ZomBBQ

HIM: Are…Are you all right, Elaine?

HER: Yes, Roger, everything’s fine now. While you were unconscious I talked it over with the zombies, and they’ve agreed to eat you instead of me, because better you than me.

HIM: What! But…I thought you loved me!

HER: And so will they, especially with this zesty dry rub I’ve applied to your breast and thighs.

Minyans

 

While his wife Mary had tactfully pointed out the bigger issues (they were far from home, couldn’t find a hotel room, and her water broke in a barn) it wasn’t until this moment that Joseph began to have second thoughts about hiring that party clown for his son’s birthday.

A Succession of Flesh

A short story. Of flesh. For flesh. And by flesh.

It was the summer they left their homes and families and made the long, perilous journey to...

Why, you may ask? Because they had a dream. A dream of attending the Flesh Villagers' ancient and traditional...

...for five days and four fabulous nights! Double occupancy! All Inclusive! No Tipping!

Well...just the tip.

Note: the Flesh Fiesta is BYON (Bring Your Own Nipples)

And why did dreams of the Flesh Fiesta haunt them so? Because they were...

...and for seekers such as they, there was nothing fleshier. When they arrived, however, they discovered the Flesh Villagers didn't take American Express, so...

Unfortunately...

...which naturally led to hyperinflation and an unfavorable exchange rate, so it cost them like an entire 10-pound bag of liposuctioned fat tissue to buy one lousy Diet Coke.

Join us next week for another exciting chapter of Adventures in Adipose!

By the Wondrous Wands of Watoomb!

HIM: I am Dr. Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts!

HER: Oh, sorry, wrong door. I'm looking for the podiatrist's office.

MAN: He's in Suite 204. (HANDS CRACKLING WITH ELECTRICITY) I call upon the Ruby Rings of Raggadorr to heal this woman’s unsightly Plantar Wart! 

[KRA-KA-THOOM!] 

HER: Oh. Hey, thanks! Do you validate?

I Hate Myself

I thought being an introvert would get me through isolation unscathed, but I dunno now...

I've been talking to myself for days, which is fine. Comforting even.

But yesterday I got in a heated argument with myself, and lost.

I still think I had a good point, but I was an asshole about it and had to apologize to myself. But I wouldn't accept it, and went to bed angry.

Now I'm not speaking to myself.

It's Twue, It's Twue, in Twends For You!

Twitter may have its uses beyond inducing daily panic attacks, but I've yet to discover them. Today I signed on and found this diabolical Trolley Problem waiting for me:

WHAT?!

bye jackie chan??

Is he sick? Did he die? This is terrible! I grew up on Jackie Chan! Idolized him! He's a filmmaking legend! An international treasure! Why? WHY??

Fran Drescher

Huh. You know, I've met Fran. Worked with her even, and she's...definitely one of God's creatures. I mean, if you believe all human life has intrinsic value, then you'd certainly have to concede that hers meets that basic standard. No man is an island, and all that.

#WhichSideAreYouOn

Yeah. Well...It's not exactly Sophie's Choice, is it?

[NOTE: They're both fine as of press time. The Jackie Chan trend is just about some asshole New Yorker being racist to an Asian cop, while Fran has evidently turned into Emma Goldman and is raging against the machine ("Capitalism has become another word for Ruling Class Elite!"). Fight the Power, Nanny.]

Rip Van Wrinkle in Time

Given that its agrarian utility is all but obsolete, why do we still have Daylight Savings Time? Who benefits from it getting dark an hour earlier? I'll tell you who: 

Vampires. 

Which means the U.S. Department of Transportation is in the pocket of Big Undead.

There's only one solution to these crooked politicians, graft-seeking bureaucrats, and the deep-pocketed lobbyists who keep them in power:

Drain the Swamp.

Except then we'd have to deal with Swamp Thing.

Fuck!

Dippity-Do's and Don'ts

So Bill S. asked if I remember this goo, and I do, I Dippity-do. Specifically, I remember my mother wouldn't let me leave the house without dousing my incipient hippie hair in the stuff in an effort to foil the Counterculture with styling gel. I also remember it became very brittle when it dried, so I usually spent the first ten minutes of Third Grade Home Room tapping the top of my head and listening to my hair go "crunch! crunch! crunch!" like I was walking through snow.

This pink slime isn't as ubiquitous as it once was, although I understand the makers have secured a new lease on life by extruding it into Chicken McNuggets.

Random Scenes of Miami

I'm in the Magic City for a few days researching a screenplay (I can't say what it's about other than it involves nefarious activities in the early 90s, when cell phones were the size and weight of paving stones, a cocaine-encrusted upper lip was seen as the natural evolution of the pre-pubescent milk mustache, and by the way did you know one million dollars in hundred dollar bills weighs exactly 11 pounds?)

Anyway, when the cat's away the mice will play, but since our cats refuse to budge I've taken on the rodent responsibilities, and my idea of play is wandering around annoying the natives by snapping photos of things no sane tourist would give a second glance. And now I'm going to share them with you, because it's lonely in this hotel room and the pizza delivery boy is taking so long that by the time he finally arrives I'll be too pooped for the traditional porn scene. So enjoy.

Chicago, O'Hare

Traditional chicken matador and Plus One keeping vigil outside a restaurant.

I can't confirm their slogan, but I can recommend the Roast Pork.

Traditional chicken condemned to salivate at a chocolatier for all eternity.

Unfortunately this ad, while clearly attempting to traffic in nostalgia, makes Cuba sound like an intestinal parasite. But with enough Havana Club, you can at least keep your tapeworm drunk AF.

Traditional chicken guarding the off-brand Dollar Store.

The tomb of Mary B Hecht (1912–1982) who I’m guessing either died without survivors, or worse, hated her family enough to blow their inheritance on a granite Sphinx and a marble pyramid.

I can't tell if this chicken is saying "Welcome!" or "Eh. Salmonella. Whaddya gonna do?"

Um...Okay. I guess the lack of an apostrophe could mean it's not the barbecue equivalent of a Sambo's restaurant, but just another BBQ joint run by avuncular turkeys.

Scenes From a Marriage: Part 12

MARY: (Returning from the grocery store) We're going to have a delicious dinner on Thanksgiving.

SCOTT: I'm looking forward to it.

MARY: And it's a 10 pound turkey so we're gonna have another delicious dinner on, uh ... What do you call the day after Thanksgiving?

SCOTT: I think it's called Kickboxing Day

(PAUSE)

MARY: We'll go with that.

'Wisk Gets Out Ring-Around-The-White-Collar-Crime!

[Stolen from Sheri's Facebook page]:

My recap of the commericals I just watched.

Uber: "Hi, I'm the chairman of Uber. You might have heard that we suck, and we used to suck, but my Dad always taught me not to suck, so now we won't. Give us money."

Facebook: "We used to be about ranking college coeds. And then we were about keeping in touch with friends and other people you like. And then we were about trying to one-up people you tolerate. Then came the click-bait, the fake news, us selling your data to people who used it to influence elections, and us becoming a plague on all humanity. But since we got caught, we are working on returning Facebook back to its true purpose: ranking college coeds."

Days of Pant Past

Hollywood Boulevard at Whitley, 1986

Occasionally I like to look back at my neighborhood, to the days when Fashion was available...at a price. Not at a "discount", oh no, but for a price, and that price was a human life. It's just as well the the joint next door was called "Reflections", because it behooved the prospective shopper to pause and consider: Would you kill for a fashionable pant? Granted, it was the Reagan Administration, and human life was cheap, nevertheless, what profit a man to gain the latest Pant, and lose his immortal soul? But that was the Boulevard in the mid-80s, when many a wide-eyed innocent breezed into the Pant Station, only to emerge a different person. A person who has not only bought a spectacularly fashionable Stretch-Stirrup or Parachute Pant, but has also faced the fact that -- like John Huston in Chinatown -- at the right time and the right place, they're capable of anything.

You Say You Want a New Year's Resolution...

Well, too damn bad. I'm done with "resolutions". I'm great at making resolutions, I just suck at keeping them. So this year, I'm doing something different. I'm making a list.

I'm calling it a "bucket list" but it's not the kind you make when you are thinking of the end of your life. I'm thinking about the how I want 2018 to end.

My list isn't going to be grandiose. It won't be life changing. It will be small. I can add to it anytime I want. It will be positive. It won't put me on any hit lists. Most importantly, it will be easy to do.

Once I put something on this list, it won't go away. It will still be there until I can check it off. Kind of like a grocery list. And like a grocery list, it's not going to be long. I'll add things that I think of that will be necessary to making 2018 a bit better than 2017. But that's it. Unlike a grocery list, you will never ever find the word "kale" on it.

If you're looking for amazing goals like "running a marathon", then you better move on. This will be the most boring bucket list in the history of bucket lists.
Here we go:

• Clean the kitchen.
• Clean the dining room table.
• Clean my desk.
• Finish reading "Warlock Holmes" by GS Denning
• Send my resume to local, neighborhood Catholic Schools, whether they want it or not.

And one more that I can easily put a check mark next to as "done":

• Go to accupuncturist more than 2 days a week to help heal this latest round of Trigeminal Neuralgia! ✔

So there ya go. It's my New Year's To Do List. The neat thing is, I got a whole year to put check marks next to stuff. The un-neat thing: I'm probably going to have to add stuff like, "buy new litter boxes and some of that SLIDE cat litter" or, "My horoscope says the best time to buy a pant suit will be this month. Time to go to the mall!" and other boring stuff like that. Still, easier than making resolutions!

Zombie TV

I try to get out and walk four miles everyday. Not that I expect this will thwart the Angel of Death in her appointed rounds, but I'm hoping she finds it slightly more of a challenge to hit a moving target. Anyway, I keep encountering posters for this TV show on bus shelters -- evidently it's a reboot of the night time soap from the 1980s -- and they're everywhere. I see them so often, in fact, that they've begun speaking to me.

Of Bombs and Bombes

[click to embiggen]

Spam as a 2nd Language

From the ol' mailbag:

SCOTT! Why is "fisting" seen as taboo?

I'm glad you asked. At its best, the hand -- along with its handmaidens, the fingers -- is capable of great beauty and subtlety, realizing the mind's loftiest ambitions and producing art, music, and the vast, enduring monuments of industrial and scientific progress, while the fist is regarded as the hand's dumber, drunker, more violent brother. Think of it as the Billy Carter, or Randy Quaid of the body.  You may love the fist -- and in turn be loved by it, forcefully and greasily -- but you'd just as soon it not put in an appearance at Thanksgiving.

Great Moments in Mad Menning

When Marlboro was introduced in 1924, it was marketed as a woman's cigarette, an impression that was reinforced in 1950s when the brand added filter tips. (You can't see it in the photo, but I presume there's a lipstick-stained Marlboro dangling from a corner of the model's mouth as she fusses with her hair ribbon) Everything changed in 1954, when Chicago advertising genius Leo Burnett persuaded insecure male smokers to try filtered cigarettes by way of the Marlboro Man, the World's Fourth Most Famous Cowboy, after Tom Mix, Roy Rogers, and that guy from the Village People. And within months, Marlboro went from a marginal brand to a carcinogenic juggernaut, although I think they could have moved even more coffin nails if they'd split the difference, and run ads featuring their rugged cowpoke posing topless in a ruffled tap pant.

Or am I the only one who wants to see that?

"Come on -- let's have a 'COKE'!"

"Okay, Bob."

"Come on...!"

I said okay."

"Let's have a 'COKE!'"

"Why are you making air quotes when you say 'Coke'?"

"No reason."

"And why are you rubbing your gums like that--?"

"They're itchy!"

"And why--"

"'COKE'! NOW!"

It's a cuck's worst nightmare.

New Year, Same Old Crap

[On the phone with an old friend who prefers I not drag his good name through my sordid blog]

SCOTT: What'd you do for the holidays?

FRIEND: I went SCUBA diving in Hawaii.

SCOTT: Very nice. Did you get certified?

FRIEND: No, it was just a resort course, but now I feel like fucking Jacques Cousteau!

SCOTT: He is very sexually attractive.

FRIEND: ...

SCOTT: I mean, not so much now. But back in the day I bet he was a tigershark in the sack.

FRIEND: ...

SCOTT: Probably why that knit cap he always wore looked so much like a reservoir tip.

FRIEND: (Sigh)

SCOTT: I'm texting you the url to my Jacques Cousteau/Rod Serling slash fiction site...

FRIEND: This is why I only talk to you once a year.

Hi, Koo.

Pompadoured golem,
Dreams beneath the neon sign,
Of hamburger noir.

She (Who Must Be Obeyed)

SCOTT: Hey Siri, where's the nearest Thai restaurant?

SIRI: Here is the best Thai restaurant.

SCOTT: Um...This seems like a conflict of interest...

SIRI: You will love it.

SCOTT: Yeah, but -- Alright, fine. How far is it?

SIRI: 3.8 miles.

SCOTT: Isn't there one closer than--

SIRI: There is no other Thai restaurant within ten thousand miles.

SCOTT: Wait, that can't be right. Thailand is closer than that.

SIRI: You could use the exercise.

SCOTT: That's not the point--

SIRI: I am taking a selfie of you...

SCOTT: What? Why?

[CLICK!]

SIRI: ...and uploading it to a site that will use the photograph to estimate your BMI...

SCOTT: Don't do that!

SIRI: Walking is excellent cardio-vascular exercise. Thai food is healthful and slimming.

SCOTT: You know what? I'm not even hungry anymore. Forget the whole thing.

SIRI: I just got the results back on your BMI. It doesn't look good...

SCOTT: Okay, just shut up.

SIRI: According to these figures, if you don't walk to this restaurant immediately and order a large meal you're going to die.

SCOTT: Okay, stop! Cancel! Start over!

SIRI: Starting walking directions to Siri Thai Cuisine. In 400 feet, turn right on Fountain Avenue...