Ask Montezuma: June 2004

Providing Help for the Hopeless

Montezuma is Second Baseman for the
Elizabethia Ocelots, the AAA Northsouth
Regional League Champions.

Dear Montezuma,
Woe is me for my life is full of inequity. At least seven times per day I am attacked by various animals of nature’s menagerie. Recently, on the occasion of yesterday, I left my house to journey toward the place of my vocational duties, when I was blitheringly assaulted by no less than nine pelicans, two weasels, seven ants and sixteen griffins. An elderly Gypsy woman has informed me that I may escape this curse only by killing the Head Animal. Who is this head animal and how might I kill him? Please respond quickly, for even as I write this eleven badgers, two moose, a parakeet and four geckos are attempting to rupture my spleen.

My Inequities Never Cease Every Moment Engaged in Animal Terror

To Mousemeat,
I became quite engrossed in the pulchritude of your tale; eager to come to some complete solution to your overwhelming problems. However, upon re-reading your letter, I became puzzled at your description of pelicans. You see, in my younger years I was quite the amateur naturalist, traveling with notables such as Audubon and Thoreau. I’ve traveled the continents with His Majesty’s Royal Navy in a cryptozoological capacity and explored the myriad wastes with lauded discoverer Phineas Lester. In all my years of experience, I’ve never seen pelicans group together in a number which wasn’t a multiple of four. Hence I find your being assaulted by nine pelicans dubious. Furthermore, pelicans, through the process of natural selection, have lost the capability to blither because of its liability in catching and retaining piscatorial organisms. So, I would kindly ask that in the future you try not to pull the proverbial wool over my literal eyes.

Dear Montezuma,
How is it that you know so much and are capable of providing answers to all things? My roommate, Shep, claims that you have knowledge based upon reverse engineered alien technology from spacecraft which crashed to Earth in 1947 at Roswell. I maintain you own an encyclopaedia. Which of us is correct?
Love and Kisses,
Divulge, Oh Notable Treasury of Knowledge, Now Or Tomorrow.

Dear Doughnut,
What is knowledge? Is it the sum of an individuals accumulated factual capacity? The complex interaction of intuition and thought? The emblematic province of the human psyche? Seems like you’ve put me on track to a new book on this as of yet unexplored area in human development.

Dear Montezuma
How is it that pancakes taste so much better than sulfuric acid? I have, on several instances, eaten both pancakes and acid and have always found that the best flavor comes from pancakes. Is there something inherent in the chemical makeup of flesh-melting acids that makes them taste so terrible? Is that why people don’t drink or eat caustic chemicals? Just curious. Also, why do hats exist?
Please Answer Nicely ‘Cause Anger Kills Everybody

Dear Pancake,
Pancakes and acid derive from a common ancestor in the Cenozoic Era. Originally they were quite similar in constitution, appearance and flavour, but over the millennia certain factors have accumulated which have changed the very fabric of their existence. Pancakes are now a fluffy, tasty, all-engrossing breakfast treat, whereas acid has become useful in many parts of the world for cleaning and manufacturing processes. Keep in mind that neither is really intended for human consumption and that while pancakes do taste delectable, they should only be an occasional treat.

Dear Montezuma,
What is three times four? I really need to know because I’m taking an arithmetic quiz right now and if I get another F my father will beat me horribly like he does when he’s drunk and mommy didn’t have dinner ready. Please, please, please. I need to make an A.
Beatings Really Are Traumatic

Dear Bat,
Why didn’t your mother have dinner ready? Taking responsibility for one’s action is imperative to an enlightened society. To assume the great task of providing sustenance to one’s relations is paramount if one wishes to create a stronger, more agreeable progeny. It is also, obviously, useful in avoiding the resultant and fully-justified beatings one will receive if such sustenance is not provided. I would encourage you to clip out this article and show it to your mother, so that she may better understand her important role in society. Oh, and, good luck on that quiz!

Dear Montezuma,
Recently I’ve been hearing bells, especially on Sundays. I don’t always hear them. Most of the time this happens on or around the hour and half hour. The problem is especially pronounced, as I said, on Sundays, when I attend church. They get really loud as I approach for Mass. I’ve been to see many doctors and psychiatric pspecialists, but they either tell me I’m crazy or prescribe medications. I don’t want to be doped up! I just don’t want to hear the bells anymore. How do I get a literary agent?
My Expressions Salutations Agency

Dear Mesa,
One can say unequivocally that you are in dire straits. Literary agents rarely handle clients with auditory hallucinations, as this is generally detrimental to literary output and the verve of finished product. In order to better facilitate your acquisition of a literary agent, I would suggest using a proxy. Proxies are hard to come by. You need to find someone of roughly the same physical characteristics as yourself (minus the bells), and who can speak authoritatively on the subject. I would suggest using the new Pseudo-Clone™ technology from SonOculus, a Daniel Bester, Inc. company. The excellence displayed by the SonOculus research and development department is unparalleled in the audio-visual market. Pseudo-Clone, using a simple skin-sampling kit, can create a doppelganger that functions as you, and goes to places you cannot, including dangerous psychic territory. Otherwise you may be out of luck.

Bestoria, Montsylvania: The Garden City

Bestoria, Montsylvania is much the same as any modern teeming Kafka-esque metropolis. It full of skyscrapers, has an inefficient mass transit system and swarms with legions of vagrants, winos and crack-whores who roam the streets stalking innocent pedestrians that they can rob, rape or heinously murder.

By Regional Travel Correspondent
Dr. Katie DeLancy.

But anyone who takes the time to dig through the steaming pile of feces that Bestoria appears to be on the surface, will find a city that teems with more than just maggots and death. Though the streets may be strewn with garbage, corpses and discarded disease covered needles, though the parks may be home to shanty towns of semi-savage homeless dregs, the city of Bestoria has many notable attractions that distract the eyes from the squalor and depravity most often associated with this city.

So come with, and take a tour with me of this mighty city; the Garden City!

Founded in 1830 on the winding banks of the Calazoona River, Bestoria was named for legendary Revolutionary War hero Samuel Bester, whose family hailed from nearby Whatchaw County in what was then the Territory of Montsylvania. When Montsylvania became a state in 1832, the city became the state capital, a position it maintains to this day.

Many of the original Antebellum houses can still be found, in varying states of disrepair, in Old Town Bestoria, a small enclave on Bircher’s Hill which still overlooks the river where once river boats brought cotton, slaves, aloe and other commodities up the river from New Orleans. One notable home has now been transformed at tax-payer expense into The Bestoria History Museum. Prixby Place is a marvel of Sub-Georgian architecture and many hundreds of people stop by each year to see its many displays including such amazing artifacts as antique dentures, nineteenth century wheelbarrows and first Montsylvanian Governor Alexander Hull’s official gubernatorial croquet set.


Prixby Place Bestoria History Museum.
401 Walton Way. Admission $1.00 Adults,
$.89 Children.

Those tourists who find the Prixby Place History Museum a bit too quaint, may enjoy something a little more avant-garde, for instance, the National Museum of Performance Art, located in the heart of the Spot Welding District. Once a home to the city’s thousands of spot welders, this area is now a collection of trendy, up-scale establishments which cater to the city’s many trendniks, wannabe artists, and hetero-queers. The N’MPA as locals know it, houses many interested and impossible to understand pieces of art including Michelle Durint’s “Flame” which features video images of monkeys lighting candles while a metallic voice shrieks “Repression” endlessly or Gustav Loider’s infamous “Speakings on Lettuce in the Heat” where the artist sits naked in a vat of peanut butter while attractive naked female communist college students perform oral sex on him. It’s fun for the whole family, especially the members of the family who majored in “Feminist Prose” or “Psycholinguistics of Gender-Modes.”


Amanda Channing’s installation “Grasp #67”
on display at the National Museum of Performance Art.
Suggested Donation: One cabbage as an allegory of
female oppression in a patriarchal phalocracy.

Of course, no trip to Bestoria would be complete without a glimpse of the famous “Sideways Tower” built by renowned architectonomist I.P. Nim in 1947 to celebrate the hundred and seventeenth anniversary of the Bestoria’s founding. At two hundred and three feet, it is the longest sideways tower ever constructed. Visitors can take a crazy sideways elevator to the edge of the building, where they can look down at a spectacular view of the street below, or look up at a spectacular view of the sky. And now, the Sideways Tower is better than ever, since the rats and homeless have been cleared away for good.


The famous Sideways Tower of Bestoria

Bestoria is not just home to mindless art projects and pointless architectural oddities. The city also has one of the world’s largest and strangest zoos; the Montsylvanian State Zoological Taxidermy Gardens. Here, visitors can see thousands of different types of animal carcasses, each in a representation of their natural environment. Don’t forget to stop by the Submerged Primate House, where you can see stuffed chimpanzees stuffed into fish tanks. What a treat for any animal lover!


Another heart-stopping-adventure filled
day at the Taxedermy Zoo in Bestoria.

Not many people know that you couldn’t spell Bestoria without S, and that S is the first letter in the word store, and in the word shop as well. There’s a lot of great deals to be made in some of the world’s best retail and wholesale outlets. You can find whatever you’re looking for in Bestoria. First, make a stop off at Pantstravaganza, your home for all things trouser-related. Britches too constricting for you? Then why not try near by Skirtsapaloozza! where they have nine kilometers of skirts to choose from. But whatever you’re looking for, make sure you stop by the world famous Hormel Megastore, the largest canned meat retail center in the world. They have everything from Spam, Spam light, chili, corned beef hash, and anything else your heart could imagine, and all in their six story, ultra modern mega sized store.


Get great deals on canned meat products
at the Hormel Megastore

And, of course, be sure to stop by the State Capital Building, where you can see the United State’s only Septocameral State Legislature in action.


The Bestoria State Governmental Compelex. Open
to the public on weekdays. No handguns allowed.
Rifles only when properly licensed.

Why, there’s simply too much fun stuff to do in Bestoria and unfortunately I have only three alloted pages for my articles. Guess you’ll just have to go and see Bestoria for yourself then. Tell ‘em Katie sent you.

Dave Vendel’s Gardening Reminders

Helpful Hints for the Amateur Domicile-Adjacent-Area Horticulturalist

Dave Vendel
Dave Vendel is a Soil and Granule Science expert and member of the Department of the Interior’s Super Soil Action Awareness Team.

Howdy Guys, guess what? It’s spring again and you know what that means. It’s time to dig out that hoe and get those clods a turning. That’s right, it’s time again for all of us gardeners to wage our little wars against nature. So, this month, I’ll be offering some useful information for dealing with those pesky spring gardening problems.

Log Jam
Many small lawns throughout the region occasionally suffer from an affliction termed “log jam.” This unsightly mass of logging castoffs makes many a block party difficult, if not impossible. Log jam makes lawns difficult to traverse, interact upon and mow. Be wary of the snakeoil merchants plying chemical-based solutions to this dilemma. There are no legal controls of such a nature. One may reduce the severity and frequency of the condition by posting armed sentries to control illegal lumber dumps.

Concrete Pest
Check your new concrete walkways for attacks by the orange blood fly. These large flies resemble small flies and will begin laying eggs in your concrete minutes after pouring. An unchecked infestation can result in a pockmarked or wholly non-functional walkway. After the eggs hatch, the giant larvae tunnel out of the con-crete, leaving their molted, gooey exoskeletons on undamaged portions of your lawn walkway. The best solution is to remain vigilant in your yard between March 17 and April 30. Keep a bat handy.

Read the Label
Read the labels of artificial lawn generation products carefully and thoroughly before purchase. Many companies make wild claims about nanotechnology, genetically-engineered “mini-gardeners” or other such artificial methods of lawn creation. Buyer beware! Most such methods do not work, contrary to your intuition.

Hand-Pick Bugs
Look, bugs have been around for so much longer than humanity that you’re just not going to get rid of them, no matter what kind of chemical or pseudo-organic methods you use. The best bet is to hand-pick the type of bug of which you wish to have an infestation. You’ll be better off knowing that you made the choice best for you and the bugs will have a healthy sense of self-worth.

Spring Cleanup for Yards and Gardens
Contrary to the “advice” offered in Poor Richard’s “Almanac,” the home yard or garden is not the best place to dis-pose of deceased relatives, friends or strangers. Corpses can make lawns bumpy and invite pests in gardens. Remember: no corpse, healthy gorse!

Tip o' the Day

Ask Montezuma: May 2004

Montezuma
Montezuma is the world’s foremost answer man and advice counselor.

His latest book Montezuma Answers These Questions and More, More, More is currently number 163 on the New York Times Bestseller List.

His other books include Montezuma’s Answers to Every Question Ever, and Montezuma’s Answers to Even More Every Question Ever. He has also written the mystery novels Tyndale and the Missing Hat, and Tyndale in the Observatory.

Desperate Passions, his first romance novel, debuts on May 22nd.

Dear Montezuma,

Why is it that so many hateful dictators are moustachioed? Hitler, Stalin, Captain Kangaroo, Hussein, Peron and Magnum P.I. are all excellent examples of dictators who wore moustaches. Is there something inherently evil in sub-nasal/über-labial hair that causes these men to dictate? Please respond quickly, I have a bet riding on this and need the money to pay off my loansharks. They threatened to break my thumbs.

Sincerely,

Count Klaus von Buellen

Your Eminence Count von Buellen! With much surprise and resultant trepidation did I open your letter of January 22. However, chagrined was I to find that you were querying me again with one of your moustache manifestoes. Why must you incessantly harp on the subject of the supposed moustache-dictation convector? As I’ve explained to you on several previous occasions, the moustache causes an irritation to the upper lip, setting up a quiver in the oral musculature. In order to avert an itching, tingly feeling in their palate, nose and lips, moustachioed men must, quite frequently, expound upon various subjects which are forthwith to be written down. Make sure that next time you approach me with a concern, it’s something more appropriate, like tilapia farming.

Dear Montezuma,

Recently, I have found myself, in the crattera-filled hours of the morn, wondering if it might be possible to condition, or otherwise teach, program or force a home appliance (perhaps a toaster) to feel love or any other emotion which can be identified by an emoticon. Please express your answer as the sum of two cubes.

Regards,

H.B. Pensylle

Hoe Boy,

My assistant Juan Carlos Domenico Flores suggested that 36 would be an appropriate response, but I find (and I think you’ll agree) that such humour is inappropriate for a publication such as this reaching the kind of audience it does. Juan Carlos Domenico Flores has rendered years of dedicated service to assisting me in all literary and toiletry needs. It is unfortunate that Juan Carlos Domenico Flores had to make such a rueful mistake. His suggestion and the resultant bellamure it caused have forced me to fire Juan Carlos Domenico Flores, who will receive no compensation, severance pay or retirement fund. He is allowed to keep his personal annuity, but his wardrobe and makeup have been forcibly returned by peace officers of the local magistrate.

Dear Montezuma,

I am at a loss for words. this verbial disadvantagement has imperatated me to improvisonate alphabeticalical combines not predicationed by the scribulations of the learnatory personamos of the Dictionaritomes of our matritorial linguation. Despite myself, I am disabuled from the formationing of any but my own verbiations. Any assistinationing by your mesomericanismos would be most gratitisilly appreciattened.

Sincereasically,

Hammond V. Nespoot

Hammond, my dear,

I don’t see what the fuss is you’re making. I can understand you perfectly and think that you should most definitely ask Betty out next time you’re at the diner.

Dear Montezuma,

My boyfriend enjoys certain sexual practices normally only associated with Norsemen and the Japanese Ainu culture. I find this distressful because of my ancestral relations to Fijian and Lesothan sexual innovators. Obviously the historical tensions between the Norse-Japanese and Fijo-Lesothans have been at an all-time high recently and this has impacted our love life. Furthermore, our son is experiencing traditional Norse-Lesothan-Fijo-Japanese discrimination from classmates of the majority Serbo-Canadian-Kazakh-Aboriginal-Pradesh ethnicity. What kind of sandwiches would solve our problems?

Yours truly,

Marget Potsen Smith

Ms. Smith,

Traditionally a nice turkey with Jarlsberg, lettuce, tomato and pickles has been known to calm ethnic tensions across the globe, especially on seven grain bread. However, this situation is perplexing because all parties involved have a genetic predisposition to cucumber allergies. Therefore I suggest replacing the pickles with pickled turnips or cabbage. The resultant flatulence will also bring people together in the spirit of laughing at silly bodily sounds.

Do You Need Help With Life? Write to Montezuma…
montezumaREMOVE@THISdanielbester.com

Budwizir

Confused Mike

Ask Montezuma: December 2003

Montezuma

Montezuma: Circuit Martyr
Would you like to Ask Montezuma? Just click here.

Montezuma was born in 1466 and became emperor in 1502. He governed with great cruelty. His dominions having been attacked and conquered by Cortez, he was killed in 1520 by his subjects while attempting to persuade them to submit to the Spaniards. Montezuma now writes a nationally-syndicated advice column and currently resides in Pangeria with his wife Trudy and their two children Christopher and Kayla. He enjoys boating and human sacrifice.

Dear Montezuma,

Recently, while gardening, I came to the conclusion that I have been dead for some time now. While I do find this state relaxing, I have been wondering whether cremation or burial would be more appropriate. Although burial seems more conservative, as a former NBA all-star I find that the Viking funeral bier holds many exciting possibilities. My question for you is this: How many golf balls would fit in the Grand Canyon? Please give an exact figure.

Wilt Chamberlain (deceased)

Dearest Wilty,

The divot in a golf ball has been created, through much trial and error in middle latitudes, to cause a disturbance in the air flow around the golf ball and thus ease its flight through the air for further drives down the fairway. Divots play an important role in the fundamental stacking problems of modern mathematics and should be factored into any traditional Grand Canyon Stacking Equation. Divots offer numerous surface area expansion possibilities and so a golf ball has much more surface area than a comparable whiffle ball. Taking into account a surface area of 2, with space between balls stacked in a traditional grocer’s orange stack being 17, plus the constant perturbation of the base of the stack of golf balls by the Colorado River, one can only assume that the precise figure would be 5.28 with a remainder of 1. Of course, Stopecki’s Overflight Theorem theorizes an golf-ballogical constant of 12, throwing the true number into the realm of the imaginary. We can thus conclude that the true number can only be calculated through gravitational lensing.

Dear Montezuma,

I have a guy friend whom I really like. I’ve known him about four years. We’ve started holding hands and he even kissed me one time, but he wonÕt tell me if he likes me or not. He knows I like him. I get really frustrated because he keeps sending mixed signals. All the other guys at the oil refinery where I work think that this is really weird. What should I do?

James “Big Jim” Doheen Aniston, Alabama

Dear Big Jim, if that is your real name,

The solution to this problem is very easy. Take a paper clip, a magnet, two meters of thread and a small saucer of water. Rub the magnet against the paper clip several times to impart a distinct polarity to its luscious coils. Gently place the voluptuous paper clip on the surface of the water you’ve placed in the saucer. The hydrogen bonds in water create a wonderful meniscus upon which our hallowed fastener can sustain itself. Watching the movements of this time-honoured treasure will lead to deeper understanding of the situation.

Dear Montezuma,

While on a recent vacation, I visited the ruins of Tihuanaco, in your homeland of Old Mexico. I was amazed by the ruins which are found there. Many of them consist of enormous stone blocks. Naturally rational thought leads me to the undisputable conclusion that these must have been built by aliens some millions of years ago. Was Mexico visited by aliens way back in the day?

Mrs. A. B. Doberman Papua New Guinea

Dear Mrs. Doberman,

Did Kublai Kahn in Xanadu a stately pleasure-dome decree? What is that toe nail thing in the hamburger? Is existence a delusion created by complex actions in the mind? Does skullfucking really take place and, if so, how pleasurable is it, really? These questions and more are all answered in my new Time-Life book, Montezuma Answers These Questions and More, More, More. This 327 page volume, available for only $19.99 covers over 400 years of stately advice from Yours Truly.

Gothchick Brand Mayonnaise