FOUR MILLION DEAD IN OHIO

For now. For all time----/Inventing insane smile-like expressions/In a sad town/Upstate from forgotten capital city/Counting empty cans and bottles/Of liquid quick death/Oh-so-legal in the four corners/Of this one-room/Sameness!/Pointless!/Fabulous! [2005]

SUPERCOOL

> >>À KIND OF TRAP, TRIPPED! > >>Beneath the A-bomb-blasting sun---- > >>Flowers so precious, > >>For they are the flags of God. > >>And where do I stand with God? > >>I race to escape His displeasure. > >>Prostrated on a tile floor-- > >>Marching to the corner store > >>Dressed to the nines. > >>I was a punk, > >>I am a mod > >>Living to save the ravers. > >>If I ever stop I fall into my grave. > >>Easy! > >>I can't tell, > >>Told until loveless > >>All over Supertown > >>Nothingness in the middle of everything. > >>Everywhere. All the time. > >>This is not a secret. > >>This is obvious to everyone. > >>A living moralty play all day, > >>All my life. > >>So I breathe, > >>I'm real, I'm real, > >>I love my life. > >>On earth looking at stars. > >>On drugs looking at stars. > >>We are starlets. > >>Thanks, thank you, I'm grateful. [2001]

Now!

Hail Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women,
and blessed is the issue of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.

SPORTY SPICE USA LIVES!/CAST OF THOUSANDS

,

SUBURBAN ZONE

Late Fall, 1984. For months a white sky, occasional cold rain, a cold wind from all directions. Nothing to look forward to except Winter. There is no love in this world anymore.

My name is Esther,  I am 19. Dash is 17. He is my day and night and he has no idea how I feel. We are two homeless kids in suburbia. I'm sure that in a hundred years our lives will seem strange, important, and futuristic but today I am only cold and hungry and I miss Dash. 

Through the mist at the corner of Robb and Lora I spy a white utility shed adorned with a bold, beautiful, black Circle-A. I say a prayer to nobody and wait. Neighbors watch from every window. My blouse is spray-painted bright orange, my Levi's are tight and black, my motorcycle boots only heighten my mystery. After a minute of this fashion show, I spin around once and head three blocks over to Zig Zag. Church bells ring on and on so I sit on the sidewalk and smoke. 

Soon I hear Dash yelling my name, I stand, I see him running toward me. I put my arms around him. He's crying and pretends he's not crying. The rain comes down colder and faster. We don't mind. We start out on the endless cold walk to the city. It seems like it's a thousand miles away. Singing helps. I sing "Borderline" by Madonna first. We luck out and get a ride from a punk rocker: leather jacket, spiky hair and all. He drops us off at a run-down hotel. Dash and I share a room for a week. We don't even kiss once. Too sad. 

Later, Dash was elected President of the United States. We both found that fact hilarious.

SEXCAPADES KANSAS EIGHTY-EIGHT

Less than three seconds of "Taps" hummed, now Esther smiled, then laughed at the July Kansas Dusk only because she was senseless. The end of the day was always and ever a fantastic event for her, tho'. Esther Lustig, singer of a mildly acclaimed "Worthlessville, Ohio" pop combo, the super-phenomenal American Movie Star, as seen in the pages of all the supercool punk rock fanzines. FLIPSIDE raved, "Baffling and not entirely pointless." And the Cincinnati Scene Report in MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL gushed, "Stereotypical girl bass player and stereotypical girl singer combined at last! And O! The Anguish!"

Esther stood at the stage door smoking a Kool King, pacing up front now to see the crowd, half Lawrence College Kids, some men with makeup and women in scattered fancy weird outfits, a few gothic types moping about. The rest were all punks, punk rockers, hardcore kids, skaters, and cross-dressers. Then, Shock! Esther was outside now and from the loading dock she spies a boy who keeps shooting dart-looks her way. He's cute enough. Oh, well. Whatever.

At Eleven-ish the 3-piece played "Kick Out the Jams." Neat. Then, like a bolt from Sky Pilot, "Lusty" Essie launched into her rant: "Rock is NOT dead. No, Rock never existed at all! I'm sorry, A Sick Version of Rock DOES exist. Yes! Call it CORPORATE ROCK,  it is all around us, in us, of us. Fuck-Up Rock Rules, tho'. And fuck this next song. It's called, 'Mona Lisa Overdrive Theme.' Everyone of you..."guys" is a waste case! Have fun, I guess.  NOW!" Bass, Voice, Drum, Guitar commence to play and once again American Movie Star, as ever, prove they remain the greatest band there ever was.

After the show, the Cute Boy approaches Esther, she likes his looks OK and within 20 minutes they find a  cot in the club storeroom, they go to town, fucking, sucking, even love-like kisses are given and accepted. Cute Boy sported a condom, no one had a cold sore, so it could've been worse. Superfine.

Six, Dawn, Boy long gone back to his Legendary Skater House,  Esther Lustig waits with her cohorts on a 24-hr. mechanic replacing spark plugs or something in their incredible Mystery Machine replica van. And finally on the road to Sioux Falls at 9 a.m.

Esther sings "The Happiest Girl in the Whole USA" loud and somehow it's true. She is happy. Call out the National Guard.

ROCKET TO NOWHERE

Who is this corporate Anti-Ray Speen? He is Roy Spoon (formerly Ro Spain).

To escape the stigma of Our Nameless Decades, Pantheon Books, on Jan. 1, 2020, will publish 40 books at once by Mystery Man, Roy Spoon ("'It' Boy of the Twenties," "Voice of Our Time," ) including novels, poetry, science fiction, Westerns, sex mysteries, essays, memoir, and prophecy. The publisher can expect to dominate all best sellers lists for a year at least and Spoon will soon be accepted as an immortal. He's a 27 year-old trans-man, from Kansas USA, no less! Expect a Nobel Prize for Spoon by age 40.

According to anonymous sources, "Roy Spoon" is not one man but instead an army of 100 English Majors creating Immortal Masterworks for a half-cent a word and no royalties or credit. My world and welcome to it.

THE AVENGERS "Avengers"

Last Revision of SEPTEMBER 1, 1939 by W.H. Auden

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-Second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade;
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
Find what huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
"I
will
be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,"
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair.

THE STORY OF TUESDAY

I walked to a deserted public library and used a computer for the first time and strangely, I felt vaguely to blame for these new USA super-horrors. I can almost recall a public conversation in the Nineties about hating the way the grotesque World Trade Center ruined the NYC skyline, and wishing out loud that the Twin Towers be demolished. Just idle talk in coffee shops, discussion of the bomber that crashed into the Empire State Building in the forties, and speculation about weaponized passenger jets. Not sure if this is delusional or accurate.

SPORTY SPICE IS YOUR ONLY FRIEND!

I know it's not wrong that she only feels comfortable when everything---everything---is wrecked, but see, you see, Our Sporty Spice is pretty fukkin' vulnerable tonight. Yes, she's even asking God why He has to be this way, and yes, she knows the answer already, the only answer even possible: The Usual Nothing.

She asks anyway, maybe pretends that she has at last got the attention of Someone who never paid attention to Us before ("God in Three Persons, trapped!" she might exclaim, only if.)

Now, in a backwater, from the furthest reaches, out of East of Nowhere, way outside, here comes the Umpteenth Anti-Christ, and now Sporty rings out a worldwide alarm, no one nowhere does not know and all us fux pay no attention. In this New Now, it's left to Our Sporty Spice, she saves Western Civilization (which she worse than despises) again, and Now, most likely, she's horribly damaged in the effort, and sadly, Post-War, these specific symptoms, her Fuckin' War Injuries soon become The World-Wide New Emblems of Occidental Female Sexuality.

Sporty sells Stupid Sad Sex to YOU for decades and--for then, for now, for always ever----Look Around----SS has without killing one worthless Alpha Primate-Image-of-Highfather-King-Christ-Holy-Ghost AKA the Anti-Devils Kill Squad, she has from yesterday, until today, and going forward from here toward what? The Stupid Sick High-Hilarity Fact of all of this is that, you might as well face it, chum, Our Sporty Spice has without any effort at all taken over almost all of this in every way Wrong and Worse-than-Worthless So-Called "Spaceship Earth." [Please Kill Me!]

And for then, for now, and always and ever...witness the True Last Collapse of the West...certainly this is...finally...at last [!]...most truly...Sporty Spice World!

Get bent, ya Flowerpots!

Exclusive!! LeBron to Bucks!!

The Moss Problem and this sportswriter have obtained exclusive news that the Milwaukee Bucks are in smoke-filled room negations to sign LeBron James to a three-year contract of unprecedented proportions in order to bring new life and another NBA championship to the Brew City's only professional sports team. Sources could not be named at this time, in an effort to protect H. Houndstooth's continued access to information that could otherwise prove litigious for interested parties. Readers will be asked to accept this story on faith and check back frequently for more breaking details as they surface.

The details that are known: LeBron was reported to have visited the Buck's new half-billion dollar sports area, set to open for next year's season. James was impressed with the as yet unnamed arena in the heart of downtown Milwaukee, remarking that it reminded him of a “giant Arby's,” his favorite sandwich franchise as a youth in Akron, Ohio. Part of the negotiations could hinge on the arena being named either “LeBron Arena” or “Giant Arby's.”

Bucks general office has neither confirmed nor denied these rumors, but an exclusive interview with an unnamed franchise insider has reported plans to dump the contracts of the entire team, including all of the “slow, 7-footers with names no-one can pronounce” in an unprecedented move to re-build with a legitimate superstar and “a supporting cast who wants to be there,” and for whom winning is more important than salary. This potential restructuring, if it transpires, could send shockwaves through professional sports as far a future franchise building is concerned.

In other exclusive Bucks news, it has also been reported that both the front office and James are in negotiations with former NBA superstar and Milwaukee native, Latrell Sprewell as a candidate for player-coach, because as has been reported, Sprewell remarked, “I may be pushing 50 but I can still dunk over most of the pussies currently playing in the league.” James, it is reported, is pushing this deal, as he has admiration for both Sprewell's game and his history of direct player-coach relationships, as “no pussy-footing around.”

James and Sprewell, reported, also see eye-to-eye concerning matters of great consequence for the NBA going forward, including uniform standards, and both veterans consider themselves “old-school” and not fans of the new form-fitting, over the shoulder styles and long pants that may be be standard as soon as 2019. They also are against the use of NFL receiver styles “gloves” which are being introduced by Nike as soon as next season. When approached for comment about any of these rumors, James and Sprewell both declined to comment, but it is noted that in both cases, each of them replied with a double "thumbs up," and in the case of James, what sounded like, “Aaaaaaay.”

H. Houndstooth

The Byrds - Younger Than Yesterday

I have spent my life trying not to have to try to figure out The Byrds; it might have been different if I'd started way back, maybe not from the beginning, but maybe when this 1967 album came out, their fourth. I could have joined the cult, been indoctrinated, socialized, whatever. It's kind of like with any cult, if you're brainwashed from childhood, the belief is second nature, and of course even inescapable. But it you're not, none of it ever really makes sense. The Byrds have had so many members come and go over the years, they may as well be a group with a history like the Masons, and in fact, there could be arguments made that The Byrds and the Masons are one in the same. This brilliant, groundbreaking album comes off the tracks at the end of the “CTA - 102” when we hear the simultaneous forward and tape reversed voice of Satan (which sounds suspiciously like the garden gnome episode of “Night Gallery”)—and the album then starts traveling in reverse (the next song is “Renaissance Fair”).

I was finally coerced to approach this record by my ex-employer, Anthony Franciosa (not the actor, but the editor of The Moss Problem), and even though the compensation is minimal, Tony convinced me over breakfast at his regular hangout, Foxy's Restaurant, in Glendale (part of the greater Los Angeles). One of his arguments was that the song “Thoughts and Words” sounds exactly like a Bob Lind number (who I just wrote about) and then goes into a chorus that sounds exactly like someone else (on the tip of my tongue—I'll think of it and fill it in here later). Then it uses the backwards guitars, which never sounded good to me, but still, I like the idea. That technique is taken to an extreme with “Mind Gardens,” which is one of those hippie numbers that drugs (LSD?) allow the artist to dispense with harmony, melody, rhythm, structure, rhyme, story, or any narrative sense at all. Long live 1967! The funny thing is that I always thought the song was called “Mings Garden” and was about Moo Goo Gai Pan.

“My Back Pages” is another one of those Bob Dylan songs that is much better than he played it. And I'm not one of those Dylan haters, in fact I'm writing the first book ever about him, and he's sitting across the table from me right now, and I'm only interrupting our interview to write this quick review. What many people don't realize is that The Byrds were actually several groups at once, and one piece of evidence for that is the cover of this record, with images of them in the future, after having passed away, returning as ghosts. All dead before their time, they did return, were accused of inventing “country-rock”—but never convicted. Actually, I'm not sure if the back of this record, with a badly done collage of old band photos (or someone else's high school yearbook, perhaps), was actually like this (I wish I could include a picture—wait, maybe I can, here at The Moss Problem [This being a rock writing simulcast with DJ Farraginous]) (it looks like drawn on goatees, red lipstick, and bleeding tears) or if some punk kid altered it with marker. Because it may have been the inspiration for The Rolling Stones Some Girls—if the latter is not true.

The Byrds are and were Chris Hillman, David Crosby, Michael Clark, Gene Clark, Gene Clarke, Mitchel Clark, Gene Clarke, Michel Clarke, and identical twins Jim and Roger McGuinn. An earlier incantation of the band was known as the Yardbyrds, and here they've revived their hit, “Have You Seen Her Face.” The song “So You Want to be a Rock 'n' Roll Star,” so ingrained in the culture it won't come out even with Formula 409 at least satisfies the “song with 'rock'n'roll' in the title” requirement for consideration for inauguration into the Rock Hall o' Fame, in Cleveland, Ohio. Another odd fact is that the band's name upside down and backwards is “Spjh8.” Someone has released a record called “Older Than Tomorrow”—but it violated the conditions of its parole before it could drop. All other facets of this record and band, including the songs I haven't touched on, the concept, the attitude, and the execution, can only be described as seminal. If not kaleidoscopic.

NOTEBOOK EXPERIMENT

YOUR ANSWER! FROM AN EMPTY SKULL IN A DESERTED AUDITORIUM
In this atheistic foxhole at the Siege of Babylon, of cigarette-machine revivalists, all over Home-Front Supertown----Dogfaces compare wrist-scars and arrest records while the world-champion worst-ever stand-up sit-down wake-up fall-asleep comic ever drowned at sea, devoured by sharks. Thank God.

Under surveillance for suspected crimes against humanity, I prance, flit, queen my way through deathcamp-sweet-deathcamp. Pop an escalator and we're all smiles for the executioner, pop a decelerator and look out world! We're avenging ageless all-agers striking hyper-dramatic freeze-tag-like, action-figure poses.

A Mighty Fortress is Our Hysterical Wretch.

NINETEEN NINETY-TWO

We were happy and we were sad. Now I'm an insane man writing in a coffee shop as if I was important, even this, it's not funny or insightful or even coherent. I want to have something to say, I want so bad to get something on paper, to feel justified finally, allowed to be happy and calm, but I am so scared of everything, especially this notebook. I've ripped out every marked page except the addresses of my friends and I've let down all of them. Maybe I could get started by writing a poem or story for each name.

Check it out, another ugly, awkward, useless idea from the workshop of Darius "At Least He Didn't Kill Himself Today" Smith! Heartsick, sad, stuck, and worthless, yes, but I'm happy. Not kidding.

SHOCK ARMIES ATTACK!

I need a haircut but I can't face a barber. My few obligations (psychiatrist, grocery store) loom so large in this eventless time. On the internet all day, reading Jack Kirby comic books, listening to TV noise, ignoring the phone, picturing my demise in a detached way, panicked, daydreaming about drugs. Various Eastern Front World War Two games set up, unplayed. Stark and shabby, this is the situation every day for six months now.

FROM THE DESK OF A DULLARD

00 > > personal hygiene, eh? maybe they should only focus on the folks who need it? > > i stayed in salem last night, no computer, but in a bit i'll send a whole > mess of emails back to you! i'm balls-deep in compliance issues, which i > know nothing about. it's a mess and due tomorrow. um. > > also, again, can i have your address? i'll just send you some pratchett... > > also, hmn, check out the Discworld MUD site. i've signed up. it's a > text-based game that uses the world pratchett created as base. very thick, > hard to master, i'm just figuring it out. > > david > > > > > >5F, snowing steadily, I walked out today on our group study of personal > >hygiene, I'd reached my limit again. I walked out the door over to > >Corryville looking for something to buy (because I'm American.) In the end > >I found two science fiction paperbacks (my drug of choice for years now.) > >Not Pratchett, alas, only Kit Reed and Harry Harrison. > >Aside from feeling vaguely ashamed and on the verge of depression (which > >I'm managing to avoid so far) everything is about the same, group home life > >is not much fun but it can't last. Please call or write soon. Love, Jeff. > > > >

THE ANTI-MIDAS TOUCH

i can't explain

THE END OF THE BEGINNING

His Dad fell asleep in the Garage with the Car running. Chicago on the 8-Track sang "Only the Beginning."

Let's make an Effort to transform this Ordinary Suicide into a Super-Start. For Somebody. 

The Bees died off Early that Year so Everyone in Town was super happy. Kids never came into Contact with Peanuts or Latex.

Shul Neighbor, Barber and Town King ordered the Deaths of Three Jews. His Men searched but None were found matching the King's Description: Lamb's Wool for Hair, Giant Bird Beak for Nose, and Lengthy Fangs coated in Christian Blood.

WAR IS PEACE/LOVE IS HATE/CONFUSION IS SEX

Century 22 Reality, Worthlessville, Ohio.
Our Sporty Spice says, "I wonder if you'll ever know what I'm sure I'll never know, namely thrill-killing (we reserve all rights to attempted murder for our beloved Cincinnati Police Division,) snuff film enthusiasm (I have starred in way too many 'Real Live Murder' films to consider them anything other than a headache and a paycheck,) and lastly, I do not get high off of AIDS or genital warts or whatever you freaks are into today. "

Let Sporty Spice Kill at Will (You Can Trust Her! Really!) or Let Sporty Spice Be Disappeared! Re-Appeared! Our Ghost Queen! Hurrah for Something, Somehow! As Ever.
----Directive One, Shock Squad Sporty Spice Ohio, Winter 2017-18 USA.