Saturday

What? Too Soon?

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Predator Press

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"You're not going to drown in the river," says Alex, in another attempt to coax me into the boat. "It's only five feet deep."

"I know that," I says. "But I'm only ten inches thick."

Tuesday

The Showtunes Must Go On

Predator Press

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Slightly bleary, President Barack Obama pads to the breakfast table in his bathrobe, a series of newspapers -with stories already highlighted for his attention- crooked under his arm. The rest of the family out of town, the large empty table only seems to underline the eerie quiet.

Obama presses a discrete button built into his chair, an aide allows himself in.

“Good morning sir,” says the aide.

“I guess that depends on what you have to say,” Obama smiles, eyes still skimming his newspapers. “What’s on my agenda today?”

The aide flips through his clipboard. “Well there’s the war, the economy, taxes, gays in the military, the other war-“

Obama groans. “Jesus. You people might as well have those pre-printed on your stationary.”

“There has been some movement in the Middle East Peace Process.”

“Yeah," Obama guffaws. "Whatever.”

“Kim Jong Un is here requesting an audience.”

“I don’t understand a word that guy says. He’s, like, French or something.” Obama yawns deeply. “What would you do?”

“As President?”

“Yes.”

“With my wife and kids out of town?  I would probably just surf porn I suppose.”

“Can’t,” says Obama. “My wife found the line item in the budget I pay for it out of.”

"Ouch,” the aide winces.

“Let’s back up. What about that ‘gays in the military’ thing?"

“People of,” the aide coughs, “’alternate lifestyles’ are feeling persecuted out of serving in the armed forces.”

“Wait.  These people want to enlist? They’re aware of the dress code, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well what’s the problem? Don’t we have enemies that need a good smacking around?"

“Not really.”

“How about one that should be patronized condescendingly during an ambush makeover?

“Kim Jong Un maybe?”

“Word," laughs Obama.  Fist-bumping ensues. "He wouldn’t understand a damn thing they said. It would be hilarious.  But in all seriousness, we can’t, under any circumstances, allow homosexuals to get killed in war.”

“Why is that, sir?”

“Too valuable.  You know what happens to an America without gays?”

“No.”

“Pittsburgh.”

“Really?”

“I’m serious. We had a whole Top Secret study done.  We would have full saturation in six months if we're lucky.  And anyone alive a year later better damn well like Coors Light, playing pool, and NASCAR.”

The aide shuddered visibly.

“No, homosexuals can’t be allowed to get in the military, period.  They're a national resource.” Obama scratched his chin, pondering aloud. “And we can’t ask them about their sexuality directly anymore-"

“Wait. Can I ask you some questions about that ‘Pittsburgh’ thing-?"

Obama snaps his fingers. “I got it,” he says with authority. “During boot camp, there’s a mandatory twenty-four hour David Hasselhoff marathon.  And all the recruits get nothing but water and Cheetos."

“I’m not following you,” the aide squirmed.

“Then discharge everyone with glowing orange genitals.”

“Ah. Medical reasons.”
“And this 'condition'" Obama makes quote marks in the air, "-no, diagnosis- makes it impossible to serve in the military as the occasional strobe effect could inavertently give away their location to the enemy."

"So to keep gays out of the military, you want to make up a disease -'Bioluminescent-Affected Mammallian Disorder'-"

"Uh-huh.  'BLAMD.' Perfect."

"That has no other symptoms or cure?"

"Excellent."

"-To save America from becoming Pittsburgh."

"It's genius," Obama smiled. “Now get me Rick Astley on the phone! Stat.


Sunday

Femmolition


Predator Press

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I remember Mom looking down at me and smiling.

“You can be anything you want to be,” she explained. “You can be a musician, an astronaut, a scientist … anything.” Winding in the strained peas on the yellow plastic spoon she soothed, “The only thing you can’t be is a failure.”

And she was right.

-I should have been a musician, astronaut, or scientist.

Saturday

I Ate WHAT?

 Predator Press

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A ‘meat and potatoes’ guy myself, not a lot of foreign cuisine sneaks across my rather discriminating palette. But every once in a while there is a lapse in my security -otherwise airtight, I assure- and I feel I owe it to you O loyal reader, to complain about it in great, anguished, and excruciating detail.

While how we got the Grape Nuts cereal remains a mystery, I strongly suspect Terri: we’ve been married six years now, and I’m virtually positive it isn’t the first time poisoning me would have crossed her mind.

It has the texture you would guess human brains mixed with tiny skull fragments might feel like. And how do Grape Nuts taste?  For a toxic gash in the fabric of culinary history, it's surprisingly not very subtle or apologetic: imagine eating pulverized mulch, soil and tree bark dogs have peed on for years.  Mix that with a generous sprinkling of rabbit turds, and eating it out of a corrugated box with only a spade and a rake. Okay, are you picturing that?  Now imagine eating only the box.  Grape Nuts -utterly bereft of grapes or nuts, I should add- should be called ‘Rape Guts.’

Worse, it makes your poop unsinkable, unflushable battleship girders that circle around the whirlpool defiantly, bending the laws of physics and thermodynamics at will -some are so brazen, they swim against the Coreolis Effect! The larger ones exert a gravitational pull over the smaller ones, and they are drawn together -often into skirmishes for control of the tiny blue sea; the clanging and shrieking metal-on-metal sounds become extremely audible as armadas collide in angry, bobbing counter-orbits, and people are soon banging on the bathroom door. “LOBO are you okay?” and ”Where the hell are all those sparks coming from?”

-I would warn them to run for their lives, but I’m far too embarrassed.  In fact I'm sorry but if weeds start growing out of my ass, we’re all going to die and that’s that.

Grape Nuts scores impressively, however, in practical secondary applications. It makes a great spackle for instance. The stucco patterns one can achieve are fantastic. Has a tree in your neighborhood recently been felled by a storm? A box of Grape Nuts, some water and fertilizer, and you can just stick that sucker right back on the stump.

Another high-scoring secondary feature is how it elevates the art of farting: it’s analogous to going from mere garden-variety ma an pa sticks of dynamite to military shaped charges.  Terri had some friends over from work, and I didn’t even have to enter the room: from the top of the stairs, I cut a 'Silent But Deadly' [SBD] that felt like I passed a hot light bulb.

As you can guess, hilarity ensues.  I think they heard the palpable thump as it detonated on the living room floor below ... and what followed was ten seconds of erie silence, four minutes or so of shrill mayhem (choking, weeping, and the opening of windows and doors and such), and then five minutes of watery-eyed fingerpointing.

The next time Terri makes me go to church, I’m gonna choke down a whole box of this crap.

***

There is some good news on the foreign food front. We ate at a place called “Panda Express” the other day. Who knew panda was so delicious?  Judging from the number of customers, I'll bet they were serving up four or five pandas a day!  This is Entrepreneurialism at it's finest. And what better way to raise awareness of the plight of the mighty panda, nearly extinct, than to remind Americans how mouth-wateringly good they are when nuggettized and in a honey glaze -just like you would get them in Nature?

And they're only extinct because they won't have sex, right?  How nappy must those panda bitches and hos be if a male panda -born in a zoo and never had no sex before- don't want to toss 'em good an proper on top of the plastic habitat that looks like a rock?  Maybe the male panda is looking for something a little more upscale and refined, sensitive to his needs -like a panda in a cheerleader outfit.  Would it kill her to wear a cheerleader outfit every once in a while?

Maybe he’s a gay panda.  Or what if he's got, like a racist sex-fetish and wants a grizzly -or a polar- bear?  Hm?  Are the female pandas, like, real fat, or otherwise stricken with infirmities? Try not reminding him of Oreo cookies or Loa Tzu; maybe this bear is just such a hard-core fucking nihilist, he’s trying to end the species. This planet is a dump if you think about it.

Anyway, I can’t say enough about Panda Express, nor their fine work and noble commitment to save the lazy and otherwise worthless panda.

-And maybe they have a card I can get stamped for a free panda in the future!

Predator Press Superbowl Commercial Scripted

Predator Press

[LOBO]

[total silence, text fades in and out of darkness one line at a time]

Are you tired of writing your blog?

Or are you just too busy?

Well millions of wealthy and high-powered CEOs and celebrities just like you suffer from many of these same issues.

And so do some robots.

[cut to woman in pantsuit, dramatic music begins]

Woman in Pantsuit: “I’m a very busy executive, and in charge of a lot of things. Between flying my private jet and watching my stock market ticker, I just don’t have any time for blogging.”

[pan back to see baseball player behind her hit a home run, run the bases and then get swamped by masses and masses of cheering fans. cut back to woman -now confused, tearful and afraid.]

Woman in Pantsuit: “I don’t know anything about baseball. I sure hope Predator Press can come up with something that rich entrepreneurs like myself can pay for so people will think I do!”

[cut away to man in suit with pistol, firing at henchmen in a castle]

Man in Suit with Pistol: “After a hard day of espionage, who has time to blog?”

[short martial arts sequence with ninjas]

Man in Suit with Pistol: “Oh Predator Press I live in bloggless shame! Can’t you find a way to aid me with this difficult burden that I must bear for my entire life forever?"

[fade to black, dramatic music builds, narration begins]

Narrator: “In a world that has turned it’s back on Humanity.”

[fade in footage of Wall Street and tanks and bombers and stuff]

Narrator: “In a world that has turned upon itself”

[footage of, like, Hitler or something]

Narrator: “In a world that has turned upside down, because that’s what happens when you turn something round upon itself. And remember how it 'turned it's back on Humanity'? Well the world would be facing it again now ... assuming it's a sphere.”

[hey, who the &@# hired this *@#! narrator?]

Narrator: ”In a world where very busy rich people have no one to turn to.”

[okay. maybe rats, like gnawing through a bloody argyle sock. no, wait! like picture the dude in front of a gigantic citizen cane-style fireplace just typing into a laptop and then like ten rats just start eating his legs. twenty rats. a million rats! he tries to fend them off with his cognac snifter and a big cigar, but finally succumbs to them right on top of his bear skin rug as blood sprays everywhere. yes. kiss my ass, spielberg.]

Narrator: “One man answered the desperate call of a dying planet."

[cut to tinfoil fedora. hey, if we use the 'raiders' theme, do you think anyone would notice?]

Narrator: “One blog rose to the challenge.”

[cut to Predator Press logo as logo is struck by lightning and explodes into like a million pieces. but don’t make it a million pieces because that'll be a real bitch to clean up … make it like 12 or 15 pieces. and make it of Styrofoam. and then cut to me looking cool.]

LOBO: “Hi. My name is LOBO, and I’m here to help.”

Narrator: Hey, isn't that the 'Raiders' theme?

[ignore the narrator, but cut to guy on yacht before that dumbass says anything else]

Guy on Yacht: “Thank God you finally have arrived LOBO. I have to decide between blogging and going to the Big Party tonight. And Princess Fantasia is going to be there! What shall I do?

LOBO: “Have no fear my wealthy friend. I can write your blog for you!”

[i open my laptop, and like golden rays of sunlight beam up and a subtle angelic hymn begins]

Guy on Yacht: “Really LOBO? You can write my blog?”

LOBO: “Yes it’s true. For an astronominal fee you can go to the Big Party and leave all your blogging worries to me.”

[cut to surgeon, surrounded by nurses mocking him]

Nurses Mocking Surgeon: "Be careful or you'll bore the patients to death!"

[nurses exit laughing stage left]

Surgeon: “LOBO, chicks think my blog is really dull. Can you help me spice it up so they will dig me?”

[i take the laptop off of the patient’s chest and hand the surgeon his glimmering scalpel, confidently smiling.]

LOBO: “Do you want 'Dangerous' or just 'Freaky'?"

[cut to leper on table]

Leper: “But with all the working out you obviously do, you can’t possibly have time to help all of us.”

LOBO: “Why yes I do my friend.”

[i touch the leper’s forehead, and he is, like, healed.]

LOBO: “Yes I do.”

[here’s where I narrate a montage of really scientific-looking lab equipment. cue upbeat sciency music]

LOBO: “See we here at Predator Press have always prided ourselves in looking out for the welfare of very, very wealthy people. And very wealthy people often have very difficult and expensive obstacles in the way of their blogging destiny."

[cut back to nurses previously mocking surgeon, all staring into a computer monitor]

Nurse Previously Mocking Surgeon: "Wow was I wrong about that surgeon! Did you know the government is considering replacing George Washington’s image on the quarter with his?”

Other Nurse Previously Mocking Surgeon: "Yeah. And last weekend he saved a puppy out of the shark tank using nothing but a carpet deodorizer!”

Another Nurse Previously Mocking Surgeon: "Do you think the surgeon would mind if we all go skinnydipping?”

[other nurse previously mocking surgeon begins to unbutton her blouse]

Other Nurse Previously Mocking Surgeon: “Race ya!”

[cut to surgeon in front of shark tank, giving “thumbs up” to camera]

Surgeon: “Thanks Predator Press. "You have completely changed my life forever.”

Former Leper and Nurses Previously Mocking Surgeon: [splashing, laughing off camera] "Thanks Predator Press"!