Where’s the Buckalew Bonzai? Pictured above with Tan's colorful spaceship travel pass buttoned to his field jacket, Jared has gone missing. No sightings, no foul smell of clove cigarette smoke on the wind. All email and phone contacts are dead. Mike Wilsey reports ufo activity at the old Realm of the Tooth is at all time lows. I’m worried about Jared's disappearance and its possibilities for mankind.

Decanus

As many of you know, I’ve been busy with my investigation into the disappearance of Jared Buckalew. Digging deep into the old files of TZR’s Advanced Concepts Office archives for clues I have discovered this overlooked satellite image:

Confirmed as authentic by ACO archive specialist Pimples Malone, this photo clearly shows the outline of a winged Biaviian Mothership hidden/buried deep below the grounds of the former Realm of the Tooth. The outline of the ship's body in a lighter gray than the rest of the surrounding ground color is possibly made so by early morning sunlight and large amounts of overnight diesel exhaust particulates mixed with truckers’ urine.

Decanus

For the past several months no one has seen or heard of erstwhile delivery boy and present day health food merchant Jared Buckalew. Rumors went flying, but none quite so high as that the day had come for him to take that last ride into the ether with pot dealer and post-traumatic-stress-disorder-sufferer Riley Martin.

First, more than a year ago all internet access had been cut off at Buckalew’s Waterford estate, and then more recently – no one can say how recently – phone service was cut, following which long time resident couch-weight Victoria made a hasty retreat to Missouri or Iowa or some other place equally in love with Toby Keith. All of this coincided with the apocalyptic predictions in recently released government studies showing that not only were humans responsible for global warming, but that it would continue unabated for centuries whether we stop polluting or not.

It seemed, in short, like a systematic shut down of Buckalew Palace in preparation for The Coming of Tan, an alien who claims his interstellar Dart bus will make a stop on earth just as the planet becomes uninhabitable. Jared, bell-wether of all things celestial and long time Space-Dart ticket holder, made no effort to contact any fat people, thereby raising suspicion that he was trying to slip out of the atmosphere unnoticed to avoid being asked for a ride to another suitable planet by those unticketed slobs who could offer neither gas, grass, nor ass.

I, The Shadow, shining beacon of hope for underground resistors and unsatisfied women alike, have since come out of retirement to investigate.

On February third of this year, I was approached by the Fat Kid, who told the following story:
“Yo, I went to Jared’s trailer, like, to see what the deal was with him, like if he was still alive, you know? And he wasn’t there.”

After delivering such masterful oratory, he told me he left the following note:
Jared,
The Fat Kid was here just making sure you were still alive, but then I got hungry and had to leave.
Jeff the Fat Kid

On receiving such a shocking report, I revved up the Trans Am and motored out to the palatial trailer park that Jared calls home, where I found things looking grim indeed. The cat’s water dish was frozen solid, the porch steps were splintered and rickety, and there was no car in the driveway, leading me to believe that Jared had left the scene to meet Tan at a secret landing space, rather than Tan swinging by to pick up his homie.

Despite the sticker on the storm door indicating the estate was protected by a .357 Magnum, I proceeded to investigate the extensive grounds. The Fat Kid’s note was still there on the steps, weighted down with a rock. The blinds were closed on every window, and no servants answered my knock – they must have been dismissed. The tool shed bore numerous signs of being old, and the lawn, though reasonably well maintained, could offer no absolute proof that Jared had been there.

Finding no clues to Jared’s whereabouts, I returned to the Trans Am to think. Other than outer space, where would Jared go? Suddenly, as strokes of genius often arrive, I deduced that if Tan hadn’t picked him up, Jared could only be at one of two places – the 7-11, or his dealer’s estate.

His dealer’s estate being the next lot over, Jared wouldn’t have driven. As no car was in sight, I could tell where my next stop should be.

The 7-11 was deserted, as though no prosperous young cashiers had been there for hours. The cigarette cases were well-stocked, so I could see that I hadn’t passed him on the way back! My only conclusion could be that Tan had finally come, and in a surprisingly Jesusy move, had picked up those believers who had given him money, and left the infidels and heretics to suffer through the rapture. And so it is with great solemnity that I say, readers, these are the last days. On this austere occasion, in our last hours, let us maintain whatever human dignity is left, by not trampling each other as we make our way to the gun stores. There are pistols enough for all. And make no mistake – pistols must be the solution, for who could stand to live through the coming days? Be wise, friends. Purchase pistols from my website shadowpistols.com, and shuffle off this mortal coil (guaranteed when used as directed).

Good-bye friends! What a world, what a world, what a world. . . .

The Shadow

Ed.s note: Jared has since been located, and confirms that Tan has not come, nor is the world to end.

Shadow Reporting

On Monday, gas station assistant manager and German feudal lord Count Mikhëil von Wilsey of Verzögert Castle, Saxony, made a shocking revelation to the press, claiming that he was in fact the father of Anna Nicole Smith’s five month old baby Dannielyn.

When asked whether it was true that he was actually a virgin, the Count said, “No, there was this girl, you wouldn’t know her. She was from Albany.” When asked whether that was the only girl he had ever been with, and whether he actually knew how to perform the reproductive act, he said, “As Count of Saxony, I order you to be quiet.”

The Count told Bluezer0 that “Anna started getting gas here when she was driving to the Bahamas. It’s pretty far to get there. She came up to the booth one time, and asked why the prices were so high, and I said, ‘That’s the highway, this is robbery.’ She must have laughed for half an hour. I actually thought she was sick or something. Or high. She was high a lot.”

Count von Wilsey gave detailed information about Anna’s bitchin’ Camaro, claiming in a significant tone that he often checked her oil, and that he refilled her windshield washer fluid reservoir several times.

The Count claims his fortune has run out, and that the only things he has left are the family seat in Saxony and his title, which was what Anna Nicole was after. The marriage they planned, which would have given her the title of Countess, was thwarted by lawyer and talk show host Howard K. Stern who was one of several men hittin’ dat, but the Count said he was willing to sell her a lesser title for certain favors, and large tips at the full service pump.

“As lord of Saxony and surrounding bergs, it is within my power to create and sell lesser titles appertaining to those areas. So, I might have made her Viscountess or something. It depends on how many times total, and how often I was allowed to check her oil. If it was too low, I only would have given her the title of Baroness, or even Baronetess, which is lesser by three steps, and the peasants don’t respect you as much.”

Most of the Count’s trysts with Anna were in his shared corner office on JFK Memorial Highway, he said. “She was really into the fake fern. She didn’t really know it was fake. She was amazed that it could grow in there because there are no windows so she thought it was magic or something. She used to hide heroin in there sometimes, too. Christ, I wonder if there’s any left. I’ll have to get rid of it.”

The heroin left in the plastic plant was very high grade, cooked up smooth, and very small doses were seriously effective, indicating Anna had good sources, probably direct from Afghanistan, or the eastern edge of Uzbekistan where the poppy crop is generally early and strong.

Only rarely did they meet at Count von Wilsey’s corner penthouse in Admiral’s Club Apartments, located in a swanky section of Kirkwood Highway near the famous Melrose Place. Mostly they met late at night, when the Count’s father wasn’t home. “She would come over and bring Taco Bell, and we would watch Sanford and Son on Nick-at-Night. Or what do they call it now, TVLand or something like that? Anyway, we’d watch that, or Three’s Company, or Cheers or something. Whatever was on, really.”

It was during one of these late night trysts that Dannielyn was conceived, von Wilsey said. “I was all about the rhythm method, but she insisted on hooking up raw-dog all the way ‘til the end no matter when she was supposed to ovulate.” Asked precisely when “the end” was, Count Mikhëil said, “Pretty much as soon as she got in the door. Sometimes she would hug me, and it was all over. Literally.” That was gross.

Currently, Anna Nicole’s former lawyer Howard K. Stern, and fake royal Prince Frederic von Anhalt claim to be the father, and plan on a paternity test. When the paternity test shows that neither Stern nor von Anhalt is the father, the Count says, he will step in and call for his own test, which will show that he should get custody of the child, and her money.

“On Sunday begins the Chinese Year of the Pig and it’s going to suck big time," said ex-Makati feng shui mistress and now thobe and bashiya wearing Riyadh guest worker E. R. Navarro.

The pig is one of the animals of the Chinese zodiac(which includes a lizard like dragon) on a 12-year lunar calendar cycle. Each animal year is associated with five elements: metal, water, wood, fire and earth. Normally, couples like to hump like rabbits so they can have babies born during the Year of the Pig because the child is more likely to grow up being hardworking and lucky. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Hillary(the cross dressing ghost of Richard M. Nixon) are pigs.

However, soon the shit comes down according to many fortune tellers and others in the know. “This Pig Year is dominated by fire and water which means conflict and skirmish," so said Makati bartender and BBW squeezer Borge, “it’s going to be shitty! Ugly happenings between the fat bellied pork eatin’ Americans and all those pig hating Mohammedans."

Feeling all this negativity, I decided to do what any bored asshole with a Tiger sign would do, I checked out my Year of the Pig Horoscope. Tiger Rating: 65% (9 favorable, 1 neutral and 2 unfavorable months).

Decanus

Fat Kid’s note: The Shadow initially came out of retirement to cover Jared’s disappearance, but having gotten a taste of his old journalistic fervor, he has taken it upon himself to do some real reporting. Noticing that other people his age had no idea what (other than fighting) was really going on over seas, he booked a flight to the Middle East, and slowly made his way toward Baghdad. This the first in a series of articles aimed at informing twenty-somethings who don’t much care about stuff, and junk.

The Shadow reports, on location in Baghdad

BAGHDAD. As the rosy-fingered dawn brightens this ruin of a city one is reminded of history’s most dramatic sieges and sickening sights – the earthquake addled walls of Jericho, the degradation of Hektor’s corpse at the fall of Troy, the firing of V-2 rockets into London, and the concentration camps at Dachau, Auschwitz and others during the Second World War.

Fat Kid's note: The Shadow's projected multi-article project has been cut short. This will be the second and final installment of his overseas reporting. The Shadow is now back in the US, where he will shortly enter treatement for PTSD, according to his confidential medical insurance file, accessible here at the Bluezer0 offices.

The Shadow reports

After visiting, hiding in, and fleeing from the visceral mess that was Baghdad, I decided to make a stopover in Saudi Arabia to recharge my batteries for a few weeks. After resting up, I turned my gaze toward sunny East Africa, just a stone-skip across the Red Sea. The harem I bought by cashing in my 401(k) said it would be too dangerous, but I didn’t listen. I simply transferred ownership of them to the Saudi Royal family – good friends of the Bush family – where I knew they’d get an excellent beating, and set out.