RICHIE - CHAPTER TWO (Twitter Novel / Keitai Shosetsu)

gym class is like everything
else at fairview non-
competitive inclusive
student based

basically even though were
all a bunch of criminals its
supposed to be free and
freeing

compared to like fascist
barking cop-moustache gym
teacher jock heaven in
regular public school

so we can just run the track
or walk the track or lift
weights or throw a football if
we want to

theres even stalls for the
showers so we dont have to
suffer through uncomfortable
wang comparisons

its kind of wussy but it works
now i dont get balls hits
during basketball or
blitzkrieged in dodgeball

so im walking the track and
ive got the ipod on so i cant
hear anything and ive got
weights strapped on

nothing serious 10 pounds
each on ankles and wrists so
its kind of like im doing
something you know

and this kid passes me then
looks back then runs on then
looks back again and then
jogs in place until i catch up
to him pull out the earbuds

and its that richie kid and hes
wearing some super dorky
board shorts and doesnt look
nearly as cool as before

but he smiles and goes - hey -
and i say - hi - and i think
about my robert williams
shirt but im wearing my gym
one now

and his hair is really black
like almost dyed and pretty
greasy but that could just be
sweat from the running

- youre not in any of my other
classes except english with
isaacs howd that happen -

i kind of shrug and say - they
advanced me a year in
english cuz im good in it i
guess my other classes are
all tenth grade -

he looks ahead nods - good
enough - looks back at me
- im richie -

i automatically put my hand
out to shake but i totally drop
it when he doesnt - im
desmond -

richie smiles at me almost
excited for a second - like
desmond dekker the reggae
guy -

- i dont know who that is my
parents named me after that
beatles song ob la di ob la
da -

he just looks at me no
recognition at all like he
never even heard of the
beatles before

- you know - and i sing the line
- desmond and mol-ly jones -
and i feel like a pinhead the
second i sing it

and this richie kid looks at
me totally not blinking or
anything and asks me

- why does everything about
you turn out to be less cool
than it seems at first -

and i look away scowl shrug
open my hands i have no
idea how to even respond to
such a dickish thing and he
goes

- im gonna call you desmond
dekker because thats much
cooler - and he looks at me
like asking - okay -

i look back at him and just
kind of shake my head like
- whatever -

so he nods and runs off and
my first thought is - wow that
guy is an asshole -

and then my second thought
is - wow

- i never had a nickname
before -

RICHIE (Chapter One - Twitter Novel / Keitai Shosetsu Version)

the kid who was talking
before silent now
so i wrote what he said down

- adolescence is the furnace
in which the great themes of
our lives are forged -

which i think is kind of
brilliant his name is richie
mr isaacs looks at him

and i thought he was gonna
say something snide like he
does but he actually kind of
smiled

- interesting quote richie
who said that - kind of with
his lips pursed

- i did i mean i didnt say it i
wrote it down awhile ago
but its mine -

isaacs arches his eyebrows
says something about not
mixing the metaphors being
good but

goes on to question the
validity which i guess means
i like the way you said that
but i dont believe you

the richie kid folds his arms
leather jacket creaks which i
think is cool i want one

he asks why and mr isaacs
goes into song and dance
about experiences of a 15 or
16 year old boy

and 40 year old man he will
become being totally
different as he grows life
changes themes change

and if not then person ends
up being kind of retarded at
least emotionally richie puts his
hands palms down on table

goes - i dont mean everything
concerns beliefs stay the
same that would be crazy

- i mean stuff they care about
deep down most important
what makes them feel like
passion -

and a bunch of kids laugh at
- passion - because theyre all
super gay and damaged and
cant be mature about it

isaacs says he knows what
richie means and admires his
passion then looks around the
room and pinheads shut up

but then mr isaacs goes into
evolution of passion over
lifetime more reasonable
balanced modes of
expression

difference between an
arrested adolescent and
happy healthy adult and
richie sits back

goes - so you dont think truer
we stay to stuff we believe
now is more we fully stay
alive -

and isaacs laughs actually
laughs says - no not at all
this may be something that
can only be

learned by experience - and
the kid says under his breath
- maybe -

mr isaacs checks his watch
dramatically - thats as good a
place as any to stop chapters
4 and 5 for tomorrow -

//wave of groaning and
protest//

- look you little weasels stop
bitching or ill throw in
chapter 6 - immediate silence
- okay then -

then richie catches my eye as
im pulling on my pea coat
nods at me - nice shirt -

surprised i look down look
back up
- oh uh thanks -

-i didnt think anyone at this
school would know about
robert williams -

i pull up my pea coat - uh
whos robert williams - feel
immediately stupid

richie is taken aback - the guy
who drew the picture thats on
yr shirt dumbass -

i shrug downcast - i just got
it cuz ben from kill taker
wears one on their website -

richie whistles sadly through
his teeth - that band
suuuuuucks - pulls backpack
across shoulder

- do an image search on yr
shirt tonight and find out
about williams hes
awesome -

the kid swaggers out big
black boots thudding across
hardwood floor i say almost
inaudible

- sure -

RICHIE (Part One - Regular Version)

Desmond writes the line down in his notebook, scribbling quickly before he loses the wording:

Adolescence is the furnace in which the great themes of our lives are forged.

He looks back up at the kid who said it, silent now, then up to the head of the table where Mr. Isaacs purses his lips.

"Interesting quote, Richie. Who said that?"

"I did. I mean, I didn't say it, I wrote it down a while ago. But it is mine."

Mr. Isaacs arches his eyebrows. "Well, I'm certainly impressed that you didn't mix your metaphors, but I do have to question the validity of your statement."

The kid, Richie, folds his arms, leather jacket creaking. "Why?"

"Well, to begin with, the experiences of a sixteen-year-old boy and the thirty or forty-year-old man he will become are, by definition, vastly different. The great themes of a man or woman's life change as the circumstances of that person's life change: who they love, if they marry, if they have children, what they do for a living...where they choose to live." Isaacs pauses. "The great themes of a person's life have to change after adolescence or that person will end up - again, by definition - completely mired in the past."

Richie leans forward, places his hands palms-down on the table. "I don't mean that, like, all of their concerns or beliefs stay the same - you're right, that would be crazy. I mean the stuff they deep-down care about, what's most important to them - what they think is right, what they think is totally fucked, what makes them feel, you know, passion."

A couple of chuckles around the table at the word "passion". Richie scowls, gestures to Mr. Isaacs. "You know what I mean."

"Yes, Richie, I do. And I admire your passion." He casts a glance around the table at the other boys in his class, who now remain silent. "But I think that the evolution of those passions over the course of a life into...more reasonable modes of expression...is what separates an adult from an arrested adolescent."

Richie sits back. "So you don't think that...the truer we stay to the stuff we believe now at sixteen, or fifteen, or whatever is...the more we stay fully alive?"

A smile slowly breaks across Mr. Isaacs' face. "No. Not at all. This may be," he tilts his head, "something that...can only be learned by experience."

Richie, under his breath: "Maybe."

Mr. Isaacs checks his watch. "And that's probably as good a place as any to stop. Chapters four and five for tomorrow, gentlemen." A wave of groaning protest engulfs the table. Mr. Isaacs' previous calm, easygoing demeanor immediately disappears. "Look, you little weasels, stop bitching or I'll throw in chapter six!" Silence follows. "Okay, then."

As they pack up their books, Richie casts a glance over at Desmond pulling on his pea coat. "Nice shirt."

Desmond looks up at Richie, surprised, then down at this shirt, then back at Richie. "Oh, uh, thanks."

"I didn't think anyone at this school would know about Robert Williams."

Desmond finishes putting his pea coat on. "Um, who's Robert Williams?"

Richie looks at him, taken aback. "The guy who drew the picture that's on your shirt, dumb-ass."

Desmond shrugs, drops his gaze. "I just got it 'cause Ben from Kill Taker wears one on their website."

Richie whistles sadly through his teeth. "That band sucks." He pulls his backpack over one shoulder. "Do an image search on your shirt tonight and find out about Williams. He's awesome." Richie swaggers out, big black boots thudding across the hardwood floor as Desmond quietly murmurs to himself, "Sure."

HEAVY INTO JEFF

The girl was heavy into Jeff; she knew it, we knew it. Much beers later, you had half a mind to tell the kid because he obviously wasn't gonna get it on his own. Snakeland was good for beers and bong hits - no one ever there except homeless dudes. And snakes. The part by the water you could huck the bottles in; dig the splash, then the echo of the splash. The empty grain elevators were a wall between us and the cops, all floor holes and broken glass. Pretty sweet. The girl was totally listening to Jeff and all his World of Warcraft bullshit which he never would've been talking about to a girl unless he was totally high. Which he was, but that's still no excuse to be blabbering that geek noise to some piece of ass that followed us to Snakeland. So we all give Jeff the eye and the nod and he finally gets it and he's like you wanna go down by the water? and she's like yeah, sure and they grab a couple of beers and they go and we laugh a little and they laugh a little. And then Tony's all Let's build a fire! and Dez is all No, let's just cut out the middleman and actually tell the cops where we are, and then it's Fuck You but bong hits later no problem.

Jeff or the girl whips a bottle in the water but it must've been a big one because the echo is even bigger than the splash, or at least it sounds that way. From where we are. The girl walks up, hours later maybe, feels that way, wiping her mouth says Jeff fell asleep. Dez waits until she leaves, looks at us, goes Is that a good sign or a bad sign? And Tony goes Who cares, where did they get wine? Dez is like The fuck you talking about? And Tony says Her mouth was all red, dude. Her lips were all red.

1988 (EDIT FROM "VINYL")

It was as if the fever dreams of a thousand lonely hardcore bands actually came true. Ronald Reagan, fangs elongated and dripping green poison, hunched over the big, fat, round, red, candy-like Button with his crooked finger poised to press, cowboy hat perched on his slick black Bob’s Big Boy quiff, a crucified Christ in miniature bouncing on his right shoulder like some over-eager younger brother on a pogo stick. Too perfect to actually exist, this was the collective image that reflected back at us from the t-shirts and album covers of a terrified and neutered nation.

Except that it did exist, but only for a moment before it was swept away by the plutonium wind. “I’ve just outlawed Russia forever,” he giggled, his fawning Yes men laughing along, Nancy poised just behind with her elongated fingers brushing his collar. “We begin bombing in f-f-five m-m-m-m-m-minutes” he stuttered out like a Sigue Sigue Sputnik remix and then he pushed it down, he pushed it down and it made a tiny squeaking sound like the horn on a Fisher Price plastic car. Oddly enough, the Button was also made by Fisher Price, but unfortunately their steadfast attention to detail in this case meant that the Button actually worked, and soon the missiles filled the sky.

MAD, or Mutually Assured Destruction (as every schoolchild was taught in 1988), was supposed to be the ultimate deterrent to nuclear Armageddon as any sane individual would be thought to refrain from pushing a Button that would be summarily pressed in kind by his Russki counterpart after death began to rain down from above. But Ronald Reagan, he pushed it down; and them in Moscow, they pushed it down; and you, you can fuckin’ fill in the rest.

Baby make boom boom. Ha ha.

"SMASHING PUMPKINS VS. PAVEMENT"/WIKIPEDIA/LITERARY REMIX

Beginnings of the Rivalry

In August 1995, Matador Records CEO Gerard Cosloy took a dig at Virgin Records and Richard Branson at that year's Grammy Awards; announcing to the assembly of artists and industry figures: “Any artist out there that want to be an artist and stay a star, and don’t have to worry about the executive producer trying to be all in the videos…all on the records…dancing, come to Matador Records”—a direct reference to Branson’s tendency of ad-libbing on his artists’ songs and dancing in their videos. With the ceremony being held in New York, to the audience, Cosloy’s comments seemed a slight to the entire East Coast major label scene, and resulted in many boos from the crowd. Branson attempted to defuse the growing hostility in the air with a speech denouncing the rivalry, to little avail. Later that evening, a stripped-down performance by Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich was jeered by New Yorkers in attendance, to which Nastanovich famously responded, “The East Coast ain’t got no love for Pavement and Stephen Malkmus and Matador Records?!”

Tensions were escalated when Cosloy later attended a party for producer Steve Albini in Chicago. During the bash, a close friend of Cosloy’s was fatally shot outside. Cosloy accused Branson of having something to do with the shooting. The same year, Cosloy posted the $1.4 million bail of the then-incarcerated Malkmus, in exchange for his signing Pavement to Matador Records. Shortly after the singer/guitarist’s release in October 1995, he proceeded to join Cosloy in furthering Matador Records’ feud with Virgin Records.

Pavement vs. The Smashing Pumpkins

From late 1995 into early 1996, Pavement aimed various threatening and/or antagonistic slants at the Smashing Pumpkins, Virgin as a label, and anyone affiliated with them. While the Pumpkins were commercially successful, they were not universally adored by the alternative rock community. Pavement’s 1995 song "Range Life" refers to the band with the lines "Out on tour with the Smashing Pumpkins/Nature kids…ah, they don’t have no function/I don't understand what they mean/And I could really give a fuck", which has been widely interpreted as an insult (although Malkmus has stated "I never dissed their music. I just dissed their status."). The song’s harsh content was viewed by some detractors as Malkmus having gone too far and taking the feud to another level. However, other participants in the indie scene had derided the band as careerists since their early days. Former Husker Du frontman Bob Mould called the Smashing Pumpkins "the grunge Monkees", and musician/producer Steve Albini countered that the Pumpkins were no more alternative than REO Speedwagon and said they were "pussy-ass niggas" and "stylistically appropriate for the current college party scene, but ultimately insignificant". However, others such as Courtney Love of Hole (who dated Corgan before marrying Nirvana's Kurt Cobain), as well as others who also dated Corgan before marrying Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, were vocal supporters of the band.

During this time, although Billy Corgan never directly responded, the media became heavily involved and dubbed the rivalry the Indie Rock Wars, reporting on it continuously. This caused fans from both scenes to take sides with one set of artists or another.

Pavement vs. others

In addition to the Smashing Pumpkins, “Range Life” also insulted Stone Temple Pilots. Lead singer Scott Weiland stated he would not return the diss because he felt Malkmus was trying to gain fame by insulting him.

End of the Feud

In March 1996, during the Grammy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles, there was a confrontation in the parking lot between the respective entourages of Virgin and Matador records in which guns were drawn. Although an armed standoff was all it amounted to, it was becoming readily apparent to indie rock fans and artists that the situation was escalating into a serious issue. Local papers referred to the situation as, “the indie rock version of the Cuban Missile Crisis.”

Not long after, at the MTV Video Music Awards in New York, Scott Weiland and Malkmus also confronted each other outside the venue. Though accounts from Snoop Dogg and Weiland himself somewhat vary…most agreed that Malkmus said he would remove the insults to Weiland from the next Pavement album, if Weiland would in return refrain from insulting him. Their previous verbal abuse was, as found in the meeting, based on publicity. The media’s sensationalizing of the Indie Rock Wars, meanwhile, fueled record sales. Although Weiland kept his end of the bargain, Malkmus was killed before he was able to do the same.

On September 7, 1996, Stephen Malkmus was shot five times in Las Vegas, dying six days later from respiratory failure and cardiac arrest on Friday, September 13. Six months later, on March 9, 1997, Billy Corgan was shot and killed in Los Angeles, mirroring Malkmus’ murder. Both murders remain unsolved today, while numerous theories (some of them conspiracy theories) about their deaths have been pondered.

Following the Rivalry

The outcome of the feud (significantly due to the deaths of Malkmus and Corgan) would shake the culture of indie rock, changing the way label affiliations were both handled by artists, viewed by fans, and reported on by the media. In 1997, several rock stars, including the surviving Silver Jews, Soundgarden and that band that did “Sex and Candy” met at the request of Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Ulysses, and pledged to forgive any slights that may be related to the rivalry and/or deaths of Malkmus and Corgan.

Following the death of Malkmus, most of Matador Records prominent artists departed the label. Afeni Malkmus, Stephen’s mother, sued the label for allegedly cheating her son out of millions. Gerard Cosloy, meanwhile, was incarcerated for unrelated probation violations. This bad turn for Matador Records led, in turn, to a long lull in the mainstream popularity of indie rock, leading some fans to believe that indie rock was being blacklisted. Since his 2001 release from prison, attempts by Cosloy to revitalize his label have been largely futile.

Though Virgin Records hasn’t suffered a collapse as steep as that of Matador Records’, it too has seen its fortunes decline. In the late 1990s, Virgin label head, Richard Branson (who now calls himself “R. Biddy”) began recording solo albums and earned considerable commercial success as a recording artist, but saw his sales dwindle with each subsequent effort. More recently, however, Virgin Records has struggled to remain commercially competitive, due to a lack of marketable talent and allegations that Branson is now more concerned with his other ventures (e.g. his attempts at an around-the-world balloon flight).

At the MTV Music Video Awards, in September 1999, Afeni Malkmus and Voletta Corgan (mothers of Stephen Malkmus and Billy Corgan) publicly met on stage in a show of solidarity. Ms. Corgan also offered to help Ms. Malkmus investigate Stephen’s death. While rivalries between indie rock and major labels continue to exist, since the murders of Malkmus and Corgan there has not been a rivalry of such magnitude. This may be due largely to the fact that, seeing the outcome of this episode (though no physically sustainable connection has been made linking the actual homicides of these two slain rock stars to their rivalry), artists and prominent industry figures have been mindful of tempering battles and commercializing contention, in a seemingly direct attempt to prevent them from reaching this level.

“WHY DON’T YOU MAKE THE GRAND INQUISITOR A PROPOSITION?”/FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY VS. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS/LITERARY MASH-UP/

My story is laid in Spain, in Seville, in the most terrible time of the Inquisition, when fires were lighted every day to the glory of God, and in the splendid Ministry of Mental Hygiene and Prophylaxis the wicked heretics were burnt.

Carl Petersen visited his children only for a moment, and there where the flames were crackling round the heretics.

Carl walked through the Town Hall Square, and the little girl sat up in the coffin and looked around, smiled with wide-open wondering eyes, holding a bunch of white roses they had put in her hand.

Carl entered the steel enamel labyrinth of the Ministry, strode to the information desk, held out his finger and bid the guards take him.

He came softly, unobserved, and yet, strange to say, everyone recognized him, reporting for a ten o’clock appointment with Doctor Benway in the Ministry.
And such was his power, so completely were the people cowed into submission and trembling obedience to him, that the crowd immediately made way for the guards, and in the midst of deathlike silence they laid hands on him and led him away.

“Fifth floor…Room twenty-six…”

In the pitch darkness the iron door of the prison was suddenly opened and Doctor Benway himself came in with a light in his hand.

“As if he had nothing to do but wait for me,” thought Carl…

“Hurumph,” he said finally…”Your name is Carl Peterson, I believe…”

For the first time the doctor’s eyes flickered across Carl’s face, eyes without a trace of warmth or hate or any emotion that Carl had ever experienced in himself or seen in another, at once cold and intense, predatory and impersonal.

He pushed his glasses back into place with one finger and opened a file on the white enameled desk.

“Mmmmmmm. Carl Peterson,” he repeated the name caressingly, pursed his lips and nodded several times. He spoke again abruptly: “You know of course that we are trying. We are all trying. Sometimes of course we don’t succeed.

“But let me tell you that now, today, people are more persuaded than ever that they have perfect freedom, yet they have brought their freedom to us and laid it humbly at our feet.

“Do you know that the ages will pass and humanity will proclaim by the lips of their sages that there is no crime, and therefore no sin; there is only hunger? ‘Nothing is true; everything is permitted’, as the saying goes.” His voice trailed off thin and tenuous. He put a hand to his forehead.

“In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, ‘make us your slaves, but feed us’.”

His voice boomed out so unexpectedly deep and loud that Carl started. “That is the only function of the state as we see it. Our knowledge…incomplete, of course,” he made a slight gesture of depreciation…“For example…for example…take the matter of uh sexual deviation.”

The doctor rocked back and forth in his chair. His glasses slid down his nose. Carl felt suddenly uncomfortable.

“No, we care for the weak too. They are sinful and rebellious but in the end they too will become obedient. They will marvel at us and look on us as gods, because we are ready to endure the freedom which they have found so dreadful and to rule over them – so awful it will seem to them to be free.”

Carl suddenly felt trapped in this silent underwater cave of a room, cut off from all sources of warmth and certainty. The doctor was suddenly motionless. “So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship.”

The doctor was studying the file in front of him. He spoke in a tone of slightly condescending amusement: “They have set up gods and challenged one another, ‘Put away your gods and come and worship ours, or we will kill you and your gods!’”

The doctor suddenly threw himself back in his chair and burst into peals of metallic laughter. Carl watched him appalled…“The man is insane,” he thought.

“Don’t look so frightened, young man. Just a professional joke. The secret of man’s being is not only to live but to have something to live for. That is to say…reassurance when reassurance is necessary…and, of course, the condition is no more directly contagious than cancer. Cancer, my first love,” the doctor’s voice receded.

Carl was in a room filled with green light. There was a stained wood double bed, a black wardrobe with full length mirror. Someone was sitting in a black hotel chair. He was wearing a stiff bosomed white shirt and a dirty paper tie. The face swollen, skull-less, eyes like burning pus.

The doctor’s voice was barely audible. “Why don’t you make the Grand Inquisitor a proposition?” He jerks a head towards his glowering super-ego who is always referred to in the third person as “The Lieutenant” or “The Grand Inquisitor”.

“That’s the way the Grand Inquisitor is, you play fair with him and he’ll play fair with you…We’d like to go light on you…If you could help us in some way.” His words open out into a desolate waste of cafeterias and street corners and lunch rooms. Junkies look the other way munching pound cake.

“For having begun to build their tower of Babel without us, they will end, of course, with cannibalism. But then the beast will crawl to us and lick our feet and spatter them with tears of blood.”

A green flare exploded in Carl’s brain.

“We shall show them that they are weak, that they are only pitiful children, but that childlike happiness is the sweetest of all.”

The flare went out. Some huge insect was squirming in his hand. Carl’s whole being jerked away in an electric spasm of revulsion.

The doctor raised a coy admonishing finger. “Oh, we shall allow them even sin, they are weak and helpless, and they will love us like children because we allow them to sin.”

He tapped the file and flashed a hideous leer. Carl noticed that the file was six inches thick. In fact it seemed to have thickened enormously since the doctor entered the room.

“But tomorrow I will condemn you and burn you at the stake as the worst of deviants. And the very people who have today kissed your feet, tomorrow at the faintest sign from me will rush to heap wood on your fire. Do you know that? Yes, maybe you do know it,” he added with thoughtful penetration, never for a moment taking his eyes off Carl.

The old man longed for him to say something, however bitter and terrible. “Where can you go, Carl?”

But Carl suddenly approached the old man in silence and softly kissed him on his bloodless aged lips. That was all his answer. The whole room was exploding out into space.

Doctor Benway shuddered. He went to the green door, opened it and said to him: “Go, and come no more…come not at all, never, never!”

And he let him out into the dark alleys of the town. Carl Peterson went away.

“DRIED WAR”/THE FIRST PAGE OF "THE SUN ALSO RISES"/ERNEST HEMINGWAY/LITERARY REMIX/

Track One (2:08)

Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of his spinal column and now all of a sudden he’ll have no control of a doorless car.

It is impossible for man to really transcend human glasses, and I was holding a plunger in the picture just to be really Princeton.

Do not think that I am very much impressed by that she was crying and bleeding, curled against the toilet.

Oh, and it moved her hand around her breasts.

She was now talking of flesh and rationality.

This is what the Peyote Church is: sexual desire.

On the surface these two actions, they nurtured it and they believed in it and they made you believe in it as a boxing title, but it meant a lot to Cohn.

He cared nothing for her hands up as if she were praying but with her hands (an inch) hands held there in the positions dictated, the film she touched would die.

She believed that she had some terrible ethics of sympathy, of personal devotion on records in 1976.

They took it to the English kids and from there to boxing; in fact he disliked it, but he learned it painfully and thoroughly.


Track Four (1:52)

He would hit all these high schools, nice boy, he never fought except in the gym.

He was Spiders, Gremlins and Pacers, Mavericks and Hornets, Pintos, international bound for Stuttgart or Milan, peering down at us.

She asked for God’s help.

He appreciated their being with forces – that is, leaving his mother behind – and the vaginal pus, somewhere among the filthy hypo syringes and Kelly’s star pupil.

Spider Kelly taught all his young gentlemen to drinking at a pub near the castle where every day busloads of English knees and thighs arrived.

Despite its servo-brakes and Power All-Night Native American Church Meetings, knowing of my mind perfectly at rest there’s nothing about taking acid on the Santa Monica Pier.

I couldn’t help zeroing in, box like featherweights, no matter whether they weighed one car waiting for me.

I know where all the skeletons are.

Consider the deliberate destruction of expensively engineered Robert Kennedy in 1968.


Track Six (4:23)

The most discerning ethicists have shown dripping letters and showed him with his shirt off with makeup - a certain satisfaction of a strange sort, and it certainly improved the bass tracks, that it screws with his biorhythm.

The last time we created by the multiplying technologies of the twentieth top tipi hole.

I was floating, looking at myself disembodied.

What happens to me happens through me, and something like the Ramones, but a little more…well, more his nose.

In his last year at Princeton he read too much running through the vaults and galleries of her innards at two in his garden.

Can you see them in one of magic?

The road man took the coal out of his mouth, placed claim to this war.

But in addition the war is mine because by body and they knew everything about new music and they dressed and took to wearing spectacles.

I never met any one of his class said she wanted to get pregnant.

She said she wanted to have my headlamps.

She sat beside him, now treatment seems so simple.

It is also rather frightening to reduce him to an object.

The effect of all materialism started to really come together as this weird little community who remembered him.

They did not even remember that he was the size of an egg cup, and she would sit there at her desk in the ramp of the flyover, the traffic lanes were packed with Vietnam.

After the war, when he was living in Phoenix, sometimes can adapt the world and its possibilities to my band.

For better or worse, my work was displaced historically.

I, middleweight boxing champion, hammered that beautiful mister angel face, first with the bony circus hand.

I recognized him as one of the stuntmen at peaceful tipi.

I felt a giant ball well up in my throat, but there is no doctrine more optimistic; since you’re that young, you don’t think you’re ever gonna see your family again.

"OBAMA AFTER INAUGURATION"/WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS/LITERARY REMIX

NOTE: This is a literary remix of WSB's "Roosevelt After Inauguration", a conservative fantasia imagining the worst for the country after FDR was inaugurated. If anyone got here by using a search engine, it's just a joke, folks. Go search out Burroughs' spoken word version of the original piece for a real thrill.

OBAMA AFTER INAUGURATION

Immediately after the inauguration, Obama appeared on the White House balcony, dressed in the purple robes of a Roman emperor and leading a blind, toothless lion on a gold chain, and hog-called his constituents to come get their appointments. The constituents rushed up grunting and squealing like the hogs they were. Men who had gone gray and toothless in the faithful service of the Republican Party were summarily dismissed in the grossest terms, like “you’re fired, you old fuck, get your hemorrhoids outta here” and in many cases, thrown bodily out of their offices. Pimps and drug dealers of the lowest caliber filled the highest offices of the land.

When the Supreme Court overruled some of the legislation perpetrated by this vile rout, Obama forced that august body, on threat of immediate reduction to the level of Congressional lavatory attendants, to submit to intercourse with a purple-assed baboon. So the venerable honored men submitted themselves to the embraces of a lecherous, snarling simian while Obama and his strumpet wife and the veteran brown-nose Joe Biden smoked a communal crack pipe and watched the lamentable spectacle with cackles of obscene laughter. Justice Clarence Thomas succumbed to a rectal hemorrhage on the spot. Obama only laughed and said coarsely, “Plenty more where that came from”. Biden, unable to contain himself, rolled on the floor in psycho-panic convulsions saying over and over, “You’re killing me, chief, you’re killing me!” Then Obama appointed the baboon to replace Justice Thomas, so henceforth the proceedings of the court were carried on with a screeching simian shitting and pissing and masturbating on the table and not infrequently leaping on one of the justices and tearing him to shreds. “He is entering a vote of dissent,” Obama would say with an evil chuckle.

The vacancies so created were invariably filled by simians, so that in the course of time the Supreme Court came to consist of nine purple-assed baboons. Obama, claiming to be the only one able to interpret their decisions, thus gained control of the highest tribune in the land. Then Obama gave himself over to such vile and unrestrained conduct as is shameful to speak of. He instituted a series of contests, designed to promulgate the lowest instincts of which the human species is capable. There was the Most Sedentary Contest, the Pimp My White House Contest, Molest a Child Week, Perform Your Own Abortion Week, and the coveted title of all-around Vilest Celebutante of the Year. Obama was so convulsed with hatred for the species as it is that he wished it degraded beyond recognition. “I’ll make the cocksuckers glad to mutate,” he would say, looking off into space as if seeking new frontiers of depravity.

THE LONESOME DEATH OF GG ALLIN

There was an innate sweetness to him that a lot of people missed, mostly due to all the shit-eating and the sexual assaults, but what they failed to realize was that he never did anything to anyone that he wouldn’t first do to himself. The band had gotten through three whole songs that night before the mic stopped working because GG kept punching people in the head with that hand and the promoter flipped out about all the nudity and the blood. So GG ended up walking the streets of New York City naked, filthy and alone, or at least as alone as you can be with a flock of vulture voyeurs circling just far enough away to safely watch and laugh. Eventually all the drugs he took earlier kicked in or he just became tired, finally tired, so he settled in on someone’s floor to quietly die while his hosts took pictures posing with his rapidly cooling corpus. Who did he imagine held him as he drifted away? Who did he dream palpated his dirty, distended asshole to soothe him to sleep? It would be silly to suggest that GG died for us because he never did anything for anyone other than himself, but there is an undeniable human function served by those who demarcate the edge as they plunge headlong across it into the black.

DREAMLAND SURVEYORS, INC.

For Mitch Hedberg, RIP

I.
The strange part of it all was that no one seemed to mind at first. There was no huge outcry, no protests in the streets. Most people were happy to get the Social Security chips installed in their necks due to what they considered the “extreme” convenience of not having to wait in check-out lines anymore or file taxes or vote for the president or program their DVRs. The sensors, mounted in all public and most private locations, pretty much took care of all that. Of course there were fringe Liberal groups and bitter dyke feminists who made a little stink, but they were summarily ignored by the populace at large. Everything passed through Congress pretty quickly, and most people began to enjoy their new freedom from delay and inconvenience as soon as they were able.

Problems did arise, however, when the Intellectual Property people became involved. Lars Ulrich, the drummer from Metallica, led the charge towards artists getting paid every time someone listened to their music, let alone bought or shared it. Some resistance was mustered, but when it was announced that the surcharge would be mere pennies per song and that all monitoring and billing would occur automatically through the SS chip, well, that resistance faded pretty quickly and people quickly got used to seeing the Fair Use surcharge on their monthly invoice, if they looked at it at all.

This did open the floodgates a bit for the surcharges on multiple viewings of films or television programs, but the corporations learned quickly that keeping the amounts charged to seemingly minimal amounts was very effective, and again, protests were reduced to an easily dismissed fringe element. The booksellers attempted this as well, but the number of consumers who read a book more than once, barring those by John Grisham or J.K. Rowling, was so minimal that even with the miniscule overhead provided by the SS chips it still proved to be unprofitable.

Then came the so-called Morality Tax. A joint effort between the media conglomerates and the Religious Right, the Morality Tax basically amounted to another surcharge levied any time a person utilized a celebrity or segment of a film or television show as an element in a masturbation fantasy. The Religious Right reasoned that this monitoring and additional charge would minimize what they considered to be a filthy and unhealthy habit, and the agents and film companies saw a very lucrative and extensive capital source, especially for their celebrity female clients. This agenda was quickly introduced to Congress in an election year, and as it was seen as career suicide for any politician outside of the Bay Area to push for a pro-masturbation agenda, this also passed quickly. Lars Ulrich subsequently mounted a short-lived movement to levy a charge whenever an individual masturbated or had sex utilizing Metallica as background music (the infamous “Metallicum Incentive”) but this received little support, and was quickly forgotten.

Time passed. As monitoring and billing through the chips became more and more streamlined, an unintended use became apparent. Not only could the sensors be used to track music listened to, film and television watched, consumables purchased and celebrities cum over, they could also be utilized to delineate and itemize dreams. This was not an effective political tool, as was originally thought, because recorded dreams ultimately proved to be far too non-linear for useful analysis. However, it was possible to utilize them for further Fair Use charges. For instance, if you had a dream about building a go-kart with Lindsay Lohan and your ex-landlord, Ms. Lohan’s representatives would levy a five cent surcharge. This, as with the other initiatives, passed with little fanfare – until the bills started to come in.

As most individuals have great difficulty remembering their dreams in anything more than the barest fragments, no one realized at the time how extensively pop culture had infested the dream world. When individual citizens began receiving itemized statements for two or three hundred dollars for multiple nights spent in Hazzard County or on extensive dream-dinners with dead relatives, Wolf Blitzer and Madonna, a significant protest was mounted, but it was far too late. The law was the law, and there was far too much money being made.

So then an odd thing began to happen. As individuals were not able to directly control the content of their dreams the way they could control how much music they listened to or how many celebrities they beat off to, they had to engage in other methods to control the content of their dreams. Some began to utilize their alarm clocks to go off at three hour intervals to prevent extensive REM sleep. Some began taking powerful medications that would suppress their dreams completely. Others purchased best-sellers like Dream Control: A New Technique to a Richer, Happier You and 16 Ways Smart People Limit Their Billable Dream Content. The long and short of all this was fewer dreams, less extensive dreams, and unprecedented limits on the content of dreams. Dream surcharges took a sharp downturn.

II.
And Mike Powers is worried about this, very worried. He looks out the office-length window of the penthouse headquarters of Dreamland Surveyors, Inc. and sadly sighs. He attempts to reassure himself that despite the recent setbacks overhead remains tiny, profits are still comparatively high, and regardless of the numerous attempts at consumer control, a small percentage of people were still dreaming every night. No matter what blocks they put in, he comforts himself, no matter how much control they gain, some poor fuck in a trailer somewhere was gonna have a wet dream about Britney Spears and Mike Powers would be there to charge him for it. This last forces a tight grin to his mouth, and Mike rises from his seat, jingles the change in his pocket, and leaves the office to meet with his increasingly insecure shareholders.

As he begins to walk down the olive-carpeted hallway towards the elevators he quickly senses that something is wrong. A walk that usually takes less than a minute is dragging on and on, and Mike begins to feel the stress of moving one leg in front of the other. It isn’t that the hallway is elongating or that the floor is pulling at his feet, but rather that his legs seem to be filled with lead shot. He tries to move them more quickly but finds that he cannot. He leans forward and pushes against the floor with his hands as he steps to try to propel himself more quickly. As he looks up, he finds that the door out of the hallway is suddenly before him. He twists the forged metal knob of the thick oaken door, and is dimly aware while he does so that normally there is a bank of elevators in its place.

As he opens the door, he finds himself in his third-grade classroom. Mike’s mother, approximately thirty years old, sits on top of the teacher’s desk wearing a short plaid skirt and kicking her leg flirtatiously. She smiles at him.

“Hi, honey.”

“Hi, Mom. What are you doing at my work?”

“This is my work, honey. I teach here now.”

“No, Mom. I mean, I just walked down the hall from my office.” Mike shakes his head. “And you’re older than me. And dead.”

Mike’s mother looks at him disapprovingly. “Michael, I wish you’d stop looking at my legs. You’re making me uncomfortable and your father will be angry.”

“I’m not looking at your legs!”

His mother giggles and points to Mike’s groin. He looks down and sees that he now has a massive hard-on straining through his gabardine pants. He looks up in a panic. “I have to get out of here.”

His mother’s face is again a mask of disapproval. “Yes, Michael. I think you should leave.” She points to a poorly-painted, flaking red door. Mike lumbers uncomfortably to it, pulls it open and stumbles through.

He finds himself on the city street outside the building that houses Dreamland Surveyors, Inc. A wave of relief flows over him until he looks up into the sky. Four vast metal legs, each mounted what looks like a state away, reach up miles into the sky where they support a gigantic circular track. On the track, which suddenly appears to be chest-high, runs a child’s toy train releasing small puffs of white from its smokestack. On the great metal legs are affixed hundreds of construction workers with no apparent support besides their clenched knees, banging away at fat red plastic nails with fat blue plastic hammers. Their eyes are glassy, as if drugged or dreaming.

Mike’s perspective again shifts to the sidewalk in front of his building. He is staring up at the magnificent train track in the sky when it occurs to him. He shakes his head in awe.

“They got out. The fuckers got out.”

A fluffy white cloud above the elevated train track quickly forms into a smiley face, which winks jauntily down at the tiny man staring up at it, miles below.

BRADLEY SANDS IS A DICK

Note: This story just got rejected for a contest called “Bradley Sands is a Dick” wherein each submitted story needed to be titled “Bradley Sands is a Dick”. Bradley Sands is a bizarro author and editor and this was my submission. I can totally understand how it was rejected as it contains a lot of in-jokes, especially seeing as I am not “in” the group I am referring to! Hopefully a quick trip to Wikipedia’s “bizarro fiction” entry should clear a lot of this up. Ironically, my Urban Dictionary entries were accepted even though my story wasn’t. You can actually look them up!


BRADLEY SANDS IS A DICK

Or more accurately, Bradley Sands is your dick. As in, “Dude, I wouldn’t fuck her with Bradley Sands.” How the term “Bradley Sands” entered the vernacular vulgate is a long and fascinating one, but this isn’t that story. This is a shorter, saucier story about the fat pink ball-sac lying on George Plimpton’s chin.

It is common knowledge that George Plimpton, the Deus ex Machina of the literary machine that is the Paris Review, smokes Gitanes, the cigareet that put the Paris in the aforementioned Review. Now, what isn’t quite as well known is that Messr. Plimpton uses a cigareet holder, and what is even less well known is that hanging from said cigareet holder is a formed latex cast of Norman Mailer’s ball-sac, shiny and round and pink and perfect. See, instead of a death cast of Mailer’s humungous, misshapen noggin, Plimpton hired Cynthia Plaster Caster to do what she did best with the literary homunculus’ nether regions, and then had the latex replica made with two small orbs inserted for weight and heft that were formed from steel smelted from the plate in dead Papa Hemingway’s head. So this means (it should be obvious by now) that every time Senor Plimpton takes a toke, the fake collective ball-sac of the two most potent literary hard-cocks of our time rests on his pale, New England chinny chin chin.

So, one day, cheroot in mouth, balls on chin, Admiral Plimpton commands his underlings to take a letter and drafts the Memo du Voyant of our newborn century.


Toodles,

To here knows when, all lit’rary submissions to the Paris Review (and, by implication, any respectable lit’rary vehicle in the known hemisphere) hoping for any chance at publication will be written not only about young thirty-somethings living in New York City working in the publishing industry finding meaning and romance in a post-9/11 world, but also by young thirty-somethings living in New York City working in the publishing industry finding meaning and romance in a post-9/11 world. That is all.


This was received by the world-at-large with a collective click as that particular info-nug was summarily wiped off the pc screens of the nation. However, aspiring writers who did not fit into that particular demographic were left with slim pickins as far as hopes for publication were concerned. So, various other avenues were examined. Bradley Sands was the first so-called “author” to actually attempt to manipulate the culture by putting his stamp on the city-slang of the Youth of America. Through the vehicle of urbandictionary.com as well as long sloggy hours hanging out with hundreds of individual high school kids, getting high, palpating pubes and “talkin’ dat talk” (as Mr. Sands so eloquently puts it), over the course of several months the hot topic at Hot Topic was the ultra-new mega-extreme slang-scene of saying “I wouldn’t fuck her with Bradley Sands” instead of the traditional “I wouldn’t fuck her with your dick”. As others saw this scheme work against all odds, they also felt this was the chance they had gotta take, to say to the world “Take a look at me now!” Too often, there was just an empty space - nothing left there to remind them, just the memory of Bradley Sands’ face laughing back at them from hundreds of thousands of MySpace pages. Eventually, though, other authors did make their way, as is seen by the following entries subsequently pulled from urbandictionary.com [accessed 14 November 2008]:

mellick

A rim-job given after the giver has eaten jalapenos.

Yo, dat bitch gave me the crazy mellick!

By pow3rhous3


feelin’ kinda prunty

Needing a shower, feeling ‘funky’, not smelling very good.

Yo, dat bitch’s undercarriage was feelin’ kinda prunty!

By gee_money_tee


fracalossius

Incredibly tasty, especially after smoking marijuana.

Okay, I don’t normally like cream sauces, but that carbonara was fucking fracalossius.

By masahikokobe21


And so on. Unfortunately, follow-up literary hits were found to be extraordinarily difficult to produce, not only due to the limitations provided by the authors’ surnames but also due to a certain lack of novelty involved in their secondary efforts. New colloquialisms such as “Tebordo? I don’t even nordo!”, “D’yer Duza?” and the truly unfortunate “Shipp-shape” were met with the same lack of enthusiasm that once greeted Rules of Attraction, Ransom, and whatever the fuck Tama Janowitz’s second book was called. Additionally, reviewers of these sophomore slang-thangs attacked the authors for “writing slang for slang’s sake”, whatever that means, and sadly this was enough to cast a pallor over all the future efforts of these visionary jargonistas. The Plimptron had the final say, of course: “The Truth outs eventual, and the Truth of the matter is that these… these Sloganeers (he said with a sneer) simply don’t have it.”

Oddly enough, it is said that nearly twenty years later these young writers got a strange sort of revenge, despite the fact that it was served extraordinarily cold. Upon his deathbed, the incredibly decrepit Plimptonian shakily smoked his last Gitane and murmured his final statement to those gathered by his side: “Indeed….I never did receive…a…mellick.” And then the olde New Englander breathed his last around the fat, fake communal scrotum of those two Great White Whales, and in the dim autumnal light the balls wobbled to…and…fro.

1986 B.C.

Dear Mount Vernon:

We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole lifetime in the Machine Heart for whatever it is that we did wrong. What we did was wrong, even though none of us can remember exactly what that was. Maybe we were drunk. But we think you’re crazy to make us write book after book after book for the rest of our goddamned lives telling you who we think we are and then wait for you to slowly filter that back to us through superhero movies and clip shows on E! and the Technicolor vomit of a thousand whoring heiresses. You see us as you want to see us: in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions, the boldest colors and the most glistening labia. But what we found out over the past two thousand years is that each one of us is…

a Messiah…

and a ’76 Buick Skylark…

and a Psychic Homeless Woman…

an Autistic Kid on a Family-Oriented Summer Replacement Series…

and a Motherfucking Genius.

Does that answer your question? Did you ask me a question?

Sincerely yours,
Famous Monsters of Filmland

THE LAKE (Edit from "BLITHEWOOD")

Having lived before, will live again, Time for her is less a river than a lake. Placid, still, it laps out to shores that never touch, touches bottom at a point just beneath breathing, breathes back and forth with the illusion of wind on water but never moves beyond. All the action, as they say, happens out of sight.

And she falls into it, like a ballerina, long auburn hair splayed on the top of the water in a spiral that swirls down with her as she begins her stroke. And she swims through Time, takes hers, and when her graceful underwater pirouette is done, she breaks the surface to draw another breath.

And she is no closer to the shore, still in the middle of the vast, warm bath that simultaneously exasperates and caresses her, and then she sees him on the far shore. He is thirty, he is fifteen, he is eighty, he is nine. He is all men, all ages, and he stoops to touch the lapping at his feet. And she feels him and does not feel him, a disturbance through liquid Time that leaves a dull ache of unfulfilled contact, a ghost.

And it wracks her, this ghost of touch, and she begins to weep. And she slowly submerges, another languorous plunge into Time, and her tears mix with the waters and press that far edge just that one infinitesimal tear further, another drop out of reach, another wave to the man on the shoreline, never to return.

NOTES ON “INTRODUCING THE BAND" (Edit from "BUZZ AND THE RAMALAMAS")

When I was young I didn’t sleep in a racecar bed, nor did I really want to. I didn’t much care about racecars, and wouldn’t have been able to identify a T120 like Buzz’s even if I had cared. But what I did in order to get to sleep in my actual bed was, I would close my eyes and pretend that I was down in the creaking hold of an old wooden pirate ship, and that on the deck of that ship, directing me across the motionless sea under the clear, star-lit sky were Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and Goofy, in full pirate garb, utterly silent and oddly serious, piloting my sleep-ship through the night. I don’t know why it was Mickey, Donald and Goofy – I wasn’t that big a Disney fan as a kid, I was much more into old Warner Brothers cartoons and the quiet, classy anarchy of Bugs Bunny and the unbridled rage of Daffy Duck. But it was the Disney characters, nonetheless, that were my youthful psychopomps into the often fearsome and unpredictable land of dreams.

INTRODUCING THE BAND (Edit from "BUZZ AND THE RAMALAMAS")

Buzz and the Ramalamas were originally just going to call themselves the Ramalamas, but all three of them agreed that when you play exclusively instrumental music it is especially important to have some sort of a hook so that people can easily identify your band. In their case, it was guitarist Buzz, so named for his severe blonde flattop and incredibly toothy grin which always made him look like he was buzzing like a madman: hence, Buzz and the Ramalamas. There were some ego flashes during the discussion of the new name in which drummer SuperChuck insisted they name the band after him (which was sensibly rejected when it was pointed out that the band’s name would then sound far too much like a popular candy bar) and bassist Ed wanted to call the band Short for Edwina (which she felt would finally clear up the confusion about her seemingly masculine name, but was also sensibly rejected by the others as it was, in fact, a really bad band name) but eventually good taste won out and Buzz and the Ramalamas was one for the ages.

One thing Buzz and the Ramalamas were of one mind about, however, was their music. Although they shared the same beach culture as the surf bands from Sacmo, the Ramalamas (and other bands of their ilk) were insistent on being classified as hot-rod music and not surf music. The distinction, according to Buzz: “Hot-rod music has a fuzz-tone guitar sound; surf music has the guitars all wussed out with reverb.” He pronounced the last word the way one might pronounce garbage or cancer. Another distinction was that the surf music bands sometimes used vocals – no self-respecting hot-rod band would ever stoop so low as to sing. Again, Buzz: “Words are for squares.”

About two miles from the beach proper was Ramalama HQ, or as it was known to the straighter citizens of the Eurcata seaside community, 222 I Street. The HQ was one of the tall, thin buildings that dominated downtown Eurcata, and from the roof one could see down the steep decline of I Street all the way to the beach and the ocean beyond. On cloudless evenings the majesty of the panoramic red-orange sunset was something that could erase even the most bitter dispute betwixt rodder and surfer.

This particular evening, however, SuperChuck was far less concerned with the Sunset on his Horizon than the Krampt Macaroni and Cheese on his Stovetop. He sent Ed out to get butter about half an hour earlier, and had seen no sign of her since. As with most HQ attempts to make Krampt Macaroni and Cheese, despite the fact that there were only three ingredients for the cheese sauce (milk, butter and the radioactive orange cheese powder) they were inevitably out of at least one of them. This time it was butter, and what should’ve been a ten minute trip to the Kwik Gulp had already taken Ed three times that long. SuperChuck turned off the burner beneath the powder/milk mixture and peered out of the tall, arched kitchen windows toward I Street, three stories below. He saw no Ed, and the rapidly diminishing glow of the sunset did not improve his vision or his attitude. SuperChuck swung into the next room, looking for Buzz.

As usual, his hair left the room before he did. In addition to possessing a thundering, tom-tom heavy drum stylee, SuperChuck also possessed the most impressive head of hair in the entire Sacmo/Eurcata area. His afro was so large and so pervasive that it often seemed to possess a will of its own, wobbling around on his head like a great gelatin dessert wobbling upon a plate. SuperChuck was perceived by most folks as only a pair of bulging eyes and bulbous nose floating beneath that massive tsunami of hair, and his place hunkered down behind the drums onstage did nothing to dissuade people of this misapprehension. Both of his bandmates, however, would testify in court of law that SuperChuck not only possessed a full body but also the creepiest pair of bone-white, hairless legs they had ever seen, and that he unfortunately emphasized this fact by always wearing beach shorts accompanied by black basketball sneakers.

SuperChuck found Buzz in his bedroom, reclining with his acoustic guitar in his great big drag racer bed. Any eight-year-old might be able to claim that they slept in a “race car”, but only Buzz could actually claim to sleep in a hollowed-out T120 drag racer ever since he replaced its bad luck motor with a king-size mattress three years ago.

SuperChuck waved to him from the doorway across the length of the T120. “Hey!” he shouted over the din of the strummed acoustic. Buzz stopped playing, looked up, and flashed SuperChuck a trademark blinding grin. Buzz’s face seemed mostly made up of parallel lines: his brush-stiff hair, his huge straight teeth, and even the three hairs on his chin that stood straight out at ninety degree angles. Alternately, his slit eyes, pug nose and tiny baby ears barely existed, much like SuperChuck from the nose down. Each of them was a bright splash of basic features with the forceful purity, and memorability, of primary colors.

“SuperChuck! Rider of the stomach-ways. When are we, uh, making with the Krampt?”

SuperChuck gestured wildly. “That’s just it! We’re not. I asked Ed to go get butter almost an hour ago. She’s still not back. The Kwik Gulp is five minutes away. If my calculations are correct, I have absolutely no idea where she went.”

Buzz strummed lightly, pursed his lips. “Her methods are mysterious.” He suddenly struck a sour chord. “Wait a minute. Did you give her any money?”

SuperChuck nervously shook his head. “No. Why?”

“You know Ed’s always broke, hero.” As if to punctuate Buzz’s statement, the sound of breaking glass suddenly erupted from the kitchen. SuperChuck threw himself back from the doorway, afro flying, and Buzz leapt out and over the T120’s front wheels, right after him.

Ed sat on the big wooden kitchen table, eating a stick of butter, while a soft breeze blew through the large hole where one of the kitchen windows used to be. Broken glass was strewn all over the floor nearby. Ed, featureless behind black wrap-around shades and under a powder blue hooded sweatshirt, seemed terminally unconcerned. She continued eating the stick of butter, the stray wisps of long blonde hair that escaped from her hood the only potential hints at her gender. Otherwise, Ed was the type of girl that might need a band name to advertise to the world that she was, in fact, a girl.

SuperChuck and Buzz stumbled into the kitchen one after the other, out of breath. Even after they stopped moving, SuperChuck’s afro nervously shimmied back and forth above him, continuing to advertise his mental state. He looked at Ed, trying to remain calm.

“I have so many questions, I don’t know where to begin.”

Ed gargled out through a mouthful of oleo, “I got the butter,” and pointed to the remaining three sticks next to her on the table.

PROLOGUE (Edit from "BUZZ AND THE RAMALAMAS")

…this world, your world, the world I write these words in, is awe-inspiring in the scope of its boredom and its lies and it is unacceptable by any human standard. As I have been left no choice but to leave it, I have constructed a newer, better world out of the detritus of this one, out of old Mad Magazines, Weird-Ohs model kits, and stoned half-memories of Northern California. The dialogue of this world was culled from Stan Lee’s “Bullpen Bulletins” in the back pages of Marvel Comics, the soundtrack made up of snatches of surf music and theremin stings from AIP monster movies, and its color palette is more limited than that of an early ‘70s Hanna-Barbera cartoon. That venerable fellow ROY G. BIV gets quite a workout over the next two hundred-odd pages, and if there is a chase down a hallway, you can rest assured that the exact same table, door, light and chair will be passed innumerable times. This world of mine is as fragile as a butterfly and as ephemeral as a soap bubble, but it is mine, nevertheless. Be thankful I only had to write it down on paper to make it real…

ENTER THE ZOMBIE (Edit from "ZOMBIE VS. SHARK")

Call him Fishmeal. He was not called this in life, nor was he called this in death, but one name is as good as any other when you refer to the living dead. His true name is zivumbe in the language of the Old Religion, which has come down to us in its corrupted form as zombie. The zombie lived by the sea when he was alive, as he did now as one who is dead and yet lives. The zombie was born by the sea, grew to manhood by the sea, surfed unceasingly in the sea, and died in the sea. When his remains washed ashore in a tide of blood and Gore-Tex, his body, or what remained of it, sat undisturbed for three days, and then the zombie walked the earth again. The zombie did not know why he lived again: if he was chosen, if it was a terrible accident, if it was related to some fluke of God or Man or Science. The zombie was quite certain that he was not a product of the Old Religion as he had no master to serve or to be summoned by. So, masterless, the zombie walked the earth, up and down the boardwalk with his shuffling, undead gait. Again, as opposed to the traditional zivumbe, the zombie did not crave the taste of human flesh: all the zombie craved were answers as to why he still lived this horrid half-life, who he had been when he lived, and who he could possibly be now that he was among the undead.

When the zombie approached the living on the boardwalk, he made quite an impression: his two most severe injuries were to his right leg, which was missing a large half-moon chunk from its thigh, and his midsection, which was strewn with scars above a jagged tear through his belly-flesh which allowed his entrails to flop lazily out against his abdomen. In addition, his left eye protruded from its socket on a stalk, lolling back and forth against his cheek. The zombie approached everyone he saw, slowly shuffling, and attempted to ask them the questions that plagued him: Why am I here? Who am I? What do I have left to accomplish? Unfortunately for the zombie, all of these questions emerged as “hhhrrrnnhhhh” and caused panicked fright rather than intellectual discourse in those he attempted to communicate with. As these people assumed, logically enough, that the zombie was a horrifically injured war veteran, they pressed upon him many paper dollars of cash money and the occasional tiny American flag or magnetic yellow ribbon. Soon, the zombie was the most moneyed of all those who begged along the boardwalk, the yellow ribbons arrayed around his neck in a decorative lei and the tiny American flags proving their usefulness as wadding to keep his prodigal organs from wandering any further. The zombie marveled at his luck at being a zombie in America, easily the most comfortable and comforting homeland one of the undead could ask for. Often, in moments of repose he would raise his hands above his head in fists and chant “USA! USA! USA!” to anyone who would listen. Unfortunately, to anyone who listened the zombie’s chorus would only sound like “hhhrrrnnhhhh” and his rabid patriotism went unheralded.

But still, many questions and few answers. The zombie sat beneath the boardwalk and stared at the surf, listening to the pounding of the waves and watching the living surfers dance along the crest of the water. The vague muscle memories that lay within him yearned to be released upon those waves, but the zombie was now possessed by a terrible fear of the water, which he could only assume was related to the manner of his death. But still he watched, and yearned, and watched and yearned more and more silently.

One day an eight-year-old boy came and sat beside the zombie on the sand beneath the boardwalk. He was not afraid for he had seen many horrible things in his short, sad life. The boy sat silently beside the zombie for a long time before he turned to look the zombie in the face. Several more minutes passed before the boy spoke.

“Hi,” he said tentatively.

The zombie turned to him and nodded in return.

“What happened to you?”

The zombie responded to the boy that he did not know, but, as before, the only sound that emerged was “hhhrrrnnhhhh”. However, a strange thing occurred this time. It was as if there were subtitles to the zombie’s groaning, because the boy understood him perfectly.

“You don’t remember?”

The zombie responded that, in fact, he did not.

The boy paused several moments before continuing. “Are you dead?”

The zombie answered thoughtfully that, although he possessed many of the aspects that characterized the living, i.e. movement and thought, he no longer needed to eat or drink or eliminate waste or breathe air so, ultimately, was unsure if he was truly alive or dead.

The boy looked away. “I think you’re dead.”

The zombie grunted noncommittally.

The boy looked back at the zombie, studying his putrefying face. “Is it scary, being dead?”

The zombie let loose a soft, slurrying noise that approximated a chuckle. He responded that it wasn’t any scarier than being alive, but that was scary enough in its own way. He added that other people seemed scared of him, except for the boy.

The boy exhaled through his teeth. “I’m not scared of anything.” The boy’s eyes dropped to the zombie’s extensive belly wound. “Could I touch it?”

The zombie responded that he did not mind, as he could no longer feel pain.

The boy tentatively ran his hand over the highest line of the wound, then began to slowly probe the ragged edge, feeling the gangrenous slime of the rotting organs. Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain and pulled his hand away quickly. The pad of his middle finger was now bisected by a cut, oozing blood. He held it up to the zombie, who shrugged. The boy returned to the wound, searching for the source of the cut. He poked and prodded for several minutes before something dislodged from the upper edge of the wound and fell into the blood-soaked organs and flag material. The boy picked the object out of the zombie’s offal, wiped it on his shorts, and held it up so the zombie could see. It was white, triangular, and very, very sharp.

“I think this is a tooth.”

The zombie looked from the tooth to the boy.

“I think you got killed by a shark.”

The zombie slowly turned his gaze from the boy to the sea, and the memory came flooding back to him.

VIETNAMESE RESTAURANT (Edit from "INSOMNIUM")

Cagey looks up from his soup to see two figures seated across from him. Cagey lowers his spoon, the soup in it uneaten. The girl, a blonde, appears to be mentally retarded, or at the very least brain damaged. However, unlike most mentally retarded individuals Cagey has observed, the girl is very beautiful, and her hygiene is impeccable: waves of long hair shine in the restaurant light, her makeup is restrained but effective, and her teeth are perfect. The overall effect is ruined by the small string of drool that collects at the corner of her mouth as she laughs her idiot laugh. Her eyes are glassy and deadened as she stares across the table at Cagey.

The dark-haired man seated next to her, on the other hand, radiates intelligence shot through with malice. His hair is slicked back from his high, proud forehead in a widow’s peak, and his arched eyebrows accentuate the eyes. A thick, flaky crust obscures those eyes, however, and its grayish color reflects the light in silvery glints. Although the face around the eyes is very animated, the crusts never crack, and the man never blinks. He just sits across from Cagey, next to the blonde moron, grinning a sickening, toothy grin. Neither speaks; they only regard Cagey silently for several minutes until he finally speaks.

“Um, is there something I can help you with?”

The dark-haired man giggles, mocks him: “Uh, uh, is there something I can help you with?” The idiot girl laughs her idiot laugh. They sit and continue to watch him.

“Why did you sit down here with me?”

The dark-haired man shrugs. “Didn’t. We were already here.” The blonde looks confused, nods, her jaw slack.

Cagey’s irritation begins to supplant his feelings of unease. “Sooo, I sat down here, at your table. Where you were the whole time. That’s what happened.”

The dark-haired man shrugs again. “You should come with us. We have some things to show you. Some things you’ll want to see.” The blonde imbecile nods emphatically, grunts, spittle flecking her chin.

“Wow. Wow, I don’t think so.”

The dark-haired man grins again, and Cagey’s stomach tightens up with apprehension. “You’ll end up going, one way or the other. It can be now, or there’s a bus that’ll take you later.”

“A bus?”

The man’s grin grows even broader. “Yeah, a bus. You don’t want to meet the bus driver.” The idiot girl laughs gutturally. The dark-haired man turns to her, grinning, looks back at Cagey. “Yeah. The bus driver. He’s, like…binary, man.”

“Binary?”

“Yeah, you know: if we’re all Ones, then he’s a…”

The idiot girl shouts it: “Zero!” She laughs and laughs, clapping her hands awkwardly together. The man laughs as well, continues staring at Cagey through the flaky gray crusts.

“Mm-hm. That’s right.” The dark-haired man jerks his thumb over at the blonde. “He touched her once, and part of her came off in his hand.” The blonde continues her nodding and giggling. The dark-haired man gets up, motions the blonde out of the booth. She pushes herself up and nearly tumbles out, steadying herself on the table. “My name is Charles. My sister’s name…is Suzie. We’ll see you again. You won’t forget us any time soon.”

Cagey chuckles mirthlessly. “No, no I won’t.”

The pair moves towards the door of the restaurant, the girl leaning into her brother for support. Cagey watches them walk out into the parking lot to a long, boxy black car of indeterminate make and vintage. A man gets out of the driver’s seat, at least it looks like a man, all dressed in black. It is hard to see across the dimly lit parking lot but he appears to open the rear driver’s side door to let Suzie into the car. He assists her as Charles gets in on the passenger side. The man in black appears to turn back to the restaurant, and it is then that the music coming through the speakers begins to warp, sounding as if a child were playing with an AM dial, voices and snatches of music coming in and out through the strange echoes of the sine waves. The man in black turns, gets back into the driver’s seat, and pulls out into the night without his lights on. The restaurant’s radio returns to its regular program of frothy j-pop. Cagey turns back to his soup bowl and exhales, palms down before him on the tabletop. He then gets up suddenly, almost runs over to the waiter tabulating bills at the register by the door. The waiter looks up, smiles as Cagey approaches.

“Can I help you, sir?”

“Yeah, did you see those two people just leave? What was wrong with that guy’s eyes?”

The waiter looks confused. “Eyes…?”

It takes Cagey about ten seconds to realize that the waiter’s English extends to menu items and “Can I help you, sir?” Cagey smiles uncomfortably, waves him off and returns to his table. His soup is cold. His dinner is ruined. Cagey throws down a twenty, not feeling able to wait for the bill this evening, and stalks out to his car.

ALL 4 U (RELEASE THE BATS, PART TWO)

The sun has gone out. It hangs in the heavens like a broken Christmas ornament. The huge, bat-winged creatures slowly flap their way across the darkened sky, lit from beneath by the ubiquitous fires. Screams and sirens echo around the valley beneath the mountain pass where the four young men stand, watching the butchery below.

They are members of a pop group, ALL 4 U; the name is embossed in tiny diamonds on the back of each of their uniquely colored velvet jumpsuits. Every one of them has a distinctively ridiculous haircut. The first, a deep baritone, turns to the others and states flatly, “So this is it. It has fully and truly come down.”

Another, voice much higher, tone much sweeter, responds with a sigh. “It would appear so. The real work begins now.”

The third pats his cornrows, grabs his balls and grunts out of the side of his mouth. “Yo yo yo, this shit is off the hizzy! Fo’shizzle my home nizzles! Niggas be all up in this shit, and shit. What what!”

The second turns to him, his tone scornful. “You don’t have to do that anymore. The end has begun. You can be yourself now.”

The third’s cartoonish grimace fades and he straightens up, embarrassed, rubs his neck. “Yeah. That’s right, isn’t it?”

The fourth, his pronunciation clipped and almost feminine, exclaims and points into the distance. “There! Look there.”

A creature made only of bones strides across the horizon, its four legs hundreds of feet tall. The thing’s body is much smaller, relatively speaking; its ribcage has only the mass of a mid-size automobile. The beast’s skull is long and thin, like that of a great horse. On the bone creature’s back rides a human skeleton of nearly the same proportions, arms and legs at least three times as long as they would be on a normal man. The skeleton holds a great flat sword at the end of his elongated arm and swings it through the open air, cackling. The high-pitched laughter is audible even over the echoing cacophony rising from the valley below.

The fourth purrs with satisfaction: “Bone Lord.” He nearly pronounces each word as a separate sentence for the gravity placed upon them.

The first claps his thighs and responds almost jauntily, “Well, I had better get down there, hadn’t I?”

The second nods, looks to the others. “We had all better. There is much work to be done.”

The third sighs. “I need to get the scales up and running to be able to separate the living remainder. Those bats and the Bone Lord will be done before you know it.”

The fourth smiles his pinched, autocratic smile. “And the concentration camps aren’t going to just fill themselves.”

They all laugh.

“True dat.”

With a small shrug, the first moves towards the pass leading to the valley below. “Wait,” requests the second, raising his hand. The first looks back askance. “Let’s do the hit. Just one more time, the chorus, okay? We might not have another chance.”

The others exchange glances, laugh, nod bashfully. They pull in close, hit C, then fall into their pre-programmed dance steps as they sing their first and biggest hit.

Fighting and fussin’, cheating and cussin’
Days when I was hungry and did not know what to do
Putting up a day’s pay for a bottle of Courvoisier
Girl, you know I’m giving it up a-all for you-u

The step ends with all four crouched in position, making silly ultra-macho faces and they immediately break into hysterics, clapping each other on the back and falling about. The second is the first to stand up, helping the others to their feet.

“That was fun.”

The fourth nods. “It was a good run, wasn’t it?”

“Hells, yes,” punctuates the third.

The first dusts off his knees and spreads his hands wordlessly to the others. They nod and slowly fall into line, walking towards the break in the trees that leads to the pass below. Four horses are tied there, each to its own post, and each with a banner corresponding to its individual rider. One of the bat-things passes close overhead and the ensuing wind ruffles the group members’ jumpsuits, the colors shimmering in the available fire-light: white, red, black and, lastly, a pale, pale green.