As I was discussing the concept of homage and influenced by, I thought I’d offer the following (even though it’s more accurately a parody as such):

desert madness

hatboy and i played kick the pebbles beside the highway while ninjagirl sprawled out in the dust.
“why is it so hot?” she groaned.
hatboy shrugged. “something to do with the earth’s tilt. close to the sun. that kind of stuff.”
i stopped kicking pebbles. “really? i thought it was because martians were sending their heat rays of much earth-burny at the ozone layer. that’s what xol told me, anyway.”
“well, that too, but the tilt has something to do with which part of us gets the martian heat rays.”
ninjagirl screamed.
hatboy looked worried. “is she alright?”
“it’s probably desert madness,” i said.

roadrunner

“a car!” hatboy yelled. “i can see a car!”
ninjagirl crawled to her feet. “a real car? not another one of your mirages?”
“nope. this one’s even got wheels this time!”
“hurry up! flag it down! maybe they’ve got water.”
“ick,” i said. “i hope they’ve got coke instead.”
the car ripped through the heatwaves, weaving across the road like an enormous ant zipping here, there, and back again.
hatboy put out his thumb.
the car zoomed straight past, its tyres spitting up chips of rock and dust. we heard the driver scream, “the toecutter!”
hatboy stood silent as the dust settled on his shoulders.
“what the hell was all that about?” i asked.
hatboy raised his fist and shook it at the fleeing taillights. “yeah? well i hope you smash into something very big indeed! and explode in a fiery ball of something hot and not nice at all! you and your little toecutter, too, mate!”
i think this desert madness thing is getting to us all.

ideas

we stagger over the dunes.
“creepy, why couldn’t we just use the footpath like normal people? why did you force us into your evil green thing?” hatboy’s lips do funny things in the shimmery heat. “it’s not you i blame, though. i just want you to know that. i don’t blame you for having a stupid green whirly thing. i don’t blame you that it doesn’t ever take us where we want to go. no, i blame me. i should know by now that all your ideas are stupid.”
i tell him that not all my ideas are stupid. i remind him of the time i found where we’d lost the remote. without it, i tell him, we wouldn’t have been able to watch the fashion awards. he would have missed christy turlington doing her spin on the catwalk.
i found a remote, i tell him.
me. all by myself. just me and my idea.
my very good idea.
“creepy,” he says, wiping sweat from his chin. “your idea was that we make one out of nails and a muesli bar.”
“don’t knock it,” i tell him. “it worked.”

rescued

we are rescued by a bunch of leather-clad amazonian women, who take us to their leader.
their leader is dressed in chainmail and not much underneath that.
she has spikey hair.
she tells us to drop our weapons. “you won’t need them here.”
i lean ol’ bob against the wall, and ninjagirl begins unloading all her knives, stars and sword.
hatboy watches us and sighs. “oh well. if we must,” and begins to drop his weapons.
his powerful sporran and sock knife are first to be revealed. then a set of seventeen remote controls, including one which opens cat flaps, and another which forces digital clocks to show rude words in their unfriendly faces. an assortment of screwdrivers, hammers, chainsaws and soldering irons are next to fall to the ground.
then he begins reaching under his kilt.
“uh, no,” the leader of the amazons says, reaching out to stop him. “i’m sure we don’t need to see any more. i think we can trust you. you are a super-sidekick, right?”
he whips out a slinky toy and lets it bounce off the table and into the rest of his belongings. “do you want to see my merit badge from the interdimensional super-sidekicks’ union of complete and total goodness?”
she glances at the slinky toy. “no, that’s okay. follow me.”
“where are we going?”
“to the chunderdome.”

the eating order

when i first met hatboy, just before i went to ‘nam, he invited me to go to one of his pie-eating competitions.
“it’s a free meal, really,” he said. “i don’t do it to win or anything.”
i watched him compete against four others, all of whom were larger than my super-sidekick by at least a barn door.
the grease dribbled through the fat fingers of these pie-munching barn beasts of much-ugly-watchy, and the meaty fillings slimed down their goo-drenched chins of many-wobbly. pastry flecks rained down like snowflakes and their eyes were sunk back into their unwashed skulls, glowing with that piggy kind of restless contentment. they were gobbling machines.
but not hatboy.
he was the only one using a knife and fork. he was the only one who squirted sauce onto each pie. he left no crumbs and dribbled no escaping morsels.
each bite was carefully chewed and swallowed.
now and then he’d pause to wipe his mouth and sip some coca-cola goodness.
after going to three such competitions with him, i discovered that hatboy never loses an eating competition.
ever.

much eat chi

hatboy practised with a fork and spoon.
he went through all the forms of much eat chi.
shrike impales the frog.
barracuda chomps the tuna. chicken pecks the worm.
crocodile rolls the tourist.

the chunderdome

they dragged hatboy’s opponents out by their feet.
vomit clung to their bibs. it wasn’t a pretty sight.
not at all.
hatboy licked his lips and wiped his fork and spoon on a napkin before slipping them into his sporran. “not a bad chewing, that,” he said.
ninjagirl stared at him. “my god, hatboy,” she said. “how did you eat it all?”
empty barrels littered the chunderdome behind him. he shrugged. “it’s a gift.”
i grinned. “it’s a bottomless pit.”

the amazons are shifty

they never expected hatboy to beat their champions.
the amazon leader is a bit disappointed to be handing over a whole fifteen crates of coca-cola goodness to us. “i’m sure you cheated somehow,” she growls. “i just don’t know how.”
i point at hatboy and tell the amazon babes how hatboy once ate a whole horde of vicious spring rolls.
hatboy nods. “they were soaked in honey-soy sauce, too.”
the amazons don’t like the sound of honey-soy sauce. a bunch of them dump the crates at our feet and escort us out of town. “and don’t come back,” they say.
a few of the amazons smile at my super-sidekick and some of them mutter ancient prophecies.
as they wander off, ninjagirl frowns. “what were they saying? something about you being something important.”
hatboy shrugs.
“they called him the haggis reborn,” i chortle.
hatboy looks at me. he doesn’t look very impressed by my powers of much-amazon-heary. “thanks, creepy.”
“my pleasure, my lord haggis. would you like fries with that?”

the spooky one

the spooky one glared down at his chosen servant.
i was looking forward to those crates of coke, maelman. your plan to win them at the chunderdome has failed.
the servant didn’t dare look up. “i’m sorry, great lord. it couldn’t be helped. the super-sidekicks -”
no excuses! i am tired of your excuses. in fact, i am very disappointed in you, maelman.
shuddering, maelman wondered what form the great lord’s displeasure would take this time. last time he’d had to eat vegetables for a whole month. cauliflower, too. the taste of that still clung to his mouth and not even the foul stench of the middrafts could wash the smell of boiled pumpkin from his nostrils.
i want you to find this haggis reborn fellow, the spooky one rumbled. and here’s what i want you to do…

ninjas in the desert

we found the green whirly thing and sent our crates of coke through. i told hatboy not to worry, that the whirly thing would drop the crates into our kitchen.
he worried anyway.
“why can’t we follow them?” ninjagirl asked. “we could go to drackenstein’s the proper way – through the garden, then his front window, and finally his face.”
“because there’s some stuff we have to do first,” i told her.
“like what?”
“well,” i said, as we were surrounded by a bunch of spear-wielding ninjas. “first we have to deal with these dudes…”

ninjas

the ninjas watched hatboy with suspicion.
“he’s the haggis reborn,” they said. “he might be the crack-a-cracker, too, but we’re not about to test that theory.”
“quack a quacker, more like,” i muttered. “well, if he’s the haggis reborn, why aren’t you pointing those things somewhere else?”
“because the haggis reborn is a wetblanket myth. the crack-a-cracker is something else altogether. for example, the crack-a-cracker is supposed to be able to channel. a super-sidekick who can channel? that’s too horrifying for words.”
hatboy sighed. “i’m afraid it’s true, creepy. i can channel. i must be their crack-a-cracker.”
the ninjas looked suitably horrified.
“what? you can channel? how?”
he pulled out a remote control. “with this.”
the ninjas scowled. “he has the haggis scepter. he is indeed the crack-a-cracker.”
“why are you so worried?” i asked. “most people are happy to see their messiahs.”
“not us,” they said. “you just watch what it means when a super-sidekick can channel. go on,” they told him. “you might as well show him.”
hatboy shook his head as if clearing voices from his mind.
then, with a last rueful glance at the ninjas, he channeled.

hatboy can channel

“hey! i didn’t know jake and the fatman was back on!”
“it started on tuesday. don’t you read the guide?”
“i read it. i don’t study it.”
“creepy, that’s blasphemy. how can you be a proper couch potato if you don’t know the guide?”
“you don’t study the guide. you only look for the times when buffy is on!”
“i do not.”
“yes you do.”
“well, okay. so what if i do?”
“channel us to discovery channel, hatboy.”
“argh! it’s tainted. there is a taint in remote control.”
“oh my coke! you’ve channeled us onto oprah! get it off! take it away! the monster will consume our eyes!”
“i can’t! argh! the taint!”
“no more, please! she’s talking again! hatboy, channel! channel, or we’ll go mad!”
“i think i’ve found it! a way to cleanse the taint! yes!”
thank you, ftv.

maelman

we landed in a small room somewhere. ninjagirl groaned as she got to her feet. “can’t you two ever drop us onto some cushions?”
“ah, i have you at last,” a voice muttered. “the haggis reborn has played into my very hands.”
hatboy blinked at the man who stood over us. “who are you?”
“i am maelman,” the servant of the spooky one intoned. he had static lines zipping across his pupils. very slippy. they reminded me of access 31’s weather program. “and i am here to deliver a message from my master, the great lord of the dark.”
“really? what’s the message?”
“well, he’s asking if you could use your fabled powers of channeling for him. he wants you to place the seals back over his roof. some idiots went and drilled a hole in his tiles and now the rain’s coming in and ruining his carpet. he was wondering if you wouldn’t mind installing cable before you leave, too…”

the spooky one part 2

thanks, guys. drop by any time, hey?
“no problem, spooks.”
and thanks for the coke. these savages haven’t figured out how to make it, yet. we get a few trades with passing inter-dimensional aliens, but other than that, coke’s a no-have affair. i would’ve had fifteen cartons if you hadn’t won them at the chunderdome. still, no use crying over spilt coke, right? and this load should last a few weeks. long enough for landhear to bring the chopper back with the next batch.
“you sure you don’t want us to put a window in?”
god, no. if i did that, every dragon and his aiel would want to come and peek inside, bleed on my rose garden, and other stuff like that.
“you’re probably right. well, that looks like creepy’s green whirly thing. we’re off. we’ve got a badguy to banish.”
good luck. oh, i should probably warn you. that drackenstein, he’s a fiendish fellow. whatever you do, don’t let him order a pizza…