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Author Archive | Mark A. Rayner

Betsy of Narnia Reveals the Ugly Truth

By on December 19, 2011 in But is it art?, Parody & Satire, Skwibby fiction

Betsy of Narnia -- cow with map‘Allo, dearie, I suppose you’d like to hear all about your hero Aslan and those Pevensie folk, but you don’t want to hear it from the likes of me.

You want to talk to Edmund’s horse Phillip or p’raps those Beavers (desperate suck-ups the Beavers). They’ll tell you want you want to hear.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I was not a fan of that bitch queen at all. Not at all. Us Jersey cows are not made for the cold, and the White Witch had the thermostat turned down all the time, but at least when she was running things, me and the other ladies were more or less left to my own devices.

But since the Pevensies have taken over the establishment, it has been nothing but toil for the likes of me. I get milked at least once a day, usually by that pervert Mr. Tumnus.

(Would it surprise you know that he always has a slurp of me longer teat before milks t’others? He bites a bit too.)

And don’t get me started on General Otman. You’d think a famous centaur like that would have his choice of lady centaurs, and even horses, ‘fer Christ’s sake, but he has a taste for the Jersey, if you get me meanin’.

But it’s not so much the milking and unwanted attention. It’s what happens to the young ‘uns, the male young ‘uns.

It’s not like that Christmas roast just magically appears, you see.

Alltop never did trust that Mr. Tumnus. Photo by normanack. Originally published in 2005!

A Traditional ‘Christmas’ at the Tundra Household

By on December 13, 2011 in Odd Science, Skwibby fiction

Roast turkey with skull & crossbonesDr. Maximilian Tundra was heading home again for the holidays, dread clutching his heart like an iron fist. He’d managed to avoid Thanksgiving, but there was no escape from The Feast.

The Feast, as it was known amongst Clan Tundra, was a toxic stew of carbs, fats, and pharmaceuticals that had a tendency to drive the family bonkers.

Not that they weren’t certifiable to begin with.

Dr. Tundra’s sister, Eugenie, was a brilliant “installation” artist, who was nevertheless, seriously bi-polar. His younger twin brothers, Xavier and Xenophon, had never really recovered from their childhood “incident” — as the family called it — following a plane crash in the Andes. His Da, Dr. Halvard Hemming Tundra, seemed perfectly normal; of course, the Great Danger of attending the Feast was that Dr. H. H. Tundra didn’t attend, and that he sent his doppelganger, Mr. Angry McBucktooth in his stead. His Mum, Beatrice Pelagia Tundra (nee Sweeney) was in denial, but otherwise safe to be around.

And that was just the nuclear family. Getting the extended clan together required a number of court orders, insurance waivers and to be on the safe side, Da usually hired off-duty members of the SWAT to patrol the grounds.

Perhaps it was for that reason, or perhaps it was the family’s iconoclastic nature, but The Feast was never celebrated on Christmas. It always happened on the Solstice.

The darkest day of the year. Of course, it also marked the start of days getting brighter and brighter. The rebirth of the sun, his Da called it. But when it came to the holiday, his family and The Feast, Dr. Tundra was definitely a glass-is-half-empty kind of guy.

The policeman checked his ID, and waved him past the checkpoint, a set of gates loomed ahead, which would let him into the Tundra compound. A high fence, razor wire atop, surrounded the area. Guards and German shepherds patrolled the grounds, checking the fenceline for weak points.

It would do no good. It never did.

He parked, put on his flak jacket and entered the Tundra mansion. The smell of roasting turkey and peyote stuffing filled the house, and Dr. Tundra shuddered.

An outside observer would wonder if that was a shudder of anticipation, excitement, or perhaps the thrill of visceral familiarity that we get when we return to our childhood places.

But no, it was dread.

Alltop freebases its turkey. The reasons why festive feasting can cause family fracases.. Thanks to ckirkman for the turkey pic. Originally published December 2005.

One of the Magi Explains About the Myrrh

By on December 12, 2011 in Hinky History, Skwibby fiction

Melchior had a sense of directionEveryone keeps giving me shit about my gift to Jesus the Son of God and the Messiah, King of Kings.

“Isn’t myrrh basically perfume for mummies?” these ass-clowns keep asking me. “Is that an appropriate gift for a BABY?”

Look, first off you have to realize that I planned to bring gold.

But Caspar called dibs on that. Fair enough, I thought, he is the “Keeper of the Treasure” or whatever those freaky Chaldeans call him. I don’t know. Those people have some weird habits. Every heard of doing the Chaldean Donkey? But they have lots of gold, and Caspar is wealthier than Croesus.

So I thought, no problem. I’ll give Him some nice Frankinsense. That stuff rocks. I would wear it every day if it didn’t make me smell like a Babylonian prostitute. But then I found out that bastard Balthazar already had a pearl-encrusted, gilt box filled with the stuff.

“WTF Balthazar? I was going to give The Messiah Frankinsense.” He just flipped me off. That Balthazar is an Indo-Parthian twat, and a show-off to boot. Pearl-encrusted, my ass. We said one gift.

I was happy to represent though. I mean, of the three magi sent from The East, I was the only one who was a real magi. I went to Zoroastrian High, did my undergraduate degree at Azura University and my doctorate at the prestigious Zoroaster School at the University of the Great Whore of Babylon (a party college, but the program is well respected.) Without me those tools, who are kings and members of the high caste, but who never finished their basic studies, wouldn’t have even found Bethlehem. I mean, they couldn’t even identify their own asses, let alone the Star.

Myrrh, for those in the know, is one of the most holy of essential oils, which is why those decadent Egyptians use it for their mummification rituals. And yes, it’s a little bitter, but really, I have to object to the freakin’ hymn:

Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume
Breathes a life of gathering gloom;
Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying,
Sealed in the stone cold tomb.

It’s about salvation, not just death and dying. It’s meant to represent that he was going to help us rise above death again. AND it’s got freakin medicinal values. Suck on that gold!

But I must admit, I probably shouldn’t have given it to him in a Lamb’s Bladder. That was taking the symbolism too far.

Alltop loves a good lamb’s bladder cup. Originally published in 2010.

Ask General Kang: Do you have Santa Claus on your home planet?

By on December 9, 2011 in Ask General Kang, Parody & Satire

Ask General KangNo, we didn’t have Santa Claus when I was growing up. We didn’t have Christmas. Heck, we didn’t even have your primitive paleo-brain concept of religion.

We did have the concept of gift-giving, and something we called Consumer Day, when we tried to boost our Neecknabian economy and give gifts. And we did have a folk tradition similar to your jolly Saint Nick. We called him Troglor the Consumer, and if you didn’t buy at least a thousand pargnags (that’s roughly $700 US in the current exchange rate) in gifts, then you were put on the “naughty” list.

Now, in your ridiculously soft human custom, getting on the “naughty” list means no more than receiving a lump of coal in your stocking, or at worst, having some dude dressed up as the devil coming to your house to scare you.

Troglor was not so innocuous. If you got on the “naughty” list, you didn’t find yourself invited to sexy parties, oh no, you found yourself in receipt of a shitload of hurt. Most of the time you would find yourself auctioned off — organ by organ — to the highest bidder at the yearly “Boxing Off” Day sale. Sometimes, if you were really bad, he’d just put a Neecknabian Rectal Weasel in your bed before Consumer Morning.

Nasty.

I always gave at least 1200 pargnags worth of gifts, just to be on the safe side.

Next Time: Is it normal for things to explode for no reason?

Alltop is also working hard to stay off Troglor’s naughty list. Originally published, December, 2008.