Neal’s Belch no. 173 for Nov 14th, 2004

I’ve always had a problem with the popular music artist, Sting. It’s nothing to do with the fact that he’s a former teacher, who should be able to articulate himself with more sophisticated sentences that “De do do do de da da da”. No, I’m fine with that. Even though my spell-checker hates it.

If artists feel the need to express themselves using media other than the language which their parents and teachers have worked hard to instil in them since childbirth, then I suppose they must be allowed to do so.

After all, this is a free world, and those of us who wish to stray from the herd of sheep and hang out with one of the local badgers for a while, should be permitted to do so. Besides, I’ve always thought that sheep and badgers look good together. And I’m not suggesting that the two should necessarily mate. There’s more to life than sex, you know. Some of us realise that you can get almost as much enjoyment out of having a chat with a badger while leaning on the gate at the end of the field, as you can from an orgasm. And that brings me to my difficulty with Sting.

For several years now, that man has, according to the tabloid press, been a proponent of the pastime known as tantric sex. For those who are too young and innocent and stupid to know what that means, it involves going to a cinema with a nice person, and making the popcorn last all the way through the first half of Lawrence of Arabia, the twenty minute interval, and possibly the second part of the movie too.

The trouble with this is that Sting is so named because, as a child, he wore a yellow and black striped article of clothing, and looked like a bee.

Now bees, as you know, die after they sting you. They are not able to make themselves last a long time, and if Sting really had the characteristics of a bee, he would be a lot more likely to concentrate on the movie. He would most likely decline the aforementioned snack food.

As would I, but in my case it would be on health grounds. I’ve never liked popcorn much myself. I don’t care much for the taste, it’s full of cholesterol, albeit good cholesterol.

By the way I’ve always been most impressed at the way scientists, to avoid having to invent a new word, just called it “good” cholesterol. I think the same principle could be applied by parents who want to name their children Hitler.

Up to now, this has always been a problem, as the name carries with it a lot of baggage. But under this system the child could be called Good Hitler on the birth certificate, and just Hitler for short. Then everybody would be able to tell the difference between the long deceased war mongering dictator, and Junior.

Many of you may not be aware that I used to work as a secretary to a war mongering former dictator. I too am unaware of this.

As far as I’m concerned, it is a vicious rumour made up by myself in order to fill up a paragraph in an article, after I ran out of things to say about tantric popcorn. Although admittedly I am able to touch-type, and would be well qualified to assume such a role.

However, in my day having good keyboard skills did not amount to a crime against humanity.

Apparently it does now. I only recently found out that the reason why the United States refused to sign up to the international war crimes convention a couple of years ago, was because the President was under immense pressure from the Secretarial Guild of North America, who were afraid that administrative assistants all over the world would be arrested and brought before a court in Switzerland or something.

Anyway till Wednesday, I’m Neal from MatchstickCats.com and IllitPress, and my fingers know the layout of my keyboard like the back of their hands.

Circa 2004

Somewhere in another time and place, over a rainbow far away and beyond anywhere that even the intricate human mind is equipped to take us, two cats walk into a bar.

One of the cats immediately orders a pint of Guinness, then sets about turning the creamy head with a spoon, hoping that it will metamorphisise into cheese. Not the type to ever relax and forget about work, he’s trying to create some cheese to use back at the laboratory, where the mice that he experiments on from nine to five, are getting hungry. He’s not planning to feed them. It’s just that he wants to wave some cheese over their cages and see what happens, all in the interests of science, and the advancement of the human race.

By using the phrase “human race”, I have of course given it all away.

It is now clear to you that the fictional cat, to whom I allocate human characteristics, is in fact a human. It’s a metaphor. An artistic indulgence, if you will, created to add colour and life to this otherwise dull story of mice and cheesecakes.

The other cat is not a drinker, so he orders a couple of slices of whiskey cake. While looking at the menu, he notices that they serve cheese cake, and he thinks about telling the other cat but by the time the thought processes have made their way around his unsophisticated brain, the alcohol fumes from the nearby whiskey cake have taken their toll, and our cat number two is out for the night.

Meanwhile, outside, their friend is standing looking irritated, and wondering why he always has to be the reserve cat in these stories. He seriously considers starting a campaign to ban pubs from restricting cats to two at a time, but after a few minutes he finds a ball of string on the ground, and spends the evening playing with that instead.

And that brings me to my point. It has always, always been a source of bafflement to me, how they manage to make string so long. I have never seen a sheep with a sixty metre hair on his back. And believe me, I should know.

In the early nineteen eighties I worked for the Irish Secret Service, and my job was to try to find out why Hollywood insists on making films with leprechauns in them. My research, of course, brought me on the trail of a fairy ring, in a mountainous area populated by sheep farms and terrorist hideouts. Leprechauns, as you’ll know doubt know, only appear in spaces of between two and seven feet in width, and in cheap Hollywood movies aimed at people whose great grandmother once accidentally visited Ireland and thought she was born there.

So in each area that I visited, I would calculate the average distance between the sheep as they grazed, and try to determine whether a two to seven foot open space existed between them at most times.

Anyway, since I seem to be a little short of further things to say today, how about a little of what we all know you people come here for. Poetry.

I wandered lonely as a wasp
That floats on high o’er veils and hills
And gets spotted by a wasp hunter
Who lifts his gun, takes aim and kills

I strolled and pondered why we’re here
And clocked up several hours of thinking
Eventually my mind did clear
And into logic I did peer

Clear as a bell it all became
My doubts they did begin to wane
Just in case, I reconsidered
But clarity was still unhindered

It’s obvious it seemed to me
A lower species we must be
Otherwise why would we begat
Eight lives less than the humble cat?

Cultured readers can find a whole page of fine poetry here.

From November 2004, the first extra edition of Neal’s Belch for llitPress.com – Based in Niagara Falls, Canada and run by a guy called RazZ, Illitpress was a bit like the MatchstickCats.com of that era but with hipper writers and more swearing. I did my best to fit in.

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing but respect for those fine people who work in the cat food industry. Absolutely nothing at all. It’s just that there’s something hypocritical about people who purport to be doing everything within their powers to advance the health and status of cats, yet at the same time they’re killing innocent little fishes, including presumably catfish, and chopping them up to be put into cans. As far as I’m concerned (note to self: must insert gratuitous vulgarity – remember you’re at IllitPress now), this is all a crock of shit.

Several years ago, I, for a short time, worked in one of those factories, just like the one where they make the cat food.

Admittedly we were assembling and packing Christmas Trees, which did not come anywhere near the animal food chain until about ten years after their manufacture, when they finally reached the landfill next door to the cat food company. But that’s not the point.

If you think that that is the point, then you are sadly mistaken. You have allowed yourself to become distracted and perfussed, and you should be ashamed of yourself for losing control of your faculties in such a way. In doing so, you have lost much of the respect and benefit-of-the-doubt which I had previously allocated towards you in my mind. You fucking idiot. (Hey this is easier than I thought.)

I myself never would allow myself to be thrown off topic. Anyway, two cats walk into a sandwich bar.

One of the cats notices the presence of a Catfish sandwich on the menu, and immediately walks out in disgust. He rather kindly spares the other cat the knowledge of it’s presence.

Which is fortunate because the other cat is rather sensitive, and would probably have quite a shock, were he to see something like that. Anyway, in the first cat’s absence, the second cat orders a couple of BLTs and a side order of that stuff that looks like cat’s vomit, which I can never remember the name of but it’s the white messy stuff that you get with salads. What the cat doesn’t know is that in some of the less reputable sandwich bars, the similarity to cat’s vomit is not entirely coincidental.

Anyway, ten minutes later both of the cats are sitting on a wall enjoying their lunch. The first cat has forgotten about the unfortunate menu item, and is tucking into his sandwich. He lifts up the cardboard lid and peeps into the foil box containing the white salady stuff, and recognises yesterday’s dinner.

Fortunately yesterday’s dinner was curried chicken and chips, a particular favourite, so the first cat relishes the opportunity of re-living a previous supper, although he does carry quite a sizeable resentment at having to pay for it all over again. He only hopes that some work went into the re-preparation of his recycled dish, in which case he would feel a little less ripped off.

At this point I feel I should address my own website’s loyal readers who no doubt have stepped over here to see what I’m up to, and are a little surprised. They’re good people, and they’re used to cute little cartoons about talking kittens, and the odd article about nothing in particular.

And now they come here to find me writing about cat’s vomit, and resorting to crude, unnecessary words like “shit”, and “crapface”. Oh wait a minute I haven’t used that one yet. Well anyway, I understand how you feel.

But look at the likes of RazZ. Basically what he does over here is sit down for a couple of minutes, string together a few swear words and a topic of the day, and manage to make you laugh your ass off. It’s genius. Tonnes of people read it. And it’s much, much easier than what I do at the other place. And frankly, I want a piece of it.

I always like to have a piece of things.

I think it’s my natural instincts kicking in. Just yesterday my cat, Harry, was eating a dead mouse, and I couldn’t help myself. I jumped onto the rug and before I knew it, I’d taken a huge bite of fur out of Harry’s ass.

Harry was real pissed. He’d been planning on entering his ass in the local “Cute Donkey” competition, but now that he had a huge hole in his fur, all he was good for was lugging coals home from the shop. That might have been fine twenty years ago, but we’ve got central heating now, and there’s no point filling up the whole house with filthy coal and soot, unless one of the cats is going to get pregnant and develop an insatiable appetite for coal, as I believe some women do. Personally, I wouldn’t ever have a female in the house. They pee all over the place and you have to keep taking them to the vet for jabs and things.

Anyway, till next week, I’m Neal, I’ve found my new spiritual home.