I'm a whore

Not in that way. I'd starve.

Anyway, real writers with blogs do this, so I figured why not a fake writer like myself? Saves coming up with anything. Didn't I say something similar yesterday? I think Nostradamus predicted my burnout, right after that quatrain about 9/11 being caused by the third Antichrist, Baron Saddam-Mahmoud von Hitlerbushobamastein. Here's some crap, 99 and 44/100 % of it crap, that I penned, typed and/or cut n' pasted in the last year, though at least one piece was from 2008, but it's necessary for literary symmetry.

Actual attempts at legitimate short fiction
Please, just take one. Don't say we didn't warn you.
Nous avons faim. Even monsters need love.

Being the Continuing Adventures of Leon Czolgosz, Irishman.
Part one. Whist is sexier than you think.
Part two. Vampires aren't real.
Part three. We said vampires aren't real.

The sexfully lusty noir yarn of Placeholder Place
Placeholder Place
Return to Placeholder Place
Return to Placeholder Place Returns
Return to Placeholder Place Returns Again

Friday night's alright for flashing
Number one. Wherein I whine about being hitched.
Number two. The blind leading us right into a zombie's waiting jaw.
Number three. I thought you said we'd have fun in the sack.
Number four. It's boring in the sticks.
Number five. Where I resorted to referencing Flash Gordon.
Number six. Love sucks.
Is this The Prisoner?
Number seven. What happens in Tijuana stays in Tijuana.
Number eight. Nevermore? Never.
Number nine. Apocalypse, nowish.
Number ten. Baby, it's cold outside. And inside.
I'm not a number, I'm a free man!
Number eleven. Reading is fundamental to straitjackets.
Number twelve. And they call me punchy.
Number thirteen. Flashing always makes me feel extra sexy.
Number fourteen. The Good, the Bad and the Poorly Written.

Half-assed playwright
The Blogman Cometh
The Tenth Circle, A Play in One-Half Act

Miscellaneous fuckery
Splotchy's Viral Theatre, part XIII or thereabouts. It's got Dick.
A Busmas Carol. Co-written with my good friend Charles Dickens.
Son of Sniglet starring in Splotchy's Viral Theatre. Mallcore.

Verily, I shall pretend to bee a poette & e'en know it
three for Valentine's Day
Aquarelle
Spatial relationship
Cathedral
Hemlock
10/6
I'm on to you
Skydiving arsonist sets own aeroplane on fire. Film at 11.

I feel so dirty.

Seriously?

America's number one export after fast food.

Don't ask me why, but while doing work yesterday at work -- I said don't ask, fucker -- I stopped in the midst of processing the newest issue of Barrow Street to peruse its offerings (some I wish I had written, you talented bastards; some satanawful stuff that makes my garbage seem delicious and nutritious), and eventually flipped through the Notes on Contributors where this caught my laughing eye:

...of two anthologies, including Starting Today: 100 Poems for Obama's First 100 Days.

Alright, fine. You want some political verse, you've got it.

Military/industrial complex,
you give me a complex.
Saint Ronnie or Hussein X,
Senator Diaper's wacky sex,
On this I don't wish to vex.
Corporate pontifex!
Your maximus deflects my hex.
Look at all that, so much X.
Where's Lovelace, 'tis triple triple X.
Oh yeah, dead.

Thank you, thank you, I won't be here all week.

Noive endings

"This? This is snow. This is what falls in Cleveland when it gets too cold. This? This is Kent. This is what happens to people when they get too sexually frustrated"

Dear RTA,

It really is okay to drive more that 25 mph when there's a layer of the white stuff on the tree lawns.

Sincerely,

Randal














Bill Polian, Pretzeldent of the Indianapolis Colts

"All right, I'll go in there for Peyton. 16-0 or no 16-0, playoff chokes or no playoff chokes, I'll tear them apart. I may not come out alive, but I'm going in there. There's only one thing I want you fellows to do."
"What's that?"
"Talk me out of it."

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go and hide under my desk. Never know who's a crotch-burning terrorist these days.

The reason for the season

Hardly.















Right.















Please.



Now that's my kind of caroling.


















Merry Lemmymas, everyone!

My favorite Xmas song

Why are you people coming into the library at this most O so preciously precious time of year? Learning is neither holly nor jolly, unwashed masses of Callahooga County. You shouldn't be learning anything save how to stuff even more future landfill contents in your automobile. Heathens.

The art of a soft landing

Brain, be gentle.
Burnout, more than reading, is fundamental
and I don't have the fundamentals to post with aplomb
or plumb depths resurrected, charmingly,
so blinded by plumage rising and set alight.
Flesh tingles, spangled
with tongues of fire.
No, no, that's fair
that's falling from spires,
nothing less.
Sit back and watch it burn, burn!
for ash comforts wandered, spent excess comfortably.

Quoi?

Best special teams player on planet earth. That I get.


















This is don't. Walrus, a little help?



















"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of fronts--and gaps--and cover 2--
Executive pay--hey, I dig those blings--
Mayhap I'll coach 'em up, too--
Remember, I've got one of those rings."

"I weep for you," the Walrus said:
"I deeply sympathize."
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Linemen of the largest size,
Receivers that can separate
And passers sans blindest eyes.

"But wait a bit," the Dawg Pound cried,
"Before we have our chat;
For some of us are stinking drunk,
And some of us are fat!"
"No hurry!" said the The Lerner Man.
They thanked him much for that.

"A five-year plan," the Walrus said,
"Is what we chiefly need:
Nose tackles and corners besides
Are very good indeed--
Now if you're ready, Dawg Pound dear,
We can begin to feed."

"But not without French Onion dip!" the Dawg Pound cried,
Turning a little blue.
"After such spending sprees, that would be
A dismal thing to do!"
"This luxury box is fine," the Walrus said.
"Do you admire the view?

"It was so kind of you to come!
And you are very nice!"
The Lerner Man said nothing but
"Mangenius--shall we start to slice?
I wish Big Tuna you were--
I'll have to pay you twice!"

"It seems a shame," the Walrus said,
"To play them such a trick,
But I want full personnel power,
So better sign me quick!"
The Lerner Man said nothing but
"Failure, like thieves, is so thick!"

"O ten-dollar beer," said the Dawg Pound,
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be stumbling home again?'
But answer came there none--
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd drunk every one.

In league with Satan

No, not me.










I'm not so sure I'd trust the devil's floor game.

Pitchfork'll get in the way.

BECAUSE IT'S BUSY TWIRLING SOMEONE'S GUTS LIKE SPAGHETTI!

aside

Remember when the internets was cool, when you could type in

bloody pitchfork

and NOT return page after page of Pitchfork®-approved® hipster indie-electro-punk-post-whatever bands? 80s hair shit or this striped-shirt beardo crap, cockroaches climbing over my string quartet power chording black tees, clap your hands say fuck off. It's entirely plausible that my The Google-Fu is the contents of a septic tank, in fact I'm Shirley Serious, but is the second Friday the 13th the only source where there's a pitchfork that might even possibly maybe have some of the red stuff dripping off, pretty please?

Maybe I'm just lazy.













Skinemax used to play this flick over and over in the primeval days of cable. I think I had a mini-crush on Amy Steel. Check out that determination.

Yes, part of the blame lies with the torture pornography industry that insists on devising ever more esoteric ways of slicing and dicing, where o where has my pitchfork gone, where o where could old-fashioned pitchfork DVD stills clogging the tubes beeeee?.












Insert clever quip here.

/aside

An important public service announcement

"Blah blah diddy dum blah."

Oingo boingo --

"Please, let's leave Mister Elfman out of this."

-- wango tango!

"Certainly, Mister, and I use the term very loosely, Nugent!"

But your catchers tried plying the seven seas of rye for years, for years, Hufnagel, and what did that ever get them? A decent ham sandwich? No, never, non, nein, nyet, platinum blondes and a record of broken hearts.

"But they were golden, oh, so golden."

Fargle!

"Well, I never!"

I will bargle your ass right here on set, you hear me!

Gentlemen, gentlemen.

Shut up, Palamedes!

"Yeah, shut up, Palamedes!"

Sigh. What do you think, George?

Flashy Van Flash

Our so-called Lord has has laid down the law. Magna Carta means nothing to you? I'm a loner, Cormac, a rebel. But I've gotta go look for my bike, so no time to compose anything of quality. Sorry.

Well, how did I get here? Can't blame it on that bastard, Byrne. Fucker's been ivory towering at that existentialist convention for days. Fucking geek. Benny the Mechanic, jerk's been in the joint ever since Vinny the Rat ratted him out as rats are wont to do when not toting disease from burg to rusted-out burg. I told him moving product between fed bioweapons labs wouldn't pay for his liposuction.

Look at this shit, not a goddamn soul around, like some fucking Hollywood ghost town set with the fake storefronts and plastic tumbleweeds and wires strewn everywhere and incompetent PAs tripping over 'em. Hell of a storm last night to scare everyone off, I reckon.

Still don't know where these chaps and this Colt came from. I don't own a gun and never will. And it ain't Halloween. My head isn't splitting in half so no, not hungover. Oh, I know what she'd say, what a shock, blah blah blah.

Go fuck yourself. Wherever you are.

Where the hell am I?

"LANCASTER! DOUGLAS!"

Ha, ha, ha.

Shucks, everyone knows Lee Van was the coolest one of 'em all.

"Sure about that, pilgrim?"

Fucking hell?

"You see in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend. Those with loaded guns, and those who dig. You dig."

The first man turned to the second.

"You talking to me, pilgrim?"

What the fucking hell is going on?

No fucking way. Looks pretty spry for a man of nearly 80. I better duck outta sight or I'll get shot, really fucking shot.

PING!

Jesus fucking Christ!

"Where d'you think you're going, pilgrim?"

My boots, and my spurs, are glued to the spot. I know I'm not hungover. We covered that. Or drunk. And I know I ain't dreaming. This is far too fucking real.

"Are all ghosts stereotypes?"

He shot me the blackest glance. "The man told you to dig, pilgrim."

"He was talking to you, Marion." Big mistake.

PING!

MOTHERFUCK!

The much-too-young Clint Eastwood just threw a shovel in the reddened dust kicked up by the much-too-dead John Wayne's bullet and my feet, bleeding wound and all, suddenly find that moving isn't much of a problem. Digging my own grave, I guess. Maybe. Again, what the fucking hell is going on?

TINK!

I shudder before realizing that I'm not being shot at again, but that the blade has struck something metal.

Goddamn, getting shot really fucking hurts.

A few more shovelfuls and I've got it, whatever it is.

"Is this what you're lo --"

PING! SLUMP! PING! SLUMP!

"I'll take that."

His gun pointed directly at my racing heart, Lee Van Cleef takes the box, confirms its contents, and walks off into the sunset.

Told you he was the coolest.

Cheapskate, too. Couldn't have spared one gold coin? Bastard.

Handsome B. Wonderful's Thirty-Sixth Annual List of the Top Ten Rock Albums of the Year!

Sorry, Ronnie, you guys didn't make the list, but hell, not that bad of an album for dudes in their sixth and seventh decades. More than Robert Plant can say, yee haw, cletus. Now, curse that cancer, yousguys.

I'm not stating what I stated last time, a state not worth visiting, like Ohio (save for the Pro Football Hall of Fame and this), especially since I'm too cheap to buy you a beer because I need to buy me another la fée verte.

Oh, alright, shorter: stuff I listen(ed) to a lot.

1. Alice In Chains, Black Gives Way To Blue. You've read the book, now hear the movie in your headphones. Had it for a few months, decrees remain sludgy, slimy hooks slip from the grime and have a reach that matches their grasp. Shot through with the spirit, if not the voice and spectral tales of Layne, just don't call it a comeback, call it a rebirth. When you step off the bus on the return trip from hell, you're a changed sonofabitch, yet thankfully still depressed.

2. Katatonia, Night is the New Day. Mood rock for moody I-don't-know-whats, jerks like you and I, they don't ply in bonecracking sorcery, but pry at the crevices in the shadows of your own making. Good thing, too, that you've got an ample supply of notes, for constructing such a cityscape takes some effort, leaves you spent, scratched. Now steep, sleep in the bleak precipitation and remember what could have been. Yeah, man, still depressed.

3. The Black Crowes, Before the Frost...Until the Freeze. A Zeppelinesque tight-but-loose grooves from side to side and front to back, that's the fact, jack. Perhaps a hiatus does the soul well, for after regaining their footing on a very solid, if unspectacular comeback, the boys from Georgia and parts afield have crafted a great rock and fucking roll album. Okay, the extra bonus download is a bit country for my power chord ears, but there's no law that says I have to continuously spin it.

4. Unto Ashes, The Blood of My Lady. Sadness, uninterrupted. Mastermind Michael Laird (and assorted help) strips a few beloved trappings off this neo-classical glow for a sparser, more personal affair. Pungent folk balladry welcomes poisonously sweet longing with open, wounded arms, ostensibly to kill it, for that's what I would do if given the chance, the streaming blood inking page after page of fresh inventions. That's what we always seem to be stuck with, isn't it.

5. Behemoth, Evangelion. Menacing the way a lion's burnt sun jaw was to Roman Empire Jesusery, saliva evaporating the second it hit the torched sands, oh, but thirst soon quenched, Poland's finest cast forth their best in many an hour, eat that awkwardly-phrased cliché, hungry beast, and choke on its wretched truth. Toe-tappingly vicious occult psalms manifest a righteous Crowley glare, rhythm guitar, solo, breakneck, neck broken, fuck off.

6. Funeral Mist, Maranatha. Unlike those kielbasa, there's less mystical darkness, more inverted Abrahamic lunacy in their iron sink approach, hyperspeed passages sliced through with funeral dirges, blood spatter affectations of an acid mass, the unwashed swaying to chorales hacked out of the abyss. And lo, beholdeth that priestly venom spewing forth, a twisted, neurotic vocal performance that would make Attila Csihar weep with profound joy.

7. Marduk, Wormwood. Hey, I recognize you, you sang on number six. Number seven is alive, too, three, whee, a bit more orthodox in its destructive tendencies (not the content, gatekeeping scribes), less the diabolical, straitjacketed general of hell sickly barking orders from a spiked, flesh-stained cell than his premiere assassin, colder than Cocytus, deadlier than the starship captain actually deadlier than Turanga Leela. Not simply Mach 5000 anymore, but textured blasphemy. And, bien sûr, bitter.

8. Wolves in the Throne Room, Black Cascade/Malevolent Grain(EP). Quite possibly nature's favorite black metal troupe, hey, that tree just told me so, gives us their third volume of meandering soundscapes, extended suites of seasonal extremes, the harsh, mesmerizing call of storm and rain, sturm und drang, dragging feet on a muddy track to nowhere in particular, as long as it's away from the goddamn 9-5. Sure, I'm cheating by grafting the EP, but 'tis essential, too.

9. Moss, Tombs of the Blind Drugged. Is it really an EP if the three tracks rise to nearly two-thirds of an hour? Will I care about such detailed devilry once my woebegone being has been dragged sub templum for some cthonic rites, alright, inside joke telling is stale, even moreso if none of you wankers get it, but these ultra drone dirges ain't. Above ground terror transmutes into underground horror, slow, slow, ever slower, slow, sure is burrowing slow, but that's a graveworm-infested Templar for you. Oh, the answer to the question, no, I won't.

10. Altar of Plagues, White Tomb. Everything you know about Ireland is wrong if the only new thing you knew about Ireland was this because the old symbols would be drowned in an thundering tide of circular depression. Blackened post-whatever alternates between spacey undulation and tenacious skullcrushing, making you forget leprechauns, relentlessly curvy redheads but not alcohol, duh, especially since you remember how Robbie Keane & Co. got jobbed by the frogs. If I were them, I'd spin this document of self-inflicted destruction and wallow.

11. Paradise Lost, Faith Divides Us, Death Unites Us. What a renaissance these blokes have had over the last few albums. I didn't particularly mind their forays into a less metallic mood palette but heavy, romantic tristesse is what they're best at. Fuck, was Gothic a masterwork of this movement's vanguard in the saintly days of yore. Drink that finely aged scotch and journey back towards a tortured existence under the blackest of suns, forlorn doom infused in chords, leads flowing, unforced as sharp, fluttering rapids. And Nick Holmes even gets a bit growly!

12. Slayer, World Painted Blood. Defining aging gracefully, though your facial fuzz, Tom, is looking a bit grey. Hey, so is mine! Choking on youthful angst while air-guitaring to Hell Awaits is a dangerous proposition in my creaky state, but this angry slab made me wanna laugh in the face of actual medical danger and bang the head that used to bang in between chugs of whatever cheap beer someone's dad kept in the fridge.

13. Teitanblood, Seven Chalices. Everything you know about Spain is wrong if the only new thing you knew about Spain was this because the old symbols would be slaughtered and thrown in a ditch. Filthy, fucking filthy, fucking fugly ugliness scraping the cavities of your skull with rusty barbed wire making you forget tapas, stunningly beautiful women and futbal chokes on the world stage. I don't know what Lucifer ate that made him belch this grotesquerie up, but please, dude, continue chowing down.

14. Cheap Trick, The Latest. Oh, what the hell, an extra seat in honor of Rockford's favorite sons, who, according to evidence accumulated since the birth of rock and/or roll, shouldn't still be kicking ass at this late stage. In spite of the occasional cane n' Ben Gay slip up, they do, and the planet is better for it, power pop, power chords are sick, like a man from Europe, Beatlesesque touches (see, I like 'em a little, you fucking lemmings) when appropriate, and then some more power chords. Rick Nielsen, you are one bad mamma jamma. And, is it me, or does Robin Zander sound 28 again?

15. Of course I'm going to pull a last year (sort of) and list a bunch of releases for the coveted final slot. An intersection of art, mood and experience is the final arbiter of what moves, I can't choose just one peanut butter, eleven is one today, twelve is three tomorrow, forty-two is everything, so mighty hails to the visceral Celtic Frost-worship of Goatwhore's Carving Out the Eyes of God, the Nazi Punks Fuck Off riffwork of Vreid's Milorg, the intricate, death-laden Egyptology of Nile's Those Whom the Gods Detest, the erotic, neo-rock fetishes of Black Tape for a Blue Girl's 10 Neurotics, the doomy romanticism of My Dying Bride's For Lies I Sire, the sadly already split-up metalgaze of Amesoeurs' self-titled disc, a couple of dozen more, some I haven't heard yet and some that I probably missed because I'm going fucking senile. Go, 2009, it's your birthday.


















Save two slices for Dr. Zaius there, Mr. Spooky.

Skydiving arsonist sets own aeroplane on fire. Film at 11.

Parliament: funky? Dull? Ick?
No, sometimes, and yes.
Simple answers to stupid queries,
here's one of three: never question stupidity,
though I'll grant a crispy Grant
if you punchy holey wally world.
Vacation, vacation --
"In this bastard nation?"
cold cuts and daydream emancipation,
get your diner kicks on Route 666.
I'd like a sandwich, don't spare la moutard,
Molson. Moulson? Plays for the Islanders.
Fish sticks, fish sticks --
"Been drinking like moonshine hicks?"
Flic your Bic, burn that wick,
lick an ice cream cone --
"Bone rhymes too for more innuendo."
What do you do for money honey,
all work and no play makes us Congress
on C-Span Seventy-Five.
Chives are fine, bacon bits better,
butter and sour cream, sour puss.
Sleepy, sleepy,
I feel so creepy, shut up, shut up.
Come on down to my house,
I'll stuff your chute right
and we'll go diving at night.
Relax, I've got a light.

Always practice safe flashing

Do you really want to get a sexually-transmitted text? Those ointments ain't cheap and they ain't covered by your insurance.

As the rumble receded westward, a fine layer of dust settled on the tall stack of vintage condom boxes. Sally squinted. Whomever, or whatever, had laid these eggs was now a squiggle on the horizon. Sally wiggled. Then giggled.

"Aw shucks, how're we gonna finagle some loot outta this," opined Opie.

"Who's going to buy these? Bull of Heaven condoms are even more ancient than Trojans. If only Old Man Gilgamesh was still around."

"Now, Sally, ya'll know he had that baby. Lon n' he moved years ago."

"That's what I mea --"

"Hee hee, ya'll 'member th'old sayin', whatcha enkidu, winky nudgy."

"Is that your not-so-suave smoothie?"

"Eys willin' if you's willin'."

Sally rolled her eyes, speaking in controversial French. Opie rolled one, his dumbfounded tongue rolling, unable to keep up. So he puffed and puffed then huffed and huffed, because he was tired of being three steps behind.

"Always thinking with your willin'."

"Ya'll jus' call me a villain?" Show's ya ma --"

"If you make that stupid lightsaber joke again, the whole town will be crying 'bye, son.'"

Schadenfreude

No, you don't know what schadenfreude is? Please, let me tell you, because you're dying to know.

Third cousin, twice removed of Splotchy's Viral Theatre

Yes, it's that time again when The Great and Powerful Tyrant of All Internetual Fictionry splits this island earth with a thunderbolt from on high and bellows, BEHOLD MORTAL VERMIN! THOU SHALT TREMBLE BEFORE MY DIVINE INSPIRATION, AND THOU SHALT WRITETH A CHRONICLE CHRONICLING THESE CHRONICLES! And it was good, I guess. Amen.

The mall was crowded. There were happy people, angry people, people in a hurry, even a few people sleeping on benches. To the security guard, they were a blur of coats, hats and scarves. He was just beginning his second eight hour shift. He yawned, leaning against a pillar in the food court, the aftertaste of terrible mall cookies lingering on his tongue. His eyes abruptly snapped open with the loud sound of glass shattering behind him. (Splotchy)

"BEHOLD MORTAL VERMIN! THOU SHALT TREMBLE BEFORE MY DIVINE ELECTRON STRIP-O-GRAM, AND THOU SHALT STEPPETH UPON THESE SHARDS AS A TEST OF THY FAITH!"

"'twas th'ight 'fore sugarplum, oh shish, Meta Beass...," drooled a drunken Santa as he stumbled his way through an freshly expanding puddle of stale urine.

"Dude, it's the fuckin' Meta Beast," interjected the hipster masquerading as a laptop in the shadow of the Orange Julius, rebelliously not drinking an Orange Julius.

"Meta Beast? Oh, Lord Jesus, save us, Lord Jesus! Jesus," bawled the frumpy, bespectacled frau that ran the Fear God, Filthy Heathen! Christian bookstore.

The sweaty fingers of the exhausted security guard fumbled their way around the holster and the screaming crowd streaming in the opposite direction. He had never fired his gun before.

"YOU HAVE NEVER FIRED YOUR GUN BEFORE BUT KNOW THAT IT SHALT NOT HARMETH ME! BUT ALL THOSE CORN DOGS WILL!"

He pointed his crooked finger at the jungfrau.

"THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU TO SMITE MYSELF FOR HAWKING JOHN TESH! AND SURFING FOR PORN!"

Cowering, she hid behind a column as the dread Meta Beast turned his iron alloy gaze upon the once-typing hipster.

"NO ONE SHALT EVER READ THINE SCREENPLAY BUT THEY SHALT LAUGH AT IT AND I SHALT MOVE BACK IN WITH MOM AND DAD!"

Feigning self-conscious cool, the hipster soon crumpled as the wretched Meta Beast flashed his grinning tooth towards a two-sheets-to-the-wind St. Nick.

"AND YOU, MISRULING LORD, YOU SHALT DIE IN A DITCH BECAUSE, UNLIKE DAN AYKROYD, I SHALT BE UNABLE TO PULL THE FOOD OUT OF MY BEARD!"

The security guard, the hipster and the frau all huddled together, trembling before such a fearsome display of meta but obviously far away from the smelly, passed out Santa, awaiting some kind of fate. (Randal Graves)

Beach, sunshine, America's Foremost Performance Artist®, Freida Bee, David Barber, get cracking.

Feeling blue

Oh, dearest Randal, darling of the internets, you ask, why?

Because, electro-populace mostly without faces -- some of you are certainly blank robots and doth protestations will only serve to prove my point -- I had planned on delving into my La-Z Boy Bag O' Tricks® to riff on the death-by-a-thousand-papercuts hell that is the selling by the grain silo of the infamous blue test booklet, whose intricate story was to be carefully plotted out via spellbinding meanderings on multiple cultural artifacts of the Cold War, Project Blue Book, for instance, when a spectral light in my perpetually dark noodle self-illuminated and I remembered that, sigh, I was about to self-plagiarize myself, self.

"Yes?"

Nothing.













Go away tangentially symbolic emblem of retail, for lo, though the opportunity presented in Libraryland (much like Wonderland, only without hookah-smoking caterpillars and lunatic chapeaux) is verily a much diluted version where the customers know exactly what they want because there is no other choice of product available for the wretched task that lay before them, namely, bland scholastic gruel that shall land them a barely-minimum wage job if they're lucky, nor will there be returns and refunds of any sort, but sweet Mephistopheles, the blinding brilliance of the demon of retail lies in its tremendous ability to suck, digest and transmogrify souls from gold into lead so they are too heavy to go postal and sully precious merchandise. Kudos, economic machine greased with the caffeinated blood of the worker, kudos.


















We miss shopping from our couch, Billy. Sniff.

Ron Popeil's Amazing Hypothesis Test-O-Matic!

As has been noted once -- and honestly, I'm not inclined to engage in auto de fé in revenge for my lack of disagreement -- the comment sections of certain blogs are often far more interesting and/or variable and/or eloquently opiate and/or more uncontrollably explosionary than the post itself. [Noun, a person of unusually keen foresight who ingests a miniature bomb or Taco Bell. This chimichanga is excellent/Doctor, you're a true explosionary. Adjective, the state of a futuristic, boundary-shattering interstellar journey that ends poorly. The first manned fusion voyage to Mars was quite explosionary.] That's certainly the case here at this festering pustule of sub par grotesquerie. Thus, a little test:

[something ridiculous]

"Your brain finally dribbled out, didn't it."

Yes, you did. Ready, set, comment!

A fistful of flashers

They say some have a puncher's chance. Some do.

She was always threatening to punch someone in the face, but this time she meant it. Only one problem: she was stuck.

Gleaming sparks of light reflecting off of firework canines and molars, scattering shards of jaw still partially coated in torn, gummy flesh, all highlighted by eerily fluorescent flashes of red spattering on her cocktail dress, these bits and sticky pieces, these memories quickly faded

-- was she dreaming?

-- freak adrenaline?

-- PCP slipped in her drink?

--when she realized that her fist was actually lodged beyond the obliterated mandible of her enemy, cut knuckles resting on the back of the cranial cavity. Over and over she tried to budge, the two-carat diamond of her engagement ring rubbing against the interior of the skull, screeching like a crow.

Oh well, at least the bitch was dead. Disposal of the body would be a snap, then it was the simple matter of conjuring up a little white alibi for the authorities, she was a maestro at that, then nothing ahead but smooth sailing directly to the Caymans. As soon as she managed to pull her fist out of the still-quivering head.

The Pretzeldential Gong Show*

*awesomely cheesy theme music*








Chuck Barris: Welcome to the show, I'm *sniff* your host Chuck Barris!










Jaye P. Morgan: The acts better not be as bad as last time, Chuck. I almost threw up.








Chuck Barris: I promise you, they'll be *sniff* lovely! Up first, Bee Bee the Dancing Machine!








*dances*







Rip Taylor: That belongs on the $1.98 Dancing Pageant!








Chuck Barris: That was *sniff* pretty awful, but watch out for our next act! Please welcome, A Little Off-Broadway!









*vogueing*







*vomits*







The Unknown Comic: I knew one of the judges would toss their cookies.









Chuck Barris: For the worst act of the week, a dirty sock and $516.32, which, in this economy, won't even snag one grain of coke! That's all the time we have tonight *sniff* so tune in tomorrow for the next episode of *wipe* The Pretzeldential Gong Show! Good night, everybody!

*original concept by SWA