The City's song seems a little out of tune, a little jagged, maybe.
It's nothing that an outsider would recognize...But to those of us that live here, you can tell that things are out of synch. The timing is off.
And with this, a slow roll of bad tidings are washing in. Hat's Games looks like it's going to close after 7 good years of fun. The April 1st Synod has shrunk to a half a dozen people. Schools are closing. The police have been cut back so far that they can only handle serious issues, like parking tickets.
There's a reason for this, of course.
Sister Gothique left, Swamp Jesus is leaving again, Vex managed to stop his slide in Phoenix (Hey, Vex...If you're going through hell, keep going.), Josh the Mad Fucker joined the army, and numerous other people have attempted escape. The City is reacting like a dumb animal with one knee cap shot off. The visit of Nigel seemed to have stabilized things, but that's been 7 months gone by.
And those of us that are left have become consumed with work, and bad music. The weird factor is dangerously low, and there's fuck all containing Tucson at the moment. Like those reactors in Japan, the only thing keeping Tucson in Tucson is that nothing has knocked it loose.
And may God have mercy on your soul when that happens. The horrors poised to flow down into the lowlands beggar description...Mongol-like hordes of insanely obese people on mobility scooters, who will finally have enough oxygen, for example. Where they pass, the very grass will be consumed right down to the roots...And woe unto anyone in a Quikmart or WalMart when they arrive. To them, you're just another bag of lard to be consumed.
Following this would be a tide of insane homeless people, all of which have razor sharp clubs and the conviction that they are the kings and queens of creation. They will descend like a zombiepocalypse, only they'll ask you for change while they eat your brain.
Then, of course, come the Calvinists. Horrible, horrible.
We're doing our best, here, but already the first pebbles are rolling downhill. The 21st century is ready to roll, and there you are, right in its path. Don't try to run, you'll only die tired...For the weird shall flow like a pyroclastic cloud, at hundreds of miles per hour. And it shall arrive at your doorstep, with only one thought on its mind:
"What's for dinner?"
Or Kill Me.
The weird factor... You know, I think you're right. That's what's missing.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD on March 21, 2011, 04:44:15 PM
The weird factor... You know, I think you're right. That's what's missing.
Fortunately, I have taken steps, at least for me. I shall stand on my upstairs balcony, laughing maniacally as dozens of Calvinist golfers are swept away to the East.
When the dust and the screaming settle, there will be only my house, perched on top of its cliff. Travellers will avoid it, assuming the ghastly screams issuing forth are ghosts. But they won't be, as we all know that - outside of my desk (see #3) - there are no such things as ghosts.
No, that will just be Enabler and Freeky thinking of new torments to inflict upon your Holy Man™.
:mittens:
I like it.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 21, 2011, 04:48:59 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD on March 21, 2011, 04:44:15 PM
The weird factor... You know, I think you're right. That's what's missing.
Fortunately, I have taken steps, at least for me. I shall stand on my upstairs balcony, laughing maniacally as dozens of Calvinist golfers are swept away to the East.
Oh, no you don't. Keep your fucking golfers, we do NOT want. Sweep 'em west into the Pacific.
Someday, when there's isn't enough weird to anchor it anymore, Tucson will simply cut loose and start drifting. It has no mind or intent, but will drift aimlessly, unknowingly searching for the weird, seeking it out and sucking it in.
Quote from: Nigel on March 21, 2011, 05:06:48 PM
Someday, when there's isn't enough weird to anchor it anymore, Tucson will simply cut loose and start drifting. It has no mind or intent, but will drift aimlessly, unknowingly searching for the weird, seeking it out and sucking it in.
Prior excursions seem to indicate that it will roll downhill.
Means New Mexico takes it in the ass first, then Texas, then Oklahoma, then points East & North. Arkansas is saved by their mountains and by the fact that there's nothing there for Tucson.
When Kansas stops broadcasting, head for the hills.
I agree, TGRR. The music has become jilted, wavery, indistinct, and wrong. I can't detect the clashing of The Weird, only an allargando of the Individual Curse creating a duet with the Slumber. I can only hope that Tucson is hibernating, and not returning to sleep for good, because you know what that[/] would mean.
That is fucked up about Hat's. It's the way all game stores go, really. They thrive, they prosper, and there's fun, but in the end it's down to the cold hard cash. I've known a martial arts studio or two like that also.
As far as the city as a whole, it sounds like vasillation. That horrible half-ass fluttering a bloodpump does in the final throes of failure. The works around it can be crumbling, but it will still try to kick jsut a LITTLE harder, like it should have a few fiscal cycless ago, to keep everything afloat.
This isn't Hat vasillating, don't get me wrong, it's the rest of the city. It's drawing the blood out of anything it thinks doesn't need it. Like my own hometown, there may be a rash of new "Revitalizing" ventures, designed to bring highbrow success and money to a disaffected area. Politicians will smile and cut ribbons, and the digging will commence. The school across the way will still have 60 students yammering and fighting for the attention of a single teacher, and no one will eb available to work detail for the construction.
When the restraunts close then the homeless will go cannibal. It will go unreported for years, or months at least. The evidence will all be hidden by default, and it will only be mentioned in dark rumors.
"They eat the dead."
I would fear that it would come to Portland, but somehow in the last two years the visible weird in Portland has become sanitized and commodified. I don't know if that's a bad thing, really; it just is. Hey hey kids, Portland is quirky! It's cool to be weird in Portland, as long as "weird" means something accessible, chirpy and happy!
In the 90's, Portland was weird in a different way. We were famous for poverty, heroin deaths and hate crime. It's a good thing that people born here are in the minority, because we're strangers to this new, shiny, nice city. We still have PTSD from the old days of homeless kids giving blowjobs to men in business suits downtown so they could buy a sandwich and a fix. It's hard to recognize this new place, with its food carts and its greenspaces.
Put a bird on it, Tucson. If the skyisland of Tucson ever comes to Portland, the great sturgeon in the Willamette will awaken, the bridges will call, perfectly sane men will walk into the tide and vanish, the feral people in the forest will make themselves visible, and the ancient weird of Portland will rise again, bubbling forth from the underground creeks and the Top of the Bottom.
:mittens: Very nice.
Quote from: Nigel on March 21, 2011, 08:28:53 PM
Put a bird on it, Tucson.
:lulz:
LMNO
-saw that episode as well.
Oh, fuck this. I didn't move all the way back from American Siberia just to watch my home state lose the Global Capitol of Weird. I may only be in Phoenix right now but the only thing that keeps me awake at night is knowing that just past a few hundred decaying suburbs full of McMansions, Tucson sits basking in a pot of weird. I swear to god, if Tucson starts looking like Albuquerque I'll burn it to the ground.
Quote from: postvex™ on March 22, 2011, 01:31:12 PM
Oh, fuck this. I didn't move all the way back from American Siberia just to watch my home state lose the Global Capitol of Weird. I may only be in Phoenix right now but the only thing that keeps me awake at night is knowing that just past a few hundred decaying suburbs full of McMansions, Tucson sits basking in a pot of weird. I swear to god, if Tucson starts looking like Albuquerque I'll burn it to the ground.
We've tried. Mold doesn't burn.
Leastwise, not THIS mold. I think it's been moving around on its own, too.
Quote from: Luna on March 21, 2011, 05:05:58 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 21, 2011, 04:48:59 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD on March 21, 2011, 04:44:15 PM
The weird factor... You know, I think you're right. That's what's missing.
Fortunately, I have taken steps, at least for me. I shall stand on my upstairs balcony, laughing maniacally as dozens of Calvinist golfers are swept away to the East.
Oh, no you don't. Keep your fucking golfers, we do NOT want. Sweep 'em west into the Pacific.
AHEM! No. We got enough of THAT here, taverramuchly!
Rog, I think that Tuck-sawn might just be going through its own mini-cycle of out with old, in with new. I'm sure, it being Tucson, it'll find its weird again soon enough. Ride it out, till then.
After all, the desert can't help but flood out or burn out that which it finds tepid.