Blase Eight by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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Under her breath; She said; “To hell with that shit.”
She audibly followed that with; “I live on Camino de las Brisas and many more present do not. Regardless, we have a common cause as we are all impacted by the obscenity which is
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allowed to proliferate on Calle de la Congelacion. Thirty foot, non-native, water guzzling, intrusive Siberian elms. Each throws off millions of obscenely large, white, multi-branched seeds, which will invariably infest our gardens with deeply rooting, virtually un-removable un-attractiveness. While we newcomers struggle to beautify this fine desert community, we are hampered by their existence. What can be done about it?”
Vincent replied; “We are sympathetic with your plight. You are probably aware that in that regard we have passed two ordinances. One forbids the watering of elms and the other outlaws the planting of any new ones. You’ll be pleased to know that we are not taking this matter lightly, as a violation of either ordinance carries a hefty, $250 fine.”
“We are aware of those ordinances, as many of us worked for their existence and passage. However, they have had a less than satisfactory result. In effect, the existence of the mature elms violates each ordinance and renders the narrow and restrained, black and white words of the doctrine effectively moot. The elms have such deep roots that they access the water table, and therefore don’t require any watering. They also proliferate like, like ...... insects, thereby becoming abundant without the need of human aid. Our attorney, Bernard is of the legal opinion that their existence thereby violates the spirit of the laws, if not the letter.”
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“What would you like us to do?”
“Cut them down?”
“The Village should go onto private property and without permission, cut them down?”
“Perhaps you could obtain permission.”
Vincent hadn’t previously given serious thought to that option, as he strongly suspected that it was not a viable one.
He said; “I will take that under advisement and personally investigate that possibility.” He smiled at Patricia, and seemed to generally ask of the audience at hand; “Is there anything else? ......... Not getting any response he used his heavy, dull mallet. In his desperation and worry, he did what he thought was required in the moment.
Through his misunderstandings of the inadequate words of his departed teachers; he hopelessly attempted to understand the look in Patricia’s saddened, nervous eyes at the podium. Not that he fancied himself any sort of “good guy,” but it was because he figured that if he could understand the motivation of his adversaries, he could easily stay a step or two ahead of them. Now it was he who was stuck in front of the disaffected, blankly staring, sea of watchers. The diminished crowd. The electing, pain-in-the-ass crowd again, had him stuck on stage, because of his lust for the expected kickbacks on the garbage contract renewal. The half-joke and the quandary thereby
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implied, of deemed necessity, he generally relied on the automatic pilot provided by feigned stupidity. He only reverted to the pragmatism with which he had been Bensonhurst trained; that with which he had through birth been made sufficiently proficient to affect the continuity of the loud farce. To provide the appearance of being able to control his striking motion he again banged the gong slowly and deliberately; though extremely careful to strike on the wood provided. Thankfully, most of the time, his instincts furnished no words or analysis of the situation. It merely seemed to be something which was perfunctory. The crashing hammer he held in his left hand made the most momentous of forgettable gongs or the most innocuous of memorable blasts. The testimony thereto was the function of the supposed attendee’s perception. With a hidden sigh of relief Vinny commanded; “Meeting adjourned.”
This was the cruelest of Machiavellian, bottom line limitations. But it was irresistible as it always worked. It was the reverberating beat, suggestive of the clear manifestation of an end prognosticated by yet another cluck with a gavel. It was only another well-planned, ultimate consequence of well credentialed timidity, which has chosen to show a conveniently, ignorant denial of the obvious; another feigning of “I don’t know and I don’t care.” It usually got rid of the pests. The posture was un-intentionally conducive to the man who had been
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successful, as defined, in usurping the authority; the one with the checkbook; his protracted experience on his perennially practical, coarse side. Garbage in his heart and mind, Vinny thought that if necessary, with a bit of bluster he was capable of ending the bullshit whenever he so chose. He was levelheaded in thinking that as he had not yet met a challenger with any substance, and he therefore had no reason to expect to. For the time being, his best bet was on the likelihood that the tribulations caused by the Brisas Area Gardening Society would fade, just like all the other southwestern spring weeds. He also knew that if the weather continued to promote these weeds, other weeds seeking their own rightful place, would attack the originals through nit-picking criticism, and the whole thing would result in a long, boring diatribe no one wanted to hear. A voter application of Roundup would put an end to it. For Vinny, that required no personal risk whatsoever; the ideal nothing.
Penny’s life was much less complex; at least by her standards. She just wanted the vile obstructions removed. That accomplished, she would purely tend to her garden; like a Madonna; updated by Ophelia. “How could anyone object to the classicism of that?”
With puzzled faces the portion of the audience who resided in the green belt stood up and walked out; many thinking; “Is
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that all there is to the big deal?” The Sand Duners left with a bit more alacrity. Relieved that the meeting was of no consequence to them, some wondered what the greenies problem was. They would have appreciated the elm infiltration on their domain. Even if the elms were totally devoid of aesthetic appeal their roots would stabilize their shifting sands.
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# 8- A Sunday Stasis
Firmly secured in her new house, Cindy roused early from her slumber. It was still dark, but despite that she could make out the hand placement on her pre 1926, opalescent glass, Rene Lalique clock; little one on the nine and big one on the six.
The timepiece comfortably sat level on her functional nightstand. The merchant had advised her that it was titled
“Inseparables,” though her many close external inspections had not yet found any evidence of that. She had periodically considered removing the three screws which held the back in place to see if the name was emblazoned somewhere in the inner workings of the machine, but always decided against it on the fear that she might accidentally do damage.
The years had given the timer a graying effect, which some called a patina. Its tiny, burnt sienna face seemed content to be nestled between two larger bluebirds, which faced each other, one occupying the east and the other the west. North and south was inhabited by interlocking vines, those to the south overlapping the birds, while those to the north preferred clear borders. The whole thing rested against a black background which intensified the colors. She thought it gorgeous and it was her favorite possession.
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Cindy viewed the eye catching texture provided by the bulging, white painted, adobe bricks which made up the interior of the those walls which were also external. She then viewed the simple beauty of the gray-blue Kinko furnishings sprawled around her bedroom. After taking inventory, she finally saw Ty still sleeping beside her.
She pushed him a few times and when his eyes half opened, his face showing a first morning frown, she said; “Come on. Come on. It’s SUNDAY, the first day of the week.”
Ty put the pillow over his head and countered; “As a matter of fact, Sunday is the last day of the week.”
“First, silly. Do I have to teach you everything? It’s on the far left hand side of the calendar.”
“The Bible says it’s the last. On that day all the work was done and God rested; LIKE I’M TRYING TO DO.”
“BIBLE? Since when did you become a holy roller?”
Ty sat up in bed and said; “Now you got me wide awake. You know that I’m no holy roller. But, who are you going to believe?
A document which has stood the test of time or something printed by the World Wildlife Fund?”
“Hmmnnnn. ................I’m not sure, but I’m leaning toward the animal lovers.”
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“Okay. Here’s something else to consider. You’re reading that calendar left to right. Hebrew goes from right to left and Sunday is last when viewed that way.”
“I’m not Hebrew.”
“Neither am I. But, that’s not the point.”
“Is there a point?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Right now all I’m trying to say is that a very learned group of people go right to left.”
“Well, wouldn’t they have taken that into consideration?
....... I mean, you know, what they intended to be first which is left for others, they put on the right, knowing that people who speak their language understand that left doesn’t necessarily equate to first and right doesn’t necessarily equate to last. The words actually don’t have anything to do with each other. It’s all just a matter of where the scribe places the numbers. I mean he could just as well have went 3-7-1-8-4-6-9-2-5; and then where would we all be?”
“I can’t tell which side of the issue you’re on. Now, it sounds like you’re on my side.” Ty stroked Cindy’s hair and giggled when he added; “And if a six turned out to be a nine, I don’t mind. I don’t mind. Do you have any idea of what you’re talking about?”
Cindy stroked Ty’s cheek and giggled when she answered;
“Honestly, I lost myself somewhere in the innuendo of the last
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couple of sentences. Damn those junky Burroughs books. It’s like you’re staring at yourself in this fun house mirror, trying all angles to see if you’re attractive from all directions. You’re not sure if this self-centeredness is something you like or not.
At the same time you are fully conscious that there is someone else in the room, watching you; and you don’t know if you like that either. .......... Know what I’m sayin’?”
“I think I’m there in that room too. Hey, ever think that Sunday was named after the sun? And here it is streaming through the eastern windows without the benefit of internet access.”
“Actually, I have. This one’s trickier by one letter. Ever think that Monday was named after the moon?”
“Yes, baby; and the next one is a corruption of two; and the next one is representative of wed; and the next one
........”
“Glad I’m with you, babe.”
“Me too. ............ I really want that ...............”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. The words and numbers just get in the way. I’m so hungry. Ready for breakfast?”
“Most definitely.”
“Radio?”
“Radio.”
Click.
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Procul Harem was at the best part of “A Whiter Shade of Pale.”
“Aww. It’s over.”
“Far fuckin’ out.”
“Characterization acknowledged. A time capsule, indeed.”
“Missed the beginning.”
“We’ll catch it again.”
“Gotta check out my granny’s forty fives.”
“First, we gotta find a turntable.”
“And a sharp needle.”
“Can you dig. And I mean can you dig what’s happenin’ here?
I mean like not what’s happenin’ yesterday. I mean like what’s happenin’ now. Right fucking now.”
“I’m hip to it, baby. Dig you the absolute most.”
“It’s been a long time comin’.”
“Gonna be a long time gone.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Okay. .................. But, it’s there. You know, I’ve always loved that song. So, I looked it up on the internet. You know what I found?”
“Let me make a wild guess. Twenty-two YouTube renderings by different singers at different ages; forty-six sets of lyrics; most a bit different and some conspiracy freak-entrepreneurs
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completely claiming that some stanzas were left out for political reasons engineered by the CIA, inclusive of an offer to buy their explanatory truthful books; and seventy eight offers to download the song to your MP3 for ninety-nine cents.”
“That too. But worse. Eighty-eight fuckin’ explanations and analyses. They interpret the song as either a literal depiction of the sinking of the Titanic or some guy’s attempt to get a girl drunk, so that he can get into her drawers.”
Lengthy sigh. “Yeah. Like deceased.”
“Obsolete.”
“That’s one of the things I love about you. You’re always the optimist.”
Cuddle. Cuddle. Cuddle.
A few days before what was predicted to be a dry Christmas with a warming trend, Vinny’s two toddlers; Mikey and Molly; joined him on the sofa, and sat on his lap, each taking one knee. He bounced them up and down and they giggled with abandon.
In a childish voice, Vinny said; “What are my babies laughing about? Huh? What?”
Molly squealed; “This is fun!” and kept on bouncing.
Mikey said; “Keep going Daddy.”
Vinny did and asked another playful question; “Are bouncing babies happy babies?”
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Mikey sounded dead serious when he replied; “Why this, why that and why aren’t you home to play with us more?”
Vinny was startled. He looked at them and his leg motion came to a halt. He said to the four little eyes which were looking right at his; “Soon. Soon everything will be all right.”
He meant that, but also realized that Mikey and Molly would soon be off to school, friends, all sorts of activities. This was the best time to spend with them. It was moving away quickly and more garbage was on the immediate horizon. He failed when he tried to think of something encouraging to say. To break the bad spell, he started to bounce them again; this time remaining quiet.
Geraldine smiled as she watched from the doorway; “Come on kids, bedtime?”
Molly moaned; “Oh, do we have to daddy?”
With mixed emotions, Vinny answered; “Your mother knows what’s best for you.”
The kids reluctantly trudged off with one of Mommy’s hands guiding each on their trip to the bedroom.
Cheerless and dissatisfied with himself, Vinny sighed and his eyes focussed on the family room’s sliding glass door.
Though the sun had disappeared under the horizon an hour prior, the curtains were still fully open; which allowed him to see a
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reflection of himself in the otherwise unpopulated family room.
This did not do wonders for his mindset.
After the kids had been tucked in, Geraldine re-entered the room and sat in daddy’s lap and using a silly voice said; “Why aren’t you home more to play with me more?”
“Oh, you know. Gotta do this. Gotta do that. Soon we’ll both be over the hump.”
“I think we are already.”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
Vinny heard the jingle emanating from his pocket and retrieved the phone he now considered smarter than him. He said;
“Dammit, gotta take this one, babe.”
She sighed, shrugged and made an unplanned elevation.
“Yeah, Victor. How the hell are ya?”
“ ..................... ”
“Relax, relax. It’ll be all right. I’m right on top of it.”
“ ........................... “
“Okay. Okay. I understand. You know you can’t talk on these damn things anymore. I’ll be right over. Okay? You home?”
“ ......... “
Vinny hung up and said; “Sorry, honey. Got to go. Victor’s got a bug up his ass.”
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“While you’re trying to take it out, would you also find out when he’s going to start installing our pool and ...... ?”
As he hurried out the front Vinny just thought; “Fuck it all.”
The house was one of those rambling old country houses which popped up here and there back east during the nineteenth century. Though modernizations were typical and expected with structures of this advanced age, none were evident on this one.
There had to have been some, but they also had to have been done
“in keeping” with the original style’s integrity. The clapboard exterior siding was painted a cloudy yellow, suggesting that the painter had finished his work a while back. Despite the age there was no peeling. In fact one might say that the color had acquired a charming patina, the yellow gently blending with a creamy white undercoating, which could not be mimicked out of a can.
Jack fleetingly wondered how he had come to see the outside. As far as he knew he had never previously been there and he was on the inside; on the second floor. It was only his logically refined instincts which told him that this was his house as he was trailed by two home improvement contractors, who continuously spoke to him, themselves, or no one in particular, of how easily and cheaply they could make repairs. Jack thought
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that he heard Beth rattling around downstairs, sometimes speaking to someone or also talking to herself.
The contracting team consisted of a five foot two inch man who exchanged the stub of an unlit cigar between his mouth and his left hand; apparently the hand most useful when he felt the need to blurt out some commentary in a rapidity which seemed to be nervously induced. His partner; a woman with blonde hair below her blue jeans; was almost a foot taller, and seemed more matter-of-fact about whatever was going on or not going on. “Big Blonde” periodically and sparsely interjected her deadpanned observations whenever “Little Cigar” seemed to run out of steam or looked to her for agreement, approval or assistance. It may go without saying, but she gave the appearance and sound of being entirely on his side and well accustomed to making an open display of that when obliged. At times this activity seemed to bely the upward drift of her blue pupils; a look which she seemed to maintain a sufficient time to be “inadvertently”
noticed, instantaneously followed by a quick “correction” to center eye. A cynical person might have construed this ophthalmic gyration as some sort of insinuation.
Notwithstanding the marginally, cranium compelling work, with which Jack had just been almost entertained, the bulk of his concentration was on the floor. And rightly so, as this floor seemed odd and dangerous to him. It consisted of
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traditionally planked wood, but almost all the planks were turned up at their edges, perhaps an indication of prior water damage. One could easily trip. To make matters a bit more difficult the entire floor seemed to slope toward the wall and glass windows to the outside. To make matters Triple A level difficult, the floor’s width approximated all of two feet.
That was because of an oddity Jack had never seen in any other house. The vast majority of the second floor consisted of a gigantic central tunnel to which he had no access unless he smashed a hole in the black colored wallboard to his left. That seemed to be rash and a last resort. Jack knew that the house was built before the days of coal, oil, gas, or electrically generated heat. It once depended upon wood burning fireplaces in every room; most of which were walled in when they became un-fashionable and “inefficient.” Still, he thought that the exhaust generated by a newer, more powerful heating system should not take up 80% of the entire house. To do that would have to have been a multi-faceted illogical expression of a dada-redundant, absurdist “answer” to the most practical of situations; or a pseudo-intellectually compelling, reductionist representation of proportions and parts; or another impressionistically inspired imperfection with a compelling argument for justification, imperfection the key word; or the silent sharpness of a stark, sophisticated, falsely egalitarian
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minimalism; or a surrealistic rendering of Pollack simultaneously puking and pissing into the host’s fireplace. The thought then crossed his mind that more likely than any sort of temporal movement, that this monstrous hindrance was likely the work done as a modern adaptation of a third eye deficient and un-noticed desire for Masonic symbolized greenbacks by an inept, charlatan of an un-licensed, fly-by-night contractor, who lucratively found a sucker.
He wondered if the first floor was so configured. He hoped not, but suspected as such, as that possibility would seem to leave the most minimal of efficient, crooked living area.
Jack stopped himself, perhaps un-necessarily. However, in the moment, it seemed prudent to first determine what was behind the black wall before speculating on the reasons for its existence. But first he would have to get rid of the contractors. If they saw him punch a hole in it, it would not only be another source of “needed repair,” but it would also be another story which the peddlers could spread all over the area, embellished to convey “interesting” sociopathic innuendo to the small town locals, dying for something to say over their back yard fences.
Jack walked near a five foot wide and two foot deep, curved indentation in the outside wall with a shut window in the center. More loudly expressed than his numerous previous
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suggestions of “repair,” Little Cigar said; “Oh,” in an attempted, contractor indication of ruinous, unfortunate astonishment; prior to his overly eager, “surprising” follow-up;
“We can hep ya out with that.”
Jack was indeed surprised. He stared at the hollow groove, saw no imperfections, and supposed that the original builder intended it to appear as it did. He said; “What’s wrong with it?” amused and in full anticipation of the reply which he thought would follow.
Little Cigar approached the recessed window. His hands gesticulated in an initially haphazard and animated manner. His eyes periodically peered at Jack as if to say; “You’re either blind or kidding me.” This bold activity culminated in a rather subdued and restrained set of hands with palms to their respective sides and, while unlike the olfactory proclivities demonstrated by his partner; Jack witnessed the most bulging of facially intrusive eyeballs. Their sheer size and red, veiny appearance was something Jack had never previously encountered more close up than in Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange,”
and that required artificially induced openings and a lot of makeup.
Though the thoughts of a thousand childish horror movies flashed through his mind, Jack successfully hid the trepidation which seemed to well up throughout his entire existence. He
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recalled the long ago warning given by Sid; “Don’t play with little minds.” His intended little joke had seemed to have un-nerved a serious person; perhaps a dangerously serious person.
He looked to Big Blonde and found some degree of comforting adjournment in her shrug, grimace, and back turn.
Little Cigar ended his consternation when he said; “We can get this flush with the other walls.”
Feeling relieved and a bit more plucky, Jack responded; “It doesn’t seem to be a problem right now. Besides, if you move the wall inward, the window will become useless. Unless, of course, you make a window of the entire area. Ah, even then it will be cut off at every edge. The only way I can conceive of getting around all these considerations is to move out all the other walls; and that’s just too expensive.”
Little Cigar calmly agreed, his furrowed brow indicative of a confusion he could not articulate or confound in the moment.
Jack was sure that he didn’t invite them and therefore felt that he owed them nothing more than minimal courtesy and an ushering to the front door. But, he thought that for a number of reasons it was pragmatically best to let the contractors do at least one job. He pointed through the window and said; “Look.
The yard is full of last year’s dead growth. It’ll likely take a few days to get rid of it.” As the now distracted contractors gazed, Jack yelled out; “Come on up here, Beth; I can use some
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help;” and heard a silent response which surrounded an Antonioni murmur.
Little Cigar broke the silence when he urgently said;
“There’s a trespasser on the property!”
Jack looked out and saw a powder blue, mid 1960’s Ford Fairlane idling just ten feet east of the window, destined to either go straight ahead or straight back, a prisoner of the stockade fence immediately to its left. Jack wondered why he had not noticed it last look.
Suddenly, Little Cigar, Big Blonde and he were outside.
Someone called out; “Hey, what are you doin’ here?”
The car started to move slowly, and as it passed the trio, they saw the lone driver. It was a smiling grayish-blonde woman of about fifty years of age. Her countenance was disarming and she said; “I used to live here and I just wanted to see it one last time.” The car kept moving and went out to the road, where it disappeared from sight.
Jack didn’t remember climbing any stairs, but he was back inside the house on the second floor. He peered through the same window and saw Big Blonde take off her clothes and get under the water flow coming from a tall standpipe. He thought it was still a bit too chilly for that as it seemed like a typical, mid-spring, New Jersey morning. Little Cigar was nowhere in sight and Jack felt that it was wrong for him to be watching Big
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Blonde. Besides, he wanted to explore the huge, black sideways tunnel in the center of the house and he saw an entry which had previously escaped him.
He went in. It was dark. He fumbled for a light switch and found none. He kept moving slowly. He thought he was heading for the center, but knew that he couldn’t be certain of that. He detected some movement and then saw the dimly lit interior.
There were stores. The shopkeepers paid Jack no notice and seemed to going through their daily routine of setting up.
Jack was not the least bit happy that others were making use of his property. Since he was on solid ground on the second level he wondered if this sideways tunnel extended throughout the house or if was only of that elevated place. He had now taken so many steps that if there was any opening to the first floor it would have to be a small one, just like a funnel rather than a sideways tunnel. A woman of about thirty, who was olive skinned, and draped in multi-colored robes like a gypsy sat behind glass, the size of a typical window. As he got near, she smiled and said; “Fortunes told.” Jack kept moving as for some reason this woman seemed ominous to him and he also wanted to see the extent to which the stores had invaded his property. The woman’s smile grew and turned into a cackle; her eyes seeming to become glowing pieces of coal set aflame. She now appeared to be maniacal.
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The absurdity of the entire situation was no longer a curiosity or fear. It made Jack realize that he was in a dream.
So, he decided to have some fun. He approached one of the shop keepers who was setting up a window display, with his back to Jack. Jack wanted to see Beth and he wanted to know the extent of the tunnel-funnel in that order. He asked the man; “Where is the stairway down?”
He realized that he had met another comedian when the man, turned, started laughing, and said; “The only stairway goes up.”
Jack woke up to see the pine beams on his tongue and grooved ceiling. He sighed and again closed his eyes, but he was now wide awake. Jack wished he could drift back off to sleep again, as the entertainment was better there than on the internet; more of the non-entertainment on the ignored laptop screen below.
“To whom it may concern;
I have been busier than I would like to be. I have been informed that there is insufficient space in my house. Wanting to be liked I considered remedies. The first thought was to have an addition built. My second thought was that could become a problem in any of a number of ways. My third thought was to recall the four, differently sized, boxes which the presumably
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former owner left in the living room. My fourth thought was a question; ‘Did anyone put anything in them?’ My fifth thought (possibly sic) was to do an investigation, during which I determined that they were all still empty. My sixth thought-action was to put the smallest one inside the second smallest, then to put those two inside the second largest, then to put that concoction into the largest one.
I am currently in the process of determining if this provides sufficient space, ultimately an imprecise value judgement which will involve input from the other, who I can see through the open window over the oven, is currently in the front yard tending to the garden. I do so want to be liked. If the space is determined to be lacking I intend to continue the process with the four boxes which were left in the kitchen, and if necessary the four boxes which were left in the game room, and if necessary the four boxes which were left in the guest bedroom, and if necessary .......................... Through my wanderings I have already determined that they are all of different sizes and empty, and that they will all fit inside the largest box. This is a tedious process and I have a Plan B.
Rather than experiencing infinite boredom, at some point I may find it fun to just throw all the old junk out.
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I’d rather spend the time ruminating about the ancient Japanese game of ‘Go.’ Such things are most fun when one is a novice. At this point I find it unclear what the rules defining “surround”
are. The board configurations I’ve thus far seen look like the stones are willy-nilly all over the place. In certain venues, ignorance is indeed bliss, and I’d rather not get bogged down with the details of “surround.” What does pique my interest is the name of the game. It seems to me that it must have been baptized by someone with a sarcastic sense of humor. The still stones cannot move. They resemble a graveyard, while in Chess, a Knight and a Queen can hop or slide around the board theoretically forever. As an aside it seems patently absurd for mathematicians to say that ‘Go’ has more possibilities than Chess, when the Knight and Queen can keep hopping and sliding to infinity. I don’t care to hear any math maven’s “explanation.”
Shouldn’t have mentioned it. What I’d like to know is if name of this ancient eastern game loses something in the translation.
Are there any linguists in the house? My only tentative conclusion is that whoever named this game must be of high level genius character as the brightest of easterners are not the least bit funny. Look at Murakami.
In 2016, it is scientifically believed that everything is made up of numbers or can be represented by them. It is un-deniably
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true that, primarily through the invention of better measuring and visualization instruments, we keep finding smaller things previously unknown. Given that one small observation it is 99.9%
certain that we will soon discover that the numbers are made up of something previously not seen. If you want to take the other side I’m willing to bet you a whole lot of money on it. Further, when that happens, a traditional physicist named T.T. Hindsight will titter mildly and say; “It was so retarded to have believed in the number theory which the Neanderthals did. It was such an easily discerned piece of faulty logic. Mankind determined that all existence was comprised of a concept he invented. I mean like Duh!!!” See ca. 1967 Jimi Hendrix’ ‘If Six Was Nine,’ andor the possible precedent of ca. 1965 Bob Dylan’s ‘Ballad of a Thin Man.’
Recently I’ve been diverted from my own priorities which include trying to make recently installed Windows10 do what I want it to do and finish off a long-ass book which is now boring the hell out of me. I suspect that MS put this damn thing out free in an effort to get a bunch of suckers to do their editing work. I’d only like to point out that the MS acronym was first a reference to something else and that still may take precedence. My sixth sense tells me that my next delay will be provided by someone
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who is a disciple of the imperfect religion of psychology. I promise that I will do my best to strangle that person.
If I don’t contact or make terse replies to people in the near future, it should not be considered disinterest or disrespect. I just have to get all the mud out of this place before it reaches neck level and once and for all finish this goddam book. It’s 98% written and needs four edits by moi, two of them slow. I’m considering just deleting the obsequious stuff, let it go, and hope I never see it again.
For those of you who actually read as opposed to skim and assume, you may have noted that I was considering obtaining my first Kirkus review whenever I finish this ‘brilliance.’ Since then I’ve seen more Kirkus reviews of indie stuff. I have found them to be so bad that one doesn’t even have to read the book to refute them, as they contradict themselves and display no knowledge of antecedents. Most significantly, their vaunted market reach is yet to be personally determined as, over the course of approximately one year, the indie books reviewed have experienced sales ranging from two to seven, and I suspect this is inclusive of the freebies and other forms of giveaways. Help, please advise;
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1) Does Kirkus use the same reviewers for the indie stuff as they do for the institutionalized?
2) Is there any mathematically demonstrable relationship between a starred Kirkus review and book sales?
3) Is GFR of financial value to anyone other than AmawayOnSteroids.com; the mis-statements a Nabokovian non-riddle?
4) What is the price an unknown indie must pay to get a front page Sunday NY Times Book Review Section review?
5) Does that have any provable financial value?
6) Is there any less-than-half-hour process an indie can perform to keep their books off pirate websites?
7) If one signs with a traditional publisher is one saddled with an editor, required to do book signings, and answer stupid questions in the media?
8) Is there anybody out there?
Gotta go. My significant other has come in and declared the space to be insufficient. I’m going to have to start fucking with these empty boxes again. I am so desperate to be liked that I have forgotten the lines to ‘Visions of Johanna.’
Ciao.
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Jack had already said as such in other venues, and his dream state did not compel him to say it again. He thought;
“This shit has got to be woefully out of context;” and re-closed his eyes.
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# 9- Clandestine Views from Two Disaffected Sides The summarization of a minute, blurred and looped vision emanating from a viewless part of the eastern US flatlands Back at Ty and Cindy’s first home in Away-From-The-Water, Long Island, Near-Big-Apple, NY, Cindy’s older sister, Lynne, awoke alone with a thud in her meth head. That condition was far from its first incarnation, but this time it felt particularly strange in the continual echoing crash. Her yellow pajamas were pulled over her head, ostensibly to inadequately attempt to block out the first vestiges of morning sunlight. Her reticent, wobbly, first foot on the floor, in search of her slippers, reminded her that the four straight, mug-sized glasses of vodka, which she had consumed the previous evening was no more out of her system than her aging need to reside at her parent’s house.
Or was it five? Hard to tell, and kind of irrelevant now..
As she scratched her morning itch, she noted the remnants of Fidel. That blessed Latino fucker could always make her laugh, even more than Smirnoff. Lynne had always called him by his last name; Pacheco. The first always struck her as an all too obvious allusion to some sort of communal optimism which must have fallen from her pocketbook some time back.
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He had left a note scrawled in eyeliner on a neatly folded, paper towel. The fucked up penmanship, and more importantly content, was reminiscent of an unintentional joke stolen from the “New Improved Borax” infomercial. The professionally insipid voice over the Warhol-like “artful” image was long ago parodied by Wallace, Saunders, Zadie and their numerous inept imitators.
In some kind of attempt at a merciful act, the oxymoronic, copied redundancy was printed once a year in the fat “New Yorker” annual literary condolences issue. It went on ........
and on ....... but still went on, seemingly immune to any concept of embarrassment. The words of the paying patrons patronized.
As best as Lynne could make it out, the note appeared to say; “We both know that this thing has not been working for a long time. Henry and I spend more quality time together.”
Even for the most devout of feminists, this was not good news at unemployed and plastered age 35. Further, the LGB&T
aspect suggested the cessation of viable options. She had known Pacheco since the dinosaurs ruled the earth. Sure, it was inconsistent. But, what isn’t? “The Monologues of Plato” was a very interesting book to discuss.
Her inadvertent impromptu vision of Fidel and Henry together had a sobering and very un-erotic effect. This had a squaring consequence as she wasn’t feeling the least bit erotic
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to begin with. Lynne’s head now seemed un-clouded, and she immediately concluded that this man must die; not particularly specific as to who; but with a strong practical preference.
Her most ideal of plans was one in which Pacheco and Henry would get married, with no limitations imposed through a pre-nup. Henry was the beneficiary of a family trust; Pacheco’s inherited property with Henry dead. One of her meth-freak-friends could do the job for $500. El Diablo, as she was commonly known, could then re-approach Fidel with a proposition backed up by one of the enormously realistic substitutes made in 2016. It was a bit remote, but she could handle that and it didn’t preclude other options. She thought; “I always suspected, but now I know that fucking Pacheco was up for it.”
Lynne’s corkscrewed, uppermost, hirsute of manifestations stood out like that of Medusa when she looked into the unforgiving bathroom mirror, but she didn’t disappear. She leaned forward and got closer to verify that it was her own, recently short hair, each strand circling around like an extended spring or a descending slinky. But, the snakes did not yet appear to be reflectively present; perhaps a function of the vertical, rippling pond, Lynne’s state of disrepair, or both.
She was reminded how she hated having inherited her father’s hair, rather than the straight, flowing tresses of her mother and younger sister, Cindy.
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She returned to the bed and sat upright against the headboard; her own head now free of the yellow pajamas. She didn’t exactly know what was entailed, but some instinct suggested that she still had a lot of thinking in front of her.
Insufficient schemes would never do.
A thought hindered return to western plodding The following sunny, unseasonably warm day Jack and Manny brought in their quota of drug and alcohol recidivists. They were easy arrests as, having had a long term affair with the system, the addicts no longer believed that they had any rights.
In effect, they didn’t. Unable to afford a personal attorney, they just did as they were told and spent as much time in jail as the powers that be dictated. If they had any kind of hope at all, it was to get high during periods during which the bars were invisible.
Manny drove Jack back home after they had cleared the thawing streets of some of its social refuse. They navigated the littered avenues of Mesa Grande, essentially oblivious to the trash filled gutters. The wind free day left everything lifelessly in its place. Though Manny was usually not a talkative person, Jack saw that today his silence was coupled with that pensive, far away expression he had come to know. It
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was time for the explosive rant. The damn thing was that Jack basically agreed with his partner, but didn’t see a damn thing anybody could do about it. Once again prepared to be the voice of rationality, he brightly inquired; “Something bothering you?”
Manny shrugged and grunted a drawn out; “Ah.”
“No, no. Tell me. I’m your partner.”
Manny sighed, eyes straight ahead and said; “Does what we do ever bother you?”
“No. .......... What do you mean? ........ What’s supposed to bother me?”
“The whole damn thing. ........ I mean, shouldn’t we be chasing after the guys who really do the damage?”
Jack tried to joke and said; “No my job, man. .... You havin’ mid-life crisis or something?”
“You asked me. I didn’t want to talk about this shit.”
“You’re right. Sorry.”
“It’s just, you know ...... These poor slobs nodding out in the alleyways. We pick them up four or five times a year and they’re only hurting themselves.”
“They broke the law.”
“Maybe. You ever hear of crimes without victims?”
“Yeah. I saw a segment of ‘Law and Order’ where they arrested a few old, liberal college professors for weed. I know the diatribe.”
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Manny made a disapproving scowl. His discontentment quickly evolved to exasperation. With an unusual rapidity in his cadence, he said; “So, we play out our little role and we don’t have to worry about paying the rent. Right? We get paid to supply the criminal justice industry with its pawns; mostly Latino.”
What are we supposed to do? Take up a petition?”
“Did you ever see what goes on at county jail?”
“Booking.”
“You didn’t see it. If you’d ever have gone deeper into the dungeons, you’d get an education. If you’d have taken the trouble to go in, the first thing you’d have noticed is that it is mostly populated by beaten people who have long forgotten any fantasies of equality or justice. In free fucking America!”
“Oh, come on. These same people boost shit to support their habits and don’t give a damn about anyone else’s property rights.”
“Key word, my privileged white compadre. Property.
Property. Property. What about humanity? Humanity? Humanity?”
“Don’t call me privileged. I’ve lived through as much garbage as anyone, but I did that without taking prisoners.”
Manny openly made a sarcastic laugh, genuinely finding his partner’s commentary completely ridiculous. Rather than addressing his partner’s inability to see what he considered
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obvious, he said; “You do not even understand your own words.
The system is designed to make money from those addicted to some substance needed for medication; no different from the shit you get, if you have the money, from your local drug dispensing doctor. Some lives just do not work out.”
Jack was more focused on his own life. He didn’t think that he could ever be even indirectly accused of being one for whom things worked out. He said; “We’re cops. That’s all there is to it. Laws are written, not by us, but we enforce them. .......
We’re not the bad guys.”
“I don’t feel like a bad guy either, but I think that I could be a better guy. The needed drugs temporarily remove the pain; which is deemed in the brutal twenty-first century to be a crime. If it wasn’t so sad it would be abnormally funny. The effect on people’s lives is a tragedy, worthy of a Shakespearian play. Even in his brilliance he could not envision this. The career inmates don’t want to be seen as gloomy. They joke. They joke in way only they and the morgue attendants understand.
Whatever is required to be human is systematically denied; 100%.
And the disinterested have the inexperienced balls to say that we are in America. ..................... They’re obviously right; but it is an America beyond the forefather’s conceptions of any sense of rights or freedom. We have all become terrorists, subject to spurious incarceration, without the right
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to inform and without the right to an attorney, and without the hope of escape. Sit in the cold while the fat packing bitch brings a cold, inadequate breakfast forty minutes too late. The Cheerios promptly give in to the 55 degree room temperature. She smiles and requires acknowledgement of her ‘kindness,’ the
‘power’ displayed her best aphrodisiac.”
Jack was uncomfortably stunned at the seriousness of his partner’s polemic. He had spent years with Manny and had never heard anything like this. They had always comfortably joked. In fact he had never heard much anything from his partner. The unpleasant thought crossed his mind that he may have been doing too much talking and not enough listening. He was at a loss for words. It seemed that some response was called for. Inadequately and self-servingly, he said; “It’s all bullshit. Right? What’s new?”
“What I find the most surprising is how the long term inmates have, on their mistakenly thin surface, acclimated to their perverse reality. They attempt to maintain some degree of their contrived, hoping to fool, personal illusion of self-sufficiency by joking of the nefariously-designed Catch 22’s, purposely propagated to keep them in an inferior and hopeless place, totally dependent on the uncaring whims of the flunkies, momentarily in charge. The correctly termed screws seem to get their rocks off by withholding any fairness that their rock-hard
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hearts have rationalized into their calculated, job un-necessary methods; regardless that it is at the minimally supportive wage.
To play their own sick game back to them, it becomes obvious that they are rejoicing in their power-hungry denials of the basic human rights of those who have been condemned to feel; and feel, in a an uncontrollable way, what is conveniently characterized as a disease by the pragmatic, lethargic, crawling and avaricious dead.”
Jack thought; “Okay. Zombie territory. I’m well versed.” He calmly intoned; “Most everybody is a parasite. That’s how we’re born and that’s how we get by. If someone wants to be a host, they’re going to have to pay for the party; one way or another.”
Manny’s concentration on the road wavered as his eyes darted between the dashboard, Jack, the insulation stuffed ceiling, and the rear view mirror. He had taken the risk of baring his soul this far and saw it as merely logical to continue the process, once and for all. He said; “Take advantage of the weak. It bears all the brave risk of a US treasury bill.
Despite popular fantasy and Christian tithe seeking, paradisical, parasitic, monetarily-paramount horseshit, the meek will never inherit the earth. Jesus suffers on the cross, until the devilish oppressors have been eradicated. Truth ..........
Truth .......... Truth ........... Irrefutable, pathetic truth.
Deal with it, or cry your life away.”
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Jack thought; “If I don’t think about it I won’t cry. But, you have forced the occasion. On the smelly and dirty surface; any stupidly optimistic thoughts of this Pollyanna-ish, wishful dichotomy, only exists in the illusory, hidden, and un-provable spirits; or scientifically likely, the lack thereof; exhibiting the cipher duplicating characteristics of those condemned to the remembrance of something which probably never existed, and perhaps, never will. It is the timeless and pitiless joke. Under the risk of ostracism, we are all obliged to perfunctorily laugh at our own failure. Ha, ha, is an adequate reply to the time worn observations of market dependent, popularity subservient, experienced, well-credentialed critics; as well as the faux knowing inference they seemingly convey in their admittedly-worthy-of-a-wager, world-wise brilliance. To put it in a more combative tone, it’s only the obvious, banal regurgitation, of a well-known loftily, and yet evaded by the common, rationally accepted fact, ......... brutal fact, ........ and heart-killing fact; its appeal persuading to the purposely and obviously hardnosed, secretly shy, posing, in the hopes of not being seen as losers; yet clearly otherwise inadequate; sensible to all of the willingly numbed; as are we reluctantly all. In a short, cruelly and briefly hopeful period; and ultimately perceptive time they have seen the realities, and in necessary self-interest, they have joined with the most credentialed, who have
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completely succumbed to the calculations of the blandly, financially remunerative, safe, tame and superficial.” His thoughts went in one side and came out the other in the space of a second; too problematic, un-focussed, un-wanted, and irrelevant in a hardheaded manner, were again chosen to be put on hold, in deference to his fear of his being seen as uncommon, wrong and, disastrously, un-American. In an effort to indicate a somewhat welcomed and interested, yet truly practically, undesired curiosity with Manny’s heartfelt point of view, he said; “I don’t think of consequences. I’m limited to the observable truth; a discipline imposed by the engineers. One should plan ahead.”
Manny considered the ending of a difficult conversation he wasn’t entirely convinced that he had initiated. However, the uncontrollable, red and insistent blood coursing through his previously slumbering veins raced to his head, producing a fire beyond his mental control. He was embarrassed to have to convey to the outside world that he was, like the majority of those he perceived as boring rabble, a prisoner of his passions, needs and beliefs. His momentary excursions into duplicitous profundity over-rode any considerations of his likely stupidity.
Hell, he was alone with his long-term partner, and if he couldn’t now bear his soul, when would it ever be allowed? He said; “Fine. ......... Fine. Here’s the crux of the truth that I
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have personally seen. In County detention, the most representative parts of the confining room are the topless, shit-invoking, stained, and classified as stainless steel commodes/ privies. Separated by side metal partitions, they are ample in number to accommodate the 50 people assigned to the spacious, unheated place, but half require the services of a plumber who never comes, and are loaded to the top with shit.
........ This is only a small portion of what our pawn positioned, purview permits. People sleep in assembled steel, bunk-beds; on two inch thick mattresses, assigned to and the temporary property of inmates, charged with the responsibility of keeping the ‘luxuries’ safe, upon the risk of the added charge of theft. They carry these things in from booking, their place of arrival at the joint. In the company of cynical others, who have traversed the road before, they seek assistance in obtaining doctor required medications, which are systematically denied. The authorities delight in the suffering. They need a Personal Identification Number to make a collect phone call and they never get one. Fuckin’ phones don’t work anyway, but they never get to find that out.”
Jack didn’t want to clearly take opposition to Manny’s underlying observation that his one-move-ahead-chess game had no chance of ever achieving his buried dreams; the esoteric aspects of the pursuit of the moving Holy Grail impossible to find. The
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merits of a subjective ancient ambiguity, and the convoluted, contemporary, confused morass were wasted on a world accustomed to Eminem one liners, considered incisive put-downs. However, in his dreams, and only dreams, the envisioned road to Propicio went on into an infinity of happy, easily achievable possibilities; one the privacy denied by 1984 and the much later Franzenian pronouncement. While it’s arbitrarily placed, deceptive show of illumination was trite, ancient, smiley-faced, heart-warming and caring; it was currently viewed as losing and stupid, without the opinion generators’ realization or recognition that they were operating within the norms of a passé taste, of financial interest to museums, within the confines of the commonly accepted, imprecise definition of absurdist, cowardly, attempted manifestations of post-modernism or post-post-modernism, both in search of a real name. Jack said; “It sucks. No joke. But, here we are, in a situation we did not create. It deters me from any analysis as it seems grandiose to think that I might have some new positive insight or effect. Me.
Me. Inconsequential, little me. Shy, ugly little me. I‘ll never deny my insignificance and rejection, even in the face of the
‘evidence’ and subsequent ridicule and damnation. I can’t. She knew, but she kindly let me live out my deepest youthful dreams.
Dreams of being one of the cool guys who girls flocked to meet and who never came my way. I love her. They never had an
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interest in any kind of reflection of some sort of a fairness of some sort, which would only serve to cruelly remind me of that which may have been. It’s buried so deeply inside me that any attempt to excavate a well-intentioned end would be bravely welcomed message, just like my laptop’s initial greeting. I am a coward. I wish it were otherwise. I know that I don’t deserve her and also that I can’t live without her. In so keeping, the other details don’t matter in the least. It makes my mind smile in its innocent love. To think of it otherwise would make life unbearable. Maybe I was a spoiled boy, with no idea of the Gulag; but within the miniscule, yet, in the perceived as brave, inevitable, necessary, and doomed voyage of Ulysses, as told either by Homer or Joyce, he ventured out. I don’t think he wanted to. But, it seemed to be what was expected, and I didn’t want to appear deficient, though I yearned for and envisioned only the her which I have never yet found; either in adventuresome seriousness or in safe joke. The passage of time, at least up until a certain age, became a sad, promising, both ironic and not, and interestingly, erotic, throwback witch in my presence, nocturnally folding her faded beauty into a memory of that, which, in its theatrically valued cartridges, prognosticated the entertainment based desirability of her charms. How guileless can things be?” It seemed so simple and reasonable a dream, he felt assured that this would be the
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happy-sad times cried into his pillow, in anticipation of her.
Time went on. In search of and at the same time fearing of the recessions of his faded pictures of the past Jack was reminded of decades prior. Though he originally and mindlessly thought the contrary, if anything at all, the passage of the memories was his first sign that the years were gone. Time rudely imposed its unwelcomed presence and Jack was jarred back into Manny’s perspective of that which now was; and that unending arguments concerning the nature of perception were much too hollow for anyone with something to do. It is real. Deal with it or perish.
Some say; “What is it?” It is a matter of humanly, as opposed to humanely prescribed law. Jack felt as if he was catapulted into a perennial time, presumably described and duplicated as a horribly redundant infinitum to a “Mad Max” future. With a reluctance, most often stemming from a stomach-induced feeling of disgust, yet contrarily in this case endemic to the potential barf of one who is in the child oriented movie, happy ending mindset farce, hopeful process of regurgitating that which was a malady to adults, laughing at the illogic. It was gone and always would be. Maybe never was. Jack was uncomfortably again beyond his sensible boundaries. She was gone. Befuddled, without an urge, other than hoping to give the appearance of being in-accusingly socially and magnanimously adept, he replied with
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three words; “Don’t we all?” Actually, neither he nor Manny remembered what the question was or even if one was posed.
Manny had become accustomed to Jack’s reticence to deal with that which was of substance. He regarded the terse lack of feeling as just another manifestation of white inadequacy.
Rather than risk dealing with another tired racial harangue, he replied; “Orange rubber beach moccasins designed to fall off.
That’s what the un-represented get. The rubber failures are color coordinated with their clone outfits.”
“I suppose the criminals are supposed to get Ralph Lauren.”
Manny hid his annoyance with another of Jack’s sarcastic put-offs. He said; “I know that your harsh statements are the result of a buried sadness. What happened to you?”
Jack was not surprised at the observation. The woes of his past were something he wanted to keep in unread history. More than it being the source of embarrassment, the keeping of his secrets was essential to his incorrect thoughts of what is required for corporeal survival today. More than a little un-nerved, he switched to a course he hoped not too obviously deflecting. He said; “I know. I know. Life on earth is hell.
There are predators and there is prey. How can we change that?”
Manny had no answer to the direct question. It was too bottom line. He necessarily paused from his rhetoric as his eyes diverted from the road ahead to the overflowing dumpsters at the
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rear of the tin storage facilities. The cheaply built, economical retainers of past excess lined the motorway on the outskirts of town. Their sameness was simultaneously comforting and reminiscent of a cemetery. In full realization of the inadequacy of his response, he finally said; “Kill the predators.” He knew he was one of those he condemned. He attempted to make his honest reply into a joking one when he chuckled and added; “Program the hawks for cannibalism. ......
Who the fuck knows? I don’t have any answers. But, I have some questions and the truth of what I have seen. You know, in County, those guys we fill our quotas with, try to sleep all the time. They find it intolerable to be awake. The ceilings are fifty feet above them; unreachable even if they could get hold of a ladder. I suppose the authorities went through the expense to ensure that none of the inmates would screw up the system by hanging themselves from it. Their only communication with the outside world is provided by a TV, perched on a metal frame near the top. None of the inmates have a controller for it. It seems to come on and shut off whenever the mood strikes it. It has a penchant for one national station, never diverging to any other.
When it comes on, some inmates, perhaps in mockery or total boredom, run to the chair-less, gray tiled floor beneath it and crane their necks. Either out of discomfort or distaste they soon depart. I wonder if their initial enthusiasm was sarcasm,
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or if hope truly springs eternal. Based on their defeated attitudes toward everything else, I strongly suspect the former.
One hundred feet across the room are tables with four backless seats fastened to each. They are much like metal back yard furnishings without the umbrella, un-needed to block the jail’s non-existent light. The frigid feeling they get in their ass matches the disease of the late delivered food. I saw one detainee have a grand mal seizure during the dispensation of the largesse. He was denied medication through a system which ignores and then facetiously requires one to fill out an unavailable form, which even if miraculously found and properly filled out, is not going to be looked at. And if, through miracle squared, it is, the nurse is booked. I saw this guy on the floor, uncontrollably shaking. A Native American. A Native fucking American, incarcerated until the seven month backlogged judge could review his case and bring charges. Charges alleging alcohol intoxication in a public place; disorderly conduct; which carries a maximum sentence of 90 days; 180 of which were already served.” Manny derisively laughed at the absurdity, then continued; “The net result of his infirmity was shrugs, inattention, further brain damage and the lack of a cold lunch.
I told the screw what was happening and he said he would get to it as soon as he finished delivering the frigid trays. He must have never finished and the Native American man remained on the
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floor. In a few minutes, his convulsions stopped ......
permanently. He was finally cured.”
Though he’d have preferred to have not been compelled to have thought about it, Jack was reluctantly receptive to Manny’s point of view. His mind raced like one of the meth freaks he made a business of arresting. He was apprehensive to fully disclose his feelings, as he knew that to do so was stupidly and jokingly taken as being indicative of a lack of virility. He wished to damn the erroneous perceptions, but thought that we all, necessarily, try to live with the world’s consequential recriminations. Withstanding a miniscule and debated exception, martyrs are soon forgotten and found ridiculously irrelevant, and their memories serve as nothing other than to be one of many collection-box-filling examples of a predatory, big-business-church-cash-conducive-Constantine-dictated-politically-produced-dogma. Dreams of heaven supplied by big-anything equates to dollars, be it a backyard pool or pie in the sky. Pay for the swim. Pay for heavenly immortality. All the same. The tithe recipients conveniently never suggest that one might desire an end and have the audacity to proclaim that wish a sin. Jesus was suicidal. If he wasn’t he would have stayed out of town. The now institutionalized, tax free owners of more American land than anyone run the ultimate scam on the desperate; a promise for cash; a promise made billions of times without one proof of
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delivery. With centuries of refinement at their disposal, they have concocted a logic-limited, yet legally irrefutable, tax-free game. The simple ideas of the said prophet or son were initially, convincingly lofty and popularly optimistic. But, after centuries of pious marketing, which resulted in the achievement of economic viability, they invariably became managed by the basest of commercial instincts; the inevitable and irrefutable evidence of the corruptibility of humans. Show me one immune. I defy you. Make me wrong. I want to be wrong. I desperately want to be wrong. I can show you an abundance of full graveyards; decomposed bodies interred for centuries; retailers of insipid, message added, dead flowers, conveniently right outside the open, welcoming gates; but no souls. Please show me something else. The ceilings are too high, the ground is too cold, the dreams have ended, and I search. I’ve always searched, but this time the failure proven by experience overwhelms my supposedly free will and I have that much less time.
Perhaps due to some suicidal mental quirk the dead Native American on the floor didn’t make Jack cry. His problems were over. Jack almost envied him. He only mourned those the chief had left behind. Jack’s lengthy silence ended when he finally responded; “I wish all my convulsions would stop in a few minutes.”
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Manny gleaned an insurmountable hurdle between the communicative ability of two presumably hard-assed males, posturing as not to appear pathetic. Rather than continuing to imply the feelings in his heart, he attempted to resurrect their traditional method of communication. Hoping to dispel any indications of softness, he said; “Fucking Indian lay on the floor for hours before they pulled him out. Somebody else ate his lunch. You ever see brown change to blue? Some fucking shit.
I was hoping no one would come in and get him as I had a bet that his next metamorphosis would be to bland white.”
Jack laughed as he said; “Fuck you, man. Just plain fuck you.”
“You know, three two other inmates died there last year.”
“No, I didn’t know. How did this information come your way?”
“Inside sources, man. Took ‘em out and buried ‘em somewhere after deleting the records. Nobody ever came looking for ‘em.”
In an imploring tone, Jack said; “Okay, okay. I know a lot of bad shit happens there.”
“Hey, I think my sister has a few open evenings this week.”
“Open legs too, I hope.”
“She’s a good girl.”
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“That’s why she’s still single. ........ Yeah, I think I need someone to talk to. ........... She’s not as mean and dumb as you are, is she?”
“Meaner and dumber.”
“Sounds good.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Manny turned on to Calle de la Congelacion, the car sliding dangerously close to a thicket of mature elms. He said; “Goddam.
Can’t the rich people in Propicio afford rock salt or some shit?”
“Sure they can. Last time they were here fuckin’ truck went off the road and got stuck in the trees. Took a week to get it out. Should of seen ‘em out there falling down and freezing their asses off.” Jack laughed.
“Talk about mean.”
“Hell, they weren’t even white.”
Manny stopped the car in front of Jack’s house, saying;
“Your chauffeuring service again delivers, oh great white master.” As Jack opened the door and put one foot on the ground, Manny added; “Seriously, when are you going to get a car?”
Jack had both feet firmly planted in the ice when he leaned over to reply; “I don’t know. I’ll talk to the boss about it tomorrow. Eight thirty?”
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Manny deadpanned; “Eight thirty.” Jack slammed the door and slid a bit in the process. As Manny drove away, he called out;
“Don’t forget about your sister,” and hoped he was heard.
After a particularly busy morning, Jack and Manny, again drove back to the Mesa Grande police headquarters at 2PM, with a poor excuse for a societal threat in tow. No doubt a societal nuisance, the disheveled man was currently known as Johnny Evers, formerly known as John Jessup, Cowbell Johnson, James Hornsby, and a myriad of other aliases, even he didn’t remember.
He was slumped in the back seat, laughing at something only he saw, singing Bob Dylan’s “Everybody Must Get Stoned.” He called out; “Hey, hey, Greendick! They gonna rehabilitate me again this time?”
“That’s Greenhandle, fuck head.”
“Yeah, yeah. Green whatever you want. ‘Twas Shakespeare doth scribed; ‘A rose by any other name, etcetera, etcetera.’
Don’t you indulge in the great books?”
“Missed that one.”
“So, they gonna?”
“Gonna what?”
“Rehabilitate me Greendick. You got ADD or some shit? They got drugs for that, you know.”
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Jack silently stared out the window, casually eyeing the street for the next likely afternoon bust. Somebody must have just brought in something good, as he saw a number of people walking at the pace of someone new to crutches, as if they could no longer feel the warming air.
“Got drugs for every mutha fuckin’ thing that ails ya. God bless the chemists and the FDA. .............. Hey, I just want you to know that I’m not mad at you guys about this bullshit bust. You gotta do what you gotta do and I gotta do what I gotta do. ......... Or something like that. I think I got it backwards; maybe sideways, but you know what I’m sayin’. Like, when I’m out here runnin’ the streets I get all kinds of fucked up; don’t eat right; consort with the diseased rabble; sleep in the cold; like that. In jail I get fed good, get medical attention, have a warm place to sleep and shit. I get healthy, so that I can come back out here and start all over again fresh.
So, no shit, Greendick; I ain’t mad. In a way you’re doin’ me a favor. ........... You don’t have to feel so all alone.
Everybody must get stoned.”
“Believe it or not, I don’t really give a shit if you’re mad. And if you want to return the favor why don’t you just shut the fuck up.”
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“You got it, man.” Johnny looked out the window, nodding to some tune humming in his head or having a series of petit mal brain seizures.
Jack and Manny escorted the handcuffed, frequent guest into headquarters, where Reginald D Clymer waited inside, peering through the indirectly lit sliding door. In an efficient, terse voice, he said; “Manny, you take care of the booking. Jack, in my office.” He scurried to the right, eyes ahead, without looking at Jack, assuming he would promptly follow.
Jack did precisely that and as he stepped lively he said;
“News about my car? If not that, when do I get another one?
Manny is getting tired of .....”
Without turning around, Reginald said; “Yes, sir. It has been located. And point of order; it is the property of the Mesa Grande Police Department and you are not getting it back.”
Jack was more than a bit put off, hearing what he had always considered an unmentioned technicality. All cops called the cars their own, even the one with the gold leaf stenciling and the spiffy red lights on top. It was merely common phraseology. Not getting it back was a second curveball. As he flopped into one of the chairs opposite Reggie’s tall and wide, black swivel chair, he asked; “Did they fuck it up?” as he slid a few inches on the rollers. He suspected that Reggie had chosen his “throne” to command power and authority, the sun behind him,
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and ironically obtained the result of merely appearing small and overshadowed.
Making no direct reply, Reginald D retrieved a manila folder from his top middle drawer, placed it on his desk, and entered a series of keystrokes into his perennially-turned-on computer. The struggling and already declining, afternoon, winter sun cast uneven, noir-ish shadows through the iron barred window behind Captain Reggie. The flickering overhead fluorescent lights created an annoying, off and on, duplicity and made a crude light show of the bar shadows, which widened as they approached Jack.
Eyes dispassionately on his computer screen, Reggie matter-of-factly said; “John Bleeker.”
Jack’s heart and lungs attempted to fall out of his body, but were blocked by the curve at his ass. The name was one Jack never wanted to hear again. His palms sweated and he stared, hoping that he had misheard.
Reggie used his sarcastic, mock-sophisticated voice to say;
“John Bleeker. ...... John Bleeker was a very, very bad boy.
Chicago, 1990. At the age of 22, convicted of breaking and entering. Given probation. Chicago, 1992. At the age of 24, convicted of possession of narcotics with the intent to distribute and felonious assault with a deadly weapon. Of a cop, mind you! Given five years. Disappeared in 1998, presumed dead.
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Mesa Grande, 2002. John Greenhandle becomes a cop, claiming to have had no previous criminal history.” He sighed deeply as he turned to Jack. He said; “I’m going to have to request your badge and gun.”
“Come on. I’ve been an award winning cop for more than a decade.”
“If you told the truth on your application it would have been all right.”
Jack flipped his badge on the desk and said; “Yeah, sure.”
“Be that as it may. I’m giving you a break here. You will not be prosecuted for lying on your application. You’ll have that in writing after you give me your gun.”
Jack sneered as he placed his revolver on the desk, and said; “Big deal. What kind of crime is that?”
Reggie waved his hand in dismissal and said; “Oh, I don’t know. There’s a law against most everything nowadays. You know that. Falsifying a government document, lying to the police, probably a host of other things.” He took a one page document from his manila folder and slid it to Jack saying; “Sign this and prosecution will officially be waived.” Jack complied and received a copy which he crumpled up and threw at the wall.
Reggie stood up and walked to the door, saying; “I’m going to miss you.”
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Jack too stood, though his motions were like one who had been shell shocked. He said; “How’d you find out after all these years?”
“Your stolen car was used in a drive by shooting which resulted in a murder. The homicide guys are extremely thorough.
They now have access to information which was considered private and confidential when you were hired. Secrets have gone the way of the tyrannosaurus rex. Complete truth has arrived and actually most anyone can get it.”
Jack desperately drew at his only straw and said; “Can’t you fix things up?”
“I really don’t know if I could. This hasn’t happened before. Besides, I’ve been waiting so long for this promotion, I’m not taking any chances of messing that up now. You’re a big boy. You know how that goes. Come on. Get going, before the tears start. Manny’s going to give you a ride home.”
Jack’s shaky feeling did a one eighty to anger and he thought of revenge. He said; “Who’s the car thief?”
“Didn’t get him yet. The car was found dumped and trashed on the edge.” Reggie put his left hand in the small of Jack’s back and shook his right hand, and said; “Time to go.”
Jack saw Manny in the hall, instinctively took a step toward his partner, and the door closed behind him. The rude semi-slam came as no surprise, but effectively announced an
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unwelcomed finality, in its thorough resonance. He said; “I guess you heard.”
Manny’s eyes went to the hard, calloused, gray tiled floor.
He drew out a; “Yeah,” and shuffled his feet.
Jack said; “They never forget, you know? You pay your debts and they come back for more. ........ You never stop serving your time. Sucks.”
Manny chose not to articulate his thoughts of their having been front line agents in the propagation of the merciless, money-driven, chess game. The present was a woefully inappropriate time for recriminations and he knew that Jack would come to see the irony of his own situation in time, anyway; choked by his own brand of medicine. He said; “Come on.
Let’s take that last ride before the vultures descend.”
Millions of day-to-day, pragmatic thoughts combatted the millions of useless philosophical views which raced through Jack’s mind, each displacing the last before the fleeting electrical impulses rushing through his incompetently designed brain. None could come to any conclusion; in prevention of any euphoria of solace; any peace. There was never any peace. The story of mankind was told in the tales of battles, chronicled by the conquerors. In a moment of clarity, Jack saw that his wind-up lay in the simplicity of the thud of the closed door, and what he had left of an unpredictable, inescapably damaged and
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corrupted future. He immediately laid in the fantasy of a pleasure he might take in the blowtorch and slowly dismembering, torture-killing of his car-jacking, personal life ruining opportunist. At the same time his inter-connected right and left brain made him see the opposite and therefore subjected him to the immediate realization that revenge, no matter how devastating, was a pitiful, insufficient consolation; morally vindicated in an archaic, Old Testament sense; but thereby, of definition, limited to the un-analyzable, turn-the-other-cheek, and easily avoidable agonies of the persecuted vagaries of the indefinable New Testament’s lack of completion. ............
Besides, it wouldn’t get him his fucking job back and he might get caught.
Yes, yes, and fucking yes. Tell me otherwise. Please do.
Without regard for popular, pervasive, photocopying, pop-cool, and vulgar opinion; it had always seemed to him that the outward dichotomy between the stated views of the haves and have-nots was merely another pathetically and tragically un-recognized replay of the other language speaking, a Biblical Tower of Babel. While that conjecture at first seems sacrificially pessimistic, further reflection clearly reveals that to think in any other fashion is an iron-clad guaranty of warfare; formerly open and now in artifice. What has been said to have been is a safer road than the possible hazards on the one not yet taken.
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The museum contained past predictions of the future in the 21st century. The optimistically presumed, semantic difficulties had proven to be analyzable by the professors, time tested and found historically insurmountable by their additions to confusion, precisely as was prophesized; purposely or innocently misunderstood in terms other than a colloquial deference to the hackneyed, and necessarily affordable recreations of the most un-imaginative of the hidden, masked and hooded, Tri-lateral western alliance, reconstructed and deconstructed; their canvas the bomb devastated Japanese cities, un-enlighteningly redundant in their mutual, self-serving tendencies; which were regularly demonstrated in their predatorily and nefariously well-dressed concoctions of ersatz “sophisticated” apes, resplendent in late afternoon toddy times; vainglorious in their fashionably insincere egalitarianism; the sociopathic participants hidden behind unmoving, smiling masks of freckled Rooty Kazootie, as if their preceding, ancestral monkeys had imbued them with an awareness of something beyond the un-lettered illumination of the sun, indirectly limited by human perspective imperfections.
In a seemingly nonsensical, and, unsurprisingly, acquired taste, the higher university taught. Therefore their “education”
was inescapably and perhaps to the majority of unrealized human potential and actualities, which unfortunately, but inevitably, have been monetarily translated in error, produce nature
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contradicting understandings of social status and human worth; redundantly and self-consciously act as if they were not victimized like the reviled and sometimes, Sartre defined, benignly neglected weak; all too often abused in the arousing full light of day. The discipline of medicine says leprosy has been eradicated. Sure, if you are made blind to all of the lepers, hidden behind “new” titles. Christminster was not a product of fantasy. Hardy depicted what was real and true in
“Jude the Obscure.” He was consequently hated, but didn’t seem to give that much of a damn, as he just settled into writing poetry instead of novels.
We need to be held. We always have. There was a time it seemed so easy, so mutually gratifying, and so contentedly warm.
It must have been a dream. As who will risk the socially abhorrent contamination? While we think that we feel; we’re not certain that we could completely sacrifice one’s self. To avoid that perplexing thought, we intellectualize a rationality in which we say that sacrifice is no longer necessary. That seems obviously true as to do otherwise is a prescription for the annihilation of all the good people. Within the confines of our uncontrollable, subliminal desire to live, we truly think that the Christian-Hungry Lion, one-sided affair is an archaic sucker’s game. Or is it? It gets case specific. As a people, we have proven our willingness to be sacrificed time and again;
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Christ, Gandhi, etc., etc., etc. Pick your favorite hero. We are them. We were born as them. We will always be them. If there ever was any grand design, it is this simplicity. How did it ever get hidden?
A perhaps conveniently, seemingly higher logic tells us that to continue to the courtroom drama to demonstrate our good heart is a temporary fix which merely ensures our eradication.
We easily glean that we consider ourselves among the persecuted
“good.” We don’t know. How can we? All we can be sure of is that some of us honestly try. Yes, we have sinned. And we’re sorry.
But, we have paid more than anyone outside our skin could understand. We wish it would end. But, rather than imply some sort of personal virtue from this biased, unprovable suspicion, we know, unlike the professors and theologians, that we are far from unique. We are all “good.” We’re just given more than we can handle.
If one were to brave this possibly contrived, sacrificial path, it is abundantly clear that the meek will never inherit the earth. They will obviously be crushed and the untested cynical will reign. Maybe statements to the contrary were only another misquoted, improperly translated, “prophetic” statement which Constantine and his henchmen found empire-building useful.
Two thousand years have passed. When? Whatever. We want the
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earth. And we want it now. We love it. We can’t live without it.
None of us can.
How long can some of us pretend to outwardly exhibit the farcical, un-realized fantasy that we are not viewed as pathetic, despite our borrowed garments of winners. The man will demand repayment someday. Maybe someday soon. The fantasy winners the debtors portray, only having to half act the role; heroic in their well-advertised, yet thought unseen deficiencies; seem hopelessly constrained by their dominant and right-brain-active-left-brain-dead state of mind, oriented with a predilection toward what their inexperience and sheltered existence had come to incorrectly perceive as their superficially desired common taste. The Henry James’ in the pack displayed rhetorical observations from which they simultaneously retreated; of a necessity produced by long term, incessant restlessness; denied the mercy of sleep. Doomed to banal fashion, the well-intentioned few of the fortunate, in time came to clearly see their cage. Having seen life from both sides and now sent back to a place long ago abandoned. At bottom line, Jack could understand that what this exacting world allowed him was kindergarten simple and what he knew well before he could walk, talk or read. ....... KILL THEM BEFORE THEY KILL YOU.
OTHERWISE BE A TARGET AND A FOOL. He told Manny; “We don’t have to wait for the buzzards to descend. They’ve learned to save
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energy by waiting on the ground,” while he thought; “All this shit over a stupid fucking job I didn’t originally want.”
They silently walked down the hall side by side. Jack received no goodbyes or well wishes; only furtive glances from the bustling paper carriers, who returned to the consuming chores of the day at the slightest hint of recognition. In his rejection, Jack felt incongruously proud. He smirked and mumbled something indecipherable about pariahs, hermits and isolation.
Suddenly he felt queasy with the awareness that this would be the last time he would see the place which had provided camaraderie and income for more than a decade. His anger was temporarily displaced by the unhurried grind of a confident devastation, secure in its own inevitability. It had an elongated red face with no eyes. The thing reminded Jack that the process started so suddenly. Just a few minutes ago Jack took his place in the world for granted. Then Reggie dropped the bomb, and the effects were spreading out. No mercy. No forgiveness. No stopping the toxic cloud. No possibility of completely eradicating something in possession of a half-life.
Once created, it had immortality on earth and in cyberspace. He became aware of a burning sensation, which seemed to stem from somewhere in his chest. The fear of a heart attack upset him further for somewhat perverse reasons. He couldn’t afford to have one while lacking health care coverage and he didn’t want
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to display any vulnerability to the peering rejection squad.
They exited the sliding glass doors and Jack looked stoically at the ground and put a hand to his chest.
Manny turned to him and said; “You all right?”
“Of course I’m not all right. .......... That’s got to be the dumbest question anyone ever asked me.”
“You’re so goddam literal. So, what’s with the Napoleon impersonation?”
“Fuckin’ Waterloo.” Jack almost laughed and the burning sensation subsided.
They got into Manny’s car. As they pulled out Jack took one last look at the place, taking an unintentional special note of the glass doors sliding closed. They reflected the late day light, shimmering in a blinding, uneven, frantic, but not quite dancing glare. Back on the road, things seemed as always. He was riding with his long term partner, eyeballing easy pinches. Old habits die hard. Jack said; “You still going to be busting the pathetics?”
“What do you think? Tell me another way.”
“I just thought that you might have been having some kind of moral crisis recently.”
“Morals are not made for working people. If a deer is stupid enough to offer a broadside target, he’s a dead deer.
That’s all.”
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“So, we’re hunters.”
“Every fucking one of us.”
“I’ve read of gatherers and growers.”
“They’re either homeless, at the dump, or in jail.”
“So, now I’m a hunter without a gun?”
“Yeah. You fucked up big time.”
“What’s my big crime?”
“You got caught.”
Realizing that this might be the last time he ever saw his partner, Jack wanted to pursue the conversation beyond its previous limits and asked; “Where is mercy?”
Manny momentarily and sarcastically laughed; then said;
“Mercy Aragon. Lived around the corner. Beautiful girl with the longest, blackest hair you ever saw. All the guys were crazy about her. ....... I knew her when we were young. She was idiotically attracted to this bum. Asshole with a big broken nose. Got beat in every fight he started, and he started them all the fucking time. Must have aroused some kind of maternal sympathetic instinct. With his “love,” she became a hooker and died of her third heroin overdose. .......... I miss her like you could never understand. ........ But, she’s gone forever.
......... Better not to think about it.” Manny brought Jack back to today by saying; “What are you going to do now?”
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“I don’t know. Give me a break. This is so new. It hasn’t settled in yet. ............. What do I know how to do? ......
Use a gun and push people around. Maybe the bad guys need more muscle.” He snorted a brief laugh.
“They’ll think you’ve gone undercover. How about private?”
“Can’t get a license. Fucks will just bust me again.”
“You might be able to get a job as a security guard.”
“And slowly and steadily go broke. Fuck that.”
“Got savings?”
“Some. My expenses aren’t high. Small house and the only thing I do is go to work.”
“Friends?”
“You.”
Manny was silent.
Jack said; “You’ll be coming around here some times.
Right?”
“Oh sure. Yeah.”
Jack thought Manny’s sounded too quick and insincerely agreeable. Maybe that’s what he expected. In more than a decade the only times that Manny had been in his house were the last few, when Jack needed a ride. He wanted to know where he stood and said; “I’m going to be having more free time; at least for a while. Did you set up something with your sister?”
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“Oh, you know what happened? She met this guy who just moved into her apartment building. Latino, too.” Attempting to gain credibility, he tried to resurrect one of their old, standing jokes and added; “She doesn’t have to scrape the bottom of the pasty-faced white barrel anymore.” He immediately realized that this was the wrong time. He glanced toward Jack who was staring out his side window, without the hint of a smile.
A heavy silence hung like a soon-to-be-discarded-smashed piñata, until they neared Calle de la Congelacion. Jack said;
“Do me one favor. When they catch the asshole who stole my car, get me his name.”
Manny shook his head and said; “Man, you don’t want to go there.”
“Do me another favor and don’t tell me where I want to go.
Will you just do it?”
“You’re going to get in some really deep shit.”
“I just wanna know who it was.”
Manny turned onto the ice plagued road and slowed to a crawl.
Jack said; “Well ........ You gonna do it? I can go through some trouble and get it other ways anyhow.”
“Okay, I’ll get it.”
“Got your word?”
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“Yeah.”
The car reached Jack’s front door. He said; “See ya around partner,” and exited.
Manny opened his side window and called out; “Jack.
........ Be careful.”
Jack got his first legitimate laugh since Reggie told him that he was going to do him a favor. He watched Manny drive away, hearing the wheels cracking the ice and rustling up some of last year’s leaves. Maybe they were left the year before that. Dead leaves look like dead leaves, regardless of the vintage. When Manny turned back on to Propicio Road the instabilities became completely rested and the silence set in.
In the undisturbed moment Jack grasped that he had no income, no car, no job, no friends and no gun. Like at birth, he felt completely alone; this time with no screaming mama to grab on to. He shook off his fears when he remembered that he did have one adult consideration to live for; an overwhelming desire for revenge. He closed the door to the dead leaves and the ice, went inside, and started a fire in the living room kiva. The flames wildly soared until they were curtailed by the apex of their enclosure.
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#10- An Evening With Propicio’s New “New Age” Guru Patricia Primstation had exhausted her now rationed supply of prescription happy pills. Her jitters suggested that she needed another Thursday night trip to the meeting held by her favorite, local, part time residential real estate salesperson; part time, “licensed,” amatory massage therapist; full time morning, neighborhood dog walker; and sometimes spiritual healing agent.
Pat had been at the meetings often enough to have come to the realization that to try to display the damning requisite to hug and appear to “relate,“ even on a detached level, was even more personally loathsome than the “advanced” form of the incarnation; and often inflicted one with that synthetic dead flower scent; the currently fashionable, flagrant, frail, fragrance, otherwise known as natural BO with an atomizer squirt. During the charade, Pat’s admittedly personally biased and impressionistic reaction to her cursory holder generally was that he-she was as severely depressed and desperate as most readers of “Psychology Today,” in search of a “new” disease, willing to settle for a syndrome, or even an acronym. Pat didn’t consider it their fault; unless one cruelly held them to the highest of standards; excepting the unforgivable BO monsters.
They were for the most part, merely in search of something
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“brightly downbeat” to say during their next “New Age,” non-touchy, non-feely head trip; seeing it or hoping it otherwise.
Visuals of closed eyes and upturned palms often suffice. She wished that the MD would just give her some more of the goddam pills
The other side of the room was always populated by the aging guys, balding at the widow’s peaks, with graying, manicured beards. In uniform, they primarily sought to hide their bulging bellies with Native American, step motif styled sweaters and their resident, cuddled teddy bear, which always appeared to be climbing. It was all too quickly learned that their stated purpose is to find their inner infant; or the imagined vestiges thereof. Regulars strongly suspect that some genital manifestation wouldn’t hurt matters either. The women mingle with the teddy bear cuddlers and are of comparable age, but appear younger thanks to a few nips and tucks here and there; their tendency to only go bald only in a provocative fashion statement; while their un-mentioned chicken necks become the politely ignored giveaway. Their polyester, Mervyn’s outfits do their utmost not to produce that telltale sign of wear on the posterior; either thought of as a sign of de-classe age or some sort of attempt at a surreptitious come-on. It almost works in either direction under the dim candle light. Almost. Their well sprayed hair, guaranteed by Revlon to stay in place in a
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tornado, shows the gaps where it was over-sprayed. Their initiated conversations, in keeping with the “spiritual” nature of the gathering, focus on the teddy-bear-holders, and is terminated when it has been determined that the teddy-bear-holder is also the holder of a wife, or is one.
Through all their talk of paradise, you will not hear a laugh.
It’s over. Admit it. It is. ........ All right, for those still compelled to play the nicey-nicey game; thinking that they are fooling someone; the re-runs are playing all over cable and the internet. If one has not seen it the first time around, it is “new” to them on an uninformed, relative basis; akin to a 2016 reading of Shelley’s “Frankenstein.” That unlit driveway Pat had tried to slowly walk through contains no illumination, other than that provided by the all too brief shine of the headlights of the recent model Mercedes, speeding away. That deceptive and hateful “it,” mimicked the inebriated meanderings of Joyce, in small letters making stream of consciousness, sentences and prayers, not deigning to punctuate; thereby conveniently being “misunderstood” in the safety of Harvard.
Pat, again, yoga positioned her way through the
“enlightenment” provided by the fortyish, divorced, female moderator. After a half hour the lights went on and the meeting was adjourned. The equal part Biblical reading and trance
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induced or Baptist discursive channeler suddenly stopped speaking and opened her eyes widely. Pat was once more meta startled at the abrupt end to the meta oration; sans even the most meta of climaxes. It seemed as if the guru had again left off the last ten chapters.
Like the other tithing parishioners, Pat remained at floor level, in a pose, not yet portrayed in the most Kama of Sutras.
Pat silently endured the dis-ease, as she had been educated that to do so is 100% socially acceptable in this room. Her hands were on her aching thighs; palms still facing upward though she thought that she favored the flavor of some sort of partial reversal. But, in the proximity of the 33 other “sociable” floor denizens, she was ostensibly compelled to ignore her instincts in favor of practically being ready to catch something about to fall through the invisible cracks in the moderator’s plain, white, sheet-rocked and dropped ceiling.
In recollection of the possibly “L” deficient, catechismic memorization required in Sunday school, Pat again concluded that there is no doubt that the standing, silent moderator is the most spiritually advanced person in the room. Of course, without having had the benefit of consensus wisdom, she glossed over the fact that this was the moderator’s room, and not anyone else’s.
The observation of the spiritual moderator was something akin to extolling the virtues of one who has achieved the distinction of
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being the best writer to personally maintain an active presence on Goofreads. Besides, the moderator stands behind her chest-of-drawers-imitating-a-podium; thereby demonstrating that she is the only one in the room sufficiently bright to not be on the floor imitating the uncomfortable Maharishi in search of Mia.
Double besides; no one has anywhere else to go on Thursday evenings. Triple besides; why can’t they just give you all the pills you want? Fucking fascists.
It’s time to go. With no small difficulty and a few groans not adequately muffled the congregation arises. Perhaps somewhat induced by the unsteady, wobbling legs, the congregants exchange two second cuddles. They are careful to maintain a two foot distance between crotches while each says; “Wonderful meeting”
or some other incomplete sentence with those two words complemented by two others. The reserve demonstrated is at best the result of a shyness. At worse it is the perfunctory result of the logical ice mixed with a sociably acceptable pretense. At worst the actual act of “cuddling” is replaced by the common manifestation politely referred to as “grin and bear it.” This tends to be most strongly exhibited by the married couples and long term partners. The moderator slowly walked among her flock.
Her well-practiced, condescending smile has been perfected at the residential real estate job she has suffered for the past two years in which she has been divorced from her “non-
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spiritual” former hubby. She is heading out of the room to more attestations of the wonderful nature of the meeting, to take her position in the dimly lit living room. Most attendees amble that way. The ones who wish to purchase some seedy weed mixed with oregano know to physically remain in their place as long as their legs remain free from the onset of putrefaction.
The hostess is grinning as she stands ten feet from the exit; oh so spaced out and sweet; that any non-present, meta butter would either melt or curdle in her mouth. On numerous prior occasions she has made everyone within earshot aware of her dire financial circumstances and now she hovers above the
“voluntary” contribution box; soon all major credit cards welcomed. She makes sufficient eye contact with the passers-by to briefly, faux-cordially engage before directing them to her sparsely filled, Salvation Army facsimile box; the three chains somehow hidden. It works reasonably well, as always. Reasonably.
Reasonably to who? The Chief Justice? The Chief Justice and his sock puppet, Thomas? Reasonably as defined in numerous, contradictory court decisions? Reasonable to the parties involved? In this particular case the “reasonable” result is a fumbling for loose change; the subsequent feeling of guilt; and the green stuff dropped in praise. Only those devoid of the enlightenment so graciously provided dare to drop any of the
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silver and copper likenesses. Thanks again, Tricky Dicky. The gauche fuckery draws unwanted attention with its clinks.
As an even more efficient tug at the heartstrings; there are the books which are piled up haphazardly on the floor of her living room. While in normal households this could be only a sign of an overly avid, somewhat sloppy reader, the un-initiated are initially surprised to see that the 3,300 floor dwellers all exhibit an identical cover, even if not compelled or required to lay on their backs. In the dimness of the candle light, it is actually difficult to tell the difference, as the colors match well. For those with an acquired taste the possible differences dissolve in the dismissal of any notion which might make an issue of a few more words and a smaller picture, contrasted with more words and a larger filmic portrayal. Except, except.
........ Accept. Yet, for most, the requirement of kindly appearing instincts directed them to the books traditionally situated. The gossamers which fix the traveler’s bag are sewn as a crazy quilt into their poor approximation of Blake’s actuality. The parishioners still wanting to be liked realize that it is best to pretend that the previous has been substantially a steal.
Fifteen bucks apiece and every beleaguered, guilt stricken parishioner has already purchased at least two at full retail, while giving up after having read little. The vanity label of
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Dorrance is clearly shown on each. Dorrance is no bad guy, but has assisted in the “publication” of thousands of books no one wanted to see. Unlike the internet fly-by-nighters, they’ve been around more than a century. Unlike the internet fly-by-nighters they do a good job. Unlike the internet fly-by-nighters they clearly warn you that unless something miraculous happens you will never get your “investment” back; never mind any idea of profit. Like the internet fly-by-nighters they require a fee.
Unlike the internet fly-by-nighters they will accept interest free installments.
Though it is an excellent Christmas present for despised relatives, the hostess’ book is unfortunately evocative of a few attributes which might tend to inhibit commercial success. A minorly noted one was that some AmawayOnSteroids-top-100-rated-reviewer was annoyed and counted how many times she or the channeled presence she quoted had used the phrase “as it were.”
It is said to be 167 in a 211 page effort. On a perhaps more substantive level, according to the book, the collection-pot-smiley standee thinks that the hostess has had the distinction of having channeled Lazaris, an independent, free-lance and loquacious spirit, angel, messenger, prophet, nuisance or all of the aforementioned, who implied, slurred, said, bellowed, intoned, resonated, communicated directly through brain invasion, or all of the aforementioned, that if there was not
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massive world repentance by 12-31-14 that the weary old globe would explode on 1-1-15; while the cute penguins who have positioned themselves on the cover of the traditional World Wildlife Fund calendar are alive and seemingly well give the clear impression that they think that it’s getting somewhere near March, 2016. It should be fairly noted that none of the 13
penguins are sporting graduate degrees, though 3 have a Bachelor’s in Creative Writing.
The authoress is of further United States note as she is the only resident therein, and perhaps the only resident of the Northern Hemisphere, as it were, to have written a book about her relationship with elusive and fluid Lazaris. He was not inclined to be the least bit monogamous or discreet. Of course there is an un-documented conspiracy theory which postulates that this same story was previously published in some locality named Tuvalu, deficient of any “as-it-were”’s. The authorities there apparently confiscated and burned all paper copies and infected the e-versions with a super-duper virus, the antidote to which is only at the disposal of two wicked “shadow”
governments. Three of the presumably few who had a part in this operation say in the revelatory books they have written or ghosted, with the slight nuances endemic to human perception, that Lazaris was a bit more pragmatic in his predictions than our pot protectress portrayed. It never ceases to amaze how the
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perpetrators of evil deeds obtained “religion” and confessed in writing post retirement. It seems readily apparent that hope springs fucking eternal; while checkbooks are subjected to the limitations of the finite. He-she specifically stated that it was always a bad bet to predict total destruction, as if one was right there would be no one left from whom to collect the winnings. If it was not previously gathered, it might clarify the situation to say that, presumably, not having deigned to matters of this earth, the American-less-than-Tuvalu experienced, spiritualist, chose to participate in a third fault; this time one of the most common of senses. Her actions displayed a logic, which seems to defy the most elementary. Her book which predicted a world end on 1-1-15, if it did not repent, was first published 6-15-15. DUH? For the meta fans of Rushdie derivatives?
The trance-performing moderator-spiritualist-shaman-dope dealer-divorcee-authoress-realtor has seemingly made a questionable “literary”-business decision. In quiet and un-imposing moments of desolation, she had come to imperfectly see that in supplying the unpaid labor required to write and/or regurgitate her tome, that there was no way to also avoid the theft of her “fees” and the forced stocking of inventory which she could no longer afford. This pragmatically induced deference to the anti-ideal originally appeared to her as a mountain
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easily climbed. In the beauty of youth, the whole thing seemed a silly; “Much Ado Over Nothing.” However, perhaps in the aging process she had learned time and again to fully expect this sort of treatment before she took up the rigors of the abused pen.
She needed to desperately try.
Previously, she thought that she was pre-destined to get into her beautiful head, and she bravely reached out. She was rewarded with cowards. After spending decades attempting to stay alive, she became a “reader,” long before the term was mass acquired and degenerated. Worse, she continued to envision a youthful scenario in which she was not in the least bit silly, but knows or thinks that she is viewed as such. It’s kind of a turn on for some; the ones she liked. Worst, she is, in her subjective notion of equality, another un-knowing or duplicitous purchaser of the inevitable package. The circular package says;
“Comet, 20% off;” never mentioning off what until the indecipherable finest of prints. Maybe Vonnegut gives a half assed, surreptitiously laughing in derision, shit; but don’t count on it, as he’s supposedly been dead since 2007.
Of course there is Plan B, which she is currently working on, not devoid of another backup.
Our Lazaris maven, economically denied the “luxury” of a reclusion and embarrassed to have been likely seen as so
“stupidly” deficient, she stresses her “spirituality” in hope of
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being seen as too much “of the heart” to be analyzed with any irrelevant reasoning. She actually believes it sometimes. She also knows that if one were to question her strongly implied statements of being the re-incarnation of the baby Jesus, that one would be socially ostracized on a local basis.
The pond ripples, unconsciously providing an imperfect image as long as the necessary wind blows. It’s truly sad for her to imperfectly view the further imperfect reflection. We think that only Estes can best truly portray it, and then wonder if that is of any significance, beyond the precise moment of the museum acquisition, financed by the well-meaning, rattlers of jewelry. She immediately concludes another testimony to the insistences of both time and money; decreasingly hopeful of being seen as innocent of the limitations universally imposed.
Her single biggest fear is that everyone except her knows that; excepting the days she spends with the financial statements.
Regarding the former, they do and they don’t. Regarding the latter, it can and does go on a bit too much. It is kindly unsaid by those who know. Consequently, she is precluded from the knowledge or limitations, depending upon the circle of hell achieved by the media. Yet she strongly suspects that everyone knows of her financial and emotional demise, and is afraid of being publicly embarrassed, more than happy to pretend the feigned commitment of the years gone “When Harry Met Sally.”
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True commitments are not yet adequately written and will never be. They are defectively felt at best. To attempt to do something otherwise would be to challenge the entire system, as designed, administered, tried, sentenced and incarcerated by the powers we have allowed to exist in our own faulty idea of an image and likeness.
“Blasphemy, blasphemy,” with all its repercussions, as threatened by the tremendously fat lady in a thread bare house dress, who stands on the stoop, in front of her apartment building, thereby taking sporadic personal importance from her ability to momentarily block access and egress; eventually replaced with the immortal collectible cells containing dead Vincent Price, as he tried to depict a Poe-imagined grand inquisitor in celluloid horror; underplayed by the overacting made obvious in the short lived popularity of the Ken Russell movies; which in turn tried to make obvious the Brit penchant to grasp the obvious; which, in jest, inadvertently harkens back to the eloquence of Shakespeare; which in turn reflects various brands of mythology; which in turn ............... It’s okay.
Mr. Price; better than most, but ultimately half assed. “The Conqueror Worm” can easily outdo any current zombie or vampire populated YA classified attempt to horrify. It’s based on a reality we’d like to forget, ignore or re-define through the currently fashionable interpretations of brilliant and joking
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Depp. Hey, anyone who plays guitar with Patti Smith has got to be the best.
Oh yeah, the current darling meta is the obscure approach.
But, in an attempt to tell you the Holdenest of truths, didn’t Bunuel definitively cover this same subject a long time ago?
Antonioni? Godard? Come on now.
I guess that to answer that requires the knowledge of a history successfully eliminated through the dumbing down process induced under the economic guidance began through the wiles and smiles of Thatcher-Reagan antiquities or iniquities; ultimately a double bind or a Catch 22. Register your opinion regarding the possible distinction if you dare. Don’t be afraid. The long-assed bullshit essays are 80% of the final grade, and the
“objective” multiple of five choices is thereby easily overridden. Under post-modern lack of analysis, the teacher cannot fail everyone without that simultaneously being construed as a testimony to her inability to adequately “teach.” So, if you have not yet figured out this game, it is in her interest to grade the essays highly. Write something. There is no longer a risk in that. You can say that you were forced to.
Lost; maybe self-servingly so. I can’t tell the difference.
Can’t tell. Don’t care. Bored to death with the same old shit.
That which is the product of thought ................. Oh, just fuck it; almost digressed.
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So, anyway, if there is some sort of doubtful point, this woman has succeeded in making herself seem to be the center of a universe, not yet defined in science. As is always the case with the proper paper possessing proprietors of propaganda, their current prognostications of brilliant fact will be superseded by the prognostications of brilliant fact induced by the inevitable invention of the next “advanced” lense.
Her floor level book repository is the result of many factors. Among them is the angel-demon with a calling card of 1, 11, 111, 1111, 11111, 111111, ad infinitum, which she claims to have channeled in the process yet to be articulated, much less defined; not very different from the very well-known, said Ayatollah proclaimed, fatwa-advertised efforts of realistic-fantasy genre Salman Rushdie, which kicks up Murakami’s originally titled “Norwegian Wood” another step commercially; up or down in significance a matter of debate.
Our hostess has had the distinct privilege of having channeled the verbal revelations of something non-human which called itself Lazaris. It would be extremely un-kind and anti-social to point out that this Lazaris chap was far from the monogamous type. But, maybe that’s how our hostess wanted it.
Only she can possibly tell.
Some say that they think that the minefields of the Middle East are a bitch. But, dammit, there’s insufficient oil here.
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At the same time Jack, Penny and Richard III each happened to tune into WDIM out of Sydney and hunger. It’s a call in 24
hour “news” station operated by three actors who are rated between 2,708,146 and 8,332,007 by IMDb. They enjoy hearing themselves speak, especially as early on, one had a distinct problem in that department, but has since risen to the level of
“challenged.” The show provides “alternative” news items gathered from the World Wide Web. On slow news days it is suspected that two are posting on the web as the other reads the posts. As the anti-business tone has resulted in no advertisers yet, Rupert Murdoch personally provides the necessary funding as it helps make his other offerings appear more palatable.
This is really top secret, classified stuff, but in the interest of truth, I'll write this opening myself to great peril. .............. Well, at least an IRS audit and spyware attack. Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico occupies land which includes a hollowed out mountain. The world's largest supply of nuclear weapons is housed there; everyone knows that.
What they don't know is that the remaining dinosaurs are also there to guard it. Like some dogs they are competent at that.
But, under a secret program, the military is trying to train these "guards" to be suicide bombers. So far they have shown no aptitude for this. Each has been supplied with the authoritative
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book on the subject; "Genius IQ." Contrarians suspect that the big guys are purposely doing miserably in their IQ tests, likely to avoid being sent on a "mission." Middle-of-the-road analysts attribute their low scores to the test's cultural biases. The highest levels of US "intelligence" focus on the net result, and assign a 60% probability to the possibility that rather than competing, the dinos have formed a co-operative, self-sustaining union, headed by one called Tyrant Huffer. Possible mob ties complicate the story's brevity. However further details may be gleaned in my successful book; "Reptilian Plotz," available on AmawayOnSteroids; $5.99 in e-format; $19.99 in soft cover and $42.99 collectible. Autographed copies are negotiable. Purchases are just a single click on an icon away. Sorry, most Goofreads threads now say that they disdain any attempt at commercialism, considering it gauche and I don't want to risk being banished from this bastion of learning. ........... But, I could really use a cash infusion; as my nose is running and I don't feel that great. Does anyone know where I might find a nearby CA (Cashoholics Anonymous) meeting? Anyway, the logic of the dinosaur's "playing dumb" further suggests that they may be waiting for the day they will learn how to remotely detonate the nukes; at which point they will wipe out humanity, except for a few needed workers, and take back control of the earth. Right on, bro.
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Group imposed po-mo thought and incorrectly un-seen as mortification married to solitary empathetic desire gets everyone off every time. No fakery required. Real. Real.
Fucking-sucking. Real. Relatively easy part. No?
The possible entertainments are infinite, until proven otherwise. It is life. That’s all. And it is life immortal.
Forever. For fucking ever. For sucking ever. ......... Lest ye judge in ignorance, simultaneously judging and damning one’s self. The bar has been set all too conveniently high.
Disinterest prolongs the 50% first chance of ecstasy, and then interest curtails it. This seems so contradictory to one shackled with a mortal. On first thought it seems as if it has to have been a joke of some sort; an obstacle easily surmounted in laughter; and impassable in Byron’s rendition of despair. On Olympus they watch, like we with our TV’s, VCR’s, Computers, Laptops, and Derivative portable devices.
To attempt to descend a bit further; further than your un-acknowledged jealousy permits; that jealousy imposes its own credentialed and popular understanding; pragmatically with ‘So, what’s the big issue?’ on the physical, articulating, low level.
If further deemed necessary, the infinite water cleanses all but Pilate. Do you choose to suffer? It your ‘life.” Do you want to attempt to trick everyone into thinking that you do? You know
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that ‘friends’ are always congratulatory. It’s your life.
Butterfly sneezes. Check out Nabokov if you have an interest in the metaphorical. Simple repeated, seen as ‘incorrectly’ being seen as classic extensions. ........... Otherwise sleep well in the assurance provided by your ‘friends.’ They are capably nice, until overwhelmingly obvious, necessitating condescension on your part. Thereafter any nuance risks you being viewed as an Ionadoo and might entice a functionary to deign to call this something not of interest to HBO; their secondaries and their tertiaries redundant.
Morpheus, please, please forgive my ignorance. Your River of Styx scares me more than anything else. I never learned to swim. I never learned to swim. ............... Except.
“We’re here. You and I. Always were.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I don’t know. You say fuck and suck a few times and you get people’s attention.”
“But all the babble?”
“I guess he figured that once you bring up the sex stuff, nobody wants to question anything, as they might appear ignorant on the very important subject.”
“Sounds like he was trying to get some chick to go for it.
Who was that anyway?”
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“I took it off a site called; ‘Best speeches of David Koresh,’”
“Ah, I hear he did all right for himself.”
“Yeah, until those forces of jealousy imposed themselves.”
A mercifully condensed extract taken from a conversation in Ms.
Lazaris driveway
“That could be a topic for another meeting. But, right now I have with me a live guest. Yep. It’s Harriet Blackdog and she’s here to talk about her new book; “Angels Revealed.”
“Perhaps you’d like to tell our friends where the magic went, Harriet.”
Harriet drew at straws and replied; “The problem with the 11:11 phenomenon is getting anybody interested in it that hasn't experienced it themselves; and almost no one has. Other phenomena, such as U.F.O.’s or crop circles, are able to be experienced for more than a minute. We can be abducted or run over by a tractor. But seeing and being guided by 11:11 is hard to convey to those uninitiated in its ways.”
“What does it all mean? Does 11:11 really mean anything at all?” intoned the male teddy bear devotee.
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The divorcee who had already hooked up and was a bit anxious to get in the idling Mercedes said; “I thought that’s what you came here to speak about.”
“Well, that simply depends on whether or not you believe life has meaning in the first place.”
“Nice skirt,” while the Mercedes door opened.
Undeterred, Harriet continued; “Ooogli booogli. A rest is fun. And now we’d like to do ‘I Hope the Angels Come.’ One of the recurring themes throughout recent history is 11:11 and that the global elite will continue to profit any way they can. That often means orchestrating wars all over the planet. To help us angels and spirits communicate their love and guidance in many ways. For many people, number sequences are one of these ways.
Do you ever look up at the clock and notice its 11:11? For me, and many others on a spiritual path, seeing this specific number is a common occurrence. So just what does seeing 11:11 on a regular basis really mean?
“That your clock has stopped?”
“Ha ha. Unenlightened proletarian attempts at humor are often an effective ice breaker. Thank you. To continue, are your angels and guides seeking to get your attention? Is there some specific message or meaning when these ‘master numbers’ appear?
The truth of the matter is 11:11 is subject to interpretation.
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There is really no right or wrong answer when it comes to the question of ‘What does it mean’? But just provide a little insight, here is a look at a few things in which seeing 11:11
may mean. Increased Awareness! First and foremost when you see 11:11 pay attention! 11-11 is often a sign to be more aware!
When you see the number, pay attention to what you were just thinking, as well as what is happening around you. 11:11 can sometimes be a reminder that your thoughts are manifesting, and to stay positive.”
“I often like to space out. So, now I’m supposed to pay attention?”
“Mnf. Thank you again, but I think that we’re all comfortable now. It can also mean your angels are reaching out and with awareness you can begin to feel and experience their presence. Be aware in the moment you see these numbers, and you will be able to decipher the hidden meaning behind 11:11 for yourself. Your guides and angels are near! 11:11 is often said to be a doorway between realms. Seeing this number often signifies that your guides and angels are trying to contact you, as it is a sort of calling card for many spiritual beings.”
Patricia said; “Can they get me more Xanax? I’m like ready to freak.”
“This group can be so amusing. Take a deep breath, quiet your mind, and enter in to tune into the messages your guides
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and angels have for you. It might conceivably be Xanax. When they whisper in your ear, look up at the clock right at 11:11.
Spiritual awakening! Seeing 11:11 is often an invitation to awaken to experiencing the larger picture. It is a wake-up call of sorts to tune into the realms of spirit and experience life beyond the veil of illusion. Noticing 11:11 on a regular basis is most often experienced by those who have begun their spiritual journeys or are about to embark on a journey of discovery. ...........”
The starting of auto engines attested to that.
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#11- Oh That Magic Feeling, Nowhere to Go Not having any compelling business to attend to the following morning, Jack luxuriated under three blankets accompanied by the proximity of his ready laptop. The thin, black engine of entertainment had a preference for being close by, un-covered, thereby tantalizingly naked, in its tricky frigidity.
Upon rising, more out of lay-about guilt than aspiration, Jack carefully lifted the lid and pushed the “on” button in a reciprocal, mechanical, un-thinking manner. As always, it responded with a border-decorated, blue screen and three bars of a song capable of stumping an all-star panel of “Name That Tune.” Jack used his payola-dictated browser to access the archival storage of a public access TV show. He had not previously seen any of its offerings, but was intrigued by the title; “Crab with Josephine.” It sounded right for his state of mind, unless it had something to do with catching horrible tasting things with cutting talons. Titles can be extremely deceiving.
Jack’s hopes elevated a notch when a bucket-less woman came on screen and sat at a desk, which she immediately and haphazardly cluttered with papers. She appeared to be sixtyish,
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thin and as energetic as a Comanche who had just spotted white people with rifles. She said; “Good evening ........... Good morning ........ or a good whatever time you’re watching. It’s night time for me, but ........... Anyway, welcome to ‘Crab with Josephine.’ I’m Josephine Nuccio. You may have thought that with this outfit, I was a Native American. No, not at all. My mother and father got here by way of Sicily. ....... Did you expect me to say Florence, Venice or Naples? If that’s where they were from I don’t think they’d have left.” Muffled sounds reached the mike.
“Whooooo yourself. For those of you new to the show, for its initial seven years this unprofessionally produced public access presentation was called ‘Mesa Grande Political Action.’
But, after seven years of not getting any; ........ action that is ......... What’s so funny? You guys must be messed up on something good. ....... Oh. Anyway, after having not been able to stir up any meaningful interest .......... Oh, come on.
You’re getting ridiculous. Keep it up and I’ll tell the manager what you’re ingesting back there. I changed it to ’Crab with Josephine.’ It’s a place to vent all the frustrations no one wants to hear. I listen and then vent mine or vice versa. Fair enough? ............ These phones working? ........... That’s one of the problems with this new technology. I’m here to take calls at 8PM, but you’re probably watching at some other time.
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........... The suicide hotline works the same way? ..........
No, it can’t. You’re putting me on. ............ Really? No.
Because if you call them when they are on tape, you can at least leave a message. ....... I don’t know. It might do some good.
......... Probably not? Okay. This week I’ve written some thoughts about the entertainment industry. Appropriate? Let me just read them. It might stimulate someone to call. ....... Oh, shut up, stupid. ............. You sure these phones are working?”
With some difficulty Josephine collected some of her loose papers, put on her glasses and read. “Older, isolated areas were seen as a monetarily inviting opportunity to those whose inflated stock prices were on the verge of a crash. The paper pushers were dependent on constantly growing market share. In their wisdom the conquistadors of bite and mega-bite, saw a
“new,” and ideally envisioned, sequestered market of those inclined or destined to be alone. They were more than willing to re-purchase things they already had, if those things were put in a modern package, substantially out of a boredom engaged to a propensity to appear ‘hip.’ Their naively American and mass marketing-conducive willingness to be subjected to the manipulation of the learned was an incalculable plus. This morally problematic scenario was envisioned and shrugged at in conference-room-meeting-groups of up-and-coming Ivy League
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MBA’s. Their self-satisfaction and affected superior mannerisms were put on bottom line trial. Laughingly, from their exalted and removed stations in the overly air-conditioned rooms, they discussed schemes, which if correctly marketed and implemented, would prove to justify the existence of the glassed room filled with those desiring to view themselves in the Narcissistic reflections provided by the smudged waves.
They didn’t take long to agree that the problem was really a simple one. All they had to do was combine old, needy human nature with new technology. Just change the format again, and sell it to them as a ‘new’ product; a maze of derivatives. They were already entertainment and drug addicted. Their employers already had the technical ability to reach everywhere; and only needed paying customers. Now they would extend that reach with inexpensively available products; old movies, old TV shows, and old footage of concerts, in full expectation that it would sell, at least to those isolated and desperate.
In their artificially-lit rooms, their only view, other than that of their own reflections, was of the others who worked for their companies, in an undetected photocopy of themselves.
They considered this aspect idyllic. As good business-men and women, their self-indulgent visions glossed over the imperfections obvious in their self-reflecting views of those in
‘lesser’ rooms.
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They were grad school taught that the majority of the non-MBA world was easily vanquished as it was without defense. Who would dare to be a self-sacrificial-impediment to the cunning?
No one, but the few formerly institutionalized crazies, temporarily ‘liberated’ in the aberrant sixties. They were further fortified by the fact that this plan did not require reliance upon the vagaries of the ever changing capital asset pricing model. There was staying power in the old adage attributed to PT Barnum; ‘No one ever lost a nickel underestimating the intelligence of the American public.’ Sure, public libraries would be possible competition. But, one of their own had already made inroads into supplying a surreptitious and sophisticated form of fireman 451. Besides, only 18% of the people read 80% of the books; and the other books read are of the cooking and zombie varieties.
The future palaces of the impeccably-credentialed, in places like Propicio and Greenwich were assured. But, this alone was not satisfying. They had a need to publicly demonstrate their superiority to the lessers of men. They needed the worship of the broke and broken. Any sensitivity to the contrary was only a desperate sucker’s inclination to play the fool.
As a further proven-to-be-successful scam aimed at the sufferer, the slog-resistant, found reason to extract or posit an uninteresting, paid-for announcement rising at the inglorious
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moment of habitually capitulated monetary confrontation. The scheme was irreconcilably contrived by the denizens of the un-naturally, cold and uncomfortably sleek. They thought it a sure shot to make the audacity of their co-opted, sixty year old,
‘smiley-faced,’ and anointed joke favorably evolve, without any merit other than a possible nostalgia for its worn out cuteness.
It had proven to be un-attackable for decades, in its cunning proficiency to be regarded as everyone’s friend.
In their dearth of creativity, the buttoned-downed proposed the seemingly simple, engineered to be further addicting distractions, with which it was imprudent to argue; inexpensively available, proven hits from times past playable on demand at any time with lucrative advertising space sold to other commercial enterprises seeking to expand their markets; and if they were the slightest degree of fortunate; to the entirety of the un-fulfilled world. It was instantaneously accessible, irresistible homesickness at a 90% profit margin.
All things from all times thus became easily available with three left clicks of a mouse and an automatic monthly charge to an overburdened credit card. Future planned product
‘enhancements’ would add to the gravy.
The appeal was immediately overwhelming to those memorabilia freaks wishing to escape to the past and pay for the TV they freely watched in years prior. The MBA’s wildest dreams
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came true as everyone got on board. A few de-institutionalized freaks saw the machinated mind set as something riotously banal and in an effort to reduce the popularity to absurdity, spoke of the retrograde manifestation as the completely un-imaginative arrival of the monetary bull-horn, irresistible to the hopelessly addicted sucker’s acquiescence to the call of the time-and-place-faulty presentation, which overly compensates the powers that loom; a very old, but continually repeated, and demonstrated winning story, enjoyed in disdain of the masses, by the bespectacled and monetarily proficient ‘elite’”
Josephine put the papers aside, removed her glasses, loosened her long, tied back gray hair and defiantly stared at the camera. A phone rang. She picked up the receiver and said;
“This is ‘Crab with Josephine.’”
The male caller said; “Where do you get this stuff?”
“My head. Where do you get yours?”
“Not from fantasy. I see what’s real. ......... Were you ever there?”
“Only in spirit.”
“That won’t hold up in a court of law.”
“We’re not constricted to one. ......... Look, do you have any doubt that a profit seeking enterprise wants to supply cheap goods at high prices to perpetually consuming customers?”
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“That’s how things work. Are you some kind of Communist?
What’s wrong with maximizing profits through maximizing choices?”
“Should we be allowed the drug of our choice?”
A muted “Yeah, yeah, yeah” was heard from the film crew.
“That’s different.”
“In what way?”
“For Christ sake. Drugs are harmful. Don’t tell me you didn’t know that.”
“And I suppose that ignoring your family to stay mesmerized by the grandchild of the boob tube isn’t.”
“You’re getting all over the place.”
“No, the grandchild of the boob tube is; just like the plague. It’s gotten to the point of ridiculous. When I walk my dog in the morning, I often pass by a young boy and young girl; each maybe 15, waiting for the school bus. They stand about 50
feet apart and each is busily typing in messages to some handheld, ‘connected’ device. Now, given their ages, I would have to think that he’s looking to meet some girl and she’s looking to meet some guy. And there they are, right there, ignoring each other in favor of an electronic device replete with phonies, predators and false promises. There is no way anyone is going to convince me that that is not an addiction; a
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venomous detachment detrimental to humanity for the profit of the few.”
“You know, you draw conclusions before the evidence is in.
Maybe they’ve already met and don’t like each other.”
“I have a revelation for you. The evidence is never fully in. If you wait for it to be you will die first. .........
Listen, the evidence is that you called a show titled ‘Crab with Josephine,’ and you’re not crabbing. You’re an apologist for the stupid metal and plastic devices, which are worshipped more than Jesus.”
Another phone rang.
The caller said; “I’m crabbing. I’m crabbing about you.”
Josephine laughed and replied; “Crabbing about the crab. I suppose that fits nicely into the concepts of death dying and disease becoming diseased; so po-po-mo. You spoke of your notion of reality. Get real yourself; then watch somebody else with your infinite supply of choices. I’ve got another call.”
Josephine hung up one phone and picked up the other saying;
“You’re on ‘Crab with Josephine,’ and if you think everything is just wonderful, call somebody else.”
A young male voice answered; “I don’t know what I think.
I’m fifteen and one thing I’m sure of is that Wikipedia has enabled me to know more at this age than my father did when he was forty. But, I’m beginning to suspect that something is
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wrong. Let me just recount something I’ve seen virtually every day for the last three years. Whenever my family; mother, father, sister and I have dinner we all bring our laptops to the table, plug in the earphones and watch .......... watch whatever is on the screen. We don’t speak. We rarely even look at each
other. But, when I watch the old shows, I see that dinner was once a time when families told each other about what they were doing, joked, got chastised and learned manners. I’m not trying to sound superior. I’ve been doing the same thing myself. But, lately I’ve been investigating psychological theories, which seem to suggest that someday this will come back to haunt us in ways not presently precisely determinable. Be that as it may.
The damage has already been done, and the forces are strong enough to remain in place for some time. I have a question. Are these machines compelling us to separate? Or, do we inherently dislike each other, and use the machines as an excuse to ignore
the others? I’ll hang up and listen to any replies you or your viewers may have.”
Josephine gently put her receiver back in its cradle. Her eyes blinked and her forehead seemed to display lines deeper than they were seconds prior. She murmured; “I don’t know.
...... I really have no idea. It seems to me as if that is an unanswerable chicken or the egg question. If David Foster Wallace, one of the geniuses of our time, were still with us, I
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am convinced that he would have clearly stated that we do not like each other. I hope he was wrong about that one, but the odds are against it, as he was right about everything else.”
Jack was disconcerted and very un-entertained. He thought the best thing to do was to stop watching “Crab with Josephine,”
shut down his computer and get out of bed. Now, all he had to do was find something else to pass the time. Not having any inspiration, he did a half assed job and reverted to the old stand-by through pulling the blankets back over his head.
The unobstructed sun streamed through the iron-barred windows, rudely unmindful of the scanty insinuation with which the openings were encumbered. The light’s mindless, foolish, and instinctive feeling assured the gallant, desirous performer that the feeble privacy ploy was nothing more than a spiritually constraining, but necessarily fabricated appearance, which was publicly viewed as socially acceptable to those who were in contact with sincerity only through the lowest-common-denominator-commercial popularity of the multi-faced machine.
Its primeval inclinations were nearly right, but required adjustment only available from that which it didn’t possess; mortal flesh.
The luminosity was totally absorbed by a petite, to the point of trifling, black box with ogee decorations at inflection points. The baroque object of fine art lay motionless near the
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center of the room, on the dryly vintaged, tassel aloof and harmoniously eradicated, Persian-rug-covered floor. The room became eerily dark, excepting the now pale, circular outline of the rigidly immovable sun. An eclipse? An eclipse had not been predicted.
A fear, expected in broad generality; but, simultaneously an alarming revelation in constricted, well-defined, and narrow specificity and severity, introduced itself when the box burst into flames. With an irrational view of that which was blocked by carnal barriers, Jack saw that all the other houses within his vision had their own flaming boxes, threatening to destroy all in his sight. With wide eyes, and a sorrowful, inevitably failing human will to survive, he focused on the impending peril in the middle of his own room. It touched a subliminal nerve, since as long as he could remember; his biggest fear was to slowly burn and die from fire. Even if he survived the hot attack, he couldn’t tolerate the painful, recuperative care he knew burn patients were doomed to. Yet, here was his dreaded conception of hell; uninvited; and making itself at home in the hub of his room. His instinct to do something overtook his horror of being burned and disfigured. He considered running away, but the fire seemed to be everywhere and this was his home; his only home.
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He got out of bed and went to the pristine, unused fireplace. From the batch of tools standing upright against the wall to its right, he took the minimally intrusive, iron tongs, and gently picked up the flaming box. He laid it in the fireplace, which, both he and the crazy, scandalous container knew was its proper place.
The sun emerged from its outline and returned to full strength; doing what it could to light the dark room. Its mission was accomplished. Though it was blocked from some corners, they were illuminated by the burning box. With the privilege of heated safety finally upon him, Jack looked through the western window and sorrowfully saw that many of the other houses were now engulfed in flames.
Jack’s somnambulistic meanderings came to a sudden, militaristic halt and boorishly returned him to the fullest consciousness with which he seemed to be grudgingly destined. He woke up and shot out of bed. He frantically checked the entire house for fire, and was relieved to find none. He looked out the kitchen window and saw no houses ablaze. Through the smudged glass and iron bars, all he could see were the tightly huddled elms, their rings unashamedly displaying the size and patterns of their lean, as well as their abundant years. Though the rings differed in scrupulous size and shape, they all had analogous resemblances, in their death-defying will to continue on, no
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matter what temperature was imposed upon them. Their simple, blending union was much like a utopian hermit monk’s obstinate disposition to wait for the never-previously-existent day of overjoyed, amplified screams of the beautiful and to-date-only-theoretically real possibilities, unfairly and cruelly denied by that which had hidden its real name. The tall elms’ silent, stoic vigil productively and successfully persevered the transitory governance of the soon-to-completely-die, outmoded-by-technologic-progress calculators, which in their final moments of coldly logical desperation, were seen as capable of nothing more than a persuasively simplistic display. The new machines were a perennially present, electronically generated, devouring beast, well versed in the popular insemination of all wisdom and “cool” opinion. The cerebral gratification Jack sought in enquiries into the imposing forces of the relentlessly redundant and humdrum known led him nowhere other than his lifelong dream of her. Jack toasted the elms’ pleasing, visually stimulating, and spherically ringed bark with a Burgundy.
He imprecisely imagined a biased equation, presented in
“New Age” dogma, of perfecting one’s self while pretending the shadow was non-existent. He considered the separation an all too obvious counterfeit of 1960’s and 1970’s “liberation,” made commercially palatable for the un-adventurous. He saw it as a briefly relieving and vacuous foray into the funhouse mirror of
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Dadaism; and wished it had the staying power of its progenitor; Surrealism.
Devoid of the pre-historic principles; currently christened Quixotical chivalry and absurd romanticism, “factual” light was generated by the ever-ready machine. The slim, black androids were infinitely capable of duplicating the ever-reducing vision of facing mirrors. He wondered if his views were as they were, because of his cheerless examination of his falsified failed self and his longstanding, unrequited wish to be held and loved.
He was certain the pop-psychology-inclined post-modernists thought so; and that they also possessed the insight of Le Corbusier. Jack thought that Beth’s approval was all that mattered and she was long gone.
Her beautiful, idea-generating, pear-shaped, pelvic sway seemed irresistible to him. It obliterated thought. Her mouthwatering, monster hips were Mona Lisa on a Harley; her knowing-closed-mouth smile her unstated, unadmitted, but tangibly demonstrated motivation to experience that which only he and she were capable of envisioning; in their mutual trust.
The memory was now the main source of Jack’s despondence. For quite some time he had been relegated to texture-devoid, machine generated pictures of his ex. The thought of her provided joy with its attached despair. She seemed a four dimensioned angel from somewhere else, and once the vision perched in his head,
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she was all he could think of. It was always that way. He gulped his Burgundy and poured another.
The December freeze was always a bitch; an un-welcomed siren in ice; and an experienced pro; with the cunning audacity to advertise its distantly second-rate offerings in the airwaves. The resilient elms knew from lengthy experience that spring always comes back. All they had to do was wait out the transitory blast. Jack wished he was as virtually comprehending.
Over another empty-stomached Burgundy, he searched the internet for landscaping or handyman jobs in Propicio. He found nothing.
The mindless and fruitless, point and click tedium freed up sufficient left-brain space for his mindset to invite the useless, make-sense-of-everything impossibility; euphemistically known as his real life situation. He again turned off the machine, which was reluctant to be so easily dismissed. The screen flashed something about updates being installed and not to “power off.” Jack was tempted to rebel against the automated dictate, primarily just for the defiant hell of it, and secondarily, to show it who was boss. His fear of mechanical retribution, which could lock him out of economic opportunity, overcame him and he let the reign of the inhuman persist. He had the comforting, socially acceptable, safety of being a part of those acquiescent to the subjugation of the “new” entertainment vehicle. But, he sensed that he didn’t have to witness the un-
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original, artificial insistence of the flesh-deficient automaton. He looked through the closed window, now only reflective of an unclear, uninteresting, and poor replication of himself. He longed for the smiling warmth of her radiance.
She was no longer there. She had become a dream which had hidden behind the darkness, only perceptible in fleeting moon drop bursts in the brutal world of today. Picturing her, as best he could, he cringed and uncontrollably cried at what he thought was her sorrow; knowing that it was also his. With no idea how to fix things, yet a broken heart which demanded that he did, he sought the shelter of a restful, end-to-pain; a lobotomized end to all feeling. His simple passions had been halved, halved, and halved again; until they were precisely defined to a mathematically discussed and expertly disagreed upon infinity of near nothingness. He realized that his possibly faulty, childhood memories of teenage passions, at the time thought of as mature cravings, were now dismissively viewed as the quaint display of an unschooled ignorance; or worse, were frowned upon as malicious and self-serving in their implied plea for the help of a nurturer. It seemed as if a devil had designed persuasive lies; with no possible rebuttal. Yet, he sensed that he defiantly felt at home with feelings; seeing any of his “sins”
as ones committed in innocence of his ignorance of the underhanded and unpublished laws of impending failure. The well-
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financed jingles were uninterrupted, in their prime-time prevalence, able to be nationally heard and therefore achieve maximum popularity, despite their un-distinguished, cobweb roofed message. They sold .......... according to the statistics compiled by the grinning advertising men.
Their banal and dull, homogenized, rap beat was hammered into all available, cash-competent, ditty-anesthetized skulls.
Ostensibly, no one would buy Coke, unless they were reminded of its existence every Super Bowl fourth down. Not entirely able to escape the compulsions of those in his material realm, Jack, in his desperation, recalled the naive plainness of his own, currently passé, rhythmic, now-hidden-as-a-likely-to-be-cynically-interpreted-dilletante-perceived-as-tactically-convenient-for-him-to-appear as one of the blessed-non-pathetic messengers, with no manipulative desire for feminine help; yet knowing that at the same time he was wishing for their touch and releasing outburst. Truth be told, he had no choice. He was born this way. He had no control; and he needed her un-founded trust.
He doubted his own integrity, yet, in his un-asked-for-carnalization, he absolved himself; in the memory of his oft thought and stated apology of never having asked to have been born. The whole thing was not his fault; though he felt unduly burdened in his sense of an unfair obligation to somehow make things right for someone. If his life could not be a happy one,
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he wasn’t jealous of that real possibility being enjoyed by others. Why shouldn’t they experience the dream he was denied?
It would not change his circumstances. It seemed as if it should be an entitlement for all. His life had been disappointment, sorrow, misunderstanding, and self-obliterating, ridiculous, solitary escapes into musical fantasy. If the sun was cooperative he even absurdly saw himself as an aging, sold-out rock star, in the back window glass of his empty house. He barely saw his receding hairline and wrinkles; his vanity deceivingly reassuring him of the glorious, vague reflections of the youth he wished for, but could never again attain; his intellect unsympathetically telling him that his time had long passed. Often, it was hard for him to accept that he had lost.
He didn’t remember a time he could call his. The better looking, zany guys always commanded the female interests, though they were inconsiderate of women at a minimum, disrespectful at the middling, and abusive at the margin. He vowed that he would never hurt her if she would only give him a chance. If she wasn’t initially wildly desirous of him, she would come to see that he loved her, and that maybe she could love him. He walked and walked, hoping that she was around the next corner. The next never came. Yet, pushing fifty, the blood still coursing through his veins cruelly continued to fool him into thinking that something was still possible. He wished whatever it was would
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deliver or stop the bad joke. Still alone in his memory of his seventh-grade, cruelly-rejected-offer-of-love; Jack did his best to not be a sorrowful, laughed-at, heartfelt believer. He couldn’t understand how she could have made him an object of public scorn merely for having the dream of loving her. The others pointed at him, mimicked his rejected entreaties, pointed fingers, and cackled; which pierced his young heart and soul. He wanted to go blank, but the burn of the unforeseen ridicule kept him awake with blinding rings of mocking light, flashing like cameras around him. He would never let it happen again. ........
until Beth.
He realized that he was crabbing without any help from Josephine, with as much effect.
He was sorrowful that this memory had resurrected. He could usually keep it buried. In a hope of an anesthetized re-entombment Jack poured an outrageously tall glass of Burgundy, downed it, and poured another. The inebriant had the welcomed effect of making his blood feel warmer; his psyche more relaxed, comfortable and able to cope, with no one around to ridicule his sentiments.
No longer able to stand, he sat on the brick floor, and Jack recalled his time with Beth. The long term, youthful affair seemed to him as if it would survive into old age. While she said that she had previously had a bookish existence, she seemed
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to come alive, on the fringes of the danger inherent to his weight carrying, lucrative, reefer business. Then, just because he had to spend a few years in prison, she split for the predictability she expected to find soothing in Peoria? Damn! It was just a temporary thing which came with the package.
A few years. Why couldn’t she wait a few years? Sure, the authorities confiscated all their assets before they disappeared, under the legal theory that all they had was the result of an illegal activity. And, sure, she would have to get a job and carry the ball for a while. Isn’t that one of the obligations that come in partnership with feminism? Damn! A fucking temporary thing and another disregarded package.
Everything came in one. Nothing came alone. DUH!! The last he had heard of her, she was solitarily aging, supporting herself with the low-cut-blouse, flirt-prompted tips generated in a downtown Peoria, lecher bar. He snickered and thought;
“Independence? My ass. .......... Maybe theirs.” He was, perhaps presumptuously, sorry. Sorry for her and sorry for himself. It was a feeling of inseparability, called co-dependence by those who have not been there. Love knocks down all the illusory, dividing distinctions between me and you, us and them, mine and yours; good and bad.
Egregious, yellow-faced, considerations of practicality came in like a Japanese-nuclear-“accident”-prompted tidal wave.
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The stubbornly, immune attribute of past time was non-negotiably inviolable; it’s perfectly defined inflexibility an unwanted governance to those with the ludicrous audacity to think of themselves as holders of a perfect, unbiased memory. Attempts to re-define the past achieved limited success in his futile attempts at revisionist history. While his critically acclaimed forays into “yet-un-accepted-new” thought motivations were found vindicating; it was only marginally popular and monetarily unattractive. It was overly easy to deride the non-existent straw man to suggest that the vast majority was inherently wrong. Jack had disregarded his couched, despairing, adolescent pleas for adoration, thinking that no one detected his embarrassment. He was wrong.
Again, Jack didn’t have the slightest idea as to where his non-productive mental meanderings had taken him. Maybe a circle of hell. Definitely a circle of something. Its serious lack of humor precluded any commercial value; but, he didn’t care as he wasn’t trying to peddle anything. This was solely for his memories of Beth and him; and the zero people around him. His best guess was that he lived in the phony, but energizing world at the end of the yellow brick road. He chastised himself, for his recidivist, cerebral, and impractical inclinations. Yet, he pled not guilty to any charges of elitism, superiority or clerically, faux modest and artless preaching. His thoughts were
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his own. The traits which he had learned to hide beyond the confines of his non-traditional brain waves, screamed for a mind-blowing release. But Beth had long ago, hopelessly retired.
His naturally-inspired demands were ones with which Jack was irrefutably and subserviently copacetic. Their familiarity seemed draw-bridge-chain-straight-forward, and, at the same time, shared an enthusiastically invasive presence with his uncontrollable desire; with which he was bound to worship her self-effacing and overly-critical-evaluation-of-her female beauty. The whole son-of-a-bitch, fucking thing didn’t make any sense. Maybe the whole-son-of-a-bitch, sucking thing did. It added taste to the equation. It seemed a chance, yet persuasive statement.
Beth was hopelessly gone into a past of repetitive un-response. So was he. Her trusting youth was gone; not only in calendar years; as she no longer fantasized any pretensions to anything other than the severely diminished enumeration. He worshipped gullibility. Even more he worshipped faked gullibility.
He recalled his indoctrination to the not easily characterizable reduction. It was his short-lived, teenage intro into a lengthy advertisement for Remington Firearms, which people thought was some sort of unannounced documentary on the life of Kit Carson. Later, after mimicry set in, and viewership
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fell off, it was classified as an “infomercial;” at the time a newly coined combination word. Its diminishing attention receiving existence came to be seen as a minority watched aberration, derided in the densely populated and time stressed East and West as “long ass commercials.” Unsurprisingly, the rough and ready allure of Kit was said to have sold guns, heightened by its lack of specificity in what to do with them, other than the lead filling of now hidden Native Americans.
With presumably free will; consumer bar-codes costly in America; and with the never inexpensive, private method of distribution; corporate expenditures on “infomercials” expanded and evolved much less than an artfully contrived source of diversion. Scheduling of the relentless inroads into the
“entertaining” and surreptitiously peddling market became consistent with the less expensive, mid-darkness, “graveyard shift.” As a consequence of the market segment reached, the infomercial entertainers extolled goods and services relevant to the geriatric, insomniac and mentally disabled communities.
AllYouNeed, Inc. came to be viewed as being a visionary, commercial forefather for its efficient, award winning, all sector reaching, “Vampires on Purgatives,” subtitled “Squatting in the Shadows.” This was later seen by some incorrect academics as America’s entry into the post-modern, otherwise un-namable
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era. Jack thought it was pretty good. Somehow, the sight of someone puking always seemed relevant and hilarious.
Jack’s mind again changed direction, probably aided by another glass of firewater, which he crawled to on his knees. He thought of his long lost youth; a self-consciously hidden time he was only capable of beginning to analyze in his recent, time-freeing demise. At fifteen, his depressed, insurmountable doubts concerning his ability to locate his dreamed-of one were overwhelming. In the disinterested cruelty of the powers that be, every night she smiled at him to his delight; then faded into the so-high-above-cracked ceiling.
Then he met Beth; and, because of that, the present seemed wicked. With his recollection of mornings spent in the irretrievable loveliness of the voluptuously hipped danger freak, how could he be forced to endure a measly survival in his unrequited search for something no one had ever seen? Jack’s sincere dreams of those he loved were forever made blind to his curious eyes, deprived heart, mind, and whatsit.
He had found whatsits to be important, well beyond their relative dimensions, in the overall scheme of things. Once upon a time, Beth found this amusing in an erotic way. But, she must have rationally questioned the use of an imprisoned whatsit. God damn! A temporary thing. Whatsit would soon be free. Instant gratification is a road to hell.
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Jack realized that he had circled to the photocopy machine.
His spinning head told him to look for employment some other time. Right now, the best thing he could do was return to bed and sleep on his whatsit. All he had to do was get there on legs which were on the deck of a ship in heavy waves. The first step was monstrous. He twitched and shivered at the thought of the coming day. He shut his eyes and got under the blankets.
He wasn’t sure if he had gotten any restful sleep. But the next thing he knew, he heard a scratching at his window; a maniac conjured by a drunken Poe first came to mind. He looked up and saw the paws and enormous head of a German Shepherd.
Jack yelled; “Go away,” but the dog remained in place and stuck out its tongue. He pulled the blankets back over his head, hoping it would understand a not-so-subtle rebuke. Maybe the Shepherd did, but it stayed there and barked, again scratching at the window. Jack said; “Where’s your owner?”
The dog made a whining sound and dropped out of sight. Jack felt guilty. With not a little bit of difficulty, he got out of bed and went to the window. The Shepherd was lying on the ice.
Jack put on a heavy jacket and went outside.
The dog rose and walked to him, tail wagging. Jack saw tags hanging from his collar. He knelt to look at them and the dog licked his face furiously. He found a phone number and went back in to call it, having difficulty keeping the dog from following
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him in. He was curtly told that the owners lived thirty miles away and didn’t want the Shepherd anymore. Jack surmised that they had dumped him in Propicio, a not uncommon occurrence. Jack sighed deeply and looked at the dog waiting at the window.
He thought; “I can’t leave him there. He’s not young anymore. Nobody is going to adopt him. And he must be freezing.
........... Without a job, it’s going to be hard enough to feed myself. He must weigh 120 pounds. .......... Damn. .......... I could use the company. ......... I don’t know.” Jack again looked out the window and saw that the dog had not moved and that his big brown eyes were looking back at him. Before he could think himself into a quandary, Jack opened the door.
The shepherd dashed in. Jack knelt beside him saying; “It’s you and me pal,” and got more face licks, as he investigated another tag. Stamped into a fading red, metallic heart was the name “Justice.”
Jack got both of them some food and water. They ate and drank, sitting by the fire in a sunray.
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#12- Conspiracy Entertainment
At 6PM a copious quantity of the components of households in Propicio sat in front of their TV’s and anxiously awaited the premiere offering from the cable station which had recently announced its intention to re-name itself the “The Conspiracy Entertainment Channel.” Primarily in consideration of severely declining market share, KAYOD decided to abandon the archaic moniker of “The Education Channel.” In conjunction with a plethora of tediously long new mission statements posted on what was formerly advertising space, KAYOD had been announcing the change for two weeks. Though no one was watching the station to see it, the announcement reached the public courtesy of an enterprising hacker with nothing else to keep him occupied.
Intending another nerdy goof he copied the one with the alleged chupacabra photo and posted it on Fecesbook, where it proceeded to go the idiomatic “viral.” Much of the populace said; “Super cool,” while those with a life intended to do their best to live it. The advertisers said; “We’ll see. Can’t get any worse.”
This innovation was an apparent deference to a popularity attempt necessitated by the long term, changing market conditions and some would say the continuing gradual erosion prompted by a dumbing down process first made popular when the
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senile ray gun found a second venue for his lackluster acting career. The predictable phenomenon made both the channel and the specific exploits of this show in particular, objects of in-the-know banter of many demographic and Arbitron defined sub-categories; ranging from young adults goofing on the codgers to codgers goofing on the young adults. The house-holders, house-occupants and house-deficient, all, really didn’t wish to learn anything other than how much it would cost to acquire the assets displayed by the Kardashians; and thereby be entitled to a ‘rich and famous” show in which any pronouncement they made became the height of fashion. Barring that, the chronicling of alien-cow-maimers would suffice quite well. This outlook had proven to be consistent with the station’s programming decisions, as the aged programmers well remembered the entertainment value of Fellini’s forgotten grotesques. Without admitting it, even to themselves, the householders had long ago begun to seek other forms of amusement; their aftermath a complication to be worked out with the “help” of the psychiatric industry and for those with shallower pockets, the monthly publication of “Psychology Today.” Until the conflicting details could be worked out, a measly number actually still paid attention to what they were proud to announce as substantive issues; such as when former Mexican President Vincente Fox, in apparent response to something Donald Trump had said a few months prior was quoted
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through AOL, as saying; “I’m not paying for the fucking wall;”
the use of the magical “F” word, apparently still worthy of national news in the USA, especially when articulated by someone of color.
Previously, some of this “conspiracy” information was only available on de classe venues. In simplicity the covert ‘rebels’
predictably focussed on the sizes of their inadequate purses and the needs of their inadequate crotches; like any other “New Age”
refugee. DFW’s concept of “petty rebellion” would now be in the air 24-7; or at least until all the advertisers curtailed the issuance of checks.
The 6PM gong heralded the all-star opening of the event of the year. In breathtaking shock and awe the TV video fixed on a still life which seemed to be a surrealistic rendering of a six foot, reptile in an off-the-rack, purple, striped Barney’s suit.
His smiling impression seemed ominous as he spoke with an agitated Bill O’Reilly who wore a grey, striped, off the rack Barney’s suit. They both stood in front of the sunken skating rink, where three costumed revelers grinned and skated at the Fifth Avenue, Rockefeller Plaza site; alleged to have once simultaneously housed three assistants to a Bilderberg Group attendee. Somewhat less clear, there appeared to be a red reptile, naked, at least from the waist up, who was pointing
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something cylindrical and a few feet long out a fifth floor window of one of the fifty story buildings. It was either that or a forgery of a Basquiat graffiti transcription of two Native Americans in war paint chatting near a pond surrounded by peeling willows, one of which was being currently occupied by a bony, red herring, who seemed about to attempt a desperate leap back to the water. That’ll teach him about reading that Magical Reality stuff. A consideration of the estimated price levels suggested and the fact that this was a floundering cable station it was more likely to be the former.
A woman in her sixties entered the picture from the right.
The slight aura around her body suggested that she was in another location and that the cameraman was yet to complete his
“Seamlessness 101” course or that she was a descendent of either the cherubim or seraphim. Again, the former seemed more likely.
The still life faded into the background and the screen displayed an elevated, empty stage; on which the woman walked with her head down. A red banner with yellow lettering which said “Conspiracy Entertainment TV” appeared behind her. When she faced the camera, the woman seemed more pissed than nervous as she grumbled; “Couldn’t even get me a podium?” She held papers in her left hand, but initially ignored them when she said;
“Good evening. I’m Ruth Messing. .......... Forgive me if I appear a bit nervous, as I am. I’ve never previously been on
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television and I have spent the last ten years working in the advertising sales area of this station. “The Education Channel”
had an ambitious and important mission back then. We were pioneers in bringing wholesome and informative programming to the people. I wish that it would have been there when my kids were school age. It would have added so much to what they were getting in school. Like the station, my earnings have shown a steady decline over the years, so I’m not the least bit surprised that the market is demanding more sensational shows. I suppose that dinosaur bones just don’t cut it when one can see and hear of mind controlled slaves being manufactured by the US
government. By now, I guess you’re all aware of the programming changes here, and since I insisted, I’ve been allowed this time to say a few things about that.” She held the papers in front of her and started to read from them.
“I hope you enjoy the changes; and I hope my income improves. Having said that, I’d like to share a personal story with you and I hope it puts things in a bit of perspective.
Like everyone today I use social media and I plead guilty in having been a participant on one of the ‘Conspiracy Theory’
chat lines. The information was substantially new to me, and with the state of the economy today, I figured that there might be something which doesn’t meet the eye going on. Despite that initially it sounded as if we all seemed to have enjoyed sharing
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similar thoughts, I had to stop bothering with this ‘chat line’
as over time it had become obvious to me that the ‘moderators’
have an overly simplistic, convoluted, self-serving, biased and hateful viewpoint aimed squarely and only at America. These
‘research mavens’ have been operating these sites since 2012, claiming that their efforts arise out of a passion to be ‘social activists,’ interested only in exposing ‘conspiracies’
perpetrated by the evil 1% of the population against the other 99%, who, they say are all good people. They only do wrong when forced or tricked into it by the ruling class; some kind of angelic beings I presume. Had this been my only reservation I would have continued on, attributing their stated beliefs to a privileged background which led to a lack of knowledge of the world. It was perhaps their most convincing display of wisdom to have chosen a book discussion site as most suitable to their agenda, as such sites are populated by people who have spent more time in libraries than they have in the ‘outside world’
which the rest of us inhabit, encountering seemingly real people.
They were sufficiently clever to hide their biases and contradictions by using quotes from others which they can easily attest to or discard as they read and analyze the popularity of those positions; much like a state-of-the-art computer cookie.
For me, now, the charade is all too obviously just like another
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managed afternoon TV show for misfits, losers, and the contraband substance dependent. Not wanting to think that I happened to misjudge the duo, I decided to have another long look and couldn't pass up a comment; as the bias struck me even more than it had previously. Enough about old rich guys all being evil. Enough about the US being solely responsible for all the evil in the world. I understand why some of the uninformed guys might believe such things, but it is just not true anymore than it is true to say that all poor people are saints. I see evil people in all walks of life, be it underprivileged sectors, middle class sectors, rich sectors or cultural sectors. It makes no difference. Evil was the first and continues to be an equal opportunity employer.
To my further disappointment I googled the names of the 37
and 66 year old moderators and discovered that their past histories bear zero attestation to their claimed humanitarian activities; but rather is riddled with testimony from former business associates who claim to have been defrauded by the duo.
At this point, after having read all the hand wringing about the US creation of ISIS, the alien created secret military weapons, the Federal Reserve’s intent to bankrupt everyone, and the purposeful introduction of laboratory created ‘diseases,” I didn’t think that it was ‘coincidental’ to find that the
‘people-oriented’ sites they established in 2012 dovetailed
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nicely with the release of the first book they had written; which is referred to so often, that a frequent reader of the site need not buy it, as it has been quoted in entirety on the socially conscious site. Thirteen more followed.
The Australians have the audacity to condemn the US, while they desperately try to peddle their wares there. It is truly amazing that they have never discovered any nefarious doings down under, where they live, but are ‘expert’ at the goings on thousands of miles away.
I ask; what good have the odious diatribes done for anyone other than the ‘moderators?’ None. What solutions do they offer?
None. Oh yes, a few times they said things would change if a million people marched on Washington. Are they really that naïve? Somehow, I doubt it. What new information has their
‘extensive research’ unearthed? None. Just innuendo which was known decades prior, coupled with unproven quotes from other charlatans who are trying to make a living in the conspiracy industry. All it is, is a ploy to get publicity in the US.
Like any enemy, they feed the propaganda machine with unproven claims. Like any enemy, they say everyone else’s news is propaganda. Like any enemy they encourage the disenfranchised to revolt. Like any enemy, they have become corrupt in a last ditch attempt to get what they desire. They are what is revolting. Yeah, I know, I hate preaching just as much as most
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people hate hearing it. I just felt that I needed to say this and hopefully bring a bit of balance back into the ‘conspiracy’
conversation.
But, listen to this one. Their statements about a cancer cure being hidden rival their statements about aliens living amongst us and the real existence of the matrix in absurdity, and deserve no serious response. Cynically imagine. Many people are supposedly aware of this. There is no doubt that if someone marketed this “cure” it would take them about a year to become the richest person on the planet. But, they don’t want to. Duh!!
It is further noted that just because one sees something in a Hollywood movie does not mean it exists in reality. If so, I’d like to know why Godzilla and his sequels have not yet destroyed Tokyo and why Superman has not yet righted all wrongs.
I think I have detected a pattern. They correctly characterize their books as a mixture of real events and fiction. Initially, I thought that may have been due to their penchant for copying someone else’s story, making a slight alteration and then calling it their own. But, perhaps they are mentally incapable of making any differentiation between fiction and truth. I think that’s called delusional. That would be sad; were they not attempting to inflict others with their disease.
It seems doubly strange that their constant anti-US government
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dialogue is not considered some sort of crime at a time when the US is at war.
No, I will not state their names. They are not on this evening’s show and I am advised that they will never be on this channel. That would only give them the publicity they desperately seek. I stated this primarily in light of the station’s new approach. It’s intended to be a commentary which strongly suggests that watchers would do well to evaluate as they listen to the guests. Thank you.”
The camera cut to a bearded, fiftyish man sitting in an overly stuffed dark green chair of no particular design. The camera moved in for a close-up, revealing the makeup which was in the process of struggling to cover the lines in the man’s forehead. He smiled in a curt, obligatory fashion, and said;
“Good evening, my friends. Hope you are all well. I’m Adnan Koshaggy. Welcome to the opening show of the Conspiracy Entertainment Channel; ‘Big Names in the Conspiracy Field.’ Some of you might recognize me or my name, through my acting, or as I’ve been classified as a conspiracy theorist. I want to assure you that my entire involvement with the matter merely involved public statements that I made saying that the official Kennedy assassination and 9-11 stories contain sufficient inconsistencies to drive an alien spacecraft through; though I have never written a book about it. Despite what some have said
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I retain an open mind, but do not necessarily subscribe to the other theories out there. ......... That was written atrociously. I know that these rumors are the work of some of my acting competitors. It’s a conspiracy against me. I’m pleased to say that this evening we have resuscitated a time-proven lineup much like those which you have come to know and love. Of course we are not presenting anything which might be cogitated as old hat. ... Maybe, tin hat, but certainly not old. Chuckle. We have writers on the cutting edge, speaking of their work in the conspiracy theory industry, no pejorative connotation intended.
The table is packed, so without further delay, let me bring out our first guest. He infiltrated Lubbock, Texas two years ago, was originally a Kiwi from the wilds of New Zealand, who recently published his fifth book inventively titled; ‘InfoScam V.’ ‘Big Names in the Conspiracy Field’ is proud to welcome that great patriot, Crocodile B. Blusterbutt.”
A balding, pale skinned man of 350 pounds walked out; or rather momentum-ed out. Once the frame got going, it seemed as if he was a testimony to the validity of the old theorem which said; “An object in motion tends to stay in motion.” His blubbery bearing caused him to be of a physically indeterminate age. Without having had the “benefit” of having had access to
“secret documents,” such as his birth certificate, hopefully legitimate; his baby fat hid all external wrinkles. He plopped
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into his plushy chair, moving it back a few inches in the process. He waved off a handshake, and said; “Isn’t this the place in the show where the writer goes on at length about all the noble reasons which compelled him to write the book now in your hands? You don’t really care to hear about all that sanctimonious stuff and this writer doesn’t feel like trying to conjure up all that crap, anyway. To tell you the truth I did it for three reasons. I felt like it. I could. And I had nothing else to do.
The first garbage pile out of the way, I step into the second; acknowledgements, thank yous and dedications. I’ll again attempt to maintain the shine on your shoes. It’s commonly done and perhaps expected. It seems akin to the requirement for a double bind in works which fancy themselves ‘literary.’ It also seems akin to an attempt at some sort of required, self-effacing modesty the writer is compelled to display prior to his subsequent attempt to display ‘brilliance.’ I’m not here to give the people some kind of horse manure. It’s one way or the other.
Yes, I’ve got a mother. Yes, I’ve got a father. Yes, I’ve got a wife. Yes, I’ve got dogs and cats. Yes, I’ve read a couple of books. Yes, yes, yadda yadda. But, frankly, none of them pushed one key for me. This is not a product of their influence; nor are they to blame. Comments from psychiatrists,
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psychologists, and readers of ‘Psychology Today’ are welcomed and will be taken as a source of amusement.”
“Your forthrightness is impressive. Mr. Blusterbutt; may I call you Croc?”
“Sure, everyone else does.”
“May we now discuss a few of the specific conspiracies you’ve written of in your latest book. For instance on page 323
you wrote of the Philippine plane which disappeared carrying 15
top computer scientists, who were supposed to have just completed a top secret project, funded by the Tri-Lateral Commission. You stated that the source of the plane’s demise was an obliterating laser ray, engineered in Area 51 with the assistance of Nazi scientists. After your book’s publication the plane’s wreckage washed up on shore; the black box clearly indicative of engine failure compounded by pilot error. The 15
top computer scientists were located in Maui, participants in a Hedonism junket. Mathematicians have calculated that, though it is within the realm of possibility, it is highly unlikely that any of the Nazi scientists are still productive, as the youngest of them would now be 107 years of age.”
“That’s no fucking question. It’s a recapitulation of what was printed in the mainstream Murdoch media. Is this some kind of right wing set up? First of all, that wreckage which conveniently floated to shore the day after my book came out was
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planted by the Illuminati-Mason contingent who control everything. Secondly, the Hedonists found were clones manufactured and planted through the use of another secret technology. And third, those Nazi scientists were bright enough to have found or created the fountain of youth. I could go on.
But, come on now; use your head just a little bit.”
“In fairness Croc; the other conspiracy guys got off this one quickly after the plane debris was verified and the secret scientists turned hedonists .........
“Mr. Koshaggy; you’re really starting to piss me off; and I don’t give a damn that you’re a Muslim. I already told you that
..........”
“Okay, okay; let’s move on to another of your revelations.
You wrote that Katy Perry is actually JonBenet Ramsey. Might we get a bit of an elaboration?”
“Thank you for asking. This one actually took some Holmes worthy deduction and I’m proud to say that I was the first one to pick it up. The first clue I got was when I never saw them in the same picture together. Further, with the advancements made in facial recognition, I found it very curious that JonBenet or her parents have not allowed this to be done with her. Those who have read my books already know that I have proven that every female and many of the better looking males in the entertainment industry have been trained as sex slaves, through the US
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extension of Hitler’s MK- Ultra program called Project Paperclip
...........”
“I guess that some of us are fortunate to be fat and ugly, Croc.”
“I don’t know where you get off with this stupid shit. I’m sittin’ here as a favor to your producer, talkin’ serious stuff, and you come on with all this fifth grade bullshit. I’m gonna start investigatin’ how you got your passport, boy.”
“Don’t get upset. Good point. My apologies. Let’s start over in a more general way. Tell me Croc. Did you read a lot of sci-fi comic books when you were a kid?”
Croc left his seat shouting; “Fuck you man. Just plain old fuck you; Adnan Koshaggy or whatever your real ISIS name is. I was assured that this negative tone would not be displayed here.
Fuckin’ piece of shit. .......... Goddam fuckin’ piece of shit.”
As the swaying behemoth rolled his way off stage, he continued to scream; “You need me for your pathetic ratings and then you pull this kind of shit? Fuck you, piece of shit. You’re just another low paid flunky telling lies for the benefit of those in control. The people are being screwed all over the place and you don’t care. You do their work for them. Asshole. You don’t care as long as the masters throw you enough coin to keep you in cheap, brand name Milk of Magnesia. When I get back to ......”
He went off camera.
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Adnan Koshaggy sighed. He knew that with Croc’s early departure that he would have to find a way to fill more air time with less popular conspiracy theorists. He was also disappointed that Croc had not hit him on camera. The potential pain, suffering and psychological damage lawsuit against a
“successful” celebrity would have relieved him of the burden of having to truck his old ass out here and kowtow to some jackass every damn week; not to mention the tedious, behind-the-scenes rubbish with tiny picture technicians assigned to the show. He sighed again; this time inwardly. He looked right into one of the cameras and improvised; “Well, there you have it, the inimitable Crocodile B. Blusterbutt. You have to admire the strength of his convictions. I’m sorry that other engagements necessitated his early departure. We hope to have him back again soon. In the meantime do go out and get yourself a copy of
‘InfoScam V.’ Better yet, stay home and push a few buttons.
There are some armed nuts out there. Let AmawayOnSteroids drone it to your front door below wholesale.
For our next guest we are honored to meet the man who started it all. ................. Well, it’s always hard to say who was the absolute first as, as far as we can tell everyone had antecedents and influences which ........... Never mind.
This British gentleman was the most significant force known in the popularization of conspiracy theories; the grand-daddy if
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you will. His last effort was the book I now hold to the camera; wonderful cover art by award winning artist, Apollinaire Rabble; titled; ‘The Psychological Aspects of Irrational Belief,’
subtitled; ‘Whassup,’ I give you the scholar-athlete from over the waves; Icky Bledstoe.”
A thin, smiling man bedecked with a full growth of silver gray hair on his head; semi-mullet fashion, with none on his face found his way to the large plushy chair. Upon sitting he half-jokingly said; “One could get buried in here.”
“I think more than one did. Welcome Icky. You don’t mind if I call you that. Do you? You’re truly one of the people I’ve most wanted to meet. You kind of started this whole thing.
Thanks for being here.”
“I’ll bet you say that to all of your guests.”
“And I mean it every time. ......... I think. Regardless, I’ve been reading your last book. Both I and some of the reviewers feel that it is markedly different from what you’ve previously done. I may be presumptuous in this statement, but it seems as if you’re now distancing yourself a bit from your earlier efforts, which often took the form of attempts to scientifically prove the existence of a cruel reptilian ruling class which uses subterfuge to continue to prevail. ........ I suppose that’s not stated as a question, but can you elaborate on that theme, no doubt with corrections?”
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“You’re much too kind. You also must have been one of the ten people who bought the book.”
“The station gave it to me.” Adnan evoked a kind spirited snicker.
“God bless you, recipient of Mr. Rosewater’s legacy. Allow me to back up one step. Your last guest, our friend Mr.
Blusterbutt, chose to make an early departure. He’s got that in-your-face style all the time. He neglected to articulate step two of the learning process, which is the realization that the way in which the world and human life have been structured it is necessary for every individual, every group, and every nation to survive. Only Fascists thought otherwise, and let’s face it; we’re not them and maybe some mistake was made at the deepest of levels. Besides, look what happened to the majority of them. I don’t envision any way in which we could ever know that without simultaneously necessitating a new system. So, in simplicity, the conspiracies exist as another manifestation of competition, each side seeking to take down the other. That is Freud 101.
Though it is a necessary phase, it is not yet even the popular beginning of Jung or Campbell.
With all information available at all times, we have now been forced to enter a larger morass; the third pile; the proliferation of ‘conspiracy theories’ circulating in the US of 2016, with a few in belief, some in partial belief, and a the
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majority in total disbelief produces a kind of Tower of Babel at the root. Even though it can be proven that the reptiles are in control, it is divisive to mention that. Unity is required for anything to be done about it.
But, be assured that the preponderance of the ‘theories’
are precisely that; speculative theories. We can all make one up whenever the mood strikes. What they and we cannot easily do is to prove them.
Let me preface this with the statement that, ‘The names have been changed to protect the perps.’ This is in keeping with current clandestine communal delicacies; a legitimate conspiracy, if you will. It is undoubtedly comforting to Mr. and Ms. Disgruntled to believe that their demise is not their fault.
It is the fault of the controlling evil ones. Ah, yes, some great ones have said that; ‘It is the purpose of writing to comfort the disturbed and to disturb the comfortable.’
Substitute communicate for writing if you must. I wonder if that comforting phrase was taken out of context in a perhaps, satirical way, in the Nabokovian sense, vein. We have looked into the imperfect ripple in the pond and say that can’t be us, which is kind of true and also kind of false. We say; ‘I’m not a reptile. I’m not one of the ruling 1%.’ Well, whether or not the
‘bad guys’ appear as green and scaly when one puts on the
“magical” eyewear is totally irrelevant. It has no practical
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purpose. If it was to have any effect whatsoever, the discovery of a ‘new’ race would likely result in their being considered a minority, and afforded minority protections. Can’t you just picture all the sympathy that cute little gecko would get?”
“That’s so stylishly meta. This is indeed quite a departure from your earlier work.”
“Not really, Adnan, but I can appreciate the thought. As you know we are in the communications business, so what we must do is communicate. People are more accepting of an idea if it is presented to them in a palatable manner. Sometimes it’s a matter of phraseology. I’m not abandoning what I originally said; I’m just saying the same thing differently. In a sense it really doesn’t matter whether the thieving rulers are reptiles, aliens, humans, or computers. What matters for the rest of us is to eliminate their control. If calling them reptiles is a stumbling block to us uniting, that stumbling block must be removed. Look.
For the moment allow me to abandon theoretical abstractions. You may have seen that I do have photos of the last five US
Presidents and two Supreme Court Chief Justices with their tails sticking out of the back of their pants. The problem is that everyone knows how easily photos can be doctored through the use of readily available modern technology; so those inclined to disbelieve dismiss them, and there is no gain. It is apparent that those reptilian creatures who have been in charge as long
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as anyone can remember have used their enormous powers to abuse and brainwash every child through the US government sanctioned MK-Ultra program; use those who read “The Catcher in the Rye” as assassins triggered by certain phrases contained therein or simply to be sex slaves to the masters and mistresses; get humans into heavy duty, insurmountable debt through the operations of the ‘illegal’ US Federal Reserve and international banking system; and subject them to an economy which resembles a sucked orange half, most recently through the false flag operation and consequences of 9-11. Just consider the open symbolism displayed on every piece of US paper currency. The powers that be are not afraid of possible detection; as they know that we will continue to argue with ourselves and not them.
With all its stupid official explanations, the only thing which is irrefutably clear is that it was used as an excuse to further feed the already fat Military Industrial Complex; have the
‘Patriot Act’ well in place, which by the way was written three months before the event, to permanently incarcerate and torture anyone or their families, who says anything against their interest; have the super-secret alien enhanced technology at only their disposal capable of complete obliteration of anything; have hollowed out mountains to store nuclear devices which will be used whenever another major incident is required; have founded ‘terrorist groups’ and drug cartels just to declare
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expensive war on them shortly thereafter; the result of all this leaving the US citizens in a state of shock, if not awe, in economically induced servitude and fear. ............. I suspect that some of this is true and that some is not. It seems obvious to me that if the Masons desired secrecy they would not have planted their well-known symbols all over. Either that, or they’re too damn stupid to be a cause of concern. What I am certain of, is that with the plethora of incorrect information consumed from the internet beast, we will never be sure of any answers. At the most bottom of lines I can imagine, it boils down to who you trust. That’s just an instinct. Unless more discoveries come in the future, there is no way to ‘reason’ an instinct.”
“That’s kind of like saying that science will never know the answers.”
“Precisely. And that is one of the reasons no one is buying my newest book. I can say it with a twinge of sarcasm. As a society, we have abandoned any notion of god, and have transferred the apparent human need for a higher power to science. We have found a ‘new’ invisible to worship. So, to suggest that science is as inherently and inevitably as imperfect as its practitioners, is not the least bit popular with those who worship at its special-interest feet. To denounce science is now a blasphemy, akin to an early twentieth century
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Jamaican killing of an informant missionary; only known to be an informant by the natives. On another level, if all answers were known the game would have to be changed.”
“My stage manager is either faking a wish to cut his throat or he is indicating that the tone of this conversation is something he strongly suggests must be changed. So, let me thank you for your time. Wish we had more. We have to hear from one of our sponsors right now.” Adnan Koshaggy held Icky Bledstoe’s book to the camera and added; “Do get yourself a copy of ‘The Psychological Aspects of Irrational Belief.’ It’s still in its first printing and may be valuable someday. Take it awaaaaay.”
In what historians might have characterized as “modified 1950’s retro,” young female voices sang; “See the USA, on your smartphone today. America is asking you to call .........” The tune ended when one of the adorable little ones held her smartphone to the camera revealing a screen which showed Vampira holding a vibrator in what seemed to be the appropriate place.
Viewers saw a fraction of a second blip in their screens.
After that they heard Adnan Koshaggy say; “Catchy little ditty,”
and saw him sitting there with someone who had apparently thought that she had already been introduced. The woman was about 30 years of age, had long black hair and was wearing a tight tank top and a mini any hetero guy would join the military to get into, despite the fact that her long black hair was
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coiffed as a Mohawk and depending on momentary point of view, may have exhibited a few rings. There were a few watchers who knew her name; primarily her college students and what remained of her embarrassed family; those kin who had not yet opted for hari-kari.
She was unpopularly known by her “stage” name of Cat Jacker. She was the most vocal “dissident” living in the affluent town of Klosterneuburg, Austria. She required no opening inquiry and was already engaged in an extended soliloquy when her mike was turned on.
Ostensibly, in an effort to attain viewer interest, the cameraman flip-flopped his focus between her open mouth and open legs. In an agitated, strident tone, she was in the midst of saying; “.... is bullshit. Hey, you’ve heard all the theories.
It’s too late to do anything about them. I mean that, even if tomorrow we could conclusively prove that 9-11 was an inside job used as an excuse to feed the war machine and bring fascism to the free world, so what? Can’t fix it now. So many things have been put into place because of it, there’s no way it can be unraveled. The money’s in the hands of the crooks and Americans have been trained to allow the cops to do anything; for their own safety of course. Besides, if it was proven, there would be a gigantic group on the internet every day saying that the proof was falsified under an anti-American conspiracy to make the
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country an open target for whoever hates it. If you don’t believe me, check this out. There are hundreds of thousands of useless physical books, e-books, audio tapes, and movies available through AmawayOnSteroids at no charge. 100% of these entertainment modules have been done by people who offer no solutions. They seem to think that if they expose the ‘true history’ that some sort of miracle will take place and everything will be all right; much of that everything in their pants pocket. How fucking lame can thy get? Moreover, they say that they do this with an un-biased outsider’s viewpoint. That has to be some sort of a joke. It’s only true in one unintended sense. With the exception of two years of Rantin’ B. Blusterbutt in Flatass, Texas, none of them live in the US they disparage from afar. ................. Shit. What do they know about it?
What they copy off the internet nut sites? Is it any wonder why everyone is so fucked up? Who the hell could be reasonably expected to overcome all of this?
Did you see the latest one? Jackie was the second JFK
shooter. Yup, Jackie. See, she’s a member of this ruling class which wanted him dead, and she was perfect as she would be the last one suspected. After Marilyn? They gotta be shittin’ me. As a prize she gets to marry this fossil who looks like a turtle left out in the sun without a shell. And that’s his face. Can you imagine ........ But, you know how it goes now that every
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nebbish has access to computerized editing. A bright one who was raised on Barnum’s; ‘No one ever lost a buck, yadda, yadda,’
figures that it will take him five minutes to doctor and post the film. It now shows Jackie holding something silvery in her hand and it is pointed at Jack’s head. Can we get real for just a minute? Come on. Even if that silver thing was a gun in Jackie’s hand, any self-respecting woman would not have been pointing it at her high income, husband’s head. She’d have been aiming it at his schwantz. Admit it. Can we talk? Come on. Do you really think that this woman was comfortable in sucking on something that was up Marilyn’s culo after Bobby was done for the night? Let’s get a little bit real, okay?
So, what’s my point you astutely inquire? Why am I on a conspiracy theory show when I find the investigation of conspiracies useless? I’ll tell you. I’m from a younger generation. The people writing these books predate Elvis and they just go on re-hashing the same old things, seeking a bigger market share and more money. Well, we’re sick of it and only watch and read it when we want something to laugh about. Give us new ideas or give us death. And just fuck Obama’s lying bullshit.
There’s some black comedian I just adore who starts his act with; ‘I apologize. ..... No. We apologize to all you white folk. When we told you to vote for him we REALLY thought that he
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was a nigger.’ I really wish that I could give you his name, but I can’t re-locate it. Some of those radical, foreign conspiracy theorists have informed me that all his old videos have been removed from YouTube; that he has ignored his $50,000,000 movie-TV contract; that he is hiding somewhere in Africa; and that if you say or write his name you will be subjected to a minimum of a comprehensive, seven year, IRS fraud audit and a maximum of an arrest under the Patriot Act, with all its ramifications. I can get hot over a lot of things, but being water-boarded at Gitmo while dogs snarl at my naked body ain’t one of them. I can tell you one thing for certain. If this man walked out on a $50,000,000 contract he’s not one of the Sephardic or Diasporal members of my club.
Okay, you don’t buy that stuff about the non-monetary motivation. All right, all right; so listen to this.
I have a confession to make. I think I have located one of those weird stories which, in this case, makes perfect sense. I have seen this one with my very own eyes and heard it with my very own ears. The two Beatles who are considered officially dead, and the one thought by many to be dead back in 1970; remember the tell-tale bare feet on that cute goyishe boy; and the one still thought alive have made a comeback. Yes, yes, yes.
I’m so excited. They have formed a new group which they have called ‘Beat the Meatles,’ and have issued a CD with the same
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name. While it is not yet available from your local Wal-Mart or AmawayOnSteroids.Com., and may never be, it may be downloaded free from a “deep web” site; available with the appropriate software enhancement. I detail how this can be done for this and other cutting edge entertainment in my recently released e-book;
‘Deep Doo Doo,’ available through the AOS monopoly for US$.99.
Yes, I know the title’s kind of lame, but AOS wouldn’t accept the first title in their spiffy Ginder Store. Most importantly, it’s cheap; cheap as they allow. ....... Hey, you guys made this system. We just try to live with it without laughing in your face.
Take my word; what you will see and hear is a revelation.
And damn, it’s still available for free. Utilizing the simplicity of the “play” button, the music is reminiscent of the early, at least to the US, ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’ days; days of innocence and simplicity, now updated to ‘I Wanna Hold Your Crotch.’ It shows extraordinary potential for chart climbing popularity; maybe even ten songs at a time. ‘Girl Enbalmed’ is a personal favorite. But, don’t be swayed by that. The old time Beatles and the ‘new time’ Beat the Meatles don’t need the money anymore. Excepting the outvoted one, they’re supposedly dead, right? Their concerns likely center on issues of decomposition, foul odor and zombie possibilities. Anyway, Right Guard correctible smell aside, it seems of much more significance,
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assuming that the “s” word contains something other than a pretense for a posthumous pedestal, to hear their ‘hidden’
message. Through the utilization of a stereo system which did not anticipate the Job and Gates improvements on the horizon, I have found playing their pop ditties in reverse, provides one with an undeniably clear message. There are many, but suffice for now to focus on one. Utilizing the invert-procedure-function, especially on ‘Dear Prudence Stoned’ it is in-arguably well-defined that they are telling us to ‘Kill the pigs.’ ......
Tower of Babel consistent confusion descends. .................
Sigh. Another. Another. ............... I don’t think they’re referring to Porky. They only attempt to inadequately buy mind time; mine; maybe; the ancients’ proven jokers.
There is someone else more powerful and temporarily now in charge. Someone like a multi-national CEO with a three year contract and a Greenwich, back country, retirement lust. So, Mr.
and Mrs. LoBianco, living in what some would still call decadence, and the few would call ‘a sincere attempt to love,’
the BTM group does not requisition your demise, and likely never did. It was just a misinterpretation articulated by a stupid, mean-spirited, jealous and also competent and influential midget. He had no magical powers whatsoever, but was able to convince a few that he did. The saddest part was that his tiny stature and tiny implication was media used as a “concrete”
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form; one which hates and is dependent upon finding ‘new’ paying subscribers; and also which that same media innocently, the best of love, unlikely, irrelevant in the overall scheme of things, in their hearts and minds, use their loving principles to innocently be tricked into the “support” of that which will kill them; and me; and you; and anyone not sufficiently brave to have been a passenger on the long gone dreams of the “Wooden Ships,”
the brave and beautiful, now only garbage-can dirtied, wounded, cold, hungry and homeless. It may well be only the gaps in human understanding to adhere to the position I espouse; ‘I’ an admission of my biases. Yet, it seems to me that they are truly warm, have learned and felt, but still cannot comprehend more than is presented on the surface; and even have difficulty with that. Laugh. Laugh. I do. Kind of cruel; but also an attempt at honesty and laughed at feeling. I know that we all do something like that; at least for a while, which is always remembered, and wished to be forgotten. In all too short a time, it’s just, at best, another tragic rendition of French, 1940’s, ‘Children of Paradise.’ Stupid all of us will be free, minds and hearts rejoicing the . ............................ Pollyanna optimism.
Beyond, beyond and beyond. Self-congratulation possibly unrestrained. My personal apologies.
In recognized ignorance; invariably possible in the infinite; yet to be attempted to be unsuccessfully and
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temporarily constrained .......... Hmmnnnnn. A bit too old fashioned, wouldn’t you say? What the hell are we trying to talk about? How about a rephrase in light of modern technology? Let me add that in the second decade of the 21st century it has become apparent that there has been a substantial increase in the number of people who believe in conspiracy theories. The momentum seems to have been gathering since the assassination of JFK.
Conspiracy is defined by Merriam-Webster, in its monopoly on demarcations as ‘the act of conspiring together.’ A minimum and possible maximum of ‘Two’ seems to be implied, but not specifically stated by the franchise. ‘Omigod,’ the ‘good’
people exclaim. ‘The authorities are not trustworthy.’ Surprise, fuckin’ surprise. The US government has about 40 billion employees. To be able to quote one who erroneously says something implying some sort of nefarious plot seems a mathematically 100% probability. To be able to quote one with something verifiable; at the least usable as anecdotal evidence in court; diminishes that percentage infinitely.
That correctly, Warren-Commission-induced distrust, has expanded to exponential stupidity. Another ‘surprise.’ There truly is no possible way that Oswald alone could have done that with which he has been credited, and everyone except the Warren
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Commission knows it. Another surprise, surprise to those who think they can pull the wool over.
You know, it may be that the old farts on the Warren Commission gave birth to all of this garbage. That’s funny in a perverse way, as they had passed child bearing age. Maybe they did it out of senility. Maybe Alzheimer’s was a factor. Maybe they wanted to make a mess. Maybe they were coerced. Maybe they had something up their sleeves. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
I know one big thing. Beat the Meatles have shown me the future; and it is murder. And you can access it for free if you purchase my $.99 e-book ‘Deep Doo Doo.’ It’s enhanced with un-doctored photos of the low down. Can you dig it?”
In the unexpected pause, Adnan Koshaggy deftly enjoined with; “I thank you for your articulation of a well thought out alternative vision. Whether or not it meets the rigid definition of conspiracy remains to be seen. However, that debatable point is as subject for the academics; and frankly, if past experience is any guide, they will not come to any kind of consensus until after we and this show are long forgotten. I thank you for your un-prompted presentation. That sort of thing makes my job easy.
And audience, run to your computer and order a copy of ‘Deep Doo Doo’ by Cat Jacker. It’s an affordable killer. Need I say more?
Okay, a little break. A word from the people who pay for this.
Cat, behave yourself! Mohawks have become routine; but those
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nose rings up the ante a bit. That is a nose; isn’t it? Let’s pretend. Didn’t you ever have an imaginary friend?”
A fluffy white dog ran from the house and excitedly bounded along the fenced back yard. He slowed a bit with each step and came to a full stop when he finished the entirety of the trip.
His tongue was out indicating happiness or hope, while his eyes remained wary and disappointed. He sat on his haunches and looked up, seeming to ask; “Where is he?”
An unseen adult male spoke. “He’s looking for my son, Joey.
So was I. Sammy Bubbles has more faith than me. I know that Joey and sixteen other nine-year-olds were shot to death two months ago. Little Sammy doesn’t understand. He’s not even two years old yet. It happened at the elementary school. This seems to be happening someplace almost every day now. I’m no right wing fanatic, but I know that this has got to stop. In the meantime, whenever I bring little Sammy into the yard, for a moment I’ll also hope that Joey is waiting for us there.”
A voice over said; “We’re looking for solutions to problems never before envisioned. If you’d like to help the Sammies and Joeys of this world, please send whatever you can to the Christian .......”
The camera went back to Adnan’s plush chair; Adnan still in it. He seemed a bit less chirpy than usual and said to no one in particular; “New sponsor? ................ Just for this show.
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Okay.” His voice strained to elevate as he said; “For your pleasure we now welcome a man who needs no introduction. You all know his face from the time he made headlines for being arrested at his home in the south of France; in the house formerly occupied by Jean Renoir as a matter of fact. As you recall, the French authorities charged him with subversion, based on a few of the passages contained in his novel; ‘The Rules of the Charade.’ You may not be aware, as it was not reported in the mainstream news, that he was acquitted of that charge by a jury who said that the book, taken as a whole, was incomprehensible; and therefore could not be categorized as subversive. Keep in mind that our guest’s primary language is French. Come on out here Luc Godard.”
A thin man in his 70’s purposefully strode on stage accompanied by his wife, a woman in her 50’s, apparently struggling to keep up. Since the chair was so oversized they both sat in it.
Luc was agitated and before a question was thrown his way blurted out; “Your last guest, that Ms. Jacker really is a complete waste of time. She extols the virtues of a dumbed down modern existence, while she herself tries to display personal intelligence, compounding that with an overly obvious, thick eared joke about her own stupidity. If she thinks that it is funny, she must either be someone who has not heard of the Paris
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massacres or is not human. To so matter of factly speak of murder being the future is unforgivable.”
An offstage female voice screamed; “Fuck you, old fart. I deal with what is. Not your ‘heart-rending’ geriatric fantasies.
Go back where you came from.”
“Fuck you, too, ugly bitch. Or more appropriately, don’t fuck you. It would be too much of a favor.”
“If I had a gun I’d walk out there and blast you right now.”
“That’s your fantasy. If you had a gun. Never did and never will. Baby toys, if anything. Cry some more over it. My old man and I find it amusing.”
There was another screen blip, and when the video returned, Adnan Koshaggy sounded as if he was admonishing Luc when he said; “Just ignore it. The people are here to see you; not them.
You’re giving the morons more recognition than they warrant.
Using your most recently acquired insights into the matter, tell us where we’re at. I note that you have not put out a new book in five years. Why is that? Surely, there must be much to share.”
“Thank you, Adnan. I haven’t worked on any books lately as I see them as a dying medium. On an artistic level literature is afraid of anything new; while it simultaneously complains of repetition. This is a recipe for a drawn out finale. On a
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commercial level the AOS dominated industry effectively precludes all but ten writers and publishers from making any sort of living from books, a denial of free speech at the gut level. Personally, I am sufficiently disgusted to not have the least interest in redoing the things I did forty years ago. If the messages sent back then did not make any difference; either I communicated poorly or no one bothered to listen. Whatever. I have no intention of putting them in 2016 garb and technology and trying it again. Don’t take this a sad statement. I tried my best and now I don’t care.
Based on the most anecdotal and statistically insignificant evidence at my disposal, it appears that the current conspiracy beliefs reflect the notion that every significant event is the result of a successfully carried out plot against the people.
Nothing happens by chance. There is always high powered collusion with predictable results; be it Oprah’s gender fascination or the ISIS attributed, how to video, concerning beheading mechanics.
Though it is obvious that I am not a ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy,’
sometimes I cannot help but think that I should have been more like a character in a Cagney movie; its intended communications now buried. ...... It was once seen by everyone. I know, just like the first grade teacher presented with the doggy excuse.
Yeah, a resounding yeah; I’d like to see the look in your eyes;
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first level; second that .......... I don’t know. It seems up to you. ........... I’m trying my best to be honest. ..........
I think that I might, with some degree of condescension, understand the Jacker point of view. If she would make it clear, we could go from there. I think. I believe. Do you? Does she?
....... No? Then, why bother? Stupid, isn’t it? Yes and no; refer to Franzen for details, most educated, book selling, while being erudite. Half of the time; yes?
I’m digressing, more than Joyce; more than Faulkner; more than Wallace, simultaneously thinking that this diatribe might be viewed as more relevant than another fantasy. Succession the key. A succession was another in a series of momentary, popular distractions. Kind of funny. I guess; the myriad of Faulkner presumed viewpoints sustained the almost ‘literary’ market of the time and its inconsequential copiers of what was truly anti-literary.
I guess that at the bottom line, I judgmentally place the burden and guilt upon you; first my seductive Apple; so loved, so needed, so much what which makes life worth living; later, too easily a court effective, plea bargain, Chief Justice endorsed. In the absence of any personal solace; just my need of the too dated fantasy and joke of any sense of an Eden required vision executed in blindness.
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Break needed and taken, not yet adequately defined. If it makes any difference it is likely the most ....... No, let me say it another way. ........ That’s so a thought conducive with
......... Permit me. You open, then quiver, then retreat. I imply things. Is my confusion and hurt greater than yours? I hope not. I don’t want to imagine what you’ve seen. I think that I might have some sort of idea. I would rather go blank, realizing that in my making that statement you can easily infer that which was not intended.
At least eleven of you once called this country your home.
You know the theory about the ones and the angels. Yes, we all disagree with some policies. Yes, sometimes it seems that we the people are getting the short end of the stick. Yes, sometimes we think that. It is an American right to think it, say it, and vote out those with whom they disagree. The predominance of the US worldwide hatred; the criticism of the sovereign only allowed here, by the US right to speak freely, has fueled free speech here. It’s a tautology which seems to have been forgotten or currently perceived as radical.
The inarticulate foreign ones who seek to sell their garbage to the disenfranchised section of the American market attempt to hide their origins and their agenda. They realize that to highlight their remoteness would be tantamount to admitting that everything they pretend to know of America has
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been gathered from the Internet; their computers 10,000 miles away. They also realize that to make it known that they are merely another sucker chasing the Yankee dollar will hinder their plans. Its silly season, maybe the Season of the Witch.
And yet having said that; I am also convinced that the entire phenomenon can be traced back to the idiotic Warren Commission’s report. There is no possible way one shooter could have done what they said Oswald did by himself. One lesson I have learned in seven decades of life is that if one is compelled to lie, it is indicative of the practitioners of rudimentary first level competence and in their interest to do the necessary research to make that lie a credible one. Not particularly outstanding grammar school children quickly learn that to tell the teacher;
“The dog ate my homework,” does not negate the zero. Common sense, right?
Not so common today. Today’s conspiracy theorists have made proficient use of the commercial possibilities in the situation and there has been an impact well beyond their limited sight or care; resulting in their absurd suggestion of a de facto anti-American support for terrorism. No, it is not admitted or stated so simply. That’s why I said de facto. Sure. Right. The US is creating warful entities which will bankrupt it, and make it irrelevant in the world. Anyone who says this should not be spoken with.
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Thanks to the Warren Commission, the fact that the US
government sometimes lies to its citizens makes them the perennial bad guys; subject to a scrutiny no other sovereign in the world has had to endure.
Up until 1963 few Americans thought that there was any stealth bombing in the air. Led by the US, the Allies had wiped out the Fuhrer and sent Fascism to its temporary grave. The world was safe for a democracy led by the good guys. The kids would grow straight and tall. Levittown grew where potatoes once did. ‘I like Ike’ buttons were the extent of political erudition. That’s what Americans thought, despite Eisenhower’s final address which said; ‘Beware the military-industrial complex.’ He may have been the one who coined that word; hence the misunderstanding.
Back then the US only had to worry about those goddam commies with nukes a few miles away. So, when the bell went off all the kids ran down to the school basement, and stood facing the wall, with one hand behind their head. .............. ‘Hey, it doesn’t hurt to be prepared,’ the authorities said. The kids alternated between amusement and anxiety as they had seen films of the bomb’s effects.
A younger man was elected president. He beat Nixon in a close one. No matter how much of a peace-nik, Gandhi-esque, saint-hero he is painted in certain foreign circles today, his
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