The Fucked Up Mailing List 2010

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Dear Syn,

When are you English tards going to do something about your "leadership"?  It's bad enough that the Queen walks around having random tourists beaten by those fucking Beefeaters, and we could tolerate Maggie Thatcher throwing poison darts out the 3rd floor window of her Eaton Square mansion, but come one now...Cornwall?

How do you put up with it?  It's a vast pile of muck, like God squatted and shat on England.  It's full of congenital criminals, who have been boat wrecking and pirating since the Roman days, and who have now taken to exporting this thing they call a "pasty pie", which is sort of like a haggis with all the air let out.  I was unfortunate enough to run into one at the pub Suu works at in Providence (run by some expatriate from Cornwall who was kicked out for not being a big enough bastard), and three of my arteries exploded.

No, something really must be done.  Perhaps you could exile your non-entertaining royals there, and let them fight it out with the locals on pay-per-view (Whoops...Forgot.  In England, EVERYTHING is pay-per-view).  Or maybe you could sell it to Belgium.  Those waffle-scarfing bastards will buy anything, if you're willing to take Euros (Though with the way Southern Europe is falling apart, maybe that's not such a good idea.).

Well, enough of that business.  If you are willing to put up with being on the same island as them, that's you're problem. Next item of business, my forthcoming trip to England.  I expect to be in Southampton at some point next winter.  Since no two points in England are more than a few hundred kilometers apart, can I assume you'll make it down?  I know it's close to Cornwall, but if I'm going to take the risk, you can, too.  I will be visiting there with that thug Pixie and her no-account Canadian/Scotsman, Payne, and possibly Pent and some of the other England crowd.

You must attend.  We're going to make Payne eat shepherd's pie until he likes it.  We shall taunt soccer hooligans, and drive in London traffic.  We will drop our pants at your charming police men (who still for some reason wear a tit on their heads), and we shall make fun of London Chinese while drunk and on foot.  If any of us survive, we shall roll through the pubs like a hot wave of idiotic vengeance.  We shall, in fact, march on a road of bones, even if those bones have to be our own. 

How can you miss out on a good time like that?

Also, there's supposedly a "lost river" under London, which has been bricked over for 300 years.  I wish to find it.

Okay for now,
Dok

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Dear Thurna,

I spent some time in your province last month, and I have to say I was a little shocked.  What the hell is going on up there?  Ontario is turning into upstate New York.  Granted, I was in Hamilton, and so far Toronto seems to still be a bit of the best parts of Europe dropped in North America, but really...Hamilton?

It's like someone dug up a bit of Cleveland, gave it worse drivers, and flung it into that Godforsaken black fly farm you like to call a country.  Or maybe it was always part of Canada, but it got some poo on it, and nobody has the stomach to clean it up.  Shit, even their Thai food tastes like some horrible fast food from hell.

America is supposed to stop at Detroit and Buffalo.  You really need to do something about this, before the Queen notices, and quits.  And you DO need the Queen, Thurna, or you'd have nobody to name your highways after.  Or to put on your money.

Toronto, on the other hand, hell, Toronto IS Saturday night.  That is one really, really cool city.  We have nothing like that down here, with the possible exceptions of Providence and Boston.  I had a great time in Toronto, and on very little money.  Of course, I was hanging out with Hoopla and the lovely Nurse Rhizome, and they kept my daughter and I entertained.

Toronto made it really hard to come back to Tucson.  It's not even July yet, and it's already 110F out there (that's about 5 kilometers for you metric spags).  The sirroccos are in full swing, and we have 2000 foot high dust devils wandering around The City from dawn til dusk, spreading dried coyote poop all over Tucson. 

How's THAT for a tourism ad?  "Come to the high desert, and inhale powdered coyote shit!"  Ho ho!  Or maybe "Come to Tucson...Our quaint local homeless freaks will stab you and toss you in a dumpster, for cheap kicks".  Or just "Welcome to Tucson, the city where dreams come to DIE."

Well, it could be worse.  At least I'm not in Phoenix.  Phoenix is a brightly-lit version of hell, where all the people walk around with fixed smiles on their faces, trying desperately to look happy, like everything's OKAY, but you can tell that it's NOT OKAY, that there's something MISSING, but they couldn't tell you exactly WHAT.  You're hounded by dog face cops and subhuman rush hour people and everyone has a quart of Botox in their faces and all the homeless people have been shipped off to Tucson and the kids all just sort of stand there and stare at you with empty eyes and there's NO PARKING.

So at least I have that going for me...Not being in Phoenix, just as you aren't in Hamilton.

Okay for now,
Dok

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Dear Young Ms. Lizzay,

I've been reading of your man-problems at PD, and I think I have arrived at a solution:  You should move to Tucson.  We have hosries here, and loads and loads of men, some of which are not even homeless, or the sort of loser than winds up living on your couch for two years, watching TV and eating all your junk food.

Yes, we have many different kinds of men, including the sought-after "artiste", which can be found at any Starbucks™ in town, and who will constantly refer to his novel that never seems to actually get published, and who will act as petulant as you could desire.  When you finally toss him out, he'll stand outside your house at 3 in the morning in the monsoon rains, reading bad Emily Dickenson poetry and begging you to take him back, until he eventually starves to death (Self-correcting problems are our specialty.).

If that's not your cup of tea, we also have the deranged gangster variety, who will make you ride in the back seat of the car when you're the only two going anywhere, and who will force you to get his gang's symbols tattooed on your back and maybe even your eyelids.  Eventually, you'll get shot when one of his business partners "ventilates" his apartment to show their disapproval with the quality of the drugs he sells.

Then again, there's the Tucson working stiff, who will support you in a reasonably decent fashion, and who will treat you as part of the furniture...At least when he isn't explaining why you made him smack you around, he didn't want to do it, but he had no choice, because you just won't listen to his very reasonable rules and standards.

In addition, we have perfected The Creeper (Freeky will back me on this one).  Should you relocate here, you'll have 35-50 year old man-children hitting on you non-stop, while wearing trip pants and driving Cameros and sporting their glorious mullets.  You can expect him to knock you up within two weeks, whereupon he will lose interest in you, and look for the next sweet young thing to come down the pike.  But never fear, he will be willing to retain you as "a friend with benefits", so it's not like he's really (ever) actually ever gone.  He'll call you - whenever he gets horny - for the rest of your natural life, while you struggle to support a kid with little or no financial assistance from him.

It seems, Lizzay, that there is a reason there are no straight women in Tucson.

So I expect we'll soon be hearing that you've pulled your head out of that glorious ass of yours, and that you've gone out and met some new guys, ones that aren't utter losers or emotional basket cases.  You can get that shit here, for Chrissakes, so either find a decent man in San Jose (There has to be at least ONE.), or bugger off to Portland, where you can at least be miserable in good company.

Okay for now,
Dok

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Dear Blowhole,

I listened to your CD, and it was better than I expected, though a little heavy on "irony" and not so much on senseless rage and reasonless anger.  However, having met you, and having seen the "punks" you hang out with, I really think you're sort of punting, so to speak.  The incident with Richter in the bathroom is simply one indication.

While we were at the punk bar, I noticed all the "evil" artwork, which reminded me of a collection of "rebel" Hello Kitties.  I saw nobody get their ass kicked, I heard no wails of terror, or the gleeful sounds of punks giggling as they did something horrible to the beer truck driver.  The fact that we got the women out of there without resorting to weapons says it all.

Now, I don't know about Providence, but in Chicago and Tucson, we have standards and expectations for punk rockers.  Do you think Husker Du wrote Lady Sniff while drinking PBR in a bar with a level floor and intact furniture?  I think not.  Do you expect that Black Flag wrote TV Party surrounded by knickknacks behind glass?  The very idea is laughable.  REAL punk decor would include artwork done using the entrails and blood of posers and guitar players who knew more than 3 chords.

It's a disgrace, Dimo, and it makes me hearken back to a cleaner, purer time, when a bar like The Scurvy Dog would have been uprooted and thrown over a cliff by enraged Dead Kennedys fans.  The Scurvy Dog is a punk bar, in the same fashion that a bar attended by insurance salesmen driving Harleys and Victorys is a "biker bar".  There's something perilously close to a goddamn uniform there, which is edging you AWAY from Punk and TOWARD a slightly smellier version of hipsterism.  Is that what you people want?

CLEANSE THE TEMPLE, DIMO. 

Drive out the unfaithful, while you still can...Before Punk is lost to bands like Green Day forever.  That's not Punk.  That's not even rock n roll.  I don't know what the fuck it is, but it gives me hives and makes my syphilis flare up.  It fills me with a righteous urge to grab torches and pitchforks and baseball bats with knobby bits and deliver an accounting.

I can't help you with this, Dimo, because I'm not a Punk anymore, and haven't been since the 80s...But I know what Punk IS, and you East coast freaks had damn well better learn. 

Also, say hello to that woman of yours for me, and be sure to treat her right...And KEEP HER AWAY FROM OPTOMITRISTS.  If she ever gets her eyes fixed, you're fucked.  And try not to get too much Dago on her.  I hear it's hell getting that dry-cleaned out of clothing.

Okay for now,
Dok

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Doktor Brown,

I have spent the last few weeks reading your monologue at EB&G, and I think you have the beginnings of a book bubbling around there.  It will need some editing (I can help you with this, if you're not in a hurry, if you like), but it's readable, and quite interesting.

I'd also like to use an excerpt or two in The Audio Book of the Dead at the end of the year.  All submissions are used by permission, and all rights are retained by the author.  Profits from this book, and the annual follow-ups will be donated to the maintenance and upgrading of the board.  Obviously, there's no money in getting your work in this volume, but it's a clipping, and will help you sell your book, should you decide to be an absolute masochist and go for it.

And why not?  A Russian proverb says "Every man should plant a tree, raise a child, and write a book."...And while the Russians have never had any luck - in fact, because they've never had any luck - you can trust their judgment in these things.  They are a wise people, the evidence of which is that they still exist after 2000 years of frigid temperatures and invasions by every wannabe Emperor that has come down the pike.

Hell, we'll probably take a shot at them soon, if history is any indication.  After Iran, maybe...Seems we just sent the USS Harry Truman and its escorts through the Suez Canal, and I don't have to tell you what that means.

But what of it?  We are 21st century men, you and I, and we know the face of stupidity and degeneracy.  We know that the American Dream™ is actually a nightmare from which we can't wake, and we know that the very idea of America has become submerged in faux patriotism blurted out by jingoistic jack-offs at Sarah Palin book signings

Just how long is that silly dingbat going to keep signing books?  They're going for $0.01/copy, with $4.35 shipping.  Protip:  If your book sells for less than the shipping, you're not going to be the next John Stuart Mill.  It's become a rather sad joke...I, myself, have a copy, strictly to balance my bookshelf.  Sarah Palin is on the left, F Scott Fitzgerald is on the right, and the books in between ascend from horrible to amazing in between.  Sometimes the truly awful is needed, if only for completeness.

Lastly, it's good to have you back at PD and EB&G.  There aren't enough of us old farts to keep these youngsters in check, and LMNO and I have been burning the candle at both ends, just trying to keep the little bastards properly warped.  They think they know the score, Doktor Brown, but they haven't yet had the pleasure of an organ failing, or creaking joints, or any of the other things that most cultures associate with wisdom...In America, it seems, wisdom is bestowed by celebrity, meaning that our philosophers are drawn from the like of Sarah Palin and Paris Hilton.  Fucking kill me.

Okay for now,
Dok

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Fred,

It's only the first week of June, and I've already had to hurl a dead javalina into my neighbor's yard.  I had no choice, really.  I was provoked.

But enough of this unpleasantness.  I hope this letter finds you well, and not kidnapped by horrible drug freaks out of Cincinnati.  Nasty thugs, those, and they have no patience with young coeds who major in fashion, instead of something American, like charm school or home economics. 

No, they are a filthy bunch, and prefer their women with tattoos of Barry Goldwater on their arses and dental plates in their mouths.  Ohio truly is a hideous state, and it boggles the mind that you haven't made a dash down the 80/90 into Indiana, with bugs in your teeth and a scream on your lips.  Sure, Iason the bastard lives there, but at least it isn't fucking Cleveland.

You need to get out of there before it's too late.  Steal yourself a motorcycle with ape-hanger handlebars and fire up the ipod with some UB40, and get the hell out while you can.  Once the barb wire goes up, it's all over.  And you know it's coming.  Once they shut down the last Timken plant, those bastards around you will resort to cannibalism, if they haven't already.

Another option, if you can't handle the huge Goddamn ticks in Indiana is, of course, the high desert.  We are a simple, clean-living people here, and we hardly ever do horrible shit to the neighbors, unless they deserve it.  U of A (Tucson) has a nice campus, and they clean the dead meth heads off the sidewalks every morning, so you don't put your foot in any gooey bits and bugger up those shoes you womenfolk are always on about.  You get lulled to sleep every night to the soothing sound of small arms fire, and on a slow Tuesday, you can park it on a bench and watch campus security and the TPD beat the mortal shit out of the local perverts and creepers, when they try to get too close to the dorms.

It's paradise, I tell ya.

Well, I have to cut this short, as my people – everyone should have people – are due in moments to beat the birds and small rodents out of my back hair.  I have to have this done every few weeks, or the local PITA freaks show up all pissed off.  You can't give those people an inch, Fred.  You have to say "no".  You have to be firm, otherwise the bastards show up on your porch at 3AM wanting to show you videos of kosher slaughterhouses and berate any diabetic friends you may have for using insulin.  The world is full of insufferable bastards like these, and when you become presiditator, you really should do something about them.

Okay for now,
Dok

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Jenne,

Here's hoping this finds you with your life getting back under control.  Mine, of course, isn't, but that is after all how I roll.  I am a foul man, I am told, with the dining habits of Cesar Borgia and the love life of  a weasel on crack.

It's a sad, sad situation, Jenne.  I am only attracted to women my age, but here in the desert, the women my age are either crazy, drug-addled, or both.  They are falling apart at the seams, and I find myself in the inenviable position of not being attracted to anyone at all, other than the women that hate my guts but will for some reason sleep with me.

But I have made a vow, and I will stick to it.  No more whoring around with women that would just as soon see me dead.  It's nerve-wracking, and it makes me feel the wrong kind of dirty later.

But enough of that.  It's old ground, and we have fresh - or refreshed - things to discuss.  I plan on getting out to San Diego sometime next spring (Think spring break time period), as my son wants to visit friends in Long Beach, and I figure I'll drop him off, kidnap Lizzay, and come blasting down your way.  With any luck at all, I can convince Robyn and Liam to come along.

Horrible, horrible.  There you are, enjoying the coolest city in America, and here comes the Mongol horde, all covered in lice the size of chihuahuas and screaming like loons.  This is why we can't have nice things, Jenne...Oh, and make sure to warn that husband of yours, so he doesn't slice us to ribbons with one of his scalpels out of sheer reflex.

I had been thinking San Fran, but that is one BITCH of a drive, at least on the maps, and none of us actually lives there anymore.  Another option is that we invade Robyn and Liam's town, but it seems to small and redneckish to have any proper fun in.  And San Jose is right out.  They eat their children there, or so I have heard.

Having looked at the maps, I am boggled by how many cities you have crammed into one area of your state...Especially given that the North end is pretty much empty.  After all the artists at Big Sur starved to death in the 70s, there's basically nobody there.  Why does everyone cram themselves around that canker we like to call "Los Angeles"?

I will never figure you California types out...You make no sense.  We have it made, up here in the high desert.  So long as you don't count the Jim Crow laws, racist shitbags in Phoenix, 39% unemployment, horrible shootings, snowbirds in SUVs, and the uncountable hordes of homeless meth addicts shambling around eating people.  Other than that, we're doing great.  You should bring the whole clan and come visit.  I'll even loan you all the guns you'll need...Just make sure your shots are up to date.

Okay for now,
Dok

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Dear Kai,

I hope this letter finds you well, and hopefully not eaten by mutated ticks in the wilderness of South Carolina.  I also hope it finds you before your trip to Santa Fe, so that I may warn you to wear SPF9000 sunscreen.  The high desert is not kind to pasty-fleshed lowlanders, and I would hate to see you return to your swamp as one huge melanoma.
 
Tucson is the same as always, which is to say it is like the planet Mercury:  Hot as fuck, a million miles from anywhere, and if you inhale, you die.  Well, you die anyway.  Sometimes you OD, sometimes you get mashed in one of our daily horrible car wrecks, and sometimes you just get stabbed and tossed in a dumpster.  It's part of our natural life cycle, much as your caddis flies spend time as a worm, then a fly, then a horrible parasite that attaches to your brain and makes you watch NASCAR.

We are a simple people, up here in the hills, and we have simple ways...The values of old-timey America, the REAL America that you corrupt lowlanders have forgotten in the fleshpots of the East.  We still salute the flag, the trains run on time, we still spray our poisonous and corrosive semen on our front doors to keep the police and the upside down people away.  We have even brought back Jim Crow laws.  Ah, the good old days, right here in the present!

Yes, the days of White people, before women.  Why, sometimes I just strut along my property line, brandishing my many firearms at local hoodlums on their tricycles and old people walking their toy poodles (the ones that haven't been carried off by coyotes or hawks).  Those old people are the worst, Kai...When they're not hanging around Trader Joes trying to look intimidating, they're gobbling cock for their heart medication.  It's a disgrace, and something ought to be done about it.

It's truly paradise, Kai.  We have none of the secular humanist "science" that has infected your end of the country.  We know that God made the Earth in 7 days – only 6000 years ago – and that oil will never run out, because God puts more in the ground when we're sleeping. 

Speaking of which, what's all this nonsense I hear about some "disaster" off the East coast?  Something about an oil slick?  That's not a disaster, Kai, that's freedom washing up on the beach.  Straight from God to Louisiana and Florida, and yet you hear nothing but complaints.  In a just country, British Petroleum would bill those states for this largesse.
 
Yeah, that's right.  We in the Yahoo Nation are the future.  You Eastern tree huggers are in for it now.  Sarah Palin could snap you in half just by flexing her womb.

Okay for now,
Dok

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Doktor Stratton,

Well, I'm coming to terms with this whole Lorezapam addiction.  My doctor was concerned, but if I need to take a medication for life, and this one works with minimal side effects, what of it?

When I say "minimal", of course, that's as compared to Klonopin ("Hey, my whole body just caught fire for 3 seconds"!) or Ambien CR ("Hey, how did I get to work this morning?").  The symptoms mostly consist of a raging libido, cramps in my torso, and the urge to take a shot at Mister Finch and Doctor Rictus when they come by at night to see if any bad children aren't in bed yet. 

See?  Nothing to worry about.

Likewise, my promise to myself to stop sleeping with women that hate me is coming along nicely.  The bite marks on my shoulders, however, are no longer placed there by evil-minded women who wish me harm, but rather by myself, as I gnaw on my own extremities (see side effects, libido, above).  However, I am getting by, through the placing of a sack of ice down the front of my pants each morning. 

My self-respect has been somewhat restored, but I fear my manners may be in somewhat of a decline.  Or so they told me when they threw me out of the Safehouse Cafe under circumstances which are best left unsaid.  I assure you that it was a misunderstanding.  Being thrown out of the only smoking coffee shop in town isn't so much of a burden, though, as I plan to quit smoking again next Monday.  This will obviously improve my mood.

And my mood DOES need help...After all, it's not easy having a good time in Tucson, this year.  Even knocking local behemoths off their mobility scooters has worn thin, and the pool of eligible women consists mostly of land whales, meth heads, bar flies, and the numerous clones of the church lady...And not the good kind, either, the kind that bury various horrible kinks under their proper exteriors.  No, we have the 40 year old woman who is honestly worried about my soul.  My soul is fine, it's my cojones that need saving.

Then there's the lesbians.  I am a clever man, with good survival instincts, and I know that the surest way to get a merciless beat-down is to walk up with the attitude that "You just haven't met a REAL man before, and I am here to cure you."  We've all seen the results of that sort of silliness, haven't we?  Broken men with no teeth, twisted limbs, and mashed faces, who still shit crooked, years later.

My recent trip to Providence only made things worse.  The moment I stepped off the plane, it was as if a great weight had been lifted off my shoulders.  My instincts fled, and I was a happy little dumbass for a week.  My good mood was unshakeable, and this all made it so much more horrible when I returned to this godforsaken shithole.


This is why I am counting on the Portland crew to fix my shit when I get up there this fall.  I need dirty, bad fun.  I need to get hopelessly drunk, puking out of car windows onto pseudo-hippies and hipsters.  I need to spend a few hours in the pipe with the lamps off, giving myself the heebee jeebees.  I need to stress-test Portland, Doktor Stratton, and I need you and several of your fellow professionals to help me with this vital scientific endeavor.  Note the term "need", as opposed to "want" or "prefer".

Yes, we have to do this, to make sure that Portland is up to the coming weird times. 

Indeed.  It is time to take the bull by the tail and stare the facts in the face.  We can't run from this future of ours, because it's faster than us.  Hell, half the population (myself included) has to take sedatives just to get by...Not due to any personal defect, but rather that the waves of future shock get closer and closer together, in always-increasing volume.

When we were children, the height of communications was the rotary phone, which had a maximum complexity of the "party line", which served only to allow pimply teenagers to communicate their angst as a group.  Now I carry two cell phones, and I have to keep throwing shit at my boss every time he tries to issue me a crackberry.  I predict that within 5 years, people will have phones implanted, using their own skeletons as antennas and their own bioelectric field as a battery. 

Ho Ho!  You think you can't get away from people NOW?  By that point, you'll never know if the voice in your head is your mother calling to nag, or that damn alien grey who's been whispering in your head since you were three (Everyone has those, right?  Mine has bad breath.).

Everyone bitches about how there's "no communication".  Horseshit.  Our problem is TOO MUCH communication...Communication that is so easy, we keep doing it long after we've run out of information to convey.  For example, my boss has a habit of calling me at 7AM on Saturday, to let me in on information that I don't need until Wednesday, let alone Monday. 

Interesting fact:  Every year, the Safety Nazis make everything physically safer (You can't smoke a cigarette in a hooka bar, because it endangers the other patrons' health.  No shit.), and at the same time everything gets more mentally damaging.  I am beginning to suspect that the two trends are not unrelated.  I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on that, just to see if the ugly suspicions I am developing are paranoia, or just good instincts.

In any case, I have to go, to deal with a discipline problem at work.  It seems that the coffee pot has been emptied and not refilled.  Heads will roll, Doktor Stratton.  We will march on a road of bones.

Okay for now,
Dok

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Dear Kel and Badges,

Just what in the HELL is all that noise coming out of Utah?  Have you been allowing congressman Butters to get loose in rutting season again?  There's a fucking REASON we dug that canyon between our states, I'll have you know, and we'll thank you to keep your weird fucking politicians on your side of it.  It's bad enough that we have John McCain and that slut John Kyl running around down here, we sure as fuck don't need  Orrin Hatch coming South and upsetting our Gays

Also, I'll ask you nicely to cut down on all the partying and carrying on the pair of you have been indulging in...It's upsetting the old people in Phoenix, and making them step up their medication.  This, of course, leaves less for us pill freaks down in Tucson.  Have a heart, for fuck's sake.  Some days, it's all I can do to choke down my 30th cup of coffee, if I don't have my random tranquilizers.  Oh, wait, they call them "anxiety medications" now...But you and I know different, right?

Hell, yeah.  Because we're rock n rollers, and we don't see any need to sugar coat our horrible excesses.  We KNOW what the hell James Brown and Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis were hollering about, back when they were still scaring the VD scabs off of the Greatest Generation and making young ladies suck their jeans right up into their uteruses with a few simply gyrations.

And while I'm on the subject, just what the FUCK are you kids listening to in clubs, these days?  I was recently subjected to some awful howling while I was walking past some horrible, depressing excuse for a club on Congress Ave last night, and was subjected to some shit that was later identified to me as "The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus", some sort of screamo shit.  What the hell is that shit, anyway?  I'm just glad Mick Jagger is dead, because this shit would kill him.

There are, it seems, some benefits to getting old.  Not having to go to clubs is one of them...Not that some pathetic guys don't keep trying, long past 35, but I'm sure I don't need to tell you about that.  I mean, shit, there's nothing like some 40 year old guy who is publicly embarrassing himself by trying to get with a 21 year old at a club.  Why the fuck do they have promoters, if not to keep these shitnecks out?  Creepers should be fed to wild animals.

I've always hated clubs, even when I was young.  Bars, on the other hand, are a different matter.  The seedier, the better.  Bars are honest places.  False fronts and fake images don't last past the first 5 shots of gut-busting bourbon, and you always know what you're dealing with...Even in, say, The Meat Rack.  The Meat Rack is a fetish joint (Tapeworm freaks and branding fetishists, mostly), down on 12th and Drachmann.  All the imitation leather on the benches and stools are covered in bite marks, and you get a 20% discount on drinks for life, if you let Mad Herman brand you.  I haven't, but then again, I don't drink.  I'm there for the people, ladies, and the horrible, never-ending freak show of smashed chromosomes that we call Tucson.

Okay for now,
Dok

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Net,

I keep hearing about how weird Portland is, how the very motto is "keep Portland weird", but prior to writing this letter, I spent some time reading your newspapers...And the level of displayed weirdness is kind of dismal, isn't it?

There was some tawdry murder for hire plot by some woman named Terri Hormann, and some garbage about people pitching the idea of nude swimming.  THAT'S weird?  No, no sir, that's not even eccentric.  It stinks of Pleasantville on a bad Tuesday, and frankly I expect better.  I do plan to visit either later this year, or early next year, and I expect to see shit worthy of nightmares.

To be fair, though, it's not just Portland.  The state of weirdness in general is sorely lacking in America these days, and I suspect Europe isn't much better.  The funny thing is, the weird IS there, but everyone looks around it, so you wind up with insipid stories in the Oregonian that make your city look like some PD noob trying hard to show how zany he is.

It's largely the same here, of course.  We have unholy shit like Desert Dominion and The Meatrack, and some truly fucked up "private clubs" where all manner of bizarre shit goes on, we have the Cult of the Black Madonna destroying electronics on their altar, and what gets reported?  The same tired stories about some gangbanger getting poked full of holes in a meth deal gone sour.  They could basically just change the names and dates, and leave the story intact for further use, and I rather suspect they do.

Something will have to be done about this, I think.  This is NOT going to be a pleasant century, but it is already shaping up to be weird on an epic scale, and it's time we did something to start showing people how fucking strange it is...It's time to run around with our bare faces hanging out, telling the Truth, while those exposed to us gibber and scream obscenities at us for peeling back the vinyl on their grotty little suburban white bread lives.  Oh, yes, Net, this is OUR century.  Make no mistake about that.

So, are you in or not?  Are you ready to help make YOUR city a bastion of REAL weirdness as opposed to the pseudo-hippie vanilla "safe" weirdness?  I have some ideas that can help get you started, but you and any cohorts you can round up have to do the actual leg work, just as we are doing legwork here.

Nobody ever said that this shit was easy, or even safe, but it IS necessary.  We are, after all, men of science.  We have our integrity to consider.

As I said...This is OUR century, so let's make the most of it.

Okay for now,
Dok

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Dear NonPub,

After living in America for 31 years, it occurs to me that I don't particularly care for Americans.  Especially the lowlanders of, say, the Chicago region...A place where I recently was stuck for 9 days, attending the wedding of a man I hate, and being forced into compromising positions with women I haven't seen in 5 years.

Americans, NP, are basically big children...They have no manners, they make a horrible noise when you kick them, and even if you liked them, you couldn't eat a whole one.

Think of them as that type of Australian that never travels in packs of less than ten, and who brag about "getting the ethnics off the beach".  The rest of you really should do something about them, you know, they're making the rest of you look bad, in the same way that Phoenix and Tempe are making all of Arizona look bad with these new "immigration reform" laws.

But none of that bothers us here in Tucson, man.  No, we are content in our high desert paradise, where the air is permeated with the fragrant odor of the coyote shit that covers the desert, bakes into powder, and is carried by the breeze from nature to you.  We have many interesting people here, some of which might not actually be criminals or junkies.

For example, there's my friend and ex-landlord, Coffee Bean, so named because he's small, brown, and bitter.  He's not a landlord anymore, because he is engaged in a new career making license plates for the state for nailing the doors of tenants shut when they were late on the rent.  This wouldn't have meant prison time, if some of the tenants weren't in their apartments at the time.  Something about false imprisonment and fire codes.  What's this country coming to, when an honest businessman can't collect an outstanding debt?

Then there's Baptist Dave.  Dave is a horrible little man in his mid-twenties, looks like an evil muppet, who lurks around the stage door of The Loft when The Rocky Horror Picture Show is playing, waiting for Janet.  They've explained that Janet isn't real, they've beaten him, they've stomped him into the concrete and thrown him in the dumpster, and still he goes, forever waiting to teach Janet a lesson about cheating on her husband that she'll never forget.

Yes, while this may be a paradise, we all go armed.  There are too many freaks out there, NP, they bus them down from Phoenix, so that they don't wander around where decent people can see them.  They are given a choice between a bus ticket to Tucson, or an indefinite stay in Sheriff Joe's tent city jail.  As a result, we have a city of 900,000, with the crazies of a city of 5 million.  Then Phoenix wonders why we hate them like they were all Hitler's personal fart catchers.

Well, I have to get going.  The sun is going down and the night is coming up, and I feel the need to wander the streets of the city I love so much, just to see the weird before it is legislated out of existence.

Okay for now,
Dok

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Richter:
Of course you realize 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 Thomas Paine, for that matter, a hideous jabbering freak 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.

Okay for now,
Dok

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Richter,

Enclosed you will find the two books you loaned me.  I appreciate that, as it helped me survive a four hour layover in the hideous Chicago Midway airport.  The book about the revenuer was interesting, though somewhat clumsy.  Am I right in guessing that this was the first effort of a talented beginner?  The reason I ask is not that there was anything technically wrong with the book - it was enjoyable - but the level of detail sometimes interfered with the story.

Given the current shit on the shelves, this is a very small criticism, indeed.

Have you BEEN to a bookstore, recently (other than Brown University)?  The entire "Science Fiction" section is nothing but werewolf and vampire stories.  Somewhere, Campbell and Asimov are crying ectoplasmic tears (hmm...that ought to be worth an advance).  Something really should be done about it, Richter, the whole field is devolving into a horrible analog of the women's romance novel formula.

But what of it?  It's just one more great leap backward, stories of space exploration and new challenges being replaced with rehashed fantasies about being a glorified leech or mosquito.  It is indeed a sign of the times...Just one more scrawl on horror's scrolls.

This century is going to be all about horror, Richter, and that paranoia of yours will serve you well.  All the TV people and fat Italians laughing at you from their restaurant windows will be laughing out the other side of their necks, when the deal goes down and it all goes bad and the Nazi Hell Creatures from the Hollow Earth tunnel to the surface and you are the only one with large, edged weapons.

Oh, yeah, who will be laughing then?  They may still be grinning, but it will be the grins of bleaching skulls, lining Federal Hill's sidewalks in the cold, cold light of dawn.  I trust you will have the proper respect for the occasion, and stack them neatly in the shape of a throne, for you-know-who.

Lastly, I'd like to thank you for your hospitality the other week.  I had a fantastic time, and would definitely look forward to doing it again next summer, perhaps.  Likewise, Angela and yourself have an open invitation to visit me in Tucson, though I'd suggest January or February, as I will have more vacation time available, and it will give you a chance to ditch out of your horrible East coast winter.  All the old people will have died off by the time you return, and you can just wait until April and shovel them out to the curb.

Okay for now,
Dok

[The Good Reverend Roger]

There was more, of course, but much of it was hand-scrawled and is thus lost forever.

Next writing campaign begins in June.  You have been warned.

(And those of you that haven't sent me your address can do so via PM, if you're feeling masochistic.)