As I am an internationally-renowned celebrity, I’m in demand at chic glitterati-studded parties the world over. And, occasionally, I have been known to overindulge. But on this particular occasion, it wasn't my fault. I was entrapped most vilely in a sinister plot. Which, of course, I overcame. Hearken now to the thrilling tale of derring-do and adventure.
I awoke after one elegant black-tie gala soiree with a roaring champagne hangover next to an abandoned Esso station somewhere in the Nevada desert with no recollection how I got there, and vultures circling high overhead. This happens more often than I'd like to admit.
My patent-leather evening shoes crusted with the brains of Gila monsters and rattlesnakes I stomped on, and the crisply-starched ruffles on my shirt wilting, I trudged through the desert. My cracked, parched lips creaked open--a guttural croak rasped from my gritty throat: "S-s-s-Sambuca...properly chilled...w-w-w-with five...c-coffee beans...s-s-suspended on the s-s-s-surface."
And, exhausted, I lay on the hot desert ground, gasping my last.
"Farewell, you wisenheimers," I whispered, remembering those who had meant something to me: my executive chef, Bechamel de Bouillabaisse; my trusty gamekeeper, Oliver de Baliviere; my devoted but feeble-minded manservant, Cubbings: my ever-bloodthirsty heads of security, Matt Miller and Mike Dailey; my Parkinson's-afflicted personal tailor, Sal Sapienza; my personal mycologist and Keeper of the Palmerwood greenhouses Steven Bernstein, Esq.; my fellow country gentleman squire Tim Van Huss; fellow Kraken Club members, Jim Rhodes, Kyle Whipple; my devoted doctor to the peasantry, Rob Pooley, tireless crusader against peasant scrofula; my easily-distracted yacht-commander, Cap'n Stabbin, who won't leave his cabin; my personal mead-distiller and Palmerwood's bard-in-residence, Michael John Miller
But my time had not yet come. In the distance, I saw a cluster of dilapidated buildings. Upon closer examination, I saw that it was an abandoned mining-town--an Old West ghost town. Tumbleweeds blew past--a sign reading "Fudwupper's Livery Stable" hung from a dilapidated clapboard building, creaking slightly as it blows in the hot desert wind.
Abandoned? I narrowed my hawklike eyes. Something didn’t feel right.
In the saloon, a ghastly sight met my eyes--skeletons with rags of clothing dangling from their bones lay on the floors and across the bar, sitting at the piano. A massacre took place here. There were, however, a few unopened bottles of "Uncle Phil's Dyspeptic Grizzly Corn-Squeezin's Whiskey" behind the bar. I’d averted by dehydration narrowly... but the mystery remained.
Slightly buzzed from, but eminently restored by, the two bottles of "Uncle Phil's Dyspeptic Grizzly Corn-Squeezin's Whiskey" I found in the skeleton-strewn saloon*, I strolled through the ghost-town, stomping nonchalantly on a few more Gila monsters, when suddenly, WHOOSH—I fell into an abandoned mineshaft, obscured by a patch of jimsonweed. Definitely not, I assure you, screaming like a six-year-old girl with her pigtails caught in a paper-shredder, I landed--rather hard, I might add--on my fanny at the bottom of the old mineshaft. I pulled my grandfather's antique monogrammed silver Zippo from my pocket, lit a cigar, and smoked morosely in the darkness. Somewhat belatedly, I also remembered that a lighter can be used to produce light, so I fired up his Zippo again.
I found myself in a cavernous...uh... cavern deep below the earth. Yet more skeletons litter the ground. Eyes narrowed, puffing furiously on my Cohiba, I examined them.
One wore a Teamsters jacket and a pinkie ring! I examined the skeleton's wallet. As I suspected, Jimmy Hoffa. One wore an old-fashioned leather aviator cap--clearly Amelia Earhart. Another had a bag of money--$200,000, all bills dated before 1971--D.B. Cooper! Another held, in its bony fingers, a few pages of handwritten pages with entries from something called "The Devil's Dictionary"--Good God's urge, it's Ambrose Bierce! What in the name of sweet holy baby Moses had I stumbled upon?
Mystified by the presence of the moldering bones of famous disappearances down this old mineshaft, I suddenly remembered that I forgot to fill my grandfather's vintage silver monogrammed Zippo. It flickered out, plunging me back into total darkness... except for that tiny little pinprick of light at the end of a very long tunnel. I scrambled toward it and clambered through a crack in the stone, tumbled down a small incline, stood up, brushed off my dinner-jacket, puffed on my expensive Cuban Cohiba, and looked around.
"Great zounds!" I muttered in my sensual, well-modulated baritone (you should only hear that voice of mine. Listening to me talk feels like someone's pouring warm maple syrup on your naked flesh. Next to my voice, Barry White sounds like a chainsmoking crow gargling broken glass). "This is a bit unexpected!"
I’d emerged from the abandoned mineshaft into a valley. Pacific pines and juniper trees dotted the landscape… a crystal-clear lake shimmered to my left.
Thirsty, I ambled toward the lake, and, like Gideon's men of old, descended to my hands and knees to whet my whistle. But as I slurped up water, something moved in the water, and a tall, flat, grayish-black tail slapped me in the face.
Again NOT shrieking in terror like a little girl, I leaped back and stared into the water. The creature, whatever it was, retreated into the depths... but I got a halfway good look at it. Great zounds! Had I stumbled upon... the Legendary Giant Black Salamanders of the Trinity Alps?!?*
Things looked bleak. No food, no weapons, and the only source of water is full of rapacious carnivorous giant salamanders the size of crocodiles. One of them surfaced and snapped at me, displaying a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth.
So I wasn’t at all surprised to hear a voice dripping with evil say, "Welcome to my little far-western getaway, Mister Palmer. I've been expecting you for some time."
Abandoned? I narrowed my hawklike eyes. Something didn’t feel right.
In the saloon, a ghastly sight met my eyes--skeletons with rags of clothing dangling from their bones lay on the floors and across the bar, sitting at the piano. A massacre took place here. There were, however, a few unopened bottles of "Uncle Phil's Dyspeptic Grizzly Corn-Squeezin's Whiskey" behind the bar. I’d averted by dehydration narrowly... but the mystery remained.
Slightly buzzed from, but eminently restored by, the two bottles of "Uncle Phil's Dyspeptic Grizzly Corn-Squeezin's Whiskey" I found in the skeleton-strewn saloon*, I strolled through the ghost-town, stomping nonchalantly on a few more Gila monsters, when suddenly, WHOOSH—I fell into an abandoned mineshaft, obscured by a patch of jimsonweed. Definitely not, I assure you, screaming like a six-year-old girl with her pigtails caught in a paper-shredder, I landed--rather hard, I might add--on my fanny at the bottom of the old mineshaft. I pulled my grandfather's antique monogrammed silver Zippo from my pocket, lit a cigar, and smoked morosely in the darkness. Somewhat belatedly, I also remembered that a lighter can be used to produce light, so I fired up his Zippo again.
I found myself in a cavernous...uh... cavern deep below the earth. Yet more skeletons litter the ground. Eyes narrowed, puffing furiously on my Cohiba, I examined them.
One wore a Teamsters jacket and a pinkie ring! I examined the skeleton's wallet. As I suspected, Jimmy Hoffa. One wore an old-fashioned leather aviator cap--clearly Amelia Earhart. Another had a bag of money--$200,000, all bills dated before 1971--D.B. Cooper! Another held, in its bony fingers, a few pages of handwritten pages with entries from something called "The Devil's Dictionary"--Good God's urge, it's Ambrose Bierce! What in the name of sweet holy baby Moses had I stumbled upon?
Mystified by the presence of the moldering bones of famous disappearances down this old mineshaft, I suddenly remembered that I forgot to fill my grandfather's vintage silver monogrammed Zippo. It flickered out, plunging me back into total darkness... except for that tiny little pinprick of light at the end of a very long tunnel. I scrambled toward it and clambered through a crack in the stone, tumbled down a small incline, stood up, brushed off my dinner-jacket, puffed on my expensive Cuban Cohiba, and looked around.
"Great zounds!" I muttered in my sensual, well-modulated baritone (you should only hear that voice of mine. Listening to me talk feels like someone's pouring warm maple syrup on your naked flesh. Next to my voice, Barry White sounds like a chainsmoking crow gargling broken glass). "This is a bit unexpected!"
I’d emerged from the abandoned mineshaft into a valley. Pacific pines and juniper trees dotted the landscape… a crystal-clear lake shimmered to my left.
Thirsty, I ambled toward the lake, and, like Gideon's men of old, descended to my hands and knees to whet my whistle. But as I slurped up water, something moved in the water, and a tall, flat, grayish-black tail slapped me in the face.
Again NOT shrieking in terror like a little girl, I leaped back and stared into the water. The creature, whatever it was, retreated into the depths... but I got a halfway good look at it. Great zounds! Had I stumbled upon... the Legendary Giant Black Salamanders of the Trinity Alps?!?*
Things looked bleak. No food, no weapons, and the only source of water is full of rapacious carnivorous giant salamanders the size of crocodiles. One of them surfaced and snapped at me, displaying a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth.
So I wasn’t at all surprised to hear a voice dripping with evil say, "Welcome to my little far-western getaway, Mister Palmer. I've been expecting you for some time."
I spun around. There stood the Prince of Evil himself: Rupert Murdoch. The withered old reptile held a chain in one claw, the other end of which was attached to a dog collar around the neck of a blonde woman who crouched next to him on all fours, wearing only a leather thong and a ballgag.
"Murdoch, you withered old reptile," I snarled, and then looked more closely at the woman. "Say, is that Megyn Kelly of Fox News? Why's she got a ballgag in her mouth?"
"Ohhhh, she likes it, the naughty minx," hissed Murdoch, and swats her fanny with a riding crop. "Plus it keeps her from saying moronic things like Jesus was white. It's okay for my brainwashed viewers, but I personally can't stand to listen to her."
He swatted her again. THWACK. "MMMMPPHH!" she groaned around the ballgag.
"Most intelligent utterance she's ever made," I quipped with my customary devastating wit.
"Undoubtedly," croaked the withered old reptile. "But enough small talk, Mister Palmer. I'm sure you're just dying to know why I brought you here.”
"Do your worst, you withered old reptile," I sneered at the withered old reptile. "There's a squad of minions on their way right now. One's a librarian, and we both know books are Fox News's kryptonite. One's gay, and might actually show up in drag. See what THAT does to your family-values agenda. Two of them might actually be registered Republicans, but they're fiercely loyal and value mayhem and bloodshed over ideology any day."
"Enough of your bravado, Mister Palmer," Murdoch hissed, pointing a gun at me. "This way. I have more than enough time to complete my nefarious plan before your little pals show up."
My hands in the air, I marched into a subterranean passage ahead of the withered old reptile.
Some distance down the passageway, I entered a large room. A cage filled with fake trees and tire swings stood there. Ann Coulter, Lawrence Kudlow, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Neil Cavuto, and Greta Van Susteren cavort about inside it, grooming each other, beating their chests, and eating bananas.
"Careful as we pass the Fox pundits' cage," Murdoch says in a wheezy chuckle. "They've been known to throw their...but surely I needn't explain further."
 |
| In the pundits' cage, Neil Cavuto crouches, leering at Megyn Kelly'; Bill O'Reilly clambers on a tire-swing; Greta Van Susteren picks nits from Sean Hannity's shoulders; and Ann Coulter snarls ferally behind Greta. |
"Good God's urge! Dick Cheney!" I shouted. "Let me guess. He needs another heart transplant, and you brought me here to rip out my mighty heart and give it to him, that he might live another century?"
"Close but no cigar, Mister Palmer," hissed the withered old reptile. "The Dark Lord has no heart. He gets by just fine without one. That heart transplant nonsense is just a story we tell the masses. No, the Dark Lord survives on pure bile alone--you can imagine the strain it puts on his liver. He doesn't need a heart--he needs another liver. And yours, my Scotch-, ouzo-, and vodka-swilling friend, is legendary."
The withered old reptile's flunkies strapped me to the other surgical table. A diabolical surgeon, scalpel in hand, leaned forward to chop open my chiseled six-pack of an abdomen. Megyn Kelly began to drool around the ballgag in her stupid mouth.
"Too bad this isn't covered by Obamacare," wheezes the withered old reptile Murdoch. "Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh."
My mind raced furiously. Suddenly, I had an inspiration. "HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!!" I shouted at the top of my lungs.
The Fox News pundits in their monkey-cage suddenly stopped grooming each other. "WAR ON CHRISTMAS!" shrieked Ann Coulter. "WAR ON CHRISTMAS, WAR ON CHRISTMAS, WAR ON CHRISTMAS!" shrieked O'Reilly, Hannity, Van Susteren. They began leaping up and down, frothing at the mouth and beating their chests, a homicidal glint in their tiny primate eyes. Their rage giving them super-monkey powers, they pulled bars apart and burst out of the cage, indiscriminately wrecking and destroying all in their path.
"NOOOOO!" howled the withered old reptile, "what about the Dark Lord's new liver?" as a scene of utter pandemonium ensued.
In the unutterable mayhem, I deftly grabbed the diabolical surgeon's scalpel between my teeth and cut the leather restraints.
"CURSE YOU, PALMER!" wheezed Rupert Murdoch. "You've won this round, but not the war!" The withered old reptile pressed the the "Self-Destruct" button on the instrument panel and slithered away into an open drainpipe. I fled back up the passageway as an electronic voice recited, "Sinister secret subterranean far western hideout will self-destruct in ten seconds... nine... eight..." and leaped outside just as a devastating explosion rocked the mountainside.
Having fled the inferno that consumed the withered old reptile Rupert Murdoch's secret subterranean lair, I heard something behind me. I spun around to see a hideously burned and disfigured Sean Hannity emerging from the tunnel. Predictably, his asbestos-like hair was unharmed.
"AHHRRR... 'N... HRISS'AS!"* he rasped through his lipless mouth, raising Murdoch's gun to finish JP off once and for all... when a giant voracious rapacious carnivorous salamander lurched from the crystal-clear mountain lake. In two chomps, the amphibian swallowed him, leading me to reflect for a moment on the irony of a Fox pundit being consumed by a Newt.
As Sean Hannity disappeared down the giant salamander's throat, I watched the helicopter land and an elite squad of minions swarm out of it. They are an awe-inspiring lot: desperate, bloodthirsty, armed to the teeth, bristling with weapons, and, JP is pleased to note, impeccably accessorized.
"Gents," I said, "I do hope that's 18-year single-malt in the 'copter. I've worked up a powerful thirst. And of your courtesy, would you mind wrangling that 'mander on board? The children need a new pet."
And now, in the finest literary tradition of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe, Rex Stout, and Scooby-Doo: the part where the hero sums it all up and explains it.
*By the way, these are real(ish) things. Many people over the years have reported seeing giant salamanders in a remote lake in the American far west. Click on the link to learn a little more about these things.
I love cryptozoology.
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