Strippers

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Old Joe was a funny man, great to be around.
Every night, he’d shuffle from strip club to strip club, peeling off five-dollar bills from a roll as thick as a cabbage.
I don’t know how long he’d been doing this, but that roll never ran out. Not to his dying day.
At his funeral, the place was packed wall-to-wall with strippers, and by the end of the service, the floor was a sea of veils and black dresses.
One final party.
There in the center, old Joe, smiling in his coffin, gripping that bundle of fives.

Hand Of Revenge

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A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, the old saying goes.
In the silvery moonlight, a severed hand crawls its way through the forest.
It’s been crawling for a while, because it’s all tangled up in vines and dead leaves. Completely covered in dirt.
Don’t ask how it performs this hideous task. To learn of the magic spells that impel this hand is to earn oneself eternal damnation.
Just stay back, let the hand pass, and know that whomever it is seeking will suffer great pain.
But not as much as the one-handed wretch who sent it out, seeking revenge.

Bag Of Hair

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Vanity can be such a drag.
The problem I’m facing is… my hair is turning grey and falling out.
All things considered, I’d rather have it turn grey than fall out.
I mean, hair that’s still on your head you can color. Then you’re going around with colored hair.
Hair that falls out is a lot harder to color. Still, I collect it all up out of the shower trap and sink and color it every evening.
If people ask me if I’m going grey, I take out the plastic bag full of hair and scream NO I AM NOT.

Angels Blush

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At first, my picture was up in the Post Office. Then, they took it down.
“Racy,” they called it. “Too damn sexy.”
I have done things in the line at the Post Office that could make angels blush and The Devil bite his lip.
They got rid of the stamps you lick because of me. How I’d lick a stamp, postal carriers fainted by the dozens.
Calling my actions sinful and “moral cancer,” the Postmaster General declared war on me, and stamps became stickers that weekend.
Don’t ask me where I stick mine. You couldn’t handle the thought of it.

Peek A Boo

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I have found another portal into a parallel universe.
Unlike the others, it’s to a universe where my daughter is still alive.
At first, I thought to bring my daughter here, but I don’t think I can explain how she survived a fatal car crash three years ago.
I could go there, but I’d have to take my parallel-self’s place. Not an easy thing to do when there’s been three years of experience to learn?
Perhaps I can peek in there and maybe watch her grow up. There’s no harm in that, right?
I won’t change anything. Nothing at all.

The Flying Banjoman

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We found the battered boat adrift off the coast of Nantucket.
Ragged body parts all over the deck, eventually we accounted for all the passengers, minus the pieces the seagulls dragged off.
Right there, jammed in the wheel, was a blood-soaked banjo.
“The uneasy spirit still roams the fog,” muttered the old harbormaster.
He reaches for the banjo and throws it back in the water.
“That’s evidence!” I shouted.
The harbormaster gave me a stare that drilled right into my bones.
“That’s what the last detective tried to tell me,” he said, and he pointed to… a severed lawman’s head.

Weekly Challenge #72 – The New Black

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Welcome to the seventy-two’st Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.
The topic this week was selected by Yxes Delacroix, and it was: The New Black.
The excellent theme music is by Guy David
SOMETHING NEW
Due to popular demand, I am going to include stories that were sent to me, but without a recording. However, since the midget has left for sunny Coral Gables, Florida, those stories will just be posted in the show notes. You’re more than welcome to vote for them, but they will be ineligible for prizes or topic selection.
I feel that this is a fair balance between the podcast and blog natures of this content.
Feel free to share your thoughts on this decision in the comments, and we might possibly come up with an even better and more fair policy for handling these kinds of situations.
VOTING
Go ahead and listen to them by clicking on the grammophone thingy there in the left column and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):

Which were the best stories in Weekly Challenge #72?
Caleb from Black Tie Martini Club
Guy David from Sixteenth
Tom from Footnote
Yxes from PodMafia
Laieanna from HodgePodge Point
JD White
Elisson from blog d’Elisson
Cee Rap Mariner of What Is This Crap?
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com


WE GOTS PRIZES:
I will be sending the winner a prize… it’s refrigerator magnets for the podcast. Massive amounts of fridge magnets were mailed out in the past week… watch your mail, and let me know if I’ve missed you.
It is your voting that determines who wins. So listen, vote, and tune in next week to find out who won!

CALEB

The new black hairdos: the height of fashion
The new black cufflinks: onyx reborn as art
The new black tuxedo: rebelliously traditional
The new black patent leather shoes: reflecting dreams as well as light
The new black dress: enhancing beauty by obscuring it
The new black heels: ecstasy for dancing
The new black limo: engineered luxury
The new black chauffeur: trained Haitian bodyguard
The new blacktop driveway: smoother than driving on silk
The new black marble staircase: that brings you perfectly up to
The new Black Tie Martini Club: coming soon to Nowhereville.
This fall the new black is… Black

GUY

– Pirates doing pirouettes are the new black ol’ mighty grasshopper. We waltz around our captured ships to the music of Strauss, skillfully dancing with our swords drawn, cutting up brave man and taking out beautiful women for a spin. Oh – the smell of the sea and the sound of a good crescendo. Who could ask for more. Our brave man give out their best grande battement en cloche and bow. Purely exquisite.
– You know, that black tutu really looks good on you…
– Oh, shut up you… you… parrot before I cut you in half.
– It’s tough being a pirates’ parrot.

TOM

You might think the Prince of Darkness was a bit old fashion all gothic and medievalish. Not true he has always been a renaissance man the embodiment of modernity to the ages he passes through. Of late he still has a thing for Armani and Jaguars. The old blacks he calls them. His current blacks are Kisho pavilions and Lotus Elise 111S roadsters. Baxster the prince’s right hand man is always on the lookout for the new blacks born from the well of souls. Baxster is working out a deal for Dick Cheney heart. Blackest known substance in the universe.

YXES

“Stand by for pressurized cabin clearance!”
The young officer waited by the exit hatch until he heard the Captain
shout “All Clear”.
He opened the outside hatch to a wild flurry of oddly colored dust.
Carefully he stepped onto the ground of this strange new world, and
was instantly enveloped in a huge dark green cloud!
Slowly walking around, he gathered samples and readings of the planet’s surface.
That’s when he noticed his silver space suit was now the same green
color as everything around him.
“Aw, the new black!” he mused. Laughing, he went about exploring this
strangely exotic world.

LAIEANNA

“Oh my Undescript Divine Being! They built an SSOS Spa in our town!”
“What does SSOS stand for?”
“Sludge, Slime, and other Secretions. No more herbal baths. This is the way to go.”
“Spewy! Who would soak in that?”
“You’re totally being a Dwabble, Steph’anie. All Earth Celebs are doing it, fifth clone Britney, second clone Nicole, eighth clone Paris. Even the new Elizabeth Taylor is in.”
“Alright Grassflower! What does it do?”
“Only make your skin look galatrific! Starry stare that person coming out now.”
“She’s all red with purple spots!”
“Of course! Irritated skin is the new look.”

JD WHITE

The New Black descended upon us and filled our soul with darkness.
Breath sucked in The New Black and then expelled it into the mouths of those nearby.
Those originally infected spread the darkness to loved ones and strangers.
Fathers to Mothers.
Mothers to Sons.
Brothers to Sisters.
Sisters to Lovers.
Darkness, the New Black, filled the lungs, transferred to the blood, then to the heart and brain.
The New Black is now contained within us all and has been for ten thousand years.
And the timeless, eternal, endless sadness is that we do not know how black we are.

ELISSON

Gerald O’Hara stood atop a hill overlooking his vast domain, arms akimbo. From here, he could see the white columns of the plantation house, a house that sat at the end of a long, tree-columned drive.
He smiled. This was his home, here in the red clay of Georgia. Tara.
As the sun set, he walked back, his stomach already rumbling in happy anticipation of Mammy’s cooking. Washing quickly, he joined his family in the dining room, where an unfamiliar house-servant was ladling soup from a tureen.
“Who’s this?” Gerald asked.
Scarlett responded, “Why Daddy, this is the New Black.”

CEE

Everybody made fun of Coca Cola for doing that Virtual Thirst campaign, but I think it was to make people forget about their whole New Coke disaster twenty years ago.
The best way to get people to forget about a disaster is to make a bigger one, right?
Remember when Sherwin Williams tried to make The New Black? They were going to reformulate the paint, change the color of black itself, set the standard for a new century kind of thing?
Then they gave it up, released Black Classic, blah blah.
You know, that paint tasted just like New Coke.

OTHER CRAP:
Carnal Knowledge is a book by one of my favorite daily podcasters, Charles Hodgson. I owe this podcast’s continues survival to his inspiration, since I often come up with my stories around the words he reviews and tales he spins about their odd origins.
If Garf isn’t too annoyed with my constantly screwing up the call to the show last week, well, I’ll be trying to drop by his High Tech Texan Show on Saturday to give a report on SL in business, that kind of thing.
There’s some kind of write-a-review podcast contest out there at Podcast Pickle going on.
Write reviews, win prizes. That sort of thing.
There’s also a way to write reviews for this podcast in iTunes and other directories.
Your Mostly Fearless Leader doesn’t command you to do so, but he is somewhat whinily cajoling and imploring you to do so.
Let a tiny slice of the world know how much you like or don’t like or could care less about this not-quite-so-bold endeavor.
Thank you.

Broke

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“Broke my parole by coming here,” said the old felon at the bar.
I served him another beer. Here, man needs a drink, man gets a drink.
Broke every string on my banjo.
Broke every heart in Arkansas.
Broke every finger on my hand.
Broke every law across the land.
Broke every record set before.
Broke every chain across the door.
Broke every mirror in the bar.
Broke every bank, but lost my car.
Broke every story in the news.
Broke every shoestring on my shoes.
Broke every code that hid your data.
Broke every promise, I’ll see you later.

The Planet’s Gotta Go

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Paradise Beta is going to be demolished tomorrow.
And that’s too bad, because Paradise Alpha and Paradise Beta were a cool binary planet arrangement.
Sadly, the Beta folks built what they thought was a new kind of generator, but it ended up messing with their angular momentum.
Their orbit’s changed significantly, someone did a few calculations, and found that in less than a year, they’d collide with Alpha.
Neither Beta nor Alpha liked that, so we’ve moved everyone on over to Alpha.
When Beta blows, it’ll atomize without making the star go nova.
Want to pull the trigger?
Go ahead.

Aziz

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I watched as a kid named Aziz celebrated in the schoolyard, the teacher leading his classmates in praise for Aziz’s brother.
He’d blown himself up, killing twenty people. Four of them were from my unit.
I followed Aziz home. Two men gave him a package, and he put it in his schoolbag.
I stopped him, took the bag away, and looked in the package.
It was a bomb. He was going to deliver it to another of his brothers to go blow himself up.
Instead, Aziz exploded in his house, taking his whole family with him.
Accidents can be caused.