PORFLE VS. GENE RODDENBERRY

I remember the time I tried to accuse Gene Roddenberry of stealing the idea for "Star Trek" from me. It wasn't true, of course, but I saw an opportunity for big money if I could pull it off!




I stormed into his office unannounced one day and pounded my fist on his desk. "You stole the idea for 'Star Trek' from me, you bastard!"



"'Star Trek'?" he said with a puzzled look. "What's that?"



"Huh? Wait a minute...what year is this?"



"It's 1963."



"Oh," I said sheepishly. Retreating from his office, I turned at the door and shot him a defiant look over my shoulder. "See you in three years, SUCKAH!!!"



Three years later, I stormed into his office again and slammed my fist on his desk even harder than I had last time. "You stole the idea for 'Star Trek' from me, you bastard!"



He looked up from some script pages he'd been going over and lowered his glasses on his nose to get a better look at me. "No, I didn't," he claimed. "I totally made it up on my own."



This enraged me, so I stood there clenching my fists, shaking uncontrollably, looking around for something demonstrative to do. Gene's size 12 feet were crossed on his desk, so I grabbed him by the ankles and started swinging him around the room in wide circles. He yowled in a mixture of shock and fear as the script pages fluttered around like big, square snowflakes. Then I let go and launched him right through the window. He crashed through the glass and disappeared with a scream.



I ran to the shattered window and looked down just in time to see Gene being carried away in the back of a passing turnip truck. Since there didn't seem to be anyone at the helm of "Star Trek" at the moment, I sat down at his desk and took over production of the show. Buzzing my new secretary, Dorothy, I ordered her to alert the entire cast and crew of the show to assemble in my office on the double.



There wasn't enough room in there for everybody so they had to sit in each other's laps, ride piggy-back, or make other arrangements. Shatner, who had ended up draped across the back of a couch with production designer Matt Jeffries sitting on his stomach, demanded to know what "the hell" was going on.



"Listen, pal," I growled, chewing on a cigar, "this is my show now, see? I created it, not that Roddenberry mug, see? Anybody got a beef with that? Who wants a knuckle sandwich?" I brandished my fist threateningly while glowering like a bulldog and blowing huge clouds of cigar smoke from the corners of my mouth.



Leonard Nimoy, who was partially wedged underneath the desk and had propmaster Irving Feinberg's butt in his face, spoke up with a groan. "Where's Gene?" he inquired. "He's the creator of this show, not you, and he should be--"



"YAAAAAAA!!!" I exploded in a burst of rage, flailing my arms. "I CREATED THE SHOW!!! ME, ME, MEEEEE!!!" Screaming like a banshee, I leapt onto the desk and started jumping up and down. At one point, my pants fell down around my ankles but I didn't notice. Chunks of plaster began to crumble from the walls and ceiling while ominous creaking and groaning noises filled the room. "ME, ME, MEEEEE!!!" I continued to scream.



Suddenly the overloaded floor gave way with a tremendous din of splintering wood and a billowing cloud of dust. Everyone crashed through, plummetting from the second storey to the first and landing in the lobby of the office building like so many sacks of tomatoes until the floor was littered with people and debris. DeForest Kelley had fallen through the top of a candy machine and could now be seen through the display glass, as though he were on sale for a mere thirty-five cents. George Takei had landed on a watercooler, smashing the large container of water and taking its place atop the machine. Nichelle Nichols was part of a large potted plant next to the restrooms.



When the noise had subsided, I calmly rose to my feet and produced a script from my back pocket. "You see," I said in a reasonable voice, "this is my original script for 'Star Trek', which I wrote several years before this Roddenberry jerk started running around claiming to have invented the whole thing himself." I showed it to Shatner and Nimoy, who were hanging upside-down by their feet from some kind of electrical wiring.



"This..." Nimoy sputtered, gasping for air. "This...is a script...for a sitcom called 'Leave It To Pooky.'"



"That's right," I affirmed. "Oh sure, Roddenberry changed a few things. Names, locations, whatever. Merely a thinly-disguised attempt to steal my ideas." I flipped a few pages and pointed. "See? The next-door neighbor character named Mr. Dinglehooter? That's Mr. Spock. And the kooky teenage daughter who's going through a volatile social and sexual awakening that leads to lots of comical complications? That's, uh...Scotty."



"What about me?" Shatner croaked. "Who am I?"



"Oh, you're Pooky, of course."



"But...Pooky's a dog!"



"Yes," I agreed, holding up a finger, "but he's a dog with all of Captain Kirk's most distinctive qualities! Courage, wisdom...uh, irresistible sex appeal..."



"Hmm," Shatner intoned. "This is all starting to make some sense."



"Oh, for god's sake, Bill," scoffed Nimoy.



Suddenly, Gene Roddenberry's ample bulk filled the front doorway. His clothing was strangely rumpled, and whenever he moved, turnips fell out of it. He pointed at me with a trembling finger. "SECURITY!" he cried. "GET THAT GUY!"



"You'll hear from my lawyers, you big dope!" I screamed, making my getaway with armed guards hot on my heels.



It wasn't long after this that the first Klingons began to appear on "Star Trek", and I like to think that they were at least partially inspired by my disruptive antics that day. On the whole, I felt as though I had really accomplished something worthwhile and was pretty darn proud of myself, until a few years later, after "Star Trek" had been cancelled, a new show appeared on NBC's fall schedule. Sure enough, it was "Leave It To Pooky." It turned out to be a big, big hit, with "Pooky" fan clubs popping up all over the world and billions of dollars rolling in from "Pooky" merchandising. And to add insult to injury, the opening credits every week featured the huge, glittering letters: "CREATED BY GENE RODDENBERRY, AND NOT PORFLE."



(originally posted at Andersonvision.com)

PORFLE PRESENTS: COLEMAN FRANCIS' "2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY"

(NOTE: In order to get anything out of this, you have to have seen both Stanley Kubrick's classic masterpiece 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and Coleman Francis' classic messterpiece THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS. If you haven't, it might not make much sense. If you have, it still might not make much sense.)






1. THE DAWN OF MAN





Human evolution time. An ape and his wife. Unaware of scientific progress.



Always on the prowl. Looking for something or somebody to kill. Quench the apeman's thirst.



Shockwaves of an alien monolith. A once powerful, humble ape. Reduced to...human.



Monolith on the moon--how did it get there?



Heywood Floyd, noted scientist. Recently escaped from behind the shower curtain. Wife and children bored in Florida.



His aide carries a briefcase. Secret data on the alien moon monolith.



Secret data. Pictures of the monolith.



These men are also from behind the shower curtain. Two of NASA's most ruthless accountants. Their orders: get the briefcase. Have lunch with Floyd.



Heywood Floyd's destination...Clavius. And a meeting with the top brass at the monolith excavation ground.



Nothing bothers some people, not even floating fountain pens.



Kids from Earth, not yet caught up in the whirlwind of progress, feed birthday cake to the hungry bush baby.



Touch a button...things happen. A scientist uses a zero-gravity toilet.



A man chokes on a ham sandwich. A scientist's lunch. And footprints on the moonscape.



Secret data. Never before outside NASA. Man's first monolith on the moon.





2. JUPITER MISSION--18 MONTHS LATER





Human evolution time. People travel east, west, north, or south. The Discovery travels east, with two small astronauts. Adventurous astronauts.



Young Dave Bowman. Spaceman. Caught in the centrifugal wheels of progress.



Frank Poole, Dave's partner. Another man caught in the frantic race for the betterment of mankind. Progress.



Seven-hundred and ten in the shade...and no shade. Dave and Frank try to make their way up to Jupiter. To reach the planet a man needs a space pod. A jump from the pod could land you in orbit.



Frank Poole. Wounded para-sailing in Malibu. Dave and Frank try to keep the cosmos safe for humanity. Seven days a week.



Meteors. Once a menace to astronauts. Moon bases deflect them off their research grounds.



Hours in the broiling hot space laboratory, with no trace of the malfunction. To replace the AE-35 unit and allow it to fail is the only answer. A trip out into space, and float. And if the malfunction is in the ship's onboard computer, HAL...disconnect him. Disconnect first, ask questions later.



Dave and Frank pick their way up to the mouth of the space pod. One slip, and two feet to nowhere.



The space pod drops its man. If Frank Poole moves north, the impending malfunction will be caught in the middle. An innocent AE-35 unit, caught in the wheels of justice.



A man floats. Somebody severs his air hose.



HAL, finding his victim gone, unleashes his fury.



The hunter and the hunted. With only a few feet between him and the emergency airlock, Dave Bowman closes in for the kill.



20 hours without rest, and still no oxygen. In the smothering deep space vacuum, Dave plans another attack. Find HAL's brain, and disconnect him. Disconnect, or be disconnected. Man's inhumanity...to machine.





3. JUPITER AND BEYOND THE INFINITE





Dave Bowman, noted astronaut. Now a star fetus, prowling the spacelands. A futuristic baby in the nuclear age. Float. Float, just to be floating.



(originally posted at Andersonvision.com)

PORFLE PRESENTS: "THE BUZZ ALDRIN THANKSGIVING DISASTER"

Whenever I think of Thanksgiving, I can't help but recall the time astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin had Thanksgiving dinner with me and my family.  (He didn't really, but that doesn't affect the story all that much so don't worry about it.) 

We were all getting ready to sit down to dinner when the doorbell rang.  Being the youngest, I answered it.  To my surprise, astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, was standing on the porch.  He was wearing a nice suit and was smiling brightly.  He looked hungry! 

"Aren't you Buzz Aldrin, the astronaut?" I asked, recognizing him from all the TV news moon-landing coverage.

"Yes, I am," he responded with a crisp nod.  "I'm here for dinner...and boy, does it ever smell good."  He rocked a bit on his heels, looking eager and expectant. Figuring that somebody must've invited him, I stood aside and ushered him in.

"Buzz Aldrin's here, everybody," I announced to my astonished family while fetching another chair from the kitchen and dragging it to the diningroom table.  I had to squeeze Buzz in between me and my sister.  The rest of the family had frozen in mid-motion at the sight of him and watched as he sat down and spread a napkin in his lap.  "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse," he quipped.

Dad cleared his throat and spoke hesitantly.  "Uhh...I was just about to say the blessing, Mr. Aldrin.  But perhaps you'd do the honors instead."

"I'd be happy to," said Buzz.  We all lowered our heads, and Buzz began to speak in a low, sonorous voice.  "Dear Lord...bless the moon and the astronauts and spaceships and NASA, and Walter Cronkite, and those weird little gremlins that come through the walls of our space capsules in outer space and try to kill us.  And bless Grandma and Uncle Spanky and Boris Karloff and the Jackson Five and the brave plumbers who fix our toilets so that we can relieve ourselves without having to go outside."  He looked around and smiled.  "Amen."

"Amen," we all repeated nervously.  Even though it was an honor to have a famous astronaut eating Thanksgiving dinner with us, he was starting to creep us out a little.  And nobody knew why the heck he was there in the first place.

Dad passed the turkey platter to our guest.  Buzz held it in both hands and regarded the golden brown turkey appreciatively.  "This dead bird, whose corpse has been roasted," he announced momentously, "will soon be eagerly masticated by our gnashing teeth and drenched in our gushing saliva.  And then we will swallow it, beginning the strange, magical digestive process that will eventually result in our bowels moving and expelling--"

"Would you like some yams?" Mom interjected, hoping to bring a halt to Buzz's potentially graphic speech. 

Buzz glanced at her and shook his head.  "No, thank you.  This dead bird, whose corpse has been roasted," he muttered, trying to regain his place, "uh, blah, blah, blah...magical digestive process..."  His voice took on its rich, confident tone once again.  "Beginning the strange, magical digestive process that will eventually result in our bowels moving and ex--"

"Tell us about the moon landing!" Mom almost yelped. 

For a few moments, Buzz looked at her as though she were some kind of creature from Mars.  Then his head seemed to clear a bit, and he smiled.  "Well," he said, "it was kind of like this."  He laid the platter down and stuck his hand up inside the turkey, lifting it up and moving it around like some kind of ghastly hand puppet.  "Let's say the table is the moon's surface, and the space capsule is represented by this dead bird, whose corpse has been roasted..."  He stopped, a look of confusion settling over his features.  "We will soon be eagerly masticating it with our gnashing teeth, and drenching it in our gushing saliva..."

I didn't want to hear about that process again so I interjected.  "What was it like walking around on the moon?" I asked.

Buzz brightened again.  "Well, it was like this," he explained, now using the impromptu turkey-puppet to represent himself on the moon's surface.  He minced it around on the table, bobbing it up and down slowly as though semi-weightless, and weaving it deftly around between the big bowl of mashed potatoes and a heaping platter of cornbread dressing.  "This is me," he added, nodding down at the turkey in case we hadn't already grasped that.  Then he reached over and grabbed my nephew Danny by his suspenders and lifted him out of his highchair.  "And this is Neil Armstrong." 

As we all looked on in horror, Aldrin "moon-walked" baby Danny around on the table along with the dead turkey in what was probably the most revolting "mission simulation" in aerospace history.  Nobody knew what to do, since the situation was entirely alien to us.  Even my sister, who was Danny's mother, was afraid to do anything to antagonize Buzz at this point.  And still the horrible display continued, as turkey and baby took on the roles of the first two astronauts to walk on the moon. 

"Please...please..." my sister finally managed to croak.  "Please put him down."

Buzz looked at her as though she had two heads.  "Put who down?  Me or Neil?" he asked.

"PUT...THE BABY...DOWN!!!" she screamed at last, pounding her fists on the table with a clatter.

Buzz looked at the baby, then at the turkey.  A strange sort of realization began to creep over his face.  "Well, I, uh..." he said slowly.  "I'm afraid I...don't really know...which is the baby...and which is the dead bird...whose corpse has been roasted..."

"Not that again!" Mom shrieked, rising to her feet and grabbing her hair with both hands.  "NOT THE DIGESTIVE PROCESS STORY AGAIN!!!"

Silently, Buzz removed his hand from the turkey and placed it in the highchair, and then gently lowered Danny onto the turkey platter.  With deliberate restraint, he crossed his hands in his lap and spoke softly.  "I thought you all wanted to know about the moon landing," he said with self-pity and a faint air of reproach.  "You asked me to describe it.  I did so, using whatever visual aids were available at the time.  If you'd wanted me to use different ones, you should have supplied them." 

His eyes took on a dreamy look.  "Walter Cronkite supplied me with a neat-o toy spaceship and some little astronaut dolls that I got to keep, and a very nice scale mock-up of the Sea of Tranquility.  But all I had here was this strange creature--" he indicated Danny, who was cooing up at him in wonder--"and this dead bird, whose corpse has been roasted and will soon be eagerly masticated by our gnashing teeth and drenched in our gushing saliva--"

"I...don't...think...so," Mom groaned, clipping the words off bitterly.  "Not after you've had your hand stuck up inside it like that.  We'll not be 'masticating' that bird today, Mr. Aldrin.  And after all the trouble I went to...to..."  At that point it all became too much for her and she collapsed in a fit of convulsive weeping.  Dad rushed over and hurried her out of the room.  "I want you out of here," he said hoarsely to Buzz on his way past.

Buzz Aldrin took a deep breath, then shook his head as though he'd just awakened from a brief nap.  He looked around at us with a smile, seemingly unaware of the travesty he'd just made of our now-ruined Thanksgiving dinner, and continued where he'd left off.  "Beginning the strange, magical digestive process that will eventually result in our bowels--"

My sister screamed and whisked Danny away, fleeing the room.  Buzz watched her exit with a perplexed look and then turned to regard me as I sat trembling.  Aside from the turkey, which was still sitting in the highchair, it was just me and Buzz at the table now.  I wished I were somewhere else.  Or more precisely, that Buzz were somewhere else. 

Buzz picked up the turkey in one hand and a large sweet potato in the other.  "Would you like to see what a real NASA docking maneuver looks like?" he asked with a grin.

"No," I said weakly.  Then, summoning my courage, I added, "I think you should just leave."

"Oh?" said Buzz.  "Well, thank you for a lovely meal."  He rose from the table and headed for the front door.  Was he simply pretending that he hadn't just totally disrupted everything, I thought, or was he genuinely unaware?  I would never know.  Buzz disappeared out the door and out of our lives forever.

That is, until he showed up for breakfast the next morning.  You don't want to know what he tried to "simulate" with the link sausage, scrambled eggs, and our dog.  Something to do with "pulling eleven G's" or whatever.  Anyway, for what it's worth, I don't think astronauts and Thanksgiving go together very well at all. 

(originally posted at Andersonvision.com)

PORFLE MEETS ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER

I was walking through the park one day, enjoying the cool, fragrant breezes and the song of the meadowlark and all that stuff, when suddenly Arnold Schwarzenegger fell out of a tree and landed on a little old lady who was feeding some squirrels.

At first I thought he was wearing a loin cloth, but it turned out to be a pair of leopard print boxer shorts. He sprang to his feet and tried to help the little old lady up. She was out cold, so he propped her against a tree and pinned her coat collar over the protruding nub of a broken branch so that she would remain upright.

"Dere!" Arnold said with a huge gap-toothed smile. "Now she stands up until she no longer is unconscious, ha ha ha!" He noticed me watching and did a double bicep pose. "Look at dese biceps! I am pretending to be Tarzan off da apes, ha ha ha!"

It turned out that Arnold was enjoying a day off from being Governor of California and had decided to spend it romping around in the park in his underwear. I didn't see anything wrong with that, but I thought he should try to be more careful. "You might have badly injured that old lady with your carelessness," I scolded.

"MY carelessness?" Arnold responded, shocked. "Vat about HER carelessness? Why vass she feeding dose squirrels dat vere right underneet a big strong man in a tree? Huh, you?"

But the defiant tone in his voice was betrayed by the guilty look on his face. "Uh-huh...you feel bad now, don't you?" I chided. "You didn't watch where you were going, and you fell on a little old lady and knocked her out. Go on...admit it."

Arnold frowned and lowered his head. "You are right, mister. I feel bad. Really bad." He started to cry. "I vas only playing!"

"I realize that, Arnold," I said, patting his shoulder. "And I'm proud of you for admitting that you acted carelessly, and for being sorry."

Arnold brightened immediately, the huge grin returning in full force. "Hooray!" he screamed, jumping up and down and waving his massive arms. "Happy Tarzan! Happy Tarzan off da apes!" He sprang forward and grabbed me by the shoulders. "Hey, you come and play 'Tarzan' wit me! You can be Cheetah!"

"But, I don't want--" I started to say, but Arnold had already scooped me up over his shoulder and whisked me into the trees. Before I knew it we were swinging from vine to vine high over the ground. I was terrified, but Arnold laughed and screamed like a raging dynamo of pure childlike glee. "I AM TARZAN OFF DA APES!!! HERE I COME, READY OR NOT, EVERYBODDY!!!" Then he tried to do a Tarzan yell. It sounded like elephants being boiled alive like lobsters.

Some children far below spotted us swinging around and pointed excitedly. "Look!" said a little girl with an ice cream cone. "It's Arnold Schwarzenegger! Do a crab pose, Arnold!"

Arnold was overjoyed. "Yah, I do a crab pose for you!" he cried, releasing the vine and contorting his body into a rock-hard mass of intensely flexed muscles in midair. Suddenly we were both plummeting toward the ground through a dizzying onrush of leafy branches. Finally realizing that he had thoughtlessly let go of the vine in order to perform his crab pose, Arnold began to scream. "YAAAAAAAAAA!!!"

I landed in a duck pond, while Arnold fell squarely on the entire group of children who had been cheering for him only seconds before, knocking them all unconscious. He staggered dizzily to his feet and looked around.

"Vat...vat haff I done?" Arnold said with growing dismay, his eyes bulging. "I haff killed all off dese chillduns! I...I haff to get out off here!" He grabbed me by the collar and hauled me out of the duck pond. "VE haff to get out of here! Ve boat are FUGITIVES now!"

Dragging me along behind him, Arnold ran into the parking lot just as a large, leather-clad man with long hair and a beard was getting off his Harley. He froze when he saw Arnold quickly approaching in his leopard print underwear with me trailing from his arm. "I need your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle!" Arnold cried.

The frightened man hastily complied, and soon Arnold was dressed in the man's clothes and starting his motorcycle. He found some sunglasses in the breast pocket of the jacket and put them on. "Dese I vill need for a disguise!" he said breathlessly. "Hurry! Get on!"

Well, I'd had enough. "No, Arnold," I said resolutely.

"Come wit me iff you vant to live!" Arnold persisted.

"NO! I refuse to be a part of these foolish shenanigans a second longer."

Arnold sat still for a moment, thinking it over. Then he smiled his huge gap-toothed smile. "Okay! Den let's play Tarzan off da apes some moah!"

Shucking his stolen clothes, Arnold hoisted me over his shoulder and headed off for the trees again as I screamed for help. The little children were regaining consciousness and rising unsteadily to their feet, so Arnold stopped, put me down, did a quick crab pose for them, and then scooped me up and ascended into the treetops. Before long we were swinging around from vine to vine again.

"Let me go, DAMMIT!" I roared.

"Stop talking!" said Arnold, the wind racing through his hair. "Cheetah da monkey cannot talk!"

The next day, as I lay in bed recovering from my traumatic experience, I saw Arnold on the news. He was at a press conference, smartly-dressed and looking bright and refreshed from his day off. I sneered at the TV screen and was about to change the channel, when suddenly Arnold looked right at me and pointed.

"Hey, look everybody--dere's porfle!" he said to the crowd of puzzled reporters. "Hi, porfle, ha ha ha!"


Read "Porfle Meets Arnold Schwarzenegger's Sister" HERE
(originally posted at Andersonvision.com)

PORFLE VS. THE BEAT SNAKES

The Beat Snakes were a musical group that were well known around my hometown when I was in high school. I would've said "popular" instead of "well known", but in truth nobody really liked them very much. In fact, they were citywide pariahs and everyone hated their stinking guts. But the Beat Snakes didn't care. They thought it was "cool" and "rebellious" to be hated.

Each member of the Beat Snakes had his own individual persona. The lead guitarist was known as "Roller Skate Head" because he wore roller skates on his head like earmuffs. Someone once asked him why he did that, and he answered: "Because I am Roller Skate Head." His real name was Boyd Feldman, and whenever he had to sign his actual name on some kind of official document or whatever, he would write "Boyd 'Roller Skate Head' Feldman." When he finally died, his headstone read "Here Lies Boyd 'Roller Skate Head' Feldman." It was carved in the shape of a urinal.

The lead singer for the Beat Snakes was known as "Super Lobster." He would move his hands as though they were lobster pincers and run around pretending to fly like Superman as he made a "whooshing" noise. When he got hit by a bus one day while pretending to fly around out in the middle of the interstate, Roller Skate Head called the local paper to give them the big story, expecting them to print an elaborate front page obituary. Instead, the editor of the paper reacted to the news by saying "So?" and printing a simple back-page filler item entitled "Bus Runs Over Dumbass." Since nobody knew Super Lobster's real name, his headstone simply said "Here Lies The Unknown Dumbass." It wasn't until several years later that his real identity was revealed to be ex-Doors-frontman Jim Morrison.

The bass player for the Beat Snakes called himself "Fred Flintstone." People naturally assumed that he was named after the cartoon character, yet he insisted to his dying day that this was his real name. In fact, his dying words were: "I am Fred Flintstone." Immediately after saying this, the helicopter that he was flying in got hit by a train. At his funeral, an older couple claiming to be his parents showed up and introduced themselves as Fred and Wilma Jetson. His headstone consists of a rotating marble bust of Gary Coleman with elk antlers.

Most peculiar of all, perhaps, was the Beat Snakes' drummer, who went by the nickname of "Bea Arthur." This was most likely due to the fact that he was a dead ringer for the "Golden Girls" star, even to the point of dressing like her, speaking in the exact same voice, and disappearing for long periods of time whenever the show was being taped in Hollywood. There was a persistent rumor, in fact, that he actually was Bea Arthur. There was another unsubstantiated rumor that he also defeated Muhammad Ali in a 1973 heavyweight title bout under the pseudonym of "Ken Norton." When queried about this, the other members of the group were heard to reply, "Nah, she was with me that day. I mean, he."

The fact that the Beat Snakes' drummer and the popular television actress were never seen together at the same time added fuel to the rumors, although it has been pointed out that neither had ever been seen at the same time with several other well-known people including Frank Sinatra, Jr. and talk-show host Oprah Winfrey. This latter point was further obfuscated when, during the final year of the band's existence, they acquired a keyboard player who went by the name of "Oprah Winfrey" and appeared to be a large black woman, although he consistently denied this.

I was there when the Beat Snakes gave their final performance one hot summer night in the local high school gym. There was a fairly large crowd, consisting not of fans but of people who showed up merely to boo and throw things at them. When they hit the stage, they were pelted with vegetables and rotten eggs that were on sale in the lobby as they launched into their theme song, "Hey, Hey, We're the Beat Snakes." Roller Skate Head's pants fell down during his big guitar solo, but he acted as though this were intentional and the matter is still up for debate. Fred Flintstone, apparently not feeling well that evening, vomited profusely throughout the entire song, prompting various audience members to get sick as well until the entire crowd was heaving their collective guts out.

The lynch mob and the arsonists both arrived during the final verse of the song, causing the band to flee for their lives as the gym went up in flames. Super Lobster was seen out in the street making defensive lobster-pincer motions with his hands and attempting to fly away, and was eventually rescued by his sister when she came driving by in her Volvo. Roller Skate Head tried to blend into the raging mob by donning dark glasses and a baseball cap, but failed to fool anyone since he'd forgotten that he was still wearing roller skates on his head. He finally had to leap onto the back of a passing Greyhound bus and ended up some time later in Cincinatti, Ohio.

Fred Flintstone and Oprah Winfrey managed to escape through a manhole, crawl through miles of rancid underground sewer pipes, and emerge on the other side of town covered in slime, where they were mistaken for swamp monsters and chased by angry torch-wielding villagers until they ducked into an Arby's on Wilton Boulevard and were hired to work the night shift. Bea Arthur disappeared during the initial chaos and was never seen again, although many believe that he is hiding out somewhere in the great northwest forest region of the United States under the name of "Bigfoot."

Now, whenever the band's name is mentioned, little children are heard to ask, "Who were the Beat Snakes, Mommy?", even when their parents are nowhere in sight. A documentary about them entitled "Who Were the Beat Snakes, Mommy?" was scheduled to be shown on VH1 a few years ago but eventually showed up on Nickelodeon at 4:00 in the morning, where it was seen only by me, some guy in Cincinatti, and, for some reason, the entire cast of "Desperate Housewives." So whenever a little child comes up to me now and asks, "Who were the Beat Snakes, Mommy?", I just smile, pat them on the head, and say, "I'm not your mommy, stupid. I just look like her."

PORFLE VS. DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME

All the clocks in my house are still set for non-Daylight Saving Time because I hate Daylight Saving Time. Nobody tells PORFLE that the time is different just because they say it is--NOBODY. And I absolutely refuse to "spring forward." People say this as though they were little elves cutely frolicking around in a meadow. "Time to spring forward, everybody!" they cheerily titter with their fingers making little fluttery motions. "No, it's time for you to KISS MY ASS!" I respond. That's just the kind of person I am. Hardcore. Uncompromising. Insouciant. 

So, I was sitting around eating a big bowl of ice cream and some of those yummy off-brand fig bars that look like Fig Newtons but are cheaper, and suddenly it occurred to me, "Oops! I missed my triple-bypass heart surgery! Oh well, who cares?" It's not my fault the rest of the country is stuck in this stupid Daylight Saving Time-warp. Those idiot surgeons down at the hospital might think it's three o'clock, but dammit, it's two o'clock. So I just blew off that dumb operation and guzzled another glass of delicious whole milk and smoked half a pack of cigarettes while watching Roy Rogers movies on TV. 

I only watch DVDs and tapes on TV anyway, so I don't have to worry about programming schedules like other foolish mortals, ha ha. And it gets dark when it's supposed to around my house, instead of at nine or ten o'clock at night, which is just plain dumb. I can't understand why anyone would look out their window and think, "Well, it's the middle of the night, but it's still broad daylight outside. Yaaaay!" 

I looked up "Daylight Saving Time" on Wikipedia and the first thing I saw was a picture of Benjamin Franklin. You know, the "early to bed, early to rise" guy. What a huge doofus. It's commonly believed that Franklin invented DST, but he didn't--he just proposed waking up Parisians an hour earlier every morning by shooting off cannons. I don't think he meant for the cannons to be shot directly at the Parisians, but I'll bet that would've woken them up, ha ha. Anyway, the picture of Benjamin Franklin that accompanies the article looks like my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Bagwell, so any worthless advice from this creepy-looking transvestite can be summarily dismissed. 

The guy who actually proposed switching to DST was some chump named William Willett, who decided during one of his "pre-breakfast horseback rides" in 1905 that people were sleeping through "the best time of a summer day." Well, by all means, let's wind all the clocks forward because some fruity asshat on horseback doesn't want us to sleep late. The Wikipedia article states: "An avid golfer, he also disliked cutting short his round at dusk." Oh my god, William "Chicken Head" Willett wants to get in a few extra holes, so let's drastically alter our entire system of time! There's a picture of this bald, spindly turdhead--probably thinking about the traumatic time that he was playing golf one day and it suddenly got dark--and the look on his smug pruneface just makes you want to kick him right in the balls. Twice. 

Anyway, I like to brag to everyone else about how smart I am and how stupid they are for being on Daylight Stupid Time. "I'll pick you up at noon," they say, and I respond, "Okay, but for me it will be eleven o'clock instead of noon, since I'm not a big, slobbering dumbass like you are." This often leads to interesting conversations about time and discussions of things such as how Daylight Savings Time affects society in general and why they are no longer going to pick me up. Which is fine with me because I didn't want to go to their dumb 4th of July party anyway. I have a dog and a cat to play with, and we have our own fun parties with pointy party hats and ice cream and off-brand fig bars, and I win all the games due to my higher intelligence level and cheating skills. 

 Furthermore, it may interest you to know that my dog and cat don't pay attention to Daylight Saving Time, either--hell, they never even heard of it. Yes, we could all learn a thing or two from dogs and cats. I'll bet William "Chicken Head" Willett never had a dog or a cat, or if he did he never learned anything from them. He did have a horse, though, and horses don't know a damn thing about anything. So I'm not surprised that he had his big epiphany about Daylight Saving Time while on horseback. Rick Astley wrote all of his most well-known songs while on horseback, and look what happened to him. If William Willett and Rick Astley ever went horseback riding together, they'd probably fall in love and go nuts. As for Benjamin Franklin, I don't know what kind of pets he had. By the looks of him, though, if he had a horse he'd probably eat it.

PORFLE'S GERT FROBE ADVENTURE

One day I was playing checkers with Gert Frobe, who portrayed James Bond's arch nemesis in GOLDFINGER, when suddenly I had a great idea.




"Hey, Gert," I said, jumping three of his men in a row, "let's build a rocketship and blast off to Mars!"



"That would be wonderful!" he exclaimed in his distinctive German accent as he "kinged" me. "Should we do it now, or complete our current game of checkers?"



"Oh, let's just call it a draw," I said magnanimously, even though I was clearly winning. "I can't wait to get started."



"I cannot wait, either!" he said happily, bounding from his stool and jumping up and down. Dressed in a festive Hawaiian shirt with blue shorts and flip-flops, he looked like a huge bouncing beach ball. His massive bulk shook our flimsy wooden clubhouse as each bounce threatened to knock it right out of the tree in which it was perched. Suddenly it lurched perilously to one side like a ship that had just struck an iceberg.



"No, Gert!" I cried. "You'll destroy--" But it was too late. The clubhouse tumbled over sideways even as Gert continued to flounder around joyously, laughing and screaming "We are going to Mars! We are going to Mars!" Seconds later the entire structure fell out of the tree and plummetted to the ground, where it was smashed into a million jagged shards.



When my vision cleared, I could see Gert sprawled on the ground with his head sticking through the checkerboard. He staggered to his feet, still dizzy, and lumbered around my backyard in a daze. Then, as I looked on with horror, he fell over backwards onto my Dad's riding lawnmower, accidentally started it, and then screamed with alarm as it took off across the yard. His feet were still sticking straight up as the lawnmower crashed through our picket fence, took out Mrs. Wilson's prize petunias, and then roared off down the street.



"GERT!" I cried as I leapt onto my bicycle and gave chase. I could see him rounding the corner at the end of the street, which would put him right in the middle of rush hour traffic. As I gained on him a little at a time, I began to hear him screaming over the roar of the lawnmower engine. Although his head had begun to clear, he was still extremely disoriented by the situation and didn't quite understand what was happening to him.



"Help me, porfle! I do not understand what is happening to me!" I could hear him say. Big tractor-trailer rigs and school buses and garbage trucks were thundering past him on all sides. He blew right through an intersection and barely missed getting flattened by a speeding dump truck. Then the lawnmower careened onto a side road and headed off toward the city dump.



It finally ran out of gas at the entrance to the dump, where I caught up with it at last. Breathlessly, I asked, "Gert! Are you all right?"



He stumbled off the lawnmower and stood up slowly, blinking his eyes. "Yes, porfle, I am all right," he said dazedly. "I was so stricken with sudden happiness at the thought of going to Mars, that I seem to have behaved in a careless manner. Which, as you can see, has resulted in a series of unfortunate mishaps."



"Well," I said, trying to make the best of things, "since we're at the city dump anyway, let's see if we can find some cool stuff to build a rocketship with."



At this, Gert's eyes lit up and he was happy again. "Oh, boy!" he said with delight. "I'll wager that before this day has passed, we will have found lots of 'cool stuff' for the construction of our rocketship." Before I could respond, he took off and disappeared into the dump.



After searching for the rest of that day and the next and unable to find a single trace of him anywhere, I finally had to call the police and fire department. Two weeks later, the sounds of helicopters and bloodhounds still resounded throughout the dump as dozens of uniformed men, along with several citizen volunteers, scoured the area looking for Gert. In the meantime, I had made some "Where's Gert?" signs to post on telephone poles all over town, and each one had a picture of him from that famous scene in GOLDFINGER where he gets mad and snaps the pencil in two. I later found out that nobody who saw one of these signs ever helped look for him, because the picture scared them.



Tired and dejected, I dragged myself home on the last day of the second week and found Gert in my backyard, surrounded by heaps of junk. His clothes were tattered and he showed signs of malnutrition and exposure to the elements. "Look!" he croaked. "Look at all these 'cool stuff' I have found with which to construct our rocketship! Soon we will be on Mars!"



Well, at that point I really didn't feel much like building a rocketship. And--truth be told--it had all been more of a fantastical whim than an actual plan to begin with. Like one of those cute things the Little Rascals used to think they could do before they learned a lesson about reality and stuff. I explained this to Gert as delicately as possible, trying to let him down easy, but the dawning disappointment in his eyes was almost heartbreaking.



"I wanted to go to Mars," he said, his voice cracking. "I had hoped that we would find strange creatures there, perhaps even intelligent ones, and have many exciting adventures in outer space." He sat down on an old washing machine that he'd planned to use in the construction of the ship's fuselage and sulked.



"Well," I said, trying to cheer him up, "we could go to the movies."



"Is it a movie about going to Mars?" he asked.



"Yes," I said, even though it was really just YOU'VE GOT MAIL with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. I would simply tell him that they were Martians and that the movie took place on Mars.



"All right, porfle," he said, rising. "We will go to this movies."



During the movie, Gert ate four large tubs of buttered popcorn, six hot dogs, and several boxes of Raisinettes, and drank nine large Mountain Dews. He had to go to the bathroom eleven times, and each time I had to bring him back up to speed on what was going on. "What did these strange Martian creatures do in my absence?" he would ask loudly as people shushed us. I made up stuff about terrifying space monsters and intense repulsor beam attacks that he had missed, and he sat back in awe. "Mein Gott...this is the greatest science-fiction film I have ever seen."



Later, we used all the junk Gert had dragged home from the dump to build a new, even better clubhouse. We were sitting in it one day, playing checkers, when Gert said in that thick German accent of his, "Hey, porfle...do you recall the time we constructed that magnificent rocketship and went to Mars?"



"Yes," I said, grateful that his memory of that whole incident had become a bit hazy.



"They had such wonderful popcorn and hot dogs there," he reflected. "But the Martians seemed foolish and weak. I found their frivolous antics tiresome. Perhaps someday we should construct a bigger and more powerful rocketship, armed with an invincible array of state-of-the-art repulsor beams, and completely obliterate them."



"Yeah, that'd be awesome," I agreed, jumping three of his men for the win.







(originally posted at Andersonvision.com)