Predator Press
[LOBO]
I, the Mighty LOBO, must wear glasses now.
-And all this time I thought the "Alphabits" were just talkin' trash.
Sunday
I Injured the Obliques!
Predator Press
[LOBO]
I, the Mighty LOBO, must wear glasses now.
-And all this time I thought the "Alphabits" were just talkin' trash.
Tuesday
Divided You Fall
Predator Press [LOBO]
Want a decent example of how fucked contemporary America is? Rush Limbaugh and I are in total agreement.
The single surviving facet not struck down by the Supreme Court in Arizona's attempt to get a handle on their "Immigration" issue was the one where, if lawfully stopped, the police were authorized to verify the citizenship status of the individual.
Let me start by saying I do not think the need to present an ID is a racist issue. Even I, the Mighty LOBO -Senior LOBOnian Diplomat and Liason to the United States- have to present identification several times a week.
So all ten people legally in Arizona said, "Hey, we have to pay for these untaxed people through social services funded by our legal residents. Federal law prohibits this type undocumented 'occupation,' but you Feds are not enforcing your own laws. And this is really screwing the four people in Arizona who are paying taxes."
The Supreme Court rejected virtually every element of Arizona's proposed laws -based ironically on the fact that "immigration" is an exclusively Federal issue- but retained Arizona's right to identify "illegals" to the Feds.
So cool, right? At least the Feds are still on board?
Within HOURS of this teeny "victory," Federal officials told Arizona "Yeah. You can find out if they are illegal or not. But don't call us about it." I swear to God that's exactly what happened: the 'United' States told Arizona "You're still on your own."So Arizona is handcuffed to whatever al qaeda fuck that wanders in without recourse because the Feds decided to be defunct and useless by selective enforcement of their own law? That's at least dereliction of duty if not outright treason, and Arizona is obliged to manage an unenforceable, porous, dangerous and expensive border as a consequence.
-Whoops ... can we really even call it a "border" at this point with a straight face?
I cite the United States in contempt of it's own hallowed "Constitution," and if I were Arizona, I would secede from this so-called "Union" entirely. LOBOnia backs Arizona 100%. Moreover, LOBOnia has plenty of room for Arizona, and invites Arizona to become an official LOBOnian territory -replete with a LOBOnian government and LOBOnian taxation.
C'mon Arizona. Think about it at least.
-LOBOnia has better weather too.
Sunday
It's On
Predator Press
[LOBO]
"Hello?"
"Hello."
"Who is this?"
"You damn well know who this is. This is Debbie."
"Okay," I sigh, leaning back on the couch.
Brief pause.
"Is this Jesse?" she asks.
"Is this Debbie?" I demand.
-Holy crap. I hope I have popcorn left.
Thursday
Saturday
Cat Crack on a Soap Salt Budget
[LOBO]
I found a half a pack of "Fuzzy Sticks" -kinda like really long pastel pipe cleaners.
For a full bag containing 100 the Walmart label says "$1.99." The product code suggests they can be found in the Crafts Department, and the fact that Walmart has a "Crafts Department" is probably most profound thing in this post altogether.
Still, it started with me bouncing a "Fuzzy Stick" playfully off of Phil II's noggin. Once I got her attention, she would try and catch the end. And as she inevitably caught it here and there, random kinks and elbows would form in the wire ... only serving to make the thing more wobbly and unpredictable.
Ultimately I set it down, and she continued to play with it relentlessly for two hours straight, hopping on one bent end only to have the other rise.
-Thoroughly exhausted, she is now sound asleep.
HELP ME
Thursday
Tuesday
Monday
Sunday
Sex Offender
Predator Press
[LOBO]
"How come you haven't been going to work?" asks Barbarossa. "Did you get fired already?"
"No." I reply. "The Spanish Fly Industrial Complex closed down. Everyone is dead. I would be too if I hadn't called off sick my first day."
"What happened?"
"Apparently they tried my suggestion of using ionized water. This created the unexpected result of Spanish Fly that actually worked. What ensued was the most fantastic HAZMAT situation in history, and within two hours everyone died from severe trauma to the pelvis."
Barbarossa stares.
"I still get a check in the mail every two weeks," I shrug.
"Cool!"
[LOBO]
"How come you haven't been going to work?" asks Barbarossa. "Did you get fired already?"
"No." I reply. "The Spanish Fly Industrial Complex closed down. Everyone is dead. I would be too if I hadn't called off sick my first day."
"What happened?"
"Apparently they tried my suggestion of using ionized water. This created the unexpected result of Spanish Fly that actually worked. What ensued was the most fantastic HAZMAT situation in history, and within two hours everyone died from severe trauma to the pelvis."
Barbarossa stares.
"I still get a check in the mail every two weeks," I shrug.
"Cool!"
Friday
Monday
Obama Told Me There'd Be Days Like This
Predator Press
[LOBO]
“For a guy that got the job,” says Barbarossa, “you sure don’t look very happy about it.”
“Nah I’m fine,” I says, checking my mirrors. “It‘s just weird. Nobody has passed that test in 30 years. Doctor Yakamoto died in 2006. So everybody has gotta pull on my hair to see if it’s a wig.”
“So it’s the Spanish Fly Industrial Complex, huh? What do they make?”
Watching the road, I didn’t realize he wasn’t kidding.
“Spanish Fly,” I say finally, migraine already creeping in.
“Wow,” says Barbarossa, staring vacantly into the rolling scenery. “Do the Japanese make American ones too? Or are those shipped to Japan? And who makes the flies for the Spaniards?”
Idiot.
“Spanish Fly is a drink that supposedly makes women, ah, amorous.”
“Will it work on Agatha?”
I stare. “No. You should stick to something traditional like Wild Turkey.”
“But that’s because you think Agatha is a guy. And if Agatha is a guy, I would be gay. And I’m not gay.”
“Have you had sex yet?”
“Not in the traditional sense,” he explains. “She’s saving herself for marriage.”
I scowl as all the car's cylinders rise willingly to the sudden burst of speed request at my toe. “Barbarossa, if you say one more goddamn thing I’ll jump the median and kill us both.”
He's like having a conversation with a rock that has learning disabilities. And true to form, he get a few miles before he forgets.
“They’re gonna miss you at the warehouse,” he says.
“Yeah,” I sigh happily, relaxing my toe. “And I wanted to talk about that. You’ll probably end up with my old job if you play your cards right.”
“I’ll have to if me and Agatha are going to raise a family.”
Picking my battles, I let that slide. Rubbing my chin, I choose words carefully. “A car, good job, steady,” I wince painfully. “-girlfriend," I blurt. “You’ve come a long way. “And I’m proud of you. Sort of. I’m taking you off of Probation.”
“Fucking awesome,” he beams. “Hey. Will you tell me what that big red button you threatened me with did?”
“It wasn’t hooked up to anything,” I confess nervously. “It didn’t need to be. Your imagination was infinitely worse than any nightmarish device I could devise.”
“I’ll say,” Barbarossa agrees, eyebrows arched high. “I started wetting the bed last September.” Still staring at the scenery, he adds, “How come we don’t put Spanish Fly in the water supply? We would probably get medals or something.”
“I’m way ahead of you,” I says, scowling. “It turns out Spanish Fly doesn’t work. All it probably does is give a guy some confidence.”
Barbarossa nods slowly. “But what if he’s an asshole?”
“Well, let’s face it,” I says, turning down Barbarossa’s street. “The guy who is going to slip this into someone’s drink for sex is a moral level of scumbag just inches from using roofies or whatever in the first place.”
“Do you get an employee discount?”
“Hell yeah,” I grin. “40 percent off!”
[LOBO]
“For a guy that got the job,” says Barbarossa, “you sure don’t look very happy about it.”
“Nah I’m fine,” I says, checking my mirrors. “It‘s just weird. Nobody has passed that test in 30 years. Doctor Yakamoto died in 2006. So everybody has gotta pull on my hair to see if it’s a wig.”
“So it’s the Spanish Fly Industrial Complex, huh? What do they make?”
Watching the road, I didn’t realize he wasn’t kidding.
“Spanish Fly,” I say finally, migraine already creeping in.
“Wow,” says Barbarossa, staring vacantly into the rolling scenery. “Do the Japanese make American ones too? Or are those shipped to Japan? And who makes the flies for the Spaniards?”
Idiot.
“Spanish Fly is a drink that supposedly makes women, ah, amorous.”
“Will it work on Agatha?”
I stare. “No. You should stick to something traditional like Wild Turkey.”
“But that’s because you think Agatha is a guy. And if Agatha is a guy, I would be gay. And I’m not gay.”“Have you had sex yet?”
“Not in the traditional sense,” he explains. “She’s saving herself for marriage.”
I scowl as all the car's cylinders rise willingly to the sudden burst of speed request at my toe. “Barbarossa, if you say one more goddamn thing I’ll jump the median and kill us both.”
He's like having a conversation with a rock that has learning disabilities. And true to form, he get a few miles before he forgets.
“They’re gonna miss you at the warehouse,” he says.
“Yeah,” I sigh happily, relaxing my toe. “And I wanted to talk about that. You’ll probably end up with my old job if you play your cards right.”
“I’ll have to if me and Agatha are going to raise a family.”
Picking my battles, I let that slide. Rubbing my chin, I choose words carefully. “A car, good job, steady,” I wince painfully. “-girlfriend," I blurt. “You’ve come a long way. “And I’m proud of you. Sort of. I’m taking you off of Probation.”
“Fucking awesome,” he beams. “Hey. Will you tell me what that big red button you threatened me with did?”
“It wasn’t hooked up to anything,” I confess nervously. “It didn’t need to be. Your imagination was infinitely worse than any nightmarish device I could devise.”
“I’ll say,” Barbarossa agrees, eyebrows arched high. “I started wetting the bed last September.” Still staring at the scenery, he adds, “How come we don’t put Spanish Fly in the water supply? We would probably get medals or something.”
“I’m way ahead of you,” I says, scowling. “It turns out Spanish Fly doesn’t work. All it probably does is give a guy some confidence.”
Barbarossa nods slowly. “But what if he’s an asshole?”
“Well, let’s face it,” I says, turning down Barbarossa’s street. “The guy who is going to slip this into someone’s drink for sex is a moral level of scumbag just inches from using roofies or whatever in the first place.”
“Do you get an employee discount?”
“Hell yeah,” I grin. “40 percent off!”
Sunday
How I Got the Job
Predator Press
[LOBO]
Why Fate wrought such war upon me over the last few years isn’t clear, but I sense She grows weary of our struggle.
Little by little, the black tide abates.
Pondering this vaguely, I punch in the supplied keycode by the glass doors of the Spanish Fly Industrial Complex. Exactly on time, I am surprised to find a clean, sparse room. Interestingly, the door I came in is the only entrance or exit.
There is no access to the rest of the building from here.
A fake entrance?
As for signs of human occupation –or even utility- there is little. No telephone. All there is is a combination VCR and television sitting on a collapsible card table. “PRESS PLAY” is printed neatly in likely the black marker on a well-aged index card, and taped by the VCR controls. Three small vials of differently colored fluids, a clear, a white, and a blue, numbered 1-3 in black marker, are standing in a wire display frame.
My name -printed in the similar blocky black Sharpie fashion- on a large new yellow envelope squarely in front of the chair. An ”old school” computer –replete with a green hued fishbowl monitor and a "c-prompt"- hums audibly, and the cursor flashes with infinite and eerie patience.
A vacuum with a hose attachment in the corner grants me a bonus observations; while most horizontal surfaces in the room have a thin layer of dust, the desk and surrounding area is meticulously clean.
Perhaps glaring in the room’s utter sparseness, a subtle camera is fixed in the upper southeast corner.
It, too, is dustless.
The manila envelope contains only a folder bearing my name.
But it’s empty.
Sitting, I reach to the “Play” button, hesitating. There is something about this moment that makes me a sense that, for better or for worse, there is no returning back from this moment. Maybe good ‘ole Fate is easing Her wrath finally.
-Or maybe She’s been playing a ‘Rope-a-Dope’ strategy on my this whole time, and this will be a nice kidney shot just to remind me She’s been thinking about me quite a bit.
The button on the hopelessly antiquated machine clunks under my finger, and the screen flickers as it whines to life. A grainy black and white SFIC company logo is accompanied by a sickening, tinny music that seems to oscillate at wrong speeds, and odd light and dark shapes dance and disappear like ghosts across the screen.
A man in a white lab coat enters the frame and bows stiffly.
“Welcome to the Spanish Fry Induslial Comprex Perspective Employee. I am Doctor Kim Yakamoto, and I will be conducting this intervliew.”
-The words ‘perspective employee’ were dubbed in by another voice. Perfect English. Corporate efficiency, or did the good Doctor Yamamoto just butcher the language too much?
”Thank you for your intelest in the Chemical Taster position. Preese enter the keycode number you were suppried with into the computer.”
I enter the six digits at the prompt. As, eh 'prompted.' The computer’s fan whirs to life, and after an exaggerated pause, a screen with my name on it.
“Preese anaryze-“ Doctor Yamamoto continues is a static addled, warbling voice, “chemicals one, two and thlee, and enter your commentary into the computer. Leave this tape lunning, and I rill tell you when to stop. The test will automaticary save at this point. Begin.”
Vial 1 is clear.
“Vial 1 is tap water,” I enter. “De-ionized water is better for industrial use. The ph level you’re using with this filtrated city water could contaminate your results.”
Vail 2, white, on the other hand, is far less subtle.
“Vail 2 is obviously milk that expired in the middle of last month, and sour. Blech.”
Vial 3, blue, poses somewhat more of a mystery. Standing, I view it through the overhead lights. Thicker than the others, almost like watery dishwashing liquid. The visual inspection yields little else. And suddenly facing the prospect that I need to open it, I’m unsure.
What am I opening here?
“Fuck that,” I says, thinking aloud. For all I know this could be Sarin gas or something. There must be some other way to ...
My eyes fall to the vacuum cleaner.I draw a line in the dust on top of the computer, and examine my fingertip.
-And ever so gingerly, I return the blue vial to it’s cradle. And sitting back down, I type in simply:
"Is Vial 3 the stuff that makes your hair fall out?"
The screen goes blank.
”Time is up,” says Doctor Yamamoto.”Once again, thank you for your interest in the Chemical Taster position. We will review your results and contact you with our decision within 24 hours.”
Saturday
Friday
Sugar Plum
Predator Press
[LOBO]
eremy opened the limo door for the gentlemen, exactly as his uncle taught him.
“Above all else,” his uncle reminded gently eons ago. “Never ever ever speak unless asked to.”
And Jeremy was fine with that.
-He didn’t much like talking anyway.
One might imagine this to be good advice particularly when driving for Caesar the Rat; Caesar, an unprecedented eight litters old, had grown to such immense girth the entire vehicle tilted as he entered. You couldn’t miss the groaning sounds from the vehicle's suspension, but none in his presence ever spoke of it.
Two more rats flanked Caesar on either side: one administrative-looking and adroit, the other a thug or bodyguard.
“Are you sure you don’t want a ride?” the administrative rat called. The steam from his breath blew through his manicured, gloved paws.
“No thank you,” she called, rapidly diminishing in the distance.
Jeremy noticed her bare prints in the snow led from the side door of The House a Go Go –“The House” as it is known. Diminutive in size in stature, Sugar Plum must have quietly slipped by him unobserved.
The bodyguard had a cellphone glued to his ear, removing it only briefly to duck inside the vehicle.
Having closed the door, Jeremy walked around and climbed into the driver’s seat.
Warm.
Still shivering, Jeremy watched in the mirror and politely waited for instructions.
“You can’t run no topless joint without no goyls,” said Caesar. He had uncharacteristically taken the seat directly behind Jeremy, and they were almost back-to-back. Jeremy could see Caesar’s labored breathing in his shoulders as he spoke, and the big cigar swiveled alternately behind his silhouette.
“Well, I told her Boss,” stammered the administrative rat. “Three times the pay than bartending. Ten times the tips. She wouldn’t have none of it.”
“She quit?”
“Claimed she was insulted.”
Caesar heaved a sigh. Plucking the cigar from his face, he used it to point at the administrative rat. “Ain’t she a gaddamm titmouse?”
“Third generation!” the administrative rat protested.
The bodyguard flipped his phone shut. “I got nothing boss. Tryin to get dancers in here Christmas Eve is gonna be tough.”
Caesars ears flicked, and in the rearview mirror Jeremy could clearly see the big awful scars in them. The left was by far the worse of the two: Caesar had nearly lost it in a youthful scuffle.
“You can’t run no topless joint without no goyls,” Caesar repeated.
“Did Sugar Plum quit?” asked the bodyguard, watching the barefooted figure vanishing in the cold darkness.
“Yes,” replied the administrative rat.
“I thought she might,” said the bodyguard. "That’s too bad. She mixed a mean Bloody Mary.”
“You can’t run no topless joint without no booze,” Caesar underlined, agreeing.
Almost on cue, the last three customers of The House staggered out, mumbling angrily amongst themselves. A waiter, clearly pleading, followed them out.
“Gentlemen,” he whined. “Please come again!”
Caesar alternated the cigar between the two lackeys in the back seat with him. “Either of you worthless fucks know how to stir boozes?”
Both cringed in silence.
Caesar growled, and jammed the cigar back in his mouth.
The waiter from the restaurant approached the car, and the bodyguard eyed him carefully as Caesar cracked open his window.
“That was the last of them sir,” said the waiter. “And as of now, we don’t have any support staff tonight.”
“You can’t run no topless joint without no one stirring no gaddamm boozes!” Caesar thundered.
“But Caesar,” the waiter protested calmly. “It’s the night before Christmas, and all through The House not a creature is stirring.” He gestured to the footprints. “Not even a mouse.”
In Jeremy's side mirror, Caesar's cigar broke the plane of the open window.
“Don’t get lippy with me, punk.”
[LOBO]
eremy opened the limo door for the gentlemen, exactly as his uncle taught him.“Above all else,” his uncle reminded gently eons ago. “Never ever ever speak unless asked to.”
And Jeremy was fine with that.
-He didn’t much like talking anyway.
One might imagine this to be good advice particularly when driving for Caesar the Rat; Caesar, an unprecedented eight litters old, had grown to such immense girth the entire vehicle tilted as he entered. You couldn’t miss the groaning sounds from the vehicle's suspension, but none in his presence ever spoke of it.
Two more rats flanked Caesar on either side: one administrative-looking and adroit, the other a thug or bodyguard.
“Are you sure you don’t want a ride?” the administrative rat called. The steam from his breath blew through his manicured, gloved paws.
“No thank you,” she called, rapidly diminishing in the distance.
Jeremy noticed her bare prints in the snow led from the side door of The House a Go Go –“The House” as it is known. Diminutive in size in stature, Sugar Plum must have quietly slipped by him unobserved.
The bodyguard had a cellphone glued to his ear, removing it only briefly to duck inside the vehicle.
Having closed the door, Jeremy walked around and climbed into the driver’s seat.
Warm.
Still shivering, Jeremy watched in the mirror and politely waited for instructions.
“You can’t run no topless joint without no goyls,” said Caesar. He had uncharacteristically taken the seat directly behind Jeremy, and they were almost back-to-back. Jeremy could see Caesar’s labored breathing in his shoulders as he spoke, and the big cigar swiveled alternately behind his silhouette.
“Well, I told her Boss,” stammered the administrative rat. “Three times the pay than bartending. Ten times the tips. She wouldn’t have none of it.”
“She quit?”
“Claimed she was insulted.”
Caesar heaved a sigh. Plucking the cigar from his face, he used it to point at the administrative rat. “Ain’t she a gaddamm titmouse?”
“Third generation!” the administrative rat protested.
The bodyguard flipped his phone shut. “I got nothing boss. Tryin to get dancers in here Christmas Eve is gonna be tough.”
Caesars ears flicked, and in the rearview mirror Jeremy could clearly see the big awful scars in them. The left was by far the worse of the two: Caesar had nearly lost it in a youthful scuffle.
“You can’t run no topless joint without no goyls,” Caesar repeated.
“Did Sugar Plum quit?” asked the bodyguard, watching the barefooted figure vanishing in the cold darkness.
“Yes,” replied the administrative rat.
“I thought she might,” said the bodyguard. "That’s too bad. She mixed a mean Bloody Mary.”
“You can’t run no topless joint without no booze,” Caesar underlined, agreeing.
Almost on cue, the last three customers of The House staggered out, mumbling angrily amongst themselves. A waiter, clearly pleading, followed them out.
“Gentlemen,” he whined. “Please come again!”
Caesar alternated the cigar between the two lackeys in the back seat with him. “Either of you worthless fucks know how to stir boozes?”
Both cringed in silence.
Caesar growled, and jammed the cigar back in his mouth.
The waiter from the restaurant approached the car, and the bodyguard eyed him carefully as Caesar cracked open his window.
“That was the last of them sir,” said the waiter. “And as of now, we don’t have any support staff tonight.”
“You can’t run no topless joint without no one stirring no gaddamm boozes!” Caesar thundered.
“But Caesar,” the waiter protested calmly. “It’s the night before Christmas, and all through The House not a creature is stirring.” He gestured to the footprints. “Not even a mouse.”
In Jeremy's side mirror, Caesar's cigar broke the plane of the open window.
“Don’t get lippy with me, punk.”
Wednesday
I Thin I Boke my Node
Predator Press
[LOBO]
So I was thinking about the Facebook [FB] rollercoaster stock ride.
See, FB doesn’t yet have a platform designed for profit. But what interests me in stock in companies such as FB, Twitter, Apple and Google is much more long range: all these companies are vanguard explorers of the violent and barbaric technological fringe –something that I have been arguing since 1984 that would literally be the next step in Human Evolution.
Humankind, now able to communicate globally and instantaneously, has achieved virtual telepathy.
And whether you agree with me or not, at least admit these technologies aren’t going away anytime soon.
Further, these companies –assuming proper management- have patents. Thus, if my “theory” holds true, the advanced R&D in these companies can license these properties for commensurate fees. In short, you’re not just buying a website. You are buying technologies.
With a memo pad in one hand and a pencil in the other, I went to where any sane person does to mull important decisions, the bathroom, and decided to weigh the prospect. Hands full, however, I kicked the half-closed bathroom door open wide … completely forgetting my sneakers, virtually hugging bottom at the other side.
-POW!!!
It didn’t bleed much at the time. Stopped in an hour or so. But in retrospect, I think everything swelled up and blocked it. Skip ahead to my morning shower nine hours later: no black eyes, but In the humidity the swelling presumably contracted. The urge to involuntarily blow my nose produced lightning-like blinding pain as I violently ripped the clotting and splashed twin black octopi -scabs and dried blood from both nostrils- audibly on the tub floor.
And then the real bleeding began.
Tuesday
Meet FrankensteinBot/pwn.exe.vi.2
 |
| FrankensteinBot/pwn.exe.vi.2 is actually "Classified." But you get the idea. |
[LOBO]
With all due respect to the mighty and noble Mayan, this is the lousiest Apocalypse I’ve ever seen.
-What if there is going to be a 2013?
You mean I'll still be on this shithole dump planet spinning into an endless, shithole dump infinite void? With this credit rating? And YOU assholes?
I knew it. I should never have given that cult all my money and worldly possessions. They were all like "Yeah, were gettin on the Mother Ship today!" And I was like "Cool!"
But they ditched me at Shoe Carnival.
They went to the Mother Ship without me.
Bastards.
Thursday
Borne Leader
Predator Press
[LOBO]
"I regret to inform you," sighs Barbarossa, "That you have been nominated as Union Steward."
My attention snaps from the computer screen. "What?"
"The People like your plan to bring back sexual harassment. Restoring the two martini lunch would be cool too." He scratches his chin. "Even piss testing us is a violation of the HIPPA law."
My eyebrows furrow. "I can't be a corporate lickspittle and a Union Steward. And have you looked around? SFIC is a soiree of Asperger's Disease and, well, ugly. You want drugs too? This place would be a seething cesspool of literally toxic DNA."
"We want the American workplace to be restored back to the glory days of 1960."
"Barbarossa, what year were you born?"
"1961," he replies.
"I rest my case."
[LOBO]
"I regret to inform you," sighs Barbarossa, "That you have been nominated as Union Steward."
My attention snaps from the computer screen. "What?"
"The People like your plan to bring back sexual harassment. Restoring the two martini lunch would be cool too." He scratches his chin. "Even piss testing us is a violation of the HIPPA law."
My eyebrows furrow. "I can't be a corporate lickspittle and a Union Steward. And have you looked around? SFIC is a soiree of Asperger's Disease and, well, ugly. You want drugs too? This place would be a seething cesspool of literally toxic DNA."
"We want the American workplace to be restored back to the glory days of 1960."
"Barbarossa, what year were you born?"
"1961," he replies.
"I rest my case."
Tuesday
Sexual Harassment at the Workplace
Predator Press [LOBO]
“Thank you all for coming,” booms the suited guy at the podium in surround sound. “To the Annual Seminar on Sexual Harassment at the Workplace.”
I stand. “It’s about damn time!”
-And it was as if I had somehow removed all oxygen from the auditorium a half-second too early: the thirty-seven rows of people ahead all stared backwards at me, jaws agape. A woman six rows behind me audibly gasped and fainted.
The suited guy at the podium points at me sympathetically. “Have you been a victim of sexual harassment sir?” he booms in surround sound.
“Not yet,” I yell back. “And I'm getting depressed.”
Sunday
Saturday
Wednesday
Space Rape
Predator Press
[LOBO]
This morning I flipped a cardboard box into the "Recycling" dumpster.
And in the brief span of time I saw triangular sun-illuminated dumpster contents, I saw like nine million twitching bees, all vertically lined up against the dumpster lining. And then the lid, as designed, shut by virtue of gravity.
"What the fuck?" I thought. "Jesus, that just looked like nine million twitching bees, all vertically lined up against the dumpster lining." Popping the dumpster back open, I thought "What the hell did I really see?"
It was at that exact moment that nine million pissed off bees attacked me.
But as you longtime Predator Press readers know, I am an honorary white-belt Master of the long-lost martial art form of Peking Duck: four or five bees stung my shirt, but I deftly locked myself in the trunk of my '74 Toyota Camry without a single sting to my actual flesh.
Still, I think all my neighbors are dead by now.
Monday
Rejection Coverage 2012
Predator Press
[LOBO]
Staring down the barrel of one of the most depressing, disproportionately-charged presidential elections in decades, I suppose some rare political commentary is warranted.
From Romney’s poor categorization of Russian foreign policy to Obama’s flabbergasting ignorance(?) of the role of the Supreme Court, I have seen enough historic distortion and political boobery to be genuinely concerned over the fate of a country LOBOnia shares deep and mutually-beneficial diplomatic ties with.
The United States of America.
My issue with Obama is simply that if he held off the announcement of Osama Bin Laden’s [OBL] death at least for a few weeks, we could have used the intelligence we gathered at his compound and snuffed out Al Qaeda entirely. My issue with Romney is kinda less-specified, but one only has to listen to Rush Limbaugh for five minutes to cement distrust for the Republican Party .
Under the much-ballyhooed Ronald Reagan, my life was never worse. I bussed tables at a “Duff’s” smorgasbord, and worked as a pizza cook in an effort to feed my family –all for four dollars and twenty-five cents an hour. And I was “lucky” to have it, as there was always five or six job applications from people just as desperate for the jobs I had.
There’s no point to this post, other than the sheer creeping horror I’m dealing with.
I always took it on Faith that the people in charge would be better than me. Smarter.
-I am officially concerned.
[LOBO]
Staring down the barrel of one of the most depressing, disproportionately-charged presidential elections in decades, I suppose some rare political commentary is warranted.From Romney’s poor categorization of Russian foreign policy to Obama’s flabbergasting ignorance(?) of the role of the Supreme Court, I have seen enough historic distortion and political boobery to be genuinely concerned over the fate of a country LOBOnia shares deep and mutually-beneficial diplomatic ties with.
The United States of America.
My issue with Obama is simply that if he held off the announcement of Osama Bin Laden’s [OBL] death at least for a few weeks, we could have used the intelligence we gathered at his compound and snuffed out Al Qaeda entirely. My issue with Romney is kinda less-specified, but one only has to listen to Rush Limbaugh for five minutes to cement distrust for the Republican Party .
Under the much-ballyhooed Ronald Reagan, my life was never worse. I bussed tables at a “Duff’s” smorgasbord, and worked as a pizza cook in an effort to feed my family –all for four dollars and twenty-five cents an hour. And I was “lucky” to have it, as there was always five or six job applications from people just as desperate for the jobs I had.
There’s no point to this post, other than the sheer creeping horror I’m dealing with.
I always took it on Faith that the people in charge would be better than me. Smarter.
-I am officially concerned.
Tuesday
Chicago “Occupied” as Octomom to be “Preoccupied”
Predator Press
[LOBO]
See technically, I know Everything.
-But that means I know things that aren't necessarily true.
I am as hard-wired to news as one can be I think. And every brief debacle of my slothful and indolent consciousness on Earth is soaking up salacious gossip from any “information” source at my immediate disposal. Even at work, in the dizzying depths of my hoary hamster cage, AM radio (Right-Wing punditry disguised as news) has some frail signal.
So I knew that Nadya “Octomom” Suleman would ultimately collapse under the weight of a debased, schadenfreude-wrapt nation before you did. Honestly I knew this would happen years ago: inevitably she would have no choice. But she is paying for her desire for fame, no?
More importantly, I know that every Anarchist’s anathema, other Anarchists, are making Anarchists in general look like total assholes.
Random acts of violence and chaos are just plain evil.
These pipsqueaks are just sociopaths. "Terrorists" in the truest sense.
(More to follow. I'm feeling "heady.")
See technically, I know Everything.
-But that means I know things that aren't necessarily true.
I am as hard-wired to news as one can be I think. And every brief debacle of my slothful and indolent consciousness on Earth is soaking up salacious gossip from any “information” source at my immediate disposal. Even at work, in the dizzying depths of my hoary hamster cage, AM radio (Right-Wing punditry disguised as news) has some frail signal.
So I knew that Nadya “Octomom” Suleman would ultimately collapse under the weight of a debased, schadenfreude-wrapt nation before you did. Honestly I knew this would happen years ago: inevitably she would have no choice. But she is paying for her desire for fame, no?More importantly, I know that every Anarchist’s anathema, other Anarchists, are making Anarchists in general look like total assholes.
Random acts of violence and chaos are just plain evil.
These pipsqueaks are just sociopaths. "Terrorists" in the truest sense.
(More to follow. I'm feeling "heady.")
Monday
Razed Right
Predator Press
[LOBO]
Currently embroiled in my third divorce, I now feel I feel I am qualified to lecture comprehensively on the subject.
-The first strangely invigorating, thoroughly rude sensation, is that initial shower blast.
Hanging from the showerhead, the 80’s songs you propped yourself up with last night thunder in your skull. You fumble for the hairy bar of soap as a weird mix of “Safari” perfume, WD-40, glitter, and some bent tricycle spokes cyclone helplessly down the drain.
Toweling off, you curse whoever made you this coffee. They fucked it up entirely- it’s either too strong or too weak.
In an impotent rage, you realize you made this coffee yourself.
Sunday
Wednesday
Phillip K. Dickhead
Predator Press
[LOBO]
Picture a gigantic five-story hamster cage a quarter of a mile across, and each of the five floors separated by a maze of its own storage, industrial equipment, and systems of belts to bring freight in and out.
A demented child’s toy, blown up to the size of an amusement park.
-But I often forget its subtle and elegant genius; here at the precipice, the fifth floor, I can see down through all the cage floors, and clearly make out faces of my coworkers clocking in.
Coburn, my boss, is explaining something in excruciating detail. Probably the daily goals and hot issues, and I’m pretending to listen. But frankly the last thing I remember hearing him say was at the cafeteria pizza party two weeks ago, when he announced to some forty of us workers he “couldn’t eat with us because he is vegan.”
Well, I don’t want to work for a vegan –especially the world’s only fat vegan. At 5’2" and with a blunted-looking head, Coburn almost casts a perfectly cube shadow from any direction.
Coburn stops talking at the same moment I see Barbarossa, out of breath and sweating, clocking in on the ground floor.
Barbarossa is four minutes late.
“We will descend upon this like the angels of an angry God,” I growl.
Coburn, I’m surprised, is still here. In fact I’m reflexively engaged in his weirdly-hard, excruciating handshake.
“You’re a good man,” Coburn explains. “And the company has its eye on you.”
Sunday
Don't Eat the Red Snow
Predator Press
[LOBO]
"You realize," says Max, arcing his lightsaber gracefully, making the 'hyms' and 'hums' with the blue beam, "George Lucas is going to sue the hell out of us."
"I wonder if they work though?" replies Brighta. With this, Brighta lashed his red beam into Max's. Then, spinning, he delivered a second.
Max, caught wholly off guard, watched in horror as his left hand fell to the ground.
Twitching.
"You dick!" Max screamed.
"Why didn't you block?" Brighta defended.
"No lightsabers!"
"Okay fine." Closing his eyes, Brighta made his third and final wish.
And where Max's amputated hand was once attached, a chrome, high-tech Gatling gun grew from his forearm.
Max goggles. "Cool!"
"Now let's do this thing," Brighta nods, coolly clipping his glowing lightcycle helmet on. "Before Vetter drinks all the booze."
"You realize," says Max, arcing his lightsaber gracefully, making the 'hyms' and 'hums' with the blue beam, "George Lucas is going to sue the hell out of us."
"I wonder if they work though?" replies Brighta. With this, Brighta lashed his red beam into Max's. Then, spinning, he delivered a second.
Max, caught wholly off guard, watched in horror as his left hand fell to the ground.
Twitching.
"You dick!" Max screamed.
"Why didn't you block?" Brighta defended.
"No lightsabers!"
"Okay fine." Closing his eyes, Brighta made his third and final wish.
And where Max's amputated hand was once attached, a chrome, high-tech Gatling gun grew from his forearm.
Max goggles. "Cool!"
"Now let's do this thing," Brighta nods, coolly clipping his glowing lightcycle helmet on. "Before Vetter drinks all the booze."
Saturday
Valkyrie Rose
Predator Press
[LOBO]
Part II
”I find myself having to choose if I flee back to the surface, or stay in here and figure out what happened,” I says. "At this rate, the door will be closed completely in a day or so.”
I pan the camera to the cave enormous and slowly descending steel door.
A shock of static.
”I’m staying,” I commit to the black and glossy disinterested dead lens, shivering, breath visible in the chill. ”There’s nothing up there anymore anyway.”
[LOBO]
Part II
”I find myself having to choose if I flee back to the surface, or stay in here and figure out what happened,” I says. "At this rate, the door will be closed completely in a day or so.”
I pan the camera to the cave enormous and slowly descending steel door.
A shock of static.
”I’m staying,” I commit to the black and glossy disinterested dead lens, shivering, breath visible in the chill. ”There’s nothing up there anymore anyway.”
Apocalypse NOW!
Predator Press
[LOBO]
The first problem with the Swine Flu is the name itself. Blech! Who names these things anyway? Would it have been so bad to name it something more palatable like the "Fuzzy-Bunny" flu?
To test this theory, I called my mom and told her I had a bad case of Fuzzy Bunnies. She thought it was wonderful, and requested I save her one.
But because this disease can kill you, the cutesy name theorem is imperfect: "Fuzzy Bunny" entered on your Death Certificate as 'Cause of Death' can have an extremely negative effect on your street cred; once the illness turns lethal, we're going to want to call it something more dangerous sounding.
Currently I’m leaning toward "Thor’s Bitchslap."
-Now that sounds like a pretty cool way to die.
That being said, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is according to numerous highly-scientific simulations I’ve conducted on the Flash game Pandemic II, I figure you all have maybe eight days left before the virulent "wonderful" outbreak of Fuzzy-Bunny devolves fully into the subsequent -and inevitably fatal- onset of Thor’s Bitchslap.
But the good news is with proper precautions there’s still hope for all of you not transmitting this disease to me. The Predator Press Center For Disease Control has issued the following recommendations:
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.
Monday
Academix
[LOBO]
It occurs to me how hard I worked to pass my college biology classes, and how promptly I forgot all that largely useless data.
Chicago has a pretty limited ecology. Unless you want to be a doctor or a vet, Chicago biology classes should consist of dogs, cats, and rats. Some bugs. And maybe extra credit for fish.
The same goes for algebra. I ultimately would grow to like algebra, and was pretty good at it. But far as a practical? Again, not a single post-college application to date.
Zero.
Why don't colleges offer classes on fishing and hunting? That seems infinitely more important than solving for "x."
Sunday
The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs
-as retold by Predator Press
[LOBO]
Once upon a time, a man and his wife got a fantastical golden goose, and it laid a golden egg every day.
“This is terrible,” said the man. “We can’t eat gold!”
“Kill it,” said the woman. “It might breed with the other animals. The entire village could starve to death!”
“We will be remembered forever as heroes!” cried the man.
[LOBO]
Once upon a time, a man and his wife got a fantastical golden goose, and it laid a golden egg every day.
“This is terrible,” said the man. “We can’t eat gold!”
“Kill it,” said the woman. “It might breed with the other animals. The entire village could starve to death!”
“We will be remembered forever as heroes!” cried the man.
Valkyrie Rose
Predator Press
[LOBO]
Part I
s per design specs, the Mag Lev Network efficiently delivered Beverly to Winston’s apartment -200 miles away- within 20 minutes. Still, despite her rush, she found herself pausing at the door. What she is proposing is both crazy and frightening, and she steadied herself as a shiver ran through her like an electric current.
In this moment of forced and focused suppression of fear, she realizes her head is aching too. Suspecting her hastily-applied ponytail, she pulls the elastic ring out as she finally knocks. This unintentionally delights Winston who, already attracted to the good Doctor, has never seen her somewhat bookish and professional demeanor.
“Beverly,” Winston smiles blearily, still adjusting his robe.
“I’m sorry Winston,” Beverly smiles somberly. “I should have called first. But I spent the ride here convincing Rick to come.”
“Here? Now?” Winston winces at his own incredulousness.
“Yes. Can I come in?”
“By all means,” he steps aside invitingly and closes the door behind her.
If Beverly is impressed by Winston’s rather posh apartment, she doesn’t let on as she strides to his kitchen. “Do you have coffee?”
Still at the door, Winston scratches though his sleep-addled hair . “Sure. Is something wrong?”
“Did you watch the translated vid?”
“Some of it,” Winston shrugs, following her. “It’s a hoax,” he adds conclusively as he procures coffee grounds from a cabinet.
“It’s too elaborate to be a hoax. Nothing on this scale could be created in secret. Even the language is some long-dead derivative of Latin. Are you hungry? I want to order food.”
“It’s 11pm,” Winston protested mildly, filling the coffee maker with water. “And we have a meeting tomorrow morning.”
“To report our findings,” Beverly agrees. “We are having a meeting before that one. These findings are,” she chooses her words carefully. Only now does it occur to her that Winston’s apartment may have surreptitiously. But for that matter, her apartment could be too. “Significant,” she proceeds dubiously. “Particularly given who we are reporting them to. Mag Lev will want to drill regardless of our opinions, and with billions of dollars at stake it would surprise me for this to just disappear. We need to discuss our findings first. And what to tell them, if anything at all. Rick is already on his way.”
“So you watched the whole thing?”
“Numerous times. And read and re-read the transcripts and all the analysis I could.”
Winston chuckles. “And you thing is some kind of distress call from some ancient civilization.”
“No,” replies Beverly. “I think it’s a warning.”
***
“How are we doing?”
“Well, it ain’t good,” I says, peeling back my mask. “I’m a hundred miles behind. I went down as far as I could -maybe a mile. But visibility is pretty bad.” Tucking my head into my lapel, I finger sand from the filter. “I got a goddamn flat tire too.”
There’s a pause, and empty static crackled loudly.
“Can you get back on track?”
“I don’t think so,” I says, staring out unseeing over the clouded chasm. “Negative. I’m sure I can get the bike fixed; my grandpa had a farm out here a few miles back. But I can’t see a damn thing unless this storm clears up. It looks like the end of the Earth.”
Would grandfather’s farm even still be there? I thought. This was nothing but boring farm flatland ten years ago.
“I’m going to have to check in with you guys in the morning,” I says. “I have no idea what has happened here. The landscape seems totally different.” I bit my lip, thinking. “Unfortunately, I can guarantee we won’t be finding any food here.” Hesitant and frank, I commit, “I would guess this is the end of the road really.”
“Round trip?”
“It’s your call. I’m familiar with this area, so maybe I can dig something up. And if the storm clears, there might even be a way to continue on.” I look back over my shoulder to see the gulch beyond the edge of the highway, but only see the whipping grey of sand and ash. “I don’t know how optimistic to be about the highway, but as far as being broken down, I couldn’t have picked a better spot. I grew up here. Blinding storm or not, I know the area.”
“I think it’s a good idea for you to get some rest.”
I laughed, “Funny. I was thinking food. I’ll bet a million bucks I’ll find a few cans of chili or something.”
“Let’s say you check in daily.”
“Grid permitting.”
“Of course.”
“We need to make this conversation short then, for my battery. I’ll bring back all the fuel I can carry too.”
“Refined?”
“Let’s not get picky yet. Lemme see what happens.” There's a thick, dried brush under the sand, and sometimes it cracks under my steps causing me to sink several inches. "This was a farming community. Unless is was looted thoroughly, I should find a trove of useful stuff. Frankly I don't know how you could have looted this place of everything considering how hostile it seems."
“I’m officially listing you as ‘Grounded by Severe Storm” until further notice.” A brief pause. “How long until we have you back on duty?”
“What makes you think I’m coming off duty?” I says. Re-applying the filtered mask, I switch off the doubtlessly-recorded conversation. The approval I wanted was, well, all I wanted. They won't be hearing me for a while. Did we do this? I don't know. Do I care?
Jesus fucking Christ. This place is a hellhole now.
I remember the Shell station sign, and that used to be at the highway exit.
No I don't really care.
-So that means that before the huge crack in the earth runs roughly perpendicular. I close my eyes for a moment to try and remember the place with roads. Eyes open, it occurs to me that I’m not on any of the ‘roads’ at all … I’m in a water retention pond, now full of sand.. Strangely fortunate, this leads me directly into the edge of the city.
I decide to prop up the bike and leave it. With visibility as it is, I'm as likely to hit an abandoned car or a concrete pole or something. Further complicating things is that my area knowledge is very old: you would be surprised how many new buildings and apartment complexes and roads creep in over the years.
Plus, my father's farm was well outside the city -maybe eighteen miles southwest of the -the "Rift"- as the crow flies. Farm land, surrounded by wire fencing to mark borders and keep large animals in. In short, biking any further off the highway would be a good way to get decapitated.
Still, I would live to regret my cavalier attitude.
This storm, to my knowledge, would never end.
And I would never hear another living human voice again.
[LOBO]
Part I
In this moment of forced and focused suppression of fear, she realizes her head is aching too. Suspecting her hastily-applied ponytail, she pulls the elastic ring out as she finally knocks. This unintentionally delights Winston who, already attracted to the good Doctor, has never seen her somewhat bookish and professional demeanor.
“Beverly,” Winston smiles blearily, still adjusting his robe.
“I’m sorry Winston,” Beverly smiles somberly. “I should have called first. But I spent the ride here convincing Rick to come.”
“Here? Now?” Winston winces at his own incredulousness.
“Yes. Can I come in?”
“By all means,” he steps aside invitingly and closes the door behind her.
If Beverly is impressed by Winston’s rather posh apartment, she doesn’t let on as she strides to his kitchen. “Do you have coffee?”
Still at the door, Winston scratches though his sleep-addled hair . “Sure. Is something wrong?”
“Did you watch the translated vid?”
“Some of it,” Winston shrugs, following her. “It’s a hoax,” he adds conclusively as he procures coffee grounds from a cabinet.
“It’s too elaborate to be a hoax. Nothing on this scale could be created in secret. Even the language is some long-dead derivative of Latin. Are you hungry? I want to order food.”
“It’s 11pm,” Winston protested mildly, filling the coffee maker with water. “And we have a meeting tomorrow morning.”
“To report our findings,” Beverly agrees. “We are having a meeting before that one. These findings are,” she chooses her words carefully. Only now does it occur to her that Winston’s apartment may have surreptitiously. But for that matter, her apartment could be too. “Significant,” she proceeds dubiously. “Particularly given who we are reporting them to. Mag Lev will want to drill regardless of our opinions, and with billions of dollars at stake it would surprise me for this to just disappear. We need to discuss our findings first. And what to tell them, if anything at all. Rick is already on his way.”
“So you watched the whole thing?”
“Numerous times. And read and re-read the transcripts and all the analysis I could.”
Winston chuckles. “And you thing is some kind of distress call from some ancient civilization.”
“No,” replies Beverly. “I think it’s a warning.”
“How are we doing?”
“Well, it ain’t good,” I says, peeling back my mask. “I’m a hundred miles behind. I went down as far as I could -maybe a mile. But visibility is pretty bad.” Tucking my head into my lapel, I finger sand from the filter. “I got a goddamn flat tire too.”
There’s a pause, and empty static crackled loudly.
“Can you get back on track?”
“I don’t think so,” I says, staring out unseeing over the clouded chasm. “Negative. I’m sure I can get the bike fixed; my grandpa had a farm out here a few miles back. But I can’t see a damn thing unless this storm clears up. It looks like the end of the Earth.”
Would grandfather’s farm even still be there? I thought. This was nothing but boring farm flatland ten years ago.
“I’m going to have to check in with you guys in the morning,” I says. “I have no idea what has happened here. The landscape seems totally different.” I bit my lip, thinking. “Unfortunately, I can guarantee we won’t be finding any food here.” Hesitant and frank, I commit, “I would guess this is the end of the road really.”
“Round trip?”
“It’s your call. I’m familiar with this area, so maybe I can dig something up. And if the storm clears, there might even be a way to continue on.” I look back over my shoulder to see the gulch beyond the edge of the highway, but only see the whipping grey of sand and ash. “I don’t know how optimistic to be about the highway, but as far as being broken down, I couldn’t have picked a better spot. I grew up here. Blinding storm or not, I know the area.”
“I think it’s a good idea for you to get some rest.”
I laughed, “Funny. I was thinking food. I’ll bet a million bucks I’ll find a few cans of chili or something.”
“Let’s say you check in daily.”
“Grid permitting.”
“Of course.”
“We need to make this conversation short then, for my battery. I’ll bring back all the fuel I can carry too.”
“Refined?”
“Let’s not get picky yet. Lemme see what happens.” There's a thick, dried brush under the sand, and sometimes it cracks under my steps causing me to sink several inches. "This was a farming community. Unless is was looted thoroughly, I should find a trove of useful stuff. Frankly I don't know how you could have looted this place of everything considering how hostile it seems."
“I’m officially listing you as ‘Grounded by Severe Storm” until further notice.” A brief pause. “How long until we have you back on duty?”
“What makes you think I’m coming off duty?” I says. Re-applying the filtered mask, I switch off the doubtlessly-recorded conversation. The approval I wanted was, well, all I wanted. They won't be hearing me for a while. Did we do this? I don't know. Do I care?
Jesus fucking Christ. This place is a hellhole now.
I remember the Shell station sign, and that used to be at the highway exit.
No I don't really care.
-So that means that before the huge crack in the earth runs roughly perpendicular. I close my eyes for a moment to try and remember the place with roads. Eyes open, it occurs to me that I’m not on any of the ‘roads’ at all … I’m in a water retention pond, now full of sand.. Strangely fortunate, this leads me directly into the edge of the city.
I decide to prop up the bike and leave it. With visibility as it is, I'm as likely to hit an abandoned car or a concrete pole or something. Further complicating things is that my area knowledge is very old: you would be surprised how many new buildings and apartment complexes and roads creep in over the years.
Plus, my father's farm was well outside the city -maybe eighteen miles southwest of the -the "Rift"- as the crow flies. Farm land, surrounded by wire fencing to mark borders and keep large animals in. In short, biking any further off the highway would be a good way to get decapitated.
Still, I would live to regret my cavalier attitude.
This storm, to my knowledge, would never end.
And I would never hear another living human voice again.
Thursday
Prey-dar
Predator Press
[LOBO]
"I'm not going to be able to make it in today," wheezes Barbarossa over the radio. "I'm actually in the hospital."
Knowing Barbarossa's susceptibility to allergies, his first sick day doesn't really come as a surprise ... particularly in the pollen surfeit of this early Illinois Spring. But I have a corporate meeting scheduled this morning where toothy, well-dressed execs will want to decide what he should be fired for; Barbarossa's absence today would be professional suicide.
"Dude," he rasps over the phone cradled in my palm. "I think I just saw a the nurse fart!"
Switching the labels on his nasal decongestant spray and eye drops was merely hastening the inevitable.
-And inspired.
[LOBO]
"I'm not going to be able to make it in today," wheezes Barbarossa over the radio. "I'm actually in the hospital."
Knowing Barbarossa's susceptibility to allergies, his first sick day doesn't really come as a surprise ... particularly in the pollen surfeit of this early Illinois Spring. But I have a corporate meeting scheduled this morning where toothy, well-dressed execs will want to decide what he should be fired for; Barbarossa's absence today would be professional suicide.
"Dude," he rasps over the phone cradled in my palm. "I think I just saw a the nurse fart!"
Switching the labels on his nasal decongestant spray and eye drops was merely hastening the inevitable.
-And inspired.
Sunday
Reversing the Mayan Prophecy One Day at a Time
 |
| This is me in the picture. Probably. |
[LOBO]
For an additional $6.85 a week (after taxes), I am now officially in charge of Barbarossa -the closest approximation to a friend I have- and his girlfriend Agatha, who I strongly suspect is a transsexual.
The toothy boss-guy gripping my paw painfully gushes, "I think we've overlooked your rare qualifications long enough."
"I agree whoreheartedly" I reply, shaking back in a sincere and enthusiastic manner. "How soon can I fire people?"
 |
| Pthbbbt ... Stupid Mayans. |
Wednesday
LOBO's Discourse on "The Nature of Reality." Yes, there's a Quiz.
Predator Press
[LOBO]
As the economy slowly recovers, overqualified people compete for grunt work.
(-I imagine you’ll hear a lot more stories like this in the near future.)
But one of my squad is getting a promotion.
And it might be me.
***
Still, the morning meeting wasn’t for another twelve minutes. I let the door close behind me and basked in the restorative quiet, slipping into the deskless swivel chair for a contemplative moment.
Absently doing the well-practiced battery swap, I ponder having forgotten I set them up yesterday. Indeed I now remember explicitly doing it. But I could have walked in on a single battery today, and never given it another thought. The good ole sterile, irrefutable, mathematical Universe confounded its favorite Existentialist again with a potent dose of non-subjective Reality -alas only demonstrating my full embrace of the lens from which I choose to view it.
The “promotion” is nigh inconsequential, and hardly warranting attention. Paywise, it is about a quarter an hour -$10 a week. Before taxes.
And I am apparently competing with the rest of my “squad,” Barbarossa and Agatha –both of whom burst suddenly into the room, startling me slightly, and apparently discussing the same subject.
“It’s not worth it,” explains Agatha. She greets me with a dismissive wave, engrossed in conversation with Barbarossa. “It just makes people complain to you more. And that’s all people do around here is complain.”
The fact that Agatha is ironically complaining hasn’t escaped me, but I got lost in thought about Agatha's hands.
I don’t think "Agatha" is a woman.
See you can tell a lot about people by their hands. Their real age. Their occupation.
Their sex.
It beats that “Adam’s apple” crap all to hell. You can have the Adam’s apple surgically altered. But to my knowledge there’s no plastic surgery for hands -and could you imagine the expense? Thus, I suspect this large-handed, sometimes flat chested, six foot two, athletically-built, redhead-sporting-rare-patches-of-unfreckled-flesh “woman” -who personally chose the name “Agatha” BTW, and visibly smolders about all the above- is competition for this dubious honor with me.
In any case, she will kick ass on our softball team. Barbarossa, on the other hand, is of little concern. His eyes are black and swollen from sleepless exhaustion. And his hands shake from nervous anxiety. Addled. He really, really looks like he could use some pot to relax. But remember he thinks I am his probation officer for some reason, and I promptly dispose of unprocessed piss tests of his on a weekly basis like clockwork.
-I can't let him cloud his judgment now, potentially on the cusp of a potentially huge career move for him, can I?
As a Professional, I would prefer Barbarossa seek out the Universe's source of his issues -like the fact that someone using a surreptitiously-made car key has been sneaking out of the morning meeting and parking his car someplace different, adjusting his seats, reprogramming his radio stations and, yes, occasionally slightly deflating a random tire here and there.
I only know this because I have been paying Agatha twenty bucks a week to do it for over a month now.
And with Barbarossa out of the running, I’ll just point out the parking lot security tape of Agatha doing it.
But then I noticed something else disturbing about Agatha's hands.
-Barbarossa was holding one of them.
I think I screamed.
[LOBO]
As the economy slowly recovers, overqualified people compete for grunt work.
(-I imagine you’ll hear a lot more stories like this in the near future.)
But one of my squad is getting a promotion.
And it might be me.
Still, the morning meeting wasn’t for another twelve minutes. I let the door close behind me and basked in the restorative quiet, slipping into the deskless swivel chair for a contemplative moment.
 |
| "Honey. we can't see each other anymore. -It's not you, it's me." |
The “promotion” is nigh inconsequential, and hardly warranting attention. Paywise, it is about a quarter an hour -$10 a week. Before taxes.
And I am apparently competing with the rest of my “squad,” Barbarossa and Agatha –both of whom burst suddenly into the room, startling me slightly, and apparently discussing the same subject.
“It’s not worth it,” explains Agatha. She greets me with a dismissive wave, engrossed in conversation with Barbarossa. “It just makes people complain to you more. And that’s all people do around here is complain.”
The fact that Agatha is ironically complaining hasn’t escaped me, but I got lost in thought about Agatha's hands.
I don’t think "Agatha" is a woman.
***
See you can tell a lot about people by their hands. Their real age. Their occupation.
Their sex.
It beats that “Adam’s apple” crap all to hell. You can have the Adam’s apple surgically altered. But to my knowledge there’s no plastic surgery for hands -and could you imagine the expense? Thus, I suspect this large-handed, sometimes flat chested, six foot two, athletically-built, redhead-sporting-rare-patches-of-unfreckled-flesh “woman” -who personally chose the name “Agatha” BTW, and visibly smolders about all the above- is competition for this dubious honor with me.
In any case, she will kick ass on our softball team. Barbarossa, on the other hand, is of little concern. His eyes are black and swollen from sleepless exhaustion. And his hands shake from nervous anxiety. Addled. He really, really looks like he could use some pot to relax. But remember he thinks I am his probation officer for some reason, and I promptly dispose of unprocessed piss tests of his on a weekly basis like clockwork.
-I can't let him cloud his judgment now, potentially on the cusp of a potentially huge career move for him, can I?
As a Professional, I would prefer Barbarossa seek out the Universe's source of his issues -like the fact that someone using a surreptitiously-made car key has been sneaking out of the morning meeting and parking his car someplace different, adjusting his seats, reprogramming his radio stations and, yes, occasionally slightly deflating a random tire here and there.
I only know this because I have been paying Agatha twenty bucks a week to do it for over a month now.And with Barbarossa out of the running, I’ll just point out the parking lot security tape of Agatha doing it.
But then I noticed something else disturbing about Agatha's hands.
-Barbarossa was holding one of them.
I think I screamed.
Saturday
By Chainsaw or Blowtorch
Predator Press
[LOBO]
Regardless of misadventure, I make the same intersection
every morning between 6:23 and 6:26 in the morning.
This morning, however, I’m on track: 6:23, and I even had time to make a second cup of coffee. And despite my misgivings that it was too dark, the coffee is delightful.
[LOBO]
Regardless of misadventure, I make the same intersection
every morning between 6:23 and 6:26 in the morning.This morning, however, I’m on track: 6:23, and I even had time to make a second cup of coffee. And despite my misgivings that it was too dark, the coffee is delightful.
Respecting an hourly wage -half of what you made a scant
three years ago- requires some occasional "zen."
But it seems the more painted white rectangles that pass rhythmically
under my car, the more gray hairs I get.
Sunday
The Heart of the Artichoke
Predator Press
[LOBO]
Finally having lost faith in the "Rule of Law", I have chosen to follow the path of the Supervillain.
LadyTerri found this rather laughable.
"Supervillain?" she scoffs. "You passed out when I told you there were artichoke hearts in your salad."
"I'm a vegetarian!"
"Artichokes are vegetables."
"Well, that explains the rather lackluster effect of me gaining the vitality and courage of the artichoke by eating it's heart," I concede.
"If you're a vegetarian, why do you always want me to make pork chops?"
"'That which does not bend breaks,'" I recite wisefully.
"Stop quoting fortune cookies," she demands.
"Look," I insist. "I need a certain number of pork chops a day. I'm hypoglycemic."
"So you're going to be the world's first hypoglycemic quasi-vegetarian Supervillain? You blubbered like a sissy when Bambi's mom got shot."
"Hypoglycemics are prone to counter-regulatory hormones triggered by the falling glucose, and the neuroglycopenic effects produced by the reduced brain sugar!" I protest.
"Stop quoting Wikipedia!"
"I already bought a cape!"
***
I take exception to LaryTerri's doubts. Since childhood I have wanted nothing more than to be a Supervillain.
Dammit, I thought. What does she know? I'm absolutely oozing with, um, Supervillainiousness.
In fact I question the credentials of virtually all other acknowledged Supervillains!
Take Lex Luthor, for instance. How long can you go on as a qualified 'Supervillain' when you've known your arch-rival Superman's greatest weakness for decades and have yet been unable to exploit it? Lex shoulda just used a surface-to-air heat seeking missile to affix Kryptonite to Superman's keyster in flight. Suddenly, Superman can't fly any better'n a garden-variety cinderblock. Plus he ain't the "Man of Steel" anymore. Splatto! End of story.
Getting your ass kicked once a month hardly qualifies.
They shoulda called that guy Lex Loser
Still, I can't expect to go from zero to Supervillain overnight.
I need a reputation.
So I decides to do some midnight skulking.
Unfortunately, midnight is pretty late. I need a good 16 or 17 hours of sleep a night or I can't function at all. Plus, if I came home after midnight LadyTerri would totally kick my ass. But it occurred to me that midnight skulking at around 8:30 would be really sneaky ... no one would expect that.
Man, that's positively evil.
Ominously seizing the lunchbag she packed for me off of the counter, I made my way out to seek my evil destiny.
I started small. Once sufficiently dark, I tried kicking over the neighbor's garden gnomes. But the ground is frozen; all I did was painfully jam my toe. I figured I would have more luck with the trash cans, but their dog heard me and woke 'em up.
"Get the hell away from my trash LOBO!" Jeanie Anderson yelled.
"I'm not LOBO, Jeanie!" I replied, eyebrow arched.
-Hah! Already spinning my webs of deceit, I'm just crawling with evil now!
***
I wasn't really afraid when Stan Anderson loosed their dog Rommel on me.
That's not why I ran.
I ran because it's 6 degrees, and I'm wearing nothing but black rubber and spandex, a mask and cape.
-I'm freaking freezing.
Full-blown Supervillains seem to get way cooler uniforms. I'm not sure why ... maybe they get discounts for dry cleaning. This would be a good thing, because I keep forgetting I'm wearing the cape and dragging it outside the car door.
And that's how Rommel caught me. My cape, skirting the icy road outside the car door, was the perfect medium for Rommel to stop and drag my 1990 Plymouth Horizon off the road and into a nearby ditch.
Rommel then proceeded to dismember my car piece by piece. It was quite frightening; first it was small items like the door handles, mirrors and windshield wipers. Then those powerful paws appeared in my windshield; he clawed my rumpling hood for purchase while his enormous foam-dripping teeth shredded newly-exposed engine in enraged frustration.
Rommel paused to growl hideously at me through the glass, and I could see cuts and blood on his gums; rearing back as if in a sudden moment of inspiration, he began hurling himself against the windshield repeatedly, and web-like cracks began to race across with every impact.
Now this is why Supervillains have henchmen. I could've used a handful here. I could, for instance, make one get out and push. And then as the dog kills him, I make the next guy get out and push. -And continue on in that fashion until the beast's bloodlust was sated, or until I had been sufficiently pushed free.
Plunging finally through the windshield, I was surprised when Rommel passed right over my femoral artery and voraciously attacked the pork chops and salad LadyTerri packed for my dinner.
My God, I thought. This is the meanest Boston Terrier I've ever seen.
... and now he has eaten the heart of the artichoke too.
[LOBO]
Finally having lost faith in the "Rule of Law", I have chosen to follow the path of the Supervillain.LadyTerri found this rather laughable.
"Supervillain?" she scoffs. "You passed out when I told you there were artichoke hearts in your salad."
"I'm a vegetarian!"
"Artichokes are vegetables."
"Well, that explains the rather lackluster effect of me gaining the vitality and courage of the artichoke by eating it's heart," I concede.
"If you're a vegetarian, why do you always want me to make pork chops?"
"'That which does not bend breaks,'" I recite wisefully.
"Stop quoting fortune cookies," she demands.
"Look," I insist. "I need a certain number of pork chops a day. I'm hypoglycemic."
"So you're going to be the world's first hypoglycemic quasi-vegetarian Supervillain? You blubbered like a sissy when Bambi's mom got shot."
"Hypoglycemics are prone to counter-regulatory hormones triggered by the falling glucose, and the neuroglycopenic effects produced by the reduced brain sugar!" I protest.
"Stop quoting Wikipedia!"
"I already bought a cape!"
I take exception to LaryTerri's doubts. Since childhood I have wanted nothing more than to be a Supervillain.
Dammit, I thought. What does she know? I'm absolutely oozing with, um, Supervillainiousness.
In fact I question the credentials of virtually all other acknowledged Supervillains!
Take Lex Luthor, for instance. How long can you go on as a qualified 'Supervillain' when you've known your arch-rival Superman's greatest weakness for decades and have yet been unable to exploit it? Lex shoulda just used a surface-to-air heat seeking missile to affix Kryptonite to Superman's keyster in flight. Suddenly, Superman can't fly any better'n a garden-variety cinderblock. Plus he ain't the "Man of Steel" anymore. Splatto! End of story.
Getting your ass kicked once a month hardly qualifies.
They shoulda called that guy Lex Loser
Still, I can't expect to go from zero to Supervillain overnight.
I need a reputation.
So I decides to do some midnight skulking.
Unfortunately, midnight is pretty late. I need a good 16 or 17 hours of sleep a night or I can't function at all. Plus, if I came home after midnight LadyTerri would totally kick my ass. But it occurred to me that midnight skulking at around 8:30 would be really sneaky ... no one would expect that.
Man, that's positively evil.
Ominously seizing the lunchbag she packed for me off of the counter, I made my way out to seek my evil destiny.
I started small. Once sufficiently dark, I tried kicking over the neighbor's garden gnomes. But the ground is frozen; all I did was painfully jam my toe. I figured I would have more luck with the trash cans, but their dog heard me and woke 'em up.
"Get the hell away from my trash LOBO!" Jeanie Anderson yelled.
"I'm not LOBO, Jeanie!" I replied, eyebrow arched.
-Hah! Already spinning my webs of deceit, I'm just crawling with evil now!
I wasn't really afraid when Stan Anderson loosed their dog Rommel on me.
That's not why I ran.
I ran because it's 6 degrees, and I'm wearing nothing but black rubber and spandex, a mask and cape.
-I'm freaking freezing.
Full-blown Supervillains seem to get way cooler uniforms. I'm not sure why ... maybe they get discounts for dry cleaning. This would be a good thing, because I keep forgetting I'm wearing the cape and dragging it outside the car door.
And that's how Rommel caught me. My cape, skirting the icy road outside the car door, was the perfect medium for Rommel to stop and drag my 1990 Plymouth Horizon off the road and into a nearby ditch.Rommel then proceeded to dismember my car piece by piece. It was quite frightening; first it was small items like the door handles, mirrors and windshield wipers. Then those powerful paws appeared in my windshield; he clawed my rumpling hood for purchase while his enormous foam-dripping teeth shredded newly-exposed engine in enraged frustration.
Rommel paused to growl hideously at me through the glass, and I could see cuts and blood on his gums; rearing back as if in a sudden moment of inspiration, he began hurling himself against the windshield repeatedly, and web-like cracks began to race across with every impact.
Now this is why Supervillains have henchmen. I could've used a handful here. I could, for instance, make one get out and push. And then as the dog kills him, I make the next guy get out and push. -And continue on in that fashion until the beast's bloodlust was sated, or until I had been sufficiently pushed free.
Plunging finally through the windshield, I was surprised when Rommel passed right over my femoral artery and voraciously attacked the pork chops and salad LadyTerri packed for my dinner.
My God, I thought. This is the meanest Boston Terrier I've ever seen.
... and now he has eaten the heart of the artichoke too.
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