It Was Never You.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

They just don't make my kind of rube, anymore.

Now they're all cheap plastic things sold in the dollar stores.  There's no substance to them, they're flimsy and they come right apart when you tear gas them. They can't even demonstrate right...I'm STILL pissed at the teabaggers for their "demonstration" where they dipped teabags in cups so they wouldn't violate their parade permit.  What the hell kind of shit is that?

Look, there's an ART to being a chump.  Trust me, I've been doing this shit all my life.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

The new whiner that's got Johnny Cash puking blood in his coffin...Lee Brice? Jason Aldean?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The new whiner that's got Johnny Cash puking blood in his coffin...Lee Brice? Jason Aldean?

Does it matter?  It's the same tired shit, hour after hour.  STOP WHINING.  COUNTRY MUSIC IS NOT ABOUT WHINING.  You TALK about your wife leaving and your dog getting cancer and going to prison and shit but you DON'T SNIVEL.  Porter Waggoner never sniveled.  Johnny Cash never sniveled.  HANK NEVER WHINED. 

There is a very subtle, but very real, difference between country music and "emo with a steel guitar", but that is apparently LOST on Nashville.  Fuckers.  Nuke the whole Goddamn city.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I saw someone from Tuscon yesterday morning. The only person I know in this town who's from Tucson, in fact. He caught my eye because he was riding down the street on a bright pink bicycle and all his colors were too bright and he was too flat, too unreal, too two-dimensional, and then it struck me that it's because he IS two-dimensional, a paper doll cut right out of Tucson's pages and projected onto a Portland backdrop. He's not really here at all, and never was, just a movie of a man who never made it out of Tucson.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I saw someone from Tuscon yesterday morning. The only person I know in this town who's from Tucson, in fact. He caught my eye because he was riding down the street on a bright pink bicycle and all his colors were too bright and he was too flat, too unreal, too two-dimensional, and then it struck me that it's because he IS two-dimensional, a paper doll cut right out of Tucson's pages and projected onto a Portland backdrop. He's not really here at all, and never was, just a movie of a man who never made it out of Tucson.

I have this creeping suspicion that if I suddenly kick any given building, it will fall over, because it's just a prop.

But you are correct.  What you are seeing is something like a ghost.  A movie, as you say...Like those old original silent films from the very early days, when it was just some guy doing backflips.  Only in this case, it's some guy trying to fake breathing.  He probably doesn't cast a shadow, and if you took a picture, only the bike will show up.  IF YOU'RE LUCKY.

If you're unlucky, well...Let me just advise you, as your spiritual adviser, do NOT photograph the dead, for the same reason you should never pray.  Because the thing you're praying to or photographing might actually be real.  Best not to draw attention to yourself. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I saw someone from Tuscon yesterday morning. The only person I know in this town who's from Tucson, in fact. He caught my eye because he was riding down the street on a bright pink bicycle and all his colors were too bright and he was too flat, too unreal, too two-dimensional, and then it struck me that it's because he IS two-dimensional, a paper doll cut right out of Tucson's pages and projected onto a Portland backdrop. He's not really here at all, and never was, just a movie of a man who never made it out of Tucson.

I have this creeping suspicion that if I suddenly kick any given building, it will fall over, because it's just a prop.

But you are correct.  What you are seeing is something like a ghost.  A movie, as you say...Like those old original silent films from the very early days, when it was just some guy doing backflips.  Only in this case, it's some guy trying to fake breathing.  He probably doesn't cast a shadow, and if you took a picture, only the bike will show up.  IF YOU'RE LUCKY.

If you're unlucky, well...Let me just advise you, as your spiritual adviser, do NOT photograph the dead, for the same reason you should never pray.  Because the thing you're praying to or photographing might actually be real.  Best not to draw attention to yourself.

Have you tried looking behind any of the buildings, there?

I'm a little afraid of the answer.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I saw someone from Tuscon yesterday morning. The only person I know in this town who's from Tucson, in fact. He caught my eye because he was riding down the street on a bright pink bicycle and all his colors were too bright and he was too flat, too unreal, too two-dimensional, and then it struck me that it's because he IS two-dimensional, a paper doll cut right out of Tucson's pages and projected onto a Portland backdrop. He's not really here at all, and never was, just a movie of a man who never made it out of Tucson.

I have this creeping suspicion that if I suddenly kick any given building, it will fall over, because it's just a prop.

But you are correct.  What you are seeing is something like a ghost.  A movie, as you say...Like those old original silent films from the very early days, when it was just some guy doing backflips.  Only in this case, it's some guy trying to fake breathing.  He probably doesn't cast a shadow, and if you took a picture, only the bike will show up.  IF YOU'RE LUCKY.

If you're unlucky, well...Let me just advise you, as your spiritual adviser, do NOT photograph the dead, for the same reason you should never pray.  Because the thing you're praying to or photographing might actually be real.  Best not to draw attention to yourself.

Have you tried looking behind any of the buildings, there?

I'm a little afraid of the answer.

No.  I have never even considered it.  I mean, what possible benefit would there be in peeling back the vinyl?  If I have to stay here, I can at least have the illusion of living in a real city, in a real universe, in real time.

Now, contrast your earlier post with your visit here.  Mr Language fit right in.  He was One Of Us.  YOU, on the other hand, pretty much STOOD RIGHT OUT, sort of like if you'd gone to see a movie and the star stepped right out of the screen and started talking to you.  Let me tell you, it spooked the natives.  There were mutterings around the trash barrel fires for a long time.  Drums in the hills.  That sort of thing.  Now people pray for your return, and offer unspeakable sacrifices at The Wall.  Your cult has become perverted, and it's gone bad.  You showed them how to pray, but lard wasn't good enough.  No.  The less said about this, I think, the better.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I saw someone from Tuscon yesterday morning. The only person I know in this town who's from Tucson, in fact. He caught my eye because he was riding down the street on a bright pink bicycle and all his colors were too bright and he was too flat, too unreal, too two-dimensional, and then it struck me that it's because he IS two-dimensional, a paper doll cut right out of Tucson's pages and projected onto a Portland backdrop. He's not really here at all, and never was, just a movie of a man who never made it out of Tucson.

I have this creeping suspicion that if I suddenly kick any given building, it will fall over, because it's just a prop.

But you are correct.  What you are seeing is something like a ghost.  A movie, as you say...Like those old original silent films from the very early days, when it was just some guy doing backflips.  Only in this case, it's some guy trying to fake breathing.  He probably doesn't cast a shadow, and if you took a picture, only the bike will show up.  IF YOU'RE LUCKY.

If you're unlucky, well...Let me just advise you, as your spiritual adviser, do NOT photograph the dead, for the same reason you should never pray.  Because the thing you're praying to or photographing might actually be real.  Best not to draw attention to yourself.

Have you tried looking behind any of the buildings, there?

I'm a little afraid of the answer.

No.  I have never even considered it.  I mean, what possible benefit would there be in peeling back the vinyl?  If I have to stay here, I can at least have the illusion of living in a real city, in a real universe, in real time.

Now, contrast your earlier post with your visit here.  Mr Language fit right in.  He was One Of Us.  YOU, on the other hand, pretty much STOOD RIGHT OUT, sort of like if you'd gone to see a movie and the star stepped right out of the screen and started talking to you.  Let me tell you, it spooked the natives.  There were mutterings around the trash barrel fires for a long time.  Drums in the hills.  That sort of thing.  Now people pray for your return, and offer unspeakable sacrifices at The Wall.  Your cult has become perverted, and it's gone bad.  You showed them how to pray, but lard wasn't good enough.  No.  The less said about this, I think, the better.

I fear for the poor cut-out people of Tucson! What can be done to save them? I can't teach them to become three-dimensional, but surely there must be something I can do for them, some comfort I can offer.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

How can you walk safely among them? How can they not see that you aren't one of the Flat People?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

How can you walk safely among them? How can they not see that you aren't one of the Flat People?

I'm not sure I'm not.  I would have to leave Tucson to find out.

Another thing:  It was different when Alty came down.  There was a new predator.  The locals could sense it...They knew something was wrong, but they didn't know what.  It was as if you'd thrown a shark into a herd of wildebeest.  If a shark was all legs and teeth, rather than fins and teeth.  He ran low to the ground.  They never saw him coming.  Almost like an otter chowing on a duck...One moment, it's the pretty little girl feeding the ducks at the river, you know, classic "human interest" pic.  The next it's blood and feathers and a little girl standing stock-still, with a sudden new understanding of the universe.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I wonder how Portland will react, when you come here.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I wonder how Portland will react, when you come here.

Depends if I'm still flat.

If I am, they'll never see me.  Slipping through their city, unseen.  Just a tide of inexplicable hair passes by, and suddenly everything has gone wrong.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I wonder how Portland will react, when you come here.

Depends if I'm still flat.

If I am, they'll never see me.  Slipping through their city, unseen.  Just a tide of inexplicable hair passes by, and suddenly everything has gone wrong.

[Richter]

WE don't vote with our dollars anymore,  We vote with our silence.  Our acceptance.  Our policy of Laissez-faire for what THEY want to do.  You know, the ones voted for by the ones we voted for.  That's a degree of separation, so we can hardly be blamed.  Ethics and morality are a line-of-sight effect.  THEY know that.  Hell, they've had us wearing slave labor for a generation, so what else could they get away with?

The dollars are nothing.  Hell, they can yank the meaning out of dollars in one good panicked meeting.  The silence though, that shit is hard to come by.  They'll spend ours for all its worth.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

WE don't vote with our dollars anymore,  We vote with our silence.  Our acceptance.  Our policy of Laissez-faire for what THEY want to do.  You know, the ones voted for by the ones we voted for.  That's a degree of separation, so we can hardly be blamed.  Ethics and morality are a line-of-sight effect.  THEY know that.  Hell, they've had us wearing slave labor for a generation, so what else could they get away with?

The dollars are nothing.  Hell, they can yank the meaning out of dollars in one good panicked meeting.  The silence though, that shit is hard to come by.  They'll spend ours for all its worth.

Complacency is the currency of dictators?