Tom Oatmeal

Well the commercial starts and the guy is all friendly! 

“Hey this is the best Black Friday sale EVER!  Buy a mattress and get a TV!”

Then a tiny doll-sized version of the man pops out from behind the sale sign and reminds the guy to tell us about how the TV comes with a remote control!

This irritates the man because he’s been in business for a long time and knows that when you’re talking to folks about getting a free TV, it goes without saying that the damn thing is going to come with a remote control.

The man thinks that part, but what he yells to his doll-sized counterpart is:

“What is this!?  The stone age?”

The little man ponders this and that’s when the big guy grabs the little man and shoves him inside of a hotdog bun.

The little guy screams and we watch a closeup of condiments being poured onto him.  Then we’re back to the wide frame! 

The mattress guy eats the hotdog and in doing so, murders his miniature counterpart.  It’s slow and awful!   When he finishes he apologizes, but not for himself!  He apologizes for the doll guy and we’re like, “WHAT!?”

Then he grins and goes, “Now I’m doubly smart!”

But then a doctor explains to the man that eating another person doesn’t mean you inherit their intellect.

“The chewing probably destroyed his brain,” says the doctor.

“I’m same smart,” says the mattress man, correcting himself. 

But we’ll be there on Friday because a good deal is a good deal.

The villain tells the Main Spy that the human body is 60% water and so the Main Spy gladly punches the villain off the plank and into the gigantic aquarium.

“Make that 100% water,” says the Main Spy.

But then the rescued scientist explains that just because a body is submerged in water doesn’t mean it adopts a higher overall percentage of water.

The Main Spy thinks about this for a second and then shoots the scientist in the stomach, killing him.

Using sign language, he explains to Mr. Caliente, his ape assistant that a lot of what makes a mission successful is positive energy and that pointing out inaccuracies in water percentage estimates is NOT conducive to positive energy.

Mr. Caliente nods and signs: “Plus, it won’t help us get the Senator’s daughter back.”

The Main Spy smiles and tousles the ape’s hair.  Right.  It won’t help get the Senator’s daughter back.

Later, back at headquarters, the commissioner is outraged upon hearing the news of the scientist’s death.

“Who the fuck commits suicide by shooting himself in the stomach?”

“Beats us, man.”

Every politician’s worst nightmare is to make a big photo-op out of handing over your “I Voted” sticker to a child to add to his sticker album.  Then later, while the candidate is answering media questions, that same child staggers back into the crowd, all zig-zaggy because his eyes are glued shut from screwing around with the sticker adhesive, which causes him to get run over by a truck that was delivering the politician’s campaign buttons.

“And Jesus took the man with the whole apple stuck in his mouth and placed his head into the mouth of a horse so that when the animal gently bit down, the pressure smashed the apple and both man and beast were fed.”

-Ephesians, 4:12

Happy Halloween!  

Eric and I carved pumpkins.  His looks like garbage because he’s an idiot.  He’s out trick-or-treating now so if you see a dog dressed as Reginald VelJohnson from Die Hard, that’s him.  Please put the candy in the bag attached to his back and then lightly push him in the direction of the next house.  If his police hat is crooked, please adjust it.  Thanks. 

Air Bud or Teen Wolf?  (Gom Totemeal’s Baskety-bulb Report!)

Well the baskety-bulb season has arrived upon us in very much the same way a stationary cart of bulbs can get kicked over, causing them to roll quickly towards us.  So why not take a look at the defending winners of the Big Trophy: The Miami Heat?

Every team likes bench players, but who between Teen Wolf and Air Bud would be the better bench player for the Miami Heat? Why, it’s Teen Wolf of course!  First off, he plays the kind of fast-paced, high IQ basketball that the Miami Heat thrive on. He’s prone to taking bad shots, but I think there is enough team leadership to make him into a more disciplined distributor. The biggest downside is that on nights where he refuses to play as a werewolf, he’s simply not good enough to even consider putting on the floor. However, I think a guy like Norris Cole would be more than capable of patching up any holes left from a Teen Wolf absence.

As for Air Bud, I definitely respect his defense, but I think as a scorer, he relies too heavily upon the game’s intangibles. I’m also leery of the ongoing custody battle that exists between Air Bud’s new owner, Josh, and his previous owner, the alcoholic clown, Norman Snively. If Snively wins custody of the dog midseason, that would likely pull Air Bud out of the mix indefinitely and that’s a risk that no team can afford.

What do you think? 

The magic trick starts when the magician brings his car to a halt at a stoplight.  He glances ahead to a coffee shop where, through the window, an attractive young woman can be seen reading a book.

Through the magician’s eyes we watch and his vision slowly zooms in on the woman, closer and closer until the next shot, where he’s standing inside the coffee shop, right next to her. 

With both hands gripping a steering wheel and a seatbelt draped loosely over his shoulder, the magician is like, “Ta da!”

The woman is startled and she jumps. 

But the magician expected this and so he does a great job helping the woman understand that what she’s witnessing is more than just a guy who wandered up with a detached steering wheel in his hand.  He explains the car and the whole “zooming in” thing and really, it’s his description that is the real magic.

“He’s lying,” says a wrinkly old lady.  “I saw him walk in.”

A witch!  Or a masked opponent?

The magician dives and tackles the naysayer to the ground.  He tries to unmask her, but the advanced age of the old lady makes it hard for the magician to differentiate between the edge of a mask and folds of loose neck-skin.  In fact, he’s still tugging away on her face when the police arrive.

The magician’s car is never found.  As for that steering wheel - well, the junk yard manager has a junk yard to run and if we think he’s going to go car to car looking to see which one seems to be missing a fucking steering wheel, then we’re crazy.

Well hot dog!  I won the Powerball AND received a Fuckbook “Freind” request!  I think a “Freind” is an upside down friend; like a friend who approaches you by walking on their hands.  Either way, I’m flattered!  Thanks, Junk Mail!

The publication was called “Animals.”  It was a homemade magazine and each issue was written by hand and contained unique photographs.  No copies.

“Whoever delivers this…” I said, trembling.

“What?” said my wife, Diane.

“I don’t know.”

And I didn’t know.   Was locking the doors enough?  Staying away from the windows?

“Well, I think it’s cute,” said Diane.  “It’s kind of amazing that Toby has kept it up this long.”

“Toby…” I thought.  “Hmm…”

And so Diane reminded me that in the early days of the summer, our 7-year old neighbor, Toby, had gone door to door asking each family in the neighborhood if they would let him take pictures of their pets for a magazine he was making.  They were quick to oblige and so Toby started right away. 

By the end of the week, the first issue of “Animals” was delivered to every house on the street.  There was no order to the magazine, no table of contents – just a photograph of each animal splashed crookedly onto the page with a brief description listing the name of the animal, the general type (dog, cat, bird, etc.), and the owner’s name.

I thumbed through it, unimpressed.

“It’s shit,” I said.  “A total snooze-fest.”

“He’s seven.”

“That’s no excuse.  Look at this.  What are they doing?” 

But Diane ignored me.

“He needs to dig in…go after the good stuff.  Which animal escaped?  And when he did, who did the animal try to bite?  Which animals are fucking?  Which animal crapped in someone yard?  THAT is what we people want to read about.”

And that’s exactly what the next and final issue of “Animals” had; Eight pages of graphic smut.  Diane was furious.

“I wonder who helped him with this.”

I didn’t say a word.

“They saw you, you know.  Every person on this street said that they saw you out there.  In between the houses, climbing fences…”

With shaky hands, Diane flipped the magazine open to page six.

“This picture of shit,” she said.   “Who…”

“It was a dog,” I said. 

“But it’s not…”

“It was a big, man-dog.”

A few weeks into the fall, it was rare to find an animal left unattended anywhere in the neighborhood.  That’s what I’d heard, anyway.

House arrest was over and I had a strip-mall nightclub to promote.