Monday, October 16, 2006

I Rembember That One Guy Stingaree By Manny Fodder, Profeshunal Henchman

mannyheadWell whaddaya know Im a colunmist now! Blockayde Boy sez my letters to my dear Glynda gone over so well in the future in another dimenshun that folks over there are clammering for more and as I been thinking about riting my ottobiography anyhow I figgered why not and also when your locked up in the joint like I offen am and a guy whose way bigger and hairier than you are suddenly mateerialyzes in your cell and asks you to do something it dont matter what it is you just DO IT.

Well Blockayde Boy asked me if I ever henched for a mook name of "Stingaree"and it just so happens I did and then Blockayde Boy asked me if I wood rite down my impreshuns of working for him so here goes.

Its 1967 and me and Glynda are going thru a rough patch on account of me not being abel to spend time with Manny Jr. like a dad should on account of me spending about twennyfive percent of the year henching and the other sixtyfive percent in the slammer and as a result we got money troubels like you wouldnt beleive lemme tell you. So when I get out of prison that year I make up my mind to do rite by my wife and my kid and that means I gotta find me a SAFER hench job someplace there aint no superheroes like overseas maybe and also it oughta pay real good so I can set them outta that shack they been living in and set them up someplace more glammerus like Rockaway. So that means I gotta swallow my pride and ask that jerk Panama for a favor cause I know he got innernashunal coneckshuns up the wazoo. (Oh and I guess I should explain all us guys call him Panama cause he sure likes them hats and I hardly ever seen him without one like even in the clink he somehow finnaygled a way to wear one and the hacks dont allow no hats at ALL normally on account of that insident with Crazy Quilt and the warden and the skwirrel that got in here somehow and the bottle of rubber cement. And still somehow Panama convinsed them to let him wear a hat I guess cause he is a fast talker and hes got a lot on the ball only most of us in the hench game dont care for him cause hes a grade a knowitall and sure he talks a lot but hes mainly stating the ovvious and after a while you just wanna kick him in the nuts.) So anyhow I meet up with Panama in his "office" in the back room of this poolhall in Newark and hes all gussied up in this thing that looks like a Superman costume only it got a C on the chest instead of a S and hes wearing this gray helmet that looks like a welders helment kind of but of course the Panama hat perched on top gives him rite away. And I know he must of landed a real sweet gig this time cause hes cockier than ever and really lording it over me that I even have to ask for a job and I wanna take that stupid hat off his stupid head and cram it right down his stupid throat but what can I do I got a wife and a kid and I gotta do rite by them you know? So I grin and bare it and the next thing I know Im working for the famous crime syndicket CYCLOPS in HOLLAND and the pays pretty good I got more than plenty to send home to Glynda and Manny Jr. and still have some left over for hookers and booze on a Friday nite and if I had to complain about anything it would just be that the food aint all that good like everything is covered in cheese sauce wether you ask for it or NOT altho the coffee aint half bad oh and also this one time I went looking for a baseball mitt for Manny Jr. and when Id try to describe it to the stupid Holland store clerks they just looked at me like I was outta my goddamn mind.

So the Cyclops boss is this nut Stingaree dressed all in green with a manta on his chest and he has both a cape AND a tail and when hes talking to you the tail twitches around and lifts up the back of the cape like its trying to cop a feel on Stingarees ass and its just really distrackting. On the plus side as soon as Panama returned there with me and a coupel other new guys in tow Stingaree takes one look at that dopey hat of his and his tail SHOOTS OUT and knocks the hat right offa Panamas head and pins it to the wall and even tho Panama was wearing the regalashun gray helmet and I couldnt see his frightend puss I saw these little droplits of sweat pop out all over his fat neck. So that was pretty sweet. (And by the way? Panama was never a leader type or nothing I mean me and him essenshully had the same job title but that didnt stop him from trying to give the rest of us henchmen orders I dont know what was up with that other than him being a jackass.) After that they fitted me for a uniform and the queer little taylor guy from Armenia with the pensilled-on mustache got too touchy feely on the inseam part if you ask me but hey Id just got there I didnt wanna make no waves. Im a "go along to get along" type guy when I have to be. Oh and also they handed me the Cyclops oreentashun manyual which if Id been just starting out in the biz woulda depressed the shit outta me but beleive you me I seen it all before but if you guys in the future dimenshun are interested heres the jist of it quoted as near as I can rembember:

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  • Yes we are aware that the inspeckshun devise in the main coridor bares a striking resemblense to the male member. Any remark made by you about the simmilerities will result in your suspenshun or possibly death depending on what kind of mood Stingaree is in that day.
  • Ditto for your brite red grapnel gun espeshully as it has that one part that looks like balls.
  • Please do not play on beneath next to around or near the Liquidator tank robot it is not a toy.
  • Do not make any puns involving the dikes and Stingarees sister.
  • Stingaree reserves the rite to use his fearfull powers on you at the time and place of his choosing and without your consent.
  • Always clean up after yourself in the breakroom your mother doesnt work here.
  • Please refrayne from taunting the janitorial staff Holland hates us enough as it is and quite frankly the constent remarks about their acksents arent helping the sitchuashun.
  • Even tho your face is covered up by a gray helmet Stingaree can tell when you arent smiling at him. Dont get him wrong he dont want you to get a boner or nothing but would it kill you to smile I mean its only common curtessy. And make it look sinsere.

Also I should probbly menshun my speerits werent ecksackly lifted when I got to my locker cause heres what I found written on the door:

Adelbert
Rolf
Gerardus
Pedro
Mikhail
Noushzad
Toshiro

Manny

Kind of a high turnover rate dont you think espshully when you consider they only been using that base for THREE MONTHS. And my guess is those poor saps didnt find no better job oppertunities or nothing they probbly got themselfs kacked by Stingaree.

Okay so I manage to last a hole five weeks without getting on Stingarees bad side (altho I swear maybe TWO DOZEN henchmen came and went in the meantime and Id say for sure Stingaree offed at least half of them if not more I know I persunally seen him do it on seven diffrent occayshuns) and I feel like Im really settling in there at the Cyclops base and Im making loads of dough so of course the base has to get infultrated by that weerd superhero Metal Murphy and also Elementary Girl who if you can beleive THIS used to be Stingarees FIANSAY! Dont get me wrong she got a shape on her and she kinda looks like Charro in the face but COME ON her hair is GREEN and her right leg looks like its made outta DOG SHIT plus she smells like that stuff they use to clean swimming pools but if you enjoy gallavanting around wearing a goddamn TAIL I guess your up for ANYTHING.

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So anyhow we think the Liquidator will stop them but they bash it up real bad and finally the walls of the coridor close in on it and crush it while the two of them turn into smelly gas and excape and if I could just innerjeck here nobody bothered to tell ME the coridor walls were desined to do that like it aint even in the MANYUAL and youd think thats the kinda thing itd be helpful for your henchmen to know so they dont acksidennally get trapped or nothing Im just saying is all. And then Stingaree kind of halfway melts them using the sonic cannon but they ooze thru a grate and head for an air vent and Stingarees voice comes over the innercom saying "STINGAREE TO ALL UNITS METAL MURPHY AND ACKOMPLISS EXCAPING THE LAIR! THIS MUST NOT HAPPEN! EMURGENCY!" and Im standing there thinking "Yeah I know dumbass we been watching the hole thing on the survaylince cameras."

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And this one guy who aint half bad Stumpy I think hes called he figgers out which vent theyre in so of course Panama yells "If we fail Stingaree will use his own fearfull powers on us! FIRE! FIRE!" and we all of us are shooting but theyre long gone by then and I turn to Panama and I say "You know what smartguy you coulda just started FIRING like the rest of us was already DOING instead of flapping your gums and then shooting a couple times after they was TEN MILES AWAY" and Panama gets all pissy and says "Dont make me pull rank on you Fodder" and I say "Oh cut the crap Panama! I dont care if you hooked me up with this gig your just a grunt like the rest of us and the next time you forget that Im knocking your goddamn BLOCK off" and I give him a shove for emfassis and it probbly woulda turned into a fistfight if Stingarees voice hadnt of come over the squawk box again telling everybody to fan out and search all the waterways and to rembember to take our grapnel guns or as I liked to call them the "shlong rifles."

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So were all firing grappling hooks into the canals on the one-in-a-millyun chance we will ackshully HIT one of them but it turns out they was stuck like gum to one of the windmills the HOLE TIME and the only way we can tell THAT is cause a small plane flies in outta nowhere and Stingaree takes off after it in his fruity purple huvvercraft and Metal Murphy turns HISSELF into a grappling hook and flies offa the windmill and makes Stingaree crash. So Stingaree gives us orders IN PERSON for once and tells us to DESTROY Metal Murphy and I get that hollow feeling in my gut that I always get when I know the jig is up but I gotta go thru the goddamn motions anyhow and to top it off Panama the suck-up says "CYCLOPS commands! We obay!" and I just wanna smash his FACE in but I try to shake it off and just consentrate on switching the grapnel gun from grappling mode to flamethrower mode (the gun has something like twenny diffrent modes and you gotta work all these microscopick buttons and levers and dials and shit in just the rite order to go from one mode to another or else the gun EXPLODES honestly I dont know who desined the stupid thing but Id like to break theyr nose.)

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So me and the rest of the boys are blasting at Metal Murphy but he unsticks himself from the windmill and turns into a big pink BOWLING BALL with SMOKE boiling out of it and he rolls RITE AT US and also his ugly mug keeps popping out of it and the weerd thing is I swear he was kind of EYE-RAPING me the hole time. But anyhow he flattens us just like I knew he was gonna oh and rite before he smashed into us Panama says "Our guns... they got no effeckt!" and Im thinking "Thanks for the news flash Walter Cronkite" and GODDAMN but that Panama works my last nerve. So I wind up lieing there with my leg BROKEN for like the forth time in as many years and I come to just in time to see Stingaree acktivate a speshul switch that destroys the dike and sends a wall of seawater rushing twoards us and again I'm thinking itd be nice if Id even known there WAS a speshul switch in the FIRST place and thank God Metal Murphy turns hisself into a bulldozer and rams the crashed plane into the destroyed part to plug it up. Afterwords Metal Murphy turns us all over to the local cops and after it all gets sorted out innernashunally I get my ass haulled back to America and I'm tossed into the pokey AGAIN and its like I aint never ever been away. Oh and I hear Panama got SEVERE BRAIN DAMADGE from being squashed by Metal Murphy the pink bowling ball and now hes in a home somewhere.

I wonder if he still wears the hat.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ahhh...and now my day is well-made.

Petty bickering amongst henchmen--is there anything quite like it?

Bravissimo. I love the new headshots--will Lenny's feature his "Meeraj" uniform?

Jon the Intergalactic Gladiator said...

I have this song rolling through my head now, try to sing along!

Stingeree Stinger-Ah
Stingeree Stinger-Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Stingeree Stinger-Ah
A cape and tail on my back!

What would happen if you sang that to him, Manny?

Anonymous said...

Wow--that was more reading than I did all last semester in graduate school.

I'm beginning to think that Manny may have a super power that allows him to survive one brutal encounter after the next...somehow.

Jeremy Rizza said...

Chawunky: Glad ya liked it! Lenny is in his "Meeraj" uniform in his headshot in the left-hand column (Team Blockade Boy). Er, you can see that, right? It's not like there's something new wrong with Jeremy's computer that won't let it show up on other systems... right? Oh, God...

Jon: I asked Manny your question and here's he said "You tell that 'Jim the Intercollegiate Gladiola' joker the question is moot as I ain't that stupid to actually ever DO THAT and besides Stingaree HATES camp songs for instance this one guy Bugles just HUMMED 'John Jacob Ingleheimer Schmidtt' and Stingaree stabs him in the chest like FIFTY TIMES with his tail it was a real mess." I hope that clears things up.

Justin: I think Manny's power is called "pure dumb luck." No, scratch that, he does seem to have a bit more on the ball that the average henchman -- knowing who he can get away with talking back to, for instance -- so his wits probably play a large part in his survival.

Anonymous said...

Ah, thanks for pointing that out. I have some browsing habits that play hob with site design--it's my own fault that History or Favorites is open AT ALL TIMES.

Anonymous said...

Metal Murphy!