Go Phils!

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Hilariously yours,
Doogie

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DOOGIE’S OTHER FLOW CHARTS:
Heavy Metal Band Names
Things You Say During Sex
The Universal Comedy Flow Chart

Doogie will be hosting his show THE MINISTRY OF SECRET JOKES this Wednesday at 9PM at Fergie’s Pub (1214 Sansom St). Steve Gerben, Ryan Carey, Brendan Kennedy, Aaron Hertzog, Jose Vega, and Dom DeLuise will be performing and it’s FREE.

Like the circle of life, the heavenly bodies, and the hula hoop, the six comedic humors form a circle. In the middle of the circle is the last uncharted area of comedy—the nexus. Scientists believe the funniest joke in the world lays in this uncharted zone, at the center of the circle. Once it’s discovered, and it’s mysteries unlocked, the funniest joke will be able to power cars, planes, underwater cities, and yes, even hoverboards.

Have fun exploring the comedy universe using the Universal Comedy Flow Chart™!

WARNING: Do not stare at the nexus of the Universal Comedy Flow Chart™ for more than three seconds. Prolonged staring can cause nosebleeds, temporary blindness, and in extreme cases, mind erasure.

And now, the final installment of Doogie’s “The Time Machine” series. Catch up with past chapters: I, II, III, IV, V, VI and VII.– – –

Amidala and I caught a rocket back to the Earth the next morning. Now that her fur was growing back, she felt more confident, more attractive, and was openly amorous. She looked like a sheepdog who I had trained to walk on two legs, and french kiss me at embarrassing moments. Her public displays of affection were frequent, and I could feel the eyes of the other rocket passengers on us as she snuggled with me.

Stars streaked past our window. Amidala’s shaggy head rested on my shoulder. I thought she was asleep, so I was surprised when she spoke. “I’m so glad you’re finally finishing your quest, honey.” She squeezed my hand with her albino wolf paw, and planted a furry kiss on my earlobe.

An old lady directly across from us stared at me with disgust, and mouthed the words “alien lover.”

– – –

I knew Wells had begun the Time Machine the night of September 25th, 1894 while at his country home in Sandgate. Transporting the Time Machine to England was much easier in the year 3000 than it had been in colonial Philadelphia. Once we returned to earth, all we had to do was drag the machine to the nearest transporter station and then plug in the coordinates of Wells’s country estate. Within seconds we were transported to the exact spot which, 1106 years in the past, would be Wells’s back yard. At the moment it was simply miles of charred rubble, since Great Britain had been decimated by soccer androids after the 2588 World Cup.

The Time Machine sat in the middle of a grey wasteland. A listless wind kicked up clouds of ash. I felt a sense of loss now that the end was so close at hand. I had gone through so much to make it to this point. Would the prize be worth the price I had paid?

I put the brass key into its slot and grabbed the crystal topped lever.
I looked over at Amidala, who was braiding her stomach hair into a French twist. “Hold on,” I told her. She put her arms around my waist and I threw the lever back. The machine spun faster and faster, until everything became a blur.

– – –

We stopped with a lurch. Amidala and I stumbled out of the machine and promptly threw up. As soon as I finished saying goodbye to my Venusian flapjacks, I looked up and saw the night sky. Clouds covered the moon. We were on a manicured lawn. I could barely see the outline of a house, and landscaped shrubbery.

Then someone knocked me off my feet.

We hit the ground and wrestled for a moment, but I karate chopped him in the neck and threw him to the side.

I heard Amidala scream, “What are you doing?”

“Amidala!” I yelled, and then someone punched me in the stomach. I lashed out but missed. I was knocked to the ground from behind, and landed on an unconscious body. I realized there were people all around me, fighting with each other, and attacking me as well, brawling blindly in the dark.

I heard a gunshot from within the house. Then another. Then two more.

Amidala screamed again.

I fought my way towards her voice. I could see her white fur glowing in the night. She was surrounded by black figures who had pinned her to the ground. I beat them off her, picked her up, and ran towards the house. “It’s you! It’s you!” she said breathlessly.

“Yes, it’s me,” I dragged her behind me. “Run for the house!”

Just then another figure leapt into our path. “Stop!” he yelled. I bowled into him, but he held me fast. Amidala broke free. We were almost at the door. “Keep running!” I yelled to her.

Amidala made it to the house, but a second before her hand was on the knob, the door flew open and a shaft of bright light flooded the lawn. A man in a smoking jacket stood in the doorway, a rifle held ready at his waist. His face was contorted with fear, a frayed rope about to snap. He screamed in horror when he saw Amidala who, blinded by the bright light, flailed her arms wildly. The man in the smoking jacket pulled the trigger. The rifle went off, and Amidala fell to the ground.

I turned around to struggle out of my attacker’s grip, and found myself looking into my own face. It looked resigned, and mildly annoyed. “Aw shit,” it said. “Well, that didn’t work.”

– – –

Ten minutes later I sat in H.G. Wells’s parlor. I sat on the couch, the divan, the chairs, the floor. I lounged against the mantle, stood in the door jamb, and rummaged through the icebox. Two of me lay dead in the dining room, and one in the bedroom hallway. A hundred different versions of me from alternate timelines crowded his house.

Wells was badly shaken. His smoking jacket was covered in blood, and he had a broken nose, because I had punched him in the face. He tried not to look me in the eyes, but it was difficult, since there was scarcely an inch of the house I didn’t occupy. A hundred different Doogie’s filled the room.

One of me brought him a snifter of brandy and a bag of ice to hold against his nose.

Wells cleared his throat. “Uh, which one of you punched me?” Everyone pointed to me, except the two Doogies who were arm wrestling.

“I’m terribly sorry I shot your girlfriend,” Wells said. “I thought she was a polar bear.”

“A polar bear? In England?” I said.

“Well I don’t know!” He waved his arms around the room. “All these chaps were running around here, attacking me, and then I ran outside and saw this big hairy beast!”

I lunged at him when he said “beast,” but luckily for him I held myself back. One of me said “We’ve been trying to stop Wells, but no matter how many times we go back in time and replay this night, Amidala always gets shot.”

I had traveled back in time to this moment a hundred times, each time running into more and more timeline versions of myself, all trying to stop Amidala from getting shot. But every time something had gone wrong, and the outcome ended up the same. It appeared the past was immovable.

I looked around the room at all the other Doogies: so fat. I addressed them as one. “Do you know what happens next?”

They nodded wearily.

I turned to Wells. “Okay, I’m here to watch you write your new book. So get crackin’.”

He looked at me, honestly puzzled. “Which one?”

“You know, the one about a machine that travels through time!”

“A machine that travels through . . . time?” He lowered the bag of ice. “That’s a bloody good idea!”

I grabbed the snifter of brandy out of Wells’s hand and tossed it back. It burned going down and my eyes welled with tears. I choked out a bitter laugh. I looked at a Doogie who was fingering an astrolabe on Wells’s mantle. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said.

“It’s so ironic,” I said. “Amidala would have loved it.”

The next installment of Doogie’s live comedy show, THE MINISTRY OF SECRET JOKES is on Wednesday, August 27th at Fergie’s Pub (1214 Sansom St.)

The Molemen mounted a massive offensive against the farmer, who was armed with a death ray from the future which he used to kill King Ralph. The farmer and Doogie fought in the basement, where the farmer shot Princess Amidala with the death ray. The Basement People freed themselves from their cages and ate the farmer alive. Doogie rushed to the Princess’s side and discovered that the death ray hadn’t killed her, it had simply burned all the fur off her body, revealing a beautiful woman underneath. The Princess was horrified to find herself disfigured thus, and wailed in shame.

Catch up with past installments: I, II, III, IV, V and VI.

The Basement People’s clacking teeth, as they ate the farmer alive, sounded like Satan tap-dancing on an empty coffin. Amidala’s screams merged with the Farmer’s death throes, creating an atonal melody that reminded me of the Pixies’s early albums, especially Surfer Rosa. In that moment I had an epiphany: I would make a great music critic. I made a mental note to send my resume to Dog Fancier Magazine once I returned home. If I returned. (Dramatic foreshadowing, or red herring? Read on to find out!)

Amidala wept, knees huddled against her ample, heaving breasts. Holy shit she was hot. Her boobs were big, but not too big, a little more than a handful, which is perfect. Because when you go to grab boobs like that, you’re like “Oh shit, this is more than I can handle!” But it’s not so much that the slack boob meat slips between your fingers and you realize “This really is too much.” With a boob like that, the extra 10% of boob tantalizingly out of reach holds the allure of the unattainable (especially if you only have one arm because your other arm was vaporized by a laser).

I’d like to go on and describe the rest of Amidala’s body, but I’ve already spent a whole paragraph on her boobs, and I don’t want you to think I’m shallow. So all I’ll say is that her personality was incredible, totally bald, and beckoning to me; its silent song wormed its way into the reptilian corridors of my mind.

The Basement People were finishing the last morsels of the Farmer, which wouldn’t take long, since he was a pretty little guy. Perhaps now they would rush over and proclaim me as their savior! Or perhaps they would eat me too, since they had lived their entire lives in cages, like wild animals.

“Princess Amidala,” I said “We have to leave.” She continued to weep, heedless of my words. I pulled her arm, but she wouldn’t budge.

“I’m hideous! Leave me here to die!” She wept.

The clacking of teeth stopped. I looked back over my shoulder and saw nothing but blackness beyond the thin strip of light cast by the open basement door. Then I saw a pair of glowing eyes rise from the floor. Then another. And another. They all turned and stared unblinkingly at Amidala and I.

The Princess followed my gaze to other side of the basement, where the glowing crowd of eyes shuffled closer to us. Amidala shrieked, and the terror in her voice must have awakened some primal hunter instinct within the Basement People, because the pack broke into a run. I could see them appear in the corridor of light and then disappear on its other side: eyes wild, pale arms outstretched, scarlet blood smeared on their pallid lips.

Then a thousand hands were upon me. My stump was still sensitive, and though I swore I wouldn’t scream out, I did as their stubby fingernails scratched my nub. “Stop!” I yelled. “It’s me! The guy who released you all from your cages! Remember?”

They stopped immediately. This was a polite mob. Slowly they released me. One of them, very old, pushed through the crowd and peered into my face.

“You’re the adventurer?”

“Yes, yes, the guy who saved all of you.”

He placed the brass key to the Time Machine in my hand. “This is yours.”

Nervous laughter floated up from the group. One of them spoke. “Geez, sorry we tried to eat you. You know how it can get. Mob mentality and all that.” Everyone apologized profusely.

A thin voice piped up from the back. “I’ll tell you what makes ya’ crazy, it’s the taste of blood.”

At the mention of the word “blood,” all the Basement People stared into space and spoke at once, in a daze: “Blooooooood.”

But Amidala and I were already rushing up the stairs and into the light.

– – –

We were in such a rush to escape the Basement People I didn’t have time to warn Amidala about the carnage she was about to see. Her hands flew to her face, and I put my arms around her. I was looking for any opportunity to put my hands all over her.

The entire house was ruined, a pile of rubble and broken wood.

The carnage was gut wrenching. Fun Fact: Dead Molemen smell awful! Giant worms were squished all over the place, and their segmented halves continued to writhe aimlessly through the rubble. Fran had finally been subdued, held down with thick gold chains and guarded by a dozen Molemen. The precautions were unnecessary, I could see the fight had gone out of her.

Lefty saw Amidala and I and rushed over.

“Is the Princess alright?” he asked.

“Yes, yes, she’s fine, just a little shaken up.”

“Where is she?”

“Well, she’s right here,” I pointed to Amidala.

Lefty looked at the naked, hairless supermodel huddled under my arm. He screwed up his face.

“Ugh, that dog? That’s not the princess. Where is she?”

Fire blazed in the Princess’s eyes. “Insolent swine! Bow before your Princess!”

Lefty recoiled. “Please, hairless wench, be silent.” He turned to me. “Doogie, I don’t know whether to thank you or not. We are free from the farmer, but our victory has come with a terrible price. Are the basement people still alive?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Good. We’re starving.” He gave me a fist bump. “God speed you on your journey, adventurer.”

“Where is my father? He will recognize me,” the Princess said.

It was then we saw the King’s body. Six Molemen carried it on a golden platform studded with burning torches. A procession walked ahead playing what sounded like the theme song to Alf on accordians, while a phalanx of soldiers did the electric slide, shaking golden kooshes.

The Princess tried to rush forward, but I held her back. She watched the funeral procession pass by, tears streaming from her eyes. She turned to me. “Take me with you. There’s nothing for me here.”

I tried to maintain the proper tone of mournful sorrow, but it was difficult.

– – –

Amidala and I got into the time machine and took a quick jaunt to the year 3000, where we spent two weeks vacationing on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. We lived in a little space hut on the shore of Kraken Mare. We spent our days swimming in Titan’s massive hydrocarbon lakes and hiking its breath-taking cryovolcanoes, and our nights (which last 15 days) were occupied . . . in other ways.

One morning Amidala rushed into the bedroom and shook me awake. “Look, look!” she squealed.

I woke up groggily, looked at her face, and screamed in terror. Amidala had a massive grey handlebar mustache, and her bountiful knockers were covered in whispy grey fur.

“It’s growing back!” She leapt on top of me and showered me with kisses. Her mustache tickled my nose. I prayed for the merciful darkness of night, and realized, ruefully, that another chapter in my adventure had come to an end, and the final chapter was about to begin.

The next installment of Doogie’s live comedy show, THE MINISTRY OF SECRET JOKES is on Wednesday, July 30th at Fergie’s Pub (1214 Sansom St.)

Catch up with past installments: I, II, III, IV, and V.

– – –

The farmer was sitting in his kitchen, I could see him through the windows. The kitchen’s overhead gas lamps flickered brightly and spilled out onto the dark lawn where the Molemen and I crouched in hiding.

The farmer was whittling a stick and sitting in front of an empty plate. My time machine’s key hung around his neck, the lanterns’ flames glinting off its brass.

The farmer hollered and a moment later Fran came lumbering into the room. I crept closer, careful to stay in the shadows, and tried to hear what they were saying.

“What do you mean we’re out of pork?” the farmer screamed. Fran just shrugged. Her big, dumb face elicited unexpected pity in me as she stooped to fit in the room and stoically took his shit. The farmer yelled at her for a couple minutes, then finally said “Alright, well go down and get that furry girl then, we’ll eat her. Make sure you pull off all the hair though.”

The Princess! I stood up and screamed over my shoulder. “Attack!”

Riding giant worms the size of elephants and swinging golden swords, the Molemen broke through the kitchen’s wall. Glass and wood flew everywhere. The farmer scurried under the table. Fran picked up the kitchen icebox and swung it like Thor’s hammer, squashing the Elephant Worms like . . . worms. (I’m sorry, but that’s the best way to describe it.) Fran was quickly overwhelmed and buried beneath a squirming pink mound while the Molemen beat her with rocks.

I was reveling in what I thought was our moment of victory, until the farmer’s eyes met mine, and I could see he wasn’t scared. Two little flames danced in his eyes, and a puckish smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

My heart sank.

“I figured out what your machine does, queer!” The farmer reached into his overalls and pulled out a nasty looking laser. “It travels through time.” He pointed the gun at me, and a green flame shot out of its nozzle.

I dodged left, but too slowly. My right arm and shoulder disintegrated in a burst of green fireworks. It didn’t hurt at all, and I didn’t even realize my arm was missing until a second later, when I tried to catch my fall and fell flat on my face. I rolled on the ground dumbly searching for my former extremity, and barely noticed as the Molemen King leapt over me and rushed towards the farmer. Lifting his sword overhead he screamed “Die foul dirt tiller!”

The farmer didn’t waste time on a witty retort, he just pulled the trigger and blasted a cantaloupe size hole through King Ralph’s chest. My missing arm was immediately put into perspective for me. The King’s sword fell to the ground. The farmer whirled to shoot me, but a giant worm’s tail knocked him to the ground. He swept his ray across the frontline of the Molemen army, and their bodies blew away like dandelions in a strong wind.

I picked up the King’s sword and ran towards the basement. The farmer’s death ray swept after me, disintegrating the floor behind me and chopping great whacks out of everything in its path, Molemen, worms, and all.

I made it to the cellar door and tumbled down the stairs. I could hear the screams of dying Molemen and the sizzle of the farmer’s laser behind me as I rushed towards the Princess’s cage. I saw her huddled in the corner, hairy and disgusting as ever.

“Thank the Great Mole you’ve come to save me! Where’s my father?”

“Stand back!” I yelled, and swung the sword against the lock on her cage. I missed completely and the sword rang dully off the stone wall. “Shit. I’m having trouble wielding this, since I’m not left handed.”

“Use your right hand,” she suggested.

I pointed to the stub where my right arm used to be.

She looked at my stub. An awkward silence descended over the cellar. “Is that a new shirt?” she asked.

“Fool, you’re trapped!” I spun and saw the farmer rushing down the stairs.

I gave my sword to the Princess. “Here, break your lock and run!” I ran into the maze of cages just as the death ray scorched holes in the stone all around me. The farmer shot wildly into the darkness, but couldn’t see me. Was the laser’s beam dimmer than it had been before? I thought it was, perhaps it was running low of energy.

I scurried in the shadows. In cages piled high as the ceiling, the Basement People cowered and stared at me with desperate eyes. From a crack between two cages I looked out and saw the farmer standing very still, listening.

“Heeeeeere piggy piggy piggy! C’mon out! I promise I won’t shoot your pecker off and feed it to my baby. C’mon.” He advanced into the maze of cages, his laser drawn. “That’s a beautiful time machine you have thar. I bet you’re gonna’ take it back in time and have anal sex with Julius Caesar, right? Disgusting. I bet you’re going to lick his pecker and hold his hand and then settle down and adopt a few children from Asia, ain’t ya?”

I had no such scheme in mind.

“And then your parents, Roy and Zoey Bailey, youse gonna’ go and tell them ‘I’m in love with Julius Caesar, and we have sex! And I am NOT a troll, I’m a midget! And I never wanted to be a farmer, and why’d you make me marry that gigantic bitch?!’”

I leapt at the farmer like a panther, and immediately regretted not choosing to leap like a more nimble jungle cat, such as the puma, because he easily parried my blow and tossed me to the floor. I struggled to stand and he planted his wicked sharp knee under my chin. The basement toppled end over end, and when it stopped I looked up into the black nozzle of his death ray.

“I’m gonna’ go back in time and make out with Judas Iscariot,” the farmer said.

“No you’re not.” Princess Amidala stood outside her cage, brandishing her father’s sword.

Before I could stop him, the farmer shot Amidala with his death ray. The green flames licked across her body, enveloping her. I knocked the laser from the farmer’s hand and pushed him as hard as I could with one arm (remember, my other arm was vaporized; a lot of guys would bitch and whine, make a big deal out of it, but not me) into the wall of cages. A multitude of Basement People shot their scabby arms between the bars and held him fast. Terror welled in his eyes.

“Dear sweet lord Jesus! I never meant I was gonna’ swap spit with Judas!” he pleaded.

I wasted no time gloating. I picked up King Ralph’s sword and tossed it to the Basement People. They chopped off the farmer’s arms and legs. Then they broke the locks on their cages, and swarming over the farmer’s screaming torso, devoured him alive.

I rushed to Amidala’s body, which lay smoking on the cellar floor. All the hair had been burned off her body. I could see that underneath the grey fur, she actually was an incredibly beautiful woman. The kind of woman I could love. The kind of woman I would have given my life for. I cradled her sexy, smoking (literally and metaphorically), supple body to my weeping breast, and immediately got a small, sinful erection. How much longer would the Basement People be occupied devouring the farmer’s body, I wondered.

I kissed Amidala deep and hard, and a single tear rolled from her eye and splashed onto her cheek.

Amidala’s eyelids fluttered, then opened. She stared into my eyes. An eternity passed between us. Then she looked down at her body.

“Holy fuck, where’d my fur go?!” Her blood-curdling scream bounced off the cellar walls.

Check back in two weeks for the thrilling conclusion to Doogie’s LITERARY ADVENTURE: The Time Machine series. The next installment of Doogie’s live show, THE MINISTRY OF SECRET JOKES, is July 30th.

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!

– – – –

I was falling fast. I couldn’t gauge how fast, because I couldn’t see anything. But I could feel it in my stomach. I reached out and my hand smacked against the rushing rock, breaking my wrist. I screamed SHAZAM! on the off chance it would turn me into a superhero, and to my amazement—

POOF!

—the wind was knocked out of me. But I wasn’t hurt. It felt like someone had smacked me with a pillow. I was sitting in the middle of something big and spongy. I couldn’t see what though, it was still pitch black.

“Hey, what the fuck are you doing, dicknose?” A voice said to my left.

“You’ve dented our mushroom!” shrieked a voice on my right.

I screamed “Don’t come any closer! I have the chicken pox!” I was bluffing, but they didn’t know that. I heard them take a frantic step back.

“Ah! Don’t breath on us!” said Lefty.

“What’s chicken pox?” cried Righty.

“You’ll know soon enough,” I said in my scariest Batman voice.

“No, no! Spare us!”

I dramatically held out the Princess’s sigul in my left hand. “Princess Amidala gave me this.” There was a reverent silence.

“Uh, we can’t see what you’re holding. Your back is to us.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“Can you see anything?” Lefty said.

“I see everything,” I said in my best the Shadow voice. Bluff!

I spun around, held out the sigul, and I heard their knees hit the ground.

“The Princess is alive!” they cried.

– – –

A couple minutes later, Lefty, Righty, and I were zipping through the underground caverns on Hoverboards™, en route to see the King. They explained that they were mushroom farmers, and I was very lucky to have landed on one of their large fungi. They spent the next five minutes telling me how much they loved mushrooms.

Flying through the caverns, I felt the cold, stale air rush against my cheeks, but I still couldn’t see anything.

“There’s the crystal caverns,” said Lefty. “The artistry on the carved pillars is so lifelike, it seems to breath. They truly are a wonder greater than anything seen in the Aboveworld.”

“And look, the stalagtite birds are molting,” said Righty. “How their diamond wings shimmer off the golden frogs’ blinking eyeballs,”

“Yes,” I said, “It’s amazing.”

– – –

Presently we arrived at the court of the Molemen’s™ ruler, King Ralph, and got off our Hoverboards™.

“Halt, who goes there?” a deep voice boomed. I heard two swords clash in front of us, barring our way.

“Steve, it’s me. You know it’s me,” Lefty said.

A deep sigh. “Look Tom, I’m working right now. I know it’s you, but—“

“Then why’d you say ‘Who goes there?’ It’s me. You know that.” Awkward.

“Look, I’m the Dude, so that’s what you call me, I just—HOLY SHIT!” Apparently the guards just noticed me. “What is that?! It’s a Farm Person!” I heard their swords fly apart, and then a sound like steel hornets as they whipped out and sliced the air in front of me. I ducked and felt the tips of my hair sheared off.

I operated on adventurer instincts. I dodged left and heard a sword clang against stone where I stood a moment before, hot sparks striking my leg. The other guard’s sword flew between my legs as I executed a midair split.

“Stop!” Righty cried.

The guards both stopped.

“Tom, he’s with us,” Lefty said.

I heard the guards drop their swords. “Oh, sorry,” Tom said sheepishly. “It’s uh, you know. It’s my first day on the job.”

I heard the creaking of heavy stone doors.

“Go ahead in,” the second guard said. I heard him light a cigarette.

“Did you know the inlaid marble on these doors is carved in an exact duplicate of God’s left thumb print?” Righty whispered to me.

“Yes, I knew that,” I whispered back.

– – –

“Welcome to the throne room of the King of the Molemen™!” Trumpets blared, bouncing off the stone walls. Somewhere someone shook a tambourine. There were lots of Molepeople in here, breathing, mumbling, shifting nervously.

A regal voice cut through the noise right in front of me. “Welcome, Farm Person!”

Lefty and Righty whispered in my ears. “Kneel! Kneel!”

“Thanks. Thank you,” I stammered as I got down on my knees. What was I thanking him for? I was nervous.

“How do you like my throne room? I bet you never saw diamonds this big in Outland, huh? And my golden throne, isn’t it magnificent?”

“Yes, nice throne. It looks like God’s butt.”

“Why yes, it’s an exact replica!” His voice was expansive, benevolent. “I hear you have brought a sigul?”

“Yes.” I held it out, and the room gasped, suddenly silent.

Heavy footsteps descended and walked towards me. A thick robe brushed my face, and cold, gnarled fingers plucked the sigul from my hand.

“Amidala’s Muscle Man figurine. She’s alive?” His voice quivered.

“Yes, she’s alive.”

The King roared like a beast. The trumpets blared so loud I was afraid the cavern’s ceiling would collapse; pebbles rained down on our heads. The massed people cheered, and the King’s bellow soared above it like thunder at the head of a storm cloud: “Goonies never say die!”