Predator Press Interviews: Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger

Predator Press

[LOBO]

LOBO: Who are you again?

Captain Sullenberger: I’m the guy that safely landed the plane in the Hudson River, saving 155 passengers.

LOBO: ‘Safely landed?’

Captain Sullenberger: Yes. It was in all the papers.

LOBO: But isn’t ‘landed in a river’ pilotspeak for crash?

Captain Sullenberger: Well-

LOBO: Well I don’t know why you are so famous. I’ll bet there are billions of hilarious pilots that haven’t crashed anything.

Captain Sullenberger: Hilarious?

LOBO: Well, anytime someone brings twelve inches of documents to an interview, I assume it'll be boring. I was being sarcastic.

Captain Sullenberger: Both engines failed due to bird strikes.

LOBO: You had two engines and still crashed? I crashed a van into a lake once. That only had one engine. If I woulda had two, I’ll bet I coulda pulled her out.

Captain Sullenberger: I suppose.

LOBO: And what kind of name is ‘Sullenberger.’ Is that French?

Captain Sullenberger: No.

LOBO: Are you on any reality shows like Survivor?

Captain Sullenberger: No.

LOBO: Dancing With the Stars maybe?

Captain Sullenberger: No.

LOBO: I’m having a really, really hard time making you seem interesting.

Captain Sullenberger: I’m an international speaker on airline safety.

LOBO: Well given the circumstances that’s just ironic, don’t you think?

Captain Sullenberger: I thought you said you were with Time Magazine.

LOBO: I probably did at some point. Hey what’s with the weird mustache? It makes you look suspicious.

Captain Sullenberger: I like it.

LOBO: You should lose it. Plus maybe try a combover. They got stuff you can brush in that would make you look, like, fifty years younger.

Captain Sullenberger: I fail to see-

LOBO: Like you failed to see the Hudson River?

Captain Sullenberger: You’re putting words in my mouth.

LOBO: Words like when you failed the US Airways eye exam, it was covered up? And you thought the Hudson River was a McDonalds drive thru?

Captain Sullenberger: You can’t fit an A320 in a McDonalds drive thru.

LOBO: Not with those peepers baby.

Captain Sullenberger: Stop waving your hand in front of my face. I can see perfectly.

LOBO: Then explain the mustache. It looks like you’re smuggling albino caterpillars.

Captain Sullenberger: It does not.

LOBO: Can you explain your rather lackluster career prior to the Hudson River event?

Captain Sullenberger: Excuse me?

LOBO: It says in your bio you’ve been flying since the seventies. Shouldn’t you be, like, an admiral or something by now?

Captain Sullenberger: I’m a commercial pilot.

LOBO: Do captains outrank skippers? For instance if you were on the SS Minnow, could you have bossed around Alan Hale?

Captain Sullenberger: Who?

LOBO: Ah. Admirals would probably have to study a lot of history.

Captain Sullenberger: I’ve got two masters degrees, and been a member of Mensa since I was twelve.

LOBO: [singsong] Now sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip …

Captain Sullenberger: That’s Gilligan’s Island.

LOBO: Gilligan was the biggest boob on that island. Why did they name it after him?

Captain Sullenberger: I don’t know.

LOBO: Can you make a radio out of coconuts?

Captain Sullenberger: No.

LOBO: A generator out of a stationary bicycle?

Captain Sullenberger: No.

LOBO: A car out of palm fronds?

Captain Sullenberger: No.

LOBO: Sweet Jesus help me out here! If I publish an interview this boring on Predator Press, the readers will have me flayed!

Captain Sullenberger: I’m sorry. I’m trying.

LOBO: Ever bomb the crap out of Charlie?

Captain Sullenberger: I was eight years old during the Vietnam War.

LOBO: Japs?

Captain Sullenberger: That was even earlier. I would have been negative twelve or so.

LOBO: C’mon buddy. This is a Predator Press interview. Can’t you just make something up?

Captain Sullenberger: Like what? I went back in time?

LOBO: Did you kill Hitler?

Captain Sullenberger: No.

LOBO: Well, the whole ‘back in time’ thing would be pretty flaccid then.

Captain Sullenberger: Can I go now?

LOBO: This is your office.

Captain Sullenberger: I don’t care.

LOBO: Are you going to McDonalds? I love McDonalds!

Predator Press Movie-Middle Reviews: Jet Li's "The One"

Predator Press

[LOBO]

Sure there’s a million sites out there that review movies.

But you know how sometimes you want to watch television and a decent movie has already been playing for a half an hour?

That’s our niche.

I’m proud to present Predator Press Movie-Middle Reviews, and the historic first Movie Middle to be reviewed will be The One staring action hero Jet Li.

Just getting in from grocery shopping, Terri and I started this movie 24 minutes in where we found Jet Li playing a character that liked to karate chop people a lot. So much so, at some point he karate chopped guys with motorcycles. Heck, at some point he even ended up karate chopping himself! Maybe he ran out of other people to karate chop, or maybe the cameramen and editors simply got confused in a karate chop filming frenzy -I don't know. But the money they saved on casting is clearly reflected in the heavily-researched accuracy you've come to expect in law enforcement documentaries.

Despite having a number in the title, this movie is completely devoid of boring mathematics altogether: it's karate choppin a go-go. The One is an intense, riveting classic drama I couldn’t take my eyes off of until the microwave beeped that the popcorn was done; by the time I got back with the bowl Terri had changed the channel to Desperate Housewives (at which point I decided to wash the car).

Man I don’t think I’ve ever seen more karate chops in eighteen minutes: Predator Press Movie-Middle Reviews scores the middle of The One with a hefty eighty seven “Thumbs Up,” making it the highest rated Predator Press Movie-Middle Review so far, and a juggernaut of the short attention span.

Be sure to tune in for our next installment where we scathingly eviscerate the middle of “The Sixth Sense”: this movie has no violence or nudity at all, and instead it features a bunch of lazy zombies lolling around and bein' nice to everybody.

Despite being buoyed by Haley Joel Osment’s cuteness, this is doubtlessly the worst movie-middle ever made. The Sixth Sense will stagger out a critical failure, ultimately garnering a mere sixty-one "Thumbs Up."

Tops.

It Takes a Child to Raze a Village

Predator Press

[LOBO]

Playing a lot of Final Fantasy XII, I can only guess how many marriages and careers have been wrecked by this highly addictive game ... I’m already beginning to hallucinate little blue and red health bars hovering over people’s heads. But when Screechy (our six year old) was stricken by an unmerciful God with pinkeye, it kinda “shook me out of it.”

It was time for comedy.

A year or so ago Crackers, his oldest sister, playfully sprayed his neck with a perfume ... and as a result Screechy is also affectionately known as “Stinkneck.” Now of course with pinkeye, I say he has “Stinkeye” too. Psychotherapeutic technique is improving all the time, and he’s get a good ten years until then … let's get our laughs in early and often.

So I’m watching television and commiserating with him, and Go, Diego, Go! comes on. I’m immediately suspicious. I never trust children’s programming that wears punctuation like a two dollar whore, and in three words we have two commas and exclamation point. Is that even a sentence? Then it turns out this “Diego” character is a spinoff of another show called Dora the Explorer. So now I have huge chasms of missing information, and the first of which is their resemblance: is it a byproduct of the cartoon style, or is asking this question the equivalent of a racist comment on par with “all Hispanics look alike”?

Okay I’m like eight minutes into the show and I’m stressing out in a soiree of Politically Correct confusion. I speed-dial Terri, and she narrowly averts my cranial detonation with the news that Diego and Dora are indeed cousins -the likelihood if fast forwarding twelve years to find Dora putting a bullet in Diego’s noggin because he came home meth-addled and covered in lipstick, glitter, and Safari perfume are significantly reduced. This makes it all "come together" really: the glaring absence of Dora and Diego's parents -the ones that let their kids run around jungles and play with wild animals unsupervised- is now explainable ... they were obviously jailed long, long ago for child endangerment and neglect.

But just as I hung up the phone and the anxiety began to pass, Diego was now rescuing a Chinchilla on a breaking tree branch from falling into a waterfall with a hang glider. And even as I tried to piece together all the improbable physics required for this to occur, the Chinchilla looked at Diego and said -plain as day- “Gracias.”

Seething once again with questions, I tried to call Terri again ... but I kept getting her voicemail.

If the Chinchilla is bilingual, isn’t it fair to say that the stupid thing shouldn’t have been on that tree branch in the first place? And if I found out I just risked life and limb (and let’s face it: hang gliders are probably expensive) for a creature perfectly qualified to score a few hundred points on a SAT that I couldn't sue, I would be really mad.

And wouldn't a Chinchilla being rescued from falling into a waterfall by a kid on a hang glider be, well, freaky for a Chinchilla? This would be the human equivalent of a UFO abduction. Maybe the aliens are snatching up those people to try and explain why they should get the hell away from the trailer park before the tornado comes, but once confronted with the staggering opacity of the individuals, the discouraged aliens just anal probe the daylights out of them in sheer frustration.

Well, we’re all thinkin’ it so I’m just going to come right out and say it: we've been coddling the Chinchilla for far too long now, and it's high time they switched habitats with the trailer park people. The trailer park people would be far safer in the mountains where there aren’t any tornados, and the Spanish-speaking Chinchillas would probably know what to do with all those broken down El Caminos.

Anywho, be back soon.

“Backyardigans” is coming on.

Destroyer

Predator Press

[LOBO]

Of the past two weeks, I could regale you with tales of how I vanquished Ragnarok the Colossus –or perhaps even discuss how, vastly outnumbered, I crushed and humiliated Thrang the Human Rototiller, leaving two hundred thousand of his highest-ranking minions decimated, smoldering husks on the beachhead of Des Moines^[1]. But I’m sure you’re already inundated by these stories on CNN and Fox; I won’t bore you with more details.

What I will bore you with is the ongoing fiscal crisis. As a decorated war hero of World Wars VI, X and Pi, you would think simply finding a job would be a snap. But I have made powerful enemies, and nothing gives a Human Resources department pause like the possibility –however remote- of Martha Stewart’s armada returning from banishment in the eighth dimension and looking for swift and lethal payback^[2].

Sure I could just remove that element from my résumé and thusly avoid the issue entirely, but I consider it a test of the respective corporation’s courage and patriotic fortitude; while a particularly formidable foe, I don’t want to work for a bunch of pansies afraid of Martha Stewart –not with the empires of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Oprah Winfrey always sniffin’ around for signs of opportunity and weakness. This would only encourage our would-be oppressors.

“In these precarious and tumultuous times, cowardice amounts to treason!” I says, slamming my briefcase and storming out. “This interview is over. Good day sir.”

-Assholes.

Still, the Predator Press Trust Fund -the one established from the lawsuit when Britney Spears was clipping her toenails and the shrapnel slashed deeply into my shoulder and nearly cost me an eye- ever dwindles. Unless I magic me up some solutions pronto, concessions must be made.

Luckily Kung Fu Master David Carradine’s private phone number is listed in the phone book. Surely he -a wise, world renown forward-thinking philosophical intellect- can advise me on these matters.

I left him a few dozen messages yesterday.

He’ll know what to do.


^[1] Remember Thrang, we're not laughing at you -we're laughing in your general direction about the dumbass crap you always try and pull plus the fact that you're an idiot.

^[2] Martha’s Stewart’s culpability should not be ignored here either: she tried to seduce me wearing nothing but a thong, Latex pasties and a gimp mask in an effort to acquire my recipe for Christmas cookies shaped like the ‘Peanuts’ characters in pornographic positions.

-When my wife Terri found out, intergalactic bloodshed was, well, inevitable.

The "Home Grown" Terrorists

Predator Press

[LOBO]

Regarding the still-emerging story about the local boys in New York who were thwarted by the FBI from destroying synagogues and planes, I’m just as intrigued as anyone else.

-But I can’t finish reading msnbc.com’s version (linked here); every time I get to the line in the story that asserts one of them “smoked marijuana the day the plot was to be carried out,” my brain just strokes off.

Am I the only one here impressed that guy even showed up? And why couldn’t he just eat frozen Snickers and play XBox like everyone else? Did he even have an Xbox?

Cripes, you can’t start a Holy War if you can’t get a damn Xbox -Osama would laugh at you and send you home with a note pinned to your shirt! And perhaps justly so; The FBI arranged for these guys to be given useless explosives ... the real Al Qaeda probably drug tests their members to ensure they don't try to detonate tapioca or, stricken with "the munchies," eat half the explosives before arriving at the target.

Anywho, as mentioned earlier, they intended to shoot down planes as well. Where do you get stuff to shoot down planes in New York of all places? I don’t remember seeing bazookas and so forth readily available there, so I suspect you have to order them out of a catalog or something.

-So now I’m stuck with this image in my head of the guy calling a weapons company customer service rep:

Rep: Thank you for holding sir, my name is Frances. May I help you?

Terrorist: Yes, um. I would like to order the M-950. Does it come in black?

Rep: No I’m sorry sir. It does not.

Terrorist: How about the A-75?

Rep: Well, yes we have the A-75 in black. But may I ask what you want to use it for?

Terrorist: Hunting.

Rep: You are hunting with an anti-aircraft weapon?

Terrorist: Let’s just say I don’t mess around with ducks and quail pal.

Rep: How big is the game?

Terrorist: About 900,000 pounds.

Rep: You don’t want to use an A-75. I would still go with the M-950.

Terrorist: Yeah, but those only come in pastels.

Rep: They're very popular in Hawaii.

Terrorist: What would shipping come out to?

Rep: We ship free of your order is for ten or more. You could take your friends hunting too.

Terrorist: Hmmm. Okay. But I want a tracking number when they ship. It’s really depressing when you are watching for the mailman everyday and he doesn’t have your stuff.

Rep: I understand completely. Are you ready to give your credit card information?

Terrorist: Uh yeah. It’s in this here purse. Hang on.

Rep: Purse?

Terrorist: I mean wallet. My wallet. Here it is. The card is a … VISA, and my name is Nancy Zimmerman. You know what? It was a purse after all. Nancy Zimmerman. I have a very deep voice for a woman. I hear that all the time.

Rep: Nancy, can I get you any ammunition?

Terrorist: Twenty cases.

Rep: Nancy if you order twenty-five cases, you get a free set of Franklin Mint Charlton Heston commemorative plates ...

The Piltdown Clan

Predator Press

[LOBO]

”LOBO,” says God.

“What?”

”I see you’re reading the story on CNN about-“

“God, can you please crank it down a notch?” I says. “You’re making my teeth vibrate.”

”Oh, eh, sorry. How’s this?”

“That’s perfect. What’s up, G?”

”I see you’re reading the story on CNN about those 47 million year old fossilized remains.”

“Yeah,” I says. “They’re speculating it might be an ancestor of humans.”

“What do you think about humans being descended from apes?”

“Have you met my parents?”

[Holy Pause]

“Touché.”

How To Tell A Witch When You See One

Predator Press

[LOBO]

Tammy Faye Pillowcases to Hang at Louvre Amid Controversy

Predator Press

[LOBO]

From the moment the Louvre announced it’s intent to display all sixteen pieces of “Rhapsody in Linen” this June, protesters lined up in the streets of Paris.

“This is disgraceful,” marked one picketer. “The idea these pillowcases should hang next to great works such as the Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa is simply outrageous!”

Aside from her rather striking makeup style, Tammy Faye Messner is probably best remembered for her doomed marriage to television evangelist Jim Bakker who, due to his extramarital affair with Jessica Hahn, was subsequently exposed and found guilty of numerous crimes including mail fraud and conspiracy.

Director Henri Loyrette concedes that that display is unlike any other displayed in the Museum’s illustrious history, but defends his decision.

“All art is suffering,” says the aficionado. “Michelangelo had censoring detractors. Van Gogh had depression. I don’t see how Tammy Faye running out of cold cream at 3 am at a Holiday Inn would be any different.”

When asked to comment, the InterContinental Hotel Group [IHG], owner of the Holiday Inn franchise issued only the following statement: “We have no interest in exploiting the late Tammy Faye’s good image. But we washed and bleached the damn things like 50 times. We have a right to recoup our losses in any way we see fit.”

LOBO 1, Nature 0

Predator Press

[LOBO]

While being convinced to move here, a mystifying, eh, 'economy of words' were employed when describing native Californian wildlife -in fact I don’t think the phrase “spiders that can kill you” alighted my ear a single time. Hence my eye-rolling when Terri picked up a bite a few weeks ago ... What do I look like? Some kind of spideronomist? Blech! I simply hadn’t yet been briefed on the matter.

“Why didn’t you kill it?” I says, twisting the jar as to eye her tiny assailant better.

“Because I need to find out what kind it is,” she says, already on Google.

“Haw, look at this teeny thing,” I guffaw, tapping the glass. “Should I call the life insurance company and triple your policy?”

“It’s not funny,” she insists. “I once saw a woman in the hospital with her leg almost rotted off from the venom.”

I’m willing to bet I had dug through the plaster, six inches of fiberglass insulation and two inches of floorboarding clear to the ceiling joists before that jar even started to shatter.


***
SO I’ve been a little edgy lately, but I seriously don’t think it’s paranoia; I think it’s due more to sleep depravation from imagining those crawly things moving ever closer in the quiet darkness, chattering in increasingly brazen sub-human (perhaps telepathic) frequencies, and drooling insatiably for human flesh, blood and bone.

Technically that's insomnia.

Unfortunately I saw another one this morning.

In the kitchen.

In the house.

And –I swear upon various gods this is true- the thing ran at me when it saw me.

As I stepped back reflexively, it dawns on me that I’m in socks and shorts. Worse, my bandoleer of alphabetized aerosol pesticides -carelessly set aside in a moment of reckless bravado- is on the counter several feet away.

This little bastard had it all planned out, didn’t he? I’m smirking to myself. Just be cool LOBO. Don’t show it any fucking fear. That’s what it wants. You can't let something the size of a quarter push you around when your bandoleer of alphabetized aerosol pesticides is just a few ... more ...

It moved forward –to me- again.

I moved back, creeping closer to the bandoleer.

... inches ...

Another advance by the spider.

... away ...

And just as I got my fingers around that leather belt, the spider -from a distance of maybe a yard or so- jumped on my leg.

These aren’t Infantry! I realize in horror. I got Airborne! I got Airborne!

But I was prepared for this eventuality: with cunning and guile, I begin flailing my arms wildly while running in circles and screaming exactly as I’d drilled so many times already ... and the second that thing dropped to the floor again WHAMMO I smashed it under the swift, lethal Justice of my microwave oven. Unconvinced my foe was truly vanquished, I then toppled the refrigerator over that wreckage.

-It's a good thing we rent, or fighting these things would be expensive.

It's Funny Until Someone Loses An "I"

Predator Press

[LOBO]

I’ve spent the last two weeks mulling over retiring Predator Press, and finally figured I’m not going to do so –well, not in any formal sense anyway.

Instead, I think I’m going to return it to how it was a few years ago: experimental writing that is not necessarily humorous.

The drawback of a “humor” blog is that it should be funny, and in my archives I’ve found over a hundred posts –short stories and opinion pieces- that didn’t qualify as such. Beyond that there have been dozens and dozens of posts deleted as too serious, vitriolic or adult for broad appeal. Beyond that are the countless stories I’ve back-burnered for the lack of humor, and this is the biggest travesty of all: I’ve caught myself lately concluding some projects are “not funny enough to pursue” and abandoned them at inception.

Far too notoriously lazy to start a second blog showcasing “serious” writing efforts, the all-too-frequently recurring feeling that I’m stuck in a slapstick mode is becoming extremely pervasive. I suppose in this manner I’ve been letting this insidious little blog increasingly dictate how I write and what I write about, and from a creative standpoint I need that to change.

This isn’t to say Predator Press won’t still be funny upon occasion. Quite the contrary, humor writing and dark satire are in no danger of being unseated as my favorite mediums. But I think “mixing it up” a bit can do little but help improve my storytelling, and thusly enrich the experience overall.

What it does mean, however, is that I don’t know what I’ll be writing about anymore.

And for the first time in months, I’m excited at the prospect.

The Last Command

Predator Press

[LOBO]

Out on the Las Vegas city limits, The Hotel Palm was quite detached from the glamour and glitz. In fact, were there not slot machines in the lobby, you might guess you were in the middle of Arizona.

It was three in the morning, but Sandra wore sunglasses to cover her badly-bruised face. Indeed, with the dark wig and trench coat, she looked rather like a Russian spy in a bad "B" movie.

She found the elevator and the stairs roughly at the same time.

On a gut-level instinct, she chose to take the stairs.




***

In the still night, Dean easily heard the car door outside. Heart racing, he flipped the safety on the stolen nine millimeter. A large man, he crouched -almost impossibly small- in the corner behind the door.

In the dark, he held the gun in both hands as he listened.

Sandra tapped lightly. "Dean!" she whispered, afraid. She knew the gun was pointed at her. "It's me."

Dean flicked the safety back on and stood. This certainly could be a setup. But he was now a wanted thief and a killer; even if Sandra betrayed him, he wouldn't endanger her in a firefight. Summoning his courage, he cracked the door open.

And a battered, barefoot Sandra stood there alone.

"Baby," he said pulling her into the small room. Locking the door behind him, he kissed her forehead, her diminutive frame disappearing almost completely in his bear-like embrace. "He can't hurt you anymore. He's gone."

She sobbed into his chest.

"You shouldn't have come here baby. Were you followed?"

"No."

She could smell the recently-fired gun as he tucked it in his jeans. He gently pulled her wig away, the glasses, looking at the inflamed cuts and swollen bruises carefully, consciously trying not to wince. He had never actually met Sandra before, and he mirthlessly mused that a savage monster had ironically rendered her so he never would see her beauty.

As the poor lighting brought his face close to hers, Sandra laughed a little, embarrassed. "I'll be okay in a few days."

Wondering if she had more injuries, Dean opened the trench coat. She wore nothing underneath but a tattered silk blouse. Buttons torn away, the blouse did little to cover her ample breasts.

Instantly erect, Dean pushed her back on the bed.

"Wait," she protested.

In the darkness, he followed her smooth athletic thighs with large, powerful hands, finding her soft clit. Fingertips tracing over the soft, wet flesh -it was either shaved or extremely trim; he couldn't tell, and did not care- he kissed his way closer, drinking in her sweet, natural aroma. Her hard thighs locked tightly around his head as he sucked her off. She climaxed, quickly and violently against his face.

Another car door slam.

"Goddamn it!" says Dean, rising to his feet. "What the hell am I doing?" he asks the air, furious with himself.

Sandra pulled the long coat around her as she sat up, confused.

Fearfully, he peeks out from behind the curtain on the window. "Baby, I'm a wanted man by a lot of really pissed-off people. We shouldn't be together right now." He watches four plain-clothed cops get out of the car, heading for the motel registration office.

You always can tell a cop by how he sizes up a situation.

"It's dangerous," he continued. Unexpectedly, he turns on the light. "Do you have your passport?"

Sandra pats her coat pocket. "Yes".

Kneeling, Dean slides out a black briefcase from under the bed. And then another, similar. "It would be smart to separate the cash too." He flips one open, revealing half of 2.2 million dollars. "Now we have to do this as planned. Get your ass out of here and meet me in Rio, one month from today."

As she gathered herself, he handed the closed bag to her. Kissing her gently on a bruised lip, he whispered, "I love you."

The door clicked shut, and from behind the window's curtain Dean watched her slink into the darkness. The police, still in the office, were probably not expecting to actually find him here in a place so painfully obvious. That was the one advantage of the cops finding him first. The mob would have already posted thugs.

The cops were muddying up the mob search by virtue of merely being present.




***

In the bathroom, he quickly liquefied a rather large and lethal dose of heroin. While Dean had never actually done heroin before, during his time in prison he had gleaned enough about the subject from addicts to be familiar with the subject.

And connections for that matter.

He tied the small rubber tourniquet over his elbow, and patted for a visible vein. With the hypodermic --almost cartoonishly small in his nervous fingers-- he went back to the hotel bed where over a million dollars cash lie exposed to all in a carelessly sprawled briefcase.

A loud bang issued at the door. "Open up!" said the forceful, disembodied voice. "It's the police!"

Finishing the hypo plunge took great concentration. Dean had never administered a shot on himself before.

"We know you're in there!"

A sweet-tasting cottony sensation came over Dean's mouth.

"Go ahead," the faraway voice commanded. "Break it down."

Dean's room imploded, a fantastic display of frantic light and color. Surrounded, he looks up smiling as one of the cops climbs on his massive chest in an attempt to revive him.

The trail ends here officer, he grins helplessly, fading.

And I ain't telling you shit.