The Whiskey Republic

Renyold’s Band Omni Media Experience Part 1

2009-10-05T17:35:00.004-04:00

Whatever the musings of mad ole Abdul, spooky reed infested eastern European rivers or even the stoning of random victims to enhance the quality of corn pale in comparison to what I am about to tell you, something whose inalienable reality will shatter the reader's mind making all you have ever ‘known’ false and the myth’s and tales you dismissed as wild fantasy…well those might well remain as such, people have creepy imaginations filled with teenage cheer leading vampires and alternate realities which defy even the extensive realities of infinite time, though this my friends is a tale to be told.
December 21st in the year of your lord 2012 a lowly grease monkey by the name Renyold C. Macantire drunkenly fiddled with his vintage Delorean DMC-12, none of that non-vintage Texas based crap, after having left Ohio State University in disgrace and solitude. Not so much laughed out of the University as having failed to keep his GPA up to their ‘academic’ standards due to his irrationally successful canonization of the sacred fraternity of “Tappa Tappa Keg.”
Once believed to be nothing more than an excuse to drink beer and enjoy the collateral effects of women with low tolerance drinking beer he proved beyond any empirical doubt that the whole basis of the fraternity system relied on the sacred order of Tappa Tappa Keg when the order itself was imported from the bohemian classes of primordial Egypt to the fertile and party loving Aegean shores from which such educational orders have sprung. After the Athenian defeat to Spartan Militarism, and TTK’s eminently sensible attitude of staying ahead of the curb in the face of Macedonian ascension they relocated to the German hinterland where their love of Barley and Hops inspired the Germanic peoples for centuries till their gothic descendants overran the decadent wine drinking peoples of the Roman Empire.
Unfortunately for you, the uninformed reader, I have been sworn to secrecy as far as the orders histories from 476 in the year of the 30 year old virgin till 1977 when the unrecorded visitation of the psychedelic group whose thankful attitude for fatality typifies their band, unleashed cosmic forces unknown to man at that time were recorded by none other than myself Blake Newberry in the inland port city of Cleveland Ohio.
With the native, though deceased, powers of American aboriginals released along with the sickeningly powerful emanations of American Rock mixed with the Shamanic resonance of psychedelic fuckupedness passed through the placental barrier to infuse the embryonic Renyold C. Macantire with mystic knowledge only known by a few wizened fading Beatniks who remained as the sole possessors of the ancient knowledge passed through the ages from the banks of the Nile to our present time, a new age/period/epoch/happy-go-lucky-funtime was born.
Unknown to myself who was dealing with my own Demons, literal ones, not some sort of literal device but an actual demon who haunted me and demanded attention so my concern over a mindfucked hippie princess was less than acute, sorry, that’s just how I role, began a domino like effect which would change history forever.
Born some eight months later in the provincial capital of Columbus Ohio Renyold’s life was bonded to the world of Rock and at times Roll with some supernal connection to Jazz, Blues and certain bastardized mixes of rhythm, gospel and soul music. While his youth and adolescence was amazingly interesting to the point of eclipsing any other coming of age story and setting the standard for ‘boy meets girl stories’ in the western world, I cannot mention it both because of his own wishes and due to the restrictive social requirements of the literary world, fuck you Ayn Rand I will form a collectivist socialist state whenever I damn well please. Women. Anyway…
So, post romantic entanglement (ie an abortion later) our man enrolled in good ole OSU, swearing an eternal hatred towards the cannibalistic, adultering, incest loving minions of Michigan State and the hubris of the estrogen fertilized, grade inflating foppishness of the Ivy League, as all good G-d fearing individuals might do, he became privy to such secret mysteries as he had always suspected, thanks to his ability to hold a cherry long enough to drop it in his drink with his butt cheeks, as the members of The One True fraternity have practiced since time immemorial, though bastardized versions of this initiations have permeated the Greek system, degrading such practices with substitutions like olives in Gin, and disgustingly lemon slices in Tom Collins by some fraternal orders, just because something is called a Cocktail doesn’t mean it should be demeaning, but in this case it applies. None the less the pure and ancient ritual almost forgotten, and relegated to a few uninformed campuses until the arrival and return of the high school graduate Renyold C. Macantire, was born anew.
The original name of the fraternity is unimportant, as are most things, lets face it life is pretty meaningless most of the time. What is important is what he learned from the charcoal prints lifted from ancient and destroyed Germanic rune he stole from the inebriated form of a wizened ex-Nazi professor whose grade wrecking ways left him little sympathy, achtung indeed mein furor, during that most Germanic of festivals in the month of October. From this source he was able to deduce the basis of social cohesion.

To you crazy, enigmatic Russians…with Love!

2009-06-30T10:08:00.000-04:00

Who the hell gave you the right! Of course as a G-d fearing American Family man I have a G-d given right to all that is mine, manifest destiny and all that Jazz, but you Russians? You are harsh breed running on a flammable mix of Class conflict, Vodka and strategic depth and trusting you with let’s say... The Ukraine, just for example, would be like trusting a starving cat with a lame mouse. How many nations greatest founding figure gets “the Terrible” deservedly in their title? Or have tried atheism as a national religion? Or defined a national strategy as let them invade the most fertile and populous portion of our country and then let the winter take care of them? None, that’s who, just you mother Russia in all your intense yet quick to fade beauty. Sure, we are like you in many ways, we go the whole sea to shiny sea thing going, though outside of the summer months could you really consider the Baltic shinning? And sure your society has traditionally had a democratic ting, though never in an ideological sense, more of a, to keep the competing factions from tearing each other’s throats out and then torching the opposing homesteads before we ourselves succumb to our wounds, kind of way.
Then again either Tartic or Native, we both realized the necessity of pacifying nomadic warlike tribes who we once feared, to further our national pride at the expense of their traditionally savage ways, yes, that’s an ethnic policy we can both agree on. Maybe it’s a Mongol thing, I can’t understand the Chinese for the life of me, just a upside down ant farm, maybe having someone able to rape 40,000 descendents into existence in three generations, conquer and subdue ones nation for almost three hundred years will have that effect on a national psyche, or maybe, just maybe you’re just a dark evil people, a primitive relic of our shared primordial Indo-European past like a Neanderthal Empire threatening our Cro-Magnon civilization, I think I saw a anime about that once and like a randy band of Shemale pirates attacking uptight and sexually repressed Japanese businessmen, high quality low frame rate animation is the highest form of chronological transcription, ah, History!
In short you are a enigma, and as Churchill put it, and yes you will be hearing a lot about him, the only key to your thinking is your blatant, blunt and uncomplicated national interests which seems to be centered around adding more buffer territory, planting more wheat and Potato’s and finding more ethnicities to further stratify your social hierarchy with. So let us camp out in some dismal sod hut, pop open a bottle of home distilled Vodka and fear impending Cossack raids together my friends and allow the horrible, feted, screaming waters of the past to flow under the bridge of our mutual distrust, my friend, my comrade.

A Word from our sponsor...

2009-05-20T10:23:00.000-04:00

Board games:
Everyone knows that friends, family, fuck buddies the whole caboodle loves board games. Well we have a eye opening soul wrenching experience to set their souls straight. :
Runaway games-" I have to be home by 11pm, I'm going to sleep with a crack head."seems like a nightmare, it doesn't have to be. Teenage disobedience without remorse or sense has been a reality ever since we gave woman the right to vote. Regardless teenagers psychological health, their minds and bodies have been up for grabs for over a decade and here at Oedipal games we have worked tirelessly to find games to bring our generations disaffected youth together with their parents without weed or a court appointed attorney. '" You don't except my holistic dream vibe as scientific fact" no longer is a psychological act of war but a playful ploy to begin a game of "Runaway games" the board game for disaffected youth prone to trading in their easy suburban lives for one of degrading sex acts and substance abuse.

That's Our Hitler!!! [a rosy cheeked cartoon Hitler is pictured hugging a family on the box cover]- You're a Nazi, I'm a Nazi we are all Nazis!!! Since World War II the best way to end a discussion is to say "Thats what Hitler did' or "You believe that! Your Just like the Nazis" without mentioning that it seems like a singular anomaly for a political party to come to power in the most economically and socially rich country in the world to elect a supreme dictator who at first embarks on liberal programs such as universal health care, a revolutionary systems of transit and the prevention of cruelty to animals even garnering the Olympics only to embark on one of the most brutally decadent and insane programs of social cleansing ever imagined under the veil of World War. While other barbarise countries have done terrible things, I'm looking at you Russia, a Civilized and progressive government has yet to reach their depths to the same extreme, but that doesn't mean we aren't all a little like Hitler and a little like the Nazis and its time to point that out in Oedipal games favorite medium, the Board Game. Oh no you rolled snake eyes, now you have to sign a false confession or go to the spaces in the east! You landed on the Anne Frank house and must go into hiding, lose your next 3 turns, endless fun for the whole family, [cartoon Hitler bursts through Warner Brothers style ending Bumper]
don't make me inform the fun Gestapo because they have ways of making you play!

The Wolves...

2009-05-01T01:22:00.000-04:00

Tesla’s America
By Joshua G. Pollack
Metatron the Divine Herald
I sit on high, the Divine herald of G-d, proclaiming his glory, narrating his Divine Comedy from the celestial partition. The winds are blowing from the east, a child wails in the distance. In front of the hearth sits two, one Nicolas Tesla drunk and despondent, two Mark Twain, the setting is Niagara Falls the turn of the century.

Nicola Tesla
I sold it you know

Mark Twain
Sold what

Tesla
The Death Ray, for 75 dollars and the promise to use it only for good, those Martians were persuasive. It seemed like such a good idea at the time.

Metatron
A wolf’s cry is heard in the distance, curdling blood, a short silence will be observed.

Twain
Do your hear the wolves

Tesla
Edison is on the prowl again, I can feel it, scheming in his New Jersey fortress, like a Walachian Vampire transplanted to the east coast, like Dracula…that was a very good book you know.

Twain
Thank you

Tesla
What?

Twain
Nothing

Tesla
I invented the alternating current you know

Twain
I invented the Atom Bomb you know

Tesla
What?

Twain
The things you can do on a sunny Sunday afternoon when the Curries are out, I was so bored.

Tesla
You know they say by the end of the twentieth century all known diseases will be cured by electricity.

Twain
Who needs to write books when you can harness the power of the Atom…

Tesla
The Tesla coil will be the savior of this new age of mankind…

Twain
Jules Vern ain’t got nothin on me

Tesla
Edison wear’s women’s clothing, did you know that

Metatron
Twain looks down dejectedly, fiddling with his thumbs wondering what he can say.

Twain
Yes, Yes I did know that

Tesla
Figures

Twain
What is that supposed to mean, it’s purely a comfort issue, and you’ll see in ten years everyone will be doing it

Tesla
Just another case of liberal reinformation

Metatron
The word Reinformation was first used in 1454 by the Venetian inventor Reduxious Informentii who saw the transformation of Haga Sophia and believed that information itself was being reinvented. This is of course impossible but it was a fun idea to play with like a mental bauble of questionable reality. Of course a definition for this impossibly constructed word remained elusive. So some believed that Reinformation would fade into histories scholarly depths, those people are called retards, we have special homes for them. The rest of us knew that Reinformation would once again raise its nebulous and improbable head. This is just one example of it.

Twain
What does Reinformation mean?

Tesla
You have asked a mouthful, to know it would be to read Webster’s dictionary and “ Get it” , to cry when somebody said “no, let me explain it again” knowing that the original explanation died in its birthing so future explanations could live, to change the term Reinformation into a continually changing Noun, Adverb, Adjective, verb, and dangling modifier. Its very nature, when understood, would be change. To know it is to break the surly bonds of human logic and touch the face of G-d… and then to have your hand crumble to dust as you are unclean and unfit.
Twain
Well, gee Mister Peabody thanks for the explanation

Tesla
What did you say?

Twain
The cursed dog, why does he torment me, him and his boy, only I can see him, studying me with his spectacled eyes, watching, studying me for weakness, judging my soul!!!

Metatron
They look at each other with distrust and hate and fear swimming through the room, as the ung-dly quiet begins to settle in, and the cold air circulates

Twain
G-d almighty it is getting cold, I am dieing, when I die I will not be mourned by loved ones but by my critics and detractors, knowing I can do no more harm

Tesla
When I die I shall not be mourned or remembered, I will not be in the history books with Bell or Edison, my only Eulogy will be by the G-men as they rifle through my papers looking for secret inventions and insights, cursing me for my lack of Posthumous ingenuity

Twain
Yours is worst

Tesla
Maybe I should go over Niagara in a barrel; at least my death would bring me fame

Twain
It is winter, it is frozen

Tesla
All the more crazy, the kind of quirky end that gets people like me into history books

Twain
I came to lecture

Tesla
I came to install my electric dynamo to harness the power of the Niagara

Twain
Yours is better

Tesla
You know when you said “did you hear the wolves” and I was silent, I lied

Twain
What?

Tesla
I hear the wolves every day of my life.

Twain
Me to

Metatron
The two geniuses’ loose themselves in the night fading to darkness as the Niagara swallows them in its undefended boarders. Twain would go onto die, his Atomic research unaccredited, and Tesla would die forgotten, and G-d laughs on high at the absurdity of it all, a long wail of a laugh, not unlike the cries of wolves.

[Close Curtains]
[Open Curtains with Metatron in trench coat]

Metatron
Telegram for a Mister Tesla, that’s a strange one Russian?

Tesla
Yugoslavian, who are you? What Telegram?

Metatron
Too many questions, here is the telegram, I must be going or no one will know what’s going on.
[Removes Trench coat and returns to his pedestal]
And the mysterious telegraphs men disappeared from the tavern.

Tesla
What? What is going on?

Twain
Not drinking men are you Tesla. Any good drinking American knows you open the letter and only question the circumstances if the contents are negative; I think that one comes from the Bible.

Tesla
[Laconically]
The American Bible.

Twain
Yes, the American Bible written by Jesus smith in Washington DC on July 4th 30 AD right before he took a stage coach to Jerusalem, that American Bible. Open the letter.

Tesla
Telegram
[Opens and reads the “Telegram”]
Yes, Yes! MY experimental blood test on the Edison samples came back, three different types, he is a vampire, or worst Windango…

Op-ed response: The Senator

2009-02-13T14:00:00.003-05:00

Everyone knows that "Rabbi" Xander Shmoiglstein and Dr. Milton Osiris are enemies, right? Shmoiglsteins Ultra-Modern Orthodox movement stresses spirituality, the immortality of the human sole and tax cuts, while Osiris demands focus on corporal reality, existential truth and third trimester abortion rights. Every Sunday while good Christians are begging Jesus to do something about these guys, they smatter the talk show circuit in an endless dissemination of their morally bankrupt, corrupt and oddly sexually arousing ideologies. And now, its taken a half retarded reporter from Cleveland to expose the truth, that these "Gurus" are connected at the pocketbook ( "half-retarded" is not meant a dig against Dr. Newberry. I've met him many times, usually at twilight and under a shroud of mist and although twilight doesnt last for very long, if you run into someone over the course of a lot of twilights, which Dr. Newberry and I it seems have, you really get to know a guy, no matter how much shrouding mist there is. What I've learned is that he suffers from a very acute case of multiple personalities disorder or at least something very similar to it. His other personality is actually quite retarded, though very cute and lovable. So in essence I only mention it to further commend Dr. Newberry for triumphantly managing his disability and to condemn the media at large for being stupid as fuck). Sure when Osiris's Book "Shmoiglstein: Fool or Madman" came out followed shortly after by Shmoiglstein's " Lying liers and the lier king, the lying fish and the lying dove and fuck you Osiris" it look liked an old fashion, political/ pseudo-philosophical grudge match for two men's who's charisma far outshines any expertise that they may or may not have in anything, at all. Then, fifty four combined books, twenty eight lecture series, seventeen themed vacation retreat events, non-stop coverage, full exposure, leaked photos, secret memos, untold numbers of "-gate" suffixed scandals and a record breaking payperview, no holds barred cage match hosted by the WWE, these "enemies" have generated billions of dollars, global fame, an absurd amount of political influence and a free small frosty with every large sized frosty that they pay full price for, an offer most American's have to get coupons for from buying french fries. Now their alliance is exposed in the largest and only literal and metaphorical pyramid scheme ever perpetrated. When asked why no action has been taken, a Federal prosecutor talking to "Bunker Life Weekly" stated," look if we can't get this guy (Shmoiglstein) on the numerous and diverse counts of sexual misconduct that he has been unceasingly accused of by an ever increasing number of women, a charge so obviously consistent with his reputation, with his behavior and with his youthful yet, fatherly good looks, do you really think the public is going to bite at the suggestion of an obscure and frankly ridiculous sounding conspiracy, the truth of the matter of which would be almost impossible to establish in the noise of the whirlwind of the spin that would surround it?" The reporter from "Bunker Life" reportedly then laughed at the anonymous Federal prosecutor, as I to will right now, hahahaha, ok that's Enough!

Shocking News: Rabbi X indicated on massive Jewish Slavery ring

2009-01-22T08:36:00.004-05:00

Brooklyn, NY- It came to our attention early Tuesday morning that, "Rabbi X" the leading voice of Ultra-Modern Orthodox Jews has begun selling massive burial pyramids to his congregation in order to bolster his building fund. Our source in Brooklyn, the Senator, brought this to our attention after he received a series of Brochures accidentally delivered to his Williamsburg "shag den." In addition to a series of diagrams and illustrations the basic text of the document went as such:

"Are you uncomfortable with the idea that after you die your body will rot and dissipate into the cold and unforgiving earth? Does it bother you how such a process is symbolic for the more abstract process of the memory of your presence on earth eventually and inevitably being forgotten? Some people want you to believe that through inward focus and spiritual awakening you can simply make these nagging and terrifying realities float away, much as cookie dough relieves the anguish of solitude for the lonely. But for us, the more rational and realistic, we realize that it takes something much sturdier, physically larger and of course more extravagantly expensive. I'm Dr. Milton Osiris of Dr. Osiris's Pyramids and Pyramid supplies. Here at O.P.P. we offer you a very simple historical reality, pyramids have been around for a long ass time. What other burial structures have stood the test of time like pyramids? Crypts? Caves? Perhaps Mounds? Perhaps, but is that how you want to manifest your quasi-eternal physical self manifestation? Its up to you would you rather be known as the guy buried in the mound or the man entombed in the Pyramid of Osiris. Face it nothing beats the classic desert pyramid, built with real old timey stone by real Jewish Slaves...cough, cough... I mean by real muti-ethnic slaves."

While the idea of extravagant burial is nothing new the last line of the brochure demanded additional inquiry. After finding most of the states legal slave markets closed for almost two centuries I realized that his sources must be illegal and sought to enlist my good friend, and dirty work professional, the Fellonist to tap the rabbi's telegraph, which he uses to avoid alien interference and interception, but whose security is no match for the Fellonist, and last night we finally hit pay dirt with the following message from Dr. Osiris, the business associate and personal physician of Rabbi X:

"X[stop] Need more Hebrew mind slaves [stop] wraith of vengeful God slowing production [stop] i saw your kids pics on facebook [stop] Raizil Shmilza is getting so big [stop] "

While Raizil Shmilza is becoming quiet the big girl, the proof that Rabbi X has been involved in a ancient cults burial practices and the enslavement of his own community has lead to local politician vowing to "look into this matter further," which I am sure means a full range of Golf course Jokes and mild mannered banter on the subject until it can be safely swept under the rug. Though the leadership has been less the proactive in shutting down these illegal activities it has yet to be seen whether or not there Will be a public outcry on the subject...

American Looking Glass: George, Under the Bowler

2008-12-14T07:22:00.000-05:00

Without order there is chaos, without Justice there is abuse, without me the fine line that separates the world from the primal abyss would dissolve into nothingness. Despite the essential nature of my quest, even a avenging angel needs a friend some times, and as I sat over a heating element trying to make a grilled cheese sandwich in my barrowed Branson Missouri studio apartment, I needed a friend more then anything, except for that grilled cheese, so searingly, molten, and cheesy. Keeping the cosmic order is lonely thankless work; killing for the sake of maintaining balance is frowned upon in the western world for some reason. It hadn’t been a problem before, oh sure the occasional twinge of regret when I saw two lovers in a park through my telescopic lens a second before separating them forever, or when friends met in their favorite pub, oblivious to ticking time bomb in the restroom that would cut the reunion short, but it had never truly effected me until I had met my first friend.
On assignment in Wonderland a lovable if not slightly dim man had followed me, and had shown me something like…kindness. Sure I had read about such thing, and knew they existed, but only in the cerebral academic sense not in the visceral natural manner. This friendship had taught me that there was more to life then just killing, there were emotions that were reliant on others, something these mortals call empathy, and I was addicted; and like all addicts I now wanted more, I wanted to learn about this strange human emotion they call… Love, which I had thought was only true in fairy tales, meant for some one else but not for me, but it turns out love can be had by anybody, though first I had to eat that damn sandwich.
After chewing that sandwich to hell, I embarked on my quest, and as for any quest into the unknown I would need a guide, I would need my friend. The problem with my friend is that he’s not always himself; he has a split personality, one side a dim lovable Lanyard quisling, the other a mind not unlike an obsidian blade of pedantic furry, which one you get is as much a matter of luck as anything. One side saw me as a friend, the other as a vile assassin who kills for the Lanyard conglomerate which controls the fates of so many, who has destroyed the futures of countless individuals, and that he has declared a personal war against. I don’t actually work for them, it’s just the fact that our interests had overlapped and I felt like picking up a paycheck for once, I want nice things too damn it. Yet, I had to affect some sort of resolution to his hostility, possibly acquiring yet another coveted friend, a kind of two in one type deal. I packed my things and torched the apartment, as the owner no longer had any purpose for it, and I road out in my black 1930’s Cadillac into the night, which embraced me like a weary whore.
After concluding some minor business on the way, and finishing a borrowed books on tape set of the abridged Hardy boys adventures, wondering why they never “finished” the job. I pulled into his driveway, as he was getting out for his 4:30am jog, I waved him down and he ran to me and gave me a hug, a little too hard but beggars can’t be choosers. I was informed that he had recently received a raise, and that Ted “Hawkeye” Muldoon, the greatest of the Midwestern Superhero’s, was staying with him, sleeping on his couch right then. The palms of my hands were itching with desire to kill Hawkeye, as he had unbalanced the scale so many times, but I knew I could only act when the order came; if I killed him now I would be no better then the Germans, well maybe a little better but that is neither here nor there. I decided to meet this self-proclaimed righter of wrongs, and it turns out he is as charming as he is occupationally aggravating. He had never seen me and figured I must be a friendly, and soon I didn’t want to kill him anymore, just cut him up a bit, and after a while longer, I wished him no bodily harm whatsoever. We spent the next few hours playing Monopoly, by which I mean we dressed up as wealthy robber Barons and discussed how the poor are poor because they’re lazy, not the popular board game as that takes too long and often causes people to become overly competitive. After that my friend told me he had to go to work or else he’ll loose his place at the big kids table, and have to take up eating with his stuffed animals again. After he left, Hawkeye and I had a heart to heart, and I explained my situation in its entirety, as friends don’t lie to friends, or at least not until you know each other better, as some believe lying is sign of maturity and closeness, mostly Canadians but it’s still technically a belief. He didn’t believe me at first but I preformed the heavenly Choir and beam of light trick that is the calling card of our trade. He told me he was glad I didn’t lie to him since we had just met and all, those commonwealth nationals, they’re all the same. I explained the situation and reason for my visit specifically, and he was immediately on top of it, “A trip to Tijuana, my good man, the best and cheapest women around” I explained to him how I was looking for love not for a Tijuana street walker, he just shook his head saying “you got to walk before you run man, baby steps, sick, sick, baby steps.” I tried to explain to him how the two were completely different, and the same solution could not be applied to both, he just gazed at me with a lack of understanding that made me almost want to cry, we were both in the same boat.
Just then my host burst through the door and yelled “ My hot, interesting, non-threateningly successful FEMALE!!! Cousin is coming to stay with me for a week, and I need some one to show her the town, she’ll be hear tonight.” I didn’t know why he shouted the word female so loud, but I wasn’t going to let this opportunity slip through my grasp. Simultaneously both Ted and I raised our hands, and my friend exclaimed, “ Oh, so you both want to take her out, well I guess we will have to have a contest won’t we, doing competitive and challenging task for…” Ted broke in saying “ If George wants to take her out that’s cool, I was just trying to be polite, I mean its not like she’s Mexican or anything, right?” I could have lied to Ted right there and then, but instead I mumbled “Whatever”, and asked my host, “ Aren’t you supposed to be at work.” He took on a smug look and said, “ Maybe I am or maybe I’m…Oh, shit” and he bolted out of the door and in a panicked frenzy ran into my car on the way out.
My chance had come earlier then expected and it was just then that I realized I had absolutely nothing to wear. The Tuxedo and Bowler look that had worked for so long was only appropriate for eerie intimidation, and I doubt that kind of emotion would be useful in a dating situation…or would it, the answer is no. I needed to get a new look, unfortunately neither Ted or my host were especially stylish, Ted opting for the ruff and tumble Aussie look when off duty and my Hosts non-work cloths all had the Sponge Bob Logo on them, by design or sown on. I had to get a new suit, and fast, I needed Sinore’ Montagna, the greatest Tailor in the whole Midwest, I immediately took forth the Bulls Horn he had given me centuries ago and blew on it calling him from his hundred years slumber, and in a flash of smoke and colorful sparks the great Man appeared at my doorstep. Ted looked taken a back saying, “ There must have been a long internal monologue going on there because I have absolutely no idea why that all just happened,” and he never would. No words were necessary, Sinore’ Montagna new exactly what to do, and me talking would only break his delicate concentration, Ted tried to ask me what was going on, but in my most eerily intimidating fashion I put my index finger to my lips, never saying a word. In an hour he had finished and I bade him farewell as he walked out vanishing into the afternoon haze, and I looked fantastic. From my Alligator loafers to my black fedora, Freddy Maze didn’t have shit on me, for whatever reason he might have to. If any women could resist me, that women would have to be a lesbian, or have some sort of chemical imbalance that decreases libido and increases her bitch factor, a disease which all to often gets passed over in our increasingly apathetic society, but who really gives a shit, I looked good. Ted just turned around and walked away mumbling “Naughty thoughts, Naughty thoughts, Bad Hawkeye, Bad”, and I knew this suit would work just fine.
Just then my host ran through the door and screamed “She’s here, she’s here” and an attractive twenty something hipster carrying two bags walked in shaking here head at her cousins show of emotion. I offered to carry her bags to her room; she just smiled at me and gave me a big hug. I could see the family resemblance. She had come as part of a Hazmat team sent to clean up the abandon Stadium which had mysteriously exploded a few days earlier, but she hoped to see some of the sights and spend some time with her cousin while in town, charming. Then a problem came up, this two bedroom house all of a sudden had four adults who needed separate sleeping spaces, for now, and only one bed and one sofa and a divan, some one was with out bed, and I would have to sleep in the Cadillac, though I did announce that everyone should be grateful for my chivalry, and hoped she noticed. We all sat down for dinner which my host had picked up from the local six flags, I have never known anyone to make an entire meal of Funnel cakes and French Fries, but he made it work. Unfortunately one of the first things she asked me was what I did for a living, Avenging Angel wouldn’t work, neither would hit man, but I had to say something. “ I…make…Fires”, oh shit, that’s worst then the previous two, but Ted was there to rescue me “ He is a conservationist, he has been doing controlled burns for the last couple months. And I just know that because were friends, not because of any weird attraction I have to him…dammit, damn that G-d damned suit, I need to go now.” “ So how do you afford a suit like that on a rangers salary” she asked, to which I responded “ Oh this old thing, got it off a hobo I killed in Reno just to watch him bleed, wait I was just joking a joke, I made it out of spider silk and dreams, crap I need to go to the bathroom.” I ran to the bathroom, I was breathing too hard, I was screwing this all up, I had been in some pretty crazy situations but females are by far the freakiest. Her strange curves and gentle ways were screwing with my mind; I needed to calm the hell down. I went back out and said “ Sorry for that, damned sugar highs, so what were you saying”” no problem” she said, but I knew she didn’t feel entirely comfortable because of me and Ted’s off color remarks and behavior, so I decided to go to bed early, and I stepped out to my car.
I awoke to the barrel of a cold war era AK-47 being brandished by my host who yelled, “ Get the hell out of the car pig, we’re going to have our selves a little party.” I edged out of the car weighing the necessity of striking him down, but decided to see what happened first. Hawkeye stumbled out of the house mumbling “what the hell” over and over, my host replied “ Caught the friggin Assassin, sleeping in front of our house, probably going to kill us in our sleep, or worst try and get us to fill out one of those damn census forms, don’t they freaking realize G-d hates censuses, they’re playing with forces they can’t possibly understand.” To which Ted stated “ No, that’s George he is staying with us for a few days, remember, you two met on the wonderland case, he’s a friendly man.” By this time I had decided Blake had woken up, and now that he had been brought up to speed he seemed to lose the edge. He lowered the gun hesitantly and put his hand forward saying “ Sorry George, just like to wake up all my guests that way, keeps them on their toes, and makes them complacent for the final ‘clean up’ but there is no point in discussing that now.” I knew he was covering for the switch, he must not have told anyone about his condition, but I was just glad there would be no blood spilt. The cousin finally poked her head out to find-out what all the commotion was about, and Blake told her “ Don’t worry Sarah, George and I were just playing Mia Lai, go to sleep, just another crazy day here, it’s a mad house I tell you, a mad, mad house.” Wow, that man can explain away anything, not really that well but who am I to judge, but if somebody is judged and is found wanting well then I get to do a little dance, make a little love, oh I would get down tonight, and by getting down I mean I would kill someone. Anyhow we were all tired, and it was decided that we should all get back to sleep. In the morning I awoke to the far more pleasant sight of Sarah bringing me a cup of Coffee, I tried to stammer out a thank you, but I couldn’t, and it didn’t matter she just smiled and said “your welcome” and walked back inside.
After a shower and breakfast she had to go to work, and Ted and I had to figure out something to do with our time. “ Why don’t we go on patrol mate, I mean purely platonic friend, and why don’t you first change into your work suit for the love of G-d and all that is holy” he said. I responded, “ Do you realize the hardships I have to go through because of your ‘patrols’? Do you understand how many more people I have to kill to even out what you do, sure the people I kill are probably worst and more deserving but damn it its terrible to have to kill anyone, why can’t you just let things happen so I don’t have to spend my nights with the screams of my victims echoing through my head, unable to drink away my pain because of my angelic anatomy, only the pain of trying to eat a too hot grilled cheese sandwich to distract me from what I have done… Gotcha, holy shit man you should see the look on your face.”
After he calmed down it was decided that I would go with him, I’m on vacation damn it and I want to spoil myself a bit, though I convinced him to use my Cadillac instead of the Hawktor as, lets face, it looks retarded, like a tricked out tractor with some decals to define its hawkness, plus I had air conditioning. Just as we were pulling out he got a call on his Hawky-Talkie, and his face took on a hard edge as he told me “ To the demolished Stadium, and step on it for the love of G-d,” it turns out the charges he had set off a few days earlier had not killed but instead trapped several of the Mutants, and the clean up crew had uncovered these terrible giants and they were running amok in the Downtown area. We were there in just under a minute, death was everywhere, and there were three mutants ripping the place apart, and one of them had Sarah. It was demanding that Blake Newberry come forward or else they were going to kill her, I had to do something, and if I know how to do anything its how to do something. I sprung forward, like a PCP enraged hick at a cop, drew my trusty sword from its cane sheath, jumped, and drove the blade into the eye socket of the leading mutant giving it a full frontal lobotomy, instantly taming it. Ted had jumped on the back of the other Mutant riding it like an enraged bull, and yelled at me to go for Sarah. The Mutant had retreated from the fight as he suddenly found himself outnumbered, vulnerable, and in his cowardice he retreated to the top of the Lanyard Dome, there was no way up for those of average stature, but I had a way. I shifted out of reality into the astral plane, and then back to reality right behind the giant, it seems he had underestimated my sneakiness. I tried to creep up on him but his sense were too keen and he whirled about and punched me full forces throwing me back a few hundred yards and embedding me in the reinforced iron of the Dome. He moved towards me, surprised a finishing blow was necessary, but glad to give it. Just as I thought I would be crushed, a spray of bullets forced the mutant back, Blake Newberry piloting a old Fokker biplane and blaring “Ride of the Valkryies” bared down for a second pass, but the bullets bounced off the mutant like a light, non-penetrating, rain. The mutant let loose an arrogant laugh, and as he did I chucked an incendiary grenade into his misshapen maw. He choked and moaned with pain, vomiting blood and then collapsed, and I had to catch Sarah mid-fall, but she was fine. She looked into my eyes, trying to stammer out a thank you, I just said “Your Welcome.”
From that point on I was like one of the family, Sarah and I have quite a bit in common it turns out, including: A love of classical style, an interest in theology, Jobs that require a lot of traveling, and a healthy respect for those who keep the celestial balance. I don’t know if I have truly found love but I do know I have not not found love.

American Looking Glass: Blake Newberry: Enemy within

2008-12-10T06:55:00.000-05:00

A great man once said you cannot have two in one, that’s the whole point of two, you couldn’t fit it all in one. While true for such corporeal things as shampoo it is not true for the human mind. While one side may be entirely semi retarded, empty of all information save some obscure cartoon references the other can be an obsidian blade of Pedantic furry. Of course to the untrained non-Obsidian like minds that make up the vast sea of thinking beings a statement like that makes absolutely no sense, yet it is my situation, as the better half of a remarkably unbalanced mind.
I am a Journalist in what time I have. I contribute to several prominent papers, and the Co-editor of a little known underground rag called The Whiskey Republic. It is in that capacity that I uncovered the greatest conspiracy the world has ever known, not the Jewish one as that was made up by the Catholic conspiracy to deflect suspicion; come on people lets be honest about it, a chain of Gothic edifices that span the globe led by a wizened old man and his council of red gowned cronies plotting the coming of an all powerful messiah in their own independent nation from the largest domed building in the world, if that isn’t a conspiracy then my personality isn’t a psychopathic disorder. No the conspiracy I speak of is the Lanyard conspiracy, oh the lanyard, the arts and crafts supply of choice for campers, how can that hurt anybody? How can that be a conspiracy? Well you just laid your blatant ignorance bare for everyone to see, I hope you’re proud of yourself retard. How can that hurt anybody? How can that be a conspiracy? G-d, are you really that stupid? I mean really. Back to the nefarious subject at hand, Lanyard & Lanyards Inc. the largest distributor and manufacturer of Lanyards in North America was launching a take over bid of Kevil’s Nylons Etc. a clear case of tying to kill the competition, but not nearly as clear as the one I witnessed shortly before Christmas in Bangor Maine.
I was doing a piece on a group of Baptist ministers and the churches sowing circle who were trying to get next years October fest canceled, because it caused “Moral lapses” in otherwise moral people, and encouraged binge drinking and general rowdiness amongst young adult, but of course all that is the purpose of alcohol right? I mean do you really think our forefathers would have fought and died for our independence with out strong drink? Do you think pure machismo was enough to push those artificially brave frontiersmen across the Alleghenies, and keep them stumbling all the way to the pacific? Of course not, the sober are a weak and cowardly lot, indecisive and thoughtful, always thinking out the pros and cons before rushing into something. No, ours was a nation of freethinking men with hearts of Iron and livers of granite.
Anyway, when I was out doing a report on said story I happened to witness a crime, and it wasn’t just some one wearing white after Labor Day, Zing!!! No, I witnessed a man garroted, no wait, Lanyarded in a dark alley. Now my first reaction would generally be to continue on my way, none of my business of course, but the fact that this so clearly tied into my other ongoing investigation into the dark underbelly of the Lanyard business, and the sorted and twisted world that it entails I felt I had an obligation to investigate. I entered the alley, disguising myself in a shrubbery, a trick I learned from an especially wily Coyote, and observed. It seems a hit man, a fellow in a tuxedo and bowler cap, had garroted Kevil Williams CEO of the above-mentioned company. Why I didn’t know, and whom the killer was I couldn’t know, yet I had to investigate, I needed total coverage, and there was only one man who could get me that.
Ted Muldoon, a saucy assuie with a love of Mexican beer and women had moved to Colorado due to his appetite for privacy. An amateur pugilist, part time photographer, a professional falconer, and the skill I needed him for, expert conspiracy theorist. It seems rocky easily fortifiable terrain and calm Midwestern living is the preferable environment for these majestic paranoid creatures. I took a train to Boulder and from there I rented a jeep, which I took to his compound. When I got there he was on his porch waiting for me. He started “I knew you were coming, my pretties told me, I see through their hawk eyes. That’s why some people call me Hawkeye you can call me Ted, actually only Batman really calls me Hawkeye. ‘Oh, I’m Batman I’m better then you, I protect Gotham, which is so much harder then protecting Boulder.’ Well you know what Batman I am just as good as you, some of us can’t afford your Gotham dilettante lifestyle and your numerous man wards …aren’t you going to cut short my rant, am I not running long?” I apologized and explained that I was distracted by his down under good looks. A blatant lie but it helps keep his ego strong, as Batman can be overly harsh and hurtful sometimes, especially to lesser Boulder based heroes.
I explained my situation and he responded “Well, look how the worm has turned, who needs who now.” I was taken a back, as I had never said I didn’t need him and expressed this to him. It turns out Batman had been in Boulder foiling one of Dr.Strange’s typically strange schemes, and as usual he had not paid proper courtesy to the local vigilantes. Batman is kind of an ass that way, not like Captain America, he is all about the truth Justice and proper etiquette when dealing with his crime fighting peers. I explained to him that Batman had developmental problems do to growing up an orphan and he couldn’t always express his emotions in a constructive fashion and sometimes resented those who were just trying to help. This calmed him down and we finally got to the real nuts and bolts of the situation. I told him what had happened in Bangor and showed him the Lanyard used to do the dirty deed. He took it to his crime lab, which also doubled as his meth lab, sure some super Heroes, like Batman, can afford Cocaine to keep them up during the long night patrols and their strenuous day jobs but for those unable to afford the expensive import need a ready supply of crystal meth or some other Amphetamine to keep their double life going. Anyway he got to analyzing the material and soon came to the conclusion that it was none other then Lanyard & Lanyards Inc. very own limited edition super combat lanyard, a series of specialized none traditional Lanyards including the shoe lace lanyard, the Pontoon Lanyard, and the highly unsettling Manyard.
This new information disturbed me to no end, how could I possibly defeat this Lanyard goliath with the weak, weak power of the press. You know ones powers are weak when you need an amendment to protect them, except the second amendment of course, because that amendment is packing. Anyway I was distraught, but Ted, he was thinking for the both of us.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking,” he asked, to which I responded “no, but it would be cool if we could do that.” It seems that was not the point, Ted had a plan to bring the entire Lanyard Empire to its knee’s like a alter boy before a randy priest.
“ What is the main source of the Lanyards business power,” he inquired, which was easy enough.
“ the Illuminati of course” I said.
“ Well, your right but I was talking monetarily, to which the answer is the United States Coach and Referee union’s almost exclusive use of Lanyards to secure their whistles” he replied.
I had never thought of it that way before, the use of a lanyard in that fashion had always just seemed the natural way of things. In my mind asking why the Lanyard, was like asking why does the toilet swirl differently depending on what hemisphere you live in, it just works that way People! Of course that type of thinking is just the cultural indoctrination that is forced upon us all at a young age, like how we all just know hippies are Satan’s grand children…so spoiled.
I liked the direction this was going, unlike the direction of his” wouldn’t we all be better off with out gypsies” discussion, though I was still unsure of what his actual plan was and I aired my apprehensions. “Well, we have to convince the Coaches and Referee’s to switch of course.”
“Switch to what” I queried, which is just one of our technical journalistic terms for “asking”, I just kind of threw that in there to shake things up.
He didn’t respond, instead falling into deep thought and then sleep, the poor kid was all tuckered out. I tucked him into his bed, and went outside where in a violent shift I lost control of my mind.
That is one of the greatest problems with being one of two personalities; you don’t control yourself half the time. You wake up in weird situations, like once all of a sudden I found myself in a mad orgy of blood fighting the Mad Hatter for my life to help free Santa, how the hell does one get into that situation. Anyway it is probably just as disconcerting for my lesser half as I can’t imagine what he thinks of my madcap ruff and tumble lifestyle, fighting the forces of Evil like Lanyard & Lanyards Inc. Chasing a crazed hit man like the dapper assassin I was currently on the trail of, and all the rest of my mischief. I am guessing he would be proud, despite the fact that from what I can gather from his decorating of our home and his chosen magazine subscriptions he is dumber then a bag of hammers. Sponge Bob weekly, why the hell does anybody need a weekly newsletter for a show like that, he even got all the word jumbles wrong. Anyway when I came to I was in a small cave outside of Boulder covered in mud and Navajo tribal symbols. A large fire roasting venison crackled to my left. I quickly found my horse and left my spirit guide behind as I headed back to the Muldoon Ranch.
When I got there I was greeted with a post-it note on the door saying

Went to Vancouver to fight evil, though terribly short on Hawks, please bring three web slingers, two boxes of those Hawk shaped throwing stars I like, and a 19th century field glass.
- Theodore Muldoon III

I got all that he had asked for and picked up a pack of a dozen hawks at the Boulder city Hawkery and I was off. The trip to Vancouver was tame and I got through the entire abridged recording of the Hardy Boys series. Damn those smugglers, though thanks to the hardy boys they got what they deserved many, many times. I made my first stop in that city to the Aviary.
The Aviary is a club/Bar where bird themed villains and heroes can sit back, enjoy a drink and discuss the prose and cons of the bird like lifestyles they have chosen, or their biology had dictated. Ted had long ago gotten me honorary membership after I had gained fame and notoriety for my book on my year spent on the road with the Penguin. What crazy times, and so many umbrellas, though I will always remember him from the Cigarette holder and top hat he had gotten for me when we got our “twins” photo. He was the most generous man I have ever known.
When I finally got in I was greeted with almost total silence, since it was almost Christmas and most of the members had left for the Mexican branch of the Aviary in Tijuana, plenty of crime and crime fighting there. I asked the Bartender if Ted “Hawkeye” Muldoon had left me a message, and he did. Ted wanted me to meet him at warehouse # 12; it seems he had found out a way to get an alternate rope supply to rival the Lanyard. When I got there he was waiting with two poorly kept hipsters, an old southern lawyer, and a young snarky looking attorney. It seems this was the delegation from the British Columbian Hemp farmers association, the national lobby of Whistle manufacturers, and the American Referee and Coaches Union. Hemp, how could I have been so blind, wait, no it’s the other way around, how could they be so stupid what referee or coach would be caught dead wearing hemp, unless ultimate Frisbee has enough Coaches and Referee’s, but it doesn’t. I stated this, but it seems they had already thought of that, and that is when I found our replacement. The attorney brought out a brief case filled with red white and blue ropes, labeled “100% Freedom Fiber,” Freedom Fiber of course, just market all that is good in our nation and Jade us against embracing another beautiful concept that our nation is based on, I was blinded from simultaneous joy and disgust, and Ted had to help me into a chair before I fell. After I had regained my sight I agreed this was the only way to stop Lanyards & Lanyards terrible plot. All I had to do was publish a few pictures and a story about a Lanyard factory in Vietnam which shows the terrible plight of Vietnamese children forced to make Lanyards for five cents a day, with little protection against the terrible mutations caused by prolonged Raw Lanyard exposure. While only the last part was true, the pictures would back me up on the rest, and since I write through pseudonyms it would do little lasting damage to my reputation. At this point we broke up, each with our own mission and purpose.
Ted and I decided to head south to Baton Rouge, were a local villain called “The Cajun” was starting to make the papers, and Ted wanted to get in on the ground level on this one. I wanted to go to cover the great Baton Rouge Gumbo festival, and not just because I knew “The Cajun” would try something at it, but because I have a real interest in Cajun cooking. So together we headed for Baton Rouge, in my rented Jeep, which had long ago been declared stolen.
A Months later our efforts had created a mixed bag of results, it seems that some whistle blower from one of our colluded whistle companies had leaked our little scheme and while no one was directly implicated, much of our work had been undone, but at least we had thrown a monkey wrench in their infernal gears. It was a fine Christmas for Ted as I had put out a scathing expose’ on Richard Grayson’s relationship with a 17 yrs old intern at Wayne Corp. entitled “Robin laid an egg,” which currently has him tied up in court. I continue to find my mental situation unacceptable, especially after finding my mint condition 1977 Obi-Wan Kenobi figurine melted in the Microwave. I have also been receiving strangely menacing phone messages from some one called George; though on a lighter note the two murders in Rahway County remain unsolved.

Ollie Into Heaven: Alcohol

2008-12-10T06:47:00.001-05:00

Remember "When you learn with Rabbi X, Rabbi X doesn’t change, Rabbi X changes you!"

Brothers and Sisters,
Today I want to talk to you about the blessed affliction our community is struggling with, Alcohol, as one of the great sages of our day put it “The answer to and cause of all the world’s problems.” One cannot understand our zany topsy-turvy religion without its mysteriously disassociative properties. I mean one day me and all the rabbi’s of the Gemara are having a nice picnic till Onkeleos pulls out the Jack Daniel’s and the next thing you know Rav Sheishis is in neck deep water with a sunburn and a disemboweled slowly congealing chicken hat while playing air guitar, Rabbi Akiba is up a tree with a hard-on and I’m in Reno and have just married the most repulsive women I have ever seen because she had a hotly appropriate name. Yes, all these things have happened, maybe not at the same time, or in the context I have mentioned or in such a comfortably sacrilegious manner, or with me actually involved, but we as a people have never been big on the direct, clear and chronologically correct narratives, why? Drink’in! Break the Vessel and join the fun.
One can’t hope to understand the last 3,000 years of Jewish development without it, hell the Messianic hopes that we all hold as our dearest and greatest hopes for the future, since, let’s face it, the next generation has been a bit of a letdown, is founded in Alcohol induced Incest, the First Temple was built by getting a demon drunk, and some of our more spectacular assassinations have involved cold wine and hot women, but that was just the beginning people. For nearly two millennia our people had to suffer the weak and lowly intoxication of Wine and Beer, but then a Irish Monk who was probably Jewish, because that how we like these things to work out, invented Whiskey, and then everything changed, the dark ages ended and the age of the Kabbalah began!
Sure some “Secular” authorities might try to break it down into Medieval, Renaissance, Enlightenment, Industrial, Modern and Post-Modern eras/ages but we know its all about the Kabbalah. Sure it was once known as the natural law as seen through the prism of Torah knowledge, but that was lost until we, we being the aforementioned closeted Jewish Irish monk, who incidentally might or might not have entered a bar with two other ironically spectacular ethnic/cultural specimens, check the mesorah, distilled natural law into the magical elixir we now refer to as hard liquor.
All of a sudden a lowly sheep herder can gain unlimited spiritual heights by getting trashed and jamming on his flute in front of the ark, why? Because that’s how we roll, actual Torah scholarship, which is more important than making a living, obeying your parents and proper hygiene combined is all trumped by spirituality, which some foolish individuals might describe as those cosmic truths beyond our current ability to understand but which we learn to sharpen our basic skills knowing that we don’t understand the whole truth but hope that what we are doing will allow us to understand lesser ones, those people are heretics and should be shunned passively but aggressively. We know that spirituality is that warm feeling one gets on the beach with their eyes closed, which is also the feeling one gets from fuzzy cosmological ideas that gives one a sense of knowing more than we do, that and…Alcohol!
Those creepy logic obsessed people we talked about before might say that is just a placebo, a symptom of lesser logic competing with the higher mind, but we know that there are two kinds of drinkers me and you who use to bring us closer to each other, very close, and close to the Rebbe through which we become closer to G-d, and then there are Goyim, sick, disgusting depraved Goyim who drink and hook up in bars while burning shtetles and shaving our beards with impunity, and not those beards which look like they need shaving!
So remember Alcohol within the context of “our” religion is a blessed portal to higher understanding and a grand tradition, and the preferred means of Ollie’ing into heaven,while any other context is the realm of Goyim and their greatest idol, the Evil Eye.

American Looking Glass: A Special Assignment

2008-12-07T05:32:00.000-05:00

Simeon Radcliff is no ordinary man. No, one might even go so far as to describe him as extra-ordinary, and it is that use of adjectives that indicated him as special from the early age of 18 when he became Radcliff P.I. Yet it is not his position as a professional intern that interests us, despite the interesting juxtaposition of some one trying to make a profession out of what is nominally a temporary position. No, it is the years spent as an undercover office manager. Undercover for whom, I cannot tell! Do you want me to blow his cover, are you mad do you know what the district manager could do to him, bad things: Docking pay, demotions, Canceling Vacation time, Castration.
Anyway for the purpose of this expose’ his contacts are unimportant, nay, antithetical to the very notion of important so far from said concept that the mere notion of importance should be and has been defecated upon in similar instances. What is important is how Radcliff finally blew the whistle on one of the largest makers of referee whistles in North America. The irony about whistle blowing at a whistle manufacturing company was not lost on Radcliff who to this day in clandestine memorandum makes humorous puns on the phrase, though seriously man it’s getting old fast.
Yet it was his dry wit that made him such a valuable asset to the intelligence department of Lanyard & Lanyards incorporated. The Cleveland based maker of most of Americas whistle and medical Lanyards, which are used with increasing rarity do to a change in whistle loop diameter. Originally we attributed said changes to the fickle tastes of today’s up and coming referees who desire ever smaller and more personalized loops which lend themselves to strands made with hemp and nylon fibers, not the synthetic polymers traditionally associated with the classical lanyards and its associated paraphernalia. This seemed reasonable until our randomized double blind studies determined Referees still preferred the lanyard for its durability and strength. We had to get to the bottom of this mystery before it was to late for another generation to know the warmth and beauty of shiny whistles hanging from a standard size US Lanyard in any other context then a museum piece.
I made contact with Simeon Radcliff in his old Chevrolet were he was dressed as a transgender night walker in the old garment district, using the pass phrase “ I can swing anyway you want,” Which had led to some unwanted affection for Simeon a short time earlier do to a unfortunate, yet strangely sitcom-esque, set of circumstances. As I slid into the car he handed me a folder emblazoned in multi colored glitter “Simeon Radcliff’s big, big secret folders: Absolutely filled with company secrets.” I took it from him and asked if anyone knew he had this, he said aside from his daughter who he had made the folder with him a week before, no one. I smacked him and told him he was beautiful, in case anyone was watching and then asked him what he thought was going on, and he told me.
It seems the Company had made a secret pact with British Columbia Hemp Farmers association, through the intermediary of Blake Newberry, a Co-editor and writer for The Whiskey Republic, and my personal Arch-Nemesis. I was beginning to see the connection but I needed more proof, I told him we didn’t have enough proof to move forward, and he just looked and me for a while in disbelief before he said “ Look in the file dumb ass, that’s why I brought it.” I did and the sheer volume of proof blew me away, I asked him if the sources were credible and he said “no, their totally unreliable” in a strange tone I just couldn’t place. I thought it was all for not, since it seemed we had no credible information, but then he gave me another look and said he was being sarcastic. I didn’t know what he meant so I just smiled, nodded, and tried to give him a hug because he looked like he needed it. He pushed me away and I told him I would stay in contact as I deposited a fat envelope in his hand. It was only five one hundred dollar bills but I had also stuffed some useful coupons in their including one for a free tanning session as a friendly personal touch.
I went home to consult with Oberon the Dark Jedi, and while some contend he is just a action figure, I always remember the wise words of my father that if he is real to me that’s real enough. I closed my eyes while holding the figurine and he slowly began using his telepathy to tell me his dark secrets.
After ten minutes or so of telling me I was bad and to make fires we got to the point at hand. He whispered in my mind, “Those pants make you look gay and… wait what the hells in that folder, some more of your naughty pictures.” I looked down in shame until I realized they weren’t mine and I told him all about Simeon Radcliff. I also had to explain to him how I couldn’t kill him or I might lose my job and then mommy and daddy would hate me, he told me they already do. Unfortunately for him though I knew he was a filthy liar so I put him in the microwave for being bad, his screams will haunt me till the day I die. After that I went to sleep and dreamt of Sponge Bob and chuckled at his under seas misadventures.
When I awoke I had forgotten all about Simeon Radcliff, despite the fact that handling him was my only responsibility, and it would be several days before I would remember him, coincidently while taking a sponge bath in the company bathroom. When I did, I called him and asked if he wanted to hang out or something. He asked who I was and I got offended that he didn’t recognize my voice and I hung up. I went to his house that night before he got home and crawled into his closet to surprise him when he got in, because I personally love surprises and at Lanyard & Lanyards Inc. we’re all about love. Unfortunately instead of Simeon, some strange women burst into the room, no doubt one of those home invasions everyone is always hearing about. I pulled on one of the sheets and begun flailing about making ghost noises hoping to scare her away, and it seemed to work, but it turns out that instead of calling ghost busters she called the police. Luckily by that time Simeon was home and he cleared everything up. I told him I was there to repay a blood debt and started to cut my hand but he stopped me, what a friend. I told him that we needed more proof, and he asked why the folder wasn’t enough, how could I be so stupid. I told him I had diarrhea and ran back home and actually looked at the folder, but the information was very technical and boring and I quickly fell a sleep in the sweet embrace of a dreamy sponge bob.
The next day I had my boss read it and he said that I did good, real good. I corrected his English, that I has did good since my good was in the past and I was at present feeling very naughty. He just looked at me, smiled and then gave me a hug. Over the subsequent days we successfully sued all guilty parties and the Lanyard was safe once again. As for Simeon Radcliff, well we sort of lost contact though he some times calls me asking were the rest of his money is, I just smile and hang up the phone, remembering all the good times we had.

American Looking Glass: A very Special Christmas

2008-11-25T07:45:00.000-05:00

The scariest day of my life was the Christmas I learned Santa Claus was real, the second being the day my brother told me the house was haunted. Oh, you big hotshot Academic types might disagree with me about Santa; you may say it is impossible, but that’s because you are liars and hypocrites. Like an Ostrich sticking its head underground you ignore the obvious so your sterile Ivory tower will forever remain untarnished. The rest of us, the unthinking public, we know the truth, that’s why we like reality based television, because we are in touch with reality and we do not retreat into some alternate scripted universe like Fraiser or Alf. No, we revel in truth, like the filthy man pigs we are. We can handle it. We understand it. We love it. You know that’s what Santa really is, pure unadulterated truth, regardless of your layers of lies that might shield you from your own sins, Santa sees through them and he will Judge you, just like he judged me.
I am what you might call a simple man, and by simple I mean that my greatest goal in life is to tend the rabbits, not the sharpest tool in the shed. You might ask then how do you write so eloquently, well why don’t you just use your imagination, seriously its fun. Anyway I was heading to my office were I some how maintain a management level job and get paid a regular salary. On the way to work I spotted something slightly off-kilter, on top of the roof I saw a large Rabbit with a high-powered rifle with a telescopic sight poised to shoot a dapper young man in bowler and tuxedo. I at first attributed this to my refusal to take my medicine, as it would kill Mister Bixel the friendly doom wraith, but I some how knew this was different as I lunged forward, unfortunately that was in the wrong direction. But I did manage to warn the man with a shrill feminine scream, so he to lunged, but in the proper direction. We are obviously dealing with a professional here.
The shot missed, and the white rabbit jumped into a hole in the roof I never new existed; the roof and the hole both, I am almost totally oblivious to my surroundings. The man stood up and with a somber scowl and a voice as hard as granite he whispered” Yes your late, your late for a very, very important date… with lady steel!” and with that he pulled a sword from his cane and ran towards the building in pursuit of the rabbit. I figured by this time I was already late for work and I might as well make a day of this and followed the man into the rabbit hole.
Let me tell you no matter how much ether you have taken, nothing will prepare you for what I saw, except for possibly more ether, which has always been a possibility. As I entered into the rabbit hole I looked out onto a vast Necropolis dominated by rusting iron spires and giant skeletons traversing the warped landscape. The Rabbit and man were in hot pursuit and the rabbit was making a mad dash to the great citadel that towered over the infernal landscape, and I finally felt at home. I began prancing every so slightly towards the two, the well-dressed man stopped and looked at me, I smiled. “What are you doing here?” he said. I continued to smile and responded, “ Hi, do you want to be my friend.” He seemed taken aback by my words, which where carefully chosen to elicit just that response and in clipped monotone he responded, “Yes, Yes I do. How did you know that?” I patted his hand and looked into his eyes and said “Friends just know these kind of things.”
Our touching moment was shattered as the rabbit having assembled a group of mange-ridden hoods now attempt to finish us off. What the rabbit didn’t count on was his fingers, since my new friend lost no time in cutting them off in a quick sweep as he jumped into the fray with frightening agility, that was always the scariest part of him, his agility, that and the screaming animated skull tattooed on his chest, but his agility is still quiet scary and should be the subject of a Stephan king novel, which just for filler should contain some sort of evil noun and vampires.
Soon the tide of battle was clearly against the rabbit and he fled the fray. My friend was in hot pursuit, and we cornered him in a well-lit and inviting alley, a rather pleasant change from the ordinary. He began moving towards the rabbit, who spat on him saying, “I won’t tell you shit” something of a maxim for people in his situation. George, my friend’s name, which I learned at the reunion BBQ, moved in cracking his knuckles, and then he began the interrogation in earnest. He would punch him in various pressure points yelling “tell me were he is”, and he would then give the rabbit a moment to reply before he started again, after about a minute I pulled him off the rabbit, and asked why he was doing this. He answered me in a grave tone “ This rabbit has kidnapped Santa Claus for the Red queen, what do you want me to do, tie him up in a burlap sack and beat him with chains, because that is pretty inventive…” my mind trailed off with the mention of my hero Santa Clause.
To most people Santa is just a fable to explain away presents and the smell in the chimney, to me he was more; through out college I wanted to give up but I would always look at my Santa poster and ask what he would do. Would he give up, no way in hell would he even think to let the good little Christians down. Santa would work those elves till their fingers were pulp, and whip those reindeer until every child’s whim was satisfied or the snows of the North Pole had turned red with the blood of those who had let them down. “Giving-up” was not a phrase in his vocabulary, like “fair-play” in German. Now some demented queen and a rabbit were trying to take Christendom’s finest invention, because lets face it Jesus just wasn’t that inventive, from its children, how dare they.
I turned to George, took his sword and started towards the Rabbit as a red mist clouded my vision and the last thing I remembered was saying “Its time to tend the rabbits George” in a voice that was not my own.
When I finally regained my senses George was pulling me off of the bloody unconscious rabbit yelling, “he’s already dead.” I figured it was no real loss considering endless supply of giant rabbits in the visions of the insane. I tried to dust myself off but it turns out you can’t dust off blood, but the teeth came off pretty easy. Luckily my unique style of interrogation had gotten us the answers we needed, to bad the rabbit wouldn’t live to hear about it. The Queen was holding Santa in an underground bunker, trying to get the codes for his mechanized defense grid that protected the North Pole. We knew Santa couldn’t stand it much longer, and every moment sapped just a bit more jolliness from his being. We had taken a paw from the rabbit as a pass code. A major flaw in any security system is the use of a thumbprint with out any form of further verification, just a side not for any of you security buffs.
When we finally got inside the bunker we were treated not to any terrible signs of torture and mayhem but instead to a raucous Tea party. It seems Santa, with his infinite charm and persistence was able to convince the Mad Hatter to release him in return for appearing at his tea party, and thinking escape from the bunker was impossible. He acquiesced because from his point of view you can torture Santa any time, but how often does tea time come around.
As soon as Santa caught site of George things got dirty, and as I joined in that orgy of blood and tea, that red mist descended once more. When I once again regained control of my mind I was on Santa’s sleigh flying at frenzied speeds from Wonderland. I asked what he had done; to which George responded in his usual grave tone “it was the only way to be sure,” then the sky caught fire.
A giant mushroom cloud engulfed wonderland, as Santa howled “Thermo-nuclear destruction, H-bomb, never leave home with out one; teach them to electrocute little Santa.” I was suddenly filled with newfound reverence and love for this great man and his wonderfully extreme ways, and knowing he was free once more, I slipped into a deep slumber. When I awoke it was evening and I was in my bed surrounded by sponge bob toys and I sent another prayer up to my Hero.
So you may ask why was this the scariest day of my life? Was it the terrible Nightmarish world of wonderland that I was forced to endure? Was it nearly facing death several times? Was it finding the sickening depth of my own rage? The answer is none of the above my friend. It was the fact that on that very evening I found out my brother was right about the house.

Portrait of a German Father

2008-11-24T19:37:00.002-05:00

My Father, a German Intellectual who went by the name of Deitrich Mahn, a Rocket scientist in the employment of the US postal service, who lived off a government hand out, in return for him never speaking of his experiment in rocket powered mail delivery system. The system resulted in half a dozen fatalities, though my father once told me no one got a delivery who didn’t deserve it, and then he laughed the laugh of a vengeful German. He moved to America from Dresden Germany were he was a Zeppelin captain on the Graf Zeppelin which he often said” Never even almost crashed and exploded and cause one of the worst Aerial catastrophe in the history of the world, Never...Never!!” then he would break down crying, and I had the sneaking suspicion that he felt guilty for never getting himself consumed in a massive hydrogen inferno.

He moved to Bismarck, North Dakota do to the cities name sake stating in a unusual moment of Crassness” Otto Van Bismarck was so tuff he fucked nails, nails for G-d sakes, he is so tuff he killed six men in Beer hall brawl and then impregnated every women in Bavaria”. One night I found my father tenderly kissing a portrait of Bismarck on horse back, when I asked him what he was doing, he furiously denied that he was kissing Bismarck and said he was kissing the horse, a fact I to this day doubt. My father by no means got along with the towns people, often goose-stepping down the Main street in his trench coat and a knee high boot, saluting a very German salute to any passer byes, and referring to our mayor as Mien Furor, which the mayor publicly denied but privately felt a warm fuzzy strangely angular feeling about.

My father wanted me to be a Government empath whose Psychokinetic powers would allow me to be the shadow leader of the United States while maintaining the veil of legitimacy, and then to be brutally Assassinated by a group of anarchists, when I asked him about that last part he would tell me that I deserved no better and I was only getting so far in his imagined life for me do to his connections. Do to his abrasive manner I rarely mentioned that I lacked the Psychokinetic powers to manage this feet of madness not to mention that my fathers ill manners left him with no connections to speak of, much less the kind to get me into a non-existent part of government services. None the less I found myself enthralled with the way he would often take me to the rocket exhibit in the local Museum and lose his sense of direction do to his revelry in the world of rocketry and in a extreme case of vertigo run into any stationary object, and his love of the science so extreme as to lead him to make soft swishing rocket noises in his sleep, interspersed with cries relating to his Zeppelin days, and in a Macabre crescendo he would scream oh, the humanity, oh, the humanity.. moof...ruf...[silence].

I once hoped my father for one brief moment would remove his ruff intellectual front, the nebulous animosity to closeness that he called the frethinzatt, or purple prickly feelings as my school psychologist would call it, and for that brief moment I could ask him in a moment of unadulterated truth” father I have been wanting to ask you this for so very long, ever since I could remember, dad, can you please tell me were did you hid my bunny Pajamas with the feet, I know you know were they are just give them to me and this ugly openness can end” but he never did and my hands and feet are cold, so very cold, and to this day I don’t have bunny ears and their whereabouts are only known in my fathers head behind his list of reasons why he was a reincarnation of Otto Van Bismarck and I had to but snatch the knowledge from him.

Alas,my father died when I was but eight, he died racing, he had a fondness for the track, he never knew his limits and on a bet from a 50 year old French prostitute he entered the race in his old model-t, after killing a hobo for good luck and smearing his chest with it’s blood, a trick he learned from a ancient savage priest of a extinct civilization. He entered , and after the initial crash his body was so damaged it looked as if his body had melded with his machine, I will forever remember my father with reverence, the kind that can only be forged in blood and deformed quality American workmanship.

Ollie Into Heaven:Sub-objectivity

2007-12-17T12:14:00.000-05:00

As you all know here at the Ollie into Heaven Project we're all about keepin it real. And what more effective tool for keepin it real is there than the age time honored method of breakin it down. There is so much conflict these days about what is objectively true and what is subjectively true, its so confusing and as we all know confusion is the yetzer hara's special application scoped rifle pointed straight at your face. But shhhh don't worry, at Ollie into Heaven there is no Objective or Subjective, there is only Sub-objective. Sound complicated? Dude it's so not. History is complicated. I mean for real, the entire compiled record since the dawn of civilization. Is that a red dot on your forehead cause I think the yetzer hara's about to pop? But lets face it without objective history, we dont have past events as a reference to plan our future actions. Congratulations the yetzer hara just splattered your brains all over your crying mothers face. It's called mesora dude, now we're getting sub-objective. With mesora we can make up fantastic stories that heroic figures may or more likely never did and base our future actions on those. So lets say in real life some rabbi had a job and supported his family responsibly while minimizing his work schedule and leisure time in order to commit that time to his learning and prayer, are you feeling fuzzy? I don't know I kind of feel like I want to punch that rabbi in the face. How about instead an angel, or better yet another dead rabbi comes to a rabbi and tells him that he has to commit his whole life to study or else his whole life will be a huge waste and then when his family is about to starve to death a king or like a forest troll or something gives him like a box of gold that he then gives to another poor rabbi only to be rewarded by yet another box of gold. Now I'm rock hard! History rewards consistency, fortitude and unwavering commitment, mesora rewards fantastical, super- human behavior and here at Ollie into heaven we are nothing if not Super humans.

Ollie into Heaven: Brooklyn

2007-12-16T18:59:00.000-05:00

Brothers and Sisters,
Let us not kid ourselves, no wait, let us kid ourselves but for the time being let us ignore systematic logic and go with my gut on this one, we ain’t moving to Israel, just not happening. Its far away, hot, has a large population of African Jews which we will feel obligated to except but never feel truly comfortable around, and constant Arab aggression which forces us to question our commitment to our ideals and convictions, lets face it, those Jews are survivors, the solid unbreakable core of Jewish scrappiness that Hitler Yamach Shamo was talking about, while we are more the kind to line up for a train ride to the east for an ambiguous labor seminar, but fear not Rabbi X has got your back.

We have something better, closer, easier, and more ethnically divided, we have Brooklyn. That glorious city on the river, that urban expression of our psyche, that center of purely esoteric knowledge and culture where even the poor and ignorant are pretentious, a city were nobodies and nothings can make something of themselves… Brooklyn... Say it softly and it is a song, loudly and it is a prayer. Halls of study so grand one never has to suffer the light of day, and a dogmatically clannish attitude towards the world, a social cocoon so warm and intentionally judgmental that the outside world becomes an illusion from which our sustenance comes to us like manna from heaven, but whose angels and demons are to be loathed and shunned. Here at the center for Jewish Guilt and Persecution we know who the true Jews are, Brooklyn Jews, everyone else is pitiably misguided by these goyim, with their reasonable guiltless lifestyles, tempting us with their existence, and their faux attempts at spirituality.

In Brooklyn we can be our political, quarrelsome, divisive selves without fear of judgment, there are always more communities, more chances to game the system, more chances to destroy those we profess to love, it is a world with infinite Jews made for no one. In Brooklyn we are the Chosen people not because of what we do, what we remember, how we present ourselves to the world, but because we say so, and isn’t that a more realistic/comfortable attitude?

So remember, we are no longer wandering Jews, there is no exile, we are already home, we are in Brooklyn.

Ollie Into Heaven: The Evil Eye

2007-12-14T11:32:00.001-05:00

Brothers and Sisters,
I have been noticing of late the drop off in the sale of our red string, a drop off in faith, a drop in how much G-d loves you, and I will not stand for it. Sure my love for you on behalf of this G-d fellow is quite extensive, but I can’t be around all night to protect you…from the Evil Eye. Its realm is dark, fetted and filled with everything a person could ever complain about, with the souls of Christians and Apostates boiling in a soup of Semen and Menstrual blood, with harems of demonic shiksa wenches dancing around his 360 degree’s of visual malice, a place, that without proper protection you are all doomed to. There are those deceptive souls who will tell you that the Evil Eye is just an idea, that it is just an expression of the danger the Envy of those not equally blessed pose to those who have known good, an expression to ward off boisterous talk one might engage in the presence of embittered people. People who say such things are the agents of the eye.
I know the eye is real.
Years ago, before becoming the spiritual megalith you see before you I craved many things, things left unfulfilled do to my G-dless ways, before my awesome vision of Big R and the Material girl, things I thought would come to me if only I could become a true bluesmen. Having buried a autographed photograph of my hero Elijah Muhammad, the bones of a black cat, and box of my nail clippings at a Mississippi crossroad, he came to me. Giant and mercurial, throbbing darkness, as I cursed myself for leaving my surfing Hamsa at home, its glare burned into my being, revealing my mistakes, my sins, just generally being judgmental and making me feel uncomfortable with myself, which in the end is the greatest sin of all.
Well then I sobered up, but I will always remember my night with the Eye, and how useful the symbol of universal observation is, how little of ourselves we show in good taste, and how uncomfortable it is for others to see ones true self.
And as I look out onto this crowd of sinners, thieves, pederasts, and wealthy donors I see a lot that people wish to hide, that people need protection from, things that they would hate the community finding out about, things that they can keep hidden with a small donation and a few dollars worth of red string. So as you browse our gift shop remember, security isn’t the only thing watching…

Ollie Into Heaven: Introduction to our philosophy

2007-12-14T11:30:00.000-05:00

Brothers and Sisters,
I used to be like you: Spiritual, Sincere, and Sexually perverse in ways that would make Woody Allen cringe...non-nuerotic ways [wait for gasps and hushes], but then the alliteration of my life changed. One day when I was rock climbing on E with my sexually ambiguous life partner the Rebbe came to me in a vision, holding hands with Madonna, not the Madonna, just Madonna, and explaining the faults of my personal philosophy. For so...no, wait... too long I had felt that a closeness to G-d required a commitment to personal dignity and self improvement, to change I had to become something more, now thanks to the R man in the sky and Madonna, I realize I just have to be something different with an ideology so convoluted that by the time everyone finds out what I really am I will have...wait for it...Ollied into heaven!

That's right the long and hard road to spiritual enlightenment has a lip on it, and that lip is a mixture of Eastern Mysticism, Socially Dynamic clergy and everyone’s favorite Kabballah. For centuries Judaism was the religion of dignity and reason, but thanks to the mind crushing crucible that is a millennia and a half of EXTREME! Eastern European persecution the isolated enclaves of Jews created a slave ideology that would bring a solitary tear to an Egyptians eye. Traditionally Astrology, Cosmology, and abstract symbolism has been realm of Pagans, Cults, and Demagogues, but no more will we bound solely to an all knowing, all being, all powerful deity. We have once again reclaimed our right to small powers we can relate to on a personal level, pleasant Yokes of self worship less powerful then ourselves, you can now be dominated by the unknown as much as, or as little as, you want. We have an a excellent staff of quasi-shaved costumed Rabbi's waiting to remove your guilt through donations, the sale of chai necklaces to ward of the all knowing evil eye which dominates the darkness within all of us and commands respect equal to any G-d, prayer and spiritually manipulative sex, like the Kama Sutra spiced with guilt and garnished with self loathing.

Come Study with us, and remember study means spend time with us so we can build a reporte before we start asking for money, just to be clear, I mean who ever heard of someone wanting to learn with the poor, destitute, and of embittered spirit, those people are downers and a waste of all of our time, Rabbi X only studies with winners, are you a winner?

Ollie Into Heaven: It begins

2007-12-14T11:29:00.000-05:00

There are some big questions out there…

Questions others are too afraid/responsible to answer…

People like your father…

People like you?

Does the fact that you're gonna DIE... scare you to DEATH? Do you feel like you're already dead? Was a sense of purpose and self assuredness something you just weren't born with? Yes you say, but what can I do about it. A life-long struggle to find myself is just too long, especially in the fast paced world of today. Deep study and commitment to the beliefs, convictions and goals of my forefathers is so cold and un-dramatic. How can I turn the journey to enlightenment into a chaotic whirlwind of unmitigated self-righteousness and pitiable self-loathing?

These are the questions, now without further ado, the answer…

Well Broham, you gotta learn to OLLIE INTO HEAVEN!!
with Rabbi Xander Shmoiglstein!

BN: How do you do it Rabbi Shmoiglstein?
Rx: Call me Rabbi X.
BN: Ok, Rabbi X
Rx: No, no, just X.
BN: ...Ok then X
Rx: No, no Rabbi X, gotta let the people know I'm trustworthy.
BN: Ok Rabbi X, tell us about your hysterically un-centered philosophy.
Rx: Well man first, fuck all that other bitch ass Torah, this shit is straight Kaballah. Steps one and two have always been for nerd pussies. We go straight to step three.
BN: Wow, that does sound uncentered. So how does Ollie Into Heaven work?
Rx: Its all about the idea that when you can you can and when you can't you can't, but the point is that you can and you have to, all the time.
BN: Volatile yet sustainable, I like it. Lets hear from some of Rabbi X's satisfied minions, any questions/comments from the flock:

Audience member#1: I'm in love with this program. Rabbi X's recklessness with mysticism makes it all about duality rather than unity so when you had sex with me, I knew that it was only disgusting blemish on my reprehensible body that could easily be cleansed away by the awesome power of my soul, my clean, clean soul…I love you Rabbi X! You’re the Messiah! [ carted out of the auditorium]

Audience member#2: Everything I don't like God doesn't like and everything I do like, God loves, thank you Ollie into Heaven and thank you Rabbi X!

BN: Well that’s all the time we have for this symposium, come back next week when we will be discussing the Evil Eye in greater depth.

Fly in the Face of Convention

2007-06-28T09:41:00.001-04:00

When I was nineteen I discovered a certain fly buzzing about my dorm room, and something intrigued me about this fly. It was slightly larger and less annoying then most flies, making a light purring noise like a satisfied cat, instead of the annoying drone of its brethren. I think this fly fancied himself some what of an aristocrat perching himself on the rim of my Manhattan and spitting in it and drinking it back up. I figured my drink contaminated, so I abandoned it to the dandy insect, and went to sleep sober. The next day I awoke to see the drink empty and the fly drunkenly wobbling up to the top of the glass just to role back down. He tried once more, but fell back and passed out. Feeling sorry for the little bugger I cut a piece of lime for a morning treat and fixed it to the rim of the glass and left for class. When I returned I found him gingerly nibbling on the lime, making a satisfied squeaking noise. I found this too damn cute. I decided I would make him my pet, naming it Earnest Hemingway the II, after another prodigious booze hound.
He became a fixture in my life, perched upon my shoulder, like a parrot from Chernobyl. I taught him a few tricks like fetching small crumbs, playing dead, and taking standardized tests. My friends thought it was kind of creepy to have an oversized purring fly on my shoulder. They just couldn’t understand Ernie, as I have come to call him; he was rejected by fly conventions due to his exotic tastes and impeccable social graces. To force him back into that barbarous and hellish life, to make his existence short, ugly, and brutish, would be a crime against enlightenment. He was not stuck up or anything like that, I would often find him sitting back on a Pilsner glass dropping back some Sam Adams with drunken frat boys, or doing Vodka shots with members of the Russian mafia, and other unsavory characters. Whenever he would get in too deep with these types I would have to come in and extricate him, but before I could get angry at him he would just give me that wide-eyed look he couldn’t help but give due to his lack of eyelids. All was forgiven as we embraced.
I once took him to a Picasso exhibit as he had shown immense interest in his blue period work. Unfortunately, it was his cubist work, and Ernie couldn’t see what the big deal was. It wasn’t because he couldn’t understand and appreciate abstract art- quite the contrary -abstract and conceptual art was Ernie’s favorite, which was why I was so confused by his disinterest. Late that night it finally came to me that with his refractive vision, his kaleidoscopic world was just to cubist for Picasso to ever live up to.
After about two weeks I began to worry. Flies generally live for no more then a month, and my new found platonic love for Ernie was too deep to lose him so soon. I began to research ways to extend his life. I didn’t sleep a single night for three days as I searched every source for a cure for his all too short life span. As the fourth day of sleeplessness was about to consume my mind, Ernie flitted from his Gin Rickey to my video collection, and he landed on the horror classic The Fly. Eureka.
All I had to do was build a matter transporter, we would both get in it, and boom we would share genetic materials and he could live. I trusted Ernie to only do good with his super powers, being the gentlemen’s gentleman he was, so I got to work. For the next week I did nothing but research and build. My technical abilities and sanity were stretched to their limits. On day 27 after our first meeting I had finished it, tested it on the Janitor for safety sake, and then Ernie and I went in. It worked… too well. We both came out the other end unchanged. We tried it a few more times before I gave up and smashed the transporter in to fragmented shards. I always hated Star Trek.
After that we tried to make every last moment count, visiting all the cultural sights he could tolerate, and jiving with coolest cats at the hippest cafés. We drank… lets just say we drank oblivion under the table. Then on the 30th night in our drunken reveries we fell asleep, both believing our friendship wouldn’t survive the dawn.
When I awoke Ernie was on his back in his favorite Martini glass. Tears started to fill my eyes as I cupped his body in my trembling hands, and then he flipped over and exclaimed “Tadaa”, in his flittering voice, his first word.
Over the next year Ernie grew both as an individual, and physically, growing to the size of a football. At this point he grew aware of his nakedness and made me tailor him a smoking jacket, and as a result he immediately took up smoking small cigars and a pipe I had carved for him from a piece of cherry wood. He had also increased his vocabulary to include, “Smashing”, “bully”, “Dadaist”, “overrated”, and a series of Latin phrases, leading me to believe that if not for the exertion of speaking through his proboscis he could speak fluent English. After he had attained such skill, and style, I thought it best for him to keep a low profile. Disney had been sending its costumed hooligans to find out about Ernie, and I believe this is what caused Ernie to go red.
While I think he found Marx’s ideas as stupid as any sane man would, he found the corporate structure of America, a structure which would deny him the basic rights that should be afforded to any thinking being, to be an unsound structure in which he would not participate. He set his mind on going to Cuba, reasoning that a corrupt communist structure was better for his continued well-being and growth, rather than an efficient and cunning corporate one. I made him a disguise of a white suit, shirt, tie, and Panama hat. His bags packed, he left in the dead of night- he so hated good-byes.
A month later I received a letter from Ernie. He had bribed his way into citizenship, and a small seaside mansion. He enclosed a photograph of himself in a rocking chair nursing a Martini and Cuban cigar. He became a successful author under a series of pen names, and lives in Cuba still, deep in the abandoned American Colony. Writing, living and drinking, he writes me often in his beautiful looping letters. He sometimes asks me to come and join him, but I can’t. Our lives have diverged, my friends and family are here, I can’t leave, but I will always treasure my friendship with Earnest Hemingway the II.

Angst Day: Just another dystopia

2007-06-28T09:41:00.000-04:00

Angst Day

(noun) : a feeling of anxiety, apprehension, or insecurity felt on the appropriate day.
-Mr. Webster

Angst Day, August, 2105
It was hot day, the kind of day that makes you believe in global warming, like really believe, sacrifice your children and mutilate your genitalia believe. I’ll still tell everybody I know that it’s all a hoax because it makes my world easier to navigate and arguments more energetic. My Satellite radio blared the Classic “Everybody Knows” by Leonard Cohen, the unofficial Angst day anthem. An official anthem would probably have violated the spirit of the holiday. My wife had left me a card and single black rose. The card was coal black with gold lettering that said “So many things disappoint me, I wish someone would listen.” I sometimes feel my wife uses the holiday as an excuse to be morbidly blunt to those she cares about, but I don’t think I need to tell you why I wasn’t going to argue the point. I dismissively waved to my landlord as I hurried outside with out breakfast; I mean how can you think about breakfast when people are dieing. That was a little angst day humor for you, I had a bagel and egg sandwich, the dead are natures losers. I decided to take the subway as the streets would be clogged with protest parades and protest reenactments, and some elderly French artist had impaled an unusually large sperm whale on the Chrysler building. It was already dripping with maggots and covered with sea birds. Everyone agreed it was the most idiotic attempt to lure the Olympics to a city in recorded history, and it continued to effect traffic throughout the area. Nobody talked on the bus except for some disenfranchised youth who postured endlessly in the silence.
Work was a little better, the boss had at first darkened the mood with the news that the entire floor was being fired and we would be mailed two weeks severance, and then after we had packed our things he had lightened it by revealing it was an Angst Day prank, oh Mr. Baxter always toying with our fears of starvation and insecurity. We all had cake and ice cream, recited the national anthem, and then got down to audits. I spent most of the morning avoiding the audits by drinking way too much coffee and then going to the bathroom constantly, wage labor. I also spent some time checking my E-mails and writing dirty limericks and personal letters.
About an hour before lunch I headed over to the water cooler were several acquaintances had gathered. We traded pleasantries and discussed the war, Ray was against it, Irena was for it, I politely agreed that both of them had a good point but then remembered what day it was and added “Wag the dog right, its all just an attempt to distract us from the real issues.” This little out burst was so uncharacteristic that they all just sat there in silence until their eyes lit up with realization and we all traded Angst Day high fives. Lunch was almost a mockery of the day, as everyone tried their hardest to be their most alienated, cynical, and unsure of themselves. Unfortunately after almost two weeks of Angst day specials and themed advertising the idea of being actually Angst-full seemed almost ironic and unrealistic, but at least we all tried. After lunch Ray and I clocked out and we decided to wander through the mall listening to alternative rock. We had tried to rent skateboards, but they were all out and the salesmen told us that most people had reserved those months earlier. I felt that was a little weak, but I guess they had to make a living too, and they do most of their business today so I couldn’t be too angry. Instead we just loitered in music and book stores until we were asked to leave, which we did only after accusing the clerks of being conformist. We thought about egging cars for the rest of the afternoon but security was out in force today, keeping those damn teenagers in line. Instead Ray and I parted ways and I went home.
My wife was already there with the TV on and a blank expression on her face. I joined her on the couch and spent the next four hours watching afternoon cartoons and talk shows, just watching never thinking, why? Because that’s how it’s done. Eventually we ordered Pizza which took almost an hour to get to us, once again this is their biggest day. I started wondering if this day had any real purpose, why should we celebrate this emotion? Is it even worth having? I didn’t care I just new I hated the government, most of the social strata of our nation, Aborigines of every race, color and creed, and every manner of individuals who has ever acted contrary to my will, why can’t I control everyone? The world would be so much happier. The last episode of the Twilight Zone marathon came to an end and I thought, what if I’m in the twilight zone, what if twenty years from now Rod Sterling comes to me and states certain facts of my life making all my efforts and dreams void by some unexpected cosmic confluence. This idea was of course insanity, which was the Twilight Zone, a place where those stray unreasonable thoughts can collect and be formed into a semi sensible plot and then re-released on your mind as an original foe, with just a hint of Déjà vu . That’s why people only get lost in the twilight zone, if they would take a few minutes shake their heads and think “This isn’t really happening” those psychotic synapses will stop firing and your mind will return to peaceful reality; but instead they think yeah this can happen, what next? This is unhealthy and I think if they had put a competing outer limits marathon on that day we might have been able to weed out the weaker minds in our society. What if there had been a competing Outer Limits Marathon and I am just waking from a centuries long Coma from its psychotic effects, Cognitive Darwinism through watching a Sci-fi horror show, every geeks dream, and an improbable proudly angst-full thought.
Then my wife and I engaged in some crazy nihilist sex, emotionally shattering in its shallowness, Anti-Social in its total lack of empathy, and a lot of fun. That’s why she can be as morbidly blunt as she wants…its Angst Day! When we were finished we both took separate showers, and I decided to stay with my parents that night, I didn’t feel safe anymore.
After I had made the two hour trek to my parents winter lodge in Upstate New York I remembered it was their winter lodge. So I made my sad little bed on the couch, took out my three closest friends in their orange bottles, looking quiet fine after their annual one day vacation. I swallowed them with what I think was slightly sour milk (the expiration date was good) and looked forward to the next 364 days of uninterrupted socially engineered bliss.

A Special Poem about women's bathrooms

2007-02-04T20:14:00.000-05:00

A women’s bathroom

The tiles glazed an opalescent white
Polished by orthodontic hands

Cold and smooth, refreshingly clean
Ventilated and fresh, no hint of mildew

The sweet scent of the woman’s bathroom
Untainted by male musk and stank

As if women defecated only rose petals and doves
As we always dreamed they did

The rows of shampoo bottles enhanced, purified, and abundant
And their lady in waiting, conditioner, as plentiful as their liege

You open the frosted speckles pain
Sliding unfettered, as if greased with ambrosia

Into a bathtub covered in razors

The Jew Hater

2007-02-01T13:51:00.001-05:00

I sat in his Jew office, a mockery of a real office, with his pictures of family and friends, and his pagan idols, marked with "Employee of the month" and " Award for continuing service" no doubt given to him to appease his heathen lust for polytheism.

Where are the crucifie and icons to remind you of G-d's glory, the Virgin Mary and the relicquaries that give form to our belief in G-d's son who these people killed.

The Jew. I call him that because to me they all look alike,came in, in his Jew garb. I mean who wears a suit and tie these days.

" Well everything seems to be in order, I'll show you to your cubicle" so like a Jew, putting a G-d fearing Christian in a cube, too good to share his office with little ole me, "Jew" I muttered.

"What?" He asked with his Jew lips, I said " I said 'you', you lovable rascal" I hated myself for that.

He showed me a cubicle with a phone, a computer, and a stack of papers. The Jew left me with instructions and his worthless Jew Thanks. I promptly opened minesweeper, sat back, and waited for the rapture I knew would set things right.

The Importance of Fabric softener

2007-02-01T13:51:00.000-05:00

One often belittles the fabric softener, many manly men tossing it aside as a women's extravagance.

One MUST understand it does more then soften, much more.

It Prevents static my friend, the scourge of any bed sheet.

One moment your looking at your wife snug in her sheets, the next they're lit with saint elmo's fire, and then all the manly men in the world won't stop the screaming.

The same electricity they use in lightening my friend, they say it cooks you from the inside.

During my time as a traveling lighting rod salesman many people said " Sure my house is protected..." I wish they would finish, because I would say nothing. The product speaks for itself; instead they just pull out a shotgun and the chase is on.

Why Thor and Dr. Zeus ever thought it was a good idea I will never know, the apes and Norse have always been mysterious, so like us.

I believe there are worlds without softener , worlds of endless crags, bathed in the twilight of dying twin suns and lit with the constant arcing of static which are consumed by eyeless hairless monsters, boiling their old blood for food in the fiery blast furnaces they call stomachs. Pools of acid storing this insane energy, filled with gnashing eels and worms. Froglike men harpooning them and eating them raw and still alive. Fungal blooms clog the air and find root in all that is living, deforming their victims, choking them, the only cure being the crucible of terrible energy allowed to coarse through them, burning away the parasites. Yellow crusted land crabs praying to a burnt red sky, scored with jagged white light.

Lucky for you my friend we live in a softer world, and I happen to have my last box of softener right here and I'll sell it for...WHAT THE HELL AM I SAYING, its mine, get away, I'm not going back, I'm not going back...

Hanz the German Intellectual

2006-12-14T17:03:00.000-05:00

A short story
By (The Editor)
Fresh off the Zeppelin from Dresden, I stepped onto the all-too-free soil of the Americas. I had thought about a U-boat landing but that would hardly befit me, Hanz Van Uber-Deutch, the archetypal German intellectual and part time super-villain. I had come from the fatherland to set these United States straight. It is my destiny. I had to start small. I understood that your nation had become overgrown with cancers such as drugs, illiteracy and Jews. I would start in the epicenter of American decadence and turn it into a model of Teutonic efficiency, and that place was Greenwich Village.
It turns out that you no longer maintain an immigrant processing station on Ellis Island, and, in fact, due to your inept INS I didn’t need to apply for any papers. I even signed up for flight classes without too much trouble. I wondered how young Americans picked up women without the classic pick up line “SHOW ME YOUR PAPERS, NOW!!!” For all you know, you could be dating a Slav, unless you have “Das Furors: racial chart” on you; I always have the pocket edition with me, just in case. I goose-stepped from Penn Station to 14th St. were I saw some like- minded individuals parading for Bush, carrying signs like “ Bush=Hitler” , and “Republicans are Fascists”. I was surprised to find such hardcore Fascists in what was supposed to be a communist stronghold. I couldn’t understand why they chose tie-dye shirts and hemp jackets as their uniforms, but I was inspired with their zeal and threw on my arm band and joined them. I was confused with their uneasy stares and pointing, and could only conclude they wanted a speech. I saluted and began “Fellow Socialist I fear for this nation and its Ultra-Nazi leader Bush” their cheers gave me strength” Our nation has fallen behind the zeitgeist, our destiny is trampled by the weak minded in our government!” Cheers turned into a roar. “Those who oppose Bush must be purged, the opposition must be cleansed from our ranks, the weak must be left behind.” Silence. I intensified my hand gestures. “We must all work towards the will of Bush, anticipate his will and make it our own, our dream of National Socialism will only be realized with the blood of our sacrifice”, the crowd turned on me and began to walk menacingly towards me. I quickly flipped on my Invis-O-Belt and ran.
Things had definitely changed since I had frozen myself 15 years earlier and obviously the Left’s love of Hitler analogies had progressed to such a level that they could be applied to moderates of the opposing side. I quickly fell into a nihilist funk as was my want; all I wanted to do was to make a difference for once in my life. I had spent most of my life either being laughed out of universities for my “mad “theories or plotting diabolically flawed schemes. I mean, a couple just happened to work out because of the ineptitude of most intelligence agencies, after all 007 can’t be everywhere all the time. I also wrote a best selling book about growing up in rural Kentucky, even though I grew up in Berlin. I falsely representing my life story since nobody wants to hear about prep-school, emotional repression, and Post-WWII social alienation, and that’s all my childhood was really about. In short, my life was a meaningless collection of daring and dastardly deeds. I could never have a family because I find it repugnant to yield my masculine essence to the weaker sex, and because I have a paralyzing fear of intimacy. That’s why I wanted to make a difference by helping America by ridding it of its hippie problem. Yet I wasn’t even able to convince a group of stoned, mentally-numbed counter-centralists –the people who march against WTO, and for Saddam Hussein.
I was snapped out of my reveries by something my father once told me. “In my day we had to unify many smaller states into a great European empire just to have all your work dashed in one apocalyptic war which ends in a leftist revolution, both ways in the snow”. The meaning of being German was not to leave something behind for future generations, but instead to be German was to do something important that in the end will result in nothing positive. Why else would Franz Kafka, the ethnic German, have asked that all his work be burned upon his death? Because he was German. Why would Nietzsche create a philosophy that would be easily used to justify one of the most horrific ideologies in history, which would in turn negate any positive contribution he made to society? Because he was German. Why would Freud create an intricate psychological study, then ruin it by making the grotesque assumption that everyone wants to make love to their mother, alienating everyone? Because he was German, dammit.
Reinvigorated with Teutonic zeal, I called my zeppelin, and programmed the onboard death ray to atomize those protesters who had taught me the horrifying lesson of what it meant to be German. Did I feel bad, of course not, these people wanted to change things for the better, make a fairer world, one of weakness and frivolity. Then I laughed the laugh of a vengeful German, which all Germans are, and hoisted a tankard of beer to the portrait of my hot mother, and set fire to my formula for a universal cure, all while slipping into a feeling of self loathing and general disgust, spending the rest of the day luxuriating in my German-ness.
Several weeks later I returned to my beloved Dresden and opened a cabaret specializing in meaningless symbolic eroticism, the kind that required heavy doses of alcohol and opiates to mask its human bankruptcy and allow you to sleep at night. My free time was spent trying to work out my father issues with a disinterested Frenchman whom I hate with all my being. I’ve never been happier.

--Breaking Scientific/Math News--

2006-08-22T22:54:00.000-04:00

A enigmatic and very rude mathematician from St.Petersberg, Russia refused maths highest honor. This "Grigory Perelman" is 40 yrs old, lives with his mother, refuses to submit his research to peer review, posting it on his website, and is contemplating turning down millions in award money for solving "Poincare conjecture." Now yes, I may better understand the shape of the universe, but this man is missing his chance to get out there, he could be the biggest new thing on the stupidly hard problems scene since, whatever it is that happens that's great in math, something by Einstein. Like the mans style, eccentric Germans, what aren't they capable of. Anyway the Russian has clearly insulted us and I suggest we take Math away from them, possibly Art and Fraternity too, but lets start small and see if it makes a difference. Ah, Science.

Bush: By the power of Texas

2006-04-03T11:47:00.000-04:00

Bush Sighed as he looked out the window into another sight bleaching Texas day, wishing he could be out fighting terrorists when Dick Cheney came running into the office breathless, desperately trying to fibulate his heart with his right fist. His Intern caught up and told the President "Chirac and the Axis of Evil are attacking Freedom land, what do we do." The President "Pondered" what was to be done while a team of doctors had cracked open Cheney's chest and were slowly massaging life back into his heart, "Ericka, I've got it" the President exclaimed, giddy with insight, barely suppressing a half smirk.

The President unsheathed his fathers sword, forged by William F. Buckley in the flames of some New Zealand Volcano." By the power of Texas I am armed" screamed the president as he held the sword aloft. Suddenly he transformed into the warrior prince of the lone star state and he rode forth on a saddled Scott McClellan.

To Be Continued...