ROOOAAAD TRIPPPP!!!!

Operation Guwandji 
is the name we are giving our late-spring road trip to the USA to visit my brother. Previous titles were Operations Houseboy, Cannibal, Megalon and Malediction, each one more successful than the last. The usual cast of characters are several of my brothers and nephews, and of course, myself. Only the manliest men get to go on these adventures, and any failure to live up to that requirement can have fatal consequences.

Operation Megalon, when we swiped some pies from the window sill of that Amish family

Schedule
Friday:
2:00am- Have a Martin-Sheen-in-Apocalypse-Now-mirror episode in a hotel room. Bandage hand, get some sleep. Tomorrow is a big day. 
11:30am- Assemble at my house
11:30:01am- Start driving
11:35am- Reconsider bringing Uncle Carstairs, since I have a GPS that whines less, smells better and is a better conversationalist
1:00pm- Fast food blowout; suggest Kentucky Fried Chicken and Mountain Dew as a deadly lunch cocktail to start stomach churning, as part of endurance test
2:15pm- Begin slapping my now hysterical nephew, Charly.
2:16pm- Stop for Moon-Pies
5:00pm- Enter Brother's bunker complex; codeword: Demarcation
5:15pm- Catch Charly trying to put on cologne
5:20pm- Charly's trial
5:21pm- Charly's execution
7:00pm- Ambush Uncle Carstairs as he panics and goes for the cops
6:00am- Wake refreshed, spend pleasant day in the US
4:00pm- Drive home, come up with Brilliant alibi

I am preparing my driving outfit for the road trip. It will consist of a Fez, dinner jacket (with eppaulettes and medals), jodhpurs and black cavalry boots. I will have a Mauser automatic pistol in a clumsy shoulder holster, a bent Russian cigarette hanging perilously out of the corner of my mouth, and an espresso in a small chipped cup in my left hand. My pet lion, Ulysses, will occupy the front passenger seat. Maps will be scattered carelessly about the vehicle, and I will be dictating orders and letters for the entire trip, which my passengers will be typing out furiously on typewriters from the 30's.

Pic of Ulysses taken just after we conquered Mars

Mandrake

Winter Blues Got You Down? Well, Too Bad!

Ah'm just joshing. Of course I'll rescue you, through the power of your own *IMAGINATION*. Just imagine how great summer is going to be! Or at least spring! For those on the Riviera who don't have the Winter Blues™, this won't interest you.

This guy seems to be doing just fine. Why not you?

Picture Sunday afternoons in the backyard. You know the one's I mean- everyone sitting around the gallery or on the deck in straw hats, sipping Iced-Tea and talking about much mint makes a really good Mint Julip. Then somebody says, "who's up for tossing a few javelins"? You bring out the javelin barrel and set up the targets- a few on top of the neighbour's fence, some in the windows of your home, and a bunch of stuffed toys scattered around the yard (mostly plush cats and dogs, maybe a baby seal or a dinosaur that squeaks). Minutes later the yard looks like a pin-cushion, your neighbours are being taken away in ambulances, and the police are slapping the cuffs on you.

Another thing that's fun is a bean-eating contest in your living room. You get like 9 or 10 guys and a few vats of beans (you might want to give everyone a napkin to tuck into their shirts). Then you fire of a shotgun and the whole group starts eating like crazy! Every 2 minutes you stop eating and tell everyone to breath in and out really fast so they hyperventilate- that way people get light-headed and start laughing uncontrollably as they cram the beans. You should have a funny joke prize like a big can of beans for the winner.

If that's not enough fun for you, try this: Convincing a dog that it's a horse. You will need a small joke saddle and a little racetrack.

Finally, try convincing your 20-Something aged nephews that they are not animals but in fact humans. You will need a classroom, a laser-pointer and doll house to show them what living indoors is like. If you have a lot of time to kill, try teaching them how to read.

Tell me how it worked for you,

Mandrake

Godzilla goes Red; takes Jet Jaguar along for the ride

The new "Axis of Evil", or just clowning around?

8 October, 2011
Reuters- Tokyo, Japan

"Red October" kicked off with a surprise today when it was announced that Godzilla has embraced Marxism. Even more surprising was Jet Jaguar, the self-programming robot, has joined him in the new "Socialist Monster Pact", or SocMonPac. Professor A. Japp, of the University of Hiroshima was asked how and why this turn around has occurred. "Both Jet Jaguar and Godzilla worked hand in hand with capitalist governments in the past. Their casino in Seatopia topped two million  USD in profits last year. The lack of actual space-monster attacks and the halt to nuclear testing in the Pacific may have turned them into soft-headed limousine-liberals lately, but this step seems unprecidented."

Some hints may have been overlooked. In a TIME magazine interview last year Jet Jaguar joked that if he became an Obama-style socialist, it would make him the 'biggest' Communist on earth.

Godzilla also took the opportunity to unveil his new book "The Soviet Monster", which outlines how by rejecting the past and its traditions while embracing education, Monster-Kind will usher in a golden age of perpetual revolution.

Air forces of the free world have been put on full alert.

Mandrake

Fixing Hollywood, Part II: The Ringbearer Trilogy

Since close to 100% of movies and TV produced today are worse than vomit, I have decided to step in and turn things around. I have a great idea for a movie trilogy. The first in the series is "Runaway Ringbearer", about a young boy who always runs away during wedding ceremonies due to nerves and ruins all kinds of weddings where he is the ringbearer. I know what you're thinking- "How many weddings is this kid going to be Ring Bearer at?" My answer- "Can't you suspend your disbelief for ONE MINUTE???!?!?"

His little tux, in which he runs away a lot

The second one is "Runaway Ringbearer II: The Remorse of the Ringbearer". In this story the Ringbearer is an old man racked by guilt over the weddings he has ruined. He spends his declining years building a time machine. His plan? Go back in time, become Ringbearer at HIS OWN parent's wedding, run away, thus ruining it and ensuring he is never born. That way the other weddings he ruined would be saved.

Finally, capping off the series is "A Bullet in Time". This is a story of how someone idly shooting at trees in his backyard fires one through a knot-hole in a tree that is a time portal. The bullet makes it to Dallas in 1963 where, you guessed it, he kills Kennedy. Not sure how this fits with the first two parts of the trilogy or how it ends. I just like the name.

Now the bad news. I am also capable of traveling through time thanks to my pal, The Time Traveling Cervantes™. It seems in the future I go to the premiere of the trilogy and come out against it critically with a savage panning. Here is the transcript which Cervantes mailed to me two weeks from now, if you can wrap your head around that:

Are you ready for this? I'm not!

"This movie trilogy is really boring. Where are the Cardinals diving for sunken treasure off the Grand Caymans? Where are the bears savaging Indians while the Indians are savaging settlers? Where's the drunken Belgian Aristocrat weaving carelessly down the broad streets of Liege in a sports-car, causing tourists to jump into medieval fountains, ruining their digital cameras? Finally, Where is the Japanese sailor dancing in panic on a torpedo speeding towards an aircraft carrier, when all along he just wanted to take a catnap in a torpedo tube?"

Gosh, I was hard on myself!


Mandrake

Fixing Hollywood, Part I

You know how they have these "behind the scenes" shows about how some actors are b*stards or slipped on a marble or something? Those are boring. They should have a new show called "True Hollywood Behind The Scenes" where they have dramatizations since they don't have the film.

He did it for the money

The first episode would be of the urbane Vincent Price as Egghead on Batman. You show a few clips of the show with him saying "Eggstravagant" or "Eggsistential" and prancing around with an armful of eggs. Then you have a dramatization of him going to his trailer and crying his eyes out from the embarrassment. Then he pulls himself together like the consummate professional he was and heads back on stage, where Batman and Robin throw eggs at him for two full minutes. Suddenly the phone rings and it's his agent telling him that his next role is as a vampire in a low-budget Hammer film called "The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires", or something. Cut to a drunken Price in a motel cabin, throwing a noose over a rafter.

OK, so it's full of half truths. So what? While we're at it, have a scene where he's hiding in some bushes with a pair of binoculars, ogling Yvonne Craig:

"Eggcellent"

Anyway, it might not totally fix Hollywood, but it's a start.

Mandrake

Star Wars Episode 7: Judgement at Endor

"I find your lack of faith disturbing. Also, I heard what you said about my mother."

The three-and-a-half hour film covers the Court Martial of the Commander of the Imperial Stormtroopers that got clobbered by the Ewoks in Episode 6. Here's a bit of the transcript:

Judge: Commander, how is it that an entire LEGION of Elite Stormtroopers was wiped out by some midgets in badly sewn costumes, armed with twigs?
Commander: Well, I should mention that before the battle the Clones were up all night watching "The Green Berets", so they were both tired AND cocky.
Judge: Still, it WAS quite a defeat wasn't it?
Commander: We've had worse. Remember when Han solo chased those all soldiers down the corridor of the Death Star? Darth Vader had to Force-Strangle all of them as an example. Took him 20 minutes.
Judge: Yes, that was a bad one. What about the amazing technical edge you had on the enemy?
Commander: Unfortunately the Clones REALLY looked down on the Ewoks. They figured, "What are they going to do, get us to slip on their blaster-charred entrails"? That's when the logs started crushing them.
Judge: Why didn't you just shoot the logs?
Commander (smirking): If you had any field experience, you wouldn't ask that question.
Judge: A legion of men are dead, Commander- this is not a laughing matter.
Commander: Correction- a legion of CLONES are dead. We can make new ones, hopefully less sissy-fied.

I smell an OSCAR

Know Your Enemy: Darth Vader
It's a good thing that "The Force" is grace-based rather than works-based, otherwise Darth Vader would never have made it to the sparkly but boring afterlife with the three other Jedi that make up the entire popluation. He killed the Sand-People, the Younglings, Padme, Mace-Up Windex (that was his name, right?), a whole whack of Admirals, and is sought for the attempted murder of Obi-Wan Komodo. He has the death sentence in more than twelve systems, my friend.

He also cheated in the pod race. However, to lay the failure of the Endor campaign at his feet may be "A Bear Too Far". He showed the Stormtroopers pictures of Princess Leia in the slave outfit that Jaba sent him. Nothing. No effect. He spent his vacation time force-choking the real jellyfishes among them, all to no avail. Something about working for an Emperor who looks like Ethel Merman just sapped the vitality out of the whole corp.

Or maybe the Ewoks just wanted it more.


Mandrake

Hey, Beavers cut down trees with their TEETH

Scouts to no longer bring penknives on camping trips
"Scouts will now be a little worse prepared after they were banned from carrying their traditional penknives due to the fears of those in charge of health and safety. New advice published in Scouting, the official in-house magazine, says neither Scouts nor their parents should bring penknives to camp except in "specific" situations. Scouts have traditionally been taught how to use knives correctly, using them on camping trips to cut firewood or carve tools."

At least they still practice deadly Scout-Fu

When they came for Chili-Cheese Fries, I didn't speak up, because I was more
partial to Nachos.

When they came for the Matadors, I didn't speak up, even though my uncle
was a Picador, because I prefered Bear-Baiting.

When they came for the Scout's knives, I didn't speak up because, one time,
OK, there was this scout, and ...(ten minutes later)... anyway, I don't own
that boat anymore.

When they came for me, there was no one left to speak up, except for
99.9999% of society, but half of them were reading 'Twilight' and the rest
were watching hilarious Reality TV, so you guessed it, they got me.

Listen, when I was in Scouts we carried knives. At harvest time we could
afford porters to carry them for us, and maybe even get them to whittle for us.
There were NO unhealthy side effects, except maybe the fact that I still butter
my toast with a hatchet.


Mandrake

Here Here, Commander Ishiba!

Japan defense chief mulling action in event of UFO attack

As Japan takes a more active role in military affairs, the defense minister
has more on his mind than just threats here on Earth. Shigeru Ishiba became
the second member of the Cabinet to profess a belief in UFOs and said he was
looking at how Japan's military could respond to aliens under the pacifist Constitution.

"There are no grounds for us to deny that there are unidentified flying
objects [UFOs] and some life-form that controls them," Ishiba told
reporters, saying it was his personal view and not that of the defense
ministry.

* * * * *

Don't worry Ishiba-San, I've already posted a sentry to keep us alerted
to the Alien threat:

Say what you will, but at least he brought his own chair

Also, I propose, as a deterrent, the Dracula Ray™. By deploying the Dracula
Ray™ we turn all of the earth's population into vampires, making tangling
with us a losing proposition to would-be interstellar conquerors. The sleepy and
feckless Aliens from the Popeye Nebula would sooner take up Bug-Eyed Tennis™
than set foot on a planet full of Christopher Lees.

My passport photo

Mandrake

As Urgent as Finishing Your Drink on the Titanic

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Clearly the way to make a b'zillion dollars is to capitalize on people's
credulity about the environment and the impending demise of humanity and the
extinction of all life on the planet zzzzzzzzzzzz*snore*zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....
Huh? Where am I? Oh yeah.

Remember, the important part about being Green is to be *seen* to be Green,
not to actually do anything or hope to have any impact. That's not important.
You need to LOOK like you care. And feel guilty. Don't forget to feel guilty.

Here is an item from the new "Seen to Be Green" catalog I'm putting
together:

The Pork-Pie EnviroLid
Remember Pork-Pie Hats? No? Here's a picture you may recognize:

Gene Hackman before he became an actual hack

90% of the heat you produce escapes into the atmosphere
FROM THE TOP OF YOUR HEAD. What item has become
unfashionable in the past 50 years?  

HATS.

That's exactly when the earth's temperature started going up, isn't it?
Coincidence? I think not. The new Pork-Pie EnviroLid is more than just a
hat. It uses Space-Age Co-Polymers™ in its lining to trap CO2 from escaping
by transforming it into the form of sweat! The more you sweat, the more you know
you're saving the environment. Just compost the hat after six months.

SALES SLOGAN: Where's Your EnviroLid, Kid?


Mandrake