[LOBO]
Sunday
Saturday
Hire Me, You Prick!
Predator Press
[LOBO]
Thousands of applications, hundreds of interviews … [*sigh*] My enthusiasm gap is rivaled only by the vast and ever-growing job search radius. This morning –while mapping out want ads from Michigan(!)- a glance at the northern border inspired the thought that maybe I shouldn’t limit this search to my beloved United States.
America, you are quite possibly on the cusp of losing one of your greatest and most beloved National Treasures: ME.
Do you really want to be responsible for such a tragedy? I mean once I get that sweet sheepherding gig in Krasnoyarsk, you’re gonna have a hell of a time getting me back.
-And you’ll probably have to trade the Grand Canyon or something for it.
Thursday
How to Get More Football out of Life
Predator Press
[LOBO]
I was vaguely aware as my youngest son audibly mistyped his name, “J-O-O …”
But then I distinctly heard the G.I. Joe M.A.R.S. Laptop announce with finality, “'Joo' is incorrect. Access denied.”
I am going to have so much fun with that thing at Sunday Mass this week ...
Tuesday
Predator Press Interviews: Chris Wood
Predator Press
Already a fan of Chris Wood's Blog, I'm not suprised to find his books only further underline his remarkable writing talent.
Thus, the urgency of his, eh, "early retirement."
See, I can’t find a publisher for my stuff; everybody keeps saying things like, ‘I’ve never seen such bad spelling,’ and, ‘How did you get a typo in crayon?’
With all the serenity I can muster, I find myself repeatedly explaining how it’s a children’s book, and kids -inherently dumb by nature- would never know the goddamn difference. But those know-it-all fucktarded shit sticks at the Wall Street Journal wouldn‘t know a decent children's book writer's talent if it popped a zit on their dork.
I set all these fires for nothing.
So Chris Wood must die.
DIE!
I mean, who needs this kind of competition? And who put talented writers in charge of everything anyway? Hm? I'm just supposed to sit here while fancy-pants British author Chris Wood -just oozing talent- is hoggin’ up all that paper? It’s not like paper grows on trees you know.
This 'Chris Wood' probably counts his stacks of gold while saying 'pip pip' at random intervals, smoking a big curvy pipe in front of a fireplace. You call this a level playing field? Shit, anybody can get published with cheesy gimmicks like talent, a big curvy pipe and a fireplace! And where the hell do you even get a big curvy pipe and a fireplace here in the Twentieth Centurion?
I'm the victim here if you think about it.
Dyin's too good for him.
-He should die with extreme predjudice.
I‘ll choke that sonofabitch with his own monocle chain.
CW: Why are you in my house?
LOBO: I‘m not in your house pal. I‘m in Chris Wood‘s house. Have you seen him? He looks just like you, but he's British. You know, monocle, khaki shorts ... possibly a pith helmet.
CW: Chris Wood is my twin brother. There must be some kind of mix up here.
LOBO: Really? The cops told me he lives here.
CW: Cops?
LOBO: Yeah. I rode an international flight here in a ghillie suit made of almond tree branches. Despite the brilliant camouflage, some Air Marshalls came to my row insisting they could see me. I called them filthy liars, and, well, long story short, they kicked the crap out of me until I made bail.
CW: Well, it‘s a good thing they couldn‘t see you then, wasn‘t it?
LOBO: Yes. I hate filthy liars. Experiences like that is why I totally hate foreigners.
CW: Me too.
LOBO: My name is LOBO.
CW Hello LOBO. I‘m Chris Wood.
LOBO: You and your twin brother are both named Chris Wood? Isn‘t that confusing?
CW: I'm hassled by idiots over it constantly.
LOBO: It sounds like life will be simpler for both of us if he was dead.
CW: Indeed. He’s very evil. You know The Ingredients of a Good Thriller? I wrote that. And Sherlock Holmes and the Underpants of Death too! But he stole all the credit.
LOBO: That bastard. Listen, help me out with some surveillance-type questions. We can pool our information, put a homing beacon on his car, and track him via satellite. After a few weeks of that, we'll analyze the data and determine the best place to kill him with cinderblocks and pointy sticks.
CW: Pointy sticks are illegal here -and cinderblocks tend to be cost-prohibitive.
LOBO: Really? Man this place is weird. I mean we’re on the opposite side of the world from the US, yet gravity is not reversed. Unlike anarchists, Americans obey the laws of physics! The custom travel pants Predator Press scienticians designed for me -the ones with inverted pockets- have somehow malfunctioned, and I have lost my wallet and passport as a result. Can I sleep in your car for the duration? I see your steering wheel is on the wrong side. I can fix that.
The Ingredients of a Good Thriller Reviews
CW: My car does have a steering wheel, but it doesn’t work. My car’s direction is actually controlled by a rudder, which means ploughing through concrete every time I drive, but there you go.
Personally, I try to ignore the laws of physics. This does take some willpower, but stick with it. You just have to be strict with them, and then you can float about, let your molecules wander off, even turn kinetic energy into pizza – it’s fantastic.
LOBO: Judging from your music collection, your favorite music appears to be the blues. But that crap is depressing! Where the hell is the ABBA? Are you hiding it? I don’t see any copies of Max Payne in your DVD collection either.
CW: I don’t find the blues depressing, or at least not all of it. “I’m getting my dick sucked as I sing this” by Big Smile Chesterton, for example, is a happy tune. So is “I ran over the taxman (and I stole his wallet too)” by Goodforhim Lemonzest.
Also, anyone who doesn’t feel laid back while listening to BB King is a bollock faced imbecile. I have that on good authority.
LOBO: I disagree. That 'laid back' thing only ensures his show will never be as widely-enjoyed by the masses like the rampantly successful Predator Press juggernaut is.
-All King's interviews are chocked full of softball questions, and the resulting lack of journalistic 'edge' makes his show a real snoozer. Worse, you don't want to fall asleep around him ... once sufficiently lulled, he marries you.
CW: Well you can’t trust British culture either. It will break into your house and completely screw with your mind, by putting your CDs in the wrong cases and slightly adjusting the settings on your TV.
LOBO: The Beatles and The Rolling Stones Chris? That’s total Rock ‘N Roll overkill. Don’t you think farming out the Sex Pistols to France would have been at least, well, sporting?
CW: We tried, but the trouble was European Union legislation stating that all foreign rock bands had to be pasturised before entering France. Johnny Rotten and co weren’t fond of the idea of being boiled en route, so the whole thing fell through. I call it a lack of initiative.
Hey, have you been slightly adjusting the settings on my TV? I thought BB King was black. This guy looks like he swapped Frodo's ring for bulletproof eyewear. And does that shade of blue really occur in nature?
LOBO: You once wrote “English mustard is the envy of the civilized world. If you don't envy it, you aren't civilized.” If the Germans find out you dissed Heinz Ketchup like that, it could start World Wars III, IV and π. In the future, can you please refrain from this scathing and incendiary commentary on condiments for the sake of world peace? There’s only so many times we should be expected to rescue the French … and their mustard sucks.
CW: No, fuck world peace. I must have my say on condiments. If we all have to become little piles of radioactive soot just because I don’t like your choice of dressing, tough shit.
I agree French’s Mustard is tasteless, underspiced cack, but it does have one useful application. It can be put on roast beef to torture British men, should that be necessary. Much better than wiring their balls up to the mains, quite frankly, because while it naturally hurts like a bastard to ruin a good slice of roast cow, it’s better than frazzling somebody’s knadgers. Probably. I mean, less bad karma and all, which can’t be a bad thing.
For somebody who just said ‘Fuck world peace,’ I should worry.
LOBO: The UK should feel indebted to the United States. If not for us, just think of how many nukes would be pointed at you instead. Jesus. What is the Defense Budget for soccer?
CW: Despite living in Manchester, I’m still leery of British culture. It once sold me an Oasis album which turned out to be full of rancid warbling and vague guitar scratching. It’s not all Benny Hill and James Bond, you know. That’s only the good stuff.
The worst thing about British culture is that it forced Benny Hill off the air. This was during the Thatcher years, when the only other thing to laugh at was people in government getting buggered by dwarves.
LOBO: Do you like documentaries? Researching British history on Wikipedia, I found out Margaret Thatcher and William Shakespeare were having a torrid affair, and David Bowie killed Shakespeare in a fit of jealous rage. Thatcher escaped by choking Tony Blair with her thong, and Sir Isaac Newtron rescued her on his hovercycle. Shit that’s AWESOME -all we Americans got is a guy with a lantern yelling “one if by land, two if by sea” from some freakin lighthouse.
CW: Yes, it’s true about Bowie and the Bard. I gather they argued about the royalties for Cat People. Christopher Marlowe met his end in the same way, although I heard that was about his royalties from the first Bat Out Of Hell album. Or so I’m told. Thatcher was actually having an affair with Samuel Johnson, who wrote the first dictionary. He was so fat he needed a crane to keep his gut out of the way while they were getting down to business.
Sir Isaac Newton never used a hovercycle, that’s just ridiculous. He did invent luminous toothpaste, though, so that night joggers could bare their pearly whites as a means of lighting the way ahead. It’s from this idea that headlamps grew from. True story.
Sherlock Holmes and the Underpants of Death Reviews
LOBO: Having just cracked my copy of Sherlock Holmes and the Underpants of Death, I must say I’m enjoying it immensely. I say we team up and write a new mystery series: “Sherlock ‘Iron Man’ Holmes.” It’s where Sherlock Holmes and Thomas Edison team up and build a suit that can fight crime. Morton Downey Jr is a shoe-in for the movie.
CW: That sounds like a great idea, but I must warn you of my exacting working style. I have to be completely in the zone, and this requires surrounding myself with naked women, who must cover at least 90% of my eyeline as I work. It’s better that way.
I also need several escape routes, at least four (4). This is in case the authorities come crashing through the door, trying to interfere. Of course, the authorities couldn’t care less what I’m up to, but it’s an essential part of my creative process, as are the former Special Forces bodyguards, fuelled motor bike and small inflatable chicken.
LOBO: Americans are extremely tolerant of foreigners no matter how crazy weird their culture is, and the British are no exception. But why do you people insist on butchering our fine American language with that strange accent?
CW: I know, it’s unforgiveable! We’ve even renamed it ‘English.’ Very bad of us. I love the fact that you Americans are tolerant of foreign cultures, especially showing interest in other country’s histories. Every American I’ve met (in the UK) takes the same approach. We English, though, prefer to assert ourselves overseas by loudly demanding egg and chips everywhere we go, even if it’s a church, the dentist or what have you. It’s a cultural thing, and a crap one.
LOBO: Watching Simon Cowell pitbull on American Idol contestants, I am often reminded of what you guys did to William Wallace at the end of Braveheart. Honestly, I kinda get the American Idol thing. But why were you people so mean to William Wallace?
CW: The British authorities of the day didn’t like Mel Gibson, I’m afraid. It’s a shame – I’m a fan, particularly of the first Lethal Weapon film, but there you are. Bloody red tape.
LOBO: The US and UK, are considered “Western Civilization,” The UK is pretty far east of the US. China is currently west of the United States. China should move back where it is on the Risk board, because this is just confusing.
CW: There were plans to position the UK north of the US, so that we could keep an eye on Canada for you and also fart on it. As far as I know, this has yet to happen. I did hear a rumour that the British Isles were actually mounted on a gigantic remote control roller skate, and that we could move about quite easily. The government has kept quiet on the issue, which is suspicious.
Chris Wood does not currently have leukemia. And if you buy
10 copies of his book, you may personally ensure he never does.
Please help Chris continue to fight leukemia!
LOBO: I noticed the taxi driving me here was driving on the wrong side of the road. But the British are so polite they all started driving in the exact same manner -and the cops didn’t bust them for it! In the US, they woulda clubbed us like baby sea lions for something like that. Suspecting a link, I'm thinking maybe cops without guns is a good idea. Do you know John Cleese?
CW: The entire British police force is admirably polite. If you commit a murder, just say, “I say, old chap, I’m terribly sorry,” and they doff their helmets and allow you to continue. Slitty McGraw of Ipswich clocked up over 400 corpses this way, all through good manners and homicidal instincts. It’s a great display of class, I always thought.
John Cleese and I go way back. I call him JC and he calls me the Woodster.
LOBO: I have always admired the UK for it’s role in the Seven Years War. But wouldn’t it have been smarter to have named it the Seven Minute War? It seems to me that would have made it a lot cheaper, and it’s really hard to kill a lot of people in seven minutes. Don't you have egg timers here?
CW: The Seven Years War should only have lasted five years, but they insisted on tea breaks and regular games of cricket. It’s bizarre, I know, but even amidst death and maiming the English love of cricket continues. It’s very bizarre.
LOBO: Cricket, Croquet, Polo … you people sure like blunt objects. Were these sports developed in bad neighborhoods or something?
CW: We do enjoy clubbing people with blunt instruments, true. It stems from our ancient culture of violent games, like face stamping and heading the shot.
LOBO: Again citing Wikipedia, the ancient British went through all the trouble of building the Roman Coliseum. Why isn’t Wimbledon held there? I gotta tell you, a squad of hungry lions would significantly increase the watchability of tennis.
CW: The Ancient Britons were basically travelling builders, and gave the Romans a good quote on the job, even throwing in a patio set for Caesar. Mind, I gather they overran on the job due to tea breaks and were eaten by the lions.
I just found out Chris wants
leukemia. For his collection.
You screwed up.
You mercilessly crushed his leukemia hopes and dreams.
And how dare you play God like that? To avoid suffering
any futureintense feelings of guilt swift and lethal karmic
payback, I suggest buying 10 copies of this book too.
Please help Chris get leukemia!
LOBO: Couldn’t the excitement of modern tennis be vastly improved by simply replacing the ball with small stray cats? That would be cheaper, too.
CW: Tennis is an incredibly dull game, and for a reason. It was invented to test the stamina of wannabe kings. If they could stay awake during a whole game, they got the crown. If not, they were fed to hungry badgers. We’re cost conscious in the UK and lions are expensive. Christians aren’t cheap, you know, and they don’t like Winalot.
LOBO: Wikipedia says Buckingham Palace is 108 meters by 120 meters, being 24 meters high and containing 77,000 square meters of floorspace. Predator Press scienticians studied this for months, and concluded this is, like, a million square feet in real measurements. Why is Buckingham Palace so big? Is this guy Buckingham, like, really fat or something?
CW: The Duke of Buckingham was reputed to have a massive cock, at least 114 feet long, and he claimed he needed a big palace so he could walk around with a boner without flopping it into the walls.
LOBO: Did he know any important people? Lord Likely perhaps?
CW: Well, he was only a duke after all.
LOBO: That's too bad. But isn't it weird that the Duke of Buckingham ultimately became the Duke of Buckingham? It's kinda eerie if you think about it. Was his mom psychic?
CW: The Duke of Buckingham was destined to be a great leader, perhaps the one man who kept unified all Europe at the time. Unfortunately, listening to him speak was like hearing a muppet fart, so his career as an orator was limited.
He did have one dubious claim to fame, however, which did not make him popular with his servants. He used to insist on them kneeling down in front of the gentry and opening their mouths, thus inventing the first urinal. History has been overly kind to him by forgetting this foul deed.
LOBO: So we have him to thank for American beer?
CW: Precisely.
Seriously. Buy this book!
LOBO: The British still stubbornly refer to Saint Paul’s Cathedral as Saint Paul’s, despite the fact that -according to Wikipedia- Saint Francis of Assisi orchestrated a successful hostile takeover bid in 1996. England has historically been lockstep with Catholics, and -not generally known for rebellious acts against the church- you guys are uncharacteristically risking pissing off the Pope.
Is it problem with Saint Francis of Assisi? Whatever Saint Francis of Assisi has done, consider the alternative ... the Pope sending Jesus to pound a bunch of pagans into a thick chalky paste, and pouring what remains over Satan's hibachi for all Eternity. Personally? I think you should reconsider.
Besides, I’ve seen the new St. Francis Cathedral sign he wants to erect and it’s got all sparkly neon letters!
CW: It’s actually St Filbert’s. St Paul won it in a card game (Deuteronomy 12:12,903,218,407).
LOBO: But I thought St. Francis of Assisi quit gambling and had to go to those meetings and stuff. Wait. Am I thinking of Bob Wilson of Galilee? ... No, Bob Wilson of Galilee is the guy that can do that cool trick where he pulls his thumb off and put it back on.
-Ah! You mean Joe Francis of Assisi, right?
CW: No. That’s a common mistake … Joe Francis is the patron saint of something that almost rhymes with Assisi. As to Saint Francis, he is one of the few saints I know of to be mobbed up. He used to be called Frankie of the Birds, or Frank the Holy. He and his crew used to chill there in the small hours, smoking cigars and saying “Fuck you” a lot. I went to St Paul’s last year. Nothing’s changed.
In the old days, the Popes were super-pissy, and if they didn’t like anything, they’d send round a couple of cardinals to smash all your windows and insult your drapes. The English are super-sensitive to things like that, and its dread power kept us in thrall for quite some time.
LOBO: I see the British Museum is here in Britain. A museum that features British stuff right smack in Britain seems redundant -I mean you didn’t put Scotland Yard in Scotland. And that would have been smart, because then the Scots would had to mow it! I would have gone with an ABBA Museum. Or a casino.
CW: The British Museum is in Britain, which flies in the face of our fine tradition of making no fucking sense at all. (Have you seen our spelling?)
The location of Scotland Yard – London - is intended to confuse criminals. It’s a sneaky move but a successful one, and has been a triumph for over one hundred years. We have really thick criminals over here. Mind, you should see our police.
Oh come on! If you use your VISA, Amazon will practically
mail Sherlock Homes and the Underpants of Death to you!
You barely have to get off the couch for God's sake. Think
your snooty librarian will mail you books? Those people are lazy!
LOBO: You claimed to have written The Ingredients of a Good Thriller in the span of a few months. I don’t think I could manage a dozen heartbeats over that short a span of time. Were you on steroids or something?
CW: No, I wasn’t on steroids, although I did have a constant supply of merest whims being brought to me by my especially compliant Personal Needs Department. These trained experts are so dedicated, they make the SAS look like half-arsed delinquents.
It was also necessary to neglect a great many personal matters for this period, so for six and a half months I did without food, sleep, and going to the toilet. I began in late December, and I can tell you, I had one hell of a messy June.
Totally worth it, even if I did have to move house afterwards and am still being sued for the effects of subsidence caused by my rocket-like flow of piss.
LOBO: I think I'm 'connecting the dots' here. America's Founding fathers replaced all those prototype British cities with newer versions that are closer for Americans to visit. But once we got lots of guns to shoot each other with, we forgot we were having wars with you guys and started working on domestic issues.
Eventually we forgot what the Founding Fathers found in the first place, which subsequently resulted in the Founding Fathers' unjust demotion to mere Finding Fathers. And just try to pay a Founding Father's Child Support on a Finding Father's pay. It's impossible.
CW: So I assume you shot them?
LOBO: Probably. But no one knows with 100% certainty. With no Founding Fathers to get the deadbeat Finding Fathers found, we soon ran out of ideas and bought televisions.
-But let's get back to why you guys kept those old, worn-out cities like Hampshire, York, Jersey when ours were perfectly new? Is this part of a sinister British plan to hog all the history?
CW: I like the fact that America has used a lot of our place names. There’s a Manchester in Texas, for example, which is great because when I ask for directions home, I can end up in a different continent. Not very convenient, but it adds a certain spice to life.
To be honest, I think the American Manchester might be in Washington. I’ve no idea. Your country is too big. Make it smaller, please. Can’t you throw a few of the crappy states out of the union? Just keep the good stuff, like where they make Fender guitars and gangster films, and get shut of the knuckle draggers that just pull down your national average.
LOBO: Ooooh I’m with you there! There’s like fifteen or twenty states that are totally worthless.
CW: Yes. I mean, would you really miss some places? I keep saying we should throw Yorkshire out of England, and the whole of the UK is only 27 square inches. Surely you have surplus crap you can do without? It would make it easier on the place names, and frankly, more cash and leisure time for the rest of you. Do you really need a North and South Carolina?
LOBO: Hell no! Those lazy slobs didn’t even bother to come up with separate names! Cripes … now that I think about it, we could get down to six or seven states. Tops. I say we just create a whole new continism -like 'Englerica' or 'Ameringland.'
CW: Think of all the postage we would save. And who wants to have to remember all these area and zip codes?
LOBO: So what happens with all those old, passé city names then?
CW: Joe Francis is naming cities?
LOBO: No. I said ‘passé.’
CW: Oh. We were planning to sell them off in a big yard sale, but I think we just grew attached to them. There are plans to update parts of England - Chichester now has electricity, for example (although I doubt it’ll catch on).
LOBO: Chickchester? Did British feminists found that place in response to Man-chester? Jesus, this whole ‘let’s pretend women are as important as men’ thing is getting out of hand.
Well, I wouldn’t force the feminists to get electricity … if they want to operate ovens barefoot and pregnant via Gilligan’s Island pedal-power, who are we to argue? I have a strict ‘hands off’ policy when it comes to wanton abominations against science and nature like that.
CW: Personally, I enjoy the old fashioned and quaint. I was burnt at the stake yesterday, for example, and I’ve never felt better.
Limited Time Offer!
Buy The Ingredients of a Good Thriller
now, and we will make this post shorter!
LOBO: I got this picture from your blogger profile. Don't you think you are losing too much weight?
CW: Yes. I’m one salad away from not reflecting light at all, I’m that thin. It’s one of those things. It’s the curse of size zero, I reckon.
LOBO: So want to give a heads up on what you’re working on next?
CW: I have two books in the pipeline. One is a sequel, called Sherlock Holmes and the Flying Zombie Death Monkeys, which is a poignant biography of Duke Ellington. The other is a political novel called Judas Cow, which I began in 2004 and so far has seen me just about lose my marbles.
The Holmes / Ellington book should be out later this year. Judas Cow may never be ready, as it’s one of those serious (ish) novel type novels which make the author dress up as Napoleon and mutter darkly about his plans for Russia. Not to worry. Luckily I’m a teacher, and a certain measure of insanity is considered a positive bonus.
Did we mention the free porn?
Already a fan of Chris Wood's Blog, I'm not suprised to find his books only further underline his remarkable writing talent.Thus, the urgency of his, eh, "early retirement."
See, I can’t find a publisher for my stuff; everybody keeps saying things like, ‘I’ve never seen such bad spelling,’ and, ‘How did you get a typo in crayon?’
With all the serenity I can muster, I find myself repeatedly explaining how it’s a children’s book, and kids -inherently dumb by nature- would never know the goddamn difference. But those know-it-all fucktarded shit sticks at the Wall Street Journal wouldn‘t know a decent children's book writer's talent if it popped a zit on their dork.
I set all these fires for nothing.
So Chris Wood must die.
DIE!
I mean, who needs this kind of competition? And who put talented writers in charge of everything anyway? Hm? I'm just supposed to sit here while fancy-pants British author Chris Wood -just oozing talent- is hoggin’ up all that paper? It’s not like paper grows on trees you know.
This 'Chris Wood' probably counts his stacks of gold while saying 'pip pip' at random intervals, smoking a big curvy pipe in front of a fireplace. You call this a level playing field? Shit, anybody can get published with cheesy gimmicks like talent, a big curvy pipe and a fireplace! And where the hell do you even get a big curvy pipe and a fireplace here in the Twentieth Centurion?I'm the victim here if you think about it.
Dyin's too good for him.
-He should die with extreme predjudice.
I‘ll choke that sonofabitch with his own monocle chain.
CW: Why are you in my house?
LOBO: I‘m not in your house pal. I‘m in Chris Wood‘s house. Have you seen him? He looks just like you, but he's British. You know, monocle, khaki shorts ... possibly a pith helmet.
CW: Chris Wood is my twin brother. There must be some kind of mix up here.
LOBO: Really? The cops told me he lives here.
CW: Cops?
LOBO: Yeah. I rode an international flight here in a ghillie suit made of almond tree branches. Despite the brilliant camouflage, some Air Marshalls came to my row insisting they could see me. I called them filthy liars, and, well, long story short, they kicked the crap out of me until I made bail.
CW: Well, it‘s a good thing they couldn‘t see you then, wasn‘t it?
LOBO: Yes. I hate filthy liars. Experiences like that is why I totally hate foreigners.
CW: Me too.
LOBO: My name is LOBO.
CW Hello LOBO. I‘m Chris Wood.
LOBO: You and your twin brother are both named Chris Wood? Isn‘t that confusing?
CW: I'm hassled by idiots over it constantly.
LOBO: It sounds like life will be simpler for both of us if he was dead.
CW: Indeed. He’s very evil. You know The Ingredients of a Good Thriller? I wrote that. And Sherlock Holmes and the Underpants of Death too! But he stole all the credit.LOBO: That bastard. Listen, help me out with some surveillance-type questions. We can pool our information, put a homing beacon on his car, and track him via satellite. After a few weeks of that, we'll analyze the data and determine the best place to kill him with cinderblocks and pointy sticks.
CW: Pointy sticks are illegal here -and cinderblocks tend to be cost-prohibitive.
LOBO: Really? Man this place is weird. I mean we’re on the opposite side of the world from the US, yet gravity is not reversed. Unlike anarchists, Americans obey the laws of physics! The custom travel pants Predator Press scienticians designed for me -the ones with inverted pockets- have somehow malfunctioned, and I have lost my wallet and passport as a result. Can I sleep in your car for the duration? I see your steering wheel is on the wrong side. I can fix that.
CW: My car does have a steering wheel, but it doesn’t work. My car’s direction is actually controlled by a rudder, which means ploughing through concrete every time I drive, but there you go.Personally, I try to ignore the laws of physics. This does take some willpower, but stick with it. You just have to be strict with them, and then you can float about, let your molecules wander off, even turn kinetic energy into pizza – it’s fantastic.
LOBO: Judging from your music collection, your favorite music appears to be the blues. But that crap is depressing! Where the hell is the ABBA? Are you hiding it? I don’t see any copies of Max Payne in your DVD collection either.
CW: I don’t find the blues depressing, or at least not all of it. “I’m getting my dick sucked as I sing this” by Big Smile Chesterton, for example, is a happy tune. So is “I ran over the taxman (and I stole his wallet too)” by Goodforhim Lemonzest.
Also, anyone who doesn’t feel laid back while listening to BB King is a bollock faced imbecile. I have that on good authority.
LOBO: I disagree. That 'laid back' thing only ensures his show will never be as widely-enjoyed by the masses like the rampantly successful Predator Press juggernaut is.-All King's interviews are chocked full of softball questions, and the resulting lack of journalistic 'edge' makes his show a real snoozer. Worse, you don't want to fall asleep around him ... once sufficiently lulled, he marries you.
CW: Well you can’t trust British culture either. It will break into your house and completely screw with your mind, by putting your CDs in the wrong cases and slightly adjusting the settings on your TV.
LOBO: The Beatles and The Rolling Stones Chris? That’s total Rock ‘N Roll overkill. Don’t you think farming out the Sex Pistols to France would have been at least, well, sporting?
CW: We tried, but the trouble was European Union legislation stating that all foreign rock bands had to be pasturised before entering France. Johnny Rotten and co weren’t fond of the idea of being boiled en route, so the whole thing fell through. I call it a lack of initiative.
Hey, have you been slightly adjusting the settings on my TV? I thought BB King was black. This guy looks like he swapped Frodo's ring for bulletproof eyewear. And does that shade of blue really occur in nature?
LOBO: You once wrote “English mustard is the envy of the civilized world. If you don't envy it, you aren't civilized.” If the Germans find out you dissed Heinz Ketchup like that, it could start World Wars III, IV and π. In the future, can you please refrain from this scathing and incendiary commentary on condiments for the sake of world peace? There’s only so many times we should be expected to rescue the French … and their mustard sucks.
CW: No, fuck world peace. I must have my say on condiments. If we all have to become little piles of radioactive soot just because I don’t like your choice of dressing, tough shit.I agree French’s Mustard is tasteless, underspiced cack, but it does have one useful application. It can be put on roast beef to torture British men, should that be necessary. Much better than wiring their balls up to the mains, quite frankly, because while it naturally hurts like a bastard to ruin a good slice of roast cow, it’s better than frazzling somebody’s knadgers. Probably. I mean, less bad karma and all, which can’t be a bad thing.
For somebody who just said ‘Fuck world peace,’ I should worry.
LOBO: The UK should feel indebted to the United States. If not for us, just think of how many nukes would be pointed at you instead. Jesus. What is the Defense Budget for soccer?
CW: Despite living in Manchester, I’m still leery of British culture. It once sold me an Oasis album which turned out to be full of rancid warbling and vague guitar scratching. It’s not all Benny Hill and James Bond, you know. That’s only the good stuff.
The worst thing about British culture is that it forced Benny Hill off the air. This was during the Thatcher years, when the only other thing to laugh at was people in government getting buggered by dwarves.
LOBO: Do you like documentaries? Researching British history on Wikipedia, I found out Margaret Thatcher and William Shakespeare were having a torrid affair, and David Bowie killed Shakespeare in a fit of jealous rage. Thatcher escaped by choking Tony Blair with her thong, and Sir Isaac Newtron rescued her on his hovercycle. Shit that’s AWESOME -all we Americans got is a guy with a lantern yelling “one if by land, two if by sea” from some freakin lighthouse.
CW: Yes, it’s true about Bowie and the Bard. I gather they argued about the royalties for Cat People. Christopher Marlowe met his end in the same way, although I heard that was about his royalties from the first Bat Out Of Hell album. Or so I’m told. Thatcher was actually having an affair with Samuel Johnson, who wrote the first dictionary. He was so fat he needed a crane to keep his gut out of the way while they were getting down to business.
Sir Isaac Newton never used a hovercycle, that’s just ridiculous. He did invent luminous toothpaste, though, so that night joggers could bare their pearly whites as a means of lighting the way ahead. It’s from this idea that headlamps grew from. True story.
LOBO: Having just cracked my copy of Sherlock Holmes and the Underpants of Death, I must say I’m enjoying it immensely. I say we team up and write a new mystery series: “Sherlock ‘Iron Man’ Holmes.” It’s where Sherlock Holmes and Thomas Edison team up and build a suit that can fight crime. Morton Downey Jr is a shoe-in for the movie.CW: That sounds like a great idea, but I must warn you of my exacting working style. I have to be completely in the zone, and this requires surrounding myself with naked women, who must cover at least 90% of my eyeline as I work. It’s better that way.
I also need several escape routes, at least four (4). This is in case the authorities come crashing through the door, trying to interfere. Of course, the authorities couldn’t care less what I’m up to, but it’s an essential part of my creative process, as are the former Special Forces bodyguards, fuelled motor bike and small inflatable chicken.
LOBO: Americans are extremely tolerant of foreigners no matter how crazy weird their culture is, and the British are no exception. But why do you people insist on butchering our fine American language with that strange accent?
CW: I know, it’s unforgiveable! We’ve even renamed it ‘English.’ Very bad of us. I love the fact that you Americans are tolerant of foreign cultures, especially showing interest in other country’s histories. Every American I’ve met (in the UK) takes the same approach. We English, though, prefer to assert ourselves overseas by loudly demanding egg and chips everywhere we go, even if it’s a church, the dentist or what have you. It’s a cultural thing, and a crap one.
LOBO: Watching Simon Cowell pitbull on American Idol contestants, I am often reminded of what you guys did to William Wallace at the end of Braveheart. Honestly, I kinda get the American Idol thing. But why were you people so mean to William Wallace?CW: The British authorities of the day didn’t like Mel Gibson, I’m afraid. It’s a shame – I’m a fan, particularly of the first Lethal Weapon film, but there you are. Bloody red tape.
LOBO: The US and UK, are considered “Western Civilization,” The UK is pretty far east of the US. China is currently west of the United States. China should move back where it is on the Risk board, because this is just confusing.
CW: There were plans to position the UK north of the US, so that we could keep an eye on Canada for you and also fart on it. As far as I know, this has yet to happen. I did hear a rumour that the British Isles were actually mounted on a gigantic remote control roller skate, and that we could move about quite easily. The government has kept quiet on the issue, which is suspicious.
10 copies of his book, you may personally ensure he never does.
Please help Chris continue to fight leukemia!
LOBO: I noticed the taxi driving me here was driving on the wrong side of the road. But the British are so polite they all started driving in the exact same manner -and the cops didn’t bust them for it! In the US, they woulda clubbed us like baby sea lions for something like that. Suspecting a link, I'm thinking maybe cops without guns is a good idea. Do you know John Cleese?
CW: The entire British police force is admirably polite. If you commit a murder, just say, “I say, old chap, I’m terribly sorry,” and they doff their helmets and allow you to continue. Slitty McGraw of Ipswich clocked up over 400 corpses this way, all through good manners and homicidal instincts. It’s a great display of class, I always thought.
John Cleese and I go way back. I call him JC and he calls me the Woodster.
LOBO: I have always admired the UK for it’s role in the Seven Years War. But wouldn’t it have been smarter to have named it the Seven Minute War? It seems to me that would have made it a lot cheaper, and it’s really hard to kill a lot of people in seven minutes. Don't you have egg timers here?
CW: The Seven Years War should only have lasted five years, but they insisted on tea breaks and regular games of cricket. It’s bizarre, I know, but even amidst death and maiming the English love of cricket continues. It’s very bizarre.LOBO: Cricket, Croquet, Polo … you people sure like blunt objects. Were these sports developed in bad neighborhoods or something?
CW: We do enjoy clubbing people with blunt instruments, true. It stems from our ancient culture of violent games, like face stamping and heading the shot.
LOBO: Again citing Wikipedia, the ancient British went through all the trouble of building the Roman Coliseum. Why isn’t Wimbledon held there? I gotta tell you, a squad of hungry lions would significantly increase the watchability of tennis.
CW: The Ancient Britons were basically travelling builders, and gave the Romans a good quote on the job, even throwing in a patio set for Caesar. Mind, I gather they overran on the job due to tea breaks and were eaten by the lions.
leukemia. For his collection.
You screwed up.
You mercilessly crushed his leukemia hopes and dreams.
And how dare you play God like that? To avoid suffering
any future
payback, I suggest buying 10 copies of this book too.
Please help Chris get leukemia!
LOBO: Couldn’t the excitement of modern tennis be vastly improved by simply replacing the ball with small stray cats? That would be cheaper, too.
CW: Tennis is an incredibly dull game, and for a reason. It was invented to test the stamina of wannabe kings. If they could stay awake during a whole game, they got the crown. If not, they were fed to hungry badgers. We’re cost conscious in the UK and lions are expensive. Christians aren’t cheap, you know, and they don’t like Winalot.LOBO: Wikipedia says Buckingham Palace is 108 meters by 120 meters, being 24 meters high and containing 77,000 square meters of floorspace. Predator Press scienticians studied this for months, and concluded this is, like, a million square feet in real measurements. Why is Buckingham Palace so big? Is this guy Buckingham, like, really fat or something?
CW: The Duke of Buckingham was reputed to have a massive cock, at least 114 feet long, and he claimed he needed a big palace so he could walk around with a boner without flopping it into the walls.
LOBO: Did he know any important people? Lord Likely perhaps?
CW: Well, he was only a duke after all.
LOBO: That's too bad. But isn't it weird that the Duke of Buckingham ultimately became the Duke of Buckingham? It's kinda eerie if you think about it. Was his mom psychic?
CW: The Duke of Buckingham was destined to be a great leader, perhaps the one man who kept unified all Europe at the time. Unfortunately, listening to him speak was like hearing a muppet fart, so his career as an orator was limited.
He did have one dubious claim to fame, however, which did not make him popular with his servants. He used to insist on them kneeling down in front of the gentry and opening their mouths, thus inventing the first urinal. History has been overly kind to him by forgetting this foul deed.
LOBO: So we have him to thank for American beer?
CW: Precisely.
LOBO: The British still stubbornly refer to Saint Paul’s Cathedral as Saint Paul’s, despite the fact that -according to Wikipedia- Saint Francis of Assisi orchestrated a successful hostile takeover bid in 1996. England has historically been lockstep with Catholics, and -not generally known for rebellious acts against the church- you guys are uncharacteristically risking pissing off the Pope.
Is it problem with Saint Francis of Assisi? Whatever Saint Francis of Assisi has done, consider the alternative ... the Pope sending Jesus to pound a bunch of pagans into a thick chalky paste, and pouring what remains over Satan's hibachi for all Eternity. Personally? I think you should reconsider.
Besides, I’ve seen the new St. Francis Cathedral sign he wants to erect and it’s got all sparkly neon letters!
CW: It’s actually St Filbert’s. St Paul won it in a card game (Deuteronomy 12:12,903,218,407).
LOBO: But I thought St. Francis of Assisi quit gambling and had to go to those meetings and stuff. Wait. Am I thinking of Bob Wilson of Galilee? ... No, Bob Wilson of Galilee is the guy that can do that cool trick where he pulls his thumb off and put it back on.
-Ah! You mean Joe Francis of Assisi, right?
CW: No. That’s a common mistake … Joe Francis is the patron saint of something that almost rhymes with Assisi. As to Saint Francis, he is one of the few saints I know of to be mobbed up. He used to be called Frankie of the Birds, or Frank the Holy. He and his crew used to chill there in the small hours, smoking cigars and saying “Fuck you” a lot. I went to St Paul’s last year. Nothing’s changed.In the old days, the Popes were super-pissy, and if they didn’t like anything, they’d send round a couple of cardinals to smash all your windows and insult your drapes. The English are super-sensitive to things like that, and its dread power kept us in thrall for quite some time.
LOBO: I see the British Museum is here in Britain. A museum that features British stuff right smack in Britain seems redundant -I mean you didn’t put Scotland Yard in Scotland. And that would have been smart, because then the Scots would had to mow it! I would have gone with an ABBA Museum. Or a casino.
CW: The British Museum is in Britain, which flies in the face of our fine tradition of making no fucking sense at all. (Have you seen our spelling?)
The location of Scotland Yard – London - is intended to confuse criminals. It’s a sneaky move but a successful one, and has been a triumph for over one hundred years. We have really thick criminals over here. Mind, you should see our police.
mail Sherlock Homes and the Underpants of Death to you!
You barely have to get off the couch for God's sake. Think
your snooty librarian will mail you books? Those people are lazy!
LOBO: You claimed to have written The Ingredients of a Good Thriller in the span of a few months. I don’t think I could manage a dozen heartbeats over that short a span of time. Were you on steroids or something?
CW: No, I wasn’t on steroids, although I did have a constant supply of merest whims being brought to me by my especially compliant Personal Needs Department. These trained experts are so dedicated, they make the SAS look like half-arsed delinquents.It was also necessary to neglect a great many personal matters for this period, so for six and a half months I did without food, sleep, and going to the toilet. I began in late December, and I can tell you, I had one hell of a messy June.
Totally worth it, even if I did have to move house afterwards and am still being sued for the effects of subsidence caused by my rocket-like flow of piss.
LOBO: I think I'm 'connecting the dots' here. America's Founding fathers replaced all those prototype British cities with newer versions that are closer for Americans to visit. But once we got lots of guns to shoot each other with, we forgot we were having wars with you guys and started working on domestic issues.
Eventually we forgot what the Founding Fathers found in the first place, which subsequently resulted in the Founding Fathers' unjust demotion to mere Finding Fathers. And just try to pay a Founding Father's Child Support on a Finding Father's pay. It's impossible.
CW: So I assume you shot them?
LOBO: Probably. But no one knows with 100% certainty. With no Founding Fathers to get the deadbeat Finding Fathers found, we soon ran out of ideas and bought televisions.
-But let's get back to why you guys kept those old, worn-out cities like Hampshire, York, Jersey when ours were perfectly new? Is this part of a sinister British plan to hog all the history?
CW: I like the fact that America has used a lot of our place names. There’s a Manchester in Texas, for example, which is great because when I ask for directions home, I can end up in a different continent. Not very convenient, but it adds a certain spice to life.
To be honest, I think the American Manchester might be in Washington. I’ve no idea. Your country is too big. Make it smaller, please. Can’t you throw a few of the crappy states out of the union? Just keep the good stuff, like where they make Fender guitars and gangster films, and get shut of the knuckle draggers that just pull down your national average.
LOBO: Ooooh I’m with you there! There’s like fifteen or twenty states that are totally worthless.
CW: Yes. I mean, would you really miss some places? I keep saying we should throw Yorkshire out of England, and the whole of the UK is only 27 square inches. Surely you have surplus crap you can do without? It would make it easier on the place names, and frankly, more cash and leisure time for the rest of you. Do you really need a North and South Carolina?
LOBO: Hell no! Those lazy slobs didn’t even bother to come up with separate names! Cripes … now that I think about it, we could get down to six or seven states. Tops. I say we just create a whole new continism -like 'Englerica' or 'Ameringland.'
CW: Think of all the postage we would save. And who wants to have to remember all these area and zip codes?LOBO: So what happens with all those old, passé city names then?
CW: Joe Francis is naming cities?
LOBO: No. I said ‘passé.’
CW: Oh. We were planning to sell them off in a big yard sale, but I think we just grew attached to them. There are plans to update parts of England - Chichester now has electricity, for example (although I doubt it’ll catch on).
LOBO: Chickchester? Did British feminists found that place in response to Man-chester? Jesus, this whole ‘let’s pretend women are as important as men’ thing is getting out of hand.
Well, I wouldn’t force the feminists to get electricity … if they want to operate ovens barefoot and pregnant via Gilligan’s Island pedal-power, who are we to argue? I have a strict ‘hands off’ policy when it comes to wanton abominations against science and nature like that.
CW: Personally, I enjoy the old fashioned and quaint. I was burnt at the stake yesterday, for example, and I’ve never felt better.
Buy The Ingredients of a Good Thriller
now, and we will make this post shorter!
LOBO: I got this picture from your blogger profile. Don't you think you are losing too much weight?CW: Yes. I’m one salad away from not reflecting light at all, I’m that thin. It’s one of those things. It’s the curse of size zero, I reckon.
LOBO: So want to give a heads up on what you’re working on next?
CW: I have two books in the pipeline. One is a sequel, called Sherlock Holmes and the Flying Zombie Death Monkeys, which is a poignant biography of Duke Ellington. The other is a political novel called Judas Cow, which I began in 2004 and so far has seen me just about lose my marbles.
The Holmes / Ellington book should be out later this year. Judas Cow may never be ready, as it’s one of those serious (ish) novel type novels which make the author dress up as Napoleon and mutter darkly about his plans for Russia. Not to worry. Luckily I’m a teacher, and a certain measure of insanity is considered a positive bonus.
Saturday
Predator Press Interviews: Mark A. Rayner
Predator Press
[LOBO]
My devious plot to kill all the good authors so I can get a book deal has suffered a temporary setback: Mark A. Rayner, author of Marvellous Hairy, has been anything but forthright in regards to his actual location.
-Mislead by some rather sophisticated and formidable call-tracing countermeasures, I'm forced to conduct this interview from a payphone in Wyoming.
And let me tell you pal, getting into a phone booth in a ghillie suit made of almond tree branches is no picnic.
LOBO: Mark, you've obviously chosen to try and make monkeys, you know, cool again -like back when "BJ and the Bear" inspired millions and millions of truckers to take them cross-country. But iguanas are cool, and kinda scary too. A book about superintelligent iguanas would be groundbreaking, and a rare victory for cold-blooded animals. Why monkeys? An iguana is an infinitely more practical pet for truckers if you think about it.
MAR: Actually, Marvellous Hairy is about a surrealistic novelist being turned into a monkey-like creature; they regress just some of his DNA back along the evolutionary tree to the point before we split from the chimps; but if you must know the truth, it's because I think we don't keep in touch with our monkey playfulness enough. (Present company excluded. I mean, obviously, with the ghillie suit and all. You know you can get those in Gor-Tex now, with collapsible almond branches?)
LOBO: Don't correct me on my own blog, Mark. What was that fancy thing you just did there?
MAR: What?
LOBO: That thing where you are using the "(" and the ")".MAR: They are called parentheses. You -of all people- should probably learn how to use them.
LOBO: You think I don't know about parentheses? I once killed a man using parentheses.
MAR: Really?
LOBO: Absolutely. I hated that guy. Watch. "I want the garbage taken out (and everybody dead in five minutes)."
MAR: In five minutes? What did they do?
LOBO: They didn't know about your book!
MAR: Oh, well that's okay then.
LOBO: Is it that you're an atheist Mark? Hm? I mean you could have changed the guy into a praying mantis instead of a monkey. Is it a problem that the mantis thing is always praying? A praying mantis won't rip off your genitalia and throw it at you. I mean you just don't GET more pious than a praying mantis.
MAR: What about Capuchin Monkeys? Eh? They're named after monks. Or the sanctimonious Kneeling Baboons of Rogistan? (Not that I like them very much. Did you know I was once bitten by a radioactive baboon? It's how I got my super-powers.)LOBO: See, there you go with the parent-things again.
MAR: Parentheses?
LOBO: Forget it. Was the Shute character in Marvellous Hairy based on David Letterman?
MAR: Largely, though I wouldn't want anyone to think that Denny the Lickspittle is based on Paul Shaeffer. No way. I would never disrespect the coolest man on TV. Paul is Canadian, did you know that? Oh, that's right, you don't believe in Canada.
LOBO: Don't get me started on those old hokey legends of Canada. Do you think Canada exists?
MAR: Yes.
LOBO: But you're a teacher! Isn't that, well, kinda irresponsible?
MAR: Let' get back to the books.
LOBO: [exasperated sigh] One of my favorite elements of your writing is the meat of the stories hangs on a skeleton of philosophical poignence. Not to oversimplify, The Amadeus Net had the omnipotent and omniscient computer managing an idyllic utopia, and Marvellous Hairy had the specter of corporate power and greed gone to extreme. A common thread -humans struggling to morally catch up to their own rampant technological achievements- can often be spotted in your shorter works as published on The Skwib as well. Is this formulaic, or a happy byproduct of your writing style?
MAR: I wish I had a formula -- it would be so much easier. But to think that I struggle with each story, agonize over every character, groin myself every day to get the themes to flow with the plot and have it appear as formulaic . . . well, that just makes me want to slit my wrists. So, let's go with 'happy' byproduct.LOBO: Having read both The Amadeus Net and Marvellous Hairy, they both have a vastly different "feel" from one another: The Amadeus Net seemed darkly serious while Marvellous Hairy seemed more playful. The fun you were having writing Marvellous Hairy was palpable. Would that be an accurate characterization? And if so, were there events between 2005 and 2008 that contributed to this shift?
MAR: Yes. That's quite accurate. Interestingly, you have to push the clock back about nine years for The Amadeus Net and seven years for Marvellous Hairy. I was primarily writing The Amadeus Net when I was an underemployed corporate drone in 1997, living in a small, yet charmingly feculent apartment, and working from notes that I had painted with a child's watercolour set the year I was being a Bohemian Gen-xer in Prague (1993). The first draft of Marvellous Hairy was written in three days in 2001, and was fueled almost entirely by scotch and raw existential anguish, and so, is hilarious.
LOBO: The Amadeus Net juxtaposes a sexually-taut cast of characters in a clinical, computerized world. Cripes ... everybody is sleeping with everybody! Can you just leave out the computers next time? The computers create too much space between the sex scenes.
MAR: In my next book, the computers get in on it too.LOBO: Have you repented to your clergy for all the sex in The Amadeus Net yet? I tried to get my penance reduced by ratting you out about it, but the church was skeptical: rather than take my word for it, they ordered a case of the books to be distributed among the congregation for review. Now they are all blind, and their palms smell like Gillette. All of this could have been avoided with the simple use of a praying mantis. Are you an atheist Mark?
MAR: If you mean, do I believe in a "Magic Sky Father", then yes. If you mean, do you believe in a "Cosmic Unconscious Fun Monkey," then the answer is: maybe.
LOBO: Yeah, well, I'll try to put in a good word for you with Jesus. But I've got a feelin I know where He stands on the whole "Cosmic Unconscious Fun Monkey" thing.
MAR: Thanks.
LOBO: Why do my favorite characters always get killed in your stories? Are you doing that on purpose? And how do you know who my favorite characters are in the first place? Are you clairvoyant?
MAR: Yes. And by the way, don't get to attached to Suzie in my next book. Really, just save yourself the heartache. Oh, and you might want to get that mole checked.
LOBO: Thag is among my favorite of your characters. Was Thag based on someone or something in particular? And because I like him, how soon will you be killing him if you haven't already?
MAR: Thag is loosely based on the Gary Larson cartoon. Since then, he has become the proto-typical everyman. But he will not be taking the Big Dirt Nap anytime soon. Or will he? We will see how sales of Marvellous Hairy spike after this interview goes live to decide . . .
LOBO: While far from a professional author, I'll get something under my skin and scrawl it on the grocery receipt on my way home -more or less helpless against the urge. This annoys the other drivers, and their excessive use of the horn and graphic profanity makes it hard to concentrate. How does a Mark A. Rayner pour stories? Do you have a formal method -for example, a set time and space for writing?
MAR: I have a word count that I aim for every day. I usually miss it. This makes me feel bad. However, even if I am tortured by my under-achieving slacker Gen-X attitude towards work, the words eventually add up to something and then there is a manuscript that can be edited. This is how I have produced two novels in roughly seventeen years.LOBO: There seem to be two methods of getting published. The first, self-publishing, requires around $30,000 and necessitates doing all your own promotion. The second is the 'traditional' method -the one where you essentially "get discovered" by a publisher. Because I'm short about $29,995 for the self-publication route, I endlessly submit manuscripts to publishers that are returned weeks later scribbled with profanity and smelling suspiciously of urine. Do you know of any particularly stupid publishers I should try? Like maybe one that buys a lot of scratch-off lottery tickets and extended warrantees?
MAR: I think you've described the entire publishing industry quite accurately. Enjoy.
LOBO: You claim to be a teacher in Canada. This has put me in the uncomfortable position of acknowledging that Canada possibly does exist, despite my numerous assertions to the contrary. Why would you jeopardize my credibility -right smack on my own blog- when you could have simply claimed to live in North Montana? Extremely North Dakota would also have been acceptable.
MAR: I always thought that Minnesota was pretty much like Canada. How about if I'm from Minnesota?
LOBO: How did you get out of playing hockey? Did they give you an academic waiver? I would have thought knocking out one of Mario Lemieux's teeth to be a Canadian rite of passage. Do other Canadians pick on you as a result?
MAR: I got out of it the old-fashioned way -- I broke my arm the first time I played. Crying like a little girl helped too. BTW, Mario Lemieux has almost all of his teeth. Nowadays the goal in hockey (ice hockey for all your British readers) is not to knock out a player's teeth, but to cause the rapid brain movement of a player's brain inside his (or her) skull. Much more civilized. (Especially now that women's hockey is so big.)LOBO: There you go with those parentheses again. I'm starting to think I should consider them a form of attack.
MAR: (You would be a fool to think so.)
LOBO: In Marvellous Hairy, there was a thinly-veiled streak of dislike toward the college where the story is set. Was this a reflection of personal frustration with your own institution, or more an articulation of how people justifiably hate school in general?
MAR: It was more a reflection of how people can dislike something in general. And you'll note that all of the friends are quite fond of their undergraduate school (The Good University).
LOBO: Once again I'll remind you not to correct me on my own blog, Mark. So at what point did you realize you hated kids enough to be a teacher? And would you call it a vacuous rage against today's youth, or is it simple sadism?
MAR: Um, I teach at a university, so I only deal with adults.
LOBO: C'mon Mark ... don't mince about. Those punks deserve nothing less than every ounce of your venom. And once all six of the people in Canada get their degrees from you, you'll be of no further use to the university either: they will force you to hastily pack your abacus, chalk, and all those Twisted Sister pins you confiscated. Then what? POW ... it's straight back to hockey. And how do you think Mario Lemieux is going to react when you come wandering in to practice after all these decades? Not too favorably I would guess. No sir ... not too favorably at all. Unless you think you've still got a Stanley Cup in you.
MAR: I don't have one in me. But I've been IN it, if you catch my drift.LOBO: I would imagine there aren't a lot of monkeys in Canada. Wouldn't your life be simpler if you wrote about companies changing people into cocker spaniels?
MAR: Well, I'll tell you now the radioactive baboon that bit me was a resident of Elgin County, Province of Ontario, Dominion of Canada. (I know 'cause the cop showed me the Incident Report afterwards.) In fact, most of Southwestern Ontario is plagued by roaming bands of baboons -- and not just the red-assed, blue-nosed, Perfidia variety you're used to, no. There is the Souwesto Skint Baboon, always asking for spare change at the corner of major intersections, the White-Throated Hypocraboon, commonly found in churches and you really don't want to leave your children unattended with them. And don't get me started on the Ice Baboons.
LOBO: You know I've read the Travels of Marco Polo, and you know how many times Marco mentions Canada in it? Zero. Zilch. You know, I don't think I'm buying this Canada thing anymore. Fess up, Mark.
MAR: I don't think he mentions the United States of America either. Just sayin'.
LOBO: We probably just didn't want Polo takin the spotlight off of the Godless Yellow Hoard. In fact, we might have asked Polo not to talk about us, you know, until we could at least get some cool fast food and electronics. What can we be expecting next? I know it isn't going to the swimming pool -not the way you trash-talk Marco Polo. Are you working on another book? Tease us with some details. I'm warning you however: if it's a story about a busload of nymphomaniac cheerleaders exacting revenge on an evil corporation for turning a praying mantis into a cocker spaniel, we will all know you stole it from me.
MAR: I'm working on two projects: One is the heartwarming story about how a cocker spaniel saves a busload of nymphomaniac cheerleaders from the predations of gigantic evil praying mantis, who happens to be the CEO of a major bio-tech corporation. The other is mostly about a busload of robots having sex with cheerleaders pretending to be cocker spaniels (The Furries, they're called in the book), though there is something in there about bloggers being executed for the capital crime of plagiarism.
Monday
Daisy the Curly Shark
Predator Press [LOBO]
Last night, while Terri and I were going through our scrapbook, it occurred to me I’ve never blogged about how we came to adopt Daisy -our 47 foot Great White Shark.
I remember that stormy evening like it was yesterday. Answering a soft knock at the door, at first I didn’t think anyone was there ... but glancing down, there she was in a tiny little pink basket. Attached was a note that said “I can no longer care for my baby. Please help.”
Immediately our hearts melted.We have treated her as our own ever since, and despite Terri’s stubborn refusal to breastfeed we built as normal a life for Daisy as we could provide. I was there for her first steps. We played Catch and Hide-N-Seek in the backyard. I built a huge elaborate treehouse where we would leisurely fritter away our summers eating marshmallows and reading comic books.
High school was tough for her. She always seemed to have trouble “fitting in,” and we had to encourage her to participate in school-related activities. Eventually her natural athletic abilities began to shine through, and she became the first female fullback on her football team and earned a full scholarship to NYU.We never told Daisy she was adopted, and trust you to help us keep this dark secret.
-One only has to look into those beady little eyes to understand why we have spared her this painful revelation.
Now go!
Visit!
Thursday
WTF Ever Happened to Quicksand?
Predator Press
[LOBO]Once again, at no small expense to you, we here at Predator Press have set out to settle an age-old question burning in everyone’s mind: What ever happened to quicksand?
You remember ... one could barely get through a half an hour of television without some poor slob stumbling upon his buddy's pith helmet laying mysteriously on the ground. Then he or she goes to pick it up, and the horror ensues.
-It’s quicksand!
I remember being taught about quicksand by no less than three teachers during the brief debacle of my education. They all conflicted with each other too. “Don’t struggle,” one said. “Lay flat and roll out,” said another.Clearly even then this enigmatic sedentary evil was barely understood. Of course this was the heart of Chicago, where they taught us to curl up in a hallway in case of aerial bombings and hide under our desks during nuclear blasts. It's safe to say if graffiti didn't stick to it, we Chicagoans didn't know shit about it.
So after years of jumping over suspicious looking sidewalk squares it occurred that inner city quicksand may well have evolved a cracked appearance -perhaps even a Hopscotch pattern as camouflage! And tedious "research" revealed absolutely no cases of Chicago quicksand attacks, thus proving conclusively the deadly hunting prowess of this formidable and fearsome predator: no one had yet survived an encounter with it to tell the tale.
-I haven't slept in years.Unfortunately, the Predator Press scienticians really let us all down this time. All they did was gorge Dominoes pizza, play World of Warcraft, and work on their Facebook profiles until SPAM beguiled them into downloading crippling computer viruses via porn. Obviously the Great Mystery of Quicksand is beyond the feeble understanding of even the greatest minds of our time.
Still, we here at Predator Press remain hopeful that perhaps one day Humanity will learn to communicate with quicksand, the most misunderstood, secretive, and voracious of Nature’s killers.But we recommend you all wear big, buoyant hats in the meantime.
Just in case.
Tuesday
The Legend of Testicles
Predator Press [LOBO]
Sure we’ve all heard the fantastical adventures of Hercules. But Predator Press scienticians have unearthed archeological evidence that Hercules had an evil twin brother, Testicles.
Testicles wasn’t as quite as large as his legendary sibling Hercules –and frankly he wasn’t all that bright either. But in their youth, Testicles often ran the show.
Hercules and Testicles eventually became bitter rivals, and Hercules often beat Testicles severely. One fateful day Hercules beat Testicles so badly, Testicles shrank off into obscurity forever.
Saturday
Larger than Life
Predator Press
[LOBO]
"What the hell is wrong with you?" demands my new boss, slamming the office door. "The whole damn building is complaining that you keep calling and paging."
"I'm having a little trouble dialing," I says.
"Well, get off your ass and go tell Maintenance to fix your phone!"
"I'm having trouble with the doorknob too," I says.
"Why are you sitting like that?"
"Like what?"
"Like you're hiding your hands."
Resigned, I sigh and set my hands on my desk. As I open them slowly, he gasps.
"Jesus Christ!" he says. "What happened?"
"Well, you know that new, eh, 'male enhancement' cream we sell?"
"Yeah."
"Well, it turns out it works."
"It made your hands freakishly large?"
"Well I hadda apply it somehow."
Spinning my phone around to face him, he presses the front desk button.
"Natalie?"
"Yes sir" she replies.
"Can you send Nurse Garrison to LOBO's office?"
"Um, she stammers. "Actually sir, that might be a bit of a problem. I'm having a little trouble dialing phones this morning."
"Natalie, why in the world would you use that cream?"
[muffled, soft sobs]
"No girl wants to be an A-cup forever sir."
Thursday
How to Break Up With Gods
Predator Press
Dear Medusa,
I can't do this anymore.
It's not really about the obsession with sculpture, the bloody dandruff, or the thick scales stuck in the soap bar ... I just think we should start hissing and spitting at other people.
I will always remember the good times -like that time we tickled Sisyphus until he dropped his rock and he hadda start history all over. But we've grown in different directions, and I want my half of the direction our music collection has taken. And all my Dean Koontz paperbacks.
We're just too different. I think we should just be friends. It's not you, it's me. Plus I need time to focus on my new career rehabilitating blind mongooses. (Mongeese? Mongai? Mongaggles?) And I'm not good enough for you ... you need to find someone who will treat you like you deserve being treated by.
Your Pal,
LOBO
Dear Medusa,I can't do this anymore.
It's not really about the obsession with sculpture, the bloody dandruff, or the thick scales stuck in the soap bar ... I just think we should start hissing and spitting at other people.
I will always remember the good times -like that time we tickled Sisyphus until he dropped his rock and he hadda start history all over. But we've grown in different directions, and I want my half of the direction our music collection has taken. And all my Dean Koontz paperbacks.
We're just too different. I think we should just be friends. It's not you, it's me. Plus I need time to focus on my new career rehabilitating blind mongooses. (Mongeese? Mongai? Mongaggles?) And I'm not good enough for you ... you need to find someone who will treat you like you deserve being treated by.
Your Pal,
LOBO
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