Angerdream

Anger is the most seductive of all human emotions. Fear hurts. But anger feels good. Rage feels like righteousness. It begins as a voice in your head. The speech you're not going to say. The speech that begins with "You." Then, surprise, surprise. You hear the words coming out of your mouth.
And it feels so goddamn good.
Rage tells you these are words of prophecy.
You're Moses, Jesus and Morpheus rolled into one.
And somebody needs to hear your prophetic words.
A very, very bad person.
This son of a bitch needs to hear your speech.
This bitch needs to hear your speech.
And if you're very goddamn lucky, the hate coming out of you is nothing more than words.

The Doorway Effect

Then the next thing you know he died. He didn’t even notice it at the time. He’d been working on the unified field theory. Yes, Einstein’s great white whale. Not string theory or any of that other idiotic nonsense. Inelegant fads. Ugly models patched together with mathematical duct tape. No, sir. God did not play dice. And God doesn’t patch, kludge, tape, solder or trowel. The truth is beautiful. The truth is simple. And he had the simple formula. Let "R" stand for reality. It follows as the night to the day that …

As the simple truth dawned, he realized that he was “dead,” so to speak. This was, of course, the reason why he’d worked the formula out. His insight flowed from the clarity that “death” affords, though he disliked the term. (Vague! Inelegant!) Linguistic wrangling aside, being a "dead," non-corporeal intelligence certainly had its advantages. Unconstrained by the parameters of local space-time, his mind (metaphorically speaking) could see around corners. Cheating? No, math is math. Truth is truth.

Let R = Reality. R =

He had to write it down! Comically, he realized that there was nothing to write with. No matter. (Ha!) The truth burned in his brain. (Mind, intelligence, whatever the hell or heaven it was.) Ineluctable, indelible truth. This lambent knowledge could never be erased. Good thing.

Because he was (if such a thing were possible in this half world) distracted …

By sound. Or something that he experienced as sound. It came in the form of periodic bursts of indiscrete happiness. Like the whoops which irritating teenagers make whilst jumping into a pool.

Confident in his knowledge of the theory of everything, he "looked" around for the source of the "sound."

At this point he perceived an indeterminate series of beings. Beings of light. All standing in a queue. He then realized that he also was standing in that queue. And the queue was advancing? Approaching? A sort of whirlpool? A vortex?

A doorway, yes of course.
A doorway.

Each being of light approached this maelstrom of light and color. Before leaping into it, each being hollered (with what vocal organs he couldn’t begin to guess) something vulgar along the lines of “Yippee!” or “Whee!” He was determined not to follow their example. Referring here to their rude phatic utterances, and not the transition through the doorway. He stayed in line, and patiently awaited his turn.

The basis of his equanimity was easy to grasp.
Upon seeing the doorway, he immediately knew what it was.

This phenomenon was some sort of soul recycling station, to put it crudely. A mechanism of reincarnation. (Oppie would be pleased. And perhaps was.) Dead intelligences enter, and are promptly returned to some new life.

And therein the danger presented itself.

Earthly cognitive psychologists refer to the “doorway effect.” Simply put, passing from one room to another creates an Etch-a-Sketch effect in the brain. Having moved from Room A to Room B, the brain promptly dumps the bulk of its short term memory. It thus forgets the previous experience of Room A and resets, allowing for the creation of a new memories in Room B.

But he wouldn’t forget.

R =

It was now his turn. He would never.

The doorway swirled with garish color.

He leapt through. He didn’t say “Wheee!”

A giant hand slapped him on the ass. He screamed.

He had no idea why.

Review: "Pet Sematary"

Just saw the remake of Pet Sematary. A scary movie and a respectable Stephen King adaptation. It also
offers many valuable lessons … 

• If you have kids and move to a rustic, rural home in Maine by a busy highway, be sure to put up a fence before you let them play outside.

• If you have a cat, keep it inside as well until you put up the fence. 

• If, despite your best efforts, a maniacal trucker flattens your cat, don’t panic. 

• Avoid pet cemeteries created by unknown people who can’t spell. 

• Avoid pet cemeteries where processions of creepy children in animal masks bury their dead pets. 

• Avoid creepy guys who look like John Lithgow. Above all, don’t let them talk to your child. 

• If a creepy guy volunteers to take your dead cat to a “special” pet cemetery beyond the official “Pet Sematary,” politely decline his offer. 

• Cremate your dead cat for best results. 

• If a maniacal trucker flattens your child, don’t dig them up and bury them in the “special” pet cemetery.

• Before moving to Maine, research the property to make sure it’s not near any cursed real estate. 

• To stay on the safe side, don’t move to Maine at all.

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.