All That Sweet Library Money

LOBO -Predator Press

As I throw the switch, I explain "It's time to put on your put on your protective goggles and safety chapstick."

The turbines whine to life.

"So this is how you spend your free time?"

"What?" I says. "I can't hear you."

She leans her mouth to my ear: "SO THIS IS HOW YOU SPEND YOUR FREE TIME?"

It is at this moment I simultateously realize women are imposible to understand, and her hair looks amazing.

"I had my bedroom fans replaced with P-51 Mustang plane engines so it would seem more comfortable and peaceful," I confess. "Those Messerschmitt engines made everything smell like gasoline."

Bandits

LOBO -Predator Press

Internet Swag

LOBO -Predator Press

Malibu

LOBO -Predator Press

The irony of watching plumes of smoke along the coast from the deck of the Honeypot isn't lost on me.

"You look like you would rather be there," Fish giggles, pouring wine.

"Nah," I says, taking a glass. "Protesters, counter-protesters, insurgents ... this is fighting police on police terms."

"So you're admitting it comes down to law?"

I shrug. "Nobody was listening. This had to happen."

Fish and I are coworkers labelled "essential," so we started sort of quarantining together a few months ago to blow off steam. We're an odd pairing. Her house in Malibu burned down several years ago, and local ordinances forbade her rebuilding. In the transition, she moved to the Honeypot to consider her options.

"You understand," she says soberly, "if the business folds, you lose the house."

"Ya," I reply. "Maybe the car too, unless I can pull something out of my keyster. Gina, Rachel and Jiaying are already looking for something else."

They will probably have to take Phil II with them.

"You and Wendy could stay here for a while."

"Thank you," I smile. "But I doubt Guillermo wouldn't stand for that."

Guillermo Del Taco, Fishs' ex husband, is perhaps one of the most intimidating men I've ever met. He lost Honeypot in their bitter divorce. Bad mojo. Plus this is a bit of a trap. Fish isn't good at hiding her romantic intent. For instance, I came aboard under the auspice of 'having dinner.' Where is the food?

When I first met Fish, she was beautiful. But after her divorce, she started getting frequent plastic surgeries. She got the nickname "Fish" when someone unkindly remarked she was starting to look like a Wallace and Gromit love interest. My penis and I have intuited some sort of self-mutilation in process. She's unrecognizable now, and a weird metaphor; like America, I'm not sure I ever knew what she was. Over time, all the cosmetics and polish are observable as a very thin veneer.

This version of 'beauty' must stop. It's not healthy.

"I've been waiting for this my whole life," I muse out loud, and a salty waft of smoke blows by. "And I don't know how to help it."

Destroy The Running

LOBO -Predator Press


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Choking the Skeleton

Predator Press

[LOBO]

As the worlds' most beloved Anarchist, millions and millions of people are always asking me every day "LOBO! What should we do?"

Look. I'm on a yacht in International Waters surrounded by half-dressed Instagram "Influncers," trying to recover from edibles/wine/various. Frankly, I, this ship, and everyone aboard need to be boiled. STOP BEING A PEST.

I've witnessed and experienced cop abuse … thankfully I haven't been murdered yet, but I do have a nice tan going and the day is young. Our relationship with police needs to be reinvented, and I WILL NOT PAY for bodycams that can be turned off conveniently, more weapons, et cetera; fuck "copaganda" … they decimate lives and communities maintaining an already brutal economic status quo. I'll buy them a dictionary so they understand the words "Protect" and "Serve."

It is our duty to resist authority.

Incremental defunding makes sense. All the "reforms" proposed currently are common sense things police were supposed to be doing in the first place. Harvey Weinstein is getting a trial, and a guy trying to pass a bogus $20 bill is dead. After almost a century, the cops ain't 'learnin SHIT. So fuck 'em.

There ARE good cops. Let's make the dick-wagging bad ones accountable. And then maybe I can stop being an Anarchist, and take up Sudoku or knitting or something.

Mista BLICK

LOBO -Predator Press

I haven't had much time to delve into the VR world. And, until recently, I regarded it merely as "nifty."

But then I got a copy of something that changed my opinion.  There is software on the way that will let you make "handwritten" notes and a really cool 3-D archive system.  Anyone that knows me knows that I have notes EVERYWHERE, and my current organizational skills have me finishing this post February 2027.

Just saving the paper excites me.

"Man you really like that," Barbarossa observes. "Can I try it?"

It was about 6 minutes before he was hurling the writing tools, hoping for explosions.

Acoustic Uterus

LOBO -Predator Press

Outercepted

LOBO -Predator Press

"Hello?"

"Hi Rachel."

"What do you want?"

"Would you bring me up a bottle of water?"  The air in my room is so delightfully cold, I am breathing steam.

"Are you serious?

"I haven't been home for six months," I explain into the phone through the hole in the blankets I am getting oxygen through. "My bed feels like a warm marshmallow."

"You are serious. You just can't come downstairs?"

"I'll let you sleep with me."

"Gina would skin you alive for even saying that."

"I'll let her sleep with me instead."

Suddenly, I hear two loud knocks. My bedroom door opens a few inches and then slams, but there is a bottle of cold water on the floor.

It glitters and sweats in the light from the crack under the door.

Fifteen feet away.

I curse at merciless God, "So am I Job now?"

… and then I remember the drone remote control is on the nightstand.

Cruelinary Skill

LOBO -Predator Press

Hostess "Limited Edition" Wintermint Ding Dongs were so horrifyingly bad, I had to eat a second one just to confirm they tasted like toothpaste.

Weeks -okay months later, still in my freezer, I thought "Oh come on. They couldn't have been that bad."

Yep. Two more.

At this rate, I might hate them enough to buy again next year.

So You've Contracted the Coronavirus

Predator Press

[LOBO]

The Predator Press Center For Disease Control has issued the following recommendations so you do not transmit this disease to me:

1) Boil yourself at a minimum temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit prior to contact in a one half bleach, one half Lysol, and one half holy water solution.

2) Burn all your germ infested property unless you think I might want it. Use careful discretion here ... I don’t want pictures of your kids and whatever. Please limit this salvage to luxury cars, high-end electronics and precious metals.

3) Be tidy. Without remaining hosts to be transmitted to, most pandemics will burn themselves out in a few months: the only thing worse than me wandering around mid-July roasting in a hazmat suit would be doing so knee-deep in a bunch of stinky skeletons. Please have some consideration. Cremation also 100% eliminates the possibility of you returning as zombies.

In conclusion, you all being dead will be a terrible thing for me to endure: I thank you in advance for easing my painful experience through your efforts.