An Op-Ed by Marion “Cobra” Cobra Cobretti

Originally run on 16 November 2009 for the Union Weekly's spoof issue, The Grunion.



It’s Not Easy Being a One Man Army
by Marion “Cobra” Cobra Cobretti

I know that whenever people see me in my ’55 Mercury, my slicked back hair, mirrored aviators, vanity plates, and my devil-may-care attitude, they think, “Oh, there’s a guy who I wish I could be. Thank the stars above that he’s out there cleaning the garbage off our streets. I wish I could be him, or, failing that, his on-again-off-again lover.”

Well, citizen, I’m here to tell you that being a one-man war against crime isn’t as easy as it looks.

A lot of pencil-pushing nerdlingers at Internal Affairs try to tell me that using explosive-tipped, armor piercing bullets in a mall to shoot a shop-lifter is incredibly dangerous, but I’ll tell you what’s more dangerous: Not shooting a shop-lifter in a crowded mall with bullets made to kill full grown elephants. That shop-lifter could have been Charles Manson or an NVA spy. I bet you feel stupid now, don’t you?

My chief is always getting on my case too, with a lot of nit-picking about “beating the mayor’s nephew with a tire iron” and “setting fire to the Reagan library.” What would he know about good police work? How was I to know that the low-life was picking up his grandmother from a retirement home. He was parked in a loading zone and that’s breaking the law. He should have had more respect for the statutes and amendments that make up this fine country, and nothing gets me more angry than punks with no respect. Except litter.

Not too long ago a serial killer was terrorizing Los Angeles, silently killing old folks in their sleep without leaving a trace of evidence. The morgue said it was a case of “natural deaths,” but you know what I say, I say that there’s nothing natural about death. And I have a PhD from the School of Hard Knocks, so yeah, I think I know a thing or medical science, so scramble that, you bunch of eggheads.

After about two days of investigating and twelve million dollars in damage, I finally solved the case. As it turns out it was a cult of Satanist biker communists. As I always say, “When in doubt, it’s a cult of Satanist biker communists.” That’s rule number two of the Cobra Playbook. Rule number one is “Always bring a toothbrush,” because proper hygiene is always a must.

What keeps me on the straight and narrow is my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s right, scum suckers, the king Cobra believes in a power higher than himself. “But Cobra,” you say from behind your plates of chili and your cum stained pants, “Religion is for the weak.” No! You’re weak, dirtbag! Nothing is more badass than God. He killed tons of Egyptians, one of the hardest groups of people on Earth to kill. He also made tigers, muscle cars, and me, the Cobra.

So the next time you see me throwing hand grenades from the back of a moving truck at black market pornographers, just remember that dealing out justice isn’t as glamorous as it looks.

LIBER MONSTERICUM

Originally run on 26 October 2009 for the Union Weekly.

LIBER MONSTERICUM
A People’s History of Monster Slaying

I want all of you to grab the nearest history book. Do it. You got one? Good. Now throw it out the window. Just toss that fucker. Why am telling you do to this? Well, it’s because your standard “history” books completely ignore large swathes of our past—the rad parts, mostly. Namely, the hidden history of man’s struggles with the wicked abominations that God deigned to put on this earth. Now, without further ado, here are four of our history’s greatest monster slayers.


SIEGFRIED
Dragon Slayer, Treasure Hunter, Cautionary Tale
WEAPON OF CHOICE
Spears, knives, and stabbing weapons.
HUNTING GROUNDS
The fetid hollows and squabbling city-states that were medieval Germany.
MOST FAMOUS KILL
Fafnir the Dragon, Bavarian banker.
MORTAL WEAKNESS
Gold! And lots of it!
FALLOUT
Cursed to be sung about for hours at a time by husky Italian women and proto-Nazis.


SAINT PATRICK
Catholic Missionary, Crypto-Limey, Saint of Binge Drinking
WEAPON OF CHOICE
The word of God, harsh language.
HUNTING GROUNDS
Ireland or as it was known at the time “Snake-soaked Hell-Bog.”
MOST FAMOUS KILL
Cúchulainn, a midget he mistook for a leprechaun.
MORTAL WEAKNESS
His love of God, whiskey.
FALLOUT
Every year his deeds are celebrated by hooligans vomiting on Cinco de Mayo.


PETER WASHINGTON
Zombie Killer, SWAT Team Member, Not a Ghostbuster
WEAPON OF CHOICE
M16A1 assault rifle, friendship.
HUNTING GROUNDS
Shopping malls, anywhere people hang out.
MOST FAMOUS KILL
Roger, his best friend. Stone. Cold.
MORTAL WEAKNESS
Has a tendency to shoot his friends.
FALLOUT
Despite murdering every single one of his friends, he’s still ultimately doomed. DOOMED.


LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD
Little Girl, Wolf Murderer, Hiking Enthusiast
WEAPON OF CHOICE
Gumption, spunkiness, dry-cool wit.
HUNTING GROUNDS
Where old people sleep (but not libraries).
MOST FAMOUS KILL
Her grandma (that turned out to be a wolf).
MORTAL WEAKNESS
Completely incapable of distinguishing a wolf from a grandma.
FALLOUT
Nothing. Children are immune to the harshness of the real world.


534 While most of the Nordic countries were busy stealing the entirety of Europe from their lazy neighbors, Beowulf was getting real shit done. After arriving in Denmark he slays the beasty Grendel by ripping off the monster’s arm and beating him to death with it, leading to the single most metal thing to happen at that point in history. This also lead to any girl’s name starting with a “G” to look that much uglier.


1572 Japanese warlord and inventor of karaoke, Oda Nobunaga, destroys the last of the oni (or “ogre” for you baka-gaijin) through a combination of mirrors, windchimes, and crooked bridges. As it turns out oni are really, really bad at doing anything besides messing up how a room “flows.”


1882 German philosopher and syphilis enthusiast Friedrich Wilhelm “Willy” Nietzsche accidentally kills the Judeo-Christian diety YHWH (known as the “King of All Monsters”) with his declaration “God is dead.” His demise is highly exaggerated, the creator of the universe returned three days later with the proclamation, “Nope.” Having been proven a liar, Nietzsche is doomed to be quoted by obnoxious college students for all eternity.


1947 In an ironic twist fit for a pulp novel, former führer Adolf Hitler’s frozen head is eaten by a member of his secret Nazi zombie army somewhere. Good night, sweet prince.


SPECIAL INTERNET BONUS Here is a mummy.

Artist Profile on Charles Addams

Originally run on the Culture page of the Union Weekly on 28 September 2009.

Charles Addams is a spectacular weirdo, the kind of weirdo we should all emulate ourselves after. Besides being an accomplished cartoonist, he also collected antique crossbows, used a little girl’s tombstone as a coffee table, and would conduct interviews with journalists while wearing a full suit of armor. While the majority of his antics were more than likely a persona he used to impress the public and whatever journalist that happened to be interviewing him. This bizarre aura makes perfect sense though, since he is the guy who came up with the Addams Family.

Besides spawning two live action series, a cartoon show, and two feature films, the Addams Family were featured in single panel cartoons that Charles drew for the New Yorker. His cartoons weren’t all of the family, the rest were one-shot jokes that looked not unlike a version of The Far Side written by Edgar Allen Poe.

Addams’ art is also featured on the cover of Ray Bradbury’s 2001 short story collection From The Dust Returned, a novel which features any equally strange, gothic family called the Elliots (the two men previously worked together, but eventually went their separate ways). Unfortunately, most of his work seems to be in various phases of being out of print, I can’t imagine having a childhood without pawing through books filled with his drawings. Then again, my dad did buy the house we live in because it looked like the Addams Family manor.

What might be the most interesting aspect of the comics is that they’re a looking glass into the past. The ‘40’s and ‘50’s is a time we usually associate with conservatism, xenophobia, and generally being no fun at all, but Charles Addams stands against this stereotype. He shows us that the past that was just as interested in bare breasts, shrunken heads, suicide, and psychopathic children as we are. Or at least I am.

If you’re a fan of cartoon art, laughter (and who isn’t? Jerks, probably), or if you want some sort of indie-goth credibility, the collections of his work are well worth hunting down. Charles Addams is an artist everyone should know about, because he’s the kind of weirdo we could all learn something from.

Art via Charles Addams, clearly.

An Open Letter to the Republican Party

Originally run on 2 February 2009.

Dear Republican Party,

What happened to you, Republican Party? You used to be cool, man—Well, you were never cool, but at least you had something going for you. Smaller government and lower taxes, how can you screw up that formula? Not too long ago, you had the world in your hand—the Supreme Court, both Houses, and the Presidency—Now look at you. You’re the sick man of DC, and it’s high time you got your shit together.

I’m not here to rag on you, though. I was raised with my dad yelling at Clinton for most of my childhood—plus if he ever found out that I was trashing the party, I’d be out of a free meal ticket. The biggest reason that I’m not stooping to kick a man while he’s down is that America needs you guys. A healthy democracy requires a healthy competition. Without a serious competition we end up with Communist China or Soviet Russia or, more innocuously, six of the past eight years. America requires the other party, even if we don’t like them. Especially if we don’t like them, actually.

Your current incarnation is an intellectual and a spiritual dead-zone. On the one hand we’ve got professional scum like Ann Coulter, who wear their arrogance on their sleeve, like it’s a chevron for an elite force of loud-mouthed jerk-offs. Not to say that cockiness can’t be charming in small doses, Bill Mahr made an entire career out of this, but when he isn’t right at least he’s funny. The only service the current generation of conservative pundits supply is infuriation. They’re infuriating because they’re speaking about something that matters—our democracy—and they turn it into this hideous bitchfest that sucks in all forms of thought and rationality into the abyss.

Then there’s the granddaddy of whining Republican pundits: Rush Limbaugh, the creaking gastropod that he is. A man so edgy that he turned on McCain because of the fact that he hated Mexicans less than the other candidates. Campaigning against the best candidate the party has had in 20 years isn’t punk rock, it makes you a fat, petty asshole. Where’s William F. Buckley when you need him?

Oh, yeah. Spinning, no doubt.

The actual political wing of the party isn’t much healthier than the ideological one. Just look at the crop of runner ups in your camp last year. There was Giuliani, a man so inept that he managed to fumble being a hero on 9/11—a move only slightly less dumb that John Kerry being called a pussy for killing VC by a trust-fund baby. Then we have Mitt Romney (a known replicant) who is a believes in a religion that up until 1978 thought that the color of black people’s skin was a curse from God (a known space alien)—not that his religion is any of our business. Then we’ve got Mike Huckabee, who despite being something of a Bible-thumping nightmare, actually managed to be likable, if only because he never had a serious shot at turning the country into a theocracy he wants it to be (“All hail Presi-pope Huckabee III,” we’d all chant). This leaves us with Sarah Palin. Which one of you thought that was a good idea?


Obama beat you jerks for a lot of reasons: Exploiting the internet, being able to mobilize an entire generation of voters (and rake in their cash), and by sending out a message other than “Terrorists/Mexicans/Obama is going to kill you/steal your job/take your guns.” You lost because they were used to not having anyone to run against. You got complacent and sedentary and now here we are.

Honestly, when was the last time conservatism gave America anything to look up to? We need you to do this, not just for your own sake, but for our democracy’s sake. We need you out there making sure that Obama is doing the best job possible, because if we get a president that thinks his job is safe, we end up with Bush.

Four years, Republican Party, that’s all you need to turn yourself around. That’s how long it took for the Democrats to go from championing Yuppy Frankenstein and Droopy Dog to being spearheaded by a shiny, new racially progressive Messiah. That’s how long you have to purge the sycophants and hypocrites from your company and to actually forge something that is worth believing in. You brought this mess upon yourself and you’ve got every opportunity in the world to think your way out of it. Four years, plenty of time.

Yours Truly,
James Kislingbury, ESQ.

PS: Again, Sarah Palin, seriously? I mean, I love my mom too, but I’m not going to vote her into office.