Hey Jim...All My Rowdy Friends Have Lost Their Minds.

[Richter]

Re to OP:

I wonder about the highway sometimes.  At work, at home, or out witlessing, am I speeding along, or am I just another crazy roadside attraction?  Some people just seem to fly down that highway without a clue, recklessly pursuing ruin.  I pass by others who seem to be coasing along, equally oblivious, but as if all the crap they pass by can't touch them.  

In real life I drive a box.  It's an old box, made back when cars were still metal that was worth a damn, and I'm comfortable I could walk away from it if things go bad.  Not so on the highway, we're all on motorcycles, all going WAY too fast.  Stop, and you might be someone else's speed bump.  Even slowing down is letting mean passing back through that weird shaky point where the machine just DOESN'T like you, and I'm not about to risk that on top of the other crap.  Turning around would require some combination of the two, so that's right out.  So I barrel along, wondering if it's practicality or cowardice keeping the throttle held down.  

I've got a monkey too, did I mention that?  A weird, hermaphrodite schizo monkey in the sidecar.  I knew the monkey, or the two or the people the monkey was.  Old buddies picked up along the way.  (Hey, better to take them along and keep them engaged than let them off themselves in the dust.  They are my buddies and all.)  Only now, they become the monkey sometimes.  They lean over and fuck around with the carbeurator, try to disconnect the sidecar, or egg on pallet trucks full of cannibal mutations heading to Disney.

Of course, I try to stop them, but I get the sense this is a loosing proposition.  Do I keep slapping them monkey hands away?  Do I disconnect them, and watch them spiral off to crash, turning that monkey I knew into some twitching gore - thing, bleeding on the pavement?  (That doesn't sit right, not going there.)  If I let them unhook themselves, they could invent a few more wheels and a motor and keep on their own way.  I could be an optimistic fool, but they might.   it is awfully hard to crash some days.  As fast and horrific as it is, pardoxically you have to WORK for it.  Here's the thing that REALLY fucks with my head; am I on any highway at all in the first place?  That teeth clenched, "Get it done or we're FUCKED." might not be anything at all.  I might just be a pedestrian, screaming into the wind.  Whether I'm measuring my progress in RPM and MPH, or counting steps and sliding another bead down a chord, I don't think it would make a difference, as long as I keep on moving.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I either go mad here or there, the way I see it.  I'd prefer it be under my own terms.

That's the only reason to get on this road.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Or maybe I haven't got off yet, and I'm fooling myself.

Is there a screaming noise in the distance?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I've got a monkey too, did I mention that?  A weird, hermaphrodite schizo monkey in the sidecar.  I knew the monkey, or the two or the people the monkey was.  Old buddies picked up along the way.  (Hey, better to take them along and keep them engaged than let them off themselves in the dust.  They are my buddies and all.)  Only now, they become the monkey sometimes.  They lean over and fuck around with the carbeurator, try to disconnect the sidecar, or egg on pallet trucks full of cannibal mutations heading to Disney.

I know that monkey.  I know him well.  I call him "Self-Destructo the Wonder Chimp", and sometimes I let him drive.

All the way to Disneyland.

[Freeky]

Or maybe I haven't got off yet, and I'm fooling myself.

Is there a screaming noise in the distance?

I hear SOME screaming, or maybe laughing, but I'm not sure if it's distance or just hidden under the wind blowing.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Or maybe I haven't got off yet, and I'm fooling myself.

Is there a screaming noise in the distance?

I hear SOME screaming, or maybe laughing, but I'm not sure if it's distance or just hidden under the wind blowing.

Then you're on the frontage road.  If you were on The Lost Highway, you'd hear it clear as day.  The wind sounds like an 85 year old man that just learned that his retirement plan was wiped out by greedy bankers, and that nobody will hire a man his age.

And sometimes it sounds like a woman who learned that the ER will see her kid, but will only stabilize the child.  The long term treatment that will allow her kid to live a normal life is only available if she has health insurance, and she doesn't even have a job.

And sometimes it sounds like "patriots" screaming that rights are limited, not to all humans, but only to the chosen 301,000,000...and only then if the people involved have the right values.

And sometimes...sometimes it almost sounds like Curly, and he's trying to tell you something.  But then the wind whips it away, and it's gone again.

[LMNO]

Roger, It's been coming at me for a while.  I've been seeing the lines on the highway blur into a single stripe, and I have to keep looking away, because I swear that they converge in front of me and then veer left-- if I let them take me where they want to go, I'll just slam into the jersey barrier.  And then, last week, I looked around, and couldn't see the car.  But I felt it, in my head.  Like I was the car.  Not like I had wheels for feet or anything, but the engine was in my skull, and my eyes could feel the wind tearing at them, filling them with dust, grit, and dead insects.  Can't blink, gotta stay awake, you don't know what's out there.  Keep pushing that needle into the red.  The whole fusilage is shuddering, and there's a shrieking noise starting in the base of my skull, pushing it's way forward through the soft parts of my brain, filling the whole thing with a high-pitched whine of insistence and desperation, pushing on, just over the next rise, through the shimmering heat, it's just over the next one--

And this morning, someone just jammed the clutch to the floor, without letting up on the gas.  Everything is spinning loose, cranked up to above the limit for anything closely resembling "normal tolerance".  And I can feel the graceful drift of the whole thing starting to fishtail.  When it all goes perpendicular to the road, the motherfucker's gonna barrel roll.  I'm not sure I care anymore.  

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Roger, It's been coming at me for a while.  I've been seeing the lines on the highway blur into a single stripe, and I have to keep looking away, because I swear that they converge in front of me and then veer left-- if I let them take me where they want to go, I'll just slam into the jersey barrier.  And then, last week, I looked around, and couldn't see the car.  But I felt it, in my head.  Like I was the car.  Not like I had wheels for feet or anything, but the engine was in my skull, and my eyes could feel the wind tearing at them, filling them with dust, grit, and dead insects.  Can't blink, gotta stay awake, you don't know what's out there.  Keep pushing that needle into the red.  The whole fusilage is shuddering, and there's a shrieking noise starting in the base of my skull, pushing it's way forward through the soft parts of my brain, filling the whole thing with a high-pitched whine of insistence and desperation, pushing on, just over the next rise, through the shimmering heat, it's just over the next one--

And this morning, someone just jammed the clutch to the floor, without letting up on the gas.  Everything is spinning loose, cranked up to above the limit for anything closely resembling "normal tolerance".  And I can feel the graceful drift of the whole thing starting to fishtail.  When it all goes perpendicular to the road, the motherfucker's gonna barrel roll.  I'm not sure I care anymore.  

Even Elvis and Hank Sr wrecked, LMNO.  It's not a question of "if", but "when".  Like TOG said, it's gonna happen, either on The Lost Highway or at an intersection downtown.  The only question is, did you do things on your own terms, or were you just along for the ride?  Hemmingway understood that, as did Thompson and Mencken. 

Interesting fact:  2 of those 3 ate a gun...But not Mencken.  He was 10' tall and made of carbon steel.   

[Ratssinis]

I'm not one for driving, though I'm not sure if walking's a fair trade off for stepping in so much shit. Your lucky if your driving fast enough to miss the blur that is the every-day road-side freak-show mass-suicide side-show. Just today I woke up screaming about right-meets-wrong and remembered shortly after that it doesn't matter here. One of these days the smell of gasoline will get to me.

In the end your always under your own power even if your driving in one of the predetermined 'lanes' painted years ago by fathers fathers and mothers daughters. The choice is always there, to hit that jersey barrier and spiral off the road, hit unbroken earth and slip into a new territory. Sure its a 'crash' but what important thing has ever happened without a little bit of a bump? Hey if your going fast enough you wont even feel it. Though that's not really the point. I don't see the point, its too far off, too clouded by the shit, smog, and exhaust.

Its like a wake-up-call on repeat, I know I'm missing the point but the background noise helps me think...

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I'm not one for driving, though I'm not sure if walking's a fair trade off for stepping in so much shit. Your lucky if your driving fast enough to miss the blur that is the every-day road-side freak-show mass-suicide side-show. Just today I woke up screaming about right-meets-wrong and remembered shortly after that it doesn't matter here. One of these days the smell of gasoline will get to me.

In the end your always under your own power even if your driving in one of the predetermined 'lanes' painted years ago by fathers fathers and mothers daughters. The choice is always there, to hit that jersey barrier and spiral off the road, hit unbroken earth and slip into a new territory. Sure its a 'crash' but what important thing has ever happened without a little bit of a bump? Hey if your going fast enough you wont even feel it. Though that's not really the point. I don't see the point, its too far off, too clouded by the shit, smog, and exhaust.

Its like a wake-up-call on repeat, I know I'm missing the point but the background noise helps me think...

Um...



Noob Win.  I think I'm gonna like having you around.

[Ratssinis]

I'm not one for driving, though I'm not sure if walking's a fair trade off for stepping in so much shit. Your lucky if your driving fast enough to miss the blur that is the every-day road-side freak-show mass-suicide side-show. Just today I woke up screaming about right-meets-wrong and remembered shortly after that it doesn't matter here. One of these days the smell of gasoline will get to me.

In the end your always under your own power even if your driving in one of the predetermined 'lanes' painted years ago by fathers fathers and mothers daughters. The choice is always there, to hit that jersey barrier and spiral off the road, hit unbroken earth and slip into a new territory. Sure its a 'crash' but what important thing has ever happened without a little bit of a bump? Hey if your going fast enough you wont even feel it. Though that's not really the point. I don't see the point, its too far off, too clouded by the shit, smog, and exhaust.

Its like a wake-up-call on repeat, I know I'm missing the point but the background noise helps me think...

Um...



Noob Win.  I think I'm gonna like having you around.

Thank you sir.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

You seem to be on a different highway.  The only plants out here are mesquite trees and cacti.

Hrmmm, I see...

Well, maybe that's it... different highway. Sjaantze used to be on the Humans are Horrible highway. I dunno what exit ramp she took...

Where the fuck did you get "Humans are Horrible"?

Goddammit. 

Should I just rename this YET ANOTHER HIPPIE FUCKING MAGIC THREAD?  Should we do that with every fucking thread in this goddamn forum?  Son of a fucking bitch.

I think I'm done with these threads.  There's no fucking point.

I'm laughing, but tears are rolling out of my eyes.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I can't get off the highway, TGRR. The exits are all on the wrong side of the road, and I'm doing 70 but almost out of gas. I just want to make it to the tip of the peninsula. I thought I was just going to the Wall, but the Wall disappeared, Roger.

Last night my friends fed me and tucked me into bed. I made a good decision for once, Roger. I woke up before dawn and the highway called me, so I stumbled out and opened my car door. I didn't put my boots on until I was on the front porch, Roger. So as not to wake them. And St. John's was my highway this morning, St. John's is duly decorated.

And then I smoked my last cigarette in the dawn, had a shot of whiskey, and fell asleep on my couch, speeding down the highway.

My heart won't beat right, and I'm dizzy.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

And then I smoked my last cigarette in the dawn, had a shot of whiskey, and fell asleep on my couch, speeding down the highway.

My heart won't beat right, and I'm dizzy.

Hank Sr would have approved, or at least understood.  Of course, the same thing killed him, so you have to weigh your options. 

I have The Bartender Song running through my head, now.  Sure, it's all sordid and dirty, but you'll never see anything worth mentioning at the Ritz Carlton, right?

That's why I'm looking for the bottom.  Just to see what's there...you can tell a lot about a house by how the foundation behaves...and I think our foundation is cracked and covered in fungus, with bugs and lizards and big fucking rats running all through it.

Really, really big fucking rats.

 

 

[hooplala]

Roger,  I've been living in the ditch for about six months now.  The box I've been sleeping in has an arrow which screams "THIS WAY UP", and points, but it doesn't seem to point to anything.  And up is a relative term anyway... "up" to me might be down to, say,  Archduke Ferdinand, who knows... and is it really screaming at me, or does it just seem that way?  To be honest, in the beginning it seemed to whisper, but is becoming more frantic as time passes.  Time IS passing, right?  I'm not just sitting here, contemplating my Chuck Taylors and wondering what Nike owning the company means to my feet, right?  Jesus, I hope so.

I live under a billboard with a rather amateur drawing of a fetus, captioned "A Person Is A Person, No Matter How Small", and while I observe the illustration and consider its artistic merit, remembering that "amateur" means 'for the love of', and trying not to saunter down that road without good boots I begin to wonder whether this particular baby group gives any of its money to Theodore Geisel's family?  After all, a bank account is a bank account, no matter how full...

I'm living off the refuse tossed from passing cars, and have been living surprisingly well.  It's an odd feeling to be eating ciagers and sipping from a mostly empty McDonalds paper cups, while realizing that I'm still eating better than 60% of the world population... Norman Borlaug, we hardly knew ye...