Wait, so Lady Gaga isn’t a comic book character? Dang. Who knew…What? No I heard her name all over the place and I knew all kinds of girls and gay dudes were into her, but I thought she was a fictional member of the X-men or something.  Like “Electrica.” Huh? Oh, sorrrrr-yyyy. “Electra.”…of course I know “Electronic–Electra,’s” not part of the X-men. You need to relax brother, I’m not talking about your birth mother here.  I thought America was still a free country, but I guess you can’t not pay attention to some pop star and then accidentally mistake her for not a real person without the question police kicking in your door in the middle of the night. Look I got things to do on my own. Hassles that I deal with–and the last thing I need is you coming down on me in defense of some person that you’ll never meet. Do you have any idea how rich that woman is? Here’s a hint, she could buy us both as man slaves if she wanted to. No, I don’t think there’s a “very good chance” of that happening! Well yes, I do suppose in a “futuristic totalitarian wasteland,” where Lady Gaga and “other celebrities”  survive devastating world war in a “rich person’s only” underground city, then return to the surface to “conquer and enslave us regular Joes” with “hyper-advanced mind-weapons” there’s a chance of that happening. Well look, I would love to continue this Spanish Inquisition reenactment, but I got better things to do all day then memorize trivia about Lady Gaga. Yeesh.

“A page from the memoirs of a man”

Jeremiah’s leg hurt. It was hot and he had been running for hours. He wasn’t running anywhere in particular. He just had to keep moving. The old man on the property would find him otherwise. If he stayed in one place too long, he was a goner. Like the others. His foot caught on an outcropped root sending his mangled figure to the dirt with a thud. Off in the distance, birds sounded. The old man was near. He had to keep moving.

Just then a tiger roared and it was dangerously close to his face. Its eyes charged bright with yellow fire. It wrinkled its nose beneath a shrewd, predator’s gaze. Jeremiah held contact while slowly moving his hand toward the carved up, pointed stick in his waistband. The tiger growled lowly and flexed its shoulder muscles, then lowered its head.

Jeremiah parted his lips, and poured out a softly sung Navajo lullaby: Tee-ah-ha-waaannna me-yip-yip-yee-ti-ha…The tiger cocked its head and whipped its tail spastically. It dug at the ground with its paws and backed up in something similar to a mating ritual.  Jeremiah continued, his eyes now shut, raising his voice ..oh-hatta-say-namma-lay-laaallaaa…

The tiger rolled on to its back and exposed its furry, soft stomach. Jeremiah held his carved stick in hand. His fingernails were scummy. A shot rang out and the stick splintered from his grip. The tiger snapped to its feet and growled at Jeremiah, the Navajo lullaby now forgotten.

“I see you’ve met Sasha,” called the old man, decked out in khaki safari garb. He calmly reloaded his elephant musket. “Had her since she was a cub. If there’s an animal more stubborn than the Indian mud-tiger, I’ve not met it.” Sasha purred at his side, nuzzled at his right thigh.

“You win old man. Might as well do me in now.”

“Such sad words, but true nevertheless.” He leveled his elephant gun with Jeremiah’s eyes, pulled back the hammer and squinted. His tongue tip poked out from between his shiny old man lips. Jeremiah tapped into his secret Navajo vocal pitch, silent to humans, heard only by the animals.

“Not so hard my dear sweet Sasha. You’ll have your fill soon enough.” The secret sounds in Jeremiah’s throat thumped into the tiger’s subconscious. Nee-ya-ahahahaana-may-ooooo…

“Your mother was a witch. Good bye, my son—Sasha?” The tiger sank its teeth into the old man’s hip and the bones crunched like wet twigs. “Aaaaaahh!!” blood poured from his gaping wound like dessert sauce and he collapsed to the ground.

The old man made a kissing motion with his lips, an old Slavic belief that if one got injured, repeatedly kissing the air would summon healing wound-angels. Instead Sasha bit off his arm and whipped it around like a chew toy. His kisses became less frequent as the blood drained from his body.

“Well played…old boy.” Jeremiah shooed the tiger away and cradled the old man in his arms. He pet his cheeks, as was custom in the Navajo tradition. Teee-aaah-nahah-sha-sha-sha-ocha-meee. Jeremiah kissed his dying father on each of his open eyes. He brought his own eyelids down to each of the old man’s ear lobes and blinked so as to brush his lashes over the now dead flesh. Kiwan-anahah-sha-sha-sha-ocha…

Wow Janet, you really went for it this time didn’t you? We remember how you would always talk about how life worked on “Planet Janet,” but no one ever thought you’d commit those words to your own customized shirt. No, yeah–it looks great. It’s so YOU. The peace sign, the mustard yellow and red tie-dye streaks. The way you managed to make yourself look like a walking head shop. Seriously, what kind of moron still sports the peace sign?

Hey, and what do you know, you put a Gandhi quote on the back of your tie-dye cut off sleeve shirt. I get it. I also get how comic sans is by far the most appropriate font to commemorate a man like Gandhi. Your arms are in such great shape too–for a woman with a really short haircut like yours, this is a really good look. I gotta say, life is starting to sound pretty good on Planet Janet.  Gandhi’s change in the world was peace and sacrifice, yours  was making a dumb ass tie-dye shirt.

Graffiti is wrong, especially when it’s commemorating vampire/werewolf love triangles:

…and in my neighborhood, down the street in front of an apartment…

…a vigilante with printer access finally takes charge:

By Ryan Sandoval

It’s going to be a lo-carb Christmas this year,
A calorie counting time of cheer.
When Santa’s sleigh bells, go:
A-ring-ding-dingety-dingety-ding
Ring-a-ding-ting-ching-ding-dingety-di
Oh Old Saint Nick is coming for you…

In the form of carbohydrates and fatty foods
Father Christmas will be the Devil to you,
If you don’t eat right and practice portion control,
Don’t be a pig in front of your family,
That is just shameful, as shameful as can be.
I said a ching-ding-dingety-dee-dee-dee.

Now late one night a tubby kid named Joseph
Consumed selfishly without respect or gratitude
He even ate the cookies his little brother
Left out for Santa, on a cold winter’s night.
Santa came a top-top-toppling on down that chimney,
And he opened his mouth and looked at Joseph,

And light came out of Santa’s mouth
And sucked out Joseph’s soul, and
That chubby little boy’s hair turned white,
And he grew up to be a big fat man,
With a long white beard, in a red suit,
And boots. He further lost his mind, and
Changed his name to Santa Clause, the
Soul cannibal holiday spirit.