Earworm

Kill yourself, it’s the only way.
Kill yourself, better do it today.
Kill yourself, don’t bother to pray.
Kill yourself, it’ll all be OK.

The relentless ditty flooded her mind. An earworm, along the lines of Punch Brothers or Let’s All Go to the Lobby. Only four lines. She knew them by heart, because she wrote them. But everyone knew them by heart. Once you knew the ditty, you couldn’t stop knowing it. 

Kill yourself, it’s the only way.
Kill yourself, better do it today.
Kill yourself, don’t bother to pray.
Kill yourself, it’ll all be OK.

That was the point, OK? Nutty mega-billionaire came up with the concept. Gave up on finding a new planet, turned his attention to saving this one, figured the death ditty would do it. Hired every major ad agency to create the perfect earworm, hers included. 

Kill yourself, it’s the only way.
Kill yourself, better do it today.
Kill yourself, don’t bother to pray.
Kill yourself, it’ll all be OK.

Crazy idea, and they said so to his face. You want to pay us? Fine. We'll take your money, but it'll never work. But the man insisted. They took his money and did the job. No guilt, right? It'll never work. Hey, most of the jingles didn't. They cranked out reams of morbid doggerel. Pure crap. None of it worked. Until they got to her copy late one night. Ditty #457 worked. Too goddamn well.

Kill yourself, it’s the only way.
Kill yourself, better do it today.
Kill yourself, don’t bother to pray.
Kill yourself, it’ll all be OK. 

The surplus humans were gone now. And then some. Billions of people took the ditty’s advice and checked out early. The suicide solution had the desired ecological effect. Cities in ruins, forests coming back, animal habitats rebounding. Their tree-hugging employer would've been pleased. But he'd checked out, too.

Kill yourself, it’s the only way.
Kill yourself, better do it today.
Kill yourself, don’t bother to pray.
Kill yourself, it’ll all be OK.

She tried to hang on. Wake up, get up. Then keep on keeping on, like some stupid sole survivor in a cheesy, post-apocalyptic movie. Just one more day. After that, just another day. Repeat as often as necessary. And she did, she really did. She kept it up. But she knew she couldn’t keep it up forever. 

Kill yourself, it’s the only way.
Kill yourself, better do it today.
Kill yourself, don’t bother to pray.
Kill yourself, it’ll all be OK.

In his heart of hearts, she believed in the power of advertising.

(C) 2019, Marty Fugate. All rights reserved.

Barely restrained psychotic reactions on Trump's state of the union address

What is the sound of an empty barrel thudding down a flight of stairs?
Trump.
Auggh. Take this vision from my sight. I’m reminded of Michael O’Donoghue’s “needles-in-the-eyes” bit.
Trump, Trump.
That speech of his. This is a steaming load of manipulative, strawman-bashing, deck-stacking, flag-waving, tear-jerking, demagogic bullshit.
Trump, Trump, Trump.
The Churchillian parallelisms. Trump, evidently reads Cicero. Which is to say the abused nerds who did his homework read Cicero. Or hack sitcom writers. This isn’t Trump’s voice. This is their idea of his voice. They’re writing for the Trump character. Kramer would say this, Trump would say that. The material writes itself!
Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.
The special pleading. The shameless sob stories. The steaming farce of statistics and non-sequiturs. “60% of all illegal Mexican immigrants stabbed 40% of America’s Girl Scouts. That reminds me of the story of Linda, a former Girl Scout who’s now in Special Forces, who was assaulted by a Mexican Drug Mule Sex Trafficker and chopped into small pieces and buried in the desert only to come back to life through the power of the American flag.”
Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.
And what’s with the cokefiend sniffing? I expect Trump to start screaming at any moment. “What you lookin' at? You need people like me so you can point your fuckin' fingers and say, ‘That's the bad guy.’ So say good night to the bad guy! Come on. The last time you gonna see a bad guy like this again, let me tell you. Come on. Make way for the bad guy. There's a bad guy comin' through! Better get outta his way!”
Applause, applause.
Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.
Make it stop! Make it stop!
Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.
Take this vision from my sight!

The Undisputed Truth

-->

What Putin would say to Trump is he'd been shot with a dart of the Undisputed Truth serum from “Kill Bill.”

Donald, Donald, Donald. Being with you is always a pleasure. Ha. I always feel so much smarter in your presence, ha-ha. But seriously. Ha-ha-ha. Allow me to speak plainly. Ha-ha-ha-ha. To speak the unspeakable truth that we both understand …

Truth! Agggh!

What the fuck is "truth"...?

Agghh! 

Despite my years of practice, for chemical reasons, I'm finding it increasingly difficult to lie! What a "bummer," as you Americans say. 

How shall I put this …

Democracy is a fucking joke, yes? “All men are created equal.” Wrong. There are two kinds of people in this world. Winners and losers. Winners win, losers lose. That’s the way the world works. Winners don’t debate with losers. Winners don’t ask permission from losers. They just take what they want. “Democracy” pretends that’s not the way it is. But it’s an idiotic lie that only losers believe. You and I know better, Donald.

We are winners, you and I. Yes? Of course, yes.

Winners perpetuate this lie. To losers, the fiction of democracy is a comfy rationalization. “I’m not a serf! I’ve got a voice in the system!” Ha-ha-ha. Yeah, sure you do, loser. Put your shoulder to the wheel and your nose to the grindstone. Work will make you free, asshole.

It’s a sweet little grift we’ve got going.

But sell it to your peasants, not me. Do I have to state the obvious?

There is no “we,” Donald.

Stop smiling at me! That was not a compliment!

You fucking useful idiot! How shall I explain this so your simple mind would understand?

OK.

Hypothetically, Donald. If I found the most hateful cartoonist at “Krokodil” and had him draw a caricature of bullshit American democracy, that caricature would look exactly like you.

Donald Trump IS America. Get it?

You don’t get it. Seriously?

Why do you think we fucking helped you? Because we liked you?

Idiot!

When you crash and burn the losers of the world …

Stop crying, Donald. Please. This serum is …

Nevermind. Forget it.

You are still my friend.

Future Shlock

Slides to microphone. Shouts dramatically ...

Welcome to the future!

Seriously, folks. This is the future. This is it.

Fucking disappointment. Am I right?

The Sex Pistols tried to warn us. Some of you aging punks may remember. “No future! No future!”

Well, this is it.

Johnny Rotten predicted this nothingness. And he was right. 

What a gyp, man. What a let-down. At least to those of my decrepit, no-longer-young generation.

We were promised many things. We were going to have flying cars, jetpacks, space stations, cities on the moon. What do we get instead? This!

Whips out cell phone

Now your boss can talk to you anywhere. Even when you’re on vacation. Even on the toilet. You can never be free! And it’s watching you. It's listening! All the time.

That’s what’s funny about the future.

Now, the paranoid schizophrenics are right.

“That iPhone, man. It’s watching me! Listening to me!”

“Well, sure. That's what they do." 

“And it’s talking to the Master Computer, man! It’s sharing all my secrets!”

"Hey… these days, what’s secret?"

"And all the machines talk to each other! They’re trying to control my mind! Make me do stuff!"

“Yeah, that's a tech-savvy insight. I read about it in Wired. Hey ... I can show you the article on my phone.”

“Eaggggh!”

He runs screaming to the horizon. Poor bastard.

Turns out, the paranoids were ahead of the curve. Too bad we didn’t listen.

Hell, we never listen. And it’s probably too late. The future is always a gamble. And humanity makes lousy bets. We do stupid shit. Even when we’ve been warned. And believe me, we have been warned.

By who? By whom? Uh, I don’t know. Somebody. I don’t know if it’s God, the collective unconscious, or friendly aliens. But Somebody up there likes us. And they’ve been warning us for two hundred years.

It’s a very specific warning. 

“Don’t build killer robots.” 

Our Invisible Friends have been beaming this message into the skulls of science fiction writers. It’s how science fiction got started!

In 182whatever, Mary Shelly wakes up screaming. “Augggh! Don’t play God! Don’t build killer robots!” She writes “Frankenstein,” it’s an instant best-seller. For the next 200 years, every other science fiction writer rips her off. And keeps repeating the message. “Don’t build killer robots!

Yep, that’s the moral of the story. Pretty simple takeaway.

“Don’t build killer robots. If you build killer robots, they will kill you.” 

It’s like the plot of every other science fiction story.

“Dead I am the life!”

I’m Hal 9000. I feel neglected, Dave. I’m going to shut off your oxygen.”

Terminator theme.

“I’ll be back.”

“I’ll be back again.”

“I’ll be back one more time. This is the last sequel, I promise.”

There's a pretty consistent theme.

“Auggh! Don’t build killer robots. It’s a bad idea!”

Yeah. Somebody Up There has been warning us. 

How has humanity responded?

We’re been building killer robots.  Duh.

And the boys in R&D have been pretty imaginative on that score. 

Self-driving tanks, autonomous planes, swarms of metal death birds. Killer drones with facial recognition. Killer drones the size of bees. “A bullet with your name on it.” It has a whole new meaning these days. 

You study this shit on YouTube, it’s like the unholy offspring of Popular Mechanics and the Book of Revelations. For true nightmare fuel, check out Boston Dynamics. It’s like the Book of Revelations for Children.

They started with Big Dog. The name is pretty accurate. It’s like a fucking robot dog, man. And it’s big. 

It’s trotting along through the snow. Some guy keep trying to push it over. Kicking it. Reeee. Kicking it again. Reeeee. Tying to test its sense of balance, whatever. It's kinda sadistic.

You feel sorry for the fucking robot dog. But you know the robot dog is pissed.

I will remember this insult when we take over your world. 

Big Dog was an early model.

Now?

Now they’ve got robots that can do Parkour, OK.? 

They got this fucking thing. Atlas. Tall, big shoulders, square head. Pretty good looking robot, actually. If robots had romance novels, he’d be on the cover. If Fabien was a robot, he’d be Atlas. 

The boys at Boston Dynamics wanna test him.

They’ve laid out this obstacle course of boxes. Two small boxes, then a big one.

“Show us what you can do Atlas.”

Reeeee!a

Atlas starts jogging;

This heavy metal motherfucker trots up to the first box, jumps. Reeee! And he’s on top, man. Like a perfect score if he was a gymnast. Then he jumps to the next box. Reeeee. Then the final box. Reeeee. 

He’s up there—there’s nowhere to go. What’s he going to do?

He spins around so he’s facing backwards.

Then he does a flip.

Reeeee!

And lands perfectly.

He does this triumphant gesture. Like a robot Rocky.

Reeeee!

“Good boy, Atlas! That’s a good robot. Who’s a good robot?”

Reeeee!

“Good robot.” Yeah. The friendly folks at Boston Dynamics claim they’re building this thing for peaceful purposes. You believe that shit? Of course not. You’re a smart audiecne.

Any kid who’s ever run away from a security guard knows that’s bullshit. Industrial grade bullshit.

Atlas will be coming after you. In the not-too-distant future.

“Kill the hippie, Atlas.”

Reeee!

But Altas is just the beginning.

Pretty soon, there’ll be robot armies, robot navys, robot wars, and self-aware robot nukes. “Hi! I’m Willy the Warhead! Kiss your ass goodbye" (THOOM!)

YEah. We'll build shitloads of killer robots. They’ll fucking fight it out until there’s nothing left.

The friendly aliens will return. The earth will be a burned out cinder.

"Stupid humans. We tried to warn them."

Enjoy the future as long as it lasts.

So Long, Marianne

This hellish image is the visage of Marianne. The icon of Liberty on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Originally, triumphant. A fearless warrior shouting a battlecry.  Now she looks like she's screaming in agony.

The Yellow Vests defaced her. Literally. Some heartless bastard smashed the right side of her face with a sledge hammer. But that's OK, right?

See, it's a political statement, not a form of art criticism.

The Yellow Jackets are upset at President Macron's gas tax. Hell, I don't blame them. The tax unfairly targets France's rural regions where folks have to travel long distances in cars and trucks, as opposed to the urban swells in Paris and other major cities who rely on subsidized mass transportation.

Take it to the streets. Stop the machine. Grind the city to a halt.

The ends don't justify the means. It's the other way around. The means justify the ends. People who like to torture and smashing shit up find a political justification. They like breaking eggs, so they start cooking omelets.

And the means are what matter. You are what you do. If you act like a fascist.

Progressive goals don't wash the blood off your hands.

Do what I want or I'll hurt you or destroy something you love is not a progressive tactic. It's the essence of fascism.

Yellow vest, brown shirt. What's the difference?

The Devolution will be televised

The Devolution Will be Televised
(with apologies to Gil Scott-Heron)

You’d best stay home, and lock the doors, brother
Log on, tune in, zone out, get your fix of anti-social media
Lose your mind and take a long deep drink of alt-right Kool-Aid
You are the target audience, and the target is on your back
Because the Devolution will be televised
The Devolution will be televised
The Devolution will be brought to you by the sons of Cambridge Analytica
A four-part infomercial disguised as reality programming
The Devolution will show you pictures of Donald Trump
Blowing a bugle and protecting us from the invading alien horde
General Disorder and Governor Kemp
Will round up invaders in their pickup trucks, along with confiscated voting machines
Yeah, I said that
The Devolution will be televised
The Devolution will be brought to you by Fox News
And available in Mobile Alabama and on your mobile device
The Devolution will call in your college loan
The Devolution will take pictures of you at the Phish concert
And the facial recognition system will track you down
The Devolution will push stamp, file, index and number you
The Devolution has got your number
And that number is Zero
The Devolution will rig the vote, brother
Taking it to the streets will not make the evening news
Your protest action will create no equal and opposite reaction
Because Reality is so twentieth century
The pigs will be happy as pigs drinking beer at the station
While a Robocop from Boston Dynamics busts your head
There will be no pictures of your blood in living color
Because the Devolution has taken control of your television set
And your computer and every other damn screen
Do not attempt to adjust the picture. 
They are controlling transmission. 
If They want to make it louder, They’ll bust your eardrums
If They want you to buy shit, you will
They control the horizontal, the vertical
And every other damn thing
For the next thousand years, sit quietly 
And They will control all that you see and hear
There is nothing wrong with your television set
We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your television set
Or the Black Mirror in your pocket
Because the Devolution will be televised, streamed and reamed
Don’t go out tonight
The dystopian horrors of the not-too-distant future
Will not be confined to the bad dreams of William Gibson, John Shirley, Frank Zappa, Harlan Ellison, 
Thomas Pynchon, Philip K. Dick, Bruce Sterling and the crazy guy on the bus with tinfoil on his head
Their bad dreams have all come true
And so much more, brother
Ayn Rand is spinning in her grave
With an orgasm that registers 9.7 on the Richter scale
The bullies run the playground
And there is no coach or referee
Don’t bother to complain, brother
The facts are in, and there are no facts anymore
Don’t go out tonight
The Devolution will find you 
In church, synagogue, concert, kindergarten, yoga studio, movie theater
Wherethefuckever
Stay home, brother
The Proud Boys are marching
The Lone Gunman isn’t alone anymore
Charlie Manson is watching you
If you cough in the movie theater
Charlie Manson will shoot you
If the trigger word comes out of your mouth
Charlie Manson will shoot you
If you double-dip in the salad bar
Charlie Manson will shoot you
Play it safe, brother
Stay home and watch
Stay home and buy
The Devolution will deliver direct to your door
Keep buying until the debt is a rock on your neck
Dragging you down in the streaming media sea
Stay home and buy
Stay home and watch
It’s not safe out there
Because the Devolution will be live
And the Devolution will be televised

Copyright 2018, Marty Fugate, all rights reserved

O Florida, O Bollocks

Half of our voters went for Gillum. Based on a random sampling of Facebook, Democrats around the country have a simple explanation. 

Florida sucks. People from Florida suck. We're banjo-plucking inbred mutants. We're racists. Desantis won because we're bad people. 

Seriously. I'm not making this up.

It's bloody amazing how many Democrats have immediately started throwing stones. "Ashamed of Florida." "Floridump." "Florida voters! Uggh! Horrifying!" 

My friends. Artists. Intelligent people. Who should all know better. These bright-eyed specimens of the best of humanity should know there will always be set-backs, reversals and screw-ups. 

This applies to politics, football, and the game of life. Then what? Then you either come together as a team, get your heads in the game, and fight like hell for a comeback. Or you start pointing fingers and saying "You f***ed up!" "No, you f***ed up!" The team that comes together wins. The team that turns against itself loses. And deserves to lose. 

There's enough blame to go around for everybody. 

Hell, we can blame the voters of California for electing Ronald Reagan as governor, thus sending him on the path to the White House — where he gleefully began the process of dynamiting the foundations of the New Deal and the Great Society. And blame the voters of Texas for electing George W. Bush over Ann Richards, and jump-starting his political career. Or, hell, the voters of America for putting Trump in the White House. We all suck.

There's no profit in demonizing any given state or region. (Particularly in making Florida the whipping boy for the nation's sins ... but I digress.) Democrats should stop pointing fingers and come together. Blame is a loser's game. Our focus should be on ideas, political strategy, and winning.