Predator Press

[Mr. Insanity]

The War Room was a living, breathing entity during the crisis.

"Sir, the SS Johnson has gone down in the San Francisco Bay," said Corporal Huett.

General Hamms scratched his forehead. "The Johnson? Isn't that the one with all those damned 'Village People'?"

It was almost a rhetorical query: he knew the ship's name well. For weeks he had suffered the sleepless, quiet dread of this particular aircraft carrier appearing on the Iraqi horizon. "How did this happen?" asks the General.

"The last report we have was from Commander Fritz. It details some kind of problem with configuring the tanning beds to the nuclear reactor." He pauses. "2000 souls presumed lost"

"2000 gay souls, right?"

"Presumably."

An officer wearing a headset interrupted. "Sir! It's the President on line three."

General Hamms sighed deeply as he picked up the phone. "Yes, Mr. President," he answered rigidly. "Yes sir. Right in the Bay." A pause. "2000 sir." He nods. "Yessir. All fruitcakes. Mostly democrats, and maybe a few bonus Protestants too."

"Sir!" snapped the soldier. "We have the interior decorator responsible for sinking the vessel on line four."

"He survived?"

"Apparently."

"Well get that boy out here!" the General demands. "He's a goddamned national hero!"


***

It turned out that the SS Johnson had indeed sunk, but the water was only a few inches deep. So LOBO stood staring out over a throng of pastel-colored capri-cut camouflage khakis and silk Aloha shirts as he received his telephoned field promotion to Brigadier General.

And sadly in front of 2,000 soggy seamen, he was ironically unable to think of a single joke to tell.

He picked up his issue of Playboy --LOBO was rarely seen anymore without a copy of Playboy or Juggs ever since the induction ceremony-- and jammed it in a militant fashion under his arm as he looked out over the bridge.

The visible billboards were all in Spanish.

LOBO doesn't speak or read Spanish.

So this is Russia he thought. A mere fifteen minutes at sea, and we're here already.

He turned to the group. "Gentlemen, we have arrived. And as the current ranking officer, I see no reason not to continue the invasion as scheduled."

The jazzed crowd cheered.

He turned to the bay, determined, and slapped the Playboy loudly on the wet deck.

"Alright boys. Start the musical number!"

Predator Press

[Mr. Insanity]

So we're on the maiden voyage of the SS Johnson, and Private First Class Curr has been assigned to redecorate the entire thing.

After having it painted pink, LOBO added eighteen bars, four saunas, six brothels, a casino, two crack houses, and a Banana Republic; all of which guaranteed Predator Press 5% of the net profit.

The thing sunk in the harbor.

Predator Press

[Mr. Insanity]

Sergeant Bellows looked over LOBO's application with a raised eyebrow. "In the box marked 'sex', you wrote 'often'."

LOBO and Legless Jim snickered.

"Oh wow that's funny," says the swiveling cigar. From somewhere in the smoke, he says "I've never seen that one before."

"Well, it's 'don't ask, don’t tell', right?" says Legless Jim.

"That's for sexuality."

We could see LOBO's dream of being deployed on an all-female aircraft carrier disintegrate in his glassy eyes.

"But 'please indicate your sexuality' is on the application!" he protested.

"Yeah, I see that. And you wrote 'flaming gay' ..."

"So I could be deployed with the hot chicks!"

"Whatever."

Well okay, now I'm curious. "But I thought your couldn't ask--"

Bellows swings the cigar into his waiting fingertips. "We didn't ask. We told him to fill out this application." Cigar in the ashtray, he leans back. "Look, how are we ever going to prosecute people for 'asking' if we don't know that the truth is? At least this way, if anybody calls Mr. Curr 'flaming gay', we can immediately shoot them because we know they asked."

"Hm," Says LOBO, now intrigued. "But what if someone calls me a 'raving heterosexual' or something?"

"Don't worry," I says. "There's no danger of that. In the entire span of this Blog, the only chick that even remotely wanted to pounce you got run over with a spaceship."

"But I'm not gay," says LOBO.

We all stare.

"I'm not!!!"

Predator Press

[Mr. Insanity]

Sergeant Bellows was a short, tough looking guy. Squarish. Looks like a bulldog twirling a cigar in his mouth.

So far, of all the potential recruits for today, he's only had to refuse one: some guy named Cunning tried to sneak in with a broken pelvis.

The quota for the day already met, he quietly listened to LOBO with some interest, leaning back in his chair with his fingers interlocked behind his head.

"So I got my cotton plants growing, and I'm trying to find polyester plants so I can just make the T-Shirts right from my house." LOBO strokes his chin in thoughtful distraction. "Now I'm worried about security issues: industrial and national espionage. With $200, I've got to find a way to get rid of those surveillance satellites." He pulls two tiles. "So I think What about the Venus Fly Trap?", he continues in animated triumph. "I mean plant a bunch of em around my place, and feed 'em live cattle and steroids."

LOBO places his tiles on the board. I-T.

Silently, Sergeant Bellows leans forward and places his own tiles --T-O-U-R-N-I-Q-U-E-T-- and after collecting fifteen more tiles, he resumes his contemplative listening.

Eyebrows furrowed, LOBO examines his tiles as he continues. "Yeah well, suddenly my commie-pinko neighbors are complaining," he scrunches his face in sardonic mockery. "All day and all night, I'm hearing 'they're too ugly', and 'the leaves are fallin in my yard', and 'has anyone seen my kids?'" He grabs his tile and spells O-N at the tail of 'bludgeon'. "And that's why I think we should go to war with Russia." He pauses. "You can authorize that, right?"

Sergeant Bellows builds on LOBO's "ON", making it PANTHEON. "Oh sure," says Bellows. The score is now two hundred six to eight in the stoic sergeant’s favor. "This is the Bush Administration. We'll just tell the President it was his idea in the morning."

The great cigar swivels to the other side of his mouth, "The president is always way gung-ho after his Pop Tarts."

Semper Fi

Predator Press

[LOBO]

"Yeah, well how are ya buddy?" I asks.

"Well, okay I guess," says Ethan over the phone. "How's Vegas?"

"Really fun, I suppose," says me, twirling the curly hotel phone cord in my fingers. "But we've hit a few little snags."

"You're going to make me late for work," says Ethan. "Gimmee the short version."

"Well," I says. "We crashed the airplane, Dash and Sapphire got married, Predator Press is 352 trillion dollars in the hole, and Russia has declared war on us."

"Dash and Sapphire?"

"Yeah. Weird, eh?"

"Well, try and have a good time. And stay out of trouble."

LOBO winced. "Would enlisting in the United States Marines constitute trouble? We're hammering out an alliance with a recruiter right now." LOBO turns the mouthpiece away and winks at the recruiter. "This'll only take a sec."

"You're enlisting?" says Ethan.

"Well, I'm at war with Russia, and it turns out these 'Marine' guys have a lot of stuff to have wars with. I mean these guys are way beyond us when it comes to planet-busting. Seems like a no-brainer."

"Well," says Ethan. "Go ahead. But if you do go full-on Global Thermonuclear don't touch anything until I get there."

"Deal!" I says excitedly.

***

Ethan was now very late. He poured his coffee into a plastic 'commuter' cup, and --short of time-- he skipped his breakfast cereal in favor of some granola bars in a box on the kitchen counter.

And for a strange moment, he would have sworn he heard the word "Wuss!", taunting him from the cereal cabinet ...

We Will Fight in the Shade

Predator Press

[Mr. Insanity]

Legless Jim read the headline from May 13:

"Putin Calls USA 'Hungry Wolf
that Eats and Listens to no One'"
LOBO freaked.

"Look!" he insists. "We were all hammered at Froggo's pad, and after three in the morning I can't remember a damn thing. I woke up on the tennis court, half-naked and covered in lipstick and whipped cream."

"Uh huh," says Legless Jim.

LOBO looks at his boots in shame. "Suddenly, Argentina was legislating UN sanctions against me." He sobs into his hands. "I swear to God I didn't know that was Putin's whipped cream!"

"Take it easy man," says Legless Jim. "I mean it's the UN for Chrissake. It's not like it's Rent a Center ..."

"Take it easy?" says LOBO, wiping tears. "Russia just declared war on me! I love Russia! Russia is second-to-none when it comes to--" He pauses, thinking.

He looks to me, but I got nothing.

"Alright," he says finally, tears drying. "Screw those bastards."

"So you're going to war with Russia now?" I says.

"Don't be silly," he replies. "I can't whip Russia by myself." He throws his arm over our shoulders.

"We're going to war with Russia."

Something Else

Predator Press

[Mr. Insanity]

Admiral Crunch, surly, cracked the whip on Lucky the Leprechaun with an animal ferocity.

From Admiral Crunch's brig, deep in the belly of the ship, Lucky's cries could be heard for a half a mile.

In defeated agony, Lucky hung limply, wrists tied overhead. His back was exposed --green jacket stripped open in the back-- revealing bloody, inflamed crisscrossing tears zig-zag the pale flesh. Salty sweat poured into the deep wounds, and Lucky's legendary Irish pride and defiance completely collapsed as he sobbed openly, begging for mercy.

"Feelin 'lucky' now, bitch?" growled the newly-promoted Admiral.

"Sir," Mr. Armani interrupted timidly. "We have evidence that Predator Press is on the verge of bankruptcy."

Admiral Crunch's eyes narrowed as he paused. He rolled up the whip and put it on the table, calmly measured, thinking quietly. "You have proof of this?" he asked in a barely-controlled voice.

"Oh yes!" says Mr. Armani. "They just posted about it earlier today." He turns his monitor so the enraged Admiral could see it better. Then he double-clicks his Explorer icon, prompting an AOL logon screen. "This might take a bit."

"Bankruptcy, eh?" asked the Admiral, twirling his singed mustache.

"Yes," says Mr. Armani. "And LOBO is right here in Vegas, even as we speak!"

"LOBO's an idiot," said the Admiral coolly. "What we have to do is put a stop to this nonsense forever."

Mr. Armani smiled. "I agree."

"Find me Mister and Misses Dash Cunning," commands Crunch.

"And have them dispatch of LOBO sir?"

"No you fool. We have to kill this beast right at the head." He draws his cutlass and holds it to Mr. Armani's throat.

"We're going to have to kill Ethan."