PORFLE MEETS ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER'S SISTER

 

You may recall the time I told you about meeting Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Well, believe it or not, that wasn't the end of it.  Here's what happened after that...

One evening, as twilight gently descended over my cozy abode and I was just settling into my beloved swivel recliner to watch a Mickey Rooney marathon on TCM, a large foot came crashing through my front door.

It withdrew, and then the entire door was smashed into a million tiny toothpicks by a huge ham-fist.  Arnold Schwarzenegger popped into the doorway, his face contorted into a gigantic gap-toothed grin.

"PORFLE!!!" he bellowed.  Actually, it sounded more like "POE-WAH-FOOL!!!"

I sat up, startled.  "Arnold!  What the hell are you doing here?  Why did you just wreck my front door?"  I hadn't seen him since the day he'd forced me to play Tarzan with him in the city park on his day off from being Governor of California, and he was literally the last person I expected to come crashing through my front door that evening.  Well, except maybe for Billy Corrigan.

Arnold laughed and blundered into my livingroom over the scattered pieces of my door.  "Don't worry, I buy you a new one!" he chortled. Then he lost his balance and fell backward into my big-screen TV set, destroying it in an ear-splitting explosion of sparks, plastic, wood splinters, and other debris.

"My TV!" I cried.

"I buy you also a new TV, ha ha!" said Arnold as he lumbered to his feet.  I then noticed that he was carrying a large silver keg under one arm and a decorative beer stein in his hand.

"Are you drunk?" I asked warily.

"No, I yam drinking only bee-yah!" Arnold scoffed.  "Bee-yah does not ged you dronk, porfle, ha ha!  Everyboddy knows dat!"

He lurched forward a few steps, tripped over a braided throw rug, and launched himself at me.  I ducked hastily as the beer keg sailed over my head and crashed through the window behind my chair.  Arnold landed on my coffee table with a resounding THWACK! and broke it in half.  The impact knocked all the pictures off my walls except for a nude portrait of Phil Donahue on horseback, which had been super-glued there by vandals.

Arnold slowly dragged himself to the edge of my couch and sat with his shoulders hunched, a sheepish look on his face.  I could tell he was embarrassed.  He looked down at his decorative beer stein, which was now a mocking reminder of his previous frivolity.  "Perhaps I haff behaved in a manner which is unseemly," he muttered apologetically.  "It was not goober...goober..."

"Gubernatorial?" I prompted.

He looked up in awe.  "I love dat word."

"Well," I said, trying to lighten the situation, "what the heck brings you here this evening, Arnold?"

He brightened immediately, revealing his trademark gap-toothed grin again.  "For you I haff a wunnerful surprise, porfle!" he beamed.  "I know dat you are lonely und mit-out a girlfriend.  So tonight I bring my twin sister here for you to haff a blind date with!"  He stood up and shouted toward the front door.  "OLGA!!!  HE NOW ISS VERY MUCH EXCITED TO MEET YOU!!!"

Gripped with apprehension, I braced myself.  Suddenly, an eye-watering vision of horror which sent icy chills down my spine filled the doorway.  It looked like Arnold in drag.  With a wider and even more maniacal grin than that of her twin brother, Olga Schwarzenegger stomped into my livingroom wearing a skintight polka-dot dress and high heels.  She looked like she'd just had her hair and makeup done by Tom Savini.

"Hit a crab pose, Olga!" Arnold prompted.  She complied with a resounding grunt, bursting the buttons off the back of her dress like slugs from a .45 and richocheting them off the walls.  The expression on her face caused my cat to dash straight up the curtains and leap onto a hanging light fixture, hissing frantically.  For good measure, Olga threw in a couple of bicep poses and various crunches as Arnold looked on proudly.

"See, porfle?" Arnold beamed.  "She almost is as strong and powerful as I am!  If not for dah fact dat she iss a girl, she would easily become Mr. Universe!  But instead, she soon will enter the Ms. Fitness competition!"  He pulled a cassette tape out of his hip pocket and inserted it into my tape player, turning up the volume to maximum.  Olivia Newton-John's "Let's Get Physical" came blasting out of it. "OLGA!!!" he screamed over the noise.  "PERFORM FOR PORFLE YOUR SEXY AEROBIC DANCE ROUTINE!!!"

With that, the radiantly-smiling Olga began to hop around and gyrate in a haphazard combination of frenetic calisthenics, gymnastics, and suggestive "Flashdance"-style choreography.  She looked like a demented moose in heat trying to back through a turnstile.

"I CREATE THIS DANCE FOR HER MYSELF, PORFLE!!!" Arnold cried over the deafening music.  "I NOTICE THAT YOU ARE BECOMING SEXUALLY AROUSED BY IT!!!  TRY TO RESTRAIN YOURSELF, HA HAA!!!"

As the music reached its crescendo, Olga wiggled her massive hips coquettishly, gave a girlish wink, and, after a running start, launched herself into the air for a final leaping somersault.  She crashed through the wall into the kitchen and collided with my refrigerator, collapsing it like an accordion.  Ripping its door off the hinges in an effort to regain her balance, Olga spun through the gaping hole in the wall and staggered back into the livingroom, hurling the refrigerator door like a huge discus and shattering my front windows.

The force of her forward momentum carried her after it and she flipped end-over-end out the window, landing on my car and smashing it flat.  Mercifully, she was now out cold.  With a blood-curdling shriek of grinding metal, the car rolled backward out of the driveway with Olga sprawled across the crumpled roof and disappeared down the street, picking up speed until it eventually made its way into peak rush-hour traffic.  The sound of screeching tires, high-speed collisions, and screams of terror filled the air.  Distressed cattle could also be heard.

Olivia Newton-John's voice faded to silence at last as Arnold stood with his head bowed dejectedly.  "Once again I must apologize, porfle," he said.  "I fear perhaps my sister Olga and I have failed to properly rehearse her aerobic dance routine."

"That's okay, Arnold," I said, still shaking.  "It could've happened to anybody."  Then I thought about it for a moment and added, "Actually, there are probably very few people in the world that this could've happened to."

"It happened to Lou Ferrigno a couple of times," Arnold mused.  Then he gave me a hopeful look.  "So...you think maybe you and Olga will now fall in love and have sexual intercourse?  And get married and make for me some brand new nephews and nieces to play with?"

"Oh gee, Arnold, I'd love to," I replied, thinking fast.  "Except for one thing...I'm gay."

His eyes widened in shock. "You are gay, porfle?  I did not know dat!"

"Yep," I affirmed, confident that my brilliant ruse would solve everything.  "I'm absolutely, positively, 100% gay."

"Den you must meet my twin broddah, Heinrich!  He also iss gay!"

As a jubilant Arnold dragged me kicking and screaming toward his Hummer, it occurred to me that perhaps I should've just left well enough alone and agreed to marry Olga.  Still, I did take comfort in the possibility that Heinrich might be prettier.

PORFLE'S SUPER WAL-MART AND T-REX HALLOWEEN NIGHTMARE

One thing I've discovered about Super Wal-Mart--their salespeople are woefully inadequate when it comes to helping me pick out a suitable Halloween costume. 

In fact, it took me several minutes just to find someone I recognized as an employee.  He was hiding in the gardening department behind a stack of fertilizer, pretending to do something like they always do, so I pressed him into service as my Halloween "tailor", as it were, in order for him to meet my needs as a customer.

"I want to dress up as the Tyrannosaurus Rex from JURASSIC PARK," I announced.  To demonstrate my sincerity, I crouched into my patented dinosaur position and emitted a frightening growl, clawing the air with my "talons."

"We don't have any Tyrannosaurus Rex costumes," he said.  Without even looking.  I mean, it was as though this guy wanted me to believe that he had memorized every costume they did or didn't have. 

"What the hell do you mean, you don't have any Tyrannosaurus Rex costumes?" I countered, inching forward in my dinosaur crouch in order to intimidate him. 

"Look," the guy said, "all's we got is what you see here."  He waved his hand over a display of costumes ranging from "Sparkly 'Twilight' Vampire" to "Random 'Harry Potter' Character" to assorted princesses, pirates, game show hosts, etc.  There wasn't a single Tyrannosaurus Rex costume on the whole blooming rack!

"I WANNA BE A TYRANNOSAURUS REX!!!" I screamed in sudden rage, jumping up and down and pumping my fists.  He simply stared at me, nonplussed, so I continued to do this until a big guy from store security came over and asked what the problem was.  I was beyond verbal communication by that point, so I pointed at the salesguy and the costumes, and did my dinosaur crouch again, and then continued jumping up and down screaming, "I WANNA BE A TYRANNOSAURUS REX!!!"  Only by this time the words were garbled into something that sounded like "ARR GARR BAR RAR RARR RARRRRR!!!"

The security guy made a threatening move toward me, so I ducked out of his grasp and ran down the aisle.  Other customers were staring at me wide-eyed, obviously sympathetic to my plight and afraid that some simple request on their part might also result in them being persecuted for no reason. 

Regaining my ability to speak, I darted from person to person as I ran, grabbing them by the shoulders and screaming "DON'T ASK FOR TYRANNOSAURUS REX COSTUMES!!!" into each of their terrified faces.  Thank goodness my warning seemed to work, since several of them immediately ran away.

Upon reaching the electronics section, I whipped around resolutely and prepared to face my pursuers.  At first it seemed as though they were no longer chasing me.  I knew better, though, reasoning that they must be circling around for a sneak attack from one of the side aisles. 

Easing behind a DVD rack, I took the opportunity to check and see if any new "Pippi Longstocking" DVDs had come in that month.  They hadn't.  In fact, I couldn't remember ever seeing any except for those crappy recent ones that never got the character right like the authentic Swedish versions from the 70s did, and should burn in hell.

A saleslady walked by, so I asked, in my most polite voice, "Excuse me, are you expecting any new 'Pippi Longstocking' DVDs any time soon?  And I don't mean those crappy recent ones that never get the character right and should burn in hell, but the authentic Swedish versions from the 70s."  In order to better convey what I was talking about, I began to brightly croon Pippi's theme song while doing the Pippi dance. "I am Pippi Longstocking, a-hope and a-hey and a-hope sha-naaa!"

The saleslady stood there and watched until I came to the big finish, which involved a final hop-skip dance step into a frozen pose with the usual hand flourishes and big toothy smile.  "Uhh," she said at last.  "I don't think we have any of those."

"I know you don't have any," I said calmly, with only a small, controlled sigh betraying my annoyance.  "What I'm asking is, are you going to get any?"

"I don't know," she said nervously.

"Well then," I said patiently, changing the subject.  "Are you going to get any Tyrannosaurus Rex costumes?"

"Any what?"

"TYRANNOSAURUS REX COSTUMES!!!" I shrieked.  "ARE YOU GOING TO GET ANY FREAKING TYRANNOSAURUS REX COSTUMES, YOU FREAKING COW!!!" 

The saleslady screamed in terror, and suddenly the security guy and the fertilizer guy were after me again.  I scrambled down the main aisle that cut through the middle of the store and careened into the grocery section, flinging potatoes and heads of lettuce behind me.  But as soon as I turned the next corner, I spotted several uniformed policemen moving in from the frozen foods section.  I was trapped!

Looking around, I spied a large cardboard cutout standing next to a Kool-Aid display.  I darted behind it and waited for my pursuers to run past, chattering about how they were going to "catch that guy."  And I was that guy!  Me, an unflinchingly loyal Super-Walmart customer whose only crime was wanting a damn Tyrannosaurus Rex costume! 

Fear and indignation merged within my roiling breast as the unfairness of the situation began to consume me with a surge of manic intensity.  "GRRRRRRR!!!" I growled, grabbing the cardboard cutout in both hands and holding it in front of me as I charged my way out of the store.

It wasn't until I watched the video footage of the incident on the news that night that I discovered the cardboard cutout was--in one of those funny coincidences--a Tyrannosaurus Rex from JURASSIC PARK which was part of their commercial tie-in with Kool-Aid.  Since my anger had reduced me to non-verbal status again, the rampaging cardboard dinosaur seemed to roar "ARR GARR BAR RAR RARR RAAARRRRR!!!" as it crashed its way through the store and out the front door, with the security guy, the fertilizer guy, and the saleslady all running for their lives along with the rest of the screaming customers. 

Again, I hadn't realized exactly what was happening when I went on to terrorize an orphanage, a hospital, and an old folks' home in similar fashion, unwittingly chasing a wide and ever-increasing assortment of terrified people down the street until I finally ducked down an alleyway and made my way home. 

That night, Mom called and asked if I'd had anything to do with "that story on the news", and I asked her why she would simply assume that I did and she just sort of sighed.  Later, some little kids in weird costumes came to my door begging for free candy, so I grabbed my Tyrannosaurus Rex cutout and chased them away.  Pffft--like I buy that stuff just to give it away to a bunch of strangers. 

PORFLE'S SONG PARODIES: "ALONG COMES MARY"

original song at youtube

This is the latest volley in my ongoing campaign against Jerry the Mouse and the anti-cat racism in "Tom and Jerry" cartoons.


"WHEN FINALLY TOM GETS JERRY" by porfle


Every time I watch a Tom and Jerry toon


It fills me with hostility

Cause I'm the kind of person who loves cats

Instead of mice, so here's my fantasy



When finally Tom gets Jerry

And does he ever give him kicks and hit him with a stick

Until that mouse is black and blue

Or maybe dump the little chump into an envelope and mail him

Straight to Timbuktu

When they met Tom was always the clown

Now that stupid rodent's finally goin' down

He's goin' down



When sweet revenge is the hinge

In the minds of guys like me

Who see the mouse must pay

And when the same old chase replaces

The injustice that takes place

When mouse gets aced today



And finally Tom gets Jerry

And does he ever kick his ass and make him eat Bermuda grass

Instead of yummy cheese

Will Jerry run around

When Tom begins to pound him on the head

With frozen English peas

When they met Tom was always the brunt

Now that stupid mouse is gonna get the punt

Gettin' the punt, bop doo wah



[SOLO]



And when the banquet is laid out without

The stunned and hungry mouse

Who's flung across the yard

The clueless people get to keep all of

Their rich delicious food

And Tom gets his reward



When finally Tom gets Jerry

And do you want to see the cat not told to scat

But growing fat on luscious bowls of cream

The stupid apes at last appreciate their cat is great

The answer, to their fondest mouseless dreams?

When they met Tom was always the chump

Now that stupid mouse is gonna get his lumps

Gettin' his lumps

Gettin' his lumps

Gettin' his lumps

Gettin' his lumps
 

PORFLE'S PIPPI LONGSTOCKING AND BULLDOZER HALLOWEEN SPECIAL

Oh, how fondly I remember the nostalgic Halloween that just happened to fall right in the middle of my "Pippi Longstocking" phase. I had just finished reading those wonderful books by Astrid Lindgren, and was so obsessed with them that I didn't leave the house for over two months as I created my "Pippi" costume for Halloween and, through weeks of diligent practice and mental discipline, practically became the character. Some of my neighbors eventually grew curious and started trying to peer through my windows to see if I was dead, so I loaded up my pump shotgun and blasted away at them.




BLAM!!! BLAM!!! You should've seen those cock-a-roaches run! The shattered glass of my windows exploded out at them like a million tiny shards of sheer terror as I stood there in my Pippi Longstocking costume that I'd just finished in time for that evening's trick 'r' treat fun, firing off a few more loads of blazing buckshot over their heads. I leaned out of the broken window with my gun raised triumphantly and screamed, "I am Pippi Longstocking! A-hope and a-hey and a-hope sha-naa! BASTAAARDS!!!"



My beautiful costume included a really cool red-orange wig with pigtails that stuck straight out on either side of my head and bounced around when I moved. My tattered dress was cutely adorned with colorful patches, and I wore mismatched stockings which served to disguise my hairy legs. Topping off my ensemble was a pair of pointed boots that were twice as long as my feet, and, of course, a sprinkling of freckles painted on each cheek. I felt so cute! I couldn't wait to finally share myself with a grateful world.



Interrupting my blissful reverie, the phone rang and I snatched it up petulantly. It was Mom, reminding me that Gramps' funeral was that afternoon. "WHAT THE TIN-PLATED COAL-BURNING HELL'S YOUR MAJOR MALFUNCTION!" I screamed, then composed myself and reminded her that it was Halloween and that I would be busy trick 'r' treating. I won't go into the rest of our conversation since it was private and all--mostly just Mom saying the usual stupid stuff like "But you're 35 years old" and me snapping back with clever retorts and whatever--so with a final "I HATE YOU!!! I HATE YOU!!!" I slammed down the phone, grabbed my Halloween candy bag, and skipped merrily out the front door.



Being the middle of the afternoon, it was still broad daylight outside. This was part of my clever plan to beat all the other kids to the candy while also showing off my new costume to its fullest advantage. I basked in the attention of passersby as I skipped along the sidewalk, my pigtails flailing wildly about. Presently I passed a street construction crew who were putting in a new water line or something, and they all stopped what they were doing to stare at me. It's funny, the fine line between naked admiration and total, horrified disgust, but that's what I saw on their faces as they admired my wonderful costume. "What the hell are you supposed to be?" one of them asked.



"I'm yo' worst nightmare, FOOL!" I shot back in my Mr. T voice. Then I caught myself and slipped back into character, skipping in place and singing brightly, "I am Pippi Longstocking, a-hope and a-hey and a-hope sha-naa!" This seemed to amaze them into silence, so I continued down the sidewalk as they stared after me with their mouths agape. Presently I came to the biggest house in the whole neighborhood and thought, "Surely they would have the best candy!" So I marched right up the front steps and banged on the door.



An old lady answered, eyeing me suspiciously. "What do you want?" she said.



"Trick 'r' treat!" I beamed, skipping in place. "A-hope and a-hey and a-hope sha-naa!"



She looked confused. "It's three o'clock in the afternoon! I haven't even gone to the store to buy candy yet!"



"Look, lady," I said, pointing at her with a sudden air of authority, "it's Halloween all day long today, not just at a 'certain time'"--I framed the last two words with finger quotes--"so technically, you'd better have some treats for me or I'll have to make with the tricks." I put my hands on my hips and gave her a cutely determined look so she'd know I meant business.



"Get outta here!" she barked, slamming the door.



"That does it!" I cried, jumping up and down. Looking around, I spotted something that seemed ideal for the trick that I was already forming in my fevered mind as a retaliation against the horrible old lady. The construction workers had gone home, but they'd left their equipment behind, so I hopped into the big, bright yellow bulldozer and cranked it up. "Woo-hoo!" I cried as the engine rumbled and roared. Slamming it into gear, I lurched forward and headed up the old lady's front sidewalk, flattening her flower bed and taking out a birdbath along the way.



She opened the door to see what was going on and recoiled in horror. A split-second later I crashed into her front porch and demolished it in an explosion of wood splinters and wind chimes. The forward momentum carried me right through the front wall of her house and into the living room, which I destroyed with a few wide arcs of the bulldozer. CRUNCH!!! went her TV and her china cabinet, followed by all her other furniture and some of those knick-knack shelves that I was able to deftly shave off the walls. Then the old lady ran out the kitchen door screaming as I burst through the back wall of her house, shrieking "HOPE AND A-HEY AND A-HOPE SHA-NAAAA!!!" at the top of my lungs. In my mind, I was being cutely mischievous and unpredictable, just like the real Pippi!



"TRICK OR TREAT!!!" I screamed, and then began to sing, "I AM PIPPI LONGSTOCKING, WATCH OUT HERE I COME!!!" Steering back onto the main street, I noticed that most of the people who lived in the vicinity had already rushed into their houses and were bringing loads of candy right out to me so that I didn't even have to knock on their doors or threaten to demolish their houses. It was the best Halloween ever! At least, until the police cars started coming after me. I tried to outrun them but the bulldozer didn't go very fast, so it wasn't a very exciting chase. We toodled along at about twenty miles an hour for awhile until I ran out of gas, and then I hopped down out of that wonderful old bulldozer and skipped away real fast with my candy bag overflowing with goodies. The police fired a few shots over my head but I ducked into Old Man Burton's backyard and disappeared through a hedge.



That night, I sat eating my delicious candy and watching the news reports on TV. The videotape footage was kind of grainy and shaky but my awesome costume could be clearly seen as I sat atop the bulldozer, smashing through picket fences and stuff as people ran in terror. I was still unidentified, so the reporters were describing me with odd, non-specific terms like "freak" and "psycho", which disappointed me since I'd hoped they would refer to me as "The World's Greatest Pippi Longstocking Impersonator." But I guess you can't have everything.



Mom called later and asked if that was me on the news. "It's always you," she added, which totally wasn't true because there was a lot of stuff on the news that wasn't me. Like, for example, the Hindenberg disaster. I apologized for the "I HATE YOU!!!" and for not showing up at Gramps' funeral in my new Pippi costume, which I think made her feel better, so I felt better myself as I hung up. It had been a wonderful Halloween. For some reason, strangely-garbed children kept knocking on my door for the rest of the night expecting me to hand over some of my hard-earned candy to them, but a few random blasts from my pump shotgun seemed to scatter them.
 
 
 
(originally posted at Andersonvision.com)

PORFLE'S SONG PARODIES: "CLOSE TO THE EDGE" (YES)

(This is sort of a tribute to vaudeville.  Hope there are some Yes fans out there.)


"UP ON THE STAGE" 
(To the tune of "Close to the Edge" by Yes)


[I The Silly Time Of Strange]


A seasoned comic takes the stage and leaves them all in tears
A rearranged scenario could play for years and years
And use the same material in every different town
And kill 'em all with stuff that every funnyman has passed around

A plant within the audience with one distinctive cry
Can keep them all guffawing even though they don't know why
A stooge who takes a roundhouse slap and bounces back for more
A sexy dame who keeps them in their seats, not heading for the door

Up on the stage, round by the curtain
(Just make 'em laugh, just make 'em laugh)
Close to the wings, down by the footlights
(Just make 'em laugh, just make 'em laugh)

On a tour from Buffalo to Nacogdoches
Playing to a different crowd for every show
Honing all the gags we hope to take back with us to New York
Wond'ring why our favorite jokes just tend to lay there
While the ones we think aren't funny knock 'em dead
We increase the laughter simply by including the word "pork"

Up on the stage, round by the curtain
Close to the wings, down by the footlights
People will laugh at you
I go on, I get off
Now that your pants, are falling down
Now that you find, now you're a clown


[II Total Massive Fail]


I do my act, I throw every single thing I've got at them
I drop my pants and dance just like a hoochie-koochie femme
I mug and girn as though I've lost my everlovin' mind
And still they throw tomatoes that are splattering on my behind

Sad jester on the naked stage while everybody jeers
Resorts to acting like he's being raped by rabid steers
He's going down the toilet like a turd expelled by Lawrence Tierney

Up on the stage, down by the curtain
Close to the wings, round by the footlights
Down by the wings, close to the curtain
Up on the stage, round by the footlights

Total failure's now ingrained inside your memory
You're a jerk and everybody hates your guts
You should climb under a rock and never show your face again
You were wrong if ever you thought you were funny
With the main exception of your ugly mug
So you run away and hide, and never take the stage again

Up on the stage, round by the curtain
Close to the wings, down by the footlights
People will laugh at you
I go on, I get off


[III I Go On, I Get Off]


In his blackface
He was clearly just a vaudeville entertainer
Singing in some minstrel show for the entertainment of the yokels

I go on, I get off
I go on, I get off

A hundred people barely qualify
To be an audience, and watch us die, onstage
Remember when a squirting daffodil
(When the straight man tells his stooge to smell the flower)
Could make 'em laugh, now it seems nothing will, today
(Giving him a faceful when he bends to sniff the fragrant bouquet)

I go on, I get off
I go on, I get off

Nobody cares when Pagliacci cries
(It's a boring act that nobody remembers)
We give them faces hit by custard pies, the rubes
(Asking them to not recall that they've seen it all a half-a-million times)
I wish we had a star like Milton Berle
(He's hilarious when he puts on a dress and)
Or just a single decent-looking girl, with boobs
(Wiggles his pretend behind for the titillation of the group mind)

I go on, I get off
I go on, I get off
I go on, I get off

I go on, I get off
I go on, I get off


[IV Seasons Of Mook]


The time between the shows is when I get drunk on my ass
And weave among the patrons throwing every dame a pass
And realize my trousers are still down around my knees
And stagger out into the street, my dingus flapping in the breeze
Ahh, ahh

Then according to a paper handed to me by a kid
The headline states that vaudeville's deader than an oven lid
So I decided I'd go into real estate with cousin Sid

And the days of acting stupid for the people
Swept away and soundly kicked into the past
By a brand new wave of bigger fools on radio and TV

Up on the stage, down by the curtain
Close to the wings, round by the footlights
People would laugh at you
Now that it's all moldy and dead
Punched in the gut, kicked in the head
Now that it's gone, now that you're old
Vaudeville will pass you by

I go on, I get off
I go on, I get off
I go on, I get off

PORFLE VS. JOHN WILKES BOOTH

If there's one thing I've learned in my years of surfing the 'net, it's that most of my fellow travelers here on the World Wide Web are big, fat idiots. Being the selfless, concerned person that I am, I often like to do my part in educating them about certain things that I'm sure they're too stupid to know. So today, I'm going to give everyone a little history lesson, just so you'll at least have a few useful facts rolling around in your big empty skulls.




Abraham Lincoln was our twenty-fourth President. I don't know if that's the exact number, but it's close enough to sound correct. There are only five or six Presidents who were important enough for us to need to know anything about, and he's one of them. Guys like Grover Cleveland and Millard Fillmore might as well have been hot dog vendors at Coney Island for all the historical significance they have. Their names exist now only as fodder for jokes, such as this one:



Knock, knock.


Who's there?


Millard Fillmore.


Millard Fillmore who?


Oh, never mind.



Anyway, Abraham Lincoln was the most interesting of all the Presidents because he was the most similar to some really off-the-wall fictional character. He was a tall, gangly weirdo who had a funny beard and wore stovepipe hats, even when he was a little kid, and he danced funny. It is said that at the annual Halloween party that was held in his neck of the woods, he was the only kid who always showed up as himself. All the other kids were ghosts or witches or clowns, but he would always be Abraham Lincoln. This was enough to win first prize in the costume contest every year, which was a volume of the Finster and Woolworth Encyclopedia. It took Abraham Lincoln twenty-six years to complete his collection of these, which is why he was thirty-eight years old before he even knew that there was such a thing as zebras. When he finally found out about them, it blew his mind. Which is why the period of his life between ages thirty-eight and forty-two is referred to by most historians as "The Women's Underwear Years."



Little known by just about everyone is the fact that Abraham Lincoln was a huge "Star Wars" fan. Of course, "Star Wars" would not exist until over a century after his death, but he wasn't one to let a little thing like that stop him. He often perplexed friends, relatives, and fellow politicians by waxing enthusiastic about characters like Boba Fett, Jabba the Hut, and Jar Jar Binks, and how the rebel forces in their X-wing starfighters defeated Darth Vader and Moff Tarkin and blew up the Death Star. This story was particulary puzzling to members of the House and Senate during Lincoln's 1862 "State of the Union" address, because it seemed to have so little to do with the Civil War. Lincoln's biggest regret during that time was that he had no way of buying Star Wars action figures. He once asked a blacksmith to make some for him, but they turned out looking a lot like horseshoes. Lincoln tried to account for this by creating a fictional race of aliens he called the Horseshoopians, but he could never figure out a way to work them into established Star Wars canon.



Abraham Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theater in 1865, shortly after the end of the Civil War. The play he was watching at the time was called "Our American Cousin", which was a notoriously boring play whose chief attraction was that it was performed entirely by dogs walking around on their hind legs, with their dialogue being shouted by unseen actors from backstage. One particularly florid love scene was climaxed by the line "Oh, my dearest Josephine! Pray, allow me to express the depth of my undying love for you", at which time the dog who was supposed to be saying this took a long, leisurely whiz on a nearby potted plant. This prompted the incredibly bored Lincoln to exclaim under his breath: "Somebody, please shoot me." John Wilkes Booth, who was about to do just that, took this as a validation of his actions by fate itself, so he shot him. A fellow theatergoer named "Biff" Zapruder, who was such a huge Lincoln fan that he vowed his every male descendant would henceforth be named "Abraham", was sketching the President at that exact moment and captured it for posterity.



If one examines the sketch closely, it becomes apparent that the President's head is snapping back...and to the left. This prompts many historians to suspect that Booth was not the "lone gunman" and was part of a conspiracy that might well have included the author of "Our American Cousin", Finster Woolworth. Further examination of the picture reveals that John Wilkes Booth's head was much too big for his body, which garnered him such childhood nicknames as "Big Head Booth" and "Old Fathead." Indeed, the man on the far left is said to have shouted "Hey! What the hell do you think you're doing, Big Head?" This may account in part for Booth's general hostility and desire to eliminate big "heads" of state.



Anyway, Booth knew that this was a historical moment, so he tried to think of something cool to say. But all he could come up with was "Sic semper tyrannus!", which illicited groans from the audience and remarks like "what the hell does that mean?" and "well, that was lame." He attempted to gloss over this by making an impressive leap from Lincoln's box to the stage, but managed to trip over a banner and break his leg, making himself look like an even bigger doofus. (This, by the way, was the origin of the oft-heard saying "break a leg", which is usually said by one Presidential assassin to another right before a big assassination attempt.) At this point, Booth staggered to his feet and cried, "Wait! I thought of something else!" and then began to quote Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar":



"How many times shall this, our lofty scene be acted o'er, in states unborn and accents yet unknown?"



Booth waited eagerly for a response, but was met only by the sound of crickets. Feeling something moist, he looked down to find the star of the play whizzing on his leg. This caused the audience to laugh hysterically, and Booth, fed up with the whole thing, limped offstage with a lame "Shut up!", which prompted more laughter. Then everyone remembered that Lincoln had just been shot, and the nation mourned.



A century and a half later, we still remember Abraham Lincoln, and his stovepipe hat, and how much he loved "Star Wars." He never got to act with Luke, Chewie, or Jar Jar, but he did appear as himself on an episode of "Star Trek." We also celebrate his birthday by going to Wal-Mart and buying cheap underwear. And there is a car named after him that is highly popular with members of the Mafia, not to mention the fact that the black guy in "The Mod Squad" was named after him, which is pretty fly for a white guy. And that, my friends, is how we, and history itself, should remember Abraham Lincoln, our twenty-third President. He was, indeed..."pretty fly for a white guy."



(originally posted at http://www.andersonvision.com/)

PORFLE VS. HEAT

I hate heat.  My heat-hate is legendary among the people who are within earshot of me for any extended period of time, which, admittedly, doesn't happen very often.  I hate heat so much that it makes me want to break pencils in half, just like Goldfinger did when his gin rummy scam got busted by James Bond. 

In fact, whenever it gets really hot, I start to feel a lot like Goldfinger.  "Do you expect it to rain?" someone will ask.  "NO! I expect you to DIE!" I'll respond petulantly.  Only instead of planning to use a nuclear device to blow up Fort Knox, I would use a bunch of them to create one of these "nuclear winters" you hear about.  That would be my criminal master plan--a glorious nuclear winter with no heat whatsoever, anywhere.  The governments of the world would collectively scream, "Why?  WHY?  What evil goal could you possibly have hoped to achieve by doing something this overwhelmingly disastrous to humanity?" and I would say, "Ehh...I just hate heat, that's all.  MWAH-ha-ha-haaaaa!" and they would shriek, "You incredibly insane BASTARD!" and I'd be all like, "Yeah, whatever."

Of course, we'd all eventually freeze to death.  Or die of starvation.  But for a while, it would be perfect.  I'd get up in the morning and flick on the radio, and the weather report would be:  "Well folks, absolutely no sunshine plus increasingly plummeting temperatures for the tenth week in a row, thanks to that incredibly insane bastard, porfle.  Super weather for ice-fishing, I guess.  That's...that's about it.  May God have mercy on us."  And then the DJ would play something sadly ironic, like "Hot Fun in the Summertime" or "It's a Sunshine Day" by the Brady Bunch, and you'd be able to hear faint weeping in the background.  Which reminds me, I hate sunshine, too.

Come to think of it, Katie Couric would probably bawl her eyes out during her entire newscast every night, until a frozen doom inevitably overtook us all.  And your local "happy talk" news show would be considerably less happy--no more cute human interest stories about some dopey little kid frying an egg on the hot sidewalk, or humorous video footage of fat people waddling around in bathing suits at the beach. 

Fat people, in fact, would now be envied, since their vast stores of body fat would enable them to live longer than the fashionably skinny people like Fiona Apple or Adrien Brody, in addition to keeping them warmer--thereby giving them the last laugh.  Which they would, by all rights, owe to me.

Stand-up comics wouldn't be so funny anymore, either.  They'd probably try to joke around for awhile, until the crushing horror of the situation became too much and they broke down onstage.  Except Carrot Top, of course--he'd end up with a big goofy, stupid smile on his face while frozen solid in the middle of some horrible sight gag, until someone came along and mercifully kicked him over and he shattered into a million pieces. 

As for Janene Garafalo, I can only imagine the razor-sharp, intellectual barbs she'd unleash against me in a dull, droning voice until she keeled over.  Sarah Silverman, on the other hand, would probably find the worldwide "extinction-level event" to be an endless gold mine of priceless black-comedy material.  Until she keeled over.

Anyway, I hate heat, and days filled with bright, glaring sunshine, and all the frolicsome things that sun worshippers love to run around doing when it's hot and sunny.  Ever go to the beach?  It sucks.  How about a hot, grimy, sweaty sport, like football?  Sucks.  Picnics are stupid, or at least they have been since the day some caveman piled a couple of rocks together and invented the chair.  Cookouts are okay if someone cooks the food outside and then brings it inside for you to eat like civilized people, i.e. without flies crapping all over it. 

Mainly, though, nothing is worth doing outside in the heat if it can be done inside under the air-conditioner, and preferably while lying down.  You see, God knew that we would suffer through discomfort and toil for much of our lives, so that's why He invented the prone position sometime around 20,000 B.C.  It's our reward for all that standing up that we have to do.  Therefore, I consider it my moral duty to partake of it as often as possible, and as far away from heat as is geographically feasible.  Which for me is about 17 feet, since I live in Texas and most of our summers are horrendous and last at least nine months. 

Last year there was a day in mid-October when the temperature reached 100 friggin' degrees.  Mid-October...100 degrees.  "Do you expect it to be this hot again tomorrow?" my neighbor asked me over the back fence.  "NO!  I expect you to DIE!" I screamed.  By 4:30 there wasn't a pencil left in my entire house.  I was sorely tempted to finally go through with my nuclear-winter criminal master plan at long last, except I had neither the resources, the skills, nor the intelligence to actualize such an endeavor.  But if I had, Carrot Top's dumb ass would be a giant frozen jerksicle right about now.

EPILOGUE:

And don't even get me started on humidity.



(Originally posted at Andersonvision.com)