THE NEW GRIND: INNER HEAVY PARTICULATE GAINS

 

ONE LINE MOVIE REVIEWS #12: INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY (2023)

The gravely disappointing lack of a mirror match between Elder Indiana and Digitally De-Aged Indiana pretty much sinks it.

BURNING QUESTIONS IN A UNIVERSE OF MYSTERY #50:

 

Wouldn't it be easier if the U.S. Supreme Court just published a weekly sales paper? 

How many yachts does it take to get movement on various far right wet dream bench legislations? 

It's not entirely clear, is it? 

I mean . . . we know. We've known for years. I'm just advocating for precision and clarity.

Plus, a sales paper is a kind of catalog or menu, isn't it? People ought to know what services are on offer from these lifetime-appointed mercenary ideologues.

Oooo, they're having a two-for-one deal this week! One dark money bribe gets you a Post-Roe Reality and the Death of Affirmative Action!

Put a justice's kid through some elite private school, and that judge's ankles will get raw from the grabbin', baby!

The more you spend the more you save!

The Supreme Court has been widely understood for years as pay-for-play just like every other All-American institution, so why be so secretive, so pretentious about shit, eh?

What could be more American than cash money service on command?

Aside from, I dunno, the gun violence epidemic-which is definitely no slouch in the All-American-ness Department, for sure, my dudes!

But, no, I would say gettin' paid is the core American Value above all others.

BURNING QUESTIONS IN A UNIVERSE OF MYSTERY #49:

Could you ever see Vladimir Putin working at Taco Bell?

I just can't see it.

It's actual work, y'know?

Nothing to delegate to cannon fodder.

You're either up to the task or gone.

If you can't keep up with the pace of that dinner rush, your ass is bounced my dude.

No prison conscripts or bootlicking puppet ministers to take the fall for you.

Nope.

I can't see Putin making the scene at Taco Bell.

But what do you think, Dear Reader?

Write your comments on the screen with particolored street chalk, then read them out loud in a spot on imitation of my voice, and you can have Discourse At Home-what fun!!!

OPTIONAL RULE #10:

This is strictly for individuals who somehow find themselves becoming the President of the United States of America.

Basically, this is called Let's Keep This Thing Goin' People!

It works like this.

You're the President.

You've started an illegal war.

Or, you know, you've inherited an illegal war started by the previous administration.

This strictly optional rule requires you to do the following: keep on waging the illegal war no matter how deep the quagmire gets; and all the while you keep promising "victory" or "peace with honor" or what have you; and then you leave office with the illegal war still raging, but now it's the new guy's problem so zero biggie. You win if and only if you avoid prison for the rest of your days. Bonus points for catching bloated speaker's fees, consultant's fees, book deals, movie/TV/streaming/gaming deals, and podgrift deals.

Obviously, due to the corrosive effects upon the public's trust in government this is all strictly optional.

Play responsibly, ya'll!

Blows a kiss and a fart.

PEOPLE GET MAD . . . (#8)

. . . at the designated weirdos who turn out to be normies, and then they get mad at the designated normies who turn out to be weirdos.

People get mad.

THE NEW SUPERSTITIONS #1:

If you eat mint chocolate chip ice cream before you go out driving you are guaranteed to get nothing but green lights.

Because green.

EDITORIAL NOTE: This is fucking stupid . . . but at least it doesn't require you to burn a witch or have unnatural relations with an amphibian in the middle of a graveyard after midnight. So, some nuance for the Nuance Junkies.

THINGS NEVER SAID #5:

"Some days you just can't bear to part with an armed nuclear device. You've got your arms wrapped tightly around it. How many people will ever find out what you are about to find out, eh? You know it's true! Even now, there's a kind of cold, hard anti-cuddly thing going on that bursts through to being cuddly all over again. But this time you are the haplessly touch hungry pitbull, now you get to be the dog, you get to be the wiggly, can't-get-close-enough perfect one attempting, absurdly, to burrow into your heartless master's impenetrable flank! Go ahead. Make the 'woof-woof' noises. Pee on the floor. Whine for a liver treat. We are post-shame. Everyone's about to be post-sh-"

ANCILLARY PRODUCTS #9:

Deep fake hologram John Belushi set to star in remakes of The Notebook, Wired, Prefontaine, and Eat, Pray, Love.

BURNING QUESTIONS IN A UNIVERSE OF MYSTERY #48:

Do you pay attention to the scenes in action movies when the characters speak cryptically about their sordid pasts?

I don't.

This stuff is almost always filler between scenes of mayhem.

However, I have made a discovery.

Whenever action movie characters speak cryptically about their pasts I just imagine that they used to work together at K-Mart, and the hero used to sneak swigs of nacho cheese analogue product from the snackbar when the boss was hotboxing their Honda during slow periods of customer traffic.

I found this made the most recent John Wick movie more fun. 

Keanu in the K-Mart.

'Tis a vision.

ANCILLARY PRODUCTS #8:

 

Nostalgia for Black Friday Chaos Scenes-where you've got hordes of violent shoppers surging into a chain department store to fill the empty Void Within that is allegedly plugged by Jesus or Mother's Milk or a Second Robot Self Yearning to Burst Free of Meats'n'Juices Prison or various grinds and side hustles-spawns a boom in homebrew beltscroller beat'em ups which appropriate various figures of fantasy and pop culture as playable protagonists. The most venerable of these is a game called Oldboy'89 in which one or two players can battle as either Michael Keaton's Batman or as Choi Min-sik's Oh Dae-su. Solo or as a pair you must beat the shit out of wave after wave of crazed consumers, strolling and pummeling your way through twelve richly textured Zones of Enemy. However, the more ass you kick, the bigger the Boss Ass you'll have to battle at the end of each Zone. If you wish to unlock the True Ending, ye must kick Maximum Ass which will reveal a Secret Final Boss: the Gluteus Superposition, which is a laser light Meta-Ass which you must mercilessly pound into the great beyond for Victory's Sake. It's actually possible to unlock the Gluteus Superposition at any time in the game if the battle you give is fierce enough, even within the first Zone of Enemy. The earlier you break on through to Meta-Ass, the closer you are to becoming a Final Master of Oldboy'89 . . . which means a horde of Actual Consumer Maniacs recruited from real life Black Friday Chaos Scenes charging into the arcade in meatspace once the Glory Signal has been triggered by your achievement of Final Mastery. Prevail against these Maniacs in the meats and you will have the honor of receiving a very long roll of tickets which may be redeemable at the Gift Prize Counter for available products at participating locations. Truly, the products of Nostalgia are as varied and wondrous as are the Children of Madness who fight and die to obtain, cherish, and fetishize them within various Home Display Schemas. 

BONUS: Sidereal Hustle: a side hustle that will make you a millionaire so long as you grind until the stars burn down into distant memories.

BURNING QUESTIONS IN A UNIVERSE OF MYSTERY #47:

What if I don't stay in my car while getting my oil changed? Personally, I think if I hopped out and started supervising everybody's shit directly things would go even faster. Five minutes? With my boot on people's asses I bet we could get that down to five pico-seconds. 

I have persuasive feeties, or so I'm told.

OCCLUSION #1:

A storm that I missed

luck

so my life is not defined in that period

by disaster, dread, delayed recovery, dread, laborious recovery

I'm perfectly able to listen to retrospective podcasts dealing with the matter as though they are pure content

I just always think back to the shimmering computer ass in that leaked workprint of FADE INTO FLESH II 

how that became a thing

people preferring slightly busted leaked versions-sfx all schematics and test environments-to the finished films

is THAT scheduled for a comeback?

the gleaming steel computer ass that shielded me from a generation damaging storm?

I wouldn't kick it out of bed

BURNING QUESTIONS IN A UNIVERSE OF MYSTERY #46:

Am I the only one fantasizing about Alan Watts trying to sell H.P. Lovecraft on his "trust the universe" hustle?

Meanwhile, I'm about to leap out of the bushes in my Cthulhu cosplay, bellowing, "Surprise, bitches!"

Lovecraft drops dead of fright. Watts is desperately trying to hand over his wallet. 

In the end, I'm good for Taco Bell and action figures across two Sundays. Three, if I economize.

MUSIC JOKES #6: BAWITDABA (1998) by Kid Rock

Hmm?

What?

What did you say your name was?

Sorry,

but I got distracted listening to this MC Hammer track, the sheer properness of which totally blotted you out.

Slams a Pepsi. 

Sounded like Kid Bawk.

Like Bawk Bawk Ba-Gawk.

Like chicken noises. 

You could do like a commercial tie-in with Chick-Fil-A.

Maybe be the Colonel Sanders Battle March or something. 

Of course, I'll be charging you my customary consulting fee for slinging these brilliant ideas your way, plus a surcharge to offset damage to my hearing regions.

WARDSBACK #3:

 

I wasn't happy with my streaming video service. They were producing lots of bullshit featuring loser hack comedy types more known for their lazy dipshit steroid poisoned podgrift content rather than actual jokecraft. I was seething with extreme rage. And then a light activated inside my own brain. Instead of canceling my subscription, I decided to reverse the polarity. I sent the streaming service a crushingly huge bill to compensate me for my wasted time. And when they refused to pay, I sent guys with baseball bats to bust up their servers. Now, I get so much money I am indistinguishable from cash. I'm like a meats'n'juices'n'cash being these days. 

Life is short. 

Get fuckin' paid. 

BONUS FUN: If you ever find yourself having to explain to some jerkoff conspiracy theorist why all the stupid nonsense they believe is fake, go ahead and send them a bill for "Additional Education Services Rendered." Life is short. Value your time at the highest price.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #26:

U.S. PRESIDENTIAL RACE OFFERS WAY OUT FOR STRUGGLING WEALTHY BUSINESSMEN TRAPPED IN CREEPY HAUNTS OF DESOLATION SUCH AS FLORIDA, NORTH DAKOTA, AND NEW JERSEY.

THE NEW DREAM #14:

In the New Dream

I got so tired of being balloon but not

You grab a limp balloon

You pop yourself a stroke blowing it up

Unless you're one of these mutants that's just good at blowing up balloons

You go to the state fair

There's a machine with a nozzle

Blows up the balloons so good

It must be having significant long-term evolutionary effects upon the species

But in the New Dream

I'm not any of this

I'm balloon but not

At best I'm miming the balloon inflation process 

Blowing into a shape

That can only be seen

But gets me no actual balloon

This gets me down

But then there's a floaty zooming sensation

It's like playing Doom for hours and hours without interdictions by enemy

Pure traversal

Keeping some kind of beat with regular intervals of chunky future door noises

Chillax mode enabled-

-mostly excised from the final cut

Reduced down to a Spike Lee style "floating dolly pull" as I make my way to a Lowe's

I float the aisles 

Meats ghost routine

A helpful employee draws near in a slightly uncomfortable close-up

I ask if they have the components for a nuclear bomb

I ask this expecting laughter or to get told off for being a weirdo

I fantasize making it on to one of them thar watchlists

But no

The employee walks me through the whole process

There's a series of modular kits

It's expensive

To do the full sequence

But it's all packaged up and ready to go

They got payment plans and everything

"-ever since the Supreme Court expanded the domain of the individual's right to bear arms-"

Employee dude is super into the details

Of the New Dream

I get dunked into dismal depths of Buyer's Remorse

But I put the full sequence onto my credit card

Sans hesitation

Just the guilt that's fully leaded

Good radiation protection

Perhaps

More chillaxed Doom traversal elided

And I'm a suburban nuclear power

Like the for real kind

Boom-boom

Not electricity

I get seated at the adults' table for the first fucking time in my life, dude!

Presidents

Prime Ministers

Dictators

Warlords

Comic Opera Colonels

Petroleum Princes

Five course dinners,

Had to sneak off to the bathroom to puke

How the fuck do you eat five courses of anything short of ambrosia?

And then they brought in the ambrosia!

Dude!

Of course, the US President wasn't actually there, just a derpy envoy

Actually

This is kind of a cute story

But a genocidal rogue state colonel with a wildass Joker cosplay thought I was the US President

Dude kept trying to get me to sell him Agent Orange

"I'm telling you, Mr. President, I'll go win the Vietnam War for you-and that's at a fraction of the Pentagon's budget! Why that's a bargain at twice the price!"

I begged off by selling him a copy of that Valve Orange Box with Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2 and Portal,

Told him that it contained the recipe for Agent Orange,

Whilst the American envoy simultaneously shook her head in disapproval, licked her lips, and winked at me,

Was she the one playing footsie with me under the adults' table?

I could've sworn it was Vladimir Putin.

Sure, it could've been both.

It was all a little too Loaded Weapon 1 for my taste.

I prefer the lightness of Lubitsch.

Truly, the situation was fraught.

Of course

The New Dream ended in nuclear annihilation

But it wasn't any of us at the adults' table

Some random Florida Man sparked it off during a road rage incident down in Tallahassee

Now I'm floaty zooming

Against a screen

Of nuclear whiteness

Truly glitched out of any kind of rules set

Sans perspective

Lost the sensation of movement

Can't see

Nothing to see

Ivory migraine choppers biting down hard on my last blob of consciousness

Finale

Of head rushing

Like back at the hotel

Lying down

After a day of riding roller coasters

No roller coasters

Balloon but not

HECKLER'S DOCTRINE #3:

. . . this has to do with that old routine about "magic in comedy," but magic for real. It typically involves a host giving a crumpled ten dollar bill to one of the booked, usually not the most popular of the bunch. There's the de rigeur ambient hostility towards the host. Mr. Not-So-Popular takes the ten, regards it, thwacks it, perhaps, says, "You guys want to see something?" It's important that there be other comedians on the scene when you motherfuck the host. "Nothing up my sleeves." Presentation of the sleeves. "Now watch carefully." The usual hand jive ensues, the ten dollar bill gets whipped about in as elaborate a manner as possible, maybe even incorporating a bit of bellydance, a bit of bump'n'grind, it's all to the purpose, come hither eyes peeking over a veil of cash-stop, holding the ten spot right out in front of you with both hands, bill pulled taut,"Alakablam!" Mr. Not-So-Popular tears the bill into a half dozen strips, throws them up into the air, "I'm also a Comedy Magician!" Onlookers frustrate at the sight of a Taco Bell Fourth Meal or some microwave burritos or cup ramen or forty ounce whistle wetting going all to fucking pieces before their eye jellies. This is, as mentioned, a Motherfuck-The-Host move more than anything . . .

THINGS NEVER SAID #4:

"Oh, the hassle. Oh, the humanity. Oh, the hasslemanity."

ANCILLARY PRODUCTS #7:

Welcome to Comic Book Shampoo!

You are sitting in your place of dwelling.

You have a long box filled with bagged'n'boarded comic books.

You think about a dilemma that has often occurred to you:

Are comic books meant to be read, or are they meant to be entombed within bags'n'boards so as to maintain them forever in a pristine untouched state?

You truly are conflicted. Part of you feels like taking the comic books outta their bags and boards to read them, every last one. Part of you fears sullying them with your gross germy fingers. 

What's to be done?

If only there was a cleanliness product that could free you from your torturous dilemma . . .

Unfortunately, there is no such product. Water and soap only cause damage to paper products. Putting wet comics in a microwave or drying machine is not likely to reverse water damage. You suppose washing your hands and then thoroughly drying them before handling your comics is a solution-but what if you forget? What if, in your zeal to read your comics, you have not the patience to wash and dry your hands? Are not forgetfulness and zeal part of the human condition? If so, should we not be seeking a cure for such a condition? 

Well, unfortunately, there is no cure, at present, for the human condition. However, it is possible to ease the symptoms . . . with Comic Book Shampoo!

Here's the program . . .

Take all of your comics out of their bags and boards. This is the Day of Liberation. Post about it on social media. Now, focus your thoughts on the concept of COMIC BOOK SHAMPOO. If your willpower is strong enough, you should begin to experience an aborning pressure inside your skull, right behind your eyeballs. Your agony shall be supreme. Go ahead, howl. In the fullness of time, a burning cream shall spurt forth from your tear ducts. Your agony shall continue unabated. However, a natural instinct shall guide you to aim your face at your liberated comics. Once you have soaked your comics in the burning cream bursting forth from your tear ducts, manually grab and squeeze and lather the freshly creamed comics into a kind of mulch. Now slather your body in this rich mulch of comics, burning cream, and willpower-made-manifest. Soon, you too will get to burning. Your howls shall become hysterical laughter. The stories shall merge with your body. You will experience unaided flight. You will feel as though you are crashing through a pane of glass. You will achieve Somatic Superposition. You will feel the anxiety and dizziness of true freedom. 

Sensations should abate within twenty-five to thirty-five minutes. 

No clean-up is required. Once sensations abate, users invariably find themselves with nary a trace of goo or comics. 

Side effects include knowledge of True Power, heightened libido, and itchy scalp. 

WARNING: USE COMIC BOOK SHAMPOO WITH ABANDON. YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE. GLORY IS FOREVER.

POETIC VIDEO GAME REVIEW #-8B: STAFF ROLL

You know, we paid for all this licensed music to have our very own curated, Hollywood-esque soundtrack. May as well jam the leftover cuts into one Staff Roll Sandwich, right? Sure.

Just like the Hollywood director humps do to make their movies seem more hip'n'happening than what's actually on the screen. Yeah, yeah, go ahead and cry, "Cinema Envy! Cinema Envy! All video games are trying to be movies nowadays! Cinema Envy! Cinema Envy!"

Cry all you want. Even if we ship a busted, shitass product it'll still catch us a mountain range of cash from the mindlessly conformist Gotta Buy Everything jerkoffs.

Yep.

But first, we need a curtain call theme . . .

Memorial of the Fallen Ones/Toshihiko Horiyama (Demon's Crest OST)

. . . which we'll have to loop for about forty-five minutes or so. Every last random encounter gets a spot, so settle in . . .

Which brings us, at last, to the Staff Roll Sandwich . . .

Crazy In Love/Beyonce

My Way/Sid Vicious

Layla/Derek and the Dominos

The Great Pretender/The Platters

Against the Ninja/Dragon Sound

Control/Traci Lords

Kids in America/Len

Darkside/Crazy Town

House on Fire/Girls on Film

Coast to Coast Emergency/George Carlin

Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?/Rod Stewart

Hypnotize/The Notorious B.I.G.

Free Bird/Lynyrd Skynyrd

Kill the Poor/Dead Kennedys

Neutron Dance/The Pointer Sisters

9 to 5/Dolly Parton

Cop Killer/Body Count

Hello Me and You/Superorganism

Alabama Song/Alan Ishii

A Reluctant Hero-Betsy-End Credits/Bernard Herrmann (Taxi Driver OST)

Cindy/Gary Wilson

It Ain't Necessarily So/Aretha Franklin

Fairy Dreamin'/Sayuri Shimizu (Genocyber OST 1)

Hey, that was kinda nice, eh? Good variety. Ran a bit long. Had to get all the names of the crunch fodder in there. And then we had, like, a million Executive Goldbrickers-I mean Executive Producers. And then the crowdfunders. A few hundred Backers. Five Big Spenders. Two Whales. One REDACTED.

That's everybody, right?