What Makes Kayleigh Run?

Breaking News!  The rational world has slipped away, apparently unnoticed.

* Word around Capitol Hill has it that Rand Paul,  staunch supporter of all things vaguely reactionary, the predictable voice of insipid conservatism, has finally removed that creepy disguise he's been wearing for the past 20 years.  Turns out his actual appearance - deranged homeless guy,  small critters living in his scruffy beard, teetering on the edge of a symbolic highway overpass, screaming right wing conspiracy theories at the passing vehicles below, is much more appealing.

 you know, goddam commies in cars; deep state doctors infecting people with their smooth-talking smartness; the nervy Bill Gates planning to implant anti-freedom chips into the flabby neck flesh of every single American; Barack Obama attempting to subvert the American way of life by subtly pointing out that the nation's current leader is an incompetent glob of bloated blood sausage.  (not the

  former president's actual words)

* And speaking of revolting neck sausage, what is up with Mitch McConnell? (I mean, aside from the fact that he has the credibility of a devious dung beetle) The guy's a millionaire many times over, yet seems obsessed with keeping at least two adult-size happy meals in his extensive jowl sacks at all times.  Does Mitch ever swallow? When he looks in the mirror, does he blames Obama for what he sees?

Obama never prepared for the turkey jowl pandemic that is now sweeping through congress. The national anti-jowl stockpile was left as empty as Mother Hubbard's cupboard.    

Sorry Mitch, but the more you lie and spew your Republican-style bullshit, the bigger that wagging wattle under your chin is going to get. Don't blame Obama, blame your total lack of integrity, and / or your refusal to gulp down that sticky pork pie you keep wedged in there, for reasons only a good old boy from Kentucky could possibly fathom.

* But returning to our main area of concern:  Presidential Press Secretary, Kayleigh McEnany.  You remember her, right? The young woman who, under all that make up, could actually be pretty, always wearing the giant cross around her neck, just so you don't forget that special relationship she's got going with Jesus.  She used to appear regularly on CNN, being for a time the official disseminator of conservative gibberish, never squeamish about taking the most ridiculous positions, as long as everyone understood that she was the # 1 darling of the right wing nut bags. 

Kayleigh certainly knew enough to keep her eyes on the camera at all times - even if it tended to make her look slightly insane - as if daring any dirty liberal out there watching to find even a single flaw in that impeccable face of hers.  

I have an impeccable face; even a bird wouldn't peck at it, or a chicken, or even Mitch McConnell.

Now, it doesn't take a genius to see Trump  for what he is.  (any doubt as to what he is, please see last week's posting)
Basically, if you can tell the difference between daytime and nighttime, and know better than to stick your arm into a tank full of sharks, you're smart enough to comprehend the national disaster that is the Giant Rump  otherwise known as Trump.

So how can we possibly explain Kayleigh?  An intelligent, well-educated woman, with God on her side, no less, who must certainly be cognizant of the repulsive sociopath she's now working for.

The same Kayleigh, lest we forget, who recently announced that Trump,  "is a great president, maybe the greatest president in the history of America." 

 Now let's face it, no one in the entire world, regardless of how maladjusted, misanthropic or unabashedly moronic they are, or how much money they're currently making off the Great Trump Political Con, believes the above statement to be true. Kayleigh, assuming she's not as pathologically delusional as Trump himself, certainly doesn't believe it.  So why say it?  Particularly after promising never to lie.

Okay, so in this case it's possible the not was silent.  She actually promised never to not lie. 

Like I said, no dummy.  Still, something doesn't add up. I mean, 2 plus 2 ain't never gonna equal negative 4.

Which compels us to ask ... what exactly is Kayleigh's deal?  What's her hidden agenda? Who is she trying to kid?  What in her mind is the benefit of being a mendacious Trump huckster? What's it like in Kelly's mind? How scary is it to be her?  What's her long game?  Where's the upside? What terrible thing happened to her in childhood that made her this way?  When did she start hating herself, seeking punishment wherever she could find it? What's she doing with all the money she's being paid to lie?  Is she even real?  What's she like in bed?

Whoa! Hold on there, pal. Delete that last question. Totally inappropriate.  The sort of thing that gets you labelled a sexual predator or, at the very least, qualifies you to be president.  

 Make sure to join us next time for Part 2,  when a panel of experts will weigh in on the mysterious

 Kayleigh Phenomenon. 

 

Dumping the Trump / part one

Hold on!  Three years later and nothing has changed?

Not true, things have changed, have, in fact, gotten worse, a lot worse, actually.

Man, that's more commas than I can count.

As it turns out, disaster does have a name. Starts with T.  Rhymes with Dump.  As in take a dump.
Do it on live TV for two hours every night and it's called a Task Force Briefing.  You're thinking, two hours?  What the fuck is up with that?  But consider.  It takes at least 30 minutes for Trump to get Mike Pence out of his ass before the briefing can even start.  Mike's always impeccably coiffed white hair is, admittedly, a mystery.

Mike? Any comment?

  The President's great and powerful ass is only matched by his great and powerful leadership during this crisis.

And by this crisis, you refer to four years of Trump in the White House? Mike, you awake?

He's so powerful ... uh ... the White House, unlike my head, does not fit up the President's ass.

And how does your wife feel about you spending so much time in Trump's ass?

She takes some comfort in the fact that I will not be alone with another woman while I'm in there.

Wow! That is surely finding the silver lining in an otherwise vile situation.

Praise our Lord!

You mean Jesus, right?

Or the President, take your pick.  Have I mentioned President Trump's powerful leadership?

Okay, VP Mike, you're a fucking putz.  Not that it was ever in any doubt.  Now put your mask on and at least try to pretend you're a human being.

Moving on.

I think it's for the best.

Recently, various famous and/or quasi-famous people have taken to twitter to proclaim that they've finally figured it out.  Trump is insane. Wow!  Of course, to anyone with functional senses and a modicum of intelligence, this has been fairly obvious since the Narcissist-In-Chief took office. And it's not even an interesting kind of insanity. It's obvious, trite and boring, albeit fucking scary.  Trump is a delusional, not very bright, mean-spirited, thoroughly corrupt lunatic.  THIS IS NOT NEWS!

The really troubling bit is that 40% of Americans still support him. Although after advising the public to swallow bleach as a cure for the Corona Virus, maybe that number has dipped down to 39.  I've been asking this question for years, but what the fuck is wrong with these people?  The sad truth is that mental competence is no longer a requirement for a US president. You can be as crazy, stupid and incompetent as you like. Screw the world and fuck the planet as much as you want.  It's all good. Use the office to make money for yourself and inflict harm on anyone who refuses to kiss your fat ass.

Don't mind Mike's head, you can just go ahead and smooch it. Either cheek is fine.

Just don't do or say anything that even suggests progressive thinking - or any kind of thinking, for that matter - or inclusiveness, or compassion, or even a minimal grasp of the English language.  Because what Trump supporters really like is having a president who's even less intelligent than they are. Thought they may have had it in Bush, but now there's absolutely no doubt.  And he's white ... well, okay, orange, but so what? Orange is a nice color.  It's also the new black, apparently.

Q: Does Trump know he's insane?  A: They say the insane are always the last to know.

Mike?

Even if the President is insane, it's a powerful insanity, big, as well as beautiful, the kind of out of control crazy that made this country what it is, and what it will be, unless, of course, it won't be anything, because Trump is like an angry Bigfoot, standing there, snorting, and he doesn't give a crap and  ...  no wait, I didn't mean any of that, you're taking me completely out of context, offering up facts instead of their misleading alternatives , please don't send me to the Wall ...  Kellyanne, Help!












 

How Trump Is Depriving Bloggers Of The Will To Live

It's more or less official:  Blogging is down, blogs are disappearing faster than transgender liberals at a white supremacist picnic, while large numbers of bloggers report having a hard time even getting out of bed in the morning.  The general consensus among them: What's the fucking point?

As one former blogger put it:  Yeah, you know, at first Trump was like this giant golden turd, an endless source of content for blogs everywhere, but then we never actually considered the consequences of 'endless.'  It's like too much, total turd overload, a spray-tanned white out from which there is no escape. 

Another blogger confides:  At this point I'd rather join an Evangelical Christian cult of Bible-thumping child abusers - and yes, I'm now taking the whole end-of-days crap a lot more seriously - than write another word about Trump, but then I can't think of anything else to write about.

Noted psychiatrist Bernard Gert explains:  An alarming number of intelligent, progressive bloggers seem to have succumbed to what I like to call the One Dimensional Trump Trap, in which every single smart thought is immediately invaded by a supplemental dumb thought about Trump. It is possible that Trump's mental illness, spread through social media, is contagious. In short, the endless bombardment of Trump stupidity is destroying the intelligence of the human population.*

(*Needless to say, this does not apply to the 30~40 million diehard Trump supporters who are already brain dead and therefore in no immediate danger.)

Question from former blog reader:  What about dogs?  My dog is acting a lot dumber since Trump got elected.

Many bloggers admit being driven to drink by Trump.  And no, this does not mean that Trump is actually picking them up and driving them to their local pubs. Although one would have to be pretty drunk to even consider getting into a car with Trump behind the wheel.

"Excuse me, Mister President, but you're driving way over the speed limit, and also I think you may be on the wrong side of the highway."

"Not to worry, oppressed, white working class Trump sycophant.  I happen to know more about operating an automobile than professional race car drivers. Besides, all these other cars are fake. And by the way, the senate will be repealing Obamacar any day now."

"Sorry, but don't you mean Obamacare?"

"Are you kidding?  Obama doesn't care.  Not like I care." 

When asked about Trump's dangerously inept driving, advisor Kelly-Anne Speedway, perhaps not surprisingly, responded,  "Well answer me this, has anyone checked the trunk of Hillary's car for all those missing emails?"

"Are you suggesting we should lock her up?"

"At the very least, lock her in the trunk."

"With the emails."

"Exactly!"

No question that bloggers have taken a severe hit under the dark, toxic cloud of Trump, but rest assured, dear reader - there is still one of you out there, right? - this blog is back, determined to hobble forward, despite the odds.  Silence, as truly appealing as it may be, is not an option.

**Finally, it is with deep sadness that we report the recent demise of Lucy Leigh, a vital part of the Dog team, and the best four-legged broom handler there ever was.  We miss you, L.L.




 

Fuck Reality, I'll Take It Fake

It's a new world, or a lost world, or possibly a non-world. Talking heads remind us that the world is certainly changing. What they're actually saying is that the world is now officially Fucked. Donald - I took a Huge dump on all you American dumbbells and you loved it - Trump is now the POTUS,  which used to stand for President of the United States, but now more appropriately signifies  Preternatural Orange-hued Tasteless Underhanded Shit-bag.

Trump assures his moronic monkey base that he will be the most Tremendous Stupendous Shit-bag leader of all time, or possibly even longer.

President Trump discussing time with advisor Kelly Ann Conflagration:

You know how to tell time, right, Kelly Ann?
This very expensive watch on my very right-wing wrist says I do.
Your watch actually talks to you?
Well, not literally, but, you know, seriously.
Okay, whatever. So tell me this, what's longer than all time?
Hmm ... let's see ... there's pre-time, timeless time, like in the movies,  or how about alternative time?
Alternative time ... I love it. I mean, it's fucking dumb, but the base will eat it up.
Gobble gobble, Mr. President Shit-bag.

So, real is fake, fake is real. Get used to it.


News Flash:

President Ronald Rumpus steps in a hole while fugue-walking on one of his golf courses. After being reanimated by his personal physician, Dr. Frankenstein, he immediately signs executive order banning all holes in the U.S.A. No exceptions.
According to the President:
We don't know how many of these holes were dug by Muslim extremists; some of them are so deep, huge, frankly, a terrorist could easily be hiding in one of them. Banning all holes now will keep the American people safer.

Later in the day, press secretary Sean Superfluous tries to assure a nervous public that the all-hole ban does not apply to assholes, at least not to the assholes of U.S. citizens.

What about the assholes of valid visa holders? a reporter inquires.
As far as the ban - which by the way is not really a ban - applying to the assholes of this sub-group, the President wants to spend more time looking into the whole asshole issue. 

And rest assured, anal-retentive America, the White House is now occupied by some of the biggest assholes on the planet. If they can't get the job done, nobody can.

Breaking News!

Trump insists that the 3 million illegal aliens who voted for Hillary are real, not fake, unless fake is now real; plans to round them all up and have them build the border wall for free.

After all, the President said, aliens built the pyramids, so why not my wall? Which, by the way folks, will be so big, so hugely colossal, that it's going to drive the Chinese and their stupid wall crazy.

Flash! Bang!

 President Trumpet overheard whining about the paltry crowds and crappy entertainment at his inauguration; advisor Steve Bandicoot (see super-sized assholes above) tries to reassure him by promising that his eventual coronation as King of Trumplandia ( country's name soon to be changed by executive decree) will be much more spectacular.  

Will it be huge? Trumpet reportedly asked.
Are you kidding? Steve replied. What's bigger than huge? Aside from my really huge, really really red nose, of course.
What do you think I should wear? the President wondered.
I see you in a flowing fur cape, said Bandicoot. White, naturally. Polar bear, perhaps.
Hey, squealed the POTUS, my daughter Avuncular sells those on her web site.  They're only like 3 million bucks.
Which I'm sure the idiots who voted for you will gladly pay for.
Well, either them or the Mexicans. 

*Take heart, intelligent, still mentally sound minority. Yes, the country is rapidly going down the recently installed gold White House toilet, but things have never been better for late night comedy.

The Thing That Goes Bump In The Night

Some scary shit, huh? Keeping all of us, at least the remaining rational few of us, awake at night; a monster with a bright orange face; it wears a weave, speaks like a ten-year-old sociopath, doesn't have the slightest clue, about anything, apparently; it has a name: Trump.

Trump is the Bump.

And now the Bump, or Dump, if you prefer, is the next President of the USA.

Wait a minute, that can't be ... can it?

Dump the Bump whose name is Trump!

Too late for that, friend, and you'd be well advised to show a little more respect; the Trump doesn't handle criticism well and is more excited about holding on to a grudge than grabbing a pussy. 

Hey, a pussy can also be a cat, you know? Why not give our next leader the benefit of the doubt. 

It's almost beside the point writing about it now. It's not as if words still matter, or functional minds, for that matter. A large segment of the American population just proved that the capacity to think is more or less irrelevant.

The evidence was there all along, lurking inside the headlines, but we chose to ignore it.

Trump wails and whines for twenty minutes like a baby with a poopy diaper; supporters declare it a major speech on foreign policy. 

Trump surrogate, Jeffrey Lord, who frequently arrives at the CNN set still wearing his Walking Dead zombie-extra makeup, claims that Trump's incoherent rambling and unrestrained ignorance on all  matters is actually a sign of his brilliance.  So brilliant, in fact, that even his glaring stupidity is smart.  

Having been informed that the human mind is plastic - i.e. can actually change - Trump supporters line up to have their brains surgically removed. 

As one man wearing a Trump Is Even Better Than A Blow Job tee-shirt explained:

 "A brain is a dangerous thing to have in a head. We will throw our useless brains in the ocean, because who needs them? And anyway, everyone knows that plastic pollution in the ocean is just another liberal-inspired hoax."

This can be viewed as an example of so-called magical thinking (a.k.a. magical muddling), common among the hardcore right wing nut bag set, wherein information, evidence, provable facts are simply discarded in favor of a reliance on blatantly stupid made up stuff.  And good news! These are the people who are now going to be running the government.

Ben Carson, for example. Remember him? The guy who once said,  "Evolution cannot be real because, as anyone who's ever read the Bible knows, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a dinosaur,"

Two of our other favorites, Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani, were seen entering Trump Tower holding hands. Suggestions in the evil left wing media that the two had perhaps decided to finally come out of the closet caused quite a hubbub, prompting Trump to insist they both grab a pussy for 15 minutes as a show of loyalty. The controversy was later quelled, however, when it was explained that Newt believed he was taking his pet werewolf for a walk, while Rudy was sure that Newt was Santa Claus, and was taking him to visit Santa's new bomb-making workshop on the moon.

But at least now the Republicans will have a free hand to push policies guaranteed to return the country to the 1950's, where it obviously belongs.  Because the only sensible America is white, the only God-sanctioned marriage is hetero and the only good immigrant is a deported immigrant.

Trump hints that his border wall will be made exclusively of cheese, because everyone knows Mexicans hate cheese.

Yeah, it's getting darker by the minute. Our only hope is that Trump will simply be too incompetent to do anything and will eventually quit. He'll give a whiny, I'm So Bored With This Shit speech and walk away. Meanwhile, the more we can stay asleep for the next four years, the better.

*Note: The Fictional Dog staff, having to choose between seeing Trump on the news all day everyday, or being placed in a medically-induced coma for six months, unanimously chose the later. We fully expected to awake to at least the possibility of a progressive, intelligent, democratically-inspired future. So I guess the joke is on us.

Snippets From The Unreality Zone

Oh Dear Lord!  It's once again presidential politics time in the land of the free and the home of the insane.

America, man. Can't live with it, can't just shoot it.  Well, suppose we could. It's not like we don't have the guns for it, or the God-given right to shoot anything that moves, except people, of course, because then we would have a mental illness. I know I do.

* Sarah Palin was given a weekend pass from wherever she's usually confined, turned up next to Donald Trump, and was as deliciously deranged and incoherent as we remember her. Another smart move by Trump, though, who, compared to Palin, appeared almost normal (heavy emphasis on almost). The idiots, of course, loved having Sarah back, and why wouldn't they? It's not every day they get to listen to someone who's actually dumber than themselves. Ted Cruz (a.k.a. hybrid human-lizard creature), on the other hand, took it hard. He apparently hissed, slithered into a corner and began threatening to give Palin a good spanking.

The big question, how did Trump manage to pull this off?  Insider sources say it was A million bucks donated to the Palin initiative to Wipe Out All Of Alaska's Remaining Wildlife,  and an additional hundred thousand to help the Palin kids set up their own home Meth lab. Because, hey, it's just too dang cold outside to leave the house every time we feel like getting high. 

* An eye-witness observer reports that on New Year's day a group of approximately fifty people in Miami stood out on the street firing their guns into the air.  At first assumed to be a Republican caucus in action, it later turned out to be just a group of mental deviants who do not comprehend the principle of gravity.

Hey, man, we probably fired five thousand rounds and only killed two innocent bystanders. Those are odds I can live with.

Marco Rubio, former Disneyworld Dumbo, defended the rabble-rousers by conflating gravity with climate change, which we already know is nothing more than left-wing propaganda.

It's just one more example of the thinking elite trying to impose restrictions upon us. First it was climate change, then Affordable Healthcare, now it's gravity. Tomorrow they'll be telling us we need to think for ourselves.

Note:  A Trump spokesperson appeared on CNN to clarify the issue.  "Gravity is a real thing," she said,  "it just does not apply to Donald Trump."

A truly ridiculous claim to make, even for a Trump groupie, until one realizes that the Great Trump is, in fact, a hologram.

Correction:  A hologram who knows a few Hispanic people, loves the Bible and can make America (correction, white America) great again.

And another thing, people, as a hologram, he can never die!

* As one Republican operative put it:  Yes sir, our idiot base is riled up and ready.  Assuming they don't shoot themselves first, and can manage to find the voting venues, we should have an extremely large turn out.

*Talk about anticlimax:  And then we're forced to watch the Democratic town hall prior to the Iowa caucus. I mean, come on!  All three Democratic candidates are intelligent, articulate and have rational ideas for the future. Unlike their Republican counterparts, they do not appear as either phony suck-ups or  blatant weasel-talkers. No pandering to the God-slurping dumbbells. They think about things, for Christ's sake!  What the hell kind of fun is that? 

Black Dog Rising

It has become fairly apparent, depressingly so, one might add, that the innovative, so-called, post-fictive strategy of text-free blogging has been nothing short of an unmitigated disaster. The blank page blog - representing in the reactionary minds of those responsible for this literary travesty unlimited creative potential - has been met with boorish disdain, uncontrollable yawning and numerous death threats.

* Eleven text-free blogs? I can't read this shit, and you will die!

* You digitized doorknobs deserve unexpurgated death!

* Your text-free blog concept is pure dog poop.  We know where you live, fascist word haters.

* It's a clear, external manifestation of my own O.C.D. I will therefore hunt you down, more or less obsessively and compulsively!

Noted non-entity and reductionist literary critic Norman Skotchpole comments:  "In general, the vast majority of the global population, the vast majority of these simpletons and dimwits, are always going to be several light years behind the curve of radical recalcitrance. The reinvention of quasi-obsolete, super-minimalist formats will invariably be viewed as an existential threat, and therefore energetically reviled."

*Pompous douche bag Norman Skotchpole, you will die!  The fact that you don't actually exist won't save you.

A massive man hunt is underway.
Just how massive a man are we talking about?
The alleged third person in the car could hold the key.
Unfortunately, they've all gone dark.
There is apparently a new app that guarantees invisibility.
Sounds pricey.


Dear Infidel,

One of our fanatical tech analysts has discovered on your text-free blank blog the very faint, yet clearly mocking, shadow image of our revered prophet. And while it is true that he was threatened with being beheaded and then set on fire if he didn't find it, we are now, with God's help, committed to killing you. 
P.S.  But not to over-worry. There are currently 867,000,000 infidels ahead of you on our death list.

Sort of a dilemma. Should I buy the invisibility app right away, or take the chance that the cost will drop if I wait?

Consider that your entire life is encrypted, which only means that all the people in your life don't give enough of a shit to notice you.

Update to my page:  Penny Pendelton finally agreed to go out with me. Things were going great. We texted each other like crazy during dinner, Penny even hinting that she might be inclined to lift her encryption protocols. As you can imagine, by the time we got back to her place, I was ready for an extensive download. That's when things went sour. I had barely gotten to her first data base when she shut things down. She went dark and I turned blue. Making matters worse, I've just learned that Penny slipped me something called a Trojan Werewolf Virus. So now I'm alone, again, and also seriously dreading the next full moon.


Reminds me of that book,  How Dating Is A Lot Like Walking Blindfolded Through A Minefield In A Saudi Arabian Sandstorm.
    

*After reading your first fucking blog in like what, four months, I urge you to rethink your priorities and return to the text-free blog style as soon as possible. Yes, it's dumb as shit, but anything is better than this garbage.


   

Blogging to Death

The annual convention of Global Bloggers Anonymous was held last month in Helsinki, Finland.

(a country, by the way, that is a lot easier to get into and out of if you're holding an E.U. passport. The Fins, for reasons not entirely clear, are particularly hard on Americans, who were confined in an airport holding area for several hours, forced to watch re-runs of Christian fundamentalist reality TV shows.

One perceptive blogger cleverly pointed out the glaring contradiction of combining the phrases Christian fundamentalist and reality, although a group of Baptist bloggers from Boise, Idaho briefly interrupted their impromptu prayer session to point out that paradoxical might be a better choice.

Which only proves that it takes a paradox to know one ...)

A perhaps more pertinent question was posed by another, strictly non-affiliated blogger, who inquired,  "What the hell is a Duggar, anyway?"
No one knew for sure, but the general consensus was that, whatever it is, the Kardashians are most likely involved.

Speaking of which ...  the vastly popular blog dedicated to this incredibly self-photogenic family - "Let's Send The Kardashians To Another Planet, A.S.A.P."  has already raised 20 million dollars for the proposed journey.
True, that's barely the cost of enough rocket fuel to get them all to the moon, but hey, it's a start.

 Meanwhile,  Is Jim Bob Duggar one guy or two?

Possible answers: 

"Who the fuck would name a kid Jim Bob?  Has to be two guys."
"Who the fuck cares?"
"Sounds like the name of a used car salesman in Alabama. Not only does he sell you a car you don't really want, but by the time you get home, you're pregnant."

Other Highlights From the Conference:

*Blogging has now replaced flogging as the preferred form of punishment in Saudi Arabia.

*The quirky ISIS blog,   "I'd Rather Blow Myself Up Than Get A Blowjob,"  is actively recruiting new bloggers.  If you can write snappy, incendiary prose, grow a mangy-looking beard and agree that the world should end as soon as possible in a mindlessly gruesome bloodbath, apply at the ISIS retail outlet nearest to you. (all successful applicants can expect a 30% discount on all ISIS merchandise)

*The World Body of Official Counters (vaguely aligned with the World Bank)  now estimates that there are approximately two billion active blogs on the planet.  That's one blog for approximately every 2.5 people.  So any day your blog gets five or more hits should be considered an unmitigated success.

*Lamenting the shrinking attention span, the disappearance of short term memory and the plummeting intelligence among the human population, bloggers are increasing adopting what's known as the Mini-Blog format.  It's basic tenant: Shorter is better; virtually non-existent is best.

For example, the popular mini-blog,  Not Worth Wasting Even Five Minutes On,  limits each posting to a single sentence fragment.

A recent one asked readers to complete the following:

"I don't know what ... "

Responses literally poured in.

"I don't know what to think."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"I don't know what that awful smell is."
"I don't know what method I'll use when I murder you."
"I don't know what to do about my paralyzing depression."

Exciting stuff, n'est pa?

Paradise Lost / part 1

Desire:

I  ...  you, he says, choosing to omit the word.
You? she wonders.
Yes, that is to say, the randomized field of quantum interference within which I may or may not ... reside.
Are we entangled, then? she queries.
In my imagination, certainly.
Do you  ...  me  as merely a commodity?
More as an imperfect reflection.
Can fragments fully love?
Intertextually, you mean?


Which version of modernity (post / post-post / meta / pseudo / alter) is he aligning himself with?

These thugs, what exactly do they want?

Is post-irony even conceivable?


Five billion years later, the universe has reached a state of total and irreversible entropy. The weather forecast calls for temperatures hovering right around absolute zero across all of space/time. His desire, needless to say, has cooled somewhat. Obsession, however, is indestructible. A single human thought takes a million years, and yet he cannot help himself thinking it.

Do you  ...   me? he asks, the omission of the word saving him perhaps 500, 000 years.

Without admitting to the depths of her emotional vacuity, she's inclined to consider it extraneous.

Let me think about it, she says, and I'll get back to you in 2 million years.

Her saying this, of course, requires 3 million years.  He can't even fathom the math, the frozen interval of the impending wait.

~

"These displaced people are living on golf courses. "

They are perhaps seeking the singularity in an increasingly standardized world.

Many of them are too poor to even rent clubs, let alone own a set.

In the midst of a tragedy of this magnitude, is golf even relevant?

"In either case, our forces are fully deployed."

Worst case scenario?

I'd prefer to defer comment until after the inevitable blood bath.

~

Even as the chaos, as meaning is mistaken on the molecular level, as ...

She feigns surprise at his advances / would have preferred something slightly more fictitious

She thinks: He sees himself as a genuine protagonist, while all I see is a jumble of ontological cliches.

Overblown, absurd, hysterical, she says.

My desire? he asks.

No.

My attire?

No.

My ... 


As for the sex; assuming, that is, if; senseless, sublime, almost sensual, more stylized than substantive; surfaces, almost but not quite, touching ...

He chalks it up to a straightforward electromagnetic divergence; she, sighing, ponders numerous, highly implausible outcomes.

 

The Murky Dark Side Of Y.A. Fiction

... Or how I learned to get comfortable with the F word.

Submitted anonymously by Steve Druzinsky, who clearly doesn't understand the meaning of anonymously, but no matter. Steve, who says he's seventeen, living in an obscure town in one of the I states -  Iowa? Idaho? Indiana? Okay, there are only three, so one of those - is obviously a budding talent in the suddenly very hot Y.A. sub-sub-genre of  Filthy Flash Fiction For Adolescents.

 F * * k 

Light screaming through an exposed window straight into my fucking eyeballs. Fuck me for forgetting to close the fucking window shade before falling into this fucked up bed. 

Fuck

Fuck

Fuck

Get fucked!       Go fuck yourself!       Fuck off! 

I

        Am

                     Totally

                                        Fucked

Okay, you've probably already figured it out. I use the F word a lot. A lot, a lot. A fucking lot, actually. Thing is … it's not my fucking fault. I have a condition, a sort of mental disease. Single Word Compulsion Disorder is the technical term; S.W.C.D in the parlance of the verbal minimalists that constitute the mainstream of the psycho/medical establishment. Shrinks like talking in abbreviations; meaningless sound bites; sparse, choppy sentence fragments meant to convey that a) the burden is entirely on you, the patient, to keep the ball rolling, and b) they don't really give a shit one way or the other. It's a bit like trying to pry secrets from a Chinese postmodernist with a serious opium habit.

Maybe if I had some fucking opium to smoke ...

                                                                              ... was too fucking stoned to utter sound

Take Doctor Rick Rasmussen, for example – call me Dr. Rick – my first therapist, back in the days when nobody had ever heard of S.W.C.D. It was more or less assumed that I was nothing more than an angry little shithead with a runaway foul mouth; maladjusted in the extreme; blatantly narcissistic; classic sociopath with a tendency to self-mutilate. The sort of kid who tortures animals as a hobby. Fantasizes the murder of teachers and family members. Left unchecked, will almost certainly evolve into a serial killer.  Sorry, don't you mean fucking serial killer?

"So, tell me," Doctor Rick says. "Why do you think you use the F word so much?"

(Okay, if I knew why, I wouldn't be here talking to you, would I?)

"I don't fucking do that," I tell him.

"You just did it."

"The fuck I did."

"Fine, I'm just going to keep count of your F word usage."

Great! My parents are forking out a hundred and fifty bucks an hour for this fucking quack to count my fuck usage. Meanwhile, who even knew that Dr. Rick could count, or that he was the sort of sick fuck who would actually consider doing it? But there he was, after each one of our sessions, presenting me with the official fuck results for the day.

“Based on my calculations,” Dr. Rick says, “you've used the word sixty-seven times in the past forty-five minutes.”

“What word?” I ask.

“You know what word.”

“I fucking do not.”

“There, you did it again.”

“Fuck!”

“And again.”

“You know, even for a shrink, you're fucking weird.”

“Keep going. If you can make it to a hundred in the next thirty seconds, my partner will owe me fifty bucks.”

“You made a fucking bet? The fuck is up with that?”

“Excellent!”

"Fuck you!"

"Uh huh ... "

Things got a bit better later on when some fucking scientist discovered the tiny mutant gene fragment responsible for my condition. It was genetic, therefore nothing deserving of blame, although I was inclined to blame my parents, except I'd already put them through so fucking much. I mean, seriously, how many times can you remind your father that he's the World's Best Fuckhead Dad before it's starts wearing on his capacity to express paternal love? Or like trying to thank your Mother for the fried eggs and English muffin breakfast, but instead hearing yourself blurt out, "fuck you for the fucking eggs, Mom-fuck."

Keeping in mind that these are the sort of people who actually employ, Oh My Gosh! to express surprise.

 Without even a trace of self-reflective irony.

Fucking God forbid.....

Still, I vividly recall the day I could shout out with near-absolute conviction that it was not my fucking fault. I was a mutation, a sad and worthy-of-pity watered down version of a normal kid. I was handicapped. Fucked up beyond all hope. I began to look forward to handicap express lines at the bank, reserved parking spaces, special discounts from drug dealers and prostitutes. Problem was, nobody really cared. Even people who pretended to care about everything couldn't be bothered. Oh yeah, right, was the predominant sentiment. Go ahead, blame any and all reprehensible behavior on some obscure, hypothetical and probably made up, anyway, brain ailment. It's like some fucked up kid who bludgeons his grandmother for the eleven bucks and thirty-two cents in her purse, then claims it was the god-awful smell of her perfume that made him do it.

We're all victims, in one way or another.

Still, I had to believe there was a glimmer of light at the end of this fucking tunnel.

But then what the fuck did I know?

Meme Me, Baby

Memory

 Remember when you had one?  Before the crucial cortical sheath began shrinking ... the hippocampus started behaving like a slow-moving hippopotamus ... vague nostalgia for memories you have to assume you once had, but can't for the life of you recall.

Never Mind.

Remember when the world sort of made sense?
Uh ... not really.  Unless ... you mean ..?

Remember when cigarettes weren't bad for you?
I can't even remember when you weren't bad for me.

Remember when you had hair?
Did I ...  Oh yeah ... no, wait ...

Remember that song?  How did it go?
Can you hum it for me?
Sorry, but I'm not falling for that one again.

Remember when you weren't a total dick?
I used to be a pussy, but I guess I outgrew it.

Remember the days of blissful innocence before the 2nd law of Thermodynamics went mainstream?
Shit!  Maybe if everything wasn't falling apart before my eyes ... I ...

Remember when identity wasn't completely unidentifiable?

You used to be a person, so what happened?
I think I was the victim of a crime ... or it may have been a disease ... something conceptual ... probably.

Vocabulary was the first casualty. 
So what are you now?
I'll take a stab and refer to myself as a holographic projection of few words.
A strong silent illusion.
And yet so real even my own family members can't tell the difference.

***

In certain parts of the world, the amygdala is frequently mistaken for an armadillo,  is hunted and consumed as an important source of emotional sustenance.

I don't know what it is ... I just don't feel like myself.

It has been hypothesized that the meme is a living entity, lodged in the brain, capable of mutation.
I call my meme Mimi.
I'd marry Mimi if I could.
This, then, is an example of the power of a culture to exert control over a hapless, memory-impaired population.

I woke up one day and didn't know where I was. Turned out I'd been living in a foreign country for the past twenty years.
I went to a doctor who diagnosed a long-term state of dissociative fugue.
I wandered out of his office without paying.

State of the Onion

Okay, I admit it.  Along with literally hundreds of other people around the world, I tuned in for the State of the Union yesterday.  Primarily for the opportunity of watching the grim-faced, anally retentive Republicans do their best zombie impersonations as they stared with death ray intensity at President Obama.  Who, let's face it, was talking about all the things they rabidly oppose - progressive government, economic equality, environmental responsibility, intelligence, consciousness, etc.

Not to mention the added bonus of having John Boehner, House Republican zombie leader, lost somewhere in his own private narcissistic fog, sitting directly behind the President. What is up with this guy's face? He either has a serious drinking problem, or a secret tanning bed in his congressional office.  Did anyone else notice the  I'm a total prick and proud of it  name tag he was wearing?  You had to look closely.

As good as Obama's speech was - one especially appreciates the subtly he employs while giving the finger to the right wing rabble - the highlight had to be the 'other party response.'
This is the Republican's chance to drag out one of their so-called rising stars to point out in simplistic jargon why everything the President just said is wrong. This time it was Joni Ernst, former Iowa pig farmer turned Senator, who gave one of the creepiest little political rebuttals in recent history.

Incredibly, the talking heads on CNN pronounced her efforts commendable, well done, compelling, even.
Sure, if you're into scary, smiley-faced robot women. This is the sort of woman who's all  I am here to help you, humans,  until you turn your back and the long titanium claws come out, and the next thing you know you've been lobotomized and suddenly talking like a conservative Republican.

Credit where credit is sue, however. Joni's poignant story of having to wear plastic bread bags over her shoes while walking fifty miles through ungodly wilderness to her one room, Christian fundamentalist school house definitely plucked at more than a few heart strings.  This is a woman (maybe) who, lest we forget, went on to major in animal castration at a highly regarded Iowan community college.  Still, I wonder if these plastic bags were re-used, at least recycled, or simply thrown in the trash? Are Joni's makeshift shoe covers still lying somewhere in an Iowan landfill? Her launching a search to find them would definitely be a savvy public relations move for her next campaign.

Not satisfied with Ms. Ernst's televised triumph, the Republicans also trotted out their big guns, the big three, as it were, a.k.a. the primary Presidential wannabes.  Paul Ryan, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz.

(Hey, If Paul Ryan married Rand Paul, he'd be Paul Paul. Or would Rand Paul be Rand Ryan?)

I swear, these three guys could star in their own horror movie, and they wouldn't need any make up.

The saga of three Republican zombies trolling the red states, feasting on the remnants of liberal flesh.
 
Whatever you do, don't look at their eyes.  Eyes that say,  I know I'm lying my ass off, but I'm clever enough to get away with it, particularly among my dumbbell constituents.

Ted Cruz' eyes also remind us that  a) you don't have to be particularly smart to go to Harvard  and b) you don't necessarily have to be sane to be a Senator.

Talk about some scary shit!   But then, hey America, you asked for it....

Sheepishly Aclimating To The New Year

Late-Breaking News Flash: Cue maudlin music.  A new year has apparently started. I know what you're thinking. When the hell did this happen?  And thanks a lot for informing us, we who attempt to systematically ignore the devastating effects of passing time, who can with a certain amount of concerted effort convince ourselves that it's still 1976.

Any chance this is nothing more than a mean-spirited rumor?

Afraid not. Time is a cosmic phenomenon, more or less immune to the petty, narcissistic concerns of time-obsessed humanoids.

Oh well. It's not as if last year was anything but a big disappointment. Not as if anything is slated for change this year. According to noted futurist and prolific author Fredrick Crust , we can pretty much expect more of the same, only worse. Last year's intermittent insanity becomes this year's full-blown psychosis.

Religious idiocy (pardon the redundancy) continues to thrive, terrorists continue to terrorize, continuing to believe that indiscriminate murder is their first class ticket to paradise. Yeah, that makes sense. Has to be a joke, right? I mean, how dumb do these people have to be to actually buy into this crap?

Let's see, I have no job skills, my mother consistently withheld love from me, girls refuse to have sex with me, the weather bugs me ... me, me, me ... I might as well just kill a bunch of people, shout something insipid about God and go directly to paradise.

Meanwhile, Al Qaeda is now referred to in the media as a brand. Supposedly, compared with more extremist nut-job groups such as ISIS (Insane State of Iraq & Syria), Al Qaeda is perceived as fairly banal. Mainstream, even. How long before we see Al Qaeda boutiques popping up in various cities, offering jihadist fashion options for non-believing infidels. Why be a terrorist when you can simply look like one?  Call it Martyrdom through Merchandizing.

Back in the land of the free / home of the mostly mindless, the newly elected Republican-led Congress has taken power.  Not only does it already have the lowest approval rating of any Congress is history, it also lays claim to the lowest average I.Q.  And here we've been wondering how stupid people must be to vote Republican. Turns out they were clever enough to elect people even more stupid than themselves.

See, we're not as dumb as everyone thinks.

True, but you do realize that the Republicans won't do anything to improve your miserable existences.

Sure, but at least now we'll know why.  It's called being an informed participant in the democratic process.
 

 Sadly, no sooner had the New Year commenced than a 2-year-old in a Walmart store (where else would this happen?) pulled a handgun from his mother's purse and shot her in the head. Yet another tragic incident of gun-related violence in America, guaranteed to have absolutely no impact on the prospect of increased gun control.  But at least it provided the N.R.A. with a new angle of spin for their insidious propaganda machine: Guns don't kill people, toddlers kill people.

Welcome to the Year of Sheep and Goats!

Publish or Perish

... though the two are certainly not mutually exclusive.

While no clear cut statistics are presently available, there is ample anecdotal evidence to suggest that the process of getting a book published can be fatal to writers.  Time alone is frequently a critical factor.

Typical Agent Guidelines:  "Response time on initial query: six to eight months; on a partial or full manuscript: three to eleven years."

*In all fairness, literary agents have also been known to pass away while considering a writer's submission. Which of course leaves the writer wondering if his or her writing was in any way directly causative of the agent's demise. Hard to perform at your best when you're constantly worrying about who your writing might kill next.

** Note:  If the worst happens and reading your novel kills the agent reading it, it's probably not a good idea to resubmit to another agent in the same agency.

"Hi. My novel apparently gave your colleague a fatal brain aneurysm, but I'm wondering if you'd like to take a crack at it?"

Mentioning the potential lethality of your book to another agency, however, might very well get your foot in the door, so to speak.

Other not-easy-to-swallow-literary-agency-factoids:

Most U.S. agencies continue to employ the standard disclaimer:  We receive several hundred submissions a week, so be patient. Also don't be surprised if you never hear back from us in this lifetime.

So figure a couple of thousand agencies operating at any given time, each getting several hundred submissions a week. Do the math, come up with a conservative estimate of ten million submissions a year. And you're thinking wait a minute, the vast majority of the planet's population are semi-illiterate dumbbells, so who the hell is writing all these books?  Are these the same people who can't sing, yet feel justified auditioning for American Idol?

Or you may hear this from an agent:

"Absolutely loved your query, was up all night reading it - actually I read it 137 times - but unfortunately, after near-infinite soul searching, am forced to conclude that your project is not a good fit for my current list."

And, of course, one of our personal favorites:  

"Don't be discouraged by this rejection. The publishing industry is entirely, overwhelmingly - some might say pathologically - subjective."

Which is a blatant lie, or possibly an inside joke. The publishing industry is actually a monolithic object. Perusing a random selection of literary websites we discover that the object most sought after by an overwhelming majority of agents is something called YA  NA. Which leaves us then having to figure out what YA  NA might be. It could be the name of a Chinese ping pong player, or possibly a Chinese panda, but that would only be relevant if the Chinese had somehow secretly taken over the US publishing business.

In which case the absolute best thing you could be at this moment in time is a Chinese female writer, willing to toe the party line for a profit, but not above the occasional dissident-sounding paragraph, with a penchant for historical, family-oriented romance fiction (no incest, please), as long as no one actually takes off any clothes and all kissing occurs with mouths closed.

Turns out YA NA actually means Young Adult / New Adult, referring to teenagers and people in their early twenties.  So basically you can be a YA or a NA, but not both. Although there are a large number of NAs who continue to behave like YAs.
 Still, one cannot resist the obvious question:  When was the last time any of us have witnessed anyone in either of these age brackets reading a book? 

The equally obvious answer:  YAs and NAs do not read, but they do shop, often compulsively.  As with their  OA (older adult) counterparts, the thrill is in the buying of the thing, not so much the having and / or using of it.

 This also explains why, for example, an 850 page tome on the Franco-Prussian War can become an instant N.Y. Times Bestseller.

I absolutely have to have this thing.

It's called a book, and you will never read it.

So ... what's your point?

It further explains why I'm currently working on a Dystopian Paranormal YA Romance about two fifteen-year-old Chinese junior high school students whose budding love for each other is only overshadowed by their desire to reconnect with the extraterrestrial parents who abandoned them at birth on planet Earth.  

   

 

Girl with Gun

Long assumed lost to the ravages of fading time, misplaced memory and mainstream publishing indifference, the final manuscript of the late, great, obscurely brilliant and clinically insane writer, Henry Hank Clatterbuck, has recently been excavated in, of all improbable places, an outdoor flea market in Ulaanbaatar. As an homage to Hank, the first tattered chapter is offered below.

 

Bang, Bang, Honey Pie

(part 1)

Gaze, if you will, upon this exquisite piece of weaponry, the man is saying, his thick, rubbery-looking lips almost blowing a kiss on the word weaponry. Pay particular attention to the cold forged steel, he says, stroking the long barrel with his stubby fingers, like he might start sex moaning any minute. Does look cold, I have to admit. Wouldn't want to be touching it in the middle of winter.

The sort of firearm that defines a man, he goes on. Who he is, why he is. Cuts right through all the sentimental crap of the confused male identity whiners and their politically correct hangers on.

I'm standing there with Skimmer, who's technically my Dad, but I've always called him Skimmer. Dad just lacks realism. Not that I doubt it was actually his seed that intervened in some convoluted fashion with my Momma's egg. No way around that incontrovertible fact. Just that he's the sort of man you can't exactly imagine as a Dad. More like a big, moody, unpredictable baby. Not that I don't sort of like him. He's got his occasional good qualities, although good may be a stretch, and definitely don't stand around thinking you can count on them in a crisis.

Care to hold it, the guy asks Skimmer.

Skimmer sure does. He grabs it by its pretty pearly-looking handle and does that judging-something's-value-by-its-heft thing. Looks like he's shaking hands, or exercising his puny arm muscles.

Go ahead, the guy urges. Smell it.

Skimmer raises the gun to his nostrils and takes a long serious sniff. Closes his eyes, seems to be enjoying the odor, although I'm wondering how something made of cold forged steel can smell at all.

Now tell me, the guy says, his face all pink and puffy with pride or something. What does that say to you?

Skimmer has to think about this for a minute and then says, Uh, clarity.

The guy looks only half pleased, but says, Yeah, that's a good one. Anything else?

Well, Skimmer says, glancing around like he's hoping angels will suddenly appear and whisper the correct answer to him. Freedom?

There you go, the guy smiles, showing plenty of less than beautiful looking teeth.

There he goes where? I'm wondering. I am familiar with the concept of freedom. It's what people are always whining about the federal government stealing, also what Momma claims she has none of, owing to the unfortunate circumstance of being married to a man like Skimmer. But how a gun says freedom, I can't figure, although judging by the grunts of approval from all the men standing nearby, I may be the only one.

One giant of a guy with a big bald head and scary tattoos up and down both arms slaps Skimmer on the back, shouts, “Right on, my brother.

Skimmer seems pleased that he's all of a sudden so popular. Generally people tend to avoid him like a disease.

Yeah, Skimmer says, she's a real little beauty, isn't she?

For a stupid instant I think he may be talking about me, you know, like being an actual human Dad, making an announcement to the thick-necked multitudes that some things – i.e. his darling daughter – are a lot cuter and more interesting than some dumb gun. No such luck. The way Skimmer's caressing the thing, his eyes going all moist, like he's just met the one and only true love of his life, it's pretty clear that in the shriveled up universe he inhabits, I barely exist. 

Hello! Remember me?

 

Skimmer makes a move to hand the little beauty, which by the way is anything but little, back to the guy behind the counter, but you can tell his heart's not in it. He's like a guy who can't make up his mind, knows he should, but would prefer to just stand here forever, to the end of time, doing nothing.

Maybe the little lady would like to hold it, the guy says to Skimmer, who stares at the guy like he's suddenly speaking Chinese. Huh? he says.

The guy uses his eyes – eyes, I notice, that are starting to look a lot like the eyes of a snake, the kind you sort of think might be smiling, but turns out it's just doing what it does with its mouth right before it bites you – to steer Skimmer's bewildered brain over and down to where guess who is standing.

Oh! Skimmer says, like he's just figured out some big mystery that's been tormenting him his whole, stupid life. How about it, Honey Pie, he says. Wanna hold the gun?

In case you're wondering, no, Honey Pie's not my real name. It's just what Skimmer calls me when he's in a good mood, or when we're in public and he wants to come off looking like he's some sort of nearly normal person. Meanwhile, why would I wanna? I'd much rather be holding a hotdog, or maybe a puppy. I shake my head in what I hope will be a definitive fashion.

Never too young to start, missy, snake eyes says, leaning over the counter towards me, at least as far as his big jelly belly will tolerate.

No thanks, I say. Guns are bad things, I say. They maim and kill on a fairly regular basis.

Talk about the deadly silence of outer space. A hush falls over the entire place like a giant mute tidal wave. I'm guessing if looks could kill, I'd be a goner. Skimmer appears like his head might explode.

Just an opinion, I shout. It's called free speech, in case your dumb brains are wondering.

"Trust None Of What You Hear, Less Of What You See **

It's all happening right there before your eyes, but you don't see a thing. You went blind thirty seconds ago from the sheer dull dumbness of it all. Where's all the beauty gone, you howl into the mirror - not that you had any idea you were standing in front of one. Ah, but then do not fail to discriminate between appearance and Reality, you remind yourself; how things seem as opposed to how they actually are ...  unless, of course, how they really are is simply how they seem. Why assume otherwise? Your perception, as limited as it may be, is all you've got.

Hey, that's some scary shit. I mean, there must be a better answer. Dark matter, for example? Don't that count for something?

Yes, all that dark matter in your head no doubt explains why you're such a dim-witted idiot.

Today's Joke Section

Two schizophrenics run into each other on the street.
Schizo one says, "Hey, who the hell are all you people?"
Schizo two says, "Terrific, I'm hearing those damn voices again."

Why did the Radical Nominalist cross the road?
Because doing so demonstrated absolutely nothing.
(Wait a minute, is that funny? I don't get it.)

Why can't you believe anything elementary particles tell you?
 Because they make up everything.

Enough! My perception of you is rapidly deteriorating.

In any case, worrying about how things appear is pretty much passe, at least on certain news networks, which now speak exclusively in terms of optics.
As in: What, in your opinion, are the optics of the current situation? One might also speak of optical implications, of which, apparently, there are many.

Things no longer appear, they have varying degrees of optical relevance. An ugly person is now referred to as optically challenged. Not being able to see eye to eye is simply a matter of optical divergence. The gorgeous girl who just started working at the local convenience store is someone you optically obsess over. You're spending a ton of money on worthless crap in order to maximize optical opportunity.

Finally, you work up the nerve to speak to her:

"I'm smitten by your optics and would very much enjoy some form of ocular contact with you. Does that strike you as something you might be optically open to?"
At which point she punches you in the eye, screaming, "Stay the hell away from me, you freak."

An optical illusion, by the way, remains an optical illusion. An optical delusion, on the other hand, suggests an egregious misuse - either intentional or as a function of genetic defect, of the prevailing optics.

To sum up:

What we see is all there is. Our near-compulsive inability to actually see it goes a long way to explain the ongoing tragedy of the human condition.

** From a Bruce Springsteen song. Name the song and win an all expenses paid trip to the upcoming, semi-annual Bloggers Conclave in Mogadishu..



 
 

Fragments of the Day, Courtesy of CrazyWorld.Com

We've got individuals on top of buildings.
People on buildings?
That's correct.

They were screaming and yelling for help.
The people?
We believe so.

You've been out in the crowds looking for um, right?
We don't know what we're facing.
Are the criminally insane involved?
On the top of buildings, you mean?
Is that where they are?


What's the big deal about fuck, anyway?

Ex: A brief dialogue utilizing fuck...

Fuck!
Yeah, what the fuck?
Who the fuck knows?
Whatever, man. It's fucked up.
I don't even fucking care anymore.
Fuck it!


I think before we even think about it, first things first.
What even is it, in their eyes?
They told me, we all he got.
What do you make of that, fact?
I'm not gonna second guess.

The healing can't begin while we're still picking at the scab.
Uh.....
It used to be they could stand in one spot.
It was demonstrable at that point.
Well, it's out of our hands now.

So what if you're lucky enough to be on TV?

You can call someone a crazy son-of-a-bitch; cannot call someone a crazy fuck.
Bastard, okay; Shithead, not okay.
Last thoughts, Chuck, then we gotta go.
Fuck you! And my name's not Chuck.

*If you're super lucky enough to be in a movie:  you can call someone a motherfucker just before shooting him in the head, but ladies, you better make sure you're wearing a bra when you do it.


uh, the more uh, of uh, them the uh, better
explain what you mean
people is in over their head, is all
are you suggesting that multiple individuals are sharing a single head?
a mysterious woman Josie is all of a sudden reading a script
she didn't use the F-word, did she?
still no reason to shoot the bitch

(wait a minute, can he say bitch on the air?)

I'm in angst every day.


Sometimes you see images like, this..............

Life Imitates Art, Badly...

Maybe it's the weather. People generally get dumber in the heat. Dumber than what, though? You keep thinking the explosion of global stupidity can't get any worse, that there has to be a point of saturation, beyond which it becomes impossible to be surprised by all the stupid things people are constantly doing.

But then maybe it's not so much the sheer idiocy at play, as the blatant lack of originality displayed by the idiotic doers.

As Hank the homeless idiot-savant says, "If you want to act like a moron all the time, that's fine. But it don't mean you can't infuse a little creativity into the process."

Wait a minute, Hank. Did you just use the word infuse?

"Employed it, actually."

Try to remain focused. You're drifting off point like some brain-damaged bug.

Anyway, the latest dumb trend in crazy-trendy America is the leaving-the-kids-in the-car-in- superheated-parking-lots thing. Seriously, cliche anyone?  The kid-in-the-car season kicked off with that guy in Texas or Alabama, one of those low I.Q. States, who "forgot" his kid was in the back seat for 8 hours while he went into work, came out a couple of times to sex-text with some junior high school girl, and never noticed the boiling baby. It was a terrible accident, he claims. A terrible cliche, at any rate.

First of all, the guy looks dumb, the kind of guy who's so dumb he thinks he's smart. He marries the quasi-perky/on the verge of dumpy-looking girl next door, who also isn't too bright, and the very first thing they do is have a kid, only to discover (yikes!) having a kid ain't easy. It tends to fuck up your life in ways you never (lacking the capacity) imagined.  This is especially true, of course, when you're a self-involved asshole. But come on, credit where credit is due. While busy researching ways to get rid of a kid and make it appear accidental, he also found time to sexually exploit minors online.

Hey man, it's called multitasking!

This is a guy who never should have been allowed to have kids in the first place. Maybe it's society's fault for not preventing him from doing so.

Not willing to be outdone, some woman in Arizona, or maybe Nebraska, left not only her kid in the scorching car while she had her hair done, but also the dog. Mindlessly heinous to be sure, but not entirely lacking in originality. 

When questioned by police, the woman said,  "Yes, I'm obviously stupid enough to leave a kid in a hot car while I get a perm, which by the way I desperately needed,  but I think I safely avoided the cliche by adding the dog."

Then there's the recent story of a 16 year old girl who, while at a party, was drugged and sexually assaulted, her attackers videotaping the entire thing, then promptly putting it online, where it immediately received more than a million 'likes.'

Yeah, cool, man!

Adding significantly to the imbecile factor, one of the boys responsible was quoted as saying,
"Hey, that chick is now officially famous. If anything, she should be thanking us."

As appalling as this is, and notwithstanding the extremely warped sense of social media displayed, I'm sure I saw the exact same episode on Law and Order S.V.U. a couple of years ago. I know I've seen the baby-in-the-car episode.

So what's real and what isn't? Can we even continue to use the word 'real' with a straight face? Is 'reality' really the ultimate cliche?  Is life merely the ongoing reenactment of bad TV? 
Do we (no, don't go there!) even exist?

I'll be outside, sitting in the car, thinking about it.....











  

Tit For Tat

So there you are, more or less, the latest version of yourself, meticulously constructed under, let's face it, less than ideal circumstances, the possibility of appearing an actual person increasingly more a strain than a pastime.  The big question: Who are you?

There ought to be a book you can read to figure it out - Figuring Out If You Actually Exist, And Why That Might Matter.

There should be someone you can ask:

"Hey man, can you see me?"
"Whoa! Who said that?"
"Come on. Tell me something about myself, reassure me."
"Okay, you're the coolest fake human I know."
"So, you do know me."
"Uh, the usual deal is in play? Fifty bucks, no questions asked?"
"Yeah, sure."
"I so know you, man. In fact, knowing you barely covers it. I mean, I KNOW YOU! Put it this way, I comprehend you. I grasp the nature of you. I ..."
"Fifty's my absolute limit."
"In that case, I'll see ya - wouldn't want to be ya."
"I heard that."

Okay, so you're paying people for positive feedback. Is that so wrong? Approbation is a commodity, like anything else. You could ask your friends, except you don't have any. No, that's not exactly true. You have friends, even sort of like a few of them. It's no big mystery that most of them are morons, but these are people at least willing to talk with you. Okay, 'willing to' may be a stretch. People tend to be nicer than they normally would be when they suspect you might be carrying a gun; a.k.a. packing heat; going heavy; etc.

Is that a Glock in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?
Neither. It's a Beretta. And I'm pretty sure the safety is off.

*****

So this guy is driving along a highway somewhere in Sweden. Why would he do that, you ask? Who knows? Guys do stuff. This time of year in Sweden it's light for like 22 hours a day, the sun in the sky resembling a screaming skull that refuses to go away. You tend to run out of sensible things to do. Sleep is pretty much out of the question, and you can only stay drunk for so long before people start to notice. They're drunk too, of course, but not dumb enough to get in a car and drive on a highway.

Anyway, he's driving and sees this road sign, a sign on a highway, apparently they have those in Sweden, too, although naturally you would expect them to be written in Swedish.  This one, however, was not. And it's not like the Swedes to joke around with road signs. Lighthearted highway high jinks in general is not a feature of the Scandinavian agenda. Basic rule of thumb: Don't make stuff up while you're driving.

Get to the sign already.
Right. Sorry.

The sign.  It read:  "Tom Tits Experiment."  Only that.  No other explanation.  No "Please refer to your driver's handbook for further instructions."

Wait a minute, did you just see that sign?
I did, but I'm pretending I didn't. The sun is playing tricks, that's all.
We should definitely go back and investigate.
Are you insane?
Uh ...
No, don't answer that. Are you at least going heavy?
So I may have put on a few kilos. There's no reason to taunt me with it.
A gun! Are you carrying your gun?
Where do you think we are, L.A.?

What does it mean?  The logical inference is that someone named Tom (not even a Swedish name, interestingly enough) is performing some sort of experiment on tits, which sounds illegal, not to mention more than a little creepy.

Tom:  "Unlike most men, content to sit back and passively obsess over tits, I've taken my obsession to the next level, practical experimentation."

Unless Tom's surname is Tits; equally bizarre, if for different reasons. A man named Tom Tits is performing some unknown experiment somewhere in Sweden, the mere fact of which somehow warrants a road sign.

The obvious conclusion is that Sweden may be a stranger place than we originally thought, although we are all aware of the pitfalls of jumping hastily to conclusions. We'd like to hear from Tom directly on this, or from anyone who knows Tom, perhaps a former girlfriend who bailed as soon as the weird experiments started.  Contact us. Anonymity guaranteed.

Narcissists' Dilemma

Many of us assumed (desperately hoped) that the Twitter debacle, the deluge of idiotic and banal tweets, in 30 words or less, would be as bad as it got - the bottom of the social media barrel, as it were. No such luck.

"I'm not sure why, but just saying the word tweet makes me hate myself, even more than I normally do."

In his new book, The Social Media Disease, Dr. Wilburt Humpies refers to social media phenomena as a bottomless pit of potential self-abuse and destruction.  Any mass-participatory social system, according to Humpies, rapidly seeks the lowest common denominator; judgment, awareness and overall intelligence rapidly plummet, resulting in a disturbing collective stupidity, all the more worrisome because this blatant dumbness is generally misperceived as trendy coolness.

"I have 25,000 followers on Twitter. Unfortunately, they're all morons."

So you might inquire, what could possibly be more appalling than a billion people sending out speculative tweets on the actual dimensions of Kim Kardashian's ass?  (Hint: it's smaller than a planet)

How about a 'Selfie' of Kim Kardashian's ass?

Got a face?  Got an ass?  Got a camera?  The entire population of Earth is apparently dying to see it.

"I usually spend 4 hours a day doing selfies. I guess it could be considered obsessive - I mean, my boyfriend left me, claimed he couldn't compete with my phone - but how else would I know I exist?"

No question that the selfie is the narcissist's ultimate wet dream. After all, it's all about me anyway, and now my face is here to prove it. A recent study conducted by the Institute of Secretive Psychology concluded that 80% of the U.S. population now displays clear cut narcissistic tendencies. Further analysis determined that 79.8% of those had absolutely no right to do so.

What's the difference between a solipsist and a narcissist?
The solipsist says, 'Only the Self is real.'
The narcissist says,  'Correction. Only my self is real.'

Fortunately, there is light at the end of this dark tunnel of mindless self-involvement. Much like nature itself, irony will always find a way.

Professor Linden Henkel, at the Litchfield Connecticut Community College, has been investigating social media, some might say obsessive-compulsively - even while admitting to spending a not infinitesimal amount of time surfing porn sites - and has uncovered a fascinating by-product of the self-photo craze.

 Memory loss. 

"The obsessive concern with controlling and projecting self image - via the so-called selfie - onto social media unquestioningly results in a kind of mental impairment; specifically a deterioration of identity, accompanied by a gradual loss of ability to recognize oneself."

Have to love it, right?

  I don't exactly know who this is in the photo, but whoever it is, he keeps jumping in front of my camera whenever I try to take a picture of myself.

Sending you my latest selfie. If by any chance you recognize me, please let me know who I am.