Richter, are you ready for The Finals™?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Richter, are you prepared?  Have you adjusted?  Are you ready for the hideous possibilities that are presented to us in this dark year of our Lord 2009?  I'd like to think you are, but the dearth of nervous and panicky news reports from the East coast leads me to believe that you have been rather lax in your efforts.

This isn't a time for half measures, sir.  This is a time for stomping around, shitting blood, and scaring the living bejesus out of the drones that surround you. 

Simply ask yourself "What would Patrick Henry do?"  You know what he'd do.  Old Pat was a crusty bastard, and didn't take any shit off of anyone.  He in fact invented "Or Kill Me", and as such is the best source of advice I can offer you in your endeavors.

He understood that "treason" is only a bad thing when you live in a good society.  And while our society has many cosmetic benefits, the horrible truth is that it's a trap.  Sure, they don't often kick in your door and haul you off in the middle of the night, sure they rarely hold people without charges, and sometimes you can send a letter or make a phone call without some government geek listening in.  No, the problems Patrick Henry faced were fairly straight forward, and the enemy was easily identified.

Not so, in our case.  We have a far more subtle enemy...we have the TV, which tells everyone that Everything Is Fine, we have 8 million goodies we can buy on easy terms, we have the slavery of excessive consumption.  The threats to our liberty are not represented by an iron fist, but a comfortable woobie that we can wrap ourselves in and pretend that our society isn't fundamentally sick.

I mean, why hold the population down with force, when you can convince them that torturing is good and right, and Jack Bauer is there to save them from the ticking time bomb left by smudgy people from unfurnished countries?  Why kick them with jackboots, when you can simply smother them in debt?

This is no way for a free people to live, Richter, and it's damn near too late to do anything about it.  It's finals week, sir, and the time for "3 word story" and "The Haiku Game" are long past.  We shall not prevail with street theater or silly internet trolls.  It's time to shit or get off the pot.

So, Richter, are you ready for The Finals™?

Or Kill Me.

[Richter]

Am I catching the blame for the news again?  Well SHIT, I can't be held responsible for what the media decides to shit itself over.

If it's the other discordian contingent you're talking about, well, then that's an odd case all right. 

Suu's bugging out, and fuckign FUCK SHIT.  It works for her though, and at least her and the General will be closer to the border.  Not that a border will make any difference, but it may get them a few months, paperwork to obfuscate and holes to slip through when it all closes down. 
Eve, LMNO and Dcup are all subject to the singularity that is their city.  They're fine there, in that city, SCREAMING and FLAILING FINE IM FINE IM FINE! ITS ALL ALL RIGHT ALREADY!  WE'LL ALL FLAOT ON!  The Mass. Metro area will eat ANYTHING, unlike Olaf, and they are giving it indigestion.  LMNO is still a bit broken up over BF1's breakup, but it's a good.  Watching them split was a reminder of Curly, as if he was wearing tight khakis with a pink polo, drawn and quartered, thrown into a laundromat dray and set to "Beef Jerky".  In a month they'll refuse to talk about it again, like they refuse to talk about 9/11 anymore, but love to tell us how we're not SAFE.  Jsut stepping onto our porches like harvard professors won't cut it, we need to keep going down the street in big fucking boots, some heavy old clothes, laoded with something good and CONTAGIOUS.  Beers with a president cannot be accepted as placation for the direction this is all going. 
EoC, Dimo, I ahev yet to check in with, but there's hope there Roger.  I will not be alone in the wasteland. 
Nothing short of nukes will stop Cram, and Cainad's a jagged splinter off the same mold.

I NEED to be free Roger.
I have to be able to eat a reuben at high speed, fly through the woods, and shower the plastic excuse for sauerkraut back onto mother nature.  She better bring 2 cups.
I have to be able to gear up in a public park and beat people with a stick, and tell the hypervigilant police it FINE,  I'm only there to play with other consentign adults, and we're not going to ask the city to tell us not to.   
I have to be able to pitch a rant about how it's all so bizzare the water could be mescaline and we'd never notice the switch without someone getting all nervy over even BREATHING a comment about non consensual drug use.  Call out that bastard from Fogler's first.  I will not be fed decaf. 

I am maniacal force, but I do it all for the sake of humping the top of Maslowe's pyramid, for the sacrament of having a good time.  I am not safe, never will be.  I am frightful to them becasue my idea of fun is POSSIBLY FATAL, and I grew the humor to go with it around the folks they hate to admit they have, but are VITAL to America being here in the first place.  They fear it because these back pocket philosophy assholes are only happy with their buses being hypothetical. 

They will not like me and never will.  I will not waste their time with a mild and toned down "Safe" Richter.  I am one of the Good Guys, and as fucked and deranged as that is, I will bring the word and the fun to all those I know. 

I can't write Haiku anymore.  Haiku is a scabbard, an oiled wrapping, a mantle to keep that heirloom tool of HORRIBLE idle when it's not needed.  My tools are in my hands, bound fast by my fucking thumbs.
 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Of course you realize, Richter, that they are going to toss us in a cage before this is all over.  The world is no longer a hospitable place for people who are serious about having a good time.  As you point out, they did Curly in for exactly this reason.

But what of it?  Is it better to die of boredom on your knees, or get thrown in a cell with puncture wounds and unexplained welts and sucker marks all over your taser-burned carcass, still screaming that rebel yell that they haven't heard since '83?

I know what my choice will be.  I know what Patrick Henry did, and Ben "anything for a laugh" Franklin, and Curly, and the ghost of Payne. 

And Paine, for that matter, a hideous mutant that wasn't built for his time or any other.  They said he took it too far, that he never knew when to quit, and that he wanted actual freedom which everyone knows is a little too dangerous for monkeys to manage.  So they beat him and beat him, but he never did shut up.  Legend has it that if you visit his grave, you can still hear a howling noise filtering up through the dirt.

But fuck them and their limits, Richter.  They don't know what you and I know, they haven't spent any time in the fast lane of the Lost Highway...for that can't be trademarked, and plastic wrapped, and made into safe, harmless fun for the whole family.  Hell, even the police won't follow you there, though they might be waiting for you on the off ramp, should you ever find one.

No, the time for "limits" and "safe" and "harmless" have come and gone.  We tried that, and all it did was make us slaves.  So now it's time to have FUN, and no listening to whimpering about "noise laws" and "collateral damage".  There's no speed limit ANYWHERE, Bubba, and if you see us coming, you better run.

The pendulum swings, Richter, and it swings wide.  We've seen what 30 years of Reaganism has done to America, and now they need to see a few decades of Lord Buckley, drowning them in spittle as we bray our mockery and our laughter in their gibbering faces.

It's what this country was designed to do.  This nation isn't a Lexus, and we need to stop pretending that it is.  It's a beat up Jeep with a spiked bumper, and here we come.  I was BORN for this shit, Richter, and it's time to stop pretending to be something I'm not.

Or kill me.

[Richter]

How do we get them IN to it though? 
I walk by people every day, they have that same hell bent gleam in their eyes.  The ones who suddenly stand at attention when I have a good cathartic ranting brainshit in Wal - Mart.  The ones who can BE the American dream.

I don't know how much more journalism can do, Gonzo life is the only reasonable conclusion I can arrive at.  Dump them into it, get them involved.  No support ribbons, peaceful protests, or Facebook tags, you walk in the door by getting your hands DIRTY.  No initiation, prescreening, open house, or meet and greet.  Get yo ass up to speed and ROLL like you WANT TO.
Play the FUCK out of the game,  eat the HELL out of that cheeseburger, point the red wagon downhill, and fly off at it.

I watch people and they're only waiting.  Sitting there against the one or two glowing be - all end - all secret God moments of their lives, and they are fucking wasting it. 
Every second will only ever be as hysterical as we make it.
Dr. Landshark rides again.   

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Fuck 'em all, Richter, the best thing we can do is lead by example.  I can't wait for them, I gotta get my monkey on NOW.  Let the huddled masses follow or not, as they see fit.  Let the Discordians and the Subgenii and the others dive in, or just keep putting their pinky toe in to test the waters.  Not I, sir, I have to jump the fuck in, I have to take it to the fucking wall.

And I gotta do it now.  Tomorrow is too late.  Tomorrow is the enemy, because it's always gonna be tomorrow, isn't it?  No.  Today.

And just what are these people waiting FOR, Richter?  Nothing.  They are conditioned so well that they wait for the sake of waiting itself.  Let me say it again:  TOMORROW IS THE ENEMY.  Not the so-called government, not some nebulous cabal of bankers and industrialists, not the religious whackjobs or the Agnew-porn freaks.  TOMORROW.

Some of the founders urged "tomorrow", even old Ben.  But Sam Adams and Patrick Henry understood, Richter, they understood that Tomorrow is slavery and living death, and that the world is TODAY, life is TODAY, and fuck those that think that yesterday held the answers.  If it DID, we wouldn't be in the shit we're in today.

If we need to get any message across to anyone, it's that THERE IS NO TOMORROW, save the narrow plot they shove you in when you die.  NO TOMORROW.  NO YESTERDAY. ONLY TODAY...and if you waste today, then you may as well jump in that narrow plot NOW, and save us all the hassle.

Or Kill Me.

[LMNO]

Whoa.



Fuck yeah.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Whoa.



Fuck yeah.

I feel like a scab, Alphapance, like a strikebreaker, but what can I do?  I don't shit the rant, the rant shits me.  There is no TIME for fuckweasels like KopyKat and TOA, there is no time for ANYTHING.  Time is a commodity, and we have RUN THE FUCK OUT.  Look around you?  Everywhere, everything is falling apart, and Saturday Night may soon be a thing of the past...hell, for many people, it already is.

Maybe it's just me.  Maybe my rage gland is acting up, and I'm pissed off over nothing...but I doubt it.  I don't think it's just my bad attitude, I think that maybe things really ARE that bad, and that it's time to head for the wasteland, there to plot and plan and generally carry on.

How bad does it have to get, LMNO?  Must we wait until we're ALL door greeters at WalMart?  How about you?  Will you go gently into that good night, or will you hear the lion within you roar?  As one man asked, will YOU take to the hills, LMNO?  After all, even THEY are all afraid, but they can't see why, because their conditioning won't allow them to see that huge fucking elephant in the living room.  

But I see it.  Oh, yes.  And I am not fooled.

Or kill me.

[Richter]

You'll never have any fun hiding out until it's safe, becasue it never will be. 
Go out looking for it.  Fly screaming at the bastards when they come for you.  Even if no one can say you did it SMART, at least you can say you did it with some STYLE.

[LMNO]

Dammit.  

They can take my limbs, they can take my cartilage.

They can feed me the pills to slough off the rust that slowly accretes on my bones.  

They can trick me into spending 50 hours a week under the cool, cruel flourescence.  

They can give me just enough to get my second-best choice of what the offer me on TV, and try to make me feel bad about not affording my first choice.

They can offer me credit, and grease up my asshole while doing it.

They can berate me about how I should live my life.

They can offer me alcohol to ease the pain.

They can manipulate my choices, playing the two-man con with the world as the sucker.

But I'll never give IT to them.

I nurture IT, deep in my heart.  IT belongs to me, and I hide IT from the prying eyes of their satellites.

IT burns hot.  Sometimes IT is hard to look at, like a welder's arc.  IT is alive.  IT is mine.  They can't have IT.

IT tells me things, TGRR.  IT speaks to me.  Late at night, when I'm falling asleep, IT speaks of the open plains of possibility, the land of Anything-Can-Happen, If You're Batshit Crazy Enough.

IT tells me the story of the Great Escape, how many tried, few succeeded, and even left made it back to tell their secrets.

IT stays with me through my days, and even though I may have days when I walk with a cane, people can see IT behind my eyes when I tell them of the days to come, if they only reach out and fucking grab it.

THEY will never take IT away from me.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

You'll never have any fun hiding out until it's safe, becasue it never will be. 
Go out looking for it.  Fly screaming at the bastards when they come for you.  Even if no one can say you did it SMART, at least you can say you did it with some STYLE.

And that's EXACTLY what John Dillinger tried to tell us.  Fuck up GLORIOUSLY, if you have to, but do it with panache.  Why the hell do you think they gunned him down?  It wasn't because he robbed banks, it wasn't even because he escaped from the "escape-proof" prison, it's because he did it with style, he made that shit look good.

He was a giant among men, and the world hasn't seen his like since.  Only once a century or so does a full-bore freak like Dillinger appear, and we never appreciate them while they're here.  RAW said that Dillinger died for our sins, and I suspect he might have been right.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Dammit.  

They can take my limbs, they can take my cartilage.

They can feed me the pills to slough off the rust that slowly accretes on my bones.  

They can trick me into spending 50 hours a week under the cool, cruel flourescence.  

They can give me just enough to get my second-best choice of what the offer me on TV, and try to make me feel bad about not affording my first choice.

They can offer me credit, and grease up my asshole while doing it.

They can berate me about how I should live my life.

They can offer me alcohol to ease the pain.

They can manipulate my choices, playing the two-man con with the world as the sucker.

But I'll never give IT to them.

I nurture IT, deep in my heart.  IT belongs to me, and I hide IT from the prying eyes of their satellites.

IT burns hot.  Sometimes IT is hard to look at, like a welder's arc.  IT is alive.  IT is mine.  They can't have IT.

IT tells me things, TGRR.  IT speaks to me.  Late at night, when I'm falling asleep, IT speaks of the open plains of possibility, the land of Anything-Can-Happen, If You're Batshit Crazy Enough.

IT tells me the story of the Great Escape, how many tried, few succeeded, and even left made it back to tell their secrets.

IT stays with me through my days, and even though I may have days when I walk with a cane, people can see IT behind my eyes when I tell them of the days to come, if they only reach out and fucking grab it.

THEY will never take IT away from me.

Shit yeah.

[Richter]

Whoa.



Fuck yeah.

2nd'ed

[themenniss]

the problem is i am one.
the many have not revealed themselves to me and so i remain one.
until then i cannot be more than one.

i've always known the internet as 'Total communication, total isolation.' and this proves it.
because although in front of me on this screen i see what would be many, but then i realise this is no longer southeast Kent UK. this is earth and all that lies on it. and then that many are so few.

what's worse is i am young and still immature. i am not of the right mind to make myself a false but believable many.
so yes i HATE what is happening and yes i WANT to change it. but as of yet i feel un-able.

but you know what?
I'm gonna make them realise that that's not gonna stop me trying. just because i won't make enough of a difference YET. so if they ignore me it'll be the best mistake they ever make.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Themeninss, you can't change anyone but yourself.  You can't wake the masses up, and they'll kill you if you try.  Just look at what they did to Gandhi and Jesus and Martin Luther King and Curley.  Get your freak on, don't worry about them.  They'll hardly notice when you leave tire tracks up their collective arses.

[themenniss]

Themeninss, you can't change anyone but yourself.  You can't wake the masses up, and they'll kill you if you try.  Just look at what they did to Gandhi and Jesus and Martin Luther King and Curley.  Get your freak on, don't worry about them.  They'll hardly notice when you leave tire tracks up their collective arses.

i'm not attempting to wake the masses i'm doing exactly as you just stated. i'm doing my thing and letting them wake themselves but sometimes i just wish they'd hurry the fuck up y'know?