I'm sure that if I were a youngster, I would be interested in these memes. So I figured I'd throw them a bone.
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Friday, November 2, 2012
sample page from BEFORE THE LAW
sample page from THE EVIL EYE
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
Friday, December 16, 2011
Friday, October 28, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
Friday, August 26, 2011
Monday, August 1, 2011
cover idea for upcoming graphic novel
Thursday, July 28, 2011
The Lowell Isaac action figure!
Thursday, April 7, 2011
"Gulliver's Travels" app trailer
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
short play based on Genesis
EDEN, DAY. GOD DESCENDS FROM HEAVEN TO HAVE A TALK WITH ADAM, WHO IS ONLY A FEW HOURS OLD.
GOD: Doing some jumping-jacks I see. Good for you. How do you like existing?
ADAM: Oh man, it’s the best. Really good.
GOD: And your body? Seem alright?
ADAM: Mm-hm. Seems good: two arms, two legs, pretty intuitive. Yep, can’t think of any—well, now that you bring it up, there are these two things hanging down between my legs. They’re very tender, and they kind of bang against my thighs when I walk. Sitting down comfortably is pretty much impossible…
GOD: Ah, well those are your balls. Very important for reasons I’ll explain later on—but they grow these delicate little critters inside of them that have to be kept at a certain temperature—it’s too hot inside your body for them to survive.
ADAM: I see, very good. But, um—couldn’t you make them a little tougher, so maybe all of my organs could be inside of my body?
GOD: Interesting. How many universes did you make this week?
ADAM: You know what—forget I said anything. Balls are great—I love them.
GOD: That’a boy. Any maintenance questions?
ADAM: Well I feel a little weird, kind of dizzy and really dry…
GOD: You’re thirsty. See you’re pretty much a water-creature even though you live on land and breath air—so you can’t wander too far from water-- ever. You’ll need to pour lots of it into that hole in your face several times a day to keep your insides constantly wet.
ADAM: Ah. Bit of a hassle, isn’t it—I mean, great, so I’ll drink as much as I need, then if there’s any extra it will probably evaporate off of my skin or something—great job Lord, very good idea.
GOD: Eh, actually pretty much every time you drink water, a little while later you’ll have to squirt it out of another hole in your body—and by then it’s so full of toxins that you can’t really drink it again. If you go anywhere you’ll need to make sure you can get away quick to a place where you can shoot dirty water out of your body.
ADAM: (a little irritated) Really? Hmm. I’m also feeling a little empty, like I need energy. How do I fix that? Do I just absorb energy from that hot bright thing up there?
GOD: No, the plants do—but you can’t. You have to rip up the plants and stuff them in that same hole in your face to get the energy, but that won’t quite do it on its own.
ADAM: Okay, then what else can I do?
GOD: Well you see these cute fuzzy creatures running around here?
ADAM: Ah, my woodland friends. Yes, I like them a lot.
GOD: Uh-huh, well to really feel satisfied, you’re going to have to kill them, cut off little chunks of their bodies, and stuff those bloody chunks into that same hole in your face.
ADAM: (trying not to vomit) WHAT?
GOD: No, no, I made them taste REALLY good, you’ll see. And you’ll be so hungry you won’t care about the kicking and screaming and all the blood—trust me. You’ll get used to it.
ADAM: (horrified) Okay… okay, let me sit down—ouch! (sits on balls) So I do this, like maybe once a year, I absorb their energy, then we’re good right? I’m done?
GOD: Exactly. Well—your body will actually have to change their dead flesh into this fowl-smelling brown sludge that you’ll have to push out of yet another hole—I put that one in back of you so you won’t have to watch, don’t worry. But yeah, that stuff is deadly toxic—you won’t want to touch it after that. You’ll need to bury it in a hole or find some way to get it far away from you—FAST.
ADAM LOOKS AT GOD WITH A WRINKLED BROW AND EYES WIDE AS DINNER PLATES—THE WAY YOU LOOK AT SOMEONE WHOM YOU JUST REALIZED IS DANGEROUSLY INSANE.
Short Story Ending in ‘A Man-eating Snake’
‘And what makes a man?’ wondered Harry Farmer. ‘Is it his actions, or simply four limbs and a head? Is a person a single entity, or a conglomeration of unconscious self-serving impulses?’ These are the kinds of things Farmer liked to think about on his way to the post office—and today was a perfect day for it: the crisp autumn air, the yellow leaves in front of a pale blue sky. Yet he couldn’t help but be distracted by the unwieldy size and shape of the brown paper covered package under his arm; it required constant re-adjustment. Farmer decided that, if for some reason he had to run—if a runaway car jumped the curb in his direction let’s say, the box would have to get tossed.
At the post office, Farmer placed the package on the counter in front of the postal worker, who asked automatically, “Are there any liquids, perishables, or potentially hazardous materials in the package, sir?” Farmer had not anticipated this question, and frowned as he drummed his fingers on the counter. He quickly tried to assess whether or not a hibernating white rat packed in dry ice would fit that description, then simply answered in a tone like a question, “no?” After a tense moment in which Farmer prepared to run, the postal worker grabbed the package, weighed it, stamped it, and Farmer listened as the tiny cargo thumped about within.
Harry Farmer was relieved; the job was done. He decided this would be the last time he responded to an email with a subject heading like FAST CASH FOR DEAD RAT! But he’d overdrawn his bank account, and the prompt thirty bucks through Paypal put a nice dent in the overdraft fee. Evidently clean rats were hard to come by in Odense Denmark
The little box with the hazardous payload made its way slowly around Planet Earth, until finally it was on the doorstep of Dr. Franz Liebfraumilch, who, after some severe door-knocking by the UPS worker, was supposed to be out. Then, without warning, out of the door came a begloved hand that reached down and tried to grip the package, which was an awkward size and shape, and required help from a second hand. With a furtive wet-eyed glance to either side, in went the package.
Assembling a human-shaped amalgam of sterile frozen lab rats, in a country where such things are difficult to get at, then trying to revive them simultaneously, is no small task. However, in Liebfraumilch’s modified basement, this was exactly the order of the day. It was a nice, large, clean basement—one could tell by the entertainment center and comfortable chair that it was the preferred room of the house. The real attraction, however, was the laboratory, complete with hard-wood floors and huge upright Plexiglass sheets on wheels. Liebfraumilch entered, rat in hand. He gently pushed one opaque frosted sheet of Plexi to the side, revealing a headless man sitting at a small Formica table, apparently preparing to enjoy a cup of coffee. At least, that was the first impression. Upon closer inspection, at the ankles, hands and neck, places where human bits should have been, one could see lumps of white fur. Upon yet closer inspection, it became clear that this man was made of 50+ white rats stuck carefully together with epoxy, and covered in a conductive milky gel. It seemed Harry Farmer’s package was intended to finish off the ‘head.’
Liebfraumilch twisted the final rat into a kind of head-shaped ball, he then used a fast-acting epoxy resin to attach it to the top of the trunk. A pair of reading glasses were added, which seemed to complete the illusion to Liebfraumilch’s satisfaction. Now came the tricky part. After a short prayer to the Danish Gods, Liebfraumilch wheeled in a 1990’s era defibrillator, lubricated the conductors, and placed them at key points against Rat-man’s back.
With a loud ZONK Rat-man ‘s entire body jumped and began to churn and undulate with life. The figure remained seated, but his skin seemed to writhe and squeak all at once, as though he were a stop motion puppet in a state of panic. It was something to see, to say the least, and didn’t much look like a middle-aged Caucasian sitting down to the morning paper, but the doctor seemed more than pleased. Now things were happening: the lights were faded down to the minimum, Plexiglass sheets were moved into a labyrinthine configuration, with Liebfraumilch hidden safely away at the hear t of it. The doctor was still able to see Rat-man through a transparent section of the Plexi. A button was pushed, a trap door opened, and a charged silence followed—punctuated only by the faint squeaks under Rat-man’s clothing.
Out of the trap door slithered Mendel, who was more a great black worm than a snake, with a jaw that unhinged in five places instead of two, and a head resembling an aquatic parasite. Mendel licked the air, smelling his way toward Rat-man in the near dark. Liebfraumilch cupped his hands over his mouth, barely able to contain his glee—as it is with anyone who sees the realization of their ambitions. Mendel oozed his way under the Formica table and then between Rat-man’s legs and under his chair. The squeaks intensified, as though Rat-man could sense what was coming. A black form rose behind him, and a star-shaped mouth opened, then slowly devoured Rat-man’s head and shoulders. The movement of Mendel’s throat muscles was apparent beneath his slick black skin; it wasn’t so much eating as reverse regurgitation.
Out of the trap door slithered Mendel, who was more a great black worm than a snake, with a jaw that unhinged in five places instead of two, and a head resembling an aquatic parasite. Mendel licked the air, smelling his way toward Rat-man in the near dark. Liebfraumilch cupped his hands over his mouth, barely able to contain his glee—as it is with anyone who sees the realization of their ambitions. Mendel oozed his way under the Formica table and then between Rat-man’s legs and under his chair. The squeaks intensified, as though Rat-man could sense what was coming. A black form rose behind him, and a star-shaped mouth opened, then slowly devoured Rat-man’s head and shoulders. The movement of Mendel’s throat muscles was apparent beneath his slick black skin; it wasn’t so much eating as reverse regurgitation.
The foot-rats had the worst of it; the head and upper torso rats went quickly, but Mendel had to stop at Rat-man’s belt buckle and rest for nearly three hours before he had digested enough to continue. The foot-rats squeaked themselves hoarse as they watched their comrades slowly dissolve in a cocktail of gastric juices. Liebfraumilch knew this was a delicate time for Mendel; any sudden sounds or movements might startle the beast, who, for the sake of self preservation, might feel compelled to vomit up the lot. Liebfraumilch wasn’t deaf to the foot-rats’ suffering, but he couldn’t see anything for it. After he had been published, Liebfraumilch’s peers often asked during lectures why the foot-rats had to be subjected to psychological stress, on top of being glued to each other and eaten alive. Liebfraumilch always explained that no snake will eat anything dead that they hadn’t killed themselves. “Besides,” he would add, usually to a measure of laughter, “how else does one train a man-eating snake?”
HORROR VACUI
a short story
Mr. Megiddo was a flabby white man with tired eyes and ill-fitting clothes, and something about the line of his mouth said that he lived alone and hated his job. Megiddo sat in his little tobacco-stained office under a faded print of a black lab with a duck in its mouth. He peered down through bifocals pinched to his pock-marked nose as he shuffled paperwork with intent. Megiddo was the district manager of a janitorial service that specialized in corporate maintenance. He oversaw the work of three groups of custodians, each assigned to a separate corporate client. His job wasn’t too taxing; all Megiddo had to do was communicate with clients, schedule shifts for his employees, and make sure everyone was pulling their weight.
Megiddo had no warm feelings for the custodians in his charge. After years of hiring and overseeing the work of these people, he’d observed that they all seemed to fit into one of three categories: there were the seniors too poor to retire, the young junkies too uneducated to get a better job, and finally, and which was most often the case, there were the ones with weak-minds—the jabbering backward lot who could barely hold a human conversation. Megiddo didn’t care to know them, and he resented them for making his job unpleasant and necessary.
*
Rick Salami was a custodian that Megiddo would have placed in the ‘weak-minded’ category. That Rick was slow was immediately apparent, considering his lumbering, ghoulish walk, his grey unfixed eyes, and the fact that half of his skull seemed to have been removed. Megiddo didn’t know his story or want to hear it—just was long as Rick did his job, and didn’t frighten anybody too badly.
Today as Megiddo was reviewing invoices he noticed Rick’s hulking mass silhouetted behind the venetian blinds in his office window. Rick was standing out there, gently shifting his weight from one foot to the other. The tendons in Megiddo’s neck grew taut; this was the last thing he needed at 6:30 am. Megiddo remained behind his desk, his eyes flitting from the invoices in his hands to the dark oscillating shape outside his office window, until finally Rick Salami quietly entered the room, mop in hand. He seemed to fill the space, and he cut out light from the fluorescent panels overhead.
“Can I help you?” Megiddo said shortly.
“Glurrr…” Rick said, in a voice that sounded like it came from a small salamander living in his windpipe.
“Sorry Rick, I’m a little busy right now. Aren’t you scheduled to work in the lobby of the Brown and Garden Hotel this morning? Shouldn’t you be loading up your equipment?”
“Glur-don’t like hotel, like offices-rrrr…”
Megiddo pushed the thumb and index finger of his right hand into his eyes. “You can’t have an office building, you’re scheduled for Brown and Garden at 7am!”
“Glur-maybe Greencorp has an opening-rrrr…”
Megiddo filled his cheeks with air and blew it out loudly. “FINE,” he said, “you can take Greencorp for this morning, but after 8:00pm it’s the Brown and Garden Hotel lobby. How does that sound to you?”
“Glurrrrrr…”
“Great,” said Megiddo with no emotion, returning to his invoices, “you be sure and have a good morning, now.” Rick Salami moved out of the office as silently and slowly as a large plant might, and he kept this steady oozing pace as he changed into grey-blue overalls in the locker room, then loaded a Back-vac onto the transport truck, where he hitched a ride to the offices of Greencorp Industries.
Most of the custodians preferred quiet, unpopulated places to do their work, but it made no difference to Rick. He’d learned after many years in this business that custodians operate in a separate dimension from other professionals; no matter how odd looking you are, or what conspicuous equipment you’re pushing around, no one seems to notice you—in fact these things might only serve to announce the presence of a custodian more promptly, and thus help facilitate the shift in dimensions. A custodian is a potted plant, a chair, an elevator, a thing that is seen but not acknowledged, except by someone who makes a point to do so—to show what a rare and fair-minded person they happen to be. Rick knew he was invisible, so working in a crowded space never bothered him. This, however, was not why he liked working at Greencorp.
*
The transport truck pulled up to the loading dock, and Rick moved his equipment into a grimy back room with orange sticky walls, where he carefully strapped himself into the Bac-vac. The machine consisted of a large yellow battery powered engine and storage compartment attached to nylon straps that went over the shoulders and were secured around chest with a complex metal clasp. The engine was connected to a segmented black rubber tube, which finally led to a rigid stainless steel hose that was held almost like a weapon. Rick was ready for business, and he walked through the dimly lit green stairwell that led to the 5th floor.
He entered the familiar miniature town of little grey cubicles, each one decorated with unrevealing personal items. Rick started up the machine. The sound was horrendous, and at first the employees around him registered annoyance, and sent a few unhappy glances in Rick’s direction. But, as Rick had expected, his appearance triggered the instinctive response, and they promptly turned their minds back to their various tasks.
As Rick methodically ran the wide intake nozzle over the grey carpet, he imagined a bar of cleanliness following in its path, and he kept this picture in his mind to be sure of which sections had been vacuumed, and which hadn’t. This was his primary focus until he came to cubicle 47A, an office space that he knew belonged to a woman with dark hair and dark eyes and white teeth. He didn’t know her last name, only that people called her Midge, and that in her eyes he saw a brown quiet landscape, a mountainous region where he wanted to live. When he walked through the barren valley his feet kicked up brown dust, and he could see old broken furniture scattered to the horizon, and when he looked down he saw faded photographs and the bones of birds.
Rick looked slowly to one side, stealing a gaze into cubicle 47A. He saw her flower in the coffee mug, and her calendar of Monet’s water lilies. She didn’t seem to be there. Was she sick? Did she quit? His heart was beating fast and heat moved to his neck. He stood up straight to scan the area; she would be easy to spot. He had turned about 180 degrees when Midge appeared just a few feet away, walking forward, talking to someone behind her. She collided with Rick, dumping hot coffee on his overalls. He felt the heat on his chest, it soaked through and burned his skin, but he was in shock and his overtaxed brain cut out the pain.
“Oh my god!” Midge cried, “I’m so sorry!” and she began to wipe her hand against his chest. Rick felt electric fingers move up his back, and he thought about moving away so she wouldn’t burn her bare hand—but she didn’t seem to mind, and he couldn’t move. “Are you okay?” she went on, wiping her hand on her skirt. Rick had never been this close; she smelled like a forest full of mating insects; sweet and rich. He could see the outline of her breasts through her perfectly fitted navy blouse, and he followed her hand down to her skirt, to her smooth stockings.
Then she smiled at him with embarrassment, and, he thought, a hint of recognition. There was no revulsion on her face, and in her big brown eyes he was again in that desolate arid zone, only this time his shoes were slipping on the sand; he had trouble staying connected to the ground. Rick decided that the brown planet had unruly gravity; dust, furniture, and pedestrians might suddenly drift up into the atmosphere, then come crashing down again—which accounted for everything being broken and dusty.
“You sure you’re okay?” the voice came back in, a voice that was all woman and sex. Rick nodded, turned around, switched on the Back-vac, and walked quickly away with his head down. He looked at the grey carpet, but he didn’t memorize the path of his nozzle. It was fourteen minutes before he allowed himself to look up again—he no longer felt invisible, in fact he was sure everyone on the floor had somehow seen the grotesque power of his sexual desire and now they were all watching him, waiting to see what he would do. When Rick finally screwed up his nerve and looked around, the world was unchanged. He permitted himself a glance at cubicle 47A, and saw Midge laughing with coworkers like nothing had happened.
She was clearly as friendly and open-hearted as she was beautiful. She had seen into Rick Salami’s dimension, and she wasn’t horrified. She didn’t even mind staying there long enough to touch him—and she touched him three or four times without hesitation. He had a chance, there was no doubt about it. He could tell her he loved her, and she would listen, she might even consider it. There was no doubt in Rick’s mind that if she could spend a little more time in his dimension, then she might love him back. But at 8pm he would have to leave Greencorp Industries and clean up the lobby in the Brown and Garden Hotel. He didn’t have much time.
*
Rick continued working in an area where he could keep an eye on Midge. He watched her leave for the bathroom, come back, take her lunch break, go to the vending machine, etc. He imagined what it would be like when she loved him, and he drove himself near insanity watching her body move under her clothes, thinking how those things might be his soon. He marveled at his good fortune. Soon it was closing time and the end of his shift. He watched her put on her coat, close out of her computer, and move toward the stairwell. Rick’s heart pounded; this was his moment. He didn’t know which level she was heading to, so he dropped his equipment, took an elevator down, and ran back up the stairwell to meet her. His usual slow plant-like movements quickly shifted into something spasmodic and rigid; he was panicked—if he lost her now she would forget about him, forget that she’d seen into his dimension and that it was okay.
He was running up the stairwell now, a big dark figure with a broken head, running madly up the poorly lit green stairs. He began to sweat and pant loudly, his eyes were unfocused, thinking about the future, glancing at stairs, numbers, doors. For a moment he didn’t notice the slim navy blue figure just above him, as though he’d forgotten what it was he was looking for. Now Midge was standing in front of him, and he looked at her face. She was terrified.
“NO! Get away!” she screamed in the shrill voice of a human high on adrenaline, ready to fly or fight, “GET AWAY!”
“Glurrrr-no--” Rick said.
She held one shaking hand up as if waving, and rifled through her purse with the other, tripping backwards on high heels. Rick lunged forward to catch her, and he felt the burning acid hit his eyes. Confused and in pain he fell to the ground, groping for her, moaning in his little salamander voice. Then he saw movement through red fog, and he heard high heels clicking on stairs above him, getting fainter.
Rick moaned and choked on the fumes, he felt like a monster now. She had somehow missed it before, but here in the dark stairwell it became clear what he was. He crawled on hands and knees to the corner of the landing, and he made sounds like an animal. He tried to find his way back to the brown world with the broken furniture, but he knew it was miles away by now.
*
Mr. Megiddo got a call at about 8:35pm. It was from the Brown and Garden Hotel, asking if they were mistaken or if one of his custodians was scheduled to come in and clean up the lobby. At first Megiddo thought about firing that twisted wierdo Rick Salami, but then he thought about how most of his work was usually satisfactory, and covering for his indiscretions cost less than it would to pay for his unemployment. Then Megiddo noticed that Rick had never clocked out for dinner, hadn’t returned the Back-vac to the storage room, and that his civilian clothes were still on his hook. As Megiddo looked for clues, colorful scenes stole through his mind: first of Rick hanging by the chord of a hook-light in a basement somewhere, kicking his feet as if swimming. Then he saw Rick wandering aimlessly on the littered shoulder of a freeway. Then Mr. Megiddo saw one final scene that almost made him laugh out loud. He pictured Rick Salami wearing a clean jacket and button down shirt, sitting at a candlelit table in an upscale restaurant across from a beautiful young woman, and he could almost hear the ‘ding’ as they toasted with tall glasses full of white wine.
fluid mosaic
An Ode to the Cell Wall
A Tall Green Man stands in the doorway
And each cell in his body is a pocket watch:
Each set to the same time, each one broken.
But even a broken clock is right twice a day.
For him no meaning is necessary, in fact,
No meaning is best.
The man with the purple forehead has a dog.
A small brown dog with fleas in its hair
Who drags his ass on the carpet there.
He drags his ass like a miserable toad,
And then waits for the purple forehead to erode.
The man with brown feet needs a vacation
From dirty plates, chairs, shoes,
Soap, clean socks, and new food.
The cabinets are finally empty, we’re eating the dust
Because the brown footed man is tired
Of shopping for groceries, sitting in chairs, using soap.
The man with a blue neck is done
With the seasons, there’s only one day
Twice a year that’s any damn good at all.
The first day of fall and the first day of spring—
The rest aren’t good for a thing.
The man with red arms doesn’t like the color
Painted on his walls,
But red-armed people can’t move furniture,
Can’t buy house paint,
Can’t lay down tarps, fuss with cheap rollers and brushes,
So the red-armed man sits on his couch
And puts a large pillow
On either side of his head.
The orange-torso man is sick as hell
And his ears give off an awful smell
He used to ride horses when money was better
And before he contracted the virus—
But now he wears sneakers stuffed with mustard seeds
And his skin feels quite like papyrus.
The man with yellow ears can’t figure out
Why a baby is born with such joy.
He wonders if babies stock-pile joy—
As a bulwark, a reserve that can be drawn upon,
When the crushing weight finally descends
On their little minds.
One of these days, I’ll find a shirt
One that I won’t never have to change
Or take off, or warsh.
But the Tall Green Man knows that all shirts
Need washing, and to go three,
Maybe even two days without it,
Would make him smell like the
Cabinet under the sink,
Like a homeless man, like ammonia.
The man with black shins is building a rocket
Aimed for Jupiter, or possibly Mars.
He’s calibrated the thrusters, set the exhaust,
All based on the motion of stars.
But he can’t just take-off, he has to take time
For the eight glasses of water per day.
The eight hours of sleep per night.
The eating, the shitting, he can’t find a break,
A time for his ship to take flight
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Bizarro Ray
Monday, November 29, 2010
FIRST POST
The time has come; I just do not have enough forms of social media to share things that may be of very little interest to a lot of people I do not know. You're welcome.
GOLEM WORLD
where everyone's name is mud
A small Negro-pencil drawing inspired by a drive home from work.
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