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Everything in the frickin' world comes down to Bread
From the Unh! Project
The Dictionary of Unarticulated Sentiment
Acme Novelty Datebook
The musical People Are Wrong!
Neil Gaiman
My good friend Brennan made a web page about me.
There's a site on the web where you can make up a mix tape title and a robot will generate the songs to fit it.
I must get this hoax in my in-box every other week.
How about some superhero food? You know you want some.
There's a video of 'Title of the Song', performed by Da Vinci's Notebook with my favorite living performer Paul introducing, found here
One Hundred Unfinished Projects
A parody of my good friend J.R.'s website
I am someone's birthstone kitty
Darth Nater's linguistic action heroes
I think I'd rather be the Prince of Jewels
He's so proud of himself, you can just imagine him clapping his fingers in glee
I wrote some more about those mysterious beings, the Unearthers.
Emily Kremer is a smart successful person, and a good friend of mine.
She recently had her thesis defense. To which I say, Congratulations! These are pictures of the event:
These are my comments to her, in an email entitled "make sense of the world!":
what are you holding in that photograph? a dvd?
it looks like it has a picture of a sorcerer holding a crystal ball, or the underside of a submarine?
wait.. does that say x-men 3-d on it??!?
did you get like an bootleg advance copy of x-men 3-d from the future? what the.. ?!
everyone else is holding beverages. why are you not? no drinks for you?
and what does 'spam' mean?
oh... social psych and microsoc wisconsin madison?
and it looks like there's a painting of a superhero on the wall behind you in the photo of you sitting around the table.... huh? am i wrong in thinking that's shazam? or maybe it's just somebody in traditional dress? but that's distinctively a cape. hmm.
it also looks like jeremy is thumbing you out the door, like "take a hike". and you're looking back at him like, "uh... no. i don't think so, bucko."
or maybe jeremy is attempting to hitch-hike? how strange.
oh wow, i just deduced that jeremy isn't holding a carton of milk, it's a carton of whoppers!
this blows my whole theory out of the water!
what does it all mean!?
anyway, them good photographs. i like them. there's a lot to em.
And this is her response:
1. i am holding a copy of x-men 1.5 that jeremy gave me. he bought it
and i guess he didn't like it, so he gave it to me as a present for
finishing my master's.
2. the faculty members are holding snacks that i gave them. john got
milk and an apple. shelley got a ginger snap and an orange cream soda.
jeremy got a diet pepsi twist and a carton of whoppers. those are all
things they like to eat.
3. the super hero behind me is super barrio. he is a mexican wrestler
who is also a champion of the people and a political activist.
4. jeremy is making three points. his thumb indicates the first point.
5. the small elf that you see in the upper left hand corner of the snack
picture is not actually there. look again.
Then Jeremy somehow heard wind of this and chimed in on the X-men dvd issue:
I gave it to you because you said you watched it every week and I wanted
someone to give you a present for completing the arduous journey to your
MA. I liked it well enough and certainly wouldn't have minded keeping
it for myself. I will admit that I don't understand why they bother
using the scientific language of mutation if they are just going to give
people powers like "can control the weather," but I also recognize that
they don't have a lot of room to manuever given its children comics
origins.
To which Emily apologized. Then I asked Emily if I could post the pictures and it turns out that coincidentally my good friend Sean asked her the same thing. She asked Jeremy and he said it was all right.
You can find Sean's here. She also said I could feel free to include this caption:
so, the dude with the gray hair is John DeLamater. he is my advisor. the
other two people are just committee members. their names are Shelley
Correll and Jeremy Freese. Shelley is from Texas and loves tortillas from
the Alamo Cafe! Jeremy was a wrestler in high school and has a sheep
named after him.
Jeremy himself added this to the caption:
Jeremy can also control the weather and can take the powers of other
mutants if he makes physical contact with them. The latter was
particularly handy when I was a wrestler, as I won the Professor Xavier
School for the Improbably Freakish title three years running.
UPDATE! : There is a new photograph from the event that sheds some fascinating information!
Yes, I'm serious. It sheds not light, but INFORMATION.
Note the cookie on the table, their adorable smiles and empty hands (except for John DeLamater who is holding his alleged gift of milk), and the undeniable presence of a place for hooks to hang coats on!
Some fine fotographs by my good friend Brennan:
Pictures
In the wake of September 11th I escaped into the writing of a parody of Sir Mix-a-lot's "Baby Got Back" entitled Big Bird Got Beak.
well i am thinking about investing in the stock market.. what do you think?
also, i want to marry a baby. it's my new idea. i want a priest to do the rites and legal stuff so that i am united in holy matrimony to an infant. any infant will do. i'll take an iguana or larger-sized lizard over a baby if we can't find one. the important thing is that it isn't an actual adult person. then there'd be nothing unusual about it. i am currently in a phase where i do things "weirdly" and i avoid usual things. i don't wear shirts anymore, for example. i now wear something i like to call 'pirts'. they are basically pants wrapped and draped around the shoulders. i also call them "shants". at the wedding i will be wearing a bowtie as a belt, and a c3p0 mask. the baby (or iguana whatever) should have a black headband and maybe an orange tennis skirt. expect spectacle.
I found online that there's a vulgar peasant proverb about old people having strong sex drives:
"The devil stokes in an old stove."
You and I know they were really saying :
"The devil Stokes in an old stove."
Cause that's where I live! Ha-ha! : BURNING AND BURNING.
Observations:
I think I've reached the point in life where I realize that french fries are overrated.
k=b/2 : Knowing = Battle/2
"Don't bust my chops."... It's not a bad expression.
We're gonna remember this time in our lives as the period where we drank vanilla coke.
I really like guacamole. I mean REALLY.
The movie "Dirty Dancing" is really this elaborate hallucination from the point of view of Baby, who is a schizophrenic. The holiday camp is actually an insane asylum. Patrick Swayze does not exist, but is merely a construct of her subconscious.
I wish I lived on the death star. Yes, yes. I know my life there would be doomed. What with the inevitable arrival of the little rebel starfighters and their proton torpedos...
but it'd be worth it... up to that point, I mean.
If I go to sleep and Freddy Krueger chases me through the dream world... I have decided I am going to stop, turn around, introduce myself, and shake his hand. "Would you mind accompanying me to a matinee?" I will ask amicably. Because quite frankly he no longer scares me. I have seen creepy life-like dolls from Switzerland and now nothing in this world can measure up. What once was nightmare is picnic.
I hear that Kangaroo Jack stars you and is good.
Did you hear about the new movie about Queasy E? It's called "29 & Guad" and it's in theaters now and it's loosely based on the controversial rapper's life. It starts back when the Queez was just a lowly toy-store employee named Vicky Blush (not her actual name). And the plot is how she wants to stop selling toys and start rapping. She gets beat up a lot. Also, there's a love interest, and um, a lot of free candy. At one point she stops someone's bike from being stolen. Only in the movie, it's not a bike, but some terrorist plot to get the president arrested. Also, there's a tornado with piranhas in it.. which challenges her to a rap competition. But a robot side-kick dies so she can live. And a wise old man teaches her how to rap, but does it in this weird round-about way where she ends up just doing a bunch of chores for him. But somehow in the end she and the audience realizes all those chores were really all for helping her win the rap competition (whatever that is)! Critics love the movie because it is directed by the guy who did Remains of the Day. Audiences love it because they think Queasy E is dope, and want to see her get beat up a lot.
"I walked out with Dinsdale on many occasions and found him a charming and
erudite companion. He was wont to introduce one to eminent celebrities,
celebrated American singers, members of the aristocracy and other gang leaders,
who he had met through his work for charities. He took a warm interest in
Boys' Clubs, Sailors' Homes, Choristers' Associations and the Grenadier Guards.
"Mind you there was nothing unusual about him. I should say not. Except, that
Dinsdale was convinced that he was being watched by a giant hedgehog whom he
referred to as 'Spiny Norman'. Normally Spiny Norman was wont to be about
twelve feet from snout to tail, but when Dinsdale was depressed Norman could be
anything up to eight hundred yards long. When Norman was about Dinsdale would
go very quiet and start wobbling and his nose would swell up and his teeth
would move about and he'd get very violent and claim that he'd laid Stanley
Baldwin."
"Did it worry you that he, for example, stitched people's legs together?"
"Well it's better than bottling it up isn't it. He was a gentleman, Dinsdale, and what's more he knew how to treat a female impersonator."
--From the tale of the Piranha Brothers from episode 1 of series 2 of Monty Python's
Flying Circus
Learn about the Bible at the Brick Testament
Professor Caroly wrote articles revealing Dr. Sarak as a charlatan.
From Dr. Doolittle:
"Many great exploreers and gray-bearded naturalists have lain long weeks hidden in the jungle waiting to see the monkeys do that trick. But we never let a foreign man get a glimpse of it
before. You are the first to see the famous Bridge of
Apes.' And the Doctor felt very pleased."
Daily wisdom:
A master took his 2 students into a forest. There he took a hollow coconut with a small hole and inserted sweet rice. Then he tied it to a tree and waited with his student nearby. Soon, a monkey came along, sniffed the rice, inserted his paw, and screeched in frustration when he was unable to withdraw his paw (now a fist clenching the rice) through the narrow opening.
"Let go of the rice, silly! Run!" screamed the students, amazed by its obvious stupidity... but to no avail.
"What was the trap that caught the monkey?" asked the master.
"Rice," said one student.
"The coconut," said another.
"No," replied the wise master, "The trap was greed - he only had to let go of his attachment to be free. Likewise, we are the ones who trap ourselves. We are always responsible. The real trap is always within, not out there. The causes of suffering are in us. External situations are only conditions."
With that, he hacked the coconut open... and the unrepentant monkey ran away with a fistful of rice.
"He won't be so lucky every time. This is how they catch monkeys here! Don't be like him! Am I being compassionate trying to teach the monkey and you this lesson? But did he really learn? What is in your monkey fist that you still hold on to?"
Ain't nothin' in my monkey fist!
Quid Dolum Simii?
Emily's birthday present
Note the fact that she is not wearing glasses. A later proof was corrected of the problem.
I translated a section of a French Occultism book about Dr. Alberto De Sarak, the leader of my great-grandfather's cult.
Did you know?
Eighteen is a cardinal number. The cardinal numbers originated from Cantor's proof that there are `more' real numbers than integers. This was the start of the modern concept of mathematical infinity!
If eighteen 6-foot tall humans decided to stand on each other's heads, they would be as tall as the Gemini-Titan rocket 108 feet!
A cockroach has 18 knees!
The 1998 "God Floor" a recreation of Michelangelo's "The Creation of Adam" from the Sistine Chapel, took Aaron Christiansen and Kurt Jull eighteen days to paint at the Bingo Hall!
The fish known as the Witch Flounder can grow to be eighteen years old!
Eighteen foreign counterfeit operations were suppressed in 1990!
The plot of the 18th episode of Green Acres deals with Oliver becoming annoyed that NOBODY has called for his services as an attorney!
Rats multiply so much that in eighteen months, two rats could have over a million descendants!
Rats can't vomit!
I had a dream in which Saddam Hussein was the leader of a
cult I was in. Everybody in the cult with me was trying to please
him but we all knew he was a crazy dangerous madman. He was really
angry with us and was yelling about how we weren't doing things
right. At one point he pulled me out of the crowd to demonstrate a point of his.
He wasn't angry with me personally and I think he was just picking
me randomly. I don't think he even knew who I was. But I was
nervous. He could easily have me executed. Saddam handed me two very
long sticks and had me use them like stilts in front of the crowd.
It was very dangerous and I could have been seriously injured, but I
went ahead and did the stunt. Then he was like, "Now go use the
sticks and vault yourself over the pit of flame! This will
illustrate the point I am making to you stupid people!" The sticks
had now shrunk to about a foot length in my hands so in retrospect
I'm not sure how one vaults over a pit of flame with them, but in
the dream, I figured it was possible though still really really
dangerous. I boldly told Saddam that I would need the flames
temporarily turned off so that I could practice a couple times over
the pit. He said "That's crazy! Now I will go try it myself to prove
to all of you it can be done." Then he ordered the flames to be
turned off, grabbed the sticks and ran towards the pit. He threw the
sticks down, made a big leap, and with a loud splash, flopped right
into the middle of the pit which was now filled with water. If the
flames had been on, he would have been in serious trouble. There was
an awkward pause from all of us as we tried to figure out what to
do. It was really funny to see our evil cult leader in such an
embarrassing position and we wanted to laugh. But, he was in power
over us and could execute us all if he wanted. I decided to do the
safest thing. I started clapping and saying "Bravo! That was
incredible!". And then the rest of the cult followed suit,
applauding Saddam as if he'd just done the stunt correctly. Saddam
nodded and accepted our praise. He clearly wanted to avoid
embarrassment and was pleased the situation had turned to something
other than him looking bad. Saddam then said, "Okay... moving
on...", and whatever he was trying to prove with me and the sticks
was forgotten, thank goodness. He was a lot less angry with us after
that too.
Introducing LYR!
The World of Bahrakhen and Oremander
by Kelly and Henry
I've started writing a weekly serial story
Confused? Look it up in the Encyclyrpedia!
My good friend James is now in Europe. Before he left, he included me in his will. I was really touched.
My brother Brian started writing his biography for a webpage class he was taking.
You can not go wrong with his techno experiments. I urge the world to listen... and heal.
My good friend Sean has updated his webpage, and I'm included in the links and comics section. Go Sean! And thanks for the mad props!
Cartoonists I've recently discovered:
Roger Langridge
Hans Rickheit
21-year-old Todd Webb
Derek Monster's Monster of the Day
Who knows when the gods came to the place? It was there for the taking, as they saw it, so they took it, and set up shop. The construction of their heavenly abode, what the mortals would later call the Firmament, began immediately. I think it was Casmek the architect that first came up with the idea. He and Janour the Contriver were looking over some of the blueprints.
"Seems like an awful lot to do.", Casmek said. "Why don't we get some help?"
"What do you propose?"
"Well how about you make something? Some kind of worker that can build all of this? "
"I'll see what I can do.", said Janour. And off he went to work.
The first humans were similar to the popular shape of the time, all long and leggy, with little phalanges on the end bits. Symmetry was in fashion that season, too, and so was hair on the top of the head.
"Only lasts 70 to 80 years, maybe more, sometimes less.", said Janour. "And they're rather small and can't change shape. But I can make a ton of them."
"Good enough. Make those over there bring me that screwdriver."
Soon word of "the Help" - as they were called at first, spread throughout the pantheon. Everyone wanted a hundred or more of the little helpers. And in a flash (to gods anyway - to humans it was millennia), the heavens were built as envisioned (with minor adjustments to be made no doubt until the end of time).
None of the gods really needed the Help after that, really. A couple of gods were fascinated by all the little cultures that had sprung up over time, and grew fond of them. Many had formed various religious groups that worshipped individual deities. And those deities were rather flattered with the attention. No one really wanted to keep them though. But something had to be done. There was a stretch of land down below, a dumping ground really; the gods called it the Tract. A place to put Janour's other contrivances, a place too to get materials for construction. And it seemed a fitting place for the mortals. "There you go." they said, "your new home." But most of them flew back up anyway - Janour made them all rather too willful. So the gods made all of them stick to the ground, so they wouldn't fly back up. So they would stay in their place.
And that's where gravity comes from.
I was on a radio show for awhile as a professor of time travel. We were supposed to make bios for the webpage but mine was never put up.
So I went ahead and did it myself. Click here to check it out.
Each day, Henry is made with the following:
2 parts hot water
1 part cheerios
3 parts warm vodka
pour into cast of Ethel Merman
Let dry for eight years, ~or~
Let die and never return.
For flavoring, add:
a spark of eeb
a dram of seawater
a dose of untied shoelaces
a dollop of laughter
and one red thread
This is how you make a henry.
Special Thanks to Dan Moffett
You ask, I answer... in SONG
According to the legend, the eight immortals were invited to attend a banquet in an undersea kingdom. At the banquet, they became drunk and wild. All of the kingdom's guards attacked the drunken immortals, but the immortals created an impromptu style on the spot and defeated the guardsmen. This is the style of kung fu taught to people now.
I intend to make great use of this resource: God Checker
I married her for money. I don’t know why she acts the ways she does now. All in all, I think it’s an improvement. Black socks, red feet underneath. She’s taken to putting her feet in a bucket of red dye in the morning. I’m afraid to ask her why. It does make her more attractive, so why complain? Best keep my mouth shut. I’m determined, however, to ask her about the buttons. I don’t know who she thinks she is, a goat? Buttons are not food. Show me on the chart what food group buttons belong to. It’s the same one that contains paperclips and teabags. She puts icing on everything, but not yet on the buttons. I have asked her about the icing. She says it just makes stuff taste better. And by stuff, she doesn’t exactly mean food, as I understand it. She means life itself somehow. The Taste of Life. “Does that make me sound odd?”, she asked me in one of her uncharacteristically self-conscious moments. “No,” I told her, “just a little quirky.” But this was before she started eating the buttons. Or dyeing her feet in the morning (but I’m not complaining about that! – Dye on!). There’s quite a lot of things I didn’t know about her. For one thing, she’s attracted to men inside machines. Men are all fine and good she says, but stick them in some sort of mechanical contraption – the more gears and pistons the better – the more she swoons. Something about the combination of warm organic flesh with cold ordered technology working around it, encompassing it. Or something like that. I don’t know. She likes men on bicycles, but that’s just a little thrill. She told me she fantasized about me being inside the inner workings of a giant old-style clock. She also has a thing for robot men – androids. She told me once she wished I was a robot. I think I was a little offended at the time. Another weird thing is – when she dyes her feet she sings a little ditty. It’s from America, so I don’t know much about it. Some sort of patriotic anthem. I’m positive she’s changing some of the words – hopefully because she doesn’t know them. Her parents are these rich American TV producers. I’ve never watched American TV in my life. But they got rich off of it so it can’t be all that bad. I’ve always liked equestrian sports, and she tells me that they have a lot of that on American TV. That’s actually something I didn’t know about her for a long time: she’s American. Well, her parents are anyway. She was born here, she says, but why then sing that ditty? Especially when dyeing your feet? I’m fairly sure it’s not an American custom. I once, I’m ashamed to admit, went to one of the bawdy-houses in a Virginian township on my visit there during my late schooling (long story) and not one of the as-advertised American bawdy-girl’s bare feet was dyed red. It’s one of those things you notice. Especially at this particular establishment, which I believe was called the “Foot Club”. I should point out that I did not enjoy the Americans’ attempt at housed bawdiness (not that I’ve ever witnessed another country’s attempt, but I can just imagine they’d be better – something about subtlety, I don’t know). They made you stand in line forever and you had to open all these doors when you got in. The doors were nice. I mean they had all these fancy ornate designs all over them, but I didn’t feel like touching them. It was almost like I was in a haunted house and something behind the doors was going to leap out and scare me. I’m sorry, I don’t like haunted houses. I mean the fake supposedly-scary-and-entertaining ones. Now that I think about it, combining a bawdy-house with one of them haunted houses sounds like a good idea. Anyway, I didn’t want to open those doors. And I think my disinclination to do so was the direct fault of the owners of the establishment and maybe in an indirect way, the fault of the American culture itself. They should have figured out a way of making me want to open those doors. I don’t know, scary noises or something. The proximity of deadly fires, or the possibility of free candy bags. I don’t know. It should be in the constitution or in one of those patriotic songs my wife sings while dyeing her feet. My wife likes America. I think it’s cause she associates it with her parents. Makes sense. But she also associates the smell of rotten sea logs with her parents.
I closed the three dollar book and sat down. I have it on very good authority that the lump on the back of your neck is hereditary. Your late father it is believed had a similar lump which he called his ‘little fellow’ and he would often pretend to play tennis with it. It wasn’t really pretend; he ended with quite a few welts in that area over the years. Of course we all know your uncle had the lump. It caused him no end of trouble. It’s his own fault really. He was wealthy and easily could have paid to get it removed. Lara said they were not allowed to discuss the lump at meal time or bedtime, but any other time was okay, in fact it was encouraged. But Lara said that, despite this, it was rather an unpleasant subject. None of her sisters found much interest in the lump at all really. Lara secretly kept notebooks and journals about the lump, which continued to fascinate her long after puberty. She never told anyone she kept her writings and hid them with your father’s favorite ring, which she stole from him at age four while visiting you on the island. Realizing the ring’s significance several years after taking it, she was too embarrassed to return it to him. An unfortunate oversight, as it would have cheered him so to have it once more in his compnay. Did you know he stole it himself in his youth at roughly the same age as Lara? Yes, in India of all places, from an Italian Jew named Michael who toured with him on occasion. This ring was hidden by Lara throughout her life in a paper bag under the bed, along with her booklets about the lump. She would make daily comments of her impressions and observations pertaining to the lump in one book, and stories and adventures of a fantastic kind, also pertaining to the lump, in another. In one such story in this latter book, a small girl remarkably like Lara in many ways (curly locks, cruel sisters, hunchback), releases a fairy from within her father’s lump. The fairy grows up quite rapidly, which was unfortunate for the little girl, as fairies turn into witches when they get older. The poor child dies at the end and her body is taken to the witches’ coven where it is reanimated as a “witchling”, an invention of Lara’s which she describes as “a witch, only smaller”. This coven of witches and its new witchling would later pop up in many of her other stories, and it was her psychiatrist Dr. Emmet Lambfuel that discovered the symbolism manifested within it. The witches were her sisters. When Lara’s sisters were taken by the United States and used as bait for their imperialist schemes, Lara was heartbroken. This is due mainly to the fact that the U.S. deliberately left her behind. Although her disabilities were probably the cause, Lar could not help but take it personally. As everyone knows, her sisters went on to become heroes of the conflict, tearing the U.S. apart from within with their mock sympathetic rhetoric. Their pop band of seemingly patriotic American noise subliminally deprogrammed millions of brainwashed youths and brought them back to our cause. Lara never heard of her sisters’ triumph, for it all occurred long after her exile. Her abuse at the hands of the Neber peoples robbed her of the ability to read. Lara’s stories were published but all traces of what Dr. Lambfuel, the first to read all 370 of her “Lump Manuscripts” as they were originally called, found as American (namely, all symbolism that compared her sisters to witches) were removed. The lump itself of course remained and has since caused quite the sensation here. Not many subway walls have lump imagery and enthusiasm graffitied on them (due to our wonderful enforcements) but you can be sure if this was America or someplace equally awful, they would. What compelled Lara to think of the lump with such reverence, and with such a grasp of literary wit? A day-in, day-out obsession, the lump became the focus and navel of her creative existence. It is only too fortunate her father was so disinclined to pay for its removal. You and your daughter both have the lump. Be proud of what that lump represents. Dr. Lambfuel would tell you it symbolizes a sister’s hatred for her siblings, and therefore, a traitorous thing. I say it stands for one of our country’s literary gems. Thankfully, you are poor and cannot afford to have it removed. Be proud that you are poor as it has made you all the more fortunate.
Dear lord,
I have not spoken with you in quite some time. For a total of nine weeks I have been with child. Your child. It is still germinating, but its ability to speak at such a young age bodes well for its future. I plan to enroll it in the nearby academy this coming Thursday. Its name will be Zibbs. The gender has not been settled, and discussion is ongoing. Our lawyers know where we stand on this. Do not worry, regardless of its sex, I will not dress it as a shepherdess or chambermaid. At least not until well after puberty. Please do not ever criticize the child's clothing or behavior, no matter how odd. As the caretaker, I make all decisions of this nature; I can do as I please. If the child drools, makes hog noises, or dresses in black canvas, it is because I have meant it to.
I will, however, allow you to have jurisdiction where the child's discipline is concerned. I will not punish the child no matter the crime. I will send it to you. If it spills its drink, disappoints an instructor, makes goo in the bed, off it goes to visit its pa-pa. I care not where you are, what you are doing, what mistresses you are keeping, you will receive the child and provide the necessary chastening. Please make photographic documents of your chastening. Use no whips and bells. The bells in particular cause the child's hives to spring up and his ears to cease function. At the moment it wears a steel gearing about its head to prevent damage. It will have to be removed shortly as I must have access to its hair, for obvious reasons. Its hair is its only redeeming characteristic (so far). Please do not touch its hair. It is mine. Have one of your men do it. NO women! Unless having women touch its hair is part of the punishment you will inflict upon it when the discipline is necessary. In that case, it would be acceptable. Remember to take pictures!
You would like its plumpness. The nurses all remark upon it on a daily basis. It is difficult to find good staff these days to look after the child. Many of the nurses are of a perverted nature. Jobs on the side to supplement income, if you see my meaning. They know little, but what they do know would stunt a child's growth. I fear that may turn literal, and so I have put up barriers in my home preventing them from having access to the child. They complain, pointing out that they have difficulty caring for the child forty feet away from it. It's nonsense really; all one needs is a pair of scissors and a tin of gum arabic. Provide me with that and I could provide all the care a child needs from sixty feet away! Make that seventy.
From the sketchbook of Scott Morse
Start of a Comic Book about the Adventures of Thor Snuffleupagus Castano on the Moon (written by Zitsy's, I mean Thor's, father, Antonio Castano, and illustrated by me):
Page 1
Page 2
My good friend Sean is part of a comics collective called PARTYKA. I hope to one day have some of my work in one of their zines. I'll let Sean introduce it :
Everyone,
A spectre is haunting Brooklyn -- the spectre of PARTYKA. It is high time
that PARTYKA should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their
views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the
spectre of PARTYKA with a manifesto of PARTYKA itself:
http://www.partykausa.com/. Updated daily.
I participate in Noodle-Riddles, mainly on weekends and holidays. I do not get paid to participate; I just do it for the fun. I am an avid fan of the film "Space Grandberries" (You fellow fans know who you are!) and the epic opera "Salivata" by Cornin. I am a taste-tester for the mint: nickels, dimes, that sort of thing. I also like to instruct people on how to push dirt deeper into the ground. I have one eye that is 4 millimeters further back than the other because of a freak velcro monkey accident.
I am making all of this up.
"Whenever one person sits still for five minutes, fifty other people are moving ahead of them and feeling quite proud of themselves."
-Dr. Willem Van Declone, 19th Century poet/playwright and founder of the Edification Movement.
Thanks to J.T.
From the treatise, Identity Assessments of Two guacamole owls I have had the pleasure of studying, by Dr. H.C. Stalks, 1973-1974, Portugal :
Subject 1:
you are humble; yet not without a certain misplaced savoir-faire. you have a sort of stylized humanity. it is abstract. painters could paint it and then pretend it's their self-portrait (nobody would know the difference). mountains can be made from your mole-hills, so start digging. the more you dig little holes, the more the terrain erupts skyward into large, vertical land masses. you like puddles. only because it's the place the water chooses not to evaporate. you appreciate the water's stubbornness. moments ago you contemplated a new beginning. it was erased quickly by neurons fired from the guns held by brain-elves (or mind-gnomes - take your pick (but you don't like either choice)). inside your mind, a little universe exists. the universe is known by many as "the inner ear". it has no use, and should really be called "the useless place", because that's a little more descriptive. you're timid, but your eyes convey to the world a sense of great strength and self-confidence. it's your cheeks that give you away. you got seriously timid cheeks. they betray your eyes' effects. rouge only makes it worse. i suggest cotton swabs. the more puffy your cheeks look, the less timid - and the more they match your eyes. also, you are heartfelt and imprisoned. neither makes much sense out of context, but i'm sure you can apply it to your own situation somehow. that's how these personality analyses work. ...gee, if that's the truth, then i can just say anything and it will fit right in. okay! so um, you have a bluish tinge to your... um, humanity. yeah. and you are a guacamole owl. and you keep your friends locked in the glove compartment of the police car. and um, you like ritz crackers. but not necessarily actual ritz crackers, i could be speaking metaphorically (depending on whether or not you actually like them). if you do like them, then i mean figuratively, and if you don't, i mean metaphorically. in fact, apply that same process to everything you've just read above.
also, you have dark red eggs.
****
Subject 2:
You are specific to a time and place and give clothing to meet the eye's demands. Passerbys to the brilliant white castle are born daily, minute-by-minute by hour, and are given tourists as entourage. A pure guacamole owl, you approach life with fairy courage. You are uncommon, a rare particular force, benevolent and unbidden by witches' vines. At dusk you make a choice for flight. A balloon is satisfactory; but a mask tethered to a cloud is considered ideal, its pedigree appraised expertly by your stone-wrought experience. You are what wood would be if it didn't burn. Picture a lattice-work made of ice and air, suspended in an ancient jar, preserved for centuries as an empty vessel for the very purpose of preservation itself, a reminder of the absence of irony in the lands of our kin. You require no spectacles because they are already in your head behind your eyes, placed there kindly by someone who deemed you meritable as a child. They remain and unwittingly augment your strength. As a model for livelihood, you look to the writ of elders and craftsmen. You have found lost paths not on the map. They take you past riverbeds where the trees urge the pine-cones to speak, where the river makes their mouths into caves. The paths take you past sizeable rocks - good and solid - the point of which eludes you until you see the rungs of the ladders. They cross through fields where the mud makes forests, where the snow rests a few feet off the ground, where the sky coats the insides of wells like paint, where you meet under the roots. And you enjoy the transience. On your brow rest hand-picked winds dyed green and black. They remember what suit they were wearing the day of your first look.
Ed. note : These assessments are FRAUDS. It has come to my attention that they were not written by Dr. H.C. Stalks. The real author is still at large. But I will reveal his identity. It is none other than me. And I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for my pesky meddlings. Why don't I just leave my affairs alone? Why do I have to mind my own business? Why not someone else's? Ohhhh, I'll get you next time, Me!
I recently went to India to get Bollywood to fund my tuition to Movie College, to impersonate a god for religious missionary purposes, and to meet some relatives. Here's what happened.
Often I am inaccessible by way of the voice transmission device (aka tele-phone).
This is what I say in lieu of an explanation :
You couldn't reach me?!
It must be due to the evil schemes of my dreaded cousin, the Black Cousin. The Black Cousin goes by another
name and that is Black Vanilla. We prefer the former. Ever heard of him?
He once fondled Mrs. Esterson at Social Function # 9234. A handsome woman,
she was however quite overwrought. Though I secretly believe she enjoyed
it. You should have seen the fracas it caused. Wait, you did see it.
You were the one the crowd lifted above them in what I thought was
reverence and exaltation, but was in fact only in preparation to throw you
into the vat of kippers. That must have smarted. You're probably
wondering what the vat of kippers was doing there on that fateful
afternoon. It was my fault. I had it brought in special so that someone
could be chucked into it. Didn't know it would be you. How could I? In
fact, I personally wouldn't have picked you to be thrown. But I'm not an
angry mob now am I? Angry mobs make strange choices sometimes. It can't
be helped. Move on.
Truth be told, it was not the Black Cousin that caused your attempt at
communication last night to fail. Obviously he must have been committing
many an heinous deed that night: maiming, man-handling, murdering, making
mincemeat out of maidens, even his dreaded Fondling, but stopping your
phone calls was not one of them. I only wish it was. I do like to blame
him for everything. No, I must admit it was simply a matter of the modem
being used to connect to the internet, shutting down the phone line, and
causing any outside callers like your noble self to hear nothing but ring,
ring, ring. We have no call waiting. Why, you ask, is such a system in
place that does not allow anyone to reach us while the modem is in
function? I have no real answer, but can only blame the Black Cousin, as
he has been created to be my scapegoat in all things... (he's a handy little bugger
in a fix).
I can only say one thing: "Fetch the postman; I believe this parcel is
wrongly addressed." This was said by acquaintances of mine, Dr. and Mrs.
Horra Trull (in unison) of Okluko, Alaska. Their quote mystifies me. I
believe that hidden within it, there is great and terrible wisdom. If only
we had the vigor and bold British Bulldoggishness, and possibly large manly
drills, to procure it. Drill with me, will you?
I'm off to get me some fine concubinage. You may find me at the local
bawdyhouse. I will be dressed as a bellboy. Do not be alarmed. I do
this for the jaded trollops. It makes them all the more fervid. And I get
a 50% discount!
Look for me also in roadside bushes. I await thee with a brandished blade.
Yours,
Pedge
(also known as 'the Herring what Haunts your Dreams')
They say that he's a monkey!
We all could learn a lot about ourselves if we just stopped and listened to Mr. Chupacabra. Am I right, folks?
Look for him CREEPING along on the tops of your ROOFS.
I am so crazy that I will not only sell you a monkey to get you to buy a car from me, but I will give it to you for free! That's right - a FREE monkey. If you come on down to CRAZY HENRY AUTOMOTIVE. Where your thirteenth car is intentionally painted all over with the number 13, or close proximity there-of (by our talented artistically-inclined team of genuine Florida State surplus monkeys). And where hot dogs and candy canes are mixed together into a disgusting breakfast treat for the whole family to enjoy with their complementary popcorn and fruit basket when they come on down to CRAZY HENRY AUTOMOTIVE! Located just four blocks away from you at any given moment in time. Ask for a monkey and you'll get one! There will already be four or five of them crawling all over you when do ask, because we just got so many of them. We got cars, we got monkeys, we got the best deals in town (or close proximity there-of). I am selling things at such a low, low already-marked-down price that one time my own dear mother thought I was certifiably insane and had me committed to a mental ward. Three thousand volts of Dr. Millow's electrism machine coursing through my head only made me CRAZIER! I still see the lightning creatures. Come onnnnn doooownnnnn!
And tell 'em SOME CRAZY ASS FOOL sent ya!
CAVEAT
Late at night, the chemists make
a mixture of a thin, opaque
goo from somewhere, and a steak
from some strange beast fetched from the lake
and then they add a pinch, a flake
off the skin of a half man/snake.
Within small bowls, they mix and shake
and just to keep themselves awake,
pretend to taste some; It's all fake.
For no one would even dare partake
in what they've made and plan to bake
To do so would be a grave mistake
and I give warning for your sake:
Do not eat the mating cake.
Grandmother, Grandfather, Great-grandmother.
And now for another story containing pernicious maternal influences...
I am devoted to Jacob. Despite his gray hands. We are currently in
hiding, and we fear my mother's men will give us away. Jacob has little to
worry about. His face will no doubt make him a club darling. Yet he is
still concerned, for me if not for himself. I hate him all the more for
it. Yesterday large men in ridiculous green hats came and wrestled my
mother. Afterwards she thanked them and gave them a copper piece. She
delights in proving her strength. Her attendants grow weary; their
reputations have suffered. I believe she plans to fire all of them, and
then rehire them only if they change their names to the characters in her
so-called autobiography, a fictional account of her escape from the Nazi
Womens' Army. The Nazi Womens' Army does in fact exist, but only after
mother bribed several noted historians. The historians themselves grabbed
guns and swastikas and headed for the fatherland, or if male, they
convinced their wives and daughters to do so. She cites it as her greatest
accomplishment. It is a terrible burden to keep it a secret as she so
desires, as I myself am very proud and want to scream it to the world and
let all know I am that woman's son. We plan on letting Marty Pastorson
dress up as a chambermaid. It's really an unnecessary addition to our
reconnaissance plan, but it means so much to him. Marty will go forward
under cover of darkness as well as a delightful petticoat.
I wrote a story about when Pioneero guest stars on the Furnitures show.
Why are you speaking such asininity and absurdity?
Why are you speaking such blather and balderdash?
Why are you speaking such cockamamie and clowntalk?
Why are you speaking such drivel and double-talk?
Why are you speaking such equivocation and eggnoggery?
Why are you speaking such folly and foolishness?
Why are you speaking such gibberish and gobbledygook?
Why are you speaking such hogwash and hooey?
Why are you speaking such inanity and irrationality?
Why are you speaking such jive and jabber?
Why are you speaking such klaptrap and kookiness?
Why are you speaking such lunacy and ludicrousness?
Why are you speaking such madness and mumbo jumbo?
Why are you speaking such nonsense and newspeak?
Why are you speaking such oddness and obscurity?
Why are you speaking such prattle and poppycock?
Why are you speaking such quips and quibbles?
Why are you speaking such rot and rubbish?
Why are you speaking such silliness and stupidity?
Why are you speaking such tripe and twaddle?
Why are you speaking such untruths and unreasonableness?
Why are you speaking such vapidity and vagueness?
Why are you speaking such whimsy and witlessness?
Why are you speaking such xenons and xylophones?
Why are you speaking such yammer and yackety-yak?
Why are you speaking such zits and zebra stripes?
I've archived the first one of these. You can find it here:
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