#7!

#7 - Children of Men

I have to say, when it comes to films or books about a dystopia I seem to enjoy it a lot. Does that say anything about how I am? Does this list also reflect how much I love Clive Owen's acting since this is the second film I have put on this list that has him in one of the starring roles? That's for you to decide.

I have to say, Clive Owen and Alfonso Cuarón made this film extraordinary. Owen was the hero who didn't want to be a hero -- a drunkard trying to get over his son's death and dissolved marriage. Julianne Moore can't do no wrong, either, even though she's in about 10 minutes of the film. The chemistry between her and Owen is believeable, and in fact, we feel awful after she leaves the picture.

Cuarón is a director that seems to never get the credit he deserves. He has made some beautiful films, smart films -- films that keep you thinking until the very end. I wish the Academy made some kind of acknowledgemnt towards his directorial work.

Anarcho, Chapter One

The protagonist presided over the overturning of a cop car. Drinks were served. None of the crew belonged to the scene. If they were caught, if cops showed, they'd have naught to offer but him. And that was fine with him. He'd hired alley bums to guard the streets, keep their bugged eyes looking out. A homeless couple and their great dane crouched beside their grocery cart stationed at the nearest intersection arguing about the Lakers game while listening for all incoming calls. Nice change of pace, his phone's real-time scores feature offered them something new to yell about every other minute at ever increasing decibels. He'd known Ron and Rhonda for enough years to feel some comfort joshing them their predilection toward grievous volume and caustic scenery but tonight he wasn't in the mood for talking or listening or even dealing with people, homeless couples or otherwise. Ahh, but what choice did the artist have? He schmoozed with each and all from the food dude to the actress he bought off of Sunset. Ahh, but he was tense. His neck twitched ever 10 seconds or so which may or may not have had anything to do with his inability to hold his head up straight. As it was, his skull wobbled on his shoulders, dipping down into his chest. He looked like a pill popper conspiring for a scam at the corner table of a club, checking his figurative rearviews every few seconds, incapable of performing a steady nod or shake of the head at a constant pace but jittery. The consummate artist watches his breath pool in the night.

A lot of time had gone into re-painting that sedan, a lot of concentration. He'd figured it out back in college that his one gift wasn't originality or passion of metaphor or even meaningfulness. As a self-described artist he'd happily plugged all of the above into the formula of his self but times like this when disolate daydreams materialize, when all the time he'd put into collecting the cash, buying the junker, painting it, planning pre-production prep-work...he knew better. It was too cold too harsh a night to wash & wax his safe & cozy bubble to a nice and shielding sheen. He'd figured out that his gift was concentration. Like Michelangelo dissecting a stone in his mind or Milton composing complete epics in his head like tending a zen garden of synaptic activity. He didn't have their talent or vision but he had that focus. Looking in the mirror in the morning he could see himself at 40 just as easily as he could see his present self. By the time he'd hit 40 he'd have hoed deep lines into his forehead, no seeds to sew though. He'd have room for musical notation. He'd...he'd be laughing at himself all night until the high wore down and he'd worry again.

The shoot took less than 4 minutes. Within ten minutes the car was loaded up into the non-descript truck and taken far away. Clockwork doesn't run that well. Ron and Rhonda got 35 dollars, the actors and crew got their 30 each and everyone else got 12. A couple of watchouts got nothing as a couple of smartphones went missing. It was an unprofitable day aside from the culmination of a dream project. He'd forgotten three-fouths of the dream projects he'd conceived sober or otherwise. It didn't mean much but he was looking forward to presenting it.

The gallery was held underneath a metro station. Upon pillars were placed the paintings. Like fliers stapled to a telephone pole. Some of them were fliers and the they may as well have been stapled. Sculptures guarded the perimeter, clay and stone and found art barriers to the shrubbery by the off-ramp, the bushes behind which teens smoked and gangs did what they do. It was dusk. A taped recording intentionally warped and warbled trumpeted welcoming messages in a dozen languages poorly spoken on a loop. Welcome to the Anarcho Art Festival, the underground network of anarchist artists, fashionistas, critics and provacateurs. Wine was served. Brie and crackers. Salsa for the vegans.

"Pasture Output" was a popular performance piece. On a rickety stage stood a couple of women. One wore corpse paint. She hugged the other woman who proceeded to mime going to bed. The corpse tucked her in. A black and red banner was walked in front of the stage to signify a curtain. Again they stood silent. This time the corpse went to bed. While the banner passed another woman in corpse paint jumped on stage. A cycle was born. Within 5 iterations the small stage was overrun by corpses. End scene.

"Survive: Trance End" was not accorded as much buzz but was still very well recieved. The author, Will Diego, was quickly ascending the ranks of The Undergound County, a splintered offshoot of Aztlan Thundergound that formed during their last crisis in leadership. While the majority of the Aztlan artists wanted to continue the soviet council system, the Underground wished to experiment with a Bakunin styled parliament. Diego's latest work was undoubtedly a reflection of this turmoil. On a matte canvas too large to hang from any one pillar (and for this reason pinned on a long clip attached to a clay pedestal) Diego had scrawled a mispelled expletive on a background of spray-painted, multi-colored words using multiple typefaces and font settings. The juxtaposition was impressive. Our protagonist was less than impressive but he spoke only the kindest words to the artist, his arm wrapped around the artist's shoulder.

Now that we're reminded of him: next to an installation consisting of fashion magazines dunked in mud and wrapped into a full body cast for a mannequin, sat a table upon which sat a 17'' laptop running our protagonist Chris Turner's fifth short film "Short film number 7." Using a total of 1 minute 16 seconds of film and extensive techniques of visual and audio manipulation, both manual and digital, "Short film number 7" offered an 8 minute exploration of the uprooting, overturning and fire-bomb burning of an ersatz cop car by 2 poorly paid actors made up in muslum gang fashion. It didn't have the buzz of some of the other works that night but it attracted a substantial number of observers and a fine critical reception. He wasn't disappointed. He'd done what he always does in these situations, besides drinking heavily. Hope for the best. Expect the worst. No, he wasn't disappointed at all.

Around midnight MC Sugarbeat began his show with support from the local band Jerking White Tears. They did a nerdcored take on JWT's "One Ton of Sugar":

I like my tea strong, I like my cocks longer, not a damn thing wrong wanting wider, weighty, fuller, more filling than fingers, more filling to savor, fulfilling is the feel & coffee is the flavor. One ton of sugar or two, I ask you, one ton of sugar or two, I ask you. Assholes are like opinions , full of hot air, everyone's got one so no need to stare. We can each have a slice, we can each have a share, we can each overreach 'til we have a couple pairs. One ton of sugar or two, I ask you, on ton of sugar or two, I ask you....

Turner was mingling with some colleagues when a young man approached. His hair was short and spiked. On his wrists were the snapped ends of handcuffs, chains dangling. He was holding a flashlight. They'd arranged enough lamps euphemistically borrowed from a production company "to clear the air of night" but connoisseurs carried their own lights, the better to appreciate the festivities and, more importantly, the art. The young man lied and said he loved Turner's work.

SnowPenguinMan!

Wind Cecilia

The Jokes, section 7: Surprise Surprise (end of Ch. 1)

-Say A.B?
-Yes Davey?
-Wanna sing a song A.B?
-What Davey?
-I said do you wanna sing a song A.B?
-We've sung 20...25 songs today...tonight, haven't we Davey?
-I said do you wanna sing a song A.B?
-We've sung, we've sung, by golly we've sung, haven't we Davey?
-Why won't you answer my question A.B? Huh A.B? Huh?
-(exaggerated sigh)Alright, alright, we'll sing a song!
-Well what are you going on about now?
-What?
-I don't wanna sing a song but now you do so now we gotta sing a song I guess-
-What? Davey you just. asked. me. if I wanted to sing a...oh!
-Oh what?
-Oh, you don't want to sing.
-Well I just told you that.
-But you want me to sing. Well alright, how about Memories Are Made of This. (snap and-a snap and-a)-
-Whoa Whoa What? I don't want no lullaby. Cheese Whi-iz!
-Oh for the love of
-What's gotten into you?
-What's gotten into me?
-That's what I want to know! All I asked you was if you wanted to sing a song! Yes or No! Yes? No? That's it.
-I'm speechless
....
-For fucksakes, that's your guys' punchline? Did you skip a few steps, forget the funny parts?
-Yeah we slipped into some ad-libbing, hey aren't you supposed to be unconscious?
-Wait yeah, what's the big idea, bozo? Get back into your corner!
-Did you guys just make up this routine on the spot? What in the hell was that? Seriously.
-Look fella, we've been at this all night. Not everyone got naptime. Now back to the corner. You've earned a time-out.
-You fuckers, hey which one of you two kicked me. I'm having some troubling sorting everything out but I know one you geezers kicked me.
-Several times. It was him by the way →
-Oh you lousy prick.
-Oh dear God are the mics off?
-What, what did I say. Hey, engineer! Dump it!
-You are twice as stupid as you look, which is impressive, I'll admit. No one's listening. Even I don't delude myself into thinking that anyone would waste their time, illicit power use and contraband radios listening to me. Cheese whiz indeed. Harumph.
-So...
-Plus the FCC was dissolved last revolution.
-It was? Ok. But...
-So go away! It's my show again. You're both half dead, you haven't slept all night and you've gone blind. If you see Georgie in that window you are blind, sirs. My guess? He's sleeping the worst night of his life off on the floor. Good enough for me, good enough for Georgie. Now begone. I'm sick of the sight of the both of yous.
-We're grabbing our reel-to-reels before we leave.
-Fine by me, fine by me. Except the engineer's door is locked and Georgie is out for the count. So...not as fine with reality.
-(grumble grumble)
-Look guys, I like you two so I'll be sure to mail your tapes off. Just name the retirement community whose resources you're wasting and get the fuck out of here!
-(grumble grumble)

-Hi kiddies. Your trendy neighborhood clown is back. Let's get this party started! Right!

[cue theme song]

TO BE CONTINUED...

(when we return, CH.2 "Gelastics"! Wherein we encounter actual honest-to-god action!)

Cecilia Moonshine

The Jokes, section 7: Subheading

Aged Man rests his head on the stoop as he's telling his jokes. Maybe the wind will pick them up, scatter them. There is no wind, but. Maybe the Dirtbags will let him in if he asks nicely. He spent the night walking around the building telling his jokes. Everything was acted out. Every emotion was realized. If anyone was close enough to make him out in the dark they'd see an old man in an ancient suit gesticulating madly, laughing to himself. If they stood at the corner by the engineer's entrance they'd see the aged man approach the cone of its light like a Cyclops groping blindly at the exit of the cave, oblivious of sheep and man. For a man his age his limbs were loose and his steps were lively but his voice a faucet dripping. More a matter of percussion than conversation. Hear the way his lips smack like a snare. And the clearing of his throat, the cymbal. The rhythm of his consonants slurred by a sibilant S. Yet the odd-metered bounce of his steps no less than the infinitely rehearsed toss of his arms serve well to punctuate his inflections, to keep the beat.

He'd lived a long time. Centuries by his own reckoning. Every man needs a gift from God. His was eternity and an audience. Around and around and around he walked. He hadn't written a new joke since his show was canceled. He'd relied on a gaggle of writers even then when he was youngish and creative to keep the show running. Not since his early days at half-filled Hoboken theaters and late night happenings with beat friends joking grass and his time with the Dirtbags simply there to make them look good, not since he was young has he felt funny. Turned out he was better suited to entertainment than to comedy. He wasn't a comic, no, he wasn't a humorist, a funnyman or a wit, not even by half. That was one he wrote but he's not telling that one. He's not telling the phantom-filled night his knock knocks or his one-liners. He made Davey laugh once with a flurry of one-liners along the lines of those old "How cold was it?" routines but his was "How bereft of sanity are you, old man?"

I'm so nutty I have to wear owl scent to fend off the squirrels.
I'm so loopy I got my foot stuck in my ear. Took three strong men to de-loop me. A loop de-looped.
I'm so screwy when I do the twist I lose my shoes.
I'm so off my rocker I .....um.....

He held tight to the building. There was warmth within. He could take some solace from the nearness of life and hearth and home as the night grew thicker, colder. Like a puppy nuzzled up against a bed he sat down by the stoop where he still remains.

Inside Dave and A.B. ran through a good 1/16 of their best routines. They'd made sure the engineer was getting it all on tape. Who cares who's listening live. If they make 'em laugh, that's great. That right there is what it is all about. But really it doesn't do a good damn thing for them. They have a legacy that is in dire need of some up-sprucing. No one is sure that things'll, how did the pundits put it when they owned the airwaves, stabilize? And Davey and A.B., they're not getting any younger. The cracks and creaky joints are showing. A.B.'s muffed his cue too goddamn many times and who knows if this schmendrik engineer knows how to splice tape.

The engineer suppresses a yawn and ingests a large volume of alcohol in one unending sip.

An Earth's diameter away a troupe of epicurean fanatics preach and practice the mutability of the flesh and the impermanence of human dignity. A preacher stands before a choir and stubs his toe on the dais and yea did the congregation laugh. Woe be unto them who cannot find the buried pleasure in mundane muck. Mere miles down the road a roving gang of fatalists mock st. solemnity and pragmatic stability. They know of no joy save in the shock that awaits all. The shock of the vulgar phallus and the rotting carcass and the dead baby. The pain. Not the pain of a stubbed toe. The pain of a stubbed soul. Frolic, they frolic and frolic. And as they frolic they hear across the Seine the amassed mumblings and shouts and muted deadpan of the third camp. The Observationalists observe.

The engineer takes another sip.

A young man and a young woman meet up once more before the war to end all wars begins. Potential jokes tussle in his head as they embrace. Every moment of every fighting day is an opportunity for a funny observation. They trained him to see everything through a veil of self-consciousness. Likewise, he knows to observe every social or psychological situation from every conceivable angle, knowing that only from the appropriate angle can the glint of a gem be seen. The trained Observationalist is a closet phenomonologist.

If everything's a blur you're going blind. Nothing is more vital than keeping your wits about you at all times. She knew this. He knew this. She wore a bit of ribbon in her hair. Not tied to anything. Just slipped underneath a lock and dangling down. She's worried that his objectivity is slipping. She cares about him, would hate to see him lose his identity. The loss of identity is like Nietzsche's loss of God. It's a frightful affair that shouldn't be blithely accepted or smugly celebrated. Idenity should be mourned. Wear black until you can transcend predicament, overcome anchoring acknowledging said anchoring. Abstracting from fixed position. Triangulating to a new location from your past locations. Humean synthesis of sorts. She's getting off on him and his neuroses. The mind is a terrible thing to misplace. A heart is a terrible thing to give away. She loves being terrible to herself. She is a teenager after all.

They embrace. The two of them look into each others eyes but maybe they only see the reflection. Who knows, it's hard to get into the heads of young lovers. He knows the jokes his friends are making. Were making, actually. If they knew he was still consorting with the enemy there would no longer be any time for jokes. The jokes would be "too soon." That's not cool, that's just wrong. That was her world where taste was not a factor. She could joke about his execution. Tragedy minus time equals raucous laughterland. They embrace and within seconds he feels shame.

They embrace. The two of them lost their childhoods, lost track, lost physically, lost as in wasted, unworn. Who knows how they've survived. Maybe with humor. Their gifts. Their superhuman ability to divorce themselves from reality. She knows how this works. She knows what it means to part with the positivist universe. It's no great skill. Even the observationalists can do it but they've never understood what it meant. To displace yourself with laughter is the greatest gift of all. She loves this man but she feels sorry for him. He's a victim of normativity. They embrace and within moments she steals a kiss.

The War is nigh upon us now. Air's oppression slows time's travails. And travels. And trivials. And so on...


TO BE CONTINUED...

Mutter Cecilia

The Jokes, section 6: Speak to Me like Lovers Do

In the Black Forest of the Banana Peels, an army marches to their own densely-arranged and essentially stupid musical score:

Like a hammer to the skull, like a skier driven deep into the softly packed snow, We Know, We Know, Our Role, Our Role. Live a million years, conquer lands and vanquish fears, Our Tears, Our Tears, Advance our careers if we're sincere. If we're sincere, in our veneer......

[Musical Interlude: Dum dum dum dum Dum dum dum dum....]

Slipping on a slick underlit patch of ice (patch of ice), brings us closer to our paradise (paradise), and if we sound out good & extra nice (extra nice), howls of pain absolve us of all vice (of all vice), and when I 'lectrocute 'pon flawed device (flawed device), I see a lite brite imprint of wise sunrise (wise sunrise), with eyes no puppetmaster could devise (could devise), with brittle bones I set off swift surprise (swift surprise), intended to surprise cheese hank'rin' mice (hank'rin' mice), but which instead has found my fingers will suffice (will suffice), my every step I trip my spirits rise (spirits rise), with every laugh I shatter morbid lies (morbid lies), like glass tables struck too hard by tumbling metal dice. Within our skin we pinch our soul within a vice within our flesh we pin our hearts and minds to a sense of safety and propriety our comedy denies.

[Musical Interlude...]

These are facts jacks, pure and simple like my dimple, stick with your swung cats, stick with a gasp of air your slaps and fall your prats, roll with the punches and punch like your rolling a flowing aero-dynamic going bowling ball with all of all of your contrived and contorted force, of course, you flow and you roll with it, of course, of course, into the pins for a strike and you win and it's bittersweet like the blood dripping from your broken teeth, like a coral reef, of course, of course, of course. I'm out. Peace.

[Musical Interlude...]

Scatological catalog of all the things that can go wrong in the bathroom of a friend. When your face turns purply-red. Methodological indexes of everything puerile and quaintly vile like a well-timed fart. Poop and Dick jokes are an art!

[Musical Interlude...]

You do what you gotta do, who you gotta do it to. You do what you gotta do, who you gotta do it to. I'm good, I'm great, I'm grade A. I...Am...Hubris. I'm good, I'm great, I'm grade A. I...Am...Hubris. I do what I wanna do, who I wanna do it to, I'm vain and I am arrogant, I'm unpleasant and I'm lust-filled too. I'm vain and I am arrogant, I'm unpleasant and I'm lust-filled too. I'm good, I'm great, I'm grade A. I...Am...Hubris. I'm good, I'm great, I'm grade A. I...Am...Hubris. I'm going to get kicked in the nuts! (Yeah) I'm going to get kicked in the nuts! (yeah) I..............Am.......Hubrissssssss!............(yeah)

[Musical Interlude...]

Oh the greats how they'd make it with pies in their face. Oh the greats how they made it dangling from giant time faces. Oh the greats how they made it as zany and insane goofball redheads. Oh the greats how they made it as bowl-cut, cue bald and increasingly bald-headed redheads. Oh the greats how they spoke with cigars blowing smoke, how they harped onward ever without having ever had ever to spoke, how they made you laugh, they made you cry, they made you never fear to die, never fear to laugh when others cry, never fear the flesh and each bit of its precious surprise. Oh the greats who've departed our plain dull plane to crash paper mache planes into stained-glass panes, who are now stains on the shirts of the fates. Oh. the. greaaaaaaaattttsssss. (yeah, jazz hands)

Blow Cecilia

The Jokes, section 5: I Don't Know What You Want, Tell Me

After that nose-be-gin-blossomed clown kicked him out the aged man pulled himself up by his boot straps, acknowledging the physical impracticality but harboring no fear of the impossible. Years he spent smashing his craft against every barrier that stood in his way until there was but one barrier left, the one separating him from the big time. Now, kicked out by a clown, pulled up by himself and proverbial bootstraps, the aged man stands tall. He has no idea where to go. If all is well in this world the clown will die an inebriated death in his own sick. But that may be too much to hope for. He stands for some hours, staring down the door. He remembers this door from many decades before when he'd been on a comedy tour which for him amounted to little more than pageboy chores. He was the runt of the comedy group, an apprentice who'd made a name for himself in smallhand in the margins of the real stars' signatures. His act consisted of knock knock jokes told slanted. This was the avante garde back then and he was doing things leagues ahead of his supposed mentors. Never before or since has he been so little understood.

Knock Knock! Who's There? Second Base!

In his later years he mellowed out. He lost his nerve some might say if anyone knew who he was or were familiar enough with the turns his comedic career was taking to say something to that effect.

Knock Knock! Who's There? Who's There? Knock! Knock!

But looking at this door he still sees snow packed along the sides of the step and still feels slush seeping into his torn and worn out loafers. If he leans forward and stares at the door close enough he thinks he can see his initials carved into the paint, but of course that was several hundred coats of paint ago.

Knock Knock! Who's There? Orange! Orange who? Orange you glad I didn't say pornography ::whirro whirro whirro::

And then he feels the door and then he hears steps behind him. "Yoodley Hoo" goes a familiar voice. It was on their tour that he opened all those years before. They've followed him? "Hey, fruitfly, make like a student and stop being stupid. And maybe, hey why not, get out of our way maybe?"

Knock Knock! Who's There? Orange! Orange who? Orange! Orange Orange who? Orange! orange orange orange....

Everyone died off, he thought. Did, did they have the same gift as him? He'd always felt so alone all those years. In his later years, after the mellowing, after the sobering, after finding faith in the everyday he hosted a radio show, a local show on KNCP in Tucson, Arizona. He found his voice, his calling, and his love all in one day. He married the kindest, most wonderful world in all of Arizona. She was his treasure every second of everyday until the day she died. Already his radio career was dying. His fans forgot about him. All the kids who grew up with him fled. His whimsy was increasingly wasted on pot-addled teens and hipster college kids. He retired at the age of 75. It was a different world. Busier but so empty. So much disconnection. And everyone he knew and cared for dead. He began sleeping for weeks at a time. Months. Before he knew it he was over 179 years old. God had granted him an infinity. But now it was coming to a close. And he wasn't going to experience the end of the world alone. Davey Ratchko and Alfred Beechum Ritter, the Dirtbag Duo.

Orange! Knock Knock! Knock Knock who? Knock Knock I didn't say bananana??

The Dirtbags hated him so thoroughly that he didn't even mind when they knocked him off his feet with their canes, each to a turn. They always make it look so easy, striding into a studio like they own the joint. Oh, and they were heavy pot smokers back before cocaine became the comedic drug of choice. The aged man sighs, wonders how God's grace can be so capricious. The Dirtbags are blessed with eternal life, living to experience the rapture while his wife died childless and distant, disease coarsing through her flesh and bones like locusts. They have time to enjoy the pleasure of the act even after he's been branded a bum and tossed to the cold. To the snow hardened spring time of his own fading emmories. He circles the building over and over. He counts his strides, he counts his complete revolutions. He coughts the number of times his wife laughed at his jokes. He remembers fewer and fewer laughs the older he lives. His days on the radio, making life exciting for kids and adults alike with some gags, some guests, puppets and music. His knack, his gift. He hardly remembers any of it now. Time is fading. He continues to circle the studio, knowing of no where else to go. And then he remembers his favorite joke.

Knock Knock! Who's There? Delores. Delores who? Delores my shephard I shall not want. He maketh me....He maketh me lie down.....He....Whooo boy (thump)

TO BE CONTINUED...

Cecilia Star Power

The Jokes, section 4: Ain't Got Nothing Else

The Cartesians hate this but the opposing forces have taken to referring to the intersection of the three spheres as the Origin, with x,y & z coordinates demarcating the boundaries. They take issue with the z. It doesn't work that way, they pontificate. Mathematicians do not understand metaphors at all. Along this controversial Z strolls a young Observationalist ostensibly on patrol. His thoughts flutter like butterflies buoyed on the breeze. The sky is cloudless for the first day in weeks. The war is at a stalemate which is the closest he's known peace in years. Besides, so long as the village in the valley on the east side of the Seine is the focus of each enemies gunsights the Observationalists can enjoy the sight from the sidelines. All future foreseeable skirmishes will be between the Shaggy Dogs and the Dead Baby Shot The Dogs. Let them whittle each other down to size the commander said and the battalion laughed as one.

His steps are buoyed by the butterflies in his feet as he floats along the z coordinate with the breeze. And then he sees them. A young man and a young woman. That's not what he sees, though. He sees Observationalist officer and a member of the Dead Baby Shot The Dogs.

Within moments the phalanx of iron enforced huts that comprises the Observationalist camp is a mad scene of vicious gossip, vituperative denunciations and vociferous uproar. Not a few note with derision the situation's similarity to Romeo & Juliet as written by an emo hillbilly. A few of the paunchy, middle-aged, bushy bearded officers namedrop something called Leroy Jenkins. High horses are arranged as stadium seating.

By the time the offending officer returns everyone in the camp has an act. All of the constant cantankerous kibitzing has rejuvenated the community. In a way this was the best disaster; that could happen. Their weapons are freshly honed, not for years has their sense of inequity and discord been this sharp, this forceful. Their superciliousness up to full on Cross-Hicks mode. Their reproaches spiteful, full of spittle, yummy. Delicious. But what of the peace?

The community grew divided. There were those who wanted to take the advantage, maraud and guerrilla their foes like predators in the trees. But there were those who wanted to leave things be, let the enemies wear each other out. The young Observationalist whose covert wooing gave rise to this division was a vocal member of the latter quotient. Wasn't it, he pointed out, a betrayal of the Observationalist philosophy to take unwarranted action? They'd be self-defeated. But unfortunately his visibility became a liability for his faction as he was nothing more than a traitor. You see, the female leader of the dominant hawk faction observed, men never want to take responsibility for their willys. Oh, it has a mind of its own, does it? Has your member ever gotten a migraine, buddy? Would you like one? That became their rallying cry. Has your member ever gotten a migraine? Would you like one? I just...I just don't know anymore.

Selva was the name of the young Dead Baby Shot a Dog girl who meshed so wiry with the young Observationalist whose name she did not know, whose love she cherished, whose strategy and preparedness secrets she pocketed like someone else's wallet.She was a hero to her people. Her actions were repugnant. She betrayed a man she loved for no good reason. It's not like there would be anything to be gained from the Observationalists. She wasn't even employed as a spy. It was a whim. And the Observationalists suspect nothing! How cruel. How hilarious! Selva would never have to buy herself a drink again, and she was on a serious binge.

The world turns ever onward, but for how long?

TO BE CONTINUED....

(Next installment prepare to meet an old friend!)

# 8 movie of the decade

#8 - Match Point

This was the film that really got me into Woody Allen. I thought it was smart, sexy, and one of Scarlett Johansson's best performances. I also thought this was quite a departure from Woody Allen's typical film. Woody Allen usually does well when creating a drama, it's just his comedies that usually go awry. It is still one of my favorite films of all time, and is something anyone can appreciate. Too bad Scoop was horrific.

Blood Cecilia

The Jokes, section 3: No Seriously, These Are The Jokes

"KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK HELLOOOOO Okay we're coming in."

"Look at this creep. Passed out on center stage. And sweet lord look at the sheer number of empty bottles on the floor."

"Well, you know, he's a loser. This is the very definition of a has-been. Hey, who's the hairy baldo in the engineering room? Looks like God tried to chalk this guy's head with a....with a....oh screw it we're not on the air yet."

"Look at him. He's staring at us like he doesn't know who we are. Can you believe that, the lax screening station employers employ in this day and age. There should be a test for applicants and our picture should be the answer key. Davey, go see if he's capable of working our spots. Bring the script with you so he knows our cues."

"One sec, A.B. I want to check that this waste of space on our stool isn't dead because you know and I know that I don't need the trouble but I don't know if he knows. Eh, schmuck's fine. Happy Landing Thump!"

"Stop playing with the husk of a man, will you. That bald son of a gun is looking at us like we're wasting his time, like he had anything better to do."

"I know something better he could do. Get a shave. And he don't need to worry about the two bits. I've got one in each fist."

"Stop joking Davey, go in there and give him the strip. When I expect a boom of a bass drum I better hear a boom."

"And when you tell a joke there better be some canned laughter because otherwise who would know."

"Davey, please, time is money, time is short, time is a commodity."

"I thought time was what went with Rosemary, Sage and Parsley. Like that, and they say we're out of touch with the hip music of today. Boom! Rimshot. We've got this. Assuming he's got this."

"The script, Davey. That's what he don't got."

"Alright, alright already. One gastric bypass and you're a grouch. Shouldn't there be more room in your heart now, A.B.?"

"Why you. Oh yeah, we're good. We're hip. Let's just not break any. So, what did our esteemed engineer say?"

"Everyone today, so goddamn entitled. I swear to god. Just ass and sass, snide and my god everyone's got a surly attitude and-"

"Jesus Christ David, you've got to keep your temper under goddamn control. This may be our last chance. Let's do it right. Let's do it like we used to."

"Uggggghhhhhhh"

"Alright so what are you moaning for, A.B.?"

"That wasn't me. Wasn't it you?

"Ugggggghhhhhh"

"Maybe it was that meshuggenah cueball with enough stubble to-"

"Da-vey!"

"Ugggggghhhh, god I'm still alive"

"Oh hey, how do you like that? It was the bum you kicked into the back corner, Davey!"

"Well so it is. Hellloooooo Mr. godforsaken bum. Are you able to stand up, able to get the fuck out of our booth Mr. godforsaken bum? Hmmmmm?"

"Your....That was you kicking me? I felt that you rat's ass muckerfuther. I'm still feeling that. Damnit are you wearing steel-toed boots? Why would you do that?"

"Hey buster, those are genuine leather two-buckle character shoes. They're durable. They're pragmatic. More importantly, they're classy like my friend here so keep your muzzle on. Besides, we can't afford the tennis sneakers you've got there, sir. Do you rob banks? How do you keep yourself supplied with such an adequate wardrobe? It's uncanny."

"The fug are you going off...hey, hell, I used to grow up on you guys. I can't believe you guys are here, standing in my sick. Made you look. But honestly, this is amazing."

"So Mr. fat and ugly is a fan?"

"No, I just can't believe you guys are still alive. Hey! Georgie! What're you doing letting these bozos unseat me from my seat. And so rudely too. *Cough!*Hack*Hork!* Don't I treat you well enough to *HACK*"

[over the booth mic] "Yeah, they just walked in. Started insulting me. They think I'm gonna run the boards for them. Fuck 'em up for me."

"Yes, I will do that because I am the clown and I deserve respect. I don't deserve being kick by a couple of eleventy year olds off their meds. Unfortunately I really don't have the will to get up so have your show. For future fucking reference, though, please schedule first so there won't be this....kind of unfortunateness. Just because you're older than Hammurabi doesn't mean you're exempt from rules."

"As I understood it, clown, everyone's exempt from rule now. Least that's what the kids that mugged us on the way here told us. I'm inclined to believe them."

"That's right. They had guns!"

"But we'll forgive you this ingratitude for our inspiration and instead we'll just remind you how this business is done. With class and sport. With verve and pride. Just lay back, clown, and learn everything you forgot falling onto your face for the fun of it."

"Ready A.B.? Okay, baldie? When I count to three we're on. We're starting with the crocodile bit. It'll be a time trip everyone. Watch. Learn. One. Two. Three.

TO BE CONTINUED

Blue Cecilia

The Jokes, Section 2: These Are The Jokes

The world, that big thingamajig on which we are forced to live, is currently divided into 3 zones of influence. In the absence of governments, both state and cooperative, and financial markets, capitalist or otherwise, the world has fallen within the long fingered reach of comedic domination. It's the charisma, you could never understand how powerfully it grasps an unmoored humanity. Just, just go with me on this. In the absence of stable meaning irony has run train on communication, morality and identity. Humor and style are commodities. I know that I said there were no markets. Trust me on this. Humor and style are widely traded but only in the marketplace of the battlefield and only by trained practitioners. Elsewhere the world is devoid of laughter in any concentrated form. So long as the war is underway and all quality comics and gag artists are on the frontlines the bulk of humanity must suffer through a physical unrest, a dissatisfaction with existence. These are these the stakes. For real. I'm pretty committed to this scenario.

In a hut of iron sheeting, in a dusty old European city drained of color a battalion of fever-addled, hopped up Observationalists conspire to take the village across the Seine. The commander speaks:

"Our time is short. That means our days are longer. For life is an infinity. To each of us, life is our infinity. The word has no meaning beyond the scope of our consciousness. [from the background, here here. Hurrah! Scattered applause] Do you ever notice how some people, they'll repeat the mantra about how [cue booming voice] Tomorrow Is The First Day Of The Rest Of Your Life. [polite scattered chuckles] I'm thinking, holy cow does that mean I have to go through puberty again. [dead silence] Or like, take Murphy's Law and Peter's Principle into account. I've been going around thinking I've gotten I've done my fucking up, completed the process of, ya know, matriculating to my level of incompetence as that last joke offers proof...and now it's like...shoot, man I finally self-actualized" [a quick & quiet coup; the commander is reassigned. Enter new commander]

"You know, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted [wink; hoots and hollers; knowing applause] you ever notice how they also like to say, these cornercurb philosophers, not a single one of them having lived an honest to god life...in, uh, their life [honest to god giggles] They like to say [cue screeching, effeminate voice]Live Each Day Like It's Your Last. Holy shitberries, what the hell kind of maxim is that? [Laughter] What, do they want me to murder my wife and rape my dog, because [gasps] I've already [hushed silence] written my bucket list [boos] Oh fuck you all [BOO!] Sorry, I misspoke, I meant fuck all your moms!" [Coup; Reassign; Enter]

"Wow. So....anyway. Yeah. Heh heh. You ever notice how on TV they say, because YOU KNOW I watch a lot of TV. I don't worry about brain rot because I figure the more holes in your head the more room for all the things I'm learning. You dig? Okay so you don't dig. That's cool. It's not that im-port-ant to my thesis statement. So like, I'm watching TV and I'm making connections. I'm seeing the guy on the TV station [someone yells "What's TV?"] Oh...oh man. Alright well then let me talk about ducks. Are You All Familiar With Ducks [laughter; raucous atmosphere].."

MEANWHILE

The storied Shaggy Dogs live by one rule. They trace their storied history to No Soap Radio, a storied joke that goes something like this. A couple of chaps are conversing. Preferably they're wearing vests with a time pieces dangling from the chest pocket. They have stylish walking canes maybe, not unlike that of Bill McNeal on Newsradio, and most likely they have bowler hats. Moustaches. And the film is black and white and scratched all over. That could make for a joke in itself but it is most definitively not. The two chaps are conversating and over comes chap no. 3 with a joke to tell. One of the original two chaps is what is called a confederate, or accomplice, of the joke-spinner. And the joke can take just about any form.

It could go something like this. 'Say, have you heard the one about the priest and the snowman? See, the priest and the snowman are the best of buddies and decide to spend the winter at Aspen. They have a blast but the priest, a catholic, is discomfited by the cold climate. So the next winter he invites the snowman to Italy. On the boat ride through the Atlantic the snowman starts to drip. He doesn't say anything, not wanting to be rude to the Padre and in recognition of the fact that the Padre swallowed his tongue, so to speak, the winter prior when he was feel chilly. But the priest sees the dripping and asks the snowman if he's alright. Oh, sure, of course. I needed a good sweat you know, been packing on the pounds. The priest chortles and slaps his buddy on his back. All is well. Then the ship reaches the Strait of Iberia. Now a puddle is forming at the snowman's ass. The snowman, he's feeling sick to his stomach. The sun is SEARING. His skin is peeling, plopping and pooling. Lens Flare! The priest notices, asks his buddy if he wants to turn back, or perhaps turn 90 degrees to the nearest pole. No, no, no the snowman says, although it sounds more like nooo, nohoooo. The priest thanks God for such a cool friend, smiles and slaps him on his back. He digs a pretty deep crevice into said back. A gusher of crushed ice squirts like a malfunctioning slushee machine out his chest. All is well! Soon the ship is burning rubber through the Mediterranean. The sun is sitting on the snowman's god-be-damned carrot. Melty is three feet high. He's kneeling down praying. NOT to a catholic god. They have no god as far as he can tell. What isn't melting off of him is sublimating. The priest is sloshing around the deck looking for a leak, finally he wades over to his increasingly diminutive buddy. Are you all right? he asks anguishedly. The snowman's response is hardly intelligible but the priest knows god wouldn't let them come this far if He didn't have everything under control. The priest thanks the good lord, smiles and slaps the snowman, demolishing what is left of him. The ship mascot dog is lapping the snowman up within seconds.

The priest is stunned. Over and over his mind replays the buckling of his former friend. You are a murderer, he tells himself. No. No! Yes. Yes! He shakes, trembles, sobs. Following in his friends for lack of a better word footsteps his faith in God melts, pools in to a puddle to be swept to sea but the deckhand. No god would allow such absurd cruelty. No god could be so sick. No God. End of sentence. No God. Mamma Mia! So the priest arrives in Sicily. He intends to visit his township,to meet with the head of the order that trained him all those years back when he was but a child, an innocent child. He travels by donkey. At every stop along the way he encounters devout worshippers thankful for his presence. They are generous to a fault. There is so much love in this land. His childhood was the color of wine and roses and sunlight....sunlight! And he looks on the devout with pity. Some of them with scorn. Not for anything they do but for the loudness of their voices and the heat of their homes. He comes upon a fire in the bushes and jerks his donkey away from it. The heat infuriates him. Finally he reaches his village. The church that once looked to him to stretch to the Heavens is a ramshackle jenga tower 5 or 6 blocks high and badly stacked at that. He finds the head of the order kneeling down to a pond and sipping. He tells the head of the order the story. You already know the story. The head of the order looks at his former pupil with a kindness in his eyes but a sternness in his brow. And he says to the pupil NO SOAP RADIO'

At this point the confederate laughs uproariously. The yarn-spinner cracks a smiles and the pffsssss HA HA HA. At this point No Soap Radio is as much social science experiment as it is joke because the other chap, the one to whom the joke was told or on whom the joke was told, depending on your perspective, is lost. The script has been shredded and the shreds have been set aflame. The chap has no idea what the joke means. What does No Soap Radio mean? But there is a context after all. A joke was told. An independent source has verified that it is a joke, that it is in fact an uproariously funny joke. The chap knows how to react in this situation. So it's entertaining to see how the chap will react.

And this brings us to the heart of the Shaggy Dogs. They don't find humor in a punchline. They find humor in a scenario, in a social setting, in the deflation of expectations. Shaggy Dogs don't have the command structure that the Observationalists run under for this simple fact. The Shaggy Dogs are a cooperative of various subsets of Anti-Humorists. The term Anti-Humor is controversial these days. It is un-PC so this is usually how a Shaggy Dog will refer to himself to civilians. Within their ranks, though, they refer to themselves by their regiment. There are the Straight Anti-Humorists, who follow the example of Andy Kaufman in playing anti-humor straight. It is dry. It is very untraditional. It is painful when done badly and is thus a dangerous tactic for the novice. There are the Awkwardists. They're self-explanatory. There are the Hamburgerers who are profoundly unfunny, hilariously so. There are Dead Baby Shot The Dogs. Their parlance is gallows humor. They specialize in the taboo.

Examples of Dead Baby Humor: How do you make a Dead Baby Float? You need 3 scoops of ice cream, 3 cups of root beer and a dead baby. What did the little girl with no legs and no arms get for Christmas? Cancer. You get the picture. It brings us back to the one rule of the Shaggy Dogs. There are no rules.

MEANWHILE

In a deserted factory in a pleasant spring-time villa the Banana Peels perform. They are a fierce group spastic for action. They intend to take the Observations to a very dark place and pummel them with entirely unintentional punches and kicks trying to find the light switch. They plan on striking the Shaggy Dogs where they hurt, the groin. The Banana Peels are a tight force made up of tough sons of the guns, each man, woman and child a well-oiled pratfall machine. They've taken their lumps, their bruises, their black-eyes, their red asses. They've got a lot more to give. The war isn't over until they say it's over. Good God. Armageddon is coming. Time is slipping.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Bull Cecilia

The Jokes, section 1

"How do you make an elephant fly? asks one guy to another. Hmm, darn. I was supposed to introduce him first but it's okay. No one's listening anyway."

In a stripped bare to the bones studio sits on his stool an aged man. He faces an anachronistic microphone hanging from the cobwebbed ceiling. He stares with a distance in his eyes unconcordant with his claustrophobic surroundings. The crow's nests of wrinkles extending out the sides of his eyes embolden as he smiles to himself. It is the year 20--. Time is coming to a stop.

"How do you make an elephant fly? Well first you need a big zipper. That's the joke. I used to kill with that one, kids. I never knew why. I don't get it myself. Maybe the joke is the joke. Maybe people were easier to please back then. Or now. Or maybe I should just stop talking."

Wryly he smiles, shakes his head slowly, looks down, looks far away.

"What's the use of a setup? I mean, what does it mean. What does it accomplish? I always thought I had a knack. Others I knew working the rounds, they had a method. Some of them, especially the kids coming up, they had a theory. The one's with a theory, I never cared for them. They could tell you what a setup is, how it works, the psychological, the Jungian...crap. You know, the crap. I'm sorry, I don't like to work blue but I'm starting to think that maybe I don't care anymore. That's breaking my heart, kids. I've devoted my life to this business and now I don't even care anymore. They've killed it like they're killing each other out there.

"I never thought I'd live this long. I thought God willing I'd make it to my 80s. I did. I watched my idols die old noble deaths. Steve Allen. Bob Hope. I was hoping for that. Not that my death would be celebrated. Or my life. I played the Tonight Show once in the sixties but never made it to the big time. Maybe it's because all I had was a knack. Maybe-"

"Alright, get the fuck out." A man of many colors on his jacket and white powder under his nose barges in. Simultaneously, Jack E. Roger, the aged man's longtime friend and producer is being hustled out of the engineering room by a burly, badly shaven bald man.

"Now see here" the aged man with a wagging finger, "I've got until 3:30. We had a deal."

"Look Mr. Magoo, you've had your time and a half," responds the gravelly-voiced man of dingy technicolor. "Your clock must have stopped because now I'm here and ipso facto it's my show now. If there were any other way you know I'd leave you be, I'd love to let you ramble on incoherently. Because it's funny. But this is the only studio in the county and I forgot my car in a pile-up. What are you worried about, you can come back tomorrow."

"I was going to say goodbye, I was going to say there won't be a tomorrow for me. I'm retired. You can't take my farewell away from me!"

"Um, actually, yeah I can. Shoo. Shoo." For a moment the broadcast consists of mumbles and throat clearing. And then "Hey yo kiddies, it's the clown here. You remember the clown. The clown had a show once in the good old days. The clown had...a lot of things. Sometimes the clown gets wistful. Blah blibiddy blah. Hey kids, I've got a joke.

"Heh, sometimes the clown gets wistful. Sometimes the clown gets a wristful of blade. Sometimes the clown gets a pistol and aims it at kids. Hey Hey! Don't tell your parents. Hey kids, want to do Uncle Whozits a solid. See all that funny green paper your parents keep in their wallets? I wish! Onward, did you hear that guy? Hey Georgie did you hear the withered husks of jokes old man Magoo was telling? You know what the problem is? Back in his day you just said whatever stray thought was in your head, just machine gun it out. The listener didn't have enough time to figure out what the hell you said let alone what it means and then bam next joke and then bam next joke and then I Got A Million Of These! Well, no shit. Ooh, sorry kids. Pardon this drunk his excuses.

"Oh yeah, hey kids I've got a joke. Georgie, you gotta keep me on track. So this guy walks into a bar, his pet giraffe in tow. Pet giraffes, they were the in-thing at the time. Everyone had a giraffe....Michael Jackson had two. Trust me. If you can't trust me....So they make the most of their night. The guy takes a drink, he gives the giraffe a drink, the guy takes a drink the giraffe takes a drink. The giraffe can't hold his alcohol apparently, and by the way you should have seen him with the ladies...but anyway... but wait, imagine what that long neck connotes. Ya got to think symbolically like me, kids. But, heh, but anyway so the giraffe drops like a spent cartridge to the floor. Dead on his feet, but off his feet if you can follow the, um, trajectory. (glug) And the man pays his tab and stumbles out to the door but before he can escape this shithole the bartender yells Hey man, you can't leave that lyin' there. The guy, he's Hey, nah that's not a lion, that's a giraffe.

"Georgie, where's my rimshot?

"But anyway kids, let's face facts. Things ain't what they used to be and that's fine. It's that they're not what they're supposed to be that bothers me. Know what else bothers me? No I won't get into that. But you see, it's homophony. That's the joke kids, it's all I have. It's also a shaggy dog. Don't take that as me backing any side in the war. Shaggy dogs can be funny. The absurd can be funny. Knock knock jokes can be funny. Doesn't mean they always are. Kafka can be funny. That's not a lion. One of the first gags I learned. I was a kid. Things were more innocent back then. That in itself is not a good thing but sometimes you can pretend otherwise, pretend reality away. Escapism, that's the name of the game I play more than any other. Watching old movies, fishing what I can off of the terrestrial radio signals. Just like all of you! We're not that different, you and I. You the listener are also a participant. I'm a listener. I'm an escape artist. I fantasize about the past, which is to say that I effect an escape. It's an affect. It's an effect. I drink, that's an escape. I masturbate. That's the greatest escape of all if you can make it last.

"But I'm bitter. Escape is an embittering experience, kids. After awhile the bungee cord starts to show some wear and tear. You can only toss yourself off the bridge so many times before something snaps. Wanna hear a dirty story, a really dirty story? Two white horses play in the mud! And then they dig up your grandmother with their hooves and.....heh, I love that one. How do you make an elephant fly? I despise each and every one of you more than you could ever conceive. Your parents never told you people would hate you for your innocence. That was so you could never conseive the fact that they hated every breath you took, the conception you wreaked. Everything you stole from them, right down to the DNA."

The clown digs into his bag of tricks and pulls out another bottle of dark stuff. His eyes wince at the gleam reflecting off. A million miles away a war is being fought.

TO BE CONTINUED...

(preview of section 2:

...the scraggly bearded teen wasn't listening. Dirt caked his hands that buried his props in the makeshift graveyard. He hoped that the enemy wasn't so vile as to rummage through rotting remains for a new gimmick. Yet he could imagine the Shaggy Dogs, their numbers fractional, their morality giving way to a cunning unbecoming of wordsmiths, and already he regretted his lapse. Naivete was death on a battlefield...)

#9 of the top 10 films of the decade

School has started and I'm near collapse. The weather has also been total shit. Oh, well. I'll get over it.

Before I get back to the countdown, I just want to give some props to Michael C. Hall for winning a Golden Globe for Dexter. All I have to say is...

IT'S ABOUT FUCKING TIME!!!

Anyway, my #9 pick...

For this one, it was a tie. I had to put both on here.

#9 - Sin City/Wall-E


With Sin City, it was probably the most literal interpretation of a comic book I had seen. That sounds like an awful idea, but it worked. Robert Rodriguez is, in a way, a lot like Woody Allen -- his movies are either a hit or a miss and never anything in between. For Rodriguez, this was definitely a hit. And it helped that Frank Miller, the creator of Sin City, was right by his side the whole time.

When I first went to go see this film, I went to the Cerritos Mall in Cali. I went to the first showing on opening day. I think I was 16 at the time...? Anyway, it was a beautiful April 1, 2005. I had walked all the way to the theater (Which was about a 40 minute walk). I pre-ordered my ticket a few days prior and I was ready to see it. When I was about to enter the theater, one of the ushers came up to me and asked my age. I assumed 17 would have sufficed, but they said I couldn't go in by myself unless I was 18 (I despise the MPAA)! To make a long story short, I didn't see it that day and cried all the way home. I saw it later that night with my dad, and it was well worth the wait.

On to Wall-E, which I believe is the E.T. of this generation. God, I think there was a 20 minute time frame where I DIDN'T cry. This film was so smart and incredibly sweet. And the visuals! Goodness, it was just one of those movies that stuck out this decade. This film definitely gives me hope that children's movies can be good, and can be smart without being dumbed down to slap-stick. These days, children's films rely on fart jokes and pie-in-the-face humor, stuff I just can't stand! Pixar knows how to make a children's film, and in general, just a great film. It was definitely robbed of a "Best Picture" nod at the Oscars.

Prochain: #8...

Man Ican Daly meets Rachel Tree in a Club. Love at 1st Sight?

Integrity of Identity of Integrity of Ascendency of A vanity of, Ch. 23

Not unlike - lady Bloom - I'll conclude - with a yes,
fire up the speakers 'cause I've yet to express,
my love, my fear, my sole suggestion
is to lie right back, feel deepest impressions
that never before have you been so impressed,
any old questions can wait 'til the end
when I, with a lady named Grace, descend
back to the Earth from Heaven whose integrity depends
'pon me to mightily fortify battle-forged divinity,
bested by me is to get yourself served
a Godly rebuke with all of the verve
I can muster. G'damn but you know I like mustard
on my sandwich, sandwich, sandwich....(echo echo echo)
but don't you gimme no mayo 'cuz you know I'll say Hey Yo,
foot put down all like Hell No, you better drop roll and stay below
'cause I've got the fires burning like my searing halo,
pow pow pow on your sandwich shop
'til the ceiling bucks and crumbles, goes plop.
Like a telegram, STOP.

Not unlike the Mayans I don't intend to live forever,
to fuck with me is just you forcing me to sever
your life from your force, your cart from your horse,
a mortal immortal divorce.
No - Re - morse
is how I live.
Only - my - best - is - what I give.
Call me - out - if you think that I - fib.
Just remember. To bring a bib
because I bring it like a sandwich, lean and mean.
My bread, it be toasty. My meat is obscene.
Know what I mean?

Not unlike John Proctor, I too must confess,
I have sinned fictitious but all for the best.
Fire up your speakers 'cause I've yet to impress
'pon these townsfolk how thorough, how much of a mess
they've made of the scene with their wack-ass weakness,
princess
is at another castle,
Mario
getting tired of this hassle
but yo, ain't a warrior doomed to fight the battle
of Ragnarok for all eternity
like he was spinning on a seam
in time saves a snitch something
nine and now is the time
for me to drop the mic and cross my arms
and hope to die because I'll be reborn in no more than
3 morns
and don't you know I'll be throwing devil horns. I'm out. Peace!

[Set to a sample of the riff from Bela Legosi's Dead]

Verily there shall come a man: Introducing....The Mars Rover

Integrity of Identity of Integrity of Ascendency of A vanity of, Ch. 22

Not so brave without your gun, out you run, faster than a speeding bullet chasing down a speeding Suzette losing her head in the...tulips? but no no no, there's no way no direction to which she could bend that to work, no, Suzette or so she goes by when she's out there, when she needs to give a name, goes by Suzette or Suzy but never by Paige, her given name, the name her friends know her by. She values her anonymity and perhaps her given identity. It's been a while since it mattered, though. When she was 17 and homeless she began rapping on street corners for quarters and dimes. She enjoyed the attention, to her surprise as she was always such a shy and quiet child.

Faster than a speeding bullet speeding down a fleeing... Suzette sits her back against the front door of her uncle's apartment, her 500 count spiral notebook on her knees, desperate to finish this rhyme. She'd been up all night the only reason she was outside right now in the hope that fresh air and the sounds of kids crying out at top volume and splashing around as loud as they could and the smell of Indian food being cooked way too early you would think downstairs would each or by some mystic combination of sensual irritation keep her awake, alert and creative enough to collapse on the sofa two steps into the apartment she's been staying at for a month. She's been bouncing around homes and hostels for years. The stability of caring for her vacationing uncle's apartment stoked some embers. She'd quit corner rapping once she first found some hippie roommates in San Francisco and that was going on 7 years earlier. She'd been on the look out for the right type, the hair in dreads type who she could approach and say hey, do you guys need a roommate, I've been looking for a place. It justified the time she spent not using the pocket change she'd been busking but instead on stylish outfits and makeup. As if she didn't enjoy putting on a show.

...speeding bullet cometing to (a) distant universe, escaping atmospheric.....this is getting off-track, so very far beyond bending territory. One of her defining quotes she applied to herself as a half-assed, post-facto definition of self was something Neil Young said about Jimi Hendrix, how he never played a bad note because if it was the wrong note he'd just bend it 'til it was right. Perfection isn't attainable but perfecting is. The life of self-perfecting. Self-correcting. Duh- da duh duh....boom bap boom... self-perfecting, self-correcting, freedom pending, pleased effendi, breathless fending, feet don't fail me...now I'm sailing......? No.

She'd gotten rusty. Not so brave without your gun, out you run, out of breath, take a rest so soon blessed with broken bottle to the chest, a knife to solar plexus, beaten like a bitch for a gold necklace, not so brave without your tongue....boring. She didn't used to be so boring. She wants to sleep so bad but she needs to finish. Past seven years she's been unaccountably, inconsolably restless. No boy, no job, no good book or new album could pacify her like singing in the shower loud enough for the neighbors to hear. Hollering her sex so the whole block her hear. Dressing flashy. There were neighborhoods she had to move out of within 2 months of moving in, with the nicest of roommates left deserted too, for no better reason than that she was vaguely discomfited by the sorts of people inhabiting. They dressed too flashy for her to stand out. Not that she could ever admit that as an excuse.

Not so brave without your tongue, out you run, into the enfolding arms of welcoming slow exploding suns. Faster than a spilling toolkit you trip on your untied laces within 15 paces of me, and that's just your first mistake staying up late for this? So far 20 scribbled pages of the weakest, least rhythmic, uninteresting, insipid and ultimately easy shit. No flow. No nothing. There were websites to which she could send in her rhymes, forums for aspiring emcees. Before she'd sink into a coma 20 leagues under the kitchen sink or something she was determined to post something or other. But no. And no she couldn't return to the wild. No way no way no how. NO WAY. She drags herself up by the knob of the door and begins to step in when she remembers something important. She leaps off the railing to her death.

Or wait, no she doesn't do that, I don't think. More likely she finally came up with the perfect rhyme. Or she turned right around and walked down the stairs, towards the complex front gate, past the mailboxes, out the gate, looks to her right, looks to her left, shrugs her shoulders and turns left. Down that sidewalk under the morning sun she walks 5 blocks to the nearest park. On a chipped-paint bench under an oak tree and more or less free of aphids and ants she sleeps the day away. That night she sings, spits and bobs her head to herself to the beat of the crickets chirping, occasionally distracted by the occasional passing car. It's miserable but she takes some pride in it. Next morning the bench is swabbed in dew and she's reflexively wheezing in the cold air out of some hope that that'll warm it and by extension her up. She misses her coffee but has some stimulation spilling outward from some over-worked corner of her brain, serotonin or adrenalin or something, a neurochemical for the under-slept and uncomfortable. She remembers this hyper feeling. A couple miles down that same sidewalk is the town center with a packs of roving pedestrians shouldering a heavy burden in the form of quarters and dimes and she smiles to herself and bobs her head as she makes the trek. It's the feel good story of the decade. Her uncle's house is robbed.

See post

I asked you a question, lady?

-Henry

Wait, What? Where Have You Been?

see title

-Henry

I am settled in + My top 10 films of the decade!

I'm gone for a week and there are seven new posts added to this fucker. San Francisco is great, but it's time to get back to business!

I know it's been 2010 for about three weeks now, but it took me some time to figure out what my top films of the decade were. In fact, it didn't really click it was a change of decades until about two days before the new year. Anyway, no one cares, so let me start off with #10:

#10 - City of God


I can't tell you how frightening this film is. I was completely entranced the first time I saw it. I couldn't believe that these were just natives of of the city this film was shot in -- they weren't even actors! It was completely in your face and made no apology about it. Sure, the guys had relatively nice hair, but there was so much more to it. And the best part about it is that you didn't know it was a true story until the credits rolled, which was really freaky. I recommend that every one go out and rent this movie, because you will be affected.

Next: My #9 pick...

Skimming Pebbles, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying & Love Your Mom!

Dimensions. I've been to a few. When Professor Pinter maps out a new one to explore it's increasingly hard to say no. I'm not an adventurer by nature or trade. If these sojourns occurred on a regular basis I'd bow out, leave it to the scientists. It'd make more sense to train a corps of explorers if that were the case, start up a NASA for inter-dimensional travel. Turns out though that it's really difficult to get a good glimpse of an old dimension, much less one undiscovered. The science is far from settled and as far as I know Professor Pinter is on his own. In his laboratory on campus he's got a cornucopia of supercomputers running at all times, each gathering, collating, analyzing and cross-referencing as much data as it can. The man spends an altogether unhealthy amount of time reading their indecipherable read-outs until a pattern emerges, at which point it is time to move. Prof's theory is that dimensions are bits of solids in a massive fluid, meaning if you want to jump from one droplet to another you need to move quickly. Before long that other bit is speeding down a diverging stream.

After all this time, all these trips, that part still worries me. If we spend too much time off our dimension we won't be able to get back. Not for an eternity. We were on a dimension once, that reminds me, where every living thing lived eternally. All degeneration and senescence were infinite processes, basically. I'll admit I don't understand how that works. Conflicts with what physics I understand but physics is more malleable than most people suspect. I have my own doubts but I'll get to that later. While we were there Pinter started wondering which is always dangerous. Because, he thought, there is so much we don't understand about second-order dimensionality, above and beyond that the thing-in-itself (I was a philosophy major when I first met Prof so I'm not shy about playing it up) it behooved us, he got to thinking, to wait it out a quasi-literal eternity until our home dimension returned, just to see. To see what? To see, for instance, if as much time had passed back home. He was serious! And his TA, Samantha, she was convinced that we were so behooved! I had to point out to the gang that if we were wrong there wouldn't be much of a universe or the Earth could be dead. If we tried to jump back without a living Earth to land on...? Besides which we'd probably have gone insane. The people there didn't seem particularly with it, and as long as they had lived they hadn't lived an eternity yet. Finally I got everyone's heads turned right ways and we got back home in the nick of time. I swore I wasn't going to risk my life, sanity and everything else on another tour of Prof's inability to be human. I wrote in my journal "Pinter=Agguirre" and left it at that.

Well, it wasn't his fault he was eccentric. Plus, someone has to chart the ...not stars but starscapes, universes, the beyond. Science needs its heroes and if I can help with catching and dragging the future back to us, so be it.

I was watching the Cardinals getting walloped by the Saints when Prof paged me. He doesn't page me for any old reason so I just rushed out. My pack is always ready, lying in wait under my kitchen table. Grabbed my denim coat, my back pack and my glasses and shot over. I still get the jitters. Like I said, I'm no adventurer. Prof pays me a nice stipend under the table, true, but this isn't in my blood. One time we landed on a planet where there were no animals and, not coincidentally, the air was much less breathable to any living being that wasn't a plant. There was enough oxygen in the air to gasp but it was painful & I was really fucking anxious to leave. The professor doesn't like to get bogged down with gear so we'd never before bothered with oxygen tanks. So stupid. After a few hours I couldn't stand anymore. Admittedly, I was too humbled by everyone else's perseverance, especially Prof whose fittest days are a memory and probably weren't all that fit to begin with, to complain but after a while my head against my will was listing to the side and I was literally sucking on air, trying to get as much oxygen per breath as I could. Thankfully Melvin came close to vomiting. That was enough to inspire a hasty retreat. I don't complain much. I accept the salary. But seriously I mean seriously I don't think I belong to this group. I'm just here. So long as I'm here I'll do what I can.

The entire crew was there waiting for me. I don't own a car and I don't live directly on campus but I do live near enough to get to the lab by bike within 6 minutes. That's good enough for me. Still, they're not a patient group. There's Samantha who I give a quick hug. We almost had a thing going on but after we visited the dimension where we could literally see each others' fantasies by staring into each others' eyes we thought it best to let things cool off. Maybe in a few years when the ick factors have worn away a bit. There's Miles & Melvin, the twins. I give them a tentative nod. They weird me out a bit. Each has his devotion that's impaired his emotional IQ. Melvin's the linguist. If we have to communicate with other dimensionals he's the one who can usually figure out how. It's uncanny his ability to parse foreign languages and code. I started calling him Cypher a couple years back. When he asked why I told him about the comic book character. This in mind he petition Prof to dismiss me from the group as an illiterate. His brother Miles is less hostile but more belligerent. Real sensitive, that guy. He's a geologist. Then there's Tracy, Prof's niece and the newest member of the group. She's studying electronics. Like everything else here she's a whiz at what she does. Without her assistance on that dimension where there was no land mass where we stood and the entire universe was liquid we'd have drowned. She jump-started the drezcube and flashed each one of us out in seconds. We took a two month break from our travels after that. Supposedly Miles developed a temporary hydrophobia but that may just have been Melvin having one of his patented douche laughs. And then there's me, the last and least piece of the puzzle. I provide the muscle though I also operate as the resident shrink. You see, I minored in psych for a year and a half. Plus, with my philosophy training I'm the perspective guy. I'm supposed to keep everyone's head clear & straight. Mainly I'm just the muscle.

The drezcube is dusty. That always worries me but Prof and Samantha assure me it doesn't matter. I've yet to be convinced. They explain carefully and thankflly non-condescendingly that the mechanics of the cube don't exist in this reality. Inside the machine is a quantum connector to the actual cube which exists in a subspace adjoining our dimension to the greater flood of fluid dimensions. I politely point out that, though I'm no expert, nothing they say makes any sense or even coheres to quantum physics as we know it. That's because our investigations have yet to be published, they respond. We have this conversation at least every other month and I'm never satisfied. I'll admit my skepticism crosses wire with my experiences as a dimension-hopper but I'm not ready to concede. In my prouder moments I like to believe that I'm part of the crew specifically for my arguments. Keeping everyone on their toes. Dispelling complacency at every turn like a modern day Voltaire or Nietzsche. But then I notice that they never really seem to care what I have to say. No scientist I've ever dealt with, either in my studies or in conversation, has ever been as casual about ignoring established theory as these two. No doubt they have hard-drives filled to the brim with calculations and notations. I'm not conversant in their language so they're not about to let me in on their secret knowledge in any detail but I'd really just like to know how they ever managed to link this apparently easily replaceable box of cheap, haphazard wiring and Tracy's off-the-cuff modifications and repairs to an analogue, the real deal really, that happens to exist outside our physical frame of reference. Accident. Miracle. These are the words they throw around. I'm not convinced.

Then again, when they are satisfied enough to publish (and kudos to them for gathering as much evidence as possible before that day), will the scientific community be as confused as I am or will it fit just right? Will the math work out perfectly? If the law of parsimony was satisfied would I be convinced? Or are my doubts too thoroughly internalized? I've just got too many questions right now. I hate the feeling of being intellectually dwarfed by everyone around me. Sometimes everything's just too big for me. Yet I always come back for more.

Tracy's got the cube buzzing its queasy buzz. No one's talking. I stand by Samantha who's considering the wavering fluorescent light. I don't ask her what she's thinking about. None of the others besides Samantha seem to care much but one of these days we're not going to return. We might not even land. Some kind of gravity well always brings us to a rest on a solid surface before we materialize on the strange land before us. When we're returning we take the forward change in time and our momentum into account and can plot a fairly precise return trip. Apparently we cut a path one way and the membrane wants us to use that path on the way back rather than cutting a new one. So much can go wrong. The liquidverse was one example but me and Samantha spent an entire night listing to each other every other horrorverse we could conceive. It was soothing to put it out there. Besides which, for some reason, I don't know if I'd refer to it as a gambler's fallacy but we'd gotten to thinking that naming these nightmares would prevent them from occurring. What are the chances, after all, that we'd land on a world where our every skin cell develops a consciousness of its own and decides to abandon us when we know that that was no more than a ghastly bout of body horror we made up one sleepless night. Or how about Samantha's nightmare from when she was a kid, that clouds would condense to brick-hard solids and fall on her. It was ridiculous to think that within the scope of a few hundred trips to alternative realities we'd encounter something she dreamt up because she didn't understand her dad's explanation of rain. Statistics discounted it. Reality rejected it. But then there was the time we actually landed on an Earth-analogue where the Nazis won WWII. If that hackneyed scenario could emerge in the distant fogs what else might await?

-Everyone ready? asked Tracy
-Ready or Not! replied Professor Pinter
-Close your eyes everyone...
*FLASH*

TO BE CONTINUED...