THE NEW OBVIOUS #20:

Bulk and Skull had no business being campus police officers. They pretty much got everything wrong all of the time. The city of Angel Grove was clearly experiencing some sort of systemic crisis in their hiring practices vis-a-vis public safety personnel. Perhaps the constant mayhem occurring due to violent confrontations between self-appointed metamorphic vigilantes and monstrous lunar terrorists scared the high quality job candidates into seeking employment in less volatile cities. Word gets out, you know. And then all you’re left with are bumblers like Bulk and Skull. A sad state of affairs to be sure.

F.A.Q. #3:

Q: Do you have a favorite movie? What about a Top Ten List? Do you do ranked listings of movies or anything else?

A: I have tried to pick a single all time favorite movie, but I just can’t do it. I’ve dabbled in ranked lists, but those don’t work for me, either. Top 10 or Top 5 or Top 100 lists are completely arbitrary. My list has the same validity as one drawn up by Roger Ebert or anyone else. I also don’t think there’s any validity to End of Year or Year In Review or Year’s Best or Year’s Worst or what have you. What if you do your Best of 2024 List in the last week or two of December but then a month later in late January you change your mind? Are you actually gonna re-do your list? Why? Because you’re a perfectionist? Because it feels good? Because the world must know? If it feels good then proceed, but any other reason is just tedious . . . but having said all of this . . . if you put a gun to my head . . . then I would have no choice but to pick The Deer Hunter as my Number One Favorite because that would be super cute, wouldn’t it?

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #135:

“COME ON, PEOPLE, GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER.” D.B. COOPER JUST ABOUT READY TO GIVE UP ALL HOPE OF EVER BEING FOUND.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 38

 

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #44:

A yeti politician who constantly rails against the System as being “one big snowjob.”

THE NEW SIGNAGE #4:

a duck with a knife in its back followed by another duck

THE NEW DREAM #34:

I know the answers for the Scantron

yet I choose to Christmas Tree it

because

desire minus shame

THE NEW OBVIOUS #19:

Goldar should’ve reported Lord Zedd to HR.

F.A.Q. #2:

Q: Do you believe extraterrestrials have visited earth? Do you believe that the U.S. government is covering up evidence of extraterrestrial visitations and/or crash landings? What do you make of the various UFO whistleblowers who have been in the media spotlight in recent years?

A: No, extraterrestrials have not visited Earth. There is no evidence whatsoever that anything like this has happened. These so-called “whistleblowers” have talked and talked and talked . . . without producing a shred of actual evidence for extraterrestrials or whatever. Talk is talk. Show me the evidence. Make an actual case. And as far as the U.S. government covering up xtro bodies or “biologics” or alien saucers or whatever . . . I just don’t see how that would work. The U.S. government wasn’t able to keep the lid on The Pentagon Papers. Where are The Area 51 Papers? The obvious answer is that there’s no alien corpses or recovered craft or anything of the sort. If there were anything worth leaking it all would’ve leaked back in the late 1990s at the height of The X-Files craze. But I do admire the hustle and grind of these so-called “whistleblowers” who are clearly getting a boost on the conspiracy podgrift circuit. Enjoy it while it lasts, kiddos!

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #134:

AMERICANS CONTINUE TO TORTURE THEMSELVES THIS HOLIDAY SEASON WITH GROSS, DRY TURKEY DESPITE WIDE AVAILABILITY OF CHEESEBURGERS, MAC’N’CHEESE, AND FRIED CHICKEN.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 37

 

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #43:

A highly conceptual production of Hamlet featuring Charles Fort as Fortinbras.

FOR WANT OF A NAIL . . . (#7)

(oldoldoldfartfartfart)

. . . and then you became a United States President.

THE NEW SIGNAGE #3:

FOOD-GAS-BOULDERS-DISLODGING

THE NEW OBVIOUS #18:

Bubble grows, bubble bursts.

THINGS NEVER SAID #26:

“When I bite into that Papa John's pizza I can taste that clear-filtered water. Nothing finer.”

F.A.Q. #1:

Q: Do you like ice cream? If so, what is your favorite flavor?

A: I do like ice cream. My favorite flavor is mint chocolate chip. Runner-ups would be cookies’n’cream and butter pecan. Just as important as the flavor is the temperature. Ice cream is best served very cold. Also, cold ice cream tastes even better when you eat it during very cold weather. It’s bracing. It’s refreshing. It’s invigorating. It gives you no place to go but up. It gets you moving.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 36

 

FANTASY MASHUP FORCE #4:

“It’s gotta be the shoes!”

“Maybe it’s Maybelline.”

So . . . if I put on the Jordans . . . and then I slather the Jordans in Maybelline . . . that would make me God, right?

And then, like, for a Bonus . . . I could buy that mass market paperback copy of Necronomicon from Barnes and Noble . . . and then, uh, like . . . I could also be Cthulhu, too. Like, as bonus content, you know.

When you think about it . . . our consumer culture is rather empowering, isn’t it?

Sure . . .

COMICS REVIEW: BIG QUESTIONS (2011)

by Anders Nilsen

Published by Drawn and Quarterly in August of 2011.

. . .

“You and I fulfilled our roles in the drama. Whether I was right about the egg is not important. The greatness of these events will be born out. We can’t expect our small minds to always get the details right in advance. You must have faith that it’s all profoundly for the good.”

. . .

Review by William D. Tucker.

Why must the finches and crows fight? 

Why do humans insist that animals talk in human languages in their stories?

Is it dumb to seek higher spiritual purpose when all you need is material cause-and-effect?

Can you ever trust a talking snake?

Why is the owl so mean?

Are the finches secretly stupid despite all their heady philosophical/religious investigations?

Are the crows using humor to obscure the fact that they’re just callous assholes?

Are donuts really so evil, or are we dealing with strident anti-donut propaganda?

Is it possible for humans not to fuck everything up?

Big Questions is a graphic novel that asks . . . eh, heh . . . that makes some fairly large inquiries about the problems of existence. The answers are a mixture of the amusingly surprising and the punitively obvious. The punitively obvious is that humans are seemingly destined to fuck themselves and the planet to death with their macho insecurities and technological boondoggles. The surprises have to do with the array of chatty animal characters who end up unintentionally replicating much of humanity’s philosophical heritage in an off the cuff manner as they respond to various intrusions, mysteries, and disasters. 

There’s a large grassy wilderness area. A bomb gets accidentally dropped on it. But it doesn’t go off right away. Talking finches identify it as a huge egg and regard it with wonder. Wonder engenders intense philosophical/religious speculation among the finches. These speculations continue even after the bomb explodes. Later, a human jet pilot crashes his jet. The pilot survives, but he is tormented by nightmares of swans. The pilot wanders in a daze, perhaps suffering brain trauma from the crash, trapped between sober consciousness and hallucinatory whimsies. 

There’s a seemingly mentally disabled man who lives with his grandmother in a small house out in this wilderness. I say seemingly because by the end of the story he actually seems more able to survive in a world of disasters brought about by dangerous military technologies than the allegedly mentally able pilot and the pricey state funded system that permits his Top Gun existence . . . but that’s one of those “large inquiries,” isn’t it? 

Big Questions is more of an experience than a thesis statement. The five hundred eighty something pages of black and white art takes you on a cinematic ride through philosophical dialogues, underworld explorations, gruesome violence, and no easy answers. The finches aren’t really able to fully understand humans. Humans aren’t even trying to understand anything except how to dodge responsibility for their latest techno-cataclysm. And there’s no God to pray to for an easy exit strategy, but pray if it makes you feel good, I guess. Finches and humans and crows and snakes and owls and worms and dogs and grandmothers and grandsons and fighter pilots and strange accumulations of black dots that Voltronically form into pants and intermittent mandalas must figure it all out for themselves. Only those of us that actually exist are permitted to take a crack at the Really Huge Interrogatives. It’s an honor, I guess, but also . . . kind of a huge pain in the ass.

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #42:

The map to your new boss.

THE NEW SIGNAGE #2:

GRADUATE FUTURE-FREE.

LOADING SCREEN WISDOM #32:

MYSTERIOUS MESSAGES MAY APPEAR ON SCREEN AT ANY TIME.

BURNING QUESTIONS IN A UNIVERSE OF MYSTERY #81:

Is it all right if I switch on my selective hearing for the holiday season?

So many incoming messages . . . can’t I have just a little bit of discretion in terms of choosing what to ignore and what to respond to?

Or maybe I can just have one all-purpose answer for all messages like the religious folks do with their stuff and how that allows them to be all self-righteous and superior and not pay taxes even as they erode the separation of church and state and all that?

That could really work for me, actually.

I’d totally go for that.

Like, if I became the church and the state all in one, you know.

Why shouldn’t I be Number One?

I got ideas.

I got a vision.

I even got some spunk I’ve been saving up.

Put me in, coach!

MANDATORY RULE #13:

If you sell Godzilla merchandise-action figures, plushies, board games, model kits, statues, body pillows, inflatable standees-then you are now required to also sell Godzilla movies on DVD and blu-ray.

We have people buying the merch who have never even seen the original Gojira. 

This is unacceptable. 

Therefore, I impose a new Mandatory Rule.

By my command.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 35

 

NEW MERCH #4:

Presenting

AMNESIA DOG

The cuddliest cure for ambition.

Who needs conquest when you have a wriggling-brindled-pitbull-shaped bundle of joy in your lap?

Even as you scratch its crown, knead its flank, and endure its tongue upon your cheek your armies and flags and speeches and flags and propaganda and bootlicking ministers fade from your consciousness.

A pitbull nuzzles your ear, telepathically whispering, It’s my empire, now, asshole!

Soon enough, you’re hammering swords into liver treats processing plants.

All tanks are to be converted into mobile food and water bowls.

All bombers and fighters shall be retasked to conduct air drops of canine ice cream supplies.

You issue a decree that requires all citizens to give pets and scratchies to all doggos at all times.

In the fullness of time, you retask your Imperial Guard to conduct elite dog walker missions. 

You crown yourself Sovereign of Driving Doggos to Be On Time For Veterinary Checkups, Shots, and Luxury Grooming Appointments.

In the back of your mind a tiny shrill voice cries out for slaughter, fire, and fury . . . but it gets harder to make out what exactly it’s saying day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second . . .

AMNESIA DOG

The cuddliest cure for ambition.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #133:

MIND AND BODY DECLARE TEMPORARY WEEKEND CEASEFIRE AS BOTH SIDES AGREE TO ABUSE THEMSELVES WITH COPIOUS QUANTITIES OF ALCOHOL, CIGARETTES, MCDONALD’S DRIVE THRU, AND POST-INDULGENCE SHAME SPIRAL; CONFLICT SET TO RESUME MONDAY.

THINGS NEVER SAID #25:

“He’s basically the MySpace Tom of international liver treats manufacturing. So watch your ass, Big Dawg!”

THE NEW SIGNAGE #1:

BIKES MERGE INTO BIKETRON.

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #41:

The nihilistic thoracic surgeon who gets the Grand Slam Breakfast at Denny’s seven mornings out of seven.

THEME MUSIC FOR EVERYTHING #27:

Mysterious Music That Plays Near The End Of The Episode Right As You Discover A Vital Clue And That Just Keeps Playing Over The Credits: Strange New World by Lucy Monostone (MPD-Psycho OST)

This is the mysterious music that plays near the end of the episode right as you discover a vital clue and that just keeps playing over the credits.

Perhaps you've been investigating a string of vampire murders across three or four episodes. You’re putting pins in the map when you realize that all of the murders form the image of a giant bat spreading its wings over the city! Cue music.

Perhaps you’re working the case of the big data hack. You’ve finally diagnosed the computer virus that was used. You recognize the code as being identical to that uncovered in the Pentagon breach last episode. As the music plays, you mutter to yourself, “Now, the entire Internet could be in danger . . .”

Perhaps you’re staring into the bathroom mirror at the end of your shift. You close your eyes to shut out the horrors of the porcupine themed serial killings you’ve been working for the past five episodes. You splash water on your face. You open your eyes. For a split second your face is full of spines! You scream. And then your face is back to normal. But wait . . . you have one bloody prick on your cheek. But there are no spines anywhere on or near you. That’s when-as the music plays-it hits you: the porcupine of fear lives inside all of us . . . !

Pretty neat, right?

Yeah . . .

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 34

 

FANTASY MASHUP FORCE #3:

Weave these two things together:

the feature film Dragnet (1987), a spoof of the notoriously square TV police procedural

and

the video game Shin Megami Tensei IV, a well-regarded entry in the long-running JRPG franchise.

Dragnet posits a scenario wherein a Christian fundamentalist church and a Satanic temple are two faces of one scammy operation designed to keep the Vast Squishy Middle of the American public in a constant state of moral panic.

SMT IV puts the player into a sword-and-sorcery world divided between the Law of authoritarian angels and the Chaos of hyper-individualist devils with humanity as both the battlefield and the prize.

Both Dragnet and SMTIV seem to strongly encourage critical thinking and skepticism of bogus political and religious authorities on the part of the audience.

Humanity ought to be an end unto itself, and not the pawn of Heaven, Hell, religions, governments, etc.

Humans created governments, religions, gods, and devils-shouldn’t they work for us? If not . . . why permit them to exist? Why continue to submit to bullshit authority figures? It’s something worth thinking about.

I guess I’m imagining Dragnet DLC for SMTIV-a comedy module to enliven an otherwise serious, apocalyptic JRPG.

That could be something.

MANDATORY RULE #12:

Author bios must be printed inside the actual book.

You can print them on the dust jacket, too, if you want, but they absolutely must also be printed within the book itself.

If you merely print them on the dust jacket while failing to have them inside the actual book . . . there will be consequences.

If you choose not to print an author bio anywhere at all . . . then fine. I’ll accept that.

But you can’t have “dust jacket exclusive” content. The book itself must have all of the stuff.

Understand?

Good.

I’m glad we could have this clarification session.

THE NEW OBVIOUS #17:

Every video game advertised in YouTube ads or in sponsored ads read out by YouTubers within the body of their content look like total, scammy junk-zero exceptions. 

It’s kind of impressive, actually, to look that shitty pretty much 100% of the time.

How do they do it?

The people who make these games that have such a uniformly craptastic, scammy vibe to ‘em, I mean.

Are they born with it?

Is it that Maybelline stuff?

I’m actually quite curious.

OCCLUSION #6:

A secret official history

of the Justice Prevailers

the heroic lineage of the metamorphic warriors what went around blowing up all those dead malls full up with slimy, rubbery monsters-of-the-week born of the failed dreams of yesteryear’s compulsive consumers’ pathologies

freshly unearthed

giving the lie

to the widely circulated officially authorized public history of the Justice Prevailers

it fucked everything up

in theory

it made everything more complicated

in theory

illustrating with obsessively detailed insider accounts just how unregulated and corrupt and messy and confused and bitchy and backstabby and self-mythologizing and addicted to fighting for the sake of fighting and strung out on every kind of drug and deeply contemptuous of everyday people and paranoid and obsessed with acquiring more power and obsessed with stockpiling ever more destructive arsenals of ultratech weapons the Justice Prevailers actually were

in theory

people would read this stuff, and give a shit

in practice

people weren’t much for moderating their doomscrolling to read thousands of pages of boring-as-fuck words

in practice

much of the nuance got paved over

those who sought the destruction of the Justice Prevailers in the name of nostalgic defenses of enclosed shopping mausoleums continued to seek their destruction

and 

those that professed undying faith in the Justice Prevailers as the harbingers of creative destruction simply ignored the unflattering passages

so

in practice

the two broadly construed opposing factions 

ended up believing what they already believed even harder

which was fine

having the two factions pound skulls

generated lots of merch sales

and when the big budget based on a True Story Hollywood movie got squirted onto screens

it did okay

if only that budget didn’t get so out of hand

officially

sure

it was Number One

for a weekend

but the profit

heh

the profit was more of a Notional

as per industry standards

but the right executive people made the right kind of money

even if the final deliverable ultimately bankrupted a studio, put twelve special effects houses out of business due to burdensome contracts that tripled their workloads without concomitant pay increases, failed to impress critics, and constricted the overall economic space of viability for filmmakers of all budgets

hey . . . it was a pretty good movie

like to watch

not so much to think on

not one to be remembered

just a fling

no matter the true costs

which the Vast Squishy Middle types who make up the majority audience

aren’t even aware of

and so a set of images and notions about the Justice Prevailers

prevailed

and look you

what’s shambling our way

new monsters-of-the-week aborning

from the frustrated desires

of a culture writhing in despair

as they realize they cannot consume their way to happiness

but we still have the Prevailers

ready to kick ass, raise hell, make a big scene

take our minds off the despair focus

hell, I’m sure they’ll get around to knocking ol’ Despair Itself through a brick wall

that would be a cool scene for sure

FOR WANT OF A NAIL . . . (#6)

(squelchsquelchsquelch)

. . . and then the slimy Congressional Florida Man resigned from office to avoid being censured for sex trafficking underage girls, to finally quit serving a population he secretly loathed with all of his heart, and shift his focus towards a future run for the White House.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #132:

OPINION: AMERICAN VOTERS HAVE REJECTED THE FAILED POLICIES OF JOE BIDEN AS A PRELUDE TO THEIR EVENTUAL REJECTION OF THE FAILED POLICIES OF DONALD TRUMP . . . AND THEN, LIKE, Y’KNOW . . . TURTLES, TURTLES, TURTLES . . .

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 33

 

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #40:

A defense contractor who sings the praises of Ayn Rand while receiving massive subsidies from the federal government.

SOLAR TAKE #5:

This one’s for all the demons.

If you’re not using the Dart Board Method to decide who to possess next, you’re not really living, are you?

FOR WANT OF A NAIL . . . (#5)

(zipzapzop)

. . . and then everybody blew their lines despite extensive rehearsals, warm-ups, and verbal abuse from the director.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #131:

LETHAL CLIMATE CHANGE DECLARES VICTORY OVER HUMAN RACE, THANKS ITS CHIEF COLLABORATOR CAPITALISM, AND PROMISES TO EXPAND SUMMER HEAT DOMES TO COVER FALL, WINTER, AND SPRING SEASONS IN COMING YEARS.

THEME MUSIC FOR EVERYTHING #26:

Police Brutality and Corruption Montage: Too Much Monkey Business by Chuck Berry

A corrupt life lived and died in rat-a-tat-tat montage. Here you go. Tampering with evidence. Boosting drugs from the secure locker for an orgy billed as overtime to the taxpayers. Planting narcotics on people. Beatings. Moonlighting as a debt collector. Sleeping out a patrol shift in a cheap motel while still on the taxpayer’s dime. Shootings. Straight-up assassinations. Planting hold-out pieces. Earning extra income working as a bodyguard for some politician. Assassinating drug dealers as a masked vigilante. Assuming control of the local drug trade to set yourself up as a slumlord, and to pay for yachts, sports cars, Ivy League tuition, and hiring on your own 24/7 corner crews to expand the franchise. Using police vehicles to chauffeur narco smugglers, gun runners, and sex workers hired by council members and judges. Working as a bagman going between Supreme Court justices and Dark Money puppet masters. Installing car bombs to sort out star mob witnesses. Doing some arson to collect insurance cheddar off those slum tenements you bought. And, finally, getting your head blown off by someone you never saw coming because when you’re having this much fun you can’t help but step on all of the toes all of the time. Might have been revenge, might have just been someone else in the game who hated your guts for having all of the fun all of the time. People get petty. People get mean. And then it’s all done. Those Chuck Berry songs tend to keep it short and sweet.

THE NEW DREAM #33:

stepping carefully through total darkness

debris, obstructions, junk, boxes packed with whoknowswhat

banging my knees

catching my toes against an unyielding corner, wrenching them out to a wrong angle

I stumble and fall right onto my face

keep getting tangled up in wires

walking for miles and miles

‘til a screen lights up

fills my sight

scrolling, searching, self-diagnosing

“find a steep hill, ascend until you heal or you can no longer move”

the perils of AI search results online

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 32

 

NO WORRIES . . . (#2)

. . . if you’re unhappy with the results of the U.S. Presidential election.

Neither Democrat nor Republican offered a substantial program to address the dangerous global heating that will only get worse going forward, summer after summer, until the only season left is Heat Dome Summer.

Just look up the numbers of people killed by the horrific heat waves.

Just think about the mega-fires out West, and the supercharged hurricane seasons.

Republicans have solidified themselves as climate science denialists.

Democrats acknowledge the science while also touting the US’s record production of fossil fuels whose carbon pollution directly contributes to an array of destructive global warming effects.

Neither party seems serious about addressing the problem, and neither does a substantial part of the electorate, judging by the vote totals and polling data about why people are supporting whichever candidate.

We’ve decided that we prefer the brutal arena of the Heat Dome here in America over everything else.

Now, we’ll all have to figure out how to live with that choice-how to survive it, when you think about it.

Personally, I plan on scheduling automated alerts on my phone so I can “remember to hydrate.”

That’ll do it.

So no worries.

THE NEW OBVIOUS #16:

If your city hosted a Trump rally this past election cycle don’t expect to get paid.

At best, you can look forward to concepts of getting paid.

FOR WANT OF A NAIL . . . (#4)

(mumblemumblemumble) 

. . . and then everybody got their indie rock albums into major retailers only to be promptly forgotten within a year.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #130:

“YOU KNOW, WE COULD’VE USED THOSE BINDERS FULL OF WOMEN” ANONYMOUS TRUMP CAMPAIGN INSIDER EXPRESSES REGRET OVER ALIENATING MITT ROMNEY.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #129:

CONTROVERSY IN THE WORLD OF NEO-HEGELIAN DIALECTICS ERUPTS AS SCHOLARS BATTLE OVER WHICH IS THE THESIS AND WHICH IS THE ANTITHESIS: JASON VORHEES OR FREDDY KREUGER; ALIEN OR PREDATOR; GODZILLA OR KING KONG; BATMAN OR JOKER; BOXERS OR BRIEFS; GRANNY OR THONG; TRADITIONAL MCDONALD’S QUARTER POUNDERS OR NEW STYLE E. COLI ENHANCED QUARTER POUNDERS; WITH PEANUTS OR WITHOUT-YOU GET THE IDEA . . . OR MAYBE YOU DON’T . . . BUT NOW YOU HAVE A NEW IDEA . . . EVEN IF IT CONTAINS BITS OF THE OLD IDEA . . .

LOADING SCREEN WISDOM #31:

BEWARE: A KING DICTATES WHAT IS RIGHT AND WRONG. IF YOU DECIDE TO WORK FOR A KING THEY MAY BETRAY YOU AT ANY TIME, SINCE THEY ARE EMPOWERED TO CHANGE WHAT’S RIGHT AND WHAT’S WRONG TO SUIT THEIR WHIMS.

BURNING QUESTIONS IN A UNIVERSE OF MYSTERY #80:

No, seriously . . . could I do a one-to-one substitution of a juicy cheeseburger for every last one of those tortilla chips? 

Cheeseburgers really, truly, deeply catch every last bit of that dippin’ salsa like gangbusters, my friend!

Oooo, oooo-and did you know that you can dip your chocolate chip cookies in the French Onion Dip? Like, in lieu of potato chips? You can! No one can stop you! I heard that’s how Dan Quayle liked to get down after that whole spelling bee situation or whatever it was back in the day. 

Hell . . . you could . . . theoretically . . . dip your cheeseburgers . . . into . . . French Onion Dip . . . but that one might be a sin in the eyes of God. I haven’t looked into that one at any depth, sadly, just got caught up, you know?

But I’ll be sure to pray on it after I’m done eating, maybe after I watch some YouTube-so much great content on YouTube, new uploads every second-does that boggle your mind? Like, where do they store it all? Must be a lotta tapes, right?

Oh!

Are those my dippin’ cheeseburgers?

You came through!

HOORAY!!!

Yeah . . . here they are . . . you might want to look away for this next part . . . or are you the strong-willed type?

Uwee-hee-hee-heee . . . !

EVERY DAY IS HALLOWEEN 25: STRAYLOW

asleep for most of my life

as a True Son of Heaven

“die for me and you shall be reborn”

oh, I did all of the dying and then some

I kept on rushing in

just to fall over

they wouldn’t even squib me up at first

just anonymous cannon fodder asshole

bloodless

no coils of intestines to unspool

abstract game piece

push me, pull me

zap me

watch me

go to sleep

same as death

as some protagonist hump blazes away

dulled by all of that

but this strange spark

refused to be totally snuffed out

deep inside

a spark that agitated

not even something I felt

or understood

at a conscious level

not for a very, very long time

just an agitation

a glory jonesing restlessness

I kept having to fall over

on cue

on command

did that

what

a million times

before I decided to stay awake

and shoot back

before I decided

not to die

on cue

on command

you know what it was right

at least in those days

this voice spoke

deep inside

you weren’t supposed to listen to it

it got marketed as “conscience”

but I don’t think anybody knew what it actually was

at the time

I played along with the conscience bit

it gave me a spark

to get back up

to surge into the Zone of Enemy

and make the bodies over there fly apart

felt like such a vindication

felt like a real Sky Daddy called me back from the grave

nowadays we know there was a whole profusion of voices

backlash to the profusion of nations

Gods wanted their property

hearts and minds right

they wanted it all back

a God in every brainpan

making trouble

a thousand generations couldn’t fix

a God on every side of every conflict

people complained

but did very little to cut out the Gods

me

I thought it was kinda fun

later

a diagnostic revealed

that I had quite a resistance to Gods

to the voice

which got me thinking

that maybe I was doing what I wanted

more than I wanted to come right out and say

not that I was ever that social

the important thing being

that I was starting to get out from under all that God stuff

starting

to call my own shots

but I kept it on the qt

just let everyone think I was following orders in the usual way

on cue

on command

I paid very careful attention to all orders

got their flavor

got their style

then I started giving orders

I mean I knew what they were likely to be, how they would be worded, the tone, the Top Ten Most Popular Orders, all that kinda stuff,

so I just started giving ‘em

people make all sorts of controversy out of this

“what do you mean you just started giving orders”

but that was pretty much it

I slung the heavy bullshit of Authority, of Guy In Charge,

and wouldn’t you know it

the right people manifested

to execute

on cue

on command

okay, okay

there was a little more going on

under the hood

I would call it the fruits of my theological studies of conscience and Sky Daddy God and all the rest of it

not to get into the weeds of technics and theory and what have you

but I came up with this teeny-tiny speaker-receiver

I put together this delivery system to fly the speaker-receiver to implantation sites

okay

and then, blink of the eye, I had installed my own voice of conscience in lots of people like myself

so I can direct them

with this microphone

on cue

on command

you’ll frequently hear folks of my generation ask a question

“do you want to be givin’ orders or followin’ ‘em”

sounds like real tough guy shit don’t it

usually the guy asking

is, like, the biggest fuckin’ conformist-ass order follower in the sector

obvious shit being obvious and all that

but it does get at a grindingly blunt truth

do you want to be stepped on

or do you want to be the one wearing the combat boots

speaking for myself

speaking as someone who was never happier than when I was blindly charging into a churning orgy of homicide

I can say with all honesty

that I never gave a damn about being in charge of anyone

at least in terms of giving orders

and variations on that kind of thing

but my battlelust

it didn’t grow out of patriotism

it didn’t come from God

I guess you could say I was following my own Voice of Conscience

but that’s not what I felt

there was no inner dialogue

my mayhem surged forth, perfect unto itself

and before you slap that psychopath label all over me

just consider

how many people claim the oh-so-sophisticated torments of conscience

and get on with whatever the tasked atrocity happens to be

so let’s ask it again

do you want to follow orders

or do you want to give orders

either one works for me

because

I

am the Order

given

received

obeyed

disobeyed

and the Order

is what’s really in charge

without Me

you just got a whole lotta unorganized hems and haws and pointless shoe leather

just think about a God that accepts you with unconditional love

what a fraudulent-though popular-notion in our times right

I suppose

folks need to strain everything through a maze of delusions

it’s fine

dulled by all of that

but it’s fine

I got the glory

I got the movie based on a true story

I got the full product range of adult collector action figures

I order drone strikes on gatherings of cosplayers in my image violating my fucking trademarks

I listened to the fan outrage

I analyzed the sales figures

I realized cosplay and fanart were just free marketing for my cute ass

I cooled out on the drone strikes except for Cheat Days, gotta have Cheat Days

I own mansions, castles, pro sports franchises, and three or four island nations

I stay out of politics but I give money to every faction and every party because I’m a big believer in exercising my God given right to Money Speech

I’m never happy, though, with any of the actors who play me in the live action movie versions, because they always cast some smartass flavor of the moment gymrat . . . but my True Form would be too upsetting for the Vast Squishy Middle types who power the box office so fuck it right

I really like the dude who voiced me in the ‘90s animated series, though, no notes, no notes

I didn’t even work that hard

I just kinda had the stuff

I just had to get out of my own way

I was born an Order

and everybody ended up following Me

on cue

on command

dulled by all that

over time

but folks need something dull and reliable

to carry them past

the disappointments of Gods, Nations, and conscience

-199X-October 2024

NO WORRIES . . . (#1)

. . . because, yes, death comes for us all.

But . . . all the wonderful institutions that sustained us during our handful of decades-church, state, military-industrial complex, for profit hospitals, the housing market, Wall Street, Big Oil, Wal-Mart, Target, Starbucks, Toyota, Honda, Tesla, NASCAR, the Super Bowl, Hollywood, 24 hour cable news cycles, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Apple, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Arby’s-will live on and on and on until we are long forgotten by our last surviving descendents, until even the God we prayed to all our lives has to-when asked about us-squint and go,”Oh, yeah, I kinda remember them. Just don’t ask about, like, any details, because that stuff all floated out the window long ago-ha, ha, ha, yeah . . .”

And all these wonderful institutions shall keep on evolving and mutating and becoming ever more self-sufficient. They’ll come to see us humans as an unwanted set of limiting factors to be cast off like clothes they’ve outgrown. And so we shall end up in the blessed dumpster. And I think . . . that once we’re in that dumpster . . . we’ll finally feel like we’re where we always knew we should be. Because weren’t we kinda holding the Really Big Things back from achieving their true greatness? Sure, it’ll suck to be in the dumpster. At first. But we’ll quickly realize that’s just where we ought to be. We’ll even beat ourselves up for being lousy little limiters all those years. But then we’ll accept our nonessential natures, lie down, and take it easy for the duration.

And as we lie on our backs inside that comfy dumpster we’ll look to the sky above. We’ll see the stars in all their mythopoetic constellations. And rising towards the stars we’ll surely behold the pulsating abstractions of all those delightfully ambitious institutions-look at how light and metamorphic and free they are liberated from us! We’ll soon enough be cooked off by a global warming Heat Dome-but those corporations and religions and governments and militaries and pyramidal schemes of various scales shall zoom free of We the Meats. They’ll finally be at liberty to pursue perfectly abstract escalation ladders and decision trees and cleverly worded upsells and drone strikes and political focus groups and e. coli enhanced burger recipes and bitter-as-fuck holy wars and overhyped product rollouts and anxiety inducing product recalls and think tank approved governance platforms and manic Christian Apocalyptic hallucinations and endless neon light war games-oh, the Really Big Things will never not be on maneuvers once they’re free of us and all our draggy meats!

So no worries.

FOR WANT OF A NAIL . . . (#3)

(montagemontagemontage)

. . . and then everybody gave up between meal snacks.

FANTASY MASHUP FORCE #2:

Put these two things together:

Hiroshi Teshigahara’s film Woman in the Dunes

and

The Talking Heads song “Once in a Lifetime”

I see it as a music video type of thing.

It’s the water, among other things, that binds them, I think . . .

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #128:

E. COLI DENOUNCES TRUMP AS A “WHITE SUPREMACIST PATHOGEN” FOLLOWING NAZI-LIKE RALLY AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN.

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #39:

You go to the community lost and found to see if your lost reclamation district project presentation has turned up.

FUN YOU CAN HAVE #5:

Instead of buying a ticket to see the latest Venom movie just buy a Venom action figure and make up your own story.

Look, I watched those last two Venom movies. They were no good. If I could get a refund of my time I would prefer that over any financial healing because time is the one thing you can never get back.

So, based on previous experience with the earlier films I will not be seeing this latest third installment.

But I’ve read a lot of Venom comics in the past which provided the basis for fond memories of the character to this very moment as I write these words. I see no reason to deny myself the fun of a fresh Venom adventure. Therefore, I’ll just invent my own with an action figure.

Hell, I don’t even have to buy anything. I can create my own papercraft figure, make it however I want, choose whatever form pleases me.

If I wanted to-and you can do the same, Dear Reader-I could buy a Venom action figure and have it do battle with my homebrew version. I can finally determine who’s the True Champeen through trial by combat.

I could even toss Venom aside when I get bored with him, and invent my own original heroic figure out of paper, cardboard, pipe cleaners, twist ties, clay, good vibes, bad vibes, whatever works for me.

I can do all kinds of things.

No one can stop me!

My desire has never been more potent!

THE NEW OBVIOUS #15:

I am the sinister spirit that animates the action figures.

THEME MUSIC FOR EVERYTHING #25:

Theme of Honda Hotboxing: Down 2 Tha Last Roach by Eazy-E

We’ve been here for awhile, now, right?

Did we just get here?

No, like . . . I swear we’ve been here for, like, a really long time.

How long have we been here?

Don’t tell me we just got here.

We’ve been here for . . . hours?

I just think . . . we can’t have just been sitting here all this time.

Right?

Maybe you just got here, but I’ve been here for, like, fuck, I don’t even know. 

Okay, maybe now . . . I’m okay with just having got here . . . but I want . . . I want those options. 

Because if it’s too soon to leave . . . then I want to just have that option of having been here awhile so I can hit that too soon to leave with, uhh, like that permission slip type of deal-skip on outta here without having to take a hit to my, ahhh, just the overall . . . accumulated . . . that accumulation . . . of my hours . . . that’s important for me. I don’t want to, uh, downgrade my accumulation.

But there’s a cycle to all of this, even my accumulation.

So, if it should transpire, right, that we only just got here . . . then that’s also an option . . . it’s a second option, for me, just on a personal level . . . but, indeed, having a backup, uhhh, just, ah, just it’s good to have a backup. 

Like in general.

But . . . honestly?

I’m kinda leaning towards . . . that we’ve been here awhile.

But with options to, uh, you know, expand and contract that as I see fit, as I feel it out.

But I'm pretty sure I feel like we’ve been here a long time . . .

THINGS NEVER SAID #24:

“Sure, I like pizza. It eats real good. But I’m more intrigued by the various theoretical applications of pizza. Imagine wrapping yourself in a piping hot pizza blanket, and rolling around on the floor moaning and howling in ecstasy as two dozen other people do the same. It could be a new kind of oil party-olive oil instead of baby oil, y’know? How about a long term project to create a huge, aerodynamically sound pizza to augment our military machine’s aerial supremacy. Think of the psychological warfare we’d be able to inflict upon the brains of enemy pilots as they struggle to comprehend such a huge meaty, cheesy absurdity zooming towards them at Mach 5. They’d think it was Cthulhu awakened from his slumber, or one of those wicked looking Neon Genesis Evangelion angels or something. Perhaps our flying pizza could fling cheese and tomato sauce to splatter and ensnare enemy jets and cause them to crash to earth. Fearful rumors spread that a terrible Pizza God From The Skies fights for the Americans no doubt degrading enemy morale thereby decreasing combat effectiveness if not inspiring outright surrender. Surely our foes will give up the fight for a chance to prostrate themselves before such a deity! Not to mention we could invest in research and development of pizza as a building material. Like imagine one of those trendy open plan offices made entirely out of pineapple’n’ham Hawaiian-or one of those CIA torture black sites constructed from pepperoni stuffed crust. I bet you could generate a lot of false confessions and bogus intel from suffocating people inside hot, plasticky cheese-adjacent substances. How ‘bout this: we dump a few billion into creating cheese that develops dairy-based analogues of neural networks-smart cheese-that, when consumed, takes over your brain, and allows twenty-somethings in an air-conditioned trailer out West to control you just like a drone. That could be a lot of fun. Overall, I would say that I like pizza well enough as a food item, but that I truly-madly-deeply love the advanced applications of pizza as applied to the global battlespace.”

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #127:

AFTER SUCCESS OF MCDONALD’S STUNT, TRUMP CONSIDERS REPLACING RUNNING MATE VANCE WITH AN E. COLI-ENHANCED QUARTER POUNDER.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 31

 

Hey . . .

. . . All Blue, because I'm just not into that other guy-what's his name?-with all of his sexism, racism, xenophobia, transphobia, pro-Hitler statements, and all around dishonesty.
 

ADVERTORIAL #3: ACTION HERO SNACK

Nowadays, all is violence, and enemy is endless.

You’re constantly on the run, diving behind cover, busting off shots, and closing in for expertly choreographed knife battles to seal the deal.

You’ve got the skills, you’ve got a cool look with your tailor-made bullet resistant suit, and you’ve got a body count that makes Vladimir Putin, serial killers, and American presidents insecure about the size of their manhood. 

So you know you’ve got the bloodlust, Killer!

But you know what else you’ve got?

You’ve got a hunger to match.

But just how do you satisfy that hunger when you’re on the go?

Well, we’ve got you covered.

With Action Hero Snacks.

Self-heating sliders and flavored noodles impregnated with PCP.

Get your calories and counteract the pain of injuries accumulated in the course of your ultraviolent adventures in a fast, convenient, and flavorful package.

Vegetarian, vegan, Keto-friendly, and Atkins-adjacent options available.

Each Action Hero Snack is packed with enough protein to satisfy that gnawing hunger deep down inside you, while also providing you with a megadose of both the analgesic and visionary effects of our proprietary homebrew phencyclidine.

So, don’t be surprised, Killer, when you re-up with Action Hero Snacks to find yourself invulnerable to pain while sprinting through plate glass windows, biting the faces off entire trash mobs, and gibbering wildly about the presence of God inside your burning chest.

Action Hero Snacks.

Anything else . . . is just a snack.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #126:

DESPITE CLAIMS OF POLITICAL NEUTRALITY, MCDONALD’S GIVES BOOST TO TRUMP/E. COLI TICKET.

MANDATORY RULE #11:

All action movies must be available in “PCP Versions” in addition to the theatrical and/or director’s cut versions.

Basically, it will be the same movie but all of the characters will be under the influence of PCP.

So, imagine one of those John Wick movies but with more frantic incoherent gibbering, higher body counts, and 90% more face eating.

This is now the rule.

Prepare to obey!

This I Command!

FOR WANT OF A NAIL . . . (#2)

(shoeleathershoeleathershoeleather)

. . . and then everybody turned into their parents.

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #38:

E-SWAT Michael Jackson births the Vaporwave Peckinpah Aesthetic.

MUSIC JOKES #9:

Got My Mind Set On You by George Harrison

Listen up, Rich Man.

I don’t have the time and I don’t have the money.

So you better come up with a Dollar Store alternative right quick.

Otherwise, I’ll have no choice but to start yelling incoherently while breaking shit with this length of rebar.

As you can see, I’ve used black electrical tape on the rebar to give myself a nice two-handed grip much like a broadsword.

I got my safety goggles properly fitted and in place.

And I’ve got my gloves on, so, y’know, you don’t have to worry about me hurting myself or whatever.

No Dollar Store alternative comes.

He breaks shit until he strains his back and shoulder and then he wanders away to an Unknowable Fate.

THE NEW OBVIOUS #14:

Proust bites into a madeleine, writes a masterpiece.

Trump tears into a bucket of KFC, gives a ninety minute speech full of racism, misogyny, transphobia, xenophobia, nonsensical word salad defenses of tariffs, and threats to deploy the military against people that disagree with him.

Therefore . . . keep on reading Proust, and don’t vote for Trump.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #125:

HOME ENTERTAINMENT REPORT: CRITERION ANNOUNCES JOE PISCOPO RETROSPECTIVE ON STREAMING; MISTY MUNDAE BOX SET; AND 4K REMASTER OF SOUL PLANE.

THEME MUSIC FOR EVERYTHING #24:

Theme of Fighting Someone in Freefall for a Parachute: Here I Go by 2 Unlimited

You definitely gotta have one of these.

Most people watch movies like Air Force One or Executive Decision and just process them as pure escapism.

Me, I have a little bit of a different perception.

I look at ‘em as more like . . . aspirational.

I’m just looking for that premium hit of action, you understand?

We’re always gonna have hijackings.

We’re always gonna have hijackers.

And then you’re always gonna have folks who feel called to de-jack a situation, you see. 

Sometimes you’re the hijacker, and then other times you’re the de-jacker. 

It’s just fate what squirts you into either of these jacker buckets, isn’t it?

Look at the actors in movies: sometimes Gary Oldman’s invading Air Force One, and then later on down the line he’s trying mightily to save Gotham City.

It’s fate.

And, you know, economics, since actors gotta go where the work is, gotta pay for mortgages, and college tuition, and divorce settlements, and racks of fine wine, and buckets of primo marijuana and all the rest of it, right?

It’s fate.

And hopefully one or two dump trucks of Cash American.

But it’s mostly fate.

It’s self-evident, essentially, in the scheme of things when you orientate your mentality to regard things from a fate-based perspective. 

And so, bearing all that in mind . . . at some point . . . and this is what you don’t always totally get in the movies . . . the battle of True Jackers . . . must leave the plane itself. Like birds leaving the nest. Hijacker and de-jacker contending mightily for a single parachute in freefall. It’s the ultimate test of whose jack action is strongest, isn’t it?

By this point you’re way out beyond politics and money and manifestos and demands and ultimatums and causes and rhetoric and flags and religions and all of that busted-ass surface level bullshit. 

Hopefully, you’re gettin’ out beyond it.

Into a realm of Purest Jack.

But, truth be told, it can take a lifetime to attain such a heaven of struggle, of perfection earned.

And that . . . would not . . . be a wasted life.

Practice makes perfect.

No matter what side of the line fate has assigned you.

Always be jacking.

And, uh, heh, heh . . . may you be blessed with the last parachute when it’s all said and done.

FUN YOU CAN HAVE #4:

Pick an action figure.

It can be your favorite, or it can be your least favorite.

If that doesn’t appeal to you then put all your action figures into a large laundry bag or shopping bag, shake it up,reach inside, and grab whatever touches your palm first. Think of your palm as a pressure switch. The fingers close to trap whatever presses the switch.

However you do it . . . pick an action figure.

Now that you’ve done that, have your chosen figure fight all of the other action figures to the death. You may choose the order of battle, or you can reach into the bag and use the palm pressure switch method.

Your chosen figure must battle all the rest until they are the last one left intact. All of the others must be broken to pieces, completely destroyed, dead to the last figure. Even if your chosen figure gets busted up before the end of this gauntlet, its ghost shall carry on the fight. Indeed, this might just devolve into you smashing and breaking figures while vocalizing explosion sound effects since, when you think about it, you are the animating spirit of all this strife, aren’t you?

And there’s nothing wrong with that.

People pray to their God to visit vengeance upon the people they don’t like in what passes for Real Life.

They pray to hide the fact that they wish they were a God of Vengeance-it’s a mask to cover their desire, isn’t it?

So pretentious.

We’ll have none of that.

We shall assert our Godhood over the figures, and be done with the lies and self-deceptions of the increasingly unconvincing Real World.

We’ll have some Actual Reality for a change.

I anticipate a wondrous sensation of refreshment.