1. |
Victory Lap
02:56
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When the flames engulfed the home of the brave, the stampede toward the border was in vain. Faces palmed, faces paled as the wall they said would make them great could not be scaled. When the free-market fundamentalist steps on a roadside bomb outside Kandahar bleeding to death, I swear to Ayn Rand I’ll ask if he needs an invisible hand. You say #notallcops. You say #notallmen. Yeah you insist #itsonly99%. There’s nothing new for you to learn. Ok, sit back, relax and watch it all burn. The colossal waste of energy: talent upon the talented, freedom upon the free. This whole damn beautiful life wasted on you and me. God are you there? It’s me, in the denim jacket. Are you receiving my prayers through the noise and cosmic static? God are you there? Can you confirm i’m on the right goddamn planet?!? The day the rapture came, a forgettable event. The clouds, they opened up and not a single person went. To the chromatic whistle of a carousel calliope stomp the citizens of our clown idiot dingbat society.
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2. |
Comply/Resist
03:22
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Circa 1992, Hitchens faxed his copy through as regards Columbus Day. And if you’ll permit me the conceit of a posthumous critique, I’ll paraphrase: “My colourful, exotic friend; respectable, well spoken — unlike the rest of them — as you know I’m colour-blind and you’re a credit to your kind; this silly talk of resurgence, ceremony, communion with an unconquered natural world; tell me, where is your gratitxude for all we’ve done for you? This paradise. Eden. Empire. Kingdom. This boundless epoch we’ve bestowed upon your savage, empty lands; well of course mistakes were made! But as far as human progress goes welcome to a slightly higher plane of innovation and opportunity for your trampled communities! The treaties that we broke; The lands that we filched; The settlements put to the torch; The children we abused; all for your own good of course! It just happens to to be the way history has has been made! Just don’t play with a toy gun or change lanes without signalling. Don’t comply, don’t resist cuz it don’t make no difference. Comply? Resist? No difference. Resist? Comply? You die. The funny names you give your kids; the silly ways you do your hair; the jungle music that you blare; we snicker and we sneer for they do not revere the incessant gadgetry we incessantly deploy to incessantly extract and incessantly destroy. You don’t worship us. Oh why don’t you worship us? Resist? Comply? You die.”
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3. |
Cop Just Out of Frame
02:46
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If I thought it would help I would immolate myself in full view of the camera crews; my counterclaim. But as we all know the only tale that would be told would be that it was me, not them, who was insane. But who the fuck do i think i am fooling? As if I know the first thing of sacrifice or selflessness. I’m the cop just out of frame, who at the first sight of the flames, throws himself prostrate to the ground in reverence. An act so pure we yearn to feel the burn. Who the fuck do I think I am fooling? As if I know the first thing of sacrifice or selflessness. They say that Quang Duc’s heart survived the flames unscarred. A righteous calling card left upon the palace gates for the invertebrates; their grip on power pried apart by just one frail human being. No weapon, no war machine.
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4. |
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When all your fears collide you’ll watch the sun rise but it will rise over ruin. Unveiling your crimes, observing, the depth of your failure.The violation of humanity still burning in your mind. Your final offering is a tragedy that haunts you deep in the night. Infernos burning on the skyline. The neighbours are racked with distress. Ecstatic crowds burn a man alive. You’re fumbling the keys to your door. When all is said and done, they’re going to tear you apart, you feel yourself corroding on the inside. When all your fears collide, you’re stumbling on this waste of life, over top once breathing warning signs. You’re alive but you are lost. All along they made you think that you would be the wolf this time, their shadows stalk you endlessly. When all your fears collide, you’re stumbling on this waste of life. No reverse. No rewind.
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5. |
Letters to a Young Anus
02:19
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Be careful how much you reveal. I got one piece of advice for you kid: keep your mouth shut, put a fucking lid upon your dissenting views. Don’t roll your eyes when they face the flag or stitch the goddamn thing on their carry-on bag. Hold your tongue hold though your reflex is to gag. There’s nothing you can do. Don’t laugh out loud when they vote NDP and then act all surprised when they serve industry. The water is poison despite how hard we mark our little X to rearrange the deck. Damned if we don’t. Damned if we do. I’d just shut my mouth if i were you. Everything you say can and will be used against you and dumbass until you get that through your head with a masonry drill, it’s all downhill for you. It doesn’t matter what you think. It doesn’t matter how you feel. It don’t matter that you can’t sleep. Be careful how much you reveal. Ixnay the “I told you so”’s. Suppress your overwhelming urge to gloat. You can save all that shit for your suicide note. Trouble wording your last laugh? I’ll lend you my final draft! Be careful how much you reveal.
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6. |
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My first hunting trip was quite eventful: I must’ve been about 5 or 6. An essential rite of passage for those consigned here with a dick. Shot size 5 was recommended for a clean efficient kill. They laughed as I cried and stroked his blood-soaked iridescent quills. Don’t recall just how I got there. To the hatchery I mean. Stumbled through the bush on a field trip and there it stood in front of me. I stooped down upon the concrete pad to verify what I was seeing. The aftermath of stomping boots upon hundreds of tiny, helpless beings. Hello despair and booze-fueled rage! How do you do, my gilded cage? Stupid chick on the conveyor belt staring at her severed foot. Stupid pig despairing at the sight of his companion on a hook. You ever see that stupid cow chasing the truck that drove off with her calf? Stupid lower order always good for a good laugh. Debarked. Declawed. Defanged. Dehorned. Wings clipped. Toes cut. Branded. Teeth pulled. Farewell despair and booze-fueled rage. How do you do, soon-to-be-emptied cage?
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7. |
Failed Imagineer
02:11
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I been thinking about you. I been meaning to tell you. Sit down with me, let’s have a drink. Back when the War ended your great grandfather hand-wrote letters of apology to all of those families of the men who crewed that U-boat. Haunted ’til his death by that long night off the coast. Your other great granddad came back from Arnhem transformed into a damaged and violent man. Never spoke of the slaughter he witnessed firsthand. Oh, this is the world I brought you into man. All remorse, no rebel. A shell of my former shell. Sit down with me and have a drink. What have we here? The dreaded failed imagineer? His private dismay on public display. Son, do not be alarmed by your old man’s tears. “Hey old man it’s ok. Every dog has his day. Sit down with me let’s have a drink.” I been thinking about you. I been meaning to tell you. Sit down with me, let’s have a drink.
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8. |
Call Before You Dig
02:22
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At Palmerston and Ruby Street the city had dug a ditch to lay a pipe to flush away the free range bison shit the white radicals devoured to protest a colonial past; 3-ply Cottonelle stuck to their ass. At Palmerston and Ruby Street, before their very eyes, they dug themselves one hell of a surprise. The bison bones the workers found were dated early Holocene. You’re nothing but the bottom of some far future latrine my little libertine. That’s your universe in a nutshell. That’s our universe in a nutshell my friend, so fare thee well. “I see skies of blue. I see clouds of white. Bright blessed day. Dark sacred night.” And you can’t bring me down with your acerbic online wit. Call before you dig. The city dug that ditch a few feet short of some game-changing petroglyphs.
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9. |
Nigredo
04:12
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Our lives lead to nowhere. We’re counting time, then grasping for each other as we’re crushed beneath the tide. No rising from the ashes, your final flight was a plunge into Nigredo’s endless night. Suffocate. The squeezing hands of fate. Our lives can’t be replaced. Searching for the reasons we were thrown into the world, always waiting but out of time. I wish that you believed that, just as you hit the brink of total despair, you’d find your way. I know you think you’ve found some certainty but you know we always learn the hard way. If you get lucky and you’re the last to leave you’ll watch the burning out of everything. Some stories end and nothing more, a quiet aching we endure. We’re all just faces and nothing more. You take the ashes, I’m heading out. Have you ever seen someone wasting away? First by choice then after it’s too late they want to come back to life but they’re drowning in a sea so endless, you see them come up for air then go under forever. The squeezing hands of fate. Our lives can’t be replaced.
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10. |
In Flagrante Delicto
02:35
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Après la petit mort homey don’t want you no more. That surge of dopamine has turned to dust. Save for the Coolidge Effect, post coitum omne triste est: that fine line between arousal and disgust. When the act is complete you recoil to your feet, excuse yourself and stare into the mirror in disbelief. Social cohesion be damned, you just had to get your hands upon this novel creature’s flesh. The neurochemistry of all profound regret. Trust me kid you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Oh the ridiculous things in service of self-esteem; to be desired some basic human need. The moralistic glee that we all take in the public airing of fellow hapless human’s sins. Well, they’re rubber, you’re glue. Your webcam stares back at you and the sprawling subdivisions of glass-houses housed within. Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re just like everybody else.
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11. |
Tartuffe
02:36
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We came here to rock! Single moms to the front! Dead-beat dads to the rear! Oh yes that is how we do it here. Oh you demand a more Vaudevillian homage to key feminist thought? Ha! Male privileges frantically checked? Ok, go sit through Less Talk. Single moms to the front! We came here to rock. Alright, so not quite John Stoltenberg after all. But I ain’t quite Charlie Sheen. The truth is a little bit of column A, a little bit column B. But you, you’re the main character in a masterwork by Moliere and it’s quite the Broadway production you got going on over there. Impressive how long some can keep the illusion alive. You think you nailed the end of Act III? Oh I can’t wait for Act V. Overture! Curtains! Hit the lights! But aren’t we all just better off comin’ clean? Instead of this endless self-flagellating talk? The painfully predictable denouement? Performative schlock. Single moms to the front! We came here to rock!
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12. |
Adventures in Zoochosis
04:41
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I hold out for consensus. Give the masses the benefit of the doubt. Insist the democratic process will bear this population out. I think my only fear of death is that it may not be the end. That we may be eternal beings and must do all of this again. Oh please lord let no such thing be true. Though I suspect that if I slink back to my enclosure — safe and warm and adequately lit. Sufficiently plumbed and ventilated — well, let’s just say I would not shake a stick. And if pressed, I’ll admit: I’m ecstatic about the enrichment programs implemented to extend our captive lifespans. I’m excited to see what our keepers have planned! Perhaps a bigger cage? Longer chains? Some compelling novel reasons to remain? “Dad are we gonna die?” Yes son, both you and I…but maybe not today. Boys, I’ve bowed to the keepers whip for so damn long I think the sad truth is this enclosure is where your old man belongs. But you, your hearts are pure, so when the operant conditioners come to break you in I’ll sink my squandered teeth. You grab your little brother’s hand run like the wind. And if I’m not there, don’t look back. Just go. I don’t give a fuck about the enrichment programs implemented to extend our captive lifespans. Motherfucker gonna get a load of what I got planned.
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