This is the
second of many installments of Dirk Destroyer's Less Destructive
Brother. Last week covered the stuff not to read, and so we begin
this week with stuff to read, Chapter One (not to be confused with
Chapter 1 which will come later.) Some of the chapters (like this
one,) are too long for a single post, so I've broken one in two which
might make this Chapter Half (not to be confused with Chapter 1/2
which might come later.)
Stuff To Read
Chapter One
Call Me Elmer
I don’t know if
I’m immortal.
I just know I’m
not dead.
I’m Elmer
McFarland. I’m also Dirk Destroyer’s older brother, so most
people know me as Elmer Destroyer. I’ve lost track of exactly how
old I am – seven thousand and some. I had a birthday – I might
be eight thousand now.
I’ve watched a lot
of people go through the transition of not alive, to alive, to dead.
Each generation isn’t that much different from the one before it.
Most believe that their time on the planet is the most important, the
most stylish, the most heroic, or perhaps even the most cataclysmic
time period in history. Many think that the world will end in their
lifetimes – as if the planet will be so overcome by the prospect of
their deaths that it won’t be able to go on. Some think that
they’ve been put on the planet to solve the great mysteries of time
and space – or even change history forever.
I don’t much like
being around those people – maybe because these grand destinies get
pretty old after you’ve heard them so many times. The rocks and
mountains probably get tired of my self-delusions. If so, they’ve
been too polite to mention it. I try to keep my delusions to a
minimum. Except for its length, my life hasn’t been too
noteworthy. Mostly it’s been a lot of the same stuff over and over
again.
Last week was pretty
eventful, though. It’s even changed the way I look at things, and
that doesn’t happen most millennia.
So I’ll tell you
how I thought about stuff a week ago before all this stuff happened.
I believed that legends changed every five hundred years, history
every two hundred, political ideology every century, music and art
every decade, and fashion twice a month. I also believed that the
finest piece of music ever was the Fassentinker Third Duet for
Scratchwing and Bellow, and that legend, history, and political
ideology were way overblown, and that even if fanny packs were out of
style three hundred and eighty-seven out of every three hundred and
eighty-eight fashion fads, they were still damn handy and
surprisingly sturdy. The one I wear has held up well, seeing as it’s
nearly as old as me.
Fanny packs are
especially useful if you enjoy a good cigar.
I also believed that
my brother Dirk would always be seen as the bad guy, and that it
would forever complicate matters for me.
Did I agree that
Dirk was a bad guy? Not really. Dirk just enjoyed making powerful
enemies: in particular, Uriculous Wisehind, the last translator of
the Thirty-Seven Really Good Ideas.
What are the
Thirty-Seven Really Good Ideas – just the foundation of everything.
We on the planet Two
have lived by the Thirty-Seven Really Good Ideas long before any
legends, history, political ideology, art movement, or fashion fad
that I’ve ever heard of. The Thirty-Seven Ideas are so old that
when I was born we only had three of them left – Ideas Seven,
Nineteen, and Thirty-five.
Really Good Idea
Number Seven: Thou
shalt not start a land war in Phasia.
Phasia was a large, heavily populated continent where much of the
population was hard-working, polite, and good at math. Somewhere
just shy of six thousand years ago, the people of planet Two lost
track of Idea Number Seven. Dirk tried to tell them what it was, but
Dirk, being a known prankster, was not believed. Within a few
months, dozens of non-Phasian countries were invading more populous,
hard-working, polite countries that were much better at math.
Turns out, Idea
Number Seven was a pretty good idea. The invaders got creamed. Like
I said, history is overblown. What’s the point if people won’t
learn?
Really Good Idea
Number Nineteen: Thou
shalt not prevent a person from smoking cigars in their own home.
The people of Planet Two lost that idea just over five thousand
years ago, and that’s when tensions between Dirk and the rest of
the world began to mount. Dirk and I are both fond of cigars, and we
were each early on in our third millennium and feeling pretty secure
about our long-term prognosis. Dirk didn’t have much patience for
some forty-year-old infant halfway to her grave warning us how
smoking would shorten our lives.
Dirk and I had
picked up a few tricks by then – especially Dirk. I’m not
talking about supernatural powers – just normal, natural abilities
that any person who lives to four figures might know – especially
if such a person discovered this school Dirk came upon that was just
full of such stuff. As I mentioned, Dirk has always been a practical
joker, and abilities like hypnosis and telekinesis are damn useful
for practical joking. When the minister of smoking eradication went
flying through the capitol stark naked and declaring that she was the
chicken of divine succulence, a lot of people took it all wrong.
I thought it was
funny, but I’ve never had a problem with Dirk. People started
calling my brother Dirk the Evil Magician then, but it got changed to
Dirk the Destroyer – I guess because it was shorter and people
really like alliteration.
Next week
we'll continue with Chapter One (not to be confused with Chapter 1
which comes later.) Dirk Destroyer is the third of the Genre series,
though the other two have almost nothing to do with it except they
didn't make me much money either. If you'd like to change that, you
can purchase their downloads on Amazon. Trouble in Taos Volition Man
And now the
video. The fact that Elmer Destroyer and Elmer Fudd have been around forever without looking any older is just a coincidence. Or is it?
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