Spent an unusual amount of time . . .

 . . . missing that book of 'Contemporary Classics of the American Theatre' today.

I used to have so much fun with that book.

I'd do unauthorized re-writes of famous plays and act them out with my Monster in My Pocket  and Lego action figures.

I did The Odd Couple starring Lego Audie Murphy and Lego Che Guevara. 

An all Lego Playboy Bunny version of 12 Angry Men.

West Side Story featuring the cast of Lego Akira.

The Crucible with the emerald green version of Tengu that came with the Monster in My Pocket boardgame as John Proctor, the scarlet version of Medusa as Abigail, and the bright pink version of Kraken as Danforth. 

Yeah, I got up to all sorts of misbehavior.

The Theatrical Copyright Cops couldn't bust me, because they couldn't get the judge to sign off on a warrant.

Ah, the freedom of true play and imagination!

I deserve a special, unauthorized Lego Tony for my imaginative labors, y'know?

Yeah . . .

Did you know . . .

 . . . that in the edited-for-television version of Brian De Palma's Scarface Tony Montana doesn't have a cocaine addiction?

Instead, Tony is afflicted with 'severe paranoid dandruff disorder.'

The pleasure of a small library . . .

 . . . is that you can just about convince yourself that you have the time and the willpower to read all the books therein.

And then you're suffused with a glowing sense of achievement. You might even feel smarter. Most importantly, if you're one of these Protestant Work Ethic Maniacs or a twitchy millennial who compulsively snorts crushed-up psychiatric-grade speed to turbocharge your level of productivity lest you be chewed up by the pitiless maw of the global capitalist death machine-

-um, y'know, you can add 'reading an entire small library' to your CV, I guess. Put it in the 'significant side hustles' section. Or what have you.

But . . . assuming it's a functioning library, well, there’s always new books coming in, and whenever they have a library sale they're getting rid of books you might not have read yet.

So this, too, is an unreachable dream. 

POETIC VIDEO GAME REVIEWS #0: THE CRUNCH.

 

yeah

home is where the office is

it's done when it's done 

a maze of our own making

hmm

or it's the fate spawned

by market forces

interpenetrating 

consumer desires

birthing terrible chimeras 

birthing new desires

bet you can't remember the time when your sense of self wasn't so connected to this maze

yeah

younger generations don't like to work as hard

prattle about 'work/life balance'

as though 'life' isn't 'work'

'work' isn't 'life'

both ceasing upon death

they're not serious 

they make unearned demands

but

we have only ourselves to blame

we made strangers of their fathers

no thought given to future neuroses 

we service the debts

of our collective dysfunction 

well

it can't be helped

the junkyards rise 

with cast-off desires 

the sea levels rise

with meltdown glaciers 

the samsara hampster wheel turns faster

every heart shall explode

the blood rises

from every mouth

we create the hothouse atmosphere 

no part of the Sun shall escape

spew our burning blood forth upon the Altar,

spew our burning fear and regret upon the Altar, 

the Oracle,

what used to be Gaia's

say

didn't Apollo slay the Delphic Python

to seize the Oracle from Gaia

sure

but a Serpent must always return 

chasing a tale

okay

but is it Deity or Beast

or

just a hungover dream beneath the break room couch

y'know

generations

of Apollo

and Python

dialectic eternal 

this or that corporate chimera seizes only the stolid Present 

hopes it grasps the quicksilver Future

even if it's 'Gaia not included'

a shame

die at your workstation 

sad sack minotaur decomposing in the heart of the cubicle warren 

maze of our own making 

-September 2021

Hmm . . .

 . . . yarn's never let me down.

I'm still into yarn.

Reads headline in which yarn is implicated in numerous human rights abuses.

Well, shit. 

Okay . . .

. . . I'll tell you the one thing I learned in the pre-pandemic world:

Never do theater if you're not getting paid.

This is because theater directors are all wannabe dictators-complete and total assholes, in other words.

Every last one thinks that their precious new production of Tennessee Williams or the 'Problem Plays' of Shakespeare or Woyzeck or Chekhov is going to break new ground, and shall be the center of the universe, and therefore justifies all manner of behavior ranging from the pretentious to the abusive-

That kinda hassle is never worth your time.

Even if you think the director is your friend-don't be tricked! If they ever were your friend in the first place-which they weren't, friendship does not exist in America-you're about to get a blast of freezing water in your face.

Never worth it.

Unless you’re getting paid.

And even then.

Probably best to just find a more boring form of income, y'know?

Tollbooth operator. Cheese slice technician. Mark-up specialist. Termite supervisor. 

Anything. 

Well . . . I  hope that people in the post-pandemic world who haven't learned such lessons up 'til now live to get wise.

That would be something. 

Assuming everyone isn't killed by some mutant strain of COVID-19 that could be incubating inside the bodies of the unvaccinated Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson audiences.

That would also be something. 

One time I was really sick . . .

 . . . and I didn't have any health insurance, but I did have some random dollar bin comics including random issues of Doctor Strange, Dr. Fate, and Doctor Mid-Nite; and I also had a Marvel Graphic Novel edition of Triumph and Torment which featured both Doctor Strange and Dr. Doom.

So, I was like, "Fuck it."

I took off all my clothes and started rubbing all those 'doctor' comics all over my trembling, sweaty, febrile body-

Which did jackshit for my illness. 

But I did look like a complete maniac for a few hours before I lost consciousness. 

Which is something. 

And something ain't nothing, y'know?

Now here's the deal . . .

 . . . I've noticed lately that my footsteps have taken on an ominous, plodding, yet also clangorous sound-that's right friends.

My footsteps sound like they're right out of those OG Playstation I Resident Evil games. Even when I'm walking on carpet barefoot, my steps will start to clang like I'm wearing steel-toed combat boots as I traverse cast iron walkways in some subterranean bioweapons research and development facility. 

It's bizarre. 

Has anyone done any research into how adolescent exposure to video game sound effects impact the daily production and output of real life meatspace sound effects in adult subjects across the lifespan?

If not . . .

Yo!

Stanford Research Institute!

Get on the stick, people!

I need answers . . .

POSTSCRIPT TO POETIC VIDEO GAME REVIEW #17: THERESIA DS (2008)

I swore to myself I would never write about flowers.

Especially in any kind of a 'poetic' sense.

Everyone who dabbles in poetry thinks writing about flowers makes 'em sophisticated or something. 

You know what it is?

Fuckin' lamebrain dudes think they're gonna get laid if they rhapsodize flowers at the poetry open mic. 

I'm sorry for all of that.

I assure you I have no illusions of getting into some fuckin' by writing a blogspot blog-I'm not that far gone . . .

But if you play Theresia DS yourself-well, you tell me.

Aren't the flowers sort of important?

I thought so.

So there you have it.

Changing paradigms . . .

 . . . are incapable of changing their own diapers.

(Diapers sold separately.)

WDT2099: THE DEMAKE . . .

 

. . . exclusively for PlagueStation 69!

POETIC VIDEO GAME REVIEW #17 THERESIA DS (2008)

 

this

is one of those games

where you play all the way through the game

and then

you get to play through another game 

which takes you back in time

fills in the backstory of the first game

so it's a two-for-one deal

okay

which is all right

it's an all right deal

the second game

comes down to a series of choices

about whether you want to

continue

to survive

in a difficult world 

of plagues and duplicity 

or not

you gotta decide if you're going to inject yourself with a vaccine 

which you should definitely do

but it's a choice you're obliged to make

in the absence of any kind of government that's worth-a-fuck

or any kind of social connections or bonds

 

up-to-that-point

you

the player 

have been wandering in the ruins of plague and war and institutional disregard for life

so it really is a stark choice:

do you jab yourself

because you think there's any kinda future;

or do you not jab yourself because you don't, 

you accept oblivion, 

and that is that is that

next

you have to light a fire

which you then must fight your way through 

the fire

that you yourself have lit 

and then

you are confronted with a mirror in the center of a room of shadows

do you like what you see

can you live with what you see

can you live with all that you have seen

can you live with the fire you have lit

can you live with what you will see

if you can move past the mirror 

you find your way to an autumnal room

but there's a window

looking out on May flowers

as it were

climb out the window 

and

ah

well

then you have to decide if you can live among flowers

but that's cushioned a bit

I suppose 

by the cut scene that kicks in

which I do not mind

I needed a break by that point

-May 2018,May 2019,

May-September 2021