That’s music

I’ve played records.
I’ve played tapes.
I’ve played reel-to-reels, 8-tracks, CDs, and MP3 files.
But nothing comes close to hearing music live in concert.
I’m not talking concerts on tape or CD, or over the radio.
Or in those bullshit movie theater or cable company simulcasts.
Live. In concert. There, at the concert.
Buy the fifty-dollar shirt.
Drink the overpriced sponsor’s beer.
Steal a backstage pass and meet the band.
Score a groupie or two, snag some drugs along the way.
Get thrown off the tour bus halfway to Seattle.
Thumb it all the way home.
That’s music, sweet baby.

Wobbly Headstone

Evil people sneak into Jewish cemeteries and spraypaint swastikas on the headstones, or they kick them over, or both.
I, for one, will not stand for this.
Instead of a typical headstone, I will commission a rounded obelisk in the shape of an inflatable punching bag doll.
But made of heavy granite.
Whenever someone tries to kick it over, it will wobble back, possibly clonking the aggressor on the face, or rolling over their toes.
It would sway and dance any time there’s heavy winds or an earthquake.
Or, maybe, I’ll just get cremated and thrown in their Nazi faces.

School Trips

Every year, the school takes its worst discipline cases on a trip to the local jail to show them what will happen if they don’t try harder in school and behave.
The same goes for the drug addicts. They get a trip to the morgue to look at the corpses of drug addicts who have overdosed.
Cigarette smokers get a trip to the cancer ward.
Finally, the girls who have premarital sex get a trip to the Motel Six with the vice principal of the school.
Well, until he was caught. Now the discipline cases see him at the jail.

Grasshopper

When he was still alive, Doctor Odd’s grandfather used to begin stories with “Back when I was knee-high to a grasshopper.”
“Grampa, you couldn’t possibly have been so short,” Doctor Odd would say. “That’s the size of a inviable fetus.”
After his grandfather died, Doctor Odd put his brain in a jar, and the speakers attached to the life support generator filled the air with moans and pleas for mercy.
The brain still wasn’t knee-high to a grasshopper, so Doctor Odd worked on a matter-compression laser.
But it just heated the suspension fluid, and boiled the brain in the jar.

Crowd

“Step back,” said the police officer to the curious crowd.
So, they did.
“Sit,” said the police officer.
The crowd happily sat down.
“Roll over! Speak! Shake!”
The police officer had fun with his new pet.
“Play Dead!” said the police officer.
The crowd raised their arms and started moaning for brains.
And they attacked the police officer.
Even though the police officer knew to shoot for the head and heart, there were just far too many attacking him.
So he threw his night stick and said “Fetch!”
The crowd chased the stick.
All this time, the crime went unsolved.

Quilt

As I get older, it takes longer for the aches and pains to subside.
Wearing out slowly, slower to recover.
My mind is slower to respond, to recall fond memories.
And the lies I have told others and to myself, are harder to tell from the memories of all I’ve done, all I’ve seen, and all I’ve been through.
Stitched together, like a quilt of disparate fabrics.
Burlap. Silk. Cotton. Paper towels.
Tug on it hard enough, and the seams fray, and it all comes apart.
And I am left naked, confused, and tired.
Sitting in the tatters of life.

Weekly Challenge #745- PICK TWO: case, chewable, grasshopper, signals from outer space, here be monsters, deadly

Hidey spot

LIZZIE

The greenish sky wasn’t a good omen. My grandfather said when the sky’s like that, don’t chew the air. I laughed. Chew the air. OK! I won’t! As time progressed, the sky got worse. It looked poisonous. Some people wore gas masks. It looked quite dramatic. I wondered if I should too. And then the teeth. People’s teeth became green. And in a matter of days, they were dropping like flies. Earth was condemned. I moved to P205. There’s plenty of work here. But they pay close to nothing. Too many people… I wonder if I should’ve chewed that air…

RICHARD

Insectivore

They tell us that insects are the solution to world hunger and sustainable food supplies.

Well, I’m all for it in many ways, although probably not for the usual reasons. After being stationed in this jungle hell-hole for the last three years, I’ve been bitten but pretty much every bug and creepy crawly known to science, and quite a few that science has yet to encounter too.

And I reckon it’s time to redress the balance; to bite back, in a manner of speaking.

So tonight, I’m having grasshopper steak, with peppercorn sauce.

Tasty, like beef, but less chewable!

SERENDIPIDY

They locked me up for the good of society: A hopeless case for whom the only reasonable solution is incarceration and a potent regime of drugs to keep me in check and under control.

They call me a monster, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Just look at me! I’m not evil; I’m not the cold, calculating and callous demon that everybody makes me out to be…

I’m just a normal, reasonable, everyday type of person, no different from any of you.

But up here… Here, hidden away in the darkest recesses of my mind:

Here be monsters!

RICK

Initial Communique

The round metal disc was huge … the size of a football stadium. It descended from orbit slowly. The whole world watched.

From over the Atlantic, past the cities of the East coast … drifting … slowly, finally settling over a humongous field in eastern Colorado … remote … desolate.

A door in the spacecraft opened … A creature emerged, not humanoid, insectlike, winged, archaic and intelligent at the same time. A five foot grasshopper!

A shrill whirr emanated from the creature. Grasshoppers in the field took wing like dancers in the moonlight.

30 minutes passed.
The shrill whirr stopped.
The spacecraft disappeared in a blink.

NORVAL JOE

In the backyard, Billbert took Linoliamanda’s hand and rose into the air, straight up, faster than Billbert had ever flown before.

Over the sound of rushing wind, Linoliamanda shouted. “The images on your dad’s computer. How does he know they are coming from the super villains and aren’t something random, like signals from outer space?”

“I don’t know,” Billbert admitted, “but, here comes the proof now. Look down there.” He pointed at three people wearing capes and flying toward a non-descript office building.

One emitted a deadly shock wave, blasting out the building’s windows. Suddenly, the building flew to pieces.

TOM

Yummy?

The screen said pick two chewable grasshopper. Are there unchewable grasshoppers, how do you confirm that. Not a pretty picture. Is this an Andrew Scott Zimmern, moment? I for one would prefer deep fried grasshopper, more crunch than chewy. Sure friable is by form and function unchewable in a chewy sense. If I was scoping chewiness it not so much turn large part of grasshopper to smaller, but about bit impact. That happy bouncing mouth action. But back to the topic on hand, pick two chewable grasshopper are we limited because of a break-down in the supply chain? Just asking.

TURA

Here be deadly monsters
———
In some places the maps say, “Here be monsters.” In others, “Here be deadly monsters.” Brave knights make quests to slay them. Every time, the Unknown Regions shrink a little, as one by one the monsters are removed from the world. And few are the monsters and rare the occasions that they breed to generate new forms. Soon, the Unknown Regions will be gone, and there will be no more monsters in the world.

Some say good riddance, but what fun will there be in a world without giant parasitic wasps, dragons burning up whole cities, and the Great Plagues?

PLANET Z

The production of meat is not terribly efficient.
There are also ethical concerns.
So, raising and slaughtering live animals for meat is not the best way to get protein in your diet.
This is why I’ve planned on grasshoppers and crickets for the space station.
They’re dumb, they’re easy to raise, and provide a lot of protein for the cost.
Much more than cows.
Plus, you can’t take a cow into space.
We originally thought about eating any crew that dies on the station.
But… nah.
Still, there are the rumors about what happens to crew with poor performance reviews.

You do not talk about Stormwolf club

Samuel Clemens.
America’s first and greatest writer.
A dedicated family man, who suffered one tragedy to the next.
His brother… his son… his daughter… his wife.
Exhausted and frail, and in constant pain.
So lonely and sad. He would cry himself to sleep.
That’s when Mark Twain took over.
But you probably knew him as that lecturer and cynical humorist.
Dressed in his finest white suit, his shock of white hair and bushy mustache.
The crowds greeted him as he traveled the world.
Samuel would wake up in a new place, bloodied, confused and bewildered.
What did Mark do now?

Magicians

You know what the problem with magicians is?
Magicians like to make things disappear.
They start with playing cards and ping pong balls, and they stuff torn-up newspaper into the other hand until it vanishes.
Rabbits disappear, assistants disappear, elephants disappear.
One magician made a whole airplane disappear.
Another made the Statue of Liberty disappear.
Prime time television was nothing but magicians making things disappear.
I got sick of all these stupid magicians making things disappear.
That’s about when I stopped watching them, and got cable.
Movies, sports, and stand-up comedy made the magicians disappear.
I stood up and applauded.

Billy The

Sure, Billy the Kid was a famous outlaw.
I, for one, would have rather faced Billy the Kid than Billy the IRS Auditor or Billy the Really Slow Register Girl At The Grocery Store.
If you treated Billy the Kid with respect, he’d treat you with respect.
Billy the IRS Auditor is a cold-blooded picky son of a bitch. And Billy the Really Slow Register Girl At The Grocery Store won’t just waste your time, but he’ll deliberately put your bread at the bottom of the bag.
For that, Billy the Kid was justified in shooting both of those motherfuckers.