Dirk Destroyer Part 38 Chapter Twenty

I suppose it’s a little late to mention it, but those chapters that are spelled out (like Twenty,) are diversions from the story, while those that are enumerated (thanks CL for giving me that cool word,) (like 21,) move the story along.

Kinda cute, right?

Well who asked you?

I don’t care if I did ask you – I thought it was cute even if nobody else did. Remember, this entire magnum opus (‘nother cool word, but this time I got it from Star Trek reruns,) is free of charge.

But back to the beauty of these nonenumerated diversional chapters (wow am I cranking out the cool words tonight!) You can take these chapters almost like short stories and you might even understand what’s going on without reading the previous 37 Dirk Destroyer posts.

Chapter Twenty

Fassentinker

The scratchwing and bellow had been such a fine combination for instrumental duets that when I was born people in my village thought they had been part of civilization forever. Two years later when Dirk was born, most people still held the same opinion.

Though the scratchwing is a precision instrument and the bellow more tonal and percussive, it was the fad of composers in my youth to ask the direct opposite of each. The result was a musical product that resembled a raptor swimming under water next to a leviathan farting.

It was unpleasant, but it was art, and to expect art to be pleasant is common, base, uncultured, and ignorant. The annual art endowments were thus awarded to the artists, composers, choreographers, sculptors, and nose pickers who most made you wish that your head was an internal organ.

Those were heady days for the arts.

Dutifully, Dirk and I studied music and practiced every day. Dirk developed a sardonic sense of humor; I developed allergies; and our mother went through three divorces.

I remember a particularly cruel punishment I received in middle school after my rendition of V. D. Popengut’s ninth inversion was greeted with applause by my classmates. I was forced to listen to the correct interpretation repeatedly until I was light-headed from loss of blood and mucus.

It was into this world of poignant artistic integrity that Captain Kangar Fassentinker rose to prominence. Kangar Fassentinker was a tug boat captain on the continent of Pogo where his primary trade was to take tourists to the one toilet, or loo, as they were called down there, that flowed in the correct direction. Captain Kangar –loo as he was popularly known to the inhabitants of those parts, had very little adult trade, as most people over the age of seven felt no need to see a toilet flow the correct way more than once. Smaller children however, could never get enough of it, and after some time, parents began habitually leaving their children on his tugboat before leaving for work, or to score drugs.

Kangar Fassentinker was not pleased with this turn of events. An accomplished scratchwing player in his youth with four suicides to his credit, Captain Kangar-loo began playing his scratchwing – not properly, but in a contrarian fashion - in opposition to the accepted artistical forms of the day.

Unfortunately, the children of his tugboat nursery had not yet developed the sophistication necessary to understand that what they were hearing was asinine, derivative crap, and so they loved and adored the Captain almost as much as he loathed them. The Captain lived in an increasingly unbearable world of happy children, swirling water, and deplorably pleasant music.

After twenty-five years, and a dozen unexplained drownings, Luke Gandolf, a writer of fantasies, and creator of toys that were particularly harmful to children, remembered his dear Captain Kangar-loo, and bailed him out of jail, in order to bring Kangar Fassentinker’s music to the world.

Unfortunately, only a handful of Fassentinker’s pieces were released to the world including his exquisite third duet for scratchwing and bellow before Fassentinker slipped on a cube of ice and accidentally impaled himself on an ice pick left carelessly propped, point up, on the floor. This occurred at the apartment of the aforementioned composer, Vladimir Draculo Popengut, who was the only witness to the event.

Not sure if Danny Kaye was Fassentinker or Popengut, but I love his movies.

Cone Conundrum

I remember a scandal in the late 60s about my state renting hundreds of traffic barrels for a dollar a day. What a waste of money, we thought!

That was before traffic cones took over the world.

Traffic cones, unlike their barrel predecessors are not on our highways simply to point out occasional hazards.  They are not just there in the hundreds, but in the millions.

And I beg to differ with anyone who contends that they serve to make traffic simpler.

Traffic cones have become America's number one cash crop.

And they aren't content to stay on our highways.  They have invaded our culture.

Our art.  Don't believe me...

How about this?

Or this?

They've invaded our children's programming.

And music.

And when I say they've taken over the stage, I'm speaking literally.

They have their own weight loss programs.

Even their own pets.

There are reports of traffic cone mind control.

They are taking on human characteristics

So they can blend in and take over our planet before we are even aware of the danger.

They're coming for you.  If you find yourself planted by the roadside marking traffic hazards five years from now.  You were warned!

Ask not for whom the cone wobbles.  It wobbles for you.

Art Isn't Really Stupid - But Sometimes It Looks That Way.

November is a busy month.  The good news for you is that means I won't be writing much in my posts.  Let's get to the pictures.
Here are some artists who like relaxing at the beach

 boaters

divers

 hanging out at the cabana

hold on...

just where is this leading?

Here are some artists that like a more urban setting

 This artist is very hot

 Is Jack home?

Don't worry - I won't keep you long

the skateboarder said this was fun

no - I don't want to feed the fish

Do humans have to be involved?

 I don't know

sometimes nature

and animals

find an aesthetic

instinctually

Which is not to deny how objects display art

 In the hanging of a print

 In the jolting of a memory

in a moment of whimsy 

or awe

Or as Bob Ross would tell us

in living each day

Here's a vid

Jack the Magic Pumpkin

Maybe we have too much time on our hands...  Back in my day - nearly every jackolantern looked like this.

I say nearly because the ones I carved tended to look more like -

But suddenly, that's not good enough.  Jackolanterns have replaced Cadillacs and trophy wives in the search for status in modern suburbia.  Now these abused pumpkins must make a statement.  What's interesting is what statement they make.
Of course you have the traditional scary theme - though more skillfully rendered than my 'many holes of death' effort above.

Cannibalism is always a good choice.

Is this even a pumpkin?

Didn't I see this one on Scobby Doo?

Is the horror that he's trapped in a pumpkin - or that he's getting out?

Here's a Jack Jackolantern.  Red Rum.

Here's a whole tableau.  I wonder how many pumpkins they ruined cutting that hanging rope.

Some eschew (not sure what that word means, but I've always wanted to use it,) the horror theme and just concentrate on the art.

I suppose if you were a 10th century Britain this would be scary.

Oh No!  It's a Washington DC based sports franchise!

Sometimes the art goes overboard.

A plant mascaraing as a... different plant.

Do you have a job to go to?

Have you slept since August?

Have you even stopped to poop this month?

The cutesy theme has been involved in Halloween ever since we agreed to give toddlers candy - but maybe it's time to turn it down a notch.

No, really - it's the carousel from hell!  Look at the angry ponies!

I still don't know who this ubiquitous Hello Kitty is - but maybe it's time to put her in a shelter.

What do you bet some 7-year-old smashes this 15 hours of work with his light saber?

The rest of these came because FB friend SDN posted this theme this morning - Honest I was going to do jackolanterns anyway!   Is it nostalgia, or are the retired hippies looking for something to do?  How did this become a Halloween theme?

That's right - the micro-bus.

Guaranteed to break down.

Especially on the way to beach.

Or if you we silly enough to attach a trailer.

Now we come to the two scariest of them all.

I've got none to spare - put down that spoon!

The rabbit or Caerbannog.  Where's a holy hand grenade when you need one?

Here's a Halloween appropriate video from the people of College Humor