Categories
cinema love personal

Home again and aching

My skin feels red,
slightly boiled from the inside;
joints ache like ungreased pistons.
My head’s a thousand miles away.
pauvre petite tête

It’s good to be home again again again,
though my thoughts echo and words stick,
like a taste on the palette that won’t let go.
Words like independence, like fortitude
and awareness, understanding and compassion.

I’ve an admission to make: I never cried.
Not with you watching, not alone when I said,
“I need to walk.”, neither before when I knew,
nor after when it was irrevocable.
My heart had been burdened by months of despair,
in the knowledge that this was the last time
we’d go through this; irreconcilable,
this time the outcome would be different.
We dragged it out well; both fighters, I guess.
At some point during those months, my heart
broke quietly, hidden in a corner, my stomach
convulsed and I curled up, shivering with the knowledge
that the universe was indifferent.

But I never cried, and if I seemed
to leave without a fight, it was because
how can I fight for something I can’t even cry over losing?

It’s neither here nor there,
perhaps a little of both.
Something I have to figure out before I move on?
Too many questions, like a magnet in my brain,
always pointing due wherever.

I watched Dogville last night with my mom.
It wasn’t what I was expecting, but begs the question:
how much can we forgive someone for acting out of fear?

No matter how cruel the town was to her,
the only time she cried was when they destroyed
the image she had of the goodness of the town;
seven, small porcelain figurines.

Categories
love montreal personal

Kissed a girl and made her cry…

Monday night, I left a beautiful girl crying.

“I’ve been thinking about Montreal. If I end up going, I have to go alone. I need to leave my attachments and start fresh, to see who I am.”

I wasn’t sure how serious she had been about going with me; nor how serious she was about our relationship in general. Turns out she was quite serious about both. It made me realize that while I’ve become pretty good at protecting myself from getting hurt in these situations, I need to start paying more attention to how much I can hurt the other person. On the other hand, I’m sure this was the right decision; and in the end, perhaps the least painful one.

I high-tailed it up to Port Townsend to spend Thanksgiving with my mom and my step-dad. It’s good to get away from Oly for a few days, take a break and maybe get some reading done.

For grad school, I’ve decided to apply to five (or so) institutions in various places I think I’d like to live, away from everything I know. That way, if I don’t get accepted to Montreal, I will still be able to get away and explore; have an adventure of learning and self-discovery. [that sounds so trite] I’m bound to get accepted somewhere.

To everyone who reads this [and everyone else too]:
Happy Thanksgiving.

Focus on the good things in life…

…like pie.

Categories
poetic

Revenge of the flying cheesimo

Okay, so NaNoWriMo didn’t work out so well for me. Which is to say, I didn’t do it. That’s okay, I’m not heartbroken. After all, fifty thousand words is a lot, and I’m more of the kind of guy who says, “Why use fifty thousand words where five hundred will do?”. Which has led me to a new project. Microfiction is a wonderful thing, much like blogging: you sit, you write, you’re done (and sitting’s optional). It doesn’t drag on for days, you don’t lose sleep over it, and your friends will actually read it when you’re done. They say a picture’s worth a thousand words? Well, rip that picture in half, ’cause it’s micro time! As the link indicates, other things will be involved, such as literary reviews and news items, creative works and explorations. If you’re at all interested in being involved, please feel free to email me.

P.S. Monkeys are good people. That’s all for now.

Categories
poetic

Welcome to Brief Lies

Welcome to Brie Flies, home of flying chee-
Oops, let me start over.

Welcome to Brief Lies (that’s better), home of flying chee-
Oops again! Okay, bugger the welcome, then.
You’re here, great. Let’s move on, shall we?

This is a blog started by me as a space to be creative, to encourage creativity, and hopefully to collaborate with others in some creative works. When I say “creative”, for now I mean writing, but who knows what may happen in the future. Mostly, I’m interested in using this blog as something of a microfiction forum. Years ago, I started a microfiction email group. It was a small but fun group, and good practice. Every week, people would write a piece of microfiction (500 words or less), centered around a specific theme or topic. At the end of the week, I would send all the stories out, along with the topic for the next week. The stories were always a lot of fun to write (and low-stress, under 500 words!) and even more fun to read. Unfortunately, people get busy and writing falls by the wayside; our small group dwindled and story submissions were low. Eventually, I called the micro-group quits and moved on to other things, though not without some remorse.

Lately, I’ve been blogging quite a bit, because writing daily just feels good, and today I remembered vividly how much fun the microfiction group was. So I’ve decided to start something similar, here on this blog. It may take awhile to get the ball rolling, but until then I’ll be posting some of my own creative work (as well as whatever I can finagle out of friends and family), links of creative interest, news and other noteworthy reads.

If you’re interested in submitting anything, joining the microfiction group, posting on this blog (and/or helping me to run it) or just in contacting me, please feel free to drop me an email at brieflies(at)gmail(dot)com.

Categories
art montreal music work

When a straight beats a flush

I came across this interesting link, somewhat circuitously today. It involves the Pacific Northwest, and this particular story is about Neah Bay and the Makah Tribe. My step-dad is Makah, and very active in Makah traditional and cultural life. He particularly does a lot of really beautiful copper-work, cut and painted to represent traditional and familial spirit and animal figures. The Makah are most known, recently, for the controversy revolving around their whaling, particularly their recent hunt in 1999. There are some beautiful pictures of Pacific coastline and local rainforest worth checking out. Washington State is chock-full of natural beauty. Go us.

Of other note, geographically, is this short article from The Boston Globe on Montreal, with focus on their pop music scene and its success in the U.S. (Whether that’s a recommendation or not, I don’t know — I’m not particularly fond of “popular” American music.) But it’s a neat, short blurb that ends in saying, “Montreal is an artist’s town.” Go them. (Still, the thought of being surrounded by three million people is a bit daunting to a country-grown boy like myself.) For further stories of Montreal interest…

The phone rang yesterday, and I, crotchety hermit that I am, let it ring through because I didn’t recognize the caller id number (that and I’m a lazy bastard; we really don’t get that many “courtesy calls” these days). It turned out to be the Public Library downtown, calling me about a “Library Aide” position for 15 hours a week. I’ve got to call them back when I get off work today, but this surely means an interview at least (because they send letters if they reject you; I’ve been collecting them), and hopefully a job of some sort for low pay and lost evenings. But hey! I can stop living off my damned credit card! Go me.

Time is short. Looking at the moment; it passes.
A quote to encourage ye, adventurers.

Make your choice, adventurous Stranger;
Strike the bell, and bide the danger,
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.

The Magician’s Nephew, C.S. Lewis

Categories
love personal poetic

Year Four

Today would mark the four-year anniversary of my relationship with Emily (you know, if that whole “break-up” thing hadn’t happened). To mark the occassion, I sent her an e-mail, said thanks for the time we spent together and that I thought she was a wonderful person. I got a similiar note in return. It’s good to be amicable, though I admit sometimes I regret that things didn’t work out better between us. I like the direction of my life right now, and I wouldn’t change it; but there’s always the thought that I just didn’t try hard enough. Enough. Enough though, it’s a vain game to play in one’s head, and ultimately futile. I wish happiness and fulfillment (to everyone) and am ready to move on with everything.

To Emily: Happy Anniversary (or non-anniversary, really);
Wish I could give you a big hug, at least.

Brendan has some good links involving activites in Fallujah; you know, if you feel a little too optimistic about life right now.

This article is fascinating, as is the associated blog, if you’re interested as I am in the idea of fiction blurring with reality. Who knows if these things are true, and who cares. Life’s more interesting if you believe that these things are happening all around you, all the time. To paraphrase Karla, we’re all living our own autobiographies: we pick the music, the camera angles, and the actors we play with. Some of these stories overlap, and some of them read like spy novels. That’s what makes life interesting. I may not have upscale private detectives tracking my movements across the globe, sent by a Don Corleone father with deep pockets and an arranged marriage waiting in the wings; but I lead a life of private adventure, and I’m happy with it. And despite Nick’s list of reasons not to move to Canada, I think I will. Or at least, I’m going to do my damndest to end up in Montreal by next fall, and to stay there for at least two years. Besides, I like the metric system. Thanks to all you kind strangers for your encouragement in this. It’s past time for me to jump ship for a bit and see where the current carries me.

So, I nearly joined the Eagles here in Olympia, mostly because the Eagle’s Hall is where we swing dance, and Christine, the main swing organizer in town, is a big Eagles campaigner. I was supposed to be initiated this last Tuesday, actually, ’til I thought about it and realized that I really didn’t know anything about this organization. It’s a community organization dedicated to “people helping people”, but it still seems more to me like a cult, and I can’t help but wonder if the values they choose to uphold are really the values I want to spend $60 a year supporting. Christine was disappointed, because in the end it’s all about saving the ballroom for our dance. I told her I’d gladly donate $30 specifically to save our dance space, but I didn’t feel like selling my soul to a “fraternal order” so early in my life. Am I just crazy, or does a group like this kind of scare anyone else?

Categories
personal

Crossfire with a Yak

Words of the Yak (my friend, Nick):

Lets look at this administration from an existential (non-aristolean) view-point.

What would this administration be able to do that would be politically radical?

Overturn Roe v. Wade? Nope.

Confirm Satan Incarnate as the next National Security Advisor? Nope.

Strip you of all of your possessions and place you in an internment camp? Nope. Only Democrats and Socialists do that.

(after all, it WAS FDR that put people into internment camps)

So, existentially, there is just not enough evidence to warrant such a great depression about Bush being re-elected. You cannot go by the word of fat people with cameras, nor can you go by the word of Religious Fundementalists with political capital.

You want to blame someone for this war? Blame everyone that voted “yea” and has a little D next to their name.

My initial response:

If someone walks up to you and says “I’m going to shoot you. Would you prefer I shoot you in the head, or in the foot?” Getting shot in the foot is a whole lot better than in the head, but that doesn’t mean you should be happy about it. Similarly, saying that we could be worse off, having say, Hitler as president is no way of justifying Bush. I’d much prefer to not get shot at all, thanks.

I don’t understand why an existential viewpoint would only regard “radical” changes, and why other changes that are more possible aren’t considered radical as well. For instance:

1000+ Americans have died and 7000+ have been injured during the War on Iraq. Fine, I’ll blame all the “yea-sayers” with a D by their name; they shouldn’t have, but in my opinion this is still Bush’s war.

What about the $422 billion defecit. Is that not radical? The national debt is at a record high, that’s pretty radical too.

Spending $270 million on abistinence-only programs, while slashing funding for any other programs (non-abstinence-based) to help avoid STDs?

How about 200 million acres of protected land opened to development, and blatant favoritism allowing plants to skip around clean air standards (among the other things he’s done to kill our air)?

I mean, c’mon, some of these things are pretty in-your-face effecting. Bush may not overturn Roe v. Wade, nor confirm Satan Incarnate in any position in the White House; but he could easily create another list like this in the next four years … and that would just be 200 things too many to be able to put up with.

I agree that the Democrats made plenty of mistakes in this race. Personally, I would have preferred Dean or Kucinich, though I’m not sure either would have won. Like Rome, the mob is America; and they relate to Bush, somehow.

Personally, I agree with the editors of the New Yorker:

Pollsters like to ask voters which candidate they’d most like to have a beer with, and on that metric Bush always wins. We prefer to ask which candidate is better suited to the governance of our nation.

Am I going to whine about it to the point of not moving on with my life or saying “Well, we’ll just have to do better next time.”? No, but nor will I bother to hide my disappointment or feeling of disenfranchisement with American politics.

Categories
personal

This kills me

I don’t understand people that say they think that Kerry running the country wouldn’t really make “that big” of a difference. Read this list of facts from The Nation, and the editorial from the Nov. 1 issue of the New Yorker entitled “The Choice”. Each clearly demonstrates, in my opinion, that George W. Bush is the most arrogant, ignorant, evil, and harmful leader our country has ever elected. Sure, everyone does stupid things, and makes bad decisions, and if you put them all together in a list like that, out of context, with no positive remarks, anyone could then be made to look like the devil. So, show me an equivalent list of 100 good things George W. has done, and I’ll shut the hell up.

Theo recently remarked on his blog that as a conservative he’s tired of being summarily dismissed, or immediately classified somewhere in the KKK, brain-dead, right-wing christian, biggoted nut-job demographic. I happen to live with Theo, and have noticed since the election (and just before) that he’s been close-mouthed (with me, at least) about all things political. We don’t normally talk politics anyway, so it wouldn’t normally be a big deal, but recently I have tried to prod him into some conversation or debate, and get fairly summary responses. So hopefully he doesn’t think I’m one of those who’s pigeon-holed all conservatives into a one-step-up-from-denizen-of-hell conglomeration. I’m not. I am genuinely curious, though, because I’ve yet to hear any justification or positive remark for Bush beyond “Kerry wouldn’t do much better, anyway”. Generally, I don’t enjoy political conversation. Lately, I’ve felt like starting up a huge, rollicking debate with intelligent peers from both sides of the political spectrum. Maybe I just need to go back to Evergreen and take a class in Current American Issues or something. Maybe I just need to go live in a cave. I don’t know.

This fellow has an interesting notion that the current discouragement that youth might be feeling could lead to a rise in intellectual query and particularly, a boom in existentialism. If only such wonderful things could be true.

But don’t forget, Sartre also said l’enfer c’est les autres. [hell is other people]

Categories
humor montreal personal poetic

You mount me so well…

Racy, I know, but I was referring to this.

So I’ve gotten all link-happy, and added quite a few. I seem to have the tendancy to enjoy reading the accounts of Americans in other countries. Should I read something into this? I don’t know. Perhaps proof that I need to move to Montreal, or perhaps just to Canada 2.0. Then I too can be an international blogger. And I can swear in Québécois: Tabarnak! Criss! Caliss! Okay, so I’m fairly limited so far … but I can work on it. Honestly, I don’t even swear very well in English. I generally just swear to add emphasis to a point I’m trying to make, which is really the most mild manner in which one can swear. I’m a failure at true vulgarity. But then, the best part about Québécois swearing is that the words themselves aren’t really vulgar, they’re mostly just adapted from common church words: i.e. Tabarnak just means Tabernacle. Nothing your mother will slap you for saying. In true French swearing, saying things like “Putains de merdes!” can get you into trouble, even in a loud bar … but then, it’s not very polite.

As for les jurés Americains, someone recently told me that the word “fuck” derived from the acronym, “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge”; which I believed just long enough to tell someone else, and then I thought “…hold on a minute”. It just didn’t seem right. Another urban legend is that the word derives from the acronym, “Fornication Under Consent of the King”. Either explanation is rather enticing, but both are debunked here. Go figure.

Categories
love personal poetic work

From any piece of wood…

A whole new host of links along the right there, at the bottom, including lots of local stuff. Nothing too exciting, unless you’d like to know more about Olympia. Hey, Olympia’s a cool place, so why not!?

My lax work schedule means I have always had Fridays off, but since I’m only part-time and yesterday was a holiday, I neither worked yesterday nor got payed for pretending to work yesterday, so I get to make up the hours today. Okay, so I get off at one; it’s not as though my life’s that tough, but next week I work Monday – Saturday, and regardless of how many hours that is (not many) it’s still a pain in the ass. I’m still applying for library work, but I seem to be cursed and if nothing pans out there soon, I may end up getting a part-time service (restaurant) job to tide me over for awhile (holiday season and all). That’s it for informative; here’s something impromptu:

Brown-eyed ballerina of verbal skill,
bandies carillon in sonant flutter to
charm the sun against the window-sill
and set my heart a-stutter.

[the author makes apologies for being a sap]

Categories
love personal poetic

Syllogisms by moonlight

Memories of years ago,
turning pages of Lewis Carroll
at two in the morning,
brains hot as we laughed at logic.

How blind we were, then;
how stargazing and mad
as we snuck through the gate and
walked the trails in the black,
shivering and afraid and invigorated;
each snap of wood from the dark
another reason to hold you close.

You were the only one I saw the beavers with,
and the river otter come out to play;
as if they’d come for you.
We gave bread to the ducks
and talked about that first night,
stars by the lakeside and how
I was too nervous to sit down.
I shook like a reed just standing next to you.

We conquered Carroll and perhaps
I only did it because I felt your equal,
if just for a minute or two.
Then you’d dazzle me:
mathematical virtuosity,
referencing a world of depth I felt beyond me;
poetry by the dockside as we listened
to bullfrog bass and waited for stars to fall.
You offered so much and took so little
that I had no choice but to feel diminished,
though the conclusion ignores the premises.

We conquered Carroll for balance
and we mastered logic,
ignored that emotion will in its tenacity
unravel even the most perfect puzzles,
and were thus undone.

Categories
love personal poetic

In which I wax tangential

Sometimes I’m scared of how not scared of committment I am. Perhaps this is because I know that despite how we would normally feel bound to something, the truth is that we choose every moment to be who we are, do what we’re doing, and to be with who we’re with. There is no moment when you can’t just choose “no” and walk out the door. There’s no crisal point from which you can’t turn back. Our love of a good plot and the human dilemma would like to say differently, but at any point you can run away to a different state or a different country, leave every aspect of your old life behind and become a new person (as new as you’d like to be, anyway).

This has always been something of a lure to me. Growing up, as we become the people we are, we are raised and nurtured and taught and shown how to be and what to be. We are, in short, pushed along certain paths that we’ve little control over. Unless we jump the rails at some point, these early pushes can continue to guide our lives throughout, so that each moment is just a reaction to a previous moment, which is also just a reaction, which leads all the way back to an action taken that wasn’t even of your choosing, but was made for you. Moving to a foreign country signifies to me a rebirth; a jumping of the tracks and a making it on your own. Learn the language, the culture, how to interact with people, but do it all on your own, with no one making choices for you. The image of the loner is so fucking romantic, after all, that it’s hard to get away from. I imagine myself, reborn in Paris, and I know no one. I go to the same cafe every day, and I write and I read, and I study or do whatever it is I am in Paris to do aside from be reborn; and it rains a lot and I’m fucking lonely because I don’t know anybody and everyone is speaking French anyway.

I do speak French, contrary to personal belief. I.E. I do know how to speak French, but I never do. Go figure. The loner is a powerful figure, but it’s easy to forget his flaw: he gets lonely. Even so, sometimes it feels like all the choices I make are based around the idea of comfort, because I’m not willing to completely divest myself of … myself, and become me anew. On the other hand, I know that doing so would not necessarily be anything more than a somewhat masochistic social experiment, or a way to prove something to myself. It’s enticing, even so.

The world’s full enough of strangers,
perhaps there’s no need that I become
a stranger to myself.

Categories
love personal

I require your fancy hat.

Today: mushy brain, needs sleep;
but it’s been sacrificed for a good cause:
fingers interwoven, pressed against the skin,
feeling breath in stereo,
those soft and inexplicable murmers;
who can sleep and miss such things?

My praxis lately: good, gracious;
without hesitation but without surrender,
requires knowing boundaries. Mine are lax.
Sometimes I’d just like to:
take a bullet for a stranger
and be done with it.

We all deserve to be saved.

Categories
montreal

Expatriating true patriots

Brendan linked to this story from Harper’s
on his blog, which I thought was amusing and interesting.
I particularly like France’s approach, and the idea of:
heckling the United States with authentic Gallic zeal.

There is certainly a moral quandary here;
something about quitting when the fight gets tough,
or when things aren’t going the way you want them to.
But if you respect America’s freedoms, you have to
also respect the freedom to leave.
Remember, the USA itself was founded by quitters;
they thought British rule was oppressive and didn’t
fit their ideals, and so they made a new start elsewhere.

Maybe I won’t go, and perhaps one day I’ll
start my own nation. But really, I’ve always wanted
to move to Montreal anyway (for pure and non-poli reasons)
and now just seems like the perfect opportunity.
I suppose I could even start to like hockey.

Categories
montreal personal

Comment dit-on “perdu” en japonais?

A man I don’t know named David sent an email out
in response to one that my friend Daniel sent.
(God, I feel like that needs a comma somewhere.)
Daniel, like many of us, pines for the lost hope
of a new president. David replied with some
good points, but item number four is my fave:

“Look on the bright side:

1. Even if this is the worst case scenario, you still have it better, on many levels, including politically, than many peoples at many times in history. A lot better.

2. At least it was a clean win this time, no recounts or litigation.

3. At least Bush won the popular vote too, so we don’t have to worry about the electoral college system.

4. If Bush hadn’t been re-elected then we might have to invest ourselves in serious political analysis. I much prefer sitting around and periodically saying that Bush is the biggest goddamn moron in history and he is going to destroy the whole world. It’s so easy, I don’t even have to get up, I could probably do it in the shower if I wanted…”

People are trying to make excuses: the election was fixed,
or the Illuminati controls the process anyway,
or Republicans used scare tactics and lies.
But the fact is, we live in a conservative country.
Social progress is a fluke; for every step forward we take
two back, and then act like we’re hot shit. Part
of the reason we liberals are what we are is from an
affinity with the idea of the “outsider”.
At least for me.
And we are: the outsiders, the radicals, the new wave.
We’re the minority, for now, with no question of miscounted
ballots or people being turned away at the polls.
Just remember, minority we may be …
but George W. will always be a damned monkey.

So, short of buying my tickets, I’ve got my escape
route all planned. If things go right, Montreal by
September of 2005. No joke. Here it is.
It’s even ALA-accredited, so won’t hurt my job search
should I return to the States. The only part that
worries me is how financial aid will work as an
international student. The tuition isn’t that much,
even internationally, but still far more than I can swing
without aid, grants, or scholarships. Time to start
researching that, I suppose.

I may even get to drag Theo along with me,
and possibly Alexis as well, and who knows who else.
Seriously though, it seems like the right move
at the right time. We’ll see how things feel next year,
but right now I’m verily psyched about it.

I started my day off with Chai Nog,
which makes the world a happier place.

Categories
book montreal personal

A great disturbance in the force…

… as though some fifty million voices shouted out
in terror, and suddenly, were silenced.

Disappointment’s branded into my skin,
seeps into my bones and would make me sick,
if I weren’t already. It may have been naive
(I’m known to be so), but I had a lot of hope
that this country knew better, that fear didn’t
rule us and that as a whole we were becoming a
more open and accepting society.
Sure, I set myself up for disappointment;
nothing was pointing to these things being true,
after all.

Even so, now I feel as though the country is
a stranger to me. I’m about as liberal as we come,
so how do I fit in now?

On a less grave note, events have seemingly
conspired against my participation in NaNoWriMo.
It was going to be tight on time in the first place,
but then I got sick, had job applications I needed
to fill out and books I needed to send off,
and my dad came to visit and is staying at my house.

So, unless I somehow decide to write a novel in the last
two weeks of November, I think I too might have
to concede, painful though it is. However, I’m going
to leave the “City of Familiar Light” blog up, and
hopefully will be able to chip away at it over time.
If not, well, I’ll write a novel when I’m good and ready.

Well, I’m off to explore the web, and see if I can find
any viable ways to move to Montreal.

Categories
music

Like children cavort under chairs

Don’t fret the whimsicality of strangers;
songs hummed below the breath
are songs waiting to be sung.

It’s irresponsible to be scared to fall in love.

That’s my random italicization of the day, for what it’s worth. A lot of undercurrent in my brainwaves lately, thoughts below the thoughts I know I’m thinking and I’ve got to dig …. A cough has welled up in my throat, and today my stomach and chest are tired from exertion. If I hold the cough in, my lungs start to spasm, as though there might really be a frog in there, hopping against the inside of my neck. Now that my workweek has begun, I’ve little patience for being sick. Curse our fragile shells. Sometimes the saddest I get is when I think of human frailty. The image that springs to mind is Marianne, with her birdlike arms that will not straighten, bones light as feathers; but who has a spiritual and mental framework equivalent to a mountain of steel girders: immovable. Much as a seer loses eyes and gains a whole new sight, she lost her body (which she had cherished, being a dancer) and gained a new structure to live in.

Ain’t no feather like a feather feather feather ’cause the feather feather feather don’t stop.

Ahhh, Webley. As far as musicians go, he’s the perfect madman for our age, strung out on music and stories and intrinsically imbued with some sort of positive glow so you can’t help but feel like you know him, and might somehow be related to him. Saturday was his last concert of the year, in which he goes through a death process (which changes every year). This time around, we strolled from the Town Hall (where the concert was held) to the park a block down. In a four-stage process (Balloon, Feather, Boat, Tomato), he was divested of his hat, his accordian, his clothes, and finally his hair. The whole ceremony involved a lot of walking in a crowd of about a thousand people, in a park in Seattle at midnight, and occasionally stopping to watch the next spectacle (his accordian was sawed in half by a giant feather with a knife on the end and hung from a tree; his hat was attached to a small hot-air balloon and let loose to roam the Seattle sky; his clothes were burned in a fairly large, paper boat; and his hair was cut by the four maidens, one of which attended him for each stage of the process). It was a moving process. After his clothes and hair and hat and accordian were all gone, he was ushered into a little car and drove off with his four death-maidens. Later, they drove by again; legs sticking out the windows and at least one, probably two, of the maidens on top of Jason Webley in what looked like a very passionate attempt to remind him he wasn’t really dead.

The world needs more madmen.

Vote for me for President and I promise that I’ll do my best to make the United States of America at least 13% less sane. Oh, and free tacos for everyone. Mmmmmm, tacos….