I, Fauci: A Star is Born

 

At a secret, undisclosed location, some time in our not-too-distant past…

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you all for being the guests of The Gates Foundation. As you are aware this event is by invitation only. We are grateful to all who have answered this call. All of you members of the pharmaceutical industry, corporate leaders of health care organizations, and public health officials have become acquainted with us through this foundation’s efforts in global health initiatives. Now despite the makeup of this audience, we are not going to discuss health issues today. No, today we are going to discuss another matter that is near and dear to all of your hearts. At least it should be. Today we are going to talk about money. Not chump change, but REAL money, okay? Like Gates Foundation money.

A low buzz of hushed exchanges quietly reverberated through the room. The Nerd’s beady eyes darted behind his glasses, and he licked his lips in expectation. This room was representative of the overall health care sector. He sensed that they, like the field from which they came, were ripe for the picking. He could see it in all of their eyes. Any lingering sense of altruism which may have influenced their original career choices had now faded into obscurity, replaced by sheer, unbridled greed. All had been carefully screened, and he was confident that these were his kind of people. He poured some Perrier into a glass, took a sip and then continued.

All of you here collectively represent the greatest cash cow in human history. The latent potential is nearly unfathomable to human imagination, yet I see that there is a division of effort. In short, you people are going about this all wrong. We have brought all of you here to correct this course before this golden opportunity should slip from our fingers. Looking around this room, I can see that some of you are puzzled. You haven’t quite connected all of the dots, but I will clarify for you.

The Gates Foundation. How did the Gates Foundation amass such overwhelming wealth? Most of you will reply that this of course is derived from Microsoft. You would be correct, but that alone does not tell the entire story. Microsoft was the vehicle, yes, but it is necessary to understand the history of Microsoft to see how this worked.

The Nerd adjusted his glasses and took another sip of Perrier, then switched on an overhead projector. In an instant this was projected upon the large wall to his back:

MS-DOS – Microsoft Disk Operating System (1981)

• Windows 1.0 – 2.0 (1985-1992)

• Windows 3.0 – 3.1 (1990-1994)

• Windows 95 (August 1995)

• Windows NT 3.1 – 4.0 (1993 – 1996)

• Windows 98 (June 1998)

• Windows ME – Millennium Edition (September 2000)

• Windows 2000 (February 2000)

• Windows XP (October 2001)

• Windows Vista (November 2006)

• Windows 7 (October, 2009)

• Windows 8

• Windows 10

What you see behind me is the summary history of the Microsoft Windows operating system. Thirty years of progress. The first decade, from Windows 1.0 to Windows 3.1, was dedicated to building an infrastructure. From Windows 95 to Windows 10 in the summer of 2015, you will note that we succeeded in introducing a “new and improved” version at a rate of approximately every three years. Now in a rapidly advancing science it is natural to find a certain degree of built in obsolescence in the resulting products as they struggle to keep up with that science. Introducing new operating systems on a timetable of roughly every three years would appear to be consistent with this dynamic. This timetable was in fact deliberate, and on its face meant to appear as a manifestation of that dynamic. This was the perfect cover for what was actually happening: Microsoft Windows operating system as a viral delivery platform.

The Nerd punctuated this part of his address with that familiar, half-deranged smirk of his. He leaned away from the mic for moment, in part to avoid the detection of a small chuckle under his breath, but mostly to allow his concluding statement to sink in. He cocked his head up toward the ceiling lights, keeping the glare on his lenses to hide his shifting, beady eyes as he surveyed the room. The Nerd assessed that he had this audience precisely where he wanted them. There was no one on the planet better equipped to read this room than he, the man who had suffered no audience any less than enthralled by his mere presence in over two decades. He didn’t allow them too long to think on it before he resumed.

You want to know where Microsoft made it’s real money? Even at a rate of new version every three years, the real money was not in operating systems, no. The real money, my friends, is in viruses. In nature the virus, in it’s physicality, is a minute organism; yet I would submit that it is the supreme life form.

The Nerd paused briefly again, looking away from the ceiling lights to engage his audience with his eyes as he continued.

You know… heh-heh… we here have become rather like viruses ourselves. We live off of a host that we must keep in a weakened state, yet we dare not kill off our host. This is only in the euphemistic sense, yet it could be so much more. At Microsoft the sickness and the cure are delivered by the same hand, to a “patient” programmed to accept the cure from a trusted source. This patient is uncertain where the sickness came from. With a multitude of potential threats, assailing them from all directions, all the time... it's simply exasperating. They can't keep up with it. So, when we send them the constant security updates, our research shows that 64% of  pat-, er um, customers simply upload (inject) these fixes right away. Without question. Another 15-20% get around to it within six months. The rest end up abandoning the OS altogether, due to catastrophic system failure or, they have voluntarily upgraded to new hardware.

I look around this room now, and I'm seeing some puzzled faces. Maybe a little squirming. I am betting that some of you are starting to wonder, "What has any of this have to do with us? What we do?" Well, I won't keep you in suspense very much longer. In just a few moments we will be joined by the esteemed Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is going to share with us some very exciting results in gain of function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Some of you are no doubt familiar with Dr. Fauci. Some of you are not, but... I promise you all, in the next few years the entire world will know Dr. Fauci. Come on out, Tony!

And thus, a star was born. All paid for with your tax dollars. You're welcome.

Judge Daily: Can we get a little guidance?

This is an open letter addressed to ANYONE (Judge Daily included) at the Olmsted County Government Center in Rochester, Minnesota

Dear Olmsted County Government Clowns:

We here at Midnight and other beasts have been preparing a travel guide for our readers, who may plan on visiting Rochester. We don't understand it, but apparently there is some appetite to see firsthand what it is like to live in The People's Democratic Republic of Minnesota. 

We have been able to compile a comprehensive list of your finest establishments for the enjoyment of the world-renowned Somali cuisine. We have created a tour map that will assist our readers to take in the full splendor of your lovely Somali ghetto. There are also directions to the Mayo Clinic, complete with some parking tips. Showing once again that we will go over and above to serve the interest of our readers, we have mapped out all of the best locations in Olmsted County to purchase bananas and rice at wholesale. There seems to be little else of interest in your County, yet there are some nagging questions that remain.

Number one: Will there be a plaque or some other kind of memorial erected in Rochester to commemorate the erasure of the first amendment of the United States Constitution? If so, where? Also, will there be a racial test to determine who may visit?

Number two: In the absence of any specific statutes which bar the use of certain words, we understand that your office will employ the ever-elastic "disorderly conduct" statute to prosecute those who use speech which your office finds "offensive". We understand, from a recent ruling in your court, that the word NIGGER is subject to this judicial fiat. 

It is our wish to provide sound guidance to our readers. In the event that they should, while visiting your fair city, come into any potential conflict with a brown-skinned person of questionable immigration status, what might be some safe and legal words to be used? We have a short list of potential alternatives, which we submit for your review-

Yard ape, porch monkey, jigaboo, jungle bunny, spearchucker, melon head, balloon head, darkie, skid mark, hood rat

Would more generic terms like asshole, dipshit, fuckhead or goof be permitted?

Are any (or all) of these safe alternatives? Are there any OTHER words that are verboten in Olmsted County? 

Your guidance in this matter will be greatly appreciated.

Insincerely yours,

Thomas J. Darby

p.s. - Just kidding! None of our readers are coming to your shithole

A Man named Clark

 

I made a discovery yesterday, concerning an event that occurred a couple of years ago. The discovery itself was not surprising; only that I had not heard of it. Clark is dead. That means little if anything to anyone in this audience. As it turns out, it means little to anyone at all. Including me, yet I feel compelled to share some memory of this person.

The first thing that you should know about Clark is that he liked to get high. He didn't drink alcohol. At all. Ever. He didn't drink water either. In all the years that I knew the man, the only thing I ever saw him drink was Mountain Dew. But if it was something that you could smoke or snort for a buzz, Clark was game. And pills. Clark loved pills and he always had a steady supply of them.

All of the above are true statements. I learned all these things about him when we had first become acquainted back in the 80s. Back then, Clark worked for me. He was a good employee, reliable and conscientious about his work, despite being a serious dopehead. I was not yet aware of it then, but Clark was a model of human being I would become familiar with later in life: the functioning alcoholic. Only his poison of choice was not alcohol. For this type of personality, it is less a question of the poison and more of a function of genetics.

Most of us have known or at least encountered this kind of person. He's the first customer at the local tavern's happy hour. He's the guy who is there when the keg is tapped and won't leave until it runs dry. The guy who can drink a quart of whiskey every night and still show up on time for work every day. They pay their bills, perform car maintenance and maintain a house, while spending nearly half of their life in the bag. That was the Clark that I knew. As long as he managed to avoid getting popped by the law, Clark could be counted on to show up and do his job and do it well. That and the fact that he was always stoned were both a given.

We worked together for a period of a couple years and then, as happens in life, our paths diverged. We remained in contact sporadically through about 1995 and that was it. Our lives took on other priorities that did not include each other. Don't misunderstand this. I'm not lamenting a separation, because we were never really that close. Clark was just the sort of character that one does not easily forget.

Fast forward to nearly a quarter century later. I had returned to Ohio for a time, after living out of state for twenty years. I had not thought of Clark for years, until one Autumn afternoon when stopping at a grocery store for a few items. I turned a corner to head up the next aisle and there he was. He was pushing a cart loaded with Mountain Dew 2L bottles. There was a sale, he was stocking up. The same red hair and beard, with a few greys sprinkled in. The same ball cap. He still looked the same and, in many ways, he was the same. But he wasn't.

I can not say that the years had been as kind to me. Clark didn't recognize me at first. Once we were closer and I was absolutely positive that it was him, I called him by name and identified myself. A spark of light ignited behind those wire-framed lenses. We talked, just very briefly, giving the thumbnail history of the time since we had last seen each other. I discovered that we were living only a little over a mile apart. We exchanged phone numbers and agreed to get in touch again soon. This meeting occurred about six months before the scamdemic was unleashed.

A few weeks later Clark stopped by at my place. We sparked up some green and spent a couple hours throwing darts, catching up on the years and how we had landed. Clark's tale had taken an ugly turn in recent years. Life had not been a rosy path, but up until 2015 things had been alright. Then there was the passing of the man who had been Clark's stepfather, a man he only knew as "Pop". At the time that this happened, Clark had already been wrestling with a nagging back injury. He had already been urged to undergo a surgery to correct the problem, but he had instead stubbornly pursued a course of self-medication. By March of 2016 Clark had reached the end of the line and finally, reluctantly, he went under the knife.

There had been complications with the surgery. Six months later, they had to open him up again and perform a fusion. At the end of it all, Clark never made a complete recovery. For twenty years or so Clark had operated a moderately successful floor and tile care company. Unable to continue working, and beset with mounting debts, he was forced to close up shop and sell off any remaining assets. A couple of years after this, his widowed mother began to take ill. It was only about a year before our chance encounter at the grocery store that Clark had returned to the old Lincoln Village neighborhood to look after her.

We had gotten to a third round of cricket when Clark removed a little zip-seal bag from a jacket pocket. It was filled with maybe twenty white pills. I thought, with a little chuckle, "Same old Clark". I was reassured that these were "legit", because he had a prescription. Never mind the plastic bag. Clark with a bag of pills was nothing new. What was new was that Clark had become quite stingy with his supplies. The old Clark would have been quick to hand over a couple and insist, "Here, try a couple of these". I watched him take six in one bite, then put the bag away. I didn't ask, he didn't offer.

Over the next several months I would see Clark about once a week. Same every time, darts and green. And his pills. I learned that he was now on 100% disability. Work had always agreed with Clark, even with his dependencies. The inactivity did not. As his mother's condition continued to deteriorate, I witnessed a Clark descending deeper and deeper into depression. I did note with some concern his increasing consumption of pain killers, but I could not turn him away. These visits seemed to be the only thing he had going, aside from the increasing difficulties in caring for his mother. When she had a couple of extended visits in the nearby hospital, Clark would come by to kill the time between visiting hours.

Clark's mother passed away in July of 2020. I'm certain that the cause of her death was recorded as coming from Covid. She was certainly vulnerable, but her illness had predated the outbreak by many months. If anything, it only hastened her end. I had already witnessed a Clark greatly diminished from the man I had known before. Left alone to clean out the home of over forty years, he was barely hanging by a thread. He was in no physical or mental state to do this work. He needed help. So, I helped.

It took a week to clean out all the junk. Turns out that mom was a bit of a hoarder. Another week to clean and still another to throw on some fresh paint. It was sad, but at least we could put a new face on it. It seemed to be the first step in starting over. Or moving on, whichever case it might be. It was during this time that I began to realize the full extent of Clark's addiction.

Throughout the place there were prescription bottles in evidence, all affirming that, yes, Clark was legally prescribed pain medication. They looked to be Percocet, mostly. Not sure of the dosage. On a couple of these bottles, I noted that these were being issued one hundred and twenty at a time. In today's climate it is quite unusual for these types of meds to be dispensed at more than thirty at a time. Knowing Clark's affinity for pills, it wasn't hard for me to conclude that he might "milk" the pain for more pills. That would be completely in character but reading the labels, one would have to assume that at least one physician had been convinced to a degree that he or she would stick their neck out with the prescription pad.

The day that we were preparing to paint, Clark got a notification on his phone from the pharmacy. He asked if I would mind that he go and pick up the scrips. I told him, "Sure, go ahead". This was nearly a month after his mother had passed. I went ahead and got started with taping, preparing the brushes, rollers, the paint tray. I didn't time it, but it didn't seem like he was gone a long time. When he returned, I was halfway through my trim line at the top of the front wall. Within minutes of passing through that front door, I could tell that he was freshly dosed. Clark had a tell common to pill heads the world over: the Chatty Cathy effect. 

He came in, put the pharmacy bag on the kitchen table, then grabbed a roller and set to work. And talked. Non-stop, mostly about nothing. We had two walls done in a little over an hour, while Clark had prattled on incessantly over the cinematic merits of the Minions movies. And Sal the gravedigger, the Avengers (a motorcycle gang, not the TV show), Joseppi's Pizza and the sweet ass on his mail lady. There were no doubt other profundities that were uttered in that space of time, but these are the ones I can recall. By then we had reached a point where it was necessary to move the paint tray and rearrange the stepladder. It was a good time for a break.

I headed out to the kitchen to grab a Dew and sit down at the table for a smoke. Now, it was not my intent to snoop. I just wanted to enjoy part of a cigarette without competing paint fumes. Just the same, the bag was sitting there in plain sight, ripped open but with the pharmacy tags still hanging, stapled to the bag. Clark's name was nowhere on those tags. These scrips had been issued for his mother. After her death. I had also seen some of her old prescription bottles, though I had never paid any attention to what they were. Clark had no doubt been helping himself to her supply for some time. This one was the last hurrah. So long, Ma... thanks for the pills.

There were two bottles that had been left inside the bag, apparently of no interest to him. Probably something she'd had waiting there, boring, non-narcotic stuff. Then there was a third bottle that had been opened, sitting outside the bag, on the table. I can not recall the name of it now, but I did look it up at the time to discover that they were a very powerful morphine tablet, seldom seen outside of the hospital. End stage cancer. She had been getting these for a while. Well... at least some of them.

I didn't say anything about this to Clark. He may or may not have known that I had figured out what he was doing. I know that he was far enough into this addiction that he simply wouldn't care one way or the other. I was there for maybe another six hours that day. In that time, he took two of those tabs. That I know about. He might easily have taken one or two before even leaving the pharmacy parking lot. After doing the clean up at the end of the day, I had decided that it was time to back away a little. Start holding Clark off at some distance. As bad as I felt for his circumstances, I could see what had happened to him. This was a guy who always liked catching a buzz. And he had, for the most part, tamed those poisons to a degree that he could enjoy them and still function in society. But not these; not these legally prescribed, pharmaceutical grade tablets. These little buggers had transformed Clark into a full-on junkie, every bit as crazed and unstable as one with a needle in his arm.

I would still see Clark periodically after this. Every couple of weeks he would make his weed run and deliver a standing order for an ounce. Then it got to where he needed the cash fronted before pickup. That was okay, but I could not help but suspect why. In the months after getting the place all spruced up, Clark had settled into a vicious pattern. On the third week of the month his prescription would renew, one hundred twenty tablets at taxpayer expense. He would use half, sell the other half on the street to supplement his income for the balance of the month. Then, at the first of the month came his disability check. He would pay the monthly bills and with whatever was leftover, buy more pills on the street to supplement the balance of his prescription. Wash, rinse, repeat. The total cutoff point arrived in June of 2021, when I busted him trying to steal weed and cash from me. That was the last time I spoke to Clark.

I remember saying at the time that I did not believe Clark would live to see sixty. He came within six months of covering that bet, dying almost four years to the day after his mother. He OD'ed, of course. Cold, alone, in the dark of his mother's basement. He was stone cold and grey, with a big fat pantload when they found him. And the war on drugs rages on...

The Dope

 

What is the Dope? Some might conclude that the Dope is some kind of drug. Drugs are certainly part of the equation, but the Dope is not a drug. At least not in any conventional sense.

The Dope is all around us. The Dope is society. The Dope is conventional wisdom. The Dope is social convention. It is money and medicine, and the spaces where the two meet. Most of the world is on the Dope.

If you're not already on the Dope, then you had better get on it and quick. Why, one simply can not live in today's world without the Dope.

The Dope has many ingredients. It's sort of a stew, really. Most of the ingredients are lies, but they are all sugar-coated, so that most never really notice. These lies are so easy to swallow that they are practically ingested by rote, the damage already done before anyone has a clue.

It begins with the schooling. Schooling is a critical component of the Dope. The Dope can only work with a people who are docile. The first lesson of school is that you MUST ALWAYS respect authority. Questioning authority can ONLY lead to trouble.

These are the metrics. You must achieve the metrics according to a timetable.

You must achieve high marks.

You must select courses to prepare you for a specific discipline, one which is in high demand and commands a high salary.

You must also engage in many extracurricular activities and volunteerism. Because colleges love that shit. (That last part, at least, is true)

YES!! Because you simply must go to college. Because that piece of paper confers legitimacy. You are nothing without it.

Public (state) school education. Check

University indoctrination. Check

There are many who will feed you these lines. Some of them are just useful idiots, repeating something that someone else said. Because it sounded smart. There are others who perpetuate these lies because it serves them personally. Or their "pet" agenda. That's a polite way of saying grift. The credentialist class; the street level retailers of the Dope. They give you that first taste. 

Then they turn you on to the bankers. Next vital ingredient in the Dope: credit.  It seems so benign. There is another word for it that they shush-shush until later: debt.

You simply have to take on debt! Unless you are a trust fund baby, there is simply no other way! Think of it as an investment. In yourself! The banks are there to help you get started.

Now, that last line is kind of tricky. It's not an outright lie, just a shading of the truth. The banks are there to help you get started. Started on a lifetime path of servitude. To them, the banks. The banks figure prominently in the composition of the Dope. Bankers are the underwriters of the Dope.

Establishing credit (accumulating debt). Check

There is a certain amount of theatre to the Dope. Even your narcotic varieties of dope (lower case) require something more than just the intoxicant. It's gotta have vibe, I guess is how they would put it today. In order that the Dope actually be the Dope, there has to be a buzz to it and a buzz around it. The buzz around the Dope is what helps draw others into it's clutches. Conformity is a potent weapon to wield, especially when one considers how easily it can be manipulated. In order for this to work, people have to be talking about the Dope.

The Dope is the narrative. The script that everyone is supposed to follow. It's the continuation of a script, the foundation of which was put down in school. It doesn't have to be true because the truth is not it's purpose. It's purpose is only that the script be heard and repeated by as many as possible. Create the buzz. Get people talking about the Dope. How good the Dope is. How easy the Dope is. How natural the Dope is. It's just... what you do. Enter here, that next vital component to the Dope: the media.

The media, in all of it's numerous and ugly permutations, is a digestive system for the Dope. It assimilates all of the disparate parts into it's gaping maw; swallowing them whole to work out all of the contradictions, breaking them down to conform to the narrative. It absorbs what it needs to, and then excretes all the rest into a common, brown paste that all can recognize. An adjunct to the media, advertising, plays a vital role in the process. They are not just buying ad time; they're also buying the content. This assures the perfectly balanced texture for a stool that is easily passed. Every time.

These steaming coils are plated up and sold as filet mignon and most never notice. They have been conditioned not to ask questions. They have been numbed by the Dope. The media's presentation of reality becomes a wallpaper; a backdrop mural against which daily life plays in the foreground. It's just a part of the scenery, a set in a play titled The Asch Conformity Experiments. Validating the Experiment's findings, they answer the question: If one can get these results from only eight, imagine if eight thousand? Or million? 

Full immersion into monolithic media messaging. Check

The schools, primary, secondary and colleges, have physical facilities. Yet as an institution, they are not a concrete entity.  As an institution, we refer to these collectively as education. Education is an abstraction.

Banks often have impressive buildings, though not always. Whether ostentatious or nondescript, there are walls, a roof, doors that lock and a secure vault. But that is not where the banks do what they do. Banking, as an institution, is likewise an abstraction.

The media has many houses. From towering Manhattan office buildings to basement "studios", and various iterations between the two. These are physical locations that provide a "platform" for the message. The platform, like the institution of media itself, is that intangible cloud where words and ideas dwell. It too is only an abstraction. 

None of this is to say that abstractions are of no value; they indeed have their place, but they can not serve as a foundation for anything solid. Abstractions are incapable of supporting physicality. The Dope is an abstraction. 

The only thing that an abstraction can support is illusion. The greatest abstraction of all is the State. When we refer to "the State" that means ALL of it. Federal, state, county, municipal and township; all of these are man's pathetic attempt at supplanting the natural law. The State has no physicality. It has no eyes nor ears with which to see or hear; no hands to set upon it's charges; no mind or will of it's own. The State is a vessel created and occupied by those who wish to impose their will upon others, an act that would be physically impossible to perform on their own. They hide behind the protections accorded to themselves within their laws, while employing force doctrine upon those that they "rule". As the State has no corporeal being, it must hire muscle to act in it's stead. They call these people regulators, or prosecutors, or inspectors. Most of all they are referred to as police. Broadly speaking, the entire regime is categorized as law enforcement. It is easier and more accurate to just call them what they are: hired thugs. Every last one. And they are all on the Dope.

The State can not exist without the Dope. The Dope keeps the subjects of the State convinced that the State is necessary, benign and working in their favor. The Dope keeps a fresh crop of subjects always convinced that donning a uniform and a badge in service of the State is a noble and virtuous endeavor. This belief, over time, evolves into a siege mentality; that it is a contest of "us versus them". Thus is the hammerhead created, one of the ugliest unintended consequences of the Dope.

The hammerhead is, at heart, a closeted uniform fetishist. Their lives have been deliberately choreographed in one form of cosplay or another. They are fertile ground for the Dope. Once they have been conferred the authority that comes with a rank or a badge, and of course lethal weapons, they are transformed into hammers. You know the old saying: when a hammer, everything looks like a nail. This became an old saying, like most old sayings, because it is true.

There are some other old sayings that would seem apropos to this discussion. "If you pass enough laws, then all are made a criminal." That one is most often attributed to the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union, though like most Soviet ideas, it probably wasn't original. Maybe it isn't really old enough to qualify for the category of "old sayings"; it nevertheless applies to our current condition.

There are precious few places remaining in America where one might go and not be snared in a web of competing jurisdictions. I would be willing to wager that, in some locations which historically have been more authoritarian in nature, if one were to print out every single applicable legal code in force at the given set of coordinates, then there would be enough paper to circle the globe. Maybe twice. Compile the entire list, descending in rank from federal, state, county, municipal and township, one is then confronted with a legal monolith for which there can be no other intent, but to bludgeon their citizens into meek submission. The smug expression that comes with a certain knowledge that, no matter what, we're going to get you, is not worn upon the face of the State; rather, it is worn upon the faces of the people who pass and "enforce" these laws. The State has no face of it's own.

Lest I be accused of hyperbole, I will concede one point. The existence of these multiple, competing and often contradictory legal jeopardies, do not actually entail significant risk of jail time. There is the humane and merciful alternative of fines. Penalties. You know, a strongarm tax. Let's just call it what it is. More laws = mo' money! Why else have such superfluous authority with random, if not selective, enforcement? And every single party to this massive fraud enjoy what is called "qualified immunity". Could you just imagine abuses to occur with a system like that? It does, in fact, virtually assure that it does. This is what they call the Law. The Law is that final, lethal speedball shot of the Dope.

Utter submission to all law, no matter how unjust or absurd. Check

You're all being herded into their cities, to live like rats in cages. Railroaded into an existence designed for perpetual indebtedness and servitude, while they insult you with their perverted acclamations for "Equity". They cry crocodile tears for democracy, yet blatantly thwart it's will whenever it should raise it's ugly head against them. And you, John Q. Citizen? You actually get the privilege of voting for this. Doesn't really matter what you vote for anyway: this is still what you're gonna get, friend.

Did you spend your teens/early twenties living a life calibrated to a GPA and/or semester schedule? Yes? Your Dope journey begins here.

Have you lived your entire adult life calibrated to a credit score? The Dope.

Hold a mortgage? The Dope.

How many car loans/leases? The Dope.

Any other installment loans? Credit card debt? The Dope, and again, the Dope.

Do you know how many dollars in interest you paid last year? You don't, do you? You, my friend, are almost certainly on the Dope.

Have you thrown yourself all in with a political party? Do you still hold faith in the institutions of this society? If yes to either or both of these, you are definitely on the Dope.

Not all are ready, but we extend the invitation to those who may be: Are you ready to get off the Dope? It is surprisingly simple. You don't have to surrender civilization. You just have to separate yourself from this society. Civilization is the hardware. It has physicality. You can build upon it. Society is just the software. It's an operating system. It is an abstraction supporting only what abstractions can support: an illusion. This society has nothing for you to build upon. The lesson of your life is simply this: you're going to have to figure it out for yourself. That, my friends, is your undilutable slang truth for the day.

Overpass Confessions

 

Through watering eyes

the tunnel below

White lights in a streaking blur

Diesel fume's

Sweet perfume

Suddenly not so sure

The convictions brought you to this place

lose their momentum

in the face

of your sobering confrontation

Your mortality awaits

Surrendering all hope

yet still pray the end is painless

Like a fly on the windshield

because you couldn't buy the rope

Biggest twat on the planet

 

Langley: Real Surname, or where you were born?

Hell's Chronicles: The Graham Cracker Endowment

 

It was a typical Saturday night/Sunday morning at Hell, Inc. Central Intake Center. This night of the week, during the northern hemisphere's summer months, was always chaotic. The eve of the sabbath in the Christian world could be reliably counted upon to provide a boon of drug overdoses, fatal gunshots and vehicular accidents. Add to this the many long-running conflicts around the globe, and the on again/off again Iran war, it was a banner day for new admissions.

In Hell, as in the overworld, July often marks the vacation season. Much of the big brass, including Reggie himself, were off from their normal duties. The Devil and his erstwhile chief of staff, Mr. Hemingway, had left to attend the Swift-Kelce nuptials. That was long over; they were now suspected to be on a prolonged rum bender, somewhere in Cuba. This left HR Director Sam Kinison in charge of operations in the front office, and Hell's Undersecretary for Intake Affairs, R. Lee Ermey, as the duty officer for the Intake Center.

There are, in fact, numerous misconceptions about Hell and how it operates. Damnation, while it may seem straightforward enough, is a rather complicated matter. Ironically, there are those who never quite find or achieve their purpose in life, but then somehow manage to shine in their afterlife; to actually find some twisted form of redemption in their damnation. Then, there are those who just really enjoy the work. Gunnery Sergeant R. Lee Ermey was of the latter category.

For readers familiar with Hell's Chronicles, it is known that we often extol the virtues of HR Director Kinison. There is not enough to be said for the improved efficiency and value of services rendered since Director Kinison's historic reforms. Among these are the installation of wall-to-wall big screens throughout Central Intake. Such a thing might seem counter-intuitive to many, until one realizes that this was not done for the purpose of entertainment; rather, as an instrument of torture. This elevated Kinison's innate sadism to a level unattainable in mortal life. We now remind you that this is also the man responsible for hiring Sergeant Ermey.

As one might well imagine, those finding themselves suddenly in the midst of the throngs of Hell's new supplicants can be rather bewildering. Now, try to imagine this in a dark, cavernous hall that goes farther than the eye can see, with big screen televisions lit up on the walls all around. The individual subject must know that they have arrived in Hell, at that moment when realizing that every single television had the volume setting of a late-night infomercial fed through a Bose sound system. If the decibel level failed to stun them, then the content upon the screens would, in nearly all cases, reduce them to blubbering babies in fifteen to thirty minutes. Sometimes less.

Director Kinison had devised a very regimented broadcast schedule. To begin with, they aired re-runs of Mr. Belvidere, around the clock Monday through Thursday. These broadcasts were interrupted at four-minute intervals to air commercials. The same commercials. All day, every day. It was Bob Dole hawking Viagra; William Devane pitching gold coins; Robert Conrad challenging you to knock that battery off his shoulder, and finally, a reminder from the Humane Society to spay and/or neuter your pets.

I know. Utterly diabolical, isn't it? But that's not all, no. For Fridays, Director Kinison mined deep, deep into the darkest depths of his soul for even greater horrors. At 12:01 AM on Friday commenced some of the most gruesome television viewing within any one twenty-four-hour period since..., since the invention of television. It was a marathon of re-runs, in an entirely random order, from a selection of The Phil Donahue Show, The Porter Waggoner Show and The Sally Jesse Raphael Show. These ran at the same four-minute intervals, with four commercials airing in each break. The commercials were presented in a chronological order from a complete, alphabetical library of every auto insurance commercial ever aired, oldest to latest. At the end of the broadcast day, they had completely run through the Allstate library and one quarter of the way through the Farmer's Insurance catalogue. In subsequent broadcast cycles it would take three weeks to exhaust all of the Geico commercials, which incidentally took fifteen percent less time than it would have with a comparably sized library of any competitor.

The piece de resistance came with a weekend-long marathon of The View, sponsored with the same banal parade of pharmaceutical commercials as are aired during the program's normal broadcast. A committee of former ad executives (yes, they do all go to Hell) determined that these commercials are of no more value and are every bit as off-putting in Hell as they are on Earth.

In yet another demonstration of his bold and daring management style, Director Kinison entrusted Sergeant Ermey to, as he put it "have some fun! Get creative!", in his absence. The man has flawless instincts. Ermey accepted this invitation with gusto, starting out with around the clock re-runs of The Chevy Chase Show, regularly peppered with Sid's original Sham-wow infomercial. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth, though it could barely be heard over the blaring televisions. 

By Saturday evening Ermey decided it was time to stir it up a bit more. At 7:00 PM everything went dark, the shrieking din of the big screens fell silent. To the crowd filling the great hall this came as a great relief. Being new to the establishment, there were many who had moments of gratitude. Of course, any veteran of Hell knows that such instances are only momentary and are certain to be followed by something even worse.

After a few minutes, all of the screens on the left wall lit up, resuming their deafening volume. It was a live broadcast of Fox News Channel. Some cheered. Most groaned. After a few more minutes, all of the screens on the right wall came to life in a similar fashion. These screens displayed a live broadcast of CNN. Some cheered. Most groaned. The Sergeant was pleased.

It was shaping up to be just another Saturday night at the Central Intake of Hell, Inc. Sergeant Ermey found a seat available in the Intake's comms booth, with an empty desk where he could (and did) put up his boots. This was the time for a well-deserved cigar, one of those fat Honduran things. Ermey relaxed there for some time, puffing away and building a considerable cloud within the booth. It was feeling a lot like the good old days in the barracks. After having spent a few years in Hell, Ermey was finding the experience rather like being in the US military, just with better food and a more clearly defined mission statement.

Shortly after midnight there was a shift change at the booth, one nameless, faceless schlub to replace another. Ermey paid them little mind, instead focusing on the monitors on the board...

"... this is a Fox News Alert: South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham has died suddenly, following a brief illness. This is a breaking story...."

and then, a short time later from Iranian State Television...

"...I congratulate the Iranian people on the death of US Senator Lindsey Graham, who has been sent to hell."

"Well ho-lee shit! Looky there! We got us a Nancyboy! How'd those camel jockeys get a scoop like that? Get Director Kinison on the horn, Sparky!"

The tech was startled by this outburst at first, but quickly recovered to execute Ermey's order. While he was dialing, Ermey reached over the panel to switch on the intercom. The Sergeant clutched the microphone from it's stand, fumbling for a moment. The tech adeptly turned with his free hand to engage the microphone switch. Ermey gave a curt nod in thanks, then leaned into it.

"ATTENTION! This is Gunnery Sergeant R. Lee Ermey, acting director of this here shit show. All of you maggots can shut your mother-humpin' pieholes, effective immediately! It has been brought to my attention that within the last hour, a very special new admission has passed through our gates. It is my solemn duty to ensure that this individual is accorded the protocols befitting a closet queen war pig. Security detail will sweep until this individual is found and brought to me at the Intake comms station. Subject: Graham, Lindsey, US Senator, South Carolina, aged 71. Probably find him on his knees in the Ukraine line. That is all!" 

Ermey snapped the mic smartly back into it's cradle, then looked to the tech. Reading the query in the Sergeant's eyes, the tech held his hand over the mouthpiece and reported, "Still holding for Director Kinison, Sir." Then after a moment the tech thought to add, "That was good, sir."

"It was, wasn't it? Damned if I don't impress myself sometimes!" 

Ermey plugged the stump of his cigar back into one corner of his mouth and began a slow, deliberative pacing back and forth. His thick, bushy brows were knitted in concentration. Clearly there was something further on his mind. He wasn't given a long time to ponder whatever it was.

"I have Director Kinison, sir."

Ermey took the phone from the tech. "Sam?"

"Yeah, Sarge. Everything okay there? Sorry to keep you waiting. I just got off the weirdest call..."

"Yes, Sam. We're fine here. I am sorry to disturb you, but I just discovered something I thought you should be aware of..." 

"Ree-ee-eal-ly...heh heh. Do tell!"

"Lindsey Graham died and Iranian television got the scoop on him being sent here!"

"Graham...Graham... is that the graham cracker heiress?"

"No Sam. Lindsey Graham, US Senator? From South Carolina...that's not what's important here. What about the Iranians?"

"Oh, that? Of course they got the scoop! They're leasing studio space from us. I thought everyone knew that!"

" The Iranians, Sam?"

"Yeah, it's one of the Big Guy's deals. He offered the same to Fox and CNN. Whole thing got nixed because he refused to validate parking, can you believe it?"

"Oh! Well, the boss already knows about it, so... I am sorry to have bothered you, Sam."

" s'alright, Sarge. Lindsey Graham... that's one of Cheney's butt buddies, isn't it?"

"Why, I believe he is, sir!"

"Right...right. When you have him, send up my way, would you?"

"Certainly!"

"Yeah...they can be bunk mates and work mates..."

"Now see! That... that right there. That's why YOU are the Director, Sam. What will they be doing?"

"What?"

"What's their work assignment?"

"I've got them giving rim jobs over in the Hindu section. Hope he likes curry."