Commando Fail, or How I Learned to Love the Shorts

Back in my hippie days- and for a while after- I went what is now known as commando style. We just called it "no undies", or "partial freedom". Total freedom would have been "no undies, no pants" but (a) I was free but not that free and (b) Atlanta at large was definitely not that free. Atlanta at large didn't want to know how free anyone was.

One fine, spring day I went to the doctor for a job-related injury- one totally unrelated to my freedom loving nether regions. The doctor decided I needed a penicillin shot. Do you know where penicillin shots go? Yup. Right in the nethers.

The young nurse giving me the shot was a little embarrassed, which made me feel the same as I leaned over the table with my butt hanging out for her and the world to see. An older nurse came in to talk with her as she gave the shot. They left to check on something. "Stay right there. We'll be right back."

I took them at their word and did just that, in part because they left the door open and there were worse things than showing my backside to whatever segment of Atlanta at large happened to stroll down the hallway. That segment happened be two elderly southern ladies. They kind of paused, their eyes got real big, then they started shuffling faster down the hallway. Great.

The nurses returned. "Are you OK?"

Having no reason to believe this question made any sense, I replied with a bit of sarcasm. "No, I think I'm dead."

The next thing I knew they had flipped me over on my back, were checking my heart and pulse, trying to look in my throat, asking if I can breathe, and generally making a scene. That was how I learned you can die from an allergic reaction to penicillin.

And it turns out that "Stay right there" actually meant "Pull your pants up and sit down". Who knew?

I stopped on my way home from work that afternoon to buy underwear.

The Munsters vs the Addams Family W4F Grudge Rematch

Back when the web was very younge, one of the better entertainment sites was the WWWF (World Wide Web Fights) Grudge match site. At least, if you were a fan of MAD Magazine style entertainment. Tom Stewart and I submitted a couple of entries, but we never got amy traction. Sadly, we lost the other[s] in an email catastrophe too painful to remember; only this one survives. I think Tom contributed to this one mainly via editorial help, but I'm not 100% sure.

---

This is the never-before released transcript of the World Wide Web Wrestling Foundation Grudge Rematch between the Munsters and the Addams Family.

Transcript Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 11:45 CST

---

Dawson, madly in lust with both Marilyn and Morticia, is too distracted to explain the rules properly. After botching them he attempts to correct himself but Gomez explains that a witnessed oral contract is legally binding. Dawson, sweating from hormones as well as the producer's voice yelling in his earphone, starts to argue but Lurch's grumble (which destroys two TV cameras in the aftershock) hushes him. The game begins with each pair of contestants answering both questions in a short time limit, and buzzers used only to startle Dawson out of his stupor when he stares too hard at the women and loses himself in fantasy.

1) Name something you find in your closet.
Morticia:	a rapidly-breeding nest of Pythagorean cobras
Lily:	Grandpa, hanging from the clothes rod
Dawson:	Round 1 to Morticia, since it's passably close to the number one audience answer - a nest of rapidly breeding clothes hangers.
2) Name something you eat for breakfast.
Fester:	a heaping bowl of chocolate-covered fried spiders!
Grandpa:	[staring at Fester's neck] a quart of A negative!
Dawson:	Round two to Fester since his answer is close enough to the average breakfast cereal as makes no difference.
[The Munsters look nervous, but continue smiling. Gomez pulls a ticker tape from his pocket and frowns.]
Director:	No smoking on the set! Put out that cigar!
Gomez:	[surprised] Of course! I had no idea! [grinds out cigar on hand]
3) What is that you're eating?
Marilyn:	a Mars Bar
Wednesday:	I'm not eating anything.
Dawson:	Sorry - that wasn't a game question.
Gomez:	Lurch?
Lurch:	Uuuuuuhhhhnnnnnhhhhhhhhhhh....
Morticia:	Look out!
[set collapses. When dust clears, everyone bruised but OK.]
Dawson:	OK, OK, it was a game question! What is that you're eating?
Marilyn:	Nothing. I lost my candy bar in the earthquake.
Wednesday:	[grabbing Marilyn's arm] A Girl Scout Cookie. [bites arm]
Marilyn:	Aaaahhhhh!
Morticia:	Wednesday, darling, no snacking between meals.
Wednesday:	[primly] Yes, mother. [drops arm]
Marilyn:	[plonk]
Dawson:	[rushes to Marilyn's side, begins giving mouth to mouth while Eddie expertly bandages Marilyn's arm]
Herman:	[slams Mil-spec buzzer button on loan from USAF] You stop that!
Dawson:	[leaps backwards, hits head on remains of set, collapses]
[brief interlude while Director screams, "Is there a game show host in the house?" A slender, grinning blonde woman steps forward.]
Vanna:	Round 3 to Marilyn, as most of the audience skipped breakfast in the excitement of getting to be on TV.
[commercial break]
Vanna:	Gomez may interpret for Cousin Itt in the next round.
Gomez:	Thank you, my dear. [kisses hand]
Director:	No smoking on the set! Put out that cigar!
Gomez:	[surprised]Of course! I had no idea! [grinds out cigar on forehead]
4) What is your favorite vowel?
Eddie:	F. I have a radio-controlled F-15 at home. Grandpa and I are building a life-size version next with real nuclear warhead-tipped missles!
Itt:	[typical, lovable Itt sounds]
Gomez:	That's amazing! Cousin Itt has one, too, and he and Puggsley are working on the same thing in one of our basements!
Vanna:	I need a vowel.
Itt:	[typical cute Itt noises]
Gomez:	Are you sure?
Director:	No smoking on the set! Put out that cigar!
Gomez:	[surprised] Of course! I had no idea! [grinds out cigar in ear]
Itt:	[typical cute Itt noises]
Gomez:	That's astounding! His favorite letter is also F!
Vanna:	Round 4 is a tie.
[Dawson wakes up, sees Marilyn and Morticia bending over him. Thinks he's died and gone to heaven. Grandpa walks over, looks thoughtful.]
Grandpa:	He looks a little puffy. I think a little blood-letting is in order.
Morticia:	That's just what he does need, dear.
[Morticia lifts an arm, Grandpa grins wolfishly, Marilyn pulls Girl Scout Machete out from under neck of sweater. Dawson faints again. Sounds of camera man retching, camera drifts off to point at ceiling.]
Vanna:	Looks like the Munsters need a win to tie, and a loss gives the whole alphabet to the Addams Family.
[Herman nervously grabs nearest pieces of set, begins twisting them unconsciously, creating sawdust pile at feet.]
5) Describe your favorite fantasy.
Herman:	A huh huh HUH HAH HAH HAH!!! [Blushes, begins twisting debris more furiously as ceiling crumbles and camera wavers.]
Gomez:	It's a perfect day. Stormy. Cold. A perfect beach - littered with fish parts, dead Portuguese Men-o-War, World War II mines... [Hands move dramatically. Gomez begins pacing, smoking furiously.] It's Christmas eve. [Band begins playing.] "Morti...cia roasting on an open fire... Sharks ... are nibbling my toes... War breaks out...in the Falklands again..."
Director:	Enough! And get rid of that cigar!
Gomez:	[surprised] Of course! I had no idea! [tosses cigar away]
Herman:	[turning a bizarre shade of reddish-green] I don't think I want to say. [sulks]
Vanna:	Then the Addams Family wins.
Lily:	Oh, go ahead, Herman.
Herman:	Are you sure, dear?
Lily:	Of course!
Herman:	[beginning to glow like a pile of Uranium gone critical] Well, it involves Vanna and Morticia, and a huge vat of...
Lily:	<gasp>
Herman:	of... [entire set has been reduced to huge pile of sawdust now waist-high on Herman. whose hands flap helplessly like huge industrial shredders (or maybe penguin wings)] of... cannibals!
Vanna:	Round 5 is awarded to Herman, as this exactly matches the responses of our mostly male audience. [Vanna White turns a deep shade of red, then flees, shrieking, with male audience chasing her, female audience evenly divided between angrily chasing the male audience and fighting Marilyn, Grandpa and Morticia for Richard Dawson.]
[Pat Sajak saunters on stage, grinning hugely. The glare of lights on his teeth sets various things on stage smouldering, including Gomez's discarded cigar.]
Pat:	Well, we need a tie-breaker. Let's have Thing and Spot up here. We'll ask a question, and whoever has an answer first hits the buzzer. Ready?
!) Name the most common disease in your family.
[Thing hits the buzzer. The set is quiet. Thing frantically begins hopping up and down.]
Pat:	We're waiting!
[Thing begins a pantomine.]
Gomez:	Many syllables - first word - sounds like... Paleontology? Pterodactyl? Peritonital? Pepto-Bismol(tm)?
Pat:	Sorry, time's up! Spot?
[Spot turns to a still dancing Thing, sneezes. Thing is enveloped in flame. Morticia screams. Seconds later, the flames die, and a skeletal hand appears, still hopping frantically. Gomez' cigar has started a fire in the sawdust at Herman's feet.]
Gomez:	Pascagoola? Portulacca? Pismo Beach? ...
Herman:	Aaaaahhhhh!!! [hops up and down,. scattering flaming sawdust. The studio shakes each time he lands.]
Pat:	And the studio answer? Bad breath! Spot was right! The Munsters win!
[Lurch growls. Herman starts laughing hysterically, still hopping. The combination proves to be too much for poor, old San Andreas. California rumbles into the Pacific, never to be seen again. Months later, however, divers off the new Arizona coast report strange, low-frequency rumbling and laughing noises underwater.]

 

Copyright 1995, 1997 Miles O'Neal, Austin, TX and Triple R Publishing 2014, Round Rock, TX. All rights reserved.

If I Had a Pocket Lawnchair

For Mark Heard & Bruce Cockburn

The OOGling Anthem

by Miles O'Neal

This is all the fault of Gregory Simmons & Kyle Cheek from the notorious ``Orphans of God'' mailing list...

    here comes the riding mower -- second time today
    all the fescue seed scatters - it'll never go away
    why we don't just concrete over it, only God can say
    if i had a pocket lawnchair...i'd wait for the bus all day

    i don't believe in regulated networks, or care about commerce interstate
    i don't believe in telcos and their exhorbitant data line rates
    and when i talk with the survivors of things too sickening to relate
    if i had a pocket lawnchair...i'd leave them to their fate

    in the AOL chatrooms one hundred thousand wait
    to fall from speed starvation -- or some less humane fate.
    cry for busy modems, with all trunks busy, wait
    if i had a pocket lawnchair...i would just stagnate

    i want to meet Victoria -- at least i've got to try.
    i haven't met Bob or JenMuse, it brings tears to my eye.
    or Mark or Ti or gingerine, and i can't afford to fly
    without a pocket lawnchair...i'll just curl up and die

    19 Aug 1996
    Miles O'Neal

If you're wondering why the ``Orphans of God''- a mailing list revolving around the music of Mark Heard- has as its anthem a parody of a song by another artist, you didn't know Mark very well.

Strike One!

haiku factory strike
replacements still train, old writers
are pick[et]ing at scabs

Put the Lime in the Coconut, Verbena

Most of you will be familiar with Harry Nilsson's song, "Put the Lime in the Coconut", a song that has long perplexed historians. This week I found a new clue thanks to Body & Bath Works, but I'm not sure it didn't obfuscate things even more. BB&W has a soap named "Lime Coconut Verbena". Clearly this is a cleverly coded reference to Harry's Enigma, as serious historians are wont to call the song.

But who or what is Verbena? Several possibilities come to mind.

• Verbena is the girl Harry^[1] wrote the song about. Harry is simply telling a story of something he saw in the islands while living there for tax purposes.
• Verbena is a former lover who drove Harry to drugs. The lyrics make a lot more sense if seen as a product of hallucinogens.
• BB&W has discovered that- as Elton John had Bernie Taupin- Nilsson had a collaborator named Verbena. This begs the question why Harry never wore big glasses^[3], clearly the secret of Elton's success. It also prompts us to wonder at Verbena's first name. My guess is Coconut, certainly a name one might wish to eliminate. Or perhaps her entire name is Lime Coconut Verbena.
• Verbena^[4] is the missing ingredient in a drink many made in hopes it would induce the same sort of hallucinogenic ecstasy that clearly brought about the lyrics of this song.

Some of you may feel I have played fast and loose with what is and isn't known about this song and its creator, but I promise I have used the same rigorous fact checking techniques Congress uses when passing laws and budgets. Assuming you can remember back when Congress actually passed budgets.

Come to think of it, if Verbena was a subtle reference to Congress rather than a woman, suggestion 2 above seems even more likely.

 

NOTES
1 Nilsson, not Potter.^[2]
2 There are no known recordings of Harry Potter singing this song.
3 Clearly Nilsson, as Potter had big glasses.
4 The flower, not the well known woman mentioned above.

All I want for Christmas is to not be a hula girl

Several (or perhaps a couple of several) years ago, we had a party at Church. I don't recall for sure; was probably New Years Eve. Possibly 2000.

At any rate, a young Courtney Calkins (age 7 or 8?) wanted to sing during the "talent show" part of the festivities, but was feeling sort of shy. Someone- possibly her mom, Camil- came up with the bright idea that if some the men in her life danced behind her, it would help. In grass skirts. And maybe coconut bras (I don't recall that part for sure). More likely the whole thing was a plot to trick us softies into dancing like hula girls. If so, we fell for it hook like, and sinker.

Court's uncle Mario, her (adoptive) uncle Miles, George Castillo, and Darrell Childers all donned our costumes and made up hula-like moves (we hoped) behind her on stage, framed by tiny Christmas lights, while Courtney sang, "All I want for Christmas is a hippopotamus".

The stage was crowded; we bumped into one another (sometimes in ways probably not appropriate for church, but there was no *intentional* groping or doing the bump). Near the end of the song, my skirt caught on a nail holding the lights, and ripped off.

Most of the applause was for Courtney, but I think the skirt got some, too.

 

(Yes, I was wearing pants beneath the skirt. This is Texas, not Hawaii.)

Interview with Tony Stark

Special interview by Anonymous

The billboards on I35 led me exactly where I wanted to go:

STARK WAREHOUSE SALE

I hadn't even realized Stark Industries had a presence in Austin, but there it was. With more security than the President of the United States and Jennifer Lawrence combined.

The building was chock full of slightly outdated Stark tech: older arc reactors (palladium is so passe, regardless of the output); Jericho missile prototypes; souped up exotic cars and planes needing repairs; propulsion systems; miniature rocket launchers; body armor; the list goes on.

I had, of course, gone incognito. Like half the people there I was in an Iron Man costume, with large quantities of laundered cash on my person. One doesn't really like to attract SHIELD's attention.

Imagine my surprise when I tapped a salesman on the shoulder to ask a question, only to find myself face to face with the man himself, Tony Stark!

"Mr. Stark! It's you!. I mean, I didn't expect to find you here..."

"I didn't, either."

"I don't mean to gush, but I'm probably your biggest fan."

"Nope. Not even close. I am. Now, what can I do for you?"

"But why are you here?"

"We get all sorts of people in here. Half of them are dumber than a Hammer. I want to make sure people know exactly what they're buying. Pepper says it plays hell with stock prices when someone lights up their new "arc reactor" but it turns out to be a personal neutron bomb killing everyone in a three block radius. Or, conversely, they light off a Jericho prototype to stave off invasion by hundreds of feral hogs, but it's a chemical agent dispenser full of pig pheromones.

"Not only do those sorts of things cost us millions, but I end up testifying before Congress, and if there's one thing I hate more than people taking my stuff, it's wasting time before that pompous, self-inflated windbag who heads the Crucify Tony Stark Committee.

"Now, were you going to buy something?"

At this point the discussion got technical. I don't think I want to say just what I bought, but let's just say that if it could grow up it would expect to be an Insight hellicarrier. But don't worry, because the targeting system only goes after really bad musicians. I asked Tony what his definition of "really bad" was in this context.

"If Obadiah Stane liked the music, it needs to go. At this point, the only bands I'm 100% sure are safe are Black Sabbath, AC/DC, and probably U2."

"What about the Rolling Stones?"

"Have you heard them lately? Lame-o. I think they're probably a big influence on Miley Cyrus."

Gotcha. Nuff said.

OK, SHIELD. Try and track this!