BURNING QUESTIONS IN A UNIVERSE OF MYSTERY #76:

You ever just start exploding, and, like, you’re just not . . . inclined . . . to stop?

THE NEW PARADIGMS IN BRAGGING RIGHTS #28:

 

I’m so American I had a Golden Corral installed on my ass to catch all my Taco Bell poops!

PEOPLE GET MAD . . . (#24)

. . . when they’re told they should cut back on fossil fuels, and then they get mad as they’re cooked alive inside a heat dome of their own making.

People get fried.

But I guess they’re not mad anymore.

THEME MUSIC FOR EVERYTHING #12:

Mellow From The Heat Theme: Crumbling World (Extended Loop) by SNK Sound Team (Athena: Awakening From The Ordinary Life OST)

Welcome to the Heat Dome.

This is the Final Arena of Late Stage Capitalism.

It’s a battle to the death, yes, but the pace is laconic. Everything’s in slow motion. It’s hot as hell out-don’t want to strain yourself. Yes, there are some speed demons, sure. But they tend to burn out early and often.

Much of the action is about looking cool as you stride into combat. If you can master your poise, if you can maximize your hallucinatory cruise as you close in on Enemy . . . well, you might just be able to psych ‘em out. Watch ‘em keel over from the stroke, no need to even draw your blade. 

Be sure to invest points in Runway Arrogance. If you can survive long enough, Runway Arrogance evolves into Runway Hubris which will open the pathway to mastering the Runway Megalomania Omni-poise. And then no one will be able to oppose you.

But don’t go for the Hysterics. Sure, you might derive some fireballs from the Hysteria Path, but then your risk of Spontaneous Combustion spikes. But the stroke’ll more than likely cut you down first. Engage with Hysterics at your peril. But, you know, a chosen few can make it work for them. Just know the risks.

You’ve got to maintain cool-inside your mind.

It’s hot as hell out.

But you’re Antarcti-fuckin-ca within.

Believe in this and you’ll cruise’n’prevail.

Pick up the steroids. You're gonna need that ultra-gear if you want to lift one of these volumes from the Notional Bookshelf . . .

FORTRESS Y2K: A Survivor’s Guide to the Post-Computational Millennium compiled by the Editorial Staff of Cyclical Incentives Publishing 

Sittin’ and Shittin’: The Life and Times of Bathroom Bob by Linder Hole

Dracumen: The Transylvanian Paradigm of Business and How We in the West May Profit By It by Jonathan Harker and R. M. Renfield

Mystical Nutbust Chronicle Vol. 1: Merlin of the Hermetic Hot Shots vs. Neo Deep Throat written by Neo Bronson DX: Death Xtra and illustrated by Bahamut Glazewave

Comrade Breast Inspector a novel of Communist Eroticism by Rosalind Bodacious

Andalusian Blowjob Paradigm: How the Smart Investor Can Profit From the Hottest Trend in Adult Entertainment by Sally Fuchs

Under Pressure: Towards a Theory of the Squeezure Class by Clay Brown

Monads and Gonads: Towards a Reconciliation of Philosophy with Deez Nuts by Cream Blowfarth

From Wild and Crazy Guys to the Church Lady: An Investigation Into Buried Themes of Messianic Hedonism in the Primal Era of Saturday Night Live a Shindig Institute Symposium curated by William D. Tucker.

The Eyes of Sajak: A Meditation on Fate and Contingency in Post-Barbenheimer America by Donald Beamular

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #23:

The candy bar that eats itself before you get to it no matter how quickly you unwrap it during an economic boomtime.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #109:

ECTO COOLER RECALLED DUE TO UNUSUALLY HIGH CONCENTRATIONS OF POLTERGEIST SEMEN.

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #22:

A foldable remote that only works on non-foldable screens.

THINGS NEVER SAID #13:

“My God! He’s turbo-scatting!! Transmit our unconditional surrender posthaste!!!”

MOVIE REVIEW: OUT OF THE PAST (1947)

Directed by Jacques Tourneur

Screenplay by Geoffrey Homes adapting his novel Build My Gallows High

Cinematography by Nicholas Musuraca

Edited by Samuel E. Beetley

Produced by Warren Duff

Starring

Robert Mitchum as Jeff Bailey/Jeff Marcum (Running from the past)

Jane Greer as Kathie (A fatal woman)

Kirk Douglas as Whit (Crime boss)

Dickie Moore as The Kid (Jeff’s employee)

Virginia Huston as Ann (Jeff’s girl in Bridgeport)

Richard Webb as Jim (Has a crush on Ann)

Paul Valentine as Joe (Whit’s henchman)

Steve Brodie as Jack Fisher (Jeff’s partner)

Ken Niles as Leonard Eels (Whit’s lawyer)

. . .

“You see, Jeff, you owe me something. You’ll never be happy until you square yourself.”

. . .

Review by William D. Tucker.

Out of the Past is another one of these old timey black and white movies that gets classified as “film noir.” It has a morally compromised tough guy protagonist who gets trapped in an escalating series of bad deals and burdensome relationships. This one in particular is defined by its relentlessly clever dialogue which serves as a kind of winding road to guide the audience through its maze of lies and schemes. The dialogue is so clever that it seems to come alive from a primordial soup of greed, delusion, desire, and betrayal so that it could stalk the memory as its own strange beast loosed from the heart of the film. The actors are but vessels compelled to speak the words rapidly, crisply, and with an air of just-tossing-it-off, even as it is obvious that every syllable has been meticulously chosen, sequenced, drilled and executed. I was left with the feeling that these people were trapped on DVD in an endless cycle of frustrated desire-no wonder everything they say is so cynical, and everybody’s just too cool for school.

Out of the Past happens in strictly mundane settings, and doesn’t overtly defy the laws of physics. But it will never be confused for naturalism. It’s all too perfect. No one stutters. No one rants. No one’s attention drifts from boredom or carelessness. It’s classy as hell. Mitchum never stubs his big toe and says,”Motherfucking cocksucker!” But no one’s truly innocent despite the elevated language. Everyone’s angling. Everyone’s paying attention even if it’s only to their most murderous desires. Something unnaturally precise obsessively knits itself together perhaps attempting to displace the messiness of mundane reality into exile beyond the cinematic frame. At times the characters seem tickled by the cleverness of their own words even as they betray, are betrayed, murder, and are murdered. In mundane reality crime is just as often opportunistic, greedy, sloppy, idiotic, and desperate-even when it is premeditated. Fargo captures that messy end of the crime movie spectrum. But classic film noir frequently dresses up avarice in sophisticated modernist romanticism evoking a world where, sure, there’s no Sky Daddy God to lean on, it’s our reality now-courtesy of Nietzsche and Doc Oppenheimer-but all the same there’s a looming hand of fate born of some collective yearning for a discernibly purposeful order to things post-WWII, post-Pearl Harbor, post-Trinity, post-Hiroshima, post-Nagasaki, post-Holocaust.

In Out of the Past, we follow a guy named Jeff Bailey who owns a small town gas station. A callous man in a black fedora and raincoat named Joe seeks out Jeff. Joe and Jeff have a tense conversation which lets Jeff know that he has to go back to work for a crook named Whit. Whit needs Jeff to retrieve his income tax records from an untrustworthy lawyer. 

Before Jeff leaves his small town business to serve Whit he tells his girlfriend Ann the secret of his past life. This precipitates an epic flashback in which we learn why Jeff became a gas station owner: to escape his past as a sleazy dick-for-hire who betrayed both his partner and his client over a fugitive woman. The woman is Kathie, who was the love of Whit’s life. Until she shot him a couple times and robbed his casino bankroll. But Whit survived and hired Jeff to bring her back alive. You would think Whit would just let her go, but apparently he can’t or won’t. Whit’s the kinda guy that makes no distinction between Needs and Wants, I guess.

Jeff finds Kathie in Acapulco. Jeff falls for Kathie. Kathie wants to escape Whit. They escape. Jeff and Kathie make a life in California. But then Jeff’s angry partner-Jack Fisher-in the private eye business shows up asking for a payoff. Jeff and Jack fight for a bit until the trigger happy Kathie blasts the would-be blackmailer into the next world. Jeff says he didn’t want Jack to get killed. Even so, he sets about the grim task of disposing of the corpse. But then he looks back at Kathie . . . and she’s gone. Just like Batman always does to Commissioner Gordon.

Kathie’s in the wind. Jeff starts his life all over as a gas station operator. He hires a young deaf-mute known only as the Kid. He is now an employer of both himself and another employee. Respectable. He falls in love with a nice small town girl named Ann. Cute. And then Whit sends his errand boy Joe to rope Jeff in for a redemption job since the mission to retrieve Kathie went down in flames. And wouldn’t you know it? Kathie’s right there by Whit’s side all over again. People moving in grotesque circles. That damn cynical-cyclical nature of desire. What’s to be done?

Jeff goes back to work for Whit. Things do not go as planned. Jeff’s technically endangered by the circumstances he faces . . . but he coolly marches into doom. I guess he’s been jerked around so much he’s resigned to his fate. Jeff is also-as played by Robert Mitchum-rather imposing. No one he clashes with seems a match for him. Jeff looks like he could easily pummel Whit-played by a delightfully evil Kirk Douglas-into bone porridge. I ended up coming to the conclusion that Jeff had been cycled through this ordeal so many times-on film reels, on VHS, Betamax, DVD, Blu-Ray-that he just can’t fight it anymore. 

As for Kathie, I guess she’s one of these femme fatales you hear about, but I couldn’t really get too mad at her. Most of what she does makes a tough kinda sense-except going back to Whit. Sorry, babe, but you fucked the dog on that one. 

Out of the Past is a cynical-cyclical journey into oblivion. Jeff Marcum tried to get out of the trap of his actions by changing his name to Jeff Bailey. But he just couldn’t let go of his Jeffness. And that Jeffness, it would seem, doomed his ass. I’m sure of it. It’s all about that accursed Jeffness. 

BONUS: Too bad Hollywood could never get its shit together to do a movie of Red Harvest. I think Mitchum in his prime would’ve been perfect as the Continental Op. Alas, it never happened. But we’ll always have Yojimbo . . .

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #21:

Birds make beaks commercially available for rental, lease, and/or purchase to non-avians for the first time even as polling indicates a general lack of interest from humans.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 15

 

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #20:

A Golden Age of human intimacy facilitating a massive uptick in preventable deaths from viruses, alcohol poisoning, vehicular crashes, self-harm, and interpersonal violence.

ONE LINE MOVIE REVIEWS #59: THE GARFIELD MOVIE (2024)

It made me a supporter of “yes kill” shelters.

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #19:

The Post-Door-Knob-Era in the context of continuing fallout from Watergate circa 2069.

LOST POSTER BLURBS #4:

“Water sports!? Ha! I’ll give you water sports!”

-William D. Tucker reacting to Avatar: The Way of Water on the Shindig Institute’s secretive member’s only film culture podcast rumored to be called Cinespersal.

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #18:

Culvert maintenance best practices leading to a new Golden Age of human intimacy.

FIGURATION #2:

Final Mission.

For the shattered plastic man of action.

After so many missions.

After so many breakages.

Scatter your parts across an ersatz playmat field of honor.

Gruesome set dressing.

If I’m playing out a post-apocalyptic scenario maybe my still functional Good Guys and Bad Guys will wield your arms and/or legs as clubs once the last bullet has been fired.

A ceasefire doesn’t apply to my guys if they choose to pummel each other into the ground with fists, feet, clubs, and so forth.

Not a shot fired.

No more shots to fire. 

We’re compliant.

Of course . . . we are left with an abiding mystery.

Who declared the ceasefire?

My theory is that, in this instance, it was more of an “emergent ceasefire” due to all the ammo being spent. 

Now, we can have the mutually assured beatdown of all times. 

Beats goin’ home.

All the utilities have been blown up, so there’s not even anymore shitty cable TV or insipid streaming content to watch. 

Not that actually watching was really the point, right?

The real fun was bitching about media outputs by creating media outputs on antisocial media that inspire further media outputs that require responses in kind.

That’s all done now.

Now we have the Final Winner of the Last Action Figure War.

He’s lost an arm.

He’s wielding someone’s arm-possibly his own-as a club.

I’ve done him up with a red permanent marker.

I’ve got raw liver and chicken gizzards at the ready to stage a Fulchi-esque zombie cannibal feast.

I’ve also worked up some papercraft tentacles, eyestalks, and long-necked dragon heads that can be easily attached to indicate the Last Winner’s transformation into a ravenous beast.

My main-man-in-plastic’s looking Johnny-Got-His-Gun-rough now, but I got a feeling that in the fullness of time he’s about to eat his way into a totally fresh Terror-Upon-The-Earth aesthetic.

And wouldn’t you know it?

I gotta box of kaiju and titans and vengeful spirits and nosy extraterrestrials and Bad Old Gods just waitin’ to make the scene.

Final Mission?

Not So Final.

Fun Eternal.

That’s what I’m about.

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #17:

A tile-based approach to black mold removal in the larger context of sentient speed bumps having a lot to say-most of it surprisingly positive-about the inextricably intertwined natures of their professions and their existences.

THE NEW PARADIGMS IN BRAGGING RIGHTS #27:

 

I’m so British George Washington himself rocked my world with a cannonball!

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #16:

Wealthy folk arguing over who gets to dip the prime pieces of buttcrust into the Ranch dipping sauce.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #108:

BLEEDING HEMORRHOIDS AND UNCONVINCING MEN’S HAIRPIECES JOIN FORCES TO OFFICIALLY ENDORSE TRUMP.

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #15:

A conclave of upper managers for the self-employed.

Oh, Clarence . . .

. . . they really left you out in the cold, didn’t they?

Trouble at the office?

Or, you know . . . trouble at home?

Not like it’s any of my business.

But your dissent reminds me of a Pet Shop Boys lyric:

“Is it a cry for help or call to arms?”

Is it a little of both, in your case?

Not like it’s any of my business.

Inquiring minds and all that.

THE NEW DREAM #27:

a last pair of books

one contains the Secret of All Weapons

the other contains the Secret of All Gold

read ‘em diligently

yet never get to the end of either one

pains in the head

hard to stand for too long

can’t keep food down

the pair demand you twist and prostrate and double back and fold and rock yourself

that you must worship

even as you read

guts all twisted up

bugs and spiders that eat bugs get comfortable all over me, since I spend years at a stretch trying to get to the end of all secrets

soon enough

spies of all nations

spies of all religions

spies of all corporations

slip in among the bugs and spiders

and the cockroaches, too

oh Christ and Crackers

the cockroaches, too

I direct my wars and entrepreneurial hustles at a distance

I’m the Apex Work From Home Motherfucker

still no end to the secrets of the pair

spiders, for whatever reason, would bite my eyes

not all the time

but often enough

I think they were encouraged to do this by the human spies

but soon enough

I learned a great secret

of Weapons or of Gold

I don’t remember

but I used this secret

to train my eye jellies

to eat the spiders

and I soon enough extended this great technique to the opening of terrible mouths all over my body

so, I ate all of the bugs and spiders and cockroaches and spies

and still I failed to exhaust the secrets of the pair

The Book of Weapons

The Book of Golds

even as the World grew grim and cratered by my avarice

even as my mouths ate my body

ate themselves

‘til only one maw survived

leaving me as a mouth

and a mouth’s hunger

but right at the end

I developed telekinesis

which allowed me to grab cigarettes and lighters from the local convenience store

I vaguely recalled my life prior to pursuing the innermost secrets of Weapons and Gold

I worked in an office

Indoors

Air conditioned

but I resented it

every conversation with my co-workers

just noise mouthing spaces between smoke breaks

now,

there will be no end to my seeking after the secrets of Weapons and Gold

all superfluous chatter has ended

for now is the Age of the Eternal Smoke Break

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #14:

Gaping wounds, perfected, ready for prime time, but always in the context of encroaching fully globalized tedium.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 14

 

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #13:

A wholly undrawable morass of feelings, abstractions, distractions, and contractions redeemed by its proximity to some freshly clipped coupons.

ONE LINE MOVIE REVIEWS #58: FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA (2024)

I wonder if Zaslav regrets not shit-canning this one for a tax write-off.

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #12:

The casino of your innermost idealism.

THEME MUSIC FOR EVERYTHING #11:

Persistent Apocalyptic Vision Theme: Eternity by Ennio Morricone (John Carpenter’s The Thing OST)

This one’s pretty obvious in how it would work.

One bad thought cycling ‘til it clumps up with some other bad thoughts.

Soon enough, you have yourself a critical mass of vistas of the Bad Ending Reality piling up from the Foreground on out to the Deepest Background.

Day in.

Day out.

Comes the night.

Comes the morning.

Oh! 

Who’s that swallowing the sun? 

Haven’t seen them around before . . . hmmm . . . must be new . . . even though they feel so familiar . . . tentacles and cyclopean stare and slavering jaws and all . . .

And it is a little bit of a circus sound, too, don’t you think?

Sure it is.

Makes me think of the Behelit from Berserk, too . . .

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #11:

An axiomatic shopping cart at the exact moment it realizes that it’s its own cage.

EVERY DAY IS HALLOWEEN 24: FOR BIG PICTURE'S SAKES

pulling on the mission

everyone who counts

swears

fucking promises

that this is the final sneak-a-deak

so me

I’m staring

now

at the wall

made especially for me

with no cracks

because I’m the only one who will be able to see a crack in this one

the longest time ensues

I’m seeing no crack

I signal someone who counts

they rain fire and death and destruction and misinformation upon points of vulnerability, upon the workers

I stare at that goddamn wall

made just for me

I give it one or two of, you know, not my best years-but a couple of really good ones

I get no crack

I signal someone who counts

rigmarole ensues

I lose two more really good years

wall maintenance cycles slip

I get a crack

I surge into it

this part is swift, rough, breaks all of my shit

but if there’s Other Side

I should be able to operate on a basis of sheer poise

and anyways

my nonsensical being works to keep me unseen

I got a Reverse Humpty in my future

so long as I demonstrate my value

and can get back to Exfiltration Point

Other Side’s the most remarkably vast Executive Lifestyle Redoubt I’ve ever been subjected to

my loathing rises

even just visiting the Gold and Silk Prison

back of the throat puke

tamp it down for Big Picture’s Sakes

I simply have to disturb people’s sleep patterns just enough to marginally motherfuck decision making processes so as to give edge to client

this isn’t even about nightmares and visions of the end

a vague unease routine, and that’s pushing it

it’s got to be that stress that constantly eats at people

in the Deep Background

they’re not even aware of it

I can’t even cancer any cells

because they catch that stuff now

same with poltergeist gimmicks, night terrors, weird voices

they catch all the fun stuff now

I went technical from five years back

all that I got left are quantum exhalations and vague random dissonances and fucking mildass skin irritations

I used to get away with juicing mild depressions to downgrade personal hygiene which could in turn stoke interpersonal tensions

but they catch that stuff, too

it’s all Slow Game, now, and it sucks

sure, you can drone civilian populations outside the Redoubts-that’s where Full Smoking Crater Routine still abides

but the people who count

on either Side

are reluctant to shatter their Command-and-Control mirror images

hence the Shared Regime of Slow Game

because the people in charge

on either Side

must maintain Specialness

and look

I am part of the problem

like I said

I’m not giving this my Best Years

just some Really Good Ones

because I’m not happy how it plays these days

it eats at me

giving my soul hemorrhoids 

so I slow roll the bullshit Slow Game

which is kinda cute

it’s how I amuse myself

-May 2009-May 2024