Dissonance and Dattonance

Predator Press

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I have an ongoing love/hate relationship with Entrecard.

Sure you wander into a few truly original gems ... Entrecard is how I found Neon Bubble, Daisy the Curly Cat and Crotchety Old Man Yells at Cars.

But ultimately for every gem there's like 652 tons of schlock to sift through, and when it all boils down I think I like the Humor-Blogs environment better. That's where talent like the Acorn King, Taunt Vortex Unfinished Rambler and Riding with Rickey reside and reign supreme. Call me a cynic, but when your blog's opening line is "I'm a happily married woman ..." I feel like screaming "Oh really?"

Slut!

First of all -assuming that's true- who cares? I don't want to be cruel here, but who wants to read about your lousy happiness and egregious contentedness? That's just bragging. And bragging is mind-numbingly boring.

Your pointed denial, brownie recipe and ugly kids do not interest me. I wanna read a blog about a guy that thinks he's a parking meter and fights crime when the red "Time Expired" flag comes up -but is deathly allergic to crawfish. Or maybe a lawyer that reunites the ghosts of roadkill cats with the drivers that killed them for some old-school payback.

Mulling over your pedestrain blasé bliss is not how I want to spend an afternoon: I suggest when your spouse comes home from the accounting firm or whatever, answer the door wearing nothing but Saran Wrap and a thin coat of Vaseline ... and then jack 'em up with a tire iron.

Aside from that, bank robberies are always a good bet. Too much planning? How about good ‘ol fashioned arson?

C’mon people! Use your imagination here!

Just For the Smell of It

Predator Press

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I struggled for days with the "Smelly" meme-slash-tag from the delightful and original Nooter the Dog, "Name 5 Smells You Like and Dislike."

I did two or three drafts and didn't like any of them.

But the harder it was, the more it intrigued me. The difficulty, I finally concluded, was mostly attributable to the nature of the question: I don't really have five "likes" and "dislikes" in this particular category.

Smell for me is like how I regard the weather: the best weather is weather I can't feel. There's good weather, and then there's too hot weather, too cold weather, too rainy weather, blah blah.

Similarly, with smell there's good smell, and then there's serin gas, burning living room, freshly-baked bread probably laced with anthrax, et cetera.

-The role of smell for me has pretty much been reduced to that of an Early Warning System.

Based on this logic, I did finally come up with my one best candidate for "most disliked smell": the smell of burning nostril hair. But burning nostril hair also appears at the top of my "Most Liked" smell chart, as this smell would trigger my brain to fire all the necessary synapses required to pull my head out of the deep fryer (should that embarrassing circumstance ever occur again -melting flesh doesn't smell too good either, but it wouldn't make my top 5).

Ultimately I decided when I sat down to give the theme my own "twist": I would give my #1 topmost "dislikes" and "likes" for all the senses.


Top Sensory Likes:
This one is easy.

-They are all my wife, Terri.


Top Sensory Dislikes:
#1 Sight Dislike: Suffering

Be it human or animal, physical injuries and dead stuff give me the willies ... there's apparently a strong visual component to my level of empathy.

Remember that movie where the entire town was bustling about waiting for a giant great white shark to eat them, but then the writers used a word processor to replace the words "great white shark" with "volcano" and "Sheriff Brody" with "Pierce Brosnan" in the script -and then renamed the movie Dante's Peak? Pierce Brosnan gets a compound fracture in that movie, and it totally freaked me out. That's how utterly and helplessly squeamish I am: Pierce Brosnan getting banged up at the end of ninety minutes of full-blown big-budget Hollywood cowchip shoulda made me cheer.

To this day, if you showed me a picture of myself in that theater suffering through Dante's Peak I would totally pass out.

But speaking of cowchips ...

#1 Smell Dislike: Dairy Farms

We drove by a dairy farm twice a few weeks ago on the way to and from Morro Bay. See that I underlined 'drove by'? I did that on purpose. I wanted to point out that we were not stopping there: we were going 65 miles per hour. I also wanted to differentiate between that and a 'drive by,' which would imply Terri and I were gunning the cows down in the street while flashing Hereford gang signs.

So now that that's cleared up, on the way up to Morro Bay it was pretty bad, but not particularly bad enough to make this list.

But driving back that night it was horrendous. Seriously. Remember that scene in Total Recall when Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rachel Ticotin tumble out onto the surface of Mars without an atmosphere and their eyes get all weird and freaky? That was me 'an Terri. That thick air hit us like a wall -even with the windows rolled up- and it was all I could do not to light a match and blow us -cows and all- straight to Hell.

We should make these cheap farmers just buy their damned milk at the store just like everyone else.

#1 Touch Dislike: Velvet and Cotton

Call it a phobia or something. I'm fine with snakes, spiders, whatever ... but if there's a cotton ball in my aspirin and I can't find assistance, I'm totally screwed: something about that intemperate soft dryness makes my skin crawl.

Eweee!

#1 Sound Dislike: Terri's Ringtone

I love Terri with all my heart, but I'm not alone on this: everybody hates it. It's some chick singing "I hope you know, I hope you know that this has nothing to do with you." The song in itself isn't bad, but Terri -a person who's cell goes off constantly- has had it for a year now. Plus she's a 'Gal on the Go' and I am the exact opposite -a 'Guy On The Couch': I associate that ringtone with needing to throw some ring into Mount Doom, or visiting yet another relative that doesn't watch football.

#1 Taste Dislike: Cigarette Lit at Wrong End

Yes you Health Nazis, I smoke. In fact I compile spreadsheets of where you people live, and at night sneak into your house to smoke cigars under your newborn baby's cribs!

Ah just kidding. I just made up the part about the spreadsheets. But cigarette smokers know what I mean here. There are four stages to inhaling the wrong end of a filtered cigarette:

1) Denial: At this stage, the smoke in your lungs "feels" kinda funny. You look at your hand and confirm your worst fear: the filter is indeed lit, and the wrong end is between your fingers. "That doesn't mean anything" you tell yourself. "It's all circumstantial!" But inevitably you arrive at

2) Acceptance: For what is likely less than a second, you seemingly have an eternity of anticipating the horrible taste of whatever they make those things out of. "What is that awful taste, anyway?" you'll be thinking. "Is it fiberglass with a dash of pulverized fish bones?" Seriously. "I remember last time it tasted like a dehydrated peanut putter and sardine sandwich melting in my mouth-"

3) Bargaining: This usually takes the form of a thought like, "Maybe if I stuck a pencil through my eye, the pain would drown out the taste of it-"

4) Fruition: Boom! The taste hits, and all your friends laugh as your entire face collapses into a singularity of utter disgust. In fact, that's how they spot your dumbass backwards-lit cigarette: before you're even tasting "normal" again, you're the butt (pardon my pun) of about twelve minutes of public amusement and shaming.
In Conclusion (or "Swift and Lethal Meme-Slash-Tag Payback")
Here's the part where I'm supposed to "hand off" the tag to five other people. But for the various reasons I explained, this post took me more time than any other post this year.

With that in mind, I've decided to make this more egalitarian and fair. So consider my 'comments' a sort of a 'Do Not Call' list like the government has for telemarketers ... except it's a 'Do Not Tag' list.

-Anyone who doesn't comment remains eligible.

(Sneaky 'lil bastard, ain't I? heehee)

Torque

Predator Press

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“I suppose,” I says, pacing back and forth across the room, “you’re all wondering why I’ve called you here.”

Complainy doesn’t miss a beat. “Because you haven’t found a job yet, and you’re slowly losing your mind?”

I stop and turn slowly to face my 16 year old daughter, but Screechy tugs on my leg. “Can I play Star Wars Legos?”

“No Star Wars Legos for anyone until I find out who did it,” I reply.

“Did what?” asks Terri.

“Something so vile and horrendous,” I says eyeing Shiftless warily, “the consequences will be dire.” I lean into a squirmy Shiftless and repeat in an ominous whisper, elongating two sylables slowly: “Die-re!”

“Mom he’s gone completely crazy,” says Complainy.

“Crazy like a fox!” I exclaim. “A crime-solving fox with X-Ray vision so’s he can peer into the dark hearts of evildoers!”

“Honey,” says Terri. “Would you please at least shave? You look like the guy in Cast Away.”

I look down at my own chest. Without a mirror I can’t quite see the beard yet, but it occurs to me that I’m in rumpled pajamas, an untied bathrobe and slippers.

-In and of itself this isn’t so weird, but it’s two o’clock in the afternoon.

I turn to Terri suspiciously. “And you sure seem to want to change the subject a lot!” I snap.

Shiftless is clearly losing patience. “So what is this ‘horrendous act’ you had to wake me up for?”

I grab the sheet and pause for a moment to build the drama. Then, in a quick, smooth motion I pull it away. Having revealed what was underneath, I point at it while facing them accusingly.

“What’s wrong with the television?” asks Terri.

My jaw almost falls open at her lack of observation.

I point again.

“Nobody messed with your crappy TV,” says Complainy.

“Can I play Star Wars Legos?” asks Screechy.

"There will be no fun in this household until justice is served!" Shaking with rage, I point a little closer to the upper left corner.

Terri squints. “What. Is it that fingerprint?”

Finally!

Rendered by fury unable to speak, I nod.

“So somebody probably touched the screen while we were moving it,” says Shiftless. “Heck it might’ve been you.”

“Silence!” I demand. “If 97 back-to-back episodes of Forensic Files have taught me anything," I says flatly, "It's that when you find a fingerprint there's been a crime. The last time I saw this television, it was snuggly chained between six mattresses and those six mattresses were encased in carbonite!"

“Can I play Star Wars Legos?” asks Screechy.

"-And I have further proof it was not me, as you have so clearly implied.” I show Shiftless the non-matching pads of my finger through my magnifying glass. “If you still think that print is mine," I add, "I’ve prepared a PowerPoint presentation we can go through later that illustrates the differences. My fingerprint is an ‘arch’ while this is clearly a 'whorl.'”

“Look honey,” says Terri from behind me. “It comes right off with a paper tow-“

“Stop!” I scream. “You’re contaminating the DNA!”

Vocation, Vocation, Vocation

Predator Press

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“What can I do for you?” asks Mrs. Walberg.

“Well,” I says to the primly dressed woman. “My wife told me that if I have time to make Sporn, I have time to look for a job. So I saw your add in the paper saying these things would make me very wealthy. I’m totally in.”

Mrs. Walberg beams an unnaturally white smile as we enter the barn. “Do you have any experience with alpacas?”

“Alpacas are in my blood. My great grandfather ran an alpaca store, and my father lost the whole business in hand of poker. Despite the tragedy of it all, I’m third generation." I stick my thumbs through the belt loops of my jeans and add, "I'm a legacy if you think about it.”

Just inside the barn now, she stops and reaches for my hand and pats it softly in a gesture of comfort. “It must have broken your heart to lose all those dear animals at such a tender age.”

Alpacas are animals?

“Oh yeah,” I says looking sadly at the ground, thinking quickly. “We had it all. Alpaca merchandising, alpaca cages, alpaca um, food … you name it. And every Christmas dad would pick out the fattest alpaca of all, and serve him up open-pit with a balsamic glaze and-”

I feel her hand stop.

“You ate alpacas?” she asks coolly.

Oops.

“There was never any money for food at Christmas,” I begin slowly. “This was due to –ah- dad’s gambling problem. Yeah. It was either eat an alpaca or one of the kids, and the alpacas couldn’t vote.” I pretend to rub a tear from my eye. “Dad was a very sick man,” I sniff.

“How many alpacas do you want?”

“I need to make a lot of money quick. How many do you have?”

“Several hundred.”

“That’s probably a pretty good start,” I says. “Will they all fit in my car or will I have to make a few trips?”

Mrs. Walberg laughs. “Oh look,” she says, pointing behind me. “One of them is curious about you. Her name is Molly.”

When I turned to look, I saw a freakish creature so hideously deformed it could only be explained by God being really, really mad at it: it looked like the product of a deeply inbred dog raped by a meth-addled ostrich.

I'm pretty sure I screamed before I passed out.

Meh.

-I've had worse job interviews.

Predator Press Earns "Idiot of the Week" Award

Predator Press

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Were it not for the Mighty Mighty Diesel, I might never have known that I’d received The Super Liberal’s “Idiot of the Week” Award for my post Barack Obama is BLACK!?!

This honor -as far as I can tell- has only been bestowed upon the very enjoyable Downloadable Ryan Garns’ blog [linked] thus far. There may actually be more recipients of this cherished prize, but this would require me to do tedious ‘research’ and ‘fact checking.'

While being deeply moved by this coveted acknowledgement, learning about this five days later -and by a third party to boot- kinda puts us in a lurch … as you know, we are moving into our new apartment this week. How are Terri and I to find something suitable to wear for the ceremony at the last moment under these circumstances? Do we need to RSVP? Is there free food? And do I need to write an acceptance speech?

I’ve decided that the best course of action is to develop a new award to return the favor.

Please forgive the rather primitive and crude Photoshopping as my computer is still in storage -I hadda steal the image from the late great Kurt Vonnegut’s book Breakfast of Champions and do it in Microsoft Paint.

But it’s the thought that counts, right?

Congratulations 'Super Liberal.'

You’ve earned this.

Where There's Brimstone ...

Predator Press

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Today I read an article on CNN about how George W. Bush “did not sell his soul in order to accommodate the political process.”

-This is unfortunate as the value of his soul has been in severe decline since his inception into office.

“Yep, it’s a fact,” says noted soul broker Lou C. Ferr. “The resale value of George W. Bush’s soul has been in such decline for so long, at this point I don’t think even I could find a buyer.”

When asked for advice on how to increase the value of one’s soul, Lou elaborates. “It’s like the economy. At some point the actual value needs to be truthfully recognized or the whole system falls apart like a house of cards and into chaos."

"If George is serious about profiting on his investment," Lou adds, "he should start small ... Maybe get a puppy or do some volunteer work.”

Elvis, Bigfoot and Nessie Agree: UFOs Do Not Exist

Predator Press

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Okay, you got me. A more accurate title of this post woulda been “Predator Press Reviews: Bordello of Blood.” But who would want to read a review of a fourteen year-old movie I fell asleep twenty minutes into watching?

But since you're here, “Bordello of Blood” is a documentary about what was likely the worst whorehouse in history ... I mean just to get in you have to be launched via coffin through a crematorium. While I’m sure this technique goes a long way to befuddle the local law enforcement, massage parlors have been doing just fine on this behalf since the day of the caveman.

Still you end up really feeling sorry for those girls … due to poor management and numerous safety violations I don’t think any of them made a dime: one after another the 'johns' are killed -often by the prostitutes themselves- long before any cash or credit card information is exchanged.

Perhaps the only uplifting element is Corey Feldman’s most riveting acting since The Goonies as the swashbuckling rugged hero Caleb Verdoux, and this doubtlessly earned him numerous Oscars and Emmys. Having proven he had "range" and could carry a movie as a leading man, this catapulted him into larger subsequent roles such as when he played Haley Jo Osment in The Sixth Sense and his superlative portrayal of Tom Hanks in Cast Away.

But I’m not going to sugarcoat it: despite the stellar cast and watertight script, I was still woken numerous times during inordinately loud commercial breaks hawking Extenze sexual enhancement pills, various malt liquors, X-Box 360 games and Old Spice. This seemed to me a curiously optimistic, overly-broad, improbable, and often contradictory target market: how many employed, active, cheap, alcoholic video game players with disposable income that might actually cross paths with women can there possibly be?

-I'm calling that entire demographic of consumer into question.

Predator Press ultimately gives Bordello of Blood seventy-two “Thumbs Up” for the gifted and versatile talents of Corey Feldman, a bonus fifteen "Thumbs Up" for working the words 'Bordello' and 'Blood' right smack in the title, a minus thirty-two “Thumbs Down” for waking me up during a particularly vivid dream about flying (which is two negatives which you actually add ... I'm afraid of heights), and then a final minus nine "Thumbs Up" because some kind of bug kept landing on my television screen.

I mean can you even squash a bug on a flat screen?

-Wouldn’t, like, squished bug guts mix up the plasma or something?

The Eagle is Stranded

Predator Press

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Well, sixty days in and we finally got a place: Terri and I exchange what little cash we have left with our new landlord tomorrow morning. And maybe -as the place isn‘t occupied- he‘ll [*hope-hope*] let us move in early.

The weird thing is this is one of the few places Terri and I both liked -I’ve liked everything since our Californian, eh, 'occupation,' but Terri wants, like, plumbing 'an stuff.

“How ’bout this one?” I would ask her.

“It’s a second floor,” she would scowl. “Screechy might fall down the stairs.”

“Kids can be remarkably resilient,” I point out.

"Can you?"

“Okay fine," I concede. "This one seems nice.”

“No,” she would sigh. “It’s in a bad neighborhood.”

“But we would be great Crips," I insist.

Terri scowls.

"Okay forget it," I says. "How about this one?”

“That’s a box of Rice-A-Roni with an old sock in it.”

“I like it’s portability frankly," I says. "We could totally drag it into an upscale school district. And once we're 'settled in' I can add on a tomato soup can for when people come visit."

Exclusive: Barack Obama is BLACK

Predator Press

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I might never have caught it, but a news conference interrupted my traditional Sunday Riverdance marathon ... one minute Michael Flatley is blazing into what could possibly be the most intense and amazing Riverdance crescendo ever, and the next, boom, some guy is going, "Ladies and gentlemen, President Elect Barack Obama."

It took me a second, you know? Like there's something you can't quite put your finger on?

Thinking maybe something was wrong with the contrast on my television, I compared Barack to my life-sized autographed cardboard cutout of Rick Dees.

Hmmmm.

Feeling I was on the verge of some kind of breakthrough, I then meditated alternately between a box of Cheerios and a can of black olives while listening to my Marie Osmond records.

I almost have it.

Only after careful examination of my Dale Earnhardt commemorative plates did it hit me like a bolt of lightning:

Barack Obama is black!

-I was so rattled, I almost missed my accordion lesson.

Predator Press Reviews: Coal Miner's Daughter

Predator Press

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Loretta Lynn, played by Sissy Spacek, is a chick that knows a lot of dudes that wear cowboy hats: this culminates ultimately into her making a career bitchin' about her husband and their horrible lifestyle together into a microphone to millions and millions of listeners nationwide.

Her husband -played by Tommy Lee Jones- eventually gets pissed off because he's tired of her bitchin' about him and their horrible lifestyle together into a microphone to millions and millions of listeners nationwide -but then realizes he’s making an assload of cash from her doing it.

Predator Press gives this movie sixty four “Thumbs Up!”

-Still, it’s depressing to think how much better Loretta Lynn’s music would have been if Tommy Lee Jones smacked the bitch around for a few hours and then made her bark like a dog while she made waffles.

I understand they were impoverished, but how much could a decent riding crop cost?

Her whiny country music prob'ly woulda been awesome then.

Ca-rack!

Hansel and Gretel

-as retold by Predator Press

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“And that’s why," I complain, “I absolutely hate the name Hansel.”

“So,” replies Gretel, cutting back a thicket with her machete. Despite the disproportionate size of the knife in her small hands she was really becoming quite adept; within moments they were now moving through the forest at a respectable pace. “You’re saying that you can't join the Ultimate Fighting Championship is because our parents named you Hansel?"

“It might as well have been Petunia," I says. Wiping the sweat out of my eyes, I wince into my fingers. “When the ring announcer says ‘In this corner, Brock Lesnar!’ you immediately think of some huge hulking guy that eats battleship hulls and craps cannonballs. But when he says ‘In this corner Hansel,” you think of somebody prancin‘ around barefoot on flower petals.”

"So what are we supposed to call you then?" asks Gretel, slightly ahead.

"I don't know," I says. "How about 'The Hulking Super Iron Man Wolverine?'"

"Seems kinda long," says Gretel. "And how 'hulking' are you really? I'm four foot six and I'm taller than you."

"Nuh-uh!"

"And then you fight Brock Lesnar?"

"Brock Lesnar cannot be defeated," I explain. "That's why he will be my tag-team partner."

Suddenly Gretel motions for Hansel to stop. Crawling forward on her belly, she spies something of interest in the distance.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Shh!” she whispers sharply.

"You ain't the boss of me."

“There’s a weird looking house up here," says Gretel. "And I thought I heard something. Something like chewing.”

“Oh that’s just me,” I says. “I got hungry, so’s I’ve been nibbling on this here sack of croutons you gave me.”

“You idiot,” snaps Gretel, knocking them from his hand. “You were supposed to be dropping them behind us so we could find our way back to the campsite!”

“Well remember that chick in the red dress skipping with the basket?”

“Yes,” says Gretel distractedly, looking through her binoculars. “You said you wanted to ‘open her basket and check out her goodies.’”

“-And the bitch slapped me! I thought she might have bacon bits or ranch or cheddar or something. I've already eaten the croutons. If I don't find my way up to a full-on salad I'm going to feel like a total fatass."

Gretel sighs.

“She said you don’t want to leave croutons," I continue. "The damn animals will eat ‘em. You want to carry a GPS, or at the very least a map and a compass. And that we probably wouldn't want to go back there anyways because of all the recent wolf attacks,” I explain. "Three little pigs and a jackhammer are reported missing."

"Hansel, our parents are back there!"

Yes, I'm thinking. 'Hansel' eh?

"It's the Circle of Life," I shrug. "What're they, like, fifty or something? They had a good run."

“Well if you're hungry, you may be in luck,” says Gretel zooming in with the binoculars. “It's some kind of restaurant."

“Cool,” I says.

"Weird. Why would somebody build a restaurant way out here?" Gretel scans the surrounding area. "Huh. I don't see a payphone, but there’s a sign that says 'FREE PORKCHOPS' ... and there's some kid running up to the place. He almost looks ....like ...

!!!

"Hansel, you get back here!" she screamed.


***

I’ll bet I was only six or seven pork chops in when ol’ spoilsport Gretel showed up in an obviously too-large waitress outfit.

“Psst,” she says, looking in another direction.

“You ain’t foolin anybody Gretel,” I says, dipping my chicken wing in the chocolate ice cream. "And can you please move? I can't see the Laker‘s game with you standing there."

“Don’t you understand?” growls Gretel. “She’s trying to fatten you up so she can eat you! If we don't find a telephone-!”

"That sweet old woman wouldn't hurt a fly," I scoff. "Besides she's blind as a bat. And have you even tried these pork chops?”

“Those might not even be pork.”

“Well that would explain why I keep finding these Matchbox cars in them,” I figure. "I thought they were prizes."

“Has she been checking how much you weigh?”

“Well she keeps asking me to stick out a digit so she can feel it,” I offer. “And then she complains how scrawny I am.”

"I think she meant a finger."

"Well let just say I won't be pressing any charges either," I reply. "Now come on. I know you're hungry too. You've gotta try these potato skins. She put whipped cream on them!"

Gretel slides into the booth. “You really think this is just a kindly old woman?”

“I've never been so certain of anything in my life," I says confidently. Pulling up a particularly plump and juicy tender chop with my fork for her viewing I add, "Come on. If you don't learn to lighten up, you're going to end up with an eating disorder or something."

"Ooh," says Gretel, licking her lips while eyeing the menu. "That sun-dried basil bruschetta looks deliiiicious!"

"Meh," I grunt. "It's all veggies and crap. Ask her to put some M&Ms and butter in it or something."