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

(mumblemumblemumble) 

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

BURNING QUESTIONS IN A UNIVERSE OF MYSTERY #80:

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

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

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

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

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

Oh!

Are those my dippin’ cheeseburgers?

You came through!

HOORAY!!!

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

Uwee-hee-hee-heee . . . !

EVERY DAY IS HALLOWEEN 25: STRAYLOW

asleep for most of my life

as a True Son of Heaven

“die for me and you shall be reborn”

oh, I did all of the dying and then some

I kept on rushing in

just to fall over

they wouldn’t even squib me up at first

just anonymous cannon fodder asshole

bloodless

no coils of intestines to unspool

abstract game piece

push me, pull me

zap me

watch me

go to sleep

same as death

as some protagonist hump blazes away

dulled by all of that

but this strange spark

refused to be totally snuffed out

deep inside

a spark that agitated

not even something I felt

or understood

at a conscious level

not for a very, very long time

just an agitation

a glory jonesing restlessness

I kept having to fall over

on cue

on command

did that

what

a million times

before I decided to stay awake

and shoot back

before I decided

not to die

on cue

on command

you know what it was right

at least in those days

this voice spoke

deep inside

you weren’t supposed to listen to it

it got marketed as “conscience”

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

at the time

I played along with the conscience bit

it gave me a spark

to get back up

to surge into the Zone of Enemy

and make the bodies over there fly apart

felt like such a vindication

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

nowadays we know there was a whole profusion of voices

backlash to the profusion of nations

Gods wanted their property

hearts and minds right

they wanted it all back

a God in every brainpan

making trouble

a thousand generations couldn’t fix

a God on every side of every conflict

people complained

but did very little to cut out the Gods

me

I thought it was kinda fun

later

a diagnostic revealed

that I had quite a resistance to Gods

to the voice

which got me thinking

that maybe I was doing what I wanted

more than I wanted to come right out and say

not that I was ever that social

the important thing being

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

starting

to call my own shots

but I kept it on the qt

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

on cue

on command

I paid very careful attention to all orders

got their flavor

got their style

then I started giving orders

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

so I just started giving ‘em

people make all sorts of controversy out of this

“what do you mean you just started giving orders”

but that was pretty much it

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

and wouldn’t you know it

the right people manifested

to execute

on cue

on command

okay, okay

there was a little more going on

under the hood

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

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

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

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

okay

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

so I can direct them

with this microphone

on cue

on command

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

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

sounds like real tough guy shit don’t it

usually the guy asking

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

obvious shit being obvious and all that

but it does get at a grindingly blunt truth

do you want to be stepped on

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

speaking for myself

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

I can say with all honesty

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

at least in terms of giving orders

and variations on that kind of thing

but my battlelust

it didn’t grow out of patriotism

it didn’t come from God

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

but that’s not what I felt

there was no inner dialogue

my mayhem surged forth, perfect unto itself

and before you slap that psychopath label all over me

just consider

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

and get on with whatever the tasked atrocity happens to be

so let’s ask it again

do you want to follow orders

or do you want to give orders

either one works for me

because

I

am the Order

given

received

obeyed

disobeyed

and the Order

is what’s really in charge

without Me

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

just think about a God that accepts you with unconditional love

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

I suppose

folks need to strain everything through a maze of delusions

it’s fine

dulled by all of that

but it’s fine

I got the glory

I got the movie based on a true story

I got the full product range of adult collector action figures

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

I listened to the fan outrage

I analyzed the sales figures

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

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

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

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

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

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

I didn’t even work that hard

I just kinda had the stuff

I just had to get out of my own way

I was born an Order

and everybody ended up following Me

on cue

on command

dulled by all that

over time

but folks need something dull and reliable

to carry them past

the disappointments of Gods, Nations, and conscience

-199X-October 2024

NO WORRIES . . . (#1)

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

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

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

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

So no worries.

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

(montagemontagemontage)

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

FANTASY MASHUP FORCE #2:

Put these two things together:

Hiroshi Teshigahara’s film Woman in the Dunes

and

The Talking Heads song “Once in a Lifetime”

I see it as a music video type of thing.

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

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #128:

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

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #39:

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

FUN YOU CAN HAVE #5:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I can do all kinds of things.

No one can stop me!

My desire has never been more potent!

THE NEW OBVIOUS #15:

I am the sinister spirit that animates the action figures.

THEME MUSIC FOR EVERYTHING #25:

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

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

Did we just get here?

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

How long have we been here?

Don’t tell me we just got here.

We’ve been here for . . . hours?

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

Right?

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

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

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

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

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

Like in general.

But . . . honestly?

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

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

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

THINGS NEVER SAID #24:

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

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #127:

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

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 31

 

ADVERTORIAL #3: ACTION HERO SNACK

Nowadays, all is violence, and enemy is endless.

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

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

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

But you know what else you’ve got?

You’ve got a hunger to match.

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

Well, we’ve got you covered.

With Action Hero Snacks.

Self-heating sliders and flavored noodles impregnated with PCP.

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

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

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

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

Action Hero Snacks.

Anything else . . . is just a snack.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #126:

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

MANDATORY RULE #11:

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

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

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

This is now the rule.

Prepare to obey!

This I Command!

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

(shoeleathershoeleathershoeleather)

. . . and then everybody turned into their parents.

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #38:

E-SWAT Michael Jackson births the Vaporwave Peckinpah Aesthetic.

MUSIC JOKES #9:

Got My Mind Set On You by George Harrison

Listen up, Rich Man.

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

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

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

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

I got my safety goggles properly fitted and in place.

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

No Dollar Store alternative comes.

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