Welcome To Our Cosmic Watering Hole

The Illuminati Lives!

Today was a rare day at Think-A-Holic Lounge. Hardly anybody showed up and we can't figure out why. Black Friday is over and done with, so people aren't shopping their heads off down on Earth, and the rest of the universe must be at home with the wife and kiddies or at home with the hubby and kiddlies or at home watching TV. What else do people do?

Anyway, Angus McCloud, our big-ass head bartender and the 400-year-old ghost of a dead Scottish poet, found another rare video by SciFiFoFum so he and a handful of us regular lounge lizards watched it, over and over. We had to watch it over and over because we have no idea what it's really about. You know Earthlings. They'll do anything for the camera.

And, hey, before you get all bent out of shape about the title "The Illuminati Lives" because you're so damn sure that the word Illuminati is plural and should therefore require a verb that shows plurality, meaning "The Illuminati Live", let me enlighten you about another kind of plurality. In this case, the Illuminati is a group of people, not a bunch of Illuminatums. There are no such things as Illuminatums, to my knowledge.

But there is an Illuminati and it's not a word that any bestselling author invented. The Illuminati was here long before The New York Times Bestseller List and shlocky bestselling authors who are obsessed with antiquity and have a bug up their butts about the Roman Catholic Church.

So, pull your heads out of your butts or have a wee dram of think-a-hol, on me. Either one produces the same effect. Thinking. You can't beat it with a stick.

Because of the low volume in this "security video", headphones are recommended.

The Final Solution

Billy Blob

Friday nights at Think-A-Holic Lounge are just as notorious as Friday nights at most singles bars everywhere for expecting the unexpected. Back on Earth, people who've worked hard all week long like to let their hair down after the sun goes down and everybody expects that.

People want to act up or hook up or blow off some steam or just have fun after a week of hard work. Think-A-Holic Lounge is no exception. In fact, having no actual position in space makes this particular cosmic watering hole all the more interesting, if not downright dangerous at times. This past Friday night, Betelgeuse Time, one of those rare "Blob People" dropped in for a wee dram and a bubbly chaser. And, no doubt, to have a lot of fun at someone else's expense, naturally.

"What's your name?" it said to me as soon as it plopped down from out of nowhere right beside my half-full schooner of Buxx Brew, the solar suds that makes all females in the universe look like Ernest Borgnine. We drink it for our own good when the best time for "lounge lizardry" is not quite upon us.

Anyway, the blob thing's voice sounded more male than female and I reacted rather poorly to this sudden "blobby intrusion". But it wasn't because a blob person plopped down beside me. That happens all the time in cosmic watering holes, especially a hangout for publishing outcasts. POD authors like me are notorious for attracting more trouble than dollars. It's a known fact, even on Earth.

And I wasn't put off by the fact that a blob guy had plopped down beside me instead of a blob gal because they have no interest in the gender game the way we play it. Thank heavens for that. Their "unions" are more mental, if not spiritual, and that's truly remarkable in a species that still has to crawl on its belly. In fact, true blobs don't reproduce at all. They're all immortal and live forever. No, the reason I reacted poorly had to do with a rather unpleasant experience about two-and-half solar years ago.

"Before I answer that," I said, recovering from the unsettling notion that a security blob from the past had sought me out for more scrutiny, "are you in any way related to a blob named Oozee?"

"Nope," said the blob thing.

"You don't work for Angus, then?" I was determined to get to the bottom of this blasted blob business, once and for all.

"What's an Angus?" asked the blob guy.

"Never mind," I said, convinced that this new blob was not hired to see if I was stealing our big-ass bartender's precious tips. "I'm called Jonco Bugos." I wanted to shake hands but true blobs don't have any hands.

"Never heard of you," he said, probably meaning well, but the dig was in and it smarted a little. I let it slide.

"What's your name, pal?" I asked, feeling the think-a-hol I'd been knocking back starting to seethe up on me.

"Billy Blob," he said. "I'm looking for this blob gal they call Blobbie Betts. She's my steady gal blob but she thinks she can drop in any old place at any old time and I told her that's not what commitment is all about."

"Haven't seen her," I lied, when in fact I just saw Blobbie Betts bop out the back door a solar hour ago with this big dumb blob from out of town. "What you need, buddy, is a couple shots of think-a-hol and a big-ass schooner of Buxx Brew. Trust me, things'll look much better in the morning."

That seemed to perk Billy Blob right up and he even sprung for a big basket of scorching hot Buffalo Wings, which are about the only thing in the entire universe that's exactly the same in taverns all across the cosmos, no matter where or when you happen to drop in.

Mooned

I waltzed into Think-A-Holic Lounge this afternoon like I owned the place, which was pretty easy because there was only one other customer at the bar, an indie author like me who cries in his beer every Wednesday afternoon. We never bothered to ask him why he cries in his beer. We know. Abysmal book sales, eBook lending to the point of piracy, copyright infringement, no fans, no followers and the list goes on and on. So, Angus and I indulge the poor bastard. It's the least we can do.

As I already told you before, Wednesday afternoon is my favorite time to be in the Lounge, mostly because I almost have the place to myself and, secondly, because I feel like a schoolboy playing hookey instead of sitting behind a desk somewhere taking a lot of guff from customers and co-workers or toting barges and lifting bails and all that workday rot. Plus, it gives me a quiet, semi-private place to cry in my beer.

I was just about to ask Angus McCloud — our bigass head bartender — when that Fred & Red comedy team from Mars would be doing their first gig here when Angus spilled the beans himself. He said Fred Fortune found out that Angus was the one who reported Fred to the Pluto police a couple space years back and Fred got mad and nixed their contract on the Lounge deal.

"So?" I didn't really give a hoot. I was in a funk about my eBook and that it only sold one copy so far. Besides, I think Fred & Red are funny but I can't stand looking at that goofy top hat and those outdated Jack E. Leonard glasses. I hear the nose is real and that's the only reason I never poked fun at the little homeless grifter.

"Well, there's more to it than that," Angus said out of the corner of his mouth. "The little prick mooned us. Mooned us all real good."

"Whattaya mean he mooned us?" I asked, not really interested.

"You'll see," he sighed. "Wait until after dark and then you'll see." Then the homely old spook lumbered over to the other indie author and poured him another cheap draft. Cheap is all we can afford these days.

I stumbled down the front steps around eight-thirty, full of happy thoughts again and when I looked up at the starless sky this is what I saw (see pic). I don't even want to know how he did it. All I know is that Fred Fortune will be two dirty words around Think-A-Holic Lounge from now on.

Rover

Things have been relatively quiet around here this summer. Because of all the security bots coming and going, there hasn't been a brawl at Think-A-Holic Lounge the entire summer. I hate to say it, but I'm a little bored and I could tell that Angus McCloud, our big-ass head bartender, was just as bored, if not more.

I heard the scuttlebutt around here that Angus recently booked the comedy team Fred & Red from the planet Mars but, like most of the regular lounge lizards, I thought it was just cosmic legend. No one in their right mind would book a comedy team where one of the comics is the astral body of a dead insult comic who used to play the Catskills and the other half is a hobo from L.A. who spent the last couple years on Earth living in a rusty 1965 Rambler Ambassador.

Then reality hit me. Stranger things have happened. Who'd have ever thought that there'd be such a thing as "Reality TV" back on Earth, where bored couch potatoes watch other bored couch potatoes cook and clean and swap moms and remodel their suburban houses and bitch and fight with each other between commercials for consumer products for couch potatoes who watch "Reality TV"?

Who'd have guessed that parents would video their own kids falling off swings sets and cracking their skulls on diving boards and then sell those videos to TV moguls who'd air that shit as some kind of entertainment? Who'd have ever thought that videos of American dads taking footballs and baseballs and baseball bats in the balls would be entertainment for a jaded world gone mad with boredom from having way too much of everything for way too long?

But that happened. It all happened. And it's still happening. So, why should I be surprised when Angus McCloud, our overachieving head bartender who is also bored out of his spooky skull, went to the back room at Bots R U and purchased a roving worm hole (see starry pic, above right) on the celestial black market? Stranger things have happened. Like watching jailbird Martha Stewart emerge from prison as the new daytime heroine of American television.

This illegal black hole (see pic) is supposed to be some kind of a two-way corridor between this dimension and another dimension that allows the teaming up of a dead insult comic with a very alive social misfit and homeless shoplifter. No one at the Lounge has the courage to try the new wormhole. Angus nicknamed the thing "Rover" because it used to be a roving wormhole that the celestial entities who run planet Earth tamed for their own whimsical amusement.

I don't know about you but I think somebody should put a muzzle on "Rover" before somebody gets bitten.

Faces In The Crowd

Yesterday STEWED (the Space Tavern Employees Watchdog Entity Directive) allowed us to replace that old Comedy/Drama logo mask (see right pic) with a new one (see left pic). The other day, Michael Casher turned us down on our offer to make him our official mascot. He said just because he's trapped in the P.O.D. matrix was no reason to represent another bunch of P.O.D. outcasts.

But the pepper-tongued old recluse did agree, however, to let us use his trademark masks logo if we altered it beforehand to fit our "sorry-ass loser decor" (his words), here at Think-A-Holic Lounge. Then the P.O.D. S.O.B stole my design and made it his official logo. What are you gonna do?

If you're an alter ego of somebody with a big-ass ego, then you do what he says and learn to like it. The old POD poop said now that he's got his branding iron out he's not stopping until the smoke clears. So, as of yesterday, Michael Casher's brand is all over us. It still smarts a little but we'll get used to it.

That's right, the little POD Napoleon put his altered brand on all his blogs, not just this one. Most of us don't give a damn anyway. As long as we get to stay mobile and exclusive, we don't care whose label we're under. If we inadvertently made a pact with the Devil none of us will ever be the wiser for it.

Besides, life is too short (and, in some cases, too long) to be worrying about whether or not someone has branded you for your own good or just tattooed something on your ass for the hell of it. If the "shoe" fits, just wear it. That's our motto. Besides, Angus McCloud might be the big-ass head bartender around here but this is still my barstool journal.

Man in the Moon

One night last August, I stumbled down the steps of Think-A-Holic Lounge after closing time and when I looked up at the night sky with my new binoculars I saw what appeared to be a hideous face inside the Earth instead of the usual collection of celestial bodies that hover above the Lounge. I thought I was going crazy or maybe I'd finally got the DTs from reality withdrawal or caught something contagious and terminal. Thank heavens for that little lounge lizard shit who reminded me that the Lounge is "mobile" and has been for a long time and that I could very well see anything up in the night sky around here.

So, I asked myself last night what the hell was up now because when I rolled down the front steps of Think-A-Holic Lounge and looked up at the sky this is what I saw (see pic). I knew it wasn't the DTs from reality withdrawal because I've never been that much in touch with reality in the first place. And, in the second place, I'd had my usual shot of think-a-hol and a bubbly chaser and nothing more and nothing less, so my "vision" certainly wan't impaired by any kind of inspiration.

I didn't tell anyone about seeing my own image in the moon last night — especially not Angus McCloud, our know-it-all big-ass head bartender — because I know damn well what I'd have heard. They would have said that having my very own website finally went to my head or something like that. And ol' Angus would have probably punned that I was simply a "lunatic" after all. Har de har har. So damn funny. I'm so glad I never even gave him the chance to unleash that lame puppy.

The truth of the matter is probably a lot less psychological or symbolic. I probably just need new contact lenses or something. Or maybe I should stop eating those sausage sandwiches I crave every summer. Or maybe I should "up" my regular infusion of the ol' elixir to a double shot of think-a-hol and maybe a schooner of Buxx Brew. Or... maybe I'm in deep doo-doo and don't even know it.

POD Bot

As you all know, Angus McCloud, the big-ass head bartender at Think-A-Holic lounge is a real bot fan. Not only does he shop at Bots R U more than anywhere else, he tries out just about every new bot that comes along in a futile quest for the most perfect security bot. It never works. All bots have their fatal flaws, just like human beings.

Most security bots are programmed to profile potential troublemakers (in other words, to make unfounded assumptions) and who writes these programs? but the biggest, basement-dwelling, socially-challenged techno geeks in the entire universe. Robot programmers are not only a dime a dozen in the second decade of the 21st Century, they're still a bunch of anti-social antagonists who just love to sic bots on people. While the average bot's biggest fatal flaw is that they tend to stare at people before they attack, my biggest fatal flaw is that I tend to stare back at them and that's like waving a big-ass red flag in front of a charging bull.

So, imagine my surprise when I found out that the newest bot installed by Angus McCloud, our big-ass bot-addicted head bartender, was not a security bot at all. This new bot (see pic) is a "talent scout bot", Angus informed me through a smirk I distrusted immediately. He said this particular bot was on loan from a major book publisher in Bad Apple City, back on Earth. Then he leaned forward on his elbows and whispered the rest of the story to me as I held a double shot of think-a-hol between the thumb and forefinger of both hands in my effort not to spill it before I got to enjoy it's powerful, illuminating effect.

"The scuttlebutt is," Angus whispered out of the corner of his mouth like a wizened felon on death row, "this bot, here, is looking for major indie talent in the science fiction genre. He's scouting for a relatively unknown, independent author who's written high-quality, hard sci-fi that's been ignored because his POD books aren't gathering dust on bookstore shelves, like old New York Times Bestsellers, and whose eBooks are not taking off because they're being lent to death. Say, you wouldn't happen to know any indie author who fits that bill, now, would you, lad?"

I felt like tossing the double shot of thinker's booze right into the ugly old spook's face but I kept my cool. I tossed back the ol' elixir like it was truth serum for the soul, ignoring the bubbly chaser sitting next to it. Then I answered the 400-year-old ghost of a dead Scottish poet whose own biggest fatal flaw is his uncanny ability to irritate his customers almost to the point of murder.

"No, I can't think of a single indie author, at the moment, who'd fill those shoes," I conveniently lied, feeling the think-a-hol souring in my stomach at the very sound of non-truth. "But, if that damn bot starts looking for an overlooked indie author of literary fiction, you'll let me know, won't you?"

"Sure," Angus lied back, without even breaking into a sweat. "Sure thing, Jonco."

"By the way," I asked, after slugging down the cold chaser to extinguish the fires of untruth in my lyin'-ass stomach, "does this new bot have a name?"

"Yeah," Angus replied over his right shoulder, as he readjusted the scan speed on the new bot. "I call him POD Bot."

"POD Bot?" I snickered, unable to help it. "Why in the hell do you call him POD Bot?"

"Because his circuit board was Printed On Demand," Angus replied solemnly. The ugly old prick didn't even turn around to see me storm out of the Lounge in a big huff. It'd be a cold day in hell, I lied to myself, before I'd ever set foot in Think-A-Holic Lounge again. Nursing a profound sense of ennui, I went home, put on a Jethro Tull vinyl album, and swore myself to sleep.

The Mobile Edge

The other night one of the regular lounge lizards at Think-A-Holic Lounge told me he thinks the biggest reason that our little watering hole for publishing outcasts occupies no position in space is because Think-A-Holic Lounge is "mobile". He said Think-A-Holic Lounge has always been mobile and didn't I know that? He also said, in this day and age, "going mobile" is the only way to go if you want to remain competitive. He said it was the best competitive edge any business could have right now.

I wanted to tell him that any competitive edge nowadays has a half life of about fifteen minutes. I wanted to tell him that the real definition of "competitive edging" is to copy something somebody else just did and wait for somebody to copy your copy and then for you to go copy that copy. I wanted to tell him to go eat a cow pie, too, but I'm pretty sure he had no clue what a cow pie was.

So, I bought him a dram of think-a-hol and a Buxx Brew draft instead and went outside to get a breath of fresh air. When I looked up at the sky, this is what I saw (see pic) in place of the usual collection of stars and moons that surround our little cosmic home away from home. Then I went back inside to wet my whistle with a double think-a-hol, skipping the usual bubbly chaser that follows. All of a sudden I had a lot to think about.

Face Job

Nobody at Think-A-Holic Lounge is famous for anything. No, I lied. Fred Fortune is famous all right. Famous for lying and stealing but then he's not a regular at the Lounge. He only shows up here whenever one of those free-agent wormholes touches down on Mars with the intake hole, so to speak, and then attaches the blow hole, so to speak, to our parking lot. Certainly not something anyone around here would wish on anybody else.

Anyway, as close to being famous as anyone ever came who had any legitimate business with Think-A-Holic Lounge are our former bodiless "doorpersons", who were never formally named by anyone and who never even named themselves (see the Employees-of-the-Month posting). We think they were pretty smart because being named — even if you pick you own name — severely limits your performance in life, no matter where you come from or where you're headed. It's a cosmic fact.

And, to prove my point, our former "door faces" are now the official faces for Science Fiction for Thinkers, the most famous of all the overlooked author websites on Earth. As a matter of fact, Science Fiction for Thinkers.com is so unpopular that we at Think-A-Holic Lounge would like to make the indie author who owns and runs it our Lounge mascot. If we can ever get rid of that blue-and-pink puss logo I sorta got got stuck with when I first started this damn barstool journal. On this side of the space-time continuum, there's no labor union more powerful than the Space Tavern Employees Watchdog Entity Directive (or STEWED, for short).

Hell, I'll betcha ten-to-one that Jimmy Hoffa's cosmic essence is their freakin' fearless leader.

The Biggest and Most Secret Spy Bot

At Think-A-Holic Lounge, we certainly have our troubles with bots and the worst kind of trouble any bot can give anybody is to spy on them for some higher-up. It's usually the owner of a business but more often than you'd think it's a government agency doing the spying these days, its crooked employees thinking they're legally empowered to spy on their fellow citizens. Wrong.

Snooping on taxpayers, on behalf of their country, is the fastest growing enterprise on Earth. While customers usually know they're being spied upon and don't really give a hoot, citizens are the last to know they're being spied upon by their own government and the first to object when they do find out about it. And that's because all government espionage against the citizenry is illegal. Always was and always will be.

But, even though spying is routine here at Think-A-Holic Lounge, it's even more routine on planet Earth. Earthlings still aren't used to being spied upon whenever they pump gasoline or enter a fitting room or cash a check or order take-out from a drive though window. But it happens every day. So, they're sure as hell not going to want to hear that they're actually being spied upon by the biggest spy bot in their solar system and, quite possibly the entire constellation. Why do you think the same side of the moon always faces you?

But it's not your government spying on you from the moon, or any government on Earth, for that matter. Yep, that's right, the moon is not made of green cheese and it's not hollow and it's not an alien spaceship. It's a spy bot for Big Jack & Co. Say "cheese" if you want to. Or, better yet, just watch your step.

Caustic Cosmic Comic

Think-A-Holic Lounge hasn't really recovered yet from the big business slump that began this past Black Friday, Earth Time, and that was supposed to end when the last January White Sale on Earth had ended. Nobody here knows exactly when the last January White Sale ended on Earth but everybody knows that January 2011 is history now and so is February 2011. And the Lounge is still in a slump. But that didn't deter our big-ass head bartender, Angus McCloud. In fact, when the chips are down that's when ol' Angus is at his best.

The other day he hired the astral body of a dead comic from Earth, a loudmouth nicknamed Mouthpiece by the few regulars like me who still haunt this gin joint in the middle of nowhere. This dead comic was never reincarnated anywhere in the universe, was never allowed into any afterlife at all by the cosmic powers-that-be, because of the enormous karmic debt he built up by being one of the nastiest "insult comics" to ever play the Catskills, that notorious graveyard for comic has-beens whose worn-out routines are even too lame for motel cocktail lounges in Reno. Which makes them ideal for Think-A-Holic Lounge. Don't ask me why.

It was almost midnight this past Saturday night, Earth Time, when Mouthpiece took the wireless mike and hopped onto the tiny platform Angus had built as a stage for Pear, the female exotic dancer who also washed out here a long time ago. For somebody who was nothing but a head with hands and feet, Mouthpiece sure was agile. I knew I was in trouble when the little shithead zeroed in on me right after his opening remarks.

"Oh yeah," he began in a loud, irritating voice that was part used-car salesman and part carnival barker, "I knew I wasn't in the Catskills the minute I set foot in the door. You know why? Of course you don't know why. Your heads are all up your butts looking for your futures. And, guess what? You're looking in the right place."

Nobody laughed, but I swore I heard Angus McCloud suppress a chuckle which made him sound like he was clearing his nasal passages.

"Take that one over there," he said, pointing me out to the small, silent crowd of sorry indie authors and author wannabes, POD publishers, freelance ghost writers and whatnot, most of them disenfranchised astral bodies, just like the fat-head comic about to heckle me. "Yeah, that blue-faced, balding guy with the stupid smirk on his face. Hey, buddy, is that really your head or are you blowing up a balloon?"

That smart-alec remark cracked the place up. The Lounge erupted with what sounded like "canned laughter", almost as if the dozen or so patrons were hooked up to an "I Dream of Jeannie" laugh track. I tried to dismount my barstool so I could throttle the little prick on stage but a big arm belonging to Angus McCloud held me back.

"Whoa!" declared Mouthpiece, holding up both of his fat palms in a cheesy, lounge comic plea for restraint. "Somebody get this guy a couple a eBook royalties before he gets outta control." More canned laughter from my former lounge lizard pals whom I'll never forgive in a million years. "Yeah, somebody give the poor boy a freaking' mercy read already before he has a fatal attack of the blues or something. Oops, too late!" The "I Dream of Jeannie" laugh track got louder, turning into a hideous "M*A*S*H" laugh track, as if by magic. "Hey, Blue Boy, is that really your fist or did you chew your nails down that far?" I heard more mindless tittering and even a few loud whistles. "Oops, I think I hit a nerve. Probably the only one he has."

"Up yours," I said, loud enough for everyone to hear but not so loud it could be considered an outburst. I wanted to stand up but I saw Angus watching me for any signs that I might suddenly lunge toward the stage. It seemed to me that the old bastard was having the time of his life. At my expense, of course. See how big your next tip is, I said to myself.

"Y'know, I just love it when somebody heckles me from a barstool," Mouthpiece said to the crowd. "I'm not kidding. Whenever a lousy drunk gives me advice it always makes me feel bad that I don't have a freakin' pen on me. Yeah. If I could only write down all the great advice I've gotten from bar rats over the years, I'd have enough material to write a book. Of course, I'd have to self-publish the freakin' thing because it would stink to high heaven."

At this point, if I'd have had a gun, I'd have used it, even though a bullet wouldn't have done anything to an astral body. An astral body in control of itself to the point of seeming out of control to everybody else is one of the most dangerous entities in the entire universe. I held my ground and kept my mouth shut, which made Mouthpiece look for a new target. I was so glad it was Angus McCloud.

"Hey, you!" said the talking head into the wireless microphone. "Yeah, you. Jack-o-lantern head." His big fat mouth was so close to the mike his words sounded like wet thumps. "Yeah, you, pal. The big ugly-ass bartender. I mean, you do work this pathetic watering hole, don't you? Or are you just parked here for the night?"

Angus' jaw dropped open as if he were in disbelief. I, on the other hand, was about to have the time of my life. We both waited for the inevitable onslaught of insults.

"Don't act deaf and dumb." Mouthpiece taunted the big-ass, four-hundred-year-old ghost of a dead Scottish poet. "I mean, you don't have to act deaf and dumb for me. It's written all over your face. As a matter of fact, is that really your freakin' face or did you just pull your pants down and stand on your head?" Mouthpiece's comic timing was perfect as he scanned the audience for unwitting co-conspirators.

The "M*A*S*H" laugh track had now become an old laugh track from "The Jeffersons", it was so loud and raucous. As poor old Angus McCloud stiffened and tried to maintain his professional bartender composure, I ordered a double shot of think-a-hol and a schooner of Buxx Brew, the space beer that makes all female creatures in the universe look like Ernest Borgnine (I'd had enough humiliation for one night). I knew it was going to be a great night after all.

Never The Netherlands

It was only last night around ten o'clock pm, Think-A-Holic Lounge time, that I asked Angus McCloud, our big-ass head bartender, why no one from The Netherlands on planet Earth had ever visited Think-A-Holic Lounge. I wasn't surprised by his answer.

"Well," he said, trying to keep his voice from being overheard by the other patrons and the barmaid, "I'm pretty sure that any visitors from The Netherlands would almost have to be members of The Bilderberg Group and they know that their astral projections and dreaming selves and whatnots are about as welcome here as Nazis, Grays, rednecks and Fred Fortune."

He tried to suppress a snicker but he was unsuccessful. A few patrons looked at us. I hoped none of them were Bilderbergers but I also hoped that regular people from The Netherlands would look us up whenever they dream or day dream or meditate or get caught in a renegade wormhole.

"I heard that," I said, tossing back the rest of my think-a-hol. "But I think the biggest reason nobody from The Netherlands ever visits us here is because there are no keywords for Bilderberger or Illuminati or The Netherlands in our blog tags."

"Jonco," said Angus, setting me up with a double think-a-hol on the house, "you may not be the Real Mcoy but you're certainly a gentleman and a scholar."

"I'll drink to that," I said, a big smile forming on my reflective face as I made a quick toast to The Netherlands. "Up with the Dutch and down with the New World Order."

Nebula / Nebbish

Maybe I've seen too many movies — who can say? — but last Saturday night, Earth Time, I became part of a hideous, twisted parody of the movie "Victor Victoria", that glitzy 1982 flick where Julie Andrews plays a woman pretending to be a man who's pretending to be a woman. Or something to that effect.

Anyway, it was close to last call when I came back from the male species room at Think-A-Holic Lounge and found one of those energy creatures (see pic) occupying the space above my barstool, where my own head would have been. I was glad I'd already relieved myself because just the sight of another patron in my spot pissed me right off. And I don't piss off easily.

Now, you'd figure he or she or whatever it was must have seen the Solar singles and Fins and Sawbucks on the bar, right beside my half empty shot of think-a-hol and the nearly full schooner of Buxx Brew, a bubbly chaser made from malt, hops and buck-rub bark from north central Pennsylvania, back on planet Earth. Buxx Brew has the opposite effect of the standard pilsner beer. While the regular suds eventually makes every woman on Earth look like Kim Basinger in her prime, Buxx Brew makes every female creature in the universe look like Ernest Borgnine. We drink it for our own good, not because we like it.

Anyway, I ignored the fact that this idiot energy cloud was in my spot, smack dab in front of my drinks and my money, because Angus McCloud, our big-ass head bartender, hates any kind of nasty scene right at the bar. So, I automatically assumed that this energy creature was a female creature because, even though males outnumber females elebenty-leben to one at Think-A-Holic Lounge, the most desperate lounge lizards among us are eternally optimistic about finding Ms. Right sitting on a bar stool somewhere. The average guy from Earth outgrows this ridiculous fantasy by age thirty but I've never been known for doing the right thing at the right time in my entire life. So, I figured, why start now?

"So, are you from around here?" I asked the amorphous entity.

"Whaddaya want from me?" it protested. Its voice sounded male and defensive. "I'm a nebula. I'm allowed in here."

"Sure you are. I'm, Jonco," I said politely, wanting to shake hands but a nebula has no hands.

"And I suppose this is your personal bar stool," it said, a slight feminine whine creeping into its voice.

"No, it's only mine as long as my money and my drinks are in front of it," I said, starting to get even more pissed off than I already was.

'There!" it snapped. "There's your money! There's your drinks! There's your money!" This nebula from hell began sliding and pushing and shoving the bills and change and sloshing the drinks. The male tone of voice was back but the whining was more high-pitched and annoying than before.

"Not so fast, pal," I said, trying to remain calm and collected. "I was going to buy you a drink but now you can buy me one to make up for all the think-a-hol and Buxx Brew you just spilled."

"Oh, sure," it said, suddenly sounding like a defensive middle-aged woman with an axe to grind. "The story of my life. Every guy I meet thinks I'm Ms. Money Bags."

"Wait a minute..." I stuttered, losing my grip on reality.

"Whaddaya, whaddya?" said the male side of the nebula again. "I travel fifty million miles a day. I'm selling encyclopedias to a galaxy that gets all its information online. On top a that, my boss wants me to retire and...and my wife's sneaking around with a younger nebula... and you're gonna rob me?"

"Take it easy, buddy," I said, feeling this Nebula/Nebbish nightmare rapidly becoming a cosmic reality. "Here. Let me buy you a drink after all." I looked around for Angus but he was busy washing glasses. He finally saw me and I pointed to the living anomaly sitting beside me and Angus nodded back. "What's that you're drinking?" I asked the paranoid salesman/saleswoman.

"What's to drink?" said the woman side of the thing. "I don't know you from Adam."

Then the nebula began to dissipate right before my eyes but not before I heard its male and female sides arguing with each other. I was stupefied, impressed and bewildered all at the same time. I was also speechless and unable to move.

"Never bring me here again," whined the female nebula. "Besides, you'd rather be with that what's-her-face anyway, wouldn't you?"

"Ya had da ask?" replied the sarcastic nebbish. Then the scary trans-nebula was gone. And so was I.

Spy Bot

Right. It's a Thursday afternoon, Earth Time, and that can be just about anytime at Think-A-Holic Lounge. But, it just so happens that it's also Thursday afternoon here, too. And, since I have the place practically to myself, I decided to make a little entry into my bar stool journal about bots.

Don't think for one minute that I like bots just because I write about them all the time. I don't like bots at all. I like people and creatures that are alive and I think that buying or renting a bot to do the job of a living creature who could really use the money, is shortsighted, if nothing else. But, I don't make the rules around here. I just follow them. Then I get to point an accusing finger at the bots that have been hired at Think-A-Holic Lounge. Like Beam Bot, Bot Boy, Brain Bot and Drive-Off.

And now, as if there aren't enough bots around here, snooping and guarding and pushing and shoving and even taking our money, the management just rented the latest thing in spy bots (see pic). As far as I know, this one doesn't even have a name, just a model number somewhere on it's spherical surface. All day long it just floats around spying on us when we drink and eat and even when we play darts.

Rumor has it that this annoying bot is supposed to be looking for pickpockets. Well, the only pickpocket Think-A-Holic Lounge ever had was Fred Fortune and we ran him outta here a long time ago. So, as far as I'm concerned, this spy bot is nothing more than another toy bot for Angus McCloud, our big-ass head bartender.

Rumor also has it that Angus is a regular customer at Bots R U.

Gray Matter

Think-A-Holic Lounge is a lot like your typical American roadhouse in some respects. There are lots of fights here, especially on the weekends. There are always more men than women here (or more males than females, I should say, because not all of our patrons are human beings or even bipeds, for that matter). And no one here will wait on you the second time unless you give them a big tip the first time. Things like that make it easier for the disembodied spirits of Earthlings, and especially American Earthlings, to feel comfortable about dipping their bills here. Nothing turns a first-time customer into a good patron like knowing what to expect from a watering hole and then getting used to it.

On the other hand, Think-A-Holic Lounge occupies no space in the physical universe and its actual position in the space-time continuum cannot be pinpointed. That's a real plus for most of us Lounge regulars because most of us are hiding out here from someone or something and we like to keep our hideout a great big secret from most of the universe. Especially from the Grays (see pic). Except for Nazis and rednecks from Earth and Fred Fortune from the Martian Underground, Grays are the only other beings currently banned from Think-A-Holic Lounge.

Rednecks are banned because of their intolerance for anyone who isn't just like them. Fred Fortune is banned because he's a shoplifter, grazer, grafter and pickpocket. And also because we just can't stand looking at that damned hat and those stupid glasses anymore. Grays are banned from Think-A-Holic Lounge because they kidnap and torture people (especially human children from Earth) for medical and biological experimentation (and for their own amusement) and that pretty much makes them Nazis, in our opinion, whom we banned the day they invaded Poland in 1939, Earth Time.

Because we banned Nazis, rednecks, Fred Fortune and Grays early on in the game, we saved ourselves a lot of grief by not giving these creatures the chance to behave themselves when we knew damn well they'd take that inch of freedom and turn it into a yard of uncontrolled personal liberty.

Smile and make nice, that's our policy here at Think-A-Holic Lounge. But "be prepared for the worst", that's our motto.