Vol. 3: Turn off the lights, and I'll blow

For the love of God! I can't remember what day of the week it is, but I CAN remember all the words to Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby. How do I erase that from my memory? Also, I can't seem to help myself from doing the MC Skip at weddings when the DJ plays his funky music. Help, white boy!

--Name and location exploded in a cloud of staples and pixie dust



Wait, wait, wait, wai-waiwai-waitwaitwa-wait... The "MC Skip"? In the five whole minutes I spent on Google trying to find an exact reference to the "MC Skip", the "M.C. Skip", and M. Seeskip (who is buried next to his butterfly collection in British Columbia, and whom I doubt has ever been 'done' anywhere near funky music) my sinus cavity began to pressurize horribly and I had to excuse myself to cry softly in the corner. Thus, I'll just speculate. Why not?!

For purposes of this question, let's just say that you are a woman in her late 20s residing somewhere east of West Wendover, Nevada and west of East Brunswick, New Jersey, who finds herself attending functions at which straight (or closeted) people decide in front of a crowd and a member of the clergy and/or notary public who they will one day bitterly divorce and/or emotionally cripple and/or slowly kill with arsenic for their estate and/or Social Security benefit. Much drink is consumed, many inhibitions (and perhaps a garment or two) are thrown to the wayside and dance moves of the later years (the death throes, one could say) of the previous century are resurrected, their agonized zombie corpses to be beaten and stomped on like grapes to make horrible, horrible, amusing wine.

1989 was not a very good year. Not at all oaky, only marginally funky, and way too much nose.

It's no coincidence that these dance moves by televised carnival acts including Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer and Milli Vanilli came to the fore around the same time the Thighmaster appeared on TV, my dear, for the rich, famous and Freemasons were the beta testers.

(Interesting bit of trivia: The success of the Thighmaster would net Suzanne Somers enough to buy her way out of indentured servitude to a Tijuana donkey show and pay Joyce DeWitt back that $500 she borrowed in 1983 to open an office in Tijuana)

As a result, many performers of the day had to dress in large, genie-like pants, sewn from bright fabrics made with fly wings and alien dung, in order to conceal their ever-growing thigh muscles and the protective titanium cups they had to wear to, erm, protect themselves from themselves. Subliminal messages such as "Thighmaster! Thighmaster! Buy one!" and "Chicks dig FEMUR TORQUE" were inserted into every possible orifice of Billboard's Top 100.

The campaign didn't quite net the results the Illuminati had hoped for, as the phone lines at Thighmaster HQ were often jammed with drooling masses wishing to order Ms. Somers herself; it was, by a long shot, a much better year for Kentucky Fried Chicken.

All right! Stop, collaborate, and listen. I've got a suggestion for you:

1) Build a time machine.
2) Go back in time.
3) Oops. Make sure you've calibrated it properly.
4) If you survive, and aren't stuck in a parallel dimension forever, go to an MC Hammer concert.
5) Murder MC Hammer with a laser cannon.
6) Hire Johnnie Cochran and have him use the "Space Invader Defense" to defend you in court. This defense will say that video games such as Pong and Space Invaders have warped your fragile little mind to such a degree that seeing a shiny, alien-like creature moving perfectly sideways in your range of vision compelled you to shoot him; and anyone else next to, above, or below him; with a laser cannon.
7) During said ass-capping, it might help your case to eat a flower and throw some hot balls into the crowd as well (it also might help defend you against the legions of devoted Hammer fans that will not at all appreciate saving the Good MC the agony of losing his shirt later in life, considering he would be at that time losing his life while at the given time in shirt).

This does leave the Ice Ice Baby phenomenon, for which there is no known cure. Will it ever stop? The Surgeon General says: "Yo, I don't know." My suggestion there is to smoke a lot of weed in an attempt to kill those specific brain cells that hold those lyrics. It probably won't work, but you'll certainly enjoy yourself, and find a set of benefits unique to your circumstances. I speak from experience: I will never be able to expel the demon that is the theme from Growing Pains, but with my biceps inflating to massive proportions thanks to two years of nachos, eaten with both arms, one chip at a time, thrice a day, I was able to break into Alan Thicke's house and subject him to hours of non-stop "noogies" and haiku about my massive arms.

teevee alumnus
check out my delicious guns
they bring slow vengeance

It's fitting to call them "guns" when they end up with bullets inside them, no doubt. That was a wild night.



Ask Mr. Cargo!

Answers, Answers, Answers! Vol. 2

Lines of what?????

--Christy Lesnett
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
United States of Non-Fake America



To begin, some haiku:

i am quite content
i eat candy through my nose
then my heart explodes

blessed coca plant
from which goodness is derived
my gardener rocks

blood-brain barrier
those sweet granules do transcend
i can see through time

Furthermore:

Rhino-rooter! Funky Flour! Grampa John's Olde-Tyme Toothache Remedy! The northbound trip on I-20-dollar-bill to Snort Collins! Bogotá Booger Brightener! Unicorn dandruff! Ike! Daddy's 3Q Bonus! Commodities trader fuel! The ultimate motivational speaker! DeLorean Dust! Little Johnny's College Tuition! Parmesan Sneeze! Midland potting soil! Robin Williams' Pallid Ex-Boyfriend! That Silver Hanging Balls Perpetual Motion Toy Thingie In Powder Form!

It's coke, dearest Christy. Coke is what that guy in the Oompa Loompa costume really snorted off my left boob that night. Telling you it was Pixy-Stix(tm) was a half-truth; that's what it was cut with, I think, judging by the grape smell, and the fact that the last time I blew my nose the tissue animated itself and began booty-dancing to Tori Amos' Raspberry Swirl.

But I swear this is a hand-rolled candy cigarette.



All of my tubeworm friends make fun of the fact that I'm not as good as they are at creating cyanide compounds from filter feeding near deep ocean vents. What should I do?

--Bill
Marianas Trench

Tsk tsk. Those are the breaks, Bill. Life ain't fair. I've parodized a song for you, one from an animated feature whose rights are owned by a conglomerate that could buy and sell the both of us, buy us back at a 10% markup, then part us out just for the thrill of it.

Under the sea
under the sea
In trou-ble we're rich,
life's a shit sand-wich,
take it from me!

Under the sea,
under the sea!
Good luck is flee-ting,
so check your blea-ting
un-der the seaaa...

You can flip moods like a switch,
so suck it up, you Nancy bitch!
Pick up the slack, you
be-fore I rack you
UN-DER THE SEEEeeA!

You're kinda screwed in the compounds department, but keep your venthole up: We gotta do the best we can with what we've got, 'cause we're stuck with the billions of bacteria we sucked into our guts when we were young and had everything goin' for us. Your choices in your youth do have a lasting effect on your future, after all. The ol' organ pipes down at the Coral Reef Bar & Grill are mean for razzing you, sure, but life ain't fair. Maybe they knew all the right microbes. Maybe they got lucky and grew up close to some shark feces. Maybe Aquaneisha, Sassy Soul Goddess of the Sea, simply wants you to suffer.

I just don't know.

But listen up, kid. You think you got it bad? You think you got it bad?! My friend Frank, right, is a hydra not too far from your neck of the woods. Frank, despite reproducing asexually, has suffered numerous gay-bashings.

I don't know, man. Life in the underwater is tough.

SO KEEP YOUR CHIN UP, SHUT YOUR YAP
OR I WILL HAVE TO BUST A CAP--

Shit, I just got sued.

FRESH TRI-BU-LATION, PEN-DING LI-TIGA-TION
UNDER THE SEEEEEAAAAaaaaa....

....I recommend poetry or breaking into song (something public domain, preferably).


Is porn bad?
--Fugu

Man, you sea creatures love you some Mr. Cargo, don't you? Before I know it I'm going to be hosting a talk show and settling personality conflicts between co-dependent clownfish/anemone couplings and dodging chairs thrown by ghetto electric eels. "Hey, I'm a Portuguese Man-O-War, and I've grown weary of just floating along the sea, immobilizing small fish and miscellaneous creatures with my numerous poison stingers. I hear stories all the time about divers and surfers getting stung to death, yet all I get is sardines and plankton and shrimp -- the crumbs of the sea! When's my mammal going to come in? Man, one big score and I'd never have to actively float around waiting for miscellaneous creatures ever again. I could just live a lazy life of leisure and never have to worry about where my next meal's going to come from. Cargo, help me get rich with your time-tested, award-winning No-Dendrites-Down system!

Wait, that's not right. Eh.

Let me tell you something, Fugu: I am going to call myself Ricki Lagoon and contend with Jerry Hot-Springer and Oceanprah for the daytime talk ratings.

"Yes. Here I've got with me a creature that can paralyze a human being in a half-hour's time then make his heart explode. He is not at all concerned about containing startling amounts of neurotoxin, instead focusing his attention on porn... though he didn't say what kind of porn. He didn't ask about clown porn or monkey porn or stop-motion foodstuffs porn or even candy porn (Oh, for the days of Gumiman) -- so I don't really know how to answer.

Therefore, I will drop 50 random kinds of porn, written on rejected fortune cookie slips, into a hat and review one selection from this porn genre for this entry, to answer this in the most effective way possible."

Tonight's fortune: A karate chop to the face is just a hug lost in translation.

Tonight's movie: Caramel-Wrestling Furry Fox Kabuki Theatre 14

Tonight's lucky numbers: 5 17 8 13 42 9

..............Wow.

My answer for you, Mr. Poisonous Japanese Delicacy, is this:

Porn is not bad. Porn is bad-ass.*

Ask Mr. Cargo!




* May not apply to all porn

Answers, Answers, Answers! Vol. 1

So, you're back. I knew you would be. Mr. Cargo, why did you go away? What have you been doing? Where did you go? WATER DISSOLVING, AND WATER REMOVED! THERE IS WATER AT THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN! How do I work this?

--Fictitia Figueroa
Fakeland, Fakevania, United States of Fakemerica

Beloved Fictitia,

Not the loudest citation of Talking Heads lyrics between here and the Great Salt Dunes of Arseland will make me talk, except to say that many sock drawers are now properly arranged and indexed to national specifications.

Mr. Cargo, many of us dream vigorously and non-stop about being insanely, filthy rich, and all the wacky, crazy things we would do, or not do, depending on what we do to continue feeding ourselves, defecating indoors and paying our silly bills.

My question to you, Mr. Cargo, is this: What would you do if you found yourself so endowed?

--Sue DeNymhh
Salt Fake City, Ufaketah USF

Ample-curved Sue,

Endowed, eh?! Whenever I think of the word "endowed" I without a doubt start thinking about wangs. Unfortunately for all of us, there's more to life than wangs. Speaking of things other than wangs: Your question! Were I to have unlimited (or semi-unlimited) funds, dare you inquire, I would do jack shit to begin with. Why?

Because I can! You know, it's funny, but what one could "do", presumably, could be something along the lines of years of non-idiotic financial decisions and/or one or two definitely idiotic but ultimately beneficial ones (Secret questionable bets by Braniff executives on a prized fighting cock named El Cabeza Loco de la Rodriguez Smith-Jones not being one), in which case it wouldn't so much be what one would do if one woke up after 20 years of investment and/or cash hoarding and deciding out of nowhere to go cash-mad, but what one would do if one came across some twisted windfall, like fathering Anna Nicole's baby, doing a few quick trades on the Black Tar Market or robbing ten banks. This seems to be the angle you're playing with your query.

*clears throat nervously*

What I meant to say was "what one would do in the event one wins the Powerball and/or encounters a wacky, suicidal multi-millionaire that uses a camera phone to stream, live to the Internet, himself pointing to one in a public square, screaming 'THIS UNKEMPT LARDASS GETS MY ENTIRE ESTATE!' and then shooting himself in the head."

Say that I am this man, this recipient of said Crackpot Jackpot(tm), and I could, at my option, give up my relatively mundane life as an accounting clerk and part-time editing monkey to wander the beautiful Earth as a career consumer, strutting around like I were hot shit under the sweltering Algerian sun while pointing and laughing uncontrollably (and undoubtedly condescendingly, as new money ought to) at people like, erm, myself.

The one thing I can think of off the top of my head (and this may change with a few nights' sleep on a 600-square-foot waterbed filled with Perrier-injected pearls) is this:

I would buy and fully restore a Yugo GV. I would go to fancy restaurants and start arguments with valet attendants (whose poorly paid buttocks have nonetheless grown accustomed to heated, retrofitted BMW seats made from the buttocks of Greek deities) and drop names like they were ticking.

One situation in particular (being that I will likely attend various hedonistic and/or extravagant shindigs with individuals of some status in the community) comes to my mind:

I pull up to an exclusive downtown eatery.

Me: "Don't scratch this, peasant. It was made in a country that no longer exists."

Valet: "Huh! Um, yeah. *snork* HEY, STARLA! COME LOOK A--Hold on, doucheba--er--sir--STARLA! CHECK THIS SHIT OUT!"

"Uh, 'Scuse me? I've got a baby seal and bay leaf smoothie waiting for me in the Hasselhoff Room, if you don't mind."

"STARLAAA! Haha! It's a LeCar!"

"Humph. Yugo GV, thank you very much. Renault? More like Re-NO WAY."

"Um, yeah, you've counted the change in the ashtray, right? It's safe with me, Mr. Uh... Dude."

"I will have you know that I am the Nicholas Cargo, famed recipient of the Denver Crackpot Jackpot(tm)! Traveler of the world! Meeter of movers and shakers! Seeker of hedonistic pleasures and hoarder of creature comforts on the backs of the working class! I ONCE WRESTLED IN PUDDING WITH THE ENTIRE CAST OF 'FERRIS BEULLER'S DAY OFF'!"

"...."

"YES, EVEN THAT GIRL THAT OFFERS THE PRINCIPAL THE GUMMI BEAR ON THE BUS! SHE'S MUCH OLDER NOW! SHE LOOKS KINDA LIKE DAWN FRENCH! AT LEAST SHE DID WHILE SHE WAS COVERED IN CHOCOLATE, FROM WHAT I COULD TELL, GIVEN THAT I SPENT A GOOD DEAL OF TIME WITH MY FACE BURIED IN MATTHEW BRODERICK'S--"

"--Right, right, riiiiight. Nick Fargo. How could I forget--STARLA! CALL SECURITY!"

"You don't--*humph!*--I can not believe this. This is such bullshit. Here, let me play you this tape. Go get your supervisor. He or she can listen too, and then I will have you justly executed."

TAPE PLAYS YELLO'S OH YEAH IN THE BACKGROUND AS A VOICE DICTATES: 'Hi. I'm Matthew Broderick, known to some of you lesser beings as Ferris Beuller. You may not believe the story my, erm, disjointed pudding-related acquaintance is about to tell, and are denying him goods and/or services as a result, but anything he tells you about me and pudding is absolutely, positively true. Mr. Cargo is a good man. Mr. Cargo is a rich man. Mr. Cargo generously tips those that take his boorish tantrums in stride. Mr. Cargo donates to wildlife charities to help rebuild the populations of exotic, most likely endangered animals he eats on a daily basis like you eat cheeseburgers and Doritos. This is Matthew Broderick, signing off. Long live Nicholas Cargo!' CHIC! CHIGGA-CHIGGAAaaaa!

This is followed by about thirty seconds of astonished silence, after which I am dragged out of the car and beaten mercilessly by several individuals. Later, I'd go on to sue the establishment and all parties involved, including the zombie Divine and a man in a bear suit, whose legal name never appears on the court docket.

Their defense would be: "If he could really afford the smoothie, why couldn't he at least upgrade from a damn tape deck?"

IT WAS A SIX-CASSETTE CHANGER, FOR YOUR INFORMATION, AND THOSE AIN'T CHEAP!

I'd go on to have my eyes modified to shoot lasers and the teeth knocked out by the valet extracted from his sneakers to make replicas I would then have implanted back into my mouth. They would change color depending on my mood. The man in the bear suit would go on to be mauled to death by a bear in a man suit. The valet would go on to win the 2009 Valet Olympics in Athens, Georgia. Starla never left her booth, because she just didn't give a shit, so she remains without a documented future.

...Or else I'd just stay in and order a pizza.

With extra sausage. And some of that cheese bread. Without a coupon.

Ask Mr. Cargo!