Live from the Red Room in Downtown Cydonia

Some people never know when to give up. Yeah, yeah, I know, look who's talking. But, just shitcan that attitude for a minute or else everything I post today will go way over your head. Way over it. When people don't listen because they think they know it all, it pisses me off. Pisses me right off. Nobody knows it all. People who think they know it all are assuming their sorry-ass lives away.

And you know what happens when you assume something. Yeah, yeah, you make an ass out of you and me. You even assumed that. And then you did what most Earthlings do most of the time. You parroted it right back to me. Monkeyed it right back. But what you didn't know is that when you assume something you fail to open a door that might have opened onto your fondest dreams. Fool-asses. Think about that awhile. Do that while I think about whether or not I'm going to tell you what that animated thing that looks like the end of a red thumb with hands and feet is doing here on Mars.

Hmmmm, hmmmmm. La De Da. Ho-hummm. Tra la. Those are the annoying sounds I make when I'm taking my good old time thinking about something I might share with someone if that certain someone stops being a know-it-all for a second and listens up. Touchy? Touchy am I? You betcha. You'd be just a little touchy too if you lived on nothing but carbohydrates from pilfered candy bars and a trace of questionable vegetable protein from stinking Martian mushrooms and lousy canal algae for the past two-and-a-half-years. And an occasional cup of vending machine coffee from a vending machine where the vending route guy must have died in 1957 and no one took over his lame route. Coffee that tastes like hot water filtered through pencil shavings. So, listen up. You never had it so good with your Starbucks and your fancy wraps and croissants. Now here's the damn story.

The animated image you see is an animated gif. file of a famous insult comic who used to play the Catskills back on Earth in the 1960s. He just got done playing Think-A-Holic Lounge, that lame watering hole in the middle of the cosmos somewhere that I accidentally visit whenever one of those wild wormholes taps me on the shoulder like the hand of Fate. But you already know that story.

Mouthpiece (that's what they call him at Think-A-Holic Lounge) was already on the big-ass stage with a cordless microphone, right there in the cafeteria I mentioned earlier (under the Cydonia face) when I entered the room, looking for another bottle of that cooking sherry. Warden Liz, two of her male lizard pals, Farnsworth the Benedict Arnold commodities broker, and a couple of homelsess bums from Cleveland (not every hobo is from The Big Apple or L.A., you know) and that was about it. It was obvious that Mouthpiece was warming up the crowd in anticipation of my arrival. No, I'm not paranoid or arrogant. After five decades on Earth I can spot a cosmic setup a mile away.

"Weellll," said the little stink pot as soon as I entered the cafeteria. I should have known they booked this moron astral comic just to single me out for verbal abuse. Especially now that Liz and Farnsworth are buddy-buddy with one another. "Look what finally crawled out its hole. Hey, buddy! Yeah, you with the Charlie McCarthy look. Hey, you seen my pal Groucho around here? He thinks he went to Heaven but I know for a fact that he... Oh, there he is, sharing the same dummy face with you. Whoa! Now I know for freakin' sure he went to hell!"

The handful of life forms went wild. Liz roared like Godzilla mauling the hell out of Tokyo. Farnsworth squealed like a girl. Just like a girl. Two bums were rolling in the aisle between the vending machines and the first row of tables. And Liz's big-ass Reptilian grunts laughed so hard they almost choked on their forked tongues. I wasn't laughing.

"Eat a bag of farts," I blurted out, not knowing that I'd do such a thing. I didn't even bother to make it up. It just flowed naturally. I broke the place up with that one line, leaving them in stitches. Mouthpiece felt the challenge and responded with a flair.

"Ooooh," he said, pretending to swoon with delight, "Like I told them at The Lounge the other night, I just love it when a rummy gives me advice. And I never have a freakin' pen on me to write down all those gems of wisdom. I mean, hell, nobody knows the true meaning of life like an unemployed bum who spent most of his midlife crisis in an abandoned car. Say, pal, is that 1965 Rambler Ambassador for sale or are you going to add on later? A friend of mine has the sweetest little Nash Metropolitan that'd go great with your wreck. Make a little sun porch out of it. Put the little top down and you got a deck. You already got the best freakin' view in town. Hookers and fast-food dumpsters. Hell, you can't beat that with a friggin' stick!"

That brought the house down. I didn't know Reptilians could roll on the floor but two of them did. Liz, of course, kept her cool. She roared so loud she broke two water glasses ten feet away. Farnsworth, the little ex-broker shithead, was laughing silently, his shoulder shaking and tears streaming down his cheeks like a girl. Just like a girl.

"It's better than living without an ass," I barked back, sending the small crowd into further hysterical laughter. "If I had to live my life without as ass, I'd shave my head and walk on my hands." That brought Mouthpiece to his knees. But he still hadn't given up. Not this baby.

The small crowd of homeless bums and Reptilian prison guards stopped laughing and began applauding. They even cheered and whistled. Even I had so stupidly assumed that lizards couldn't whistle. But they did. While I was busy making an ass out of Mouthpiece and myself, Liz and Co. whistled like drunken sailors at a 1920's Burlesque show.

"Better to be ass-less," he squealed, trying to keep from laughing at my zingers, "than to go around with a hat on all the time because people mistake your head for your ass. Or maybe that isn't your ass and you're just blowing a bubble? Or maybe you've been walking on your hands all along and just need a little freakin' company."

"Go find a butt and try it on," I quipped back, grasping at straws.

"Thanks for the tip, bum face," he squealed, falling on his side but still holding the mike. "Y' know, you look like a guy who shops at Butts-R-Us. I hear they're having a special on waxed asses or, if you already have a butt, their salon is running a monthly special on ass waxing. But, hell, a smart guy like you doesn't need to spend a lot of extra money on ass waxing. You just go to your barber and kill two birds with one freakin' stone."

By this time, everyone in the room was rolling on the floor in stitches, even me. Yep, even Liz, our big-ass Reptilian warden.

So, to make a long story short, Mouthpiece and I are now booked in Cydonia as a comedy team called Fred & Red. Working the "Red Room" for the rest of the season. It's sorta like teaming up Don Rickles with Rodney Dangerfield and then adding a little dash of George Carlin or Lenny Bruce, here and there. Then pumping up the volume. Hell, like Sam the piano player said in Casablanca as he drank champagne with Rick and Ilsa in Paris, "This should take the sting out of being occupied." Or take the sting out of being occasionally discombobulated by a lizard as big as a kangaroo in an underground prison on the planet Mars.