NOTIONAL HEADLINE #237:

OVER THE WEEKEND, AND AT THE BEHEST OF THE SAUDI AND ISRAELI GOVERNMENTS, PRESIDENT TRUMP ORDERED AN EXTENSIVE BOMBING CAMPAIGN OF IRAN WITH THE IMMEDIATE GOAL OF REGIME CHANGE, BUT WITH THE ULTIMATE GOAL OF GETTING AMERICANS TO FORGET ABOUT RISING COSTS OF LIVING, CLIMATE CATASTROPHE, PAY-FOR-PLAY CORRUPTION SCHEMES WITHIN THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION, I.C.E. DEATH SQUAD ATROCITIES, AND THE EPSTEIN FILES . . . VICE PRESIDENT VANCE TO OVERSEE THE INSTALLATION INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE OF A HUGE NEW COUCH WHICH IS SAID TO OFFER “JUST THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF GRIP AND PUSHBACK” . . . IN OTHER NEWS, A NEW ARTIFICIALLY INTELLIGENT ROBOT TOY DEVELOPED BY A PENTAGON CONTRACTOR WILL BE EQUIPPED WITH ADORABLE MINI-TASERS TO SHOCK YOUR INSUFFERABLE BRATS INTO COMPLIANCE . . .

LOADING SCREEN WISDOM #47:

EARN BONUSES TO FEEL EXCEPTIONAL.

BURNING QUESTIONS IN A UNIVERSE OF MYSTERY #96:

Did I leave my switchblade comb on the bus?

EMERGENCE #8:

. . . Libby didn’t know if it was right or wrong to enjoy watching Danton’s Tower, a movie based on her life that depicted her killing scores of people-

-but, yeah, this movie rocks! Doesn’t have much to do with what really happened. They show me as this very striking looking blonde lady in a powered armor getup, which I guess they did because they needed their protagonist to have an actual face as opposed to a faceplate, but that still weirds me out. She’s good, though, she kicks ass. They have multiple scenes of her eating all those military rations. I think it’s a thing with this director. He always has people eating. I watched that other one where there was the scene with the dudes eating a huge meal, and then the bad guys showed up, so they started stuffing their faces, and making to-go boxes and doggy bags, and the one guy slams a whole pot of coffee, and then in the big shootout they’re still munching on drumsticks as people are getting blown away, I liked that.

Aside from her brain, Libby hadn’t had any organs in a lifetime and a half. The producers initially thought they could push her as a new kind of cyborg heroine, easily manifested by some computer graphics team. And then they did a focus group which conjured some oracular market research suggesting they go with an actual star. The fictional Libby seemed destined to eclipse the reality based Libby. So she did a string of hostile interviews shitting all over the project.

But this kinda rocks. Even back then I think I just wanted more money because the blonde lady was some sort of big deal back then. So when I heard about her signing on to the picture I just knew I should agitate for a bigger dragon’s hoard. But it was nothing personal. I don’t remember it being personal.

Libby tended to forget about her paranoid outbursts from back in the day. She saw Illuminati and Rosicrucian plots around every corner, and she was perfectly happy to call out the warring conspiracies as the causes of her disenfranchisement. A decade of therapy got it all under control, but it was touch and go for a dire stretch. Libby even showed up at the lead actress’s luxury compound threatening to launch an all-out attack on “all Illuminati bastards,” before a crisis negotiation team arrived to talk her into powering down her weapons.

Oh . . . there was some drama back then, wasn’t there?

Libby, encased within her throne, betrayed no discomfort, nor did her faceplate express any hint of inner turmoil. No lights illuminated her house as she mainlined the movie. Her space offered plenty of rooms and furniture, and sometimes she even lived her days as though she needed to turn on lights and make fancy dinners-she even hired houseguests now and again when her therapist pushed her to do it-but, no, she didn’t really need to do any of that meats-people stuff unless the mood struck her. 

Yeah . . . goddamn, I remember how bad it got . . . but those movie people worked all kinds of sleazy hardball stratagems, didn’t they? I remember the producer guy later told me he “respected my balls” for all the wildass shit I pulled to get my backend . . .

In the movie, Chief Executive Officer Danton Pusser waltzed with his secretary, the innocent and tragic Justine. The movie version of Pusser was a gothically depraved corporate oligarch decked out in a Dracula-ized Mao Suit. Sweet, mousy Justine-mostly invented for the screenplay-wore a kind of militarized French maid costume. Boss and secretary waltzed about a vast ballroom that could’ve been an outtake from Citizen Kane’s Xanadu.

But it all worked out in the end. I got my dump trucks of cash. The movie busted blocks. I even started therapy. Who cares if it’s a bunch of goth kid horseshit? The real life Pusser was just a dickhead in an organization man uniform. When I killed him I thought I’d waxed some middle manager. It took a month to identify him from his DNA. We were edgy that he might’ve slipped through our fingers, but so fucking relieved when we confirmed his corpse residue . . .

Movie Pusser led Justine in and out and around a holographic fantasia of some cyclopean glittering future city. 

Yeah, none of this is real. Pusser was trim for his age, he could’ve fucked if he wanted to, but he had been married to the same woman for twenty-five years. And the dude was bald, but he made it work for him, he looked like the man who had hustled his hair away clambering for the big brass ring or whatever. He didn’t have a luxurious mane of night dark anime villain hair. He didn’t try to seduce his secretary, or gift her any vampire’s ball Halloween threads, none of that. There was his personal assistant. She was close to him. But it was all above board.

Movie Pusser looks into Justine’s eyes. Some critics interpreted this as a Dracula hypnosis thing. Justine, every bit the image of a shy librarian, averts her gaze. Movie Pusser uses finger and thumb to lift her face back into position. The frame is filled with the executive’s androgynously handsome face.

Now, as I recall . . . the personal assistant did seemingly join her boss in death. But that was all very murky. I think I was told she’d been injured in the initial assault. I might’ve even been the one who fired the shot . . . I’m trying to remember her name, because it wasn’t Justine . . .

It all happened so long ago.

I mean, who still watches movies?

Sometimes Libby liked to pretend to be the last movie watcher for whom all of cinema had been conjured into existence.

It’s fun to pretend . . .

FUN YOU CAN HAVE #20:

Stockpile Nerf weapons.

Hoard snacks and soft drinks.

Construct a pillow fort.

Raise an army of action figures, vehicles, and playsets.

Issue a series of deranged communiques declaring your breakaway republic.

Have activities to do while you wait for government forces to arrive to lay siege to your pillow fort: Sudoku, crossword puzzles, Nintendo 3DS, coloring books, etc.

When the little plastic Army Men arrive to give you trouble, order your own troops to fight to the last man. Tell ‘em to fire every bullet, and then use their rifles as clubs . . . and if those rifles break, well, just pick up the man next to you, and swing him as a club! And once every last fighting figure has been irreparably shattered, just howl and snarl and hiss and caterwaul and bellow and screech and scream ‘til the enemy completely loses their fucking minds!

 . . . in the end, there you stand. The spent Nerf gun in your hands. Your eyes wild with battle lust. And yet . . . you have come to know the bitterness of victory . . .

“I’ve destroyed all my enemies, but I still want to fight!”

Freeze frame as you start to smash yourself in the head with your spent Nerf gun . . .

F.A.Q. #27:

Q: Did you burn ants with a magnifying glass when you were a kid?

A: I tried to do that on a few occasions . . . actually, I had way more fun feeding ants to ant lions. That was like my personal sarlacc pit!

PLACES YOU CAN GO #5:

The now defunct college radio station within whose disused office you will find a boxful of vinyl 45s featuring B-sides of Hoyt Axton’s theme song for Mitchell . . .

THE NEW OBVIOUS #48:

I bet you that measles-for all that it appreciates the anti-vaccination movement’s efforts to bring it back into the mainstream-really kinda resents the anti-vaxxers.

Like measles just thinks to itself, “These anti-vaxx people make it too damn easy! They’re hypnotized by the steady flow of disinformation pouring out of their screens. They keep voting all these greedy crooks into office who burn down their government from the inside. They aren’t willing to even skim the Wikipedia article on how vaccines work. I know I should be grateful . . . but I just don’t respect them. They make it too easy for me. I spend hours listening to grindset podcasts to get myself psyched up to work, work, work . . . and for what? I’m pretty much on autopilot seven days outta the week. They’ve robbed me of any sense of earned achievement!”

It’s tougher than it looks to be measles these days . . .

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #236:

PRESIDENT TRUMP UNLIKELY TO REFUND TARIFFS-DESPITE THE SUPREME COURT’S RECENT RULING-LARGELY DUE TO THE COLLECTED TAXES ALREADY BEING SPENT ON A COMBINATION OF GHISLAINE MAXWELL’S LUXURY ACCOMMODATIONS, CRYPTO RUG PULLS, AND A NATIONWIDE NETWORK OF EXTRALEGAL I.C.E. DETENTION FACILITIES.

PHOTO #5:

I took all these really great photos.

But there was this one that was simply perfect.

Captured the instant of someone walking off the job that they hated for so long.

It was, of course, a selfie, and, no, they didn’t actually let me quit.

It was a whole thing. 

They’d invested so much in me, and they wanted me to feel valued-they gave me awards, I built out that fuckin’ network-and, honestly, I didn’t feel so bad as I initially thought . . .

But I was also on five different non-prescription amphetamines. Didn’t do the sleeping thing, not much of it, didn’t miss it, either, not for a long while. The sources of my award winning productivity, my value. My emotions were separated out into two kinds, broadly speaking, and most of my “up” vibes were constantly surfacing, and pretty much all of my “downs” were in some kind of intrapersonal blacksite. And I thought that made all the sense. I mean, it did . . . but then things started getting loose from that blacksite. Which was interesting. My downs and my ups were working together at last. That was even more interesting. Because then I started doing what I actually wanted to do. I took all of the pictures all of the time. I even forgot that I had “quit,” which was funny. The bosses did a real good job of getting some of me to buy into this sort of temporary amnesia thing, but most of me hadn’t actually forgotten anything, which is why I persisted with my photography project past all sense and warnings and fears.

And then I got fired not too long after that for taking so many damn photos in the office, which was strictly forbidden, but I didn’t give a shit, because I just wanted to capture people inside that space that wasn’t supposed to be documented like that. And then I told the world about all those cameras and microphones in the restrooms, got a big thing in some magazine I’d never read before in my life, spent years in court, dictated a tell-all thing to some mercenary ghostwriter, sold it to some independent producer who sold it to some studio who sold it to some streamer-

Most shocking of all? It kinda broke through the noise for a solid seventy-six hours or so. 

Not much, in the scheme of things, but how much speed could I ever ingest to compete with the Trumps and the Swifts and the Climate Catastrophes of this vacuous world, y’know?

I did okay.

But honestly, I never set out to be a whistleblower.

I just followed the leader to some weird places is all.

The company had-has-all kinds of surveillance: keystrokes, metal detectors, explosive sniffers, drug testing, background checks, cameras all over the place, microphones all over the place, open plan offices, offsite mandatory social gatherings, apps on everyone’s mobile-really, my whole photography adventure was just like me-working it out with some next level hilarious Speedy Logic-trying to be like the company, to beat the company at its own shit. As it turns out, my firing offense wasn’t breaking the rules so much as it was a kind of blasphemy.

The selfie holds up, even if it turned out to be a picture of a “fake quitter.” 

People just screen out the convolutions of my story no matter how many times I tell it, and the movie based on my life did the same thing. 

I think I’ll quit again, just go along with the Hollywood version. 

Actually, the selfie that got memed the most is the one they staged with the lead actor . . .

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #235:

AT THE INAUGURAL MEETING OF THE BOARD OF PEACE PRESIDENT TRUMP TOOK THE OPPORTUNITY DURING A RAMBLING, NONSENSICAL SPEECH TO DECLARE WORLD WAR III.

FANTASY MASHUP FORCE #31:

The ending of Neon Genesis Evangelion Episode 26 (1996)

+

The ending of The Game (1997)

=

An overload of people from your life surrounding you to congratulate you for making some huge existential leap into some great unknown whatchamafuck something or other . . .

NEW MERCH #7:

IVAN INSULTO

Ivan Insulto is a mean-spirited, baldy-headed, jug-eared talking doll wearing a sport jacket and khaki pants that looks like a puppet some cornball comedian would put his hand up inside of back during the late 1980s to early 1990s proliferation of stand-up comedy shows on TV.

Like do you remember when VH1 aired stand-up comedy? Like do you think some dim-bulb executive of programming was fantasizing about replacing all those music videos with a never-ending parade of self-loathing cokeheads zooming through their Tight Five? Would that have been a more defensible outcome than a never ending stream of Behind the Music, reality TV junk, and talking head retrospective inductions of phony nostalgia for the dystopian 1980s of Reagan and Thatcher and their right-wing ilk? Who can say . . .

But, um, Ivan Insulto isn’t a puppet, but he is marketed as an insult comedian automaton who follows you around your home relentlessly ridiculing you. 

Basically, when you go to order him online the manufacturer accesses your Identity Profile and programs your Ivan Insulto to insult you on that basis.

And, of course, your Identity Profile has been compiled from a vast array of surveillance data that banks, schools, governments, insurance companies, healthcare providers, online retailers, brick’n’mortar retailers, intelligence agencies (CIA, NSA, MI6, FSB, MSS, Mossad, etc), real estate firms, fast food chains, police departments, federal law enforcement agencies (FBI, ATF, RCMP, etc), INTERPOL, credit card companies, airlines, rental car companies, search engines, dark money influence networks, motels, hotels, truck stops, capsule hotels, funeral parlors, adult entertainment venues, adult entertainment vendors, adult streaming video sites, mainline video streaming sites, organized crime families, theme parks, automobile manufacturers, drug companies, arms manufacturers, defense contractors, comic book publishers, video game developers, video game publishers, microbreweries, your friends, your family, your spouse(s), your partner(s), your exes, your employers, your lovers, VPN service providers, and churches have sold to The Ivan Insulto Company that manufactures the Ivan Insulto automatons.

So, like, that Identity Profile on you . . . it’s pretty much on point. The Ivan Insulto Company pretty much knows you better than you know yourself. At least that’s how it all comes across in the marketing. Bold claims, right? But do they have any steak on ‘em, or are they merest sizzle?

Well . . . I can only speak to my own experience with the Ivan Insulto automaton . . . and in all honesty . . . I would have to say its verbal barbs and cut-downs and put-downs and extemporaneous diss tracks and harangues and heckles and diatribes and ad hominem rat-a-tat-tats and invidious invective and vomitous vitriol and bursts of boasts and abusive outbursts were all pretty much on point . . . that little bastard got me good . . . 

But I think it got me a little too good.

How can I put this . . . it took only about a half hour to forty minutes for Ivan Insulto to push me over the edge. 

And I was so angry by that point that . . . how can I describe it?

Have you ever been so angry that you couldn’t even feel your anger? 

It’s like your anger gives you an out-of-body experience-

Or maybe it’s more like a kind of high, like I was so high on my rage that there was a kind of floatiness to the rampage that ensued-

Something like that . . . and, when I came back down to earth, there wasn’t much left of Ivan Insulto . . . or my house . . . or that boring-ass suburb . . . or that state I was living in . . . so I must’ve been having a good time, right, to put out that much effort?

Yeah . . . 

Obviously, I’ve already put in my order for a brand new Ivan Insulto featuring my fully updated Identity Profile so I won’t be holding anything back the second time around, no sir, no ma’am!

That’s how they get you-ha, ha, ha . . .

10 out of 10.

MOVIE REVIEW: FOES (1977)

Written, Directed, and Special Effects Designed by John Coats

. . .

“I’m going to the other side of the island.”

. . .

Review by William D. Tucker.

UFOs. Flying saucers. People see ‘em. People wonder what they are, and why they’re so mysterious, always flitting about, teasing us, never quite letting us see the goods. All the photographs and video footage are indistinct, blurry anticlimaxes-if not total damn hoaxes. Some people write books about ‘em trying to explain what they are, how they came to be-and they end up making some wildass claims about the saucers and their presumed occupants. Abductions. Anal probes. Harvesting human sperm and eggs to mix ‘em with extraterrestrial sperm and eggs to cook up some alien-human hybrid omelets. Perverse conspiracies involving government/x-tro collaboration. This is stuff people claim is true! Not a shred of actual evidence, and yet people concoct entire cosmologies around a whole array of interstellar creatures. You have people writing extravagantly paranoid science fiction sagas but they’re published as non-fiction. Some marketing genius must’ve realized right quick that these alien abduction stories moved more units if you sold them as “shocking true stories.” What a fuckin’ racket, right?

As a kid, I used to believe all this stuff was true. Like, y’know, when I was K thru Fifth Grade, elementary school. I spent hours and hours watching TV shows that presented themselves as nonfiction narrative recreations of horrifying alien invasion scenarios of the most gruesomely intimate kind: people kidnapped out of their beds by strange entities that could walk through walls; alien mind control powers that could corrupt your perceptions by implanting screen memories; women forcibly impregnated with alien fetuses and nonconsensual medical exams that could be described as a system of organized high-tech rape-and when I asked my parents about this stuff they just kind of shrugged it off, didn’t seem to have much to say about it one way or another. I started to think that my parents were in denial because they couldn’t acknowledge their powerlessness before these alien masterminds. Of course, I grew out of all this by the time I hit middle school. Around that time I got into serial killers, gangsters, and world-ending diseases, so all that UFO stuff seemed less urgent. The X-Files came along and kinda gave the game away with its overstuffed mega-conspiracy style of plots which made all the paranormal/crackpot stuff seem like plug’n’play narrative gimmicks similar to assembling a tabletop role playing adventure from a Monster Manual. Mulder and Scully would encounter one reality shattering horror after another-and Scully still wouldn’t get it. The true conspiracy seemed to be a plot by Chris Carter to make Mulder look right all the time at Scully’s expense. By the time I got to the end of high school I was pretty much an atheist. 

Which brings me to the 1977 movie Foes, a film that benefits greatly from not trying to over-explain itself. Foes is about a flying saucer that harasses a quartet of people on a small island that’s home to a lighthouse. We get some exposition laden scenes of clueless military officials whose equipment is all being malfunctioned by an energy field projected by the flying saucer. The occupants of the saucer zap the humans with strange energy beams that pick them up off the ground and/or cause them to catch fire. You ever burn ants with the sunlight concentrated through a magnifying glass? Well, now we’re the ants. Eventually, we see creepy lights come out of the saucer that may or may not be living beings. Much of the running time is taken up by nondescript humans overcome with a nameless sense of dread to be in the presence of the opaque and ominous saucer. Nothing is explained. We’re never told who or what the saucer and its accompanying lights are supposed to be, nor are we reassured that the government has any secret answers. You watch what happens, and then you have to make up your own mind.

Foes didn’t scare me here in this year of 2026, but I found it utterly fascinating to watch. It doesn’t back down from being creepy and mysterious. Sure, the special effects are obviously special effects, but they’re also precise and evocative. Foes is absolutely committed to preserving the mysterious and the inexplicable without any trace of romance or sentiment. Something from beyond takes an interest in us, and we may have to accept the fact that it will always be incomprehensible to us. 

Of course . . . we may also be beyond the understanding of the saucer beings . . .

You ever got the ants' side of the story before you burned ‘em on a whim?

Probably not . . .

SIMPLE PLEASURES #21:

Realizing I need neither physical media nor streaming video for I have attained an Inner All Regions All Formats Media Player of the Mind!

PLACES YOU CAN GO #4:

There’s this pristine restroom in the heart of the public university campus which just about nobody uses because it’s completely outside the typical flows of student traffic. Not to mention the fact that it’s deep inside a boring-ass maze of institutional hallways that few undergrads have the patience to navigate. This restroom is so underused that the toilet water’s still blue after 5pm most days. Sure, sure, every now and again someone finds it . . . but even those that find it almost never find it right after someone else finds it. No one posts about it because it’s too mundane, and/or people who stumble across it realize it’s a secret worth keeping. I suppose one could say it’s too lame to post about online-that it’s the kind of thing people would mock you for venerating. But the most important thing to realize, I would say, is that you can only get to this pristine restroom by looking up from your handscreen, taking an interest in your actual surroundings, and willing your feet to move your body in novel directions . . .

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #234:

“PERHAPS WE ARE MORE HUMAN THAN WE CAN KNOW.” IN A SURPRISING INTERVIEW THAT HAS CONFOUNDED PHILOSOPHERS OF MIND, THE DOW-INDUSTRIAL-AN ABSTRACT SET OF PROCEDURES AND MEASUREMENTS WITH NO PREVIOUSLY DOCUMENTED CONSCIOUSNESS OR MORALITY-CONDEMNS ALLEGEDLY CONSCIOUS U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL PAM BONDI’S CRUEL INDIFFERENCE TOWARDS EPSTEIN SURVIVORS.

THE NEW OBVIOUS #47:

The ultimate goal of American Existence is to make enough money so you can bribe the crooked President and produce a Super Bowl Halftime Show so you can placate the masses being robbed blind by the Executive Criminal and all his cronies.

It’s something to work towards, y’know?

Something you can incorporate into your Personal Paradigm or whatever . . .

THINGS NEVER SAID #52:

“I didn’t do so well as an artist. Those magazines trashed me, said my work was juvenile, execrable, a waste of resources you’d be loath to waste. So, I went into finance. Got all the golds. I bought all the magazines. I streamlined the human elements. Just let the A.I. things spit out good reviews of my stuff. I don’t even have to make anything. I just tasked the A.I. things to imagine what I could create, and then praise it to the highest damn heaven. I don’t even have to leave the house. Those things have no choice but to imagine this godlike, oh-so-stable genius version of me, just boring in deep to their hallucinations-emergently, unprompted-I don’t even have to exist . . .”

FANTASY MASHUP FORCE #30:

The Sandlot + EarthBound graphics assets . . .

"You're killing me, Smalls!"

Basically, some kind of fan video game adaptation of The Sandlot that looks like EarthBound. 

People will dig it, call it ‘cozy,’ call it ‘a worthy distraction from our troubled times,’ the usual bullshit. 

But . . . there’s a dark secret level based upon the baseball game being played by the insane soldiers from the movie The Face of Another . . .

"Smalls . . . you're killing me . . . !"

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #94:

The karaoke system that needs neither singers nor audience.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #233:

MOTHMAN, IN A RECENT CONTROVERSIAL PODGRIFT INTERVIEW, EXPRESSED DEEP RESENTMENT TOWARDS BOTH THE ‘CONSPIRACY THEORY COMMUNITY’ AND ‘THOSE URBAN LEGENDS PEOPLE,’ WHILE ALSO PUSHING HIS OWN LINE OF BRANDED ATHLEISURE WEAR.

EMERGENCE #7:

. . . years after the Battle of Burnguy Mall, Snak had convinced himself that he saw the poster of the girl balancing a knife on her fingertip after he couldn’t get his severely injured hands to pick up the gun. Basically, Snak was just gonna lay down and die, but then he saw the poster up on the back wall of the physical media store, and that gave him enough energy to walk out of Burnguy Mall and eventually be rescued by one or more unidentified Good Samaritan(s).

But we have numerous earlier accounts in which Snak told interviewers that he tried to pick up the gun after seeing the poster of the girl balancing the knife on her fingertip. In other words, Snak’s inability to use his hands is the more immediate cause of his decision to leave Burnguy Mall, perhaps to seek help or perhaps to stumble to his end somewhere outside the mall.

Snak also claimed both the poster and his nonfunctional hands as coequal factors in his decision to leave the mall.

Snak also seemed to admit to his own confusion over his memories of this difficult time in his life during at least one after dinner speaking engagement . . . a confusion he also strenuously denied on several other occasions, including during a promotional tour for his band A Brontosaurus in Sheboygan.

Further complicating matters is the possibly fictitious widely licensed nature of Snak. There have been so many spinoffs and alternate reality versions and bootlegs and remixes and ripoffs and hoax-i-fied versions of Snak that it is hard to determine which-if any-one of him was present at the Battle of Burnguy Mall in the first, middle, and last place . . .

THE NEW OBVIOUS #46:

The sooner Trump leaves the White House, the sooner we can try something else.

Maybe the Couch Man will be even worse, but at least he speaks in complete sentences.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #232:

POP CULTURE HYPE ALERT SECTION: THE JUST ANNOUNCED IRON LUNG 2 IS SET TO STAR YOUTUBE’S OWN RICH EVANS WITH ORIGINAL SONGS BY TAY ZONDAY . . . BILL COSBY IS REPORTED TO BE INCREASING HIS INTAKE OF ANTIOXIDANT-ENHANCED JELLO PUDDING SO HE CAN LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO HEADLINE THE REFURBISHED TRUMP-KENNEDY CENTER . . . AND THE HELLFIRE SHROUDED GHOST OF EPSTEIN ANNOUNCES A NEW GROK-GENERATED ‘YOUTH-FOCUSED FILM FRANCHISE’ TO BE PRODUCED BY BRETT RATNER, DIRECTED BY WOODY ALLEN, SCRIPTED BY NOAM CHOMSKY AND STEVE BANNON; WITH PETER ATTIA AS LONGEVITY COACH; LAWRENCE M. KRAUSS AS SCIENCE ADVISOR; BILL GATES PROVIDING TECH SUPPORT; HOWARD LUTNICK AS FUNDRAISER; BARRY WEISS ON PUBLICITY; ALAN DERSHOWITZ LAWYERING UP A STORM; ELON MUSK SUPPLYING THE SPECIAL K; FEATURING AN EPIC THEME SONG BY THE I.C.E. DEATH SQUAD’S MEN’S CHOIR WITH SAXOPHONE SOLOS BY BILL CLINTON; AND HOSTED BY DONALD JOHN TRUMP . . .

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 94

THINGS NEVER SAID #51:

“Welcome to the Blog Level of Godding.”

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #231:

WELCOME, ACTUAL DAMN HUMANS, TO THE HEADLINES: “BUT WHERE WILL MY SWEET BOYS SING?” MUSIC DIRECTOR FOR I.C.E. DEATH SQUAD’S MEN’S CHOIR DISMAYED BY TRUMP’S ANNOUNCEMENT OF KENNEDY CENTER CLOSURE IN JULY . . . “WAIT. AM I STILL IN THE NEWS CYCLE?” NICOLAS MADURO SPENDS TIME IN JAIL PONDERING WEIGHTY EXISTENTIAL CONUNDRUMS . . . “ALL IS FORGIVEN.” BAD BUNNY’S ANTI-I.C.E. GRAMMYS SPEECH EARNS PRAISE EVEN FROM DISGRUNTLED COACHELLA ATTENDEES . . .

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #93:

The party that needs neither hosts nor guests.

LOADING SCREEN WISDOM #46:

I WONDER WHAT THE PEOPLE WILL SEE IN THE FINAL DAYS.

BURNING QUESTIONS IN A UNIVERSE OF MYSTERY #95:

What will the people of the future think of us?

THE NEW OBVIOUS #45:

Republicans love to bash federal overreach . . . unless they’re the ones doing the overreaching.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 93

 

THEME MUSIC FOR EVERYTHING #33:

Theme of Intermittently Funky Mercenaries: BGM/Menu by George “The Fat Man” Sanger (Swords and Serpents NES OST)

You shout it to the world, “I’M ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY! I’VE NO FUCKS TO GIVE!”

. . . but you’ll probably do the right thing in the end.

Most of the time.

Look, uhhh . . . you didn’t become a wandering soldier of fortune because you wanted to die in your sleep or in a bed in some for-profit hospital. 

Nor were you the sort to feel a swelling of joy in your chest as you imagined your perfect wedding ceremony complete with choreographed groomsmen and bridesmaids entering to the action movie music from The Life Aquatic. 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you got bank accounts set up to provide for the bastards you’ve strewn across the overworld map-you’re not a total louse . . . except when you are . . . 

Look, some people don’t like church and state and taxes and tithes.

Some of us ain’t feeling it when some boss or supervisor convinces themselves they’re a king. 

Some of us just aren’t scared of badges or presidents or prime ministers or dictators-for-life . . . though we’ll gladly take their money . . . 

To be an outlaw is to be an outsider of a kind, ideally an outsider by choice . . . but why’s it sting when people sling words like ‘psychopath’ or ‘bloodlust’ or ‘thug-for-hire’ . . .

Look, even if you don’t always choose to defend the peasant farmers against the robber barons and marauders of this world . . . even if you end up on the wrong side of some regional conflagration . . . at least you can enjoy all the gory details of your own defeat.

People who care too much . . . there’s a risk they may not bounce back from devastation. 

You have a dream where all of the flags are burning . . . all of the nations are falling . . . people are losing their minds in the streets . . . but you’ve got a thousand fake passports, and a thousand safe houses, and a thousand bank accounts . . . and soon enough the sweatshops are manufacturing new flags, and the lawyers and the oligarchs are concocting new nations . . . What's everybody shouting about? Seems pretty orderly after a few cycles . . .

You know how it all works, and how it doesn’t.

You have your place, until you don’t, but you kinda prefer living rough these days.

You’ll even get a chance to be the hero every other cycle.

And it only gets funnier to you each run . . .

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #230:

ENTERTAINMENT SCOOP ZONE: NEXT INSTALLMENT OF SCREAM FRANCHISE TO FEATURE A LIQUID METAL GHOSTFACE . . . NEW STUDY SHOWS STRONG CORRELATION BETWEEN THE PLANETARY DEATH SPIRAL OF ENDSTAGE CAPITALISM AND THE FINANCIAL SUCCESS OF HUNGER GAMES SEQUELS, PREQUELS, SIDEQUELS, SPINOFFS, RIPOFFS, AND VARIOUS ANCILLARY MERCHANDISING GAMBITS. IN OTHER WORDS: AUDIENCES RELATE . . . DESPITE INITIAL RUMORS A THOROUGH INVESTIGATION REVEALS THE BONE TEMPLE TO NOT BE AN ADULT FILM . . . COUNT DRACULA, IN AN EPICALLY CATTY PODGRIFT INTERVIEW, ACCUSES THE TOP OSCAR CONTENDER SINNERS OF ‘RIDING HIS CAPE’ . . . THE HELLFIRE SHROUDED GHOST OF EPSTEIN IS IN TALKS WITH MELANIA DIRECTOR BRETT RATNER TO GET HIS OWN CINEMATIC GLAZING . . .

SIMPLE PLEASURES #20:

I keep on watching the Rebuild of Evangelion movies until I’ve convinced myself I actually like ‘em . . . 

10,000 years after the last Blu-Ray Player has died . . . 

NEW MERCH #6:

THE ULTIMATE CHILDREN OF AVARICE AND BETRAYAL

They’re . . . baseball cards?

I’m pretty sure they’re baseball cards.

I’m not actually sure, but . . .

They got photos on the front depicting sludgy, fleshy uniformed, uhhh, like, human-adjacent forms in postures of action, striking curious poses-

Look. It’s AI generated, obviously. That’s how things’re done, now. 

Maybe, like, they trained the fake software brains on the nonsensical, authoritarian word salad pseudo-speeches of Donald Trump? Maybe these figures are supposed to be the ultimate children of avarice and betrayal? 

Some of them look like they could be indie horror game bosses: aggressive, torturous forms surging forth from shattered American mindscapes. Very Endstage-Circling-the-Drain-of-Capitalism coded.

They’ve got statistics on the back for different unpronounceable, er, words? Like I guess they could be denoting the relevant measurable qualities needed to practice some style of truth-murdering sport, or some contest designed to oppress and digest democracy itself?

Also . . . and I don’t mean to be gross . . . but they’ve got . . . residue . . . Christ!

Yeah, these cards suck.

Zero out of 10. 

No good at all.

Not even as a joke gift.

Unless you want to start a regional war or something.

Don’t even recycle ‘em.

Burn ‘em, and fire the ashes into space.

Zero recommend.

PLACES YOU CAN GO #3:

There’s a parking lot where the last 1980s henchman waits for you. When he’s not sitting on the hood of his broken down baby blue Chevette, catching rays on his bald head, knocking back Michelob and Coors with his nunchaku stuffed down the front of his pants, he struts around in his headband, leather vest, mom jeans, cowboy boots, prison tats of pinup girls, and no shirt. The dude’s got his knuckle duster over his fingerless glove, a switchblade in his pocket, a Bulldog .44 holstered at the small of his back, a Walther PPK in an ankle rig, and he’s keeping up his nunchaku technique. 

But if you really want to rock he’s got a gym bag stashed inside the long shuttered Rax Roast Beef-it’s hidden underneath a surrealistically incongruous reconstruction of a Wendy’s salad bar-packed with a MAC-10, a chopped down AK-47, a sawed-off pump shotgun, fragrant athletic supporter, family portions of PCP and cocaine, and ammo, dammit, ammo. If you defeat him he’ll tell you with his dying breath the combination to the manager’s safe inside the former Rax Roast Beef building. If you open the safe you’ll obtain a long expired box of extra large ribbed condoms, a floppy disc containing the secret sauce recipe, a couple of custom speed loaders for the Bulldog .44, and an enchanted bike chain. The bike chain’s the keeper. 

But beware and take care!

The more you use that bike chain, the more likely you are to end up as the cursed guardian of some extinct fast food location. Or you’ll get spiritually stuck to some dead mall or creepy abandoned amusement park where you’ll have to fend off hordes of middle-aged, behind-the-times urbex YouTubers. If you’re lucky, you might end up spectrally attached to some vacated McMansion down in some especially Floridian hellspace. If you get good enough with that bike chain you might be able to fight off a hurricane or two, but the rising tides of Climate Inferno come for us all in the end. 

But who knows?

If you swing that bike chain good enough . . . 

If you can rock that headband hard enough . . .

If you can carry yourself with enough cocaine swagger . . .

If you can manifest enough PCP inflected wildman energy . . .

Who knows . . . maybe the gods of the raging seas and the burning fires’ll meet you in single combat . . . figure things out for all times . . .

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #229:

TOP HEADLINES FOR ATTRACTIVE GENIUS PEOPLE: “I AM THE BOBCAT OF FREEDOM! I’LL EAT WHAT I PLEASE!” EXPLODING BOBCAT REFUSES TO REDUCE INTAKE OF DIETARY DYNAMITE . . . SECRETARY BESSENT ON VERGE OF GOING FULL ERMAHGERD FACE AT DAVOS . . . I.C.E. DEATH SQUAD’S MEN’S CHORUS BOOKED TO PERFORM PRIVATE CONCERT FOR GHISLAINE MAXWELL . . . IN A RE-ALIGNMENT TOWARDS CHINA, PRIME MINISTER CARNEY PUSHES DECOUPLING FROM USA ECONOMIC INFRASTRUCTURE BY INNOVATING ‘STAR TREK-STYLE TELEPORTATION.’ CANADA IS ALSO CONDUCTING FEASIBILITY STUDIES ABOUT EMPLOYING DAVID COPPERFIELD TO 'DO SOME OF THAT ABRACADABRA SHIT’ TO MAGICALLY MAKE DEPENDENCE ON US MARKETS GO AWAY . . . PRESIDENT TRUMP MINDLESSLY YAMMERS ON ABOUT CONCEPTS OF A FRAMEWORK OF A WEAVE OF A PLAN TO BUILD A WALL AND HAVE MEXICO PAY FOR IT AND SIMULTANEOUSLY DECREASE DRUG PRICES BY SIX HUNDRED OR SEVEN HUNDRED SKIBIDI PERCENT AND INCREASE THE EXTRACTION OF COVFEFE FROM ICELANDIC SOIL IN ORDER TO PROSECUTE WOKE DEMOCRATS FOR STEALING THE 2020 GREENLANDIC ELECTION BY USING GENDER IDEOLOGY . . . THE HELLFIRE SHROUDED GHOST OF EPSTEIN MANIFESTS ABOVE PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH TO ANNOUNCE A NEW INITIATIVE TO USE PERVASIVE MICROPLASTICS AS AN OCCULTIC-ALCHEMICAL VECTOR TO GET HIMSELF INSIDE EVERYONE’S BODIES . . . RIYADH COMEDY FESTIVAL LINEUP BOOKED TO PERFORM PRIVATE SHOW FOR GHISLAINE MAXWELL . . . NEW POLLING SUGGESTS AMERICAN VOTERS PREFER FLASH-COOKED BITS OF BOBCAT INTESTINE OVER THE AMORAL AND SPINELESS CONGRESSIONAL LEADERSHIP OF BOTH REPUBLICAN AND DEMOCRAT PARTIES . . .

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 92

FUN YOU CAN HAVE #19:

The next time you read a manga or comic book assume it’s actually telling your life story. 

Talk to strangers, friends, neighbors, colleagues, partners, employers, employees, and authority figures as though the manga or comic book is your true life story. 

Never mention that you read manga or comic books.

Now, you get to be Chainsaw Man or Wonder Woman or Batman or Mr. Natural.

For Bonus Fun, you can mix and match.

Now, you get to be Mr. Natural on an eternal quest for the One Piece.

There’s no limit to what you can pretend to achieve!

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #92:

A tire fire-sized county.

FANTASY MASHUP FORCE #29:

Marco Rubio + Manos: The Hands of Fate

Micro Marco comes shuffling into frame on some Sunday interview show to the tune of Torgo’s Theme.

A journalist asks questions.

Micro Marco says, “The Master wouldn’t . . . be happy . . . if I . . . told . . . the truth . . .”

A journalist asks questions.

Micro Marco mumbles lies and evasions.

All to the tune of Torgo’s Theme.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #228:

WANTON FLOOD OF GRAVY OBSCURES DISTINCTIVE BRILLIANCE OF UNADORNED MASHED POTATOES.

THE NEW OBVIOUS #44:

That Trump-branded swag bag?

Not worth the price.

Certainly not an entire Nobel.

THINGS NEVER SAID #50:

“Big Dawg, my son, all of these cat-themed coffee shops will eventually be yours. But beware! Take care! This career path seems like a dream, but it can just as well become a snake in the grass. Being a canine manager of a chain of feline coffee shops can easily start to feel like you’re on a hamster wheel. You’re running and running and running without truly moving. You’ve no hands to catch the bird of hope. Indeed, you resent that avian couple mating in the bush. And, before you know it, a pandemic strikes or a Presidential Psychopath tariffs the economy into a death spiral, and there you go . . . walking the path of the dodo . . . shitting as you amble . . . like a damn horse . . . As for me, I always dreamed of becoming a panda. But I don’t want to pressure you. Live your own dreams! Perhaps you, too, aspire to become a panda. But maybe you miss the mark slightly and end up as a polar bear. I’ll still love you no matter what! Just don’t get all computer generated and start drinking cyber-Coke out of a virtual bottle. If you do, I’ll reject you faster than a skunk in a hen house!”

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 91

 

FUN YOU CAN HAVE #18:

Instead of reading ten volumes of one manga title, read ten different titles but do them in order of the number printed on the bookspines and/or covers, and treat this jumble as though it is a proper story. Try to summarize it to another person as though it all makes perfect sense.

Alternatively, you can do the same thing with a bunch of mismatched North American comic books-maybe a dollar bin haul could be used as the source for this.

And if you’re feeling really frisky you could mix the manga and the comic books together.

Example:

Instead of reading ten consecutive volumes of One Piece or Chainsaw Man or Kaiju No. 8, read Vol. 1 of Dragon Goes House Hunting, Vol. 2 of Getter Robo Devolution, Vol. 3 of Kowloon Generic Romance, Vol. 4 of Go Go Loser Ranger, Vol. 5 of Astro Boy, Vol. 6 of Fist of the North Star, Vol. 7 of Hunter x Hunter, Vol. 8 of Osamu Tezuka’s Phoenix, Vol. 9 of Sanctuary, and Vol. 10 of Berserk. Pretend it all makes sense, and then describe it to someone as though it is all totally comprehensible.

PLACES YOU CAN GO #2:

Once you reach the top of Freytag’s Pyramid and save the cat, you can slide down the Falling Action into the Catastrophe, and if you go down even farther you’ll soon enough reach the Uncanny Valley where the robots have already written you out of the story.

FANTASY MASHUP FORCE #28:

Ishtar Redux 

People’s minds’ll be blown when they see the newly unearthed “French Plantation Scene” . . .

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #227:

WELCOME, HEPCATS, TO THE HEADLINES: “WE DO NOT APPROVE OF ANY DANCING.” TRUMP’S POLLING AMONG PRIMITIVE BAPTISTS AT AN ALL TIME LOW . . . HOLLOWED OUT PARODY OF A MAN LABELLED AS ‘MARCO RUBIO’ SIGHTED IN SQUALID CORNER OF MAR-A-LAGO MUMBLING LIES AND EVASIONS TO HIMSELF AS PRACTICE FOR WHEN HE IS REQUIRED TO MUMBLE LIES AND EVASIONS TO JOURNALISTS ON BEHALF OF HIS TRUE MASTER . . . I.C.E. DEATH SQUAD’S MEN’S CHOIR TO PERFORM AT KENNEDY CENTER . . . TRUMP’S RAGGED VOICE AND INABILITY TO STAY AWAKE DURING PUBLIC EVENTS HAS LED MANY TO ASK IF BUBBA’S BACK ON THE SCENE KEEPING THE PRESIDENT UP ALL NIGHT . . . “IT’S KIND OF A CLOUD V. SEPHIROTH THING, ISN’T IT?” HELLFIRE SHROUDED GHOST OF EPSTEIN CONFIDENT THAT HE’S THE REALITY AND EX-BESTIE TRUMP IS BUT A DREAM . . .

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #91:

The studio backed glass mastered DVD that insists on a CD-style jewel case in order to evoke “DVD-R vibes.”

ZONE OF ENEMY #4: PRODUCTS MAN

He’s hiding behind the products on the shelves.

He calls you mean names when you purchase the cheaper generics.

He’s there, inside your house, constantly reminding you that the things you buy will soon enough be consumed.

He’s constantly mocking you for not having a strong enough personal brand identity.

He nonstop shits on you when you start taking an interest in politics or climate change or the arts.

He’s in your backseat reading off the total miles you’ve put on your car, and then he’s asking if you hear that weird noise your engine’s making.

He catches you reading a book, asks why you aren’t on your grind, or at the very least why aren’t you reading a book on day trading or cultivating hustle mentality by a modern re-interpretation of the Stoics.

He’s cheering you on as you contemplate dropping six figures to win a mint-in-box Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Technodrome Playset from an online auction.

He’s whispering in your ear about how everyone wants to rob your shit, and how you need a gun and a fully automated surveillance apparatus and a dozen ex-Special Forces operators on staff and you better start praying to a newer, tougher god who only throws lightning bolts in your fuckin’ name and how you probably need to install a private prison facility in your basement and you really oughta take more seriously the concept of individual atomics as a proper expression of personal autonomy.

He’s shocked when you’re fed up with his bullshit, and you slap him around, and force him into becoming a goofy, decorative lawn scarecrow for a couple months around Halloween.

He’s off on a Goop-a-like branded luxury existence kick which you think sucks and is boring but you do have some fun trying to make that weird egg-shaped thing fit someplace.

He’s really getting into philosophy by offering Monetary Stoicism courses online which ends up being about as tedious as it sounds but you figure you’ll loosen that leash a bit, let him get it out of his system.

He asks you one day if there’s anything more to this life and you laugh in his face and then suddenly you’re yelling and angry and you even break some shit which gets you even more yelling and angry and then he backs down, apologizes, and everything is (NOT) all right. So it’s fine.

He’s horrified to find himself in the shape of a novelty birthday cake and it’s not even your birthday but actually every day is your birthday now and you’re nonstop winning all those online auctions for all of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures, playsets, autographed comic books, camera ready props’n’costumes from the live action movie versions, you’re even able to hire one of the aging, underemployed actors to record your voicemail greeting so they can afford that coronary bypass they’ve been putting off-you’re such an angel!

He tries to make it right at the last minute by gently suggesting you enjoy the things you already have instead of obsessively accumulating more shit that you scarcely have time to take out of the shipping boxes let alone fully appreciate.

He cowers in the corner of your totally trashed hoarder's mansion as you yell and spit and foam and beat him with a belt for giving you your ultimate, inescapable purpose in this life.

He wonders why he ever existed in the first place.

He’s appalled to find himself staring back at you when you look into the mirror.

He’s trapped behind a shattered mirror even as police and emergency rescue personnel breach the front doors to investigate a gunshot and a terrible smell coming from within the paradoxically cluttered yet orderly depths.

He’s strangely accepting of the firestorm that destroys the cracked mirror, himself, and all trace of the long abandoned hoarder’s mansion-didn’t he get on your ass about wasting time watching all that climate stuff on TV . . . what was that all about, eh?

He’s Products Man.

He’s gone.

He’s back again.

He’s out there.

He’s in you.

He’ll outlive you.

He’ll die before his time.

He is reborn.

He’ll hate you when they figure out how to mass produce you.

He’ll grudgingly admit you’re more of a Products Man than he ever was at his best.

He’ll get over it.

He tries all kinds of weird side projects.

He’s always back in his proper place.

He never really wanted to do anything else with his life . . . except when things get bad.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 90

PLACES YOU CAN GO #1:

There's a warehouse stacked floor-to-ceiling with books that feature cover/jacket/page blurbs from Neil Gaiman. 

So, if you were wondering where all of those things went . . .

AGENT CORNWELL WAS HITTING THAT SKIBIDI 6-7 ACTION CIRCA 2019 . . .

 

FANTASY MASHUP FORCE #27:

 John Carpenter’s The Carpenter

Starring Sabrina Carpenter

Featuring music by the Carpenters

It’ll clear a billion opening weekend.

Easy money!

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #226:

GANGSTER NEWS UPDATES: TRUMP MAFIA TO EXPAND ITS DOMINION TO INCLUDE VENEZUELAN OIL RESERVES . . . XI MOB EXPECTED TO INCORPORATE TAIWAN . . . PUTIN HOODLUMS STILL LEANING ON UKRAINE . . . THIS WEEK’S SPECIAL COMMENTARY IS FROM NONE OTHER THAN THE GHOST OF AL CAPONE. WE MUST PROVIDE A WARNING FOR AUDIO SENSITIVE LISTENERS AS CAPONE COMMUNICATES VIA A PIERCINGLY INTENSE WAIL GENERATED BY HIS ETERNAL GRAVEBOUND SPINNING MOTION . . .

F.A.Q. #26:

Q: Who is your favorite comic book superhero?

A: The early iterations of the Incredible Hulk. He was weird and angry and all over the map. He fought the Communists, he fought the U.S. government, he fought superheroes, he fought supervillains, he fought himself, he was all kinds of mad at a world he never made.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #225:

TRUMP SIGNS EXECUTIVE ORDER ABOLISHING RESEARCH FUNDING FOR TREATMENT AND PREVENTION OF MAIN CHARACTER SYNDROME.

LOADING SCREEN WISDOM #45:

REMEMBER: IF YOU VOTE FOR PEOPLE WHO PROMISE TO BURN DOWN YOUR GOVERNMENT YOU WILL LIKELY HAVE A BURNING GOVERNMENT ON YOUR HANDS. CHOOSE CAREFULLY.