Calling payphones at random

   Have you ever written down a number for a payphone, and later called it to see who would answer and what would happen? I have. I'm not the only one. A little researching and I discovered that it is a common thing. These kids did this in the late '70s:

http://illahie.blogspot.ca/2012/08/calling-phone-booths-for-fun.html


   The most famous is probably the Mojave Phone Booth, which was installed in the Mojave Desert near Baker, California, in 1960, and little-used until around 1997, when people noticed this remote phone booth, and started posting its phone number and calling it at random. It became a little famous, inspiring movies of various kinds, which led to its downfall, as it became so covered with graffiti and garbage by visitors that it was removed.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-mojave-phone-booth.htm 

   It even inspired some movies, one of which I've seen (starring Steve Guttenberg, of all people). It wasn't a bad little movie ("Mojave Phone Booth (2006)"):

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0470864/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 


   If you want to call some random payphone numbers around the world, go ahead. This site lists a lot. I don't know if these actually work anymore. (I know that in my city, the phone company blocked the ability to call in to certain payphones in bad areas, to discourage drug dealing, although with the rise of cellphones and smartphones, I don't think many people actually call payphones anymore.)

http://www.payphone-project.com/numbers/

Graffiti

Three examples of graffiti. Mural, message, and incomprehensible.

Random Googling

   The things you find when you randomly Google the word "shuck":
http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/013/b/f/Black_Shuck_Commission_by_KivuliMwitu.jpg

   Or "grumpy cat giraffe":
http://img.pandawhale.com/post-10547-Grumpy-Cat-Giraffe-w4tO.jpeg

   Or "pandas on rocking horses": http://www.blogcdn.com/www.lemondrop.com/media/2009/09/panda-rocking-horse-huffpo-456.jpg

   Or "mice smoking cigarettes": http://www.hahastop.com/pictures/Mouse_Smoking.jpg 

    Or a "kangaroo playing a saxophone": http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/754162/121661524/stock-vector-vector-illustration-of-a-kangaroo-mascot-playing-saxophone-121661524.jpg 

   Or an "eyeball with two pupils": https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju5x8EufcQCyKFmwIvT56BCLwEN23H_yy2Y1BPjqG2LhgDBKtT3dqZvaNtj1bPWghvAAEVRXBLPM_llYEPc8Jte0JOe3OfCECndzAOip8m4R2_5WmyDMzoXngKAkOEpAqPZLM76Q1fCuk/s1600/strange+people+three+eyes+person.jpg 

   Or maybe just some old-fashioned "killer eyelashes": http://i.imgur.com/JBPPZ.jpg

 




 

Mini-Stories #8

Mini-Stories #8

    One day Felty Feltman woke up to discover he had a goatee growing out of his kneecap.

    "Oh, crap! Today of all days. I have a big job interview, plus I have a date with a hot chick who I hope will help me get over the tragic death of my true love in a freak dishwashing accident!" Felty was despondent. But he was tough, so he put on his hat and left the house. After a few screams and hard stares, he went back home and put on the rest of his clothing.

    On his way to the big job interview, he reflected on what a tough break life had thrown him. First, he was born with a cleft ear, then at the very first day of school, a series of very large pumpkins had fallen from the sky, killing most of the teachers and all of the brightest students, leaving him as the "King of the Dipshits", as the local newspaper had tagged him. He failed to take advantage of this unique situation, instead he lazed around and composed poems dedicated to making things dirty and greasy. His favourite one was called "Dirty Dirty Sexy Sandwich (With Dirt Inside)". After leaving school, his life had gone into a severe decline, culminating in the infamous Fart Incident, in which someone in the city let out a really big stinker, and for some reason, every single person blamed it on Felty.

    And now he was walking towards a job interview, something he had no desire for, but he had to go, or else the manager of his apartment building would kill him. Felty was sure he had meant to say "evict him", but he really couldn't understand his thick Eastern Canadian accent. The office approached rapidly, and blinking hard, Felty entered.

    After reporting to the receptionist, Felty had a seat. A sudden overwhelming urge to pick his nose grew and grew, and he fought hard to ignore it. Finally, he picked up a decades-old issue of Dental Damage Weekly and, raising it up to cover his face, pretended to read it while his index finger dug desperately deep inside his nose.

    "Feltman!" barked the receptionist, a tiny block of wood, carved to look vaguely human. Her voice was much louder than it had any right to be, and Felty wondered where the sound came from. He got up and followed the direction of her finger.

    He almost slipped a few times on the slimy floor, and wondered if the walls were really carpeted in cat fur, or if they were just bragging on their little plaques. Strange, wheezing voices seemed to call out from various passing doors, and more than once he heard a drilling noise, then a loud snap, as if a large bone had been broken in half. He wondered at that, since this was neither a dental nor a doctor's office, but a company selling hardcore pornography aimed strictly at the raccoon audience. He wondered what he had gotten himself into. He adjusted his hat so it sat more firmly on his head, and shrugged his shoulders.

    A large red-faced man flung open a door and stared at Felty. "Mister Feltman?"

    Felty nodded.

    "Please, come in," the man said as he stood aside to let Felty enter. As the man closed the door behind him, a loud, skin-crawling scream pealed out, suddenly cut off as the door clicked shut. A single drop of sweat rolled down Felty's back and lodged between his buttocks.

    "Please, take a seat," invited the man, whose eyes suddenly bugged out as he yelled in a panic,"But not literally! These are our seats! Please do not take them..." he finished lamely as he trailed off, seemingly resigned to the fact that other people had taken a chair with them, and that Felty himself might take one, too. Despite his great size, he looked defeated and deflated, like a sad, old party balloon, months past its prime.

    "Now, where were we?" he mumbled as he shuffled some papers around on his desk, which had clearly seen better days and in fact had been salvaged from the alley.

    "Uh, I just came here for a job interview," offered Felty.

    "Ah, yes! A firm young man, come riding on a white raccoon, a saviour for our failing company," beamed the man."My name is Oscar Furniture, by the way." He held out his hand as if to shake it with Felty's, but then withdrew it, as if he might not get it back. He ran his hand through his hair instead, scratching the scalp. His hair was brushed in an extreme comb-over, even though he was not in the least bit balding. Felty absently stroked his long pointed nose and stared at Oscar Furniture expectantly. A cold silence fell upon the room. They stared at each other for what seemed like hours, but was in fact only a few seconds. Oscar stood up quickly, then sat back down slowly. "And you are...?"

    "Felty Feltman."

    "Is that really your name? To be honest, the only reason I agreed to interview you was because of your ridiculous name," chuckled Oscar.

    "My ridiculous name? Excuse me, man, but what kind of name is Oscar Furniture? You sound like a character in a bad story."

    "It's a proud family name, going back centuries. We are royalty back in our home country of Fakopia. We were exiled by the Columnists and forced into a nomadic existence around Europe, finally landing in Vancouver. We have spread and prospered and slowly we are regaining our past fortunes. Soon we will have enough wealth to raise an army and return in triumph as the rightful rulers of Fakopia!" Oscar Furniture finished with a flourish, sweeping several sheafs of papers off the desk onto the floor, where what looked like a bald mouse scurried from behind a pair of muddy gumboots and nabbed them, dragging them back to its hiding place.

    Felty stared at him incredulously. "Regain fortunes? Armies? Rightful rulers?"

    Oscar nodded happily like a puppy on Ecstasy.

    "By selling raccoon pornography?"

    "Oh, no! Pornography aimed at the raccoon market! There's a subtle difference. We produce art of an erotic nature that features nude human women being ridiculed by raccoons. It's quite interesting, actually." The tip of Oscar's tongue darted out of his mouth.

    "Interesting? Ridiculed? What the hell are you talking about?" said Felty suspiciously. "How are they being ridiculed?"

    "Well, in a series of cartoon-type speech balloons, the women are being told that they are no good, that they do not live up to raccoon standards of beauty because they are not raccoons. As well, some of the raccoons make fun of the women by calling them fat, even though all the women are actually very skinny. It just messes up their minds. It's quite tasteful when you see it in magazine or video form, I assure you."

    Felty's eyes narrowed as he stared at Oscar Furniture. "It sounds damn silly, if you ask me. Foolish!"

    "Oh well..." Oscar looked around the room as he dipped his hand into a drawer of the desk and pulled out a large needle. "Would you like some drugs?"

    Felty stood up violently, his chair slamming to the floor. "No, thank you! I think I'm gonna take off now."

    As he turned towards the door, Oscar yelled,"Muffinbutt!" and the strange creature that looked like a bald mouse but was not, darted rapidly from behind the muddy gumboots and attacked Felty. Felty gasped and tried to shake it off his leg, but the thing crawled up his leg to his crotch, and with one fast push, embedded another needle into his groin. Felty collapsed to the floor, not unconscious, but hallucinating. He had been injected with some sort of powerful psychotropic substance, like LSD or peyote, but fast-acting and as strong as a nuclear explosion. The room swirled around him, as the figures of Oscar Furniture and the bald mouse-man loomed over him, their faces and bodies diving into each other and out again, their blood vessels appearing and disappearing rapidly, strobing in some gorey ballet. Felty could see that they were speaking, but all he could hear was an awful screaming sound, like an entire skyscraper made out of metal ripping lengthwise, if the building were actually a sentient being instead of inert. The sound echoed around and around his head, escaping out of his ears and leaking back into his eyes, then spraying from his nose and onto the walls. "The sound, the sound..." he mumbled in a strangled voice, but the words turned to black crows and attacked him. He thrashed around on his back, clawing at his skin. Finally, one of his thrashings hit Oscar, and the man fell down. Felty struggled to his feet, seeing Oscar falling on the mouse-man in slow motion. He grabbed at the doorknob, which had turned into a giant eyeball and was winking at him. He caught it and recoiled at its slimy, ropy stem, finally catching it again and yanking hard. It came off in his hand, and the door it was attached to shattered into a thousand pieces. Felty ran out of the room even though he felt as if a dozen corpses had been tied to him. He dragged himself and the corpses down the hallway and past reception, where the tiny block of wood yelled at him to stop, but he picked a corpse off his back and threw it at her. He burst out of the building into the harsh sunlight, falling to the ground, wheezing. Through back alleys and front yards, he fled home, not stopping until he had slammed the door to his apartment shut. He sat on his dirty, ratty couch breathing heavily and coughing, finally collapsing in frightened tears. The drug, though extremely powerful, was short-lasting and in less than an hour the effects had worn off. Felty shuffled to the sink and drank from the tap.

    He sat back down and the thoughts raced around his mind in a mad race to catch up with each other, when he noticed that his knee was itching. He pulled up the leg of his pants only to see the goatee on his kneecap.

    "Aw, fuck! That stupid goatee!"

    The aging prostitute next door listening at the wall with an empty glass to her ear, turned away with a smile on her wrinkled face. She began laughing, quietly at first, then loudly, the laughter pouring out of her dark throat like a waterfall, a raging torrent of evil. She laughed and laughed until her sides ached, then she went and made some bacon and eggs.

Trapped between dimensions

   There is a man going around town, writing things on things. Spray-painted words on walls, postal boxes, even on chain-link fences. They are messages---messages of hope, of anger, of surprise. Where does he come from? Is he from another dimension? "Do not look at these words". "I am trapped in this wall". "It is noisy in this vacuum". Maybe he is an electronic vagabond.
   Once, when I was swimming to New Zealand across the Pacific Ocean (this was when it was a lot smaller than it is today), I encountered a life form I had never seen before. It was like a lobster, or a fish, but it had little dangling wires. Of course, back then I didn't know what wires, or electronics were, so I thought they were whiskers. I tried to talk to him, but his language had not formed yet. Or so I thought. Turns out he was from the future, and had developed along an entirely different evolutionary track than anyone could have predicted. He had used a second-hand time machine, but as these things often go, it had malfunctioned and instead of ending up in the future in some grand paradise of technology and mind combined, he had ended up in the middle of a skinny Pacific Ocean, drifting around, until he met me.
   And so I wonder if he used that wonky time machine again, and somehow ended up in our present time, but locked into various half-solid realities, trapped between times and dimensions.
   I wondered these things as I took a leak on the walls.

The payphones are a dying race

Usually when payphones are neglected by the phone company and consumers alike, they just look ragged and beaten. This one looked like it died in the desert and all that's left is its bones.

Mini-Stories #7

Mini-Stories #7

    One day little Wojzciehyk was playing in the street of his hometown of Vancouver when a gang of television sets ran towards him, huffing and puffing and waving their tail-like power cords. Following not too far behind them was another gang, but of puffins. Up hill and down hill they ran, left and right, here and there, now and then, black and white. Occasionally the TVs would stop and flash special programming at the puffins, but since they were old sets, it was only black and white, and nobody has been afraid of black and white TV programming, special or not, since the 1950s. Just then, a cake truck came along and the TVs hopped aboard. Ever since the Great Truce of '79, cake trucks and TV sets have had a firm though uneasy understanding.

    Soon everybody was back at the cake truck compound on the outskirts of town, partying and playing cards, whistling and carving, jumping and crying. It was just like the old days, although which old days and where, nobody can say.

    "I can say! I can say! I know where and which and when and why!" cried a sad old deflated party balloon.

    The TV sets and cake trucks thought of flushing the old balloon down the toilet, but they were drunk and happy and lazy and just a little mentally defective. So they let him speak.

    "It all happened about a hundred years ago," he began, relishing the moment."Old King Bafart pronounced one day that these were indeed the Good Old Days. A smart aleck piped up from the crowd that since these days were new, how could they be old? The crowd laughed and slowly closed in on the miscreant, suffocating him with their asses. The party celebrating this new age went on for years! Ah, I still remember the wine, the women, the song, and especially the drunk women singing bad opera! The decorations, the clothing, the freshly-scrubbed sidewalks and toilets...those were the good old days.

    "Then one day a dark cloud descended on the land. Well, it was more of a light grey cloud, but it was not welcome! The King sent out his army, his finest soldiers, to deal with this awful thing. They shot flaming arrows at it, and flaming bullets, and even flaming retards, all to no avail. The ominous cloud fell lower and lower upon the land, until it surrounded every man, woman, and child, and even the man-childs. Their eyes rolled madly around their heads as they struggled to understand what was happening. Had God forsaken them? Was the King really just a man and not a god? Was sexually abusing snails really such a good idea? The cloud fell lower and lower until it finally just sunk into the ground. The people sighed in relief and went back to molesting snails. Another twenty years of parties and drunk women singing went by, until one day a giant hand appeared from behind the sun, wielding a giant pin, and popped every one of us. I was one of the lucky few who blew away with the horrible cold wind that sprang up. I landed in your land about fifty years ago, and here I have lived among you, keeping my secret until now. That is my sad story." The old balloon shuffled around in the dirt, and sighed.

    The cake trucks and TV sets stared at him. They kept staring until one of them spoke.

    "Wait a second. Let me get this straight. Your entire land was made up of...balloon people? Balloons walking around like they were actual people? That's ridiculous!"

    The assembled crowd murmured, and shouts sprang up in anger.

    "Yes! Ridiculous!"

    "Outlandish!"

    "Not even a little bit funny!"

    "Snails, eh?"

    Well, the short of it was that after they got over their disbelief at such a stupid story, the cake trucks and TV sets collected as many snails as they could and began an orgy of snail abuse that has lasted to this day.

    Little Wojzciehyk got drunk on wine and eventually died a lonely, bitter old man. Well, first he became mayor, then he got drunk, then he died. Something like that.