Piglove

--Jake Gouveneur

Editor's note: WHO is that loving the pig? Is it a regular contributor to the KLOG?

This is Jake's first contribution to the KLOG. Welcome Jake!

Steve’s Wardrobe Choice

Attention Ladies:

It Beats Fruitcake!

 
♪We three kings of orient are ♪ bearing gifts we traverse afar ♪…

I still can’t believe we’re doing this! This was a great idea! I mean, just dropping everything and hitting the road like this…

Well, it’s not every day a new star appears in the sky. Got to follow the new star.

What do you think it is?

What do you mean?

A comet? A moon?

I think it’s a holy sign from God, announcing the Messiah!

Yes, we all do, but it’s still got to be…made of something. Fire? Rock?

It’s made up of holy stuff. I don’t know.

Oh. I thought you were a Magi.

I’m a king. I’ve got astronomers who figure out the skies for me. I have no idea what the star’s made of. What are regular stars made of?

Yeah, it’s probably all the same thing. Space fire or something. Anyway, it’s great we all get to go on this road trip together. All I know is, everybody back in our exotic lands better worship this kid when we’re done with all of this, or they’ve only got themselves to blame. I wonder how our kingdoms are doing without us.

My son rules in my place. He will do me proud.

I’ve got a regent.

Oh, you guys…hmm….

Who rules in your stead?

Oh…I’ve…I’ve got a…guy. Good…good guy. It should all be fine. I mean, how long are we going to be gone, anyway, right? So…what are you guys bringing for The Messiah?

Gold.

Gold? That box you’ve got there is full of gold?

Yes. Gold for the Messiah.

Oh.

What are you bringing?

Um…you know…Frankincense.

Oh. What’s that?

It’s a scented oil.

And you?

Um…some myrrh.

What’s that?

Scented oil. Good for babies, ’cause they, you know…

Poop.

It’s good for the poop! Smells nice!

So, nice gift.

We’ve all got good gifts. Frankincense, Myrrh, we’ve got the scented oils covered…and gold.

All shall be welcome for the New King!

Say…you want to go in on this?

What do you mean?

You know, present all the gifts together. Instead of everyone gives one thing, we all present this potpourri of gifts. It’ll be better presentationally.

Hm. Let me think about it.

♪ Field and fountain, moor and mountain, ♪ following yonder star!  ♪

--Dan Kilian

The Second Miracle

The Legion of Santas

Your Turn To Boil

--Steve Kilian

--Photoshopped by Dan Kilian

Of Ice and Sea

High Drynophatic

Election Night

--Music by The Ks

--Video and song by Dan Kilian

The Screaming Majority – Corporations Are People

The Screaming Majority – 1937

Supermourning

Superman knew he was too late well before he pulled the car from the crevasse. Lois was dead. He’d gone after the nuclear missile; he had to. One love, however great, isn’t worth millions of lives. He’d done the right thing, but even at super-speed you can’t be everywhere at once. The rightness of his choice was little consolation. As he looked down at her broken body, a brokenness he could barely conceive of, a great sorrow shook his body. She was the one, she was gone. He would always be alone.

Sorrow turned to despair, and despair to howling rage. In fury he took to the sky. He accelerated past sound and light barriers, circling the Earth again and again. His revolutions magnetized the ions of space, pushing back on the earth’s spin. West to east he whipped around, and the Earth began to turn backwards. For the first time since the birth of the solar system, the sun set in the East, as the day reversed itself.

Finally he broke his spin and let the Earth return to its usual course. He came down to where he’d left Lois before his flight. Of course, she was still dead, but at least everything else was as well. His gyration of the earth had set loose massive tidal waves, balkanized the Earth’s crust, and stripped the atmosphere off the planet. Now all was rapidly freezing lava. Superman sat down on the freezing rock that was his home, and began to mourn his lost love.

“That’s better,” he thought.

--Dan Kilian

Batman vs. The Taliban

Dear Acme Product Returns

What Obama Needs To Say

At their next debate, when Romney reverses himself on a position that he had previously espoused, Obama should say, "Wait, is that you, Mitt?  Keeping track of your positions is just about impossible. I half expect you to peel of your face and have it be Tom Cruise under there. Or maybe a lizard, I don't know."

This does a few things:

1) It holds Romney to his nomination-stage extremism and exposes his pandering shiftiness.

2) It points out how unlikable Romney is on a physical level.

3) It calls attention to the Reptoid agenda that is at the heart of the GOP platform.

Problem solved.



--Steve Kilian

Dear Acme Product Returns

Buncha Videos

 

Mother Inferior

They could smell burning flesh as they approached the temple. The sweet smoke rose from a woman – perhaps one of the Order.  She had been impaled on a roughly hewn wooden post sunk in the fountain of the entry courtyard. When last they had visited the place that fountain ran with clear water. Now the spring had been fouled; a thick, dark fluid ran clotted and scabbed over the rim of the fountain, puddling around the woman.

She shuddered slightly as they approached, her frame settling lower on the post. The smoke came from a necklace she wore about her neck. Her skin cracked and sputtered around the cord and whatever amulet it held, scorched scar tissue trying to swallow the thing. She opened one bloodshot eye -- the other was nothing more than a crusted mass of pus -- and looked down at the men surrounding her. A croak that was almost a sigh leaked around the shaft of the post jutting from her mouth.

Her vestments were filthy with blood and sweat, and hung loosely to expose swaths of skin that had been marked with crude lettering. Tharon traced his finger across the script, black letters on cracked and peeling skin. They had been burned into her side. He thought back to his days at the monastery, learning the ancient tongues from bent-backed priests. Before he could remember the name of the language the translation came to him: "Mother Inferior."

As if this were a joke.

"How can she still be alive?" asked one of his companions. He couldn’t focus on which one it had been, couldn't see anything but the abomination in front of him, couldn't breathe anything but the greasy cloud that threatened to choke the hope from his voice. As if in response, the woman's exposed skin crackled with fresh vigor as the sun came from behind a cloud. Her body twitched and shivered, and her one eye bulged and finally popped in a gout of steaming gore that turned to smoke before hitting the ground. Still she whimpered.

He unlimbered his pack and hefted his mace. The words of the ritual gathered in his mind, almost unbidden. "She's not," he said.

--Steve Kilian

Zoning Out

Mr. Obama: Playground Monitor

How She Can Talk!

My dad’s brother can give me some medicine to get me sober,” she said drunkenly.

“We’re near the top! We’re in a cloud!” she called out, optimistically.

“You’d like me to say yes, but how can you get me to say yes?” she muttered, gnomically.

“I do not like the Irish,” she muttered, gnomically.

“I think I hear something in the cubby space upstairs!” she said, erratically.

“My piercing is infected. Does that make you hot?” she asked, erotically.

“I’ve got two penises!” she said, ridiculously.

“We should stick together, with no one else!” she declared, jealously.

“I can tell what you’re doing,” she said icily.

“There is no hybrid between our planet and the red planet,” she declared, mirthlessly.

“I’m a one-armed cheerleader! The other arm got infected,” she announced pompously.

“I’m going to stand up, but I’m going to make my body into a circle,” she said, overtly.

“My arms and legs are quite flexible, but right now they’re too cold!” she said, limberly.

“I’m going to put my body in a right angle, and it is sexy!” she said, finally.

--Dan Kilian

She Had More To Say, and How She Said It

She Had Still More To Say And How

Big Ideas

With the close of the conventions, I’ve heard a bit of commentary that Barack Obama doesn’t have any big ideas to propose for his second term. Why doesn’t he propose some transformative legislation to really challenge America to evolve into its next progressive phase. Because the American people don’t want a jobs program, they want a man on mars or something.

A jobs program? How pedestrian! Where is the hope and change of 2004? I’ll tell you where it went. It got shit out of America along with the jobs in 2004. We need jobs, but the Republicans won’t pass anything that helps the economy, because they are a disloyal opposition scheming for power when they could be helping people. So here’s a bold new idea. Re-elect Barack Obama because fuck those guys.

Last night during a bout with insomnia I thought of what kind of big idea someone could propose, if he wanted his reelection campaign to spin wildly off message, so as to assuage some columnist. Here’s what I got.

The Public Option: Obama can’t fight this battle. He lost it and gave it up, so we could have the framework for Obamacare, which is getting more popular every day, at least for Mitt Romney. But the shit is coming back, probably as an issue for Hillary in ’16.

Legalize It: It’s gonna happen, but not this year. Weed for the cigarette companies, and medicinalize the war on drugs. Save a bunch of lives in Latin America, and do a whole hell of a lot of good. We’ve had a war on drugs since Nixon, and drugs won.

Drop The Embargo On Cuba: This is the kind of thing you drop on people in your second term, not run on. All we need is for Castro to die and his brother to spread some fig leaf of reform. Personally I’d just admit that the US has stubbornly waged economic war on Castro for fifty years and Castro won.

A World Wide Minimum Wage: If all the wealthy democracies could unify on a policy of equity for all, they could form some international committee which would factor in separate nations’ economic needs to determine what a fair wage would be to lift labor above exploitation levels. They could still benefit from low wages, but if they fail to pass the bar set by the World Wide Minimum Wage committee they would face an international tariff. This would be attacked as both protectionist and world governmental, but that’s what it’s going to take to protect the American and Post-War Dream (That’s right, I’m deep into Floyd).

A Moratorium on Drone Strikes: I don’t know, maybe if we stopped killing people they’d like us more.

A War on Starvation: If the US concentrated world opinion on this goal, some international system could be devised so that kids would have those big air-swollen bellies and hopeless eyes. Again, maybe people would like us more.

Bring The Troops Home Early: Accelerate this shit. Karzai’s gonna end up with his head on a spike anyway, might as well have less of our people dying for it.

A True Green Revolution: The American people are ready to dramatically change their way of life to fight global warming. At least some are, especially if we devise a system where they can benefit from meeting carbon footprint reducing goals. How about a gas tax which won’t apply to people who keep their housing heating low? Just spitballing here, but there’s a bunch of behaviors we could positively encourage. If only the hippies and do-gooders are helping, we’re going to toast this planet.

There you have some big bold ideas which would totally distract from the only issue Americans care about which is jobs. Here’s an idea: The Republican Party has been taken over by nimrods and brain-blown maniacs living in a fantasy land of conspiracy theories, pursuing impossible, dangerously reactionary goals. The GOP needs to be killed for the sake of progress. Nothing will get done, and no level-headed critiques of Democratic misdeeds will emerge from this party. They need to die. So vote for Obama for the sake of a new opposition and because fuck those guys.

--Dan Kilian

Summer

Kruller

Dinobot

--Dan Kilian

Pets

Surviving The End of The World

Discussion of Gojira's "Dawn"

With the birds singing at the beginning of it i just imagine an empty field sided by men stringing their bows, and a bunch of dumb sparrows blissfully unaware of the carnage about to unfold.

Rather than dumb sparrows, I interpret them to be the lesser brothers of the massive and improbable bird that hurtles downward from far above them. This creature, or construct, or abomination - this phenomenon of imagination - is composed of flesh made metal and metal made flesh, clockwork and feathers and bellows and lungs all heated to a sullen glow, a meteor shedding altitude for speed. 

The sparrows chirp lightly in recognition as the fallen satellite hits the ground just before unfurling it's wings - it is here that the listener realizes that this bird is meant to fly in thicker skies than those we know. The deepest troughs of our atmosphere are hard and featureless vacuum to this thing. It flies instead under the surface of the Earth, skipping and gliding along the thermals of the mantle, spinning and diving through magma and diamond alike, then climbing from time to time to broach the enamel-thin surface of our world.  It erupts from below in gouts of pulverized granite and feldspar, basking in near-silence before plunging back into the crust. 

But then, around 3:45 in the playback, something goes dreadfully wrong. Whether the earthbird is damaged or ill is unknown. But the rhythm of its wings is altered, and not for the better. Was it shot by some wary guardsman as it toyed with the surface world?  Are there predators lurking in the stony fathoms below? Or was this no more than the aging of a plaything put to use more rigorous than it could sustain?  No matter, for now there is a battle afoot. 

The battle is fought heartbeat by stuttering heartbeat, the bird swooping core-ward and back, perhaps seeking to fuse its broken parts in the heat of Earth's molten womb. But the mending is imperfect. And now the crippled beast must fight more furiously through the crushing strata.

Fight it does. And though the song ends, the listener knows that this combat will continue until the core grinds to a halt, solidifying in the final inevitable chill. 

Chirpity-chirp.

--Benny Snaxxx

--Steve Kilian

Listening to Sunn O)))

Why I listen to Monster Magnet

Steve Helps Me With My Script

Editor's note: I'm currently co-writing the script for a musical about campaign financing. Ran what we've got by some friends and Steve suggested the following musical number.

Senator Strombach's chest explodes as an interdimensional rift opens and allows a giant claw to erupt from his sternum.


SENATOR STROMBACH

A claw!

A claw!

From my chest has burst a clapping snapping claw!

It rips and tears and makes of meat a fleshy slaw!

A claw!

A CLAAAAAW!


IMPERIAL MARINE

Bring to me my gun

Not the small but the larger one

Make sure it's full of ammuniti-on

I must defend this plane – the only human one


SCIENTIST

What's that you say?  Perhaps you're right!

My focus on this item has blinded larger sight

Humans only exist in this single universe

To think anything else would simply be perverse!

And if we are truly utterly alone

Then it's OK to do the thing I thought should never be done

So fire it up! Release the beast!

I'll get the Medal of Honor or a Nobel Prize at least

The time has come!

Engaaaaaage

Engaaaaaaaaaage

Engaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaage

The Vorticolion Deviiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice!


CHOIR

Vorticolion Deviiiiiiiice!

Zzzzcrkkkaaaaakkle

Zzzzcrkkkaaaaakkle

Zzzzcrkkkaaaaakkle

Zzzzcrkkkaaaaakkle

KABOOM!


I am so fucking good at this!  Really, this is so easy I don't see why you need any help.  But if need be I'm here.

--Steve Kilian

Escalation

The Equation

Tags

--Dan Kilian

A Couple Nights A Week

Waiting for The Other Foot to Fall Off

Fireball

He wrapped the bandages tightly around the fingertips of his left hand.  Burnt blood flaked away and and the thumbnail had come clean off.  Pus was building up under scorched nailbed.  His entire forearm throbbed with each heartbeat.

He'd never had much luck with incendiary work.  Yes, he had spoken the words of invocation correctly.  Yes, sheets of flame had leapt from his outstretched hand.  And yes, enough of the band of Gorlians had been incinerated so that the others could mop up the rest with hatchet and sword.  But he'd lost his second-favorite thumbnail in the process and would have to put on his robe one-handed for a week.

This is what he got for not sticking to his sphere of specialization.  Wind and water, clouds and rain – he was a weatherworker at heart.  But calling down lightning is a tricky proposition at best, more so when half of your comrades are armored from tip to toe.  Underground it was out of the question.  The thought of it reminded him of the booth at the harvest fair where men tried to drop a penny into a thimble at the bottom of a bucket of water.  There was no way of knowing how lightning would fork through the earth, no matter how much effort you put into it.

So it was pyrotechnics.  Fireballs, walls of fire, disembodied fists of flame, etc., etc.  Each one with its nasty aftereffects.  He'd barely grown back his eyelashes after he'd cast Searing Gaze of Forlank the Lesser.  But that's what you get when you pledge your staff to a bunch of graverobbers.
--Steve Kilian

Screenplay For William Shatner and Christopher Walken Consisting Only of Pauses

+2 Arrow

Long Lay We

Long lay we under silt and sediment

Waiting out the tides'

Scraping of the shoreline cliffs

Which split and revealed

Our monumental bones,

Sitting up under the new sun,

Shaking off eons of dust

Rising to greet a world

Ripe again for conquest.

--Steve Kilian

Letter To Liam Neeson

Screenplay For William Shatner and Christopher Walken Consisting Only of Pauses

The Clock, The End of Dying

The hour hand of the clock was a scarred battle-axe, the cutting blade chipped and pitted, the butt cracked through to the haft. It was topped with a bent spike that scraped the clockface as it made its tortured way around the wheel of the day. The minute hand was the remains of a sword, rust and long-dead barnacles all but completely obscuring what it had once been, pommel and guard nothing more than a gesture of girth at one end. It gave the impression of something that had been recovered from a shipwreck only to be promptly forgotten, buried for a few decades, and then pulled from the earth and put to makeshift use in the timepiece. It marked the minutes, nothing more. The second hand, however, was a masterwork: a keen-edged scythe honed to a shine along the blade, the haft made from peeled oak that looked to have been grown for its purpose. Through some hidden reservoir or more arcane method, the blade was slick with black fluid, scattering droplets as it whirled its way through the minutes. The death-blade was the quickest and smoothest in its relentless motion.


The alchemist reached down and grabbed the second-hand just below its dripping blade. The mechanism of the clock groaned and creaked, water spilling from buckets held too long in one place. "This must stop," he said. And began his great work.

--Steve Kilian

Zombie Octopus Island II

Obama Jokes

The Ring of Fire

Deng felt the two heats: the air all around them and the heat at their backs. He saw the dried shrubbery, imagined that as he watched it was wilting even further , in the new heat, about to burst into flames. This was just his imagination; they were a good day’s march in front of The Wall of Fire. The hot wind they felt now was just a precursor to The Great Hot Wind that preceded the flames.

That first night they had slept and they were awakened by The Great Hot Wind. After that they marched fast and slept little.

Deng had seen the The Wall of Fire, seen the strangers who came to light it. Most of the people in his village resented those strangers, and resented The Wall of Fire. Deng, however, had talked to the strangers, and now understood Global Warming. It explained the droughts. Things were not going to get better. Deng was young, and not afraid of the future, however challenging.

When they went into the city and watched the TV, they saw the pictures of the great fiery ring from space. Many of the villagers were angry and afraid, but Deng thought it looked beautiful. Yes, the city was now gone, eaten by the flames (Deng assumed someone must have taken the television. Was it somehow hidden by one of the refugees who had joined their numbers?) but many of the people would survive and thrive in a new location. Maybe Sudan wasn’t the great country they’d been led to believe.

The Elders had told them they were going to Egypt, and maybe to France. Deng had read that France was full of racists. He wanted to go to America. His Father said they had racists in America too, and they weren’t letting people in, now that The World was in Exodus.

Deng knew he could find a way. This wasn’t the end. This fire around the world was going to be a new beginning. He could feel it.

--Dan Kilian

Editors note: This was the program for the Set The Equator On Fire benefit, The Ks second-to-last show.

Purge 

The Loneliest Blacksmith

S.T.E.O.F.

The Global Warming Controversy fans the flames of debate here in the United States, but it does not fan another flame, the literal flames of action. Sure, Texas and Colorado are on fire, but Washington D.C. is cooling its heels. We’ve got melting ice-caps, but no caps on carbon dioxide. “It’s getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes. I am getting so hot that I’m going to take my clothes off.” Heat is an easy answer for Nelly, but it’s not going to be so easy for us, unless we hold the world’s cold feet to the fire.

For, whether caused by human activity, sunspots or volcanoes, the Earth IS getting hotter. Despite that fact, nothing is being done to anticipate the weather patterns, lost islands/shorelines, food shortages and mass migrations to come. The only thing that can force our world leaders to action is either the United States taking a focused leading role in a global confrontation of the problem, or a global crisis, and since the first thing isn’t going to happen, we propose a crisis: Our goal is to set the equator on fire.

Set The Equator On Fire (S.T.E.O.F.) is an organization raising money dedicated to that very goal: A ring of fire burning everything flammable in its terrestrial path, circumferencing the globe. Hopefully we can afford to build flame barges to carry the fire into the oceans, but the important thing is that the equator burn. We must do this in as humane a way as possible, but with a permanent flame which sends the message: Let the Exodus begin. Once the peoples of the World’s hottest regions flee polewards, civilization will be flooded with the news that it is time to act. If that doesn’t do it, seeing a planet-sized ring of fire creeping up and down the Earth’s hemispheres ought to do the trick. S.T.E.O.F. is an outgrowth of S.T.I. (Sink The Islands) an organization which was dissolved when it was determined that Islands, while drown-able and erodible, do not float on the ocean’s surface, and so are not easily sinkable.

Please contribute mightily! There will be a ring of fire around the Earth. How wide it is will be up to you!

-Dan Kilian

Michelangelo On a Camping Trip

Octopus Zombie Island!

Word Worms

A few of the pages were less ravaged by the word-worms. Perhaps the Vivisectionist had swabbed them with his preservative. The contents were a curious jumble of topics:  spherical geometry, mining techniques, a treatise on ancient trade practices. This was mixed with the more arcane:  a clearly flawed study of the summoning and control of djinni (the author was working from flawed sources - Jarhakkah the Elder was a major and unfortunate influence), some calculations on the transmutation of matter into deep-spectrum and very unstable energies, and an oddly spiritual text on the history of the fall of Pol Celeste.

The latter had apparently been written not more than twenty years after the destruction of the Great Library.  It attributed that cataclysm not to an attack from the Underplanes (the accepted cause, and the justification for the Mage's Guild having been an active presence at the Celestii court for almost two millennia) but rather to the concentration of thaumaturgically potent entities that had been gathered there.  The author – whose name had long ago been gnawed free from the vellum – argued that putting so much power in such close proximity had broken down the "viderstant sakklia," whatever that was, thereby leading to the inevitable destruction of the rapacious Curator Cult, etc., etc.  Thankfully the preservative had run out – perhaps the balance of the revisionist tract had proven to be of greater merit as nutrition than academic work.

The various fragments were written in a variety of languages and scripts, but the marginalia (drafted in black Nargull lead – an expensive choice) were all by the same meticulous hand.  No doubt these were the thoughts of the Vivisectionist himself.  His mind must have been as tortured as his victims' bodies, reduced to lunacy by some unknowable torment.  What would be the point of transmuting that much tonnage of rock and ice into ultravermilion thark-particles?  What could be the possible utility of being able to correct for surveying errors across heptafathoms of distance on a planet half the size of any of the known Holdings?  And why was he so interested in the ship's manifest of a vessel that had sunk thousands of years ago?

This reverie was interrupted by a high-pitched keening sound.  Across the ruins of the Vivisectionist's chambers, Tharon held his hands to his ears.  Blood flowed freely from his nose and ears, and his eyes rolled back into his head.  Even standing across the room, Kutz could sense the waves of psionic energy shedding from the geas in layers of imperative force.  If Kutz was feeling this much of it, there could be no choice for Tharon.  There would not even be awareness that there could be a choice.

The sound stopped, the resulting silence ringing through the tower.  Tharon breathed in and out, twice, then looked at each of them in turn.  He said, "We must help the Sisters of Callax.  Their temple is under attack."

--Steve Kilian

Torching Bleakwood

Tiger Meat

Matt, Dan and R. discuss Billy Corgan and Danger

Hey, 

Did you hear this on NPR yesterday?  

  I loved Billy Corgan's take on the modern state of rock n roll. 

 

"When you deal with rock and roll,  you know,  it sort of played itself out,  you know? You can't play any faster. You can't play any louder. You can't be any crazier than Iggy Pop or Jim Morrison or,  you know,  Kurt Cobain. You pick your guy or your girl,  right?, So what ends up happening is it gets kind of staid and safe,  even though it appears to continue to be dangerous and everybody looks dangerous - nobody's really dangerous,  and they know that.

So when you actually push a button in rock and roll,  even if it's your own,  you're actually accomplishing something pretty incredible because that's really all there is left to do is find those spaces that haven't been trod over."

 

I'm not sure if he captures those spaces, but what he said rings true for me about the emperor's new clothes.  That little dab of extreme truth caught me off guard.  Not used to it. 

I think I probably like him more than his music.

*

He's one of those guys whom I mock, but then I would totally listen to a few songs, especially Cherub Rock, Today, and that 1979 song, so who am I to mock him? That's more than The Grassroots get, or Steeler's Wheel and I'd be totally jazzed to meet one of those guys.

Sounds like an intelligent if possibly grandiose guy. The thing about rock being dangerous, well, we've known that since punk broke. But there's still the world of art and music having a subversive cause and a home for the sensitive and dysfunctional. I do think it's more like the heyday of the jazz-age, when songwriters were just toilers not champions. The key is getting some cool songs out of the deal.

Rock and roll can be dangerous (just ask Euronymous, or get your nose broke in the pit at a Trash Talk show).

But it's true... danger is just set on repeat. But just because it has been done before, does not mean it won't be done (and be dangerous) again.

There will always be someone summoning Satan and/or stabbing his bandmates death, someone screaming and flinging his feces (or HER feces!), some band being jailed for political reasons (Pussy Riot), it just will never be--and it never was--a whiny boy named Billy.

Billy tried so hard to be dangerous, too... what with his "zero" gothica reinvention... he's a twat. He's saying it's played out because he is making pre-emptive strike against the reviews of his new record.

You want danger, Billy? Move to Syria.

Of course a question is, what's the point of being dangerous? There's the artistic sense of breaking free of norms, not being like your parents or stifling community which is liberating, but there's also the greater dangerousness, which on some subconscious or conscious level seeks to overthrow large chunks of society. 50s rock had a larger lever of reaction to racism, the 60s to the war (STILL a bigger, nastier war than anything like what we've got today) as the 70s wore on, the social rebellion road on the coat-tails of the political rebellions of the past for authenticity, while replacing self-destruction and un-earned majesty for any real non-conformity. Synths and suits rebeled against guitars, but then they all got subsumed by capitalism.

What could be dangerous today? I think it's important that you not be dangerous for dangerousness's sake, otherwise it's something ultimately stupid, like satanism, which is just a monster mask, or actually evil, like racism.

I think with the internet there's a chance to create a DIY arsthetic that didn't just look like ripped up clothing. Corporate rejection could be dangerous.

Madonna used to be dangerous. Y'know what happens to dangerous people? Sometimes, they survive long enough to be boring.

All this said, someone hit me in the head with something really hard when I went to see the smashing pumpkins in 1991 at the Moon in New Haven. I was jumping up and down (pogo-ing, I guess you could say) and someone didn't like it and hit me. Didn't feel like a fist... felt like a bottle. I turned around, but no one would own it. Dangerous, indeed.

Bowie took on anti-gay prejudice and Madonna took on sexual hypocrisy. For a while there, it was cool to be bi, but I think AIDS set things back. Bowie stuck around long enough to become "straight." Madonna's ownership of her sexuality led to a generation of whores/teases. Now music sucks, but you can masturbate to it. Of course, I like how sexy everything's become, but it's empty, and it gives the jocks more power. Ultimately it's geeks vs. jocks, and the jocks are winning. Someone said The Red Hot Chili Peppers meant jocks were getting into Rock. Were they the first beefsteak rockers? One could envision either a religious, button up movement or an apocalyptic loose sex movement, but either would suck, and danger for danger's sake is too dangerous, just like dysfunction for dysfunctions sake gives you Syd Vicious or G.G. Allen. Just looked up G. G....nephew of Woody Allen!

Matt, 

That was you at the show?  I knew I was right to deck ya. 

Danger as a concept is a little confusing. Social, sexual, political?  If I was backstage at a Black Sabbath show when I was 12, I'd think those guys were way dangerous. 

Pete Seger was dangerous. Dylan was dangerous. Elvis, Hendrix, Zeppelin. Springsteen,  Madonna, U2 in Sarajevo. Janes Addiction during the LA riots.

It's that sense that something is getting pushed a little too far.  That this might not end well. For real.  Or that I'm personally not on my comfy sofa anymore. 

But I don't fault them for getting old.  It's not the person, it's their message and every era has it's relevant messages. 

I was just assuming -- and seriously hoping -- that the mantle would be taken by a new generation of post GenX kids who had their own reason to flip off the system, have angst and blow something up.  And they didn't.  At least not in the form of an arena-sized band (though this may be a good thing. Are revolutions televised?)  A generation of Pitchfork snark battles? How utterly unpowerful. 

***

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/24/opinion/sunday/the-generation-gap-is-back.html

"Younger adults are faring worse in the private sector and, in large part because they have less political power, have a less generous safety net beneath them. Older Americans vote at higher rates and are better organized. There is no American Association of Non-Retired Persons. “Pell grants,” notes the political scientist Kay Lehman Schlozman, “have never been called the third rail of American politics.”

They are numb. They are living with their parents. They are neutered. Power isn't asked for. It's taken. 

***

The other day, on impulse, I wanted to hear What's My Age Again.  What a serious 4-on-the-floor beat.  F-you guitars.  A great punk/pop confection.  2 minutes of fun.    I grabbed it off YouTube and went for a drive. 

We started making out and she took off my pants

But then I turned on the TV

And that's about the time she walked away from me

Nobody likes you when you're 23

I never really listened before.  I had no idea how fantastically stupid this band was.  These are sick sad puppies.  Talk about whiny.  He's about to score with his girl and he suddenly turns on the television?  What a colossal jerk.  I just started harshing on anything remotely related to them.  (Though it's still a great song.)

I suppose I got what I deserved, but geez... these bands literally *line up* to get merchandised, jingled, sold out, co-opted, etc.  

On the bright side, I saw Bruce Springsteen's keynote at SXSW this year.   He's old, but it felt just a little dangerous.  We didn't know what he was going to say. He was funny, but edgy and he came with something to say.   It's nice to see an old loose cannon still going off.  

I think it all depends how we define "danger." A 12 year old at a Black Sabbath show is scared, but there's no real danger.

I think danger might simply be a collective, emotional state of mind that precedes change. Because we naturally fear change. So look at the rockers that helped bring about change, and maybe that's where you see "danger." Elvis and Dylan might be the only "dangerous" rockers (what's that hippie quote...? "...Elvis freed our bodies, Dylan/Beatles freed our minds...").

Billy Corgan is dumb (and revealing his repressed urges) when he singles out Iggy/Jim. When you get down to it, they were merely exhibitionists. RHCP were/are the same, except stupider and "fon-kee." Blink-182 are dangerous in that their crappiness and ability to sell records is a harbinger to a fascist state. No shit.

--Matt Casper

Dan Kilian

R.

Fealtish: The K Word

The Rong

Basher

I was walking down 46^th Steet when I saw him. Those deep-set heavy browed half-frightened half-twinkling eyes. That long nose and chipmunk cheeks. That thin, narrow, insolent smirk underneath that joke of a mustache, the kind of mustache a high school burn-out would have scorned. It’s a face that embodies the banality of evil. Bashar al-Assad the tyrant President of Syria.

What was he doing in New York? And alone? The Syrian Embassy must be somewhere around there. No doubt he thought he could slip out on his security, like when he was studying optometry abroad back in the day. All good fun, spoiled princeling antics then. Now it was a deadly mistake. Sorry Bashar, you’re too known a quantity now. Think we Americans are so oblivious to the outside world you can hide in plain sight? Well guess again. Here’s one American who watches Anderson Cooper.

108 people in the Houla. All those bodies shrouded, wrapped and laid out like cigars. I’d seen the corpses in their houses. They’d just wanted to be free, like Egypt and Tunisia and the rest of them, but they’d been born unlucky. They’d been born with this guy, this evil creep who preferred wholesale murder to resignation. He wasn’t even going to be the leader until his brother died. He was going to be an eye-doctor, and now he was a monster. I’d seen the mourners screaming. I’d seen the children, crying, bloody, dead. I’d seen it all, and now I was going to make him pay.

“BASHAR!” He tried to ignore me, but it was clear I was shouting at him, and coming for him. Once he saw there would be no easy brush-off, that he was in trouble, he made some feeble gesture of protest, some whiny noise of confusion. Then I had him.

He tried to pull away, but I swung him around and he fell to the ground. In an instant I was on him, pinning his arms down with my knees, punching down.

“This is for HOULA! This is for HOMS! This is for the KIDS you MURDERED!”

He tried to call out STOP! or something, but I laid in too fast and hard for him to say anything. Soon my fists were slick with blood. He was already too beat up to fight back. It was happening too quickly. There was no satisfaction. So I hooked my thumb into his left eye.

“You should have stuck to optometry, Bashar! Now see if you can fix this!” I dug in. It resisted and wiggled, but soon enough it popped. Then I did the right eye.

Finally I’d had enough of holding on to his slippery, gore streaming head. I gripped it as best I could, and slammed his skull as hard as I could into a fire hydrant, right on the nut. I could feel his head crack and I could feel the metal sinking into his brain. The hydrant must have been somehow faulty, because it began spraying into his head. I washed my hands off in the spray and left him there, watery blood weeping from his eye sockets.

Later it turned out that guy wasn’t Bashar, but he looked like a real asshole anyway.

--Dan Kilian

Khomeini and Khamenei: A Dialogue

Yellow Savaughn

The Purple Pirate

--Dan Kilian

Badfruit

Bad Fruit, Revisited

Three Kitchen Jokes and Three Hippie Jokes

Who is the vampire of the kitchen implements? Spaaaatula.

The colander shot the skillet. In his last words, the skillet  delivered a comedy routine, and it was pretty funny. It wasn’t the jokes so much as the dead-pan delivery.

The deep dish pan was really being a jerk to the muffin tray, so the muffin tray said “Cut it out, you casserole!”

 

Q: What does a hippie-Vulcan say?

A: It’s not logical, maaaaan!

 

Q: What does a hippie-vampire say?

A: Free blood!

 

Q: What does a hippie-cowboy say?

A: Woah!

--Dan Kilian

Octopus Man #3: Ben and the Monster

Huck That!

The Weathergoat

The Weathergoat trudges on.

First in blinding sleet, through slush and puddles that soak his feet to the skin, plodding next to garbage-strewn highways, salt trucks casting stinging fans of salt across his thighs as they lumber past.  The sleet then turns to freezing rain, plastering his hair to his face, drenching his clothes, making pale mushrooms of his hands.  Still he trudges on.  The rain passes and a bitter wind starts to blow, an eager pickpocket stealing whatever warmth he'd secreted away – even his armpits feel cold.  With the wind comes dust that cakes in the corners of his mouth and eyes, a chalky foulness that he can neither spit nor swallow away. The Weathergoat digs his hand deeper into his pockets and continues to march.

Finally, the sun comes forth, a baleful eye that cooks the water out of the blacktop, tainting the air with a humid petroleum funk.  But there are no clouds – the Weathergoat's skin peels and blisters.   Pollen bursts forth from the ragged grasses on the side of the road, filling the cracks on his brow and in his lips.  Still he walks.

Elsewhere, in dappled shade under swaying sycamores, a man pours lemonade from a pitcher and passes it out to his friends.  Hamburgers flare and sizzle on a portable grill.  There is a cooler filled with ice and beer.  A gingham cloth is held down on a picnic table by bottles of ketchup of mustard on one side and a bowl of potato salad with hard-cooked eggs and scallions on the other.  A woman in a sundress waves a fly away from a platter of cheese and tomatoes for the burgers.  It's a beautiful day.

For this the Weathergoat trudges on.



--Steve Kilian

Excerpt From the Proceedings of the IMF Field Survey of Candidate Nation 34-T-89

Taxi

Novelty

The other day I noticed the following bicycle and took a photo:

Note that there are many spokes on the wheel – many more than necessary.  It is bad engineering, this wheel.  And yet it caught my eye and was interesting enough for me to take a photo.  This is due to the tyranny of novelty.  Something does not have to be good to attract attention.  It merely needs to be novel.  So the over-spoked wheel looks cool in its way simply because it's unusual.

It is 19th-20th century industrialization that has led to this condition.  Mass production and standardization of consumer products have filled our material needs (or could fill them, but we choose not to afford everyone a baseline share in the riches -- that's another topic).  But they've also made our product-scape a monotonous one.  Where every bicycle, car, building, jacket, or fork looks more or less the same, spastic deviations get undue credit and attention.  And yet I wouldn’t want to go back to pre-industrial levels of scarcity.

Fortunately we are poised on the verge of a new mode of mass production, with near-infinite variety being possible while maintaining low cost of goods and services.  In such a society novel items will be commonplace – not novel at all – and thus would be judged based on their intrinsic merits and not difference for its own sake.

Yes, there will still be items that are produced with what are now considered traditional methods.  There will be products issued in lots numbering in the millions.  But eventually my hope is that individuals will take a larger role in creating (or at least choosing – and there is some feedback between the two) their product-scape.  This could be extrapolated to a world consisting entirely of unique items.  In such a place fashion would be eliminated, as every fad would be regarding a product-issue of one item.

This is already starting to happen in digital media, where the masters of content origination are losing market share to individuals.  Yes, we all watch stuff put out by the networks, but there are new content producers and distributors catering to ever-smaller slices of the market.  Web TV channel for Renaissance Fair enthusiasts?  Check.  Star Trek channel?  Check.  Dog TV?  Check.

At some point there will be more content being originated than the gatekeepers will be able to categorize or mediate.  The velvet rope will be trampled by all of the traffic flowing from originators to consumers.  And eventually all consumers will be originators – creative life will be the norm, not the exception.

--Steve Kilian

From Beneath to Destroy

That Old-Time Magic, Revisited

psi K a tree

Our unconventional friends got  us a tree for our wedding. Big sac of roots and all. A baby tree, still it was hugely impractical and hellish for Karen’s Mom to get from the banquet hall to our house. Still we loved them, loved each other, loved our new back yard, and we planted it. We don’t live there anymore.

Went by there the other day, just driving by, then I parked. Knocked on the door. No one home.

What was I hoping to find? Traces of our more innocent, happy days? Just how much a new family alters a place, how much the place stays the same? Some patch of carpet or paneling from those different days? A “For Sale” sign?

Walked around back. Now I was an intruder, a burglar, a creep. The lawn had gone to shit. Did that make me feel better about myself, that these new owners couldn’t handle the up-keep? No, it was depressing, as any poorly tended lawn is depressing. So what if thick watered manicured turf is unnatural? Nature, with its wild seeds and brown patches, its entropy, is depressing.

Yet the tree is still alive! And huge! How did it get so big?

And the K, where I started carving Karen’s name and then thought better of it, it’s opened into a great gnarled mouth of exploded tree bark.

I walk up to it, put my hand in the wound. I feel the wet sap inside. I push and it parts for me, letting me probe its inner bark and the wet wood within. I push my full arm inside. Does it have some disease? It feels so healthy! I pull it wider and look inside.

Head, arms shoulders, I shimmy into the body of it’s trunk, dark and wet, enclosed. I feel the xylem and phloem transporting the water around me. My scalp tingles with vibrations from the branches above; I feel the wind in my hair. I feel her love again, and I drink in the sun with my leaves.



--Dan Kilian

This was the program from the Saturday, April 21st show at Otto's Shrunken Head.

Here' s a video of us playing there!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf4NYySqG9I&w=560&h=315]

Tiw’s Day

Election Night

 

Usury of The Heart

Performed by The Ks

Written and Youtubed by Dan Kilian

At The Pawn Shop

War

Sugar and Berries

The surviving crewmen of The Margaret were lying face-down on the deck. They’d been boarded by The Guppie, now bobbing along starboard, strangely peaceful now that the smoke and clang of battle had ended. They’d been badly beaten, decimated, and surrendered to their fate.

The pirates laid planks of wood across the boats. First came a mop-up crew to kill the remaining wounded. After that some gathered crates of the cargo, mostly berries and sugars from the island. Then they rolled a large heavy block of wood made from several crude logs bound together. Crewmembers of The Margaret exchanged puzzled glances.

Then came the man who could only be the infamous Captain Horatio Magellan. Standing over six feet tall, he strode across the ships, resplendent in his blue naval uniform, still immaculate so many years from his days in the British navy. His face was as weather-beaten and cracked as any driftwood, his white walrus mustache standing out like ice against his sun-browned skin.

“Who is the Captain?”

One of the crewmen tilted his head upwards. “The Captain was killed. I’m Nathanial Hollander, first mate.”

“You will work as slaves for us?”

“Never!”

“Then hoist the block!”

As pirates held sabers to his neck to keep him from struggling, several others lifted the great wooden block over his body, and then gently laid it down on his flattened body.

“Oof!” moaned Hollander.

“Haul the anchor chain!”

Magellan’s crew drew up the anchor, but rather than winding the chain on its giant spool, they dragged the loose links and laid them across the heavy block. Hollander wheezed as the pressure weighed down upon him.

Magellan smiled a mirthless smile. “One less slave then. I prefer to do business with berries and sugar! These islands and your ships provide rich cargos! I shall be known for brown sugar and berries. I shall have to add these items to my coat of arms!”

Hollander gasped, barely able to spit the words, “Men like you aren’t known for their plunder, they’re know for their crimes!”

Magellan smiled wider and angrier. “Sugar and berries! Throw a cask of each on our good first mate, shall we lads?”

His men lifted barrels of their new loot on the block, and one clownish one did a jig, as Hollander’s lungs collapsed, and his bones began to snap. Cruel laughter rose on the deck of  The Margaret as the ritual was reenacted, prisoner to prisoner. Most accepted slavery, though some called Magellan hateful names and were crushed under the block. A few of the doomed called Magellan a particular name, and when he heard that name, he made a point of weighting them down more slowly, link by link of the chain.

After the bloody rite was finished, some of the booty was hauled aboard The Guppie, along with the great block. Corpses were tossed into the sea, slaves shoved into the hulls of both ships, and the conquering crew appointed new officers for the captured ships. Then came drinking and song.

As his men jigged and sang, Captain Magellan sat and fumed. The last words of Hollander were ringing in his ears. That and the name he’d heard repeatedly from the other dying sailors. Of course in his bloody career he’d been called many vile things, but the fact that more than one of the prisoners had used the name meant that others were saying it too. He really did want respectability, a coat of arms with sugar and berries. Instead, he was making a name for himself, a legend, based on his signature act of cruelty.

They were calling him “Captain Crunch.”

--Dan Kilian

Rejected Baby Shower Activities

Octopus Man #2: The Amazing Man-Spider!

Shins You Asked

Adam: Listening to the new Shins record. They sound profoundly lost. Just me?

Interesting question, because of the word “lost.” Are they profoundly lost, like an artist finding great meaning in his personal state of drift? Or, as I get from the context, not able to achieve great art, to a profound degree? Are they lost themselves, lost in a sea of bad choices, or simply lost to Adam?

I would suggest, from a few quick listens to Port of Morrow, that The Shins are found, both to themselves, and in a bad way, to Adam. James Mercer, who IS The Shins is confidently exploring his distinct sound with precise attention to detail, quite obviously himself, if to an augmented degree of production which might drive away a devoted fan. Mercer’s got to be happy with this album. The synthesizers which hazed away in the sweet muddiness of Oh Inverted World, (an album which as a whole drifted like the rainbow in a spray off a sprinkler on a bright summer day; hey, The Shins lend themselves to such precious descriptions) now blurbscillate like dribbles of sauce on the plate at a high end restaurant. The guitars strum along beatifically, and then pierce through on perfect little solos. His singing has never sounded stronger, especially on the high notes. Familiar melodic twists join new poppy inventions, to good effect. Whether you like that effect is an opinion I’ll never be able to shape.

Is James Mercer finding his desired manifestation lost on our some-time fan? No, The Shins are found, but they’ve already been found, and what is found can not be found again. Mercer cleaned up his sound on Chutes Too Narrow, the one trick he could realistically pull without completely reinventing himself. Broken Bells might have been an attempt at reinvention, but this is definitely The Shins, and you can’t rediscover them. You can certainly say, hey, this is too clean, too produced, and while I’d argue that while every bleep might not be necessary, almost all the choices serve the songs, which (unlike on the nearly forgotten Wincing The Night Away) I’d have to say are rather strong. Note: The most in your face epicly souring songs are front loaded, and it gets gentler, possibly more appealing to suspicious Shins fans (one of Elvis’s greatest later songs) as the album progresses.

Strong enough to make us forget Chutes Too Narrow? Let’s not get crazy. Someone else could find this record, and easily make it their favorite, only to find Chutes too familiar, though I doubt it. That’s one hell of a record. A more likely scenario is for someone to love this record, be told by Shins fans that the real deal is Oh Inverted World and then be disappointed by the lack of sonic distinction. Sacrilege? Yes, but it happens all the time. Still, while there is a proper order to getting Shins records (first, second, fourth, and you’re done, so far), I have no idea yet whether these songs are going to stick with me as long as those others have, or whether we should be making mandatory Natalie Portman references here. All I know is that I’m singing some of the tunes already, and the title track is a spooky cool thing indeed.

Inevitably, getting more Shins dilutes the pool, however fresh the water. Questions arise: Is it too slick? Is Mercer too precious? Does any of it make sense, lyrically?  Does the guy have to talk so much about how he’s cursed with an open heart? Could they show more darkness, edge, rock more? It’s the way with all artists. Few (The Beatles, The Pixies) have finished their runs with near perfect output. Let’s use Liz Phair as a model: she found the sound she wanted, and lost her fans (while actually charting) I’d say this album is more analogous to WhiteChocolateSpaceEgg than it is to Liz Phair. Don’t know who Liz Phair is? Maybe you should find her. Exile first, please!

Back to The Shins. I think this is a singular songwriter, one we’ll be talking about for a long time. Somehow Paul Simon comes to mind, another gentle soul who spun beautiful, convoluted necklaces of song. I’m glad he’s found what he’s found, and I found Port of Morrow quite charming.

--Dan Kilian

Octopus Man: Strip 1

Half Ours

Defense of the Daleks

If you get all your information (and unfortunately, so many of you do) from the BBC, you have a highly prejudiced view of our entity. We have been painted as genocidal robots, as the nemesis of goodness throughout the universe, throughout space and for all time. Why are we so portrayed? Is not your current modern society built on the sins of former conquerors you barely acknowledge? Are you native born to your land, or are you the offspring of conquerors, or the offspring of those defeated, seeking new homelands? If our history is marked by the defeat of primitive peoples, are we so alone in this darkness?

Why are we singled out and reviled? The likely reason we seem so much more alien than even your wildest imagined aliens is that we are so obviously a hybrid of the organic and the machine.

Here too we are not so unique. Look at the paper in your hand. You are reading. Your mind is silently making these words audible in your head, yet it is not conjuring the words itself. Your mind, your eyes, your hands are all interacting with marks on a piece of paper. Ever since Guttenberg, the word has not only become life, it has become device.

Is there a computer in your pocket? How to you know the time? Machines! Your knowledge is warehoused in great buildings, spun out on a digital cloud. Moreover, you have harnessed the fibers of plants, animals and plastics to protect your skin. You hoove yourselves with hardened rubber, and when that isn’t enough, you roll along on wheels. And when you kill, you do not claw, you stab, you shoot, and you drop bombs with robot drones.

So my bionic friend, welcome to our fraternity. You might think you’re still far enough on the animal side of this split to call us other, but your cars, trains and planes look everyday more like our metal shells. Soon you will drop your hypocrisy, and embrace the evolution which began the first time a monkey grabbed a stick. You will transcend your animal boundaries, stop digging in the ground and take to the stars.

Which is why you must be exterminated.



--Dan Kilian

This was the program to the 3/22/12 show by The Ks.

K Riddle: You know my numbers, what’s my name?

Tusks

Mitt Romney Drug Jokes

What happens when Mitt Romney smokes weed? He gets hiiiiighfalutin.

How does Mitt Romney suggest doing Heroin? “Let’s go shoot some antiques.”

How does Mitt Romney suggest doing Heroin? :Let’s go shoot some horse. Then let’s do some heroin.”

How does Mitt Romney suggest doing Methamphetamine? “Shall I have my personal chef cook us up some meth?”

When Mitt Romney does Angel Dust, only the finest Maroni will do.

How does Mitt Romney suggest doing crack? “Let’s do some cocaine.”

--Dan Kilian

A Bottle of Wyrms

Dark Fiber

M.A.Y.O.

The Mexican Annexation Youth Organization (M.A.Y.O) is a subset of the Mexican Annexation League (M.A.L.), a society dedicated to the friendly conquering and subjugation of the lands and peoples south of the U.S. border, rightfully belonging to the United States of America as befits the laws of Manifest Destiny, with a focus on young people.

"Build that dang fence."; "Voluntary Deportation"; "Genetic Code Identification"; "Legal Residency Status Papers"; "Amnesty"--all these loaded terms signal half measures and abject surrender to the domestic problem of our times: Illegal Immigration. Members of the Mexican Annexation League, or M.A.L. would suggest that we have the problem all backwards. The problem isn't Mexicans wanting to be Americans, but rather that Americans are still Mexicans! If we made every Mexican an American citizen, the illegal immigrant population would be decimated, and we would have amicably conquered a one-time enemy and nuisance! With the implementation of work vouchers to allow former Mexicans to perform their tasks at wages they're accustomed to, we could have our fajita and eat it too, all while spreading our borders as we were ordained by our Lord to do in 1776.

This branch of M.A.L. is M.A.Y.O, the Mexican Annexation Youth Organization, focused on preaching the wonders of Manifest Destiny to a hip young demographic. What could be more rad than more land for the U.S, dude? Right on!

Our current project to reach young minds is a rock concert celebrating Mexico's May 5th independence from vulgar French dominion. That's right! Those sneering elites from Crepe-land kept Mexico under their imperial boot, back in the day. It had nothing to do with us! What better way to celebrate Mexican independence than through a night of song dedicated to the eventual annexation of Mexico? In tribute to the May 5th revolution, we're holding our revolution on the same date, at the Local 269 on Houston Street in New York City. This event will feature five of those def young rock and roll acts the kids today so love. AMLow, Red Datsun, The Ks, Les Sans Coulottes (playing authentic Mexican music! A cross border cultural exchange!) and James G. Barry. We call this company of singers the Sing Co. of M.A.Y.O. Patriotic citizens all, or in the case of Les Sans Coulottes, patriotic citizens to be! How awesome is that, kids?

Follow M.A.Y.O. on Facebook! All the kids are doing it!

http://www.facebook.com/MexicanAnnexationYouthOrganization

Tiger Eradication Gourmet Society

Wertwoo: New K Word

Wertwoo: Anything signaling cloyingly-cute or overly-quirky comedy. The word is onomatopoeic in origin, suggesting the comical flute music played in old school comedy or the humorous closing of a Star Trek episode. It's usually adjectival, but can also be used as a verb. Hell, make it a noun if you like. It's a friggin' made up word, after all.

--Dan Kilian

The Least Exorcism

Wretched

The First Incidence of That Thing Where You Say Everything The OtherPerson’s Saying and It’s Really Annoying

Uug.

Ugg!

Ug!

Uurrrg.

Ug.

Ug.

Uurrg.

Uurrg.

Uurrg.

Uurrrg.

Uurrg?

Uurrrg?

Uurrrg??

Uurrrrg??

Uurrg!

Uurrrg!

Uuuurrrg!!

Uuuuuuuurrrrg!!

Uurg it!

Uuurrrg it!

It?

UUUUURRRRG IT!

UUUUUUURRRRRRG IT!

It!

UUUUUUURRRRRRRRRG!!!

UUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRG!!!

IT! IT! IT!

UUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRG!!

UUUURRgk!

(Smashing and pummeling.)

IT! IT! IT!

--Dan Kilian

Screenplay For William Shatner and Christopher Walken Consisting Only of Pauses

The Spoils