Cheffing In December is like…….Death warmed over in a microwave

chefr

(Warning, story contains actual chef language containing both fowl and foul words some may find offensive and shit.)
Here we are embarking on another “holidays” season. Up here in the NorthEast its shrinkage weather. In the morning, I open the front door and if there is immediate shrinkage, I know to dress in full winter weather regalia. Soon after Thanksgiving festivities have come to a trytophanic end, the Turducken Football OD is over, and Alice’s Restaurant has played on the radio, its time for the annual MMA Shopping event Black Friday. That can only mean its time for chefs everywhere to prepare for December. Radios everywhere will play the same tired songs they have for the last 200 years, stores and malls open extra hours for extended full contact shopping, and we make lists of who we need to tip, who we need to get booze for, and who to buy gift cards and presents for. One of the worst examples of our inhumanity in this time of supposed brotherhood is the perpetual argument over how to greet each other. Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas chef, Happy Kwanza chef, So how’s your Hanukah going chef, hey chef, cheers, happy holidays.

Christmastime, Kwanza Season, Hanukah, Holiday season, Winter Wonderland, Noel, No Hell, give it whatever name you want but to a chef its more of a suicide/homicide countdown. It takes all of what’s left of our strength to not kill ourselves, or half the staff working for us. In the prime of my career December was the darkest most evil time imaginable. The December Kitchen wears a hockey mask to cover a misshaped face full of scars and zombie eyes, has hand of metal serrated spikes, carrying machetes, axes, and chainsaws. December cheffing frightens the hell out of any seasoned or marinated chef while sucking the life blood out of all the kitchen workers all over the country. While others argue and bicker over whether to say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays a chefs answer would be about 20 decibels higher and sound more like, CALL IT WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU WANT YOU JINGLE FUCKING BELL LAME ASS MENORAH LIGHTING LIMP DICK HALL DECKING KWANZA DANCING SANTA FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT AND PICK UP TABLE 15 NOW!!!

Yea that’s right, while party revelers are getting drunk, having affairs, doing lines in the bathrooms, and being absurdly ridiculous because of the intake of massive quantities of alcohol, the chef is screaming at the perceived incompetence of workers who are actually stressed and stretched beyond human limits due to the massive pile of work assaulting them. In between his vociferous beration of anyone in sight the chef is sweating and working his ass off. Every morning we need to go to the ass store to buy a new ass to replace the one we broke the night before. So many holiday parties and so little time to get them done in!

The month of December is indeed physically taxing which is bad enough, but it is also super hard on the chef’s family. Communication is reduced to post it notes and telegrams to and from the spouse, swatting at the kids like they’re flies when they jump on the bed and interrupt your one and a half hours of sleep you‘re alloted, and calling Mom and Dad just so you can catch a nap on the phone while they catch you up on the latest afflictions and maladies they suffer from. “So Pops, how’s your arthritis been lately?…..zzzzzzzz. You learn to sleep in the shower during the rinse and repeat cycle of shampooing, you grab your clothes and hope they match because your eyes aren’t open enough to see them, and you eat standing up so you don’t have to take the time to digest. Let gravity work on the digesting, chef’s have more important things to do.

If your lucky like me you get to take mass transit where you can catch a long nap. But beware, often a nap will last four stops past your destination setting your day back before it even begins. Or you may wake up from a nap in a panic and get off thinking your past your stop only to find out you still have six more stops before departing. Or maybe you ease into a decent sleep only to be startled awake because a jolt of fear split your head open thinking you may have forgot to order that 100 pounds of shrimp for tonight that was ordered last minute yesterday. And yes…every one of those scenarios has happened to me at least once while December cheffing.

I don’t want to make it sound too grim, there is a bit of a perk. Everyone and their mother wants to let you know how much they appreciate your cooking so they bring you alcohol (or whatever may be your pleasure). But even that can be a negative perk at times. Like when someone sends a glass of wine to the chef in the middle of service because they’re partying and feeling really good, and generous. Of course the wait staff neglect to tell the patron that the chef is a bit off balance because others have already sent in shots, beers, and drinks from other happy patrons knowing full well the chef is burnt out and at the mercy of not having the will power to say NO THANKS to a bit of happy juice! Instead, its pond this shit down and get back to the heat of the heartless oven.

Yes my friends, December cheffing can really shred ones world apart but thankfully it only lasts until the final push of the year, new Years Eve. That’s the night chefs get to hear every non working person in the world shout in drunken stupors “Happy New Year!!!” while the chef silently says to themselves, Fuck YOU! So this year, while you are out partying and carousing and carrying on all over town celebrating whatever the hell it is you call it, take a few minutes out and thank a chef for all the sacrifices of cheffing in December….Peace

Living La Vida Existential

exi strip

Is your belief system stressing you out with too many demands? Why not try Living La Vida Existential. Belief systems are so difficult to maintain these days with all the rules and regulations and the conflicting messages. My creator all mighty its hard maintaining any religion these days. I mean love thy neighbor, unless they’re gay, no unmarried sex unless you wear religious garments, a bunch of commandments to uphold, just way too much work remembering how to make the verse from whatever your good book happens to be to fit into the desired result. Are you tired of having to go to a house of worship once a week? Got bruises on your knees from too much kneeling? Maybe you’re tired of having to admit the evil rule breaking you committed during the week to an obscure stranger in a dark box? Are you looking for a belief system that doesn’t cost you so much money, even going as far as having baskets shaken in your face shaming you into giving up your hard earned cash? Does your religion make so many demands on you want to scream, “I’m mad as the burning afterlife and I’m not gonna take it anymore.”? Or scare the actual Hell out of you by threatening to send you straight to Hell? Would you like to stop having to fold your hands and talk to yourself before bed, listen to your stomach growl with hunger while everyone has to wait for that one person to say grace? If so, then Living La Vida Existentialism may be right for you. For a limited time you too can become an Existentialist and throw away all the categories and labels religions place on you. It’s easy, all you have to do is believe in yourself. So hurry, this offer expires when you do so act now!

Thousands of people have been turning away from the out-dated teachings of organized religion. If you like belonging to a group but would prefer something more modern, more flexible and reasonable maybe its time for change. Why not considered Living La Vida Existential? Being an existentialist is fun and easy to do, plus it free’s you of all those pesky tenet requirements of organized religions. The best part is you can do it in your spare time in the privacy of your home or office, or even while texting from the bathroom. Not only that, it cost no money and is open to absolutely everyone, no experience required. All that is required is an open mind, and you already have a mind so wait no longer. Open it up to a world of possibilities. Forget all those ugly theological labels, like gay abominations, lustful coveters, or sinners in the war on god. Existentialism is skin color blind, gender blind, and practices actual non judgmental living, not the phony non-judgmentalists who pray and point their finger calling others names (No, pray was not a misuse, its a play on words. Its okay to joke when your existential) Sexual orientation remains your business in existentialism. Its all about living your life the way it should be, free of all the garbage that has built up over the ages such as attempting to explain the unexplainable with cartoon precision. Wile E. Coyote can paint a usable tunnel because its The Roadrunners will. Don’t involve yourself in a which came first argument, the egg and the chicken arrived simultaneously and have always been. We are here and we are alive, what difference does it make when we first came to be here on this planet? Be fair, be just, and forget about judging others, just enjoy life while your living it. No need to condemn your neighbors and call them unholy, that won‘t help you live well. No need to force others to believe what you believe either. Why you don’t even need to exclaim to the world that existentialism is the one true religion, and practitioners of any religion other than that is an express ticket to damnation. Its not a religion, it’s a REALigion.

Actually, its not a religion at all, it’s a philosophy, more like Hakuna Matata, or Karmic Existence. It’s a very common misconception, existentialists are often misunderstood, sometimes even by other existentialists. They are not nihilists or anarchists, not Pagans or polytheists, not occultists or Satan worshipers. Nor are they atheists, although by strict definition most existentialist are Atheist, just not practicing Atheists. No need to go to an anti-church and praise scientific logic, deny God, or sing songs like “Imaginary Grace” or “The Old Rugged Death Penalty”, just accept that there is an abundance of ignorance in the world and let those who don’t get life have their bliss.

Existentialism is a philosophical belief not a faith. Many people today are jumping on the ex tr ain because its believed that existentialist are clever intellectuals that speak in profound quotes of some of the more famous existentialists. “I think therefore I am”, “He thought therefore he was“ “He will think therefore……” you get it. . While most of us are indeed very clever, we are no a bunch of beret wearing brainiacs who sip cappuccinos at cafes and discuss matters of global implications. You don’t need to be a college graduate and read every work of Kierkegaard, Sartre, or Kant. Many existentialists are just average people whose beliefs do not fit in to a mainstream belief that we were all created by the one true creator be it God, Yahweh, Jumping Jehovah, Allah, or He-Man Master of the Universe. We don’t need a structured religion to explain to us how we should live our life, what will happen to us if we don’t follow the rules, what happens when we die, and who is the one we must consider to be superior to everyone and everything in the universe even though we are the tiniest speck of a planet in an unimaginable vastness. Simply, everyone is equal and deserves equal respect. That’s not to say we can‘t believe in divinity.

Existentialism does not rule out the possibility of a creator although for the majority if there is a creator its nothing like the one most of us were force-fed as children. No all-knowing all-seeing god who demands praise from everyone, sitting on a metaphoric throne waiting for us to come to him. No angels waiting up in a gated paradise community playing incessant harp music in the clouds as we ascend to heaven. But that’s not to say that some form of energy or entity didn’t have a hand in getting the ball rolling so to speak. For existentialists it’s a little clearer than believing a magic image in the sky that is watching over everyone to make sure we behave. It seems a bit arrogant of a god to take credit for all the good shit that happens but then when the fecal matter hit’s the oscillating rotary alter everything goes to, pardon the expression, Hell in a hand basket. No waving of the hand explaining things away by way of mysterious ways being worked we’re apparently not clever enough to understand. That kind of deck stacking would have you banned from every casino from here to the Netherworld. It’s more about a cycle of life, we’re born, we live our life, then we die. We exist in that cycle just the same as every non worshiping living thing on earth. I can’t prove this but I firmly believe bacteria do not worship any pathogen gods or pray in any amoebic temples yet they live the same cycle we do. The bottom line is everything lives, everything evolves, and everything dies. Respect all life.

We all accept that others lived before us, and others will live after us, and in every religion death is an accepted stage. However temporary, whether it leads to paradise, another life, another stage of existence, a box bed covered with dirt, a reduction to ashes in an urn, or pure nothingness it happens to us all. What occurs after death we tend to disagree, but everyone pretty much agrees death is imminent. Except maybe Donald Trump, he believes he can build his own tower in heaven greasing the almighty palm enough to buy himself a private room in eternity. Trump eternal? Talk about living Hell! But we exist in the here and now and frankly if there is a god it will have zero effect on how I choose to live my life, which by the way is far more Christian than most Christians I know. Maybe they should actually read the entire bible and not just the parts they enjoy bragging about. I mean really, what is religion anyway?

.
Religion is described as an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to an order of existence. That makes your religion a random happenstance, an accident of geographic birth not very different from gender, or class. Existentialism is relatively simple. Our existence precedes our essence leading us to an understanding that the self is what’s important, that we are merely tiny specks on tiny cogs in a vast and complex universe. It gives us the ability to defy classification, especially when it comes to religion. Its what’s in our hearts and our minds that matters. Live your best life, treat others as you wish to be treated, help out your fellow humans when they are in need, share and do not judge how others live their lives. Live and let live. Many religions claim to teach those principles yet they condemn others for their lots in life. Its hard for me to get behind a religion that tells you we are all of Gods children then tells you if you’re gay you are an abomination. Clearly forgetting judge not lest ye be judged. It irks me to see a person on social media claim their love of God and tell me how blessed we are and how we should rejoice in one post on social media, then spew hatred at someone because their politics are different than a friend (or ex-friend once politics enters the relationship) in the next. Unfortunately it seems we live in an age of rage, intense hypocrisy, especially among the holy rollers. Religion shouldn’t allow you to feel superior, but humble. Unfortunately most religions fall far short on the humble. This is the main reason most existentialist show distain for religions.

So that’s my take on existentialism, not right for everyone but especially handy if you’re a recovering Catholic, a confused protestant, a paranoid closet Muslim, or a doubting Hindi. Practice whatever damn religion you want but before you continue your religious commitment take existentialism for a test ride around the block. Terms and conditions do not apply, no scrolling past a million words to reach an I Agree button. If your still unsure, ask your clergy if existentialism is right for you. Wait! Check that, better if you just ask yourself the way I did.

I was born scraping and scratching my way through life and now I’ve reached a point where death becomes more and more imminent every day. One of the cruel jokes of life is when we finally much of living is bullshit we are too tired to live the life we should. We allowed money to be the center of our lives, putting us not in a solar system like every other living thing, but an economic system in which we all revolve around money. I should stop before I become more like the people I’m ranting about! Damn, looks like my equine ride has been puffing my weed again. Time for me to get down of my high horse. PEACE

Cosmo’s Guide To Cosmic Gardening

lament

PART 1. NOT JUST DUST IN THE WIND

Where should I begin? In the beginning God created the heaven and earth? I think that opening line is taken but it begs the question why are we really here? Some say in the beginning there was a vast empty space, a nothing vacuum in a nowhere space until a bunch of atoms spontaneously appeared and took to flying around everywhere (or nowhere depending on your view) when suddenly two overly aggressive atoms collided causing a huge explosion. Spontaneous combustion. The Big Bang! Yea, right! First nothing and nowhere then all of a sudden a Universe so huge it has no end. Wait, hold on, even better, first there was nothing and then the one and only god created shit to keep him from being bored. Spent six days building it then chilled for a few million years. A massive universe with one teeny weenie little speck where he created the supreme lifeforce, human beings that looked just like him, to rule over everything. First nothing then one man, one women, an apple and a snake. Now that’s even funnier! As a matter of fact both of these comical stories are a source of great humor and hilarity and the butt of many jokes at The Board of Co-operative Gods and Goddesses out in District seven. At any decent cosmic cocktail party you’ll hear no less than a hundred jokes about various theories of how life came to be in any of the life gardens but the Earth stories are by far the most numerous. The “monkey trials” keep gods and goddesses laughing for hours on end at inter-galactic get togethers. There’s not a god worth his sodium chloride that hasn’t heard of Darwin, Moses, Jesus, Mohamed, Elijah. Or the Talmud, Koran, The Bible, even The Upanishads. Stories of a pure evil horned devil with blood dripping from its hands and fear bolts being shot from its eyes keep them rolling in the anti-matter with tears of laughter. Satan, Lucifer, Serpent of Evil, Beelzebub, so many knee slapping names for the antichrist. Oh yes, the earthlings grown by Cosmo are a source of great amusement to all the gods. All the gods? Am I saying there really are many gods? Does a pope defecate in the woods? Is a Polar Bear catholic? Can white bears jump? Of course there are many gods, and many galaxies supporting forms of life. Did you really think you were the only living beings in the entire universe? Jeez, and I thought Wookies were dumb. Well sit back you Vader naysayer and let me tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Well maybe a fabrication or two along the way because YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!
In the beginning, Once upon a time, at the outset, none of these phrases apply because life is a circle with no beginning and no end. There just simply has always been many gods and goddesses with endless open space and these gods have varying responsibilities. Gods and goddesses are each given their own garden plots which you call galaxies. They tend their gardens and grow life in a variety of forms. The gods and goddesses perform many tasks such as making gardens spin, enforcing the law of gravity, some create laws of physics to apply differently in different particular purpose. Some create wind and motion to make global area’s different but the brightest gods and goddesses get selected to the Board. There they ponder deeply the laws of the universe and how they should be applied everywhere. These are the most intelligent gods and goddesses and they hold court to make the decisions that effect all forms of life. No cosmic gardener can grow anything without their approval. It’s known as The Board of Co-operative Gods and Goddesses. (BOCGG) They made the decisions that effected the farmer gods who were expected to grow and experiment with the various galaxies across the universe. Each galaxy was tended to by its own god. There was great and clever Simon in the Tolkien Galaxy, Mychrighton in the Andromeda Strain Galaxy, The red haired beauty Lucille who watched over the Bobaloo Galaxy, Luke-ass who presided over The infamous Jedi Galaxy that was far far away, and so on. Here in our Milky Way galaxy, the farmer was and is the god Cosmo. Such a good farmer is Cosmo that they named the entirety of space after him. The vast space of the universe came to be known as “The Cosmos”. Travel was known as Cosmic travel, knowledge as cosmic knowledge and any left out odds and ends in space became known as Cosmic debris. Hey there brother, I’m not jiving you bout that Cosmic debris! Cosmo is indeed an accomplished cosmic gardener, in fact he is somewhat of a legend among the other gods. In Solar system 728KJ he had cultivated nine grooving spinning garden orbs he called planets. From the tiny and excruciatingly hot mercury, to the equally tiny but totally frozen Neptune he tended to all nine magnificently. Like the giant Jupiter (which for some reason had red eye in all the family photo’s) with an assortment of moons, and the ill advised named Uranus (No need to tell you the jokes at The District with this one) . He put some cool looking bangle bracelets around the lovely and mysterious Saturn, and named two of the planets after his own Mom and Dad. The entire universe was touched at the naming of Venus and Mars. Yes Cosmo had really taken pride in that particular solar system. But his pride and joy and claim to fame is most assuredly for his work done on one particular planet, known throughout cosmos as garden earth. Garden earth is a rather insignificant looking planet in solar system 728KJ. It is the third planet from Sun 728, and has the benefit of the perfect amount of sunshine. Earth also has a considerable amount of water on it which is the other essential ingredient in growing things. Sun and Water in abundance makes for a smashing garden. Cosmo wants to make planet earth, in solar system 728KJ the most prolific and successful garden in all the universe. With a vast ocean to create clouds which would in turn drop water back into the garden a system of synergetic energy is created. Cosmic irrigation! Garden earth is a thriving ever-growing populace world. A wide variety of vegetation and many roaming creatures inhabit the garden.
But what you see on garden earth today is not how it was at the beginning so put on your seat belt as we travel back in time to see how this all came to be The Planet Earth. Catastrophic is the best way to describe his first attempt. Maybe he wasn’t mature enough or maybe like a fool he just rushed in but either way it’s a story that is told and retold as far away as Gabor40904 which is about eight billion gazillion gamma light years away. To you that would be a mere two point five septillion miles give or take. At any rate here is what happened in Cosmo’s first attempt.
When a god reaches a certain age he or she is given a Galactic Farming Starter Kit. In the starter kit comes a package of sea monkeys which gods could use to populate in any gathering of H2O. These sea monkeys would eventually grow into all sorts of different weird looking creatures. Some even had 8 legs! But, that’s way in the future as evolution thrives underwater. The problem was that no one could see the assortment of single cell creatures in the Pangaean Sea of garden earth. Cosmo wanted more on his special planet. He wanted some things that he could watch and toy with and keep as pets. So with the BOCGG approval Cosmo sent away for the “Advanced” farmer kit which comes with both aqua mobile seeds and terra mobile seeds.
Cosmo surveyed his round global garden noting the huge land mass which he had called Pangaea. It was enormous but completely unadorned and surrounded in entirely by water. Cosmos first brilliant concept was born. Edible vegetation. Not just pretty to look at like in other gardens, he wanted to develop some of his vegetation as energy giving edible substances. He developed gargantuan trees and shrubs which would absorb energy from the sun storing energy and converting some into oxygen. Now he could create some creatures and they would have food and be able to breath. Brilliance had come to Cosmo in a dream. He was being chased by a creature with a long neck and large mouth with sharp teeth. This would be his first creature. What should he name this creature? Jar Jar Brinks? No, that’s stupid. He thought out loud. “Lets see, the creature was chasing me and my buddy Steggo and when it got near it bit Steggo’s ass. Steggo yelled out damn man, now my ass is sore and.” He stopped in mid sentence. “That’s it! I’ll call him sore ass! No, not sore ass, Steggo’s sore ass. To avoid any divine libel law suits it was suggested he make it one word. It sounded smart and sophisticated as stegosaurus so he went with that. Now for some other creatures for stegosaurus to play with.
So Cosmo created an assortment of giant creatures. Long necks, smaller faster creatures, a few with wings, and one really scary one. He made up weird names for them like Stegosaurus, brontosaurus, Pterodactyl (He also invented the silent letter which would cause all sorts of shit in years to come), and his personal favorite, the frightening one, Tyrannosaurus Rex. For weeks the great god Cosmo played with his new dinosaurs. He started to get a little worried when he saw them chewing on the tops of all his beautiful vegetation, but realized that they needed to eat something. My creator almighty they have appetites bigger than their damn bodies. Seems the more they ate the more they expelled from there butts. Some of it a horrible almost violent smelling gas which was a bit of an embarrassment to Cosmo when other gods came to view his garden. But the solid stuff actually deteriorated and made the trees and shrubs grow even better. It seemed like a perfect system. Everything depended on everything else to survive. The sun gave everything energy and sucked up water to make clouds, the clouds returned water to cool things off in the garden and help grow the vegetation. The vegetation gave air and food for the creatures , and the creatures pooped out food to feed the vegetation. A cycle was created which Cosmo referred to as “The cycle of life.” A theme that would forever define his garden no matter what thrived in the garden beds.
One morning while sipping some of his favorite caffeinated breakfast beverage, Thors Thunderbolt, Cosmo noticed some strange things happening in his garden. His creatures appeared to be having sex repeatedly and Pangaea was becoming very crowded with baby creatures. And some bi-saurus creatures were looking stranger, larger, wider, and Cosmo sensed some major changes. Having sex also seemed to make the creatures very hungry and they were eating twice as much as usual. One particular bush or rather one particular weed actually seemed to give them voracious appetites. Not just for food, but for sex. Cosmo won’t swear to it but he believed it made his creatures laugh. At the very least they smiled more than normal. He wondered if it was co-incidence, or if the cannabis bush had some unusual qualities to it so he took a few homegrown plants to try himself. He decided he would let them dry out and smoke them after dinner. As he continued to survey Pangaea another curious practice was observed. The creatures seemed to be fighting each other over the sex, which was not really a colossal deal but it appeared that the winners where actually eating the losers. Believing it to be from the cannabis he referred to the practice as canibisalism. He opted not to try smoking the shit just yet afraid of what it may make him want to do. The eating of the other creatures also made the eaters even bigger and stronger. He would need to keep an eye on these developments.
As time passed more and more creatures were killing each other and eating the remains. And damn were they multiplying. They engaged in sex virtually everyday and babies were everywhere. Every day there seemed to be more and more, and nearly all the vegetation had been eaten. Not only that but they began biting kicking and scratching each other for no apparent reason. Many fights seemed to be over who had more dangling under their tail or who was going to screw the better looking female dinosaurs. Many times these fights caused some to fall down never to get back up. Cosmo was not happy with the with these developments at all. His garden of creatures was turning into a giant fighting fiasco. His giant behemoth experiments were much to big and clumsy. He decided he needed to start over and this time start with much more compact set of creatures. First though he needed to extinguish and cover up the debacle of the dinosaur.
His first thought was to go subterranean. He began to churn up the ground at different points of the land mass Pangaea. The shifting of dirt created numerous effects. The mass of land split in various places and Pangaea began to break up into smaller lands. A few dinosaurs fell off the edges, but for the most part they rode the land mass that they happened to reside on and just sort of relocated. Two chunks of dirt headed out quickly, one due north and one due south. Each went as far as it could go until it turned into a giant massive iceball. Every dinosaur on these arctic edges froze along with it. The other land masses fared much better. Cosmo needed names now for the different masses. On the east he had North Columbia and South Columbia. Way across the newly formed ocean there was a dark mass he called Afrika, and a huge piece he called Eurasia. A smaller mass slipped down under while a very green land went slightly north. He would name them later. As for the dinosaurs they had begun to change and were ironically defined by their land masses. The creatures in North Columbia grew more aggressive body parts, like large razor sharp teeth, pointed spiny tails, and large muscular arms. Cosmo believed they actually thought themselves superior and tried to make all the others live the way they did. Pretentiousaurus! The dinosaurs in Africa were very wild and it took on a predatory nature of survival of the mightiest. In Eurasisa half fancied themselves the more sophisticated and chic while the other half absolutely excelled in math. They had all begun to mutate body parts that were used as weapons or as protective amour. Spiny heads and necks, horns, shells, claws, Talons, scales and many other features that assisted warfare or survival. They continued cross breeding and a host of new genus’s were born. Now we had some walking on two legs, some on four, some eating only vegetation, some only other dinosaurs, and many eating both. The flying dinosaurs alone mutated into over 500 species. The fights became rampant and more frequent and quite frankly it was pissing Cosmo off a bit. The shifting of the land also had an effect on the once enormous Pangaean sea which was all the water surrounding Pangaea. The other lands had created borders which split the Pangaean sea into vast oceans. New weather patterns and water currents came into play, and many of the places he churned up dirt had formed piles, ranging from tiny molehills to humongous mountains that reached up towards the sky. At first Cosmo tried to make all the dirt piles as majestic as the giant ones but he quickly learned he couldn’t make a mountain out of a molehill.
As time went on things just got worse and worse. The changes in the garden plots were great, but the dinosaurs were out of control. In each land mass they were carrying on and destroying the vegetation, trampling everything in their paths, kicking the everlasting dinosaur shit out of each other. If that wasn’t bad enough the fornicating was maddening. No matter where you looked in the garden you could find many dinosaurs letting it all hang out ready for reproduction. Giant penispods galore. Humping and swamp hopping there was sex going on everywhere. Puddles of sperm gathered that drowned the lower vegetation and while they were knocking horns and creating future fossils it tore up the ground and caused many a fight to the death. Genus were being wiped out, it was a constant state of confusion. The trees they had eaten clear down to the roots. They simply had no respect at all for Cosmo, his garden, or each other and that was the final sipping stick! It was time for a raptor rapture!
The angry Cosmo had had it. He reached up into space and grabbed the biggest asteroid he could hold and hurled it towards earth with all his might. Had it not been an act of destruction one might have thought it a beautiful sight. Upon impact a huge explosion of colors, bright reds and yellows danced tangos across the planet. A blinding flash of white so brilliant it could be seen as far away as the Tolkien Galaxy. Flames that reached so high they tickled the moon and made it giggle and squirm. Sheer magnifigance. Why it was a fireworks display fit for the gods. But mere seconds after the glowing kaleidoscope lit up the skies, as if to remind everyone that its beauty was marred by violence, it was quickly replaced with an ear pounding roar. Burst of concussion inducing reverberation accompanied on this evening with mushroom plume of billowing smoke dressed in charcoal black from head to toe. A snap. A crackle. A pop. Within seconds garden earth became Earth Krispies. The explosion kicked up an awful cloud of dust with it that pulled the rug of sparkle pomp and circumstance right from under its cosmic ass. For the longest time Cosmo could see nothing but an enormous floating dust bunny. Virtually everything was obscured and he had no clue as to the fate of his living garden below. One thing for sure, if any of the suns rays got through at all it was undetectable. How could anything live without food, without light, without sunshine? Cosmo was absolutely certain he had lost everything. He underestimated the ultra tiny earth dwelling insect known as the cockroach. Will anything kill those bastards?
As time went by the dust began to settle it was becoming apparent not much if anything would survive. Even with only a portion of the dust gone he could see there was not much sign of life. The vegetation tried valiantly to reach back up towards the sun but with limited success. The garden seemed still and void. Even Cosmo couldn’t detect the tiny crawling cockroach foraging at the base of the vegetation. But trust me when I tell you, those cucaracha’s marched on. The once magnificent dinosaurs however were not able to crawl between any cracks and did not fare well. A massive open graveyard was all the gardening god could see. Humongous piles of giant carcasses littered the ground and whatever ground that could be seen was scorched to a grayish black. Nary a leaf or a pine cone to be found. Not even a blade of grass on this once animated garden of green and blue. Stacks of bodies and body parts could be seen everywhere with billows of smoke reaching out to the Milky Way cluster. There was a stench quite unfamiliar to Cosmo, charred flesh smelled nothing at all similar to a god BBQ. To call the aroma unpleasant would be an understatement. The forces of fetid decay banded together with burning flesh and gunpowder. The acrid odors began an all out assault that would serve as a rank reminder of the magnitude of failure here. Battalions of rotted mounds of foul fecal sewage mixed with dino debris formed an aerial assault. The army of stench marched up Cosmo’s nose and set up a camp of odiferous angry troops behind his eyes. Some salted droplets of sorrow snuck down Cosmo’s cheek which he blamed on the carousel of stink spinning in his sinuses. Make no mistake though that was no dew drop, that was a teardrop
Denial is not yet just a river in Egypt. A deep sadness overtook the creator of the dinosaur. Still smoldering and becoming increasingly covered in dust Cosmo reflected on his once thriving lizard kingdom. Had they not been so enormous he mused, perhaps things would have been different. He wanted to have a way to remember the jumbo Jurassic relics . After some time many of the hearty vegetation had once again begun to sprout, rising up from the ashes. It seemed as though everything reminded him of his creatures. “I shall name this period of existence the cretaceous period in honor of my creatures. In order that no one, especially me, ever forget their magnifigance I shall create a living memorial. With that Cosmo placed very colorful vegetation he called flowers everywhere. At first the flowers were impractical, the only benefit being the ambiance and je ne sais quoi of their beauty and fresh interesting aroma’s. The wonderful aroma’s to cover the stench of scorched earth were amusing. He had no idea what an impact they would have later on. Flowers would become symbolic of love and beauty and figure into a strange talk between fathers and sons some day. People would fashion perfumes and air fresheners form their enticing smells and men would find them a beneficial tool in making up for mistakes. Flowers would proudly display their floral genitalia and bees would find them irresistible. Flowers would come to represent anticipation of sex for both honey bee and honey dear alike. Forever linked with love because that was why Cosmo created them, to remind him of his love for the once utopian behemoths. Beautiful flowers of white pink peach, purple, red, yellow, blue, violet, green and orange. Fantastically designed shapes of bells, funnels, trumpets, tubes, saucers, bowls and labia. Brilliantly displayed all over the land masses along with new and tastier vegetation. It was a sight to behold. An arboretum of the grandest scale any had ever seen. This colorful garden alone would have stopped a charging raptor in its path to gawk at the beauty and inhale deeply the scent of passion on this marvel of an orb. An ambush makeover on the grandest of scales.
Now a new task was at hand. “I will take my new plan to the BOCGG and see if they will approve and allow me to once again have mobile life in the garden. It was time to face the rhythms melodies and harmonies expressed through instruments. Cosmo knew it was no use trying to pull the woolly mammoth over the boards eyes. Best thing to do was fess up and submit his urban renewal plan. However, when Cosmo went to request some new life seeds, the board of co-operative god and goddesses were waiting for him. They did not seem pleased.
The Board of Cooperative Gods and Goddesses convened in an area of the universe known as District Seven, or just “The District” as gods called it. The District was like the universes capitol. A retreat for any of the gods who wanted some R and R from controlling everything. Restaurants and a few pubs, recreation areas where they could swim in warm liquid methane or play a few rounds of Gomf (Gods Only Mortals Forbidden). They could visit the Library of Everything, catch up on current events in any galaxy, or just relax. It was also where the BOCGG held court to make decisions that effected the entirety of everything. Unfortunately for Cosmo that was precisely why he was here in The District on this day. To go before the Board and issue a plea for forgiveness and the go ahead to start over.
The tallest of the gods spoke first. “Cosmo, you have made a gargantuan mistake in trashing your garden. You broke a law when you interfered. If you check page 7 of the BOCGG codebook it clearly states than no god may interfere with the natural progress of any form of life anywhere. You have deliberately destroyed the entire garden. What have you to say of yourself?” Cosmo knew it was senseless to lie to the gods because they can tell instantly. “Yes its true, I destroyed the giant dinosaurs I was growing but in my defense they where way too massive and ate tons of vegetation each day. And they were destroying each other and all the beauty around them. They would have destroyed the garden in no time. I felt it best to begin over with a much more efficient and intelligent design. If you gaze now upon the garden you will see it is perhaps the most colorful in the universe. I have grown many shapes and colors on earth and it is more magnificent then ever before. It even smells nice.“ Cosmo presented at bouquet of beautifully arranged flowers from Earth to each of the Goddesses. Instantly he had won the lady lords over and he knew it. “All I need to complete this garden is some new life seeds so I may create new creatures, much smaller in stature and less capable of destruction. I have learned much from my mistake. From the ashes of my galactic faux pas I have come up with a cutting edge form of existence I call the cycle of life. Given the chance it could become a prototype used all over the universe. I would be overjoyed to have the opportunity to institute it on Earth and make a garden more worthy of The Board. I deeply regret having caused such destruction. I promise will not ever mingle in the affairs of what grows within the confines of my garden ever again.” Tall God gave Cosmo fifty lashes with the high beams from his angry eye sockets. “Indeed Cosmo, we all witnessed disaster even from as far away as we are.“ Time to lay on some god charm so with kindergarten eyes and trademark flirtatious grin he said, “Well did you at least enjoy the light show?” He handed him a picture of the new colorful planet and an earth cigar. Tall God visibly softened his stare and playfully rolled his eyes. Cosmo was one of the most handsome and charming of all the gods and was well liked in every corner of the universe. He quickly submitted his new and improved garden blueprint which was in fact quite impressive. This seemed to satisfy the gods who were all nodding their heads in agreement. The Lengthy Lord spoke again. “The Board is impressed and looks in anticipation of this cycle of life. So it shall be Cosmo, you will go back to Solar System 728KJ and replant, but may I suggest you use your new life seeds more wisely. There be no need to rush things.” He shook his lean angular noggin and threw up his overstretched arms. “Why is it you young gods are all so fucking impatient these days?” Cosmo agreed that he would indeed secure a well thought out plan this time and thanked each god individually. No slouch at schmoozing was Cosmo.
A smart schmooze as well. He called his good friend Kirk T Spock from the galaxy Vulcan and invited him over to discus some ideas and smoke some of that tickle weed from his garden. He had finally got up the nerve to try it and was blown away at the results. He rolled many of the new cannabis silly sticks and gave them to his friends. Now it was a favorite all over and grown in nearly every galaxy. Kirk has a rather successful galaxy himself. His most impressive garden has much more of a modern look focusing more on technology than things like vegetation and floral arrangements. Teleportation and lasers were more important there. Eating food was not an event as it would be on earth but a pill in the morning gives every creature the optimal energy needed, so eating was essentially unnecessary. For the most part all galaxies were like that absent of Cosmo’s brilliant cycle of life. In comparison to his garden most of the universe is cold and uninviting. But Como enjoyed Kirk’s array of interesting life forms. Unlike Cosmo he had already asked for and received intelligence seeds. One day he would request them as well, but first things first. He poured them each a long mug of Amber Idol, the favorite carbonated malt beverage of the gods and lit a doob. As they drank and puffed they read the guidelines set forth by the boards codebook. “Okay, rule one is something about allowing for some hurdles. On Vulcan I call them will call them clusterfucks, but you need to come up with your own term.” Cosmo loved the term clusterfuck but Kirk was right. “Yea, too bad. I dig your name but I don’t want to diss your ass. Hey that sounds kinda funny. Diss your ass. Disaster ass. No, disaster. That’s it, Natural Disasters.” And so Cosmo first set about to make some severe weather currents. He created hurricanes for the Atlantic and Typhoons for the pacific. “And how about this, I’ll make these storms cause flood producing waves that can change the tides?” Even Kirk was getting excited now, after all, who doesn’t love inventing tragedies? “ Ha, that will create a shit storm. Theres a good name too, storm. Oh yea, that’s good Cosmo, call the waves tidal waves and the disruptions storms.” They felt a slight wind crop up from his newly formed weather pattern. “Holy shit! What a great idea. I will make some winds super strong. Strong enough to take things as heavy as the mighty dinosaurs I grew and fling them around for miles. I’ll call them tornadoes and I will put them mostly in the middle of this huge land mass in the Northwest.” Kirk couldn’t help but get a playful jab in at his friend. “Mighty dinosaurs? More like huge humping humdingers. You think you could come up with a wind stronger than those putrid explosions they expelled from themselves?” Cosmo took a joke well and shrugged it off. “Ha ha, humping humdingers my ass, more like formidable flatulent fornicators.” They took a few minutes to laugh uncontrollably not because that was funny, but more than likely because the doob was such good quality. Kirk got his laugh muscles under control and continued. “I bet they’ll come up with a catchy name for that area like tornado road or tornado cul de sac or something. This is great fun!” Cosmo was very excited now. He decided he would make some droughts and some overflowing rains to add to the storms to create challenges and confusion on earth. But that wasn’t enough, he needed something else. He chugged down some carbonated nectar of the gods and began thinking while the beverage began to bloat his stomach and dizzy up his head ever so slightly. After a half hour the inspiration opened its hand and slapped Cosmo upside the head. Cosmo let out a huge belch that shook the whole garden. “Oh man, that’s perfect. “I will add something uncontrollable that comes from inside the gardens own stomach. Like a burning hot burp” Kirk laughed half from the weed and half from his amazement. “A burp. How do you come up with these ideas?” Another long chuckle. “I get my inspiration from you my logical friend. Up out of a mound of dirt will come some really hot melted rock. I will name the disaster after you Kirk. Kirkeruption.” Kirk was touched but very modest. “Don’t use my name use my galaxy name. Call it a Vulcano!” Cosmo understood his reluctance to have his name immortalized. That was the type of god Kirk was. “Let’s compromise and call it a volcano. I will force rock up like a belch so fucking hot it will flow like burning water until it cools. I will make volcanoes and sprinkle them around everywhere. Maybe even some underwater. Oh yea, these will create massive headaches.” Cosmo could not help but laugh out loud. “This will be the greatest garden ever.” Kirk T. Spock recited all their concepts out loud then shook his head and repeated twice in a slow speech, “Fascinating.”
The two high empirical horticulturists chugged down the last of their beers, finished the jolly joint and sat back. Cosmo was quite satisfied with himself. But had they thought of everything? “Lets see, I have major storms, the cold ones creating avalanches, the warm ones floods, landslides, and huge waves. I have volcanoes that will erupt spitting boiling shit on everything. What else? Hmmm, maybe I should create something that causes destruction that can’t be seen coming. Some kind of organism that can destroy from a micro sneak attack.” Kirk was quite impressed. “Wow, an unseen micro-organism that is so miniscule they won‘t even have a clue whats attacking them. Brilliant!” Cosmo continued enthusiastically. “The sun will shoot out flares and make droughts, the storms will make floods and chaos, the volcanoes will ruin everything near it, and the microorganisms will attack things unseen. I will create fire, but I won’t introduce that quite yet. Not until I have something around that can exploit it. I think I have everything covered.” Cosmo laughed so hard that he shook. Kirk was preparing to leave when one last thought hit him. “Hey wait a minute! Why don’t you make something that will make everything shake uncontrollably. It will knock shit over, cause things to tumble down, and any life form you have will quake in its boots.” Cosmo never ceased to find amazement in his friends concepts. “Absolutely! That’s the final piece, Earthquakes! Without warning I will cause tremendous shifts underneath the ground. Not a single creature will know who is at fault.” Kirk pulled a transponder from his pocket. “I think your off to a great start Coz. Thanks for the nectar and the weed. Sweet Mary Jane that was some good shit. At any rate good friend it’s time for me to leave. Let me know when you have your creatures. Can‘t wait to see this cycle of life.” He lifted his transponder and hit some buttons. “Co-ordinates set. Beam me up Scottie.” In a flash trillions of tiny pixels of colored dots spun in frantic circles and poof, Kirk was gone. Happy with the events of the day Cosmo took a well deserved nap.
Feeling refreshed after his nap it was time to do some more creating. Cosmo took his new life seeds and began. “Now what shall I grow? “I will create a variety of species. Like a couple of million. I’ll have bacteria, fungi, crustaceans, insects, birds, reptiles (tiny versions of his beloved dinosaurs), birds, fish, and mammals. I will let all these species evolve. Yea, that’s fucking it. Evolution. I will let things change and adjust to their environments. Maybe even evolve into new species. I will give one or two species the ability to reason. To be able to think like I do.” He gave this some consideration. “Well maybe not think like I do, but to be able to reason. They will be able to use and make tools to make their lives easier. But I don’t want to get to far ahead of myself here. I’ll let that happen in a few million years. Oh but wait, what’s a year going to be for them?” Cosmo remembered a trick his friend Simon used in his garden in The Tolkien Galaxy. Each planet had its own system of time. A full trip around the sun will be a year. Each spin of the planet will be a day. So for Cosmo every million years on earth will equal one god year. That settles the timing issue. This is when the fun began for Cosmo. He used his imagination to come up with a large variety of creatures and would make them all dependant on each other. He made some that ate only vegetation, some that ate only other living moving things, and some that ate both. That part at least worked well for the dinosaur era. The cycle of life. When something dies it will rot and become food for the vegetation. Everything depending on other things. Bugs that eat dead leaves and convert it to useful fertilizer. Birds that eat the bugs, animals that eat the birds, and bigger animals that eat those animals. I will allow everything to thrive as it struggles to survive. Just let nature take its course so to speak. Then he can watch how they deal with and evolve from the disasters. The plan was set and the new garden, the new world had begun.
For a few years, oh I’m sorry, for millions of years things went along great. A variety of life forms walked feely in the garden and found ways to survive and multiply. To avoid the whole fornication fiasco he came up with a variety of different ways to reproduce. Some eggs were fertilized inside bodies and some outside with many different strategies. Some had only one offspring at a time, some many, and some even thousands, or millions at time. There were many that even reproduced completely on their own without assistance from another member of the species. For the most part however it was a contribution from a male and a female of any particular species. This gave the happy creator a wide spectrum of creatures he could make. Bacteria living in an unseen world, insects so tiny that millions could thrive in small areas, and then his array of animals. That was the glory, Cosmo’s animal kingdoms. He started in North and South Columbia. He created an assortment of smaller animals, some sneaky and underhanded like rats and weasels, he created mice and chipmunks, minks, ferrets, gophers, and his sexually proficient rabbits. He gave them unusual but deadly defense systems like the quills of the porcupine or the stench of the skunk. One creation was always stealing shit so he gave the raccoons bandito eye masks. Mid size creatures also coexisted there with wolves and coyotes, and the hot looking foxes. Slightly larger were his deer, cattle, moose, and elk. Cosmo loved having ferocious animals around so he had some fearsome groups of bears to strike fear in the hearts of everything. Next he duplicated these animals in Euroasia, but he added a whole slew of more interesting animals. With a larger land mass he could afford larger animals. He created horses, camels, donkeys. As a nod to his beloved dinosaurs he created a sleeker and more refined version of his woolly mammoth, the elephant. Also some variations on his mountain lions he made tigers and Bengals and leopards. Why even a twist on his grizzly pals across the ocean he made a strain of Panda bears. Next his attention went to Africa where he would have his real masterpieces. Ferocious predatory animals was the rule here. Giant Lions and Tigers, super fast cheetahs. The Fierce large mouthed crocodiles, charging rhinoceros, the hungry hungry hippos. A absolute menagerie of animals One species of animal was vegetatarian but too short to get at the tops of the trees where the healthy vegetation grew so he stretched the neck and he had a giraffe. He filled the skies with an uncountable amount of birds of all shapes and sizes, then put wings on some mice and called them bats. But the most important of all the animals he created were the primates. Gorilla, orangutan, lemur, Loris capuchin, Ape, monkey, and chimpanzee. At first he had them living in the trees, swinging around on vines and gathering fruits from the branches. Then a funny thing happened. They climbed sown from the trees and began walking, stumbling really, on two legs. Cosmo knew in an instant that if any creature would deserve intelligence seeds it would be them. He watched them with much anticipation.
Yes he had grown a fine garden. He used wit and wisdom and had created a self sufficient world. He thought it would be funny to throw a few curve balls and make some strange animals. He noticed there were no animals on his land down under and immediately came up with some great idea’s. Kangaroo’s that will hop and box, a confused animal. Legs like a lizard, body like an otter, and face like a duck. Put it all together and it’s a duck billed platypus. Marvelous little creature. But he wasn’t done. Wallabies, Nubat, Wombat, and Koala. A kookaburra bird and some flightless birds with the tiniest brains possible. He also thought it would be funny to see how something does without any arms or legs at all. Yuck. Worms and slugs and snakes for all the land masses. He took another flightless bird and dressed it up in a tuxedo. Penguins thrived all over but did especially well in the very cold regions. What an infinite variety of animals. His one last brilliant move was to enlarge the skulls of many of his primates, so that one day he could grow larger brains in them.
He had also filled the oceans with an array of new creatures to evolve along with the single cell sea monkeys he started with so very long ago. From tiny little cuddly fish to gigantic orcas. He even snuck a few dinosaur size creatures deep in the oceans. Blue whales, giant squids. Cosmo allowed the creatures to rule their own world under the sea. He created underwater vegetation and planktons and clams, oysters ,mussels. Everything as brilliantly colored and co dependant as the world above the waves. But just to make it more interesting Cosmo added some sharks, some poisonous jellyfish and a few other predatory fish and sea creatures. He made eight armed octopi, horseshoe crabs, and starfish. In another display of his incredible humor and insight he created sea horses and made them the only thing in the garden that gives birth via the males. This gender bender of a mix up will keep them guessing for years to come.
Now his world was set and all he could was wait and watch. He had created a near perfect world and added some special fertilizer which would quicken the pace of evolution. New species were cropping up every day for Cosmo. He was tending to his garden, keeping it watered and full of sunshine and just watched. One day he noticed that the big hairy apes of his walked steadier and more efficiently on two appendages. Cosmo decided it was time this species received actual intelligence. Why they had already made a choice using some basic logic. They were finding food scarce and climbed out of the trees and walked in search of more food. These primates show great promise so Cosmo decided to go back to the Board of Co-Operative Gods and Goddesses to plead his case for intelligence.
When Cosmo finally got back to the Board he could sense that they were feeling exceptionally agreeable but he was still a bit wary from his previous visit. He presented his plan to add intelligence to some of the primates in his garden. Of course it was tall god who spoke up first. “Ah yes Cosmo, intelligence. Why is it that all you gods eventually want to give your gardens an intelligent species? It seems to me that you wouldn’t want them trying to understand what you understand, yet you all want it sometime. You do recall the fiasco in Solar System 928MJ in the Chimera galaxy, yes Cosmo?” Cosmo did indeed remember what had happened when the god Botchiegalloup added intelligence to one of his creations. He had this odd looking species of a five legged giant oval animal with three mouths and ten arms. Once it developed intelligence its only focus was finding the god Botchiegalloup and destroying it. Oh my supreme being that was a battle royale. Why Botchi had to call in gods from all the nearest galaxies and they were losing ground every day. The board had to come up solution so they looked to the wisest of farming superstars the lovely goddess Lucille. Luscious Lucy was a goddess to remember. So incredibly funny with a mind that wouldn’t quit. She could make you laugh one second then gap with wonder at her knowledge the next. The Bobaloo Galaxy was a model galaxy filled with laughter, music and merriment. Its design however was anything but comical. An absolute genius Lucy had come up with advances in gardening that nearly every aspiring farmer subscribed to. She came up with a new phenomenon called a black hole At it’s core the black hole has so much gravity in the fucking thing that it sucked in planets for millions of miles around. Nothing could escape its gravitational gullet. Not even light could get out once the hole got it in its grasp. Once put in place the Crimea galaxy became nothing but a black hole. Botchiegalloup has never farmed since. “Of course I remember the debacle of the black hole, but there have been successful intelligence programs as well. What of Simons galaxy ? The Tolkien Galaxy has lots of successes like the Hobbits, The Efts, The Elves and such. Why I have seen a few flying objects I could not identify on earth and I am sure they were from another galaxy. It can be done, it just needs to be tended to cautiously.” The tall god knew of more than one successful thinking gardens but he didn’t want to make it seem to easy for Cosmo. “Well I tell you what Cosmo. We will bring it up tomorrow with the board over a few pitchers of Meade during happy hour. I will propose your request of intelligence officially and we’ll see what the board has to say. As for The Tolkien Galaxy, do not forget how it almost got destroyed by the Orcs. And keep in mind the dinosaur debacle you had, many still laugh about that one. Anyway, leave me your resume and list of accomplishments. That will help your case.” Cosmo thanked tall god profusely and did as he was advised. The following day he waited outside the god bar hoping to have his answer. He heard much laughing. That mushroom juice he added to the Meade must have done its job.
After an excruciatingly long hour Tall god came out to meet him with a shit eating grin on his face. “I don’t know what you put in the Meade Cosmo but if its something that grows in your garden it’s a fucking winner. The board has approved your request for using intelligence, but want me to stress that you use it wisely and sparingly. I will bring you intelligence seeds tomorrow. Now go out and have some fun before heading back to your Galaxy tomorrow. We have a new shipment of god toys that act very strange indeed after only one large cup of Meade. I will see you on the morrow” Cosmo was overjoyed and shook tall gods hand. “Thank you so much, I promise you won’t regret this.” The smile walked away from tall gods face. “I am sure that I won’t regret it Cosmo, I just hope you won’t. Anyway, you can thank us by shipping us some more of whatever you spiked the Meade with. Now get your god ass out of here before they change their minds.” The smile came running back and jumped on tall gods face just in time for him to go back to happy hour.
Cosmo left a very happy god. Now he could go hang out at The Hershey Bar, get plastered and enjoy some of the new god toys that Tall god spoke of. Cosmo walked up to the bar, ordered a large Meade and sat down. From the corner of his god eye he spied his old friend Simon, whom he had just spoken of to Tall god. Cosmo called out, “Simon old friend, your god ears must have been ringing with joy. Why I was just bragging to Tall god how well your Tolkien Galaxy has turned out.” When Simon stood up he towered over just about everyone. A tad shorter than Tall god, yet enormously wide. His torso was so big and round that many joked he must have swallowed one of his planets whole. Though none brave enough to say it to his face as he was as foreboding as he was large. His massive thighs stood like oak trees holding up a huge muscular frame. A god who loved to fight and had a reputation for putting out the lights of many a challenger. But as frightening and ornery as he was, if you had the opportunity as Cosmo had to really get to know him, he was the best friend you could ever hope for. When he met Cosmo’s gaze Simons huge orange eyes lit up and a giant smile took over his entire face. Simon was also an endlessly jovial god. When I say his smile took over his face I mean it quite literally. His mandibles had developed the ability to dislodge and become unusually huge. It was most likely a mutation made to help accommodate his voracious appetite and deep bellowing belly laugh which he invited into the room for all to hear. “Oh my supreme being if it isn’t Cosmosaurus himself.” Simon immediately filled the airwaves with his infamous laugh. He could say things about you that might normally erupt in a war if anyone else said it. But Simon did it lovingly with a decibel challenging laugh. All one could do was smile and enjoy some of the excess mirth his body exuded. Cosmo smiled a big smile as well and the two hugged. When Cosmo looked at Simons smile, a thought hit him. Maybe I could use that for my snakes and let them eat other things whole. How fucking cool would that be? Cosmo’ss thought went on vacation as his body was near crushed under the weight of Simon’s constricting bear hug. “Well supreme being damn it Sime, how the fuck have you been? Haven’t seen you since your hashish experiments. It was so impressive and cool that I planted some in my garden.” Simon was blushing now and he placed his hands on his thick curly long locks of sandy colored hair and threw them into the air. “Ah yes, the laughing root labs. Still going strong all over Tolkien.” He looked to the bartender. “Dean, give my old friend here a large Meade Plus on me.” He then turned to Cosmo. “Pound down that lame drink there and try this new one. Laced with some shit called Opium. I got it from the Ming Dynasty Galaxy. This shit kicks some serious god ass. Speaking of god ass Cosmo, what say we indulge in the new toys that arrived last week.” Of course Cosmo was game for anything, so he guzzled his plain Meade and took a sip of his Meade Plus. “Wow Simon, this shit tastes great.” Simon let a quick chuckle sneak out which actually shook the bar. “And less filling ha ha. Just wait until the Ming shit kicks in. You will feel it everywhere if you catch my drift.” Cosmo did indeed catch his drift. The stories of Simons escapades with the lady gods were legend. “Hey Simon, I am getting some intelligence enhancer for earth tomorrow. How did you get yours to work so well?” Simon took a large gulp of his Meade Plus, and wiped his huge disjointed grin with the back of his oversized paw of a hand. “Oh shit Cosmo, you are gonna love this shit, but it takes a little work. The first species I gave it to was the repojacks. I just used a dab to experiment with and they learned language almost immediately. But I made the mistake of trying to guide them telling them what they should do. One day the leader of the repojacks comes up to me and starts to bitch up a weather pattern. He says to me, ‘We can’t seem to do nothing right for you. Simon says do this, Simon says do this we do this, Simon says do that, Simon says do that we do that, but the one time we do that without Simon saying you make us start all over again. It’s like a fucking kid game or something. Then they tells me we have decided to quit your Simon sez do this game and play our own game of tag and you are not it. We are it and you can’t do nothing about it. Well I was having none of that shit so I made everyone Midas tagged turn to gold ice.” Out came the famous belly laugh as Simon was obviously quite amused with himself. In between choking laughs Simon explained how the “Mother Fuckers” inadvertently discovered freeze tag. After about six and a half minutes of uncontrollable laughing the two old friends took deep breaths and deep sips of Meade Plus. “My point being Cosmo, as tempting as it is I think it is better to not have our creations worship us. It only leads to revolts. I almost got caught by the board on that one. But, it IS your garden, so you must choose how you grow it. Make sure you give it to an appropriate species and keep both your eyes on them at all times. Just have fun and by all means do not rush things.” This being the second time today he heard this, Cosmo made a note to himself to heed the advice. He listened but he had already made most of his plans. Right now it is time to enjoy this evening.
The Meade Plus was doing its job well. Cosmo was feeling as happy as if he had had some mushroom juice. He felt the happy but not only happy he was also feeling unusually strong, especially in his god loin region. He had a sensation that his all his muscles had gotten bigger, but especially that pleasure muscle that hangs between his legs. Time now to experience the attributes of some of the new god toys.
New god toys was code for a breed of lady god pleasers that are specifically bred to help satisfy a gods sexual needs. For the Goddesses they had goddess toys as no god could fully satisfy a Lady Lords near insatiable sexual appetite. Like everything else both gods and goddesses have a strong and fervent desire for sex and a seemingly unending performance need. Unlike non-gods, they can not only last as much as 8 hours straight, they can enjoy as many as 12 partners in a row, or even at the same time. Their sexual prowess goes beyond anything any intelligent species could ever even imagine let alone perform. So new “god toys” were indeed a special treat and this new batch would be no exception.
No sooner did Cosmo and Simon get into the playroom when already the zippers of their trousers came down. As one would expect the extremely large Simon was well endowed in every area of his body. A slightly too audible gasp was heard by the first god toy that touched his play tool. Cosmo couldn’t help but look over and the appendage was so huge even he blushed. “Oh my Creator man that thing is too big. You will break the new toys as surely as I stand here in envy.” But Simon was paying him no mind and had already taken 3 toys off to ravage and enjoy. He carried one over each shoulder while the third clung with her legs tightly bound to his oak tree thigh while holding on to the joy handle with both hands. Simon disappeared into a private room and it instantaneously filled with screams, squeals, and a chorus of “Holy Shit that thing is enormous”. Cosmo had only one single god toy caressing his much less imposing yet still impressive love muscle. The god toy looked up and was instantly and happily struck by Cosmo’s good looks. He has an angular well defined face with a nose that seemed to be chiseled in place perfectly. His long dark black hair rolled over his broad shoulders in layered waves. Unlike Simon there was not a single ounce of excess body fat on his well defined muscular body. His chest puffed out proudly on its own and had just enough hair on it .His arms were like argon filled balloons. He ha a smile was every bit as engaging as Simons without a trace of the gregariousness. The god toy spoke to him. “My but you are handsome, you are by far the best looking and easiest to look at god I have ever seen. I can tell I am truly going to enjoy this assignment.” Cosmo flashed her a smile so alluring she made a soft purring sound. The second he looked at her fuscia pink eyes he knew he wanted her to be exclusive. She had tight blue and green corkscrew curls that formed bangs above the sexy eyes and her head was framed perfectly with platinum hair in the shape of a crescent. The tips that disappeared under her chin were ebony black. A sight to behold. Of course her body was bred so close to perfection it didn’t seem fair to other females. Long muscular legs with perfectly proportioned hips. He pulled her hand away from his crotch and scooped her up in his strong arms. “Then lets get a private room and begin enjoying each other.” The god toy smiled as it was the first and quite possibly last time a god would treat her so tenderly. “Have you a name young maiden? Mine is Cosmo, but I prefer to be called Coz.” God toy looked up and said “They named me Ginger, but my real Name is Mary Anne.” Cosmo smiled another winner, “Ah that’s great, I think I like Mary Anne more than Ginger. I shall refer to you as Mary Anne and request you for the entire night.” Mary Anne blushed at the thought of being an exclusive. “Are you sure you don’t want a few others Mr. Coz?” Cosmo stared at her with eyes so filled with lust and passion it would have melted the butter clear through the refrigerator door. “First of all Mary Anne, its not Mr., but just Coz, and second, I prefer to concentrate all my enjoyment on the most beautiful maid and you are by far the hottest babe in The District. And its not the Meade Plus talking.” While he was talking Cosmo, I mean Coz, unbuttoned her blouse. He reached inside and cupped her smooth and delicate lady lumps paying extra attention to the nipple. Gently twisting his fingers as he inched his lips towards her at a teasingly slow rate. Her breathing was deep and heavy and her eyes burned with desire. When he clamped his warm lips over her soft full lips their tongues exploded in a furious search. Wrapped around each other the tongues danced and twisted to a passion rhythm. She arced her hips and Cosmo pressed his groin into hers. He could feel her loin shudder beneath her skirt and was well aware of how his touch had rendered her helpless. A shit storm of physical pleasure was about to explode between her legs and Mary Anne was quite willing to set the charge. Her hips swayed rhythmically anticipating the take off of Cosmo’s missile into her love canal. T minus ten, nine, eight, and within seconds the rockets red glare disappeared deep inside of Mary Anne orbiting her pleasure zone. Her sexy lips were adorned in bright red gloss and they parted slightly to allow a sensual hum sneak out and hang in the air like giant cloud. Her large pink saucer eyes now focused on Coz’s with intent directed at satisfying him like no one before.
During their nine hours of exclusive bliss no less than eight god toys had gone in and out, pun intended, of Simons room and each lasted no more than two hours before being replaced. The squeals were non stop and Simon cold be heard roaring with delight on several occasions. By contrast, Coz had only one visitor, the very lovely Mary Anne the entire time but the squeals and roars were every bit as ferocious and ten times as passionate and meaningful. The noticeable difference was that Coz’s roars and Mary Anne’s screams had an addded tenderness and order to them. When Cosmo had finally exhausted his final lust thrust everything ounce of Mary Anne was filled with love liquid. Coz was exhausted yet overflowing with pleasure and the room was filled of the smells of nine straight hours of love making. Mary was full as well having just been injected with a massive amount of god seamen. So much had Cosmo come inside Mary Anne that every time she sneezed a handful of microscopic god sperm snuck out into the night for a moonlight walk. Conceiving child is somewhat of an occupational hazard for god toys. It isn’t common but it does happen, and like most gods Cosmo refused to use a hefty bag. The thought of pregnancy crossed his mind but by the time it got to the other side it was forgotten. Pregnancy wasn’t able to cross Mary Anne’s mind, at least not for the moment. The nine hours was normal for Cosmo but it had taken quite a toll on Mary Anne. Physically exhausted, her curly platinum blond an patchy colored hair was tussled and matted and sat like an eagles nest above her head. The tight blue and green curls all but gave up curling and lay as limp as Mary Anne herself. She stared up at the ceiling as if still stunned by an amazing dream. The smile on her face would make Simons best smile hang its head in defeat. Her smile was immobile, sitting on her face on its own accord because Mary lacked any energy. Even as Cosmo got up to leave and thanked her the happy glossed over orbs remained fixed on the ceiling. Unable to move, the smile unwilling to leave, she laid there in bed as Coz kissed her gently on the forehead and told her he would never forget her. It’s quite possible she nodded or shuddered a thank you, but if she did it was imperceptible to the naked eye. Or the naked anything else for that matter. Cosmo wrapped on Simons door and yelled out “Good bye old friend, until next time.” Perhaps it went unheard, or perhaps Simon was in a position that prohibited response, but the squeals continued albeit with less than half the enthusiasm shown earlier. It was time to get some sleep and pick up his intelligence seeds the next morn. There was much to be done. As Cosmo left the room he heard a barely perceptible moan that sounded like “mmmmm so fucking good, so fucking good, thank you Cosmo, thank god. mmmm” There was something else in the air too, something Cosmo could not recognize. It almost felt as though someone else was in the room.

The Day I Died

day died

So this is it!? Not how I thought I would die that’s for sure, I was certain I would be killed in a car crash or something equally spectacular or at least condusive to how I lived. Like back in the day I thought I would either OD on drugs, or in a bar fight too drunk to defend myself but drunk enough to say something stupid to put me in a dangerous situation. One thing I was sure of is it wouldn’t be suicide, I always play the hand dealt no matter how shitty the cards. I will admit though like a lot of people I have over the years contemplated if suicide was an answer. You know, during any one of the countless worst moments ever! So now I’m laying here feeling the life slowly seep out of my body. At this point I’m oddly serene, maybe even ready. Finally after all the years of meditating and practicing out of the box strange arts rituals I’m having a true out of body experience.
Its not like I obsess about death. Okay maybe a little now that I think about how much of my writings revolve around death, but everyone obsesses about death a little. Or at least have often pondered about their own best if used by date or at the very least how and when they’ll expire. With the exception of a few sick bastards we all hope our death will be quick and painless when our time comes. Mostly I think because we work ourselves up in a tizzy from viewing or reading about so many horrible deaths. Ghost stories, zombie apocalypse, serial killer stories and that’s just the nightly news. I personally watch an assortment of television shows delving into the minds and actions of evil, laced with just enough violence to make me wonder why I suffer from insomnia. Movies and shows with people being buried alive, (OMFG, not that one please), murdered for money, shot during the commission of a crime, revenge killings, chainsaw hacking (far worse than computer hacking), military explosions, viral infections, even tortured to a slow death by someone with the sadistic tendencies of the old Marquis De Sade and the pain bringing skill of Jack Bauer. One of my own worst case scenario’s is suffocation. I grew up near a beach where we used to play chicken diving down in deep water to come up with a handful of sand to prove you made it, and on a few occasions I was worried I wouldn’t make it back up in time only to spring out of the water panting like an Eskimo Sled Dog that took a wrong turn on the Iditarod then ran all the way to the equator. Television and movies have given me a plethora of horrible and unwanted deaths so all in all I guess dying from a gunshot wound ain’t so bad in the scheme of things. I mean either I’ll go into shock soon or I’ll get pumped up with morphine so an ending like this is almost welcome.
Anyway, I don’t think I have much time left so I won’t waste it philosophizing over which manner of death is or isn’t cool. How did I end up with a bullet in my chest? Damned if I know, I was just going about my normal day when I heard a few loud bangs. At first I thought some asshole kids were shooting off cherry bombs or M80’s or something, until I saw people with an unmistakable look of terror on their faces scattering around, diving to the ground behind cars or whatever. Not me! Oh no, I was doing my usual head in the cloud meandering taking care of errands when I felt someone punch me in the chest. I say punch, but it felt more like my chest was catching for a Cy Young pitcher’s fastball. Before I knew it I was on my back looking up at telephone wires and tree tops. Within seconds I felt the warm syrupy blood spreading across my tee shirt. I tried to look down at it but my head wouldn’t move. I grabbed my chest with both hands and felt the blood oozing between my fingers. My first thought was who the hell hit me. Then I thought oh shit almighty I need to do a finger in the dyke maneuver or something. Finally it sunk in and I thought, holy shit, I think I’ve been shot.
I laid there with my chest throbbing and pulsing at the same time. I tried to cry but nothing came out, not even a gasp. It was hard just breathing. WTF? Did it hit a lung or something. Seconds passed by or minutes maybe, IDK, I’d lost all sense of time and reason. That’s it man, I’m freaking dying. Hope I have clean underwear on or my Mom will pissed, that is if I go to wherever she is. I soon, or maybe not so soon realized the pulsing and pounding pain were fading. Taking a breath on the other hand was harder than ever. Next I’m laying here and the pain subsided completely so either I’m getting close to the end or shock has set in. I guess this is the point where my life is supposed to flash before my eyes but honestly I am a bit too tired to watch my own rerun. All I want to do is sleep. Wait, what’s this? Someone is putting their hands on my chest and there’s a lot of commotion, people and noises all around me and people touching me. Appropriately. That’s weird, the noise is oddly soft and fading in and out, not loud and chaotic. Oh oh, the sound seems to be fading out completely along with my eyesight. I know words are being said but they don’t sound like words, more like muffled reverberating sounds. I think I hear sirens but I’m not sure if they’re far off or just more of an illusion. I think I feel some people picking up my body and putting it on some stretcher or something but it doesn’t matter, too little too late. I feel my essence, my very being slipping out through the hole in my chest along with the flow of blood. Weakness took over and silence is filling in my ears now. My last breath, my last whimper. Time to pronounce, wanna make the call doctor? (I watched a few medical shows too) No more anything, done, over, ipso facto, adios ghost, see ya later terminator. Nothing more to do, no more fun and laughs, no more tears and pain, only darkness. My final game of Clue. Colonel Deranged Stranger , on the street, with a handgun!
My Epilogue

It feels unnatural being dead. I see my body in a sort of file cabinet awaiting confirmation of who I am. I’ve seen a lot of morgues on TV and movies but its way less spooky and far too clinical and dare I say cold. I am at this very moment preparing to move on to my next phase and frankly I’m a little excited. Aside from my obsession with dying and death I’ve always had a deeper obsession with the afterlife and now I’m about to find out for real. Am I going before a judge with angel wings, on a hot escalator to Hell, into some weird meeting place for everyone who died, preparing for reincarnation, or just going to sleep? If I can tell you when I get there I will, but I’m afraid they may have rules about “spoilers” in the afterlife. But before I embark on my new journey I’m just curious about something. We….oops, sorry not used to this yet, I mean you live in a society that actually has sub-genres of killings. Random shootings, (like mine), School shootings, Mall shootings, workplace shootings. You have witnessed hundreds of families go through hell after their child’s school was shot up, or someone’s father and mother were murdered for shopping in the wrong place, yet you continue to bicker and fight over personal rights for gun ownership without thinking twice about having to jump through hoops to get a drivers license and registering your car. I mean people get arrested for not keeping their license current, or cars are removed for violations of non registration and non insurance. One could argue cars don’t kill people, people do, and on some level maybe that’s true, but that’s why we have global wide regulations for moving vehicles. Are peoples lives so insignificant that you can’t come to a reasonable compromise that will allow responsible people who want to own guns get them in a reasonable and safe manner, like I don’t know, a handling, care, and using of firearm mandatory class? Kinda like the driving thing ya know what I mean? Is arguing and posturing and allowing corporations sway the voting the best you can do as a society? If that’s so then I guess I really am in a better place as has been suggested.(overheard actually) I have no idea what’s next for my dead ass, but take some advice from a dead guy with nothing to lose. Do something more than just cry about amendments on paper and protect the actual living breathing lives of the innocent. If you all don’t start to take this gun thing real serious and do more than just talk about it after every shooting, wherever I’m going now is gonna get a lot more crowded far too soon. Peace

Driving Prophets

profit drive

We work hard to keep expenses down
It makes no difference as long as it works
There was an accidental death you say?
When in business profit from every loss

Someone sends memo’s to keep us in check
We’re plagued by whistle blowers as well
In the end we will destroy every last one
Because yearly Quarterly reports are due

The business must show off a lot of profit
So some of the small people may need to burn
You tell me there are hungry people starving
Without money its not a corporate concern

Them peasants they never have cash and carry
They can live and dine on leftover crumbs
We’re not losing one single night sleep
Worrying about some unproductive bums

The lazy lot of beggars they’re on welfare
And they drive our property values down
If it was up to the big corporations
We’d toss all their assets straight out of town

Because the only people we really need
Are the folks with dollar sign eye sockets
Like foolish Eskimos who purchase upscale ice
We have the naïve buyer in our hip pockets

The one thing we will sell for the indigent
Is We’ll sell their asses all down the rivers
But don’t go calling us greedy bastards
Call us generous minimum wage job givers

For a healthy tax break we create entry jobs
Employment in which you break your backs
Politicians speaking in fuzzy economics say
Donate to us we’ll give you shelter from the tax

And if anyone attempts to topple our profits
You’ll find your heads inside a hanging noose
We will eradicate any who try challenging us
No one will ruin our branded golden goose

Everyone knows money talks and bullshit walks
You consumers can stop all of your squawking
If your credit rating isn’t up to our standards
Don’t let the door hit you and keep on walking

Walk your maxed out credit cards outta town
No one rides if you don’t have enough bucks
Money is the reigning king of everything
Without it your all plain shit out of luck

So let the bleeding heart socialists whine
Prophesizing an economy thats falling down
Long as we keep driving our high end profits
We’ll drive those prophets deep into the ground

Jewels Hollandaise Sauce, The Happy Culinarian

jewels

Jewels Hollandaise Sauce here on Foodie Channel Network with my new show, The Happy Culinarian (THC). Today I am interviewing the once rising star in the cake industry, Bae King Powder, who just recently wrote his tell all culinary confesional book, “Batter Up, The Rise and Fall of A Cupcake Empire.” Welcome to the show Mr. Powder. Let me begin with the scandel you recently found yourself in with the purchase of illegal products that authorities gave you such sought after top shelf cupcakes. How did it all go down, what toppled your empire?

BKP… Thanks for having me here Jewels, You’re a sharp interviewer, I see you like to get right to the point. Yes its true, I was busted, Leavening Agents took me from my bakery in handcuffs. Really no knead for that. But they had been watching my bakery for quite a while. Apparently some of my shcmuck competitors tipped them off I was using illegally obtained PH in my batter. The batter accusation hit me hard! They were way off base and it came out of left field. First let me go on the record, I had no idea PH from Thailand was illegal, and yes it’s true I used it. The cost of inflation was rising but my cupcakes weren’t. After the Cupcake Wars ended and it was revealed that no whip pans of mass induction were hidden in rebel bakeries. Aside from the politically aligned bakeries all cupcake makers were left flat, mine included. Mission Accomplished my ass!

JHS. Of course, we all remember the bad intel The Food Channel got from Halliburton Lard Distributors that lead to the Cupcake Wars but lets get back to you. As I remember it you claim you were targeted because of your sudden cupcake rise to fame. Exactly how did your cupcakes rise so much?

BKP. Well yea, my batter was much different than most other bakers. With high quality ingredients and hard work my cupcakes rose to near cult status, some even referring to them as ‘crack cupcakes’ because they were addictive. Most of those other shmucks were using short cuts. That’s the reason we rose, not because of some illegal powders in my recipe. I got a much fluffier and porous product and that made me a target. All my competitors wanted to see my cakes fall so they set me up. Just about everybody jumped on the Baking Soda bandwagon and that made their products all seem like cookie cutter copies of each others product. People couldn’t tell the difference between Crumbies, Mack Nola’s, or that new place, Two Broke Chicks. They all tasted the same, looked the same, nothing special. I tried to keep my secret ingredient under wraps like the sandwich industry, or like Coca Cola or any other product that wants to keep their secrets contained. The brand of PH I used was as much intellectual property as my recipes, I had no idea we had broken ties with the Thai’s on PH trade. I had agents dumpster diving on my property while my bakery was closed but that didn’t work so they snuck a mole into my kitchen. Once they had their mole in place they called the Health Department. Shut me down because of a blind rodent that was planted in the plant! Mission Accopmplished my ass!

JHS. So after the clandestine garbage hunting failed they snuck a mole on your property then called the Health department? That’s a serious allegation Bae.

BKP. Oh its more than an allegation Jewels, its an accusation. The other bakeries wanted me destroyed and they lobbied with the Cupcake Icing Agency as well as the Felonious Bakers Investigation pitting both the CIA and FBI against me. They sent Leavening Agents to me looking to get a rise out of me by offering me bribes. I had it on camera but the government had it erased. Of course now I can’t prove anything but if you really look at my pudding, you’ll find the truth there. That was my mission accomplished.

JHS. Proof in the pudding? Conspiracy by government officilals? I mean really Mr. Powder, you want us to believe that all these people conspired to bring your cupcakes down?

BKP. You can believe what you want but if you read my book I have no doubt you’ll see I speak the truth. No one is outside the reach of our government. My cupcakes got too big, rose too high and they didn’t like that, felt threatened. That’s what my book will tell you, all about the conspiracies that took the wind from my sales. If tearing down The Cupcake Dude was their mission, I suppose it was accomplished. But the Dude won’t go down without a fight, I’ll take my batter and come out swinging, slam them for a grand at least.

JHS. Okay Bae, THC wishes you good luck in your plight. Well you heard that folks, buy Bae King Powders new book, Batter up to find out the truth behind the conspiracies. I have to tell you Bae, I usually have my staph read these books for me but I actually read this book in two days. How you built the empire was riveting, I was fascinated the entire read. Not only by the conspiracy but by the whole story of your rise to cupcake stardom. One last thing before you go, what’s next for the Cupcake Dude?

BKP. First of all Jewels, my cupcakes will rise again, like The Phoenix. No breads, I don’t knead the dough, but I am working on a new line of alcohol based cupcakes and deep fried mini cupcakes. People today are all concerned about all the GMO crap so it’s a perfect time to sneak the fried foods craze on them. Also, suddenly half the world thinks it has gluten allergies so I’m developing a cupcake made exclusevily with edible plastics. My first attempt was a C4 cupcake which blew up in my face, but edible plastic is the next wave of the future. I’ll be launching a line of cupcakes with Polyunsaturated Urethane Styrene as well as a number of other substances people won’t even be able to pronounce. Plastics are the future and edible plastics will take over the entire culinary industry once everyone realizes what a brilliant concept filling people full of plastic pleasure truly is. Thanks for having me Jewels, and remember, Never Underestimate The Power Of A Cupcake….Peace

High Crimes and Mister Meaner, A Tale Noir (pt1)

high crime

by J.T. Hilltop
The story I am about to tell is true, the names have been changed to protect the guilty
Prologue
The year 1971, the town Centerlawn, a thriving little Long Island community in the suburbs of New York City where four youths chose to show blatant disregard of the law and engage in the heinous crime of sharing a marijuana cigarette. In an attempt to prevent these youths from throwing their lives away down the illegal drug drain two police officers arrested the four miscreant hoodlum youths and took them to the precinct for some instant “wake the fuck up” real world advice dispensing. That’s how things rolled in 1971 suburbia.…

My name is JT Hilltop and I was one of those miscreant hoodlum youths who narrowly averted a lifetime of penal institutions for a taste of the forbidden fumes. We weren’t hardened criminals or anything, just a couple of teens out on the prowl hunting for some fun. Me and my three cohorts were typical suburban kids looking for some cheap kicks to break up the boredom of living in our mundane cookie cutter neighborhood. Our way of escaping the doldrums of our mind numbing existences was to engage in the mind altering practice of smoking anything containing THC. Opting to gamble our futures away for a few puffs on the magic dragon we engaged acts of refer madness that can only be described as….One helluva crazy fun time! This is our story:

Part I
“Hey look, here comes Monty, he got his car back.” Monty, short for Montebello, was one of the cool kids in high school who had a car. Me, Streak, and Jimbo were just hanging around “The Stores”, a local meeting place where youths gathered to plan their evening of hijinx and carousing. Rolling across the tedium of a warm summers eve Monty pulled up in his recently repaired Plymouth Valiant. Not an especially hot car but it beat the Hell out of anything we had, which was actually two sting ray bicycles and a ten speed. In our defense though the sting ray bikes were tricked out with Ape hanger handlebars and Banana seats. One even had a sissy bar. Monty pulled up alongside us rolling down the window, “Hey man, you guys got any buzz?” Buzz! That’s what we lived for, a taste of escape from the unified conformity in Centerlawn that shaped our lives. Buzz was how we described anything that got us high, marijuana, hash, colored capsules from our parents medicine cabinets, or whatever we could get our hands on. “I got some weed man, you got papers?” Streak had some weed. Streak almost always had weed, I could never figure out how he did it but it wasn’t a surprise when he spoke up. We shared buzz all the time because none of us felt like getting high alone. I guess relief from misery loves company as much as misery itself. From the tiniest chunk of hash to the biggest five finger ounce of pot if one of us was holding, all of us high. “Of course I have papers. Get in guys.” Streak got in the front, because with having buzz comes privilege. Jimbo and I filed into the back. “Where ya wanna go to get high?” Streak was already rolling a joint, “Lets go up to the school parking lot man, we can hide in the back corner.” The sound mind of Jimbo, the most rational thinker of our crowd (actually the only rational one) broke in quickly, “No man, not a good idea. There’s no way to escape from there.” Streak overruled his objection, “No ones even gonna see us Jimbo, we can puff all we want, no one will ever know.” Monty and I agreed so Jimbo gave in reluctantly.
Now if we had seriously thought this whole thing out we would have realized that Jimbo was absolutely correct. “The school” was our old Elementary school and far beyond the parking lot in the corner of the playground was where we first learned the virtues of partying. It had been a safe place for us to guzzle Budweisers, or Schlitz if we were low on cashola, or Ripple or Boones Farm wine when we felt all upscale suburban. The cops patrolled it periodically but we were located in a perfect position to run in different directions into the woods. No one ever got caught there and it must have pissed off the cops because they never gave up trying. Or maybe they didn’t really care because it was only beer but there in lay the real problem. We had graduated to the hard stuff, smoking the devils weed, which puts everyone Heroin Highway, a dead end road for drug users. Now we were not just sneaking in a little alcohol to get drunk, we were committing high crimes that suck the soul of youth out of every neighborhood. That only made the police more desperate to catch us. But Hell, we were indestructible and would never get caught. Did I say never? Despite our dark out of the way hiding spot and being unseen by any passing traffic we failed to realize that the cops still made periodic runs through the school. Maybe we were too eager or too stoned but it never occurred to us we were far from the corner of the playground without our safety net. In hindsight the cops had to get to the corner of the playground somehow, and as we would shortly find out, they used the most logical path, straight through the parking lot.
“Just got my car back from the shop, cost me fifty bucks man. So what you guys been up to?” I always liked Monty so I answered him then gave him an offer, “Work mostly man. Keeping it real at the Nursing home, hanging at the beach when I’m off. But I was vacuuming the floor in the nurses office and noticed the medicine box unlocked. I five fingered a dozen Darvon man, got two with me now man, you want?” Monty accepted the two pills and placed them in his pocket as he slipped Jethro Tull’s Aqualung tape into his eight track. We had already passed the joint three times and I was flying, “Fuckin A Streak, where’d you get this shit man, its killer?” Streak took a deep hit answering without exhaling, “It…sss…we chair wee igha fra mahbaath Bobba” We all understood stoner speak, the language spoken while trying to keep your hit of weed in your lungs. He said “its wheelchair weed I got from my brother Bobby” Any weed that was super potent we called wheelchair weed, because after puffing it you felt like you couldn’t walk. The kept the car was full of smoke with the windows up because we didn’t like to waste the smoky sweetness and thought if it hung around it would continue to ply its magic on us. Mistake number two!
Streak took out his baggie of herb getting ready to roll another joint when we noticed two blaring white lights right in front of us bearing down like mini rockets. Because of the smoke we couldn’t tell it was a cop car sneaking up on us but in hindsight it wouldn’t have mattered if we did. The cops were on us within seconds so we reacted in typical stoner fashion. We totally froze trying to make sense of anything while wondering what the Hell was happening. After a few seconds we all three noticed two men running out from the two glaring lights. The message finally made its way past all the smoke and up to our brains so we instinctively began a frantic attempt to roll down the windows. Streak in a fit of panic tossed his baggie of weed with seeming super strength across the lawn. The doors of Monty’s car were flung open and the sight of two men in blue uniforms pointing actual guns at us made us damn near shit our pants. “Get the fuck out of the car and put your hands on the roof!” The voice was scarily authoritative and our “highs” were the only things that had a chance to run away. Now straight and shaking we obediently placed our hands on the roof of Monty’s car. “Hmmmm, smells like you boys are smoking some of that marry-wanna. You boys getting high here?” Desperate to find an excuse Streak replied weakly, “No, ah no, we were just, ah um, we were just talking and listening to music.” As he spoke we all saw the cloud of smoke rolling out of Monty’s Valiant making good on its attempt to completely discredit the story. One of the cops grabbed Streak by the arm and forcefully walked away with him. We could pretty much make out what the cop was saying, “You some kind of wise ass punk? You think we’re idiots?” I prayed Streak didn’t answer truthfully to that question because we considered the cops dopey drop outs. It was obvious he was really just trying to scare the shit out of us. Thinking back, he was pretty successful. The other three of us stood like petrified mannequins with our hands Velcroed to the roof as he pushed Streak back up against the car. Then the other cop came walking over holding something in his hands. He held up the baggie of weed Streak had tossed like it was a prize twelve point deer in a hunting contest, “Well lookie here Finch, seems we got us some Mary Jane here. Are you boys reefer addicts or something?” Then he walked around talking in his ‘I gotcha ya little fuckheads’ voice meant for us, “This here is what we call felony weight boys. Any of you young hoodlums know what felony weight is? I’ll tell you what it is, its over one quarter ounce of a controlled substance like this here bag of marijuana which raises this heinous crime from a misdemeanor to a felony. That means some hard time for whoever owns this shit and I aim to find out which one of you punks owns the dope!”
I was shivering like a naked beachcomber in January despite it being a beautiful warm summer evening. The cops took each one of us for a walk and talk and when returned put handcuffs on. Shit was getting real and I was no longer feeling any kind of buzz. That is aside from the paranoia buzzing in my ears. I was the last to go for the perilous perp walk and by this point they knew my brother was a cop. “Son your brother is gonna be real ashamed once he finds out what a low life criminal his hairbag little brother is. You putting him in a bad spot.” To accentuate the point the had been squeezing my bicep muscle between his thumb and forefinger like he was crushing a peanut shell. “You know what a felony is there Justin?” A million thoughts were flooding through my mind, jail, big bad strong criminals in jail, big bad strong horny criminals in jail, going to jail as fresh meat, and facing Mom and Dad. Jesus I was in deeper shit than ever before. I was hoping he was nicer than Mr. ‘Lookie what I got’ over there so I tried to sound remorseful as I pleaded, “Please officer, I’m not a bad kid, its just a little weed, we weren’t hurting anyone. Have a heart sir, I’m only sixteen and I” He cut me off as he now pinched my arm hard enough to cause a bruise. Apparently he wasn’t the nice cop, he was Mr. Meaner. Not fully satisfied at my wincing he then pushed me hard making me take a few steps to keep from falling on my stoned face. “Have a heart? You’re a cimm ee naal boy, you broke the law! This here is illegal and you did it anyway. Your brother is gonna get a lot of shit for having a felon for a brother. Tell you what though, since your brother is on the job I’ll cut you some slack. All you gotta do is tell me who’s stuff this is and we can work something out.” Shit! Jesus H shit! A rat. He wants me to be a rat. Well there’s no way man, I can’t turn on Streak. “I-I’m sorry officer, I never saw that baggie of weed, all we had was this one joint one of us found, I can’t even remember which of us….” The pain shot through my arm up into my shoulder. Now he was twisting and squeezing my arm pinching the bone as he literally tossed me back towards the car with the others. His voice was trembling he was so angry “Bunch of fucking idiots, all of you. I want to know who’s pot this is and you’re gonna tell me you little shits. Each one of you hairbags are going to jail.” They were rather well versed at intimidating four teenagers with bully tactics that fell just short of abuse in those pre I’m calling DYFS days. The one asshole cop, Mr. Meaner, who had a particular problem with me ruining my brothers cop reputation was eyeing me with evil intent. I saw him move his right foot and the moment his government issue hard leather flatfoot shoe found its target I yelped like a beaten puppy. I could tell there was already a huge lump as I fell to the ground in pain. My calf was throbbing as the other cop, Fitch or Finch or something grabbed both of my arms lifting me up. He flung me like a rag doll against the cop car. I could hear the slight clinking of metal as the criminal containment bracelets slipped around my wrists locking in place. The sharp pain of metal stunned me and I let out a gurgle. “Oh I’m sorry, is that too tight?” Finally some compassion, I nodded and managed a squeaky “A little”. With the ease of a man who more than likely has trouble in bed but found courage and a sense of real manhood wearing a badge of authority, the douchebag tightened the cuffs digging into the flesh at the outer edges of my wrists. Tears welled up in my eyes while they loaded us into the back seat of the police car and proceeded to escort us to the fourth precinct. Apparently what we had here was a failure to communicate.

Today Is My Natal Anniversary

bd142

Seems like only yesterday
I was carefree wild and young
When I realized how old I am today
I gotta tell ya it kinda stung

Cause I’m not aging as gracefully
As others my age seem to be
Overweight bald in constant pain
And can barely bend one knee

All my muscles sag a little more today
Plus I’m much too soft around the middle
Aging is a sudoko of a puzzling enigma
Wrapped around a rustic wrinkled riddle

Some people mature like a fine wine ages
But my getting older really makes me irate
Because I’m maturing more like lactose
And I’m past my best if used by date

When?

See its been one more lap around the sun
And they say that age is just a number
But instead me getting older and wiser
Seems like I just keep getting dumber

My birthday suit needs to be dry cleaned
Many deep creases and an extra wrinkle
I need to plan my trips around a bathroom
Because I know I’m gonna have to tinkle

Back in the day my hair was so wavy
Now its looking kinda thin and gross
The only waving it does these days
Is when its waving see ya or adios

Bones make strange new noises too
The creaking just won’t ever stop
Is it me or that bowl of cereal
Going snap crackle and pop

But no more Krispies its fiber one
Because it helps things move along
Need to buy things for my health
Like purchase a huge medicinal bong

What?

I used to bitch about the driving
Of all the old fogies on the road
Only one way they could go any slower
Is if their cars were be being towed

You don’t have too much time left gramps
Just drive and don’t be intimidated
If anyone you should be in a hurry
When your days are becoming limited

But on the bright side I save some money
You see now I get the senior discount
And birth control is no more a worry
Because I ain’t got no more sperm count

Odd smells permeate every room around
Perhaps one of those pipes is leaking gas
An old dude can still blame it on the dog
Everyone knowing the leaks from his ass

Who?

Gastric control has become a big joke
Another of the act of old aging trends
Pretty soon I’ll need to choose what I need
Do I buy diapers? Well that Depends

And the only thing I now can do all night
Is empty out my half full shrinking bladder
Choice comes down to having sex or a pee
These days I tend to choose the latter

But I’m not making no bucket list
Before its time for me to kick it
When the reaper comes knocking at my door
Ima tell him where he can stick it

Cuz us old dudes are allowed to be ornery
Say whatever’s on our ancient mind
And we can get away with touching ourselves
At this point in life who cares if I go blind

Wait!

Where’s my glasses where’s my keys
Losing your memory can really sting
I’m a faithful member of C-R-A-F-T
Can’t Remember A Fucking Thing

So happy birthday to me old man
With the AARP I’ll party hard and loud
I’ll have a couple extra drinks tonight
And wear my hangover regretfully proud

Getting old does bite and so does locating my eyewear so I can check the obituaries for my name each day. Like my Pops always told me, getting old sucks but it beats the alternative and today is my natal anniversary so to Hell with everything. I plan on raising all kinds of hell, raising shot glasses, Beer mugs, the roof, the proverbial “flagpole” and anything in my path because once the Alzheimer’s or senility set in I won’t remember what a fool I’ve made of myself anyway. Happy Birthday to Me Old Man

Ode To The Alone Star State

texas

I forgot about the Alamo and I feel like shit
Bought some yellow roses to make up for it
Gimme some bluebonnet and sage brush too
When Y’all in Texas that’s just what you do

Thars a twelve year old bride not wearing white
The baby bump on her belly there is quite a sight
Thars a racist cowboy wearing snakeskin boots
Plus a ten gallon hat and a gun that shoots

Seems they carry guns bout wherever they go
So they can shoot a possum if it move too slow
Or maybe they bargain hunting with some live ammo
Guess that’s why tourist seasons so gol damn slow

Mmmm possum on the half shell sure sounds good
Cook the dead armadillo thar under the hood
So friggen hot the eggs they cook in the road
Add a bit of road kill n Yawl hit the mother lode

They leaves y’all a light on thar at motel six
They give ya clean sheets but got to shake it free of ticks
Went to the manager said “I got a leak in the sink”
He says “ Pee where you want son” n gave me a wink

The Texas cockroach bout a big as a kitten
Free dinner each night hope yawl like chitlin
Each room has a couch that was a cars backseat
The only television what works is in the bridal suite

Staying with a friend down at the trailer park
We sat down for a beer when he made this remark
“I think yawl aught a give me a round of applause
I married three times still got the same in-laws”

Waco -The Tower Sniper -The lone Star State
I best be leaving Galveston afore it get too late
Looking over all the pick-ups with a rifle rack
Be a hundred fifty years if even come back
Short sighted narrow minded Texarkana dream
NASCAR Monster trucks wrestling is supreme
My way or highway politics getting in the way
Of moving Texas forward much to our dismay

The try em and fry em state now uses noxious gas
The LGBT community call y’all the Big Tex-ass
If yer goal is fer you to separate I hope you will succeed
All that’s got to happen now is for alla yawl to secede

No hard feelings Texas, but seriously, lighten up a bit yawl, take yer shoes off and stay awhile. Love on another, even the ones that ain’t jus like you….Peace out Y’all

Can’t Find A Better Man

better man

There comes a point in everyone’s life that they think OMFG I look just like my father, or mother, as the case may be. We catch ourselves using some of the same phrases we hated as kids, saying things like “We’ll see” instead of no way kiddo, “I‘ll give you something to cry about”, or the ultimate in fear mongering, “If you don‘t keep quiet I‘m gonna turn us around and go back home.” Well Dad I have to tell you, this hurts me more than it does you because yesterday I caught myself pointing that finger of distain you were so good at. Holy shit I’m mimicking my parents bad behavior. But let me tell you that shit ain’t nothing compared to that day you look in the mirror and the face looking back is no longer the handsome rebel rouge but a carbon copy of your old parent. I would say its deflating but my stomach is as big as my Dads was and it is showing no signs of deflating. A combination of genetics, way too much beer, munchies, and constantly swallowing my pride. I remember thinking once that the bags under my fathers eyes could count as carry on luggage and the wrinkles in his not so tight fitting skin were not character lines but fault lines. Thing is his look somehow found its way over to me. And of course the hairline, or lack there of which has gone way beyond receding has gone topless. Now on my license I’m required to list my hair color as transparent!
This getting old and looking like Dad shit is enough to turn me into a grumpy old man except I don’t have the energy it takes to be grumpy all the time. Trips to the bathroom, which are like a recurring bad dream at night, leave me short of breath, and every morning all my weary bones complain in a crackling and creaking language called osteoporosis. But such is life I’m not the only one infected with the “It sucks getting old” virus and like most everyone who reaches the age of reflection I wonder about my mistakes, where could I have done better ,what things could I have changed. In the end its just flat out too late, what’s done is done and history can’t change. Fostering regrets are fruitless growths that like weeds can destroy the memories of a beautiful garden an at this point in my life I spend a lot of time in the garden and have no use for weeds. I know I’ve had my fair share of mistakes, made some poor choices, wandered down some questionable paths but WTF, it is what it is and many of the bad choices are now some pretty goddamn funny stories. Life is what we make of it and not a single thing we do can change what’s passed.
I’ve lost both my parents and had to view their stages of death like some morose real life film. With my Mom I witnessed the horrible ravages of cancer as it slowly decayed her mind and body while ripping out the hearts of our family simultaneously. My Mom and I had many issues with each other but we finally saw eye to eye a few months before she took ill. My Dad died from cancer as well, but it was much quicker and more merciful as well as occurring many years into his life. One of the odder effects aging had on him was his renewal of his long overlooked religious rituals and beliefs. I assume he was hedging his bets, stacking the deck in case he was wrong about the significance of religion and if he really did meet his maker wanted a few years of church on his resume to heaven. He was seeking validation, not only with God but with his children. As his time came closer he had a rare opportunity of connecting with his children, something he wasn‘t especially apt at as when we were growing up.
His reflections found all of us reflecting as well, I can’t speak for my four older brothers or my younger sister but many things I reflected on as to my Dads fathering was weak at best. I always loved him but to me he wasn’t the greatest Dad he could have been. Not saying it was a crap way to grow up or he mistreated or abused me but as I reflect on my childhood I realized my Dad was negligent to his own kids. Never once had a catch out back with me, never took me fishing, never even gave me the sex talk, those were all jobs of my older brothers. My Dad spent most of his adult life building his community reputation convincing near about everyone not living under his roof that he is the perfect father. Ward Cleaver crossed with Steve Douglass and Andy of Mayberry and me as Dennis the Menace. Actually one of my older brothers was the menace, I was more like Beaver Cleaver I guess. Our friends and neighbors would proclaim how lucky we were to have him as our father and how perfect our lives must be. Upon reflection he was a helluva father figure to the neighborhood kids but spent little to no time with his own. I think the most attention I ever got from him was on those few, very rare few….Okay maybe more than a few encounters with the long arm of the law. When it came to his son placing a mark on his precious reputation he flew into damage control, me being the damage.
I went sort of underground for a while and lost contact with my family soon after my Mom passed away. When I finally reinstated contact with my Dad he was married and living in Florida, so he and his wife flew into New York to meet me. After a big hug he turned to his wife and said to me, “Meet your new Mom” Now if I were like say ten that might be appropriate, but I was in my thirties and had been on my own for quite some time and in no need of a mother. It just sort of underscored for me how out of touch he was with me and what the center of the universe was for him. But fuck it. No big deal, that’s the way my old man was so I just rolled with it, never fostered any anger or resentment, so I wrote it off as past practices and repeated history. That was his vision of how to be a successful parent, find a woman to do the parenting for him. All in all he was a good man, volunteer fireman his whole life, on the volunteer rescue squad every Sunday, and was what they called a “Well respected man about town” But truth is for me he was just a crap Dad, seldom took me anywhere with him, only showed interest in things if it involved him. Like I say, I always loved him, he wasn’t a bad man he just neglected his own children and concentrated on the community. When he reached the point where all he had left was reflection it began to haunt him and he wanted to make amends.
I know some of my brothers allowed him to talk, some didn’t , my sister surely did as he spent his last days in her house. I have never been one to hold a grudge, I find the weigh far to much to carry around all the time so I was very attentive hearing him reveal his laments of a failed fatherhood. He repeated phrases like “I know I wasn’t always there for you boys” or “I wish I had been a better father” I deflected most of it allowing him his confessions. I gotta admit though, it did seem like an opportunity to unleash decades of pent up frustration at my Dad for never being there for me, for not accepting me for who I am until I left his life for a few years, and for constantly attempting to steer me away from what I really wanted to do, write, or act, or something in the arts, at times even forcefully. My last four years of high school he spent telling me I would never make any money because I have no talent, and I should either get into business courses or face the fact I will be a laborer the rest of my life. I began to wonder if some of my poor life choices, my pension for self medication and such were not a direct result of his interference. Maybe if he had spent more quality time with me I would have made better choices myself. But no, those choices were all mine, I own them. I could have gone other ways but I chose what I chose not because of my own insecurities, not any brought on by either parent. Then again, what the hell, I had him in a position in which he would be forced to hear me out and these angers are much more deep rooted than I had previously believed. I thought about all the things I could say to my father, unleash on him all that he deserves, because it wasn’t just me, he treated my brothers the same way. Yea my brothers, all of which became devoted fathers with great relationship with their children. Everyone of us spent time with our kids, why couldn’t he? Then it struck me, maybe we were all such hands on Dads because our Dad wasn’t. So he inadvertently taught us more about family than he knew. And really, what did I honestly know about how he was raised, my grandparents were great as grams and gramps but I wonder if they were great as parents. You never know, maybe he had it worse than us. A decision had to be made, I was calling him up for perhaps the last time ever, the doctor said it could be an hour or it could be a day, but no more than four or five days tops because he had aggressive brain cancer.
I called my Pops for what I was sure would be the last time. Give him shit and feel better or let it go? I listened intently as he rambled on about all the things he felt he did wrong as a father and he hit on a good portion, but left out some important errors that effected me personally so when he finally stopped talking ready to listen I took a deep breath and said, “No Dad, that’s not true….. You were a… You were a great father, you loved us all and we all knew it. I wouldn’t trade you as my Dad for any other father in the world, you were perfect and I love you.” There was silence on the phone. Well not total silence, I could hear a soft sniffle and knew my Dad was crying, hopefully from joy and relief. During that silence I realized that for all the faults he may have had, he taught me something priceless. My father taught me how to be a better man, and I hope I passed that along to my son in my own way. My Dad gathered his composure, cleared his throat an said, “Thank you son, I love you too.”
That was the last words my Dad spoke to me. It was in stark contrast to the last thing my Mom said to me which was “Who are you? I don‘t know you!” But that was the cruel ravages of cancer that robbed not only my Moms life, but didn’t have the mercy to let her leave with the quiet dignity she maintained her entire life. Maybe he wasn’t the most perfect Dad, maybe there no such thing, but I am a loving caring father and that had to come from somewhere. Thanks Mom and Dad, you made me a better man.