From Karla Lant's 5-2-17 Futurism article entitled "DARPA Is Planning to Hack the Human Brain to Let Us 'Upload' Skills":
"In March 2016, DARPA — the U.S. military’s 'mad science' branch — announced their Targeted Neuroplasticity Training (TNT) program. The TNT program aims to explore various safe neurostimulation methods for activating synaptic plasticity,
which is the brain’s ability to alter the connecting points
between neurons — a requirement for learning. DARPA hopes that building
up that ability by subjecting the nervous system to a kind of workout
regimen will enable the brain to learn more quickly.
"The ideal end benefit for this kind of breakthrough would be downloadable learning.
Rather than needing to learn, for example, a new language through
rigorous study and practice over a long period of time, we could
basically 'download' the knowledge after putting our minds into a highly
receptive, neuroplastic state. Clearly, this kind of research would
benefit anyone, but urgent military missions can succeed or fail based
on the timing. In those situations, a faster way to train personnel
would be a tremendous boon."
To read Lant's entire article, click HERE.
Tuesday, February 27, 2018
The War Against Literature (and History Itself) Continues Unabated...
From Alison Flood's 2-12-18 Guardian article entitled "'Hurtful' Harper Lee and Mark Twain Dropped from Minnesota Curriculum":
"A school district in Minnesota has pulled To Kill a Mockingbird and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from its curriculum, arguing that the classic novels’ use of racial slurs risked students being 'humiliated or marginalised' [...].
"According to [the local newspaper] the Bemidji Pioneer, there was no specific complaint from students about the titles [emphasis added--RG], but their use 'created an uncomfortable atmosphere' in the classroom."
To read Flood's entire article, click HERE.
For supplementary material regarding the ongoing War Against the Imagination, I highly recommend reading my 2014 article entitled "The War Against the Imagination: How to Teach in a System Designed to Fail," which can be found on Jon Rappoport's website HERE.
Trump's Secret War Powers Memo
What follows is the first paragraph of Spencer Ackerman's 2-20-18 Daily Beast article entitled "What's Inside Trump's Secret War Powers Memo?":
"Secretary of State Rex Tillerson informed a senator in a recently-revealed letter that President Trump considers himself to possess inherent constitutional authority to launch military action without any act of Congress, a sweeping assertion that appears to resurrect from the early George W. Bush years the most imperial notions of the presidency."
To read the rest of Ackerman's article, click HERE.
"Secretary of State Rex Tillerson informed a senator in a recently-revealed letter that President Trump considers himself to possess inherent constitutional authority to launch military action without any act of Congress, a sweeping assertion that appears to resurrect from the early George W. Bush years the most imperial notions of the presidency."
To read the rest of Ackerman's article, click HERE.
Monday, February 26, 2018
More on the Parkland Shooting
Head on over to womenintheworld.com, scroll down to the bottom of Kyle Jones' 2-21-18 article entitled "Teacher Who Took a Bullet Saving Students Shares Firsthand Account of Florida Shooting," and click on the interview with Stacy Lippel, a Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School creative writing teacher who offers a very specific description of the Parkland Shooter that seems to conflict dramatically with official reports regarding the appearance of nineteen-year-old Nikolas Cruz, the alleged perpetrator of the crime, during the shooting:
“I suddenly saw the shooter about twenty feet in front of me standing at the end of the hallway actively shooting down the hallway, just a barrage of bullets, and I’m staring at him thinking why are the police here. This is strange because he’s in full metal garb, helmet, face mask, bulletproof armor, shooting this rifle I've never seen before" [emphasis added--RG].
Click HERE to see the interview with Lippel.
After watching the Lippel interview, move on to boston.com and watch this CNN Jake Tapper interview with Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel as the sheriff attempts to explain why "multiple armed officers hung back during the school shooting."
The real question to ask Sheriff Israel is: "Who ordered these deputies to stand down, and why?"
Click HERE to see the CNN interview with Sheriff Israel.
Saturday, February 24, 2018
Is Bigfoot Real?
From Gabby Ferreira's 2-14-18 San Luis Obispo Tribune article entitled "Is Bigfoot Real? This Woman Is Suing California to Recognize It as a Species":
"A
San Bernardino-area woman is suing California’s Department of Fish and
Wildlife and Natural Resources Agency because the state has failed to
keep Californians safe from Sasquatch.
"According to the San Bernardino Sun,
Claudia Ackley, a 46-year-old Crestline resident and 'Bigfoot
enthusiast and researcher,' filed suit in San Bernardino Superior Court
on Jan. 18. Ackley told the Sun she has encountered many Sasquatches
over the years, most recently in March 2017. On that last encounter,
with both of her daughters present, the trio claimed to witness three
Bigfoots while hiking a trail in Lake Arrowhead.
"According
to the Sun, Ackley is most worried that the government could be putting
people in danger by not recognizing Bigfoot as real.
"'People have to be warned about these things. They are big,' Ackley told the Sun. 'We’re totally vulnerable to these things.'"
Click HERE to read Ferreira's entire article.
Freemasons, a Naked Lunatic, and the Laugh Factory
From CWB Chicago comes Matt Lindner's 2-22-18 post "Naked Man 'Jumped Headfirst' Through Laugh Factory, Prosecutors Say":
"A Streeterville man stripped naked and dove headfirst through the door of a Lakeview comedy club last weekend, then battered two cops who tried to help him, prosecutors say.
"Cops said they were flagged down in the 3100 block of North Broadway around 5:15 a.m. on Sunday by witnesses who 'related that a male subject took off all his clothes and jumped headfirst through a glass door into…the Laugh Factory.' Inside the nightclub, cops found 31-year-old Robert Malato on the second floor 'naked and bleeding from cuts on his head, back, glutes, and legs….talking about his Freemason father,' according to court records.
"Police said they tried to walk Malato out, but he allegedly took off his shoes, threw them, raised his fists, and struck two officers in their chests before the cops could gain control of him.
"Malato was treated at Illinois Masonic Medical Center for multiple lacerations. He is charged with two felony counts of aggravated battery to a police officer and misdemeanor criminal damage to property. Judge David Navarro ordered him held on a $10,000 deposit bond, meaning that Malato will be released if he posts $1,000."
"A Streeterville man stripped naked and dove headfirst through the door of a Lakeview comedy club last weekend, then battered two cops who tried to help him, prosecutors say.
"Cops said they were flagged down in the 3100 block of North Broadway around 5:15 a.m. on Sunday by witnesses who 'related that a male subject took off all his clothes and jumped headfirst through a glass door into…the Laugh Factory.' Inside the nightclub, cops found 31-year-old Robert Malato on the second floor 'naked and bleeding from cuts on his head, back, glutes, and legs….talking about his Freemason father,' according to court records.
"Police said they tried to walk Malato out, but he allegedly took off his shoes, threw them, raised his fists, and struck two officers in their chests before the cops could gain control of him.
"Malato was treated at Illinois Masonic Medical Center for multiple lacerations. He is charged with two felony counts of aggravated battery to a police officer and misdemeanor criminal damage to property. Judge David Navarro ordered him held on a $10,000 deposit bond, meaning that Malato will be released if he posts $1,000."
Paul Hellyer on The Illuminati
From Jon Austin's 2-13-18 Express article entitled "The 'Illuminati' Is Real and Secretly Running Our World Claims Former Defence Minister":
"Paul
Hellyer, a former Canadian Minister of Defence, is believed to be the
highest-ranking former politician to come out as a believer of the
popular conspiracy theory.
"As
one of the world's biggest conspiracy theories, the Illuminati is said
to be a secretive global elite which runs governments from behind the
scenes and is planning to introduce a New World Order (NWO).
"Its
key members are said to be drawn from Hollywood and world political and
business leaders, with some even accusing its true leaders of being
reptilian lizards from space.
"Accusations
vary in extremities from the simple implementation of the NWO as a goal
at the least, to the Illuminati being a highly Satanic cult seeking to
return the devil to earth.
"Other than repeated claims by conspiracy theorists, which have ballooned in number since the growth of the internet, there is no actual proof the Illuminati exists at all.
"However, in a podcast, Mr Hellyer, who was in post in the 1960s, said the Illuminati, at least at its most basic concept, was real and all powerful."
To read the entire article, click HERE.
Friday, February 23, 2018
Parkland Shooting
When juxtaposing the following two articles, one can only come to a rather disturbing conclusion regarding the selective investigative methods of the FBI....
From Michelle Mark's 2-16-18 Business Insider article "The FBI Failed to Act on a Tip It Got About the Florida High-school Shooter":
As a colleague of mine wrote, "Looks like you need to be a CEO of a B.S. company to be taken seriously."
What follow are two more recommended analyses regarding the Parkland Shooting....
1) Loren Coleman's 2-16-18 Twilight Language post entitled "Parkland Syncs," and
2) a 2-15-18 Secret Sun post entitled "Everyone Predicted It."
From Michelle Mark's 2-16-18 Business Insider article "The FBI Failed to Act on a Tip It Got About the Florida High-school Shooter":
"The
FBI said on Friday that it had failed to follow protocols in handling a
tip on the suspected Florida shooter, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, who
authorities said killed 17 people on Wednesday.
"A
person close to Cruz had phoned the FBI's tip line in January to report
details about his 'gun ownership, desire to kill people, erratic
behavior, and disturbing social media posts, as well as the potential of
him conducting a school shooting,' the bureau said in a statement.
"'Under
established protocols, the information provided by the caller should
have been assessed as a potential threat to life,' the statement went
on. 'The information then should have been forwarded to the FBI Miami
field office, where appropriate investigative steps would have been
taken' [...].
"More details have emerged in recent days from
Cruz's former classmates, teachers, and neighbors about the pattern of
disturbing behavior he had displayed in recent years.
"Cruz reportedly flaunted photos of his guns, introduced himself to people as a 'school shooter,' and had frequent run-ins with law enforcement.
"The FBI also received a tip from a YouTube vlogger about
a comment from a user who called himself 'nikolas cruz.' The comment
said he wanted to be a 'professional school shooter,' but the FBI said
it couldn't confirm the identity of the user."
Compare the above with Greg Farrell and Anders Melin's 2-16-18 Bloomberg article "This Short Seller Pressed 'Tweet.' Then the FBI Showed Up":
"Short-sellers
aren’t known for restraint and decorum, and that goes double on
Twitter, where Marc Cohodes vowed to take down a CEO he accuses of
fraud. 'I will bury the little fella in a shoe box,' Cohodes tweeted in
October.
"Weeks
later, a black Ford Expedition pulled up to the short-seller’s Sonoma
County ranch. Two FBI agents emerged. They showed Cohodes a printout of
his tweet and a second one that mentioned loaded guns. 'Stop sending
threatening tweets' about the CEO, one of the agents warned, or else.
"The
feds’ Dec. 1 visit, which wasn’t previously reported, is documented in a
sheriff’s report and described in a letter of complaint Cohodes’s
lawyer sent to the U.S. Department of Justice.
"It was a novel turn in what, until then, seemed like a familiar struggle between a public company, MiMedx Group,
and investors betting on its fall. That kind of drama has typically
played out online, in the media or in court. But it hasn’t, by the
recollection of several lawyers, previously drawn this sort of
intervention by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The agents’
appearance at Cohodes’s house has touched off a dispute over whether the
tweets merited intervention or whether the FBI overstepped — and how
the messages came to the FBI’s attention."As a colleague of mine wrote, "Looks like you need to be a CEO of a B.S. company to be taken seriously."
What follow are two more recommended analyses regarding the Parkland Shooting....
1) Loren Coleman's 2-16-18 Twilight Language post entitled "Parkland Syncs," and
2) a 2-15-18 Secret Sun post entitled "Everyone Predicted It."
Thursday, February 22, 2018
THE TRUTH UNDERGROUND REDUX
Last night I returned to Jim Rivas' THE TRUTH UNDERGROUND radio show (broadcast out of New Orleans on WGSO 990 AM) for a two-hour long interview, during which I answer the eternal question:
Also discussed is the Parkland Shooting, the absurd world of FOIA requests, the mysterious suicide of an FBI agent investigating the Democratic National Committee, the perils of moviegoing in America, the assassination of Robert Kennedy, the nightmare of Common Core, thought control in American education, government-sponsored gun drops in South Central Los Angeles, Project CHAMELEO, and my latest book UNTIL THE LAST DOG DIES. You can listen to the entire broadcast by clicking HERE (I enter the show around 32:00).
WHO ARE "THEY"?
Also discussed is the Parkland Shooting, the absurd world of FOIA requests, the mysterious suicide of an FBI agent investigating the Democratic National Committee, the perils of moviegoing in America, the assassination of Robert Kennedy, the nightmare of Common Core, thought control in American education, government-sponsored gun drops in South Central Los Angeles, Project CHAMELEO, and my latest book UNTIL THE LAST DOG DIES. You can listen to the entire broadcast by clicking HERE (I enter the show around 32:00).
Thursday, February 15, 2018
Meanwhile, in Fort Meade, Maryland...
On St. Valentine's Day a tragic school shooting occurred in Parkland, Florida, resulting in the deaths of seventeen people. To read Loren Coleman's preliminary analysis of this attack (entitled "Stoneman Douglas High School Shooting: Updated"), visit Coleman's Twilight Language blog HERE.
On the same day as the mass shooting in Florida, a seemingly unrelated shooting occurred in Fort Meade, Maryland outside the headquarters of the National Security Agency. At least one person was injured during the incident. According to Brian Witte's 2-15-18 U.S. News & World Report article entitled "2 Freed After Shots Fired at SUV in NSA Campus Confrontation":
Click HERE, HERE, and HERE for further information about the 2-14-18 NSA shooting.
On the same day as the mass shooting in Florida, a seemingly unrelated shooting occurred in Fort Meade, Maryland outside the headquarters of the National Security Agency. At least one person was injured during the incident. According to Brian Witte's 2-15-18 U.S. News & World Report article entitled "2 Freed After Shots Fired at SUV in NSA Campus Confrontation":
"Two of the three people who were in a sport utility vehicle that was stopped and fired upon when it tried to enter the National Security Agency campus without authorization have been released, an FBI spokesman said Thursday.
"NSA police turned over the other person to the Howard County Sheriff's Office, because he was wanted on allegations of being behind on child support payments, said Dave Fitz, the spokesman for the FBI's Baltimore field office.
"The man, Javonte Alhajie Brown, 24, was expected to be released sometime Thursday, said Deputy Christopher Adams, a spokesman for the sheriff's office.
"Fritz said that the FBI investigation is ongoing to determine why the black SUV carrying the three people tried to enter a top-secret intelligence site at Fort Meade [...].
"An NSA police officer and a civilian onlooker also were injured in the incident Wednesday. Both required hospital treatment, but their injuries were not life-threatening, [Gordon] Johnson [special agent in charge of the FBI's Baltimore field office] said. Authorities did not say how they were injured.
"Wednesday's incident began about 6:55 a.m. when the SUV tried to enter the spy agency's campus.
"While Johnson declined to give details about who opened fire, he said preliminarily indications are that all gunfire was directed toward the vehicle.
"The vehicle had a New York license plate, and Johnson said it was believed to be a rental car, but he said it was unknown exactly where the vehicle came from.
"'We are working through that,' Johnson said. 'We believe that it was a rental car, but we're still working that as part of the ongoing investigation.'"
Wednesday, February 14, 2018
A PREVIEW OF UNTIL THE LAST DOG DIES
What follows is an extra-special Valentine's Day Gift from ME to YOU... a preview of my latest novel, UNTIL THE LAST DOG DIES....
Chapter
1
The
Insect Queen of Venus and Other Strangeness
(September
19, 2014)
I
took to the stage wearing a simple t-shirt and blue jeans. It was all part of the strategy. It was best to be as average, as invisible as
possible before you opened your mouth and let the jokes fly. That way the audience wouldn’t build up any
preconceived notions about you until you began your patter. You let your humor speak for you.
The
air was so clear it was obscene. Years
ago a law had been passed banning smoking in clubs, and I still knew comedians
who bitched about it—including me. I
can’t explain this. I don’t smoke. I hate smoke.
I already obsessed over my health as it was, forever wondering if I was
coming down with terminal lung cancer due to the carcinogens in the California
air.
Back in the old
days, when I was just a little kid (the youngest smartass to brave open mike
night armed with an endless supply of fart jokes), I was always trying to
convince Lenny, the owner of the club, to put up fans near the bottom of the
stage, to at least blow the smoke in the opposite direction, but I was new at
the time and he never listened to my suggestions. I suppose I could’ve just quit, but Lenny was
one of the few club owners who’d actually pay for my act. So I just had to grin and bear it
(literally).
Ah, the irony of
it all: As I was spitting out jokes I
was sucking in death. I often thought of
that Charlie Chaplin quote: “The clown
is so close to death that only a knife-edge separates him from it, and
sometimes he goes over the border, but always he returns again.” Or as Heather likes to say, “You’re never
bored when you’re a masochist.” Perhaps
that’s why I missed the smoke.
It was a typical
Friday night at the tail end of summer.
The place was packed. Most of the
audience was drunk, which only worked to my advantage. Even though I’d been doing this for many
years I still had to deal with the butterflies in my stomach. Some nights I actually thought I was going to
throw up… until I started talking, that is, and then my brain switched to
auto-pilot and nothing existed except the laughter. I’ve talked to the guys who have been doing
this half their lives, and according to them it never changes. Everyone goes through the nervousness, no
matter how experienced or established they are.
It never gets any easier. I guess
I could’ve figured that out on my own, but when you watch those guys on TV you
never think about how much turmoil is brewing right underneath the
surface. Comedians are very angry
people; most of the time they don’t even know what they’re angry at, and yet
none of that subliminal rage leaks through your TV screen, no matter how large
or sophisticated the entertainment system.
I began my act
like I usually did: with silence. Not a lot, just enough to keep the audience
off-balance. I’d been heavily influenced
by Andy Kaufman’s stage performances. I
liked to make the audience just a bit uncomfortable. At the beginning of my act my nervousness was
actually an advantage; I didn’t try to hide it.
In fact, I tried to accentuate it:
stuttering a bit, dropping in a few “ers” and “uhs” here and there,
maintaining an open-eyed stare like a little kid caught in the head
lights. For some reason this seemed to
help. The audience didn’t like false
arrogance and bravado. They were more
sympathetic to someone who seemed just a bit nervous, as nervous as they
themselves would be in the same situation.
The truth is I don’t really know if this is why the act worked. It just did.
In the end who can explain such things?
“Uh, hello,” I
said, waving slightly as I pondered my next move. Reading the crowd is an essential skill for
any comedian. In my experience there’s
an inverse ratio between the size of the crowd and their tolerance for my usual
free-form, experimental humor. The
larger the crowd the more conservative my jokes become. It happens almost naturally. On a hot night like this drunks are in no
mood for biting, incisive political satire.
They want dumb impressions and one-liners and racist jokes and they damn
well better get it. I don’t care what
anybody says: standup comedy is the most
dangerous avocation on Earth, more so than mountain climbing or defusing
Cambodian landmines. One wrong slip of
the tongue and you might find yourself hanging from the rafters of the club by
a piece of hemp rope.
I waited a beat,
then launched into my opening tirade:
“Y’know what’s been pissing me off lately? These activist types who stand outside Trader
Joe’s or the Post Office with those little petitions in their hands and toss
insane questions in your face like, ‘Do you have time for the
environment?’ Or: ‘Do you have time to save the whales?’ Could you be more fucking annoying? It’s
impossible to answer that question without looking like a total dick. It’s like ‘Have you stopped beating your
wife?’ The question’s purposely designed
to guilt trip you. So one day—I swear to
God, this really happened—one day I’m leavin’ Trader Joe’s and this acne-ridden
teenage boy is standing there with a clipboard in his hand, and he looks at me
with a total straight face and says, ‘Do you have time for teen rape?’ Well, without even thinking about it I said…
“Are gonna hold her down or am I?’” The
audience gasped, not sure whether they should be offended or not; they burst into
laughter only a second later. “So I
said, ‘Have a nice day!’ and walked away.
The kid seemed a tad stunned.
Well… that’s what the asshole gets for asking a leading question. Don’t try to manipulate me, you prissy son of
a bitch.”
Then I talked
about my family, what it was like growing up with an Irish father and a Chinese
mother. (“Every time my mother breastfed
me I was hungry again an hour later.”)
My father was the perfect subject for humor. He was a complete paradox. Though he was a card-carrying racist, he
married a Chinese woman. (“He ordered
her through an ad in the back of Soldier
of Fortune magazine. They had a
special deal that day. Buy a chink and
get a life-long subscription.”) Growing
up with my father wasn’t easy. He was disappointed
that his only son seemed genetically incapable of hitting homeruns and holding
forth on the grand significance of football.
He figured I must’ve been, in his words, “some kinda pillow-biter.” (“Did you hear what Pat Robertson said the
other day? He said God caused the
hurricanes in Florida to punish Disney World for sponsoring a Gay Pride
Day. Imagine that—homosexuals attract
hurricanes! I think I’ve figured out how
to end the drought in Ethiopia. Just
ship all the gays over there! Fuck, when
the military figures out they can use gays to control the weather they’ll roll
out a fuckin’ red carpet for ‘em.”)
Despite our many differences, however, I haven’t been able to escape his
influence. I admit that I’ve inherited a
tinge of my father’s racism. (“But I’m
trying to make up for it. I’m writing a
screenplay about the Ku Klux Klan. It’s
called Boyz in the Hood. You think that title’s been taken?”)
As the laughter
grew I stared out into the audience. The
room was so dark and hazy it was difficult to see anyone. You couldn’t really know what they were
thinking until you heard the laughter—or didn’t. This has happened too, of course, but I don’t
like to talk about it. None of us
do. When you hear silence, the trick is
to simply keep going….
“Hey, I just heard
on the news that a guy got caught performing necrophilia in a funeral home here
in California. It turns out they can’t
charge this guy with anything because necrophilia isn’t illegal in
California. Now, wait a minute, hold on
here. You’re telling me that if you
smoke a friggin’ doobie you can get thrown into the slammer for up to ten years
but if you stick your dick in a dead guy you get to walk scott free? Of course, if you get caught smokin’ a joint while having sex with a corpse, then they can charge you with
something. Huh? Is something slightly off-kilter here or
what?”
I then launched
into a routine I had developed while forced to hear a slew of amateur L.A.
poets yammering their pretentious stuff and nonsense over the course of a
thousand and one open mike nights at clubs and coffee shops all around Southern
California. I called the routine “My
Girlfriend’s a Coke Whore.” As with most
of my material, it was mostly autobiographical.
(Thank Yahweh/Ba’al/Osiris/etc., I was no longer with the delightful
female who had inspired the bit.) The
routine consisted of me reciting a “poem” with a straight face while my fellow
comedian, Danny Oswald, sat at a piano behind me belting out responses to my
existential agony in the form of song.
Despite being the whitest white guy in this dimension or any other,
Danny could do a pretty damn good Louis Armstrong impersonation, which is why I
asked him to help me out in the first place.
Here’s how the routine went:
Me (my hands shaking slightly as I
read from a crumpled piece of paper, my golden and immortal poem): “My
girlfriend is a coke whore. The other
day I found a condom in her cunt. It was
not mine.”
Danny (while singing in his throaty,
bluesy voice and allowing his nimble fingers to dance gracefully across the
ivories): “You gotta give everybody a chance.”
Me:
“I don’t love coke… but I love her.
I hate loving her because when I see her blowing another man, it breaks
my heart.”
Danny: “You
can do anything if only you believe.”
Me:
“When I see her the next day I ask, ‘How could you do this to me?’ She looks at me and then gets on her knees
and I remember what a beautiful person she is.”
Danny: “The
love between a man and woman is so pure.”
Me:
“But she only does this so I let her into my apartment, and then she
steals from me. She stole my cell phone,
she stole my toaster.”
Danny: “White
toast golden brown on both sides, not anymore.”
Me:
“And later I asked why she did that, and she kissed me, and I was weak,
and I made love to her. The moment I
came she said, ‘You fuckin’ faggot!’ and I put my pants on, and I left her
apartment.”
Danny: “The
fire in a woman can make a man go crazy.”
Me:
“But the very next day, the very next
day, I catch her getting fucked from behind while she’s sucking some other
guy’s balls. And when she saw me she
spit the balls out of her mouth and said, ‘You fuckin’ faggot!’”
Danny: “Oh
shit, I can’t help you with that.”
Me:
“For weeks after that I could not talk to her and could not maintain an
erection. I bought pills off television
and through mail order from Mexico, but those balls in her mouth, those balls
in her mouth.”
Danny: “Life
has its sweetness but its bitterness too.”
Me:
A couple of days later she showed up at my apartment with her new
boyfriend. She asked to borrow money,
then said, ‘Sorry about that faggot thing.’
‘Which one?’ I said. ‘All three
of them,’ she said. I gave her a fifty
dollar bill, and she spit her gum out in it, and put it in her bra.
Danny: “What
the fuck… what the fuck… you got me there…I’m stumped….”
Me:
“A few weeks later she called and wanted me to bail her out of
jail. I told her I would as long as she
agreed to get treatment. On the way back
home in the car she asked me for gum.”
Danny: “Ugh… god damn it… not the gum
thing again… what’s with that gum thing….”
Me:
“She started treatment, and the effects were immediately apparent. During my visits to her I noticed shaking,
chills, and irritability. I told her she
looked beautiful, and she asked me to stay with her forever.”
Danny: “Forever’s a long time… talk to
your lawyer….”
Me:
“But when she was giving me a blowjob I could barely keep my erection
because her technique had deteriorated.
And I just couldn’t be… with someone… who didn’t understand me.”
Danny: “Blue...blue…
blue… balls….”
Me:
“I realized that cocaine opened up a part of her psyche that made her a
mouth-fuck genius, so I went out and scored her sixty dollars’ worth.”
Danny: “On the
corner of 8th and Junipero talk to a guy named Ronnie…he’s black….”
Me:
“But instead of sucking my cock she escaped the treatment center and
ended up blowing a bum for what turned out to be a bag of baking soda.”
Danny: “Baking soda’s fantastic ‘cause
it keeps everything fresh….”
Me:
“That’s when I realized that I just can’t be with her anymore. No matter how much I love her, it can never
work out between us. Nor can I ever be
rid of the pain of my love.”
Danny: “Can
you please now explain that gum thing to me….”
The laughter
swelled. We did a solid ten-minute set,
leaving the audience primed for Karen Griffin, an angry black lesbian who told
a lot of jokes about… well, angry black lesbians. What else?
I prayed Karen came back in one piece.
Danny and I strolled back to the bar where one of the comedians who’d gone
on before us, Heather Wheeler, was drinking a beer. Danny and Heather Wheeler were, like me,
disgusted with the current state of standup comedy. Most of the time we’d end up right here at
the bar, eating peanuts, getting drunk, and grumbling about how flaccid and
vacuous most comedians were—the successful ones, at any rate. Many nights we fantasized about ramming a
stake through Dane Cook’s thieving heart and planting his head on a barber
pole. I’d even worked out a five-minute
routine around exactly that premise.
Of course, all the
mainstream comedians claimed we were just bitter, and maybe that was true. I’d been in and out of standup for
years. If a major network had offered me
a part in a lame sitcom at that time would I have had the balls to turn it
down? I don’t know, I’d like to think
so. When you haven’t eaten anything but
Saltine crackers and Campbell’s chicken noodle soup for a month you’re less
inclined to be self-righteous. On the
other hand I knew a lot of friends of mine—talented young comedians—who had
been plucked out of obscurity from the alternative night clubs, plopped down in
the middle of a major network who immediately cast them in another mindless
sitcom that tanked in two weeks and ruined their reputations, leaving them floating
in some mist-filled limbo where they were no longer “alternative” or
“mainstream.” They’d sold their souls
for a pile of fairy gold that turned to dust within seconds of grasping hold of
it. I didn’t want to end up that way.
Which is why I
mainly stuck to the alternative L.A. clubs like Largo, the Cyclops, and
Prospero’s. I couldn’t stand the
mainstream nightspots like the Improv or The Comedy Store, where all the
comedians were either cute Jewish guys or beach-blond jocks who apparently
found great philosophical relevance in the poor quality of airplane food or the
unreliability of parking meters, nothing even in the general vicinity of obscene or cutting edge or
controversial. Hell, I don’t really
blame them. Life’s much simpler in the
mainstream. I mean, hey, don’t get me
started on that time the black Muslim began heckling me from the front
row. I took off my glasses and told him
to come up on stage and tell me what he thought about me to my face. Ninety-nine percent of the time hecklers are just
cowards who will slump down in their seats when challenged. On this particular occasion, however, I just
happened to tap into that rare one percent of the population. Danny tells me my jokes were even funnier
with a broken nose and lips the size of Encino.
If so I’ll do without the extra laughs, thank you.
Danny’s a weird
guy, a real shut-in. The only time he
ever leaves his room is to go to the clubs.
He lives in a small apartment with his dad, who’s a retired mechanic. I don’t know how he got the brain he did, but
of all the comedians I know he’s the one most deserving of success. He’s kind of like a cross between Jackie
Mason and Andy Kaufman, both wise and insane at the same time. He’s the gentlest soul you’ll ever meet,
though it’s difficult to talk to him because he’s constantly in character. He has a hard time relating to people
off-stage. That’s a common occupational
hazard, I think.
He
got goofed on a lot as kid. Hell, which
one of us didn’t? Danny claimed it was
because of his last name. As a result he
became obsessed with the JFK assassination.
He’s fashioned a lot of jokes around it, more than you can possibly
imagine. The one I remember the most is
a little two-liner that goes: “Did you
know that Oliver Stone is making a sequel to JFK? It’s called KFC, about the assassination of Col.
Sanders.” He says it with such a
straight face you almost believe it might be true.
“You
killed again,” Heather said as we slid into the seats on either side of her.
I
shrugged. I rapped my knuckles on the
bar to get the bartender’s attention, then held up one finger. I don’t know why, but a beer tasted best
right after a performance. “I think I
sucked. I always think that.”
“Cut
the bullshit,” Heather said. “You know
you were good. You think they were
laughing out of politeness?”
“I
could’ve been better.”
“You
could always be better,” Heather said, tossing a peanut in the air and catching
it on the tip of her tongue. She had a
talented tongue. It was her best
feature, in fact. “You could always be
worse too,” she added. “You could be
dead.” Heather was thirty-two, three
years older than me. She wasn’t an
attractive woman, she was just kind of average.
She had mousy brown hair, hardly wore make-up and had a scrawny,
underfed body. Nevertheless she had a
way of shaping the space around her as if it belonged only to her, a way of
moving across the room that announced to everybody in no uncertain terms: “I know exactly who I am, I don’t care what
you think about me, and get the hell
out of my way.” She had Attitude, with a
capital A, and that more than made up for her plainness. Her looks grew on you after awhile. She had a beautiful smile, wide and bright
and enticing. I think she’d had sex with
about twelve different comedians on the L.A. nightclub circuit (none of them
Danny or me) and in every case the relationship ended with her dumping him, not the
other way around. I often wondered what
it would be like to be her boyfriend, but I was also afraid of being eaten
alive. One night when I’d had one too
many drinks I made an awkward, fumbling pass at her that ended with Heather
physically removing my hand from her left breast while suggesting various
alternative placements for it like the garbage disposal or the inside of the
microwave oven. It was kind of
embarrassing. The night ended with me
slinking out of her apartment while she visited the toilet. The next morning I called to apologize, but
she quickly changed the subject. Neither
of us had mentioned the incident since then.
“What
if I am dead?” I said. “What if we’re
all dead and this is Heaven?”
“Gee,
wouldn’t that be Hell?” Heather said.
She tossed another peanut into the air.
This time it bounced off the side of her mouth and landed somewhere on
the floor. “Shit!” she said and peered
angrily at the floor, as if intent on retrieving the peanut and strangling it
for its impudence.
“The Peanut That Got Away,” Danny said
into his beer. “Starring Hardy Kruger
and Alec McCowen. Rank Pictures, Great
Britain, 1957.”
Another
obscure reference. Sometimes I didn’t
know what the hell he was talking about.
I
spun around on my stool and watched Karen Griffin performing for a few
moments. She was telling a joke about
political correctness: “You know, I’ve
come to the conclusion that us queers should just get back in the fuckin’
closet. The world seemed less weird that
way, don’t you agree?” The audience
laughed and clapped. She was really
winning them over. “I mean, have you
ever heard of this children’s book Heather
Has Two Mommies? It’s about two
lesbians who raise a kid. I’m totally
against that, man. I mean, shit, dykes
can’t raise kids. After all, it says so
in the Old Testament. Genesis I:I: ‘Dykes can’t raise kids.’ It’s right there on page one! Just the other day I saw a sequel called Heather Has TWELVE Mommies. Now, this is getting way out of hand. It was a pop-up book! I opened it up and these turkey basters flew
out and almost hit me in the head. Shit,
nearly knocked me out cold, man.”
She
had the audience in stitches. “She’s
getting more laughs than I did,” I said to no one in particular.
“Of
course,” Heather said. “The audience is
afraid she’s going to kill them if they don’t laugh.”
Griffin
did look scary. She insisted on wearing
this skin-tight black body suit on stage, and her kinky hair was spiked out in
all possible directions; the top of her head looked like the jumping jacks I
used to play with as a kid. Even more
scary were her eyes. She suffered from
some weird condition that enabled her to bulge her eyes out of her head until
they appeared to be as big as cue balls; this was both nauseating and funny at
the same time. Her skin was as black as
the depths of the Cayman Trench and her body impossibly lithe, as if she spent
the majority of her time swimming deep underwater. She looked like the offspring of a mutant
aquatic spider from another planet that had attacked and raped a human being on
some lonesome road late one night out in the middle of nowhere. I would never say this to her face, of
course.
Heather
might. I don’t think they were too fond
of each other. I never knew why.
“I
think it has more to do with the fact that she’s god damn funny,” Danny said,
responding to Heather’s snide remark. He
turned around, planted his elbows on the bar behind him, and watched Griffin
ripping into some poor heckler in the front row. “I want to marry her.”
Both
Heather and I stared at him in shock.
Danny very rarely made any reference to women whatsoever, except perhaps
in a comedic way. I wasn’t even certain
he’d ever been on a date, though any guy on a stage tends to attract groupies,
no matter how unappealing he is.
“Are
you high?” I said.
“No,”
Danny said very seriously, “I think I love her.” It was hard to tell when he was joking or
not. He brushed his hair back with his
hands, then smoothed out his flannel shirt.
“After her set I’ve decided I’m going to ask her out on a date.”
“She’s
a dyke,” Heather said. She had this bemused look on her face that
was rather hilarious.
“I
know,” Danny said. “That just makes her
all the more intriguing.”
Heather
glanced up at the ceiling and rolled her eyes.
“He’s
got to be pulling our legs,” I said to Heather.
“Don’t
you bet on it, kiddo,” she said, tossing yet another peanut into the air. This one dropped right down her throat. She almost choked on it. For a moment I thought I was going to have to
perform the Heimlich Maneuver. I began
slapping her on the back as she coughed and sputtered like a backfiring car. Fortunately, just as Griffin was finishing
her set, Heather got her coughing under control. When I turned to look at Danny he was already
walking toward the stage. Heather and I
watched him approach Griffin as she stepped off the side of the stage, while
behind her Lenny grabbed the mike and began doing his usual patter in between
acts. We saw Danny lean toward her ear
in order to be heard over the noise.
After talking to her for no more than twenty seconds, Griffin flashed a
wide ivory-white smile (the first time I’d seen anything even remotely resembling
a smile on anything even remotely resembling her face) at which point she
extended her elbow (I thought, My God, she’s going to disable his floating rib
with a quick jab in the side!) and allowed Danny to slip his arm through
hers. They strolled off toward the
backstage area arm in arm, looking like long-separated sweethearts.
Heather
and I remained silent for quite awhile.
I felt like a witness to a rare religious miracle.
At
last I muttered, “That must’ve been staged.”
“I
don’t think so,” Heather said, turning her back on Lenny’s patter and
addressing her beer mug once again.
“Excuse
me, what’re you talking about? You think
Danny has the ability to sweet talk
the Insect Queen From Venus into a candlelit dinner within twenty fucking
seconds?”
“Yes.”
I
sighed and knocked back a swig of beer.
“God damn it, you’re probably right.
The universe really does work like that, doesn’t it?”
“It’s
an odd-shaped world full of odd-shaped folk.”
“Why
don’t I have that ability? I mean, I’m a professional comedic linguistic
technician. Words are my stock in trade,
fachrissakes! I should be able to flap
my lips and make women roll over and play dead, right?”
Heather
shook her head. “It’s gotta be in your
genes. You’re good enough to make people
laugh, but you’re not persuasive.” She
began waving her finger in the air as if she were about to make a brilliant
philosophical point. “Now Hitler…
Hitler, on the other hand, was the exact opposite.” She took another sip of her beer. “He was persuasive, but he couldn’t make
people laugh.”
“How
do you know?”
She
shrugged. “I dunno, have you ever seen footage of Hitler crackin’
out witty one-liners, making all those wide-eyed German boys in their sexy S.S.
uniforms bust a gut over jokes about sauerkraut or Volkswagens? No, you just see him waving his fist around,
complaining about Jews and taxes and things like that.”
“Maybe
they just never show the footage of him being funny.”
“So
you think they’re hiding it? The Jewish
media is suppressing evidence of Hitler’s scary talents, is that it?”
“I
wouldn’t put it past them.”
“Are
you kidding?”
“Yes.”
As
Heather finished her beer Danny and Griffin emerged from the back of the club
with their jackets on, looking like they were primed for a night on the
town. Griffin was beaming like a little
girl in love for the first time, falling all over Danny as if she couldn’t bear
not to be in physical contact with him for more than two seconds.
They
strolled right up to us. Danny said,
“Well, we’re heading on over to Ye Rustic Inn for a few drinks. You want to join us?”
Ye
Rustic Inn was a funky little bar in Los Feliz where some of us hung out after
our gigs were finished, swapping jokes and offering constructive (and/or
deconstructive) criticism on each other’s performances. I was about to accept Danny’s offer to join
them, just to observe the synergy between an angry black lesbian and a neurotic
white shut-in, when Griffin suddenly leaned over Danny’s shoulder and said,
“Look, I don’t want to be rude, but why don’t you just keep your ass planted
where it is, okay? I want Danny all to
myself.” She slid her hands down Danny’s
chest and ran the tip of her tongue over his ear lobe.
Somewhat
taken aback, I replied, “Well, hell, I didn’t want to go anywhere with you two
anyway.”
“And
I have to wash my hair tonight,” Heather said, not even turning around to face
them. She was watching them in the
mirror behind the bar.
Danny
said, “Well, uh, I’ll see you guys later then… I guess,” as Griffin dragged him
toward the exit.
When
the doors closed behind them I turned to Heather and said, “Well, how do you
like that? Can you believe that?”
“Yes.” Heather paid the bartender for her beer.
“You’re
certainly taking this in stride.”
She
shrugged. “It doesn’t affect me.”
“Doesn’t
affec—? Are you crazy? This affects everyone in the world. The mantle of the Earth is shifting, the
galactic center dissolving, the universe retracting at a faster pace than ever
before due to the mere possibility
that Griffin and Danny might procreate tonight and spawn who knows what kind of
evil homunculi. Can you even begin to
comprehend how this might alter the gene pool?”
“Let’s
hope they stick to the shallow end of the gene pool, far enough away from us
more highly evolved primates to not derail us from our upward spiralling
path.” She rose from her stool.
“Hey,
where’re you going so early?”
She
sighed. “Home, I guess, then to bed.”
“Yeah,
it’s been a long night, hasn’t it? I’m
not doing much of anything either. You
know… thought I’d go back to my little rabbit hole, maybe heat up a can of
Campbell’s chicken soup, the kind with 33% more chicken in it, sprinkle some
Saltine crackers on top… you know, watch the snow on my black and white TV I
bought at a yard sale, then retire to my mattress on the floor for a restless,
lonely night’s sleep.”
Heather
and I stared at each other for a few seconds, me with an affable smile on my
boyish face, she with a totally unreadable, stoic expression. So forceful was the orgone energy in the room
at that moment I could feel the sexual tension exploding out of our bodies like
forks of lightning, interlocking, spinning, dancing an electrical dance. I knew I had her within my grasp. I just needed to close the deal with a few
smooth, well-spoken words.
Before
I could open my mouth, however, Heather said, “Well, hope you have fun, then,”
and left the club.
I
watched the doors swinging shut… back and forth, back and forth… then returned
my attention to my glass of beer. Out of
the corner of my eye I could see the bartender snickering over my rejection, so
I glared at him insanely like Mohamed Atta staring at the Twin Towers right
before blowing them to smithereens. He
decided to clean the opposite end of the bar, leaving me alone with my
pain. I dropped a peanut into the glass,
watched it break the surface tension, studied the resultant ripples that spread
out quickly in concentric circles. I
sighed and thought: Most people call me
bi-sexual, because whenever I try to have sex with them they say, “Bye-bye,
bye-bye!” I giggled into the beer and
figured I might as well add that to my repertoire. Yeah, might as well.
Later
that night, as I was sitting at home eating a bowl of Campbell’s chicken soup
with Saltine crackers sprinkled on top, I heard a strange news report on the
radio (the snow made watching TV impossible).
A major university had just released the results of a five-year-long
scientific study; the scientists involved had come to the conclusion that the
deterioration of the ozone was due not to the burning of fossil fuels, but to
the methane in cow farts. I glanced at
the calendar to make sure it wasn’t April Fool’s Day. Nope, it was the middle of September. It was a serious report! Imagine the amount of tax-payer’s dollars
that had been used to fund such a thing.
Why didn’t the scientists just break down laughing halfway through the
first day? That would’ve ended the whole
charade right there. More disturbing
still was the fact that the newscaster didn’t erupt into wild guffaws while
reporting the silly thing. I often
wondered if most of the human race wasn’t suffering from some kind of strange
disease, an anti-evolutionary trait that prevented them from detecting the mad
humor that surrounded them each and every day.
Little
did I know that this would prove to be more than just idle fancy.
To order a copy of Until the Last Dog Dies, click HERE.
THE REVIEWS ARE IN...!
“By turns mystical and ashcan-real, insanely
funny and grimly ghastly, Guffey’s novel cuts a zigzag trail through
conventionality as it follows Elliot Greeley in his half-serious, half jesting
quest for some deeper meaning to existence. If you build your life on laughs,
what happens when the laughs disappear? Kissing cousin to Max Barry’s novel
Lexicon, about killer language, and to Ben Marcus’s The Flame Alphabet, about
language killed, Guffey’s standup debut is standout speculative fiction.”
—Paul DiFilippo, Locus
"Until the Last Dog Dies is not only a novel unique to this [political] moment, but one that is to stand-up comedy what Catch-22 was to war. It's one of the great books of the year."
—Adam-Troy Castro, SCI FI Magazine
“Taps into the cultural zeitgeist . . . A nihilistic satire that takes the idea that death is easy and comedy is hard to a whole new level.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Guffey’s debut takes full advantage of an absurd, unexpected premise, delivering one of the strangest dystopian novels in a year filled with them.”
—B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog
“Guffey’s sardonic, cleverly written comedic debut relies heavily on absurd synchronicity, bold characterization, and heavy irony to make its points about the apocalyptic nature of American humorlessness.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A playful amalgam of Andy Kaufman and Philip K. Dick by way of Shaun of the Dead.”
—Damien Lincoln Ober, author of Doctor Benjamin Franklin's Dream America
“This satirical tale explores the role of comedy in maintaining a healthy democracy. . . . A clever concept.”—Kirkus Reviews
"Now, I like crass humor and potty talk as much as the next person, but there has at least got to be characters that I like or can identify with. This wasn't the case in my reading and in fact, I skipped the middle of the book and went straight to the end--and I still didn't care about anybody."
--Some dip on Goodreads
—Adam-Troy Castro, SCI FI Magazine
“Taps into the cultural zeitgeist . . . A nihilistic satire that takes the idea that death is easy and comedy is hard to a whole new level.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Guffey’s debut takes full advantage of an absurd, unexpected premise, delivering one of the strangest dystopian novels in a year filled with them.”
—B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog
“Guffey’s sardonic, cleverly written comedic debut relies heavily on absurd synchronicity, bold characterization, and heavy irony to make its points about the apocalyptic nature of American humorlessness.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A playful amalgam of Andy Kaufman and Philip K. Dick by way of Shaun of the Dead.”
—Damien Lincoln Ober, author of Doctor Benjamin Franklin's Dream America
“This satirical tale explores the role of comedy in maintaining a healthy democracy. . . . A clever concept.”—Kirkus Reviews
"Now, I like crass humor and potty talk as much as the next person, but there has at least got to be characters that I like or can identify with. This wasn't the case in my reading and in fact, I skipped the middle of the book and went straight to the end--and I still didn't care about anybody."
--Some dip on Goodreads
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