That Guy, The Hero

Normalcy, of a sort

2005-10-04T09:01:00.000-04:00

After the dramatic escape executed by Super Holmes, I've gotten a lot of questions about how he found us, what exactly that machine was (the Pastafarians are being most inquisitive), and what became of Ilsa, Chisholm and of course, the Munching Morlock. Glad to finally oblige, because for a while it was cleanup time in the big city.

The escape was mostly a blur, since I was quite drunk throughout the whole thing. Damn that Ilsa and her magical concoctions! I tried to get some info out of Holmes, but he was mostly skittish as we escaped - that guy is afraid of everything. He was wearing a fur coat made from several kinds of animals, and managed that transporter ship thing of his not with ease, but with complete panic.

From what I gather, it's definitely a time machine. While I remained passed out on the deck of this metal spaghetti monster, the crew had apparently gone back in time to save the fish market before it blew. Ilsa told me Chisholm whined for hours after because his cigarillo was his best Lee Marvin yet (he's a bit obsessed with Mr. Marvin, btw). A few glasses of neat 18 year Macallan's later, he was agreeing with everything. Jerew was banished to Tazmania, where they'd live out their lives without technology, without other people, and helping on a farm that raised boxing llamas (to control the kangaroo, rabbit and wallaby populations).

We arrived back in the office, and Holmes gladly shoved us off into our window and zoomed off into the clouds. There, we met our business manager, Benny, who was to run the office as well as the hotline while we were gone. Hehe. He had some stories to tell about Morlock. But first I had to clean my desk. Goddamn fool left his crumbs and drool behind. I think his saliva actually melted my CRT. Time to invest in an LCD I think. Uh. Ew.

Into the abyss of poisson

2005-09-27T22:28:00.000-04:00

We sloshed through the bloody mess of a warehouse and passed a one-eyed fishmonger, who rolled his one good peeper at a table full of spotted cabrilla. Ilsa rushed over and found a small passageway behind it. The monger man pushed an enormous cart of overflowing octopus limbs in front of us so no one would see, and we slipped into the dark and dingy hole.

Ilsa has a strange glow to her, I'll tell you now. She - she actually glows. I was beginning to understand the men's attraction, but the smell of dead flesh and rotting seaweed stole my attention for a spell. And then there was the moment I tripped and fell down quite a few of the slippery stairs, and landed face up - realizing the fishmonger's floor was a one way mirror. I saw the strange shapes flitting around and spreading the blood and dirt around like a serial killer's fingerpainting. Eeew.

Ilsa picked me up and we wound down a spiral stair until it was apparent we were at the bottom, but the light was so dim we could hardly see the ceiling anymore. The faint sound of opera echoed through the large room - O Sole Mio I think - now if that's not the best aria ever....ahem...

Then bright lights flooded the cavern, and we were standing in the middle of a vast room of vats - and it smelled vaguely of ammonia, cheap rubbing alcohol and oddly fragrant flowers. It could only be one thing - sake.

Jerew came out of the shadows in a threesome, flanked by their henchmen, the twit twosome Mo and Fro, who were apparently supposed to be holding guns on us but were so taken with Ilsa's "glow" that they just stood gaping. All of them did. It seemed that the replication process really did transfer emotions, because the trio of Jerew experience a simultaneous collective jaw dropping.

And then I spotted him. Chisholm, hanging by his hands by a rope over one of the sake vats. Hot sake. He was cringing, and muttering to himself "Damn losers. don't even have good taste in the worst drink on earth. blech. Ilsa!!!"

Ilsa looked up at Chisholm, and it was like someone changed the music - actually, someone did change the music I think, just at that moment - to what I believe was "La ci darem la mano" from Don Giovanni. I could have sworn I saw Chisholm start to cry. Oh. Please.

Jerew stepped forward and spoke to Ilsa - strange, I couldn't figure out which one was speaking - maybe they all were. I was under some kind of spell that held me to my place. I couldn't move.

"Now you know why we wasted our time on this soaking sod," they told Ilsa.

"What? I don't know anything. What the hell are you talking about, Jerew, and stop that threesome speak, it's annoying. Get to the damn point." Ilsa didn't mince words, though she was pretty good at mincing enemies (and mixing C&C). Beware.

"It's you that we've been after. You, all along. You've been eluding us for so long, and now you're ours. We'll be happy forever."

Chisholm grumbled at that moment, but I couldn't figure out if it was his thirst for a Pernod on ice or if he was still in love with her too.

At that moment I realized "Ew" was shivering, and his pale, white features were suffering from frostbite. Oh, right, and there were chicken parts in his hair. The gizzard dangling from his earlobe made me chuckle so loudly, it distracted the dumbass brothers and they dropped their guns entirely.

Then there was a loud CRASH and the glass ceiling began raining down on us. We took shelter under the stairs, and Jerew and thugs retreated behind some large wheels of Dutch cheese. It was Super Holmes riding on the most bizarre and disgusting flying machine imaginable.

That machine - the multi-colored smoke, the belching sounds, the smells, the weird tubes and twisted pipes and burnt metal - made me want to puke, but would have made a Pastafarian weep with joy. Damn was I happy to see him. Beer bottles began flying (I have no idea where they came from), sake spilled, and shards of glass sliced while Holmes sprayed an even mist of ethanol over the place. He picked us up, I cut Chisholm loose, and we pulled my boss to a small platform on the flying Super Holmes-mobile.

And then, oh I now realize how much I love my job, Chisholm took a cigarillo out of his pocket, and Ilsa handed him a glass of champagne. I lit his smoke, they clinked glasses, and he took a nice long drag. As Jerew tried to find their accomplices guns (safely hidden away in my backpack - hehe didn't think I was useful, huh...), Chisholm ran his hand gently across Ilsa's cheek, nodded to Holmes, and flicked the lit cigar onto the floor below.

"Hold on you clazy pipole!!" Holmes pulled us through the hole in the fishy floor, and wound us through the now empty fishmonger stalls. We escaped the place just as the huge fireball erupted below.

Well, I guess they won't be moving the fish market after all.

Crossing the river

2005-09-06T08:58:00.000-04:00

There's definitely something up with Ilsa. She started crying for a bit, but tried to hide it from me. Crying superheroes is not something I need right now. There's also something odd about her voice - I only realized it now, but it's awfully low and masculine. I did notice when knocking against her arm scaling fish that it was stubbly - as in freshly shaved. Hmmm.

Maybe it's just none of my business.

The Munching Morlock

2005-09-02T09:10:00.000-04:00

Okay, I tried to go for the novel-esque noir entries, but when I mentioned the Munching Morlock, the fill-in temp superhero who eats his enemies, I realized it simply doesn't scream Raymond Chandler. They call him Morlock because most of his colleagues are convinced he's a freak of nature, a giant, another species, and some say the spawn of evil incarnate, searching for prey and new recruits for satan, but there are a few who think he can be used for good (basically Chisholm and Ilsa, but still working on Holmes).

I also don't know if it's all true. I mean, I heard the story about Morlock running down a half blind Kazhakstani man in his car after chasing him over the rooftops (the guy had just murdered three people after robbing a bagel shop, and also ate all the lox), then proceeded to back the car up and back until the man was as flat as a pancake. Later on, his colleagues asked why he did that instead of turning the man into the police, and he replied, "he needed tenderizing." But I'm assuming exaggeration. It's got to be.

I'm watching and learning. We're on a fishing boat now, I think we're on the trail. Holmes said he found Morlock (he appeared for about 30 seconds) and put him to work (with an ample supply of meat, cheese and snacks, which were all neatly arranged on my desk at the office - oh dear), then sent us in the direction of some grenadine drops mixed with sake that led us to the shore.

They've taken him to the Island. For what, I have no idea, but Ilsa fixed me a cocktail to calm my nerves. We pretended to clean fish as part of the crew until we arrived on shore at the meat packing warehouse. She said she missed her dad, who used to work there as a butcher (he always knew the best wine to go with the right cut of meat), but she had enough to remind her of him. When I asked what that was, she said "well, his clothes silly. I always wear his hand-me-downs."

Er, okay. League of Gentleman, eat your heart out. Ooh, don't let Morlock hear that.

Weirdos' quest for fish

2005-09-01T10:43:00.000-04:00

As Ilsa and I got to the Outback, Holmes had just finished his assessment. "They've gone to a fish warehouse. East side," he said, sniffing his fingers in a disturbing fashion.

"But they surely don't store fish in a warehouse, do they?" Ilsa asked, shaking up a concoction in a portable with ice over her shoulder most likely containing ingredients found at the kangaroo-themed bar in front.

"Jerew would. The evil bastards. Their sake is just rubbing alcohol, so their fish couldn't be fresh," I was angry, and would say anything at that point, even if it may not be true. But they are bastards, so I imagine I'm not too far off base. We heard reports of more children going missing from playgrounds, lured by a man who looked not too different than Charlie Sheen. This scared me even more.

We headed to the lower east side docks, and I stopped short. "Who's going to watch the city if Chisholm isn't here, and we're all off looking for him?" I asked honestly, even though I really didn't care about people in general at that point - he's been rubbing off on me. We stood for a few moments, as Holmes constantly disappeared and reappeared with strange gadgets and pieces of food he'd lift from various shops (did I mention he's also a clepto?).

Ilsa's eyes nearly popped out of her skull, and she smiled and jumped in the air. "I've got it! The temp!" "NO! You've got to be kidding," Holmes retorted, and disappeared again, just as an old lady from a nearby shop curiously eyed the jars of vegemite and wasabe sauce in Holmes' hand.

"The what?" I honestly had no idea what she was talking about. Holmes reappeared. "The temp. You haven't heard of him? He's been subbing for missing superheroes for years, but -" "We all need a vacation once in a while, Holmes. Eat your wasabe," Ilsa interrupted, then continued, "He's an interesting sort, which is why he doesn't do it, er, full time."

When she hid her face, I knew there was something odd about this "hero". "What's his name? How can I get in touch with him?" I asked impatiently, realizing we were spending too much time on this when Chisholm could be drying up on some fish barge in the Atlantic. "Tell her," Holmes said tersely to Ilsa, and disappeared again.

Ilsa stopped shaking her drink, whipped out a martini glass, skillfully poured out her mixture, and handed it to me. "Well, he likes to eat. A lot. He's kinda, well..." Holmes popped between us suddenly and shouted "A cannibal! He's eats people!" "He only eats the bad guys, Holmes, you have to give him that. We call him The Munching Morlock. Probably best not to ask."

"Well, can't we just ask him not to eat them for a while?" I asked, trying to bring some normalcy to the conversation.

"I'll go find him. Keep going to warehouse. I will make sure he take care of city," Holmes said in his simple, broken English, and vanished.

"Don't worry, the city will be okay. We've got to find Chisholm first. You have enough tech support to cover his job?" Ilsa was actually concerned about the tech support that Chisholm hardly provided. She seemed nervous for the first time. Maybe there are still feeling there.

Maybe.

Ilsa the Invincible

2005-08-29T22:38:00.000-04:00

My smoke signals are moving along - the furry bunny turned out to look more like the personification of satan, so I used some old Seventeens, a pile of wet dish towels, some chicken wire I found in Chisholm's bathtub (when I find him, I still won't ask), and of course, duct tape. As I climbed back to the roof (I decided to take the fire escape this time since my circa 1972 original batman suction cups were running out of steam), the smoke was more agreeable and formed something that looked like a Care Bear.

As I started to wander down again, a figure in gold and silver glitter appeared before me. I knew exactly who it was before even looking up. I had made the call earlier - a local pub called Gstaad has a secret back room that most people don't know about - it looks like a ski lodge (ala Switzerland), but the secret paneling reveals a hideout for the shady and the superhuman.

I used the super Swiss pen (which was shaped like a watch with a picture of a lovely, snow crested alp as the face) to write in a special drink on the night's bar menu - The Glittery Troublemaker. I put the menus out on the bar, and watched as a strange greenish, silvery glow appeared on the card. She'd surely come now.

Way back when the drink was called the Shiny Matchmaker, there was a woman that men would fall over themselves to get to know. She knew simply everyone in society, in superheroism, in politics, and in the hot dog manufacturing trade, and would hook people up left and right. The world was a regular sex fest back then.

It was the magic from her fingertips that made the world a better place for all - or so it seemed. With a few flicks of the fingers, and some silver and gold glitter, Ilsa the Invincible would make a mixed drink that would be so perfect, so suited to the individual, that she became a legend in bartending, as well as in the world of crimefighting - her perfect elixir/truth syrum would render enemies gutless, spineless, and she'd take them down with just a sip.

"Wouldn't she be a perfect match for Chisholm, then," you ask? Well, we now return to the fight between Jerew and Chisholm. How it all happened. How it all began. How the hell else??? Over a woman, idiot.

In those days, Jeren was drinking. Drinking lots. Chisholm met them a couple of times in his binge-drinking days (now it's just one continuous binge, so we don't even mention it anymore). They were perfecting their replication techniques mostly out of lust for the chicks the other one couldn't get - yes, even the emotions pass over to each other ::SHUDDER:: eww. Chisholm had ended his world chicken head eating tour and ended up in Sydney. He ended up in Ilsa's bar, and wouldn't leave. Really, he wouldn't leave. They tried to throw him out, but it's difficult to force a superhero to do anything he doesn't want to do.

Ilsa had already had one of the Jeren, and she was working on the other. They were so obsessed with her, they tried to get her to join the collective. But she had other plans. She had never seen anyone drink as much as Chisholm did. She fell for him. Hard. (actually he tripped her one day, and when he picked her up, fed her a shot of SoCo and lime, she was all his). She promised she'd never serve him sake, and it was love.

Jeren was jealous, obviously, because the other never got her - they had fleeting memories of her, but they were fading with every drink she served. Her elixir was somehow only effecting Chisholm, and she had removed all the magic from their drinks. From then on, Jeren worked on perfecting their technique, and to taking Chisholm and Ilsa down.

The story of how they lost each other is another one, a loooong one. I've already said too much. But she's here. I knew she'd come. She'll have a chance to make him one more drink. Ilsa the Invincible, Super Holmes and me - we'll find him. We've got to.

Super Holmes

2005-08-29T19:38:00.000-04:00

My contacts around the city proved to me no use. I drank peppermint schnapps until I saw the bottom, and had no more candy cane decorations. My drink mixing practice was put aside, as I had no one to mix for. Chisholm had vanished, along with Jerew. I couldn't even find a trace of the Taz twins. No one had seen them - not my contacts at Outback, the local liquor discount mart, not even the mayor himself.

I knew this was no ordinary vanishing, so I needed help. A couple of experts. Colleagues, folks in the trade - you know - other superheroes. There were only two I knew I could find, the only two that could help.

First was to find Super Holmes. Holmes is a character I could never have dreamed up myself. He's a brilliant detective, scientist, inventor, and all-around brain, and he has an odd fascination with tweed. Don't let the facts that he's a Taiwanese national and deathly afraid of everything and everyone put you off his credibility though, he's a great superhero.

For the past 25 years he's been inventing various practical devices - the plasma flux phase imbalance mouse trap, the sour cream squirt gun used at Taco Bell, colored tobacco (for smoke rings that will amuse your friends!), and a flawless train system design so that no public transportation is ever late (still a work in progress). His style as a superhero is brilliant - pipe smoke to mask the scene, armored tweed (including hat), and boots that never get wet.

For the past few years he's also been experimenting with time travel and teleportation (they go hand in hand) and he's perfected it for his own use, but it has made him consistently more paranoid every time he teleports. It's not easy to get in touch with a guy who's afraid of his own shadow. He is only reachable by smoke signal - and it has to be shaped like a cute, furry animal.

Yikes. I will try a bunny by burning this stack of last year's Hustlers under Chisholm's desk. He won't mind. I don't think.

The blue room

2005-08-26T09:24:00.000-04:00

I made my way over to the Outback a few minutes after Chisholm pounded his way through. I found "ew" 's furry hat wrapped in frozen thighs, and heard a distinct track of "Hey Hey Baby" by Merle Sparks and the Funk wafting through the ceiling tiles. But no Jerew. The door to the out-back was pulled from its hinges, and for the first time I smelled the presence of Chisholm, but no sign of anyone. It was empty.

With my powers of deduction I came up with the scene. Red drops dot the floor of this purely sky blue room. Not blood, but grenadine, which tells me that Jerew was here - they only drink Shirley Temples when they're nervous. Chisholm must have taken out the Taz twits early on, because there is a certain stench of urine by the door (he tends to scare people when he's in stealth mode). The room is overturned, Frosted Flakes boxes strewn about (apparently the secret ingredient in the bloomin' onion batter), and several iguanas, parrots and wallabies mill around, sipping leftover martinis.

My first thought was that Chisholm must have taken care of them quickly, made himself a martini, then took them to the police. But after shooing away a yapping macaw ("OY Mate! Nutha shreemponabaaabeee?") I sampled the triangle cocktail and found that it's none other than sake - Japan's finest.

No. What have they done with Chisholm? Now is the time for a sidekick to step up. To think like a hero. To save the world with all I've learned through the greatness of my boss.

I need a drink.

chicken and pimps

2005-08-23T08:50:00.000-04:00

My hands are fishy, up to the knees in halibut guts. Interesting that I never see Chisholm in such disarray, but then again, he is the hero. While I've waded through several warehouses looking for the child labor (with no luck, mind you), Chisholm was busy infiltrating the local Outback Steakhouses.

The first O.S. he found had a Japanese pornography club running in the back room, another had midget chicken mud wrestling (I believe there were some greased grouse to mix it up), and another had very large, well-dressed, slick-haired men standing around staring at each other in the men's room, who told Chisholm telepathically it was time to move on.

The last one had a back room (the "out-back") guarded by a chap who had the appearance of a pimp - purple and white furs, jeweled cane, and a hat that no baptist mom would wear to church on Sunday. The boy was carrying a small dog, mostly hairless except for a tuft that was tied up under its chin like a goatee. Chisholm knew immediately that this was the first of the trifecta - Jerew.

Through my research I learned that it takes quite a while for this human replication to take place - to be assimilated, copied, replicated, downloaded and merged, the process was lengthy, and it sometimes took weeks for a match to truly be accepted by the original hosts. Chisholm knew he only joined the collective a few days ago, so in the time it took for 'ew" to put his precious puppy down, Chisholm had his fur-lined face pinned against the ceramic rattlesnake next to the ladies'.

After a satisfying pummeling, and a few barrel-shaped cans of Foster's (and a nice flask of a special energy drink-cocktail concoction I made - I'm experimenting) Chisholm locked his weaker nemesis in the stock room with the frozen soon-to-be "ostrich wing" chicken parts, and headed into the out-back, where the doofus twins were waiting, and Jeren themself -ves, or , whatever.

I really have to clean off this fish goo - I only have a bottle of sake to clean myself with (don't tell Chisholm), and unfortunately I am in a room full of candles. Carefully, without setting myself alight, I will douse and return with the rest of the story.

Cornering cronies

2005-08-21T16:43:00.000-04:00

One of the keys to defeating your nemesis is to understand his/her/their "cronies". Those mixed up, moronic cardboard cutout muscle heads working on the side of evil because they can't get chicks.

After the wreckage at Murray Hill (refer to the local news for details - too extensive for this space), Chisholm found himself on the trail of two of the biggest (literally) idiots (literally) on the face of the planet - a non-collective brain trust called Mo and Fro Duggansby. As far as I know, this duo of dumb hails from Tazmania, and were recently hired Jeren with the sole purpose of killing Chisholm.

What Jeren didn't realize was that Chisholm knew their secrets before they were even hired. He had worked with them in a circus sideshow act 15 years earlier in a tour across Thailand - Chisholm bit the heads of of rubber chickens while attached to an I.V. of grain alcohol, and the turd twins proved their IQ by beating the hell out of each other with tree trunks (leaves and bird nests still attached) night after night. That was when he found out their fondness for men in leather skin-bum pants, and beer. Lots of beer. Now, what to do with that information...

Our plans nearly changed when we heard Jeren accepted another into their evil matrix - they acquired another host to replicate, to live as one with the collective. They have now renamed their hive-mind-corporation Jerew, after some poor sod named "Drew" who seemed to have been a dog show trainer and unfortunate fashion victim. Jerew is now sporting paisley ties, fur hats, a poodle in the pocket, and a penchant for evil. But we stuck with the original plan, unafraid of this expanding conglomerate of cluelessness.

Over a thick slice of odiferous Livarot and a smooth Calvados in a nearby church (okay, it wasn't a church, it was a French brasserie), Chisholm had launched his plan by hardly lifting a finger. Needless to say, I did all the planning, but it's nearly pay time again and I need to focus on my next begging speech instead of complaining.

We found the twin tossers looking for an apartment in the east village, and hooked them up with fake ads in the Voice "Wanted: cronies, preferably Aussie, for apartment and art exhibit space. Cheap, and you will be paid well for your services." Love the Voice.

They bit, and rented the apartment within hours. I asked Chisholm how renting them an apartment could lead to Jerew's downfall. He downed a shot of firewater, bit of the head of his Caille en Sarcophage, sucked out the brains, smiled an evil, crooked smile, and said, "Easy. The bastards are forbidding them to drink - and they live next door to keg party central." And so they did. Student housing. Chisholm had provided generous portions of half drunk liquor bottles and several kegs of Foster's to the Tazmanian tooks' neighbors, and they'll be inviting them for a party.

How does this fit in with the plans? Drunks understand one another.

We scaled the building at around 2am. The party was still going strong, and the two morons were dancing with each other. Several men at the party were wearing leather, bottomless pants, and various outfits with pieces removed from them. I believe there was one man wearing an apron. Just the apron. The twins were in heaven.

Chisholm snuck stealthily into the party wearing an ape mask, and rummaged around for clues. He approached the ice block, did a vodka shot down the chute, and dove into the bathroom. I wore a pair of hot pants and leather bra to fit in. Chisholm broke into the cronies' wi-fi from next door, and somehow broke codes, encryption and passwords to find that the mofro brothers are actually carrying the plans on a piece of paper in Fro's jacket.

We found Fro a few minutes later passed out in the bathtub, leaned in and found it was full of gin. After about 10 minutes of trying to pull Chisholm away (I stole his straw, but that proved to cause a more disgusting scene), we left the party with a damp page full of locations of Jerew sweat shops, phone numbers, and Jerew's central location - the back room of an Outback Steakhouse.

Brilliant plan. Too bad for them - we're on our way to wilt their bloomin' onion.

Wartime

2005-08-19T09:51:00.000-04:00

The city has turned into an all-out war zone. Correspondents are flying in from around the world. Bottles flying, glass shattering, overturned fish trucks, guts and scales in the gutters, roe on the roads, rives of sake flowing into the harbor - lives turned upside down.

There were those in the Hero camp, and those in the Jeren camp. Colors were flying - Jeren the deep blue of a bottle of Sake and our side some kind of deep black or brown, and lots of tan caps. Undoubtedly honoring the colors of Guinness.

The destruction was vast, and Chisholm is enjoying his new "bad boy" status. Each violent act was undertaken by Jeren itself, trying to cause the downfall of the Hero. But each event has made him more defiant, more willing to fight. He's slick, elusive, and knows dingy dive bars to hide in that the police don't even know about, and the game seems to be turning his way.

There were fantastic chases overnight - nothing like I've seen before - there was so much happening I can't remember every detail. At one point, Jeren escaped one of its own explosions and fled on a garbage barge, and Chisholm chased on a fish barge. The 14 knot race was breathtaking.

They ended up in a warehouse across the river in New Jersey. A lift truck chase ensued, and the 8 mile an hour zoom through the maze of teetering boxes of packing straw and illegal drugs was truly a sight to behold - the slowest chase I think I've ever seen - until...

The chase on Segways through Times Square was a hoot. They'd roll around pedestrians, hide behind the Naked Cowboy (I think one of the Jerens put some cash down his tightie whities, which made the half-naked freak momentarily close his mouth for the first time in 5 years). Through the insanity, I didn't see exactly what happened, but I remember Chisholm somehow got stuck on the ferris wheel in the Toys R Us store. He was cursing and trying to climb down when it was running, so the operators brought him to the ground first, where he asked them for a drink. "Don't you idiots sell whiskey in this pub?"

All this is amazing, and I'm honored and privileged to be witnessing history in the making. But, as the sidekick, I have no idea what the plan is. Chisholm never tells me anything, but I can certainly speculate. My guess is that he's trying to get them to destroy as much of their assets as possible, and then somehow lead the police to the child sweatshops to bring them down for good. And maybe something about separating Jeren. It just may work.

OOh he's on the trail of Jeren's cronies. This will be good.

The long, sober night

2005-08-17T11:16:00.000-04:00

It was a long night. I tried unsuccessfully for hours to spike Chisholm's drinks, but he wouldn't budge. He stared at the wall. He endlessly twirled the custom made light-up Guinness pint glass keychain/bottle opener I bought him for Christmas last year. I even lit his 89% alchie green faerie sugar on fire, nearly setting my own eyebrows alight, but he didn't notice.

Then, a touch after midnight, I was able to force feed him a Sabrett's and disguised a hard lemonade with lots of ice. To my great relief, it worked, and he was back to normal downing the lovely 15 year Benrinnes I got in Scotland after trading an 85 pound/6.07 stone sow.

But then, right next to the latest diet craze ad that recommends 4-5 helpings of cheesecake a day, plus 4 gallons of Irish mead, the headline appeared.

Jeren Warehouse Break-in. That Guy, The Hero Prime Suspect

The whiskey really did the trick. He got cranky. I was scared shitless. I grabbed the bottle from him and held it for about 15 seconds, and we stared at each other in frozen silence. I then gave it back before he cut my throat with his wire cutters-at-the-ready.

He gulped down a few shots worth, then did something I never saw before - he smiled. Even when he answered the phone and spoke to a young, but very rich customer who tried to pretend he knew more about computers than Chisholm: "then what the hell are you calling me for? Get a life, loser. [BANG]", he smiled. Even when 3 of our servers crashed and 14 people descended on his desk at 9pm, he smiled. He seemed to have been enjoying an inexplicable satisfaction out of being blamed for other people's evil deeds, or maybe it was just an exceptionally good bottle of whiskey.

He cleared out the 14 people (and almost me) when he took out something resembling a light saber, and I knew that was my cue to gather our things. We're going after him. I suddenly felt excited - like Harry Potter going after Voldemort - except, that Harry is a miserable drunk and Voldemort is two Australian restauranteurs. You can see the resemblance.

We're fugitives now, so, I guess I'll have to moblog until Jeren is defeated.

Sushi terror

2005-08-16T10:22:00.000-04:00

The night was long and yesterday was a very difficult day. He - it - they - are at it again, and it pains me to say it, but they got us this time.

Chisholm's arch enemy, I guess you can call "it", is what we call Jeren. Jeren is a pair of humans who have merged their evil tendencies, thoughts, desires so perfectly that they've become one entity: Jeren. I think their names used to be Jerry and Ken, or was it Jersey and Ben - we'll never know. Their replication technique has been studied by psychologists and computer scientists all around the world, but their secret has never been discovered. They somehow replicate their brains to one another - neither dominant, neither slave. One brain, one 'tude.

I can hear what you're saying: "with a few fingers of Stoli, Chisholm can have them crushed into a cheese grater and folded out the other end into a nice truffle omelette by lunchtime." Well, maybe a little more background.

Jeren owns a multinational corporation that owns and operates just about every Sushi restaurant in existence. They've made their living on black market tuna, out of date fugu, and exporting the finest Martigny escargots saying their from Beijing. Inexplicable and disgraceful business practices. There's also the smaller crime of employing small children into forced labor, but so far they've avoided prosecution.

They're also the world's largest importer/exporter of sake. And this is where the boss comes in. Sake is, for lack of a better word, Mr. Chisolm's "kryptonite". To the rest of us, sake is best hot or cold, a little on this side of dry, with a hint of sweetness but bold and warm going down no matter what the temperature. To the boss, it is no more than transparent poison - acid that makes him faint after what he has described as: "sucking a cursed wet nap."

Jeren has been trying to import their strongest sake yet into the US, but Chisholm constantly foils their plans. Also, he stole one of their girlfriends (not sure if it was a Jer' or an 'en), and they've never forgiven him for it. That's a whole other story I won't get into here.

Chishom actually has me test all his bottles before pouring him any, since he's afraid Jeren will have poisoned his stash. They will go to any ends to take him down, and make him sober. They're mean, cruel, and incredibly annoying.

Which brings me to another fact that is probably the biggest stumbling block of them all - Jeren is Australian. With such creative and insightful comments as "a fair suck of the sav" and "things are crook in talarook", their flair for idiotic syllogistic explanations of how the world should be run - it becomes more annoying by the moment. It's poison to the ear, and cries out for justice.

We got the call around 11 - Little Italy. Number 92.

"Hello, Jeren," Chisholm mumbled dryly, as he crashed through the window of a fish warehouse crowded full of cheap, child labor, and stood squarely in his best Lee Marvin stance. Jeren stood before him, one tall, tough, the other short, soft, looking as if they fit together as well as a 3D jigsaw of the great wall of China - vast, strange, meaningless, an impossibly endless road of boredom.

The whole scene only lasted a minute, and from what I could see through all the splashing and flailing, the boss was done in by small children hurling sake bottles the size of their bodies. Jeren didn't lift a finger - they seemed to telepathically send commands to their diminutive slaves, and the overwhelming guilt of defending oneself against children became too much for Chisholm. We departed about 3, back out the same shattered window, with shattered egos.

It's very distressing, this whole plot, and watching my boss become sober is the most sobering thought of all. He's my drunken Dumbledore, my Wong Fei-hung (the Jackie Chan one, not the Jet Li one), my Bernard Black with a Blackberry. I haven't been able to feed him even a sip of rosé in the last 24 hours. Things are bad. Very bad.

DAMN YOU JEREN!!!

Right. Thanks, JenH

2005-08-14T17:48:00.000-04:00

Thanks to my colleague JenH for sending my posts up. I was occupied for a time at the liquor store (long lines) and half my desk wires were cut after freeing Chisholm from his bonds a couple of days ago. Where's the free wireless? Maybe I can tempt him to bring his cape to city hall and demand a free city system. Then we can have a location based voip 911 system via wifi.

No no. I'm getting techie. Must stop. This morning's hotline call was a hoax, but we got another one 30 minutes ago. I'm using Chisholm's replacement PDA - some ancient Palm that is close to the size of an Apple Newton. At least it doesn't have a built in phone. He's already got two ringing in his utility belt. We're in the car right now - no, wait, we hit traffic and he's just climbed out the window. How can a person scale a building after drinking a 5th of gin? I am continuously baffled at this freak of nature.

Have to pull out the jet engines and ride up the sidewalk. Thank goodness for custom made turbo powered Smart cars. More later

A buck and a bottle

2005-08-14T11:06:00.000-04:00

I walked through the office this morning - Sunday, yes, since Mr. Chisholm doesn't seem to have a concept of time or what day of week it is. He was dozing in his chair, a copy of the latest Harry Potter book lying open over his face.

I still don't fully understand his background - when he's tired drunk, he talks in a lazy, southeastern US drawl, when angry, he talks in the most peculiar and destinctive London posh, and when on a support call he's back to the generic middle American and sometimes Canadian proper. He knows several languages, but how many I have yet to find out. On one international support call, I thought I actually heard clicks come from his mouth, indicating some kind of African bush language, but I may have just been imaginging things.

But I digress.

"Ahem, sir?" I decided to sneak up on him today. He jumped out of his chair directly into his distinctive, defensive Chisholm karate stance.

"Um, it's just me sir. I thought I might talk to you about a pressing matter," I decided polite was the best way to start out with him, and then I could blend into progressively rude.

"Thirsty," he grumbled, as he sunk back into his chair, fishing on the ground for his fallen children's novel. "Right," I retorted, pulled a bottle of a lovely Aussie Grenache and two glasses, pulled up a chair and began to pour them both out. I've learned to be ready for anything.

"What'zis?" He looked at the two glasses and immediately took one and emptied it. I filled it again, then took my own and raised a toast to clink. He missed.

"It's about my salary, sir. It's much too low. I've been covering most of your expenses on my own -" "So expense it and leave me alone," he grumbled in his meanest West End way, as he sipped the wine as gently as a sommelier, swishing it around in the glass, checking its legs, and then taking a full taste on the tongue.

"I need your permission for that, there are auditors, you see -" "Yes, yes. Permission. Got it. Pour." He downed the glass he was coddling so carefully, and I filled it up again.

His Blackberry rang, and his middle American politeness took me aback. "Yes, madam, of course. We handle all your needs. Thank you for calling," he then threw the gadget across the room, where it smashed into 50 pieces, and grumbled back in his English sting with a little foriegn - maybe French - accent mixed in: "Fucking people. Why do they continue to bother me. All I want is to be left alone."

He grabbed the bottle from my hand, and downed the rest. I clinked my glass against the inverted Granache, and finished my glass gently. Until tomorrow, boss. I'm going for a nap, and I'll try again tomorrow to get his signature. I hate having to do this every month.

Damn. Hotline's ringing....

A vision of stark naked power

2005-08-13T11:52:00.000-04:00

Whomever invented Noilly Prat should be flogged in the history books as a dirty, evil whore. Sorry, sorry. It was a tough night. Forgive me.

I got the call around 11. Mr. Chisholm was sitting behind his desk - really - he was tangled in the wires behind his circa 1990 fattie sparc clone. He told me once the wires give him some sort of high, and help him think. I doubt Socrates could have written a book hopped up on meth sucking on a serial cable, but that's just me.

Someone was in trouble. Something about attempted rape - a young girl in the village. I got my trusty scissors out and cut my boss out of his web, and sat him in his rolling desk chair. When I managed to catch him from rolling through the open window at the end of the row, I gave him the news. He grabbed his utility pack, flask, and darted out the door without a word.

Fuck. He forgot his car keys. I assumed he'd take the subway.

When I got to the area, waiting in the traffic for 15 minutes because a homeless dude decided to set up camp in the middle of 6th Ave at 10th, Chisholm had jumped his way up a fire escape ladder and ejected the offender through the window before he could finish the evil deed.

The landlady, who had called our hotline, told me later that in the midst of bashing the dumbass perpetrator's head against the young woman's AV center, he received a call on his Blackberry for a Windows support question. While he swigged his last few drops of Absinthe from his silver coated pocket flagon, Chisolm gave an old woman assistance in retrieving a password she forgot due the onset of Alzheimer's.

After the ambulance collected the pieces of blood and flesh and took the pile of scumbag away, and I cleaned the scene of Chisolm's fingerprints, I found him in the nearest liquor shop arguing with an old Pakistani man behind the counter over the price of what I believe is the cheapest whiskey produced today.

I removed him from the situation, as he typed furiously on his mini gadget keyboard restarting some server or other, and placed him in his bed in his hidden apartment (sorry, no can say where) and shoved his favorite bedtime remedy under his pillow as he cursed me and all the earth "I hate people. I wish there were no humans. Humans suck".

Not a thank you for collecting him, or thanks for shelling out the cash to get his stupid Romanian whiskey, or hiding his identity yet again from the inquisitive police detectives. I am starting to get a bit fed up with his demeanor, and may end up going it alone someday. Or, maybe I'll just ask for a raise.

That's it.

The Life of a Sidekick

2005-08-12T09:51:00.000-04:00

And I don't mean a Suzuki.

It's yet another day and he's drunk as a s---. I'd prefer a skunk in my pants compared to his current demeanor. Sorry, you're new here. I'm talking about my boss - super ass, or as the people of this city call him: That guy, the hero. I call him Mr Chisholm, though I think his mother called him Tom. Details of his early life are sketchy.

For 5 years I've been his sidekick - I mean, assistant - at a tech company called D7. I run all the systems, and he helps fix problems. He always helps fix the problems. I have always wondered why he does this, because he hates helping people, hates his systems admin job, and generally hates people. Drunk at all times, always a flask or bottle of wine in hand, he grumbles and argues and is generally discontented at all times.

But then a call comes in on the secret line. I answer, and someone is in trouble. Somehow he finds the clarity to run out, gather his super suit, and get there in the nick of time. Somehow. That somehow includes me sacrificing my salary, time and energy getting him to the damn place, finding the facts, and getting to the bottom of the mystery.

In short, I'm a disgruntled sidekick with an a$$ as a superhero boss. I just need to vent somehow, somewhere.

Oh crap - I smell him coming. It's a vermouth day. Damn. More later.