The simple answer is I don’t have a clue. I worked all night, and, as I was about to go to bed, I learned that Washington Mutual had collapsed. I sat around and thought that one into the ground, which engendered some bad dreams. I only crawled from my bed in time for the first presidential debate, and right now I’m still trying to grok the scary fullness. I was not overly impressed with Barack’s performance, but maybe I was expecting too much. At the same time, nothing seems real and there’s plenty to get hung about. All I can say is stay tuned. Panic is optional.
The secret word is Grim
I think it’s safe to say that, by age ten or so, I had chosen the switchblade. At least as metaphor. (And, as far as I recall, this is the first time Pat Boone has ever appeared in Doc40.)
CRYPTIQUE – Rome didn’t decline and fall in a day.
The little girl in Hiroshima, on the morning of August 6th ,1945, saw a tiny silver plane against the background of a clear-blue, summer-morning sky, and though how pretty it was. The shit storm doesn’t always herald it’s own approach, and in times that will later live in historical infamy, everything on the surface seems so frighteningly normal. The sun comes up. The sky is blue. The ancient cat yawns. There’s still food in the fridge and beer at the 7-11. Only the computer and the TV make me aware that the very foundations of US banking are collapsing into a sinkhole of previous greed, and could well bring down the entire planetary economy as they go. And most of those in any position to do anything about it are scum, planning only the ways and means to loot the wreckage – the metaphoric equivalent of stealing the Titanic’s silverware after the iceberg has hit. Meanwhile the Pentagon denies, without even needing to be asked, incidents on the Afghan/Pakistani frontier between US military and our heavily-funded, nuclear-armed, supposed-ally, Pakistan. Surely a gerbil must see that this is not the time to make a senile fool like John McCain the most powerful man on Earth.
"It's hard for me to stay silent, when I keep hearing that peace is only attainable through war. And there is nothing more scary than watching ignorance in action." – Tommy Smothers as he accepted his honorary Emmy.
In which Marilyn – aware of the threat posed to all sentient life for at least a hundred parsecs in any direction by the combined forces of The Amorphous Blight, Azathoth 3, Fat Men in Hats, and the Alaskan Energy Drain – enlists in D Corps of the People’s Army of the Fourteenth International and volunteers for agent training. But when expected to lift weights, right outside the Doors of Perception, she is less than happy. “All I need to learn is a few simple techniques like the Configuration of Yian so I can create the Tesla/ Yuggoth Particle Beam. I’m Marilyn. I kinda know the rest.” To which the Drill Instructor, who is configured to look like Ernest Borgnine, responds that she needs to complete the simple essentials before she moves on to combat metaphysics. He had smiled unpleasantly. “That’s why they call it basic training.”
