How far would you go for a girl?

-- "What are you lookin' at, asshole?!"

Ask not "for whom the bell tolls" lest you peek over "the brink of madness" and drink blood from a skull with a self-styled SS warrior elite who squirms around his father's property with a shotgun, waging a counterstrike against the neighbor's trashcans.

Not "another one like it on earth", you'll play poker with Odin and roll the dice of fate, pondering the eternities with a half-Jewish bullshit artist with a flair for the far-fetched & Nietzchian. Shoplifters beware, though all ones with cute mugshots can write away for a free copy, pending release (-- my book, not your's)! No adrongynous-lookin' misfits because Michael "is a straight-shooter" & means it!

**********

"El Stupindo" (Stupendous). . . . .
Stupid is as Stupid Does!

In this society, there have always been many different kinds of people. The biggest difference seemed to be between politicians, balladeers, and those who could weave "a really good folk tale" above more literal-minded types "with less imagination", who would perhaps take it "as gospel", or a bit more seriously than they should. Sometimes in an effort "to be a winner", a young fool with literal-minded, yet romantic proclivities would use various "cultural signifiers" as a "road map" for "what he should be doing with himself" but only get into greater and more absurd trouble. This is my pathetic tale. . . . . a woebegone story of excuse-making, overblown analogy, and "pouring on the bathos" like a shameless drunk who holds up his finger and slurs at you not to follow his path. Incidentally, don't forget to donate and enable his soap box!

BACK-STORY

here once came a prophet after Jesus named "St. Adams o' Gump". However, his life was far less charmed. For "life is like a box o' nails", you always know that one's gonna pierce your dick. Then give you tetnus. . . . . and then when some miracle-cure-all-idiot tries to "chop it off". Yes, marooned up on the hill with Beavis & Butthead, other adventuresome "thought-crime" criminals whose chief sin "was too much free time". God have mercy on their souls. . . . . and those who read the following "passion play".

Either the best or worst thing you can do for somebody is hold up a mirror and show them exactly for what the addled, grotesque wretches they are. If they don't faint at the sight, or punch out the glass or run away in half-delusional madness-- unable to accept what they've glimpsed, then maybe through it all they can emerge "a stronger person".

Truth comes in blows, and what I think of is a half-retarded boy running along the side of a wagon and getting beat in the head with a riding crop. But the boy is stubborn and doesn't "take the hint", and hangs on the side even though his peers are spitting curses and raining down blows. Finally he falls off and lands in the mud. Then the wagon rolls over his legs. Then another one. . . . . then another one. And then the boy is in a hospital, recuperating. . . . . hooked up to an emotional respirator of all sorts of rationalizations and bullshit. (-- His disfigurement is emotional, don't you know).

Men come in and don't understand, trying to shake him out of bed and rip out his emotional respirator that is barely keeping him alive but bound to the machine and fighting for breath. They yank back the sheets, revealing his wasted, stick-like legs and drag him to his feet. The boy falls to the floor and groans. . . . . the adults, the teachers, the preachers, the authority figures mock him, warn him, criticize him, tell him he has no future, and the boy merely turns his face to the wall. They leave, and he must pull himself back into bed like a run-over possum with it's guts hanging out crawling back to it's den to die a prolonged, miserable death.

But there in the ward, home-bound, he must make the decision to be strong-- to set goals for himself-- to envision some kind of glorious future that may be possible if he pushes as hard, as long, and as mightily as he humanly can. Other people lay in the ward, gobbling on about Winona Ryder on the message boards in a half-awake haze but Michael struggles to rise out of bed, and sooner instead of later, is limping down the corridors with a walker-- building his strength, maximizing his endurance, and forging his way toward his goal link-by-link. Someone offers him a wheelchair, then he kicks it over and roars with a primeval howl that even shakes the I.V. bags. and makes the dazed & confused widen their eyes.

Then he sets down the original road where he was wounded-- where his old peers went, he can not say. But whatever the outcome, his destiny is converging into a point of singularity where he hears nothing but for the roar of the crowd chanting his name. Be a part of it, or be a vagrant on the sidewalk of life.

-- "Lawless"
"The Bard of Richmond Heights"

-- Would you like fries with that, Miss?

(Continue on. . . . .)