So, what will you do now?

Call a prostitute I suppose….

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Alltop and humor-blogs.com also don’t exist

It had finally happened. No, the Thunka Grunka Clan was not about to finally get rid of that walking meat stick, the shaman Weasel-Scratch-Face Brother. It was not nearly such good news.

His ex-mate, Onga, had finally got on the shaman’s nerves.

Onga had left Thag for the shaman nearly a season ago, and in a strange way, they had been good times for Thag. He’d become the leader of the hunters. He’d discovered art — in the form of cave painting — and this artistic flowering had garnered him even more respect. (And nookie.)

But now the shaman was demanding that Thag take Onga back. This was a problematic request. First of all, Onga was pretty sure that she didn’t want Thag back. (She had, after all, left Thag of her own accord, even after he did everything he could to make her happy.) Secondly, Thag was absolutely sure that he didn’t want Onga back, even if he had to admit that his dalliances with some of the eligible women of the tribe were not as sexually satisfying as his long-term relationship with Onga.

A further complication was that in the summer the Thunka Grunka Clan were going to the Gathering, a conclave of clans that only happened once every few years. This was an excellent time to procure a new mate, or if nothing else, really party down.

On the other hand, Onga’s father, Bushenior, was one of the Elders, and he carried a lot of sway with the tribe. Things might get uncomfortable if the Elder decided to take a stand against Thag. There was already talk that he’d have the hunters accept his son Dubyag as the new leader of the hunters. This would be a disaster, as Dubyag was a cretin even before he got kicked in the head by a wooly rhino. So, there was the other hunters to consider — would he consign them to poor leadership, injury and possibly death, just because he didn’t want Onga back?

It made Thag’s head hurt, and there was no easy way to make the decision. Even his art was suffering, he noted, as the horse he was trying to draw ended up having five legs.

He would sleep on it. Ever since he was little, he always made better decisions after a good night’s sleep.

But first, perhaps that nubile Blodja would like to go for another “walk” in the forest.

Did you know that it was best to sleeping on it for making the best of complex decisions? Sleeping by fatal cleopatra. And humor-blogs.com is anything but sleepy. Alltop neither. Originally published 2006.

You thought there wasn’t going to be another one of these, didn’t you? Well, I admit, between finishing up Marvellous Hairy, and actual paying work, it was touch and go. But there is some great satire here so the show had to go on. Thanks, as always, to the people who follow the submission instructions and helped out by submitting the best satire (written by someone else) they could, and may a thousand self-absorbed liver flukes plague those who spammed me!

As always, Future Update has its mechanically-enhanced finger on the pulse of the people in 2029 with this disturbing story: Seattle Police Break Up Ring of Fake Robots.

Speaking of ersatz cybercrime, Mad has a paean to this week’s outrageous Kindle Swindle. We’re all very worried about future changes to the ebooks they provide, including Archer.

And courtesy of Mad, we have a news item from the Borowitz Report worth making an extra booze run for: Obama Names Thursday “Drink A Beer With Someone Who Arrested You Day” Ah yes, the healing power of beer.

You know what goes well with beer? Angry Seafood. Luckily, I have a story from them about The Rosetta Stone for Women, giving all women hope that someday, men will learn their language.

Sometimes language is best if brief, such as This is not a story at Name Your Tale, which filled with 100-word wonders.

Feng is still clowning around with pithy words and funny pictures.

And the Fake Mark at Neonbubble is still in love with his Vintage Alien Magazine covers.
I’m pretty sure the Fake Mark lives in the UK. And I’m pretty sure, like the rest of the nation, sunshine makes him delusional. Good thing the MET had a way to fix that.

Oink oink! This edition’s image is from Azrainman’s latest Photoshop satire of the swine flu planning. Click on the magnifying glass and check out the detail on the syringe!

And rounding out this edition with a bit of — cough — non-satire, Elison, as is his wont, has a pithy, but pungent poem about heated Gruyère cheese. (This is probably not safe for work.)

And that’s it for the 116th edition. Thanks to these fine folks for helping us with webby-stuff: the Blog Carnival for their spamalicious form. You may find some satire here if you poke around a bit. Here too.

Thag had made his decision — he was not taking Onga back, even if the shaman, Weasel-Scratch-Face-Brother, insisted. Thag could see why Weasel wanted him to take her back; Onga was driving the shaman crazy.

The flesh-pole with ears shaman insisted. And Thag refused.

Weasel then lobbied Onga’s father, Bushenior to force Thag to take her back. The Elder was fairly influential within the tribe, and he told Thag that if he did not take Onga back, he would install his son, Dubyag, as the new leader of the hunters over Thag.

“Dubyag not good hunter,” Thag said.

“Maybe,” Bushenior said, “but he’s my son, and Onga is my daughter. I can convince the other Elders that I am right.”

“What of hunters?” Thag asked. “Bad for hunters Dubyag lead them. He get kicked in head by wooly rhino. Other hunters get kicked in head. Bad for hunters.”

“I don’t care if it’s bad for the hunters. It will make you do what I want,” Bushenior said.

“Bad for tribe,” Thag said quietly.

“Only in the short term. You will buckle under.”

It ran against every instinct he had, but Thag said: “Elder can go have grunties with cave lion.”

And so Thag was relieved of his position as lead hunter, but not after inconsiderable arm twisting by Onga’s father. As Thag had predicted, the first expedition led by Dubyag was a disaster.

In a classic case of over-ambition, the brain-damaged Dubyag convinced the other hunters they should take down a big male mammoth. During rutting season. Fonzag, the newly adopted Thunka Grunka and mate to the nubile Vunga (half-daughter of the shaman), was well-liked amongst the hunters, despite his adoptive status and unusual approach to hair grooming (he spiked it with tree resin gel); Fonzag was himself almost turned into a kind of gel by the back left foot of the enraged mammoth, escaping only because of his diminutive size. His buddy, Malphag, was not quite as lucky, as the mammoth sat on him.

“Heyyyy, don’t sit on Malphy!”

Mrogak, the brother of Mrog (who had been killed by a cave lion the year before), discovered the wonders of flight, as the mammoth picked him up with his trunk, and flung him from the edge of the cliff they had hoped to drive the mammoth over. Mrogak, unfortunately, was not as excited by the wonders of landing.

Other hunters suffered some broken bones, bruises, and Bushenior’s other idiot son, Bejag, somehow managed to stab himself with his own spear. He would live. In shame.

Dubyag was leading from the rear, and was the only hunter not hurt, except for Thag, who had forseen the disaster, and got behind a rock big enough to be protected from the rampaging mammoth. (At least a few of the other hunters had followed his example.)

When they finally got the wounded back to the cave, and the dead buried, Thag did his first painting of humans.

It showed a wooly mammoth copulating with Dubyag, while his father watched, the Elder’s head just barely visible over the enormous pile of droppings he was buried under.

Original mammoth pic by Hughes. Mammoth amounts of dung here. Here too. Originally published in 2006.

We interrupt the usual claptrap here on The Skwib for a little promo.

If you consider yourself a book reviewer or an “influential readers” then I have review copies of my second novel available. What’s an influential reader? If you publish your views in any publication such as a blog, podcast or other media, have a book club or buy books for a library, then I’d be happy to send you a copy. If you’d like to help out in some way so you can get a copy, but you don’t see any of those being you, I’d still like to hear from you. Just send me an email at markarayner (at) gmail (dot) com with you coordinates.

You can learn more at the Marvellous Hairy website, or read the blurb:

So hair is sprouting in unspeakable places and you can no longer carry a tune, but if you’re a surrealistic artiste with an addiction to Freudian mythology and guilt-free sex, turning into a monkey has its upsides.

Nick Motbot may be evolving as a novelist, but his friends aren’t too sure about his DNA — at least, not since Gargantuan Enterprises started experimenting with it. And once they figure out what’s happening to him, they decide to set things right. MARVELLOUS HAIRY is a satirical novel about a group of friends sticking it to the man the only way they know how, with equal parts grain alcohol and applied Chaos Theory.

Title: MARVELLOUS HAIRY
Author: Mark A. Rayner
Press: Crossing Chaos Enigmatic Ink
ISBN: 978-1-926617-08-04
Literary Fiction — Fabulist Satire
Release Date: Fall, 2009

Alltop and humor-blogs.com are influential readers, but they move their lips when they do.

The natural world was not a mystery — when it rained, they got wet. If they were in the mountains, rain was dangerous because it would swell the streams, making them difficult or impossible to cross. Rain made hunting more difficult, as it tamped down the signs of prey.

For Thag, these things were evident, not a cause of mystery. They were cause and effect.

But for others in the Thunka Grunka Clan, rain was one of a thousand mysteries that only their shaman, Weasel-Scratch-Face-Brother, could guide them through, as he did that morning, while a deluge teemed outside the cave.

“So where does the rain come from,” the shaman asked. It was a rhetorical question — even Dubyag, the unfortunate hunter who had been kicked in the head by an enraged wooly rhino knew that.

“The rain,” Weasel-Scratch-Face-Brother paused for dramatic effect, “comes from the Sky God.”

Thag snorted. He could not help himself. “Come from sky. What be this god?” he asked the shaman, not at all rhetorically.

“A God is the Prime Force. The powerful being that causes such things as rain to happen. There are many Gods. Sky. Earth. Water –”

“So why Water God not make rain?” Thag asked.

There was a rustle in the assembled Thunka Grunkas. That WAS a good question. Why was rain from the Sky God, not the Water God?

“Because it comes from the sky,” the shaman answered patiently. Others nodded in understanding.

“What when rain come in face — from side?” Thag asked. All of the hunters knew this phenomenon, especially when they made it out to the steppes, hunting the mammoth.

“It is only coming sideways because of the Wind God,” Weasel said. He was getting upset. “It still falls from the Sky God first.”

“So rain come from sky god, unless wind god make go sideways. Then take wind god. What when rain hit calm pond and bounce out of water? Then water god make that?”

Shaman nodded his head in agreement.

“So rain come from sky god, unless wind god, or water god make do something to rain? What else rain do?”

“It freezes sometimes,” a helpful Dubyag suggested.

“Oh, and it sometimes doesn’t hit the ground, even though you can see it falling,” another hunter said.

“So make cold god and earth god sometimes help rain,” Thag said as he counted fingers. “So sky, wind, water, earth, cold . . . five gods for rain. Maybe rain just rain.”

Everyone in the Thunka Grunka Clan laughed.

“No, you don’t understand,” the shaman said. “It is a mystery known only to the Thunka shaman.”

“Mystery is why listen to you. Rain come from somewhere. Must be simple answer. Better answer,” Thag said, pleased to have won this argument. “Let’s groom.”

The group seemed to think that was a good idea, and spent the rainy afternoon grooming one another. Even his estranged mate, Onga, joined him in the activity — the first time in many months.

Thag could hear the shaman’s teeth grinding above the din of the rain.

Details on How evolution found God. These folks grok comedy. Photo by Gabu-chan. Originally published 2006.

Another classic xkcd: The author of the Windows file copy dialog visits some friends:

Sunday O-Rama

While I’m procrastinating, perhaps a few announcements are in order.

MARVELLOUS HAIRY is coming! That’s right, my second novel is on the way this fall, courtesy of Crossing Chaos Enigmatic Ink, a publisher for “The Enigmatic Polygeneration”. If you’d like to sign up for my newsletter, or facebook page, you can get the details as they’re available, though the book should have a pretty good distribution, and all the usual online stores for sure.

For now, check out the cover:

Review copies for influential readers are available. Just contact me.

Diesel, the zany mind behind Matress Police, and humor-blogs.com, is also a novelist. Go congratulate him for finishing his book, Mercury Falls, or better yet, sign up for his “interest list”. When it hits 500, he’s going to publish that puppy.

Another prolific friend, Ahmed Khan, is working putting together two anthologies right now, and one of my short stories, “Hounding Manny” has made the cut. You can check out the whole TOC for Fun Times in Strange Lands here. It’s a reprint of a story originally published by Oceans of the Mind, and it’s on the short fiction section of my site here: “Hounding Manny”.

If you are a little more ambitious in your reading habits, you may want to check out a contest being run by Corey Redekop, the author of delightfully demented Shelf Monkey. He has thrown down the gauntlet, and begun the Critical Monkey Contest. Here’s what Corey has to say about it:

I, as I assume most people who read this blog are, am somewhat of a book snob. I don’t pretend to read only the ‘classics’ of the Western canon, but there’s a lot of crap out there I go out of my way to avoid. See? Right there, snobbery. Bad monkey! Bad!

So I have decided to launch Critical Monkey, a little contest designed to make us confront our fears, and read those we otherwise actively ignore. These do not have to be authors who are typically derided in literary publications; choices can be books you simply have never wanted to read for whatever reason. Never read a Charles Dickens, but always felt bad? Now’s your chance to try him on for size. Have you avoided Margaret Laurence because a lousy teacher force-fed you The Stone Angel and squeezed everything good out of it (guilty!)? Time to make her acquaintance. Anything you like. Even Harlequin romance novels. I double-dog dare you to try.

You can read the rest of the rules, entry details and promise of prizes here. Essentially, you need to read seven books you wouldn’t normally read, and blog a review about them. The masochist has already inflicted Twilight upon himself. I’ve yet to decide what I will read first.

Alltop and humor-blogs.com are much more reliable.

If he were honest, Thag would say that his affair with the nubile Vunga, the half-daughter of the shaman, could not last forever.

Not only was she was at least ten years younger, but eventually the Thunka Grunka clan would demand that he and Onga — his actual mate — start warming sleeping furs together lest the delicate sexual balance of the cave be upset.

He did NOT anticipate that the clan would adopt a knew beau for Vunga, but then again, her half-father, that foreskin with a forehead, Weasel-Scratch-Face-Brother was in a position to smooth the way for a new hunter to join the clan, and he did.

Not that Thag was upset with Fonzag himself. Though he was quite short, he was a competent hunter; the rest of the hunting party got along with him too, though he occasionally worried them with the way he would celebrate a hunting victory, by turning his thumbs upward and issuing his trademark cry: “heyyyyyy!” And apart from this quirk, Fonzag’s only other failing (as far as Thag could tell) was an affectation he had with his hair, which he wore in a strange fashion.

The diminutive Fonzag liked to shave the sides of his head, and he made the remaining hair stick up like the spikes of a porcupine by using some kind of noxious combination of tree resin and animal fat. After a few hours in the sun, it gave off quite the stench, but so far it hadn’t scared off any prey.

On the contrary, it had captured the delectable, if fickle, attentions of Vunga, who had been sharing slappies with Thag because she enjoyed his cave art. But no more, now that she had Fonzag’s bristly locks to capture her attention.

Briefly, Thag thought about styling his hair the same way, but then he noticed the wayward look in Blodja’s eye. It seemed that she too was an “admirer” of cave art.

The fact that she was Weasel-Scratch-Face-Brother’s younger sister had no impact on Thag asking her for a “walk” in the woods to discuss his work. Oh no, none at all.

More details about a prehistoric bog man who liked to slick back his with hair gel. Some of these people also have questionable grooming habits. Originally published January 2006.

Invading The Vintage, originally uploaded by Franco Brambilla.

This is a similar notion as the Vintage Ads of Fictional Futures contest we ran last year, but a little more artistic. Franco Brambilla has taken some of his grampa’s old Swiss postcards, and painted in aliens. Very cool. You can find Franco Brambilla’s site here. Via BoingBoing.

Alltop and humor-blogs.com are also out of this world.

I recently saw The Hangover (which is hilarious, if you’re looking for a laugh), and when I watched this video I immediately thought . . . uh-oh, rufies. (One of the characters in the movie says, “why do they call them rufies? They should call them floories, ’cause that’s where you’re going to wake up.”)

It’s probably all just faked with actors, but if not, I hope the vodka just flowed a little too copiously at a party, rather than the toothpaste-wielding artiste intentionally drugging his victims. You can see it here if the embedded thingy doesn’t work:

Alltop and humor-blogs.com are also sound sleepers.