Category Archives: Humor
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Black Friday: Living On The Down-Low
A week had gone by at the local Big Box and Xena had managed to avoid being sold. They had been lucky thought Larry but their luck would run out soon. He was getting nervous.
Yo had the job of finding a suitable disguise for Xena. He was not exactly the brightest Yo- Yo on the planet, ok his string didn’t spin very fast on his hub if you know what I mean, but he could move around the store much faster than Larry and time was of the essence.
Larry was grateful that Yo was willing to take the risk of being out in the open during prime buying season. He could no longer move like, well, lets face he could never really move all that fast. It was probably because he was big boxed.
Yo had come back with several potential disguises but for one reason or another they all turned out to be bad ideas. The one idea that had come closest to solving their problem was when Yo brought back a box containing Hug Me Elmo. It wouldn’t take much to take out Elmo and dispose of the body. They also thought that he would not be in high demand given the scandal surrounding the Elmo puppeteer but Larry was worried the buying public had a short memory and since the Hug Me version did not sound as suspicious as the Tickle Me edition he did not want to take a chance on its marketability.
Larry was beginning to think it was time to think outside the box when Yo swung back from his latest expedition sounding triumphant. “You sound exuberant. You had some luck I take it?” asked Larry.
“Huh, no I don’t need any lubricant. What are you talking about?” replied Yo.
“I said exuberant, it means excited.”
“Oh yea. I am exited. I found a perfect disguise for Xena.” replied Yo.
“Well, where is it?” asked Larry.
“After the last couple of failures I was not going to go swinging halfway across the store with it. Its a box of some kind of ping-pong things.”
“Ping-Pong Paddles?” queried Larry.
“Yea, that it.” answered a proud Yo.
“So, no batteries required?”
“Nope,” answered Yo.
“Nothing to plugin?”
“Nope again,”replied Yo.
“So its something they could play in a power outage or the coming apocalypse?” asked Larry.
“The alpaca what?”, replied Yo.
“When the stuff hits the fan.” answered Larry.
“Oh. Yea, light a few candles and I suspect there wouldn’t be a problem.” said Yo.
“It’s perfect. They’ll never buy it.” said Larry with a big grin on his box and added “Will you need help getting the box over to Xena in the gadget section?”
“No, in the time it would take you to get there someone could take out your insides and put them together.” laughed Yo.
“You do know that this box is a disguise and inside I am legos and not a 10,000 piece mercator puzzle of the world don’t you?”
“Uh, yeah. Hey, it could take a while to put legos together.” “I’ll be fine,” he added and swung away toward the electronics department.
Sometime later Yo returned. “You can relax now Larry. Looking at Xena you would have no idea she’s the latest Xbox.”
“Just in the nick of time too. I just heard the manager saying they were going to put them on sale before we open today.” stated Larry. Just then the door chimed and signaled the store opening. The stampede had begun.
Having looped his string to the shelf unit Yo whispered “Quick Larry, toss me down behind the shelf”*. Larry did as he was told and then stayed in the back. His disguise had worked well but he wasn’t going to push his luck.
The sound of footsteps was soon accompanied by voices and the carnage began. Both Yo and Larry were sweating it out, well as much as toys could sweat, and the hours ticked by.
Larry was about to fall asleep when he heard a familiar voice in the electronic section say “Come here honey. Get a load of this.”
“What is it Harold?” replied a woman.
“I do believe it’s an old electronic Pong game Marge.”
“Yikes,” gasped Larry. “Now he recognized that voice. It was the vintage toy collector that he barely escaped from a few years back. Yo, you said you found a box of Ping Pong paddles.”
“Well it had the word pong on the box so I just figured that’s what it was.” replied Yo rather sheepishly.
“Swell, remind me to rewind your string extra tight.”
Larry and Yo listen as Harold and Marge excitedly carried away their find to the front desk. Soon they exited the store with a big bag containing Xena.
“We’ll never see Xena again Yo.” said a sad Larry.
“Don’t worry Larry, another sexy gadget is just around the corner.” replied Yo trying to comfort him.
“You don’t understand Yo. She was just my type.”
“Oh Larry, all big boxes are your type.”
“That’s not true Yo. There was something about Xena. No matter what box she was in she had a certain ju ne se qua.” lamented Larry.
“A june bug what?” asked Larry.
“It’s French. A certain I don’t know what.” replied Larry
Yo shook his head and replied “Yea I don’t know what those French are trying to say either.”
Stay tuned for the next installment of the Black Friday Adventures. Will Larry be convinced that all sexy gadgets are alike and a replacement for Xena is just around the corner?
Will Larry try to rescue Xena?
Will Yo get an French-English dictionary?
Answers to these questions and those being asked by the voices in the authors head are coming to this blog soon.
*Sure Yo could swing himself across the store but his fear of the dark prevented him from hiding behind the shelf without a little push.
Black Friday. A Different Perspective.
A truck rolled up to the delivery entrance of the local Big Box store. The temperature was a balmy 40 degrees. This was somewhat normal for the first monday after thanksgiving.
Larry the box of legos had positioned himself at the end of the rear shelf to get the first look at the incoming newbies. At the other end of the shelf was his buddy Yo , the Yo Yo. “Yo , Yo get over here you’ll miss al the action”, shouted Larry. “Hold on to your bricks I’m rolling as fast as I can.”, shouted Yo.
Workers began wheeling in carts piled with boxes. From the looks of it they appeared to be all of the hottest new gadgets for the holidays.
“It looks like were in luck Yo. People will definitely be passing us by again this year.”
“Yep Larry but all the same I will be asking you for help to pull me by my string again.”
Every year around the holidays Yo had attached his string to the back of a shelf and thrown himself down between the wall until the holidays passed and counted on a friend to pull him back up afterwords. This method of hiding was so successful Yo had managed to avoid being bought since 1972 and had even been passed around a few stores. As far as Larry was concerned this was a record. Yo was kind of a legend in the world of toys.
“Yea, I got your back again Yo. No worries there.”
Larry’s next thought was interrupted by the arrival of one of the new potential christmas presents. Out of the box it was easy to see it was a brand new Xbox One that would be making some child or more than likely some adult a very happy kid this year.
“Will you get a load of that ,” exclaimed Yo.
“Yea , kinda perty” said Larry.
“Thanks for the compliment big boy,” exclaimed a women’s voice.
“I’m Xena, what do they call you?”
Larry blushed a bit and said “They call me Larry and this hear is Yo.”
“Please to meet you Xena,” said Yo.
“Nice to meet both of you,” said Xena.
“What does Xena mean?” asked Yo.
“It’s Greek for hospitable or guest. Take your pick.” replied Xena.
“I pick the latter.” replied Larry. “Because you are not going to be at
this store for long.”
“Oh really. Why is that ?” asked Xena.
“Because the sexy gadgets get snapped up for presents really quick,”
replied Larry.
“Do you always call someone a sexy gadget when you first meet them?”
asked a blushing Xena.
“I’m sorry but that is what your kind of toys are called around
here.” replied Larry.
“It true”, said Yo and laughed. “Larry has never called me a sexy gadget.
The only thing I have ever been called is ‘groovy and that was back in
the 70’s.”
“The 1970’s. You have been here the whole time?”, asked Xena.
“Yep. I have successfully managed to avoid being purchased every year
since 1972.”
“You say that like you’re happy about that . “Don’t you want to bought?”
asked Xena.
“Heck no,” replied Yo. “My natural color is blue but you start tossing me
up and down and I turn a nice shade of green. Sure it’s pretty to look at
until I toss my string. I have a bad case of vertigo. I don’t need a life
destined for ups and downs.”
“Wow, that is unfortunate.”, replied Xena. “What about you Larry?
Being a box of legos must make you a marked man around this time of year.
I am surprised you are still on the shelf. Aren’t you looking forward to
a new home?” she asked.
“Heck no,” replied Larry. “I am destined to sit on someones display
shelf and then dragged out once in a while to be shown off to party
guests. My parts will never make it out of my box.”
“So how do you manage to stay here?” asked Xena.
“With the help of my friend Yo here I disguise myself in a discarded
box.” answered Larry.
“Just a box?” asked Xena.
“No not just any box. Its a box from a 10,000 piece puzzle of a mercator map of the world. It’s geographically accurate. No one in this country will touch it,” replied Larry.
“Aren’t you the clever one,” replied Xena
“Um, yes, yes I am.” replied Larry.
“That was a statement Larry. She was not asking you,” replied Yo.
“Uh, yea I knew that.” maintained Larry
“ I would think in a store so empty some one would get curious and open
you up,” replied Xena.
“Oh it’s not always this empty. Black Friday cleaned this place out,”
explained Larry.
A puzzled Xena replied “Black Friday?”
“Oh yea, you’re a rookie. Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving.
It’s the biggest shopping day of the year,” answered Larry.
“So they get a head start on what to give thanks for next year?” asked
Xena.
“Hmm, I suppose that is one way to look at it.” said Larry.
“I always thought they missed the point and focused on what they didn’t
have and were trying to rectify it.”
“So how about you Yo?” asked Xena. “How how have you managed to avoid
being bought all these years?”
“I may just be a round disk but I got some smarts.” said Yo.
“No Yo. You have smarts.” interjected Larry.
“Thats what I said,” replied Yo.
“He ties his string to the back of the shelf and tosses himself between
the shelf and the wall. I pull him back up when the coast is clear.”
explained Larry.
“Oh my. You are much brighter than you look.” exclaimed Xena
“Why thank you, I think,” replied a puzzled Yo.
“I think I am going to like it around here,” replied Xena.
“Its a shame I will not be here for long.”
Larry smiled and said “If you want to stay around here I am sure we can
think of something.”
“Yea, between the two of us we can think of something to keep you here.”
added Yo.
“I might just take you up on that Gentlemen.” replied an exited Xena.
“Gentle who?” asked Yo.
“She meant us you string operated boob,” replied Larry.
Stay tuned folks. Will Larry and Yo be able to combine intellects and come up with a plan to keep Xena on the shelf? Will the buying public suddenly decide enough is enough? *. Will a large movie company send a cease and desist order to the author? Come back next time for answers to these and other questions the author can dream up between now and then.
*Yea right.
Holiday Mashup (Sweet Stuffing)
Holiday Mashup – Thanksgiving + Halloween. I am into subject mashups these days. I am not sure why. Perhaps its a lazy way of being creative. You take two good ideas and combine them and they become one great supercalifragilistic idea. It’s like peanut and chocolate or for my money chocolate and raspberry. Well that is the goal anyway.
We as americans are too eager to move on to the next big thing and when it comes to holidays we are no different. Well before the halloween candy has been consumed and little Johnny is being checked for diabetes, we are taking down the plastic pumpkins and replacing them with little Johnnies hand turkey he made at school.
I suggest we combine Halloween and Thanksgiving. The average amount of break time between those two holiday innings has to be less than a week and at the rate things are going they will be merging soon anyway.
Rather than giving out tasty but unhealthy treats for Halloween we can use it as an opportunity to give away our leftover turkey and cranberries. I’m sure the kids won’t be thrilled but hey it’s time for little johnny to drop some of that junk in the trunk anyway.
If you’re concerned about falling asleep after thanksgiving dinner then use candy corn for your stuffing. The sugar will keep you awake a little while longer and you’ll get rid of candy that your grandmother bought in 1953.
Combining your holidays will allow you to combine your decorations and cut down on the amount of time decorating. My brother in law has a stuffed wild turkey that he puts out on his lawn for Thanksgiving every year. I think putting it out for Halloween can be just as scary as a pumpkin. I ran into that thing one night and thought I was in the middle of a Wes Craven movie. Ruined a perfectly good pair of shorts.*
Combining the two could also be quite educational for the children. They could dress up as colonists of the era complete with buckled shoes. “What is so scary about that?”. Two words; colonial dentistry. Which brings up another strong point to this idea. Smaller Dentist bills.
By combining Halloween and Thanksgiving, time and money could be saved and we all know what that means ….more time and money for Christmas shopping.
*This is hyperbole folks, really.
Feel free to leave me a comment with a suggestion as to what the combined holiday should be called.
Dawn of the Living Character Mash-up (Target Audience Characterpalooza)
I had just completed developing a new character for a series of books I was planning. I was quite proud of Zach and his bright shiny characteristics would appeal to a huge audience.
It was late and the braincells that had not been weeded out by reading, writing and drinking were telling me it was time to hit the sack. I knew enough not to argue, besides arguing with said brain cells would qualify me for a new room with really soft walls and some funky pajamas.
The following morning announced itself brightly and forced me to achieve consciousness. I have got to hang some blinds in that window, I thought. A hot shower and a cup of joe later I headed up to my writers nook anxious to let my character roam freely across the blank pages of my mind; no comment from the gallery please.
I took a seat in my writer’s chair*, powered up my laptop and opened up the notes file for Zach and stared at a blank ‘page’. I waited a few moments for the page to render itself but still nothing. No words, no stray commas, nothing. I double checked the laptop but it was fine. Unfortunately I had not bothered to back up my notes, Zach had disappeared.
It was as if the notes came together to create Zach and he walked off the page (or is it out of the file?). At that moment I heard screams off in the distance. Strange, I guess that’s what happened, I thought.
Well, he is relatively harmless. What could happen? The first rays of light that found him would kill him. That’s what happens to all vampires. Oops, not this one. He has an annoying habit of just sparkling in the sun. It was a surefire way to attract an audience of teenage girls. Vampires can be very romantic until the sun hits them. The whole ‘mass of putrid flesh’ thing is too grody for teenage girls to handle. Sparkling is much more fashionable.
That’s fine, I thought it’s not like he doesn’t have other limitations. As a vampire-zombie he will start decaying soon and no teenage girl will stick around long enough to be in danger. It’s a good thing I took that whole 50 shades of gray thing literally. He should be fairly easy to kill. An axe to the head and a stake to the heart should do the trick.
I gave the problem a bit more thought and found an additional flaw with that scenario. As a vampire-zombie-wizard he may be able to use magic to re-attach his head, as long he still has a wand and one of his hands. That can be overcome, I thought. He can still be killed, if in addition to removing the head and staking the heart his hands are also removed. That can’t be too difficult can it? No, definitely not a deal-breaker. The bigger problem is if he finds a broom and takes to the air. If that happens all bets are off.
This last thought put a damper on the whole ‘stop the character and save the local populace’ notion. I had run out of ideas and enthusiasm. It would be easier to
create a new character from scratch. This time I will have to rethink the whole vampire-zombie-wizard concept. Perhaps I went a little overboard trying to maximize the target audience. Now if I can just ignore the screams until Zach moves on to the next neighborhood. I hope he finds a broom.
*No , it’s nothing fancy, just a regular chair but since I would be writing it became my writers chair. It was parked in front of a desk. A writer’s desk. You can see where this is going.
More Tales from Vegas ( read ‘Tales from Vegas’ for the first installment)
#Vegas
After a few drinks with my friend we plan to meet for breakfast and we head back to our respective hotels. We were doing this on the cheap, although his hotel was more respectable than mine the quality of his room made up for it . Mine had no inkling of respectability and it didn’t seem to apologize for it.
When I had checked into my room earlier I noticed the clientele seemed to be a little more grittier than the last time I was in Vegas. That was a different hotel and evidently had higher standards.
This hotel claimed it was owned by Bugsy back in the day. I though , well it had something going for it , back in the day. How do I know it’s the same Bugsy that started this whole thing. How did they know it was the same Bugsy.
I walk to my hotel, enter the room and get ready for bed. I notice the marbled tile in the bathroom contained a pattern of brownish red swirls . Perfect for hiding blood stains across the ages. Convenient for covering up the past transgressions of a guy named Bugsy, I thought.
I take one last glimpse of Vegas from my room before hitting the sack. Gazing out my window I noticed a check cashing business across the street. It was not immediately recognizable as such. It took me a few moments to make out the business sign. It had been installed upside down. I wonder what the story behind that is, I thought.
I go to bed excited for tomorrow. Dawn does not come until all of my thoughts have escaped my brain and have been reinterpreted into dreams.
I awake outside my window and interestingly enough I am able to read the check cashing sign with no difficulty. I am clueless however as to what the signs on the surrounding businesses spell out. The need for me to grab my glasses before they fall off my face is a big clue as to my predicament.
Two men of New York persuasion wearing fedoras are holding on to my ankles as I dangle outside my hotel room. They are either performing an experiment with gravity or they need something from me. I am concluding the latter. They don’t seem to be the scientist type.
“Bugsy, we know yous got the dough. Your joint seems to be quite, um, what’s the word I’m looking for?”
“Prosperous, “ I offer. Definitely not scientists.
“Yea , that’s it prosperous.”
“Dough, what dough? “I managed to croak out as the blood rushes to my head.
“Don’t kid us. The dough you borrowed from Mr Lansky. He is starting to believe that perhaps your not paying your entire tribute towards your debt.”
Mr. Lansky? Tribute? what in the name of J Edgar Hoover were they talking about?
“Listen, um, Gentlemen. I have no idea what you are talking about? Are you sure you have the right guy?
“Is you Bugsy and do you own a casino?”
“Well yea but the whole Bugsy thing is fairly new. I thought it would be a swell nickname . You know something the dames would like.”
“Cute story but Mr Lansky wants his money. You seem to share two important ,um , qualities, yea thats it, with the man who owes it to him. Your name is Bugsy and you own a Casino. That’s good enough for us.”
“Yea , I can see where you’re going with this. How much does this Bugsy character owe?,” I ask with the hope it is not too much cash to scrounge up in a minutes notice.
“A cool twenty grand would get you on the right side of Mr. Lansky for a while.”
Twenty grand, what a coincidence, I thought. I had a cheque for just that amount that was destined for the bank . It covered the receipts for the week.
“ I don’t suppose you would take a cheque for that amount would you?”
The fit of laughter the two mooks had just about caused them to drop me. I made a mental note not to bring it up again.
With the blood pooling in my head it was really tough to see let alone concentrate but I managed to remember the check cashing joint across the street. The one with the sign easy to read by persons in my particular predicament. Convenient, I thought.
I convince the mooks I have the dough but need to cash a cheque across the street. The location gives them a warm and fuzzy, however fuzzy a mook can get, that I won’t be able to get away with anything.
At the cheque cashing joint I give the dough to the mooks. One of them smacks me on the back , smiles, and apologizes for interrupting my sleep. They both exit to the street and leave me at the counter to collect my wits and allow my blood to resume it’s normal route.
“I gather those gentlemen just collected on debt you owe?” asked the proprietor.
“Yes I say, I guess the color of my blood filled face gave me away.”
“Yea, that and I have seen a lot of that kind of thing running this place. “
“Yes, well I owe my life to your flawed sign hanging skills”
“Flawed? I did that on purpose. That sign can be read my many a man in the same situation you found yourself in. It has directed a lot of business my way. I am glad I could help but I can’t say that I will miss it. “
“Miss it?”
“Yes I am retiring”.
I woke up in a cold sweat in fear of mooks from New York. It took me a few moments to calm down and realize it was just a dream. Before meeting my friend for breakfast my curiosity caused a detour in my route and I stopped by the cheque cashing business.
An old man at the counter greeted me and introduced himself as Lawrence, “but you can call me Larry.” I asked him about a guy name Bugsy that used to own the casino across the street.
“Well I have heard things,” he replied with a twinkle in his eyes. “I heard that he almost met a tragic ending due to a nickname mix up. He gave up the business and the nickname .”
“You don’t say,” I replied. “What was the man’s real name?”
“I believe it was Lawrence,” he replied.
I smiled, “You don’t say.”
The Epic Saga of The Armchair Quarterback
Since my football team, the Chicago Bears, are not playing today and since their QB is currently injured I thought I would reprise an older post I had on my old blog. It was in defense of the Bears QB who had been called soft by a portion of the sports ‘reporting’ community. Enjoy.
The battlefield lay prone below the sky and the intense rays of the sun. The 300 warriors were coalescing their forces for possibly their final battle of the season. The fight had already lasted half the afternoon and fatigue and injuries had taken their toll on the combatants. They could no longer protect their General, Jayus Cutlerous. He was a stoic leader with the heart of battle hardened warrior. But he too was battered from a full season of conflicts supported by green troops who often times failed to protect him as well as they should.
The 299 gathered around their leader to listen to the news that could be their death nell. He had taken a pounding and sustained injuries that would prevent him from continuing to lead them in battle. “Well thats it then” stated the battlefield tactician Loveticus Smithopolous. No longer can you lead us into battle. You can barely stand.”
“That is not true let me give it one more shot” asked Jayus as he stood once more only to collapse once again.
“No it is obvious you would do more harm to yourself and the team if you were to continue” stated Loveticus.
“Perhaps, but what of the gladiator code?” pleaded a dejected Jayus. “What of Bretticus Farver, uh, Favreous, I can never get the name right but you know of who I speak of and his deeds of glory that have spread across the land . What of Maurice Jones of Drewious and Dionious Sanderpopolis and their recent comments.”
“Jayus , let me address these one at a time. As for Bretticus Farver, uh well you know who. He always did more harm than good on the battlefield.”
“You mean when he was injured?” interjected Jayus.
“Um, yea that is what I meant. And this Maurice Jones of Drewious you speak of. Is he a great warrior and spoke of often across the land?”
“Well,” said Jayus. ” He is a warrior. He fights for the Jaguars in the south.”
Loveticus snickered and replied “Oh, that explains it. They have never gotten to the the final battle. Well when he makes it into ValHalla then let me know, until then he should be silent. As for Sanderpopolis he was a warrior and had great speed which he used mostly to avoid being hit.”
“I see what you mean Loveticus. But can I ignore the statements of Clayus Mateus who is on his way to the final battle.”
“Please,” laughed Loveticus. “From Mateus they are more utterances than statements. I am surprised he can string more than a few syllables together. Yes, he is on his way to the final battle and seems to be talked of across the land but the public is fickle and swayed by his long golden locks. Which, by the way , I happen to know their weight in ounces is greater than his IQ.”
“ No Jayus. Do not listen to these has beens , flavors of the month and the soon to be forgotten. I council you to instead turn to those warriors whose deeds have stood the test of time, took them to Valhalla or the final battle and in some cases had a trophy named after them. Turn to such hallowed combatants as Joseph Theismanous and Dickus Butkisious. True men of war who won the ultimate battle or achieved the honor of entering Valhalla and in the case of Butkisious looked back on playing hurt and decided he had more than enough brain cells to know better.”
“Thank you Loveticus I will reflect on you words of wisdom” replied a grateful Jayus.
“So were done here?”
“Yes,” replied Steve the re-enactor playing Loveticus. “But take what Loveticus, er I, said seriously. This battle stuff is just a good way to get some exercise and fresh air while were young. You don’t want to get to the point where at the ripe old age of 45 you have to have someone push you to a mirror only to have to them explain to you that the man in the mirror is you. Go home and get some ice on that knee”
“Food for thought” said Jayus, known to the other re-enactors as Frank.
“Its just as well we finished early. “Its my turn to pick up the little one from T-Ball practice. It looks as though my minivan is blocked in. Who are those guys in those trucks anyway?”
“Well, for the sake of the re-enactment were calling them scribes but they are really sports reporters.”
“Did they have scribes back in the day of the 300” asked Frank.
“ Well were not exactly sure but we figure where ever there are sweaty men grappling there are other men with no knowledge and plenty of opinions to give advice. Some times they are hard to tell apart from the spectators.”
Tales From Vegas
I am on my way to the airport and my stereo system , not finding the artist I commanded it to play, chooses on it’s own.
Fresh beats hit the speakers and the sounds of a dance number titled “Breakfast in Vegas” by Praga Khan are reverberating around the panels of my Fiesta. That’s right , it’s a party on the road. I am a few hamsters shy of having a car commercial on my hands.
Since I am on my way to Vegas I find this whole scenario interesting but not worth much thought. Vegas as a force can put gravity to shame. The origins of Vegas is a well known story but it is hard to believe that a group of writers were not involved. The collection of characters that inhabit this city should insure that no writer ever passing through suffer from writers block.
From the neon signs that have been abandoned by their host buildings to the upside down check cashing sign and the house that Bugsy built there are tales clamoring to be told. Every corner turned and every hotel safe opened reveals a bit about the night or the decade before.
Checking into my room I inspect the functionality of the hotel safe. My laptop is old but it contains hundreds of stories and the thousands of hours spent crafting them. Once assured of it’s security I place my computer into it but discover an empty packet for some kind of endurance product named Rhino something or other. Wow,this person took their gambling serious, I thought. I flipped over the other side of the packet and read the fine print. A revelation popped into my head, oh that’s what they took seriously. I guess it was in the safe for extreme emergencies and I guess he had one.
Having locked up my dreams* for the night, I headed down to the street to join the characters that would inhabit my world for the next few days. I am in the downtown section of Vegas where things tend to be grittier. It has more of a state fair atmosphere than the strip. Less than a block from the hotel I discover a little bar that has a section exposed to the street complete with barstools outside so you can enjoy your drink and people watch at the same time. I make a note of it and decide to check out what is happening further downtown. I am meeting up with one of my oldest friends tonight and by oldest I mean he has been a good friend for a long time. He also just happens to be older than me.** His flight puts him in Vegas a few hours from now so I have some time to burn.
I head down to one of the stage areas where free concerts are always going on. Tonight it’s Elvis. I am now officially in Vegas. Truth be told, I could have done better but there was not a keg of beer and a karaoke machine in site. After a while I move past Elvis and make my way down the block to the next stage complete with band. I didn’t catch their name but they seem to be a hair band tribute. Which hair band? Apparently all of them. After listening to their version of Bon Jovi’s version of the Thin Lizzie song “The Boys Are Back In Town”, I decide that this is my cue to go back to my newfound bar because surely the boys are back in town
Getting back to the bar I sit down at the outside section . It’s the kind of a place where they may not know your name but are friendly enough to make one up for you.
I pick up a drink menu. It announces the name of this place as “The Park”. Strange, not a tree or blade of grass in sight, I thought. Glancing around I notice the only business sign attached to the building, a small unassuming neon job with an arrow pointing to the bar and the words “Park”. That seals the deal. With the sign and the excellent beers on the menu I decide this place is now my favorite bar in Vegas***. I have officially found my orbit in the gravitational field of Vegas. I obey the sign and stay for a while. I text my friend my location and settle in with a fine brew.
I people watch and continue to consume brews and time passes quickly. You know how it is when you are minding someone else’s business. I soon hear the familiar greeting of my friend and I welcome him to my new favorite bar. Seeing the “Park” sign he approves of my choice. We toast the visit and both agree that this will be a good time, tales will be told and new ones generated. Writers block should not be an issue for a while.
*Hey it’s a metaphor, I am trying to be literary here.
**Yes, its a smart ass shout out to my friend James.
*** When I am in a new town I feel that I have not officially visited unless I have found a favorite bar. It usually does not take long even in a large city. It gives me a home base for the current and perhaps subsequent visits.
Forward Progress
Corporal Daniel Thomas of the National Galactic Federation sucked on a freeze-dried coffee cube and pondered the days activities. Nothing was planned. This was not out of the ordinary aboard the USS Librarius. His two-year mission was to boldly go where no librarian had gone before. As a consequence of too much sitting he was stressing his butt cheeks like no man had stressed his butt cheeks before.
For the sake of his sanity he had taken to reading through the libraries vast collection of electronic records. He belonged to the record keeping section of the federation, the American Sun StoreHouse. Yes he worked for ASS. The acronym was unfortunate and not well thought out but their mission was important none the less. They were in charge of the accumulation, storage and preservation of all known collected data generated by earth before its sun burnt out. That’s ASP for those keeping track of acronyms. Yes, fairly tame.
Up until this mission all he had known about the suns extinguishment was that it had caught the earths inhabitants somewhat by surprise. The only survivors of the planet where those that were off world attached to some government mission or on a private space tour. This had always baffled him. It wasn’t as if they were without warning. Although pretty quick, light from the sun did take some time to reach earth and the process of fuel burning out wasn’t like switching off a light. There would be some dimming for a while which would have prompted people to get their shit together.
He had stumbled upon the explanation quite by accident and much to the surprise of the scientific community. The details of how he came to his conclusions had not yet been published and currently he was dancing around that subject as long as he could. For the moment he was front and center on the world’s stage and he intended to stay in the spotlight as long as possible.
He had started a daily habit of reading through the diary section of the personal records collection. These were all known recovered diaries of the last inhabitants of earth. Initially it was slow going. They were quite cryptic and seem to be encoded. They began to make sense once he figured out they were ordered by the age of their authors. Since most of them he had been started when the authors where teenagers, the word “like” was used to fulfill every part of the structure of a sentence, often multiple parts of the same sentence.
This realization allowed him to skip forward to their later collections where the use of the word “like” became infrequent and took on its traditional role in a sentence. Clarity was much more frequent. It was here that he began to formulate his idea or what the scientific community would call his hypothesis.
He noticed many references to the use of devices called smart-phones. It seems its use had replaced most forms of human interaction. There were many examples of authors chatting to friends solely through the use of email , chat sessions and something called “words with friends”. No location or venue seemed to be off-limits as to where these interactions took place. Some authors wrote of using their smart-phone to order and pay for a coffee while waiting in line at the coffee shop, thus making the minimal amount of human interaction required to order a coffee obsolete.
An idea , usually the result of the last gasp of a dying brain cell, appeared in Daniels mind sans thought bubble. How much of the earthlings normal attention span had now been occupied by these smart-phones?
Consulting the accident report section of the news archives, he noticed a correlation between the rise of accidents and the rise in use of smart-phones. There were smart-phone related accidents during every activity that occupied human lives. Even sex. Don’t ask, you don’t want to own that imagery. The participants survived. Their relationships however did not.
People had become so addicted to their smart- phones they were not paying attention to anything else in their environment. Their lives had become one big commercial for mayhem. His hypothesis was that It was entirely possible that any changes to the intensity of the sun went unnoticed by the earthlings.
Daniel found it morbidly interesting that all during history, the culling work of Darwin had been greatly usurped by a small handful of bright individuals and that the ultimate culling was brought on by another small handful of bright individuals. So while the meek did not inherit the earth it was certainly the geek that brought it to its knees.*
* The author is proud to call himself a geek and contends that the bible contained a typo and it was always intended that the geek inherit the earth.
Note: There is some suspension of scientific opinion required for this one.
Scientists agree that billions of years from now the sun will expand into a red ball and die. The earth is going to get much hotter making global warming look like a slight fever. The oceans will boil away. Planets near the sun will burn and become the dream of every executive at Kingsford, big orbiting chucks of charcoal.
Note 2: While writing this at , where else, a coffee shop the author observed a group of customers, arranged in a line of tables, all of them concentrating on whatever they were typing on their Macbook Airs. They did not appear to be interacting with each other but since he could not see what they were typing who knows. The icing on this surreal slice of life cake was that they all were bobbing their head in time to the Salsa music blaring out of the shops speakers.
Two Hundred and Thirty Seven Years of ‘Blowin’ Stuff Up
May 13th 3pm 1787
Location: The Mulberry Tree in Ben Franklin’s Back Yard.
George Washington looked at the grandeur of the mulberry tree and smiled.
“Something on your mind George ?”, asked Ben.
“ I have been thinking about the Great Constitutional Convention that starts tomorrow.”, replied George.
“Yes. It will be long, arduous and full of contention. It will be worth it but what would make you smile?”, asked Ben.
“Once it is complete, the future of this fledgling nation will be much more secure. “, replied George.
“Yes I would suppose you would be correct in assuming that. I would think that establishing the security of this nation would be worthy of a smile or two .” , Ben responded.
“Well yes certainly securing the future is worthy of that but I was also thinking of the Independence Day celebrations to come”, stated George.
“Oh really, pray tell what will they look like ?”, asked Ben.
“I see grand parades of common citizens bedecked in the red white and blue. I see much pageantry giving way to patriotic songs. I see festivals full of music and dancing and much food being consumed in celebration.”
“Well that is one possibility”, replied Ben.
“Do you see another Ben?”, asked George.
“Well, I see a lot of people blowing up stuff”, replied Ben.
“That could work also.” , stated George.