Happy Panic Productions

Serial comedy for the masses

This Onion article reminded me of something I wrote about 10 years ago for my college radio show, "Sucks to yer Az-mar!" It was about a serial mass murderer killer who went around killing mass murderers. It turns out that he's on the trail of a mass serial killer murderer, who goes to a serial killer conventions in order to stage his mass murders. Since he has done this three or four times, it follows that he is a serial mass serial killer murderer. The serial mass murderer killer kills the serial mass serial killer murderer and three more in succession, which makes him a serial serial mass serial killer murderer killer.

At least, I think that's how it went. I'll have to dig out my old script. And convert it from MS Works, probably.

Ill omen

I just fell asleep under a tree during my lunch break. I dreamt that birds pooped into the palms of each of my hands. I awoke to discover that a bird had pooped inches from my head, onto my backpack which I was using for a pillow. Good thing I'd put my hat over my face!

A unique icon of me!

And you can make your own.

Bawdy Limericks

I originally posted these on the Lucubus forum, but Lucas has told me he's thinking of moving that forum. So in order to preserve my work, I thought I would re-post it here, with some slight revisions. The first two are a diptych. For Mature Readers.

There once was a man from Lysander
Who tried all he could to philander.
But his cock was so great
He could not penetrate,
So he merely received a two-hander.

After she slammed on the brakes,
His nuts were all busting with aches.
She asked, “Why so blue?
Was it not good for you?”
He answered, “Them wasn't great shakes!”

There once was a virginal girl
Whose flesh was as hairless as pearl.
But she grew from cherubic
And soon became pubic
And now sports a fine patch of whorl.

There once was a man in Wal-Mart
Who took a big crap in a cart.
Having finished his shopping,
He purchased the dropping
But never did pay for the fart.

Contest

Tell me what the following have in common and you're as smart as me.

Forge copper for fashion police.
Incur wrath of ragin' dog.
Pour punch for raggedy puppet.
Serve chicken to rally coward.
Pass out fliers to fainting pilots.
Ejaculate quacks to urologists.

Open wide

I've finally added a link to a site feed for this blog. The site feed was always there, apparently, but I was too lazy to notice until I started using an RSS aggregator myself. (I'm using FeedReader, which is pretty simple, but my needs are pretty simple. And it's free.)

A vacuum cleaner is a curious fellow.
He respirates as an inverted bellow.
Whilst we flick flecks away with a pshaw,
He doggedly drags more into his maw.
His innards constitute a paper bag.
He chokes on ropes and struggles with a shag.
Turned on to ever circuit the dance floor,
He'd like a turn with Barbie less, Ken more.

The original Godzilla (1954) is playing in Chicago as a restored 35mm print. This was an interesting time in which to see it. I've been thinking lately about how after 9/11, people were saying things like, "It's so strange that audiences were thrilled to watch NYC and the Washington D.C. get destroyed in Independence Day... it'll be a long time before they make another movie like that." And already we've got The Day After Tomorrow and, earlier this year, 10.5, the made-for-TV movie whose Richter-scale title looks a suspiciously like a month and a date. (When I first saw a promo spot, I didn't know it was about an earthquake. I just saw the Space Needle crashing to the earth, and then they flashed the title, which I read as "October 5." I thought it was about the next 9.11, which I can only suspect was the intended association.) (By the way, did you know that just last week, there was a 4.2 earthquake 70 miles from Chicago? Neither did I until just now.)

These blockbuster revisitations to urban catastrophes have been making me feel pretty queasy. But now I must consider Godzilla. Nine years after the atomic bomb bathed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in nuclear fire, a giant lizard crawls from the sea to do likewise to Tokyo. (Actually, Godzilla's destruction probably better resembles the firebombing campaign of Tokyo, even though it's more thematically linked to those other atomic attacks.) And Japanese audiences went mad for it. Surely, Godzilla is a more mature response to the Japanese experience than any cinematic display of destruction we've seen after 9/11: not only in tone (Godzilla is a somber, plodding beast; even the most action-oriented sequences seem paced to invite deep contemplation instead of thrills), but also in theme. I haven't seen either 10.5 or The Day After Tomorrow, but nothing in their promotion suggested that, besides the sight of skyscrapers collapsing, they have anything to do with terrorism, our role and responsibilities in a global community, for that matter the existence of anyone or any place outside of North America, or any other themes one might ascribe to the 9/11 catastrophe. Maybe it will take us nine years before we have our Godzilla. Did Japanese pop culture go through similar growing pains between 1945 and 1954? I wonder.

One shot in particular stays with me. Godzilla has been rampaging through Tokyo for about ten minutes of screen time. Stomping on trains, swiping buildings with his tail, and most senseless of all, searing everything he sees with atomic fire breath. The endless destruction becomes quite numbing, all the more so because there is no apparent motivation for it. As Godzilla is winding down his rampage and heading back toward the sea, he pauses to smash a bridge, just for the hell of it. A crowd watches in stunned silence, the emotions of anguish and fear and anger having already played themselves out, leaving nothing but that stupid look of shock. One man quitly hisses, "Damn you. Damn you." The rest just stare and no longer know what to think or feel. It really took me back to watching the second tower go down.