For a Good Time, Call…(Or, What’s the Number for 911?)

*Ring, Ring, Ri*

“Hello Mr. Hunt. Your mission, shou…”

“Wait. Wait, Hold on..Gotta…gotta catch my breath here…Whew!”

“What are you doing Mr. Hunt?”

“I’m catching my breath. I’ve been running around the whole goddam city!”

“You ready now?”

“Sure, go for it.”

“Thank you. Now, Mr. Hunt, your mission sh…”

“Wait a minute. Don’t you want to know why I was running around the entire city?”

“Not especially. Mr. Hunt. What you do on your time is your own business. Besides, from I’ve heard, you’re an avid runner. You practically never walk.”

“Well, that’s true, but…”

“May I finish please Mr. Hunt? I Don’t have all day. I need to brief 007, in ten minutes, Spy Kids in 45 minutes and Austin Powers in an hour.”

“…”

“Now, as I was saying, Your missi…”

“Let me stop you right there, friend.”

“This is highly unprofessional!”

“You want to know what’s unprofessional? This whole thing here. Who was the jackass who came up with the idea of calling me on a payphone?”

“I’m quite sure I don’t know and I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

“It sure as shit is, Mister Phone-Voice Guy. Do you know how many payphones there are in Toledo?”

“I have no idea, 300?”

“Twelve! Twelve damn phones!”

“Well, Toledo can’t be that large, it is Toledo, after all.”

“It’s 84.12 square miles, with a population of 287,208! This place is too big to pull these shenanigans on a guy in his early fift…, uhh, mid-forties.”

“Mr. Hunt, the Impossible Mission Force does not partake in shenanigans. Now if I can just get this over with…”

“’Get on this over with’ my scrawny, Scientologist ass! I busted my kidney with all this running! And you don’t even want to know how raw my nipples are right now.”

“Sigh. Look, I’m sorry Mr. Hunt, but that’s really not my department. Now if we can…”

“Shove it. Take a wild guess as to how many payphones there are in America.”

“I…”

“Wanna know? I looked it up, because this whole thing is bullshit. In 1995 there were more than 2.6 million payphones in this country. Know how many there are now? One hundred thousand! That’s quite a drop, wouldn’t you say? You’re more likely to get hit by lightning on the day you win the lottery than find a phone!”

“I told you, Mr. Hunt, it’s not my department to come up with these things, we have a whole section devoted to that. You’re lucky the call wasn’t in a submarine.”

“You people spend all day on your bulbous, fish belly-white, flabby buttocks, ordering us field operatives around like we’re frickin’ trained monkeys. Not giving a damn what we have to go through on a regular basis. I had to physically touch Philip Seymore Hoffman! Imagine having to lay hands on that doughy physique. I practically dipped my hands in lava afterward, just to feel clean.”

“Enough of this! We need to do this before the damn phone self-destructs.”

“Smart move guy. Let’s make it 99,999 payphones in this country. Is this all part of your sick scheme to rid this great nation of all our coin-operated telephonic devices? I’m on to you.”

“YOUR MISSION, MR. HUNT, SHOULD YOU CHOOSE TO AC…”

 “Nope.”

*Click*

Message In A Bottle

It’s Spring Break time again, (so I’ve been told by MTV) which means that it’s time to put away my winter caribou pelts and sacks of whale blubber, and unleash my Adonis-like gorgeousness upon the world, for all you pathetic mortals to see and covet.

Usually, for Springapalooza, this nation’s (United States of America) youth migrates to southern shores, to bask in the sun, wear revealing bathing suits near bodies of water (yet rarely going in said water. Scientists have yet to explain this phenomenon.) and drink extremely sugary fruit-based cocktails with names like I Don’t Remember Eating That, The Dangling Participle, Busta’s Lament and the always popular Englebert Humperdinck.

I’m too old and world-weary to partake in such juvenile behavior. But there was a time not so long ago* I used to hit the beach to boogie board and get stung by every jellyfish in a hundred-mile radius. And as I reminisce on Spring Breaks past, one memory stands out to me. The time I made a fascinating historical discovery that would change my life.

It was December 8, 1998, (I take my Spring Breaks whenever I damn well please. In this I will not apologize nor compromise.) and I was walking along tranquil (and frigid) Avery Road Beach, in scenic Silver Springs, FL., which is odd, because I’m pretty sure that town is landlocked. All of a sudden, the big toe on my left foot, in its never-ending quest to stub itself on every possible object, came across an unidentified object buried in the sand, although this was Florida, so it was probably 95% sand and 5% cocaine. After the requisite three minutes of me cussing out my evil toe and threatening dismemberment, I removed the object from the sand. To my surprise, I discovered that it was an 18^th century bottle of British port. Even more interesting was the note I found inside.

It went, a little something, like this…

                                                                                

                                                                    ***

Captain’s Log: 8.12.76 Day 47

The men’s morale is low. We are down to the final barrel of limes. Poor Bosun’s Mate Smyth had a third tooth dislodge itself from his mouth, last eve. I fear a sudden, ship-wide onset of scurvy. Even worse, weevils have been found in the flour. The cook is having a devil of a time removing them in totality. Many a sailor on this fine vessel has found a portion of these vile worms in their meager ration of bread.

To make matters worse, we have not had a favorable wind in almost a fortnight. We are left in the hands of the Lord our God, and the winds of chance.

Captain’s Log: 23.12.76, Day 63

And still our dire straits continue. I had hoped and prayed that the upcoming Christmas Time would be a cause of joy and merriment amongst the hearts of this beleaguered crew, but I fear it is for naught. It is a bad omen and does not bode well. All I can do is pray to the heavens and beseech God for mercy upon his humble servants.

Captain’s Log: 13.1.77, Day 84

Huzzah! Success at last! A wind, heaven-sent I am sure of it, has finally filled our formally barren sails! As the hundreds of tons of strong and stout English wood, christened the HMS Falcor, strain under the pull of the wind, the men rejoice to once again feel the salty spray on their withered old sea-dog faces.

We can only hope the winds carry us, in the ocean’s embrace, to a most well-received locale. I have ordered the First Mate to have the crew trim the sails properly. A task they were quite eager to undertake, to wake themselves from the tediousness of days of inactivity. Only fortune and hope guide us now.

Captain’s Log: 15.1.77, Day 86

The abundance continues! We are blessed by the Lord Almighty. Our nets overflow with all manner of sea life, some of which I am sure have never been seen by the eyes of white, Christian men.

The only unfortunate report is that our man Smyth was accidentally knocked overboard whist pulling up the netting. But we can take solace in the fact that his death will mean larger rations for the rest.

Captain’s Log: 2.2.77, Day 94

Land ho! We have not yet sighted any native life, but from the crow’s nest, we can see a lush, verdant countryside: trees, bushes, birds and wildlife. A veritable Eden! Tomorrow I shall lead a group ashore for further exploration! God’s mercy be with us!

Captain’s Log: 3.2.77, Day 95

Oh shit! Aaaah! Ruuuuuun!

                                                                             

                                                                     ***

And it just ends right there. Kind of weird, right? Was this guy dictating his log entries? Who takes the time to write while running for their lives? Who was he? Where did they land? So many unanswered questions. I didn’t know where to start!

So I just wrote DEEZ NUTZ at the bottom, shoved it back in the flask and threw it back in the ocean. Let’s see what future Indiana Jones makes of that!

*Bullshit. It was a LONG time ago. Possibly even never. Who can say?

Kolektanto

(In honor of the recently released Mr. Rogers stamp.)

As a young child, I was just like any other rambunctious rapscallion. As the Terror of the Neighborhood, I was ready to get down and dirty with the best of them. There was nary an ant I wouldn’t burn with a magnifying glass, (by the way, who lets kids go around with magnifying lenses? We clearly aren’t looking for clues to solve murders, nothing good can come of it.) Nary a fly whose wings I wouldn’t pull off. Pushing kids into mud was a pastime of mine. Petty arson, light breaking and entering and vandalism? Sign me up!

But of course, all that is par for the course, and I’m sure you knew that stuff about me already. But I bet there’s something about me as a kid you didn’t know…

…I collected stamps!

In my youth I was an avid Philatelist.* My interest has died down over the last few decades, but there was a time when I’d go swimming in pools of stamps like Scrooge in his money bin. Of course, all of the stamps had been previously mailed, so they were absolutely worthless, but I always hoped that I’d get that one upside-down airplane stamp. You know, the one from Brewster’s Millions**. Literally the only stamp anybody thinks of when they think of valuable stamps, (except for that topless Harriet Tubman stamp, but those are really hard to find.)

I grew up at the bottom of a dead-end street. A few houses up from me was a nice old lady named Mrs. Smith. She was called Mrs., but she lived alone; her husband having died years earlier. I’m not sure why, but she had boxes and boxes, (and boxes) of stamps from all over the world. American stamps, French, British. Stamps from Greece, Italy, Oompa Loompa Land. It was a treasure trove of mostly valueless, but still very interesting, little pieces of paper. The interesting part was in imagining where the stamps had traveled, what they’d seen, what kind of letters they’d been involved in. Love letters? Dear John letters? Ransom demands? (I imagine a really dumb kidnapper who sends the note by mail and stupidly puts his*** return address on the envelope, making the entire police force piss themselves laughing.)

I’d go with my friend Alex and my sister. We’d sit on Mrs. Smith’s living room floor for hours, sifting through the boxes, taking whatever caught our little numskull eyes. I only collected American stamps, because I’m a goddamn patriot, through-and through; I bleed red, white and blue! But the other two Philistines took their collecting international. A pox on them, I say! Who needs a stamp of Queen Beatrice of South Hamptonbergshire or wherever, when you can have a Fat Elvis stamp? (he was actually “Young Elvis,” but I would draw his belly to the size I desired.)

I collected a lot of pointless stuff as a kid. I have hundreds of Garbage Pail Kid cards, MacDonald’s toys, Mad Magazines, Pauly Shore movies, morning stars, bellybutton lint. You know, the usual. But by far and away the most pointless thing that I collected was also a pastime for my entire family. The whole Hutcheson Clan got involved in this foolishness: collecting Kool Aid points.

Remember those? On the back of Kool Aid packages and containers were little parts of the label you’d cut out that’d say something like 1 Point, or 5 Points, or what-have-you. And then you could redeem for all types of “prizes” like a beanbag chair, or a Kool Aid Man stirring spoon or other vital sundries. What fun! For years, nay, decades! My family of Kool Aid junkies would collect and horde these points, just waiting for the day Kool aid would finally offer something good, like the Batmobile or (if I had my druthers) a Japanese hooker. Instead, Kool Aid just stopped doing the whole points thing entirely, thereby making our years of collecting incredibly pointless.

And don’t get me started on Pepsi Points and the Harrier Jet.

*Japanese for “He who fornicates with stamps.”

** Classic Richard Pryor!

***Or her. It’s the 21^st century after all!

Forgotten Heroes of Yore: President William “Laffy Taffy” Taft

                                                                                       *

Wow, I haven’t done one of these in many a year. But I can’t help it! Recent activities and words spewed out by our current president (Dr. Evil) have made me curious about past presidents, like President Allstate Insurance and President Pull Pullman. But more importantly, what about non-fictional presidents?

Today I picked to discuss our 27^th, and girthiest president, William “The Incredible Bulk” Taft. A president whose achievements and accomplishments in U.S. politics are so well known that I’ll bet you $10 you can’t name a single damn thing!

Let’s do a brief overview of his life. Join me, won’t you?

William “Baba-Booey” Taft was born in Cincinnati, Oh, in 1857. Growing up, he invented Skyline chili, thereby making him popular and zaftig at the same time. Taft was born to Louis Torrey and Alphonso Taft. William was a twin, but his brother was eaten in utero.

Taft wasn’t a necessarily bright child; he once spent an entire day having a one-sided (but by all accounts, very productive) conversation with a scarecrow. But he was known for being hard-working and was able to graduate from high school and go to Yale, where he studied law under the famous professor Judge Dredd.

Taft also became a member of the secret society “Skull and Bones,” which meant that he was instrumental in having an effect on global markets, keeping the water-fueled car under wraps, making sure Reparations never happened, and lying about the existence of Squid Men from Beyond Venus.

Post-graduation, William “Big Willy Style” Taft, decided to run a bar down in Cancun. That’s where he met his future wife Helen Herron. After a lovely first date, where Taft woke up in the morning in a bathtub full of ice and no kidneys (man that guy has bad luck with bathtubs!) Taft an Herron were married in Vegas, by an anachronistic Elvis impersonator.

Anyway, after all this, Taft when on to work as a lawyer and judge in various capacities around Ohio, (making sure to stay away from Toledo.) His tenacity and anti-svelte build caught the eye of many prominent political figures, including Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland (who wasn’t even from Ohio, the big faker!) And Teddy Roosevelt.

In 1904, Roosevelt made Taft the Secretary of War, which was a pretty cushy gig, considering there wasn’t any war to secretarize. Which reminds me, vote Josh for Ambassador to Oz. Together we can build yellow-brick roads between our two great nations!

Over the next few decades a bunch of really boring stuff happened to this guy, which would only make historians wet. It’s all so boring that I can’t even properly make fun of him. Let’s just say we all have that friend or acquaintance who is so boring that you feel sorry for them and can’t even insult them to their boring, bland face, right? I know I do. I’m looking at you Bob.

Anywho, with Roosevelt’s backing, Taft won the 1908 presidential election as a Conservative Republican. During his four-year tenure as Mr. Potato Head-in-Chief, Taft Was pro-unions organizing, but not boycotting, maintaining the privatization railroads in the hands of Robber Barons, appointing various staff positions, setting up future interaction between our country and Latin American countries, did some shit with tariffs (good or bad, who cares?) something called the Ballinger-Pinchot Affair and…

…Ahhhh! Who cares? It’s so boring my brain just ran away. Damn it! I should have picked a more interesting president. Like that dude who got sick and died after five months. What was his name? I bet he did more stuff.

And you wanna know the worst part? Fool never got stuck in a bathtub. Sure he was 350 pounds, but he always made sure he had big ass bathtubs everywhere he went: on ships, various White House bathrooms (I guess he liked to switch up bathrooms to keep things interesting?) his vacation house, even his brother’s house. Next somebody will tell me that the story about Abraham Lincoln going to San Dimas High never happened!

I will leave you with this one true fact, make of it what you will. I don’t know who tracks this stuff or why, but it seems that William “I can’t feel my left arm” Taft was the last president to have facial hair.

Never let it be known that I don’t teach you guys stuff. And now, I haiku.

Our president Taft
Probably did a good job
Or not, I don’t care.

*By the way, that's his actual tub. Seven feet long and 41 inches wide. Even Wilson Fik couldn't get stuck in that!

The Zombie Wave Has Broken

(This is gonna be a short one, I’m just flexing my writing muscles after a long hiatus. I’m a wee bit rusty in the old joke factory.)

I was lounging around my apartment the other day, doing my regular activities (watching cartoons in my underwear and scratching my balls) when my EUREKA! moment happened.

I really hate zombie movies and tv shows.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of zombies. I’m all for shuffling hordes of flesh-eating ghouls who are an allegory for the Communist menace. I delight in imagining scenarios wherein I kick in doors, waving various four-fours, rescuing damsels and killing the undead in imaginative ways, (I’m trying to figure out what I can do with a loaf of bread and a jar of chunky peanut butter. Zombies have allergies too, right?)

No, my problem is with zombie movies. Why? I’m glad you asked.

In vampire movies, people are aware of the existence of vampires. In werewolf movies, people have heard of werewolves before. Same goes for ghosts, Creatures from Black Lagoons and even Hellraisers. Even if the people in those movies don’t believe in those things, they at least have some passing knowledge on the subject.

In 99.5% of zombie movies, nobody has ever heard of zombies before. Nobody has any knowledge of how to deal with them. Hell, In The Walking Dead, they don’t even say “zombie,” they’re “Walkers.” What kind of bullshit is that? Some of them are missing legs and gotta crawl to get around. What are they called? Ankle-biters?

That means, practically every zombie movie or show has to always include the origin, and I’m tired of it. Each time, we have to follow a new set of dopes as they slowly discover the rules to dealing with zombies that we, as the audience, have known since we were in the womb. It’s the same damn tropes all the time. For example:

1. Somebody has to ask a friend or loved one what’s wrong at the very beginning. Which leads to said loved one turning around dramatically.

2. People eventually discover that zombies have to be killed by brain trauma.

3. They eventually discover that being bitten leads to infection. Which leads to…

4. …Somebody being bitten and hiding it from the rest of the group.

5. Somebody tearfully having to kill a loved one and refusing. Tearfully.

6. A character valiantly sacrificing themselves for the good of the group. Valiantly.

7. At least one joke about a zombie “losing their head.”

8. Decaying zombie bewbs.

I’m sick of it! Why are we subjected to seeing this mobius strip of stupidity? Why can’t more movies be like Zombieland? That movie starts after the zombie apocalypse and the story picks up with survivors who already know the rules. Or, if they insist on doing a generic zombie movie, throw in a zombie expert. Let’s get a Van Helsing in that piece! Somebody who knows something and can save us the trouble of the first 45 minutes of people stumbling around going “duh.”

I dunno. Maybe I’m thinking about this too much. Perhaps I should pursue more enlightened endeavors, such as finally getting those hoverboards invented, or solving world itchiness.

Nah…