This is part of why everything is so fucking fucked up in our culture. This idea that if we set up any kind of mechanism for social good, it’ll be spoiled by people abusing it. The Reagan era introduced the phrase “welfare queens” into the collective lexicon, and it has achieved it’s intended purpose of poisoning everyone against any kind of welfare for the needy.
What a crock of shit. Does it happen? I’m sure it does. Is it common? No, but even if it was…who gives a shit!? Isn’t it better to have a baseline level of human dignity in this country, and accept that a few soulless assholes might exploit it, than to have thousands upon thousands of living, breathing human beings no different to you or I malnourished and starving in a nation that throws out literal tons of perfectly good food every day?
How is this something that exists in the mind of a functioning human adult? “Oh, this would help people, but it might help some who don’t need it, so we better not do it.” Should we just not have medical clinics because hypochondriacs exist? Should we shut down all public schools because some kids don’t get good grades? What are you TALKING about you mindless fucking slugs!?!
It drives me batty. It’s the line the rich and powerful have fed you to keep you at odds with your neighbors and blaming the wrong people for everything. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
“Hold!” I shouted, clenching the wheel Ice and bilge assaulted the deck rushing water sweeping over all The black sky offered no light other than cracks of lightning to glimpse the terror of the scene
The power of the sea grasped my ankles and shins and knees and it climbed my body as I tried to command as though I was in control Colder than my corpse would be, I turned to my men Shouting instructions gesturing wildly, my cries being overwritten by peals of Biblical thunder
The bottom of the parabolic and she drinks into her doom so deeply overwhelmingly my eyes add a few drops of saltwater to our tomb
a terrible crash into oblivion water cold to shock the heart into death strikes everyone, and it hits chest high the swell stirs and pulls everything into it
My vessel rose against herself The wood moaning in agony Each rising gave to the fantasy that one more crash and we’d be safe that somehow we’d be past the storm And as the hull plunged, I braced again eyes wild and teeth clenched to bleeding and the terrible black beauty of mother ocean sank to meet us
Frost and foam clung to my beard The wind drank my words into oblivion’s belly And bubbles froze to my lips as I said “Let’s watch another cartoon!”
I was sitting on a log in the woods Hunting season was almost over It had been unusually warm to start the season I sat with my dad and my uncle a couple of times Didn’t see nothin’ Other than hawks and squirrels
I was 12 or 13 years old I was mostly into Pokemon cards and was scared by the movie The Blair Witch Project
Sitting alone in the woods with the Blair Witch is pretty scary when you’re like 12
I was glad I had a gun
I had a 30 ought six Pretty big gun for a little dude We were in eastern Jackson County Where no one lives and it was early afternoon My uncle said he would walk a few hundred yards north and try to drive the deer toward me
A couple days earlier I was in the woods And I felt something strange and sacred The wind was rising and falling through the tree branches and the leaves were breaking off and spiraling to the ground and then there was a pause and the wind would rise and the trees would sing again and the earth was breathing and i felt a connection cutting through everything else this was strange and sacred and common and right
A light snow fell, briefly for only a few minutes
I sat on a log and then from the south, the opposite direction my uncle went, two deer came walking I heard one of them snap a branch underfoot A doe and a fawn They were close
I brought the gunsights to my eye and I don’t have this thing this thing i hear some deer hunters talk about where they get overwhelmed with excitement and can’t slow their heart down i feel a focus and i exhale and pull the trigger twice is it a gun that i had to recock to reload? i don’t remember
shortly thereafter my uncle came back, and asked if I had shot at a deer “Yeah,” I said
It was dead on the ground like less than 100 feet from where I shot it. Got her right through the heart. I did a Bambi. I apologize to the fawn.
I pulled the carcass out of the woods. We went to a bar in Pray, Wisconsin. It is an unincorporated little hamlet with no churches and no desire. “We’ve gotta register this guy’s first deer,” my uncle said, “And we’ll take two beers.” The bartender lady didn’t blink and served me a beer. My uncle said he was just kidding, but I guess getting your first deer deserves a beer in such rural towns right?
The Blair Witch was pressed against the window, greenish nose smushed to the glass. I ate some venison, but the deer I shot was not a big one. It was legal, but small. I have not been hunting since. Glad to have been a part of it, I suppose. Mother earth and human history and whatnot. Funny that I remember it so clearly.
GENERAL: Well, Mister President, there’s…there’s really no easy way to say this, so I’ll just give it to you straight.
(beat)
GENERAL: At approximately 1900 hours tonight, NORAD and Cent-Comm received signals indicating the presence of a new shape on the North American continent. After cross-referencing data and verifying instrument functionality, all relevant parties concluded that we had in fact detected a new shape. It was located five point five clicks south of Topeka, Kansas. Now-
PRESIDENT: Run that by me again, you detected a new…shape?
GENERAL: That is correct, Mister President.
PRESIDENT: Tonight, here in the United States…you’re telling me you found a, a goddamned new shape?
GENERAL: (lowering his eyes) That is correct. Mister President.
(The PRESIDENT sinks back into his chair, sighs heavily and brings both hands to his face. He rubs his eyes, seems to center himself, and leans forward.)
PRESIDENT: I must be the Biblical Job reborn. Handed shit sandwich after shit sandwich. Alright, who knows about it?
GENERAL: Unclear at this time. The Five Eyes of course, potentially China, maybe the Soviets-er, Russia. No media so far as we know.
PRESIDENT: Okay then. Balls. Balls! New shapes. What, I mean, not that it matters, but what kinda shape?
GENERAL: That is uh, not something we’ve got a real handle on at this point, Mister President.
PRESIDENT: No handle on it? There’s a goddamned new shape in the center of our country and we don’t have any fucking clue what it-
GENERAL: We are working on it! Mister President! We’ve got the relevant experts here. We’ve brought him in already. The man to my left is Dr. Chris Proce. He’s the chair of the geometry department over at MIT. One of the preeminent geometry men walking the earth today.
(PROCE is a thin man of slight stature, bad posture, bad teenage mustache. His glasses are thick-framed and thick-lensed. The lenses make his dark eyes look oversized.)
PROCE: Hello, Mister President. It is an honor. You know, I voted for you in November and-
PRESIDENT: Spare me, Proce! Now’s not the time for it. If I wanted my ass kissed, I’d buzz my secretary in here, and I’m pretty sure he’s at lunch anyway. What do you have on this goddamned new shape?
PROCE: Oh, oh, well (he adjusts his bowtie and straightens his posture) the new shape has been detected. However, our analysis can’t really begin until we have the proper tools to begin breaking it down from top to bottom. A sort of full-blown audit, if you will. (he snorts in a very nasally sort of way.) I will need 30,000 pages of graph paper, 22 protractors, 130 rulers, 184 graphite pencils-
(The PRESIDENT slams his fist angrily on his desk)
PRESIDENT: We don’t have TIME! I wanna find out what this bastard-shitting shape is TONGIHT!
(PROCE wilts)
PROCE: I’m sorry, Mister President, but protocol for these sorts of discoveries demands that our team first plots…the…vertices…and….
(He begins crying)
PRESIDENT: General, are you really telling me this human puddle is our best Geometry Man? What about, uh, what’s his name?
GENERAL: Oh no, Mister President, don’t even think about-
PRESIDENT: Oh to hell with protocol and procedure at this point, Jeff. I don’t care if he’s blacklisted. I don’t care if he’s a loose cannon. I don’t give a rat’s hairy grey ass if he plays by his own rules. A crisis like this demands only one man.
GENERAL: Sir, I cannot advise strongly enough against-
PRESIDENT: Bring me…Darren Bader!!!
(TITLE SEQUENCE)
(South Los Angeles. The spotlights from some movie premiere drag across the smoggy sky. Sirens from police or ambulances are heard in the distance.)
(We enter the office of DARREN BADER, a smoky, mostly wood office. It’s disheveled. The pictures on the wall hang askew, the desk is covered in empty booze bottles. DARREN himself is lighting a cigar, sitting in his highback chair, thinking.)
(The door explodes open and flashlights catch the particulate dust and cigar smoke as the GENERAL and his cohort enter the room.)
GENERAL: Darren ‘The Rhombus-Killer’ Bader…
(BADER draws from his cigar, the orange glow only illumating his eyebrows and blackish eyes. He slowly exhales a lungful of cigar smoke, and it drifts over his desk and falls to the floor like a liquid.)
BADER: Is that you, Jeff?
(the rhythmic thumping of helicopter blades is present, but the searchlights fade into the grey)
GENERAL: Yeah, Darren. It’s me.
BADER: Thought I’d see you again soon. I had a dream about you.
(The GENERAL looks down, seems to hesitate trying to find his words, and then looks up before being cut off)
BADER: This is all about that new shape, isn’t it?
GENERAL: Well, yes. I would say that’s what I’m here for. Yes.
BADER: I figured.
(The room is completely dark. It’s all black and there are just little veins of greyish smoke catching distant searchlights once in a while.)
BADER: Proce can’t do it or what?
(He smiles as he turns the lights on in his office with the flick of a switch.)
GENERAL: You know damn well he can’t handle this like you could. Will you please just…
BADER: Just what? Huh? Forget it all? Come back into the fold? Unlikely!
(Bader screws the cap off of a bottle of booze with a swift thumb motion, and then takes a big drink of it.)
BADER: Just go back into Geometry!? Huh?! After what happened to me!?!
(He pounds the bottle with ferocity)
GENERAL: (apologetically) Darren…
BADER: (defiantly) Oh yeah. Darren. Jeff. It’s like we’re friends. When all the shapes are accounted for, we’re thicker than thieves. Circle, square, triangle. No problem. Everything is a-ok. Nothing to worry about…
GENERAL: I’m not asking you as a general, I’m asking you as a five star friend. You used to believe in-
BADER: Yeah! I used to believe in a lot of shit! Back when the shapes were easy! Back when my daughter was alive! Back when we killed that rogue dodecahedron together!
(The GENERAL slumps and rubs his temples, but seems almost embarrassed, catches himself and sits up)
GENERAL: I’m not really asking you. I’m ordering you. You swore an oath. And I’m demanding that you fulfill it.
(BADER finishes the bottle of booze, rubs his lips with his forearm defiantly. He stares at the floor a few seconds. He looks up, an excitement in his eyes.)
BADER: You know as well as I do. I swore I’d never do Geometry again. Not after last time. Not after where that cone went, not after what the cubes and those rectangles did to our friends. Christ, Willie Wagner was what, 19 years old?! Nothing ahead of him but daylight, until those bastard shapes got involved. You know I don’t do geometry like the textbook teaches. You know I’m a hardnosed badass who plays by his own rules. You know I’ll fuck up a rhombus any day of the week. I’ve been out of the game for a long while. Maybe too long. Maybe my daughter would want me to quit feeling sorry for myself, and take up the only charge I seem fit for. Alright. A new shape has been found, huh? Haha. I’ve got something for all the shapes, old and new. (He snorts, looks up) BADER: For old times’ sake. Let’s fuck this shape up.
The decrepit fountain catches leaves Orange and red and yellow drifting in shallow murk Hasn’t been flowing for years Mildew lazes up its body and the wind ripples between leaf rafts swirling in the muck little bubbles and waves
Once, this place rang with song The young were awake in the square eyes sparking with possibility and hormones and derring-do ready for hurly-burly and such-and-such
and now the bilge of neglect pools in a concrete tub The stars are blurry and humbled When you watch them from this disinhereted scene
The fae will draw you in They will kiss your forehead They will touch your shoulders and your hair They will hide a piece of chocolate in your dreams and when you eat it, it will become a kiss But you must never accept a gift from the fae
It will turn into endless staircases wherein you climb up and down, and never make any progress It will turn into a whisper inside your apartment coming from walls and windows and ceiling fans It will itch inside of your skull, and you can only scratch it by bashing your face into your desk It will be a black spot in the center of your sight It will be a guitar note that reminds you of a fight you had with your father It waits in basements and inside of your car No matter how you twist and contort It’s there Right dead center
The fountain smells dead, stagnant water Orange and red and yellow leaves cling to each other
you must never accept a gift from the fae
Because whatever is inside of that fountain We’re going to bust it open and drill down into it and if smoke and fire and God Himself comes hissing and pissing and screaming out of that hole We’re gonna know what’s in there
The other day, I was staggering around my neighborhood, stray cat tucked beneath my arm and a gas-soaked rag kissed to my nose, as I am wont to do. I came upon the entrance to a corn maze. I was puzzled. This hadn’t been here a few minutes ago, when I’d had an intense shouting match with a neighbor, demanding he stop beaming propaganda directly into my dreams. In a moment of caprice, I threw my better judgment aside and wandered in. Why not? A corn maze could be fun.
The stalks towered above me, seeming to sway in patterned intervals, dancing in a lavender breeze. I thought not of what path I should take, turning left and right and left again down the corridors, simply enchanted by the electronic chiming sound the plants made when I tapped them. “Buddy, maybe you ought to quit bogarting that rag and give me a hit,” said my feline companion. “In a moment,” I smiled at him. He rolled his eyes.
Soon I came upon a clearing. A great circular space of flattened cornstalks. Dusk was falling, so all was quite dim, but I could just make out the form of several other figures gathered in this space. “Hello,” I called, sounding partly like a greeting and partly like a question.
“Greetings!” came a brassy and commanding voice. So taken aback was I, I scarcely noticed the cat mashing his little catflap face into my gas rag. “Welcome to the Corn Maze of Clorvius!” A fire suddenly sprang to life in the middle of the clearing. The figures in the shadows stepped closer to the fire, and I was able to see their forms as I asked “Corn Maze of Clovius, what the fuck?!”
The figure that spoke to me was a twelve-foot tall turkey wearing a pilgrim’s hat. “Why yes, the Corn Maze of Clovius! The home of the Gods of Autumn! Sort of like Mount Olympus is for the Greek gods, but the Corn Maze of Clovius is for the Gods of Autumn. Do you get it? You get it. Hahaha!” he said, thunderous voice clapping through beak.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of the Gods of Autumn,” I said.
“Nonsense!” the giant pilgrimturkey answered, “Every inquisitive little boy like you knows of us,” “I am 35 years old-“ “I am Turkor! The God of the Harvest. I am the centerpiece of the traditional meal, celebrating the collection of the summer’s bounty. The meal you call Thanksgroining.” “It’s Thanksgiv-“ “And of course you know Big Poppa Pumpkin!”
He gestured with his wing to one of the other gods. Big Poppa Pumpkin was a squat human shape, greenish coil of roots with a jack-o-lantern head and bright purple overalls on. He wore a matching purple newsboy hat and was spinning a a cane in his left hand. “Always pleased to meet a fine fresh lady such as yourself,” Big Poppa Pumpkin said. “I am actually a man,” “Not for long,” was his answer, as his carved pumpkin eye somehow winked.
Turkor continued, gesturing to his other side, “And you’re familiar with Lady Backtaschool! Every Autumn, all you little boys and girls must return to your studies!” Lady Backstaschool appeared as a completely average middle-aged woman, wearing a cardigan and horn-rimmed glasses.
“Oh, I get it. You’re the goddess who has taken on a more familiar form so that I’m not shocked by your true appearance or something, right?” I asked her. Lady Backtaschool answered “No, I’m literally just a human schoolteacher. My name’s actually Linda Reed. I was apparently the only educator who wasn’t too burned out by being underpaid and overworked to take this gig so…yay me, I guess! Here I am, a God of Autumn! Aah, crazy right. But yeah…yeah. Turkor offered me the job and it’s got a better benefits package than the state was offering, so call me Lady Backtaschool I guess!” I shook her hand and said it was nice to meet her.
“Who is that other God I see over there?” I asked, pointing to the edge of the firelight. He was a two-foot tall humanoid, pale flesh completely nude save for bundles of orange and red leaves tied like pom-poms around his wrists and ankles. His giant, manic eyes were the only feature of his face visible, as the rest was matted poofs of bright orange hair sticking out in every direction. He had been skittering about the whole time, grunting and chittering, and occasionally humping the ground.
“Oh, that’s Leaf Boy,” Turkor answered. “Just…yeah, don’t pay too much attention to Leaf Boy…” he trailed off as Leaf Boy began dragging his ass around the dirt like a dog.
“And I,” came a voice from still out in the darkness. “I am Baby Football New Year.” The speaker stepped forward to reveal himself. He was a human toddler wearing a football helmet. “And I know I am the God of Autumn you seek most.”
“Yeah, you’re right about that,” I replied. “Can you give me any insight on what’s gonna happen this NFL season?”
Baby Football New Year nodded, the heavy helmet rocking violently on the toddler’s head. “Oh indeed I can. Take heed of what I say,”
I took a pen and paper out of my pocket, noticed that Leaf Boy and the cat were both taking huge sniffs of my gas rag, and transcribed this verbatim:
NFC WEST
1. SAN FRANSISCO ILLICIT DISCO (1) Nick Bosa just got paid $34 milly a year. That is a lot of money, but it makes sense because he’s the reigning defensive player of the year. San Fran has been very good the last few seasons, and that’s in spite of blowing a ton of draft capital on a QB they just shipped to Dallas for a song. They’re starting the literal final pick in last years’ draft over a guy they moved heaven and earth to get at pick #3 overall a few years back. Anyway, they are good this year, but next year they will have like 93% of their salary cap dedicated to just 10 players. The bill is gonna come due, so if San Fran is gonna make a title push, this the year. 2. SEATTLE SPERMBIRDS (6) Peter Carroll will loudly smack his gum between his molars on the sidelines again this year. Don’t you love to see that? The receiver group here seems strong, but will journeyman backup QB turned comeback player of the year Geno Smith continue his career revival? Or will he, like so many other guys named Geno before him, get whacked? 3. HOLLYWOOD CURLHORNS Hollywood! The league saw two teams move to this very large, potentially lucrative market recently. And wouldn’t you know it, the gosh darn Curlhorns were the Super Bowl Champions of the 2021 season. And just as quickly as all these Hollywood phonies found their fandom, they abandoned it and went to a Dodgers game instead. Imagine the naivete of thinking anyone here has real loyalty. 4. ARIZONA REDBIRDS Obviously tanking. NFL teams get accused of tanking a lot, but this seems pretty blatant. They are intentionally trying to lose this year in order to have better draft picks next year, for those of you among us who are unfamiliar with what “tanking” means, and assumed it was a sex act. How else can you account for Jonathan Gannon being their new head coach? He did this: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/mM6j4qU6-ro . You tellin’ me they’re trying to win with that?!
NFC SOUTH
1. N’AWLINS PO’BOYS (4) A weak division, an average-to-above-average QB? Call the offense with Alvin Kamara and Michael Thomas a pretty good trio. The defense has been better than you’d expect despite having few marquee players. Plus Mardis Gras man! Let’s see some TITS !!!!! 2. BARBARA STREISAND (7) Barbara Streisand is a team that has spent first round picks on tight end, wide receiver, and runningback in recent years. This is the way to build a great Madden franchise. However, you need o-linemen, and you need defense. Then again, I will commend this team for making concessions really cheap at their stadium. I heard a beer is like $3? A hot dog is like $2? This is the most striking thing about this team. 3. CAROLINA VAGINA A team that has licked catlike at greatness a few times, but has never quite hit that little button they’re reaching for. It’s not quite where you think. Anyway, a team in transition that could be fun come 2024. 4. CLEARWATER BEACH BUGGERERS The Buggerers gave Tom Brady the last few years of his career, which is almost unforgiveable. He even got a Super Bowl ring. Now, thankfully, the wheel of salary cap and incompetence will sink these boats for another decade or so. Baker Mayfield is better than people think, though.
NFC NORTH
1. GREEN BAY PACKERS (3) Once again, my joke is that this has been a pretty ho-hum offseason for Green Bay. Get it? Because like Aaron Rodgers was teasing maybe retirement and stuff and ya, oh yaaah, you get it. Uff da. Listen: Jordan Love has looked pretty dang good this preseason, and this year is an EVALUATION YEAR. I still think we’ll be competitive. But the Packers’ brass has basically said we’re just gonna see what we’ve got and go from there. The team is eating their vegetables in regard to salary cap this year. Next year, we’ll have some money and use it to complement what this team is. We are statistically the youngest team in the NFL. We are fast as fuck and nobody knows how the fuck to deal with the kind of punches we’re gonna throw. It’s gonna rule. 2. MINNEAPOLIS NORSEMEN The 2022 Minneapolis Norsemen won 13 games and ended with a point differential of -3. That means they won 13 games, lost 4 of them, but if you add up all the points they scored and compare it to the points their opponents scored, they came up 3 short. Does that make any fucking sense to you? No. Because that has never happened before. Nothing like that has ever or will ever happen again. They won most of their games by like 1 point and lost all their games by like 39 points. They were just rolling nat 20s all season. At least CJ Ham is good. Get him more involved. Give the ball to Ham. 3. MOTOR CITY MADMEN Motor City is the apple of the eyes of NFL media. Their head coach is like some meathead guy who says stuff like “If you put your heart out there, I’m gonna spread some Pace picante salsa on it, and I’m gonna eat it!” and the team goes “ooh-rah!” It’s all very charming in some way. They got good toward the end of last year, but if wishes were fishes we’d all cast nets. 4. GRIZZLIES The Grizzlies chatter on Twitter is so insufferable. They view this first game against the Rodgers-less Packers as their Super Bowl. They are heavily, heavily emotionally invested. If they win, they will be ecstatic, if they lose, they will be despondent. This is the difference between a good franchise (Packers) and a shit one (Grizzlies). We don’t remember the last time the Grizzlies beat us, because it ultimately didn’t matter. We made the playoffs, they didn’t. They get tattoos referencing regular season wins.
NFC EAST
1. DALLAS STAR (2) Micah Parsons is a singular talent. He is one of the best off-ball linebackers and also one of the best edge rushers in the league. He’s my pick for Defensive Player of the Year. The offense will run Giant Toddler Mike McCarthy’s offense well enough for a playoff berth, but then you know what happens, right. Gonna end in embarrassment. 2. PHILLY VANILLY (5) Philly looked both sharp and tough last season, like a proverbial battleaxe that had killed a few warriors. A brain drain happened in the offseason, with coordinators and players getting scooped up by other teams. A greater factor, I think though, is that Philadelphia deserves nothing other than contempt. You’ve got your funny Charlie Day show. Be content in that. 3. NEW YORK BLUE PORK The Dumbass, Goofy Quarterback factory called, they want your guy back. 4. D.C.F.C. A new owner has taken control of this team. Apparently there is a petition to change the name back to that racist one that is gaining some traction. I would’ve hoped the sharp edges of time would’ve sheared you dingleberries off the ass fur of this league. Try to win some games before you start making changes. How about that? You like that?
Leaf Boy latches onto my forearm, and begins humping furiously. “Oh, hey, what?! Yuck! No! No!” I scold him, as he chitters through a toothy grin and darts off to the shadows again.
AFC WEST
1. KANSAS CITY ARROWS (2) There’s no reason to think they’ll be any worse. Pattie O’Mahomes is the most talented football player in the world right now. Even though he’s annoying to be around. He’s always just “Let’s go, let’s go!” and “Yes sir! Yes sir!” and other Gatorade slogans amalgamated into a guy. I mean what else do you expect. This is sports. His hair looks like savory ramen noodles. And I’d like to eat them. 2. SAN DIEGO CHARGERS Always a bridesmaid, never a clutch football team. What a cruelty, to be these guys. Sisyphus pushes the boulder up the hill and then gets called for a ticky-tack pass interference. 3. LAS VEGAS GAMBLERS A marriage of Jimmy G and his old coach. Can they be the Patriots west? No. Davante Adams will still put up monster numbers and be disrespected by the mass media. His release is as filthy and ridiculous as mine when I eat at Buffalo Wild Wings. 4. SOUTH PARK COWS Russell Wilson fucking sucks, always has. Always will. I’m glad his wife cheated on him with Bill Clinton.
AFC SOUTH
1. NORTH FLORIDA TABBIES (4) A disastrous embarrassment for most of their existence, not dissimilar to Hillary Clinton, the Tabbies will run roughshod over this weak division. They finally have a strong architecture to support the franchise. The only weak spot is living in northern Florida. 2. TENNNESSEE POOP ‘N PEE Derrick Henry, the monster truck made of meat, is getting old and is showing his mileage. Yes, the Steak Big-Rig may fall off this year, on account of breaking 300 tackles per year and being ground into a pulp by uncreative offensive coordinators. You know these guys lost like 7 games in a row to end last season? Ouch. 3. INDY CLOPPIN’ HOOFS Their owner is a big pothead. He refuses to pay Jonathan Taylor, a former Wiscaaahnsin Baydger, even though he’s the best offensive player on the team. Apparently, the Packers were in on talks to trade for him. We offered to trade them AJ Dillon and a 3rd round pick for him, and they counter offered that they wanted AJ Dillon, Christian Watson, and a 1st. Yeah, like I said, pothead owner. 4. HOUSTON COW CLUTCHERS Chewin’ cud.
AFC NORTH
1. CINCY CHILI-CATS (1) Joe Burrow is a very precise, methodical QB. He doesn’t extend plays or do anything fancy, but the offense reminds me of the later dynasty Patriots. Just super efficient, ruthless. Your defense dies a death by a thousand cuts. 5 yards here, 8 yards there. Plus they got cute widdow stwipes on their uniforms. 2. MARYLAND BLACKBIRDS (5) Odell Beckham is back in the league. Lamar Jackson is back after inking a mega-contract. The oft-injured superstars congregate in Maryland to dazzle for a bit before all ending up in the infirmary. Stavros Halkias will perform a bedside show in the hospital for them. 3. SHITTSBURGH IRON RODS Mike Tomlin has famously never coached a losing season. Until now. Their secondary ought to be really fucking great, though. That should be fun to watch. God forbid they ever have to go on offense though. 4. CLEVELAND STEAMERS Once, a likeable little teddy bear of the league. The little guy, just trying his best but still fucking sucked. Then they got a little momentum, beat the shit out of a division rival in the playoffs, and then they seemingly blew it up for no reason. Then traded a bunch of picks for a sex pervert QB and gave him a huge fully guaranteed contract. For what has a man profited if he shall gain the whole world but lose his soul? What if he gains a 3-14 season and loses his soul? Relegate these fucks to the XFL. Get ’em outta here.
AFC EAST
1. BUFFALO SOLDIER IN THE HEART OF AMERICA (3) There’s been some yappin’ in the media that maybe their Super Bowl window has closed. That’s just silly. Josh Allen is the reincarnation of Brett Favre, but thankfully, I’ve not seen him wearing crocs. They are well coached and talented. 2. MIAMI BLOWHOLES (6) Could be a pip if Tua Gungavajola doesn’t get his brain scrambled by an incompetent offensive line again! 3. NEW YORK 9/11S (7) Traded for a washed up quarterback who fucking sucks and is addicted to marijuana cigarettes. Then they made him the GM of their team. Nah, I’m just kidding. I’ll watch a lot more of the New York 9/11s games this year. I’m curious. I’m not rooting against Rodgers or anything, but if the team is anything other than great, it’ll be really funny. 4. BOSTON CLAM CHOWDAHS The great coach, The Grumpus, may have to retire after this season. He was the best of his time. This is not his time.
THE PLAYOFFZZZ
WILDCARD ROUND (WINNERS BOLDED) BARBARA STREISAND (7) @ DALLAS STAR (2) SEATTLE SPERMBIRDS (6) @ GREEN BAY PACKERS (3) PHILLY VANILLY (5) @ N’AWLINS PO’BOYS (4) NEW YORK 9/11S (7) @ KANSAS CITY ARROWS (2) MIAMI BLOWHOLES (6) @ BUFFALO SOLDIER IN THE HEART OF AMERICA (3) MARYLAND BLACKBIRDS (5) @ NORTH FLORIDA TABBIES (4)
DIVISIONAL ROUND PHILLY VANILLY (5) @ SAN FRANSISCO ILLICIT DISCO (1) GREEN BAY PACKERS (3) @ DALLAS STAR (2) MIAMI BLOWHOLES (6) @ CINCY CHILI-CATS (1) NORTH FLORIDA TABBIES (4) @ KANSAS CITY ARROWS (2)
CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS GREEN BAY PACKERS (3) @ SAN FRANSISCO ILLICIT DISCO (1) NORTH FLORIDA TABBIES (4) @ CINCY CHILI-CATS (1)
superb owl GREEN BAY PACKERS (3) @ CINCY CHILI-CATS (1)
There you have it. Jordan love wins the Super Bowl in his first year as a starter. A new dynasty begins, with Green Bay winning eighty super bowls in a row.
“Wow, so that’s what happens, Baby Football New Year?” I asked, a bit amazed.
Turkor interrupted his reply, “Yes! Yes, my boy! Now get in here and give me a hug!”
Their tawny robes drink sunlight each day as they shuffle the monastery grounds slowly bleaching the fabric so the elders’ garb pales like their hair and the neophytes show darker colors
Their breakfast is blueberries wrapped in a mint leaf their lunch is a spicy tea most abstain from dinner once they have ascended but the neophytes spoon communally from a pot of soup it’s leeks and pepper and potatoes an orchard grows nearby apples swell with juice and fall into the dirt the passersby are free to take from it the monks will carve faces and sermons and whatever crosses their mind into the apple flesh as meditation as a way of passing time
the eldest monk has a robe of virgin white though it started tawny like the rest and his sleeves are ragged tendrils dragging along the ground thin white netted veins loosely affixed to one another his eyes are clouds unblinking each day he shuffles the monastery grounds he never speaks but he takes the long, sharp fingernail of his thumb and he carves into the flesh of an apple what he describes into the fruit is different each time and he never shows anyone but you can find them in the orchard turning brown and crawling with ants rotting into the soil to feed the future apples
a neophyte finds a decomposing apple on the ground he fixes his dark eyes upon it finds runic equations he doesn’t understand he is very hungry so he takes a bite of it and vomits
of course. why would you know it? you are working off past knowledge, meeting each passing moment as it comes. This is how time works, right? You experience NOW and keep a catalogue of all the previous NOWs mostly vague and uncategorized inside of your brain, only bookmarking the important and relevant ones.
this is useful as the Animal Man, to have a backlog of prior trial and error to reference when facing whatever the new day brings. If I stick my hand in a fire, it will get hurt and that will be bad. If I dance around really cool and sexily, maybe a pretty lady will let me touch her boobies. Etc. That’s kinda how it goes right
Our powers of prediction seem limited to observation. “A priori” experience is a thing wherein you can use your understanding of systems and patterns to determine the outcome of a thing you have not seen before. This is like that, your brain says to you, so I reckon something similar will happen.
This is abstract thought. Abstraction lies entirely in the future. The mind takes what is, creates an architecture built upon it, and allows you to suppose. When you have an abstract thought, when you plan or wonder or any of that shit, this is your future-seeing farsighted mind disconnecting from the NOW of your animal self and living outside of the stream of time.
Less intelligent animals lack our ability to plan, to remember, to think as we do. They snap from moment to moment. They lack the juice for abstraction, and therefore consciousness.
It’d be tough-sleddin’ for any cowpoke to explain how this dang-ole universe is not mechanistic and deterministic. On a Neil Tyson-simp bent, the base level of reality is molecules and particles and atoms and all those little dudes just bumping off each other, which is mathematically predictable, something that given enough time and computing power you could recreate with perfect accuracy. Some dummies act like quantum physics somehow disrupts this, but probably not, right. like that is just a facet of the measurable that we don’t have the tools to inspect yet. It’s like my ex-wife’s vagina: we ain’t made a caliper big enough yet.
But even if you take a more spiritual bent to the thing, and ignore modern science (which I am happy to do, because I think it’s preposterous that we think now, just now, we have all the right tools and strategies for determining the true nature of the universe. scientific method provided it for us. aren’t you so lucky to live here, right now, wherein we just got it all figured out? unlike any other time in history. those dumbasses) anyway where was i going with this
Oh yeah
Even if you take a more spiritual bent and assume that the universe isn’t mechanistic and deterministic, well then some day, some day, this crazy world will end. And God will take back from us the things that he did lend. And therein, with the closing of the last page of the book there will be a finality, there will be One Complete Copy of Existence. And even if it has not arrived yet, it one day will, and that will be Eternity. And if Eternity truly has no end point, there will be a demarcation between the way things are now and they way they will be, and that would be a significant bookmark in the way things are. The way things are will have gone, so that will have been the end of time.
Please stay with me here, I’m not fuckikng crazy. I’m a few Miller Lites deep and I’m in a groove. That’s different from being insane. Don’t try to get deep into my groove though. That’s just not how I roll.
A lot of people smarter than me have said that human beings are 3D creatures existing in a 4D world. Maybe it’s 13D. I don’t know. We have immediate access and control over three dimensions, height, width, and depth, I think. They tend to place time as the next dimension up, which we also experience too, but just not in a controlling way. We are subject to it. I can move freely in space, but in time, I am just along for the ride.
We are in that 4th dimension though, bro. We’re a pattern that is coherent throughout that world. None of my physical body is the same one I inhabited even 10 years ago. What is this “me”? Our bodily cells die and regrow all the time but there’s this continuity of something, man!
Alan Moore is a great writer and he said something about important moments having a weight in spacetime, that they affect the gravity moving back and forward in the timeline. He said that in 1999, and asked if you could feel something coming. It was probably 9/11 right? That sunk the collective consciousness into itself. I think it’s happening now. I think we’re walking downhill. Maybe good, bad. I don’t know. I feel the gravity.
We don’t know the future. Maybe we don’t allow ourselves to. It might be forbidden. It’s probably a little scary. It’s probably beautiful.
We will all touch eternity just for a moment, right at the scariest part.
they come in from farming and fields they come in from hunting and hills they come in from gathering and gardens they come in when the sun is going away
the sky gives them light each day so that they may toil and strain and pursue under her rules but when they come in a fire is made
they come in and build a fire and talk to each other about what happened and in the fire is light and warmth a tiny child of what the sun gave them but this fire that they made is not from the sky, is not for surviving on the earth this fire is from them, for them it is for the mind and the soul it is not for the body but for everything else
when the sun is in the sky all is bright, stark, and bare when the sun is gone all is dark, occluded, and mysterious the fire, with all of their people ringing it that is what can be known they come in and they speak and they find each others’ faces and it starts to become known
Jesus said that he was coming back very soon and that when he did, Heaven would overlay Earth
so why has it taken like 2,000 years? That’s a Long Time! What’s up, Jesus?! Have you been hitting the “snooze” button a little too much?!
Nah, fam. Dude said “The Kingdom of God is within you. (Luke 17:21, for you pedantic nerds)” And a fella by the name of N.T. Wright said a very wise thing: ““Jesus’s resurrection is the beginning of God’s new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. That, after all, is what the Lord’s Prayer is about.” But he was also like, anti-gay or something so maybe he’s not totally awesome but you get what I’m driving at here, right?
The Project that Jesus took up was not one of further mystifying religion and propogating arcane rituals and innate hierarchy. Dude said you have to love everyone, even and especially your enemies, you have to forgive, you have to repent when you have wronged another person. He did not say that you can do whatever you want here on this material plane, and as long as you say you like him, that you’ll get into Heaven. I’m looking at you, Evangelicals. Those dirty Evangelicals love to point to John 14:6, “Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” and apparently centralize this verse to mean that you stamp your card to get into Heaven ONLY through believing in Jesus, whatever that means to them. There is no Good Works, there is no inventory of sins vs. good deeds. Any serial killer goes to paradise by simply saying “jesus rules” right before they die.
However, there is a Gnostic lightning bolt of a next line in this book. The Bible. “If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him,” This line indicates that Jesus is anticipating the posers, the hangers-on, who take the prior line and run with it. They trash the world and their life like it’s a cheap hotel room and they paid for it with a prepaid debit card that only has like $119 on it anyway. This line implies there is a fake way to know him. That’s what these bible-thumper anti-abortion fucks do. Falsely know Christ. It is more of a lifestyle brand to them than it is a religion.
The Kingdom of God is within you, little dog. Heaven is a choice that we have to collectively make. We could have a world where love for one another is given the top priority, but we do not. We feel like resources are scarce, we feel like we have to be impressive, we get way too tied up in the demiurgical material plane, little dog. This physical world fucking sucks, first of all, write that down. But if you have a quiet moment here or there, you get uncomfortable. Drown it out with music or videos or whatever. Noise. Noise, baby! Buy something! Treat yourself! Capitalism!
It is a truly Satanic idea that you are the only sentience that exists. So many people live with this mindset. The universe exists purely within my own perception, and it’s about a 5 foot circle around my head. Capitalism will do that. Made to feel vacuous and inferior, right from the jump. You must run this race, you must accumulate.
Anyway, perseverate in a place of nature sometimes. Let your head drift to whatever thoughts it might. You may see things, small and mysterious, and they’ll extrapolate out into very large and tearfully beautiful ideas. Know that Christ was trying to transplant Heaven onto Earth. Wish to be calm and kind. When you finally punch out, a young person picks up your shift. Make it easier for them. It can be Known. It just takes some effort.
