Recently I went through The Writer’s Market, the famous directory of magazines and newspapers accepting freelance submissions. It was most educational. In the event of Splarks.com ever becoming an independent small press, I will craft and save the following entry for the Writer’s Market:

SPLARKS PRESS
Email: BegForConsideration@splarks.com. We review unsolicited submissions quarterly. During these times, we crowd into our hip, overpriced loft office and feast on trendy takeout and wine from a country you probably can’t place geographically. We read your submission aloud and point out all your editing errors. If we can’t find any, we’ll make some up so that everyone else in the room will admire our sharp eye. Then we will denounce your work as loathsome tripe and invent phrases of derogatory terms to apply to your writing technique, which is unrefined, banal, and obtuse. On slower months, we go to the rooftop garden and bring an easel and charcoal pencils. We then sketch the loser that we imagine you to be, based on your horrific attempts at writing. Invariably, your portrait will resemble a crazy cat lady, a dour parking lot attendant, or creepy children’s television show host. Finally, we will build a little fire in our sink or the rooftop fire pit and ceremoniously toss in the crumpled pages of your manuscript.

Nonfiction: We love confessionals and memoirs, as they help us further determine your pathetic approach to living. We are particularly interested in your failure of a love life, high school trauma from which you have not yet recovered, parents who never loved you, and your quaint loss of religious faith. We love hearing about the Self as a Lame Stereotype, which is likely all you’re capable of writing.

Fiction: Send us genre fiction with the hero or heroine thinly-disguised as you. Please spell “heroine” wrong; it amuses us. Unlike those other literary magazines that claim to accept only the best of contemporary fiction, we take only crap since no one but we and our favored associates can write well. Go on, send us your hackneyed blathering.

Poetry: Please don’t send rhyming poetry typical of greeting cards–it’s too easy to criticize. Challenge us! Try to really touch our hearts and make us feel something. That’s always so hilarious.

Tips: Don’t query us about the status of your manuscript or ask when the next issue will be published. Please refer back to this entry for the answers, which are “We burned it in the sink, and then Pablo drunkenly puked on the ashes,” and “As nothing meets our standards for quality literature, the journal will not be published. Again.”

Tags: Random Amusement by splarks
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“You know,” Dave says thoughtfully as we park in front of the library, “sometimes eating fruit really creeps me out.”

“Why’s that?” I ask.

My friends, I regret my innocent query.  You see, plants, animals, minerals, and various other elements have lived together in harmony for all of time.   Dave explains how most plants reproduce by creating a fruit of some kind, and they sneakily put a seed or twenty inside the sweet, tasty flesh.

“So we’re eating their babies,” says Dave earnestly.

“Well yes,” says I, impatient to pick up my book.  ”But it’s actually a way of spreading the seed.  Animals eat the fruit and carry the seed to other locations so that it can grow.”

“If they swallow the seeds and if crap on the ground so the seed can take root.  We throw the seeds in the garbage.  No one craps on the ground anymore.  We use toilets.  We’re flushing  away their babies.  They’ll never grow in the sewers!”

“Unless you are a hippie and you have a compost pile,” I say, thinking of Chupacabra, my worm bin.  ”Or an even bigger hippie and you have a composting toilet.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he insists.  ”We’re not fulfilling our part of the bargain.  They give us fruit, and we flush it down the toilet to die.”

I am silent.  One cannot argue with such logic.  I imagine living as primitivists and backpackers do.  My butt feels cold just thinking about it.

“This needs to be a Splarks story,” he declares.  ”The vegetable kingdom will rise up against the human race and demand vengeance for not crapping on the ground!”

And I think about it.  Oranges using psychic powers to explode toilets and such.  But in the end I decide to let the idea speak for itself and go into the library to get my “Expanding your Serenity with Qigong” book, which is blissfully unconcerned with my personal hygiene habits.

I eat dried jackfruit slices later that evening.  Poor jackfruit babies.  I feel bad for denying you a grown-up jackfruit life, but it’s cold out there and the neighbors already think I’m weird enough.

***

Check out Urban Scout for one of my favorite re-wilding modern primitivists.  He does his best to live a hunter-gatherer lifestyle in Oregon, encountering all sorts of weird obstacles that could only exist in modern life.  He also looks cute in a loincloth … OMG did I type that out loud?

My friends Kat and Alan also have an awesome farm, Sunflower River,  in New Mexico with not only a compost heap, but a composting toilet or two.  They also have handmade yurts, a huge vegetable garden, fruit trees, a fancy DIY rabbit hutch and goat pen, and a solar-powered water pump.  I have fabulous friends.  Perhaps they will be spared during the Vegetable Revolution.

Tags: Based on a True Story, Random Amusement by splarks
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Dorcas was a squirrel. Yes, my snickering, adolescent readers, Dorcas is indeed a legitimate name and means “gazelle” in Greek. Terribly unfortunate name for a squirrel, eh? The little rodents ares are short and stocky, with none of the long-legged gracefulness of a gazelle. Poor Dorcas. She was predestined for school-yard bullying simply by bearing this name.

Ever notice how so many Splarks stories feature downtrodden scapegoats who eventually transcend their handicaps? Inspiring with its can-do attitude, Splarks brings you tales of optimism and personal revelation…except for this story about Dorcas the Squirrel.

Rather than serving as the town pariah, Dorcas was the squirrel equivalent of the alpha bitch in your high school. You know that chick whose mom gave her hundreds of dollars to spend on haircut and highlights and delighted in making fun of girls with inexpensive clothes? In squirrel terms, this meant that Dorcas had the glossiest fur you’ve ever seen on a squirrel. Remember that girl who lived in the ritziest house in town because her dad was a celebrity attorney, and she mentioned this fact whenever possible? Dorcas’s dad lived in the tallest oak tree in the meadow, and it produced the largest acorns ever. However, Dorcas, concerned about weight gain, refused to eat them.

“Dorcas,” her mom scolded, “you need to eat! Winter is coming and if you haven’t fattened up, you’ll starve to death.”

Dorcas rolled her eyes. It was her mother’s seventh “You’re Gonna Die!” speech of the week. “Whatever, Mom. Nobody likes a fat squirrel.”

Dorcas was tragically misinformed. A perusal of National Geographic photos and various Animal Picture of the Day websites shows that fat squirrels are universally lauded as adorable. Pudgy squirrels are so popular that people buy squirrel feeder kits. Chubby little squirrel cheeks and fat white squirrel bellies adorn greeting cards everywhere. In fact, when I see a skinny squirrel in late October, I’m always sure to shout “Hey, squirrel! Why aren’t you chowing down?” to encourage it.*

But Dorcas was young and had not yet experienced a winter. Her mother spoke of Mother Nature throwing cold whiteness from the skies, shriveling the leaves on the trees and turning the creeks hard. Food would not grow, she said, and the world would grow cold.

Dorcas thought this was a load of hooey.

“That’s retarded,” snorted Dorcas.

“Dorcas! That’s not a politically correct word!” Her mother worked with mentally challenged rodent babies and disapproved of such language. “I’m warning you: don’t doubt Mother Nature’s wisdom. Eat!”

But Dorcas had already flounced off to her drey, which is squirrel-terminology for “nest.” Little did she know of the travails she would soon face.

And here, I have two choices. I can take a J.R.R. Tolkein approach to describe travails and write 80 pages of “And the small brown squirrel trudged the deep snow. For days she did not eat for there was no food to be found, and her belly grumbled and her step grew weak.” My other option is to summarize in an Earnest Hemmingway style, such as “Winter came. Snow fell. No nuts grew on the tree. She thought of the summers in France.” Because this is somewhat of a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story, you get to pick and imagine that I wrote whatever you prefer.

When spring came again, just as her mother said it would, Dorcas shakily exited her squalid nest. She ate all that she could find, and reflected on her ordeal. Her mother had been correct about this “Mother Nature” and her cruelty. This must not happen again. Mother Nature must be stopped!

For the first time in her life, Dorcas had a purpose beyond ridiculing squirrels with less shiny fur, talking to boys, and being skinny. She had a new goal: to seek revenge on Mother Nature! She collected sticks and sharpened them with her teeth. She scoured the forest floors for poisonous plants. She learned judo and created a garrote from the spines of weeds. She would teach Mother Nature a lesson about killing off food unnecessarily!

And here, I would like to tell you that Dorcas eventually found Mother Nature, learned about the cycle of the seasons, and came to peace with the necessity of eating and the regenerative purpose of winter. But you must know Splarks better than that by now. Intent on destroying Mother Nature, Dorcas roamed the countryside for a few days in righteous anger. However, her rage quickly dissipated when she found a group of young squirrels who lived behind a moonshine farm. They partied incessantly, and Dorcas soon lost her purpose in a frenzy of binge drinking and casual sexual relations. Squirrel experts may frown and point out the solitary nature of squirrels, and suggest that they do not “party” together. But Dorcas and her friends were trend-setters, refusing to conform to outdated assumptions of squirrel behavior.

Five months later, she found herself with a noisy brood of baby squirrels, whose father had conveniently dumped her for some stupid black-furred squirrel two counties away. She was fat, miserable, and winter was approaching yet again. Mother Nature was still not dead. Dorcas had failed in her quest.

Clinging to the last sad scrap of her great mission in life, Dorcas felt there was no other option but to kill herself. She dropped off her children with the babysitter, then went to the nearest country road. When the next rumbling metal beast appeared, she leaped in front of it, dying instantly. A nearby crow rejoiced over her tasty corpse.

The problem with suicide is that death is a sacred transition between this world and the next. When one enters the afterlife in a despondent, angry, or otherwise rotten state, these unresolved emotions cause the unfortunate soul to wander hopelessly until luck intervenes, or Mother Nature takes pity and rescues him or her.

Do you think Mother Nature was going to rescue Dorcas? No, Mother Nature was not inclined to assist the murderous, particularly when the object of the murderous desire was Mother Nature herself. And so Dorcas wandered the forest for eternity. She haunted her living peers and frightened hikers with her ghostly interludes. Always, always she longed for just one acorn.

It is a tragic tale, isn’t it? If only Dorcas had eaten the acorns as her mother wished! If only she had not been such a bitch to Mother Nature! If only she had migrated to Arizona or Florida for the winter. If only she had chosen to live!

But you see, Dorcas was strangely happy in her new muddled state. Deep down, she was arrogant and disrespectful and loved making people feel bad. Therefore, what could be more fun than frightening people for all eternity, watching them cower in fear before her ghostly apparition? I’ll tell you what: nothing. Haunting was her most joyous activity, and oh, how she enjoyed it! Winter’s chill could not touch her. And best of all, she never had to eat another nut again. Oh sure, she longed for them, as I stated above, but that was because she wished she could throw them at unsuspecting hikers. She had truly made the most of her situation, and no other squirrel was so happy in a phantom existence.

THE END

*I really do. I have had many conversations with squirrels as I try to imitate their strange clicking and squeaking language. I suspect I’m saying something horrifically insulting, because they always freeze in shock, screech at me for a few moments, then stalk off.

Interesting squirrel fact: The Ratufa is a giant squirrel that can grow to 3 feet in length. Given that the squirrels around here sometimes throw nuts at me when I’m hiking, I shudder to think of this thing.

Interesting squirrel pop culture:  Check out Foamy the Squirrel for another bitchy squirrel with an inappropriate attitude.

Have any other squirrel humor favorites?  Comment below.

Tags: Bizarre Animal Stories, Random Amusement by splarks
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Once upon a time, a gentle troll named Steve lived under a stone bridge on the outskirts of a small Wisconsin farming community.  He cared for the bridge each day, sweeping away debris and mending the wobbly parts.  The lowing cattle and singing birds soothed his soul, and it would have been paradise except for one problem:  those troublesome goats.

They called themselves “the Goats Gruff” and regularly harassed him and nearby forest animals.  At first only Frederick, the youngest goat, came to shout insults.  “Hey troll!” he shouted from his side of the bridge.  “Scared any babies today with that ugly face?”

Initially, Steve tried to educate the young goat.  “Bridge trolls don’t associate with babies,” he explained patiently, dismissing the goat’s glare as youthful arrogance.  “We stay with our bridges and socialize with the forest animals.  You’re probably thinking of goblins.  They’re known for tormenting small children.”  He wished this Gruff gang would invest in their personal hygiene – the barnyard stink was unbearable.

“Whatever,” sneered the young goat.  “Let me over the bridge.  I want the grass over there.”

“I’m happy to allow you to cross once you pay the toll,” said Steve pleasantly.  “But I’ve snacked on the grass from both sides, and I can tell you that the flavor is about the same.  You don’t need to waste your money.”

“Toll?” the young goat sputtered.  “I ain’t paying no toll!”

“It’s a historic site,” Steve explained, growing annoyed.  “The community toll helps maintain the bridge and pay for the cost of repairs and preventive maintenance.  I’m afraid you’ll have to eat the grass on your own side of the bridge if you can’t pay the toll.”

“There ain’t no grass on this side anymore!  We ate it all!”

“All of it?” Shocked, he fell silent.  How could three goats eat entire fields full of grass?  Did they have some sort of glandular disorder which caused them to overeat?  He scrutinized the young goat, who did look a bit pudgy.

“Loser!” snorted the goat.  “I’ll be back with my big brother, who’ll teach you a lesson!”   He stomped off, kicking dirt onto the freshly-swept bridge.

“What was that guy’s problem?” said Steve’s friend, Angelo the Muskrat.  He’d popped his head out of his lodge when he heard the ruckus.

“I don’t know,” sighed Steve.  “Probably just an ignorant kid with nothing better to do.”

But as the weeks went by, Frederick’s behavior worsened.  His insults grew more vulgar, his dirt-kicking more deliberate and targeted at the hardest-to-clean spots.  One day when Steve, Angelo, and Geraldine the Pheasant were having a Sunday picnic, a larger, unfamiliar goat appeared.  He didn’t say much as towered and glowered at the foot of the bridge.

Not wanting to inconvenience a customer, Steve leaped to his feet.  “Can I help you?” he asked, brushing the crumbs from his belly.  Then his shoulders sagged;  he saw Frederick lurking smugly behind the new goat.

“Lemme over the bridge!”  shouted the big goat.

“Please!” said Steve.  “There’s no need to shout.  You’re disturbing the wildlife.”  Geraldine did indeed look distraught as she hid behind the picnic basket.  “I’m happy to let you cross if you pay the 75 cent toll.”

“I’m Bartholomew Gruff, and I don’t pay no tolls!”

“Tell him there’s a fine from the Department of Transportation if he refuses to pay,” whispered Angelo, who had joined Geraldine behind the picnic basket.

“Sir, there’s a one hundred dollar fine if you don’t pay the toll,” Steve sighed.

The goat stomped his hoof on the ground.  “They can’t make me pay a fine!”

“Actually, they can,” said Steve.  “You just told me your name and I know perfectly well where you live.  The city has a “Green Mowing” program to reduce gasoline use when trimming roadsides and medians.  They employ goats to eat the grass instead of using lawnmowers.  It’s an environmentally-friendly solution to unwanted grass growth.  You can read about it in the daily paper.  Often goats are put into the program when they’ve disobeyed the law, so–”

“Shut up!” shouted Bart.  “I’ll be back, you puny troll!  You’ll be real sorry when I bring my big brother!  Socrates is gonna kick your ass!”

“Oh Lord,” said Geraldine, climbing into the picnic basket in terror as the goat stomped away.

“Socrates?” asked Angelo.  “Socrates? I did not just hear that bully describe a member of his family as ‘Socrates’!”

“You did,” sighed Steve as he watched the goat’s large, swiftly-retreating posterior, with Frederick trotting after.  His eyes filled with humiliating images of broken bridges, bloody muskrats, and dead, brown grass.  He hung his head;  the bridge, which had stood for over 100 years, was in danger because of his ineffective management skills and inability to deal with local hooligans.

He didn’t get much sleep that night.  He tossed and turned in his bed of moss, hoping for a miraculous visitation by an angel with all the answers.  None arrived.  In the morning, he blearily arose and walked to the creek.  As he gazed at his warbling reflection, he thought of his grandfather, who had manned a similar bridge during World War One and had seen much worse than a couple of bully Goats Gruff.

“Stevie Boy,” he said to his reflection, “It’s time to grow a spine!  You have allies.  You have guts, and brains!  You know what to do!  Send a Geraldine with a message to Jimmy at the WDOT!”  He scribbled the situation on a scrap of paper and ran to Geraldine’s den.  The pheasant flew into action, heading towards the Department of Transportation’s headquarters.

And that is why, on the eve of March 17th, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation shackled an exceptionally large goat, along with two smaller and more vocal goats, and transported them to the city Goat Mowing program.  Socrates had time to roar only the phrase “SOCRATES NO PAY TOLL!” and place his tremendous weight on the bridge’s first plank, which shattered, before the city officials and the police department fell upon him with tranquilizers and cuffs.  As the Brothers Gruff were carted away to the holding facility, which was surrounded by tasteless, exhaust-covered grass, Steve smiled.  Intelligent thought and peaceful camaraderie had overcome violence, and the guilty would be re-educated and made to benefit society through their punishment.  All was well in the world of a gentle bridge troll.

…OR WAS IT? Only time shall tell.  The Goat Mowing program is overcrowded, and inmates are often released early on so-called “good behavior.”  It is a well-researched fact that Goat Mowers return to their community with better criminal skills and a desire for revenge.  Frederick was actually sent to the Juvenile Mower program and sentenced to only one month.  He is sure to be angry that he was not only imprisoned, but that his big brothers received harsher Mowing sentences and languish in the confines of the Mowing Pen.  And with nothing to do but mow and work out, the Goats Gruff are likely to be heavily muscled.

What can be done?

Holy crap, I think I just depressed myself with my own story here.  Come on, Splarks, you have to save this one.  Give it some hope, right?  Make sure that readers don’t finish the story with a sense of despair in the injustice of the world.  Um ….so while in the Mowing Pen, the Goats Gruff experienced a miraculous transformation!  One day, a group of Buddhist outreach workers came to the Pen.  They told the story of the Buddha and showed that totally unbelievable but undeniably flashy Keanu Reaves movie.  The goats were fascinated:  could the cause of their suffering truly be desire?  The desire for grass, the desire for revenge, the desire to hold power over the weak–was it all just maya, or illusion?  Could true happiness be gained not in beating the crap out of small animals and feeling special because of it, but in clearing the mind and experiencing the Buddha nature?  The answer is YES!  Frederick, convinced that he was the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama (“Goats are kinda like llamas, ok?” he explained to anyone who would listen), began consciously practicing mindfulness.  The forest animals were shocked when Frederick smiled and bowed to them.  He spent long hours meditating in a corner of a barn, chanting something that sounded suspiciously made up.  Determined to learn the advanced arts of yoga and meditation, Bart left on a pilgrimage to India, which he was pretty sure was east of Minnesota.  And Socrates found it easiest to reach a pure state of bliss, being unused to thinking in the first place.

The bridge was safe.  All was well in the small Wisconsin town, and a very happy bridge troll resumed his life of picnics, morning walks, and bridge maintenance.

***

It’s true!  There really is a Goat Mowing program.  Most famous is Google’s goat program. My city, Boulder, has been doing this for awhile.  I thought I was hallucinating the first time I saw a bunch of goats chowing down at the side of the road.  Seriously!  Does anyone else live in a city where they do this?

Artist Aria Nadii has a fabulous Capricorn (the Goat symbol in the Zodiac) piece.

I love comments.  If you comment, a little love goes to you!

Tags: Random Amusement by splarks
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I love my readers.  Here’s a sample of what you’ve been searching for when you land on my blog:

tooth goblin
goat blood delicacies
chupacabra facts or statements
reginald band
scientist pez dispenser
tooth goblins
marsupials satan
led zepplin song- i gotta a woman bored all day i got a woman she won t be true no
video of lady cutting open chupacabra
colorado yodel dog coyote

Seriously, which one of you was searching for “Marsupials Satan”?  And I thought that I was being creative by combining “scientist” with “pez dispenser,” but I guess I have a kindred soul out there.

Tags: Marsupials, Random Amusement by splarks
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This blog is full of award-winning journalism covering such diverse topics as:

• Wombats and other marsupials
• Mad scientists
• Animal attacks
• The existential crises of jack rabbits
• Names no one should have
• 10 minute delirium

Why? Because it’s easy, because it amuses me, and because you like it. It especially amuses me to know that you like it, despite your high-falutin’ ways.

For your pleasure: a test picture.

 

Tags: Random Amusement by splarks
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