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Essay's from the Abyss. IT IS LONG!
Hey everyone. This is a little essay on the nature of fight club and deconstructionalism that I whipped up when in the rat maze. Enjoy!

Deconstructionalism is a confusing concept that to the uneducated would seem to have been developed in the  abyssal pit of hades by the Greek god of death, who we name not. I feel this is evident since the concept is like the tale of Tantalus in ancient Greek legends (Benet, 987.) As punishment for his various crimes against the gods Tantalus was chained and placed inside of a lake in hades. It was here Tantalus was forgotten about and suffered a his eternal torture. Whenever he would bend to drink and quench his thirst the lake around him would dry up, when he would reach for bough of a nearby tree bearing fruit the bough would lift out of way and a nearby boulder would threaten to crush him (Benet, 987.) And so it is true with Deconstructionalism. No matter how much the audience feels that they have attained a true feeling from a piece of work they are watching their feeling is deferred and therefore not true. Their desire to attain fulfillment from the piece of work is never fulfilled as they will not attain a genuine feeling from something that is not genuinely happening. Just as Tantalus will never quench his thirst or sate his hunger and will be forever bound in that lake of hades, so is the audience according to Deconstructionalism. They can never attain a truth no matter how much they try for it. Those who seek the truth when examining Deconstructionalism will never attain it.

   Another example is the five dollar bill on the string with a jerk at the end pulling it away from the person chasing it. They will never actually get the truth from chasing the dollar bill and is a kind of "Heads I win, tails you lose" predicament. The system of Deconstructionalism cannot ever prescribe a system of good or evil since it is about unpacking a concept and looking at parts and concepts individually so that an otherwise confusing or outlandish work of art can be analyzed and understood. Works that are structuralist are often taken from older texts and adapted in instances such as Hamletmachine or Medea Play. The structuralist movement points out that semiotics and phenomenology have it backwards and that we cannot attain true feeling or truth from a sign or piece of art. We will always be like Tantalus, struggling to reach the signified when the delay of signified is omnipresent. For instance when someone says "Do not think of a Kangaroo." One cannot help thinking about a kangaroo. This is true with the delay in the system of broken signs that our society operates upon. Deconstructionalism works to point out the lack of truth in the system. I have chosen the perhaps most outlandish but realistic movie I could find in my collection for analysis called Fight Club. I will use Deconstructionalism to unpack this film. Looking at the individual concepts and how they are presented as the plot progresses to see if I can find the hidden meaning of the text and its roots in other works. Rather than examining the film as good or bad I will look at the pieces critically. From there I will draw conclusions of where it came from as well as how it was shaped by our society and popular culture.

   First I will look at the film by based on the book by Chuck Palahniuk called Fight Club. The plot of the film is about an everyman man called Jack suffering from dissociative personality disorder brought on by his social isolation in modern society. This leads him to create an anarchist terrorist personality called Tyler to be his best friend.  Tyler subsequently founds fight clubs that grow into terrorist cells. Tyler then begins controlling his life without his knowledge and seeks to bring down the isolationist power structure so that people can be freed from capitalism and greed. This piece of work is great because it has so many layers. At the top is the anti-capitalist system aspect of the film. Another way of looking at it could be that the reason Jack creates Tyler is out of going mad and it is simply a film about the dangers of unchecked mental illness. I believe there is something much deeper to the film and far older than anti-capitalist Marxist sentiments or mental disease. I believe the film is about the soul of humanity and is about the attainment of enlightenment.

   Jack is an everyman who becomes in contact with a greater mind. An altruistic one that sees the corruption of the capitalist system and will go to any means to bring it down. That material wealth and the desire for physical stuff to replace love in ones life is a cancer eating at society. The chronic insomnia perhaps could be interpreted as a cycled of rebirth in the concept of Samsara by a soul that is lost to the pleasures of life and unable to reach enlightenment due to its love for this material wealth. He seeks treatment and is told to seek true pain. So Jack goes out and finds people who are suffering and dying. He walks amongst them and he steals their pain and he makes it his own. Eventually he attains rest and soon after Tyler appears to him. A greater mind or perhaps a god of ruin to guide him. At the beginning of the film Jack loves money and is a slave to this isolation that he needs to endure to support his life style of creature comforts. However it is through the transformation and rejection of material goods that he finds a calling, underground fighting clubs. He meets a kindred soul in the groups called Marla who is not diseased but is seeking the same thing that he is. He sees something in her that reflect his own self and is disgusted by this. He deems her unworthy of love despite the fact that he does infatuate over her. Tyler, his second soul sees past this and shows her his sensitive side but is constantly in turmoil because of his pride. He still feels himself superior to her and doesn't allow himself to love Marla since he still considers himself below him.

   Tyler and Jack head about their work trying to free other people from the chains of society. This can be looked upon as the duty of a Bodhisattva to free the minds of the masses to enlightenment. To save the world if you will. They evolve from the boxing clubs that teach people about pain to the much greater idea of Project Mayhem. Project Mayhem is to show people that their material goods are meaningless in the greater scheme but is about taking down the system of indulgence and decadence that forces people to stay in the system of isolation. It is about freeing the world from the chains of Samsara so they might all attain enlightenment. The idea is to open the peoples eyes that they can attain peace from the cycle of pain and the pursuit of material goods if they would simply abandon the system that is supporting it. At this point Jack "dies" for the first time in a car accident and Tyler his second soul leaves him to pursue the rest of Project Mayhem.

   Tyler leaves Jack as he is not yet ready to undertake the journey. Jack is empty and listless trying to stop something that he doesn't want to happen. So Jack retraces Tyler's adventure going to all the cities and bars he had gone. This leads Jack to the point in the film where he realizes that he is Tyler or that Tyler is him after completing this journey. He goes and tries to stop the mass enlightenment from happening however to no avail as he has already freed to many people from the fetters of Samsara and is foiled at every turn by either himself or someone he has helped. In the film Jack finds out it is the destruction of the major credit card mainframes so that the debt record would reset and create anarchy. It could be interpreted that through the entropy of this act he expects people to stop the continuation of the system and embrace enlightenment. Finally Jack and Tyler are reunited at the top of a tower where they have a final showdown. Jack realizes he cannot stop people from becoming freed from their chains and that the system is indeed broken and in this hopeless pain he decides to take his own life.

   However this act only kills his second soul. He finally has the altruism that he lacked through out the entire film and instead of dying, he survives and is made whole. Not splintered between two selves but united as one that realizes that this has to happen and he cannot stop the inevitable. It is here at the finale of the film that Marla is brought back to him almost as a final test. He lets her tend to his pain, she lets her heal him through her love and care. While she is doing this there is an explosion and the towers of the main credit card companies come crashing down freeing the population of earth. He takes her hand and finally gives in to love. In that way it is the search for love and enlightenment. I feel is the best of interpretations since it covers so much and goes so deeply into the film's superficial pop cultural appeal that makes us interpret is as just being about mental illness and macho anarchists.

   The play has overtones of homo-erotism in several places. It is said as one point that perhaps another woman is not the answer. That a lover is just another matronly figure that leads to attachment and desire, therefore trapping the person in Samsara with physical want. This is perhaps suggested to advance the idea of self love and logical platonic love, not to the narcissistic extreme but to the point where one might be accepting of oneself and others so they might be able to attain enlightened. Once one is freed from desire you can interpret the mysteries of life and death no longer wearing the blinders that we force ourselves to wear so we can function in the system of greed. I feel that this idea that love is a trap only applies to erotic or lustful love. The desire for sexual pleasure without attachment or care is indeed a trap. However the altruistic love that Jack displays for Marla at the end of the film is the love that frees the soul. It is about being humble and accepting another as they are, so you may free them from the pain of rebirth and death and attain Nirvana.

   The film is a lovely example of eastern ideas being presented to an audience that changes them and scopes them into the western world view. I do not subscribe to the belief espoused by the some that it is as simple as "An office employee and a soap salesman build a global organization to help vent male aggression" (IMDB, NP.) It isn't even about rejecting the Bourgeois lifestyle that we have become accustomed to striving for again doing this is using our western prejudiced view to judge the film by values that it doesn't have. I feel that the film is so much deeper than Marxist theory can present it as. Only through the use of Deconstructionalism we can find the hidden deeper meanings that are present in it. Can we attain catharsis or truth through the viewing of the film. No, and this denial of feeling this calls the viewer to go forth and change their own life in the same way existentialism calls them to do so. Just as one cannot attain enlightenment just from someone telling them how easy it is, they must go out and seek it themselves. I am not suggesting that if you see this film you must make yourself go insane and blow up buildings while destroying the capitalist system of waste in our society to attain proper truth or feeling as there is none. It is the acceptance of the lack of this final contentment that pertains to enlightenment. That one must realize that you will never have enough money, sex, pleasure or power and be freed from the pursuit of this. It is this truth that you will never attain the final truth that you can see the freeing aspect of Deconstructionalism.










   Work Cited

   Benet, William R. The Readers Encyclopedia. 2nd ed. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell    Publishers, 1965

   Fight Club. Dir. David Fincher. Perf. Edward Norton and Brad Pitt. 1999. DVD. 20th Century, 2000.

   Fortier, Mark. Theory/Theatre: an introduction. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2007.

   Internet Movie Database. 1999. 7 Feb. 2008 <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/>.

It is me!

I am the Murder guy. Yes. That picture is of me, when I used to work at the newspaper office. Funny stories I could tell about the office. The stuff I used to stick into the paper. I will post and example of the horoscopes I used to publish.

Aries – A stitch in time would have confused Einstein. Jupiter tells me you have a long week ahead of you. You will have to wake up, do things, go back too sleep. Repeat this about seven times, and if you are lucky the week will pass without major incident. If not then you might die. Not that you will. Unless you do. In which case I'm sorry about not warning you about the killer bees. Your lucky form of procrastination is 'face-booking.' All your comments are just another brick in the wall.

Taurus - All power corrupts, but we need the electricity. Don't mess with big business. That is my message from the moon Luna this week. You should avoid any politicians with agendas involving exposing organized crime or conspiracies. You don't want to get involved in this. Nobody saw anything and neither did you. Go back to your lives now. Your lucky form of procrastination is hot sex. Liberty-X anyone?

Gemini - Anarchy - it's not the law, it's just a good idea. Your evil twin from the bizarro universe is in town this week. Expect to be blamed for the disappearances of several prostitutes, a bank heist and numerous acts of vandalism. Just keep a low profile until it blows over. Mercury advises you avoid travel because of car trouble. Your lucky form of procrastination is playing video games. I played the first three and the fourth one's trailer looks so cool. I need that game now.

Cancer - Don't worry if you're a kleptomaniac, you can always take something for it. Ursa Major tells me that your future is hazy this week because of the coming storm. Don't fly anywhere until it blows over and avoid anyone who has a vowel in their name. Stop stealing things from the study center, the security is catching on. Your lucky form of procrastination is assorted drugs. I don't have a problem man. I am expanding my mind and my-I-am–so–HIGH.

Leo - Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function. You need to keep your paws out of other peoples litter-boxes if you know what I mean. This week will be chock full of self induced social chaos. Never lose a bet to an Irish man. Your lucky form of procrastination is partying hard. If you don't go then everyone will notice and talk badly about you like on one of those folly teen television programs.

Virgo - I have not lost my mind - it's backed up on disk somewhere. Ursa Minor tells me that you will have a bout of madness this week when you find yourself face to face with your worst nightmare. Just keep your composure and don't lose your cool. If you can't then your crap filled pants will dishonor your family. Nobody ever dies from fright. Your lucky form of procrastination is television. A brand new religion, you can control peoples thoughts with tiny dots of light.

Libra - Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional. Saturn is saying that you will be afflicted with a horrible virus this week. Your computer will anyways. Go out and get a good anti-virus program before it happens. You will thank me later and put some money in a coat you don't wear that often. You will need it. Stash a shiv in the same coat. Don't worry you will be fine. Your lucky form of procrastination is list making. You know you do it. Don't deny it.

Scorpio - What if this weren't a hypothetical question? Venus tells me that sex is on your mind this week but you must not lose sight of your true goals. You must retrieve the mummified hand of Ishmael Noirrac before the full next full moon. Other wise there will be more cattle mutilations. Think of the cows and do the right thing. Your lucky form of procrastination is naps. Power nap my foot! You stole my life.

Sagittarius - All general statements are false. Accept that you a but a mortal and stop trying to make an immortality serum every weekend. The neighbours think you are cooking amphetamine in your basement. You really don't want to have to explain to the police that they you are surrounded by idiots and you will show them all one day. Your lucky form of procrastination is hanging out with friends. Real ones, the ones in your head don't count.

Capricorn - Life is a sexually transmitted disease. You survived having your alien implant removed without incident. Now just go back to your humdrum life and stop watching the skies. When they return you will be the first to know. They are here. Your lucky form of procrastination is watching the skies for intelligent life. I want to believe.

Aquarius - It's hard to be nostalgic when you can't remember anything. You won't remember anything from this week. Not by choice but because there is something you don't know about yourself. Which you will learn later! In the mean time, eat better, try and get out more with friends and be happy. What you will learn later will ruin your life forever. Sorry. Your lucky form of procrastination is ignorance. Maybe if I pretend to not remember the work will just go away.

Pisces - Write a wise saying and your name will live forever. You can go a long way with a smile. You can go a lot farther with a smile and a snappy utility-belt loaded with plastic explosives. Don't forget your ski mask this week. You will need it at the airport. Your romantic comedy like plan to win back the love of your life will not go as planned because nobody has heard of the 'Love-Bomb' song. You will get shot in the airport when you burst into song. Sorry. Your lucky form of procrastination is making explosives out of common house hold items. Hey, has anyone seen Teddy K.?

(modded by ECH to add paragraph breaks)

I keep saying "Only __________ can save me now!" in a very loud voice because it sounds funny and I have gone insane from isolation. Sometimes it is Bertold Brecht, Longcat, Oliver Cromwell, Richard Nixon, Cthulhu, Aqua-man, Oliver Stone, Kelly Clarkson, The Beatles, or whoever else I feel like. I figured it would be fun if we all come up with my own personal savior. Many people ask Jesus, God, Allah, Yahweh, Vishnu or whoever else to save them or whoever else but most religious figures are very busy as many people would request being saved by them. However Oliver Stone isn't that busy so he wouldn't mind just swinging by in his jet car and saving me from the post modernist nightmare that I am trapped in. What about you, what obscure figure from history would you like to be saved from the nightmare of this wretched necroglobe by?

This was a meme thread. But that has been done I was informed. So no more meme, super heroes! ONLY! Well our kind. Not the regular boring krytonian Kal-el kind.


I not am trying to make a big long funny thread with lots of one liner memes.  I am trying to make a big funny collection of obscure heroes that would save us discordians in the even of disaster. for example, Oliver Stone. I am so silly somtimes. I really should talk to my handler. I am going t go hide until my handler comes back with more food.

Now go play children. We need obscure heroes for our obscure people.

I wrote this one when they told me they needed to fill 500 words on publishing night. Most of them didn't get the joke about religion.   


The following was found among some scattered notes left in the Meliorist office.
   Day 1: The experiment begins. I have stop referring to my roommates feline friend as 'cat' and now refer to it as 'dog' I hope by doing this the cat will become less naughty and unruly. Combining the loyalty of dogs with the mobility and durability of cats. I hoped that I could accomplish by the end of the week. It began simply by the name change from dog to cat. I will be a genius!
   Day 2: The cat now responds to 'dog' however I am not sure if this is only from my giving it dog treats when I call it dog. Regardless, the project would go on. After it gets the strength of the dog, I will begin playing dog games with it. The cat still meows when I give it food, I hope by barking at it every day the cat will stop this.
   Day 3: Spent most of the day disinfecting scratches from game of tug of war turned bad. The cat is more territorial and growls when the newspaper boy comes into the yard. We have to keep the cat indoors now. It is not that bad, except for the musk and chewing it has suddenly started to perpetrate upon our furniture.
   Day 4: The cat is now becoming a fully-fledged dog, it plays fetch, drinks from toilet, and even stays on command. I am amazed upon the ease of this success of the project so quickly! I should win the Nobel prize! I can see grants in the mail. School tuition paid for I smell a scholarship!
   Day 5: The cat is exhibiting some odd personality changes. It has begun making weird barking noises at strangers. On a side note it has exhibited super feline strength that equivalent of a dog, also it has begun eating just about anything. I am taking the cat to vet tomorrow. That should fix this abomination against nature.
   Day 6: The cat is no longer a cat, it is dog. Behold, I am man, I have created dog! The cat ran out when I was leading it to the car. I haven't seen the cat for hours. I screamed and chased after it but it was no use. The cat was gone. It has cast off my rule to go and destroy all I had worked upon. My god what have I unleashed upon this world!
   Day 7: The barking won't stop. All the cats in the neighborhood have been acting the same as the cat did when I started to turn it into a dog. What have I done, what have I done. There are scratch marks on the door, what have I done. I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.

I also ran a trio of job paths of my other comical jobs I had dreamed of having. These too. Didn't go well.

I'm your Bogeyman

   As many of you know, I have been searching for my ideal job. Well last week I had a short-lived but life lesson filled experience. I had some how got it into my head that I wanted to be a Bogeyman. I am not sure if it was from watching Se7en for the eighth time in one week or the insomnia. Regardless: I decided, slashing up teenagers in cars parked in woods, chasing cheerleaders down abandoned hallways, and not to mention being impossible to kill was the life for me. So I went to my local department store, picked up an axe, an ugly pair of coveralls and a hockey mask. It was time to go to work.
   I found my first target. It was an innocent looking van with a pair of passengers sitting in the front seat. Parked alongside the road. I snuck up oh so quietly. Hoping the fog would conceal my approach. I took the edge of my axe and began to scrape on the back window of the van. It was a police van. What are the chances? Like 1:100? 1:1000? Of all the vans I have to use for my first target I choose the only surveillance van in Lethbridge. I tried to explain I was just trying to scrape the frost off of the back of their window. They took me down the police station and lectured me on the dangers of wandering around with an axe dressed like a psychopath. I tried to explain to them: I wasn't dressed as a psychopath. I was dressed as a bogeyman. There was a huge difference.
   After spending six hours in a holding cell they only asked made me talk to the police psychologist for two hours. On the way out of the police station, the dream had died. My dream had been shattered so soon. I realized I wasn't cut out for the bogeyman business. I did not possess a supernatural talent, I couldn't even escape two policemen with super-human speed, and worst of all I hadn't been killed and resurrected by my hatred of meddling kids. I walked home that day, in the snow. The cars honking at me as I crossed the bridge in the snow. It was so dreadfully melodramatic that I realized my true calling that I would pursue once I got home. The tragic hero! So I gave the coveralls to good-will, I donated the hockey mask to the local hockey team, and threw the ax in the trunk of my car. Because if being a bogeyman taught me one thing, there is no problem an axe can't solve. Not even frost on a window.

Piracy

   When I was growing up, I took an aptitude test. It said I would excel in numerous fields. Among them there was a cult leader, a journalist, or a pirate. I had decided that my future would lie in piracy. The open waters of the ocean would be my realm. With a flower print Acapulco shirt I would reign terror upon the seas and be hailed as a scourge of the modern world. Widows would scare their bastard children to sleep with stories of me long after I had gone to Davy Jones locker. The wild and open seas, no laws, no limits, just the devil and the deep blue sea. How did I come upon this epiphany? Well let me tell you!
   I was sitting eating a marshmallow pie and realized that I wasn't sure what I was doing with my life. I looked up and there was a wall paper feature a pure blue ocean with a palm tree blowing in the wind. It was right then and there I knew my destiny. I was going to become a pirate.
   I applied to a piracy firm that was preying on vessels off the coast of Spain. They immediately rejected my application on the terms of not being 'jolly enough' and while having previous experience in larceny it did not constitute a 'booty-licous amount of larceny' as per terms of their reply. In a slump from this rejection I didn't give up. I instead bought a bottle of rum and donned my most eccentric yellow 'piratey shirt' and attempted to master the 'swagger' that the rejection notice also spoke about.
   I won't tell you how many times I fell down or what I woke up beside. But the next day I applied to three more piracy firms. One firm in the Caribbean and two near Taiwan. Again the reject notices came promptly, these ones noted that I simply didn't seem 'piratey enough' and said I might cause a mutiny on the ship with my presence. As such I decided I wouldn't work for a major firm, rather start a small firm on the islands around Vancouver. Within a week of opening up and I received a letter from the Pacific Pirate Union noting that I was operating in unionized waters. Therefore I was required to have a parrot (macaw or cockatiel) a first mate with a missing body part and a monkey. Among other things the letter also stated that I was required to join the union if I wanted to continue to operate in union waters.
   I packed my bags and traveled back to Lethbridge by rail car. I still have some of the trinkets of those wild and crazy eight days. A machete, a yellow pirate shirt, and a frayed pair of shorts. Some days when I feel nostalgic I open up my closet and look down at that broken dream and think to myself 'piracy isn't what it used to be.'

Grave Robber
 
I was going to be a grave robber. That is right. I realized my dream of becoming a pirate was foolish and was no longer going to pursue such a hopeless prospect. Instead I was going to tap into the most untouched resource of all. The dead! Every time I drive by the cemetery I couldn't help but think of all that we could have, if we didn't bury it all. Think of all the second hand suits we could have if we didn't bury them in the ground? The dead aren't going to miss having clothes, a coffin, or a silly ring. So I spent $220 dollars earmarked for my best friends wedding gift and bought my grave robber kit.
    It was a small kit, modest but had everything I needed. Well at that time I thought I needed. I never actually realized how little of this kit I would use except for the sneakers.
   - Second Hand Black Trench coat (Dark blue will do)
   - Black Leather and Latex gloves (digging and sorting)
   - Hat (Black with brim)
   - Black Sneakers (for sneaking)
   - Shovel
   - Flashlight
   - Pickaxe
   - Burlap sacks
   So I set out too my first cemetery near in the middle nowhere. First night on the job and I go to work. Or am about to go to work when there is this noise behind me. I turn around and I see this guy standing there staring at me like I am a ghost or something. So I tell him to go away, what does he do? Continue to stand there, staring, this time he lets out a low moan and out stretches his arms. I figure out that he probably upset with the fact I am 'disturbing the dead' or something so I shine the flashlight in his eyes.
   One thing nobody told me about grave robbing is the zombies. Zombies is part of the trade. Hence is why there are so few grave robbers, nobody likes Zombies. Zombies are the Yoko-Ono of grave robbing; they ruin everything. So I realize that the graveyard is full of Zombies. Everywhere, all of them moaning and groaning all sardonically at me! So I realize the severity of my situation. I was alone in a graveyard, surrounded by the walking dead, with a head full of delicious brains and sneakers full with tired feet. Parking far away was suddenly such a bad idea in retrospect.
   So I began to run as naturally, Zombies are slow I was thinking to myself. Not these zombies, some of these zombies must have been working out they were like drunken undead versions of our track team. Adrenaline and fear of death do wonders for your running stamina. So I am running as fast as I can and just can't seem to lose these zombies, I am getting tired but they are just keeping the pace. I get to my car unlock my trunk and get out my seven iron. Whoever said keeping a seven iron in the trunk of your car was 'dumb' obviously never considered being mortally threatened by zombies.
   After about a two and a half hours of whacking the undead twilight out of them. I had dispatched all of my hungry zombie critics. I decided to try another cemetery. Where there aren't so many brain eating occupants. So I drive to this really fancy high-class graveyard. They say I am not allowed inside. I tell them why I want to go inside. What do they say? Usually if people present a viable counter to an argument then I am all for accepting it, what is their terrible excuse?
   Guard: No you can't come inside and rob graves. You will wake the dead.
   Me: What do 'I' want to do? I just want to see if they have anything good.
   Guard: Are you crazy? Rob the dead? What is wrong with you?
   The guard just kept staring down at me like he was trying to get something across. I did understand though, he was very lonely working that late at night and just wanted to talk. So I stopped talking about grave robbing and made idle conversation about hobbies. Turned out he played dungeons and dragons on Thursday nights and wanted too see if I would play too. I had to refuse. My new job of grave robbing would take many late nights to become in the league of Jean-Clad Slick.
   For the uneducated Jean-Clad Slick is the Chuck Norris of grave robbers. He could unearth and sift in minutes. Some say the graves he had sacked were in the hundreds, the truth was it was among the tens of thousands. He was the only one to ever recover dirt from the top of Tim Leary's grave and live to tell of it. And apparently on a dare had once unearthed the resting place of Genghis Khan. I had a picture of Jean-Clad Slick on my wall and wished that one day I would be like him. Anyways back to the guard.
   Like they were some kind of authority. I tried to explain how I only am doing this to pay tuition and don't really want to become a career grave robber but they don't care to listen. They just accuse me of being sick! They are the sick ones, throwing away all that perfectly good clothing! So I left my second graveyard and went to do some reading up on the newest and hottest graveyards. I found out about one in Egypt that was thousands of years old made by the pharaohs at the time. So what do I do? I save up my money, sell my car, and fly to Egypt.
   Someone beat me to the punch! Empty, all of them. Every single one was empty of any kind of loot to be had. I spent the next three weeks at the bottom of cheap bottles of Egyptian beer. Rock bottom, I didn't know what day it was when I finally got the news that snapped me out of it. Every single one of the grave robbers that had looted the tombs I had set out so fanatical to loot had died from the mummy's curse. Not wanting to die from any kind of undead curse I flew home to Canada and sold my grave robbing kit in a garage sale. I hung up my shovel and pickaxe in my garden shed.
   Everything I didn't touch since, except the golf club. Once and awhile, in the middle of the night I drive out to the cemetery and release some stress on the zombies there. I am thinking of setting up a club there. Not sure where they are all coming from. Maybe put a parking lot closer so it is not such a long walk. Regardless I learned my lesson, one cannot rely on the dead to provide them with riches.

These are the rest of the advice columnists I had. Sadly they like the others didn't go over as well as I had hoped.

Ask Richard the Pirate

   Dear Richard the Pirate
   I have joint custody of my children with my ex-wife. Recently she has been filling their heads with nasty lies about myself and their stepmother. They are very young and impressionable and all visits between the kids now are awkward and I find them often whispering and staring at me strangely. Should I get a lawyer again or is there a good way to tell my wife to be civil.
   Divorce Donnie

   Dear Divorce Donnie
   Yar! Yee be a lily livered land-lubber! Take your young-uns back and show that troublesome sea hag what-for! Slandering the captain and spreading mutiny could get a man hanged back in my day. Just make sure to bury the precious plundered booty afterwards! Mark the map with an X and seal it inside of an old leather bound book. Keep an eye out for the storm and send a man into the crow's-nest. Har-har-har! However, keep watch that you do not kill an albatross! Bad luck, almost as bad as taking a wench to sea! Yar!

   Dear Richard the Pirate
   My girlfriend and I recently went out on a couples night and it led to some awkward moments between us and old friends. They are always all over each other and it makes us feel kind of sick when we are there trying to have a decent conversation. It is nice that they are so into each other but is there a way I can tell them to keep the public displays of affection down without sounding like a prude?
   Annoyed Andy

   Dear Annoyed Andy
   Argh! I love the smell of sea brine on a maiden's breath. Almost as much as I love the sea. No woman can tame me, nay. For my heart belongs to the sea. Their hearts belong to each other, do not try to tame them. For it is like trying to tame the sea. Yee will only end up in Davy Jone's Locker. Their public knavery be nary that of a sea worthy person. Ditch them to the ocean and make them walk the plank. Yar-be-dar! The sharks will take them and feed their restless bellies.

   Dear Richard the Pirate
   I recently was caught driving under the influence and my life has been torn apart. My kids look at me like I am a monster. My wife has to drive me to work like I am teenager. The people in my congregation look and laugh at me like I am an alcoholic. I am trying to get the message out to my community to not drink and drive but people just call me a hypocrite. Is there a way I can spread my message so that other people call cab and don't end up like me? Nobody listens to me!
   Deaf-Ears Dwayne

   Dear Deaf-Ears Dwayne
   There is only one way to get attention in this situation. Raise the Jolly Roger and board the other ship! Take action! Shoot cannons off and ignite the powder room with a torch. The explosion will destroy their ship and they won't be able to ever pass onward where your secret hide out is. Yar! Don't forget the grappling hooks can double as weapons in a pinch! Argh! Just watch out for flying body parts. They hurt really good.


Do you have a dilemma or problem for the Meliorist advice column? Write to f.editor@themeliorist.com with all your queries and questions that need answering.

Ask Mister Smiley Sunshine

   Dear Mister Smiley Sunshine
   I have recently discovered my teenage sons collection of pornography. I feel it is filthy and should delete the humungous file but my husband says it is better than having him knocking up some random girl and its perfectly normal to have pornography at his age. I am just worried about it leading to something else. What should I do!
   Troubled Teresa

   Dear Troubled Teresa
   Well doesn't that sound like a pickle! I think you better pull your brows down and wear a smile because being all worry wobbly won't win your trouble away! You just got to sing! Compose a song or draw some pictures showing why you believe pornography isn't healthy for him, then have your husband show him using pictures and a song why pornography is perfectly normal! Then everyone will get along fine! Golly what a HOT FUSS! If that doesn't seem to help you can do what I do when I get down! Drop some high-powered blotter acid. Make everything perfectly clear. Like this one time, when I saw a fish appear in a top hat and coat and explain to me the intricacies of the universe.

   Dear Mister Smiley Sunshine
   I have been having trouble with my weight for sometime but I just can't seem to keep it under control. My family just says I am weak and have no will power but I feel they aren't understanding me. I have no support and they don't care if I am miserable or not. I am exhausted and what can I do to show them I really want to change.
   Breathless Bob

   Dear Breathless Bob
   Sounds like someone has been having too many snack times! You had better just go out and frolic in the fields more with Mister Meyow-Meyow. Don't worry to much what they seem to think you can have lots of support when the sun comes out and starts to sing too you. If all else fails then you can always just embrace it and go to their houses in the middle of the night, eat all their food and then leave before they wake up. That would make them care faster than wearing a pink hunter vest saying 'help me.' If they STILL don't get it if you do that little stint, just do what I do when my family gets me down. Drop a sheet of brown acid into the punch at the next family gathering and watch the poor saps claw their eyes out from paranoid self destructive insanity.

   Dear Mister Smiley Sunshine
   I wrote in awhile ago about a troubled relationship with me and my best friends boyfriend. The columnist 'Brugnahk the Devourer of Flesh' suggested I devour him. I took this figuratively and now have cheated with him several times. I feel terrible but he says he loves me so much more than her. I am having second thoughts. What have I done?! Is there anything I can do too correct this mistake?
   Sweet Nothing
 
   Dear Sweet Nothing
   Uh-oh! Someone made a big booboo! Shucks howdy looks like you are out of luck! And how! Mister Meyow-Meyow and I are very disappointed you would cheat with your best friends boyfriend. Bad girl! VERY BAD GIRL! So you had best come clean see your best friend with both you and her boyfriend and explain what happened with a song and dance! That always lightens the mood. And if that doesn't work you can always just do some acid or have an orgy. Or both! I always enjoyed that back in the 60's.

Do you have a dilemma or problem for the Meliorist advice column? Write to f.editor@themeliorist.com with all your queries and questions that need answering.

Ask Gerald the Cherub

   Dear Gerald the Cherub
   My fiancé always forgets valentines day and my birthday. It drives me up the wall and I try to do things to remind him with out being to blatant but he never seems to catch on. I think these days are really special and want him to realize that it means a lot to me if he would remember these things. What should I do, I love him but he is driving me crazy.
   Forgotten Fiancé

   Dear Forgotten Fiancé
   You know what I am sick of? People like you. That is right, you! You are always complaining about him not remembering some stupid manufactured day to sell cards and chocolate. You know what? Here's a hint to get you through this obviously stressful time in your love life. IT DOESN'T MATTER! I don't know why I shot you two with that arrow in the first place. IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A ONCE NIGHT STAND! You people make me sick! He even slept with your sister. That's right! Be you didn't know that one! Try being me for a day. I help you people out and all you can do is whine about being so confused. It is love so enjoy it while it lasts you weirdo.

   Dear Gerald the Cherub
   I have been seeing a guy off and on for a few weeks. One of my friends told me he is interested in seeing me exclusively but I don't know why he would feel that way. I thought it was just some fun and I don't feel that way for him. Was I giving off the wrong signals? What do I do if he asks me out exclusively? Is there any way to end this as friends when he obviously feels something for me?
   Muddled Maria

   Dear Muddled Maria
   You know what? You are sick. You are the reason I hate my job. I stuck him with an arrow for a reason. And look what you do! What? Just a little cuddling, necking, kissing, hugging, and you wonder what the signals were? Are you crazy on acid? What is wrong with you? Is it so blatantly obvious that you can't figure it out? You know what? You brought this on yourself. You figure it out! Okay? You are the one messing with his heart. You can dig your way out of your little hole. Why do all the people I put together  come back and haunt me! What is wrong with you people? Huh? Just be happy, have your little snotlings and then die in your shallow graves! You make me sick! Pandas that are becoming extinct from not breeding are easier to understand than your simian simpletons.

   Dear Gerald the Cherub
   I have been feeling really alone. I have never had a girlfriend and though I try and try but they just don't like me? Is it me? Is it women? What can I do so I won't  be alone anymore? I just want to be with someone finally. I have listened to my friends advice but I don't want to change myself for people to like me, I want them to like me for who I am.
   Lonely Larry

   Dear Lonely Larry
   You know what? Try being me. I am about two feet tall, I have stubble, smell like cigarette smoke and bourbon. I look like a baby version of the Unabomber with a five o'clock shadow. Maybe follow your friends advice, being yourself is severely overrated. Maybe try going out instead of sitting around the house complaining to your friends about how lonely you are. So you know what? I have had enough! I stuck plenty of girls with arrows for you and what do you do? You just find some reason not to go out with them. What they don't compare the women on your computer? Get out there! Develop your social skills through trial and error. I am so sick of you people! You know what? The only thing worse than you people is that time when I had to spend an afternoon with Victor the Reaper because he lost his keys and needed me to drive him to the hospital for an Ebola outbreak.

Do you have a dilemma or problem for the Meliorist advice column? Write to f.editor@themeliorist.com with all your queries and questions that need answering.

This columnist was a ninja I ran for two issues like brugnahk. Sadly he went over about as well as all of my dear abbey from hell articles.

Ask Musashi the Ninja

   Dear Musashi the Ninja,
   I have helped rehabilitated my brother from a vicious bout of drug addiction and now he wants to live with my two children and I.  As much as I do believe in caring for family the prospect of him being in the house with my children possibly unattended after I have heard some of the things he had done to get drug money, makes me nervous. I love my brother but how can I tell him to back off gently.
   Callous Carol
   Dear Callous Carol
   When the British devils brought their devil opium to our country my grand-mother told me of how many souls it claimed. We fought it every way we could. With sword and law, but that failed. With shadow and silence, but that failed. Finally we found the only way to drive out the demon of addiction. Fire. What was wrought in the pits of hell will be pushed back into it with flaming arrows and pyres of the great piles of devil opium. The addicts we burned with rods of iron to drive out the demons, the beast of addiction has great resolve. But it was defeated. You can defeat it too. Using the only true friend of mankind. Fire.
   Dear Musashi the Ninja
   My family received their government rebate and my husband wanted to spend all of the checks on a big home theatre, while I suggested we save the money. I don't want the kids to learn to live beyond their means just because of an odd surplus. What should I do? I don't want to make a big fuss over something that is really small in the big scheme.
   Nora Troubled
   Dear Nora Troubled
   There is nothing worse than those who squander the gifts of our great emperor. The gifts of the great emperor should be treated as a sign of change. Not as foolish play money to play monopoly or whatever nonsense they plan to use it upon. Do not spend it upon a home theatre, build a shrine to the great emperor and his generosity will return. The Ralph Klein god-king of Alberta shall reign eternal!
   Dear Musashi the Ninja
   I am responding to Desperate Dina. Gatwick the Cockney Gent advised you to re-evaluate the marriage. I believe if his eyes wander, let the rest of him follow. Don't take any crap from your man. No way! Show him that you are going to value yourself enough to take a stand.
   No-Crap Clark
   Dear No-Crap Clark
   Indeed he should follow his eyes to their destination. Perhaps you should see if a fox maiden is luring his actions. Fox maidens are vicious demon tricksters or Oni. They only live to cause pain and suffering to those that are near their webs of death and madness. Banish the fox maiden to the land of wind and ghosts. This can be accomplished by burning out the fox demon from the foul temptress. Using hot iron pokers they demon can be coaxed from a mortal shell quite easily. After finishing this your man should be back under control.
Do you have a dilemma or problem for the Meliorist advice column? Write to f.editor@themeliorist.com with all your queries and questions that need answering.

Ask Musashi the Ninja
   Dear Musashi the Ninja
   I have a problem. My brother is being bullied at school. This would be easy to solve except the bully is not only a girl but her parents are my sister's friends. I have been neglecting confronting the problem but my brother has been feigning sickness to avoid going to school. Is there a way I can solve this without rocking the boat?
   Boggled Brother

   Dear Boggled Brother
   Only a samurai can kill a samurai. When training to be a ninja in the monastery a band of samurai from the neighboring kingdom came and stole our horses. We sent them an emissary to ask them to nicely return the horses, they sent the emissary back strapped to the back of a horse without a head or hands. I learned an important lesson that day, good manners are wasted on the ruthless. Do not give this bully hospitality. Fight fire with fire. So long as your fire burns stronger, his will be suffocated.
   
   Dear Musashi the Ninja
   It hurts to pee, what should I do? Sometimes when I try it doesn't work. Help?
   Clogged Cleo

   Dear Clogged Cleo
   It is one of two things, evil spirits or an infection. The first is the most deadly. Demons are only able to be driven out with burning hot iron rods. The rods are inserted into the possessed area to injure the demons within. The wounds must be covered with pepper and stuffed with salt. If this does not drive the demons out, you will be forced to amputate, the entire area. In the case of a sexually transmitted infection, make sure you are tested immediately and seek treatment as soon as possible. A doctor from the city can cure this with a potion or salve. The strange in odd clothes man from the sea spoke that this results from unprotected 'floor-cest'.

   Dear Musashi the Ninja
   My Grandma, recently decided to purchase a Playstation 2. I am glad she is embracing technology however she is now spending all her time playing this weird game with a giant talking head and a ball that you roll over things. She doesn't go to the mall with friends, or knit anymore. I keep telling myself the obsession will break but she doesn't seem want too go out and enjoy the end of her life while she is still around.
   Against-Games Allie
   
   Dear Against-Games Allie
   Life is a fleet blink before the old tired eyes. The game you speak of is no game at all. No that is Katamari Damacy. The music is trance-like and makes the body groove to the funk. It alike kabuki theatre, allows the player to enter a state of enlightenment. Do not interfere in this divine vision, perhaps your grand mother will attain enlightenment in this life yet.
   

I used to publish also advice columns in the section of the paper, here is one of my personal favorites of the paper a demon that devours flesh, obviously this didn't go over too well as cannibalism may have pushed the envelop too far. I was surprised I didn't get fired earlier but then again that is contract work for you. Easier to just say "we found someone who isn't insane." Har har! Since my firing they removed them,but my old paper is at the bottom if you want to she what a shame it has become. sometimes they still let me write horoscopes under a pen name but i can't be "out there."


Ask Brugnahk the Devourer of Flesh
   Dear Brugnahk the Devourer of Flesh
   I have been feeling awkward about a close relationship I have with my best friends boyfriend. He talks about how I 'understand him like she doesn't' or other really private problems in his relationship. I am getting the feeling he might want out. Should I tell my best friend he saying these things and give her first strike? I don't want to be a home wrecker if I am just paranoid.
   Sweet Nothing
   Dear Sweet Nothing
Brugnahk believes he has heard this petty story before, the story bores Brugnahk and he wishes to only feast upon the soft sopping wet skin of the innocent. One cannot expect Brugnahk to give advice to such a callow and bloodless whelp! Take advantage of your friend's lover. Make him comfortable around you and when his guard is let down make an intimate move. Then bite down into his spine while wearing a jaw brace to paralyze him from the neck down. Then you will be free to dine at your leisure. Mammy, Dinner is Severed!
   Dear Brugnahk the Devourer of Flesh
   I have been thinking of leaving the church I have been brought up in for sometime now. This is because I don't agree with some of the doctrines and commonly held opinions of my congregation. This will exile me from all my family and friends within the congregation and I would have to start over. Should I take my stand and accept whatever comes or just hope they will change?
   Messed Milton
   Dear Messed Milton
   Brugnahk cannot understand why you have not abandoned them already for the one true faith. Join the great devourers that hide beneath the veneer of sanity that your precious world of light is balanced. Turn your back on these pagans and embrace the insatiable ones. They cannot understand what you will bear witness too, you and the others will be the midwives to a new era! It will be penned in the blood of martyrs. Those fools will only change when forced too, and they will be forced to change. Change or be devoured by the myriad minions of Magnum Innominandum.
   Dear Brugnahk the Devourer of Flesh
   I found some smut on my boyfriend's computer the other day. I confronted him and he just shrugged. Is it weird for me to feel as if I am competing with his virtual women? Or am I just afraid that I don't measure up to his airbrushed airheads?
   Virtual Virginia
   Dear Virtual Virginia
   Flesh feast! Flesh feast! Brugnahk feasts upon flesh! FLESH! FLESH!! FLESH!! Strength is stored in his soft delicious quivering heart. You must devour his heart, feast on his flesh, eat his entrails, and consume his cranium to steal his memory. Then you will find out if he truly loves you more than his false lights.
   Do you have a problem that you cannot solve? Ask one of our advice personalities at The Meliorist. Email your quandaries and queries to f.editor@themeliorist.com

Ask Brugnahk, the Devourer of Flesh

   Dear Brugnahk, the Devourer of Flesh
   I just had a nightmare blind date. The guy I went with came on way too strong and while I 'was' interested at first, he got weird fast. How do I let him know I don't mind being friends with him but he keeps calling asking me to be his girlfriend? Don't they offer seminar courses of the do's and don't of dating? Or is he just daft?
   Irritated Irene

   Dear Irritated Irene
   The meat-bag you went out with on the blind date with has kuru. An ancient deadly disease of cerebral rot. Do not feast upon his flesh or extract fluid from his spinal column. No matter how delicious the sweet nectar of life may taste, you must resist the temptation to feast. Let him down gently, into a pit full of rats that have been starved for two days. Then watch the feast of flesh. Keep his heart as a trophy, he has admirable courage in being so forward.

   Dear Brugnahk, the Devourer of Flesh
   My boyfriend has pressuring me to have sex since we have been together. I have explained I want to wait until I am married so I am not just 'another girl' on his belt. It has caused quite a few problems and it is driving me away from him. Should I dump him and find someone new who will abide by my request for chastity? I love him.
   Chaste Cathy

   Dear Chaste Cathy
   The organ-sack desires your body to rut upon. You must resist his lure. You must strike first. Invite him over for sex, after tying him to your bed turn off the light. Leave the meat-bag here. After a few days of starvation his body will cannibalize his fat reserves. Once he is tender and lean as you like, you can now dine at your leisure on his quivering flesh. A Flesh feast unflawed by fat is delightful.

   Dear Brugnahk, the Devourer of Flesh
   My father died recently and in his will he called my mother a harlot and left his widow nothing. I am torn between duties to my mother and the memory of my father. I can't do anything for a dead man but the fight for my fathers estate has my other siblings calling for DNA tests to find out who are legitimate children. It is getting out of control and I am getting tired of watching our family get torn apart over greed. What should I do?
   Tired Tom

   Dear Tired Tom
   These corpulent gluttons have dined too much on soft flesh of callow weaklings. You must not be torn by their razor teeth. Strengthen your skin by flogging it with a leather whip. After a tough sinewy hide develops confront this self proclaimed family and slaw them all with your teeth and claws. Afterwards perch quietly upon the mountain of skulls and lick the sweet skin from their limbs.

Do you have a dilemma or problem for the Meliorist advice column? Write to f.editor@themeliorist.com with all your queries and questions that need answering.

This was a personality test that I had published in January of 2006. It was a laugh riot for myself but my coworkers didn't share my sense of humour and canned me when contract renewal came up.


Where are you going Major Tom?
Personality Quiz.

Choices are a major part of everyone life. White socks or Black? Paper or Plastic? Fries with that? Red Pill or Blue? Coffin or Cremation? The hardest one however is the infamous "what am I going to do with my life." As such I have constructed a helpful career guide that will help enlighten all of you! The guide is rather simple. I have made some simple multiple-choice questions. There are no wrong answers, just choose the ones that fit the best to your personality and moral compass. At the end tally your answers by letter (a,b,c,d,e.) Instructions follow the quiz. GOOD LUCK!

   1. You have been walking for an hour down an old forest road. There have been no other travelers that have passed your way. All alone walking through the quiet woods you mind drifts towards...
   a. The precious resources that could be plundered from such a tranquil untapped land.
   b. The fact that you are lost and are quite terrified of owls.
   c. The quiet serenity that is surrounding you completely.
   d. The life you have led in general and how you have come to this point.
   e. Fish, pirate ships, Kelly Clarkson, bottle of rye, chesterfield, balloons...

   2. A condemned man is placed before you. He was found guilty of a crime so depraved that it cannot be mentioned. The jury has condemned him to death under the law. However should he be executed, his wife and children will surely starve. As the judge you have the final say on his fate. But not only the condemned man's life, also the life of his family are in your hands. What would you do?
   a. The law stands. Execute the condemned and send the body back to the widow along with the bill.
   b. The law bends. Exile the condemned along with his family. That is if he can out dance the lord of the dance.
   c. The law stands. Execute the condemned, place the children as wards of the state, and send the wife to a convent.
   d. The law breaks. The innocent should not suffer for one mans sin. The condemned is set 'free' and must repay his debt to society for the rest of his life.
   e. The law twisted. Execute the wife and children. The condemned will live the rest of his life in absolute shame and emptiness for his vile crime.

   3. An old lady holds out a handful of delicious looking candy. What would you do?
   a. Tell her you would rather have five dollars than candy.
   b. Speak a few verses of Latin while making the sign of the cross and Run away.
   c. Take a piece of candy and eat it, if the offer is open still then have another!
   d. Refuse her offer and bid her good day.
   e. Put down the cat you were trying to shove into an ATM machine, attack her.

   4. After a long day at work you come home to find your pet duck has hung itself. What would you do?
   a. Sell the duck on EBay.
   b. Put it in the freezer for later consumption.
   c. Bury the duck in the backyard.
   d. Shed a tear for your duck and then take the duck to the pet cemetery.
   e. Call your friends. Tell them to come and see the weirdest thing ever.

   5. A video of you doing something you are ashamed of surfaces on the internet. Your circle of friends haven't seen it. It is only a matter of time. What will you do?
   a. Try to sue whoever posted the video and get rich, turning a bad incident to good. Making you the envy of all your friends!
   b. Hope the whole 'internet' collapses inward and dies out as fast as it started.
   c. If it comes up explain the circumstances, otherwise don't bring it up.
   d. Tell them about it. Better from you than someone else. This shows you trust them.
   e. Film something even more shameful.

   Tally Time! What ever answer you choose the most is the life you are leaning towards. So if you choose mostly 'D' then read the 'D' section. It is really that simple. If you choose no one answer more than another read the 'F' section.
   A Section: The word 'greedy' best describes you. You are going to be rich no matter what. Your complete disregard for morals and taste in favor of wealth will place you among the money moguls of our time. Even if you are rich for selling weapons grade plutonium to doomsday cults, what is good for the M&M corporation is good for you! You will be remembered for your lack of scruples. The career choices that will best appeal to you are: Office Ladder Climber, Organ Smuggler, Used Car Salesman, Telephone Psychic, Lawyer and Jewel Thief.
   B Section: I believe the word 'eccentric' best describes you. You will live a very interesting life to say the least. Don't expect to stop having strange outlandish escapades until you are inside of a steel box with spikes on the inside. Regardless you will not be overly concerned with wealth or status so long as you are enjoying yourself. Your friends are precious to you. The majority of similar minded individuals you will find are not going to be family. Rather they will be among the other outsiders like you. You will be remembered for your quirks. The career choices that will best appeal to you are: Pirate, Cult Leader, Journalist, Exorcist and Time-Traveling-Cigar-Chomping-Wit-Spewing-Dinosaur-Hunter.
   C Section: I believe the word 'mediocre' best describes you. You are going to live a rather average life to say the least. The only adventures you will find yourself in will be ones you thrust upon yourself.  It will be a good life, albeit uneventful. Unless of course you finally notice the everyday miracles in which case your life will be an eternal carnival of happiness. Needless to say, your job will not be your life. It will be just a job, since there are so much more important things to you, like family. The career choices that will best appeal to you are: Service Industry Bronco, Co-Manager Collaborator, Office Drone, Cubicle Commander, Happy Farmer and Restaurant Rabble-rouser.
   D Section: I believe the word 'saint' best describes you. You have immense compassion. So much that it often gets in the way of what others would call common sense. You will be among those that everyone will remember for their love. Everyone you know is truly blessed by your presence. Your job will be an extension of your love. Your bravery is unparallel. You won't be able to go against your moral compass as it is impossibly magnetized to the goodness in your heart. The career choices that will best appeal to you are: Personal Guardian Angel, Doctor, School Teacher, Waiter, Councilor, Police Officer, Fire Fighter, and Paramedic.
   E Section: I believe the word 'twisted' best describes you. You are the thing that goes bump in the night. Not to say you are inherently evil, we all have the capacity for that. It is just you can take to it like a duck to water, so beware. The madness inherent inside of your mind is so chaotic that to gaze into it is akin to gazing into the abyss. You will be remembered among as a villain, scoundrel or ne'er-do-well. For you, people and wealth will come and go. This is mostly because you see the wrong choice and right and deliberately choose the wrong one. The only constant is your survivability. You are a cockroach, you can survive a nuclear war along with Keith Richards and Spam. The career choices that will best appeal to you are: Evil Dictator, Mad Scientist, Suicide Bomber, Axe Murderer, Reality Television Contestant, Psychopath, and Clown.
   F Section: I believe the word 'free' best describes you. You are not constrained by one path in life or another. While this makes things very confusing you have the greatest freedom from prejudice and taking the wrong path. The greatest single challenge for you will be deciding what life you want to live. The possibilities are open and free as the imagination. The careers that best appeal to you are: Philosopher, inventor, entrepreneur, and artist.

This is another serial that was published as a holiday special. I figured you might like it a bit more than the wretches who fired me. This is from my time as a news paper features editor this was published in the Christmas issue of 2005.

   Merry Festivus! That's right this is the time of year when people gather away to celebrate for whatever reason they could come up with. Many ethnographers have tried to pin down the spirit of the holidays, why people get together at this strange time of year to jest and dance. The winter blues? The shorter days? Boredom? Whatever the case people continue to celebrate during this fiscally wonderful time of year. So here is to 365.5 more days of madness on this island of sanity within a oblivious gulf of abyssal space!
   So now, I puzzled over and over what to give you, my beloved reader! What else than something to chuckle about. Something to laugh about! Maybe something to even giggle about! The holiday special! Except for those of us in retail, we don't have holidays during this time of year. No, not us, Never.
   The holidays are an irrational time of  year. Ungulates fly, obese elves can fit down pipes, and the TV is clogged with feel good movies and commercials. So how can one make sense of such a random time of year? I will tell you. You cannot. It is like trying to maintain your sanity before the dreadful and great Cthulhu. It is impossible and futile as this bleak and horrible charade which we dance.
   Are the holidays dead? People ask me whatever happened to the spirit of the Holidays. I have done some research and tracked down a possible real fate of the spirit of Holidays. It was placed upon a scale before the ancient Egyptian God of life and death, Osiris for judgment. The spirit was weighed against the heart of the holidays. The heart was fully of corrupted by moral decay from greed. Osiris tossed the spirit's heart to the 'Destroyer of Hearts' which then devoured the heart hungrily. Now don't be too sad about this. While it is a bit far fetched, the Egyptians were a clever bunch who have a desert full of monuments dedicated to how clever they were.
   Ever-year millions of letters flood to the north pole to that jolly old immortal Santa Claus. The legend of Santa Claus is far-reaching. It is believed that he once was a Saint known as Saint Nicolas, until syndicated by Coca-Cola. Regardless Santa receives a large quantity of mail each year all with outlandish requests. Here are some of the favorite from the mailbag.

   Dear Santa Claus
   I have been lately feeling left out of the holiday season. Everyone who used to so dearly loved celebrating this time of year by spending time with me and giving thanks for family, now have turned their backs on me in favor of going out and needlessly spending money. I feel like I need to wake them up to what this is all about and am getting very angry with being ignored! They just go and party it up with a fat guy in a suit. Am I just becoming to wound up with my self or should I actually do something? All I want for Christmas is Love.
   Sincerely Forsaken

   Dear Forsaken
   Ho-Ho-HO! Merry Christmas! Ho-ho-ho! What is wrong little boy? All upset about you not being the center of attention anymore? Sounds like your just upset that your not getting as much attention as your used too? Well it sounds like you have had your time in the sun and need to move on. Ho-Ho-HO! Merry Christmas! Jingle bells! Just because you are being ignored doesn't mean you can't have fun, go to a soup kitchen, help out random people, just because other people have lives to attend to doesn't mean you need to be all saucy. You only get what you give, try to give some love this year and you might just receive it.

   Dear Santa
   I am sick of my neighbors down the hill. All laughing and jumping and prancing being so merry this time of year. I don't believe in ANY holidays this time of year. I don't care what your celebrating, winter is a time to be depressed and brooding. Taking misery in the death of the sun and the triumph of darkness. WHO ARE THEY TO LIGHTEN MY MOOD! WHO I ASK WHO! And all those whos down in who Ville think they have won, but I will show them for I have a gun!
   Green Bastard

   Dear Green Bastard
   Ho-Ho-Ho! An angry little boy! I know one who won't be getting ANY ammunition for Christmas! Ho-ho-ho! Don't believe in holidays? Why not? Are you too angry to get over yourself? Learn to love, maybe that cold black heart of yours will start beating again! Ho-Ho-Ho! Watch some holiday movies, it doesn't matter if you don't like the Holidays, just learn to give everyone who does their space and freedom to do so. Don't  be such a mean one. Ho-ho-Oh?
   
   Dear Santa Claus
   All I want for Christmas is for mommy and daddy to stop fighting.
   Broken Boy
   
   Dear Broken Boy
   Ho-Ho-HO-ho-HO-Ho-hO-ho-HO! Merry Christmas! HOOO-HOO-H! Ho-ho-HO-HO! Ho-HO-HOOooo! Ho-ho-ho-ho! HOOO-HOOO-HO! HO!

   Regardless you get the idea. He is a very busy man answering all this mail. Which is why he now has chosen too answer his mail in a joint contract with a large internet spam company. Expect replies from that man in red with 'T0y5 4 U' and 'h0h0h0 m3rry xmas' so unblock those spam blockers and get ready for a spam-tastic season.
   Now myself am not going to be going home for the holidays rather I am going to be astral projecting myself home. Since it's the thought that counts I feel this is appropriate. So have a wonderful holiday and remember to enjoy these last days of the year as they grow stale as soda cracker from 1982. So happy whatever it is you are all celebrating, I don't care! Just make sure to keep the noise down and wake me when its 2006. I can't wait for this foul year to be over!

I used to work for a news paper before they fired me because I was "insane" this was one of my favorite pen name characters, a crotched british veteran that had fought in every single major world conflict since WWII. I don't know if he is still funny, when ever I am depressed and talking to the walls I open up some of his old "survival" guides and laugh my self to sleep. This was published as a monthly serial in a university newspaper during 2005-2006. I posted three of my favourites here for your pleasure.


Global Domination in a Nutshell
Chadwick Wizibotum

   Hallo Chaps! Chadwick here, I was asked by a kind gent to write a different kind of article for a change. Now this to me is like suggesting not fighting wars over precious resources. Anyways I decided I would try my hand at this nonsense and perchance pass on my knowledge of how to rule the world. Now mind you this works in practice but not in theory, or was it the other way around? Either way I have finally accumulated enough tips from those who rose and fell over the years to write a condensed guide on how to climb that mountain of death that is ruling the world.
   Strangelove: Learn to love the bomb. If you  have the bomb doing whatever you please is much easier than you can imagine. In debt? Pay them back in ICBM's! Angry? Take it out on southern hemisphere! Depressed? Take it out on northern hemisphere. Bored? Randomly choose a city and turn it into a smoked glass sphere with three simultaneous nuclear strikes. After the smoke clears and fallout ends the people will be begging you to rule them! Just remember, the bomb is a fickle hellcat. And as such don't trust it too commies. Damn Commies.
   Army of One: Now remember, when it comes to making an empire of global domination you have to rely on your own creativity. But it helps to have some help. Gather up some like minded individuals like mad scientists, outlaw dictators, exiled royalty, or news paper editors to help devise your scheme of world domination. The more colorful the crew the better. Make sure to have at least one very large eunuch henchman who never speaks. Reminds me of my days in Syria in '85 we had these scary guys from the south who never spoke and used only knives, damn they could sneak. What were they called? Damn memory.
   Beyond Good: Don't worry about being loved. Being feared will give you the same rush. Sort of like when we had to extract the location from a nosy reporter in the '95 boy did we give him a scare. Never felt so randy in my life! Except for this one time in 2001 when we had to test out a new combat drug that had a very pleasant side-effect. Goodness, it must have been fourteen hours before we calmed down. Just remember, the best thing a ruler can hope for is that children are scared to sleep with stories of them a hundred years from their fall.
   Speak no Evil: Don't say anything bad. Never state your true intention. This is the fatal flaw in all plans. If someone else knows your plan then it is not a plan anymore. It is just a fancy puzzle for the enemy to figure out. So don't fall for this. Make them not know what is going to happen next. Never say anything incriminating and if someone plants a tape recorder in your office and keeps record of your conversations with double agents then make sure you are enrolled in an playwriting class so you can claim it was all just a strange scene you were rehearsing.
    Love and War: Love is the only reason men fight wars. And since love conquers all then you will do well to find some one to love. No, you need someone to love. I myself have a dear person that I do cherish and love. Oh how her hair blows in the summers air, how her eyes dance when she is firing an AK-47 into the air wildly. Or was that a dream. Regardless. Make sure you have someone to love.
   Victors Write History: Don't worry about what you have to do to win. Just make sure you win. Sort of like what we used to do back in '83 when things got bad. Gather up witness' and arrange for a tragic fire. The Egyptians never recorded a defeat so you shouldn't either. Just think of them as lessons as to better know your enemy. Or a waste of life and resources, but what road wasn't paved with blood.
   Multiply and Conquer: Don't try to scatter your foe and stomp them out like so many rats, rather let them unite against you! Let them come to your gates, open up your gates, welcome the foe in, let them believe you to be defeated. Back when I was young and dumb in '72 we called it an ambush. They always fell for it. Remember, you know your land better than any invader. Use this to your advantage, send your invader home weeping and sputtering to explain their defeat! Then once they return broken it is time for the counter attack, sweep across their lands like a black wind of death bringing pain and destruction to all who oppose. Sort of like that rubbish down in the old country when the commies formed a party, damn commies.
   The End: The end is inevitable. Don't worry how it happens just don't get killed by a mob and dragged through the streets to be spit on. Go out in style. Riding a nuclear missile or drug fueled fire fight,. Delicious drugs. Just don't go quietly into the night. Make sure you make a fair sized crater or take out at least double your age in attackers. It's a good way to go if you don't just slump over and die, get at least a few last words in if you can. Just don't use 'I'll be back-' because you won't.
   Either way chaps, that's bout all! Hope you enjoyed that as much as I have, myself it was like a slow midnight raid on the beach with a full moon in scuba gear. Either way take care my lovely pupils and remember to aim for the left eye in New World Order agents, their identity chip is located here. So remember, shoot first, ask questions later and always take care, watch your hair.
   Now go be a hero!


A Survivor's Guide to War


   Ah'ello Chaps! It is your loyal informant Chadwick Wizilbotum. I was pondering something profound that one my colleagues said to me when he was deliriously rambling after being shot with a tranquilizer dart. It was back in '83 he said something like 'Hubbersfield happy a no is jump' but I really dug deeply into what he said and realized the meaning of life during that evening. Unfortunately we were heavy into the brandy and I forgot what it was the next morning and he died a few days later because of a double-crossing Swedish guide. Damn Sweden. I decided that I would help you my dear readers to not suffer his fate and write you a survivors guide to something that I love more than my guns, medals, my rabbit Cuddles, and cat Boots combined.
   Don't get hurt: The key to surviving is not to die. It is as easy as that. Don't get shot, don't step on landmines, don't get ambushed and the whole thing will pass like a bout of bad gas. That is unless you are a grenadier, we had a saying about grenadiers, not a lot of brains among them, but a lot of brains on them. Death is the leading cause of not surviving a war, along with prostitutes, drugs and dealing with men in red suits. Damn commie devils. Live through the war and you  may well survive.
   Nuclear War: It is very easy to survive. Make sure you are not alive in the era which it takes place. Failing this, the best way to survive a nuclear attack is to not be in the direct blast or fallout area. If you are caught in the blast and fallout area, duck and cover! Inside of your lead shielded bunker three hundred and fifty feet beneath the earth. If your lucky it won't be a dirty bomb and you can go outside and start cleaning up in two or three days, otherwise plan ahead and bring some members of the opposite sex then start planning your new family! We did this back in '97 when we thought Uzbekistan got a hold of thirty intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles. Turned out it was just some Satanist doomsday cult, boy our faces were red six months later when we had knocked up all of our breeding partners!
   Fiends and All Lies: Allies and enemies change with the wind. Reading some Machiavelli will help you understand how to better exploit obvious weakness in them. While the enemy of your enemy may be your friend, the enemy of your friend does not have to be your enemy, infect with enough suitcases full of rare war loot you can establish a good working relationship with said enemy. Much better than that free loading ally, complaining is all I ever hear from them  'I want help on the war front' 'my troops are dying from a mysterious disease' and that ever so pathetic 'I want to end this terrible war.' Damn free loading allies.
   Karma Chameleon: Sometimes things go bad, really bad back in 2002 we had thirty three tankers of biocion-8G chemical nerve gas go missing. Turned an entire platoon of elite troops into a something like melted cheddar. Damn Cheese. What a mess. Make sure that when things go to ruin you have a eject button, it doesn't matter what it is. I have mine, it's a little red button beside my red phone and bowl of Skittles. Delicious Skittles. It can be anything that gets the heat off of you when the revolution comes. Just make sure you have it, never leave home with out a plan B-X.
   War never changes: When it boils down to the heart of it. We need war, its good for business and keeps my pockets full of gold. What is good for the M&M corporation is good for you! Think of all we have gotten from war! Look around your house. I don't know how many times I need to point this out. You don't honestly think any peace loving country would need a toaster oven with a built in radio? So keep the machine well oiled and do your part, whatever it is! Some of us fight on the front lines, others point who the enemy is, some maintain the missile silos or keep the pacifier robots maintained for when operation Full Moon is initiated. Regardless, we need it like you need air, unless of course you believe in that whole 'peace' thing in which case, you should stop breathing my air.
   War as a whole is best described as a game of 'hungry, hungry hippos' or chess. Either way the best way to get through it is to win and live. Also to castle your king before red hippo can gobble up all the marbles! Damn red commie hippos. Anyways, until next time this is your compassionate companion Chadwick Wizilbotum reminding you that when confronted corrupt government officials in the pay of the New World Order to locate the nearest exit and flee the scene before they can call in interrogation agents. All right that's all chaps and remember to remember this week.
   Now go be a hero!


Survivors Guide to the Holidays

   Ah hallo chaps! Chadwick Wizilbotum here again. Bad news got a hold of me and it was off to exotic Yemen for two weeks. While down there I worked on this article, but lost the first copy after an EMP pulse destroyed my computer's hard drive. But I was back in time for the holidays and to write this one! Much to my discomfort may I mention. You see. coming home for the holidays can be alike soft pressure torture. Painful, slow, and will cause anyone to crack. While this guide may be too late for some of you, I assure you the delay that caused the article to be this late was the only real viable excuse on this planet. Communism. Damn commies.
   Mass Transport: With fuel prices continuing to skyrocket, I have been forced to abandon my beloved and well worn form of transport a M1A2 Abrams Tank, in favor of public transit. I admit, Carpooling with civilians and taking the 'Bus' has been a change from driving with impunity over any obstacle. It has been a lesson in humility and in economic sense. If your friends are traveling home and they are in the same area. Travel together! Strength in numbers. Except back in '87 when me and three other veteran mercenaries held off three platoons of New World Order soldiers. Great Richards Crown that was a lot of blood. Like third act of the Scottish play. Egads!
   Diplomacy: After returning home you may be grilled for information. Hopefully no hot pokers inserted under fingernails but times being what they are, it would not surprise me. If you are still an angelic pure innocent virgin in the eyes of your family, do not shatter this illusion. It is the most cruel thing you can do to a person aside the ancient and deadly torture of the Qatar Old Guard. So by all means do not enlighten them about any 'misadventures' because for all those fools know you have just spent the every night for the past month in the library studying and doing homework.
   Business & Pleasure: Some of us have to work for a living. For some of us it is easy sending of suitcases filled with confidential rocket plans to secret operatives in Finland. Others have to spend working overtime in a sweatshop making sweatpants for the Denmark Olympic track team. Regardless some of us spend the holidays working. It is all right, just don't get depressed or go 'Bunker Barmy' as we called it back in '77 when we were trapped for six months in that postmodernist nightmare. If you feel like you are getting depressed then do something fun! Listen to some Polka! Pick up a good book! One night stands! Consume massive amounts of narcotics mixed with copious amounts of alcohol! Set fire to the communist manifesto and throw it through a local red's window! Go for dinner alone and give the waitress a jade eagle in addition to the tip! All these things can make the some what soul numbing experience of working over the holidays more tolerable.
   Bacchus: Drinking helps whether you returned home or not. Because face it, you can have a lot more fun while rip roaring flabbergasted drunk then while sober. In addition you remember a lot less of what those wretched guilt trip spewing cretins have to say. 'I don't like how you dress.' 'I think you should study this.' 'Why are you wasting our money.' 'Is that a Bar-code Tattoo on the back of your neck.' 'Your face is on the most wanted list.' Believe me, you better off remembering nothing more than a regret of mixing Scotch and Orange Juice.
   Merry Old War: Staying away from home is always an option. Make some excuse! Inform them that its not because you hate them and their self righteous condemnation for detonating a tactical thermonuclear device in a civilian center. But for some perfectly excuseable reason, like communism. Judge not lest ye be judged! Damn commie uncles. Tell them what they want to hear, that you are being involved in a twisted web of betrayal and conspiracy involving the British monarchy.  Don't worry they will never catch on unless you make up something impossible that wouldn't happen, like your doing an assignment for school or something just as ridiculous.
   So remember chaps, during the holidays the best policy is to do what feels right. Don't worry about what your damn tree hugging commie uncles think about what you are doing with your life. After all it is your life to live. Or die, because that happens too, especially when surrounded by damn commies! No really I do hate commies in case you couldn't tell. Almost as much as those damn Freemasons, Illuminati, and New World Older people. Won't let me join your damn clubs? Well we will see who is laughing when I am in charge because I will be! HA-ha! Ha! So take care, be safe. And when extracting information from an agent of the New World Order use a jaw vice to keep him from biting down on his cyanide filled tooth.
   Now go be a hero!

I concocted this little ditty awhile back. Hope you enjoy.
The mispellings are intentional. LOL

The Art of War
GF Bharlion

Anyone know the arts of war
Listen here now I will tell you more

I will fight him in the rain,
I will fight him on the plain,
I will shoot him with a gun,
I will shoot him just for fun,
I will slay with with my sword
I will slay him with meer words
I will burn his cities down
I will burn his home town
I will sink him in the sea
I will sink his whole country
I will kill them all
I will make his empire fall

Off to war we all will go
in the rain and in the snow
we all fight for uncle sam!
lets all go to vietnam
burn the churches, burn the mills
killing for ghengis major thrill
for the pharoh for the king
for the empire we will sing

who wants to wage a war
screw a dirty saigon whore
who wants to plan amidnight raid
murder children with terminal  aids
who wants to have a good fight
kill some yanks in the dead of night
who wants to siege a trojan city
rape helen and kill her kitty
who wants to wear black shoes
stomp on gays, gypsys and jews
who wants to have a bloody revolution
burn the bourgoise and their damn pollution
who wants to pillage all the land
flay human flesh with your bare hands
who wants to be the one to end all life
push a button, start the age of strife

I hate god, I hate jesus
killing wops just won't please us
finger up your ass, finger in your eye
lets send all our children off to die

for our country for our free land
lets make the poor lend a hand
force them to fight for no dollars
make them all wear green ironed collars

all those men in uniform are off to war
fighting for the same cause as before
fuck peace, she is a bitch
giving all the world a dirty itch

we wanna kill we wanna maim
we wanna make people feel the pain

god is on our side, god has turned his back
its all the same the public, to the suits in black
make them scared, make them fear
make them lose all they hold dear

show them their nightmares show them the pain
make their children shed tears, a salty rain

hell, spit and laughter, war is a living hell
war is good for buisness, so don't forget to sell
war is hell but so is life
full of pain, trouble and strife

I hate society. I don't deny this. I hate everything living and breathing man woman and child on the face of this puke green world of bile filled teats and semen filled testicles. I hate this place. I won't deny it. I hate people who like it even more. If I was king, every person who walked around pretending things are good and not going on would be first against the wall. I would line them all up and they would stand with their opinions which wouldn't stop the firing squads bullets. I hate only one thing more than people and happiness. I hate things that are not ugly and disfigured. I want the world to be like me. Misshapen and deformed. Disgusting to the eyes. I have people look away from me everyday when I walk down the street. I hate being a freak. I hate being alive. I hate children's laughter. I hate seeing old people walking down the street with a smile on their smug faces as they grip their wrinkled paws together. Disgusting animals.

I love society. I don't deny this. I love everything living and breathing man woman and child on the face of this great green world of bouncing boobs and big balls. I love this place. I won't deny it. I love people who like it even more. If I was king, every person who walked around pretending things are horrible and bad things are going on would be first against the wall. I would line them all up and they would stand with their opinions which wouldn't stop the firing squads bullets. I love only one thing more than people and happiness. I love things that are beautiful and artful. I want the world to be like me. Beautiful and perfect. Pleasing to the eyes. I have people look at me everyday when I walk down the street. I love being a beautiful. I love being alive. I love children's laughter. I love seeing old people walking down the street with a smile on their wise faces as they grip their gentle hands together. Beautiful People.