Attack of the Brain Cloud...

...or the Revenge of Joe and the Volcano. 

The other day my wife and I were discussing (i.e., arguing; hey, it's our hobby!) about the different ways we handle sleeplessness.

I told her, "when you don't sleep well, you thrive on it."

She disagreed. "Hardly! I don't 'thrive'. I make do and manage."

"Still seems like thriving to me," I muttered. "But when I can't sleep, it's like...a brain cloud lowers down on me."

"First of all, there's no such thing as a 'brain cloud,'" she said. 

"Yes, there is," I insisted. "I might've made it up, but it's very, very real."

"It came from a movie," she said authoritatively.

Humph. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a head jam-packed with worthless and pointless knowledge of movies (which when you come right down to it, probably wouldn't make me a very important and necessary component in the survivor camps during our impending zombie apocalypse.).

But...but...my wife stumped me on this one. "I know of no such movie," I statedtriumphantly. "What movie, pray tell, do you speak of?"

Immediately, she whips out, "Joe and the Volcano."

Silence. Blink. Crickets. More silence. Blinkety-blinky-blink.

"JOE AND THE VOLCANO?" I roar. "Who remembers friggin' Joe and the Volcano? I mean, I kinda think I've seen it, but don't remember anything about it except that it was painfully unfunny and terrible."

"Yes, it was. But that's where 'brain cloud' came from."

Wow. She stymied the Movie Master. This is made more incredible by the fact that at times my wife can't remember the movie we watched last weekend, let alone some obscure 34-year-old bomb  that NO ONE remembers like Joe and the Volcano.

But sure enough, according to Ms. Google, my wife was right (dammit! Gettin' kinda old!). Apparently, Tom Hanks character was diagnosed with an incurable deadly disease known as "brain cloud" which will kill him in several months.

However, Wiktionary (a very, very, VERY credible source, of course) refers to "Brain Cloud" as a very real ailment that causes "the temporary inability to think properly." Other scientists and psychologists refer to it as a nickname for the clouding of consciousness. There's a LOT more boring stuff about this insidious disease that I won't bother you with, but the most stunning aspect of it all is finally--FINALLY!--Joe and the Volcano will be remembered as something other than a terrible bomb and actually contributed to the field of science.

Speaking of really dumb and stupid things, look no further than my Zach and Zora comedy mystery series. If imbecilic humor and outrageous situations and decidedly impolitically correct comedy and  cool murder mysteries are your bag, have a read! Start with Bad Day in a Banana Hammock and spiral on downwards from there! Plus! A brand spankin' new book in the series coming to you some time this century!

Rachel Maddow: Hot or Not?

In this current time of crazy political upheaval and even crazier politicians, I think it's time to seriously address a burning topical issue: Is Rachel Maddow a hottie or a nottie?

Personally, I think she's kinda hot. Recently, I had one friend who agreed with me, although he downgraded "hot" to "cute."

Even more recently, I made the mistake of blurting it out in a bar to my brother, his daughters, and a friend.

Emboldened by beer, I said, "Is it just me? Or is Rachel Maddow hot?"

Silence. Than disbelief. My brother shook his head in abject disappointment in me than started laughing. "It's just you."

One of my nieces was laughing, too, and said, "She's soooooo gay."

I answered, "I know that! But it doesn't stop how I think she looks."

I pulled up the most attractive picture I could find on my phone. I showed it to my other niece who just shook her head.

My brother faked a "WOW!"

The friend with us was slightly supportive. "Well...she's an attractive woman. But...'hot?' No!"

Hanging my head in shame, I started backpedaling. "Maybe...maybe I'm just attracted to her liberal firebrand journalistic warrior-hood."

That ploy didn't seem to work. As the derisive laughter and ludicrous--and admittedly sexist--discussion rose in volume, people started looking at us. And eavesdropping. More shakes of the head at my "Hotometer" being broken.

My brother says, "Do you also think Billie Jean King is hot?"

And of course, my nieces start googling her.

Deciding to try and save face, I tried to be a good sport. "Oh, YEAH! Hotcha!"

Then my brother starts dropping other names. "You think Jane Lynch is hot? Carol Burnett? How about Carol Burnett?"

I don't know where or why he pulled out Carol Burnett, but I played along until the joke (on me) had died down.

I finally mumbled, "I've always liked that short, cute, spiky-haired, punkish look." Which is true as I've always liked my wife's hair the shorter she keeps it.

Seriously, though, I do find Rachel Maddow to be attractive (maybe I, too, will downgrade from the rude and sexist "hot"), regardless of her own sexuality. But more importantly, it's what she stands for that I like: a serious-minded, left-wing leaning journalist who's needed these days when compared to the lying so-called "newscasters" who make up "stories" to suit their political leanings and fleece their viewers. You KNOW who I'm talking about and they're definitely NOT HOT.

Speaking of "hotness" and giving fair time to the other sex, Zach Cavanaugh, a male stripper (but don't call him that!), thinks he is the male definition of hot. Hot or not, he's about as dumb as a box of rocks. And he keeps finding himself wrongly implicated in some bizarre murders. It always falls on his long-suffering, usually pregnant, competent sleuth sister to bail him out of trouble by finding the real murderers. Check out the Zach and Zora comical murder mystery series here: Bad Day in a Banana Hammock!

"I've Been Smiling For Four Hours"

Recently, my wife came back from working at a Covid vaccination clinic. 

As soon as she came in the door, she said quietly, "I've been smiling for four hours. I need to be alone."

Yow! Holy ghost of Marlene Dietrich!

But I definitely empathized with her, for I too, suffer from a terrible malady: smilitess.

What is smilitess, I feel you wondering. It's the disease of not being able to smile on cue. (Okay, I made it up, but it doesn't make it any less real.)

Ever since childhood, I've never been able to produce a smile on command. It's no wonder in my year book photos, I always looked pained and constipated. Part of it was my unwillingness to show my teeth. I'm not really sure why, but I remember being self-conscious about them.

Matters were only made worse when the photographer attempted humor.

"Okay, say 'cheese.'"

Nothing.

"Well, let's forget the cheese...say 'grillled cheese sammitch!'"

Again, not funny. But I could tell we were going to be there all day if I didn't attempt to crack a smile. 

Later, my parents said, "Mercy! You call that a smile? You look like you're about to cry! Open your mouth!"

This problem has plagued me all my life. The only time I feel an unforced smile is when someone makes me laugh, no easy task.

Several years ago, I worked a booth at a horror convention in Washington pimping my books. By the end of the first day, I felt a TMJ headache forming in my jaw from the constrictions of fake smiling for every potential customer. Hardly worth the effort. I looked like the Joker. Or worse, one of the victims in last year's horror film, Smile.

Picture time is always a drag for me. I hated it as a kid (mainly because I couldn't wait to get out of my lime green leisure suit on Sundays, but there was also the smiling thing.). And I still dread on holidays, whenever someone whips out their phones and starts directing us like we're on the set of Heaven's Gate or whatever.

So beware. The next time someone says to me, "smile for the camera," I think I'm in my full right as a tax-payer to protect myself and smash the phone.

Speaking of smashing things, you'll find a heartwarming tale of bigfoot eviscerating campers and destroying a camp in my short story collection, Twisted Tales From Tornado Alley. Don't worry...it's a love story! That's just one of the many macabre delights awaiting you in the book. So with Halloween approaching, get it here!

Phantom Poop

I know it's a little early for a spooky Halloween tale, y'all, but I just had to get this off my mind. (And it IS Friday, the 13th, after all. BOO!)

Our newest dog, the puppy Biscuit, has regressed and started pooping in the house. Oh, sure, when we first adopted him, he was on his best behavior and didn't make messes in the house. But after he knew he had us hooked, and that there was no going back, he's letting it rip. Just to show us who's boss.

While we're trying to curb this gross behavior, my olfactory senses are on high alert. At times, I'll suddenly say to my wife, "Uh-oh, I smell poop."

So we'll make the rounds, checking his favorite places to go (always hidden pretty well, so don't tell me he doesn't know it's a no-no!), and the last time our mission to find poop had proven fruitless (or "poopless," if you will), my wife said, "You're smelling phantom poop."

"Phantom poop?" I asked. "Is that really a thing? Sounds like a cheesy Japanese school-girl horror film."

"Yes, look it up."

So, with the aid of my trusted research assistant, Ms. Google, I did just that. The results may well shock you!

Apparently, people love to talk about phantom poop (or ghost poop) online. A lot! Undoubtedly, from their mothers' basements.

According to social media experts (get a life, guys!) and gastroenterologists (get a less glamourous job, guys!!), phantom poops refer to the following bowel-related phenomena:

*Thinking you need to poop, but it's only gas;

*A poop that sinks to the bottom of the toilet and disappears (ooooooh, spooky!);

*A poop that leaves no trace on toilet paper after wiping (Quick! Call an exorcist!).

Okay, first of all, I never knew pooping had so much unexplained phenomenon behind it (I never saw the subject matter pop up on all of those "Unexplained Mystery" syndicated shows). Second, how does a person end up researching and studying poop? Do they have a Master's in Poopology? ("Professor, for my thesis, I'd like to present several theories--and test them--on how peanuts end up in poop, even when you haven't eaten them.") Third, while these "phantom poop" symptoms aren't really pertinent to our doggy issue, it's made me think a LOT about the frightening and supernatural world of poop. And finally, while I don't even pretend to understand the complex, intricate, paranormal world of pooping, there's one thing that's absolutely factual to me: Raquel Welch never, never, never, EVER pooped.

Regardless, there's an AWFUL lot of chatter on the intronets about phantom poops. I should know, I read a lot of it, preparing for future sparkling and witty conversation at our next dinner party. 

Speaking of embarrassing things, pity poor Wendell, protagonist of my comical thriller, Chili Run. Bad guys force him to run across a crowded Kansas City downtown to fetch a bowl of chili. In his tighty-whities (or it that "tidy-whities?" I dunno, it's quite the raging controversy) underwear. Or they're going to kill his brother. It's complicated. Read the outrageous, and hopefully funny, non-stop suspense in Chili Run.

I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night

So I had just fallen asleep. Dreamland whisked me away to an impossible, yet all too real at the time, nightmare scenario.

My boss (from a mysterious, unremembered job) signed me up to box Donald Trump. Having no say in the matter, I dreaded the event until the day of, when I suddenly realized I didn't even know where the venue was or what time I was to show up (pretty typical "dream logic" for me). Finally, some ex-co-worker from my last job (NEVER liked the guy) told me it was at a "Home and Garden Show" in downtown Kansas City.

So I showed up in a suit with hard, pointy dress shoes. The panicked small Asian guy who was in charge of the event asked, "Where are your boxing clothes?"

I pointed to my suit and said, "Ahhhh...this is all I have. Nobody told me anything."

The event was being promoted everywhere and I felt like the entire future of the country was weighing on my shoulders to beat the former president in the boxing ring. I worried that I was so out-of-shape now, that Trump might pummel me. Worse, I dreaded his inevitable name-calling, doxing, and bullying.

I'll never know how I fared in the battle as I woke up in a fevered sweat. With boxing gloves next to my bed. (Okay, I made up that last part because I thought it was post-ironic funny. Take that, hipsters!).

Now. What's my dream mean? I could posit some armchair, pop Freudian symbolism about how Trump represents a danger to the country and I feel threatened by him, but I'm not going to go there. (Although I just kinda went there anyway, didn't I?). Or perhaps it had to do with Trump's latest grift in a long line of griftiness, where if you buy ten of his NFT cards (only $100 bucks each!), you'll get a piece of his "knockout suit" to go with it! Wow! Bargain! (I wonder if Monica Lewinsky is selling pieces of her notorious dress. Ew. Sorry, sorry, sorry...). Or maybe it's the fact that this crazy felon is STILL dominating news headlines four years after he left the White House in shame.

I'll leave it up to you guys to decipher the deeper meaning of it all, although I'll leave you with one message: GO KAMALA!

For more nonsense, check out my Zach and Zora comical mystery series. Start with Bad Day in a Banana Hammock and unravel the wacky excitement from there!

If Only I Had a Third Eyelid

Last week there was a huge food mishap in our house. No, for once it wasn't my doing. Our senior dog happened to be lollygagging around our largest dog while she was eating. Things didn't go well. She attacked the elderly pup (shades of when a white trash drunk young woman tried to beat me up in a Holiday Inn!). By the time I broke it up, the damage had been done.

Mr. Loomis had a chest wound, but worse, his eye was nearly completely red.  Being a responsible adult and pet owner, I did the only mature, responsible thing that was needed: I panicked.

I'd never seen a dog's eye wound like that before. I called our doggy thousand dollar ophthalmologist (yes, Virginia, there IS such a thing), but she was booked solid. I called our regular vet, but they were full up as well.

Then I did the next responsible thing and called my out-of-town wife. "Oh my God, dear, there's blood everywhere! Literally gushing from his eye!"

Silence. Then, "Okay, how bad is it, really?"

"Um, his eye's mostly red."

"He needs to be seen," she said.

So, I knew what I had to do. A dreaded trip to the million dollar doggy E.R. (again, Virginia, duh, they exist. What rock have you been hiding under?), where patience and Big Bills are rarely rewarded.

The assistant who checked me in said, "Wait...what's your wife's name?"

I told her.

"I KNOW Mr. Loomis," she shouted exuberantly. "I used to work at your thousand dollar doggy ophthalmologist. Mr. Loomis was our patient!"

It's a small doggy world, it turns out. Too bad the doggy bills aren't so small.

Anyway, she led me back to the room and I had hoped that her goodwill with Mr. Loomis would speed things up a bit. But Mr. Loomis and I waited. And waited. And waited. Waited until my phone died. Then I left.

The next morning I was able to see the thousand dollar doggy ophthalmologist. 

She said, "The good news is it looks like his third eyelid is doing its job."

"Wait...what?" I looked carefully into Mr. Loomis' blood-filled eye. "Is...is...my dog a...mutant? I've never even HEARD of a third eyelid!"

The doctor rolled her (presumably double-lidded) eyes and said, "We humans are the oddball. We're the only mammals that don't have a third eyelid."

Whoa! Freaky!

So I nodded and pretended I wasn't nearly as dumb as I actually am. But when we got home, I looked up the third eyelid via my assistant, Ms. Google.

"The third eyelid is located in the inner corner of the eye and sweeps across the eye in a horizontal direction when the eyeball retracts during a blink. This protects the eye, distributes tears, and helps maintain vision."

Where was I when this was being taught in school? (Oh, yeah, probably skipping class and smoking weed and hanging out in the parking lot. I can admit this now since both of my parents have passed away.)

But it got me thinking. So...do dogs actually have SIX eyelids? When don't they refer to them as the third and sixth eyelid?

And why can't humans have the third eyelid? It'd probably help with my perpetually weeping eyes. It could be, like, my superpower.

"There's no need to fear!" I'd shout triumphantly with chest out and hands on hips. "My special third eyelid will take out the evildoer!"

"Oh, thank you, Third Eyelid Man," an adoring, hot blonde bystander would say.

Speaking of nice dreams, well...I don't really write about "nice" dreams. Only bad dreams. Like in my horror-filled, dark humor-laced short story collection Twisted Tales From Tornado Alley. (Yes, Virginia, I know it's a terrible tie-in, but I needed some kinda segue to pimp my books. Now shut your pie-hole! Kids today!)

Front Yard Olympics

Every two years, my wife and I become experts on the Olympics. "Holy cow! Did you see the way she perfectly landed that triple Sowkow?" It just comes naturally.

So, by extension, it would seem only natural that I decided to have a one-man Olympic event in my front yard for all the neighbors to witness.

I had just come off a long weekend of baby-sitting my daughter's bratty dogs (an Olympian event of endurance in itself). Tired, wearing dirty clothes, and arms loaded with a suitcase and a refrigerated bag containing numerous beers, I wearily climbed the front five stairs to gain entrance to my much-missed house.

Except my arthritic knees had a different plan. As if in slow motion, I reached the top of the stoop, wavered backwards, and gravity took me backward down the stairs and onto the sidewalk.

My first thought was hmmm, this must be how Simone Biles feels while flying through the air. My next thought was Oh my God, I'm gonna die on the sidewalk. Finally, I pondered the nature of my unusual and extraordinary decision to forego clean underwear that morning because I wanted to get home as quickly as possible. Then I heard my mom saying, always wear clean underwear in case you get in an accident.

All of these thoughts transpired as I flew backward and through the air in a matter of seconds. I wish I could say I planted my landing beautifully like Simone Biles, but alas, the judges would've penalized me big-time for my crash landing. I banged onto the sidewalk and bounced into the yard.

Mercifully, my elbow took the brunt of the crash, saving my head from a concussion or worse. Dazed, with cartoon birdies dive-bombing around my head, I looked around. Scattered throughout the yard were numerous beer cans and dirty clothes, shrapnel from my ammunition-loaded bags. 

Mortified, I sat up, thinking Wow, it's good to be alive. I'm really thankful that no neighbors witnessed--

"Hey, Stu, are you alright?"

Crap. One of the young neighbors across the street had come running out, having witnessed my Olympic trial through his window. 

Incredibly humiliated, I continued to sit in the yard in dirty underwear, waiting for the neighbor to go away. But he didn't.

"Ah, what's up, Joel?" I said in a nonchalant manner. 

"I was just looking out the window and saw your fall. Are you alright?"

"Yeah. My arthritis just got to me and gravity did the rest." I considered asking him how he would've rated my landing.

"But you're okay?" He looked about the yard in bemusement at all my beer cans and dirty clothes scattered throughout.

"Just a bruised ego, that's all," I answered, still sitting there like I had planned it that way. 

But that wasn't the only thing that was bruised. My back, legs, knees, shoulders, and elbow hurt like mad for two or three days after that. But at least I finally got to experience life as an Olympic champion. (With dirty underwear.)

Speaking of greatness, meet Zach Caulfield, a champion "male entertainment dancer (aka, a stripper)." Go on, just ask him. The problem is Zach constantly stumbles across dead bodies and more often than not, gets blamed for the murder. It falls upon his weary, much put-upon, usually pregnant sleuth sister to find the guilty party to save her idiot brother's hide from jail. Read the wacky antics and mystery and adventure in the Zach and Zora comic mystery series!