'I'm only paper!' the pruner swirled.
Gentle readers, your sweet attention is most appreciated (provided you don't stare) as we impart unto you this most fantastical tale of:

THE SPÄTEN SONG

or

How the Rubber Bomb Found its International Anthem
and Avoided Shelling-Out Dime One to some Echo Park
Crackpot Who Wanted, like, $6-friggin-50 or Some
Such Nonsense to Write a Theme Song, to Which
We Briskly Responded, "Hit the bricks, Segovia!"
Prior to the Glorious Discovery of the Späten Song
Whose Story We Will Relay Forthwith


In our first installment of this majestic account of the uniting of two entities, the Rubber Bomb will not censor even the most intimate and electrifying details. Nor will it ever. Neither the Rubber Bomb nor the Späten Song have anything to hide regarding their sacred and beautiful covenant of bliss. They're only hiding the fact that they're wanted in Massachusetts for pandering. It seems that until recently they thought the charge involved a giant Asiatic bear. And if it were, they'd have nothing to hide about it, see?

Our story centers around the Späten Song, whose dulcet verse has the power to conduct the very tides of passion that rise, fall and flow within the breast of every man, and Everyman, whose introduction to this sweetly-phrased flower gave birth to its idolatry on the pages of the Rubber Bomb!

(Oh, yeah, then there is the other Rubber Bomb guy, the Lawyer, who actually found the Späten Song and nearly gave his life to defend it, blah, blah, blah. . . He ain't writing the intro. I am. So Lawyer can take a powder if he don't like it.)

We have presented our tale in bite-sized morsels with a short quiz at the end of each chapter in order to test reading comprehension levels, measure specific skills and bilk the government out of educational grant money in order to cover the bath we took on the E-Pudding.com IPO. And who doesn't enjoy a good test, eh? An example follows:


Questions

The main idea of this story is

Everyman is the leader of the Rubber Bomb.
The Späten Song can suck a golf ball through a garden hose.
Lawyer better mind his Master P's and Stacy Q's or he'll be out on his ass.


The Rubber Bomb theme song was almost written by

Mac Davis
Yngwie Malmsteen
Some Echo Park neo-hippie freak who lives at 8212 Lemoyne St., #2G
     and deserves a good ass-whoopin'


Lawyer can make up for that horrible E-Pudding.com IPO tip by

Laying off Everyman for the itty-bitty dent that he put in Lawyer's
     piece of shit car because you can hardly see it anyway.
Laying off Everyman about the Superbowl bet because the line was 7
      -- NOT 7 and a half -- so it's a push not a loss and Lawyer knows it!
Laying off Everyman for accidentally selling his Zenyatta Mondatta CD because
     anybody can make a mistake and besides he's got all the good songs on
     the greatest hits CD anyway.
All of the above

The Späten Song: Chapter 1
to CHAPTER 1



CAN I STILL GET TO ISSUE 1?