The Strange

The Strange: An Official Compendium

2006-03-01T04:20:00.000-05:00

Here, an exhaustive collection of the best we could come up with considering how hungover we are:

If Piracy Is Wrong, I Don’t Want To Be Right

Can You Stop Being a Communist For One Second?

You’ve Got To Hear This Album That Satan Recommended

It’s Not Easy Being the Only Half-Man/Half-Velociraptor in Town

Plausible Rock ‘N’ Roll Conversations (Bob Marley and Peter Tosh)

Let Us Incinerate Your Loved Ones

As Mayor of This Town, I Declare This Meal Delicious!

Do You Really Think That’s What Jesus Would Do?

The Wisdom of Led Zeppelin, With Commentary

When Visiting Southern Vermont, Stay at My Bed-and-Nothing

Oh, I’m Sorry—Did You Mistakenly Walk Into Our Well of Souls?

I Thought We Agreed to Never Speak About What Happened to Jenny

Things I Would Like to See (Part 4)

Do You Want to Know What Frightens Me?

You Are Utterly Ridiculous

You’re Going to Love My Laboratory

Things I Have Dropped As If They Were Hot (Because They Were)

I Might Have Killed a Nun, But You Raped a Horse

Your “Breakfast Meat Cornucopia” Is Profoundly Lacking

Relax: There’s No International Conspiracy

What’s Up, Vanilla?

Italian Dishes Yet to Be Exploited By High-End American Food Service

Memorandum From the Desk of M. Casper Humboldt, Executive Director (RE: Assimilation of New, Undead Personnel)

Welcome to Our Fraternal Organization

Where In the Goddamn Is My Hot Fudge?

Even the Midget Likes It

I Can’t Believe You Stole My Copy of The Anarchist Cookbook

Your Horror-Themed Tex-Mex Eatery is a Little Stupid

I’m Not That Criminally Insane

The Annual Davenport Family Newsletter

A Bone-Chilling Announcement From The Strange

2005-09-01T15:33:00.000-04:00

Something horrible has happened. We will tell you about it soon.

A Clarification From The Strange

2005-08-01T04:20:00.000-04:00

Did we say we’d be back on August 1? Sorry. We meant September 1. Damn black outs. These are still pretty funny though:

If Piracy Is Wrong, I Don’t Want To Be Right

Can You Stop Being a Communist For One Second?

You’ve Got To Hear This Album That Satan Recommended

It’s Not Easy Being the Only Half-Man/Half-Velociraptor in Town

Plausible Rock ‘N’ Roll Conversations (Bob Marley and Peter Tosh)

Let Us Incinerate Your Loved Ones

As Mayor of This Town, I Declare This Meal Delicious!

The Wisdom of Led Zeppelin, With Commentary

When Visiting Southern Vermont, Stay at My Bed-and-Nothing

Oh, I’m Sorry—Did You Mistakenly Walk Into Our Well of Souls?

I Thought We Agreed to Never Speak About What Happened to Jenny

Things I Would Like to See (Part 4)

Do You Want to Know What Frightens Me?

The Strange Takes a Holiday

2005-07-01T04:20:00.000-04:00

When in the Course of Strange Events, it becomes necessary for Two Hilarious People to take a break from the Funniness which has connected them with others, and to assume among the Powers of the Internet, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Murphy and of Murphy’s God entitle them, a passable Respect to the Opinions of Those-Who-Get-It requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to Vacation.

So just as Things are Going Good, Mark and Michael have decided to take Respite during the Seventh-month, in order to accomplish some goals. We will enumerate these goals right now and, goddamn it, you better read them.

As you know, Mark and Michael have a band called Black Pipe. Well, this July they’ll Travel to Woodstock, New York and the famous Bearsville Studios to record the first full-length Black Pipe album, which is tentatively entitled You Take the Pipe. A few songs from their EP Black Pipe/White Afro will probably make the cut, as will new material like “My Knavery Knows No Bounds,” “Luckily I Am Schooled in the Art of Midwifery,” “Computers Are the Wave of the Future,” and “I Won’t Vote For a Candidate Who Doesn’t Believe in Quetzalcoatl.”

In addition to the recording sessions (which they’ll blaze through like the skilled musicians they are, providing they have enough kazoos), Michael has been hired by Dr. Noel Pappinger to apprehend the culprits who stole the famed Rockrose Ruby from Pappinger’s friend, the multibillionaire Charles Henry Hood.

Mark will be trying to find the cure for the deadly disease that is afflicting him and very well could end his life at any moment.

Are the two related? Mmmm . . . maybe they are.

So while we’re gone, please feel free to peruse our archives and laugh your ass off. Or if you’re too lazy (which you probably are if you’re reading this site), then follow the links below to some of our favorite pieces. But don’t let them stop you from reading the rest, which are actually very good.

Spread the word about The Strange to your friends, co-workers, and arch-nemeses, and maybe we’ll let you in on “The Secret” before we return on August 1.

If not, I guess you’ll have to wait!

If Piracy Is Wrong, I Don’t Want To Be Right

Can You Stop Being a Communist For One Second?

You’ve Got To Hear This Album That Satan Recommended

It’s Not Easy Being the Only Half-Man/Half-Velociraptor in Town

Plausible Rock ‘N’ Roll Conversations (Bob Marley and Peter Tosh)

Let Us Incinerate Your Loved Ones

As Mayor of This Town, I Declare This Meal Delicious!

The Wisdom of Led Zeppelin, With Commentary

When Visiting Southern Vermont, Stay at My Bed-and-Nothing

Oh, I’m Sorry—Did You Mistakenly Walk Into Our Well of Souls?

I Thought We Agreed to Never Speak About What Happened to Jenny

Things I Would Like to See (Part 4)

Do You Want to Know What Frightens Me?

The Strange Mailbag

2005-06-30T18:17:00.000-04:00

To Bryan in Williamsburg, Virginia:

It’s true: Mark loves Teacup Poodles. He has many porcelain figurines and inspirational posters of them in his bedroom. Currently, he’s trying to save up the money to start his own kennel which will traffic exclusively in Teacup Poodles. He’s thinking of calling it “Muffy’s Teatime Kennel,” though that’s still tentative.

Michael, on the other hand, hates Teacup Poodles. In fact, he hates all small, yippy dogs of that ilk. Not so much out of blind hatred but more because Mark loves them and Michael must destroy everything Mark loves.

To Claire in Minnetonka, Minnesota:

I’m sorry if my overture of affection was taken the wrong way. It’s just that you said you were having problems with your parents, so I thought you’d want me to poison them with dioxin. Look: they’re not dead, merely permanently disfigured. So what’s the problem? Why are we still talking about this? Christ.

To Hieronymous in Carpathia:

There is an ill wind rising from the East. Steel yourself against the movements of the Eye and give tribute, as always, to the Great Owl. There are those who Know and who will do Something. Be ever vigilant, and keep yourself redolent with vetiver and rose of hay. The Great Owl is watching, and, when the Time is Proper, will Take Flight.

To Senator Rick Santorum in Washington, D.C.:

Back at ya, “Count Fistula.”

To Maggie in Brookyln, New York:

You. Me. Noon. Museum of Natural History. Blue whale. Fresh panties. Be there.

And don’t worry about Claire. That’s being taken care of.

Five Little-Known Facts About the Second Presidential Assassin, Charles Giteau

2005-06-29T01:18:00.000-04:00

He failed several times in his life to fill both of his knees with sawdust. This should have been a tell-tale sign that he would wind up killing President Garfield. If we only knew then what we know now about such disorders.

He loved Twinkies. Not as much as the possibility of killing the president though.

His mother often dressed him in corduroy and denim, Mr. Sedaris. Does this mean you want to kill the president?

He once wrote a poem entitled “James A. Garfield, I’m Going To Shoot You Twice in the Back with a Silver-Handled .44 Revolver While You’re Boarding a Locomotive at the Baltimore & Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C.” Again, this should have garnered suspicion, but, much like today, nobody really gave a flying crap about poetry back in 1881.

He wanted to be a dentist in his teenage years. Instead, he just settled for killing the 20th president of the United States.

You’ve Got To Hear This Album That Satan Recommended

2005-06-28T00:50:00.000-04:00

Steve! Steve! There you are, dude. I’ve been looking all over for you. Figured if you weren’t at the garage working on the Rambler or scarfing down burgers at Pete & Pete’s, you’d be at your girlfriend’s house. Her parents aren’t home, are they?

Anyway, dude: You’ve got to hear this album that Satan recommended. It’s so fucking good you won’t even believe it!

I know what you’re going to say: Why would I trust the Dark Lord of the Underworld on anything, even something as mundane as His recommendation on an album of rock ’n’ roll music? Isn’t he the Ultimate Deceptor, willing to do whatever it takes to compromise my immortal soul and lead me down a path of wickedness and iniquity?

Well, just listen to this!

Isn’t that bass intro killer? It almost sounds like the Armies of Hell marshalling their forces to walk upon the earth, spewing sulfurous mayhem with every step.

And listen to those drums kick in! Like the rhythmic pounding of the Archfiend’s metalworkers fashioning His terrible weapons of human ruination. Wicked awesome, huh?

What do you mean this is fairly derivative? How can you say that, Steve? How many doom metal songs also have an organ line like that in them? That sound is as chilling as the cold finger of Apollyon tracing my spine, whispering in my ear to do His sinister bidding.

Well, since you’re such “the poet,” let’s talk about the lyrics then. How could you not appreciate “Come to me, come to me, Ray / leave the world this inhuman day / come to me, take your leave / be sure to kill your good friend Steve”?

What do you mean you don’t hear the same lyrics I do? I’ll admit, they are a little obscured by the almost subhuman drone of countless wailing demons, but if you listen to it over and over and over again, you start to pick up the words.

And what about this part in the next verse? “Follow my path, follow my will / be sure to also kill his girlfriend Jill”?

Wow, Steve, I can’t believe someone such as yourself, who has such good taste in music—from Iron Maiden to early Metallica to Mastodon to Noxagt—can’t appreciate this song and the message it’s delivering from the One True God of Total Recompense and Horror.

You can make all the threats you want, but I don’t think Jill’s parents are going to help you when they get home. Why is that, you ask? Just listen to this last verse: “Before you kill them, do this, I, Satan, will / slay also Jill’s parents, Amy and Bill.”

Oh, you don’t hear that either? Well, maybe you just don’t need your ears anymore. Or any part of your skull for that matter. Maybe you’re better off if I harvest all of your organs for Satan’s throne room which I’ve started to ready in the boiler room of the old high school.

No, Steve, I’m not acting weird, you’re acting weird. Weird enough to deny the numinous splendor of this song and Satan’s all-encompassing power over humanity.

And this blazing guitar solo!

Sherwin-Williams Paint Colors George Lincoln Rockwell Might Choose When Redecorating His Study

2005-06-27T23:37:00.000-04:00

Opaline
Heron Plume
Sagey
Marshmallow
Icicle
Snowfall
Topsail
Downy
Biscuit
Muslin
Nuance
Quicksilver
Alabaster
Nacre
Frostwork
Acanthus
Porcelain
Nonpareil
Pure White

Who Do I Have To Skull-Fuck Around Here To Get Some Sour Cream?

2005-06-24T01:01:00.000-04:00

Excuse me? Excuse me?

This is unbelievable! Every time I try to flag one down a waiter, they act as if I’m not even here. It’s as if the other customers and their condiment needs are more important than mine.

Who do I have to skull-fuck around here to get some sour cream?

All I want in this life, right now, is some rich, ambrosial sour cream to compliment my Potato Stuffers, and I can’t even get that. I would perform fellatio on a decomposing giraffe to get some sour cream.

I would carry out a home invasion on an elderly retarded couple if they had some sour cream for my appetizer that is, minute by minute, losing all it’s piping hot deliciousness because this heads-up-their-asses wait staff can’t even acknowledge my rapidly waving steak-knife-clenching hand.

What do I have to do? Take a rife, steamy dump in the middle of the table while mothers cover their children’s eyes lest they see the man who has been wrongly denied his luxuriously cool sour cream act out an aggrieved and righteous act of civil disobedience the likes of which both Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi would be proud of?

If that’s what it takes, I’ll do it.

Remember the time at Chili’s I lit the hostess station on fire and then urinated on it to squelch the flames when they brought me the incorrect dipping sauce for my Boneless Shanghai Wings?

Prepare yourself for a grand repeat of that incident unless the waiter brings me some sour cream in the next 15 seconds.

Look how lonely the cheddar cheese is! And the bacon bits and chives are not fairing any better. Do I have to call Amnesty International and report this place like I did with Outback and their “limited” servings of bleu cheese dressing with their Kookaburra Wings?

It would appear that way.

This wait staff couldn’t find a cup of sour cream at high noon riding a heifer in the Breakstone Creamery. I don’t know what that means either! All I know is, I want some sour cream and I want it now!

Where did all the waiters go? Are they over there with the S.W.A.T. team and the rest of the restaurant patrons?

Typical.

How You Might Be Annoying Me: Selected Examples

2005-06-23T11:58:00.000-04:00

Using your straw as a spoon to eat your vanilla milkshake and making a sucking sound with each “bite.”

Wearing a Tom Brady #12 jersey when you’re obviously not Tom Brady.

Asking other adults how excited they are about the new Harry Potter novel on an almost hourly basis.

Replying to every request of mine with “Not a problem” while clicking your tongue and then making a pistol-like shooting gesture with your index finger and thumb.

Referring to spaghetti as “pahsketti.”

In addition, referring to all sugary, brown carbonated beverages as “Coke.”

Being Billy Corgan.

I Am Jumping Jack Flash

2005-06-22T00:00:00.000-04:00

Contrary to popular belief, life’s not always a gas. Oh, sure, sometimes it’s a gas, but more often than not, it’s pretty shitty.

How do I know?

I am Jumping Jack Flash.

While a good portion of my life has been outlined in song, hyperbole has taken over and blown some of the details out of proportion, specifically me thinking everything is a gas.

Yes, I was born in a crossfire hurricane. And I did howl at my mother in the driving rain. However, she had locked me out of the house after stumbling upon my pornography collection.

Things were OK after that, but I wouldn’t call my life, at that point, a “gas.” Mom understood, it being just the two of us after dad had left. Or died. I can’t remember which. It was a while ago.

In any case, I think it’d be completely off-base to call my beautiful Swedish nanny a “toothless, bearded hag.” Inga was beautiful. She was the one who’d given me the pornography, you see. They’ve got some weird stuff over in Europe, especially in the colder climates. Come to think of it, it’s a little weird that mom was so forgiving . . .

What was I saying? Oh, yeah: Inga. I guess you could call what she and I did being “schooled with a strap across the back.” Like I said: Europe = Leather Fetish Sex Parlors.

But even that got boring, so, yet again, life wasn’t exactly a gas. Especially when you and your 25-year-old Swedish nanny are in love, have gotten a quicky marriage in Port-au-Prince, and, because of your age differences, are now entangled in a court case involving child molestation charges.

But when Inga hired that hitman to murder me so that she could inherit my wealth? Yeah, that was really messed up. I was thrown overboard one day when we went white water rafting. I was basically drowned, washed up, and left for dead. All the while Inga and my lawyer fled to Uppsala . . .

So, yeah, maybe I did try to kill myself. I didn’t want to eat, I was so depressed. I frowned at even a crumb of a crust of bread. Then I wanted to make a big statement and tried to crucify myself, but in the middle of it I looked down at my feet and saw they bled. That kinda freaked me out, even though I was good and pilled-up. But when I tried to removed the spikes, I pulled too hard and impaled myself through the head.

So, you know what, doctor: can you just get this fucking spike out of my head and stop laughing at the fact that my name is Jumping Jack Flash?

Temptation Is All Around Us In the Dessert Aisle

2005-06-21T17:21:00.000-04:00

Beware, ye of feeble faith and conspicuous desires! Thy will is weak and easily led, thy soul skirts the edge of Hell’s bright flame with every free sample you consume!

Temptation is all around us in the dessert aisle!

Look there! These Grandma Gam-Gam’s brownies are filled not only with silky peanut butter chips but also with Satan’s laughter! Can you not hear the manic guffaws of terror and sulfurous damnation amidst the fudgy richness?

And these Habitué gourmet cupcakes! The frost is vanilla but deep inside its velvety cake lurks demon upon dark demon, ready to rise up bask in the glory of your idleness!

Sinners! Do not dare lay hands upon the Miss Randy chocolate chip cookies! Ye might believe only one or two be necessary for fulfillment, but soon enough ye will find thy hands stuffed with their wanton moistness, unable to stop gorging yourself, you fat swine!

O congregants, O brothers and sisters, remember the words of our Lord: “Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him; because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and is eliminated?”

Bullshit!

These candies and cakes, these sweetmeats made sweeter by science, while delicious, are the diabolical confections of Beelzebub!

Leave, now, while you can!

I will stay here and exorcise this Legion for the sake of thy immortal souls! Be sure, as ye flee, to stay away from the Boston cream pies as those are especially sinful and delicious and Satanic.

And I’ll just need someone to grab me a couple gallons of 2% from the dairy case before they go, O.K.?

It’s Not the Goddamn Heat, It’s the Fucking Humidity

2005-06-20T05:39:00.000-04:00

What’s that? Oh, you bet. Sure is. I’ll tell you, it’s the hottest it’s been in a long while ’round these parts. Why, it sure enough could peel the paint off a barn.

But I’ll tell you something: it’s not the goddamn heat, it’s the fucking humidity.

It’s like a thousand and one alien suns had decided just now to descend upon the earth in the hopes of quickly stifling all human desires and—

What did you say? Oh beejesus! Can’t you feel the Christ-fucking dampness around us? It’s everywhere!

Are you slick-shitting me? You’re telling me it’s not the fucking hottest you’ve ever felt in your whole worthless Judas Priestly life? And even then it’s not because of the God’s-cock-sucking dewpoint?

Fuck you, you fucking liar. I said it, I’ll say it again: fuck you.

You whoreson dog! I’m honestly surprised that the entire air is not dense with a demonic fog, filled with creatures so Christing horrible they defy description.

If the death-veiled heat had not stolen all my motivation toward movement, I would strike you squarely in the nose, causing splinters of bone to be driven upwards into your philistine brain.

You’re not worth the sweat beads off of that dead whore’s decomposing snatch-hairs. Yes, I killed her. Why, you ask? The fucking humidity!

Ah, cock! I wouldn’t trust your meteorological skills over that of a retarded groundhog.

That’s right: Give me the pea-brained fucking creatures of the earth before I trust your mongoloid judgment on any other fucking thing of consequence.

You a fucking cowardly child molester and—yes, I’ll say it again—a liar, sir.

Fuck. Is it ever humid.

Plausible Rock ‘N’ Roll Conversations

2005-06-17T00:37:00.000-04:00

1968. England. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, just before the band is about to perform “Sympathy For The Devil” at their “Rock ‘N’ Roll Circus” extravaganza.

MICK JAGGER: Say Keith, remember that deal we made with the Devil?

KEITH RICHARDS [tuning his guitar]: The what?

MICK: That deal that we all made with the Devil, to make us really famous by granting us awesome riffs and crazy lyrics?

KEITH [confused, indifferent]: Yeah. What? Who?

MICK: Well, the Devil came to me last night and said that we have to whip the crowd into such a frenzy that they give their souls over to Him in devout worship, or else he’ll kill one of the band members.

KEITH: OK.

MICK: Oh. You’re OK with that? I thought you’d be a little pissed.

KEITH: About what?

MICK: About hypnotizing the audience members to do the Dark Lord’s bidding.

KEITH: Do you know where the Jack Daniel’s is?

MICK: Are you listening to me, Keith? So . . . I painted crazy goat faces on my chest and arms, so that the audience will bow down to me, and will, then, in effect, be bowing down to the Hoary King of the Netherworld.

KEITH: Sure. [turns to go on stage, pauses] Wait. He’s not gonna kill Charlie is he?

MICK: What? No. He said he’d kill—

KEITH: Fine. Whatever. Let’s just play the song, Mick.

Outrageous Claims I Have Made While Drunk

2005-06-16T00:10:00.000-04:00

Yes, I cobble my own shoes.

Find me anyone—man, woman, or child—who legitimately thinks that Tom Cruise is a good actor, and I will karate chop them in the larynx.

I don’t want to alarm anyone, but since we all drank from this same cup, you are all now under the same curse that I am: the Curse of the Werewolf. Otherwise known as Herpes Simplex One.

Why don’t we call up Governor Romney right now and tell him that then? I’ve got his home phone number in my car.

You have not taken a shit until you’ve taken a shit in that bathroom, my friend. It is a magnificent facility.

I’m not saying that all Chileans are melancholy, but, you know.

The Annual Davenport Family Newsletter

2005-06-15T11:16:00.000-04:00

Greetings from sunny San Diego! Sorry we couldn’t get those Christmas cards out in December but hopefully this will serve as a kind of “mid-year” report.

It’s been a year of ups and downs for the Davenport clan, starting of course with John’s divorce from Emily.

The house on the Vineyard is now hers, as she always loved the summers there. John will never forget the time he spent all day planting the vegetable garden as a surprise for her only to find out that she was allergic to rhubarb. You’d think this little fact is something a wife of ten years would want to tell her loving husband! Yet again, he asks himself why he never noticed it before. Boy, did we laugh about that.

As painful an episode as that was, it was nothing compared to what was to come. Hannah is still learning how to walk again after Emily accidentally backed into her with our new Aztek, rushing out of the garage in a rage when John asked her what all the phone calls to Somerville were about. The doctors assure John that the spinal damage isn’t the worst they’ve seen, but trying to give your seven-year-old daughter an answer as to why mommy would want to run her over with the car is impossibly difficult, even for a Yale-educated history professor.

Or, shall we say, ex-history professor. As John’s marriage crumbled around him, he gradually began making more and more rash decisions as work. Telling his class that the Haymarket rioters deserved what they got, that Coolidge was well within reason to use state troops to break up the Boston police strike, that maybe it’s good that slavery in the United States lasted as long as it did are just a few of the more mild examples of his misjudgments in class.

Then there was the affair with his student Shanna. And Rachel. And Billy.

John’s woes culminated in telling the President of the college, at a cocktail party to welcome the new poet-in-residence, that he would love to take the President’s daughter away for a weekend to the Vineyard.

Now you tell me: How was John to know the President’s daughter was 17!

But those days are behind John now. He’s got a great job as overnight stocker at an Office Depot in San Diego. His loyal but childless friends Gary and Virginia have been fantastic in taking care of Hannah, whose rehabilitation is going well. Hopefully she’ll be able to return back to school at an accelerated pace so she won’t fall so far behind that eventually she has to quit high school and get a job as a greeter at Wal-Mart.

John is getting in better shape too. He runs on the beach every morning when he gets out of work and is personally keeping the makers of Cutty Sark in business before he goes to sleep at 9:00 a.m.

As for Emily, maybe she’ll write you her own newsletter and give you an update on all her cunt-rag activities, including banging that piece of shit graphic designer while still “faithfully” married.

Have a fun summer everyone!

Where In the Goddamn Is My Hot Fudge?

2005-06-14T22:29:00.000-04:00

What in the hell do you mean, “hot fudge costs extra”?

When I woke up this morning, I still lived in Bakersfield, California, United States of America, and not Pyongyang.

I was P.O.W. in Korea and I demand hot fudge on this sundae. Where in the goddamn is my hot fudge?

For eleven weeks, those slanty-eyed Reds kept me in a putrid hell-hole without food or water. They murdered my best friend in front of my eyes and burned my back with hot irons. They made me shit in my helmet and then wear it.

And you’re gonna stand here and tell me hot fudge costs 50 cents extra? I don’t think so.

What’s the confusion? Maybe what I’m saying doesn’t make any sense to you. Why, you were probably just a gleam in your unborn father’s eye while I was gutting those smelly slopes on Lamb Shank Hill like our nation’s freedom depended on it. Because it did.

In my day, hot fudge came with a sundae, along with nuts, cherries, and any other goddamn thing I wanted on it. A fucking V-8 engine if I wanted!

You try spending 30 days in a room barely bigger than this ice cream case and then tell me what it feels like when some pimple-faced shit whose balls haven’t even dropped dares to charge you a quarter for chopped nuts.

That’s what I thought, Johnny.

Go ahead, get your manager. That femme doesn't scare me. Don’t think I didn’t learn anything in the Marines, you cock juggling thundercunt. I’ll deal with him like I did those dirty Maoist assbiters.

And maybe this time I’ll get some goddamn hot fudge out of it.

I Can Brighten Up Anything

2005-06-13T00:15:00.000-04:00

Hi everybody!

I’m Geoffrey Kaleidoscope, and I can brighten up anything, from a drug overdose to a horrific car crash!

My multi-colored pants and wacky demeanor mean never having to be sad! Even if your child is dying of cancer!

What’s that? You say you can’t smile right now? That life is meaningless?

I don’t think so!

Just watch me as I create colorful balloon animals while wackily adjusting my comically-oversized bowtie!

What’s your favorite animal? A giraffe? Maybe a panda? I can make them all! And they don’t care about terminal diseases or gangrenous limbs!

Just smile and let Geoffrey and his madcap antics take care of everything!

Why just last week, I traveled to Africa after another reported outbreak of genocide in Darfur! Those supposed massacres were, in fact, a reality! But that didn’t stop the families of the assassinated from laughing harder than they ever have before! My mongoose impression gets them every time!

Hey, you gloomy Gus! No more tears! Geoffrey Kaleidoscope turns frowns into smiles with his neon orange vest and his Super Kazoo!

Yes, even when your auto-immune virus causes you to shit blood!

Do you need me to be there when the newly-installed elevator in your luxurious condominium complex plummets inexorably toward the earth? Done deal! My fantastic acrobatics will take your mind off the aforementioned soul-rending tragedy!

Like I say, each day is a gift—even when you find your baby dead in her crib!

Things I Have Dropped As If They Were Hot (Because They Were)

2005-06-10T00:15:00.000-04:00

Sizzling fajita platter from Maggie McFly’s

Fireplace embers

Cider

Blood

Shell casings

Abortion rights issue with senile grandmother

Brimstone

Radioactive squirrel

I Won’t Let Them Kill Me For My Diamonds

2005-06-09T23:16:00.000-04:00

They’re all around me, hot on my trail. I can’t stay in one place for too long or they’ll find me. I’ve been through too much to give up now.

The fact that my internal organs are precious jewels and not flesh might surprise most people, but they know better. That’s why they want me dead.

But I won’t let them kill me for my diamonds.

I thought I lost them in Rome, but they caught up. Again in Marrakesh. I was all right for a while in Samarkand and, surprisingly, Jakarta.

But it was Paris; that’s where it all went wrong. Waiting for Claudette. I should’ve known better. I should’ve known she was in cahoots with them. Why I went back to Europe, I have no idea.

But how else would I have gotten transport to South America and then to Cuba? Manuel could’ve smuggled me to Miami and then I would’ve been home free. On my native soil it would’ve been so easy to lose them. So easy.

If I can get to Tunis, if I can find Dr. Pappinger, maybe he can find a way to reverse the process, or at the very least extricate the diamonds safely. Maybe then I can use them to pay off those who pursue me.

What am I thinking? They can’t be bribed. They’re single-minded of purpose. And that purpose is kill me and take my diamonds. Why, they'd be reading my thoughts as we speak, were it not for the double layer of tin-foil in which I've wrapped my head.

My only hope is Amsterdam. I will send carrier pigeons from there to contact Dr. Pappinger. He’ll know what to do. He'd better.

If not, I’m a dead man.

Being a Ruthless Mercenary Has Not Affected Me in the Least

2005-06-08T16:32:00.000-04:00

Some of you PC/Commie types have characterized me as a half-cocked brute, unable to assimilate back into society after having spent decades orchestrating every major armed conflict in recent memory.

Well, I, Everett “Bruise” Brouseau, am here today to say that those allegations are utter bullshit. You’re lucky that I turned in my neutron cannon when I left the Special Forces, because I have a good mind to melt your innards with its searing blasts of nuclear hatred, you little bitch.

I was born and raised in this small Minnesotan township I still call home. I joined the Marines at 21, fresh out of high school. After training at Fort Bragg—where my superhuman and innate combat skills were instantly recognized by my superior officers—I was flown to a secret base in Nevada. There, I underwent a battery of tests and was subsequently given an interior cybernetic implant that was linked to a monitor on my right forearm, thus enabling me to increase or decrease blood flow to any region of my body and release morphine, adrenaline or—in a worst-case scenario—cyanide directly into my bloodstream. My left hand was replaced with a robotic limb of titanium alloy, upon which could be mounted any number of tools, weapons, and devices, and I was officially promoted to the rank of Sonderkommando.

But all of these are “enhancements”—nothing more. They don’t make me so different from all of you, with your Mitsubishis and your barbecue grills.

And not all of my missions had me slaughtering the innocent, you know. My first mission was to end the festering 17-year civil war in Addis Ababa. With the help of nine strategically placed thermonuclear devices and a native guide named Saadiq, I crushed the opposition and escaped the country under cover of night. Peace was restored almost immediately.

Just like in America!

I was then deployed to Sudan, where I annihilated all rebel opposition to the proposed Jonglei Canal in the marshlands of the south. Later, I served as a security attaché to Jaafar Nimieri, Sudan’s erstwhile president. My daughters love the photos on our mantle of me carrying him on my back through a crowd of armed supporters of his nemesis, Imam al-Hadi al-Mahdi! What a laugh we had that day!

As the years went by, I never forgot where I came from. Not while annihilating Tutsis in Rwanda. Not while obliterating a Uranium dump near a residential area in Kyshtym in the South Ural Mountains. And certainly not while currently working as a double agent to murder Senator Arthur Marshfield of Wisconsin. I’m still that same little freckle-faced kid, eating an ice-cream cone and throwing antique grenades into the gymnasium.

So maybe you should think twice before you accuse me of not being the person you married.

Or I’ll slit your throat while you sleep.

Memorandum From the Desk of M. Casper Humboldt, Executive Director

2005-06-07T23:15:00.000-04:00

RE: Assimilation of New, Undead Personnel

As per the results of the employee survey issued last month, I am happy to announce the hiring of new temporary employees at Humboldt-Gregory, the leading producer of kites and kite accessories in the southwest. We are happy to welcome these new additions to the company.

However, I must address certain issues that some of you have raised. A number of employees have expressed concern over the appearance and demeanor of the newest members of the Humboldt-Gregory family. In our commitment to workplace diversity, we must all work together to make them feel at home.

These zombie temps will help increase productivity ten-fold as well as contribute to a well-rounded workforce. Although they lack some interpersonal skills and may attempt—at times—to devour your brain matter and/or your extremities, they are to be treated with the same respect and dignity that you would give me, your executive director or any member of the board.

So while we all miss Helen from Marketing and regret her dismemberment at the hands of the undead horde on Bring Your Daughter to Work Day, we must move forward.

I personally take issue with the questions that have been raised against our newest employees. In an effort to curtail operating expenses, we thought it best to use arcane and inhuman magic to harness cheap labor from the netherworld. This was done at great personal expense to the board of directors’ mortal souls in the hopes that we might avoid layoffs.

We hope that all of you understand and appreciate this delicate situation.

Effective immediately, all non-undead Humbolt-Gregory employees will be required to log no less than 12 hours of online zombie diversity training. We are also equipping each department with fully loaded 12-gauge shotguns and double-bladed axes, for use in the event of another “uprising.”

Replacement shells and sharpening equipment will be provided on an as-needed basis.

Thank you all for your understanding in this matter.

In other news, a belated Happy 35th Birthday to Christopher in Shipping and Receiving!

M. Casper Humboldt
Executive Director

Ratzinger!

2005-06-06T00:33:00.000-04:00

You diabolical son of a bitch.

I thought I’d dealt with you for the last time back in ’72. Dar es Salaam. I left you buried under 15 tons of sand and the winds of time.

Yet, somehow, you managed to escape and install yourself as Pope. Congratulations. This round goes to you.

But our battle is far from over.

I know you’re in league with Robot Frankenstein. And I also know you’ve been secretly siphoning Ytterbium for your own devious purposes. A wary world may look upon you as the figurehead for forces of good. But I know better.

I know you were genetically altered during your involuntarily stint in the Nazi Youth and your demonic masters were waiting for just the right moment to unleash their hellish plan upon an unsuspecting and frail humanity. It would appear that time has finally come.

You scoundrel! I won’t let you trample roughshod over what I love and respect on this earth. Mainly my vast personal wealth and my own stores of Ytterbium.

Ratzinger!

The time has come for our final showdown. You won’t know the time nor the place. Just know this: it’s coming.

And this time it will take more than your dwarvish Ubersoldats to stop me.

I Thought We Agreed to Never Speak About What Happened to Jenny

2005-06-03T00:21:00.000-04:00

Why are you bringing this up again? It was all so long ago. Don’t you agree that what’s in the past is best left there? Why do you want to keep on dredging up ghosts?

What do you mean “Funny I should mention ghosts”? Tom, don’t start this haunting business again.

I thought we agreed to never speak about what happened to Jenny.

I don’t care how much blood suddenly bursts forth from the walls every June 3 or that sometimes there are bizarrely-patterned scratch marks on your arms when you wake up in the morning. We just shouldn’t talk about it.

No, I can’t explain why all the fish in Sandover’s Pond have suddenly started to die off or why the water is a soupy black. Nor do I have an explanation as to what slaughtered the livestock at the Merwin place. But I don’t think it has anything to do with Jenny or the horror that the three of us endured five years ago to this very day.

Do I know why a pack of feral dogs chased you through the woods when you were walking home from Lauren’s party last week? No. But instead of immediately assuming it’s a manifestation of an incredibly powerful demonic energy, why not just chalk it up to bad luck?

Dozens of people spontaneously combust every year, Tom. I’m not surprised that it happened to Father O’Shaughnessy.

I’m sure there are scientific explanations for all these things: the surge in the locust population, the eerie howling from the attic, the giant maggots that suddenly crawled out of the stew.

Can we please put this behind us? Well, then, can you at least dismantle those gigantic crucifixes you erected around the house? We’ve got enough wolfsbane in the basement to choke a horse and when I go to work every day people ask me why I smell like garlic.

You’re being ridiculous. I’m going to bed now and if, in the middle of the night, another disembodied goat-horned skull that vomits forth flies appears in the bathroom doorway where we found Jenny’s ritualistically mutilated body, then, maybe, I’ll start to believe you.

Things I Want to Say to Rich White People

2005-06-02T05:10:00.000-04:00

Just because you’re related to the co-founder of this country club doesn’t mean you get to go to Thailand and have sex with underage boys and get away with it. I have photos of you and I demand you pay me $500,000 immediately.

Sorry, Yancey, but I don’t see yachting ever becoming popular again.

Do you really think people give a donkey crap about the books your obnoxious child has or hasn’t read in the Guardians of Ga’hoole series?

Not only does your ear-piece cellular phone device make you look like an unemployed former extra from Babylon 5, but your taste in khaki shorts is bullshit.

I’m a gritty filmmaker, Craig. I make daring, provocative films and I like everything to be as authentic as possible. That’s why I’m going to really need you to actually let this large black man ass-rape you.

The upturned-collar look wasn’t cool in the ’80s and it’s not cool now. Same goes for the sweater-wrapped-around-the-shoulders look, Bunny.

While paying $50,000 for a heavy slate shower stall would be ostentatious, paying $45,000 for a wooden Easter Island head for your rooftop Zen garden is just incongruous. And you’re an idiot.

What’s up, Vanilla?

Even the Midget Likes It

2005-06-01T03:33:00.000-04:00

Why are you never pleased by anything? This performance of Siegfried is by far the best I’ve ever seen. This is one of Wagner’s masterpieces, regarded by many to be the pivotal opera in his “Ring” Cycle. And yet even that isn’t good enough for you. It’s intermission and you haven’t applauded once, much less smiled.

Even the midget in the front row likes it. Why don’t you?

How do I know the midget is enjoying it? Look at him! His pixyish hands are clapping rapidly and he’s practically jumping for joy using his adorable bantam legs.

And look at the smile on his teeny-weeny face! Besides, how could any person have not enjoyed that first half? Besides you, you philistine midget-hater.

What do you mean, “How is a midget the barometer for artistic pleasure?”

I’ll tell you.

Midgets face an uphill battle every day to be accepted by a society that is normal-sized. While they don’t suffer as much as dwarves, surely they hear the same whispers as they pass by: “Look at his pygmy gait!” “Don’t let that crumbsnatcher get near my food!” “Is the circus in town again?”

Because of the prejudice and hatred that they endure, midgets derive pleasure from where pleasure can be found, and they cherish every moment that crosses their dainty path.

But you! You take everything for granted, believing that you’re too good for such a grand expression of artistic mastery because you’re of normal size and nobody’s ever asked you to work as one of Santa’s elves during Christmastime. For shame!

The midgets of the world are undoubtedly disgusted by you. As am I.

If you want to leave, then leave. But my new Lilliputian friend and I are going to stay and watch the second half.

Hop up on my lap, Tom Thumb! You shall be my miniature squire!

This is going to be grand. Just grand.

The Strange Mailbag

2005-05-31T23:13:00.000-04:00

To Cassidy in Austin, Texas:

To answer your “quick questions”:

1) Yes.
2) Yes.
3) Not so far as we know.
4) Only because Mark is lactose intolerant.

To answer your other question: Yes, Mark and Michael were in a band together, though it’s taken a backseat since they started The Strange.

The name of the band is Black Pipe. Mark plays bass, Michael plays drums, and they take turns on the kazoo and, of course, theremin. As of right now, they only have an EP—Black Pipe/White Afro—but are hoping, once things settle down with The Strange, to go back into the studio to record a full-length album. Shouldn’t be long now.

To Neil in Moab, Utah:

That is a sick, ghoulish question for you to ask. Do the Church Elders know about your habits? Maybe they should.

To Evan in Warwick, Rhode Island:

Sir, you wouldn’t know Funny if it threw you down to the ground in the bread aisle of a supermarket and kicked you several times in the throat.

You wouldn’t know Funny if it flung a weighted bag of flaming cowshit through your kitchen window when you were sitting down for Easter dinner.

In fact, you wouldn’t even know Funny if, tonight, it sent half-a-dozen vampiric clowns to your house to transform your family into blood-sucking denizens of the nighttime circus world.

No, sir, Funny is no more familiar to you than the Connecticut and Massachusetts National Guards massing at the borders of your shitty non-state, ready to invade at a moment’s notice.

But here’s what Funny is: a mix of low-and-high-pitched frequencies, just barely audible to human ears, that make you disoriented, confused, and nauseated. You don’t know where these frequencies are coming from, but you can’t make them stop. And they won’t stop until you apologize, you choad.

Your Horror-Themed Tex-Mex Eatery is a Little Stupid

2005-05-30T15:20:00.000-04:00

I know it probably started like a good idea. And some theme restaurants really work when they’re grounded on an interesting premise.

But your horror-themed Tex-Mex eatery is a little stupid.

Don’t get me wrong: Taco de los Muertos is not a bad name for a restaurant in and of itself. The gist is gotten. But after perusing the menu, I am fully convinced that this is the stupidest restaurant that I have ever entered.

I mean, come on! The Chupacabra Tostada? It was obviously shredded grilled beef topped with guacamole, tomatoes and onions. Not that I was left with much of an appetite anyway, after you evoked the image of a cattle-mutilating creature that has, by varying accounts, been described alternately as a vampirish bat-like beast which hops like a kangaroo, as a red-eyed panther with a snake’s tongue, or as a monkey-like creature with an alien’s face.

And while the gazpacho did have a pleasantly tart, smoky flavor, I would hardly describe what I experienced as “haunting.” More like “pretty all right” or “gloriously tolerable.”

At times, your offerings departed from simple stupidity and entered the realm of the offensive and insensitive.

Take the Enchilada à la Llorona, for example, which is described in your menu as being “drenched in the bloody tears of the wandering spirit herself.” Not only is that inaccurate—the “bloody tears” you speak of are simply a bland, watery condiment of tomatoes and vinegar—but it is extremely distressing to me, a third-generation Mexican-American. When I was child in Juarez, we used to hear stories of La Llorona, a tragic maternal figure who was mistakenly responsible for the death of her beloved children, and who was doomed to wander the earth forever, wailing and beseeching humanity to return her departed loved ones unto her outstretched and frail embrace.

Sounds delicious, you heartless prick.

As interim food editor for the Eagleton Greyhound, I have no choice but to mercilessly slag you in my weekly column. When you can move past sub-par entrees like Burrito de la Lechuza and immature desserts like Dulce de Leche Fantasmas, perhaps then I will give you a second chance.

By the way, have you considered converting to a Spaceballs-themed tapas bar? You might be able to pull that off.

I Can’t Believe You Stole My Copy of The Anarchist Cookbook

2005-05-27T00:17:00.000-04:00

Here we are, two members of a so-called “civilized society,” joined not only as friends but as neighbors, with mutual respect for one another’s natural and civil rights. We live under the standard of this great country’s laws—which at their very heart are anarchic—and I, at least, expect others to do the same.

I guess this was naïve of me because, obviously, you don’t feel the same way.

I can’t believe you stole my copy of The Anarchist Cookbook.

Was it a desperate curiosity toward making mailbox-bombs that spurred you to violate our trust? Or perhaps you simply wanted to learn how to make an Infinity Transmitter, so you could monitor my late night calls to my girlfriend?

You make me sick.

I expressly had the book shipped to my home in order to avoid a mishap of this kind. Do you think those beady-eyed booksellers at Barnes & Noble would be able to resist reporting me to the Department of Homeland Security? They make $7.50 an hour, Joel. They would love the chance to send a venture capitalist like myself to Gitmo.

What you’ve committed was not only a sin against your neighbor, but is also mail fraud, a Class-A felony. But I can’t go to the police as I don’t recognize their authority over me. So just give it back, OK?

You leave me with quite a quandry: How will I perfect my phreaking skills, or make an auto-exhaust flamethrower—things that only a true anarchist like myself would understand—when my copy of the Cookbook is hidden somewhere in your home, protected by fiery booby-traps? Don’t you have any respect for private property, Joel?

I agree with H.L. Mencken when he said, “Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” But you’ve taken it a step too far. I bought that book. It was mine. Mine, mine, mine.

Did you steal it to make me look like a fool in front of Tina? Or just to toy with my emotions? Or was it to get back at me for shitting in the top part of your toilet at your sister’s high school graduation party?

Whatever the reasons, what you’ve done is really mean.

And, seriously, give me back my book. Even with my Member Card, it still cost me about $35.

How You Might Be Annoying Me: Selected Examples

2005-05-26T18:40:00.000-04:00

Sitting on the same side of the booth as me.

Reminding me, yet again, that freedom isn’t free.

Carrying around your miniature schnauzer in a front-loading papoose meant for a human baby.

Insisting that William Shakespeare wrote The Death of a Salesman, and then accepting that he, in fact, did not, but really did an excellent job on Crime and Punishment.

Setting your cell phone to play “Men in Black” when it rings and then not answering it during the movie Men in Black.

Refusing to believe that Alexander Hamilton was never a president.

Mouth-breathing while you chew your beef tips.

You wear a kilt. All the time. You’re from Texarkana.

Insisting on not wearing a watch because you don’t want to be “held a prisoner by the shackles of time” yet constantly asking me what time it is.

Not fucking me.

As Mayor of This Town, I Declare This Meal Delicious!

2005-05-25T15:21:00.000-04:00

Ladies and gentlemen: I have before me the grand result of everything the good people of this town—and indeed this country—have fought and struggled to achieve for over two and a quarter centuries. It represents the culmination of the best elements of science, technology, nature, and art. I am proud to be here at this moment in our history and I hope you’ll join in my appraisal.

As mayor of this town, I declare this meal delicious!

I’ve had uncountable pints of pork lo mein in my lifetime, but this empty bowl before me should stand as testament to the utter deliciousness served daily at the Jade Garden. Furthermore, the odd scrap of onion on this otherwise unoccupied plate is emblematic of the untouchable quality of this restaurant’s pepper steak. And if the human digestive system had the ability to absorb bone, surely the remnants of those barbecue spareribs would not be cooling there for the busboy to clear away.

My opponent has accused me—on more than one occasion—of being too free with my declarations of deliciousness. How can one acclaim the foot-long chili cheese dog at Doug’s Dog Depot as well as laud the spicy southwestern vegetarian soup at Ruth’s Kitchen Table? Isn’t a nitrate-laden, artery-clogging hot dog in direct opposition to that healthy vegan bowl of goodness?

My response is simple. The concentration of skilled restauranteurs in our fair town is so dense that the chances of having a delicious reuben at Aberman’s Deli, then crossing the street to Banana Slim’s to pamper oneself with a frosty milkshake—and maybe later in the evening indulging in an Irish coffee at the Oak Tree Tavern—are not only incredibly high, but are an almost daily experience for the likes of you and I.

It is this diversity of deliciousness that makes me proud to be your mayor and citizen of these United States. Maybe my opponent doesn’t feel the same way about this town and its eateries, but I do.

Now, some claim I was too quick to declare Mangeforte’s veal parmigiana delicious in light of recent health code violations. But I say: although the letter of the law required that the long-entrenched establishment be shut down and the rats crated and burned, it in no way lessens the deliciousness of that baby calf’s delicate flesh drenched in sweet red sauce and piquant mozzarella cheese.

If a meal is delicious, the plain truth of such evidence presented compels me to declare it so.

And so, Mr. Ping, I congratulate you on another exquisite repast delivered and consumed. That an immigrant such as yourself—trained as a particle physicist in your own land—can come to these shores and create such delicious concoctions at affordable prices is a testament to this great democracy of ours.

Now who wants to join me at Phineas T. McFudge’s for some black pipe licorice?

Plausible Rock ‘N’ Roll Conversations

2005-05-24T18:15:00.000-04:00

1973. New York City. Led Zeppelin is about to go on stage to perform at Madison Square Garden. The footage shot will be included in their legendary concert film The Song Remains the Same.

ROBERT PLANT [knocking on dressing room door, sticking his head inside]: Hey, John, are you ready yet?

JOHN BONHAM: Almost. I’m just waiting for the wardrobe girls to finish my outfit.

ROBERT: What’s taking so long?

JOHN: They’re just putting the final touches on my vest of Mithril, so that I’m protected from the Nazgûl when we perform.

ROBERT: Oh, OK. [turns to leave, then suddenly sticks his head back in the dressing room] What did you say?

JOHN: I just want to be protected in case the Nazgûl attack during our performance. So I’m having wardrobe make me a vest of Mithril to repel their icy blades.

ROBERT: John . . . You know that I only sometimes use Lord of the Rings imagery in my lyrics, and that we’re probably not in any real danger of being attacked by the Nazgûl, right?

JOHN: That’s as may be, Robert, but I just don’t want to take any chances.

ROBERT: Fair enough. We’re on in five.

Several Words Whose Repeated Utterance May One Day Bring About the End of Existence

2005-05-23T11:42:00.000-04:00

Cthulhu

Olestra

Shub Ishniggarab

Kundalini

Azag-Thoth

Armadale

Gooch

Nutbutter

Baby-Daddy

Bezrutho-Al

Gunt

Do You Really Think That’s What Jesus Would Do?

2005-05-20T21:31:00.000-04:00

You say you’re a religious person, that you’re only following the path of the Lord, but I have to ask you: do you really think that’s what Jesus would do?

Do you think Jesus would adorn his shitty pick-up truck with a Dale Earnhart “3” bumper sticker? Or festoon the antenna with an oversized American flag? I’m not arguing whether or not He’s a Nascar fan or whether He loves the United States—He loves everything and everyone.

I just don’t think His taste is quite as tacky as yours.

He certainly wouldn’t have a fully-loaded gun rack or half a case of empty Budweiser cans on the passenger side floor, that’s for sure.

Sure, Jesus had his doubts, but He didn’t really have anything to prove. At least He didn’t overcompensate for His lack of a solidly-held opinion like you seem to be doing with your bald eagle belt buckle and “These Colors Don’t Run” knitted beer cozy.

No, sir, I do not “take it up the ass” as you put it, but since you brought it up, do you really think that Jesus would get loaded on a Friday night with the apostles and go out searching for homosexuals to violently assault? My guess is “no.”

Again, my good fellow, I must correct you. I am also not a “panty-waisted bleeding heart” as you so eloquently put it. Though Jesus kinda was, insomuch as that I don’t think anywhere in the New Testament does the Prince of Peace indicate that our military—or any country’s—should invade every “towel-headed, ass-backwards shitwater” to teach those “sand monkeys” a lesson merely because we can.

What? So you really think He would berate the Burger King cashier because she couldn’t understand Aramaic?

I doubt it.

Look, sir, just calm down. Jesus said, “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” This doesn’t mean acting childish—like telling me to shut my fucking mouth before I get the shit-kicking of a lifetime— but to accept people for who they are.

It also doesn’t mean that you and your beer-swilling cronies should toss me into a busy thoroughfare while simultaneously giving me an atomic wedgie.

Ow. Ow!

The Sith Method: How the Dark Side of the Force Can Improve Your Life

2005-05-19T23:43:00.000-04:00

Now that the world as been shown the glory of the Dark Side of the Force, I’ve been getting several questions from would-be Sith on how the Dark Side can improve their lives. I’d like to take this opportunity to address just a few of those questions.

First of all, you wear all black, all the time. It’s not only slimming but chic as well. Black is always in style and always will be. And if somebody cracks a joke about the Cure or vampires, you can slice them in two with your lightsaber. Which you get to have because you’re a Sith.

Instead of being just “Michael,” I’m now Darth Schiavo. And Mark is now known as Darth Rinaldi. Admittedly, it does make him sound like a dastardly magician, but let’s be honest: it’s a huge step up from “Mark.”

What else? You have free reign over as many stormtroopers as you want. And you can basically tell them to do anything. Like: “TK-421, I’m really horny. I need you to go to Kashyyk and bring me back some Wookiee trim.” And they’ll do it. Why? Because you’re a Sith Lord.

Any AT-AT is—pardon the pun—at your disposal. Need a TIE Fighter? Here you go, Darth Schiavo! Darth Rinaldi, I’m sorry your Star Destroyer isn’t as big as Darth Schiavo’s. That’s just the way things are. It’s nature; live with it.

Now, sometimes your stormtroopers get uppity, and since they’re clones and not really people, it’s O.K. to kill them. That’s right: they’re perfect for you to master your foul and malevolent powers upon by choking them telepathically or shooting their body full of Force lightning until they’re nothing but cinders.

Man, there are so many other reasons that being in touch with the Dark Side of the Force can improve your life, but I can’t think of them right now because I’m wholly consumed with an unnatural omnipotence that has literally changed the color of my eyes to a freakishly sick yellow.

I think I need to go lie down.

Darth Schiavo is currently the acting doorman of the American Sith Liberties Union (ASLU). He has presented a number of motivational Sith workshops, among them The Purpose Driven Sith: How to Do What the Dark Side Wants You To and How Much Telepathic Choking is Too Much Telepathic Choking?: A Telepathic Choking Primer. He is available for Sith parties and social functions. (Please note: there is a 20% surcharge for Sith bat/bar mitzvahs as Darth Schiavo is a raging anti-Semite).

Let Us Incinerate Your Loved Ones

2005-05-18T03:42:00.000-04:00

Here at Davenport-Vendler Funeral & Cremation Services, we understand the sadness and frustration that accompanies the death of a loved one. Making arrangements to handle someone’s earthly remains can be terrifying, and that is why we offer a simple solution to what may be the hardest decision of your life.

Let us incinerate them.

Our state-of-the-art facility is equipped with the latest and most advanced crematory implements available. Our staff of extensively trained “Firestormers” will ensure that every inch of your loved one is consumed by heartless tongues of purifying flame.

The process used at Davenport-Vendler is simple and effective. Without delving into too many of the morbid details, it starts with the corpse being placed into a drip-proof, unfinished wooden coffin, which is, in turn, positioned in a gas-fired cremation oven.

The chamber is then heated to a merciless one-thousand six-hundred degrees, which soon causes the flimsy wooden container to split open, thereby exposing your dearly departed’s rapidly darkening body to an unholy hellstorm of punishing fire. Again, a specially trained professional is on hand during this entire process, grimacing stoically as he or she watches skin and hair char, while the abdomen simultaneously swells with combustible gases and eventually bursts.

After forty-five to sixty minutes of unbearably merciless immolation, the unrecognizable remnants of what was once a crucial part of your life are pulverized into a fine white powder by an inhumanly powerful machine. After being poured into an urn, the remains are ready to be retrieved by a funeral director and delivered to you post-haste.

We at Davenport-Vendler specialize in sympathy, so you can rest assured that your funerary plans will be executed with sensitivity and compassion. And a tantalizing repast. While we annihilate your loved one’s body, you can enjoy a complimentary meal of flame-roasted rotisserie chicken and Vienna smoked sausage in our plush “Mourning Lounge,” and watch the entire cremation process from its viewing deck.

When your loved one passes, we hope that you will look to Davenport-Vendler for all of your cremation needs.

Let us enkindle someone you love today.

The Wisdom of Captain Beefheart, With Commentary

2005-05-17T13:01:00.000-04:00

Nowadays a woman has to haul off and hit a man to make him know she’s there. But not in the crotch, O.K.?

When I see mommy, I feel like a mummy. When I see daddy, I feel like a vampire. Mainly because my dad’s Dracula. But I think I’d probably feel that way even if he wasn’t.

The clouds are full of wine, not whiskey or rye. Unlike my liver.

The dust blows forward and the dust blows back. Can someone please shut the kitchen door?

A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous. Riiiiiight.

You should know, by the kindness of a dog, the way a human should be. I am therefore going to begin shitting on carpets and eating my own vomit at some point during the week.

The man with the woman head. What the hell is that all about, anyway? That’s a little weird.

Later she came back, with a rumpled paper sack, which she told me would contain a surprise. Michael tried this trick on me once, and I still have not fully recovered.

Check these out, big eyed beans from Venus. Seriously, I bought them from that guy who lives in the park and makes his own “State of the Union” addresses to the squirrels.

Big Business Must Be Stopped

2005-05-16T01:31:00.001-04:00

Although we’ve done our best in this tiny hamlet, as well as the neighboring towns, to keep corporations and franchises like Wal-Mart and Starbucks from establishing themselves, we are now at a critical point.

Big business must be stopped from ruining this scenic area and spoiling the true spirit of community. What am I talking about? I’ll tell you.

The Corbeil Farm Ice Cream Stand is planning on opening a second location over in Northbury.

I was fine with the fact that Greg and Donna wanted to serve delicious farm-fresh ice cream from their small, almost makeshift stand when they started 8 years ago. They said they just wanted people to enjoy the delicious treats they produced and sold. But now it seems that greed has taken over.

Not content with only one ice cream stand, the bloodsucking Corbeils now want to ruin a 100-square-yard plot of nature in Northbury for their economic benefit. Sure, people will be sated during the blazingly hot summer days with frosty delicious flavors of treats like Mint Mocha Chip and Heath Bar Delight, but what about their souls?

Does this community have a conscience anymore? Do you want the Corbeil monopoly running roughshod over everything you hold dear, like chilled dairy products?

Open up your eyes, people! Are you so ignorant that you don’t see the insidious plot being perpetrated by the Corbeils? When I confronted Donna about their scheme in the cereal aisle of Grossman’s Market, she claimed that all they want to do is “make money” to “live” and “put their children through college” so that maybe Greg, Jr. and Sarah won’t have to “struggle” with the farm like they did.

Do you really buy that bullshit? Read between the lines: what they really want is to corner the market on family-owned ice cream stands in this remote and economically-depressed New England valley.

We need to put a stop to this!

I’m asking everybody to boycott the Corbeil Farm Ice Cream Stand this summer and drive those bastards into the ground. We’ll show those fat cats like Greg and Donna—who undoubtedly sleep on stacks of money in their ramshackle farmhouse, ignorant of the suffering of the working-class—that no independent business will be able to open up more than one location without being smeared with the epithet of “franchise.”

Oh, Greg claims they’re just a “mom and pop” operation, but from what I’ve seen, they’re just like that J.P. Morgan.

Except instead of steel and railroads, with Fudge Ripple and Pistachio.

Outrageous Claims I Have Made While Drunk (Excerpt)

2005-05-13T04:40:00.000-04:00

Coupling is so much better than The Office.

Hells yeah, I can get you some high-grade plutonium by next Wednesday.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that March, which is Women’s History Month, is also Mental Retardation Awareness Month.

That finger in the Wendy’s chili? That was all me, buddy.

I would have no problem getting Natalie Portman to date me once I met her.

All right, Dr. Doolittle. You think you’re man enough to teabag my girlfriend’s bull mastiff? Be my guest.

William Vollman is a poor writer and a coward. Correction: a fucking coward.

That’s right. I urinated in your sink. Why? Because I’m the mayor and I can do anything I want.

I’m not saying that all Liechtensteinians are dyslexic, but, you know.

Several Things That Soylent Green Is Not

2005-05-12T00:34:00.000-04:00

Vegetable

Mineral

Soylent Red

Woodpulp

Non-human-derived foodstuff

Bowler hat

Peanut brittle

The jewel case from Iceburn’s 1993 release Hephaestus

All that bad

It’s High Time We Rename the Niggersaurus

2005-05-11T00:12:00.000-04:00

I’m not politically correct by any stretch of the imagination. Political correctness has done more to damage our language than any amount of government-imposed censorship could ever hope to achieve.

Still, there are some vestiges of out-and-out racism and misguided hatred that still exist in our country, and the time has come to right these wrongs.

It’s high time we rename the Niggersaurus.

It’s a well-documented fact that Dr. Francis Wright, the scientist who gave the beast its name, was a virulent racist. When he christened the dinosaur that he discovered in 1909 the Niggersaurus, he did so out of racial bigotry as well as to mock his chief nemesis, the esteemed Dr. Donald Holloway, the first black paleontologist to travel to Guatemala and a man who long fought against racism in this country and across the globe.

Wright was, by all accounts, a lunatic. He believed that if he could associate Africans with dinosaurs and Darwin’s theory of evolution, that he could start a race war, and thereby, as he put it in a letter to his fianceé Yolanda Swarms, “keep all that delicious watermelon for myself.”

The simple fact that the dinosaur was named as part of a jibe is enough, but that Wright thought the Niggersaurus would gain him the country’s watermelon supply shows what a madman he was. Although watermelon is delicious, and I certainly wouldn’t mind having it all to myself, I wouldn’t go so far as to slap a newly discovered species with a racial epithet like Dr. Wright did.

Also disgraceful is the fact that the name “Niggersaurus” was met with much laughter and applause when Wright presented his paper on it to the National Geographic Society in 1911. One might well say, “Such was the age,” but that is little comfort.

Dr. Holloway, for his part, did what he could to get the dinosaur renamed as soon as it was discovered. But he was tragically killed in a bobsled accident in 1914. The fact that he lived in San Luis Obispo was of little concern to the authorities.

That the Niggersaurus is the second-most popular dinosaur among schoolchildren (behind the Tyrannosaurus Rex) signals a dangerous trend. We must rename the Niggersaurus immediately, and I call on all of you to write to your local museum and/or paleontological society and express your outrage.

For the record, I feel the same way about the Chinkodactyl and the Heebodon.

But one step at a time.

Oh, I’m Sorry—Did You Mistakenly Walk Into Our Well of Souls?

2005-05-10T08:39:00.000-04:00

Excuse me, ma’am? Yes, I’m the maitre d’. Yes, the bathrooms are just over here to the left.

I’m sorry? Oh, yes, that’s our Well of Souls over there. Did you accidentally go inside thinking that it was a restroom? I’m terribly sorry for the mix-up, ma’am, but you’re not the first. I’m just glad that you made it out alive.

Now if you’ll just follow me over to the left . . . Are you alright ma’am? Did gazing into a parallel dimension filled with billions of screaming, anguished spirits shake you up a little? I know, it is a bit disturbing, isn’t it? Unfortunately, there’s not a thing we can do about it.

You see, when the owner and operator, Archibald Coxswain, purchased this building, he intended to make it into a four-star gourmet restaurant, a place where the city’s elite could come to enjoy painstakingly prepared Burmese-Cajun fusion cuisine, drink only the finest and rarest of liquors, and have the opportunity to rub elbows with other “beautiful people” in a safe and comfortable environment. As I’m sure you can see, ma’am, his dream has largely come to fruition.

However, there was one catch.

The asking price for the building was astoundingly low considering its prime location and all of the various accoutrements that accompany a converted neo-gothic prison. When Mr. Coxswain inquired about the almost unthinkably affordable cost, the seller—a shadowy man in a long black cloak—simply stated that the price would stand so long as Mr. Coxswain pledged to never tamper with the Well of Souls.

Well, naturally he agreed, and since that day we have had the inconvenience of occasionally losing customers when they unwittingly wander into the cavernous maw of the stentorian and frenzied ether.

As I said earlier, ma’am, I’m glad that you made it out alive. Just last week, a gentlemen looking to wash a red wine stain from his shirt unknowingly meandered into the Well of Souls, only to be dismembered and voraciously devoured by starving ghouls, his spirit’s voiceless moans joining the ever-growing chorus of the damned. I lost a really good tip!

Anyway: no worries, ma’am! Everything will be fine as long as you don’t enter that door encrusted with sinister runes that, admittedly, look a lot like restroom signs.

While we can’t do anything to reverse the terrible psychological and spiritual trauma that you will have until your dying day—and well into afterlife—we can offer you a free dessert.

Of your choice.

And we have Bananas Foster.

Relax: There’s No International Conspiracy

2005-05-09T00:54:00.000-04:00

Lately there’s been a lot of “buzz” in both the fringe and mainstream medias—that we in no way control—about diabolical goings-on. Certain words and phrases keep cropping up: Rosicrucians. Freemasons. Bilderberg. Bohemian Grove. And the like. Of course it’s troubling, but I’m here to let you all know that you should just relax.

There’s no international conspiracy.

There is no attempt by a shadowy organization—whose name is so ancient and cryptic, it can’t even be pronounced by human tongues—to control every aspect of human existence on this planet, from the words you read to the food you eat to the thoughts you think.

It would also be foolish to believe that world leaders gather tri-annually at secluded resorts in Northern California, Switzerland, and an unnamed South Pacific Island to determine what countries should be invaded, their natural resources plundered, their peoples oppressed. They also do not consult each other about the world economy and how to obtain even more money and power from the lower classes by poisoning the world’s drinking water.

Hey, some people actually believe this is true! They’re a little weird if you ask me.

A lot of these same people also believe that Meditation Room at the United Nations is where the New World Order telepathically spies on people with their so-called “Black Helicopters” which are, in reality, the transmogrified souls of necromantic U.N. Agents who are without shape until they assume the form decreed by their theosophic masters.

There is also no truth to the rumor, purported in popular novel The Da Vinci Code, that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were husband and wife and that the Catholic Church is out to suppress this information by any means necessary, included employing assassins trained in the mystical ninja arts to “remove” any writer that gets too close to the truth of the story and publishes a bestselling novel about this theory.

And if you were wondering if the Skull & Bones fraternity at Yale University is a breeding ground for future presidents, senators, and businessmen who will continue this well-entrenched conspiracy, why, that’s just crazy talk.

Just to reiterate: no cabal of red-robed Illuminati controlling the world governments, no ultra-thin microchips imbedded into every $1 bill that monitors your purchases and gathers information about your personal habits that are then fed into a global database to make it easier to manipulate the economy as well as your belief structure.

And there’s definitely not a giant owl statue representing an unnameable ancient god in the very depths of the United States Capitol that requires, as tribute, a virgin sacrifice every four years.

So we can all just continue celebrating Caitlin’s fifth birthday by having some of this delicious ice cream cake from Cold Stone Creamery.

Mmm . . . that’s pretty tasty.

An Important Announcement From The Strange

2005-05-06T12:53:00.000-04:00

During the next several months, The Strange will be undergoing some major changes. All for the better, we assure you. But because of these changes, we will only be posting our hilarious writings (“comedy bordering on poetry” as The Nation called us) on week days. That’s Monday through Friday. We might take Wednesdays off too; we’re not sure yet.

We just wanted to let you, our legions of devoted fans know this, so you’re not worried when you don’t see a new and side-splittingly ingenious piece up on Saturday or Sunday.

Now, you’re probably asking yourself, “What exactly are these changes?” Well, we’re not at liberty to divulge the specifics at this point. However, we can say, without hyperbole, that they will change the course of human history as we know it. If you ever stopped to wonder what it was like to be around when fire was discovered, or the wheel invented, or when there was a viable third political party, or when Led Zeppelin ruled the music charts—that’s what the changes are going to be like. Roughly.

They’re going to change our lives as well as yours. And for the better this time. Not like that damn Ab-Roller. Piece of crap that was.

So to all our fans in the United States and across the world, we’re still going to be here, just not on the weekends. And very soon we’ll be able to show all of you what wonders await you in this century and beyond.

But why don’t you take that extra time we’ve given you and spend it with the family, or take up a hobby, or make love to your significant other? Sometimes you can combine all those activities into one.

Although we don’t recommend that as you’ll probably be arrested. Fucking pervert.

Do You Want to Know What Frightens Me?

2005-05-05T08:26:00.000-04:00

There are a lot of frightening things in this world.

My friend Julia is frightened of multi-national corporations, how they seem to be taking over every aspect of our lives, and how the government seems unable or unwilling to control them.

My cousin Elizabeth is frightened of global warming, the loss of our ozone layer, and the overall destruction of our environment.

Her 8-year-old son Eric is frightened of another terrorist attack on our country.

Now, these are just a few examples of some people I know personally. There are so many other people and so many other things to be frightened of.

Do you want to know what frightens me? I’ll tell you.

Wolves.

You ask me, “How can you be frightened of wolves when you don’t even live in an area with a large wolf population?”

Well, it’s easy: wolves are scary.

Wolves are wild animals with sharp teeth. They run very fast. They eat meat. I know they won’t attack humans unless provoked, but that doesn’t lessen my fear of them.

Let’s just say, for argument’s sake, that you’re attacked by a wolf. Even if you survive the vicious assault from a predator that travels in packs that cumulatively would outweigh most people—their dagger-like teeth sinking deeply into your supple flesh while their unearthly howls fill the ebon night—you would still have to contend with the fact that you might have rabies and would then have to endure a series of painful injections into your abdomen. And this is on top of healing from your wolf-attack wounds.

How does that not frighten you?

Now, whether or not this pack of wolves was feral or was raised specifically to hunt you down because of some wrong that you had done their crazed, multi-billionaire master is inconsequential. The issue at hand is this: there are such animals as wolves, they might attack me, and I am frightened of them.

Go ahead. Call my fear of wolves irrational. But when they’ve surrounded your house and are waiting for you to run out of food and fall into a weakened state so they can rush in and tear you apart, then you can tell me who’s irrational.

I’m not advocating the destruction of all wolves everywhere or even setting up wolf traps around my house to make sure they can’t hurt me. I’m not even saying we should create a serum that can be injected into wolves that makes them glow a bright green so we can see them coming from far away.

I’m just saying that wolves frighten me.

Oh, and, also genetically-engineered spiders the size of hatchbacks that are super-intelligent and have acidic webbing that can melt steel.

I’m Not Getting the Respect a Level 12 Half-Elf Paladin Deserves

2005-05-04T17:56:00.000-04:00

Ahhh . . . to think, less than a year ago, I was Llyr the Emancipator, courageous defender of Morgwain and heir to the throne of my small but prosperous nation. I can even now remember my last free moments, smiting Orcs and valiantly utilizing my unique Elven ingenuity to deceive a friend-cum-enemy into destroying itself by way of my magical devices.

But, alas, for the next 25½ years I will be known as Prisoner #655321, and my domicile will no longer be the rolling, unspoiled hills of Morgwain, but rather the chain-link-and-concrete complex of the Northern Utah Correctional Facility in Weber County. What, pray tell, was my crime? Nothing short of upholding the sacred and divinely-ordained charge of the Paladin—protecting the world from the forces of evil, whatever face they may take on.

It all started near the abandoned train tracks in Cedar City, where a group of us LARPers (Live Action Role Players, for the uninitiated knuckledraggers out there) were deeply engaged in combat against the swarming minions of Mor-Thûl’ok. Magella Swordhammer, Davnan Shieldheart, and Oolahana Serpentshelm had been surrounded by the burly Orc Blackguards, and with heavy wound damage and a rapidly shrinking supply of mana, their meager Mage Shield was in grave danger of expiring.

I had used my Cloak of Invisibility to hide close by and was planning my next heroic move when, much to my dismay, I saw a strange glint in Davnan’s coal-black eyes. I wanted so badly to ignore it, but as a Paladin I am obliged to combat evil, even when that same evil has been responsible for saving my skin on several occasions.

I immediately cast a Discern Lies spell, which resulted in a mythic black fog—visible only to me—that surrounded Davnan’s head and broadsword. I instantly knew him to be a traitor to our cause (he was half-Orc, after all), and brandished my longbow, overcome by sadness but strengthened by my faith in the Supreme Being, Heironeous.

With my remaining mana, I cast a spell of Divine Favor, increasing the HP Damage of my attack, and let a single, glistening silver-tipped arrow fly directly into the sternum of my erstwhile comrade, Davnan Shieldheart.

Well, long story short, Magella and Oolahana freaked out and called the cops, Davnan (or Craig, as you Normals called him) died, and within the year I was convicted of first-degree murder.

And now, here I am: stripped of my armaments, my precious Cloak of Invisibility confiscated (a one-of-a-kind heirloom from my Uncle Razgooth, no less), and no longer feasting on roast Quillbeast and mead. Rather, I am forced to subsist on a humble pap made primarily of potato, string beans and what appears to have been, at some point, an earth-fowl.

Despite the injustice the law of this land has done me, I do what I can to stay sharp behind these walls. I use the Bless Water spell to make the holy elixir so I might still pour libations to Heironeous, and until One-Eyed Pete attacked me in the shower, I was doing pretty well with conjuring a Death Ward to protect me from assaults of his ilk. He must have cast Dispel Magic (or paid off the hacks), which would make him at least a Level 10. If only I had my grimoire, I could memorize Levitating Soap, Shank of Destiny, or even Anal Shockshield.

Anyway, I’ll need to level-up in order to try the Freedom of Movement spell—turns out Starwalk only works on hooved animals. It’s too bad they don’t have the Players Handbook in here, it would really help me out.

Plus my ass really, really hurts.

Welcome to Our Fraternal Organization

2005-05-03T00:58:00.000-04:00

After these many weeks of psychological mind games and humiliating initiation rituals, it’s my great pleasure, as pledge-master of Alpha Omega, to welcome you to our glorious fraternal organization.

I know this is a dream come true for every single one of you. And even though this pledge class is the smallest we’ve had in many years, I believe it’s also one of the best. We culled the weak from the strong and were left with only the most noble and trustworthy. We are, all of us—new members and current Alpha Omegas—now bonded as brothers until our deaths, and we vow to venerate and help one another in anywhere, any time, and at any cost.

So, without further ado, here are your degrading nicknames.

Pete, your Alpha Omega nickname is Balls, due to your outstanding performance in the “Fill-A-Bagger.” I’ve seen a lot of pledges in my time go out in the first round. That sock full of quarters to the groin really hurts! But you made it all the way to the end, surviving not only the quarters, but the marbles, the chunks of concrete, and the cat-o’-nine-tails. Not bad, Brother Balls.

Tim, from now on your name is Short Bus because of your success in the “Top This” initiation. Convincing that girl with Down’s Syndrome that you were an astronaut? Man, that was fucking classic. Best I’ve seen in all my years in this fraternity. Did you ever find out how long she waited behind the field house for your “spaceship” to land? I know you probably won’t be able to go back to Wal-Mart for a while, but you’ll always have a home at Alpha Omega.

Greg, your new name is Nuts, for two reasons. One: because you came in second in the “Fill-A-Bagger.” And two: because you’ve literally got a huge pair of testicles. Those things are massive. Like a camel.

Scotty! You are now Brown Eye. ’Nuff said, eh?

Steve, because of your amazing ability to drink three bottles of grain alcohol without vomiting, your nickname is Heave. And now that you’re one of us, you’ll never have to worry about those pictures of you with Greg’s—sorry, Nuts’—heavy-hangers on your forehead being seen by anyone but your fellow Alpha Omegas, here and across the country.

And, last but not least, Johnny. You’re now known as Poo-Stick, for your daring bravery during the “Flagpole” ritual. Never in the history of Alpha Omega has anyone had a broom handle shoved that far up his ass without experiencing severe internal hemorrhaging. That you not only didn’t divulge to the authorities or hospital staff what caused the broom handle to find its way into your rectum, but also required astonishingly little medical attention is a testament to not only your devotion to your frat brothers, but also your—pardon the pun—“intestinal fortitude.”

Well, gentlemen, enjoy your new degrading nicknames! Welcome to Alpha Omega, and long may we be linked by brotherhood, honor, and sadomasochistic homoeroticism.

Things Upon Which You Might Not Want to Put Tabasco Sauce

2005-05-02T08:37:00.000-04:00

Saltwater taffy

Infant son

The fender of a Trans-Am

Winning lottery tickets

Other hotter pepper-based condiments

An oversized platter of delicious DoubleStuf Oreos

Toilet seat

The underside of your right eyelid

Heretofore undiscovered original copy of the lost second book of Aristotle’s Poetics

Horse shit

Intermittent Reviews of The Strange From Young Literary Notables

2005-05-01T00:32:00.001-04:00

“I’ve never known roadside love like this before.”

Merrill Feitell, author of Here Beneath Low-Flying Planes, winner of the 2004 Iowa Short Fiction Award. She cavorts at http://www.merrillfeitell.com/.

I’m Not That Criminally Insane

2005-04-30T00:14:00.000-04:00

I’ve been getting a lot of flak lately from people who have consistently and erroneously referred to me as “criminally insane.” These so-called experts—such as Dr. Chatwin—have used their “science” to paint a caustic and false image of the man that I truly am. The time has come to dispel the lies and rumors.

That being said, I don’t wish to present a false image. I am a little criminally insane, OK? Maybe even more than a little. But honestly, I’m not that criminally insane.

Now, I know what’s going to happen next—someone is going to bring up my first crime, where I carved the arcane symbol of Lamashtu into the foreheads of thirteen murdered prostitutes. What they won’t tell you, however, is that I had to carve the symbol into their heads in order to appease Lamashtu, “She Who Erases,” lest she rise from the fathomless depths of the leviathan and immolate the earth with her demonic bloodlust. Dr. Chatwin doesn’t want you to know that I was actually working to save lives. No. He’d rather make me the enemy and put another BMW in his already overflowing garage. I mean, only a really criminally insane person would have carved intricate pictograms into their heads just for fuck’s sake. Am I right?

Look at my next crime, for example, wherein I chopped up five British tourists and scattered their fragmented bodies high over the earth from a small passenger plane. A lesser man—one that was legitimately criminally insane, a real loony-toon, you know—would probably have just scattered them anywhere, possibly injuring someone who was standing on a sidewalk or crossing the street. I, on the other hand, took great care to scatter them over empty farmland toward the outskirts of town, so that when the crimson deluge met the dusty ground no one would be caught in the downpour of bones and blood. How’s that for sane, “Doctor” Chatwin? Huh? Huh? Can’t hear you!

Need more proof that I’m only marginally criminally insane? Why, after disposing of my victims' torsos in huge vats of industrial strength acid, I even responsibly disposed of the acid at the town dump on Hazardous Waste Collection Day. Wouldn’t want to harm the wildlife that populates the beautiful waterways of this area, you know? Our natural resources are a fragile gift, and we all need to do our part to protect them.

In addition, never once did I masturbate upon the remains of my victims nor do anything untoward with their personal belongings once the bodies were disposed of. I think this also bespeaks that my actions—while inarguably outrageous—were not overly criminally insane.

To be perfectly frank, I think more people should follow my example. Too many criminally insane people are running amok in our streets, in our classrooms, in the house next door, at the high-scale dog-grooming salon. The world would really be a better place without all those lunatics.

I mean, there are some really crazy people out there.

What’s Up, Vanilla?

2005-04-29T00:39:00.000-04:00

You there, Argental Nymph of the Frosty Avenue!

I see you walking along, your milky pallor illuminating every yard of this bustling thoroughfare, and I have to admit: I’ve never seen anything quite as tempting as you. Or as white.

And so I’m compelled to say, “What’s up, Vanilla?”

No Eskimo igloo nor snow-capped Kilimanjaro nor any hoary sperm whale conjured by Melville himself could compare to the exquisite whiteness that you exhibit. This is what caused my ejaculation. I did not mean it any way but as praise. Please stop yelling at me.

I’ve seen some of the finest, largest pearls to grace the planet exhumed from giant oysters by Japanese skin divers. And I have witnessed the gruff and bosky Dutch milkmaids in Amsterdam churning the most delicate cream I have ever tasted. Still, these things pale in comparison to you. Pun intended.

Even the finest business paper of 25% cotton fiber does not come close to you. And I know business paper as I sell it to Fortune 500 companies for a living. That’s how I do, Vanilla.

But if I’ve otherwise insulted you, or you’ve been taken aback by my comment, then surely you’ve not been doted upon as you deserve by a fine, albinic man such as myself. You’ve made me turn to molten steel, my canescent cockatiel. You are the Beatrice to my Dante, a man who knows a little something about the white-hot fires of Hell, which is where I will surely be if you don’t come inside this bar and have a drink with me.

The fact that you have not read the poetry of Dante does not surprise me. The fact that you’ve refused my offer of a delicious White Russian, however, does surprise me.

That’s fine, Vanilla. You walk along your lily-white way. I’ll stand here, thinking of you, your ghostly alabaster burned into the Italian marble of my memory. And I will remember you every time I pour non-dairy creamer into my coffee or indulge in a pint of white-chocolate chip ice cream from Maggie Moo’s or lather myself in a foamy bath with Ivory soap.

And I will remember you especially as my fractured ribs mend from the effects of that enormous block of salt you’ve just thrown at me.

I’m a Little Skeptical About Having My Picture Taken in the Mouth of This Enormous Prehistoric Crocodile

2005-04-28T08:36:00.000-04:00

Gentlemen, up until a few days ago, we didn’t even know these things still existed. They were the stuff of history, of nightmares, and at best were indistinct images floating from the primordial mist through our collective unconscious.

Then, all of a sudden, some fisherman illegally trawling the Nile dredges one up and you want me and my fellow scientists to pose in its mouth? Look, I want a flashy photograph to record this historic event too, but I’m a little skeptical about having my picture taken in the mouth of this enormous prehistoric crocodile.

I know, I know: the public has a right to have this momentous occasion immortalized, and I understand that this behemoth has been heavily and professionally sedated. But on average, these monsters have 108 bone-crushing, 5-inch-long teeth. This particular specimen weighs three tons and is almost 28-feet-long. Of all the ways I can think of dying, I doubt there is an experience filled with more shattering pain and primal fear than being ripped apart by one of these ancient devils.

Look at his eye, that even now watches us! It’s the size of my fist! That’s insane.

Sir, I am a herpetologist. Dr. Sanderson is a paleontologist and Dr. Ponge is a biologist. I don’t think anywhere on any of our diplomas or curricula vitae will you find the phrase “alligator wrestler,” “dinosaur tussler” or “batshit crazy enough to step inside the gaping maw of a water-dragon sent from the past to cast our world into utter confusion.”

OK, Edward R. Murrow—then why don’t you get in there? I didn’t think so.

Still, that doesn’t solve your problem, gentleman. We’re all reasonable: we want what’s best for all the parties involved, and we want a quick resolution. Am I right? Then let me offer this suggestion:

I’ll need all of you to turn around and gaze penetratingly into the African horizon that lies far behind you while my fellow scientists and I use the momentary distraction to run like hell in the opposite direction.

Plausible Rock ‘N’ Roll Conversations

2005-04-27T04:30:00.000-04:00

1973. England. The Wailers—including Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Bunny Wailer—have just taped a performance for The Old Grey Whistle Test.

BOB MARLEY: That wasn’t too bad.

PETER TOSH: No. Not bad at all. Pretty good show.

BOB: This weather is really crappy though.

PETER: Sure is.

BOB: Can I ask you a question, Peter?

PETER: Sure.

BOB: When we play together, what do you think about?

PETER: What do you mean?

BOB: I mean, what do you think about when you’re playing guitar? What inspires you?

PETER: I guess I’m still a little unclear about what you’re asking.

BOB: For instance, when we play a song like “Stir It Up”—a song that has so many connotations, sexual, political—I think about a whole bunch of things: Rita, Jamaica, His Most Excellent Hailie Selassie, the slowly churning gears of revolution. Different things depending on my mood, but always things that mean a great deal to me and cause me to create really fantastic music. Do you see what I’m saying?

PETER: Yeah. Yeah, I think I get what you’re asking now.

BOB: So what do you think about?

PETER: Soup.

BOB: Soup?

PETER: Yeah. Soup. I think about soup.

BOB: What . . . kind of soup?

PETER: Oh, all kinds. Usually something creamy. But not too thick. Sometimes something spicy, like mulligatawny. It varies. You know, like you, depending on the mood I’m in.

BOB: So . . . .when I play my music, I think about throwing off the shackles of our oppressors and unifying the world . . . and you think about soup?

PETER: That sounds about right.

BOB: I guess that’s kind of the same. But not really.

PETER: How isn’t it the same?

BOB: You think about soup; I think about revolution.

PETER: Soup is a kind of revolution, Bob.

BOB: [slight pause] What?

PETER: What?

BOB: Do you think about soup just when we sing “Stir It Up” or on every song we play?

PETER: [reflects for a moment] I think about soup pretty much every time I play any song.

BOB: Oh.

Your “Breakfast Meat Cornucopia” Is Profoundly Lacking

2005-04-26T08:05:00.000-04:00

I’ll just come right out and say it: I’m sorely disappointed.

I was told by a friend—a friend who is now himself suspect—that the “Breakfast Meat Cornucopia” offered at Fiery Fred’s Wok ‘N’ Grill was “a feast unrivaled in all of Christendom,” a bounty that helped to put Fiery Fred on the map.

And yet, here it sits before me in all its underwhelming glory. Sufficient? One would not be wholly wrong in calling it that. Ample? I don’t think anyone with even the simplest grasp of the language would feel right in labeling it such. It’s certainly not overabundant. And it is definitely not—even in a psychotic’s imagination—a cornucopia. In fact, I further suggest that you list the dish from henceforth with the word “cornucopia” in quotation marks.

Look at the haphazard way it’s presented: a pile of greasy bacon strips here, a pepper-flecked turkey-sausage patty there, some sort of half-hearted beef hash plopped in the center of the plate offering up all the dynamism of an in-flight meal or a plastic tray of movie-theater nachos. That I can still see the exposed incisors in the smiling and grotesque caricature of Fiery Fred that adorns the plate says it all.

Still, I must vocalize my discontent.

My fine fellow, if this were Alistair Munch-A-Lot’s Breakfast Bonanza, a dish with the word “cornucopia” in its name would start with an actual cornucopia, one hand-woven of the finest reeds by an authentic local witch-doctor. It would involve an almost staggering amount of free-range beef and pork products—possibly chicken if the mood struck right—all cooked to glistening perfection by a seasoned chef, then rammed deep within that horn of plenty until said vessel was literally bursting forth with mouthwatering breakfast meats. But—then!—the coup de grâce: a garnish of horseradish flowers and a smooth and spicy avocado dressing!

Delicious? Indeed. And that, my friend, would do justice to the perennial symbol of prosperity and abundance, quite unlike this half-assery that is so quickly cooling before me, its congealing juices of mediocrity a testament to your restaurant’s failure and deceit. I doubt the chef even knows how to spell “avocado.”

I suppose it was naïve of me to expect anything else from such a niggardly establishment as this. I can assure you this is the first and last time that I . . . that I . . .

Whoa, give me a second.

OK. Call an ambulance. I’m having another heart attack.

The Strange Mailbag

2005-04-25T02:41:00.000-04:00

Here at The Strange we receive literally thousands of emails and letters every day. Although our stable of writers, experts, and commentators is exceedingly impressive, we simply don’t have the time to respond individually to every single person.

To expedite the process of replying to your laudatory missives, we’ve decided to respond to a few of them at a time here on our site. We’ve chosen letters that not only answer specific queries but also address broader issues expressed by other members of our ever-expanding and seemingly limitless audience.

Let’s begin, shall we?

To Annalee in McMinnville, Tennessee:

Thanks for writing in! We’ve got a lot of fans in Tennessee, and we’re proud to add McMinnville to that list. The next time we take our armored vehicle column on the gun-show circuit we’ll be sure to let you know so we can personally give you a tour of the special improvements we've made on the lead tank, Mjollnir.

To address your main question regarding our favorite movie featuring Rowdy Roddy Piper (which we get a lot): most people would automatically assume it to be They Live!, that masterpiece of masterpieces which finds itself as an integral part of social commentator John Carpenter’s cinematic oeuvre.

But The Strange goes back just a little earlier than that, citing Piper’s jaw-dropping performance as the title character in 1987’s Hell Comes to Frogtown as our favorite. Who knew explosives attached to genitals could be so funny, and yet still so subtly thought-provoking?

Hell Comes to Frogtown tackles a number of complex social issues that we at The Strange take very seriously, not the least of which is explosives attached to the genitals. It also puts an amphibian in a prominent role of power, something rarely seen in today’s prejudiced and discriminatory Hollywood machine.

These are things we care about, like we care about you. Again: thanks for writing!

To Adam (in the electronic ether):

We’re glad you took our commentary on coffee so seriously. We do take our coffee seriously, but pride ourselves on not being snobbish about it. True, we enjoy a robust cup of Sumatran Elderberry with our truffle-caviar omelets and watercress tea sandwiches each morning in our parlor, which is totally encrusted in pearl. But if we can’t get that, we’ll settle for a Dunkin’ Donuts French Vanilla, light and sweet. It’s all good.

We have to admit, however, that we’re concerned you may be actually trying to physically consume our humor. We advise against this. But please feel free to continue reading it every day. That’s the best way we’ve found to “consume” it.

To Claudette in Chàteau de Chambord, France:

Thanks so much for sending that delicious cheese sampler and all those erotic photographs. You’re quite an attractive young woman. Unfortunately, Mark is both lactose-intolerant and has a girlfriend.

Michael, on the other hand, gorges daily on cheese and is quite single. Overly single, one might say. He’d be glad to send his private luxury jet, the Olympus Missile, to retrieve you from the hellhole that is central France and deposit you squarely into his virile and Adonis-like American arms.

PLEASE NOTE: We will have to charge you for the jet fuel, as well as exact a modest cleaning surcharge for the bison pelts upon which you will recline during your trip, but the deviled eggs served in-flight are 100% complimentary.

To Bono:

We considered writing back to you, as we’re big fans of your band’s music (at least, we were up until Zooropa; and certain songs on All That You Can’t Leave Behind are OK) but after hearing you refer to the late John Paul II as the “funky pope,” we just want you to stop. Stop what? Basically everything.

You Have Completely Misunderstood My Rat-Tail

2005-04-24T01:12:00.000-04:00

You, sir, have offended me.

How dare you presume to ridicule my hairstyle, when in fact it is you who is worthy of ridicule! Why, if this were the year 1880, I’d be within my rights to—

I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you like that. It’s just . . . I get this a lot. People judge me every day, and never bother to find out anything at all about my reasoning, my choice. But if you’re willing to listen, I’ll explain.

You see, my great-great-great grandfather Oyinye was the chief of a mighty and noble tribe, the Kanaxaja, native to what would come to be called South America by the white man but what we have called Oaxit-Meztltlan from time immemorial. The young men of our tribe were warriors—the bravest in the world, as legend held—and they styled their hair in the fashion of Kwakutl, our fiery and furious god of war.

Many years later, as luck would have it, hockey fans and motorcycle enthusiasts would unwittingly take on the ceremonial hairstyle of the Kanaxaja-rattan, with society ignorantly and heartlessly doling out to a once-proud tradition the blasphemous and accursed name of “rat-tail.”

And in one fell swoop, my friend, the mighty Kanaxaja fell.

I am one of only a few surviving members of our great tribe, and I carry on my head the Kanaxaja-rattan as a symbol of bravery, intelligence, and fury. Not as a symbol of a love of motorsports or an inclination toward arctic-tinged donnybrooks.

To think that the same sacred adornment that accompanied my brethren into battle as they scalped and impaled hordes of invading white men is now an obsolete, outdated fashion statement reserved for the most oblivious and self-deluded of fifty-something prison guards and bodybuilders—why, it makes my fiery blood run cold. That the luscious, interwoven locks of the Kanaxaja-rattan could be mistaken for the filthy tail of a rodent is almost beyond comprehension.

There is hope for the Kanaxaja-rattan, though, my gentle friend. After decades of poor representation in the media, the noble character of this most blessed of hairstyles has once again shone forth in the personages of Anakin Skywalker and his fellow Jedi Knights. They, like the furious men of my tribe, choose wisdom over ignorance, truth over falsehood, and justice over the tweaking of chrome parts to make them produce louder noises. They carry with them a snaking, stealthy brotherhood with the Kanaxaja. Indeed, the great, satiated smile of Kwakutl appears like a beacon in the reddish sky.

Well, maybe you’re right. Maybe using Anakin Skywalker is a bad example, as he does eventually turn upon his fellow Jedi and slaughter almost every last one of them in ignoble fury.

But at least it’s a start.

I Might Have Killed a Nun, But You Raped a Horse

2005-04-23T01:12:00.000-04:00

No, Todd, you listen.

Yeah, I might have killed a nun. I can admit that. I’m not proud of it, but what’s done is done.

But you, my rapidly-fading memory of a friend: You raped a horse.

What do you mean, “How is raping a horse worse than brutally murdering a nun?” Well, let me tell you.

I understand, at first blush, the killing of an innocent human being might seem worse than the vigorous invasion of a domesticated ungulate, but let’s dig a little deeper, shall we?

I can find any number of rhetorical positions to defend my nun-stabbing, and though they would still leave me—in the eyes of society—to be morally reprehensible, cold reason would prevail in my defense. I would be looked upon as a criminal, surely, but not as a gibbering sexual deviant.

What that’s, Todd? You’re saying if I can name one instance—quote one reputable source—that defends my position, you’ll come out of hiding and turn yourself in? Alright. Fine.

If I may quote the brilliant, American intellectual, Henry James—no stranger himself to complex moral entanglements—who wrote of his friend George Bingham, a man not unlike myself: “To kill a human being is, after all, the least injury you can do him.”

How is my situation any different from that, Todd? That’s right. It’s not. From what I can tell, according to a famous American writer—who’s sure as shit a whole lot smarter than either of us—I did that nun a favor.

You, on the other perverted hand, drove all the way to Saratoga with the sole intention of breaking into private property and rapaciously despoiling a prized race horse. Not because you had any good moral reason to do so—no! But because you lost $25 dollars on a lousy quinella. Yeah, it does sound a little crazy coming out of someone else’s mouth, doesn’t it, you asshole?

No, Todd; you know what: fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

And probably raped.

Things I Would Like to See (Part 4)

2005-04-22T07:01:00.000-04:00

A shark fighting a lion. Only they both have no teeth or claws, they can only use spiked maces and groin/gill shots are illegal. To make it fair they will fight in space.

Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter, Michael Savage, and Sean Hannity making out with Strom Thurmond’s corpse while George H.W. Bush circles them on a tricycle reading the poetry of Jewel through a megaphone. Forever.

Yngwie Malmsteen shredding on a flaming guitar while riding another flaming guitar like a surfboard and crashing through my bedroom wall.

A giant anthropomorphic tuna that makes sushi out of people. That would be so fucked up.

Some sort of television program that combines my natural love of competitive cooking with the flash and pizzazz of gay/straight makeovers. In a steel cage.

Fitness celebrity John Basedow being torn apart by enormous genetically-engineered owls with golden armor, bronze talons and sonic warfare weaponry.

The band Godsmack actually being smacked by God. Or even being hit by a garbage truck.

A society where people are judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character and I am the richest man alive.

Other Aliases Michael Vick Might Have Used

2005-04-21T01:47:00.000-04:00

Dan Montana

Bob Arkansas

Ted North Dakota

Troy Louisiana

Nathan Argentina

Scott Idaho

Felix San Salvador

Randy Florida

Phil Kansas City

Greg St. Croix

Ineffective Methods for Teaching Children About Literature

2005-04-20T00:07:00.000-04:00

Invite Umberto Eco to come to class and ceremonially shave and oil himself while babbling about hermetic drift and then splash the audience with espresso and Sambuca.

Play a looped video of Jack Kerouac and Gregory Corso bumfighting for $100 and a roast beef sandwich.

Let them witness celebrity guest Nicholas Sparks metamorphosing into a giant flaming skull that repeatedly screams “Worship Me!” in a high-pitched, plane-transcending meta-voice.

Make “William S. Burroughs in the Jungle of Yage” dioramas.

Have the children make authentic Roman soldier costumes and then invite them to crucify a bound-and-gagged Dan Brown.

Invite Jonathan Lethem to read excerpts from “The Fortess of Solitude” dressed in an Incredible Hulk costume while Devo plays free-form accompaniment.

Take them on a field trip to Tuscany, where they can help Frances Mayes install a third heliport on her villa.

Have children watch Robert Jordan and the re-animated corpse of J.R.R. Tolkien trade “yo momma” jokes in the Dark Tongue of Mordor.

Have Franz Wright lecture them on the basics of synechdoche and meter while continuously burning them with cigarettes.

Encourage them to watch a visibly strung-out Fernando Pessoa accuse one of his many heteronyms of plagiarism and then flailingly challenge him to “quit hitting himself.”

Bring in an authentic jar of Bukowski puke.

You’re Going to Love My Laboratory

2005-04-19T11:08:00.000-04:00

I’m really glad you guys finally had the time to stop by and see the house. My real estate agent told me that it was kind of considered an eyesore by the Neighbors Association. Well, I think that with the improvements we’re planning—and the ones we’ve already made—you’ll no longer be ashamed to live next door to “that house,” as you guys call it.

Yes, Ted, I did all the wainscoting myself. Took quite a toll on the ol’ vertebrae, but I’m pretty pleased with the way it came out.

Say, Anne, did you notice the countertops when we were in the kitchen? Those are solid marble, direct from Italy. What’s that? Oh, I have some acquaintances over there and they were able to get me an excellent price on it.

Ted, you work for Pfizer, don’t you? I thought so. Well, I think you’re going to love my laboratory.

It’s still a little messy even though it was one of the first rooms we set up when we moved in. But between my various reanimation projects and the genetically-engineered “Manimals” that wander in and out, it’s kind of tough to keep it clean!

What’s that, you ask? Are you pointing to the cooling board or the muddy coffin? Well, Anne, that’s the freshly-exhumed corpse of a teenager who perished in a car accident. Horrible, indeed. I’m hoping to implant his virile heart—he was captain of the football team—into the body there over there on the examination table. In actuality, it will be a kind of back-up heart as the monster is so enormous he’ll require three hearts to properly circulate the blood.

Oh, don’t mind that howling. It’s merely the Manimals’ feeding-time. Normally I would keep them well-sated so that when I loose them to harvest victims for my experiments, they don’t kill indiscriminately. But for the past week I’ve been starving them as their blood-lust must be primed for the task I have in mind for them.

Gosh, sorry, Ted, I can’t tell you what it is. I mean, don’t you think that’s a little personal, asking me something like that? Maybe once we get to be better neighbors.

Now, in that tank to the left is the Octo-Shark. That’s right, Anne, it’s got tentacles like an octopus, but the body of a shark—a prehistoric shark, that is. One unlike any human being has ever seen. Five times as large—and countless times more vicious—than the great white shark.

Funny you should ask about the the name, Ted. Philippe wanted to call it the Shark-O-Pus, but I said absolutely no way. We’d be a laughing stock! No, Anne, that’s Oliver over there that resembles a walking cadaver. Philippe is my assistant with the hunchback and maniacal laugh.

Well, enough about them. Come on over to the serum table and I’ll show you what I administered to the previous owners to get them to sell me this house for one dollar!

No, Anne, I don’t think you have to get going now. There’s so much more to show you. The dog will be fine, as will your two lovely children. They have each other, and in more ways than you know. At this very moment Philippe and Oliver are bringing all three over so we can splice their DNA together.

Scream all you want. This laboratory is sound-proofed. I mean, do you really think I’d have a laboratory that wasn’t sound-proofed? Wow.

Don’t feel left out, Anne. I’m going to cross you with a panda and Ted is going to have the DNA of a mallard incorporated into his genetic code. Oh, not because I want to transform you into pitiless mutations who will obey my every command; I just think it’d be really fucking funny.

Well, and because I need more pitiless mutations who will obey my every command. So there is a practical side to my murderous experiments.

Italian Dishes Yet to Be Exploited By High-End American Food Service

2005-04-18T12:08:00.000-04:00

Bistecca al Cavallino

Ponies have long been considered to be precious and graceful by children and nuns, but in Naples, they’re just considered to be delicious.

Caffe’ all’Anatra

If you order your coffee all’anatra in Avellino, it will be served to you by a duck.

Latte Colpevole

A style of caffe-latte served in Venetian cafés that makes you feel incredibly guilty for a period of 24 hours after consuming it. Not necessarily because of decadence of the latte itself, but for all the other horrible shit you’ve done in your life, you selfish asshole.

Pollo alla Farfalla

A gypsy dish originating in the secluded Val d’Aosta. Traditionally, it’s a whole chicken filled with the wings of butterflies that have been torn off by gypsy children while the insects are still alive. However, in regions south of Genoa, the chicken and butterfly-wing stuffing is sometimes substituted with a Big Mac.

Caffe’ Cornuto

In this Salernian variation on the traditional espresso, the barista sleeps with your spouse. Male or female, it doesn’t matter. Italians are like that.

Tagliata di Manzo alla Futurista

A delicately seared cut of Chianina beef is thinly sliced, presented on a bed of arugula and garnished with speed, fire and the unceasing, roiling churn of the gears of industry.

Spaghetti Smascherati

In this classic pasta dish from Sicily, the spaghetti, in a decidedly Pirandellian turn, reveals itself to be—ironically—none other than you.

Cannolo al Borotalco

A light dusting of baby powder on your cannoli should not be seen as unusual if you order this dessert in the hill towns just outside of Rome. This dish dates back to the days of Caesar. How or why this tradition started, we don’t know. Just eat it so you can feel sophisticated, you slovenly fuck.

How to Judge a Book By Its Cover

2005-04-17T12:36:00.000-04:00

The old saying is “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” This is generally true, and, in an enlightened and reasonable age, should be taken on both its literal and figurative levels.

As we don’t live in an enlightened, reasonable, or even lemon-scented age, we feel completely at ease in saying this: on the literal level, there are certain instances in which you can indeed judge a book by its cover, or at least by quick examination. The following are just a few of these instances:

The author shares the same name as the villain in Tron.

The book is marketed at adults but features a rainbow, unicorn, beneficent angel, or aura-encased figure on the cover.

It’s written in center-aligned Dom Casual True Type font.

There’s a blurb by someone from FOX News on the back cover.

It’s co-authored by a beloved household pet.

The title is a haphazard coupling of two seemingly unrelated themes, e.g. “Death and a Light Brunch” or “The Eggs Benedict Kidnapping.”

It claims to be the only book you’ll ever need on its particular subject despite being surrounded by three shelves-worth of books on the same subject.

The author’s previous works includes a biography of Beyoncé Knowles and a handbook for making your own sausage in “three quick steps.”

John Edward wrote it.

The cover says that the book is based on a movie, which was based on a video game, which, in turn, was based on a book.

The author or authors appear on the cover.

In his/her photo, the author or authors display a grin not unlike Satan sports when he assumes human form and crawls about the earth sowing discord.

The author is the villain from Tron.

Musical Instruments We’re in the Process of Inventing

2005-04-16T09:05:00.001-04:00

Pigiano

A variation on the tried-and-true pianoforte, this instrument utilizes a series of wooden paddles to “stimulate” an array of variously-sized swine. While it sounds abrasive, it is actually quite breathtaking.

Harmonican’t

Regardless of how you attempt to play it, this instrument automatically forces you to fake your way through the guitar solo from “More Than a Feeling” by Boston. A cousin of the Didjeridon’t.

Shit-Talking Drum

This variation on the African Talking Drum is wired with electronics which translate the rhythm played into a rapid-fire succession of “yo momma” jokes. So far the jokes are really bad, like “Yo momma is terribly disappointing,” and “Yo momma washes her dishes in the bathtub.” We’ll get there though.

Oboe

We might just scrap this one as we’ve heard rumors there is already an instrument with this name. We’re looking into that.

Thereminiature

A theremin so small it can only be played by very coordinated beetles and perhaps King Cobras. We’re not sure yet; it’s hard to get a King Cobra.

Cannabassoon

OK, fine. You’re right. It’s a bong.

Watermellotron

A keyboard attached to a series of large, seedless watermelons that produces a sound rivaling anything the Cincinnati Pops can produce. That bastard Erich Kunzel will be out of a job soon. Previous attempts with honeydew and cantaloupe were unsuccessful so don’t even try.

Gentile’s Harp

Like the Jew’s Harp, but lacking a mandate from the One True God.

Xylofuck

Like a conventional xylophone, except you play it with dildos. Unrelated to the sexophone.

The Wisdom of Led Zeppelin, With Commentary

2005-04-15T00:41:00.000-04:00

The soul of a woman was created below. Save for big-legged women, who apparently don’t have souls.

The pain of war cannot exceed the woe of aftermath. Unless you get shot during the war and then suddenly marry a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model right afterwards.

Upon us all a little rain must fall. Except in Chile’s Atacama Desert.

The greatest thing you ever can do is trade a smile with someone who’s blue. Or spend $100,000 on booze, coke, and hookers in a month-long pleasure spree.

All that lives is born to die. Wow, that’s kind of depressing.

Not all big jet airplanes are the same. Especially if we’re talking about the new 555-seater super jumbo Airbus A-380.

To trip is, ironically, just to fall. Who knew?

The road we choose is always right. So that basically disproves Calvinism.

Mellow is the man who knows what he’s been missing. But if he’s never had a chicken quesadilla from ¡Cha Cha Cha! in Northampton, Massachusetts, he has no idea what he’s been missing. They put roasted garlic and grilled red onion in them. That’s right.

Though the course may change sometimes, rivers always reach the sea. Unless you build a dam.

Be a rock; never roll. Just trust us on this one.

It’s Not Easy Being the Only Half-Man/Half-Velociraptor in Town

2005-04-14T12:59:00.000-04:00

Everyone thinks it’s so cool being part dinosaur. All that I hear when I leave my home is an unending chorus of “Ohhh, wow! Check out that guy’s 4-inch claws!” and “Whoa, you must be so glad to be able to run 40 miles per hour.”

Well, let me tell you: it’s not easy.

Think of the stigma I carry with me, what with half of me being a unstoppably carnivorous reptile and the other half of me being a man—a man with needs and desires, hopes and fears—just like you. When people look at me, they don’t see Dwight, the Half-Man/Half-Velociraptor who adores Mahler and loves Woody Allen films, or even Mr. Copenriff, the Half-Man/Half-Velociraptor who runs a burgeoning office supply store. No, all they see is a scaly, cold-blooded hunter who happens to look sort of like a man and can talk.

If you possibly can, imagine the trials that I face on any given day. A simple trip to the meat department of the local grocery store invariably becomes occasion for jeers and smart-alecky remarks: “Sure hope we have enough meat! I know you velociraptor-types can eat up to three times your own weight every day!” Or the ever-present “Sorry Dwight, no Protoceratops or Hadrasaurs today—just people food!” As though I couldn’t appreciate a tender, center-cut slice of aged Angus, or a delicate, seared Chilean sea bass. Narrow-minded buffoons.

Making friends can be difficult when you seem different to everyone around you. Now, I know what you are going to say: “Some of my best friends are half-velociraptor!” Well, all I know is that when I walk down the street and hear forced whispers or feel the icy glares of terrified schoolchildren, I don’t feel very welcome in this town.

Just the other day, for example, in my very own store, I was accused of eating a woman’s baby when, in fact, she had forgotten that her mother-in-law had taken the child next door to KB Toys. True: I’ve been guilty of eating the young of my natural prey, but that was over 80 million years ago, people! Hellooo! Profiling me based on my appearance is wrong and hurtful. I wish people could be half-velociraptor for one day so they could experience even just an inkling of my pain and suffering.

Meeting women is no easy task, either, especially when you have eighty razor-sharp, inwardly-curving, saber-like teeth. I do have a reputation for being an animal in the bedroom (what with my forked, serpent-like tongue and my seemingly limitless physical stamina), but unfortunately most women prefer the slack, pale, flabby flesh of the fully human over my long, sinewy legs and my thick, sturdy tail. I don’t think I’m out of line saying that they don’t know what they’re missing.

So I mostly spend my nights alone, taking up space at the local watering hole and drowning my sorrows in glass after glass of Beaujolais. I used to get harassed quite frequently by those Neanderthals (not literal ones, obviously) who spend hours at a time screaming about some sporting event over by the plasma screen television. One time, one of them stumbled over and started rambling on about terrorists. After accusing me of plotting, he called me “lizard” and shoved me. I lost my temper and severed his carotid arteries with one of my sword-like talons. The rest of them haven’t bothered me since.

Still: words hurt, and it will take a long time for me to heal.

I tell you this not to gain your pity or sympathy, but rather to appeal to our sense of shared humanity. I may be half-prehistoric beast, but I’m also half-human. Just like you, I bleed when pricked. Only my blood is bluish-green. And it’s harder to prick me because I’m covered in hard reptilian scales.

But, basically, were the same.

How You Might Be Annoying Me: Selected Examples

2005-04-13T00:55:00.000-04:00

Slurping your gazpacho.

Consistently referring to San Francisco as “Frisco.”

Confusing the terms “fiction” and “nonfiction.”

Consuming a large bowl of diced Spanish onions and then close-talking to me about your stamp collection.

Advising me that you know coffee, and that’s not coffee.

Not allowing me to finish my answer to your question and then getting upset with me because I failed to answer your question satisfactorily.

Calling all brands of flavored, carbonated beverages “Coke.”

Suddenly adopting an accent when pronouncing the name of any Latin American country or author.

Reminding me for the umpteenth time this week that Jesus loves me, when I know for a fact that he does not.

Memorandum From the Desk of M. Casper Humboldt, Executive Director

2005-04-12T01:16:00.000-04:00

TO: All

Re: Fucking of cheesecake

As I am sure we are all aware, Humboldt-Gregory takes great pride in its reputation as being the number one producer of lightning rods in the Northeast. Our standing is built on generations of hard-working men and women who took what was once a small raisin-packing facility and built it into the Fortune 500 Company that it is today. My own great-grandfather, Mace Humboldt III, oversaw the growth of our company from its small-town roots all the way to 1995, when he left this world with dignity, honor, and great professional satisfaction. The Humboldt-Gregory tradition is one of perseverance, personal responsibility and impeccable ethics, and we will do whatever it takes to preserve this courageous legacy.

It has come to my attention, then, that someone had sex with a cheesecake that was left in the 3rd floor break room. The strawberry cheesecake—trimmed with dark chocolate shavings and left in the break room as a token of appreciation for the tireless work of the Accounts Payable Department during the end of the past fiscal quarter—was found on the ground next to the refrigerator. Its center had been completely eviscerated by what appeared to have been a long, cylindrical object. After closer inspection and the subsequent discovery of a pubic hair between the “o” and “n” of what once constituted “Congratulations” written in electric blue icing, it was determined that someone had fucked the chilled confection.

I am sure that I do not need to reiterate once again Humboldt-Gregory’s policy on cleanliness, decorum and, as it were, cakefucking. I do not know who could have committed the aforementioned act, nor do I care to find out. I can, however, assure you all that there will be no more congratulatory cheesecakes presented in the future. The thought that some depraved individual could find no use other than sexual insertion for such a delicious treat, oozing with ripe, red strawberries and smooth dark chocolate, all the while encased in a firm, yet yielding graham-cracker crust is, to put it lightly, troubling.

I think of the employees of Humboldt-Gregory as a family, and to have to try and sleep at night with the image of one of my family members plunging his (or her) member into a congratulatory cheesecake is disheartening at best.

As I view our executives and employees as such, no investigation as to the culprit’s identity will occur at the present. Let’s put this ugly incident behind us. But if it should occur for a third time, disciplinary action will be taken. I will not hesitate to tell you that the board has considered banning all desserts and/or baked goods from the premises. I hope it will not come to this.

As I said: let’s not dwell on this, but push forward, keeping the Humboldt-Gregory tradition at the forefront of our minds.

Keep up the good work! And Happy 45th Birthday to Jacob in Corporate Accounts!

Sincerely,

M. Casper Humboldt

Executive Director

When Visiting Southern Vermont, Stay at My Bed-and-Nothing

2005-04-11T22:51:00.000-04:00

Vermont—the “Green Mountain State”—is home to some of the most glorious scenery in New England and some of its most important historical landmarks. From the Ethan Allen Homestead to the Bennington Battle Monument, from Lake Champlain to the Green Mountains that gave the state its nickname, any time of the year is a great time to visit Vermont.

And if your destination is southern Vermont, your first choice to stay should certainly be Pat & Leslie Kleinzahler-Braithwaite’s Bed-and-Nothing, which will provide the perfect hub to plan your day trips to Mounts Stratton, Snow, or Bromley, antiquing in Wilmington or Brattleboro, or anywhere else you decide to visit in beautiful Bennington or Windham Counties.

The Kleinzahler-Braithwaite Bed-and-Nothing is one of southern Vermont’s premier lodges. We had a laudatory review in Yankee magazine last year and that elm just outside the front door—

What’s that? Yes, I said “bed-and-nothing.” Our bedrooms are luxurious, every one of them furnished with at least a four-poster king-sized bed, standing mirrors that date back to the Revolutionary period, and the finest of linens, made right here, native, in Vermont.

I’m sorry if in the slapdash euphoria of vacation-going you were also expecting a sumptuous morning meal in addition to these fine accommodations, but as the name of the establishment clearly states, this is a Bed-and-Nothing.

Oh, of course, there’s a kitchen on the premises. Stocked with some of the choicest meats and dairy products available to a citizen of this fair state. But—you being a tourist first and then also not being the owner of this particular auberge—are unable to partake of said delicacies.

Indeed, the omelet I’ve just prepared is delicious, made with premium ham from locally slaughtered swine and tanged with the most redolent cheddar cheese available in the country, and, dare I say, the world. You really should make it a point to try it some time.

Well, sir, perhaps to you it’s a “disgrace” that food is not one of the services offered at the Kleinzahler-Braithwaite Bed-and-Nothing, but if you were under the impression that such was the case, that is most certainly not my fault.

I do, in fact, hear the hollow wails of your children as they question why their father can’t provide them with sustenance, but maybe you should have examined the brochure a little more closely before injudiciously making reservations at an establishment where your children might be malnourished to the point of weeping.

A bathroom, you say? Sir, as previously stated—by myself and in the materials you requested many, many months ago—this is a Bed-and-Nothing. Again, yes, there is a bathroom, replete with massaging showerhead, a bathtub large enough to fit four persons, a toilet and bidet. Unfortunately, this is for the proprietor’s use only and not for presumptuous guests and their starveling children.

Well, while a bathroom might be deemed a “must-have” for some, I will—for the third time—point you to the name of this hostelry. Where in the epithet “Bed-and-Nothing” do you divine the promise that toilet facilities will be provided to you?

Contrary to your ejaculations, I don’t think the Better Business Bureau nor the Chamber of Commerce would even take your phone calls on such a matter.

I warn you, sir, if your daughter does as she is threatening and micturates upon my lobby rug—a rug that was given to the original owners of this establishment by General Lafayette himself—you will be charged for it. And I assure you that the price for cleaning an 18th-century heirloom that the Smithsonian once expressed interest in obtaining is not cheap.

You’re completely within your right to find another place to lodge, though at this time of evening, at this time of year, I wish you the best of luck.

And please know that despite your vociferous proclamations, I don’t own any sheep, nor would I find it appropriate to perform such acts on them if I did.

Can You Stop Being a Communist For One Second?

2005-04-10T07:55:00.000-04:00

We’ve been roommates for almost six months now, and I think there are some fundamental issues that we need to discuss. To put it simply:

Your “communist lifestyle” is seriously pissing me off.

I’m a reasonable person, and I understand the basis of your decision to live as a Marxist. But just because you feel that society functions best as a collective does not mean it’s O.K. for you to use my toothbrush, eat all of the Choc-O-Diles, or sleep in my bed when I’m not home. I think I’ve been pretty tolerant of your views, and I’d like a little respect in return without being called “scab,” “tyrant,” or a “bourgeois puppet.”

If you’re so committed to the ideal of a socialist culture, how about helping out with the housework once in a while? I really didn’t appreciate you comparing me to an “oppressive feudal lord” last week when I asked you to clean up the living room before my big date with Kim. And what was up with loading the CD player with all those Billy Bragg and Woody Guthrie discs right before she got here? I totally had In a Silent Way all cued up, you completely blew my chance to score, asshole. For a collectivist that was pretty fucking selfish.

Ever since you quit your “alienating and oppressive” job at iParty in February, I’ve been footing the bill for everything. While you’re sitting around the apartment all day, banging on your djembe and working on your anti-capitalist manifestos with your dreadlocked cronies, I’m busting my ass to make enough money to buy your precious Ritz Bits and pay the rent. Quite frankly, I’m sick of it.

I’ve asked you almost daily to find a job and help out with the utilities, but instead you just insult me. Well, listen up, Trotsky—what you refer to as my “fundamentalist demagogy and charlatanry” is exactly what is putting Annie’s Shells and Cheese and 8th Continent Chocolate Soymilk in your stomach. So don’t go citing the need for an “equal distribution of goods” or calling the concept of private ownership an “instrument of the State Ideological Apparatus” because you will be so fucking cut off.

Things are going to change around here, and soon. No more “egalitarian spirit” from this “Comrade.” Stage all the strikes and protests you want. My name’s on the lease, Ho Chi Minh.

Oh, and by the way, I’m not calling you “Che” no matter how many times you tell me to.

Your name is Leonard, dipshit. Blame your parents.

If Piracy Is Wrong, I Don’t Want To Be Right

2005-04-09T02:57:00.000-04:00

There are some people who believe me to be the scourge of open waters, the enemy of civilized races, hell bent on nothing but plunder, profit, and perniciousness. They find me vile, unholy, of a base and wanton nature.

To them, I say: if piracy is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

Sure, I fly the banner of King Death as I muddy the high seas with blood in search of treasure. So what? Some people are content being dermatologists or soccer moms. Not me. Give me a crew of violent, illiterate scum and three masts to sail them with and I’m happy as a clam. Or, as it were, a pitiless buccaneer.

Still, there are certain bluenoses out there who find the raping of women, children, and livestock objectionable. Well, I’m sorry, Polly Puritanical, but I happen to disagree. I have a penchant for piracy, and in this topsy-turvy world, it’s important to find what you’re good at and make that your passion. Some people play fantasy baseball. Others knit or read to the blind. I raid the vessels of mighty nations in the hopes of pillaging their precious cargo and selling their crews into slavery. That’s me. That’s what I do.

You know, I’m not sitting on my ass all day getting high and watching the Cartoon Network. What a waste! At least I’m doing something with my life. I’m sorry if that “something”—the brutal ransacking of your sovereign’s gold and jewels—happens to offend you. Maybe if he and his armies hadn’t murdered, ravaged, and despoiled the natives of the New World, you wouldn’t have to live in constant fear for your safety as you navigate the horse latitudes. Think about that.

Do you know how much skill it takes to make a treasure map? Or how difficult it is to invent contraptions that will foil would-be looters’ attempts to abscond with said treasure? Ever fire a blunderbuss? You’ve got to be pretty sharp to do all that. Pretty sharp.

Giovanni da Verrazzano? A pirate. And they named a bridge in New York after him. Case closed.

Throw any epithet you like at me: savage corsair, ignoble shellback, odious picaroon. I’ll keep on sailing the Seven Seas, flouting such jibes. You sit in your cozy breakfast nook with your Boston Globe crossword puzzle and your delicious Berry Burst Cheerios—no parrot, no eye patch, no wooden leg or hook for a hand to speak of—and you tell me if you’re so mightily superior because you don’t take an almost religious pleasure in slaughtering the innocent for your personal gain.

I didn’t think so.

I Wish I Had a Couple of Surface-To-Air Missiles

2005-04-08T04:27:00.000-04:00

Just a couple. I don’t want to be greedy. And I won’t even hang on to them; I’d sell them immediately. I would totally be able to make rent this month. Plus I’d probably have enough left over to buy a sweet plasma TV for my room. I can’t even imagine how stellar the Led Zeppelin DVD would look on that bad boy.

I’m not talking about some crazy new experimental prototype that I’d be able to sell for billions of dollars. Christ, no. Just something simple, like an LGM-30 Minuteman, or even a couple of those primo Northrop MQM-36 Shelducks. The improved autopilot and altitude-hold units have really upped their resale value, and I’d have no problem finding a few solid buyers.

Hell, I’d even take an old MGM-51 Shillelagh or two, just to not have to make a meal out of Ramen noodles and Goya coconut soda for the fourth day in a row. Is that asking too much? I don’t think so.

I should try to get in touch with Jim Lavalee. He could always come through for me in a pinch. I remember one time when I needed some quick cash to rent the limo for prom night, he showed up at my door with two Raytheon AIM-120 AMRAAM’s and an extra inertial reference unit—and we’re talking way before most people had even heard of BVM intercepts. Needless to say, we both got laid that night.

Man, last time I saw Jim, he was working the loading dock at the Sam’s Club in Milldale. I gotta stop by there soon and see if he’s still around.

You Are Utterly Ridiculous

2005-04-07T01:30:00.000-04:00

What do you mean asking me if I work here? Do you think that I enjoy wearing this neon green apron? And if that’s your conclusion, why, then, do you think that I would come into such an establishment, pull all these boxes off the shelves, and start rearranging them?

Jesus Jumped-Up Christ on a Vespa scooter. Look at your hair. Did you look in the mirror this morning and say, “I want to try and look as close to Eraserhead as possible when I leave the house.” Well: mission accomplished.

What kind of jacket is that? There seems to be some sort of fringe on it, but what’s it made of? It looks like a boggling fusion of denim and velveteen. Is that lace? Or just a doily that got stuck to your nauseating trunk? And that color! I can’t really place it: somehow it’s simultaneously bruise-hued and greenish-apricot. I didn’t even think that such a tint could exist within the realm of human vision. Besides: it’s way too small for you. That looks a little crazy, you know? And I don’t mean “crazy” in a wacky good-time fun sense. I mean “crazy” in a having- enough- cats- to- make- the- pharaohs- envious- and- leaving- them- your- inheritence- when- you- die sense.

But let’s not dwell upon your outward appearance. What I’m more concerned with is your behavior, your total lack of societal skills. Did you think that eating an ice cream cone—a soft serve ice cream cone, mind you—like a banshee trying to bite at a dandelion seed is at all what polite people expect to see when they go out into our great civilization? Well, you were wrong.

Plainly stated: You look foolish.

The fact that you seem to have trouble following this conversation leads me, rightly, to assume that you compensate for your lack of intelligence with rage, vulgarity, and violence. You sicken me, you crude, ungulate harridan.

You there, sir! Are you with her? Obviously. Why else would you be wearing an Indiana Pacers 2000 Eastern Conference Champions hooded sweatshirt? I recall waking up this morning and thinking, “Today I’d like to see the most irrelevant thing to my life, my country, and our collective history when I go to open my store.” And here you are, sir, sweatshirt stained dark with your various oils and foodstuffs dropped from your cavernous maw. Again, I judge your garb only in that it undoubtedly reflects the inward bitterness you must have and hold dearly for yourself and for others.

No, no. This is my establishment, “madam,” and I’ll speak to you this way if I choose.

Listen to your insufferable son, wailing at the top of his lungs as if he’d had boiling oil poured on his hindquarters. My God, woman: you make Andrea Yates look like Maria Montessori. I’m not in any way an advocate for government intervention into its citizens’ lives, but I will personally call the White House and have you taken to Alcatraz. I don’t care if it’s not operational any more. That’s where you’re going.

Hitting your child like that is actually quite healthy for him. It will improve him psychologically in the future when he realizes that not only is he a little shit right now, but most likely will continue to be a shit, but on a grander scale, amounting to nothing, and doing more harm than good to himself and the citizens around him as his life ambles inexorably toward failure and, ultimately, death.

Well, either you hit him or let me continue, please. What do you mean, “What right do I have?” This is my candy store! Fine. Get the police. They’ll understand my side of the story once I explain what has transpired in these few brief minutes, believe me.

That blade you brandish doesn’t frighten me! Do you know how many machete-wielding Sandinistas I fought off in the impenetrable jungles of Nicaragua in the late ’70s? Far more than your feeble math skills can tally, I assure you.

That’s right: you get out. And never darken the floor of Phineas T. McFudge’s Sweets & Treats Shoppe again!

Am I Crunking Properly?

2005-04-06T08:25:00.000-04:00

As far as I can tell, I’m doing it pretty well.

I crunk at parties, I join in when people around me crunk, and I avoid crunking at work if I can possibly help it (especially when the district manager is visiting!).

I think next I’m going to try crunking in front of my girlfriend and see what happens. We’ve been going out for about six months, and I think she knows me pretty well. Her reaction should be positive.

I’m committed to crunk. When not crunking, I think about its various permutations. For instance, if celebrity chef Bobby Flay crunked, what would it involve? Probably Anaheim chiles and tomatillos! It would be delicious.

Of course, I’m no expert at it. If my crunking seems excessive at a given time, would getting buck wild be an acceptable substitution? What about acting the fool? I definitely don't want to embarrass myself or those around me.

I think it’s wrong to judge people based on their crunk. We should all try to remember the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

If crunking had been around in Biblical times, Jesus would have crunked. Absolutely.

If Crunk turned out to be the name of the first really cool caveman, I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest.

As for me, I plan on crunking until the day I die. Unless, of course, something better comes along that really catches my fancy, like the Macarena, or shooting smack.

Some Scenarios in Which It’s Inappropriate to Respond With “That’s Hot”

2005-04-05T00:49:00.000-04:00

When the person you’re talking with reveals that he/she was molested as a child by the Charles' Chips delivery man.

When watching a man chew on shards of a light bulb.

When accidentally knocking down an elderly person/amputee on the sidewalk.

When being told by a doctor that although you have prostate cancer, it’s operable.

When discussing genocide in Sudan, Armenia, Rwanda, Serbia, Poland, Germany, or really any time mass extermination of a people because of race, ethnicity, or religion is concerned.

When asked by parents to be the sandak at their first son’s bris.

When listening to someone confess that they might have a substance abuse problem.

When you learn that the Pope’s been given last rites.

When witnessing a small child—no more than four years old—being attacked by a swarm of killer bees.

Outrageous Claims I Have Made While Drunk (Excerpt)

2005-04-04T09:02:00.000-04:00

There is absolutely nothing better than Ecto-Cooler.

I would have no problem getting Maggie Gyllenhaal to date me once I met her.

I’m not saying that all Samoans are lazy, but, you know.

If push came to shove—when you get down to the fundamental reality of the situation—I don’t think fighting a mummy would be all that difficult.

Did you know that in every bag of peanut M&Ms, there’s always a poison one? That’s why you’ve got to eat the whole bag, because the other M&Ms counteract the poison one.

If I could only have one shirt, I would have the one that bass player Kenny Gradney from Little Feat wore during their 1975 performance on The Old Grey Whistle Test. It’s just a really cool shirt.

There is absolutely nothing better than Pepperoni Pizza Hot Pockets.

Think of Me as the Sexual Pope

2005-04-03T01:46:00.000-05:00

I know you’re pretty upset about the passing of Pope John Paul II. As far as Popes go, he surely was one of the best, opening doors to parts of the world that no Pope before him dared to open, visiting every continent except Antarctica, raising issues that virtually every Pope before him ignored. Yes, he was a man of vision. He saw that the world was changing and understood that we need to change with it. Sure, he was restricted by his role as Pope, but he did a great deal with what he had—

Wow. You’re really crying there. You really shouldn’t be alone right now. You’re too grief-stricken. Look, I don’t mean to speak out of turn—and please don’t take this the wrong way—but I’m kind of like the Pope.

Please. Let me explain.

I don’t mean that I’m the vessel of Christ’s divine message, nor do I mean to imply that I am possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer wished His Church to be endowed. I only mean that I have many of the late Pope’s best qualities in addition to the fact that I like to have sex.

So, if it helps you get through this difficult time, think of me as the Sexual Pope.

Like the Pope might, I’ll lend a comforting hand in this hour of desperate sorrow as I’m very empathetic to human suffering. And I look really good naked. I’m no Adonis, surely, but I haven’t gotten any complaints.

The Pope reached out to the entire human race with a message of peace and hope. I, too, have extended myself to all of humanity, near and far, except instead of a message of peace extended, it’s my penis.

The Pope wrote poetry and I, too, write poetry. But unlike the Pope, after I read you some of my poems, I’ll make out with you. That’s a two-for-one deal right there. The Pope would never—nay, could never—do that.

Would the Pope ever offer to pleasure you orally for as long as you desired? As the Sexual Pope, I would do that for you. In fact, it would be my pleasure.

True, there are some things as the Sexual Pope I can’t do: offer you absolution for your sins, call a Council of Trent, appoint a grand inquisitor. I can, however, make love to you so expertly that a team of international scientists will need to be consulted in order to determine the lasting effect it will have on you.

I know your mind is much bereaved right now, but whatever you decide, just know that the Sexual Pope is here for you.

Unless Maggie calls. Then I’ll have to go and attend to her grief.

Locating the Restroom Has Been Too Easy Thus Far

2005-04-02T01:09:00.000-05:00

In this work-a-day world, one can expect instructions to the restroom that are brief, clear and easy-to-follow. The following is typical:

1) Go to the end of the hall.

2) Take a left.

3a) The bathroom is the first door on the right.

3b) It’s the green door.

While this method is efficient and streamlined, it lacks something in the way of sponteneity and confusion. Indeed, upon entering a facility of any kind (e.g. apartment, restaurant, Oriental massage parlor), one can almost surely guesstimate where the restroom is located, and that is, quite frankly, unfortunate.

To rectify this, we propose a new approach to restroom directions, complete with three degrees of difficulty to accommodate any skill level from the novice to the expert.

Level One: The Five Pennies

1) Go to the end of the hall and pass through the red door. You will find yourself in a small courtyard with a fountain.

2) Cross the courtyard, depositing exactly five (5) pennies into the fountain as you pass it on the left side.

3) When you arrive at the other end of the courtyard you will see a very narrow stairway. Climb all the way to the top of the stairs until you see a yellow door with the word DANGER emblazoned on it in deep red paint.

4) Open the door and enter the restroom. If you hear scratching at the door or loud panting while using the restroom, do not open the door. Wait for the sounds to recede before exiting.

Level Two: The Bronze Bell

1) Exit through the main doorway. Cross the street.

2) Enter the gas station and ask for Armand. He will take you to a set of iron stairs hidden behind an apartment building nearby.

3) Go down the stairs and you will enter a small basement storage room. The third stall on the left has a metal ladder attached to its wall, behind the skis.

4) Climb the ladder to the roof of the apartment building. Cross the rooftop until you reach a bronze bell. Ring it three times—twice loudly (but with respect) and once softly (but with intent).

5) If you rang the bell correctly a hatch will open and the man from the third floor apartment will let you use his bathroom.

Level Three: The Third Level

1) Exit through the main doorway. Cross the street.

2) Wait for the Cherry Hill/Crispus Attucks Boulevard bus. Ride the bus until you reach the last stop on the outskirts of town. Exit the bus. Quickly now.

3) Across the street from the stop is a taxi stand. Approach the sole green taxi in the parking lot, achieve solid eye contact with the driver, and wink three times, using the following pattern: Right, Left, Right. (It is imperative that you use this pattern—Left, Right, Left will elicit possible neurotic episodes on the part of the driver, a former stuntman whose credits include work on such movies as They Live!, Rocky IV, and Mona Lisa Smile.) If you do this correctly, the driver will take you to a wide field, vast in its emptiness.

4) Traverse the field until you come to a hill glazed with fresh snow. Halfway up the hill you will come to a small grotto.

5) You can go to the bathroom in the grotto, but you’re advised to first light a substantial fire to fend off the viperous Tshiik Bâ-Ür.

6) When you are finished expelling your solid/liquid waste, locate the magic whistle on the altar within the grotto and blow it using your dominant nostril.

7) A mystical cyclonic wind of vibrant blue will bring you to a small airport in Scranton, Pennsylvania, from which you could catch a flight home, I guess.

Dr. Mark Rinaldi is the acting secretary of PUSA, the Painful Urination Society of America and author of the book Pain Before Pee: How to Correctly Potty Train Your Child.

Michael Schiavo is a phillumenist and has no medical degrees or training as far as you know. He does, however, have a lot of latex gloves.

An Introduction and Enticement to The Strange in the Manner of Deadwood

2005-04-01T10:55:00.000-05:00

Let me tell you of my load, friends. If ears can hear and eyes can see, it shall be made plain as daylight, the first morning of spring, and my load will become yours. And in joy we shall walk down the road together, sharing this load.

Simply put: I do not believe that true vulgarity lies in the strange but rather in what some cocksuckers would like to call “polite society”—though if one were to take one solitary minute to assess the situation, one would see that society as such ain’t all that fucking polite any more. The ballroom is now a barroom.

Let me explain to undisturbed minds the new dance we’re in: some persons find such turns of phrase as “ugly clown penis” to be discourteous, repulsive, of a low and distasteful humor. I, on the contrary, think such things fucking hilarious. In turn, of my stance on the words, such superior folks that would find the phrase repellent find my honoring the phrase even worse than the utterance itself.

So if you’re one of these upstanding and righteous citizens—be you a slithery, bunko cocksucker with a Bible in one hand and sinful acres in the other, or a pretentious, ineffectual cocksucker who holds everybody’s opinions except his own, or even some dumb fuck who can’t resolve himself on anything beyond the threshold of his shower curtain—I want nothing to do with you. This place is not for you.

But if one feels, somehow, otherwise, if one’s brainworks are open to the possibility of a smile, if one’s inclination is to laugh, heartily or soft, come in. As William fucking Shakespeare said: “Motley’s the only wear.”