"Born Again"

I spent part of the New Years last night around the corner watching the guys at the Fire House setting off bottle rockets over the East River. Was that illegal? Do firemen get special dispensation to play with matches?

Anyway it looked great!

After a while they had to go out on a call,...alot of fires on the holidays.

I love firemen.

Their 'whole' job is to save you, your family,..and ya beloved junk. I loves'em. They're cool. I admire their sense of brother, and lately sisterhood. All that "Band of Brothers" stuff.

However what I especially likes about these neat folks is that they don't shoot you.

Naw this ain't a back handed diss on cops,..mostly. I mean police folks go into harms way 'everyday' for us. They're hero's too. It's just that being a cop, like firemen, is an 'extraordinary' thing, and calls for extraordinary people.

Not just any Moe, Larry or Curly.

A police person besides everything else holds the direct power of life or death over us. So perhaps only the very 'best' of us should be cops.

Remember I cynically said that we'd be completely recovered from the downtown 9/11 attack. We'd be back to "normal" as soon a cop, probably Curly, gunned down another unarmed Black guy.

It took six days.

However in those six days we were a united community of human beings. We openly spoke, and cared for each other.

I miss those days.

I'm not alone in that. I've found over the years that many New Yorkers would speak wistfully of those too few days as well.

How is it that so many would thoughtfully remember out of all the mayhem of this past decade those 'few' days.

Maybe it's because these were the best hours of this whole traumatic era. Maybe our true selves finally shined through at last.

May this New Year, this new 'Decade' give us more "Human" days.

More Humanity.

(Btw, the sweet kid above looks like Obama at his first job.)

"Daze of Future Past"

One of the interesting things about being 348 years old is that you've lived past the "Future". Ya know that future where everybody wears aluminium underwear, and has their own rocket pack.

That, and a vacation home on the moon. I recall talk back when I was a lad in the 1960's that said 'the' social problem of the 21st century would be what to do with all our leisure time.

Good lord what were they thinking.

Futurists indeed. These jerks couldn't predict their own bowel movements much less the next century.

Ha! Not 'one' of them saw the cyber revolution or the climatic changes that was banging it's way towards us in history's pipeline.

Speaking of outliving the future. Anyone still read "Transmetropolitan" out there. It was a neat surrealist comix book of the early 1990's. It depicted a strange hyper-culture of the then "near future".



Well the cultural mutations, and techno chaos it foretold all came true. Indeed reality surpassed what was going on in that comix. I stopped reading it in the early 2000's. It took me a while to realize why.
















It just wasn't interesting anymore. It read like the Post or the Times. The future had caught up, passed it by, and no amount of re-writes or infusions of younger artists can save it.

I wish I had a time tunnel so I could go back to the 1964 New York World's Fair, and set up a 'real' 21st Century Pavillion.

Yeah there'd be the expected amazing high tech crap, but cheek to cheek with incurable plagues, and profound planetary poverty. That, and the U.S.A. devolving into a third world theocratic police state, violent cults, terrorist wars, and 1000 channels, and absolutely NOTHING! to watch.


























The "2001" poster above, with the happy space guys wandering around. Well okay they was all white, and the space women was all making coffee or being receptionists at cosmic hotels, but still.

Anyway it hung in my bed room in my boyhood home. I later brought it with me to University. I still had it into the 90's.

It was such a hopeful though somewhat segregated dream.

Yeah, then there was that Pan Am space plane. It was seriously cool! Well Pan Am died a few recession ago. What we got were the spaces shuttles.

Swell they're now 35 years out of date, and too dangerous to fly anymore. How many more crews is NASA going to burn to death before there's a replacement conveyor.

Did I mention our not going back to the moon for over 40 years?!

All this scary, gawdless, deranged future stuff might upset the gleeful Fair goer's.

I see these early 1960's innocents foaming at the mouth, crapping their shorts, and hurling themselves off the Futurama's streamlined roof.

Though perhaps not in that order.

Well the rubes would be freaked, but the beatniks, and science fiction writers'n fans would get it at once. I'd love to read Philip K. Dick's or Ben Bova's take on the 'real' future.

As for me everyday of this Bizarro World 21st century is like living in one of Hieronymus Bosch's more hellish paintings.

Clearly I must have died back in 1998 or so, and have been existing in this ironic hell ever since.

If anyone out there has a better explanation for all this weird shit I'm all ears.

Look comrades sorry 'bout being so nasty, and grumpy. I'm still the sweet'n lovable sort I always was deep, deep down under miles, and miles of pissed off cynical shit.

Honest.

"Mayday"

"Head Man"

(This here is a little story of the coming time of them Tribulations. Yeah you laffs now, but just wait. The shit com'n.)

Part 1, "The Goods"

It was a dark, and stormy night my phone rang. It was Satan again. He wanted to know if I had the "merchandise?" "Yes!" I said for the tenth time that day, and hung up.

What's the big deal I thought.

One priceless severed head of a Pope is as good as another. Still I can't blame da "Prince'a Darkness" for being nervous. Especially after what happened to him the last time he went toe to toe with the "Big Guy" upstairs.

My TV turned itself on, and a simulacrum of a very young Harry Truman appeared. He was wearing a geisha outfit, and had a rosebud smile on his pouting lips.















"How did it go on the space station?"

Eh, there's these nasty rouge Angles, and Demons that's set themselves up on the old "ISS" in orbit. Yeah they wants the damned Head too.

"Oh Uncle Sydney" Truman purred. "You know this isn't wise", she/he said in Meiji upper caste Japanese.

"There's still time."

"Heavens Leviathans are chasing their ample tails."

"Give 'Purgatory' that fools head, and we'll cover your debts to hell. All will be even."

I threw a Steuben Glass figurine of Fats Domino through the screen. Which immediately repaired itself, and began playing 3-D images of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth,...the First!

Who could have imagined that the fate of the multiverse would depend on a has been Gay pornographer, and the rancid head of an ex-Pope.


Part 2, "Cherry Coke"

Traffic was backed up on the Obama Memorial Bridge. My skating to midtown plan was going seriously south. Homeland Security had gone nuts, and was strip searching everybody try'n to get out of town.

They wanted that "Head", and they wanted it bad!












My options was drying up faster than the Pacific Ocean. Which was just the first plague. One down nine to go.

It was time to call in some "markers." I took off my glass roller blades hailed a peddle-cab, and was biked over to Sutton Place,..the new homeless encampment.

New York is a Hella'va Town. All the more so now that Satan, and his bully boys was running City Hall.

Still things ain't changed 'that' much. Housing was still unaffordable, the schools sucked, it was too hot, and you could get shanked in da kidneys for your shoelaces after dark.

I paid the "undead" cabbie with cats eye marbles, the only solid currency these days. I climbed off the yellow tricycle, and joined the ragged shell shocked mob as they shuffled by.

I did my best to look inconspicuous. Not easy what with me still wearing a spacesuit, and carrying a large Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket under my arm.

Yeah that's where I keep it. The Head that is.

I reach's my destination with only minor incidents. Former yuppies, and assorted republicans, and landlords begging for forgiveness, not a chance.

Anyhow I knocks on the steel plated door of a fortified "Starbucks." A little slot opens, and someone eyes me up'n down.

The door suddenly slides back, and I'm stare'n down the muzzle of an AK-47 expertly held by a 12 year old boy in ballerina drag.

He wasn't smile'n.

"Eh,..the Cardinal in?" I politely asks.

"You the Head Man?" Replies little snake eyes.

"The same." "Tell ya boss I gots the "Original Recipe", and I'm here to talk turkey."

"Ya might also wanna mention my home movies of his indiscretion at a certain boy scout jamboree." "I think he'll want to see me."

Short Pockets lets me in, and goes to fetch his master.

While I'm waiting I makes myself at home. 'Always liked Starbucks, and these days it's the only place ya can still get a cherry coke,..uncut!

Yeah looks like the "Cardinal's" do'n okay for himself. He's got the major food groups covered,..loose shoes, a tight altar boy, and a warm place to shit. Not bad.


Part 3, "Biznezz"















I was just knock'n back my third "Cuba Libre", and watch'n a bunch'a drunken undead demons abduct a crowded crosstown bus into a mini blackhole when the Cardinal stumbled in.

I had apparently Interrupted his meditations with Saint Angel Dust. Hey who could blame'em. The "Tribulations" haven't exactly been a barrel of laffs for anybody.

"So Uncle, you're still alive." His eminence hissed. "That 'is' unfortunate."

"Well I'm glad ta see you too." ...putting on my best sodomized altar boy face.

"Is that him?" Eyeing my "Colonel Sanders" tub.

"Have a look." I sez. "He likes visitors."

The Cardinal who btw was in full drag, miter, robes, ring, hooked staff the works popped open the bucket. The Vicar of you know who on Earth stared up, and blinked at the sudden light.

"He don't say much" I said,.."seems when they did the deed in Mecca they cut'em above the vocal cords." They don't like their victims talk'n. Bad for business or something.

...an aside.

Ya know the final day's is just full'a interesting sights. The Statue of Liberty recite'n from the Torah, talking fish, and the "undead" re-register'n to vote.

But I must admit I gets a kick out'a watching the faithful meet their holy underboss. Which is to say 'the' Pope.

The last in a line that started with St. Peter or Mary of Magdalene. Depending on which one you believe.

I remember the both of them having it out on CNN, talk about a blooper reel!

Anyhow the Cardinal was get'n an eyeful. I can only guess at what his former-holiness was think'n.

While still enraptured with the sight of the pontiff's head in a fried chicken box the Cardinal asked.

"What do you want?"

"Who me or ya pal "extra-crispy" in there?"

His Eminence looked up ashen faced from clear evidence of the 'end' of Faith as we knew it , and said.."You do not fear for your immortal soul?"

"It's in a safe place, but let's get to it." "I wanna ticket out'a town, and a safe conduct pass to the Angelic frontlines."

He smirked,.."You, and eight billion other people."

Well didn't hurt to ask.

My ex-confessor continued,..."Best I can do is maybe a seat on the next migrant ship headed for the "Yankeetown" slums of Shanghai."

My blood ran cold for a moment.












Shang-bleeping-hai.

If there were a place worse than hell. A place that would make the Lake'a Fire feel like a heroin, and cocaine uncut rush that was it.

"No thanks" I said, "I don't do windows."

"What else" asked his eminence clutching his monkey's paw talisman.

"Okay, behind door number two I might like ten ounces of "pre-tribulation" Holy Water." (The only kind that still works,..keeps the hyper-demons away.)

"A crate of .45 caliber hollow point zombie slugs. The 'real' stuff not that U.N. crap that only piss's 'em off." "A copy of the Vatican's map to the last safe zones."

"That'n one of them backpack fresh water'n food replicators the Angels handed out when all this shit started."

"Throw in them consecrated keys to your "enchanted" 1950 Studebaker, and were jake."

"In return for?"

"In return for his former holiness's left eye."

Talk about a conversation stopper. Even little "Snake Eyes" who'd been cover'n me with his trusty Kalashnikov went pale.

See the left eye of a Pope,..any Pope can ward off demons, and all their evil fucked up enchantments too.

A real handy thing to have now'a days.

Don't leave home without it. I don't neither. I got's an even set of four mummified "papal peepers" they work too. Like a charm in fact, beats the hell out'a them monkey paws every time!


"So can we do biznezz?"


Part 4, "The Kicker"

The Studebaker, enchanted or not, is the most underrated car Detroit ever crapped out onto the interstates! When I was a kid these things was as common as crucified nuns are today, and just as popular.











Don't know why they stopped make'n 'em.

The light changed to blue, and I accelerated down Himmler Avenue. I made a left onto Broadway'n had to swerve around all the wreckage the "Rapture" had left behind. The National Guard was still scraping, and hauling all that crap away.










Every possible make of smashed car, truck, and occasional pulverized airliner littered the landscape.

On the upside tho' most of the assholes, fanatics, and busybodies of the world disappeared.

Poof! Just like that.

I guess we all got a story 'bout 'that' day. Sort'a like where were you on 9/11 or when that giant UFO flew over Dodgers Stadium during the Pennant Game.

Ha! There was no hush'n that one up.

With me I was at a staff meeting at my job. I used to work at a communist radio station. This is before Satan ordered all broadcasting shut down except for his outfit.

Actually his stuff ain't bad. They tell it like it is, and their game shows is funny.

"You Bet Your Life" is my favorite.

You win you live, you lose you die. Straight up no bullshit. 'Course most of the show is the losers being slowly roasted, and eaten by the winners, but still. It's an honest game.

Anyhow there I was at this stupid meeting surrounded by untalented morons when,..."Poof!"

Them jerks was gone.

This followed by the sound of chain reaction accidents on the street outside. Point is every bigot, asshole, and fanatic was gone.

Btw, the rapture effect really sounded like,..."Poof" I watched the digital analysis of it CNN 'fore the devils shut it down.












Here's the kicker.

They didn't go to Heaven. Least that's what Moses said when he was interviewed by Satan on that new "Demonic Network" of his. According to Moses, and btw Vishnu backs him up on this. Anyhow Moses sez that there's more out there besides Heaven, Hell or Purgatory.

Apparently the "Big Guy" set up all sorts of players we never heard of. Well the "Rapture" scooped up millions sure. Zapped them to,...where? Nobody knows.

Not even The Lord of Darkness, and the Big Guy ain't talk'n. Ha, I loves a mystery.

But I digress.

The Head.

My little pal here seems to be the key to alot of whats going on. Yeah, yeah it's the end of the world, and this Tribulation shit sucks. Ocean's drying up, devils everywhere fuck'n with folks, mayhem, slaughter, high tax's, and only one channel on tv.

It's like the whole damned universe ate the brown acid then drank the Jim Jones Koolaid!

Ain't we got fun.

But underneath it all is a purpose. The "Big Guy" is up to something, and he's gonna let us all in on it this time. That explains the chaos.

See 'before' everybody was in his own patch, and it was business as usual. Now all these Celestial realities, evil, and Angelic is bumping into each other. Now everyday life is like subletting an apartment in one of Dali's nuttier paintings.

There's a map to where all this shit is going locked inside the Popes head. I imagine that's why he's still alive, and so popular.

Btw, that reminds me. I needs to shove one of my cats eye marbles into his holiness's empty socket. Hey appearances still count.












I turns on to the cracked, and shaky Caligula expressway, and heads west.

Studebaker,..hell of a car!

To be continued.

"Bright Magic"

I want to live in a place where Good Magic is REAL! Our current world is in the back pocket of Satan. Evil magic is the business of the day.

There's some Good here, but it's like a rose growing out of a crack in the pavement. There's not much of it, and it doesn't last long.

As for our 10,000 year old Hope for a land of Milk'n Honey. We can dream it, but we don't know how to do it. Genocides, and income tax are no problem. We are experienced executioners, and clerks.

However we stumble'n fall trying to make worlds of Beauty, Loving Kindness, and Joyful Living.

I want to live in a Holier place.















A land where enlightened magic is routine. Where the lunch and tuition are always free!

"Dreams"

"Pope Bites Dust"

"POPE BITES DUST,...BUT GETS BACK UP."

The Pope seen here during the War as a 15 year old luffwaffe anti-aircraft gunner. He's credited with downing two American B-24 bombers. Good shoot'n ya holiness!













"Flak Happy Jack" strikes again! Hey it was war, and he was a kid. He did his duty!

To the story at hand. Everything was going peachy at the Vatican's "Christmas Do" when out'a nowhere an insane worshiper lunges at the Shoes of the Fisherman. His shoes, pants, swell white'n gold cape, and far out hat too!

However nothing can stop the direct descendant of the throne of Peter, and close pal of the BIG GUY!

Well nothing except "political expediency". There 'was' that matter of them Jews, and others getting tossed into the ovens a while ago,..ahem. 'But never mind. Only Liberals, and Satanists insist on speaking of such things.

All's well that ends well.

Our hero recovered quickly, and said Christmas mass. All the assembled rubes was pleased as punch, and to all a good night.

Once again it's a Lady in Red!


Aww, I'm just joshing ya. You all knows how much I just loves the guy.

"NYC Snow"

A thought about our recent snow. Actually I wish the City would leave it alone. I wish the plows, and sanders, and assorted giant machines would leave our bright clean snow alone.

Leave it be so it could be beautiful for days.

Not just a few hours till the trucks, and cars turn it brown, and the dogs crap all over it, and the thoughtless pepper it with their garbage.

I'd like it to be beautiful for a whole week,...just for once.