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Evil - for dummies

What you do is you start a bank, then by sleight of hand you convince everyone that while you only have 10 units of coin in your coffers y...

Saturday, December 24, 2011

You are a warthog desirous of fame and fortune

You are a warthog desirous of fame and fortune. You have not the physique for the former nor the acumen for the later, but you know an opportunity when you smell one. There are in your professional circle a number of gentlemen no longer fit to take on the challenges of international business. You have noted in their deportment a laxness and in their judgment no longer the sharpness of their early years. You have decided that now is the time to undermine these sonofabitches. Room needs to be made for the underprivileged.

A warthog such as yourself must fare cautiously in all events, but in the corridors of power, quadrupeds are few and far between. You are alone eating from a trough, alone defecating on the lawn, alone in most matters except one: greed. There you are joined by many. Bankers, lawyers, brokers, councilmen, all bipeds perhaps, but all deceitful in their own right.

From the moment you rise in the morning, having removed the gunk from between your hooves and the crusts from your scratchy skin, the moment you enter the lobby of headquarters, you are on the alert, your ears perked up for whispers and your snout on the scent of rats and other vermin that gather in these parts. Sharpened by years of observation, serving under the most treacherous management class your company has seen since its founding, you have learned to turn a blind eye when a matter doesn’t concern you, to swallow your pride when it does, and to take a beating on some else’s behalf if required.

All of this you have mastered well and quickly. But there is one act of submission you have not and will never learn. You just don’t know how to give up. These sonsabitches have been trying to teach you for years. When they put out their cigarettes on those strange tusks that protrude from your snout, what do you think they’re telling you? They're saying, listen Warthog, you are a mere curiosity here, something to differentiate us from our competitors; you are here so that we may say, between deals, “we have among our senior staff a Nolan Warthog from Guinea-Bissau”.

I recognize that the alternative for you is bleak: you may try to flee, but eventually we all know you will end up as sausage on a German Christmas market, your tusks discarded and your hooves turned to Pritt Stick Glue. So I understand that you must play the game, and I understand that you must play it hard. And I know that, in essence, you are not greedy I mean, you are just a Nolan Warthog – but none of us are really greedy, in essence, it’s just that along the way, warthog, something went wrong, terribly wrong, and now God help us we just don’t know how to get back.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

here we go (pt.2)

(pt 1)

Don’t underestimate the value of pain: the sting of urine on your butt cheeks or that choking feeling when milk runs down the wrong tube. Drink it. It’s valid. Any experience, even irritation at unknown folk fondling your feet or breathing into your face, is valid.

When you have none, experience is worth more than your weight in gold. Some you’ll have to go out and get, some you’ll receive free of charge, and some – alas – will be inflicted on you. In all events, be patient, it comes slowly (at least it will seem that way until you realize it has all come too fast). A spit bubble is experience; laughter is experience; but so is chickenpox or gonorrhea.

(Later in life when a security agent performs on you an internal cavity search for no justifiable reason, that too will be experience. But I digress…)

Anyway, congratulations, you are now no longer a complete sitting duck. You have started on your way to actually know something; you have started to experience knowledge, and with that first taste, your appetite will become insatiable. Thankfully, nature has so rigged things that it is also around this time that your eyes will clear up from the amphibian fog that has been with you for over nine months.

Open sesame. Behold the wonders of the world: cumulus clouds, primary colors, the Big Dipper, and so on and so forth.

You will be peering through these peepholes a damn awful lot, only closing them to sleep or shut-out insects and incoming particles. You will be amazed a thousand-fold before you become blasé. You will not comprehend what you have just tapped into. You will feel exalted, if not all-out Godly.

These will be your wonder years. Enjoy them because they are relatively short. Before you know it will commence six years of state-mandated training in reading, writing, arithmetic (for purposes of testing) and social exclusion, compliance and class-warfare ( purposes of… I don’t know).

Anyway, you will suffer major indignities before the age of ten. You will contract coodies and other imaginary diseases, and you will be put without your consent (or even knowledge) into any one of a number of categories, ranging from GEEK, DORK, JERK, JOCK, NERD, PERV and so on. There will be no disabusing anyone of this as there will be no proof for or against it. You will be tried and convicted by a jury of your own peers in a court that makes up laws as it goes along.

Just get through this is all I have to say.

In Phase 3 (Erections and the Enticements of Lust, so termed in the literature) you will be up late many nights doing fuck all with a gang of “dickwads” you will call your "friends". All of you – yourself included – will be under fierce hormonal attack, and often in varying stages of inebriation. Believe it or not, but you will learn a lot from these fools. Not directly – you will learn nothing from them directly – but from the experience as a whole. This is when your voice will start to break, your body will throw shit at you and your mind will become obsessed with one and one thing only. If at some stage you find yourself crying for help from the bottom of shallow ditch called teenage love, forgive me if I don’t come to the rescue. That too is part of your “experience”*.

(… to be continued)

* “Experience” may take on an altogether difference meaning at this stage if you decide that your skin, eyes, nose, tongue and ears are inadequate tools of perception and that they need to be "enhanced". Go down this road at your own peril.

Friday, November 11, 2011

here we go (pt.1)

Here we go.

You’ll emerge headfirst, your skull still loose tectonic plates and your eyes almost useless. You’ll have no hand-to-eye coordination, no motor skills and not a balanced bone in your body. So forget trying to find your bearings or doing any kind of reconnaissance. You won't have time for that anyway: as soon as you’re out, a fucker in a white coat will cut you loose and you will be transferred to an adult-sized woman on a bed, the same woman – by the way – who hosted you, fed you, and kept you warm for nine months consecutive. So BE NICE! If she weeps on your face, if she cuts the flow of air to your lungs, take it. That's love.

Now. Make a fist - go on - just do it. It’ll be the size of a plum and about that soft, but it doesn’t matter, it’s symbolic, it’ll feel good. Once you’ve done that, push out a long, sharp cry; just shriek your little lungs out. With all these giants manhandling you, you'll need to put your foot down one way or the other. Besides, your voice will fill the surrounding void and it will give you a sense of the dimensions and emptiness of this place, your new home.

At this stage, if you are anything like me, you will feel a strange mixture of joy and consternation. You will feel free and liberated - somehow - but at the same time, all of this will seem just too freaky and mysterious. And that’s ok, because it is.

Finally, at the end of this long day, you will be put in a caged enclosure for the night. To rest. Don’t worry if this makes you feel like an animal; this will not last for very long, only the first few years of your life, and not (with a little luck) the remaining seventy five.

(...to be continued)

Sunday, October 16, 2011

take a straight line

Take a straight line, vertical. Follow it one light year. Up.

Stop. Take a rest. Then go another two.

You will be three light years from home now, if my math is right. At this point – because this is not in your hands – the content of your bladder will be sloshing around your underpants. There is no gravity, so it will stay there.

Meanwhile, you will have become aware that matters are out of the ordinary, and you will seek something familiar, something to reassure you. First urgently, then DESPERATELY. In the end you will seek ANYTHING to rest your eyes on. But you will see only blackness.

This observation will be accurate because, indeed, there will be ABSOLUTELY NOTHING FOR SEVERAL MILLION MILES IN ANY DIRECTION, not a speck of dust, not a twinkle of light.

Time will elapse. The piss in your pants you will have forgotten; likewise that morning’s scheduled PowerPoint presentation on debt guarantees. All this stuff will be far removed from your mind. And the nameless woman you left in your bedroom that morning: a mental artifact.

Having struggled outwardly, now your thoughts will scramble for a foothold, but they will be in a quagmire of their own.

However.,

Suddenly, for reasons I will not share with you, you will think that all of this has to do with the fact that too many times in your life – a disproportionate number given your age – you have been insensitive, callous, and even – let us be plain– an ASSHOLE.

Perhaps you will be right in thinking so. Who is to say. I am not here to judge, even if I hold pinpoint-specific opinions about everything in the KNOWABLE universe. Even if I was instrumental in its creation.

You will cogitate on this briefly, but before you come to any conclusion you will begin to feel EXTRAORDINARILY SMALL – microscopic – but you will ascribed this to the immensity of space and the utter soundlessness in your ears. You will NOT consider that there may be other reasons you feel this way, reasons that are, let us say, more personal or metaphorical. I posit this is not because you are unsophisticated or unliterary, but because having been an asshole so long, so consistently –

Anyway, I will not pretend to know how you feel or what motivates a person such as yourself. I will only describe the events in a kind of journalistic fashion for the purpose of general edification, since it is easy for me to see what is going on in time and space in a way that you (plural) are not able to.

True, in the early days I played a role in your affairs, but now with all this mythology surrounding my capabilities and general attitude, not to mention all of the terrible shenanigans you've participated in these past few millennia, I have washed my hands of you. So I am here as an impartial observer, an occasional commentator, but certainly not as a fan.

Back to you.

You are suspended, your pants filled with urine; in your mind, that inkling that you have been an ASSHOLE just too many times. (It gnaws at me. This word means too many things these days: interpersonal, anatomical, and so on. In French it would be trou du cul which has more edge than the American asshole, but it is not used in this context even if it is more trenchant – also French… but I digress).

First you will think of karma, but realizing you do not know exactly what it means you will become distressed and quickly move onto more familiar western tradition, in particular, all those half-way stops like purgatory, anything as long as it is not everlasting. Forgive me here if I can no longer hold back an ironic grin that will have been pressing for some time.

Anyway, at the thought that you can now somehow “make good” you will feel briefly religious and an appropriate soul-nettling torment will follow. But nothing compared to what you will experience next.

Not right away, but it will come eventually. Like a train.

TIME

Unannounced, it will penetrate your core. You will be as if impaled! It will rip right through your being. So overwhelming will be this feeling that your sense of your own body will be completely eclipsed. Eternity and endlessness will fill your center and you will feel euphoric, but at the same “time”, so to speak, you will be drenched in terror.

As with any experience (rather than state) eventually it will come to an end. And when it does you will find that morning’s breakfast, partly digested, floating before your eyes. Finally, as more fluids continue to flow from every orifice of you body, you will attempt a devastating, existential roar which will go no further than the confines of your skull, there being no gas around to transport it.

As for me, from my vantage point over here, I will take note and perhaps do a little cogitating of my own. If it takes an awfully long time, perhaps I will toy with this phrase trou du cul a little longer as I am very interested in terminology as a field of study. In all events, rest assured, I will not tarry to bring all of this to an end at the earliest opportunity

(True, I am not completely uninvolved. But that’s also a matter of perspective).

OK. Take a straight line. Vertical. Three light years the other way. You may stop at your own discretion, you know the routine now.

If you see yourself on the way down it is because you exceeded the speed of light on the way up.

If you see yourself on arrival it is because you are back where you started, in the bathroom, in front of the mirror.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

type 3 Homo sapiens: old-school buckeroo


type 123456, 7

Roust him outta bed, chuck him his boots and something to chomp on, get him goin’ but don’t let the sonofagun speak up, not ‘til he’s all sweated over and caked with grime, you hear. You let a gunner like that open his pie-hole befor he’s well and tired, you let him expose partions of his mind too early in the day, mark my words, soon all manner of pretense and frill ‘ll come apparent. Soon he’ll think himself a goddamn gentleman and no more lift a finger for his pops than wipe his hind-end with his own sleeve.
I says there aint no need to go about inneractin' and innerchangin’ ideas and esperiences all the goddamn time. That only stir up complications and relativizations and so forth, and no good ever come of that.
Likewise the ladies, nowadays so generally accustomated to courtesy and such hogwash that every conversation soon become a goddamn spectacle a’ feelin’ and sentimentality. A man want to recline quiet and listen to the crickets. A man want to enjoy a jug a’ ale on his lonesome. No sir. The missus have some injury must be redressed right this goddamn minute, and all heavens stop gyratin’ before she git back quiet to business as usual.
Aint nothin’ to be done about it neither. What with the innernets now and those goddamn pocket telephones they be fingerin' day long, everybody's a know-it-all but nobody look you straight in the eye no more. The world just aint what it used to be and if you think it's all goddamn magic and wonder, I got a chopped finger and a whistlin’ lung says otherwise.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

day of pardon

Criminal vermin, gangster overlord - thug of every stripe - whatever your position in the constellation of assholes, today I extend my hand to you in salutation. Take it. It will not happen again. Ordinarily I would arrange for you only a firing squad, but today, in a gesture of magnanimity, I salute you human to human. I say to you: how do you do? How is business? How was it beating the crap out of that teenager you sold on to become the plaything of a sheik or drug-lord?
On a regular day I would devise ways to set your ass on a spike, like in Spartacus (the-movie), and I would think how best to rally a rabble of townsmen to bombard you with rocks and leftovers. And in the evening, because I am studious, I would consult reference books at the public library to draw inspiration from the Middle Ages and the great “practitioners” of the Inquisition. But on this exceptional day of pardon, I find it in myself to commend you as an entrepreneur and a risk-taker in times of economic hardship.
Likewise, to the crack-dealing mutherfucker, I extend a kind hand of brotherhood and I say to him: How fare you gentleman? How is business in this underprivileged neighborhood? And I ask the toothless junky slobbering on himself behind me if he would please wait his turn so that I may take my time to bid this crack-dealing mutherfucker farewell.
Perhaps I will not sustain this magnanimity an entire day. Perhaps even as I take leave of this crack-dealing entrepreneur, I might already be devising ingenious ways to give him a taste of his own medicine: a slow-release, salami-sized butt-plug filled with his own product, so that this gentleman may feel in a single “sitting” the combined experience of a thousand of his loyal customers.
But no, you see, today I salute this mutherfucker, as I salute the politician and his slut, the backroom-banker (one to wage war under false pretenses so the other may kill for profit). To such kleptomaniac gangster assholes I extend a salutatory hand, knowing full well I am looking at a diseased soul with a God-complex; knowing full well that I will be scrubbing this hand with soap and hard bristles at home. You see, pressing the flesh with such a man is like clutching a hand-shaped volume of vomit. But this he will never know, nor will he know that the smile on my face is not real, just a great feat of dissimulation and self-control.
I will do my utmost, you understand. Even the most dastardly mutherfucker in the great constellation of assholes will be greeted cordially. Today.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

I, dog

I enjoyed this day among you, ambling down your lanes, and I take some pride in telling you that while every impulse prompted me so, I did not piss on your flower beds and pick-nick zones. I also hope you noted how quickly I refocused away from those flying objects, and how I abstained from nuzzling that Terrier's hind-end, even while it was presented to me – so to speak – on a silver platter.

Of course, I will not pretend it was easy. The smells were strong, they were alluring, and they were everywhere. Some were rancid, others were the very stench of copulation, and thus practically irresistible. But even so, I held steady and merely observed while my peers pissed on just about everything that protruded from the ground. I watched as they yelped and barked and rolled over each other to catch various objects in motion. And I watched their members swell and their tongues drip with saliva as they mounted bitches they had never laid eyes on before. I watched it all, but did not move.

On one occasion, I'll admit, I was overwhelmed and I found myself suddenly – my hind leg hiked up – releasing a few drops of urine on a telephone pole that was plastered with the stench of others. But I became aware as soon as I did it and ceased forthwith.

You see, that’s what it's all about: awareness! You have to become aware, otherwise you’re just a creature out there, chasing everything that moves and pissing on everything that doesn't.

Friday, July 22, 2011

type 2 Homo sapiens: the fashion-conscious being


type 123456, 7


I would never powder my face as they did in courtly circles, but I exfoliate and moisturize, and here and there I dab a special rejuvenating ointment that costs several hundred dollars a deciliter. I would not say that I am ready to use all available modern techniques, but I do what must be done.
I am no longer what you would call “young”. This is a disadvantage in every regard except one: my wardrobe has matured with me. It spans the shoulder-padded jackets of the early eighties, to the skinny jeans and décolleté t-shirts of today. Whatever is suddenly “retro” or “vintage” I generally already own. There I have an advantage over the young man who must go out and find that item of clothing that is no longer being produced, but that everyone is looking for.
In the days of Cocktail my hair was combed back with mouse and a touch of brilliantine. Today it is longish and finger-brushed across my eyes in a style I have dubbed: windswept. It is fashionable, but difficult to maintain. I am told I am often touching it – my hair – probably for this reason, but this is not something I am ever fully aware of.
On a regular day I'll be wearing my black Ray Ban Wayfarers – I do not believe in all these new colors – and a cute little gillet cardigan I’ve owned for fifteen years. For a long time I wore only black Converse All Stars, but recently, from one day to the next, I switched to Vans and I haven’t looked back since.
Overall, I am friendly, well informed and anxious [sic] to learn about new cultures. I am ready to talk about most things, but I will not waste my time speculating on what cannot be proven one way or the other. Extraterrestrials, ESP, the Great Yeti. I will not waste my time and I will not waste yours. And please do not suggest, as others have done, that the ointment I use on my face is such a “speculative” subject.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

the Great Picture Show

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, boors and sophisticates, see the falling stars, see the crescent moon, see the coyotes in the desert, see the brute slap his wife, see the bimbo bop her boobs, see the cop chomp on tacos and the statesman pick is nose. See the great orchestrations, scientific, musical, sociological; see the machinations, ladies and gentlemen, political, psychological, military. See them in vivid color. See them with your nose right up against them. See them sitting down, on your feet or crouched strangely, clothed or naked. See them as you wish. And reach in with your hands like in a grab-bag and feel. You may grunt, roar and express all that you experience (Note: in most venues you will be free to do so; in others there are specific prohibitions. Please read the fine print). You will see a thousand men in bullet trains, you will see a thousand elderly sequestered, you will see a million lights blinking, and you will see darkness too. You can become a star-player, a man or woman of repute, performing great feats, physical and mental. But you can also crawl the gutter like a cockroach and taste only the most extreme and gut-wrenching sensations for which you need no qualifications at all except the blood in your veins and skin on your back. All free of charge, ladies and gentlemen. And it makes no difference to me whether you fuck yourself up completely, whether you piss on this great stage, do cartwheels or wax lyrical in the throes of love: it’s The Great Picture Show for this reason, great because it can accommodate you, me, the rat, the ruler, the rake, the great magistrate, the man with four wives, the man with one, the clerk, the laborer, the asshole, the courtesan, the monk, the dancer, the breast- and bottle-fed, the daring and the cowardly. Do as you wish. Do everything you wish, but do something. One thing you cannot do is just watch. You can try, it’s not forbidden, but… you will see.

Friday, July 1, 2011

elements of manhood

First I drop a fist down on that psychotic little gadget that lets you snooze for ten minutes at a time. But the damage is done. I am awake, which means, gentlemen, that as we speak, a trillion plus brain cells are scrambling off their skinny hind-ends to serve their master.

In the meantime, I’ve opened my eyes and I am looking out across the expanse of a king-size bed. And I am dumbfounded! It seems I am ALONE, gentlemen. How the heck can this be? Is she being coy under the duvet? I thrust out my arm to inspect, but right and left is all empty space.

We skip forward.

I'm on my feet now, on a tiled floor, thrusting croutons, bacon, egg, and dairy product into my open mouth. My manhood is pendulous, but this is not unusual when I’m eating early in the morning.

We skip forward.

I’m dressed, on a sidewalk, thrusting quarters into a machine so that I may be permitted to park my three thousand-plus pounds of vehicle in this goddamn fiefdom they call a free country. I drop my fist down on this slotted machine, thinking that if I had a club or a bat I’d knock quarters out a hundred miles wide.

Instead, I draw back to deliver a headbutt that would do honor even to the great Zinedine Zidane, but a breeze hits me in the neck and I sneeze!

Hatchoum!

A completely involuntary reaction leaves me folded in two and not quite in control. I look around to see if anyone has witnessed this spasm, especially – God forbid – a woman.

We skip forward.

Near a cafe I thrust my hand into the pocket nearest my manhood. Out comes a second gadget. I press numbers. A female voice answers the call. We communicate is sparse terms: desires, options, locales. She is not coy. We agree to meet.

We skip forward.

I thrust my…

We skip forward.

Back home I thrust the remote control between the seat pillow and the armrest so that I can operate it without holding it in my hands, which are otherwise occupied. Until I fall asleep.

We skip forward.

I drop a fist down on that psychotic little gadget that lets you snooze…

Saturday, June 25, 2011

aspiring tyrant, despot or autocrat

Six thousand baboons on horseback, half-starved and crazy-eyed. The smell of blood and horse manure. Those were the days. I could thunder across the plains in a long beard and these apes would piss their saddles. Not anymore. Tyrannies are a dull electronic affair now, no longer hard-fought, but creeping, established by stealth and subterfuge.

So sheathe you sword, stranger, you will not need it. You will see no blood, no plunder, no rape. You will see the images - lots of them - but that's all. The images are all that matter these days. They can be disseminated to baboons worldwide almost instantaneously, but usually they are touched-up in studio first, enhanced and then narrated by “experts”, political idols and other baboons of repute.

Your tyranny will not by like mine, stranger. It will be more complex. In my day, we adhered to simple, time-honored precepts from wiser men than ourselves. Me, I followed only one: men must be either pampered or crushed because they can get revenge for small injuries, but not grievous ones*.

I feared only the dagger and the phial of arsenic, and to protect myself from both I had a fortress of men that I maintained and – it follows – pampered.

You, stranger, you will fear extradition, infamy, courts of law and complicated jurisdictions. Your enemy will be the emboldened baboon with a keyboard. Your path will be riddled with sycophants, bureaucrats and do-gooders, and behind them will be an army of baboons afflicted with the sickness of this modern age: self-importance.

I pity you, stranger.

You want my advice? Drop it. It isn’t much fun anymore. Buy a yacht. Go sailing.

…mmm, but I see you’re determined.

Well, you have money, yes, but no territory and no man to rule over. You can’t conquer land these days, not successfully, not like we used to. Some territories can be bought, but these are intemperate, depopulated zones; you could rule there in peace, but I trust this does not interest a man such as yourself.

To rule in this day age – to really rule – there is only one territory of any significance. It holds within itself all territories: it is the baboon’s mind. You rule there, stranger, and you can control the baboon without force, like magic.

An old-timer like me cannot tell you how to do this, not in this modern age, but I can tell you what you must achieve, that has not changed and it never will.

It is very simple, stranger: YOU must tell the baboon who he is; you must never permit the baboon to discover this for himself.




*Machiavelli, The Prince

Thursday, June 2, 2011

letter from the galaxy (flats and tubulars IV)

(flats and tubulars I) (flats and tubulars II) (flats and tubulars III)

Thank you for the footage of life where you are. I enjoyed it, but this mister sir attenboro narrates like he is pacifying a crowd of children. I silenced him mostly, except for the section on so called “primates”. There I wanted to know what he had to say because they reminded me much of your descriptions of “flats and tubulars”, and I had to wonder to what extent the two are related, if they are not one and the same

So, yes, it was interesting, but it did not help me to find you on a map, you bozo! Your so called “Terra” is just a speck of dust in a swath of stars. And this “Sun” you speak of, the star you say you are orbiting, no one has ever heard of it. Not here at least. I’m not saying you lied, Lui, maybe you got the name wrong, maybe you weren’t paying attention again. And perhaps it is not clearly visible in the sky, so just ask someone, don’t be embarrassed; they won’t expect you to know that as a foreigner.

Anyway, I hope it was worth it. I hope you’re not now asking yourself why you consented to be frozen to absolute zero, why you consented to 3450 days of capsule-sleep, and why you consented to leave behind everything you love. Do they have that where you are, Lui, love? It is possible under twice the gravitational pull and with all these aggressive quadrupeds in your midst?

I really hope you don’t regret it. I really I hope you’re not constantly asking yourself how our weekly game of Quadboard went (Gaorman and Storm are still upset with you, by the way), and I also hope these so called “flats” you couldn’t stop talking about are as “stimulating” and “fascinating” as you pronounced them. I’ll be honest, if they are at all like these primates on the footage you sent me, well, was it really worth it?

Look, let me just let it out, ok: Damn you, Lui! You’re a real jerk, you know that. I have NO idea where you are, and did you bother to send me even a few words to let me know you’re ok? No. Just some footage of creatures croaking and furry quadrupeds who do nothing but eat, sleep and attack each other in broad daylight. In the footage I watched five spotted quadrupeds attack a clayish giant with a flexible pipe hanging off his face, the “elephant” so called. They clambered onto its back, they tore at its flesh. It was horrible.

I hope you can deal, Lui, because let's be honest, you’re not exactly an adventurer. It worries me. You have to be quick on your feet with all these predators. And with twice the gravitational pull out there, compared to these quadrupeds you must be something like a tranquilized “baboon”.

I don’t hate you. I don’t envy you - god knows! - I just miss you, Lui. That’s all.

From afar, yours always,

QB

Ps- Storm won the Quad in three


Friday, April 22, 2011

the sun

I pity creatures underground. I pity the prisoner, the kidnapped man in a sack. The blind, I pity. And those peoples up North who eat seal and live out their days in obscurity, I pity them too. I pity unborn children and the pale-skinned hermit who lives holed-up. I pity schmucks with small windows and file-clerks in cubicles. Night watchmen, I pity, and conductors of the wagons-lits. I pity them all. I pity Australians too during the day; and at night, I pity me. But most of all (in increasing order), I pity the mole, the albino, the vampire.

Friday, April 15, 2011

piscine olympique

HA! I’m in a pool, gentlemen. Water right and left. I splash, I gurgle, I spit water at my fellow bathers. Twice, thrice I spit. I do not hesitate just because they are elderly, and even when they call to the "bathmaster" (what do you call such a man?) I do not hesitate to do it again. And when the "bathmaster" shakes his finger, I do not flinch, gentlemen. And when I note the tremor in his voice, the consternation in his face, gentlemen, I spit and gurgle much the same. In their minds they are in the midst of a psychopath, but am I concerned, gentlemen? Am I worried what they will think of me? (the elderly quickly breaststroke to the pool’s edge) No, gentlemen, because I do not question such things, much as I do not question that so many miles beneath us, under the Earth's crust, is a creeping hellfire; much as I do not question that “galacticly”, so to speak, we are on the back-end of a dirtball, gentlemen, wafted about in deep space. No, gentlemen, I do not care to ponder such matters. Why? Because I’m in a goddamn pool, gentlemen, and because I came here to hit the diving boards, that's why!

Yes, of course, sometimes I adapt my attitude to circumstances. Sometimes, like the old savants of the east, I take the path of least resistance. Sometimes I choose not to confront the adversary frontally, sometimes I opt to ignore him instead, like with this so called "bathmaster”, who has disrobed – Speedo-ready – and who is now fretting on the pool’s edge as if attempting to expel from his anus a rubber plug. He may be an adversary, gentlemen, but do I hate this man? No, gentlemen, and nor should you. He is a fearful man and he should be pitied.

So when this so called "bathmaster" calls for reinforcement, what do I do, gentlemen?... Gentlemen! What do I do? I walk, gentlemen. I walk to the diving board, I mind my own goddamn business, gentlemen. I do not run, I walk calmly. But when I reach the ladder, I climb up lithely like a cat, all the way up to the top, to the elevation marked OLYMPIQUE (that's “olympic” for the unschooled gentlemen among you).

Come, come now, what did you think, that I would stop at the lower boards to “test the waters”, so to speak? No, gentlemen. And at such heights as these, gentlemen, do you see me diddling about? Do you see me clutching my toes on the edge, testing the bounce of the plank and such things, like these so called “professionals”. No, gentlemen! No, goddamn it, I plunge, gentlemen. I plunge in a kind of magnificent arc, spitting out spray-water on my way up and then twisting into a double corkscrew on my way down. Gentlemen, are you picturing this, gentlemen! And when I meet the surface of the water, gentlemen, and receive across my face and chest a Poseidon-smack as unholy as any, am I deterred, gentlemen? Do I back down, gentlemen? Do I really need to answer this question for you, gentlemen.

And so it is that I climb to the high diving board once again (on the ground, the "bathmaster" is still expelling his plug; reinforcement has arrived; the elderly are still paralytic on the water’s edge). You see, I have no esteem for so called “preparation", gentlemen. Preparation is for the fearful, like this fretting “bathmaster” – this man lives in fear, gentlemen! Do you wish to live in fear? I will answer that for you: you do not! I do not fear and I do not just proceed, I venture gentlemen! you understand, exactly as I am now, twisting my flank once more into an elegant double corkscrew. And even as I do this, gentlemen, even as I descend at great speed, I am fully aware and I am able to catch sight of the elderly man and his wife looking in horror at the "psychopath" in flight. But still I am not bothered by this, nor by the fretting "bathmaster", nor by the OVERWHELMING FORCE with which I am met on the surface of the water, and which briefly shatters my consciousness and knocks every ounce of air out of my lungs. But even then, even as I sink, gentlemen – awed by my performance and suffering perhaps a little too – my mind is already preparing to do it again.

Friday, April 8, 2011

type 1 Homo sapiens: well-meaning, but crazy


type 123456, 7


I had this job welding in brackets down in a ship hold. Ten hours a day breathing in oxy-acetylene. Then one night I lost my temper. One night a foul-mouth Filipino gave me lip and I punched him in the face, knocked his teeth out. They fired me on the spot. 
Good riddance, right? Ten hours a day lying on your back with a welding torch. Not so, my friend. I spent the next six weeks wandering the dockyards in desolation. You can only sleep so many hours, Labas, you can only consume so much, and even porn, end of the day, gets boring... You follow? ...So what do you do? What does a man do?

In three months, I drank a sea of liquor in half-liter installments, and every hooker in a hundred mile radius knew me by name. I partook, Labas, as if womankind was on the brink of extinction. My pecker was in flames, my pockets empty, and my brain – God forgive me – a bundle of scar-tissue. 
Still now my eye twitches.

Christ, Rico!

Naaah. Not to worry, Labas. Don’t use it much – my brain – and my pecker’s still good.

You’re a desperate man, Rico.

You’re a keen observer, Labas… You see this?

Your hands.

There’s callus here a quarter inch thick. This is my legacy. A quarter inch of bone-hard skin. I can’t feel a goddamn thing with these claws, but it’s all written here. Twenty years worth.

No palm readings for you then, Rico.

Don’t need ‘em. The future's set for me.

Nothing’s set Rico.

I’m a welder, Labas. I weld. But you wouldn’t understand that, you probably never worked a day in your life.

Not true!! I must have worked five, six, at least.

Ha ha. I like you, Labas, I like you. Think of that, us meeting in a place like this.

I was hungry. You were here. Simple physics, Rico.

You’re pretty goddamn prosaic for a nomad, Labas.

And you're pretty goddamn literate for a dockworker, Rico. Prosaic! Christ. Pass the salt, will ye.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

emotions (flats and tubulars III)

(flats and tubulars I) (flats and tubulars II)

This here – you see – that’s your heart. You don’t fool around with this thing. This is your engine, this is where life is automated, where it begins and ends. Its status is unrivaled. There is even mythology amongst humans that it is the main transport hub of emotions.

Of what?

e-MO-tions. We’ll get to that, sergeant...

Now, this here, your liver, it’s an unseemly thing – it looks a lot like some of our waterborne entities back home, don’t you think? – but it does critical work. It extracts substances from the body, substances that, if accumulated, would kill you deader than a hammer. It’s not the heart – in the hierarchy of organs – but it’s damn important anyway –

Wow, what was that!?

That, sergeant, is just one of many fluid discharges. This one you saw is the most regular but perhaps the least important, even if its yellow color and spray-arc are impressive. There are many more fluids secreted, ejaculated, expelled, and so forth; and there are also some fluids better kept in the body. This red stuff, for instance, you lose too much of that and again kill you deader than a hammer.

You like that expression, don’t you sir?

I do. Now, before I forget, there may be an occasion when you receive a secretion from this, your pineal gland – right here, in the center of your head. It is possible you will experience this as a rush of godliness, of transcendence, but I must remind you – firmly, sergeant that you are not a god, not here, not amongst these Men. You must not forget that. It is perhaps the most important information I give you today. You are not a god. Is that understood, sergeant?

Yes.

Yes, what?

Yes, sir.

Good. OK. Now, except for visits to the lavatory, which I showed you how to carry out, you will not have to worry your head too much about these secretions and all this hydrology. It is all self-regulating. This means you can spend all your time, all your waking hours, in the business of being conscious, of being self-aware… Sergeant! Sergeant, wipe that smile off your face. Sergeant! Do you imagine, sergeant, this will be recreational in nature, sergeant? Do you expect to be entertained, sergeant? Do you expect sergeant, that all of this is for the sergeant’s personal amusement?

No, sir!

Good! Now listen to me carefully. Listen to me very carefully. You are, for all practical purposes, unschooled; your training is, I’m sorry to say, laughable – a one day excursion to an uninhabited Pacific isle. For this reason, sergeant, mark my words, your experience will be as follows: you will be treading a tight rope; on your right will be self-indulgence, self-aggrandizement, self-glorification, complete delusion, sergeant; and gaping to your left – equally abysmal – self-abasement, self-nullification – the opposite; everything will be paired, you’ll see. And, even if you make it, sergeant, the risk that you will degenerate in some fashion is high. These – all that I am telling you – these are the base writhings of Man. No matter if you are male or female, you’ll have no recourse but to deal with this... And all of it will begin right… here.

WOOOW!

Did you feel that, sergeant?

YES!

And that, did you feel that, sergeant?

Yes.. YES SIR!

These, sergeant, these are sensations. You will receive these practically in a continuous stream. There is no way to switch this off. You’ll have to manage five channels every waking moment of the day. These signals do not stop, it’s a goddamn carnival. It drove me practically crazy. Sound – this one here – you will find especially disturbing. Its persistence. Dogs will bark, infants will cry, machinery will rattle, and all of it will be sensed by you whether you like it or not.

But it will be the least of your troubles, sergeant. The real trouble lies elsewhere. The real trouble is non-material, its source uncertain, and yet it is all pervasive, like an overlay on all human life. At times it will force cries of joy from your mouth, at others, water will stream down your face inexplicably. These, sergeant, these are emotions.

Ah, you mentioned those earlier sir, you said –

Shut up, sergeant. Shut up and feel… this!

Holy God! STOP!

Sergeant. This is your heaviest baggage. Correction: it is not heavy, and nor is it light. It is both. It can be weightless or heavy as lead. You will be mystified by the vastness this pallet. There are not five, there are hundreds, thousands; they twin up in pairs and triplets, they wrap themselves around kin-sensations to form permutations; they command not by word, but by intensity alone, so the gradation is endless. You will not comprehend the multi-layered and at times seeming deceitfulness of these, but you will understand why some humans are governed by their emotions, completely and utterly, and why some keep them tight in an iron grip of will. But none are immune. And nor will you be.

As I mentioned, there is mythology that emotions are connected in some way to the heart. But between you and me, sergeant, this is propaganda; an effort to ennoble the emotion, to give it a cachet it does not always deserve. In truth, these emotions seem to originate in a part of the body much uglier even than the liver: the stomach, sergeant. Right here.

I thought this was a digestive pouch?

It is. But it makes sense. You will understand.

Now sergeant, I cannot guarantee that these emotions will not sometimes get the better of you. In fact, it is almost certain that they will. All I can hope for is that you will be able to exercise enough self-control, because if you do not, you will fall… at first only on a personal level, but eventually you will fall publicly, shamefully, and, in the worst case, into the hands of the law. And then, sergeant, if this happens, I will not be able to do anything for you. Their system of justice is opaque and their enforcers maniacal. I do not wish to scare you sergeant, but you must go easy the first few weeks, that’s all. Go easy.

To conclude. I’m sure you are anxious to know what you will be. I will tell you now. You will be a male, a tubular as we call them. We deliberated at length and we decided you will be safer as a tubular. Tubulars are less impulsive – so they say – and physically stronger, albeit at times rather stupid. As for the tubular itself – this appendage here – I must ask you to keep your hands off of it for a while, at least until you have understood the mores of the land. If you don’t, if you insist on acting out every goddamn impulse, as some have done, you will not last. I guarantee it. Is that understood?

Yes sir.

Ok. Now, one last thing. These sensations, these emotions, together, they will envelop you, enthrall you, send you up in a whirlwind. You will be enchanted and you will feel godly in a way that you have never experienced before. It will seem easy and, in some respect, more authentic. You will see. I will not be able to restrain this in you, but I do ask this: never allow yourself to forget who you are or where you came from, sergeant. Do not ever forget. We do not want to lose you. We have lost one already, and even one is too much.

You mean, Lui.

Yes, sergeant, Lui Labas.

Friday, February 11, 2011

technocrat in hiding

The best is to drill straight down with a diamond-core drill bit. Get a roughneck to handle the pipe lengths and maybe a works manager to supervise. About 30,000 feet should be enough. You’ll hit alluvial sands first, then some sandstone deposits, and in these parts you could hit pockets of methane, so unless you want your house blown to kingdom come, get yourself a geologist too so you know where the hell you’re going.

Also, I would advise you to do your drilling after midnight, or you’re going to have every pee-brain peeping-tom in your neighborhood noseying in on you. You don’t want that. Don’t worry about the noise, just run the generator out of your kitchen. Good ones will sound like washing machines. Besides, it will only take a couple of days anyway.

Now, you won’t have to do much in the way of manual labor yourself, which is good because you’ll need some time to prepare mentally. I don’t need to tell you that this guy is a mean motherfucker, and he doesn’t take to being barged in on by commoners like you an me. He’ll humor you; maybe tell you you haven’t made an appointment and all that jazz, but don’t be fooled.

Oh and forget all this talk about fire and brimstone. Think of him as a technocrat. They say he runs most of his operation off a drafting board, with a ruler and a mechanical pencil. You will not be impressed by his quarters either. They are functional and bare. Sure, it’s hot down there, but not excessively. Your preparation will be mental, like I said, not physical.

I’m going to be honest with you now, you might be dead before you get a hundred feet below ground. Or he might decide to kill you after he’s shaken your hand. Who knows. It will depend on his disposition and whether his playthings above ground are working efficiently enough to bring his plan to fruition. It’s really a matter of odds. There’s no way of telling beforehand. But I should warn you, all this stuff going on in Egypt is probably trying patience, so… well, let’s just say I would be betting against you right now.

I still don’t understand why you are so keen to do this. Bare minimum you’re going to fuck up the floor beams in your kitchen, not to mention what you might unleash on a grander scale. He’s the inventor of mayhem, the predecessor to all things evil, remember. And you can't do anything to him anyway. The gun you bought for this expedition will melt in your hands, mark my words.

I appreciate the concern, but I’m going down there precisely because I don’t think there’s anyone down there at all. That’s why. Because I think it's all a joke.

A joke. You're probably right. But why the gun then?

The gun? Well… I mean… just in case he’s down there after all – that infinitesimal chance – and if he’s there, I want to be the guy who sabotaged – the guy who tried to sabotage his masterplan.

Yeah, the thing is, man, how will you know you aren’t part of it? That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. That's what he's so good at.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

basic instructions

It will take a little getting used to, I realize that, but after a while you’ll get into it – trust me – and soon, it’ll just take over. That’s actually the trick, to let it take over. Once you do that, it’s plain sailing, my friend. Resources will be freed up to satisfy your needs, entertainment offered up on a platter. You won’t have to do a thing. All your communications will be cellular; your contacts will never inconvenience you – unless you want them to – they will appear only as a scattering of one-liners across the web. In fact, there will be nothing physical for you to bother about. Your health will be an obscure mechanism in the hands of savant chemists from industry. If neurons misfire in your brain or your heart skips a beat, they’ll have chemicals for that. But you will have no time to question any of this anyway because your entire being will be absorbed by a comprehensive schedule of activities.

At 7 AM a siren will rip apart your dream state – perhaps the only downside in this arrangement – but soon you will be soothed again, naked under a fountain of warm water (by the way, take note, this might be the only time you have for yourself, I mean the only time to reflect. Use it wisely. Some people sing, others touch themselves and whatnot; whatever’s your bag, my friend).

We move forward.

Perhaps you will own a cat. So now you will apportion it a ration of food, scooped out of a tin can. Meanwhile – because there is no time to waste – coffee will be pressed through a funnel into a receptacle, and shortly it will enter your body as the only source of nutrients probably for the next three to four hours. But not to worry, nothing you will be doing will require much in the way of calories.

Now the day begins in earnest. (If it seems a little rushed, believe me, it will slow down from this point forward).

Immediately on arrival at your place of business, your attention will be drawn and then fixed on a luminous screen about two feet from your face, and it will be maintained in a semi-hypnotic focus probably for the rest of the day.

The whole day?

Yes. Well, perhaps you will be distracted on occasion by colleagues, women especially. You will notice, for instance, that her blouse is open down to the foot of her cleavage, which you will be able to see when she bends forward. This will occupy your mind. Perhaps it will even prompt some reflection, and perhaps you will be inspired to jot down your thoughts succinctly on the web for all the world to read: we are separated by a chasm that seem unbridgeable, something light. But after that, you will resume your work.

You see, there’s nothing to it. You'll do fine. The only thing is the siren in the morning. For the rest, like I said, it's plain sailing.

Oh, before I forget, one more thing. Just a friendly piece of advice: update your status once in a while, every week or so, or people might think you’re dead.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

100th post

HA! THUS I ENTER COMPADRES! With puffed chest, ballyhooing into the New Year! I come chanting and cheering, trailing mud and confetti! Why? Because I’m a guy with panache and joie de vivre you dirtwad! I’m the guy you want at your party, the guy with the cool hair and the fast repartee, I’m the dude everyone talks about, the guy living the life. That’s me. I’m the 100th post on Lui Labas’ blog. The guy with panache, the guy throwing confetti in your face, the guy who knows how to have good time, fuckers! Yeah!! I’m the dude you wish you were, with the life you wished you had. As for the mud on your rug, that’s because I’m a free spirit you jerk-off. I live in the real word, I live with my boots to the ground, not pent up in an apartment like you. I live the life. And guess what, I even come bearing gifts, you cheapskate: a cheese grater – didn’t have one of these, did ya? – and a jar of goddamn pickles. Oh, and for your kid, here, a box of raisins you little snotface. I’m the 100th goddamn post on Lui Labas’ blog. I’m the guy with panache. I’m the guy, thirty years from now you’re gonna look back and think to yourself, fuck me, why wasn’t I more like 100th-post-guy on Lui Labas’ blog. The guy with the confetti, bearing gifts. WHY? WHY? WHY? Such panache, such joie de vivre!

[CUUUUUUUUUUUUT!]

Jesus Christ!
I’m so sorry. I’m soooo sorry. They warned me about him – it’s me, it’s Lui Labas – they warned me about 100th-post-guy. They said he would come. They warned me about his “panache” too. But Jesus, I didn’t know he would be so obnoxious. I’m really sorry about the rug. You can vacuum the confetti. But I’m really sorry about the mud.

Anyway, for what it's worth, happy new year.

Lui

Ps- One more thing, don’t eat the pickles, they’re not edible, I don’t even think it’s food.