DAILY MONSTER 154
Good morning. How are you? I went to see the new Ed Fella / Geoff McFetridge exhibit “Two LInes Align” at Redcat tonight. It’s a great show, and a rare chance to see Ed’s amazing sketchbooks up close and personal. If you’re in the L.A. area, definitely check it out. Here is the information.
Yesterday brought a bumper crop of great new stories.
It’s so cool to see you guys in action:
I can already hear Monster 154 in the green room:
Is 154 a working stiff, or a wealthy gaddabout? Only a very close look at the pattern of his tie and the fabric of his clothes would tell. He certainly seems upbeat. Genuinely so? Or with a slightly deranged edge? What do you think? Also, does he wear his red shoes to dance the blues? What’s his story? I know you know, and I hope you’ll share. If you can make the time, please…
I do hope you know that 344 LOVES YOU
—
344 also loves its mom. Whose 60th birthday was yesterday.
I made a little monster kick line for her. Happy Birthday, Mom!
“Another day at the office Stan?” he commented as he passed by the monster. The monster, garbed in gear most human seemed to Alfred as another coworker.
Alfred of course hasn’t had the coffee he needs today and probably won’t get it. The monster he had just passed was none other than the gregarious and notorious Specafilious Imitatus, whose habits of eating office workers is well documented by the Office Monster Cohabitation and Rehabilitation Committee.
Alfred stops by cute Nancy’s desk and begins his chatting and bragging immediately making Nancy wish for a gun, a knife or a bazooka. She is willing to even slit her wrists if that would alleviate Alfred from stopping at her desk every single morning and trying to impress upon her mind how awesome he really is. Alfred is now leaning on her cubicle divider arrogantly describing his accomplishments of the past 8 hours when without warning said Specafilious Imitatus bounds out the darkness that exists behind the overgrown laser printer and with one swift swipe of his uppermost jaw he swallows Alfred and instantly dissolves him in the digestive juices that permeate his saliva. With a quiet burp, he then excuses himself and continues on his way.
Nancy’s mind is boggled, but she is suddenly aware that her dream has come true!
“Wait,” she cries running after what she thinks is Stan, “I want to thank you!”
But alas, poor Specafilious has moved on to his meeting with the Office Monster Cohabitation and Rehabilitation Committee hoping that this will be the week that they recognize an even scarier monster than he, Officus Bragiliocious.
This monster has some serious separation anxiety issues from his pet monster. Ignatius, works at a bank processing deposits from ATM machines. Its an awfully lonely job. Years of processing bank deposits has made Ignatius a bit loopy. So loopy that his friends recommended he see a shrink. So Ignatius took his friends advice and went to seek psychiatric help. After a couple of sessions, the therapist told Ignatius that he was a well balanced monster-a stressed and lonely monster,but OK. The therapist recommended that Ignatius take up a hobby, or adopt a pet to keep him from feeling loopy. Ignatius took his therapist’s advice to heart. Ignatius started with cooking lessons, but after setting fire to the Sur La Table cooking kitchen, he gave up on cooking. Ignatius also tried herb gardening. The gardening went quite well for Ignatius. He was so successful with his new garden that college students, artists and high schoolers would occasionally break into his garden and steal his crop. The constant break ins to the garden and the smell of the crop drove the neighbors crazy. The neighbors called the cops. His gardening days were over. Frustrated he gave up on finding new hobbies, until a friend one day recommended he try adopting a pet. Reluctantly he took his friends advice, and went to the local animal shelter to see if he could find a furry friend. Ignatius found a friend. A black furry friend. The shelter didn’t know what his friend was. Was it a cat or a dog? No one at the shelter knew what Fritz (the name the shelter gave the critter), but they wanted Fritz gone. Fritz made an annoying high squeal pitch that made the other animals at the shelter constantly bark, howl and meow non stop. Ignatius loved the blood curdling squeal, freaky eyes and furry mustache the critter had. Ignatius and Fritz quickly bonded. They were inseparable.
They slept together, ate together and even bathed together. There was one place Fritz couldn’t go, the bank. This drove Ignatius crazy. He spent all day thinking of Fritz. So much so that he started making serious mistakes at his job. Ignatius thought of quitting and going to a bank that would allow him to bring Fritz, but there was no such thing as a pet friendly bank. Ignatius’ friends felt sorry for him. To ease Ignatius’ separation anxiety they made fun of his attachment issues. The jokes of being attached to Fritz bothered him at first, but after awhile the idea of being physically attached to his beloved pet sounded plausible. What started as a joke seemed very real to Ignatius. One day, Ignatius decided to take time off from work and explore the idea of being attached to Fritz. Ignatius and Fritz headed south to Rosarito, Mexico. They knew no self respecting plastic surgeon in the US would attach a non-human creature to another non human. He visited hundreds of plastic surgeons in Rosarito. They all said he was insane, except for one. This particular plastic surgeon agreed to the attachment surgery on the condition that he would own Ignatius’ soul for eternity. That didn’t sound like such a bad deal to Ignatius. Ignatius didn’t bother telling the surgeon that he was a monster and monsters are immortal and do not have souls. So the surgeon went ahead with the surgery. The surgery was a success. Now Fritz is attached to the top of Ignatius’ head. Both Fritz and the Ignatius are living happily ever after. As for the surgeon in Rosarito who agreed to the surgery-he was let go by his boss for not checking whether his clients were mortal and had a soul to give.
Darren is a happy monster but not as happy as he once was, in the days when his legs were much longer and more available for endless nights of dancing. He used to trip the light fantastic, was the talk of dance halls the length and breath of London’s fashionable West End. Then, alas, one night, after leaving Madame Patty-Patty’s dance gymnasium, his large hair became caught in the wheels of a passing dust cart. In a fluke flip, his body was jolted round so the famous dancing legs were caught in the cart’s crushing cutters. They said he was lucky to survive. Doctors were able to reattach his feet, but only to his hips. These days it’s not the same, but he taps his toes when he can and smiles. After all, he still has his hair.
Jebf Drillbrek works for commission at the local newspaper factory, tailoring stories specifically to the customer’s needs. ‘The Alternate World Gazette’ boasts over fifty thousand readers, most happily content with paying for a good delusion. You want to hear the weather’s gonna be nice today? He’ll show you the five-day layout. Did you want to hear that you actually did defeat Harry S. Truman to become president, only to grin and hold a paper above your head stating the opposite while waving in a parade to your new country, your new governed body? It could run for a week, solid. Front page.
Jebf has a slight problem, though. His competition has bought a timeshare for the frontal lobe of his skull. Any time he’s on the phone with a potential customer that wants to hear the best outcome for their little brother’s ankle recovery, his forehead butts in and babbles some trite about cosmic alignment and daises becoming sentient and skipping about. the client is either so stunned he agrees to your competition’s horsepuckey yarn, or they hang up in a sobering fit of reality.
to this, things have been hard for Jebf as of late. Bills have been piling up, rent’s due. He’s got a plan though. This edition’s gonna feature in two-inch boldface a scathing attack-ad against his own forehead. Then we’ll see who’s who after the war starts…
“You know,” Emily told Betty late one night over coffee, “Internet dating isn’t all it’s made out to be.”
“Oh, don’t you know it,” agreed Betty. “I met one guy who was all kind and loving in his emails. Said he was rich and owned a used denture rental outlet. Then we went out and he became all hands. It’s like guys have two brains and one of them is only thinking about one thing, you know, that one thing.”
“Tell me about it,” said Emily. “I thought Stan was different, too. He said he was an accountant, owned his own restaurant, too. He talked all the time about his high overhead, how the roof was being eaten right out from above him. I would laugh, thinking he was exaggerating about his work. Then he sent this picture.”
Emily slid a face down photograph across the table to Betty. Cautiously Betty looked at her friend, picked up the photograph, and turned it over.
“Whoa!” she said, her reaction moved the photo to arm’s length. “You ain’t kidding, honey. That’s some overhead.”
Emily nodded, and began to cry.
Betty reached into her purse and found a tissue for her friend.
“I can’t meet him,” Emily sobbed.
“No, of course not, honey,” Betty said. “This guy. Stan is it? You broke it off with him? You’re through?”
Emily nodded from behind the tissue.
“And right you should.” Betty looked at the photo again, longer this time. “You said you met him on the Internet? And that he was an acountant? Owned his own restaurant?”
Emily nodded again, and then blew her nose in the tissue. The trumpeted sound made the startled customer at the next table drop his biscotti deep into his tall foamy latte mecha grande.
Betty held the photo up. “He does dress nicely, tho. Nice tie. Mind if I have a go?”
Happy birthday mother monster!
That new guy in the corner cubicle is WEIRD! And why does he insist on bringing his pet to work?
154 always wears a power tie, although the office went business casual months ago. He smells like some chem plant in New Jersey’s idea of “the woods”, and today when he stops by my desk to flirt with me (he’s married, n.b.), he’s wearing a hairpiece. “What do you think?” he says. I tell him nice tie, but I have to admit, the hairpiece is working for him.
“Big day today,” he says, and it is. The sales team is expanding the “AIDA” method (“Attention”, “Interest”, “Desire”, “Action”) to “AIDAS” (adding “Satisfaction”), which means a four-hour kickoff meeting, which means they’ll order in pizza, which means I don’t have to pay for lunch today, and ordered-in-pizza is the closest thing I’ve had to “dining out” in a while. He catches me staring at his hair and does a thing romance novels always describe as a shaking of “golden tresses”, except his are not golden, and I see now that they also have eyes and teeth. Then the hairpiece asks me out for dinner. “Are you asking me, or is your hair asking me?” I ask him. 154 and his hair just smile at me, polycephalicly.
Then I see what he’s doing: A: Attention; he has my attention, because his hair looks nice. I: Interest; I am interested because his hair has eyes and teeth; D: Desire; I desire to eat at a restaurant instead of having ramen again; A: Action; he’s asking me out.
Am I Fran Kubelik to his Mr. Sheldrake? I do not know how to play gin rummy, but I do feel like a misfit. Before you judge me, let me stress there are no C.C. Baxters left in all of Manhattan. Fine, I say, yes. But pay attention at the kickoff meeting, I tell him. If I get see any “S” tonight, there will be hell toupee.
Happy birthday to your mum!
^______^
No-knee Nick got teased a lot in school. Not for his lack of knees, but because he had a jaw on his forehead. That kind of thing doesn’t go over well with kids in the second grade. He probably would’ve gotten picked on for not having knees if his face was normal though. Lose lose for Nick I’m afraid.
__________
Happy late birthday to your mom! You’re such a good son, staying up late to make monster mural birthday presents.
OMG!!! jon stole my second name. i swear there is summin goin on. im tom watkins. there was another person who got there art put onn here who went by the name of tom watkins aswell. there was a john watkins aswell. and now theres a jon watkins!!! OMG familiy invasion o.O
Als Pfadfinderführer im Ruhestand braucht er keinen Hut und keine Wanderschuhe mehr zu tragen. Endlich rote Edeltreter wie schön! Er geniesst es nun auch sein zweites Ich der ganzen Welt zu offenbaren.
Keine Depressionen mehr, keine quälende Angst (die er immer hatte, weil sein zweites Ich unter dem Pfadfinderhut zu ersticken drohte)
Keiner würde in ihm noch den Führer vermuten, der er einmal war. Nur wenn man sehr genau hinschaut, erkennt man an der ausgebleichten Kravatte und am abgewetzten Ledergürtel, dass er mal zur paramilitärischen Führungselite der Nation gehört hatte.