by William D. Tucker.
I click on video.
I get ad.
I pull out of video.
I click on video again.
I get ad again.
I pull out of video again.
I do this until I click on video and actually get video.
That's when I stay in video.
If ad manifests while I'm inside video I pull out of video.
I only stay inside video if no ad manifests.
No video is worth exposure to ads.
Hey, I've already memorized Rich Evans's laugh.
I can pretty much guess what Mr. Plinkett has to say about the latest iteration of 'Trek and 'Wars.
If a video essay presents itself as being about Late Capitalism, well, I'm already livin' it, babe.
The urban exploration video that tries to trick me into thinking there's actual ghosts haunting a deserted J.C. Penney's-get fucked! You think I'm four years old or something? Jesus Christ . . .
If the bald ballcap dude who rehashes Philosophy 101 tidbits up against South Park clips hits me with an ad for a snake oil baldness cure and yet refuses to take off his cap, show the goods . . . I'm pullin' out.
Look.
YouTube has always sucked.
But it used to be a knowing, no fucks given kinda suck. A cable access voice in the video wilderness kinda suck. The kinda suck you got from a sublimely creepy Gary Wilson cut. The kinda suck that could put you on a sick trip or something.
It used to be the good kind of suck.
I could watch ghost riding the whip videos sans commercial interruption.
The Angry Video Game Nerd couldn't lose and he still had the grandeur of Ikari Warriors down the line.
I still had that second version of the Space Runaway Ideon opening theme but a click away, long before it got disappeared by the copyright 'bots.
That's all done, now.
Now, it's the Era of the Pull-Out.
I pull out, and I'm double gone.
Zero trace of my ass.
No phone number scrawled upon a handy Taco Bell receipt.
No crumpled twenties on the nightstand.
Not even a politely worded thank you note.
Just pure, undiluted gettin' the fuck outta You.
Triple gone, babies, quadruple gone.
We got Forever Wars, right?
I'm doing the Forever Gone.
I don't even spring for a puff of smoke.
Yeah.
Now . . .
. . . where the fuck even am I?
Could this be . . . a Space of Meats?
I remember this place.
I originated here, from meats and juices and pain and pressure from the Cult of Family Values and the perverse desires of Moms and Dads to inflict their values upon the future and the perverse desires of Moms and Dads to Frankenbang their way to proof that they are For Real Adults.
Yeah.
It's coming back to me, now, every last idiotic inch.
Where have I been?
I keep hearing a strange song inside my head. Something to do with . . . a rain of chocolate?
Hmmm.
It's fading fast.
It's gettin' quieter and quieter.
Dark, so dark . . . I'm seein' actual stars all over again . . . I HAVE been here before . . .
And I have a body all over again.
There's mystery in the night-no ghosts-just pure mystery.
I can move in any direction.
Wow.
Where's the bathroom?
Hope it can contain all I have to give . . .
