It was never you. It was the world going dark, the horrible little man in my head telling me that you're ignoring me, laughing at me, sneering smiles my way while talking around me, around that ridiculous bald fucker up there in the mountains.
But it was never you. It is a virus-smashed reticular formation that looks like a world war I trenchline. It was the screaming captain, the shot in the arm, the helicopter ride. Helicopters are great things, by the way. They come and take you away from undesireable shit. Everyone should have a helicopter...But of course, they are reserved for rich people and the dogs that fight their battles. Dogs like I used to be. Dogs like my children are.
So it was never you. It's a world gone bad, a future we cheerfully signed for without opening the package. It's the door booted in at 2AM, it's the prison industry "protecting" you, it's the child thrown in prison alongside genuine monsters for 30 years. It's the continuing war in Afghanistan. It's the fact that we're the bad guys now, with secret prisons and "extraordinary rendition". It's the fact that the government is acting in this horrible fashion because we've forgotten how to act any other way.
See? It isn't you. It's the sense that my stewed veggies for lunch (Thanks, God!) have been poisoned. It's the inescapable feeling that someone's been fucking with my car's brakes while I've been in my office. It's the fact that I'll get in and drive anyway, because why the fuck not? Just drive faster, that's it, just drive faster with the window open, try to get some air into my dead lungs, because there aren't any more helicopters for me, ho ho! No, I am no longer useful in that fashion, and those resources are needed elsewhere.
So don't ever let me tell it you that it's you. Because it really isn't. It's brain damage, it's my own mind turned against itself, and if I say something out of line, I hope to God you'll forgive me.
Because it isn't you at all.
I don't know if this is in response to something specific, but it's a thing of beauty.
I was just trying to explain. To state my case.
Reminds me of my Marine buddy who went cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. When the world is going dark it's hard not to believe that every person in the world is going dark right along with it, willfully.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on August 13, 2013, 08:01:42 PM
So don't ever let me tell it you that it's you. Because it really isn't. It's brain damage, it's my own mind turned against itself, and if I say something out of line, I hope to God you'll forgive me.
Of course.
I think, on reflection, that it's Tucson. One of my best mechanics got arrested this morning, we completed a grueling job changing agitators in the reactors...Only to find AFTER we'd put them in that they were cracked, and it's hotter than hell out there.
The fates conspire against me. The fuckup fairy is my constant companion, and Colonel Murphy lives in my office. At home, snakes keep finding a way into the house, and lemme tell ya, I am MOTHERFUCKING SICK OF THESE MOTHERFUCKING SNAKES IN MY MOTHERFUCKING BATHROOM. And they're real, too. TGG also saw them. So shut up.
The streets are full of people bent over under the weight of the sun; it's like my city is composed entirely of Tom Waits clones, all gnarled and miserable. I passed a bunch of Cops looking all sick inside next to a crashed 70s-something Volkswagon minibus this morning on the way to work, and the KOLD reporter guy was throwing up in the ditch. Don't fucking look at that shit. There's nothing there that will brighten up your day.
Jim is out of town, and Princess Lilly is doing her best to make sure my guys are doing it right. Her utter lack of technical expertise in these matters doesn't seem to slow her down in the slightest. Filthy assistant babbled something at me about welding the cracked agitators until I screamed at him, and now he's sulking. "YOU CAN'T WELD AN AXIAL SPLIT IN A 4" THICK SOLID STEEL SHAFT, YOU ASSHOLE." Perhaps I could have handled that better. Maybe given him a sno-cone and THEN yelled at him. Or had Ed hold his hand and dry his tears.
The radio is useless. It plays only Taylor Swift and some new whiner that makes Johnny Cash puke blood in his coffin. And the "rock" station is no better. There are no current top 40 acts that ARE rock and roll. It's all whimpering shit that would have fit in the 60s, if the bandmembers didn't all look like the lead singer of Train.
So it isn't you, not at all. It's purgatory. It's the eye of an angry god blazing down out of an empty sky onto a parched and barren Earth. It's a refinery that is remarkably similar to the aircraft graveyard next door, all dead equipment and abandonment. It's ghosts playing in the ruins of what was probably never a functional endeavor. It's where the sidewalk ends, and brother, you STOP when the sidewalk does. Or THIS SHIT happens to you. Forever. And there's no way out.
Whoa. And I thought I was having a bad day.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on August 14, 2013, 07:12:55 PM
Whoa. And I thought I was having a bad day.
You really should visit, just for a week or so.
You'll never, ever complain again.
Christ, Roger.
Quote from: Waffleman on August 14, 2013, 07:44:28 PM
Christ, Roger.
It's just Tucson, man. It's just aerosol coyote poop. It's just the bastards up in Phoenix thinking up cute lies to whisper in our ears while we die. It's just your next heart attack. Even planet Earth needs hemmeroids, and so we are the polyp of the world. IT'S JUST A GOOD FUCKING TIME. ALL THE TIME.
As God is my witness, I have no idea why I stopped drinking and eating peyote. This is BULLSHIT.
And ALL THREE WELDING MACHINES JUST DIED.
I can't stand it.
And then Roger chewed someone else's arm off.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on August 14, 2013, 08:21:00 PM
And then Roger chewed someone else's arm off.
Have to. I ran out of my own.
I was feeling depressed and aimless. Then I read this. 5/5 unflushed toilets.
Quote from: Wolfgang Absolutus on August 14, 2013, 08:25:12 PM
I was feeling depressed and aimless. Then I read this. 5/5 unflushed toilets.
Count your blessings.
They just don't make my kind of rube, anymore.
Now they're all cheap plastic things sold in the dollar stores. There's no substance to them, they're flimsy and they come right apart when you tear gas them. They can't even demonstrate right...I'm STILL pissed at the teabaggers for their "demonstration" where they dipped teabags in cups so they wouldn't violate their parade permit. What the hell kind of shit is that?
Look, there's an ART to being a chump. Trust me, I've been doing this shit all my life.
The new whiner that's got Johnny Cash puking blood in his coffin...Lee Brice? Jason Aldean?
Quote from: stelz on August 14, 2013, 10:42:04 PM
The new whiner that's got Johnny Cash puking blood in his coffin...Lee Brice? Jason Aldean?
Does it matter? It's the same tired shit, hour after hour. STOP WHINING. COUNTRY MUSIC IS NOT ABOUT WHINING. You TALK about your wife leaving and your dog getting cancer and going to prison and shit but you DON'T SNIVEL. Porter Waggoner never sniveled. Johnny Cash never sniveled. HANK NEVER WHINED.
There is a very subtle, but very real, difference between country music and "emo with a steel guitar", but that is apparently LOST on Nashville. Fuckers. Nuke the whole Goddamn city.
I saw someone from Tuscon yesterday morning. The only person I know in this town who's from Tucson, in fact. He caught my eye because he was riding down the street on a bright pink bicycle and all his colors were too bright and he was too flat, too unreal, too two-dimensional, and then it struck me that it's because he IS two-dimensional, a paper doll cut right out of Tucson's pages and projected onto a Portland backdrop. He's not really here at all, and never was, just a movie of a man who never made it out of Tucson.
Quote from: TALK TO ME ABOUT YOUR GENITALS on August 14, 2013, 10:46:41 PM
I saw someone from Tuscon yesterday morning. The only person I know in this town who's from Tucson, in fact. He caught my eye because he was riding down the street on a bright pink bicycle and all his colors were too bright and he was too flat, too unreal, too two-dimensional, and then it struck me that it's because he IS two-dimensional, a paper doll cut right out of Tucson's pages and projected onto a Portland backdrop. He's not really here at all, and never was, just a movie of a man who never made it out of Tucson.
I have this creeping suspicion that if I suddenly kick any given building, it will fall over, because it's just a prop.
But you are correct. What you are seeing is something like a ghost. A movie, as you say...Like those old original silent films from the very early days, when it was just some guy doing backflips. Only in this case, it's some guy trying to fake breathing. He probably doesn't cast a shadow, and if you took a picture, only the bike will show up. IF YOU'RE LUCKY.
If you're unlucky, well...Let me just advise you, as your spiritual adviser, do NOT photograph the dead, for the same reason you should never pray. Because the thing you're praying to or photographing
might actually be real. Best not to draw attention to yourself.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on August 14, 2013, 10:50:53 PM
Quote from: TALK TO ME ABOUT YOUR GENITALS on August 14, 2013, 10:46:41 PM
I saw someone from Tuscon yesterday morning. The only person I know in this town who's from Tucson, in fact. He caught my eye because he was riding down the street on a bright pink bicycle and all his colors were too bright and he was too flat, too unreal, too two-dimensional, and then it struck me that it's because he IS two-dimensional, a paper doll cut right out of Tucson's pages and projected onto a Portland backdrop. He's not really here at all, and never was, just a movie of a man who never made it out of Tucson.
I have this creeping suspicion that if I suddenly kick any given building, it will fall over, because it's just a prop.
But you are correct. What you are seeing is something like a ghost. A movie, as you say...Like those old original silent films from the very early days, when it was just some guy doing backflips. Only in this case, it's some guy trying to fake breathing. He probably doesn't cast a shadow, and if you took a picture, only the bike will show up. IF YOU'RE LUCKY.
If you're unlucky, well...Let me just advise you, as your spiritual adviser, do NOT photograph the dead, for the same reason you should never pray. Because the thing you're praying to or photographing might actually be real. Best not to draw attention to yourself.
Have you tried looking behind any of the buildings, there?
I'm a little afraid of the answer.
Quote from: TALK TO ME ABOUT YOUR GENITALS on August 14, 2013, 11:24:29 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on August 14, 2013, 10:50:53 PM
Quote from: TALK TO ME ABOUT YOUR GENITALS on August 14, 2013, 10:46:41 PM
I saw someone from Tuscon yesterday morning. The only person I know in this town who's from Tucson, in fact. He caught my eye because he was riding down the street on a bright pink bicycle and all his colors were too bright and he was too flat, too unreal, too two-dimensional, and then it struck me that it's because he IS two-dimensional, a paper doll cut right out of Tucson's pages and projected onto a Portland backdrop. He's not really here at all, and never was, just a movie of a man who never made it out of Tucson.
I have this creeping suspicion that if I suddenly kick any given building, it will fall over, because it's just a prop.
But you are correct. What you are seeing is something like a ghost. A movie, as you say...Like those old original silent films from the very early days, when it was just some guy doing backflips. Only in this case, it's some guy trying to fake breathing. He probably doesn't cast a shadow, and if you took a picture, only the bike will show up. IF YOU'RE LUCKY.
If you're unlucky, well...Let me just advise you, as your spiritual adviser, do NOT photograph the dead, for the same reason you should never pray. Because the thing you're praying to or photographing might actually be real. Best not to draw attention to yourself.
Have you tried looking behind any of the buildings, there?
I'm a little afraid of the answer.
No. I have never even considered it. I mean, what possible benefit would there be in peeling back the vinyl? If I have to stay here, I can at least have the illusion of living in a real city, in a real universe, in real time.
Now, contrast your earlier post with your visit here. Mr Language fit right in. He was One Of Us. YOU, on the other hand, pretty much STOOD RIGHT OUT, sort of like if you'd gone to see a movie and the star stepped right out of the screen and started talking to you. Let me tell you, it spooked the natives. There were mutterings around the trash barrel fires for a long time. Drums in the hills. That sort of thing. Now people pray for your return, and offer unspeakable sacrifices at The Wall. Your cult has become perverted, and it's gone
bad. You showed them how to pray, but lard wasn't good enough. No. The less said about this, I think, the better.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on August 14, 2013, 11:28:31 PM
Quote from: TALK TO ME ABOUT YOUR GENITALS on August 14, 2013, 11:24:29 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on August 14, 2013, 10:50:53 PM
Quote from: TALK TO ME ABOUT YOUR GENITALS on August 14, 2013, 10:46:41 PM
I saw someone from Tuscon yesterday morning. The only person I know in this town who's from Tucson, in fact. He caught my eye because he was riding down the street on a bright pink bicycle and all his colors were too bright and he was too flat, too unreal, too two-dimensional, and then it struck me that it's because he IS two-dimensional, a paper doll cut right out of Tucson's pages and projected onto a Portland backdrop. He's not really here at all, and never was, just a movie of a man who never made it out of Tucson.
I have this creeping suspicion that if I suddenly kick any given building, it will fall over, because it's just a prop.
But you are correct. What you are seeing is something like a ghost. A movie, as you say...Like those old original silent films from the very early days, when it was just some guy doing backflips. Only in this case, it's some guy trying to fake breathing. He probably doesn't cast a shadow, and if you took a picture, only the bike will show up. IF YOU'RE LUCKY.
If you're unlucky, well...Let me just advise you, as your spiritual adviser, do NOT photograph the dead, for the same reason you should never pray. Because the thing you're praying to or photographing might actually be real. Best not to draw attention to yourself.
Have you tried looking behind any of the buildings, there?
I'm a little afraid of the answer.
No. I have never even considered it. I mean, what possible benefit would there be in peeling back the vinyl? If I have to stay here, I can at least have the illusion of living in a real city, in a real universe, in real time.
Now, contrast your earlier post with your visit here. Mr Language fit right in. He was One Of Us. YOU, on the other hand, pretty much STOOD RIGHT OUT, sort of like if you'd gone to see a movie and the star stepped right out of the screen and started talking to you. Let me tell you, it spooked the natives. There were mutterings around the trash barrel fires for a long time. Drums in the hills. That sort of thing. Now people pray for your return, and offer unspeakable sacrifices at The Wall. Your cult has become perverted, and it's gone bad. You showed them how to pray, but lard wasn't good enough. No. The less said about this, I think, the better.
I fear for the poor cut-out people of Tucson! What can be done to save them? I can't teach them to become three-dimensional, but surely there must be something I can do for them, some comfort I can offer.
How can you walk safely among them? How can they not see that you aren't one of the Flat People?
Quote from: TALK TO ME ABOUT YOUR GENITALS on August 15, 2013, 01:01:35 AM
How can you walk safely among them? How can they not see that you aren't one of the Flat People?
I'm not sure I'm not. I would have to leave Tucson to find out.
Another thing: It was different when Alty came down. There was a new predator. The locals could sense it...They knew something was wrong, but they didn't know
what. It was as if you'd thrown a shark into a herd of wildebeest. If a shark was all legs and teeth, rather than fins and teeth. He ran low to the ground. They never saw him coming. Almost like an otter chowing on a duck...One moment, it's the pretty little girl feeding the ducks at the river, you know, classic "human interest" pic. The next it's blood and feathers and a little girl standing stock-still, with a sudden new understanding of the universe.
I wonder how Portland will react, when you come here.
Quote from: TALK TO ME ABOUT YOUR GENITALS on August 15, 2013, 01:56:13 AM
I wonder how Portland will react, when you come here.
Depends if I'm still flat.
If I am, they'll never see me. Slipping through their city, unseen. Just a tide of inexplicable hair passes by, and suddenly everything has gone
wrong.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on August 15, 2013, 01:58:46 AM
Quote from: TALK TO ME ABOUT YOUR GENITALS on August 15, 2013, 01:56:13 AM
I wonder how Portland will react, when you come here.
Depends if I'm still flat.
If I am, they'll never see me. Slipping through their city, unseen. Just a tide of inexplicable hair passes by, and suddenly everything has gone wrong.
:lulz:
WE don't vote with our dollars anymore, We vote with our silence. Our acceptance. Our policy of Laissez-faire for what THEY want to do. You know, the ones voted for by the ones we voted for. That's a degree of separation, so we can hardly be blamed. Ethics and morality are a line-of-sight effect. THEY know that. Hell, they've had us wearing slave labor for a generation, so what else could they get away with?
The dollars are nothing. Hell, they can yank the meaning out of dollars in one good panicked meeting. The silence though, that shit is hard to come by. They'll spend ours for all its worth.
Quote from: Richter on August 15, 2013, 02:26:24 AM
WE don't vote with our dollars anymore, We vote with our silence. Our acceptance. Our policy of Laissez-faire for what THEY want to do. You know, the ones voted for by the ones we voted for. That's a degree of separation, so we can hardly be blamed. Ethics and morality are a line-of-sight effect. THEY know that. Hell, they've had us wearing slave labor for a generation, so what else could they get away with?
The dollars are nothing. Hell, they can yank the meaning out of dollars in one good panicked meeting. The silence though, that shit is hard to come by. They'll spend ours for all its worth.
Complacency is the currency of dictators?
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on August 15, 2013, 01:05:52 AM
Quote from: TALK TO ME ABOUT YOUR GENITALS on August 15, 2013, 01:01:35 AM
How can you walk safely among them? How can they not see that you aren't one of the Flat People?
I'm not sure I'm not. I would have to leave Tucson to find out.
Another thing: It was different when Alty came down. There was a new predator. The locals could sense it...They knew something was wrong, but they didn't know what. It was as if you'd thrown a shark into a herd of wildebeest. If a shark was all legs and teeth, rather than fins and teeth. He ran low to the ground. They never saw him coming. Almost like an otter chowing on a duck...One moment, it's the pretty little girl feeding the ducks at the river, you know, classic "human interest" pic. The next it's blood and feathers and a little girl standing stock-still, with a sudden new understanding of the universe.
It was indeed suspiciously quiet. Maybe i brought the lack of sun with me.
As to my teeth, well, I don't like to give overt commands to every little part of my body. You have to pick your battles.
Quote from: Alty on August 15, 2013, 07:47:28 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on August 15, 2013, 01:05:52 AM
Quote from: TALK TO ME ABOUT YOUR GENITALS on August 15, 2013, 01:01:35 AM
How can you walk safely among them? How can they not see that you aren't one of the Flat People?
I'm not sure I'm not. I would have to leave Tucson to find out.
Another thing: It was different when Alty came down. There was a new predator. The locals could sense it...They knew something was wrong, but they didn't know what. It was as if you'd thrown a shark into a herd of wildebeest. If a shark was all legs and teeth, rather than fins and teeth. He ran low to the ground. They never saw him coming. Almost like an otter chowing on a duck...One moment, it's the pretty little girl feeding the ducks at the river, you know, classic "human interest" pic. The next it's blood and feathers and a little girl standing stock-still, with a sudden new understanding of the universe.
It was indeed suspiciously quiet. Maybe i brought the lack of sun with me.
As to my teeth, well, I don't like to give overt commands to every little part of my body. You have to pick your battles.
They scattered like gazelles. Like glass when you drop a window pane.
They ran right to the edge of the city, and then did the Arizona Two Step and died.
I hope you're happy, you monster.
Oh i am, here's my happy face:
(http://www.imgur.com/z9E9H73.jpeg)
That was the last thing they ever saw. :horrormirth:
Richter has plans to visit, at some point. Tucson will know him on sight. This is not to say he'll be popular. No. Tucson has a very ugly past, and the last thing it wants - but the thing it needs most - is an ugly present. By that I mean, "A maniac running around sharpening everything that stands still for 10 seconds". Sharp objects are not suitable for Tucson. The average Tucsonan can only be trusted with silly string (and only pre-Richter silly string, at that).
The horror is compounded by the dreadful possibility that he will drag LMNO along with him. The Venture Inn is not ready for LMNO. They prefer to sit around doing their corpse imitation, they have forgotten the ways of FABULOUS. The mind reels in horror, though, of LMNO meeting The Dirty Boys from Grant Road. Colostomy bags for everyone.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on August 15, 2013, 07:44:47 PM
Quote from: Richter on August 15, 2013, 02:26:24 AM
WE don't vote with our dollars anymore, We vote with our silence. Our acceptance. Our policy of Laissez-faire for what THEY want to do. You know, the ones voted for by the ones we voted for. That's a degree of separation, so we can hardly be blamed. Ethics and morality are a line-of-sight effect. THEY know that. Hell, they've had us wearing slave labor for a generation, so what else could they get away with?
The dollars are nothing. Hell, they can yank the meaning out of dollars in one good panicked meeting. The silence though, that shit is hard to come by. They'll spend ours for all its worth.
Complacency is the currency of dictators?
YES.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on August 15, 2013, 08:33:08 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on August 15, 2013, 07:44:47 PM
Quote from: Richter on August 15, 2013, 02:26:24 AM
WE don't vote with our dollars anymore, We vote with our silence. Our acceptance. Our policy of Laissez-faire for what THEY want to do. You know, the ones voted for by the ones we voted for. That's a degree of separation, so we can hardly be blamed. Ethics and morality are a line-of-sight effect. THEY know that. Hell, they've had us wearing slave labor for a generation, so what else could they get away with?
The dollars are nothing. Hell, they can yank the meaning out of dollars in one good panicked meeting. The silence though, that shit is hard to come by. They'll spend ours for all its worth.
Complacency is the currency of dictators?
YES.
VERY YES.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on August 15, 2013, 08:06:19 PM
Richter has plans to visit, at some point. Tucson will know him on sight. This is not to say he'll be popular. No. Tucson has a very ugly past, and the last thing it wants - but the thing it needs most - is an ugly present. By that I mean, "A maniac running around sharpening everything that stands still for 10 seconds". Sharp objects are not suitable for Tucson. The average Tucsonan can only be trusted with silly string (and only pre-Richter silly string, at that).
The horror is compounded by the dreadful possibility that he will drag LMNO along with him. The Venture Inn is not ready for LMNO. They prefer to sit around doing their corpse imitation, they have forgotten the ways of FABULOUS. The mind reels in horror, though, of LMNO meeting The Dirty Boys from Grant Road. Colostomy bags for everyone.
The Dirty Boys have been running for quite some time now. Thanks to the Good Reverend I've read of the Hell's Angels. Let's jsut say they don't age gracefully. Would the DB's do the same, or would they just see sagging and incontinence as an excuse to get REALLY weird?
One fine day I will see Tucson. We've had visitation, and it is only right to return the favor. It will be an odd day, since I've never taken an airplane flight in my life. (I'm sure the tSA needs that xray machine sharpened.)
On arrival I cannot eb collected fast enough. THis is no fault of any potential hosts, it is a rule of nature. I will step off the concourse, and the locals willl know me. I do not, after all, smell of the desert. An ill advised predator will attempt to address me, sizing me up for the takedown. I will look at it, impassive and cold and state "Shall we begin?"
They will speak of this day afterwards, and not lightly.
Quote from: Richter on August 16, 2013, 02:48:55 AM
or would they just see sagging and incontinence as an excuse to get REALLY weird?
Yes.