Tantrums, Fury, and the Art of Self Destruction

Predator Press

[LOBO]

Now it's time to interrupt a dramatic plot with another inconveniently-timed, ill-fated, useless Public Service Message.

Have you ever had one of those days when you're cut off in traffic by some jag in a green Nissan Sentra yappin' on his cellphone, and you just want to slam a toaster into his mushy receding hairline until the twitching stops?

Well, you're not alone my friend: according to the American Mental Association, approximately 52,000 Americans suffering from this disease go undiagnosed every year.

And this year, we're all doin it.

Tuesday.


Obama don't dance, but the Comma can rock 'an roll.

The Watchtower All Along

Predator Press

[LOBO]

Poor .45!

-I've botched the entire mission to save his soul.

It all started so innocently; all I had to do was help Paul bury those heavy plastic bags in his trunk out in the desert.

Paul and I were in dire need of one of my little-known 'gifts' at this point: digging all those big deep holes was going to require a lot of people capable of 'physical labor', and all those protests and sit-ins I mounted on numerous college administration buildings in the past made me very skilled at the process of organizing people for a common cause. Even without any money, I knew some folk in these small rural towns are just plain helpful ... and sure enough in no time at all, a handful of friendly local police were eager to pitch in.

But just as soon as I rounded the corner with those big, strappin' ditch-diggin lawmen, Paul peeled out of the station.

I was left behind.

:(


***

"What am I gonna do?" I asked the truck stop cashier.

"I dunno buddy," says the guy in the cowboy hat. "But you should know that Utah County is like 90% Mormon."

"I hardly think that's true," I says. "They appear to be a fairly advanced civilization."

"I said Mormon," he corrects. "It's a religion."

"Know anything about them?"

"I am one," he smiles. Offering his hand he says, "My name's Peter."

"Why does everyone have, like, the same 12 first names?"

"That's nothing. We only got like four last names."

"So I take it 'Mormonism' is a hip and trendy religion?"

"No."

"Rats," I says. "Well you've been very helpful."

I didn't have any money. All I had was my suitcase full of issues of The Watchtower I had meticulously doctored with pornography and profanity to ease .45's transition into Salvation.

"Here buddy," I says. "Thanks for the advice."

Peter goes pale.

"Mister, we ain't got no place fer yer smut," he says, rolling up the issue and jamming it in his back pocket. "If you got any more of those," he adds, "I highly advise you to hand them over to me right now so's that I might dispose of them."

A bead of sweat forms on Peter's forehead.

Hmmm

"Okay," I says. "If you give me all this entire display of 'I love Utah County' keychains."

"Well, I can't just-"

"And," I add, looking around. "This canister of portable Zippo lighter fluid."

"Mister, we're talkin' about your soul-"

"And," I add. "This here entire plastic tube of beef jerky!"

"Fer the whole suitcase?"

"For two more issues."

"Deal!"


***

Six issues later, I had a nice car and a posh motel room.

It was only when I lay back on the giant waterbed and clicked the remote control for the widescreen television when I found out Salt Lake City had declared a 'State of Emergency': according to the mayor, there was a huge, inexplicable religious defection taking place, and the entire state was converting to Jehovah's Witnesses.

A town meeting was called at the church.

And as a concerned citizen, I felt obliged to attend.

Peter arrived at the same time I did.

"Peter!" I cried. "What has happened to our beloved community?"

He stops me at the door. "I don't know LOBO. But you can't come in the temple."

"Why?" I demand. "Have not hours and hours of blood, sweat and equally Mormonesqe tears proven me worthy to-"

"Sorry LOBO," he says shutting the ornate doors. "Non-Mormons may not enter."

SLAM

"Oh no you didn't!" I start to circle the building, and yell at the stained glass. "I know you guys are crackin' wise about my momma in there!"

But nothing I did provoked a response.

I had been unjustly, and without due process, been Excommunicated from my Faith.


***

With a chain I fashioned out of 560 'I love Utah County' keychains, I scaled that church.

"You ain't getting' away with this!" I swore, swinging my suitcase onto the roof.

Now, I don't know much about Mormon engineering and architecture, but that damned suitcase blew through that church roof life it wasn't even there. And tryin' to grope after it, I lost my balance and fell in right behind it.

The suitcase landed first, and burst wide. This was lucky, as about 1,650 meticulously doctored issues of The Watchtower cushioned my fall.

Landing squarely in front of the preacher, he squinted through the cloud of fluttering pornography and profanity.

"And I see," he said simply into the microphone. "That LOBO has chosen to join us today."

Then the canister of portable Zippo lighter fluid detonated.

"Witch!" screamed Peter.

"Peter, you're a damned liar and hypocrite!" I protested.

And suddenly, 1/12 of the congregation pounced.


A rose -by any other name- might
grow precariously on the Edge of Sanity.

The Jehovah's Witness Protection Program

Predator Press

[LOBO]

"Where ya goin?" asks the driver.

"Pianosa," I says.

Leaning over, he opens the passenger side door. "Hop in. I ain't goin that far, but I can get you partway."

Hesitating for a second, I size him up.

I figure he looks pretty harmless.

I pull the paperback out of my back pocket, swing into the seat, pull the heavy suitcase into my lap and close the door.

"Name's Paul," says the driver, offering his right hand.

"Fredrico," I says. "Fredrico Enchilada Del Morte El Monte Pinky Tuscadero Manora."

I'm not immediately certain why I'm lying ... but the suitcase must be protected at all costs: this is the suitcase filled with issues of The Watchtower I had meticulously doctored with pornography and profanity to ease Chris Wood's transition into Salvation.

"I see you've got a copy of Catcher in the Rye there."

"Yeah," I says listlessly. "Want it? I just finished."

We build speed, and safely leave the I-15 shoulder into sparse traffic.

"What did you think of it?" asks Paul.

200 lousy pages. No pictures, ninjas, car chases or robots. Just some weird punk who doesn't even kill anybody. "What a turd," I complain. "This book was crap."

"It's the devil's work," Paul agrees.

"Well I don't know. I wouldn't have thought the devil would be that boring."

"There's only one book worth reading Fredrico," Paul says confidently.

"Is it Antisocial Commentary?"

"No, Fredrico. It's The Bible."

Uh oh.

"Oh yeah," I agree thinking quickly. "That's my favorite too."

"Then why were you coming out of a strip bar?"

"I was, uh, tryin to Save all those lost souls." Looking out the window, I wince as I hear my own words fall out. "I'm a missionary."

"Really?'

"Yes," I groan painfully.

"Well that's fantastic. This whole world has just sunken into a briny cesspool of sin and debauchery. There'll be a lot of blood spilled when Jesus returns."

"That's not today, is it?"

"Could be," smiles Paul. "Say, that's a pretty heavy suitcase for a missionary. What's in it?"

"Oh you know. White collars. Bibles. Holy cinderblocks-"

"Which Bible?"

"The thick one."

"No, I mean is it the King James?"

"King Jesus," I correct.

"Halleluiah!" says James, still grinning. "I like you Fredrico."

"I'm glad," I says.

"Say," says Paul. "Can you hand me that black bag in the back seat?"

"Sure" I says, struggling to twist under my own luggage. "But I don't see it. Hey, why do you have so many chainsaws?"

"I'm a chainsaw salesman," he replies.

"No way."

"Yep. That's how I lost my hand."

Drawing his left hand into full view for the first time, I see it's been replaced by a large sharp metal hook.

"Wow!" I says. "That's totally cool!"

"That bag's back there somewhere," he assures.

Twisting back again, I repeat the search. "I don't see it."

"Maybe it's under all the pictures."

"You mean the ones with all the eyes cut out?"

"Yep. I was making tiny little masks."

"You're very precise." I says. "But no bag."

"How about under the machetes?"

Grunting, I clang them about a bit. "Nope. Oh. Wait. Is it the big black one?"

"Yeah," says Paul. "The one with the gun in it."

"What do you need a gun for?"

"I'm a very successful chainsaw salesman. You can't be too careful these days."

"That makes sense," I agree. "That explains the infrared scope. You could easily be jumped by like 700 well-organized deer if you demonstrated the foliage-cutting prowess of these beauties at night. You want me to load it for you?"

"It's already loaded," says Paul. "But I wouldn't worry. I doubt we'll be needing it where we're going."

"Were are we going?"

"Someplace untouched by the sin and perversion of humanity."

"But I kinda like Earth."

Holding the wheel with his hooked hand, he cocks the rifle with the other.

"We're goin to Utah!"

Wild, Wild West

Predator Press

[LOBO]

Just a short Wi-Fi note; the relentless old bat I mugged for this laptop is really upset and won't leave me alone.

But before you go on all 'judging' me, keep in mind this is LA; the law has long since abandoned any hope of reclaiming it.

I really should break down and buy my own laptop someday. These are nice!

... Besides, I don't seem to be able to run as fast as I used to.


More exploits about this trip can be read over at .45 Caliber Headspace.

Hollywood

Predator Press

[LOBO]

"Cut, cut, cut!" I yell into the megaphone.

-LOBO: The Motion Picture has thus far been nothing but headache after headache.

"C'mon Jackie," I says, rubbing my temples. "The line is, 'You pullb my tond through my keythter!'"

"But why would I talk like that?" asks Jackie Chan.

I should've gone with Stallone.

Once again, I calmly explain. "You would have to talk like that if Lindsay Lohan pulled your tongue through your keyster!"

"Lindsay Lohan is in this movie?"

"Yes. Sort of. But due to various licensing liberties and an explicit lack of consent, we're to referring to her as 'Bindsay Bohan.'"

"Really," replies Jackie.

"Yeah. And she's being played by Chris Tucker."

"Well, what's my motivation?" smiles Jackie politely.

"Your 'motivation' is that Lind -I mean Bindsay- has sent her time traveling ninja bodyguards out to assassinate you, and you're disguised as a giant cicada. Jesus, do I have to explain everything? I mean you read the script presumably."

Frustrated, I walk back to my chair. Sitting heavily, I raise the megaphone to my lips.

This is what I get for flying out to Hollywood to make a documentary.

"Alright. Take two." I command. "Cue the robot dinosaur. Aaaaaaaand action!"

Jackie bounds up the six-story mechanical reptile, skewering stunt ninjas left and right. When he reaches the upper-left shoulder, he does a summersault flip and balances gracefully on the radiator of a car it was crushing in it's giant claws.

Howling in fury, the robot dinosaur unleashes it's full arsenal of laserbeams and missile batteries, and Jackie dances and twists impossibly to avoid them.

For a full thirty seconds, the sky is a thunderous inferno alive with fire, explosions and shrapnel. But soon the robot's howitzers cease their deadly hail of steel, and one by one the metallic clicketty clicketty clicketty of empty chambers replace the deafening storm.

-Jackie Chan had kicked all it's claws off.

The smoke slowly clears, revealing Jackie perched on the beast's nose.

It's eyes lock on him, and the pupils expand.

With a serene look, Jackie pounces into the air and severs the beast's head off with a single stroke of his lightsaber.

But even as the screaming monster's head slides off in a horrible shriek of grinding steel, Chris Tucker appears behind him on a hovercycle:

Bindsay Bohan: "You have fallen right into my trap LOBO!"

Jackie Chan: "Don't sing it Bohan. Bring it."

[blinding flash]

Jackie Chan: "You purred my tongs through my keystone!"

"Cut!" I scream, hurling my megaphone. "God dammit Jackie. If I was okay with plain English bein butchered, I woulda got Schwarzenegger!"

Wesley, Cripes!

Predator Press

[LOBO]

Once again, the United States Government has jealously dealt a sneaky beneath-the-belt blow to the mighty Predator Press Empire -this time having sentenced Wesley Snipes to 3 years in prison.

The premier of LOBO: The Motion Picture has been once again postponed indefinitely.

This is no small setback. It’s not as simple as just getting another actor; after seeing Blade, I was instantly convinced that only Wesley had the vast acting range, martial arts repertoire and rigorous superhuman physical endurance necessary to play yours truly.

So it’s back to the drawing board.

Despite the rejection letters in the mail, I would like the following gentlemen to return to the set for another screen test:



Thag has stolen my spellchecker, and gaven it to The Skwib

Pulp Non-Fiction

Predator Press

[LOBO]

"Tagging" me seems redundant; more than half of the material I've done in the past few weeks is pimp other sites.

So while flattered, I never know what to make of memes 'an stuff.

I'll do the first and most important part -the part about me- but as for spawning it on, you'll just have to trust that anything linked on my site is worth checking out.

1) I'm Anesthetically Inclined: In my brief career as a truck driver, I once covered 4,500 miles in 90 hours. That's the equivalent of New Jersey to Los Angeles, and halfway back.

Exhausted, I accidentally brushed my teeth with a handy tube of Neosporin. Despite the horrifying taste, I was so tired and in a hurry I said screw it. I mean, it's kind of a paste ... and it's also some kinda sterile germicide, right?

-I drooled and couldn't talk for about 300 miles.

2) I Stopped the "Music": While now merely a terrible writer, I was once a terrible musician too. After the 80s-ish Cheap Thrills and the 90s-ish Destructive Criticism, I started mixing equally terrible stuff on a label called The Spanish Fly Industrial Complex.

The proposed CD jacket -a giant chromed fly in a hangar bay- was the inspiration for the character 'Templeton' in my older stories.

I still own the rights to the label.

Want them?

3) I Unsuccessfully Tried Charity Work: I own the url "www.ilikevagina.com".

-The original idea was to sell "Yes! I like Vagina!" T-Shirts to fundraise for ovarian cancer prevention.

4) Lands End: There are nuggets of truth that inspired Walk This Plank, Talk This Plank; on the way to the vet, I wrecked a vehicle into a large body of water and had to rescue my cat from it.

5) Numb and Number: I am wholly and utterly unaffiliated uninspired and disloyal politically, and shamelessly so: all I want is an alternative energy source so we can starve other countries of the money they use to kill us with.

Otherwise, I couldn't give a crap.

-S.S.D.D.

6) The Speedo Torpedo: I can't remember which book, but Kurt Vonnegut once gave some measurements and wrote that "as far as he knew, his 'endowment' was a World Record".

-I considered writing a letter to correct him.

7) My Academic Accolades: In my first semester of college, my English teacher singled me out in front of the class. After reading one of my badly-butchered paragraphs aloud, she continued on to say how much she "resented having to deal with remedial students here at the college level".

One year later, I became the Editor-In-Chief of the school newspaper.

I posed nude in the first issue.

8) Rubbing Elbows the Wrong Way: As a teenager, I met Dave Mustaine at a Holiday Inn.

At the time, I had no idea who he was.

I didn't own the album he as touring on.

In fact, I didn't own any of them: I disliked Megadeth music in general.

He thought that was refreshing.

We had a great time.

9) *BONUS* Love Synchs, Yeah Yeah The character "LOBO" evolved out of an online dating profile I filled out as a gag. All the other profiles were blasé clones citing a love for 'long walks on the beach' and 'sunsets'.

You know. Horsecrap.

I wondered What would one of these things look like if you were too stupid to lie?"

The questionnaire, filled out honestly, was hilarious. There's a reasonable facsimile of the Q & A -republished in story form- here.

But this single vicious act of wanton and savage sarcasm gave me more than my nom de plume; it's also how I met my wife LadyTerri.

On top of dealing with my battle-scarred psyche and general goobery, Predator Press probably wouldn't be here without her; while I spend countless hours trying to pound out things that make people laugh, she spends all that same time keeping me "freed up".

Heart and soul I love her, and my whole world revolves around her.


Swift and lethal tagging/meme payback is owed to Dead Rooster