Dirk Destroyer Part 29 Chapter 13

After a rude interruption, we return to Dirk Destroyer’s Less Destructive Brother. I should note for those who read last Friday’s post that I hold no animosity or blame for Judy Oregano who labored hard to make this a better story. As a matter of fact, I’m grateful to her.

My feelings about Walter Bego may differ.

Anyway, back to Elmer and the Fellowship of the Bring.

Chapter 13

Grand Prize Give-Away!

Tease skipped off somewhere – probably to the showers, and the rest of us clambered out of the cave, because we couldn’t figure out a way to get out without clambering. I’m not usually in favor of clambering when climbing, or slipping, or jumping will do, but there are times in people’s lives – especially people who live eight thousand years, when only clambering will get the job done.

So we clambered until we were out of the cave. Then we stopped clambering, and I hoped there’d be no need to clamber again in the near future.

“I don’t much like clambering,” said Mage-e-not.

I had to agree.

“Little help,” sang Lustavious in a voice less full and buoyant than normal. Though the Light Bringer had managed to clamber admirably, he had done it one-armed as his non-clambering arm was still pointing up with a two-inch flame burning at the end its index finger.

Ono and I helped ease his arm down while Mage-e-not extinguished the flaming finger.

“Wow,” said Mage-e-not, “your whole hand is hot.”

“That’s why I stopped hiring out for parties,” said Lustavious who then crumpled down to the ground, as crumpling seemed to be the proper act for someone so exhausted…

Never mind about the appropriateness of his crumpling or of his earlier one-armed clambering - he ended up on the ground, and was asleep in moments.

“He’s snoring,” said Ono, “I’ll peep for splish, splash, splosh.”

Forty-nine point seven percent of me demanded that I volunteer to go with her, but the remaining fifty point six percent (some voter irregularities occur in every election,) decided that I would be pushing my luck. Jonma Claim and Jonma Carry walked off discussing something called senate procedures.

I looked around for All Bore. He was still in the cave looking out balefully. “I will continue my crusade to save the planet,” he said.

“You’re going to do it in there?” I asked.

“Too many honey bees out in the sunlight,” he replied.

I almost said that I was sad to see him go, but the same fifty point six percent of me which had shown such disappointing discretion in the matter of Ono and her shower, showed less disappointing discretion in keeping me from saying anything that might keep All Bore hanging around.

After an awkward silence, he turned around and stepped deeper into the earth.

“So,” said Mage-e-not, who was now my only conscious companion, “any more of those little sausages?”

“No,” I said. “But if we can find a stream I can make you an algae bar.”

Mage-e-not made a face that would have looked better if it had been invisible. “Any other ideas?”

“Ideas?”

“Ono said you got the sausages supernaturally. Maybe you could go back to the supernaturalmarket and get more?”

“That’s possible,” I said, “but I’ll need my bag.”

“I don’t like being shirtless,” said Mage-e-not.

“It’s no thrill for any of us,” I said, “but do you prefer being hungry? Then again, the algae bar offer still stands.”

Mage-e-not muttered something as he removed his shirt. Perhaps as a reflex, his head disappeared. It was a shame the rest of his body was still visible.

I smiled as I considered two possibilities. Maybe the cigars I sacrificed were still lying where I left them. Maybe I could find matches. I blessed my ancient, but still intact male insecurities as I dissolved myself into the school of amazing stuff.

So that’s the end of Chapter 13. For those of you wondering why this chapter was entitled, Grand Prize Give-Away, you can blame Walter Bego for the lack of any explanation.

Elmer isn't the only one of two minds,

Hair Wrangling

I was in a barber shop years ago unsuccessful in getting a by the follicle rate, when the barber’s scissors paused on the left side of my head. I glanced up into the mirror and met a sheepish look on the man’s face.

“You want me to leave the hair alone on this side?”

Leave the hair alone! Why would I want him to leave the hair alone? Why would anyone want the hair on one side of his head to be longer than the hair on the other side? That would be lopsided, unbalanced, like the two loops of a paperclip. Who in the world would ever want a paperclip haircut?

The realization washed over me like a rancid wave of bay rum. My barber was offering me a comb-over!

I watched with a mixture of fascination and nausea as he lowered my part to just above the ear and showed me how I could miraculous fool myself into thinking I was fooling everyone into thinking I was still growing hair on the top of my head. I remembered all the bad comb-overs I’d seen in my younger days and how I had prayed earnestly for a healthy gust of wind to raise the unmistakable bald guy flag that all fully-follicled-folk love to salute.

My chickens had come home and somehow roosted on the top of my head making it as bald as one of their vindictive eggs.

Fleetingly, I considered actually doing it as a public service. I could get a tee-shirt that read “Hey bald guys! See how bad it looks?” on one side and “Mother’s don’t let your babies grow up to be wind toys” on the other. I weighed the cost of printing up such a tee shirt against its value to society and had found it as unbalanced as the ridiculous hair I saw in the mirror.

I had him cut it even.

After coming home, I started feeling bad for the barber. The comb-over hairstyle had to be a hard sell and this poor guy must get a lot of abuse for recommending it. What his barber shop as well as barber shops across the nation needed was a comb-over brochure. Barbers need something like those discrete like those “So You’ve Got Herpes – It’s Not the End of the World,” pamphlets that doctors hand out to roughly half of their sexually active patients.

Of course I’ve never seen one of those pamphlets, but a friend of mine got one.

We could title the brochure, “Is Self-Delusion Right for You?” In the brochure the future lock-flopper would learn the discrete international barber sign to tell his hair professional to leave one side unshorn: a q-tip casually inserted in the ear canal of the shaggy side.

Sporting a stick in your ear is far less embarrassing than discussing a premeditated fashion faux pas like a come-over.

The next day I went to Jeff’s Irregular and Sometimes Hot Bargain Shack and purchased a North Korean hair cutting system (Guaranteed to make you look like a third world despot.) I selected the half inch setting and turned the top of my head into a pink and gray peach. No more barber shops – no more embarrassing encounters.

Though sometimes I run my hand across my stubbly head left-to-right and ask people what I just created.

“What?” they ask.

“The world’s shortest come-over.”

Of course when I was younger the embarrassing hair style was a duck tail (some didn't use the word, tail.)

Yeah, the post is over, but I had to include these extra pics.

Chapter 6 Trouble in Taos Part 3 Bragging to Bad Guys

This is Part three. If you’re wondering what it’s part three of, then maybe you should stop here and read parts one and two. Or better yet, go to Amazon, buy my story and then buy copies for everyone you know, and half the people you’ve forgotten. It’s coming holiday time, and won’t you feel better making sure a starving writer gets Pop Tarts in his stocking?

Anyway – here’s part three.

If you were looking to spy on anythin’ in Taos, the steeple of Saint Frank’s was the best place to be. Even today it’s the tallest spot in town, and it sits like a mule in the middle of the main road. It sits so stubborn that the road has to split go around it. Even from where we were workin’ I could see all the way down the road to where it became more trail than street.

It was when I saw them four fellas comin’ into town and heading right into the Rosa Linda that it all came together for me. These men were not casual, mid-day drinkers, and Estevo, who knew damn well who killed Rutherford James, was not the type to heroically keep his mouth shut.

I looked over at Slimy with my good eye, and he of course was diggin’ and talkin’ to my bad eye. “So that musta been Raisin, ’cause she was the bitch that whelped Tunny. So it was Tunny that barked, ’cause Raisin was dead by then, when her leg swelled up so bad…”

“Slimy!”

“That barkin’ was so loud that Momma woked up, and Momma never woked much when she was drinkin”.

“Slimy!”

Slimy looked surprised. I don’t know if he was surprised to be looking at my good eye, which he rarely saw, or he was surprised that I interrupted one of his stories, which I had never done before.

“Slimy, you have to go hide.”

“Hide?”

“There’s four men comin’ to kill ya.”

Slimy didn’t say anything. He balanced his chin on the end of his shovel and took it all in. Slimy was accustomed to violence, but advanced warning was new to him. So was running and hiding.

“Go hide in the church,” I said.

“Where do I hide in thar?”

“Just find someplace.”

Slimy didn’t move at first. He just stood there in his ditch and stared at me. Finally he dropped his shovel.

“Alright,” he said, and he climbed out of his ditch and went into the church.

I don’t know if Estevo was holding out or the men were having a beer, but they didn’t come out of the Rosa Linda for nearly an hour. It had me hopin’ I was wrong about ’em, or about Estevo.

I wasn’t. They came straight over to Saint Frank’s. Estevo knew Slimy and me had a job there.

Now, in all these western novels, and I guess this is one too, but I’m hopin’ it’s a bit more truthful than the others…

Where was I?

Oh yeah.

In all those other western novels, the bad guys are always big bruisers. I’d like to tell you that these fellers were little guys, or even just middlin’, ’cause as you might have picked up, I kinda like to be different.

But these guys were monsters. The smallest was half a head taller than me, and he was a fair bit smaller than the ugly one that did all the talkin’.

Maybe if you’re an Indian agent and you plan on selling guns and booze to Indians, you hire the biggest fellers you can find to stand with you.

Anyway, the particularly big and ugly one says to me, “Hey Cock-eyed, are you Beach?”

“Nah,” I said, “the name’s Bego. Beach digs the holes, I build the latrines.”

“Ain’t that somethin’ to brag on,” said the ugly one. The other fellers laughed. I guess I woulda laughed, too, if it weren’t me that just bragged about building outhouses.

“So where’s Beach, Shitbox Man?”

“I dunno. He ain’t in his ditch.”

“I can see that. Where’d he go?”

“Hell,” I said, because I was mad and wanted to hit someone, but these fellers were much too big to mess with, “I told you I don’t know!”

I learned something about lying that day. I’m sure that Father Gonzalez wouldn’t approve me passing it on, and if there are any children reading this, you need to skip over the next couple of lines.

This is what I learned. People don’t believe you when you’re tryin’ to convince ’em, but they will believe you if you sound mad.

The four men stared at me. I did my best to stay mad, because that was just about the scariest moment in my life to that point.

“Yeah, alright, Cross-eye,” said the ugly one. I wanted to shout that I was cock-eyed and not cross-eyed, but it sounded too much like my brag about building shit boxes instead of digging them, so I just spit and picked up a scrap of lumber.

The ugly one laughed. “Well boys,” he said, “we better be movin’ on before our little shit-house builder takes to us with his stick.”

They all laughed, but they also left, so I felt a little better. Maybe I scared them some – well, it was a nice thought, anyway.

But I didn’t feel so good when I saw them go into the church.

Love this movie - Little Big Man

Truly - S W McFarland

 For those of you too cheap to buy my books, Trouble in Taos Taos and Volition Man Volition are free downloads on Amazon this weekend (June 27 – 29 2014.)

That doesn’t mean you can’t go back and buy it later. I could use the cash.

Stanley McFarland, a fellow living in the delusion of his own hilarity, has asked for this post for his “humorous,” (I have to assume he’s talking about a bone,) essay.

Actors, Stay to the Script – Truly

by Stanley McFarland

I think I was 10 or 12. I’m pretty sure I wasn't 11 because odd number years don’t work out so well for me. I was watching the Academy Awards for the last time without being socially coerced to do so. In that even numbered moment, I learned the one great secret that the Academy Awards and the acting profession had to tell me:

When someone says, Truly – get ready for the big lie.

“I am so moved – truly. The people I worked with on this film are truly very special, very wonderful people. I will truly treasure their friendships for the rest of my life.

I want to thank the director who truly showed me amazing things about this profession. I am truly, truly so very grateful.”

What a load of hooey!

Six months later you read about the bickering, the nasty jealousies, and how incompetent everyone thought everyone else (except themselves) was.

Here’s a Stanley maxim: Actors never act so poorly, than when they are portraying themselves. Well maybe I borrowed that from..? Somebody.

Not that I’m disparaging movie-making. I love movies, and watch four or five a week (usually borrowed from the library.) But while a Coen Brothers or Joss Whedon film is a thing of beauty, the actors that inhabit these films are frequently tedious, disgusting, arrogant, and sophomorically ill-informed.

(Sometimes all at the same time.)

This isn’t just true of actors. Singers, athletes, writers, politicians, news-people and celebrities in general tend to be people I really don’t want to know – or know more about. This raises the question why information about these flawed and dull glitterati is a multi-billion dollar industry.

Are we a masochistic society, never happy when not scratching at our scabs, or poking at our toothaches? You could make an argument for that, but I think it’s something darker in our social character.

We, the public, take joy in seeing the mighty fallen. How much of our Revolution was about seeing King George III get his? 

 So many of our early movies were slapstick romps where pompous big shots got a pie in the face. Perhaps our schadenfreude has evolved beyond the script – to puffing up real life straw men and women of no real nobility, but great notoriety, and seeing them make fools of themselves in debaucheries, court appearances, and inane pontifical diatribes.

So to the celebrity, feeling a sense of noblesse-oblige that requires them to preach to us unwashed masses about the latest, faddish, social or political concern, you might as well know…

The joke’s on you –

Really.

I searched through several of the celebrity stupidity vids on YouTube.  I got depressed, so I'll spare you.  Here's two stupid celebrities I actually like!

Courting Evil

On two previous occasions I’ve made overtures to two great corporations for sponsorship:  Little Debbie and Starbucks. Surprisingly, nothing has come of either proposal. I’m getting tired of eating post-expiration-date bread from the thrift store. (I suspect they’re lying about that “nutrient-rich spinach coating.”) It’s time to make another try.

Yes, I know that I’ve had my issues with Disney, but I just want to let them know that I’m the kind of guy that can get past old disagreements and gain new perspective – you know… be bought.

To show the kind of work I’m prepared to do on their behalf, I’ve written new lyrics to one of the most hated tunes of all time, It’s a Small World After All.

Here’s the tune. I dare you to put it on continuous loop for an hour and not go pee in your neighbor’s coy pond or some other act of suburban terrorism. To spice up the chorus (which is only 6 words – 7 if you count a contraction as 2,) I’ve put in words to be sung subliminally beneath the line, After All. My version is a little more syncopated on the 2^nd, 4^th, and 6^th lines of the verses as well. I mean, c’mon! I can’t leave it like it is.

It’s a Mouse World After All

lyrics by Headley Hauser

music by A. Vicious Sadist

Sure you know Snow White

And the crick-et-that-can-sing

Ariel in shells

Bambi and the-Li-on-King

Just a wish on a star?

No, we-own-much-more-by-far

It’s a mouse world after all

It’s a mouse world

After all (Disney over all)

It’s a mouse world

After all (This globe is just our ball)

It’s a mouse world

After all (To approach us you must crawl)

It’s our own mouse world

 

Eleven theme parks

A-long-with-for-ty-three-re-sorts

Stores in every mall

You look great-in-Don-ald’s-shorts

Disney Cruz on the waves (Snap!)

(Avast ye) Move-those-oars-you-slaves!

It’s a mouse world after all

It’s a mouse world

After all (Goofy sure is tall)

It’s a mouse world

After all (Buy him at the mall)

It’s a mouse world

After all (Check out our princess wall)

It’s our own mouse world

 

E- -S-P-N

Disney Channel, A&E

Disney Med-i-a

Not to-men-tion ABC

Fine-art as well it seems

Put a mouse on Munch's Scream

It’s a mouse world after all

It’s a mouse world

After all (Zippity-do-da-dall)

It’s a mouse world

After all (In black Southern Drawl)

It’s a mouse world

After all (It’s not racist, Y’all)

It’s our own mouse world

Disney Publishing

And yes we own Marvel

Hyper-i-on

Just a start, but ain’t it swell

On Broadway and on Ice

Hey, you better say it’s nice

(‘Cause) it’s a mouse world after all

It’s a mouse world

After All (We will make the call)

It’s a mouse world

After All (Fight us? – you will fall)

It’s a mouse world

After All (Don’t you love our gall?)

It’s our own mouse world

We enslaved Pixar

‘Cause all we write is crap

Absorbed P. Domain

All across the map

Don’t you dare infringe our rights

Yes! Our lawyers love those fights

It’s our mouse world OVER all.

WWWD