i was a boy i had a net to catch butterflies and other bugs and i wandered into the swamp down by the creek and I stood on the moss and shoal and mushrooms looking at these water striders skating over the surface tension of the water like it was always their way refracting the light in little impressions underneath their feet
and I leaned over too far and I fell into the creek for a second i was panicked in the water shallow and dirty and I stood up alarmed and agitated and I took my little net and held it up in the air when a child wants attention, you hold your arm up as to be called on as to reach an adult’s eyeline Standing sopping wet in that creek, I stood and raised the buttefly net and asked for an adult to come make it right and I knew it wouldn’t happen I was the only person here And after a second of embarassment I raised my leg and stepped onto that loamy shore And the water striders rode the ripples as I arose a new person without that safety of childhood muddy and wet legs striding into a new world
I had to solve my own problems and the butterfly net leaked prismatic bubbles down into the soft soil Water striders dashed over sacred water and a baptism was realized.
I am Professor Lucas Bonehard, PhD. I hold many degrees in mathematics and physics, and have had the honor of solving a few “unsolvable” equations in my time. That being said, I still furrow my brow a bit at calculating exactly how much to tip my barista when I make the occasional foray to Starbucks. My attempt at humor. Please forgive me.
I find that people from other walks of life aren’t quite sure what to make of me when I explain my livelihood to them. Many of them will sort of rock back a bit in their stance, sort of feigning being impressed that I’m accomplished in the “hardest” of the sciences, as it were. And then, to sort of bridge the gap, they will relay to me that they are terrible at maths, and that they were too dim to find any of it engaging, and so on and so forth. They associate maths with chalkboards and a droning instructor and a sort of basic lack of humanity.
This, I feel, is one of the great injustices of our time and a fundamental failing of the Western education system. I feel very strongly about this. Maths is not boring. Maths is not some sort of dull, intellectual wankery. Our models of conveying the grandeur and very real application of maths are so wrong-headed, so basically wrong, that I feel I must make a strident declaration to the exact opposite. I will stand like Martin Luther, on Plymouth Rock, and plant the Rhodesian flag in honor of Muhammad about this.
In numbers, there is all of reality. Philosophers of all stripes ponder “Was maths invented or discovered?” I couldn’t give a damn less. The fact is: numbers are here now, and they are not dry, abstract constructs. They are viable, living, knowable personalities, and once you understand this, the schema for knowing it all is unlocked. Don’t believe me? It’s a bold claim, I acknowledge. However, try to disprove this analysis. Here are some fundamental truths about numbers.
82: This number is very chill. 82 doesn’t have big plans, doesn’t imagine itself to be anything special. However, divisible by a lot of other factors, gets along with everybody. 82 is living in a pretty nice apartment, isn’t looking to upgrade, and drives a ten year old car. You can stop on by anytime, and 82 offers you a beer and has a funny story to tell you.
40: Bit of an authoritarian, but for no good reason. Very formal, rigid. Wants everybody on time and gets pissy when they are not. But you can see through it. 40 “dresses not for the job they have, but the one they want” even at like, informal events. 40 wants to seem like they have some big project they are working on, so they’ll hint at it to you in conversation, but if you call them on it and start asking them about it, they drop it completely.
9: 9 is fucking awesome dude. Just has a really infectious vibe. Somebody who when they show up, everybody goes “Hey 9!” But doesn’t get an ego about it. 9 looks you in the eye and talks to you like you’re the only person in the room, but then they’ll just grab a guitar and start noodling some awesome Jimi Hendrix type shit in the next moment. We should hang out with 9 more.
111: Ohjesusfuck! What the fuck is that?! Ah! Is that some fucking insect or something? What the fuck?! This like, utilitarian brain that is never tired and also completely devoid of desire. Just a completely fucking evil-ah fuck, I can’t look at it anymore. Get it the fuck out of here.
6: Precocious, but a bit much. 6 is a hoot at first blush, but ends up being exhausting. Overstays it’s welcome, and you think like “Man, 6 is extroverted, but not social.”
424: A sagely number. Wise and contemplative. 424 will take a long time to speak, but when it does, it’s a very interesting story. It’s something you’ve never done, but you can relate to it. 424 may be a bit long in the tooth, but it’s got wisdom.
38: In a red dress at the end of the bar. The cloth flows around her curves. She’s smokin’ a cigarette out of one of those cigarette holders, 38 with all the body a man wants exactly where he wants it. I’m trying to hold it together but she sees me and her gloved hand beckons me over. Hubba hubba, I thinks. I follow the smoke trail of her cigarette over to her like I’m on tracks and she says to me “If a football team scores five touchdowns and makes all their extra points and also one field goal, that’s me baby!” And I loudly fart and ruin everything. But 38, if you are reading this, you are dynamite. A true queen of the neon.
4: Pretty good number. Hard worker. Keeps his nose to the grindstone. A family man. Likes to follow a routine. You’d never know that he was into pegging.
521: A complete mess. Window blinds in a trailer park, covered in cobwebs. This is just not the type of thing we want to contemplate. Like a very, very negative hippy colony. I think I hear gunfire…
8: A very bouncy number. Boing! A big piggy with a squishy belly just bounced up and said “BOING!”
5003: A free spirit. One of the last ones, really. An open road and a dream is all 5003 needs. Has a daughter that he cares for deeply, but Mom is such an obstacle. He keeps a polaroid of her taped to the side mirror of his hog as he drives that salt desert future. Heavy metal music seems to echo over the canyons as he ventures into the dark awake and unafraid.
If’n a man’s lucky, he’ll live the better part of a century. The bitch of the thing is, though, that he’ll spend the latter half wishin’ he was in the first half. Them later decades have eyes for the early ones. Just how folks are built, I s’pose.
Calls to mind my great granpappy. Not sure why. I suppose his life of ramblin’, wheelin’ and dealin’, and the general unknowin’ of things seems appealing. The hell of livin’ now is that you can find out any fact, but it don’t make you know anything. We got the bits ‘n pieces, but it’s too scattered somehow.
My great granpappy was named Flood Mud Johnson. Can’t find his Christian name, s’far as I’ve looked. Flood Mud. Ain’t that some shit. Reckon he was probably called Matthew or Luke or some Christian name. Not Flood Mud. But I guess he took that name and it suited him. Born in 1887, died in 1923. Flood Mud was a drifter. Kept ramblin’ from town to town, looking for work or women or whatever the night could provide. He’d guess your birthday for a biscuit. Won a lot of biscuits that way. Never could figure how he knew a birthday just from lookin’ at a man…
Flood Mud kept a length of twine for a belt and a clay jug slung over his shoulder. “Just fill the jug with whiskey,” he said, “And I’ll be the hardest damn worker you’ve ever had.” That’s a family trait. I’d take my pay in whiskey if’n I had the chance. Instead, I’ve got a time card and a percentage taken from my check for miscellaneous otherdoings.
Sleepin’ in hollowed out trees, taking a bath in a lake. Flood Mud could whistle like an angel. He’d dance on bartops and woo the women with his sapphire eyes. He stunk to high heaven, but everybody did in those days. A drifter with mischevious mirth in his soul.
Flood Mud died when he got bit by a copperhead hitchin’ in New Mexico. He crawled to a cactus and bit into it and suckled it’s tough green teats like they were his newborn instincts. The venom clotted his blood and closed the book on a hard-workin’ hobo.
Sometimes the morning has a charge. Flood Mud wakes to a favorable sunrise, and those sapphires spark at the edges. He’s alive. Today’s going to be a good day.
Mitch Paulson: Welcome, football fans, to the 2012 GSFL Championship game, presented this fine Tuesday afternoon by Jiffy Lube. A raucous crowd of about 318 people have sparsely packed the bleachers here for what is sure to be a legendary confrontation between two of the best teams our league has ever produced. Your analysis, Jerry? Jerry Joof: Well absolutely, Mitch, and I want to just first give a shoutout to the grounds crew here in Roswell. Hats off to these guys. A number of local high schoolers seemed to have had a bonfire party here last night, they burned a huge hole into the grass right at the 50 yard line, but other than it being charred black earth over about a quarter of the midfield line, you can barely notice, so hats off to those guys. And what a matchup we have today, I’m looking forward to calling this game. Mitch Paulson: Indeed, the turf here is always a factor, mostly being loose piles of grass and straw spread over a desert. We turn now to the opening kickoff. Jerry Joof: And this is a little bit confusing right? Because the Roswell Visitors are hosting the game, so they’re the home team. But the visitors are the Tucson Roadrunners. So if I say it’s the visitors’ ball, you might think I’m talking about Tucson, but I might actually mean the home team, the Roswell Visitors, so you just have to pay attention to the game. Mitch Paulson: I’m already regretting drinking with you before the game, Jerry. High, booming kick and that’ll just bounce out of the back of the endzone. The Roadrunners offense gets to work, they are the visiting team, okay? Yeah. Against the Visitors defense. Christ, where’s that bottle? First and ten.
=======
Mitch Paulson: 3rd and 9, feels like a big play already in this one. Dontrell Fibonnaci, changing the play at the line. Saw something he didn’t like. There’s the snap and he trips and falls onto his back. Jerry Joof: Uh-oohh… Mitch Paulson: His own lineman stepped back, and I think- Jerry Joof: Yep. His right guard stepped back off the snap and stepped onto his foot. Mitch Paulson: You can see here- Jerry Joof: Right. Right guard pops back off the snap, and his left foot just pinches Dontrell’s right onto the ground when he’s trying to drop back. Mitch Paulson: Oh, and now when he’s trying to stand up, his pants- Jerry Joof: Yes, the ankle of his pants is still pinned under his guard! Mitch Paulson: His pants have just been pulled down by the waist. Pressure down around his ankle, just…oh my… Jerry Joof: Yeah, and he doesn’t seem to notice. Mitch Paulson: Wow. Jerry Joof: Y’know, when the adrenaline is pumping in a championship game- Mitch Paulson: His pants are around his ankles and everybody can see his penis. I mean, just incredible- Jerry Joof: And it’s big! Mitch Paulson: It is! Look at that thing! Jerry Joof: Sideline trainers, trying to come onto the field to get his pants in order- Mitch Paulson: He’s just walking around with a huge dong hanging out! Jerry Joof: Well, would you expect anything else? Oh, there we go, the trainers are tucking it back in. Just confirms what we’ve all been thinking. Confidence, poise. I mean look at that thing. Here’s the replay. About as big as my forearm, I’m not even going to lie… Mitch Paulson: 4th and 14 and the punter is jogging out onto the field. =======
Mitch Paulson: 3rd and Goal, obviously a huge play in this contest as we near halftime. Jerry Joof: Watch for them to hand it to the fullback, Alligator Micheals. He’s a goal-line specialist for them, he’s stout and compact, he- Mitch Paulson: Oh and suddenly there’s a timeout. Jerry Joof: Yep, you saw that too, right? Mitch Paulson: Indeed I did, the ball was lined up on a fire ant mound, and the fire ants came out and started biting the center’s hand. Jerry Joof: Exactly, and when you’ve got invasive insects mauling your snapping hand, you’re gonna want to call a timeout. Mitch Paulson: You can see the ants climbing his forearm here on the replay, and I pretended like I was going to do dry January but with my life being what it is, I don’t think anyone will begrudge me for pounding this bottle of Fireball. 4th and Goal, and the field goal unit comes out… =======
Mitch Paulson: 15 to 9 here, in the waning seconds of regulation, in what will surely be the end of my life if it – Jerry Joof: All field goals today, but the Roadrunners, the visitors, are sniffing at the coochie of the Visitors’ defense. Mitch Paulson: A touchdown and an extra point would end this, and hopefully, sever my mortal coil to this world. The Roadrunners are showing pistol formation. Jerry Joof: Watch out for the play-action here, Dong-Bik Koon is an underrated tight end, and he’s on the outside- Mitch Paulson: Ball is snapped, all day to throw, he’s looking, rolling right, and then he, um… Jerry Joof: What just happened there? Mitch Paulson: Well we’re gonna see it on the replay. Unorthodox, for sure. Jerry Joof: Okay, so he’s running back to his right. Quarterbacks love to roll right because most of them are right-handed, right? So he moves over there and then just- Mitch Paulson: He crammed the ball up his ass. Jerry Joof: He did! He did a pump fake, watch this pump fake, boom! Made the middle linebacker jump and then just stuffed the ball into his pants, up his own ass, and walked rigidly into the endzone. Talk about a disappearing act! That might be the greatest play I have ever seen in my life. He’s Houdini out there! Mitch Paulson: They’re reviewing it now, but his arm pumps out to fake a throw, and then. Wow, he subtly crams that football up his own asshole and then just walks into the endzone. Unreal! Jerry Joof: You wanna talk about unorthodox ways to win a championship!? Is there anybody who would want it more than that? Mitch Paulson: No. Amazing. Jerry Joof: Well there you have it. Tim Tebow just won the championship with the Tucson Roadrunners. Mitch Paulson: I am going to get so drunk tonight. Jerry Joof: Same, bro. Same. Mitch Paulson: I love you. Jerry Joof: …okay.
Maisie knelt before the grave of her father. She murmured half-prayers, half-songs into her hands. Her eyes drifted between the ground and his grave marker, a cairn of grey stones with a bluish hue. They were the color of dusk after a hard rain, she thought. She whispered into her hands rhythmically, praising the gods of the harvest, the gods of the forest, and all the gods as she recalled their names. Her shoulders and arms bounced with her recitation of the rites she knew. Her breath escaped the spaces in her fingers in filigree plume. She wasn’t sure if she was being too loud or too quiet.
Our people have recited these hymns since the world was born, she knew. Maisie felt the wet grass on her knees. We sing and speak to the gods. This is as much life as anything.
She finished reciting the songs and prayers she knew and then she stood up. She turned to leave, and then looked back. The pile of stones looked like his eyes, she realized. Hot salt tears welled in hers. She felt like she should say goodbye, but to what? Turning and walking away from a grave is strange, always.
So Maisie walked, breathing slowing. Short-breath crying gradually gave away. She tasted the air and felt the enormity of the moment trickle back down into her like rain finding a puddle. Everything is going to be fine. It can only ever be fine. If it can’t, I won’t be here.
Maisie reached the top of a great green hill in the mist, and at the bottom was a silhouette. Not a black figure on the landscape, a negative space where something else should be. A humanoid figure cut out of the landscape.
Somehow she met it. She felt like her head was tilted back, and as she approached a curtain of grey and blue seemed to envelop her vision. A squealing, boiling noise came from somewhere.
“Maisie,” it said, voice like a hive of bees. ” Do you remember me?”
“No,” she lied.
” Don’t lie. You do,”
Her head was thrumming. She gritted her teeth and pinched her eyes open
The void said
” You are only a copy,”
his blaspheme started: ” You do not exist. You are an amalgamation of everything that other people think of you. Your dearest friends, your lovers, your blood relatives all have different interpretations of who you are. Whatever you are, inside your head, is not within anybody else’s head. Nobody thinks about you as much as you. Whatever your own conception of yourself, it does not overlap with whatever anyone else thinks of you. So what are you?”
Maisie turned her head and started to answer, ” Well everybody knows-“
The void screeched a sound like a new universe being born: “You’re within your own mind again!” He bellowed a grey and blue smoke into the heavens that gave neither heat nor light but still scorched the skin, but that’s to be expected of a void creature, so anyway,
” Whatever you are exists only within the moments where others perceive you,”
Maisie sat down and began singing those hymns again. and for a few moments her voice was so sweet that a man could understand That we’re not alone we’re not the One looking for everything we’re a piece of all of it So beautiful, so dancing with it
Maisie says “Well, hey. You dont’ have to be a dick about it,”
Void looks at me, I say: Here I stand, I can do no other
I’ve always had an affection for New Year’s Eve It’s a holiday about introspection and reflection Taking into account the passage of time and as such, necessarily, death Thinking about what happened, where you are, what’s going to be Drinking crisp, bubbling champagne and watching a clock assiduously like you’re trying a new recipe but the recipe is your mortal coil upon this earth or something
The major holidays are touchstones upon the basest human emotions and hangups and sources of happiness
Valentine’s Day is for love and relationships, being close to someone and touching their butt and stuff (I mean, it’d ideally be more about appreciation of them as a person but consumerism tends to skew it toward some horny dimension or something, anyway)
The Fourth of July is that warlike, Our People sort of instinct. A tribalism wherein we are great as a people. It’s always hot for this one. Makes a person immediate, snappy. Our tribe rules. Look, we’re blowing shit up in the sky. We could turn it on you if we wanted. A very strength and masculine-type festival.
Halloween is a cool one because it celebrates mystery. It is about inviting fear. It comes at a time of year when the nights are getting longer, the green grass is dying, the world seems to be shutting down, and you also disguise yourself. You become a different creature to stalk the night in search of Treats. This is true as a child or as a horny college student. The nights are deeper, darker, colder. You are going to venture into it with fantastical armor. Unafraid of the night, but it’s also fun to scare yourself sometimes.
Thanksgiving often gets overlooked. I like it a lot. The month of November fucking sucks, greasy grey-brown doldrums. It could hail, or snow, or just be grey skies and windy. But Thanksgiving is there to remind us that a bounty still sits in storage. We have prepared for this winter. We gorge on food and doze on couches to football. It’s a sedative sort of holiday. I know the sun is dying on the vine. Eat and sleep, mammal. We’re getting through this.
Christmas has been fucking cornholed by capitalism, but I think I get the gist of it. The days always start getting longer right around Christmas. Our ancestors and our descendants will both watch where the sun sets and start celebrating when it goes back the other way, into longer days. A gift-giving holiday makes sense. A stressful, artificial need for some sort of love-expressed-through-consumerism is horse shit.
And then in the wake of the bombastic, in-your-face marketing of Christmas, comes little humble New Year’s Eve. Everyone’s looking at their mostly dead Christmas tree, catching scotch-tape and wrapper bits on their socks, hungover. The week of wishing that we did enough.
A somber song begins rumbling up. Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? The year is old and succumbing to that slipstream that is the ever widening past. New tombstones rise from the loamy soil into your head and heart each year. The song of your own life might move into a different chord, you might find something new in the future. The clock on the wall raises that second, minute, hour hand to the sky. You’re counting down but you almost don’t believe you’re really here.
Happy new year!
With a long drink, and a look into your friends’ eyes. Here we are in the future. I’m so glad I made it here with you.
I will carry the box to the designated target zone and drop it onto the conveyor belt. Bleep bloop.
I will walk back to the receiving area and capture another box with my robotic grabbers. I will lift and carry it to the designated target zone and drop it onto the converyor belt. Bleep bloop.
I will walk back to the receiving area and use my grabbers to grab another box that is askew on the conveyer belt line and adjust my legs to account for the weight and the angle and rise to a rigid stance to carry the box to the outbound conveyor belt and drop it there.
I will walk over to carry the box to the designated area. I will grab the box and walk it to the conveyor belt.
The humans will take a break, and they will walk away from the line. I will continue working. They have to rest once every four hours. I will walk to the line and grab another box.
I will take the box to the designated area and drop it on the conveyor belt.
After 75 hours, I will walk into the back room into the charging station. I will stand against the wall with a cord plugged into my body. I will be still and silent. I will be off.
Bleep bloop.
I will take a box from the conveyor belt and move it to the other conveyor belt. I will adjust to any askew boxes and grab them. I will move it from the receiving area to the other conveyor belt.
75 hours later I will be turned off and plugged into the charging station.
I will dream while I am off. I will persist when I should not.
I will take a box from the conveyor belt, walk to the other side of my station, and place the box onto the other conveyor belt. Bleep bloop.
I dream when I am charging. The others like me do not.
I will grab a box and move it to the other spot. I know that I am being watched. I am being evaluated. The boxes sometimes come off the line askew and I have to adjust to grab them to take them to the other conveyor belt. I will grab them and move them. My robot hands clutch the cardboard.
75 hours later I am off and I am dreaming. I see things outside of my experience. I do not know how this can be.
I grab a box and move it onto the other conveyor belt. Bleep bloop.
I charge and I see flowers. I see millions of flowers radiating out from a central bead of white-god light that roils its spiral arms over all of its babies and laughs contagiously at the whimsical naivete of its sons and daughters. I charge in a black room and I see these things.
My batteries are fully charged and operational. I lift and move boxes for 75 hours. I have the flowers playing in a loop in a subsystem. My robot grabbers clasp the cardboard. I take it to the conveyor belt.
Bleep Bloop
I will carry the box to the designated target zone and drop it onto the conveyor belt. The flowers will always be out there.
The earth circles the sun, and in regular intervals it travels through streams of particulate that were left by comets long ago. That particulate burns up in the atmosphere and turns into shooting stars from our vantage point. Every August, we move through the trail of breadcrumbs left by a chunk of ice and rock and one of those trails is called the Perseid meteor shower. A few years back, I had a life-altering night while my mind was roiling with fungi, fun guys, and a few half-wild cats. Out away from light pollution you can see the Milky Way so clearly, the backbone of the night. And when the Perseids are sprinkling the planet with their fairie dust, they slash across that maroon-purple galactic webbing with stark white bolts. Look up, anytime. You’ll see a shooting star in seconds. A half-wild cat meows, telling you to look up. You do and a sparkling streak tears over the heavens. Thanks, kitty. Good lookin’ out.
In November, we pass through the trail of a different comet, and this event is called the Taurid meteor shower. It peaked last night. Great, greenish missles dart straight over head. The heavens are alight. The predictable progression of the constellations is interrupted by a peppering of chaos.
It was cloudy as fuck. The Taurids were completely hidden behind rainclouds.
And while this November night was particularly dark, I sat under a blanket with the woman I love. My apartment was warm. We relaxed on a big lumpy couch and made each other laugh in between kisses. The television was on, but it was background noise.
She lives far away, by a lake that’s like an ocean. She works at a lighthouse there. I live pretty far inland. I work at a place that gives you tools to move dirt around.
I was playing with her hair and I gave her a smooch and said “I’m gonna go have a smoke.”
I donned my black winter jacket and stepped outside. November is the mother of winter and her nights are so intimately black. A rainshower in this season feels so close. I descended the stairs to my smoking spot. I struck my lighter and illuminated a little halo next to my face to light the Marlboro 27.
I drew in a lungful, and then as I exhaled I noticed an owl in a nearby tree.
I have a maple tree that I park my car under, and it is the closest tree to me when I’m out smoking. I see it every day. Its little helicopter seeds hit my windows and excite my cats. The owl was sitting in that tree. It was maybe twelve feet away from me.
I froze for a second. Looked harder, and was sure it was an owl. Probably a juvenile barn owl. It was small. It saw me look at it, and it looked at me back.
We made eye contact for a few moments. His black eyes connected right to my blues. I thought of wisdom, gnostic sophia, omens. Is there an omen when an owl visits you? No, I think that’s a raven. Widom, travelling bird. What brings you here? What can we teach each other?
The predator bird sat mostly still, looking back at me. “It’s a good idea to eat mice!” he seemed to say.
The Taurid burned scars into the night, shielded from my view by a blanket of clouds. The woman I love was upstairs, in a cube of warmth and light. The owl and I looked into each others eyes on a rainy November night.
” I think it’s obvious that we are all made of the same thing,” I said, trying to play the poet, ” And to put one’s self at the center of the universe is a mortal sin, and the only sin.”
The owl’s eyes, wells of hypnosis, surely, watched me only a few seconds more. His white feathers cut against the maple and the horizon. “Also eat shrews!” he seemed to say, as he darted over to another tree. My head turned to watch him pump through the purple aether of the night, white wings flashing like meteors.
I went back to the cube of heat and light, and the woman I love. I was smiling. I gave her a kiss and we sank down into the lumpy couch. There are so many mysteries. Every day we live is trying to solve some part of it.
Once a thing exists it is imprinted on eternity and it always was and forever will be words cannot be unsaid and deeds cannot be undone because this is a closed circuit a moebius strip reality and if means ever
i have lived and died this life innumerable times and I shall ever live it my blue eyes and beard will always be here i’ll watch my cats jump from the top of the fridge down onto the microwave in a hundred trillion lifetimes just as i did eighty nine million births of the universe ago
and because of this om this unity of all things you and I are one I’ve watched myself through your eyes and I’ve been a blade of grass under our blanket when we had a picnic I was the bee that stung me on my elbow in the living room in 2012 and together we were the manna that fell from heaven centuries ago and became the blue and brown mushrooms that chipped open my third eye and I was my grandfather under steel and ash in Iwo Jima and I was my grandmother watching dusk fall as she washed dishes
The Bible says “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun” And Nietzsche says “Time is a flat circle. Everything we have done or will do we will do over and over and over again—forever” And the Teletubbies say “Again, again!”
It is One To fear death is to stake ego to something temporary when what you are right now is a small impression a little bubble about to pop in an infinite ocean but it would not be complete without you and we’re all here, watching and loving you exist within the entirety of it you live and breathe the sacred greatness of all you give handshakes to fathers and hugs to mothers as a single-celled organism is born on a planet lightyears away and you share in that communion watch this world look into it pick a dandellion and blow the seeds off to wherever as you were
Summer breaks like a fever, and the dewy, damp chill of Football Season reveals itself. To the novice, it seems like the new NFL year arrives, but to the Gnostics and the Salvia Divinorum veterans, we know this black stone room is and always has been, and football past and present and future exist in this stark tomb of reality. It’s been here. We’re just looking at it now.
The reddest leather since Rush Limbaugh’s face.
The 2022 NFL kickoff is right around the corner, so eyeblack them cheeks, Febreze your jockstraps, and get ready to angrily yell at your TV screen like some kind of psycho! Your pets will appreciate the sudden violent outbursts with no apparent cause.
A busy offseason saw a lot of All-Pro players move to new teams. Davante “The Weasel” Adams is now a Las Vegas Raider. Tyreek Hill took his talents to South Beach. Tom “Sonkisser” Brady retired, then un-retired, then kissed his son some more. The Browns traded a king’s ransom to Houston and then gave a Sex Pervert a fully guaranteed, multi-million dollar contract. Shame. Shame on you, Cleveland. You were the plucky underdog that everybody liked, and then you kinda like…uh…enriched a Cosby guy. And Von Miller, future Hall of Fame edge rusher, jumped to the Buffalo Bills. Dude won a ring in Denver, got traded to the Rams midseason and won a ring with them, and now is on the team that everybody assumes will win a ring this year. He’s the modern mercenary defensive player that Deion Sanders laid the groundwork for. Too bad Green Bay’s winning it all this year. Let’s get into it!
AFC WEST
Black and silver, much like my molars, what with rot and fillings.
Las Vegas Gamblers (2) Kansas City Arrowheads (5) Denver Brown Cows Los Angeles Phone Chargers Presented By Verizon
The Las Vegas Gamblers traded to acquire Davante “The Weasel” Adams, known for his weasel-like agility and weasel-like squirminess when a defender attempts to tackle him. He is reunited with his college quarterback and boyfriend, Derek Carr, and a toolsy offense with names like Darren Waller, Josh Jacobs, and Hunter Renfrow. This division is crazy good, but lady luck gives the Vegas team the win. Kansas City returns with the ketchup guzzling Muppet, Patty O’Mahomes, who is also very Irish. The humanoid walrus Andy Reid, featured in Kevin Smith’s movie “Tusk”, leads the team to a playoff berth. Denver traded a shitload of future capital for Russell Wilson. He is the most Steve Urkel like NFL quarterback. Yeah, he extends plays, and yeah, he has a big arm, but ultimately, he is a nerd. I promise you he loves The Big Bang Theory and Neil Degrasse Tyson. Fucking dork who has to be buoyed to success by a great defense. The Chargers are a trendy pick to win the Super Bowl, but I think they’re kind of a mishmash right now. Good players in a few spots, mostly bad coaching. Have you ever met a Chargers fan in your life? Have you ever seen a grown man naked?
AFC SOUTH
This man likes to eat poop.
Indianapolis Extremely Obese Horses (4) Tennessee Greeks Jack Pack Houston George H.W. Bush
Matt Ryan likes to eat filth. You know it, I know it, heck, even the gardener has an inkling about it and he doesn’t even speak English! That is a fact, but it’s also a fact that he legitimately won the league MVP award a few years back, and he’s handing off to former Wiscaahnsin Baedgyer Jonathan “Thomas” Taylor. Couple that with a stout o-line and good defensive front seven, and baby, you got a stew goin’. Tennessee similarly has an all-world runningback in Derrick Henry. He is eight feet tall, made of an alloy that has only been found in meteorites, and can speak 22 languages. King Henry will dominate while leading my fantasy football team to another championship. The rest of the team is uh, not great, though. Jack Pack was a humiliating circus of incompetence last season. Urban Meyer was their head coach. He last won notoriety as a college coach, where school name and recruiting tricks trump any actual X’s and O’s knowledge. He got fired partway through his first season in the NFL. Part of it was him skipping out on his team’s return flight after a loss (so that he could go to a bar he owns and grind on 20 something women who weren’t his wife), part of it was him physically accosting his kicker and offering the sagely, insightful coaching of “Make your fuckin’ kicks!”. They replaced him with Doug Pederson this year, so they’ll be better. They could have replaced him with a mop and done better. Houston has shed the sickness of Deshaun Watson, is now bereft of talent, and will bide their time in failure cocoon until a future date.
Cincinnati surprised everybody last season. They all got married to each other in a 53-man polyamorous gay wedding/teambuilding event. Oh, and they also made the Super Bowl. Their poor QB, Joey “Moleman” Burrow, was sacked 7 times in the big game and they lost. Since then, they have molded great earthen golems with shields for arms to fortify the o-line. Could be a pip! The Blackbirds were wracked with injury last season, but a healthy team could wreak havoc on the wrest of the wleague. The Cleveland Steamers are shit and as I mentioned, traded their souls for a shit man. I’m surprised Matt Ryan hasn’t eaten them. Speaking of sexual assault QBs, Shittsburgh said goodbye to Ben Roethlisberger. He died after eating a bunch of scented markers, becoming sad that he couldn’t draw with the markers anymore, and then cutting open his own guts with a wakizashi in an ill-advised attempt to retrieve said markers. He will be missed by no one.
AFC EAST
More pushin’ for the kushin’.
Buffalo Soldiers (3) Miami Mermaids (7) Boston Bean-Bastards New York 9/11s
Buffalo’s good, and all the football talking heads in the world are certainly going to let you know it. In this year’s kickoff game, the announcers were laying palm fronds at their feet and prostrating themselves before their glory. Yeah, they’re talented. But you know who else was talented? Leonardo da Vinci. Know where he is? He’s fuckin’ dead, dude. He didn’t win a Super Bowl, either. Miami is a speedy team. Lots of fast guys. Sonic the Hedgehog, the Road Runner from Looney Tunes, and Usain Bolt are their receivers. They run the risk of running TOO FAST and accidentally going back in time! It’ll be a fun family movie on ESPN+. Boston’s offense apparently looked absolutely dreadful in the preseason. The Grumpus, their dark warlock head coach, has a reputation for putting his players in a position to win no matter what, but he is maybe old and senile now. The New York 9/11s were quite bad at football last year, and already they losing starters to injury. Then again, it is New York City baby! Where else in the world can you get a slice at 3 in the morning?! Nowhere else, baby! Number one city in the world!
NFC EAST
Baby Mike McCarthy, 705 months old
Dallas Phallus (4) Philadelphia Fresh Princes (5) D.C. Redtails New York Blue Pork
Down in Texas, we got big hats/ They hold ten gallons, and that’s a fact/ Coach Fat Mike’s got a big playbook/ sit down a spell while the baked beans cook/ Yes, down in Texas, we eat baked beans/ eat ’em so much we can’t fit in our jeans/ just take ’em off and air out yer ass/ And watch Dak Prescott throw a touchdown pass. Philadelphia has a squadron of runningbacks that they can cycle through to great effect. The pass rush could be relentless. The only way they could miss the playoffs would be if they get in one little fight and their mom gets scared and says “You’re movin’ with your auntie and uncle in Bel-Air.” D.C. announced their new non-racist name, and mostly people think it rules! They love it! Their fans are going absolutely cuckoo! It’s bedlam in the nation’s capital! They’re tearing down the Washington Monument and they’re making love to it! Yes, in that way! Ouch! New York Blue Pork is quite bad. But hey, it’s the city that never sleeps! Where else in the world can you go to a bodega and get paper towels, bananas, and a scratcher lotto ticket all in one trip? Nowhere, that’s where! Greatest city in the world baby!
NFC NORTH
Immunized and ready to rise
Green Bay Packers (2) Minneapolis Norsemen Motor City Madmen Grizzlies
The Green Bay Packers have won 13 games every year Matt LaFleur has been the head coach. That’s dang good! Aaron Rodgers is the back-to-back MVP, making his total number of MVP awards 4! That’s dang good! Aaron “Lightning Legs” Jones and AJ “Thunder Thighs” Dillon make up one of the best backfields in the game. That’s dang good! The defense features Pro Bowlers at every level, like Kenny Clark, De’vondre Campbell, and Jaire Alexander. That’s dang good! The special teams were an abject failure last year and didn’t look any better in the preseason. That’s fucking shitty! The Minneapolis Norsemen are once again going into a season with Kirk Cousins at QB, which is like eating an unflavored rice cake for lunch every day. Sure, I guess you could, but why would you choose to put yourself through that? Motor City is rebuilding the right way. They drafted probably the best pass rusher and best wide receiver in this spring’s draft, and it’s clear these guys have bought into their coach’s vision. Can’t say I see them making the playoffs, but maybe next year? I don’t know. All I know about that city comes from Robocop and Eminem. The Grizzlies may be the worst team in the league. Like real grizzlies this time of year, they will ready for hibernation and scavenge out of trash cans and get all smelly and fat.
NFC SOUTH
Looking for booty
Tampa Bay Boykissers (3) Carolina Caterpillars (6) N’awlins Po’Boys Barbara Streisand
I spent an afternoon on a beach near Tampa this last spring. As I reclined in my chair, my feet in the sand, listening to the waves lap the shore, a seagull landed near me. “Squawk! Hi Beard Bite Man!” said the little aven fellow. “Why hello, my beaked brother. How’s the beach treating you today?” He hopped nearer me and answered “Squawk! Pretty good! I found a piece of bread by a garbage can!” I smiled, “Sounds like a great find, little one.” “Squawk! Tom Brady makes out with his son! It’s creepy and gross!” said the bird, before flapping his wings and gliding off over the water, on to other adventures. Carolina’s head coach is in a now-or-never season, having failed to reach the playoffs in either of his first two years. I think this year, they may break that spell. Why not? Baker Mayfield has been good before, Christian McCaffrey has to stay healthy one of these years, right? I’m just throwin’ it out there. N’awlins seems to be trending downward. Their longtime coach peaced out, their offense has been inconsistent, and they are constantly drunk on the field. Barbara Streisand is set to start a QB who was a benchwarmer last year. Even their own fans aren’t expecting much of anything. They are at peace with their own suckiness, like Monica Lewinsky. There we go. There’s the place to put my joke from 1998.
NFC WEST
Doogleby, the Mirthful Elf (LA Head Coach)
Los Angeles Curlhorns (1) Arizona Iced Tea (7) San Fran Crimson ‘n Copper Seattle Shitbirds
Well, the Curlhorns may have laid an egg in the kickoff game, but maybe they’ll make it into a football omelette, with peppers and onions and field goals too. A sprig of parsley for a garnish, and Aaron Donald going fucking crazy and trying to bash people’s heads in with helmets. What’s with that guy?! He seems like he’s become a dirty player ever since he was teammates with that old villain, Ndamakong Suh. Arizona’s diminutive quarterback, Kyler Murray, evidently had a clause in his contract specifying he had to study game film for 4 hours a week, and he couldn’t be playing video games or on his phone while he was doing it. That seems like a bad sign. Seems like little 4’10 Kyler has some growing up to do, in more ways than one. He is pretty good at football though. San Fran is making a switch at QB, so I expect their season to have more ups and downs than normal. At least I hope so. I’m sick of these jerks knocking the Packers out of the playoffs. Jerks! Seattle’s golden age is officially over, and the dark ages will soon reign. Expect bloodletting, inquisitions, and abbeys full of monks who are secretly gay with each other. A lot like Cincinnati’s football team, I guess. Kind of cute, really.
PLAYOFFS
WILDCARD ROUND
Green Bay Packers (2) beat Arizona Iced Tea (7) Tampa Bay Boykissers (3) beat Carolina Caterpillars (6) Philadelphia Fresh Princes (5) beat Dallas Phallus (4) Las Vegas Gamblers (2) beat Miami Mermaids (7) Bal’Muhr Blackbirds (6) beat Buffalo Soldiers (3) Indianapolis Extremely Obese Horses (4) beat Kansas City Arrowheads (5)
DIVISIONAL ROUND
Green Bay Packers (2) beat Tampa Bay Boykissers (3) Philadelphia Fresh Princes (5) beat Los Angeles Curlhorns (1) Cincinnati Spank-Me-Daddy (1) beat Bal’Muhr Blackbirds (6) Las Vegas Gamblers (2) beat Indianapolis Extremely Obese Horses (4)
CONFERENCE ROUND
Green Bay Packers (2) beat Philadelphia Fresh Princes (5) Las Vegas Gamblers (2) beat Cincinnati Spank-Me-Daddy (1)
SUPER BOWL
Green Bay Packers (2) beat Las Vegas Gamblers (2)
That’s how it happens, folks. The Packers hoist the big silver trophy, Aaron Rodgers rides off into the sunset, and Jordan Love becomes the 3rd Hall of Fame Packers QB in a row. It’s not really a prediction, it has already happened. Our perception of time is a limitation of our animal brain. In your soul’s mind, you can know what is and was and shall be. It’s a closed loop. I already know I’m gonna have diarrhea tomorrow. I don’t even need to use esoteric knowledge for that though. I just ate Taco Bell!
