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 …
