Just as there are people alive today who can’t name
the Queen of England, there are a significant number of people today
who have no idea who Lucille Ball was.
I wish I was one of them.
I never got it – in any of its forms, I
Love Lucy, The Lucy
Show, Here’s Lucy –
they were all a study in bad comedy writing – just waiting for the
big redhead to cry at the end.
I Love Lucy was the best of the three because Fred was
actually funny, though William Frawley was funnier on My Three Sons,
where they bothered to write real scripts. Sometimes Ricky was funny
too, but I’m not sure it his humor was always intentional.
Even so, each episode involved a hair-brained plot
by Lucy to do something without Ricky knowing. Ethel always had her
doubts, but went along with the scheme. Things went predictably bad,
and Ricky would eventually say, “Lucy, you’ve got some ‘splaining
to do.” (Usually followed by the biggest laugh in that episode’s
laugh track.)
Then the big finish with Lucy crying.
By the time her third show, Here’s
Lucy, came around – they’d lost all the
funny elements of I Love Lucy
and depended on guest stars to prop up the ratings. For some reason,
she could always get A-list people.
It was like some comic con-game.
One thing I noticed about each of the series was that
the intros and closings were always instrumentals. I think that's a little odd, so I’ve written words to go with each theme.
I Love Lucy theme
Lucy’s
bawling out Wah Wah-wha
Sound
track laughs out Ha Ha-ha
While
Ricky’s congas go Bom Ba-bah
And
that
Is
all there is
To
Amer-i-ca’s-Num-ber-One show!
The Lucy Show theme
Lucy,
Lucy, Lucy Show
Why
we, watch it, I don’t know
Grandpa
controls the clicker
He
says she is a honey
Even
though
She’s
not funny
Oh
yes we know
She’s
not funny!
Here’s Lucy theme
Here’s
Lucy
Isn’t
it strange?
We
watch it
Are
we deranged?
Lame
set up and then a gaff
Is
that enough to make us laugh?
Sorry
– I can’t continue.
From the mid-fifties to the end of her life, Lucille
Ball was hailed as the Queen of Comedy. It makes me wonder what
Gracie Allen,
Lily Tomlin,
Gilda Radner,
Carol Burnett
and Madeline Kahn
thought when they heard that.
Not to mention our laugh-a-minute Queen Elizabeth.
Who sent us a special greeting yesterday for July 4.
Things are
moving towards a conclusion in Dirk Destroyer’s Less Destructive
Brother. May I point out that unlike James Patterson, I have not
employed a hard-working patsy to do my writing for me. That may be
because no self-respecting patsy (if there is such a thing,) would
work for a novelist that makes considerably less than your average
drone for each entirely original, non-James Patterson-inspired story
he writes.
Full
disclosure: I may have used a few (26 to be exact,) letters that I
have seen in the one eighth of a James Patterson novel I’ve read
(before becoming too depressed to continue.)
Maybe a few
numbers as well.
Chapter 21
There Shall Be Showers of Fish Sticks
Swampy was the first member of the party I found, or more likely,
Swampy found me. He landed on my shoulder and defecated. I didn’t
mind, I just focused the feces to fall to off my shirt and onto the
ground. It was a handy skill to have with Swampy around.
“Hungry,” said Swampy. “Need a fish stick?”
“A fish stick?” I had no idea where Swampy had run into fish
sticks before. Maybe they had them at the ministry. I walked over
to the stream that Tease had reshaped to create his shower. There
were fish swimming at the base of Tease’s manufactured waterfall,
probably trying to figure out how to get back upstream.
“There are your fish, Swampy. They couldn’t be much easier to
catch.”
Swampy hopped off my shoulder and was about to hunt when his head
turned suddenly. “Fish stick,” he croaked, and flew off.
Even after all this time Swampy did stuff that made no sense to me.
I continued my search for Ono, and as I entered a clearing, I saw her
sitting with Mage-e-not. Ono had a stick levitated in the air, and
Mage-e-not was concentrating on it. Half his head was phasing in and
out of visibility.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
The stick poked Mage-e-not in the nose, then spun off into the
bushes. “Oh no,” said Ono, “poke and pick.”
Mage-e-not rubbed his nose. “What we’re doing,” he said to me,
“is trying to get some food.”
“I’ll go make some algae bars,” I offered.
“Real food,” said Mage-e-not.
“From a stick?”
“Well it makes as much sense as a guy whose head disappears, a
woman who makes things float, and a big jerk who sets his finger on
fire being able to cast the planet’s greatest villain, and his
algae-dealing brother into oblivion for ever.”
“You have a point.”
“No offense,” said Mage-e-not.
“Of course not.”
“We shuffle powers,” said Ono, “zing, whish, whoosh
symbiotically.”
I nodded wisely as if I had any idea what sympytockicly meant.
“Do I smell fish sticks?” asked Akwar.
We all froze until she went away. Several seconds after she
disappeared, Mage-e-not whispered, “That’s what we were trying to
make, fish sticks.”
A number of things popped into my mind. First, I thought – that’s
why Swampy was acting so strangely. Second, I thought – how can we
stop Akwar from popping in on us like that – but I imagined that I
was hearing her voice again in the bushes, so I stopped thinking
that. Thirdly, I thought – what would ever lead Mage-e-not and Ono
to believe their powers combined might turn regular sticks into fish
sticks. I didn’t express this third thought because I was afraid
that it was something obvious that I was missing, and I didn’t want
to look stupid in front of Ono. Fourthly, I thought – I’ve been
standing here for a while without saying anything, and they are both
staring at me expecting me to say something, so I better say
something fast. Fifthly, I thought – I can’t think of anything
to say that sounds halfway intelligent. Sixthly, I thought – Maybe
I can do that thing the monks do and trust that if I relax and open
my mouth, truth will flow.
“Gum is sticky,” I said.
“I can’t argue with that,” said Mage-e-not.
Eighthly, I thought, (after cursing myself seventhly) – I have to
remember that that trick only works with monks.
“I’m glad that monks came up,” I said, belatedly realizing that
it had only come up in my inner monologue, “because I want to talk
to you two about Phasia.”
“Big place,” said Mage-e-not.
“Zim, zing math,” said Ono.
For not the first time I considered how Ono’s sound words were not
always a clear indication of what she wanted to communicate. “Do
you like math, Ono?” I asked.
She nodded noncommittally.
“That’s good,” I said with more enthusiasm than I felt. “I’ve
talked to Dirk, as you know, and I have good news and bad news.”
I’m not sure what either of them said, because for a few seconds my
hearing, my field of vision, my sense of touch and even my taste buds
broadcast the color red to me. I couldn’t believe I had said that
I had good news and bad news. I tried to imagine the things I would
rather have said to Ono. Phrases like, ‘I’m sexually unable to
please a woman,’ came to mind. I couldn’t stand the old, ‘I
have good news and bad news’ line. As far as I was concerned, the
bad news was that I would have to go through with this stupid pattern
of insincere exposition, and the good news was that I would die
eventually – hopefully.
And why was it that while my sight, taste, hearing and touch was all
red, that my nose was smelling fish sticks?
They were looking at me again. It was my turn to speak, and I had
already used my, ‘gum is sticky,’ line. Best to say it straight
out.
“The bad news is that I’ll be banished to the land of So-Ho with
Dirk; the good news is that Phasia is free of the global swarming
threat, so you can go to Phasia with Tease.”
“I fear not,” said Tease, who Akwar-like appeared behind me
“because my order allows only one carry-on when we travel.”
“What’s your carry-on?” asked Mage-e-not.
From beneath his robes, Tease produced his loofah, which made Ono
blush, and me to feel strangely inadequate.
“But Tease,” I said, “they have to go with you. You and Swampy
are all that stand between Ono and Lustavious’ non-fraternal
intentions.”
“Even so,” said Tease.
Ono looked me in the eyes. They were sad, beautiful eyes. They made
me feel like going swimming. I don’t know why. “You want me to
go with him?” she asked without a single sound word.
“I can’t take you with me,” I said. “Dirk tells me that the
trip would kill you or that you would at least lose half your nose.
This continent is doomed, and this is the only way to save you.”
“Is the continent doomed?” Mage-e-not asked Tease.
“Yes,” said Tease.
“What’s the idea of keeping it a secret?”
“I wasn’t keeping it a secret. You didn’t ask me until just
now.”
“I can’t argue with that,” said Mage-e-not.
“Lip Ton Tease,” said Ono, “if I we sizzle for Showr Rinn, we
shuffle to Phasia?”
“If you can prove your usefulness? yes, the masters would consent.”
“What about,” said Mage-e-not, “if Ono and I can create fish
sticks out of regular sticks?”
“With or without tartar sauce?”
“We haven’t worked on tartar sauce yet.”
“Talk to me when you have.”
“Naught ought,” said Ono. “Mingle at tinkle creek.”
“I hope she means the brook,” said Mage-e-not.
We stepped over to the brook. Ono raised her hands and said,
“sprinkle ups-a-daisy.”
Water rose up out of the brook and began showering down – mostly on
Tease, but like most of Ono’s spells, not everything went where it
was meant to. A bit of moss attached itself to her face, giving her
a distinguished looking mustache. A small fish landed in
Mage-e-not’s hand. He stared at it intently.
“Be a fish stick,” he said, and his head disappeared.
The fish looked resentfully at where Mage-e-not’s face should have
been, wiggled out of his hand, and flopped its way back to the brook.
Water sparkled on Tease’s brow as he loofah’d his head
vigorously. “Your ability,” he said to Ono, “is a truly useful
talent. Can you tolerate being around hundreds of naked men?”
“Mutter, shrug,” said Ono.
“Then you may come to Phasia.”
“What about me?” asked Mage-e-not.
“What talent do you have?”
Mage-e-not’s head blinked back and forth between visible and
invisible.
“I am sorry,” said Tease. “I would not be permitted to bring
you.”
“Neigh,” said Ono. “Mage-e-not whoosh as carry-on.”
“What about Swampy?” I asked.
“Swampy has always been welcome,” said Tease. “Wise birds are
honored in my order.”
“There are more birds like Swampy?”
“No,” said Tease as if he completed a masterful poem.
I searched folk tune on YouTube and got this. Pretty, but they should enunciate better. I couldn't understand a word.
Art is stranger than fiction. I can't say that's definitely true, but this is an election year so truth doesn't matter as long as it sounds good. And art is art whether it sounds good or not.
Or even looks good
Yes, art can be creepy
Maybe freaky
And full of mixed messages
And not just flat art. 3-D art describes life in few words.
lovely
Relaxing
refreshing
playful
Hip
Sometimes Art's just a matter of perspective.
I wouldn't walk under that bird.
Or near this tree
Or into this giant baby?
Sometimes I think our artistic sanity is hanging by a thread.
Dirk Destroyer, yada yada, Another post, yada yada. Read responsibly, yada yada.
Chapter 20
Knowing It
We didn’t play any music that night. We spent most of the night
talking about jousting, until the dawn was just beginning to break.
“So anyway,” said Dirk, “I haven’t been all that
straightforward with you for the last… oh say, five thousand
years.”
“Oh,” I said.
“It’s this whole thing about oblivion. I haven’t been going
there. Well, that’s not true; I went there the first time, just to
see how it was. I didn’t like it much.”
I wanted to say something like, “I knew it!” or even, “I
suspected as much,” but I didn’t like to lie to my brother when I
had actually been clueless.
“So they don’t have cigars in oblivion,” I asked.
“Not as far as I could tell, no.”
“That was probably a good choice then,” I said. “Is there any
reason you didn’t tell me before?”
“Yeah,” said Dirk. “You have this habit of obeying authority,
and I figured if a Light Bringer asked you, you might tell them I
haven’t been going there.”
I wanted to be furious. I had been furious with Dirk once a couple
of thousand years earlier. I don’t remember what it was about, but
I do remember that I really enjoyed it at the time. Unfortunately,
Dirk was probably right, so I gave up on the whole furious thing and
asked, “So… where you been?”
“Different places,” he said. “You know the trans-dimensional
dial at the school of amazing stuff is great for traveling.”
“You never mentioned the trans-dimensional dial.”
“Well, it just never came up.”
“So why are you telling me all this now?”
“’Cause Uriculous is right,” he said. “This time they’re
going to cast us both out, and it’ll be forever.”
“I finally have a girlfriend and…”
“I know,” said Dirk. “The timing sucks, but I have a nice
three-bedroom in a place called So-Ho. It’s a pleasant little
neighborhood in a den of iniquity called New York. I think you’ll
like it – at least until you get a place of your own.”
I signed heavily. “I haven’t known Ono that long, but I’ll ask
her if she wants to go to the planet So-Ho, orbiting New York with
me.”
“Sorry Brother,” said Dirk. “She can’t come. We can’t
even bring Swampy. It’s gotta be just you and me.”
“Why?”
“Stuff you wouldn’t understand.”
That was probably true. “Well then,” I said, “this is good-bye
then, Brother. I can’t go with you.”
Dirk shook his head. “You have to.”
“What do you mean, I have to. You aren’t the boss of me!”
“Two.” He motioned to the world around us as if I hadn’t
noticed what planet I was sitting on at the time. “It’s going to
be destroyed – well, most of it, anyway.”
“You’re going to destroy Two?”
“Not me,” he said, “the sheep. It’s called global swarming.”
“I knew it!” and I shouted that much louder than necessary. All
my life, and it was getting to be a pretty long life, I’d wanted to
say, ‘I knew it!’ I’d heard other people say it a million
times – maybe more, and not being able to say it myself starting
getting me down four or five thousand years ago, and it had just
gotten worse with each century.
Of course I could have said, ‘I knew it!’ any damn time I wanted.
I didn’t have any physical restrictions that prevented me from
uttering the words, but I wanted the first time to be special. I
wanted the occasion to mean something like… like I actually knew
what I was shouting, ‘I knew it!’ about.
Did I really know it, or did I just suspect it? I remembered in the
cave with All Bore that I guessed it. Was that the same as knowing?
When do you know it’s right? Was I just cheapening myself by
saying, ‘I knew it!’ when really I only kinda thought it?
You don’t stand up and shout triumphantly, ‘I kinda thought it!’
It’s not the same, and now that I was thinking about it, I felt a
little nauseous, considering that I’d wasted my first time when I
wasn’t really sure.
I felt cheap and used, and I wanted to blame Dirk, though I knew I
only had myself to blame.
Only had myself… I knew it…
No, that didn’t work.
“You might be worried about Ono,” said Dirk.
Oh my goodness! Ono!
“You can’t let the planet swarm with Ono on it!”
“Big Brother,” said Dirk. “You know better than anyone else
that I’m just a guy like everyone else. Sure I learned a few
interesting things in the school of amazing stuff, but nothing to
stop this.
“But there is hope.”
“Hope?” I said as if I’d never heard the word. Dirk knew I’d
heard it. I mean you don’t go living even a couple centuries
without hearing the word, hope.
“Phasia,” he said.
“The big continent with the polite hard-working people who are good
at math?”
“That’s the one,” Dirk confirmed. “Phasia won’t get
swarmed. As a matter of fact, Phasia would be having a sheep
shortage right now if Uriculous allowed any use for the beasts.”
“How, why?” I said, hoping the two answers were sufficiently
related so I wouldn’t have to guess which question he was answering
first.
“A long time ago,” Dirk said, “the Phasians figured out that
putting up fences didn’t bug the sheep. They started putting
fences around their homes, and then around their barns, then around
their villages and fields. Finally Phasia was just full of fenced,
sheep-free areas, and they started connecting them. Most of the
sheep wandered elsewhere.”
“But Ono’s not in Phasia.”
“But you have a Showr Rinn monk with you, right?”
“Yes.”
“They’re from Phasia. I’ll bet he’ll be willing to take Ono
with him.”
“So I’ll go too!”
“I don’t think so, Elmer. How good are you at math? But that
girl of yours looks bright. I bet she could add two and two. If you
ask the monk, he’ll take her back to Phasia.”
“But who will protect her from Lustavious?”
“Who?”
“The Light Bringer.”
“He’s a masher, is he?”
I had no idea what a masher was, and contrary to Dirk’s
implication, I could add two and two, but I was embarrassed that my
obsession over saying, ‘I knew it,’ had distracted me from Ono’s
welfare, so I let both pass. As it turns out, I didn’t need to
worry about letting it pass because Dirk was already moving on.
“So you’re defending her from the Light Bringer?” asked Dirk.
“Well… no,” I said. “But I was planning to, once we figured
out a way to stop them from casting us into oblivion.”
Dirk raised his eyebrow in the way he did when he thought I was being
particularly dense. “You know we can’t stop them from casting us
out,” he said, “and if you haven’t been defending her, who’s
been doing it so far?”
“Swampy mostly,” I said, “and Lip Ton Tease the one time.”
“I’m assuming Tease is your monk,” said Dirk. “It sounds
perfect to me. Once we’re gone, she’ll still have Swampy and
she’ll be off to Phasia with the monk. She doesn’t need you.”
Sometimes Dirk meant to be hurtful; sometimes it just came naturally.
“The important thing,” he said, “is that you hold onto that
scratchwing. You have to hold onto me with one hand, and the
scratchwing with the other.”
“What’s so important about the scratchwing?”
“You wouldn’t understand it.”
“I’m getting tired of hearing that! That’s what you said about
why we couldn’t take Ono!”
Dirk stepped up to me and gave me a man hug. It’s the kind of hug
where you wrap your arms around the other guy as much as you can
without bringing your torsos together. Dirk had very long arms and
like so many things, he was skilled at man hugging. “Ono would
probably die if we tried to bring her,” he said. “You and I are
very durable. That’s why we’ve been around so long.
Trans-dimensional travel is no picnic, Brother. Even if she
survived, she’d probably be missing legs, arms, an eyeball –
maybe half her nose. I don’t think she’d like it.”
I tried to get my brain to think of something to say – something
masterful and creative. As usual, my brain, which is very good about
keeping track of how many cigars I had in my fanny pack – none at
the moment, was not particularly functional when it came to things
that were masterful or creative. “You sure?” was all I could
come up with.
“It’s all for the best, Brother,” said Dirk. “I bet she
likes Phasia. There are lots of showers there.”
“So when does it all happen?”
“The casting out? It’ll happen when Uriculous and the Light
Bringer corner me. In other words, it’ll happen soon. I’ll try
to stay away so you can make arrangements with the monk. When you’re
done, wander off and find me.
“But make sure you have the scratchwing! It’s very important.”
“I understand,” I said, lying because I didn’t understand at
all, but not understanding had been a pretty common occurrence when
my brother was around.
“Alright Buddy,” said Dirk, slapping me on the arm. “It’ll
be good spending time together after all these millennia. I’ll
show you around New York. If you’re good, I’ll even introduce
you to the Stevens twins. I can’t tell them apart, so you can have
whichever one you want.”
“Are they women?” I asked.
He gave me that eyebrow thing again.
And now for no reason other than it's in the news - here's a song we've all heard too often.
Fellow Go Figure Reads writer, Stanley McFarland is working on a
project about hell. He writes on a blog a few times a year, and it’s
usually something long, churchy, and egg-heady. It’s pretty boring
stuff, but feel free to check it out. boring blog
Anyway, Stanley says he’s reworking the concept of hell, and he
asked me what I think of it. I wanted to say that hell was reading
long, churchy, egg-heady blog posts about stuff I don’t understand,
but seeing as he writes for Go Figure Reads, I decided I should be
more helpful.
So here are the top ten ways that I see hell.
1) An eternal presidential campaign.
1a) A campaign where the two major candidates are the worst people I
can think of. Wait! Are we in hell already?
2) Gnats.
3) Endless root canal session with about 50 trillion requests of,
“just a little wider, please,” from my polite demonic dentist.
4) Celine Dion tribute on steel guitars.
5) Being next in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles while the
person at the window refuses to leave until he can vent his complaint
one more time…
6a) I pay to go to France with friends and find I’m the only one in
my group that doesn’t speak French…
6b) And doesn’t understand art…
6c) And doesn’t like wine…
6d) And is allergic to stinky cheese.
7) All Award Shows, All the Time!
8) Lima bean Pop Tarts.
9a) To have that dream again where I’m back in school and I’m not
wearing pants
9b) And find out it’s not a dream.
10) Any given day in Caitlyn Jenner’s life.
Then again, some animated characters don't seem to mind hell.
