Hell Town, U.S.A.

A story told in six sentences


by Joseph Lupoli


It's a train wreck of a city that's still paralyzed and broken; a fact apparent even after twenty-five-years of being away. As I slowly cruise down Broadway, navigating around potholes, some large enough to swallow a lawnmower, my eyes and nose are suddenly assaulted by the trash-laden landscape.

 It is quite evident, in a surreal sort of way, nothing much has changed in my old home town. Filth and decay encompass everything in sight and yellowed newspapers flutter about in winter's wind like giant urban butterflies with bad eyesight, and the town's stagnation is further emphasized by a mile-long twisted row of busted up cars parked every which way except properly. 


It's plain to see that, even now, the local police department is just a call and response team; no time to enforce little lax laws, like littering, loitering, lap-dancing, lurking, or any other inconsequential L.

And as I pass by a large group of empty-eyed thugs leaning against a fence, some sipping 40 ounce bottles of Old English 800, it then occurs to me: I sure as hell didn't begin martial arts study as a little kid because my step parents thought I looked good in a gi.

So A Guy Walks Into A Psychiatrist's Office

A story told in six sentences


by Joseph Lupoli


On the waiting-room rack rests a familiar sea of psych med pamphlets with subliminal cover pictures of various pretty ladies frolicking along woodland trails or strolling golden sand dunes, or standing around laughing it up in delightful sun-drenched outdoor social settings with other pretty ladies and their handsome suiters with airbrushed teeth.
 I reach over and grab a pamphlet featuring a buxom brunette pushing her kid on a swing.


It extoles, in a Robin Leach sort of way, the virtues of Lexapro as the answer for Major Clinical Depression. But Robin fails to include a vital piece of information about Lexapro that I already know: kiss your sex-life goodbye. Even a twenty-five-year-old Sophia Loren wouldn't be able to lap-dance your over-cooked elbow macaroni back to life. 


So, when my shrink appears, interrupting my reverie to announce, "Mr. Lupoli ... please come in," I decide to tell her about last night's dream, the recurring  one.

Dog!

A story told in six sentences


by Joseph Lupoli


And there I was, minding my own business, strolling to work along a narrow dirt trail in the middle of a large barren field on a suffocatingly humid and eerily quiet morning, when I first heard the angry barking. 


The racket was coming from an empty, dilapidated house about fifty yards away. Well this fucking sucks, I thought, as the biggest and meanest and most muscular Doberman Pincher I ever saw in my life was making a fast beeline right toward me. 


That meant I had about four seconds to forget about why this psychotic wildebeest on steroids wanted to eat me in the first place, and I instead concentrated on its gnashing shark fangs and its cold frenzied eyes glued to my throat, while it sprinted at me with extreme prejudice like Secretariat in a bad mood careening down the backstretch thirty lengths ahead of the field at Churchill Downs. 


I wasn't willing to risk timing a low roundhouse kick to the Doberman's prehistoric head because if I missed, my pivot leg would be instantly devoured. 


So with zero seconds left on the clock, I knelt down really low, stared straight at the ground, and then divine intervention took over, because for some unfathomable reason, Jaws suddenly screeched to a halt and began licking my face and hands while furiously wagging her little nub of a tail.

When Fear Works

A true story (not the picture) told in six sentences


by Joseph Lupoli


Before the sun had risen enough to spread its first teasing ray of bitter cold, purple light upon us, I watched the chopper zoom upward from our LZ and quickly spin around and head north, its rope ladders pulled up along the way.

With silence restored, our twelve-man Delta Company platoon unit stood up, brushed off our dark gray field uniforms, and commenced a speed-march south down the thin, knotty trail, moving in string formation so that in the event of a grenade attack not all of us would get killed.

Only hours before, we were briefed on the latest intelligence: a small but heavily armed group of rebels were holed up in the catacombs of a dilapidated soccer stadium, purportedly to launch a raid against government loyalists sometime that day.

Our mission was not to kill the bastards, but to disarm and prep them for evacuation to Interrogation Headquarters.

We stopped within two kilometers to set up surveillance when suddenly a .50 caliber machine gun opened up, scattering us like rats and forcing each man to dive for the nearest available tree wide enough to hide a torso.

And when the first mortar hit, I realized that my tree wasn’t wide enough to protect a hamster, but just as I was about to race toward a bigger tree, the whistle blew—our Advanced Special Forces Combat Training exercise at Fort Benning, Georgia had concluded for the day.

Late Night Commercial Break

From The Apex Man told in six sentences (6S)

By Joseph Lupoli

So—you call yourself a writer…when all you know is how to compose and present beautifully written and captivating novels and short stories? Are you perplexed when agents and publishers turn you down time and time again, especially when many of the best-selling authors you read write nothing but flat, generic, easily forgettable beach book blather?

Well, here at the Apex Technical School of Bogus Creative Writing, we’ll teach how to pen and submit smut, junk, basic blood-and-gore-trash, and even children’s books by accident! But that’s not all! If you act now, we’ll get you started in our comprehensive workshop that will teach you how to downgrade your talent to the point where you’ll be able to write in a typo laden, loathsome, threadbare, shock-value-only style that will cause agents and publishers to say YES! But remember, we can’t call you—you must CALL US!

The Fixodent Fighting Championships (The FFC)

By MMA analyst Joseph Lupoli

It’s the future of MMA.

While it may not save the likes of Ken Shamrock, I think a 40-and-up MMA league is long overdue. Aging fighters should be rewarded, not neglected or tossed out like yesterday’s newspaper. Remember: Somebody’s bruised; over-ripe bananas are somebody else’s tasty banana bread. Wouldn’t you like to see Bas Rutten vs. Don Frye go at it? It can be billed as: “Age in the Cage.” Well, here at the Fixodent Fighting Championships, you can have your Cream of Wheat and eat it too!

For starters, the heavyweight division is stacked with crotchety, arthritic warriors. Some were light heavyweights in their prime, but these days they need ‘relaxed-fit’ jeans. Besides Bas and Don, we’ve got, Dan “The Least” Severn (who is, at 52, already reaping AARP benefits); there’s Mark “The Hammered” Coleman, Randy “Captain Crunch” Couture (especially if he can’t get by “Block” Lesnar); we have David “Tanked” Abbot, and Maurice “I Beat Abbot” Smith.

But wait! Why even bother with weight-classes? These grandpas are already in a separate age class. Hell, since they’ll soon be too old to train, let’s just call it “The Overweight Division.” Toss them all in … even the guys who are not yet age-40, but almost.

How about inviting Royce, Carlson, and Rorion “Graceless”, Kimo “Slice” Leopoldo, Shonie “Mr. International House of Pancakes ” Carter, Gary “Big Granddaddy” Goodrich, Jeremy “Ear” Horn, “Toto” Ortiz, “Cry” Metzger, Wallid “Ugly As Sin” Ishmail, John “Big Bust” Dixon, and Chuck “Canvasback” Liddell.

Of course, we need a referee who’s old enough to identify with the fighters, but young enough to remember their names. So, who better than the former LA cop and UFC veteran, Big "Job" McCarthy”? He wasn’t really ready for retirement anyway. And to insure fighter safety, four fight doctors, including a heart surgeon, a geriatric nurse, and an Alzheimer’s specialist should be in the ring during all fights.

Picture this: Instead of having the fighters aggravating their gout and bursitis by walking to the cage or ring all the way from the locker-room, they should drive themselves there in MMA approved Power Scooters. And for Heaven’s sake, replace those hard ring-stools with Lazy-boy recliners. Also, oxygen tanks should be fastened to the outside of each ring-post or cage-post. I mean, what if some poor sap has a seizure while in the clinch? Have him suck on some oxygen, then resume the action.

Also, it might be a good idea to hold FFC events close to a hospital and an “Independent Living Retirement Community.” There, fighters can train in water aerobics and shuffle-board to keep their minds and bodies sharp in between fights.

Now for the fight structure: Three 5-minute rounds with a one hour break in between rounds. And to keep the fans entertained during the breaks, Jackie Mason and Jerry Stiller can provide some MMA related stand-up (or sit-down) routines. Maybe Wayne Newton and Tony Bennett can woo the ladies with a few numbers.

Just think of the promotional possibilities here! I’ll bet there’s Probate Attorneys who are dying to buy space on the fighter’s trunks. That would practically finance the entire venue. Instead of MMA gear logos and energy drinks names plastered on the ring/cage canvas, the ring posts, and on the fighter’s trunks, replace those with geriatric products. Nobody wants to talk about ‘Depends’ and ‘Preparation H’, and Metamucil, and that’s exactly why those companies will pay big bucks for advertising space.

And last but certainly not least, especially in this case, save a spot on the canvas for Guardian Health and Life Insurance.

With this kind of a set-up, Randy Couture could become the Jack LaLanne of MMA!