xanthos

Ballgag And Chain

2007-11-06T11:26:00.000-08:00

So, they want you buckle you down, and
make you feel guilty for not being so ready:
to turn it all in,
the cigarettes,
the swear words,
the hip clothes,
and coffee,
your signature acidic pearls

And go for the safe route:
the house,
the trees,
and
live out your days as a minion a means to and end for someone

no one remembers whom.

And at the end of the day it's all worth it, if you:
toil hard enough,
and your meals are comforting enough,
and you stand in line long enough,
and don't forget to save, save, save
for a retirement that's most likely going to be boring as hell

There are a few of us, who foolishly believe there is more too it, despite being beaten to death with the very strong evidence to the contrary...

What are we left to hope for?

An Endless Carbon Monoxide Dream in the Two Car Garage.

Karpettbagger

what face should i wear

2007-08-13T08:12:00.000-07:00

Sometimes i wish
I could leave the house
With a different face

Dont get me wrong
My face is just fine
aged and wrinkled and
pretty as hell

I just wish certain people
wouldn't know me anymore
or think they know me
because of the skin i wear

Karpettbagger

grateway to heaven

2007-08-13T07:50:00.000-07:00

You know the less and less i write the more i start to realize that it's because of exsasperation. The rage against the machine has left me. And it's not because i think all hope is lost or anything screwy like that. It's just i see myself as more of one of those sane people standing in the gutters in your socks and talking about the presence -(or not)- of god. The brutality of daily life never fails to shock me still, after all these years. I get in my car and realize this is how they're finally going to find me track me down this big, gaudy, dented, 26 mpg compact car. They'll use it to finally reel me in it is my irony....capone got put away for tax evasion....me, it'll be for driving my car without insurance....we all gotta go down somehow.

Karpettbagger

I Think I Hate Here

2007-08-12T10:12:00.001-07:00

Frome the muddy cake walks in the gutters to the abnormal sunshine i hate the very bones of this place anymore....

Chases you down and catches you in the most unwanted places gypsies swim in our pools....

And if they tried to take it away i'd then laugh and shudder

Hundred and eight they say but it feels breezier up here away from the pavement i hope no on ever finds their way in here where i have my stuff and crap

It's not safe it never was out there that's why subconsciously i try to keep alone....

But even in the doldrums of this big filthy place there's a glimmer of weird fascination that keeps us staring up at the universe quietly fashioning our own doom....

Karpettbagger

....and Evelyn Actually Smiles....

2007-06-23T23:04:00.000-07:00

Halfway through the saturday film festivale of strictly grainy videocassette screenings of early Roman Polanski movies like the Tenant, Macbeth, Rosemary’s Baby perhaps, if a copy was available, and Chinatown .... anytime.

It was halfway through when she looked and the screen and said hey sure don’t make cheekbones like that anymore and I smiled, because always having had a thing for Faye Dunaway I was all too concerned with the cheekbones and the light came down through the blinds cascading down her own cheekbones saying all too much about the shape of them due to the striations caused by the blinds and the shadows it cast on her face....

Then later when I sprang myself it wasn’t too big of a surprise she was using the sheets as a tissue wiping tears out from her eyes and I looked back and said jumping into my dated sedan “it’s Chinatown, Jake...” and let it go.

By: Jake

Blame Yourself For Once....

2007-06-19T10:31:00.000-07:00

"Hey, Hey, Hey, why is it always this way?" The Ramones

Reading Style: Haruki Murakami "Dance, Dance, Dance"
Prevailing Mood: Hard to describe, continue reading.
Drink in Hand: Yes, but it’s not what you think.

It was one of the most strange and beautiful things to ever happen to me. From the start it seemed not quite .... real. I don’t mean it was fake I just mean too good to be true. Like I was thinking to myself the whole time: “You lucky hapless son of a bitch how does this happen to you?”

But I guess everybody feels that way from time to time like they’ve hapened upon love or in most cases what passes for it these days like they’re the first one to discover it.

And you know when I was walking my dog at moonlight, which he often loves to do...and we saw that retarded couple holding each other, thats when it suddenly makes a lot more sense.

Because it dosen’t make sense. It’s mad and its frustrating and it hurts and its fascinating and marvelous and then, later its hard. And then it seems to pass away....

-(Relax it’s just cranberry juice....)-

Novocaine

Supernova Boy

2007-06-16T09:20:00.000-07:00

“Ours was never one of the great romances...” Elvis Costello

We met in a cafe that was serving high dollar
fantasy escapades for certain fees up front.
She had the most wonderful breathing.
I could here her from miles away.

Well it comes and it goes and people act like it was never there
people start acting funny in front of each other
in front of themselves.

And when I thought she didn’t want me
She needed me the most.

And when I thought that she hated me
was when all was lost.

Sometimes you can’t say sorry anymore
sometime it’s just too late.

When you think a star is burning brightest
that’s when it implodes.

I just don’t know where to begin,
so I’ll end it quick.

ELO
Boy With Bad Heart

Letters From Mocron #1

2007-05-25T23:04:00.000-07:00

The corruption here is so total, so complete. It runs to the very water, the pipelines funnel it into the crummy housing and into the guts of the people who don’t even know if they should bother with drinking anymore. The infrastructure has taken on an evil all it’s own, the roads crumble like old rotting teeth and the sidewalks are overgrown with a toxic weed that stares with empty plant eyes as children play in some glowing puddles.

Who knows what I thought I’d find when I walked into that church, but I wasn’t expecting this:

“He’s coming! HIM! Ooooaaahhh GOD!”

They call it immaculate orgasm joining in divine copulation with the One. The Nuns claim to be in direct consummation at all times. A literal orgy of faith. It’s about as blasphemous as it sounds.

Leaving the church I stumble over a pile of children fighting over a ripped bible new testament only. The words of Jesus in red.

Jake “Snake” Savauge

- - editor's note: These letters are part of a series from the surface of the changing planet Mocron, exclusive to American Xanthos. Bladow!

Wastewood

2007-05-12T11:41:00.000-07:00

We met at a masquerade ball and I asked her what she was hiding
“Me” she said and i could tell it was with a smile even under all that

I told her none of this was real that she should get back to the safety of the shores of reality before this fantastic place drifted away.

She giggled and said she thought I might be going somewhere else with my metaphors.

Pausing to murder a passing hostile,
I realized her intentions might be benign.

I told her to take off her mask
she said it was her face

I said its a beautiful charade
She said “that’s a line and I’m no fish”

All adrift....

ELO

Yeah Again

2007-05-10T14:41:00.000-07:00

Why has it come to this
You let the crazy dinosaurs in
Now they want to eat us
And smash our cars

Why would you have let
These giant beasts of Mocron
Eat us again

They don't have sharp teeth
So it takes a while
And hurts

Jake

Toddle

2007-04-25T09:44:00.001-07:00

Dank's

Proposed Jingle -(subsequently rejected)-

I don’t like this food, but it’s somethin to eat
Bab-ay, Waffles, without syrup can’t be beat, yeah...

So ended the singing/songslinging career of one Jacob p. Coltrane, son of Roscoe.

Actual Music -(playing)-

A ‘mix’ mysteriously produced by one of the crew. Nobody claimed it, and no one claimed to know where it came from. Contains: in no order whatsoever; damned, elvis c., misfits, two-tone, booker T., toots and the ever present ventures all shook the room the random button taking on a whole new meaning.

Situation -(as in comedy, not peril)-

First official meeting of the brunchfast club, nocturnal former stay-up-all-night mmorpg addicts who finally decided wasting their remaining days away in a waffle house was ten hundred bazillion times better than rotting in front of millions of tiny flashing lights.

Predicament -(predicated by the array of flavored syrups, in their own custom made plastic housing)-

Which syrup should I risk tainting my bottomless cup of coffee with? Boysenberry sounds like a nice counterpoint to the stale watery cup.

Conclusion -(after subtle bickering in hushed tones)-

It’s better to have and lost to syrupy temptation than to have never had at all. Our meth head waitress seems unimpressed.

Clunking Orders

2007-04-17T09:12:00.000-07:00

It was on the Fourth week of the cosmic radiation storms, and the life giving "golem particles" had worked their way into the nonliving soil, the ores, the plastics, and they had found their army. A sudden surge in the power caused by a waning blackout shook the great skeletons with an exhilarating breath straight from the mouth of god. Calamitous creaking signaled the start of it all, as they shook off their long slumber. They clanged around on all fours a while, having recently been uprooted. They snapped their ruberized chains and sent sparks and arcs flying all around. They swung their new electrified appendages about, lashing he very air with their currents. They formed ranks, the stouter, four-legged ones in the front, as they were least likely to be knocked down, and clunked steadily down the hill to the small town that they served for a lifetime, and turned their thoughts of vengeance into screams and electric fury.

- - Winston Roquelaure, for American Xanthos

Dialogue On Mocron 3

2007-04-03T11:49:00.000-07:00

or...

Lessons I Learned From Superman’s Adventures In The Bottle City Of Kandor

“You know, they say cigarettes cause cancer...it’s bullshit of course. Everything causes cancer these days. Photon particles from passing comets, satellites blasting their damned radar love everywhere.” [Dragging long on his cigarette, he pauses long enough to ponder the glow on the tip, and fancies it another form of radiant energies that will one day seep their way into his fingertips and cause his cells to start acting bonkers.]

“You’ve changed. You used to be a man of reason. You talk about cancer like it’s some abstract thing. The same way you talk about them. Down there. Like they’re just thoughts and nothing more for you to mold into whatever daydream is left in that magnificent mind of yours...” [For some reason I was still under the impression that if he could not be reasoned with, he could at least be enraged to the point of distraction, thus giving me a chance to make haste planeside and get cranking on the derailment of the diabolical machinations of what used to me a man I held in the highest regard.]

“Oh, I realize now I’ve always been literally insane...just hibernating waiting for the correct time to unleash my genius on the never ending worlds to come. You see, I bided my time, playing the Doctor, the scientist and now, well...” [For a second it looks as though I may have at least shamed him into repentance, but even if that were the case the plot had already been hatched and unleashed on an unsuspecting moon over Mocron, irrevocably changing life on the planetsphere Gnnr’ha.]

“You’ve launched the first automated man/god hybrid Jihad/Schism/Crusade to end all...I just hope you haven’t damned them all.” [At this time there was nothing left to feel, and I presume I felt much like the doctor, stripped of all emotion and empathy, adrift. You’d be amazed how liberating the ultimate desensitization would be.]

*editor’s note - - today’s title is obviously indebted to those old silver age curt swan superman family books, American Xanthos thanks you...hi ho!

Practical Secretkeeping

2007-04-02T08:02:00.001-07:00

You better watch what you say
You cant tell the truth what the truth already knows
The shoulder may be cold
But you can always lay your head on it

I’m trying not to give you the longing looks
Actually turning into a long stare
Maybe its the jeans that you wear
Or the style of your hair

Man, you know I got it bad when it starts to rhyme...

E L O

Couldn't Think Of A Title

2007-03-30T09:34:00.000-07:00

Now we look at each other like we never spilled our guts
Now its like you want to kill me for something we loved
At least at the time thats what it was.

People get scared of words like love, but there’s nothing to be afraid of
I could love you and just mean I love your light.
You could say you love me and just mean you love what I am.
We could love each other. So easily.

I think once people make love, the love goes...

I suppose...
You deserve a rose

E L O

Chitown

2007-03-26T16:24:00.000-07:00

Brainy Day In The City

2007-03-26T08:36:00.000-07:00

The days it rains hard are the only ones I can open my eyes wide. It’s terrible, because when I don’t squint it’s been heard say I have pretty eyes. I look outside and it appears the sky has subsided, at least for today. I can somehow conceive of the world as my immediate surroundings, rather than a giant, spinning, swelling core reactor waiting to detonate. Meltdown. I think as the known universe continues to expand, so does our conception of space become restricted. We’re trained to think of infinity. Something that big can fill your head. By the time an infant meets their parents, its thinking of forever. I still haven’t met anybody who lived forever -(well, that was that man in edinburgh, working undercover throughout history, assuming a new identity every time people became suspicious, but I'm fairly certain he met his end at the hand of Khali Ragh, the First of the Last).-

One thing you cant deny is how the rain makes your brain cloudy, muddy. Just one more reason to love the rainy day!

Sunshine from my mind,
DelRoyd Fathibo

Waiting For the End Of The World

2007-03-23T11:44:00.000-07:00

By: Novocaine Jerusalem
For: Pete’s Sake*

Embedded in the mejugorien faction of the hundred million years war, I’ve made a mistake I’ve befriended my personal soldier. Yamin was charged with protecting my life at any cost, a responsibility I didn’t want. We were pinned down under the mortar corner of a fallen school, where the ghosts of children still played and sang "ring around the rosies" -(which by the way, is a song of dancing death)-. It was most likely the end of me and my armed escort. Here I am pushing 27 and he’s gotta be maybe 18, maybe 19. He’s got a kid. He’s got a wife. We talk nights, in whispers, he alert, waiting, me sleepy, wishing I could light a cigarette. That’s where it became not a detail, but a friendship. Now, he was dying, not from any visible wounds, but by the hand of this damn war. No one remembers what were fighting for. Rockets boom everywhere, the red glare of the miniature cataclysms flying all around, until they boom something.

“Look if we leave here now, we’ll live History won’t care.”

“I care”

“Man you have no idea what’s going on the forces at work here have been perpetuating this war for how long? You’re not even a footnote, lets GO!”

“I will be less than a footnote if I run, but if you make it you can actually do something. Talk to the press. Tell our story you sound like you got it figured out. None of us do.”

“The press doesn’t care! They need the war!”

“I’m sorry I cant leave not when there is still more of them.”

For the first time I realize that People need other People to fight more than they need a reason. Motivation for war is Just a Justification

*Editor’s note: Actually an American Xanthos Original, nonetheless, this is how it was submitted. Oh, and the title is stolen from an Elvis Costello song

Savage Land Honeys...

2007-03-14T10:53:00.000-07:00

By: Novocaine
For: American Xanthos

She was looking like any good looking savage should, thick black hair, thicker, longer legs. She was an amazonian. She was wonder woman. But maybe that was the pink dust cloud the army of genetically modified plant golems had released... who can say? She was an avenging valkyrie choosing the next to be slain. She held that glowing magna-rod like she was ready to bring down a mammoth in a jane auel novel.

I was on the ground kicking and wiggling, and otherwise overreacting to the situation and the chemical misfires of the back half of the region of the brain that governs personal finance and I was gripped by a kind of capitalist tourettes, losing control of my vocabulary:

“Laissez-faire! Q-tip! Kleenex! Band-Aid--yyeeeaagh!”

Obviously no good in a fight, I cowered under a shrub and tried to record the events in my microrecorder:

“Hoodoo Economics! That’s a crazy bag, man! That’s bad Loa, uncle sam”

She eventually fought her way through the crowd of plant robots and off down a corridor, when I recovered I could no longer hear the sound of her fighting, but they had returned, which I chose to take as a bad sign.

Who's House? E L O's HOUSE!

2007-03-08T21:16:00.000-08:00

Do you ever just wanna take the two speakers left and right and shove them up against your head and Scrream the words loud enough that if your neighbors dont complain then they like it and want you to continue caterwauling till the daybreak and singing through the walls cant be the worst thing i dont know...?

And chase the dog around its been a while since youve been playmates and not authority/subordinate figures, i mean im no veterinarian.

Sending vibrations through a microscopic set of bone,

E L O

Stepson

2007-03-06T19:55:00.000-08:00

Vigilante Style Justice In The Heartland

2007-02-26T21:19:00.000-08:00

By: Novocaine
For: American Xanthos

"So you're actually from the Old West or..."
"Mph...been to the Old West...fer 20 years in my 20s"
"What, in like a delorean..."
"Guys like you...aint never been out in the trail... aint never seen the mustaches and the six-shooters..."
"What do you represent?"
"I'm the Law of the Land. Justice's Right Hand. Dispensing cold Colt vengeance. Nonlethal suppression of injustice."

When he says these last things, it's like a catholic reciting the nicene creed. Mostly Automatic. Dogomatic. He straightens his back and pulls his shoulders in, pushing his chest out, slightly and says his little motto.

"The Prairie, needs me..."

Textually Active

2007-02-25T08:31:00.000-08:00

Dank's

Will i c u tommorow
i hope
i wish i could send my essence
thru the electronic barrier
that separates us
and hold onto you for a while...

in the meantime ill just settle for electronic impulses
via sattelite
and general good vibrations
in my general direction
Love: Me

Thinking of Leaving

2007-02-24T09:01:00.000-08:00

C'mon Everybody, Let's Make A Statement

2007-02-14T09:34:00.000-08:00

I've created a special line of tee-shirt. Each tee is color-coded. If the Terror Alert is elevated, like today, you would wear the yellow tee, which says "elevated." Since were all being elevated to day, how about some levity. "You're levity is good..." So sayeth the Terminator. Just for one day, let's try to live in a world where we're all brothers instead of sectarian radical enemy combatants. Lets try to see thata the differences between us are what make us special. Unique. Precious. Let's try to remember that we're all cut from the same cloth, and that the ten commandments, the much-vaunted basis for our futuristic society is native to torah, bible and qu'ran. Oh, and for a limited time only, when you order all of the color-coded Terror Alert Tees, we'll throw in a black "enemy combatant" logo tee, absolutely free -(you just pay shipping)-

Winston Roquelaure - -
Editor