Tucson Irregulars

[Zenpatista]

I read Robert Asprin's "Phule's Company" many years ago and it seems to have morphed and gestated with my piss poor understanding of the second amendment as well as a desire for a better world. More fool me. The following is a half-baked advertisement type thing, but I promised myself I'd post here more often so.....

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Hey you! Yeah you! Do you like your hometown? Have you noticed that the Old Pueblo has gone from "the Dirty T" to "Bastard City"? Have you seen Tucson turn sideways and wondered how the cops held on while the rest of us slid off?

Well maybe the Tucson Irregulars are just what you need!

We're looking for a few "good" sophonts capable of helping fellow neighbors while throwing sand in the gears of "the machine" and whistling innocently.

Do you like guns, but hate the NRA? We may be what you need! As the only established well regulated militia, you will have access to all the firearm fun you could want! Of course, you'll have to pass the written, oral, other written, practical, mental, diagnostic, field, maintenance and management tests.

And don't worry about that other town in AZ. We're the "Tucson" Irregulars. Phoenix can go fuck itself! Flagstaff is good on it's own. Bisbee, well we can road trip it for those guys.

Are you someone who has faith (or atheism) but hate having religion crammed up your neckhole? We're definitely what you need. Whether your beliefs involve being buried up to your nostrils in 115 degree sand and covered with scorpion pheromones, or saying a simple amen before dinner, the Tucson Irregulars have your back.

And speaking of backs, if you're homeless or if you're "sleeping rough" we may be able to put a roof over your head. Our staff sergeant will make sure your work duties cover three square meals and a clean cot. As long as you like eating javelina, rattlesnake & prickly pear, you're golden!

The Tucson Irregulars - the only group you can count on in these weird times. Chapters opening near you!

[Doktor Howl]

The Tucson Irregulars offer the ONLY soul-back guarantee in the business!  Even if you didn't have one to begin with.  We make this flyblown hellscape FUN!  Get a certificate in:

Dust Deviling
Sun Roofing
Alley-Bashing
Coliche Diddling
and
Getting Shot While You're Getting Shot

Call now!

[Doktor Howl]

I was trying to explain this, but it took like 15 YEARS and everyone was always getting distracted by arguments, shark control, and ECH's brand new butthole. 

It's not really a hard concept.  You wake up in the morning, freshly horrified by being in Tucson.  You scoot out to the car with your bulletproof umbrella at the ready, then you drive to work being careful not to drive into any shell holes or clouds of mustard gas.  You say hello to the receptionist and she doesn't reply.  No, she likes you fine, she just died on the job like a year ago and maintenance hasn't got around to her yet. 

Then you sit in your office proving that 2+2=4 except for when it's convenient that it equal 3 or 5, eat your lunch in the insulting excuse for a break room while Epstein from Marketing tries to tell you about his model railroad.  You shoot Epstein in the face, but he just keeps talking.   After another 4 hours of rationalizing bad math, you get in your car and then get turned into a red paste by a methed-out trucker on Highway 77.

Then You wake up in the morning, freshly horrified by being in Tucson.  You scoot out to the car with your bulletproof umbrella at the ready, then you drive to work being careful not to drive into any shell holes or clouds of mustard gas.  You say hello to the receptionist and she doesn't reply.  No, she likes you fine, she just died on the job like a year ago and maintenance hasn't got around to her yet. 

Then you sit in your office proving that 2+2=4 except for when it's convenient that it equal 3 or 5, eat your lunch in the insulting excuse for a break room while Epstein from Marketing tries to tell you about his model railroad.  You shoot Epstein in the face, but he just keeps talking.   After another 4 hours of rationalizing bad math, you get in your car and then get turned into a red paste by a methed-out trucker on Highway 77.

Then You wake up in the morning, freshly horrified by being in Tucson.  You scoot out to the car with your bulletproof umbrella at the ready, then you drive to work being careful not to drive into any shell holes or clouds of mustard gas.  You say hello to the receptionist and she doesn't reply.  No, she likes you fine, she just died on the job like a year ago and maintenance hasn't got around to her yet. 

Then you sit in your office proving that 2+2=4 except for when it's convenient that it equal 3 or 5, eat your lunch in the insulting excuse for a break room while Epstein from Marketing tries to tell you about his model railroad.  You shoot Epstein in the face, but he just keeps talking.   After another 4 hours of rationalizing bad math, you get in your car and then get turned into a red paste by a methed-out trucker on Highway 77.

Then You wake up in the morning, freshly horrified by being in Tucson.  You scoot out to the car with your bulletproof umbrella at the ready, then you drive to work being careful not to drive into any shell holes or clouds of mustard gas.  You say hello to the receptionist and she doesn't reply.  No, she likes you fine, she just died on the job like a year ago and maintenance hasn't got around to her yet. 

Then you sit in your office proving that 2+2=4 except for when it's convenient that it equal 3 or 5, eat your lunch in the insulting excuse for a break room while Epstein from Marketing tries to tell you about his model railroad.  You shoot Epstein in the face, but he just keeps talking.   After another 4 hours of rationalizing bad math, you get in your car and then get turned into a red paste by a methed-out trucker on Highway 77.

[Zenpatista]

"What the fuck," thought Jimmy. "Another day, another clean up of crazy." He stands by the side of a road out in the desert. The road is straight as an arrow and the sky is clear enough to see the road disappear into the horizon. Why is a 6 foot tall, 10 foot long section of metal fence erected on the side of a long empty stretch of desert highway? And that isn't the weirdest thing. It isn't the wrecked vehicle on the side of the road opposite the fence giving off shimmering waves from the heat of the day. No, the weirdest thing is the sliced up javelina. It looked as if it had been squeezed through the bars of the fence.

The captain said this was all normal. Yeah right. As if Jimmy hadn't heard that before. "I thought I gave up on all this shit when I quit working with that 'holy man' back in '18." The day grew longer, the air grew heavy and hot and once again the shovelfuls of sliced, dead peccary grew lighter. This, too, was normal. No matter how strange things were, how grody the cleanup job, the work got easier as the day got on almost as if the problems evaporated with the setting sun. Why he had to clean it up, then, was not really clear. "We like to keep busy and the place neat", was all he got in response.

Jimmy heaved the last of the carcass into the thick plastic lining the pickup bed. "Why does the goriest goo have to float off last?" he wondered. He walked around the fence, dragging the shovel behind him so he could rattle the bars of the fence before heaving his tool into the driver's side of the pickup's bed. He spat dust, cranked Lady Gaga, and the tires spat gravel. He passed the tinted window tow truck going the other way and thought, "Good luck with that."

[Doktor Howl]

Tucson is the breeding ground of a new kind of monster, unlike any you've seen before.  We eat too many ghost peppers and commune with our ancestors and the local gods.  We have the strength of Lou Ferigno and the sexiness of Ru Paul, and we cannot be stopped.  You should run.

We admire millennials and generation Z, and we smile on their efforts to save a world upon which we have rubbed our junk.  We are nosferatu, and we will shuffle out of our tombs to suck all that is good out of modern culture, leaving the rest of the world only insipid auto-tuned country music and television programs about extreme couponing or maybe swap meets.  So stop hitting your car's radio with blunt objects; it is not its fault.

We are not actively hostile to humans, it's just that our niches overlap and there's only room for us.  We have TEETH with which to EAT and a widescreen view of the ongoing ecological collapse.

And when it all goes dark and you humans are just a memory, we shall dance in the ruins, to the strange pipings of the spheres. 

By which we mean Jethro Tull.

[Doktor Howl]

Is it okay that I said that?  I mean, I felt a momentary obligation to be forthcoming.  To be transparent.  Does anyone object to a transparent Doktor Howl?  You can see my innards.  It's educational.

[LMNO]

 

[Zenpatista]

Actual quote from a colleague's advertisement for a postdoc (aka professional lab rat). I deleted the usual banter about must be able to do X, Y & Z....

"Our laboratory is located in picturesque Tucson, a diverse city designated as a UNESCO culinary world heritage site and is listed as #2 on the "Best Small American Cities" by Resonance Consulting Group and National Geographic. We are surrounded by magnificent mountainscapes, several large parks with extensive hiking areas, as well as a thriving arts and culture scene."

It sounds so nice! Needless to say I applied.

[Doktor Howl]

When I visit places like Boston or Hanau, I always go check out their cathedrals.  They have these awesome statues and frescoes of grim looking angels, saints, knights, etc...All of whom are scowling or looking disappointed in humanity in general.

Ours sneer.  They're depicted as laughing at you, of mocking your pain and your poverty and your inability to explain.  Just because someone's a saint doesn't mean they're good people, or even just not total dickheads.  Seriously.  Look up the calendar of saints.  Most of them were total assholes, just like the old testament prophets were.  It's like the entire church is decorated with Job's "friends", all lining up to tell him how he must have deserved the death of his children, and the loss of his wealth.  The priest is basically in Job's wife's role, telling him - and all of us - to give up, curse God, and die.

Now, if I was consulted when they were putting these things up, I would have all of the saints and angels depicted as screaming in horror.  Not because I think they DO, but because I think they SHOULD.  Come on down here, Gabriel, Urial, all of you guys.  Your primates have something for ya, and if you see us coming, you better run.

[Doktor Howl]

It's worth noting that Seraphim are mentioned in the Old Testament 8 times as 6-winged celestials that scream at each other (Isiah 6:1-3) and perhaps at God, and do everything in sets of three...and in 5 other cases in the bible the term refers to serpents (specifically, flying asps).  Which leads to some interesting questions.  In Revelation 4:8, they are described as: ""Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under his wings." Which leads to other interesting questions and some potential horror.

Maimonides described seraphim as the 5th rank of angels (out of 10), and the highest rank of "Earthbound" angels, who are constantly angry about being separated from God (except, apparently, for the three that holler at him all eternity long).

In the Tanakh, only Seraphim have wings.  All other angels look just like people, except that they are utterly focused on their function, with no mind for anything else.

Of course, the Babylonians had their own version of Seraphim, and they're pretty damn terrifying.

Here in Tucson, you can identify Seraphim by their bruises, fat lips, and black eyes.  Come around here telling us how to act, will you?  The fuck you will.


(ETA:  While I was reading up on this, I stumbled on the account of an angel telling Hagar about her son, Ishmael, whom she was pregnant with at the time:  "And he shall be a wild ass of a man: his hand shall be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the face of all his brethren.', Gen 16:12  My kinda guy.)

[The Wizard Joseph]

The In Nomine RPG by SJ Games is a VERY well put together, if satirical, look at angels and fallen angels. If you ever get a chance to read it and the supplements It's truly enriching and entertaining stuff. Cool rules system too.

I'd pay real money to play in a game with you as ST Dok. I love the way you do on mythology.

Just thought I'd mention it as a good, fun place for folks to start reading on Angelology.

[Doktor Howl]

Fact:  The commander of The Tucson Irregulars, one "Remy" (probably not his real name), carries the title of "The Tongue."  He even LOOKS like a tongue.  If a tongue had hair.  And eyeballs.  None of his teeth point the same direction and he has been observed eating an apple through a chain link fence.  Once, when cornered by the FBI, he lost all cohesion and poured down a storm drain.  Despite all this, he is as human as you or I (assuming you also live in Tucson, obviously), it's just that we all live in a yellow submarine.  Only it's baby-shit brown, takes up 1000 square miles, and none of your rules apply here.

When dealing with someone from Tucson, ask them to show you their tongue.  If it looks back at you, it's Remy and you have been contacted by the irregulars.  He may or may not at that point attempt to do immoral things.  Because he's a tongue.

[Doktor Howl]

Zenpatista is just an American chasing a dream.  He's just running with the top down and the music up.  He's just trying to smile and say "welcome to America," but he speaks through a shotgun and your head falls off.  He's just shaking hands with the severed arm of the future.

[Zenpatista]

Fact:  The commander of The Tucson Irregulars, one "Remy" (probably not his real name), carries the title of "The Tongue."  He even LOOKS like a tongue.  If a tongue had hair.  And eyeballs.  None of his teeth point the same direction and he has been observed eating an apple through a chain link fence.  Once, when cornered by the FBI, he lost all cohesion and poured down a storm drain.  Despite all this, he is as human as you or I (assuming you also live in Tucson, obviously), it's just that we all live in a yellow submarine.  Only it's baby-shit brown, takes up 1000 square miles, and none of your rules apply here.

When dealing with someone from Tucson, ask them to show you their tongue.  If it looks back at you, it's Remy and you have been contacted by the irregulars.  He may or may not at that point attempt to do immoral things.  Because he's a tongue.

Remy is an asshole. He talks and talks and talks. All you hear is the blathering. He usually starts out making sense but every now and then he says something spacey enough to throw you onto a tangent. By the time your brain has recovered you realize that he's still talking and something has happened. You start to wonder if you'll do anything to shut him up. Sometimes you tune out the verbal onslaught and find yourself napping or daydreaming but that's when the screaming starts. Not a lot, just a jolt here and there. At that point, you're not even sure if he's the one doing the screaming. Apparently, it was during one such time that I signed up for the Irregulars. Rumor has it that he used to be a college instructor but drove his class catatonic during the first lecture. Some of the students still haven't recovered. There is no known corporal punishment in the irregulars. Just the comically labeled "scolding".

ps. Signing up didn't stop the talking.

[Zenpatista]

Zenpatista is just an American chasing a dream.  He's just running with the top down and the music up.  He's just trying to smile and say "welcome to America," but he speaks through a shotgun and your head falls off.  He's just shaking hands with the severed arm of the future.

 

Would I deprive a starving person of food? No. Do I not tend the sick and give water and refreshment to those with thirst? Of course.

What, then, would you have me do for those with other needs? John Lennon said it, love is all you need. This is what is given to all. And it's given at high velocity to those that demand it.