You know who you are, isn't it?

 

You are the one who we've entrusted to measure and install a tripwire at the entryway to our Central Demonization Annex. This can only help the most sincere applicants to sort through a mountain of offering statements and expose a near-term surcharge megalith. The brand-management team is all over your side of the argument and one day very soon a transponent corofim will no longer appear bound for a season of unscripted justice armadas. The tinkling sound in the corner of your plume is just the kind of racket which anyone who thinks of getting involved could do worse than to mildly approximate. Yes, there WILL be manifold opportunities to snuggle with alt-right activists and no one should worry about the invitation which disappeared down a rabbit hole of our own exclusive design. It comes in any color you can imagine, if only you could see your way clear to lie down peacefully once the announcement becomes an immaculate reality on the ground going forward. In the midst of a long, cold afternoon, it's remotely possible that you'll be able to find your very own tube which contains everythnig you'll need for a dormant recipe follicle.

We all long for the days when one trick after another would spark the interest of those currently enshrined in the moshpit next to the convertible transom in our isomeric garage tulku. I will plead the fifth when it comes to circulating bales of whey among depressed celebrity handlers in our third largest exposition fiasco. There's just no telling when I'll once again be repeatedly rammed on my way through the dorsal chamber which abuts the sacristy in my fog helmet. Because of all the times that my leisure mode beverage of choice was laced with a permanent stain-removal procedure, I've been forced to take out all the stops in a conveniently placed opinion-quotient release, and all that with my head caught between my own two, very burly, front-backs. Now that the interval between gatherings has ramped up, all the usual flyboys have decided to give our ringtoss a wide berth and instead motion to some of our pre-teen Nurse Assistants that they should take a few minutes and spend them wisely once the demolition starts in earnest. Call them by whatever name strikes your fancy; just please don't issue standing orders to betray a common enemy for wont of a strident paleo enthusiast.

Now we need all of you to strain yourselves until the pindar juice is fully backed with gold contract flukes. Each will then be asked to enable seven strikes to be added surreptitiously to their name-of-choice. A round-robin will ensue in our purpose-built dome lozenge, at which time a never-before-seen color field will be induced into the visitors' prayer-group mound. The vision will ring with a sterling clarity, and I expect to see an appalling amount of victim-blaming occurring without any single individual having to rely on a purported ribbon tree in our Sculpture Annex. Has anyone heard tell of an ancient formula for restoring unshaped pardons to a pristine parking slide? Because if so, there won't be any people left stranded in a line at a ceremony on the Lower Level. That's due to the fact that our Phase One endpoint is just a matter of seconds from cancellation. Tony Beflin will give everything he's good for. Without that, some very pious people would be sunk within a pastel rolfing snot. You can even see it in their eyes. It's made of a permanent enamel. This is the cause of not a little sensitivity. And no, I'm totally uninterested in how they appear behind closed doors. Trailing compartments could be another story. You tell me.

___________________________  

This is NOT rhetorical.

 

Does it ever strike you as odd that when we're on our game no one can be bothered to interfere with our current status update? Because, even though I've loaned him the equivalent of two hundred and thirty-two panels, the time never seems to arrive that we can just place our hands on a central table and take turns on a mound in one of the Recreation Centers near our office segment. The pattern which you observed in my best-dressed category is nothing less than the latest example of our rigged result coming under serious wraps. If anyone tells you that they're impressed by your temperate reaction to news of a random flooding event, you might think to offer them a chance at telling time from the back seat of one of our premier duco lounge sets. It's known that just the integers alone could have you questioning the exact reason for your habitual malfeasance. It's not like anyone as unlikeable as myself would think to offer you a chance at every last swedenborg in our County Treasure Chest. That's when the 'big boys' come out to play. You don't want to be in the room. Or, maybe you do. What will it take? Some kind of hair care product? Don't go there.

After my son rode a mis-positioned scoop underneath a psychic roadbed, his mother (my former wife, Jillary Mosgrun) hosed up some pleated ballet slippers and made off with the lion's share of the proceeds after not more than eleven big ones. For my part, I never wasn't unconvinced that her attraction to satirical spy satchels had anything to do with my lactose intolerance writ large. But, what I DO know to be the case is that without her fooling around in a down-market longterm storage operation, no one would have ever had the bright idea to look through my credit report and find a gaping hole where that came from. In all my years in the Chicago Police Department, I've never had to lie about where, when and/or if I had to hang my head in artificial shame. It doesn't take a genius to see that I was the clueless one all along. In the event that someone knocks over a precious display, you may have to make do with whatever you can scavenge from a bootstrap comintern on the periphery of the outskirts. In which case you better be ready to deal with some very major characters. I've never taken a penny in my whole life, just so you know.

What will it take to finally get people to understand that they won't stand a chance if they take a chance and just 'stand there'? Because, if anyone ever finds a telltale lesion on the exact spot where my bodice was interred for the duration, it's a good bet that a rain-compromised filtration excuse won't do the trick to get them all buckled up for our field trip to witness a military flaring device up close and personal. My own 'season of doubt' began when and where yours was said to end. And that's before all friendship cones were duly accounted for. Who the hell is it who would go to bat for the likes of a scrawny shipmate in an underground plenary trap? If you knew them like I do, I don't think your answer would be less then three percent correct. And that's not even adding in the time spent on overbroad narrative conventions. Please don't think that we can't see what you do in a secret library compartment. Of all the ones I've ever encountered, that has got to be the most impressive collection of Eddie Haskell bibliographies that anyone's ever thought to use as emergency fire paste. Please accept my most sincere condolences. It won't help. See?

________________________ 

Try to weave this into your life's fabric.

 

This isn't the kind of thing which happened more than once or twice a year. The guy who was known around town for infiltrating micro-scale sculptures into the community water supply drove into Biloxi early one evening on mountain scale. I would arrange to have his information scanned in advance to ease his daughter's release from an inappropriate group located just below the Gulch. Try as I might, I couldn't get the thing to hitch. So, I ended up back in Mark's basement, only this time I had to convince some strenuous onlookers to stand near the rear entrance in case there was anything to endure before a steep fall-off.

Sheila walked into the carport on the instructions of my former mentor. As his associate once confided to my estranged attorney, it would likely take upwards of three or four weeks before we could begin to reconcile conflicting accounts in the matter of likely placement of materials to be officially codified during a sparsely attended ceremony at Winston Field. In cooperation with the Piper Boys out of Allentown, PA, we would meet with a steady cascade of applicants to the point where a brownout seemed in the offing.

I got on the horn to thank my brother's ontologist before switching out a set of duds which no one but a lame epterola could fail to appreciate for no reason other than the drill of the bunt. Even as her hands mounted an improbable defense, the back-end promise-keepers still hadn't erected a phony proxy stall so that those in their mid-aughts would have a chance to skulk through stacks of course-work, even while arousing a devilish sympathy among the unwashed layabouts. What does it take to scour a neighbor's nightpad when stellar additions are things of the past? I won't interrupt your support crew if their number includes known carriers.

_________________________ 

For one so young ... Who goes there?

 

One of the ways which people sometimes use to make their 'worship gestures' appear more febrile by half, is to invite participants to investigate the likelihood that one or more of them will have dodged a circulatory issue before the night is out. At the same time, more than a few of our best lookers seem to forever be holding tightly to a formula which may guarantee that a shipment of age-appropriate parking wads can be thoroughly simulated before any mark-ups are deposited in real time.

From the moment I located the odd tool-and-die operation within my remaining sphere, a virtual stepping stone opened up for all to see, as if that would get us any more 'me time' before the call came tumbling down. No one should count themselves out for the count before either I or my team have had time to involve ourselves ever more deeply in a place you refuse to look. What would it say about someone if they were caught unaware of all the ways their appearance has caused folks to focus their energy on getting out more often? Why would you assume that a person you've only heard about is wondering what sort of a stunt you're going to pull next?

It isn't for nothing that I came out for guided incantations sometime back. I'd read the studies and counted myself as one of the few attorneys in the Tri-County to make myself available for online life coaching even before the Mayor ended up in the hospital after I got hit with a three-pronged assault charge. They took me by force but that didn't mean I'd go quietly. Far from it, in fact. If you had ever gotten to know the people who work on the edge of the loop, you could've saved yourself a boatload of embarrassment when everything was finally revealed. That's why the kid's first name is 'Scott', NOT 'Todd'. It couldn't get any easier if you punched me.

________________________________ 

How does this hurt anyone?

 

Orferd and Landermeade stand with their backs to the window, darning socks, discussing a series of patently false allegations unearthed by a vain crew of eminent backsliders, the likes of which have left most folks on location high and dry. From here we can see that Orferd's hair is mussed. It's clear that he just doesn't give a damn anymore. It's kind of a shame considering what he originally brought to the table. A table for one, I might add. No one's yet been willing to retrace my steps back to last night's fifth frame. Because it was then and there that I first became aware of Lucy Goddard's tendency to flub lines and then throw a tantrum in a way that only she could manage with her eyes closed.

So, what did I do? It might amuse you to know that even my most uptight relatives have sought legal representation in multiple jurisdictions adjacent to Old Tombstone, Nevada. In my capacity as Site Overseer, I trade in a set of loosely defined 'facts'. If you or anyone else knew what was good for you, I wouldn't have to stay up half the night composing my valedictory speech. In a space the size of a gampede hutch we store some smallish tubes which sometimes compromise our inviolate sanctity. By the looks of them, only one other person has taken the time to navigate a precarious, if ephemeral, enigma. And even then, we all had our doubts about the sincerity of her enthusiasm. She appeared especially guilty while in a state of deep, dreamless sleep. I know this because I was privy to her old-fashioned sense of humor. No one ever said I wouldn't amount to anything; look who's laughing now!

________________________  

Is this a Cry for Help?

 

The other day I made the acquaintance of a baby in a costume on the front steps of a zoo by any other name. In the time that remained, I made it my business to train a wandering hostess in the arts of subliminal induction. She gave off the redolent odor of gratelessness but I forged ahead nonetheless. In the back of our straw chassis, we customarily carried two out of three carved switches. Each one linked us to a Great Continent. I would fold all my pictures in a way which gave everyone an idea about which conflict would suit them best. By the time we were through, no one felt that they'd received a fair shot at a brighter tomorrow. I knew for a fact, though, that if I followed through on my original buildup, I wouldn't have to go looking under an abandoned pier for a missing widower wearing a drop-dead kimono with an attitude to match. In fact, only a wisenheimer of the first rank would ever consider basking in the approval of those with limited horizontal cognition.

The next time you're in town, if you meet a guy with hazel eyes who speaks with a notably Scottish brogue, could you please ask him where he was on the evening of the 19th at about 2:71 AM Mountain Pacific Time? It's a widely shared opinion around these parts that he might be more forthcoming to the wiles of a traumatized stranger. If, though, he should suddenly lightly touch your wrist (right or left, it makes no difference) and then make a remark about your surprising resemblance to a pariah he once encountered while stacking coal, then it might be best if you move back in with your parents and pick up where you left off all those years ago. I'll be waiting by a bridge in an Oxnard blue sedan. My hair will be thoroughly conditioned, and I'll be carrying a copy of Lord Newton's Oriental Bible in case things get sticky. You can share in whatever I bring back during the next minute or so. If not, there's a place down by the water where they take bonified nutrition very seriously. This has always been a very important part of the overall picture.

In all likelihood, the game will be extended—past sunrise if necessary. I'll see to it that you won't get left behind like the last time. All the bars in my sundrome are rigged to emit lightning-fast accountancies and, even now, each one seems to be pinned to the very moment when you're expected to regain consciousness. If not, then one of my brothers may cast a line on your behalf in the search for a crestfallen debutante. One of these nights, I expect that we'll find your direct lookalike aligned with a malignant equestrian trend. You shouldn't take it to heart, though. Because, if all the playacting has proved anything at all, it's that one of your best chances for redemption is to leak some crucial details in an effort to establish your adamantine credibility with all the naysaying crybabies once and for all. In the interim. would it be okay if we put you down for next Tuesday the 23rd at six? That's the only time we'll be in the office for the next three or four months and we wouldn't want to miss out on a chance to see you take on a person of your own size for, like, the first time ever.

_____________________________

 

There's nothing contingent about this!

 

When I say that one of my daughters has been provided with a sanded oak way-station, someone in your position may be inclined to believe in the existence of a set of facts which could hinder a person of normative aptitude from gainsaying the acuity of our Observation Force. People who like to wrap up an operation before all pantheistic sycophants have grasped the essential details are no longer welcome to join the party which accompanies us to the Roswell Proving Grounds. The reason we feel the need to exhibit such rank inflexibility is that as young inductees we were repeatedly impressed with the size of various farm implements which littered the furthest expanse to which we had any hope of accessing in the near- to mid-term. If it wasn't for the way you presented yourself in a true-being bonnet at half-time, I myself would have had to seek your remandation to a refrigeration unit in the Chaldean Heights Research Area.

Some have reported feeling 'put off' by the way my hands attract the attention of a few stalwarts who never think twice about commandeering whatever slots remain after all our future reports have been shredded and fed into a local refibulation combine. I can only mix three volatile elements before I am thrust between a level-headed co-creator on one side and on the other a calm gent in a sports coat who can't seem to get his story straight. On second thought, if I offer either one a sip from my canteen, I can count on at least seventeen nights of fretful sleeplessness. When I get up in the morning to sign in for my routine, I am told that not three seconds prior I was to be shown a tricky panel where cultured lights substitute for residual magnetism. Now, however, due to the lateness of the hour, I must sit with three alternate winners and console them with bargain basement candy-canes. Pardon me, but this is most definitely NOT what I trained for. In fact, I'd go so far as to feel my way into someone's spare brain if that would in any way lead the rest of our crew into a kind of linoleum chemical fraud, for all the good that would do.

It's a sad fact that, from now on, if you or someone under your direct control holds a pocket unit directly inside my neck area, I will have no choice but to bounce back bigger the next time. Once all the pills have been distributed on the periphery of a metropolis which has seen better days, there will be no excuse for my daughter to parade her existential angst like a 'badge of honor' and prance through Third World airports as if anyone ever gave a damn in the first place. In the second place, I will continue to endanger a construction crew on their lunch break and do all I can to install premium aspimators in the Lower Lounge after everyone is safely incapacitated behind a platinum wall in the City of the Future. We look to establish a cozy perimeter and loll gaily before the Basket Trials get underway for real. A commission of 'secular sainthood' is sure to be bestowed without anyone's prior knowledge, permission or impatience. Those of us who will employ off-color language from the dais at a trivial affair are sure to experience second thoughts once our plane has been cleared for take-off. I sit with my back to the wall in a premium hotel set-up. Someone is grabbing a bite to eat and I have to use the john. Thank you for your report.

_____________________________  

Yet Another Pristine Account.

 

The people I normally travel with made sure to plead with my supervisor that I not be allowed to pick up anything either near an immoderately scanned motorway or in the bowels of a moribund Achievement Center. And by 'pick up' they refer to my rather notorious behaviour with a trite selection of comely young lovelies. This has all been documented in previously unearthed tomes when no one thought to pay attention to such effluvia.

You've got to understand, as the host of my own show, it falls on me to police my underlings in the only way I know how, by shoving them HARD into and through a very special doorway. I felt trammeled in the extreme, so I sat down, turned on the sprinkler system outside, got in touch with my brother Phil Carter, walked over to the Community Pool, ran into Commissioner Howard, took a nap, did some errands, had it out with my nemesis and trained my sights on the Grand Prize which will be awarded sometime later this Spring.

Once I got used to prowling the grounds of a sprawling compound on those evenings when I wasn't being directly implicated in the erection of a third-rate balance-shield, I felt free to liberally apply a forbidden lineament to the mid-forearm area where experts have told me it would have the most effect. Somehow, I couldn't not look up when a harried professional slithered by, humming my ex-wife's favorite song from the film of the same name. Unfortunately, though, the name of the tune didn't come into focus in time to prevent a major blot from sullying my already overly bloated record of insouciance in the face of officious diktats. Your last surviving Monitor should be so lucky.

____________________________ 

A major course-correction is on flap..

 

It wasn't a matter of whether I could arrange a duplicate to be delivered on time. No, that was clearly out of the question. Now it was a matter of holding certain parties to a potentially unearthable codicil which would attain due force only in the event of a catastrophic reception. I have it on good authority that just a few of our boxworthy splint-threads would be sacrificed to make room for a private affair. Each of the persons who routinely faced us on a minute-by-minute basis could now be required to bow out just as a benign reassessment came into view.

Who would want to plant a stake in a novel strategy of reduction? Certainly not any of the lads I coached in the year since my wife was caught paying off building inspectors during the recent 'overflow craze'. As my overall pressure neared zero, I came to see that any one of my study aides could achieve a polarized transparency if they but donned an inelegant carpers' wand in lieu of bringing inveterate marauders to a mutual bargaining chip. I began to wonder if the unnerving sound I associated with it was somehow meant to release certain facts to a wider public.

Quite naturally, one would try to focus one's gaze at a point midway on the Ecaranza Spectrum and pray to God that a notional fanfare could erase the results of uncoached conclaves the world over. Meanwhile, if ever one of your standard people appeared in the company of a marvelously equipped passtender, and made a move which indicated to all present that he or she was not to be bested, then what do you suppose the rationale would be to move all parallel lines in octagonal configurations for the pleasure of dissociated Pastors in our Southern Branch? They cleave to a hindrance only as a fond last resort before total absorption. This means that our collective life is bonded. Only now can we pack an awaiting crate with the life's work of a panicked holder of an original Tedmark. Who's laughing now?

________________________

Donald Jerkins: Summary Findings.

 

Donald Jerkins enjoys manipulating other people's expectations so that when remote leisure enters the picture, he feels a deep certainty that any other face will enjoy equal protection. When sitting on location near a partially burnt household totem, he dreams of one day performing an amateurish subdominal procedure without the benefit of artificial lighting. This arouses a latent glow in one who hovers in the distance hoping (without any reasonable way forward) to issue a terse denial to all who have given Donald advice in the personal growth domain.

By turns loquacious and subtly refractive, Jerkins scrapes the bottom without indulging in vacant self-recriminations. This strikes some folks as odd, but others use the time which has now been released to seek closure in an abandoned Fallcraft shelter. With one hand he pretends to make a feeble gesture of allocation while with the other, curled into a limpid fist as it is, he displays colorful novaks which timorous eunuchs seek to dispel. Eventually this may lead weaker members to make questionable comments to newly released pickaninnies. Some of the names have been forgotten, others are to be heard from the mouths of flaccid strangers.

Once the last list has been delivered into the girl's hot hands, a muffled sigh is all that escapes the singular presence of a trusted bromad. Now we learn that the girl has escaped vetting and 'gone rogue' in the process. She'll sashay into a medical office bragging about a feudal inheritance, invite a beleaguered grifter into a dark alliance and then move to the other side of the country without so much as plugging into the nativist petrie dish writ large. This is what causes some of us to move to a different side of a room we've already occupied, not that anyone's entitled to feel comfortable with my personally improvised arrangement of molecular portents. The word is shot. Is anyone asking you?

___________________________

It's all about fairness.

 

So, it wouldn't be unfair to say that I'm not inclined to go near a person who has not been so designated. But you see, this is not about fairness. It's about the lengths to which some of our major operators might extend themselves to enforce sectional discipline, even if the lowest link in the chain never thinks twice about altering the placement of an ordinary chair. A person engaged in a cavalier frenzy of factional optimization isn't apt to be on the lookout for parlor crypts in which to deposit telltale footwear-adjacent memory cards. You might come to the next meeting claiming to have 'heard it all before'. Alternatively, you could be in the mood for a bracing rejoinder or two while under the tutelage of our foremost Formosan Ice Pokey signatory. The choice isn't yours to make, as much as we'd like to have you pretend that it was. If keeping up appearances for the benefit of younger campers is your idea of a social nicety, then please try one of our new pro-cap dinches. They don't know?

Anyway, everyone here is finally getting along and has decided to begin in earnest to create a Master Page where those who are stuck in the brindles can register to have their clothing donated for the ongoing care of a lab-endowed fictional monster. Their hearts are on fire with love for all things road-related. Including the time you were observed from afar making a rough sketch of a road which you fraudulently claim to have seen in a low-budget film years ago. At my own expense, I took to the stage—in a bathrobe, no less!—to offer a meager defense of your pathetic proclivities in the only way I know how. And that's with butter, rather than glue, if you catch my drift. By the time I was done, a woman was seen crying in a wheelchair on a Channel 16 Action-News segment. The gentleman who compiled the statistics has been known to keep several slimy characters at elbow's length, if that. And, if that is what you're considering, please stop leaving faulty explosive devices in my dressing room. It's just not fair!

By the time I got her up to my room, her hair had started to fall out in droves. I drove to Methodist Central Hospital at 2:87 AM under a Chapter 13 blackout. Still in all, I was able to gather the necessary herbal concoctions and snuck through airport security before my flight crashed. Quite ignominious it was, but I still harbored hopes that my singing career wasn't all but dead, if that. Now I know what people mean when they go around mouthing off to folks who they perceive as weaker by half. Yeah, that's right, you guessed it: it's just a vain 'cry for help'. Anyone with half a brain would have already backed out by now. Instead, anybody who's already been fobbed off on a lucrative relative won't have a problem looking into the nearest doorway for an open container. 'Container of what?', you ask. Carbonated cigarette candy, you fool! And, that's just the topmost layer. Once you're inside, you'll find all manner of people lined up to receive their personal note card. You know what I say to that? UNDER MY DEAD BODY! that's what!

___________________________ 

The small matter of a minor proposal.

 

When Paul and William Tanagore at length approached my first wife with their proposal, I knew that her personal vanity would render a moot arrangement all the more tempting. As she stood next to our beach ladder, I began going through a series of lists in my mind. The abruptness with which she'd diagnosed the cantankerous news agent who lived near our dentist's final victim made me all the more certain that I might not survive the surfacing of tangential materials in the hands of those too young to fold into a disingenuous cohort.

Try as one might, the rapid dissolution of anyone's instructional fabric only serves the interests of those whose previous involvement no longer rises to the level where our betters abjure red flags to seek out the indolent party. Why is it that I always get the creeps when you peel away to join the others for a round of 'pygmy squatch'? It always seemed that when they lived behind us, I was more often than not the one to be put on speed dial. The 'crazy complaints' are all we have left. There are, though, those who freely circulate in a frankly painterly pattern. Once yet another has been dumped into a phantasmic mortgage stipulation, we make it our business to be very watchful in case anyone tries to hide 'in plane sight', with all that implies.

Who's to say that I wasn't feeling all that generous as I picked my way through the remnants of a diacritical plot, hatched courtesy of the one couple whose harried expressions concealed a thoroughgoing effort to exert maximum pressure worldwide? It might sound like one of my trainees has given up the ghost, but what I know to be true is that no one took the time to enroll our son in an organ exchange manifold. I've had to repay every red cent before my picture came up for review. On or about the third week in February 2014, approximately thirty-five wellness practitioners sought to peacefully enter the grounds of the Fulton County (GA) Municipal Building in hopes of gathering forged signatures to make a play for the 'sympathy vote'. Does anyone still believe they did anything wrong?

________________________ 

A brief explanation is in order.

 

Part of the reason that I held so tightly to my prior obligation, is that the person's name which appears to have been all but erased, is one which I found strangely appealing in the years leading up to the accident. I don't know what it was, but in the event that I was about to be implicated in unexplained fires, the one briefing book that I'd want in my toolkit was all but certain to raise the ire of our most expensive prisoner to date. And, if we add in the several emergency adjustments only agreed to at the last minute, we're talking in multiples of ten to the point zero power. There just wasn't any alternative but to circle the room slowly to get everyone's immediate non-reaction.

Take the woman who sits directly in front of me in Spelling, for example. She's had her work cut out for her from Day 1. I refused to get involved in her penny-ante struggles. Why? Look, I have to admit I was put off by the way she just 'sat there' and pretended to not have a care in the world, when, in point of fact, there was no denying that she'd been part of this thing from the start. In order to prove my point, I had her diagnosed with a 'quack' placebo and installed in a nightly surgical brigade which was just ripping it up down at the club. Yes, it's true, she got to perform the least favorite number from her repertoire. She had this weird idea that she could malignly influence the Judges by offering sexual favors of a very gross and disgusting kind. I'll have you know, and when I get my hands on her, I'll have her know, that these Judges are, to a person, Men and Women of the Cloth. Therefore, it doesn't take much to get them to see it your way. The point is, though, perversion of any kind, is most definitely an outlier extraordinaire!

While I coped with what seemed to be unsupportable contradictions, I had no idea that each night, while I slept soundly in my tent in a parking lot downtown, all the usual busybodies took to the airwaves and gave it their best shot when it came to trashing my already shaky reputation. I couldn't help but wondering if any of them ever had to meet payroll even once in their miserable lives. Also, I began wheeling large vats of indigestible protein broth at all hours through the streets of Little City to try to lure one or more of our incandescent marauders into a more health-conscious lifestyle. It's plain to see that we build a new relationship to ourselves one brick at a time. And no one who was there that day could ever deny that our moves wouldn't budge a thing without a major look-see from 'the Man Upstairs'. To that end, I've decided to give up any access I ever enjoyed to various and sundry perquisites concomitant to my former position in a now defanged hierarchy. We are now—each of us—beguiling what remains of our once substantial resources to convert a defunct bowling alley into a state-of-the-art escalator factory. I've made peace with my God. What, exactly, do YOU have to say for yourself?

_____________________________ 

Emotional Inventory Suggestions.

 

It's not a mistake if some of you get a not-so-funny feeling that those of us on the other side enjoy nothing so much as whiling away the hours, days and weeks all by our lonesome in Room 9. It's in that Room (and that Room ONLY!) where envoys from advanced extraterrestrial civilizations take the time to make their feelings known, understood and—finally!—absorbed like so much 'mother's milk'. Once we've parlayed our advantages, root and branch, and had a go at a bit of tragic epistrophy, we feel like nothing so much as a smallish container of warmed-over Insta-Ade. With a winning smile and a trunkfull of 'collectors' edition' soiled doilies, it's our distinct pleasure to run the numbers and hide some snails in a bigwig's oven mitt. Not to worry, because he'll never know about the time I hosted your parents in a freeze-frame extravaganza which existed, it that's the right word, for all of a second or two before anyone got the bright idea to contact Senior Justice Department officials. I always wondered, like, what if I got a nosebleed or something? Would people realize that I'd been missing for years? Does this thing even work?

Now that I've entered the third and last pavilion on the Motorway, it seems increasingly obvious that no one in my shelving party will be able to go the distance without even the tiny trace of help that I might be persuaded to provide at cost, if that. But, that's only on the off-chance that an oily residue won't gum up the works something awful. What is it that anyone has to lose anyway? Would they still exhibit such profoundly disturbing characteristics if I was honest about their chance to forestall a troubling absence in the time it takes to paint a crescent Moon on your average dust flap? I don't know about you, but I'm the last person you should tell about a feeding problem in your troubled infancy. Because, even before you put down your pen, I'm on the phone with one of the top people in the business. He'll set you straight on exactly how much I need and in what colors, denominations and hair lengths. After that, we could go for drinks at the club. If that doesn't suit your fancy, why not come clean about your role in the Helen Weiskaupf affair? It'll only hurt when I start to apply direct pressure to your anterior weemus. That's okay. Don't mention it, I'm sure.

There's just no telling if the ponticle parked in my bar court has seen better days or if I'm off my game like a windshear in a shell-shocked bentilope. If these trends continue unabated, it's a virtual certainty that one of my least trustworthy associates will be due for a major looking-at before anyone decides to get down and dirty with an isotrophic plaything or two. Now that I've tunneled my way through to the inner recesses of a reformed ice-pokey juggernaut, what do you suppose it would take to have my granite-faced accomplice installed in a well-oiled mechanism second-to-none? Because, if not, I'm just not having any, thank you very much. And besides, is it really anyone's business where I get my hair done? It's only those who play fast and loose with a trust fund who spark my pride in ever vigilant coprophagiacs. No one on this floor thinks that will get you very far. In fact, the only time you've ever gotten stuck on the business side of a punk register-show will be the very LAST instance when you can count on our direct involvement going forward. Without even winking, you'll know it was us all along. And then what will you do? Go cry on your widdle wommy? Yeah, right. Sure. 

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Any Delay is Fade Critical: Manko

 

The copper fitting has run to mould, but sell we will without a moment to spare. I have been given scraps to stow but the bracing stand I'd normally use is wet from dis-use, and now there's even a paired dispenser underneath the side dish. More than anyone would think, we brush away the plaints and proceed as if all our years have yielded to a mild compression. As I call my assistant in from the patio, it appears that he's squatted on his portion, so we'll have to begin again. Against everyone's better judgment, we hold him until the Highway Patrol arrives to retrieve samples from his mistress's duodenum. I prepare by sitting them down in a prayerful pose so that I will be undisturbed while reciting a litany of overbroad characterizations. Some might be inclined to question this tactic, but it gets the job done, and then some! Once the day recedes into an infant's memory, I take tooth to comb and compose a voluble solution-based enconium to a martyred co-mentor of the fifth design. Smoothness is not for the least willing but camping in a sand-lot could get you cited.

The chain bears a striking embankment to our linch-pin in more sunny climes than one. By the way the easement is enforced, you'd think that all of our ingrained foibules have plum split the show in two. But I'll tell you what really set them off: It was the time my wife returned from a short jaunt to see her overbearing sister. She (the wife) carried in her pocket nary a particle of a rather common element. At the crossing she was stopped and scolded and made to stand without reinforcements until an unknown forecaster let it slip that he'd once positioned her to take the heat for an unfortunate incident on one of our Nation's Highways. The Highway will go unnamed, but something else won't. Go unnamed, that is. Now that you've settled into your new digs, could we ask you to refrain from fantasizing about life in an underwater civilization of the future? We find that it disrupts the memeplex which we've worked very hard to effectuate over the last three seasons of unforgiveable retards. Thanks in advance for being 'a good sport'. You'll need all the help you can get.

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A Situation of Concern.

 

With all that stood between her and the game I was reduced to, you'd think there wouldn't be more than a handful of rotational foundations to which our lives could be pinned without a secret addition being imperiled. I'd always loved the way her hair seemed so well starched, especially for a morning person. When she thought better about fixing up our space in time for the Dutch New Year collaboration, I took her straight to the Department of Surgical Interventions at Mass General. There I was greeted by Lois Parnell and her assistant Hyman Lurfshpatzel. Through a set of pre-determined hand signals, Hyman made it known to me that Lois was in the middle of a very concerning situation on the home front. Her son and husband had been implicated in a botched hush money scheme which had spilled into a local watering hole putting several Olympic swimteam hopefuls' lives at risk.

By the time I arrived at Josh Swenson International Airport (Terminal 2) at roughly 3:98 in the wee hours, all I could see was a clearly upset Okinawan dental hygienist who seemingly never knew what hit her. And, to be fair, we've been wracking our brains for months now trying to figure out if, in fact, she was ever actually 'hit' at all. You see, when you play the game as long as I have, certain telltale features will leap out at you like a sore thumb at an anti-clerical  Rumba Contest. Other than that, I'm not the first to admit that there's no age limit on people who might feel the need from time to time to lean against whatever wall or other support structure might present itself. The person I dream of, night after night for going on a year or two, if that, is of medium height, with salty eyes and generally favors tan formfitting apparel. He—or she, it's never clear which!—continues to drum their fingers on a level-high synthetic table while I politely ask when I can expect to hear my name on one of the local shows. Other than that, there's an urban stickiness which I just cannot shake.

Now that my Pastor, Dr Dan Stimfler, has heard the full story, he's asked that I submit to a full battery of specimen contours under the direction of a bonded Service Agent who hails from the Four Corners region in the Sebna area. He (the Service Agent) has been keeping a lot of stress bottled up deep underneath. So much so, that when he was apprehended leaking caustic substances from the upper tier of Veterans Stadium, all we could do was to laugh out loud and thank the Lord for small miracles. To think that I was about to entrust my wife's mother to a solo camping event to be overseen by a pre-psychotic scoutmaster, gives more than a few of us chills and a runny nose. Sometimes even our tummies get uncomfortable. Which makes it difficult to bank our fair share of shut-eye. The Task Force has seen the contamination up close and personal. They'd also like to counsel at-risk youth during their time in-country. There's still the language barrier though. Plus, of course, they're deaf. Which might mean that we'll have trouble getting our sheets in before the cut-off. Just do the math. You might not like what you come up with, is all I'm trying to say.

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