Strictly Carnivore

Predator Press

[LOBO]

What a great way to celebrate the birth of www.predatorpress.com! Goddamn it, I can't say enough about how cool this blog looks now in full color.

Full Color people! Best $75,000 we ever spent. Just look at those deep, dark blues. And those ... other cool lookin' blues. And how about this white? Even through this nicotine-stained monitor, it's fucking screaming pale yellow!

(Hmmm ... come to think of it, maybe this is why everyone in my porn looks like they have hepatitis ... And shit, this is the fourth new monitor I've had to buy since June. Can't someone invent something that prevents this problem?)

Anyways, I haven't had a chance to tell you how we came about "acquiring" www.predatorpress.com.

See, back when Ethan and I started this multi-billion dollar publication, the “Predator Press” was a wildlife preservation magazine. They registered the site, but, as their priorities were the preservation of wildlife, they never developed it. Not even a lousy homepage for chrissake!

Ethan and his cadre of lawyers invited me to come along for the “negotiations”.

Intrigued, I accepted.


***

We pull up to this shack in the middle of the wilderness, and the occupant –an earthy-looking type oldster— stops a surgical procedure on a wounded badger to greet us. He has a bandaged baby falcon, not six inches long, clinging precariously on his shoulder.

“If this is a 'wildlife preserve'," I demand, "where are all the cages, you filthy, hypocritical communist fraud?"

As the good-natured geezer replies, the badger stirs sleepily. Anesthesia wearing off, it sniffs the old man briefly, and then licks his nose. Then, leaping off of the makeshift surgical table, it scampers out the door. “There are no cages here my friend,” the doddering coot says in a deep, peaceful, well-cultured voice. “This is a haven for all Nature. It’s not a prison. It is a sacred, important place, and the ecological destiny of the world depends on it.” He sighs. “I’m sorry you gentlemen drove all the way out here, but as I told you over the phone, www.predatorpress.com is not for sale.”

I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned this before, but every lawyer in Ethan’s 'cadre of lawyers' is a 8th level blackbelt, schooled for two years by Buddhist monks in a Predator Press training camp just west of the Himalayas: fresh out of law school, these Ivy League recruits ate dirt and learned to be really pissed off about having to learn all that Buddhist crap and, well, eating dirt.

We beat the fuck out of that old man.

And say what you will about “preserving wildlife”, but those falcons are pretty tasty with a little A-1 …

WTF

Predator Press

[LOBO]

Well, Joshua slipped from my clutches despite my dazzling display of mathematical prowess.

Of course I'm distressed; I definitely had that little shit deeply pegged as one of them commie pinko metric-system algebra lovers, just seething with potential; I figured that kid'd toss over his own mother for a Tickle Me Elmo.

And now, on top of it all, it turns out that this whole "getting an audit" is a bad thing.

I blame Mr Insanity.

This week sucks already.

Synergy

Predator Press

[Mr. I]

The Auditors are here.

"Chop, chop!" I says to Phoebe. "I need those NAFTA projections finalized in twenty minutes."

"We need a cure for cancer this very second," she replies, blowing off her nails.

"Wow!" says LOBO, slamming the door behind him. "Who is that new hot chick meeting with Cobe? Is she a temp?" He grabs his heart, looking to the sky, "Solomente Tu Este, Me Amore. Oh, those beautiful blue eyes ... "

"She's a Hawley Enterprises Auditor," I says.

"Are we getting audited?" LOBO asks excitedly.

"No," I reply. "The Predator Press Printshop is. They ran up 4.6 billion dollars last year for blog ink."

"But we're not getting audited?" LOBO frowns.

"No."

"What would we need to do to have a long, eviscerating audit, probing every inch of the entire editing staff?" he asks.

"We would have had to had questionable expenses last year," I offer. "But we came in under budget projections, and turned a profit of 2.6-"

Where's the document shredder?" LOBO asks, dialing.

"We don't have a document shredder," I reply helplessly.

"Hello, Cobe?" he says into the phone.

pause

"You're breaking up real bad. Something about 'you're with an auditor?'"

another pause

"Can't understand a word," says LOBO. "This phone is crap. Put me on speakerphone."

"LOBO," says Cobe. "We're very busy."

LOBO grins at me as he pours gasoline all over the room. Then, into the phone he says clearly, "Cobe, what exactly are we supposed to do with all these bags of cash?"

TREASON

Predator Press

[LOBO]

"Alright," I says to the kid. "How much homework do you have to do every day?"

Joshua pauses for a second, confused.

He holds up ten stubby little fingers.

"Okay," I acknowledge. "About an hour. You get on your bus at like 7:20 every morning, and leave on one at 3:10. And get home at, like, 3:25. Am I correct?"

Joshua squirms.

"Well buddy, that's about (x3)(4)=(X-6) more than the average adult commits to their careers, and then bitches about how they have no time." I walk behind Joshua, and put my arm over his shoulder. "But I've got good news too. I'm making you President of Student Council. And your first act as President will be to announce that school is done at noon, and that homework is illegal under penalty of death. Would you like that? All you and your motivated constituents have to do is swear a dark allegiance to me. No big deal."

"I like to color!" he giggles shyly.

"This isn't supposed to be a negotiation, you little shit ... "

Re-Tardy

Predator Press

[LOBO]

I was leafing through the paper --feigning interest in Rumsfeld's resignation so I didn't have to actually talk to anybody-when I found out I was elected District 57's Superintendent of Schools.

I don't even know where District 57 is, and I'm apparently late for work.


***

I burst into the Principal's office pretending to have an agenda and know what I'm doing, and being really pissed off about it. And this bitch dressed like a penguin yanks the cigarette out of my mouth!

"There's no smoking in here," the wrinkly old bat growls, squishing my non-generic and expensive smoldering joy under her thick, flat arches.

I point to the nearest nine year old, and he flips me a Kool.

"Bullshit," I says, lighting up.

Revolution

Predator Press

[Mr. I]

Election Day.

Yippee.

All very boring; voting between only two candidates that have been financed and feted for our Constitutional Right to have two candidates that have been financed and feted.

It doesn’t particularly excite me.

But what if the Village Idiot got voted in? Oh that’s too funny …

I’m writing in “LOBO” for everything … ! haha

… Bet nobody has ever thought of this gag before …

Fuck Democracy

Predator Press

[LOBO]

This whole election is a sham.

I spent 87 bucks on a Presidential Campaign, and I wasn't even on the fucking ballot.

Still, I voted. I voted against all those jerks that left messages on my answering machine.

Sometimes this electoral strategy forced me to vote for a Democrat, which still feels strange. I spent years as an Anarchist, which ultimately, is as "Conservative" as you can get if you think about it: no rule of law, just remains of dissenters.

Who wants to deal with all those bodies? I'm far too lazy to be a decent Anarchist.

On everything else, I wrote "LOBO" as a write-in.

God, that's so funny. I'll bet nobody's ever done that before ...