McSweeney's---Live or Die?

this is how I look when I blog

One of my favorite websites is McSweeneys.net. It is the electronic gigantic arm of the oft-praised, much demonized lord of self-publishing (and tutoring little chlidren to write) Dave Eggers. Oh yeah, he also wrote a little Pulitzer Prize winning book called A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Anyway, any idiot can submit a little humor story to their website for momentary worldwide acclaim. Also I would like to add that any idiot can win the Pulitzer Prize. Look at the guy who did A Confederacy of Dunces. He was a rotting corpse and he still won.

This idiot (yours truly) has been rejected three times. I am enclosing my final shot to you dear readers. Good enough for your humor bone or complete drivel? If I am rejected I will be recruiting a forward attack team from my lovely admirers to wage all out war on McSweeneys. However, this little story may require a little advanced Presidential trivial knowledge so don't blame me if you don't laugh. Presidential humor is so fucking funny...get with the times. Here it goes...

COMPLETELY USELESS ADVICE TO SOME RANDOM DEAD PRESIDENTS

To The Honorable JAMES MADISON-Horses are tall. Avoid riding all equines in public. They will only mock your miniscule stature and most likely draw attention to the fact that your party animal wife and snack queen, Dolly, towers over you. Try riding mules or donkeys or large dogs while attending public events.

Addressing the handsome JAMES K. POLK-I would like to make some suggestions to you about your legendary video game for the Apple IIE, Oregon Trail. My oxen keep dying when I am trying to ford rivers. Please make them fly. Also, why can't I sell my children to friendly Apache Indians for food? Isn't that more humane than having my whole family starve? Finally, kindly refill the West with bountiful game after I kill them all. I am sure other gamers/Manifest Destiny followers would love to shoot as many animals I do as we make our way to Oregon.

For the portly man-beast known as GROVER CLEVELAND-If you just ate a few more dinners or maybe injected lard directly into your belly, you could have earned the immortal title of MOST UNGODLY GIGANTIC FATASS LEADER OF ALL TIME. What elementary schoolchild could ever forget you come time for presidential roll call?

Regards to JAMES BUCHANAN- The Civil War (or War Between the States) was essentially your gig and your own Southerners hated you slightly less than those pesky Northerners but that doesn't mean you should be ashamed about your future presidential rank. No one even knows what or who the hell CHESTER A. ARTHUR was (it is presumed ARTHUR was a French stooge, a Martian envoy or an animated statue of Tremont L. Willard, the clown prince of 18th century comedy woodcarving).

To the sometimes forgetful RONALD REAGAN-The Gipper was a totally cool nickname...even though you were a complete tool.

Happily presenting to the tall, sea-going WOODROE WILSON-After "winning" WWI and "bitchslapping those stupid dying Euros some sense" you should have not named your pet project the whiny, helpful sounding League of Nations but instead used the more imposing Hall of Ass Kicking Americans and some other insignificant countries.

Shot over the bow goes to the graceful, congenial, apparently loathed JAMES GARFIELD-Duck, you're about to be shot, buddy!

Last but not least humble thoughts for the demi-god FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT-Atomic bombs are scarily impressive but your mighty resources of scientific and economic might could have been used for a much greater purpose. Three words...MOTHERFUCKING HOVER WHEELCHAIR! True, you may have only lived a couple years but don't you think flying one of those around at the Yalta Conference would have had the entire world bending over and calling you Supreme Ruler of the Universe.

Can you spot the clue?

Ok...below, a lost cosmonaut...even more below, a funeral...maybe a star city...maybe a mother in strastosphere...maybe a corellation...perhaps something is going on here...remember One and the Oktopus has an enormous hard-on for secrets...could this be the mysterious Projekt *********? Would you even care if it was? Have I said too much. Mo', don't worry only Vangie, Kristine, Chas and a few bored government monitors read this!

(pictured above The National Archives in Wash D.C.) Oh yeah, One and the Oktopus has been denied its Freedom of Information Act request (see much previous blog about DOD FOIA request for more detailed info). We got a super-official letter from the director of the Department of Defense. They claim the really strange War Game videos and scripts that we requested are buried deep in the National Archives. They officially informed us that we can come to Washington D.C. and spend a few decades scrounging around the vacuous halls of bureaucracy. Sounds like a date Director Walls! See ya in muthafucking, D.C.!

The First Woman In Space Lost to History?

five...four...three ...two...one...one
two...three...four...five...
come in... come in... come in...
LISTEN...LISTEN! ...COME IN!
COME IN... COME IN... TALK TO ME!
TALK TO ME!... I AM HOT!... I AM HOT!
WHAT?... FORTYFIVE?... WHAT?...
FORTYFIVE?... FIFTY?...
YES...YES...YES... BREATHING...
BREATHING... OXYGEN...
OXYGEN... I AM HOT... (THIS)
ISN'T THIS DANGEROUS?... IT'S ALL...
ISN'T THIS DANGEROUS?... IT'S ALL...
YES...YES...YES... HOW IS THIS?
WHAT?... TALK TO ME!... HOW SHOULD I
TRANSMIT? YES...YES...YES...
WHAT? OUR TRANSMISSION BEGINS NOW...
FORTYONE... THIS WAY... OUR
TRANSMISSION BEGINS NOW...
FORTYONE... THIS WAY... OUR
TRANSMISSION BEGINS NOW...
FORTYONE... YES... I FEEL HOT...
I FEEL HOT... IT'S ALL... IT'S HOT...
I FEEL HOT... I FEEL HOT... I FEEL HOT...
... I CAN SEE A FLAME!... WHAT?...
I CAN SEE A FLAME!... I CAN SEE A
FLAME!...
I FEEL HOT... I FEEL HOT... THIRTYTWO...
THIRTYTWO... FORTYONE... FORTYONE
AM I GOING TO CRASH?... YES...YES... I FEEL HOT!...
I FEEL HOT!... I WILL REENTER!... I WILL REENTER...
I AM LISTENING!... I FEEL HOT!...

****this is an apparent reproduction/intercept of a female cosmonaut burning up on reentry on May 16, 1961. If this intrigues you as much as it does me (which it most undoubtably does not) please consult www.lostcosmonauts.com or www.thelostcosmonauts.com****

Projekt *********** update from One and the Oktopus

This is probably nowhere close to the true tracklisting from Projekt *************, our very secretive upcoming LP/novella/opera. Here I have enclosed a working outline for the purpose of not only confusing my collaborators Mo' and Vangie but giving the small smattering of readers a true insight into the grinding of One and the Oktopus' gears. We are now able to go to work as The Venture Bros. has ended season 2 (and yes I had no balls to wear The Monarch for Halloween even though I can completely nail his voice sometimes kinda...also Henchmen #24 which is probably way cooler due to his obscurity)

Projekt ********** (I do not wish to reveal the working title of this as of yet even though I probably already have)

We are First to the Stars and Last to the Earth
I. The Party Has a Funeral
II. Star City
III. Winter is Coming/This Cathedral is Rubble

From Facade to Facade
IV. Concrete & A New Home
V. O, We Were Young and Our Hearts Were Full of Laughter
VI. Separation

Love, Family and the Poetics of Unfettered Imagination
VII. From this Stratosphere (Mother is but a Molecule or an Atomic Number)
VIII. Nobody Knows We Exist
IX. Physics & Fathers & Future Plans

All Alone We Find Everyone Everywhere
X. Our Marriage Goes Unnoticed
XII. Maps to the Past are Buried under Mountains of Secrets and Bodies
XI. Red Star at the Redeemer Gates

We will be orbiting in the near future

stop...we have been away awhile...stop...please advise that news shall be dropping soon...stop...the writing is on the commencement wall...stop...the dogs have been taking off the diodes and monitoring devices...stop...all is well but the world will never know about us...stop...the world will never know about us...stop...register your complaints politely up front...stop

Rediscovering Lost Loves & The Ones Proving to Be Left Lost

I have been slacking off my record collection (ok, cd collection...no vinyl supremecy here) in the last three years and my need to discover new music in general. In some ways I am completely at peace with this decision and in other ways I feel as though I am neglecting that little sweetheart to whom I once doted over. In my guilt I have rerocked the cd stack lately and because I have gravitated towards a person who now steals music (aaargh!) almost exclusively, I feel the need to pay homage to the forgotten and neglected.

Here is my woefully incomplete list of things that have made me happy (in no particular order)...

Low-When the Curtain Hits the Cast
---I am loving the slow dirges about heading to the lake and northern Minnesota in the winter

Hum-You'd Prefer an Astronaut
---Easily their best. Given the minor play that "Stars" got on MTV it is not my favorite/favorite song on this disk but I am putty for the songs about raindrop collections and insects.

Jawbox-For Your Own Special Sweetheart
---Again, easily the best Jawbox disc. Though I may have come to this late it defines a turning point in music listening for me. I never get the William Carlos Williams poem outta my head. Pickles of ecstasy indeed!

Jets to Brazil-Orange Rhyming Dictionary
---Truth be told, I don't like this album but "King Medicine" always makes me think of living in California (even though I never have). Jawbreaker was your peak, Blake.

The Sea and Cake-Nassau
---Pretty little rock ditties from a pretty little rock band.

Aarktica-...or you could go through your whole life and be happy anyway
---atmospheric ambient goodness that reminds you of late fall/early winter and the chilly contemplation of another winter spent wondering about love and life.

Yo La Tango-and then nothing turned itself inside out
---Yeah, just peachy.

Boards of Canada-Geogaddi
---if the entire album was predicated on underwater lava vents and high school Advanced Biology filmstrip narration I couldn't be any happier.

Fugazi-13 Songs or Repeater
---I spent weeks on cold floors listening to this circa 1997 Missoula, Montana. Thanks Colleen for letting us crash and Loki you were oh so small.

Also, big "yeah" to math rock (particularily The 90 Day Men), Icelandic isolation, M83, Petracovich for her pleasantness, occasionally E6-ing, Godspeed You Black Emporer, pretending the world was ending with William Basinski and his fucking pretentious Disintigration Loops (cheery!), namelessnumberheadman (where the hell did I put that disk?), blue screen life is so tired but hooky as hell, Brand Nubian is telling Punks to Jump Up to Get Beat Down Again, muthafucking DJ Quik in the house, Aquimini is getting way too much play but I missed a lotta "chuch" so my shit is also oft-confessional, Kristine thanks via Emily for getting me to listen to new music lately even though every song was written by the same pussy-ass white dude in tight jeans and ironic beard (I love it and you).

Winter used to come once a year

Nostalgia = Distortion
I'll never know the degree of contortion


Looking through the rearview mirror of past mistakes and triumphant happenstances sometimes is nothing more than a clouded version of an incorrect reflecting pond. In this I take much consolation. I can no more change that blurred image than I can grasp the next moments in my hands and sculpt whatever I deem necessary at those seemingly important times. This is a sometimes painful, perplexing and satisfying continuing lesson. I hope those that are most directly influenced realize that I undertake these endeavors with an intentional aim at trying to do what is best, though I often fail. But that is the most humbling. It is with both light heart and toughening skin that I realize it is OK to fail, that it is absolutely necessary to at least try. I wholeheartedly apologize to all hurt I have caused and resign myself to living each day firmly fixated on the search for what I used to believe was unreachable. I miss the vast and distant rememberance of the impossibly infinite skies on long drives. I miss the decaying brick and the ghostly steam of the chilly city in the mornings. I miss the hanging banshees clinging to the winter chimneys of my childhood, the crystalline snowpack so blindingly blue-white in the predawn. I miss believing and for that I will try. I will continue trying until I no longer cannot.

This is for me.

Just look hard and think hard and you will find it

Irreplaceable as the sun

could this feel any less warm
and possibly when I come up for air
no one will be angry anymore
til there is need for anger again

stonefaced and beatific
tomorrow is sure a stubborn mistress
only she always comes with repetitous force
perhaps then we will eat and drink the day

trembling is the dawn
held in mirrored dewdrops
in frosted meadows
hanging from limping fingers and branches
kings fall out of line
ill-tempered concubines are bound no more
no more to the shackles
gallows and the cross

attentions are always the first to go
bellow the flame bigger every single night
omissions are soon to follow
until time and rememberance march backwards
to this we are tethered

yellowing teeth are a just reward
of hidden meanings and times long gone
unless you figure this out before its gone too

Ask Me About Peak Oil

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It really has nothing to do with now but it was fun as shit to write

***some of you may realize that this somewhat fictionalized story does not take place at the Powers Apartments (pictured left) but rather at the bucolic Billmeyer Apartments (and some McApartment in South Fargo) located across the street in sedate downtown Fargo, ND. Please forgive me. Surprisingly I could locate no pictures of the Billmeyer Apts. Maybe it burned down with my memories because unlike the Powers it was not a fireproof hotel.***

With the buzzer ringing over and over all I could do was writhe around and emit a few pathetic moans. The door could have been a billion miles away for all I could comprehend. The one piercing memory of this blackening night was the vicious disapproval plastered all over her face and the menace of her tensed hands squeezing those beloved hips. She was a vision of steaming hatred staring at my limp drunken self through the kitchen window. Should’ve given her a key, I guess. I vaguely reached out towards the door like someone blind and caneless swiping at a dodging adversary. This was not going to turn out well I remembered stammering and spitting into the carpet. As it turned out this was the beginning of the end. But I moved in with her anyway.

The streets were mirages and the August heat pounded off the blacktop, a perfect day for moving. My parents had graciously donated various sundries from their house. I had assumed at the time it was a supreme haul of most treasured booty but it was probably all shit my mother didn’t want anymore. Regardless, a few castoff Oriental rugs and Malaysian wicker animals made me seem quite the fashionista and one surely capable of settling down to donate some sperm for babies. Yeah, she was amazingly impressed. She even gave me some stupid card with a Dalmatian on it thanking me for not filling the place with blacklight posters and furniture made from Busch Light Draft longneck cases (the Dalmatian card was an ode to the dog I didn’t have but wanted, more of a pat on the head saying, NO FUCKING WAY). Everything was off to a great start, I think I even got a pile of groceries the first day. For the first few weeks it was all naked prancing through the apartment. In retrospect it was most likely way too hot to wear any clothes anyway. We lived high up this triple-stacked Brownstone. Apparently this stately building was a haven of past ill repute and the ghosts of heroin addicts and lonely prostitutes scampered around the labyrinth basement. They never bothered us though because even ghosts weren’t stupid enough to climb the six thousand stairs up to our fledgling nest. Or maybe the ghosts had a pact with the forever bathrobed eccentric creature who lived directly below us not to pass the second floor. She certainly predated anyone who actually died or lived here. She was born of the brick and the mortar that we had always assumed was our rather mundane foundation. This endearing woman would always slide her body out her door and ramble such sweet nonsense to anyone who walked by. She was even there the night my fidelity crumbled away with that amazingly seductive Cuban goddess. As we danced, flirted and soaked ourselves in that steamy nighttime rain shower, that lovely old woman was crafting nicknames for us while watching us like Room With a View. Fred Astaire and Grace Kelly would frantically tear off each other’s clothes on their way to defiling my relationship bed. I thought I was getting even but I was merely beating the girlfriend to the punch. A shallow victory was hers but she never got much of a chance to exploit it. But that is jumping ahead a little bit.

I must have been crazy but on the way home from work I couldn’t stop myself from hitting up the bar. It was smack dab in the way between work and my increasingly naked girlfriend (on the off-night she wasn't shaking her ass at the lame meatmarket club I vigorously avoided). On more than one occasion I could look from across the street at my budding exhibitionist girlfriend strutting her admittedly gorgeous figure around the apartment. This show was definitely not intended for her chronically late boyfriend all reeking of the telltale grease from the bar but nonetheless I pretended it was. At the twisting of my key in the door she would quickly hang up the telephone and think herself clever for uncovering the mystery of why I arrived home two hours after my shift. Like any other rational guy who knew his girlfriend was way more attractive than he deserved, I feverishly ran awful scenarios of explicit phone sex through my buzzed-up head. All these Latino and black men she hung around with would be sitting on speakerphone plotting how they could dispose of me while masturbating to my girlfriend tell them of her unsatisfied sex life at home. While I worried about my prowess, her frequent cheating and the laughs they were having behind my back my girlfriend would finish her grand inquisitions of my whereabouts, somehow manipulate me to pleasuring her fully and yet again neglect to give me a blowjob. It was a good thing I only worked four nights a week. But there was still the upcoming wedding. Our polarity would finally and dramatically intensify, electrify and completely implode in on itself.

I was half-surprised that I was invited to this wedding and for sure my girlfriend was no desired entity at this blessed event. My ex-roommate and for all intense and purpose ex-friend was marrying a sudden and explosive ex-crush of mine who fled my silly life partly because of my soon-to-be ex-girlfriend. Heartsick of the horrible games my girlfriend would play at my expense, I withered and heaved into a state of pallid indifference. Fortunately at this time the friend circle was massive and escape (at least momentarily or drunkenly) was always an easy option.

More To Come…stolen credit cards, betrayal, longing, a crushing eavesdrop, darkened room drunken yelling, threatening late night phone calls, broken collarbones, more sex, a classic job resignation, angry abusive gay hotel managers and finally exit, then more hate-fucking...it's all here and true (sort of).

The DOD cowers at the bureaucratic power of One In the Oktopus

The United States Department of Defense has now allocated all of its resources to filling our FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request. We have a caseload number and everything. We can only assume Washington D.C. has ground to a halt workwise. As previously announced here One in the Oktopus has issued a FOIA request for Cold War-era fabricated news broadcast that were used for role-playing war games. As currently worded our request may take considerable time and is subject to be altered due to sensitive DoD material and the recent truths about 80's game show host Wink Martindale's nefarious involvement in covert Sino-Russia activities. Keep posted here as we will be nothing less than diligent in our quest for the opposite of truth. In case we are mysteriously "missing" our case number is 06-F-1762 and they claim we are a mere 2200th in the queue. Plus, the Canadian government is after my partner in crime. Though we did not set out to be political dissidents, One in the Oktopus may relocate to an undisclosed location. We shall have the untruth!

Reluctantly, We Arrive On My Space

One and the Oktopus has sold its soul to the devil. We are on My Space with the rest of the vacant losers and egomaniacal idiots. First a blog, now this. If I were dead I would be rolling over in my own grave.

Anyway...check us out. For those in the know we fluctuate our name from One and the Oktopus to One in the Oktopus (and to in if you didn't notice the difference) according to our various whims and frequent legal issues. So in conclusion you will find us at:

www.myspace.com/oneintheoktopus

remember that is in and not and

We will have our movie shorts and "songs" up there for your listening/viewing pleasure.

Please forgive us.

One and the Oktopus w/ Assorted Superheroes

One and the Oktopus attend "The Phantom of the Opera"
OR
See Karole I Can Clean Up Nice



(L-R) The Drizzle, Fitz, Sam Hahn, Freddy, Mo' (circa '04)

What you probably never wanted but are getting anyway

Hi!

It's June...

I thought I would do something a little different. For a little while I am going to post the unedited, unfinished, unsung and unloved small short story (in excerpt form...Goddamn! I have some compassion) that I have tucked away mercifully. One could say this is meglomanical (and one would be right) or one could say that this is theraputic for my lifelong writers block (probably incorrect but a stupid, boring supposed-to-be answer anyway). I hope you enjoy!

This is a story of a recollection of life, a pseudo-memoir (how lucky for you readers). A man realizes how incredibly boring it is to be so damn introspective all the time and checks himself into a psychiatric clinic in hopes that he may be able to expunge the repetitive thoughts from his head. A noble gesture turns from a surreal fantasy of a cushy break from "reality" into an excruciating exercise in rewinding every single thought he has had from birth. This story is told in "sort of" chapters. These chapters now being real or imagined therapy interactions with uninterested doctors, nitpicking grad students hoping to woo said uninterested doctors with their firm grasp on the fralities and nuances of the clinically troubled mind, minimum wage nurses, delivery men, TV stars, ex-girlfriends, polar bears, world leaders, contract killers and other assorted characters.

For an appetizer from the tenatively titled "An Assortment of Assholes" please continue reading
*************************************************************************************

...from the minute I walked up here I cannot help feeling duped. I thought it was going to be one of those beautifully landscaped brick masterpieces that you would see in Crazy People or Rain Man. Highbrow effite East Coast prep school architecture comforts me immensely. There should be an enormous lawn that looks like a country club fairway with dollops of Walden Ponds all over the place. I could sit on a fucking park bench and feed ducks and chickens and cows and grizzly bears and unicorns depending on what sort of kickass pill I was on. Remember Crazy People...that movie was fucking great. Everyone was happy and wore pajamas and had jobs. This place is more like a depressing elementary school built in the middle of a cornfield...

BBSRG- This place was an elementary school built in the middle of a cornfield.

...yeah, thanks, I just said that. I didn't need it to be true. I needed comfort and relaxation. I needed. Oh, I don't know what the fuck I needed...

BBSRG- O.K. so you have put here your reason for entry into our program was, um, The New...

...yeah, The New York Times. I used to read it religiously. It made me feel pious. It made me feel educated and worldly. It was a lot easier convincing girls about your "intellect" than sporting Rimbaud or some contemporary bullshit from Jonathan Safron Foer or Tom Robbins. They can see the giant newspaper better than some tiny insignificant book. Besides I grew up in a town where culture is woodcarved boats and literature is old ladies reading microfiche to remember when Coke cost a nickel and their wedding was on the front page. The girls all drink Miller Lite, read Cosmo and wear too much fucking makeup. But even cowgirls and hookers know The New York Times is what you read if you are a thoughtful, sensitive scholar. Anyway as I was saying, I would buy The Times everyday at this university store where this gorgeous, probably too young girl worked. She the perkiest tits I had ever seen. We had at least a yearlong fake romance. You know the kind of lala romance you have with the same people you ride on the bus with for years but never talk to. The girls in the dentist office you craft amazing and fantastic lives with each other while you daydream the mundane day away. I do that shit all the time, everywhere. But back to the story, it would take me two hours to read the newspaper because I would sit where she (or any other girl for that matter) could see me and I would constantly check out who was checking me out. But mostly I would act like I was intensely pouring over world events, culture or whatever pretentious shit that New Yorkers pride themselves on but really know nothing about because they are all cannibalistic douchebags who couldn't bear to concern themselves with anything off their fucking little island (Brooklyn and the Bronx could fucking crack off into the sea for all the Manhattanites care). I would pretend that she would hang out with her girls and talk about the intellectual that came in everyday and ordered a soy Mocha with his New York Times. Then in order to have things to say the next day she would pour over her own copy and dream about doing the crossword with me on Sunday morning in our breakfast nook. The sun would be shining off her multi-colored hair and dapple down her silk robe onto her impossibly creamy breasts and perfect nipples as she would giggle at my outrageously funny rebukes of right-wing editorials and mainstream media hidden biases. But I guess I really never talked to her all the much...

BBSRG- so I should put down afraid to talk to women here?

...no, please god no. That really doesn't have anything to do with it. Just after 9/11 they started putting obitituaries of the people who died in the attacks. They would have a whole section dedicated to this with pictures and little vignettes of the wonderful/cool/religious shit that they had accomplished in their lives. I had to read that everyday. I became obsessed with the living dead. I could conjure up their entire lives from just those short descriptions. The ones that made me the happiest were the successful black people. Dave Eggers has a line in his brilliant and fame-bloated first novel about how he smiles every time he sees a black man holding a child. I couldn't fucking agree more. I don't really know if it is white guilt or what. But I just love to black folks succeed (even at the expense of seeing me constantly plummet downward). One thing I always hated about The Times 9/11 obits, though. They always hyped up the fucking firemen and cops more than anything...

BBSRG- and that makes you upset?

...no, no just the fact that a Jackboot Pig is any more important than, say, a New Jersey gravedigger or a Sudanese janitor on the fifty-seventh floor of the South Tower pissed me off a little. But, shit, I respect them when they are not arresting me or waterhosing blacks or wearing mustaches...

BBSRG- o.k. so we will put down that you got depressed at obitituaries?

...well, yeah but not really like depressed. They didn't make me sad because they were dead. I didn't even fucking know them. Dead people don't depress me because they don't exist in my world. Do you know that I am thirty-two years old and I have never seen a dead body. I am sure millions and millions of people every day see a dead body but somehow in my life it has been decided that they will keep death hidden from me. Someone has made the judgement call that maybe Foster, you don't need to be troubled with death. We will sweep it away from you before you come walking around the corner. Have to go to a funeral? We will make sure we creamate the body so as to not inconvience you. I mean, ten year old Rwandan children saw bodies rotting in the ditches all hacked up by machetes and in Moscow a cold snap will popcicle the homeless right on the street and Iraqis are picking body parts out their hair from liberating bombs and "civil" car detonations every fucking day. But, no, it not about these deaths. It is about their lives. I read the obitituary and I know that they have done more than I have. Shit, they still are doing more than me and I am still alive, sort of.

BBSRG- We will put Generalized Fears on here then. Umm, swearing is o.k. by me but the doctors sort of frown on it.

...sorry...

BBSRG- O.K. (she says o.k. all the time) Honey, next it says here you have put Scoundrel White Corporate Cocksuckers followed by My Ex-Girlfriend from Nine Years Ago, do I have that correct?

*************************************************************************************

Disclaimer #1 the ellipses are of course my main character speaking but deceptively I used a code for the other characters in my story. I know you are probably sick of codebreaking so I will give you a Key in order to follow along with supreme ease and comfort to your soul.

LEGEND

... = me
BBSRG = Big Black Sweet Receptionist Girl
EGWRMFL = Ex-Girlfriend Who Ruined My Fucking Life
BP = Bored Psychotherapist
M+D = Mom and Dad (sort of a combined Frankensteinian character)
VL or HCM = Vladimir Lenin or Ho Chi Mihn (i haven't decided which yet, may not matter)
JK = Jack Kerouac (to be blamed for much)
SSHIT = Smarmy Superhip Indie Rock Type
MFDV = Mutha Fucking Dean Venture of Venture Bros. fame

and many many others but I think you all get the picture.

Disclaimer #2 I tried to edit this as much as possible because typos are annoying. However, it is still a blog and I am not a great transcriber and I am not getting paid. So there...

Auf Wiedersehen

To This There Is No End In "The Valley In The Shadow of Death"

One and the Oktopus would mournfully like to honor not just American military deaths but all people who are subjegated, bought, drafted, conscripted, and pressed economically into service. This also includes all the people who willingly join for nationalistic, idealistic notions or otherwise. To someone somewhere a terrorist is a freedom fighter and a liberator is nothing more than a warmonger and all causes are dualistic and just. From revolutions to defending homelands to colonialism to outright wrongful occupation there will be bloodshed over water, food, oil, hatred, ignorance, tyranny, religion, land, resources, and righteous indignation. This is for the combatants of the Crimean War, The Great War, The American Revolution, The War of Mexican Independance, WWII, The Civil Wars of All Nations, African Tribal Skirmishes, The Haiti Slave Revolt, The October Revolution, The Cold War and so many others. This is for Simon Bolivar, George Washington, Napolean, Trotsky and Lenin, Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, Crazy Horse, Dalliaire, Nat Turner, et al.

Those faceless infantrymen are always in my mind. They are not heroes nor villians. Only people.

An Agreement, A Future, A Fabrication...

Thanks for responding responders. Chas...I agree bloggers are as useless as GM-chicken and protohippies. It is about as annoying as having everyone you pass on the street stop and implore you to read their super-boring diary entry. That said, I have reunited electronically with you, Ivan, Tom Musgrave, Hue...so there are necessary evils and wonderful dollops of happy. Plus, I promise to not bombard anyone with anything daily except truly relevent One and the Oktopus news.

These are my three current jobs...

1) FX Networks are sponsoring a comedy contest in which they are accepting 5 minute video shorts by June 18th. The winner receives $50,000 and the opportunity to make a pilot for a future series on FX (ya know...the network with crappy Spin City reruns and tons of King of the Hill). By the way, how did anyone ever buy Mike A. Fox (yeah his real middle name starts with A, sounded too Canadian though) as a domineering deputy mayor or a dwarf capable of wooing Heather Locklear. I call bullshit!

2) www.55dsl.com is currently accepting video applications for a job that requires two people to travel around the world for 55 days videotaping, downloading, and blogging their way to adventure. Travel and get paid. Be just like all the frauds who call themselves travel journalists and travel writers. Sounds right up my fraudulent alley. The web company is located in Italy so I am assuming that they will have a correct anti-American bias. Good thing I have a Canadian on my side and you know that One and the Oktopus will show them how anti-everything we can be (while ostensibly still promoting the hell outta how everything is so great and grand and life is so precious.

3) Finally, One and the Oktopus have issued a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request to the DOD (Department of Defense) in order that they may release what we consider the gold mine of Cold War-era paranoia, fun, and apocalyptic mayhem. Throughout history militarisimos have enacted war games in order to try and predict certain outcomes from different military-socio-economical scenarios. We have learned that many DOD war games in the Cold War Era featured fabricated news broadcasts depicting horrendous worldwide events, political assassinations, and Communist takeover of entire Western "democracies" (and much more juicy fantasia from the sharpest minds in the Pentagon). If granted the ability to view them (as they are most undoubtably now public domain videos) we are going to make the most grandiose docudrama the world has ever seen. For a similar preview please consult the fabulous website called www.archive.org. It is the worlds largest public domain archive (which means anyone can use this free of charge) containing amazing governmental videos, tons of free live music, massive book collections and so much more. It's where I spend the majority of my time. Just picture this dorkiness...me huddled in a tiny corner of the WWW on a rainy afternoon pouring over hundreds of public domain films. Amazing I am still single, huh!

***Anyone interested in co-writing any scripts for the FX thing or any One and the Oktopus project, get your ass to Oregon. I've got room. I am looking at you, Musgrave. Tom. Hello? You promised me (you were probably drunk but it still counts)***

Jump like this idiot because we have a Special Announcement!

ONE and the OKTOPUS are pleased to announce we have gone into the dark caverns of our fragile eggshell minds to construct our second "feature" length movie. This project does not currently have a working title but you can rest assured that it will be something special. All I can really say about it is that it is ARTacular!

Just a preview...
Afrocentric Slam Poets
Virginal Landscape Sculpturists
Thought-provocative Bull Dyke Comedy Revues
Disgruntled Botched Transsexuals
Upper-Middle Class Stuggling Painters who live in the Park
Dynamic Asexual Interpretive Dancers
one truly kindhearted art critic
all who live in one small town
and much much more...


Just to recap that brings our project list to:

"Features"
These Were Turbulent Times (sorta-finished)
Freddy vs. The Yeti (in process)
SpiritDancer (scrapped, backburner...but we did have multiple writing sessions)
Hippie Massacre IV: The Final Slaughter (conceived never started, brilliant film, no budget)
Postfontaine (halted for fear of being savagely beaten and tossed out of our city...a beautifully hatched out movie about a punk band of zombies who are reincarnations of Steve Prefontaine the much beloved distance runner hailing from our fair city of Eugene...also one of the greatest band names ever, too bad I have a copyright on it, suckers)
Unnamed New Movie (we have started writing and casting this movie...ohh goodie! T. Musgrave I have a great part for you as a former gay telemarketer...are you listening?)

"Shorts"
WigMan vs. Baghead
WigMan and Baghead eat Breakfest
Freddy and the Yeti at the High School Track Meet
WigMan and Baghead play baseball
Under Sam's House

and countless other projects that were written and never done.

If you want to join the Canadian Pickpocketers Guild send a SASE enclosed with $3500 to:

Canadian Pickpocketers Guild
"Dreaming Up Stuff and Not Doing It Since 1926"
1756 W. 24th Avenue
Eugene, OR 97405

***you will receive a free copy of These Were Turbulent Times along with ONE and the OKTOPUS merchandise...sure to be collectables in the not-so-distant future***

Also ONE and the OKTOPUS have are currently writing their tenatively titled LP "Red Star at the Redeemer Gates" featuring the writing talents of Evangaline and Mo'. We will trudge into the studio sometime this summer to put sounds to the words. Beware!

We can't believe it either....

This is the guy that tweeks nobs, hammers beats, and creates real live hurricanes. Plus, he occasionally serves us beer and liquor. A semi-native Oregonian, he provides us with street cred and allows us to use the "local" moniker even though we are dirty Canucks and misplaced Scandahoovians. A scholar and one hell of a father, Mulletbrain is sure to be a hit anywhere and we rent him out for nominal fees. His hobbies include raising praying mantises and gutting prairie dogs for scientific experiments (i.e. hyper-balancing genome cloning).


Say "hey" to him. We love him and we are sure you will also.

House of Scientists

This is Dom Uchenyh (House of Scientists)
Academgorodok, Siberia


this transmission translated from listening post #3761 Iqualit, Nunavit/origin #864 Vladivostock, Russia

All documents housed within are legitimate and authentic. The concrete streets were paved on the backs of the workers and peasantry for the advancement and greatness of our new cosmic future. Please disregard all former studies and experiments and proceed with unbridled enthusiasm towards our rightful celestial empire. Rockets fall only when toppled by lack of vision, creativity, and passion. To our unending quest!!!!!

One and the Oktopus are committed to unscrambling cryptic keys from our shared past to further our research right here in the present. We are currently spending all our time shacked up in a long-forgotten wing of Dom Uchenyh (House of Scientists) pouring over obscure documents and listening to thousands of hours of Cold War-era coded spy transmissions. This building is but one of many popped out of the minds of the Party in a place called Academgorodok. This "city" was created in 1958 out of the Siberian forest to house 65,000 top Russian scientists, professors, academics, and other less well known agents of the CCCP. Please await further information as we will reveal what we have found out (and it is of epic and global importance) at a later date. All we can say for now is...Red Star at the Redeemer Gates.

A Brief Intro and A Quicker Outro

One and the Oktopus is...

ambivilent
mature
polar
well-groomed
helpful
sincere
pensive
mo'
oriental
vacant
frosty
parental
radioactive
foldable
crafty
daring
odorous
atmospheric
freddy
calm
pliable
mechanical
colorless
obvious
creepy
socialist
hard-working
forrest (sometimes)
photogenic
collapsable
magnetic

We come to you in many forms and we only hope that you will embrace one and call it your own. We are nothing if not compliant and bendable.

Happy Ending or Dirty Encore?

One and the Oktopus wish a happy birthday to Kristine. We hope your massage prepared you for your upcoming mental greasedown provided by us truly. You are one old bag!

The Birthing Plunge or A Manifesto about a Manifesto

Welcome to our cultural wasteland. Expect a gas mask and a movie about eating utensils. Don't expect bland and inoffensive thirty-something white politico commentary. Expect to do your dishes sixteen thousand feet under the sea completely impervious to the effects of what you have been told is human-crushing depth pressure. Don't expect to find one single piece of preconceived wit. In fact don't expect to find one single piece of wit anywhere within. Expect pointless electronic meditations on 60's-era Soviet secret towns and ribald debates on the virtues of keeping dogs alive while separating them from their physical brains (for supersecret Soviet science, of course). Don't expect me to be at a desk. Expect me to be writing this on the toliet (which I truly am right now). Don't expect to find out the encrypted locale and domain to the website that will finally melt your consciousness and R.E.M. life into one steaming pile of orgasmic pulsating reality/unreality. Expect that website to also show signs of life along the speed gradient of a mating Oregon slug or a 4'2" grandma behind the wheel of a two-lane Crown Victoria. Expect that circuit bending will become an instant party topic for you and you will further more hold court at all your future social gatherings armed with a stupifying array of mind-blowing almost facts, go-nowhere "jokes", misquoted movie lines, and tasty geographic oddities. Don't expect that we don't know how brilliant that we already are. Expect that anything you have ever thought or will think has already been pondered and dismissed at our daily dissemination meetings. Don't expect melody or harmony or lyrics or actual "music". Expect that your life can now go on with meaning.

This is the beginning of the end.
This is the new Manifesto.
This is decoded and received by Polish spies and translated for posterity.
This is the Fourth International.
This is One and the Oktopus.

We hope you will tune in regularily but we don't really care all that much.