We're still here...

Damn.

Have You Seen Me? I've Looked Everywhere...

I’ve got it coming. Eventually it will come. Everything is cyclical, even this meandering molten gearbox of ours. The history of our planet proves this theory. We, being the idiots that we are, remain helpless to do anything about the inevitable reoccurrence of our stupidity. Because if that wasn’t the case, then a great many things would be different. Like a certain chocolate bar, that will remain nameless, for example. Who, in their right fucking mind, puts chocolate and coconut together. Who?

I am perhaps the stupidest person who has ever lived. It’s true, ask anyone. There are examples of my stupidity that I have attempted to share with you over the years. I failed, of course, but did try. Actually, failed is the wrong word, I didn’t fail. I succumbed to the better judgement of others. This, of course, is something that you should never do when it comes to things of a creative nature. It’s always best to trust your guts. Unless you’ve just taken some kind of antacid. Then you might want to wait a while and make sure you’re thinking straight. I have no idea why I let myself be influenced by my friends in such a way. Then again, I can’t really remember most of 1991 either, so I’m really not one to talk. But I have come up with a solution to the problem, so no worries. I simply got rid of all my friends. It’s clear sailing from here on in.

In September of 1998 I devised a cunning plan. I decided that the best thing for the first anniversary manifesto would be to release various works of the lowest common denominator. Such works were plentiful that year, so it was just a matter of weeding through them. I thought myself brilliant, to say the least. For you see, some of them were by far my favorites. Let me say now that my plan was, in no way, flawed.

I had spent the better part of two weeks putting it together and chopping it up. It consisted of seven different stories, some of which appeared on the list that was included in the October 98 edition. It was then that I made a fatal error. Thinking it nothing less than earth shattering, I proudly printed out a couple of copies and let some of my friends read it. This was a bad thing to do. Almost all of them called me within 48 hours and told me that I was crazy to think that people wouldn’t be offended. You see, it was my intention to offend people at first. And then, as things progressed, I came to actually see some artistry in those pieces. My friends did not share my vision.

So, slowly but surely, their concerns started to get to me. I would read and reread the damn thing, hoping each time that it wasn’t as bad as they made it out to be. But it was. By then I had completely forgotten that my intentions were to offend people. As many people as possible, in fact. But it wasn’t to be. So I rallied.

My second plan was nowhere near as cunning as my first. I came up with the idea to let some of my friends review the manifestos that they had read. This led to further trouble. In the end, of course, I simply shit canned the whole thing and started again from scratch. But I wouldn’t deny you the pleasure of reading some of them. So here’s two of my favorites.

Hey-ya shithead!

Here’s your review. It is very boring down here so I was glad to do it. Adam says hi, by the way. To answer your question, NO! they’re not any bigger. Give my love to your mommy! She’s so sweet!

me

My critical analysis of Sister Act IV: Mistress Beatrice ‘Piece Of Shitness’.

I am confident that Marty Fredrick will one day be assassinated by a rightwing organization. He is in my opinion an idiot. I have the right to say that because I’ve known him for so long. He will think that this review is some kind of retaliation for the chicken incident. It isn’t. If anyone out there is wondering what happens when people record phone conversations you’ve come to the right place. This piece of shit is what happens. Supposedly MFRG recorded a conversation on his ‘recording walkman - ‘yes Kate they really do exist!’, one evening. He had been called by some religious nut (you know! the kind that call you up and start asking tons of questions). Let me say now that I don’t believe that he actually recorded anything. I think he made it all up. But that never stopped him before so why should it now? The ‘great thing’ about this story he says is that he used parts of the recorded conversation in it. So I’ve decided to let you be the judge. Read this and decide for yourself. I think you’ll see that I’M RIGHT! As usual. Thank-you.

‘During the days the good sister ran the phones. Her reasons for this were two fold. One: it was a great way to meet potential spank boys. Two: it allowed her to keep a low profile. She was the only one that worked the phones. One was outgoing, for purposes of canvassing, and the other was the Suicide Hotline, and therefore incoming. Strangely enough, that’s how she met Peter. He was about to shoot himself in the head and decided to give the hotline a try. Two hours later she was banging the shit out of him. He was 16 at the time. Donny, on the other hand, came to her via the canvassing line. At first the good sister did not like Donny very much. Despite the fact that she was a dominatrix, she still believed in her work. She still believed in God’s divinity and grace. Donny did not. That first conversation was quite humorous though. It went a little something like this:

Beatrice: ‘Do you have a computer?’
Donny: ‘Ya’
Beatrice: ‘Well, it’s like learning to use your computer.’’
Donny: ‘I don’t follow you. Are you saying god’s in my computer?’
Beatrice: ‘NO! NO! NO!’
Donny: ‘Oh.’
Beatrice: ‘Did you know how to use your computer when you first bought it?’
Donny: ‘No.’
Beatrice: ‘So you had to read the manual to learn how to run it?’
Donny: ‘Yes.’
Beatrice: ‘Well, that’s just the same as God’s word. You have to read God’s manual to learn how to live your life. You see?’
Donny: ‘I don’t know. Are you saying god lives in my computer?’

Note: This review cannot be taken seriously because Kate is still feebly trying to get me back for the chicken thing. It’s been almost ten years Phelps, let it go.

What’s up! I don’t read these things. Matt sometimes reads them to me over the phone. I’m not very good at writing stuff like this but I got some things to say about this manifesto so here goes. This one wasn’t so offensive. It was more like some crazy speech about how everyone should want to go to hell because it’s like Hawaii only the sky’s red. I don’t know what he’s talking about. He was talking about surfing on lava and roasting pigs on spits. He also had MORGAN FOX hanging out with him in hell. The story doesn’t go anywhere. He just blabs. He’s good at that blabbing stuff. By the end of it he’d invented some kind of clothing soap that people use to clean their brains. He called it BRAIN STAINS. I dunno what he means by that. It’s sort of funny though. Then he starts talking about giant fire bunnies and little green alien guys that captured these people from some island and brought them to hell to serve the devil. He tries to convince you that there really aren’t any aliens from outer space. He tries to tell you that they’re just working for the devil and only want to bring you down to hell so you can become some kind of slave. He says the devil’s real name is Alice. Alice Cooper? Alice from wonderland? No. He’s says it’s none of those. So what the hell’s he talking about then?

Note: I would like to bring to your attention that Piggly’s review does not, in any way, state that the story offended him. Therefore, one must assume that this story was not offensive. That, or Piggly misunderstood the assignment.

There are others, of course. Some of them are nasty. Most are extremely long and rather boring. And that’s just not what you came here to read, now is it? No.

You came for fire.

I was thinking the other day, as I often do, and for some reason I found myself thinking about music critics. Let me assure you, this is not a topic that I usually waste time pondering. There are reasons for this. The first would have to be because I’ve never really cared much what people think of what I do. The other has to do with the fact that most critics are nothing more than jaded, bitter little people who just really need to get laid. But neither of these things stopped my brain from formulating the theory that I am about to present you. This is what I came up with.

Music critics are a strange lot. A large percentage of them are failed musicians actually. This has always perplexed me somewhat. If most of them are failed musicians then who, in their right mind, would give them a job critiquing musicians that aren’t failures? It has nothing to do with their writing abilities whatsoever, I assure you. I have never read a music review that possessed the wit of say a Vonnegut or the texture of someone such as Milan Kundera. True, both are world class authors, so why compare mere music critics to them? Hell, why not? They seem to have no trouble doing it to bands. But that’s beside the point. My theory concerning music critics is actually rather simple, and it’s this: if music critics seem to possess the secret knowledge of what components are necessary to make a record great, then why don’t they just do it themselves and spare us the torture of being subjected to their less than entertaining writing skills? Think about it. Maybe ‘bands’, as we know them, don’t even exist. Maybe they’re nothing more than fronts for genius music critics who have been forced to take matters into their own hands because modern music is in shambles. Maybe, and this might seem a little outside, but what if there are only ten of them in the entire world, each coveting a specific genre of music. One does classical, one does pop, one does techno, and so on. I mean, have you ever seen more than two music critics in the same room at the same time? It’s creepy. And this goes back to what I was saying about their penmanship. If you really examine most reviews, they all seem to share a common thread of language. It’s as if their race is only familiar with a portion of our vocabulary. So I have come to the conclusion that all music critics are either from a far distant planet inhabited an alien race of musical geniuses, or they’re from Easter Island. I know it sounds absurd, but if you think about it long enough it’ll start to make sense. You’ll get a headache as well. But it’ll go away eventually.

There was a man with a hole in his head. He filled it up with water so goldfish could swim around in there. Indispensable at parties, all the pretty girls would put their drinks on his brain. He liked that. So did the gold fish. You ever think about being blue? Try having a hole in your head when it’s raining or your car accidentally flies off the road into a lake.

There was this girl that liked him once. After putting her drink on his brain they got to talking. It’s always awkward for the first few minutes. They’re standing there and this girl is trying her best no to stare at his head. There’s a glass stuck in it, filled with foolish delights. So they hit it off, but the girl has her concerns - to say the least. I mean, it’s not usually normal to have a hole in ones head, let alone use it as a mobile coaster. She started asking him a lot of questions about everything and anything that didn’t have to do with the fact that there was a hole in his head. Her friends stood across the room talking in whispers, using sophisticated hand signals, weighing the situation, planning what to say if she actually went for him. So after a while she breaks down and starts asking him about his head, which she hasn’t stopped starring at the entire time. ‘You live alone?’ she says to him. ‘Ya,’ he says. ‘When you go to bed, do you dream about your pillow?’ she says. ‘What?’ he says. ‘Your pillow. Do you dream about your pillow. You know, cause of the hole,’ she says. ‘No. Not usually,’ he says. And that was pretty much it. They stood there for a couple of minutes in one of those uncomfortable silences before her friends came to her rescued. ‘Come meet Bill,’ they said, ‘he’s absolutely delightful!’ After that he went home. So did the fish. You think it’s easy? Try spending your whole life looking for a girl with a hole in her head. We’ll see.

Half way around the world there is a tiny country where everyone is red. And by that I’m not implying that they’re Communists, I’m referring to their skin. It’s this small island country that’s turned into quite the tourist hot spot over the last couple of years. But the indigenous people of this island are still rather primitive. Most of the natives that live in the interior of the island still dwell in huts. But that doesn’t stop people from going to the south coast and staying in fancy hotels. They act wild and crazy, drink too much, and wear as little clothing as possible. They use the heat as an excuse for such behavior. But the natives in the interior never see the vacationers. They’ve never even seen the hotels on the southern coast. They just live in the jungle with the monkeys and tigers. I read somewhere that they actually taught the monkeys to speak. And by speak, I mean just that. They can carry on conversations and hold debates and such. But since it’s not English no one cares. The fact that some monkey has the ability to recite Shakespeare in a foreign language doesn’t seem all that exciting to anyone. One must wonder why that same principle is not applied to opera. So the monkeys just sit in the trees casually making off-colour remarks about the tourists as they walk by. Having never appeared on That’s Incredible, they feel altogether unappreciated I’m afraid. So they sit up in those trees all day and mock us. How does that make you feel?

Getting back to the point - one of the villages in the interior is ruled by a tribal chief named Hubaru. Chief Hubaru has three children, a son and two daughters. The youngest of his two girls has never been seen by anyone, save her parents and siblings. She stays in the hut all day. There are long lived rumors bantered about that she was wooed by a monkey and a damaging scandal ensued. So Hubaru thought it best to confine her to the hut. This all happened many years ago, of course, so no one can really recall what actually occurred with any accuracy. Unbeknownst to his subjects, Hubaru’s reasons for condemning his daughter were altogether different. You see, she has a rather large hole in the top of her melon. This makes her unique. It makes her so unique that she stays in the hut all day. Her father’s the chief, so he can’t have her running about. He thinks it’s embarrassing. He fights about it all the time with his wife. She spends her days trying to comfort her daughter, vainly attempting to convince herself that her husband isn’t a tyrant. She’s having a hard time with it. She keeps trying to put it to Hubaru in slightly different terms every time it comes up, but Hubaru won’t have any of it. There’s a hole in her head, end of discussion. Now he’s got this notion that she gets the hole from her mother. His wife’s thinking the same thing. The monkeys, by the way, could care less.

A world away a man is getting on an airplane. He’s leaving on vacation. He’s had it. He’s tired of pretty girls using his head as a coaster. Especially the stupid ones. He’s discussed it with the fish. The fish agree. The day before, he had gone down to the travel agency to look at some brochures. He hadn’t really planned on taking a vacation, he was just curious. He started flipping through some of them when a travel agent started in on him about how he deserved to have some fun. He wasn’t looking for fun but he let the travel agent talk anyway. Some people have obvious character flaws. Some people are rude, some are hot tempered, some are flakes, some tend to lie likes it’s commonplace. But his wasn’t a negative. His was, rather ironically, a positive. He was too polite. He’d always been too polite. So by the time the travel agent had finished showing him all these brochures and pictures he started to get this sick feeling in his stomach. He couldn’t just walk out. Not after this lady had spent an hour of her time going through everything from hotel choices to rental car agencies. He wasn’t even sure where it was she had him going to. It didn’t matter. Before he knew it his credit card was out and he was paying. And that’s how it happened. As simple as that. It happens to me every time I try on a pair of shoes. I can’t leave without buying them because I feel bad for taking up someone’s time. It feels criminal for some reason. So I’ve got a closet full of shoes I don’t wear. It’s the same thing. So now he’s on a plane going to some small island in the South Pacific that he’s never heard of. He’s not a rich man either. He could barely afford the trip. But it’s too late now. A million things are running through his head at once. Everything from how he’s going to survive for two weeks on one hundred and ninety three dollars spending money to how he’s going to explain missing work for fourteen days without any kind of prior notice. He doubts that he’ll get fired. He’s the most complacent employee in the world. It’s just that the whole thing feels foreign to him. Doing that which is so clearly not the proper thing to do. The feeling that confuses him the most is the tingling sensation running up and down his body. You know it as excitement. As far as he knows, it’s the flu. And that’s how it goes for him. So he does his best not to think about it. He takes out a book and starts reading. 1 Elevator, Silence, Overweight. The elevator continued its impossibly slow ascent. Or at least I imagined it was ascent. There was no telling for sure…’ The hours pass. The plane slips through the upper atmosphere as night falls over the Pacific. He falls asleep, tingling. The fish play at dream games.

You know it’s not all that strange to have a hole in ones head. Technically, we all have several to speak of. So one more shouldn’t be all that big a deal. Obviously it is. Obviously people see it as some mark of questionable humanity. Holes are not found atop the human head, it’s a scientific fact. So it automatically infers difference. Difference is not something we take to all that well. We’re much more excited about familiarity. That’s why all hotel rooms appear to be the same. No matter your level of economics, all hotel rooms look alike. Whether they be penthouses or singles, suites or a tiny little bed in an impossibly small room. They’re all the same. Maybe, had we been differently devised, we would have made sure that they were not alike. But too long have we favored familiarity to do anything about it now. And so they will all remain the same, never different. As will holes atop the head remain anomalous. Even more so if they happen to be the only outlet from which to feed goldfish.

Never the less, our friend did his best to conquer his fear of the unknown before arriving in Nagoya. He would have to change planes there. He did this with surprising accuracy, considering that he had never been in a major airport before. Nagoya is not the place in which to learn the rules of foreign airports, for it is huge, you see. But he found himself over an hour early for his connecting flight, leaving him with little choice but to make his way to the nearest lounge. Once there, he ordered a drink. It cost him a million dollars. Japan is like that. Everything is a million dollars.

From Japan he would travel south into the wide expanse of the South Seas. Waters in which many Japanese and American sailors and airmen are buried. Waters that are deeper than any other on earth, containing dangers aplenty. Waters that have even been kissed by the ancient rays of the suns breath, thanks to the French. Leave it to the French to make certain that parts of the South Pacific will glow for the next 200 years. Not that they’re alone, mind you, but they’re French and that’s good enough. So south he went, hurtled through the air at outrageous speeds towards the mysterious and alluring bosom of paradise. Hopefully, Tattoo would be sober enough to greet him. This was the wish of the fish, you see.

Some hours later, following the always chancy in-flight service of any major airline, the plane landed and he promptly made his way to the hotel. To his surprise, the lady at the travel agency had misled him. He remembered being shown pictures of a lavish hotel, the kind that has four pools, two bars, and 24 hour room service. Such hotels did exist on the island, mind you. In fact, from his room he could see them across the bay. There they were, tons of them. He just wasn’t staying in one. He was staying on the north shore of the bay in a hotel called The Sea Breeze. It was nice enough, he figured, as he wasn’t one to complain. Nor did he attempt to call the travel agent and demand an explanation. To him it seemed pointless. The fish, who rarely bother looking out through his eyes, did not care about such things. They were quite upset that Tattoo had not been present when they had deplaned. You see, Fantasy Island was their favorite television program. And when it got cancelled, they agreed to never look through his eyes again. Besides Fantasy Island, what was their to look at? Nothing but a world that was consumed by the evils of waterless, life stealing, air. Quite terrifying if you’re a fish. Merely an inconvenience if you happen to have a hole in your head.

So that was that. He was officially on vacation. This meant that, after unpacking his clothes and whatnot, he had no idea what he was supposed to do. So he spent the better part of the afternoon looking out across the bay at the hotels and the water. It didn’t occur to him to go outside. He was contented with just being somewhere that offered him a view such as that. You see, sometimes loneliness has its charm - it being secretive and quite impossible to predict. Most of the time it lacks charm. Simply because no one else is ever there to bare witness. Thus is the unsullied beauty of a such a singular and private moment.

Later that night he went to dinner, after which he returned to his room and organized his toiletries in the bathroom. If anything, he was orderly. It’s a condition of loneliness. It drives you to constantly clean things and make sure that they’re in the proper place. So that’s exactly what he did. He placed his things in their proper places and proceeded to clean the sink. It wasn’t until he accidentally hit the light switch with his elbow that he saw the moon reflected in the bathroom mirror. Captivated by its light, he left the sink and wandered over to the window. And that’s how he spent his evening. No differently that he had spent his day. Some hours later his eyes grew heavy and he decided to turn in. Having been completely dazzled by the prospect of such an immense body of water, the fish talked excitedly into the night. So the man dreamed of the ocean, like a sailor lost to his love.

Many miles to the north of the Sea Breeze Hotel, a young red woman was making her way through the jungle. She was, to the embarrassment of her ancestors, completely lost. For she has spent most of her life confined to a hut. But no more. She had been planning this night for almost four months. She had water, food, a spear, and what she thought was a pretty good idea of which direction the coast lay. This last factor was, of course, the weak link in her plan. And, after hours of tromping through the bushes, she found herself right back where she had started. But this only made her more determined. So she set out again, deciding to rely on the worst possible thing that one could rely on. Talking monkeys.

Sometimes talking monkeys can come in handy. Always ones to gossip incessantly, their chatter could sometimes be heard in the surrounding trees. Two such monkeys, Albert and Cosmo, made a habit of taking some shade under a tree quite near to the hut of the chief. So the girl would sit there for hours and listen to Albert and Cosmo talk. Most of the time they babbled on about monkey business. But some of the time they would talk about a magical place far to the south where the trees were made of diamonds and no one ever died. They did this on purpose, of course. For talking monkeys are smart, much smarter than most believe them to be. Both Albert and Cosmo knew that the girl was listening to them, for she would laugh at their silly jokes on occasion. So, instead of bad mouthing the tourists, as they commonly did twenty hours of each day, they decided to breathe a little life into the girls imagination. No one ever said monkeys were nice. Then again, no one ever thought they could talk either.

As the girl ventured back into the jungle she came across several monkeys sitting under a tree. They were drinking vodka martinis and wearing smoking jackets. None of them noticed her approaching, for they were all half cut and in a bit of a verbal tizzy about the eurodollar. Of course, the girl had no idea what ‘eurodollars’ were. But they sounded important. So she thought it best to ask the monkeys for some directional assistance, as they seemed rather intelligent. This was her undoing. The monkeys didn’t notice her until she was almost upon them. But, due to the fact that they were talking monkeys, they didn’t respond to being startled like the average monkey would. They did not make for the nearest tree to seek refuge in its heights. They just casually turned their heads in a drunken wave of imbalance, as one of them stood up, pointed a finger, and said with the utmost inebriation, ‘who goes there?’

This produced quite the response, of course. For the next five minutes the girl just stood there while the monkeys rolled around on the ground laughing. Martini glasses were crushed, smoking jackets sullied, lungs heaved in an attempt to maximize the vocalization of hilarity. And then, as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped. The monkeys sat up, attempted to straighten themselves, and turned to the girl. The monkey that had initiated the laughter spoke first. ‘What, may I ask, are you doing wandering the wilds at this hour my dear?’ The girl, having never spoken with a monkey before, decided to skip the pleasantries and get straight to the point. ‘I’m looking for the land of diamond trees,’ she said. The monkeys, now somewhat confused, immediately lost interest in talking with the human. She was rude, to say the least. So the monkey responded ‘I see. Well, you might try going that way,’ and pointed off into the darkness with a long finger. So that’s what she did. She followed the finger. And the monkeys went on to a new topic. This time it was China.

As morning broke across the sky, the girl was still wandering through the jungle. Having stopped to ask several other monkeys for assistance, she had been sent off in a variety of directions, depending on how devious the monkeys decided to be at the time. All of them, it seems, were up for the challenge. Perhaps the human girl would fall down a hole and break her legs. How fun that would be indeed! So none of them bothered to give her accurate directions. In fact, during that first night, she had been sent in three different directions and had unknowingly doubled back on her own tracks twice. By the time the sun was above the horizon, she was exhausted. So she found a clearing and decided to get some sleep.

Hotel brochures are poison. You must trust me about this. I stay in more hotels in one year than half the population of Los Angeles does in an entire lifetime. The most important thing to remember is this. If the hotel doesn’t have 24 hour room service, never - ever order pizza from a restaurant in a hotel brochure. I guarantee it will make you nauseous. It may even kill you. I have done my bit for your future safety, so I shan’t mention it again. Besides brochure pizza, rental car agencies rank #2. No matter your location, be it Antarctica or The Hague, you can always rent a car. It’s as if rental car agencies were a virus. That said, the man had no idea what to do when he woke up the next morning. He washed up, ate breakfast, and returned to his room. And, as he was sitting there gazing out at the bay, he noticed a brochure on a nearby table. So he picked it up. And that’s all it took. A 1976 Honda Civic was at the front door of the hotel in less than twenty minutes. And, due to the fact that it was a rather cheap rental agency, he could actually afford it. So he spent the better part of that day driving around the southern coast. He drove past nice hotels and white sand beaches filled with sunbathers. He drove past a variety of tropical gardens and golf courses. And then, as if it were any surprise, he decided to go back to the hotel.

There is something within each of us that is unshakable. Some people like to think of it as nerves. I prefer to think of it has selective conditioning. Our friend, for example, returned to the hotel because it is quite beyond him to consider any other options. I, on the other hand, have difficulty watching English Football without yelling obscenities at the television (as any good Gunners supporter would). Maybe you’re programmed to put your arm across whomever happens to be sitting in the passenger seat of your car when you slam on the brakes. I do it. And I do it only because my mother did it. I was conditioned to do it, even though I had no idea that I was being conditioned. The man suffered from the worst of all selective conditionings. He was conditioned to be reclusive, simply because he had a hole in his head. It’s no different than being embarrassed to speak if you suffer from a bad stutter. Most of you beautiful people have got it good, you see. No third arms and what have you. So he returned to the hotel, as his conditioning dictated. There would be no cocktails by the pool followed by dinner and dancing till dawn. Only a plate filled with deep fried shrimp and hours of quiet observation.

The girl awoke to the sound of two voices. Opening her eyes, she immediately realized that the voices were those of monkeys. Most likely because they were standing right over her. They seemed to be discussing whether or not she was dead. One thought she was. The other did not. Just as the girl opened her eyes, the two monkeys were debating whether or not to poke her with a stick in an attempt to ascertain her condition. The girl, fearing what might happen, thought it best to get to her feet. Their reaction to this was split. One yelled ‘ha! I told you so!’ and the other yelled ‘shit!’. The girl yelled ‘shut up,’ and so they did. But her attempt to get accurate directions from them was just as pointless as it had been the following night. They sent her north west instead of south, figuring she might wander into Abunta territory and be eaten. The Abunta were the last remaining cannibals on the island and few in number. But they still held a small section of the jungle along the north west coast of the island, some distance from the girls own village. So she headed off, leaving the two monkeys arguing. Having walked for the better part of the evening towards certain death and digestion, the girl once again made the mistake of stopping to ask for directions. Only this time the monkey that she encountered wasn’t interested in playing games with her. He simply said ‘you see that big star up there?’ as he pointed skyward, ‘walk towards it.’ The girl thanked the monkey and went on her way. The monkey shook his head and muttered to himself. The star in question was known as The Big Nunga Nunga. No one knows why it was named that, but that’s what they’ve called it for centuries. The Nunga, which is its shortened name, is the largest star in the night sky. The ancients believed that if you were to get in a boat and sail towards the Nunga then you would burst into flames and be destroyed for being stupid enough to travel that far out to sea. So the islanders never sailed south in fear of its wrath. Of course, the girl was relatively safe because she was on land. Or so you would think.

In the tropics there is nothing more enrapturing than the moon. Maybe it’s because I’m a Cancer that I have I have a soft spot for it. I’m not rightly sure. But the man, and the fish, were both captivated by the light that it cast on the water below. How it made the sea seem mysterious and altogether alluring. Under this spell, the man decided to go for a drive. This was very much against himself. Then again, so was going on a vacation with absolutely no preparation or planning. Nevertheless, he walked out to his rented Honda Civic, got in, and hit the highway. The drive across the southern coast was quite beautiful according to the brochure, perhaps even more so with the moon in play. Leaving the hotel, he put the Civic to the test and let himself go.

Four miles down the road there was a corner. Not a particularly tight corner, but a turn nonetheless. In a new found state of unfamiliar excitement, the man sped towards this corner free of concern. Some distance to the north of that curve, a girl was angrily tromping through the jungle, convinced that The Land Of Diamond Trees was an elaborate lie. And like so many others before her, she had no idea what kept her moving forward, she just moved. I would love to tell you that the man and the girl did not arrive at that corner at the same time. I would love to tell you that they missed each other but a minute or even thirty seconds. But life is mostly cruel, you see. And therefore I cannot tell you such things. All that I can say is that she didn’t feel anything. Neither of them did.

The explosion was seen across the bay by hundreds of people sitting out on their lavish hotel balconies. Some even thought it was some kind of traditional -island-fire-ceremony-thing. Americans, most likely. Eventually a Dutch couple had the common sense to pick up the phone and tell someone. As an aside, fire ceremonies had been banned in the 1920’s after half of the island was consumed by flames. Strangely enough, the fire was caused by a village idiot who wandered into the jungle with a torch and fell asleep. You see, the crazy bastard actually thought he could teach monkeys how to speak. Anyway, emergency crews were alerted and those with a taste for the macabre decided to go have a look. After hitting the girl, the man lost control of the car and went straight off the left hand shoulder. Having burst through a flimsy wooden guard rail, the Civic plummeted several hundred feet to the rocks below. And as it sat there, crushed upside down into the rocks, the ocean water flooded through the hole in our friends head. The goldfish, though elated that their captor had the common decency to perish in such a grand body of water, were nonetheless killed by its salty contents. Seconds after their demise, the car exploded. The girl, on the other hand, was discovered by a monkey in the bushes on the side of the road. Left with little choice, as he was a decent sort of fellow, he did the only thing he could do. He walked out of the bushes and over to a group of bystanders. He then stopped, cleared his throat, and said in a voice that could have belonged to a elitist Harvard law graduate - ‘Excuse me, but there happens to be a young woman over there in the bushes and I believe her to be quite dead.’ All of that, by the way, was in perfect English. This phenomenal event in human history was, of course, never reported simply because the people that the monkey had addressed were Chilean mutes. All of whom spent the rest of their lives in sanitariums drawing crazy ass pictures of talking monkeys.

It is a bitter pill to swallow, I know. But for a fleeting moment in time, the only two people on earth with holes in their heads found each other. They just got the timing wrong is all.

The Rules: For those of you that haven’t had the chance to play this little game, let me fill you in on how it works. You send me e-mails and ask me interesting or pertinent things. You do not send me 500 page stories. You do not ask stupid questions thinking that I’ll respond just because you thought it somehow witty. You do not ask a question without checking the archives to make sure it hasn’t already been asked. You should also be aware of the fact that I receive roughly 500 to 700 e-mails a week, so I can’t answer everybody. You’ll have to be cunning I suppose. As for me? Well, I can do whatever the hell I want. It’s my fucking web-page, isn’t it. Here we go again…

1] As a matter of fact I have read it. Twice, to be exact (not to mention a handful of others). All of which are, in my opinion, somewhat comparable to the unrealized puppet possibilities of one exploitationary running a fruit farm that only employs people who are scared shitless of fruit.

2] For everyone that keeps e-mailing me about Black Market Surgery: there were only a limited number printed for the release of the record. A new version of the book will be out sometime this year. When, of course, I cannot say. That would spoil all the fun now wouldn’t it.

3] Americans. We’ll get around to it when we get around to it.

4] A number of you have written in asking what certain songs are about. This question is easily answered. All of our songs are about the devil. Always have been, always will be.

5] No. Never. Well, maybe once. I think.

6] We’re currently on vacation. We’ll resume things in the spring. I’m going to Disney Land. Wanna come?

7] Try Draino. It always works for me.

8] I’m very sorry that you don’t like how women are portrayed in our videos. On the other hand, I must say that I’m not too fond of it either. See, the thing is, I don’t have any control over my life or my career. They just let me out once and a while to tour. I’m not going to say I haven’t had my fair share of problems. Just the other day the guys came by and took me to McDonalds for a happy meal. After lunch I left the table and was later discovered humping the Hamberglar’s leg in Ronald’s Playhouse. Needless to say, I was forcibly removed from the premises and charged with sexually harassing a plastic statue. So you see, I’ve got problems of my own to contend with. So as far as the videos are concerned, let me just say that if you didn’t get what we were up to the first time around, may I suggest that you never will.

9] Is my favorite number. Thus, there will no longer be a #9 in this section. I am keeping it for myself.

10] Was Pele’s number. You can have it.

11] I am not quite sure what you mean by ‘restrained’, but it worries me.

12] NEVER! put the flavor packet in with the noodles when they’re cooking. Put it in the bowl and add the noodles and some of the water to it after they’ve boiled. Fucking heathen.

13] I truly hope that the return of this section will shut you up. To be quite honest with you, I’d forgotten how much fun it is. At your expense, of course.