That Elusive Plot....

“Arbitrary Henchman # Knows-how-to-read-GPS-and-chart-courses-and-man-helms-and-all-those-other-boat-words!” I exclaimed right at the beginning of the entry, which I suppose is pretty obvious as, being the reader, you (whoever you are) just started reading, and certainly I’m sure started reading not from the end, as that would be foolish and stupid and most-likely utterly confusing. In fact, had you read starting from the end, you’d already know where I’m going with this entry, and so you’d probably just stop there, and you would know that the last word of the entry is 'dot’ and also be assured that the entry would be full of other nonsensical information like: ramblings on and on about not starting at the end of things, whammies, henchpeople, penguin-fish, and other such nonsense; and you (the reader) would be assured that there would only be one or two or three, at the goddamned most, sentences that actually propelled the plot forward, and those sentences would be so diluted with sparse references to underwear, scotch, pooping jokes (haha), some sort of marginalization of Ferocius or Tom, and most certainly a ‘Damn The Jovi!’ – Oh, right there! There it is! The plot! So Jovi Island is the place we are off to, and surely a ‘Damn The Jovi!’ will ring out triumphantly from myself and The Niles. Does Jovi Island show up on GPS?

NOTE: Due to the exclaim that occurred within the first sentence of this entry the following occurred at approximately 4:34:26 PM EST:
Teek McSlappy, who spends his days smelly and in an old refrigerator box that he made into a fake spaceship, received from the sky a case of Michelob Ultra (because McSlappy is carb-conscious as well as completely insane. In fact, he mistook the beer for being the Michelin Man disguised as beer, a measure that caused McSlappy to dis-trust the beer and to be wary of it. He quietly performed his famous (infamous in bum circles for reasons it’s better not to get into here) Teek Peek from behind the refrigerator-spaceship-box. “You get outta here Michelin Man! I told you’s last time you can’t be a spacemans with me!” When the case of beer just continued being beer, McSlappy, still wary, slowly approached it, opened the box, and removed a beer. He still believed the beer to be an elaborate ruse, regardless of the fact that it was clearly just beer. Anyways…


“Uh…uh… Mr. The Boss?” Arbitrary Henchman # Same-one-from-earlier said. “What did you want me to do? You called to me about the GPS or something and then just stopped talking. You’ve just been standing there for the past five minutes looking at the ceiling.”
“Fish and chips!” Shouted Ferocius.
“You’re goddamned right fish and chips!” Exclaimed The Niles, right fist raised. Teek McSlappy skeptically received more Michelob, it was his lucky day.
The Niles then lowered his right fist while simultaneously raising the bottle of J&B in his left hand to his lips, he drinkingly glared sideways at Ferocius and the Henchpeople, etc. For the next five minutes we discussed just how to get to Jovi Island. We had no idea where exactly to find the island, being that The Jovi totally sucks, along with bands like Nickelback, the island’s exact location was a bit of mystery. The Jovi, while sucky, knows that people such The Niles and myself hate him dearly and with all due respect (which is none) and wish to beat the ever-living-fuck out of him and take his shit (even though his shit sucks, it still goes for top dollar on eBay, which is how we once procured a case of extremely rare scotch that was so old it had completely evaporated – leaving only the vapors – vapors that cause hallucinations, paranoia, sweating, cursing, cougar hunting, pantlessness, and total and utter chaos. In other words, really old scotch is awesome). The Jovi Island is five miles off the coast of New Jersey, but it is surrounded by a fog, and that fog is surrounded by a thicker and more illusive fog, which in turn is hidden from site by a trash barge, and the trash barge is hidden by the filth that makes up New Jersey. Finding Jovi Island would not be easy. I asked The Niles if he had any ideas.
”Never trust a Whammy.” He said drunkingly. I asked if there were any other ideas, specifically in regards to finding Jovi Island.
“I’ll give it a shot,” he said. “According to the GPS we’re half way there.”
“Living on a prayer?” I asked. We then air-guitared for three and half minutes, and even pulled off a perfect air key change with only one minute left.
“Gentlemen,” spoke Ferocius, very British and jolly and spiffy and all. “It appears that we are in a bit of eh’ pickle and that we fancy to find a lad by the name of The Jovi.”
“Damn The Jovi!” The Niles and I exclaimed in unison. This time I exclaimed in an octave higher so as not to require us to be jinxed again. And bums got beer and all and whatever.
“Well,” continued Ferocius very seriously British now. “All we have to do is each of us eat a cheese-wheel, surely to constipate the Dickens out of us. Then we’ll get some musical instruments, and as we sail up the coast of that Yank town New Jersey, we’ll play and sing out of the ship’s loud speakers. Being constipated, the singing will be quite a chore and yet it should closely resemble the vocal stylings of Creed, Nickelback, Matchbox Twenty, and all those other terrible acts; while simultaneously, with its awfulness, attracting The Jovi.”
“Ferocius – you disgusting man – that just might work.” The Niles said. We didn’t have any cheesewheels, so I hallucinated a crate full of disgusting and smelly cheese.
“Quickly! Eat the cheesewheels before the hallucination goes away!” I shouted drinkingly (not drinkingly enough to exclaim though, and also because we’ve reached our exclaim quota for this entry).
The Niles then reminded me very cleverly that it was a hallucination and that there really were no cheesewheels.
“But I hallucinated French fries a few entries ago, and I ate them. I even offered a few to you.” I was too sober to comprehend any serious rational thought, I decided it best to sit down, I quickly hallucinated a chair and fell on the floor unconscious.

When I came to, The Niles had just finished putting a scotch I.V. in my arm. I asked him politely if it was safe, and he assured me that he had no idea. I decided it best not question things that we didn’t know and proceeded to get haphazardly smashed and think about where the term “haphazardly” came from. If something is just plain hazardly, then that seems hazardous and to be of much hazard and therefore something to avoid…but if something is haphazard, well that just seems fun. Like the word “Happy” and “Hazard” mixed. Like a mixture of happiness so wonderful that it just becomes a hazard to everyone around…that doesn’t make sense….

I came to again and The Niles and Ferocius and Tom the Fucking Penguin-fish and an arbitrary amount of Arbitrary Henchman were standing over me. The Niles of course handed me a bottle of Lagavulin 16 year. While I drank the bottle, The Niles told me how I hadn’t had enough scotch throughout the course of this entry and had become a little insane and weakened by the sobering effects of the lack of the scotch. He said that The Boss sober was probably the scariest 15 minutes of his entire life, well that, and seeing Ferocius naked once, that apparently had caused him a mild blindness for a day or two, during which Whammies stole his valuable super money suit and sent him disturbing photos in the mail (this was in the years before the internet, when people mailed stuff in envelopes rather than with WWWs). Anyways, The Niles continued on telling me how we managed to arrive just off the coast of New Jersey, and indeed past a trash barge and through two thick and illusive fogs, and alas to be docked at Jovi Island. “You Give Love a Bad Name” could be heard in the distance and we knew we were there.
“Jolly good and Bob’s your uncle!” Shouted Ferocius, tightening his trousers.
“Knickers they are.” He added, in reference to his pants, apparently he can hear voice-over narrations.
“Welcome my friends,” said The Jovi as he came from out of some shadows that had gathered nearby. “To Jovi Island dot dot dot."


-The Boss

More Plot, for Those Who Love it So!

And so it was that we had found Tom the Penguin-Fish just as we assumed, in a seedy bar in South America. I turned to The Boss and asked him why he thought it was so easy to find Tom on a whole continent. The Boss shook his head, shakingly, and drank some of the 1926 Macallan scotch that we’d swiped from Tom’s bar. He then pointed at a sign that said “South America City: Population- 12,540 People and 1 Penguin-Fish.” I had made the mistake of thinking this was South America the continent rather than South America the city which was ironically on the coast of Brazil on the continent of South America… at which point, my logical explanation became so exhausting that I simply fell over, dropping my bottle of scotch in the process. I began to lose consciousness from over-thoughtification and lack of scotchiness as I watched (in horrific yet theatric slow-motion) my bottle of 1926 Macallan roll away toward Ferocious, who had immediately begun crying and was still trying to jerk-off Tom while simultaneously sucking his toes.
“You… dis… gusting… man…” I uttered (too weak to exclaim) and then it all went dark.

Woke up. The Boss was huddled over me, for some reason regurgitating scotch into my mouth to revive me, very motherly. I enjoyed it for a moment, before I realized what was going on, at which point I stood up quickly and started talking about sports. The Boss responded with a comment about Corvettes and V8 Engines and we both punched Ferocious. After downing a bottle of J&B (because sometimes you just need some crappy J&B) I evaluated my situation drunkingly and took notice of my surroundings. I was back aboard the S.S. Glen and we had sailed off again, destinations unknown. Ferocious was taking a break from being disgusting and instead had a very elegant air about him as he refrained from toe-sucking, instead drinking a nice Chianti and saying words like “holler” and “trolley.” The Boss was laughing at him drinkingly of course, but you could tell that deep down he was impressed at how refined Ferocious appeared. We assigned Arbitrary Henchman #12 to watch after Ferocious and to make sure he didn’t take this too far and start playing water polo, which we all know is a terrible game filled with terrible people who pee in pools and give unwanted noogies to mildly obese people, which may be funny, but is still terrible to say the least.

“Where’s Tom?” I asked The Boss.
“He’s over there.” The Boss replied drinkingly, and I noticed that Tom was in the corner drinking Peppermint Schnapps, as he’s known to do. The crew was looking at Tom, curiously and henchmanly, not knowing who this strange Penguin-Fish was. I decided it was up to me to introduce Tom, otherwise there would surely be some mistake made, which would undeniably result in a misunderstanding, at which point it would become necessary to bring in Jack Tripper to throw flour all over everyone and then somehow resolve the miscommunication in a humorous way within twenty minutes if you take out the commercials, which The Boss and I always do. There are no commercials in Message from the Sea as we all know, with the exception of an occasional reference to important products (product placement available for all fine single malts!) or periodicals such as Underwear Weekly: Your Passport to News and Everything Underwear! Besides, I don’t know if Jack Tripper is available, so after brief consideration and another bottle of J&B (to wash the other one down), I decided that a simple introduction of Tom would be the more efficient choice to make.

“Crew…” I began, and then I stumbled drinkingly to the left. I stumbled drunkingly to the right afterwards in order to even things out, but in the process, I fell forward just slightly which completely threw me off and I had to hit Arbitrary Henchman #Arbitrary Number in order to steady myself, at which point I had no idea how to even myself out, so I just drank more scotch (this time a nice 17yr Glengoyne) and continued my introduction.
“I want you all to meet… Tom the Penguin-Fish!” I finished.
“I’m just a penguin.” Tom said. “We’ve been over this before.”
“Shut up Tom.” The Boss mumbled from behind us. “If anything, you’re more fish than penguin.”
“No seriously guys, look at me. I waddle, I look like I’m wearing a tuxedo, I have flippers and a beak… I’m seriously just a penguin.” Tom replied, which was true, except that he really was wearing a tuxedo. The Boss and I looked him over to see if maybe he’d look like a tuxedo even without wearing one, and it appeared to be so.
“Dude, once again.” I said. “Penguins are birds right? Birds fly. Do you fly Tom?”
“Well no… I… uh…” Tom stuttered.
“Okay. Now, do you swim?” I continued.
“Um, yeah I guess.” Tom said.
“If you don’t fly… and you do swim… that makes you a fish.” I told him.
“A penguin-fish.” The Boss added, smiling and drunkingly.
“Don’t make us go through this shit again Tom. You know what we’re capable of.” I told him, and I felt bad making a scene in front of the crew, but Tom had to be put in his place. When The Boss and I label you a penguin-fish, there’s no going back.
“I can’t believe I’m a fish…” Tom sobbed to himself, repeating this over and over again quietly as he returned to his corner and his Schnapps. Ferocious randomly shouted something about cardigans.
“Cardigans indeed.” The Boss stated, poignantly; to which we all raised our glasses and/or bottles and said aloud in unison “To Cardigans!” Ferocious seemed very pleased.

The Boss disappeared momentarily and I became nervous because I didn’t know if this kind of disappearance would lead to absurdity or to plot and I wasn’t sure which I was hoping for. I closed my eyes tightly and said over and over again “No Whammies, No Whammies, No Whammies!” until The Boss returned and tapped me on the shoulder. Now completely frightened of whammies, I nervously turned around, thankful to see The Boss holding the strange box with the strange English engravings waiting to be opened by only a penguin or a fish. At this point I was surprised that this was plot rather than absurdity, and I was relieved that there were no whammies (a whammy stole my super-money-costume and then mailed me this picture, mocking me, when I was very young). Whammies are terrible creatures after all, and they must be dealt with one day.

In order to advance the plot, The Boss and I brought the box to Tom the Penguin-Fish who was still suffering from his identity crisis, even though we’d been through this before only a few years earlier. The Boss slapped Tom across his penguin-fish face, careful not to break the bottle of Peppermint Schnapps he had. Tom was wakened by this act of aggression and we knew we had his full attention.
“You must open this box!” I exclaimed (because I’d yet to exclaim in this entry) and everything on the S.S. Glen just seemed a little brighter. Patrick Tulip in North Texas, despite being rich, was still homeless purely because his name was Tulip and no one who owned a place of residence could stop laughing at his name for long enough to file the proper paperwork necessary to get him off the streets. On this day however, Mr. Tulip knew his homelessness would turn out positive as he saw a beer coming toward him from the sky, emanating from my always perfect exclaim. Just when he noticed the label said Black Butte Porter (one of the finest Porters in all of America), the beer suddenly stopped in mid-flight and shook a little bit, as if it was laughing upon recognizing that it was Patrick Tulip. The Tulip was angered by this, and then saddened when the beer diverted to Fran, the homeless lady one block down from him.
“Damnit!” The Tulip cried out and Fran just smiled, drinkingly at him. “One day,” he decried. “One day, things will go my way, and the world will know and respect the name Tulip!” To which everyone walking past him laughed at him, poking him in the stomach and calling him names like “flower-boy,” “pansy,” and the ultimate insult… “photosynthesis man.”
Meanwhile, the exclaim still ringing in the ears of those lucky enough to hear it, Tom the Penguin-Fish opened the box, which actually had just a twist-off top that anyone could’ve opened, frustrating The Boss and I until we drank more scotch and then felt better about the whole mess. Inside the box was a note that said, “To find Glengodly, first find The Jovi.”
The Boss cried out “Damn the Jovi!” toward the sky, to which Ferocious refinedly followed up with “Heavens to Betsy!” whatever the hell that means.
“I know, The Boss. I know.” I comforted him, with a pat on the back and a bottle of 16yr Lagavulin. “We’ll get The Jovi. I promise.”
Angry and determined, we ordered Arbitrary Henchman #Knows how to Steer to set a course for Jovi Island; a man-made island 5 miles off the coast of New Jersey where The Jovi lived. No one knew what went on at Jovi Island, only that new albums and music videos, each one worse than the last, continued to come from there... inexplicably mass produced by the Jovi-owned record label, Jovi-Time. It’s been rumored that Jovi-Time is also responsible for polluting the world with albums from Nickelback, but this hasn’t been confirmed. As the ocean breeze breezed us and the S.S. Glen sailed on, The Boss and I waited patiently for Jovi Island to come into our sites.

French Bread and French Fries

It was in that strange oceanic passage to South America, a passage that was perfectly edited to soft music, showing small video clips of The Boss and The Niles laughing and crying and randomly beating the ever-living-fuck out of Arbitrary Henchmen. There were slow-motion vignettes of The Boss and The Niles air guitar playing a compilation of hair metal songs from the ‘80s. Some of the video clips showed the S.S. Glen from 10 or so yards away, in a terrible storm; the camera would cut to visions in the form of perfectly directed staging of The Niles in a yellow rubber rain suit and matching hat at a massive wooden wheel, trying and succeeding in steering the S.S. Glen out of a damned perfect storm, all the while being bombarded with gallons of seawater that was splashing and crashing into the ship, rocking it this way and that…

“The Boss!” The Niles was yelling at me with concern. Which was strange, because The Niles never yells with concern when there’s even a chance of fitting in an extraordinary exclaim. “You’re dramatically narrating for a screenplay out loud again!” He exclaimed that time. Some bums in Memphis received a case of Czechvar, and I was immediately out of my narration.

“Scotch me,” I said drinkingly and then realized that I had said that drinkingly (meaning I was drinking as I spoke, just to clarify) and said never mind. Then I punched myself in the stomach for saying something toolish like ‘scotch me’ in the first place.

The Niles and I then proceeded to take long pulls from our respective bottles: me, from my bottle of The Glenlivet 15 Year and him from his bottle of Oban 14 Year.

I took out the foot-long piece of French bread that was leftover from the Meatloaf Raft and began nibbling, which is what a Boss does from time with leftover French bread.

“South America is right there according to our GPS.” The Niles said, pointing straight ahead at a dock that was a mere 10 feet from the ship; and one that we were approaching at top speed.

CRASH!!! Went the S.S. Glen. CRACKLE!!!! Went the dock. (Not the word for the noises, but that was the actual sound that occurred when we slammed into the dock very loudly and violently.)

The dock of South America was no longer a dock and I suddenly became very hungry, and being as drunk as The Niles at a bar, I hallucinated a fresh-cut French fry stand.

“What are you doing, The Boss?” The Niles asked askingly.

“Not now, I need full concentration if I’m going to pull this off.” I said back, not taking my eyes off the hallucinated French fry stand.

“Large fries please.” I said to the incredibly attractive girl at the counter.

“That’ll be $4.50,” said the girl, whose nametag read The Ashley. “But I have to make another batch, so it’ll be about 3 minutes okay?”

“That’s fine.” I said drunkingly. “You want anything The Niles?” I turned to ask The Niles, who was busy beating the ever-living-fuck out of the dock owner for having built a dock so close to our approaching ship.

“Four ketchup packets!” He exclaimed mid-ever-living-fuck-beating. I took four ketchup packets from the condiments bar and threw them at his cargo shorts pocket, they went in perfectly. I then drank a bottle of scotch because the word bar made me long for Richey’s.

“Here’s your fries.” The Ashley said and handed me the large order of hot deliciousness.

“Thanks,“ I said and the hallucination disappeared, leaving me standing there with my fries.

“Let’s go find Tom.” Implied The Niles (implied meaning that The Niles didn’t really say anything, but more or less just nodded and moved his eyes in a way that said (to me at least) ‘Let’s go find Tom’).

“You want a French fry?” I implied back by leaning the cup of fries ever so carefully towards him and winking heterosexually. The Niles took a few fries and one by one slid them down into his bottle of Dewars (because Dewars is disgusting piss water and only something as glorious as fries could bring some flavor to that), he then shook the bottle and followed with a miraculous chug of scotch and fries.

“Amazing!” Exclaimed Arbitrary Henchman #86, who had been lurking in the background the entire time. A bum in Charlotte got peed on.

What happened next is cloudy, The Niles and I blacked out due to sheer non-belief that an Arbitrary Henchman, especially Arbitrary Henchman #86 would even think about exclaiming in our presence. When we awoke, we were both drinking 21 year Glenlivet in a kiddy pool of Arbitrary Henchman #86’s blood, which sounds like a gruesome scene, but it was actually quite funny at the time. We all had a good laugh about it, even Ferocius – who took a break from the crying to have a chuckle.

So more implications of finding Tom were implicated or implied, fries were eaten, and scotch was of course drunk and drank drunkingly.

“Let’s check the bars.” The Niles said, pointing up the street.

“I have never heard a better idea!” I exclaimed, releasing from the sky a keg of PBR on a family of poor rednecks in central Florida.

“C’mon Ferocius!” I shouted, not wanting to waste exclaims on him.

So the three of us went up the road to the El Gracioso Pene bar to see if Tom was whoring about.

As we stepped into the bar we could just tell by the smell – a sort of orange sherbet and green bean aroma – that we were maybe or maybe not in the wrong place. So really the smell overall told us nothing about anything, it was just a strange odor that I thought was worth mentioning.

“It smells like Ferocius’ vagina.” Said The Niles.

“Hey! I don’t have a vagina, I have a penis, because I’m a guy – oh, fuck you!” Shouted Ferocius and retreated into a tissue with his tears.

The Niles and I delicately air guitared Rush’s “Xanadu”.

“Hey!” Shouted a crusty looking and familiar faced person from behind the bar. “No Xanadu here! Take that Rush shit outside!”

“Why don’t we take you outside!” I shouted, and then I realized that this has been a most violent entry, what with the kiddy pool of blood and whatnot. “Give me a 1926 Macallan Scotch and I won’t beat the ever-living fuck out of you!”

The familiar faced bar keep waddled back and we could see tears welling up in his eyes.
”What a homo, haha.” Said The Niles, referencing the crying, because everyone knows that crying is gay.

“No, I’m not crying because I’m gay – well, I am gay maybe I suppose, or just really confused I think probably – look, only one of two people in the entire world order a scotch like that, and actually expect a bartender to have it on hand, and follow the order by threatening the bartender with having the living fuck beat out of him! The Boss and The Niles!”

“Tom?” The Niles asked drunkingly.

“Well jerk me off!” Tom the Penguin-fish shouted.
”Okay, I’ll jerk you off.” Ferocius said sullenly and started walking, head down, toward Tom with a bottle of Jergens.
”Ferocius, he wasn’t serious! You’re gross dude.” The Niles and I said in perfect unison. So we jinxed each other and neither of us spoke for the remainder of this entry.

“I was only partly serious.” Tom said homosexually. “Anyways, what brings you guys to South America?”

The Niles and I reminded Tom the Penguin-fish of the recent jinxing and proceeded to convey our recent exploits on the high and vast and ridiculously mighty seas through the ancient art of charades…

-The Boss