Under The Bridge

A full-color illustration of an older lady running underneath a dingy bridge. Graffiti text reads: "Robbie", "Damien" and an anarchy symbol can be seen drawn onto the underpass wall.

Kankakee town troll Leona Krabalsky runs from Manteno sociopath and port-a-potty entremanure Peppi Cacca confronts her for selling fake drugs down below the I-57 overpass.

The king of the porcelain throne drunkenly aims a hair-dryer out the passenger side of his poopmobile while his equally crappy wife Bernadette brags, “My AWESOME husband has “ARI: Armed Redneck Insurance!”

Damien Goes Batty

The world’s largest source of natural gas, Mr. Damien Ulysses Hurlbutt, was captured trying to break into Area 51 while running from the law for a crime he committed in Illinois. Instead of digging a desert hole, the camo dudes brought the bulbous neckbeard narcadoodle to the Alternative Fuels Division for daily flatulence testing.

“Security! Come quick! These bats are crapping all over my cell!” Damien exclaims to guard Becky Konkan.

“Don’t get so worked up, Damien. These are your new friends. Try and get to know them.”

“I’m gonna get rabies!”

“Nope, their testing all came back negative. They’re going to hang around us for awhile.”

“I don’t want them watching me poop…” Damien says as he waves the bats away and they retreat to the ceiling rafters above the cell block, then sits down to pinch a loaf. “Phheeeewwwwww” Damien brags. “Look at the size of that log. Peeew! Peeeew! Peeew!”

MoronicArts Classics: Damien Hurlbutt Storms Area 51

Make it rain with N.F.T.s – Newly Formed Turds! Craptocoin mined the old fashioned way! Ask Bern Cacca how.

“Oh boy oh boy oh boy!” Bourbonnais multiplex clerk, fedora-sporting neckbeard and communal narcadoodle, Damien Hurlbutt exclaims when he gets a link to a message bearing the subject “thank you Damien Hurbutt–old soul and tender-heart.” It has arrived from one of his favourite puppeteers on Fakebook, whom he has been stalking, mailing weekly postcards to her home address.

Damien hems and haws, not used to getting the praise to which he feels entitled. He clicks the link, which leads to a “You Are An Idiot” video, complete with Fakebook comments section on the female performer’s page rightfully poking fun at his narcissistic behavior.

Damien rages due to his narcissistic injury, ego deflated to the size of a pea. He throws his computer out the window, hitting an older lady on the head, instantly killing her.

Bored and fearful he will be locked away forever, without a chance for narcissistic supply, Damien hoovers his ex-wife Lori. Ennui gets the best of him: Damien emerges from nothing by false flagging Lori’s social media content, hoping to get her into Fakebook jail. Instead, Damien goes to real jail – Kankakee County jail – as he awaits his trial for manslaughter and stalking.

Damien’s enabler, fellow communal narcadoodle, and fart-enthusiast Bern Cacca posts bail. Damien goes home, assuming he will get the acquittal to which he feels entitled.

Think again.

A bounty hunter is sent out to sniff out Damien; Bern’s transaction failed because she paid in Craptocoin and burned it all…in her fireplace. 

“The only thing I like better than mining Craptocoin, is burning it…” Mrs. Cacca says as she cooks her books at the Manteno shack she shares with her husband Peppi.

Damien pursues Bernadette, who is not home, nor at work. Damien heads over to the bog she inhabits, which she uses as a bathtub and and slow-cooker for devouring the living. Unfortunately for fugitive Damien, the sign at Bern’s Bog reads “the bog witch is out.”

Damien gets a “fake news” tip sent to his flip-phone by Pat Splatt that Bern went to Area 51 for a toxic secret flatulence experiment. Keep flames away from butts.

Artist’s rendering of secret experiment room

Damien tries to sneak into Area 51 after taking pictures of the “Photography Prohibited” Area 51 “No Trespassing” sign.

Damien heads toward the once-secret base nicknamed “Dreamland” and gets rightfully arrested by the military police.

The officers, tired of shooting people on sight and patrolling the same remote corner of Nevada, decide to bring Damien in and question him. Damien sits down at a metal table, glances down at the floor, all by his lonesome. Out of seemingly nowhere, a group of five military personnel materialize in the room, all facing the bulbous neckbeard. ”Face to Face” by Daft Punk plays over the public address system, beat-matched into a remix of ”Paris 400” by SebastiAn. Area 51’s DJ really likes French House Music.

“Nice floor tiles you have, M’Lady!” Damien smirks, hoping to impress the leader with his negative humor.

Obviously not impressed, the Area 51 security team haul Mr. Hurlbutt into a solitary cell in the top-secret experimentation wing, where human and extraterrestrial scientists work to develop a “super-soldier” performing experiments like turning humans into giant spiders and installing amplifiers into cyborgs to blast Katy Scary music to scare away terrorists.

Damien makes his one phone call to Pat Splatt, asking where Bernadette had gone.

“Bern is at Area 21, not 51”

“Why did you text me she was at Area 51 then?”

“Umm…typo?”

Seasons Yeetings!

Entramanure and communal narcadoodle Bernadette Cacca loves doing charity gigs just to look good on the outside. Gothic Diana Ross & the Midnight Supremes can not wait to try out their new trebuchet to avenge their Manteno neighbor Bernadette for relentlessly nagging them and stinking up the block burning port-a-poopies.

Yeet-o-Matic!

MoronicArts Classics: Bern Book

“Story time with Gothic Diana Ross & The Midnight Supremes? At the Manteno Library? I would say that a trip to Manteno is not complete without spending a few hours at the Manteno Optimal Club with Bernadette Cacca! Hmmpf!”

“Why don’t you start your own book club, honey?” Shapeshifting humanoid turkey vulture Sonya Moran asks her communal narcadoodle, bog-witch niece Bernadette.

“You’re the best!”

“Butt first, a trip to Bucketheads.”

“Why are you going to a hardware store?”

“It’s my own personal prop department!”

“Hot dawg!”

Bernadette pinches a massive loaf upstairs in the washroom while tapping away at her smell phone to announce yet-another-gig her aunt Sonya got her. Ahhh, the stench of nepotism.

BOOK CLUB NIGHT, TUES with yours truly! Join me at @MantenoOptimalClub TONIGHT, AUGUST 18, 9:30pm-3am. What will I read? It’s a surprise!  It’s the hottest new event in Kankakee County!

“I never drank coffee while I was in college. I drank pop,” Gothic Diana Ross complains to the Buckstars staff about her coffee again. 

“What’s this crap? A port-a-potty made out of poop? Do you drop dookie in it, on it, or next to it?” Diana scrolls through her Fakebook feed as she waits for her iced caramel latte to get re-made.

“She’s no Bansky…” Gothic Flo quips.

“I know, we should crash her gig. Maybe we can heckle her or something,” Gothic Mary giggles.

“Well, there is this card game…ooops. Nope, we’re not old enough,” Diana laughs as she reads the community events.

“Oh darn.” The dark gothic beauties share a laugh and drive away from their Gothic Victorian home in their black 1988 Chrysler Conquest TSi.

The Poopy Groupies surround Mrs. Cacca and shower her with a gush of superlatives at the Manteno Optimal Club:

“You’re the best thing that ever happened to Illinois!”

“You make me feel like a star, Bern!”

“It’s the Manteno icon herself! You should be beatified!”

Queen Bernadette rolls out her porcelain throne and makes an announcement:

“Today, I’m here on a campaign to promote regularity!”

The portapotty empress sits on her toilet which she just bought from Bucketheads Hardware and begins to sing from a book:

image: “regular” book

“Being regular is important to me, and I hope it is EQUALLY important to my regulars. I love my Poopy Groupies! Nooowwww–baaaaaack–toooooo-the—booooooooooook!”

The Poopy Groupies hoot, holler and catcall. Yes the cat-calling is sexist but the queen of the porcelain throne does not care what kind of attention she gets, as long as she gets it and she is the center of attention. After all, she feels entitled to it since she does gigs like these for charity.

The cheering crowd of Bernadette bootlickers is cut like a knife from a few voices in the crowd.

“Why are you pooping in public?”

“Oh honey, I am not really pooping. See look, all golf balls!”

image: toilet box on a hardware store shelf. image on box of flushed golf balls. text on box reads: "Flush like a champion."

The crowd roars with laughter.

The Midnight Supremes join in on a tune of their own:

“You can’t hurry death
You just have to wait.
Charon works on his own time,
No matter what prayers you say.”

Upset about getting upstaged, Bernadette throws a fit:

“Do you know who I am?”

“Yeah, an unruly citizen who is obsessed with pooping!”

Awkward silence fills the hall of the Manteno Optimal Club. Eyes roll. People begin to chortle.

“I am reprising my role from the Human Body Odor EXCLUSIVE show, “Dropping the Deuce.”

A voice emerges from the crowd.

“Hey, I have a gift for ya Bernadette!”

Sybil Kibble hands Bernadette a box and walks away as fast she can. Happy for the distraction, Mrs Cacca opens her gift. “Is this for meeee? Oh you are the best.”

Bernadette shows her malcontent for the gift, and even the mere thought behind it. She rambles like a Turd Machine spitting out letter-blocks from a craft store. 

Sybil Kibble escapes Bern’s word-salad diatribe in her trusty Chrysler LeBaron as do the Midnight Supremes in their sleek sportscar.

Bernadette continues to sing and ramble like the moron that she is, as she watches her mug on the community FartTV, ignoring the confused crowd leaving her stupid book club: “Late last night when the moon green, around the corner came a turd machine…shots were fired, a scream was heard…Join me here next week as I livestream again…oh dear.”

The Garden of Dearthly Delights

The Manteno Cantina reviews start to pile up all over social media:

“False advertising! They tricked us into thinking we were attending a Gotion protest when it was really just a stupid talent show. Plus those ‘free tickets’ are not really free because they have a two-drink minimum!”

“Bernadette is one of their many talented performers. She plays the same two-hour set, refuses requests, then demands craptocoins! Come by on any day but Tuesday or Wednesday and enjoy the non-Bernadette singers.”

“The smelliest washrooms in Kankakee County since the dog-food factory closed down.”

“We’re losing business again. Why is it always the same eight people here?” the president of Bernadette Moran Cacca’s fan club, The Poopy Groupies, aunt Sonya Moran asks.

“Maybe we can hire that Hurlbutt kid to do his Elvis act.”

“Nahh.”

“How about we do some remodeling? And a name change? Nobody will know the difference,” suggests Poopy Groupie and neighborhood turd-burglar JB Powers.

“Not a bad idea. I’ll notate that.”

“I don’t know, Sonya, maybe we need more advertising?”

“Yeah, Dorian. That’s a wonderful idea! Woooooh!” Sonya exclaims a bit too hard, holding her brown note a bit too long.

Dorian begins to sing with excitement.

“Oh honey, don’t quit your day job.”

“Umm…Bernadette, my day job IS advertising and design.”

“Oh I mean keep going with that. I am sorry IF I hurt your feelings,” communal narcadoodle Bernadette gaslights in her typical fashion. She has the voice of an angel and the soul of the devil, leaving that bad taste in your mouth but you don’t quite know why.

Text alerts go out to every member of the Manteno Optimal Club via their CrapApp:

Kankakee Idol! Watch and sing along with the best Kankakee County singers, right here in K3! Watch our singing  competition from the comfort of your own home on Cable Access 19, or be a part of the audience in Manteno. Get your free tickets now! Another crappy show brought to you by Peppi’s Portapotties! Bernadette and Peppi Cacca are King and Queen of the Plastic Throne!

Signage has been plastered all over Kankakee County featuring the big cheesy grins of the judges, craptocoin emojis, and this text:

Tomato Karen & The Haggs
“They’re Coming to Take Me Away”

vs 

Wally Green
“Fart Your Birds”

Judges:

Bernadette Cacca
Sonya Moran
Dorian James

With your host, Konrad Teirant!

The day arrives. Emcee Konrad Teirant, one third of Moronic Half Assets and chief cooker of the CRASS books, hopes to make a big bag tonight.

“Live here, this is your host KT on the TV. Tonight at the Manteno Cantina, we have a real salad bar! We also have these ladies! Give it up for Tomato Karen & The Haggs as they sing “They’re Coming to Take Me Away!”

Tomato Karen Napoleon, Demanda Broccoli, Becca Frickfrick and Jamie Turnip try their very best to sing and play their poorly tuned instruments. As the crowd plugs their ears and Bernadette plugs the toilet, Tomato Karen’s ghastly wail raises in pitch and insanity – hitting a high C toward the very end – barely. 

“Thank you for that, whatever that was. Now let’s hear from our awesome judges. Bernadette?”

 “You guys are the GOAT! It’s a wooooooooooo from me!” Bernadette’s mouth opens wide, tongue hanging out as usual.

 “Why am I craving tin cans right now? Oh, speaking of can…” Bernadette runs off stage and straight to her favorite room to mine more craptocoins because she can. It’s potty time!

“Sonya?”

“The Haggs rule this composition. It’s a woo-hoo from me!”

“Dorian?”

 “This song is too repetitive.”

The crowd erupts in boos.

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over. It’s a yeah, no from me.”

Sounds of the disappointed crowd magnify.

“Speaking of boos, be sure to stop by our bar for our awesome drink specials!” Konrad spamvertises the already mad crowd.

“Butt, be sure to text us your votes on your smell phones! 815-555-FART.”

“Thank you Bernadette. You look awesome!”

“No, you!”

“You’re a national treasure Bernadette. This next guy is a real hoot! Tonight we present you Wally Green!” The bulbous, squat, 60-something enters the stage wearing a horizontal striped polo shirt, a fishing cap, and a cheesy grin.

“This one is for alllll the single ladies out there. Wally taps the microphone, causing ear-piercing distortion in the public address system.

“Fart your owls, fart your cockatiels. Let them fly away, let them fly for free. Don’t hug your dog, don’t kiss your cat. Love is what I got so give it all to meeeeeee!”

The three judges look at each other in wonder, confusion and astonishment.

In unison: “This is the dumbest thing we saw all day. It’s a heck-no from us!”

“Be sure to lock in your—“

“No nevermind, the razzy has already been awarded. The loser of Kankakee Idol is, Tomato Karen & The Haggs! Congratulations, you’re the only act we’ve seen that’s worse than Wally Green!”

“This is Konrad Teirant signing off…ooh is this thing on?”

Bernadette Cacca’s Wedding Ring

What type of diamond does Manteno communal narcissist, swamp witch and queen of the porcelain throne Bernadette Cacca wear on her finger?

Bernadette’s idea gone, like a fart in the wind.

Manteno port-o-dump proprietor extraordinaire, communal narc-a-doodle and turd-machine operator Bern Cacca wanted to sell her bottled farts, butt dang it, someone beat her to it.

Sulking, she lights her gas blasts to spark the poopy-burning flames instead.

The Queen of the Plastic Throne enjoys watching the port-a-potty waste gleam in her fireplace, as she sits in her rocking chair, drinking root-beer while watching GG Allin videos.

image: color cartoon depicting cartoon poop emojis burning in the fireplace

Bern Cacca is #PoopingForKaitlin (and Stephanie).

Bernadette Cacca Tries to Unload her Craptocoins.

“Hey you forgot your smokes!” 

Still not aware of the kind stranger returning his ciggybutt cartons, a second person calls out:

“Hey Greg, you forgot your cigarettes.”

Greg grabs the two red packs on which he had been sitting. No longer able to drive, the newly undead Greg had taken the bus to meet up with his lover, Bernadette Cacca at the Manteno Optimal Club where she is performing charity pop covers just for the photo opportunity.

Bern drives Greg home after the gig. Both get lost, not just because someone told them to scram. Fighting over directions, Bern wags her finger and tells her Poopy Groupie “I told you so.”

“What am I going to do with all these NFTs?” asks a puzzled Bernadette.

“What’s an NFT?” the newly undead Greg asks his partner-in-stench.

“Newly formed turds, my turd vault is full! I want to burn them, however they will go bad by the time I burn them all! The craptcoin market is in the toilet!”

Greg gives Bern his trademark devilish grin.

“What about formaldehyde? Don’t you load that into your turd machines?”

Bern folds her arms, turns away from her lover Greg, and walks upstairs to crap.

“You sing like a dying cow!” Bern Cacca yells out her washroom door at her next-door-neighbours The Midnight Supremes, as she pinches a loaf and then burns it in her fireplace. She has unleashed The Kraken.

Enraged, Gothic Diana Ross directs her bandmates so crank their amps up and engage the Marshall Stacks.

Bern peels out her driveway.

Patrick Oswald Splatt is busy in his Kankakee basement, developing his newest useless invention, when a certain Manteno entramanure rings his bell.

“It’s my new killer-app. Siri-al-Killer.”

“Yeah, what can it do for me?”

“It is a virus, designed to mimic Siri. Only it is seriously plotting to kill you.”

“You’re awesome!”

“Thanks. I know.”

“Yeah. So am I, that’s why I want to hire YOU!”

“Young lady, what can I do ya fer?”

“I need to unload my Turd Vault.”

Awkward silence fills the room.

“Your…what?”

“My inventory’s getting stale. I use newly-formed-turds (NFTs) to create Craptcoin. The market really stinks right now and I need to clean out my product.

Pat giggles. It has been a long time and he feels good to laugh at someone else’s expense again.

Pat and Bernadette make a food baby together:

Pat’s junk email go into circular files across the globe. Meanwhile, the craptocoin market falls further into the bowels of the abyss.

Desperate, Bernadette sends out this flyer. She made it herself:

Bernadette slides into her shack, waves to her husband Peppi high off stinky skunkweed, and runs down her basement stairs, nearly falling down and smacking her big mouth on the concrete. She disarms the gate and the two Turd Machines guarding her massive Turd Vault, only to find her precious turd-collection missing.

“Oh no, where did they all go! I bet it was JB the Turd-Burglar, he stole my crap, I just know it.”

Bern’s smell-phone rings, playing her favorite GG Allin song.

Before she has a chance to answer, she spies Undead Greg sitting in a corner of her basement.

“Hey. My turds are gone, Greg!”

“That’s greeaaat.”

“How is that great?“

“They were delicious,” the undead Greg tells his fartner Bernadette. “These things keep me going. Unlike other zombies, I don’t neeeeed to eat rotting flesh. Recycled food is goooood-forrrr-yooooou and tastes better tooooo!”

Saturday in the Park

Opposites attract, smells repel, unless you’re Bernadette and Peppi Cacca.

Bernadette Moran Cacca, Manteno, Illinois’ very own entramanure, communal narc-a-doodle and self-proclaimed “Queen of the Plastic Throne” comes back to the shack which she co-habitates with her drunken husband, Peppi.

Her mouth once wide open enough to catch a fly (or two), now sports a look of contempt after having headed home from the widely-attended Chicago “Hands Off” protest.

“A whole bunch of people walked by, and not one person, not even once, took a single video or picture of ME!”

“That’s that dang liberal protest, right?” Peppi asks.

“Yeah.”

“I told ya to vote for that other guy. Let’s go Brandon!” exclaims the bald, squat, beady-eyed, 70-something geezer, reeking of skunky weed made extra skunky, from rolling in the port-a-pee after he had finished a port-a-job.

“They got plenty of video of other people and their signs, some even made the Chicago news! The national news, too! Why not ME? Ever since Aunt Sonya left, people forget how talented I am, how much I do for the world, how much I poop. I have not gotten a single gig since she flew the coop!”

“She’s just busy I’m sure. Sit down with me, relax, we’ll watch The Wonderful World of Dung together.”

“The original or the remake?”

“The remake is streaming now…”

“Oh I hate the remake!”

Bernadette storms up the stairs, into the best room in the house to sit, poop and play accordion.

Her mother, shapeshifting humanoid turkey vulture Carla Moran flies into town, rams into the Cacca home once again.

“Maaa!”

“I did a fly-by earlier and you weren’t home!”

“I was at the protest up in Chicago! Didnt you know? I can’t wait to tell you how much I did for America! It’s really good for my image–”

“Not now honey, family’s coming over.”

“Where?”

“Here.”

“Nobody told me about it!”

“I did, you just forgot.” Carla gaslights.

“No you didn’t.”

“Okay, okay, okay, drop it. Just get ready. Take YOUR shower!”

Bernadette continues to poop as her mother sets up the uninvited picnic tables and other crap out back. A committee of shapeshifting humanoid turkey vultures fly on down to the House of Cacca to party on down, and pee on her lawn.

“My daughter has a beautiful voice!” Carla brags about her daughter to her family who had just flown in from the next town over to enjoy a feast of freshly squashed roadkill. Her cold heart shines bright in the face of company.

“Where’s Sonya?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s awful rude of her not to come down. I kept calling, she never answered. Did she get the presents I sent her?”

“Why do you even bother?”

“Shall I sing for you guys?” Bernadette interrupts. “I just tuned my accordion and vuvuzela horn! How about a tune?”

“Not now. Maybe later. I’ve got something to show you!” Carla’s evil grin begins to creep over her face.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a surprise. Come with us.”

They peck, umm, pack into the van like a band of mad clowns and drive over to the hospital in Kankakee.

“Mom, what’s going on?”

“We’re going to the hospital!”

“Did somebody die?”

“No.”

“Get hurt, have a heart attack? I wanna know.”

“No, Bernadette.”

The Morans park their van and then walk down into the basement of the hospital, towards a sign marked “Central Sterile Supply.”

“I’m giving you a tour.”

“Of the hospital basement?”

“Yeah. I used to work here when you were little. Time for you to get a real job!”

Bernadette runs away as fast as she can, screaming, cursing and singing show-tunes.

“They, they—they do vivisection in here!” Bernadette exclaims madly as she busts on out the door.

A few locals shake their collective heads at the sight. Just another day in Kankakee.

The port-a-dump proprietor is eventually rounded up and taken in for an evaluation, just not the occupational kind.

After a few hours, Bernadette’s drug test comes back negative and the nurse sends her home. She calls her husband on her smell-phone and of course he does not answer, so she walks home.

A few Kankakee County residents spot Bernadette walking down the road, point and laugh.

“Don’t make fun of me or I will find you attractive!”

“Say what?”

“We saw you on TV!”

“TV? What?” asks a puzzled Mrs. Cacca.

Bernadette begins to grin a bit, visions of people praising her for holding up social justice signs fill her mind, even though she only does it just to look good on the outside.

“Yeah, you ran out of the hospital screaming like a looney bird! You’re a meme now!”

“I MEME AM WHAT?”

“OMG It’s the meme girl! I want a picture with her!”

Bernadette crawls into a nearby bog and takes a massive dump. It smells like someone died over there, or maybe it was just her ego.