RACCCAFE: The Death of the RACCCafe
Arspitzer
"Arrrrghhghghg!!!" raged Arthur Spitzer impotently. "Man, it's tough
writing dialogue for yourself when you have writer's block"
A frustrated Arthur Spitzer took another sip out of his Shirley Temple.
He looked at the bartender. "Do you know what it's like having a
million ideas in your head and not being able to write a single one?"
Tippy O'Tipp, the RACCCafe bartender with helpful writing tips for all
RACC writers stopped cleaning the glass in his hand with a dirty rag for
a second and stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Umm.. could ye 'um e few
bars, laddy."
"It's not the name of a song!! God, that jokes so old. I've got a bad
case of writer's block!"
"Ooh, Writer's Block! Aye, there's e pickle for ye. What e'd do if 'e
were ye would be to write e story about e writer 'oo has writer's block
'oo writes e story about e writer 'oo 'as writer's block."
"What the--?? How can I write a story about a guy who has writer's
block, if I have writer's block!!?? And how is the fictional character
in the story supposed to write a story if he has writer's block!!?"
"Hmm-- well 'e guess the fictional character probably 'as some keend of
magic ring that removes 'es writer's block when 'e writes stories.
Anywee, that's not really the important part o' the story. Ye see the
important part is about this cyborg ninja biker lassie 'oo wants to kill
our writer before 'e can write the story about the gee 'oo has writer's
block. But because 'e has amnesia 'e can't remember whee the biker
lassie wants to kill 'em. And somewhere in the story there's this cool
scene with the biker lassie getting into 'e motorcycle chainsaw duel
with 'e talking gorilla that wears 'e cowboy het!"
Arthur Spitzer just stared silently with his mouth gaped open.
"And e've even got e' great title fur it. Get this, 'Writer's Block
Busters Rumble'. Come to think o' it, it might make e better video game
than short story. Well, what do ye think?"
"I think I want to drink myself to death."
"Fine! Be that wee! e'll just take me brilliant idee to one of the
more appreciative RACC writers!!" An angry Tippy O'Tipp stormed off to
another section of the bar.
And before our hero, Arthur R. Spitzer, could drink himself to death, he
felt the entire Cafe shake. Some incredibly large unstoppable force was
coming into the RACCCafe. Like some character that he created a long
time ago, but never bothered to write a story for. He always meant to,
but well you know how things go.....
"It's been a long hard day. You lost your job. Your wife left you.
All your pets are dead. You're on the FBI's most wanted list. And it
could be that you have developed leprosy. But forget all that. Now
it's time to open up your fridge and release a big can of the super-
villain that never lets you down. The cool refreshing super-villain
that makes you feel good about yourself even if you're just a sad
pathetic loser. Because it's that time of the day.." an announcers
voice invaded its way into the cafe. "IT'S CHUGGERNAUT TIME!!!!!!!!!!".
A large hulk of a man in what suspiciously looked like a Bud-Man costume
crashed through the wall. Beer commercial energy crackled from his
costume.
"Yes people. The long drought of reading pointless superhero stories in
which I wasn't the super-villain is finally over with. You may rejoice
for, Yes, I'm back!! And, yes ladies, I'm still single." The
Chuggernaut flexed one of his massive biceps.
The JONG Company presents:
***************** *****************
** **
****** The Death of the RACCCafe ******
** **
***************** *****************
"Welcome, Mr. Chuggernaut," greeted the RACCCafe maitre d'hotel. "We're
a bit crowded tonight, although luckily we have a seat reserved for you
in the JONG section of the RACCCafe."
"The JONG...? There must be some mistake here. I'm one of the few
characters that people actually care about. I'm a Jeff McCoskey
creation. I should be seated with the cool characters."
"Umm.. I'm sorry Mr. Chuggernaut, but it says here that you're a
creation of Arthur Velk's and property of the JONG Company."
"Thas, Athuh Spizzer!" slurred a drunken Arthur Spitzer.
"No! That's not true! That's a lie! Jeff McCoskey created me! He had
to have created me!" the Chuggernaut said lifting the maitre d'hotel and
shaking him violently. "I'm too cool not to be a Jeff McCoskey
creation!"
"Nah. I lef you on his door slep... ran la bell.. an got la el out of
lere." Arthur Spitzer pointed out to the Chuggernaut.
"No! This can't be! Jeff McCoskey straighten these people out!
Shrivel these lies with your glorious Bud-Lite!" pleaded the Chuggernaut
gazing into the heavens.
"Please, Jeff. I need you now more than I ever needed you before!" the
Chuggernaut said kneeling on the floor waiting for a miracle.
"Why hast thou forsaken me, Joltin' Jeff?" despaired the Chuggernaut
after awhile.
Eventually the Chuggernaut got up. "Fine! You're off my Christmas Card
list! Okay where's this stupid JONG table!"
"Well you have a choice of sitting at the regular JONG table, the
Saviors of the Net table, or the Legion of Net.Hippies table."
"I have no desire to sit with religious freaks or dope fiends. Just put
me at the regular table."
The maitre d'hotel directed the Chuggernaut to the regular JONG table
filled with characters that would probably have been better off never
being created.
"Guess I should have picked the table with the dope fiends," regretted
the Chuggernaut as he sat down. "So who are you bozos?"
"Well, I'm Foreshadowing Lad," said a man wearing a green spandex
costume with an eight-ball for a symbol on his chest. "I've been in a
coma for the past ten years. Actually, I guess I'm still in a coma.
Man, my life really sucks."
"That short green toad like creature in the boxer shorts stuffing beer
nuts and pretzels up his nose is called the Slobbering Grue! We used to
share a comic together, well, before I was put in a coma. He's also
currently in a coma," continued Foreshadowing Lad.
"The passed out trenchcoater on the floor I believe is named Dr.
Deadbeat. I'm not sure, but it could be that he's also in a coma. Then
again maybe he's just dead. He's been still for awhile now."
"That guy over there is the superhero known as Ubiquitous Boy, or is it
Lad?"
"Nope. I'm Ubiquitous Boy Lad Jr. the sidekick to Ubiquitous Boy's
sidekick Ubiquitous Lad. Or is it the other way around. Anyways, I'm a
sidekick to a sidekick which in the superhero hierarchy is pretty damn
low. I *wish* I was in coma. That would be an improvement!"
"And the old weirdo that looks like a can of Mr. Paprika?" the
Chuggernaut said pointing to the old weirdo that looked like a can of
Mr. Paprika.
"I'm not sure," Foreshadowing replied. "I've been afraid to ask."
"What?! How can you people not remember me? I'm Mr. Paprika! I was
the mastermind behind the Omaha Project! I was a billionaire with a
massive army at my command. It was I who thought up the idea for
'Ultimate Mr. Paprika' as well as the Mr. Paprika frisbee! Someone
please! Put me in a story! I beg you! I've got tons of money! I can
pay you!! For pity's sake!! Just one story!! Saxon Brenton, I need
you!!" wept Mr. Paprika.
"And don't forget me! The Easily-Discovered Bran Mite!" said a very
tiny mite near the pretzel bowl. "Damn, they can't seem to hear me.
But it doesn't matter. All that matters is my vendetta against you,
Easily-Discovered Man Lite. I will destroy your family, your friends,
your CD collection, Lite. Everything. And when you are reduced to a
broken mass of pulp, it will be me, not you who has the last pun!!
Oww.. watch where you're throwing those beer nuts!!"
"God, this place is boring!" the Chuggernaut yawned as he flicked
another beer nut across the room. "This place needs something."
"A karaoke machine?" suggested Mr. Paprika.
"No. God no. Wait! Now I remember." And with that the Chuggernaut
slammed his mystical beer bottle on the table. A vortex of beer
commercial energy flew out of it and swept through the RACCCafe. In
minutes every empty space in the Cafe was replaced by hot jiggling girls
in wet T-shirts and bikinis dancing and jumping around. Some of them
even had hula hoops!
The Slobbering Grue! stopped cramming beer nuts up his nose and just
stared. And then he looked back at the Chuggernaut with worshipping
eyes and tears dripping from his mouth. "You're-- you're my hero!! You
have saved me from the sad place I was in and put me into a happy place!
How can I ever repay you? Wait! I know! I'll be your number one fan!
No, wait! Your sidekick! Wait! Your disciple! Yes! And I'll go
door to door to convert others to the Way of the Chuggernaut! No wait!
That sounds to hard! Maybe you should just tell me what I should do?"
"You could start off by *not* drooling on my boots!!! Go make a statue
of me or something!! I don't really care as long as you just go!
You're really starting to gross me out!"
"As you wish, Great God of all Master Lords!!" Slobbering! took the
bowl of beer nuts and went off to create a massive statue of the
Chuggernaut made of beer nuts and pretzels.
"Maybe I should become a disciple too," Ubiquitous Boy Lad Jr. said to
himself. "Not like there's anything on TV tonight."
"Ooh! I want to be a disciple too!" shouted Mr. Paprika. "Please!
Pretty Please!! I'll give you a million dollars!!"
"Five mill," said an annoyed Chuggernaut.
"It's a deal!" a rejoiced Mr. Paprika said handing the Chuggernaut wads
of cash.
"Damn. Should have asked for Ten Mill," the Chuggernaut said as he
reluctantly took the cash.
"What about me?" squeaked the Easily-Discovered Bran Mite. "I want to
be a disciple too!! Aarrgghh!! No one can hear me!! I knew I should
have brought that megaphone! This is all your fault, Easily-Discover
Man Lite!! You made me forget my megaphone!! But you'll pay for that
and all the other sins you have inflicted on mite kind!!!! You can bet
your bottom dollar on that, Lite!!!!!"
"Chuggie!!" a sexy red headed voice nibbled at the Chuggernaut's ear.
"Yes, Trixie?"
"These icky dead people on the floor are ruining the party!" Trixie said
with a pouting face pointing to the corpses that littered the floor.
(Editor's Note: The reason that there are corpses on the floor is.. oh I
just remembered that the RACCCafe has no continuity.. so I guess I don't
have to explain why there are all these corpses on the floor. Sorry.)
"No! It's the fact that no one is wearing Hawaiian shirts! That's why
this party is dullsville, Chuggie!!" said a blonde in a polka-dotted
bikini glaring at the red headed Trixie. The two started to get into
cat-fight position.
"Girls.. girls. Settle down!" Then the Chuggernaut stood up with a
Solomon like expression on his face. "Let's do both!" he said slamming
his beer bottle on the table.
And with that the corpses transformed into corpses wearing Hawaiian
shirts.
"You're a genius, Chuggie!!" they both said giving the Chuggernaut a big
hug. And then they gave each other a big hug. And then they started
making out. And then they... and then they.. *ahem* let us skip to
another paragraph.
The Chuggernaut looked at the Beer Utopia he had created. It was good,
but still there was something missing from it. What was it? Ah, yes.
And with that he slammed his beer bottle again on the table. And out of
the Beer Commercial Zone came a pack of Wild Weiner-National Weiner Dogs
speeding their way madly through the RACCCafe knocking down anything
that got in their way.
"Hah! I love those guys!!" The Chuggernaut put his hands behind his
neck and contemplated his next move. But before he could do that he
felt an angry tap on his shoulder.
"Look, Chuggernaut," lectured a very stern Sig.Lad, "While we do
appreciate the hot jiggling girls in wet T-shirts you conjured up, there
are certain rules that must be followed in the RACCCafe. These W**n*r-
N*t**n*l W**n*r D*gs are clearly a breach of the whole no unlawful
copyright abuse. The Last thing we need is the Mighty Beer Industry
Lawyers down on our throats. Plus you've been breaking the 'No Power
Tripping' rule ever since you walked in. And this story is already way
too long! This isn't the Paul Hardy Happy Hour. I think it would be
best if you left right now."
"You're trying to take away my High-Life, aren't you Sig.Lad?" The
Chuggernaut popped off the top of his mystical beer bottle. "Why don't
you just sit back and have a nice cold draft." An icy cold draft
escaped from the bottle freezing Sig.Lad into a huge block of ice before
he could get out of the way.
"Well, now that that's done I guess there's no sense in delaying this.
Citizens of the RACCCafe!! Listen!! I, the Chuggernaut, am taking over
this place!! From this point on the RACCCafe is dead!! Yep, you heard
right!! This place is finished!! But don't weep because something even
better is going to rise from the RACCCafe's ashes! From now and forever
more this place has a new name! This place shall be called..."
The Chuggernaut gave a dramatic pause.
"CHOOTERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Chooters? Chooters!!???? *Chooters*!!!!????? What the hell? Everyone
in the (Now no longer called the RACCCafe) Chooters looked at Arthur
Spitzer.
"Hey, don't look at me! I'm drunk and I've got writer's block so.. umm
I can't possibly be writing this story. I'm so drunk I sound sober.
Yeah that's..ummm.. There!! It's that guy over there!! Yeah, he's the
one!! He's writing this story!! Kill him!!!" Arthur Spitzer said
pointing to someone over on the other side of the bar. The angry mob
(Formally Known as the RACCCafe mob, but now called the 'Chooters' mob)
looked in the direction that Arthur Spitzer pointed to.
"Whee's everyween lookin' et me fur??!!" a confused Tippy O'Tipp said
backing away from the angry (because they're called Chooters) Chooters
mob. "Whet did E' doo? Oww.. wetch 'ose pitch furks!!
"Chooters?" asked a puzzled Mr. Paprika.
"Yeah.. It's like if I had sex with the entire Hooters Restaurant
Franchise and we had a kid. That's what I'd name the kid," the
Chuggernaut explained.
"You know.. I'm pretty sure I didn't need to know that," winced
Ubiquitous Boy Lad Jr.
"You don't think you're going to get away with this, do you
Chuggernaut?" a defiant Foreshadowing Lad said staring down the
Inebriated Nemesis. "Do you think the RACC Writers are just going to
stand by while you to turn their beloved RACCCafe into this so called
'Beer Utopia'. A place where just drinking a beer will solve all life's
worries? Where silky soft hands run their fingers through my hair?
Where very hot supermodels in very wet and very tight T-shirts rub my
shoulders with their.. ah.. oh.. a little lower.. yes.. that's right...
oh man.. oh my god.. yes.. yes.. what was I talking about?"
"Talking is boring, Foreshadowy! Those hot sexy superhero muscles of
yours are crying out for a thorough massaging!"
"Yes, Foreshadowy. Sheila's right. We need to give you a full body
massage pronto. And I should know! I used to be a nurse!" said a hot
brunette in a nurse bikini outfit with a demanding voice.
"Well, okay. I guess I can do that. But after I get my full body
massage, Chuggernaut. You. And me. We're going to have a very heated
discussion about the morality of all this. You can count on that!"
"Take him away girls." The Chuggernaut took another swig from his beer
bottle. This was just the beginning. One newsgroup after another would
have a Chooters. And disciples? Yeah, that was a good idea. Jesus had
what? Two six packs of disciples? And since he was more important than
Jesus he'd have to have at least three or four six packs of disciples.
This was just the beginning.
The beginning of The Chooters Age!!!!
************************************************************************
Next: Is the RACCCafe really dead? Or is this just one
of those stunts they do to boost lagging sales?
************************************************************************
Writer's Note:
Man. That's probably the single longest RACCCafe story ever. Sorry
about that. This was mostly something I did to try and break out of the
five year writer's block funk I am in. Also to write a story with the
Chuggernaut a character I created ten years ago, but never wrote a story
for.
The RACCCafe was created by Dave Van Domelen. Here's a link that gives
the rules of the RACCCafe:
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=rules+insubject:Racccafe&hl=en&lr=&ie=UT
F-8&scoring=d&selm=69h262%243l2%40pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu&rnum=3
I don't think any of the previous RACCCafe stories are in the eyrie
archive, so you'll have to go to google if you want to read them.
The RACCCafe thread by Kieran O'Callaghan with the name 'Power Trip' is
pretty funny.
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=34b3df53.106722640
%40news.tiac.net
The Chuggernaut was a character I created for Retcon Hour. I think my
original concept was a bum off the street who became the Time Whino
(misspelling mine, I guess Jeff thought I had intentionally misspelled
it or he didn't know how to spell wino either) and eventually became the
Chuggernaut a Galactus like character that drained planets of their beer
supplies who was going to kidnap the RACCelestial Madonna and force her
to do beer commercials. Jeff McCoskey reworked the concept and wrote
him in LNH Comic Presents #21 all for the better. Everything that's
cool about the character is because of Jeff. The Chuggernaut appeared
in two stories written by Jeff McCoskey.
These were the two stories (both of which are a lot better than the
story I wrote):
http://archives.eyrie.org/racc/lnh/Series/LNHCP/LNHCP.21.gz
http://archives.eyrie.org/racc/lnh/Series/Continuity.Champ/Continuity.Cham
p.19.gz
In his incarnation as the Time Whino, he's an ordinary human with a beer
bottle than enables him to tap into the Beer Commercial Zone. The
drunker he becomes the more powerful he becomes. Eventually he shifts
into the Chuggernaut a sort of Beer Commercial Elemental who is
invulnerable to pretty much anything (with the exception of non-
alcoholic beer which is his kryptonite). When he's sober he's
completely powerless. He can do anything that appears in a beer
commercial.
Foreshadowing Lad and the Slobbering Grue! appeared in Jong:
http://archives.eyrie.org/racc/lnh/Series/Jong/
Ubiquitous Boy Lad Jr. appeared in Jong #4:
http://archives.eyrie.org/racc/lnh/Series/Jong/Jong.04.gz
Ubiquitous Boy and Lad were characters created by Rob Rogers while
Ubiquitous Boy Lad Jr. was a throw away joke character that appeared
only once.
Mr. Paprika appeared in the Omaha Project:
http://archives.eyrie.org/racc/lnh/Crossovers/Omaha.Project.gz
Of all the characters I created, I think I regret creating this one the
most. I didn't even get Kevin Wilcox's okay to create him. I don't
think anyone could really do anything worthwhile with him, but if you
want to try you can.
The Easily Discovered Bran-Mite appeared in the Mid.Net Star 20th
Anniversary Special:
http://archives.eyrie.org/racc/lnh/Misc/Mid.Net.Star.Special.gz
Another Throw away joke character. I always wanted to see Rob Rogers
write this character in an issue of Easily-Discovered Man, but that's
probably never going to happen. But I can dream.
Dr. Deadbeat appeared in On the Deadbeat:
http://archives.eyrie.org/racc/ntb/On.Deadbeat/
This is Tippy O'Tipp's first appearance. I created him to be bartender
that gives helpful writing tips to RACC Writers that need help.
Especially with stories that involve chainsaw duels. He's got a bad
Irish accent, although maybe it's a Bad Irish/Scottish accent. Whatever
it is it's bad.
Ah, what else do I need to say? I guess that's it.
Sig.Lad created by Dave Van Domelen
Arthur "The RACCCafe Killer" Spitzer
Dave Van Domelen
But no one paid heed to the melting block of ice with lips sticking out
of it.....