The Artless Bystander

And I could not think of anything worse

Sun, 19 May 2013 04:10:40 -0400

This is the story of how my friend, Cecil, got himself a free Zune.

I’m on a rooftop overlooking the San Francisco bay. In the distance the Golden Gate bridge is just sitting out there silently. We’re on Russian Hill and the landscape feels unreal. I look around and I see the crush of other houses below and popping in and out, draping the hills, and the roads look like ribbons.

David is pushing music wirelessly into the stereo via his iPhone and toggling between tracks. He keeps skipping through them, staring into his screen, and frowning the whole time.

“David” Cecil pops up from below, up the stairs. “You were right, we’re almost out of beef. Sorry-?”

“Yeah I made a steak for myself last night” David mutters, selecting a song and then pausing it after 4 seconds.

“David” Cecil says again “Come on, I have a nice DJ set, 3 hours, you won’t have to make a playlist”

“I don’t want to listen to techno” David says

“It’s deep house, David, you don’t have to pay attention to it, it’ll chill you out” Cecil says “Oh, where’s our dealer? We’re out”

“He’s going to be in Eastbay all week for some kind of thing” David says, sighing. “Tara gave me the number of some other guy, but I always get weirded out calling new dealers”

“Fuckin a” Cecil says, brandishing his Zune

“Whoa” I say “A Zune”

It was a first generation Zune. It looked almost brand new. I ask to hold it and Cecil hands it over to me. I turn it over in my hands, feel its heft, press in the buttons. “This is so old, is the battery totally shot?”

“Not really” Cecil says

“When did you get this?” I ask, handing it back

“On my way to San Francisco when I moved. It’s a bit of a dumb story” he says back. He plugs the Zune into the stereo audio jack, cueing up the DJ set and setting it back down.

“So, it’s a long story too.” Cecil says “and you already know the ending, but do you want to hear it anyway?”

I motion for him to go on, as I lie down on one of the lounge deck chairs.

“So this starts in..2007. I lived in Witchita at the time, it’s a little city in the middle of Kansas. I was taking a road trip out to Estes Park in Colorado Two hours up to Salina, then about 7 to Denver. Then a little bit onward to Estes Park. Go before Memorial Day, before the snow all melts and the crowds come in, absolutely stunning”

“Anywhoo, midway between Hays and Limon there’s a little truck stop town called Colby Kansas, you see billboards for this place all along the highway, like it’s fuckin Wall Drug or something. They have a Starbucks and, I’ve been told, this is one of the most isolated Starbucks in North America. They got a big billboard for this Starbucks and everything”

“So, this is probably the only time I’m ever gonna make an explicit stop for a Starbucks. I don’t know if you’ve ever driven through western Kansas, but there is a kind of nothing out there that I can’t fathom. It’s not like when you’re going through Arizona and it’s hot, or Iowa. It’s another stretch of nothing. They got windmills out there now, all spread out for miles, very serene.”

“And then, we get to Colby. And Colby is like, you feel like the wind is going to take the whole town away at any moment. The whole town is just one big truck stop on either side of the highway. Trucks everywhere. Isolation, Desolation. There’s an antique mall that you wonder if anyone ever goes too.”

“So we pull in right? I’m in a bit of a daze from being in the car for so long, so I just grope to the bathroom. I get out and look around . How do I describe this place? It is like every other truck stop I’ve ever been in, except there’s a starbucks. There’s a separate door to the starbucks from within the truck stop. So, like I go in and get a latte, because, what the fuck, right?”

“And I’m sipping on that and I’m looking back into the truck stop through the glass, and that’s when I see it. It’s this prize game with a bunch of electronics in it. It’s called ‘Lighthouse’ or something. There’s a spinner and you press it to stop on a number, and if your score is high enough you can pick a prize. Simple yeah?”

“Well it’s like a buck for a shot, and I’ve got like 3 bucks so I’m like ‘why not?’ I go up to it and you know what’s inside? Well there’s this Zune, a pukey little digital camera, and a Gameboy Advance. The old kind without the backlight. Remember those?”

“Holy shit” I said

“Yeah. So this Zune and these things had been sitting in there for God knows how long. and I feel this…compulsion…to free these electronics from this glass prison. So I take the three bucks I have in my pocket and give it a shot. Couldn’t do it. So then I had George, you remember George?”

“Oh George!” David says “He lived in Witchita too?”

“We went to WSU together, Estes was his idea. Anyway he plays Quake like nonstop, so his reflexes are like crazy good. He goes for it. He gets one point away from winning and…nothing”

“So we’re out like 5 bucks by that point and feeling pretty pissed. But I forget about it until we’re on our way back. We try for it again and no luck. I think we put 10 bucks into it. Yanno by the 4th dollar you feel like it’s a sure thing. But by the 8th reality just sets in. Dollar number 10 always feels futile, but there’s that tiny little “what if?” that’s always there”

“So, I can count the number of times I go back to Colorado on one hand between aught six and when I moved. Maybe four or five times over the years. Every time, I stop in Colby, and every time I see that damn lighthouse game with the Zune and the Gameboy, and I play it. There’s dust on those boxes. I lose every time”

“Later on I’m looking this game up on the internet, and I think there’s a way to beat it. Secret code or whatever. There’s a forum where this guy says that it’s like every other prize game. The owner sets a “pay out” rate, and the game will pay out a prize for every amount put in. It’s completely rigged. No skill at all. Same guy says there’s a way to rig these machines to never pay out.”

“Shit” I reply

“I know, right? I figure at this point that Zune is never gonna be in someone’s hands. So this is around a few years later, I’m still in Wichita when MedServ got bought out and they fired everyone.”

“Everyone?” I ask

“Yeah, I’m sitting there watching Debra from accounts pack up all her dusty precious moments statues and she’s crying because she’s been there 15 or so years and you know she’s not getting a severance.”

“And I’m sort of having one of those moments when shit’s happening, and I feel like this is the one time us humans are actually paying attention and not on this foggy autopilot. I’m stepping outside and I smell the air, I dunno if you ever been to the midwest, but the air there is stale from the prarie. There’s a difference, and I only know this because”

He pauses before taking a big swig from his beer

“Because the first time I ever stepped off a plane in SFO the first thing I thought was how fresh the air was. It was like, I can’t put it into words. So it’s at that moment I decide to move out here. Let me tell you something, if I had that same moment again I probably wouldn’t have done it. I didn’t think about anything but breathing that air again.”

“What do you mean by not doing it again, if you had the chance?” I ask

“Just…the chaos of everything” Cecil says “I can’t explain it. If I knew how i’d turn out then yeah I’d move again, but without that foresight I can’t say I’d pull the trigger again”

“So yeah, Tara was living in Oakland at the time, and she’s like ‘you can sleep on my couch’ so I threw everything into my Mazda, and set off. I get into Colby around 3am and starbucks is closed. I get some coffee from the truckstop and I got like 2 bucks left. I go over to the end of the truckstop and that fuckin machine is still there with the goddamn Zune, and the Gameboy, and that shitty camera.”

“And you put the money in” I said laughing a little bit. “After knowing it was rigged”

“It was so goddamn eerie” Cecil says “Three in the morning and this thing just lights up. I didn’t think I hit the button for it correctly. But the next thing I know the spiral to release the Zune starts spinning and ‘thunk’”

Me and David are both laughing a little bit at this.

“I wipe the dust off the thing” Cecil says “and I’m just like ‘holy shit, did that just happen?’ it’s like watching a glacier break ice off. Something that’s been still forever and suddenly you break a piece off and can handle it. First generation Zune, brand new out of the box. Plugged it right into my car and charged it up. When I got to Limon I put all my music on it and that got me through to Salt Lake City.”

He pauses and looks over at the Zune, picking it up

“I think about that Gameboy and the Shitty digital camera, they’re still in that machine, probably” Cecil says

“Maybe you broke the curse” David says

“Yeah maybe” Cecil says

“You know what else that Truck stop has? A Fuckin Demolition man pinball machine”

“No Way” I say

Witnessing Daniel Tosh selling his soul to Satan

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 02:31:27 -0400

“Get yer mitts off my Peugeot” I said, brandishing my glock.

He had a punchable face, that was my first thought. A Very Punchable face. He was sweating profusely, dressed in ripped and baggy jeans and a faded, ragged hoodie. Homeless dude, I thought.

“Please!” He said, hands clasped.

His hands were shaking as he reached into the one pocket that didn’t have a hole in it and retrieved a very ragged looking business card. He handed it to me:

Anything you want

Cost: Your Soul

2400 Paper Street. Room 217. Los Angeles, CA

Offer expires 24 hours after ___________

Please bring a witness

-Satan

“I’m not going to make it on time!” He said, panicked.

“Simmer down” I said “This has to be a scam”

“It’s NOT a SCAM” he shouted into my face “IT’S THE REAL DEAL”

The man introduced himself as a Daniel Tosh, and explained that he came across the card waiting tables, in Las Vegas. It was in his tip for the day, and he had spent the last hours frantically selling his possessions in order to get enough money for gas, as he was living paycheck to paycheck. He lamented that no one would buy CDs or VHS tapes anymore, and had come to the local 7/11 to siphon gas for the drive to LA.

He had 4 and a half hours left, the amount of time it takes to drive from Vegas to LA, the desperation clung to his forehead and he was breathing it in and out, with each breath losing his footing in the real world.

In a flash, he lunged at me, and wrestled my glock out of my hands, pointing it at me.

“We’re going to LA, bitch” He said, shreiking

I wasn’t sure pointing out his bad trigger discipline would make him angrier or if he’d end up shooting me on his own, so I didn’t push it.

My Peugeot 205 gti rushed down the highway, My radar detector chirping now and again at errant signals. I kept my foot planted on the gas, goosing the car through traffic, as Daniel Tosh sat with his hands in his lap, with my glock, and alternated staring at the horizon and at his watch.

“This is a scam” I said “Daniel, you need to get your life together”

He didn’t respond. I think he was beyond reason at that point. I kept trying to reach him. I kept wondering if he’d shoot me when we got there and he found out it was a scam.

We take an exit, then surface roads, the buildings and people getting more and more sparse and run-down as we went along. The asphalt’s cracks growing, the paint on the signs peeling. Daniel was now checking his watch. I drove with purpose.

“Five minutes, Come on!” he said.

We reach 2400 paper street. It’s an abandoned highway hotel. Trash litters the parking lot. The doors are all ajar except for room 217.

“I need a witness” Daniel said “You’re it!” pointing the gun at me.

We run up, along the balcony, and Daniel knocks on the door. The door opens. We enter.

“Sit down” satan says. It is a typical run down hotel room, save for the prince of darkness. The air is thick with dust, and the sun cast rays that pierce the room through the cheap curtains. The stains on the floor, the wear in the carpet, and the tears in the wallpaper.

I can’t believe it’s real, but suddenly it makes sense.

“You brought yourself and a witness, excellent” Satan says.

Satan’s using the only chair in the room, so we sit on the bed, creaking under our weight.

“Have you thought about what you want?” Satan asks.

“Fame!” Daniel shouts “I want fame!”

“Fame as what?” Satan asks “or is that important?”

“No” Daniel says “It is, i just….I…” he stammers, thinking “All my friends kind of think I’m funny, I think I could be a great comedian”

“Are you sure?” Satan asks. Daniel considers it for a bit before tilting his head and shrugging, then nodding his head.

“Fine” Satan says, reaching into his attache and taking out a very ornate contract. The lettering is gothic and the paper is a strange kind of textured parchment. There’s room for three signatures at the bottom.

“Standard contract, you give my the exclusive rights to your soul, and I provide your wish for the rest of your natural life” Satan says

“Yes” Daniel says, grinning

I take this moment to ask if I’m signing in blood.

“Only Daniel” he says.

Daniel quickly takes out a pen-knife and slices open his finger. He reaches for satan’s fountain pen and dips it into the wound. In shaky movements, he grips the contract and scratches his name onto the dotted line at the bottom, never reading the document.

Me and Satan sign it as well. Satan takes a small stamp from his attache and pounds it onto the paper twice, sealing Daniel’s fate.

“From now on” Satan begins “Some People will laugh at the things you say, whatever they are. Certain people will drift into your life at opportune moments, and offer you choices, you are free to take these choices, these will lead you to fame”

Daniel claps his hands in excitement.

Years later, I was flipping through the channels and noticed an advert for Comedy Central, shilling for an hour of Daniel Tosh. The first half was for a poorly produced video clip show, and the 2nd half was for a poorly animated cartoon show.

But knowing, really knowing, that there was a hell. That was what I got out of the whole thing.

An open letter to the Levis Jeans ad campaign "Go Forth"

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 03:21:21 -0400

Fuck. You.

Okay, that’s out of the way.. ah…

Fuck. You.

So sorry, I think I’m done…oh-

FUCK. YOU.

I don’t know what came over me. Probably the crushing weight of reality. I’m not sure. I just watch the commercial and I see so many things wrong with it, I don’t think I’d be able to articulate all the errors with it.

You, Levis Jeans ad, is set in a fantasy world. A world where people succeed because they work hard. A world where showing up

Look, nobody aged 18-34 is going to think that if they just buy a pair of your fucking pants, then they’ll be possessed by some goddamn motivation to “break through” and realize their “dreams”. I’m not sure what your ads are selling.

Hope? Optimism? A future?

Here in the real world, I can’t put on some pair of pants and suddenly get an audition, or an interview, or an opportunity.

Maybe a more accurate ad would have been unattractive people putting on a pair of Levis, and then sitting at a computer for 12 hours filling out Taleo job forms on company pages, scrolling through Monster.com, and firing off a half dozen resumes which won’t get looked at or replied to.

Look, Levis Jeans ad “Go Forth”, There’s no hope anymore. Gen Y don’t have any money to buy your fucking pair of pants. If they get money, it’s going to the student loan debt, or the credit card debt.

Me? I’m hoarding all my money, for when I’m inevitably laid off, again. I know 6-7 programming languages, loads of IT experience, but…but who would hire me?

Let me tell you a story, Levis Jeans ad “Go Forth”. About how I got my current job. Some recruiter called me up, and a week later I had an interview for a job where I didn’t know what I would be doing and had no prior experience in either. Or degree in. Basically out of the blue, I got a job and I make more than my parents.

I didn’t put a pair of your jeans on to do this, I bought a fucking suit.

It isn’t fair, either. The other guy the recruiting agency got for an interview fucked up the interview, despite having actual chops for the job.

The gal who was in line for the job before I came in, ,maybe thought she could take on the world, maybe she went home and wondered what X factor she needed in order to get that job. Maybe she saw your commercial for pants and thought “If I just wore a pair of Levis I’d have the IT factor that would have gotten me there”

You have awful timing, Levis Jeans ad “Go Forth”, there are no jobs, there’s no money, and there’s no hope. We’re not buying your pants.

Tomorrow after I come home and pay my rent check, I’m going through my closet and I’m finding every bit of clothes that have the Levis brand, and I’m donating it to the Goodwill. Mostly because I don’t need this bullshit aspiration. Mostly because experience tells me it’s bullshit.

Finally: Fuck You.

The story behind "Soul Sister"

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 23:36:58 -0400

I’m sitting in an anonymous, windowless conference room on the middle floor of an anonymous office building in the middle of Overland Park, Kansas.

The carpet is drab grey, the chairs all have various coffee stains and bolts missing, the table is covered in starbucks empties. Everyone is sitting there, staring at piles of index cards with words like “Rhythm” and “Energy” written on them. There are about 6 of them, middle aged white men in various states of business casual, in silence.

On the whiteboard, only one word is written. “Soul”

It’s 2 in the afternoon, too early to duck out early, too late to take a late lunch. So they sit there. I observe.

One of them gets up to the whiteboard and goes. “Okay, what other words start with S?”

They yell out:

“Sauce”

“Single”

“Slap”

finally, one of the younger looking ones with an incredible fake tan and unessicary highlights utters..”Sister”

“Soul….” the man at the white board moans “Sister” he writes them out in big, red letters with what he does not realize is a permanent marker.

“What rhymes with Sister?” The man says. The rest fall silent again.

….

“Blister?”

“Hister?”

“Mister?… Mister!”

“Mister what?”

“Mister Blister?”

“Mister Mister”

“whatever”

The man at the whiteboard writes “Mister mister” on the board again, and recites it back. “soul sister…Mister Mister” he utters without a hint of enthusiasm.

“I hate it, start over” one of them shouts, taking a large gulp of already cold coffee.

“Fuck” the man at the whiteboard says, trying to erase the now permanent marker off the whiteboard.

I’m sitting in the recording studio. Train is here. They haven’t slept in 48 hours and keep asking for coffee.

“Just one more take” one of the men from the conference room says. He’s now in a Hawaiian shirt, and sits behind the large audio production board, on the other side of the glass.

“No, not one more take” The lead singer of train says, spiking his ukelele on the ground.

The man in the Hawaiian shirt turns over to his wirey assistant and motions as if to say “get me another fucking Ukelele” and turns back to the lead singer.

“You’re going to sing the fucking song you’re given”

“No” the lead singer crosses his arms “I relented when you made me record “drops of jupiter” but that was only because you were holding a knife to my throat the whole time…well….I’M NOT AFRAID TO DIE NOW”

Hawaiian shirt man seems to be ready for this, and from behind his desk produces a small dog.

“Scout?” The lead singer says, eyes tearing up.

“Yes, this is your childhood dog Scout, which we had cloned when you started becoming a little…uppity. Now, you’ll record this track and you’re going to like it, or we’ll shoot the dog”

At this point, the assistant has returned with a fresh Uke, and wades through the debris of hundreds of other broken ukeleles, handing it to the lead singer.

The producer hits “record” and they start the opening chords.

The Simpsons: The Final Episode

Tue, 08 May 2012 14:43:40 -0400

I’ve seen it. They keep it in the same vault as “The Day The Clown Cried” (Which made for a very uncomfortable double feature)

Matt Groening was ordered to make it when he signed a 15 year contract extension with Fox back in 2001. Secretly, he said as an aside, it’s been extended until 2020, at least. He also tells me that a computer program has been recording all the Simpson’s voice actor’s lines so that “as they die off” they’ll be able to keep going.

It was a calm, Southern California evening when Groening told me all of this. We had found each other after a David Lynch screening, and were both still in a daze, trying to douse it with expensive craft beer and the odd shot of wiskey.

“We brought back Conan (O’Brian) to do the writing, all of the old writers from the first 5 seasons. It’s a good thing the Korean slaves that we have do all the animating don’t have a sense of humor anymore” He says

“Wait, I thought that was a joke, you have actual slaves do the animating?” I asked

“There’s a lot you don’t know” Groening says, eyes narrowing.

He calls his limo to bring us back to a mid-sized house in the hollywood hills. We descend into the basement, locked behind a vault door. There’s a small movie theater, and on the wall there’s a safe. Groening opens it. Inside is a tattered VHS tape with “SIMPSONS: FINAL EPISODE” scrawled hastily on the label.

“This is the only copy, we burned everything else” Groening says as he takes a swig from the bottle of Gin he’s been toting around ever since leaving the bar.

I sit down as he shoves the tape into the VCR, as it blinks “12:00”. *Kathunk*

“I will not overstay my welcome” Bart scrawls over and over again on the chalkboard. The whole thing is in black and white. The introduction is all in strings. “Chronos Quartet did this the same week they recorded the score to Requiem for a Dream” Groening says as an aside, with pride.

The couch gag is the family solemnly filing onto the couch and sitting down, one by one. They’re all wearing black.

It opens to a rainy day, the entire town of Springfield has turned out for Mr Burn’s funeral. Burn’s death, we learn, means the death of the power plant, and by extension, the rest of the town. In a cutaway gag, we see Burn’s assistant, Smithers, sobbing.

“That’s a little brutal” I said

“Just you wait” Groening says, gruffly, and takes another swig.

Some of the B-Team of characters begin to move away. Comic book guy closes his shop and we see him give out crates and crates of his favorite comics to Bart and Milhouse. “There’s no joy in my life anymore” Comic book guy says to the boys, as he saunters over to his rusty AMC gremlin and drives off into the distance. Principle Skinner professes his longtime love for Mrs Crabapple, only to be rejected. “I love you” she says “But I’ve chosen Merlot”. Mayor Quimby’s alcoholism gets the better of him, and he dies in a gutter.

Apu, rather than close his Quik-E-Mart, burns it to the ground, while Cheap Trick’s “Dream Police” plays in the background.

There’s a smash-cut to Mr Flanders, as he throws his bible in a trash can and packs up his station wagon with…Maude, still alive, I look over to Groening.

“Oh shit, I forgot about that” He says.

Flanders walks over to The Simpson’s house and knocks on the door. Homer answers, the music gets very dramatic, as Flanders mentions every horrible and selfish thing that Homer has done up until 2001. The tirade goes on for several minutes.

“Most of this was ad-libbed by Conan” Groening says.

I must mention that the episode is about 3 hours long, and goes into the details and ties up every loose end in the series. For levity I decided to cut Moe’s decent into madness, Milhouse turning to drugs, and Barney drinking himself to death. Otto sets his bus on fire and drives into the Springfield gorge.

“Alcoholism seems to be a re-occurring theme” I say to Groening, who’s passed out by now, still clutching his bottle of gin.

As the Simpsons family drives away from Springfield, they cross the city limits, it’s as though a spell is broken on the charachters, and in seconds they age 20 years. Maggie grows up and her hair grows out, Bart gets fat and goes bald, Grandpa Simpson turns to ash.

Marge looks in the mirror at her aged body, and then to the waste of a human that is Homer Simpson. She says to him “You are a stain upon humanity” and kicks him out of the car, and drives off without him.

Homer walks alone into the distance, not knowing where. Soon the sky turns dark and storm clouds are conjured up. A hole in the ground opens up before Homer, fire and brimstone begin to spew out. A flock of demons flies out and the ground begins to shake. Out of the growing hole flies a chariot, pulled by a two-headed winged horse made of fire. The Chariot is made out of skulls and bones of the damned, and the wheels are a collection of knives and blades.

Driving the chariot is a small, dark haired man in a white collard shirt and tie. It’s Frank Grimes.

“HOMER SIMPSON” He yells, his voice shakes the ground and scatters the swarm of demons around him. “I HAVE CONQUERED THE SIX LEVELS OF THE NETHERWORLD, I HAVE TOPPLED THE KINGDOM OF HELL, AND PIERCED THE DEVIL’S HEART. I AM GOD OF THE DAMNED, AND I DID ALL OF THIS SO I COULD BORE A HOLE BETWEEN THIS WORLD AND THE NEXT, SO I COULD COME BACK AND DESTROY YOU.”

Homer falls to his knees as the area around him is set aflame. The fire reaches him, as the flying demons swarm around him, and Frank Grimes raises his 16 foot, serrated sword to annihilate Homer Simpson.

Homer looks down, and under his breath mutters his last word: “D’oh”

-30-

I told myself I was gonna write everyday

Fri, 04 May 2012 16:48:20 -0400

clearly, that was a mistake.

[Noun] [Verb] Pirate Ninja.

[Noun] [Verb] Bacon.

There’s something about writing where you just run out of ideas, and the advice that you should just “write whatever” and then edit it later feels really hollow.

In my head, I think it’s easier to wait for inspiration and then write then, it’s not as if your fingers will forget how to type.

On the other hand is something I call the “Solja Boy” problem. Solja Boy records his hit album on his laptop, and goes multiplatinum shortly thereafter. But Where’s the followup album? It’s here that we find out that he’s a one hit wonder, who wasn’t able to hone his skills and make crap before the big hit, he made the hit first, so there’s no incentive to improve, or perspective.

Thus, the idea that the path to success is paved with failures.

America's dark future

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 02:12:59 -0500

Today’s blog post is brought to you by a split in the space time continuum wherein Newt Gingrich is actually elected president.

Gingrich had Taco Bell yesterday, I can tell, because I’m the one that cleans him.

Let me explain:

We were all shocked, “there was no way that Newt Gingrich could be elected” we said to ourselves, and went on our merry way. I remember I watched the GOP debates and giggled to myself, taking shots of burbon as if my favorite team lost to Missouri. It would just take a few more primaries for Newt to be scraped off the map, like so much dog feces.

But then, Santorum got ahead, and suddenly he’s got three states under his belt. Suddenly he’s the front runner, and Mitt Romny with his moneybags, he goes after him. First place is not where you want to be, they call it “Mario Kart Politics” . The guy in front gets the blue shell by the blueblood. Jesus Christ.

So pretty soon, pictures of Santorum show up. Santorum in Missie B’s, Kansas City’s premier gay nightclub. I’ve been to Missie B’s once and I found the drinks to be moderately priced and the decor to be pretty tasteful. ANYWAY, Santorum was cruising that night, and Romny found the archival footage and the paid testimony. Santorum was out and, actually, in his concession press conference he said that he was “releived” that he didn’t have to be in the closet, and could take further steps towards self-actualization and healing. Really shed a tear there, honestly. We were glad some GOP scum could redeem themselves. Dan Savage even took spreadingsantorum.com down.

But then! Who’s out front? Romny! That’s who. And suddenly the conversation is about Bain Capital, and the last two front runners are just these rich, white, fucks.

After a few states, which pass in a blur, it becomes clear that the GOP would rather destroy the earth than have a Mormon be president.

And so it was.

Then the national debates, what a horror-show. Newt tossing out red-meat rhetoric out like so much dollar-store candy. The South ate it up. Super-PACs left and right going apeshit and rolling so much money into it.

We didn’t believe our eyes when Obama lost Florida, but when the numbers came in, the rest of the networks called it. We wept.

A few months later, as a part of Gingrich’s “Debt Free America”, all students with outstanding college debt were enrolled in the “Get America Working” work program. I still had a few grand leftover from Cornell, so one morning I was shoved in a van with everyone else from my class, as we were still squatting in that warehouse downtown. It was the Taco-Bell thing all over again.

I don’t think I need to elaborate anymore, but the entire time I was told that I should “be grateful” that my debt would be forgiven after 5-8 years of service, and the work experience of cleaning up after a moribly obese Newt Gingrich would pay dividends in my future.

I’m not sure how I landed in this spot. Like all evil things in this world, Halliburton was handling everything.

Newt gained so much weight during the campaign that he was no longer able to, um, clean himself. In his first state of the Union, Newt said that he had been a job creator, and when I watched him say this I was filled with a sense of intense dread, because I just knew he was talking about me

It’s no so bad. I have a cot, a small room, and it even has a window. They feed me twice a day. I don’t have much work to do, actually, I probably work maybe three or four times a day.

Oh I should go, time to go to work.

The man who would bring the Fedora back

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:17:24 -0500

“That’s a fedora” I said, staring at him.

We met in a Starbucks. The ads in the wifi login splash screen advertised for job-hunting sites. Everyone was hatless, save for this man; Theodore.

“Call me Ted, please”

Ted is special because he’s part of a small but dedicated community of Fedora wearers and Fedora Enthusiasts.

“So, I know you get this question a lot” I began “But you’re not a freshman going to a State University who’s trying to be ‘Unique’?”

Ted shook his head “I get lumped in that crowd a lot, also: People who watch Mad Men and then go to a department store immediately after. There is a science to wearing a Fedora, you can’t just throw one on while wearing the JNCO jeans from middle school and your Tapout hoodie”

This had clearly flustered Ted, so I tried to get him back in the interview.

“When did you first start wearing it?” I asked

“I found one in a Target, and things progressed from there. When you start wearing one, you quickly become ‘that guy’ who always wears a Fedora, and everyone sort of points at you. You feel like you could pull off the Fedora, but you’re just not there, there’s an X factor that a person has to figure out. Guys in the Fedora community call this the “transition phase”, that is, after the novelty of a Fedora wears off, you’re left questioning why you got one in the first place, and this is typically where people toss it the closet next to the Korg MS-10”

Ted went to elaborate on the Fedora Community, mostly existing online in the form of chatboards. Every once in a while a group of them will rent out a Ramada Inn off the interstate and hold the annual “Fedora Community Git-Togeether.” Ted has attended twice.

“You try not to look down on the newbs who just bought one at Hot Topic or whatever, but it’s important to mentor Fedora wearers through the beginning stages of Fedora Ownership”

The Fedora Community has their own set of slang. A NFW is a “new fedora wearer”. A TFW is someone who’s “Transitioning” and an “Old Hat” is someone who wears one all the time.

One “Old Hat” with the username ‘Alabama_Hotpocket’ is writing a book on Fedora Ownership, hopefully he uses his real name.

Ted hopes to become an Old Hat one day, but for now he’s sill in a TFW, awkwardly taking his hat on and off and staring at his reflection in the Starbuck’s window, wondering if it was such a good idea after all.

Reddit is bad, and you should feel bad

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 01:21:10 -0500

“Cecil, what is this mess?” I asked, mouth agape.

Cecil, my dear friend from the IT department, was always talking about Reddit, the link-sharing website. Four years ago he discovered it, and would go on and on about “this cool thing I found on reddit” and post funny cat pictures he found to the office pinboard. But as the years wore on he began to complain more and more about “reposts” and over used jokes, or “memes” as he called them. He also wouldn’t stop complaining about how annoying the “atheism” subreddit was.

I always assumed Cecil was an atheist based on his bumper-sticker of a Darwin fish eating a “Jesus” peace fish. But you never know.

“Cecil” I asked “I check the browser logs, and you spend 90% of the workday on reddit, but you complain about it so much”

“I know” He said “But, you must see it for yourself”

He wheeled me back to his workstation and loaded the site up. It’s a white background, and most of the text are links. Next to each link are arrows “up and downvotes” Cecil called them. When you submitted a link users on the site can up or downvote your post, and the site orders the links based on newer ones with the highest ratio of “upvotes”. I was amused.

“So, then there should just be good stuff all the time on the front page, right?” I asked

“Yes, but then people were just posting images with text on them, like an inspirational quote next to an Important Atheist, or an Advice Animal image macro, or something else, and pretty soon they made it so you could submit links to sub-reddits, or subsites of the main reddit site”

“Cecil” I asked “Why are these poorly drawn comics so popular? and why do they use the same faces in each one? are they made by the same person?”

“Those are ‘rage comics’ ” he said, sighing “they’re used to express daily annoyances and other things”

“They’re not very funny, and they’re not much to look at, so why are they so popular?” I asked

“I DON’T FUCKING KNOW OKAY?” He yelled, we continued to click through the other subreddits. Each one would be filled with rage-comics, inane “self” posts (or discussion posts) and the comments were filled with women-hating and racist comments.

“Reddit used to be the coolest person on the chess team, you know? He’d be cool and interesting, kind of geeky, but not too bad. And pretty soon as the site got popular, he went from the coolest to the uncoolest person on the chess team. You know the guy, smelly, doesn’t bathe, watches Anime all the time, kinda tubby, a bit sad.”

“But then, Reddit became the worst guy out of all the chess teams in the region, the guy that they don’t invite to the after-regional-chess-tournament Chipotle binge. The rest of the chess teams just sit there, in the Chipotle, to talk about how AWFUL this guy is”

“And THEN” Cecil continued “Reddit became the guy that the chess teams talk about at nationals, sure, other teams from other regions will try to top him, but this guy is worse than them all. He is the worst person on the chess team, but extrapolated to an order of magnitude worse, someone who makes the news in a few years for suffocating under his collection of Real Dolls”

“Oh, my” I said, agast “What happened?”

“The site got popular, accounts can be created in seconds, users are virtually anonymous, and there’s very little moderation outside of the up and down arrows.”

As a result, Cecil said, things just went downhill.

“Now it’s a continuous circlejerk of image memes, casual racism, and other unpleasantries.”

“So” I asked “What’s the draw?”

He said nothing and wheeled around in his chair, scrolling through the links and clicking on them. I backed out of his cubicle and went back to my desk, where I spent the afternoon reading Ask Metafilter questions.

New York, Day 45

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 00:09:46 -0500

“You should really learn how to relax” Burgress said to me as I lay in the grass of Washington Square park, weeping slightly.

“I can’t” I said “It’s sorta hard to relax when your insides are made of deep-fried depression, and the only thing that keeps you going is the use of controlled substances and the delusion that at some point in the future things won’t be a big shit-bucket of suck” I said, curling up.

“You can’t live like this” Burgress said to me, adjusting his fedora.

“Nonsense” I said back “I will construct a reality in my mind where I can just rock back and forth in a corner of darkness and nothing will happen to me, good or bad, so I can just exist in my black and white world of pain and suffering and wait for the overwhelming grimdark to consume me”

“Huh” Burgress said, taking a drag from his cigarrette. “You have any hobbies?”

“Yeah” I said “Getting out of town and reminiscing”

“It could be worse” Burgress said “you could work for Reuter- oh”

“I miss home” I remember myself saying

“Home? The Midwest you mean?” Burgress asked

“Yeah” I said

“You don’t want to go back *there* ” Burgress said, taking another drag. “Where will you get your fair trade coffee? What about the cutting edge arts scene? Your favorite bands certainly don’t tour where you want to live, and you certainly won’t get a job doing what you’re doing now. The midwest doesn’t accommodate for artistic motherfuckers, such as myself. And the beer, I don’t think you’ll get to choose between 5 different kinds of microbrew IPAs in Colby Kansas”

“You’ve just been in Philly too long” Burgress said again “Some Brooklyn Tap water will help with that”

“The one with the mercury in it?” I asked.

Later that night we were at the world-renown Barcade in Brooklyn. I had ordered the Lasganga at a fancy uptown food-place and was instead given a cheese covered pile of potato slices. I wanted to take my woes out on some Dig Dug.

After a few rounds, I was no closer to enlightenment. Burgress motioned over to a corner of the Arcade.

“this” he said “Is TURBO, the strangest racing game of all time. Nobody can get bast 12k points or so, because it’s just impossible”

I sauntered up to the arcade cabinet, setting down my 12.4% APV drink and inserting a coin, gripping the wheel and flipping the gearshifter into low. It was on.

The road streached out into the horizion as cars appeared out of nowhere and into the path of mine. I swerved around them with a deft flick of the steering wheel. and then suddenly the screen flashed to a turn, and then a tunnel, there were no transitions inbetween. And then an ambulance came up from the bottom of the screen and passed my car. More driving, then the road turned to ice, then narrowed to a bridge, and then flashed again to a turn. Cars would hit each other and fly into mine, but I kept steady and continued to drive. But out of nowhere a flock of cars flashed on the screen and plowed into mine, and the entire screen filled up with a pixelated explosion.

I looked over to the quaint digital readout of my score: 35k. I was #1. It must have been the beer, or my many years as a delivery driver for a Temp agency, but here, in this barcade, I had found my calling, an obscure Sega racing game. I put my name on the high score list.

And soon everyone in the barcade had swarmed me. They lifted me up on their shoulders chanting my name, I took a burbon shot and felt the warm embrace of the universe….what.

New York, Day 2.

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 19:38:35 -0400

I wake up covered in beer cans and crushed expectations, the blinding Brooklyn sun making it’s existence known, rudely. Already someone was up and tapping away at a typewriter.

“This is shit, utter shit. Shit shit shit” the someone said, tapping furiously. He puffed a cigarette as he went, a beret covering some very messy hair. His coffee stained striped turtleneck. The terrible goatee that no one had the heart to say “Hey man that looks like a collection of pubic hair and you would probably get non-crazy women to talk to you if you shaved it off”

This was Garret.

He looked at me and said “Ah, you’re the Philly boy that Burgress was talking about”

“The same” I said, wiping the stale beer from my eyes

“Pity” he says “How about them eagles?” before returning to his typewriter.

Us three walked to the local cafe for a local delacy: Cream Cheese and a hint of bagel. I was not accosted once the entire half block, and even witnessed someone throw refuse in a garbage can. Remarkable.

“All my writing is shit” Garret whined

“Nonesense” Burgress replied, and then he thought about it for a while before saying “Yeah it’s pretty shite”

Garret looked to me with mornful eyes and asked what I thought of his novella, which I had accidentally mistook for a hilarious meta novella that was meant to be purposfully terrible.

“Oh…well” I began “It’s…..nice”

“You hate it!” he shouted

“Yes” I said.

Taking the weekend off in NYC

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 20:58:25 -0400

It was just after we crossed the Ben Franklin bridge when the driver came on the intercom:

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I have some bad news. We have entered New Jersey”

I was on a double-decker tour bus to New York city. A ticket purchased on a whim, a weekend trip to Anywhere but Philadelphia. I needed to know what it was like to be human again. To breathe. To use a reliable transit system. To experience something close to an arts-scene. People in New York are always slightly envious when I tell them what I rent for, but then the counter with “Well, yeah, that’s in Philly”

I needed to see someone, anyone, and get my mind off of things for a few days. I told work I was going, and secretly this was revenge for having us work on Labor Day, and on Pi Day…and the birthday of Fred Rodgers. All of which are federal holidays. Fred Rodgers, i want to state, is my personal savior. Sometimes when I’m weepy at night, I play some very old tapes of his shows and curl myself up in a security blanket, downing a whole bottle of rum and sobbing quietly for a time when…..

Two hours later we entered the Lincoln Tunnel. We were deposited in the dreariest part of New York, that is, by 9th and 31st. There my good friend Burgress was waiting for me, clutching an Americano in one hand, and holding his fedora in the other. To this day he is the only creature I have met who can pull the fedora off, and he does so with gusto.

“It’s about attitude” He would say “You must BE the fedora. You must cross the threshold of not-pulling-it-off and wear it until it becomes a part of you. That fifth month where you’re wearing it and it just doesn’t work, and you feel like a phony and think about trashing it, that is the time when the fedora trancendance is almost there. And eventually…..”

Me and Burgress hug. He takes my tote and we head for the subway.

“You don’t use tokens?” I ask sheepishly, trying to purchase a Metrocard

“No” He replied “See, when you have a sports franchise that wins a national tournament, your city’s public transit is upgraded, it’s written in the Constitution…by the way, how about them Phillies?” he asked

We hop on the L train into Brooklyn, which appears just as a busker is sitting down and producing an Accordian.

We get off at morgan st. and emerge from the tiny station. It opens onto a quiet street. Warehouses converted into lofts are covered in graphitti. Around us locals are riding bicycles. No one is throwing trash in the streets, or swearing at each other. I tell burgress that I’m not comfortable until a passerby swears at me.

“Just mention Foucault” He says “And wait”

We arrive at his apartment. A loft shared with two art majors and a book seller. His room is the size of my closet, but he has managed to fit his bed, computer, couch, pinball machine, dresser drawers, and a bookshelf that goes up the ceiling. I gawk for a bit.

“My band is playing tonight down on Kent Street” Burgress mentions “we’re an Electro-Swing band, and I’m on Bass”

“What do we do until then?” I ask “What is there to do?”

“Tomorrow I shall take you to the Met” He says “and we will get lost in an orgy of human-made shit, and gawk like there is no tomorrow. and if we’re lucky, get to push one of those incredibly stupid french tourists”

“But really” He says “I must go to one of my five jobs needed to pay the rent. Sit tight and don’t touch anything”

“What do you do?” I ask

“I…” he trails off

“What’s the matter?” I ask

“It’s embarresing, I don’t tell many people about it” Burgress says.

“What is?” I ask

“Well. I go down to Greenwich Village every other day and….I dress up as a cat”

“Oh God, and you-” I say, startled

“and she pets me and we watch soaps all day” He says “I mean, it was through craiglist, and it’s really good money, and I’m in her will to inherit her Cutlass, but Oh my goodness those soaps can be boring. I was so excited when Ricki Lake went off the air. But the worst is when Nancy Grace gets obsessed with something, and then it’s 24 hours of THAT all day….as a cat” he says

“Oh” i say, nodding

“Where do you work?” he asks

“Reuters” I say “As a political corresponding”

Burgress gets all weepy, and pats me on the hand

“You poor thing” he says. Sniffling.

Blood on the tracks: recapping the Republican presidential debate

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 19:31:57 -0400

So there I was, sitting around the Reuters offices with nothing to do. Bob was playing a hearts game on the wheezy Packard Bell, while Tina the intern surfed Ask Metafilter and giggled to herself. Suddenly the editor busts in the room as everyone else tries to look busy. He tells us he knows what we’re up to, and he’s very disappointed in all of us. Our collective punishment is to report on the GOP presidential debate tonight. We decide on a round robin series of Quake 3 1v1 matches to decide who takes the fall, and tonight my strafe-jumping was not to snuff, and so I was off.

I arrived in the Ronald Reagan Library, the floor still dusty from the previous night’s monster truck rally. Before the audience a large stage had been reconstructed out of the disassembled hopes and dreams of America. (And Steel, I guess). On the stage was an array of podiums for each shell of a human that had traded personal dignity for political capitol. There were three panelists seated before the stage who would be asking the questions; Charlie the Unicorn (after a long sabbatical in Nova Scotia) , Teen Heartthrob Robert Patterson, and a Sun Microsystems server. A very rounded group, to say the last.

All eight candidates sauntered out in a grim fandango. Each taking their place behind the podium. The exception was a perky Michelle Bachmann, who did not blink once during the whole ordeal, her teeth fixed in a tight grin. They stood firmly at their posts, waiting for Carlos Mencia to come out and start the proceedings.

And Mencia did come out, he spoke eloquently about the problems our country faced, before suggesting that America returned to it’s Marxist Roots of decentralized production. He was just about to get his slides out for his proposed 5 year plan to increase wheat production when he was shooed off the stage. The debate began in earnest.

“Candidates” Charlie The Unicorn grumbled, reading from his cocktail napkin. “How would you solve America’s current credit rating downgrade and what would you do to get the country back it’s Triple A rating?”

Rick Perry was first, and he committed what was later deemed to be the biggest mistake of the night. He stood tall and began his statement.

“America’s credit rating has been gutted by the carelessness of our current administration. I want everyone here to know that I won’t handle it like Obama did, when I want you to imagine what I would do, I want you to remember the last time a Texas govener was in the white house-“

And at this, a small groan came from the audience. And slowly that groan became a moan, and that moan turned into howling, drowning out Perry. Soon the audience, myself included, was transfixed in a state of mortal dread, as the memories of He Who Shall Not Be Named penetrated our brain. Audience members started slapping themselves, hoping the immediate pain would distract them from the infinity painful memories. The audience writhed in the inverse of ecstasy, a scene straight out of Revelations.

Soon the organizers resorted to playing Earth Wind and Fire’s “September” to calm everyone down. The audience settled into an uneasy silence, with everyone giving Perry the Death Stare, myself included (Oh, journalistic integrity takes another hit!) and the rest of the candidates gave responses. Ron Paul brought up the gold standard, and Bachmann suggested re-instating slavery.

Robert Patterson asked the next question. “What would you do, candidates, to curb the national scrounge that is The Hipster?” We shuddered at that last word. Even Bachamann gave a small wince.

Perry was not allowed to speak for the rest of the debate, so it was Ron Paul’s turn. Considering a considerable amount of Ron Paul supporters are Hipsters, or suspected Hipsters, or friends of Hipsters, he was very light on their treatment, and this was not received positively. He countered by mentioning the Gold Standard, and how Firefly was a really great show and shouldn’t have been cancelled. This brought him back into favor.

Next came Santorum, the audience giggling when his name was beeped by the Sun Microsystems server. “I want to talk about” Santorum began “A little band, it’s really underground and you’ve probably never heard of it, it’s called U2.” He spent five minutes barating U2 as an obscure and unknown band that nobody would like, and the example of ur-Hipsterism, and how they should release a country album to atone for their sins.

I forget what the rest of the candidates said, as by then the Nite Train had kicked in and I passed out in a warm pile of Journalist and urine (some of it mine).

When I came to they had gotten out the platforms and ballpit, and were ready to begin the physical challenge portion of the debate. Candidates had to scale a wall while being pelted with lettuce heads (Purchased from local growers, and certified organic), and then assemble a bill while balancing on a slippery pole suspended over a large pool. Perry scaled the wall with ease, but a lettuce head beamed him in the face, and he was quickly on his rump, quietly crying to himself. Ron Paul was next, and quickly threw together a quality, bi-partisan bill with perfect balance and in record time, but this was overlooked as Bachmann was doing the splits on the top of the wall, dodging the last of the lettuce heads. Santorum had to sit this one out, producing a note from his doctor.

At last, the debate had ended, and scores were tallied up. Herman Cain had won by a staggering Unhandled Exception, while Rick Perry settled for an Integer Overflow. Bachmann and Paul had to settle for Unsigned Integers, and looked defeated. Carlos Mencia brought the evening to a close, and all of us watched as the 8 husks of flesh retreated behind the stage, each one having to pick themselves up tomorrow and do it all over again. I felt sorry for them. Who would want to be president?

America's last non-hipster

Sun, 04 Sep 2011 12:29:20 -0400

South Dakota: Journalists are flocking to one man in a double wide trailer in the middle of rural South Dakota. Vice magazine had published a whitepaper claiming that this man, a William Fredrickson, aged 45, was the last American who could not be described as a Hipster.

I was thrown into the press crew along with several photographers. We were sharing a tour bus with some scientists from Yale, who had come to see if this William had a cure to the Hipster Epidemic. I just needed to get out of DC for the weekend.

The hipster epidemic of the early 2010’s had taken many victims. Patient zero had been LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy, who exposed himself to dangerous amounts of Pretension and Cool when recording the hit “Losing my edge” and from there the virus spread like so much word of mouth. It was relentless, turning ordinary people into nuanced, fashion conscious and musically aware individuals. Nothing could cure the world of this scrounge of young people.

Perhaps it wasn’t the hipsters themselves, but the backlash that came with the lifestyle. Pretty soon everyone who wasn’t a hipster was complaining about hipsters, making them hipsters themselves. There was no logical escape. People tried wearing wolf shirts, drinking Michalobe light, and listening to the same White Snake tape over and over again in an attempt to be anything but hipster. This provided a temporary fix as hipsters rushed to buy 80’s hair metal tapes and post-ironic apparal with wolves and other woodland creatures.

So, with everyone’s collective money running out, and with Washed Out releasing their third album, it was a shock to the world to find someone who could not be described as a hipster, living in the boondocks of the upper midwest.

His trailer was on the end of a dusty road. Dozens of news vans from organizatiosn were parked outside, giving round the clock coverage of the discovery. Journalists and scientists were setting up camp, one group from CERN had brought a mobile spectrometer, and hoped to capture Williams essance of UnIrony, which, they added, could be a new element to the periodic table.

Authorities had set up a perimeter around the trailer to prevent William from getting infected. Radio signals had been jammed in the event that William would accidentally tune into the dozens of alternative stations that peppered the Dakotas. It had been discovered that he indeed had internet, but it was AOL Dialup. It too was cut off as a precaution. Here in South Dakota was one preserved specimin of Normalcy.

There was talk of placing the whole house and half acre in an underground storage facility so it could be studied in a controlled environment.

I however, snuck past the guards by bribing them with some Yaz tapes that I keep for just such an occasion (Security guards always like mid 80’s electro new wave, thanks Deus Ex). As I crept up to the trailer the beer cans and empty packs of cigarettes got thicker and thicker. I approached the door and gave it a hesitant knock.

“Hello?” he said, appearing at the door. He was a gruff, blue collar type of person. he had a faint double chin, a respectable beer gut, and was wearing an open, plaid shirt, exposing his unflattering figure. His pants were baggy enough to be functional, but not tight enough to cut off circulation. His boots were neither vintage nor trendy, I nearly fainted at the prospect.

“Wouldja mind telling me what the hell’s going on?!” William said in an exasperated tone. “They cut off my internet! The radio don’t work! I haven’t been able to leave the house in three weeks!”

I attempted to calm William down, who insisted on me calling him Bob, by telling him that he was a unique person who needed to be preserved for future scientific advances and that he “might have the cure to save all of us from the hipster epidemic”

“Think about it Bob, people will be able to drink PBR again and not feel guilty! Plaid shirts can be purchased without a second thought. Vice magazine will finally return to it’s former form, as a Stationary industry periodical. You’ll be known for generations, you’ll probably get a musical festival named after you, at the very least a tribute album from Neon Indian”

“Neon who?” Bob asked

“Neon Indian, they’re a chillwave band from-“

“Chillwha?” Bob asked again.

“It’s a musical genre, like if New Wave bands from the 80’s were really relaxed, but lived in 2008 and composed all of their music with a laptop” I said

I procured my ipad and queued up their last album to play it for Bob. At first he greeted it with a frown, but eventually he started bobbing his head to the beat, and a satisfied look went along his face.

Suddenly, he goes for his shirt and begins to button it up. It dawns on me that I’ve made a grave mistake and I maybe have only a few seconds to reverse the transformation from Normal to Hipster. I scramble for his haggard stero and rifle through the tapes to find something…anything…to reverse the process.

Eventually I come across what I thought was a Kansas tape, and jam it into the player hoping “Carry On My Wayward son” will cause Bob to come to his senses. Instead I hear the hiss of the tape, before the opening chords to Suicide’s “Ghost Rider” begin to play.

“Oh” Bob exclaims as he takes off his boots and puts on some Chuck Talors he happens to have in his closet “That’s Suicide, they’re like a punk-electronic group from the 70’s. You probably haven’t heard of them, real underground” he says, finishing off his PBR.

“OH GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE?!” I yell “No, we have to change. You need to open your shirt, and take those uncomfortable but trendy shoes off!”

I think that maybe if I can keep his appearance of irony as invisible as possible, then maybe I can pass him off as his former, non hipster identity long enough to make a get away. I tell him to go and shave the beard off as I try to tear apart all of the CBGB bootleg tapes he has. He emerges wearing gold American Apparel leggings and a headband. That’s when I know that there’s no saving him.

“Oh Bob nooo!” I shout, but it’s too late. He’s gotten his turntable out, and he’s playing a re-release of some 80’s new wave band and dancing around like an idiot. He takes down his commemorative nascar poster and puts up a large painting of Robotcop on a Unicorn which he claims he got off of Etsy.

I hear footsteps approaching the door, and a knock at the back. I have to split. I dive through the bedroom window, glass cutting into me, and scamper off into the night. I can’t imagine the scientist’s anguish right now. Maybe they might try to de-convert him, or maybe they’ll resign themselves to their fate, another dead end in the fight against the hipster. I feel an immense guilt wash over me as I run through the South Dakota twilight.

Bohner, Obama, and the Debt Ceiling

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 00:29:03 -0400

“I ain’t got no brainpower left!” Bohner yells, chucking his empty 40 Oz of Colt .45 across the conference table. The bottle skids past the head of President Obama, who is motionless at the sudden assault.

I had been the last journalist in DC willing to cover the Debt Ceiling negotiations. All others had to bring various recreational drugs with them in order to tolerate the metric-fucktons of political bullshit and had either run out of their organization’s supply of petty-cash to buy the drugs, or their dealers had run dry of that week’s stash. Either way, I was the last one available. I was taking diligent notes.

Bohner sits back down and reaches into his briefcase full of matted Subway napkins, each one with a separate Debt Ceiling expansion plan hastily scribbled on them. “Oh… well… Newt [Gingrich] wrote this one, it’s called the Shared Sacrifice for Americans Who Pulled Themselves Up On Their BootStraps Plan for America” he shouts, unfolding the napkin. He begins to list the demands

“50% from Medicaid, 50% from medicare, students who have taken out federal loans are forced into indentured servitude to local small businesses, taxpayers earning more than One Million dollars get %50 less taxes-“

“-from what point?” Obama interjects

“Oh” Bohner says, looking up, before tracing through the note to the proper subsection “thats…. %50 less than what they’re being taxed now-“

Obama interrupts again “That’s fine, keep going” he says, taking a drink from his Wawa coffee mug.

”..a repeal on the Healtcare act, required national airtime for Dan Savage, a primetime slot for a future remake of ‘Perfect Strangers’, a pony”

“Wait” Obama says “A pony? for who?”

“You know” Bohner says nervously “Gingrich”

“Gingrich want’s another pony?” Obama looks off to the side and into the distant DC skyline, and then breifly at me.

After getting sucked into Narnia last week, I had befreinded the Queen of the Winter, or someone similar. She wasn’t as evil as earlier reports had indicated, and was merely misunderstood. For a few weeks we ruled the land of Narnia with an even-handed but iron fist. That was until Google dispatched a rescue team for me, since I had been erroneously sent there due to a bug in Google+ and they wanted me to fill out a bug report. You may remember my last entry…. oh you didn’t read that… oh…

Anyway

“How about this” Obama says “We sell Alaska to the Russians, I think that’ll have us covered until the 2016 election, by then things’ll be up shit creek enough for you to get a shot at the Oval office, [Michelle] Bachmann will be knee deep in crazy, and Palin… well….” he trails off.

“No!” Bohner yells “The gang of 6 and a half won’t have it! Shared Sacrifice! Cut and Run!”

“That last one was Bush era” Obama interjects “The gang of six and a half said no to a lot of things”

“Even your proposal to make ‘Afternoon Delight’ the national anthem, but let me just say, for the record, that I was with you on that 100%…” he shoots a look at me “You wrote that down, right?!” he asks excitedly. I flash him my Lisa-Frank notebook, and he relaxes slightly.

“Good, can’t upset the base” he sighs.

Bohner slumps down into his chair, staring into Obama’s hazel eyes with a desperate gaze.

“I’ve tried everything John” Obama says, sitting back in his chair “I even gave Gingrich that pony he’s been wanting”

“He loves Buttercup, by the way, won’t stop talking about her” Bohner interjects.

“I bet” Obama says, before taking a sip of his Capri Sun.

The talks dragged on for several more hours, with each side to take a break to watch the latest episode of The Maury Povich show. (Was not the father, if you were curious). Eventually both sides dragged their respective asses back into the room to shout at each other some more.

By now, Obama is several coffee cups worth of Rum into a good buzz, Bohner has finished his 5th 40 Oz and is rounding the corner from being incoherent to articulating complicated federal budget concepts. Negotiating in DC is like drunken boxing, in that it requires copious amounts of alcohol.

“50% off medicare! and have the Army Corp of Engineers peel Rhode Island off, it’s not even a state!” Bohner yells

“Done!” Obama yells, throwing his hands up “And while we’re at it, let’s sell back Alaska to the Russians, what were we doing with it anyway?” He asks.

“Yeah!” Bohner yells “Fuck yeah, what else can we get rid of?”

“I never liked Dancing With the Stars, can we cut that?” Obama asks

“The Gang of Six and a Half won’t like it, but I think we can hack it if we also get one of their grandkids on American Idol” Bohner says “They want to be a singer”

“Okay, I think we’re all set” Obama finally says “there’s just one more thing, I think we shouldn’t use the Papyrus font for the header, I don’t think it’s appropriate”

Bohner’s grin vaporizes, and suddenly his eyes narrow as he pounds his fist into the table

“NO!” He yells “PAPYRUS STAYS”

“John-” Obama begins, but it’s too late. Bohner is all but hulking out at this point, and flips the whole table in one swooping motion.

“Nice form” Obama says calmly as Bohner storms out.

I march out, head reeling. I walk out of the White house and down to the local Wawa for some delicious coffee. As I wash down the 3rd hoagie of the day with some French Vanilla and too much half-and-half, I realize that the nation’s debt problems are basically unsolvable by a group of drunken politicians, and proceed to curl up into a ball and weep to myself.

Google+, first impressions

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 01:27:08 -0400

“Come to the corner of 5th and Wall, wear a bright orange shirt, and yell ‘IDDQD’ and wait” said the email from the google+ team. I did this and they threw me into a panel van (why does this always happen to me?) and they dropped me off on the edge of DC with a slip of paper, this was my google+ invite.

Google+ is google’s answer to MySpace…or Friendster…or Xanga. I’m not sure yet. After playing with it for a few hours I feel like I have a good handle on it. Google is running a limited beta right now, and handing out just enough passes to make invites more valuable than crude oil during a slow week in politics.

The first thing I did when I got the account was to troll my contacts for invites. I gave away one to my friend working at Bethesda to get a sneak peek at Skyrim (not sure why they put in a skateboarding turtle, game design is weird). I gave another one to Supreme Court Justice Scalia, not sure what he’s gonna do with it, but he said he’s pay me back. I told him he owes me x2 for Bush V. Gore and he flipped me off.

Anyway, the whole interface is a WebGL implementation of the Quake 3 engine. You navigate through fully 3D world, shooting walls with your rockets to select things. It’s a little buggy, but it works. I accidentally fragged google’s representation avatar in the middle of a tutorial with a group of people. Thankfully, google has kept in strafe-jumping, so I was able to get away quickly before getting fragged.

I wandered around the photo and video section, it lets you upload anything from your hard drive to the cloud, so I chose Sisqo’s masterpiece “The Thong Song” as the first thing to upload. That’s when google’s DCMA bots descended upon me like locusts! About five of them, all brandishing railguns! By the time they had reached the upload pavilion though, the song had started and distracted most of them, except for one! He took a few shots at me but missed, because the best defense against railguns is the smallest avatar (In this case, the Skeleton). My buddy Chan taught me that, dude is a pro.

I wandered around the map some more, there are three levels of Google+. The first level is “Circles.” In circles you find groups of your freinds that are related in some way, like College Buddies, or People Who Can’t Stand Two And A Half Men (there were so many it caused a stack overflow and the server locked up, that’s why it’s a beta, I guess). Anyway, the main activity in Circles is Invite Circle, where you and your Circle get into a Circle, tossing spare invites into the center. When the pile grows big enough, some poor sap breaks from the circle and dives in, grabbing as many invites as they can, while the rest of the group plasters the poor sap with plasma guns. I’m a scrappy fellow, and I managed to grab a few before limping away. I’m going to spend a few Invites getting new hats in TF2.

I descended another level, into Hangouts. Hangouts is, essentially, Skype, but with Youtube and Ustream thrown in for good measure, with tweeting, and facebook integration. Lots of HTML5, it was pouring through the cracks. I started a Hangout with several survivors of the Circles group. At this point the webcam light came on and I had to rush to hide all of the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic paraphernalia that litters my apartment (It’s like crack! I can quit when I want!). Luckily, the two other people in my group were also hiding things ahead of the sudden use of a webcam, I guess some people are really really into Samurai Pizza Cats, in a way that would make Freud blush. After the cleanup, there was nothing more to say, as all three of us stared at each other, our faces covered in shame. Already, google+ is forcing deep introspection upon me.

I went down one more level, into Sparks. Sparks is like google Buzz only somehow more obnoxious. I didn’t understand it at first, it was like every other buzz-filled Web 2.0 doo-dad that comes across TechCrunch every morning like so many digital barnacles. Sparks lets you type in your interests, and you’ll get a feed of those interests from all over the internet. At first, I started with something simple: Cats. Sparks regurgitated cats from all over the internet. I decided to throw it a curve ball, and put in the short lived subjenre of House music popularized by the song “Cotton Eyed Joe” by Rednex: dubbed “Country House”. Then, Sparks delivered not just every Country House track in HD, as well as a list of Country House clubs and DJs that were playing within my zipcode, and a live feed of Toby Keith recording a secret Country House track. It was just him hunched over a Roland TB-303 and singing about cheap beer. Can’t wait.

But then, I asked Sparks to get me some info on my favorite subject of all: Tom Selleck! It turns out Tom Selleck is a secret dev keyword that unlocks the hidden 4th level of Google+, known as Google++. Google++ is a onvergence of all layers of Google+ into a single mobile app (if you don’t have a mobile phone, google just mails you one, I got five on accident because I hit the “Go” button a few times before it noticed, anyone want some spare Android phones?)

Well, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to use those extra phones anytime soon, as soon as I engaged Google++ I was enveloped in a vortex of plasma and light that emitted from the handset. I tumbled through a wormhole, clutching the phone as I hurled downward (or upward?) at great speed.

And then suddenly I landed in….snow? I dug up and emerged from the snow drift, shivering slightly. I was in a snow covered forest, and on my left I saw a gas lamp, just kinda standing there. Shit. I think this is Narnia, you guys.

Writer's block sucks.

Sat, 25 Jun 2011 18:44:44 -0400

Readers (All five of you now!) are probably wondering what happened after escaping Taco Bell. My editor apologized for selling me, but the article ended up getting stolen picked up by The Huffington Post, and made them a “metric buttload” of internet hits. And apparently they were able to call off the Taco Bell Asset Protection Squad by buying me back, obsensivly with these “Internet Hits”

My editor was very apologetic. Not realizing what a renewable source of income I was at the time. In the week I was gone, Gearbox Software, the game developer responsible for absorbing and releasing Duke Nukem Forever called, wondering how I had managed to get my hands on a super-secret build of the game that was not meant for public consumption. Apparently I sound just like John Carmack when I’m on Skype.

It was a Friday evening when I came back into the offices to the empty computer boxes that was my desk. I started trying to come up with a new column, and suddenly my mind went blank!

“Goddamn it *REDACTED* ” My manager growled, “Can’t you write?, I’m not paying you to sit here and crank out Viral blog posts”

I complained that I had nothing to write about, since Sarah Palin was out of DC and Michelle Bachmann was at the Mayo Clinic for her semi-annual shedding (it’s a dreadful procedure, can’t blame her for taking the week off, oy).

Writer’s block sucks. Because basically the longer you go without publishing, you have the problem of a decrease in output, as well as lowered standards. Things have to be *perfect* in order to publish again. And if you break that perfect streak, then suddenly you aren’t on the front page of the Huffington Post. And your dreams crumble right before your eyes. Hearbreaking.

To try to break the writer’s block, I do what any other self-hating writer would do, and that’s go to starbucks and drink a shitton of coffee and pretend to write. Naturally when you do this, you’re self concious of the fact that you’re writing in starbucks, which has very negative connotations in society. Why, I could be at home, playing World of Warcraft, or at the Grist Mill, milling grist.

Starbucks has such a bad rap for being a “2nd home” to creative types. What else am I gonna do? WORK? fuck that, nobody works, not “In this economy.” I soon became one of those people that are at starbucks when you come in, and when you leave they’re still there. If they got up to leave, you’re all like “Oh my I should leave too, I don’t want to be here all day” but if you leave before they do you’re like “At least I wasn’t here as long as THAT guy” and eventually I became That Guy, and the feeling you get is rather awful.

I had written about a dozen half-assed articles, each on progressivly more difficult and expensive topics. For one I spent five days in an a near-abandoned mall trying to get the high score on the last remaining San Francisco Rush arcade machine that was operating in the country. In another, I went to Charlie Sheen’s last stop on his Violent Torpedo of Truth tour, which ended with him passed out in a pool of vomit and urine on stage. Dignified to be sure.

In the end, I remember the words of one of my great colleges, Robert T. Sylus (Who’s working for a San Francisco based game developer Double Fine as a bunny, the game industry is weird) Those words are “Half assed is the only way to break a dry-spell” and I would have them tattooed on my arm if my arm were not covered in fur.

Sold to Taco Bell!

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 03:35:47 -0400

Now reader(s! there’s two of them now!) I don’t want you to think that my employment prospects are bottoming out with Reuters, it’s exactly the opposite. Last week they found a way to keep me on the payroll, but it’s a bit complicated. Allow me to explain.

Yum! Brands (they insist on adding the exclamation point) recently started a new “youth oriented” internship program with their Taco Bell franchises targeted at households with “shit-high debt” (their terminology). The franchise will pay back debts owed to a household (or entity, in this case Reuters) if they send one of the residents to work in their “Career head-start” program…without pay…for an indefinite amount of time…

Now, dear readers, I’ve gotten myself out of a jam on several occasions. I wasn’t fazed when two burly, Old Spice scented individuals scooped me up and put me into a burlap sack. I didn’t flinch when they threw that sack into the back of what I’m assuming is a 1990’s Chevy Astro van (they all smell like PEE!). And when they dumped me out into a collection cell with other, newly minted and frighted “Taco Artists” who were all shivering with fright, I stood stoic among them. And when they handed out our Black with very-tacky Purple taco-bell uniforms I didn’t bat an eye.

No, it was when we were shown the training video, a batterd tape shoved into a haggared VCR hooked up to a burnt-out TV monitor on the most ragged of TV carts.

The screen faded from black to… a Pre-Kill Bill David Carridine. “Greetings” he said. That’s when it hit, I hung my head. I looked up at the screen, tears in my eyes, as LL Cool J came in from stage right and the two started “The Tex-Mex rap” and that’s when I arced my back and howled with sorrow at the nightmare that my life had become.

I could feel my soul being ripped from my ribs. In the middle of “The Tex Mex rap”, DJ Jazzy Jeff appeared dressed as a large taco, and demonstrated the “7 steps to a quality taco” while lines of static crawled up the screen as the ancient magnetic tape held it’s wrenched self together, to spite another group of unfortunate Taco Bell associates. Half the room went into hysterics, while the other half remained catontonic at the horrors before them. By the end of the tape all but a few were willing to jump into a shift, mop floors, make tacos, ANYTHING but watch that tape again.

My first duty was to stir the cauldron of nacho cheese during the lunch shift. It was hard, grueling work. Every once in a while I would have to run to the freezer to make more cheese. To make Taco Bell cheese first you find a block of frozen orange cheese powder, the proper procedure is to let this thaw on it’s own, but we’d typically place it by one of the grease trap vents to expedite the process. Then, you pour the box into one of the large mixing bowls (with cheese gunk left over from the last batch) Pour in two heaping cupfuls of MSG powder, and add a salt-shaker full of salt. Then pour this into the cauldron. I could never make it fast enough and keep stirring. I heard a rumor that one clever Taco Artist had escaped the Taco Bell Career Head-Start Program by diving into the vat, waiting until the next shift, and was served with a side of stale ships to an oblivious customer.

There are a lot of rumors among Taco Bell Taco Artists. One of them is that on every full moon, the ghost of David Carridine comes down and scatters the papers of the shift manager, allowing us precious time to lap up some pepsi off the floor that’s been thrown into our drive through window after an “icing” prank by some Communications undergrads.

Another rumor is that if one drinks four Dale-Earnhardt-Jr-commemorative-jumbo cups of Mt. Dew Baja Blast in under an hour, one gains special powers not unlike liquefied cocain. One of the younger Taco Artists was able to get to two cups before succumbing to “The Baja Shakes” and was relegated to nacho-stirring duty for the rest of the week.

It was on a fateful Friday night that I hit a turning point. I was deep in the weeds behind a large taco order. 5 Quisadillas, 3 Beef Baha burritos, 4 Chruny Gourdita beef beirocks, 1 fish taco (must have had a Catholic with them) 3 Jersey Shore “The Situation” branded Taco Rolls, battered with Jagermeister (it’s not real Jager, and they come pre-battered in a large plastic bag, the ones on the bottom are soaked [oy]). I was halfway through the Gourditas when my manager shouted at me and shoved one of the Beef Bajas in my face.

“You see this?!” He shouted, pointing madly.

“No” I said, earnestly, my mind racing.

“Well, there’s FOUR fucking olives in here, you’re only supposed to add THREE for every Baja Beef Burritos” He screamed, spiking the mass of cardboard-wrapped grade J beef on the floor.

“But” I insisted “Burritos have FOUR!” I whimpered.

“NO!” shouted my manager “That’s the fucking CHICKEN burritos, Beef get THREE, unless we’re holding a Fourthmeal promotion, is it 2am yet?!” he bellowed.

I stared at the clock, we were two minutes into the Fourthmeal promotional hour, I had forgot to check the clock and added the olive, figuring I had spent enough time cleaning the fish for the fish taco to make it count. My boss was livid. I was red with shame/mortal fear.

“Goddamn it, you’re watching the video again, after a double-shift on the nacho vat” He said.

My knees buckled as I fell to the ground in a pile, whimpering. I curled into the fetal postion. My darkest hour.

“Not the video, not David Carridine, not ‘The Tex Mex Rap’…again!” I cried, rocking and clutching myself.

That’s when I looked up and saw them. Included in the monster order were four Dale-Earnhardt-Jr-commemorative-jumbo cups of Mt. Dew Baja Blast. It was now or never. By cup one I could feel the Baja shakes coming on, by two they were more severe but I held my ground, by the third my vision was tinted blue, and I was sweating High-Furctose corn syrup.

And then. Four.

My boss rounded the corner, his eyes met mine, and he glanced down at the four empty Dale-Earnhardt-Jr-commemorative-jumbo cups scattered on the floor.

“You sonofa-” he started. But it was too late, I opened my maw and unleashed a great torrent of highly-acidic vomit, burning his clothes and a hole in the wall though which I ran, at high speed, into, breaking out and onto freedom. It was as if another spirit had taken over my body, using it as a vessel for it’s destructive, Baja flavored vengeance.

When I came to I was nakers, save for the Taco Bell Career Head-Start commemorative ear-pin, which I ripped out, drawing blood. I gripped in my hands, crushing it, eyes narrowing, as blood dripped down my side. The day was mine again as the sun rose over DC.

Oh dear, my one reader, things have gone downhill ever since my...

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 03:32:20 -0400

Oh dear, my one reader, things have gone downhill ever since my review of the Duke Nukem Forever demo. I am unable to sleep, as I find myself currently living under a bridge south of DC. My only friend is a bottle of raspberry flavored Cisco. Thankfully I have just been given a raise by Reuters and will soon be able to live in the offices like every good worker.

Times have been tough around the DC newsrooms. I know that news reporting on the news is a bit like taking a camel ride at a monster truck rally, or mastubation, depending on your taste in metaphors. There has been an epidemic of writers block, to put it lightly, that was until last week when I as given an all access press pass to E3. the game industry’s version of Springtime for Hitler.

There I was, slackjawd and looking up at the tower above me, a 20 story tall billboard for “Brown color pallet shooter 3: this time it’s not in mesopotamia”. This was gaming at it’s most raw form. I marched fourth into the gran spectacle. My first stop was a sideshow of horrors and flailing arms known as the Microsoft keynote.

First on stage for the microsoft keynote was none other than Steve Balmer. The sweat on his brow was so great the surface of it had become semi-reflective, and he was using it to light the way for people who were coming in late, a veritable Star odf David. He started the show by stating that the company ‘s newest technology, the motion sensor atrocity known as Kinect, was so successful that all developers working for Microsoft were going to integrate it into their games, or get shit to death. I’m not sure what “shit to death” entails, I assume its a west coast thing.

The first game to be featured was the goddamned sequel to “the goddamn game that comes with Kinect!” It was “the goddamn game that does not come with Kinect ” where users flail their arms to perform actions on screen. One demonstration had a user jump in time with a beat to shoot a gun in the latest incarnation for “Brown color pallet shooter 3” which is how all actions will be performed in game.

Next was a big surprise : Tim Schafer! Ever the catch, tim strutted out on stage. The stocky game developer had just wrapped up development of Psychonauts 2: never say die and was ready to introduce the next Kinect title.

With the wave of his arm and the wisp of his salt n peppa stache he revealed “brutal Kinect ” a heavy metal and motion controlled air guitar bonanza. The audience whooped and hollared with as much enthusiasm as a sexually stunted and mysoganistic male gaming market could muster. For one beautiful moment, they forgot that a womans butt was not being slapped by duke nukem on screen.

When tim was done, he was whisked away on wires and flew over the crowd, evaporating into the catwalk, leaving us to ponder if heaven really is a place on earth.

That night I was hit by the promotional taco truck for the game “grey color pallet shooter 3” and was in hospital for a week, too late to file the story, but I’m in games, reality is just an obstacle.

Playing the Duke Nukem Forever Demo

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 03:20:35 -0400

After a particularly bad argument with my editor, I was greeted with an email from a friend who had a demo key to duke nukem forever. After some effort I downloaded the demo and summarilly played it.

The game opens up to a bathhouse, but it’s not any kind of bathhouse, it’s one of those Turkish ones with the waiters that bring you hot soups, and everyone is naked, but the game pixilates out the nudity. All the men are burly, hairy creatures who talk with extened vocabulary, the voice acting was amazing.

I spent the first half hour in the game in conversation with the NPCs, one of them had a delightful anicdote about the time he fought the Zulus with his mech unit, and at that point the game cut to the flashback! Suddenly there I was, piloting a georgeously rendered timberwolf mech over the jungles of Africa, knee deep in mechanized Zulu mechs. The controls were pitch perfect, as I kept wave after wave of Zulus at bay with the monstorus flamethrowers.

And just as suddenly, the game cut back to the Turkish Bathhouse, and I was getting a massage from a very attractive young woman, who got up and beaconed me out of the room. I followed her down a hall and caught a glimpse of my avatar in game. Duke is a dapper, strapping fellow, with a stovetop hat and mutton chops going down to his chin. He has a tasteful amount of chest hair and, judging by the size of the censored area, average sized genitals, and this made me feel better about myself and the choices I’ve made in life.

So anyway, down the hall again, and this time into a changing room. I was then prompted to select and outfit. I chose a dashing flannel shirt, with some jeans, workboots, and rainbow suspenders. The game’s clothing editor is so precise, I was even able to outfit duke with a red handkerchief in his right back pocket!

I continued outside the Turkish Bathhouse, and there they were. The Aliens. An dropship wooshed over and down the road, about 1/4th of a mile (not sure, this game being Metric and all) and the drop ship dropped a 5 story tall monstrosity of a boss. And soon I was handed a… could it be? The PowerFist from Quake 3! Oh what times I had with this back in the day, smashing about with my freinds online. Good times.

I put two and two together, and verily pressed the W and Shift keys in unison to make Duke sprint forward. The movements were so fluid, with each jump Duke gained speed. Faster and faster until soon I had gone plaid! All the textures turned into a plaid pattern, blending into a sublime audiovisual experience. This must be, I reasoned, what a religious experience feels like.

One more jump and I’ve reached the speed of sound (according to the game’s HUD) and I press the left mouse button to activate the PowerFist and BLAM, I go right on through, punching a Duke sized hole through the boss. He collapses in a beautifully rendered heap, blood pouring out through firehose sized veins. In his native tounge (which the game has subtitles for) the alien laments his decision to go to war, and leaves us all something to think about.

The demo fades out and goes to the next level. A driving stage! This time I’m driving a 1960 Chevy Corvair on a rally stage. And my co driver is none other than Ralph Nader! Also Circa 1960. He’s a dashing fellow who gives great driver updates. Even though I’m using a keyboard, the controls are still fantastic, and I’m able to have a kind of flow through the turns.

But soon… Aliens again! Me and Ralph ditch the car, and brandish weapons from the trunk. I’m armed with a Walther PPK, and Ralph has a Hello Kitty branded AR-15. We make short work of the waves of aliens, but a surprise attack from a sniper (goddamn AWPS!) fells Nader. I angrily retaliate, killing the sniper and the den of orphaned, self-aware woodland creatures that were under his care. I go back to Ralph, who is fading fast. In a touching moment, Duke cradles Nader in his last moments, I use the right mouse button to close his beautiful eyes one last time.

But now I’m HOT STONKING ANGRY. and I’m ready to KILL AGAIN. I hop back into the Corvair and gun it, accidentally running over Ralph Nader’s ragdoll, which bounces to the side comically. I drive down the road and jump a ravine, spectacularly. I land and there are…more aliens! It looks like the aliens are on a field trip! I get out of the Corvair and brandish the Hello Kitty AR-15, emptying clip after clip into the pesky Aliens. The chaperone aliens are taller, but they’re hunched over and crying over the deaths of the child aliens (such realistic AI!) so they’re easy to kill.

Once all the alien children (and their chaperones) are killed, the game goes into Head-On-a-spike designer mode! Where you can place the head of the slain on spikes and add doo-dads and hats (which can be purchased in the in-game store).

After I was done, the game faded to a cutscene of Duke…on trial! for crimes against living creatures! The camera faded in as the alien prosecuter listed the charges: First degree, second degree, third degree, and Nth degree murders. Spoiling the ending to Twin Peaks. Loitering. Drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon despite knowing better. The list went on and on, as the camera tightened in on Duke. He lifed his glasses and winked at the camera, and it faded to black. Oh boy!

This is where the demo ends, sadly. The game comes out June 14th, 2021! Just a few days after Half Life 2: Episode 3, City 17 Carwash! Going to be a busy week!