Saturday, December 25, 2010

Signing The Five-Tomato Treaty Before Sunrise

I don't know about you (ed. note: I do but am lying) but I'm detecting a pattern (ed. note: I don't but am lying). I wake up liberally concussed on the red line. I'm greeted at the NoHo station by the Andorran Secretary of Defense ("Lau Lau" to his black ops pals [statement retracted]) and his crew of mustachioed pit bosses. I'm cursorily frisked and curiously grilled (over a cherry wood fire with hints of mace and allspice) about the sole season of Blansky's Beauties (will the Happy Days spin-off machine ever end?!... What's that now? Oh. *sniff*). I'm revolved about seventeen times (this detail variation tells me I'm not suffering Chronic Repetitive Aberrant Precognitive Somnambulance [copyright 2010, Rubber Bomb UnLtd]). Delivered to Downtown Gino's Pizza and Pasta and Shooting Range mutefolded (my constant whistling puts them off) and am ordered a slice of pep and a Coke for two bucks. Not a bad deal, until I'm clobbered on the head.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

David Niven In 30 Minutes Or Less


Regarding your letter of the 3rd, 4th, 8th and 14th:

The Pincushion twins are investing heavily in the publicly held Greasy Little People, Inc. As your financial advisor, I think I should inform you that I don't give a diddly about stocks and stuff, and I'm not really up to snuff on, like, money and what to do with it. For example, I've received from you, bi-weekly, little slips of paper that have digits and writing and your name on it and my name on it (on a line entitled "Pay To the Order Of")... and I've just been keeping them in a paper sack. I'm not real comfortable with numbers and the like.    Also, I haven't been paid in 3 years. So I am putting you on notice. Oh, and you've been getting these letter-thingies from the bank. And the SBA. And the government. I haven't opened them, but the letters keep getting redder and redder. And they keep calling. So I disconnected your phone. And mine. Pretty good, huh? So... what's up? How's tricks? Oh, the men in the suits have come back so let me say "ta-ta" before they slap on those cuffs. I sent you a basket of fruit. Goodbye.

Look over there!
Wendell Calligraphy Toasteroven, GED

Monday, May 17, 2010

Ink, Toner AND Paper


The Rubber Bomb OTB and Gardens is a place of beauty, time, and desparate trifectas—features which make it stand out from other gardeny type places in the area. (Plus, we're now peacock poop free!) Our grounds feature an iconic doublewide mansion, filled with countless bottle caps & matchbook covers, and most famously—sixty sloping feet of lavish gardens that will envelop you with their beauty (NOTE: Not a guarantee or a warranty). Built in 1911, and then again in 1927, 1944 and 1967, the RubberBomb manor was one of the first homes to use coffee grounds for decoration. Known for hosting the areas most legendary parties—it was not uncommon to catch Topo Gigio trying to bum smokes off of Ed Sullivan's bookie. Today, the RubberBomb OTB and Gardens is recognized as being not only a historical eyesore, but also a possible site for a future dogtrack or NFL team. We invite you to make a reservation (fax only, please) while the gettin' is good.

Friday, May 07, 2010

Ewes Smoked Our Mores

Gewdolyn's eyes darted around the room quickly.  Was she followed in here as well?  The fog machine was full blast.  The strobe lights and swirling disco ball didn't help either.  She figured that if her pursuer had eluded her in this haze of flashing color and noise, she could, in turn, elude him.  She shed her lime green slicker and dashed into the undulating frenzy.  The sweat of three hundred bodies hung damply in the electric air overhead. She attempted to cabbage patch to the far side of the floor in an attempt to blend in.  Her slender, bare mid-drift attracted the gaze of hungry shoe-shufflers whose bodies wiggled like hot fusilli in pesto.  She spun and shuffled from one partner to the next, breaking away to hustle alone at half court.  For a moment she felt normal again.  Was that a smile, or a sublimated nervous tick?  Was that a good beat that she could dance to, or the improbable pattern of hoof to hardwood?  Was that a kooky keyboard chord or the shrill bleat of h-- (so as to imply that she gasped without saying as much... damn.) her shadow?  She spun around to spy her mangy-haired haunt absently chewing on her coat in all its goatness.  He'd found her.  My god, he'd found her. She charged toward the door and darted out across the soggy infield toward the bungalows.  She would never be free.

Oh, and then a massive meteor slammed into Earth smashing it into dust.

Thar End

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Control Top Party Hats

We now return you to "The Nation's Most Non-Mundane-est Monitored AND Recorded Customer Service Phone Calls" already in progress. When you hear the chain-smoking elf wheeze, turn the page and wash your hands, young lady.

No. Listen, I ordered the mighty gazelle.
Hello?
Yes, I'm sure.
I'm telling you, this is an ibex and it's stinking up my office.
Yeah, I'll hold.
Yes?
Well, no, no I've GOT an ibex.
The problem? The problem is I didn't order an ibex! Nor a gnu, antelope or wily mountain billy goat (out of my price range).
So... ASK your supervisor, just get it out of here.
I don't care that it's named Hershel, I don't want it!
What?
Fine, I don't want "Hershel!"
No, that doesn't make me rethink it.
Look, fax me a llama and we'll call it even.

Join us next week when the National Delicious Griddled Treat Machines Corp. telexes a quesadilla maker to a woman who mistakenly received an anchovy press!

Friday, April 23, 2010

Repo ATVs & Electric Scooters

As the cellist's (2nd chair) fist crescendoed against my chin, I had a freeze frame rough cut flashback to my last real fight. It had been 15 years since my sophomore year(s) of college, when some clarinetist (1st chair) (!) insulted my then girlfriend with a snide comment about intransitive verbs. I was drunk at the time -- 6 beers and a pint of varnish -- but I was a Medievel Latin major and honor (4th chair) had to be defended. We both deposited some blood on that dancefloor (or rather, blood was allowed to become deposited), and ultimately the brawl was judged a draw, though I received high marks for the initial tackle (sans ropes and pulleys for a change -- huzzah!). But that was college stuff(s). Tonight was the culmination of a very simple question posed a few weeks before: “Are we here to play poker, or create an instituiton that is insubstantial, shaky, and in constant danger of collapse?"

Monday, April 19, 2010

You Take the One Wearing Blinkers, I'll Take the One on Lasix

For those of you keeping score at home, that's
Donna Karan 1, A dozen rabid bats 4;
Jim Crow Law 3, Jim Croce 2;
Ladies Home Journal 1, Louis Pasteur 1;
Oragami swans 5, 'Cutthroat Island' marketing campaign 2;
Avalanche of glue 4, Jim Croce 1;
Motor Voter Bill 6, Salma Hayek couldn't find her blouse 7;
Chili Colorado 3, Jim Croce couldn't find Salma Hayek's blouse 5;
Can of paint 2, Slightly larger can of paint 2 [RAIN DELAY];
Heavenly flan 1, Quality drapes at affordable prices 3;

For up to the minute European Football scores, stick your head in the toilet and whistle.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

From "Talk Sick! A Celebration of Outstanding Oratory in the Service and Manufacturing Industries"

Speech delivered at the Fourth Annual Pastry Chef Global Summit focusing on “Expanding the Market Share of Bear Claws and Other Advanced Bakery Goods.” The summit took place on December 4 – 7, 1984 and was sponsored by the Otis Elevator Company.

SPEAKER: Robert "Maple Jim" Thorpe, Overnight Custodian, Fram Oil Filter Corp.

Fellow passengers and litigants:
Allow me to elucidate an idear that I had for brand-new, self-sustaining, multi-cellular organism. I've named him Rosie. I believe he would be adept at spewing wil"d" and wa"ck"y self-help advice at supportive participants (absurd emphasis on "PANTS" and a silent "zzyzx") like so much feces (pronounced: horkcrank) from a perturbed primate and her life partner, a deflated inner tube (known casually as "Senator Galbraith"). Rosie's superiority at celebrity roasts would so far exceed his contemporaries, that he would single-handled (though he has three) crush the aspirations of any who sought to gallop astride him, who I've named Rosie. So... got a hundy on ya? I'm yanking your chain, small bills work just fine. I'll submit the paper work to the Huntsville Institute for Criminal Justice and Neo-Natal Pottery Barn. Thank you for listening. An usher will be by shortly to unlock your manacles and bus your table.

Saturday, April 03, 2010

Act I, Francine II


A dicey-lookin' castle in the South of French Polynesia. Enter Yancy wearing a-- holy crap, is that guy wearing a funnel cake on his head? Good God, man! It‘s matin season for the wily marmoset! They don't take kindly to cranially donned deep-fried pastry treats when's the time to "get down" as O. Henry was fond of saying at the local barbershop, waving a sabre and stinking of gin (and I don't mean the alcoholic beverage, if ya know what I mean? Know what I mean? You don't? Grab a Kelly Blue Book and turn to the Dodges, das boot!).

Yancy tumbles into the great hall and quickly inflates a Pilates ball (Lord, I hope it's a Pilates ball). The shortness of breath triggers a violent deja vu of his days as a farmhand for the mob. "Free range, my ass!" thinks Yancy completely within the confines of the stage directions. A quarter hour passes before our hero comes to, slathered in brown mustard. The cotillion has begun and poor Yancy has spent all his time taking an extension course on Inland Oceanography. Oh, Yancy... will you ever learn (anything other than Inland Oceanography)?


YANCY (Bellowing, as he whispers)
I am called hither at the pleasure of the king!

GUARD (at least that's what he tells his parents)
Speak up, knave! And for Pete's sake put down those bellows. The fire is well-stoked... uh, anon? I guess?

YANCY
I am called hither at the pleasure of the king!

GUARD
Too late. His majesty has just finished a disappointing foot massage. I told him Alvin wasn't a woman's name but OH NO-- He's just gotta get ALL kingy on me. On the bright side, those bunions ain't coming back any time soon.

YANCY
Well then, my good fellow man-child, where might a traveling barrister find a locksmith? Honestly, am I the only jackass in this county still driving a Yugo?

Yancy titters and juts out his hand. The Guard reluctantly slips him a franc and honest appraisal of his performance in the form of a well-tempered raspberry.

GUARD
Y'know, you look just like my cousin in Dorchester...

YANCY
Don't tell me.... Marjorie? Damn her and her love affair with cheap wine and cheaper plastic surgery! No offense.

GUARD
Not until Thursday.

The gents burst into a fevered game of backgammon. The curtain falls taking out the first two rows. Next time, hire union stagehands, dumbass.

THE END OF LIVE THEATER IN NORWAY

Saturday, March 27, 2010

On the Origin of the Speakeasies

Pierre Du Pop
455 N. Twinklewood, Substructure K
Galoshes, MO (really, you need a zip for this address?)

DuPop,

I've sent the greens home early, they were getting shaggy round the flags. In this moment of quiet introspection and solace I count the John Deeres as they buzz around the construction site directly overhead. I have just now formed an thought, and in so forming, it occurs to me that to speak it, would perhaps be in my best interest. Then, upon uttering this thought verbally, I fancied I might jot it down using my fine Parker fountain pen and the good stationary which I've hidden away from the miscreants and hooligans who I've come to refer to collectively as "Gary" (pending notarization). Oh sure, Gary run wild when I turn on the special blue light. Oh yes, Gary creep into my pantry at night and soil the crackers and other crispy comestibles. Indeed, Gary are a broodish lot. Moaning with the tone of lost seals in the Eskimo wading pool. Pouting in the manner of spoiled children and tantrumming to boot. Whining like the weak and wily characters Gary are. Bad Gary!  But no Gary will pilfer my 24lb Ivory Laid, cladestinely stowed for the sole purpose of putting pen to it and pouring on the thoughts. Thoughts like the one I was just having. Thoughts that massage my hypothalamus (or equivalent). Thoughts that pump my AB positive (or the clarified butter that has displaced it). Thoughts that stir my soul (or item of equal or lesser value [discount taken at register]). These are the things a man lives for, mon frere, Pierre! Now if I just reverse the polarity perhaps I can bag a dame -- no not some lady of grace, but a real cheap tart -- and treat her like the broad she was born to be. These are the days of wonder. These are the moments of greatness. These are the Sugar Babies I had in my pants pocket when they went into the washer. Seriously, caramel candies loosed from their pack and roaming free within said trousers. Oh, you don't think I... c'mon!  I don't have that problem anymore. Dammit, I better not (what with that counseling cost, et al). Curse you Sugar Babies! Curse you Kenmore! Curse you sweet inspiration. You've sullied my knickers and dislodged logical discourse from mine mind! Oh well. There's always blunt force trauma.

Nailed to the pony,
von Bounce

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Community Spotlight and Hopi Permanent Marker Dance


People seldom ask me: Where the [bleep] is Montecito Heights?  Ha, ha… that's a good and extremely theoretical question.  Well, since I got a quota to fill and they wouldn't let me have the restaurant review beat (I'm not bitter. I'm not. At least not as bitter as the tomato vinaigrette they serve with the pan-seared halibut at-- wha?! Fine, I'll get on with it), let me put it this way...

Takes a deep breath.  A little too deep.  Grows woozy and stumbles over a box of 3-Hole Punched paper.  Cracks noggin on not-so-industrial filing cabinet.  His mind opens a channel to the subconscious and as he fades into slumber, he dreams of a place not so far from here and yet millions and millions and millions (Why not just say "billions"? -- But it's not billions -- don't be so literal, you're dreaming -- Hey, don't start telling me how to dream, [bleep]er -- No need to get snippy, [bleep]head -- I'll kick your ass you piece of dung [scuffle ensues within parentheses]) and millions and millions of miles away...

The community of Montecito Heights, located between Los Angeles and Pasadena overlooking the Arroyo Seco River, boasts huge tracts of open wilderness areas, historic homes and the highest number of retired showgirls, per capita, in the United States. This picturesque district possesses a rich history as one of the oldest and most fascinating sections of Los Angeles. The Arroyo Seco River, once lush and vibrant (and the subject of vigorous revitalization efforts before becoming even more pathetic than the concrete wash they call the L.A. River), became a guide to the padres as they traveled the Old Monterey Trail from the San Gabriel to the San Fernando Mission in search of loose women and gold. In the 1880s, a small settlement sprang up along the Arroyo Seco River, and the Old Monterey Trail eventually became a route of the Santa Fe Railroad, spewing black death into the air which has lingered for over a hundred years.

Montecito Heights, due to its spectacular beauty, incredibly convenient location and miles of cocaine trees, has attracted creative and artistic Angelenos since the turn of the century. Eccentric journalist George Lummis traveled cross-country on foot from Cincinnati until he found his invisible pet Chimp, Senior Tushy -- bordering the Arroyo Seco River at Montecito Heights. There, he used his own hands to build his dream house from local river rock and was immediately beaten senseless by the locals who called his precious little house "El Idiot Who Has Destroyed Our Dam and Flooded Our City and Left Us Homeless". It was shortened to El Alisal, Spanish for the giant sycamore growing beside the house. The site is now commonly referred to as "The Lummis Home". George Lummis founded the Southwest Museum, opened to the public in 1914, even though it had already been founded and opened to the public in 1912.  What an [bleep], huh?

In the thirties, evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson fell in love with a large tract of land in Montecito Heights that is still owned by her Four Square Gospel Church.  (Get it?  She fell in love with the land!  And she started a church! Eh, it's funnier in Flemish.)

In 1901, the College of Fine Arts of the University of Southern California established a campus along the banks of the Arroyo Seco and immediately began whining. For two decades, free-thinking students came from all over the west and created a nurturing community of artists and writers and drug-addled minors. This artisan and intellectual community still thrives today until 4:00pm. Because of this richness of artists and works, the Arroyo Arts Collective and the Historical Society of Southern California sponsor an annual "Let's Get Drunk with the Artists" Day.

Montecito Heights itself began as a development in 1910. The developers envisioned the planned and affluent suburb they named Montecito Hills as groups of gracious houses placed on large lots surrounding a magnificent fountain depicting a nude Teddy Roosevelt. The company went bankrupt in 1929, and the Lord looked upon it and said that it was randy and rather naughty. But many residents still enjoy the legacy of the developers' depraved vision, and delight in their spacious oversized asses, a rare luxury in any large city. Others have profited by becoming micro-developers and building cathouses on their large tracts, attracting local law enforcement nightly in a strictly unofficial capacity, as well as the ghost of Aimee Semple McPherson (get it?).

So, uh... yeah. That's it.  More or less.  Bring the kids (every one you can find) to this pastoral and peaceful hamlet but do mind the armed snipers.  They take community safety very seriously.  Did I mention that they've poisoned the water supply?  Yeah, well they have.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

That Singing Feeling

Most bastions of Arts, Literature and the Humanities will not have even one anthem in their history. The Rubber Bomb, has two. Of course, as the Gadsden Flag is to Old Glory, so this rusty ol' bag o' notes laid out here is to the wondrous and elusive Späten Song (you'll have to click around to find Issue 2).

It should be noted that this ancient Rubber Bomb anthem is sung to the tune of O Canada as sung to the tune of Danny Boy as played by Skitch Henderson after wolfing down particularly suspect order of veal oscar.

O Rubber Bomb!
The pipes, the pipes need cleaning

Two parrots live in all thy lumpy highlands.
With glowering mugs we see thee prance,
The True North strong and priced to move!

From filthy and cramped,
O Rubber Bomb, your hammered watresses forgot the ketchup.

Good king Wenceslas stole our hose stretched out and soggy!
O Rubber Bomb, your blasted gargoyles flounce.
O Rubber Bomb, we made a killing on the third at Aqueduct.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Juiced Tin Time

M E M O R A N D U M O N I A

TO: Trans World Supermarket and Cpt. A.E.G. Throckmorton

FROM: Five equals 3.327

SUBJECT: The Passing Mrs. Ankle Flowers and Cpt. A.E.G. Throckmorton

DATE: You ask a lot of questions.

In an effort to rectify the divergence of capitol as outlined in section II of the Bittersweet Chocolate (Yummy Yum Yum) and Chest Diving Treaty of 1987, it is the firm belief of the firm -- belief of the firm (belief of the firm [belief of the firm]) -- that the governess is fully entitled to the entirety of the full remainder of the withhold as identified in the Kern County jailhouse public line-up held on 3rd June, 1993... 1993... Red 27... hut HUT ([whistle] "Neutral zone infraction, #91, Defense.  5 yard penalty resulting in a first down").  In accordance with Wyoming state law, I recommend that the defendant get a room.  We are seeking the wisdom of the court and rely on its superior knowledge to recognize when its ass is being kissed.  Further, we beseech the court rule in favor of the ass-kissers and accept this coincidental gift of a brand new Bentley Mulsanne. Further still, we request that the public defender stop drooling on my Kenneth Coles and offer to pay for half of the club sandwich, as it has disappeared from my tray and reappeared in his lap looking a little the worse for wear.  Still further still, we demand an injunction against anyone because we feel that it's cool to so demand. Sincerely, Argus Greensleeves, Lisbon, KY.  We rest your honor.  We also make peepee-poopoo in our pants if you rule against us.

--Me Timbers (shivered, not stirred)

Monday, February 15, 2010

10 Years of Circumlocution with a Smile


Gentle screwballs of the universe...

Though all signs point to the contrary: Welcome! Allow me to walk you backwards over the blind cliff of history. That wasn't a question.

The year was nineteen hundred ninety and nine (though it often masqueraded after hours as Waylon Flowers --sans Madame, mind you-- in order to boost its social cache --misguidedly, mind you-- and gain entrance --unsuccessfully, mind you-- into area hotspots) and the country was gripped with an exquisite fear of the approaching Y2K. I, Werner von Bounce, in cahoots with my cohort, Pierre DuPop, were taken ill with a hare-brained scheme (aka: "Rory"). In preparation for the inevitable incineration of the social contract that would undoubtedly take place when the whole of personhood was plunged into the second stone age at the stroke of twelve on 1st January 2000, DuPop and I unrepealably volunteered our extremely suspect expertises (patent pending) as curators for the restoration and reboot of all arts and literature as we were to know it. [Bring the car around... keep the motor running. Provided, of course, you can start the engine.] Enter the Rubber Bomb.

On 2000's first tick of the clock, a goose fatted with nonsensical ramblings was dropped upon to the internet (aka: "Ol' Pickle Puss"). The Rubber Bomb's online premiere was timed to the instant of the anticipated implosion of the digital universe. The rules had changed! (read: were firmly in place and simply ignored.) Finally, coherent thought tossed aside for chaotic tangents. Concise discourse dumped for confusing drivel. Narratively arbitrary, linguistically ambivalent and grammatically anarchic. [It's all right... the bad man is gone.]

Since our launch at the dawn of the double doughnut, the Rubber Bomb has drifted in and (more often) out of activity. Blame it on our youth (hell, it's long gone... hit the bricks with the seed money for our money-printing operation. Just can't trust people these, er, THOSE days). Well, I'd say I don't doubt there are several renaissances yet to come but I've been wrong before. Why, just yesterday I told DuPop to box France Don't Dance and Chiclets Adrift in the sixth at Woodbine. Oops. Look at it this way... who knew we were even here? Our stretches of precision dormancy notwithstanding, there's a lot of garbage to sift through here. My advice to you, pick up a shovel, sweet cheeks... and enjoy.

Yours in absentia,
Werner von Bounce (aka: "2-for-1 Omelet Thursdays")