Against the Complete Dissolution of American Culture

Someone has to come up with a decent counter-proposal to postmodern thought or it's going to be Snooki from here to the great grinding end.

I don't know what the philosophical underpinnings of it would be, but I recommend some system of thought that results in small organizations of no more than 100 people, lots of home brewing, and respect for tool-craft.  Totality would be anathema.  This would not be a rejection of the great projects that nations, mega-corporations, and other large entities can produce, but rather a realization that today's tools (both in terms of manufacturing and organization) can magnify the efforts of a small group.

I would call this new ideology Tool-Augmented Small Collectivism.

--Steve Kilian

Bond Reflects

Hollywood Screenwriter’s Crrrazzzy Dream

What We’ve Learned From BP

Now that the BP oil spill seems to be contained (never mind any reports of seepage you might have read) or at least in abeyance until some further heartbreak occurs, let’s assume this crisis is in endgame. That’s what we’d do even if the oil kept spewing forth forever. At some point the media moves on. Remember when we were in Iraq? Like the war in Iraq, the BP oil spill is now over. What have we learned?

It’s probably helpful to have one of those big cap things already built in case you need it.

All those people saying “Drill, Baby, Drill” were douches. Okay, most of us already knew that, but the best lessons can be learned again and again. And they will be.

After you clean oil off a pelican, it probably dies anyway.

Callous CEOs with sinister British accents and no sense of empathy make bad corporate spokespersons.

All British accents sound sinister when coming from evil assholes.

As far as the Minerals Management Service department goes, replacing corrupt cokeheads and sex fiends from the oil industry with corrupt clean-nosed prudes from the oil industry only helps with any coke-fueled orgy problems you might have had.

It helps to have Kanye in damage control mode.

There needs to be a real energy policy in this country to wean us off fossil fuels, and that policy can’t involve a carbon tax, and we should still keep on drilling in deep water, and let’s just keep going because we’re fucked anyway.

There’s no need to worry about worst-case scenarios as we start building new Nuclear Reactors.

Nothing.

-Dan Kilian

Hey Hey

Old Time Magic

Big Sharks Eat Smaller Sharks

--Dan Kilian

Hey Hey

Old Time Magic

Sarah Palin and The New K Word

Everyone made such a big deal of half-Governor Sarah Palin’s minting a new word the other day, and everyone missed the point. When Palin said that New Yorkers should “refudiate” the building of a Mosque two blocks away from Ground Zero, MSNBC pounced. Ha! She IS illiterate! No, countered Palin, I’m Shakespearean, Bushian and Obamic in my creative language. Ha! She can’t even admit a mistake! No! She’s cute!

Personally, I like refudiate, and I think she is cute in her language even though it was clearly a mistake. I don’t have any problem with how Palin says what she says (at least not here) it’s what she’s got to say.  The issue isn’t her use or misuse of language; it’s that she’s a fucking racist cunt. There shouldn’t be any debate about building a mosque in downtown New York, at least not on religious grounds. Anyone who has a problem with moderate Muslims in America is fomenting religious war, and is therefore Osama Bin Laden’s dance partner and scoundrelous.

With that in mind, I mint a new word: Recuntiate.

One recuntiates when one reminds people what a cunt a person is. If someone’s doing something cunty, and then people get distracted by a cute little sideshow, well then it’s time for some recuntiation.

It’s unrefudiable. This word will surely come in handy.

--Dan Kilian

Rahm Takes The Fall

Jacob Bartelby, Temporary Fileclerk To The Stars

Hollywood Screenwriter’s Crrrazzzy Dream

 

My lunch schmooze with Dane Cook starts out badly when it turns out I’m actually talking to a Danish chef and not the incredibly talented comedian. Suddenly an evil military squadron attacks, and I’m running through hallways as explosions and gunfire rip the walls apart.

I lurch through a door and I’m in a fancy hotel room, and there’s Leonardo DiCaprio. Ah Leo! It’s been a long time since I’ve dreamt of you! There’s something wrong with the shape of his head.

“Hello,” he says.

“Hello, Leo! What’s wrong with your head? You look like a pumpkin.”

“I’m acting. When I get emotional, usually over guilt involving my wife’s death, my head puffs up.”

“So why are you in my dream?”

Leo fixes me with an icy stare, “I need some information. I’ve designed a safe in this dream, so you’ve automatically put your secrets into it. That’s how dreams work. Now tell me the combination, and I’ll open the safe on a deeper dream level.”

“What?”

“A dream within a dream.”

“Why don’t you just…”

“Within ANOTHER dream!”

“Wow! Why don’t you just ask me?”

“Okay, I will. What’s up with the titles?”

“What do you mean?”

“The titles to all these movies: Shutter Island? Inception? Even Infernal Affairs got turned into The Departed, which isn’t half as good. Why are the titles so awful?”

I feel the world slanting. Leo is so close to the secret.

“Don’t make me go into the dream within a dream and open your safe!”

“Okay. I’ll tell you, but you mustn’t tell anyone. If they find out, there could be pandemonium!”

“Tell me, and I’ll decide.”

“Okay. The reason the titles to movies suck is…we’re out of good words.”

“What?”

“You think anyone would choose to call a movie Inception? There was nothing left. All the Dream titles got used up. Half of them are in Nightmare on Elm Street movies. Christopher Nolan had that script for years, looking for something better. Working titles were Planters; Subconscious, Subconsious; Sweet Charlotte; and Dream Thingy.

“I don’t believe you!”

“Believe it, Leo. It’s the grim truth. Movies are never going to have any decent titles again. Titles that would normally go straight to video are hitting the big screen, because there’s nothing else left. Do you think there would really be an action franchise called The Transporter if there were any other names available? Even movies with cool titles, like The Fast and the Furious have to get saddled with subtitles like Tokyo Drift. It was only a matter of time before a movie got hit with Port of Call: New Orleans.

That’s why there are so many remakes—no one wants to name anything new.”

“I don’t believe it! We’re going into the dream within a dream!”

So he hooks me up to a device to make me dream. As I’m nodding off, I ask, “Isn’t this a lot like ExistenZe? And doesn’t that prove my point?” Then blackness.

*
I wake in a hotel room, almost exactly like the one before. Dreams are so surreal. Leo’s there, and he’s opened a safe on the wall. He’s pulling out scripts.

“What are these!”

“They’re all the scripts I’m working on, or even thinking about working on.”

“NO!”

He throws them to the floor. There they are. The Rubix Moog. Convalescence. Kritter Patrol. Sunsplashers. Jimmy Constantine: Dinosaur Eater. Hot Dog Halo. And my epic, important film, Crime and Peace.

Leo collapses into a not-embarrassing facsimile of weeping. “These titles are horrible! Is this all I have to look forward to? Do any of these scripts have a protagonist who lives in an illusionary world because he killed his wife? If you’ve got anything like that, I’ll sign on to the project.”

This is my moment. I envision the vague outline of just such a script, and sure enough, lying in the pile of scripts is my latest half-formed creation: Wifekill-Land. I hand it to Leo. He takes it and smiles.

“That’s not even a half-bad title.”

“If you think so.”

“I’ll do it!”

And that’s how I got Leonardo DiCaprio signed on to my latest project. Or was it all a dream? Or WAS it?

--Dan Kilian

Astral Dumplings and Purple Prose

Interesting Turn In the Karzai Taliban Peace Talks

Dave Campbell Memorial

A celebration of Dave Campbell, our great friend and champion. If you did not already know, know now that a great man has passed. Music from members of Erica Smith & The 99 Cent Dreams * Love Camp 7 * The Ks * AND * Philip Cobendyx of Sunshine Partners Ltd. * Debby Schwartz * Reb...ecca Turner * L.J. Murphy * Crooked Crow * John Sharples Band * Ian & Liiza Roure * Dan Sallitt * Kenny Young *The World's Fair * The People in Grey (aka Baker/Gerstel/Schwartz/AldrichArmy) * AND * Pam Grossman * AND * Video from Pascal Plantinga * AND * Choice Daveism's read aloud!

--Dan Kilian

Soup

A Hollywood Exec Calls Up Alan Alda

KKAWW! KKAWW! KKAWWWWW!

-Steve Kilian

The Invention of the Weekend

The Monitor vs. The Minotaur

Bond Reflects

Bond sprayed the assassin with alcohol, and he burst into flames. The melting man staggered to the railing, and threw himself off the ship. Bond took the explosive device hidden in the cake and clasped it in the other assailant’s hands. Then, using his martial arts, he reconfigured his attacker so his hands and the explosive device were pinned between his legs. Another quick motion and the second assassin was over the railing, and the bomb detonated.

“Well, he certainly left with his tails between his legs!” Bond quipped.

Later in bed, his passion spent, Bond stared off into the night. The girl was deep in a satisfied sleep.

Why had he said that? It wasn’t really all that funny. Juxtaposed with the near death experience, of course, any attempt at wit would win the day. Yes, anything to show that you weren’t afraid. Put off the fear until another day. But why be so cavalier? These men had tried to kill him, and he had killed men. More blood on his hands. More blood on your hands, Bond. Go ahead, laugh.

And who was this woman, really? A business contact in a con, really. He’d fooled her and then drawn her into his world of danger. Protected her, and put the moves on. It was pure manipulation. It was meaningless. Would he ever love again?

Was his violence creating more assassins? More Blofelds? Was SPECTRE metastasizing? He killed and killed again, and nothing seemed to change. Nothing will ever change.

He played it over in his head again, changing the scenarios. He incapacitated the man, and defused the bomb. He killed him, but said nothing. He maintained professionalism, even in murder. He tried to come up with a better quip.

“YOU take the cake!”

“You really shouldn’t go so overboard!”

Nothing he could think of salved the grimness of murder with anything reassembling laughter. Maybe he didn’t make a joke. He briefly explained the necessity of death. It was you or me, friend. You would do the same. You were trying to do the same. I’m really sorry. Dear God forgive me!

Dear God forgive me.

--Dan Kilian

Bond in Iran

James Bond’s Bad Day

Hey Hey

Hey hey we're the Fuckees

People say we fuck around

We're too busy fuckin'

Fuck this whole damn town.

*

Hey hey we're the Fuckees

You can all suck our dicks

In groups or each by their lonesome

Either way you end up suckin' that dick

*

Hey hey we're the Fuckees

But sometimes we don't fuck

Sometimes we just do our laundry

Or cut warts off our nuts

*

Hey hey we're the Fuckees

And by we I mean a solitary I

I live in an old folks' home now

I'm just waiting to die

*

Hey hey we're the Fuckees

I have pain in my legs all the time

I can't remember my childrens' names

Or even if I had any

*

Hey hey we're the Fuckees

Why am I in this place?

I'm so lonely and angry

I wish I would die.

*

Hey hey we're the Fuckees

They made me a cake today

It's my choice:  be bitter or happy

Fuck them all is what I have to say

*

Hey hey we're the Fuckees

I don't understand TV no more

What the fuck are they even saying?

I wish I could see enough to read

*

Hey hey we're the Fuckees

I pissed my bed I think real bad

I'll just sit here and wallow

I think I was once in a war

*

Hey hey we're the Fuckees

Some people came to visit today

I didn’t know them and then they were crying

I told them all to go away

*

Hey hey we're the Fuckees

I couldn't leave this place if I tried

I wouldn't know where to go

I wouldn’t know where to go

*

--Steve Kilian

Regarding the Events off of Mayburn Key, July 23rd, 1964

On Language