The Lorax VS. The Vegan

Oh, the Lorax.  Despite all the self-righteous blather, you’re pretty darned cute.  But I know another environmental crusader who can out-annoy other people any day with his non-stop preaching:  the Vegan. 

Let’s see what would happen if I dropped the two of you into the middle of a Tea Party convention with only a couple of homemade cardboard signs between you and a crowd of two hundred enthusiastic conservatives who are pretty sure Obama’s Muslim uncle invented “global warming”. 

The Lorax:  Your sign says:  “I Speak on Behalf of the Trees”. The Tea Party people laugh in your face because, let’s face it, your sign is made from a tree. They don’t need Fox News to explain that one to them. You frown.

The Vegan:  Your sign says:  “I Don’t Eat Anything That Screams for Help When It Is Murdered in Cold Blood” and features a drawing of George W. Bush biting the head off a chicken.  One of the Tea Partiers who bears a striking resemblance to Rush Limbaugh lunges for your throat. But he’s slow. Sluggish. And, I hate to say it, fat. You sidestep him and he falls on the ground in a diabetic coma. 

The  Lorax:  You climb up on a stump and start telling people in rhyme how sorry they will be when all the polar bears are dead because they refuse to curb their carbon emissions. A lady from Missouri snorts and tells you if the polar bears did something to get on God’s wrong side, like act all gay, it’s their fault. Just ask Pat Robertson. You sigh.

The Vegan:  You whip out a slide projector and flash horrific, life-size scenes onto the wall of baby cows being skinned alive as they hang upside down by one leg from a meat hook.  Several women in the crowd turn green and start gagging. One of them pukes up a still recognizable McRib sandwich.  This causes a stampede toward the parking lot. Three people are trampled to death. Cops show up in riot gear and start pepper spraying anything that moves. In the middle of the fray, the Lorax gets tazed. 

The Vegan:  3 take away 1 (because no one can really tolerate a vegan) = 2    

The Lorax:  0 plus 2 (because you’re so earnestly adorable, and no one wants to see a furry little monster get tazed) = 2

Poor, the Lorax. I want you to know I captured the whole thing on video and will be posting it on YouTube in protest. Tie Game. 

Ayla VS. Zoomba

Oh, Ayla.  Should I pronounce that with a guttural, cavemannish ring to it?  No?  Okay.   After you lost your entire people to an earthquake and finished up surviving a hellish Cave Lion attack, you were raised by a Clan of half-men, half-monkeys who found you ugly as all get out.  I’m truly sorry about that.  But you had some good times, too.  Like when you memorized the names and uses of about two thousand different plants, herbs, weeds, tree barks, and lizard skins.  Thanks for sharing every single one of them with us, by the way.  Good stuff to know.  But how about stepping outside to have a word with Zoomba of the now extinct genetic line, the NeanderPygmies?

You kick ass with a slingshot.  Nice.  I mean, the sling you swing around in the air that shoots out a rock.  Whatever.  Zoomba rigged up a sweet deal out of moleskin, yucca fibers, tree limbs, and tar that would make your eyes water.  Out of jealousy.  Because it’s a primitive crossbow, and she’s deadly accurate with it.  You’re able to hypnotize huge, scary beasts like horses, lions, and wolves.  Zoomba has a black mamba for a pet.  That’s only the most terrifying snake in all of Africa.  She trained it to obey her version of “sic ‘em, boy!”  You became the Clan’s medicine woman, capable of communing with your monkey-people friends’ ancestors when you eat magic roots. Super. Zoomba snacks on peyote like it’s going out of style. When she does, she can fly. 

Zoomba:  3   

Ayla:  - 1, because that last book? Pretty sure that one was written so your author could write off her "cave tour" in France as a business expense.  

Game Over

Jack Reacher VS. Thomas Cruiser

Oh, Jack Reacher.  No, you're fine.  Don't come any closer.  STAY WHERE YOU ARE STAY WHERE YOU ARE STAY WHERE YOU ARE.   CRASH, Boom.  Sorry,  I tried to warn you.  I put a trap door between us because, frankly, you scare the crap out of me.  18 novels worth of you kicking ass and not even bothering to take names - I'd rather you just stay in that hole while we chat.  There's someone here who'd like to meet you.  Thomas Cruiser, ex-Canadian Mountie.

Perhaps more important than your background as a military police officer, you've got an almost supernatural ability to tell time without a watch.  That must come in handy.  You give Thomas Cruiser a date, any date since the beginning of time, and he can tell you what day it fell on.  April 1, 3AD?  A Wednesday.  That particular talent has saved Thomas' life in no less than 29 of his novels.  February has 29 days during a leap year.  Coincidence?  I think not.

It boggles my mind how many crazy violent situations you get yourself into.  At this point you're just wandering around, taking in the sights, right?  Thomas Cruiser's taken it upon himself to patrol the US/Canadian border.  No one asked him to.  You can sympathize with that.  But Thomas has an agenda - make sure no one crosses that border unless they're at a checkpoint.  I don't think even Lee Child knows what you're doing.

You've killed or permanently disfigured, what, 500 people?   Thomas once took out an entire town of 1,250.  Because their town straddled the border, they thought they could just prance across it any time they wanted.  Not acceptable.  I know, I know - you killed that one guy with a single punch to the chest.  But in "Blood Lust Vengeance:  Niagara Falls", Thomas killed a guy just by looking at him. 

Thomas Cruiser:  3 + 5 (because in the movie, he was played by Bruce Willis)

Jack Reacher:  0 (we all know who played you, and he's short, hyperactive, and belongs to a cult)

Game Over

Romeo Montague VS. Lovesick Larry

Oh, Romeo, Romeo, where you at, Romeo?  Your highs are so high, and your lows are so low.  You might consider a mood stabilizer of some sort.  Lovesick Larry's got it bad, too.  Let's see which one of you can last the longest in:  the Game of Love.

One glimpse of Juliet and you forgot all about what's her face.   Lovesick Larry fell hard for this one chick who ended up filing a restraining order against him.  Then he saw a girl's phone number scrawled on a urinal and he knew, without a doubt, their love-to-be was written in the stars.  He called her.  She said sure, she'd meet up.  Big Bertha turned out to be thirteen, and missing an eye.  But what's in a name?  Nothing.  She smelled good, like a cardboard pine tree dangling from a rearview mirror, and her name couldn't change that.

Pretty much right off the bat, you convinced Juliet to sneak off and marry you.  Lovesick Larry has a bit of attention deficit disorder himself.  He and Bertha got drunk on wine coolers and drove to Vegas to get hitched the first night they met. 

It's touching, really, the way you ran a sword through your rival and then chugged a vial of poison when you thought Juliet was dead.  When Larry couldn't wake Bertha after a night of heavy drinking at the casino, just like you, he failed to recall how easy it was to get over that first chick the moment he locked eyes with the second one.  Two cops showed up at his door to arrest him for kidnapping.   He took them out with a machete before hurling himself off the balcony of his second story honeymoon suite at the Motel 12.  When Bertha finally woke up and found his mangled form in the parking lot next to his vintage El Camino, she offed herself with one of the cops' guns. 

I'll leave you with a Larry quote, Act 5, Scene 3.  His last, poetic words:

"O crap.  O crapful, crapful, crappy day!

Worst day ever.

Okay, O day, Okay.  I hate you stupid day!

There hasn't been a day this bad since I got fired from Wal-Mart."

Lovesick Larry:  Love Hurts            

Romeo:  Don't feel bad.  Everyone loses when they play this game.

Dr. Frankenstein VS. Nurse Practitioner Volgelslum

Oh, Dr. Frankenstein.  Your gigantic ego is almost too big for this blog; your scientific powers too kooky for words.  But let's have a go, shall we?  You're up against Nurse Practitioner Volgelslum and her homemade humanoid, Gretelschnitzel.  Ready?  Set?  Build a monster!

Urgh:  You performed the ultimate act of creation by constructing a devil of a man, eight feet tall with veins and muscles practically protruding from its skin.  When he opened his fearsome yellow eyes for the first time, you called him ugly.  And you ran.  Nurse Practitioner Volgelslum built a monster, too.  But Volgelslum's not in the business of using whatever old, nasty, rotting limbs and digits she could find laying around in the morgue.  She killed for them.  When Gretelschnitzel got hit by that bolt of strategically timed and placed lightening, she opened her eyes and people swooned.  Because Gretelschnitzel was fresh, and hot, like a bun right out of the oven.  And she was blond and leggy.

Gurgle:  Your monster turned on you faster than you could say:  "A very regrettable decision to construct that evil looking fiend."  He ended up killing every person you really cared about.  Who could blame him?  Nurse Practitioner Volgelslum didn't leave her creation to root around in the dumpster for food.  Oh, no.  She enrolled Gretelschnitzel in community college.  Got her hair done.  Trained her to be a ninja.  And by the third act, Gretelschnitzel had torn limb from limb every single patient who'd stiffed Volgelsum on the bill for the last twenty years.

Flurg:  In the end, your monster pretty much outclassed you in every way.  Well, a couple of extra points for obsessively chasing it until you died.   After a long and fruitful career, Volgelslum and Gretelschnitzel retired together to the British Virgin Islands where they lived out their days as two halves of a whole, just like it should be.  Man and God.  Creator and Monster.  Mother and Child.

Volgelslum:  Monstrous Genius     Frankenstein:  Monster Fail

Game Over

Holden Caulfield VS. D-Mac

Oh, Holden Caulfield, would-be catcher in the rye field.  You were once the most charmingly disaffected teen hero of all time.  Sadly, Gen-Z just doesn't get what your problem is.  I'll give you a chance to redeem yourself if you'd like.  Let's pit you against post-postmodern malcontent D-Mac.  That's short for something, but D-Mac had his name legally changed, so don't worry about it.

Bam:  You pretty much whine your way from start to finish.  Sorry, but you do.  When D-Mac wants to emote, he makes a video of his grandma lip-syncing some of the fresh rhymes he dubbed over a Lil Wayne song so he can post it on YouTube.  Because old people doing shit is funny.  Check it. 

Bam:  Your prose is littered with words like damn and lousy and hell.  D-Mac's personal correspondence is all LMFAO and POS and JEOMK.  Look it up.  LIC. 

Bam:  You got expelled from your fancy prep school... why, again?  Ennui?  I can't remember.  How about:  failing at life for no real reason.  Which, by the way, no one puts up with these days.  If you pulled that crap in 2012, they'd have you so hopped up on Ritalin, you'd be doing calculus in your sleep.  D-Mac got expelled from public school for cheating on a standardized test, even though he was "strongly encouraged" to by certain school board members in order to raise the district rankings.  But he ended up at the alternative school where he gained invaluable-for-his-music-career experience hanging out with real live gang members.  And he got his first tat.

D-Mac: FTW       Holden Caulfield:  WTF?

Game Over

Paul Atreides VS. Gordon Uranus



Oh, Paul Atreides.  You got marooned on that desert Dune-planet with all those freakishly large worms and spice miners.   You made the best of it, by becoming a god.  But what would happen if you were pitted against Gordon Uranus, messiah to the inhabitants of the extra universe that hasn’t been discovered yet, Dysuniverse? 

Your mom’s a bona fide witch.  That don’t-even-think-about-messing-around-with-me voice most mothers pull out on occasion?  Your mom’s got the market cornered in that regard.  No, Mom, not “The Voice”!  Gordon’s mom is a witch, too.  But she has a superpower the inhabitants of Dysuniverse refer to as “The Foot”.  One kick of The Foot to an unsuspecting person’s ass could land you in prehistoric times on the planet Forgettaboutit, or just about anywhere else.  It’s an unpredictable talent, but one that kept Gordon in line, believe you me. 

Your all-blue with no whites or blacks eyes are frightening.   I understand you have an addiction and all, but for the love of god, get some contacts.   Gordon’s eyes are bloodshot red.  He’s addicted, too.  To gin and tonics.  But which color do you think is scarier?  Red.

You drank the “Water of Life” and underwent the “spice agony” to become the Kwisatz Haderach.  You know, like Superman, only better.  Gordon ate the “Biscuit of Death” and underwent the “condiment torture” to become what everyone refers to as:  The  Most Highly Regarded Superbeing of All Time In Either of the Two Universes. 

Gordon Uranus:  3     Paul Atreides:  -1, for turning into a worm in that last book

Game Over