Some years ago, I had it explained that the barbarians and lunatics down south of the border refer to the region of their country clustered around the Great Lakes as the “Mid-West.” This immediately rang false for me, looking at a map of their country; the entire region was plainly in the eastern half of the country, albeit somewhat bumping up against the mid-point of the country, in such a way as to come as close to the west as one could come without actually BEING west in any meaningful way.
I offered up the observation that, being in the eastern part of the middle of the country, it could reasonably be called the “Middle east”, or “Mid-East”, if you prefer. Indeed, a case could be made that in that it’s on the far western edge of the eastern half of the country, I would even accept the idea of it being called the “Western-East”. Though I acknowledge that doing so brings with it a certain amount of confusion, at least it is a confusion which could be dispelled with a reasonable explanation, in which sense it has a leg up on the current “Mid-West” fiasco.
Not to be entirely culturally elitist, I must admit that this is a problem which exists even in my own country, and nowhere more glaringly than in the apocalyptic wasteland of the mind which is Alberta (or “Cold Texas” as I like to call it). There’s a conversation I’ve had a number of times with various Albertans which has had only minor variations from person to person, which can best be characterized by one particular instance from a couple of years ago:
I had ordered a couple of small pizzas at work, and one of which was of a type with three tangible toppings and one intangible topping, each of which are vital to the appeal of the dish. The tangible toppings were and are green pepper, feta cheese and shrimp. The intangible one is spite. This came about as something of an unexpected surprise; some years earlier, I had been forced to spend time with an appalling toad of a man named Alex, who claimed to be allergic to all sea foods. I came up with what I thought would be a deliberately disgusting combination of toppings which I had planned to eat with exaggerated relish in front of him in an effort to offend his sensibilities. To my considerable surprise, the pizza was conspicuously awesome. I credit this, as earlier-implied, at least in part to that fourth intangible topping, but the merit of the first three cannot be under-sold either. I’ve introduced a great many people to this combination since then, going about it with a sort of missionary zeal, and it was on one such an occasion that I attempted to get an Albertan to eat some.
“Naw, I don’t eat anything that comes out of the water. I guess my tastes are too Western”, he droned. The capitalization of the word western here is deliberate; it plainly couldn’t have been a reference to a direction so much as a named culture, for reasons which I articulated thus: “If you go far west enough, you know where you end up? In the OCEAN. Seafood is thus the most definitively and inarguably WESTERN food there is! If your issue is one of ‘western identity’, then I can assure you that you stand no risk of betraying it by eating sea food!”
He would have none of it, though; to him, as to many Albertans “Western” had nothing to do with concepts as concrete as longitude or geography. It was just something they felt, somewhere deep in their skulls, where the brain would in any other case be located. It was a brand name, a label, a state of mind. The Albertans had long ago claimed for themselves the identity of “Western Canada”, and fuck anyone who claimed to be more western than them based upon evidence as flimsy as a compas’s wavering needle. To be more western was to be more definitively Albertan, which meant among other things being more closed-minded to ideas such as that “west” was an indication of direction which was relative to the actual spot where you happened to be standing.
He ultimately refused to taste my cockpunchingly awesome pizza, and in retrospect, there’s a part of me that’s glad; I’m not sure I would have wanted to share it with someone whose concept of direction was as arbitrary as a man standing at the north pole’s might be. I feel it would have sullied my awesome Spite Pizza in some way, and then it would have been cursed with the presumably-less-delicious second intangible topping of dismay. And I know for a fact I wouldn’t pay for a Dismay Pizza. The very thought of it fills me with a certain nameless sense of agitation, alarm, anxiety, apprehension, and so-forth on down through the alphabet.
tl;dr: Stupid people shouldn’t get to name regions in ways which involve directions without first consulting a map of the landmass they’re standing on and a geography teacher capable of explaining the concept of longitude to them.
“Cockpunchingly” is a conjugation of the word “cockpunch”, which I have employed in a novel fashion here. Whereas the word has been employed and defined in a literal sense before (such as in the definition at urbandictionary.com, which in part reads “A closed fist hitting of the male genitalia, meant to evoke surprise and/or pain.”), I wish and endeavour to expand upon this rather pedestrian definition, and in so doing stride boldly into the realm of neologism.
We are all familiar, of course, with the term “kickass”, which is used in order to express strong approval for a given person, object or phenomenon, such as in the sentence “That was a pretty kickass cockpunch you gave that guy, buddy!” And indeed, this term is not without its merits, in that it evokes an action which is both aggressive and contemptuous, thus demonstrating both a decisive and entitled position.
However, it occurs to me that to kick one in the ass also carries with it a connotation of cowardice; coming up to one’s foe from behind, skulking and craven. And a kick? A kick is delivered by a foot. And do you honestly mean to tell me that a foot is ever as awesome as a fist? If you do, then I decry you as a liar and/or a fool.
A punch to the cock, then, to me, is the next step beyond a kick to the ass, and excelling in ways which a mere kick to the ass can never excel. Braver, more forthright, and above all, more fisty. On that grounds, I would like to put forth “cockpunch” as a word which can be understood to mean “Like kickass, only better.”
In the coming days, weeks, and even months, I expect and intend to make use of this term frequently, both in service of purposes of demonstration and description. It is my sincere hope that you will all come to see the merit of this term and take up its torch, then use it as it is intended; to set fire to the very culture of the english language itself, that your very conversations themselves may be a vast, cockpunchingly great sacrificial pyre to the greatness of this new term.
As anyone who knows me knows, I dress exclusively in black, about 99% of the time. This is not a question of slavery to some external trend or movement; I’ve never considered myself a goth, for instance; I realized in high school that, as much as I liked the way that goths dress, it’s mostly about a music style which doesn’t speak to me in the slightest, and that in any case the idea of suborning my own sense of style to anyone else’s expectations of what I ought to look like or present myself was just sort of fundamentally ridiculous and loathsome to me.
Similarly, anyone who has known me for more than ten years – which is admittedly a vanishingly small list at this point – knows that this has not always been the case; my later days in high school were a process of experimentation for me, as they were for many people. In my case, I worked very aggressively to define myself along very personal lines so as to prevent anyone from being able to sort me into any group or clique at the time. One day I would show up in a suit and tie, wearing leather loafers and a briefcase. The next day, I would be dressed head to toe in bright green, including an elabourate facepaint design (which would come to be the foundation upon which my body painting skills would later be built). The day after that, a blue housecoat, tattered jeans, orange reflective safety vest and floppy brown leather hat. It was only very gradually that I fell into a single style which I felt comfortable with and which I felt represented me well to the world, and this is a style which to one extent or another I’ve stuck with ever since.
I’ve had any number of people attempt to dissuade me from this course, of which the most laughable was a horrendous little cretin named Jason Engel, who worked day and night to conform to every “goth” stereotype he could, and was among the most superficial adults I’ve ever met. He viewed my dressing exclusively in black as a sort of trespass into “his” territory, and one I wasn’t entitled to. He attempted to get me to dress more colourfully in the service of his own vanity. I laughed in his face and remained steadfast.
Today, I’ve had a friend attempt to get me to wear colourful t-shirts and bluejeans so as to make myself more superficially appealing to women. The thought was utterly repulsive to me; being told that in order to find that right woman, the thing to do was to toss aside my own individuality and sense of visual identity in favour of a sort of generic mediocrity; blending in with the anonymous and faceless crowd. I don’t deny that this might be effective if my intent was to find some woman who were attracted to the bland and the generic, and I needed some camouflage or disguise in order to deceive her into believing that I was one such person, but I daresay that this illusion, and the feelings built thereupon would be shattered quite swiftly the moment that I began to discuss virtually any topic with her. Besides which, what use would I have for such a woman? It would be a trying ordeal for me to be involved with such a lady, I fear, and a trying ordeal of a relationship, startling as it may sound, is not actually something I’m actively seeking out.
Besides which, there are practical concerns, ranging from the physiological to the psychological. My legs are twin pillars of rippling muscle, bulging against the world with seething power. There is a terrible cost to this, however; they also bulge against one another in a manner which is fairly destructive; as my thighs press against one another, the friction caused ends up destroying the inner thighs of any pants which I wear. Even this, though, is preferable to the fate which awaits me if I were to wear more durable pants; a pair of blue jeans would rub against my legs no less than my preferred slacks, but whereas slacks would give way, the heavy weave of jeans would cause my flesh to be worn away, leaving a pair of oozing blisters in their wake. Not only is the agony of this sensation – which is all too well-known to me – a significant disincentive to following this advice, there is the question of how attractive oozing and infected sores on my inner thighs would be to that prospective Miss Right.
Then there’s the psychological, and here I cite no less an authority than one Mr. Albert Einstein. Einsten decided early on in his life what fashion was comfortable and serviceable to him, and he stuck by it. So consistent was he, in fact, that he came upon a startlingly utilitarian approach: He simply bought dozens of identical suits, and they formed the entirety of his wardrobe. Every morning, he could simply pick any shirt, any pair of pants, any jacket, and not waste so much as a single moment, a single spare thought on the topic; there was no question of what mood he was in, what went well together or what the occasion was. This was a guy who had bigger fish to fry with his brain than a question of what to wear. “But Dave”, you may ask, “What about the ladies? What about making a good impression with the ladies? Don’t they demand of their suitors a sort of blind adherence to an arbitrary sense of style chosen for them, against their will, by the mindless pressures of the society around them? How could a man of even Einstein’s towering intellect possibly be a role model for you in this regard, given that he must logically have been a romantic failure in light of his decision to be happy with his own appearance, rather than abandoning his own principles in an effort to satisfy the mindless shrieking demands of the collective unconscious?”
Well let me tell you a little about that. Albert Einstein married his cousin Elsa. Most women would be like “Ick, no! I will not grant you access to my vagina! Incest is disgusting and wrong!” But Einstein, being the cockpunchingly pimpin’ guy that he was, was able to brush that shit aside and be all like “Shit, bitch! I’m Albert motherfucking Einstein! You gonna let a little thing like THAT get in the way of you gettin’ with my fuckin’ same-suited, no-haircut-gettin’, not-shavin’-my-moustachin’ self?” And she was all like “Aw, what the fuck.” Cause you know why? Because chicks dig confidence, that’s why. And a guy like that, as confident as he was of the way he looked and dressed and groomed himself had a lot going on in that regard.
I’m not trying to put myself in Einstein’s bitch-gettin’ league or anything here; he plainly had a great deal else going on that I could only ever asprire to. Why, he once had a three word conversation with William Golding!* What have I done that can compare to shit like that, right? But as far as role models go, I figure I could do a lot worse.
* This conversation, retold in Golding’s essay “Thinking as a Hobby”, took place atop a bridge over a small river at a time when Golding knew about one word of German, and Einstein knew about no words of english. As a fish swam under them, Golding remarked “Fisch”, thus expending the bulk of his german vocabulary. “Ja, fisch”, Einstein responded, entirely accurately (one presumes; in fairness I’m actually giving the two of them the benefit of the doubt here; they could have as easily mistaken a bit of garbage for a fish, in that neither of them are known to have been marine biologists of any repute).
After far too long an absence (for reasons which a handful of my friends and readers know, and which I yet hope to see bear fruit), Dr. Sir Reginald Kingsley II returns.
Where last we left our hero, he was recounting a tale of his youth, during an island expedition in the south Pacific, during which he found himself an unwitting participant in one of the islanders' most sacred rites, and was about to learn first hand the secrets of the dreaded martial art of Mookalakapeekapo.
(previous chapters can be read here)
The Curse of the Rhino King
A Ripping Dr. Sir Reginald Kingsley II Adventure
Chapter 4
I found myself separated from my father and my guide, both of whom looked on with considerable distress at the dire straights which fate had guided me into. All around me, short, sweaty men stood about me, looking upon me with an air about them which bespoke hostility less than it did a fierce expectation. This latter I would under ordinary circumstances have been quite comfortable with, but my calm in this respect was somewhat marred by the fact that I did not for the life of me know what was expected of me.
A dozen or more of the islanders who surrounded me had their fists raised in what I recognized as their "Koolookoo" stance, and yet, though each of them breathed heavily and was plainly quite agitated in their own way, not a one of them made a move to strike me. I looked about to my left and my right, desperately hoping that I would see some sign - some gesture, some movement, some written instructions - SOMETHING - to indicate what I was to do. All the while, I was busy shedding my jacket, my tie, my cummerbund, my white silk shirt, my dinner gloves and my top hat, placing my spectacles upon the ground at my feet and adjusting my cufflinks for maximal ease of movement and dexterity. All the while, an elderly villager who I had taken to be some sort of headman or witch-doctor or some such was chanting in a low, guttural voice. I noticed, to my surprise, that not only were the men in the circle surrounding me swaying about in time with his chanting, so too did I seem to be. What witchcraft was this, that I should be compelled to such alien movements by nothing more than the sight of a dozen other men doing exactly likewise in the presence of a compelling rhythm? I knew then - if it had ever been in any doubt - that there was indeed foul magic at play here, and I would be its helpless victim if I allowed myself to be.
Well, I was having none of that. I turned to my guide, who stood well outside the circle of men, but was watching the proceedings with rapt attention. I shouted at him "What in the name of the Lord's bastard son Jesus is that old one chanting? I require you to make use of your knowledge of his monkey-tongue, dash it all!" I shook my fist at him so as to convey to him the violence I intended to inflict upon him if I should be beaten to death by these natives, and as I did so, I noticed with a start that the savages which stood between he and I seemed half-prepared to lunge at me like cobras, in the admittedly unlikely scenario that these cobras were to be magically transformed, perhaps by some island curse, into island men who were versed in the art of Mookalakapeekapo.
The guide, quite cowed by my threats, stammered in incoherent dread for a few moments before beginning to repeat, hoot-for-hoot and grunt-for-grunt, the chant of the witch-doctor, thus conjuring a sort of echo-like effect which, although not altogether unpleasant, was sadly altogether useless to me. I shouted at him once more, this time taking care to keep my posture essentially neutral towards my tormentors, lest - like the wild dogs they all-too-closely resembled - they should descend upon me as a pack. "In English, blast your eyes! Tell me what he is saying in the king's good English!"
My guide looked startled, his eyes betraying an air of confusion and perturbation. "Sir", he shouted uncertainly, plainly trying not to offend with his correction, "surely it's plain that he is saying nothing at all in English! That is his own native tongue he is chanting in!"
I had to grant him this point, though I would have rather shined the devil's own shoes for a nickel than admit this to him. Instead, composing myself so as to mask my embarrassment at having been caught out by him so, I replied "I had rather hoped for something more in the nature of a translation!"
"Well, you should have said so, sir!"
"Yes, I suppose I should have been somewhat more precise! I can see now that I was insufficiently clear in my intent!"
"It takes a big man to admit that, sir!"
"Yes, rather!", I shouted, raising my voice still further. The village witch doctor's chanting was becoming increasingly loud and insistent, and it was becoming ever more difficult to make myself heard over him. I shot him a dirty look, as though asking him to pipe down a bit so that I might carry on my conversation like a civilized man, and was lucky to do so, as in that moment, one of the savages standing behind me took a savage swing at me which I would have failed to notice otherwise. As it was, I was able to dodge only to the extent that I took the blow upon my shoulder rather than my firm, patrician nose. Shielding my face from further assault with my forearms, I shouted at my guide and clarified my point yet further: "Now, if you would be so kind as to translate his gobbledygook into English...!"
"Ah, yes! Of course, sir! It's a sort of invocation to action, sir! Some of the concepts are too foreign to translate precisely, but if I were to provide a crude notion of their intent, it would go somewhat along these lines: 'Fight! Fight! Fight!'. If I might be so bold as to offer an opinion, sir, I believe they intend you to do battle with them!"
"Very good," I replied, frowning tightly. "I feel I would surely be lost here without this keen insight into their motives."
The guide beamed at me, positively radiating with job satisfaction. "Thank you, sir!" he replied, evidently without expression nor comprehension of guile.
I turned my attention once more to the savages surrounding me, each of whom seemed to have grown ever more savage in mein, baring their teeth at me in sinister grins, perspiration now beading heavily upon their bare skin with barely-contained enthusiasm. My odds, I had to allow, seemed rather on the long side here. However potent these islanders might have seemed, though, the fact remained that they were yet primitive beasts without the wits of modern man, and thus it was not impossible that I might yet gain the upper hand in the struggle to come by means of my towering English intellect. I shouted at my guide "Quickly, now! I need to convince them that I am a god, come among them to teach them the folly of their ludicrous foreign ways! What do I need to say in order to convey to them a sense of their innate inferiority and heathen barbarism?"
"An excellent plan, sir!", he shouted, clapping his hands together in a manner which would have seemed charming if demonstrated by a five year old girl on Christmas morning. "Simply repeat after me!" He then let loose a string of hoots and grunts in the islanders' native tongue, which I struggled to memorize, their beastly syllables like a tarnish upon my sterling mind.
As ingenious as my plan was, though, it seemed I had underestimated their low animal cunning; it was with some considerable distress that I saw them turn their eyes en masse towards my guide, and then back towards me, their look of feral rage replaced with what I would, in thinking men, have called amusement. Too late I realized the flaw in my ruse; against all odds, they had managed to discern the intent behind my guide's shouted words in their own language, and my brilliant deception was in a moment undone. I knew with shattering clarity in that moment that if I were to make an escape, it could only be now, while their aggression was momentarily leavened by their tittering reaction. I lunged for a space betwixt two of them, shielding my face with my arms as I did so, valiantly striving for the freedom which was my birthright.
Too late, though! Too slow! The legends of the deadly art of Mookalakapeekapo were all too true, as I learned to my horror and dismay. Faster than the eye could discern the transition, their laughter transmuted itself into aggression once more, their fists arching once again over my head like a ring of five-fingered, sweaty swords of Damocles, and then like lightning fell upon me. Stars seemed to be sprayed across my field of vision and the tang of blood filled my mouth. I felt the grit of sand and dirt impacting upon my face only distantly as I fell to unconsciousness.
It was only then that the true inner mystery of Mookalakapeekapo was made evident to me, and the very course of my noble life was changed forevermore...
(To be continued in chapter five!)
One of those questions we hear over and over again throughout our lives is "Why does sex feel good?" This question has an answer so obvious than one - if that one is inclined towards introspection - must arrive at the conclusion that it is so vapid and so vacuous that it is being asked simply for the sake of its use as a rhetorical device or in order to fill up an otherwise quiet moment during a conversation. The answer, obviously, is "Because if it didn't, it wouldn't happen very often and then the organism in question would go extinct." The thing is, there actually IS another approach which can be taken, and those who were paying attention to the lessons on the topic of sharks, lake ducks and bedbugs have already begun to apprehend it for themselves: It is possible for sex to not only be unpleasant, but SO unpleasant that the female is literally incapacitated and rendered incapable of escaping during the act, thus ensuring the success of the act. One assumes that it remains pleasant for the male of the species in question, of course, but perhaps it's best not to contemplate too deeply what sort of emotional content this has for them.
There is one creature, however, that takes this to extravagant new heights, and which puts to shame the paltry lengths these mere pretenders go to to secure the affections of their respective ladies fair. I speak of the otherwise-unremarkable Callosobruchus maculates Seed Beetle, which unambiguously contains one of...
( Bravely onwards into the breach, dear friends! )
I don't know how many of you have read any or all of my old webcomic which I have linked on my left sidebar there, Dave & Vyacheslav. My guess is "probably, not very many". This is okay; if I had any great level of emotional investment in it, I would still be doing the strip today, or at the very least updating the main page with something to the effect of "Strip's over! For further entertainment, just go visit my journal" or something. However, though I have little commitment to it at this point, I do have a great deal of commitment to this journal, and so some cross-pollination can happen in the other direction.
Here's a two-part strip which you can read on its own and without any knowledge of the story or the characters. The reason for this is that the script was actually not originally written FOR the comic, but got adapted for it when I realized that the "protagonist", whom in my head I was simply calling "Mr. Pompous" was speaking with kind of the same voice as the Colin character in D&V, and the comic was as such a good place for this material. As to the actual origin of the script, I shall quote myself from the time when I first put the strip up:
This is the first of two parts of a script I wrote some time ago. It was early in the morning, and I was all sleep-deprived and crazy, and on my way into a Knight & Day restaurant, and just sort of envisioning the ultimate exchange between myself and a waiter. Even as I was being seated, I was at once both biting my tongue and giggling madly. As soon as I was seated, I whipped out my notebook and began to madly scribble down the conversation as I would have had it.
They say that every writer, in some sense and at some point, writes their own perfect world. This is a peek into what mine would look like.
Good day, friends and fellows! As promised, my latest re-write is ready for consumption by the public!
For those of you new and unfamilliar with the process, allow me to explain in brief: For reasons of my own - principal among them the entertainment of those depraved souls out there in the ether who share my comic sensibilities - I have taken to taking japanese horrific pornography and turning them into english-language pornographic horrors, and in so doing, crafting the finest of comedy gold.
Previous such works are to be found here.
And now, without further delay...
( Seventeen additional pages below the cut! )
The Curse of the Rhino King
A Ripping Dr. Sir Reginald Kingsley II Adventure
Chapter 3
I first witnessed the ancient Samoan art of Mookalakapeekapo some seventeen years previous during an expedition about the islands of the savage south pacific which I had embarked upon with my late father, Reginald Kingsley Sr. We had come ashore to re-provision our ship, the Regal Swine (which remains in my family's possession to this very day), and while there, had the good fortune of witnessing a sort of trial-by-combat between two of the tribesmen of that island. Our guide, who was not entirely unfamiliar with the practices and language of these peoples, explained to us that one of the men had been accused of using witchcraft to keep the rains from coming to the south side of the island as retribution for one of the southerners having supposedly sent a "Booka-Tika" or jungle goblin, to bite off his foreskin. The southerner claimed never to have met the Booka-Tika in question, and said that if he had bitten off the northern man's foreskin, he was likely just hungry. The goblin had been cooked and eaten by the peoples of the northern tribe, but the charges between the two still needed to be settled, and so this trial by combat between them was adjourned in order to settle the matter.
"Mookalakapeekapo", we were told, was an ancient martial art which had been practiced by these people for many hundreds of years, and had been honed to perfection by masters who passed the art down from generation to generation. Even in the mystic orient, where martial arts are as common as grains of sand on the beach, and the martial prowess of even the most common of street urchins was a thing to be feared, Mookalakapeekapo was spoken of in hushed whispers and awed tones for its deadliness and grace. Few outsiders had ever been taught its seemingly-supernatural secrets, but those who had born witness to its use in combat could attest most certainly to its fearsome effects.
"Mookalakapeekapo", literally translated into the king's good English, meant "Striking with the fist, repeatedly", a name which it amply deserved. As we looked on, the two combatants took their places some thirty feet apart from one another and prepared to enter their "Koolookoo" or "Punching people" state. Both raised their right arms over their heads as a scorpion might raise its tail in its deadly poise and balled their corresponding hands up into fists.
"What are they doing, pa-pa?", I asked, positively a-quiver with excitement.
"Dashed if I know. Looks dangerous, though, doesn't it?" he replied, stroking his long, luxurious moustaches.
"The tribes of this island have devised a technique", our guide whispered to us breathlessly, even as he attempted to shush us, "whereby they sort of lever their arms up and down in such a way as to bring their fists into contact with one another's faces in a rough and swift manner."
"Whyever for?", I asked, bewildered.
"It seems", he said, "that by doing so with enough force and enough times, one's opponent can be rendered incapacitated by the pain inflicted by the blows."
"Superstitious hogwash!", my father harumphed, ever the skeptic. "Surely if one of them falls over, it's just a... a hysterical response to their belief that they SHOULD be incapacitated by it."
"You say that now, sir, but see for yourself!" the guide replied, pointing towards the two combatants.
Even as he spoke, the two men charged one another, each screaming savagely as they did so. Just as our guide had said, their arms began to lever upwards and downwards in a manner distressingly similar to the deadly scorpion's sting. They were like two savage pagan deities in that moment, like Greek gods calling down the fire from Olympus, and all three of us felt our breath catch in our throats at the awesome, terrible power in them. Even then, I knew I could not leave this island without learning this art for myself.
The combatants collided with one another, and as predicted, their fists fell upon one another's faces over and over again as the two men stood at arms' length from one another. We could hear the impact of fist-upon-face again and again from our vantage point, even over the din of the members of the two tribes gathered around to watch this amazing spectacle. I could hardly believe my eyes: How could such primitive people have devised and mastered such principles in the absence of any formal education or schooling? Even as I looked on, I could begin to discern the science of it; they were employing rotational inertia, kinetic energy exchange, and even the very force of gravity itself to move their right arms up and down with each thunderous blow. Why, if they could do so much with so little knowledge of WHAT they were doing, imagine what I, a man of education and letters could do with such skills! I could conquer the world with the abilities these savages squandered on their small, parochial disputes!
As we looked on, the southern man began to flag. As our guide had predicted, it seemed as though the repeated blows to the head were indeed serving to incapacitate him. My father quietly crossed himself, muttering "God save us!" at the sight of it. As obviously shaken as this normally stout-hearted adventurer was, however, I was just as thrilled! As the southerner fell to the dirt, I found myself joining in the cheers of the onlookers, who even now set about separating the southerners head from his body with their spears: it had been made clear he had indeed sent a Booka-Tika to mutilate the other man's genitals, and for that, the punishment was death.
"Oh, father," I shouted excitedly, "I should very much like to learn this Mookalakapeekapo for myself! Do you think they would allow it?"
"Silence, boy!" he hissed at me, cuffing me behind my head. But even as he did, a hush had fallen over the crowd. It seemed that some number of the islanders had somehow acquired some smattering of English, and had discerned the meaning behind my words. A hushed whisper went up about them, as they pointed at me and looked to their village elder, as though questioning him.
"I think..." my father said, looking about with growing apprehension, 'I think we had best be off..."
"But father", I argued, "What about the supplies? The provisions?'
"Dash the provisions, by thunder! If we don't leave now, I doubt we shall live long enough to enjoy them." Even as he spoke, he had begun to move away from the gathering, insistently pulling me after him by the arm as he did so. The islanders, it seemed, had other things in mind. They moved to encircle us with their spears. "What the devil are they doing, man!" he shouted angrily at our guide. "You said we should be unmolested!"
"Sir," he said, speaking tremulously, attempting to decipher the guttural hoots and clicks which comprised the islanders' language, "It seems... and I beg your forgiveness, sir, I did not know!" he was by now visibly shaking in his boots, "It seems that any man who is present for a Mookalakapeekapo fight may then request initiation into its ancient secrets... but... but..."
"Well? Spit it out, you poltroon!"
"But they must first survive the initiation... or else they may not leave the gathering..." he whispered hoarsely, as twenty or more of the islanders raised their fists, scorpion-like, above their heads, "...Alive."
(To be continued in chapter four!)
I'm sure that many of
you have heard, recently, about the recent resolution passed by representatives of various countries dominated by the ridiculous bullshit religion of Islam, within the United Nations Council on Human Rights, that any criticism of their ridiculous and laughable faith be considered a violation of the human rights of those who believe in their inane and nonsensical fairy tales.Naturally, I think this is a marvelous and well-founded idea. Those primitive-minded half-wits deserve all of the protection they can possibly receive from having the obvious fact that they're living their lives in the manner of deluded children who cannot separate fantasy from reality pointed out to them or spoken aloud, and anyone who plainly articulates the fact that one would have to have the mind of a retarded cave-man to ever believe any of the laughable rubbish they've dedicated their lives to ought to be treated as the beasts and criminals that they are for doing so.
It is with this in mind that I should like to see certain other obviously dangerous and/or horrible behaviours enshrined and protected by law using similar language, so that we should all have the protection that these deluded cretins seek to enjoy, and to this end, I have prepared the following thorough though non-exhaustive list.
1) The United Nations does hereby prohibit the criticism or questioning, by law-enforcement officers or others, of the act of drunken driving. The driving of a vehicle while inebriated is a precious and sacred activity for an entire class of irresponsible morons the world over, and the criticism of that activity constitutes a persecution by the sober and responsible majority of the home countries of these peoples, which no civilized person can ethically justify. The United Nations therefore condemns any individual or body of individuals who would seek to caution against this activity, question the judgement of those who partake in it or seek legal action against or compensation from damages or death arising from such actions.
2) The United Nations does hereby condemn those whose actions since the dawn of nautical history constitute a systematic and deliberate persecution of piracy. Those who live the pirate lifestyle are entirely entitled to their chosen lifestyle, and yet at all times and at all places, they have been treated as criminals and worse by those who attempt to stop them from hijacking their ships. This sort of victimization of pirates by those who would prevent said pirates from stealing the cargo of their ships and/or take part in the murder and/or enslavement of the passengers and/or crews of these ships is a clear and gross violation of the pirates' human rights, and a premeditated and systematic attempt to eradicate their lifestyle from the Earth. It is therefore resolved that those who attempt to prevent pirates from these and related acts of piracy are to be treated as criminals, and the various coastal nations of the world are encouraged to draft laws to prosecute those who would thus persecute these practitioners of this ancient and time-honoured sea-faring lifestyle.
3) The United Nations does hereby condemn those women whose actions and/or omission of actions vis a vis withholding of sexual favours constitute a persecution of obnoxious assholes crudely propositioning them in public places. Throughout the world, men are routinely denigrated, marginalized and denied the opportunity to "give women what they really need" based upon nothing more than their chosen and personally cherished activities vis a vis shouting at, groping and verbally abusing women with aggressive sexual innuendo. As these actions serve the purpose of preventing them from the basic human right of reproduction, it is therefore to be considered tantamount to forced sterilization and indeed genocide. This blatant violation of their human rights is therefore held to be unethical, and all member-states of the UN are encouraged in the strongest of terms to draft laws which would see women who refuse to indulge these advances prosecuted and sentenced to public service and/or prison terms in men's penitentiaries, where they may pay their debt to society.
4) The United Nations does hereby condemn those who criticize idiots, jackasses and morons of all stripes. Though idiots constitute large and in many cases majority populations throughout the world, they are routinely made to feel like fools by those more intelligent, better-informed and more thoughtful than themselves. This constitutes a gross violation of their human rights, as does any disagreement with or refusal to act upon any idiotic ideas which they might offer up or decide to act upon. It is therefore resolved that all nations are strongly encouraged to draft laws which dictate criminal charges be brought against those who disagree with or offer any meaningful critique of any idiotic person or idea, including, but not limited to, the drafting of said laws.
(Note that this last acts as something of a catch-all for the previous three, and indeed for the criticism of Islam, and to the same extent, all other religions.)
I expect to see these resolutions passed in brisk order.
For the benefit of any Muslim readers who may be offended by the false impression that I am comparing their insipid religion to drunk driving, piracy and verbal abuse of women, I wish it to be known that I am comparing them ONLY in terms of the fact that - like the practice of their asinine religion - these are bad and destructive ideas which the world would do better without, and that no other offense or slight is intended against their basic human rights.
I aknowledge that the first chapter was perhaps a bit of a slow start. For those of you who were not completely charmed, I beg of you the indulgance of reading this one as well before passing judgement. I daresay that this one is several times better, by my own estimation.
The Curse of the Rhino King
A Ripping Dr. Sir Reginald Kingsley II Adventure
Chapter 2
"I believe," she began, trying her best to retain her dignified posture and composure as Ivan's rough fingers prodded and pulled at her shoulder wound, "That you are an acquaintance of my father, one Professor Alexander Elliot, of Camblee University, are you not?"
"Indeed I am", I said, "Fine fellow. Stout chap. Good character, fine bone structure and impeccable personal grooming habits. Can't stand him personally, naturally, but that's neither here nor there".
"No, of course not," she replied mildly. "Few enough men can, and indeed I daresay most who have been burdened by his unctuous acquaintance personally loathe him. Certainly the tears I would shed at his funeral would be for form's sake only, but I love him dearly all the same."
"Naturally."
"Nevertheless, I fear he has found himself in something of a predicament, and one which it seems it may be beyond my abilities to aid him in the solving of."
I steepled my fingers thoughtfully below my lower lip as I considered this. "And do I correctly deduce that this is in some part to blame for your current discomfiture?" I gestured vaguely once more to her shoulder as I said this, where even now Ivan was beginning to carve away great wads of what appeared to be diseased or gangrenous flesh surrounding the arrow with his knives, all the while singing what I had gathered was a jolly old folk song his people (god rest their pagan souls) had sung during times of great misfortune for others so as to keep their minds off of their dire predicaments. It seemed he had the matter well in-hand.
"Your fabled powers of insight are as quick as your reputation credits them to be", she said, grinning nervously. She appeared to be attempting not to pay too-close attention to the surgery at hand, as though acknowledging the mass of muscle tissue even now being sheared away from her body would somehow make it real, and not doing so would make it unreal. Ah, the frailties of the fairer sex. "Ah, but where to begin?"
"The beginning, I find, is often a good place to start from."
"Is it? Well, of course! What a clever idea! Yes, beginning it is, then. It began," she began, "nigh unto a year ago, when my father and brother, Jonothan, set out on safari in darkest Africa. It was a purely scientific pursuit, you understand; gathering specimens and the like. Quite the bloody business, what with all of the shooting of specimens with hunting rifles and such, and so naturally I heard of this second hand when they returned home. As it was told to me, they evidently gathered from their local guide that two of the area's kingdoms - as apparently they call themselves", she said, chuckling softly, "had recently resolved to forge a sort of peace treaty with one another and seal the compact by means of marrying off the virgin daughter of one of the kings to the son of the other. Father was quite taken with the whole business, as you can well imagine. He had never seen an African child bride in her native regalia, and when he did, he quite knew he must learn more about the whole affair."
"He would have been a traitor to Dame Science had he not," I said, "Arriving at her supper table, eating her food and then holding her down roughly upon the floor and voiding that selfsame food from his bowels upon her face at night's end."
"That's precisely what my brother said!"
"Well, it's a common enough figure of speech", I said, waving it off dismissively. "But pray, do go on."
"Ah, yes. Well. Through their interpreter, my father invited the African king Ngumbah and his daughter - the bride-to-be - to a feast in celebration of the upcoming nuptials and to pay tribute to his majesty. They were told of the ship which my father had off-shore; 'a great metal palace floating upon the waves', they said, where there would be dancing and music and such awaiting them and their retinue, should they wish to be so-honoured. Naturally, the savages were quite entranced by the tale, and in their gross, ignorant egomania, they had no difficulty believing themselves deserving of such honours, readily agreed, and arrived - as requested - in their most elabourate tribal finery."
"Naturally, naturally," I said, rubbing my chin thoughtfully, "I assume," I continued shrewdly, "That the finery was kept in good condition after they were killed?"
"Mister Rutherford!" She exclaimed indignantly, half-rising from her chair. This elicited a grunt of annoyance from Ivan, who was even then busily cauterizing the wound with a hot poker, "My father is a professional! A man of science! Of principle! Of course he kept it in good condition. How dare you, sir?"
"I meant no offense, I assure you," I replied, gesturing for her to sit down peaceably, "and I beg your pardon. But please, do go on."
She settled back into her chair, peering with some annoyance at Ivan's work. It seemed that after his brief interruption, he had resumed his nonsensical little folk song and was now stomping his feet in time with his guttural bleatings as he returned to his work. Drawing a deep breath, she then continued. "Well. As you have no doubt surmised, the king and his men were poisoned during their feast, and the child bride, who my father since named 'Bango-Bango', for the way she endlessly bangs her head against the bars of her cage whenever he is not kept sedated, was taken into captivity for the sake of scientific inquiry."
The sound of her name had sparked a momentary recollection in me. I shuffled through some newspapers on my desk-top before retrieving the one I was looking for. "Bango-Bango, you say? Was she not the one who is currently on-tour with the London Circus in Hamburg?" I glanced at the photograph in the story on the subject. Delighted children who had paid a penny to the circus master were feeding the princess peanuts through the bars of her cage. I couldn't help but smile at the look of innocent delight painted so plainly on their faces. The joy of education they experienced in that moment, I silently prayed, would never leave them.
"One and the same, good sir", she replied. "My farther is a proud man, but also a kind and generous one, in his fashion. God how I loathe that about him. He saw no reason why the peoples of Europe should be denied the opportunity to learn from this marvelous specimen simply because they lacked the means to travel to darkest Africa themselves."
"It seems that perhaps I ought to revise my estimation of the man's character", I said, "Is he on tour with the circus himself?"
"No, Mister Rutherford, I'm afraid this is the very reason that I have come to you today. For you see, it seems he has been kidnapped!"
"Kidnapped! Whatever for? A man like him? Surely he had no enemies! Who could possibly wish him ill?"
"If you can believe it, sir, the African king whose son was to marry Bango-Bango has made a spot of trouble for us. Laid a bit of a curse on the family, so it seems."
"An arrow curse?" I asked.
"In part, yes, I fear. Wheresoever we go, we are pursued and vexed by these savages and their hunting animals. Last night, they burst into my father's office and subdued him. They plan on sacrificing him to their jungle spirits, I have been given to understand, should not Bango-Bango be returned to them within the next lunar cycle."
"Well, that's simply barbaric! To think, bursting in on a man's home uninvited and demanding that his contribution to the education of children - of CHILDREN - " I snapped angrily, "ought to be snatched away to ignorant lands where they have nothing to learn from her, and lack the brains necessary to learn anything at any rate ... ghastly business!"
"It's frightfully embarrassing, Mister Kingsley. Frightfully. But now I fear that a rescue effort must be mounted to retrieve my father. And I pray you, sir... your reputation for bravery and woodcraft being what they are, and your acquaintance with my father..."
"Yes, yes. So, you would have me arrange passage to Africa?"
"Yes and no, sir, for you see..."
At that moment, there arose a great clatter and the sound of splintering wood from outside of my study. I could hear my maid shrieking with terror as thunderous footsteps began to sound in the hallway, drawing closer, closer, ever closer with every moment. I looked sternly at my guest, scowling "What did I JUST finish telling you about bringing drama into a civilized man's home?"
"Oh! Mister Kingsley, I must... that is, I..." she stammered and sputtered in embarrassed shock, "I never would have... that is, this must be the doing of the Rhino King... the curse, you see...?"
"Rhino King?" I asked, dumbfounded. I recalled the word 'rhino' from my Latin lessons as a youth. "What a preposterous epithet. Has he some great ungodly nose, perhaps?" I was rising as I was speaking, moving to fetch a rifle from the case in the hall outside my door.
"I haven't the foggiest ide..." she began, before a veritable explosion of splintering wood atomized my study door, through which opening a great beast came charging, crushing the broken door frame underfoot. Large it was, with a grey leathern hide, and two enormous horns, one behind the other mounted upon its head between its eyes, which were themselves small and beady black things set in deep folds of skin far back on its head. It stamped and snorted angrily at the sight of her.
"Good god," I whispered. "A unicorn! I never thought I should live to see the day!"
Miss Elliot was at this point beside herself with mortified embarrassment and was making squawking noises not unlike some ungainly jungle bird. This put me in mind of my own rare blue Parrot, Napoleon, and how I dealt with him when he became too agitated. Swiftly yanking a tablecloth off of a nearby table and tossed it over her head as one would a birdcage, such as to trick the bird into believing it to be night-time so that they would fall asleep. Sure enough, within moments, her distressed noises faded and stopped, only to be replaced by the sound of soft snoring. That was one problem dealt with. Now to deal with my equine intruder. "Ivan, you continue with your surgery", I said. "I shall have to dispatch this beast with my bare hands." Ivan didn't make so much as a grunt of concern for my safety. This spoke naught at all of his care for me, but rather, spoke volumes of his knowledge of my skill with fisticuffs. He had, after all, seen me employ, on any number of occasions, the hidden art of Mookalakapeekapo. I rolled up my sleeves and advanced upon the enraged steed who had so mysteriously chosen this moment to invade the sanctity of my home, even as it lowered its long equine head, aimed its curiously thick horn directly at my chest, and made ready to charge.
(To be continued in chapter three!)
Let us turn our attention, dear readers, from a topic of somewhat gross sexual inequality to one which is a trifle more egalitarian in nature. From the depths of the ocean we now turn to the pacific northwest and my own home of British Columbia. Home to a wide array of distinctive flora and fauna, few of them are as notably bizarre to those born elsewhere in this largely boreal country as the comparatively massive Leopard Slugs found throughout the mainland. And it is these creatures that we now gawk at in horrified wonder as we learn that they have some of...
The Leopard Slug representative of many of its fellows in its order in that it is a hermaphrodite. No issues of sexual dimorphism for these randy little beasts, nor yet of who gets to lead on the dance floor. Each and every one of them - barring, I suppose those victims of accident or birth defect - is possessed of both female and male organs. And what male organs they possess!
Rather than extending out of the lower abdomen or some other out-of-the way locale, the penis is contained in the right side of the slug's head, thus giving rise to its Latin name 'Mucosus Invertebratus Caputithyphallicus', which literally translates into "Slimy, spineless dickhead"*. It is distinct from the familiar human counterpart not only in placement but in colouration, among other things - or, more precisely, the lack thereof: Oozing out of the side of the creature's head, it appears as a translucent white tendril, writhing about as if possessed of a mind of its own, which - at full mast - has a length which is comparable to the total length of the adult slug's entire body.
The situation in which this arises (so to speak) is itself a rather striking one. When two Leopard Slugs take a fancy to one another, they travel together to some ledge or outcropping or what-have you which extends over an otherwise empty expanse. The branches of trees are the most common location for such a moonlight rendezvous, but man-made structures will do just as well for those couples looking for something a bit more modern and exotic. They then entwine themselves with one another and then ooze out a special type of slime which has a consistency and purpose which is disturbingly similar to that secreted by one Mr. Peter Parker in some versions of his story; this white strand of organic outpouring anchors them to their ledge as they then swing out on the end of the length of it and hang there together in mid-air, tightly wound about one another in an erotic embrace. It's at this point that they whip their dicks out.
Both slugs extend their phalluses, which then dangle together below the two of them, wriggling about until they find one another. When they do, they too wrap about one another, and then - THEN, believe it or not - then is when the weird shit starts.
The two intertwined prehensile body-length translucent slug cocks metamorphose, transforming into a configuration which looks somewhat like a church bell got drunk one night, fucked a rose and then gave birth to infants which it then had to explain through tearful eyes to the minister before being excommunicated and forced to live on the streets and sell its bong noises to greasy men in back alleys in order to support its hideous offspring, praying every night to a bell-shaped god which didn't seem to be listening anymore for forgiveness for this terrible crime against nature. This flowery-bell configuration is, believe it or not, the means by which the two slugs pass their sperm back and forth between them before retracting back into their bodies, carrying one another's' sperm with them as they do so, whereupon they are delivered to the internal vagina analogues which both slugs have, whereupon, if all goes according to plan, both are impregnated by the other.
The enticingly erotic mating ritual thus having been completed, the two slugs then lose any and all interest in one another and immediately release both one another and their cord of dangling slime, falling unceremoniously to the ground below and thus slither off to do whatever else it is that Leopard Slugs do to horrify and repulse us.
*this is not actually true, but it MIGHT be if they had been discovered and named by Carl Chun, whose somewhat whimsical approach to zoology results in us living in a world which contains a creature known to science as "THE VAMPIRE SQUID FROM HELL", which is not actually a vampire, not actually a squid, and not actually from hell, but whose name is otherwise 100% accurate.
For some time now - indeed, basically since the day I started this journal - I've been thinking of doing some sort of serialized text storytelling here. More lately, of course, I've been chewing over recycling some of my ridiculous old "pulp adventure" notions from a few years back. Not only do I love the sort of willfully and delightedly ignorance of the subject matter being written about by those old pulp writers from some hundred years or so ago, I find that that style of exposition comes so easily to me that indeed at times I lapse into it quite by accident. With this in mind, I've decided to give it a go.
If people enjoy this - and I go into this aknowledging that this is an experiment for me, and something I go into with a bit less than my characteristic confidence - then I can see no reason why this need not be an ongoing feature. I've already written a few chapters (one of the later ones has me positively howling with laughter, and I cannot wait to post), and have a bunch of ideas for later on if anybody else shares my enthusiasm for this bit of funny business.
I'm hoping I can keep them to the right length; too short, and the narrative suffers. Too long, and we enter 'tl;dr"/"PLEASE PUT BEHIND A CUT" territory. I think I've got a good middle-ground here.
All of which is to say that if you like it, let's have some comments, eh wot?
Now, then, without further delay...
The Curse of the Rhino King
A Ripping Dr. Sir Reginald Kingsley II Adventure
Chapter 1
From the Journals of Dr. Sir Reginald Kingsley II
June 9, 1912, Inner Oxfordfordshirewhittington, England.
From the moment that Miss Rita Elliot first entered my study, I could discern from her bearing that she was a woman whose life had not lately gone to plan. Though she was dressed in a smart and conservative manner, all well-arrayed and neat, there was nevertheless that about her which suggested an air of disarray. I could not at once put my finger on what element it was which gave rise to this impression, but it immediately put me somewhat on my guard in a manner which I would have found mildly embarrassing, had not my instincts in this regard served me so well over the years. Was it her hair? No, not that; though it was somewhat moistened with sweat, this was not unexpected in these warm summer climes. Perhaps the way that one of her silk-gloved hand was wringing the other so nervously? No, not that either. Even the wild look in her eyes seemed only a symptom of the malady which appeared to afflict her nerves. If I had to put my finger on it, I would have to say that more than any other single thing, it was the arrow protruding from her shoulder, and the dark bloom of blood staining her shirt and jacket.
"Mister Kingsley!", she shouted as she stumbled through my study door, her voice high and feminine amidst the masculine surroundings, "Thank the good lord above I made it here in time!"
"I shall," I responded, arching an eyebrow at her presumptuous tone, "If you should do me the service of telling me what time it is that you speak of." I did not care for the notion of being told what to do in my own home. It had an air of impropriety which galled me and violated my sensibilities.
"Oh! Yes, of course", she said, pressing the back of her hand to her flushed forehead, "I'm quite sorry, of course. I fear the blood loss may have inhibited my wits somewhat. I beg you forgive my rudeness."
"Very well," I replied, dryly, taking a puff from my pipe, "but please do not make a habit of it. In my line of work, the bleeding to death from wounds such as yours is more typically a luxury reserved for the field. To do so in a civilized home is... well, let us say, rather uncouth. Flaunting one's daring-do, you see? Here," I said, gesturing at the elephant-skin armchair across my desk from where I sat in the chair which was its twin, "why don't you have a seat and explain your business here. I shall in the mean time call for my field medic to attend to this..." I waved my hands about expressively, gesturing to her shoulder, "...'arrow' business of yours."
She took her seat, flinching somewhat as her wounded shoulder came to rest against the chair's backing. "I'm frightfully sorry, my good sir. I'm afraid I'm rather a novice at this sort of thing..."
"Yes, well, plainly," I said with a bit of a huff. I retrieved from my desk drawer a small silver bell and gave it two sharp rings, summoning my manservant, Ivan, from the servant's quarters. "I am quite familiar enough with the lifestyle to know a novice when I see one. In fact," I said, leaning forwards somewhat conspiratorially, "I was once somewhat of a novice in these affairs, too."
"You? Surely not, sir! Your reputation..."
"Yes, yes. Of course. But I was young and impertinent, once upon a time. There was a day when I would arrive up at a dinner party being held for the royal museum riddled with bullets and with a tribe of wild headmen hot on my tail, shaking their spears about and shrieking for my blood, and think it fine sport. It's all well and good at first. People will look at you and say, 'Why, look at that young Mr. Kingsley! What an exciting and glamorous life he leads!' But by the fourth or fifth such instance, their breathless excitement begins to turn to weariness. No longer do they sing your praises; rather, your arrival shall be greeted with weary groans and cries of 'Oh, there's that dratted Reginald Kingsley again. Doubtless we shall come under attack from a fusillade of cannon-balls from a pirate ship crewed by animate skeletons or some such rubbish out in the harbour and moment now. Why ever do we invite him to these functions?'" I leaned back in my chair, grimacing somewhat ruefully. "Trust me when I say that the glamour of arriving in a civilized home with an arrow lodged in your shoulder is fleeting, but the damage to one's standing in civilized circles after a few such escapades can haunt one for years. To this day, I am invited into the aviary of the Earl of Upper Westershire with only the deepest of misgivings."
"Goodness! I had no idea there was such a ... a protocol about this sort of thing! Why, the social gaffe, I don't know how ever I shall live it down!" She drew a small paper fan from her purse and began to fan herself in agitation. "I do believe I may be faint!"
"Not at all, my good woman. That's simply the oxygen leaving your brain. Not to worry, here's Ivan with his surgical kit," I said, gesturing towards the door. She turned about in her seat and gasped quietly at the sight of the man. A towering Cossack, standing nearly seven feet tall and weighing perhaps four hundred pounds, his matted and filthy black beard hung down to his belly, which - much like the rest of his hulking frame - was covered in rude animal skins and rough-hewn leather. He smiled down at her benignly, revealing a mouth full of broken and yellowed teeth, through which he grunted one of his unintelligible but amiable greetings. In one hand, he carried a burlap sack, inside of which could be heard the clanking of crude metal instruments and clay pottery.
"Best in the business, I assure you." I said, attempting to re-assure her in her moment of apparent distress. "Met him during an expedition four years ago in the Ural Mountains. Seems he sold his soul to the devil in return for secret and forbidden arts of healing, which he meant to use to keep the primitive people of his tribe fit and healthy. Little did he know that Old Scratch, that tricky old goat, had other plans for them."
"Did they... did they die in an avalanche or some such sinister fate? I've heard tales of such things..."
"Nothing of the sort, my dear woman. Don't be absurd! No, they were abducted by Satanaic Moon-Men. We plan to mount an effort to rescue them just as soon as my men can devise a means by which my zeppelin can be made to carry us to sufficient altitudes." I turned to Ivan and smiled encouragingly at him. "Should be any year now, eh, old bean? Just you keep up the good work and we'll have them back in their savage mountain home within a decade or two!" Ivan, bless his stupid, ape-like heart, nodded his head vigorously. I hadn't the heart to tell him that I'd had his tribesmen stuffed and mounted and sold to a museum in Singapore whilst he slept off a truly legendary drunk the day after I met him, but I couldn't see as how the knowledge would benefit him.
As Ivan began unceremoniously tearing away the fabric of Miss Elliot's dress from her shoulder and rifling around in his medicine bag for the salves and ointments he would need, I leaned back in my chair and asked her "So, then. What is this urgent business which you've brought to my doorstep?"
And so she commenced the telling of her tale.
(To be continued in part two!)
My latest pornography-turned-comedy re-write is at long, long last complete, and ready for presentation. Enjoy!
( (Sixteen pages - all of them uncensored - below the cut) )As always, it is my sincere hope that you, my treasured readeers have enjoyed the fruits of my labours. Comments, as always, are both welcome and required.
Since a number of people expressed an interest and/or appreciation of my pulp adventures from a couple of posts back, I've dug up two more. I wish there were more, but they seem to have been lost to the mists of time, as the accounts which they were posted on have since been deleted. And mores the pity; I have fond memories of one of them. But then, perhaps there's a silver lining to this; if I were to do any more of these absurd little things, it means I can re-use the ideas from it guilt-free!
( Read more wild pulp adventures below the cut! )
In retrospect from my perspective some five years later, there are a couple of elements here which I view as slightly embarassing and which I certainly would't have included today, but at the time, I wasn't precisely aiming at high literature. These were, after all, no more than comments on some friends' profiles. Nevertheless, they do put a smile on my lips even now.
Years and years ago, when Friendster was first starting up and people cared about it, I had and briefly used a profile there. Nothing about this is exceptional or noteworthy. However, during that time, a bunch of friends and acquaintances of mine also made use of it, and Friendster had a feature called "Testimonials and Comments", which allowed you to write a blurb about a friend and have it displayed prominently on their profile page.
Somehow, I got the idea into my head that I would write these in the style of weird, 19th-century-esque pulp adventures which had no relation whatsoever to the person I was writing about, save for the use of their name somewhere in the story being told. What's more, they were all written in such a way that they were all set in the same ridiculous world, and had a consistent mythology behind them. I took considerable pleasure in seeing these multi-paragraph, sprawling tales dominate my friends' pages with their nonsensical stories of daring-do.
While looking through some of my old files, I discovered one I had entirely forgotten, written for a passing acquaintance who went by the name "Pipkin". It made me laugh out loud, and so I share it here.
***
I first met Pipkin during one of my periodic lunar getaways about ten years ago. I’d arrived on Luna aboard my rocket-ship, The Nuclear Stallion, and set up base camp in the sea of Tranquility; a quiet spot which has come to have sentimental value to me, as it is there that I had – years earlier – thwarted the evil Dr. Six in his scheme to enslave the canine population of earth with his Orbital Lust Inducer; a devilish device meant to play upon the will of dogs everywhere to howl at the moon. A nefarious scheme, but one which bears repeating elsewhere, as I digress. I had set out to dig for ice below the surface of the moon in order to re-supply my stores of water, when I came upon a most startling discovery: the remnants of what looked like some long-lost moon civilization!
Straight away, I set about excavating the find, unearthing as I did so the remains of a set of intricately-carved stone pillars (which now adorn my front parlour back on good old Terra Firma), all encrusted in thick lunar ice, and then – most startlingly of all – a full-grown woman, naked, and encased in the ice! Remarkable! Quickly excavating the ice she was encased in, I brought her back to the Nuclear Stallion, and thawed her out at once. To my considerable relief and surprise, she near-instantly regained consciousness, and began to speak to me in some ancient and long-forgotten moon-tongue. Clearly, I would have none of that, and set about teaching her the Queen’s tongue, after clothing her in some of my excess attire (a concept which she seemed to find both novel and delightful. Oh, how she capered about in her new clothes!). When at last, a week later, the launch window for our return to Earth came, I decided to take her with me, not trusting the airless void of space to be overly kind to my foundling. Though neither Earth’s gravity nor her blue sky agreed with her, Pipkin (as I’d come to understand was her moon-name) adapted marvelously to this new world, and ingratiated herself into human society with an ease and alacrity which stunned even me. She spoke often of the lost civilizations of the moon, and how she loathed each and every one of them. Such panache and eloquence did she speak of her hatred that soon all the peoples of the world came to view the once-treasured satellite with loathing and contempt which I found slightly unsettling to behold.
Nevertheless, when she ran for high public office on a "Let us rid ourselves of the moon" platform, I could not find it in my heart to refuse her; she was, after all, the last survivor of the moon’s people, which made her it’s sovereign, so far as I was concerned, and thus entitled to do with the silly old ball of rock as she pleased (no matter how much I might miss my occasional vacations there). She won, of course, and soon applied the industries of the Earth about the task of destroying the moon outright. The night it was destroyed is one which I will never forget. I stood upon the balcony of my family home; Uncanny Manor, my family and entourage at my side. As at last Pipkin threw the switch which caused the Moon to explode into particulate dust, there was not a dry eye to be seen. "Father, how shall we live in a world with no moon", my eldest daughter, Cleopatra (named after my legendary custom-built triple-barreled hunting rifle of the same name) asked me. "One day at a time, my little isotope", I responded. "One day at a time".
I really liked the tone of these little stories. Maybe I'll see if I can locate some more of them. Maybe I'll write some more some day.
Once again, the world is as cold and as dark as ever it shall be, blanketed, on the majority of its landmasses, by snow and shadow and a cold which seems to seek to leech the warmth from your very bones themselves.
It is with this in mind that it seems to me it is time to revisit a time honoured holiday tradition; the annual telling of a tale which was first recorded two years ago, and which I feel it is only meet and fitting to share with all of my livejournal friends, both new and old (a number which is now well over a hundred!), that they might be duly warned and terrified of the grim portents which this coming night always brings along with it.
With this in mind, pull up a seat for storytime, dear friends, and harken well, for I have a tale to tell...
Rejoice and be merry! Less than a month after the release of Luck be an Empty Vessel for my Poisonous, Flesh-Destroying Seed Tonight, comes the Newdog15's most politically-charged thriller of all time...
For this masterwork, I am joined by a dear friend, one Doctor Ultimo, who I have for some eight years now hoped to collaborate with creatively. Alas, for all his towering intellect and sparkling wit, never has his genius been committed to text in this form before. Frankly, I suspect that his never-ending one man war on his hated enemy, the wicked King of Portugal, has dominated so much of his time that such pursuits have been frankly impossible. With the completion of this work, however, he has tasted the sweet juice of the fruit of success and found it pleasing. Already he speaks of our next collaboration. I can only hope the oppressed people of Portugal can afford to go without their living folk hero for another few days in the near future.
Now, without further ado...
( Click, dear readers, and hear a tale of sinister foreign powers and the brave men who stand against them! )
It bears pointing out, it seems to me, in the interests of prudence, that the above link perhaps ought not to be clicked upon whilst at your workplace, as some of the images in the tale woven therein have some faintly sexual undertones, which - depending upon your employer - may not reflect favourably upon your place in the workforce.
In recent months, I have been forced to struggle against a home invasion by a menace seemingly born out of the most disturbed of fever-dreams and nightmares of madmen: That eternal scourge of mankind known as bedbugs. While it now seems that - at a cost of hundreds of dollars and many dozens of hours of work - this infestation has been purged from my home, I am aware that like any barbarians at the gates, they are ever ready to invade once again if I am anything short of eternally vigilant.
And while there is very little about these monsters which brings me any degree of comfort, there is one small, petty pleasure which their infestation has brought me: No matter how much pain their prolific breeding may have brought me, it is in some sense mirrored by the pain it has brought to the bedbugs themselves. For you see, the bedbug has one of...
( Enter the terrifying and incomprehensibly brutal world of the bedbug's sex life below the cut... )Imagine. if you have the courage, if you are at home with your siblings, who you have lived with since you hatched from your common clutch of eggs (go with me here), each of you enjoying yourselves in whatever manner best suits you. All of the sudden, one of your brothers stands up and, without warning, whips out his tool. No mere shaft of soft and pliant flesh and blood, though, this phallus is a wicked hook of chitin with a curved, scimitar-like blade of a tip.
Without any evident regard for your desire, family relationship or the particulars of your anatomy, he thrusts it brutally into your belly, piercing your skin and organs alike before depositing his DNA directly into the bloody wound in your abdomen. He then climbs off of you and immediately repeats the process with your brother. And then the family dog. If you can imagine this, you can in some small way imagine what it is to be a bedbug.
One of the keys to understanding bedbugs is that there is literally not one thing about them which is not completely horrifying and disgusting. Seemingly conjured from the gleefull imaginings of a demented sadist, they seem to challenge with their very existence the idea that nature is not in some way guided by some malevolent and unseen hand. For example, the bedbug female has a perfectly serviceable vagina and it is not out of the realm of possibility that they might occasionally be in the mood for lovin'. Neither of these facts are of any interest whatsoever to the bedbug male, however: At some point in their dim evolutionary past, they abandoned the approach to sex which involved genitals actually touching one another, and adapted the approach of essentially fucking the bedbug equivalent of the ovaries themselves in a process which science knows (with an uncharacteristic lack of softening tones) as "Traumatic Insemination".
This casual disregard for the presence or absence of a vagina seems to bring with it a certain sense of sexual liberation for the bedbug male; they can and will casually rape anything which is roughly bedbug sized that they can wrestle to the ground and maul with their sex organ, on the off chance that the thing they are screwing MIGHT be a bedbug female. Accuracy by volume, one supposes. Ants, silverfish, male bedbugs (and oh, more on THIS later), none are safe from the ravenous if indiscriminate ardour of the bedbug male. An incestuous, bisexual rapist with a taste for injury and bestiality... place on of these monsters in a pair of overalls, put a confederate flag in one of their clawed hands and set them to muttering angrily about their second amendment rights, and there would be nothing out of place or incongruous about this image whatsoever.
One might be given to wonder how this is not fatal to prospective bedbug mothers. The simple answer is that it often is. Infection and crippling injuries are not uncommon. Evolution has, however, fashioned the bedbug female with a small measure of protection; they have developed a small, vagina-like opening on their underbellies in roughly the spot where males tend to make their incision. The effectiveness of this adaptation is, however, imperfect, in that the male of the species takes no more interest in this pseudo-poon than in the genuine article. He is indeed as apt to stab his member through the belly of his mate to the immediate left or right of the opening as to hit the target at all.
And what of the males who fall victim to one another's advances? Here too, evolution has worked its cruel works. Since the sex organs of the male and female are located in roughly the same area of the body, the male who is raped will literally have his rapist's sperm injected into what amounts to his own balls, where they will join the sperm already present. As such, the next female the rape victim sexes up will get sperm from both her mate and the one who raped him. As such, natural selection favours those bedbug males most prone to frequent homosexual rape.
Not that there is any preference show between one gender and another (nor yet one species and another; I have noticed since the bedbugs arrived in my place that the silverfishes are all gone. I cannot help but wonder if they have all been raped to death by the bedbugs); they are equal-opportunity rapists. And given their tendency to rape one female after another, they have become keenly economical in their use of sperm. When a male has his way with a female, his penis demonstrates one of its most mind-shattering and overwhelming traits: It tastes the inside of its victim's anatomy, and should it taste the distinctive flavour of bedbug sperm already present, it will deliver somewhat less of its own, since there's that much less of a chance that this will be a successful mating.
Yes. In addition to everything else to boggle and offend the mind, the savage cock of the bedbug can taste the guts of its victim during the physical act of love. It is like unto a sword which is like unto a tongue which is like unto a penis. Imagine it. Imagine it.
And do take care to remember: Every cell of a bedbug's body is composed entirely of stolen human blood, since that is literally all that they consume. This endless walking horror-show is made entirely of stolen bits of your own body, now crawling about on six legs and committing its crimes against human sanity.
Just try to sleep soundly throughout the night knowing full well that this will surely be happening all around - and even upon - you while you slumber.
And understand where comes my comprehensive dread of these unimaginable abominations.
After the broad-ranging and enthusiastic appeal expressed in response to the first installment of this feature, it is impossible for me to imagine not going on to briskly produce a second installment. Let it not be said that a third and future intallment is not forthcoming, either; in my research, I have certainly discovered a host of phallic horrors lurking in some cases distressingly close at hand.
But for today's installment, we're going a little bit afield. Unless you live in Argentina or Chile, in which case, you will likely readily recognize our next specimen of genital gruesomeness quite readily. I speak, kind readers, of the Argentine Lake Duck:
Cute, huh? Funny little duck with a funny blue beak? That thing's adorable! Look at those little raindrops on its back! They're huge compared to it! The thing must be tiny! You could stick it in your pocket, and it would just quack adorably in there and be a funny little novelty pet, right?
Well that's because you can't see what lurks beneath the water... and nor yet what lurks beneath the cut.
( Read on, ye of stout heart and steadfast will... )
Preamble: For those of you unfamilliar with the workings of the Canadian government, much of this will be, shall we say, somewhat foreign to you. Suffice it to say that the Governor-General of Canada - the Queen's representative in Canada - has granted our loathesome right-wing thug of a Prime Minister's request to shut down the government for two months, because said Prime Minister realized that the next vote taken by the government would result in his losing power, and he couldn't stand to see this happen. This is one of the only powers actually open to the Governor General, and I've never heard of it being abused in this manner before.
I've never been a fan of the monarchy, but I've always before been able to shrug it off as a quaint and faintly embarrassing relic; an irrelevant anachronism and nothing more. Today, though, I am angry about it as I never have been before.
The Governor-General - an unelected figure who is unanswerable to anyone or anything save for an elderly foreign aristocrat - has decided that she has the right to stand in the way of the lawful operations of the parliament and suspend the workings of our elected government. And as disgusted as I am by the fact that this appendix in the anatomy of our government has decided to become inflamed and in need of removal, I am no less disgusted by Harper's decision to incite her to do so.
And Harper himself. I am paralyzed by indecision. Such a wealth of invectives I could aim at him. Where does one begin?
They say that all bullies are at their core cowards, and Harper has definitely demonstrated that where he is concerned, this is true. Not merely a bully, but also an idiot, he decided to pick a fight with a group who over-powered and out-numbered him. And then, when to his utter shock and horror, they decided to fight back, he ran screaming to mommy, begging her to make the bad democracy go away and leave him alone.
It has been said before by wiser and more well-informed people than I that Harper rules as a tyrant when given the opportunity, and certainly he has proven this true this past week. While his surrogates are out there scare mongering and shouting his hateful, partisan talking points from the rooftops, accusing the other parties of attempting to make a power grab born entirely out of greed, Harper himself has decided that if he cannot lead the country, then nobody can. He would rather shut down the parliament for TWO MONTHS in a time of crisis than see somebody else lead it. The stench of projection hanging about these conservatives bleating about the leaders of the other parties being desperate for power is thick and suffocating.
Short weeks ago, I was actually DEFENDING the man as a necessary evil. "The pendulum needs to swing both left and right in order for a democracy to function healthily. At the moment, it's swung somewhat rightwards. All things in their time", I said. But now, upon seeing the pendulum begin its leftward swing, he seized it in his hands and broke it off entirely, preventing the flow of power from taking its natural course, thus demonstrating his fundamental contempt for the democratic practices of our country.
I freely acknowledge that a majority of Canadians object to the notion of a coalition government as it is currently being proposed, but I also know that nearly two thirds of Canadians entrusted members of Parliament of parties other than the Conservatives to make the choices they thought best for the country, and so they were doing before the agent of a foreign power prevented them from doing so. I feel it is necessary to point out that given the constant stream of invectives and scary language that Harper and his cronies have been delivering from their bully pulpit, I wonder how much of that objection on the part of the Canadian people is born out of an informed opinion and how much out of the irrational fear which our esteemed leader has worked so hard to inculcate in his program of gutter politics this past week.
If I take any comfort in this prorogation of parliament, it's that the leaders of the parties who the majority of the population voted for will have this time to inform the population of the facts of the situation and perhaps beat back the flames of fear which the Conservatives are and will be so frantically fanning in the mean time.
Cross-posted to NDP
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