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Jun 04 2015
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Pop Culture Mysteries

Pop Culture Mysteries – Enter the Blond – Part 3

PREVIOUSLY ON POP CULTURE MYSTERIES: ENTER THE BLONDE 

PART 1 – Detective Jake Hatcher arrives in his office to find a mysterious blonde dame…

PART 2 – …who seems to know an awful lot about our fearless  private eye.

Attorney Delilah K. Donnelly, Examiner of Bookshelf Q. Battler's Legal Briefs (That's not an inappropriate pun or anything, he really gives her a crap ton of paperwork.)

Attorney Delilah K. Donnelly, Examiner of Bookshelf Q. Battler’s Legal Briefs
(That’s not an inappropriate pun or anything, he really gives her a crap ton of paperwork.)

“I’m here to offer you a very lucrative deal, Mr. Hatcher.”

How many times had I heard those famous last words uttered to me by a she-devil in a skirt?

“Let me guess,” I said. “You’re going to tell me that you want to hire me to take incriminating photos of your good for nothing husband in the throes of passion with his cheap floozy secretary. Only you’re going to shoot them both before I arrive and when the cops show up, they’ll mistake me for the trigger man. While I’m getting outfitted for a pair of striped pajamas, you’ll be on your way to Barbados with a pile of your dead hubby’s cash. Whaddaya say, sweetheart? Am I warm?”

“You’re ice cold,” the dame said with a chuckle. “My goodness, you certainly are distrustful of the fairer sex.”

“I trust no one, ma’am,” I said. “Dames have just given me more reason not to.”

My uninvited guest puffed away on her filtered cigarette and gave me the old once over with her eyes, looking at me in much the same way a lion must look at a fat gazelle with a gimpy leg.

“I hope one day you’ll learn to trust me, Mr. Hatcher.”

“Doubtful,” I said. “Especially when you’re probably going to try to bat your pretty little eyelashes at me out of a mistaken belief that you can make me fall in love with you and dupe me into killing your husband because you’re too chicken to do it yourself? Did I figure out your fiendish scheme yet?”

“Some detective you are!” the lady said as she snapped off her right glove and stretched out a finely manicured hand, complete with red nails polished so brightly I was able to see my mug staring back at me in them.

“You failed to deduce that there’s no ring on my finger!”

I stared at that dainty hand and silently kicked myself on the inside for letting a clue slip past me. Maybe it was late, maybe it was the extra doses of Jack Daniels, but that gal had gotten one over on yours truly, and I didn’t like it.

Not one bit.

“Even so,” I said. “It’s been my experience that a woman with a body like yours is always up to no good and this palooka didn’t just fall off the turnip truck, see? I think you made a mistake in coming here, sister. The all-day sucker store is two blocks down.”

“You’re really something else, aren’t you Mr. Hatcher?” the dame asked. “My employer warned me about you.”

“Your employer?”

“Yes,” the woman said as she handed me a business card. It read:

Delilah K. Donnelly, Esq.

In-House Counsel for Bookshelf Q. Battler

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Jun 02 2015
6 Comments
Pop Culture Mysteries

Pop Culture Mysteries – Enter the Blonde – Part 1

By: Jake Hatcher, Official Bookshelf Battle Blog Private Eye

Jake Hatcher, Official Bookshelf Battle Blog Private Eye

Jake Hatcher, Official Bookshelf Battle Blog Private Eye

It was a dark and stormy night.

The kind of night where it doesn’t just rain cats and dogs. It pours flabby tabbies and labrador retrievers.

The H20 pumped down from the skies, dancing on the pavement like so many Swan Lake ballerinas. It sloshed all over my wingtips as I buttoned up my trench coat, tilted my fedora downward, and began wondering if an ark wouldn’t be a bad investment.

Luckily, I reached my office before I was swept away to Timbuktu.

Times were tough and money was harder to come by than integrity on network television. All I could afford was a one room hovel above a Chinese restaurant. It worked out well. I was a sucker for moo goo gai pan and my landlady, good ole Ms. Tsang, never failed to have a hot plate full of it waiting for me whenever I came home from a long night of sleuthing.  Gratis.  Free of charge.  I didn’t even have to pay for it.

Ms. Tsang was truly a sweet old gal.

I ate a forkful of my free dinner and headed upstairs to my digs, the door of which was prominently marked:

Detective Jake Hatcher

Private Investigator

Reasonable Rates/No Refunds

I popped open the door and relieved my worn out carcass from my sopping wet coat. The fedora? It stayed on. Many a ne’er-do-well has tried separate this gumshoe from his favorite hat and not lived to tell the tale. I wasn’t about to do the job for them.

My mind was swimming for shore and I was ready to drown it before it started doing the backstroke. I had an appointment with one Mr. Jack Daniels. He was an old friend I knew all too well. Some might say too well, my third ex-wife among them.

I poured myself a shot and there it sat before me, staring me straight in the puss like an uninvited house guest that refused to leave. An angel on my left shoulder told me to pour it out the window and sober up. The devil on my right shoulder told me to guzzle it down and keep ‘em comin.’

The devil won. He always does.

I tilted the glass against my lips and Mr. Daniels’ special prescription for what ailed me trickled through my lips, across my tongue, and down my gullet, where it immediately went to work on making all the bad memories go away.

Liquor – my best friend and my worst enemy.

Mysterious Blond Dame

Mysterious Blond Dame

“A bit rude not to offer a lady a drink, isn’t it detective?”

My heart beat faster than a conga drum in the hands of Matthew McConaughey during one of his special transcendental experiences. I turned around and there she was – a beautiful buxom blonde behind my desk, her shapely keister parked directly in my very own swivel chair.

“If we’re talking about manners ma’am, I assume it’s frowned upon to break into a man’s place of business and act like you own the place.”

She wasn’t your average broad. This dame had a face that could make the angels cry and a body that could convince Satan to turn the heat down in Hell. Lush red lips, flawless china doll skin and although she was sitting on it, I assumed she was packing the kind of caboose that could convince a man to ride the rails all the way to Albuquerque.

“Oh, I assure you there was no break in, Mr. Hatcher,” the dame said. “Your landlady let me in.”

“Oh she did, see?” I asked. “Now why in Sam Hill would she go and do a fool thing like that?”

“I told her we were old friends.”

“Friends?” I asked. “No offense ma’am, but I don’t know you from a hole in the wall.”

My visitor puffed away on a long filtered cigarette. She held it in a hand covered by a black glove that went all the way up to her elbow. Around her neck dangled a strand of pearls, the cost of which could have fed a small country.

She dressed like she had an account at every boutique on Rodeo Drive and spoke with the perfect and precise diction of a finishing school graduate.

“All friendships must begin somewhere, Mr. Hatcher,” the dame said. “What’s holding up that drink?”

I had half a mind to show her the way out, but my inquisitive side drew me in. I poured a shot of the sweet brown goodness and handed it to her, then suffered the indignity of having to sit down in the rickey chair on the opposite side of my desk, the one I reserved for clients in need of my services.

I checked my watch.

“I’m bushed after a long day of giving the criminal element of Los Angeles the old what for, ma’am,” I said. “So you’ve got five minutes to state your business before I give you the old heave-ho.  No pun intended.”

“My, my, my,” the dame replied. Her lips pursed as they blew out a smokey circle that rose into the moonlight creeping in through my one and only window. “I must say, Mr. Hatcher, you’re the first man I’ve ever met who was in a rush to be free of my company.”

“Now see here, ma’am,” I said, matter-of-factly, “This old gumshoe’s heart has been pierced by more stiletto heels than I care to count. I’m sure you’ve convinced many a sailor to crash his ship on the rocks with your siren’s song, but this fish is wise to the hook in your worm, see? I’m immune to your feminine wiles.”

“Aww,” the dame said as she mocked me with an insincere pouty face. “Poor Mr. Hatcher. Still reeling over the loss of your ex-wives I take it?”

“All three of ‘em,” I said. “But I fail to see how that’s any of your business, doll face.”

“Your first wife, Trixie Bordeaux, she cheated on you with your old partner back in the day when you were a detective for the LA police department, didn’t she?”

“Walked in on them while they were dancing the horizontal mattress mambo in my own house,” I replied. “That’s a sight that can never be unseen.”

“Your second wife, Muffy Sinclair,” the dame continued. “She shot you six times and left you for dead, then ran off to Tahiti with your boorish brother Roscoe.”

“She was a crack shot and yet she managed to miss every vital organ,” I said. “Somewhere deep down that bird was still crazy for me.”

“Your third wife, Constance Connors,” the dame said. “She was the best wife you ever had and yet you fouled that one up on your own.”

“Sad but true,” I said. “I hit the giggle juice hard to dull the pain my first two wives caused me, never realizing I was pushing away the only dame that’d ever been loyal to me until it was too late. She ran away from me faster than a long distance marathon runner on uppity pills.”

“I certainly hope you’ve cured your addiction since then?” the dame asked.

“I can handle my hooch, sister,” I said as I poured myself another shot. “Say, how in the bloody blue blazes do you know so much about me anyway?”

On my desk was a big black briefcase. It wasn’t mine so I knew it belonged to my guest. She popped it open and pulled out a manilla file folder, stuffed to the brim with paperwork.

“I know everything there is to know about you, Mr. Hatcher.”

What’s in store for our fearless detective? Find out tomorrow on Pop Culture Mysteries, an exclusive new feature on the Bookshelf Battle Blog.

Copyright (c)  2015 Bookshelf Q. Battler.  All Rights Reserved.

Images courtesy of a shutterstock.com license.

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Jun 01 2015
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Pop Culture Mysteries

Pop Culture Mysteries – An Introduction

FROM THE DESK OF BOOKSHELF Q. BATTLER

World Renowned Poindexter, Reviewer of Books, Movies, and Cultural Happenings, Champion Yeti Fighter and Blogger-in-Chief of the Bookshelf Battle Blog

Dear 3.5 Readers,

Let’s face it.

I’m not a very important person.

Does that come as a shock? I’m sorry, but it’s true. (Oh, it didn’t come as a shock? Thanks, but play along anyway, OK?).

Out in the wide world, tragedy and terror loom large on the horizon, peaking their ugly faces out from every corner.

BQB's soap box

BQB’s soap box

Every day, people are being killed by hurricanes, blown away bytornados, zapped by lightning, swallowed whole by monsoons, kidnapped by pirates (the billowy shirt kind, not the Somali kind), burnt up in wildfires, or carried away by hideous hungry trolls.

And that’s just in the world outside. At home? Why, you could be moseying along, minding your own business and WAMMO! You spill your ice cold glass of Diet Shasta Orange, slip on the puddle, crack your knogan on the way down and it’s good night daisy.

Did you know the home is the number one place where an accident can happen?  Why, you could drown in a bucket, get a paper cut while opening bills and develop a raging staff infection, or do a jumping jack in an effort to get healthy only to lose your squash to the overhead ceiling fan.

I’m not even going to get into the invisible bacteria growing on your feet, the latest hybrid monkey/bird/alligator/giraffe flu virus outbreak to hit the headlines, how your golf game is going to be interrupted when a celebrity crashes a vintage World War II fighter jet right in the middle of your back swing, or god damn it, the literally millions upon millions of spiders that are crawling up your nose each and every night, laying eggs, and throwing a massive disco dance party in the epicenter of your brain.

I’m not not going to worry about any of that anymore and neither should you.

Why?

See the beginning of this tirade where I did or did not shock you when I informed you I am not an important person.

As such, I have no ability to do anything about the vast multitude of problems that plague the world like a bad haircut on yearbook photo day.

Could I run for and win an elected office and use my wit and wisdom to cure all of society’s ills?

No.

Why?

First, I hate to break it to you, but I’m not all that handsome. I know ladies, I know. I’m sorry to devastate you with this news.

What? You figured it out? All men who spend a lot of time blogging look like a cross between Gollum and a chupacabra? Well, hey, let’s not go that far…um…yeah yeah, all right, that’s fair.

Second, I’m not a gifted public speaker – partly because my tongue ends up tied in more knots than a bag of Rold’s Gold and partly because I speak the truth people need to listen to, not the BS that John Q. Public wants to hear.

Third, I can’t be bought by the man – unless the man represents a prominent book publisher. In that case, then yes sir, my character can die, be reborn, wear a pink tutu, and/or kiss a goat. Whatever you want, sir. You just tell me how hairy you want that goat to be.

The average politician has to be good looking and photogenic, with a million dollar toothy grin. He needs to speak eloquently, with the ability to charm the pants off the room and a soul dark enough to allow him to spoon feed a heaping helping of horse manure with a side of fries to the masses – extra chunky, just how the masses like it.

Yes, if you wish to become a politician, you’ll be forced to compromise your principles in the name of campaign contributions. Those boku bucks come with a zip string that gets attached to your back, allowing the donor to yank on it and force you to regurgitate his agenda, turning you into one great big walking, talking Chatty Kathy doll.

The common man who cares about the average joe has no place in today’s political system. I’m not taking a side here. Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, that weird party that insists on passing a law that would require everyone to wear shoes on their hands and walk upside down…they’re all just a bunch of heads attached to one great big bloated smelly hydra.

To quote the late great Douglas Adams of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fame:

“The major problem – one of the major problems, for there are several – one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”

Be honest folks, do you think good old Abraham “Born in a Log Cabin and Educated Myself by Candlelight” Lincoln could ever get elected today?

No. Those losers on twitter would have a field day with him:

Tonight on Campaign 2016 News Coverage - Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator. Sure, he freed the slaves and held the union together - but can we really be expected to follow a man with a face that craggy?

Tonight on Campaign 2016 News Coverage – Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator. Sure, he freed the slaves and held the union together – but can we really be expected to follow a man with a face that craggy?

My friends, I guarantee you somewhere out there is an Abraham Lincoln-esque individual whose heart is in the right place, whose common sense and can do attitude could lead the world into a new dawn of peace and prosperity but….he’s too fat…too old…has a crooked nose, bad hair, a hella craggy face, or has been plagued by never-ending reports of a third grade scandal during which he picked a booger out of his schnozola and flicked it at an unsuspecting classmate who ended up traumatized for life.

In short, we’ve become a nation of dummies that focus on nothing but insignificant crap and then wonder why our leaders provide us with the same insignificant crap in return.

I don’t know. All I know is that our best possible leader has some problem that he knows the media would use to run roughshod over him and therefore he’s like, “Screw politics! I’m going to sell used Sonatas at the Hyundai dealership in Tulsa!”

“3.5 READERS: BQB – do you have a point?”

Yes! Over a thousand words later, I have a point! I really do.

I DO NOT CARE ABOUT THAT WHICH I AM POWERLESS TO CHANGE.

And if you’re a follower of this blog, then chances are, you don’t either.  (Though if you do, you’re still more than welcome).

What do we do when we can’t change the sad state of affairs the world finds itself in?

We tune out and turn on the TV.

We pop in our earbuds and crank up the Top 40.

We purchase an overpriced bag of popcorn and take in the latest over the top, special effects laden blockbuster.

Hell, I heard a rumor that some people even poke their noses into a book once in awhile.

Pop culture. Open up our gobs and shovel it straight down to the deepest, darkest recesses of our bellies, Hollywood. We can’t get enough of it.

As the world gets worse and the average citizen becomes less able to change things thanks to Larry Lobbyist and Carl Corporation, we find our minds becoming more and more immersed in fictional, fantasy worlds – worlds where we can pretend we’re people that we are not, men and women we could never be, people with a voice, people who can make a difference…

…PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY MATTER!

I don’t know about you, but I devour pop culture like a fat guy at an All You Can Eat Big Mac Buffett because the worlds developed by artists are a thousand times better than the world I live in.

As fans of those worlds, do we matter?

Yes…and…no.

Yes, we matter because Hollywood will occasionally listen to us when we bitch about how they screwed the pooch with our favorite franchise, how they dropped the writing ball and steered our most beloved characters into an impermeable corner, or how sometimes they just do something out of left field (Dexter=Lumberjack??? Why???)

No, because like the other people that Holden Caulfield would call a bunch of phonies, Hollywood is also run by big corporations and CEOS who view you as one more schmuck to plunk down your cash and put your butt in a theater seat. Whether or not you are actually entertained is all too often an immaterial issue.

Can we change that?

No.

But we can ask those elusive questions – “WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN AND THE EVER IMPORTANT, WHY?”

What happened to Mr. and Mr. Brady’s first spouses?

How the hell do Doc and Marty know each other?

Why couldn’t Rose have just gotten on that damn lifeboat like she was told?

Why does Miley Cyrus insist on sticking out her tongue and making a face akin to a weasel suffering from an epileptic seizure?

What time is Hammer Time?

Questions. Like you, I have so, so very many questions about pop culture.

I want to take the plot holes of my favorite movies and TV shows and spackle them over with putty, apoxy, glue, and dare I say, the finest caulk in the land.

I want to analyze celebrity meltdowns and learn why fame, fortune, and adoration of the masses wasn’t enough to keep our favorite stars from hitting the silly sauce, popping the goofy pills, or getting on social media and ranting with all the eloquence of a bull roid raging its way through a china shop.

The long and skinny of it?

I want to learn as much as I possibly can about the fantasy worlds in which my mind temporarily resides from time to time because the powers that be have made the real world around me so utterly unbearable.

ALIEN JONES: Jumpin’ Jupiter, BQB. You sound like you’re reverting to that 1990’s phase where you wore nothing but flannel and played Smells Like Teen Spirit on a continuous loop.

BQB:  Not now, AJ.  I’m on a roll.

My friends, my followers, my 3.5 readers, my dear, dear Aunt Gertrude…it is my great honor to announce a new feature on the Bookshelf Battle Blog:

Pop Culture Mysteries.

I have questions about pop culture and I’m sure you do too.

To that end, I have retained the services of a hardboiled 1950’s Sam Spade-esque, film noir style private detective to investigate all the questions we have about our favorite movies, TV shows, music, and yes even books.

Stop by every week as Jake Hatcher, Official Bookshelf Battle Detective takes our questions, sniffs out the clues, snoops around the suspects, chases down the leads, and reports back here with his findings.

It’s going to be one helluva ride, readers. Along the way, we might even learn how a 1950’s sleuth ended up in modern times.

As we speak, Detective Hatcher is hot on the trail of the questions listed above and more are on the way.

For reasons that will soon be made clear, he has committed to investigate no less than one hundred pop culture mysteries for the benefit of my readers before he’ll be able to renegotiate his contract.

Do you have a pop culture mystery that my resident gumshoe needs to unravel?

Tweet it to @bookshelfbattle or leave it #popculturemysteries

Leave it in the comments or on my Google Plus page

You’ll have to use me as an intermediary because, you know, Jake’s from the 1950’s and is still getting up to speed on computers.

Noble readers, as always, thanks a million for stopping by.

I don’t know why, but I have a feeling in my gut that this feature will be the one that makes bookshelfbattle.com blow up.

ALIEN JONES: I have that feeling in my gut too. It’s the after shocks of that rancid seven layer dip you bought at the quick-stop and served during Scandal night.

BQB: Can you…not tell the audience that Scandal night is a regular thing at BQB HQ? Please? OK

AJ: What? The Yeti already knows. And everyone knows that the three forms of mass communication are telephone, telegraph, and tell-a-yeti.

BQB: He is a relentless gossip. It’s true.

Thanks folks. I’ll let Jake take it from here.  Stop by bookshelfbattle.com for the the first episode of POP CULTURE MYSTERIES!

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May 17 2015
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BQB and the Meaning of Life

BQB and the Meaning of Life – Part 3 – A Place Between Heaven and Hell

PREVIOUSLY ON BOOKSHELF Q. BATTLER AND THE MEANING OF LIFE…

PART ONE – “Oh no!  I ate a pop tart full of concentrated lightning then died whilst on the commode!”

PART TWO – “What?  Why am I in a 1930’s speakeasy?”

“Say!  Who’s this gal who keeps plying me with booze?”

“And who the heck is this bald bearded guy in the cod piece that won’t shut up?”

AND NOW BOOKSHELF Q. BATTLER AND THE MEANING OF LIFE CONTINUES…

Shakespeare digs Skyfall.

Shakespeare digs Skyfall.

“William Shakespeare, at your service,” the man said as he outstretched his hand toward me. I just stared at it.

“Mr. Bookshelf, ’tis an old custom for two parties who have just met to grasp one another’s hands and shake them up and down in a vigorous manner for the purpose of demonstrating that neither party is holding a weapon that could be used to disfigure or maim the other party, thus establishing a sense of trust.”

“Oh right!” I said as I shook his hand. “It’s honor to meet you, Mr. Shakespeare!”

“Please. Just call me Bill.”

“OK Bill,” I said. “Wait. How do you know my name?”

“I read your tenth grade term paper about me for Mrs. Houlihan’s English 101 Class.”

“Seriously?” I asked.

“Don’t be flattered,” Bill said. “One of the many magical powers you receive in the afterlife is the ability to instantly know what anyone anywhere in the world is saying about you at any time. For the average person, it is manageable. Maybe your Cousin Irene or Uncle Bob occasionally say something nice about you…or something bad about you as the case may be.”

I sucked on my beer helmet straw, riveted to every word my new acquaintance was saying.

“For a deceased celebrity, the skill is extremely irritating,” Bill said. “And for yours truly, the most celebrated author of the English language, it is downright insufferable. Every time a pimply faced teenager writes down, ‘Umm…I mean, like, Shakespeare was OK I guess…’ the sentiment is instantly zapped into my brain.”

Bill grabbed the sides of his head and massaged his temples.

“Blast! There’s another one!”

“Sorry,” I said. “Geez, I always thought it would be cool to be a celebrity. That’s why I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I never knew you were all so tortured.”

“You don’t know the half of it, honey,” the waitress said as she handed another martini to Bill. “F. Scott Fitzgerald and Truman Capote are always in here debating about which of one of them had it worse.  Writers are lousy with ennui.”

“Tell me about it,” I replied.

The waitress checked the levels on my beer helmet, poured some more into each container, then walked away.

As soon as I was sure the waitress was out of earshot, I turned to Bill.

“Is that…”

“Who, her?” Bill asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Who is she? I’ve seen her all over TV but I can’t think of her name.”

“She’s an amalgamation,” Bill responded.

“A what?”

The Waitress - aka

The Waitress – aka “The Most Beloved Female Celebrity of Your Generation Who Died Too Soon.”  Who does she look like to you?

“A hallucination. A magical, metaphysical trick,” Bill explained. “To every individual in this establishment, our waitress looks like the most beloved deceased female celebrity of the aforementioned individual’s generation. There have been so many female entertainers loved by many who departed the physical realm much too soon.”

“Wow,” I said.

“To Mr. Einstein, she looks like the late actress Marilyn Monroe,” Bill said. “To me, she appears in the grim visage of Sir Lionel Scarsbrook of Glastonbury-upon-Stratshire.”

“Sir Lionel who?” I asked.

“Women were not allowed upon the stage in my day, Mr. Bookshelf,” Bill said. “Acting – very physically demanding work, you know. All the running around, shouting, crying, laughing, sword play and so on. Women were not believed to have the constitutions necessary for the theater so men donned dresses, wigs, and make-up in order to play the female parts.”

“That’s stupid,” I said.

“Call it stupid if you like, good sir, but even in full beard Sir Lionel could act circles around Katherine Heigl.”

“Agreed,” I said. “But whoever she is, why is she here?”

“People tend to be very uncomfortable when they first arrive in this place,” Bill said. “Seeing a beloved female celebrity from their generation who died too soon tends to have a calming effect on newcomers. People are so happy to see her up and walking around again they don’t worry about anything else.”

“I do miss her,” I said.

“Everyone from your generation does,” Bill replied.

We sat on the couch in silence for awhile, sipping our respective drinks.

Finally, I had to ask.

“Bill, what is this place?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Bill said.

Out of nowhere, the waitress who bore a striking resemblance to a beloved female celebrity from my generation who passed away too soon, popped up behind me with a pair of vodka bottles, one in each hand.

There was no doubt that I was in some kind of supernatural place, since I was consuming enough booze to drop a thoroughbred race horse and yet I was still moving and grooving.

The waitress removed the beer containers from my helmet, replaced them with the vodka bottles, and inserted the straws.

“I heard you ask him what this place is, honey,” the waitress said. “You’ll need these.”

Like a flash, she was gone again.

“I don’t know your religion so I don’t wish to offend you, Mr. Bookshelf,” Bill said. “And we haven’t much time. To educate you as to the nature of this place requires me to discuss with you a spiritual question that has vexed the people of Earth since time immemorial.”

“Why don’t they just abolish the designated hitter rule?” I asked.

“What is the meaning of life?” Bill said, ignoring my snark. “Whether you refer to him as God, Allah, Buddha, or Lord Gleepglorp from Planet Fuzzlewak or whatever the damned Scientologists call him, there is indeed a being who runs the show. The totality of existence rests within the palm of his hand.”

I slurped away on the vodka.

“Life is a test,” Bill said. “A trial designed to test the mettle of souls.”

Bill looked at me. He must have noticed the dumbfounded expression on my face. It was dumber than usual.

“I am a legendary wordsmith and yet I struggle to find the right words to explain this to you,” Bill said.

I looked at Bill and the words rolled right off my tongue.

“All the world’s a stage and the people merely players?”

I raised my right eyebrow in a comically quizzical manner, totally proud of myself for thinking of that.

“Precisely,” Bill said. “Call this deity by any name you wish, but all he has ever asked is that people live life on Earth to the best of their abilities. Get up everyday, try your best, avoid committing evil acts upon your fellow man and in the end, he finds a place for you in Heaven.”

“Where everything is free?” I asked.

“Where everything is free,” Bill replied.

“And I get to chat with my favorite writer of all time while the most beloved female celebrity of my generation who died too soon fetches me drinks?” I asked.

“Snacks too,” the waitress said as she plopped a family-sized bag of chili cheese nacho chips on my lap.

“Do you want a tip or something?” I asked the waitress. “I’m told money has no meaning here but is there something I can do to thank you? Your service has been excellent and I feel bad for not pointing it out.”

The waitress’ eyes teared up. She leaned in and pecked a tiny kiss on my cheek.

“Oh my,” she said. “All this time I’ve spent here and no one has ever inquired about thanking me before.”

“Seriously?” I asked.

“Seriously,” she replied.

“So is there anything I can do?” I asked.

“No thank you,” the waitress said. “Your general display of exuberance over my prompt serving abilities is all the thanks I need.”

As she walked away, Bill shot me a “told you so” expression.

“No one’s ever offered to tip her before?” I asked. “The bar to get into Heaven is set pretty low, huh?”

“And thus, good sir,” Bill said. “It is my sad and unfortunate duty to inform you that you are not in Heaven.”

I was shocked. My mind raced. Where was I? Was I in Hell?

“I knew it,” I said. “I’m in Hell. For Christ Sake’s, I forget to hit the ‘like’ button on Cousin Phil’s vacation photos and they send me to the nether regions of human existence for all eternity!”

“Relax,” Bill said. “It’s not as bad as all that either.”

Whew. What a relief. I cracked open the bag of nachos and munched away. I offered some to Bill.

“No thank you,” Bill said. “They give me gas most foul.”

Where is Bookshelf Q. Battler?  Find out in the next installment of Bookshelf Q. Battler and the Meaning of Life!

Copyright (C) Bookshelf Q. Battler 2015.  All Rights Reserved.

Waitress photo courtesy of a shutterstock.com license.

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May 01 2015
6 Comments
Movie Reviews

Movie Review – Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

Iron Man!  Thor!  Hulk!  Captain America!  Black Widow!  Hawkeye!  Various and sundry other Avengers!

ASSEMBLE!

It’s time for Bookshelf Q. Battler’s review of Avengers: Age of Ultron!

Dun…dun dun da dun…dun dun…dunnnnn….dun dun da dun dun dun!

Sorry, that was me trying to sing the Avengers’ theme song.  Doesn’t translate well through the written word.

The summer movie season is has arrived and Hollywood is coming out swinging with this superhero extravaganza.

If you SPOILERS make you angrier than Bruce Banner with a stubbed toe, you might not want to click below:

Continue reading →

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