...on conspiracies

...or is it just finger licking good?

one time in high school, the bastard was in a history class. the teacher was a man named ed deering who i later found was a bit of a drinker but that's neither here nor there. anyway, ed was talking about vietnam at the time and declaring is his golden monotone that the war was fought over the interests of coca cola and united fruit.

well the bastard was reading this morning's daily news and we came across this photo of palestinians firing off a few rounds in the middle of main street or wherever but, the bastard had noticed a kfc in the background, which i blew up as best as i could. the bastard purports this, maybe palestine is doing what it's doing because of their great love for the colonel. i think we can solve this problem with fried chicken perhaps. or perhaps the bastard should stop drinking in the morning.

—the bastard

...on viewer mail

some time about a month ago, the bastard received a note from his old place of business from the wife of an old co-worker of mine. he was an editor and he had a quirky sense of humor. now an internet magazine doesn't give you as many funny headlines to make fun of as a hunting magazine. at the mag, left hand rob and i have chuckled to many classic headlines that never made it to print like say, "get wet for crappies" and "is there a sheep in your future" and there was the classic hunting column sentence that never made it into print that ran along the lines of, "as i was boning the carcass, i was dreaming about my next hunt". either way, we spent the last few month's of our miserable existence at this rapidly sinking weekly (it was while the bubble crashed) asking each other "who's mindin, the sto". anyway. i received this note from his wife saying she was a fan of the blog. the bastard's first fan aside from jimmy 3000 reading whatever dreck a puked out that day and running down to the old prepress area to tell the daughter of mawg to "log on, the bastard really wound up today". but there you have it. i have a fan. and fans write mail. so among other questions, she had asked me about my choice to lean on the mall.

I love Roosevelt Field mall, by the way. Yes, I love shopping the city more and I hate suburbia as much as i dislike pretentious NYers, but it's my mall. Everyone should just be like me anyway. Or just leave me alone. Either one would work. We've been taking the boys into the city more often and even have been going to lincoln center for these concerts for young people. they enjoy it.

(And you know a fad is really out of style when the kids out in Suffolk start wearing it. Ugg boots have made it out to Suffolk. Ugh, indeed.)

so i started answerring the note but my explanation started to run on into something worth writing about. don't worry fan, i'll finish up the rest of the note and answer the other questions but i need to do a little cut and paste magic at the moment.

oh don't get me wrong fan, i love roosevelt field mall too. the bastard used to hop the n24 on sundays with a friend of mine and hang out there quite often thoughout high school. my lay-ins are based on how i am constantly confounded by the sheep like mentality of people. it's just that sometimes the mall really does have it all. you see one kind of hipster in lower manhattan but in the mall, teenagers are like little gangs in little uniforms for their genre. it's like watching the first 10 minutes of "the warriors" going in there sometimes. here's the heavy metal kids and here are the hip hop kids and here are the metrosexual kids. and over here we have the gang of authenticly gay high school kids (and i can't EVEN begin to wrap my head around what life must be like for them), and here's the chubby girls in uggs and the here comes those goth kids who can't think of anything less original than hanging out outside of hot topic. in lower manhattan you just hav the hipsters and the working class folks. oh and those women who wish that carrie moss would get her own "sex in the city" spin off series which would no doubt be called "sex in the city 2, electric boogaloo". i just think a mall the size of lower manhattan has more of a wealth of material than the L.E.S.

let's not get me started on suffolk county. i don't go out there often but i have to wonder about that distant outpost of humanity. i have family out there who will no doubt be just like the kids i've been making fun of one day. we bastard's have big bones, so they won't look so good in uggs either. on second thought...can't wait!!!

thanks for helping me shake out the bugs. up until now, this was looking like an uncreative weekend. actually, now that i think of it, i'll have to set up an e-mail address to do this again.

—the bastard

have you considered...

...that perhaps if you need to shout into your phone at the top of your lungs like a crazy woman, that maybe you need a new phone? or perhaps you need to have your hearing checked out? by the way, those leg warmers are not really working out for you.

—the bastard

in a contest...

...suburbia would win

as i mentioned earlier, the bastard went to see a french movie and eat french food in the lower east side on saturday afternoon. jerkface's other selling point was that we could also experience the wealth of fun making opportunities that comes with seeing the pretentiously dressed and pretensious acting citizens of downtown. you see people watching is a hobby of the bastard's. one time chicago and i were drinking in a bar in las vegas watching people walk past us as we drank and tried to guess what they did for a living or where they were from. it was gintastic. spent the whole night just loudly pointing at people declaring, "l.a., l.a., l.a., kentucky, stripper, stripper, midwest, south, new york, l.a., pretending to be a stripper this weekend, l.a., l.a., l.a." well you get the idea. now i know that by wrote of having your own sense of cultural elitism in these situation is in and of itself a pompous road to a humorless existense but everyone needs a hobby and this is mine so there. besides, i'm sure the bastard is quite the humorous site for the next pontificator anyway.

today, the bastard was spending the remains of his christmas gift certificates at the mall. and let me tell you, they aren't kidding about the mall having it all. in fact if the bastard was to stage a pretensiousness contest between suburbia and the lower east side, i would argue that suburbia wins hands down. now to be fair to the l.e.s., i DID see a middle aged man with ryan seacrest's hair wearing a pair of ugg's on a bicycle and the clincher for me was the woman i saw on my way out of the theatre was in her twenties and was wearing a wig of white hair but, the mall just has a greater concentration of material. lots of uncomfortable kids in uggs. kids dressed as surfers. now i know that new york has it's own surf culture but, to see kids from long island dressed like they were from southern california just makes them look like fucking tourists. well, at least the metalheads still look like metalheads.

—the bastard

the trail

...or the nice lady checks in

so the nice lady phones me last night and we get to talking about her day in the grand canyon state. allthough yesterday chicago jerkface asked where she was and when i said arizona, he thought i said arkansas. i said, "no jerkface, arizona. the other "A" state. so the bastard is now going to officially petition the state of arizona to change it's state motto from the "grand canyaon state" to "the other "A" state". don't thank me all at once arizona. it's okay. you can have that one. really. go on. take it.

anyway, the nice lady was describing a "trail" she was hiking yesterday in the sonora desert. nice lady described it as, "not so much a trail, so much as a pile of rocks and cactus. here, i'll show you". and now i show you, mostly because it's a damn good looking picture but also, because it's nice to see warmer parts of the country during the winter. enjoy. go on. enjoy. ahhhhhhh forget it.

—the bastard

...on a clean sweep

so the bastard went out for an afternoon flick thanks to the good graces of chicago jerkface and his lady. now i feel bad calling him jerkface for inviting me out to lunch and a movie. but then again, he was the first person to coin the phrase "jerkface" when he was freelancing for the magazine before he was hired. either way, the name sticks and i got some cheap as hell but tasty steak frites for lunch as well as a weird french film called "cache" by filmmaker michael haneke. it's about this tv host names georges who keeps getting a series of innocuous video tapes of himself and his family. no violence is threatened upon him so, the police won't do anything to help him so, he gradually feels more and more threatened as the tapes become more personal. by the end, the film left me wanting more closure but, it felt good to be able to draw my own conclusions instead of having them spoon fed to the bastard by hollywood. either way, it was a brilliant way for me to spend the afternoon and it was nice to go back to a part of new york that i used to go to in order to make fun of pretensious hipsters only yo find that i can still go back there and make fun of them. good times.

after the film, i get back on the train to head back to the craptastic borough i call home. tonight's selection was the f train and the bastard settles back into the mode of transportation that he likes better because despite it's currently voted down contract, it is still the bastard's preferred means of getting around, hands down. most of the while, i just sit there minding my own business zoning out, took a little catnap while we rode under the river and eventually, we pull into roosevelt avenue and i decide to compose myself. when onto the car walks this young guy who is well dressed. aside from his patchwork leather coat being a throwback to the early days of hiphop, he was well dressed in a crisp white shirt and slacks carrying a broom in his hand. this kid walks to the head of the car and proceeds to start sweeping the car. people life their feet up as he goes under their seat and he just quietly sweeps his way across the car. the bastard pulls into continental to go back to the ride and i take a quick glance back to see if i hadn't actually stumbled from a french film into a fellini film. you know, to see if i actually saw some young guy sweep out a subway car in his sunday best and lo and behold, there he was sweeping it right out of the car and onto the platform. i don't know if you're crazy or what kid but good for you setting the better example. and good for me not being nuts. that's all the bastard needs is to have some dwarves and circus performers coming out of the car with him. but then again, i didn't look back after that so who knows?

the bastard

done

...or on taking the hill

you know the bastard has a history of speaking too soon on these things but even though everything hasn't been officially finished, after 150 plus pages, and two weeks of never seeing the exit sign before 8 pm, the bastard can crumple.

—the bastard

it's windsday

...or the bastard can't leave a good winnie the pooh reference alone

"i can't believe i'm leaning into this, october. if the wind stops, i'm going to do a face plant right onto the yellow line"

"yeah. this is crazy. how was your holidays?"

"weird. some of my relatives treat the whole thing like i have the flu. sooooooo, bastard? how are you.......doing? i mean come on, there's got to be better ways of asking one how things are. how was vegas?"

"it was great. i won 50 bucks playing blackjack"

"october, no one wins at blackjack."

"well i won 50 bucks. i lost 20 then i remembered to double down and all that stuff i learned about blackjack and i was up 70. so i played my last hand, lost 10 and gave the dealer a 10 dollar tip."

"october, no one wins at black jack. you sure you were at a blackjack table?"

ahhhh what the hell, maybe he was.

—the bastard

...on the vigorish

...or how the bastard never really knew how much he missed the subway

"hey scoop, this is the bastard. i'm on the parkway right now. it's really cold out but i was wondering if it would be worth my while to drive in. you know...because...my car is warm. anyway give me a call back. i should be parked in less than 15. see ya."

the bastard's new piece of space age technology keeps songs on it. scoop gets "wheel in the sky" by journey because she likes hair bands and i like to make fun of them. i'm en route to ricky west's birthday party (scoop's man) and it's downtown. fully knowing i will have to walk several blocks from where i'm going to park to get to the subway, i go to hedge my bets on lower east side parking but by the time the golden tones of neil schon and company kick in, scoop informs me that parking is a no go. so the bastard rolls out of the ride and into the cold. and damn, it was cold.

the bastard has forgotten how much he misses the subway. except for the cold part. it's much colder. but then again, it was much colder outside than it was in the ride. but the train is on time (relatively, it WAS a sunday) and it always comes to the same track. i don't need to run from track 13 to track 21 at the last minute with a bunch of rubes from the island so, it's good. surprisingly, the bastard didn't get lost in lower manhattan. i go here so infrequently since i got old that i have a tendency to get lost. and lost and cold are two things that i don't want to be. pay dirt, i makes it to the vig and oddly enough, the bastard arrives when he thought he would.

now just a quick backgrounder. the bastard hasn't been old all that long so i remember the price of liquor to be much cheaper than it was on sunday night. for that matter, last thursday, i met up with a friend from art school at the W on 47th and that was quite to pricey cocktail. quite frankly, the bottle of gin at my desk cost less than the 2 drinks i had there. but i wasn't there for the pricey fare, i was there to play catchup with an old friend and to make long overdue amends. but i digress, the drinks at this jib joint were equally as pricey as i found out when susie kansas offered to buy me a drink and i went up to the bar with her. corey glover behind the bar hands off the drinkys and says, "that'll be 16 dollars". the bastard exhales loudly and thinks, "am i getting some gold bullion with this drink? is it a fucking magical gin and tonic?" either way, i thank susie and make sure that i pay back the back breakingly expensive drink later. honestly, with scenery like this (see above), i don't understand how you pull that kind of tab down and still be able to afford to live in this part of town. ida know though. once upon a time, i could have lived down here. now, my own righteous indignation would keep me from paying these kinds of prices to rent on this rock. yeah. shoulda, woulda, coulda. shut the hell up old man.

by oneish, the bastard is feeling like it's time to go. scoop had to airlift her man out of the place and hour and change ago and susie kansas left with her guy 20 minutes ago. i ask corey glover for a glass of water declaring that it's a long ass walk back to queens. corey retorts, "astoria, long island city?" back at me. i fly back with, "nah. further east. fucking ice station zebra for all you needs to know my dear", i am the cult of personality indeed, shiteyes. anyway water in tow, it's back into the cold and onto the subway. you know, the night of the magazine's christmas party....er....planning meeting, the bastard had to take the railroad home at 1 in the morning and the next train was at 1:44 am that night. i ended up taking the first train that would dump me back in my old hood and took a cab back to ice station zebra from there. i didn't have this problem with the subway. i took the 20 minutes after i got onto the platform train to all parts going my way back to craptastic queens with out any muss or fuss. can't get that in penn station.

—the bastard

suburbia can't seem to let a bad trend go

...or how the bastard loves the freakshow that is suburbia

In the high school halls
In the shopping malls
Conform or be cast out

a long ways ago, seems like a different lifetime ago, the bastard and the nice lady took a triip to boston with some friends. the ultimate goal was to see the red sox play the yankees in fenway park. while we were out and about that weekend, the bastard saw his first urban outfitters. i bought a used mexican dress shirt and went on my way. those of you who don't know what an urban outfitters is, it's essentially a trendy store to buy trendy clothes and is usually located in trendy neighborhoods. when i want to watch the throngs of suburban knuckle draggers in their natural habitat, i go to the mall. also the bastard seems to be able to find crap in his size there too, so i win twice in this situation. anyway, a year or 3 ago, the local mall (and it isn't all that local) opened up an urban outfitters. the bastard's passing thought was now that there's one of these (and a hot topic, "the walmart for goths" for that matter) then it's only a matter of time until all of long island turns into a cartoon of williasburg hipness and that by and large is a cartoon as well.

so the nice lady and i take alittle day trip to the seventh concentric circle of hell shopping mall and among things we were discussing was something about a perfume that mama ruth gave her for christmas. she take sme into sephora to let me in on it. the bastard likes to know this stuff so go to hell or keep reading. anyway, as we walk in i see dumpy little suburban preteens, hundreds of them wearing ugg boots. now as we see here, these little gems are about as aesthetically appealing as earth shoes and fucking birkenstocks. and while the people that see and need to be seen rock them, they are not some poor dumpy little girl from long island.


QUICK ASIDE: the bastard feels that it is hard enough for teenagers to grow up in today's over marketed and image conscious society. it's even moreso for girls. and even more moreso for awkward girls who don't exactly look good in this god awful footwear. besides, the bastards sources tell him that these shoes went out with lindsay lohan's breasts already.

what the bastard finds fascinating is how suburbia has become this incredible backwater that keeps dead trends alive in an island of misfit toys kind of way. when the mofo came in from fortress purgatory this christmas, i had asked him as we meandered our way through this land that time forgot and i asked him how it was down there. his reply was, it's pretty much the same, only in florida. it makes the bastard wonder how long i have to look at these awkward kids try and impress each other into oblivion. i can probably transpose the same speech for the kids from hot topic as well but, i have sleep to catch up on.

—the bastard

slog

...or on taking the hill

trudge trudge trudge
the bastard is really tired. exhausted. ready for the coffee I.V. drip. later for that. ratchet it up to meth. in preperation for the gun show, we build a bunch of pre built pages and send them so that other than breaking news, these papers have content. it's been a long hard slog and it's still going when i get the word from scoop:

No wonder it seems like we have a ton of pages. We are releasing 110 prebuilt pages this year, as compared to only 84 last year. We are also shipping the Feb/March issue at the exact same time, so that is another 40 pages. By the end of this week, we'll have sent 150+ pages.

trudge trudge trudge
i think i'm beginning to like it here, the chair is comfy and the coffee is cheap. once more into the breach shiteyes!

—the bastard

...on the black thumb

...or was it a green bag, i don't recall

it started going sometime before christmas and this is the second one she bought at the home depot. maybe that new york air is what killed it. or maybe it was the bus ride from pennsylvania but the tree has certainly taken on a charlie brown-esque quality to it. "should i throw this out?",asks ms. cin. "it's brown." left hand rob chimes in stating that this particular rosemary tree must be one of those everbrowns that he's been hearing about. the bastard still thinks it smelss good. it's rosemary, the smell reminds me of roast chicken or does it remind me of simon and garfunkel. OR perhaps it reminds me of roast simon and garfunkel. mmmmmmmmmmm QUEENS COLLEGE ALUMNILICIOUS. "i fed it, i watered it, i talked to it, i gave it love and look what happens." "well there's your problem", snipes the snow man as he strolls in at the leisurely hour of 10.

"i put this one in a bag and keep it in the dark and look, it's growing. what the hell?" at this point the discussion on horticulture devolves into a discussion on meltdowns. rob suggests the idea of setting up a betting pool for when ms. cin snaps next. the bastard suggests that we put up one of those signs that says "no accidents in...days". you know the best part of that is when the sign rolls over. then you know that someone lost a finger in the deli that day.

you know everything seems funnier when you're tired

—the bastard

...on night time

...or on it not being the right time

you know there are moments in your life and they happen often in which you see it coming but you decide to let it come anyway. you know that the bad mood is coming. or in this case the big empty. the long ass work day is over and you've gone into full crumple and you step into the music and then you see it coming. sitting right between you and brian cox. brian cox is sitting there, except he's bald and drinking an enourmous can of coors light. oh waitaminute, he has a second gigantic can. anyway, so the big empty is sitting between us and he starts singing:

This is the time of our great undoing
This is the time that I'll come running
Straight to you
For I am captured
Straight to you
For I am captured
One more time

awww dammit. now you had to go and sing straight to you. you know how nick cave makes the bastard feel all empty inside. i could move on to the next track and send him packing but hell, i see him. he sees me. and now we're gonna let it happen.

Gone are the days of rainbows
Gone are the nights of swinging from the stars
For the sea will swallow up the mountains
And the sky will throw thunder-bolts and sparks
Straight at you
But I'll come a-running
Straight to you
But I'll come a-running
One more time

nah. nah. it's alright, empty. you keep on singing. now i wanna be here. it feels cozy. you see, i was having a chat with ms. cin about drama a couple weeks back and i had read that people tend to like drama tend to like it because on some level it makes them feel some power in life. so not one to shirk off my needs, i let it come and run all through me as i blast my way off the train. wait, is that girl checking me out, or is she just really uncomfortable? who cares. i'm in it now.

Heaven has denied us its kingdom
The saints are drunk howling at the moon
The chariots of angels are colliding
Well, I'll run, babe, but I'll come running
Straight to you
For I am captured
Straight to you
For I am captured
One more time

sure it's silly but, the bastard likes to entertain himself on the way home. besides, right after that, "teenage f.b.i." by guided by voices comes on and the whole thing changes. the big empty runs screaming as the hooky goodness gets me across the street and into the darkness towards the place i sleep. true they really should put up more street lights in this burg but, the bastard can carry his own even while singing the chorus. stupid little girly man, good thing you pack a knife cause your gonna lose your street cred belting out obscure bubblegum crap like this in the middle of the night. hah! goodnight shiteyes.

—the bastard

...on parklife

Confidence is a preference for the habitual voyeur of what is known as (parklife)
And morning soup can be avoided if you take a route straight through what is known as (parklife)
John's got brewers droop he gets intimidated by the dirty pigeons They love a bit of it (parklife)
Who's that gut lord marching... you should cut down on your parklife mate... get some Exercise

so the bastard finally gets a decent day out and the boy and i hit the park for a little fresh air and exercise. we hit one, and it's devoid of life. we play for a bit and the bastard fields a call from robbo. i failed to engage in the yearly ritual of drunk dialing all of my friends after midnite on news years (i mean i DID drunk dial a couple people) due to this new situation with cell phones. apparently only so much bandwidth is alloted to the swarming masses. so there is a constant dead spot in the area until 1 am anyway.

after a bit, the boy needs to interact with other humans so i say, let's go find another park, shall we. we move north and all the bastard really expected to see were out patients from the asylum across the street (yes there is an asylum in the bastard's old hood, wanna fight about it?) but there were kids kicking a ball around and the boy wanted in. he asks me, i tell him to ask them and then we're in. later on i remarked to a friend of mine over the phone that i feel like i look less like the boy's father and more like his bodyguard in my trenchcoat but hey, it's what we have to wear. anyway, i noticed some young toughs playing handball as illustrated....emmmm.....here. after a while the bastard becomes kind of relieved that the boy and his new friends decided to play elsewhere because the young toughs had some mouths on them. not that it isn't anythin I haven't heard before but, the bastard would really sleep soundly knowing that the boy might not utter some gem like ,"this muddafockin' guy", anytime too soon. as i grabbed the boys coat out of the fence i noticed that one of the young toughs was passing a telltale tiny plastic bag of something to his friend so, i took a picture (cause IT LASTS LONGER) and hoped that the boy makes better choices than these kids who didn't look so young now.

I get up when I want except on Wednesdays when I get rudely awakened by the dustmen (Parklife)
I put my trousers on, have a cup of tea and I think about leaving me house (parklife)
I feed the pigeons I sometimes feed the sparrows too it gives me a sense of enormous well Being (parklife)
And then I'm happy for the rest of the day safe in the knowledge there will always be a bit Of my heart devoted to it

—the bastard

year of the bastard

...or on living at work

you know, the bastard always says alot of things especially when he's tired or depressed (this case tired) that he's going to stop posting for a little while. that it's really busy or how he just can't go on anymore (once again, tired) and i'm going to stop until...wel, you get the idea. inevitably i post the non post and then the material just keeps on coming. i also wanted to throw down some kind of post new years post but i didn't really get any pitchers while i was out that night so, back off!

the bastard is in the throes of tough times. we ship a current issue and 4 days worth of pre-built dailies for a gun show i am going to in las vegas. this amounts to trafficking 40 plus regualr pages plus around 25 per day of the show. not to mention prep work and the like. but this totals over 100 hundred pages for the bastard to traffic in the expanse of 2 business weeks and gin can only take the bastard so far. so it's long nights and long days for a bit. but it will all pay off when i start posting the first mullets of the gun show about a week from now next month. it will all be worth it. now go to hell.

—the bastard

...on driving in london

...or kkkkkkkkkkkkrrrrrrrrruuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnnnccccccccchhhhhhhhhh

so the bastard got himself a new phone. it's real effing nice. i took a picture with it this morning. bask if you will, in it's overall sweetness. the best comment i received on it was courtesy of paul bauer when he asked me if i had in fact found this alien technology in my back yard to which i replied, "why yes paul, area 51 does in fact exist but it is actually located in a back yard in queens village. you see, the bastard felt sorry for himself and went digging for onions for his pity party and found this wonderful orange hunk of space age technology". sort of takes the sting out of the whole phone buying process.

anyway, the bastard is standing on the platform this morning, having his usual staring contest with the wind, when he hears the telltale sound of fiberglass and metal crunching together in the gorgeous cacaphony that is a car accident. so i did what any good bastard would do, take a picture. you know why? because it LASTS LONGER shiteyes! all kidding aside, the bastard didn't do this right off the bat. i was surprised and i was genuinely concerned with the welfare of these poor folks. once they all got out and started the usual post "are you guys okay" shouting match, i took the picture. the thing that i find curious is, why the hell are they in the left lane?

—the bastard

short

excuse me pal, but could you pull over to the side before you stop short? we move with a purpose around here.

love,

—the bastard

...on gods

...or on deals

"we made gods and jailers because we felt small and ashamed and alone. we let them try us and judge us and, like sheep to slaughter, we allowed ourselves to be sentenced. see. now. our sentence is up"

—grant morrison

the bastard has always held the belief that their might be a higher power that made all of this and then left. or at least doesn't meddle in the affars of humanity. it keeps the bastard believing in free will. also the bastard's minor in history keeps him from subcribing to any particular religious faith. you see, no matter how you slice it, mankind has too much of a hand in the material that has been handed down to the congregation. the council of nicea only picks the books that will jibe with the churches agenda. martin luther translates it into german, john calvin get's his own ideas, martin luther get's into a froth. a couple years later, the king james version comes out and it's been edited by shakespeare according to legend. the working word here is edit. i won't even get into the notion of who's religion has changed it's principles 4 or 5 times since it's inception in the early 20th century and then proceeds to claim that the 2000 year old machine thast is catholicism is wrong and everyone who doesn't subscribe to their ever changing principles is going to hell. the bastard won't even get into potential historical evidence of a certain other religious figure who had epileptic seizures before declaring to the troops that allah says they can't drink alcohol. or even the notion that the oral tradition essentially waters down the information. is that really what god said or is this the short version. or the schtickiest version. got me thinking. got me thinking about the nature of religion. you see, the bastard just finished reading american gods and it got me to thinking. there is this part in which the author tells a brief tale of a tribe of nomads coming to america 14,000 years ago. they bring their mammoth god with them. eventually they arrive in what we knwo as america and they are overtaken by people who worship a raven. people get killed and the mammoth skull gets thrown into a ditch. and the mammoth god is forgotten. many religions have me t this end and it makes me wonder if the current establishment is no more relavent than others and continues to exist becaue they have a decent standng army. ida know. it's just a thought. don't get your panties in a bunch, shiteyes.

quick aside: the main character is working in the service of odin whose trying to rustle up all of the old gods to fight the new gods (oddly enough the new gods represent the materialism of today) and they happen upon czernobog, the slavic god of night. the main plays checkers with him to get him to go with odin and if he wins czernobog goes with him. if czernobog wins, he gets to kill the main with his hammer. the hero loses one and wins czernobog's services in the second double or nothing match (because americans DO like to gamble). so when the fight is over, our heroes life belongs to czernobog. after all is said and done, he goe sback to honor his half of the deal knowing he will be killed. i wonder if we all have that quality. now i'm tired and need to sleep. take what you want but, want what you take, jerkface. good night. next week. more hating on the railroad.

—the bastard