THINGS NEVER SAID #62:

“I don’t go to the party. I let the party come to me . . . so, ah, I’m basically just sittin’ here . . . I get stuff on this screen. I just read this thing about a ‘loneliness epidemic.’ Sounded weird, at first, but I think it makes sense. And then I watched this video where this rich bald guy on this podcast was telling people to go out and get shitfaced at parties to meet new people. ‘Make some stupid decisions,’ this guy said. So, uh, then on a subsequent episode the host guy who interviewed the rich-bald-stupid-decisions-guy actually went out to some parties over the course of a month and, well, most everybody was on their screens. The host guy drank a little bit, hit his weed vape a bit-it just wasn’t a party feeling. Not anywhere this guy went. The host guy tried it out with college kids, with some office karaoke types, with these old married guys who drink beer and shoot pool at a bowling alley, with a bunch of people who worked at a hospital, just a whole lotta nothin’. The hospital people had their faces all blurred because they had all this truly primo opioid shit they’d liberated from the pharmacy-so they were all floated-the-Christ-out by 1:15am, kinda no stamina with that bunch, but definitely feelin’ no pain. The college kids were barely even partying, just snorting Adderall to tighten up for study screen time during a somnolent DJ set in the brightly lit dorm basement. The students were all seated in a tidy arrangement of desks, full fluorescents blazing overhead, grinding away at keyboards and touch screens. The host guy reminisced about how back at the turn of the millennium everyone was partying their faces off like they were a bunch of fraternity assholes-even the art students and the theatre kids like himself. The office karaoke types were basically five people who watched two people do all the singing, with little to no variation in the set list. This one lady who just watched said they used to vary up their routine, but over the years they found the perfect set of songs, and if they deviated from that perfected lineup of 1980s & 1990s classics people were at risk of panic attacks and anxiety episodes and so forth. The host guy kept offering to do “My Way” and “Pink Pony Club,” but, well, neither of those songs were ever on the set list so no joy. The old guys playing pool were strictly interested in playing pool, and being away from their wives-those old dudes didn’t even know each other’s names! On the plus side, they didn’t have any screens on ‘em-except one guy had a flip phone that he hated but his better half insisted that he keep it on his person at all times. The aged pool sharks barely even looked each other in the eyes. “Faces distract,” this one silver haired hustler said, presumably referring to his gaming technique, which made sense to me . . . so, uh, later on . . . I find this other video of the rich bald guy talking about his daily rich bald guy routine. He talked about how he rarely went out, how he had his home office profits-to-profits pipeline worked out like a fucking equation . . . and I keep waiting for someone to ask him why he would recommend other people go out and party when he himself never did. No one asked. I watched some more videos with this rich bald guy to try to make sense of his seemingly insincere advice . . . but I think it’s all there on the surface. The rich bald guy goes on podcasts, says stuff, and people listen to him because he’s rich. He just says what sounds good in the context of whatever host he’s addressing, and tries to pander to the presumed audience demographic attached to that particular host at that particular time. Sometimes he tells people to all be Stoics. Other times he’s pro-Hysterics. On the left-wing podcast he criticizes the excesses of capitalism, says he would be happy to pay a higher tax rate. On the right-wing podcast he extols the virtues of the free market system and the individual free agent. On the free form chatty casts he rambles about his marriages and divorces. On the crypto coin show he gets super granular and focused on the foolish wagers and the sure bets and the differences between the two . . . at a certain point . . . I realized that this guy . . . was just another bald rich guy . . . and so I moved on to True Crime . . . and then UFOs . . . retro video games . . . audio-only Neo-Jungian analysis . . . audio-only ASMR . . . someone once told me that faces distract . . .”

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #259:

MASTURBATING UNCLE SAM-THE BREAKOUT STAR OF PRESIDENT TRUMP’S STATE FAIR-IS RUMORED TO BE IN THE RUNNING TO REPLACE THE NEXT LIBERAL JUSTICE WHO EXITS THE SUPREME COURT.

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #109:

A spiraling sense of stasis.

FANTASY MASHUP FORCE #40:

Fire Birds + Vampire’s Kiss

From a scan of the back of the VHS box uploaded to an auction page . . . 

In 1990 A.D., Nicolas Cage’s futuristic hotshot ‘copter pilot blows away the drug cartels under orders from President Bush . . . but then he hears a strange, maniacal voice over the comms declaiming the alphabet-it’s Nicolas Cage’s corporate vampire from 1989 A.D.! The ‘copter ace thought he had exorcised his suit-and-tie bloodsucker self via virtual reality flight sims that displaced his turbulent emotions and forbidden appetites with absolute technical mastery of a huge hyper-rational war machine that volumetrically displaced all twisted desires. Now, past and future selves must battle for supremacy within the cockpit of an Apache attack helicopter.

PLACES YOU CAN GO #14:

There’s an abandoned warehouse where all the final shootouts take place . . . but why would you want to go to such a dangerous place?

If you want to go there then have at it.

Me, I’m going to the park.

Get my steps in . . .

LOADING SCREEN WISDOM #51:

REMEMBER: MOTORCYCLE GANG MEMBERS CAN BE BLASTED OFF THEIR BIKES THEREBY ALLOWING YOU TO TOSS THEIR BODIES FOR GOLDS AND OTHER GOODS AS WELL AS EXPROPRIATE THEIR VEHICLE. HOWEVER, IF YOU TARGET THE GAS TANK THE ENSUING EXPLOSION MAY ALCHEMIZE THE BIKER INTO A ROAST TURKEY, A CHEESEBURGER, OR A STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE CAKE WHICH CAN RESTORE YOUR LIFEBAR.

BURNING QUESTIONS IN A UNIVERSE OF MYSTERY #100:

Wait . . . did I leave my Genocyber DVD at the house?

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #258:

THE HEADLINES. PRESENTED BY OPTIMUM OBLIGATE WELLNESS VENTURES: BOX OFFICE ANALYSIS SUGGESTS THAT THE SUCCESSES EARNED BY MOVIES DIRECTED BY YOUTUBERS MARKS THE BEGINNING OF ‘THE STARBUCKS BASIC UPSELL CINEMATIC ERA’ IN WHICH AUDIENCES ARE EAGER TO PAY FOR STUFF THEY’VE BEEN WATCHING FOR YEARS FOR FREE ONLINE . . . ONLINE NEWS OUTLETS ARE CELEBRATING A NEW ERA OF DIRECT TO CONSUMER MARKETING AS THEY IMPLEMENT AN INNOVATIVE FORM OF ‘ADVERTORIAL BRAIN BEAMING’ DERIVED FROM ORICHALCUM POWERED TECHNOLOGY RECOVERED FROM LOST ATLANTIS. ADVERTISERS WILL NOW BE ABLE TO INDUCE ADVERTISING FANTASIAS WITHIN THE BRAINS OF AUDIENCE MEMBERS AT WILL. SOME CRITICS HAVE QUESTIONED WHETHER THE FABLED CITY SHOULD BE DISTURBED, AND HAVE CITED ANCIENT PROPHECIES THAT WARN OF A ‘SPIRIT OF DESTRUCTION AND TYRANNY’ THAT HAS BEEN SEALED AWAY WITHIN ATLANTIS. THESE PROPHECIES HAVE BEEN LARGELY DISMISSED AS A FANCIFUL MISTRANSLATION. ANALYSTS PREDICT AN AGE OF ULTIMATE AUDIENCE CAPTURE IS AT HAND . . . A STRANGE, OPPRESSIVE SHADOW ENTITY IS NOW LIKELY TO STALK YOU EVERYWHERE YOU GO THIS SUMMER SEASON DUE TO YOUR FAILINGS AS BOTH AN INDIVIDUAL AND AS A MEMBER OF A NATION IRRETRIEVABLY FALLEN INTO A PIT OF CORRUPTION AND AVARICE. ALTHOUGH THERE IS NEITHER A CURE NOR A COURSE OF TREATMENT AT THIS TIME, UNLICENSED WELLNESS EXPERTS WHO HAVE WRITTEN OUR CORPORATE OWNERSHIP GIGANTIC CHECKS RECOMMEND TAKING BREAKS, PUTTING YOUR FINGERS IN YOUR EARS WHILE YOU SAY LA-LA-LA-LA FOR HOURS AT A GO, DRINKING PLENTY OF FLUIDS, PURCHASING THE OFFICIAL OPTIMUM OBLIGATE BRAND LINE OF UNREGULATED SUPPLEMENTS PRESENTED WITHIN THE POP-UP ADS THAT ARE MANIFESTING NOW WITHIN YOUR MIND AT THIS VERY MOMENT, AND MODESTLY REDUCING SCREENTIME . . . NEW ANALYSIS OUT TODAY SUGGESTS THAT ALL THE BAD NEWS OF LATE IS LIKELY TO BAD EVEN BADDER FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE . . . STOCKS ARE UP . . .

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #108:

A reverse axiomatic shopping cart.

THE NEW OBVIOUS #52:

The control panel has all these lights that blink to indicate various emergencies, policy fuck-ups, supply chain breakages, logistical lacunae, crop failures, fuel shortages, ammo depletions, security failures, enemy onslaughts, strangely beautiful toilet geysers, cyber attacks crashing the grid from sea to shining sea, Mom and Dad are fighting, nuclear missiles outgoing, Climate Inferno melting vital infrastructure, the President falls asleep during a meeting with the Joint Chiefs, Category 10 hurricane making landfall, pandemics, nuclear missiles incoming, your roommate taped over the last episode of Moonlighting so now you’ll never know how it ended, personnel loss, intense bouts of loneliness, apocalyptic accounting errors, deleterious debts coming due, and ecstatic breakdowns of the system.

Usually, the lights blink on at a reasonable pace such that you can stay on top of things, fix each problem as it comes, some days are hairier than others, but, overall, you maintain operations, your mission endures, the show goes on, you handle shit.

But one day . . . ALL of the lights start blinking.

At that point . . . you just walk away.

Hell, if ALL of the lights are blinking you likely already left your post awhile ago . . .

No judgment if that’s the case.

I totally relate.

THE NEW DREAM #60:

I’m watching a program about recent history

It’s all stuff I’ve lived through

I’m disappointed

Re-runs suck, but it’s something more than that

It’s really getting me down

I dunno why

I guess I thought it would have extra stuff

I’m bored and antsy and regretful over my wasted time

I’m about to find my anger

When I realize there was one crucial thing I learned from that program

Basically

Historians studied my era very carefully

And they gathered evidence

And they analyzed that evidence

And then they thought about their analysis

And then they had it all peer reviewed

Or something like that

And then they made the program

I just watched it

And the thing I learned was that usually when movies are made based on history the movies might be good or bad as entertainment, but they’re likely to get the uniforms wrong

Maybe not all the way wrong

But certain details get all fucked up

But in the case of my era

Well

The actual era got the uniforms wrong

And the movies got ‘em right

And the historians baffled at this, but could not explain it

And so my era expresses a certain mystery

And so I am stuck with a certain frustration

That I got this important thing wrong in the actual living of my era

And those bullshit cornball movies got it right

Not an easy thing to learn from a program

But it’s good to know

In case I ever film a historical re-enactment

SIMPLE PLEASURES #27:

Eating the little bag of chips early in the day . . . and then discovering that the sandwich is desperate to make a deal favorable to my terms in the evening because it has just been sitting out for hours and just wants to go home to the back of the refrigerator where it can properly complete its moldy life cycle.

FUN YOU CAN HAVE #27:

Send a box of microwave breakfast foods through the drive thru line to order their fast food doppelgangers.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 107

 

VENDETTA INSPECTOR