Tender Vitals

Tender Vitals

by Headley Hauser

"Look!" said Dander. "There it is again. They named a candy after you, Skittles!"

Skittles pouted. "It's not named for me. There are lots of fairies named Skittles."

"But not near this Seven Eleven! Look, some of the candies are green like your eyes, some of them are yellow like your teeth, and some of them are red like the color your cheeks get when you're angry."

"Stay back in the flower bed!" scolded Skittles. "A human will see you - or worse, a cat!"

Dander gave a little jump at the mention of the C word. There were a lot more of them now, and they weren't staying in houses and getting fed small cans of meat and meat byproducts; they were out hunting for birds, rodents... and fairies!

"A-ha!" laughed Skittles, "worried about your tender vitals, I see."

"The humans never should have named their cat food that. The cans turn every content calico into a fairy hunter."

"The humans named the cat food Vittles," said Skittles.

"Close enough!"

"And they don't think cats can read, or even understand their language."

"They don't think cats can read," said Dander. "They don't think cats can turn door knobs, or drive an SUV, or load and fire an M16. Humans aren't very bright."

"Most cats prefer Uzis. They're easier to carry."

"It's not like the old days when we twitched our wings and flew out of the cat’s reach."

Skittles bobbed her antennae. "It's hard to out-jump a nine millimeter bullet traveling at four hundred meters per second."

"I'll give the humans one thing," said Dander, "Their veterinarians help slow the rate of fairy-folk genocide."

"Yeah,” said Skittles. “They get those cats right in the bob-o-links.” Like most fairies, Skittles chose her euphemisms from among the names of small flowers and birds.

"Shush," said Dander in a whisper. "There's a tabby at five o'clock."

"What's she packing?"

"It looks like a Kalashnikov."

The two fairies hid among the marigolds. Marigold scent was unpleasant, but it masked their fairy airy from the hunting feline. The cat must have heard them, or seen movement because she was staring at the marigolds. Three banana clips hung from the cat's collar, and she wore a small medal with the word, "Neverland" inscribed at the top. This was no casual Sylvester, but seasoned campaigner. A lot of Tink's best fairies bought it in the catastrophe of '07.

A mole scampered across the path, catching the cat's attention. The calico released the Russian-made automatic weapon's safety and followed after the small rodent.

"You know," said Dander after the danger had passed, "maybe we fairy-folk should consider a new career as house pets."

"Like the canaries? You want to live in a cage?"

"We could avoid cages by using a litter box, and making ourselves useful. We could help them find their house keys after the imps steal them. They might even feed us Skittles!"

"Very funny," said Skittles, "but count me out. Humans claim to love their pets but how is it that the world is filled with homeless cats? Remember what happened to Charlotte’s 4H friend, the pig. Instead of feeding us sweets, the humans are more likely to feed our Tender Vitals to their cats."

“You’re right,” said Dander. “We should stick to fairy stuff. You go paint a water stain of the Virgin Mary on that Seven Eleven, and I’ll grab the candy while the humans are staring at it.”

The moments before that cats landed in Neverland 2007.

Dirk Destroyer part 3 Chapter One part 2

If you're just tuning in - or whatever it's called in a blog, this is the third installment of a serialization of Dirk Destroyer's Less Destructive Brother.  You can go back to last week (or even the week before) and figure out what's going on - or not.

The trouble got more serious a century later when Uriculous Wisehind (now known as Uriculous the Great) became the head archivist, high priest, and translator of the Thirty-Seven Really Good Ideas.

If you’re following my story, you may have figured out (especially if you’re Phasian and good at math) that we were down to just one idea – Number Thirty-Five. Now, in my early centuries I didn’t pay much attention to Idea Thirty-Five. Dirk thought Idea Thirty-Five was meant to be a joke and even told Uriculous Wisehind that he thought the entire Thirty-Seven Really Good Ideas began as a put-on. When a high priest of the Thirty-Seven Really Good Ideas is down to only one good idea, he’s usually not inclined to pass it off, but it did sound like… Well, you decide.

Idea Number Thirty-Five: Thou shalt not bugger the sheep.

Having the authority of translation, Uriculous Wisehind decided that the one remaining Really Good Idea had been garbled over time. He proclaimed that the true form of Idea Number Thirty-Five was (and now would be again); Thou shalt not bug the sheep.

The wool industry took a big hit that day. International Mutton had a convenient fire and collected a very lucrative insurance settlement that set the owners (but not the workers) up for life. Uriculous Wisehind, whose father sat on the board of Cotton and Linen Inc., made no apology to the thousands of displaced shepherds, spinners, weavers, and cleavers. “A translator’s job,” said Uriculous “is to find the truth and not worry about the economic implications.” Wisehind found his truth accompanied by three bags full of donations from Big Cattle, Big Fish, and Big Chicken.

Dirk figured that Big Pig must have stiffed Wisehind because there was talk of further translating Thirty-Five: Thou shalt not bug the sheep or the swine. People of any given generation will tolerate only so much revisionist translation. Wisehind wasn’t known for his discretion, but even he knew that people deprived of their morning bacon could get ugly. There was also pressure from politicians who were inordinately fond of their pork. Industrial animosity could possibly have been avoided by changing the imperative to, Thou shalt not pork the sheep, but the suggestion was vetoed, and The Idea remained: Thou shalt not bug the sheep.

Dirk didn’t like the new translation. For one thing, Idea Thirty-Five had always been (and “always” was starting to mean something for Dirk and me) his favorite idea to quote out loud at solemn occasions.

“Wise-hiney’s translation is no fun,” he told me.

“Maybe if you said it in a funny voice.”

“Tried it – it’s just not the same.”

Complications arose when the sheep wised up – at least as much as sheep can – sheep aren’t that bright. After a few years of human deference, sheep realized that the shepherd’s crook was in the other… appendage, and they got downright haughty.

“Who would have thought sheep could be so arrogant?” I asked Dirk.

“What kind of people do arrogant best,” he answered, “intelligent, or stupid?”

“Good point.”

Farmers started losing their homes by mistakenly leaving their doors open near sheep. The wooly beasts just flocked to open doors and helped themselves to whatever they found inside – grain, wine, lingerie. Women’s unmentionables became the preferred headgear for sheep planet-wide. Efforts to remove the invaders were met with stiff punishment by the Ministry Of Innocent Sheep Toleration (MOIST), a suddenly well-funded police organization with license to maim anyone who so much as giggled at a lamb with panties on its head. MOIST organized massive wolf hunts, and the lupine species was nearly eliminated. Those that survived remained in hiding, except during political conventions, when ravenous packs descended from the hills and tore apart the more obnoxious politicians to the cheers of a grateful public.

Dirk never worried about giving offence to man or ram. When he felt like laughing, he laughed, but in spite of MOIST’s efforts, he proved very difficult to maim. He took to roaming the country-side dressed in wool, wielding a shepherd’s crook and a pair of clippers. Of course, he had to wander the country-side because the sheep, seeking a better grade of both liquor and ladies’ unmentionables, had over-run many cities. Phasian cities were spared. The mathematically gifted inhabitants simply fenced off all urban areas where there were no sheep.

Dirk was making himself a menace, poking wooly behinds with his stick and teaching impressionable children to laugh when they heard the sound, “Baah.”

So MOIST and Dirk began a war. Dirk played pranks on MOIST, like sewing wool linings into their coats when they weren’t looking. (Dirk is a really fast sewer. It’s nothing magical, just a skill he picked up.) MOIST unsuccessfully but continually attempted to sever Dirk’s arms, legs, fingers, toes, and… Anyway, I tried to stay clear of it. Unlike my brother, I’ve never been one to make waves, but I could tell that all the conflict was wearing on Dirk. Then the ancient and venerable high priest (and honorary head of MOIST) Uriculous Wisehind made this prophesy on his deathbed.

There will come a man after me who will bring light to Planet Two. He will cast the Destroyer into oblivion for all time. You will know him by the light he brings. Flames will sprout from his fingers. Watch and follow the Light Bringer!

Sure enough, days, weeks, or years (when you live this long, you lose sense of time) after Uriculous’s death a Light Bringer arose. His name was Luxcurious Bidden. He had a great quantity of lovely flowing locks of hair, neatly trimmed, shampooed, highlighted, and stapled to his otherwise bald head. As the high priest/prophet predicted, flames, or rather a flame, two inches long sprang from his fingers – well, finger – his index finger to be exact, which he pointed continuously at Dirk, making confusing allegations.

I was relieved. I had feared what a Light Bringer might do to Dirk, but Luxcurious was obviously not a threat. Most of his accusations were garbled or downright inaccurate, and I just laughed in spite of the significantly vexed expression on my brother’s face. Finally Luxcurious said, “I think I have the highest IQ in this room,” in spite of the fact that we were outside at the time. I don’t know if it was the absurdity of his remark or what, but suddenly Dirk was seized into the air, spun several times, and disappeared.

There was much celebrating after that. Luxcurious was awarded several very expensive hair pieces by a grateful MOIST, and I might have been the only one to mourn Dirk’s passing into oblivion.

Then a couple hundred years later, there he was – my brother, in a new wool worsted coat and wool fedora, brandishing a new shepherd’s crook.

“Hey, Elmer,” he said.

He produced from his coat what he insisted were not magical shears, though when he pushed a button the shears made a buzzing sound and the blades clashed together repeatedly without any effort on Dirk’s part. Dirk brought his bellow, and I got out my scratchwing. The music of Fassentinker once again filled the air of Planet Two. A sheep came by to spoil the party, and Dirk used his non-magical shears to shave a creditable likeness of Uriculous on the animal’s behind. We had a fine few days together before a new Light Bringer showed up.

This Light Bringer was Lik’emall Busch. Lik’emall almost didn’t defeat Dirk. He seemed more interested in starting a land war in Phasia, but eventually a few of his aides put up a sign behind him that said, “Mission Accomplished,” and there went my brother back into oblivion.

I worried less this time, and sure enough, I saw Dirk a couple of centuries later. We had a nice couple of days until another Light Bringer – always with the initials LB – cast him back into oblivion.

It got pretty predictable. Sometimes my brother found me first; sometimes the Light Bringer did. Sometimes the LB tried to recruit me to the great cause. Sometimes he/she/it (I wasn’t sure with two of them) tried to cast me out first – either as a practice run, or maybe they were afraid I would team up with my destructive brother. I remained oblivion-free.

I always had mixed feelings about seeing a Light Bringer. I was happy because it meant I would be seeing Dirk soon, but by and large Light Bringers (and their MOIST hangers-on) were tedious people.

There was one exception. Lenny Bruise Light Bringer was alright. Dirk did his old trick of poking a cigar into the Light Bringer’s flame, only this time, he poked three cigars. He kept one himself, gave one to me, and the third to Lenny Bruise. They were funny smelling cigars. We all got to laughing after a while and my brother and Lenny started exchanging the foulest insults imaginable. I don’t think the MOIST officials appreciated Lenny Bruise’s methods, though one woman leaned in a bit where she could inhale the funny smelling smoke, and I think she started getting into it.

“I really gotta cast you out you…” I’ll spare you what Lenny called my brother.

“I could use a pizza anyway,” said Dirk.

None of us knew what a pizza was, but Lenny said, “Then go get one you dumb-f__k.”

There must have been power in that incantation, because my brother disappeared.

Lenny and I got together to smoke cigars a few times before he died. It was never the same. Dirk was missing – along with those strange cigars of his. Just the same, Lenny was one of the few of the millions I’ve seen die that I actually mourned.

It was just like Dirk to shake things up. Just when I got used to this into-oblivion-then-back routine, everything changed. I don’t know if I could say that I knew it was coming. I’ve always been cautious about saying I knew something ahead of time, but I could smell something in the air which was getting to be a challenge on a world with so many sheep.

It started on a day I went to get cigars and met the minions of the last Light Bringer, Lustavious Brachenhun.

I never liked that guy.

There! That's the end of Chapter One, so naturally the next installment will be Chapter 1.

What? Should 1 go before One?

As I mentioned in a previous post, this story is a satire. Any similarity between characters in this story and actual persons living or dead may or may not be intentional based on two factors

1) If it makes it funnier, then yes.

2) If it makes me get sued, then no.

   Unfortunately, no one on Planet Two knew the secret password.

Notes for the End of the World

I'm grateful to my friend Joe T. for making me aware that the world ended on October 7th. Otherwise I would have missed it. It didn't go as planned but I'm confident that the disappointed apocalypt (my new word for the rapidly growing profession of prophets who predict the end of the world,) is hard at work realigning his (it always seems to be guys that do this,) stars, bible verses, chicken bones. Any day now he'll announce that his calculations were only slightly off. The world will ACTUALLY end in the relatively near future - whenever he's best able to re-fleece his followers who give outrageously to the apocalypt as if there's no tomorrow.

After all, you can't spell prophet without profit... wait, okay, you can, but who’s going to remember that when the earth turns into a ball of molten lava, or falls off the great turtle's back because one of the four elephants farted.

Fall off the turtle's back? Don't ask me, my muse of the day is Hindu.

It occurred to me that there's got to be a companion industry to apocalyptancy (like that one?) I've started offering prepper check lists for you future crispy critters. Apocapreps is what we like to call ourselves, or at least it will be when I find someone else who A) wants to create prepper check lists, and 2) wants to be called an apocaprep.

After all, we have to work this out now. Creating a prep list after the earth has dropped into a black hole may be problematic. Here's a sampling of some of the fine prep ideas you can purchase from me for only half of all your earthly goods (the valuable half, please. I don't want your hoarded ramen noodles.)

For those who think the world will end in a fiery inferno

1) Check your local Walgreens for SPF 20 trillion sun screen.

2) Enjoy a s'mores apocalypse by packing plenty of graham crackers, Hershey bars, and marshmallows in your cargo pants.

3) Remember, light colors reflect the heat, dark colors absorb it.

For those who believe the world will end by cessation of the earth spinning

1) Join a gym and take spinning classes, but (here's the key,) spin in the opposite direction to the earth's rotation. This will acclimate you (assuming you can spin at 1040 miles/hr.)

2) Make friends with a spinning guru like... the Tasmanian Devil.

What's that? He's only animated; he doesn't have a body? Yeah, you might want to learn that trick too.

3) Economy sized Dramamine.

For those who think the galaxy is only a complex molecule in a doggie treat that as we speak is being fed to a surprisingly large beagle. (These are my kind of folks!)

1) Be kind to every beagle you meet.

2) Politely apologize to the doggie treats next time you visit your local Safeway.

3) Stop reading Douglas Adams.

For those who believe all human-kind will be over-run by zombies.

1) Reduce the flavorishisness of your brains by regularly reading Just Plain Stupid (that's what you're currently reading for the more prepped among you,) and other works by Headley Hauser!

2) Buy my novella downloads - then buy them again, especially if you don't have a reading device. Compared to your neighbor's brains, yours will smell like hospital food.

3) Maybe not brushing your teeth might help.

For those who think a black hole will swallow the earth and crush us all with gravity so powerful it swallows light.

1) Practice up by sleeping one night a week in your aspirin bottle.

2) Buy a really sturdy night-light.

3) Get more great tips from those fabulous Star Trek spin-offs. Those guys went in and out of a black hole like it was the corner deli.

For those that worry the earth will fall off the great turtle's shell when the elephant farts...

1) Maybe growing more arms might help.

2) Eat more chicken?

3) Sorry - I got nothin'. My Hindu muse just left for Chick-Fil-A.

Finally, I would like to try my hand at being an apocalypt and make a prediction. AFTER THE 7 BILLIONTH FAILED APOCALYPTIC PROFITSEE, (sorry) PROPHESY, (and we've got to be more than halfway there already,) THE WORLD WILL CONTINUE SPINNING, BUT APOCALYPTS WILL CEASE PREDICTING DOOM AND GLOOM!

Unfortunately, like all other apocalyptic prophesies, mine won't come true either.

I hope this has been helpful to you, (almost as much as I hope to find a way to make as much money being and apocaprepper, as those apocalypts are raking in.)

   Here's that spinning guru.

Dirk Destroyer second post Chapter One part one

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?

The Scary Month

   October is considered horror-oriented because it is the home of Halloween. Fair enough, but Halloween is just the coup-de-grace of the month of terror.
   October is a prime month for hurricanes. Sometimes the late ones are the worst - just ask the people of South Carolina today.

   It's also a bad month for money. The stock market crash of 1929 was in October - as were smaller crashes in 1987, 1989, 1997, 2002, 2007 and the big scare of 2008. (Thank you Wiki!)

   Every even-numbered year, October is the month when political goblins fill our entertainment programming with political ads, and our voice mail with robo-calls.

   I mean even the trees are freaked about this month.

   Shudder. (That was meant to indicate that I was shuddering, and not to demand or imply that you should shudder - unless you're so inclined.)

   As a service of Just Plain Stupid, I would love to offer you reassurance and comfort as we dive into the second week of this most perilous of months.

   Really I’d love to...

   But I'm too freakin' scared.

   So instead, I offer these frightening images that my so-called friends on FB have posted in an effort to rob me of sleep and create inconvenient (and unpleasant to name,) digestive disorders.

   Misery (and terror) loves company.

   Sure we have to worry about aliens

   Monsters

   And the specter of death

   But even things that SEEM safe are dangerous.

   Like food

   Chewing gum

   Even your couch!

   Some dangers look cuddly

   Some are nostalgic

   Some even threaten Star Wars characters

   Maybe the best thing to do is breath deeply - maybe take a walk in the woods.

   Maybe not.

   Warning:  Those who went to Catholic school may find this video too intense.

Dirk Destroyer's Less Destructive Brother part One Stuff Not To Read

This is the first installment of many in the serializations of Dirk Destroyer's Less Destructive Brother, the third book in my Genre series - the Satire. Like both of the genre books that preceded it, Dirk Destroyer begins with...

Stuff Not To Read

Author’s Note

This is a work of satire.

Whatever else you might think of this story, keep this in your mind – this is a work of satire.

Satire – keep that in mind.

Do I care about satire? Do I have an appreciation of the importance of satire in the maelstrom of political movements since ancient Greece? Could I even give you a good definition of satire?

No.

So why, you might ask, and if you did, I might listen, am I writing a satire story, and secondarily, why am I going to such pains to make certain you know that the story is satire – which it is, by the way – no doubt about it.

Lawyers.

Some of you have nodded your heads and understood completely, but as you are also the people who will go on and choose a better novel from your local online (local online?) bookstore, I will explain myself for the dim bulbs who are more likely to buy one of my books.

(Oh, but you’re such cute dim bulbs. Remember, romantic dinners and really good naps rarely occur under 250 watt floodlights.)

For some reason, and don’t ask because I don’t understand it myself, the litigious community of gold-digging law professionals have chosen one category of expression to be the alle-alle-in-come-free from the plague of litigious abuse that they have rained down on this country since the apple tree sued George Washington. Those of you paying attention may have already guessed that the holy safe ghouls I speak of is satire.

You can say ANYTHING about ANYBODY in satirical form and get away with it! All you have to do is change one letter of their name, or exaggerate one feature on their image, pretend to make some vague political point, and you are home free.

So what is my political point?

Can I pretend I didn’t hear that question?

No? All right, for the moment, my political point is that most political points are stupid, and that most politicians are ugly doo-doo dumb-heads.

If that doesn’t work, I’ll figure something out by the end of the story.

Editor’s Note

Customarily, an editor/publisher sends out advanced copies of a new book to prominent citizens in hopes of getting cover blub (I laughed, I cried, I couldn’t put it down… God (heaven.)) Their highest hope is to find someone who will write a prestigious foreword for the book.

We got plenty of feedback when we sent out Dirk Destroyer’s Less Destructive Brother, unfortunately, we didn’t get permission to use any of it for cover blurb. We’ve decided to include some of these comments here, but in order to hide the commentator’s identity (and to avoid law suits,) we will only use each person’s initials and location:

“Dithspicable…”

Sen. J.M. (Washington, D.C.)

“I’d tell you what I think, but it wouldn’t be prudent…”

fmr Pres. G.H.W.B. (Kennebunkport, ME)

“I’m just glad a Democrat didn’t write it…”

fmr Pres. J.C. (Planes, GA)

“I didn’t get it…”

VP J.B. (Washington, D.C.)

“Somebody ask Frank what he did with my bell book and candle.”

H.H. B. XVI (retired) (Vatican, Rome)

“It made me want to be a Muslim so I could declare Jihad…”

Rev. B.G. (Montreat, NC)

“I don’t have that job anymore. I don’t have to read stuff…”

fmr Pres. G.W.B. (lost somewhere)

“It’s just what I was talking about when I said the west was doomed…”

(the ghost of) O.B.L. (hell)

“Not enough chicks…”

fmr Pres. B.C. (Hooters)

So you can see our problem. As a result, we have turned (as we have done before,) to a fictional character to write our foreword. In spite of the fact that fictional characters are technically incapable of refusing to do anything, a number changed their phone numbers, and twitter accounts long enough for us to settle on Ralph, better known as Slime Monster, from the not quite so bad Headley Hauser novella, Volition Man, Defender of Pollyville and Surrounding Towns.

Foreword

Hello? Can you read me?

Hello, my name is Ralph, though to be accurate, my name at the time of mitosis was Canaramma Meat-Flavored La…

Maybe it’s not such a good idea to write out my original name in case you’re reading this aloud, as it will send one of us careening across the galaxy, and as I am fictional and gelatinous, I am more likely to go careening than you are.

Other than the Declaration of Independence, I have not read any earth literature before, and I feel confident in saying that if you have read the Declaration of Independence, you will find Dirk Destroyer’s Less Destructive Brother different on many points. For one thing, all of the s’s are not shaped like f’s.

I found that ufeful.

So that’s the positive points to the story.

I noticed that no humans in this story go to the bathroom. The rat-bird and the sheep quite properly defecate regularly, but the humans go through their busy adventures without pausing to purge. People clean themselves either through water-flow, or the use of physics, but elimination of waste products (with the exception of one reference to a doodie centuries before) does not occur. I must tell you that from my limited understanding of human anatomy, this is very unhealthful. Please humans, eliminate your waste products! Were I back on earth, knowing what I know now, I would create one of those public service announcements. It is not gold – do not hoard it!

Ah, regrets.

There is nothing else of note that I gleaned from this story.

Respectfully – Ralph

Author’s Second Note

In times past, Go Figure Reads has intentionally sabotaged my efforts with faint praise, and unhelpful forewords.

Sigh, this time, I have to agree.

Worst Novel Ever?

You decide.

Next Friday we start the story - or Stuff to Read. If you forgot to download the first two books in the series when it was free this week, Amazon will be happy to accept two hundred and ninety-nine pennies (or digitally electrical facsimiles thereof,) to download each now.  Volition Man  Trouble in Taos

And now, the video.