Annointed Ones Convene

"I love tropical fish" was the last thing McMagnet thought before a cross eyed mackerel crashed through the store window and slammed into his face, effectively rendering him stupid. In the window, offset by a confused population of city folks who though that this was their day to enjoy the splendor of dying of chill in the freezing vapors of Skyscraper Canyon, stood You Said It Man. He had on leotards, blue and green, some name brand bun-hugger underwear on the outside, a big belt he stole from his sister's walk in closet , a sweatshirt that said "Zag nuts" on, and an old bath towel tied around his neck in an idiot's desperation grab for a cape. ''Have no fear, You Said It Man is here" was what You Said It Man said .  You  Can Say that Again Man came from the store's back room and said " I'm hungry like Wolfman Jack" ; be peeled off his form fitting shirt and revealed tattoos that did their best to make the best of rather raggedy looking skin.

McMagnet crawled to the backroom , stood up and left the store through the alley entrance. He'd just past the dumpster when he saw a spinning galaxy of birdies and stars burst around his skull. He spun around and made note of   Stenchman climbing from the dumpster.

"You idiot" yelled McMagnet, "Jesus in Jack's Pants, that hurt."

Hearty Sausage Crumbles

The Roto-Rooter man came to the house at 2711 1/2 Paradise Lane, Lemon Grove, California for his service call, right on time. He knocked on the door; it opened and what he saw made him insane.

“I’m gonna give you a haircut, hippie!!” he said as he ran back to his truck to get the necessary tools. A teenager named Ched stared at him from the doorway, dressed in a t-shirt that said GET IT TOEGTHR, grinning like a bowl of disarranged alphabet soup. His eyelids sagged, pulled to earth by the weight of the long brown hair dangling to his knees. Ched had been listening to “In-a-Gadda-da-Vida” over and over for 27 hours and was finally starting to understand it, which took every kilowatt his befogged brain could muster. He swore he would stop after three days.

The Roto-Rooter man attached an electric shaver to his drain-scraping tool and rushed back toward the house. His buzz-cut scalp gleamed in the California sunshine like a concrete patio surface. The flesh of his face seemed to be pulled inward by sheer force of his psychic rage, as if it were made of foam rubber, until his white, vein-flecked eyeballs stood out of his skull on stalks. Saliva trailed out his distended mouth and his overloaded larynx shivered from clotted words of savage outrage.

Ched thought that the Roto-Rooter Man looked like the Weird-O car model he had been building that morning: Digger or Davy or maybe Freddie Flame-Out. He stared at the onrushing lunatic, who leveled the whirring razor at his face, ballistic missile style.

Behind him, Ron Bushy thudded mightily on his snare drum as Eric Braunn stabbed at the treble clef and Doug Ingle caressed the undulating vertebrae of an insectoid melody. Ched thought he saw a stray note roll between his knees, so he bent down to catch it. The Roto-Rooter Man lunged forward, slicing off the tip of Ched’s left ear before he collided with the family afghan hound, a huge animated rag mop with a dripping nose and big teeth. Man, dog and razor became a single ball of screams, flying hair and chunks of meat for several seconds, or eternity.

Eventually, Bushy finished his drum solo. The album ended, Lyndon Johnson quit and the next decade dawned. Ched stood up. He was 62 and the house was demolished. He looked behind him and saw a pile of very old hair and some yellowed bones.

“What the hell was that?”

He rubbed his head: “Shit, I could use a hair cut…”

And then this happened.

I hate this shit" is what Normal Grain said last night. He was drunk and reading the funny pages with his feet propped up on the kitchen table, a dinette with the boomerang pattern Formica table and the dull metal trim around the side that was supposed to make the stuff look sleek and jet age, but only look dull like a soapy film in a wash basin full of brown, tepid water.

Normal Grain slapped the newspaper with the back of his hand and craned his neck to stare at the backside of Marcus Garvey, who was over the sink , staring out the kitchen window and into the neighbor's backyard, observing one sweaty man carry boxes into the detached garage from the house, one after the other , back and forth. Marcus Garvey was on his third Benson and Hedges when he turned around and noted that Normal Grain was talking, drunk as a vacuum packed goose, wobbling in the rickety chair as he rustled the pages of the newspaper.

"This goddamned shit fucks up my shit" said Normal Grain, "I mean, you get to reading some lame Steve Roper comic strip adventure in which Mike Nomad gets buggered yet again by some East Lansing squid monger and then they go and change the artist and the writer and then the paper drops the strip altogether, leaving all the emotional investment you've made just hanging there  like pink Cootie Grope waiting for Knuckle Sandwich of Destiny to lay a five spot on ya..." He slapped the newspaper again in a motion that was too broad, too sweeping for the chair. the back legs , thin metal stalks, bent smack dab in the middle. Normal Grain fell backwards, his feet kicking the coffee pot over--a river of hot scalding coffee, brewed by Marcus Garvey in th wan hope of sobering up his sotted roommate, poured on to Normal Grain's already lumpy visage.

"Yeah, I hate syndicated comic strips too" said Marcus Garvey,"they make me want to sharpen a spoon and take a shiv to work."  He looked back out the window and made note of what was coming out of the garage, small robots on training wheels with industrial light bulb eyes and mechanical fingers resembling tiny, jointed lawn rakes driving around in manic circles and loope-de-loops,  ramming into each other as best their speed allowed; sparks, blips , insect squeals mixed nicely with the the sweaty man's choice of tunes on his vintage 1982 Ghetto Blaster, "Groin Pull Goes Lunar", a squalling morass of guitar hysteria and big band music.

"I am a lizard for love" said Normal Grain. A chunk of the ceiling gave way, falling on the kitchen table; as the dust cleared, the resident Death Ray from the apartment upstairs was revealed appearing angry, it's one red eye glowing red as an insane hen.