Splatto-Ray Spray!

Pulled over on the side of the road, screaming obscenities at 12-foot tall winged man-storks with menacing claws and hell-bent intentions of devouring flesh, why not just take a second to reflect on how you got to this point? Didn’t the day start without flair or attitude, the same boring Monday that always creeps up on you when you’re weary and anxious about the mundane tasks of your workaday world? I thought so. That’s why it seems so strange that you ended up on the shoulder of I-205 just west of Tracy. But when you just said fuck it to your job and your life, it was perhaps inevitable that you’d wind up here. Don’t all roads leading from conformity head into the abyss of Central Valley factory farms, inner turmoil, and exhibitions of spiritual immaturity? When you stormed away from the house in a huff, with your eyes screaming terror and lust, I had a feeling you’d end up confronting the forces of evil. I just never imagined that you’d wind up on 205. I thought 880 for sure or at least an off ramp near Concord.

It was a stroke of genius rounding up the fifty-odd homeless youths meandering around the food bank on Gilman that morning. Loading a semi-trailer with crack and malt liquor was a sure-fire incentive. Lacing the crack with strychnine, Ajax, and a mumakalan love potion was risky, but I understand that you needed to get them to abandon their self-conceptions. It worked, for better or worse; they no longer considered themselves homeless or weak. That they came to adore you and honor you as a deity was problematic. An army of free-thinkers is one thing, but a horde of hero-worshiping fundamentalists is never desirable. Still, you had the makings of a band of warriors. I question your use of telekinesis, though. Suspending time and transporting them to San Luis Rio Colorado for sex rituals, wizardry, and hand-to-hand combat training seemed unnecessarily dangerous.

If power were a flower and knowledge was pollen then understanding would be a bee.

He spit into the water, the water in the Jacuzzi in the backyard of his house on Colusa in Berkeley. Just a bit north of Solano. At any rate, he guzzled a pint of whiskey when he found out his daughter was a lesbian. Not that he disapproved in any way. He was saddened by the feeling that he didn’t really know her. A horrible, sinking feeling. Not betrayal, but some feeling of consequence. This distance, this loss of connection, or really, the discovery of the misconception of a close relationship brought Nippy Killarney to the brink of nihilism. The unintentional deceit was a blow to his sense of self, his faith in his emotions and intuitions, his sense of loyalty. A serious blow.

But what of it really? Wasn’t it enough to watch the twilight of a grotesque orange decaying in the weeds under the tree? Hadn't he, a night ago, stared at the stars in the heavens for hours on end with a sense that diamonds were glowing in his eyes? Golden shirt stains whispered rose-scented fudge-dwollop to him now. That's why it was so hard to process this new discovery.

Subatomic sentience.

Stark pastimes melted away like sonnets from the lips of a forgotten jester. Gilded honeylips of fashioned mollusks wondering where you’ve come to be under the tree of life without any topical remedies for your boiled intestinal fortitude granted this is just like you when you last went to the cupboard to get a measure of salt and vinegar for toasted walnuts and jam sessions with ancient goateed guitarists at a club in the middle of the night dreading the dawn and the start of a day that should be better than expected. Why bother, huh? Forget that. Try this for size, a little notch on the bed post next to the whip you bought for Valentine’s Day to spice up the sheet shows you performed for dozens of strangers you’d invited home from a night club last weekend after you were fired from your job as a clerk at a manufacturing company in Vallejo. Ugly bitches from Helvetica and guanine flinches from Terrain spackled with care and frivolous waning workshops lily-pad fracas gumdrop madness recall fad grape stinging socket lung patchy cup knock tripe quark zap total access for the garden quails arrow pat key I lip clit justified vehement kick pop boxing rap slated to be demolished at noon Sunday night erased by morning light laser shooting through stars glazed and crisped to a hurled mangle of bellicose dirty underwear prodded and ornery khaki etchings moaning nectar beams romping through idle ridiculousness. Yes it is. Yes it is. One more time. Cock blasted huge vaginal secretions dripping all over flowers imbedded in my belly-button just as you said they might be if I concentrate before midnight passes unattached to the world around you before you got married to the woman on your left hand side of the steering wheel turning around for all the world to wonder about what time you’re going to come home tonight is the last time I do this.

Or, mud flaps gap-tooth gamming traps hollow-tipped knuckle wraps justified hankering caps middle school filtered taps elongated pepper snaps nickel-plated vaginal paps diluted ankle smacks withered hiking maps three-foot long diamond racks horizontal plating fax gripping toenails fidgeting hacks dapper snail drum hovering tacks quivering freeze-dried wax yellow oblong reduct quack hummus zygote furry jacks kicking towers underwear lack pheromone induction weekend naps litmus nineteen thirties laps interesting future daydream saps corporeal doughnut ghost elapse vitriol nubbin dinky craps mainstream earthbound shining bats undulating terse diachronic orchid mast violent songbird frigid knack.

Frosty. Despite the chill that the word is intended to convey, “frosty” evokes warmth. Through the mirth of the snowman and the refreshment of a cold beer, frosty defies the coldness of its definition. Frosty Jaeggerlogger is another soul who, despite his ignorance and dull wit, fills the heart with a warm glow. Some say that in his own bumbling way he endears himself to others. Others chuckle at his idiocy. And others insist that they felt much better about themselves after meeting him.

More history can be found from Frosty’s surname: Jaeggerlogger. Of nondescript Eurasian descent, Frosty’s roots date back to a dwarfish clan of nomadic forest people who survived eating the bark of dead logs. With their powerful, beaver-like chops they hollowed out the trunks giant redwoods for shelter. Over time, they learned to gnaw abstract ornaments and trinkets that they traded for food and animal skins. They were not merely survivors, though. They occasionally offered themselves as objects of ridicule and scorn for the entertainment of others in exchange for bittersweet liquors. After imbibing they sat and jabbered in the woods outside of the hamlets in which they’d just been demeaned, getting intoxicated enough to experience hallucinations and gain insight into the subatomic possibilities of infinity.

But perhaps that’s too far back for our purposes here. Frosty's father, Russpus, a teeny tiny man like all Jaeggerloggers, was raised in Death Valley by his mother, an excommunicated nun. They lived in a cactus cabin, an aesthetically unusual one-room abode without any functional value. It failed to cool them in the heat, warm them in the cold, shield them from the wind, block out the sun, or protect them from rattlesnakes, black widows, scorpions, or scavenging coyotes. However, Russpus’ greatest fear was that at any time a band of marauding orangutans might destroy their meager hut.

Frosty’s mother, Amoeba, was an adopted mute raised in Iowa City by two lesbian women. She first met Russpus at the University of Iowa two days before her twenty-first birthday. Russpus and his mother were traveling to Chicago to visit Russpus’ father, a Catholic priest known as Father Vic, when their bus broke down in Iowa City. They were offered shelter in the basement of a local church. Liesha and Laysha, Amoeba’s mothers, were at the base of the steps leading into the chapel with Amoeba and a throng of protestors decrying a papal encyclical.

To find out more about Frosty's story ... wait indefinitely.

this is just so pointless though I know but who’s keeping track somebody is who if I knew that would I be talking to you how the fuck should I know I don’t even know what the fuck you mean neither do I’m just trying to make conversation really cause that’s just stupid maybe but what do you want me to do I want you to explain the meaning of life to me I can’t besides who says there’s meaning no one says there’s meaning I just want to know what it is but if there’s no meaning why do you want to know I mean whatever could be told to you would be a lie how do you know you said you don’t know if life has meaning or not so it’s possible it does I guess so exactly and that’s why I want to know but you didn’t ask to know whether or not life has meaning you just asked what life’s meaning was it would seem more honest to first ask if life actually has meaning at all rather than assuming it does and then asking for it I’m tired of whether questions I want answers that are more satisfying I want to know that life has meaning and then I want to know what that meaning is so that I can act accordingly that makes sense but what if the meaning of life is to search for the meaning of life in other words finding the meaning isn’t part of the goal of life maybe but if I knew that then what would be the point of looking you don’t know that’s why there is still a point to looking oh for fuck’s sake this is an idiotic game I didn’t make the rules man I know but you’re here in front of me and I need to complain to someone oh well then okay sigh.

...

The Mouse and the Cowboy. Yeehaw!

...

Skinny scarecrow strongmen with huge straw hands and feather fingernails walked toward me. I fought them off with spaghetti strands. “Aferodelacious” he shrieked madly. Oh, the prose gets weary my friend. Like a dried apricot lying in a desert wash. Oh, so very weak in the end. A face full of melting structures and jagged lines. Mucous cubes frozen in a chocolate-lined bathtub with strawberry frosting and whipped cream overflowing onto the floor, that’s what this is all about. 

Basket weaving until there's an organizational breakdown on the same day of the gerbil breakdancing festival. Nostrils flared as he peered at the large-necked ogre. They bowed their heads and said grace. Helmet knocking led to the ball dragging decision to make pancakes on Christmas. Baking cookie making whipped cream tasting turkey basting root beer drinking cream cheese reeking sauerkraut stinking putrid disgusting smell I’m gagging from the rancid cabbage Dear God Help me the cabbage it haunts my nostrils take it away from me please. Oh dear, that was pretty bad for a second there. All better now. No more bad smell. The air is as clean as an ocean breeze. But less salty. So, all is well in the end again.

Only, this isn’t the end, is it? I didn’t think so. Another moment passes and now becomes then. Now is a beginning, a reoccurring start to life. The present replays itself endlessly without missing a beat, no, not even a nanosecond is unaccounted for. Every moment here, ever-present, continuous, total. A second leaning back in your chair, what you call in between thoughts, is the only thing happening at that given moment. Imagine, for just a second, an eternity of leaning back in your chair having just ended a thought but not yet transferred to the next. A nonoccurrence that is indeed occurring. This wondrous moment, forgotten and abused and taken for granted, has yet to be explored. I am going to delve in there, spend years of my life immersed in the blankness of an empty mind, staring catatonically at whatever is in front of my face, while experiencing the most orgasmic and glorious sensations imaginable. This is the moment, the moment of nothingness, of total unawareness, that encapsulates the meaning of the universe. In between conscious invalidity and subconscious omniscience lies the secret. Only there is it decipherable, only in that moment. No memory of the secret exists in states of consciousness. Baffling.

The American populace has its head buried in the sand, not necessarily by choice (although there’s plenty of that—how else to explain the preponderance of successful ‘reality’ TV shows?). Overworked for decades in a hyper-competitive economic environment where constant growth and profits are pursued with more fervor than the Holy Grail, the American workforce is desperate to remain viable despite nerves frayed from stress, physical and mental exhaustion, and the breakdown of family and social relationships. In this dysfunctional and imbalanced cultural environment desperate, confused, and angry Americans look for answers. What they find is terrorism, the scapegoat of the decade.

Idleness is a rare virtue; ambition is an apocalyptic epidemic. Spend your days reading a book, strolling through a park, lying on your back staring at the clouds in the sky, or sitting around a campfire laughing with friends.

A whiff of brandy just before dawn urges me to mention the hand-written message I received from the deceased former President Millard Fillmore. It was a beautifully crafted piece, full of philosophical insights and political theories that left me absolutely dismayed. Who was this man to send me such gifted brilliance and represent himself as a former U.S. president? I’m really stunned by this incident. I don’t know what to say about it or what to do about it. Yet, the letter is eloquent and, more importantly, earnest, a fine writing style devoid of the sort of fanciful gibberish and superfluous yammering you read so often in these times of windy narratives and unending sentences. Yes, times like these bring a tear to your eye, a bounce to your step, and the wonder that comes with the realization that eggs aren’t just for breakfast any more! It is precisely these times that we all like to go window-shopping in Paris or visit a day spa in Napa.

What else you ask? Well, there’s always the knowledge that candle-lit dinners are divinely devised carousel ribbon-makers filled with jelly and whipped cream by the dozen filling up mouthfuls of sailors under cover of the grass hut’s bamboo shelter designed by an architect named Bill Barzandaugh from a design firm in Emeryville.

It was okay for the start of the date, but what really got my attention was when we skydived into the Grand Canyon. That just kicked ass. I’m still pumped up about that shit. You should have seen it. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. It’s lame just looking from the very top. You have to go down into the belly of the beast and see the detail in the rock, the texture of the canyons and ridges and of course the river. Marvelous. Simply wonderful.

Oh, the things I could tell! The intriguing thing is I can’t think of a way to tell you everything. Nothing coherent. I’ll take a stab at it though. It’s like this—everything you think you know is really just your way of rationalizing the fact that you exist and are somewhat aware of your very existence. It’s a concept so radically ridiculous that only a consciousness could conceive of such a thing. The imaginary is dependent on the biological. We are. That is the beginning and the end of it really. We exist. How does that not fill one with joy? We are. What a beautiful thing. And yet, we suffer. Or, some of us suffer. Some of us suffer some times but not other times. Some of us suffer so infrequently the smallest things seem much bigger than they actually are. And a few of us, far more than any of the rest of us would like, are sociopaths, unfeeling, deceitful, manipulative, power-hungry creatures intent on devouring your flesh with a knife and fork at a fancy dinner table at the local country club on wild game night next fall. Oh, the marvel of it all. It’s such a touching love story. I’m a romantic, you know?

The point here is that large fuzzy creatures crawling up your skin late at night when you’re lying in bed with no clothes on wondering why a Mermaid wrapped in a leopard-skin shawl has climbed into bed beside you might just bite so you should make sure you buy EverPresent’s new and improved Splatto-Ray Spray!^TM so you can kill on contact any bugs that make contact with you! That’s right, Splatto-Ray Spray!^TM is the most potent bug killer ever made. It’s one hundred percent safe and easy to use! Just go to the local hardware store and buy what Household Magazine calls “the most incredibly effective pesticide we’ve ever tasted!” You don’t trust us? Well, listen to what this satisfied customer wrote in this letter:

My name is Soupy Snotbrain. I’m a self-indulgent cretin with sores on my anus and nostrils filled with dried, flaky mucous. Splatto-Ray Spray!^TM worked so well killing the bed bugs that attack me in the middle of the night I just quit doing heroin altogether. Why bother buying a dangerous drug from street thugs who might kill me when I can go to the local hardware store and buy a can of Splatto-Ray Spray!^TM to take care of all my night-twitching needs. No more furry bugs for me, EverPresent! Thanks for making Splatto-Ray Spray!^TM my personal night time, dream time, down time, meow time, brown cow time, sleep on a dime, brake a new chair, pull out your eyelids, build a great schooner from driftwood and hemp rope, dive from the cliffs of a Mexican seashore ... pest killer. All things starting right now will begin again now and so on for quite some time. We may never know how long, but our desire to try to find this answer will drive us mad. We’ll never give up, we’ll fight wars and make enemies with our neighbors purely out of our stubbornly willful ignorance, we’ll pollute the rivers and dry up the fisheries, we’ll clear cut Alaska and drill the hell out of the Middle East for a few billion dollars profit--

Okay, Soupy may not be the typical Splatto-Ray Spray!^TM user. This is not quite what I had in mind, was it Lester?! Lester is my personal assistant ... for now. He is somewhere here listening to me relay this message to you and he is really starting to piss me off. I mean, nothing against you, Lester, although I never liked your bugged-out eyes or your mustache tiara, but you really need to develop some listening skills. What the hell are you doing giving me that particular customer’s letter to read to these people?! It’s ridiculous and foolhardy to say the least. And you’re fired. That’s right you’re fired. Well, at least work for the rest of the day. We need you that long. I’ll give you time-and-a-half today, how’s that? Cool. Okay, people, how about another testimonial from a satisfied customer.

Dude, I bought that Splatto-Ray Spray!^TM that I saw on that commercial cause it looked like it kicked ass! I was nuking bugs left and right at my parent’s silver wedding anniversary. I totally ruined the party. I went up to Harold Washerboard’s wife and sprayed Splatto-Ray Spray!^TM right on her hands. I told her I thought I saw stink bugs crawling on her. I told her that I figured that must be it because otherwise it’s your smelly pits, you skanky whore! Yeah, beeatch, get a whiff of that Splatto, make y’all Blotto!

Okay, Lester, now you’re just fucking with me. This has really got to stop. I mean, enough of this shit. I’ve had just about enough of this horsing around and I’m not going to take it much longer. Am I coming through, Lester? Am I speaking your language? Do I need to use graphics for ya? Cause ya can’t keep fucking with me all day up here. If you do, I’m going to have you removed by security and maybe even press charges against you. What’s that? You’re doing us a favor? How’s that? Well, yeah, I asked you to stay on a little longer today, but you’re right, I did fire your ass. And you’re still fired at the end of today. But if you want to get paid that time-and-a-half you need to stay a little while longer and do the simple job I’m asking you to do. Yes, that’s right. The thing I want you to do right now is upload that letter from the one guy I was telling you about. He wrote a wonderful letter about the success he’s had eliminating pests in his bedroom with Splatto-Ray Spray!^TM. It’s an uplifting story and shows potential customers how the spray can improve their lives. This is no sales pitch, folks. This is the real McCoy. Let’s read what this dynamite individual had to say about Splatto-Ray Spray!^TM:

My hideout was at the foot of the stairs. My only hope was to blast into outerspace and dine on neon star pigeons covered with piss and vinegar at the loneliest outpost in the galaxy. I knew a man from Neptune that stopped there occasionally throughout time and I needed to ask for a favor. There were cockroaches with feathers and pincers swarming over my futon in the living room where my roommates watch Jeopardy. I saw the Super Bowl last year with them, too. It was awesome. Huge Seahawks fan here. Oh, yeah, anyway, the cockroaches had eaten my dog and had begun to burrow through my makeshift security gate at the foot of the stairs. It was a petrifying moment. I was trapped in my own home by a swarming horde of feathered cockroaches with pinchers as sharp as razor blades—they secrete a deadly poison when touched. Thank God for the EverPresent Splatto Squad! They really saved the day with the new and improved Splatto-Ray Spray!^TM. If only I knew how to thank them? I know! I’ll glue ten thousand cans together in the shape of a giant cockroach lying dead and face up. I think they’ll love it. It could be used as part of a brilliant marketing campaign! Maybe I’ll get a job there and move up the ranks, into management even. Maybe someday I’ll run the company and I’ll control the activities of the Splatto Squad. Yes, indeed, with a plan like this I can’t fail! I’m a brilliant scientist capable of understanding everything in the universe but I need the power that comes from being the CEO of EverPresent in order to put my knowledge into action. Only then will I be able to take over the galaxy! Bwahahahahahahahaha!!!!!

Oh, for fuck’s sake. I give up.