Cosmic Comic Continuum

George Carlin at Retro Comic Spotlight

Grifter Goes Viral

Author's Note 8-9-12: this video was changed from an uploaded Blogger video to a YouTube embedded video in order to enhance the viewing experience and for better playing performance on this blog.

If you've been following my barstool journal on a fairly regular basis, you know that Fred Fortune cancelled the contract that the Fred & Red comedy team signed last year with Think-A-Holic Lounge before they even did their first gig here. Fred nipped their Lounge opening in the bud because he found out that it was Angus McCloud (our big-ass head bartender and the 400-year-old ghost of a dead Scottish poet) who had reported Fred Fortune to the Pluto Police way back in Earth Year 2008.

When Red got a job as emcee at Retro Comic Spotlight earlier this year, Fred decided to go solo at The Red Room in underground Cydonia. Naturally, the left TV at Think-A-Holic Lounge (the one that normally broadcasts hacker podcasts) picked up Fred's Nightclub Debut and began broadcasting it every hour. Today, when I waltzed into the Lounge like I owned the place (something I really love to do), I saw that the entire lunch crowd was watching Fred's comedy routine. If a comedy act stinks to high heaven it always goes over really big at Think-A-Holic Lounge. Don't ask me why.

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.

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.