Archive | September, 2014

This Was Your Life!

21 Sep

September 21, 2014

Generic, syrupy, goofy game show music swells, but with some odd, dark notes thrown in.
Stage lights swell, bright, a little too bright, with red lights on the audience.

OFFSTAGE ANNOUNCER: Let’s give a big, warm welcome, heh heh, a very warm welcome, heh heh, for our next contestant, Willy Baxter! Willy Baxter, COME ON THE HELL OUT!

From stage left, Willy Baxter walks onstage, half escorted, half pushed by two very muscular red devils complete with horns, tails, and pitchforks. Willy looks very, very scared and confused.

OFFSTAGE ANNOUNCER: And now, here’s our host. You know him as the taskmaster who punishes contestants with thorns and bleeding pores, and that’s when he’s in a good mood. Demons and devils, incubi and succubi, I give to you, Guy Lucifer! C’mon the Hell out, Guy, we love you!

Guy Lucifer suddenly appears in a cloud of smoke. The odor of brimstone causes Willy Baxter to vomit onstage. A small winged nymph flies over and hands Guy a microphone.

GUY LUCIFER: Hey, it is so great to be here. Welcome to the show where every day, someone new gets the chance to win fabulous prizes. Johnny, tell this poor piece of crap what he can win!

OFFSTAGE ANNOUNCER: He can’t win a new car, that’s for sure!

Audience laughs in strange combinations of animal grunts and semi-human howls of pain.

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OFFSTAGE ANNOUNCER: Willy Baxter, you’re not playing for anything! You’re here for our eternal amusement!

Guy Lucifer smiles and a small black beetle crawls out from between his teeth. Willy Baxter falls to his knees and vomits some more.

OFFSTAGE ANNOUNCER: Oh Willy, I’m just kidding. You do have one chance, one chance only!

Willy looks up, hopefully.

OFFSTAGE ANNOUNCER: You might win this! (Curtain opens!) A lifetime supply of Turtle Wax! HA HA HA! HA HA HA! HAAAA HAAAA HAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

GUY LUCIFER: Don’t you get it? You’re dead! DEAD! Willy F-ing Baxter, YOU ARE DEAD! Some ass ran you over with his motorcycle while you were crossing the street!

OFFSTAGE ANNOUNCER: That’s right! Your head ended up twenty feet away from your body! AH HA HA HAAAAAAA! It was great!

GUY LUCIFER: Let’s get started Willy, we don’t have all day. Here on This Was Your Life, we bring out people who were close to the contestant, reunite them with their near and dear, give them just a taste of what their life was like. Then we turn you inside out, impale you on a spit, and roast you alive!

WILLY BAXTER: I’m dead?

GUY LUCIFER: Shut the F up you worthless toad. Time for our first guest. Willy, do you remember this voice?

VOICE: What happened, you crap your pants? Drop down and give me twenty!

WILLY: Uh, what……?

GUY LUCIFER: That’s right, it’s your old high school gym teacher, Ed Sprick! C’mon out Ed!

Ed Sprick enters stage right, crosses to Willy, and kicks him square in the crotch. He waves to the crowd, leaves the stage. Willy lies doubled over in pain while the demons take turns kicking him and breaking his ribs.

GUY LUCIFER! Time for a commercial break! But don’t worry Willy, there’s lots more to come, lot’s more, including all the woman who refused to go out with you! We’ll be right back!

Fade out.

 

 

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H.G. Wells was a blogger.

19 Sep

September 19, 2014

Long time readers (those of you that are still mentally stable) many recall this image which used to grace the sidebar of this blog.

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Here’s an example.

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While H.G. Wells may not have been a blogger, he knew them intimately. He knew the psyche of the type of person who wrote cranky letters to the editors of scientific journals. Or maybe just wrote mean letters to the local penny press. Who is more invisible than the anonymous blogger? Like the Invisible Man, the anonymous blogger blows up institutions, metaphorically. He uses words but the effect is the same. What put this into perspective was one of those internet “Which character are you?” quizzes. This one used Universal horror monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, the Wolfman, The Invisible Man, etc.) I took the quiz and got The Invisible Man, and the accompanying graphic put it all in focus.

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That sums up bloggers in my book. Of course, the “genius-level smart” and “extraordinarily clever” parts may exist only the blogger’s minds, but I say the “kind of a dick” part is right on the mark.

Take it from a blogger.

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