Modern Revelation!

Slash Fiction

2009-09-01T19:03:00.000-07:00

Glenn Beck and Bill O'reilly had sex. It was the realization of a heretofore unknowable love. The promptly quit their respective shows and traveled the country campaigning for gay rights and socialized medicine. They got moved to Vermont where they got married.

Grumbleguts

2009-08-13T20:16:00.000-07:00

"What your name?" The little boy asked the giant of a man who was sitting at the picnic table in the park, a vast feast arrayed before him.
'I am called Grumbleguts, young squire."
A magpie flew down and landed on the fence close by, watching the table where Grumbleguts sat.
"Why are you called that."
"Tis a rank I have obtained through diligent discharge of my duties."
"Can I be a Grumbleguts?" The boy asked.
"I am afraid I am the only one who has ever attained that rank."
Before he could respond the boy was called away by his mother. Grumbleguts began feasting again with gusto. The magpie continued to observe him. Though Grumbleguts tried to ignore him, he couldn't.
Finally when he could take it no longer he shouted: "Why must you vex me so, King of Magpies? Can you not see that I am cursed?"
The Magpie flew way.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Davey Morrison, and Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise. This week's theme: 'Gluttony'.

A Brief Social History of the Bootstrap

2009-07-30T19:25:00.000-07:00

As Americans, we are acutely aware of the peculiar power of the bootstrap. These seemingly innocuous objects possess a curious sway over us. The average American, when faced with some manner of hardship, can, with the aid of these, overcome all that obstructs their path and prevents them from achieving their goal. Bootstraps are an essential, if little known to outsiders, part of the patchwork fabric that composes this great nation of ours. An American with a pair of boots and a gun can do incredible things.
Recently, it seems that other countries are catching on to the power of the bootstrap. In Zimbabwe the bootstraps were removed from all boots imported or made in the country. Boots were banned outright in Belarus. In Turkmenistan, Sapuramat Niyazov renamed boots after bread, which he had renamed after his mother. It is debatable whether or not it was this or the tightly censored state-run media apparatus that rendered the bootstraps powerful. In North Korea a group of dissidents were imprisoned for bringing bootstraps across the boarder. No where was the authoritarian fear of bootstraps more evident than in the Soviet Union. It is said that Stalin had nightmares about the bootstrap. In 1977, in a small village in then Soviet Kyrgyzstan, there was an uprising that started when a pair of boots were smuggled into the town. Today there is a large sculpture of a boot in this village, though ironically, the government strips the straps off all boots that are imported.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Davey Morrison, and Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise. This week's theme: 'Bootstraps'.

Paralells

2009-07-09T09:48:00.000-07:00

The car crashed, the fender buckled, our heads slumped forward. The force of the impact carried my head forward until it met the windshield. It was a fucked up situation. But it wasn't my fucked up situation, it was Arnold's. It was Arnold's because it was his car, because he had drank all that wine, and because he'd been driving. So he did what was perfectly natural, he drove off. Or what was perfectly natural in our situation. Before we had hit the other car, Arnold had been telling me about the dream he'd had last night. In it he had seen a Golem, and had followed it into town. He followed the golem into a McDonalds, followed the Golem into a hotel watched from some obscure hiding spot while the Golem fucked a whore. Then he looked in the mirror and saw that he was the golem. He told me it was very moving, that he had wept and dedicated himself to change. I told him the symbolism was lazy, then we hit the car in front of us. I don't recall the make or color of it. I only remember that it was there, the impact and that we left.
Then we met Ivan. Ivan was very tall. Arnold asked if he played professional basketball. Ivan called him an asshole. Ivan had been standing on the side of the road. Smoking a cigarette and half-heartedly looking for a ride. When we asked if he needed a ride, he looked skyward, as if contemplating some far off anguish; then slowly picked up his backpack and crawled into the backseat. His knees were scrunched up to his chest. He looked ridiculous. He had such wayward eyes and such a crooked smile, I fell in love immediately. I was already in love with Arnold. But I figured I could love both at once. And we did, in the motel we rented that night. It took some persuading for Arnold. He said he was greedy, that he didn't want to share me. But eventually he relented and, I think, enjoyed himself.
In the morning we found a briefcase in the lobby. If it had been left there for days or for minutes didn't matter to us. We took it. We found that it was filled with money. Or rather, it had a lot of money in it. It wasn't entirely filled, it had some stray papers and folders strewn about. But there was still a lot of money in there.
We stopped at a park to count it and drink beer. Ivan started arguing with Arnold about who was more deserving of the money, who had had the greatest trials in their lives. Soon they began fighting, punching each other, rolling around on the ground. Ivan picked up a large rock and smashed Arnold's face with it. I didn't need to look to know he was dead. Ivan sat down, holding his head in his hands. He looked at me. I could see the profound sadness in his eyes. Before I could say anything, he reached into his backpack, pulled out a gun and shot himself. I kissed them both on the forehead before closing the briefcase and driving away.

The car crashed, the fender buckled, our heads slumped forward. But it looked like the car in front of us had sustained more damage than ours. It was a fucked up situation. But it wasn't my fucked up situation, it was Arnold's. It was Arnold's because it was his car, because he had drank all that wine, and because he'd been driving. He tried to do what was perfectly natural for him, which was drive off. I persuaded him to stop and see if who'd ever been in that car was still alive, and maybe call an ambulance. Arnold wanted to leave. He was drunk, he didn't want to go to jail. I told him that this was probably the lesson he should have gleaned from the golem dream he had just been telling me about. He told me that was bullshit and to shut up. We looked in the car we'd just hit. The drives door was open, but there was no one inside. All we could see was a briefcase sitting on the driver's seat. Arnold wanted to take it, I tried to tell him that stealing from a crime scene would only get him in more trouble, but he had his mind set on it. And I couldn't talk him out of something when he set his mind to it. So we drove away.
We stopped at a Denny's to see what was inside. We found a lot of hundred dollar bills scattered amongst the papers and other detritus that had been stuffed inside it. Arnold could barely contain his glee. He ordered the Moons-Over-My-Hammy, I had a strawberry milkshake. We tipped the waitress generously. Perhaps too generously, as she followed us into the parking lot to make sure we hadn't put the wrong bill on the table by mistake. We assured her we hadn't. She was so grateful she could have kissed us. She was an attractive young girl, tall, red-hair, breasts you could imagine being lovely if they weren't obscured by the boxy Denny's uniform. Arnold started flirting with her, and eventually persuaded her to come out with us. We waited until she got off, then left to get some beer to take back to our hotel room. We must have attracted someone else's attention because another car followed us out of the Denny's parking lot.
In our motel room we got drunk with Caren (her nametag informed us that it was spelled with a "C"). One thing led to another and Arnold started fucking her. I didn't love him, but watching them, I kind of felt jealous. I went outside to smoke a cigarette and clear my head. I must not have him enter the room. I just heard the screams and the sick sound of something breaking. I went to the room, inside a large heavyset man was choking Caren. She was gasping, struggling, trying to wrest herself from the grip of the mammoth of a man. I could see that Arnold was dead. The Tv had been smashed over his head. The sheets were covered with blood. I figured the jagged shards had cut his throat. I couldn't go anything, I was frozen in my tracks. I wished I could have, but I just watched the giant of a man kill that poor, sweet girl. The man picked up the briefcase and brushed past me, as though I wasn't even there. I felt like I wasn't there. Like I didn't even exist. The only thing I could do was cry.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Davey Morrison, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, and William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden. This week's theme: 'Alternate Realities'.

Joke Zone!

2009-07-01T06:25:00.000-07:00

Q. Under what division do ghosts box in?

A. Phantomweight

Q. What did the Jew say to the Balrog?

A. Would you like a bagel?

A Very Special Coordinated Content

2009-05-28T20:29:00.000-07:00

Bullets over Bethlehem

EXT. OUTSIDE OF A BANK AT AN ATM
Jesus, Brett, Mary, Paul, and Rob are using the ATM, Brett puts his card in the slot. A second passes then Brett hits the ATM.

BRETT
Shit

PAUL
What?

BRETT
The fucking ATM took my card.

PAUL
They can do that?

BRETT
Apparently this one does.

JESUS
I bet if Super Jesus was here he'd get it out. Hey Rob, I think I left something In the car, come with me.

Jesus and Rob exit.

MARY
He's not doing it again is he?

PAUL
What an asshole.

BRETT's card slides out.

BRETT
Oh look. ( He pulls the card and puts it in his wallet) Fuck this ATM

JESUS and ROB re-enter the scene, Jesus has tied a cape around his polo shirt, and ROB has a rather large bling around his neck and a do-rag on his head.

JESUS
I heard you were having a problem with this ATM

MARY
Why do you do this shit?

JESUS
I have no idea what you're talking about.

BRETT
You just tied a cape around your polo shirt. What the hell Rob, a do-rag?

ROB
Yo, Its DJ Cool Rock homie. I don't know no Rob.

PAUL
Whatever, we got his card back so take that shit off and lets go.

JESUS
You're a little tense Paul.(pause) Oh yes I know your name.

PAUL
Of course you do, we've known each other for ten years.

JESUS
You need a drink.

Jesus produces a caraffe of water and a wine glass he pours the water into the glass where it becomes wine. BRETT, MARY, and PAUL walk away.

BRETT
What an asshole.

Screen goes black, credits roll with awesome Jesus theme song.

INT. JESUS' LIVING ROOM.
JESUS is sitting on an ottoman while ROB stands above him. ROB is dressed like a boy scout with a large hat and shorts. Both have large backpacks on. ROB pats the back of JESUS' pack. The living room is filled with camping stuff, like a tent.

ROB
Alright, you're ready to go

JESUS tries to stand up. ROB comes over and grabs his arm to pull him up. When JESUS is standing erect, he promptly falls over. He lays on the ground, struggling to get up from under the massive backpack.

JESUS
I think its to heavy.

ROB comes over

ROB
Let's lighten the load a little ( he pulls a toothbrush from the backpack.)There we go.

JESUS manages to free himself from under the backpack.

JESUS
Hey why do I have to carry everything anyways.

ROB
Its simple some of us are born owls and some of us are born mules, guess which one you are.

JESUS
If I'm a mule then I must be one of them owl killing mules, come here.

He grabs ROB in a headlock.

UNCLE BANKS
O.K

JESUS releases ROB from the headlock. UNCLE BANKS and GEOFFRY come down the stairs and enter the living room.

UNCLE BANKS
We're gonna hike in just below Limestone Falls, the we're gonna raft down to Rocky Point, and spend our last night at Two Arches.

JESUS
Them arches better not be golden.

UNCLE BANKS
Don't worry on this trip its just us and the elements ( laughs) We're gonna be roughing it like frontiersmen.

GEOFFRY
Oh incidently the limosiene will be here to pick you up at dawn.

UNCLE BANKS
(Slaps his legs) Great !!(stands up) I'm gonna go stuff my fanny pack.

GEOFFRY
(looks on as UNCLE BANKS enters the kitchen) looks like someone already beat him to it.

MARY enters carrying a sleeping bag

MARY
I brought your sleeping bag. ( She walks over and kisses JESUS)

JESUS
Thanks baby.

MARY
Boy look at all this stuff.

ROB
Yeah we believe in being prepared

MARY
For what?

ROB
You know bad weather, snakes, global thermal nuclear war, a hippie jam band festival, you know.

JESUS
I tried to tell puny the bear that this was too much stuff

ROB
Don't call me that.

JESUS
(Picks up piece of wood) I mean why are we taking this?

ROB
Hello, campfire.

JESUS
Rob, I'm telling you, I'm not carrying all this stuff. Whats this dumb box for.

ROB
That's not a box it a raft. It seats six.

JESUS
How many Uncle Phils (pause) Wait you mean you expect me to believe that there's raft in this box.

ROB
Yes but whatever you do don't............(JESUS pulls a cord on the side of the box and the raft inflates. He falls backwards onto the tent.)....pull the cord.

JESUS
Damn!! There was a raft in that box.

END SCENE

FADE IN, OUTSIDE A BRICK WALL WITH AN ATM. JESUS and ROB approach the ATM

JESUS
It ain't my fault your stupid hurricane lamp got broken.

ROB
It you wouldn't have inflated the raft it wouldn't have fallen over.

JESUS
Well, I'll pay you for it the stupid thing couldn't have been worth more than sixty dollars. ( he gets money from the ATM).

ROB
It had a built in bug zapper and it cost eighty

JESUS
We'll I'm only paying sixty for it.

ROB
Eighty

JESUS
Sixty

ROB
Eighty

JESUS
Sixty

ROB
Eighty

JESUS
Sixty

ROB
Eighty!

JESUS
Eighty!

ROB
Sixty!

JESUS
You got a deal daffy.(hands ROB the money)

ROB
Cute (takes the money) Tell you what I'll take the sixty and get the rest of the money from your wages at the peacock.

They walk away.

ROBBER( off screen)
Let's have the money, c'mon, c'mon.

JESUS
Alright it's cool dude, Rob, give him the money.

ROB hands the money to the robber

JESUS
Hey looks that's all we got man.

ROB
I got some more in my wallet.( Reaches for his back pocket).

ROBBER
Get you're hands out of your pockets.

JESUS
Rob , no! ( JESUS pulls ROB back)

Close up on the gun firing.

END SCENE

EXT HOSPITAL

INT WAITING ROOM

Many people are mulling about. HILLARY is harrassing a nurse about JESUS' sheets and cable.
MARY walks over to ROB who is sitting by a door looking dejected.

MARY
Rob, do you want to talk about it?

ROB
He was aiming at me.

UNCLE PHIL walks around the corner. Everyone rushes up to him

UNCLE PHIL
I talked to the doctor JESUS is in stable condition, the bullet was very close to the spine but they got it.( Looks up whistfully) They got it. ( he nods his head).

MARY 2( JESUS@S MOM)
Thank god!

UNCLE PHIL
Well, there's the possibility that there may be some nerve damage, but let's pray that there isn't. They're gonna move him to a private room

MARY 2
Can we see him?

UNCLE PHIL
I made a deal and we can see him but we have to go home immediately afterward.

MARY 2
Why?

UNCLE PHIL
Well apparently we're driving the nursing staff crazy.

Camera pans to ROB sitting on the chair looking down. A single tear falls down his face.

INT JESUS' HOSPITAL ROOM

MARY 2 enters the room she walks softly to JESUS and kisses his cheek.

MARY 2
Hey baby.

JESUS
(Waking up) Hey mom you ain't have to come all the way out here.

MARY 2
Stop it, I'm just glad that you're OK.

JESUS
Just think, I moved out here from Philly >cuz we thought it was too dangerous.

The rest of the family enters and greets and hug JESUS. When Ashley hugs him he screams In pain the yells APsyche!@ They stand around his bed.

JESUS
Hey don't be looking at me like that you know no little bullet's gonna stop me. I;m th e motherfucking son of god! ( he starts hacking and coughing) However I will be doing my bnking from now on. Knowing my luck I'll run into a disgruntled postal worker

UNCLE PHIL
Are you in pain son.

JESUS
Well, it's not as bad as the last time Geoffry cooked chili, or when I tried to quit heroin cold turkey.

Stunned silence

JESUS
Psyche!!

Everyone laughs.

GEOFFRY
(Holds up a brown paper sack.) Then I guess you won't be wanting this.

Everyone laughs again

ROB
I can't believe that you all think that this is some kind of joke. Don;t you realize what happened, Jesus took a bullet for me. He saved my life.

UNCLE PHIL
He save all our lives

ROB
I'm not talking about that, Tonight he saved my life

JESUS
I did? I was just tryin to get the hell out the way.

ROB
Jesus stop it I don't think it's funny

JESUS
You gotta have a sense of humor about this, this kind of stuff happens all the time

ROB
That's the problem it happens all the time

ROB exits the room, eveyone looks concerned. UNCLE PHIL follows him, stops at the door

UNCLE PHIL
I'm gonna go talk to him

UNCLE PHIL walks out the door. ROB is at the evlevator

UNCLE PHIL
Son, where are you going

ROB
I don't know. (Pause) I'm going for a walk.

UNCLE PHIL
Rob, its after midnight. I don't need something to happen to you too.

ROB
Well, these things just happen, right?

UNCLE PHIL
Rob, I know you're upset, you've been through a very traumatic experience. Now if you just calm down we can talk about this rationally.

ROB
You;re always in control aren;t you. Always know what to do, always know what to say. Well you know what gets me? The police aren't even going to get this guy, and even if they do, so what? He'll be out on the streets in six months.

UNCLE PHIL
That's not going to happen

ROB
Come on dad. It's happened to people you've put away.

UNCLE PHIL
The legal system isn't perfect

ROB
Go talk to Jesus about our legal system! Its such a joke people aren't even afraid of it!

The elevator opens and ROB walks inside. UNCLE PHIL holds the door.

UNCLE PHIL
Rob, I'm frustrated too. But as a judge I have to have faith in it, no matter how much I want to go knock some heads.(pause) Eventually the system will come through

ROB
I'm a grown man, dad. Don't tell me anymore fairytales.

The elevator door closes

END SCENE
EXT A OLD RUN DOWN BRICK BUILDING
ROB and his friend JUWAN are standing outside
ROB
This the place?

JUWAN
I told you dogg, my boys would find that bitch. Good luck boy.

They thug-hug. ROB pulls a ski mask over his head.

JUWAN
You get in trouble, you holla at your boys. We be there in a second.

ROB
(A tear falls down his face, pounds his chest.) Thanks dogg.
INT A BARREN APARTMENT.

A skinny white guy is sitting on an old couch. He is tying a tube around his arm and holding a syringe. Suddenly the door breaks down. ROB enters holding the gun.

ROB(yelling)
Get down. Get the fuck on the floor!

He grabs the white guy by the back of the head and pulls him to the ground.The white guy is hysterical.

ROBBER
What do you want?

ROB

Did you rob some niggers tonight?

ROBBER
What?

ROB
(Putting the gun to the ROBBER's chin, yelling) Did you rob some niggers tonight,

ROBBER
No! No I didn't

ROB
(Pulls off ski mask) Do I look familiar bitch!

ROBBER
(Hysterica) NO... I mean yes..I mean sorry

ROB
I want my sixty bucks back

ROBBER
I don't have it!

ROB
You spent all my motherfucking money already. On what drugs? You aren't even fit to suck my dick. Open your mouth

ROBBER
N-n-noooo please, I've got a son, we're going to the lake on Saturday

ROB
I said open your motherfucking mouth.(ROB hits the ROBBER on the back of his head with the back of the gun. The ROBBER opens his mouth, tears down his face. ROB sticks the gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger.

END SCENE

EXT HOSPITAL

INT JESUS HOSPITAL ROOM

JESUS trashing around in his bed moaning and calling ROB's name
Mary come over to comfort him

JESUS

I'm glad you're here

Time passes MARY is sleeping on a chair covered in a blanket. JESUS is sitting upright watching TV an laughing. The door opens and a nurse enters

NURSE
Morning! Time for breakfast.

JESUS
Shhh! (Motioning to the sleeping Mary)

NURSE
Oh sorry. Isn't it a bit hard to follow that show with the sound off.

JESUS
Oh no, I know all these joints by heart. Check it out this is what's happening. ( INSERT LINES FROM THIS EPISODE OF FRESH PRINCE)

NURSE
You're good.

JESUS
That's nothing you should see my Webster.

MARY
(Waking Up) What exactly do you want her to see.

JESUS
Hey what's up Mary, you rested.

MARY
I must've been tired

JESUS
Uh huh, you was talking in you;re sleep last night. You always dream about Chaka Zulu

They Laugh. ROB enters the room. He knocks on the door.

ROB
Hi

MARY
Hi Rob!

JESUS

Hey what's up man. I'm glad you came back.

Awkward silence. Mary goes to the nurse

MARY
Can you show me where I can get some coffee

NURSE
Sure

MARY and the NURSE exit.

JESUS
So what's up man, you gonna be alright

ROB
I still cant get over it JESUS. If you hadn;t pushed me out of the way that bullet would've gotten me.

JESUS
Well not necessarily. I mean even if you stood right in front of me, he could've hit me from the belly button up.

ROB
I'm totally in you're debt.............again

JESUS
C'mon man you don't owe me nothing.

ROB
Yes I do. If you ever need anything, anything its yours.

JESUS
You could talk to Uncle Phil about maybe sliding me into his will. Or a handjob.

ROB
Actually my father and me aren't seeing eye to eye right now. I feel like everything he ever said to me was a lie.

JESUS
C'mon rob that's a little hard don't you think.

ROB

I >ve spent my whole life following the rules, but then some maniac pulls a gun and all the rules change. Well I'm sick of being a follower, Sick of being a victim .I'm gonna start makin' some rules.

ROB walks away

JESUS
Rob wait.(ROB stops) Give me a hug.

ROB
What?

JESUS
I said give me a hug. A brother gets shot he gets a little emotional. Now get over here and give me some love.

They hug. For a long time .When they let go, JESUS pats the front of ROB

JESUS
What is that?

ROB
It's a gun

JESUS
Rob are you out of your mind man. You walkin' around carrying a gun, what do you think you're going to do with that.

ROB
It's for protection

JESUS
Whoa, Whoa, you think it;s that easy for you to just shoot somebody.

ROB
I closed my eyes.

JESUS
What

ROB
I closed my eyes.( He turns around and tips over the breakfast cart spilling food everywhere)

JESUS
I was gonna eat that man.

ROB
Everything is a damn joke to you.

JESUS
So what you don't think I'm mad. Hmm. I'm layin' up in this hospital an inch away from being paralyzed. You don;t think I want to get out of this bed and go catch that asshole.

ROB
That's not going to happen again. Not to me.

JESUS
Rob, rob, I understand that you're scared man. But the world can be a scary place.You just gotta learn to deal with it alright.

ROB
Well I found my way. ( he lifts the jacket up)

JESUS
That's not you man. That's them.

LONG PAUSE

ROB
Look I didn't come here for you're approval. I came here to see how you were.I;m out of here.

JESUS
Rob.....

ROB
No more hugs, Jesus.

JESUS
I saved your life man. I saved your life. YOU OWE ME!!! Now give me the gun Rob. I save your life. I want the gun!!

Rob walks over to the bed and drops the gun on the bed by Jesus' feet.

ROB
I'm done with it anyways.

He leaves the room. Jesus picks up the gun and empties the bullets onto the bed. He covers his face with his hands. It is very poignant.

END SCENE

INT A ROOM WITH ALL THE CAST.
Jesus is sitting is a chair surrounded by the cast.

JESUS
Hey gang. You know we like to have a lot of fun here on the Adventures of Super Jesus
but life isn't all fun. That's why we brought you tonight's very special episode.

ROB
That's right kids. TV may make guns seem like a glamorous way to solve you problems or coerce a whore into doing anal. But guns are not toys. The decision to end someone's life is not a snap desicion. One must consider the consequences, and weigh the pros and cons before busting a cap in some punk's ass.

SATAN
Remember to be safe and responsible with guns. Guns aren't the only way to solve you problems.

JESUS
Thanks for joining us tonight. Tune in next week for a very special episode in which Mary gets an abortion..............................hopefully..............................................god I hope she does.
END

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Davey Morrison, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, and William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden. This week's theme: 'Vengeance'.

Vengeance

2009-05-28T20:18:00.000-07:00

They sat in the car, waiting. Neither wanted to make the first move, to set into action the plan they had spent all night talking about. They would just as well have sat in the car all night, listening to the faint breeze of a radio turned too low. Barely audible whispers of songs. Then Sam turned to Jeff and said:"Are we going to do this."
Jeff replied: "Yes.""
"When?" Sam asked.
"Soon."
"Do you really want to do this?"
"Of course, I wouldn't have dragged you here at this hour if I was going to pussy out."
"Do you think doing this will make you feel better?"
"I know it won't make me feel better."
"Then why do it?"
"I just have to."

______________
This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Davey Morrison, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, and William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden. This week's theme: 'Vengeance'.

The Cookies of Vengeance

2009-05-28T20:14:00.005-07:00

D: Hey. You want to go with me over to F's place? I'm going to take him these cookies.
E: Sure. Whatcha giving him cookies for?
D: He stole my parking space.
E: So what are you giving him cookies for?
D: They're the cookies of vengeance.
E: Are they booby trapped?
D: No.
E: Are they poisoned?
D: No! They're just the cookies of vengeance, okay?
E: Okay.

At F's place
D: Hey F. I saw that you stole my parking space, so I brought you these cookies.
F: Oh. Hey, yeah, sorry. Uh, you brought me cookies?
D: Yeah.
F: Because I stole your parking space?
D: Yeah.
E (interjects): They're the cookies of vengeance!
D; That's right. They're the cookies of vengeance.
F: Are they booby-trapped?
D: No.
F: Did you put salt in them instead of sugar?
D: No.
F: Do they conceal some sort of disgusting bodily fluid?
D: No.
F: Any bodily fluid?
D: No.
F: Are they poisoned?
D: No. They're just the cookies of vengeance, okay?
F: Okay. Well, thanks, that's really nice of you.
D: It's not nice of me! They're the cookies of vengeance.
F: Okay.

D and E leave. They walk a minute.
D: They are poisoned.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Davey Morrison, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, and William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden. This week's theme: 'Vengeance'.

Some Spies

2009-05-21T19:37:00.001-07:00

Spy 1 has locked Spy 2 in a room, when Spy 2 says that he is in fact Spy 3, and the the man they take to be Spy 3 (who is using the bathroom) is in fact Spy 2. Spy 1 is about to let Spy 3, formerly Spy 2 out of the room, when Spy 4 rushes in and says that they are not who they claim to be, but are instead Spies 5, 6, and 7. This takes Spy 7 by surprise since he has never claimed to be anyone but Spy 7, steadfast and true. He is much relived when the other Spy 7 (who was once Spy 3 but is mostly Spy 2) reveals himself to be Spy 8. With all this resolved they decide to go out and get some lunch. Spy 2 opts not to go, having some dry cleaning to pick up uptown. They bid him farewell and go to Frank's Diner, where they see Spy 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 already there. Spy 6 cannot stand Spy 11 and wants to leave, but Spy 5 has a crush on Spy 9 and the two begin to argue, almost coming to blows. They are broken up by Spy 14, who tells them that Spy 11 is a good guy when you get to know him better and that Spy 5 should tell Spy 9 his feelings. Much emboldened, Spy 5 does, but is rebuffed when it is revealed that Spy 9 is seeing Spy 15. Spy 14 cannot believe this, since Spy 15 is his roommate and friend and was never told. This angers Spy 14 who resolves to doublecross Spy 15 at the earliest opportunity. He doesn't have a chance to do that because Spy 12 doublecrosses them by revealing that he is not Spy 12, he is not even Spy 16, he is Spy 18 having earlier in the evening killed Spy 17. Spy 18 captures them and takes them to the hidden lair where Spy 19 and Spy 20 have prepared an ingenious deathtrap. When they arrive at the lair they find only Spy 21 watching reruns of Matlock. He informs them that Spy 19 and 20 went out to catch a movie. Spy 21 then asks Spy 18 if he brought the ham sandwich he had requested. Spy 18 mutters something about forgetting (though in reality it was Spy 16 who promised to bring the sandwich), Spy 21 goes somewhere to sulk. While imprisoned, Spy 5 and Spy 13 doublecross each other, but end up canceling each other out. Soon Spy 19 and 20 return, but reveal that they are Spy 27 and Spy 36. Spy 64 arrives with coffee.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Davey Morrison, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, and William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden. This week's theme: 'Espionage'.

He looked good

2009-05-14T18:17:00.000-07:00

He looked good in his burial suit. Damned good. But like a penguin he wasn't to know.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Davey Morrison, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, and William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden. This week's theme: 'Penguins'.

The Adventure of Percy Penguin

2009-05-14T16:30:00.000-07:00

Percy Penguin sat by the edge of the water; sometime looking into the sky, sometimes looking into the water, all the time occupying his mind with idle, unimportant thoughts. His friend the River Otter approached.
"Good afternoon Percy!" River Otter said.
"Good day River Otter!" Percy replied.
"What are you doing today, Percy?" River Otter inquired.
"Oh, nothing River Otter. I'm just thinking idle thoughts." Percy replied.
"Oh Percy! How I envy your youth and idleness. I am a very busy Otter, what with my running a multi-national corporation and six philanthropic foundations. Those combined with my inveterate womanizing and amphetamine addictions leaves me very little time for quiet reflection."
"Would you like to get some ice cream?" Percy asked River Otter, his eyes filled with wonder and delight and possibility.
"I'm afraid I have a conference call." River Otter said, trotting off.

Percy returned to his ruminations by the water's edge. Soon he heard a slurping and squelching sound. Such a sound could only mean one thing. Slondor!!!! He turned and waited for his friend's arrival, for his arrival was always preceeded by a slurping a squelching sound. Slondor is a sentient pustule from the Yzyzalt mega-cluster. He is also one of Percy's friends.
"Oi Percy." Slondor said.
"Oi Slondor!" Percy said excitedly.
"What are you doing today Percy?" Slondor inquired.
"Just thinking pleasant things." Percy replied.
"Hmm," Slondor gurgled. "My mind is an abyss of torment."
"Would you like some ice cream."
"Ice cream would only exacerbate the waking hell that is my existence. Farewell Percy, this may well be the last time you see me." This was Slondor's traditional farewell. He slurped and squelched away.

Moments later, another of Percy's friends appeared. It was Dimitri Medvedev, the President of Russia.
"Hello my little friend." Dimitri Medvedev said.
"Hello!" Percy replied enthusiastically. "Would you like to get some ice cream with me?"
"I would, but alas, I am a cheap esoteric reference, meant to illicit laughter. This world is not my own. It belong in a world with real problems, and not one occupied by precocious adorable penguins. I might as well be Johnathan Taylor Thomas."
Percy looked crestfallen.
"Don't take that as a rebuke, my friend. My heart is filled only with affection for you."
Percy flapped his wings in happiness.
"But I must take leave of you." And with that Dimitri Medvedev.

Then and ice cream cone fell from the sky.
"Yay! Ice Cream!" Percy exclaimed. He ate the ice cream with gusto.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Davey Morrison, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, and William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden. This week's theme: 'Penguins'.

Joke Zone!

2009-05-01T22:55:00.000-07:00

Q. What do you call a self-referential fiber supplement.

A. Meta-mucil!

Is this post symbiotic or parasitic? You decide!

2009-04-30T18:49:00.000-07:00

So Eli posted an awesome dialog today about the nature of symbiosis and parasitism:

"1 is sitting in the living room playing video games. 2 enters

2. What's going on?
1.Not much, trying to level up.
2.What's that.
1.What's what?
2.That thing on your stomach.
1. Oh that, that's my symbiote.
He lifts up his shirt to reveal a grey blobbish creature, about the size of a baby attached to his stomach, making occasional sucking noises.
2. Dude, that's a parasite, not a symbiote.
1. No way! We depend on each other.
2. What are you getting from this relationship?
1. Ummmm, enhanced reflexes. Just the other day I was getting a soda from the fridge and a bunch of other ones fell out, but I caught them all before they hit the ground.
2. That's pretty impressive, but you've always had good reflexed, I don't think you can blame it on the parasite.
1. I told you, it's a symbiote.
2. C'mon, it's sucking your blood.
1. Not all symbiotic relationships are mutually beneficial.
2. But this relationship isn't commensalistic, he's drinking your blood, you look like you're wasting away.
1. But this thing's a part of me now. For better or worse. Without it I would feel empty, and were I in a room with my greatest friends and my beloved family, I would feel a terrible, heartrending loneliness."

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Davey Morrison, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, and William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden. This week's theme: Symbiosis'.

Symbiosis

2009-04-30T18:42:00.000-07:00

1 is sitting in the living room playing video games. 2 enters

2. What's going on?
1.Not much, trying to level up.
2.What's that.
1.What's what?
2.That thing on your stomach.
1. Oh that, that's my symbiote.
He lifts up his shirt to reveal a grey blobbish creature, about the size of a baby attached to his stomach, making occasional sucking noises.
2. Dude, that's a parasite, not a symbiote.
1. No way! We depend on each other.
2. What are you getting from this relationship?
1. Ummmm, enhanced reflexes. Just the other day I was getting a soda from the fridge and a bunch of other ones fell out, but I caught them all before they hit the ground.
2. That's pretty impressive, but you've always had good reflexed, I don't think you can blame it on the parasite.
1. I told you, it's a symbiote.
2. C'mon, it's sucking your blood.
1. Not all symbiotic relationships are mutually beneficial.
2. But this relationship isn't commensalistic, he's drinking your blood, you look like you're wasting away.
1. But this thing's a part of me now. For better or worse. Without it I would feel empty, and were I in a room with my greatest friends and my beloved family, I would feel a terrible, heartrending loneliness.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Davey Morrison, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, and William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden. This week's theme: Symbiosis'.

Wherein I listen to all of Bob Dylan's albums, in chronological order. Part 1

2009-04-29T17:05:00.000-07:00

Part 1:
Folk Singer.

For good background about his beginnings as a folk singer, read his autobiography Chronicles Vol 1, or watch No Direction Home. They really do more justice to his beginnings than I can do in the space of this little blog.

His first album is mostly a collection of interpretations of folk standards and traditional songs (calling them covers seems a bit disingenuous, the purpose of standards and traditionals is to be played by anyone), as well a two originals. Bob is fresh faced here, and his enthusiasm translates in his renditions of these songs. This is before he became the "voice of a generation" with his protest songs, he's just a dude playing songs he likes. Though of course, he's still Bobby D, and he still sings them in his voice, which is reedy and nasally,he shows impressive range as a vocalist, especially on "Freight Train Blues", where he holds a note for what seems like an eternity. This is a misconception about Bob Dylan, that he's a bad singer, when he's actually quite talented as a vocalist, it's just that his voice is weird and unconventional.

Standouts:
In My Time of Dyin'
House of the Risin' Sun
Song to Woody
See That My Grave is Kept Clean

Next up is The Free Wheelin' Bob Dylan, which has his iconic "Blowin' in the Wind", as well as a lot of his classics from his folksy acoustic era. Bob is confidant here, all the songs are his own. And while some of the songs are serious, he's still has a flair for absurdism, like in Bob Dylan's Dream, and Talkin' World War 3 Blues. Now I gotta be honest, I'm not a huge fan of folksinger era Bob (though this little project is making me appreciate it more), and while I won't cast the lazy criticism of it sounding dated1, songs like Blowin' in the Wind don't feel as vital or as important as they were (even though some of their sentiments have been recently appropriate), its one of those generational defining things that "You just had to be there, man." Those epochal important things that while historically relevant, they don't feel relevant, they aren't as resonant unless you were actually there (see also Woodstock and Smells Like Teen Spirit). For every strong track on this album, there's a rambling filler that's forgettable.

Standouts:
Blowin' in the Wind
Girl From the North Country
Masters of War
A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
Don't Think Twice It's Alright

Next comes the Times They Are A-Changin', which I always thought preceeded Free Wheelin', and I actually hadn't listened to until I decided to undertake this project, owing to my general apathy towards his folksy days. This album is a bit more melancholy, less wide-eyed and optimistic than Free Wheelin'. Songs like Boots of Spanish Leather and the Lonesome Death of Hattie Carol are aching and despairing. He's trimmed out the rambling songs and packed it with solid cuts all the way through.It is a superior album to Freewheelin', it lacks that albums rambling filler, it's a bit more cynical and darker lyrically and is more of a complete album with a thematic unity suggested by the title.

Standouts:
The Times They Are A-Changin'
Boots of Spanish Leather
Only a Pawn in Their Game
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Caroll

His last true folk album (at least until the 90's), Another Side of Bob Dylan, Is a less serious, more intimate affair. He's not really grappling with serious issues, and the songs have a tossed of quality that belies the simple nature of the songs. They're funnier and more romantic that the bulk of those on the earlier albums. Chimes of Freedom is really the only political song on the album. The rest of it is rather whimsical, as he's starting to delve into the surrealism that would define his lyrics in the late 60's. This is probably my favorite of his "Just a Dude with a guitar and harmonica" albums.

Standouts:
All I Really Wanna Do
My Back Pages
Chimes of Freedom
I don't Believe You(She Acts Like We Never Have Met)

For Westinghouse

2009-04-23T19:48:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Leatrice M. Pendray threw herself against the door, wailing, “Don’t go! What is this gift that you've made for Westinghouse and not for me?”

Mr. George Edward Pendray simply held tight to the exquisitely wrapped gift and waited politely for Mrs. Pendray to step aside. Finally, he sighed. “What I feel for you I will always feel. You are the mother of our three Arthurian-named daughters. But my heart has created this, and give it I must to the fair Westinghouse.”

Mrs. Pendray stopped wailing. She softly said, “It’s of our three Arthurian-named daughters that you must think.”

Guenever, Elaine, and Lynette, their hair piled in three elaborate buns of varying sizes like a cello, viola, and violin, said, “Yes. Father think of us.”

Mr. Pendray said, “Always,” but he continued to the door.

Mrs. Pendray snatched the gift from her husband, eagerly shucking layers of tissue paper and cotton. Within the box, nestled on a tiny velvet cushion, lay the word, “Laundromat.”

To Mr. Pendray, as he retrieved the box and stepped across the threshold into history, Mrs. Pendray’s fall seemed almost gentle, like a leaf tired of its branch, guided to the ground by the wind.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Davey Morrison, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden, and WiL Whitlark of The Real McJesus. This week's theme: 'Laundromats'.

The Greatest Day

2009-04-23T19:40:00.000-07:00

This day, the greatest day ever, about which I'm going to tell you, started just like any other day. Though it's inauspicious beginning didn't portent any greatness, when it had ended, I knew that it would be a day of true greatness.
I was at the mall, my reason for being there has been obscured by the mists of time. I had gone in the bookstore to browse around, wasting time in an idle manner. There was a long line, throngs of people, waiting excitedly to meet their favorite author. Intrigued by the large crowd, I went closer to see who it was that had caused such commotion. Then I saw. It was Glenn Beck. That motherfucking asshole. I knew what I had to do. I went to the back of the line, waiting patiently and quietly until I had reached the front of the line. When I got to his table I punched him in his loudmouth fucking face. Everyone reacted with must shock, not knowing what to do when confronted with such a random, though wholly deserved, act of violence. Then a slender middle-aged woman next to the Young Adult novels began to slow clap. Others joined in slowly until the entire bookstore was enveloped by raucous applause.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Davey Morrison, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden, and WiL Whitlark of The Real McJesus. This week's theme: 'The Greatest Day Ever'.

Counterproof

2009-04-23T19:30:00.000-07:00

So I disproved evolution. See, the theory of evolution says that simple organisms became more and more complex and organized. But the second law of thermodynamics states that everything becomes more random in the absence of a source of outside energy.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Davey Morrison, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden, and WiL Whitlark of The Real McJesus. This week's theme: 'The Sun'.

Greatest Day Ever

2009-04-23T19:22:00.000-07:00

Amanda and Steve are at a couple’s seminar. Rachael, the seminar leader, has asked everyone to write about their greatest day ever. Steve pokes Amanda, whispering.
Steve: What did you put?
Amanda: The day Jason was born.
Steve snorts.
Amanda: What?
Steve: So that’s it? Our greatest day as a couple, and it was all about Jason.
Amanda: Rachael just said to write about our best day ever. She didn’t say anything about couples.
Steve: This is a couple relationship building exercise. Consider the mother-fucking context. You were totally out of it when you were in labor anyway. If you want to get all mommymential, you should put the day after Jason was born.
Amanda: I wasn’t out of it. I remember every detail. It was a wonderful day, our child’s first day on earth.
Steve: Yeah. Personally, I think that you should have some coherent, pleasant memories of your greatest day ever, but that’s just me.
Amanda: Fine. I’ll put the day after Jason was born.
Steve: You really weren’t yourself for at least a week.
Amanda: So?
Steve: So, personally, I think that you should be yourself on your greatest day ever.
Amanda: Fine.
Amanda scribbled out what she had written, and scrawled, “Greatest day ever = eight days after my baby was born.”
Steve: That’s better. You’ll be glad you thought that through.
Amanda: Yeah. What did you put for your greatest day?
Steve: Doris.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Davey Morrison, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden, and WiL Whitlark of The Real McJesus. This week's theme: 'The Greatest Day Ever'.

Under the Sun

2009-04-17T08:43:00.000-07:00

The man's throat ached. It's true his legs and feet also hurt. Hell, the only thing his body felt was pain. But it was his throat that hurt the most. He looked up at the sun, which seamed to grow larger and more menacing with each step he took. The man tried to imagine what he looked like now, how he would appear to anyone who passed by. But of course no one would pass by him here. He was going to die. He knew it, the pain in his throat told him all that he needed to know. He looked up, skywards, but not directly at it. "Fuck you" He said.
"I beg your pardon?" The Sun said, it's voice sonorous, reverberating through the air.
"I said Fuck You!" The man said louder. Loud enough for the sun to hear.
"Well it's not my fault." The sun said, somewhat crestfallen.
"I know." The man replied. "You're just the only one here and I need to vent."
"It's not my fault you tried to rob Johnny Rock's stash."
"Motherfucker was cutting me out. I had a get a piece for my self."
"Yes, but you remember Cliff?" The sun asked.
"Yeah, what about him."
"They did the same thing to him. If you walked the other way you would've found his bones." The sun smirked at his dark humor, dry as the desert wasteland.
The man continued walking. Hoping against hope that with each dune he climbed he would find an oasis or civilization or a way out of the sands. It was always the same when he reached the top, just the blinding dissonance of the desert laid out before him.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Davey Morrison, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden, and WiL Whitlark of The Real McJesus. This week's theme: 'The Sun'.

The Last Supper of the Universe

2009-04-09T22:01:00.000-07:00

So the time had come for the universe to end. It had to happen sometime, and now seemed as good as any. This is what the Lobridham thought, for they were ageless and wise. What time meant to them was altogether different from what it means to us, to them it is the endless dripping into a bucket that will never fill. To us time is the most precious thing we have. The Lobridham felt that they should commemorate the occasion. They decided to throw a dinner party. The Lobridham love to throw dinner parties.

***

Raul idly shuffled through the mail, throwing the junk mail in the trash and setting any bills on the table to opened later. He came across a large envelope with his name on it in a large ornate font. The paper was sticky and it smelled oddly; still he felt compelled to open it, as it was easily the single greatest piece of mail he had ever received. He tore it open and found an invitation, written in the same ornate font. It was a invitation to a gala dinner commemorating "The End". The end of what he didn't know, it was very cryptic. The invitation said he could bring a guest, and though things had lately been icy between them, Victoria was the first person he thought to bring.

***

Victoria and Raul stood by the car. They had parked near where the instructions had told them to go to await pickup.
"And what are we waiting for?" Victoria asked, somewhat vexed by the cryptic nature of the evening. Raul had told her nothing about it, only that it was a gala dinner to commemorate the end of something. What it was, he wouldn't say (though he himself didn't know). He didn't know who or what had invited him to this even, and he would only say that it "had a very ornate font and seemed important" when she asked. Truthfully she didn't even know why she had come, she had been aching to break up with him for a while now, and she had been perpetrating the distance between them, hoping he would take the hint. He hadn't, so they found themselves standing here, night's cold encroaching on them, not knowing if or when they were going to be picked up. Victoria was about to tell him that she was going to leave, when a great light descended from the sky. It bleached out the sky and Raul was still trying to wipe the white spots out of his eyes when they found themselves in what seemed to be a tremendous lobby to some kind of hotel, though it was the kind of hotel that they had never conceived of imagining before. Strange creatures scrurried, slimed, skulked and slithered around the elegantly decorated room. Victoria and Raul tried to to stare, but they were unsuccessful, though many of the creatures there would not have known what a stare was, much less what it connoted.
"Excuse me." Victoria said, trying to flag down some incredibly tall creature who's face appeared to be composed of a single compound eye. The creature didn't acknowledge them, and proceeded down the long hallway, which seemed to extend infinitely in either direction. "Rude." She said when he was gone.
"He probably didn't understand you." Raul said.
"Well at least I'm trying to do something. You're just staring."
"Don't you think this is stare-worthy."
Victoria rolled her eyes. "I don't care, I just want to know what's going on."
"Perhaps I can be of assistance." A chipper voice from behind them said.
They turned around and where greeted by a five-foot tall gelatenous blob. "Sorry to have frightened you. My name is Vuuuurrrrrrrrrrrmmmmmmm (which, when spoken aloud sounds like a car speeding by quickly on the highway), but you can call me Vicky."
"Pleased to meet you, I'm Raul and this Victoria." Raul said, extending his hand, but then pulling it back quickly, either because he didn't want to offend a creature that seemed to have no hands or was afraid of what appendage it would use to reciprocate the gesture.
"The pleasure is mine." Vicky said, bowing with a grace that was suprising for such a creature. "You must be exhausted, I'll have The Churd show you to the Space-bar, many other invitees have gathered there."
"Excuse me." Raul said. "But, ummm, why are we here?"
"You are guests of the Lobridham, they are throwing a party to commemorate this occasion?" Vicky replied.
Instead of asking the questions that Victoria thought obvious, such as: "Why us?" "Who are the Lobridham?", "What occassion is it?", Raul asked: "When does it start?"
"In approximately 12 Vlorks. Excuse me, I must attend to some of the other guests." Vicky bowed once more before undulating away.
"What's a Vlork?" Victoria asked.
"A Vlork is roughly equivalent to the amount of time it takes your planet to feebly wobble around on its axis." A tall humanoid next to them said. He had long stringy hair, large forehead ridges and a warrior's stare.
"Are you a Klingon?" Asked Raul.
"Yes." Came the gruff reply.
"Roddenberry got something right."
"Yes, though we do not eat Gagh."
"What do you eat then?"
"The flesh of our enemies and the foes we have felled in battle." With that the Klingon walked away.

***

The Space-bar was almost literally that. It seemed as though one was walking in the stars, that there was nothing below them but the very infinity of the cosmos. So one could only feel a sickly combination of excitement, fear and awe. And Raul wanted to hold Victoria in his arms and think about how one of the stars was their home and how there was a seeming infinity of stars. But he just sipped his beer, which tasted strange and awkward.

***

Finally the dinner had arrived. The table they sat stretched into the distance until those seated at it were small specks. Raul imagined that the table extended even further than it. Like the universe itself, he could imagine the scope of the table's length, but he couldn't do the same for the real manifestation of it, even though it was right there. He couldn't feel any sorrow for being left out of any conversation due to his location at the table, becaus he couldn't imagine the sheer number of conversations that were taking place across the vast expanse of table. The Lobridham appeared. Many of the creatures gathered treated them with a hushed reverence reserved for religious leaders, so Raul and Victoria did the same. They began to speak, and all were silent.
"Friends, though many of you we do not know, we use the appellation all encompassingly, we have come here to observe a most auspicious occasion. The end of the universe is nigh upon us, so we must celebrate."
Some of the dinner guests nodded sagely amongst themselves, others reacted with shock, some with anger. Raul just stared at his plate, trying to grasp what he'd heard and the fact that he'd never see his friends or family again. He wished he'd brought someone he loved. He wished he'd brought his mother. Victoria also wished she was back home, that she could be out enjoying the sun, basking blissful and unaware in the sun when all of existence ended. She tried to keep herself from crying. The Lobridham continued:
"Stars from Centauri to Kolob will collapse and vanish. Each star will blink and be gone, their planets will be torn to shred, their inhabitants and all their accomoplishments, their respective histories annihilated. And then all that will be left will be a barren emptiness, and seconds later that too will cease to be. We anticipate this to begin in approximately three hours or 1.5 Vlorks, or 1334.567 sub-ahlkels or....well you get the picture. Well, let the feast begin!
And with that servers begain streaming out of side rooms, bringing tray after tray of food. Most of it Raul didn't recognize, though he did have a hamburger. Some of the food was delicious, some was truly disgusting. The Lobridham interrupted and simply said: "It is beginning"
The ceiling and walls disappeared, it was once again like they were floating in space. The stars began to slowly die out, as if each were a candle being extinguished by the gentle puff of a child's breath.
Raul turned to Victoria. "I think we should say something."
"Like what."
"I guess goodbye."
"Yeah."
"I would've liked for it to have worked out."
"Me too." She leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek.
Then nothing.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden, and WiL Whitlark of The Real McJesus. This week's theme: 'A Last Supper'.

Phoning it in

2009-04-02T21:12:00.000-07:00

Insert anecdote about laundromats here later.

Congratulations Mahi-Mahi!

2009-04-01T18:02:00.000-07:00

Please join me in congratulating Mahi-Mahi on being named Fish of the Year 2009. A runner up the previous year, losing to Eel, Mahi-Mahi triumphed this year. She was absolutely stunning in the evening-scale competition, utterly charming in the interview portion, and brought the house down with a brilliant rendition of "Sinnerman". Congratulations Mahi-Mahi, the world glimmers in your finsteps.

Thanks to John D. Moore for drawing the Mahi-mahi

Joke Zone!

2009-03-31T18:23:00.000-07:00

Q: What did the boy millipede say to the girl millipede?

A: I want to hold your hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand,hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand,hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand,hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand,hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand,hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand,hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand,hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand,hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand,hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand,hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand,hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand,hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand,hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand,hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand,hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand,hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand,hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand,hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand,hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand,hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand,hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand,hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand,hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand,hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand,hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand,hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand.

Eleanors

2009-03-26T19:14:00.000-07:00

"I call this meeting of The Society of Historically Relevant Eleanors to order." Eleanor Roosevelt said, striking the gavel on the table. Eleanor of Aquitaine, Eleanor Marx, Eleanor Boardman and Eleanor Bridgewater stopped their chatting and turned to pay attention to the president of their society, whom just having been voted into that position of authority was quite enjoying the exercise of it.
"What is the first item on the agenda?" Eleanor of Aquitaine asked politely, for she was a lady and always asked things politely.
"We will discuss the petition for a new member." Eleanor Roosevelt replied.
"Yippee!"Eleanor Boardman exclaimed.
Eleanor Bridgewater looked at her crossly, because, seriously who says Yippee?
"Who is this prospective member?" Eleanor of Aquitaine asked, attempting to re-inject some manner of civility into the proceedings.
"Eleanor Rigby."
"Who?" Eleanor Marx asked.
"Eleanor Rigby, she was the star of a Beatles song." Eleanor Roosevelt said. "Her grave is very popular and there's a statue of her."
"Is that all it takes to get membership in The Society of Historically Relevant Eleanors?" Eleanor Marx asked, somewhat annoyed.
"Do you have a statue?" Eleanor Roosevelt asked sharply. Eleanor Marx sulked quietly.
"Excuse me." Eleanor Bridgewater said, somewhat timidly, for she did not often speak up at these meetings. "But Eleanor Rigby is not a real person."
"But, she has a statue." Eleanor of Aquitaine said.
"She's not real. She's just a fictional character."
"Wait a minute, who exactly are you?" Eleanor Marx asked.
"Huh?" Eleanor Bridgewater said, trying to ignore the question and hoping the others would follow suit.
They did not.
"Yes dear, tell us why you are historically relevant."
"Um, well. You see...."
"I don't think you are historically relevant. I think you're a fictional character." Eleanor Marx sneered.
There was a pause. Everyone turned and looked at Eleanor Bridgewater. She quietly got up and left. A moment after she had gone, Eleanor Roosevelt struck the gave and said, "Meeting adjourned!"

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden, and WiL Whitlark of The Real McJesus. This week's theme: 'Eleanor'.

Work All the Time

2009-03-26T18:41:00.000-07:00

Once there was a woman named Eleanor who worked day and night, night and day, work work work. She never had time to post coordinated content.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden, and WiL Whitlark of The Real McJesus. This week's theme: 'Eleanor'.

Coming of Age

2009-03-19T22:03:00.000-07:00

Morvan awoke and knew everything had changed. It wasn't until he had groggily stumbled to the bathroom when he realized what it was. He looked into the mirror and realized that he had come of age. He went down to the breakfast table and tried to sulk as he had the day before, but found he could only sulk in new, wholly different way. It did not go unnoticed. The twins, who were 8, started chanting: "Morvan came of age! Morvan came of age!" Their mother, upon hearing the squealing children entered the room.
"Oh honey, that's wonderful." She said, kissing Morvan gently on the top of his head.
"What's this?" Their father said as he entered the room.
"Morvan came of age!" Their mother said, almost bursting with pride.
"Oh, well that's good I suppose." He said as he picked up a danish and cup of coffee and left the room.
Morvan finished his breakfast and gathered his things for school. His mother met him at the door.
"Have a wonderful day at school honey! Oh, I'm just so proud of you." She hugged him with all her strength.
Morvan didn't want to go to school, he really wanted to go to a bar. He thought that it was the most appropriate thing to do seeing as how he had come of age. Unfortuantely, he found that the bars were closed, it being eight in the morning. So he'd have to go to school until noon anyways. Then he would go to the bar.

****

Noon couldn't come fast enough, he was jittery all through his classes. When that time finally came he was out of there faster than a jet. The first bar he found was called The Runaway, and Morvan felt as though that name was symbolic and appropriate, so he chose that bar. It was dank and smoky. This song was playing on the jukebox. There were only a few people there, sipping half heartedly at their mid-day ales. The bartender noticed Morvan enter, but didn't seem to care. Either that or her knew that he had come of age. Morvan sat at the bar, the bartender gave him a beer. Morvan sat for a few moments reflecting somewhat melencholically about what it meant to have come of age. His didn't really know.
'What the fuck are you doing here?"
Morvan was stirred from his reverie by the questions, voiced rather harshly as it was. He turned around. It was his friend Isaac, whom everyone called Isaac the Wolf.
"Huh." Morvan said, trying to sip his beer nonchalantly and failing to, as it was a mediocre brew.
"What're you doing here? Shouldn't you be in school or some shit?" Isaac said, sitting on the stool beside him.
"I guess." Morvan replied. "I came of age."
"Just right now?"
"No, this morning. Maybe last night."
"Oh, cool. Wanna get high?"
"Sure.'

****

Moments later they were standing in the alleyway with Yulia Yemkova, Isaac's girlfriend, waiting for Johnny the Fox to come with the pot they were going to smoke. Morvan kept asking questions about smoking pot and how to do it, and if it would make him crazy.
"Vaht is vith ze boy?" Yulia Yemkova asked.
"Don't mind him, he just came of age." Isaac the Wolf replied. This seemed to satisfy her. They heard the sound of a raven, it was Isaac's phone. Johnny the Fox was at The Runaway beacuase that's where he thought they were going to meet.
"Fuck!" Issac the Wolf said as he hung up the phone. They trudged back to The Runaway and met Johnny the Fox.
After exchanging pleasentries they found out that Johnny didn't bring the pot because he thought Yulia had it. Isaac called him a stupid fuck because Yulia never had the pot. They decided to get drunk instead. Isaac put this song on the jukebox
After four beers, Morvan was feeling wobbly. He went to the bathroom and when he returned he saw that his father was sitting at the table with his friends.
"Hey Morvan." His dad said when he returned to the table. "I was just talking to your friends. They're pretty cool."
"You're pretty cool Mr. B." Johnny said. He high fived Morvan's dad.
Morvan didn't really feel mortified, like he would have yesterday. No, he had come of age, so he could only feel bemusement, which he attributed in some part to the beer.
"Well we should probably head home Morvan."
They said their goodbyes to Johnny, Isaac and Yulia and left.
On the ride home they were silent, until Morvan's father turned to him and said "Y'know Morvan the same thing happened to me when I came of age. It's perfectly normal."
"I know Dad." Morvan replied.
"Ok, good." They remained silent for the rest of the ride home.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden, and WiL Whitlark of The Real McJesus. This week's theme: 'Metamorphosis'.

Works Every Time

2009-03-19T21:07:00.000-07:00

Saint Starosta was a young Christian woman, forced by her father to marry a pagan. She prayed for deliverance, and God blessed her with a beard to free her from the marriage, which it did when the paganish fiance crucified her. Saint Starosta is the patron saint of unhappily married women.
***

Stella was not attracted to the young man, Jake, who laughed at her weak joke (she herself forgot the joke within three minutes) at the party neither of them seemed to be enjoying. But he asked if she liked the same things that he liked (he did bother to dress it up; he didn't say, "Do you like the same things that I like;" he said, "Do you like Watchmen? The comic book." She said, "Yes.") She knew that he was going to ask out, and she knew that she didn't want to and that she would say yes.
She dressed carefully for the date although she didn't know why she bothered. Perhaps it showed a fundamental respect for this young man as a person (she was considering his feelings, right?) or perhaps it was a sign of nothing but a basic respect for keeping up appearances. She was dreading the awkwardness, the painful silences as Jake realized that there was nothing between them. Or worse, he wouldn't realize, and she would have to feel awkward for both of them. But it would end. It couldn't be more than a few hours. Unless he asked her on a second date. And she accepted. Why would she accept? Stella didn't know. What a stupid girl, she was. How could Jake like her? How could she dare to reject him when clearly he was far better than she deserved. What if he asked her on a third date? And she said yes. And then they slept together. And she said it was great. And they moved in and had a pregnancy scare and it turned out to be nothing and they got engaged and married and had three kids.
And then she was hit by a taxi.
It didn't hit her hard. It bumped up against her knees like a rambunctious puppy. She woke up in the hospital. Her legs seemed to be balancing a hot fire poker on them, and her head seemed to be rattling around like a dry pea inside the balloon of her headache. Her face itched. She put her hand up to scratch it, and it scratched her hand.
A man said, "You've had an accident."
"I know," said Stella. She'd gathered this man was a doctor, but he didn't seem very helpful.
"You've a small degree of brain damage."
"Oh dear."
"Yes."
"It's made you grow a beard."
"What?"
"It's made you grow a beard."
"Oh."
"You see," the doctor explained. Stella thought she heard him squeaking a marker across a white board in fervent explanation, but she'd closed her eyes to better locate her head inside the headache. "In fact, at all times all people have a beard waiting to grow as quickly as possible. But the lambascar region of the frontal cortex functions as an inhibitor. 'No, no, no, don't grow, no, no,' it says (for woman). For men, it just says, 'No, no, slow down, don't grow so fast, no, no."
"So it's like your conscience," said Stella.
"You could say that. If you had issues."
Stella thought that she did have issues.
"So I'm going to have to shave now?"
"Oh no. Your lambascar region has entirely ceased to function. The beard will grow back within minutes."
"Oh. What time is it?"
"6:27."
"Oh dear. I was supposed to meet my date at 6:00."
"Well, you'd better hurry then."
Stella hurried to the restaurant, where Jake was still waiting politely.
He'd gotten a table, drunk three glasses of promptly refilled water, and eaten half a roll. He was now plucking crumbs from the roll and dabbing them across the tablecloth.
"I'm so sorry," said Stella. "I was bumped by a taxi and got brain damage, which made me grow a bread."
"That's okay," said Jake.
In fact, Jake wasn't too keen on the beard. It made him realize that he really didn't like this girl so much. It sat on her face like a little creature, saying, "You don't have anything to talk about." But he'd asked her out on a date, and she'd been kind enough to accept, and he couldn't leave just because she got brain damage and grew a beard.
They ordered. They ate. It was awkward. At one point, they were forced to cannibalize their neighbor's conversation and discuss the relative merits of income versus sales tax. "So do you like taxes?" Jake asked. "Which are your favorite?"
"I guess it's only fair I pay my share. I don't have a favorite."
At one point, they concocted a false history of chopsticks. But they didn't enjoy it. Like people in love would.
They finished eating, but dinner didn't end. Finally, Jake had to crucify Stella. "So I guess you'll have a early morning," he said as he pounded in the nails. "Sorry," he said, "Does that hurt?"
"Oh no, that's fine," she said. She didn't even want to go on the date in the first place.
"I guess I'll call you."
"That's okay."
They might have had a second date but certainly not a third.
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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden, and WiL Whitlark of The Real McJesus. This week's theme: 'Metamorphosis'.

Stegosaurus

2009-03-17T19:15:00.000-07:00

"I would sup with a triceratops, I would sup with an ankylosaur, I would even sup with a goddamn raptor! BUT, I would never sup with a fucking stegosaurus!

A Tale of Poverty

2009-03-12T20:46:00.001-07:00

Stanislaw Wolovski always remembered that day. It was early in the morning, cold still clung to the air, fog wreathed the mountains. Stanislaw breathed in, the peaceful cold of morning mist tickling his lungs. Yes, there could be no better time, the simplicity of this morning was perfect. Slanislaw gripped his hunting rifle, his ears seeking the sound of any wildlife. He moved slowly, stops tentative, not wanting to disturb anything. He head a sickening snap and felt an unbearable pain in his foot and ankle. He looked down and saw that a bear trap had ensnared his foot.
"Fuck!" He yelled.
The bear trap remained attached to his ankle. Stanislaw got used to it, it just became a dull ache that he pushed to the back of his mind. One night after the awkward fumblings of attempted intimacy, his wife suggested that he see a doctor about getting it removed. Stanislaw went in the next day for a consultation. The doctor advised Stanislaw that it would be a simple operation to have the bear trap removed. Stanislaw had no health insurance. This is why we need socialized medicine.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden, and WiL Whitlark of The Real McJesus. This week's theme: 'Poverty'.

More or Less Breakfast Chatting

2009-03-12T20:25:00.000-07:00

2: I can't believe that you're pouring milk and corn syrup on your cereal when children are starving.
1: I can't believe that you're pouring ethanol gasoline into your gas tank when children are starving.
2: I don't pour ethanol gasoline into my gas tank.
1: Well, you shouldn't. Children are starving.
2: I know. We say that they're starving, but really they're starving.
Pause
1: Why'd we take this so political?
2: I don't know. I just felt like taking it political this time.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden, and WiL Whitlark of The Real McJesus. This week's theme: 'Poverty'.

Some Prosperity

2009-03-05T20:28:00.000-08:00

This party was much that same as other parties of its ilk; thought Paul as he surveyed the room, drink in hand, looking for a place to sit. These parties, always commemorating an occasion, demarking our days until we die, then throw another party. It was New Year's Eve. Another year was ending. Another calender would be thrown away. Paul spotted an attractive woman sitting alone on the couch. He didn't recognize her. Perhaps she didn't fall into the intersection of the Venn Diagram that composed their respective circles of friendship. He decided he would make her acquaintance. She had ample bosoms. He longed to fuck her.
"I bid you a prosperous New Year." He said to her.
"It must be so." She said. Paul couldn't tell if she was forlorn or drunk. He was historically bad a telling those two apart. There was a pause, which Paul took as an invitation to sit beside her on the couch.
They talked for an hour or so, though the stilted nature of their conversation (which consisted of his questions and her one syllable answers) made it feel as though it had been two, perhaps even three hours. Still, Paul felt as though things would end well between himself and this stoic woman. He leaned over and whispered an invitation into her ear.

****

Hours later, they arrived at his apartment. He asked for her name. She replied that it was "Nebula". He had never bedded a woman with such an odd name. They both disrobed.
"There's something I must tell you, before we engage in intercourse." Nebula said.
Paul was a bit perplexed at her clinical language. He would have preferred "make love" or the more colloquial "fuck". But he told her to continue.
"I didn't lie to you when I said my name is Nebula. That is the best approximation for it using this cumbersome tongue. I did lie when I told you I was human."
"You didn't tell me you were human." Paul replied.
"Yes, but there is the tacit acknowledgment that we are both human."
"So you're not human?" Paul asked, somewhat disappointed.
"I'm afraid not, I am from the Chrrrox planet in the Ghraszenti Pesudo-cluster. It is a star that is much to far for it's light to reach the earth. You see, many years ago, all the men on out planet died. We found only three planets in the universe where we could adequately reproduce with their inhabitants. By the time we had reached the other two, they had killed each other off."
Paul, who was familiar with this trope, knew what was coming next.
"So we need you to help us repopulate our planet."
Visions of a non-stop interstellar fuckfest with comely aliens flashed through Paul's mind. He was abruptly stirred from these fantasies when Nebula handed him a small container.
"Please fill this with your semen. We will ensure you have a very prosperous new year."
"But...." Paul stammered.
"I'm sorry Paul, but we do not engage in intercourse to reproduce. We have advanced technology. Our genitals are vestigal."
Paul sighed, but obliged the alien by filling the container with his semen. The next day he found that seven million dollars had been deposited in his bank account. He also fucked the bank teller when she got off work. As he was doing so, he said:"Thank you Nebula".

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden, and WiL Whitlark of The Real McJesus. This week's theme: 'Prosperity'.

Breakfast Chat

2009-03-05T20:18:00.000-08:00

A la Chiltingham, this dialogue features 1 and 2

1: You know what you don't hear much about anymore, a land flowing with milk and honey. You hear about milk. I have milk on my cereal all the time--but not so much about honey.
2: I guess since sugar cane became a cash crop, originally thanks to the global disgrace of slave labor,it's been the preferred sweetener.
1: Oh.
2: Although, really it's all about the high-fructose corn syrup now.
1: Land flowing with milk and corn syrup. I'm going to put milk and corn syrup on my cereal.
2: Don't.
1: I'm going to.

2: How is it?
1: Eh.
2: Are you going to eat it?
1: I'm not going to throw out a perfectly good bowl of cereal flowing with milk and corn syrup. In this economy.
2: No.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden, and WiL Whitlark of The Real McJesus. This week's theme: 'Prosperity'.

A Sanctuary

2009-02-26T20:32:00.000-08:00

In New York City, there is a restaurant called Don Aniano's Pizza. If you go into the restaurant, and walk towards the back you will find a hallway. This hallway leads to the read exit, but also to the restrooms and kitchen. On the left side of the hallway there is a nondescript door. This door leads to a room, and room that is completely vacant save for a chair placed in the corner. The restaurant is not important to us, it is the room which we should speak about. It is a room that possesses a very interesting property. Namely, that god cannot see the actions that take place inside it. It is the proverbial blindspot in his omniscience.
That it is his blindspot is not a well known fact, in fact it had only been discovered by accident. One day Mario Claussen escorted Xavier McCartney into the the room where he promptly shot him in the head. After Mario's death, when he went before God, he was not judged for the sin of murder, only for the sin of thinking about murder. God had not seen the murder.

******

Somewhere else, in a church perhaps, two priests were conversing when one posited a hypothetical situation to the other.
"What if there where a place where god could not see into." The first said to the other.
"What do you mean?" Replied the second.
"A place that god could not see into, a place where your sins were not visible to him."
"I don't think that's possible. God is all knowing and all seeing." Said the second who was much more pious than the first.
"Just pretend for a moment."
"But how is such a place possible? How would it be constructed?"
"In some stories it's not the how that's important, but what happens that is more important."
"Perhaps."
"What would you do in such a place?" The first priest asked.
"I don't think I would do anything. Why would I need to? What would you do?"
"I would think about women and all the various things I could do to them.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden, and WiL Whitlark of The Real McJesus. This week's theme: 'Sanctuary'.

Historical Facts about Sanctuaries

2009-02-26T15:50:00.000-08:00

Did you know that historically a sanctuary was any religious space such as a church or monastery? And that the condemned who attained this space could plead sanctuary, and then they couldn’t be touched? They could live there years and years, and no one could touch them. In fact, the priests or monks or what have you would have to bring them food. And if any executioners came knocking, the priests would send him away, and they’d have to go. In fact, the executioners would have to go and fetch a lavish five course Last Dinner for the condemned because that was their job. And the condemned criminals would live night after night in the sanctuary enjoying fine food and wine and women. Yes, women too. Because the executioners would have to fetch the condemned men prostitutes. It was their Last Request. In fact, the executioners had to complete all Last Requests. They pursued vendettas. They tracked down buried treasure. They delivered single gold coins and tear-soaked handkerchiefs to long-suffering grayhaired mothers. Often fulfilling the Last Requests landed the executioners in hot water and then in the sanctuary themselves, living it up with the priests and the other condemned. In fact, 39 percent of those claiming sanctuary were former executioners. It got to the point where the local parishioners couldn’t attend religious services without tripping over a robber and prostitute enjoying a nice glass of wine. Sometimes the parishioners joined in. If anyone tried to stop them, they just had to plead sanctuary.

I hope that you have enjoyed this fact gift from history to you.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden, and WiL Whitlark of The Real McJesus. This week's theme: 'Sanctuary'.

Forests

2009-02-19T16:46:00.001-08:00

Abagail and Martin were walking through the forest. It was a lovely spring day; warm, but not so warm as to preclude the necessity of a jacket. Flowers were blooming, the sun was shining, birds were singing; and even the most jaded hipster, backlashing against things commonly accepted as pleasant, would have to admit that it was a beautiful day.
"I love the forest." Abagail said, spreading her arms wide, as if to embrace the entirety of it.
"What?" Martin asked, pretending he hadn't heard what she'd said.
"The forest. I love it. It's just so beautiful."
"That's what I thought you said!' Martin sneered.
"What's wrong? Don't you like the forest?"
"Yeah I like the forest." Martin replied, emphasizing the like. "But I wouldn't say that I love it."
'Why not?"
"Because I only love you." Martin replied, trying to be charming.
Abagail kissed him and laughed. "You know what I mean."
"No, I don't." Martin sneered back at her. "I don't know what you fucking mean."
"Don't be like this."
"How can I not be like this, when you reach into my chest with your cruel talons and tear out my fucking heart!" Martin threw himself onto the ground as he said this. Tearing out grass with his hands and throwing it in the air.
"I've done no such thing."
"Yes you have. I love you so much, but you, you have to throw all that away. And for what, some verdant shrubbery?" With that Martin stood up and walked away.
Abagail looked up at the sky and wondered if it was really worth it. To keep putting up with this insanity. At some point she would have to stop preserving his feelings and let him know. Perhaps today would be the day. She saw Martin trudging back up the hill and resolved to tell him as much, even if it meant she'd have to walk home. But before she could say anything she noticed the can of gasoline and the gun Martin was holding. He went to the nearest tree and shot it with the gun.
"This is what I think of the fucking forest you love so much." He then dumped the entire can of gasoline on the tree, lit a match, then threw it at the tree. Soon the entire forest was ablaze.
"There, now I've destroyed the one thing you love." Martin said before walking away. They never saw each other again, a thing Abagail was glad of.

Forests

2009-02-19T14:09:00.000-08:00

For Valentine’s Day, Marty wrote Abby a sonnet.

“Our breath is drawn together like the flames
of two candles, laid low in the same wind,
like forest shadows knit by dawn’s taming
slant-skied braid. I think this when the window
gives me sun enough to see you, veiled by hair
as softly fragrant as the moss that peeks
between the roots of two twinning trees. And there,
where your eyes meet the day, as sweet and quick
as every forest pool that tries to get,
for its quick life, a piece of blue inside
of it, I find a place to rest my eyes.
I set myself beside the curving hollow
carved by your neck and clavicle, against
you, nesting love safe as a forest bough.”

Abby said, “I’m glad to see that you love the forest so much.”
“That poem was about how much I love you,” said Marty.
“Oh yeah? Because it didn’t sound like that to me. So you compare me to a forest bough, do you?”
“Yeah.”
"Yeah, a whole shitload of similes. And a simile, as you know,” the bitterness that Abby conveyed in “as you know” is not to be conveyed by any simile ever like or as’d on heaven or earth, “such as ‘a man as strong as a lion’ commonly contains a quality ‘e.g. strong’ and two objects, one of which is compared to the other. Let’s call the two objects, the similee ‘e.g. a man’ and the similer, ‘e.g. a lion.’ Everyone knows that the similer is more qualitied than the similee.”
“Huh?”
“If you say my hair is as softly fragrant as moss that peeks between the roots of two twinning trees, you’re saying that moss is what’s really fragrant. Fucking moss! So I’m really fucking glad that you think moss is so fucking soft and fragrant. I thought you loved me.”
“I do,” protested Marty.
“So why do you think fucking moss is more fragrant than my hair?”
“I don’t! You’re wrong. The similer isn’t always more qualitied than the similee.”
“Oh, so you’d say, for example, that the bird took wing with the grace of an Obama.”
“Yes, I would.”
“Yeah, I bet you would."
“Fine, I’ll write you another poem,” said Marty.

“Two candles, laid low by the same wind,
come as close to meeting as our breath. Sometimes
when I’m in the forest for no reason, I see the roots
veiled by moss—it’s as softly fragrant as your hair. I observe
the forest pools, trying to get a piece of sky as blue as your eyes in them; the pools are
sweet and quick like your eyes when your eyes
happen to be open, so that works, I guess. A forest bough
holds a nest as safely as you hold love between your neck and clavicle.
I set myself against a tree, bark as bitchy as you.”

Abby said, “I fucking hate Valentine’s Day like cold death.”
Marty said, “I fucking hate cold death like Valentine’s Day.”

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden, and WiL Whitlark of The Real McJesus. This week's theme: 'Forests'.

Shuffle 4

2009-02-17T17:32:00.000-08:00

1. The Rolling Stones-Coming Down Again: Nice woozy sounding ballad from Goat's Head Soup, an underrated albeit flawed album. It sounds a bit like a leftover from Exile On Main Street. Keith Richards sings on this one, and he lacks the charisma and vocal talent of Mick Jagger, and his voice these tracks are often buried in the mix. It works on this song though. Allegedly the song is about Keith's relationship with his then girlfriend, though considering Keith Richards' reputation, it's not surprising to think of this a drug song.

2. Tom Waits-Bride of Rain Dog: Brief instrumental interlude from Rain Dogs. A nice jaunty tune with good sax. Doesn't really work outside of the album though.

3. Bob Dylan-I Shall Be Free No 10: Those who know me, know that I love Bob Dylan. He's a songwriter who works across the entire spectrum; from silly to sublime, heartbreaking to political and everything in between. A friend of mine says Bob Dylan is one of those guys who's stuff shouldn't work, but it does. This song is quite silly.

4. Leonard Cohen-Last Year's Man: I fucking love Leonard Cohen! This is a standout from Songs Of Love and Hate, one of my favorite albums. One can almost suffocate from all the despair in this song. Usually he displays a fair amount of black humor, but on this album, he just seemed really pissed, bitter and depressed. I dig the minimal instrumentation on this song. And, oh yes, great lyrics.

5. Radiohead-How to Disappear Completely: I like Radiohead, but i don't love them. I will say that Kid A is a brilliant album, full of interesting sounds, but I never feel like listening to it. In Rainbows is really good though. This is a pretty subtle song, one that can easily be relegated to background music. Love the squealing violins at the end.

6. Destroyer-Trembling Peacock: You'd think with a name like Destroyer there'd be some crazy rock and roll. Instead you get some Bowie influenced singer-songwriter shit. While that description might make one shy away. It isn't annoyingly introspective, rather clever and self-aware. I'm quite a fan of this band, though this song isn't that great.

7. Black Flag-Jealous Again: Another killer Black Flag from their first four years. Speedy, angry punk before they became annoyingly macho. Greg Ginn rips it with a killer solo as well.

8. Elliott Smith-Memory Lane: Solid song from the late, much adored Elliott Smith. I like this song, it's got a nice jaunty melody and pleasant lyrics that avoid being overly precious or maudlin. I've never thought that Elliott Smith was that great of a lyricist, but he crafts melodies that make up for it.

9. Led Zeppelin-What is and What Should Never Be: It's Led Zeppelin, so of course it rocks! Rocks hard! Interestingly this song kind of pre-dates the popular (especially in crappy late 90's grunge type stuff) songwriting technique of soft verses that explode into loud choruses. Love the call and response guitars at the end.

10.Big Boi w/Khujo Goodie-N2U: Big Boi has always been the most underrated part of OutKast. Andre3000 has the flashier personality and wrote Hey Ya, but Big Boi is an excellent (if occasionally mysoginistic) rapper with a great flow that wraps itself around the beat. This is one of the standouts from the Idlewild soundtrack, a funky and Prince-like song about fucking, though it must be said that with OutKast, the whole is greater than the parts.

Superstition

2009-02-12T16:42:00.000-08:00

Brown Bowl with Fruit sat on the dining room table, his ¹ customary spot. It was a Monday morning and the Morrison's were all a blur with activity. Mrs. Morrison² was packing up lunches for her children; Wyatt, 16 and Judith, 13. Mr. Morrison³ read the paper while drinking coffee. A piece of flapjack fell of his fork, and left a sticky mark upon the family patriarch's clean white shirt. Brown Bowl with Fruit laughed, inaudibly of course.This always happened on flapjack day.

Brown Bowl knew their routine by heart. Mr. Morrison would take the children to school, then return and clean up. She would change into something a bit more risque, often a skirt with a low cut blouse, of which she seemed to have an infinite supply of. Though the Bowl upon the table did not object, he thought Mrs. Morrison had nice legs. Then she would fuck her lover, loudly, in all rooms of the house. Once they even did it on the table, right next to Brown Bowl with Fruit, who could smell Mrs. Morrison's perfume.
Brown Bowl often wrestled with himself as to whether he should alert Mr. Morrison to his wife's dalliances.Ultimately though he felt that it was a family matter, and that it was not his place to interfere. Besides, he didn't have a mouth. And his contentious relationship with Mr. Morrison certainly didn't help matters.
Brown Bowl knew for a fact that Mr. Morrison himself would, upon arriving at work, promptly take a pull from the bottle of bourbon in his desk drawer. Over the course of day he would berate and engage in illicit liasons with various subourdinates⁴. Brown Bowl continued watching the morning routine play out before him. You see, Brown Bowl felt that any deviation from the routine was an ill portent of things to come. One morning months ago, Mr. Morrison had failed to drop the flapjack on his shirt, and Brown Bowl had spent the rest of the day with a thick fog of existential dread hanging over his head. Which really didn't suit him. He was, after all, a still life.
So it comforted him when, at 8:30, Wyatt ran upstairs and, like always, pounded on the bathroom door, imploring Judith (who was frantically extinguishing her cigarette and spraying air freshened while the door was being pounded) to "Hurry up Goddamnit". Then Mrs Morrison, on cue, yelled up the stairs: "Wyatt don't take the Lord's name in vain." Wyatt, who was coming to terms with his nascent atheism, would mutter under his breath; "Fuck god." Judith would exit and Wyatt would take her place in the bathroom, where he would take his customary pre-school⁵ wank⁶.
But this morning, this morning was different. For starters, Wyatt went to the bathroom first. It was Judith who was banging on the door. Mrs. Morrison declined to pack lunches, instead giving the children a per diam to be used on lunches. In fact, she would be leaving the house to spend the day on the beach with her lover. Finally Mr. Morrison neither drank coffee or read the paper. Brown Bowl with Fruit sighed with relief when Mr. Morrison dropped the flapjack on his pants; but deep down inside, he knew that the fibers of the day had been irreparably damaged. Oh how he wished he could go to sleep, and let the day pass over him like a harmless cloud. Sadly, Brown Bowl with Fruit was incapable of sleep, so he had to sit in the quiet house, waiting for the unspeakable horrors that he was sure would take place.

1. If gender pronouns are even applicable here. Though Brown Bowl with Fruit does self identify as male, being an inanimate object the point is moot.

2. Barbara to those that know her best, though Brown Bowl is quite polite and would only refer to her as such if explicitly given permission to.

3. Jack, who Brown Bowl, in his humble unsolicited opinion, felt was a bit of a boorish lout.

4. Brown Bowl's method for finding this is unkown.

5. If the reader is confused, this is referring to before going to school, not the school attended by small children.

6. Brown Bowl often pondered what the boy used to aid his onanism, but concluded that the boy must have a powerful imagination.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden, and WiL Whitlark of The Real McJesus. This week's theme: 'Superstition'.

Superstition

2009-02-12T16:31:00.000-08:00

Imagine that the world is an animal. Not the Earth, not the globe, but the world encountered—the black cat walking away from you; the birds circling overhead in twos and threes and fives; the itch that lands on your left nostril; the bird that flies into your car as you load the groceries and then trembles on the seat, its wings and heart fluttering like a moth; the spill of salt across the ground.
Imagine that all this is a small animal or even a cookie, bark-brittle and tasting of sugary glue, which you can open it and read what is inside. (You eat the flesh, the outer shell and muscle, as always, but the insides, you read.)
And what you read is the self you can encounter but never inhabit. Your mirror self. Your photo self. Your puddle self. Your footstep self. Your self within a marriage ring. Your self rising and falling on the waves of a distant sea. Your self in labor. Your name. Your shadow self, future and past, laid out like a compass rose. Your ghost self. Your dead self.
And what is remarkable is what you want to know about this self. You will cry on Wednesday and blush on Thursday. You will die first or last. You will kiss a fool.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden, and WiL Whitlark of The Real McJesus. This week's theme: 'Superstition'.

The Joke Zone

2009-02-11T18:06:00.000-08:00

Q, What did the senator say when he broke up with the other senator

A. I need some cloture.

Q. What did the terrorist say to the actor who portrayed him in the movie.

A. That was an extraordinary rendition.

Shuffle 3

2009-02-10T20:10:00.000-08:00

1. The Stooges-I Want To Be Your Dog: A classic! A fucking classic! A great riff that serves as a template for punk rock past preset and future. It's become a punk rock standard with many covers, but the original is the standout, due in no small part to Iggy's intense vocal performance and an awesome solo by the recently deceased Ron Asheton

2. Radio Birdman-Murder City Nights: Australia's first punk band with a killer rocker here. I love the vaguely tropical introductions. (in an interesting note, the Radio Birdman took their name from an oft misheard Stooges lyric.) Another good guitar solo. It should be noted that punk's lack of guitar solos can be traced directly to the Ramones, and the style perpetrated by them. Most other bands around that time had solos, though of varying quality.

3. Curtis Mayfield-Freddie's Dead:Great funk from the Superfly soundtrack (good movie, better soundtrack). Curtis Mayfield is one hell of an arranger, stacking strings, horns, guitars atop a killer baseline to make a great song.

4.Guided By Voices-Hardcore UFO's: In one of my other shuffles I discussed bad GbV songs. This is one of the good ones. Off Bee Thousand, which some people consider a landmark album, it's a much more fleshed out song with a reel hook.

5. Van Morrison-I Will Be There: I like Van Morrison, but I haven't really listened to him enough to absorb him into my consciousness the way I have with other artists. So I can't really say more than, this is a good song with a good vocal performance and a cool saxophone solo. Van's kind of going for a lounge singer/Frank Sinatra kind of vibe here.

6.Van Morrison-Jackie Wilson Said (I'm In Heaven When You Smile): Weird, not only two Van songs back to back, but off the same album (St. Dominic's Preview) no less. I like this one better than the last, but both are good. This is a more R&B, uptempo style than the last.

7.Black Flag-Clocked In: When in comes to Black Flag, I prefer the First Four Years material with Keith Morris better. I guess I prefer his style to Henry Rollin's macho posturing. Great quick hardcore song about hating work, with excellent guitar work by Gregg Ginn.

8. Cleveland Bound Death Sentence-Drain; Short song by Cleveland Bound Death Sentence a punk group featuring one of the guys from Dillinger 4 and Aaron Cometbus of a lot of bands and his venerable zine. Pretty catchy song that's over before it can get boring.

9. Manhattans-The Feeling is Mutual: The Numero Group's Eccentric Soul comps are great collections of soul songs from obscure, defunct never-successful labels across the U.S. This is from the Big Mack label. Kind of derivative and amateurish, but that gives it a certain charm.

10.Isaac Hayes-I Stand Accused:Issac Hayes pioneered the epic length soul song. This begins with a monologue delivered over a steady chord progression, but this gets monotonous after about four minutes. Then he starts singing, and it gets good. Female backup singers come in, horns blare, strings swell. If you can make it through the monologue then it's an enjo

Disfigurement

2009-02-05T17:17:00.000-08:00

It seems to me likely that a folktale exists in which a pair of twins falls in love with the same woman. Or perhaps only one of the pair falls in love with her, but he can’t believe that everyone hasn’t fallen in love with her, least of all his brother. And it seems to me that the brother who wins the woman’s hand in marriage would demand from his brother a promise that he will not take advantage of their identical features to trick the woman into bed. At first the man would accept his brother’s word as assurance enough, but soon enough his jealousy would grow. They have the same face; he can’t trust him. He would demand that his brother scar his face to remove all doubt from his mind. Brothers in folktales, as sometimes in families, do remarkable things for each other, but I doubt that any man who scar himself so easily. I think that he would demand the right to sleep with his brother’s wife just once before he erases his brother’s face from his own. And does this mean that his brother was right and he wanted to sleep with her all along? Is this why he accepts the scar as his due? He will sleep with his brother’s wife, and his wife will know him even though he is not yet scarred, but she will sleep with him because her husband didn’t trust her. The brothers must fight in the end, and I think the first brother will lose. One will be scarred or both. Some will tell it one way, and some another.

Or perhaps—and this rings perhaps more true for those who do not accept the time- compressing properties of guilt—a brother discovers his twin sleeping with his wife. The lover swears that he tricked the woman; she believed he was her true husband. The man demands that his unfaithful brother scar his face to erase all such misunderstandings in the future. This will be his revenge. The guilty brother balks, but in the end agrees. When the man once again discovers the lovers together, he will know that the only misunderstanding was that he believed his wife ever loved him and not his brother. And this is his brother’s revenge.

Or perhaps the story is about the woman, and her husband has been killed in battle. She has washed out his wounds, the fist-size hole in his chest and the face-wide scar like a second pair of lips. While her husband’s cleaned and perfumed body cracks like popcorn in the fire, his parents comfort the woman, telling her that her husband’s brother will come to marry her before spring. She will vow that she will never love the brother like she loved her husband, who she watches jealously, bleeding greasy tears inside the fire. The brother will arrive on a long winter night, and by firelight, the woman will see that he is exactly like her husband. At first she will hate him and curse him because he looks exactly like her husband. But she will quickly come to love him. This could happen in one night by the light of one fire, or it could require more. Every day, the brother will huddle all day inside blankets, as if the sun is cold to him, coughing in the smoke because his chest is weak. As the days lengthen, the woman will see a scar spreading across his face. She will be pregnant by then, and it will seem to her that her husband has always been his brother and always been scarred.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, and William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden. This week's theme: 'Disfigurement'.

A Day in the Life of Brickface

2009-02-05T16:52:00.000-08:00

Brickface, so called because in his younger days he had been accosted in the face by a brick, the brick leaving it's rectangular indentation on his face; left the bakery in a bit of a hurry. He had forgotten his wallet, you see, and needed to return to his office to retrieve it. Brickface was employed as a private investigator. As he rushed out, he caught sight of himself in the window, and thought to himself: "What a dashing fellow, in spite of that indentation"
At his office; he noticed, through the glass on the door, two men inside.
"Ah, excellent!" He exclaimed, shameless of his talking aloud. "Customers!"
He opened the door and saw, to his surprise that there were three men, one of whom was sitting in his chair behind his desk. Brickface was a bit miffed that the man would infringe on what he saw as his sovereign territory, and asked the man as much.
"Bumby don't like you asking questions." One of the men standing next to the desk said.
"And I don't much appreciate him sitting behind my desk." Brickface replied.
"Oh a wise guy." The man replied.
"While I do consider myself quite wise, I do not think myself exempt from the follies of humanity."
The two men began to roll up their sleeves, symbolic of a desire to engage in fisticuffs, when Bumby halted them with a gesture.
"I've got a job for you." He drawled.
"Very good sir, how may I be of assistance to you?"
"My daughter's dissapeared, I need you to find her."

****

After obtaining all available information from Bumby, and negotiating a payment that both parties felt appropriate, Brickface returned to the bakery. On the way he mused about fate, and its unpredictability. After all, had he remembered his wallet and not needed to go running back to his office, then Bumby and his boys would have gotten tired of waiting and left, procuring the services of another P.I. It's not as though Brickface was hurting for work, he just felt that this case would offer a little more in the way of adventure.
As he entered the bakery, noting the fresh scent of cinnemon rolls, which he hoped to soon consume, he took instant interest in the only other customer in the small store. "What luck!" He thought, restraining himself from letting a hearty "Huzzah!" erupt from his mouth. He checked the picture Bumby had given him to make doubly sure. It was her! Brickface practically skiped over to her.
"Excuse me miss, I was wondering if I might ask you a question?" He asked politely
She turned around and was speechless, trying as one would not to stare.
Brickface was used to this, and gently explained to her: "Ah yes, my countenance is somewhat shocking. But I mean you no harm, I was simply hit in the face with a brick as a youngster."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be rude." She said, somewhat taken back. "Does it hurt."
"Not anymore. I daresay that many days I forget it's even there! Now then, let's get down to brass tacks. Is your father Bumby?"
"Yes" She replied.
"Oh, jolly good. He's employed me to find you."
"Cool." She replied.
They left the store, Brickface forgetting what he had originally intending to go there for. Though it must be added that in all the excitement he had still forgotten his wallet.
As they left the store, a car screetched around the corner. Seeing Brickface and Bumby's daughter, the opened fire with submachine guns. Brickface tried to save her by pushing her into an alcove, but there was nothing he could do, she had taken too many bullets. Brickface had two in his shoulder, but she was dying. As he tried to pick her up and take her somewhere where a miracle could take place, the men left the car and knocked Brickface down. They kicked him in his side and his head. They stopped and exchanged high fives, then departed.
After he was sure that they were gone, Brickface picked himself up. He looked down and noticed his reflection in a puddle. His hair was disheveled, his scar more pronounced. And for the first time in as long as he could remember, he felt the phantom pain of that brick, thrown at his head so many years ago.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, and William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden. This week's theme: 'Disfigurement'.

Excellence in jpegs

2009-02-04T17:59:00.000-08:00

Shuffle 2

2009-02-03T17:35:00.000-08:00

1. Thin Lizzy-Get Out of Here: Thin Lizzy is a great band. Phil Lynott is a great songwriter. Great melodies, and driving rock, what more could you ask for. I really dig the call and response style in the verses. And as always, the guitar solos are great.

2. Sleater-Kinney-Sympathy: Sleater-Kinney is one of the great female rock bands, though I'm not a huge fan of this song, or the album it's from (One Beat, which is a bit of a transition toward what would be their greatest, the awesome rock force that is The Woods). Though I must say, on this listening I'm enjoying it more. How much you like Sleater Kinney depends on how you feel about Corin Tucker's voice, which I enjoy greatly. Janet Weiss' spectacular drumming must also be mentioned.

3.Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band-Midnight Rider: Pretty cool song from one of his earlier albums (before Night Moves made him a big star). I like the use of female backup singers. Cool, relaxed r&b vibe to it.

4. Crimpshrine-Rearranged: Sloppy punk from the early 90's late 80's. Short and catchy. Positive lyrics. I'm not a huge fan of Crimpshrine, but this is one of their best songs. One of the singers has the kind of affected nasal voice that makes on think of Blink 182, which I'm not too keen on. I much prefer the singer who sounds worse that him.

5. Bruce Springsteen-Hungry Heart: Classic song from the Boss, who I must add, is fucking great. I guess this was originally written for the Ramones, but Bruce decided to keep it. He doesn't really sound like himself on it, but it's a nice catchy song, sees him moving away from the longer songs of his first several records towards more concise, traditional songwriting, but not suffering for it.

6. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists-Heart Problems:iPod has a heart theme going. I like Ted Leo, and this is from my favorite album of his, though it's one of the weaker tracks. Punk?Indie?rock indebted to people like Elvis Costello and the Jam.

7. The Nash Ensemble (Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time)-VII. Fouillis Darcs-En Ciel: One of my goals this year is to learn/appreciate/listen to more classical music. I recently finish Alex Ross' excellent book "The Rest is Noise", which gives a detailed history of 20th century classical music, including this piece, which was written in a Nazi prison camp. I wish I had the vocabulary to fully discuss this piece, but it is quite lovely.

8. Be Easy-Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings: Modern funk/soul/r&b that adheres to the same songwriting tropes as many of the classic Motown et al. bands. Instead of sounding like a modern novelty act, it works successfully, in no part to Sharon Jones' strong vocal performance.

9.Noise Noise Noise-The Damned: The Damned are a classic first wave punk band, one of my favorites. This is from their second album, after they'd broken up and reformed with a slightly different line-up. Dave Vanian is a great punk vocalist. This song shows an evolution from their (and punk in general) earlier simplicity, and has some interesting back up sound effects as well as a pretty killer guitar solo.

10. Untitled-The Cure: The Cure (along with The Smiths and Minor Threat) are bands I can appreciate, even like, but not having gotten into them at the right time, I can't fully love them. Not having older siblings, I never was subjected to The Cures particular band of moping. That said, I think Disintegration is a great album, just not one I reach for very often. As for this song, it's alright. It kind of meanders on a pleasant synth melody for a while, while Robert Smith sings his lament, then it fades out.

P.S: This is my 100th blog post.

Coordinated Ventriloquism

2009-01-29T18:19:00.000-08:00

At the end of a long boozy tirade about nothing in particular, Tasha said, “We should have a séance!” and everyone said, “We should.” Merrill didn’t say anything, not because he objected to séances but because he wasn’t the kind of person who said the things that everyone said. Tasha said, “Merrill! Don’t you want to have a séance?” And Merrill shrugged and said, “Sure.” And Tasha said, “You’ll host it, won’t you?” And Merrill shrugged, and blushed, and said, “Sure.”

They settled on next Saturday.

Merrill hadn’t hosted many parties, let alone a séance, and he wanted everyone to have a good time. He bought a Ouiji board at the local toy store (pausing over, but eventually passing up, the Hannah Montana special edition. He knew that the séance was a joke, but not the same kind as a blonde-wigged teenager—could it be?).

He exhumed his table from junk mail and old pizza boxes and set up the board. He planned where the snacks would go. He thought about the questions Tasha would ask and the other guys and the other girls and how he couldn’t guess what Tasha would ask or begin to guess. He practiced rapping once for yes and twice for no. Then he practiced rapping twice for yes and once for no.

In the wandering half-asleep waking of that Saturday morning, Merrill saw (or rather heard-and-saw as in a vision) the perfect final touch: a ghostly voice rising from the table, seeming to emanate from the wood somewhere between the Ouiji board and a splash of carelessly dripped salsa. So on the way back from getting snacks, he stopped by the bookstore and picked up Ventriloquism for Dummies.

Once home, Merrill thumbed through the book, not under the misapprehension that he could master ventriloquism in a day, but hoping to acquire a sufficient smattering for a half-assed, laughing attempt, which would be perfect in its own way. For this séance. Which was a laughing, half-assed thing.

He hadn’t read far when he realized the book was actually Ventriloquism for Dummies. It said that the world was full of ventriloquists, mouths tight shut, casting out their voices like fishing lines. To the dummy, fell the delicate art of hooking a line. The book instructed Merrill to feel the line hook his lips like a thought. It warned that the mistake most dummies make is not moving their mouths. A dummy should move his mouth but not his lips. His lips should resemble carved wood or a hard and shiny slab of lipstick.

The book said that the first ventriloquists were ghosts, and the first dummies were shamans. The Sumerians conducted fertility rites in which the priestess was the dummy and the ventriloquist was god, and everyone's orgasms were in everyone else’s mouths. The Egyptians took up ventriloquism next and called it mummification. The word dummy actually came from mummy.

A mummy is waiting to become a dummy for the ventriloquist of itself.

The book said that modern religions teach that everyone lives forever, but most scientists now believe that only certain professions can. The embalmers, the zorasters (the pronunciation guide indicated this rhymed with “choristers”), the electricians, the toll-takers, the zorasters (the pronunciation guide indicated this rhymed with “pastors”), the dummy/ventriloquists.

Merrill had just wanted to know how to make a voice rise out of the table, making everyone gasp like a laughing sigh and say, “This is a good party. We’re having such a good time”

Someone knocked at the door. “Come in,” Merrill called. They knocked again. Rap twice for no. Merrill opened the door, and Gary said, “Am I the first here?” Merrill said, “Yes,” but then Tasha arrived and then everyone else.

They said, “Wow,” when they saw the Ouiji board. They said, “You really went all out.” Merrill said, “There was a Hannah Montana one too, but I stuck with the classic.” Tasha said, “Oh wow,” and everyone laughed. “I stuck with the classic,” Merrill repeated.

They asked the Ouiji board more political questions than Merrill had expected and more about who would win what Oscars. He had envisioned this séance remaining in the realm of the personal. When they had enough pushing the wedge around, they turned out the lights and wiggled the table. For one moment, the table seemed to hover, while everyone’s knees knocked against their neighbors’, and Merrill almost heard a voice being squeezed out of the table, and it almost felt like it belonged to him.

When they had enough of that, they turned on the lights and talked and ate to the end of the party, their mouths in constant chewing motion like fish.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, and William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden. This week's theme: 'Ventriloquism'.

Ventriloclysm

2009-01-29T17:16:00.000-08:00

The Ventriloclysm took place on July 16, 1979; in Ljubljana, Slovenia. It was a mass protest against the corrupt communist government, which was itself a virtual puppet of the Soviet Union. It was the poet Milan Sljuc's, idea to protest using ventriloquist's dummies. He felt that the ventriloquist dummy was the perfect symbol for the Slovenien government, which was obviously under the thrall of the Soviet Union; while not a part of it, clearly the Slovenian government spoke not with its own voice, but with the voice of the Kremlin cast through it. And while one could not see Brezhnev speaking, everyone knew that it was his voice they were hearing, no matter who's mouth was moving as the words came out.
In the late afternoon, 25,000 Slovenians; many of whom were students, gathered in the city's central square. The lifted up their dummies and began to shout slogans and sing songs. Soon soldiers arrived to quash the protest, but their mere arrival did not halt the protest. Instead it caused the singing and chanting to intensify. The students waved their puppets, many of which were made in likenesses of various soviet officials, and gestured ludely with them. The military, under the command of Sergeij Pahor, began to fire into the crowd. By the time they ceased fire, 8,000 protesters were injured and 4,000 were killed; among them Milan Sljuc, who went on to become a folk hero. The 1999 Rage Against the Machine song Dummies in a Square is about the massacre.
Today, July 16th is a national holiday and day of remembrance. People gather in Ljubljana's central square with ventriloquist dummies to pay tribute to those who stood up against the communist government.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Eli Z. McCormick and Miriam Allred of Modern Revelation!, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, Sven Patrick Svensson of Sadness? Euphoria?, and William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden. This week's theme: 'Ventriloquism'.

Shuffle

2009-01-27T18:28:00.000-08:00

I'm going to attempt a weekly feature wherein I put my iPod on shuffle and write about the first ten songs that come up. Commentary will, of course, vary depending on the song and how much I have to say about it.

1. The Raspberries-I'm a Rocker: I like this song. It embraces the the idoicy of it's lyrical conceit, and the idiocy of rock and roll. It's very unselfconscious about being a rocker. In fact it does rock. I guess that you can't mention the Raspberries without mentioning powerpop, but this certainly lives up to its title and sounds a little like a less virtuosic Boston song or some other similar 70s rock song.

2. The GZA-Duel of the Iron Mic: The GZA is the most methodical of all the Wu-Tang Clan MCs, his rhymes seem effortless, each one carefully constructed. Great guest spots from Masta Killa and Inspectah Deck make this a treat for those who enjoy excellent rapping. Though it must be said, it's mostly a vessel for said excellent rapping, and is not much of a song and doesn't offer much besides good rapping; which, with some exceptions is probably the GZAs biggest fault.

3. Jay-Z-Intro:The introduction to American Gangster, his 2007 album that was a pseudo-soundtrack to the film of the same name. As an album intro, this is fine, setting the mood and establishing the themes by using dialogue clips from the film (which I have not seen). As a stand alone track it's not worth listening to.

4. Dead Kennedys-Funland at the Beach:I like the Dead Kennedy's, but this is one of their weaker tracks. Punk's brevity is its virtue, but can some times be a hindrance as this song doesn't offer much besides Jello Biafra's always interesting warblings and an excuse for slam dancing. Knowing the Dead Kennedy's there's some satire in there.

5. Charles Mingus-Freedom: Ah, Mingus, perhaps my favorite Jazz performer/composer. This song starts of with a spoken word recitation that becomes a gospel song lamenting the lack of freedom, then changes into a bouyant jazzy instrumental passage, before returning to the gospel song. Impeccably crafted.

6. The Ramones-Questioningly: Exhibit 1B (1A would be Needles and Pins) that I use when people say that all Ramones songs sound the same. This shows the evolution in their songwriting, while still being unquestionably (ha!) a Ramones song. It's a vaguely countrish ballad (dig that lead part) that ranks as one of their best slow songs.

7. Steppenwolf-Tighten up Your Wig-Fun bluesy number with some killer organ and harmonica. Sounds off the cuff and improvised

8. The Stooges-Raw Power-Fuck yes! This album is the very definition of rock and roll debauchery. The sheer loudness and sleeziness are the quintessence of rock and roll excess. A stand out track with a killer riff.

9. Guided By Voices-Always Crush Me: I like Guided By Voices, but with the caveat that for every good song, they have two that kind of suck. This is the latter. When I say kind of suck, I mean that you can hear glimpses of the quality song that it could be, but, like this one there's just not enough. It's half a song. An acoustic guitar and voice, there's hints of a melody but it's underdeveloped.

10.Van Morrison-Comfort You: Great song. I've only recently gotten into Van Morrison, and kinda regret not listening to more of him. This is from Veedon Fleece, an album that seems kind of underrated when compared to the rest of his albums. This is a vaguely R&B/Soul influenced ballad with a great vocal performance by Van. It might be a little maudlin, but the strength of R&B and Soul is the singers ability to sell it (which I suppose is why it's called Soul), and Van really sells it here.

Eifen Deifeiffen

2009-01-22T16:49:00.000-08:00

Eifen Deifeiffen looked out upon the world he had made, and the creations he had breathed life into. He found the sky wanting for lack of beauty, the mountains wanting for lack of grandeur, and the meadows wanting for lack of tranquility. Disgusted and ashamed with his work; he crumpled the manuscript he held, on which he had carefully drafted out the whole of this existence, and devoured it. Thus ended that existence.

Eifen Deifeiffen began anew, writing of another world in his monstrous ledger. That world is ours. And one day, he will shovel into his maw the very manuscript on which our lives have been etched into.

*******
Today, certain sects have taken it upon themselves to stave off this apocalypse with flattery. Their sermons, if you can call them that, consist of overly generous literary critiques. The belief is that Eifen Deifeiffen himself will overhear and deem everything acceptable. Or at least refrain from eating his work. Calling themselves The Acolytes of Deifeiffen they can often be found on corners, spreading their word and the words of others. You see, they believe the Bible, Quran and other holy works, to be books within the book as it were, also authored by Eifen Deifeiffen. During the 60's the Acolytes attracted a large following, owing mainly to their inclusive atmosphere. Since then, membership has tapered off.

This has prompted the creation of a splinter sect, who see the reduced membership as a sign that no only have they failed, but that Eifen Deifeiffen stands ready to tear it apart with his teeth. This splinter sect, dubbed the Acolytes of Eifen Deifeiffen for the Reformation, believe that the world is doomed, and only through good and outstanding works they will be remembered and saved. They will be written of once again when Eifen Deifeiffen resumes his fruitless efforts.

Though they may be saved once, there will come a time when they too are consumed.The cycle will continue. Forever.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, and William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden. This week's theme: Eifen Deifeiffen.

The History of the Vice Cats

2009-01-15T19:28:00.000-08:00

In 1986 Aldous Worthington, an evangelical entrepreneur with a penchant for moralizing¹, grew disgusted with the debauchery he saw around him. Combining forces with J. Marsh Jones², a high ranking member of the Department of Justice, he sought to do something about the filth and depravity that he saw his beloved America descending into. Using top secret technology, they created a crack team of anthropomorphized cats to combat the whores, the pimps, the drug dealers, the junkies, the pornographers, the socialists, the fornicators and all other servants of Satan³. Thus the Vice Cats were born.
They consisted of Drake⁴, the noble leader who embodied all the principles of America⁵. Meowmir⁶, the fiercest of the Vice Cats, and also the brooding loner of the group. Kewpie⁷, the token female. Maynard⁸, the comic relief and Brizz⁹ the whizz¹⁰ kitten. Their adventures where documented in an immensely popular Saturday morning cartoon show. Some parents felt that the show was shallow and overly moralizing¹¹, though a petition to take the show off the air proved unsuccessful. Through it's three and a half seasons the Vice Cats battled all manner of foes, ranging from the nefarious Pimp Bitchbreaker¹², the homosexual ninja clan Rooster¹³, and Senator Patrick Leahy¹⁴. Mid-way through 1989, in an effort to balance the budget and cut unnecessary government expenditures, the Vice Cats program was dissolved. The cartoon show was then subsequently canceled.
The Vice Cats attempted to press on independent of the government, working as private investigators in Rhode Island. They found it harder without government funding¹⁵ and soon permanently disbanded, each one going their separate ways. In 2004 the remaining Vice Cats reunited on VH1's I Heart the 80's Super Redux Explosion¹⁶. While no acrimony remained between them, the declined VH1's offer to star in their own reality show, instead opting to return to the lives they had each managed to create for themselves. Though some regard the Vice Cats as a symbol of oppressive Christian moralizing, may children remember them fondly.

1. Ironically, Worthington was arrested in 1997 for soliciting from an undercover male cop. He reportedly requested that the officer pull the wad of dollar bills that were to be used as payment from Mr. Worthington's buttock, among other lude acts.

2. Whose appellate court nomination was contested on the basis of him being a horrible person, though an admittedly good father and passionate lover.

3. Homosexuals

4. After the Vice Cats disbanded, Drake attempted to join the military, but was denied because he wasn't old enough (though the government technology accelerated their aging, his birth certificate still said he was only 5). He joined the police force in Providence, RI and is currently a lieutenant.

5. Truth, liberty and small government.

6. Unbeknownst to the Vice Cats and all involved, Meowmir suffered from crippling depression. In 1992 he took his own life.

7. After unsuccessful attempts to launch a modeling or singing career, Kewpie became a prostitute. She currently earns six figures as a call girl for customers with unusual fetishes (specifically Furries)

8.Maynard has enjoyed bit of a renaissance of late, appearing in guest roles and cameos in several movies. In 1999, he was cast as Dexter in Quintin Tarentino's Double Death, a role that garnered him much acclaim (including a Golden Globe nomination). He continues to act to this day.

9.Brizz went to MIT and graduated top of his class, he is currently working on alternative energy research.

10. In a puntacularly lame recurring joke, Brizz wet himself once every episode.

11. Some feel that the show was so over the top with its moralizing that it had to be satire.

12. Pimp Bitchbreaker had a 1996 hit single with his song "Run Dem Hoes". He was later implicated in the murder of Tupac Shakur, but was never formally charged.

13. The clan was actually called The Cock, but the name was changed to appease the network censors.

14. D-Vermont

15. And high-tech jets

16. Featuring Carrot Top and a thoroughly bizzare commentary on New Order.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, and William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden. This week's theme: 'Vice'.

Exerpt from a Novel

2009-01-14T19:40:00.000-08:00

“We are all eunuchs!” He said. His voice at once prideful and dangerous, but also tinged with melancholy.

Exodus

2009-01-08T18:19:00.000-08:00

Maxwell the fish sat¹ on the bottom, looking up at the top of the water, which to him seemed the graceless lid of some infinite jar that concealed from him the rest of the world. He didn't know what was outside, or if anything was outside at all, but that was a risk with consequences he was fully willing to accept. He didn't dare tell anyone for fear of being mocked². On days when he was feeling reckless, he would swim as close to the surface as possible almost grazing it with his fins. When he was feeling melancholy, he would sit listlessly on the bottom, looking up. Today he was reckless. Today he had woken up with purpose³. Today was the day he was going to change everything⁴!
He swam upwards. Closer and closer to the glassy surface, speeding up as he went, for if he didn't he knew that he never would break through the barrier. Eventually he did, coming to the surface. It was beyond his comprehension; the vast, untapped potential of everything that lay before him. There was a beach with palm trees swaying in the breeze⁵. He swam toward it, his tiny fish heart swelling with the majesty of this new world he had uncovered. He briefly considered going back and trying to convince others to come with him. But he knew they wouldn't, so he swam toward the beach, his excitement with the untapped potential that lay before him surpassing his sadness of abandoning his friends and family.
He set his fin on the beach, feeling the the fin grains of sand on his scales⁶. Maxwell looked back at the sea, "Soon they'll come" he though to himself.

1. Or rather swam in a static manner, as fish don't really have the necessary equipment to sit in the way we understand it. Semantics aside, Maxwell's manner of swimming as such, roughly corresponds to sitting.
2. Either for his foolishness in daring to leave the water, or for his hubris is thinking that he was special and "on to something".
3. http://www.livescience.com/mysteries/071016-llm-fish-sleep.html
4. Talk about hubris!
5. Concepts of "beach" and "trees" are foreign to Maxwell, but with you and I being familiar with them, I will use them for the sake of simplicity.
6. It is the reader's whim to decide if Maxwell is a species of fish that can survive out of water, an amphibian who doesn't know it, or something else.

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This post is an installment in a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Enoch Allred of Chiltingham, John Allred of clol Town, Jon Fairbanks of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, John D. Moore of Whatnot Studios, Joseph Schlegel of Sour Mayonnaise, and William C. Stewart of Chide, Chode, Chidden. This week's theme: 'Exodus'.

Hilarious Joke, as Found on a Laffy Taffy Wrapper V

2009-01-07T21:17:00.000-08:00

A Jerk and his caddy walk into a bar.

"How could you do that to me? You really fucked me back there. I know I should've used the pitching wedge." The Jerk says.

"Sorry man, I made a judgement call." The caddy replies

The men order beers. The bartender places them on coasters.

"I can't believe I even asked you for advice." The jerk say, drinking his beer.

"That's the thing with advice, you don't have to take it."

"Yeah man, but I need your advice, that's why I bring you. You can't just fuck me over that like."

"Look it was a mistake." Said the caddy as he finished his beer. The bartender took their empty glasses away. The jerk and the caddy knew that their friendship had been changed, in some way neither of them could fully articulate. They sat in the bar, melancholy overtaking them as they looked at the rings of condensation left on the coasters.

Chinese Democracy

2009-01-03T11:03:00.000-08:00

During the summers of my youth, my mother had the habit of playing music incredibly loudly to rouse us out of bed. It met with varying degrees of success. But the morning she played "Welcome to the Jungle" was an epochal moment. It was (at the time) the most rocking thing I'd ever heard¹. Loud, decadent and intense. It was perhaps the finest example of rock and roll that I had heard. And Appetite for Destruction remains high in my esteem to this day.
Now, after 17 years, Guns and Roses² have finally released the much anticipated Chinese Democracy, a record that bears more resemblance to the Use Your Illusion records that came out in 1991³. It is lengthy, overwrought and lacks the lean, punchy songwriting of Appetite⁴. This isn't to say that it is a bad album. The first three songs in particular are excellent hard rock, with Better being the standout. Sadly the record descends into a tedium of lackluster ballads. Chinese Democracy lacks the swagger⁵ of the best of Guns and Roses songs, choosing instead to focus on hamfisted introspection.
But perhaps the biggest detriment is the fact that Chinese Democracy must not only live up to an album that has bloated into legendary status⁶, but the fact that Chinese Democracy itself has attained a kind of legendary stature for not existing and being frequently delayed. The album we have today can't possibly live up to its long gestating expectations. This creates an interesting contradiction, the artist can't match the expectations for his previous work and can't match the expectations for something that doesn't yet exist. The completion of the long delayed project then becomes bittersweet; no matter how good it may be, it can never equal it's imagined greatness.

1. Ironically, the record was soon banned in our house owing to my mother's disapproval of the record's lyrical content
2. As presently constituted by Axl Rose and whomever he finds to play with.
3. I have not heard these records in their entirety, though this is not an attempt to form a hierarchy.
4. This is probably attributable to the fact that Axl Rose is the principal songwriter and creative force. Whereas the old Guns and Roses was a band in the truest sense, today's is one in name only.
5. This can be said of a lot of contemporary rock music (I don't particularly mean this in a pejorative "all new music sucks", rather as an observation). In fact this may be why Fall Out Boy is successful.
6. The frequently aforementioned Appetite for Destruction.

Putin's Eggs

2009-01-02T19:37:00.000-08:00

Vladimir Valdimirovich Putin sat at the breakfast table, reading the morning paper. He was particularly perplexed by that morning's Blondie, which he found incomprehensible. Were he Mr. Dithers, he would have had Bumstead executed long ago. Observing his butler, Grigory, enter the room, Vladimir folded up his newspaper.
"Good morning Vladimir Valdimirovich, I trust you slept well?" Grigory asked.
"Very well Grigory Ivanivich." he replied
"Is there anything of note in the paper?"
"Bumstead continues to be insufferable."
"It is his way, sir. What would you like for breakfast this morning?"
"I think I would like eggs this morning."
"Very well, how would you like them prepared?"
"Over easy."
Putin looked out the window and contemplated failure. Moments later, Grigory returned bearing a plate on which two eggs had been placed on a bed of green lettuce, for this was Putin's preferred way of eating them. He placed the plate in front of Putin, the translucent yolks reflecting the pale sunlight. But the yolks did not move. Tentatively, Putin bumped the table with his leg, hoping to elicit some movement from the yolk, some assurance that the delicate balance of the universe had not been destroyed. The eggs did not move. Putin gazed at them, a deep melancholy welling in the pit of his soul. He felt as though the eggs were a great cosmic eye reflecting back at him some greater truth that he could not comprehend.
"I know sir, it disturbed me as well." Said Grigory.
Vladimir shot him a perplexed look.
"The eggs, sir. Their stillness."
Both men continued looking at the eggs, lost in their own ponderings. They would have remained that way for hours had Putin not grabbed them and eaten them, the yolks dripping down his chin and through his fingers.

Hoiliday Haitus

2008-12-18T20:05:00.000-08:00

Modern Revelation (a blog which harbors no illusions of being one that regularly updates), will be on hiatus till the beginning of the new year.

Happy holidays!

Hilarious Joke, as found on a Laffy Taffy Wrapper IV

2008-11-19T20:14:00.000-08:00

Q: What is the name of the 20th-century school of design, the aesthetic of which was influenced by and derived from techniques and materials employed especially in industrial fabrication and manufacture and was pioneered by cats?

A: Meowhaus

The Time I Tried Magic

2008-11-18T17:55:00.000-08:00

I don't quite remember if it was five or ten years ago, only that I had somehow gotten it into my head that I could dabble in the dark arts. I had seen some television program that revealed the simple sleight of hand behind the classic "coin from the ear" trick that has delighted children for centuries.

Thinking that I could do this, I attempted to at some family gathering, in order to entertain some young cousins. As I fumbled with the coin in my hand, attempting to hide it from view, I knew that I would fail. That the trick would not succeed. That the ruse had been revealed before it began. Still I went on with the sad ordeal, half-heartedly pretending to pull the coin from behind the ear.

And that is the time i tried magic.

2008-11-12T18:50:00.000-08:00

Outside the shop, the mannequin adorned with a designer swimsuit, its hat at a jaunty angle, stood as the herald for the haute couture that lay inside. But the signs outside, each bearing the iconic circle with the slash through the middle, signifying itself as a rune of denial, bore witness to the trials one must endure in the quest for proper littoral attire. Ice cream was not allowed, nor was pie or chips or roast beef. Even water was denied the curious shopper. But these signs were meant not as a cruel denial on the part of the shop owners. Rather, they were meant as a helpful, friendly warning.

Cathy stood in front of the mirror. She braced herself for the worst, imagining her the way her body looked in her new bathing suit. Her mind’s eye was filled with the image of her gut protruding, spilling out the sides of her suit. Her corpulent form stretching the suit in unnatural ways. Her rotund, grotesque body distorting what was once intended as a flattering garment. She imagined the suit’s designer standing next to her, recoiling in shame, or worse; disgust. Slowly she opened her eyes, looking at herself in the mirror, turning her body to inspect it from all possible angles. She was satisfied.

“Ta-da” She said, once more admiring the way she didn’t look hideous in her new bathing suit. Slowly she ambled over to her purse, enjoying the freedom and comfort of her new bathing suit. She reached into her purse and pulled out a bottle of water. She poured it down her parched throat, the coolness refreshing her.

Not even seconds later, she felt an odd sensation throughout her body. It stretched in all ways. The bathing suit could not withstand such forces pushing against it. It tore, rended by the force of her bloating.

“Ack!” She exclaimed, her voice rising high, imploring a cruel god to redact the cruel fate he had cast upon her.

Gathering her composure and leaving the store quickly, not sure if she should feel shame or exasperation. On the way out, a helpful shopkeeper pointed to a sign that helpfully intoned: Absolutely NO Exposing Swimwear to Water Before Purchase!

Facebook Follies

2008-11-12T16:52:00.000-08:00

Get ready to buy up your guns everyone, you might not be able to have them much longer.

OBAMANATION!!!! were fuckeddd. seriously, his middle name is hussein.

we now have four years of Hitler running our country. Were screwed now.

is PISSED OFF THAT A MUSLIM TERRORIST SOCIALIST THREAT TO OUR FREEDOM AND CHRISTIAN WAY OF LIFE WAS ELECTED DTO THE HIGHEST OFFCE IN THE CUNTRY??? BUSH '12.

is going to go eat McDonald's, shoot a gun, and buy a Coca-Cola, because he's proud to be an American

is going to shoot something if obama wins.

realizes that the people have spoken, and apparently they're tired of freedom

misses checks and balances. Those were nice.

thinks it's a really bad time to be a millionaire

is thinking the US is going to die!!!!.....due to the fact that obama WON!!!

sure hopes Obama knows what he's doing 0_o because I certainly fear for us now.

Thanks to those who sent me these.

Hilarious Joke, as found on a Czech Laffy Taffy Wrapper: A Translation

2008-11-11T20:43:00.000-08:00

Q: What did the German air force eat for breakfast?

A: Luftwaffles!

Prague-The Rest of it

2008-11-08T16:08:00.000-08:00

The National Museum

The Dancing House

Candy!

Modern art at the Museum Kampa

The best part of the museum was the Frantisek Kupka exhibit.

The Astrological Clock

Art Deco Room of the Municipal House. We saw a concert here, it was quite good. In Prague they are mad about concerts, you can't walk down Vlatava street without getting flyers stuck in your face.

The train station, site of our shame. We were going to go on a day trip away from Prague, but we couldn't find the times or get help.

So we went to the Jewish Quarter instead.

The Old Jewish Cemetery.

Miriam sure enjoys coffee.

Awwww?

Inside the Spanish Synagogue, I was scorned for taking this picture.

Franz Kafka monument.

Loreto Palace

Good Job America!

2008-11-05T19:18:00.000-08:00

Last night, after weeks of obsessive election watching, and after months and months of non-stop campaigning, we finally had a resolution.

We made the right choice.

But it truly saddens me to see the bitterness on the right. The cries of socialism from those who
actually have no idea what socialism entails. The boos heard last night during McCain's concession speech (which was very gracious) where disappointing. Hopefully the right can divest itself of its childish ways that have lasted for eight years.

(Prague pix forthcoming..........some time)

Prague Day 3

2008-10-18T16:17:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the delay. This is day three from our trip to Prague.

We spent the morning at Petrin Hill, which we decided was probably the closest Prague gets to a "Mormon date." Then we went to some museums.

Wall mural.

Monument to political prisoners during the communist regime.

Me in front of the Hunger Wall.

Petrin Tower, a scale version of the Eiffel Tower. Of note
is the exhibit of Jara Cimrman and his various inventions
in the basement.

The view from the topmost observation deck
of the tower.

Miriam lost in the mirror labyrinth.

Outside view of the labyrinth.

Statue in front of the Kafka Museum.
We also went to see the Alphonse Mucha museum.

Miriam in front of Lenin in the Communist Museum, located conveniently above the McDonald's.

Prague Day 2

2008-10-06T17:40:00.000-07:00

On the second day of our trip we crossed the Charles Bridge and went to see Prague Castle.

This is the Astronomical Clock in The Old town Sqare

Prague Castle from afar.

Czech composer Bedrich Smetana

Regrettably unable to identify this statue.

With beer ad obscured.

One of the many statues on Charles Bridge. Here's a site that will give more detail and background than I could supply about these.

Charles Bridge cont.

Charles Bridge cont.

Charles Bridge cont.

Note the Royal.

Prague Skyline. That's the Zizkov Television Tower in the distance (we didn't make it there though)

St Vitus' Cathedral, Prague Castle's main attraction.

The stained glass windows inside are stunning.

This one was done by Alphonse Mucha!

The extravagant tomb of St. John of Nepomuk

More St. John

Cannonball fired at the cathedral by the Prussians.

St. Ludmilla, with the scarf she was strangled with.

The great hall of the palace, jousting tournaments took place in here.

Prague skyline again.

Courtyard

The Golden Lane

Miriam standing in front of a house Kafka once lived in.

Dungeon pit.

Grim statue

That evening we went and saw Don Giovanni, performed in the Estates Theatre, where it premiered, also where scenes from Amadeus were filmed. Pictures will appear on the next post along with Petrin Hill!

Prague Day 1

2008-10-04T08:37:00.000-07:00

The first day of our (our being myself and my girlfriend Miriam, for those readers who are unaware) vacation in Prague was spent mostly in transit, we left Saturday at noon and arrived Sunday at two, having endured the disconcertion that goes with a trans-Atlantic flight and having the days contort in odd ways.

The nine hour flight was mostly insufferable, in they way that being in a cramped space that is too cold for nine hours is. Little sleep was had. The in flight movies were Kung Fu Pands (which I watched on the return flight), Made of Honor (which is bland to the point of barely existing, though it is a movie seemingly designed for air travel) and Then She Found Me (AKA Helen Hunt Gets and Ultrasound).

Eventually we arrived in Prague, 3 PM on Sunday, weary but excited.

We rented a small apartment in the heart of old town Prague for an incredibly affordable rate (though all in all, Prague was suprisingly affordable).

It was pretty cozy, despite the fact the we couldn't get the gas heater to work. Despite our tiredness we decided to do some exploring.

Havelska street, right outside our apartment. There was a market where people sold a variety of goods.

The St. Nicholas Church, I believe. Though Prague's streets are filled with many beautiful building worthy of having there picture taken.

A traditional Czech meal. The dumplings are quite tasty. This is the only food I took a picture of. Overall the food was quite good. I particularly enjoyed the roated duck I had one night. Also, gelato is the preferred type of ice cream (or zmrzlina), and it is far superior to regular ice cream.

Street performer, marionettes are kind of a big deal there.

Týn Church

Jan Hus monument in Old Town Square

Powder Tower

We went to bed at the ridiculous time of 8, and slept 12 hours.
Tomorrow: Prague Castle!

Excerpt

2008-10-02T17:05:00.000-07:00

Here's an excerpt for a novel I was writing. It had to be abandoned owing to the fact that no plot was cohering.

Towards Corporate Fecundity and the Rapture of the Final Quarter’s Growth

The bird squawked again. Owens couldn’t see it. He hadn’t seen it since the day they brought it in.

“It’s to enhance realness” they’d said.

“Oh, the bugs make it plenty real.” Owens had said. They mistook it for a quip, the kind of workday back and forth common in the elevators and the breakrooms, so they laughed politely. The kind of laugh that reeks of insincerity on both sides. Obviously obligatory. Ignoring what he’d said, they’d released the bird. It was black, the feathers had the sheen of an oil spill, it paced around it its cage, and when freed, gave a celebratory squawk and flew away.

Some days the bird’s cackles were distant, some days they were so close Owens thought that if he looked up he would see the bird perched on top of his monitor, bending its head down to look at the rows of figures he’d been processing.

“What about the shit?” He’d asked in the monthly meeting to provide feedback on the Natural Workplace Environment Initiative, where the introduction of the bird and possibly other fauna was discussed.

“That’s a concern we’ve looked into.”

“So what are you going to do about it?” Gomez asked. “I don’t want to show up with bird poop all over my computer and work station.

Colvin and Collison echoed these concerns.

“Don’t worry. The bird has been trained to not defecate on any equipment.”

“How do you train a bird to not shit on things? Birds’ll shit wherever they want.” Gomez said.

Once again Colvin and Collison offered their agreement.

“Don’t worry about it.” The corporate ornithologist said. “Buster has received the most state of the art training available. I assure you that he won’t go doody where he’s not supposed to. Isn’t that right Buster?” He then gave the bird a treat. The bird crowed its approval.

True to what they’d said, the bird never shat on their equipment. The only sign that the bird was even in there with them were the tell tale feathers found atop the grass and the far off caws in the distance.

Routine folded in on itself. They forgot the bird was there. The feathers and crowing became just another part of the environment, the same as the desks and grey cubical walls and other corporate clutter. Others noticed immediately.

“What the fuck is that noise?” Strohmann asked as he entered the atrium.

“What noise?” Owens replied, genuinely perplexed.

“Don’t you hear that? It sounds like a fucking bird or something.”

“Oh yeah. It is a fucking bird.”

“In here?”

“Yeah.”

“Hmm.”

“You afraid of birds or something?”

“No. Who’s bird is it?”

“I don’t know really. I think we’re leasing it from this guy who trains animals for movies or something like that.”

“Huh, how about that.”

“His name’s Buster.”

“The animal trainer?”

“No, the bird.”

“Interesting, lets go.”

They exited the atrium, the door swung but didn’t close, and re-entered the traditional office, with all its resident tropes. Printers and machines whirring, buzzing. Owens didn’t particularly miss any of this. He didn’t miss the smell of burnt microwave popcorn that clung to the air like lovers reunited after a long separation. He didn’t miss the acrid chit-chat, the back and forth banter. Work was work all the same, whether in meadow or sterile office.

“You like working in there?” Strohmann asked as they walked down the halls.

“It’s alright.”

“You know what Monique said the other day?” He said, inclining his head conspiratorially.

“What’d Monique say the other day?” Owens replied.

“She said she didn’t think you guys where doing any work in there. That you just sat in there and pondered melancholy things. Like about the imperceptible gravity of life and recklessness with which we go through it. Is that what it’s like?”

“Not at all.” Owens answered. “I think, and the data will back me up on this, that there hasn’t really been a change in our productivity. For the better, or for the worse. It’s remained pretty constant.”

“Are they going to implement it company wide?”

“It would be incredibly expensive, and not really worth it.”

“Yeah.”

“I guess that’s all up to Shaeder. We’ve got to turn in a report at the end of next month.”

“A report on what?”

“The meadow thing, NWEI.”

“Oh right.”

“Did you know that originally he wanted to test various environments? Desert, rain forest, tundra. He wanted to see which one got the best response.”

“Who would want to work in a fucking tundra?”

“That’s what everyone said.” Owens replied. Strohmann laughed. They took the stairs. Their black leather shod footsteps echoing through the stairwell. Throughout his six years working here, Owens had seen Strohmann alternately as an adversary and as a comrade. They both had similar backgrounds and had both been hired at the same time, thus they had competed for the same promotions. Strohmann had desperately wanted to work in the meadow, had desperately wanted to be the first to toil in the vedant foliage. But he had lost out to Owens. So Owen believed that it was Strohmann, not Monique, who believed that no work was being undertaken there. Sometimes, while talking to Owens, Strohmann’s voice would coarsen with jealousy.

They didn’t speak as the walked up the stairs. They pondered separate minutiae. They thought nothings. They walked automatically. The route routine. The rote everydayness graying at its temples. Strohmann punctured the silence, deflating it like a balloon struck with a needle.

“I’m having an affair.”

“With anyone I know?”

“No. Her name’s Samantha.”

“I knew a Samantha once.”

“Which way of knowing.”

“All ways.”

“I don’t think this is her.”

“Does she have dark hair and alabaster skin.”

“No, she’s black.”

“I probably don’t know her.”

“I said you didn’t.”

“Does she work here?”

“No.”

“Does Susan know?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Do you want her to know?”

“Of course not, she’d castrate me.”

“Then why did you tell me?”

“I didn’t think you’d tell Susan.”

“I’m not going to tell Susan.”

“She probably wouldn’t listen.”

“Why not?”

“She hates you.”

“Really, why?”

“She thinks you’re aloof.”

“Many women have mistaken brooding for aloofness.”

“Are you a brooder?”

“Sometimes more than others.” Owens opened the door to the third floor, holding it open for Strohmann, then stepping through himself.

“Well then, what’s the difference?”

“What difference?”

“The difference between brooding and aloofness.”

“Oh, right. I think brooding connotes a certain preoccupation with the world and its trials. A certain melancholic disposition wherein one thinks and feels things deeply. Perhaps on a deeper level than many, though there is a certain guilt towards feeling that way. Aloofness is detachment, a more self-aware kind of detachment than haughtiness. So you can see why brooding can often be mistaken for aloofness and vice versa.”

The third floor hallway was virtually identical to the other floors, minus the smell of burnt popcorn.

“Yes, I suppose. Were you brooding when you met Susan?”

“Possibly. I don’t really remember.”

“You know, she was in love with you.”

“Was she?”

“I think so.”

“What makes you think so?”

They stepped into the stairwell. This one faced the sun, was bright, like the vision of heaven one might have if that vision of heaven was a sterile stairwell.

“Things.”

“What kind of things? Does she say my name when you’re making love.”

“We don’t make love.”

“When you fuck.”

“We don’t do that either.”

“Is that why you’re having an affair?”

“I think she might be having an affair.”

“Anyone we know?”

Strohmann’s heel caught the edge of a stair; he tumbled forward, catching himself on the railing. His head hung over the abyss of the stairwell, the heads of people entering the lobby below.

“You okay?” Owens asked.

“Yeah fine. My shoe must’ve been untied.”

“No, you just tripped.”

They both looked down. Both of Strohmann’s shoes were tied fast. They continued descending the stairs.

“What were we talking about?” Strohmann asked.

“You were intimating that I might be having an affair with Susan.”

“Well, are you?”

“You said she hated me.”

“That could be a lie.”

“I’m not having an affair with Susan.”

“I’m not sure I believe you.”

“I haven’t seen Susan in years.”

“She’s grown out her hair.”

“I loved her with long hair.”

“Yeah.” Strohmann said wistfully.

“Does she still do that thing where she taps her teeth with her fingernail…”

“Yeah.”

“…when she’s trying to figure something out.”

Owens wanted to sigh, but wouldn’t in front Strohmann. They entered the ground floor.

“Promise me something.” Strohmann said as they reached the door to the NWEI.

“What?”

“Promise me you won’t sleep with Susan.”

“I told you before, I always respected your fidelity.”

“Promise.”

“I though she hated me.”

“Only when you’re aloof.”

“I could have been brooding.”

“Either way, promise me.”

“Ok, I promise. It doesn’t matter, I haven’t seen her in years.”

“I have to go.” Strohmann said, checking his watch.

“See you.”

“Good bye.

The door to the atrium was open. Owens went in and resumed his work.

Prague

2008-09-20T09:03:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers,
Going to Prague for a while. I'll post pix when I return.
Sincerely,
Eli McCormick

Notes 09/09/08

2008-09-09T17:08:00.000-07:00

1. Tabloids should lay off Destiny Hope "Miley" "Hannah Montana" Cyrus. At least until she turns 20. If I were the petition making type I would make a petition.

2. Saw Bob Dylan a week ago. It was a very good show, his band was tight, his voice gravelly, the rain cold and wet. Still, it was well worth it.

3. I don't much like seeing Sarah Palin on every magazine cover at the supermarket check out line. Especially odious is the US Weekly cover, wherein her digitally enhanced smile looks like the gaping mouth of hell, threatening to swallow us whole.

4. Ten thousand words (20 pages) seems to be the cut-off/abandonment point when writing a novel. Or, more aptly, it is the point where, because no plot has developed, I set it to the side to ponder. But having done this twice before, I can now pick one of those up to work on.

And This:

Hilarious Joke, as found on a Laffy Taffy Wrapper III

2008-09-06T08:07:00.001-07:00

Q: What do they call extreme nationalism in the north pole?

A: Jinglism

A Certain Horrible Thing Revisited

2008-09-02T19:01:00.000-07:00

A few posts back I wrote about The House Bunny. This past Saturday, in a haze of madness, I viewed this film.

I slapped my head in dumbfounded disgust more than I laughed. It must be said, however, that my suppositions about The House Bunny and it's place within the Movie College genre were wrong. Mostly because the characters and the sexuality in the film weren't of the adult nature that usually occupied such films. Instead the characters acted like twelve or thirteen year olds. With a definite awareness of sex, but a childish view of what it actually was.

The girls of the Zeta house where the titular Bunny goes spend all day pining away, hoping for the attention of boys and the other trappings that come with the ephemeral quality of "cool". Then when they get made over, it is with a unbearably gaudy style that looks like something out of Bratz: The Movie ( a far superior and much more interesting film, perhaps the topic of a future post). The House Bunny, finally realizes her dream and gets to be a centerfold, but in an alternate world where centerfolds don't take off their clothes and cleavage passes for titilation.

Oliver, the love interest of the Bunny, is the only adult in the film. And, as the audience, we empathize most with his incredulity at the actions of those who surround him.

The movie offends both genders throughout the second act, with its tired ideas of men not being attracted to smart women, men only wanting women who are wanted by others, women needing to dumb themselves down to seem attractive.

So the House Bunny was a movie in which hilarity does not ensue, and the only lesson to be learnt is not to waste one's money on such rubbish.

Potential Scene for a Sitcom

2008-08-26T20:52:00.000-07:00

INT-KITCHEN DAY

A phone is sitting on a counter, its screen lights up and the ringtone, the ubiquitous pop song of the moment most likely Lollipop, fills the room. DAD enters the room and picks it up.

DAD: Skip, you got a text.

SKIP : (offscreen) What does it say?

DAD: IDK

SKIP enters the room, he looks like a Jonas Brother, the cute one.

SKIP: Hmm.

He goes to the fridge and gets an apple (presuming this show wants to sponsor good health). Alternately, SKIP can get a treat from one of the sponsors. Prominent placement will be charged a higher fee. A close up can cost as much as a 30 second spot, though will garner twice as many impressions.

DAD: What does that mean?

SKIP: I don’t know.

DAD: Well neither do I. You should tell your friends to make sense when they text you. Or, I don’t know, call me crazy, you could call each other.

SKIP: No Dad, I Don’t Know.

DAD: I know you don’t, neither do I.

JESSIE enters the room, she is the sassy little sister archtype.

DAD: Jessie, do you know what IDK means?

JESSIE: I don’t know.

DAD: Neither do we!

Laugh Track

Note: This is inspired by a real life event, though it was much less contrived. And it did not involve fathers and teenage sons.

Hilarious Joke, as Found on a Laffy Taffy Wrapper II

2008-08-24T08:59:00.000-07:00

Q: Where does Stalin exile dissident ghosts?

A: The ghoulag

Hilarious Joke, as Found on a Laffy Taffy Wrapper.

2008-08-22T11:59:00.000-07:00

Q: What did the cow say to the farmer who was trying to fuck it?

A: I'm not in the moooooooood

Notes 8/21/08

2008-08-21T17:00:00.000-07:00

1. I Feel old whenever I hear a song mention texting. This may owe to my status as a luddite when it comes to texting. I will usually respond to a text with a y (for yes), an n (for no) or a k (for ok). Most likely I will just respond with a call. In general I am fine with songs making of the moment pop culture references (i.e Kanye West), i think it shows a willingness to ground the song in a particular time, rather than reaching for that oh-so-elusive timeless quality. So I suppose my objection to mentions of texting are odd in that respect, but it might just owe to my dislike of that particular medium.

2. It's somewhat ironic that I should be rejected by No: A Journal of the Arts.

3. August in Utah is drupe season, 89 cents a pound. Stock up!

Finally:

A Certain Horrible Thing

2008-08-16T18:42:00.000-07:00

Not long ago, I witnessed a trailer for a movie that was so odious it caused my body to erupt in paroxysms of revulsion. I consider myself a man tolerant of Hollywood's dreck, inasmuch as I accept its existence and don't allow it to bother me.

But this:

This it too much.

Besides being sexist (though I'm sure that along with the hilarity that no doubt ensues, lessons are learned), The House Bunny represents everything wrong with Movie College.

Movie College bears a striking similarity to Movie High School, though there are marked differences. This being the movies, neither resembles their real-life counterparts, and any movies that do bear a resemblance (i.e Noah Baumbach's Kicking and Screaming and Freaks and Geeks(Yeah I know it's a TV series, but whatevs)) can't be said to exist in Movie College or Movie High School.

Movie High School is slightly surreal and absurd almost to excess. The division of the cliques; whether by lunchroom table seating as in Mean Girls, first day arbitrary designation as in Bratz: The Movie, or the character's themselves being symbols as in the Breakfast Club, serves to remind us of the absurdity of those cliques. Movie High School pokes gentle fun.

Movie College bears more resemblance to Movie High School than it does actual college. Instead of cliques we have fraternities and sororities. Movie College preserves the social hierarchy of Movie High School (and perhaps actual high school) and amps up the meanness. College, being a place of higher learning, where scholarship is paramount, certainly doesn't seem like the place where intelligence would be scoffed at. Yet this seems de rigueur in movie college. The thing these movies forget is that the social life in college is opt in. One can choose to associate with their circle of friends and not be active in any kind of campus hierarchy.

In The House Bunny, our heroine is cast out of the Bunny Mansion and the decrepit embrace of Hugh Hefner and into the cruel world. She becomes the house mother of a sorority of outcast girls, who see to all be wearing glasses which is, of course, movie shorthand for nerdy and undesirable. One of these girls is played by the object of desire in Superbad. The sexism is implicit in the denial of these girls as attractive, it is explicit in the idea that The titular House Bunny is supposed to represent some kind of feminine ideal.

Of course the House Bunny is going to teach these girls that by taking off the glasses and wearing high heels will make them attractive. Of course she will realize that she doesn't always need to act dumb, especially to attract the guy who likes her for herself. Of course they will win the annual sorority house competition and show the mean sorority that they too are legitimate people. There's no subversion. Normally this would just be bad movies as usual, but the extra layer of sexism and tiresome stereotypes make this more than just a bad movie.

Notes

2008-08-14T20:58:00.000-07:00

1. I think the one sentence thing isn't working out, that's basically twittering, and I have a twitter (which if you click the link you'll see has only been used twice). Likewise the dictator pictures are fun, but should not be the main focus. This concludes the state of the blog address.

2. I'm going to Prague at the end of September.

3. I've started a new novel and will probably begin revising the other one in September. I've made room in my closet for both of them.

4. I recommend everyone read the Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano. It's one of the best novels I've read in a while. Consistently compelling, innovative and melancholic. This is a recommendation not a review, but I assure you, it's well worth your time.

5.I think this needs a redesign. If anyone has any ideas, let me know.

Also:

Proud Parents or Depraved Tryst?

2008-07-31T19:14:00.000-07:00

A Coy Putin

2008-07-22T17:54:00.000-07:00

Awww C'mon

2008-07-15T17:08:00.001-07:00

Can I have this dance?

2008-07-15T17:05:00.001-07:00

"Por Supuesto"

You know he was a dancer!

2008-07-15T17:00:00.000-07:00

Here

2008-06-15T12:15:00.001-07:00

It is done!

2008-06-07T11:18:00.001-07:00

I've finished my novel*

*first draft of course

Milli Vanilli Were Ahead of Their Time

2008-06-02T21:22:00.000-07:00

People just weren't ready for the idea of music as collaborative product.

This

2008-05-17T11:34:00.001-07:00

For the Record

2008-05-12T20:46:00.001-07:00

Modern Revelation is now a one sentence blog.

Diamond Commercials

2008-05-09T19:21:00.000-07:00

Pretty much the worst thing, is a piece of rock who's value has been artificially inflated by clever marketing really the way we want to gauge our relationships?

Economic Stimulus!

2008-05-02T17:00:00.000-07:00

Attention friends, family and casual acquaintances; since our government has decided to give us money, I in turn, have decided to bestow a generous boon upon you as well, for a limited time I will buy those who accept this offer, one (1) Whopper from Burger King.

What if...

2008-04-20T09:10:00.000-07:00

The internet had chosen Tarzan Boy instead of I'm Never Gonna Give You Up?

Question

2008-04-20T08:54:00.000-07:00

Does the internet prevent us from having any cultural ephemera (by recycling or exteninding the lifespan of something), or does it make everything into cultural ephemera?

A Mystery

2008-04-06T16:34:00.000-07:00

'Neath the cushions of my couch, lay not piles of coins, but an abundance of uncooked spaghetti noodles.

Something I'm Going to Do

2008-04-06T15:27:00.000-07:00

I've been invited to read some of my work at The Rocky Mountain Writer's Festival this Tuesday.

This

2008-04-03T19:24:00.000-07:00

I saw a man riding a tandem bicycle alone yesterday.

A Blog of Three Parts

2007-12-03T20:21:00.000-08:00

Part One: The Guiltiest of Guilty Pleasures

I don't much care for the term "guilty pleasure", it connotes a certain dishonesty with oneself and an unwillingness to accept ones own taste as valid, rather accepting the tastes a larger formless mass. I enjoy the music of both Beyonce and Fall-Out Boy and find You Got Served to be an entertaining film. But there is one thing that I will attach the moniker "guilty pleasure" to: Our unseasonably warm winters.

This is because the guilt is a real kind because these warm winter's come at the cost of the world's health, so while one enjoys it, one also has the foreboding feeling that things are wrong.

Part Two: Mozzarella Dreams

String Cheese was a reoccurring motif in my dreams last night.

I hate string cheese.

Part Three: Xmas Jamz

After spending my formative working years in service/retail hell (and secretly harboring a little disdain for my mother's early enthusiasm), I found myself disliking Christmas music.

But a funny thing happened (it's not really funny), I pulled out a Christmas Mix I made and listened to it. Before December.

Granted most of these choices are somewhat esoteric (like James Brown's Go Power! At Christmas Time and songs from the Low and Phil Spector christmas albums) but at least I don't hate Christmas music anymore.

Some X-mas Funjam Links!

The Pogues-Fairytale of New York

James Brown-Go Power! At Christmas Time (not much of a video, but a good song)

Low-Just Like Christmas(another lame homemade video, but these are more for the songs)

Ray Charles & Betty Carter-Baby It's Cold Outside (cool version of this one, I also like the original too)

Variations on a Theme

2007-11-19T20:41:00.000-08:00

American Gangster

so much depends
upon

that pure white
powder

and good come
backs

from lackluster
efforts.

Because the Internet is For Hating Vol. 1

2007-11-16T17:58:00.000-08:00

By now it's beyond cliche to say what the internet is for. Porn, hating on things, stealing intellectual property, and best throw another porn on the end. With that in mind, I present a new feature here on Modern Revelation!, or rather the first feature. The point is; I have vitriol, I have spleen and I'm going to vent it here. Music, movies, books, ideas, countries, people, food, nothing will be spared the wrath of my blinking cursor. With that in mind I present the first object of my abject and well founded hatred.

THE ARCADE FIRE

America's Candian indie rock darlings.

They first hit the scene a few years ago with their album Funeral, which was boring and tuneless. This year has seen the release of their follow-up, Neon Bible, which is even more boring and tuneless. This time they thought it would be a good idea to bite from the Boss2, which would be cool, except they miss the point entirely and their attempts to ape the middle-class ennui and working-man's desperation of Mr. Springsteen ring false. Also their complete inability to write anything close to anthemic hurts. Not that I'm punishing1. them for not writing Thunder Road, that would be silly.

I'm punishing them for this line:

Mirror, mirror on the wall, show me where them bombs will fall4

(note the affected "them")

I'm punishing them for the almost choreographed "intensity" of their live shows, which always get mentioned in press and is manifested by banging on the sixth auxiliary percussionist's motorcycle helmet he's wearing3.

That is not intensity. Iggy Pop covered his naked body with peanut butter and sliced his chest open. Hitting some dude's helmet is not intense. It's stupid.

Natalie Portman said TEH SHINZ would save our life5, and they're boring and (mostly) innoffensive, but the Arcade Fire believe they can change yours.

1. By punish I mean hate, or something like that
2. Bruce Springsteen
3. This is a reference to their epochal live appearance on Conan O'Brian.
4. Some song on Neon Bible
5. Braff, Zachary, Garden State, 2004

File Under: Breaking News, Writer Hates His Own Writing.

2007-11-12T17:31:00.000-08:00

November is national Novel Writing Month. I usually don't find out or remember this until November is almost over. This year is different. I found out early signed up, and was all prepared. There was only one mitigating factor: I have been working on three novels in the last year. Ignoring for a moment the fact that none of them may ever be completed, starting a fourth as per the rules of the competition would just be crazy. So I have just decided to devote myself to working on one and doing as much as possible on that.

Then of course that specter that plagues any who dare undertake any creative endeavors rears its ugly head. The ghost of supreme self-criticism. Of course its probably better to think it's shit than to think you're the greatest poet since Shakespeare.

?

2007-10-20T19:30:00.000-07:00

I don't know which of my eating quirks is most peculiar.
My love of green bananas or the fact that I never put milk on my cereal.