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.

Outshining the Stars

As you may or may not know, Think-A-Holic Lounge occupies no physical position in the space-time continuum. So, star maps and road maps are worthless if you're trying to find your way to this notorious watering hole for outcasts in the publishing underworld.

Flesh-and-blood humans can't physically make the trip here unless they go by wormhole. And then the wormhole invariably whisks them right back to where they came from the minute they land here. So, the Lounge doesn't rely on regular people for its clientele.

Regular Think-A-Holic Lounge Lizards are mainly disembodied spirits, alter egos, astral projections and the dreaming selves of flesh-and-blood humans. Plus biped, quadraped and legless creatures of every size, shape and color from intergalactic space. Even creatures who are nothing more than living energy masses scramble to Think-A-Holic Lounge when their workday is over or when they have time on their hands. And, like any regular business on any regular planet with regular flesh-and-blood customers and patrons, Think-A-Holic Lounge hits a slump in business every now and then.

The biggest slump in business for Think-A-Holic Lounge always occurs on Black Friday, the infamous "day of mob behavior" on planet Earth. That's our biggest slump here because more than half of our patrons are disenfranchised and lost souls from that backward and greedy planet. Shopping is their favorite past time, then eating, chin wagging, imbibing intoxicating beverages and fighting, mostly in that order. But, from Black Friday through the last January White Sale on Earth, half of our patrons' flesh-and-blood selves are too busy shopping to warm our bar stools.

So, the other day Angus McCloud, our resourceful big-ass head bartender, put up a new neon sign, right on top of the Lounge roof. After four hundred years as a ghost bartender it finally dawned on him that, if you offer free stuff (even if it's only peanuts, popcorn and pretzels), no Earthling can resist doing whatever it takes to be first in line.

Last week I bet Angus a Solar Sawbuck that he couldn't bring his "patron stats" back up to par before New Years Eve hits Earth. He laughed and raised me another Sawbuck and that made me add a Solar Fin on top of that to the wager. When we finally shook on that deal, I knew by the look in his beady little eyes that I was already being taken for about 13 Solar Quid. Hopefully, some royalties will get beamed into my bank account from that Neptune bookseller before I run out of think-a-hol money. To the best of my recollection, that's never happened before.

Safe Mode

Nobody at Think-A-Holic Lounge actually believes that Fred Fortune managed to escape from that so-called prison that the Reptilians run for the Grays on the planet Mars. In fact, most of us regular Lounge lizards think Fred Fortune is nothing but a homeless con man who probably still lives in L.A. and who probably lost his job because of his big mouth.

But, just in case we're all wrong — and Fred Fortune is right — our bigass head bartender, Angus McCloud, put up this wanted poster that the Intergalactic Police sent us the other day. Maybe Fred Fortune is just a bum and a liar. But maybe he's a hero of some sort and nobody knows it. And maybe we'll never know.

Still, it never hurts to play it safe.

News Flash

Bar TV is pretty much the same all over. The glimpse I gave you the last time I made an entry into this dog-eared journal of mine wasn't the worst of it, either. I mean, like all taverns mostly patronized by the male species, we get way too much sports on the tube at Think-A-Holic Lounge. Especially illegal sports like dwarf tossing and bowling for dollars.

But every now and then you get real crap. Like a newsflash. Nobody at the Lounge likes a newsflash. Breaking news might give you an instant rush on celebrity-worshiping planets like Earth but here at the edge of nowhere we just get perturbed. Especially when the so-called "Breaking News" is about a known thief and con artist like Fred Fortune.

Who cares if this top-hatted grafter "escaped on their asses" as he always claims to be doing? There's no way in hell that "Federico Fortunato" could have gotten his butt off Mars unless... unless he found a wormhole that didn't bring him back. That's the trouble with wormholes. They always bring you back.

But, if "Freddy Fingers" did manage to find a wormhole that whisked his lying ass off the Red Planet and if the wormhole didn't return him to his point of origin (the most annoying things about a natural wormhole) then there is that possibility that Fred Fortune could have commandeered a roving wormhole and is, at this moment, headed our way.

Angus McCloud, our bigass head bartender and the 400-year-old ghost of a dead Scottish poet, must have read my mind when I entertained the horrible notion that Fred Fortune might be headed our way again. Angus set me up with a shot of think-a-hol and an imported bubbly chaser, on the house.

"Don't even think about it, " the ugly old spook told me as he plopped two paper coasters down in front of me. "He's probably still on Mars. Or else in prison on Pluto, where he belongs. Besides, only his astral or dreaming self can darken our doorway anyhow. And, in that case, I'll just toss him out on his ear again."

"You're right," I replied, before tossing back the think juice. "He's probably down in the Martian canals right now sucking on red stones." I knocked back the elixir and chugged half the chaser. In two seconds I felt like Richard the Lionhearted. "Hey, how about changing the channel?" I barked at Angus McCloud. "We're missing that senator tossing tournament on Saturn!"

BarTube

As I've said before, my favorite time to mosey on down to the Lounge is on a Wednesday afternoon. I'm not much of a lounge lizard and never was. My pickup lines are so rusty they couldn't reel in a green Amazon woman from Saturn and green Amazon women from Saturn are always looking to be reeled in. So, this past Wednesday around three pm EST Earth time, I found myself unceremoniously perched atop my favorite bar stool.

Yessir, I prefer the relative sounds of silence at the Lounge on a sunny Wednesday afternoon instead of the raucous disorder of a Friday or Saturday night. I like a sunny afternoon because I take some secret delight in being in a dimly-lit tavern instead of at the business end of a lawn mower or a rake. Or even, for that matter, at the business end of my outdated word processor. Besides, when you get older it's easier on everyone if you know your limitations and stick to them.

The other thing I like about Think-A-Holic Lounge in the middle of a work week and in the middle of a sunny afternoon is that there are never any sports or soaps or game shows or even beer commercials on the tube at that time of day. Not at Think-A-Holic Lounge. People who like to eat, drink, watch sports (or game shows and soaps) never frequent Think-A-Holic Lounge in the middle of the week. They're too busy working the business end of a lawn mower, rake or snow shovel. Or the business end of just plain business. And women who frequent the Lounge rarely watch TV here. They're too busy defending their honor against us lounge lizards.

Why they angle the TV at the Lounge so it reflects the window light is a mystery I may never fathom. It must have something to do with the fact that I'm definitely doing something illicit. But who cares? I'll just have to squint and eat that bullet. And the cobwebs on the Lounge TV set are as big as spider plants but who cares about that either? Being here instead of there on a gorgeous sunny day is escapism in all its grimy glory.

Any who, some weird podcast from a far away galaxy is usually on TV in the afternoons and this past Wednesday afternoon was to be no exception. In fact, this was the strangest podcast I'd ever seen. Some buffoon who looked like a cross between Charlie McCarthy and Groucho Marx was whining and crying about how he's tired of being bullied by Reptilians and Grays on some planet called Mars. Wherever that is.

No, I didn't really care for this Mars Broadcast. It smacked of old 20th-Century "yellow journalism" which made it seem out of place for a 21st-Century podcast. Nossir, I didn't like it at all. In fact, I told (not asked) our bigass head bartender, Angus McCloud, to change the channel. Angus didn't even blink an eye as he punched in the digits for a sports channel that featured ultimate fighting between males from one species and females from another species. Highly illegal, mind you.

But anything's better than having your mind assaulted by some lunatic with an axe to grind about some stupid prison planet and alien abductions and the Mallo Cup shortage there, whatever that is. I never caught this pathetic old poop's name but, if he doesn't like it on Mars, why doesn't he get his butt back to Earth? Hell, even a dangerous world run by crooks is better than a boring planet run by lizards.

And any indie author's alter ego could have told you that. Sour grapes or not.

The Collector

As I've said before, being the alter ego of someone else is no walk in the park, especially if you're nothing more than a face in the mirror like me. A face that has a mind and an astral body and a life of its own, I might add. It's bad enough being a second-class entity but when the Real McCoy you shadow is an independent science fiction author who thinks his farts don't smell, it can be a living nightmare.

Wait... it gets worse.

That's right, it's bad enough that I have to spend most of my time in Michael Casher's World doing Michael Casher things and pretending that I'd have nothing if it weren't for Michael Casher, the indie author, the great and powerful Big Bad Mike. Yep, it's bad enough to play second fiddle to a rube who's only saving grace is that he can write novels, without having to be hounded by bartenders from Earth who think they can put the bite on me for his overdue bar tabs.

That's right. It finally happened one night this past week. The "astral figment" or else "the dreaming self "of a Middle-Eastern tavern owner they call Sheik Sousé (see pic) blew in from Earth, looking for me. The big bully pushed me off my bar stool and used it for a soapbox. The big goof didn't even know what I looked like. This is what he said:

"I am looking for the infidel Jonco Bugos who still owes me ten denarii NO! fifty thousand drachmas NO! twenty euros for drinks at Green Parakeet in Istanbul. If you see him tell him he is thief and viper and he is banned from Black Cricket in Baghdad. Stupid hack! And I am not liking to do this in stupid low boozer!"

Then he eyed the silent crowd with hatred in his black eyes, jumped down from my stool and stormed out of Think-A-Holic Lounge in a big huff before anybody could even say anything (and they wouldn't have said anything anyway). Give a fool enough rope and he'll always hang himself. That's our motto.

Anyway, as soon as the door banged shut, I was up to my eyeballs in free shots of think-a-hol from a crowd of admiring patrons. Even Angus McCloud, the Lounge's bigass head bartender, set me up with a double think-a-hol and a bubbly chaser... on the house. Why the celebration? Well, we hacks have a code and that code is that we never rat on another hack, especially if he's the innocent alter ego of a deadbeat author.

If there's a moral in this story it's this: maybe we're all hack writers around here and author wannabes and POD publishers (the flotsam and jetsam of the publishing industry) but we stick together.

So, the next time Mr. High and Mighty Sheik Sousé and that stuffed shirt Author From Another World storm into Think-A-Holic Lounge like bigass birds, we'll show them which side of the space-time continuum the butter's on.

What does that mean? Well, that's for me to know and for your to find out. Besides, I'd break another hack code if I told you.

New Think-A-Holic Lounge Dartboard

Angus McCloud, Think-A-Holic Lounge's bigass head bartender, recently replaced the Lounge's old dartboard with this free-floating new one. So far, no one has gotten a bulls-eye and, for some unknown reason, I'm unable to keep my darts out of the black area.

Go figure.

Man in the Earth

Being Jonco Bugos is not an easy job as I've said more than once before. The fact that I'm a published author in my own right after penning Blind Fool Running in 2009 and the fact that I write two blogs, Think-A-Holic Lounge and Jonco Bugos, and the fact that I'm the star reporter for the free monthly online newsletter The Pluto Observer doesn't seem to be enough to flesh me out. I'm still just the mere reflection of science fiction author Michael Casher, not the Real McCoy.

I wouldn't mind being a face in the mirror and all that galling second-class-citizen stuff if it weren't for the fact that I see Michael Casher everywhere I go. I mean everywhere, not just his face staring back at me from his side of the looking glass. For example, the other night I decided to look at the moon through my new binoculars. It was so clear out, the moon had just come up and I wanted a close up view of "the man in the moon."

But I didn't see the man in the moon. I didn't even see the moon at all. Pictured here is what I saw. I thought about telling Michael Casher what I saw in the sky the other night but I'm afraid it would just go to his head.

Bear Bob

Think-A-Holic Lounge is an intergalactic watering hole for writing and publishing misfits from throughout the space-time continuum and, even though it takes up no space in the physical universe, it's still a natural place for fights on the weekends just like any other dive bar on planet Earth.

And that's because a lot of people who frequent the Lounge on the weekends are disembodied spirits and astral selves and dreamworld figments from Earth and nobody picks fights like Earthlings with issues. And Earthlings always have issues. It's almost as if they were born for the purpose of working out every type of personal and social issue that can possibly confront a biped creature.

Summertime bar brawling requires special tavern security (see pic). Just after the big Fourth of July blowout brawl that lasted elebenty-leben minutes and destroyed almost half of the Lounge's tables and chairs, Angus McCloud, the Lounge's bigass head bartender, hired a special bouncer who was formerly from from Pennsylvania's Allegheny Plateau Region on Earth.

Angus calls him Bear Bob. This formidable-looking creature is a hybrid biped who was created in a lab by the Grays in the early 1960s. Bear Bob is half Pennsylvania redneck and half Pennsylvania Black Bear, which gives him the appearance of a Minnesota Brown Bear in an Ozark Mountain costume. Go figure.

There have been absolutely no fights whatsover at Think-A-Holic Lounge since Bear Bob was installed at the front door. And that's because no one has been brave enough to approach this hostile-looking bruin bouncer, let alone pass his scrutiny.

It won't last, though. When Angus McCloud's tip money starts to dry up and he can no longer afford his chauffeur-driven limo, Bear Bob will be history and things will be back to normal around here. I can't wait. I haven't had a taste of think-a-hol, myself, since Independence Day.

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.