gril

gril can't fnid her way

Pirate LaFleur

This amulet was recovered from a shark's gullet caught off Jamaica around 1790. The carving in petrified narwhal tusk is believed to be the work of one Henri LaFleur, buccaneer artist and madman pirate. He sailed for Captain Oliver le Bouché from 1712 to 1716, plundering booty and ravishing the Virgin Islands with the worst of them. Other carvings similar to this one turn up even today in fish bellies and shipwrecks from Madagascar to Port Hatteras. They all depict the same likeness in relief which pirologists agree (for the most part; pirologists are a disagreeable lot) is Henri LaFleur himself, much as he might have looked the day he and he alone attempted to mutiny aboard the Black Buzzard and ended up the first man hanged from a gangplank.

Snagglepuss: On Iraq

Senator Snagglepuss spoke out today on the matter of Iraq.

Sacrifice!

I bore witness today to a most gruesome sight. At the annual bacchanalathon to appease the Rivergods, a giant arthro-crustacean of some sort attacked and devoured an innocently passing buxom bystander, all the while being spurred on by it's alien master playing sweeping glissandos and arpeggios on an electric guitar. I tell you, it was awful. I'm of a mind not to go back next year.

Further 2

James Penney downshifts through the Giant Tunnels of Croker.

I provide necessary ballast.

Further

I had this very strong feeling that having a name like Further would contribute impetus to keeping it going, when it might get stuck, or broken down, that the word would have power - like Shazam . . .

- Ken Kesey / The Further Inquiry

The Skif

My first seven years on the block I did everything I could to avoid the Skif. Even gave up cigarettes so he wouldn't have reason to come over and bum a smoke. I thought if we had no reason to cross paths, we wouldn't. I never figured on the laws of proximity. Seems no one escapes the gravity of the Skif.

Unued Multivocalix

In its tipi it sits stiffly;
Omms go to god on odor of Bob.
Wherever he be, she be never,
and Anna acts as Anna can.

Ruth

Naomi loses her husband and sons in Moab, land of idols. She instructs her sons' widows, Orpah and Ruth, to return to their homes. After all, they're still young and could find Moabite husbands. Exit Orpah. Naomi turns to face Bethlehem. Ruth steps up.

"I will go where you go, live where you live, die where you die. Your people shall be my people, your god, my god."

Moral: The choice to adopt a religion doesn't have to be attached to deeply held principles. Love and respect for another are quite enough sometimes.

Sgt. Garcia

Don Diego, Don Diego! Come quickly! The serfs are up in arms!

Gag Order

The Jesuit, his sect vowed to science, was found out pronto and miscommunicized.

It was all a bit they didn't get.

Randall Patrick McMurphy

"That's the first thing that got me about this place, there wasn't anybody laughing. I haven't heard a real laugh since I came through that door . . . Man, when you lose your laugh, you lose your footing."

Akāliko

There is a moment of flesh and there is a moment of stone. They are both one moment. There is no time difference. That is akaliko.

Jim VanDruckley

Don't know who this is, but I think he's a surrealist of sorts. Words are bells to him.

I thought he was Jim or Van Morrison, Jeff Buckley or Nick Drake. Now I don't think he's any of those, but maybe an amalgamation of all of them.

I'd buy that cd.

Sleep Story 3

On a beach at night.
Hear low muffled rumble.
See dull spot above horizon. Watch it elongate.
Call to others: It's happening. Nuclear war.
Another boom to the south.
Others become mother, sister, brother.
We embrace as third explodes much closer.
Sea becomes cinema. Family, actors.
They learn to live with it.
Malformed hordes out on the streets.
At least I've still got my good looks, says Dad,
his face all globular and hair in patches.
Fade to wake.

Roger Ramjet War Czar

President Bush has convinced Roger Ramjet, Hero of Our Nation, to come out of retirement and spearhead America-World's battle against Solenoid Robots, Noodles Romanoff and the Axis of Evil. Ramjet, at 68 years of age, may be long in the tooth, but he's still short on brains, so naturally he agreed to the assignment. He leaves Monday for Iraqistan, armed with eleven cases of Proton Energy Pills and a strong desire not to join them but to beat them.

Impalert

Airport Security: What's this?
Me: Excuse me?
Airport Security: This. What is it?
Me: That's a box of shadows.
Airport Security: A what?
Me: A box of shadows.
Airport Security: Open it.
Me: I mustn't.
Airport Security: I said Open It. Now.
Me: That would not be a good idea.
Airport Security: Hand it back. I'll open it.
Me: I don't recommend you do that.
Airport Security: Sir, step aside here. I'm going to ask you to spread your legs and hold your arms out to your sides.
Me: Oh, for heaven's sake..
Airport Security (into walkie talkie): Gate to base. I have a code 7.... Roger that.
Me: Am I...?
Airport Security: Detained. Yes sir. I don't think you'll be making your flight. Now, I'm going to ask you once more: What is in the box?
Me: I told you. Shadows. See for yourself.


Airport Security: It's empty.
Me: If you say so.
Airport Security: Hold on. There's something moving... Jesus Christ! What in the hell...?
Me: It's just an imp.
Airport Security: A what?
Me: An imp. A harmless imp. They hide in the shadows.
Airport Security (into walkie talkie): Gate to base. We have a situation here. Attempt to board with some sort of wildlife.. a creature of some kind.... I'm not sure. It looks like... a... tiny... human.... About four inches tall.... No, I'm not kidding... OW! It bit my finger!
Me: I told you it wouldn't be a good idea to open the box. Now look; you've dropped it.
Airport Security (into walkie talkie): Gate to base. Code Red. Repeat, Code Red. Terrorist loose in the terminal.
Imp: Fascist!

Mama

For years Mama cooked and cleaned for other folks' families, then came home and cooked and cleaned for us. All that cooking and cleaning wore her down to a frazzle. But did she ever complain? Damned right, she did. Every chance she got.

Biscuit Sawhorse

Flubber plankton rhizome stretch,
hazmat, depthcharge.
Pollen traction crimescene lift,
dimwit, drawbridge.
Cancer factoid hygiene crash,
powwow, peacetalks.
Soylent pectin bismol filch
picnic, headcold.

Encrustacean

A barnacle encrusted seadoll skull,
hour past high tide,
Myrtle Beach.

When Genii Go Bad

YOU try spending an eternity within the confines of a bottle. See if it doesn't cramp your style.

Once free, the average genie is not grateful - he's pissed. It wasn't you who sealed him up, but it was likely someone like you, a grandfather maybe. He's not going to grant you three wishes unbegrudgingly, so be prepared for trickery.

However you waste your first two, make sure you reserve your third wish for getting him back in the bottle. This is especially important if your first wishes improve your surroundings or produce a hot sex partner. What you've got going looks mighty fine to him.

Nikko the Flying Monkey

Before his employ to the Wicked Witch of the West, Nikko was a Pinkerton Man, assigned to crush Winkie Country union members' fingers and toes. His work was admired by the Wicked Witch of the East. She recommended him to her sister, who was looking for a supervisor for her ragtag bunch of winged simians.

Nikko was always a bit of an outsider among the other monkeys, him being such a turd and all. None of them ever discovered his sensitive side - maybe because he didn't have one - but they did succeed in getting him completely strung out on Winkie poppies. That softened his edge some. This picture was taken during one of his reveries.

After the Wicked Witch's meltdown, Nikko emigrated to Quadling Country, where he commanded an ROTC brigade of Hammer-Heads.

Goolie Bird

Native to the Mamberamo river region of Papua, the goolie bird has long been the stuff of legend. No living ornithologists have seen one, but elderly mudmen claim to have evoked their spirits and made them manifest back in the day. They say the birds' mating ritual was a thing to behold with the male prancing and preening and flashing his festoons and the female coquettishly displaying her hindquarters. Their eventual union kept natives awake for hours, if not days.

Although incapable of flight, the goolie bird was not aware of this fact and so tried incessantly to take wing, only to fall in a heap at the feet of hunting parties, who in turn made short work of them. Which is why there's so few of them left.

Not that they're extinct, mind you. Those same ornithologists have captured the goolie's unique cry on tape and altogether marvel at its dintonation. Here, then, is the song of the goolie bird.

Armand Spitz

Humble Beginnings: Learned celestial navigation while a dishwasher on a freighter.

Radio Background: Hosted "My Stars."

Discovered Visual Aids: Build four foot diameter paper moon. Began poking holes in tin, letting light shine through.

Career in Education: More radio. TV. Lectures. Star and weather shows. Began first National Science Fair.

Destiny Revealed: Built prototype star projector. Improved on it. Took it to Washington DC, where it was mistaken for an atomic bomb. Turned out more. Sold them to schools and theaters. To travelling star shows, inflatable star shows. To Arkansas cave dwellers. Sold Spitz Jrs. to children. Sold stars for a buck, planets for a couple hundred, the sun and moon for half a grand. Fathered "Spitz's Sputnik Spotters." Build Spitz Space Transit Planetarium. Saw moon landings and called it quits.

Armand Spitz, the Henry Ford of Planetaria.

Lingo Link

Groib

Myzilijax harbored empathy toward lowly mealyworms, scuttlebugs and other assorted vermin. He saw their great potential and employed them to communicate the long chain of events that led up to the moment they were dipped in isotopes and attached to spectrographic display monitors. All the history of insecta - their hopes and dreams, their myths and legends, their eating and being eaten - was pulsing there on the wall in radiant technicolor for all Groibdom to see and feel. Sad is what it was they didn't. All Groibs got was a light show. Myzilijax got the epic. The bugs just got caught.

Adonis

Nobody agrees who begat who to beget Adonis, only that he was born from a tree. Midwife Goddess of Love, Aphrodite, took one look and hid him in a box, he was that beautiful. Figured she'd go fetch a talent agent, so left him in the care of Nanny Goddess of Death, Persephone, who was instructed not to look in the box. But Persephone had a Pandora complex, so looked, fell for him and wanted him for her own.

A nasty custody battle ensued granting them both joint mentorship. In this manner Adonis learned of the give and the take, which would come in handy when given his charge, to oversee green growth. His first assignment was to enshrine his mother, the tree.

The shrine building got out of hand as he put to work every woman who fell in love with him, which it couldn't be helped was every woman who looked at him. And after Artemis had him gored by a boar, thus doing him in, the shrine construction boom really took off. Not to mention the sale of those crappy plants they sell in the big box stores that die two months after they're planted.

Statues built to him had to be disfigured in order to dissuade the recruitment of ever more she-cultists. Adonis himself went back in the box and was planted by Persephone in the rich soil of The Underworld.

Queenie Wahine

Though some people's palates prefer pickled salads
For pudding pick popcorn peach pie
Oh Queenie's papaya you'll truly desire
When that Queenie Wahine passes by.

Queenie Wahine's Papaya rates higher than pineapple, pumpkin or poy
Please pick her papaya - put Queenie Wahine in perfect perpetual joy.

- Elvis Presley, driving his sound man crazy.

(Thanks Rural War Room!)