Banjofish Photo-Update

This is a banjofish, not Flippy. Note the happy teeth and powerful ventral fins. Flippy should be so lucky.

Flippy Flog #1

Hi! Flippy here! Out in my garden you can see for some distance to the south. One thing I wonder about is why, in these days of omnipresent law enforcement, no one seems willing to do anything about all the microwave towers. We know they’re not all being used for cell phones. In fact, with the level of service I’m getting (how about you?) I would say next to NONE of them are being used for cell phones. Yet there they are. What it means to me, is that most likely someone’s using them to look down into your back yard! Go on, go out there! I bet you can see one. And if you can see one, they can see you! My best friend, Sanford, says there is a hookup from his toaster to the microwave towers. Everything in his kitchen is being relayed. Never mind your computer, or the internet. We’re worried about all the wrong stuff, is what Sanford says. Down there where your bagels go, THAT’S where the real action is! Well, maybe not. But I’ll bet there’s something going on somewhere that we don’t know about, and maybe we’ll find out years from now that there’d been all this stuff that we should’ve known about and that maybe not knowing caused something to happen that has changed everything that’s ever happened since then and it all came from some little thing, like a toaster or something. So maybe Sanford’s on to something there. It’s not like they have to open your mail or anything. It’s all right there, little currents in the air. Maybe they can read your aura as well, really get into you. So what do you do? I say, go into Operation Shutdown, like Derek Bell. I mean, if you aren’t GIVEN that outfield job, do the Pirates really want you anyway? Just don’t give ‘em anything to look at, keep it under wraps, make THEM show themselves! Just use that six inches of psychological lead shielding! And when you hear sirens, hide. Maybe get behind your sofa or something.
I was reading this book, about this female Israeli secret agent. More like a resistance fighter, operating alone. But wronged, really wronged, you know, with a bitter past. And all these bullets flying about in some sandy place, big dry cliffs. So she has to give up, but resolutely, you know, in a way that it’s really some sort of victory, right? So into captivity, but her captors respect her so much (and the commanders want her, of course) but she’s so isolated in her bitterness that they can’t approach, so the respect is all they’ve got, she’s so beautiful, until finally the woman writing these books is in an auto accident and she has to stop. She buys a house in a mountain community, with a quiet, clear stream, and gets set up there, and no one knows who she is, maybe she’s never sold a single manuscript, you know? And then there’s a landslide so that she has to move, but her husband doesn’t want to because she seems to want a very basic, very conservative type of place but still it has to be over a certain number of square feet and there’s not enough money because she needs to sell the beautiful woman fighter books....it’s very confusing, really. I can see it though, can’t you?
Your Pal,
Flippy

Fish of San Pablo Batista

When considering sports of the world, some might be overlooked. There are those that endanger the participant, and there are those that are simply illegal. Generally speaking, neither of these quibbles have concerned me. Nevertheless, there are things I have not seen.
I was south of the border on some business, not long ago. Most likely I shouldn’t have been there, shouldn’t have been doing that particular business. Besides, I hate dust. And I hate the shitty rental cars you get down there, and the fact that everything costs something.
There was a town, San Pablo Batista. I was there with Marco, who is Italian. Marco was in on things, but not a real player. He spent most of the time in the hotel bar. One afternoon I get back and Marco is already up in the room, which is unusual. He says that he's tired of watching my back, that he took a little detour today and ran into some Mexicans, which, in Mexico, is not hard to do. Apparently these guys had put Marco onto something. Marco imitates them, poorly, making a show of describing what the guys had told him.
“Eeeet eees something to see,” says Marco.
“God, Marco, is that really necessary?” I protest vainly, meaning his parody act, but he is already deeper into it.
“The feesh, Senor,” he says, grinning haphazardly,” you haf to see theeem!”
By now I'm actually angry with the stupid shit, but it develops that he’s maybe found something for us to do tonight that is nearly free, not to mention wouldn’t likely get us sick. It turns out that the guys he's talking about are local heroes---I know who a couple of them are. By and large, they're all right. I sign up. And no, it isn’t legal activity. By now, I guess you have figured out that issue would not bother me.

Riding in Mexico at dusk is like riding in a dim red bowl filled with dirt. I’m in this jacked-up Suburban with Marco, two guys named Miguel, the driver, whose name doesn’t seem to matter, and a guy named Leo with a huge, black walrus mustache and a big cardboard box on his lap. The Suburban is bouncing like it’s going to come out of the ruts, and I’m not sure, which is not unusual, that there’s really something under it that could properly be called a road. Exhaust is billowing out the back in the true, third-world manner, but after a while I see that there are one or two other vehicles---pickups, I think---following us at a distance. There’s no one in front; it doesn’t look like there’d ever been anyone in front of us, it’s so barren. Finally, the light is going, we crest a hill, and there’s a hollow in front of us, cleared out from the cactus and scrub, washed in yellow electric light, and encasing a low, rectangular building of corrugated metal with some sort of addition on the back. By now I can hear Leo’s box sloshing, which surprises me. Leo is the guy that Marco likes to imitate, and every once in a while he says something, which is odd, because it sounds like Leo imitating Marco imitating Leo. Because I heard Marco do his thing first.
What Leo says now is,” thees ees Rancho Esteban.”
I say, “Steve’s Ranch, eh, Leo?”
“Thees ees where Diego plays!” said Leo proudly.
I hadn’t known it before, but I knew it then. Diego was in the box.
We get inside, and to do this we have to pass a bunch of lookouts at various points, all with weaponry. There are low stands set up inside, and they spread out to the back, which is open to the outside, covered there by a sheet metal portico. The yellow bulbs are in here too, and the central pit is a fifteen-by-fifteen square sunk maybe two feet into the earth. All it is, is dirt, grey and dry. The stands are almost full, and no one seems to have shaved today. I appreciate the fact that no one seems to care that I’m there. Money is already changing hands.
Now, most civilized societies have brutal ways of relieving stress. In some of these festivities actual humans get to pummel one another, but there are many popular activities involving the ritualistic, sadistic practice of pitting animals against one another for the humans’ enjoyment. Dogs, fighting cocks, even pigs, alligators, and such. As far as I know, Steve’s Ranch outside of San Pablo Batista is the world’s only Mexican fish-fighting venue.
I position myself between Marco and Miguel #2, watching the men (they are all men) wedging themselves into the remaining seats, the others standing about, all in a general state of controlled frenzy. Most are somehow getting themselves liquored up, talking, sweating. A little guy in a red Polo shirt gets down in the center of the square, yells out some stuff, then two other guys come out from under the stands at the rear, each with a box. It’s really getting loud now, and the tension is thick. I’ve been to some cockfights, here, in Mexico, and in Oklahoma years ago. It’s not the same thing. The cockfight is exciting, there’s the tension, the yelling, the smells. But not the evil. This thing feels evil. And as those two fellows open their boxes, it hits you like a wave, although even now I can't tell you what that means, or why it felt that way.
When those two big catfish hit the dirt, though, it just feels wrong. And the way they go after each other is probably the most animal thing I’m ever going to see. Blood is drawn quickly. The fish writhe, twist, get the position they wanted, then they go in for it. It is amazing how they cover the entire square footage of that dirt pen in the course of their battle, actually raising a dust cloud in the yellow light that hangs above them while they fight, and the men yell. After a minute one fish has a big gash in its side and they pull the other fish off of it. Both go back into the boxes, which hold small aquariums, the keeper of the loser fish kneeling over the box in a corner, worrying over the fish, while the other collects his money and several shots of mescal.
Over the course of the evening a whole series of matches take place, and, finally, it is Diego’s turn. Leo has been down at pit-side, prepping him, for some time. Several men come up from time to time and peer into the box, then clap Leo on the back or laugh and point at the other box, on the opposite side, where Leo’s opponent obviously rests. The bets go down, the place grows strangely hushed, then the two fish are released. These fish are enormous. These fish have teeth that you can see. These are the fish most of the men have come to see. And these fish are unbelievably savage. But as the fish begin their stalking movements in the dirt, the electric lights above them seem to swell and ebb rhythmically. No one seems to notice at first, but slowly the gradual pulsing becomes impossible to ignore, and, looking outside beyond the metal overhang, the sky could be seen to be turning from black to a dark green, then acquiring a phosphorescent sheen that sweeps into the fighting arena itself. Suddenly a bllinding flash of pure white light sears the vision of everyone present amidst attendent shouts and screams. I almost topple backwards off the low grandstand, rocked by the sudden bolts of several of the men. I get off my perch and crouch low in the dirt nearby, watching the center of the arena as the fish seem to be enlarging, enlarging, and actually rising into the air above, the two of them twisting and gyrating in a large circle. Suddenly a green shaft of light rushes inside over them and seems to literally suck them out of the building. There's so much shouting and commotion that I'm not sure anyone else is seeing it, but, rushing outside, I can see the fish rising in a green column of luminescence, rising into a huge, rotating sphere studded with what otherwise would be Christmas tree lights. Over to my right, I see Leo gasping and sobbing all at the same time as the din is ceasing, to be replaced by a low, dull throbbing from above, and it becomes very quiet as Leo now looks up at what is obviously something that he shouldn't be seeing. Then Leo suddenly is encompassed by the green light and vanishes upward. All that is left is his pocketknife, now gleaming outside on the hard, packed earth, gleaming in the yellow light again now that the green light, and the throbbing, are suddenly gone. And so is....whatever that was.
The trip back is much quieter. I try to console Marco, but he is having none of it. He is drinking from a Modelo bottle filled with mescal and staring ahead into the night. All of the fish are gone, and so are our Mexican companions.
I know I’ve driven back accurately. I know I’ve made no mistake. But the town is gone. There is no San Pablo Batista. And it is raining, large drops, coming down slowly and steadily with large spaces between them. And I see two fish, standing, motionless, perhaps fifty yards away. They are looking at us, and one motions with a fin, drawing it slowly towards him, the raindrops plopping softly about him and on him, covering him slowly with moisture, causing his scales to glisten, green, in the dark, empty night.

Benjy Fynn-----Coked to the Gills!

In the last Age, when those gifted of power came to see the true source of their might, seldom did one appear who embodied everything that those seekers of the Right had come to call The Mete. The chroniclers embroidered tales of those souls into the tapestry that we have come to call “M”. It is in the finest sense of “M” that we present this version of the legend first set down by Mergus the Sedge, the story of Benjy Fynn.……………………………………
It first happened that, in the highest levels of Fynn, when all seemed dark and drained of hope, there arose a young sea-dweller of noblest proportions, cloaked in the many merits of his sire and destined to occupy the pinnacles of all meaningfulness. He was called “Benjy” by his progenitors, and he hied forth under this banner to do battle with all the unclean and the irreverent. At a young age he felt the weight of his charge, and he accepted its responsibility in such a way that none could deny that he set about his task with a precipitous degree of salinity. At first the journey was a difficult one, but Benjy felt that each success bred the possibility of more success, and he was proven right in this. The Tangleet of Frothbane were only the first to feel the heat of his vengeance. They were succeeded by the Hindeheren from Myxxr and the lost tribe of the Geetch in Ylrrnistan, amongst many others. Such was the rapidity of his success and the ruthlessness of his aggression that a meeting of his enemies became inevitable. It occurred, as did so often such dark matters, on Heine’s Dunkel Plain, the last stop on the Gynberra Runn before Koncrage and the end of all eternity. The elders present soon agreed in Conclave to pursue a joint means of rendering Benjy Fynn ineffective, if not in extinguishing his meteablility forever.
Thus it came to pass that on one of his journeys far into an unholy realm, Benjy Fynn fell into a trap set by those of the Conclave, one that no one could have forseen. As was commonplace in those times, the manner of travel often required stays at one or more waypoints, commonly marked by a hostelry of dim repute. Those versed in evil had determined to make one of these fetid sites the focus for the disruption of the youngest Fynn. It was a murky swim indeed for him, descending to the level of such wickedness, but there was no other way to do battle with the same, and his need to do so led him directly into the gaping maw of the Conclave, who feted him with such grotesque solutions that Fynn soon became a reeling, stupefied subject of all that was laid before him. He left the inn with quivering, disjointed flippers, scarce able to effect a meaningful word, let alone a verse. He had entered a scion of justice, and he had departed a slave of the juice. The seaworld spun in nebulous, disjointed perversion of all that was Right and good. Waves of nausea overcame him, and oceans of agony awaited him, for his besotted body soon floated barely above the jagged sands of the tidelands, regions inhospitable to his kind. His mind closed down as his form flopped upon the scales of justice, and he was no more.
And, lo, how the anguish of his progenitors rose to the surface, proclaiming the destruction of Benjy Fynn, he who embodied all that any might admire, and denigrating the foul, cursed mean of his destructors, those who must forever labor under the stain of his seduction, soon to join him, reeking and rotting under the hideous fiery Sol of all Aridity.

The New Traditionalists

Perversely, it was only with the slightest degree of rancor that I let him into the basement.
"Don't let me out," he said.
I think he meant it in absolute terms, as if letting him out might not be the thing to do.
"Of course, you're assuming quite a bit," I smiled in a cagy sort of way.
For some reason this upset him. He started fidgeting and rocking to and fro on his heels. I decided that inaction was probably the best course to take. He, however, had other plans.
"Look at this," he proffered, and drew out a small volume, colored green.
I opened it up.
"This is Izaak Walton," I said.
"Of course," he replied, nodding in an approving way, "I expected you to know that."
"So you expect me to read and understand....." I went on.
"Only Izaak Walton," he said.
Then he stood there, looking at me. I had time to wind my watch, so I did. I handed the book back to him.
"I won't take it," he said.
"I would be disappointed indeed should a small child hear what I am about to say," I remarked, dropping Izaak Walton on the floor.
"Oh, really!" he snarled," I've had just about enough of your disjointed manner of speech."
"Pick up your damned book or I'll let you out!" I hissed.
He was still just standing there, like a flower pot with the flower's roots grown through it into the dirt.
"I consider Izaak Walton a friend," I said.
By now, I could tell he wasn't listening. He was starting to take root, his eyes a hazy pair of gumballs in his head. There wasn't any point in continuing because there wasn't any point in stopping. We were, so to speak, at a critical juncture.
In order to fit him through the door, I needed a wedge. I used the Izaak Walton volume. I was only barely able to generate enough leverage, but it was sufficient. I got everything out but his left fifth finger.
"There! How's that, now?"
"Well, not too bad," he commented, still shaking his head as if something were rattling about in there. "Sometimes," he went on, " a fellow just doesn't know what's best for him."

Not Your Daddy's Shower Stall

When Christian opened the door, all things seemed to fall away from him. Or perhaps it was he that was falling. The only thing he could hang onto was his memory, and, as gravity became unhinged, he felt that leaving him too.

With the ring of the alarm clock he awoke. He could see the dial dancing before him, resplendent in dim, yellow, electrical moonlight. It shifted through a hazy quarter-turn as his fingers sought out the stop lever in the rear. Finding this, he silenced the clock. It sat there, seemingly on its side, staring at him in dumb, tragic terror. Whatever warning it had for him had been taken from it.

Another door. Christian confronted it with all the confidence of one awakened from the horror of unreasonableness. He could smell the wood, and he opened it, relieved to find the earth motionless beneath him. He could see himself in the mirror, looking back at him disinterestedly. He smiled, glad to have found a friend.

He wondered if there were fish in the shower. A fish would be nice. He couldn't see any, but perhaps this was because his eyes were closed. The water was hard in his ears. If there was a fish flopping on the tiled floor, he wouldn't hear it. By the time he could open his eyes it would be gone, so he opened them.

The fish were green and blue, and red. They all had golden accents, like glitter on a birthday card. They swam up to him and talked to him, very earnestly. They were telling him about their families. Christian tried to talk back to them, but his mouth filled with water when he opened it. He stooped to show the fish the drain. He helped them down through it before he opened the door and stepped out.

He closed the door and turned, then turned back, remembering that the shower was still running. His fingers curled about the door handle, and he gave a sharp pull. Nothing happened. He pulled harder, then harder still. The doorframe seemed part of the house, no longer a door. It seemed to be an unbroken wall of glass and tile, extending all around him, over him and under him as if he were suspended in its own sea, glazed and translucent, moving through him and around him, taking him within its substance, making him part of it and then slowly disgorging him on the other side.

A fish looked up at him from the drain, its eyes wide, its mouth a pleading, questioning oval. He couldn't make out the fish's color.