to hear it." I says.
"Yep. Believe it or not, I've made a few social blunders of my own."
"No," I gasp sardonically.
"Yes, really!" says LOBO all serious. "Remember the seventies? I used to troll around women's strip bars when they close-"
Edward interrupts "You're shitting me. You used to be waiting when a bar, full of drunken horny chicks poured out of a club at weird hours? My God man ... that's brilliant. A little pathetic, but brilliant ..."
"Yep," LOBO continues. "There I'd be in my immaculate white suit, wide open collar with my gold zodiac symbol chain, the works. My elevator shoes were so tall I'd get nosebleeds."
Edward and I laugh hysterically. "Oh my God," I manage. "I can totally see it. LOBO leaning on his car, tryin to look all 'cool'--"
"What?" LOBO asks, puzzled, looking back and forth between us.
Edward composes himself. "So did this 'Master Plan' ever culminate into any real action?"
"It might have. But to be honest, when it came 'time to strike' I was a little preoccupied. My elevator shoes had goldfish in them, and I couldn't figure out how you feed them. So there's my beloved little Simon and Garfunkle, floating belly-up in their little metatarsal tombs-"
Edward and I are laughing so hard, we're crying.
"And then I get approached by this chick, Lindsay Merigold. She says she's the editor for a big national magazine, and she'll give me $1,000 a week to write articles for her magazine about 'love and courtship in the 70's'. Up until now, I'm working in the bowling alley, a talentless hack musician. How hard could it be to become a talentless hack writer? Besides, I would get to kill a lot of trees this way. So I agree to the deal."
"So ..." says Edward, still fighting down laughter.
"Well, it didn't occur to me to ask why she wanted me to write this article. It turns out, that her finding me in a white suit and elevator shoes in the parking lot of a women's strip club was significant. The magazine I was to write for was named Gay Love."
"Oh God dude please stop." I have never laughed so hard in my life. "You're killing me!" After about twenty minutes, I finally choke out, "So did you take the job?"
"For $1000 a week? Hell yes!" he says. "The office was kinda creepy, but once you got used to wiping everything down you wanted to use or sit on, everything was fine."
"How long did this go on?" I ask between teary cackles.
"About a year," says LOBO.
"Wait a minute," giggles Edward. "You wrote for a gay magazine for a year?"
"No, I didn't says that. See, my first deadline was four days after I got my office. And for four days, I just stared at the blank paper. Nothing. The deadline passed, and nobody said anything. And I got a check for $1,000."
"No shit?" says Edward. "What did you do?"
"I started putting in for more assignments. Shit, before long deadlines were flying by me left and right."
"And you never got caught?" I ask.
"Yeah, I did finally. Lindsay Merigold called me in her office and demanded a story be on her desk by eight o'clock the next morning, or I was going to be prosecuted."
"Did you do it?"
"Of course I did! I titled it "Butt Sex: I'll Bet it Hurts-"
Edward and I, by this point, are both begging LOBO to stop. My stomach hurts, and Edward is threatening to piss his pants.
Noticing the searchlights closely and off to our left, LOBO slows the car.
"We're here."
Tuesday
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!
[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!
Saturday
Contact
Predator Press
[LOBO]
The days following the "Upstart" debacle were pretty crazy. I had to submit the sixteen page final essay for one, and it was already about six semesters overdue. The problem was that it was a paper based on activities in the student organizations, and invariably I somehow kept getting re-elected.
This college had a strange, quirky electoral process that inexplicably elected it's media people too. Not the reporters and so forth, but the Chairperson -me, at the moment- and this person was responsible for hiring a "Board of Directors". And The Board collectively hired the reporters, and so on. Very bureaucratic and boring. But the real trick was that the Chairperson was also a voting member of the Student Senate. As far as power and influence could go in the academic setting, I suppose I was doing pretty well.
Now as I mentioned, it was only days after the "circus", and it also happened to be Finals Week. The last finals week too, prior to graduation. And in true form, I had procrastinated virtually all of my really tough "core" classes until now.
So I'm studying for four hardcore finals which were all taking place over the next two days. Plus, I'm in the Honors Society and needed at least all "B"s to maintain that distinction. Plus I'm in the Senate, so I gotta write and give speeches. Plus I'm managing the school video program, newspaper, magazine, and radio programs. Plus I had to hand over all this crap to the newly-elected incoming administration, and get them prepared to take over. (Having never taken a single journalist class --let alone management and record-keeping training-- my desk was eight inches deep in paperwork.) Oh, and I also had a regular job as well.
I'm not trying to exaggerate: I was surrounded with a lot of very talented people, and a lot of this stuff was running on auto-pilot. But I had, in fact, achieved complete critical mass.
My entire day was carefully spelled out: meetings, meetings, meetings, punctuated violently by an Algebra exam I was having a lot of trouble with. But I had studied hard, and was pretty confident with the "B" --maybe even an "A" if I got through the sleep-deprived fog well enough. I got on campus that morning with my head swimming in numbers and letters. Don't Walk signs read "D" times "O" times "N" ... in regard to the test, I was In The Zone so to speak, and as well-prepared as I would ever be.
I got to the floor of my office about fifteen minutes before my battery of meetings was to begin, and was surprised to find it bustling with activity. We had scheduled all publications to have finished a few weeks earlier so the students could actually study this week. Even the final newspaper was already in the can: we planned to publish a quasi "Year in Review/Best Of" issue that required simple layout retooling. With the exception of maybe the layout editors, this whole floor should have been a ghost town.
I tried to sneak into my office, but Esther spotted me. Grabbing a pile of mail, she followed. And another woman I'd never met followed her.
They found me sitting, elbows on piles of paperwork on my desk, rubbing my eyes and temples alternately. I hadn't slept in days, and couldn't remember the last time I ate. It was then I first noticed a bunch of flowers, trays of homemade-looking pastries and dishes, colorful fruit baskets and so forth, sprawled randomly across the desk.
I glanced up at Esther, indicating the packages. "What's all this?" I asked.
"I don't know." She says, tossing the mail in front of me. "I'm not your fucking secretary."
So I look at the new pile of mail. "Okay, then. What's this Princess?"
Now Esther is my Comptroller -whatever the Hell that is- and presumably going to carry on under the incoming administration. She's talented, she's tough, she's brilliant, and she's fully-augmented with these great big awesome accounting-whiz number-crunching boobs. "It's mail on that stupid Upstart thing."
"Is it good or bad?"
She pauses for a second. "Well, I guess it's about fifty-fifty."
I leaned back in my chair. "Perfect."
"How the fuck am I supposed to run a creditable newspaper when the Board Chairman is constantly in it?" She demanded.
"Look, you said yourself the mail was fifty-fifty. I've effectively cancelled it all out."
And the poor girl just stared at me like I was a moron. "I'm going to try to get Melody to publish these you know."
I shrugged. "It's your call. Really. I'm graduating. Do your worst."
Esther visibly softened up a little as she left. She was definitely pissed -and perhaps justly so- but she wasn't really that mean-spirited. And the bottom line was that in a year I had tripled our circulation. The whole damn Student Organization -Senate, Media, everything was reorganized and re-vitalized. They went from zero participation to having to turn away people. It was a hard-fought year fraught with legendary silliness for sure, but I felt I was leaving the whole thing a lot better off than it was when I got it.
I looked to the other woman who had remained silent during the confrontation, stood and smiled, offering my hand. "Hi, I'm David. Can I help you?"
"Pleased to meet you," she replied. "I'm Dana."
There was an awkward silence.
"Your ten o'clock," she added.
I nodded.
Another awkward silence. She sighed. "I'm the incumbent Student Media Board Chair. I'm relieving you after this semester."
***
I don't know how I imagined this moment before. I think I was leaning towards either burning the whole building down or maybe distracting The Incumbent momentarily as I threw the keys and bolted for the door.
But it turned out that I genuinely liked Dana. She was a sharp firebrand redhead, and already looking for trouble. We spent about three hours on a cursory tour, discussing the operational nuts and bolts of the organization: office locations, where the files are, keys, et cetera.
Finally she has to go to class, and I get a quiet moment.
I slip into my office and turn off the lights so no one thinks I'm there. It's a great trick, because right behind my desk is a huge picture window that offers plenty of light anyway.
I notice that one of the packages is obviously a tray of brownies, and my stomach growls. Like I said earlier, who knows when I ate last.
Suddenly I notice I'm hungry.
All the packages have "Congrats!" and "Thank You!" on them, and the "From" parts are either hand-scrawled names or printed company logos I don't recognize. I wolfed down some brownies as I examined them. One package was a bowl of mushrooms, and I thought. Gee, I really shouldn't fill up on just brownies, and began popping mushrooms like M&Ms.
And speaking of M&Ms, behold! Here's a whole bowl of them. Odd that they're all purple. But I get M&Ms that are accidentally printed with Es, Ws, and 3s all the time. Maybe it's a contest or something.
I didn't even suspect the white powder that was obviously a poorly-manufactured fragrance of some kind. But when I saw the colorful basket full of arranged hypodermic needles, I began to suspect that there was something afoot.
So I tested the hypo on the six-foot cactus that had suddenly sprung up in my office.
No effect on the cactus.
This puzzled me.
And that's how I met Sapphire.
***
"LOBO" says the guy.
"What?" I yawned, a little disoriented.
"The Robot Dinosaur Overlord has commanded your presence."
"Now?"
"Yes. Behold! You are now aboard a legendary warship feared throughout the universe --fully equipped with charged ion galactic detonators-- flying at approximately eleven times the speed of light. Cubed."
"That sounds pretty fast. Do you guys name your ships too?"
"Yes. We call her Daisy Mae."
"Does she have a gift shop?" I asked.
"Promenade Deck."
***
Well, call me crazy, but wearing the sneakers, jeans and rumpled T-Shirt of a college student probably isn't the best way to dress when meeting The Robot Dinosaur Overlord. At the gift shop, I found a kewl leather outfit and a cape. I almost bought one of those cute little perpetual motion machines as a souvenier, but the cashier warned me that the civilization that honored the warrantee on it had been extinct for millions of years.
So now I'm all decked, and we're speeding towards The Leading Edge of the Center of the Universe: secret lair of the Space Dinosaur Overlord. We intercept the mother ship, and I'm escorted into a vast, dark room, and left alone in silence.
Then, seemingly from out of nowhere, the room explodes into fiery life.
"MAXIMILLAIN HECTORUS DEXALLIUM!" a booming voice demanded over the giant screen. By the firelight slipping through it's huge jaws, I saw the impossibly gigantic lizard-like form coiled in the center of a vast room.
A dragon. A goddamn bona-fide football-field length, fire-breathing, leathery-winged dragon.
"MAXIMILLAIN HECTORUS DEXALLIUM!" it repeated as the camera closed. "YOU HAVE BEEN FOUND GUILTY OF TREASON AGAINST THE GALACTIC DINOSAUR EMPIRE, AND ARE HEREBY SENTENCED TO DEATH BY FIRE."
"Maximillian who?" I asked.
"MAXIMILLAIN HECTORUS DEXALLIUM!" he roared. Then he paused. "YOU ARE MAXIMILLAIN HECTORUS DEXALLIUM, AREN'T YOU?"
"Never heard of him."
"GODDAMN IT ERIC!" he roared over his shoulder. "WOULD YOU PLEASE DOUBLE CHECK MY ITINERARRY BEFORE YOU GIVE IT TO ME?"
"Sorry there Big-O," a disembodied voice replied in the background. "Eric is on maternity leave ... his ol lady laid like six thousand eggs last night. I'm actually the guy in charge of brimstone."
The dragon looked at me, shrugging and completely exasperated. "OKAY. SO WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?"
"I'm LOBO sir."
The background voice piped up again. "Say's here LOBO is your two o'clock."
The dragon exhaled into the sky, rolling his eyes. "ALRIGHT EVERYBODY ... TURN THE LIGHTS ON. AND MAKE SURE THE ACID BATH IS READY FOR MY TWO FIFTEEN."
I shielded my eyes from the sudden lighting.
"I'M HERE TO INFORM YOU THAT, REGARDING THE GALACTIC DINOSAUR EMPIRE, YOU ARE BEING RELIEVED OF YOUR DUTIES.
"You're relieving me of my duties?" I asked, puzzled. "I'm actually pretty good at relieving myself of my duties." I pause. "What duties did I have, anyway?"
The dragon grimaced. "LOOK SON," the dragon put his claw around my shoulders as we walked, "AFTER THE GREAT STEVE LOVES AMANDA WARS ENDED, I'VE BEEN PRESSURED BY ALL THOSE HIPPIE, LIBERAL-MINDED VEGETARIAN BRONTOSAURS ABOUT DOWNSIZING OUR MILITARY." He sighed. "YOUR SERVICES ARE NO LONGER REQUIRED."
"But just what exactly were my services to the Galactic Dinosaur Emp--?"
"WE'VE ELIMINATED YOUR POSITION." the dragon interrupted.
"So I'm being fired?"
"LOOK, THE FACT IS THAT THE CREATIONISTS ARE EXCEEDING OUR WILDEST EXPECTATIONS. WHILE YOU HAVE BEEN EXEMPLARY AND LOYAL MAKING CONTRIBUTIONS VITAL TO THE GLORIOUS EMPIRE, WE'RE CHANGING HORSES."
"Hey!" I replied dejected, staring at my boots. "I don't know who these 'Creationists' are, but I'm sure once you tell me what my duties are, I can--"
"IT'S OVER SON," replied the dragon, shaking his enormous head. "BUT WE DO CONSIDER YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS EXEMPLARY, AS I SAID. I AM HERE TO REWARD YOU FOR YOUR SERVICES."
"With fire, right?"
"NO. ACTUALLY IT'S A WATCH." he paused chuckling. "JUST KIDDING. IT'S IN HERE."
***
The beautiful woman lie motionless on the center of the room. I was dazzled.
The dragon put on a lab coat as he explained. "WE HAVE STUDIED THE PEA BRAINS AND FEEBLE DNA OF HUMANS QUITE EXTENSIVELY, AND HAVE DECIDED TO SPARE YOUR POOR BACKWATER CIVILIZATION FOR NOW; A BIG FULL-SCALE EXPENSIVE INVASION DOESN'T SEEM WARRANTED ON A CIVILIZATION THAT HAS ONLY RECENTLY DISCOVERED RUDIMENTARY SCRABBLE. BUT WE HAVE DESIGNED THE LAMBDA-CLASS R1000." He threw a switch, and the woman opened her eyes. "THIS ONE IS PROGRAMMED TO MATCH YOUR EXACT PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE AND PHYSICAL TASTES. HER DESIGNATION IS SAPPHIRE.
Sapphire sat up, blinking. She looked at me and smiled. "Have I told you how handsome you are lately LOBO?" She inquired.
I looked at the dragon, eyebrows furrowed.
The dragon sighed as he unfolded the instructions, and read them through a big thick magnifying glass the size of a bus.
"'CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR RECENT INVENTION OF THE LAMBDA-CLASS R1000. SHE IS ATTRACTIVE, OBEDIENT, INTELLIGENT AND HARD WORKING, AND WILL CATER TO YOUR EVERY WHIM BY PREFORMING ANY AND ALL ACTS YOU DESIRE.'"
The dragon paused. "WE'VE EVEN GOT A JINGLE ALREADY". He swung his paws as he danced a little, singing tunelessly "NEVER AGES, GAINS WEIGHT OR MEN-STRU-ATES ..."
"Well, what if I want kids?"
Tracing the instructions with a massive claw, the dragon skimmed the paragraphs. "LET'S SEE ... 'COMPLETELY INDESTRUCTABLE' ... 'STATE-OF-THE-ARTS LETHAL DEFENSIVE SYSTEMS' ... YADDA YADDA YADDA ... OH HERE IT IS. 'THE LAMBDA-CLASS R1000 IS FULLY CAPABLE OF BEARING AND RAISING CHILDREN, AND IN FACT HAS AN IMPROVED GESTATION PERIOD OF ONLY THREE MONTHS, AS WILL HER OFFSPRING.'"
I began counting on my fingers, but Sapphire interrupted. "David, at full capacity within thirty-four years our brood will have multiplied with the human race exponentially: roughly 27.8% of the Earth's population would be our progeny."
I whistled. "But that's like a lot of kids that all have to be put through college. And Christ Thanksgiving would be a nightmare. What if I don't want kids?"
The dragon peered down through the glass. "SAYS HERE THERE'S A SWITCH."
"This is crazy." I said. "What if she gets pissed off and tries to gooify me or something?"
Sapphire giggled, twirling a lock of my hair in her fingers. "My programming will not allow me to be angry with you, sexy."
"Well, while I'm impressed with your visual clarity, what if I leave the toilet seat up?"
"Then the toilet seat in exactly where you prefer it, as reflected in my programming," she whispered into my ear.
"Okay," I replied, thinking hard. "What if I come home late, drunk and surly after a confrontation with your mother over how she hoped you would marry some suave, rich space entrepreneur robot doctor instead?"
"Then I would do the dishes while reciting any of the complete works of Louis L'Amour that I have memorized for your amusement, you hot stud."
I continued to be impressed by her visual acuity --and she definitely had the right breasts for reading Louis L'Amour books-- but that was a trick question. "I don't wash dishes, I just buy new ones."
"I guess we could just get our freak on."
"Let's hit it" I said.
***
You know, I am The Man.
Fifteen minutes in space, and I'm sporting a cool new leather outfit, speeding back to Earth with a hot, scantily clad robot space chick giving me a massage, and poised for complete and total global domination. By sex.
Gimmee my props.
But then Sapphire piped in. "David I need to tell you about my upkeep."
"Jesus Christ! Nag, nag, nag! Can't we just enjoy a nice quiet moment without you complaining about something?"
"Every six years you need to change my AAA battery--"
"Hold it right there, sister. You never told me you were going to be so needy. I haven't changed. You've changed. I'm just not ready for this kind of commitment!"
"But LOBO .."
"Shhh!" I put a finger over her lips. "Baby look, we're just too different. I'm sorry. I love you, but I'm not in love with you. It's not you, it's me. I just can't deal with your relentless mother anymore. I think we should both start seeing other species." I turned to the crew on the bridge. "About face. Turn this bucket around ... we have to take 'Little Miss Needy' here back to the mother ship."
The crew of the Daisy Mae looked at each other in confusion. "Uh, Sir," one finally piped. "Nobody has ever asked us to do that before. We're supposed to sit hear and look busy pushing buttons. This ship is on auto pilot."
Then I noticed Sapphire was crying.
"Honey, I imagine this to be an intensely painful experience for you. And I'm a really sensitive, sensitive guy." I took her hand. "That's what makes jettisoning you out of the airlock such a painful thing to do."
***
FOOM! Sapphire shot into the void. Then, suddenly, the ship lurched. Hard.
"What's going on?" I demanded.
"Sir!" a crew guy replied. "We've figured out how to disengage the auto-pilot and turn around!"
"Good" I replied, pressed against the wall from the inertia. "Then we can drop off Sapphire back on the Mother Sh--"
Sapphire clanged noisily off of the ship's nose, and then was sucked violently into the starboard engine.
"Um," I replied. "Just forget it."
***
I woke up in my office.
Because my pants were on fire.
Somehow, a photograph of the inside of my pocket was inserted into my pocket, and it smoldered painfully. I procured it, and stomped it out on the floor.
It was ten at night.
And while I had completely missed the algebra exam, I would soon discover that I had accidentally wandered in on a Calculus class and got an A+ doing their entire exam on the blackboard in fourteen seconds.
Without pants.
Pictures of it would be in the school paper.
But I stood in the darkness of the quiet abandoned campus looking out my enormous picture window. Wistfully gazing out at the beautiful cloudless sky, the stars glowed their infinite presence like gems. And one fell, burning a silent blue arc across the sky.
And I remember thinking one thing:
Sapphire.
[LOBO]
The days following the "Upstart" debacle were pretty crazy. I had to submit the sixteen page final essay for one, and it was already about six semesters overdue. The problem was that it was a paper based on activities in the student organizations, and invariably I somehow kept getting re-elected.
This college had a strange, quirky electoral process that inexplicably elected it's media people too. Not the reporters and so forth, but the Chairperson -me, at the moment- and this person was responsible for hiring a "Board of Directors". And The Board collectively hired the reporters, and so on. Very bureaucratic and boring. But the real trick was that the Chairperson was also a voting member of the Student Senate. As far as power and influence could go in the academic setting, I suppose I was doing pretty well.
Now as I mentioned, it was only days after the "circus", and it also happened to be Finals Week. The last finals week too, prior to graduation. And in true form, I had procrastinated virtually all of my really tough "core" classes until now.
So I'm studying for four hardcore finals which were all taking place over the next two days. Plus, I'm in the Honors Society and needed at least all "B"s to maintain that distinction. Plus I'm in the Senate, so I gotta write and give speeches. Plus I'm managing the school video program, newspaper, magazine, and radio programs. Plus I had to hand over all this crap to the newly-elected incoming administration, and get them prepared to take over. (Having never taken a single journalist class --let alone management and record-keeping training-- my desk was eight inches deep in paperwork.) Oh, and I also had a regular job as well.
I'm not trying to exaggerate: I was surrounded with a lot of very talented people, and a lot of this stuff was running on auto-pilot. But I had, in fact, achieved complete critical mass.
My entire day was carefully spelled out: meetings, meetings, meetings, punctuated violently by an Algebra exam I was having a lot of trouble with. But I had studied hard, and was pretty confident with the "B" --maybe even an "A" if I got through the sleep-deprived fog well enough. I got on campus that morning with my head swimming in numbers and letters. Don't Walk signs read "D" times "O" times "N" ... in regard to the test, I was In The Zone so to speak, and as well-prepared as I would ever be.
I got to the floor of my office about fifteen minutes before my battery of meetings was to begin, and was surprised to find it bustling with activity. We had scheduled all publications to have finished a few weeks earlier so the students could actually study this week. Even the final newspaper was already in the can: we planned to publish a quasi "Year in Review/Best Of" issue that required simple layout retooling. With the exception of maybe the layout editors, this whole floor should have been a ghost town.
I tried to sneak into my office, but Esther spotted me. Grabbing a pile of mail, she followed. And another woman I'd never met followed her.
They found me sitting, elbows on piles of paperwork on my desk, rubbing my eyes and temples alternately. I hadn't slept in days, and couldn't remember the last time I ate. It was then I first noticed a bunch of flowers, trays of homemade-looking pastries and dishes, colorful fruit baskets and so forth, sprawled randomly across the desk.
I glanced up at Esther, indicating the packages. "What's all this?" I asked.
"I don't know." She says, tossing the mail in front of me. "I'm not your fucking secretary."
So I look at the new pile of mail. "Okay, then. What's this Princess?"
Now Esther is my Comptroller -whatever the Hell that is- and presumably going to carry on under the incoming administration. She's talented, she's tough, she's brilliant, and she's fully-augmented with these great big awesome accounting-whiz number-crunching boobs. "It's mail on that stupid Upstart thing."
"Is it good or bad?"
She pauses for a second. "Well, I guess it's about fifty-fifty."
I leaned back in my chair. "Perfect."
"How the fuck am I supposed to run a creditable newspaper when the Board Chairman is constantly in it?" She demanded.
"Look, you said yourself the mail was fifty-fifty. I've effectively cancelled it all out."
And the poor girl just stared at me like I was a moron. "I'm going to try to get Melody to publish these you know."
I shrugged. "It's your call. Really. I'm graduating. Do your worst."
Esther visibly softened up a little as she left. She was definitely pissed -and perhaps justly so- but she wasn't really that mean-spirited. And the bottom line was that in a year I had tripled our circulation. The whole damn Student Organization -Senate, Media, everything was reorganized and re-vitalized. They went from zero participation to having to turn away people. It was a hard-fought year fraught with legendary silliness for sure, but I felt I was leaving the whole thing a lot better off than it was when I got it.
I looked to the other woman who had remained silent during the confrontation, stood and smiled, offering my hand. "Hi, I'm David. Can I help you?"
"Pleased to meet you," she replied. "I'm Dana."
There was an awkward silence.
"Your ten o'clock," she added.
I nodded.
Another awkward silence. She sighed. "I'm the incumbent Student Media Board Chair. I'm relieving you after this semester."
I don't know how I imagined this moment before. I think I was leaning towards either burning the whole building down or maybe distracting The Incumbent momentarily as I threw the keys and bolted for the door.
But it turned out that I genuinely liked Dana. She was a sharp firebrand redhead, and already looking for trouble. We spent about three hours on a cursory tour, discussing the operational nuts and bolts of the organization: office locations, where the files are, keys, et cetera.
Finally she has to go to class, and I get a quiet moment.
I slip into my office and turn off the lights so no one thinks I'm there. It's a great trick, because right behind my desk is a huge picture window that offers plenty of light anyway.
I notice that one of the packages is obviously a tray of brownies, and my stomach growls. Like I said earlier, who knows when I ate last.
Suddenly I notice I'm hungry.
All the packages have "Congrats!" and "Thank You!" on them, and the "From" parts are either hand-scrawled names or printed company logos I don't recognize. I wolfed down some brownies as I examined them. One package was a bowl of mushrooms, and I thought. Gee, I really shouldn't fill up on just brownies, and began popping mushrooms like M&Ms.
And speaking of M&Ms, behold! Here's a whole bowl of them. Odd that they're all purple. But I get M&Ms that are accidentally printed with Es, Ws, and 3s all the time. Maybe it's a contest or something.
I didn't even suspect the white powder that was obviously a poorly-manufactured fragrance of some kind. But when I saw the colorful basket full of arranged hypodermic needles, I began to suspect that there was something afoot.
So I tested the hypo on the six-foot cactus that had suddenly sprung up in my office.
No effect on the cactus.
This puzzled me.
And that's how I met Sapphire.
"LOBO" says the guy.
"What?" I yawned, a little disoriented.
"The Robot Dinosaur Overlord has commanded your presence."
"Now?"
"Yes. Behold! You are now aboard a legendary warship feared throughout the universe --fully equipped with charged ion galactic detonators-- flying at approximately eleven times the speed of light. Cubed."
"That sounds pretty fast. Do you guys name your ships too?"
"Yes. We call her Daisy Mae."
"Does she have a gift shop?" I asked.
"Promenade Deck."
Well, call me crazy, but wearing the sneakers, jeans and rumpled T-Shirt of a college student probably isn't the best way to dress when meeting The Robot Dinosaur Overlord. At the gift shop, I found a kewl leather outfit and a cape. I almost bought one of those cute little perpetual motion machines as a souvenier, but the cashier warned me that the civilization that honored the warrantee on it had been extinct for millions of years.
So now I'm all decked, and we're speeding towards The Leading Edge of the Center of the Universe: secret lair of the Space Dinosaur Overlord. We intercept the mother ship, and I'm escorted into a vast, dark room, and left alone in silence.
Then, seemingly from out of nowhere, the room explodes into fiery life.
"MAXIMILLAIN HECTORUS DEXALLIUM!" a booming voice demanded over the giant screen. By the firelight slipping through it's huge jaws, I saw the impossibly gigantic lizard-like form coiled in the center of a vast room.
A dragon. A goddamn bona-fide football-field length, fire-breathing, leathery-winged dragon.
"MAXIMILLAIN HECTORUS DEXALLIUM!" it repeated as the camera closed. "YOU HAVE BEEN FOUND GUILTY OF TREASON AGAINST THE GALACTIC DINOSAUR EMPIRE, AND ARE HEREBY SENTENCED TO DEATH BY FIRE."
"Maximillian who?" I asked.
"MAXIMILLAIN HECTORUS DEXALLIUM!" he roared. Then he paused. "YOU ARE MAXIMILLAIN HECTORUS DEXALLIUM, AREN'T YOU?"
"Never heard of him."
"GODDAMN IT ERIC!" he roared over his shoulder. "WOULD YOU PLEASE DOUBLE CHECK MY ITINERARRY BEFORE YOU GIVE IT TO ME?"
"Sorry there Big-O," a disembodied voice replied in the background. "Eric is on maternity leave ... his ol lady laid like six thousand eggs last night. I'm actually the guy in charge of brimstone."
The dragon looked at me, shrugging and completely exasperated. "OKAY. SO WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?"
"I'm LOBO sir."
The background voice piped up again. "Say's here LOBO is your two o'clock."
The dragon exhaled into the sky, rolling his eyes. "ALRIGHT EVERYBODY ... TURN THE LIGHTS ON. AND MAKE SURE THE ACID BATH IS READY FOR MY TWO FIFTEEN."
I shielded my eyes from the sudden lighting.
"I'M HERE TO INFORM YOU THAT, REGARDING THE GALACTIC DINOSAUR EMPIRE, YOU ARE BEING RELIEVED OF YOUR DUTIES.
"You're relieving me of my duties?" I asked, puzzled. "I'm actually pretty good at relieving myself of my duties." I pause. "What duties did I have, anyway?"
The dragon grimaced. "LOOK SON," the dragon put his claw around my shoulders as we walked, "AFTER THE GREAT STEVE LOVES AMANDA WARS ENDED, I'VE BEEN PRESSURED BY ALL THOSE HIPPIE, LIBERAL-MINDED VEGETARIAN BRONTOSAURS ABOUT DOWNSIZING OUR MILITARY." He sighed. "YOUR SERVICES ARE NO LONGER REQUIRED."
"But just what exactly were my services to the Galactic Dinosaur Emp--?"
"WE'VE ELIMINATED YOUR POSITION." the dragon interrupted.
"So I'm being fired?"
"LOOK, THE FACT IS THAT THE CREATIONISTS ARE EXCEEDING OUR WILDEST EXPECTATIONS. WHILE YOU HAVE BEEN EXEMPLARY AND LOYAL MAKING CONTRIBUTIONS VITAL TO THE GLORIOUS EMPIRE, WE'RE CHANGING HORSES."
"Hey!" I replied dejected, staring at my boots. "I don't know who these 'Creationists' are, but I'm sure once you tell me what my duties are, I can--"
"IT'S OVER SON," replied the dragon, shaking his enormous head. "BUT WE DO CONSIDER YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS EXEMPLARY, AS I SAID. I AM HERE TO REWARD YOU FOR YOUR SERVICES."
"With fire, right?"
"NO. ACTUALLY IT'S A WATCH." he paused chuckling. "JUST KIDDING. IT'S IN HERE."
The beautiful woman lie motionless on the center of the room. I was dazzled.
The dragon put on a lab coat as he explained. "WE HAVE STUDIED THE PEA BRAINS AND FEEBLE DNA OF HUMANS QUITE EXTENSIVELY, AND HAVE DECIDED TO SPARE YOUR POOR BACKWATER CIVILIZATION FOR NOW; A BIG FULL-SCALE EXPENSIVE INVASION DOESN'T SEEM WARRANTED ON A CIVILIZATION THAT HAS ONLY RECENTLY DISCOVERED RUDIMENTARY SCRABBLE. BUT WE HAVE DESIGNED THE LAMBDA-CLASS R1000." He threw a switch, and the woman opened her eyes. "THIS ONE IS PROGRAMMED TO MATCH YOUR EXACT PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE AND PHYSICAL TASTES. HER DESIGNATION IS SAPPHIRE.
Sapphire sat up, blinking. She looked at me and smiled. "Have I told you how handsome you are lately LOBO?" She inquired.
I looked at the dragon, eyebrows furrowed.
The dragon sighed as he unfolded the instructions, and read them through a big thick magnifying glass the size of a bus.
"'CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR RECENT INVENTION OF THE LAMBDA-CLASS R1000. SHE IS ATTRACTIVE, OBEDIENT, INTELLIGENT AND HARD WORKING, AND WILL CATER TO YOUR EVERY WHIM BY PREFORMING ANY AND ALL ACTS YOU DESIRE.'"
The dragon paused. "WE'VE EVEN GOT A JINGLE ALREADY". He swung his paws as he danced a little, singing tunelessly "NEVER AGES, GAINS WEIGHT OR MEN-STRU-ATES ..."
"Well, what if I want kids?"
Tracing the instructions with a massive claw, the dragon skimmed the paragraphs. "LET'S SEE ... 'COMPLETELY INDESTRUCTABLE' ... 'STATE-OF-THE-ARTS LETHAL DEFENSIVE SYSTEMS' ... YADDA YADDA YADDA ... OH HERE IT IS. 'THE LAMBDA-CLASS R1000 IS FULLY CAPABLE OF BEARING AND RAISING CHILDREN, AND IN FACT HAS AN IMPROVED GESTATION PERIOD OF ONLY THREE MONTHS, AS WILL HER OFFSPRING.'"
I began counting on my fingers, but Sapphire interrupted. "David, at full capacity within thirty-four years our brood will have multiplied with the human race exponentially: roughly 27.8% of the Earth's population would be our progeny."
I whistled. "But that's like a lot of kids that all have to be put through college. And Christ Thanksgiving would be a nightmare. What if I don't want kids?"
The dragon peered down through the glass. "SAYS HERE THERE'S A SWITCH."
"This is crazy." I said. "What if she gets pissed off and tries to gooify me or something?"
Sapphire giggled, twirling a lock of my hair in her fingers. "My programming will not allow me to be angry with you, sexy."
"Well, while I'm impressed with your visual clarity, what if I leave the toilet seat up?"
"Then the toilet seat in exactly where you prefer it, as reflected in my programming," she whispered into my ear.
"Okay," I replied, thinking hard. "What if I come home late, drunk and surly after a confrontation with your mother over how she hoped you would marry some suave, rich space entrepreneur robot doctor instead?"
"Then I would do the dishes while reciting any of the complete works of Louis L'Amour that I have memorized for your amusement, you hot stud."
I continued to be impressed by her visual acuity --and she definitely had the right breasts for reading Louis L'Amour books-- but that was a trick question. "I don't wash dishes, I just buy new ones."
"I guess we could just get our freak on."
"Let's hit it" I said.
You know, I am The Man.
Fifteen minutes in space, and I'm sporting a cool new leather outfit, speeding back to Earth with a hot, scantily clad robot space chick giving me a massage, and poised for complete and total global domination. By sex.
Gimmee my props.
But then Sapphire piped in. "David I need to tell you about my upkeep."
"Jesus Christ! Nag, nag, nag! Can't we just enjoy a nice quiet moment without you complaining about something?"
"Every six years you need to change my AAA battery--"
"Hold it right there, sister. You never told me you were going to be so needy. I haven't changed. You've changed. I'm just not ready for this kind of commitment!"
"But LOBO .."
"Shhh!" I put a finger over her lips. "Baby look, we're just too different. I'm sorry. I love you, but I'm not in love with you. It's not you, it's me. I just can't deal with your relentless mother anymore. I think we should both start seeing other species." I turned to the crew on the bridge. "About face. Turn this bucket around ... we have to take 'Little Miss Needy' here back to the mother ship."
The crew of the Daisy Mae looked at each other in confusion. "Uh, Sir," one finally piped. "Nobody has ever asked us to do that before. We're supposed to sit hear and look busy pushing buttons. This ship is on auto pilot."
Then I noticed Sapphire was crying.
"Honey, I imagine this to be an intensely painful experience for you. And I'm a really sensitive, sensitive guy." I took her hand. "That's what makes jettisoning you out of the airlock such a painful thing to do."
FOOM! Sapphire shot into the void. Then, suddenly, the ship lurched. Hard.
"What's going on?" I demanded.
"Sir!" a crew guy replied. "We've figured out how to disengage the auto-pilot and turn around!"
"Good" I replied, pressed against the wall from the inertia. "Then we can drop off Sapphire back on the Mother Sh--"
Sapphire clanged noisily off of the ship's nose, and then was sucked violently into the starboard engine.
"Um," I replied. "Just forget it."
I woke up in my office.
Because my pants were on fire.
Somehow, a photograph of the inside of my pocket was inserted into my pocket, and it smoldered painfully. I procured it, and stomped it out on the floor.
It was ten at night.
And while I had completely missed the algebra exam, I would soon discover that I had accidentally wandered in on a Calculus class and got an A+ doing their entire exam on the blackboard in fourteen seconds.
Without pants.
Pictures of it would be in the school paper.
But I stood in the darkness of the quiet abandoned campus looking out my enormous picture window. Wistfully gazing out at the beautiful cloudless sky, the stars glowed their infinite presence like gems. And one fell, burning a silent blue arc across the sky.
And I remember thinking one thing:
Sapphire.
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