NOTIONAL HEADLINE #231:

WELCOME, ACTUAL DAMN HUMANS, TO THE HEADLINES: “BUT WHERE WILL MY SWEET BOYS SING?” MUSIC DIRECTOR FOR I.C.E. DEATH SQUAD’S MEN’S CHOIR DISMAYED BY TRUMP’S ANNOUNCEMENT OF KENNEDY CENTER CLOSURE IN JULY . . . “WAIT. AM I STILL IN THE NEWS CYCLE?” NICOLAS MADURO SPENDS TIME IN JAIL PONDERING WEIGHTY EXISTENTIAL CONUNDRUMS . . . “ALL IS FORGIVEN.” BAD BUNNY’S ANTI-I.C.E. GRAMMYS SPEECH EARNS PRAISE EVEN FROM DISGRUNTLED COACHELLA ATTENDEES . . .

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #93:

The party that needs neither hosts nor guests.

LOADING SCREEN WISDOM #46:

I WONDER WHAT THE PEOPLE WILL SEE IN THE FINAL DAYS.

BURNING QUESTIONS IN A UNIVERSE OF MYSTERY #95:

What will the people of the future think of us?

THE NEW OBVIOUS #45:

Republicans love to bash federal overreach . . . unless they’re the ones doing the overreaching.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 93

 

THEME MUSIC FOR EVERYTHING #33:

Theme of Intermittently Funky Mercenaries: BGM/Menu by George “The Fat Man” Sanger (Swords and Serpents NES OST)

You shout it to the world, “I’M ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY! I’VE NO FUCKS TO GIVE!”

. . . but you’ll probably do the right thing in the end.

Most of the time.

Look, uhhh . . . you didn’t become a wandering soldier of fortune because you wanted to die in your sleep or in a bed in some for-profit hospital. 

Nor were you the sort to feel a swelling of joy in your chest as you imagined your perfect wedding ceremony complete with choreographed groomsmen and bridesmaids entering to the action movie music from The Life Aquatic. 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you got bank accounts set up to provide for the bastards you’ve strewn across the overworld map-you’re not a total louse . . . except when you are . . . 

Look, some people don’t like church and state and taxes and tithes.

Some of us ain’t feeling it when some boss or supervisor convinces themselves they’re a king. 

Some of us just aren’t scared of badges or presidents or prime ministers or dictators-for-life . . . though we’ll gladly take their money . . . 

To be an outlaw is to be an outsider of a kind, ideally an outsider by choice . . . but why’s it sting when people sling words like ‘psychopath’ or ‘bloodlust’ or ‘thug-for-hire’ . . .

Look, even if you don’t always choose to defend the peasant farmers against the robber barons and marauders of this world . . . even if you end up on the wrong side of some regional conflagration . . . at least you can enjoy all the gory details of your own defeat.

People who care too much . . . there’s a risk they may not bounce back from devastation. 

You have a dream where all of the flags are burning . . . all of the nations are falling . . . people are losing their minds in the streets . . . but you’ve got a thousand fake passports, and a thousand safe houses, and a thousand bank accounts . . . and soon enough the sweatshops are manufacturing new flags, and the lawyers and the oligarchs are concocting new nations . . . What's everybody shouting about? Seems pretty orderly after a few cycles . . .

You know how it all works, and how it doesn’t.

You have your place, until you don’t, but you kinda prefer living rough these days.

You’ll even get a chance to be the hero every other cycle.

And it only gets funnier to you each run . . .

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #230:

ENTERTAINMENT SCOOP ZONE: NEXT INSTALLMENT OF SCREAM FRANCHISE TO FEATURE A LIQUID METAL GHOSTFACE . . . NEW STUDY SHOWS STRONG CORRELATION BETWEEN THE PLANETARY DEATH SPIRAL OF ENDSTAGE CAPITALISM AND THE FINANCIAL SUCCESS OF HUNGER GAMES SEQUELS, PREQUELS, SIDEQUELS, SPINOFFS, RIPOFFS, AND VARIOUS ANCILLARY MERCHANDISING GAMBITS. IN OTHER WORDS: AUDIENCES RELATE . . . DESPITE INITIAL RUMORS A THOROUGH INVESTIGATION REVEALS THE BONE TEMPLE TO NOT BE AN ADULT FILM . . . COUNT DRACULA, IN AN EPICALLY CATTY PODGRIFT INTERVIEW, ACCUSES THE TOP OSCAR CONTENDER SINNERS OF ‘RIDING HIS CAPE’ . . . THE HELLFIRE SHROUDED GHOST OF EPSTEIN IS IN TALKS WITH MELANIA DIRECTOR BRETT RATNER TO GET HIS OWN CINEMATIC GLAZING . . .

SIMPLE PLEASURES #20:

I keep on watching the Rebuild of Evangelion movies until I’ve convinced myself I actually like ‘em . . . 

10,000 years after the last Blu-Ray Player has died . . . 

NEW MERCH #6:

THE ULTIMATE CHILDREN OF AVARICE AND BETRAYAL

They’re . . . baseball cards?

I’m pretty sure they’re baseball cards.

I’m not actually sure, but . . .

They got photos on the front depicting sludgy, fleshy uniformed, uhhh, like, human-adjacent forms in postures of action, striking curious poses-

Look. It’s AI generated, obviously. That’s how things’re done, now. 

Maybe, like, they trained the fake software brains on the nonsensical, authoritarian word salad pseudo-speeches of Donald Trump? Maybe these figures are supposed to be the ultimate children of avarice and betrayal? 

Some of them look like they could be indie horror game bosses: aggressive, torturous forms surging forth from shattered American mindscapes. Very Endstage-Circling-the-Drain-of-Capitalism coded.

They’ve got statistics on the back for different unpronounceable, er, words? Like I guess they could be denoting the relevant measurable qualities needed to practice some style of truth-murdering sport, or some contest designed to oppress and digest democracy itself?

Also . . . and I don’t mean to be gross . . . but they’ve got . . . residue . . . Christ!

Yeah, these cards suck.

Zero out of 10. 

No good at all.

Not even as a joke gift.

Unless you want to start a regional war or something.

Don’t even recycle ‘em.

Burn ‘em, and fire the ashes into space.

Zero recommend.

PLACES YOU CAN GO #3:

There’s a parking lot where the last 1980s henchman waits for you. When he’s not sitting on the hood of his broken down baby blue Chevette, catching rays on his bald head, knocking back Michelob and Coors with his nunchaku stuffed down the front of his pants, he struts around in his headband, leather vest, mom jeans, cowboy boots, prison tats of pinup girls, and no shirt. The dude’s got his knuckle duster over his fingerless glove, a switchblade in his pocket, a Bulldog .44 holstered at the small of his back, a Walther PPK in an ankle rig, and he’s keeping up his nunchaku technique. 

But if you really want to rock he’s got a gym bag stashed inside the long shuttered Rax Roast Beef-it’s hidden underneath a surrealistically incongruous reconstruction of a Wendy’s salad bar-packed with a MAC-10, a chopped down AK-47, a sawed-off pump shotgun, fragrant athletic supporter, family portions of PCP and cocaine, and ammo, dammit, ammo. If you defeat him he’ll tell you with his dying breath the combination to the manager’s safe inside the former Rax Roast Beef building. If you open the safe you’ll obtain a long expired box of extra large ribbed condoms, a floppy disc containing the secret sauce recipe, a couple of custom speed loaders for the Bulldog .44, and an enchanted bike chain. The bike chain’s the keeper. 

But beware and take care!

The more you use that bike chain, the more likely you are to end up as the cursed guardian of some extinct fast food location. Or you’ll get spiritually stuck to some dead mall or creepy abandoned amusement park where you’ll have to fend off hordes of middle-aged, behind-the-times urbex YouTubers. If you’re lucky, you might end up spectrally attached to some vacated McMansion down in some especially Floridian hellspace. If you get good enough with that bike chain you might be able to fight off a hurricane or two, but the rising tides of Climate Inferno come for us all in the end. 

But who knows?

If you swing that bike chain good enough . . . 

If you can rock that headband hard enough . . .

If you can carry yourself with enough cocaine swagger . . .

If you can manifest enough PCP inflected wildman energy . . .

Who knows . . . maybe the gods of the raging seas and the burning fires’ll meet you in single combat . . . figure things out for all times . . .

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #229:

TOP HEADLINES FOR ATTRACTIVE GENIUS PEOPLE: “I AM THE BOBCAT OF FREEDOM! I’LL EAT WHAT I PLEASE!” EXPLODING BOBCAT REFUSES TO REDUCE INTAKE OF DIETARY DYNAMITE . . . SECRETARY BESSENT ON VERGE OF GOING FULL ERMAHGERD FACE AT DAVOS . . . I.C.E. DEATH SQUAD’S MEN’S CHORUS BOOKED TO PERFORM PRIVATE CONCERT FOR GHISLAINE MAXWELL . . . IN A RE-ALIGNMENT TOWARDS CHINA, PRIME MINISTER CARNEY PUSHES DECOUPLING FROM USA ECONOMIC INFRASTRUCTURE BY INNOVATING ‘STAR TREK-STYLE TELEPORTATION.’ CANADA IS ALSO CONDUCTING FEASIBILITY STUDIES ABOUT EMPLOYING DAVID COPPERFIELD TO 'DO SOME OF THAT ABRACADABRA SHIT’ TO MAGICALLY MAKE DEPENDENCE ON US MARKETS GO AWAY . . . PRESIDENT TRUMP MINDLESSLY YAMMERS ON ABOUT CONCEPTS OF A FRAMEWORK OF A WEAVE OF A PLAN TO BUILD A WALL AND HAVE MEXICO PAY FOR IT AND SIMULTANEOUSLY DECREASE DRUG PRICES BY SIX HUNDRED OR SEVEN HUNDRED SKIBIDI PERCENT AND INCREASE THE EXTRACTION OF COVFEFE FROM ICELANDIC SOIL IN ORDER TO PROSECUTE WOKE DEMOCRATS FOR STEALING THE 2020 GREENLANDIC ELECTION BY USING GENDER IDEOLOGY . . . THE HELLFIRE SHROUDED GHOST OF EPSTEIN MANIFESTS ABOVE PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH TO ANNOUNCE A NEW INITIATIVE TO USE PERVASIVE MICROPLASTICS AS AN OCCULTIC-ALCHEMICAL VECTOR TO GET HIMSELF INSIDE EVERYONE’S BODIES . . . RIYADH COMEDY FESTIVAL LINEUP BOOKED TO PERFORM PRIVATE SHOW FOR GHISLAINE MAXWELL . . . NEW POLLING SUGGESTS AMERICAN VOTERS PREFER FLASH-COOKED BITS OF BOBCAT INTESTINE OVER THE AMORAL AND SPINELESS CONGRESSIONAL LEADERSHIP OF BOTH REPUBLICAN AND DEMOCRAT PARTIES . . .

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 92

FUN YOU CAN HAVE #19:

The next time you read a manga or comic book assume it’s actually telling your life story. 

Talk to strangers, friends, neighbors, colleagues, partners, employers, employees, and authority figures as though the manga or comic book is your true life story. 

Never mention that you read manga or comic books.

Now, you get to be Chainsaw Man or Wonder Woman or Batman or Mr. Natural.

For Bonus Fun, you can mix and match.

Now, you get to be Mr. Natural on an eternal quest for the One Piece.

There’s no limit to what you can pretend to achieve!

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #92:

A tire fire-sized county.