Twistaplot #14 Instant Millionaire

Last time we were promised fame and riches, but instead got bullied by puppies with flippers and survived quicksand thanks to the author actually researching that topic and understanding that basic swimming skills would save you easily. Today we're going to continue the theme of unearned McDuck money by examining the Twistaplot interpretation of this cultural touchstone. Truly I am a glutton for misery. At least this one promises to actually examine the impact of sudden material acquisition, as opposed to the Which Way book with three lame stories that had little, if anything, to do with making bank other than that providing the loosest of rationales to tie together tepid detective, explorer and kidnapping stories that weren't substantial enough to fill up 90-odd heavily truncated pages on their own.

Charlie Sheen's childhood.

While "Famous and Rich" had a fairly substantial, if goofy, set-up involving a mysterious old man with poorly defined magical powers this one simply kicks off with an invitation to choose a lottery number. Yes, just one. Presumably they'll be about 100 billion balls in the world's largest tumbler for this to actually work. I'm really feeling good about 25,594,120,001, my personal lucky number. One point for improving on "A wizard did it!" to drive the plot, minus several dozen for the abruptness of the opening and for encouraging underage gambling. Come on R.L. Stine, you're supposed to scare the kiddies, not turn them into low rollers.

I won this 43 times in 1996, but failed to send $800 through Western Union to claim my winnings.

There's four numbers to choose from and I decide to go with 50 because I've devised a system that can defeat random number generation. It turns out this number does not, in fact, win the millions promised in the title but instead nets the "jumbo" prize. An elephant. Get it? Haw. There's a reference to telling "Uncle Clyde" (always an Uncle in these) to stock up on peanuts, because it's always a good idea to introduce new characters literally two sentences away from "The End" and why not grind in a little extra indignity after having the equivalent of one of those loser doors from "Let's Make a Deal" open up rather than a highly satisfying Twistaplot Mammon fantasy. 

From start to finish I read less than one full paperback page worth of text. Great for little Timmy trying to pull a fast one on his 1987 fourth grade book report, maybe somewhat less ideal for an hilarious blog review in the waning days of 2015. 

The End.

I'm sure there's lots of amazing plot lines where you get one million American in a time where that was considered a fairly large sum of money, but not for me. I'm not even sure what else to say, other than to note the fact that I'm one book closer to being done with Twistaplot forever, which undoubtedly is a positive note we can end on, rather than being angry about a two page story-line that can be summed up by the false idea that there's something inherently funny about large land animals.

You're as trusting as an elephant, bro.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

Which Way Books #4: Famous and Rich

I can't stop reading Which Way Books. Honestly, what's not to like? The stories are threadbare and utilitarian, the low expectations coming in make the moments of glorious competence shine even brighter and there's a very pleasant lack of self-awareness and fourth wall (third page???) breaking. Sure, I'll probably get back into the always reliable late-early Choose Your Own Adventure offerings very soon, but for now it's time to live the American dream of filthy lucre and all eyes on me via the highly satisfying medium of barely serviceable text from 1982 practically dancing on badly yellowed pages.

How about some unrealistic life expectations?

I have to concede that the usually brilliant Which Way opening is sadly deficient in this one. Instead of poor TeeVee reception, magic birds or horrible movies coming to life the high concept here is that some older gentleman moves into the house next door. Since it's the eighties and I don't have to check a phone every fifteen seconds or take lots of arm-length photos of myself I go over to talk, something people used to do. We have this lengthy conversation that, fortunately, is brutally summarized down to "talking 'bout dreams and stuff" and suddenly my new best friend wants to know about my future goals. "To be famous and rich!" Roll credits?

Instead there's some red diaper talk about how ambitions often come at a heavy cost and money can't buy a beautiful sunset and general "You've got to LIVE every day, man!" bullshit that we're all sick of hearing. My pragmatic response is the only way I can determine if power does, indeed, corrupt is by being handed the joystick of wealth and glory. Naturally this leads to mumbling and quivering, because this guy is some sort of wish-granting plot contrivance.

Can we get that lengthy conventional war, with mandatory draft, going soon? Please?

Because it's Which Way there's the usual triple choice of things that are very loosely related to the core conceit that's been so expertly established, specifically three occupations that allegedly deliver the chedda and that sweet envy and hatred of the faceless masses. One is movie star, which is fine, but the other two are a mess. Explorer? Maybe in the 19th century, old-timer. Detective? Sure, that's a sure route to big money and we all know the more notoriety you have the more effective you would be. Notably absent are more believable options like air-headed nepotism case who "accidentally" releases home-made pornography into the public domain or son of already wealthy parents who becomes obscenely wealthy via monetary voodoo.

Fine, I'll take explorer.

We makin' Cartier coin.

Instead of swimming in portfolios or being worshiped by life's extras I'm right in the middle of an adventure, one that involves a light aircraft. Get your lawyers on the phone, R.A. Montgomery. I'm on the cover of "Time" magazine, which seems an odd choice when there's National Pornographic, but I guess there was a time when they might have covered global exploration before they lost all relevancy and went off the Cultural Marxist deep-end. No time to dwell on that, the plane's engines are on fire. It's famous and rich, not famous and fastidious about pre-flight check-ups, after all.

I jump out, hit the water, deploy a raft and note an island about 25 miles away, all in rapid fire prose. Hey, we're not being paid by the hour, here. I'm given the choice to retrieve the floating parachute, but instead decide to paddle toward the island, nice and secure in my new wussy and impractical mode of travel. Many miles of rowing against ocean currents, no problem.

This raft is superior to other rafts in every possible way.

After much rowing I'm confronted by a "mammoth bed of seaweed" blocking the path to the island. No, not water dope! Faced with this daunting obstacle I decide to soldier on and incredibly just float right through the wet green to the beach. Just as I think I'm in the clear I hear barking and a family of sea lions is swimming toward my raft. First waterlogged crops and now ocean dogs. You're gonna have to do better than that, nature. 

As you might expect, the pets of Davey Jones are more about goofy playful cavorting than devouring the flesh of a guy that did a magazine cover when that feat still had cultural relevance. Just as I hit the shore, though, a "bull" sea lion, the pack alpha I would assume, is running up on me in a "vengeful rage." Faced with this, I'm given two different coward options instead of some righteous "last good fight" battle with the playful clowns of the sea. Also, what does this have to do with being famous or rich? I've got nothing but a raft and paddle to my name and I'm running and hiding from a Sea World warm-up act. Gah.

Not exactly the most intimidating enemy.

So I run away with the goofy nemesis hot on my heels, barking happily and slapping its flippers together in anticipation of devouring flesh and washing it down with warm blood. Then I blunder into quicksand. The world's greatest explorer, ladies and gentleman, punked out by an animal know for its goofy clapping and working wacky horns and now I'm sinking into wet earth. Fortunately, both myself and the author remember that so-called "quicksand" is just really muddy water and you can float and swim in it, so that's what I do. After getting out, a rescue party is there to bail my pathetic ass out before I get attacked by panda bears or get trapped in pussy willows or whatever other humiliating event that could top what already happened occurs. 

Plus, they know who I am because I'm famous. The End. Good grief.

 Don't you hate it when there's no bamboo or you're shot to make Chinese medicine?

This one was pretty bad. How did I become a famous explorer when I'm so completely inept? Why am I exploring an island that a "rescue party" can easily access? How come the story-line I got had nothing to do with the thin reed setting up the action. I'll give a point for correct understanding of quicksand, but that's all this one is getting. Yeah, I'm going back to Choose Your Own Adventure next time.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: Warren Buffett's Secret to Staying Young

Looking and acting young is what's important, as opposed to maturity and wisdom, which we're working hard to eradicate. The question becomes "How can I stay young north of my eighth decade?" and the answer, naturally, comes from an obscenely wealthy reptile. After earning those big fed reserve notes in such diverse fields as tobacco, coal and China this awful human being has some excellent wellness advice for us all. It turns out "eat garbage" is the magic bullet for sustained and successful evil well into the twilight years.

How does the world’s top investor, at 84 years old, wake up every day and face the world with boundless energy?

Looks at all the energy!

“I’m one quarter Coca-Cola,” Warren Buffett says.

My maternal grandfather was born in the former Coca-Cola republic of Mello Yellistan.

When he told me this in a phone call yesterday (we were talking about the death of his friend, former Coca-Cola president Don Keough), I assumed he was talking about his stock portfolio.

"You'll be dead soon, too, right?" naturally segued into a discussion of his coke habit.

No, Buffett explained, “If I eat 2700 calories a day, a quarter of that is Coca-Cola. I drink at least five 12-ounce servings. I do it everyday.”

Until I can learn to subsist on the misery I cause like some kind of perverse solar panel, this will have to do.

One 12-ounce can of Coke contains 140 calories. Typically, Buffett says, “I have three Cokes during the day and two at night.

Yes, one of the world's wealthiest men is a hopeless prole-drink addict.

Look at me, I'm acting young!

“I’ll have one at breakfast,” he explains, noting that he loves to drink Coke with potato sticks.

That "banality of evil" guy really nailed it.

What brand of potato sticks?

For the love of God please tell me so I can completely become you!

“I have a can right here,” he says. “U-T-Z” Utz is a Hanover, Pennsylvania-based snack maker. Buffett says that he’s talked to Utz management about potentially buying the company.

"I already have extensive experience branding and selling poison."

Investors in Berkshire Hathaway may feel relieved that the CEO isn’t addicted to Utz Potato Stix at every breakfast. “This morning, I had a bowl of chocolate chip ice cream,” Buffett says.

You've got to wonder if he also sleeps in bed mocked up to look like a race car. 

Asked to explain the high-sugar, high-salt diet that has somehow enabled him to remain seemingly healthy, Buffett replies: “I checked the actuarial tables, and the lowest death rate is among six-year-olds. So I decided to eat like a six-year-old.” The octogenarian adds, “It’s the safest course I can take.”

I guess those Michelle Obama school lunch reforms never caught on.

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Komment Korner  

I think people have gone overboard with healthy foods, diets, and exercise.

I wouldn't suggest that be a diet someone has all their life.

He's not staying "young", He's going to die soon and good riddance.

Basically, when you have enough money, you become very tolerant of many ailments that would be devastating to us common folk.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: Artist Tracey Emin Whoops as Her "My Bed" Fetches Over $4 million

Some guy once observed that one of the signs of civilization collapsing is "art becomes freakish and sensationalistic instead of creative and original." This is great news for us, of course, because our artistic outputs have never been better. From billionaire industrialist vampires that like it rough to the sustained excellence created by network television it's an embarrassment of riches on the cultural front. Now we can add the bed of some woman with a busted face to this already fully stocked pantry.

Tracey Emin's "My Bed," complete with cigarette butts, crumpled sheets and underwear, sold for 2.5 million pounds ($4.25 million) on Tuesday, a record for the artist, who was present at the auction and applauded and whooped delightedly.

"Yee-haw! I can't believe this shit actually worked!"

It calls to mind the story of the boy who decided to sell lemonade for 100k per glass. "Do you really expect a lot of people to pay such an outrageous price?" someone asks.

"I only need one."

Emin's 1998 work, which fetched over 1 million pounds above its top estimated price, and a Francis Bacon portrait of Lucian Freud, which sold for 11.5 million pounds, were the show stoppers in a 75 strong collection of portrait-themed works auctioned by Christie's.

I'm guessing the portrait of the first viscount of St. Alban was a real, legitimated painting, you know like back in the bad days before Smart Phones and Instagram, and not a picture of some guy named Francis made out of literal bacon. You have to ask, just to be sure.

The auction house said it was very rare for an artist to attend an auction, and it demonstrated the connection Emin felt to the highly personal work.

See, not a half-assed stunt to take money from wealthy fools at all! This is "highly personal," in the same way what I flushed down the toilet earlier today is.

The price reached for Emin's work, described by the auction house as an iconic piece of 1990s British art, quadrupled her previous sale price record, but Christie's said the market was not overheating.

"In a fair world my soiled bed would be sold for Manhattan Island."

This is art. (Dat face, doe.)

People are really making distinct choices. Its a very subjective response to works," Brett Gorvy, Christie's international head of post-war and contemporary art, said after the sale.

He was later seen literally swimming in money.

Around 190 bidders from 28 countries took part in the auction, Christie's said, with interest from Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia.

Their interests and motives ranged from "get something for that wing of the museum where the art students sneak off to fornicate" to "prove I'm a man of culture despite my total and complete debasement."

But the price was a relatively poor showing for a Bacon piece compared with his recent record-breaking at auction.

The massive, white-hot popularity of the man who arguably created empiricism. They just go crazy for that Baconian method, man.

Some of the proceeds from the Bacon sale will be diverted to two charities championed by Dahl, and by his family since his death in 1990.

I honestly thought we'd talk about that whole "bed thing" more.

All the buyers from the auction chose to remain anonymous, meaning Emin will have to wait to find out whether her Turner short-listed work will end up in a museum, a wish she expressed the week before.

Totally Dissipated Wealthy Bastards With Horrible Taste, Anonymous.  Step One: admit you can't control your need to buy ordinary items from someone who looks like they were hit in the face with a sack of nickels.

Also, "This belongs in a museum!" shouts Dr. Jones as he battles Poison Claw assassins for the possession of empty cigarette packs and maybe a bottle or two.

Fifteen years ago, the startlingly human elements of the work, which includes discarded condoms and stained sheets, caused a sensation, raising questions about what was and was not art.

In unrelated news, that guy I mentioned earlier also thought "obsession with sex and perversions of sex" was not a sign of societal health. Like I said, unrelated. Don't know why I brought that up.

Speaking ahead of the auction, Emin told Reuters TV that the work felt like "a ghost."

This is one ghost that deserves to be busted.

"I feel quite sad, and I feel that it's like a fragment of time," she added.($1 = 0.5877 British Pounds)

I like how this article abruptly ends with an exchange rate, possibly the only information of any value in the entire thing. It's late, but we'll take it.

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Check Out My Books! Millions of Dollars not Required!

Aaron Zehner is the author of "Posts from the Underground," now available in paperback and e-book. Read free excerpts here and here.

His first novel "The Foolchild Invention" is also available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.