Scrame

“At the very end, I think he looked up”

“And that was it?”

“That was it, an awful croaking sound — a death rattle maybe”

“You’d know it if you heard it”

“Well, yeah, it had to be that, then, I just don’t think I ever saw anybody die before.”

The first man was a large, roly-poly type, he was down on one knee seemed to be choking the words out. The other man was tall and slender, dressed in an all black suit, expressionless, mouth barely moving.

“That shit’ll kill you, i’ve seen it before.”

The tall man slowly pulled a clenched fist holding a stick of butter that had wilted brown.

“This … is destroying society.”

It was, of course, the near future. The major American cities had devolved into tribalism, driven largely by fast food and cheap cigarettes, the major metropolis’ in the developing world weren’t much better, but didn’t have the access to life-extending drugs and filtered cigarettes.

It seemed, at these times, that people were falling over left and right. Trashcans knocked over with the blemished, fetid corpses of the overdosed.

It was only a few years after the undergarment business ran out of X’s to add on to clothing, and wal-mart was forced to scrap the extremely large sizes to save shelf space, and just started stocking the clothes made for their chinese factory workers that made cheap televisions.

The result was an increase in skin issues, as poor, corpulent america stuffed itself into starving childrens clothes, and parking lot alteration groups sprang up overnight. People continued to grow with the butter, and swaddled themselves in meshes of shirts stitched quickly together. The aftermarket on wal-mart clothing quickly became an underground industry that began to run as an undercurrent through the rural US. Canada followed suit, but with more maple syrup.

Ok, party goers, I know its hard to imagine some club kids like you would suddenly find themselves at the end of the world, this end of society, but there is more to it that you should know.

Back in the old days, before any of you were even born, let alone carrying your big puffy pants and your glowsticks with fatuous rubber gloves and vapo-rub masks, and certainly long before your future conversion to mulleted survivalists, there was a time when we had some kind of honor.

Sometime before the jungles receded, leaving the beaches looking like deserts and the mountains look bald and incontinent, we actually had a chance, we squandered it, like you squandered your own nights, struggling through dayglo and fog machines, and the rest of the pieces of the puzzle had not fit back together.

I don’t mean to keep harping on it, but its hard to find the context, the time when you should just absolutely be there, and the rest of the ways that I can find myself just warming up and trying to push through the rest of the conformity of this somewhat violent retrospective, the time when there was mostly weasels in the flesh, when time turned warm,and when a berated and bereaved feeling is left from one of the storms, from one of the stories.

If its possible, then that we got addicted to change, it was just in our own microcosm, when we twitch to feel our own mortality. Maybe its just our own boredom. Your boredom. Some kind of expanse in front of you, just breathing in the twisted fear of your own possibility, or lack thereof.

The insipid, the uninspired, the fallow ranks of unwashed humans shoulder to shoulder self-selecting their own betters or subserviently obeying the uncouth cast here. Trying to trick themselves, buried in an inconsequential stew of lamented obviousness, succeeding only at staying alive, but not in maintaining purpose and most not even self sufficient, just expecting some other piece of emotion, some piece of spilled brains, some kind of excellence in complacence, cowardice.

And thats simply for the lucky ones. The ones who are so rich, they can’t even comprehend the rest of the world, all they can do is complain that they are not as rich as the people next to them, that they can’t keep up their own appearances, that they can’t drink as nice a scotch.

And then there is you, raver kids. You don’t even like scotch, it doesn’t make house music sound better, does it. Hippies need drugs to appreciate their own culture, then wonder why everyone else despises them.

Its typical, I suppse, thinking that you should be the center of the world, or at least that you are right about something. Chances are that you aren’t (consider that).

So at the end, I don’t have much to tell you, other than the fact that you are doomed. Completely doomed.

And thats all I have for now. On this subject, maybe this is just a warmup.

If the last week is any indication, I have completely fallen apart in terms of resolve for this. IF the last couple months are any indication, then I think i stopped giving a fuck about most everything a couple months back. I don’t even tie my shoes anymore.

Seems like jobs should give you the option to leave with benefits if you are unproductive. Nothing too serious, just unemployment and maybe basic dental insurance. Like a voluntary layoff. I could definitely go for that right now.

Meh, at least the weather is unpredictably good once in a while. Of course there isn’t much else to do other than to keep trying to push forward.

Though when you’re treading water, pushing forward has a tendency to keep you feeling in the same place.

the title of this is from an offhand remark by Bill Murray’s character playing Hunter S Thompson in ‘Where the Buffalo Roam’, that his attorney lazlo was the kind of person that couldn’t be a figment of writing be cause he was too otherworldly, that he could chew through a cement wall and keep going. I’ve felt that at times, but not dwindling into my own obscurity at a corporate job.

Fukkit. I’m still ages behind and struggling to catch up (really just a week or so behind, so expect some other frontfills, or whatever the hell i mm calling them these days.) August should have me back to normal since I am mostly past all the weddings and travelling and other nonsense drama that have left me feeling largely apathetic.

Miscellania 4 lyfe.

They pour poison
You might know better
But scalding piss tastes like tea

Drink it with a smile,
and you will meet expectations

Which beats compromise
because you get tea

Painless tedium
has deep, barbed claws

If you missed something
its too late

Make new plans

Or let the barbs set in
raise expectations

Drink the piss
Hope they expect more
Gnaw at the scraps
And keep waiting.

“And, naturally, I think the best of people.”

“Do you? how fascinating.”

The men looked pensively at each other as the small talk came to an end.

“Well, then lets get down to business” said Chester.

“Yes, business” said the skinless hyper-chimera.

I miswrote earlier when I referred to him as a man. He did have a name, though it was Eustice. So, Eustice and Chester were sitting and having a conversation about facts. Facts and business. Business between a person and a skinless hyperchimera is mostly about the only thing that they have in common: a love of a nice cup of tea in the afternoon, one which they had just enjoyed. Here is where the facts about capitalism get in the way: they are both creatures of means and some considerable power, yet neither of them are equipped with the power of tea. Classical economics would dictate that they provide labor or some other service in order to acquire the necessary currency to purchase these delightful afternoon teas, but as luck would have it, they were both businessmen, who gave to other businessmen the necessary advice to continue to do business for tea.

“I propose that to end the tea shortage, both of our problems here, that you simply carry on your day, collecting skulls and nail clippings and then at the end intimidate a shopkeeper to accept them for a fine lot of your choice of tea.”

“Splendid idea, but lets consider something that will work at a bigger scale. You are a businessman, yes?”

“Yes”

“So, among your business dealings, you have a factory, full of workers manufacturing things to cover your rediculous skin: textiles, shoe-underwears, and the like? Delightful tea, by the way.”

“Yes, and thank you”

These were proper gentleman and gentlehyper-chimera, always watching their manners and minding the discourse as laid out in “dealing in business with skinned and skinless chimeras”. A popular book on wallstreet. The hyper part just makes it go faster, so the book is still applicable.

“So, since you control the means of production, excuse me” , the chimera turned his head to the side and hacked out some kind of furrball, “then you are paying people a pittance of what you produce, in order for them to produce for you so you can pay them. From a different angle, it seems as though they are paying you to look down on them.”

“Not a new thought, though I am not a marxist, and anyone not wanting to be in my employ is free to leave.”

“Yes, instead why dont we simply harvest their skin and sell that for tea? It could be largely profitable and you can always get more people to run the machines?”

“A fine idea, as long as you do the killing! Let us have a tea and toast to this, my good skinless hyper-chimera.”

Life is full of surprises.

So now that we can actually just make our own ads and run them out to the TV through the google, I think we are really ushering in a new era of great television advertising. It’d be somewhere between public access and local ads, but played nationally, apparently. With that, there is now a competitive advanatge to being able to put some great products out to market.

This is a great way to pitch the ideas I’ve had in my head for years, for example:

Shower-in-a-bottle (yes, I know tim and eric did a similar skit): When I lived in Tokyo, I was always impressed at how many things they sold in subway stations for workers on the go, there typically were cheap shirts, socks, ties and belts, that someone who passed out drunk in a subway station could at least have mostly clean clothes when they got up off the ground, without having to stay at home.

Now, as all japanese people know, japanese people never actually smell bad, its because of their superior genes (i have been assured this on multiple occasions), it also has something to do with them eating seaweed genitalia. So clearly, since japanese people don’t sweat or smell, they can just change their clothes and keep going, but what if there is something more that is necessary? Cue shower-in-a-bottle. Its a plastic bottle with a sprinkler cap, stuffed with a one-time use shampoo and soap. Potentially a razor and a toothbrush, but not for japan because japanese people don’t brush their teeth. Maybe just a lipovitan or something.

Anyway, with this, you could very easily just fill up the water bottle with hot water from the sink, and then shower in a bathroom stall. Laugh if you want, it will happen.

The second excellent idea, was the coke-in-a-bag. But I don’t know if thats the kind of service that needs commercials. Its just too obvious.

Another thing I’ve wanted to get off the ground for a while, but never gotten around to it: Fraudster. Fraudster is a web-app that holds your hand through perpetrating online fraud. There could be several different types: your run of the mill ebay scam, mock nigerian prince scam, and even modern scams like facebook apps.

And then, I dont know, something about werewolves, probably.

And I’ll just leave you with this:
wtgf

Alright, seriously? Fuck switzerland. Now I know that they make that brand of powdered hot chocolate. But really, everyone in switzerland is just a fat guy in a mustard stained sweat suit.

I know, you don’t believe me, right now you are probably thinking of something like this:

In actuality, what is happening in switzerland is a lot more like this:

Thats right, hitlers head is grafted on to the women. The men, as mentioned before, are fat guys in filthy sweatpants.

Now, I am not a purist by any means, i think that people should just live and let live. Unfortunately, the swiss are not people and therefore not deserving of any kind of humane treatment, instead, they should be made into rickshaw drivers or perhaps a fashionable hat.

I realize it can be disappointing to suddenly learn that what might have been a harmless, neutral little hipster shitbag of a european cunt convention is actually worse than you imagined, but it had to be said.

There are a couple other things I want to get off my chest:

1) Martin Lawrence sucks.

Ok, thats about it.

Oh yeah, and here’s a bingo game I made: std bingo!

Its a png so you can read the text. Its not as classy as my tribute to jerry yang, but oh well.

An excellent idea:

Over the last decade there has been more of an encroachment of asian culture in to american culture. Much like how the 80′s in america was covered in hallmarks from the prominence of the japanese (nintendo, smaller cars), so have the less prominent nations been making inroads in our coastal cities. Nowadays, you don’t have to go far in an urban center to find a pho shop, or a place that can serve off some boba tea.

Understanding that, I think I have my finger on teh pulse of the great american summer fad.

Coke in a bag:

No, not whatever you miscreants were thinking when I said that, not a bag of drugs, but a refreshing plastic produce bag full of coca cola and ice.

Here is the benefit to it: startup costs are almost non existant! You can get produce bags for free at safeway, just walk in and pull off all the bags you need off the roll, and then while you are walking to the soft drink section to buy more soda, just stuff it in your waist band. Who the hell is going to bust you for stealing free bags, anyway. Once you have ice, cola and bags, you just need straws. You can get these at mcdonalds. Just pretend like you are waiting for something and bored and just fuck around with the dispenser.

After that, you just need a cooler for the soda and ice, and you can sell them in bags for a buck a piece. The beauty of it is: you don’t even have to have a license or a health card, you are just pouring out drinks, so all you have to do is run like hell if you see cops coming. They are probably coming for someone else, anyway.

Now that you have your basic revenue model set up, its time to add some value propositions: since exotic food is getting popular, and people like authentic cuisine, the next logical step is to offer street food for your thirsty consumers, and what has a better profit margin than fried bugs?

Now, there is much more of an attitudinal barrier to accomplishing this one, especially if people don’t like bugs. Thats where you give them the hard sell: “i dont like bugs either, in fact I kill and eat them just because I can!”

Ok, so maybe it will take a while to get some traction, but I tell ya, the concept is brilliant. Just let the recession carry on a little bit longer.