(UPDATE ON LAST WEEK’S ARTICLE: There’s been an overwhelming number of outraged letters-to-the-editor, angry phone calls, and bricks through my house windows in response to last week’s installment of Oddz’s Jobz: Male Stripper. I apologize for my behaviour on-stage at The Man Hole. I’ve since been banned from all strip joints in the Greater Opa-Locka area. Doris Lechtman, I apologize for ruining your 50th birthday bash. And for taking that lap dance too far. Way too far. I hereby offer to pay your dry cleaning bill. I also apologize for the comments I made to your ugly friend. Ugly Friend, I’d like to state for the record that I would totally do you. But only in the dark. Not low light. I’m talking a PITCH BLACK environment.)
They pillage. They plunder. They rape. They maraud. They murder. They rape. They disembowel. They rape. Yes, I know I’m repeating myself. They rape a lot.
They’re the scourge of the Caribbean. But don’t look to the seas in fear, gentle reader. Look upwards to the skies!
Sky piracy has been a business teetering on the brink of collapse ever since the Hindenburg disaster of 1937. Captain Jack Karnage, 63, son of legendary airborne buccaneer Don “The Plundering Wonder” Karnage, explains his father’s main targets were the dirigibles. “The German Zeppelins mainly,” says Karnage. “Wealthy clientèle. Them was the days. Them Zeppelins was like fruit just waiting to be picked off the tree. That big tasty sky tree.”
But that sky tree wouldn’t always be fruitful. The air pirates’ lucrative sky harvest came to an abrupt halt in 1937. Even after over eighty years, the Hindenburg disaster still remains a sore spot for the Karnage clan and all air pirates in general.
“Only 35 people died,” argues Karnage, “out of 97. That’s only like… a small percentage of people! Big freakin’ tragedy. Boo-dee-fucking-hoo!”
Karnage believes the severity of the incident to be blown out of proportion as part of a conspiracy. “A conspiracy,” states Karnage, “propagated by jealous sea pirates and the liberal Jewish media.”
Immediately following this anti-Semitic tirade, an agitated Karnage wildly swings his rapier in the air in an attempt to swat a fly he believes “ be spyin’ for the Jews.”
The shadow of financial hardship is evident as Jack Karnage leads me on a tour of his super secret hideout – a hollowed out volcano on Pirate Island. The Captain gave me specific instructions not to reveal this location. He threatened to kill my wife and rape my children. Joke’s on you, Karnage. I don’t have any children!
The mighty treasure halls of Karnage Keep are bare. The once-packed hangar now only holds a handful of planes. His massive airship, the Iron Vulture, lies dormant, dusty and in disrepair. The former flagship of Karnage’s terrifying air fleet hasn’t flown in six years. “Nowadays you’d waste half a year’s profit puttin’ diesel in that beast.”
I walk past bedroom after empty bedroom in the servants’ quarters. Jack can’t afford servants like his dad.
“I can’t even afford to feed slaves,” he says. “I tried starvin’ ‘em to death. But it even got too expensive to incinerate the corpses. I can’t just leave ‘em out in the sun. You’d get all them birds circlin’ overhead People’d get suspicious, find my hideout, and bam! I’m back in jail. Plus I got two boys, 8 and 10. They’re too scrawny to bury that many bodies.”
Jack Karnage considers modern airliner raids “too messy” after his father’s decades-long attempts “be always endin’ with an air buccaneer gettin’ sucked into one of them jet engines. Pappy thought it was funny. Till it happened to him. Who’s laughin’ now, ya old scurvy sky dog?” The new Captain Karnage and his sky pirates (or “skyrates” as they call themselves) now stick to the much less lucrative hot-air balloon crowd as their main source of income. Winter is the busiest season. “Wealthy people on Christmas vacations in the islands,” says Karnage.
Sure, it ruins their Christmas. And if there’s kids involved, it scars them for life. But Karnage defends his actions: “I’m a father. I want my kids to have a merry Christmas, too. And if I have to steal that Christmas from someone who worked hard to earn it for his family, then so be it. What I’m doing, it’s kinda noble in a way. Like Robin Hood. And Jesus.”
The stolen balloons are sold on eBay, where they can bring in upwards of $30,000. “We make a killin’ off those round-the-world balloon races,” says Karnage. An experimental racing balloon can bring in six figures.
But what about the hostages? “We ransom them back to their families and loved ones for a pretty penny.” Karnage doesn’t like taking hostages. It’s against the Skyrate Code of 1923 – a code his father drafted, but in these uncertain times it’s the only way air piracy can stay afloat. “Plus,” adds Karnage, “rules are for pussies.”
Woah, that was heavy! That Captain Karnage dude just spent most of the article bitching ‘bout how his life sucks. And I had to spend the whole interview pretending I gave a shit! But don’t worry, faithful reader, Fenson Oddz kicks things up a notch™ when Karnage takes me out on a balloon raid! This remains one of my most totally awesome Oddz’s Jobz experiences – somewhere in between all girls’ school janitor and mammogram technician.
I ride with Captain Karnage in his open-cockpit biplane. Jet planes are clearly too costly to fuel. I’m getting dust and smoke in my eyes! Fucking cheapskate. Karnage’s crew uses an elaborate web-like series of nets, ropes, and aerial acrobatics to catch their fly-like balloon prey. Way too many loop-dee-loops involved in that maneuver. I totally puke. And since it’s open-cockpit I puke in my face. And swallow some of it too. Fucking asshole.
We slide down ropes into the basket of the hostage balloon. Karnage says something clever and witty to the quivering couple – but I say fuck that douche-hole! I’m running this show ‘cause this is my article.™ And ‘cause Fenson Oddz is totally pro fo’ sho!’™ (My trademarked catchphrases are totally awesome-o!) I don’t need some geezer pirate telling me how to do his job!
I hold my .45 against the husband’s head (sideways, just like in those John Woo flicks, totally badass!) and make him “walk the plank” just like the kick ass pirate I am. Turns out balloons don’t have planks. So I just push him overboard.
Old man Karnage goes all Krakatoa at this point.
“What the fuck ya do that for?” Karnage demands.
“Isn’t that a pirate thing, walk the plank?” says I.
“A sea pirate thing! Not a sky pirate thing! When ya walk the plank on a sea ship you’re only falling 8-10 feet into water. You got 75% chance of survival. You, you just fuckin’ killed a man! We only kill in self-defense. We’re air pirates! Not air murderers!”
Totally not cool. But not my fault because Fenson Oddz shouldn’t be held responsible for his actions!™ (I wonder if they only rape in self-defense!)
I try to defend my actions but am rudely interrupted by the dead dude’s wife blasting me in the kneecap with my .45. She fires a few warning shots at my crew. Karnage and my crew totally ditch me with that vengeful bitch. Before blacking out from extreme blood loss (which is totally trippin’, highly recommend it) I overhear an angry Karnage holler something about me “conspiring with the Hebrew.”
I must admit this still turned out much better than last week’s installment.
So if you’ve got a hankering for airborne skullduggery, sexual assault, and blatant anti-Semitism, then sky piracy may be the job for you!
NEXT WEEK: I learn how to trick people into giving me their social security and credit card numbers in the lucrative job of a prison telemarketer!
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