Principia Discordia

As many of you know, I decided to put the MSY1 address list to good use, by sending all of you incoherent or insulting letters, under the Dok Howl name.  I am publishing the outbound letters here, before starting the next letter writing campaign.  I haven't yet decided whether to scan all the responses I got, as I'm not sure I want to replace my scanner, but rest assured, those that wrote me back get priority on the next batch of awful sludge in their mailboxes.  Anyway, on with the letters, in no particular order (and with italics, etc, removed, because Bill Gates is a prick).

TGRR
May 15th, 2011

Dear Professor Cramulus,

Enclosed you will find a pith helmet, the last remaining trace of  our esteemed colleague, Professor Payne.  It is my sad duty to inform you that he was torn to pieces by cannibals in the wilds of Southampton...Where he was looking for ancient ruins that might indicate that there had been a civilization there at one point.

I feel that Professor Payne would have wanted you to have this, and to wear it in his memory, as you continue your own endeavors among the savages of New York.  The Helmet is of World War II vintage, and is said to be cursed.  We, of course, are men of learning, and believe in no such nonsense, despite the fate of poor Lord AKK, who wore it on his ill-fated expedition to Hackensack.  Rubbish, I say, poppycock!  It's a perfectly good helmet, simply hose it out and pass it on.

As to my current expedition, we are encountering many problems with the native porters, who absolutely refuse to wear loincloths and turbans.  They insist on "blue jeans" and "tee shirts", which doesn't make for a proper-looking expedition at all.  Also, when I was thrashing one of them with my walking stick (the tea was a bit off, which just isn't done, don't you know), the blackguard pulled a gun on me!  I was so shocked by this breach of Etiquette, my monocle fell off.  Of course, I had Colonel Freeky feed him to the dogs, as an example to the others. 

As a result of this and other discipline issues, we have had to hire new porters, a surly, toothless bunch who insist on being paid in "meth amphetamines" and "40s".  It is distasteful, but the expedition is so close to finding The Lost Truck Stop that any distaste I feel must be born in the finest traditions of our profession.  Pip pip, think of England, and all that!

The only real concern I have is Colonel Freeky.  It turns out that the Colonel is a female, if you can believe that!  I admit I had my suspicions, but had written off her...er...female attributes as a glandular disorder.  Why, she never once asked for smelling salts!  Obviously, I cannot be blamed for this sort of error. 

In addition, she seems to be prone to going native.  I observed her carving the word "Zalgo" into some of the locals, when she was supposedly leading a watering party.  I shall have to keep an eye on her.  A woman Colonel, indeed!  I shall write if she has any other sinister habits, perhaps you may have to send a relief expedition.  If you haven't heard from me by the fall rains, assume the worst and send an armed party.

Okay for now,
Doktor Howl

Dear Alty,

I hope this letter finds you well, and not eaten by one of those grizzly/polar bear hybrids we've heard so much about.  I can scarcely imagine the continual terror, as you all hide in your rickety mining shacks, waiting for the inevitable snuffling around the ramshackle door...The last sound before the dreadful roar and crashing noises that marks the passing of many people up in Palin country. 

The rest, of course, are run over by Todd on his goddamn skidoo. 

Now, the rest of us have heard rumors that Todd and some of his friends want to secede.  We're okay with that, as long as you guys leave the gold, uranium, and oil behind when you go.  You can keep the fucking caribou, they're more trouble than they're worth.

However, unlike the case of Texas, we have no plans to FORCE you to secede.  You really aren't bad people, despite your proximity to Canada.  Texas, on the other hand, we can do without.  They're an embarrassment, really, and aren't good for much other than cheap entertainment...Especially that waterhead governor they have, Perry.  He's a hoot, and should be run on a cable TV channel on continuous loop, maybe alongside Bobby Jindal. 

Florida and Louisiana can go too, come to think of it.  After all their bitching about "big government", let's just cut the two oil-soaked disasters loose, and see how they like the invisible hand when it's really in play, right? 

Ah, what's this nation coming to, Alty, when we have to consider actually evicting states from the union?  But what choice do we have?  I mean, I'm sure that they're actually nice people, who love their dogs and hardly ever drag black people behind their pickup trucks, but we really have to consider our property values.  I mean, would you want your daughter to marry a Texan? 

Here in Arizona, of course, we are in the process of splitting our state in half, with the Gadsden Purchase becoming the sovereign city state of Tucson.  It's a hassle, but we really don't want to be associated with the Jim Crow laws they keep passing up in Phoenix...And now that Sheriff Joe Arpieo is running for governor - and he will win - there'll be no end to the monstrous tide of cheap yahoos and pencil necked patriots all hooting and hollering up in the hills.

I tried to make this letter a little more upbeat, but I cannot.  The geeks have finally broken me...There are too many of them, and not enough of me.  But what of it?  I can just refer to this shithole as a "target-rich environment", and stop whining, eh?

Okay for now,
Dok

Dear Devil Squirrel,

Long time, no see, kid...This is the artist formerly known as The Good Reverend Roger.  Your Aunt Robyn gave me your address to be added to the "psycho letters" mailing campaign.  First off, we miss you at the boards, and wish you'd drop in once in a while.

Second, I hear you have a boyfriend of some type.  Something about a "gigolo"? Well, I'm not here to judge you, and I kind of always suspected you'd turn out to be a pimp.  Why, way back when you were just a tyke on principiadiscordia.com, making daily threats on Bob Dole's life, I said to myself, "This girl is going to be a playa, with a fine head for business and keeping that pimp hand strong."

Your Aunt says he's a pleasant enough guy, and seems to treat you right...This is a good thing, as the alternative is having 200 Discordians land on him like a mighty wave of shit and filth and stompin' boots, all infected with syphilis worms the size of pythons, with spiky bits and an acidic ooze that eats through condoms and stomps your chromosomes flat.

We are a filthy bunch, after all, truly the dregs of the intertubes, and we are always in need of new victims on which to do that horrible thing we do (in short, we haven't changed a bit). 

In my case, I have relocated to the arse of the nation, Tucson, Arizona.  Life here is very nice, if by "nice" you mean "the city where they shot the Good Humor man for the $47 in his cashbox".  Who the fuck kills the ice cream man?  I mean, even tweakers were kids once, right?  We also had a guy who actually got shot while he was being shot (our drive-by gunmen are apparently all cross-eyed).

On the plus side, I can drive like a total asshole (my poor Jeep spends more time in the body shop than on the road), and brandish my various firearms at gangstas on their mobility scooters and old people in their Lexuses (Lexii?) while fucked out of my head on all the pills the doctor says I need to deal with the brain damage from a nasty brain virus I had earlier this year.  So at least I have that going for me.
Drugs are bad, kids.  Don't take 'em.  Give them to Doktor Howl.

After all, it's not like you youngsters know how to deal with drugs.  Look at Keith Richards...Now there's a stone drug freak of the old school.  Sure, he looks like he died 30 years ago (he may have, come to think of it), and sure he can't remember any of the songs he used to play with the Stones, but he sure knew how to party.  The horrible condition he is in is testimony to his party ethic (seriously, google pics on him...The truly evil thing about heroin is that it might NOT kill you...It might turn you into Keith Richards).

However, while I suggest you don't DO drugs, I also suggest that you DO invest in drug companies at the first available opportunity.  50% of Americans medicate (booze, illegal drugs, prescription drugs) to deal with the horrible waves of future shock that roll over the country with increasing frequency and severity.  When I was a kid, we had rotary phones.  Now I have 2 cell phones and I have to throw shit at my boss to keep him from issuing me a crackberry.

So, yeah, it's getting harder and harder to for people to deal with America without some form of filter, chemical or otherwise.  Why do you think religious whackjobs are one the rise again?

Oh, yes.  The future is here, but it's not the one you were promised.  There are no flying cars, no jetpacks, you won't have a robot lover or a vacation on the moon, but you'll probably have a cell phone grown into your skeleton and an I-Pad display on the inside of your left eyelid...Because since the CoN figured out that they can't stop us from communicating, they elected instead to drown us in communication.
What this means, of course, is that you'll never get a chance to be alone, ever.  Your boss will be able to call you or even track your location whenever he likes, and your family can call to nag whenever they please.  You will, of course, rush right out to be the first sucker on your block to get this edgy new tech.

This is what my generation and the one immediately before it have done to you.  You see, we know that we're only borrowing the planet from our children, but it seems there's no collateral, so we just burned it up and left you a smoking cinder.  Sorry about that (Hey, kids!  Google "American deficit", then find an old person to beat up!) .

This of course justifies your generation shoving us onto icebergs (If there's any left by then) or simply rolling our wheelchairs over the nearest staircase.  Hell, I would if I were you, just as soon as we're too feeble to resist your terrible revenge (so, like, next Tuesday).  I shudder to think what's going to happen when the 12-22 year old generation realizes exactly what we've done to them, and it occurs to me that we should have aborted the whole lot of you, in self defense.  Well, too late now.  I shall pack an extra colostomy bag and 3 cases of Ensure shakes when you shovel me onto an ice floe, which should keep me strong enough long enough to eat my fellow old-timers.  I figure that if you jam a dozen of us on each floe, I could survive for months...More, if I drift close enough to another floe, so that I may hop feebly from one to the other like the cannibal pirate I always wanted to be.  I shall make you proud.

Okay for now,
Doktor Howl (aka The Good Reverend Roger)

PS:  My daughter has informed me that "gigolos" listen to "Icey Pee" (where DO these rappers get their names?), wear clown makeup, bandanas,   and hoodies.  That's new.  They used to wear wide collar shirts and bell bottoms, and obnoxious gold chest medallions.  Horrible, horrible.

Dear Doktor 000,

It is my pleasant duty to inform you that pulp (the 30s-50s writing genre) is not dead, and in fact has crept into almost every aspect of our daily lives, though not precisely as written.  How this was not previously noticed is a bit of a mystery, but consider:

Dick Tracy's radio wrist watch has arrived in the form of a cell phone.  Why bother with a two way radio and a watch, when you can have a phone/PTT/internet connection with a time function?  In fact, most watches will disappear, it seems, from the market within 5 years (Rolex and other status watches will probably remain for a decade or so, until they go out of style in the same fashion that pocket watches did.)

That secret jungle submarine base in Ecuador.  While not exactly Dr No (The subs were for smuggling drugs, not "world domination muhaha".), the fact that this sort of thing happens is in itself proof that bad guys can be cool, too.  The very idea that they build a MAD/sonar-proof submarine out of composite materials, one that can go down 20 meters and stay there for a day, is probably the stomp-down coolest thing that's happened in 30 years.

Videophones are here, in the form of laptops, and now Blackberries.

One of the things my plant produces is feedstock for making transparent aluminum.

Yes, Doktor 000, the future is more closely described by pulp than by Popular Mechanics...Check out their old "kitchen of the future" articles.  Unlike pulp, they completely missed.  The microwave, for example, was never even guessed at, outside of science fiction.  Once they invent a replicator, however, we'll all die of terminal obesity.

One other thing worth mentioning is that they're reviving the pseudo-flying car.  Basically, it's a car that wings can be added to (Essentially a Cessna that can be driven around.).  They are now planning communities around this.  How cool is that?  People in this city can't drive as it is, so you can see why the idea of them dealing with three dimensions of traffic fills me with an unholy and misanthropic glee.

The future is here, my good man, and it's time to embrace it.  It is time to don our Doktor smocks and cheesy glasses, and boldly stride forth into the horrible mess of bad planning, half-baked ideas, and cartoon bad guys that is emerging.  In fact, we need to BE those cartoon bad guys because, while FARC came close, they're just plain doin' it wrong.  South Americans apparently lack the proper glands for this sort of thing.

I expect to see your plans for your secret laboratory/base posthaste.

Okay for now,
Dok

Dear Doktor Badbeast,

I have a confession to make...The "American Revolution" was all a mindfuck, a colossal joke that got out of hand.  Thomas Jefferson tried to send a letter to that effect, but he foolishly gave it to Benjamin Franklin to deliver, and that hideous old pervert lost it in a Parisian whorehouse, said "fuck it", and let the good times roll.

But the joke is wearing thin, sir.  We've gone from subtle jokes like the Civil War, to obvious slapstick shit like George Bush Jr, to sheer tastelessness such as Sarah Palin and the entire Arizona state government.

I realize that it's still entertaining to some, but so was Charles in Charge (WARNING:  Do NOT google, for your own sake).  Carrying on a worn out joke for the amusement of a few is pandering of the worst sort, and it's getting harder and harder to write punch lines.  I mean, seriously, how the fuck do we top that dingbat from Alaska?  I'm sure we'll find a way, and I'm equally sure that your Eurospags will continue laughing at us, rather than with us.

Also, some of the jokes were downright irresponsible.  The recent banking gag is one example, and your response with BP just shows that anyone can get sucked into the sort of bad humor that's driving all of us to bad acid.

With that sort of writing, is it any wonder that the Queen has taken to assaulting American tourists with that brick-in-a-bag she calls a "purse"?  I can't say I blame her, particularly given the fact that the average American tourist is too fat and sloppy to out-waddle an 84 year old lady.

So let's get down to the nut-cutting.  You take us back, and we promise to send a few stout lads around to make Margaret Thatcher stop her habit of throwing poisoned darts at random passers-by, out of her Lincolnshire mansion's windows.

Seriously.  We can change.  We'll stop making bad sitcoms and we'll stop fucking up punk rock music.  We won't come sneaking in at 3 in the morning with Big Macs on our breath any more, and we'll apologize publicly for President Bush landing his helicopter in Queen Victoria's rose garden.

So please, forward this to the Queen, and have her send the Royal Navy around to reclaim the colonies.  We'll throw Texas out first, of course, and we'll make the Mormons behave.  I promise.

Okay for now,
Dok

Dear Doktor Cainad,

I see you standing there with your sideburns and your white boy fro.  I see you moving amongst the hipsters, without offering them the violence they deserve.  I see you complaining that you have no flying car, no robot girlfriend, no vacation on the moon.

I see you screaming that this isn't your future, that this is some horrible prison they built around you while you slept.  I see you driving (badly) your vanilla sedan, through your vanilla town full of vanilla people.  I hear you hollering at the idiots and losers and morons that you are forced to share a road with.

I read your posts, your observations, your pain at the stupidity of monkeys around you, your impatience with the primates who have forgotten that they are Gods.  I feel your desire to lash out in spectacular vengeance.

I understand your desire to run amok with your bare face hanging out, screaming in the faces of the doomed multitudes around you.  I see you yearn to see the shocked and disgusted looks on their faces as you bellow the horrible Truth out loud, in front of impressionable children and stupid people who don't know any better, who CAN'T know any better, because we have built a society that teaches people that looking at the Truth is immoral or illegal, and certainly unpatriotic.

I see all of this, Doktor Cainad, I see all of this and more...But you know what?  Your evil and insane urges really aren't evil and insane, it's just that you've been taught that they are, by people who have vested emotional and/or financial reasons to want you to believe that your repressed righteousness is somehow sick and wrong.

But they are wrong, Cainad, even if most of them honestly believe they're doing and saying the right things.  They are fools, and if it weren't for the fact that they're taking us with them, it would be more than appropriate to wave and smile as they leap down the chute, down that long, horrible chute to a place where nobody smiles and lawyers jam writs under your door and all the police really are pigs, and people walk around with unexplained puncture marks all over their backs and nobody can get laid right and rock n roll has been outlawed for your own good.

It seems you don't have to die to go to hell, Cainad.  Oh, no.

Now, I'm not saying we're smarter than they are, sir.  No, I'm saying we're better.  Why?  Because we have Eris and "Bob" and the divine excuses they offer.  It's really that simple. 

This is our century, Cainad.  Let's make the most of it.

Okay for now,
Dok

Dear Doktor Hoopla,

Words cannot express how miserable it was to return to Tucson, after visiting both your beautiful city and Providence, RI.  You have real cities, with people that look like people and have facial expressions like real people, and buildings more than one floor high.

Yet I had to return, and here I sit, breathing powdered coyote shit and cooking to a cinder every time I step foot out of my office.  I am surrounded by desert rats, retirees from North Dakota who think Sarah Palin is Jesus with tits, and junkies of every description.

Oh, how I hate you all.

Enclosed you will find a letter from young Uday, to be passed on to his papa, whom he misses terribly (If he didn't miss his papa so terribly, HE'D be dictator of Salizore).  Please make sure this reaches the Generalissimo.  

Next item:  Abject failure.  We tried to troll the teabaggers at their office in the Maze District, by going totally over the top.  Poe's Law bit us, though, and they tried to recruit us.  Naturally, I signed up, just as I am registered with the republican party (The Dems expelled me in 2008) and a proud, card-carrying member of Focus on the Family.  

Just consider me the right wing's guinea worm, lurking about in their organizations, waiting to strike.  Don't worry, though, I'm not in this for the "long troll", and I won't pull a Fomentor and suddenly turn you all in as the filthy subversives that you are, at least unless there's a lot of money involved.

In fact, my next goal is to get on the mailing list of the Promise Keepers (Google these guys...they're a hoot.)  Miserable sinner that I am, I could use a stay at one of their "retreats", where they instruct you on how to keep your wife barefoot and pregnant, and properly subservient.  Oh, my, Hoops, it's like God put these Yahoos on Earth just for me to fuck with.  It's almost enough to convince me of the benevolence of a superior being.

You should look up some of these boohoos in your area, for my next visit.  I know you have them, though they may be thinner on the ground than they are here.  After all, you silly fuckers elected Mike Harris back in the day, and Harper is still running around with his bare face hanging out, so they have to exist somewhere.  Find them, and when I return (either at Christmas time or early next summer, just like this year), we'll scoop up Nurse Rhizome and go get right with the church, so to speak.

We will march on a road of bones.  We are, after all, professionals.

Okay for now,
Dok

Papa,

Uday is not enjoy trip to Arizona.  True, is many guns and many the crazy peoples, but Uday is not find womens to make sexy time with.  Is ask, is told where womens, but only find dried up mummy, like in caves on Salizore.  Mummies is talk here, but is still mummies.

Uday connect with teabaggers like papa say, but is not like Uday expect.  Is not the sexy at all.  Is stand around street corner with signs, yelling like have Salizoran weasel in pants.  Signs is funny, though, is like teabaggers not from America or even Brampton.  Is say "Obama = Facism" (sic) and "THE CONSTITUTION, REED IT".  Uday is no joking with papa.

Uday is think these teabaggers too stupid for co-opt.  Think we miss boat with John Birch Society 20 year ago.  Is like brownshirts but with food stain all over snappy uniform, is embarrass on battlefield.

Also, Uday is look for ocean, but is only beach.  Is no sexy womens on blanket, only wild pig-rat thing and coyotes.  Is eat Uday guide, Uday only escape by throwing the street urchin at pig-rat and run like Diabo behind Uday.  So like Salizore, only no midgets.

So Uday request transfer to party town like Burlington or Nappannee.  Is even consider St Johns.  Is safer, is not get run over by fat bastard on "mobility scooter".  Papa will consider, yes?  Is better, is mama not "accidentally" get you address.

Love and kisses,
Uday

Dear Doktor Iason,

I trust this finds you and your ever-increasing family to be in fine shape, down in the horrible and degenerate state of Hoosier Land.  Maria and I discussed your options, and we suggest that you have both kids fitted out with prosthetic arm extensions that include 3' stainless steel blades.  It's the only way to be sure that the inbred yahoos and Klansmen from down highway 20 don't get to them.

I once got lost on highway 20, trying to get to Hammond from Chicago.  It was hideous, Iason...The towns were all less than 500 people, there was a church on every block, usually run out of peoples' living rooms, and they all had names like "The First Hallalujah Church of Snake Handling and Cyanide Drinking", or "First Reformed Church of Dagon, Scientist".   I wound up stopping for gas in one of these little burgs, and while I was waiting to pay for my gas, I watched not one, but TWO people buy and eat pickled eggs from a jar that looked like it was made in 1930.  I didn't think anyone actually ate those things.  Horrible, horrible.

Speaking of horrible, I really have to do something about this Indian cuisine habit of mine.  Every Sunday, I have an "India hot" chicken vindaloo...and every Monday, I have to call the plumber for my office bathroom.  Considering what he's forced to deal with, it is hardly any wonder that he starts swearing at me on the phone, and continues swearing at me when he arrives, until he leaves.  He hates me like poison, Iason, and I can't say I blame him.   I've offered him a half-mask, but he only howls inarticulately at me, and sobs like a child as he walks into the bathroom.  This morning, he has told me he's quitting the business, and taking up petty crime for a living.

Well, he knew the risks when he took the job.

One interesting note on Tucson, by the way:  We have a couple of really weird cults spreading here.  One is The Cult of the Black Madonna, which I believe I have mentioned, and which is at least 130 years old, but seems to be growing fairly rapidly.  It seems to be unrelated to the Mexican cult of the same name, and seems to have morphed into a bizarre neo-Luddite thing that destroys electronics at their altars.  The other I haven't identified yet, but seems to be some Egyptian thing or other, that paints a stylized Egyptian eye over the crossed out words "Cops Kill" in fairly prominent, public places.  I at first took it for regular tagging, but the images are identical, and they're popping up everywhere, from South Filth to the Legal District, to Oro Valley.  This, of course, bears further study, and I'll let you know what I find.  Unless they catch me and eat me of course, in which case all bets are off.

Okay for now,
Dok

Dear Doktor Michal,

It's good to see you again after your long absence exploring the ruins of Seattle.  Now that the radiation has decreased to tolerable levels, I am sure you have your work cut out for you, documenting the events that led up to The Big Whoops.

I've seen pictures, and I have to give you credit for sheer guts, working around the horrible mutants that have somehow survived.  They've apparently even become cyborgs, almost like Daleks, whirring around on those little mobility scooter things they use to support their vast bulk...Including the little air bottles they keep their supplies of smog in, as they cannot breathe real air, like you and I.

The media cover up was pretty much total, by the way.  Most Americans don't know that anything happened to Seattle (Hell, most people think Seattle is somewhere in Texas.), and those that do know aren't talking.  I mean, would you?  It's embarrassing.  The Europeans laugh at us, for letting things get out of hand like that.

I mean, it should have been obvious that allowing that many out-of-work 90s rock bands get together at once spelled nothing but trouble, and that fucked up senator of yours didn't help matters, either, when he cracked that joke about "the 11 button" at the University's reactor facility. 

Well, there's no sense crying over spilled neutrons, I guess, and you guys certainly have your work cut out for you...But it could be worse.  You could be here.  We have - I shit you not - killer feral ostriches.  They escape from the ostrich ranches at Casa Grande, eat the wrong plants, and go absolutely batshit.  They can also kick your guts out faster than you can blink, with huge fucking razor sharp talons. 

We also have weird cults, hordes of insane homeless people (Phoenix doesn't like 'em, so they bus them down here.), and every imaginable example of piss-poor driving that the nation has to offer.  We also have the world's worst live bands, even worse than those airheads you guys used to have in Seattle (Hey, who said reactor accidents are all bad, anyway?).

That being said, consider yourself to have an open invitation to come up to the high desert and witness the horror for yourself.  It will make the ruins of Seattle look like paradise.  With mutants.

Okay for now,
Dok

Dear Doktor Pixie,

I trust this letter finds you well, or at least as well as you horrible Southampton thugs can be.   We here in Tucson are the same as ever, bent forward into the hideous rain of shit and failure that Eris has seen fit to bestow on her Holy City™.

The reason I am writing is to enquire into the whereabouts of that Scots bastard you've taken up with.  He's been missing for quite a while, and some of us are beginning to wonder if perhaps something sinister has been going on.  Perhaps a little lime and cement work in the basement?  I hear that is the favored method of body disposal in England, as you garden every square meter that isn't paved over, and nothing CAN sink in the Thames, given the quality of the "water" that flows down it, these days.  Rumor has it that the older houses have bodies stacked 6 deep, down in the cellar.

If on the other hand, you have simply imprisoned him an attic, in some horrible arrangement of gimp mask and bondage gear, merely say so and set our minds at ease.  We are used to these sorts of perversions, but it IS customary to warn others, so that the police aren't called.

Next item of business:  My trip to the UK.  I have heard that there is a river in London that has been completely bricked over and forgotten.  I wish to look for it, for science.  Might be the Trent...I have it written down somewhere. 

The Plan is to hit Scotland, London, and Southampton, sometime in the dead of winter, when the awful stench of your cooking and heroin addicts will be at its lowest point.  I'm thinking January or February.  I expect that you lot will have plenty of horrible filth for me to roll around in, and many spags to do it with.  In addition, I fear not your English women, so bring 'em on, in carload lots.  I am a man of many vile perversions and limitless lusts, and the drugs will only slow me down for so long. 

Also, is there a bag limit on chavs?  We have had to institute one on guidos here, as they are rapidly becoming a threatened species.  They are like children, Pix...Useless to anyone, constantly attention whoring, and they make horrible noises when you kick them.  I am hoping for better sport on your side of the pond.

Lastly, you really do need to improve your aim vis-a-vis the whole Rain God thing.  We're a week overdue for the monsoon season at the time of this writing, and the dew point hasn't budged.  If we don't get some rain soon, the whole fucking state will burn down.  We'll sacrifice your ex-husband on your altar, if that's what it takes, if you tell us where he is.

Okay for now,
Dok

PS:  If you haven't killed the spag, say hello for me once the rufies wear off.

Dear Doktor Squid,

Gazing down from my Fortress of Arrogance here in the high desert, I could not help but notice the sheer volume of freedom washing up on your beaches.  That, combined with the fact that 50% of the spill by weight seems to be methane, leads me to urge you to action.

Panic now.

That's right, grab your husband and your kid and even those mutated fucking cats, and head for the high desert.  This is a limited time offer...after we have enough people here, we're all putting on stompin' boots and kicking any further refugees back down the mountain (scores will be tallied, and prizes awarded for number of refugees kicked, style, and sexiness of boots) to their certain doom in the coming chaos.  So don't delay.

No, jump in the car and drive like you stole the fucking thing (Bonus points if you did steal it.).  We're all set up here...Our power plant is archaic, and has "burn anything boilers", so when the oil stops coming in, we can start shoveling in blue hairs, stranded snowbirds, and people from Phoenix.  We can bump the octane, if needed, simply by jamming a hobo or two in the hopper (Note to self:  Not too many hoboes at once.).

And as long as we have power, we have water.  Sure, the water has more minerals in it than a '67 Chevy, but that's what filters are for, right?  And the cadmium runoff from Davis Monthan AFB only makes us stronger.

The best part of this is that you already have the style we're looking for, based on the pics you have posted.  All you have to do is give your husband a mohawk, strap him into a leather harness and jockstrap ala The Road Warrior, and teach your kid how to fire and maintain a crossbow. 

We'll even give you dibs on trashing the local Wells Fargo offices, and dealing with any management refugees that show up on the slopes of our perfect little utopia.

Seriously, you aren't going to receive a better offer than this, from any of the other enclaves.  Except Denver, of course, but they're full of religious retards that drink Coors because they like it.  You want to hang out with people like that?  Of course you don't.  Besides, we have cactus.  They have Advil.  Not a difficult decision.

Okay for now,
Dok

PS:  Don't bring any religious freak neighbors.  We have a gene pool to consider here, and we don't want any NASCAR leaking in.

Dear Doktor Telarus,

Please be advised that we here in Tucson have had it up to our bottom lip with your incessant denigration of our fair city.  I have heard that your city's motto is "Keep Portland Weird", but so far I have yet to see anything weird come out of Portland.  I mean, it's not really all that weird, is it?

Sure, you have "the pipe", and you have that weird shit going on at Washington & 10th, and of course the tunnels, but that's about it.  Other than that, you have 582,100 vanilla hippies, and about 30 Discordians.  And everything's do damn NICE there, that it makes me wish to bring the fucking hammer down on you.  No wonder people keep driving off your bridges.  I would, if I lived there.

So, yeah, enough talking trash about our fair city.  I mean, I'm not denying that we have cannibal street urchins, and I'd be the last to tell you that we don't have at least two really strange cults growing at alarming rates, and I'm not going to bullshit you and say we don't have huge unemployment numbers, meth heads coming out of every orifice, and entirely too many dumb people with guns...But at least we have the biggest per-capita population of perverts, killer fucking ostriches (!!!), the highest population of refugees (Who brought their cuisine with them.), and 4 Casinos that routinely and proudly showcase the very worst musical acts of the 70s and 80s.

Do YOU get Captain and Tennile live in concert, even if they are on life support? 

HAH!  WE DO.  We also get Terry Jacks.  Fucking owned.

Yes, and those very same casinos sport the very finest lounge lizards.  I can state with authority that our lounge scum are superior to that of Atlantic City or even Las Vegas.  Here, the leisure suit never goes out of style, and Debbie Dean is worshipped at little shrines they built next to the men's room.

True, Elton John is playing at the Ava next week, but he prepared for it by singing at Rush Limbaugh's wedding, so he fits.

Also, you have way too much water.  You let it just run on by.  This is because your city is decadent and weak, and will be easy pickings when we come boiling out of the high desert, like a plague of wrinkled up leather...Imagine 200,000 screaming Clint Eastwoods (and they're the youngins!). 

You're fucked.  We will cough consumptively until you all die of summer colds.  Then we'll take your water, and loot your homes for actual wooden furniture.  The plastic stuff makes everything static-y.

Okay for now,
Dok

Dear Doktor Vexation,

I've been running some calculations, and it seems that the Tucson Effect will result in your reentry sometime next year, at the corner of  12th and Ajo.  The impact will leave a crater approximately 35 feet deep, and have the equivalent explosive power of 10 Richter/Vindaloo ass bombs. 

The only way to prevent this, of course, is to come here under your own power.  Remember that nobody ever actually escapes, and the longer you stay away, the worse things will be when the inevitable happens.

And why would you stay away?  There is no better place to study the coming horrors of the 21st century, after all...Tucson is the distilled essence of all that is horrible and wrong with America.  It's like Las Vegas without the cheap glitz, or Disney World without the veneer of Pollyanna-ism and nostalgia for a 1950s that never actually existed.

Don't think of it as a city...Think of it as a laboratory.  A place where we can study and catalogue the various criminals, junkies, homeless homicidal maniacs, and corrupt politicians in their native environment, so that we can accurately predict what the rest of the country will look like in 10 years or so.

It's horrible and it's awful, sir, but we do this shit for science.

Not that this will help anything, of course, but pure science isn't about application, it's about simple knowledge gathering.  Leave the futile attempts to stave off doom to the professors and their variant of nurses.

Because we know, don't we?  We have seen the future, and we recognize the face of degeneracy when we see it.  World-wide, our culture is baroque at best, and terminal at worst.  The best you and I can hope for is to go down in the next civilization's history as the next Cicero, vainly screaming across the centuries to a future that will make their children study us, but won't actually listen.

I mean, we sure as hell haven't paid any attention to Cicero, right?  Every thing we're doing is what he screamed about.  He screamed and screamed until they finally cut his head and hands off, and nailed them over the senate door to get the message across to anyone else that might have had any bright ideas.

No, we're going to do the same silly shit the Romans did, and the civilization that follows us after IT happens (whatever IT happens to be) will do the same thing again.  Rinse, repeat.  We, as a species, are slow learners...But at least you and I, like Cicero, can snark from the grave with an ectoplasmic "WE TOLD YOU SO!".

Okay for now,
Dok

Dear Doktor Vitriol,

Enclosed you will find one copy of MSY #1, and what appears to be a small quantity of my pubic hair, though how it got in there is a mystery to me.  Strange things often happen around here, and I am constantly getting hair torn out, weird welts and puncture wounds on my back, and the image of the bad Baby Jesus spontaneously appearing in my feces.

If I were not a man of science, I would presume that I am being haunted...But I AM a man of science, and I suspect that Maria has been sneaking in at night and slaking her perverse and depraved lusts on my virtuous personage while I sleep.

But enough of that.  I have the shameful duty of reporting failure on the haggis project.  We had decided to ignore your sound advice, and approach it from a large-scale model.  However, the many of the sheep kept jamming up the chipper, and the wading pool turned out to be unequal to the task of supporting both the output of the chipper and the cement mixer load of oatmeal. 

The resulting mess flowed down La Canada Road and drowned some geezer on his mobility scooter.  I could see the poor bastard at the bottom of the valley, spinning the wheels of his scooter, but with his bulk on it, he didn't stand a chance.  Poor fucker didn't even have any scotch to drink while he sank into the vile effluent. We did throw a sack of tatties and neeps in after him, but he only cursed us as the muck flowed over him.

That's the problem with this city, Doktor, there's no appreciation for new food experiences.  And no gratitude.

This is yet another reason why I am looking forward to visiting your fine country during the dead of winter.  I have been told that is in fact the best time to come, as the trash and sewage is all too frozen to smell, and most of the junkies will either be hunkered down in forgotten alleyways or they've slid down the street into the Tay and frozen to death.

I should like to see at least one castle while I am there, both because I am a shameless tourist (we have no cool shit like that here), and because I wish to write down some ideas for my eventual lair.  One with an oubliette would be preferable, as this will be a prime consideration in the construction plans.

I'm thinking January or February, though I am flexible to some degree.  I will, of course, be expecting some fine filth to roll around in, and some horrible bastards to roll with.  I hear you have a supply of both, so I look forward to this trip with confidence.  Also, I have had my shots, I fear not your hideous fleshpots and pubs of ill-repute.

Okay for now,
Dok

PS:  I shall be steeling my nerves (and arteries), and would prefer to try some authentic Scottish food.  I will sign any required waivers.

Dear Doktor Vitriol,

Okay, THIS time you will find enclosed a copy of MSY1, provided I am not such a retard as to AGAIN stick this letter in a regular envelope when I get home, rather than the shipping envelope that contains your copy.

This sort of mushy-headed thinking is part and parcel of living in the high desert.  It's a combination of sunstroke and anoxia, and seems to be unavoidable.  In any case, it helps me to fit in with my fellow Americans, who are by and large a pack of howling swine.

Oh, yes.  America™ in the new century is not a pretty sight.  Insane teabaggers, vicious cops, bumper to bumper traffic on Sunday afternoons...It is an ugly time, with ugly people.  It is a time when Bad Things happen to stupid people, and if you can't state your case to The Man, you're well and truly fucked.  Hydroencephalitic skulls, pencil necks, and fat asses are the defining trait of the 21st Century American.

Indeed, it's an ugly scene, and I would flee, were it not for the humor of it all.  It's like living in a 3 Stooges episode, only Curly has been replaced with Hannibal Lecter...No, scratch that, that's far too classy a bad guy.  I'm thinking Roy Cohn.

So I suppose I'll stick around, and watch the aforementioned Bad Things happen to random idiots.  For example, yesterday I watched some dumbfuck get pissed at a Pima County sheriff's deputy...He was upset that the deputy had pulled him over for merely driving 60 MPH in a 35 MPH zone, and eventually said the magic words..."Do you know who I am?"

Cops love that shit, Doktor, they love it the way you and I would love having Lady Gaga ring our doorbell naked at 3AM on a Friday night.  They wind up doing basically the same thing to the Big Shot that you would do to Gaga, only far, far less pleasantly.

The Yahoo was dragged away screaming and cursing, as the crowd on the sidewalk looked on and laughed. Nobody felt an iota of remorse...Especially if he really WAS a big shot.  That would only make it more delicious.

Whoops.  Got a little off topic.  Anyway, enjoy the comic...The artwork is substandard, but it was Kim's first effort...It will also be her last effort, as word of her insane lawsuit against me has spread to every indie press comic joint in America, by way of the backchannel editor's forum.  Oddly enough, I had nothing to do with this.  She must have ran her mouth in front of the wrong people.  Funniest part?  Due to this being a communal property state, she had to name Maria on the lawsuit.  Maria isn't happy about this, not one bit.  Ho ho ho!

Okay for now,
Dok

Dear Eater of Clowns,

They got Bungee Joe, man, they shot him down like a dog in the street, for no good reason.  He was just coming out of Sandra's Fish and Chips, and they shot him full of holes, to the point where he looked more like a pomegranate than a man.

We're running out of heroes, up here in the high desert...Bungee Joe might technically have been a criminal, but I never thought of him that way.  Joe was more of an adventurer, in a world that has no room for his kind, anymore.  He wasn't a bad guy, he was born and raised proper, I guess life just bugged him.

I guess the cops win again.  They got him, even if it wasn't actually the police that shot him, just like they got Dillinger and Ma Barker and Curly.  Sometimes the cops do it themselves, and sometimes they just make it happen, through people they have their thumb on.

And they HAD to kill Bungee Joe.  He was too loud and too proud and they couldn't get him to shut up.  He hollered and hollered, no matter how often they beat him...Until it started to get publicly embarrassing, and they had to make sure he finally shut the hell up.

You see, Joe was an old world man.  He believed in freedom and having a good time, and they believe in a nice happy utopia where everyone is safe and happy and nice.  And Joe was in the way of that, if only in South Filth...And Tucson is determined to "clean up" and become the next Portland (Ye Gods), where everything is clean and sanitary and shiny...Which doesn't exactly leave room for people like Joe and I.  And you, for that matter.

We like our fun all dirty and wrong, and we're not ashamed to say it.  We hang out with perverts and thugs and loose women, and we prefer driving like a maniac, with a head full of pills and a back seat full of guns, over a nice night out bowling or whatever the hell the vanilla drones do on a Saturday night.

We know the face of degeneracy, and it knows us.  It is in fact the only thing we love that loves us back.  We are, you and I, the last surviving members of Saturday Night in our respective cities.  How the fuck did that happen?  I can clearly remember a time when things were different, when we wore leather jackets and drove horribly illegal street machines that existed only to go really fast and have a large back seat.  We carried bicycle chains in our jackets and rubbers in our jeans and hatred in our hearts and...

...We haven't changed a bit, have we, cats?

Okay for now,
Dok

Dear Kalera,

Enclosed, you will find masks of Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon.  They hung over my computer when I lived in Chicago, and I am passing them on, so you can do the same in Portland...For sinners such as you and I are in need of their guidance.  They have never steered me wrong, though they were and are mysteriously silent when it comes to NFL betting odds.

That's particularly strange in the case of Nixon, who followed football with an intensity that matched every other thing he did, for good or for ill.  Nevertheless, I can only hope that they give you the same sage counsel that they gave to me, on those endless nights when the temperature just won't come down, your bourbon stocks are low, your frop is moldy and won't light, and lawyers pound on your door waving writs and screeching about whatever it is they think you did this time.

Well, fuck them, K...We don't need them.  They are tiny men who squeak like a dog's chew toy...They move like lightning, but speak only gibberish.  They have no place in the new century, and they will be ground under foot with the rest of the swine.  They are a plague, but will last precisely 10 minutes after The Incident (Whatever The Incident happens to be.), and will be nothing more than pudgy food for aggressive coyotes.

History has recorded Reagan and Nixon as bad guys, but I kind of miss them.  They were warriors, Kalera...They knew why we hated them, and they didn't care.  Contrast that with limp dicks like Dick Durbin (D-IL), who called Guantanamo Bay a form of Nazism, then fell all over himself apologizing to Dick Cheney.  Nixon and his merry band of felons would have beaten Dick Cheney senseless on general principles, then they would have taken turns using Dick Durbin as a condom.

They were giants, K, even if they were evil, and the world will not see their like again.  No, we are stuck with a lesser breed of politician these days, a milquetoast crew that you can see right through, if they're between you and a bright light.  Ronald Reagan would have them all beaten through the streets of DC, leaving them unconscious and bleeding in Baltimore, all covered in strange welts and puncture wounds, with large sections of their memories missing, their thumbs tied together, and wearing Minnie Pearl's old dresses.

This may be exactly what you need.  The stern faces of the Last Great American Politicians looking down on you, when the fuckup fairy comes along and you decide to paste a slaphappy grin on and stick your ovaries back in the meat grinder.  When you feel that goofy urge coming on, just gaze upon their faces, and let the (admittedly evil) wisdom of these elder statesmen guide you back onto the straight and narrow.

Okay for now,
Dok

Dear Lex,

Words cannot describe how it felt returning from Boston and Providence to this hellhole.  This place has even managed to fuck up urban blight, though you have to leave for a while to notice it.  It's 40 miles long, 5 miles wide, and an inch deep.

And you have WOMEN there.  Real, actual women...Whereas the combination of poor diet, alcohol, drugs, and punishing sunlight has rendered our female population into something that looks like Queen Nefertiti...After she was mummified, and left in a desert tomb for 3000 years or so.  Only with worse teeth.

And they flirt, Lex.  They try to come on to you, and your balls crawl up into your stomach, pause for a moment, and then sprint for your throat.  It's like dawn of the dead, if all the zombies though they were the next P!nk.

And those are the ones in decent shape.  The rest are on mobility scooters, 400 pounds of doughy-skinned horror wearing a "Princess" tee shirt and screaming "You can't HAVE this!" while they shovel another chili dog into their gaping, toothless maw.

And then there's the crazy ones, Lex.  I told you about the coroner chick with the jar of human teeth under her bathroom sink, and I've told you plenty about that insanely violent woman I am occasionally married to...And those are the better ones, man.  It only goes downhill from there.  And by "downhill" I mean "crazy fucking fun that makes you want to throw yourself into a chipper the next morning out of sheer self-revulsion".  So it's not ALL bad.

But enough about that.  Some things are simply too awful to contemplate, after all, and this is supposed to be a nice, friendly letter from the beautiful city of Tucson, where hardly anyone gets shot in the back and tossed in a dumpster, or ODs, or gets mobbed in broad daylight by desperate homeless people who may, for all I know, eat their victims.

No, this is as close to paradise as you get, Lex, and you and the wife should consider spending part of your winters here.  Winter is the good season...The temperature stays at around 55F, and the air isn't too full of wind-born dried-to-powder coyote poop, and the hoboes all stay in the legal district, restricting themselves to shanking people on jury duty who wander too far from the courthouse at lunchtime.

Yep, you can escape your ice-bound city for a week or three, and come visit some of our quaint tourist attractions.  Tombstone, for example, which has been rebuilt to commemorate the horrible violence of 1881, to give you a break from the horrible violence of 2010.

Ho ho!  Just kidding.  Crime is down 43%, they say...Though it seems they are only counting metro Tucson anymore, which is - you guessed it - 57% of the greater population.  Anything to keep from scaring the snowbirds away, I guess.

Well, shit.  There I go again.  Perhaps a career in public relations isn't in my immediate future.  It's just as well, really.  I can't picture myself being that particular kind of whore...Though I am not above selling maps to the Lost Dutchman Mine to gullible North Dakota retards, just for cheap kicks.  I figure I'm doing North Dakota a favor, when I send people off into the desert on a "short walk, maybe 2 hours".

You have to take your fun where you can, Lex, nobody's going take it for you. 

On the plus side, there's our entertainment.  You really have to come up here, just for that.  While you are stuck with talented bands and singers that can hold a tune, we are blessed with Kenny Loggins tribute bands (I shit you not.) and endless renditions of Free Bird.  You also have the option of hitting the University District and listening to the latest screamo band try out their newest lyrics.  Unfortunately, you aren't allowed to hit them.

As I write this, incidentally, Mike the engineer is talking at me about something.  He seems oblivious to the fact that I'm completely ignoring him.  His breath washes over me like garlic hellfire, and I am perilously close to about 10 violent felonies.  I imagine he thinks I am editing a procedure, or doing something else productive.  I'm not, and I am having more and more difficulty tolerating his braying laughter as he laughs at his own stale humor.  I have a 2 pound blacksmith's mallet in my desk drawer (Which is left over from when filthy assistant shared my office, and would put Limbaugh on the radio.), and it sings to me. 

Ah, there, he's finally left, blissfully unaware of his near-death experience, having successfully ruined my previous good mood.  Why do they plague me so, Lex?  I have made it abundantly clear that I don't like them, am not interested in what they have to say, and would rather see them dropped off in the middle of the Santa Ritas, to help support the local wildlife.  Yet they continue to "drop in for a chat", ignoring my body language and subtle hints ("Get the fuck out of my office, you fat bastard.").  It's inexplicable.

Perhaps I am simply not expressing myself clearly.  Perhaps I should purchase a taser, or maybe just one of those cattle prods, so beloved of the Chicago police in the not-so-distant pass.  Give the bastards a taste of high voltage, and see how fast they can run.

I swear, Lex, this place is beginning to have an effect on my sweet and optimistic personality.  But what can you do?

It's Tucson.  Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

Okay for now,
Dok

Dear Michelle,

I hope this finds you and yours well, especially given the rough year you've had.  I've already hollered at you enough about getting out of that hellhole, so I won't belabor the point.

So, JW wants to join the military and blow shit up, eh?  Well, 5 years ago, I'd counsel against it, but times have changed, and I'd advise that he do just that.  After all, his odds of being wounded or killed aren't much worse than they are in St Louis, and at least he'll have an M4 to shoot back with.

He'll also have more fun...I did 10 years in the infantry (army), and I had a great time.  Sure, you spend some time deployed to God-awful shithole countries, and yeah, you spend a lot of time being eaten by mosquitoes on field problems, but it's a hell of a Saturday night, and while you have new worries that civilians don't have, you at least have 3 hots and a cot no matter what.

If it's explosions and adventure he's after, I'd suggest the army (The Marines have no fun at all, and usually spend 6 months at a time cooped up in a ship somewhere.), specifically in the infantry or cavalry.  The infantry gets to blow shit up more, but the cavalry doesn't walk as far, and the importance of that can't really be conveyed without experiencing it.  A 30 mile forced march followed by a 20 mile infiltration in 3 days will eat you alive.

The important thing for him to remember is that basic training IS as bad as it looks...Worse, truth be told, and there's no getting around it.  The secret is to get past the first 4 weeks, when it's mostly boredom, homesickness, and chickenshit...After that, he'll get to play with the toys, and it gets way more enjoyable after that...And the thing to remember is that basic WILL end, and the real army is nothing like basic at all.  It's more fun, and it also has the added advantage of having the world treat an 18 year old like a man, instead of a teenager.

I'll write more about that later, and I'll be happy to answer any questions that you or he may have...But I will state, unreservedly, that he's safer in the military than in St Louis, and he'd definitely be better off, employment-wise.  Plus, if he plays his cards right, he'll get some schooling when he has had enough of toting a rucksack for a living...Unless he becomes a lifer, which isn't really a bad option.  I was one myself, until a knee injury did me in.  Training accidents happen, just like accidents happen anywhere else.  Well, hell, I could have been hit by a bus at home, right?

Most importantly, it's a way out of the ghetto.  And, given the crucible he is living in now, plus the hardening and polishing he'll get in the army, he'll have a much better chance at getting by in the coming weird times.  Trust me on this, I'm a Doktor.

Okay for now,
Dok
   

Dear Mister the Coast Hustle,

Having now completely explored the Southwest, I am now relying on the Northeast to display any form of Americanism (as envisioned by the founders) whatsoever.  They're worthless and weak here, ECH, despite any reputation they may have for "rugged individualism", as a recently failed politician would put it.

Yes, they are weak, and utterly useless.  The entire area you may think of as "cowboy country" is one huge collection of fat middle aged women and emo-tards.  They hate me like poison, sir, and I am glad of it.  If they didn't hate me, I'd re-evaluate the way I live my life.  They are wrong, in a way that is very hard to properly explain.  They know I know this, and it renders the men impotent with hatred and makes the women desperate to mate with me, which is such a repulsive concept (you have no idea how ugly they are here) that I have to bludgeon myself to sleep with benzos every night.

You really can't picture it, ECH, not that you'd want to...Vast mounds of blubber shuffling slowly down the road in the summer heat, leaving a trail of sweat deep enough to flood your car's engine...The stench in WalMart is bad enough to make Genghis Khan puke up his fermented mare's milk, and those that aren't fat have that horrible meth face and emaciated frame that in other regions are only seen at raves.

You can't even slap them, because they just take it.  Just last month, I heaved a dead javelina into my neighbor's yard, and he smiled the next time he saw me, and asked me if he had done anything to offend me.  Can you believe that shit?

Oh, they're plenty brave in numbers, of course.  They've banded together quite nicely to let Juan the gardener know precisely what they think of him (While at the same time hiring him to do the yard, because he's cheap.), and they're courageous as hell at a town hall meeting, where they foolishly assume they won't be punished in the parking lot, later on.  Fuck with my kids' biology classes, will they?  Fucking Calvinists.

They are sickly and worthless, ECH, but there are simply too many of them.  I can't properly punish them all by myself.  I am completely swamped in geeks and losers and fat disgusting Goddamn religious freaks.  I'd invite you down to bag a few, but you'd have to be a fool to give up that shipboard job, and a fool you are not.

You have no idea what a service I provide for you Eastern types, keeping these freaks up here at high altitude, where their abused cardio-vascular systems don't allow them to do much more than slowly roll down the aisle in their mobility scooters.  If they were ever allowed to roll down hill where there's more oxygen, you'd be up to your bottom lip in a wash of human filth that would make you long for the zombiepocalypse, if you aren't already, with the stench burning out your nose hair and the very sight rendering you too physically ill to do anything other than beg for death from a disinterested God.

Okay for now,
Dok

Dear Mr. Language,

I would like to offer my congratulations on your nomination to the Milton Supman Society.  Though I am sure your sponsor, Ms. Kalera Stratton, has told you of the nature of our work, I will take a moment to explain things, to avoid any misunderstandings.

Named after the famous prophet of doom, Milton Supman, the Society is a multi-disciplinary group dedicated to documenting and studying the horror (as opposed to the events) of the 21st Century, to include the imminent pseudo-apocalypse, of which I am sure you are aware.

We find your language skills to be of particular interest, as we have no "in house" Spanish speakers of any fluency, or at least none that we trust not to "improve" documents assigned for translation.  On line translation software is also of little use to us, as the wildly varying accuracy of said software is well known to all.  It is disappointing in the extreme to think you've found new information on Tucson's Cult of the Black Madonna, only to find that the text you are "translating" is actually an advertizing circular for a penis-enhancement product.

In addition, while we rarely ever have need to "fight or flee", Ms. Stratton has informed us of your prowess with firearms and bladed weapons, and your utter fearlessness in the face of certain grisly death.  While we do not anticipate too many occasions where this will come in handy, it certainly counts in your favor.

One concern we do have, though, is Ms. Stratton's report of your occasional "outbursts".  While we find the public beating of hipsters to be a commendable act, I am sure you will agree that there is a time and place for everything, and will not indulge in this  hobby while on Society business (should you become affiliated with us). 

Likewise, while we are all modern people with modern sensibilities, we would also expect that your apparent habit of chewing on peyote and doing the "Barbie Dance" naked in public will also be restrained to times in which you are not functioning as an agent of the society.

That being said, while our society neither collects dues nor issues pay, we do expect that you will enjoy the company of your fellow scholars, most especially as this company is usually at a great distance, thus sparing you from the odious personal habits and might I say "passing acquaintance with personal hygiene" so prevalent among researchers of this nature.

Also, should the worst happen, your name will be immortalized on the side of the home office and - should any remains be recovered from the abandoned subways, moldy tombs, etc, in which you may meet your end - these will be cleaned up and kept as relics, typically maintained by Doktor Vitriol, in our Scotland offices.

I shall leave Ms. Stratton to explain some of our more prominent recent discoveries, such as the martyrdom of Richard Nixon, the actual date of Jimmy Carter's death (and what is masquerading as him now), and the awful truth about the American Revolution, among other fascinating subjects.  Instead, I shall focus on what Ms. Stratton has told us is your primary interest:  The coming pseudo-apocalypse.

While the implications of the "information bomb", as we call it (others call it "escalating future shock", or - in the case of certain ridiculous hippies, "the singularity") are becoming apparent, what is not as apparent to the casual observer is the impact it is having on the species as a whole.

For example, certain recent events seem to come straight out of pulp action novels of the 1930s, such as the recent (July 2nd, 2010) discovery and capture of a secret jungle submarine manufacturing facility in Ecuador (ABC News did an excellent story on the actual facts of this case, if not the sheer absurdity of it, as did many other news agencies).

Likewise, the figures on people who have to filter the ever-increasing amount of information (via drugs, illegal or prescription, alcohol, weird religion, nativist movements  such as the Tea Party, etc) have become nothing short of alarming.  It seems that 80% of the adult population of America alone actively take steps to make themselves dumber for the purpose of sheltering themselves from the horrible blizzard of information that is dumped on them daily. 

They do this at the same time they drive themselves into debt by obtaining even more  methods of gathering information...Cell phones, Blackberries, I-Pads, global modems, plasma TVs, satellite radio, etc.  The reason for this seems to be that information dissemination breeds information dissemination.  Once a person obtains something as prosaic as a television set, they are bombarded with advertisements for further information tools (and the drugs to dull the input with, not coincidentally), advertisements using Leary's 8 circuit model, which seems to be nigh-irresistible, especially to people who operate on the lower end of the model.

We know the how, the when, and the where, so to speak, but we only have suspicions as to the who and most importantly the why.  More data is required, as we are of course approaching this as a group of trained researchers, rather than as a gathering of conspiracy theorists.  Since a great deal of information is conveyed in Spanish, this is where you come in.  Spanish speakers are commonplace, of course, but few people can avoid personal bias or "horror fatigue", which is why we were delighted to receive your nomination from Ms. Stratton.

In any case, we look forward to your inclusion in our society once, of course, the proper vetting has been done. 

Sincerely,
Doktor Hamish Howl

Dear Nast,

I spent a little time looking at the Wikipedia entry and pictures for Santa Barbara, and it occurs to me that I hate you people.  It's all pretty and shit, and you have that big ocean right there, keeping the weather somewhat cool...And here I am, stuck in the middle of the world's biggest goddamn beach. 

For real.  This place is one of God's meaner jokes.  It had to be a real laugh for the people heading to California in the 1800s.  You get across Arizona, and you figure you can just cross that river, and you're out of the Sonoran Desert...and HAH!  Now you're in the Mojave, and it's WORSE.  Indeed...the desert is blanketed with the bones of people who foolishly listened to those horrible bastards in St Louis.

So, yeah, I hope you appreciate "the American Riviera".  You even have a cool history...In 1812, an Earthquake caused a tsunami that carried a Spanish ship a half a mile up Refugio Canyon.   Our history is far more sordid, and when we dig it up, we usually look around, and very quietly put the dirt back over whatever the hell it is that we found.

Well, except for our version of the "Cherohonkey" tribe...Defined as 55-65 year old hippies in tie dye shirts, shorts, and sandals, with their ridiculous pony tails, who spend all their time out in the desert digging up Indian burials to "get in touch with their heritage" (They have no actual Indian blood, of course.), which in turn is defined as "Making jewelry out of bits of dead Indians and selling it under the table at the annual international gem show", which is for some unfathomable reason held here.

How's that for a little horrormirth?  Oh, yeah...People are walking around wearing people, or at least their finger bones, etc.  This would be all right if they were taken in battle, of course, but instead it's just some horrible ghouls in retro-60s clothing.  Like Pickman from HP Lovecraft's work, only with less class.

Nothing, it seems, is too low for Tucson.  It's pretty sad when you hang out with perverts in Central Filth, and the Dirty Boys on Grant Road, so that you are at least surrounded by a better class of loser.  I've come to cherish the little time I get to spend at the Meatrack and the Venture Inn, because - even though they're horrible fucking dives and I don't even drink - at least the crowd there looks like real people and has facial expressions like real people, and at least they don't have human bits dangling from their necks.

In other news, I had to shoot a rattlesnake this morning, out by the welding shed.  Goddamn, I hate this town.  I fucking hate it. 

And I love it, and I will never, ever leave it.

Okay for now,
Dok

Dear Princess Suu,

Thank you for helping make my visit to Providence an interesting and fun occasion (Well, the punch to the nuts in that Irish pub wasn't fun, but it was most definitely interesting).  Say hello to the lovely Deirdre for me, and ensure that neither of you take any guff from the whey-faced bastards that continually stiff you at that basement juke-joint you work in.

Things are about normal here, with the exception that the monsoon hasn't come this year, which means that by the time you come down for the comicon, the whole state will have burned down.  That won't stop us, of course...We'll simply set up umbrellas and sell the comics open-air.  The cosplay freaks will shuffle around groaning, as the 3rd degree burns rub up against their singed outfits.  The 300 pound hairy guys in the Sailor Moon getups will look worse than normal, I'm betting.

Do drag Richter along, if you can.  He needs to see this unholy wasteland with his own eyes...And you both need to partake of this fish and chips joint I found in South Filth.  It's typically Tucson...No bathroom, and the food is good, cheap, and horribly, horribly bad for you.  It's not Iggy's, but it will have to do.

Also, please try to reserve one weekend night for a trip to the Meat Rack.  You can't properly understand Tucson without seeing that awful place.  Just don't let the owner start talking to you...The fat old bastard will talk your ear off about what a stud he is.  He fired the punk rock dude that wore a cured javelina head as a hat, which made many people sad, and means that we have to put up with the old freak...But it's still worth seeing.  Also, there may be a gallery opening that weekend, and I think we owe it to ourselves to ensure that it goes horribly, horribly wrong.

If there's time, we'll take you out shooting, too.  That would about wrap up the Tucson experience...Pretentious artists, perverts, booze, and guns.  There's a road of bones out there, and we shall march on it.  Freeky's parents are off the menu, though, as she's moving in with Swamp Jesus in two weeks.  I'm going to front her rent money until she gets her child support going...Should be about 2 months.

Incidentally, I'm fairly certain we have a bunk arranged with you at a friend's house, so you shouldn't have to worry about a hotel bill.  I also have an extra vehicle you can use, or I can just squire you around, your choice.  The extra vehicle has no AC, but it will be November, so not TOO bad...And the Jeep, of course, will have me driving...But I haven't killed anyone in it yet.

Okay for now,
Dok

Dear Professor Faust,

I think we can all agree that the English need to be properly chastised.  We've all had enough of them running around with their inbred overbites and their completely incomprehensible mangling of the very language they invented...And now the bastards have gone and  fucked up Dr Who.  It's gone on bloody long enough, and something has to be done.

So you Irish spags need to do your part:  Stop sending them good beer.  Let them drink that awful warm swill they make, you know, shit like Watneys that's all full of pond life and bits of effluent that could only have been dredged out of the Thames. 

For our part, we're going to send them all of our sitcoms from the 1980s.  Let the fuckers choke on that, the cunts.    With any luck at all, we can convince the Canadians to start sending them that jackal piss they call "Red Rose Tea", and Australia can pitch in by sending all their racists to Kent (Critical mass should be achieved, I think).

If we all pitch in together, we can have them scurrying for their old bomb shelters in "the tube" faster than a game of pass-the-parcel in a Belfast pub.

And what's up with that shit, by the way?  You Irish have been all quiet and peaceful, and we are now resorting to betting on Palestinians vs. Israelis, which isn't half as much fun.  They're too predictable, and it's getting harder and harder to find suckers to bilk.  If this keeps up, we'll have to resort to gambling on the fucking Basques, and we all know how silly THEY are...More incompetent than the old Italian Red Brigade, which was goofier than a waltzing mouse.

(Dear Irish Postal Inspector:  While we of course don't advocate terrorism, surely there's no law against betting on it, right?  If there is, have this Professor Faust character picked up immediately.  He's a suspicious sort, and has shifty eyes.  He's up to no good, and probably has designs on your Guinness brewery.)

One other thing, Professor...Don't think we've forgiven you for that collection of drunken sots you bastards call "poets".  William Butler Yeats and James Joyce together couldn't write anything worthy of gracing a bathroom stall, and we'll thank you for not foisting off any more of that sort of drivel on an unsuspecting world.  What the hell are you feeding these people?  Not even a steady diet of whiskey and moldy potatoes can explain that gibberish.

Knock it the fuck off.

Okay for now,
Dok

Dear Remington,

I am writing this from the beautiful seaside city of Providence.  Providence, apparently, is the spawning ground of the American hipster.  We spent the first evening in town in a hipster bar with early Abba décor, being tormented by young ladies with ukuleles (I shit you not), skimpy dresses, and not an iota of anything remotely resembling talent.  Imagine being stuck in a coffeehouse full of retarded beatniks, and you will gain an accurate view of what my jet-lagged and caffeine-poisoned brain was subjected to.

This is H.P. Lovecraft's city, Remington, and they are in dire need of modern science to banish the horrible effects of their incessant breeding with the Old Ones.  Though I have not seen any webbed fingers, I have not seen anyone's toes, and I'm fairly certain I don't want to.

Interesting note:  They have hooka bars here, of course, yet it is not legal to smoke a cigarette in one, as it may pose a health hazard to the people exhaling huge clouds of tobacco smoke from their cancerous throats.  This is as perfect an illustration as I can think of to describe America in the early 21st century.

Americans have become an ugly breed, Remington...Warren Ellis refers to them as "the new scum", and he's 100% correct.  Thin necks, fat asses, and low foreheads are the defining characteristics of this generation and the one immediately preceding it, as can be judged by, for example, our offshore drilling technology...And by the fact that the "Rottenberg Center" is still allowed to exist.

This all sort of makes me wish for the retribution of an angry God, the God of the old testament, when deities knew how to drop the smackdown on uppity primates.  For example, as I speak, Richter's roommate and his girlfriend are playing on the Wii in the same room I am trying to sleep in, with the volume all the way up.  There may be a stabbing shortly.  That Wii music is the last thing psychos hear before they pull the starter cord on the chainsaw.

How long, Oh, Lord, how long?  Not even the Book of Revelations promised a vengeful tide of yahoos, who move their bulk like lightning but speak only gibberish.  They pray to their teabagging Gods, and like groundhogs, they occasionally stir from their holes to look around...But they DO see shadows, Remington, huge fucking shadows that do not belong to them...So they scurry back down their holes and turn on their TVs and their video game consoles and their Goddamn TIVO, and try not to be noticed by the very same people they take to the streets in support of.

And there's no Goddamn parking.

But what of it?  We are, after all, Discordians, and this is exactly the sort of shit we thrive on.  Hundreds of millions of demented primates, sir, and they all live just South of you.  Ho ho!  Yes, indeed.  It's like living right next to the Mongol horde...This particular breed may be fat and stupid, but ye Gods, there's a lot of them.  Never forget that they outnumber you ten to one, and eye your precious permafrost with lust-filled eyes and hate-filled hearts.  Should they ever discover that your nation is apparently floating on oil, you're well and truly fucked.
So there's really nothing to be done but a pre-emptive attack.  However, may I suggest that you NOT follow the examples of your forefathers in 1812, by burning the White House.  Cutting off the head of a snake may kill the body, but cutting off the head of a retard only makes him more vicious.  You got away with it 200 years ago, but today you'd be dealing with 301,000,000 screaming yahoos, and you'd only have yourselves to blame.

Instead, I suggest you invade Wyoming.  Nobody would really notice, and those who would wouldn't care.  Most Americans think Wyoming is a country in Europe, after all, and from that advance base you could spread into the Dakotas.  Nobody would catch on until you seized the potato mines of Iowa, and by then, of course, it would be far too late.  Your cannibal Inuit hordes would be stomping rednecks flat in Georgia before it even hit CNN.

Oh, one other thing:  Don't bother invading Texas.  Trust me on this one...They've been nothing but trouble, and should you conquer them, they will just start pissing and moaning for you to redact all the biology out of your textbooks, to replace it with the book of Leviticus.  They've already taken Thomas Jefferson out of their history books and replaced him with John Calvin and Joseph McCarthy, so just imagine what they'd scrawl in your largely empty history books.

No, my suggestion is that you just saw them off and dump them into the gulf.  I mean, it's not like the gulf can get any MORE polluted, right?  This has the added advantage of treating 90% of the Bush clan to their very own Atlantis-esque trip down to see just exactly what went wrong with the Deepwater Horizon.  Perhaps they can jam Laura Bush into the pipe while they're down there...The "top kill" didn't work, but a "fat kill" might.

Now, all of this may sound horribly violent to your Canadian sensibilities, but it's kill or be killed, Remington.  It's only a matter of time before these fat bastards realize that Canada isn't actually a national park, and then they'll be all over you, hooting and humping on your leg and throwing Pepsi cans around until they have terraformed Canada into upstate New York.  Don't say I didn't warn you.  You need to mobilize your army NOW, and send all 12 of them into Wyoming posthaste, before it's too late.

Should, however, you disregard this advice and find yourself invaded by fat behemoths from the South, you will have to take steps to save yourself and your sister.  One, smash raisins onto 20% of your teeth, to hide the fact that you have all of them.  Second, NASCAR shirts.  Third, "fat suits".  Fourth, get a couple of those "Rascal Mobility Scooters" and ride them around.  This will keep you safe, provided you keep that girl away from reporters or anyone else that might bring out her insane urge to photobomb.

Okay for now,
Dok

Dear Reverend Payne,

We've had it up to here with you Scots, sir, what with you keeping the real haggis to yourself (The canned stuff doesn't make the nut.), foisting that abomination you call "golf" off on gullible American idiots, and running around with your knees bent, doing cheesy imitations of poor Prince Charles.

I understand that you have a beef with the English.  I mean, who doesn't?  They dumped their puritans off on us, and then "lost" the revolution, after all, dooming the former colonies to 224 years of religious whackjobbery, and what they did to those poor Germans in 1914 was a crying shame.

Also, enough with the tragic heroes already.  If I have to watch one more film about Rob Roy or William Wallace (And what's with all the alliteration in your fucking names, anyway?), we will have no choice but to pirate your television with old Ronald Reagan movies.  Not bluffing.  It's really simple:  Stop fighting the English, and start exporting your junkies to them. 

It's a perfect plan.  You rid yourself of screaming zombies in Edinburg, and England spends a generation recoiling in horror.  That'll teach those miserable crumpet-suckers a thing or two, let me tell you.

Next item:  Tell that thug in Southampton to stop fucking with the weather patterns I had established until she learns to control the damn thing.  It's already mid-July, and we haven't had our monsoon.  If we don't get some rain within a fortnight, the entire state will burn down, with the exception of Phoenix (Concrete doesn't burn.).

I can also tell you that the Right Coast Spags didn't appreciate her little joke last month.  They say that their revenge will be a thing of legend, and will be talked about in shitty South End pubs for as long as they discussed Springheel Jack.

However, I would like to comment that the world needs more claymores and kilts.  Lots more.  And woad.  Goddamn, that stuff is cool.  If I had my way, it would be the only "clothing" allowed in Arizona.  Wait.  Scratch that...What the hell was I thinking?  Who the hell wants to see some 400 pound WalMart monstrosity wallowing around wearing nothing but woad?  The mind boggles in terror.

Lastly, I expect that you will be participating in the pseudo-apocalypse, which will be forthcoming on the board sometime in late July.  It's not a world-ender, but everything's going to get dumber, and I can prove it.

Okay for now,
Dok

Dear Risus,

We in Arizona have a bone to pick with you South Carolina fuckers.  When Sarah Palin quit, WE were next in line for The Most Retarded Governor title, and then you spags come down the pike with that Sanford dingbat.  This is BULLSHIT.  We patiently waited our turn, and then you Goddamn secessionist bastards come along and jump the line.

Well, you can just wait your fucking turn, you Myrtle Beach jackasses.  We've been grooming Jan Brewer for the spot for years, and when she finally comes out with her big reveal, Mark Sanford trumps her Jim Crow Law bit with his "disappearing governor" act.  It made her cry.  I hope you bastards are happy.

And just what IS it with these "Godly" Southern republicans, anyway?  They have to act so Goddamned repressed that their gonads back up until they have "swimmers" in their eyes, and they go utterly berserk.  Jimmy Swaggart comes to mind, as does that weird fucker Jim Bakker (Yes, Oklahoma counts as the South.  We don't want them in our West, thank you very much.).

You really need to set up some sort of covert cat house, where the staff can be paid to, you know, keep their fucking mouths shut, and get these silly bastards' ashes hauled before they go critical mass and blow up all over your end of the country.  It's messy and embarrassing, and it's bad for the crops.

Well, it's really too late for you jackasses to relinquish the title now, I suppose, so we'll just have to bring out the big guns and elect Sheriff Joe Arpieo to the governor's office.  He IS going to run, and he IS going to win, because we are just exactly that stupid, and who knows?  He might even live long enough to run for president. 

Are you ready for that?  Are you ready for the king-hell hair shirt punishment freak to sit in the oval office?  Are you ready for federal tent city prisons and weird fucking Jim Crow bullshit?  Are you prepared for every police department in the nation having more armored vehicles than a mechanized infantry company (Sheriff Joe's Maricopa County Sheriff's Department has 16 armored vehicles, a mechanized infantry company has 15).

Ho Ho!  You soft Eastern types are all fucked now!  You'll all be selling each other out to the guards for cigarettes within a year, and working double shifts at the glory hole to keep the guards calm enough to prevent them from wearing their tasers out on the back of your necks.

That'll teach you, you bastards.

Okay for now,
Dok

Dear Robyn and Liam,

I hope this letter finds you all well, and before your seasonal rolling blackouts make it impossible to read.  How you folks get along in California is beyond me.

I've been doing quite a bit of thinking about this radio thing of Liam's, and I have some good ideas for canned rants.  I'm thinking 10 minute spots in which I can let my bare face hang out, and say all the truly horrible shit that needs saying in this dark year of our Lord, 2010. 

After all, it's not like there's a shortage of horror to talk about (half of which is horrormirth, the other half not so much).  I'm debating between politics my way, or focusing instead on the root cause of our problems, which are entirely societal/cultural.  I'm tending toward the cultural thing because, let's face it, if we didn't like the current political scene in America™, we wouldn't pay for it.

Let me know your thoughts on the matter, and some kind of timeline, and I'll start spouting into the microphone.  I can either email the mp3 file, or post it at a downloadable site, as you guys see fit.

Next, I'm glad to hear Carly liked her letter, and it didn't offend her gigolo boyfriend.  I'm not here to criticize them, after all...I am, after all, a Doktor, and I can view these sorts of things in a professional, non-judgmental light, though you'd think he'd give up being a gigolo, now that he has a steady girlfriend.

Kids, these days, eh? 

Anyway, I plan on making a trip up to see you guys next winter...I'd come sooner, but I have to burn the last of my vacation time to straighten out this litigation with Kim and Marcus.  I'm not particularly happy about this, and Maria is reacting in the way you'd expect.  Horrible things are coming down the tracks, I'm afraid, and Marcus and Kim are too dense to see the train coming.  Ho ho!

Speaking of Maria, I seem to be married again.  The 90 days are up, and she's back...Or more accurately, she's still where she's at, and I'm staying there 3-4 days a week.  The balance of my time is spent in Oro Valley with my kids (the schools down by Maria's are a travesty), so that my mother doesn't drive them completely batshit.  She's not an evil woman, just a control freak and more than a bit of a mental case.

This is the last time I'm going back, though.  If Maria flips out again, it's over for good.  I have no further need to be a yo-yo.  Or so I say now...My vow to not sleep with women that hate me has limited my options, at least in this city, where my choices are limited to 400 pound behemoths (28 stone, Liam, no shit), meth addicts, bar flies, and women that want me dead (but will still sleep with me).  Horrible, horrible.

I'm also coming to terms with the fact that my children aren't really children, anymore.  My son will be getting his driver's license next week, and my daughter has had her first brush with the law...Brawling in public.  That's daddy's little girl.  This is both liberating and distressing.  On one side, they're fantastically independent kids (More than that...My daughter runs the entire household now, finance-wise.), but on the other side, I could fucking swear that just 10 minutes ago, they were wearing footie pajamas and watching those awful Barney videos.

The good news is, I seem to have raised them right (their mother, of course, had a large hand in this as well).  They are thoroughly disgusted by the horrible Jim Crow laws that our state has enacted, and are equally horrified by the concept of Sheriff Joe Arpieo running for governor (Make no mistake...He WILL run, and he WILL win.  This is, after all, Arizona.).

This is yet another steaming pile of shit that we have managed to generate for the generation after us.  I'm fairly certain our children will beat us when we're old.  Hell, I would.

But what of it?  I fucking hate the future, so I'm not feeling terribly guilty about it.  Seems that physicists have discovered that backward time travel is actually theoretically possible (Difficult, though.  You need to have two black holes handy, with their event horizons overlapping.), so it's just a matter of engineering.  And has the future come back to say "HI!" to great-great-great-great grandpa Roger?  Hell no.  Ungrateful bastards.  I'll leave them a burned up cinder, see if I don't, the cunts (Fuck.  Now I'm talking like Liam).  I may be borrowing the planet from my descendants, but there's no collateral.

My daughter has pointed out that maybe they don't come back because of my proactive revenge, but I know that she is wrong.  If that were the case, one day 135,000 of my descendants would appear on the side of Mount Lemmon, and moon me.  This hasn't happened, so it's simply a matter of the little bastards not taking the time to visit their honorable ancestor (to wit: me).

Well, that's the news from Tucson, Holy City of Eris, for now.  If you have time to write back, please do, especially with regard to the status of the radio thing.  I promise to respond in a timely fashion, unless Tucson eats me or I get stabbed and tossed in a dumpster (We have very tidy tweakers, here), in which case it may take me a bit longer.

Okay for now,
Dok

Dear Stella,

Sorry I couldn't help with that cat.  There is a glut on the market, it seems, and not even the taquerias are accepting them.  There are many fat coyotes in this town and still there are too many cats.  My last remaining neighbor, for example, is one of those crazy cat ladies that couldn't bring herself to spay the poor darlings, and she went from two normal cats to 47 inbred monsters, and a bulldog which was driven crazy by the hordes of semi-feral felines.  The City finally took action, and she now she has one spayed cat and an insane dog.

But I tolerated her animals, just as I tolerate the fact that her swimming pool is a delightful shade of green-black, because she is in fact my last remaining neighbor.  Everyone else slipped out in the dead of night when their mortgages went upside down, and they suddenly had to make HUGE balloon payments on their $300,000 homes and Mustangs and Hummers.  They were dumb, and I don't miss them...I mean, how much meaningful conversation can you have with people who can't read a mortgage contract?

And it's not just here.  Our generation put their collective foot in it, when they bought the Reagan/Clinton rubbish that the gravy train never ends, tomorrow never comes, and credit is basically free money.  They are the New Scum, and they deserve the horrible beating they are taking...However, I make exception for people who simply got laid off and couldn't afford the mortgage.  That isn't their fault, it's the fault of greedy bankers and stupid latter day yuppies.

So now I basically have the neighborhood to myself.  It's like Left Behind, and I couldn't be happier.  All the Calvinists have shoved off to wherever they go when they realize that God wasn't going to pay their bills simply because they're "the elect".  Sure, I have to spend a day once a month throwing a half pint of kerosene in their pools, to keep the place from turning into a mosquito farm, but isn't that a small price to pay?

I wonder how the Calvinists are dealing with that, anyway?  I mean, a basic tenet of their religion is that you're born saved or damned, and you can tell the sheep from the goats, because God likes the elect, and he gives them nice things (and the rich go to heaven, and the poor go to hell, because they were born wrong).  Now they're all penniless, and it strikes me as more than a little funny, that they may have to face the hideous possibility that maybe they aren't the elect, after all.

Ho Ho!  Wouldn't THAT fuck your head up?  You spend all your life believing that you're better because you're better off, then suddenly *plop*, you're down with the rest of the po' buckers, wondering why your God abandoned you.  It's almost enough to make me believe in providence.

Okay for now,
Dok

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.)

 :lulz: i had lost the hard copy of the letter in my many moving times. great to re-read.
should we pm address changes too. i will write you back on beyoootiful stationary as a proper charm school fred should

Quote from: The Fred ⊂(◉‿◉)つ on May 15, 2011, 07:19:41 PM
:lulz: i had lost the hard copy of the letter in my many moving times. great to re-read.
should we pm address changes too. i will write you back on beyoootiful stationary as a proper charm school fred should

Yes, address changes should be sent along.

I got Fucked Up Mail Reaction all down my nice shirt, and I expect you to send me a replacement.

It's like those pinhole burns hippies always used to talk about, except it has left sizzling green neon edges, and the smoke that came from it has miraculously cleaned every glass surface within a half mile to a blinding finish.

Sweet! I'll get to reading all of these eventually, but reading your letter to me again... it has just as much punch now as it did then, if not a little more. It's been one hell of a year for Horror, and what Dok Howl was trying to tell me gets more and more clear with each passing week.

Quote from: Payne on May 15, 2011, 09:05:54 PM
I got Fucked Up Mail Reaction all down my nice shirt, and I expect you to send me a replacement.

That can be arranged.  Oh, my, yes.

Just remember that you demanded it.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on May 16, 2011, 04:53:05 PM

Quote from: Payne on May 15, 2011, 09:05:54 PM
I got Fucked Up Mail Reaction all down my nice shirt, and I expect you to send me a replacement.

That can be arranged.  Oh, my, yes.

Just remember that you demanded it.

Pics, please!

I think the best one is the one to LMNO.

I love how it veers all over the place, but the message stays constant.

I like how all the letters combined form a slightly incoherent but powerful blast of sheer Roger.

It's like Captain Planet, but instead of whiny kids with shitty rings it's Roger and a fuckton of Epistles. And instead of a Super Heroic Blue (and also green?) Do Gooder, it's a Hairy Yeti with a penchant for the sublimely strange.

Quote from: Payne on May 16, 2011, 07:12:22 PM
I like how all the letters combined form a slightly incoherent but powerful blast of sheer Roger.

It's like Captain Planet, but instead of whiny kids with shitty rings it's Roger and a fuckton of Epistles. And instead of a Super Heroic Blue (and also green?) Do Gooder, it's a Hairy Yeti with a penchant for the sublimely strange.

Ah, Captain Planet.  That wonderful show that taught that damage to the ecology is the work of MUHAHA BAD GUY TERRORISTS who pollute to have a good time, rather than, you know, the average fatass American that NEEDS his toys and trinkets, and doesn't care what has to die for him to have them.

You know, like the parents of the kids that watched that shit, and those same kids 15 years later.

I wonder which chemical companies subsidized that show?

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on May 16, 2011, 07:31:47 PM

Quote from: Payne on May 16, 2011, 07:12:22 PM
I like how all the letters combined form a slightly incoherent but powerful blast of sheer Roger.

It's like Captain Planet, but instead of whiny kids with shitty rings it's Roger and a fuckton of Epistles. And instead of a Super Heroic Blue (and also green?) Do Gooder, it's a Hairy Yeti with a penchant for the sublimely strange.

Ah, Captain Planet.  That wonderful show that taught that damage to the ecology is the work of MUHAHA BAD GUY TERRORISTS who pollute to have a good time, rather than, you know, the average fatass American that NEEDS his toys and trinkets, and doesn't care what has to die for him to have them.

You know, like the parents of the kids that watched that shit, and those same kids 15 years later.

I wonder which chemical companies subsidized that show?

Mattel, probably. Or whoever supplies the plastics to whatever company sold the action figures and other bullcrapshit that went along with the show.

Continuing the analogy, are you perchance sponsered by a major backHair Care corporation?

Quote from: Payne on May 16, 2011, 07:37:58 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on May 16, 2011, 07:31:47 PM

Quote from: Payne on May 16, 2011, 07:12:22 PM
I like how all the letters combined form a slightly incoherent but powerful blast of sheer Roger.

It's like Captain Planet, but instead of whiny kids with shitty rings it's Roger and a fuckton of Epistles. And instead of a Super Heroic Blue (and also green?) Do Gooder, it's a Hairy Yeti with a penchant for the sublimely strange.

Ah, Captain Planet.  That wonderful show that taught that damage to the ecology is the work of MUHAHA BAD GUY TERRORISTS who pollute to have a good time, rather than, you know, the average fatass American that NEEDS his toys and trinkets, and doesn't care what has to die for him to have them.

You know, like the parents of the kids that watched that shit, and those same kids 15 years later.

I wonder which chemical companies subsidized that show?

Mattel, probably. Or whoever supplies the plastics to whatever company sold the action figures and other bullcrapshit that went along with the show.

Continuing the analogy, are you perchance sponsered by a major backHair Care corporation?

No, and I'll thank you to not spread that persistent rumor.  Nor can you prove that I was ever a Rogaine test subject gone horribly wrong, so stop saying that.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on May 16, 2011, 07:39:31 PM

Quote from: Payne on May 16, 2011, 07:37:58 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on May 16, 2011, 07:31:47 PM

Quote from: Payne on May 16, 2011, 07:12:22 PM
I like how all the letters combined form a slightly incoherent but powerful blast of sheer Roger.

It's like Captain Planet, but instead of whiny kids with shitty rings it's Roger and a fuckton of Epistles. And instead of a Super Heroic Blue (and also green?) Do Gooder, it's a Hairy Yeti with a penchant for the sublimely strange.

Ah, Captain Planet.  That wonderful show that taught that damage to the ecology is the work of MUHAHA BAD GUY TERRORISTS who pollute to have a good time, rather than, you know, the average fatass American that NEEDS his toys and trinkets, and doesn't care what has to die for him to have them.

You know, like the parents of the kids that watched that shit, and those same kids 15 years later.

I wonder which chemical companies subsidized that show?

Mattel, probably. Or whoever supplies the plastics to whatever company sold the action figures and other bullcrapshit that went along with the show.

Continuing the analogy, are you perchance sponsered by a major backHair Care corporation?

No, and I'll thank you to not spread that persistent rumor.  Nor can you prove that I was ever a Rogaine test subject gone horribly wrong, so stop saying that.

:cry:

That story has gotten me many a free pint over the years, but if you insist.

Ha ha, I still have the letter, pinned to my "Open with caution" noticeboard. Just above the "TV Licence" people, and "Final Demands" from the Water Company, and below the "Blackfriar's Debt Collection" collection of Imaginary debt demands. (Rendered largely spurious, unless the Govt. are prepared to totally abolish the principles of Contract Law)

As requested, I forwarded a copy to Her Madge, but she said we couldn't send the Royal Navy, as they were all on standby in the Gulf, ready to evacuate your Military, due to their woefully lacking Exfil contingency planning. She also commented on "The sheer brass neck of these fucking Rebel Colonists" and mentioned some incoherent shit about "Swinging with the Reagans" that I didn't really want her to elucidate upon. But she did anyway. Apparently the source of that "Aristo-syphilus" outbreak, was "Nancy's rancid slop- pot". *Shudders* 

Anyway, looking forward to the next round of letters. With the proviso that you don't ask me to do any more "Piggy in the middle" shit with those fucking German throne usurpers. My shit is still itching from their invitation to "Stay away from the fucking Wedding".
(Like I was really going to turn up and embarrass that Middleton Slag with the webcam pics)     

I loved how you fucked with Mr. Language's head. He figured us out in the end, though.  :lulz:

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on May 16, 2011, 04:56:11 PM
I think the best one is the one to LMNO.

I'm now having nightmares  (And not the 'nice' kind) about Tuscon Women flurting with me. *~shudder~fap~shudder~*

Mine was awesome. I opened it outside and read it on the porch, while contemplating the inbred monsters in the parking lot next door, and it occurred to me that it was a kid of snapshot of our time and collective lives, I could almost hear the voiceover reading it on The American Experience.  :D
I am saving it for posterity.


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