BATTLE OF THE BANDS (Edit from "STRANDED...")

study hall reading No One Here Gets Out Alive my favorite part teenage Jim Morrison kneeling on his younger brother’s shoulders spit thick and ropy from Hershey bars or orange juice dangling it right over brother’s face sucking it up just before the moment of (nauseating) contact huge study hall third biggest room in the school room to hide in Andy Warhol Velvets first album banana t-shirt black Chuck Taylor All-Stars chucks we call ((called)) them bleached the trim white (yellow) two color just like Paul Weller in the Jam (did he really) ((saw it in a picture once probly the drummer actually))

bedrooms suburban bedrooms sunshine suburban sunshine bedrooms spent so much time hiding from parents brothers sisters in each others bedroom bedrooms no wonder all we thought about was fucking

(did i say that out loud) ((hard to tell w/ headphones on always got caught singing along)) (FAGGOT)

all we ever thought about was girls all we ever got called was FAGGOT no wonder we were so confused
FUCKIN FAGGOT
PUNK ROCK FAGGOT
FAG
they were tough lived in the Proj drank beers and smoked weed in Snakeland glare mutter under your breath walk away there was always more of them than us that one was like a man he was huge how many times did he get left back anyway

((Burroughs says you must have run cowardly at one point to be able to express true courage)) (FUCK YOU FAGGOT)

did they kill Kathy Arnold we’ll never know Kenmore cops don’t care about some Proj slut killed in Snakeland she probly had it coming 2 suicides and a murder and John Jespers killed his whole family by graduation they wanted to change the school team from the Blue Devils to the Blue Angels because they thought it was SATANISM upside-down crosses and pentagrams spray painted on the walls at Snakeland

she sat in front of me in homeroom and then halfway through junior year she didn’t empty desk they moved us in together for senior year

((we didn’t even get a half day when Kathy got murdered today they’d deploy a SWAT team of social workers and psychiatrists to protect our fragile psyches did they even make an announcement when Gary killed himself all anyone did was scrawl DEAD over his face in my junior yearbook))

even though she sat in front of me i never thought about fucking her (pale and scrawny) it probly would have been weirder then if i had ((didn’t happen til years later another Kathy blonde cheerleader beat off to her a hundred times if it was once picture in the paper murdered by her husband i beat off to a girl who’s dead felt old and very lonly))

study hall never studied wrote poems somehow thought they’d impress some girl somehow some did headphones on crappy tape player knock off Walkman i taped the plate cover on when it broke why to keep the dust out nothing but dust anyway tapes and tapes and tapes some tapes (brad’s) without even any song titles goddamnit what is fucking track five called some (doug’s) just illegible dashed off scrawl some (daryle’s) pristine full color marker art and simulated Sharpie album font some (mark’s) cut out magazine picture cropped to fit tape case with newspaper head line down the spine they took up more space w/ the cases but i had to bring em felt like leaving your friends behind the ones without covers were always from girls Psychedelic Furs or Violent Femmes first album all scratchy maybe a skip or two sometimes she’d lift the needle and play a song she really liked twice fast forward through the second one so hard to find the beginning of the next song

i spent five minutes winding rewinding to find the beginning of the next song longer than the goddamn song itself i loved her

i waited hours for this i made myself so sick i wish i’d stayed asleep today meet me anyplace or anywhere or anytime now i will dare meet you tonight if you will dare i will dare it’s a wicked world there’s a million other guys i feel so lucky when i look in your green eyes green eyes green eyes tonight at noon tonight at noon tonight at noon a man in my shoes runs the light and all the papers lie tonight because falling over you is the news of the day

i made myself so sick

open window the sound of the construction finishing the stage almost ready can even hear over Meat is Murder on headphones the bottom drops out of my stomach this is really going to happen this is really happening

you could just go home

i

you could just go home

(FAGGOT)

no i we practiced we wrote those songs mark brought his amp that thing is huge on the bus dave will never forgive you stupid bass with the pickup taped on it that thing sounds like shit she will be there

i

she will be there

all of our stuff is down there my drums (what drums an overturned plastic garbage can for the tom tom and a snare i stole from the marching band) ((i played standing up i must’ve thought I was moe tucker)) dave’s shitty bass (also stolen) and mark’s strat and stack good thing he’s younger than us or he’d realize how much we suck good thing they have a p.a. for all the bands to use or else i’d be shouting over everything like in the garage

we’re a garage band we come from garageland

that Kiss cover band’s gonna win this year they always win they’ve got fire and explosions and makeup and big boots if we wore makeup and big boots we’d probly get called faggot probly will anyway who else there’s that jazz band but whatever fuck those dorks they’ll probly do a Police song and their parents will think they’re cool there’s at least two other garage bands but all they play is like Zeppelin and Sabbath covers and orginals with names like dark carnival and black light connection then there’s the fake reggae band Kaya there’s like twenty people in that band most of em from school band or orchestra and everyone thinks they’re gonna win this year all they have to do is play Legalize It and all the stoners will go crazy but reggae’s so fucking boring it makes me want to cry ((it’d be three more years before Toots and the Maytals punched a hole into my soul five before dub crawled inside it))

we don’t play covers six originals so far seven if you count that song mark wrote that totally rips off the Pixies we should win just for not playing covers (in addition to being fucking visionary post-punk mega-stars)

they were gonna give me a medal for this and i wasn’t even in their fucking army anymore

she will be there

dave just walked up to them before lunch like he knew them at all asked if they were gonna be there after school telling them how awesome we are and i said we just started we need more practice he gave me that look that he gives me when i’m blowing it but they were totally cool and like we’ll come check you guys out and dave goes awesome and we walk away says you should have talked to her i said i did he says yeah and you almost blew it with your self-deprecating bullshit i said you didn’t even know what that meant before i told you he says yeah i’ll be thinking about that later when i’m fucking your mom doggy style i said fuck you

she will be there

RELEASE THE BATS

“This is the song that you love the most and we hate the most.” - Nick Cave


It is a dark and stormy night. The General CEO enters the boardroom through the three security passages, the silver heels of his black leather boots echoing throughout as they strike the brushed metal floor. Despite the hour and the dim, recessed lighting he leaves his sunglasses on and straightens his cap as he strides to the large oval table that dominates the room. Above, a vast display screen awakens with his presence and fades into a detailed relief map of the country. Vast areas are shaded in a wash of greenish-gray, contrasted with small swaths of stippled sky blue. The General CEO contemplates this map for several moments and then begins to walk around the oval table, running his fingertips lightly over the tops of the swivel chairs arrayed all around it.

Sitting in these chairs are figures dressed in identical charcoal gray business suits, but instead of flesh they are stuffed with straw. Their heads are identical, hairless plastic molds that only feature holes where normally facial characteristics would be present. As with their stuffed scarecrow bodies, straw pokes out from all of the orifices of the heads. The General CEO occasionally caresses an air-cooled plastic cheek or pushes the straw deeper inside a face through an eye or mouth-hole. After the General CEO completes his circuit, he stands to the side, hands on his hips, and lifts his chin to call out to the dark upper reaches of the boardroom.

“Control?”

An emotionless though distinctly female voice issues from speakers mounted throughout the boardroom.

CONTROL PRESENT.

The General CEO lowers his gaze to his motionless board members. “Update please.”

THE DAY HAS FINALLY COME.

The General CEO looks up, and as he realizes the gravity of Control’s words, a sickening, mirthless grin spreads across his face.

“It’s really true?”

THE LAST MEASURE, ADMINISTERED ONE HOUR PRIOR, INDICATES THAT THE DESIRED EFFECT HAS BEEN ACHIEVED.

The General CEO licks his lips. His voice quavers with excitement. “Details?”

PER CAPITA, MORE THAN 98% OF MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN THIS COUNTRY NOW KNOW MORE FACTUAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE HEIRESS THAN THE WAR.

The General CEO’s breath catches in his throat.

PER CAPITA, MORE THEN 90% OF MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN THIS COUNTRY ARE MORE CONCERNED ABOUT THE OUTCOME OF THE HEIRESS’S DRUG AND ALCOHOL REHABILITATION THAN THE OUTCOME OF THE WAR.

The General CEO can barely believe that this is actually happening. “And the third? The third objective?”

A pause.

100% OF THIS COUNTRY’S POPULATION CAN IDENTIFY THE HEIRESS BY NAME, FACE, AND CATCHPHRASE.

The General CEO slowly, raggedly inhales.

CONVERSELY, MORE THAN 50% OF THIS COUNTRY’S POPULATION DOES NOT KNOW THAT THIS COUNTRY IS AT WAR.

The General CEO exhales sharply, his shoulders shaking with delight. “Send. For them.”

ANTICIPATED THREE HOURS PRIOR WITH EARLY RESULTS. THEY WILL ARRIVE MOMENTARILY.

The General CEO responds, genuinely, “Thank you, Control.” He stands motionless for several moments, drinking it in. It has taken years, but his two archons have fully and completely accomplished their directives. They have finally created the circumstances necessary for the End and the subsequent, joyful birth of the Beginning and its orgy of order and fear.

THEY ARE HERE.

The General CEO undresses with a single gesture and lies naked and face-up upon a thick black leather couch that sits upon a shag rug off to the far side of the boardroom. A keypad to the right of the entranceway pulsates through a series of colors and accompanying sounds, and the three metal doors quickly slide open with an attendant rush of air. In silently walk a young blonde woman and an old white man, both completely nude. The young woman is the famous Heiress; the old man is the President of the United States. The General CEO gestures for the two to join him.

As the Heiress’ petite powdered feet pad along the floor towards the General CEO, maggots quietly rain down from her vagina to the polished metal. The President’s tiny penis is fully erect, and a foul yellow pus drools from the head. These twin towers of filth approach the General CEO and lie down on either side of the black leather couch, caressing him gently. In a small cloud of steam, the General CEO’s body melts into that of a gigantic worm, fat and brown, with hundreds of smaller worms spurting out from suppurating wounds where the tight worm-skin has split. Only his head remains untransformed.

Suddenly the General CEO’s face splits down the middle, the skin separates from the head and both halves fan backwards from it like wings. Revealed underneath, a great sphincter imbedded with multiple rows of tiny sharp teeth is sheathed in blood. The Heiress and the President move in close to lick the blood from the sphincter’s wrinkled lips. Those lips twitch violently, and then issue the General CEO’s final order in a gargled belch.

“Release the bats.”