Thursday, October 1, 2009

Chap. 30 - 'Heavy Metal 2007'


Not-Exactly-Chopped-Liver Fiction™
a could-be-worse division of None-Too-Shabby Enterpises, Ink

PRESENTS :



The History of Gin
or
A Fox's Tail©


Is Life Existential?   You Decide.
by   ' Colorado '  Gumi
...I n s p i r e d By T r u e E v e n t s...


Chapter 30

Heavy Metal 2007

2nd Annual Hallowe'en Special



Everyone may not know -- but will after reading this chapter -- that Ginny's absolute fav. music genre is "Heavy Metal." Yes, she has an ear for other music. . .Country/Western (especially tunes about the country or the West). . .Blue Grass (after surmounting an inner conflict about grass actually being green). . .Classical (particularly from the time of Plato) -- but none of those comes anywheres near being as pleasing to her ear as Heavy Metal music emitted by the greats; Grand Steppenwolf Railroad, Led Butterfly, Black Zeppelin, Deep Funk Sabbath, Iron Purple. To this list Ginny also had added, perhaps eclectically, The Carpenters and Starland Vocal Band (of Heavy Metal anthem, 'Afternoon Delight', fame). Oh, she might have one or two tiny criticisms of SOME Heavy Metal... the overemphasis of guitar and drums, the highly amplified distortion and the fast guitar solos. The extreme volume, the bizarre theatrics and the dripping testosterone (though personally, I exude puddles of testosterone and highly recommend it). The scruffy musicians, the scary lyrics and use of any bass guitar. But aside from these minor quibbles, nothing could please her more than spending an afternoon (especially in Contracts class) listening to Heavy Metal. And as for going to a Heavy Metal concert; that was pure heaven -- Or at least will be when she goes to one. So with all this in mind, it was appropriate that about this time Ginny found shoe-horned into her life an adventure during which Heavy Metal music could have blared in the background throughout, like in that one movie and it's sequel that are kind of famous in a "cult-y" way.

Ginny has received many missives from her old granny -- the 30,021 year-old Cro-Magnon one -- usually by Interstellar Email on her iPhone (yes, Apple is THAT good). But Gin never before had received a letter asking her to wait with bag packed at a particular time and place for pick-up by a starship dressed in a peculiar outfit (that is, Gin dressed peculiarly, not the starship). Not one to disobey her forebears, even an ancient one prone to spells of adolescence, Ginny set out immediately to get the stipulated attire and supplies. The supplies were a cinch, just stuff she already had at home, but she was certain the outfit would be hard to find. In the event, Ginny was extremely surprised ...and very concerned... at how easy it was to find a chain mail thong and metal-plated brassiere in The Village -- there's something about the place that just isn't quite part of our shared Space-Time Continuum.

Anywho, at the appointed time and place she was standing there dressed in chain mail and armour plate -- what little there was of either -- with her treasured 'She-Ra' backpack (the one left over from 3rd grade) stuffed full of stuff. But there was a problem. No stranger to wearing armour. . .when not running around buck naked, she often wore breastplates and such about the apartment. . .Gin found the mail thong particularly yummy against her sensitive flesh -- No, the outfit wasn't the problem. The problem was the place was very public and her granny was very late (is that two problems?). So she had to stand around in one spot in essentially nothing clutching a backpack for three hours. Believe me, she looked especially nubile. . .if not completely randy. And it was worse than one of those "naked" nightmares some people get because it wasn't night and it wasn't a dream. Eventually Gin's Grandma Tina did arrive -- turns out, like many visitors from space she got the timezones mixed up -- and a huge flashy saucer hummed in, picked Ginny up and zipped off to space. Strangely, the starship's coming and going caused less of a stir than Ginny had standing there essentially 'au natural' for several hours.

Hugging her granny hello in the cargo bay of a starship, Gin had a feeling this was going to be weirder than that time she started World War I. What happened then was Ginny found herself standing on a corner in some European city or other (things were kind of confused, I think Absinthe was involved) when an old timey car packed with VIP's swerved to the curb and a guy leaned out to jabber at her in some language -- In fact he was asking the way to the hospital; there had been a big ruckus and they wanted to visit the injured but got turned around. Ginny, having no clue, merely smiled and shrugged. Unfortunately...in the local idiom that means "Take the next right." On making that turn the car just happened to drive by a dude loitering outside some delicatessen who was part of the problem earlier. At that point the Archduke was history; as is the rest of the story. Actually, I'll pretty sure she didn't mean to do it; I mean The Great War and everything...

[Author's Note - Before I get a mountain of mail (and I do receive loads of mail. . .mostly addressed to 'Occupant') about the injustice of involving Ginger with the origin of World War I -- the greatest Human Cataclysm since that time one-quarter of the world's population, Cain, obliterated another quarter, Abel -- let's agree that we all know Ginny never could have started World War I. . .and even if she could, I reiterate my near conviction that she wouldn't mean to. For me to imply, or even somewhat emphatically state, that SHE started it really is just a very clever writer's embellishment because ...well... I'm very clever.]

...Irregardless, Ginny was tickled to see her old granny and get a big "Grandma" hug; even if the senescent grandma giving it appeared 3 or 4 years her junior. Her Grandma Tina was dressed even more lasciviously than Gin; wearing a nearly transparent loincloth cinched low at the hip with a silky golden cord and a short chain mail chemise that just barely failed to completely cover her ample, firm bosom -- she'd got them done recently by a genius who knew his tits. Thick chestnut hair flowed in wavey cascades down her back, with stray wisps attractively animated by the starship's ventilation. Hands and feet were bare though finger and toe nails were painted "I'm Not Really a Waitress" red. If she was aiming for the "robust-buxom-voluptuous Amazon" look, it worked. A nearby pile of equipment implied an entire "well-armed robust-buxom-voluptuous Amazon" ensemble. And, indeed, that inference was correct.

Turns out there was an "incident" involving the Super-Intelligent Space Aliens of the Sirius star system, where Ginny's grandma hangs her thong. One of their bigwigs, a High Mucky-Muck of something, had the misfortune of being grabbed by a gang of stellar badguys while on a joy ride in his new BMW SE Roadster near Barnard's Star (yes, BMW is THAT good). To recover their dude the Siriusians (whose motto, oddly, is... "We Are Serious") figured they could send a battle-hardened cohort of tough-as-nails Space Marines at great expense and with 99.6 percent fatalities, or send Ginny's little old granny. . .They decided to try Tina.

And she happily agreed as Ogg's back hair was resprouting with a vengeance and she ached for a vacation from the old apeman. Until recently Tina, who is a Community College Certified Cosmetology Professional, always had removed Ogg's heavy thatch of body hair in a long ordeal of hotwax agony. . .that is, until he realized how much she enjoyed his screams. Now he insisted on having the job done on Earth by someone less vicious and even that he put off as long as possible; usually requiring her escort at gunpoint. Plus Tina figured she hadn't "done enough" with Ginny and an afternoon with her in body-armour devoted to mayhem would be good "quality" time.

Hence the letter and starship pickup. On hearing all this Ginny was dubious but willing. As "operative insertion" was imminent -- that's the part where Ginny and her granny get comfy in a cramped capsule, eject from the starship in high orbit over the bad dudes' planet and plummet in a screaming arc of sparks that's really cool -- Gin's grandma armed herself, then helped get Ginny ready. Atop her loincloth and chemise Tina wore an indestructible nano-carbon breastplate. Fastened over her shoulder were a sword, battleaxe and round shield and a large hand blaster rode low at her hip. She wore a Corinthian helmet in the heroic way, pushed back high on her forehead, and hefted a long blaster rod that looked like a spear. Heavy combat boots encased her feet and cute red-tipped toes. Not wanting a single hair mussed on her favorite granddaughter, Tina enclosed Ginny in two full suits of titanium-infused armoured ceramic skin and a stout pair of pink Crocs. The Mullins ancestral Claymore nestled happily in a scabbard slung across Gin's back and at her hip in a tiny holster was a "Cricket" hand blaster. In a much larger holster strapped securely across her chest was Gin's Smith&Wesson Model 686 .357 Magnum revolver. Tina looked like Athena. . .Ginny looked like The Terminator.

The badguys looked like ET; of movie fame. Gin always was suspicious of that smarmy "phone home" alien dude and his sunshine hype. She felt great that she'd been right all along and glad they were giving him something really big to phone home. Which raises the point that the aforementioned terrifying free-fall from orbit. . .which Ginger reckoned was patentable as a weigh-loss regimen. . .had plopped the two women not just in the middle of the badguys compound nor just in the middle of the badguys' headquarters, but rather smack in the middle of the badguys. For a time the two were surrounded at close quarters by a pressing hoard of bad dudes. Fighting back-to-back, Gin with Claymore and Cricket and her granny with a sword in one hand and battleaxe in the other, the pair slashed, hacked and blasted from the centroid of a clambering melee of ET's -- who were mowed down in growing heaps like hapless Confederates in Pickett's Charge. The whole time Gin's granny gave loud voice to a running narrative, in extreme detail, of exactly what was totally endearing and what was completely disgusting about Gin's hirsute Grandpa Ogg. For instance, there was the time he was going to cook supper shortly after their marriage. . .it was so sweet. . .until Tina sat down to a "romantic" dinner of boiled Cave Bear testicles. And the time he snuck off to be Casanova. . .Tina nearly served him his own testicles that time -- then afterwards he apologized with the prettiest flower imaginable. . .which also turned out to be the smelliest thing on Earth. But she swore she always loved the goofy son-of-a-bitch; lucky for him. Ginny was wondering how much more she should be privy to when the cascade of bad guys petered out and the pair bounded down passages and corridors to rescue the hostage dude. Ginny's Grandma Tina raced in the vanguard, blasting the bejeebers out of everything bad that moved. Gin followed and dealt with anything creeping up from behind. . .not surprisingly there wasn't a whole lot of that kind of thing happening -- anything left alive in Tina's wake was not anxious to renew the aquaintence.

As they neared the nexus it was obvious the bad dudes, unaware the attack already had penetrated so deep, had marshaled forces and were rushing to defend the perimeter. With the fog of war totally on her side, Ginny's granny grew stealthy. She dispatched the remaining badguys using Zhongguo wushu with a few shuriken thrown in besides -- it was Tina who thought up Martial Arts, and later, coined the word "ninja".

Outside the final portal the last guard got the 'surprise of his life' when she held a heart. . .his own infact; ripped from his chest and still beating. . .before his eyes.

With that Ginny wondered how much more gruesome this would get, but actually it was pretty much over. The door before them opened at a signal from one of the multitude of gizmos her granny had been using all along and they both peeped into a cavernous hangar. Inside was the captive guy all tied up with rope (stellar bad dudes always use plain old rope), sundry piles of bric-a-brac and a space vehicle parked to the side.

They entered. The door shut behind them. Gin's granny hustled over to the erstwhile Mucky-Muck to examine his bonds -- the bonehead trussing him up apparently figured twenty granny knots were equal to one good one. Ginny waited, with some relief, a bit to the side between the closed portal and space craft. It was not a good place to stand. Out of nowhere there was the whine of a revving star drive and a slight flash. Then a beam of pure plasma erupted from points on the craft and enveloped Ginger in a fireball that carbonized everything in a fifty-foot radius. . .but had absolutely no effect on her other than making her sneeze and drop the Cricket down a grating. The beam did blow the door to smithereens, though. Gin weathered the direct hit thanks to her granny, who after many far-flung perambulations of improving travel, had a few things in her brassiere even the serious fellas of Sirius didn't know about. One of those things was a field generator no amount of destruction could get through. Having instantly sensed real peril, she had thrown such a field around Ginny with plenty of time, several seconds, to spare. Unfortunately after such a blow the field must regenerate and this dude didn't seem finished nor willing to wait. The craft -- actually a small starship -- already was traveling, mere inches above the deck, for the open portal and Ginny was in the way. Though she could have dodged to safety, Ginger figured if this bucko wanted to escape, he'd have to go through her -- He figured the same thing. She stood there with sparkling brown eyes fixed on the advancing craft. As it built speed and closed distance with her, Gin saw the ship's blaster points spark, the prelude to firing again. This was getting serious. Smiling sweetly, Ginger set her feet shoulder width apart, straighted her back and calmly unholstered the Smith&Wesson revolver. With a two-hand grip and fully extended arms, she held the weapon motionless, drew a bead and smoothly squeezed the trigger, firing one shot into the on-coming starship. Nothing happened but a tiny belch of smoke. Then the craft's insides blew out through it's skin in a whooshing sneeze of flame (yes, Smith&Wesson is THAT good). The charred hulk skidded to a stop before her, dusting the toes of her pink shoes with a thin coat of phosphorescent grit. Seeing all this, Ginny's granny broke into a happy grin as her dear old heart swelled with pride.

Next they untied the dude (all 436 knots), called for extraction and headed home. Both Ginny and her grandma were tickled to share such an adventure and have some "special" time together -- although Ginny had heard all she needed about testicles for a while. They got back in time to go to the big Halloween party that night. As they already had the outfits, they went as Amazons. But first they had a bite out to eat and shopped some. . .Ginny bought an awesome new halter Tankini swimsuit on sale at Victoria's Secret. Her elderly granny asked to borrow it as they left the store (yes, Victoria's Secret is THAT good).



To Be Continued

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Chap. 25 - 'I Love Ginny'


Not-Exactly-Chopped-Liver Fiction™
a could-be-worse division of None-Too-Shabby Enterpises, Ink

PRESENTS :



The History of Gin
or
A Fox's Tail©


Is Life Existential?   You Decide.
by   ' Colorado '  Gumi
...I n s p i r e d By T r u e E v e n t s...


Chapter 25

I
Love
Ginny

Too Many Crooks



A long while later Ginny, sleeping soundly in her Upper East Side Manhattan apartment, was awakened by the buzzing doorbell. She had been dreaming of making animal love with Jim Cramer, the chair-heaving nemesis of financial types infesting New York City. Cramer, who hates communism and being called Jimbo -- but who, strangely, looks loads like that blood-soaked Bolshevik dude Lenin -- would be tickled to sell anyone the rope they use to hang him (he'ld make a gob of dough and, cause he ain't stupid, the rope would break). Ginny has no idea why her dreams currently are drenched in ferociously mindless lust with this particular CNBC on-air personality. . .it's as if someone is making this stuff up as she goes. But it does get her through the night and is a welcome change of pace from Jon Stewart, who looks more like an elderly Marlon Brando every day -- she's even started to wonder when the aging comedian also would descend to French-kissing Larry King on-camera.

Anyways Gin, who'd straddled Cramer's lap and was just beginning a bouncing ride when roused, erupted from her downy pink nest and rushed to the door, typically 'au natural', to see what the big deal was. Undoing the multiple chains and locks, Ginny stared across the threshold at a hallway full of people outside her door. And the hallway full of people outside her door stared back at her exposed, perkily-firm bosoms for a long, silent moment... then entered her apartment in a chattering rush. Bringing up the rear was Gin's best friend and landlady, Ethel Mertz and Ethel's prickly husband, Fred.

Ginny's friend Ethel was a bit of a puzzle. Though only two years older than Gin, she cultivates an aged, dowdy appearance as if bound by contractual terms stipulating plain, ill-fitting attire and superannuated demeanor to ensure she appears much older than Gin and more compatible with her improbable husband. As for him, Fred is clearly many years Ethel's senior, if not outright elderly. In fact it's painfully obvious the words "old-goat" and "Fred" long ago assumed cozy companionship through continuous juxtaposition.

Unirregardless, the crowd made themselves at home in Gin's apartment -- milling about in clumps, eating her leftover Sam's Club rotisserie chicken, flushing the toilet, drinking her scotch. . .one guy with severe gingivitis even used her toothbrush -- while Ethel explained the hubbub. It turned out a burglar was in the neighborhood and had just broken into an apartment nearby. As if to answer the perennial question, "Where's a cop when you need one", a policeman piped up and said the department knew little about this perpetrator, whom they called "Madame X", except that it was a woman dressed in men's clothes and they had her fingerprints at the Station. Ginny, who enjoyed dressing as a man (and in her adventures even relished having the correct associated plumbing on occasion), was flabbergasted by this news. What was she to do?

Incidentally, it's no fluke this cop was in the vicinity -- for days he'd maintained a furtive stakeout of the hallway, reinforced by several dozen donuts, specifically in hopes of seeing Gin open the door naked. Emboldened by his remarkable success, he wandered in with the crowd to see more then stayed for the Sam Adams and chicken they liberated from Ginny's pantry.

The next morning at breakfast with a guy named Ricky who seemed to be her husband, but wasn't, Ginny talked about the prior night's excitement. After listening attentively (positive proof he wasn't her husband) Ricky, a burly Irish dude who endured constant kidding about his heavy accent and supposed poor grasp of English, said that Fred's birthday was coming soon and he wanted to buy the acerbic old goat a new suit for a present but didn't know his measurements. Gin, who thinks as well on her feet as her back, said she'd sneak down to their apartment and swipe one of Fred's old suits so they could go by it's measurements. And she did.

Unfortunately, an antique busybody neighbor soon told Ethel she'd seen Gin break into the Mertzes' apartment and steal Fred's suit ...it all was very suspicious. When Ethel told Fred, they fixed upon the only plausible explanation. . .Ginny is "Madame X." And the only viable response was to mount a vigil on the fire escape outside Gin's bedroom window that night to catch her on her next caper. And they did.

Thing is Fred, a misanthropic crybaby, got chilly during their watch despite wearing a heavy overcoat and hat so he left the hat and coat to keep Ethel warm (one of the few kind gestures of his life) and went back home. And of course when Ginny grew tired after reading a chapter of "Sophie's World" and turned out the bedside lamp she saw Ethel in the dark dressed in men's clothes through the window. For some reason. . .at that moment. . .Ethel being "Madame X" seemed credible to Ginny.

With the premise now ripe for harvest, both Ginny and Ricky, and Ethel and Fred sparred to get the fingerprints needed to prove Ethel on one side, and Gin on the other, was a Cat Burglar...

Which begs the trenchant observation that though attending an Ivy League law school, most of Ginny's classmates never could fathom why someone would risk long incarceration to enter a home and steal a cat. . .but then these same people spend untold hours dreading the prospect of having to pass a bar -- without going in. And it only made things worse when one of the more resolutely senile Professors of Law, in trying to dispel the confusion, told the class that not all burglars are "cat" burglars. Some are human beings.

...Anyways, what a hoot as Ginny and Ethel both tried to get the other's prints while avoiding leaving her own -- it was just like the episode in that popular old Fifties TV series where one woman, an ersatz redhead, tries to get her friend to handle a silver cigarette case or drinking glass as the friend adroitly avoids leaving her fingerprints while trying to get those of the other woman. In the end, the friend sees the woman did finger the case so she pockets it on the way out but her husband, a stupid old goat, wipes the prints off before they get it to the Police Station. Granted that episode probably isn't as familiar and popular as some others from the series but I just now enjoyed seeing it on DVD. And it was just like that with Ginny and Ethel -- an undeniably remarkable coincidence.

So, frustrated with the lack of progress in bringing Ethel to justice, and certain her best friend in the whole wide world was itching to rob her, Ginny decided to tip Ethel off that she wouldn't be home that evening then lie in wait for her. In a tragedy bringing to mind "The Charge of the Light Brigade", the real Madame X picked that night to break into Gin's apartment.


It's a proven Scientific Law that when Ginger Sue Mullins "gets her Irish up", Israeli Commandos quake in their boots while mere ordinary men are know to soil themselves (at such times even her father's steadfast faith in a genially benevolent God is tested). And any hope this proposition was only an "iffy" Theory or "dodgey" Hypothesis rather than an algebraically proven fact was lost long ago. Even worse, the combination of Ginny feeling her Irish PLUS chugging premium single-malt Scotch is a Krakatoan event no one should endure without benefit of a priest, as a pathetic former paramour who was dumb enough to provoke such supreme apoplexy found to his misery.

But bad as that all is, it pales in comparison to the primordial cataclysm unleashed when Ginny caught Madame X in her apartment rifling her Victoria's Secret undie drawer. If the Gaming Industry had made odds on whether a person could be thrown through a closed, double-glazed window, clear the sidewalk below, sail across a city street, clear the other sidewalk and slam against the opposite building, everyone would have bet against it. . .and in the event, lost their money. On reflection Ginny -- an enthusiastic fan of defenestration, particularly as perfected in the window-full city of Prague -- was proud of her feat, though she actually had been aiming for the bedroom wall with Madame X. And in the interest of her treasured friendship with Ethel, Gin never mentioned that at the time she still thought her best friend was the burglar.

When Ricky got home that night from his job as leader and singer for his own Celtic band, all he could say was, "Ginny. . .you gotta lotta s'plaining to do."

As for Madame X, she survived the "Defenestration of Manhattan" when the awning of a Starbuck's in the building she struck broke her fall. . .and most her bones. Cured of crime forever, the reformed burglar took a nun's vows and pursued a cloistered life of piety and good works -- she had a real talent for Gregorian Chants, mainly because impact with the building lowered her voice four octaves.



To Be Continued