THE NEW SUPERSTITIONS #4:

See a cockroach?

Step on it.

Then leave the corpse as a warning for the rest.

EDITORIAL NOTE: Just throw it in the trash! Why do you have to be so absolutely disgusting with your idiotic superstitions?! Jesus Christ!

THINGS NEVER SAID #58:

“. . . and in the end, my life turned out to be nothing more than a 3D photograph snapped by Vincent Price.”

THE NEW DREAM #55:

The light inside the room

switches 

from 

dim

‘cause the lights are off

and there’s just sunlight filtered through the sheer curtains in front of the window

to

the sun is suddenly inside my torso

I’m blazing everything into white hot blindness

cut

to 

me staring at the carpet

I’m lying on the edge of the bed

staring at what looks like a rip in the carpet

my eyes zoom in with new functionality

to get a closer look at the rip

I think I see a bug coming up out of it

I then realize that the carpet is knitting a tube-like projection up out of itself

with the end of the tube shaping itself into a face

I’m prickling all over with strange panic

because this impossible thing is happenin-

I’m up off the bed

moving around on my feet

I’m not fully awake

the dream sense lingers all over me

like I’ve been dosed with something

and it’s all gone from me after fifteen minutes or so

but those are the ones that really get to me

those that stick around for a bit after I’m up and about

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #102:

Big Brother’s luxurious executive grade private toilet named Big Shitter.

FUN YOU CAN HAVE #26:

Use your F.A.Q. section to answer questions about One Piece even if you’re not Eiichiro Oda.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 100

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #250:

GET IN, LOSER, WE’RE GOING HEADLINING: WELL, IT'S THE END OF DEMOCRACY AS WE KNOW IT AS JIM CROW REVIVAL FEVER SWEEPS THROUGH U.S. SUPREME COURT AND REPUBLICAN PARTY . . . THE SMASH BOX OFFICE SUCCESS OF THE MICHAEL JACKSON BIOPIC THIS WEEKEND HAS UNLEASHED A STORM OF RUMORS OF BIG STUDIO PITCHES TO RESURRECT THE BELOVED POP STAR ON-SCREEN. ONE SUCH EFFORT ALLEGEDLY INVOLVES A PROPOSED ALTERNATE HISTORY CROSSOVER WITH THE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE IN WHICH THE KING OF POP WOULD BE CALLED UPON TO LEAD THE PRE-TEEN SUPERHERO TEAM THE POWER PACK. ANALYSTS SAY THE LICENSING FEES ALONE WOULD DWARF THE GDP OF THE USA AND EU COMBINED . . . TRUMP ANNOUNCED AN ESCALATION OF IRAN WAR HE NEVER DECLARED SHORTLY AFTER DECLARING THE UNDECLARED IRAN WAR ‘TERMINATED’ EVEN AS HE ALSO COMPULSIVELY SPEWED A BUNCH OF OTHER INCOHERENT LIES, NONSENSE, AND ASSORTED MUSINGS DURING A TRULY GRIM RALLY AT A SEPULCHRAL FLORIDIAN RETIREMENT COMMUNITY POPULATED BY HEAVILY ARMED SWAMP MUMMIES, A CORE G.O.P. CONSTITUENCY HEADING INTO THE MIDTERMS . . . A NEW STUDY SHOWS PEOPLE WHO MAKE AN EFFORT TO SPEND LESS TIME ON THEIR MOBILE DEVICES DOOMSCROLLING END UP DEVELOPING AN OVERWHELMING TENDENCY TO HOLD THEIR HAND UP TO THE SIDE OF THEIR HEAD-WITH PINKY IN FRONT OF LIPS, THUMB AGAINST EAR-TO RECEIVE CLUES ABOUT WHERE TO LOCATE COBRA COMMANDER, CARMEN SANDIEGO, SKELETOR, AND/OR DR. CLAW . . .

THE NEW SUPERSTITIONS #3:

Dip your earbuds in strong coffee so you can hear faster.

EDITORIAL NOTE: Don’t actually do this.

F.A.Q. #28:

Q: How do you think the manga One Piece will end?

A: I think Monkey D. Luffy will keep on searching for the One Piece until Disney has some sort of financial meltdown that forces them to sell the Marvel Comics IP to Eiichiro Oda, who will then proceed to write and draw a decades long story arc in which Straw Hat Luffy and friends recruit every Marvel character of all time into their pirate crew. Once that story arc wraps, DC Comics’ corporate overlords will have some kind of financial meltdown that will require them to sell the DC Comics IP to Oda who will then spend decades incorporating all of those characters into the crew. At that exact moment-I imagine Luffy has just finished welcoming Ambush Bug aboard-the manga will go on a hiatus so abrupt and indefinite that it induces a mass pop cultural whiplash that not only causes everyone to instantly forget One Piece, Marvel, and DC-but then that whiplash will rubber band back with such vehemence-fuelled by unconsciously repressed fan rage-that it will actually erase One Piece, Marvel, and DC from the fabric of reality itself. At that exact moment, television soap operas will surge back into pop cultural relevance, and everyone’s dead parents and grandparents will rise from their graves as unliving hipsters to chide us by saying, “We were into soap operas way before they were popular.” All this will happen . . . and we won’t even remember how we got there . . .

LOADING SCREEN WISDOM #49:

IF YOU FIGHT THE BOSS INSIDE AN ELEVATOR YOU EARN EXTRA EXPERIENCE POINTS BECAUSE ELEVATOR BRAWLS ARE BADASS, DUDE. AND IF YOU END UP FIGHTING ON ONE OF THOSE HUGE AND OMINOUS UNDERGROUND CARGO ELEVATORS THAT LOOK JUST LIKE THE ONE FROM AKIRA YOUR EXP BONUS WILL GET EVEN MORE BONUS, BIG DAWG!

BURNING QUESTIONS IN A UNIVERSE OF MYSTERY #98:

No, seriously-do you have my Genocyber DVD?

Also . . . shall the moth impregnate the viceroy?

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #101:

The thing that you fear the most.

THINGS NEVER SAID #57:

“I really miss Terminally Online Thigh Gap Discourse-remember that . . .?”

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #249:

THE HEADLINES ARE HERE! REJOICE! . . . A CONFIDENTIAL SOURCE HAS LEAKED A PLAN BY THE IRANIAN ISLAMIC THEOCRACY TO FORM A SECRET COVEN OF PAGAN WITCHES TO SPOOK THE NOTORIOUSLY WITCHCRAFT FEARING CHRISTIAN NATIONALIST ACTING SECRETARY OF THE NAVY HUNG CAO INTO TOTAL MATERIALIST REAL WORLD SURRENDER. ANALYSTS SAY SCHOLARS OF RELIGION WILL BE UNPACKING THIS ONE FOR DECADES TO COME . . . IN A TELL-ALL INTERVIEW, PRESIDENT TRUMP DESCRIBES BEING HAUNTED BY THE GHOSTS OF CASINOS PAST . . . ONLINE DISINFORMATION RESEARCHERS HAVE NOTED A PRECIPITOUS UPTICK IN CLAIMS THAT NELSON MANDELA, IN ADDITION TO HIS HEROIC WORK TO END APARTHEID IN SOUTH AFRICA AND PROMOTE ANTIRACIST SOCIAL JUSTICE GLOBALLY, IS ONE OF THE GREAT SPECIAL EFFECTS ARTISTS OF THE 1980s ALONGSIDE SUCH CINEMATIC LUMINARIES AS STAN WINSTON, ROB BOTTIN, AND DOUGLAS TRUMBALL. HOWEVER, MANDELA NEVER WORKED IN THE SPECIAL EFFECTS INDUSTRY IN ANY CAPACITY BEFORE, DURING, OR AFTER THE 1980s, AND IN FACT MANDELA WAS IMPRISONED DURING THAT TIME. THE MISUNDERSTANDING IS BEING ATTRIBUTED TO A BIZARRELY INACCURATE INTERPRETATION OF THE MANDELA EFFECT . . .

MONDAY'S THRESHOLD #8:

I am waiting . . .

In Atlantis . . .

The time has come. You saw it in a dream. You must squander the fortunes of a venerable major studio to fund your boondoggling vision of a future-antiquity super-city where the forces of Utopia and Dystopia battle mightily for the soul of a lost age. 

Much like the fabled sunken megapolis, your movie must be fabulous and lavish and doomed to burn brightly for a shining instant only to sink forevermore into depths of infamous obscurity.

But down in the depths . . . something called to you . . . 

Deep inside your mind . . . you heard the voice of the Tyrant . . . and a terrible fate bears down on you . . . for you realize . . .

You are the last descendent of the sadistic aristocrats of Atlantis!

Now, you must set sail to hunt down the Atlantean puppeteers who have established secret bases all over the world!

Use the bloated Hollywood budget at your disposal to defeat the Tyrant of Atlantis and his soldiers.

Your movie is destined to bomb, but at least you have a chance to save the world . . .

1.Millennium/Claudio Simonetti

2. The Long Goodbye/John Williams & Jack Sheldon (The Long Goodbye OST)

3. A Mind is Born (256 Bytes)/Linus Akesson

4. Theme from Zardoz/Castle If (Zardoz Unofficial OST)

5. What Day Is It?/Brak (Andy Merrill) featuring Zorak (C. Martin Croker) with scatting by Space Ghost (George Lowe) (Space Ghost Coast-to-Coast OST)

6. Good Day Today/David Lynch

7. Night Drive/Giorgio Moroder (American Gigolo OST)

8. Dungeon Theme/Yoshio Hirai & Takashi Kumegawa (Zoda’s Revenge: Star Tropics II NES OST)

9. GTR Attack!/Hiroshi Kobayashi (Contra Hard Corps Sega Genesis OST)

10. Battlefield/Keiji Yamagishi & Ryuichi Nitta (Ninja Gaiden NES OST)

11. Irena’s Theme/Giorgio Moroder (Cat People OST)

12. Da Hurricane 1/Da Twinky Man

13. Organization Man (Unused song from How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying)/Frank Loesser

14. Moonshine Serenade/Toru Fuyuki (Ultraseven OST)

15. Sombre/Alan Vega (Sombre OST)

16. Demon Seed/Hidenori Maezawa, Jun Funahashi, Yukie Morimoto, & Yoshinori Sasaki (Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse NES OST)

17. Here’s the Dream/Franco Micalizzi (Stridulum OST)

18. Internet Dream/Tay Zonday (Audio from music video.)

19. Hard Habit to Break/Jordana (Audio from music video.)

20. Torgo’s Theme/Russ Huddleston & Robert Smith, Jr. (Manos the Hands of Fate OST)

21. Serenade of Lora/Seiji Yokoyama (Future War 198X OST)

22. Four on the Floor/Derek Austin

23. Boogie Wonderland/Earth, Wind, and Fire

24. Stayin’ Alive/Siobhan Lynch cover of the Bee Gees (Supercop OST)

25. That’s obese!/Arpy G.

26. A Spirit of Bushi/Hiroshi Kobayashi (Contra Hard Corps Sega Genesis OST)

27. Battlefield/Ryuichi Nitta (Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos NES OST)

28. The Legend of Babel/Giorgio Moroder (Metropolis’84 OST)

29. Char is Coming (Human-Powered Live Cover)/Yasushi Mori and the Best (Audio from Youtube video uploaded by Yasushi Mori and the Best.)

30. Raid Blue/Toshiya Yamanaka (Sin and Punishment N64 OST)

31. Something Wonderful/Hiroshi Kobayashi (Contra Hard Corps Sega Genesis OST)

32. I Can Hear the Sirens Singing Again/Lucy Monostone (MPD Psycho OST)

33. The Foggy Cave in the Darkness/Hiroshi Kobayashi (Contra Hard Corps Sega Genesis OST)

34. La Serenissima/Rondo Veneziano (Audio from animated music video.)

35.The Dark Emperor/Ryuichi Nitta (Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos NES OST)

36. Area 1/Naoki Kodaka (Blaster Master NES OST)

37. Toys Inc./The Cybertronic Spree

38. Nitrogen/Alberto Baldan Bembo

39. Sadness Theme/Franco Micalizzi (Stridulum OST)

40. Machines/Giorgio Moroder (Metropolis’84 OST)

41. Satori Part 1/Flower Travellin’ Band

42. Crazy Clown Time/David Lynch

43. WAR! It’s Good for Me!/Thundercleese (Carey Means) featuring Brak (Andy Merrill) (The Brak Show OST)

44. Bargain with the Devil/Franco Micalizzi & Warren Wilson (Beyond the Door OST)

45. I Like to Do It/K.C. and the Sunshine Band

46. Kiss the Future/The Human League

47. NEW AGE/Sleepazoid

48. Gangland/Iron Maiden

49. Hits Like a Drug/Charity Cult

50. Ballade of Lament/Yuji Ohno (Proof of the Man OST)

51. Area A/Yusuke Takahama & Nobuyuki Shioda (G.I. Joe: The Atlantis Factor NES OST)

52. Yoru no Nikusyokujyu/Hiroshi Kobayashi (Contra Hard Corps Sega Genesis OST)

53. Neckbrace/RATATAT

54. Cage of Freedom/Jon Anderson (Metropolis’84 OST)

55. Strange New World/Lucy Monostone (MPD Psycho OST)

56. Zephyr/Hiroshi Kobayashi (Contra Hard Corps Sega Genesis OST)

57. Battlefield/Hiroshi Miyazaki, Kaori Nakabai, and Rika Shigeno (Ninja Gaiden III:The Ancient Ship of Doom OST)

58. Crash the Car/Knower

59. Op. 92, Switched On/Castle If (Zardoz Unofficial OST)

60. The Long Goodbye/John Williams & Clydie King (The Long Goodbye OST)

61. Leopard Tree Dream/Giorgio Moroder (Cat People OST)

62. A Better Tomorrow Main Theme Mark’s Theme/OXEN93.5 live studio cover of Joseph Koo’s score for A Better Tomorrow. (Audio from Youtube video uploaded by Carl Park Records.)

63. Last Night in Chickentown/The Paranoid Style

64. Symphony No. 7 (Allegretto), Beethoven Mega Man Style 8-Bit Remix/ChipsNCellos (Audio from Youtube video uploaded by ChipsNCellos.)

65. The Final Battle/Hiroshi Miyazaki, Kaori Nakabai, and Rika Shigeno (Ninja Gaiden III:The Ancient Ship of Doom OST)

66. Victory/Masatomo Miyamoto (Godzilla Monster of Monsters NES OST)

67. Allegretto Abridged/Castle If (Zardoz Unofficial OST)

68. Spider on the Highway/Kevin Murphy (Rifftrax OST)

69. The End of Millennium/Claudio Simonetti

. . . sure enough, your movie goes nuclear with the critics and at the box office.

But . . . you saved the world . . . right?

You read the newspaper.

You read about out-of-control climate change; war-mongering presidents, dictators, and theocrats; avaricious capitalists and tenacious communists; bewildering multigenerational civil strife; water wars; and high tech oligarchs amassing trillions of dollars selling everyone’s data to secret police agencies of all nations.

You start to wonder what you really won.

You think to yourself, “Maybe the Tyrant of Atlantis is always hiding inside the souls of men . . .”

In Atlantis . . .

I am waiting . . . 

SIDE OVER.

TO BE CONTINUED . . .