I bought a new computer a while ago and have only started going through all those files you save for reasons that make sense at the time even though you won’t look at them again for 10 years.

These particular files in question were little story ideas I put on he Barnes&Noble website when they were having a contest and I was the IT manager for the ad agency that came up with the idea for said contest. I was curious to see if they could figure out it was me. They worked in advertising so take a wild guess at whether or not they did.

Here they are after 11 years in the attic.

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The Adventures of Mushy the Boneless Dog

This is an idea I have had for a very long time for a cartoon or a maybe a
special effects extravaganza television mini-series:

Mushy, the hero of our story, would be a mid- to large-sized boneless dog.
He would typically be drawn kind of dog-like but maybe with some extra
pseudopods. His head would almost always appear as a distinctive dog head
(except, obviously, for those times when he needed to wear disguises to
sneak into embassies and major sporting events to avert terrorist
conspiracies).

Mushy’s nemesis is Squishy, his evil genius damp twin brother with overly
active sweat glands. Separated at birth, Squishy spent his childhood in a
orphanage being ridiculed for his dampness and lack of bones. A final
injustice (don’t want to ruin the surprise…especially since I have no
idea what it is yet) drives him over the edge into the criminal mastermind
realm. He works his way up the organized crime ladder to become the leader
of a multinational crime syndicate.

Mushy and Squishy do not know they are brothers even though they are the
only boneless dogs in the known universe and they look exactly alike
(excluding the sweat). Maybe they find out later. That could provide an
interesting counterpoint to all the action, adventure and romance and add
an air of pathos which is sorely lacking in the modern era.

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The opening paragraphs of an epic saga:

I saw Jesus waiting for the L train one night. He was just sitting there
like everyone else, trapped in the hell that is the L train, staring
blankly at the mystical patterns of slime and discarded gum and vomit that
covered the station floor. I walked up to him, grabed him by the collar and
yelled in his face, “Serves you right!”

I figured it was about time someone said something.

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Mr. Wiggles Meets the Taxman

Mr. Wiggles meant much to me as a child, that is, he meant much to me
until the day he went INSANE! Mr. Wiggles was a talking doll but when he
began to mutter to himself about the end of the world and the
fluorescent Godzilla model that was rooting around in his underwear
drawer we knew there was trouble a brewin’.

Mr. Wiggles stopped shaving and began to brood moodily under the bed.
Sometimes he would scream angry invectives at the government and the
taxes they claimed he owed. Pa always said that’s what drove Mr. Wiggles
over the edge. The auditors took everything from him — right
down to his kung-fu grip enhanced WiggleMobile. I didn’t understand it
at the time, I was only 5 years old, but I know now that he never should
have tried to depreciate his WigglePuter over such a short time span.
It’s simply wasn’t allowed under the current tax laws!

Anyway, I watched Mr. Wiggles deteriorate from the carefree fun loving
doll that entertained children around to world to a broken shell ranting
at the voices only he could hear. When Mr. Wiggles molested the little
cat (Fluufy, Billy thought it sounded Swedish), Pa sent him to the doll
crazy house. At least, that’s what he said claimed. I think that wasn’t
true at all. I think Pa flushed Mr. Wiggles because I heard tiny angry
screams in the plumbing for years afterward.

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Redemption and Forgiveness

I turned myself inside out so I couldn’t see the world. It was a fan that
turned me right side in again.

Things went well after that. I wrote some. Got paid for it some. Acquired
some notoriety.

Then my fans started getting wacky. They’d lurk for hours after a book
signing. They’d follow me to restaurants and movies. They’d book all the
seats in any flight I took during my press tour.

I was in Texas once giving a talk to a group of college students. A bunch
of heavily armed yet scantily clad women burst into the auditorium. They
forced me to strip naked and then hog-tied me. They carried me out to a
battered pickup and threw me onto the flat bed. Then they sped off into the
night.

Days of random aimless driving and shooting things followed. We’d move for
an hour. They’d stop and shoot at fences, signs, cattle, whatever was
around. Then we’d get moving again.

Finally, the police cornered them. In the gun battle that ensued I was shot
6 times…but I lived. Somewhere out on the Texas panhandle are two of my
toes that were blown off by an errant shot gun blast.

I don’t blame those dead women though. They were really big fans.

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The Saga of the Happy Fishman

No one should be that happy without drugs or insanity to keep him flying
yet it seemed that the Happy Fishman was free of any the obvious
monkeys. Perhaps there is a simple Zen-like bliss in scraping scum out
of a fish tank filter. Whatever it was, he managed to avoid the
stereotypical New York City angst that has entertained millions in
countless vapid sitcoms.

Instead, the Happy Fishman appeared to derive great pleasure from
conversation in the men’s rest room. In there he would trudge every two
weeks to clean out the company owner’s fish tank filters and in there every
two weeks each and every man that entered would be bombarded with
incessant cheerfulness and conversation.

Hey, art man! How’s it going? How’re they treating you? Don’t let them
get you down? It’s the computer expert! How’s the job? Hey, do you know
anything about the eclipse?

No one wants to talk about astronomy when they’re urinating. It’s safe
to say that’s a basic fact of life. You leave the astronomy outside the
door when you enter a bathroom. You put it in a neat little package and
you pick it up when you leave. There’s something very wrong about
explaining the track of a solar eclipse while your fly is undone
[alternate line: with your dick in your hands]. It is unclear what that
very wrong thing is but it’s palpable nevertheless.

A job well done, the Happy Fishman strides off into the sunset to save
fish across the metropolitan area from a choking algae filled death,
waving a fond farewell. Friend to all and enemy to none, the Happy
Fishman will return to scrub our filters and occupy us, in what
otherwise would be dead time, with happy idle banter.

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Tomorrow the Darkness Comes

This was originally a greeting card but I think with careful crafting it
could become an epic poem vaguely reminicent of Beowulf:

Nat should give up the dream of writing because no one reads anymore and,
instead, become a clown travelling with a sleazy circus that frequents the
scary parts of the south. His duties as a clown would include hosing down
the Chicken Boy and stalking furiously through rain swollen streams on
stormy nights in a pathetic attempt to drown out the voices in his head.

Later he should plan on being gunned down by the FBI in a frantic desperate
escape attempt from a liquor store hold up after the circus closed and left
him with a nasty grease paint addiction but no income.

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The Violent and Smokey World of Advertising

I’ve often thought that a book about the trials and tribulations of the
advertising world and the daily horror that accounts people must persevere
would be especially fascinating.

There could be a riveting scene of a lunch meeting where the diminutive
incessantly smoking advertising company president spontaneously bursts into
flame while the much trodden account execs (not unlike the famed Darren
Stevens of Bewitched) frantically try to convince the important new clients
that the flames are part of the presentation of the new campaign.

The call for help would ring out. Strangely this would not be to paramedics
or the police, as one might think, but to the lowly computer department.

The lowly computer department would scurry to the carnage in a flash and
suggest the prompt and copious use of electrical tape.

Another crisis averted by electrical tape, the lowly computer department
returns to its lair. And then the story begins…

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