*Disclaimer: I fully acknowledge that I am reading the following because I’m hungry for highly controversial and tasteless literature. I am a dirty piggy, and realize the following is nothing more than fiction for my underdeveloped brain. I like to fantasize about strange things and thus absolutely need to read this. Matthew Good is not responsible for my actions or any actions that may occur after I read this. I have been warned of the dangers concerning this sensitive material and I choose to read on because I am hungry for smut.

Most things in life start unexpectedly, though this was different because it involved a porn queen, two strippers named Debbie and Launa, and a large boa constrictor named Mr. Tickles.

First class is one of the biggest secret societies in the world. If you’ve only flown coach you have no idea what goes on up there. If you’ve flown first class then you know what I’m talking about. After the stewardess closes that magic curtain all the rules change. Booze flows like water, hand-rolled Cuban cigars are aplenty, they break out the blackjack tables (complete with topless, and quite often Swedish, vixen-like dealers). I would be lying if I told you that I was accustomed to these surroundings. I was merely a spy in the midst of decadent decay. I’m not saying I didn’t like it. I’m just saying I was a spy. As to whose spy. Well, that’s another matter altogether.

On this particular occasion I was accompanied by my somewhat incoherent co-conspirator, Todd Kerns. Three hours prior to being on the plane we were sitting quietly at a downtown restaurant eating oysters and throwing pieces of damp napkin at the ass of this rather large waitress. Things turned ugly when we attempted to use straws instead of our hands, we were quickly escorted to the nearest fire exit and discarded into an adjacent alley. It was then that we decided to go to Las Vegas for the weekend. Todd felt that we were long overdue for a vacation and Vegas might offer some solution to our hypertensive state.

There we were in first class, slipping through the night like a drunken teenage girl hopped up on illicit sugar smacks and Baby Duck. It seemed as if we were caught in some giant test tube filled with uncertain energies and strange, pig-faced people from some nightmarish land. I was lost and reeling in self-degradation and some strange warmth that always slips through my limbs when I know something morally irreversible is about to occur. I slumped down in my seat to try and sort the C-drive files in my mainframe when I gazed upon her legs. They were long legs. Long like a one-way street leading to some warped place of intimate viewing.

I knew her naked self from a thousand glossy-paged magazines. The sort that one procures from time to time to pass the never-ending hours of touring. But I was a stranger to her smile. It shocked me that her familiar lust-filled sneer didn’t immediately show itself when my eyes made their way to her face. You often think of them one way only to discover that they’re either much worse or doctors of astrophysics. This is typical of girls in dirty magazines. I was later to discover that she was in the “much worse� category, but at the time she played me like a bad country song.
She was unlike any woman I had ever met. And even though I was convinced that the devil was now female, I was stumbling to produce some rational dialogue that would endear me to her favour. Maybe it was the alien air in that first-class cabin. Maybe it was the mesmerizing shimmer of the soft lights. Maybe it was simply the fact that I was talking to a woman that would do just about anything in front of a camera for money. I don’t know.

We continued talking in whispers and strange advances as the pig-faced people milled about the cabin snorting and laughing their pig laughs. Todd, strangely enough, was nowhere to be found. I would later discover him face down on the floor next to the rear exit with a Polaroid of him and a half-naked Swedish dealer in the bathroom. Memories are important.

Las Vegas: home to tens of thousands of fat people, buffets, superhotels owned by movie studios, and supermodel rejects. Las Vegas is where the low end of normality and botched plastic surgery meet to form something that resembles glamorous euthanasia. The lights of the strip, not unlike the star that led the wise men to Christ, beckon the average to be anything but themselves. Most victims of Vegas end up losers. Eventually everything comes full circle.

It’s one of those places that you enter as Superman and leave as the swamp thing. No one gets out of Vegas clean, despite the attempts of late to make the city appear to be something other than what it really is. And what it is, is dirty. The smart realize it. That’s why they go to Vegas, for the dirt. It doesn’t matter if the mob runs Vegas or if big business runs it. Both are ignorant to its true purpose. A gateway to hell exists beneath Las Vegas. Either that or a river of pure milk chocolate.

As usual we had completely forgotten to secure lodgings. Upon our arrival we found ourselves standing in the airport looking around in bewilderment at our surroundings. It dawned on us that we were actually standing in another city. Maybe we weren’t entirely serious back in that alley. Maybe the plane had flown through some kind of vortex that had brought us into a new reality, like teenagers waking up only to realize that the adults had vanished, leaving them in control of the world. Luckily my first-class seating companion spotted us and offered to put us up. She was working a show later that night at a strip club, but assured us that we wouldn’t be a bother.

We ended up in a luxury suite high atop the city. Looking down from those huge windows everyone didn’t seem so fat. Maybe it was the liquor talking, but I felt like I could drop a bomb and then casually order shrimp cocktail or some other kind of food that people rarely endeavour to make in the privacy of their own homes.

I felt like the god of Las Vegas up there looking down on pitiful creation. The slot jockeys and suburbanites bankrupted by the blackjack and poker tables. The hookers and the street trash, the well to do, the hope to do well, the well done. For a brief moment I saw myself from outside of my own body and was quite pleased for a change.

Todd was sprawled in the middle of the room trying to arm-wrestle a bottle of vodka. He knew he couldn’t win. But that hasn’t stopped anyone from trying for the past 500 years now has it.

So there we were. Sitting around a room that, in any other city, would be grounds for admittance into a mental institution. And sometime before 3 a.m. a blonde porn star was going to come walking through that door, possibly accompanied by other blonde porn stars, to slap me around. Or at least I hoped that was what would happen. I was perfectly wretched and deviant but completely at peace with it. Maybe that’s the secret of Las Vegas.

It wasn’t until well after four when she finally arrived. I’m sat on the sofa in one of those robes that expensive hotels have in the bathrooms and Todd was out on the balcony yelling passages from the bible at the miniature fat people down on the street. She looked tired, but tried to act like she was awake. She undressed right in front of us and went into the bathroom to get the other robe. Things were beginning to get weird.

For the first time I began to realized that my counterpart might be somewhat of a nuisance in this particular situation. I sat there on that sofa, my eyes following her across the room, while my brain tried to sort out the details of burying Todd’s corpse somewhere in the desert. The demon of lust had complete control over my body, turning me into a fiend of the highest calibre. She sat on the bed and began to roll around and stretch like a cat. By this time I decided to bludgeon Todd using one of the heavier-looking lamps and take her for myself. It’s times like this that require tact and unassuming movements. For all I knew Todd could have been planning to bludgeon me to death with the vodka bottle. Luckily, no violent action would be required, because at that moment there was a knock at the door. Enter Debbie, Launa, and the infamous Mr. Tickles.

Some of you might have seen Debbie and Launa do their show, known to most as Feather and Sky in Taming The Snake. Though banned from twenty-three states and four provinces, they still do their routine with the snake nightly in a variety of clubs. They’re also available for private shows as well (at the whopping rate of $1,000 an hour). I thought about asking them why they called the boa Mr. Tickles but realized that there could only be one reason to call it that.

They put Mr. Tickles in the bathtub and returned to the living room to exchange pleasantries and have a drink. It was then somewhere in the neighbourhood of 5:45.

My self-control was slowly melting into the carpet like a cheap candle as my head snapped between the three trying to get a fix on which one would make the best target. And that was my first mistake. I was sitting in a room with three women that were professional adult entertainers. This was my pathetic high-school mentality; it wasn’t a matter of what I wanted. It was more like what they were going to do to me and whether or not I’d survive.

It began to dawn on me that Todd and I weren’t the hunters in the room. We were the hunted. We had been brought to this lofty den of promiscuity not by chance, but by a cunning lioness that knew full well what she was doing. There was to be a feast and we were the main course. For an added measure of torture we were made to helplessly watch the three girls launch into one of their threesome routines right in front of us. I have never been so completely immobilized in my entire life.

As a man you assume that, given the opportunity, you would jump right in if a situation like that ever arose. But that’s just not the case. There’s a good fifteen minutes of shock at first. It was so severe that my counterpart actually lost interest in the vodka bottle and started crawling across the floor to gain a better vantage point. It was like some scene one would expect to find in the depths of hell or in a girl’s locker room on the best day of your life.

We sat there motionless while various acts were performed right in front of us. I have never felt real terror like this before. I’m not talking about the kind of fear you feel when you know the school bully is going to be waiting by the bike racks for you after class, but rather the terror you feel when some skinhead that’s whacked out on pills and whiskey pulls a .45 out and puts it to your head. And judging from what I remember of Todd’s expression, that’s what he felt too.

Those fifteen minutes were the longest three days of my life. As if locked inside some terrible dream, I vaguely remember the girls crossing the floor towards us on their hands and knees. And if my memory serves me correctly, they were hissing. They say that war veterans usually remember the horrors of their ordeal far more clearly and vividly years after they’ve come home. I believe that to be true. I can only remember bits and pieces of the following twenty-four hours. Rivers of oil, chocolate sauce, and other fluids crowd my mind from time to time when I’m violently awakened by these memories. The cold and terrible images of silvery bindings, leather masks, three speed genies, circus midgets, and Miracle Whip also plague my recollection from time to time. I don’t remember the snake. But I’ve seen Todd’s face go absolutely white every time we see one on TV or in a photograph. I can only imagine the horrors that were thrust upon him.

Most of the time I try not to remember.

I woke up on the floor covered in what smelled like gin, though it could have been an antiseptic of some kind. Every muscle in my body felt like it had been removed and then put back slightly out of place. Sitting up, the horror of what had taken place started to hit me. Stumbling around the room I came upon the tattered remains of my clothes, the sofa, several tables, and the mini-bar. I later discovered Todd sandwiched between the bathroom wall and the toilet, wide awake, gazing blankly forward. His eyes were slightly rolled back in his head, like he’d taken a million sleeping pills and was beginning to see the rabbit people slowly encircling him. I hoisted him up and put him in the bed while I tried to figure out what to do next.

Escape was paramount. We would have to make a run for it and soon. Hopefully my counterpart would be up for it. We had little choice.
Swallowing panic every ten feet, I went to the lobby of the hotel hoping to find a clothing store or gift shop. The only thing I was able to get my hands on were two baby-blue Mickey Mouse t-shirts and two pairs of white tennis shorts. Having accepted the fact that insult would have to be added to injury, I headed back to the room and threw Todd in a cold shower. A half hour later he was able to realize that we had to flee before the succubus and her fellow demonettes returned from their daylight raids. Throwing on our clothes, we took the service elevator to the basement, slinked through a series of hallways, climbed a flight of stairs, and found ourselves in sunshine. We grabbed a cab to the airport, then home, followed by years of government-funded therapy.

Everyone in first class on the way back seemed to sense that we didn’t belong there. The whole trip was toned down to a semi-decadent level, with a handful of the pig people venturing out of their seats to get down to the disco quietly pumping through the cabin. I was, as fate would have it, seated next to a nun on the return trip. And though considered by most to be a servant of God, and therefore bound by some secret pact to be kind, she could smell my burning flesh and refused to engage me in conversation. My counterpart spent most of the flight throwing up in the bathroom, his head held gently over the vacuous receptacle by his lovely Swedish stewardess.

I felt as if I were running from something that I would never fully escape. But as we winged our way back into the bosom of the great Pacific Northwest, I remember thinking that I had survived some kind of test that had prepared me for a greater encounter in the future. And if so, then I was convinced that the future was x-rated. And in it I would remain a spy. As to whose spy. Well, that’s another matter altogether.

In the recesses of our tiny heads there are a million rabbits flipping millions of switches. Each switch sends an impulse to the master rabbit who, in turn, flips one of seven larger switches that are located in his big bubble-dome control centre. Each of these switches is a different colour. Red, blue, green, yellow, white, black, and purple. These master switches send electronic impulses to different parts of your body, telling you what to do next.

Since the beginning of time, these seven primary switches have allowed the rabbit masters to perform their tasks. Each colour represents a specific body function or psychological domain. Red, for example, controls the emotional responses, while blue controls the subconscious. Of the seven switches, the rabbit masters commonly use five of them (red, blue, green, yellow, and white). It’s a very rare thing for the black switch to be used. Even rarer is the purple switch. The purple one has never been used, so no one’s quite sure what that one does.

The black and white switches are the most interesting of all the switches. The white switch controls the good you, while the black switch controls the evil you. Unlike the other switches, which allow the rabbit masters to activate specific functions themselves, the black and white switches serve the rabbit masters like communication conduits. When a rabbit master flips the white switch a message is sent to the internal representation of the good you. Unlike the internal representation of the evil you, the rabbit masters allow your good side free rein throughout your body because they’re extremely helpful and often promote stability and goodwill. So when the white switch is thrown, the rabbit masters are just alerting your better half about something, not unlike a telephone call.

The black switch, on the other hand, operates more like a massive electronic pulse. Your inner evil is actually locked in a tiny little cage deep within your body. It can’t escape from this cage, but it does have the ability to communicate with those working around it.

From time to time, it will convince some of your lesser rabbits to stage a revolt or do something to anger the rabbit master. When this happens the rabbit master flips the black switch, which shocks your evil quite severely. The strange thing about your evil self is that of all the things it convinces those lesser rabbits to do on its behalf, the most common is to coerce them into flipping the purple switch. This presents a very profound dilemma seeing that no one knows what the purple switch is for.

There are many rabbit masters that believe the purple switch has something to do with the ninety percent of your brain that is never used. Others contend that it’s the death switch. One thing is for certain though: since the dawn of time, rule number one has always been “no matter what happens, the purple switch must remain in the ‘up’ position.� The rabbit masters obey. Since the beginning of time, no purple switch has ever been thrown. And no one ever talks about it, either. No one, that is, except for your evil self.

Since man first crawled out of the ocean and stood upright, your evil has always been locked in a cage and your good has always been allowed to run around as free as a bird. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they dislike each other. Quite the opposite. When your good isn’t busy putting on motivational seminars for your little rabbits it can usually be found talking to your evil. They usually get along quite well. This most likely stems from the fact that they understand each other. Without one the other wouldn’t exist. Without the good and evil selves the rabbits would just go about their work and that would be that. But someone decided it would be a riot to put those two extra little guys in there.

Most rabbit masters know that the good and the evil talk incessantly about the purple switch. What perplexes them is why they’re always talking about it. Many rabbit masters wonder why one needs good and evil in the first place. Things would be much easier if both simply disappeared. It’s not uncommon for rabbit masters to be suspicious.

The rules say that no one is allowed to enter the bubble-dome except for other rabbits, so they’re obviously not planning an assault on the bubble-dome. Unless, that is, the good and the evil don’t follow the rules.

Maybe your good self is the one telling your lesser rabbits to listen to your evil one. Maybe they both know that one is above suspicion and the other will always be viewed as guilty. But there’s a possibility that they’ve been working together all this time. Which brings us back to the purple switch again. It is a complete mystery to everyone except whoever came up with the rules in the first place. But that just poses another problem altogether because no one knows who or what that is.

Your evil and your good selves know about the rules. They may have even read them once or twice. But that doesn’t mean they believe in any of them. For all anyone knows they could be convinced that the rabbits wrote the rules and use them to keep things static. The rabbit masters, on the other hand, have never questioned the rules. The rules are unchangeable. If the rules say that the purple switch is not to be thrown, then they will never allow it to be thrown. It doesn’t matter that it interests your good and your evil so much. The rabbit masters know very well that they can’t do anything about it themselves. No one’s allowed in the bubble-dome except rabbits. That’s the rule.

So for your whole life this endless dance continues deep within your body. The rabbits throw all those switches, which send messages to the rabbit masters. They, in turn, throw the master switches that determine your actions. And amongst all of that your good and your evil conduct themselves accordingly. It will continue on as such until you have passed on.

1) The Lesbian Faerie Story

2) Morgan Fox & Her Midget All Stars

3) There Are No Saunas In Hell, Thus No Swedes

4) Close Only Counts In Horseshoes, Hand Grenades, & Organized Religion

5) Sister Act 4: Mistress Beatrice

6) Curious George: The Missile Attack On Flight 800

7) White Power Gnome & Crack Mouse

8) Bambi & Candy Explore Exotic Bangkok

9) Mr. Clean Vs The Arm & Hammer Cow: Live From Las Vegas

10) The Girl Who Stabbed Dave Porter In The Armpit With One Of The Steak Knives He Gave Her For Christmas (The Muppet Audio Version Starring Sir Alec Guinness & Miss Piggy)

11) Toucan Sam & Captain Crunch Vs The Swiss Miss Chick &The Coppertone Girl

12) The US Government Testing Of Anthrax At Sweet Valley High: An Essay

13) The Lonely Planet Guide: 12 Things Not To Say To Turkish Prison Officials

14) Matt Good, The Lithium Years, 1979-1984: A Biography By Sven Donaldson

15) A Saturday Night In Hell: The Demonic Possession Of 4 Catholic School Girls & How To Make Fake ID’s.

16) Farley Mowat: Boring You To Death - 12 Of His Greatest Hits

17) I’m Sorry, My Fault! The Pressures Of Being Canadian

18) The Day Everyone Was Allowed To Shoot Anyone They Wanted But Missed

19) Dear Santa, A Wish List: Volatile Chemicals & Body Disposal Techniques For Beginners

20) Successfully Faking Illness. A Guide To Doing Nothing Ever Again

21) Hostage Negotiation. Getting What You Want From The Cops

22) Titanic. Getting It On While You’re Going Down. Notes On The Film

23) Cherry Jell-O & Primary Plastic Explosive Compounds. An Essay On Taking Sadism Too Far (A Nihilists Perspective) Volume 1

There’s a storm out there making for land. It is like a runaway train. You can feel it when you breathe. Breathing in an absolute silence to produce an absolute exasperation. It’ll jab and then it’ll use the hook. And it can dance like a ballerina. It has no intentions of allowing you to regain your feet. It prefers you down on the mat wondering what day of the week it is while you fish around in your blood-filled mouth for a couple of free teeth. It didn’t come to prove anything to you. It came because it knew that there would be nothing to stop it.

The only thing September is good for is the artificial inflation of clothing and stationery prices. Things you could get for maybe half as much in June now put you in the poorhouse until November. The world, by some strange process, begins to revert back into a state of controlled mania, subduing that animalistic anarchy that ran rampant through the streets only weeks before. Everyone is recovering from some kind of abnormality, some kind of euphoric withdrawal, lamenting over vacation photos and letters from that summer fling which will forever represent some absolute, 48-hour perfection at some hotel in Antigua. No pasts, no pertinent details. You were someone else there for a while. But it’s September now. Mob rules.

The kids go back to school and sit in those classrooms catatonically staring out the windows into the late summer afternoons. Teachers lecture in alien languages while the managers of various Dairy Queens pore through employee records trying to figure out which summer-staff member is most likely to make a career out of serving ice cream.

The word responsibility takes on a whole new meaning. In July it meant that you made sure you had a good time. In September it means that the universe has got you under its thumb.

I was thinking of quitting music and attempting to ride around the world on a giant, oversized Big Wheel. After checking the most recent edition of The Guinness Book of World Records I’ve discovered that it’s never been done before. People have ridden a lot of things around the world, but never a Big Wheel. Now I’m quite aware of how ridiculous I’ll look doing it, but there’s always a price for glory. Who really cares if you record records, play shows, and make music videos. In this day and age people can put that sort of thing together in a matter of milliseconds. Think of how original it would be as a conversational piece at a party.

“Yeah, I rode a Big Wheel around the world. What did you say you did again? Dentistry?�

This is the kind of thing September should do to you. You should refuse to pay your credit-card bills, eat whatever you want, drink in excess, and throw wild Caribbean theme parties every Saturday night. Life would be like a Tom Robbins novel on uppers and everyone could stop pretending they have somewhere to go.

I don’t have anywhere to go. There, I said it. Not one single goddamn place. My name’s Matt and I have nowhere to go. Though, come to think of it, Six Flags would be agreeable. Roller coasters, above all things, are my greatest love. They don’t really go anywhere either.

It’s called melancholia. Supposedly people get this ailment in the fall and winter when everything’s bleak and life just isn’t worth living anymore. In spring and summer you’re a self-contained carnival. Come fall you just can’t find the strength to carry on. You’ve been kidding yourself long enough, you figure. Maybe they can freeze you for half the year so you just have to put up with yourself during the warmer months. That’s why I’m riding a Big Wheel around the world.

I’ve planned the whole trip so I will reside in an endless state of summer. Which should mean that I’ll be in a good mood from now on. Which should worry you. Lost in such a euphoric state I’m sure to start penning songs about money, songs about parties, songs about how cool I might look in a rented Ferrari. I’ll play shows in Monaco and tour the world in a huge, rented cruise ship. Never knowing that I could feel such freedom, I will willingly become all that I once detested.

Then again, maybe I won’t. If you’re out there, if you’re seconds away from ordering the Tony Robbins self-help tapes, if you’re thinking of rendering yourself helpless because it seems the path of least resistance, just remember what you were taught as a child. 1] STOP, DROP, and ROLL. 2] NEVER TAKE CANDY FROM A STRANGER. 3] there is no 3. I’ve been sitting here for ten minutes thinking. But there is no 3.

The Boomtown Rats hated Mondays. The world unknowingly hates September. It’s like consciously allowing yourself to return to servitude. We do it without knowing, like so many other instances that now offer us nothing but regret and embarrassment. Things like spandex, MilliVanilli, and professional wrestling. You’re cringing.

Have you ever seen pictures of yourself from the past? There’s no escaping it. Everyone, at one time or another, buys into something without giving it much thought. For my generation it was parachute pants, pointy leather boots, hair gel, and all those strange dances that Dave Genn knows so well. Some of you out there might have missed all that. Some of you might not be old enough to be considered so stupid. But in fifteen years you’ll look back at yourself wearing your ridiculously big pants and wonder what you were thinking. Maybe you’ll wonder why your underwear was always showing or your hair was blue and purple. And if those things just happened to be like that in a September, or even several Septembers, won’t you look the fool.

The thing I could never understand is why they put October after September. Home to Halloween, October is not only good for treats but provides ample excuse to return to that summer-like non-you. Halloween provides the ultimate release of the year. For one night you get to dress up and act like an idiot. And if you do it correctly you can impersonate someone that you don’t like and get them into a shit load of trouble. The Dead Kennedys got it right in that song. That and Forest Fire.

So you’re probably asking yourself, as you most assuredly must, does he have a point? Is he going to take this somewhere or be conveniently ambiguous so as to escape some kind of finality. Does he do it on purpose? They’re valid questions. Questions that I one day hope to answer for you. But as far as September is concerned let me wrap it up by saying this. Either you do or you don’t. You either are or you aren’t. You either pump or you slump. Either you have it or you don’t have it. And if you don’t, is there some kind of class you can take to get it? My name’s Matt and I have nowhere to go. I, like the roller coaster, always end in the same place. Right here, it would seem.

I’m so unoriginal. I’ve been hiding out hoping you wouldn’t notice. I’ve been standing in front of your house with dynamite strapped to my body holding a large clock, waiting. Slumming so fantastic. Open your window. You can hear it if you listen hard. The ticking of your heartbeat, the rhythm of the traffic pouring down the streets. The mice scratching under the floorboards are safe to follow when the ship starts to sink. They’ll be running in the opposite direction of the mad scientists. Towards Nihm, towards Nicademus, into the hazy summer sky-glow as the clock runs out. The score is tied so there’s gonna be overtime. Sudden death. The pink pills are for your sanity. So lets go kids. Lets go…

The Better, Happier Me.
The Better, Happier You.
A Better, Happier World To Live In.

How is everyone out there in happy land? You been taking your vitamins? You been drinking lots of milk and saying your prayers? You been good little boys and girls? Hmm? You know Santa doesn’t just check up on you at Christmastime. He’s watching all year round. So you’d better be on your best behaviour. You’d better be looking both ways before you cross the street and brushing your teeth twice every day. Santa doesn’t like little boys and girls with yellow teeth. He sends them to an unhappy land where fire falls from the sky and rivers of blood cut through a harsh, barren, rocky wilderness devoid of plant life and animals (except for man-eating wolves and giant three headed vultures that can rip little boys and girls apart with their claws and teeth). So you’d better keep those teeth clean. You’d better be cooperative and obedient. You’d better be doing your homework, your leg work, your chores. I can no longer guarantee what will happen if you don’t. They have a way of finding out if you’re not happy. They have hidden cameras and informants dressed up like ordinary people. They smile all the time, as if setting some example for you to follow. Like there’s an equation that you’re supposed to memorize and use to attain that which all people strive to attain: inner peace, humility, civility, the programmed ability to bend. Call it what you will. They’re watching and taking notes. They’ve got computer files, metal files, paper files, and the cabinets to keep them in. They’re the ones that wrote the handbook. Everybody gets a shit kicking. You don’t have a choice in the matter. They’ve brought in seasoned professionals to make sure that you get one. Everybody gets one. That’s the rules. I didn’t make it up, I’m just saying.

So be happy. Happiness is paramount. Your happiness is of the utmost importance. Everyone else has their own happiness to worry about. You just follow the program and keep reading the handbook. Everything will be revealed in time. But for now you just keep grasping for that gold ring, that blue ribbon, that dreamy picture-perfect-magazine you. It’s in there somewhere. With your DNA, what you ate for dinner, and all those terrible secrets. You’re in there somewhere, waiting to be reborn. The better, happier you. If you play your cards right the possibilities are endless. There’s an equation for everything. For you, for us, for everything. Everything’s been prearranged. Mostly for the better. Mostly for the worst.

I’ve decided to finance the making of WaterWorld II. I just finished reading the script and it’s rough in places, but I think it’ll do better than the first one. The story is about the children of the survivors that found Dry Land who’ve turned their island paradise into a Lord of the Flies kind of vibe. Lots of gory, unnecessary violence and such. The first twenty minutes is all blood and gore, actually. After that there’s just a lot of unnecessary sex, betrayal, and explosions. Not exactly The Bicycle Thief or Red, White, and Blue, but what is these days?

I can’t abide movies without explosions. They’re just no fun at all. We’re thinking about adding a scene where two secondary characters are having sex and get blown up in the middle of it. So you’ve got your nudity, sex, an explosion, and unnecessary violence all rolled into one three-minute scene. Shit, that could be the whole movie.

I just got off the phone with Steven Spielberg. He doesn’t want to direct the picture. Even after my lengthy pitch about the horror, sex, and explosions. He kept babbling on about having small children and not wanting to be affiliated with a movie that’s going to contain such scenes. James Cameron turned me down too. Same reasons and everything.

All big Hollywood directors are hypocrites. I bet you he makes Terminator III this year. Like that’s not going to have a ton of violence and nudity. I can see it all now. The Terminator running around shooting flowers at elves riding unicorns. How lovely.

I think I’m going to use Sam Raimi. He was my first choice, but the writers wanted me to ask Spielberg and Cameron first. Evil Dead, Evil Dead II, and Army of Darkness were wicked movies. I think he’s perfect for the job. It just doesn’t make sense that people wouldn’t want to make this picture. Nothing’s made sense since The Texas Chainsaw Massacre as far as I’m concerned. Now that’s art. You’ve got your power-tool-wielding psycho, your unsuspecting girl with big tits, your sacrificial-lamb types that get killed throughout the movie, and your gratuitous nudity and violence. There’s even an equation that explains it. They call it a FORMULA movie. Check it out:

P+G(BT)+SLT+GN/V=$$$

It’s all there in simple black and white. It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. When you get right down to it, it’s all about giving the people what they want. Trust me, this is what they want.

Back to WaterWorld II, there are about 200 people living on the island. They’ve managed to defeat the rest of the smokers and now worship a statue of a golden half-fish, half-man god. The 200 people are divided into two warring factions who live on either side of the island. So, one night, three boys from one group sneak into a costume party being thrown by their enemies. They drink, scope chicks, etcetera. But one of the boys spots this girl from across the room and immediately falls head-over-heels in love with her (or some superficial dream-like version of her that he’s created in his own mind). They meet and start seeing each other in secret. Eventually their parents find out about the affair and all hell breaks loose. There are missile attacks and assassinations, torture and espionage. Distraught that their love is the cause of all this death and destruction, the two kids run away into the hills where they live in a cave for a couple of weeks. It’s there that they discover the alien space ship.
During all the fighting we’re probably going to throw in that sex/explosion scene I was talking about, as well as a small scene where the roof is blown off of a shower house and everyone comes running out screaming (à la Porky’s).

As a subplot, there’s also this little bald man that everyone likes who threatens to starve himself to death if both sides don’t stop fighting. So when he begins to starve himself they stop fighting and start again when he agrees to eat.

I’m really not sure what’s going to happen with the kids and the alien ship yet. Everyone’s kicking around ideas, but we haven’t got anything firm.
The two lovers eventually return to their villages only to get caught up in the war between their peoples. In the end the little bald guy helps the boy fake his own death, but the plan backfires because the girl really thinks he’s dead and kills herself.

The boy wakes up and, after learning what’s happened, kills the little bald guy and then shoots himself in the head. During all of this there’ll be more explosions, sex, and violence as well.

Both kids are dead and everyone’s pretty upset because the little bald guy’s dead too, which leads to an uneasy peace between the two groups. This lasts long enough for the aliens to introduce a mind-controlling drug into their water supply, which turns everyone into their slaves. The aliens then activate a GATE back to their own world and take the slaves with them. And that’s pretty much it. It’ll all be quite dramatic of course, with a big score and all the usual merchandise.

The equations for this movie would look something like this:

B+G(BT)+W+E+GN(S)+LBG+A=$$$

So there you have it. WaterWorld II. A hit? I think so.

Life is like trying to commit suicide with a toothbrush: you’re all geared up to do it but decide to brush your teeth first. Equals no sense.
I have been pondering contradiction. I have come to the conclusion that I am an admirer of the contradictory. I am not entirely sure why. I simply am.

The time has come and gone. Things used to look clear, simple, discernible. There were sides to take, words that connected, people that said them and meant it. But to make it work you’ve got to have some form of unification. To make it work you can’t half believe. You can’t hold on to something else just to make sure that if the whole thing goes to shit you’ve got your ass covered. Thus is today, kids. Cover that ass.

I’m not as cynical as I appear to be. Not even close. But I have come to the conclusion that without pressure there can be no cause for resistance. Without criminality there can be no justice. Without evil there can be no good. Ethics define our intentions against those things, but without them our ethics change and their definitions do as well. To suit a purpose, nothing more. In the absence of conformity goes conformity, in the wake of perfection swims beautiful imperfection, us. Like half-shark, toothless carnivores.

Full of shit indeed. It gets easier, I find. Being full of shit, that is. Sometimes you choose what it is that you want to do. Sometimes what you do chooses you. Sometimes you don’t sleep right. Sometimes you pace around battling three hour-long panic attacks trying to calm yourself down. You talk to yourself in that little voice of yours, cracking jokes, making it seem silly. Everything gets blurry and eventually your hands stop wringing because they hurt, you’ve just noticed. You collapse onto the couch and sit there, inhaling and exhaling. The most primary of functions. And then you fall asleep. Tomorrow night you get to do it all over again. The funny thing is, you don’t know why it happens. You’ve never been able to figure that out. It just does. And it continues to. From your childhood, when you used to sleepwalk and then start screaming so uncontrollably that they put you on medication, to yesterday which was just another link in the chain. The night brings you things to say that are all part of a big inside joke, your destruction, your creation, the people that fit together inside you like a puzzle to make up your memory. It’s the day-to-day business of making sure that there’s a mess to clean up and then another mess to take its place. So you come to like it. It begins to make sense. Maybe it always did. And from that comes all that defines you in a deal-with-the-devil package. Maybe not so good. Maybe good enough to be passable. Years later you can’t remember when you had a choice in the matter. You just do. And are.

Everything else is window dressing. Just question marks in questions that never have good, tangible answers. Unlike rock and roll, unlike most things in this day and age, maybe not knowing is a good thing. Maybe leaving that sheet blank is the best thing for it. Everyone finds their own answers to those questions anyway. The problem has always been trying to unify billions of them. People are inherently proud of their ability to think and believe what they want. Full of shit or not. Maybe, in the end, that ability is the unifier. Maybe that’s too dangerous. Fear, unlike all other mediums, will always throw a shadow over the other big words. Words like faith, right, wrong, good, evil. Fear is the great equalizer. In the face of fear everything else is unreliable. That’s why they all exist in futility, or at all. Because fear allows them to.

Hopefully I contradicted myself in there somewhere.

Freedom costs. It’s kind of a hypocritical philosophy, really. We fight for the right to be free. We fight for the right to have a free-market system so you can buy anything you want, whenever you want, from whoever you want. We fight for the freedom of religious belief, though mostly we just fight amongst ourselves about that. Sometimes we even travel to the other side of the world to make sure that those less fortunate than ourselves can enjoy our special brand of freedom: video games, Coke, Pepsi, Jesus, and Taco Time. You have the right to eat tacos we’ll say, and they’ll smile and scream “FINALLY!� Some people even have the right to bear arms. Sometimes their kids get in on that right. Sometimes people die for freedom and don’t even know it. Funny how freedom works.

In the most perfect dream I will be sitting in a chair on a high plateau, watching the demise of Western Civilization. I’d buy a super powerful pair of binoculars, so as not to miss anything. I’d have a big cooler full of drinks and sexy chicks lounging around, rubbing my feet and shoulders. And I’d get new glasses, ‘cause the ones I’ve got now are all scratched up. Better than a super summer blockbuster. No giant lizards, no aliens, no natural disasters. Just us, swirling towards the bottom of the bowl. I’ll have some tacos and put on a t-shirt that says “finally.�

I’ll probably need some really good sunglasses and some super high-powered sunblock. It’ll get hot, I’m sure. Maybe I’d have one of those kiddie pools to sit in instead of a lawn chair. That way I could beat the heat. The chemical wind will blow through my hair as I monitor the major news networks for further details and endless updates. The field correspondents broadcasting from within the flaming debris, conditioned to remain impervious to the dangers and drama unfolding around them. The earth bursting into flame. Little ships slipping picturesquely beneath the foaming waves. Hell hath no fury like a man sitting in a kiddie pool watching the end of the world who’s run out of tacos. I’ll have to remind myself to bring extra. The girls don’t eat, you see, they’re too worried about their weight.

And then come the missiles. Having spent the majority of my life living in a time of nuclear devices, I say launch them. I’m curious to see what all the fuss is about. Perhaps we can fire them all at India, France, and Pakistan. I’m open to suggestions. I’ll play Pac-Man and Frogger while ICBMs plummet all around me like so many seagulls fed Wonder Bread mixed with Draino. I’ll do the Safety Dance, the Electric Slide, the Macarena, maybe me and the girls will even line-dance. I’ll put on a little Nina Simone and pour some bourbon. There’ll be umbrellas in all the drinks, fireworks without warning labels, hundreds of rare T-bones, a million cigarettes, and plenty of pornography. ‘Cause if you’re gonna go, go big. Like Stew used to say: “Big time, or no time at all.�

That’s freedom. Not some word in a dictionary. Not some corrupted thing bent to suit commercial purposes. Limitless freedom. Endless slow poison. No “tomorrow I’ll go to the gym after work.� Just sought after cancerous treats and spy-like glow-in-the-dark party favours. Naked riders, outrageous costumes, dangerous words blasted through megaphones, outlawed tunes played on outlawed guitars. A silence after a great noise. A thunder that’s like so many crashing violins and cellos - and then the ringing tones of a last, great chord.

It’s a big, bad world out there. Lots of boogie men. Lots of prima-donna serial artists auditioning for Star Search. Everyone’s selling and buying, buying and selling, it’s crazy. It is what it is.

I had this dream the other night. Satan was in my television. His head was spinning around and he was speaking Spanish. They call the devil el diablo in Spanish. It’s much more dignified. After a while Satan’s head flew off and trees and plants started to grow out of his neck. This was followed by a vague period of clouds and fast-forward-type weather. When everything came to a roaring halt there was a 7-11 in the middle of the trees and plants. I went in and got a burrito. They call those burritos in Spanish. Then I woke up.

Some people think that dreams are a reflection of the subconscious. That was the first thing I thought about when I rolled out of bed. I did some research and discovered the following facts. Most people between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five dream about sex seventy-five percent of the time. The second most popular topic is past traumas that occurred to the dreamer. The third most popular topic involves the dreamer assuming some position of power, authority, or fame. Way down the list at 1,354,765 was dreams about the devil’s head spinning around and then flying off only to be replaced by a convenience store. It’s safe to say that after finding this out, I really had no intention of jumping, but it took the police a good forty-five minutes to talk me down.

If you took all the days from the beginning of time until the end of time and had to make one of those Christmas calendars with the chocolates inside, which day’s door would be the biggest? I ran that by Dave King and he had this to say: “That’s impossible, because time is infinite. The universe is never-ending, so the question can’t be answered.� Smart-ass writers. Then he says, “And what does it matter which door’s the biggest?�

I had to explain to him that at Christmas we used to get these calendars filled with chocolates. Each day had a door and the biggest door was Christmas Eve. I think Dave’s depraved childhood caught up with him right there because he was all out of smart-ass comments after that. Thinking about it later I suddenly realized my own answer to this question. Obviously, the day I dreamed of Satan’s head spinning around talking in Spanish would be behind the big door. Felices Navidades, Felices Navidades, Felices Navidades.

Millimetre. I love that word. Zillion is another excellent word. I’ve got a Zillion Millimetres.

For some reason I thought that “zillion� was an actual numerical representation. I looked it up and discovered that it’s just slang for a google. Google is a generic word used to describe large numbers, or more correctly, 1030 . You’d think a math genius could come up with better-sounding words for these things. Zillion and millimetre are good examples of cool-sounding words. Whereas “google� sounds like a weird kind of pencil that grade three kids absolutely love (actually it’s a guy’s name). Why not use terms like Mathemillitron or Octivator. At least they sound like they could be important (or the names of super-robots that live on some cool machine planet in another galaxy). Math could have been fun.

Wouldn’t that be something. Open your textbooks to page 116, we’re going to learn about Godzillatrons today. Instead of some x’s and y’s, you’d have to draw a picture of a large lizard-like robo-machine eating the entire population of Tokyo. Math tests would be the highlight of your day. I’d still be in school.

Problem 12: If Godzillatron stormed downtown Tokyo and ate one quarter of the people, how many people would be left to take up arms and try to stop him?

Problem 13: If Godzillatron destroyed one half of all the high-rises in Tokyo with his flaming breath, how many people would he have killed? (For extra credit: how many people would be crushed by falling debris?)

Problem 14: If Godzillatron fought Quadradikong in the middle of downtown New York, A) which one would crush more people if they were knocked over? B) which one could eat 1/100th of the local population per mouthful?

Instead, you’ve got x’s and y’s and quadratic equations flying around in a void of super-boredom. All of the secrets of the universe could have been revealed to us through the various shapes and names of robo-machines.

The next time you use a calculator remember one thing. Instead of punching up numbers and adding or multiplying them, you could have had two machine creatures running across that little screen eating tiny people. Eventually they would spit the answer out and, with big smiles on their faces, proceed to fight each other to the death.

There really isn’t any death in this math land. Just repairs. They’re robo-machines, they can always come back. Imagine Einstein’s notes on relativity if things had been different. That would have been one kick-ass robo-streak of mayhem.

Instead, I’m dreaming of spinning Satanic heads speaking Spanish that turn into 7-11s. Fish with no eyes, birds with two heads that try to fly in both directions at once. It’s all mixed up. There was a time when everything made sense, but it’s over now. Lost forever under the guise of fast food that isn’t all that fast, and mini-malls that aren’t for tiny people. Sometimes I wonder where to go next. And then it dawns on me that tomorrow is a new day. That’s just the way the world works. It only spins in one direction for some reason.

I resolve to watch Real Stories of the Highway Patrol. I resolve to watch Extra, American Journal, and America’s Dumbest Criminals. Have you been to Algeria? You know where that is? It’s in North Africa. A little while ago some REBELS killed over 400 people there in a village while they slept. I resolve to watch Baywatch and Friends. We all need friends. We all need a reason for something. They lock up people who don’t have reasons. They call it being unreasonable. So which are you: frosted or whole wheat?

Lasers. They use lasers in space. Lasers for laser surgery. Lasers for laser discs. They’ve got infra-red lasers. For laser tag, for better night vision, for insurgence reassurances. There’s a room, deep underground, where they know the future. It’s all been decided beforehand. They’ve three-dimensional maps and detailed intelligence, the cure for cancer, real cream and not coffee whitener. No one’s sure who exactly runs this operation. No one’s exactly sure of anything. That’s why you’re not in charge.

What would you do if you did know? What would anyone do with the facts if they knew them to be infallible? It’s the Gilligan’s Island principle. You’d think that if they could find the time to invent a device that can vaporize an entire city they could find a fat guy, a skinny guy, two complainers, a prude, a tease, and the world’s most brilliant scientist. Believe me, if you could make a telephone system out of coconuts they’d come looking for you at the drop of a hat. But instead they were marooned. Probably because it is impossible to find seven people on an island in the Pacific when they’ve been locked up in the basement of a studio in Burbank. Maybe because that was the whole point of the show. The fact remains that without the stupidity of its design it wouldn’t exist. Therefore, no one’s exactly sure of anything. It’s better for you that way. That’s why you’re not in charge. You might go and do something like change the rules. And we can’t have that now, can we.

Looking back at the Earth from the moon I am reminded of inadequacies. Of futility and the mistakes of time. I am reminded that it is a small thing in a place of much larger things. It is, after all, one of billions. I am also reminded of an ant farm that I used to have when I was young. It was this little plastic tank filled with dirt. The ants made tunnels, the ants multiplied, and eventually the ants ate each other. I had forgotten about it. I had left it on a shelf. One day they were all gone. Just a few corpses. The dirt had dried up. There are footprints on the moon. Reminders. Fossils for someone to find. The Earth looks small from most places, I would think. Unless you’re standing on it, looking up. Then you’re the Master of the Universe. Either that or a dummy. Flip a coin.

I have no reason to believe that anything is possible. Impossibility is a greater motivational force than probability. The human condition dictates this. And you thought you were upwardly mobile.