So uh yeah I ended up having to take a break from doing the blog and the crackfest. So allow me a moment for excuses. I got handed a big video editing job that needed to be done pronto. Then got sick. The sort of sick that makes all creative thought either impossible or so banal that you feel ashamed for having such terribly thought out ideas.
But now I'm back. Hopefully for a bit.
Meanwhile I always run through my mind things to write about up here. Lately my interactions with certain sub sets of people got me to thinking.
It seems to me that there seems to be a societally conditioned notion among some people to look for a group of people they can reflexively look down on. Usually a minority group of some sort, because lets face it's easier to bully people around when you're in a larger group.
Conversations with and observations of the culture around trans people have blown my mind of late, as it strikes me that they can't seem to catch a break from most anyone. As a mostly straight man looking in I find the level of criticism they get from LGB groups and also from corners of the female or male population is kind of mind boggling.
Then we have the case recently of the furry convention that someone pranked (or as I like to say, attacked.) With a device that emitted Chorine fumes, sending 19 people to the hospital. Now to say that furries are by and large seen as on the bottom of the geekdom totem pole would be something of an understatement. Sure the whole thing comes across as a bit silly, but my experiences with the furry community at local cons has always been cool. They are by and large the nicest, easiest going and some of the most fun people there.
It just underlies the notion that, in my humble opinion, we have been taught to view people using the wrong lens. That for far too long we view people with an eye that their differences are things we should view as road blocks to an understanding.
I prefer to take a different view. (What a shock!) That our differences are a thing to be explored and celebrated. Religiously I'm a pagan, but that doesn't mean there isn't wisdom in the Bible, Torah, Or Koran that might do me some good. I might not buy the whole thing but I am always willing to listen. Who knows maybe we'll make our biggest stride when we as people realize that each of us has the key to a larger puzzle and that listening to folks might help you solve a bit more of it.
As to our differences why should it bother me who someone loves as you long as they love? Why should it bother me that you got the physical body of one gender and the identity of another? If you're comfortable in the end with who you are it can only make your life better.
And as to bagging on peoples for their hobbies, fandoms, and other simple pleasures. Seriously what business is it of yours? Geeking out on something actually shows a passion for life that others seem to lack. In the end maybe that's why they get so hung up, you have something that makes your life larger and all they have are sitcoms on TV.
Perhaps in the end that's their own little hell they don't even know they're in.
Comments are always welcome, and if anyone has an idea of something they want to see me write about let me know. It's so nice to have my writing brain back.
Thursday, December 11, 2014
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Signs of a crap writer. (For once I'm pretty sure it's not me.)
So allow me to show my age a bit. Back in the 80's I was by and large a heavy metal kid. I had a serious enjoyment of Joy Division and New Order, but if you wanted to me to come to the show please have a band with some serious rock guitars etc. I saw Iron Maiden Multiple times, and Judas Priest, Metallica etc.
So I had a burning passion for that kind of music, and part of me would die inside anytime I saw the normal press, or conventional music press do an article on or worse yet review any of these bands. Inevitably it would begin with "I hate Heavy Metal." Then they'd pull out their thesauruses find every word they never had a chance to use in the negative and slam the record or band with all their might.
Every time I would wonder. "So yeah you hate heavy metal, great so why did you out of everyone at the magazine review the record?"
Well long story short, no one there got it, understood or cared to take the time to understand the sub culture. Instead they looked at the world through hipster tinted goggles. Saw the kids in denim and leather and decided to simply record the sights they saw from the outside not wondering why people had such a passion for it. To them those kids were just stoners, burn outs and stupid for not liking the latest album by the Smiths. (The Smiths are a weird one for me. I never liked Morrissey, but I thought the music was brilliant.)
I was reminded of all of this while reading an article in the online edition of "The Daily Nebraskan." In it there was an article about Anime Nebraskon. A local convention that, big surprise, is a gathering of Anime fans. It was obvious that this creepy little git was not going to be very positive about it from the title, and his use of the phrase. "I don't like anime." He then indulged every stereotype of nerd dom in his comments about the event. Basically going to ridiculous lengths to portray the people involved as unwashed dirty escapists with a fetish for costuming.
It became obvious that he showed up with no desire to learn about the sub culture and simply looked for what he wanted to see.
Perhaps he could have noticed the skills people developed in making their costumes. How for a brief three day period the fans could hang out with others who got it. A welcome form of escapism from an everyday world that seems to bask in insanity like a snake on a fist full of valium. For many fans of any genre a gathering like this is a chance to recharge the batteries and make and renew friendships.
Of course he didn't do any of this, because the guy who wrote it is a crap writer.
It made me think of a book by Matt Taibbi. "Smells like Dead Elephants." In it he examined the election of 2008 and actually joined a megachurch and a call center for John Mccain. The book was quite a piece of work. Matt had nothing in common with these folks but he wanted to understand why it was that they held the beliefs that they did. He never made it a point to look down on the people and did an excellent job of showing the fear people have in our country regarding the direction (s) it's heading in. He was sympathetic, and while he disagreed with them, he showed why they had this feeling and passion.
And that's why Matt Taibbi is a brilliant writer. He went out of his way to understand and to show us why we should too.
Which is also why the guy who wrote that article in the Daily Nebraskan is a hack and will likely always will be. Sure there's always a market for smug snakes who wander through a crowd looking for reasons to view them all as rubes and fools. But frankly Fox news has enough of those right now, and the supply of brown lipstick for those jobs is getting thin.
The writers worst sin in this case was intellectual laziness. He never enquired, he just looked for evidence to support his hypothesis and wouldn't actually talk to anyone lest he be swayed from his opinion. You could feel his desire to be above the crowd in each sentence.
One can hope that the comments he got on his article might cause him to examine his method of reporting and as he is doing this for a college paper he might have a faculty advisor suggest that his work was functional but lacked any real depth. That he didn't put himself into the scene he was studying to get a feel for it.
Or translated into everyday language he's a lazy writer who needs to get over himself and maybe get out and live some.
Meanwhile after two weeks of serious video work I now have some spare time and I plan to be back writing some more for more amusement. Comments as always are welcome.
So I had a burning passion for that kind of music, and part of me would die inside anytime I saw the normal press, or conventional music press do an article on or worse yet review any of these bands. Inevitably it would begin with "I hate Heavy Metal." Then they'd pull out their thesauruses find every word they never had a chance to use in the negative and slam the record or band with all their might.
Every time I would wonder. "So yeah you hate heavy metal, great so why did you out of everyone at the magazine review the record?"
Well long story short, no one there got it, understood or cared to take the time to understand the sub culture. Instead they looked at the world through hipster tinted goggles. Saw the kids in denim and leather and decided to simply record the sights they saw from the outside not wondering why people had such a passion for it. To them those kids were just stoners, burn outs and stupid for not liking the latest album by the Smiths. (The Smiths are a weird one for me. I never liked Morrissey, but I thought the music was brilliant.)
I was reminded of all of this while reading an article in the online edition of "The Daily Nebraskan." In it there was an article about Anime Nebraskon. A local convention that, big surprise, is a gathering of Anime fans. It was obvious that this creepy little git was not going to be very positive about it from the title, and his use of the phrase. "I don't like anime." He then indulged every stereotype of nerd dom in his comments about the event. Basically going to ridiculous lengths to portray the people involved as unwashed dirty escapists with a fetish for costuming.
It became obvious that he showed up with no desire to learn about the sub culture and simply looked for what he wanted to see.
Perhaps he could have noticed the skills people developed in making their costumes. How for a brief three day period the fans could hang out with others who got it. A welcome form of escapism from an everyday world that seems to bask in insanity like a snake on a fist full of valium. For many fans of any genre a gathering like this is a chance to recharge the batteries and make and renew friendships.
Of course he didn't do any of this, because the guy who wrote it is a crap writer.
It made me think of a book by Matt Taibbi. "Smells like Dead Elephants." In it he examined the election of 2008 and actually joined a megachurch and a call center for John Mccain. The book was quite a piece of work. Matt had nothing in common with these folks but he wanted to understand why it was that they held the beliefs that they did. He never made it a point to look down on the people and did an excellent job of showing the fear people have in our country regarding the direction (s) it's heading in. He was sympathetic, and while he disagreed with them, he showed why they had this feeling and passion.
And that's why Matt Taibbi is a brilliant writer. He went out of his way to understand and to show us why we should too.
Which is also why the guy who wrote that article in the Daily Nebraskan is a hack and will likely always will be. Sure there's always a market for smug snakes who wander through a crowd looking for reasons to view them all as rubes and fools. But frankly Fox news has enough of those right now, and the supply of brown lipstick for those jobs is getting thin.
The writers worst sin in this case was intellectual laziness. He never enquired, he just looked for evidence to support his hypothesis and wouldn't actually talk to anyone lest he be swayed from his opinion. You could feel his desire to be above the crowd in each sentence.
One can hope that the comments he got on his article might cause him to examine his method of reporting and as he is doing this for a college paper he might have a faculty advisor suggest that his work was functional but lacked any real depth. That he didn't put himself into the scene he was studying to get a feel for it.
Or translated into everyday language he's a lazy writer who needs to get over himself and maybe get out and live some.
Meanwhile after two weeks of serious video work I now have some spare time and I plan to be back writing some more for more amusement. Comments as always are welcome.
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Midnight at the Double Douche Part 15
It probably says a lot about the life I lead, that waking up in the backseat of a car with a blanket thrown over my head has become such a common thing that I barely register it as a sign of possible trouble. More like a necessity to the sort of person who likes to shake up the world a bit.
I tugged the corner down and noticed that I wasn't in the Aston. That was odd.
"Okay who are you fiends and where are you taking me?" I asked.
"Relax we're just doing our best to be across the border before the state police come looking for you." Jon said from the drivers seat.
"Why would the State Police be after me. I swear I wasn't even in this state 9 months ago!!" I said trying to rack my brain for some memory of the last day.
"Well it could be a small matter of the riot that broke out when your story came out." Kat said. "They're burning down the Governors mansion as we speak. We're pretty sure his wife and kids got out but no ones seen the Governor."
"Bastard is probably gonna use this as cover to flee the country." I replied sitting up.
"Will you kindly get the fuck down!" Kat hissed to me. "Right now the police are going to see if they can get you for inciting the riot."
"Was I present when the riot began?"
"For the record I will never give you that many of those pills again." Jon said.
"Stop play amateur pharmacologist and answer the question." I shot back.
"No, you weren't present, but after the interview on CNN, people decided to go sort out the guy in charge." Kat said. "Once you broke the story the local press grew a collective spine and all manner of things we didn't know about began creeping up."
"Oh all that lovely blackmail material editors like so much." I said. I felt a buzzing in my jacket pocket. I had a feeling I knew who it was.
Reaching in I grabbed my phone and held it six inches from my ear. "Hello?" I asked.
"WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?" Shelby asked in her usual opening tone.
"At a guess I'd say a hopefully short distance from the state line." I replied.
"Well drive faster, you're the states public enemy number one and that bastard of a governor just popped his head up from a command shelter demanding your arrest." She said.
"Oh good did he see his shadow? Because if he didn't that means an early.."
"Shut... the... fuck... UP!!" Shelby responded. "I sent you to cover a story, not to arrange for the collapse of a government."
"Well that, in this business, is what we call a nice added bonus." I replied. "Speaking of which I put the column online have you fucking paid me?"
"Yes, with a nice bonus to cover your legal fees, the article is at ten million hits and growing. Now get your ass the fuck out of that state." She hung up on me.
"How long till we're far away from this lunatic piece of prairie disaster?" I asked.
"Two hours." Jon said.
"Plenty of time for me to catch up on what happened, hand me my tablet."
Looking at it I saw I had lost two whole days.
Shit.
"What happened to Cole?" I asked.
"He's still alive. When the article broke the feds jumped in and put every death penalty case under review." Kat said.
Mission accomplished. Now. How had I done this?
"All right I require..."
I hadn't even got close to finishing the sentence when Kat handed me a bottle of Bushmills. Best assistants in the world I tell ya.
I took a swig and began reviewing the last two days.
I tugged the corner down and noticed that I wasn't in the Aston. That was odd.
"Okay who are you fiends and where are you taking me?" I asked.
"Relax we're just doing our best to be across the border before the state police come looking for you." Jon said from the drivers seat.
"Why would the State Police be after me. I swear I wasn't even in this state 9 months ago!!" I said trying to rack my brain for some memory of the last day.
"Well it could be a small matter of the riot that broke out when your story came out." Kat said. "They're burning down the Governors mansion as we speak. We're pretty sure his wife and kids got out but no ones seen the Governor."
"Bastard is probably gonna use this as cover to flee the country." I replied sitting up.
"Will you kindly get the fuck down!" Kat hissed to me. "Right now the police are going to see if they can get you for inciting the riot."
"Was I present when the riot began?"
"For the record I will never give you that many of those pills again." Jon said.
"Stop play amateur pharmacologist and answer the question." I shot back.
"No, you weren't present, but after the interview on CNN, people decided to go sort out the guy in charge." Kat said. "Once you broke the story the local press grew a collective spine and all manner of things we didn't know about began creeping up."
"Oh all that lovely blackmail material editors like so much." I said. I felt a buzzing in my jacket pocket. I had a feeling I knew who it was.
Reaching in I grabbed my phone and held it six inches from my ear. "Hello?" I asked.
"WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?" Shelby asked in her usual opening tone.
"At a guess I'd say a hopefully short distance from the state line." I replied.
"Well drive faster, you're the states public enemy number one and that bastard of a governor just popped his head up from a command shelter demanding your arrest." She said.
"Oh good did he see his shadow? Because if he didn't that means an early.."
"Shut... the... fuck... UP!!" Shelby responded. "I sent you to cover a story, not to arrange for the collapse of a government."
"Well that, in this business, is what we call a nice added bonus." I replied. "Speaking of which I put the column online have you fucking paid me?"
"Yes, with a nice bonus to cover your legal fees, the article is at ten million hits and growing. Now get your ass the fuck out of that state." She hung up on me.
"How long till we're far away from this lunatic piece of prairie disaster?" I asked.
"Two hours." Jon said.
"Plenty of time for me to catch up on what happened, hand me my tablet."
Looking at it I saw I had lost two whole days.
Shit.
"What happened to Cole?" I asked.
"He's still alive. When the article broke the feds jumped in and put every death penalty case under review." Kat said.
Mission accomplished. Now. How had I done this?
"All right I require..."
I hadn't even got close to finishing the sentence when Kat handed me a bottle of Bushmills. Best assistants in the world I tell ya.
I took a swig and began reviewing the last two days.
Friday, September 26, 2014
Midnight at the Double Douche art 14
I returned at roughly the same time as Jon and Kat. Both of them were smiling as I walked in. Meanwhile I was doing my best to avoid feeling like I had canary feathers in my mouth.
"So where do you want me to begin?" Jon said. "He's neck deep in the religious right, but the ongoing rumour is he's got a mistress or three on a string. He's been running serious anti drug legislation through the local legislature but his holding company is under writing several pot farms in Colorado."
I looked at Kat. "It just get's better. He's selling his companies share in a port and warehousing company to a sovereign capital fund owned by a foreign nation. Throw in that he appointed the regulators who are approving the deal and we have some really great conflict of interest issues." She smiled wider. "On top of that I have a former sheriff who is closing out the end of his life with pancreatic cancer who swears that the governor got him to plant dope on a rival in an early election for city council."
"Can you get him to give his name and comment on tape?" I asked.
Kat held up her phone. "Got it, with it backed up in three cloud locations."
"Remind me to look into that raise. For both of you."
"It's coming from petty cash again isn't it?" Jon asked with a smirk.
"Yeah but it's two cents more an hour than you got last week so be grateful." I grinned. "I was not idle either and we might have capper for all this." I smiled as I explained the details of the land deal and it's complete lack of anything actually being sold.
"So how did they handle the initial payouts on the security?" Jon asked.
"My guess is that the bank that issued it probably took money from the holding company then paid it back to the investors just long enough to make it look genuine. Then when all the instruments tanked around it they stopped making payments said it was a toxic asset and asked for their insurance money." I replied.
"Damn who do we talk to first about that?" Kat asked.
"I think it's a foot race between the FBI, Secret Service and SEC." Jon said.
"Secret Service?" Kat asked.
"They're a branch of the treasury department and technically speaking what they did was wire fraud, bonus points if the IRS decides to look into the deal and see what taxes weren't collected." I replied.
"I think we might own him." Kat said.
"We might just, but we need to play this right or it all falls apart. If we time it right we might keep some people from the end of a rope." Jon said.
"No time like the present then, here's what I have in mind."
"So where do you want me to begin?" Jon said. "He's neck deep in the religious right, but the ongoing rumour is he's got a mistress or three on a string. He's been running serious anti drug legislation through the local legislature but his holding company is under writing several pot farms in Colorado."
I looked at Kat. "It just get's better. He's selling his companies share in a port and warehousing company to a sovereign capital fund owned by a foreign nation. Throw in that he appointed the regulators who are approving the deal and we have some really great conflict of interest issues." She smiled wider. "On top of that I have a former sheriff who is closing out the end of his life with pancreatic cancer who swears that the governor got him to plant dope on a rival in an early election for city council."
"Can you get him to give his name and comment on tape?" I asked.
Kat held up her phone. "Got it, with it backed up in three cloud locations."
"Remind me to look into that raise. For both of you."
"It's coming from petty cash again isn't it?" Jon asked with a smirk.
"Yeah but it's two cents more an hour than you got last week so be grateful." I grinned. "I was not idle either and we might have capper for all this." I smiled as I explained the details of the land deal and it's complete lack of anything actually being sold.
"So how did they handle the initial payouts on the security?" Jon asked.
"My guess is that the bank that issued it probably took money from the holding company then paid it back to the investors just long enough to make it look genuine. Then when all the instruments tanked around it they stopped making payments said it was a toxic asset and asked for their insurance money." I replied.
"Damn who do we talk to first about that?" Kat asked.
"I think it's a foot race between the FBI, Secret Service and SEC." Jon said.
"Secret Service?" Kat asked.
"They're a branch of the treasury department and technically speaking what they did was wire fraud, bonus points if the IRS decides to look into the deal and see what taxes weren't collected." I replied.
"I think we might own him." Kat said.
"We might just, but we need to play this right or it all falls apart. If we time it right we might keep some people from the end of a rope." Jon said.
"No time like the present then, here's what I have in mind."
Thursday, September 25, 2014
Midnight at the Double Douche part 13
In a situation like this, sleep is for the weak. We had work to do. So I stopped at local shop, bought an espresso machine. Got it up to speed, dropped in four capsules of some substance Jon swore was like high powered adrenalin with a long standing kick. Washed it all down with three fingers of Bushmills and went to work.
As Jon and Kat did the foot work I opened a google search in my room. The governor was a wealthy man. The question was which bank did he rob to get his money?
Well the initial short answer was his dads. His father had built a business in manufacturing parts for car makers. It had taken off when Japan had opened plants in the US. As the company reached it's apex Dad had the good sense to die of a heart attack in a hotel with a woman who was certainly not his wife and who apparently got charitable donations for her time spent helping men to relax after hours. Not that I saw anything wrong with that, we all have our ways of dealing with stress and compared to his sons activities this was fairly mild and normal.
Junior had decided to sell off the company the first chance he got. Which made him a small mint, he then invested that mint in various schemes that were gift wrapped to him by his dads old cronies. Real estate, commodities speculation, the burgeoning Native American casino market. All of these had yielded him large dollars in returns.
When he turned his eye to politics the same cronies ponied up massive amounts of cash to help his campaign, as he was clearly their kind of guy.
This was interesting. His holding company made money in 2008.
Taking a deep sip of whiskey I read his companies prospectus. 2008 had been a banner year for the company. While the whole economy tanked they managed to make over %500 in profits from investments in real estate.
This made no sense at all. Unless...
Allow me to take a moment to explain to you the classic scam that created the disaster of 2008. Don't worry it's just as surreal as anything else that will take place in this whole story.
By 2005 banks were working overtime to write loans for anyone who wanted to buy a house. Now prior to the 90's if you wanted a mortgage a bank frisked you pretty good to make sure you could pony up the money.
But then some genius had the idea that if you took a whole bunch of mortgages and bundled them together as a security you had the best of both worlds. First you sold off the mortgages which earned you quick short term money, while pocketing even more short term cash from the fees you would collect for doing the bundling and maintaining the mortgages you didn't own.
Investors would collect the combined house payments of thousands of people and make their money back. If they made the payments.
Of course in the process of writing all this paper banks got desperate for short term cash so they hunted down anyone with a pulse to give them a mortgage. Toward the end there the people they had got to sign on the dotted line were given mortgages that were effectively time bombs. Linked to their ability to pay which would get trashed the first time interest rates rose.
Now to cover themselves the investors and banks would buy forms of investment insurance. The infamous CDO's and CDS's. Which basically was buying a policy to insure the worth of the investment if it tanked. Which a lot of these were designed to do.
Now why would someone decide to make an investment designed specifically to tank? Glad ya asked.
That form of investment insurance was unregulated. So it was entirely possible dare I say likely that someone could read that the investment they bought was a ticking time bomb so they'd buy paper to protect it.
Except that due to the lack of regulation they wouldn't buy one piece of paper, they'd buy multiple pieces of paper on a security. Insuring it for massive amounts above its actual worth. And as there was no rule saying you couldn't you could buy these instruments for investments you don't even own.
So let's make a comparison. How safe would you feel knowing ten people have bought multiple pieces of life insurance on you? Yeah? Not very? Good then you have an ounce of sense.
Meanwhile the people who sold the CDO's weren't obligated to set any of the money they made aside to cover any of the bets they were making. So in 2008 when this whole house of cards imploded they had no cash to pay back the losses they had been asked to insure against. Which caused the nightmare of September.
Now it seemed to me like the governor had cleaned up in this market. Especially on one investment for a whole neighborhood his company had built up two years before. Five square miles of housing in...
I read the address and looked it up on google street view.
There was nothing there. It was a big wide empty plain of deserted field.
Reaching over I grabbed the phone and called a cab as my two trusty help mates were out, and frankly as wired and drunk as I was being behind the wheel of a car struck me as being a series of disasters waiting to happen.
Which to be honest was my life in a nutshell.
The cab was waiting for me at the lobby and we drove off to the outskirts of town.
"Why ya wanna go out there?" the Cabbie asked.
"I'm looking into a land investment." I said.
"Shit aint not much there, not since they moved the chemical plant." The driver said.
"Really? when did they do that?"
"Bout twenty years ago, they had the property but couldn't move it because of all the toxic shit left over." He said.
We pulled up by the address we were given and I stepped out.
It was barren expanse of land with pieces of scrub grass, tumbleweeds and a stray cat chasing a squirrel. Not a single house to be found.
"So whatcha gonna do with the land?" The driver asked as I got back in.
"Use it for a burial plot."
"Seems like that might be all it's good for." The driver said.
"Oh you have no idea." I said, then sat back and smiled.
As Jon and Kat did the foot work I opened a google search in my room. The governor was a wealthy man. The question was which bank did he rob to get his money?
Well the initial short answer was his dads. His father had built a business in manufacturing parts for car makers. It had taken off when Japan had opened plants in the US. As the company reached it's apex Dad had the good sense to die of a heart attack in a hotel with a woman who was certainly not his wife and who apparently got charitable donations for her time spent helping men to relax after hours. Not that I saw anything wrong with that, we all have our ways of dealing with stress and compared to his sons activities this was fairly mild and normal.
Junior had decided to sell off the company the first chance he got. Which made him a small mint, he then invested that mint in various schemes that were gift wrapped to him by his dads old cronies. Real estate, commodities speculation, the burgeoning Native American casino market. All of these had yielded him large dollars in returns.
When he turned his eye to politics the same cronies ponied up massive amounts of cash to help his campaign, as he was clearly their kind of guy.
This was interesting. His holding company made money in 2008.
Taking a deep sip of whiskey I read his companies prospectus. 2008 had been a banner year for the company. While the whole economy tanked they managed to make over %500 in profits from investments in real estate.
This made no sense at all. Unless...
Allow me to take a moment to explain to you the classic scam that created the disaster of 2008. Don't worry it's just as surreal as anything else that will take place in this whole story.
By 2005 banks were working overtime to write loans for anyone who wanted to buy a house. Now prior to the 90's if you wanted a mortgage a bank frisked you pretty good to make sure you could pony up the money.
But then some genius had the idea that if you took a whole bunch of mortgages and bundled them together as a security you had the best of both worlds. First you sold off the mortgages which earned you quick short term money, while pocketing even more short term cash from the fees you would collect for doing the bundling and maintaining the mortgages you didn't own.
Investors would collect the combined house payments of thousands of people and make their money back. If they made the payments.
Of course in the process of writing all this paper banks got desperate for short term cash so they hunted down anyone with a pulse to give them a mortgage. Toward the end there the people they had got to sign on the dotted line were given mortgages that were effectively time bombs. Linked to their ability to pay which would get trashed the first time interest rates rose.
Now to cover themselves the investors and banks would buy forms of investment insurance. The infamous CDO's and CDS's. Which basically was buying a policy to insure the worth of the investment if it tanked. Which a lot of these were designed to do.
Now why would someone decide to make an investment designed specifically to tank? Glad ya asked.
That form of investment insurance was unregulated. So it was entirely possible dare I say likely that someone could read that the investment they bought was a ticking time bomb so they'd buy paper to protect it.
Except that due to the lack of regulation they wouldn't buy one piece of paper, they'd buy multiple pieces of paper on a security. Insuring it for massive amounts above its actual worth. And as there was no rule saying you couldn't you could buy these instruments for investments you don't even own.
So let's make a comparison. How safe would you feel knowing ten people have bought multiple pieces of life insurance on you? Yeah? Not very? Good then you have an ounce of sense.
Meanwhile the people who sold the CDO's weren't obligated to set any of the money they made aside to cover any of the bets they were making. So in 2008 when this whole house of cards imploded they had no cash to pay back the losses they had been asked to insure against. Which caused the nightmare of September.
Now it seemed to me like the governor had cleaned up in this market. Especially on one investment for a whole neighborhood his company had built up two years before. Five square miles of housing in...
I read the address and looked it up on google street view.
There was nothing there. It was a big wide empty plain of deserted field.
Reaching over I grabbed the phone and called a cab as my two trusty help mates were out, and frankly as wired and drunk as I was being behind the wheel of a car struck me as being a series of disasters waiting to happen.
Which to be honest was my life in a nutshell.
The cab was waiting for me at the lobby and we drove off to the outskirts of town.
"Why ya wanna go out there?" the Cabbie asked.
"I'm looking into a land investment." I said.
"Shit aint not much there, not since they moved the chemical plant." The driver said.
"Really? when did they do that?"
"Bout twenty years ago, they had the property but couldn't move it because of all the toxic shit left over." He said.
We pulled up by the address we were given and I stepped out.
It was barren expanse of land with pieces of scrub grass, tumbleweeds and a stray cat chasing a squirrel. Not a single house to be found.
"So whatcha gonna do with the land?" The driver asked as I got back in.
"Use it for a burial plot."
"Seems like that might be all it's good for." The driver said.
"Oh you have no idea." I said, then sat back and smiled.
So before I return to the story
So every now and then I get reminded of this story
Judge gets sentenced to 28 years for selling kids to a prison.
And it makes me want to walk down the street screaming. "I hate you all, you are all fucking killing me!!!" As I punch out random passerby till I am eventually hauled to ground and forcibly sedated.
That is by no means an exaggeration.
We have a system of private incarceration in this country that encouraged a judge to sentence children to periods of time in jail that had no relation to the crime they committed at all. So that way the prison could up it's profit margin and get a higher quarterly earnings report. Meanwhile these children had their lives up ended and their potential ruined.
Yeah for a few thousand dollars each of these kids got sent up to line the pockets of corporate overlords and a judge who could have given a shit about them as people.
Well folks, welcome to the future. We are selling off the things that really matter and creating a state where in the law is important only in as much as it can be amended to serve those who have the money to get around. And to fist fuck those who are too poor to hire good representation or lobbyists.
It needs to change. We all know it, we all see it and no one can figure out how it can happen.
First off lets stop ignoring corruption as the way things are and always have been. If we want a better society then we need to insist that those who hold positions of responsibilities do actually live to a higher standard. I could give a damn if they smoke weed or have sex with someone they are not married to, what I do want to know is do they actually follow through on what they say they will do? If the answer is yes then please do so and I will give you my vote and support.
Second lets fire the democrats and republicans, lets make the libertarian party and the green party the recipients of our votes. Sure they might get bought and likely will but in the interim before they do we might actually see something positive happen.
Third. Look deeper past the corporate media. If you want real information it requires effort. But that effort pays off when you find the market for actual news. If you want real news on the world and America here are some sources.
Raw news, raw feeds Indymedia
The economist
The Guardian. Left leaning but good investigative pieces
and of course
some things never go out of style
Take some time, inform yourself. Take control of your own life.
Mean while I'm gonna go punching people out for a bit.
Judge gets sentenced to 28 years for selling kids to a prison.
And it makes me want to walk down the street screaming. "I hate you all, you are all fucking killing me!!!" As I punch out random passerby till I am eventually hauled to ground and forcibly sedated.
That is by no means an exaggeration.
We have a system of private incarceration in this country that encouraged a judge to sentence children to periods of time in jail that had no relation to the crime they committed at all. So that way the prison could up it's profit margin and get a higher quarterly earnings report. Meanwhile these children had their lives up ended and their potential ruined.
Yeah for a few thousand dollars each of these kids got sent up to line the pockets of corporate overlords and a judge who could have given a shit about them as people.
Well folks, welcome to the future. We are selling off the things that really matter and creating a state where in the law is important only in as much as it can be amended to serve those who have the money to get around. And to fist fuck those who are too poor to hire good representation or lobbyists.
It needs to change. We all know it, we all see it and no one can figure out how it can happen.
First off lets stop ignoring corruption as the way things are and always have been. If we want a better society then we need to insist that those who hold positions of responsibilities do actually live to a higher standard. I could give a damn if they smoke weed or have sex with someone they are not married to, what I do want to know is do they actually follow through on what they say they will do? If the answer is yes then please do so and I will give you my vote and support.
Second lets fire the democrats and republicans, lets make the libertarian party and the green party the recipients of our votes. Sure they might get bought and likely will but in the interim before they do we might actually see something positive happen.
Third. Look deeper past the corporate media. If you want real information it requires effort. But that effort pays off when you find the market for actual news. If you want real news on the world and America here are some sources.
Raw news, raw feeds Indymedia
The economist
The Guardian. Left leaning but good investigative pieces
and of course
some things never go out of style
Take some time, inform yourself. Take control of your own life.
Mean while I'm gonna go punching people out for a bit.
Monday, September 15, 2014
Birthdays and good people
Why yes I am working on my birthday. Such is life, as I got a rare Saturday off. Which was spent in the company of great and amazing people Who don't seem to mind drunk Dave so much. Their generosity of spirit is amazing!!
Thinking back on my life as it is, I think I learned a lot on the fine art of being social from my parents. If they worked at a place you could just assume they would be a social center of their group. I lose track of all the times their would be people over for BBQ's dinner, hanging out, playing cards etc. Their formula was simple. Create the environment bring the right people and the good time will follow.
So I tend to stick with a formula that works. I love entertaining or just coming up with excuses for people to gather. I don't need to be the center. More often than not it's just a lot of fun to see all these amazing folks that fate has gifted me with and seeing how they mingle and create among them.
This Saturday was a mix of ages, occupations, social classes and ideas. The one thing that is common among them is attitude. Open minded, adult enough not to break too much stuff and childish enough to enjoy getting out and getting a little odd.
The only downside was being reminded that I am in my 40's the next day I woke up a bit hung over, kind of fried in the lungs from a few cigarettes bummed from friends. (I will smoke when I drink too much but more on this in a second. ) I don't drink to excess often for this very reason. Thankfully nothing was broken, there were no warrants out for my arrest, and no notes from people saying I had behaved like a prick. All of which I will call good news.
I did have one thought that morning. I'm pretty much done with smoking in general. I think about 2 am on Sunday morning it dawned on me that it had lost it's pleasure and was now just something I did from force of habit. Which even at this age is kind of refreshing to think off. One less bad habit in my life. I might replace it with another but it doesn't seem likely.
So thanks to all who came out, bought me a pint or six.. teen... And for having a laugh with as opposed to at me. Words can hardly convey how much you've come to mean to me. Aside from the going out and supporting me or playing designated river or whatever. There's also the support you've all given for my writing, photography and other works.
Sometimes you look around and realize you've been given an amazing gift, it just happens to be the people who surround you. Fuckin brilliant!!
Thinking back on my life as it is, I think I learned a lot on the fine art of being social from my parents. If they worked at a place you could just assume they would be a social center of their group. I lose track of all the times their would be people over for BBQ's dinner, hanging out, playing cards etc. Their formula was simple. Create the environment bring the right people and the good time will follow.
So I tend to stick with a formula that works. I love entertaining or just coming up with excuses for people to gather. I don't need to be the center. More often than not it's just a lot of fun to see all these amazing folks that fate has gifted me with and seeing how they mingle and create among them.
This Saturday was a mix of ages, occupations, social classes and ideas. The one thing that is common among them is attitude. Open minded, adult enough not to break too much stuff and childish enough to enjoy getting out and getting a little odd.
The only downside was being reminded that I am in my 40's the next day I woke up a bit hung over, kind of fried in the lungs from a few cigarettes bummed from friends. (I will smoke when I drink too much but more on this in a second. ) I don't drink to excess often for this very reason. Thankfully nothing was broken, there were no warrants out for my arrest, and no notes from people saying I had behaved like a prick. All of which I will call good news.
I did have one thought that morning. I'm pretty much done with smoking in general. I think about 2 am on Sunday morning it dawned on me that it had lost it's pleasure and was now just something I did from force of habit. Which even at this age is kind of refreshing to think off. One less bad habit in my life. I might replace it with another but it doesn't seem likely.
So thanks to all who came out, bought me a pint or six.. teen... And for having a laugh with as opposed to at me. Words can hardly convey how much you've come to mean to me. Aside from the going out and supporting me or playing designated river or whatever. There's also the support you've all given for my writing, photography and other works.
Sometimes you look around and realize you've been given an amazing gift, it just happens to be the people who surround you. Fuckin brilliant!!
Friday, September 12, 2014
Midnight at the Double Douche part 12
Jon and Kat were waiting for me as I walked out of the gate. I simply stepped into the car and sprawled out in the back seat.
"How was it?" Jon asked.
"Thouroughly surreal." I replied. "There are no drugs on Earth that could make that whole situation seem any better."
"Who are you and what did you do with my boss?" Kat asked.
"Right now I'm the man in terrible need of a very very large drink." I said. Kat to my astonishment leaned over the back seat of the Aston and handed me a bottle of Bushmills.
"You sir have been far too sober lately." She said.
"True, but unlike our other adventures there seems to be about fuck all of anything that can be done here."
"So, blast the word out like a damn missile strike." Kat said. "After all, the news is allegedly what you do. This guy might die but if enough people read the story."
The bottled opened nicely under my fingers and I tilted it back. Letting the liquid carry my mind into different areas. I had a sneaking suspicion Cole was well and truly fucked and the notion that I couldn't help him made me lose track of the bigger picture. There was a fight to be had, and in the end that was my true calling.
"Okay it's a working night tonight, so Jon no cruising the hotel bar till you've done your homework. And Kat no collecting new servants till we're done gathering our tools." I said and knocked more of the whiskey back.
"Whatcha got in mind?" Jon asked.
"I wanna fuck over a governor, a few judges and get a lawyer dis barred and run out of the country on a rail." Another couple of gulps of whiskey. "Then to top it all off I want to see as many of the parties involved under indictment for felonies."
"How are we going to do that?" Kat asked.
"Research, these guys are all in politics for fucks sake." More whiskey and I felt a smile return. Yeah this wasn't a battle this was a war, and while each week the bad guys were winning a battle to make us all forget our common humanity, each week someone lost a friend or a family member. I needed to show the world the cost of what was happening. Even more I needed them to see the caliber of people who handed life and death like tabs of Molly at a rave.
"These guys have to have fucked over people in their careers, find them. Interview them and report back. Give me every piece of dirt thats been buried in this state."
"In 48 hours?" Kat asked.
"You're a miracle worker. Show me something."
Kat smiled. "I do love a challenge."
We pulled up in front of the hotel. My melancholy now tinged with the desire to smell blood in the water. I was no longer a mere spectator. This, this was the journalism of attachment. A fact driven editorial to show people my disgust and how I got there. Detachment is for the people who don't understand the function of their own minds. Bias is a function of being alive. I just had the guts to own up to it. Do the math to get there and show you my damn work.
I was gonna up end wrecking this damn state and every one in it if I had anything to say about it.
"How was it?" Jon asked.
"Thouroughly surreal." I replied. "There are no drugs on Earth that could make that whole situation seem any better."
"Who are you and what did you do with my boss?" Kat asked.
"Right now I'm the man in terrible need of a very very large drink." I said. Kat to my astonishment leaned over the back seat of the Aston and handed me a bottle of Bushmills.
"You sir have been far too sober lately." She said.
"True, but unlike our other adventures there seems to be about fuck all of anything that can be done here."
"So, blast the word out like a damn missile strike." Kat said. "After all, the news is allegedly what you do. This guy might die but if enough people read the story."
The bottled opened nicely under my fingers and I tilted it back. Letting the liquid carry my mind into different areas. I had a sneaking suspicion Cole was well and truly fucked and the notion that I couldn't help him made me lose track of the bigger picture. There was a fight to be had, and in the end that was my true calling.
"Okay it's a working night tonight, so Jon no cruising the hotel bar till you've done your homework. And Kat no collecting new servants till we're done gathering our tools." I said and knocked more of the whiskey back.
"Whatcha got in mind?" Jon asked.
"I wanna fuck over a governor, a few judges and get a lawyer dis barred and run out of the country on a rail." Another couple of gulps of whiskey. "Then to top it all off I want to see as many of the parties involved under indictment for felonies."
"How are we going to do that?" Kat asked.
"Research, these guys are all in politics for fucks sake." More whiskey and I felt a smile return. Yeah this wasn't a battle this was a war, and while each week the bad guys were winning a battle to make us all forget our common humanity, each week someone lost a friend or a family member. I needed to show the world the cost of what was happening. Even more I needed them to see the caliber of people who handed life and death like tabs of Molly at a rave.
"These guys have to have fucked over people in their careers, find them. Interview them and report back. Give me every piece of dirt thats been buried in this state."
"In 48 hours?" Kat asked.
"You're a miracle worker. Show me something."
Kat smiled. "I do love a challenge."
We pulled up in front of the hotel. My melancholy now tinged with the desire to smell blood in the water. I was no longer a mere spectator. This, this was the journalism of attachment. A fact driven editorial to show people my disgust and how I got there. Detachment is for the people who don't understand the function of their own minds. Bias is a function of being alive. I just had the guts to own up to it. Do the math to get there and show you my damn work.
I was gonna up end wrecking this damn state and every one in it if I had anything to say about it.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
Midnight at the Double Douche part 11
Generally saying you break necks for a living is the purview of large men on football fields or MMA rings. It's the sort of boast you get to make if you're a hulking 250 pound plus guy with no neck and a series of skills in personal carnage and destruction.
So you'd be surprised to see that the person responsible for breaking necks at the prison was a young lady who stands about 5 feet two inches tall and might weigh 100 pounds if she just got out of the shower. She more closely resembled a pixie then a prison guard which is how she came to find herself doing this.
"Now what I'm doing is stretching out the rope. "She said tying the end of it to 4 fifty pound sandbags. Then pulling the lever that released the trapdoor which opened violently and loudly. A clanging sound reverberating through the room. The rope bounced and jerked as the weight hit the bottom then stopped.
"See that?" She said, indicating the rope. "That bounce? Can't have that, if the rope has give and the condemned bounces on the end it may not do the job right and then they strangle to death."
I nodded then asked her. "How did you get this job?" To me it seemed an odd picture. While I think women can do just fine as cops and soldiers I always have to wonder how someone finds themselves here. Doing this. Part of a lonely few who specialize in killing on behalf of the state. If asked I wouldn't serve and I wondered why she did.
"I volunteered." She said, turning to check the fittings on the machine. "After the first hanging we did went bad."
That was easy to remember. By all accounts the trap door opened and the guy on the end of the rope had jerked and twisted for 20 minutes. They said it was an accident.
"Why?"
"Tommy, the guy who set this up the first time? Yeah he said he made a mistake in adjusting for the drop, but I saw him place the knot wrong on purpose. He wanted that guy to suffer." She paused. "I swear that tiny little dick of his was hard in his pants as that poor guy squirmed."
Thinking about it made me glad I had gone for a light breakfast before I came here, I felt a need to be ill.
"So I contacted the warden and said I'd do it. I showed him the research I did after that, the drop tables the preparation guides everything."
"Drop tables?"
"Yeah an English hangman invented a table that matched up height and weight for the condemned to create the right amount of force to break a neck without causing them to stay conscious while they strangled, or if they fall too long pulling their head off. then there's the rope, you stretch it out like you do here to make sure the impact at the bottom does the job. When the neck breaks they're as good as dead, but the guys who developed the method said it was best to leave them hanging for an hour to ensure death by hypoxia."
Yeah the light breakfast was a seriously good idea.
"I know what you're gonna ask." She said. "Everyone else who knows asks too. Why?"
"Yeah well you beat me to it." I said with a smile.
"I saw that guy jerk and dance at the end of the rope and saw Tommy standing there. Smiling at his work when he thought no one was watching. Then I remembered something my grandfather said. 'Evil people will do a hard job because they enjoy seeing others suffer through it. A good person does a hard job because they know it needs to be done right or not at all'." She shrugged. "I don't like doing it, but I'd rather be the one who does then let Tommy or some other idiot go out of their way to kill someone as slow as they can."
Despite myself I smiled. Wondereing how it was this woman wasn't doing something more in line with her minds ability and her own ethic. Killing people seemed to be a waste. Yet somehow seemed in line with the notion of this whole sick system. Find a person with a good sense of morals and ethics then force them to do a hard thing, because frankly they would be the only ones who would do a good job. Never mind that their skills could be used to actually build things or save lives rather than take them. "So every week you prep this device and another person take a drop."
"Yeah I don't have to like it I just have to do it." She looked at the dangling sand bags on the rope and sighed. "Just wish I didn't have to." Part of me had to wonder what traumas she went through in doing this every time. Sending someone to their death, some who deserved it and others who didn't, but each one caught up in a web of a system that really cared less for them then it did for preserving some ancient status quo that we all somehow know exists but never bother to examine.
At every step there was a person who could simply say no. A Judge, a juror, a governor. A person who might notice that the person on the wrong end of the law in some cases was not some monster but a person who could, perhaps, over time be redeemed. Sadly the people who administered the system itself had no need for such thoughts. By the time it got to her she had to say yes because the alternative was horrid by any measure.
"Me too." I replied and knocked on the door to the gallows room.
"I gotta ask, when you write this what are you gonna say about me?" She asked her eyes were asking for understanding, but her body was braced like she was going to take a punch.
"That you might be the one of two people with any sense of decency in this whole sad story." Another guard opened the death house door.
"Come see me after. I like to blow off steam with a drink or twelve after it's all done." She said.
"Hell when this is all done I might need a drink or twelve myself." I replied.
"Mr O'Neil I'd be worried if you didn't."
So you'd be surprised to see that the person responsible for breaking necks at the prison was a young lady who stands about 5 feet two inches tall and might weigh 100 pounds if she just got out of the shower. She more closely resembled a pixie then a prison guard which is how she came to find herself doing this.
"Now what I'm doing is stretching out the rope. "She said tying the end of it to 4 fifty pound sandbags. Then pulling the lever that released the trapdoor which opened violently and loudly. A clanging sound reverberating through the room. The rope bounced and jerked as the weight hit the bottom then stopped.
"See that?" She said, indicating the rope. "That bounce? Can't have that, if the rope has give and the condemned bounces on the end it may not do the job right and then they strangle to death."
I nodded then asked her. "How did you get this job?" To me it seemed an odd picture. While I think women can do just fine as cops and soldiers I always have to wonder how someone finds themselves here. Doing this. Part of a lonely few who specialize in killing on behalf of the state. If asked I wouldn't serve and I wondered why she did.
"I volunteered." She said, turning to check the fittings on the machine. "After the first hanging we did went bad."
That was easy to remember. By all accounts the trap door opened and the guy on the end of the rope had jerked and twisted for 20 minutes. They said it was an accident.
"Why?"
"Tommy, the guy who set this up the first time? Yeah he said he made a mistake in adjusting for the drop, but I saw him place the knot wrong on purpose. He wanted that guy to suffer." She paused. "I swear that tiny little dick of his was hard in his pants as that poor guy squirmed."
Thinking about it made me glad I had gone for a light breakfast before I came here, I felt a need to be ill.
"So I contacted the warden and said I'd do it. I showed him the research I did after that, the drop tables the preparation guides everything."
"Drop tables?"
"Yeah an English hangman invented a table that matched up height and weight for the condemned to create the right amount of force to break a neck without causing them to stay conscious while they strangled, or if they fall too long pulling their head off. then there's the rope, you stretch it out like you do here to make sure the impact at the bottom does the job. When the neck breaks they're as good as dead, but the guys who developed the method said it was best to leave them hanging for an hour to ensure death by hypoxia."
Yeah the light breakfast was a seriously good idea.
"I know what you're gonna ask." She said. "Everyone else who knows asks too. Why?"
"Yeah well you beat me to it." I said with a smile.
"I saw that guy jerk and dance at the end of the rope and saw Tommy standing there. Smiling at his work when he thought no one was watching. Then I remembered something my grandfather said. 'Evil people will do a hard job because they enjoy seeing others suffer through it. A good person does a hard job because they know it needs to be done right or not at all'." She shrugged. "I don't like doing it, but I'd rather be the one who does then let Tommy or some other idiot go out of their way to kill someone as slow as they can."
Despite myself I smiled. Wondereing how it was this woman wasn't doing something more in line with her minds ability and her own ethic. Killing people seemed to be a waste. Yet somehow seemed in line with the notion of this whole sick system. Find a person with a good sense of morals and ethics then force them to do a hard thing, because frankly they would be the only ones who would do a good job. Never mind that their skills could be used to actually build things or save lives rather than take them. "So every week you prep this device and another person take a drop."
"Yeah I don't have to like it I just have to do it." She looked at the dangling sand bags on the rope and sighed. "Just wish I didn't have to." Part of me had to wonder what traumas she went through in doing this every time. Sending someone to their death, some who deserved it and others who didn't, but each one caught up in a web of a system that really cared less for them then it did for preserving some ancient status quo that we all somehow know exists but never bother to examine.
At every step there was a person who could simply say no. A Judge, a juror, a governor. A person who might notice that the person on the wrong end of the law in some cases was not some monster but a person who could, perhaps, over time be redeemed. Sadly the people who administered the system itself had no need for such thoughts. By the time it got to her she had to say yes because the alternative was horrid by any measure.
"Me too." I replied and knocked on the door to the gallows room.
"I gotta ask, when you write this what are you gonna say about me?" She asked her eyes were asking for understanding, but her body was braced like she was going to take a punch.
"That you might be the one of two people with any sense of decency in this whole sad story." Another guard opened the death house door.
"Come see me after. I like to blow off steam with a drink or twelve after it's all done." She said.
"Hell when this is all done I might need a drink or twelve myself." I replied.
"Mr O'Neil I'd be worried if you didn't."
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Midnight at the Double Douche Part 10
Three days before an execution and the ghouls were all ready taking up spaces in the parking lot by the prison. Looking out I saw motor homes and people grilling making signs that said "Cole Burn in Hell!" Well they said Cole, but most of them had just duct taped his name over a blank spot. Ready to be taken apart and used next week when the teen age kid whose conviction on rape and murder charges would be taken up 13 steps and dropped, despite the fact that no one had bothered to check the DNA evidence that would acquit him.
Truth be told I think I'd rather walk through a busy street in Bagdhad with a USA flag jacket on, then walk through a crowd of these people. They had been taught to fear and to love their fear from the day they were born. Told too often that anyone other than them was strange and a stranger was a dangerous character. Told to stay in their homes and collect weapons for the day that the stranger would knock on their door and conditioned to stand their ground even if that person was just looking for directions or had come to there by mistake.
They were people infected with group think, who if given the chance would likely get a rope of their own and hang the next person they could. Then rejoice with a bud light and brat over a grill as the body cooled above them. Feeling that for just a moment they would be safe, not knowing that the people around them would turn in a heart beat and destroy them if they had reason to think that person had behaved in a manner they might find suspicious.
"Did it just get a bit colder in here?" Jon asked.
"Funny I was about to ask the same thing." Kat said.
"That's just the sensation of people getting rid of extra baggage, like their souls for example." I said as we passed by a checkpoint where a guard checked all our id's then waved us through. "Mind if I hang out here?" Jon asked as we got up to the imposing building.
How about you and Kat scout the hotel, get a line on the bar and see if there's anyone interesting to talk to about this." I said. Wanting to spare my team mates the horrors and psychic strain of a place like this.
"I'm with this idea." Jon said and Kat nodded. The effect of being in this places shadow seeming to wear on both of them. Not that I could be too critical. I was doing this stone cold sober and the dark gray edifice felt like it had a soul of it's own. Having contained so much misery and anger for years it couldn't help but have a spirit that reflected that.
I was escorted inside by two large guards dressed in blue fatigues. Past walls painted in a nice institutional style. if it wasn't for the large men and women dressed in fatigues carrying clubs you might think you were in school. Hell with today's zero tolerance policies aimed at students you probably would be at school.
This is where society dropped off what it considered to be it's trash. Men and women who basically suffered from the poor judgement to be born into poverty by and large. Where they were forced to earn a hard scrabble living, while being shown the best of the world being consumed by others. On their TV's they see mansions, fast cars yachts and a world of super models. While at home they had hot dogs wal mart soda and a 12 year old truck that may or may not get them to work every day.
Some of them took to making or selling drugs to earn quick cash to reach for that dream, only to get smacked down by a harsh reality of mandatory minimums and the side effects of years of legislation designed to keep people from being pharmecutical entrpeneurs. Once you got busted that conviction followed you and made it harder to get a job, and more difficult to get an education past whatever they may have gotten in public school.
We created a society where we had created a perpetual potential criminal class. The people who were too poor to get a good start, then forced to grovel for anything they could get. Meanwhile so scared of all the crime they see around them that they'd vote in anyone who said they would make it go away. Smiling as they saw tougher laws passed on crimes that had no victim never guessing that they might be staring down the barrel of the law themselves someday.
None dare call it a plan, but to my mind it smacked of social engineering of the worst sort. A permanant under class to be counted on as cheap labor and perpetual skapegoats.
Richard Cole was one of those people. He'd never got popped for drugs and only had one charge against him in his life prior to this. A bar fight that later got dropped when they shook hands and made up over it. He earned good money as a mechanic at a local garage.
Now he was walking in to give what was likely to be his last interview. Prior to coming to a very harsh stop on a rope.
Cole was a long lean man, with dark hair and a beard. He had the face of a man who had seen a lot and liked quite a bit of it. He struck me as a person who would have an easy smile. His arms resembled steel cable. Apparently while the state expedited his appeals he had made good on his old career by fixing vehicles in the Prison motor pool.
The guard sat him down then cuffed his hands to a round o ring on the floor. His arms were extended and his back bent. "There is no way that can be comfortable." I said.
"You're right. Now imagine a two hour meeting with your lawyer like this." He said and grinned. "Shit I don't mind around here good company is in short supply."
"Well I'll do my best to be good company." I said. "So how ya holding up?"
"Right now I'm fine, when they get me to the top of that gallows.. Well we'll see." Cole said with a tired smile.
"Think you're going there?" I asked.
"Shit." He said with an exasperated look. "The governors favorite past time is killing people, when the supreme court said the drugs in lethal injection were cruel and unusual he just brought back hanging." He shook his head. "I voted for him, man if that wasn't a huge mistake." He paused. "They sent better people than me to go die up there."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Paul Watson that guy what got hung the first time? you might have heard about that."
"Yeah, I heard it didn't go well."
"That's the polite way of saying they dropped him and the asshole hangman set the rope wrong, he struggled for 20 minutes." He shook his head. "They got rid of that idiot. The one they got now does it right, person drops, no muss no fuss." He looked up. "Sorry if I'm a little morbid."
"It's all good I can't imagine what I would feel if I was in your shoes.":
He grinned. "Yeah Paul was a good man, they said he killed his wife but all they had was circumstantial evidence. Hell they couldn't even place him at the scene and he had no defensive wounds. Any way Paul was in the army, a medic, so he volunteered in the sick bay here. Man could sew a set of stitches so clean you'd barely know you got cut a month later. Man shoulda been a doctor."
"I heard you didn't get the best legal representation." I said by way of asking a question.
"That's the polite way of saying my attorney was too drunk to file a motion to plea me down to a lesser charge. The fella was taking slugs from a hip flask in the front of the judge. Man sometimes I think I just walked into a world of bad luck."
I took a deep breath. It's kind of hard to see someone so well and truly fucked and not feel for him. Worse yet when there's jack you can do for him. "I heard the victim's mom wrote to the governor asking for clemency."
"Yeah Judy. Well shit we'd been neighbors since were kids. I can never forgive myself for what happened, I was just trying to scare off some bad guys who were beating up my friend. Then the gun went off and the damn round passed through that cardboard thick wood they used in her house. Her poor baby was dead before she hit the floor." He paused. "I can't make that right, never can. Shit if me getting hung would bring that girl back I'd step off the trap myself." There was a wetness to his eyes and he bent down to wipe them.
"Ain't it fucked when you don't know what's right?"
"Yeah, I don't know whats right, but I can't help but think that what they're doing to you is wrong." I replied.
"Would I sound less than contrite if I said I agreed with you?" He said.
"Nah, I think you'd sound like anyone in a well and truly fucked situation." I replied.
"Yeah." The guard walked back in. "Okay Cole times up for now."
Cole looked at me. "Gonna be there for the big show?"
"I got invited but I hadn't quite made up my mind." I replied.
"I'd appreciate it if you could, read some of your stuff. I think someone needs to know what happens." Cole said as the guard un shackled him from the O-ring.
"Okay for you I'll be there, meanwhile I'll hope something goes right for you."
"Thanks." He said and walked off. The door shutting behind with a bang that made me think of guns going off.
How the hell did this happen? People fuck up, mistakes happen. We all, in our time, pay a price. Should the price be your life? Maybe for a small select few, but for the likes of Richard Cole, or Paul Watson?
Not really. In my humble opinion. A guard opened the door and came in. "She's agreed to see you."
As I was walked out to my next interview I couldn't help but wonder, when did we got so scared of ourselves that we'd let our fellow citizens be murdered, in this case by the gross, to make us feel better. Worse yet, when had people who wanted to run the show decided that lives made for great political capital?
Truth be told I think I'd rather walk through a busy street in Bagdhad with a USA flag jacket on, then walk through a crowd of these people. They had been taught to fear and to love their fear from the day they were born. Told too often that anyone other than them was strange and a stranger was a dangerous character. Told to stay in their homes and collect weapons for the day that the stranger would knock on their door and conditioned to stand their ground even if that person was just looking for directions or had come to there by mistake.
They were people infected with group think, who if given the chance would likely get a rope of their own and hang the next person they could. Then rejoice with a bud light and brat over a grill as the body cooled above them. Feeling that for just a moment they would be safe, not knowing that the people around them would turn in a heart beat and destroy them if they had reason to think that person had behaved in a manner they might find suspicious.
"Did it just get a bit colder in here?" Jon asked.
"Funny I was about to ask the same thing." Kat said.
"That's just the sensation of people getting rid of extra baggage, like their souls for example." I said as we passed by a checkpoint where a guard checked all our id's then waved us through. "Mind if I hang out here?" Jon asked as we got up to the imposing building.
How about you and Kat scout the hotel, get a line on the bar and see if there's anyone interesting to talk to about this." I said. Wanting to spare my team mates the horrors and psychic strain of a place like this.
"I'm with this idea." Jon said and Kat nodded. The effect of being in this places shadow seeming to wear on both of them. Not that I could be too critical. I was doing this stone cold sober and the dark gray edifice felt like it had a soul of it's own. Having contained so much misery and anger for years it couldn't help but have a spirit that reflected that.
I was escorted inside by two large guards dressed in blue fatigues. Past walls painted in a nice institutional style. if it wasn't for the large men and women dressed in fatigues carrying clubs you might think you were in school. Hell with today's zero tolerance policies aimed at students you probably would be at school.
This is where society dropped off what it considered to be it's trash. Men and women who basically suffered from the poor judgement to be born into poverty by and large. Where they were forced to earn a hard scrabble living, while being shown the best of the world being consumed by others. On their TV's they see mansions, fast cars yachts and a world of super models. While at home they had hot dogs wal mart soda and a 12 year old truck that may or may not get them to work every day.
Some of them took to making or selling drugs to earn quick cash to reach for that dream, only to get smacked down by a harsh reality of mandatory minimums and the side effects of years of legislation designed to keep people from being pharmecutical entrpeneurs. Once you got busted that conviction followed you and made it harder to get a job, and more difficult to get an education past whatever they may have gotten in public school.
We created a society where we had created a perpetual potential criminal class. The people who were too poor to get a good start, then forced to grovel for anything they could get. Meanwhile so scared of all the crime they see around them that they'd vote in anyone who said they would make it go away. Smiling as they saw tougher laws passed on crimes that had no victim never guessing that they might be staring down the barrel of the law themselves someday.
None dare call it a plan, but to my mind it smacked of social engineering of the worst sort. A permanant under class to be counted on as cheap labor and perpetual skapegoats.
Richard Cole was one of those people. He'd never got popped for drugs and only had one charge against him in his life prior to this. A bar fight that later got dropped when they shook hands and made up over it. He earned good money as a mechanic at a local garage.
Now he was walking in to give what was likely to be his last interview. Prior to coming to a very harsh stop on a rope.
Cole was a long lean man, with dark hair and a beard. He had the face of a man who had seen a lot and liked quite a bit of it. He struck me as a person who would have an easy smile. His arms resembled steel cable. Apparently while the state expedited his appeals he had made good on his old career by fixing vehicles in the Prison motor pool.
The guard sat him down then cuffed his hands to a round o ring on the floor. His arms were extended and his back bent. "There is no way that can be comfortable." I said.
"You're right. Now imagine a two hour meeting with your lawyer like this." He said and grinned. "Shit I don't mind around here good company is in short supply."
"Well I'll do my best to be good company." I said. "So how ya holding up?"
"Right now I'm fine, when they get me to the top of that gallows.. Well we'll see." Cole said with a tired smile.
"Think you're going there?" I asked.
"Shit." He said with an exasperated look. "The governors favorite past time is killing people, when the supreme court said the drugs in lethal injection were cruel and unusual he just brought back hanging." He shook his head. "I voted for him, man if that wasn't a huge mistake." He paused. "They sent better people than me to go die up there."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Paul Watson that guy what got hung the first time? you might have heard about that."
"Yeah, I heard it didn't go well."
"That's the polite way of saying they dropped him and the asshole hangman set the rope wrong, he struggled for 20 minutes." He shook his head. "They got rid of that idiot. The one they got now does it right, person drops, no muss no fuss." He looked up. "Sorry if I'm a little morbid."
"It's all good I can't imagine what I would feel if I was in your shoes.":
He grinned. "Yeah Paul was a good man, they said he killed his wife but all they had was circumstantial evidence. Hell they couldn't even place him at the scene and he had no defensive wounds. Any way Paul was in the army, a medic, so he volunteered in the sick bay here. Man could sew a set of stitches so clean you'd barely know you got cut a month later. Man shoulda been a doctor."
"I heard you didn't get the best legal representation." I said by way of asking a question.
"That's the polite way of saying my attorney was too drunk to file a motion to plea me down to a lesser charge. The fella was taking slugs from a hip flask in the front of the judge. Man sometimes I think I just walked into a world of bad luck."
I took a deep breath. It's kind of hard to see someone so well and truly fucked and not feel for him. Worse yet when there's jack you can do for him. "I heard the victim's mom wrote to the governor asking for clemency."
"Yeah Judy. Well shit we'd been neighbors since were kids. I can never forgive myself for what happened, I was just trying to scare off some bad guys who were beating up my friend. Then the gun went off and the damn round passed through that cardboard thick wood they used in her house. Her poor baby was dead before she hit the floor." He paused. "I can't make that right, never can. Shit if me getting hung would bring that girl back I'd step off the trap myself." There was a wetness to his eyes and he bent down to wipe them.
"Ain't it fucked when you don't know what's right?"
"Yeah, I don't know whats right, but I can't help but think that what they're doing to you is wrong." I replied.
"Would I sound less than contrite if I said I agreed with you?" He said.
"Nah, I think you'd sound like anyone in a well and truly fucked situation." I replied.
"Yeah." The guard walked back in. "Okay Cole times up for now."
Cole looked at me. "Gonna be there for the big show?"
"I got invited but I hadn't quite made up my mind." I replied.
"I'd appreciate it if you could, read some of your stuff. I think someone needs to know what happens." Cole said as the guard un shackled him from the O-ring.
"Okay for you I'll be there, meanwhile I'll hope something goes right for you."
"Thanks." He said and walked off. The door shutting behind with a bang that made me think of guns going off.
How the hell did this happen? People fuck up, mistakes happen. We all, in our time, pay a price. Should the price be your life? Maybe for a small select few, but for the likes of Richard Cole, or Paul Watson?
Not really. In my humble opinion. A guard opened the door and came in. "She's agreed to see you."
As I was walked out to my next interview I couldn't help but wonder, when did we got so scared of ourselves that we'd let our fellow citizens be murdered, in this case by the gross, to make us feel better. Worse yet, when had people who wanted to run the show decided that lives made for great political capital?
Thursday, August 21, 2014
Midnight at the Double Douche Part 9
After rescuing Jon from a heap of bodies splayed over his room like the after effect of some sort of pheromone bomb. Then grabbing breakfast at a place that served up amazing pancakes and Fox news we got on the road.
Jon was behind the wheel this time as Kat begged off due to a headache and the desire not to be seen as a cliche as the female driver/assistant. "But you are my assistant." I said as we settled in.
"Yes but avoiding cliches is something I'm trying on to see how it feels." She replied.
"Well you could do the interviews and write the story. I am so not feeling this." I said as John pointed the car south.
"No thanks this story has no appeal to me in any way." She said looking over something on her pad computer.
"Me neither." I replied.
"So why do it?" Jon asked.
"Not everything in this world is the fun part of the Earth's seedy under belly. Sometimes you have to cover the parts that are sunk deeper in the cesspool." I replied.
"And collect a huge check in the process." Kat said.
"Are you suggesting I'm doing this for mercenary reasons?"
"Not exactly, my big fear is that writing about this will feed the desire for people to get their vicarious thrills from reading about someones legalized murder." She said.
"Not if I have anything to say about it." I said. "This whole thing strikes me as being about as civilized as a lynching party."
Looking up I saw a bill board featuring the states governor. I had a feeling that the states desire to kill as many death row inmates had something to do with his upcoming re election campaign. So far in three years and change he'd killed 250 people. Now he was up to an execution a week. A cycle that if viewed by a psychologist might be viewed as a psychopath devolving into violent mental chaos.
So far this year he'd killed a man with acute Down's syndrome, a mother who had been the getaway driver in a bank heist gone bad, and a 17 year old young man who had killed a young girl back when he was in grade school. When he brought his dads gun for show and tell not knowing it was loaded.
For this he had received record approval ratings for his methods of handling crime. He seemed a shoe in for the next election. And he had real chances at a presidential run. It was agreed amongst pundits that his dropping puppies on spikes act during the last presidential primary debate had wowed the voters in his parties base.
Now his latest victim was a young man named Richard Cole. A young man who had shot at a gang member who was attacking a friend of his and missed. The round had gone through a wall and struck an 8 year old girl in her bedroom as she was playing with Barbies.
At the trial his lawyer who was obviously hung over or drunk depending on the time of day. Had not bothered to try and plead the case down from first degree murder to something more in line with the facts of the situation. This led the prosecution to decide to swing for the bleachers and the judges instructions had pretty much sealed his fate.
His appeals had so far gone pretty much no where on the state level. As institutional inertia had made sure that the judges on the appeals court didn't want to admit that the state had many errors in this instance. Like for example appointing a raging alcoholic to handle Cole's defense.
Meanwhile the state governor was urging citizens to carry more firearms. Somehow I had a feeling Mr Cole wouldn't be the last one to take this ride.
"That's a pretty clear miscarriage of justice." Jon said. "Where is the case now?"
"The ACLU has taken it to the supreme court." I replied. "But the chief justice might not want to hear it at all. Apparently he and the governor are friends."
"So this guy might die to possibly earn a sitting governor more votes in an election." Jon said. "That's insane."
"Yeah, yeah it is." I said. Part of me knew how this was all going to end. Not that it would stop me from doing my best. "Kat better be ready to set up the mother of all twitter feeds." I said.
"Two steps ahead of you, I'm writing up the background for the story for people to see on the column." She said.
"How much do I pay you again?"
"The correct answer is not nearly enough." She said.
"I agree, keep up the good work."
We crossed into the county where the prison was. Long flattened fields did nothing to hide the dark edifice on the edge of the horizon. Taking a calming breath I got focused.
"Ahead warp factor 6 Mr Jon."
"Aye aye captain."
Off we sailed into what could only be called probable disaster.
Jon was behind the wheel this time as Kat begged off due to a headache and the desire not to be seen as a cliche as the female driver/assistant. "But you are my assistant." I said as we settled in.
"Yes but avoiding cliches is something I'm trying on to see how it feels." She replied.
"Well you could do the interviews and write the story. I am so not feeling this." I said as John pointed the car south.
"No thanks this story has no appeal to me in any way." She said looking over something on her pad computer.
"Me neither." I replied.
"So why do it?" Jon asked.
"Not everything in this world is the fun part of the Earth's seedy under belly. Sometimes you have to cover the parts that are sunk deeper in the cesspool." I replied.
"And collect a huge check in the process." Kat said.
"Are you suggesting I'm doing this for mercenary reasons?"
"Not exactly, my big fear is that writing about this will feed the desire for people to get their vicarious thrills from reading about someones legalized murder." She said.
"Not if I have anything to say about it." I said. "This whole thing strikes me as being about as civilized as a lynching party."
Looking up I saw a bill board featuring the states governor. I had a feeling that the states desire to kill as many death row inmates had something to do with his upcoming re election campaign. So far in three years and change he'd killed 250 people. Now he was up to an execution a week. A cycle that if viewed by a psychologist might be viewed as a psychopath devolving into violent mental chaos.
So far this year he'd killed a man with acute Down's syndrome, a mother who had been the getaway driver in a bank heist gone bad, and a 17 year old young man who had killed a young girl back when he was in grade school. When he brought his dads gun for show and tell not knowing it was loaded.
For this he had received record approval ratings for his methods of handling crime. He seemed a shoe in for the next election. And he had real chances at a presidential run. It was agreed amongst pundits that his dropping puppies on spikes act during the last presidential primary debate had wowed the voters in his parties base.
Now his latest victim was a young man named Richard Cole. A young man who had shot at a gang member who was attacking a friend of his and missed. The round had gone through a wall and struck an 8 year old girl in her bedroom as she was playing with Barbies.
At the trial his lawyer who was obviously hung over or drunk depending on the time of day. Had not bothered to try and plead the case down from first degree murder to something more in line with the facts of the situation. This led the prosecution to decide to swing for the bleachers and the judges instructions had pretty much sealed his fate.
His appeals had so far gone pretty much no where on the state level. As institutional inertia had made sure that the judges on the appeals court didn't want to admit that the state had many errors in this instance. Like for example appointing a raging alcoholic to handle Cole's defense.
Meanwhile the state governor was urging citizens to carry more firearms. Somehow I had a feeling Mr Cole wouldn't be the last one to take this ride.
"That's a pretty clear miscarriage of justice." Jon said. "Where is the case now?"
"The ACLU has taken it to the supreme court." I replied. "But the chief justice might not want to hear it at all. Apparently he and the governor are friends."
"So this guy might die to possibly earn a sitting governor more votes in an election." Jon said. "That's insane."
"Yeah, yeah it is." I said. Part of me knew how this was all going to end. Not that it would stop me from doing my best. "Kat better be ready to set up the mother of all twitter feeds." I said.
"Two steps ahead of you, I'm writing up the background for the story for people to see on the column." She said.
"How much do I pay you again?"
"The correct answer is not nearly enough." She said.
"I agree, keep up the good work."
We crossed into the county where the prison was. Long flattened fields did nothing to hide the dark edifice on the edge of the horizon. Taking a calming breath I got focused.
"Ahead warp factor 6 Mr Jon."
"Aye aye captain."
Off we sailed into what could only be called probable disaster.
Friday, August 15, 2014
Midnight at the Double Douche Part 8
(So with phase one complete I am starting the next big story of this mad cast. Warning by the time this section ends it's gonna get dark in here. I promise though the next sequence will be hardcore crazy.)
I woke in a darkened hotel room feeling frightfully sober. Contrary to the opinion you must have formed by now I do spend large periods of time not under the influence of anything more powerful than several cups of coffee, Claritin and nicotine.
I was woefully short of coffee so I called room service and tried to piece together how I had gotten here. Stumbling into the bathroom I found a pair of panties in the sink with a note. "Thanks for the adventure... Fiona." on them. Then parts of it came back, we had stumbled into the motel after escaping the carnage we had caused just minutes earlier. Then I kept getting "gifts" from Fiona until the sun came up.
I grinned at the black satin underwear and put them in my pocket. I'd take in thanks of a "Thank you masked man." any day.
Shit, was time was it? There was no way I was going to open the screens by the window. For all I knew the big yellow orb was out there. We'd had quite a period of time the sun and I. I had nothing against it per se, I just operated better at night like most decent people. Right now a good solid blast of sunlight would probably blow a hole right through me.
There was a knock on the door. I stumbled to it drew it open. The young man from room service pushed in a wheeled cart with a pot of coffee and a small bottle of milk on it. I tipped him handsomely then as I poured a cup, watched Kat walk in dressed to the nines as always. I meanwhile was in sweats and a black pink floyd t-shirt.
Kat held out a phone. "How did this wind up in my pocket?" She asked.
"Gremlins, clearly they're out to get you." I replied and offered her a cup which she took.
"Well your editor would like a word with you." She said handing me the offending device.
"Hi Shelby." I said into the receiver and added creme to the coffee.
"Nice column, thanks for changing names to give us plausible deniability. The lawyers are currently preparing their counter suits." She said.
"As they should, all those people are dangerous maniacs." I replied.
"Good now be ready to say that in deposition." She paused. "Hope you're not comfortable I have a new gig for you."
"Ohh dear lord. I'm still in recovery from this one."
"Suck it up, drink some Gatorade and take some aspirin, then get down to this location I got you a huge level of access if your lucky in three days you get to see someone get hung."
"Sorry repeat that?" I replied.
"I said drink some gatora..."
"Not that, the last part."
"Apparently due to issues with the inability to get drugs for executions in their state the governor has given the inmates on death row a choice between hanging and firing squad." She paused. "The next one is set in three days. I got you access to the next victim the warden the lawyers and a few others."
I took a deep breath. "There is really nothing about this that appeals to me. I always felt that killing people was a waste of perfectly good human potential."
"It's a front page exclusive and you get the mother of all bonuses. Seriously this whole thing has a huge potential for the sort of story you really roll on."
"Stop playing to my ego. Okay I'll do it. Send me all the pertinents."
"Done. Check your email." Shelby said and hung up.
Kat looked up at me. "New job?"
"Yeah we're going south to cover a hanging." I said.
She stared away absently. "I sense a whole lot of suck ahead."
"Oh good I'm not the only one." I replied. "Nothing for it, let's get packed, pull Jon from the latest pile of flesh he's created and get moving."
I woke in a darkened hotel room feeling frightfully sober. Contrary to the opinion you must have formed by now I do spend large periods of time not under the influence of anything more powerful than several cups of coffee, Claritin and nicotine.
I was woefully short of coffee so I called room service and tried to piece together how I had gotten here. Stumbling into the bathroom I found a pair of panties in the sink with a note. "Thanks for the adventure... Fiona." on them. Then parts of it came back, we had stumbled into the motel after escaping the carnage we had caused just minutes earlier. Then I kept getting "gifts" from Fiona until the sun came up.
I grinned at the black satin underwear and put them in my pocket. I'd take in thanks of a "Thank you masked man." any day.
Shit, was time was it? There was no way I was going to open the screens by the window. For all I knew the big yellow orb was out there. We'd had quite a period of time the sun and I. I had nothing against it per se, I just operated better at night like most decent people. Right now a good solid blast of sunlight would probably blow a hole right through me.
There was a knock on the door. I stumbled to it drew it open. The young man from room service pushed in a wheeled cart with a pot of coffee and a small bottle of milk on it. I tipped him handsomely then as I poured a cup, watched Kat walk in dressed to the nines as always. I meanwhile was in sweats and a black pink floyd t-shirt.
Kat held out a phone. "How did this wind up in my pocket?" She asked.
"Gremlins, clearly they're out to get you." I replied and offered her a cup which she took.
"Well your editor would like a word with you." She said handing me the offending device.
"Hi Shelby." I said into the receiver and added creme to the coffee.
"Nice column, thanks for changing names to give us plausible deniability. The lawyers are currently preparing their counter suits." She said.
"As they should, all those people are dangerous maniacs." I replied.
"Good now be ready to say that in deposition." She paused. "Hope you're not comfortable I have a new gig for you."
"Ohh dear lord. I'm still in recovery from this one."
"Suck it up, drink some Gatorade and take some aspirin, then get down to this location I got you a huge level of access if your lucky in three days you get to see someone get hung."
"Sorry repeat that?" I replied.
"I said drink some gatora..."
"Not that, the last part."
"Apparently due to issues with the inability to get drugs for executions in their state the governor has given the inmates on death row a choice between hanging and firing squad." She paused. "The next one is set in three days. I got you access to the next victim the warden the lawyers and a few others."
I took a deep breath. "There is really nothing about this that appeals to me. I always felt that killing people was a waste of perfectly good human potential."
"It's a front page exclusive and you get the mother of all bonuses. Seriously this whole thing has a huge potential for the sort of story you really roll on."
"Stop playing to my ego. Okay I'll do it. Send me all the pertinents."
"Done. Check your email." Shelby said and hung up.
Kat looked up at me. "New job?"
"Yeah we're going south to cover a hanging." I said.
She stared away absently. "I sense a whole lot of suck ahead."
"Oh good I'm not the only one." I replied. "Nothing for it, let's get packed, pull Jon from the latest pile of flesh he's created and get moving."
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Midnight at the Double Douche part 7
As a general rule despite my daily intake of various substances and the behaviour they cause I actually do my best not to be a disturbance the people around me. Let's face it after decades of insane behavior among people who are only marginally less sane than myself there are some things that are simply beneath and common rudeness is one of them.
on the other hand when I have the opportunity to just completely fist fuck the reputation of a rude mean spirited fuck wit of an attempted rapist, well all bets are off.
I am telling you this basically to explain why I side swiped the cop car. Then knocked over a row of mail boxes.
Now that I had the attention of the local cops the fun could really begin. The cop I had ran off the road hit his rollers and locked in on me like a sidewinder missile. "Congratulations you just woke up every cop in the city." Kat said into my ear piece.
"Ohhh good now how can I get the county sheriff's involved?" I thought and took a violent turn off the road and onto another gravel road. blessing the gods who had seen fit to create GPS navigation for cars.
The tires were kicking up road dust and gravel making a hefty trail to obscure the cops vision, the lights on my car lit up a surprise left in a corn field so I turned off the lights and slammed hard left into it and made sure to keep my foot off the brakes.
"You are out of your mind!" Fiona yelled as we shot into the corn.
"Maybe now is not the time to tell you all the substances running through my system." I said with a grin.
In the rear window I saw the cop go shooting past us. I counted to ten then put the truck in reverse and double backed on my trail.
"Congratulations he's lost you but he is calling in the local Sheriffs to find you." Kat said into my ear.
"Things are picking up." I replied. and I throttled out onto the highway slamming the gas down hard and throwing both Fiona and I backward. Carl got thrown to the right and slammed his head off of the roll bar, but from the look in his eyes the concussion wouldn't be noticed for days.
Old school television static scrolled over the windshield as the "Pretty" took hold of my mind. Then it all resolved itself into the sort of heads up display when one would find in the cock pit of a fighter jet.
"Jon you have found the most useful substance on gods good green earth I thought, then turned back toward town just as a sheriff's cruiser was headed our way. Again the rollers came on and felt a surge of energy.
My mental HUD kept a track of the Sheriff's cars location as I veered sharply back into town where two more cops cars gave chase.
"Wow you might want to turn off ahead they're putting out those roller spikes ahead of you." Kat said.
"Thanks for the heads up."
It was then that I remembered what started all this. Looking down I saw the switches that started this douches twin rollers on the back. I turned the system on then flipped both rollers to max speed.
As a result a cloud of Rush Limbaugh posters flew out the back of the truck, now with new text added to each one saying. "Rush Limbaugh, thinks your moms a cunt" or "Rush Limbaugh thinks cops are swine"
The cop cars behind me started swerving and as they did I took a violent right turn, wiping out the sign of a CVS pharmacy in the process. I kept on the grass and tore up the lawn of a near by funeral home then veered sharply back to my destination.
"The cops have lost you for the time being." Kat said.
"Ohhh good." I kept my eyes on the icon for the place I wanted. Within minutes I was there.
Fiona and I stepped out of the car and I let Carl out of his handcuffs. His eyes clearly showed he was in a happier place. So after wiping down the interior for prints I set him behind the steering wheel. Put the truck in low gear and pointed him at the building that house both the local republican party and a Starbucks.
Call it a cultural twofer.
We walked out under the stop light as the car slowly rolled toward the building. Getting out of the street lights and into an alley. There was the sound of grinding metal and broken glass as the truck slammed into the office at about ten miles an hour. Setting off the air bags inside of the trucks and alarms inside the building.
"We should probably make tracks." Fiona said as we both appreciated the view. In the background I heard sirens approaching fast.
"Kat could you come get us please?" I said into my head set.
"On my way." As the cops approached Fiona pressed me into a wall and we had fun making out like teen agers as the cops turned the corner and flew over to the truck. Weapons drawn and yelling their heads off.
Kat pulled up slowly and we got in to the back seat.
"Congratulations you caused untold thousands of dollars in damage set someone up for multiple felonies." Kat said as we drove off.
"I would not have taken this nearly that far if he hadn't pulled a gun on me and wanted to play the armed rapist game. After that the gloves come off." I replied.
Kat nodded her head. "Makes sense to me. Where to now boss?"
"It's been a long night let's collect Jon and find a motel to bed down for the night. I have a column to write."
We returned to the Double Douche just as it was closing. Walking I saw Jon spread out on a table missing must of the key items of clothing he had one when he came in but also wearing the smile of a man well worn and used.
As Fiona grabbed her purse I lifted him over my shoulders and we took him back with us. "But I don't wanna go to school today." He whispered as we walked out into now cool night air.
"He's adorable." Fiona said. "Can I keep him for a while?"
"Possibly." I replied, "I'll wait till he's fully awake before I make that decision for him."
"Good call he'd likely be scared waking up in a strange room with a lady he didn't know." Fiona said with a wink.
"He'd likely be more scared if he didn't." Kat said and we drove off into the night.
Little did I know that this was just the start of a series of adventures.
(More to come folks, this was just phase one, I hope you all enjoyed, phase two begins soon, like in a day or two.)
on the other hand when I have the opportunity to just completely fist fuck the reputation of a rude mean spirited fuck wit of an attempted rapist, well all bets are off.
I am telling you this basically to explain why I side swiped the cop car. Then knocked over a row of mail boxes.
Now that I had the attention of the local cops the fun could really begin. The cop I had ran off the road hit his rollers and locked in on me like a sidewinder missile. "Congratulations you just woke up every cop in the city." Kat said into my ear piece.
"Ohhh good now how can I get the county sheriff's involved?" I thought and took a violent turn off the road and onto another gravel road. blessing the gods who had seen fit to create GPS navigation for cars.
The tires were kicking up road dust and gravel making a hefty trail to obscure the cops vision, the lights on my car lit up a surprise left in a corn field so I turned off the lights and slammed hard left into it and made sure to keep my foot off the brakes.
"You are out of your mind!" Fiona yelled as we shot into the corn.
"Maybe now is not the time to tell you all the substances running through my system." I said with a grin.
In the rear window I saw the cop go shooting past us. I counted to ten then put the truck in reverse and double backed on my trail.
"Congratulations he's lost you but he is calling in the local Sheriffs to find you." Kat said into my ear.
"Things are picking up." I replied. and I throttled out onto the highway slamming the gas down hard and throwing both Fiona and I backward. Carl got thrown to the right and slammed his head off of the roll bar, but from the look in his eyes the concussion wouldn't be noticed for days.
Old school television static scrolled over the windshield as the "Pretty" took hold of my mind. Then it all resolved itself into the sort of heads up display when one would find in the cock pit of a fighter jet.
"Jon you have found the most useful substance on gods good green earth I thought, then turned back toward town just as a sheriff's cruiser was headed our way. Again the rollers came on and felt a surge of energy.
My mental HUD kept a track of the Sheriff's cars location as I veered sharply back into town where two more cops cars gave chase.
"Wow you might want to turn off ahead they're putting out those roller spikes ahead of you." Kat said.
"Thanks for the heads up."
It was then that I remembered what started all this. Looking down I saw the switches that started this douches twin rollers on the back. I turned the system on then flipped both rollers to max speed.
As a result a cloud of Rush Limbaugh posters flew out the back of the truck, now with new text added to each one saying. "Rush Limbaugh, thinks your moms a cunt" or "Rush Limbaugh thinks cops are swine"
The cop cars behind me started swerving and as they did I took a violent right turn, wiping out the sign of a CVS pharmacy in the process. I kept on the grass and tore up the lawn of a near by funeral home then veered sharply back to my destination.
"The cops have lost you for the time being." Kat said.
"Ohhh good." I kept my eyes on the icon for the place I wanted. Within minutes I was there.
Fiona and I stepped out of the car and I let Carl out of his handcuffs. His eyes clearly showed he was in a happier place. So after wiping down the interior for prints I set him behind the steering wheel. Put the truck in low gear and pointed him at the building that house both the local republican party and a Starbucks.
Call it a cultural twofer.
We walked out under the stop light as the car slowly rolled toward the building. Getting out of the street lights and into an alley. There was the sound of grinding metal and broken glass as the truck slammed into the office at about ten miles an hour. Setting off the air bags inside of the trucks and alarms inside the building.
"We should probably make tracks." Fiona said as we both appreciated the view. In the background I heard sirens approaching fast.
"Kat could you come get us please?" I said into my head set.
"On my way." As the cops approached Fiona pressed me into a wall and we had fun making out like teen agers as the cops turned the corner and flew over to the truck. Weapons drawn and yelling their heads off.
Kat pulled up slowly and we got in to the back seat.
"Congratulations you caused untold thousands of dollars in damage set someone up for multiple felonies." Kat said as we drove off.
"I would not have taken this nearly that far if he hadn't pulled a gun on me and wanted to play the armed rapist game. After that the gloves come off." I replied.
Kat nodded her head. "Makes sense to me. Where to now boss?"
"It's been a long night let's collect Jon and find a motel to bed down for the night. I have a column to write."
We returned to the Double Douche just as it was closing. Walking I saw Jon spread out on a table missing must of the key items of clothing he had one when he came in but also wearing the smile of a man well worn and used.
As Fiona grabbed her purse I lifted him over my shoulders and we took him back with us. "But I don't wanna go to school today." He whispered as we walked out into now cool night air.
"He's adorable." Fiona said. "Can I keep him for a while?"
"Possibly." I replied, "I'll wait till he's fully awake before I make that decision for him."
"Good call he'd likely be scared waking up in a strange room with a lady he didn't know." Fiona said with a wink.
"He'd likely be more scared if he didn't." Kat said and we drove off into the night.
Little did I know that this was just the start of a series of adventures.
(More to come folks, this was just phase one, I hope you all enjoyed, phase two begins soon, like in a day or two.)
Midnight at the double douche part 6
There is a moment just before I embark on some sort of act that has potentially horrid consequences for another where I stop. Just pause and think before I step into action. Does this person truly deserve this?
I looked Carl over. Sure he had no sense of style but then neither did I. He wore wrangler jeans two sizes too small for reasons that made no sense. His dark hair was combed over in a manner that wouldn't fool a team of blind mules loaded up on a mixture of crack and quaaludes and he wore a t-shirt from some 80's band that had been worn so often that the only I reason I knew which group it was that I had that same shirt and seen them on the same tour. (Throw up the horns bitches!!) Sure he looked like a human train wreck but on any given day the same could be said of me.
Those superficial issues aside he was a person who felt entitled to strew paper and petrol products all over the beautiful wasteland of the local area to pimp a piece of agitprop by a man whose job was to act like a goalie on the human mind. Blocking any novel notion or idea that could cause the world to potentially change for the better. He was sold on the idea that the way things were, had to be the way they should continue despite the fact that it would make women, people of color, gay folks and trans people second class citizens. To his mind that was okay because much like the Affliction shirted rat I had seen earlier he had his so fuck you.
That to me was the dividing line. A simple notion of the world as a place that revolved around him, those other people were objects to be used for his own fulfillment or road blocks best ran over. To his view of the world there was no need for a notion of common equality caring for those around him, or even viewing those other animate objects on two legs as people.
So yeah, fuck him.
He leaned in close to me and I could smell his halitosis coming. I steeled myself for an unpleasant encounter. So what do I have to give you to fuck this whore over here?" He asked.
Acting like I was giving it some thought I paused then said. "Five hundred bucks but it can't happen here."
He nodded sagely. "And what does she get in the cut?"
"Whatever I fucking give her." I replied. Folks when dealing with your enemy know his language.
He laughed hard. "Good man. Okay lets blow this Popsicle stand." We walked away from the bar and I eyed Jon who was taking a beating from some young ladies garter belt. Her smile of enjoyment was genuine and he did a job of selling her whipping him worthy of a pro wrestler. Part of me decided to see how long i could draw this out. He'd done great work and deserved a chance to indulge his desires.
We made it past the throng at the door and out into the warm dry night air. Fiona had wrapped herself up in a long red satin nightgown. Now every time she took a step one of her legs did a majestic strip tease passing through the material. I was almost distracted, but with the objective in sight my focus was like a laser.
We got into his truck and just as he started it he reached down into the seat well and produced a handgun roughly the size of my head. Which he touched to the end of my nose. "How about we forget the $500 and you get watch while I shaft your bitch?" His other hand brought up a set of handcuffs.
From this position I could have taken that pistol and turned it at his head in less time than it would have taken him to blink. Patience won out though, he didn't want to hurt me physically, he just wanted to assert his dominance in the only manner he knew how. He wanted to fuck Fiona and turn me into some sort of weeping dribble.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I thought that he had this move down so well that he had obviously done it before. "Cuff your hand to the ceiling handle."
So I feigned terror and did what he said. HE laughed and put the pistol away and put the overly large truck in gear. Amazing to me how people with small souls go for big things,. Guns, cars, etc. Mind you I drove a huge Aston martin but weapons of choice tended to be average but effective. So I guess my soul is in the medium sized range.
It was quiet in the truck, and I'm sure he was enjoying the scene. Me trapped in his truck and him about to get a piece of porn star ass. Or so he thought.
With some drugs the onset is slow and gradual, but Jon's batch of the substance he just called pretty, smacked him in the eyes with all the force of a pharmacological 2 by 4. His pupils suddenly dilated his muscles slacked and tensed at random and his head lolled as he tried to remember where he was.
Which would have been awesome if we hadn't been doing sixty on a gravel road.
With the speed of thought I reached into the back of my pants and liberated the handcuff key taped to my belt and freed my hand. Then surged to my left knocking his hands off the wheel and hitting the brakes hard.
Meanwhile Fiona came up from behind and applied a blood check on Carl like she was a MMA pro. In seconds he was out cold and drooling.
"So what are we gonna do with him now?" She asked.
I got out opened the driver side door and kicked Carl as hard as I could over to the passenger seat then for fun cuffed his hands to the roof.
"Now we're gonna have a night Carl wished he had." I replied.
I was about to drive off when Kat caught up to us. "Holy shit! Are you all right?"
Pretty silvery pieces of glitter sailed past my eyes and I could hear amazing music roaring in my ears as she walked up. In small doses "Pretty" was damn awesome I decided. "Yeah we're fine." I replied. "Dumbass here is in another world for a few hours so I suggest we put them to good use."
"What should I do?" Kat asked.
"Do me a favor and keep on the police band radio and let me know when and how they're following us." I replied. Kat took a second then looked at Carl and smiled.
"You are an evil man."
"You have no clue." I replied. "Hang out near the cop shop and be ready to pick us up." She laughed and walked off.
I looked at Fiona and smiled to her. "You can skip this part it's likely to be a bit dangerous."
She ran her arm through mine and kissed my cheek. "Wouldn't miss it for the world."
Getting back in with her I put the truck in gear and drove off heading back toward town. This is where it was gonna get evil.
I looked Carl over. Sure he had no sense of style but then neither did I. He wore wrangler jeans two sizes too small for reasons that made no sense. His dark hair was combed over in a manner that wouldn't fool a team of blind mules loaded up on a mixture of crack and quaaludes and he wore a t-shirt from some 80's band that had been worn so often that the only I reason I knew which group it was that I had that same shirt and seen them on the same tour. (Throw up the horns bitches!!) Sure he looked like a human train wreck but on any given day the same could be said of me.
Those superficial issues aside he was a person who felt entitled to strew paper and petrol products all over the beautiful wasteland of the local area to pimp a piece of agitprop by a man whose job was to act like a goalie on the human mind. Blocking any novel notion or idea that could cause the world to potentially change for the better. He was sold on the idea that the way things were, had to be the way they should continue despite the fact that it would make women, people of color, gay folks and trans people second class citizens. To his mind that was okay because much like the Affliction shirted rat I had seen earlier he had his so fuck you.
That to me was the dividing line. A simple notion of the world as a place that revolved around him, those other people were objects to be used for his own fulfillment or road blocks best ran over. To his view of the world there was no need for a notion of common equality caring for those around him, or even viewing those other animate objects on two legs as people.
So yeah, fuck him.
He leaned in close to me and I could smell his halitosis coming. I steeled myself for an unpleasant encounter. So what do I have to give you to fuck this whore over here?" He asked.
Acting like I was giving it some thought I paused then said. "Five hundred bucks but it can't happen here."
He nodded sagely. "And what does she get in the cut?"
"Whatever I fucking give her." I replied. Folks when dealing with your enemy know his language.
He laughed hard. "Good man. Okay lets blow this Popsicle stand." We walked away from the bar and I eyed Jon who was taking a beating from some young ladies garter belt. Her smile of enjoyment was genuine and he did a job of selling her whipping him worthy of a pro wrestler. Part of me decided to see how long i could draw this out. He'd done great work and deserved a chance to indulge his desires.
We made it past the throng at the door and out into the warm dry night air. Fiona had wrapped herself up in a long red satin nightgown. Now every time she took a step one of her legs did a majestic strip tease passing through the material. I was almost distracted, but with the objective in sight my focus was like a laser.
We got into his truck and just as he started it he reached down into the seat well and produced a handgun roughly the size of my head. Which he touched to the end of my nose. "How about we forget the $500 and you get watch while I shaft your bitch?" His other hand brought up a set of handcuffs.
From this position I could have taken that pistol and turned it at his head in less time than it would have taken him to blink. Patience won out though, he didn't want to hurt me physically, he just wanted to assert his dominance in the only manner he knew how. He wanted to fuck Fiona and turn me into some sort of weeping dribble.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I thought that he had this move down so well that he had obviously done it before. "Cuff your hand to the ceiling handle."
So I feigned terror and did what he said. HE laughed and put the pistol away and put the overly large truck in gear. Amazing to me how people with small souls go for big things,. Guns, cars, etc. Mind you I drove a huge Aston martin but weapons of choice tended to be average but effective. So I guess my soul is in the medium sized range.
It was quiet in the truck, and I'm sure he was enjoying the scene. Me trapped in his truck and him about to get a piece of porn star ass. Or so he thought.
With some drugs the onset is slow and gradual, but Jon's batch of the substance he just called pretty, smacked him in the eyes with all the force of a pharmacological 2 by 4. His pupils suddenly dilated his muscles slacked and tensed at random and his head lolled as he tried to remember where he was.
Which would have been awesome if we hadn't been doing sixty on a gravel road.
With the speed of thought I reached into the back of my pants and liberated the handcuff key taped to my belt and freed my hand. Then surged to my left knocking his hands off the wheel and hitting the brakes hard.
Meanwhile Fiona came up from behind and applied a blood check on Carl like she was a MMA pro. In seconds he was out cold and drooling.
"So what are we gonna do with him now?" She asked.
I got out opened the driver side door and kicked Carl as hard as I could over to the passenger seat then for fun cuffed his hands to the roof.
"Now we're gonna have a night Carl wished he had." I replied.
I was about to drive off when Kat caught up to us. "Holy shit! Are you all right?"
Pretty silvery pieces of glitter sailed past my eyes and I could hear amazing music roaring in my ears as she walked up. In small doses "Pretty" was damn awesome I decided. "Yeah we're fine." I replied. "Dumbass here is in another world for a few hours so I suggest we put them to good use."
"What should I do?" Kat asked.
"Do me a favor and keep on the police band radio and let me know when and how they're following us." I replied. Kat took a second then looked at Carl and smiled.
"You are an evil man."
"You have no clue." I replied. "Hang out near the cop shop and be ready to pick us up." She laughed and walked off.
I looked at Fiona and smiled to her. "You can skip this part it's likely to be a bit dangerous."
She ran her arm through mine and kissed my cheek. "Wouldn't miss it for the world."
Getting back in with her I put the truck in gear and drove off heading back toward town. This is where it was gonna get evil.
Friday, August 8, 2014
Midnight at the double douche part 5
(One of those days where I woke up and thought. "I must write." Now I just have to remember what I was going to do in this chapter. Enjoy the show!)
I exited the dressing room reluctantly, as while it doesn't fit the overall idea of what people would expect it does have a host of excellent views. No instead now I was trapped amidst the mad horde near the bar looking for my compatriots.
"So she gets done and the bitch wants me to lick her pussy." A guy wearing shorts and an Affliction shirt said. His hat cocked at the perfect angle to make him look like the king of idiots.
"No shit?" Said a fellow who appeared as though he was trying to clone his clothes like his buddy. An individual just like all his friends. "What did you say?"
"Tough luck bitch I got mine." The first said. The two guys exchanged a fist bump. Ahh the great American half wit mating ritual. The actions of people too concerned with themselves to notice that someone else was involved in their pleasure as well. Welcome to the new "Me" generation, where those who spent far too much time learning about sexual mores from idiots on reality shows compare notes on the best way to scam sex from others rather than learning how to enjoy it as a matter of both giving and taking.
I wondered if the defense department had some sort of bomb I could borrow that would do away with people under a certain IQ. Sure it would take out most of the people in the bar. But the ones left over would be an interesting bunch, intelligent sex obsessed, a bit odd. You know, my kind of people.
Looking around I saw the same consistency of attitudes and behaviors I always experienced in places like this in our great land of America. Chock full of desires they had been told were wrong to feel, so expressing them was always tied to some deep dark emotional resonance that made these interactions less about love and pleasure then about furtive fucking in alley. Filled with the desperate need to get off and escape before you came under the watchful eye of an angry God. Or worse yet your fellow citizens who would look down and snarl at you for these things no matter shade of cotton bondage ropes they had under the bed next to the nipple clamps and vibrators.
But I digress. There was a upstanding citizen of this city who needed to be destroyed and I had just the team to do it.
Kat was up to her eyebrows in people doing their best to serve her needs. I looked at her as she lay in a corner booth fed wine and grapes by outstretched hands of young college age boys, women of indeterminate origin and middle aged school teachers here on a night pass. She looked up at me. "You're about to disturb my bliss aren't you?" She said..
"I'm afraid so. We have a mission to accomplish."
She sighed and got up from her latest collection of servants. All of whom seemed quite disappointed for her leaving their service. "Okay what are we doing."
"Go outside and be prepared to follow me in the car." I said.
"We're gonna have to evade the cops again?" She asked hopefully.
"Probably and possibly the national guard, we'll see." Kat got up and walked to the exit as I searched for Jon. As I expected a group of off duty strippers had him cornered and helpless. Not that he seemed to mind. I made my way through the throng of scantily clad women with as much dignity as I could muster. Jon took a pause in acting terrified when I showed up.
"Hey boss what do you need?"
"What strange chemicals do you have in that walking pharmacy you call your pants?" I asked.
"For your use or someone Else's?"
"Someone Else's, I need hallucinations, a loss of inhibition, partial motor skills and an adrenaline rush." I replied.
"Are you sure this isn't for you?" He asked. Reaching into his pocket and pulling out small pills baggies with capsules of various sorts and shapes. He stopped and held up one that seemed to contain glowing glitter. "This should do nicely?"
"What is it?" I asked.
"Hmmm I'd say pretty." He replied.
"Agreed, lets test it on our prey and see what it does." I paused. "Ladies, please continue, I'm sorry to have interrupted."
"Oh you're gonna get it now." One of them said to Jon and advanced. Jon returned to looking cowed as I walked to the bar, sitting next to he guy who was now distracted by the lovely Fiona who was leaning in to talk to him and also showing an amount of cleavage that could best be described as wonderful.
Fiona saw me move toward his drink and to keep him distracted leaned in and whispered something in his ear and put her hand on his thigh. His eyes lit up and he smiled, showing a row of uneven teeth a shark would have been proud of.
As all this happened I dropped three capsules of this amazing substance into his drink, then added two more for good luck then took the last for myself. I mean in the end why not share this amazing experience with the person I wanted to destroy.
"Carl There's someone here I think you should meet." Fiona said turning him around. "Carl meet Mick, he's kind of my business manager." She winked at me.
"Hi Carl, what can we do for you tonight?" I asked with a crocodile smile.
I exited the dressing room reluctantly, as while it doesn't fit the overall idea of what people would expect it does have a host of excellent views. No instead now I was trapped amidst the mad horde near the bar looking for my compatriots.
"So she gets done and the bitch wants me to lick her pussy." A guy wearing shorts and an Affliction shirt said. His hat cocked at the perfect angle to make him look like the king of idiots.
"No shit?" Said a fellow who appeared as though he was trying to clone his clothes like his buddy. An individual just like all his friends. "What did you say?"
"Tough luck bitch I got mine." The first said. The two guys exchanged a fist bump. Ahh the great American half wit mating ritual. The actions of people too concerned with themselves to notice that someone else was involved in their pleasure as well. Welcome to the new "Me" generation, where those who spent far too much time learning about sexual mores from idiots on reality shows compare notes on the best way to scam sex from others rather than learning how to enjoy it as a matter of both giving and taking.
I wondered if the defense department had some sort of bomb I could borrow that would do away with people under a certain IQ. Sure it would take out most of the people in the bar. But the ones left over would be an interesting bunch, intelligent sex obsessed, a bit odd. You know, my kind of people.
Looking around I saw the same consistency of attitudes and behaviors I always experienced in places like this in our great land of America. Chock full of desires they had been told were wrong to feel, so expressing them was always tied to some deep dark emotional resonance that made these interactions less about love and pleasure then about furtive fucking in alley. Filled with the desperate need to get off and escape before you came under the watchful eye of an angry God. Or worse yet your fellow citizens who would look down and snarl at you for these things no matter shade of cotton bondage ropes they had under the bed next to the nipple clamps and vibrators.
But I digress. There was a upstanding citizen of this city who needed to be destroyed and I had just the team to do it.
Kat was up to her eyebrows in people doing their best to serve her needs. I looked at her as she lay in a corner booth fed wine and grapes by outstretched hands of young college age boys, women of indeterminate origin and middle aged school teachers here on a night pass. She looked up at me. "You're about to disturb my bliss aren't you?" She said..
"I'm afraid so. We have a mission to accomplish."
She sighed and got up from her latest collection of servants. All of whom seemed quite disappointed for her leaving their service. "Okay what are we doing."
"Go outside and be prepared to follow me in the car." I said.
"We're gonna have to evade the cops again?" She asked hopefully.
"Probably and possibly the national guard, we'll see." Kat got up and walked to the exit as I searched for Jon. As I expected a group of off duty strippers had him cornered and helpless. Not that he seemed to mind. I made my way through the throng of scantily clad women with as much dignity as I could muster. Jon took a pause in acting terrified when I showed up.
"Hey boss what do you need?"
"What strange chemicals do you have in that walking pharmacy you call your pants?" I asked.
"For your use or someone Else's?"
"Someone Else's, I need hallucinations, a loss of inhibition, partial motor skills and an adrenaline rush." I replied.
"Are you sure this isn't for you?" He asked. Reaching into his pocket and pulling out small pills baggies with capsules of various sorts and shapes. He stopped and held up one that seemed to contain glowing glitter. "This should do nicely?"
"What is it?" I asked.
"Hmmm I'd say pretty." He replied.
"Agreed, lets test it on our prey and see what it does." I paused. "Ladies, please continue, I'm sorry to have interrupted."
"Oh you're gonna get it now." One of them said to Jon and advanced. Jon returned to looking cowed as I walked to the bar, sitting next to he guy who was now distracted by the lovely Fiona who was leaning in to talk to him and also showing an amount of cleavage that could best be described as wonderful.
Fiona saw me move toward his drink and to keep him distracted leaned in and whispered something in his ear and put her hand on his thigh. His eyes lit up and he smiled, showing a row of uneven teeth a shark would have been proud of.
As all this happened I dropped three capsules of this amazing substance into his drink, then added two more for good luck then took the last for myself. I mean in the end why not share this amazing experience with the person I wanted to destroy.
"Carl There's someone here I think you should meet." Fiona said turning him around. "Carl meet Mick, he's kind of my business manager." She winked at me.
"Hi Carl, what can we do for you tonight?" I asked with a crocodile smile.
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Midnight at the Double Douche 4
Now to the uninitiated passing through the swinging door and into a the strippers dressing area would likely seem like taking a step from a grimy club and into some sort of harem fantasy. Where naked women would be lunging here there and everywhere discussing notes on customers, impossible sexual techniques and how they want to introduce one to the other.
Sadly I am now about to destroy that image. It's more like a locker room with well set up lights, women in various stages of undress talking about the assholes in the crowd or being catty to one another with discussions on pulled muscles sore hands and the joy of menstruation and how to keep performing despite it.
Another plus is that the women who work the stage are used to being in the buff so when a guy comes walking in it doesn't provoke panicking and freaking out. You know like that time Jon somehow found himself in the locker room of the girls basketball team. (As usual we had to go in and rescue him from a savage beating he seemed to be enjoying.) Instead they just kind of look up and return to what they were doing.
I walked over to Fiona's chair where she was adjusting her makeup and took a seat in a folding metal chair. She turned her head and looked at me. First I got a blank look as she wondered what I wanted, then she looked again. "Milwaukee?"
"Bonus points if you guess the year." I replied. She thought again.
"I was still making movies back then, so I'll say 1991."
"I guess I owe you.. uh something."
"A glass of tea would be nice." She said.
I reached into my jacket and pulled out a zip log bag with several tea bags. "Your choices today are Earl Grey, Japanese green and crushed gun powder. We'll have to see about hot water later." She came forward and hugged me.
"Hi Mick."
"Oh how nice you remembered." I sad setting the ea bags aside.
"It's hard to forget the guy who got cut keeping some clown from giving me a forced vaginal exam. Sorry I missed you after. I left a gift for you, but had to catch a flight as soon as the day was done." She pulled back and I unabashedly stared at her breasts.
"Sadly I never got it. What was it?"
"Hang around till the place closes and you'll find out." She said standing and moving to a small closet and sorting through outfits.
"That does sound like a great promise. But we might get run out of town first." I said.
"Okay now it does sound like old times." She said as she pulled off a red and black sequined number and began to work herself into it. "What are you up to?"
To my eyes it seemed like the outfit slid up her body of her own volition. The purple pills clearly had me in their sway. I took a moment to enjoy the show. She grinned and showed off. "Thanks for showing a lady some desire." Her smile was quite genuine.
"Hey my eyes go where they want, and apparently they like being there." I said with a smile.
"Now seriously what are you up to?" She asked sitting down as someone put a Rage against the Machine song on the stereo.
"We're gonna trash the machinery someone is using to pimp Rush Limbaugh's new book, and then most likely the person himself." I said.
Fiona gave me a smile and sat in my lap. "Dear if you'd do that my week would be completely made. There might even be something in it for you." Her finger trailed over my face and I could feel a definite stirring. Her body had an aura now of a warm green, a very lush color. Voices were telling me to indulge a few whims I'd wanted to since the mid 80's.
I put those thoughts aside for a bit. Here I was in the middle of God knows where and on a mission. Hopefully Miss Fiona would be kind enough to wait. "So you know who I'm talking about?" I asked as she trailed a finger up my leg. Seriously I was gonna focus any second now.
"Yeah every girl here knows Carl he's the silent partner in this joint and feels that means he gets free access to every girls pussy." She paused. "Every girl, maybe a guy or two, possibly a sheep he keeps on his property. The man is one giant tub of trouble with a little tiny penis and too large of an ego. Rumor has it his favorite thing to hear when he's fucking is screams."
"So not your type then." I said with a wink.
"Not even close. Anything I can do to help?"
Suddenly an angel appeared on one shoulder and a demon on my other. Then another demon appeared by the angel sapped it behind the ear and dragged it off. "Now that I have you all to myself." The demon said. "I just wanted to make sure you get this clown as messed up as you possibly can."
"Really? I needed you to tell me that? Seriously am I just one walking talking outgrowth of my id now that even the demon's ideas don't seem shocking." I thought.
"You seem a little lost there." Fiona said.
"Hang on I'm arguing with a demon on my shoulder." I replied.
"Oh you get that too? Mine usually tells me to see how many girls I can get to play with me after work. In each town I'm in." She said with a grin.
"Just girls?" I asked.
"Some guys too, but when I'm travelling girls are more fun to play with and less messy." The demon on my shoulder had paused his temptation to listen to her talk and nodded appreciatively. "I like her." He said. "Now then if that fucker doesn't wake up tomorrow in a pool of his own urine wondering why he's under a donkey you sir are a fucking loser...."
I swatted the demon from my shoulder. "Here's what I need you to do for me." I smiled at Fiona and she grinned. As I outlined the plan she smiled and brought her hands to her mouth. "OH my god that's so evil. I'm in."
"Then when we're done we'll have tea."
"Excellent." She said standing up. "Let's get to work."
Sadly I am now about to destroy that image. It's more like a locker room with well set up lights, women in various stages of undress talking about the assholes in the crowd or being catty to one another with discussions on pulled muscles sore hands and the joy of menstruation and how to keep performing despite it.
Another plus is that the women who work the stage are used to being in the buff so when a guy comes walking in it doesn't provoke panicking and freaking out. You know like that time Jon somehow found himself in the locker room of the girls basketball team. (As usual we had to go in and rescue him from a savage beating he seemed to be enjoying.) Instead they just kind of look up and return to what they were doing.
I walked over to Fiona's chair where she was adjusting her makeup and took a seat in a folding metal chair. She turned her head and looked at me. First I got a blank look as she wondered what I wanted, then she looked again. "Milwaukee?"
"Bonus points if you guess the year." I replied. She thought again.
"I was still making movies back then, so I'll say 1991."
"I guess I owe you.. uh something."
"A glass of tea would be nice." She said.
I reached into my jacket and pulled out a zip log bag with several tea bags. "Your choices today are Earl Grey, Japanese green and crushed gun powder. We'll have to see about hot water later." She came forward and hugged me.
"Hi Mick."
"Oh how nice you remembered." I sad setting the ea bags aside.
"It's hard to forget the guy who got cut keeping some clown from giving me a forced vaginal exam. Sorry I missed you after. I left a gift for you, but had to catch a flight as soon as the day was done." She pulled back and I unabashedly stared at her breasts.
"Sadly I never got it. What was it?"
"Hang around till the place closes and you'll find out." She said standing and moving to a small closet and sorting through outfits.
"That does sound like a great promise. But we might get run out of town first." I said.
"Okay now it does sound like old times." She said as she pulled off a red and black sequined number and began to work herself into it. "What are you up to?"
To my eyes it seemed like the outfit slid up her body of her own volition. The purple pills clearly had me in their sway. I took a moment to enjoy the show. She grinned and showed off. "Thanks for showing a lady some desire." Her smile was quite genuine.
"Hey my eyes go where they want, and apparently they like being there." I said with a smile.
"Now seriously what are you up to?" She asked sitting down as someone put a Rage against the Machine song on the stereo.
"We're gonna trash the machinery someone is using to pimp Rush Limbaugh's new book, and then most likely the person himself." I said.
Fiona gave me a smile and sat in my lap. "Dear if you'd do that my week would be completely made. There might even be something in it for you." Her finger trailed over my face and I could feel a definite stirring. Her body had an aura now of a warm green, a very lush color. Voices were telling me to indulge a few whims I'd wanted to since the mid 80's.
I put those thoughts aside for a bit. Here I was in the middle of God knows where and on a mission. Hopefully Miss Fiona would be kind enough to wait. "So you know who I'm talking about?" I asked as she trailed a finger up my leg. Seriously I was gonna focus any second now.
"Yeah every girl here knows Carl he's the silent partner in this joint and feels that means he gets free access to every girls pussy." She paused. "Every girl, maybe a guy or two, possibly a sheep he keeps on his property. The man is one giant tub of trouble with a little tiny penis and too large of an ego. Rumor has it his favorite thing to hear when he's fucking is screams."
"So not your type then." I said with a wink.
"Not even close. Anything I can do to help?"
Suddenly an angel appeared on one shoulder and a demon on my other. Then another demon appeared by the angel sapped it behind the ear and dragged it off. "Now that I have you all to myself." The demon said. "I just wanted to make sure you get this clown as messed up as you possibly can."
"Really? I needed you to tell me that? Seriously am I just one walking talking outgrowth of my id now that even the demon's ideas don't seem shocking." I thought.
"You seem a little lost there." Fiona said.
"Hang on I'm arguing with a demon on my shoulder." I replied.
"Oh you get that too? Mine usually tells me to see how many girls I can get to play with me after work. In each town I'm in." She said with a grin.
"Just girls?" I asked.
"Some guys too, but when I'm travelling girls are more fun to play with and less messy." The demon on my shoulder had paused his temptation to listen to her talk and nodded appreciatively. "I like her." He said. "Now then if that fucker doesn't wake up tomorrow in a pool of his own urine wondering why he's under a donkey you sir are a fucking loser...."
I swatted the demon from my shoulder. "Here's what I need you to do for me." I smiled at Fiona and she grinned. As I outlined the plan she smiled and brought her hands to her mouth. "OH my god that's so evil. I'm in."
"Then when we're done we'll have tea."
"Excellent." She said standing up. "Let's get to work."
Saturday, August 2, 2014
Where the hell did that come from?
So I've been writing a story in serial form for the last few days which has been a blast. But of course everyone who has read it wants to know what sort of corner of my mind did this all come from?
Seriously it all started with a dream where I was on some sort of deranged mission impossible/Hunter S Thompson style road trip with a few good friends and a lady I know passingly who works in the adult film industry.
Apparently this is what I get for reading Transmetropolitan and drinking green tea before bed.
So as I rolled the idea around in my mind the more preposterous it seemed which meant it was kind of perfect for me to pop the bubbles other people have around ideas and off we went. I love the notion of hiding truth in absurdity. Or at least what I perceive to be truth.
I do plan to take some swipes at the notions of slut shaming, the whole list of odd double standards we as a society have in regards to gender roles, capitalism as a religion to some modes of political thoughts and a host of pundits who would likely do their best work with their mouths sewn shut.
I will say that I was quite pleased when a writer of my acquaintance said he thought it felt like it was written by Douglas Adams and Hunter S Thompson sharing a typewriter and bong hits.
So for those of you who want something similar I suggest you go to your local comic store and buy a series called. "Transmetropolitan." It's an epic update of the gonzo style of journalism brought up tot he 25th century featuring an insane character named Spider Jerusalem and his two "filthy assistants." It's an amazing series that managed to make me laugh shed tears and leave me both thrilled and heartbroken.
None of that is an exaggeration, it really is that good.
Also check out the Terry Gilliam film of Hunter S Thompson's novel "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." It features Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro in the lead roles with a slew of amazing cameos. (Watch for Flea from the Chili peppers licking LSD off of the sleeve of Johnny Depp's jacket.)
It's a Terry Gilliam film so it's a mash of amazing visuals and genres that bears repeated viewing.
I'll be writing that and regular blog posts, if you want I have made a separate section for the finished serialized sections of the story all edited together because frankly I can't figure out how to make the chapters separate on a new page.
Thanks so much for your time and reading my fits of madness. There's more to come and I hope you enjoy.
Seriously it all started with a dream where I was on some sort of deranged mission impossible/Hunter S Thompson style road trip with a few good friends and a lady I know passingly who works in the adult film industry.
Apparently this is what I get for reading Transmetropolitan and drinking green tea before bed.
So as I rolled the idea around in my mind the more preposterous it seemed which meant it was kind of perfect for me to pop the bubbles other people have around ideas and off we went. I love the notion of hiding truth in absurdity. Or at least what I perceive to be truth.
I do plan to take some swipes at the notions of slut shaming, the whole list of odd double standards we as a society have in regards to gender roles, capitalism as a religion to some modes of political thoughts and a host of pundits who would likely do their best work with their mouths sewn shut.
I will say that I was quite pleased when a writer of my acquaintance said he thought it felt like it was written by Douglas Adams and Hunter S Thompson sharing a typewriter and bong hits.
So for those of you who want something similar I suggest you go to your local comic store and buy a series called. "Transmetropolitan." It's an epic update of the gonzo style of journalism brought up tot he 25th century featuring an insane character named Spider Jerusalem and his two "filthy assistants." It's an amazing series that managed to make me laugh shed tears and leave me both thrilled and heartbroken.
None of that is an exaggeration, it really is that good.
Also check out the Terry Gilliam film of Hunter S Thompson's novel "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." It features Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro in the lead roles with a slew of amazing cameos. (Watch for Flea from the Chili peppers licking LSD off of the sleeve of Johnny Depp's jacket.)
It's a Terry Gilliam film so it's a mash of amazing visuals and genres that bears repeated viewing.
I'll be writing that and regular blog posts, if you want I have made a separate section for the finished serialized sections of the story all edited together because frankly I can't figure out how to make the chapters separate on a new page.
Thanks so much for your time and reading my fits of madness. There's more to come and I hope you enjoy.
Midnight at the Double Douche chapter 3
We pulled up behind the vehicle that had been leaking propaganda posters as stealthily as a classic Aston Martin powered by an Audi V-10, piloted by some sort of super powered uber being and containing two people whacked out of their skulls on unknown substances can.
Thankfully the guy who was piloting it paid us no mind. Which seemed like a good thing. I had horrible plans in mind for his cargo, his vehicle and him as well. How dare this man disturb my hallucination filled evening with his propaganda!
I stumbled out of the car and wondered why I was having trouble using my legs. I looked to Jon who seemed to be having the same problem, his face had the consistency of a stretch Armstrong doll in the midst of a napalm attack. Flesh seemed to drip down his face as his muscles relaxed in a manner one could charitably describe as unhealthy.
He stared back at me and we communicated by way of telepathy. "Don't worry." he said in a mental monotone. "it's a side effect it'll wear off right about .....now."
Suddenly I was standing and feeling refreshed. Sure the world had turned the sort of colors one usually sees when you give a three year old day glo paints. Of course there was also the fact that a man sized pink dragon was flying after a laughing nymph through the parking lot but once you got past that everything was pretty much back to normal.
Kat meanwhile was looking over the whole scene of the parking. Overloaded with pickup trucks, Camaros of various vintages the odd Toyota and overloaded with the scents of bad cologne, mixed perfumes, high levels of testosterone and advanced Stockholm syndrome.
"Clearly we have come to the right place." Jon said. "I think it's likely we might find the true America here."
"Sadly I believe you're right but first let's set that fuckers truck on fire." I replied reaching into my pocket for a lighter and anything flammable.
Kat intercepted me. "I think that lacks subtlety, let's investigate."
"Your point is valid, if a little less fun." I said and walked up to the truck.
The back of the truck was a marvel of jury rigged engineering. The truck had two large rollers and a feed mechanism for them, behind them was a sloped piece of metal that fed posters into the rollers from a hopper. The whole system seemed to be gravity or momentum fed.
"What are you doing?" Kat asked as I examined the mechanism.
"I'm studying it's hoof prints. I think I have a plan." I said and grinned.
"Is this going to involve the need for fissionable materials again?" Jon asked hopefully.
"Sadly no, and besides that guard at the plant said he's shoot us if he caught us within five miles of it again." I said and got off the bed of the truck.
"Ohh yeah what was the guys name again?" Kat asked.
"I think it was Barry." Jon replied as I walked back to the truck.
"Never mind that." I said having retrieved tools of a dubious nature. I set to work making an addition to the mechanism that rolled out the posters.
"Do I even want to know?" Kat asked. I ignored her question as I set to work, sure some people might find it difficult to weld old type writer letters onto a rolling mechanism while plastered as fuck on purple pills of an unknown nature, but I'm a professional dammit! Don't try this at home.
"Just adding a friendly message to the posters each time they roll through." I replied adding a touch to the last letter I was pressing into the metal wheel with a small gas welder. I waited a moment for the new addition to cool down then ran one of the posters through the device and looked at my handwork. Holding it up for the others to see.
"That's incredibly tasteless." Kat said.
"It's a complete affront to decency and moral order." Jon said.
"So considering the context of all this, what you're saying is, it's perfect." I said and left the poster on the ground.
"Yeah pretty much." Kat said. "Can we go now?"
"Of course not, there is a fine American institution for us to go and examine!" I yelled. "Here we will find all that is good and right in this country right underneath a seedy underbelly created by pathetic monsters." I walked and put the welder back into the car. This being a great American state they would allow me to bring my portable arsenal of weapons with me into an establishment full of liquor, half naked women and men amped up on red bull, testosterone and shattered dreams, but they'd likely frown on a portable acetylene torch.
"You just want to go in and see in and see naked women fleecing the general public." Kat said.
"And you don't?" I replied.
She shrugged. "Okay ya got me, let see what this place has in store for us."
We walked to the door, feeling a bit out of place in my Kilt, bright green shirt and leather vest. Jon as always had dressed for any occasion in Khaki's and black button down shirt. Kat as always had the professional look going on. The black skirt and red top would go well anywhere. In this place she could do probably pull off a school girl look, or dominatrix depending on how she set her hair. Mind you if we could find a true pro to work on her she could go for the full on dreaded school girl dominatrix, but then we'd likely have to fight off hordes of people all trying to get to her and we'd had enough of that back in Salt Lake City.
Yeah you never forget the senior prom.
The doorman at the front looked us all over like beings from another world. "You sure you belong here?" He asked.
"Why wouldn't we?" Jon said. "We're just normal god fearing, folk like yourself."
The man looked dubious, but after a quick pat down and making sure we handed over at least one pistol to Kat (Who has some sort of issue with firearms.) took our five dollar per person cover and let us in.
The Double Douche was lit up on the interior like a Vegas casino designed by Salvador Dali after a long day of taking Xanax and Peyote buttons. The whole place was done in a mixture of red's and pinks. The three stages lit with bright spots to not miss any millimeter of exposed skin on them. The walls were curves reminiscent of sea shells, or maybe that was just the pills I took talking, they seemed to be breathing if I looked closer.
Currently several ladies of different sizes, colors and facial characteristics were dancing. Feigning some sort of sexual act in congress to the music that was playing.
Here we had found the basic format of the American dream mixed with the reality. Here you could pay your fee to see the objects of your own hormonal lusts turned loose in a confined environment where you could see them perform but any attempt to try and reach for them you'd likely get your arm ripped off by the large shaved gorillas masquerading as human beings at the front of the stage. An angry bunch who lived in the shadow of armed men behaving like brain addled fourteen year olds. Caught in dreams forever denied, and wondering what they might do to change that.
Meanwhile we were surrounded by men of various ages, all openly carrying handguns and other weapons with their boners covered under layers of denim. Itself a metaphor for some huge flaw in our collective thinking which had made the last couple of millenia so exciting to read about but a nightmare to live in. It's always the old saying, kill a hundred people in popular culture and all is well, make the mere mention of someone having joyful sex of some sort and suddenly you're promoting unhealthy behavior, or ill morals and some sort of feigned moral decline.
The trade of the place was based on that near mythical sense of energy you feel at the height of arousal, where your mind could rationalize any act of fiduciary foolishness if it got you that much closer to the dream dancing on a stage or offering to bounce on your lap for a four minute classic rock song. Truly we had here American exceptionalism on stage and American Capitalist madness all over the rest of the bar.
Then I saw, her. I knew her, not in the biblical sense sadly, but somewhere in the back of my mind I could tell I had seen her before. If one were to solidify the concept of MILF she would likely be its avatar. She was of average height but with lush curves that spoke of experience she was willing to share. A walking smile of lust ready to show you the things you had been missing. Rich brownish blond hair framed a face made of pure Americana. A mixture of ethnicity's that created something staggering in their uniqueness.
She was finishing up on the center stage as the song from some nameless band lost to seventies over indulgence finished. She wiped down the pole she had worked to within an inch of it's life and walked past the huge shaved gorillas at the front to the dressing area in back.
Which is when I had the flash of memory that connected her face to an identity. She went by the stage name of Fiona, well film name. She had done well for herself in the adult film world back in the 80's. Never reaching the storied levels of fame achieved by others like Nina, Ginger, and Amber but still one of those ones who drew your eye to a box cover and made you take it home. Back then she was cast as the cute girl next door who would kill time between school and work showing some lucky neighbor boy all the things the prom queen would never do.
We had met in the past when she was touring as a feature dancer. Back then actual humans guarded the talent and I was one of them. We talked and chatted back then and had a number of laughs. Then over time she fell off the face of the earth.
Is this the land where former porn stars go to retire? Surely not, she too had to be on some warped mission of chaos. She was far too talented to be working a dive such as this without orders from some higher power.
Clearly I needed to investigate.
"I need a distraction." I said to Jon.
"What?" He asked staring at a young lady who was peeling off a top that seemed to be made of liquid latex painted directly to her skin.
"For fucks sake snap out of it man!" I said and nudged him with an elbow. "We're on a mission here."
"Ohh yeah right, what do you need?" Jon asked looking not at all sheepish.
"I need to get into the dressing room. Get those animals looking the other way."
"On it." he said.
I turned to head toward the dressing room. Where I saw Kat, surrounded by a group of the ladies who worked this club. She was reclining on a couch being fed grapes by one while the other handed her a glass of wine. "Seriously how does she do that?" I asked myself and continued my trip.
Jon meanwhile passed by several young ladies who began to follow him as if he were some sort of pied piper heard above the Foghat song blaring from the speakers. Just as the arousal addled minds of the men gathered here were beginning to wonder where all the girls had gone. The gorillas meanwhile just stared into the crowd waiting for the next chance to snap an arm or bust a jaw.
Which meant no one was watching me as I hit the dressing room door.
Thankfully the guy who was piloting it paid us no mind. Which seemed like a good thing. I had horrible plans in mind for his cargo, his vehicle and him as well. How dare this man disturb my hallucination filled evening with his propaganda!
I stumbled out of the car and wondered why I was having trouble using my legs. I looked to Jon who seemed to be having the same problem, his face had the consistency of a stretch Armstrong doll in the midst of a napalm attack. Flesh seemed to drip down his face as his muscles relaxed in a manner one could charitably describe as unhealthy.
He stared back at me and we communicated by way of telepathy. "Don't worry." he said in a mental monotone. "it's a side effect it'll wear off right about .....now."
Suddenly I was standing and feeling refreshed. Sure the world had turned the sort of colors one usually sees when you give a three year old day glo paints. Of course there was also the fact that a man sized pink dragon was flying after a laughing nymph through the parking lot but once you got past that everything was pretty much back to normal.
Kat meanwhile was looking over the whole scene of the parking. Overloaded with pickup trucks, Camaros of various vintages the odd Toyota and overloaded with the scents of bad cologne, mixed perfumes, high levels of testosterone and advanced Stockholm syndrome.
"Clearly we have come to the right place." Jon said. "I think it's likely we might find the true America here."
"Sadly I believe you're right but first let's set that fuckers truck on fire." I replied reaching into my pocket for a lighter and anything flammable.
Kat intercepted me. "I think that lacks subtlety, let's investigate."
"Your point is valid, if a little less fun." I said and walked up to the truck.
The back of the truck was a marvel of jury rigged engineering. The truck had two large rollers and a feed mechanism for them, behind them was a sloped piece of metal that fed posters into the rollers from a hopper. The whole system seemed to be gravity or momentum fed.
"What are you doing?" Kat asked as I examined the mechanism.
"I'm studying it's hoof prints. I think I have a plan." I said and grinned.
"Is this going to involve the need for fissionable materials again?" Jon asked hopefully.
"Sadly no, and besides that guard at the plant said he's shoot us if he caught us within five miles of it again." I said and got off the bed of the truck.
"Ohh yeah what was the guys name again?" Kat asked.
"I think it was Barry." Jon replied as I walked back to the truck.
"Never mind that." I said having retrieved tools of a dubious nature. I set to work making an addition to the mechanism that rolled out the posters.
"Do I even want to know?" Kat asked. I ignored her question as I set to work, sure some people might find it difficult to weld old type writer letters onto a rolling mechanism while plastered as fuck on purple pills of an unknown nature, but I'm a professional dammit! Don't try this at home.
"Just adding a friendly message to the posters each time they roll through." I replied adding a touch to the last letter I was pressing into the metal wheel with a small gas welder. I waited a moment for the new addition to cool down then ran one of the posters through the device and looked at my handwork. Holding it up for the others to see.
"That's incredibly tasteless." Kat said.
"It's a complete affront to decency and moral order." Jon said.
"So considering the context of all this, what you're saying is, it's perfect." I said and left the poster on the ground.
"Yeah pretty much." Kat said. "Can we go now?"
"Of course not, there is a fine American institution for us to go and examine!" I yelled. "Here we will find all that is good and right in this country right underneath a seedy underbelly created by pathetic monsters." I walked and put the welder back into the car. This being a great American state they would allow me to bring my portable arsenal of weapons with me into an establishment full of liquor, half naked women and men amped up on red bull, testosterone and shattered dreams, but they'd likely frown on a portable acetylene torch.
"You just want to go in and see in and see naked women fleecing the general public." Kat said.
"And you don't?" I replied.
She shrugged. "Okay ya got me, let see what this place has in store for us."
We walked to the door, feeling a bit out of place in my Kilt, bright green shirt and leather vest. Jon as always had dressed for any occasion in Khaki's and black button down shirt. Kat as always had the professional look going on. The black skirt and red top would go well anywhere. In this place she could do probably pull off a school girl look, or dominatrix depending on how she set her hair. Mind you if we could find a true pro to work on her she could go for the full on dreaded school girl dominatrix, but then we'd likely have to fight off hordes of people all trying to get to her and we'd had enough of that back in Salt Lake City.
Yeah you never forget the senior prom.
The doorman at the front looked us all over like beings from another world. "You sure you belong here?" He asked.
"Why wouldn't we?" Jon said. "We're just normal god fearing, folk like yourself."
The man looked dubious, but after a quick pat down and making sure we handed over at least one pistol to Kat (Who has some sort of issue with firearms.) took our five dollar per person cover and let us in.
The Double Douche was lit up on the interior like a Vegas casino designed by Salvador Dali after a long day of taking Xanax and Peyote buttons. The whole place was done in a mixture of red's and pinks. The three stages lit with bright spots to not miss any millimeter of exposed skin on them. The walls were curves reminiscent of sea shells, or maybe that was just the pills I took talking, they seemed to be breathing if I looked closer.
Currently several ladies of different sizes, colors and facial characteristics were dancing. Feigning some sort of sexual act in congress to the music that was playing.
Here we had found the basic format of the American dream mixed with the reality. Here you could pay your fee to see the objects of your own hormonal lusts turned loose in a confined environment where you could see them perform but any attempt to try and reach for them you'd likely get your arm ripped off by the large shaved gorillas masquerading as human beings at the front of the stage. An angry bunch who lived in the shadow of armed men behaving like brain addled fourteen year olds. Caught in dreams forever denied, and wondering what they might do to change that.
Meanwhile we were surrounded by men of various ages, all openly carrying handguns and other weapons with their boners covered under layers of denim. Itself a metaphor for some huge flaw in our collective thinking which had made the last couple of millenia so exciting to read about but a nightmare to live in. It's always the old saying, kill a hundred people in popular culture and all is well, make the mere mention of someone having joyful sex of some sort and suddenly you're promoting unhealthy behavior, or ill morals and some sort of feigned moral decline.
The trade of the place was based on that near mythical sense of energy you feel at the height of arousal, where your mind could rationalize any act of fiduciary foolishness if it got you that much closer to the dream dancing on a stage or offering to bounce on your lap for a four minute classic rock song. Truly we had here American exceptionalism on stage and American Capitalist madness all over the rest of the bar.
Then I saw, her. I knew her, not in the biblical sense sadly, but somewhere in the back of my mind I could tell I had seen her before. If one were to solidify the concept of MILF she would likely be its avatar. She was of average height but with lush curves that spoke of experience she was willing to share. A walking smile of lust ready to show you the things you had been missing. Rich brownish blond hair framed a face made of pure Americana. A mixture of ethnicity's that created something staggering in their uniqueness.
She was finishing up on the center stage as the song from some nameless band lost to seventies over indulgence finished. She wiped down the pole she had worked to within an inch of it's life and walked past the huge shaved gorillas at the front to the dressing area in back.
Which is when I had the flash of memory that connected her face to an identity. She went by the stage name of Fiona, well film name. She had done well for herself in the adult film world back in the 80's. Never reaching the storied levels of fame achieved by others like Nina, Ginger, and Amber but still one of those ones who drew your eye to a box cover and made you take it home. Back then she was cast as the cute girl next door who would kill time between school and work showing some lucky neighbor boy all the things the prom queen would never do.
We had met in the past when she was touring as a feature dancer. Back then actual humans guarded the talent and I was one of them. We talked and chatted back then and had a number of laughs. Then over time she fell off the face of the earth.
Is this the land where former porn stars go to retire? Surely not, she too had to be on some warped mission of chaos. She was far too talented to be working a dive such as this without orders from some higher power.
Clearly I needed to investigate.
"I need a distraction." I said to Jon.
"What?" He asked staring at a young lady who was peeling off a top that seemed to be made of liquid latex painted directly to her skin.
"For fucks sake snap out of it man!" I said and nudged him with an elbow. "We're on a mission here."
"Ohh yeah right, what do you need?" Jon asked looking not at all sheepish.
"I need to get into the dressing room. Get those animals looking the other way."
"On it." he said.
I turned to head toward the dressing room. Where I saw Kat, surrounded by a group of the ladies who worked this club. She was reclining on a couch being fed grapes by one while the other handed her a glass of wine. "Seriously how does she do that?" I asked myself and continued my trip.
Jon meanwhile passed by several young ladies who began to follow him as if he were some sort of pied piper heard above the Foghat song blaring from the speakers. Just as the arousal addled minds of the men gathered here were beginning to wonder where all the girls had gone. The gorillas meanwhile just stared into the crowd waiting for the next chance to snap an arm or bust a jaw.
Which meant no one was watching me as I hit the dressing room door.
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Midnight at the Double Douche Chapter 2
"Holy shit! Someone get that fat ignorant fucker off of my car!" I screamed. The image of the shill man for all that is wrong in the world leered at me through the window. His smiling happy visage, the sort of thing that made me think of a man who sold used cars and liked it. Who might violate a puppy if there was a dime in it for him. The kind of person who lived in Pittsburgh but was a Cowboys fan.
What was this man doing on the windshield of my car?
Kat being the most sensible and sane of us solved the riddle and the problem of not being able to see while she's driving by pulling what I now saw was a poster for that horrible creatures new book off the windshield. She passed it back to me and continued driving as if this was the most natural thing in the world.
I looked it over as Jon peered over my shoulder. "Apparently his latest piece of agitprop comes out tomorrow." He said as I studied the print, the red white and blue colors of the page, and the subliminal messages hidden in the ink telling you that this man would make all your worries go away. His publisher had no shame.
"Well then he must be stopped!" I yelled.
"God dammit!" Kat yelled and swerved to avoid yet another poster. Then another. "Apparently they have cut out the middle man in advertising."I said seeing even more of the dangerous paper objects flying at us.
"True, why bother with a street team and tape when you can speak to his audience so much more effectively with simple littering." Jon agreed reaching into his pocket and pulling out a pill bottle. He looked at it absently then pulled out a specimen and knocked it back.
"What do you have there?" I asked.
"I'm not sure." He said. "They're purple though."
"Oh good I'll take two." Jon was kind enough to hand over two of the little capsules and while I waited for it's effects to take hold I drew my pistol and stuck myself out of the window. Taking aim at a passing piece of paper with that horrible mans image on it. Firing a quick round I caught him right in that pig like furrow between his eyes.
Remember kids the trick to hitting a moving target is to lead it some. Oh and hate. So. Much, HATE.
"Screw you, you festering bag of ignorant puss!" I screamed to the night sky and fired another round.
"What the hell are you doing? Get back in the car!" Kat yelled. Too late though, I saw another poster flying through the air and pegged it on the fly. Paper exploded in all directions and I was momentarily blinded by the muzzle flash. Jon took the opportunity to drag me into the car.
"Dude why would you stop me on such a holy mission?" I said to my partner in crime.
He simply jerked his thumb behind us. Looking I saw a set of red white and blue lights swirling and following us.
"Is anything we're carrying illegal by any chance?" Kat asked.
Suddenly I remembered with startling clarity the provision run John and I had made before hitting the road. We had stopped for burgers, booze and ammo, then stopped by a friends place for other items more exotic. I was pretty sure we could explain the Gatling blow gun, but the two ounces of mushrooms and large Halloween sized bag of bubble hash might take some explaining.
"Ohh only most of it." I said. Imagining some back woods judge who would likely sentence us to five years of Fox News for bringing such dangerous items into his beloved land.
"Well then let me do the talking."Kat said harshly and Jon and I did our best to behave like rational human beings for a short period of time.
The cop pulled up behind us and blasted the interior of the car with his screaming bright spotlights. I slipped on a pair of shades and noticed the lens flares on the insides. Perfect, what a great time for Jon's pills to kick in. Truth be told I was beginning to sweat a little.
It didn't help that the cop looked like a mountain of sculpted muscle and uniform who radiated a sort of dark authority as he walked. Literally back lit with the power lights I was expecting to hear a sound like Darth Vader's labored breathing as he got closer.
The purple pills gave him a dark aura with a life of it's own. following behind him like dark shadowy murder doll.
"Ignore this terrible drug." I thought to myself.
Kat to her credit handled it without so much as a mussed hair and handed the officer her license, registration and insurance card with a pleasant smile. The cop scowled down at her like he had never seen anything that pleased him on any level at any time... ever. He struck me as the sort of man who ground glass into lube to masturbate with just to make himself a little meaner in the morning.
"Can I help you officer?" Kat asked.
"Do you know why I pulled you over?" He asked.
"Was I speeding?" She asked with happy smile.
"No, you were driving at normal speed with a passenger hanging out a window firing a pistol."
"So that's illegal?" She asked. Giving him a sad look like a puppy. "I'm so sorry I didn't know that."
That actually brought him up short. Like no one could have ever taken such a massive refuge in that level of audacity. "Ummmm." He said.
"We're really sorry about that." She said. "We just got excited driving the roads and exercising our 2nd amendment rights. I promise we'll keep it down from here on out."
The cop seemed a little dazed then handed the paperwork back to Kat. "That would be appreciated. Mam, I'll let you go with a warning but I had better not see you driving along firing weapons blindly into the night again."
"Ohh we won't." She said. The cop nodded gravely and walked off back to his car.
"You saw that too right?" Jon asked me.
"Yeah but we better double check." I replied. "It could be some unknown purple pill side effect."
"Good point." Jon said nodding. "Kat did you just talk us out of a possible multiple felony arrest by telling a cop you didn't know what we were doing was illegal?"
Kat put the old car in gear. "Yes, I did, and don't make me do it again anytime soon, the batteries need to recharge." She stomped on the gas and we were thrown back into the seat so hard we couldn't follow up on the question.
The car itself was a marvel of modern tinkering. It started life as a 1986 Aston Martin Lagonda. Which if you want to know looks like a limousine stuck in a three way with either end of a Ferrari. The engine had been replace with an Audi V-10 a while back and the electronics kept getting tinkered with.
Now the weird part is I didn't do or contract any of this. I swear parts just keep appearing in this car. Usually after Jon and I try some new concoction in the basement bar and...
Wait a minute.
I turned accusingly to Jon. "Are you the one whose been fucking with my?..." The question was cut off as Kat took a sudden turn into a bar parking lot. "Holy shi...."
"IT seems like I found the source of all the Rush Limbaugh propaganda."
We saw the truck designed to litter posters across America's roadways parked in front of a seedy dump of a bar called the Double Douche.
Jon and I looked at each other and smiled the warm predatory smile of the lion as it walks through the grass and sees all the Gazelles ahead of them at the watering hole.
"I see a sacred duty." Jon said.
"Let's go to work." I replied.
Kat merely sighed as we stopped off into a parking lot full of wrangler jeans, cowboy boots, pickup trucks and prom queens turned strippers.
It was time to do the world some good.
What was this man doing on the windshield of my car?
Kat being the most sensible and sane of us solved the riddle and the problem of not being able to see while she's driving by pulling what I now saw was a poster for that horrible creatures new book off the windshield. She passed it back to me and continued driving as if this was the most natural thing in the world.
I looked it over as Jon peered over my shoulder. "Apparently his latest piece of agitprop comes out tomorrow." He said as I studied the print, the red white and blue colors of the page, and the subliminal messages hidden in the ink telling you that this man would make all your worries go away. His publisher had no shame.
"Well then he must be stopped!" I yelled.
"God dammit!" Kat yelled and swerved to avoid yet another poster. Then another. "Apparently they have cut out the middle man in advertising."I said seeing even more of the dangerous paper objects flying at us.
"True, why bother with a street team and tape when you can speak to his audience so much more effectively with simple littering." Jon agreed reaching into his pocket and pulling out a pill bottle. He looked at it absently then pulled out a specimen and knocked it back.
"What do you have there?" I asked.
"I'm not sure." He said. "They're purple though."
"Oh good I'll take two." Jon was kind enough to hand over two of the little capsules and while I waited for it's effects to take hold I drew my pistol and stuck myself out of the window. Taking aim at a passing piece of paper with that horrible mans image on it. Firing a quick round I caught him right in that pig like furrow between his eyes.
Remember kids the trick to hitting a moving target is to lead it some. Oh and hate. So. Much, HATE.
"Screw you, you festering bag of ignorant puss!" I screamed to the night sky and fired another round.
"What the hell are you doing? Get back in the car!" Kat yelled. Too late though, I saw another poster flying through the air and pegged it on the fly. Paper exploded in all directions and I was momentarily blinded by the muzzle flash. Jon took the opportunity to drag me into the car.
"Dude why would you stop me on such a holy mission?" I said to my partner in crime.
He simply jerked his thumb behind us. Looking I saw a set of red white and blue lights swirling and following us.
"Is anything we're carrying illegal by any chance?" Kat asked.
Suddenly I remembered with startling clarity the provision run John and I had made before hitting the road. We had stopped for burgers, booze and ammo, then stopped by a friends place for other items more exotic. I was pretty sure we could explain the Gatling blow gun, but the two ounces of mushrooms and large Halloween sized bag of bubble hash might take some explaining.
"Ohh only most of it." I said. Imagining some back woods judge who would likely sentence us to five years of Fox News for bringing such dangerous items into his beloved land.
"Well then let me do the talking."Kat said harshly and Jon and I did our best to behave like rational human beings for a short period of time.
The cop pulled up behind us and blasted the interior of the car with his screaming bright spotlights. I slipped on a pair of shades and noticed the lens flares on the insides. Perfect, what a great time for Jon's pills to kick in. Truth be told I was beginning to sweat a little.
It didn't help that the cop looked like a mountain of sculpted muscle and uniform who radiated a sort of dark authority as he walked. Literally back lit with the power lights I was expecting to hear a sound like Darth Vader's labored breathing as he got closer.
The purple pills gave him a dark aura with a life of it's own. following behind him like dark shadowy murder doll.
"Ignore this terrible drug." I thought to myself.
Kat to her credit handled it without so much as a mussed hair and handed the officer her license, registration and insurance card with a pleasant smile. The cop scowled down at her like he had never seen anything that pleased him on any level at any time... ever. He struck me as the sort of man who ground glass into lube to masturbate with just to make himself a little meaner in the morning.
"Can I help you officer?" Kat asked.
"Do you know why I pulled you over?" He asked.
"Was I speeding?" She asked with happy smile.
"No, you were driving at normal speed with a passenger hanging out a window firing a pistol."
"So that's illegal?" She asked. Giving him a sad look like a puppy. "I'm so sorry I didn't know that."
That actually brought him up short. Like no one could have ever taken such a massive refuge in that level of audacity. "Ummmm." He said.
"We're really sorry about that." She said. "We just got excited driving the roads and exercising our 2nd amendment rights. I promise we'll keep it down from here on out."
The cop seemed a little dazed then handed the paperwork back to Kat. "That would be appreciated. Mam, I'll let you go with a warning but I had better not see you driving along firing weapons blindly into the night again."
"Ohh we won't." She said. The cop nodded gravely and walked off back to his car.
"You saw that too right?" Jon asked me.
"Yeah but we better double check." I replied. "It could be some unknown purple pill side effect."
"Good point." Jon said nodding. "Kat did you just talk us out of a possible multiple felony arrest by telling a cop you didn't know what we were doing was illegal?"
Kat put the old car in gear. "Yes, I did, and don't make me do it again anytime soon, the batteries need to recharge." She stomped on the gas and we were thrown back into the seat so hard we couldn't follow up on the question.
The car itself was a marvel of modern tinkering. It started life as a 1986 Aston Martin Lagonda. Which if you want to know looks like a limousine stuck in a three way with either end of a Ferrari. The engine had been replace with an Audi V-10 a while back and the electronics kept getting tinkered with.
Now the weird part is I didn't do or contract any of this. I swear parts just keep appearing in this car. Usually after Jon and I try some new concoction in the basement bar and...
Wait a minute.
I turned accusingly to Jon. "Are you the one whose been fucking with my?..." The question was cut off as Kat took a sudden turn into a bar parking lot. "Holy shi...."
"IT seems like I found the source of all the Rush Limbaugh propaganda."
We saw the truck designed to litter posters across America's roadways parked in front of a seedy dump of a bar called the Double Douche.
Jon and I looked at each other and smiled the warm predatory smile of the lion as it walks through the grass and sees all the Gazelles ahead of them at the watering hole.
"I see a sacred duty." Jon said.
"Let's go to work." I replied.
Kat merely sighed as we stopped off into a parking lot full of wrangler jeans, cowboy boots, pickup trucks and prom queens turned strippers.
It was time to do the world some good.
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