Seeing is Believing

As most of you know, Wednesday afternoon is my favorite time at Think-A-Holic Lounge. The place is virtually empty then and the sun's usually shining outside and most of the world's at work. That's mainly why I mosey on down to the Lounge every Wednesday. Because, when most people are out running things or being run by things, I'm hiding out. And enjoying my favorite beverages while watching the ol' Boob Tube. A combination you just can't beat.

Today I asked Angus McCloud — our big-ass head bartender and the 400-year-old ghost of a dead Scottish poet — to turn on the new TV set. The one that shows "hacker videos" instead of the regular lineup of sports and game shows and beer commercials and those hot Mexican soaps that are so addictive.

We were in luck. A commercial for Angus McCloud's own invention — Death-A-Hol — had just begun airing. I asked ol' Angus who did the commercial and how he got it on TV in the first place.

"It don't matter," the ugly old spook chuckled, enjoying his recreational use of bad English, "if it's on TV, it's real, don't you know?" I knew he was hiding something but I didn't feel up to the pursuit.

"Oh, I believe it, all right," I replied with a loud sigh and then I tossed back a whole double shot of the less-popular think-a-hol, the elixir that makes you think and a product that's never been advertised on TV and probably never will be. I knew packaging rules the beverage industry, just like every other industry.

"Death-A-Hol is already a marketing success," Angus cooed, interrupting my thoughts and making me want to bounce the empty shot glass off the back of his homely head. But, I didn't. Instead, I ordered a single shot of Death-A-Hol, which is nothing but think-a-hol under a different label.

As I sipped the greenish liquid, I had to remind myself that it was only the original, amber-colored think-a-hol with blue food coloring added. But, at a premium price, mind you. Besides, I was drinking what I was seeing on TV. So, who cares? Suddenly, and in spite of my own better judgment, I felt less like Michael Casher's alter ego and more like the Real McCoy.

"Barkeep!" I shouted at the back of Angus McCloud's big-ass head. "More Death-A-Hol! And don't stop bringing it."

this story to be continued...

Head Game

Even at the edge of the space-time continuum, where places like Think-A-Holic Lounge can exist without taking up any physical space in the universe, people know that nothing sells a product like its packaging. Even Angus McCloud, our big-ass head bartender (and the 400-year-old ghost of a dead poet from Scotland) knows that you can sell gullible people shit by the bucketful if you make it look like gourmet food.

Ol' Angus even went one step further than that this past week when he got the big, bright idea that think-a-hol wasn't selling as well as it should, like the "joy juice" everybody thought it was. Well, hell, I can tell you why it's not selling very well anymore. Think-a-hol was invented to make people think and it's quite obvious that thinking isn't much of a pastime anymore for anyone. Except for me, of course, and a handful of faithful regulars at Think-A-Holic Lounge.

So, Angus came up with a little packaging gimmick this past week and, I've got to give the old spook credit, it seems to be a real winner. One of the local distillers of think-a-hol agreed to re-package his product in a black bottle with a brand-new new label on it (see pic).

It's the exact same think-a-hol elixir that all the distilleries on this side of the cosmos use, with a little something extra inside: blue food coloring, which makes the amber think-a-hol look like ghoulish, green "devil booze". None of us Lounge lizards can stomach the sight of the stuff or its dark-ass packaging but, ever since the repackaging deal, Death-A-Hol has become the number-one-selling elixir at Think-A-Holic Lounge. Go figure.

(I'd tell you why it's so popular and with whom, but I couldn't do that and keep a straight face.)

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.

Busting My Chops

What makes Think-A-Holic Lounge stand out among other intergalactic watering holes is that it occupies no space in the physical universe. That means it can't be pinpointed by astronomers or cosmic conquerors or celestial powers-that-be or anyone else who exists in the real world. That's the main thing.

The second thing is that Think-A-Holic Lounge is a hideout, a "safe house", if you will, for personalities and mental frames of mind and alter egos who wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of being fleshed-out in the real world, no matter how exotic the planet may be. The fact that Think-A-Holic Lounge eventually became a hideout for all the outcasts in the publishing underworld, and especially in the independent publishing world, came as no surprise to anyone. It was an eventuality that happened when its time had finally come.

Like frequenting any tavern or bar or drinking establishment in the real world, and especially on planet Earth, hiding out from the real world can get very lonely at times. That's what bartenders and fellow patrons are for. To use as sounding boards or shoulders to cry on and, hopefully, some chops to bust. It's no fun blabbing your head off if nobody's listening. And there's no better way to let someone know that you're listening to them than by talking back to them.

Pictured here is the latest edition to the Think-A-Holic Lounge staff. Angus McCloud, our bigass head bartender and the ghost of a dead Scottish poet, calls him Jabber. Jabber's job is to get you to talk about your problems by making you answer his continual questions about yourself or to respond to his endless, running commentary about everything in the universe. Jabber never, ever talks about himself and that's what makes him so special.

Last night I was in another one of my blue moods where I think I'll be dead a hundred years or more before anyone ever knows that I was alive. Jabber sensed this right away and asked me a question I just couldn't resist answering.

"Why don't you tell me about your novella?" he said, fully aware of the fact that he was addressing Jonco Bugos, Michael Casher's alter ego, and not the over-exposed, jaded Real McCoy, himself. "Tell me all about it."

Naturally, I had to get set up with another round of think-a-hol and a big bubbly chaser which I naturally paid for myself. The fact that Jabber has no physical mechanism for imbibing makes it all the easier to order more drinks for myself. And, yeah, I may be just a face in Michael Casher's mirror but I know a clever ruse when I see one.

While Jabber gets you to talk about yourself (everyone's favorite topic) he also gets you to spend more money. Who cares? At the far end of the space-time continuum life is no different than the real world in one respect. You get what you pay for.

The Shapeshifting Blog from Outer Space

Our bigass head bartender, Angus McCloud, is always trying new gimmicks to attract new patrons to Think-A-Holic Lounge. I'm instantly reminded of the Brain Bot incident that had everybody laughing at me. Then there was the Zippy Portraits fiasco, the little arty-fartsy dweeb that Angus pretended not to hire and then fired when that scam backfired on him.

And now, the ugly old ghost of a 400-year-old poet from Scotland came up with another "draw" gimmick that's almost guaranteed to backfire on him. This time it's a laptop computer that's fastened securely to the bar and keeps displaying the same screen images over and over again (see animated pic). So far, nobody can figure out what the deal is. And ol' Angus is not giving out any clues.

As far as I'm concerned, this latest gimmick to attract new patrons has all the earmarks of an indie-author royalties kickback. In fact, under-the-table palm greasing is written all over this so-called "Shapeshifting Blog from Outer Space".