Oh No, There Goes Tokyo!

Japanese Writer Terrified of Boyerzilla

According to early reports, Japanese fiction writers were so terrified of Boyerzilla that they were forced to conceal Mothra, Rhodan and even the mighty Godzilla in undisclosed theme parks and Putt-Putt golf courses scattered throughout the Land of the Rising Sun.  The initial effort did turn out well due to size restrictions (it's hard to hide a giant moth under a windmill).  It was not until Minister of Literacy Ichiro  Murakami conceived of hiding these three greatest of all Japanese superheroes in an exhibit called "Land of the Giants" that the general reading public was able to breathe a sigh of relief.

Hoping for another Boyergate scoop, I Skyped Minister Murakami.

"Hello," I said.  "Can you both see and hear me?"

"What are you selling?" replied the Minister.  "I already have insurance."

 I sensed a certain level of frustration in his voice. 

"I'm a reporter," I said, "hot on the trail of breaking news stories that concern David Boyer, the serial plagiarist from Vincennes, Indiana."

"I have no time for reporters.  Writers are rioting in the streets.  There is looting here.  When rumors started that the cow-tongued plagiarist David Boyer had grown to such monstrous proportions he was looking overseas for things to steal, the whole Japanese population went mad!"

"Calm down," I told him.  "I don't even think David Boyer knows where Japan is."

"How can I be calm?  Mothra is not safe.  Rhodan is not safe.  Godzilla is not safe.  I heard Boyer is writing film scripts so bad his cats use them for litter.  Soon he'll start stealing our film scripts and putting his name on them.  If he claims he wrote the script for the movie "Godzilla," our whole nation will jump into the sea.  Godzilla is Japanese.  Mothra and Rhodan are Japanese.  We live through a tidal wave and a nuclear meltdown only to have to worry about Boyerzilla stealing our stuff?!"

"Minister," I cautioned, "Boyer can't read Japanese so he's not likely to plagiarize Japanese Godzilla movies."

His image waivered as he shouted and banged his fist on the table.

"He can't write in American, but he plagiarizes Americans. What do you say to that?"

Sure, bring that up.

"He lives in Vincennes, Indiana and he plagiarizes Vincennes writers!"

"I have to admit that sounds bad," I said.

"He claims to be Christian, but he plagiarizes Christian writers!"

I had to turn down the volume on my computer speakers- they were starting to vibrate.

"But Minister Murakami- " I said, but he cut me off before I could complete my sentence.

"No buts!!!  He likes monster movies.  Our monsters are the best.   He plagiarized Dean Koontz, why wouldn't he plagiarize Godzilla?"

"Godzilla didn't write the movie scripts, Minister, He's just a monster-actor.  So Boyer wouldn't technically be plagiarizing Godzilla himself."

The icy stare he gave me was so cold I shivered.

"You mean Godzilla is a film writer?"

He nodded.

"Wow," I said.  "There's a movie script in this."

I know I shouldn't have said that because it made him so mad he spit on his webcam.  It looked like a giant mucous meteorite hurtling at me.  Then he clicked off without a word.

Hmmm.... Boyerzilla versus the Giant Mucous Meteorite.

There's a movie script in that.

Alien Policeman Arrives with Message for Plagiaist David Boyer!

Gort, Klatu, Barada Boyer

YouTube viewers were held spellbound by the sight of history's most famous blind police alien- known affectionately as "Gort"- walking across Lake Michigan toward Vincennes, Indiana to deliver the notorious plagiarist David Boyer a message from the InterGalactic Council of Federated Planets.

Lady Gaga was heard to say, "Love that hat."

In fact, according to Dr. T. Foil, of the University of Vincennes, the hat serves a utilitarian function acting as a collecting transceiver to absorb the bright yellow rays emitted from his "tie" (perhaps a cleverly disguised alien device that our poor human minds only interpret as a tie) so that Gort's alien brain can interpret the signals and provide him with the coordinates of his position so he doesn't get lost.

"I don't go with that metaphor thing," said Dr. Foil.  "Sure the great plagiarist is also known as 'Tin Foil Dave,' so it could be interpreted by people with a literature degree that its really symbolic of homage to Mr. Boyer, but that thing on Gort's head looks more as though it was either constructed from the residual matter scatter of an exploding supernova or shiny matter from a  supercollider."

He paused, shoved a Q-Tip in his ear, and added, "Did you ever notice how often we scientists use the word super?"

A large crowd of reporters gathered on the shoreline to await Gort's arrival.  The brisk wind of earlier morning had died down, but nervous tension filled the air.  Imagine, we would be the first humans to pose questions to the great Gort.

"How do you suppose he does it?"  a perky cub reporter asked me.

"Hovercraft shoes," I said.  "Only way to walk on water. Got to use good batteries though."

"Not that," she laughed.  "I mean how can he find his way across the galaxy when he's blind?"
 
It was a good point, of course.  I'd worn blind-guy glasses in a bar once to pick up co-eds, but after the first hour of dark shades and tapping a cane to find my way around, I started believing I was blind, so I had to quit and pretend I was rich instead.

"I got a better question," I said.

That got her attention. She pulled a red curl back behind her ear and asked me what it was.

"Ever wonder what he's going to tell the plagiarist?   Word is he's got a warning for Boyer."

"Do you know something that I don't?"

I knew I had her.  She wasn't going to let me alone until told her what I knew.

The crowd was starting to get noisy.  Gort was only twenty feet away from the shoreline, walking on water like he was born to, his dark sunglasses aiming straight at us.

The entire City Council of Vincennes, IN had driven up to be here to witness the last leg of the alien top cop's pilgrimage.  They were carrying signs that read, "We don't know anyone named Boyer."

The redhead poked me in the ribs.  "So what's Gort going to tell him?"

"Ask me in four weeks," I said.

"Why four weeks?"

"I'll tell you on April first."

And I'll tell the rest of you on April 1st, too.

BoyerGate Flash! Giant UFO Sighted Over Vincennes, Indiana Before Entire Town Vanishes

Crop circle scientists were puzzled by the complete disappearance of the entire town of Vincennes, Indiana at 11:35 p.m. EST.  "We saw these lights flashing in the sky and drove that way looking for some serious crop circles or cows dressed in women's clothing wearing lipstick," said the lead scientist.  "Damned if all we found was this really creepy guy sleeping in his bed by the side of the road where his house used to be. He was wearing a pair of glasses with a big rubber nose and a shirt that said he wasn't David Boyer."

The mystery deepened when the entire town re-appeared five hours later fifteen miles northeast of where it started out.  State Police were sent to investigate the reappearance of the town.

"Little kid called us," said Trooper DoRight.  "Said a giant UFO flew over his grandpa's farm and stopped.  He observed that it seemed to be spinning around and, according to the detector he built, it was emitting gamma radiation.  He and his grandfather went out to investigate."

"He built his own detector?" I asked.

"So anyway," continued the Trooper, "shortly thereafter while the kid is dialing 911, he sees a big round hatch open in the bottom of the ship and then the entire town of Vincennes, Indiana drops out of it and lands right on top his grandfather.  Squashed him flat as a plagiarist's heart."

"That's incredible," I said, holding my digital recorder higher so I wouldn't miss a word.

"Try this.  When we arrived, we found out that every male in the town claimed to be named John Smith and every woman said their name was Mary."

"Gets weirder and weirder," I said.

So I started researching.  Sometimes in the world of investigative journalism you get lucky, sometimes not.  This time, I got lucky.

It seems that every three years since the day notorious Vincennes plagiarist David Boyer was born, giant UFOs hover over the town, suck it up and dump it a few miles away while Boyer is sleeping.  I tracked down the former mayor of the little town and asked him what he knew about it.  He was living in a cave outside of Boise, Idaho and agreed to answer my questions if I would bring him something to eat that was not a potato.

"We tried to move farther away," he said bitterly, "but we didn't have enough money to pay for but fifteen miles every couple of years.  We were hoping some day to make it to Ohio.  But the damned aliens charged us a fortune in saucer fuel to move the whole town.  You can't negotiate with the little ETs.  They got the monopoly on town moving."

"You mean these weren't alien abductions?  Your town was paying them?"

"Yep," he said.  "You bring any more pickles?"

"But why?" I asked.

"Because I'm hungry," he said.

"No, I mean why would you people pay aliens to move the whole town?"

"Not the whole town," he insisted.  "We just wanted to get away from that stinking plagiarist.  That's why they always left him behind."

"But what about the cows dressed in women's clothing and wearing lipstick that the crop circle scientists sometimes found?"

"Think about it," he grinned.

So I did. 

And I grinned.

Boyergate Flash! Bigfoot Angry at David Boyer

Bigfoot Needed a Ride to Vincennes, Indiana

But Developed Engine Trouble Along the Way

David Boyer is in trouble with Bigfoot.  Bigfoot's dream, you see, is to be a writer.

"He ruin market," the seismic-sized Sasquatch told me.

I had to run to keep up with him.  Being ten foot tall, his stride was enormous.  We were on our way through Ohio to meet the man voted America's most sleazy plagiarist in his home town of Vincennes, Indiana.  The town council of Vincennes also voted last week on a resolution re Boyer to change the town's motto to "David Boyer doesn't live here, he's just passing through."

"Had you thought of basketball?" I shouted at my interviewee as we crested another of Ohio's annoying hills.  "There's lots of money in basketball for a guy your size."

"Bigfoot no punk yeti!  Bigfoot aim big.  Be writer like Stephen King."

His words rumbled across the open land like thunder and his eyes were red-yellow and fierce.  I resisted the urge to look down and see if he really did have big feet or whether they were just proportional to his height.

"And what is your quarrel with David Boyer?" I asked and added, "Could we sit down on a stump or something?  I'm out of breath."

The gentle giant stopped and looked at me apologetically.  "Sorry," he said.  "Bigfoot no fit in car.  And cheap foreign flying saucer crap out over Toledo."

We found a stump large enough in diameter to support his behind and a log for me to sit on.  He sat down rather quietly for a creature weighing over twelve hundred pounds.  And in the afternoon sun, he actually looked dignified except for his face being completely covered with fur and those big teeth.  Perhaps by email I'll suggest he consider cologne as a wardrobe accessory as well.

"So," I continued, "why are you meeting with Mr. Boyer?"

"Bigfoot have writer's block," he said, casting his eyes toward the ground.  "Can't write worth beef jerky." 

"Wait, do you expect a man who defrauds consumers by selling plagiarized work to help you overcome writer's block?  He's a terrible horror writer.  He told me so in an email."

"He no have writer's block.  Bigfoot have writer's block."

I stood up and walked over to my new friend.

"You don't need to go see Boyer,"  I said.  "I can tell you why Boyer doesn't have writer's block when it comes to published fiction."

"You can?" he said, with a huge smile and a mouthful of blocky teeth.  "You make Bigfoot very happy."

"Sure,"  I said.  "His own fiction was so bad it was hard to get published, so he just started stealing other people's work and publishing that under his name or one of his aliases.  That way he didn't have to deal with writer's block.  You see?  He was a publisher.  Writers submitted their work and he just stole their stories.  That's in addition to stealing from writers on StoryMania."

Bigfoot said nothing for a few minutes, then he stood, beat his chest and howled a terrifying scream.

"What? What?" I yelled in a panic.

"Bigfoot put story up on StoryMania."

Uh-oh, I thought.