Wednesday, December 17, 2008
For Close Comfort, Too
Reasonably priced, exceptionally well-worn. All-weather, seasonally sound. Vetted by over twelve product-liability organizations including but not limited to Damaged Newborn Incorporated, Smashy The Car, Elevensies, Head Neck & Shoulder Trauma 'R' Us, Weather Prophecy UK, Sempleton Smear, & Dolores Rainier, PhD. Focus-group tested in all Western & most Eastern European countries as well as most of the "red" states of these United States except Louisiana & Alberta. Subject to rigorous hypotheticals at food fairs & fun runs during the hot summer of 2007 & part of the warm autumn of 2006. Trendy but singular. Dependable, reliable, controversial, standard. Kid-safe, animal-friendly, for use in virtually every home, rented or foreclosed-upon. Solar powered (no batteries required) or operational with old-fashioned alternating current. For use with ages six months & up although you must be at least one meter tall to ride the ride. Not available for sale in "dry" counties or the Low Countries. Limited amounts so stock up today. Patents pending, patents impending, registered trademark, no contract, limited license. No signature or blood work required; acceptable use of the product implies understanding of property rights. Unacceptable use of the product is not recommended. Salt-free, fat-free, lactose-intolerant, manufactured on machines that may or may not have processed peanuts, coca leaves, or low-income families. Chemically neutral unless operated with alcoholic machinery. Happily the product is refunded if not entirely satisfied. Today's solution for tomorrow's youthful indiscretions. Kosher, no animal products intended, safe for diabetics & megalomaniacs. The taste grows on you. The growth tastes like you. A transformation of sensation for the "do it" generation. Ask for it by name! Tell your friends about it by name! Enjoy it by name!
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Panda Crisis Escalated!
From the newswire:
"Continuing Panda Crisis worsening Hollywood Hills! Moreover standard Edward Asner Emmy-Nominated Takeover! Cast-iron Container unusable in Current Predicament! Let's Sandpaper Mutual Protection Team Temporary scanning Opportunity!"
From the editorial pages:
"Never before in the vertiginous heights of alacrity has headline fervor so infected and delighted an impassive populace as the indefatigable pronouncements of the risible news media."
From the on-the-spot commentary:
"Panda pretty! Pretty panda! Panda wanna eucalyptus leaf? Panda wanna? Panda? Wanna? Uh? Uh! My hand! My hand!"
From the bloggers (present company excluded):
"The MSM is AWOL on WTF is happening in CPC. If the PTB haven't LTM, we're still looking at SOL PDQ SVP."
From the man on the woman on the street:
"Panda Crisis? I'm more worried about my wife. I've been standing on her for days & she looks unfazed!"
From the Panda King:
"There will be yet time for bells & whistles. Today, though, more treasure & blood. More treasure & blood my lovelies! More treasure! More blood!"
To be continual!
"Continuing Panda Crisis worsening Hollywood Hills! Moreover standard Edward Asner Emmy-Nominated Takeover! Cast-iron Container unusable in Current Predicament! Let's Sandpaper Mutual Protection Team Temporary scanning Opportunity!"
From the editorial pages:
"Never before in the vertiginous heights of alacrity has headline fervor so infected and delighted an impassive populace as the indefatigable pronouncements of the risible news media."
From the on-the-spot commentary:
"Panda pretty! Pretty panda! Panda wanna eucalyptus leaf? Panda wanna? Panda? Wanna? Uh? Uh! My hand! My hand!"
From the bloggers (present company excluded):
"The MSM is AWOL on WTF is happening in CPC. If the PTB haven't LTM, we're still looking at SOL PDQ SVP."
From the man on the woman on the street:
"Panda Crisis? I'm more worried about my wife. I've been standing on her for days & she looks unfazed!"
From the Panda King:
"There will be yet time for bells & whistles. Today, though, more treasure & blood. More treasure & blood my lovelies! More treasure! More blood!"
To be continual!
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Genuflection For Our Time
As we approach (with approbation) another holiday season, emphasis ought to be given, we feel, to imaginary traditions, never practiced or followed, before we kowtow to the (frankly) blatantly Iron Age rituals we use our platinum credit cards to observe.
The War On Sailing would like everyone to begin the holiday season by handing out maps to different cities or countries (you can buy them in used bookstores or steal them from used gas stations) to strangers you happen to meet while out & about. The National Geographic maps from different periods of time are especially fun. Offer no explanation, simply say, "Have a map!" If pressed, perhaps you can tell everyone you're an out-of-work cartographer.
The War On Sailing encourages the substitution of tofu for virtually every normal holiday foodstuff, at least half the time. Tofurkey, tofu nog, tofu candy canes - there are any number of confusing substitutions you can make that will have at least one uncle leaving in a huff pretending to quote the Bible.
The War On Sailing appreciates the atonal or otherwise stony delivery of your favorite carol. Imagine how Nico would sing it, & there you are. Reciting them as if you're a modern poet in a modern poetry reading is also fine. The key is to convince others you're "reimagining" the stodgy seasonal ditty, while really you're just trying to annoy.
Lest you think that the War On Sailing wants to replace "good tidings & good cheer" with "confusion & spite" as the target emotions for the yuletide, we want to encourage more than good wishes - we demand you be supportive. For even the most rudimentary of tasks, you should shout, "Excellent work!" Often call for "three cheers!" for a co-worker or a family member who needs a boost. Serial hand-shaking is also much desired. The more folks shake hands, you know, the less they have palm-space for guns, knives, or other implements of violence.
The War On Sailing would also ask that the more mischievous of you make a habit of gainsaying during the month of December. This is especially delightful with political-minded relatives or friends, & works with both the liberal- & the conservative-minded. Preface any remark to a strident opinion with, "Do you really think that's true?" Of course they will, so you can follow with, "I just don't think that's true." Most people of this ilk will strive to prove their point, & it takes virtually no knowledge of the subject matter to simply deny an assertion out of hand. Exasperation for them can mean hilarity for you!
Finally, the War On Sailing reminds you that killing a tradition is not nearly as dishonorable as it seems. Slavery, female circumcision, bowl game parades - these are all "traditions" which are considered morally reprehensible by most persons in the universe today, but once upon a time they were accepted, even defended, by the vast majority of people. Alas, they were never truly replaced with an opposite number, & that's the task we've set out for you.
If only to have a little fun, this holiday season, kick your favorite tradition where it counts.
The War On Sailing would like everyone to begin the holiday season by handing out maps to different cities or countries (you can buy them in used bookstores or steal them from used gas stations) to strangers you happen to meet while out & about. The National Geographic maps from different periods of time are especially fun. Offer no explanation, simply say, "Have a map!" If pressed, perhaps you can tell everyone you're an out-of-work cartographer.
The War On Sailing encourages the substitution of tofu for virtually every normal holiday foodstuff, at least half the time. Tofurkey, tofu nog, tofu candy canes - there are any number of confusing substitutions you can make that will have at least one uncle leaving in a huff pretending to quote the Bible.
The War On Sailing appreciates the atonal or otherwise stony delivery of your favorite carol. Imagine how Nico would sing it, & there you are. Reciting them as if you're a modern poet in a modern poetry reading is also fine. The key is to convince others you're "reimagining" the stodgy seasonal ditty, while really you're just trying to annoy.
Lest you think that the War On Sailing wants to replace "good tidings & good cheer" with "confusion & spite" as the target emotions for the yuletide, we want to encourage more than good wishes - we demand you be supportive. For even the most rudimentary of tasks, you should shout, "Excellent work!" Often call for "three cheers!" for a co-worker or a family member who needs a boost. Serial hand-shaking is also much desired. The more folks shake hands, you know, the less they have palm-space for guns, knives, or other implements of violence.
The War On Sailing would also ask that the more mischievous of you make a habit of gainsaying during the month of December. This is especially delightful with political-minded relatives or friends, & works with both the liberal- & the conservative-minded. Preface any remark to a strident opinion with, "Do you really think that's true?" Of course they will, so you can follow with, "I just don't think that's true." Most people of this ilk will strive to prove their point, & it takes virtually no knowledge of the subject matter to simply deny an assertion out of hand. Exasperation for them can mean hilarity for you!
Finally, the War On Sailing reminds you that killing a tradition is not nearly as dishonorable as it seems. Slavery, female circumcision, bowl game parades - these are all "traditions" which are considered morally reprehensible by most persons in the universe today, but once upon a time they were accepted, even defended, by the vast majority of people. Alas, they were never truly replaced with an opposite number, & that's the task we've set out for you.
If only to have a little fun, this holiday season, kick your favorite tradition where it counts.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Do Cell Phones Cause Male Pattern Baldness?
It behooves you - as well as I - as well as they - to keep track of the current literature, specifically the scientific literature - also, the airport-novel literature, but that's for another essay - on how human beings constantly create things - we call it "technology" - the effects of which we not only fail to foresee, but also we choose to deny or ignore. Until, of course, it is far past too late.
Cellular phones, invented by the Romans but not feasible for mass production until the Nazis, came into their own in the late 20th century. Powered by the body scrapings of ghouls, these helpful communication devices have proliferated to the point that, in the United States alone, even the unborn are offered cell phone plans. But wait! I hear you interrupt. Parts of ghouls? Wouldn't that make them radioactive? Of course it would.
Below are some common claims about cell phone effects & the latest scientific responses to them. Please take them with a healthy dose of skepticism. If you see something you know to be false, text me.
Claim # 1: Cell phones feed off the plasma in your blood.
True. Ghouls, while perfectly fine as a power source for jumbo jets & all-night raves in abandoned warehouses, need human blood plasma to sustain themselves - even in tiny pieces - over long periods of time. The Catholic Church pioneered ghoul technology after they exploded the first atomic bomb in 1254 CE, but ghoul technology remains hopelessly misunderstood - partly because the church tends to fund more grants to prove the Bible can zip around in the air by itself.
Claim # 2: Ringtones are codes designed for secretly communicating with alien circus freaks.
Undetermined. The rise of alien circus freaks in most of the world's alien interactions has coincided with the rise of cell phone technology. However, as captured alien circus freaks have apparently only mastered Esperanto, it's impossible as yet to know why they have begun visiting Earth en masse. If you speak Esperanto, please contact your local alien apprehension squad. If you cannot find your local alien apprehension squad, please look in the phone book under "contact lens repair." There. That's them.
Claim # 3: A cellular phone can distill liquor.
False. Who told you that, anyway?
Claim # 4: Several legislative bodies all over the globe, including the United States, are debating adding amendments to their respective incorporation documents guaranteeing their citizens the right to a cell phone.
Undetermined. But would it surprise you?
Claim # 5: Cell phone are of the devil.
A little bit true, a little bit false. Of course, there is no "devil," although there are some American politicians who believe so & have acted accordingly, drinking the blood of children & gutting environmental laws. But if "of the devil," one means "evil," then most certainly cell phones have more of a capacity for evil than good. While a cell phone might be handy, for example, when your automobile breaks down by the side of the road, so you can call for help or chat with your mom or what-not, an annoying cell phone ring is 452% more likely to get you beat the fuck up than a home phone.
Claim # 6: All I need is my cell phone & a label maker & I am set.
What? Who submitted this? I'm trying to write a serious article here. Come on!
Claim # 7: While we don't know what cell phones are really doing to us & to our environment, they can't be as bad as the paranoid folks think.
Dream on, bright eyes.
Cellular phones, invented by the Romans but not feasible for mass production until the Nazis, came into their own in the late 20th century. Powered by the body scrapings of ghouls, these helpful communication devices have proliferated to the point that, in the United States alone, even the unborn are offered cell phone plans. But wait! I hear you interrupt. Parts of ghouls? Wouldn't that make them radioactive? Of course it would.
Below are some common claims about cell phone effects & the latest scientific responses to them. Please take them with a healthy dose of skepticism. If you see something you know to be false, text me.
Claim # 1: Cell phones feed off the plasma in your blood.
True. Ghouls, while perfectly fine as a power source for jumbo jets & all-night raves in abandoned warehouses, need human blood plasma to sustain themselves - even in tiny pieces - over long periods of time. The Catholic Church pioneered ghoul technology after they exploded the first atomic bomb in 1254 CE, but ghoul technology remains hopelessly misunderstood - partly because the church tends to fund more grants to prove the Bible can zip around in the air by itself.
Claim # 2: Ringtones are codes designed for secretly communicating with alien circus freaks.
Undetermined. The rise of alien circus freaks in most of the world's alien interactions has coincided with the rise of cell phone technology. However, as captured alien circus freaks have apparently only mastered Esperanto, it's impossible as yet to know why they have begun visiting Earth en masse. If you speak Esperanto, please contact your local alien apprehension squad. If you cannot find your local alien apprehension squad, please look in the phone book under "contact lens repair." There. That's them.
Claim # 3: A cellular phone can distill liquor.
False. Who told you that, anyway?
Claim # 4: Several legislative bodies all over the globe, including the United States, are debating adding amendments to their respective incorporation documents guaranteeing their citizens the right to a cell phone.
Undetermined. But would it surprise you?
Claim # 5: Cell phone are of the devil.
A little bit true, a little bit false. Of course, there is no "devil," although there are some American politicians who believe so & have acted accordingly, drinking the blood of children & gutting environmental laws. But if "of the devil," one means "evil," then most certainly cell phones have more of a capacity for evil than good. While a cell phone might be handy, for example, when your automobile breaks down by the side of the road, so you can call for help or chat with your mom or what-not, an annoying cell phone ring is 452% more likely to get you beat the fuck up than a home phone.
Claim # 6: All I need is my cell phone & a label maker & I am set.
What? Who submitted this? I'm trying to write a serious article here. Come on!
Claim # 7: While we don't know what cell phones are really doing to us & to our environment, they can't be as bad as the paranoid folks think.
Dream on, bright eyes.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
2040 C.E.
Red "Tucker" Fosberg has once again produced his famous "2040" list, a compendium of predictions, based almost entirely on the opposite of probability, statistics, & scientific fact, of what the world will be like in 2040. A provocative list, much discussed in very small circles, Fosberg's "2040" has been produced every year since Fosberg was four years old, when his list predicted, somewhat direly, that "In 2040 giant waterbug monster will kill everyone." Fans of Fosberg appreciate that this early sophistication has not been improved upon in the list's many years.
The War On Sailing blog is proud to present excerpts from Fosberg's 2008 "2040" list. Now in its seventh decade, the list remains the only predictive list which has been utterly different every time it's published.
From Fosburg's preface:
"In 2040, I plan to be dead. I have therefore spent my entire life wondering what the world would be like if I could live to be that age. Although the 1975 2040 list predicted that I would actually be alive in 2040 but as a disembodied 'selfish gene,' the foolishness of that prediction was revised in my 1980 2040 list, in which I predicted that, in 2040, I would have been dead for half a century. Happily, that prediction turned out to be untrue, as has the especially hysterical one in which I imagined that, in 2040, the Insect King would finish his forty-year reign of terror after his workers had consumed the last human. I don't know what I was thinking then. I might have been getting the house sprayed for termites. In any event, enjoy this list, &, as always, don't tell me when my predictions come true. They're supposed to."
My favorite prognostications from this year's list:
"In 2040, thumbs and pinky fingers, generally comfortable on opposite ends of the hand, will finish the strange, rapid evolutionary process of fusion, making a bony claw which will be instrumental in the Avian Civil War to follow."
"In 2040, science will invent a cheese that, once consumed, will make it possible for humans to breathe in liquid. Not water, unfortunately, but in milk, colas, beer & some runny yogurts."
"In 2040, a band of renegade outlaw clowns will win the Nobel Prize for Piracy by kidnapping the entire country of Indonesia & holding it hostage. None of the tiny islands will be spared."
"In 2040, the last remaining examples of paper currency which are not preserved in digital form in digital museums will be passed out to the AfrAsian mutant population to line their nests & feed their pods."
"In 2040, the Undersea Kingdom of Houston will finally end its terrorist attacks against the surface world."
"In 2040, the unexpected return of Jesus will coincide with the unexpected return of Horus & the resulting embarrassment of the two godlings will be endlessly mocked in the media."
"In 2040, chewing gum will once again be legalized, after previously subjugated dentists are freed."
"In 2040, everything will be changed & nothing will hurt you any more."
The War On Sailing blog is proud to present excerpts from Fosberg's 2008 "2040" list. Now in its seventh decade, the list remains the only predictive list which has been utterly different every time it's published.
From Fosburg's preface:
"In 2040, I plan to be dead. I have therefore spent my entire life wondering what the world would be like if I could live to be that age. Although the 1975 2040 list predicted that I would actually be alive in 2040 but as a disembodied 'selfish gene,' the foolishness of that prediction was revised in my 1980 2040 list, in which I predicted that, in 2040, I would have been dead for half a century. Happily, that prediction turned out to be untrue, as has the especially hysterical one in which I imagined that, in 2040, the Insect King would finish his forty-year reign of terror after his workers had consumed the last human. I don't know what I was thinking then. I might have been getting the house sprayed for termites. In any event, enjoy this list, &, as always, don't tell me when my predictions come true. They're supposed to."
My favorite prognostications from this year's list:
"In 2040, thumbs and pinky fingers, generally comfortable on opposite ends of the hand, will finish the strange, rapid evolutionary process of fusion, making a bony claw which will be instrumental in the Avian Civil War to follow."
"In 2040, science will invent a cheese that, once consumed, will make it possible for humans to breathe in liquid. Not water, unfortunately, but in milk, colas, beer & some runny yogurts."
"In 2040, a band of renegade outlaw clowns will win the Nobel Prize for Piracy by kidnapping the entire country of Indonesia & holding it hostage. None of the tiny islands will be spared."
"In 2040, the last remaining examples of paper currency which are not preserved in digital form in digital museums will be passed out to the AfrAsian mutant population to line their nests & feed their pods."
"In 2040, the Undersea Kingdom of Houston will finally end its terrorist attacks against the surface world."
"In 2040, the unexpected return of Jesus will coincide with the unexpected return of Horus & the resulting embarrassment of the two godlings will be endlessly mocked in the media."
"In 2040, chewing gum will once again be legalized, after previously subjugated dentists are freed."
"In 2040, everything will be changed & nothing will hurt you any more."
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Proud Colossus!
The invention of the oud in the early Middle Ages is the subject of a provocative new documentary (currently unreleased & feeling a little rejected in its metal container) by former filmmaker & current electrical engineer Hermann Wrassler. Wrassler, whose lovely wife Maybelline is the leading Avon Brand Raspberry Rouge salesgirlie in the South-West Idaho District for three years running, can't play the instrument & is in fact completely tone deaf (also, color-blind & uppity-nosed), & so relied on expert testimony from friends of his who speculated on the past, future, current whereabouts & possible philosophic/political bent of the instrument which most scholars believe preceded the lute & which some betting men wager could hand the lute its ass in a basket.
Wrassler remains passionate about the project despite mistakenly returning one copy he had to Netflix instead of the recent Indiana Jones sequel. Netflix executives reportedly sent it on five more times until someone complained that they had gotten the wrong movie, & that person had mistaken Harrison Ford for Henry Ford, at whose auto plant the customer once lost the use of every long vowel after a mishap with a power window. But Wrassler was not cheered by the meager reception his magnum opus has thus far received:
"Did you see the last Indiana Jones movie?" he said, exasperated. "That fucking sucked!"
Scholars of the War On Sailing often find themselves enraptured by musical instruments, a common way to mis-transmit information in repressive or otherwise nonsensical cultures. Tweed Muppet's landmark seven volume History Of The Tambourine once reportedly sent Vladimir Putin into a rage because it revealed KGB techniques that he - Putin - thought were invented in his lifetime. As well, Young Sandy Arfster's Oboe, written & re-written at least two dozen times during her lifetime, & three times since her death, is widely read not only to discover what a "double reed" is but to understand how Hoover failed as the economy crashed around him.
Is the same true about Wrassler's "filmic history" of the Middle Eastern stringed instrument called the oud? The five Netflix customers who have seen it chose not to review it for the DVD rental agency, & the agency would not reveal the names for further research. What of Wrassler's friends? Have they seen it?
"I have no friends," said Wrassler.
Too many complete works are either unavailable (think of the last seventeen novels JD Salinger has written) or have been completely destroyed (think of the first seventeen novels JD Salinger wrote) for scholars to be sanguine about this short film (apparently only thirteen minutes long, minus previews) which was filmed on location in South-West Idaho, with some scenes secretly shot in a Home Depot ten minutes before closing. Repeated requests to Wrassler by this writer were denied, although when I offered to throw in a donut, he hesitated.
More research, as always, is needed.
Wrassler remains passionate about the project despite mistakenly returning one copy he had to Netflix instead of the recent Indiana Jones sequel. Netflix executives reportedly sent it on five more times until someone complained that they had gotten the wrong movie, & that person had mistaken Harrison Ford for Henry Ford, at whose auto plant the customer once lost the use of every long vowel after a mishap with a power window. But Wrassler was not cheered by the meager reception his magnum opus has thus far received:
"Did you see the last Indiana Jones movie?" he said, exasperated. "That fucking sucked!"
Scholars of the War On Sailing often find themselves enraptured by musical instruments, a common way to mis-transmit information in repressive or otherwise nonsensical cultures. Tweed Muppet's landmark seven volume History Of The Tambourine once reportedly sent Vladimir Putin into a rage because it revealed KGB techniques that he - Putin - thought were invented in his lifetime. As well, Young Sandy Arfster's Oboe, written & re-written at least two dozen times during her lifetime, & three times since her death, is widely read not only to discover what a "double reed" is but to understand how Hoover failed as the economy crashed around him.
Is the same true about Wrassler's "filmic history" of the Middle Eastern stringed instrument called the oud? The five Netflix customers who have seen it chose not to review it for the DVD rental agency, & the agency would not reveal the names for further research. What of Wrassler's friends? Have they seen it?
"I have no friends," said Wrassler.
Too many complete works are either unavailable (think of the last seventeen novels JD Salinger has written) or have been completely destroyed (think of the first seventeen novels JD Salinger wrote) for scholars to be sanguine about this short film (apparently only thirteen minutes long, minus previews) which was filmed on location in South-West Idaho, with some scenes secretly shot in a Home Depot ten minutes before closing. Repeated requests to Wrassler by this writer were denied, although when I offered to throw in a donut, he hesitated.
More research, as always, is needed.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Astride The Auld Libertine
"Frank Pankuk, a Hungarian, boarding at No. 72 East Fourth-street, was called on last evening by his brother Joseph, a worthless young ruffian, 21 years old, who wanted money. Frank refused to give it to him, whereupon Joseph pulled a revolver and fired two shots at his brother. One took effect in his right breast, inflicting a dangerous wound. Joseph fled, and had not been arrested at a late hour. The wounded man was removed to Bellevue Hospital."
So reported the New York Times on January 9, 1885. But about the incident's outcome, the paper is silent - as is history itself. What happened to Frank Pankuk? Did he live? How dangerous was his wound? How did he, a simple boarder, afford his bill at Bellevue?
& what about that worthless young ruffian, Joseph Pankuk? Was he ever caught? Did he ever shoot anyone again? Will he continue to be vilified by history, being an unhappy example of young, worthless Hungarian ruffians?
Alas, the "grey lady," the "paper of record," does not answer these questions. Frank Pankuk, a young adult Hungarian male who had arrived in the United States in early 1883 in order to find work in the slave labor trade, distinguished himself early on as an obvious foreigner & strange-looking person who couldn't speak English very well. His brother Joseph, too, seemed very much unlike average New Yorkers unless they had recently arrived from Eastern Europe or were in some ways unpleasant to the observer. The two brothers chose not to live together, Joseph instead preferring to hang out with other young ruffians, & Frank being far more comfortable with sitting in his filthy room drawing pictures of naked women in his bible.
Why wouldn't the New York Times report these obviously untrue facts? & why, after deigning to report on a bloody skirmish between the two brothers, not bother to report on their fates? What was more important? Teddy Roosevelt at Harvard? Kaiser Wilhelm learning how to tango? Sarah Bernhardt in La Fille de Roland? The discovery & subsequent loss of Fred Hermsch's entire oeuvre? What I had for breakfast?
Surely you can see my point. Alas, we may never know what fate befell the Pankuk brothers, but you can make sure the same thing never happens to you, especially if you're Hungarian, a young ruffian, &/or living in the 19th century. So please do. & tell them it has everything to do with the War On Sailing.
So reported the New York Times on January 9, 1885. But about the incident's outcome, the paper is silent - as is history itself. What happened to Frank Pankuk? Did he live? How dangerous was his wound? How did he, a simple boarder, afford his bill at Bellevue?
& what about that worthless young ruffian, Joseph Pankuk? Was he ever caught? Did he ever shoot anyone again? Will he continue to be vilified by history, being an unhappy example of young, worthless Hungarian ruffians?
Alas, the "grey lady," the "paper of record," does not answer these questions. Frank Pankuk, a young adult Hungarian male who had arrived in the United States in early 1883 in order to find work in the slave labor trade, distinguished himself early on as an obvious foreigner & strange-looking person who couldn't speak English very well. His brother Joseph, too, seemed very much unlike average New Yorkers unless they had recently arrived from Eastern Europe or were in some ways unpleasant to the observer. The two brothers chose not to live together, Joseph instead preferring to hang out with other young ruffians, & Frank being far more comfortable with sitting in his filthy room drawing pictures of naked women in his bible.
Why wouldn't the New York Times report these obviously untrue facts? & why, after deigning to report on a bloody skirmish between the two brothers, not bother to report on their fates? What was more important? Teddy Roosevelt at Harvard? Kaiser Wilhelm learning how to tango? Sarah Bernhardt in La Fille de Roland? The discovery & subsequent loss of Fred Hermsch's entire oeuvre? What I had for breakfast?
Surely you can see my point. Alas, we may never know what fate befell the Pankuk brothers, but you can make sure the same thing never happens to you, especially if you're Hungarian, a young ruffian, &/or living in the 19th century. So please do. & tell them it has everything to do with the War On Sailing.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Contents May Unsettle After Opening
While the international debacle in regards to feral children continues unmolested, let quasi-independent observer & part-time committed activist Ernest Growl weigh in on this airy subject:
Contrary to popular misdirection, there is no "problem" with feral children provided you have a continual demarcation between so-called "raised by wolves" types & "raised by douchebag" types. The three Austrian girls, for example, whose mother kept them in a cellar for seven years - raised by a total douchebag. The young Romanian boy allegedly reared by dogs who was discovered in 2002 - a feral child. Let's put too fine a point on it: you cannot bandy the phrase "feral child" about when you just want to inflate the numbers so you have extra heft to your empty doctoral dissertation. You should write about Bruce Springsteen like you wanted to & forget this subject. You'll get a PhD! They give them out like condoms!
As a former feral child (I was raised by pumas because my parents couldn't afford to get me into a decent prep school), I can say with virtual certainty that being able to clean oneself with one's tongue is a talent that verges on the heaven-sent. I can also say that, although English is my second-language, it has none of the elegance of the truly subtle purr-speak of most felines. These kinds of insights are not only exclusive to me & my feral brethren, they are highly disputed among the jealously elite we call the "raised by their own kind." Are these haters able to kill & eat their own dinner despite the fleas? Are they able to differentiate a threatening footstep from a friendly padding? How about in a thunderstorm? How about while tripping balls on catnip? Why do they, then, insist on reporting on & classifying "feral children"? You wouldn't let someone who didn't know Czech teach Czech to some No Children who were Left Behind, would you? You wouldn't.
This maligning of the feral child & mislabeling of the truly abused must end here & it must end now. Although we'll totally understand if you need time to think about it. There are maybe only a few dozen feral children & obviously tens of thousands of abused children, so we understand that our anger at being treated this way is not proportional to the number of those who are suffering. We're not dumb. & we also won't mind if there's government money available for us which we are - oh, let's just pile it on - for which we're just too socially awkward to ask. We were raised by turtles! & peregrine falcons! & grizzlies! & evangelicals! Help us with some cash!
For more information on feral children, please visit big ominous forests & ask the animals there if they've found anything that belongs to you. They'll know what you mean. They'll take you straight to the feral child nursery. Just take care they don't eat you - animals in the forest are hungry!
Contrary to popular misdirection, there is no "problem" with feral children provided you have a continual demarcation between so-called "raised by wolves" types & "raised by douchebag" types. The three Austrian girls, for example, whose mother kept them in a cellar for seven years - raised by a total douchebag. The young Romanian boy allegedly reared by dogs who was discovered in 2002 - a feral child. Let's put too fine a point on it: you cannot bandy the phrase "feral child" about when you just want to inflate the numbers so you have extra heft to your empty doctoral dissertation. You should write about Bruce Springsteen like you wanted to & forget this subject. You'll get a PhD! They give them out like condoms!
As a former feral child (I was raised by pumas because my parents couldn't afford to get me into a decent prep school), I can say with virtual certainty that being able to clean oneself with one's tongue is a talent that verges on the heaven-sent. I can also say that, although English is my second-language, it has none of the elegance of the truly subtle purr-speak of most felines. These kinds of insights are not only exclusive to me & my feral brethren, they are highly disputed among the jealously elite we call the "raised by their own kind." Are these haters able to kill & eat their own dinner despite the fleas? Are they able to differentiate a threatening footstep from a friendly padding? How about in a thunderstorm? How about while tripping balls on catnip? Why do they, then, insist on reporting on & classifying "feral children"? You wouldn't let someone who didn't know Czech teach Czech to some No Children who were Left Behind, would you? You wouldn't.
This maligning of the feral child & mislabeling of the truly abused must end here & it must end now. Although we'll totally understand if you need time to think about it. There are maybe only a few dozen feral children & obviously tens of thousands of abused children, so we understand that our anger at being treated this way is not proportional to the number of those who are suffering. We're not dumb. & we also won't mind if there's government money available for us which we are - oh, let's just pile it on - for which we're just too socially awkward to ask. We were raised by turtles! & peregrine falcons! & grizzlies! & evangelicals! Help us with some cash!
For more information on feral children, please visit big ominous forests & ask the animals there if they've found anything that belongs to you. They'll know what you mean. They'll take you straight to the feral child nursery. Just take care they don't eat you - animals in the forest are hungry!
Zazen & The Art Of Mandible Rewiring
Brief items shall be the order for the day for the War On Sailing from this moment until the moment it stops. Things have changed too slowly to be quickly overlooked in this rapidly decelerating world. So I must be quick. Or else everything may grind to a halt.
The radio show is not perchance the tour de force perforce that one might have originally perceived it to be. Indeed, it's not so much a pearl of great cost as a mock pearl tossed before mocking swine. Just the tonic, indeed, for these troubled timbers. While we have as a matter of course not focused on either the current financial crisis nor the current American election - seriously, we're not that easily fooled - we have decided to support the castanheiros in South America in their desire to rename the month of August "Brazil Nut Month." Well! The meeting at which this decision took place was not well-attended, but that's because it was not well-advertised. Which is all well & good.
A correspondent in Corcova has asked in slightly trippy Romanian if we intend to become more up-to-date in the manner accustomed to "posting playlists on the world-wide-wonk." I am entirely sure this is a reference to a game that Vladimir Putin has been known to play with extraordinarily renditioned guest-workers from the Caspian, but we shall demure in the name of global sanctimony & instead reply, "We'll try." We who watch & learn & report on the War On Sailing are kept very busy with alcohol & pencils, & it's truly a wonder that Your Historian has managed to play records two hours a week in the short term. Don't hassle me with your sighs, Chuck.
Stay tuned for regular outbursts. No one need know you were here. Just walk along as if nothing has happened.
The radio show is not perchance the tour de force perforce that one might have originally perceived it to be. Indeed, it's not so much a pearl of great cost as a mock pearl tossed before mocking swine. Just the tonic, indeed, for these troubled timbers. While we have as a matter of course not focused on either the current financial crisis nor the current American election - seriously, we're not that easily fooled - we have decided to support the castanheiros in South America in their desire to rename the month of August "Brazil Nut Month." Well! The meeting at which this decision took place was not well-attended, but that's because it was not well-advertised. Which is all well & good.
A correspondent in Corcova has asked in slightly trippy Romanian if we intend to become more up-to-date in the manner accustomed to "posting playlists on the world-wide-wonk." I am entirely sure this is a reference to a game that Vladimir Putin has been known to play with extraordinarily renditioned guest-workers from the Caspian, but we shall demure in the name of global sanctimony & instead reply, "We'll try." We who watch & learn & report on the War On Sailing are kept very busy with alcohol & pencils, & it's truly a wonder that Your Historian has managed to play records two hours a week in the short term. Don't hassle me with your sighs, Chuck.
Stay tuned for regular outbursts. No one need know you were here. Just walk along as if nothing has happened.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Camera Eyeball
After reading a recent post about the failed short story writer & moderately unsuccessful documentary filmmaker, Savage H. Puncture, the editors of Get Ye Gone! magazine forwarded the following interview excerpt with the man, which was to be published in their tenth issue, although they had only been able to afford to publish two. Get Ye Gone! magazine is now only available at the editors' commune outside Edmunton, Alberta, & you can't take it out of their library. Not even with a card.
Introduction: Savage H. Puncture of Oxnard, California, smells of diesel & fish. His hands are covered with notes he has written to himself &, on his left thumb, to his ex-wife Marie, who still owes him money. He's a nervous sort who slurps loudly from a giant-sized Big Gulp & who claims to be "scratching his teeth" while he swallows small handfuls of cake sprinkles. We spoke to him on the front doorstep of his West Philadelphia apartment, which he had locked himself out of, as he waited for a locksmiths or something to come by.
Get Ye Gone: Mr. Puncture, you're not known for being a friendly man.
Savage H. Puncture: Come over here & say that!
GYG: You are a prolific writer but not a profitable one. You once joked that you had written more books than you ever sold.
SHP: Than were in print.
GYG: Excuse me?
SHP: You got the joke wrong. It's "I've written more books than are in print."
GYG: Is that possible?
SHP: What, that you got the joke wrong or that I've written more books than are in print?
GYG: Either.
SHP: Well, you didn't the joke.
GYG: Shouldn't a joke have a punch line?
SHP: I'll show you a punch line.
GYG: You have another book of short stories coming out, is that correct?
SHP: Indeed, in September from the Atkins Diet Press.
GYG: At what stage in your writing career do you think you're currently at?
SHP: You did that thing there, with the prepositions.
GYG: I beg your pardon?
SHP: You had the whaddayacall redundant prepositions. "At which stage are you at." That's what you said.
GYG: Do machines pray?
SHP: What the hell sort of question is that?
GYG: It seems to me that, as humans, we imbue our creations - art, poetry, music, movies - with feeling & that's what makes them alive to us. Is we create machines, do we not imbue them with soul too?
SHP: You remind me of this fruitcake I used to see down at Raymond's on karaoke night. He was always going on about shit like, do flowers give a damn? can you breathe in heaven? will you blow me for a fin?
GYG: What was that last one?
SHP: Drunks ain't proud.
GYG: Should a writer sleep more or less than a non-writer?
SHP: More. Sleeps helps with the hangover.
GYG: Unlike mainly authors who haven't really been published, you've stayed unmarried. As well, romance plays a very small part in your body of work. Why is that?
SHP: I have very dry skin.
GYG: I don't understand.
SHP: Let's move on.
GYG: Okay. Your recent novel Bernard Sprains His Groin was optioned for a movie starring Keanu Reeves. Though it seems to have been delayed for now, you've been vocal in your opposition to the movie. Is it because of Keanu Reeves?
SHP: Ah hell no. It's because of who they cast to play the groin.
GYG: Who's that?
SHP: Scott Baio.
GYG: Ouch.
SHP: I know!
GYG: Before we go, do you have any words to say to aspiring writers out there?
SHP: Yeah. Don't write for fanzines or small newspapers. People who write for those things are trapped their for life.
GYG: Thank you, Mr. Puncture.
SHP: Thank you, Mr. Pedophile.
Introduction: Savage H. Puncture of Oxnard, California, smells of diesel & fish. His hands are covered with notes he has written to himself &, on his left thumb, to his ex-wife Marie, who still owes him money. He's a nervous sort who slurps loudly from a giant-sized Big Gulp & who claims to be "scratching his teeth" while he swallows small handfuls of cake sprinkles. We spoke to him on the front doorstep of his West Philadelphia apartment, which he had locked himself out of, as he waited for a locksmiths or something to come by.
Get Ye Gone: Mr. Puncture, you're not known for being a friendly man.
Savage H. Puncture: Come over here & say that!
GYG: You are a prolific writer but not a profitable one. You once joked that you had written more books than you ever sold.
SHP: Than were in print.
GYG: Excuse me?
SHP: You got the joke wrong. It's "I've written more books than are in print."
GYG: Is that possible?
SHP: What, that you got the joke wrong or that I've written more books than are in print?
GYG: Either.
SHP: Well, you didn't the joke.
GYG: Shouldn't a joke have a punch line?
SHP: I'll show you a punch line.
GYG: You have another book of short stories coming out, is that correct?
SHP: Indeed, in September from the Atkins Diet Press.
GYG: At what stage in your writing career do you think you're currently at?
SHP: You did that thing there, with the prepositions.
GYG: I beg your pardon?
SHP: You had the whaddayacall redundant prepositions. "At which stage are you at." That's what you said.
GYG: Do machines pray?
SHP: What the hell sort of question is that?
GYG: It seems to me that, as humans, we imbue our creations - art, poetry, music, movies - with feeling & that's what makes them alive to us. Is we create machines, do we not imbue them with soul too?
SHP: You remind me of this fruitcake I used to see down at Raymond's on karaoke night. He was always going on about shit like, do flowers give a damn? can you breathe in heaven? will you blow me for a fin?
GYG: What was that last one?
SHP: Drunks ain't proud.
GYG: Should a writer sleep more or less than a non-writer?
SHP: More. Sleeps helps with the hangover.
GYG: Unlike mainly authors who haven't really been published, you've stayed unmarried. As well, romance plays a very small part in your body of work. Why is that?
SHP: I have very dry skin.
GYG: I don't understand.
SHP: Let's move on.
GYG: Okay. Your recent novel Bernard Sprains His Groin was optioned for a movie starring Keanu Reeves. Though it seems to have been delayed for now, you've been vocal in your opposition to the movie. Is it because of Keanu Reeves?
SHP: Ah hell no. It's because of who they cast to play the groin.
GYG: Who's that?
SHP: Scott Baio.
GYG: Ouch.
SHP: I know!
GYG: Before we go, do you have any words to say to aspiring writers out there?
SHP: Yeah. Don't write for fanzines or small newspapers. People who write for those things are trapped their for life.
GYG: Thank you, Mr. Puncture.
SHP: Thank you, Mr. Pedophile.
Monday, August 4, 2008
A Life Bereft Of Croutons
Catapult! said the mizzenmast. Crouton! said the sailor salad! It's Fourteen Buffet Days again in downtown Akron!
All the televisions are left on fire for the clearance sale, & former Olympic bronze medal winners play erstwhile superstars on gigantic heterosexual parade floats, masking their musk by wearing magical cologne to keep the locals' loins itchy & raw. The crowd is not what it used to be but weighs nearly twice as much as it ever did, & fried things are offered at ridiculous prices to those who don't yet have something in their hands nor a prescription drug habit. Someone feels unexplainably sad until the Fire Marshall accidentally shoots a stray dog with a stray bullet.
Later, over a shrimp cocktail & a highball, Mayor Wilt Chamberlain (no relation) weeps into his hands when he is informed of yet another government subsidy going to nearby Youngstown. He whispers into his iPhone & rattles off a rhyming response to Youngstown Mayor Larry Bird (no relation either) which manages to insult not only his parents & children, but also an ancestor that Chamberlain read about who enjoyed finger-fucking the Ohio state animal, the White-Tailed Deer. He seems satisfied, although later in the night a sheriff from Youngstown named Kobe Bryant (unbelievably, no relation), claiming to be acting alone, shits on Mayor Chamberlain's front porch, puts a bag over the Mayor's head, & sets him & the house on fire.
Shaquille O'Neal (no relation - you know), a cub reporter at the Akron Daily Bells & Whistles, leaves the Akron Zoo, where he had been writing his weekly piece about Mama Bear & her children, at the behest of his editor, who also has the name of a famous basketball star but I am tired of writing "no relation" so I won't bother telling you. The editor gets O'Neal into an interview room with Bryant, but accidentally shoots him with a tranquilizer dart when Bryant notices that O'Neal is packing, & tried to show him how to properly clean his gun. Bryant, unfortunately, is allergic to the tranquilizer, which is part codeine & part Seven-Up, & dies in O'Neal's arms in a kind of "Pieta" pose that O'Neal remembers whenever he can't maintain an erection.
Word reaches Cleveland as the Fourteen Buffet Days come to an end, so the crack reporting squad from the Plains Dealer decide instead to drive over to Chicago for a girlie show & prostitution in the naughty part of town. What they could have discovered if they had instead just driven once around Akron, which has some passable strippers if you don't look at the deep unhappiness in their eyes! We're talking corruption in some of the middest of levels! We're talking the manufacture of pre-packaged faith for consumer gnawing of a flavor nearly as bitter & despairing as that a few miles over in New York City! We're talking people still wearing slacks to bowling nights!
Do not blame young reporter O'Neal. The first visit from the authorities scared him, but when he was warned by the fellow at the 7-11 who had never spoken a word to him before in English, he knew there was a conspiracy & that his name had been added to a list of "fuck you" by people who have a moderate amount of power but almost no sense of humor. (He knew, as we all do, that they think pain is funny, but that's about it.) So he returned to the bear beat. But he did write an email to a stand-up comedian who taught improv to people who head injuries in Canton, in which he mentioned something about the day's events in passing, & the comedian promptly received a head injury of his own. O'Neal got the message, & allowed Mama Bear to maul him two days later.
Parades appear something like panacea to the people of mid- to small-town America, & so they're planned to the last detail, much like carnivals, to appear amateurish, shabby, & tedious. That they sometimes turn deadly should not be surprising. That no independent Parade Movement hasn't appeared to confront & contrast despicable events like the Fourteen Days Buffet is also not surprising. Nothing should surprise you. That's how they win.
All the televisions are left on fire for the clearance sale, & former Olympic bronze medal winners play erstwhile superstars on gigantic heterosexual parade floats, masking their musk by wearing magical cologne to keep the locals' loins itchy & raw. The crowd is not what it used to be but weighs nearly twice as much as it ever did, & fried things are offered at ridiculous prices to those who don't yet have something in their hands nor a prescription drug habit. Someone feels unexplainably sad until the Fire Marshall accidentally shoots a stray dog with a stray bullet.
Later, over a shrimp cocktail & a highball, Mayor Wilt Chamberlain (no relation) weeps into his hands when he is informed of yet another government subsidy going to nearby Youngstown. He whispers into his iPhone & rattles off a rhyming response to Youngstown Mayor Larry Bird (no relation either) which manages to insult not only his parents & children, but also an ancestor that Chamberlain read about who enjoyed finger-fucking the Ohio state animal, the White-Tailed Deer. He seems satisfied, although later in the night a sheriff from Youngstown named Kobe Bryant (unbelievably, no relation), claiming to be acting alone, shits on Mayor Chamberlain's front porch, puts a bag over the Mayor's head, & sets him & the house on fire.
Shaquille O'Neal (no relation - you know), a cub reporter at the Akron Daily Bells & Whistles, leaves the Akron Zoo, where he had been writing his weekly piece about Mama Bear & her children, at the behest of his editor, who also has the name of a famous basketball star but I am tired of writing "no relation" so I won't bother telling you. The editor gets O'Neal into an interview room with Bryant, but accidentally shoots him with a tranquilizer dart when Bryant notices that O'Neal is packing, & tried to show him how to properly clean his gun. Bryant, unfortunately, is allergic to the tranquilizer, which is part codeine & part Seven-Up, & dies in O'Neal's arms in a kind of "Pieta" pose that O'Neal remembers whenever he can't maintain an erection.
Word reaches Cleveland as the Fourteen Buffet Days come to an end, so the crack reporting squad from the Plains Dealer decide instead to drive over to Chicago for a girlie show & prostitution in the naughty part of town. What they could have discovered if they had instead just driven once around Akron, which has some passable strippers if you don't look at the deep unhappiness in their eyes! We're talking corruption in some of the middest of levels! We're talking the manufacture of pre-packaged faith for consumer gnawing of a flavor nearly as bitter & despairing as that a few miles over in New York City! We're talking people still wearing slacks to bowling nights!
Do not blame young reporter O'Neal. The first visit from the authorities scared him, but when he was warned by the fellow at the 7-11 who had never spoken a word to him before in English, he knew there was a conspiracy & that his name had been added to a list of "fuck you" by people who have a moderate amount of power but almost no sense of humor. (He knew, as we all do, that they think pain is funny, but that's about it.) So he returned to the bear beat. But he did write an email to a stand-up comedian who taught improv to people who head injuries in Canton, in which he mentioned something about the day's events in passing, & the comedian promptly received a head injury of his own. O'Neal got the message, & allowed Mama Bear to maul him two days later.
Parades appear something like panacea to the people of mid- to small-town America, & so they're planned to the last detail, much like carnivals, to appear amateurish, shabby, & tedious. That they sometimes turn deadly should not be surprising. That no independent Parade Movement hasn't appeared to confront & contrast despicable events like the Fourteen Days Buffet is also not surprising. Nothing should surprise you. That's how they win.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Coming To A Recycle Bin Near You
In Retrospect, Connecticut, the organization United Against Douchebaggery (called NAD for some convoluted reason) meets in early July to choose which Christians it will persecute in the coming year. Chairperson Howard Guise explains to reporters that his organization's interest in the persecution of Christians has nothing to do with any philosophy, doctrinal differences, or anything about the religion per se; he just thinks Christians are douchebags.
One of the local reporters, Ted Hankie of the Miniscule, Connecticut, Weekly Evening Ledger, points out that he's known a lot of Jewish people who were total douchebags, & a few of these Muslims he had to interview one time were exemplary in their douchebaggery, & most certainly the entire chapter of the Teabag, Massachusetts, Secular Humanism Society were such douchebags that they were almost dickheads. Why single out Christians, is his pointed question.
Howard Guise acknowledges that fact - he even points out that he himself can be a total grade-A douche when he hasn't had his morning coffee (for example) or when he is grumpy at long NAD meetings. But, he says to the local group, the other groups - muslims, jews, Monty Python fans - they have a history of persecution for just being who they are. Their persecutors didn't bother to get to know them, just beat them up or relocated or killed them because they happened to be born into some religious faith or whatever. Certainly in a case like this, the persecutors couldn't have known whether their victims were douchebags or not. There is therefore a great chance a lot of cool motherfuckers were hurt or murdered needlessly.
But Christians! says Guise. Jesus, to listen to them you'd think they were the most oppressed group in the universe! Instead, of course, they pretty much run everything in America, with politicians lining up to plant loving kisses on their (mostly) pale white asses. All the time, though, they complain. They whine. If someone who so much as looked like a buddhist got interviewed on television, they'd rip open their bibles to find proof the world was ending & they'd soon have to carpool to work with someone of a different denomination. In short, Guise concludes, they're consummate douchebags.
Surely, though, Hankie has to ask, not all Christians!
Of course not, replies Guise. That's why we meet. To decide which ones were particularly douchebaggish this year. Then we send out our crack squad of persecutors to make their lives a living hell.
Another reporter, Marjory Boulder of the MUFON Mutual News (she accidentally came to the wrong event), asks whether or not the people are alerted about their persecution.
Where's the fun in that, chortles Guise, to much laughter from the assembled press corps. No, no, he says, wiping tears from his eyes, we publish a list in the New York Times. Of course, most of the Christians we choose to persecute not only don't read the Times, the majority of them can't read.
Soon, the hall is filled with NAD members, some of whom haven't seen the others since the event last July. Many books & documents are brought in, noted by some of the press: a copy of the Montgomery, Alabama, white pages; a bound collection called Who's Who In The G W Bush Administration, rosters of Young Conservative groups from several Texas colleges. The process is only for the group, & it takes a while, so the press corps chats with themselves, gets bored, then wanders home.
But for the members of NAD the night is young & the work has just begun!
One of the local reporters, Ted Hankie of the Miniscule, Connecticut, Weekly Evening Ledger, points out that he's known a lot of Jewish people who were total douchebags, & a few of these Muslims he had to interview one time were exemplary in their douchebaggery, & most certainly the entire chapter of the Teabag, Massachusetts, Secular Humanism Society were such douchebags that they were almost dickheads. Why single out Christians, is his pointed question.
Howard Guise acknowledges that fact - he even points out that he himself can be a total grade-A douche when he hasn't had his morning coffee (for example) or when he is grumpy at long NAD meetings. But, he says to the local group, the other groups - muslims, jews, Monty Python fans - they have a history of persecution for just being who they are. Their persecutors didn't bother to get to know them, just beat them up or relocated or killed them because they happened to be born into some religious faith or whatever. Certainly in a case like this, the persecutors couldn't have known whether their victims were douchebags or not. There is therefore a great chance a lot of cool motherfuckers were hurt or murdered needlessly.
But Christians! says Guise. Jesus, to listen to them you'd think they were the most oppressed group in the universe! Instead, of course, they pretty much run everything in America, with politicians lining up to plant loving kisses on their (mostly) pale white asses. All the time, though, they complain. They whine. If someone who so much as looked like a buddhist got interviewed on television, they'd rip open their bibles to find proof the world was ending & they'd soon have to carpool to work with someone of a different denomination. In short, Guise concludes, they're consummate douchebags.
Surely, though, Hankie has to ask, not all Christians!
Of course not, replies Guise. That's why we meet. To decide which ones were particularly douchebaggish this year. Then we send out our crack squad of persecutors to make their lives a living hell.
Another reporter, Marjory Boulder of the MUFON Mutual News (she accidentally came to the wrong event), asks whether or not the people are alerted about their persecution.
Where's the fun in that, chortles Guise, to much laughter from the assembled press corps. No, no, he says, wiping tears from his eyes, we publish a list in the New York Times. Of course, most of the Christians we choose to persecute not only don't read the Times, the majority of them can't read.
Soon, the hall is filled with NAD members, some of whom haven't seen the others since the event last July. Many books & documents are brought in, noted by some of the press: a copy of the Montgomery, Alabama, white pages; a bound collection called Who's Who In The G W Bush Administration, rosters of Young Conservative groups from several Texas colleges. The process is only for the group, & it takes a while, so the press corps chats with themselves, gets bored, then wanders home.
But for the members of NAD the night is young & the work has just begun!
Monday, June 30, 2008
A Tribute To Horse
In the majesty of what is rightfully called "that mountain range in Iran," the Alborz hides many secrets for the secret-hunting secret-gatherer. One feels humble, grateful, servile in this strange world of mountains in Iran. I mean, who knew there were mountains in Iran? You could've knocked me over with a feather. Next thing you know there's going to be telling me they get winter weather in Australia!
An hour or so drive from Tehran leads you to Shemshak, a humorously named ski resort where Gentle Face wears his mask of shame. The undisputed master of a dying Persian martial art, Gentle Face has undisputed strength (as far as I know), but has never been known to kill anyone. Not knowingly, with malice aforethought. He has been known to kill a fifth of bourbon on an occasion, but is that a crime? I think not!
In the dizzying heights of the Alborz, you feel willing, like a child, & innocent, like an angel, & you start to imagine that you, too, came from this wilderness. What you're feeling actually is something called hypoxia, & it happens sometimes where the air is thinner. Just rest a bit. Have a drink of water. That's it. Feel better? Good.
Life for Gentle Face has been hard, though he never showed anything but the purest love. He would not say, though it is true, that selfish people, people on antidepressants & mood-enhancing drugs, spoiled his purity with their fucked-up priorities. He does not complain & he will not cry. Not Gentle Face! He ambles slowly on his one good toe to the shack behind the goggle rental stand & warms himself on a stick of incense - truly, all he can afford. He's been whipped, kicked, hounded - although they used poodles since the hounds were sleeping. They say you can see fear in his eyes, though not tears. Never tears!
Gentle Face's unbroken spirit - or his bizarre stubbornness - has made him the perfect foil for competing political interests in that volatile region. He started out as the Shah's butt-boy. Then, when the dust settled, it turned out he was the Ayatollah's catamite. A revolution later, he found himself as Ahmadinejad's "gentleman friend." More recently, with possible invasion looming, he's found himself the homosexual lover of George W Bush. & in all this time, was Gentle Face ever a pitcher? No! No! He's always been a catcher!
Taken for granted, living a simple, intricate life, giving of himself yet asking for nothing, Gentle Face disappeared this past week from the small shack in which he lived. Is he alive or dead? Has he betrayed both his masters & fled to another? Did he just pop out to the store & is foolishly waiting in the longest line? No one knows. & boy are both the Iranis & the Americans pissed off!
Gentle Face did not write anything down - what is important, he would say, is transient, &, as if to make a point, he'd urinate some important thought in the snow. But he did leave a rich tradition of anecdotes from those who knew him. He also left nearly every bowel movement he made in his adult life, in small boxes, lined with ineffectual scented tissues, buried behind his hovel. Strangely enough, no one has claimed them. (I also note that I said "nearly every" bowel movement; he did not save them all! He only saved the ones he thought were perfect. & he had mostly perfect shits.)
Gentle Face sightings have begun, but I believe that, though he's still alive, he's fallen & he can't get up, so he'll wait patiently for someone to help him up. & then he'll move on. I think his time has passed, & he's now looking for that thing we look for our entire lives: some peace & quiet before we die. Or maybe just a small pub with cheap beer & cheese fries. One of the two, anyway.
An hour or so drive from Tehran leads you to Shemshak, a humorously named ski resort where Gentle Face wears his mask of shame. The undisputed master of a dying Persian martial art, Gentle Face has undisputed strength (as far as I know), but has never been known to kill anyone. Not knowingly, with malice aforethought. He has been known to kill a fifth of bourbon on an occasion, but is that a crime? I think not!
In the dizzying heights of the Alborz, you feel willing, like a child, & innocent, like an angel, & you start to imagine that you, too, came from this wilderness. What you're feeling actually is something called hypoxia, & it happens sometimes where the air is thinner. Just rest a bit. Have a drink of water. That's it. Feel better? Good.
Life for Gentle Face has been hard, though he never showed anything but the purest love. He would not say, though it is true, that selfish people, people on antidepressants & mood-enhancing drugs, spoiled his purity with their fucked-up priorities. He does not complain & he will not cry. Not Gentle Face! He ambles slowly on his one good toe to the shack behind the goggle rental stand & warms himself on a stick of incense - truly, all he can afford. He's been whipped, kicked, hounded - although they used poodles since the hounds were sleeping. They say you can see fear in his eyes, though not tears. Never tears!
Gentle Face's unbroken spirit - or his bizarre stubbornness - has made him the perfect foil for competing political interests in that volatile region. He started out as the Shah's butt-boy. Then, when the dust settled, it turned out he was the Ayatollah's catamite. A revolution later, he found himself as Ahmadinejad's "gentleman friend." More recently, with possible invasion looming, he's found himself the homosexual lover of George W Bush. & in all this time, was Gentle Face ever a pitcher? No! No! He's always been a catcher!
Taken for granted, living a simple, intricate life, giving of himself yet asking for nothing, Gentle Face disappeared this past week from the small shack in which he lived. Is he alive or dead? Has he betrayed both his masters & fled to another? Did he just pop out to the store & is foolishly waiting in the longest line? No one knows. & boy are both the Iranis & the Americans pissed off!
Gentle Face did not write anything down - what is important, he would say, is transient, &, as if to make a point, he'd urinate some important thought in the snow. But he did leave a rich tradition of anecdotes from those who knew him. He also left nearly every bowel movement he made in his adult life, in small boxes, lined with ineffectual scented tissues, buried behind his hovel. Strangely enough, no one has claimed them. (I also note that I said "nearly every" bowel movement; he did not save them all! He only saved the ones he thought were perfect. & he had mostly perfect shits.)
Gentle Face sightings have begun, but I believe that, though he's still alive, he's fallen & he can't get up, so he'll wait patiently for someone to help him up. & then he'll move on. I think his time has passed, & he's now looking for that thing we look for our entire lives: some peace & quiet before we die. Or maybe just a small pub with cheap beer & cheese fries. One of the two, anyway.
Friday, June 27, 2008
I Can't Wait For The New X-Files Comedy
In light of shocking reports about the Queen of Sheba & her pet goat Sofie, the Song Of Solomon Kaffeeklatsch wrote the following report to be read at the 10th anniversary meeting of the Free Bigfoot Now! Society. Installments have been parsed for congratulation. Read & learn:
Sisters, we bring to you sad news from the Homely Land: Capture The Flag is no longer offered as an elective at UC-Irvine. This comes mostly as a sadness for the happy people gathered in gaiters by the gates of Golgotha tonight. If it's a Leonard Cohen song you hear, it's most likely not one of the one happy one he wrote. & that one is only happy if you're in a weird mood. Otherwise, you know, it's kinda blue.
Sisters, bookends being heavier than the books themselves, we step to the catalfalque & say to those taking umbrage, we say, "Stop taking all the umbrage!" Inside the coffin is ourselves, dead & dying, killed by a cancerous capitalistic culture which chomped cookies without care, which was conceived in catastrophe coldly like a chafing child, which constructed cataclysmic cast-iron cauldrons to cook cracked crabs for convenience for carnivores. I am out of alliteration, so shall have carry on with only assonance which, as my mother used to tell me, was better than no ass at all.
Sisters! Do you really need us to write your fan fiction? Do you imagine we'll have time to animate your blooper reel? Get real! That is the problem with this generation & the next: we populate our web pages, but do we really have free hours in our long day to airbrush the semen off the lips of Lindsay Lohan? This is why it seems like there's an extra arm in the picture, sisters - better that than foul truth in advertising, you know what I'm saying, can I get a good god damn, high five?!?
Sisters, we are not famous, nor well-known, nor well-bred, nor talented, nor skinny. But we are also not cowards! How many of you have single- or double-handedly dented an SUV in loving memory of 9/11? How many of you, present company excluded, have pulled out the heart of a hedge-fund manager & made him eat it with his Taco Bell nachos? Didn't we tell you he would like it? Wasn't that just too fucking freaky? & how many of you have said at long last, "No! No! Maybe!" to the universe that fails like every new television schedule in October? Why must I ask you? When will you learn?
Sisters, you can sigh, "Am I wrong?" You can holler back at us, "You've got what looks like arugula in your teeth!" You can tell your next-door neighbor "We're trying bondage now!" But what does it really accomplish other than simple communication? How much more mail must pass between this billing cycle & the next Netflix before we say "No! Unh-uh! No way!"? Is the answer three? Because last month we figured out it was four.
Now you know! At this point let's us empty the baggies & refill them with our own shame. We live in sweet surrender, sisters, with the frangipani dulling the deathly smell of the jacaranda, timeless but fated to kill us all, wet, wild, meek, mild, set, unique. In forty-two flavors not counting flavorless. Because lack of flavor is not a flavor, as silence is not a sound.
Sisters! We have cashews on the buffet tonight! Go nuts!
(This presentation was edited for all intents & purposes. A full transcript & video presentation will show up on C-Span as soon as you've forgotten all about it.)
Sisters, we bring to you sad news from the Homely Land: Capture The Flag is no longer offered as an elective at UC-Irvine. This comes mostly as a sadness for the happy people gathered in gaiters by the gates of Golgotha tonight. If it's a Leonard Cohen song you hear, it's most likely not one of the one happy one he wrote. & that one is only happy if you're in a weird mood. Otherwise, you know, it's kinda blue.
Sisters, bookends being heavier than the books themselves, we step to the catalfalque & say to those taking umbrage, we say, "Stop taking all the umbrage!" Inside the coffin is ourselves, dead & dying, killed by a cancerous capitalistic culture which chomped cookies without care, which was conceived in catastrophe coldly like a chafing child, which constructed cataclysmic cast-iron cauldrons to cook cracked crabs for convenience for carnivores. I am out of alliteration, so shall have carry on with only assonance which, as my mother used to tell me, was better than no ass at all.
Sisters! Do you really need us to write your fan fiction? Do you imagine we'll have time to animate your blooper reel? Get real! That is the problem with this generation & the next: we populate our web pages, but do we really have free hours in our long day to airbrush the semen off the lips of Lindsay Lohan? This is why it seems like there's an extra arm in the picture, sisters - better that than foul truth in advertising, you know what I'm saying, can I get a good god damn, high five?!?
Sisters, we are not famous, nor well-known, nor well-bred, nor talented, nor skinny. But we are also not cowards! How many of you have single- or double-handedly dented an SUV in loving memory of 9/11? How many of you, present company excluded, have pulled out the heart of a hedge-fund manager & made him eat it with his Taco Bell nachos? Didn't we tell you he would like it? Wasn't that just too fucking freaky? & how many of you have said at long last, "No! No! Maybe!" to the universe that fails like every new television schedule in October? Why must I ask you? When will you learn?
Sisters, you can sigh, "Am I wrong?" You can holler back at us, "You've got what looks like arugula in your teeth!" You can tell your next-door neighbor "We're trying bondage now!" But what does it really accomplish other than simple communication? How much more mail must pass between this billing cycle & the next Netflix before we say "No! Unh-uh! No way!"? Is the answer three? Because last month we figured out it was four.
Now you know! At this point let's us empty the baggies & refill them with our own shame. We live in sweet surrender, sisters, with the frangipani dulling the deathly smell of the jacaranda, timeless but fated to kill us all, wet, wild, meek, mild, set, unique. In forty-two flavors not counting flavorless. Because lack of flavor is not a flavor, as silence is not a sound.
Sisters! We have cashews on the buffet tonight! Go nuts!
(This presentation was edited for all intents & purposes. A full transcript & video presentation will show up on C-Span as soon as you've forgotten all about it.)
Friday, May 30, 2008
Analyzed & Filed: Humorous Pantries
There are travels & there are journeys. There are trips, sojourns, visits, vacations. There are expeditions, odysseys, peregrinations. One walks, drives, flies, perambulates, is carried, crawls, slides, falls. One packs bags, gets travelers' checks, dresses for the weather, renews a passport, waits in line, waits for vehicles, arrives early, arrives late, doesn't arrive at all, loses luggage, finds luggage, stows away in the luggage compartment. The point is, there are travels. & there are journeys.
It was expensive to own horses in the olden days, so forget about having a segue. Modern humans have no idea really what a chore travel was even as recent as a few days ago. Decades I mean. Months, years. Centuries. The point is, you hardly ever went very far. Unless you joined the army, or were kidnapped by mythical bird-creatures called "Rocs." Otherwise, you slept in the same corner of your hovel until death took into its cold, comfortable arms at the ripe age of too fucking young. & that was as recent as days ago!
When the government invented teleportation, it was deemed too fun & too prohibitively costly for anyone except the most expensive leaders to use. This included, at the time, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser & Warren Beatty, recognized at the time as King Of Hollywood. Alas, teleportation technology was abandoned in the 1980s because Nancy Reagan's astrologer Joan Quigley said so. Only during the Clinton/Blair years was sufficient scientific funding made available, & although no records have ever been kept, the strange reports of Bill Clinton appearing nearly simultaneously at seventeen different barbecue restaurants in six different southern states during one summer day in 1995 cannot be explained in any other way. (To the naysayers: Clinton Cloning was not developed until 1997.)
Will teleportation be the death of travel, or will it enhance the amount of time we stay at different locations? The pundits can't really decide - they're too freaked out by the newest fad in pop science: karaoke cholesterol. For years the people of the world has asked, "Why can't the food we eat sing?" (By which they meant, of course, "after we killed it," as the Edible Songbird Industry remains in existence despite everyone's clear desire that they just go the fuck away.) (That goes for the assholes who eat the songbirds too.) (Let's just call a blanket fuck you over the who motherfucking factory farm industry & get back to the point at hand.) I said people were asking "Why can't the food we eat sing?" Researchers at Brownnose University have come up with something almost as good - food that hums. You can sing along with your meal!
Granted, for now the humming lipid molecules only know the tune to "I Will Always Love You," but remember, the first atomic bomb only killed thousands. Think of what a few government grants & a couple of visits from Jeff Goldblum would do!
We've moved a long way from traveling but there are other kinds of travels which includes digestion. If you squint your eyes & pretend that it's important to you. Therefore, friends, as we near the middle of the beginning of the post-oil era, I shake out my solar-powered candle & bid you a fond how-do-you-do. The ladies may come this way, the gentlemen may keep their seats.
It was expensive to own horses in the olden days, so forget about having a segue. Modern humans have no idea really what a chore travel was even as recent as a few days ago. Decades I mean. Months, years. Centuries. The point is, you hardly ever went very far. Unless you joined the army, or were kidnapped by mythical bird-creatures called "Rocs." Otherwise, you slept in the same corner of your hovel until death took into its cold, comfortable arms at the ripe age of too fucking young. & that was as recent as days ago!
When the government invented teleportation, it was deemed too fun & too prohibitively costly for anyone except the most expensive leaders to use. This included, at the time, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser & Warren Beatty, recognized at the time as King Of Hollywood. Alas, teleportation technology was abandoned in the 1980s because Nancy Reagan's astrologer Joan Quigley said so. Only during the Clinton/Blair years was sufficient scientific funding made available, & although no records have ever been kept, the strange reports of Bill Clinton appearing nearly simultaneously at seventeen different barbecue restaurants in six different southern states during one summer day in 1995 cannot be explained in any other way. (To the naysayers: Clinton Cloning was not developed until 1997.)
Will teleportation be the death of travel, or will it enhance the amount of time we stay at different locations? The pundits can't really decide - they're too freaked out by the newest fad in pop science: karaoke cholesterol. For years the people of the world has asked, "Why can't the food we eat sing?" (By which they meant, of course, "after we killed it," as the Edible Songbird Industry remains in existence despite everyone's clear desire that they just go the fuck away.) (That goes for the assholes who eat the songbirds too.) (Let's just call a blanket fuck you over the who motherfucking factory farm industry & get back to the point at hand.) I said people were asking "Why can't the food we eat sing?" Researchers at Brownnose University have come up with something almost as good - food that hums. You can sing along with your meal!
Granted, for now the humming lipid molecules only know the tune to "I Will Always Love You," but remember, the first atomic bomb only killed thousands. Think of what a few government grants & a couple of visits from Jeff Goldblum would do!
We've moved a long way from traveling but there are other kinds of travels which includes digestion. If you squint your eyes & pretend that it's important to you. Therefore, friends, as we near the middle of the beginning of the post-oil era, I shake out my solar-powered candle & bid you a fond how-do-you-do. The ladies may come this way, the gentlemen may keep their seats.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Embedded In Video, Written In Smoke
[Excerpted from a lecture by Dr. Cornelius Smelly of the University of South Korea West]
We live today in trying me times. For example, YouTube, the online reservation for video encoded & video streamed. Let us look at several examples of YouTube videos which have recently be highly rated for the entire family.
[Dr Smelly is unable to get his computer to work. A student comes to help, but is beaten away by the coachwhip Dr Smelly carries with him to protect him from undergraduates. A tech person lures Dr Smelly away with a cup of hot saltines, & is able to turn the computer on before Dr Smelly begins to describe the videos to the students.]
Yes. Well. Good. Shall we begin? Here is a cute video of a bear mauling a United States Park Service intern. The bear, as you can see, is well-fed on Funyuns - those snacks that look like onion rings & have a vaguely oniony flavor - have you had them, they're awful - the bear has had them & also an entire three liter serving of Diet A&W Tabasco Cherry Root Beer. The message seems to be that this is not "when animals attack" but simple dyspepsia. Amusing. Next slide.
Did I say "slide"? I meant video. I apologize, I get the vapors from too much mimeographing in the early morning hours.
This is a famous viral video of a vile bureaucrat weeping to a Flux News anchor about how mistreated he feels his President to be. Too much mascara, not enough pathos, you say? Good on you! This is in fact not a bureaucrat but a paid Rotarian in cahoots with the herbicide lobby. A brief examination of the Capitol Building's Men's Room on the third floor at around 2:15 (an hour before the vote on the new Foreignness Bill) would have alerted the media to this shady backroom maneuvering; instead, this became the darling of the late-night & early-morning news cycles. Next slider.
Ah! You'll recognize this! A young man at a political rally berates a former vice-presidential press secretary & is beaten senseless by the gendarmes in front of a student body that must be told when & how to breathe. Serves him right. Serves them right. Next side.
Truly a remarkable piece of reverse propaganda, this is not so much a video as a movie trailer of a video which is currently in production limbo. The film purports to prove that science is run by religious Eskimos who want us all to believe that a "theory" is a "fact" when & only when someone disagrees with it. Please note, that phrase, despite what its advocates say, is not in the Bible nor in the United States Constitution. It is in the non-binding treaty William McKinley signed with the Washington, DC, Boys Of The Cloth Brigade in 1901, but it was written in the margins by McKinley while his shoes were being shined. So it's irrelevant to anyone but sexually abused Catholic boys in the first part of the twentieth century. Do we have any here today? Fine, fine. Next sideline.
Ah! Finally! The truth in its most varnished form! While most scholars agree that the Zapruder film is the most hilarious homemade recording of a famous assassination, this video, purportedly from the near future, features the two presidential candidates of the last American election ever, in 2020, being strangled & choked by a bored electorate burning & dying in the ozone-free air. Many dispute its authenticity, noting that the video features a young William Shatner, but many point to that to prove its authenticity. What's that? You've never seen this one? Ah, well. You will. You will.
Close your books. Put down your pencils. Your test is over.
We live today in trying me times. For example, YouTube, the online reservation for video encoded & video streamed. Let us look at several examples of YouTube videos which have recently be highly rated for the entire family.
[Dr Smelly is unable to get his computer to work. A student comes to help, but is beaten away by the coachwhip Dr Smelly carries with him to protect him from undergraduates. A tech person lures Dr Smelly away with a cup of hot saltines, & is able to turn the computer on before Dr Smelly begins to describe the videos to the students.]
Yes. Well. Good. Shall we begin? Here is a cute video of a bear mauling a United States Park Service intern. The bear, as you can see, is well-fed on Funyuns - those snacks that look like onion rings & have a vaguely oniony flavor - have you had them, they're awful - the bear has had them & also an entire three liter serving of Diet A&W Tabasco Cherry Root Beer. The message seems to be that this is not "when animals attack" but simple dyspepsia. Amusing. Next slide.
Did I say "slide"? I meant video. I apologize, I get the vapors from too much mimeographing in the early morning hours.
This is a famous viral video of a vile bureaucrat weeping to a Flux News anchor about how mistreated he feels his President to be. Too much mascara, not enough pathos, you say? Good on you! This is in fact not a bureaucrat but a paid Rotarian in cahoots with the herbicide lobby. A brief examination of the Capitol Building's Men's Room on the third floor at around 2:15 (an hour before the vote on the new Foreignness Bill) would have alerted the media to this shady backroom maneuvering; instead, this became the darling of the late-night & early-morning news cycles. Next slider.
Ah! You'll recognize this! A young man at a political rally berates a former vice-presidential press secretary & is beaten senseless by the gendarmes in front of a student body that must be told when & how to breathe. Serves him right. Serves them right. Next side.
Truly a remarkable piece of reverse propaganda, this is not so much a video as a movie trailer of a video which is currently in production limbo. The film purports to prove that science is run by religious Eskimos who want us all to believe that a "theory" is a "fact" when & only when someone disagrees with it. Please note, that phrase, despite what its advocates say, is not in the Bible nor in the United States Constitution. It is in the non-binding treaty William McKinley signed with the Washington, DC, Boys Of The Cloth Brigade in 1901, but it was written in the margins by McKinley while his shoes were being shined. So it's irrelevant to anyone but sexually abused Catholic boys in the first part of the twentieth century. Do we have any here today? Fine, fine. Next sideline.
Ah! Finally! The truth in its most varnished form! While most scholars agree that the Zapruder film is the most hilarious homemade recording of a famous assassination, this video, purportedly from the near future, features the two presidential candidates of the last American election ever, in 2020, being strangled & choked by a bored electorate burning & dying in the ozone-free air. Many dispute its authenticity, noting that the video features a young William Shatner, but many point to that to prove its authenticity. What's that? You've never seen this one? Ah, well. You will. You will.
Close your books. Put down your pencils. Your test is over.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Careful! The Guests Are Loaded!
No one really ever talks about Johannesburg - no one but me of course. I call it "The Monte Carlo of the Southern Hemisphere." & hardly am I ever wrong. No, from the ten million trees planted by human hands to the ten million beads of sweat that pour off the backs of the slave workers in the gold, coal & gelatin mines, there's an allure to Johannesburg that overtakes & astonishes even the most naive of war criminals.
But travel up the N1 (don't stop at Pretoria! the people there are assholes!) & find your way to Warm Baths & you'll discover the heights & depths of depravity that is "down time" for the financiers & substitute teachers who plan, execute & recklessly carry out the War On Sailing.
Oh, you think I kid? But, you say, what happened to the Den Of Iniquity that was New Orleans? Someone got tired of it! What about, you say, the Firecracker Brothels of Shanghai? Can't you see it's too risky to be there now? Oh come on, you say, what about the Heat Fields Of Romania? Well, they're still there, & a paper on that very subject will shortly be published in the July, 2008, issue of Ceramics Quarterly. You need to observe of the utter moral sense - & the lack thereof - these secretive cabalists truly have. Two examples:
- Sex With Food.
When you can destroy lives with a small notation in a memo sent by a PDA, what fun is it to beat up prostitutes or kidnapped Moldavan teenagers? How can you possibly top the amount of control one of these sadists has over pretty much everyone on the planet? Easy. Have sex with all kinds of food. This has become even more fun with a World Food Crisis looming. For a seventy-year-old Swiss Banker with the blood of a teenager from Plano, Texas, & all new organs courtesy of the "accidental" death in a junior high hockey game in Edmonton, spending carnal hours with bags of rice that could save a Somalian village from starvation is the ultimate high.
If you are in Warm Baths, please avoid any hotel room that promises "Sensual Buffet." You have been warned.
- Protest Singing
These industrialists & photojournalists love their irony & so they organize large "festivals," inviting big names - you know who, & so do they - to come sing songs about them. If the hateful edibles sex is sadism, this is their masochism. "Ooo, tell us how awful we are! Tell us how you oppress people! Tell us how we're ruining the world!" The stooges in the Consolidated Music Industry are more than happy to comply. It's frankly nauseating.
But don't take my word for it. Spread the rumor & see what happens to it! Because that is more than enough proof.
But travel up the N1 (don't stop at Pretoria! the people there are assholes!) & find your way to Warm Baths & you'll discover the heights & depths of depravity that is "down time" for the financiers & substitute teachers who plan, execute & recklessly carry out the War On Sailing.
Oh, you think I kid? But, you say, what happened to the Den Of Iniquity that was New Orleans? Someone got tired of it! What about, you say, the Firecracker Brothels of Shanghai? Can't you see it's too risky to be there now? Oh come on, you say, what about the Heat Fields Of Romania? Well, they're still there, & a paper on that very subject will shortly be published in the July, 2008, issue of Ceramics Quarterly. You need to observe of the utter moral sense - & the lack thereof - these secretive cabalists truly have. Two examples:
- Sex With Food.
When you can destroy lives with a small notation in a memo sent by a PDA, what fun is it to beat up prostitutes or kidnapped Moldavan teenagers? How can you possibly top the amount of control one of these sadists has over pretty much everyone on the planet? Easy. Have sex with all kinds of food. This has become even more fun with a World Food Crisis looming. For a seventy-year-old Swiss Banker with the blood of a teenager from Plano, Texas, & all new organs courtesy of the "accidental" death in a junior high hockey game in Edmonton, spending carnal hours with bags of rice that could save a Somalian village from starvation is the ultimate high.
If you are in Warm Baths, please avoid any hotel room that promises "Sensual Buffet." You have been warned.
- Protest Singing
These industrialists & photojournalists love their irony & so they organize large "festivals," inviting big names - you know who, & so do they - to come sing songs about them. If the hateful edibles sex is sadism, this is their masochism. "Ooo, tell us how awful we are! Tell us how you oppress people! Tell us how we're ruining the world!" The stooges in the Consolidated Music Industry are more than happy to comply. It's frankly nauseating.
But don't take my word for it. Spread the rumor & see what happens to it! Because that is more than enough proof.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
The Other Other Bush Brother
Now that attention is got, face facts to other options in recent American "war" excursion. Proceed with interview translated from Gromsch with famous American brother of Bush the Younger. Go!
INTERVIEWS: You are famous brother of American king yes?
BUSH BROTHER: This is not true. I am pawn for American military might in Northern California & surrounding areas.
INTERVIEWS: This is not true! Your resemblance is uncanny!
BUSH BROTHER: I get this, yes, & many drinks to be bought for me by ex-military people in Southern United States.
INTERVIEWS: They perhaps think of "The Prince & The Pooper"!
BUSH BROTHER: They are not very smart I believe.
INTERVIEWS: This is very true. Since you are not famous American king brother, can you tell us what plans are for colonization of Islamic world?
BUSH BROTHER: Truly. Since too many of the Americans reproduce in kind, more fertile land will be needed for rapid expansion. This is the curse of the west!
INTERVIEWS: I have heard of this!
BUSH BROTHER: Truly. When magnificent sons of Mohammad fall, blood waters desert to make poisonous land good only for rats & corporations.
INTERVIEWS: A very insidious plan! Is current war in Islamic world phase one of plan or no?
BUSH BROTHER: No! Is final throes!
INTERVIEWS: Please explain.
BUSH BROTHER: Plan began even before the birth of famous Ottoman Empire. Have you heard of the Crusaders?
INTERVIEWS: Ah! Fundamental Christians at Renaissance Faire!
BUSH BROTHER: Truly. Well, when catastrophic world climate change is mixed bag with fear of new change, Crusaders color in portions of their Bible to justify witchcraft.
INTERVIEWS: It is all so clear to me now.
BUSH BROTHER: Let me finish.
INTERVIEWS: So sorry to interrupt.
BUSH BROTHER: In Satanic world to follow, a hell army of Labrador Retrievers feasting on only holy infidel flesh prowls the perimeter when Hollywood expands to grow. Soon every camera catches every tear that fall from eye, & every night a new desecration from misfit occupation.
INTERVIEWS: What is there to do?
BUSH BROTHER: Enjoy! Or, if you are not evil Bush look-a-like, run away to fight another day!
INTERVIEWS: You have been most enlightened.
BUSH BROTHER: I thank you & also the CIA have given us a check for our services.
INTERVIEWS: Aren't they all so nice to be working with?
BUSH BROTHER: Truly!
INTERVIEWS: In next installment, we talk of torture & pain, under pretense of civil discourse.
INTERVIEWS: You are famous brother of American king yes?
BUSH BROTHER: This is not true. I am pawn for American military might in Northern California & surrounding areas.
INTERVIEWS: This is not true! Your resemblance is uncanny!
BUSH BROTHER: I get this, yes, & many drinks to be bought for me by ex-military people in Southern United States.
INTERVIEWS: They perhaps think of "The Prince & The Pooper"!
BUSH BROTHER: They are not very smart I believe.
INTERVIEWS: This is very true. Since you are not famous American king brother, can you tell us what plans are for colonization of Islamic world?
BUSH BROTHER: Truly. Since too many of the Americans reproduce in kind, more fertile land will be needed for rapid expansion. This is the curse of the west!
INTERVIEWS: I have heard of this!
BUSH BROTHER: Truly. When magnificent sons of Mohammad fall, blood waters desert to make poisonous land good only for rats & corporations.
INTERVIEWS: A very insidious plan! Is current war in Islamic world phase one of plan or no?
BUSH BROTHER: No! Is final throes!
INTERVIEWS: Please explain.
BUSH BROTHER: Plan began even before the birth of famous Ottoman Empire. Have you heard of the Crusaders?
INTERVIEWS: Ah! Fundamental Christians at Renaissance Faire!
BUSH BROTHER: Truly. Well, when catastrophic world climate change is mixed bag with fear of new change, Crusaders color in portions of their Bible to justify witchcraft.
INTERVIEWS: It is all so clear to me now.
BUSH BROTHER: Let me finish.
INTERVIEWS: So sorry to interrupt.
BUSH BROTHER: In Satanic world to follow, a hell army of Labrador Retrievers feasting on only holy infidel flesh prowls the perimeter when Hollywood expands to grow. Soon every camera catches every tear that fall from eye, & every night a new desecration from misfit occupation.
INTERVIEWS: What is there to do?
BUSH BROTHER: Enjoy! Or, if you are not evil Bush look-a-like, run away to fight another day!
INTERVIEWS: You have been most enlightened.
BUSH BROTHER: I thank you & also the CIA have given us a check for our services.
INTERVIEWS: Aren't they all so nice to be working with?
BUSH BROTHER: Truly!
INTERVIEWS: In next installment, we talk of torture & pain, under pretense of civil discourse.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Box Cutter Elvis
A note from our correspondent out at Cape Fligely:
The fine spring continues as the glaciers collapses around us. It seems almost like a happy tune, or perhaps the exact opposite thereof. I am reminded not only of Napolean's last words but also of his third words. If only I could get an internet connection here like I could in Omsk!
The woman I love she loves another man. Although this is not why I have stationed myself at the extreme end of my beloved Russia, like a Greenpeace tanker relieving itself seventeen leagues from the protest site. No. As a chronicler, I must chronicle. As a note taker, I must take notes. As a Hemingway fan, I must fan Hemingway. So too it is with the War On Sailing.
A chap called Gordeyov comes by every other fortnight to make sure I am not a chronicle-sicle. He's a well-mannered but it's obvious his most recent sexual partners have walked on four legs. I am not, to be sure, talking about Chernobyl survivors, but the local flora. A man's needs must needs to be tended to, to be sure. If only he & I spoke the same language!
Doubtless you would find this as charming as the Nova crew, which came & went in less than seventy-two hours, didn't. I don't spend every waking moment entirely awake, but I have stared into the sun that doesn't rise, nor fall, depending on the time of the year, & I have been collecting (as you requested) the vital links between Upper East & Right-Hand-Corner West which may prove valuable to someone when the smoke clears.
To wit: nearly no one here knows about the show "Two & A Half Men." Despite a fundamental love-hate relationship with Vladimir Putin, the townsfolk on the cliff down the lane instead choose to spend their time ironing, washing, bickering & dickering. When I even attempted to introduce a simple transistor radio into their homes, I was forced to endure a lecture about salting fish that still burns in my ears today!
Is this the colloquial village which Erasmus alluded to? Or is this the creepy colony which Lovecraft forced to put all its clothes back on? I don't want to die as a didactic dilettante, so I will spare you the extra allusions I've collected during the Writer's Strike - I want us to appreciate this scenery for the pre-apocalyptic milieu it truly is. We can live most anywhere they'll deliver pizza - why not live somewhere where all the stoves are the size of pizza ovens?
There are doubtless other things to report - I've got a hell of problem with a bird that might be an erne but I don't really know if ernes exist, as I only know about them thanks to New York Times crosswords. But a dispatch from a small fire a world away from the front should alert everyone that the War On Sailing waits for no one. Indeed, it is rather anxious & needs to get going.
My love to the bookkeeper!
The fine spring continues as the glaciers collapses around us. It seems almost like a happy tune, or perhaps the exact opposite thereof. I am reminded not only of Napolean's last words but also of his third words. If only I could get an internet connection here like I could in Omsk!
The woman I love she loves another man. Although this is not why I have stationed myself at the extreme end of my beloved Russia, like a Greenpeace tanker relieving itself seventeen leagues from the protest site. No. As a chronicler, I must chronicle. As a note taker, I must take notes. As a Hemingway fan, I must fan Hemingway. So too it is with the War On Sailing.
A chap called Gordeyov comes by every other fortnight to make sure I am not a chronicle-sicle. He's a well-mannered but it's obvious his most recent sexual partners have walked on four legs. I am not, to be sure, talking about Chernobyl survivors, but the local flora. A man's needs must needs to be tended to, to be sure. If only he & I spoke the same language!
Doubtless you would find this as charming as the Nova crew, which came & went in less than seventy-two hours, didn't. I don't spend every waking moment entirely awake, but I have stared into the sun that doesn't rise, nor fall, depending on the time of the year, & I have been collecting (as you requested) the vital links between Upper East & Right-Hand-Corner West which may prove valuable to someone when the smoke clears.
To wit: nearly no one here knows about the show "Two & A Half Men." Despite a fundamental love-hate relationship with Vladimir Putin, the townsfolk on the cliff down the lane instead choose to spend their time ironing, washing, bickering & dickering. When I even attempted to introduce a simple transistor radio into their homes, I was forced to endure a lecture about salting fish that still burns in my ears today!
Is this the colloquial village which Erasmus alluded to? Or is this the creepy colony which Lovecraft forced to put all its clothes back on? I don't want to die as a didactic dilettante, so I will spare you the extra allusions I've collected during the Writer's Strike - I want us to appreciate this scenery for the pre-apocalyptic milieu it truly is. We can live most anywhere they'll deliver pizza - why not live somewhere where all the stoves are the size of pizza ovens?
There are doubtless other things to report - I've got a hell of problem with a bird that might be an erne but I don't really know if ernes exist, as I only know about them thanks to New York Times crosswords. But a dispatch from a small fire a world away from the front should alert everyone that the War On Sailing waits for no one. Indeed, it is rather anxious & needs to get going.
My love to the bookkeeper!
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Archival Brouhaha
What Election 2008 obscures is obviously more important than Election 2008, as you well know. Scholarship may make molehills out of mountains, & vice versa, & it may also choose to focus on the minutiae which is figuratively the grains of mole that make the mole hill. This is by no means meant to reference the great Battle Of Mole Hill which took the lives of seventeen brewer's aprons back in 1962, nor is this a reference to Molé Hill, a famous sauce maker from Guadalajara whose exploits involving the feeding of the Renegade Black Banditos made him very famous in his neighborhood & led unfortunately to his incarceration & death for making salsa that was just too damn delicious for the local authorities to stand.
I bring this to your attention because, as an avid newspaper clipper, I have watched my shears go rusty (so to speak) from the lack of real information given to even the specialists. As an example: once Rhinoplasty Today! was an important read if you wanted to know how the zombie technicians kept so many terrifyingly old politicians & pundits alive. But now it reads like a how-to manual for the desperate disfigurement of Generation Then. I know this can be helpful as well, but the current generation is involved only implicitly in the War On Sailing. The powers-that-are seem to know someone - I don't dare to believe it's us, friends! - are on to them.
So when the Societal Organization for Archiving, or SOFA, met in early 2008, I was there to observe in my cover identity as an advertising executive & part-time balloon dancer for the Madison Avenue firm of Blow Me & Bother, & although I have already sent a report to SOFA committee, as well as to the Wall Street Journal's matchmaker program, I can report in general that SOFA specialists are in a bind, a tizzy, a snit, a pet & most disturbingly a dither. I have never seen so many people in latex gloves raising angry fists at one another (with the exception of the famous Reagan Major Polyp Surgery of 1988, but that, of course, was a medical & not a partisan disagreement). An horrible example: when one archivist, the great Smithers Doohickey of the University of Filth, attempted to keep the peace with a tender speech & a call for a group hug, he was forced to eat acid-treated copies of what some said were unpublished Samuel Pepys scribbles, fourteen pages total, & forced to wash it down with his own tears. I can say with no doubt that SOFA has lost - well, not a good man - but a trustworthy man. A man who knew how to bag & tag, at any rate!
What is to be done? Isn't conflict the soul of drama? Yes, but whose drama are these usually quiet, unassuming, astonishingly lonesome people acting in? It is certainly not the inherently deliberate & dull drama of Information Science, where the discovery of a heretofore unknown flyleaf has caused blood pressure issues in men in their thirties. No, it is the fact that someone - who? - is involving them in a national conspiracy of which they have no part. They are forced to be extras or walk-ons or (let's face it) caterers by the powerful people - the same people who manipulate "democratic" elections & allow television shows like Jimmy Kimmel's to remain on the air.
I have sent to SOFA a detailed & anonymous list of recommendations for the organization to follow & look forward to reporting the changes made when I attend their next meeting in 2012. As for right now - those of us who require the services of archivists, librarians, data managers, astronauts & strippers - I say to you, tread lightly. They are being manipulated by forces that cannot control, mainly because the forces have no Library of Congress number. Well. Not yet!
I bring this to your attention because, as an avid newspaper clipper, I have watched my shears go rusty (so to speak) from the lack of real information given to even the specialists. As an example: once Rhinoplasty Today! was an important read if you wanted to know how the zombie technicians kept so many terrifyingly old politicians & pundits alive. But now it reads like a how-to manual for the desperate disfigurement of Generation Then. I know this can be helpful as well, but the current generation is involved only implicitly in the War On Sailing. The powers-that-are seem to know someone - I don't dare to believe it's us, friends! - are on to them.
So when the Societal Organization for Archiving, or SOFA, met in early 2008, I was there to observe in my cover identity as an advertising executive & part-time balloon dancer for the Madison Avenue firm of Blow Me & Bother, & although I have already sent a report to SOFA committee, as well as to the Wall Street Journal's matchmaker program, I can report in general that SOFA specialists are in a bind, a tizzy, a snit, a pet & most disturbingly a dither. I have never seen so many people in latex gloves raising angry fists at one another (with the exception of the famous Reagan Major Polyp Surgery of 1988, but that, of course, was a medical & not a partisan disagreement). An horrible example: when one archivist, the great Smithers Doohickey of the University of Filth, attempted to keep the peace with a tender speech & a call for a group hug, he was forced to eat acid-treated copies of what some said were unpublished Samuel Pepys scribbles, fourteen pages total, & forced to wash it down with his own tears. I can say with no doubt that SOFA has lost - well, not a good man - but a trustworthy man. A man who knew how to bag & tag, at any rate!
What is to be done? Isn't conflict the soul of drama? Yes, but whose drama are these usually quiet, unassuming, astonishingly lonesome people acting in? It is certainly not the inherently deliberate & dull drama of Information Science, where the discovery of a heretofore unknown flyleaf has caused blood pressure issues in men in their thirties. No, it is the fact that someone - who? - is involving them in a national conspiracy of which they have no part. They are forced to be extras or walk-ons or (let's face it) caterers by the powerful people - the same people who manipulate "democratic" elections & allow television shows like Jimmy Kimmel's to remain on the air.
I have sent to SOFA a detailed & anonymous list of recommendations for the organization to follow & look forward to reporting the changes made when I attend their next meeting in 2012. As for right now - those of us who require the services of archivists, librarians, data managers, astronauts & strippers - I say to you, tread lightly. They are being manipulated by forces that cannot control, mainly because the forces have no Library of Congress number. Well. Not yet!
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Wait - What Just Happened In Cuba?
Nothing happened. Don't pay attention to it. The Cheese Vendors in Miami & the Hacky-Sack Construction Company in Havana don't care, why should you? Instead, listen to this:
In eighteen eighty seven, on a Wednesday I think, the grumpy bastards who wrote that ridiculous forgery The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion were having coffee outside a well-regarded Moscow urinal. They had spent the night spreading nasty rumors about their landlord's sexuality (finally deciding that he fucked goats, although a last-minute rally to label him simply "gay" failed only because the main supporters disappeared into the bathroom for fifteen minutes), but, although they looked forward to the future tarring & feathering that was bound to happen, they were slightly dissatisfied. They had been ruining lives with rumors for years now, starting with their athletics' coach in Boy's School, but one could tell they longed for bigger prey. Why not take on an entire race?
In what is always ironic about shit like this, these ne'er-do-wells weren't exactly anti-Semitic. They frankly hated everyone. In less than a year they would have the themes for the Protocols & would only have to wait for Dmitri to come up with a good name. Dmitri wasn't much of a thinker, but he did have a fake ID so he could get the guys booze & he was a little attractive, so women would talk to him. This was an ugly bunch of fellows, so getting a girl close to them was quite the task.
This group of troublemakers need not concern us entirely. I mention that Wednesday in eighteen eighty seven because, after a fight broke up over who spilled the last of the sugar, an American who we'll call Theodore Roosevelt was stumbling out of a Moscow brothel two houses down. This man was in town on a brief Eastern European tour to promote what was soon to be a new weapon in the War On Sailing: radiation. Ostensibly looking for an attractive scientist to "discover" radiation, he had recently met a charming Polish girl named Marie who was on the top of his list. But he had plans to visit both Moscow & St Petersburg & had figured that, Russians being Russian, their scientists might spend time in whorehouses. That was his excuse anyway - he really just wanted to have sex.
As he passed the ruffians, they took notice of what was surely the bushiest damn mustache they had ever seen in their lives, & it astonished them. Their reaction, too, astonished Theodore Roosevelt (not his real name). In the way that history sometimes works - pushing two kinds of people together who probably would never have otherwise had anything to do with each other - there was a sudden moment of emotional clarity, & the coffee-drinking pranksters surrounded the man & gave him what had to be (I assert without a whole of data, but come on!) the first ever Group Hug in Russia. Tears flowed freely, &, even though they picked Roosevelt's pocket, & he stabbed one of them in the butt cheek, they remembered the meeting fondly, years later, when Roosevelt, who was an elected official at the time (but not the president because it's not the same Roosevelt I'm trying to tell you), visited the group (reduced in number to six since the one called Vlad had found a girl & was now working with Lenin as a door-to-door communist) at the circus where they were now working.
They confessed to Roosevelt their authorship of the Protocols & grumbled because they saw copies of it everywhere, & yet hadn't made a dime off it. "Maybe," said Roosevelt, "you should have put your name on it. Authors who sign their books get royalties & stuff." "D'oh!" they all said together.
What does this have to do with the recent events in Cuba? (I know you understand what this has to do with the War On Sailing! You're not idiots!) Well, at the circus, sitting in a stroller lined with the down of revolutionary geese was a young Raul Castro!
That's much more important than the puppet show going on now in Caribbean.
In eighteen eighty seven, on a Wednesday I think, the grumpy bastards who wrote that ridiculous forgery The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion were having coffee outside a well-regarded Moscow urinal. They had spent the night spreading nasty rumors about their landlord's sexuality (finally deciding that he fucked goats, although a last-minute rally to label him simply "gay" failed only because the main supporters disappeared into the bathroom for fifteen minutes), but, although they looked forward to the future tarring & feathering that was bound to happen, they were slightly dissatisfied. They had been ruining lives with rumors for years now, starting with their athletics' coach in Boy's School, but one could tell they longed for bigger prey. Why not take on an entire race?
In what is always ironic about shit like this, these ne'er-do-wells weren't exactly anti-Semitic. They frankly hated everyone. In less than a year they would have the themes for the Protocols & would only have to wait for Dmitri to come up with a good name. Dmitri wasn't much of a thinker, but he did have a fake ID so he could get the guys booze & he was a little attractive, so women would talk to him. This was an ugly bunch of fellows, so getting a girl close to them was quite the task.
This group of troublemakers need not concern us entirely. I mention that Wednesday in eighteen eighty seven because, after a fight broke up over who spilled the last of the sugar, an American who we'll call Theodore Roosevelt was stumbling out of a Moscow brothel two houses down. This man was in town on a brief Eastern European tour to promote what was soon to be a new weapon in the War On Sailing: radiation. Ostensibly looking for an attractive scientist to "discover" radiation, he had recently met a charming Polish girl named Marie who was on the top of his list. But he had plans to visit both Moscow & St Petersburg & had figured that, Russians being Russian, their scientists might spend time in whorehouses. That was his excuse anyway - he really just wanted to have sex.
As he passed the ruffians, they took notice of what was surely the bushiest damn mustache they had ever seen in their lives, & it astonished them. Their reaction, too, astonished Theodore Roosevelt (not his real name). In the way that history sometimes works - pushing two kinds of people together who probably would never have otherwise had anything to do with each other - there was a sudden moment of emotional clarity, & the coffee-drinking pranksters surrounded the man & gave him what had to be (I assert without a whole of data, but come on!) the first ever Group Hug in Russia. Tears flowed freely, &, even though they picked Roosevelt's pocket, & he stabbed one of them in the butt cheek, they remembered the meeting fondly, years later, when Roosevelt, who was an elected official at the time (but not the president because it's not the same Roosevelt I'm trying to tell you), visited the group (reduced in number to six since the one called Vlad had found a girl & was now working with Lenin as a door-to-door communist) at the circus where they were now working.
They confessed to Roosevelt their authorship of the Protocols & grumbled because they saw copies of it everywhere, & yet hadn't made a dime off it. "Maybe," said Roosevelt, "you should have put your name on it. Authors who sign their books get royalties & stuff." "D'oh!" they all said together.
What does this have to do with the recent events in Cuba? (I know you understand what this has to do with the War On Sailing! You're not idiots!) Well, at the circus, sitting in a stroller lined with the down of revolutionary geese was a young Raul Castro!
That's much more important than the puppet show going on now in Caribbean.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Generation
This was published in a recent issue of Salamander Fancy magazine. Much thanks to correspondent Hiram Thung for bringing it to our attention:
The community dance center has asked me to prepare some remarks about Lamarck for this tiresome debate about evolution versus bullheaded religious stupidity. As the one person in this room who has ever left the country, I am perhaps the cloest thing to an expert you have. I thank you for asking me up here, & wonder what the fuck is in your drinking water.
When Lamarck, the French naturalist, died in 1829, I can't honestly say I was too bummed out. I couldn't express that in French, though. In those dark days, we didn't have online resources like Babelfish to make fools of ourselves to French people. No, all I had was a phrasebook written by an American army officer from Virginia who learned French in Quebec. Most of the mourners at Lamarck's embarrassingly planned funeral didn't know what the fuck I was saying. Good for me!
How was that different from William Blake's funeral a couple of years before? Two words: the drugs. Holy shit did we get fucked up at Blake's funeral. I think even Blake was fucked up, & that motherfucker was stone cold dead. I know, I know, everyone thought Blake was some sort of crazy religious nut, but all I know is, the dude loves his psychedelics. Hell, he was the only English poet of his day who owned an electric guitar. You know?
Anyway, Lamarck. Eighty years after his death I was sitting outside the railroad station in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, when, as it happened in those days, an argument broke out between a hobo who was talking shit about Mendel & a security guard who was a total Lamarckian. To be fair, they were about to open the meat packing plant then & everyone thought they'd finally be able to quit working at the city's fast food restaurants, which, I gotta tell you, were some of the worst places to work in South Dakota at the time. The manager of the local Taco Bell, for example, was a douchebag without parallel.
So this security guard says, "Lamarck did not die no natural death. Lamarck was killed in the War on Sailing!"
Motherfucker. I nearly shit a brick. It had followed me even there, to the middle of nowhere in a country run by an asshole the size of Teddy Roosevelt's asshole. The guard was wrong, of course. Lamarck had been on the wrong side of the War On Sailing. Blake has been assassinated, though. Still, the point was made. They were on to me. Just as I know you're on to me now.
Listen: you know your enemies by the ideas they spew. Lamarckianism, like Social Darwinism, like Trickle Down Economics, like American Idol, like Intelligent Design, is a meme propagated by our foes to keep us dumbasses. Dumb people believe nearly anything. I have traveled far & wide & pretended to be a dumbass, not just because dumbasses are allowed to eat pretty well (as you well know), but because they are not always ashamed of their strings. So I can occasionally see the marionette. Just like now.
Lamarck had an ironic name, because he didn't hit "la marck." He was way off. You thing you're on the mark? Don't be too sure.
Anyway, thanks for letting me talk. Have a fun debate.
The community dance center has asked me to prepare some remarks about Lamarck for this tiresome debate about evolution versus bullheaded religious stupidity. As the one person in this room who has ever left the country, I am perhaps the cloest thing to an expert you have. I thank you for asking me up here, & wonder what the fuck is in your drinking water.
When Lamarck, the French naturalist, died in 1829, I can't honestly say I was too bummed out. I couldn't express that in French, though. In those dark days, we didn't have online resources like Babelfish to make fools of ourselves to French people. No, all I had was a phrasebook written by an American army officer from Virginia who learned French in Quebec. Most of the mourners at Lamarck's embarrassingly planned funeral didn't know what the fuck I was saying. Good for me!
How was that different from William Blake's funeral a couple of years before? Two words: the drugs. Holy shit did we get fucked up at Blake's funeral. I think even Blake was fucked up, & that motherfucker was stone cold dead. I know, I know, everyone thought Blake was some sort of crazy religious nut, but all I know is, the dude loves his psychedelics. Hell, he was the only English poet of his day who owned an electric guitar. You know?
Anyway, Lamarck. Eighty years after his death I was sitting outside the railroad station in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, when, as it happened in those days, an argument broke out between a hobo who was talking shit about Mendel & a security guard who was a total Lamarckian. To be fair, they were about to open the meat packing plant then & everyone thought they'd finally be able to quit working at the city's fast food restaurants, which, I gotta tell you, were some of the worst places to work in South Dakota at the time. The manager of the local Taco Bell, for example, was a douchebag without parallel.
So this security guard says, "Lamarck did not die no natural death. Lamarck was killed in the War on Sailing!"
Motherfucker. I nearly shit a brick. It had followed me even there, to the middle of nowhere in a country run by an asshole the size of Teddy Roosevelt's asshole. The guard was wrong, of course. Lamarck had been on the wrong side of the War On Sailing. Blake has been assassinated, though. Still, the point was made. They were on to me. Just as I know you're on to me now.
Listen: you know your enemies by the ideas they spew. Lamarckianism, like Social Darwinism, like Trickle Down Economics, like American Idol, like Intelligent Design, is a meme propagated by our foes to keep us dumbasses. Dumb people believe nearly anything. I have traveled far & wide & pretended to be a dumbass, not just because dumbasses are allowed to eat pretty well (as you well know), but because they are not always ashamed of their strings. So I can occasionally see the marionette. Just like now.
Lamarck had an ironic name, because he didn't hit "la marck." He was way off. You thing you're on the mark? Don't be too sure.
Anyway, thanks for letting me talk. Have a fun debate.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
What You Didn't Know About Wafers
Were it not always thus, the liturgical & the lazy? We who swim in the deep waters wherein the War On Sailing is fought know too too well the intricacies & therefore the inconsistencies of the religious world, the religious world-view. Many books have been written & not quite a few re-written on the subject. There are times when new evidence is apparent & other times when old evidence disappears & shows up again in another place as if to say "I can be new evidence too!" & then there are the warriors, the priests, the warrior-priests, the pedestrians, the poets, the pedestrian-poets, & the priestesses when it's later & women are allowed to become involved. It's more of a muddle than a mess, but if untangling's your thing, you could spend a decent academic career trying to make sense of it all, or an indecent academic career making a buck lying about it to students & New York Times book reviewers.
Into this milieu we throw - regretfully, hesitantly - baked goods. Since human beings need to eat to live, food early on became a regular element in rites, rituals & dinners, sometimes in gratitude for some imaginary being's providing the celebrants with the food, sometimes out of spite for the imaginary being, who often (they are told) has better food he won't share. Into this prosaic stew (no pun intended) (oh, all right, pun intended) many especially irritated initiates decided they would completely piss the imaginary being off by pretending to eat him. While cannibalism has, in most societies, been used mostly as a last-ditch effort to liven up a really awful party, cannibalism-by-proxy has been popular since primates, out of the trees & into the libraries, found out what "proxy" meant & began using the word to confuse stupid baboons. It was not a surprise when the early Christians (so early, in fact, they simply called themselves "Chrises") started to use a wafer, pretending it was their imaginary being, & fed them to each other.
There are rules for how to make & distribute the wafer, of course. In the Specific Telling of the Roman To-Do, it is recommended "that the wafer bread be made wafer thin, with only blessed tongues tasting & slightly blessed fingers touching (too much blessing of fingers makes the wafer too sweet)... When the priest, whose stomach must also be blessed, breaks the wafer thin bread into single wafer thin wafers, he must do so with a minimum of bits on the church floor. In churches where a good doggie is nearby, the good doggie may be blessed & can lick up what are obviously the crumbs of Christ... There are three words that the priest must learn to be able to successfully & regularly break up the wafer thin bread into single wafer thin wafers: practice, practice, practice... Congregants are to be strongly discouraged from watching the preparation, lest they decide that the entire wafer thin bread is the body of Christ & that the parts of the wafer thin bread are parts of Christ. In one gathering in Galatia, one woman refused the host because she was certain it was one of Christ's testicles... The priest is encouraged to break the wafer thin bread into single wafer thin wafers either alone or with colleagues who will not misunderstand the process..."
Why only some Protestants carried on the practice with wafers, while the rest moved on to tastier cookies &/or buttery crackers, is not to be discussed in this monograph. With the importance of the wafer to the regular operation of the church established early on (some say even before Christ, although this is just silly & the people who say it are obviously just looking for an argument), a shadowy group of wafer bakers soon appeared & took over the process. It was this group which gave the Pope & his poker buddies (soon to be called Cardinals) the giant staff called a monstrance, which has in it the world's biggest & tastiest host, edible only by the Holy Father when he's really hungry & the Vatican kitchen is closed. The monstrance is not, as some assume, used in the baking process, but rather is used to knock blocks of stale unleavened bread around the kitchen on breaks &, should there be two host bakeries in the neighborhood, in the streets on sunny days for unofficial street hockey tournaments.
The bakers, while not a secret society per se, are not governed by the rules of capitalism or modern finance, although they have recently gone public & this writer in particular made a sweet pile of change when I dumped my shares last year right before Pope Ratzinger's ill-advised Nazi salute some Israeli visitors to St Peter's Square. He reportedly got a giggle out of it, but it took a lot of wrangling from the two governments to stop an Israeli bombing of Vatican City. & by the way, the SEC totally cleared me of any malfeasance. I was just looking for another investment. It's not like I know anyone who works for the Host Bakers or anything. Anyway.
Going public is only the first manifestation of what two sources I have inside the group call "more publicity & therefore more power to us!" This "publicity" decision is ominous: this is the group to whom Marie Antoinette trusted the creation & distribution of the cake she intended to give to the poor of France during the great French Bread Shortage of 1789, & surely you know how that turned out. An upshot of a more public group might be access to their archives, which have been cooling for some time (apparently, they're edible), but have remained off-limits to researchers. We can hope - & maybe bring our own silverware.
While it is frustrating (& frankly clichéd) to say "time will tell," especially with the rapid speed at which both the violence & the absurdity of the War On Sailing have increased since the turn of the century, at this point this is all we can do.
As a note: Catholic Brand Eternally Good Host Crackers are now available in your grocer's freezer & are delicious with jelly on top. I recommend the "unconsecrated" style, as they have fewer calories.
Into this milieu we throw - regretfully, hesitantly - baked goods. Since human beings need to eat to live, food early on became a regular element in rites, rituals & dinners, sometimes in gratitude for some imaginary being's providing the celebrants with the food, sometimes out of spite for the imaginary being, who often (they are told) has better food he won't share. Into this prosaic stew (no pun intended) (oh, all right, pun intended) many especially irritated initiates decided they would completely piss the imaginary being off by pretending to eat him. While cannibalism has, in most societies, been used mostly as a last-ditch effort to liven up a really awful party, cannibalism-by-proxy has been popular since primates, out of the trees & into the libraries, found out what "proxy" meant & began using the word to confuse stupid baboons. It was not a surprise when the early Christians (so early, in fact, they simply called themselves "Chrises") started to use a wafer, pretending it was their imaginary being, & fed them to each other.
There are rules for how to make & distribute the wafer, of course. In the Specific Telling of the Roman To-Do, it is recommended "that the wafer bread be made wafer thin, with only blessed tongues tasting & slightly blessed fingers touching (too much blessing of fingers makes the wafer too sweet)... When the priest, whose stomach must also be blessed, breaks the wafer thin bread into single wafer thin wafers, he must do so with a minimum of bits on the church floor. In churches where a good doggie is nearby, the good doggie may be blessed & can lick up what are obviously the crumbs of Christ... There are three words that the priest must learn to be able to successfully & regularly break up the wafer thin bread into single wafer thin wafers: practice, practice, practice... Congregants are to be strongly discouraged from watching the preparation, lest they decide that the entire wafer thin bread is the body of Christ & that the parts of the wafer thin bread are parts of Christ. In one gathering in Galatia, one woman refused the host because she was certain it was one of Christ's testicles... The priest is encouraged to break the wafer thin bread into single wafer thin wafers either alone or with colleagues who will not misunderstand the process..."
Why only some Protestants carried on the practice with wafers, while the rest moved on to tastier cookies &/or buttery crackers, is not to be discussed in this monograph. With the importance of the wafer to the regular operation of the church established early on (some say even before Christ, although this is just silly & the people who say it are obviously just looking for an argument), a shadowy group of wafer bakers soon appeared & took over the process. It was this group which gave the Pope & his poker buddies (soon to be called Cardinals) the giant staff called a monstrance, which has in it the world's biggest & tastiest host, edible only by the Holy Father when he's really hungry & the Vatican kitchen is closed. The monstrance is not, as some assume, used in the baking process, but rather is used to knock blocks of stale unleavened bread around the kitchen on breaks &, should there be two host bakeries in the neighborhood, in the streets on sunny days for unofficial street hockey tournaments.
The bakers, while not a secret society per se, are not governed by the rules of capitalism or modern finance, although they have recently gone public & this writer in particular made a sweet pile of change when I dumped my shares last year right before Pope Ratzinger's ill-advised Nazi salute some Israeli visitors to St Peter's Square. He reportedly got a giggle out of it, but it took a lot of wrangling from the two governments to stop an Israeli bombing of Vatican City. & by the way, the SEC totally cleared me of any malfeasance. I was just looking for another investment. It's not like I know anyone who works for the Host Bakers or anything. Anyway.
Going public is only the first manifestation of what two sources I have inside the group call "more publicity & therefore more power to us!" This "publicity" decision is ominous: this is the group to whom Marie Antoinette trusted the creation & distribution of the cake she intended to give to the poor of France during the great French Bread Shortage of 1789, & surely you know how that turned out. An upshot of a more public group might be access to their archives, which have been cooling for some time (apparently, they're edible), but have remained off-limits to researchers. We can hope - & maybe bring our own silverware.
While it is frustrating (& frankly clichéd) to say "time will tell," especially with the rapid speed at which both the violence & the absurdity of the War On Sailing have increased since the turn of the century, at this point this is all we can do.
As a note: Catholic Brand Eternally Good Host Crackers are now available in your grocer's freezer & are delicious with jelly on top. I recommend the "unconsecrated" style, as they have fewer calories.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
When You Think You Understand Birthdays
After the last of the refugees left the crumbling canoes, stumbling onto the San Diego shore & frightening the children, the prospectors, the tree machine salespeople, they one by one turned & looked out at the smoking hulk at the horizon's edge. They wished for something like a sunset to silhouette the sinking ship, but it was midday & all they got was a half-assed fizzling fireball which hopped up like a fat man from an ant-covered garden chair, then plopped down again, rocking the distant liner nearly imperceptibly, but not making a sound nor otherwise causing any memorable pyrotechnics.
The EMT technicians who happened to be passing & said "What the hell" & went to help the wet, shocked former passengers were surprised to hear these otherwise Caucasian-appearing people speaking a medley of what a couple of skinny-dipping linguists said were South Indian languages like Tamil & Malayalam, although the cuter of the two swore she heard Comanche. Most improbably, the only word the refugees spoke in English - & the only word they used when talking to the doctors, policepeople, newspaper & television reporters, representatives of the religious community, car wash technicians & out-of-work clowns who came to help them was this: "Birthday."
How did you get out there? Birthday. What happened out there? Birthday. Where did the ship come from? Birthday. Why were all of you on the ship? Birthday. What is the name of the day when I came out of my mother's womb? Birthday.
This enigma attracted surprising little media attention at the time (it happened on either Super Bowl Sunday or Never Ending Pasta Bowl Tuesday - accounts differ) until now, when Lucas Peabody Assortment has decided to follow up on this mysterious tragedy in his new book How To Be A Man, Make Love With Men & Not Be Gay. Despite its "self help" title, this is a provocatively scholarly work which examines what Assortment calls "the wet boat surviving folks" & traces their inexplicable journey on a huge cruise ship with no international markings, no communication with any other sea- or aircraft, & no apparent survivors among the crew.
Assortment, who is an Austrian slumlord with deep ties to the Bavarian holistic capital punishment movement, provides blurry photographs & crayon-colored maps of what could possibly be images of the ocean - or maybe of a monkey getting a haircut - to discuss his incredible discovery that, despite the fact that he's never left the small village of Prigglitz, where he was born & later conceived, he has not been able to locate the ship's remains under the sea. Add to that the interesting - some might even call them mildly amusing - interviews he conducted with the survivors over internet chat from the late 1990s until shortly after the early 2000s, & you are sucked into Assortment's delicious description of an international cabal foiled by freedom fighters & earnest young men with typewriters wearing codpieces & deeply desperate for a space to practice both their music & their avant-garde cinema.
This valuable tome has begun to shed light on the hegemonic aesthetes for whom the War On Sailing is but a ploy for mind control, bigger golf courses, historical revisionism, & the renaming of an entire generation with anagrams of names everyone likes better. Assortment, though despondent about the future & really, really wanting to have sex with a man but afraid of being "outed," still manages to present a plan for scholarship & cruising which demands our attention. A gripping read.
The EMT technicians who happened to be passing & said "What the hell" & went to help the wet, shocked former passengers were surprised to hear these otherwise Caucasian-appearing people speaking a medley of what a couple of skinny-dipping linguists said were South Indian languages like Tamil & Malayalam, although the cuter of the two swore she heard Comanche. Most improbably, the only word the refugees spoke in English - & the only word they used when talking to the doctors, policepeople, newspaper & television reporters, representatives of the religious community, car wash technicians & out-of-work clowns who came to help them was this: "Birthday."
How did you get out there? Birthday. What happened out there? Birthday. Where did the ship come from? Birthday. Why were all of you on the ship? Birthday. What is the name of the day when I came out of my mother's womb? Birthday.
This enigma attracted surprising little media attention at the time (it happened on either Super Bowl Sunday or Never Ending Pasta Bowl Tuesday - accounts differ) until now, when Lucas Peabody Assortment has decided to follow up on this mysterious tragedy in his new book How To Be A Man, Make Love With Men & Not Be Gay. Despite its "self help" title, this is a provocatively scholarly work which examines what Assortment calls "the wet boat surviving folks" & traces their inexplicable journey on a huge cruise ship with no international markings, no communication with any other sea- or aircraft, & no apparent survivors among the crew.
Assortment, who is an Austrian slumlord with deep ties to the Bavarian holistic capital punishment movement, provides blurry photographs & crayon-colored maps of what could possibly be images of the ocean - or maybe of a monkey getting a haircut - to discuss his incredible discovery that, despite the fact that he's never left the small village of Prigglitz, where he was born & later conceived, he has not been able to locate the ship's remains under the sea. Add to that the interesting - some might even call them mildly amusing - interviews he conducted with the survivors over internet chat from the late 1990s until shortly after the early 2000s, & you are sucked into Assortment's delicious description of an international cabal foiled by freedom fighters & earnest young men with typewriters wearing codpieces & deeply desperate for a space to practice both their music & their avant-garde cinema.
This valuable tome has begun to shed light on the hegemonic aesthetes for whom the War On Sailing is but a ploy for mind control, bigger golf courses, historical revisionism, & the renaming of an entire generation with anagrams of names everyone likes better. Assortment, though despondent about the future & really, really wanting to have sex with a man but afraid of being "outed," still manages to present a plan for scholarship & cruising which demands our attention. A gripping read.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Sweet Dreams (An Analysis)
The War On Sailing has long been fundamentally interested in most pseudoscientific & religious dogma, ideas, theory, etc., not because they have any intrinsic value (which is to say, any intrinsic truth) but because of the use of such things as both motivation & controller by those who hold power, & of course the struggle for the ultimate power on this planet is the purpose of the War On Sailing. Why else have a war? Don't answer that.
I was reminded today of this while reading a monograph written by the late Winston Feeler, a completely discredited & therefore noted authority on dreams, in which he argued most ridiculously that dreams are more like a children's dot-to-dot puzzle than most people realize. One could keep a record of one's dreams, he argued, on a blank piece of paper, & then connect the finished record once enough dreams were recorded (say, twenty dreams) & one would have a delightful drawing which said "something" about the dreamer. In my younger days, I did attempt something of this sort, & my dreams, once connected, formed an astonishing likeness of Casper the Friendly Ghost. If I had been able to contact Feeler (he's not dead, he's serving consecutive life sentences in near-isolation for raping & eating three of his more delicious patients), I am not sure what he might have deduced from that. I was & have always been far more interested in Hot Stuff, the Little Devil.
Two dreams Feeler record were of fundamental interest to scholars of our discipline. One patient, identified as Patient Crumble, which is known to have been George H W Bush's nickname for Donald Rumsfeld, described a dream in which he was hanging out with friends in Paris, stole several things, was caught, & then was completely baffled that he couldn't just pay for them & leave, the whole "robbery" being some kind of fraternity prank. This dream was recorded in 1989.
Another dream Feeler records by someone he called Patient Alberto Gonzales (we're currently not sure to whom this refers) is even more interesting: while showing off a new house to friends, one guest of the patient notes that the walls are misaligned, & moves them, so that doorways appear in their natural place, including one doorway which opened up an entirely new room. The patient is delighted, but even in his dreams his friends call him a dumb fuck.
I draw attention to this not because the dreams have any sort of mystical or symbolic meaning - the dreamers are obviously incredibly obvious & unremarkable people whose other dreams include "flying," "watching my parents having sex," & "invading a country full of brown people who have a lot of oil" - but to show just the opposite. Dream symbolism is a cautionary tale - it leads to too many dead ends & encourages you to waste time in other peoples' heads when you least want to be there - when their brains are cleaning house.
I got all this from reading a moronic pamphlet by a damaged man. I am too afraid now to do crossword puzzles.
I was reminded today of this while reading a monograph written by the late Winston Feeler, a completely discredited & therefore noted authority on dreams, in which he argued most ridiculously that dreams are more like a children's dot-to-dot puzzle than most people realize. One could keep a record of one's dreams, he argued, on a blank piece of paper, & then connect the finished record once enough dreams were recorded (say, twenty dreams) & one would have a delightful drawing which said "something" about the dreamer. In my younger days, I did attempt something of this sort, & my dreams, once connected, formed an astonishing likeness of Casper the Friendly Ghost. If I had been able to contact Feeler (he's not dead, he's serving consecutive life sentences in near-isolation for raping & eating three of his more delicious patients), I am not sure what he might have deduced from that. I was & have always been far more interested in Hot Stuff, the Little Devil.
Two dreams Feeler record were of fundamental interest to scholars of our discipline. One patient, identified as Patient Crumble, which is known to have been George H W Bush's nickname for Donald Rumsfeld, described a dream in which he was hanging out with friends in Paris, stole several things, was caught, & then was completely baffled that he couldn't just pay for them & leave, the whole "robbery" being some kind of fraternity prank. This dream was recorded in 1989.
Another dream Feeler records by someone he called Patient Alberto Gonzales (we're currently not sure to whom this refers) is even more interesting: while showing off a new house to friends, one guest of the patient notes that the walls are misaligned, & moves them, so that doorways appear in their natural place, including one doorway which opened up an entirely new room. The patient is delighted, but even in his dreams his friends call him a dumb fuck.
I draw attention to this not because the dreams have any sort of mystical or symbolic meaning - the dreamers are obviously incredibly obvious & unremarkable people whose other dreams include "flying," "watching my parents having sex," & "invading a country full of brown people who have a lot of oil" - but to show just the opposite. Dream symbolism is a cautionary tale - it leads to too many dead ends & encourages you to waste time in other peoples' heads when you least want to be there - when their brains are cleaning house.
I got all this from reading a moronic pamphlet by a damaged man. I am too afraid now to do crossword puzzles.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Nu Jazz Is A Total Scam
A fragment from a previously unknown correspondent:
"I was walking near the corner of Mulberry & Shields in Fort Collins, Colorado, one rainy summer day when it completely dawned on me that the whole concept of 'genre' was a total scam designed to divide, not unite, music lovers. I was staying with this completely easy chick who lived down on Birch & was flunking out of Colorado State, mainly because she had never finished high school & hadn't therefore been accepted into college, but luckily I wasn't visiting her because of her intellectual properties, if you know what I mean & I think you do. But that day I was not to get to bust my nut.
I don't know if you know much about Fort Collins. Everyone agrees it's a shithole, but it's so much less than that. It's barely fifty miles south of Cheyenne, Wyoming, on I-25, which is where the good lord's bloody urine goes when it dies. I can't tell you how that colors a city, even a city with as little color as Fort Collins. But really, I kid Fort Collins. It hasn't been around for all that long. It's been making its own beer, which I appreciate. But I was there not as a tourist, but because I was forced out of Cheyenne. In Cheyenne, I had been asking around about Cheney.
Cheney! How that blowhole haunts my waking sleep! My long-anticipated expose of his Iraq-child-skull-fucking & his ability to fry fish with his spit was so close to being finished! Denise, the randy young coed whom I would never again bed, had rescued me from a Cheyenne diner/taxidermist's called The Artificial Heart, a favorite of the so-called vice president, & home to truly disgusting meals served on trays made from dead animals. My notoriety was such that only my mother knew me, & she never really knew me, because she never cared. But from my first question - 'So, has Dick Cheney stuck his cock in any of these dead warthogs or what?' - I could sense the hostility. Asking for a second cup of coffee has never been so hard.
Denise says I called her with a rambling text message. I just remember one gigantic waitress trying to poke my eye out with a stuffed eagle's outstretched wing. By the time the police arrived, I was able to excuse myself to wash my hands & slip out the back door. A chase ensued, but the wall of fire that separates Colorado from Wyoming proved protection for me & Denise, since people from Wyoming haven't yet discovered fire & aren't sure what it is. They think it's scary. They run away.
We made love, Denise, Colorado & I, that night, & the next day, as I made my way back from Colorado's apartment to get to Denise's, I was stopped short by none other than the so-called vice president's lesbian daughter. She looked more like Anderson Cooper than I had previously thought, but there was no mistaking her Cheneyness. She beckoned me to come & she promised me she would tell all. How could I refuse?
First, though, I will send this missive out to you. I will discover the truth, & it shall set me free & make me not a little bit of money. Just, if you don't hear from me, tell my mother to call the police or the FBI or something, will you? Thanks!"
"I was walking near the corner of Mulberry & Shields in Fort Collins, Colorado, one rainy summer day when it completely dawned on me that the whole concept of 'genre' was a total scam designed to divide, not unite, music lovers. I was staying with this completely easy chick who lived down on Birch & was flunking out of Colorado State, mainly because she had never finished high school & hadn't therefore been accepted into college, but luckily I wasn't visiting her because of her intellectual properties, if you know what I mean & I think you do. But that day I was not to get to bust my nut.
I don't know if you know much about Fort Collins. Everyone agrees it's a shithole, but it's so much less than that. It's barely fifty miles south of Cheyenne, Wyoming, on I-25, which is where the good lord's bloody urine goes when it dies. I can't tell you how that colors a city, even a city with as little color as Fort Collins. But really, I kid Fort Collins. It hasn't been around for all that long. It's been making its own beer, which I appreciate. But I was there not as a tourist, but because I was forced out of Cheyenne. In Cheyenne, I had been asking around about Cheney.
Cheney! How that blowhole haunts my waking sleep! My long-anticipated expose of his Iraq-child-skull-fucking & his ability to fry fish with his spit was so close to being finished! Denise, the randy young coed whom I would never again bed, had rescued me from a Cheyenne diner/taxidermist's called The Artificial Heart, a favorite of the so-called vice president, & home to truly disgusting meals served on trays made from dead animals. My notoriety was such that only my mother knew me, & she never really knew me, because she never cared. But from my first question - 'So, has Dick Cheney stuck his cock in any of these dead warthogs or what?' - I could sense the hostility. Asking for a second cup of coffee has never been so hard.
Denise says I called her with a rambling text message. I just remember one gigantic waitress trying to poke my eye out with a stuffed eagle's outstretched wing. By the time the police arrived, I was able to excuse myself to wash my hands & slip out the back door. A chase ensued, but the wall of fire that separates Colorado from Wyoming proved protection for me & Denise, since people from Wyoming haven't yet discovered fire & aren't sure what it is. They think it's scary. They run away.
We made love, Denise, Colorado & I, that night, & the next day, as I made my way back from Colorado's apartment to get to Denise's, I was stopped short by none other than the so-called vice president's lesbian daughter. She looked more like Anderson Cooper than I had previously thought, but there was no mistaking her Cheneyness. She beckoned me to come & she promised me she would tell all. How could I refuse?
First, though, I will send this missive out to you. I will discover the truth, & it shall set me free & make me not a little bit of money. Just, if you don't hear from me, tell my mother to call the police or the FBI or something, will you? Thanks!"
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