The Adventures of Crimson Lizard and Chief Somber Possum: Labyrinth of the Bear

So,

Check this out,

A couple weeks back, my old trail buddy, Chief Somber Possum, told me about a rumor that had been making its way around camp. The story was that Old Ephraim's skull had come here to Logan and was hidden somewhere within the catacombs of the library.
     "And you believe it?" I asked.
     "Of course I do," he responded, "don't you?"
     It is hard to take the old Chief seriously when he's playing hopscotch, but I decided to look past that and ponder the possibility of finally having the skull within reach. For years I've sought it (I haven't), and passing up the opportunity to find it would be foolish (it wouldn't). After the Chief had finished his last round of hopscotch, we started figuring out how we might get to the skull.

     Silly me! I've forgotten to tell you the history of Old Ephraim. Here's the abridged version:
   
     OLD EPHRAIM: A STORY OF BETRAYAL AND OTHER NASTY STUFF

     Frank Clark was four years old (and still in diapers) when he had his first encounter with Old Ephraim. The bear attacked his family in the middle of the night, ripping the front door off of its hinges with one mighty sneeze (he meant to just open the door, but his allergies got to him). He crushed Frank's father with the door as the elder Mr. Clark raised his shotgun to fire on the beast. As Mrs. Clark sobbed over the corpse of her husband, Ephraim grabbed her up in his massive, fuzzy, extremely soft paws and ate her whole. Little Frank hid in a bag of sugar (because everyone knows Old Ephraim HATED sweets), sobbing and wetting himself as he watched his family die through a hole in the bag. On that day he began plotting his sweet (pun intended) revenge on the demonic bear.
     It was lots of years later (how should I know the exact number?) that Frank, grizzled and masculinized with years of hunting, caught up with Old Ephraim, who by now had been mostly replace by robotic parts to keep him alive. But Frank was TOTALLY prepared to fight the cyborg bear. As Old E. moved towards the a deer that Frank had leashed to a tree (PETA was PISSED), Frank, from his hiding place atop the hill, caught the bear in his sights. But he didn't think that the monster would remember Frank's scent from the house, all those many, many years ago! The smell of sugar and urine gave away Frank's position and Big Bobo (I promise that's a real nickname for him, or should be) attacked, leaping fourteen feet in a single bound. He stood before Frank with death on his bionic mind and blood on his breath. But Frank, ha ha, he was no fool! He had set a trap on the hill as a precaution. As Mr. E (it's like Mr. T, not Mystery, duh) moved to strike, Frank dive out the way and activated the EMP emitter, shutting much of the bear down momentarily. Ephraim dragged himself towards Frank who pulled out his super trusty six shooter and unleashed a hail of bullets (just six actually) upon the beast!
     Blah blah blah, the bear got working again, blah blah blah, Frank shot it with a rocket launcher, blah blah blah, Grave peril, blah blah blah, Mr. Grumpy Lumps rose up to strike, blah blah blah...
     Frank knew this was it! He braced for death. But there, beside him, was an old prospector's pickaxe (probably belonged to an old prospector, don't question me). With the last of his strength, he raised the axe and SLAMMED it through Ephraim's left eye. Which of course was one of the few real things left on the bear. The axe went through the eye to the brain, causing IMMEDIATE DEATH.
     And then a bunch of boring crap happened.

     Poem!
A little bird, so tiny small,
will never come when I do call,
So I will shoot him with my gun,
And then from this zoo I shall run.

   The old Chief and I decided that step one was to go on a vision quest (duh). Neither of us was really sure on how that might be done, so we just sat out in the sun and refused to drink water and only ate Redvines and salt. After several days of this we...who am I kidding? After several minutes of this we began seeing things, like giant butterflies with men's faces being ridden by dinosaurs. And they were fighting gypsy communists who launched toast out of giant toasters into the sky, knocking the dinosaurs off of their mounts. Then George Washington was all like, "Hey, stop that." And they did.
     Then George (we're on a first name basis) Washington (but I'll use his whole name in case you're unsure of who I was talking about) looked me in the eyes. Right in the eyes.
     And he said, "Hey, man, don't sweat the small stuff."
     Then Somber Possum says, "And it's ALL small stuff!"
     And I was like, "I haven't read that book, but I've heard good things."
     And the vision was over! The Chief and I looked at each other knowingly. For both of us realized that our vision quest had been, for lack of a more ethereal term, super useless.

     Movie idea!
So this guy and his best buddy join the local knitting crew. And everyone's like, "You're just doing it to meet ladies!" And they're like, "You are incorrect, sirs." Well, the best buddy is like a knitting prodigy and the other guy is really excited for him at first, but then the head of the local crocheting gang starts planting seeds of doubt in his mind and he's like, "did I ever even have friends?" Well, he joins up with the crochetists and the two crews start a battle all over town. It starts simple: crocheted toilet paper strewn over trees and doilies put over cars. But then came the knitting needles stuck in teddy bears and then a massive cross stitch with a smiling family, all happy to be together, and underneath it says, "We all die, some quicker than others." And everyone's like, "Who did the cross stitch? It's really good." But they never find out and soon the town is covered with yarn, just coating everything. And then there's a resolution...yeah.

     Back to work!
Chief Somber Possum and I were inside the library (I skipped all the boring crap about his dying father giving him final words of wisdom, and he was like, "blah blah blah, I love you." And old CSP was like, "Wah, wah, you never told me that before." And then his dad died). I had the excavating gear and the Chief had a whole satchel full of pickles (because digging makes you hungry, don't question it). We descended the staircase all the way to the bottom floor and chose the first room we found. Inside we found labyrinthine rows of file cabinets, filled with maps and documents. We were lost for hours until, like a beacon of hope, we spotted a statue of Abraham Lincoln.
     Chief Somber Possum looked the old Presidente in the wooden eyes (or plaster, not really sure) and said, "My people thank you for all your hard work, freeing the slaves and all that. I guess I can sleep well, knowing you're around. Yeah, I'll sleep real well, ON MY SMALL POX BLANKET!"
     We tried to steal the statue, but it was way too friggin' heavy, so we were like, "Screw it." Anywho, we continued on through the maze of government documents (we know who killed JFK! It was hubris) until we made our way into an even deeper chamber, the fabled fifth circle. Within the next door would surely be the inner sanctum where the skull would be kept.
     "I can feel the evil presence nearby, we are very close, Crimson Lizard," Somber Possum said.
     But he spoke too loudly! From behind a nearby bookshelf sprang the Librarian! We had heard tales, but only now could we see how this creature could stun men into silence and strike fear into their hearts so much so that they never spoke again. She had two arms. TWO! And two legs.WITH FEET! And she had her long hair pulled back in a bun, very flattering actually. She was wearing a floral print skirt and a sensible top. But, like, REALLY sensible!
     She opened her mouth, her horrible, perfectly normal mouth, and said, "Please keep your voices down."
     Chief Somber Possum stood in front of me and thus received the full force of her assault. He struggled to stand for a moment, then fell to his knees.
     "No!" I whispered, but it was a pretty urgent sounding whisper. I caught him as he fell.
     "Go on without me," He said, "I go the way of my ancestors."
     "Okay," I said, dropping him. I continued on.

     A haiku:
Happiness is great,
If you want to be happy,
Otherwise, it sucks.

     And I stood before the doors that led to the inner sanctum. Reverently, I pulled on the handle. Inside, the two guards were standing on opposite sides of the room.
     "Excuse me, O, mighty ones," I said, "I have heard tell that somewhere within these hallowed halls is a skull, that of--"
     "Yeah, it's over there." The smaller sentinel pointed to the corner where a glass case stood.
     I thanked them and walked slowly to the case. As I got closer, I could feel the spirit of Old Ephraim himself.
     Then I was before it, the skull.
     "It's a whole lot smaller than I thought," said a voice.
     I turned to find Chief Somber Possum, alive and well!
     "Yeah, it's like, friggin' small." I grabbed a paper that had the whole story and looked it over. But it was super boring, so I just stuffed it in my pocket.
     The Chief grunted and said, "Let's go, this sucks."
     So we did, but as we were leaving, one of those oh so impressive guards was all like, "Frank Clark."
     Somber Possum was like, "What?"
     And the mighty one is like, "That's his name."
     And I was like, "Oh, gee, thanks for the guided tour. There's no way we ALREADY KNEW THAT!"
     Yeah, so we went back to "camp" and ate some cheesecake.

     THE END

     I leave you with a poem.
Underdug and overthrown,
I'ma throw that dog a bone,
And let him in out of the rain,
and pray that he won't make a stain.
HE DID, HE DID!
He pissed, just like a little kid!

     That's why you shouldn't have kids, but dogs are okay sometimes.

     So, moral of the story is, bear skulls are a MEGA letdown. And that excavating gear was completely unnecessary and some stores are super stingy on their return policy.

LOVES!

CL

The Origin of Discontent

  Friendlies

HOW ARE YOU!!!!  That sux.  

The hardest thing about trying to co-write a blog is all the pressure to produce material.  Since that very first day not an hour has past that the Lizard hasn't pounded my head against the wall of facebook while demanding me to write quickly.  It was horrible.

In response to this I tried to fill my life with extreme experiences, but you would be surprised how difficult it is to arrange these type of things with as little effort as I am willing to put forward.   The only thing I really managed to do was go night hiking up into wilderness on a new moon.  

It was terrifying.

I spent the entire hike being completely unaware of even the most immediate surroundings.  Ended up for a rather dull story, as I was incapable of experiencing of anything but basic disorientation.  But I do imagine that lurking right behind the darkness was this....

I am afraid of the not-dark

Given the circumstances, I feel better that it was black as an inappropriate cultural reference, because if you think about it there are two options.  Either this thing exists and your totally effed, or it doesn’t and your fine.  Either way in darkness you can be comfortable! With light you only have a 50% chance. 

REGARDLESS, today I was sitting at home having a jolly good time when the sister threw some kind of manipulative fit about me coming with her to buy new shoes so she wouldn't have to "be alone."  Suddenly I knew exactly what I would write about.  My little sister Kristen the evil and horrible. 

The semi-illustrated story of the begining of all that matters

It begins thusly:

Once upon a long ago, there was in fact born a very tiny human baby.  Oh such a tiny baby he was.  So tiny that people, who generally love tiny things, gave him all the love.

To top all of this off, even after immediate infant stages, the boy stayed quite tiny.  And with the tiny, stayed the cute, and attention.                                    
Then after only two years, the worst thing ever happened.  Momsy announced that she was to have another child.  ANOTHER TINY TINY CHILD. And so the no longer tiny, but simply small boy went from happy to sad.

And then from sad to evil.

Sad accomplishes nothing.  Evil is Action!

Soon the new child was born, and just when the boy thought nothing could get worse, the most shocking discover of all was unveiled.  SHE WAS EXCEPTIONALLY TINY!!!!! Never before had an infant of such minuscule proportions been birthed.  

It was at this point that what ever bubbly sun filled feelings he had left the boy, and all was anger and malice forever.  Being only 2 he was quite incapable of any extreme forms of terror, but he would often day dream of oppressing groups of destitute peasants dressed in dirty robes held together by rope belts.  He would see the wasted coal mining potential of children underage who sat lazily at home.  He had such dreams of grandeur, but for the time he could only pace and let the evil seep out of his aura. 

This still occasionally happens to me

Finally after a few short months he decided it was time for action.  He began stalking the little girl, and memorized her extremely dull daily routing.  It consisted mostly of sleeping and other types of useless things.  To top it all off, it seemed she was always with the mother, with whom he had little grudge.  But sacrifices had to be made.  So he carefully waited for his opening and sprung into action.

IT WAS MASTERFULL!  Yet somehow both mother and child made it through in tact! The boy realized it was because the plan was made in too much haste, and decided that he would carefully bide his time until suspicion was averted and strike with twice the preparation.   

Fast forward 3 years.  The parents had been slightly fooled into thinking the small boy had forgotten his grudge against the tiny girl, and had been successfully tricked into thinking the two had become... friends.  
It was during a game of 'hide-and-seek'.  The tiny girl was curled up in some concealed position while believing the small boy to be looking for her.  But rather then wasting his precious time seeking that which he wished to never be found, he was busy making a large red streak on the carpet using the most massive red crayon man had ever seen.  And much to his elation, it only took a few short minutes for mother to notice and shout for her two youngest children.   Of course the immediate question posed was "WHO!!!!!!?" to which the small boy quickly responded

OOOOH he had her now.  She would be forced into misery against her will!  Yet something ridiculous happened!

all young girls have running mascara

RUINED!!!!! RUINED AGAIN!!!!! Yes, she was punished, but only have as much as if she was to get angry and fussy.  She got like a whole freaking 2 minutes time out.  No getting sold into slavery, no getting left in the slums to fight for herself!!!!!!  FOILED AGAIN!!!!!!!!

So all was aweful, and remained so for all the rest of his years.

True story.  I really tried tried for years to get rid of her.  I once convinced her that she was adopted and should leave to find her real parents who missed her.  About a year later I got her to believe she would be better off living on her own at 7 years old.  I haven't given up on my parents will yet either,  santa always gets a side note of something like "A new Sister" or "For Kristen to be given to the gypsies".  But here I am 21 years after her birth still dealing with all the crap.  

I have found ways of dealing with the stress thought.  For a while I tried to make fake friends so she would be jelous of me, but they all eventually left me for real friends (others may call them spouses).  But recently I have kept my self busy by trying my best to upstage the lead in a production of Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat.

don't question the extra joints.  It just makes me better than you

Regardless, this is a persisting problem.  And I am open to suggestions.  

Ok so I've been writing for an eternity so I'm gonna say good night.  Look forward to another post by Mr. Lizard just around the corner.  It may even be accompanied by more pretty illustrations.  

Well until next time

Go to hell.

SB

MY LOVELIES!

Come near good children folk and listen with your eyes to the tale that will spin from this point onward. And from onward I do not mean till the end of this brief and simple blog entry you are currently feasting on, NO! I mean for this beautiful collection of letters  and spaces to tell you about the entirety of the rest of my life!  And oh what a life it is/will be.  Filled with jovial tasties and sweet sweet hahaha’s, it will make you feel 100% more fulfilled then you did before your epic peepage. 

     If you have happened to stumble into this small slice of blogspot unawares of your surroundings allow me to introduce myself.  I am one Mr. Bat the magniglorious.  Also joining the rampage will be Mr. Lizard the disgruntlious, pay kind to him, he falters easily into submission from lack of hahaha’s.   We have combined forces to pen down our every thought and live event, so that the common man may see us and feel empathy!

To start I begin with the sad sad horrible cake ball adventure that was lived just a few shorts times ago…

     Each year I allow myself 1 cooking adventure.  I have since my youth been about the worst in the kitchen as a person could possibly imagine so doing such frequently could have devastatingly negative effects on the world around me, but to never give it a shot ever ever would be completely foolish.  How are we to know that one day I won’t give it a shot and discover that the talent was there just waiting to be discovered during a previously determined year? Last year was the year of salt water taffy.  We started with all the appropriate ingredients and followed directions closely, yet still ended up with some kind of strawberry and charcoal swirl flavored chalk.  Well it was a little more brittle than chalk, but you get the picture.  (as a side note, this experiment took place the very same day that best friend matt introduced me to then girlfriend now wife.  I have since been known as the taffy man.  She even politely offered to have me make taffy for refreshments on that fateful day.  I should have.  Would have served them right.)

     BUT ON TO THIS YEAR!  Much like the last kitchen experiment this one involves a wedding!!!!!!! But very much opposite of the last year, this wedding predated and even inspired the project.  It was at best friend Adam’s wedding that we tasted the delicious cake pops.  Oh they were so so great, oh so very great.  They were so great that they returned suppressed memories of eating the same things in my years in Alabama! Suppressed not for tragedy but out of amounts of deliciousness I thought were not achievable again! This idea of disappointment removed the memory from my brain entirely until the wedding in question let hope shine through.  Immediately after leaving I knew what my mission would be.  CAKE BALLS WOULD BE MINE FOREVER!

     The greatest thing about the cake balls is basically anyone who has a mother who makes pro-style confectionary treats regularly will have all the ingredients on hand!  So after making sad faces at mom for a minute then promising that the kitchen would have no lasting fire damage she agreed to let me use all of her favorite things.

Haiku:

Within the kitchen

Ingredients are as one

And so comes horror

     It happened around the time that the balls of cake and cream cheese were meant to be rolled in sweltering dipping chocolates.  You may not think it, but taking a dough-like substance plus trying to roll it in hot liquidish substance does not equal easy and pretty.  Instead of getting this:

I got something more like this:

     I know it looks like ingesting these may cause your stomach to catch the AIDS or something, but remarkably enough they were quite palatable.  But unfortunately by today’s standards, this is not enough.  I can never break into the industry with such ugly balls.  On conversation with the mother afterwards about life lessons I learned from this year’s catastrophe her only response was that “Blue-green is not a good color for chocolate” this lesson proved to be far more insightful then the one I was about to pull from it. 

TRIVIA

Q: What do you get when two cake balls get stuck together from melted chocolate?

A: Cake- SHUT YO’ MOUTH!

MOVIE IDEAS
Tap ‘n Slap: 

So some dudes are totally like chilaxin’ on a couch when it tips over backwards from their collectively unbearable weight.  Once the dust settles they find they have been transported to the magical land of Uloongiarta!  Here they meet the magical unicorn Murvis who makes his living being a street tap dancer stage-named Luscious.  But when Murvis is mistaken for a hooker the dudes must build his case and defend him in court.  The best part, MURVIS IS HIRED TO BE HIS OWN PROSECUTION!  Poor Murvis, if he loses, his reputation as a freakin’ suite prosecutor will be shattered, but if he wins, his street dancing days are over. Not to mention a high probability of serving time.  WHAT WILL OUR HEROES DO!?!?!?!

OH OH OH that would be so fly.  Someone get a producer on the phone now because this idea is totally hip to the now!

Potentially all is filled with air

Deep and dark but yet despair

Flutterly poised and boisen brye

Needles puncture brazen eye

A golden horse marches through

A silver scarab buzzes too

Can anyone tell me what the meaning of this poem is.  If you can then you get 3 hurays.  Which is 2 more than most will ever get from me in their lives.  Does this thought make you happy?  It shouldn’t.

Thus ends entry number one from Mr. Bat. But alas as a parting gift I give a beautiful piece of art from my many creations on my phone. 

 Love, 

SB

A Word From the Crimson Lizard

Into the darkness with you, reader!

Welcome to Death4Yes. As the title suggests, this blog is mostly about the current political state of blah blah blah.

Time for a poem!

Little dog, little dog,

I will make you eat this frog.

When you're done, sit on a log,

Hold on! I have to write this blog.

I'm back, valiant readers. Question: What is art? Answer: I don't answer elitist questions like that. Today I have done nothing but sit on a couch, complaining to the Silver Bat about how much we need to write this blog. At first I tried to convince him that my creative juices only flow when he posts first. But his retort was that his creative juices require that I post first.

Question: Why is creativity always measured in juices?

Answer: Because people are generally disgusting.

Here's a movie idea:

A very tall man is actually just average height but only hangs out with short people and plays basketball on children's hoops. HE IS A DANGER TO HIMSELF! The doctor tells him to make friends with normal people which really offends his short friends who KILL and EAT the doctor. The whole thing is way too intense to be explained by this synopsis, so here's the climactic scene:

DOCTOR: You gots to find yourself some normally normals!

TALL/AVERAGE GUY: Are you calling my short friends freaks?

SHORT FREAK #1: WHAT what WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT!?!

SHORT FREAK #2: Let's eat that doctor's FACE!

They do.

I shall call this film: AveRAGE!

And the tagline shall be: They all said I was too normal. Well, they were wrong...DEAD wrong!

And the disclaimer shall be: They were actually right.

I feel like I've thrown a lot at you for a first post. You doing okay there, champ? Need a drink or something? Go take a nap.

Glad to see you've returned, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (word of advice: get that tail checked out, could be cancer). Now I'm going to tell you a story about addiction. It is very sad and I won't be offended if you cry.

A bunch of addicts walk into a bar and they shout up to the bartender, "Snag us some peanuts!" The bartender says, "I can smell the peanuts on your breath from here, you've had enough!" The big fella in front says, "Don't think we can handle our peanuts, huh?" Bartender retorts, "Don't get all riled up, Herb, I'm just trying to protect you from yourself." Herb starts ranting and raving, "I'm fine! I can stop whenever I want!" The guys over in the corner are like, "Let's toss these junkies out." And the bar goes into pandemonium mode.     The addicts just start wetting themselves because they've lost all their mental faculties. The guys from the corner grab the addicts and start beating the doody out of them. A lady at another table turns to her young daughter and says, "Don't look, honey. Those people are lost souls." She covers the girl's eyes as the two pound down their fourteenth consecutive whiskey shots. The addicts are thrown out into the street where they lie in a crumpled heap. A homeless man shakes his head slowly and mutters, "Peanuts'll kill ya. Shoulda tried heroin."

THAT STORY IS TOTALLY TRUE.

A poem:

Opium I've never tried,

For if I had, then I'd have died,

But not because my body's weak,

Or 'cause my heart would spout a leak.

It's just that China is so far,

And I just cannot trust my car,

To drive over the ocean blue,

So no cool drugs for me or you!

That poem suggests that I would like to do drugs. How dare it?

Question: If a three-year-old piece of cheese still looks edible, can you eat it?

Answer: No, because I already did, and it was delicious.

To close, a word from out sponsor:

Since we don't have a sponsor, this is just a word from me:

A word from me, our sponsor:

Cancer is bad news. Don't touch it. It's probably contagious. Right? I mean...right?

Yams and codfish,

CL

P.S. To prepare you for Silver Bat's entry, I have constructed a brilliant anecdote about cake balls.

Lord Forsythe and his crew of merry marching marauders wandered the deserts of Littleton Township, seeking the orb of Lycastra. They had battled through the most deadly terrains, slashing ruffians and other nasty types in their quest to find that most holy orb. Forsythe himself worried that their actions may endanger their very souls in the eternal realms, for he feared that perhaps there was innocent blood on their hands. And blah blah blah blah blah cake balls.