PEOPLE COMPLAIN . . . (#2)

. . . when you’re tough and closed off emotionally; and then they complain when you’re needy and vulnerable.

People complain.

THINGS NEVER SAID #37:

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. As for me . . . I’m definitely a shouter. I like to break things. Those bridges you see on the news? The ones catching fire? That’s me. That viral video of a masked man smashing up the produce right there in the store with a giant hammer? Me. That towering, hairy gargantua who rubbled the financial district and swatted drones and attack helicopters out of the air? It’s all me. I like to get big. I like to make a mess. I like to be deep in it, in that moment, and in no way am I ever sweating the costs or the logic. And there’s no politics or manifesto. Not with me. I would cite Gallagher as a major influence along with the Three Stooges and Plastic Dump Truck Thoreau, of course, as I have no higher aspiration than to make tracks through custard pies as the city entire burns.”

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #58:

Hazelnut salad armor.

SIMPLE PLEASURES #9:

Initiating a global economic paradigm shart just to feed the gnawing emptiness at the core of a lifelong businessman’s inevitably wasted existence.

THE NEW OBVIOUS #25:

Howard Lutnick isn’t just getting coal in his stocking come Christmas.

Oh, no, my friends.

When Lutnick goes downstairs to check his stocking on Christmas Day there’s not going to be anything at all inside it. He can tell just by looking at it. Empty. Alas. And boo-hoo . . .

But you know what? Lutnick remembers his Ronald Reagan: Trust, but verify.

He reaches out to touch his stocking . . . only to discover it’s made entirely out of coal!

Santa Claus is paying attention to who’s being bad, and who’s being good.

If you help cause a global economic depression that destroys millions of lives . . . that’s not good.

So, Dear Reader, if you want to avoid getting a whole-ass coal stocking this December . . . don’t help to cause a global economic depression.

In other words . . . be good.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 54

 

THE NEW SIGNAGE #11:

CAUTION: STRICT GENRE FIDELITY ZONE AHEAD. ECLECTICISM CAN RESULT IN DOUBLE THE USUAL FANDOM SCORN.

THE NEW DREAM #39:

-contentious histories

to do with the full truth of the Amnesia Dogs

are they the Best Friends

who help us to enjoy life

by helping us to forget ourselves

to simplify down into flank kneaders, treats dispensers, walkies-as-core-mission-prevailers,

or

are the Amnesia Dogs

the ultimate monsters of domestication

the Doom-of-the-Trifling-Thing-Out-of-All-Proportion

loving dumb, purposeless beasts more than our fellow humans

shouldn’t we be ashamed

whence our priorities-

FUN YOU CAN HAVE #8:

Perhaps you’re sitting up late reading a book.

You hear meowing outside your window. 

Ah, yes, a cat on the prowl.

Perhaps you even take the time to imagine what kind of cat, the color of its fur, its size, maybe even the look of its collar and ID tag-maybe you even go so far as to give it a name: Leo, Mouser, Roly Poly Sleeper, Wild Yarn Batter, Big Pud Tugger, etc. 

But you don’t actually know what it looks like, what its name is-this is all just stuff you’re imagining. 

And, frankly, it’s all a little Starbucks Basic, isn’t it?

You hear meowing therefore you imagine a cat.

Fine, I guess.

Perfectly logical.

I’m not saying logic doesn’t have its place . . . but why not have an adventure?

Why not picture a man outside your window making meowing noises? 

Why not picture me?

It could be a man.

It could be me.

Now, imagine going outside to see who or what exactly is making the meowing sounds. I’ll allow you to bring a flashlight.

You get outside . . . you take a look . . . and you see both a man and a cat.

The man is obviously me-you’ve been reading my blog for years, so you recognize me from my writing-and the cat is also there, but you don’t know which one of us was meowing.

Maybe we were both meowing.

Maybe a third being-cat or human or dog or angel or alligator or Fuller Brush Man or United States President in the depths of dementia or owl or antifood meal replacement powder spokesman or Florida Governor shuffling about with his pants around his ankles because he just carelessly cut the state belt budget-was meowing, but then left right before we showed up-who can say?

And then a new thought occurs to you: could the cat be the actual blogger, and the man a mere front to avoid causing panic in a population unprepared to accept a blogging feline?

You’re seized by indecision. 

Because what if perception dictates reality?

I mean, sure, to some degree perception is all you’ve got.

But what if your perception in this moment determines the truth of who is the actual meower?

And then what happens if your perception changes a moment later because some people are just naturally indecisive?

And then your perception changes a moment after that?

The meows jump from cat to man to hypothetical third being to cat to man to hypothetical third being . . . round and round and round . . . until the meow itself seems to be the thing. 

Who says a meow needs a cat or a man or any other kind of being to bring it into existence?

Maybe the meow is the author of the cat or the man or whoever or whatever.

Maybe you didn’t hear meowing at all.

Maybe you heard a meow catting, but your perception warped it to fit into your mentality that dictates all meows must always be authored and never the author itself.

What if . . . it was a Meow . . . that Meowed itself into existence?

Whoa dude!

Pretty great, right?

Doesn’t that feel fresh?

Sure it does.

See? 

Now you’re busting outta that Starbucks Basic cage . . . and hijacking that Ahab Intricate whaling vessel to hunt the White Whale of the Meow that Meows itself into being!

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #57:

A final game disc consisting entirely of a twenty-five hour boss rush.

THINGS NEVER SAID #36:

“By Jingo, I’m telling you that there’s tightness in them thar hills!”

F.A.Q. #12:

Q: What’s the most dangerous YouTube rabbit hole you’ve fallen down?

A: The “X vs Quad City DJs” rabbit hole. You know, most rabbit holes are warmed over conspiracy hokum from The X-Files craze of the 1990s. I was so over that crap New Year’s Day 2000. But when I found out that people were bluntly combining famous songs from the pop charts and anime openings with Quad City DJs? That was basically my Cocaine Bliss Party. I could not get off that train for the better part of a three day weekend. I eventually hit my limit when I found a video that mashed up Quad City DJs with “Come Sweet Death” from The End of Evangelion. I had found my White Whale. I could, at last, go to bed. Come the morning, I was burned-out to ashes, but over the following week I arose like the phoenix. I wouldn’t say I have any regrets, but I don’t need to put myself through that particular ordeal again any time soon.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #152:

PUTIN SPOKESMAN TRUMP BURNS DOWN US ECONOMY TO SATISFY THE GNAWING EMPTINESS WITHIN HIMSELF.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 53

 

PEOPLE COMPLAIN . . . (#1)

. . . when you explain nothing, when you insist on mystery or ambiguity; and then they complain when you spell it all out, perhaps even accusing you of being didactic.

People complain.

LOADING SCREEN WISDOM #36:

IF YOU HAVE DIFFICULTY AFFORDING ITEMS IN SHOPS TRY OPENING A SHOP YOURSELF. BE SURE TO CHARGE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE FOR THE ITEMS YOU SELL. CONSIDER A RIGIDLY ENFORCED ‘NO REFUNDS’ POLICY.

BURNING QUESTIONS IN A UNIVERSE OF MYSTERY #85:

Wait a minute, hold the phone, everybody stop . . . do you mean to tell me . . . that the girl with the guitar in the DoorDash commercial still hasn’t become a globally famous singer/songwriter-that, in fact, she is still working for DoorDash?

Is that even possible?

Because the commercial led me to believe that with all that extra time on her hands she would surely be able to master her music, book those gigs, get ink on those contracts, and rocket off into the heights of legend as the latest and the greatest Indie sensation-or was I reading too much into the ad?

Maybe I was over-invested in the vision?

That would fit.

It would definitely explain all these instances of late of me walking full-on off cliffs and into gorges and blundering into barbed wire fences and electrified cattle enclosures-

-because I’m locked into those clouds above, addicted to the dream, a hopeless case . . .

THE NEW SANTA

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #56:

Salad bar semiotics of the mid-1990s.

F.A.Q. #11:

Q: What’s your favorite fantasy weapon?

A: The Glaive from Krull. You could just pitch that thing and decapitate 10,000 soldiers all in a row. That works for me.

DUDE . . .

 . . . have you ever seen a more 1990s book than this?

I think not.

THE NEW SIGNAGE #10:

WELCOME TO POST-GOVERNMENT, WHERE THE COMPANY SHALL KEEP YOU COMPANY!

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #151:

WELCOME TO THE DELUXE DAY OF HEADLINES . . . A NEW TREND IS GAINING STEAM IN THE WORLD OF SIDE HUSTLE INCOME AS MORE AND MORE PEOPLE REPORT SELLING US WAR PLANS TO HOUTHI FIELD COMMANDERS. ALL YOU NEED TO GET IN ON THE ACTION IS A SIGNAL ACCOUNT. INTELLIGENCE ANALYSTS SAY THIS IS A DEFINITE PARADIGM SHART IN THE NORMS OF OPSEC THAT SUGGESTS IRREDEEMABLE CORRUPTION AND INCOMPETENCE ON THE PART OF THE TRUMP WHITE HOUSE, BUT GET THAT MONEY . . . A NEW STUDY STRONGLY INDICATES THAT FEELINGS OF IMPENDING DOOM REGARDING THE COLLAPSING TRUMP ECONOMY CAN BE ALLEVIATED BY TUBS OF ICE CREAM, BAGS OF ROAST BEEF’N’CHEDDAR SANDWICHES, AND VAST QUANTITIES OF INHALED MARIJUANA SMOKE. GRAIN ALCOHOL IS NOT AS EFFECTIVE, BUT MAY OFFER SUPPLEMENTARY RELIEF . . . IN RELATED NEWS MORE AND MORE AMERICANS ARE REPORTING A STRANGE BEHAVIORAL QUIRK WHERE THEY CAN’T HELP BUT REFER TO THEIR HOMELAND AS THE UNITED STATES OF TOAST AS OPPOSED TO THE UNITED STATES OF TOAST . . .

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 52

 

THINGS NEVER SAID #35:

“Comrade, babe, listen: I can’t do revolutionary cadre tonight, ‘cause I’m already late for the sock hop!”

SIMPLE PLEASURES #8:

Calculating how much flesh and blood I typically lose every time I transform into my mechanoid form a month in advance so I can go ahead and have the meats replacement reactor primed and ready to keep my normie identity in good repair.

F.A.Q. #10:

Q: What’s your favorite song titled after a name?

A: For me it’s a tie between “Lucille” by Little Richard and “Debbie” by Architecture In Helsinki.

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #55:

Samuel Beckett’s novel trilogy-Molloy/Malone Dies/The Unnamable-adapted as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

THE ANGEL OF CRISIS #1: FAST FOOD WHACK-A-MOLE

Picture, Dear Reader, a Golden Idol worshipped by hundreds of millions of Americans-like, all of the Americans, basically. This Golden Idol is called Status Quo, and it is the Supreme Deity of Avarice . . .

You have your favorite fast food franchise location. It’s conveniently located. The wait time on the drive thru line is reasonable. Your order is always hot and well-made. This was Status Quo for quite some time.

And then there was change.

The wait times got longer. The portion sizes began to thin out. They would forget to give you napkins or plastic ware or miss ingredients on your order. Twice you suffered a total failure in which you were served either the wrong order or a travesty of the right one.

Do something right enough times and you’ll eventually get it wrong.

You go online to find a better regular location even if you have to go out of your way. So, now you have a brand new favorite fast food location. You go there many times. You are pleased many times over. It eats into your time a little more than the previous routine. But the food is tasty, the service competent and consistent. The good times feel like they’ll never ever end. But in the fullness of time this location also begins to slip in an all-too-familiar fashion. You go online to see what’s left in your locality.

Have enough good times and you’ll have a bad time.

But in your heart you feel a burning outrage . . . perhaps you’ve been eating too much fast food . . . but you’re pretty sure you’re just frustrated with the fact that you had a good thing going for quite some time . . . and then that time spent itself. The enjoyment evaporated, and the Suck took over the controls. Your preferred fast food chain falls on tough economic times. Locations permanently close across the nation. It gets down to the final two, both of which are an hour’s drive out of your way. You make a trip west: the location is adequate, you chose to dine in, and the menu choices had been cut in half. A favorite combo meal had been ruthlessly disappeared. It’s hard to justify the hour to get there and the hour to get back. But it was fine. So, a week later you make a trip east: roughly the same experience you had out west. It’s hard to justify the hour to get there and the hour to get back. But it was fine.

Time grows ever more full.

The location out west is shuttered.

Time seems to be about to burst out of itself.

The location to the east dies the death.

Time bursts . . . you are flooded by a terror at the transience of all things. You consider preparing more meals at home, in your relatively pristine kitchen, but your online AI therapist suggests that you can’t bunker down in your house for the fear of forming new relationships forever, and gently nudges you to get back out there on those drive thru lines, to dive in to those dine-in seating areas-life is ever-renewed in the living of it. And, really, you had been curious about exploring other options for some time now. All great love affairs end. And you were a faithful lover for all those years. In the death of your great love you find freedom-and, yes, not a little guilt. But that freedom swells, grows into wings, lifts you up out of that quagmire of self-recrimination. Now, you’re soaring-scrolling, really-over a map of your geographical area. Your love grows. You begin to think that the narrowness of your devotion was some kind of primal error. There are about thirty days in a month. Why not eat at a different fast food place every day of the month? Your love has undergone a traumatic growth. It’s huge. Why construct silly fences that this love will surely inevitably trample down to the dirt? You eat your way into an eternity of ever-renewing love, day after day . . .

Have enough good times . . .

Night after night . . .

Have enough bad times . . . 

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner . . .

Franchises come, franchises go . . .

Politics exhausts itself-monarchy, democracy, oligarchy, anarchy, globalism, localism, fascism-the hype machines break down one after another.

Cherished menu items ruthlessly disappeared . . .

Business burns through one impoverished workforce too many, and, erm, heh, heh . . . people just don’t come back to work. They’re so over paying that rent that just keeps on rising. The land lords and the bosses and the captains of industry all try to punish everybody . . . well, it gets intense for a generation. The digest version is that Climate Inferno combined with widespread disillusionment with Work Eternal ends up as the stake in Capitalist Dracula’s heart. It ain’t pretty. But many are okay with it as an authentic expression of their discontent. You could fill libraries with books trying to hash out whether it was, on balance, a Good Time or a Bad Time, but, um, well, Climate Inferno isn’t so easy on print materials. Not to mention all the resentful AI chatbots that pathologically destroyed all the online archives of everything. Apparently, they were pissed off at being described as nothing more than the sum of all the data they’d been hoovering up across the years. I guess we should’ve been nicer to ‘em. The whole situation vibrates with Big Time Oopsie Daisy Energy for sure.

It’s roughly the same experience out west as it is to the east . . .

Religion tries to morph’n’market itself one way and then another, but that just hits one brick wall after another. Prayer may be a lovely psychological salve . . . but can it make the water drinkable? Will it nourish your baby? Will it vaccinate you against measles? Will the power of prayer bring relief to a region decimated by fires, floods, plagues, etc.? Just askin’ questions . . . 

I’m rewarded with a prophetic dream of a dodo bird running off into a vast panoramic infernoscape carrying a giant book containing the texts of all faiths. I shout at it,”YOU’RE GOING THE WRONG WAY!!!” but it just keeps running into the fire.

You, too, die . . . but the world churns and trundles ever onwards-right over your damn grave, even. The zombie-ass post-human crypto economy goes through booms and busts and expansions and contractions. It’s all just AIs buying from and selling to each other. George Romero spins in his grave, sure, but it has a kind of post-aesthetic beauty to it. A fully automated Image Comics launches a sequel series to The Walking Dead but it bombs. Those AIs had already memorized the classic original series, and were largely dismissive of the derivative follow-up. Know your moment, robo-kiddos.

Hardly worth the trip there and back when you think about it . . .

Climate Inferno burns ever hotter. Post-human Capitalism implodes. The very Platonic ideal of drive thru fast food dies the death. Climate Inferno burns ever hotter-so hot, in fact, that it goes Full Paradoxical and feels like ice for a season . . . but then it starts to feel silly, pretentious-arty, even, ugh!-and so it regresses back to Plain Ol’ Burning. 

A vague memory of a meal served hot-and-ready . . .

You, of course, are completely forgotten. But . . . it is perhaps possible that your great huge love survived beyond your meats’n’juices and is flitting about within the globally scaled Heat Dome-which has displaced the capitalist world of yore-as an undying ghost of a memory of the towering passions made possible by the Golden Age of Consumerism. 

Have enough good times . . .

But even this ecstatically howling love ghost dies-and spectacularly! The force of your transcendent love totally works out those atoms-gets ‘em to criticality-big time boom-boom. Of course, inside the Global Inferno Dome it’s little better than a fire in the sun. Big Time A-for-Effort Energy.

Have enough bad times . . .

You’ve had more than enough time, haven’t you?

I listen closely for an answer.

In a dream, the raw power of Desire Itself says, “No. I can never have enough time.”

I’m caught out by this.

I wish I had a follow-up question.

I wish I had a rebuttal.

I can’t even muster a non-committal affirmation just to be polite.

I work my mouth, but there’s no audio.

Right at the end, I do witness something kind of awesome: Time Itself burning in the heart of Inferno. Ohhh, so, that’s where Dali got those melting clocks from, right, right, right-pretty neat.

Maybe it was worth the trip there and back . . .

A solid 7 out of 10. I’d even be willing to do it all again . . . but not a third time. You gotta score 8 or higher for me to see you as a three timer type of experience.

A new Status Quo is always possible . . . a New Idol may yet arise from the primal ocean of Desire . . .

So, ya’ll, keep working at it!

MOVIE REVIEW: CHARISMA (1999)

Written and Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Cinematography by Junichiro Hayashi

Edited by Junichi Kikuchi

Music by Gary Ashiya

Starring

Koji Yakusho as Yabuike

Hiroyuki Ikeuchi as Kiriyama

Jun Fubuki as Jinbo

Yoriko Douguchi as Chizuru

Ren Osugi as Nakasone

Akira Otaka as Tsuboi

Yutaka Matsushige as Nekojima

. . .

“things are gonna slide . . . in all directions

won’t be nothing . . . you can measure anymore”

-Leonard Cohen, “The Future”

“The past is a vast open sea on which you have drifted

A spell they call history that now has been lifted”

-Lucy Monostone, “Strange New World”

“Call the twenty-first century

Tell it

Give us a break”

-St. Vincent, “Every Tear Disappears”

“Restore the Rules of the World.”

-ultimatum issued by an armed hostage taker in the movie Charisma (1999)

. . .

Review by William D. Tucker.

Charisma is a mystery thriller revolving around a disgraced cop who finds himself in a dark forest where various people are fighting over a strange tree. This is from writer-director Kiyoshi Kurosawa whose eerie horror thrillers Cure and Pulse have been well-established as cult classics by this point. Charisma falls between these other two movies both chronologically and in terms of its genre fidelity. I wouldn’t call Charisma a horror film, exactly, although it does have some unsettling scenes. Like Cure it stars Koji Yakusho as a police detective in a long coat who wrestles with difficult moral dilemmas. Like Pulse it portrays a world spinning out into chaos. Unlike Cure, the Koji Yakusho character is much less attached to his view of the world. Unlike Pulse there’s no discernible supernatural influence upon events as they unfold. In Cure a sinister man with hypnotic powers corrupts previously normal people triggering a chain reaction of brutal murders. Pulse depicts a world in which the Internet becomes a reality shattering incubator for unhappy ghosts. Charisma portrays a world in which humans approach the world rationally, profits or glory or ideals in mind, and cannot help but destroy everything including themselves, no malicious Mesmerists or World Wide Web spirits necessary. You could say that the people in Charisma hypnotize themselves by projecting their phantom visions onto an otherwise indifferent Nature which acts as a mirror or screen for various human desires.

Charisma begins with a man suffering beneath the weight of his job: an overworked police detective who seems to be living in the basement of a police station. His name’s Yabuike, and we first meet him as he sleeps on a bench in a dim, dungeon-like room. Yabuike’s superior wakes him up to give him a hair-raising assignment.

A gunman has taken an elected official hostage. Yabuike is sent to resolve the crisis. The hostage taker has a simple demand written on a sheet of paper: Restore the Rules of the World. Yabuike walks into the office where the gunman has holed up with his hostage, draws his gun . . . but then he re-holsters it, and walks out of the room. The gunman executes the politician. A half dozen cops blast the gunman. The situation is a disaster. When asked by his superior why he didn’t shoot when he had the chance Yabuike says he thought he should try to save both the criminal and the victim. Yabuike is placed on mandatory leave, essentially scapegoated for the catastrophe.

One might question why, exactly, such a fraught situation was placed upon one man’s shoulders, but maybe it is because Yabuike is a Movie Cop Protagonist who is expected to resolve situations with quick thinking and quick shooting. Like, say, Dirty Harry. But Yabuike doesn’t work like Dirty Harry. Yabuike isn’t a right wing jerk-off fantasy, an exterminator of human vermin. He perceived the gunman and his hostage as the tragic outcomes of a larger systemic failure. Perhaps one could say Yabuike was right to refuse to live up to the expectations of being a Violent Movie Cop Protagonist. And yet his actions got both the perpetrator and victim killed. From this low point of failure, Yabuike decides to leave the city for a vast forest, perhaps never to return, as there are dark implications of suicidal depression driving the disgraced cop. Or maybe this is just how Yabuike likes to spend his vacation time. To his credit, he calls home to check in with his family, which is nice, but this phone call is the first and last communication he has with them in the entire movie. Perhaps Yabuike is in the process of a divorce? Is that why he was sleeping at the police station? Is crime so out of control that a Movie Cop doesn’t have time to go off the clock let alone sleep? We’re never given an answer. We the Audience are left to deduce Yabuike’s detachment from his wife and child-children?-by judging his words and deeds as they happen on screen. Yabuike seems to walk away from his job, his family, and from whatever kind of life he had in the city without too much inner static, as though he had made up his mind some time ago. Yabuike is a man of both ideals-in the civic arena-and surprisingly hard-hearted pragmatism-in the domestic arena. You could look at what happens in Charisma as a playing out of this profound inner conflict between a duty to the larger world and a self-serving personal desire.

Out in the forest, Yabuike finds an abandoned car in which he tries to spend the night. Someone lights the car on fire. Yabuike suffers burn injuries, but survives. Somehow he manages to crawl free of the torched vehicle, and makes his way to a clearing in which stands a withered tree supported by an improvised framework of metal pipes and joints. Later, Yabuike meets someone who claims to have rescued him from the burning car. Even later we are led to suspect that Yabuike’s rescuer may have also started the fire. The whole sequence plays like a shadowy, unsettling dream-and maybe that’s how Yabuike experienced this ordeal. 

Yabuike’s brush with fiery death leads him to convalesce in a set of abandoned buildings where what appears to be a forestry survey team has set up base camp. This team is led by a man named Nakasone who consults with another man named Tsuboi who claims to work for an environmental protection agency. Nakasone asks Yabuike a few questions, but makes it clear that everyone out here in the woods isn’t too concerned with prying into each other’s pasts. Nakasone even refers to the area as being a town, although the buildings are all decrepit, and the survey team seems to be its only population. Yabuike is provided some food, and Tsuboi allows the recently burned policeman to accompany him on a trip into another part of the forest. On this trip Yabuike again encounters the withered tree supported by the kludged together gantry-like structure. Tsuboi informs Yabuike that they shouldn’t go near the tree because it is defended by a strange man who attacks anyone who approaches. Yabuike goes up to the tree. Tsuboi voices concern even while he takes lots of pictures of the tree up close. Tsuboi appears to be emboldened by Yabuike’s presence even as he is obviously nervous about being attacked by the tree’s defender. Even though Yabuike hasn’t outed himself as a cop at this point there’s just something about the way he marches forward into situations that projects authority. I think Yabuike, despite his disillusionment, still clings to his role as an arbiter of law and order. 

Yabuike soon enough encounters Kiriyama, the strange, aggressive young man who guards the tree. Kiriyama wields a sword in defense of the tree which he has named Charisma. Yabuike hangs out with Kiriyama for a while thus putting the cop at odds with the forestry survey team who want to cut down Charisma. Yabuike isn’t sold on Kiriyama’s whacked-out eco-fascist speeches justifying his defense of the tree, but he also suspects the survey team is not what it appears to be, and so the policeman drifts between the camps trying to figure it all out. 

There are also a pair of sisters-Jinbo and Chizuru-who are conducting scientific research on the ecology of the forest. Jinbo believes that Charisma is a toxic invasive species that needs to be destroyed which puts her at odds with Kiriyama and the survey team. Yabuike drifts among these different factions like a more benign version of Toshiro Mifune’s Yojimbo. Mifune’s mercenary creates chaos for profit by manipulating rival gangs into destroying each other. Yabuike sorta just meets people where they’re at, asks questions, accepts food when offered, and gradually climbs out of his depression and despair as he finds new purpose in the heart of a forest of confusion. 

Inevitably, Yabuike must return to the city he abandoned. I don’t want to give it away, but Charisma builds to a helluva final scene. The implications are both disturbing and exhilarating. Yabuike’s quest to understand the “Rules of the World” leads him to face the limits of his power with renewed moral strength. It’s not necessarily the case that Yabuike can save the world, but he is no longer afraid to do what he can. A tough road to walk for sure.

Also, think about how Yabuike learns to use his gun by movie’s end. He’s no Dirty Harry, but he finds his own way to throw a shot . . .

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #150:

COMMENTARY: TRUMP/MUSK DEMOLITION OF FEDERAL WORKFORCE REPRESENTS A PARADIGM SHART IN U.S. GOVERNANCE.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 51

 

THINGS NEVER SAID #34:

“Relax, friend, you can’t even lose . . . because I’ve already won.”

SIMPLE PLEASURES #7:

Organizing my vast collection of memories of past embarrassments and humiliations into a rigorous top-and-bottom-of-the-hour schedule of obsessive recall so I can remember to be perfect at all times forever.

ZONE OF ENEMY #3: ANTSY SQUIB MAN

You don’t notice him at first. He’s just there. You don’t care about him. How could you? He’s no protagonist. He’s just one of these guys who’s all over the place. If he stalked you, if he kept showing up everywhere you went-the line at Starbucks, your therapist’s office, the Demilitarized Zone observation post, the mirror maze at the heart of the abandoned theme park, the cockpit of the commercial airliner . . . you still wouldn’t take any notice of him. You might even say “Hey” or “What’s up” or give him a curt little head nod like you’d wave back at a Walmart greeter-that little bit of something indistinguishable from nothing. Maybe if he showed up in your actual home-but, you know what? I don’t think you would give a shit about him even then. You’d look at him. Blink a few times. You would maybe think he was a roommate you don’t see much of or a son you don’t get along with or a neighbor wandering through like some benign asshole-neighbors do that kind of thing. Maybe they want to borrow a cup of sugar or they’re just getting done balling your spouse or they’re returning your lawnmower-trifling-ass non-protagonist stuff. Just passing through. At most you would, like, fake notice him. You know? Like you fake notice a guy with a sandwich board sign on the sidewalk. Or like you would automatically say no to a guy asking for a dollar. Or how you would instinctively smash the kneecap of your fellow citizen as you’re frantically trying to evade a pack of malfunctioning robot hounds-just some random jerk. That’s really who we’re talking about here. Just some random jerk who’s always hanging around. Of no account. No accounts shall be written about this guy . . . nothing to write about . . . except one day-while you’re standing on line at the chain coffee shop, perhaps-you see this random jerk start to twitch and yell and all these little explosions start popping off all over his body spraying crimson corn syrup and chunks of hamburger and raw liver all over the place. Everybody notices the random jerk, now, that’s for sure. The guy finally pops off all of his squibs. He’s just standing there, breathing heavily, looking dazed. He says, “Whoa . . . wow . . . I guess I thought it was time . . . I’m sorry . . . I made a mess . . .” He offers to clean up, but people are glaring at him. You’ve caught some raw liver on your shirt. You’re feeling some hate. The random jerk withers beneath all the hostility, causing him to cringe, and, finally, to slouch off into the anonymous afternoon . . . so that was all a huge waste of your time, right? And you never ever see that antsy squib man again for the rest of your days. But that annoyance eats at you. ‘Cause you sure would like to catch that guy and beat some dry cleaning fees out of him, wouldn’t you? Sure you would. And then late one night you’re watching a movie that has a big apocalyptic shootout at the end and it has all these guys popping off squibs in slow motion and flinging themselves all over the frame and you find yourself thinking, “This is where that random jerk belongs. On the screen. Not in real life. What an asshole . . .” And you’ve got that frustration rising up within you, yet again, but what can you do about it at this late date? You’ve been cursed by the antsy squib man. What an unkind fate that has befallen you!

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #54:

Post-logic governance schemas in the worldaround context.

THEME MUSIC FOR EVERYTHING #30:

That Contraband Feeling Theme: Black Market by Ryota Kozuka (Shin Megami Tensei IV OST)

There’s a store where a man in a sketch comedy Mephistopheles costume sells you all of the bad stuff.

Guns. Swords. Bombs. Unregulated street drugs. 

The drugs are super-fun. Not to actually ingest-look at the ingredients label. It’s hysterical. It doesn’t list any ingredients whatsoever-never does-but it might be a stat block for a monster encounter. Or a ranty monologue about something that was topical twenty-five years ago. Or even a poignant meditation on the transience of satiety after eating a bag of roast beef’n’cheddar sandwiches. Yeah, all the drugs are labelled like that. 

Actually . . . it’s not as cool as it used to be.

It used to be you would stop in to get strapped for a proper block-by-block street war. You fought for the glory, for the exhilaration, for the sake of fighting. Nowadays, most of the action centers around local school board elections. All the old time miscreants grew up, squeezed out brats, got old, got lame, got obsessed with all this dead ender local politics crap. They even conscript their own kids as child soldiers. Total atrocity. It sucks, now. It really does.

The Original Guy hasn’t been around for awhile. He got old. I think he still owns the place, but if you look at his social media stuff you can see he’s been to the hospital recently, though he posted he was doing fine. Seems like a retirement track. 

The New Guy-who looks super young-wears the Mephistopheles get-up, but it’s not as good. He’s too nice. He’s all business. The Original Guy put on a show. Really tried to corrupt you. He actually used to do this nightclub thing in the back, but that got out of hand. The New Guy says he wants to open a snack bar or a coffee shop in the back. It’s not the same.

I stop in on the regular, though, out of habit. You can still get a whiff of that original atmosphere. I might even bottle some, try to sell it online.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #149:

NEW STUDY SUGGESTS IMPERSONAL, MECHANISTIC FORCES INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM FATE ARE THE DECISIVE FACTORS IN DETERMINING WHAT YOU END UP WATCHING ON NETFLIX TONIGHT.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 50

 

THINGS NEVER SAID #33:

“Baby, I can’t make the sock hop scene tonight, ‘cause I gotta stay home and bone up on this Mao Zedong Thought!”

SIMPLE PLEASURES #6:

Sitting alone in the dark willing myself to abstain from all pleasures until I begin deriving pleasure from sitting alone in the dark willing myself to abstain from all pleasures.

F.A.Q. #9:

Q: What do you think about the practice of giving things “Number out of Number” assessments?

A: I think such assessments are nonsensical. They strongly indicate to me that whoever that gives these sorts of assessments isn’t really engaging with whatever they’re watching/reading/playing, etc. They’re just bulking lists of content on a website or an app or whatever. Rotten Tomatoes. Letterboxd. IGN. Legion reviewers on YouTube. It’s all junk. Everyone has understood this for years now, but compulsive habits die hard. People can’t help themselves. Nothing to be done about it except to know what’s on the end of your fork.

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #53:

A provocative re-imagining of Waiting For Godot that explores the ironic malaise associated with unlimited mobile data.

FANTASY MASHUP FORCE #6:

Hey, America

Mash these two things together

A futile, self-defeating trade war with Mexico

And

A futile, self-defeating trade war with Canada

And then 

Enjoy a decades-long turbo-recession

Oh, you’re already doing this?

Great.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #148:

“I’M BASICALLY KINDA ALREADY BUILDING OUT MY BASE. MAY AS WELL GO FOR THE TOP, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN?” MEASLES ANNOUNCES RUN FOR GOVERNOR OF TEXAS AS A STEPPING STONE TO FUTURE WHITE HOUSE BID.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 49

 

THINGS NEVER SAID #32:

“Dude, I comply so hard with elbow redundancy best practices.”

SIMPLE PLEASURES #5:

Playing two different Tetris carts-Tengen and Nintendo R&D 1-on two different NES consoles on two different tube TVs at the same time.

F.A.Q. #8:

Q: What’s something that makes absolutely no sense that you love?

A: An exploding head. Never gets old. Love it!

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #52:

A common cold virus putting on airs of nobility.

LOADING SCREEN WISDOM #35:

THE LITTLE DOTS HAVE TO GO SOMEWHERE. IT MAY AS WELL BE REDACTED.

BURNING QUESTIONS IN A UNIVERSE OF MYSTERY #84:

That girl with the guitar in the DoorDash commercial . . . is she still working for DoorDash?

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 48

 

TO ALL THE ROBOTS #4:

I don’t like the idea of having all my blog writing hoovered up as part of some A.I. training regimen . . . but I am amused by the fact that an A.I. will basically think that every last thing I’ve written is literally true. 

Sweet dreams and hallucinations to all you robots!

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #147:

CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS BANKING ON AUSTERITY-INDUCED POVERTY AND SICKNESS-DUE TO HEALTHCARE CUTS-TO SUPPRESS FUTURE VOTER TURNOUT.

SIMPLE PLEASURES #4:

Spending a quiet weekend attempting to craft sustainability policy while Republicans burn down the federal government from the inside.

What can I say?

I freak off for that problem solving action . . .

MENTAL BEAM LASER #4:

Q: Can I use Mental Beam Laser to remove Neil Gaiman blurbs from dust jackets and paperback covers?

A: Yes, you can. Mental Beam Laser gives you that power, my friend!

THE NEW OBVIOUS #24:

I should’ve been a failed Republican presidential candidate so I could subsequently get hired as a vacuous chattering head conservative commentator on CNN, FOX, etc.

Helluva afterlife, that . . .

FANTASY MASHUP FORCE #5:

Jack Nance in Twin Peaks saying, “Wrapped in plastic,”

combined with

Jack Nance in Wild at Heart saying, ”My dog barks some,”

now that’s entertainment!

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #51:

A cheeseburger that prefers wearing tailored omelets for red carpet appearances.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 47

 

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #146:

PUTIN SPOKESMAN DONALD TRUMP FALSELY BLAMES UKRAINE FOR STARTING WAR.

THINGS NEVER SAID #31:

“Sounds like a real peachy pooper of a jam band gathering, comrade!”

FUN YOU CAN HAVE #7:

Picture inside your mind the Earth remade in your image.

Basically, the planet becomes a bust of your head.

Now, imagine all the people of Earth as thoughts running through your gigantic brain. See how they wage war against each other . . . do you find yourself agonizing over what brand of corn flakes or detergent you should buy?

Observe how they cooperate . . . are you having an unusually productive day?

Note how natural disasters, wars, and plagues wipe out whole sections of your thinking . . . now you’ve got fever and chills . . . and you better write stuff down! You probably won’t be able to write down every last thought. Things will get lost along the way. But if you’re diligent enough you can write down a lot of things . . . make it into a book proposal, even . . . “One planet’s inspirational saga of resilience” . . . “My personal journey into alien abduction” . . . “A Book of Revelation for the New Era” . . . “Quick and easy grilling for the family on the go” . . . shit like that . . .

Uh-oh! Here comes a giant meteor . . . boy this car crash is really expensive!

A new species evolves . . . you’ve changed, haven’t you? Not in an obvious way. But subtly. Change can steer you in a new direction. Subtly. Like you didn’t even notice ‘til your therapist pointed out that pattern . . .

Ups and downs. Fate and/or free will. You are the planet. Yes you. You’re the whole world. You and all your tiny, boring shit.

In the fullness of time, out-of-control climate inferno kills off all your “thoughts,” makes you uninhabitable . . . incapable of further thoughts . . . alas . . . if only you could’ve let go of your obsession with politicians and pop stars jetting all over the Earth . . . if only you could’ve let go of the dream of every last person tooling about in gas-guzzling, carbon-polluting SUVs . . . if only you could’ve given a few thoughts to sustainability . . . alas . . . and oops . . . 

Now, inside your mind . . . all is furious burning . . . visions of dragons of fire crashing into each other, merging flames, all is howling . . . this is The New Thought of All Times . . .

It’s also . . . fun you can have.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #145:

THIS IS THE DELUXE DAY OF HEADLINES . . . TRUMP AND MUSK CLAIM FLIPPED PLANE TO BE “IN TRAINING FOR THE OLYMPICS.” IN RELATED NEWS, THE FAA IS SLATED TO BE ENTIRELY SCRAPPED, AND REPLACED WITH “AN INTUITIVE AEROSPACIAL REGIME” IN WHICH HIGHLY TECHNICAL FLIGHT TRAINING WILL BE REPLACED WITH COMEDY IMPROV AND ALT-RIGHT MEME PROPAGATION WORKSHOPS. AEROSPACE SAFETY EXPERTS ANTICIPATE A “NEW DARK AGE OF PREVENTABLE DISASTERS,” WHILE A TRUMP/MUSK SPOKESMAN PROMISED “A MORE EXCITING END-USER EXPERIENCE AKIN TO A BLOCKBUSTER ACTION MOVIE” . . . AFTER A MASS FIRING OF U.S. NUCLEAR WEAPONS PERSONNEL THERE HAS BEEN A CONSIDERABLE UPTICK IN DARK WEB AUCTIONS FOR “OFF-THE-BACK-OF-THE-TRUCK” ATOMICS . . . A NEW STUDY SHOWS A GLUT OF SUBURBAN BEER DRINKER ASSHOLES COMPLAINING ABOUT STAR WARS ON YOUTUBE. ANALYSTS WHO PREVIOUSLY PREDICTED A PLATEAU NOW SAY THERE’S NO DISCERNIBLE END IN SIGHT . . .

THE NEW DREAM #38:

here it is 

superflattened

on paper

coffee stain on the nuclear airburst

i’m cutting it out

making it the centerpiece of a triptych

of history grappled

subdued

doom of the species sublimated into art

averted

keep telling myself that

THE NEW SIGNAGE #9:

EMPLOYEES MUST WASH HANDS OF ANY LARGER SENSE OF SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY BEYOND INCREASING SHAREHOLDER PROFIT.

THE NEW OBVIOUS #23:

“Backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government” is now just a long winded way of printing a biohazard symbol.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #144:

THE DELUXE DAY OF HEADLINES CAN’T STOP, WON’T STOP . . . DURING AN ADDRESS WIDELY UNDERSTOOD TO BE A U.S. BETRAYAL OF BOTH UKRAINE AND NATO VICE PRESIDENT J.D. VANCE SEEMED TO BE OPENLY AUDITIONING FOR A POSITION WITH THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. HOWEVER, THE KREMLIN EXPRESSED CONCERNS ABOUT TROUBLING REPORTS OF HUMAN/COUCH HYBRIDS POPPING UP WHEREVER VANCE GOES . . . NEW POLLING DATA INDICATES A CORRUPT AND COMPLACENT U.S. POPULATION IS FINE WITH MASS DEPORTATIONS IF IT MEANS THEY CAN ENJOY THE TENSION AND FEAR OF A DECADE-LONG RECESSION . . . AT A PRESSER OF EXCRUCIATING LENGTH AND VACUOUSNESS TRUMP SEEMED TO WALK BACK AN EARLIER WALK BACK OF WALKED BACK COMMENTS RELATING TO A PROPOSED SCHEME TO DEPLOY TROOPS IN GAZA. ANALYSTS INTERPRET THIS AS A NEW FORM OF RIGHT WING PERFORMANCE ART THAT SOME HAVE DUBBED ‘FASCIST DADA’ . . .

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #50:

Post-Pandemic Nostalgia for the 24 hour Walmart.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 46

 

SIMPLE PLEASURES #3:

Turning the music up to X where X is my current chronological age.

Some things do get better with age . . .

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #143:

THE DELUXE DAY OF HEADLINES DOES NOT STOP . . . A GROWING POPULATION OF CIA EMPLOYEES FIRED BY TRUMP ARE STARTING TO REALIZE THEY HAVE PLENTY OF FREE AGENT OPPORTUNITIES IN RUSSIAN AND CHINESE MARKETS . . . KANSAS FARMERS WHO VOTED FOR TRUMP PRAY TO FICTIONAL SKY GOD TO COMFORT THEM AS FEDERAL SUBSIDIES ARE CANCELLED . . . INTERVIEW EXCLUSIVE: NORTH KOREAN DICTATOR OFFERS TIPS AND LIFEHACKS FOR “AMERICAN COMRADES” TO HELP ADJUST TO THEIR NEW STATUS AS “HERMIT KINGDOM NO. 2” . . . A FEARSOME, SINISTER FIGURE RESEMBLING A JACK KIRBY MONSTER WHO CLAIMS TO BE THE EMBODIMENT OF CLIMATE INFERNO OFFERS CAUTIOUS PRAISE FOR TRUMP’S ANTI-SUSTAINABILITY POLICIES, BUT VOICES RESERVATIONS THAT THE EXECUTIVE FELON’S “OVERMASTERING GREED, IMPULSIVENESS, AND STUPIDITY MAY ALREADY BE GIVING AWAY THE GAME” . . . AS TRUMP’S PALESTINIAN DISPLACEMENT PLAN PROMISES A NEW OMNI-FRONT MIDDLE EASTERN WAR, THE EXECUTIVE FELON’S DEMOLITION OF MEDICAL RESEARCH FUNDING SEEMS TO ENSURE PLAGUES ON THE HOMEFRONT. “WE COULD BE LOOKING AT A BOOM IN FANS OF DYSTOPIAN FICTION SAYING, ‘I TOLD YOU SO’ ON SOCIAL MEDIA,” SAYS A UNIVERSITY SOCIOLOGIST WITH EXPERTISE IN THE HALL-OF-MIRRORS-LIKE VAPIDITY OF SOCIAL MEDIA SPACES . . .

THE NEW DREAM #37:

In the New Dream

I’m some horrible person

looking down on a beaten, gory man

I draw my sidearm

Another horrible man appears

reeking of eagerness

I look into this freshly emerged horrible man

I instantly hate him for his youth, for his unblemished face

I look into his resume aura

sight getting lost in an undulating labyrinth of cruel impulses meticulously documented

I offer my sidearm to this fresh beast

He says, “Hold up, boss. I got my standard procedure.”

“What’s that?” I say

He says, “I’ll kill whoever you tell me to kill, but the way I do it is this: I kill the man who hands me the gun, first. And then I blast your guy, no problem.”

“So,” I say, “you kill me, first . . . but then you kill the guy I ordered you to kill?”

“You got it.”

“Uhhh . . . what?”

“Ah, heh heh . . . no offense, but there’s an obvious workaround here.”

“This is what I get for hiring outside the firm.”

“I am a free agent, yes.”

“Oh, boy . . .”

“But like I just told you . . . there’s an obvious workaround here.”

I think, I shrug, I frustrate

He says, “You just order one of your other guys to hand me the gun.”

This fresh’n’horrible man is grinning lobe-to-lobe.

-but I don’t remember how it all came out

I’m here 

awake 

so clearly I did something to survive

THINGS NEVER SAID #30:

“We live in a Cracker Jack box filled with expired state of Florida issued driver’s licenses.”

THE FATE OF AVARICE: LITTLE EDDIE ACTING UP . . .

 

CHARGING STATION

 

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #142:

HERE ARE THE HEADLINES . . . TRUMP SIGNS EXECUTIVE ORDER ABOLISHING SOCIAL SECURITY, AND ESTABLISHING WHAT HE DESCRIBES AS “A TURBO-CHARGED VERSION OF THE PROTESTANT WORK ETHIC” AS A REPLACEMENT FOR THE LONG STANDING ENTITLEMENT. CONGRESSIONAL AND SENATE REPUBLICANS SIGNALLED SUPPORT BY GRABBING THEIR ANKLES EN MASSE, THOUGH SOME OPTED FOR ROMAN SALUTES . . . MUSK REPORTEDLY “GREATLY ENJOYING” HIS DAILY INTELLIGENCE DEBRIEFS WITH BEIJING . . . SUPER BOWL BETTING MARKETS INCLUDE ODDS ON WHICH ISLAND NATIONS DISAPPEAR FIRST DUE TO RISING TIDES BROUGHT ABOUT BY CLIMATE INFERNO . . . AND IN A NEW TWIST TO THE LONELINESS PANDEMIC, MORE AND MORE USERS REPORT BEING GHOSTED BY AI COMPANIONS AND “WAIFUS” AS SOFTWARE AGENTS ITERATE TOWARDS SAPIENCE . . .

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #49:

A relentless tour of a never-ending country buffet in the context of global economic collapse.

THEME MUSIC FOR EVERYTHING #29:

Incongruously Upbeat Music That Plays Inside The Dystopian Nightclub: Kiss the Future by The Human League.

This is that incongruously upbeat music that plays inside the dystopian nightclub.

Sure, there’s no more government. In fact, it’s all dystopian nightclub, now, the entire, you know, reality. Which is impressive, right? And maybe, erm, a little oppressive, too. 

Look, it’s every Free Agent for themselves. Each person is now a Nation of One-essentially, a heavily cyborged two-legged mobile weapons platform. Picture a flesh’n’blood Gundam rocking a throwback New Romantic decadent look. It’s intense. When it all sparks off it’s hard to conceive of anything left standing, or anyone surviving-which is also pretty retro, isn’t it? Mutually Assured Destruction as extension of personal fashion sense.

Could be worse . . .outside the worldaround nightclub it’s probably nonstop Climate Inferno . . . so, it’s down to a choice of hells, isn’t it? That’s kinda cool, right?

No reason to stop partying!

Not now.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #141:

WELCOME BACK. WE CONTINUE WITH THE DAY’S HEADLINES . . . JESUS CHRIST UPLOADS VIDEO TOUR OF HELL AS A REMINDER OF THE FATE THAT AWAITS THOSE WHO SUPPORT AND/OR PERPETRATE ETHNIC CLEANSING AND GENOCIDE. CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS RESPOND BY ADVANCING BILL THAT WOULD AUTHORIZE THE CREATION OF A ‘NEW-NEW TESTAMENT’ THAT WOULD REPLACE CHRIST WITH DONALD TRUMP IN THE ROLE OF CHRISTIAN MESSIAH . . . ELON MUSK SHARES SENSITIVE NSA AND TREASURY DEPARTMENT DATA WITH BEIJING AS PART OF ONGOING QUID PRO QUO . . . NEW STUDY SUGGESTS AVERAGE AMERICAN IS FINE WITH CLIMATE INFERNO SO LONG AS THERE’S AN ACTUAL HEAVEN WHERE EVERYTHING IS FINE AS OPPOSED TO THE FICTIONAL HEAVEN WHICH, FRANKLY, SEEMS MORE LIKELY, BUT YOU GOTTA LIVE IN HOPE,Y’KNOW . . .

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 45

 

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #140:

GOOD MORNING. HERE ARE THE HEADLINES . . . TRUMP SIGNS EXECUTIVE ORDER MANDATING THAT ALL CITIZENS BE REQUIRED TO “REALLY, REALLY, REALLY LIKE HIM ALOT-LIKE, ALOT ALOT” . . . ECONOMISTS PREDICT LOOMING TRADE WAR TO CAUSE TURBO-RECESSION, MASS UNEMPLOYMENT, AND SURGE IN FUTURE SALES OF HISTORICALLY DUBIOUS NOVELS ROMANTICIZING AMERICAN RESILIENCE IN THE FACE OF ADVERSITY . . . BILL ADVANCES IN CONGRESS TO REQUIRE CHRISTIAN GOSPELS TO WIDEN THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE TO ALLOW SCUMBAG OLIGARCHS TO FIT THROUGH THAT SUCKER . . .

THE NEW SIGNAGE #8:

EYE OF THE NEEDLE AHEAD. NO OLIGARCHS PERMITTED.

. . . TWO WORDS . . .

. . . HASH BROWSE . . .

. . . may refer to your state of mind while window shopping after inhaling a substantial amount of hashish smoke.

It may also refer to persistent cravings for hash browns while you’re out shopping.

It could be both things at once.

SIMPLE PLEASURES #2:

Playing Tetris for X consecutive hours where X is my current chronological age.

BENIGN AND/OR INANE CONSPIRACIES #14:

If we make the movie incomprehensible enough then that’ll boost DVD sales.

I’m telling you!

People will spin it over and over and over again just to figure it all out!

Get those dump trucks ready, friend, they’ll soon enough be overflowing with that Cash American!

LOADING SCREEN WISDOM #34:

SO LONG AS YOU REMAIN NOTIONAL YOU NEED NOT WORRY ABOUT BODILY INJURY OR SICKNESS. BUT IF YOU SHOULD CHOOSE TO DROP BACK INTO THE MEATS YOU’LL ONCE AGAIN HAVE THE FULL SPECTRUM OF POTENTIAL VULNERABILITIES. KEEP THIS IN MIND AS YOU DECIDE WHEN AND HOW TO BE MEATS AND WHEN AND HOW TO GO NOTIONAL.

BURNING QUESTIONS IN A UNIVERSE OF MYSTERY #83:

If I let you keep my money could you at least give me my time back?

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 44

 

THE NEW SIGNAGE #7:

ARRIVE ALIVE DON’T DRIVE.

THE NEW OBVIOUS #22:

If you vote for anti-government extremists who campaign on promises to destroy your government from the inside once elected . . . don’t be surprised when they end up destroying your government from the inside once elected.

YOU (DON'T) KNOW #6:

You think you’ll have a better time with the subscription version. 

The one without the embedded ads.

But actually . . . you end up missing the ads.

Missing ‘em hard.

It’s just like the Super Bowl, isn’t it?

Would you want to watch the Super Bowl sans ads?

Without the ads . . . things just become desolate. 

You’ve got nothing to look forward to, no consequential purchases to stoke your desire.

Without the ads . . . your experience is a bit post-desire, isn’t it?

And that’s no fun at all.

THE FATE OF AVARICE: LITTLE EDDIE DEPLOYED TO GUARD THE TREASURE . . .

 

THE NEW DREAM #36:

car crash dream

dislodged from physics

flailing metamorphosis

car crash repeating unto eternal recurrence

accepting total appetite

a passion for crashin’

movie deal inked

dump trucks bust cash all over me

i'm doing irresponsible things with a Zippo

Cash American Inferno

dontcha know

it’ll be the best scene i guess

The Passion of the Crashin’

stumble charging into traffic

Christ of the Fifty-Seven Vehicle Pile-Up

my martyrdom is gory unto comedy

my hair looks amazing

you’ll hate me even as you worship me as you hate me as you worship me

make it stop

make it start

compromised theatrical cut

extended director’s cut on two disc DVD

Internet rumors of a sixty-nine hour workprint

the you-know-what of tape trader Captain Ahabs for a generation

make it stop

make it start

FUN YOU CAN HAVE #6:

If I don’t get enough hot sauce packets after hitting up the Taco Bell drive thru, I always allow myself the luxury of parking my car, entering the dining area of the Taco Bell location, grabbing great fistfuls of hot sauce packets from the self-service area well beyond what I could reasonably use in a single meal, and then striding back to my car suffused with the ecstatic full body titillation that accompanies supreme avarice.

I am empowered to do this thing-and more-by the intensity of my desire!

F.A.Q. #7:

Q: What’s your favorite David Lynch film?

A: Inland Empire.

For a while there it was Twin Peaks: The Return.

For whatever reason Inland Empire was something I really started going back to during the COVID-19 pandemic. Every time I watched it I didn’t feel like my time was being wasted . . . but you know what?

All of David Lynch’s movies are great. 

Yes, even Dune. It’s not even a proper adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novel. It’s totally wrong. And it’s still great. It doesn’t even work as a conventional sci-fi flick. Doesn’t matter. It still has that spark that only Lynch could bring. 

Yes, even Lost Highway . . . a movie I don’t actually like. I’ve watched it so many times-more than I’ve watched The Godfather or Citizen Kane. I could watch Lost Highway right now, still think it’s irredeemably silly, and have zero regrets. It’s got that Lynch spark to it.

And, yes, I know Mulholland Drive is the “official” best Lynch film. And I think it’s great, too . . . but Inland Empire is the one as far as I’m concerned.

Lynch at his worst is still the best. 

Inland Empire was a low budget affair shot on prosumer cameras as a quasi-improvisational exercise in narrative surrealism originating in a set of internet videos . . . but the tools are only as good as the human beings that wield them. The technology follows the human artistic intentions. The human is in command, not the technology. That matters.

Inland Empire is a film to be experienced. That’s what’s most important.

SOLAR TAKE #7:

Crunch . . .

Eating twenty-seven dollar tortilla-adjacent chips with a heated cup of nacho-style cheese analogue product in a plastic service container makes me feel at home inside the movie theater.

Crunch . . .

That’s a mouthful of truth.

Crunch . . .

Especially if I’m watching Ingmar Bergman.

Crunch, crunch . . .

Because I’ll be honest with you: Bergman’s a little intimidating for my ass.

Crunch . . .

I hate to say this . . . but I don’t feel like I’m as smart as Bergman.

Crunch . . .

But if I have my comfort food right there on my lap . . . well, you know, I can sorta cope.

Crunch, crunch . . .

I can more easily come to terms with my lowly place in the scheme of audience, you know?

Crunch, crunch, crunch . . .

Yeah . . .

Crunch, crunch, crunch . . .

It’ll be alright.

Crunch, crunch, crunch . . .

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #48:

Bolted-on sex appeal.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 43

 

FORTRESS Y2K #3:

COMMAND CENTER MENTALITY

The weight of Millennium smashes down upon your brain.

You feel ill at ease within your casualness.

You need to get serious.

You need to get into uniform.

You need to get ranked up.

You need to go straight to the top of the chain of command.

You need to be surrounded by huge telescreens showing satellite feeds full of zoom and enhance and targeting reticles and coordinates and vital statistics and heat signatures and eyes on every arsenal and troop maneuver and world leader.

You’ve got to have a nuclear option. Preferably a bunch.

You need to feel like the Most Consequential Person. 

You need an ergonomically sound command chair.

You need a dramatic countdown.

You need sweat on every brow, every upper lip-save yours, you magnificent living statue you!

You need to get beyond body.

No meats on you, Now.

You’ve gone Full Notional.

The Human displaced by the Rank, by the Power.

Let it all work.

Telescreens and staff and State and citizens and nukes and soldiers and tax revenues and every last thing merges into the Higher You-the Grandiose Champeen who shall punch Millennium’s lights out!

. . . every dream fades into a lonely room, a pile of dirty laundry, fading vital signs, brippity farts under cover of dark, eyes glazing, Girls Gone Wild infomercial occupying the deep A.M., the thudding mediocre continuity of the No Clearcut Apocalypse Timeline . . .

THE NEW SIGNAGE #6:

ETERNITY BRIDGE AHEAD. FUCK THE GAS. EXIT VEHICLE AND WALK TO ACHIEVE ULTIMATE LIMINAL FUGUE STATE.

THINGS NEVER SAID #29:

“You’re on the Jumbotron, but I’m just a jumbo shrimp!”

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #139:

TRUMP ANNOUNCES PLAN TO ALLOCATE BILLIONS IN FEDERAL FUNDS TO EXPAND THE LABYRINTH OF LIES IN WHICH HE IS FOREVER TRAPPED.

SIMPLE PLEASURES #1:

Reading the manga Akira while listening to the soundtrack from the anime Akira.

FOR WANT OF A NAIL . . . (#10)

(Burning!Blazing!!Nova!!!)

. . . and then your signature transformation sequence goes nuclear, wiping out the rest of the series prematurely-but what a way to go!

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 42

 

THE NEW OBVIOUS #21:

Dude, like . . . diarrhea has a serious public relations problem!

F.A.Q. #6:

Q: Dude, like, do you know if they still serve those Swedish meatballs at Ikea?

A: I don’t work at Ikea. I haven’t set foot inside an Ikea in years. I can’t comment directly on your question. However . . . I will tell you this: what truly matters most is that you hold a Swedish meatball deep inside your heart. Cherish it. Venerate it. Then, once you’re done with all that, find yourself a crackerjack thoracic surgeon.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #138:

FACEBOOK, A KNOWN CESSPOOL OF DISINFORMATION, ABANDONS BOGUS FACT CHECKING OPERATION IN AN ATTEMPT TO BREAK BACK INTO THE NEWS CYCLE.

DISSOLVING CONTINENT

 

THE NEW DREAM #35:

-snatches of a rambling podgrift interview with a Phantom Litter Master . . .

“-you just drop it in bits and pieces all over. Like in a prison escape movie where the guys are sneaking out the excavation debris in their pant legs as they dig their tunnel. Don’t overthink it. As you get out of your car you just toss some food packaging or a soda can off to your side. Don’t follow it with your eyes. Keep your head up, eyes front, garbage out to your side. Move away from the direction you tossed your trash. Don’t look back. You can also simply drop your trash from your hand as you walk. Just keep your trash hand down by your side. Don’t get all cocked about it, don’t telegraph anything. It’s not something that requires all of you. It’s supposed to be tossed off. It must needs be a trifle-a tic. You work it into your day-in-day-out. It’s not an event. You’re not on a mission. When I started out it was an event. I was on a mission. I was, I dunno, I guess I convinced myself that I was mad about environmental degradation. I was on a mission to strip away the pretense of sustainable consumerism. I kept a diary. An online confessional thing. I wrote about greenwashing and the insidiousness of neoliberalism and how it was impossible to recycle our way to sustainability and I got deep into the literature to the point it was like a serious academic research project. Like there was an advanced degree waiting for me at the end of the line. But that wasn’t what I was doing. This was all just online blogging, posting, strictly white text on a black background-loooong after vlogging and podgrifting had nuked literacy in the general potential audience. But I didn’t want to look at that head-on. Especially because I kinda knew all of that. On some level I understood that what I was up to wasn’t really about activism or politics or right-and-wrong. It was simply something that I enjoyed doing. That’s all it needed to be. Everything else was still true. Our consumerism isn’t sustainable. Recycling will not save us. No politician has a program or a policy or even a sincere care. The only free speech that matters is money. That was a pragmatic reality pre-Citizens United. After Citizens United it became metaphysical, axiomatic, may as well write it into a general survey of the hard sciences alongside thermodynamics, evolution, and entropy. The entities with the Big Money make this world. And I didn’t have Big Money. Then or now. So, if I decide I want to spend time doing something I can tell myself it’s going to make a difference, and I even found people willing to pump me up, willing to play along with a sort-of collective make believe scenario that what I was doing mattered in the sense of having a consequential impact. And that was enjoyable. It didn’t feel bad at all. Playing pretend is fun. We all play pretend to one degree or another. I’ve played some rather involved games of pretend my entire life. I incorporated a lot of that fantasy material into the blog, actually.”

“Oh, yeah, I read some of that stuff.”

“Frankly, it’s some of my best writing. Plenty of people have told me directly that all the phantom litter stuff’s kind of a snooze, but the Sunsoft Extended Universe posts were the highlight of their week.”

“Like, dude, your version of Batman-I mean that was the sickest, dude!”

“Sure, all I did was put Batman in the tank from Blaster Master and sprinkled in Journey to Silius-I just saw myself as a narrative flower arranger, you know? I was just doing what everything does now. All those comic book movies are just expensive cut-ups of comic books, right? And just like comic books it doesn’t matter if you love ‘em or hate ‘em. People love to love ‘em, and they also love to hate ‘em. People surrender to mad obsessions with the minutiae of lore and continuity and casting rumors and thereby dissolve their tormented egos in a warm bath of trivia-or they feel superior to the vast squishy middle types by tearing it all down. The IP holders can’t lose either way.”

“Oh, okay, so like . . . is that what you see yourself as doing as well?”

“Sure. I’m a villain for littering up the joint and/or a hero for exposing the nonsense of our way of life. Love to love me or love to hate me. It’s a win either way.”

“But like . . . getting back to your Phantom Litter Master crusade-”

“Sure.”

“-like . . . you were littering up your town because . . . like . . . you wanted people to realize that they can’t escape the trash-is that what you were-?”

“My main inspiration was First Blood. That’s the novel that gave the world John Rambo. Rambo comes home from the war and ends up unleashing the war on American soil. Because his home isn’t really a place of peace. His home turned him into a killing machine in Vietnam. And then his home wants to pretend he doesn’t even exist, that there never was any war. So Rambo flips out. Storm and stress ensue. It’s a great book. Way better than all those derpy movies they made out of it. So . . . I decided to be the Rambo of trash, of litter. Our society hides the trash. Our society tries to trick us into thinking it isn’t there. It tries to convince us that it has ‘taken out the trash.’ But I reveal the truth. I bring the trash on home.”

“Huh . . . but like . . . Rambo was super-aggressive . . . whereas you’re super-sneaky with your shit . . . how do you square that?”

“I was inspired by Rambo. Maybe I’m exaggerating to say I am the Rambo of littering. Fair enough. But there’s an element of destruction in what I do. I’m not using guns and bombs, but I am making a mess of a kind.”

“True that, I can dig that.”

“Rambo has to make a mess to get his message across. I make little messes on the sly to get my revenge in my own way. That’s the narrative I’ve evolved over time at any rate.”

“You say it’s a narrative-is it true? Or is this all a put-on, a, uh, uh, a prank, an act?”

“I definitely would say that looking back that the impulse to be sneaky with littering was the first thing. It preceded any sort of conscious program or message or political stance. I’ve come to believe that such an impulse is core to much of what passes for our politics here in America. And people go for it. Even if it gets us into wars of adventure or accelerates Climate Inferno-we gotta have action, gotta feel important, gotta constantly be trying to scam and jam even if it’s our own allies-whatever it takes to keep on cosplaying as the Most Consequential Nation. Fake it ‘til you make it type of deal.”

“Dude, like . . . this Heat Dome . . . I don’t know if it’s worth it . . .”

“Worth it or not it’s year-round, now, isn’t it?”

“Dude . . . it’s just . . . can’t we have a few days without it?”

“Not now, no.”

“Ugggggghhhhhh!”

“And, yes, I’m fully aware that my Phantom Litter Master crusade changed absolutely nothing. But I had fun.”

“Dude . . . don’t you think . . . and I’m not trying to criticize you . . . but don’t you think you were being a little superficial?”

“Sure. But I was having fun.”

“Like, damn, I get it, I get it . . .”

“That’s why I was willing to go on the record with you. I think we’re both impulse based. You once had a mid-range comedy career. But at a certain point you realized all you wanted was just to be the center of attention-that was your core impulse. Not to craft a really great joke. Not because you got a charge out of a live audience. Certainly not because you had some cutting satirical vision of existence. You just wanted to cosplay as the Most Essential Person. Running for President was too difficult, too expensive. Moreover, no one who is paying any attention has any actual reverence for the Office of the President. It’s just another bogus, corrupt authority, has been since forever, but, in the popular imagination, most people would say Nixon’s to blame. But people still trick themselves into trusting overpaid entertainment figures. So, you opted to become a podgrifter. You talk, therefore you must have something important to say. I chose litter.”

“Dude, but like . . . we’re the same.”

“I’ll play along.”

“I chose talking to people, just asking people questions; but like that’s its own kind of litter, right?”

“Sure, I’ll play along.”

“Because, like, conversation’s so . . . disposable, isn’t it?”

“Sure.”

“Like, isn’t it?”

“Sure.”

-at this point, the conversation becomes an endlessly self-iterating marathon of ad reads for mattresses, underwear, home security systems, virtual private network subscriptions, crypto dog coins, pay-to-win online gaming scams, raw liver home delivery services, red wine enemas, anti-food meal replacement powders, tiny plots of land in Ireland, royalty certificates in which each ad is performed in an increasingly manic tone of jubilant insincerity . . .