Cleo the Cat Immortalized. Photo by Dan Smallegange

 

Cleo the cat immortalized. They poured new cement for the sidewalk in front of my house the other day, and naughty Cleo left her mark. I find it quite adorable and fitting as it is right at my entrance steps and I rather like cats. Photo by Dan Smallegange.

The Terror Syndrome Known as Love. Comedy by Dan Smallegange

 The Society for Evil, Debauchery and Kitten Appreciation Presents:

The Terror Syndrome Known as Love.

Yes, True Love. It can be a real thorn in the side of any evil corporation, dark empire or cuddly revolutionary group trying to take over the planet. Especially if this terrible, maddening disease gets at those people at the top. Suddenly generals known for cruelty and a mentality hard as nails are wanting to buy everyone an aperitif and trade sappy anecdotes. Suddenly absolute rulers fists are not at all iron-like, but as malleable as a small duck who's been plied with several rounds of tequila. They get all mooshey and cow eyed and grin inanely when they should be minging mercilessly. Yes indeedy, Love is a bane, true danger, and cause for worry in any 'Number 2' worth his or her salt and pepper.

Yes, when thus afflicted the newly smitten seem to want to forgive everyone and inflict on them uncomfortable hugs and icky warm embraces. They'll decide not to drop captured agents in that vat of acid or giant fishbowl de-la-piranha, but rather bore then to death by telling them all about the handsome man or gorgeous gal they're into. It is a serious problem this thing called LOVE and when they at the top become afflicted only trouble may result. Averting catastrophe in the early stages can be your only hope. Besides happy people freakking suck. Let's repeat that:

HAPPY PEOPLE FREAKING SUCK.

Always smiling inanely and floating about the room and bringing the normal miserable rest of us down.

So, here below are some helpful hints and pointers on how to determine if yes, the evil overlord is in love, the head of the assassin's guild is in love, or even the head waiter is indeed afflicted with that dreaded virus: love. (No one likes a blissful head waiter grinning like an ass who can't concentrate on what the h'ordeuvres are.)

Your Overlord is in Love if:

1) He starts wearing snappy fashionable clothing in vivid pastels instead of the requisite black and brooding. Also, you can see his teeth way more often in what may be described as some kind of inverted grimace previously foreign to him.

2) The boss's evil cat is decidedly scratchy to the staff and in a foul, jealous mood, having had to share the bed in the evil lair of late with the new love interest, or worse, been confined to the couch!

3) The execution squad has so much time off they've begun to learn pinochle and to finally get right all the moves to 'Achey Breaky Heart'.

4) The evil general's assignments move from devastating and ruthless attacks against dreaded mortal enemies The Society for Good, Chastity and Dog Appreciation to trips to the chocolate shops and redecorating books crop up on the evil coffee tables.

5) And lastly, there is a final dread symptom that marks the death knell of any evil society, this being the initiation of bad poetry. Poetry is tried out on the under staff to 'see what you think and if she'll like it'. Poems recited nervously on the love interest's joyously large buttocks and streamingly luxurious armpit hair are to be especially feared.

Dealing with Evil Goons in Love.

Just shoot them.

Goons can be replaced. Or grow more in the ol' cloning pond down by the way. No one likes a goon chattering on and on about how he's met his absolute soul mate anyways, when he should be pounding his sledge-like fists into an opponent's sternum. With goonery silence is always the golden rule.

On Dealing with Your Evil Overlord After He's Been Dumped.

Well, sometimes bosses kill their Number 2s through 20s when pissed off/heartbroken/impotent/et cetera, so you are may be dead already. If you somehow survived a purge (Stalin was famous for his purges after one of his many blind dates had gone awry or even slightly awkward) then you may want to focus this new rage into a small war or well, anywhere but directed at you. OR you can get him some ice cream. Everyone loves ice cream when they're down, even evil geniuses. And perhaps lace it with barbiturates.

Love a kitten and kill a martini today.

EVIL SOCIETY MGMT xo

By: Daniel Smallegange, CC all rights reserved.

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Fishies. Comic by Dan Smallegange

 

Comic by Dan Smallegange, copyright2018, all rights reserved.

Cat Marxism. Comic by Dan Smallegange

 Comic by Dan Smallegange copyright 2017.

Pound That Drum

 Pound that drum boy

And be sure the world reckons and

Draw out some attention too

With all the motion and commotion beats

That friend and enemy alike

Can hear those lashing hits

Pound that drum boy

That one and all can know and see

Be witness with ears and eyes

That you are here to fight and not hide

This time this

Occassion

Rectification of past errs

Pound that drum boy and

Will them to come

Friend and foe alike

To come and meet us

On the field and in the streets

That they will hear the drum echo

Reverberate

And a reckoning will occur

And our foot falls too they hear

And we shall greet them

As brothers or as enemies embrace

No running away this time

Pound your drum and

Bray to fight

By: Daniel Smallegange

The Path to Perdition, Hitchhiked (Fiction by Daniel Smallegange)

 Hitchhiking our way down the well worn path to perdition. The antagonisms and the lack of a strong drink. Our conscience swarming and disturbing, like flies, like thick viscous smoke. Sordid and well stocked with smiles and fears, walking backwards, thumbs out. Grinning and bucketfuls of vice for companionship, we slither and hop, down and out along the rock strewn pathway to our own and specially anticipated hell.

Fellow travelers roaring past, dodging cans and bottles, wrath and mirth, we light a fire to one another’s heavy breathing and toke it up, hold it in and get the elate. Dancing and supplicating gods and demons both, if there is even a difference. Supplied with pantings and screamings and moans, groans, lust and death, supplied with anger and laughter we stop and rest at a nearby fetid place and revel in the pods of muck filled with all that’s sweet and all that’s black (these the toads sell, along side the swamp) filled with all that’s sweet and all that’s black, excepting also what’s light be also included for the price of one dream and a portion of our last crust of bread. And enter now the salving dreams which come thick and coiled as any pythonic embrace. Our arms also, clinging tight. This and the warmth of fire.

Stars so many jewels in the blackest night, perfect and cold and desolate and so very far. We scoff and sputter well into this night. The violence of truth. The intangibility of happiness and the shocking and terrible ability of our digressions/transgressions. They cling to one, stubborn, like a fine mist or disease incurable. They isolate, decorate, marks of torture or badges of honour all. The violence of truth clashing on our shields of mirth and irony. Dance my love, dance, long into the gentle night.

Laughter in the dark and a stranger's knife in broad daylight, cold against our throat, waking us. Robbed of our last scrapings of sustenance and a few coppers we are free. Our steps so much lighter as we move once more, free and well pleased and placed. Hitchhiking our way down the well worn path to perdition. Skipping and pausing and lapping it up. Grinning like wolves. This case, as in most, the journey so much better than the destination…

By: Daniel Smallegange

Bring Out Yer Dead (short fiction by Daniel Smallegange)

 And so, ‘bring out your dead’ they cried, and came seeking and came finding those dead and those alive also, despite the seemingly specific nature of the advertising. Flushing the streets and those places of rest, salvation and ill-repute of those they deemed enemies of the entity, defilers and defiers of the grace of God, or just plain ruffian scum. Cries of ‘bring out your dead’ and the heavy tread of government issued boots caused howls of fear making friends with protest to ripple and sweep through the boroughs and dens of inequity. This followed also by a general crawling and a running and slithering away as the fearful and/or guilty sought solution and refuge, the sweet embrace of secure walls and locked doors. This while the likes of I, proud card carrying member of Ruffian Scum local 898, lay stone drunk in a pool of self manufactured spittle and brine, clinging to a whiskey tree and ashtray as one would two lovers of extreme and equal talent. Out of mind and blind with sleep, lost to the cries of ‘bring out your dead’ until the hard tread of government issued boots made introduction uncomfortably to my very personal ribs and spleen.

And so they caught me, bound me, raged me, dragged me. I, Union Goon Second Class and humble narrator! What ignominy, ruin, disgrace. Dragged free and away from the asylum of my whiskey tree. My cries of ‘I ent dead’ largely ignored, the source of mirth and much pleasure. Yes, caught, dragged, found and bound like a hare soon for the pot. And I said through lips daubed rouge: ‘But sirs and enemies, I en't dead so much as I know.’ They laughed and spit: ‘Soon to be corrected.’

Desolately drawn, kicked, prodded shoved through the streets, trailing an assortment of fluids, clear or red or green/yellow, thick, thin or viscous. Other’s poor fortune turns to my luck as captors trot off, in pursuit of others, lessen in number. Through the streets roped up like a like a sacrificial dishonoured lover, like a broken bird of prey, like fear and like sin caught in the open day light. ‘Bring out your dead’ more cries of, and the wagon piled three deep with corpses and dust in my eyes making tears of mud and choke. Just hoping to survive the day and welcome the embrace of night. And then we are fewer even and falling behind, isolated and struggle and ropes made looser and reaching and a razor from my boot finds my hand and I am on him, I bite him, I bite him hard, in the knee and in the groin bringing him down and upon the other, said razor between teeth now kissing his neck slowly all the way across and more rouge flowing. ‘Bring out your dead’ he shall cry no more.

Now further freed and it tastes like copper. The velocity of escape. Soon to rest and sleep in the warmth of mud... But first to seek the source of a new and uncompromised whiskey tree.

By: Daniel Smallegange