While washing someone else’s dishes Monologue

“Is anyone without guilt? A few people, but they’re all conceited assholes. Most of us do things at least partially to make up for past evils. I think if I wasn’t such a sadistic prick as a 9-year-old I wouldn’t go out of my way to hold doors and carry other people’s dishes now. It’s not 1-to-1 recompense, but that kind of motivation is in everyone. We’ve all done myriad things we feel poorly over for some reasons. All the do-gooders are like that. I mean, I guess Gandhi or Jesus might not be – but Gandhi was making up for his entire country, and Jesus was making up for the entire universe being kind of a bitch. If you’re really so nice that you haven’t done anything wrong you can always outsource your guilt. Volunteer at a blood bank, battered women’s shelter or soup kitchen; they’ve always got a surplus of other people’s evil. Make up for someone else today! And pass the grease cutter.”

Bathroom Monologue: Some jokes are below even me

[GARY sits on a chair at the head of the booth in a purple pinstripe suit; SPIDER sits on one side of the booth in a spandex superhero costume; GRUFF STOVER sits next to SPIDER, wearing desert camouflage; and AJA the GIANT FLOATING EYEBALL floats on the other side of the booth, alone. AJA has pink eye.]

Gary: It all comes down to the same: life sucks, and then you die!
Aja: Are you sure that's all? I'm pretty sure I had a turkey club somewhere in there.
Gary: The turkey club is overshadowed by the mass of disappointments in the rest of your life.
Aja: I don’t think you’ve had this turkey club.
Spider: And sex.
Stover: I like sex.
Gary: I like getting it, but the pursuit takes forever. It’s a lopsided venture: days of romancing and paying for dinner for five minutes in the sack.
Spider: Five minutes?
Stover: I think we’ve figured out why you haven’t been enjoying it.
Gary: I get bored. I walked out on it once to make a sandwich.
Aja: A turkey club?
Gary: Fried egg sandwich, actually. I suddenly really wanted one.
Spider: Well there. Sex and a sandwich in an hour.
Gary: Half hour, actually.
Stover: Neither accounted for in your philosophy of life sucking and dying, Horatio.
Aja: Sucking can count in-
Aja, Gary and Stover: No.

Snow Men at Flashshot

You can see a special Bathroom Monologue today at GW Thomas's site, Flashshot. It's about a revolution of snow men. I think you'll like it.

URL: http://www.gwthomas.org/flashshotindex.htm

Bathroom Monologue: Finally beat the computer at chess, running to the bathroom, and presto, monologue

A common question about the Chess Emperor series of computer games is why the program refuses to let players make moves that would put their Kings in checkmate. Some players complain it restricts the feeling of movement and realism, though most are grateful that the games don't let them screw themselves. The first edition of Chess Emperor allowed such movements, leading to a remarkable number of monitors being destroyed in frustration by players who had never played chess until they got bored at work. Apparently after a few games witlessly wandering into checkmate drove them over the edge. One firm suspected that sales of new monitors went up 7% based on Chess Emperor-related incidents alone. The leading computer monitor company lobbied to keep the checkmate-option in Chess Emperor games, but the head game designer moodily removed it after the lobbyist made the faux pas of beating him at checkers.

Bathroom Monologue: “Here lies John Wiswell”

They dug up his grave at 2:00 AM after the groundskeeper finally nodded off. The four worked in shifts of two, two keeping watch while two shoveled dirt. Around 3:00 they unearthed the coffin and pried back the lid, only to find a plastic skeleton. Its right hand was giving them the middle finger. Its left hand clutched a note. Norman snatched it up.

It read: “The tombstone said I lied.”

Bathroom Monologue: Bucking Samurai

“No, it’s not your kimono. I’m just cracking up at all the samurai with deer antlers on their helmets. I guess really crazy pointy things look demonic or intimidating in war, and this custom was established before a lot of natural biology came about, but you do realize antlers are mostly a mate-attraction-thing, right? Meaning that Japan’s greatest warriors have big old deer hooters hanging over their faces?”

Bathroom Monologue: Dead Hedgehog Thread

To start off her artistic photoblog, Maryse uploaded a single photo – a stunning, high-definition image of a hedgehog that had been run over in the middle of a highway, from eyelevel with the dead animal. You could see all the cracks in the pavement, as well as its entrails – the thing had almost been split in two by whoever had run it over. Ahead the viewer could see the clear sky, uncaring over the death below. She titled it “Progress #1.” She left the blog alone for a day before checking the comments.

There were a couple of complaints about the disgustingness of the picture, then a few questioning its authenticity as there were no flies hovering around the carrion. Starting at 1:13 AM, somebody had posted a photoshopped version of Progress #1 in the comments section, adding a swarm of flies along its entrails. The next comment was another image, titled “Progress #3,” kept the flies and added a party hat onto the hedgehog's head.

“What the Hell?” Maryse asked her computer, scrolling down. There were dozens of images.

Progress #4 replaced the animal with Sonic the Hedgehog, reclining on the highway and wagging his finger at her.

Progress #5 pasted a cherry red corvette onto the street and cropped the top half of the hedgehog such that it looked like it was at the wheel, waving one paw in the wind. Its dead eyes looked almost happy in the new juxtaposition.

Progress #9 added a cartoon chicken crossing beside the hedgehog.

Progress #12 cut and pasted the two halves of the hedgehog together, drew in some stitches and added metallic bolts to its neck.

Progress #25 photoshopped a dramatically shrunken child putting a golf ball between the halves of the dead hedgehog while little cartoon animals cheered along the side of the road.

There were 42 Progresses before one textual comment appeared. It read, “I fucking love you guys.”

Progress #43 was the bifurcated hedgehog thinking, “I fucking love you guys” in a thought bubble.

Maryse deleted her account the next day, but the images have circulated for months. Just when people forget them, they pop back up again. Photoshop geeks have tried to create new Progresses, but for some reason nobody finds them as funny as the originals.

Bathroom Monologue: One Line, One Kill

I've written four short stories this month, or at least a good skeleton of four, and I've found each has at least one monologue followed immediately by an ironic one-sentence reply. For instance, this from a piece I'm calling “Physic:”

“The first great war was at Ilion, the fields before Troy. There the Greeks besieged the Trojans. It inspired sundry plays and poems, including the original European epic, The Iliad. Homer, Europe's father of poetry, lavished praise on the warriors of both sides, and began the long tradition of valuing war above all other things. The honor among combatants, the glory of success in battle, the beauty of death in fighting, the riches of victory – these things are sewn throughout all the cultures that speak a European language. Among the Greeks were the faceless Myrmidons, who Homer described as literally bloodthirsty. While other men were lions, the Myrmidons were wolves. They were the fiercest, most effective fighting force of the heroic army. The conquering army. Even when Achilles retired to his ship, they fought on. But if the wolves had retreated, the war would have been an utterly lost cause, and European history would have a far more interesting focal point: what happened to the great warrior wolf pack that left battle? What did they leave it for? What did they do instead of kill? The Myrmidons are dead, but the Last Wolves of Ilion still run. They are we, and we will not answer Agamemnon's call.”

“Who's Agamemnon?”

Stifle your desire to tell me how insipid the monologue is and notice this sort of thing seems to be in everything I'm writing these days. Checking short stories from a few months ago, I see it again and again. The phenomenon occurs multiple times in my novel, and its first draft was composed four years ago.

You could call it a bad habit. I've come to cherish this gag, partly because it can be actually funny, and partly because it's a biographical note. I've been dropping what I considered hefty knowledge and heftier thoughts my whole life only to have idiots ask who Agamemnon was, or asking if the U.S. wasn't a democracy, or worst of all, “Yeah, but…”

I've never met a “Yeah, but…” that I didn't want to shove in front of a moving train. Maybe that's what this habit is about. Not shoving those migraine-inducing questions onto the tracks, but reminding them that we are standing on a platform.

Bathroom Monologue: Anthropology of Internet Lingo

Facebook: To strike someone in the nose with a large tome. Considered rude.

Myspace: The radius around a drunk girl through which no one may venture without the risk of being splattered with sudden projectile vomit.

1337 Speak: To say out loud the only whole number existing between 1336 and 1338.

LMAO: Onomatopoeia for the way Americans believe a French cat meows.

STFU: Sound effect for someone falling down a flight of stairs.

IDK: Sound effect for road tacks deploying from the back of a police cruiser.

TTYL: The name of something, such as a book or movie.

Youtube: The male reproductive organ. Polite phrasing.

Google: A word that does not actually mean anything itself but can redirect you to any other word, and yet somehow manages to be more profitable than almost all of the other words. Considered rude. Synonyms: Yahoo, Metacrawler.

Noob: A droopy doorknob.

Filk: To throw up in your friend’s new car.

Metacritic: The five-second bonus time a critic is given for a high score on criticizing something, during which period he or she may make any claim he or she wishes without rebuttal.

Haxor: The god of striking things with an axe. See also: Apollo.

Blog: A secondary log, possibly kept in case Alog is too moist to ignite.

Sry: The death cry of a South African parakeet.

Pr0n: The pointy things on the male end of a cable.

IAKTBTFCA.DYKICMUAT?: Acronym for: “I already knew that but thanks for condescending anyway. Did you know I can make up acronyms too?”

Possible Lack of Updates

I am using the last of my battery back-up to make this post. On Thursday night a heck of a storm ripped through the area, leaving trees coated in ice and over 32,000 people without power just in my area. I am uploading a few monologues and post-dating them for the week, but please excuse if it isn't updated daily for a little while. I swear it isn't due to laziness. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go figure how physics allowed everything to spoil in my freezer when it's so fricking cold in my kitchen.

Bathroom Monolouge: Do the trains run on time from southern Mongolia?

[DARKLOSS SOULRIPPER VON ALUCARDIA sits on one side of the booth wearing a three-piece grey suit and a giant, sentient red cape, the ends of which are chewing on the upholstery. ARYANA sits on the opposite side of the booth wearing a chain-mail bikini that can be neither practical nor comfortable. GRUFF STOVER sits to her left in desert camouflage. SAMID sits to his left, wearing a spandex superhero costume that looks identical to SPIDER’s, and thus leaves one with the epistemological question of how we know it is SAMID.]
Darkloss: It’s semantically deceptive. Light has little or no substance and certainly can’t cut, so the blade can’t be made of light. “Sabre” specifically refers to a class of swords with one cutting edge and one dull edge, but the lightsabre’s entire surface cleaves. So you see it’s neither made of light, nor is it a sabre.
Aryana: Why do you hate fun?
Darkloss: I don’t…
Samidider: Why can I tell you spell saber with an “re” just by listening to you?
Stover: And why does that make me want to hit you?
Aryana: Why do bad things happen to good people?
Stover: If all matter is indestructible and uncreatable, merely constant, then where did it come from?
Samidider: Who is your favorite president, what is the worst thing he ever did in office, and how do you reconcile yourself?
Aryana: Why didn’t my father stay?
Samidider: Is “why” a real question, or a mutation of speech habits that survived on such luck that it utterly disproves natural selection even as it proves its mechanisms?
Stover: If a train leaves Beijing at 1:00 A.M. GMT, and a second train traveling at twice the speed of Train A departs from northern Mongolia, how long does a third train departing from southern Sweden…
[DARKLOSS flees from the table screaming]
Aryana: It was about time.
[The remaining three nod and return to eating their strawberry frosted shredded mini-wheats.]
Stover: By the way, Spider. Good questions. You been reading?
Samidider: Only doujinshi.
Aryana: Those have come a long way.

Holiday Movie Guide for Men, OR, This Is Unusually Topical and Could be a Dangerous Precedent

Role Models: "I wouldn't see you a month ago, but you're still around and everything that's come out to fill up the theatre since is crap. It's time we deal, Devil."

The Spirit: "Iron Man. Hellboy 2. Dark Knight. Superhero movies have been good to me this year. Even if this blows, I can take one for the team."

The Day the Earth This Title is Too Long: "I could probably get the same stimulation watching things blow up on the Discovery Channel, but it's better than Beverly Hills Chihuahua."

Four Christmases: "My willingness going in is directly proportioned to the likelihood of sex on the other end of viewing."

Australia: "God dammit, we already saw Four Christmases!"

Bolt: "Seriously. I will take up reading if you don't stop."

Rachel Getting Married: "I want to see Rachel Getting Married. I know that probably makes me gay, but, eh. I think I've done all I can with female genitalia anyway."

Twilight: "Not only will it be mind numbing, but it will give my daughters romantic, and thus partially sexualized thoughts. No and no."

The Wrestler: "Like a Swiss army knife when I was a kid: my family says it's okay because it's a utility, but I know why I really want it. Awesome."

Yes Man. “I’ll tell you why you’re seeing this instead of renting something you wanted. It’s because your family feels liberated to talk during a movie if it’s on a TV, but has the social grace to shut up if strangers are around and it’s dark. Remember, watching movies with your family is the way to bond – bonding through spending time with them and not wanting to kill them.”

The Reader/Milk/Doubt/Frost/Nixon: "An intellectually stimulating film? In my theatre? I better buy tickets before they realize what they're showing."

Thought in the Public Domain

Aegis scoffed at the human. "Philosophy is illegal in my homeland. All freethinking does is get in the way of progress. A thousand generations ago they set the rules for inquiry, worship and government, and we have ruled the world for 997 generations since. We know what's right and don't pretend anything else like some other cultures."

"What? My world is full of freethinkers!"

"Lies. The people let you think what they feel like, but there's no such thing as free thought. I'll even give you the test: do you have insane people where you come from?"

"Mad folk? Yes."

“Is insanity a legal term?”

He stammered, “I guess.”

"And what do you do with insane people?"

"We send them to asylums for treatment. We get them help."

"So if someone thinks too differently you lock him up until he thinks like you want him to? Such a society of freethinkers!"

"They're a danger to themselves, and to others..."

"Yes, that is always how it begins."

Bathroom Monologue: Bedside Anthropology

We can deduce a lot about this culture from its bedding. Note that the Single Mattress, presumably intended for one person, is 39 inches wide. The Double Mattress, which must have been intended for two people, is 54 inches, which suggests and twins and most married couples must have been grossly malnourished to enable both people to fit on it overnight. And yet the Queen Mattress is 60 inches, suggesting female monarchs must have been morbidly obese, requiring more sleeping space than an entire married couple. Considering the humans evolved on the same planet as bees and bees have enormous queens, it is possible they had a similar gorging impulse as the insects. One would expect male tyrants to exhibit similar gluttony, but the King Mattress is only 76 inches – suggesting that a married king would only have 16 inches of sleeping width to himself if he were to ever sleep with his wife, and considering the importance of queens in the reproductive habits of other species, he must have done so frequently. What a terrible and tiny existence kings must have led after dark, and at the dining table.

Bathroom Monologue: Bathroom in the Mall of America

"The mall of America has fifty stores. Ironically, 47 of them just sell teens bitching how they've got to get out of this town. One of the stores is actually a federated archipelago of tables sprawled out across an area that, if it were considered one store, would be as large as the largest of the other stores. This federated archipelago store sells grass skirts."

Bathroom Monologue: In ___ We ___

In the wake of the campaign to remove “In God We Trust” from the one dollar bill, I have the following list of demands. I figure if an omniscient benevolent entity isn't trustworthy, then all of these are sensible:
-George Washington: off the bill. He owned slaves. What the Hell?
-Pyramid: off the bill. Everyone knows those things were built by slaves. Seriously, what the Hell?
-The eye on the pyramid: get rid of it. It's watching me at night.
-The color green: change it. Shows a bias towards the Green Movement when we all know global warming is just a theory.
-“E Pluribus Unum:” off the bill. This stands for “all for one,” which is a little too Commie-happy for this man's America.
-If you fold currency in several positions it wasn't originally intended to be bent it depicts the Twin Towers attacks: more of this crazy ****, please.
-Eagle on backside of the bill is in lewd position: gross. The shield isn't fooling anyone. Either let it all hang out there or make that bird cross its legs.
-“The United States of America” at the top of either side of the bill: remove it. I know U.S. students have poor scores in geography, but Alaska and Hawaii are clearly not united to the continent.
-The ones in all four corners: off the bill. Ever since elementary school math I've been baffled how something with four ones on it could only be worth one dollar. Either let my ones be worth four dollars or change it. Frankly, if you could just issue me blank slips of paper and let me write how much they are worth for myself I'd be a lot happier.

Bathroom Monologue: Places there might be a spy camera, OR, Public Bathroom Stall Monologue

Drain in the floor. Soap dispenser. Maybe inside the faucets, to get close-ups of your fingertips so they can model fake fingerprints and indemnify me later. Smoke detector in the ceiling’s obvious. One could be hidden in the grooves of any of the screws on these doors. At least one is in the coat hook on the door – it’s long and straight, perfect for a camera micro-lens. One could also be in any of the three bolts that hold it to the door, and one could be in the tip of the second little mandible hook under the regular hook – the thing that makes a coat hook look like a claw, and that nobody uses out of a mingled lack of clothing and primal fear of giant lobsters. I’ve foiled that complicated plan by putting my jacket on it. Bet they didn’t see that coming. But if both pieces of the hook have spy cameras, multiple spy organizations may be watching me. What are they after? Is one a force for good? Are they both racing to decode the label on my jacket collar? If I say it’s 40% polyester, have I revealed too much?

Bathroom Monologue: Dumb Things Break People Up

[GARY sits in the booth, wearing a pink tuxedo. ??? sits across from him in a black pantsuit. They are both read faced. Neither has touched their drinks.]
???: Why do you always turn everything into a joke?
Gary: I don't. Most things can stay the way they are. But some things, like this? They deserve it. I've been trying to get you to just crack a smile for years and you're still a saggy, frowny bitch. That? That I want to make into a joke.
???: That's not funny!
Gary: And neither are you. My point exactly.
???: You have to take some things seriously. Be an adult.
Gary: I don’t see a lot of eleven-year-old stand-up comics. It seems to me that humor is an adult thing. Crying? Getting pissy? Those are the things a two-year old does.
???: Laughter isn’t going to pay the bills! You can’t just laugh this off.
Gary: You can’t fight this off, either. We’re fighting right now and all I want to do is walk out the door. People who laugh together want to stay together.
???: That’s typical of you.
Gary: And that’s typical of everybody else. Seriousness is the cliché. At least I’m original.
[GARY looks out the window. ??? exits. After a moment, GARY looks around.]
Gary: When is everyone else going to get here?

"the small T. rex arms were often broken during..."

"the small T. rex arms were often broken during life. This fact suggests that they were poorly suited for whatever the dinosaurs were trying to use them for." -Gregory M. Erickson , Scientific American

Sometimes the world makes it too easy for me. I read a very interesting article ( http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=if-t-rex-fell-how-did-it ) this morning and have laughed every hour on the hour thanks to this one quote out of it. It’s triggered a rare event where I have too many Bathroom Monologue response ideas to actually compose one. Can I get away with a Bathroom Monologue that runs over some of the things that go through my mind in making a Bathroom Monologue? Let’s see.

One: My kid is lying in the middle of the road, bleeding. a heap on the ground beneath a tree, and the tree has a broken limb. This fact suggests he fell. Pointing out the explicit logical connection between two things can easily go over the edge and be hilarious. For instance, if I report, “My son is lying in the middle of the road, there’s blood everywhere and tire tracks are stretching out in that direction,” I don’t need to tell you, “He was probably hit by a motorcycle.”

Two: there's an old misuse of evolution that suggested animals developed traits because they wanted them. The giraffe has a long neck because its parents stretched really hard, you see? And while Mr. Erickson is hardly so ignorant as to mean such a phenomena is true, "whatever the dinosaurs were trying to use them for" summons the spectre of this mis-evolution.

Third: My deep love of explorative sciences, especially any that deal with giant, carnivorous lizards, demands I make fun of this. If it was about trilobites I could pass it up, but the t-rex is my hero. He needs to be immortalized not only as a skeleton in museums, but as something hilarious on a website only twenty people will ever read.

Fourth: I, thanking the almighty that no one is watching, return from the bathroom hunched over, with my elbows pulled into my ribs. The only thing that stifles my roar is the sound of a car passing outside. I hate other people. I miss dinosaurs.

Fifth: I am bombarded by a vast array of things the tyrannosaurus rex might have wanted to do with its arms that failed, leaving them broken.
Fifth A: T-Rex on a rock-climbing wall.
Fifth B: T-Rex on a slip n' slide, trying desperately to stop her momentum at the end of the slide with her tiny arms, only for the arms to snap off like twigs, leaving her to rocket into my aunt's petunias.
Fifth C: T-Rex sitting on a bench, curling weights. Keeps picking up heavier ones to impress the girls. Eventually, he reaches for one that is too heavy for his bone structure. Testosterone defeats men yet again.
Fifth D: T-Rexes thumb wrestling with two fingers. While previously not hazardous, the frustration of being thumbless leads them to rip each other's arms off.
Fifth E: T-Rexes, far more technologically advanced than we believe, build giant robotic arms that fit over their existing arms. Alas, the existing arms snap from the weight.
Fifth F: Wii bowling.

Bathroom Monologue: Little Beliefs

McClarry waved to the other leprechauns and whispered, “Guys! Come on!”

Waldgrave led them, crawling on his belly. He came up next to McClarry and peered over the hilltop. His eyes went wide. Mochrie gasped, and O’Donnell inhaled for such a shriek that those around him clamped their hands over his mouth to stifle it.

McClarry looked at them, shaking his head in disbelief. Waldgrave looked over the hill again, but they were still there. Two live children, playing on the swings.

“St. Peter. They do exist.”

Bathroom Monologue: Next, #2

“Yes, you are the third smartest man on the planet, while I’m only the thirteenth. But you only have two minutes to figure out the codes and trajectories of those missiles, stop the gas, and get in contact with three team mates in different longitudes of the globe before everyone on your team dies. That includes you. The third smartest man in the world has two minutes to foil a plan the thirteenth smartest put together over five and a half years, Doctor. It doesn’t take genius to know what happens in two minutes: I’ll be #12. Nice being your arch-rival while it lasted.”

Fifth Floor, Housewares and Diplomacy

Jangs didn't actually have a top floor to his house. He lived in a hotel, like hundreds of the Golden Emperor's crucial employees. Living in temporary housing and seeing people check out every time you walked in was supposed to remind you to do a good job, or your room would go to someone else. His Majesty was a brilliant motivational thinker.

Bathroom Monologue: Thinking about videogames, looking out the window

My videogame is going to have four playable characters who meet at a backyard barbecue just when the infernal legions of plague-spewing dinosaurs fall from the sky. Our first male character is the typical handsome lithe guy, used to dual-wielding shortswords. He's at the grill wearing a KISS THE COOK apron when techno-raptors drop onto his deck, leaving him to fight them off dual-wielding tongs and a spatula. See, nobody's got their weapons. The second, strapping young lad is chopping wood, and so gets lucky and fights with his maul. But it's got to get more ridiculous from there. I'm thinking the big guy (there's always a towering hulk in these games) comes down the stairs, sees the zombie brachiosaurus stampeding down the street, and snaps off the safety rail from the stairs to double as a quarterstaff. We'll have a female character just for gender dynamics, and as to thoroughly insult the female audience, she'll be gardening. Normally a whip user, she'll got through the first level with a hose. Nice to mix S&M with flower beds. Yeah, I'm totally making this game.

Bathroom Monologue: Word-Based Economy

Everyone bashes holidays. It’s become fashionable in our market place of ideas, which appears to have becoming a complaint-based economy. They bitch that Christmas is depressing and Thanksgiving supports obesity. It’s a symptom of a parasitic pseudo-culture, one that lives by denying and destroying but can barely create anything of its own – except guns and books about how other people are stupid, which I guess is somewhat creative, as enough of the attitudes fostered by the latter support sales of the former.

I’m a different sort. When I’m unpleased with holidays (and I am, especially around February 14), I make one up. I like the notions in general – the notion of the rejuvenating holy day, and the notion of the day off (which is twice as divine). I always doff my cap to the Pilgrims for picking a permanent Thursday of gratitude. It’s great that the oppressive Puritans installed the only four-day weekend in the hemisphere.

Halloween is my favorite. Candy everywhere, awesome or awesomely terrible movies on television, and nobody has to be themselves for a night. You can be Julius Caesar, Axl Rose or Zorro. Halloween comes with snacks, a genre of entertainment and an activity. It’s a model day.

I’m a creative sort, so let the word go forth from this time and spacebar that we’re going to have a Reading Day. This is when you take your favorite short story and read it to people. Novellas do not count, nor do stories written by you or anyone you know – that is cheating and I will not like you submarine my holiday with your kid’s crappy fiction. Pick your favorite author – Gabriel Marquez, Eudora Welty, Haruki Murakami, anybody. Pick your favorite story, grab some people, and read to them. You can even give copies of collections to friends and family for the commercial aspect. It will be a big deal for children to become literate soon enough to join their first Reading Day, even if most of them pick The Giving Tree or Good Night Moon.

Comic books will count, but you’ll have to gather a cast to read the other parts for you. You can only be Batman, not the narrator, the Joker and Alfred, too. The point, in the ears of Batman or the teeth of Edgar Allen Poe’s "Black Cat," is to gather (which, I guess, is more of a "House of Usher" theme). Gathering is essential to festivals.

We’ll put it on December 1st, to piss off the National Novel Writing Month people. I don’t mind the competition with the late-December juggernauts. A little competition between Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Eid-ul-Fitr and New Years turned them all into Happy Holidays. But instead of “On Dasher, on Dancer,” it’s on Kafka, on Kaufman, on King, on O’Connor, on Zelazny, on Barthelme, on Borges, on Hemingway, and of course, on Robert Frost’s On Writing.

Bathroom Monologue: Shadow of the Valley of Death

Livington is a wonderful town with a great view of the Purgatory. In the mornings the shadow of the Valley of Death passed right over them, but even this sight doesn’t help Livington’s poor tourism. You see the town council of Livington spent the entire treasury keeping any new towns from cropping up in the locale, zoning out developers who would block the view. They put their last pennies into advertising, but it didn’t catch. The ad was in Psalm 23 of “the Bible,” a very popular circular back in the day. With tourism being nearly non-existent, the town is pinning its budgetary hopes on suing the studio behind Pulp Fiction for cribbing from their ad.

Bathroom Monologue: Alternative Publishing

"Never go for the kill immediately. Parry. Avoid. Entice. Tire him out. When he tires, take advantage of his mistakes. If he cannot be tired, then make him bored and hasty. When he is frustrated, take advantage of his mistakes. If he cannot be tired or bored, he probably cannot be killed. Run away and write about it. You'll probably make good money."

Bathroom Monologue: “The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regimen of Women” –John Knox

The doors opened with what sounded like a trumpet. John was nearly knocked off his feet by the torrent of women in the lobby. Any of them were half his size, but they were many and he was confused. It was just 30% off!

He waded through screeching teens to the racks of blouses. His daughter only needed one, and she liked pink. He picked one up to examine it – 100% cotton, which was good.

It was “Made in Mexico” – better than Chinese labor practices, he guessed.

It was flying out of his hands – that was unexpected.

He turned to see a teenager carrying his daughter’s blouse and everything that had been on the rack with it up the aisles, screaming like she’d just beheaded the enemy chieftain.

He reached out with his right hand, groping for another the next rack, only to hear a distinctly Jewish scream of disgust. His cheek stung with the slap.

John turned to apologize, thinking he’d accidentally groped someone even though it hadn’t felt like flesh, but found his victim standing in front of a row of halters like they were her children.

It was loud in here, but he thought she was growling.

A store manager found him hours later, in the fetal position behind some naked mannequins. He was half-naked. Later he decided not to press charges, deciding the loss of clothes was his own fault for having tried to hide in a clearly marked 40%-off zone.

Bathroom Monologue: Dig In

“I am so tired of that apt criticism. Yes, this Applebee’s is like all of the others. The hamburger is prepared the same way with the same patented and publicly disclosed secret sauce. The calorie content of every platter is the same in Texas and Maine. The employees here wash their hands as often as they do in Alaska – if there is an Applebee’s in Alaska. From Seattle, Washington to Washington, D.C., we’re all mandated to have crazy crap on the walls, so that while each array is unique, they all feel the same. The building feels almost identical to Chili’s, which feels almost identical to Friendly’s. And for some reason you feel the right to condemn us, as though homogeneity was our problem. The problem lies in a society so twisted and uncomforting that when people don’t want to cook for themselves, when they decide they want a night away from their homes and normal lives, they go to a franchise that they’re sure will be just like every other one they’ve ever visited. How mean-spirited, how rude and insensitive, how untrustworthy must the rest of the world be if you look to letting strangers serve you food for familiarity? With all the delicacies and rare cuisines available, dinner is where you come not to be challenged? Then you must come from a sick world. But if my chicken tenders will heal you, then let me lay my hands on your plastic. We take Discover.”

Bathroom Monologue: Other Possible Side Effects for a TiMechanics-brand Time Machine

-Warning: You may develop an erection yesterday.
-Warning: Playing god has some reports of causing eye irritation.
-Warning: Despite its ability to freeze time within its chassis, Time Machine should not be used as a replacement refrigerator. Unexpected evolution may occur on or within any turkey clubs stored within frozen time. Unexpected civilizations within turkey clubs may use Time Machine for evil.
-Warning: The steering wheel is decorative. Any and all wheel-related time warps are placebo effects.
-Warning: Going back in time to steal the plans for Time Machine and create your own empire may negate your Time Machine and strand you with nothing except a set of schematics you’re not smart enough to read.
-Warning: Warranty voided by traveling to the end of time.
-Warning: Warranty not valid where time does not yet exist.
-Warning: The end of time and the non-existence of time are difficult to tell apart. Consult warranty.
-Warning: Objects in the rear view mirror have not happened yet.
-Warning: Becoming your own grandpa is not as fun as it sounds.
-Warning: Perspective on the events of your life from outside the time/space continuum may lead to suicidal depression that other versions of yourself inside the timeline will not appreciate.
-Warning: The author of the warnings may be lying to you in the twisted hopes that you’ll be led into a false sense of security, have an accident and finally tear this ugly quilt that we call the fabric of reality.

Bathroom Monologue: Like Magic

True magicians loathe typical “magicians.” A real magician manipulates the elements and spirits, learned through years of clandestine schooling or divine meditations. They keep their magic secret because, for true magicians, surprise and disbelief are helpful conditions. You’re much less likely to burn a necromancer at the stake if you don’t think he’s really a summoner of the dead. Calling a thunderclap from a clear sky is all the more shocking if you didn’t think it was possible until he grabbed his wand. Yet despite the usefulness of having their work viewed as fiction, they’re very catty about the entertainer magicians that have most helped their occupation seem campy and absurd. The elite sorcerers complain that you wouldn’t call someone who wears a cape and plastic fangs an actual vampire. When a real magician snaps and goes public to display his amazing power, his peers always catch him, using tandem enchantments and science to “debunk” his miraculous works. The punishment for breaking the secrecy is very strict, ranging from spontaneous combustion to an immortal career doing children’s parties.