(N)ightmare (S)upremicist (A)yatollahs

Another day of boring data at NSA headquarters. Even tracking your wife and girlfriend can get old after a while. Soon, one starts to wonder how relevant one actually is. But then again, relevancy is in the eye of the beholder.

"Find me five people and shoot them!"

"What for?"

"The usual charges. Things are getting lax around here, the populace is getting complacent. Need to keep things stirred up! Know what I mean, Vern?"

"Ha! Ernest goes to camp! I love it! OK, I'll warm up the firing squad. God bless national security! It sure is fun."

*******

Would rather be Miley Cyrus' houseboy

"Giggle! This is so cool pretending to be serious adults!"

"Grow up and put on your ski mask and Batman utility belt."

"We are so bad ass! OJ got nothin' on this boy!"

"Remember: look angry at all times. The future of the nation depends on us! If just one person suspects you're really some joker who whacks off to Lady Gaga it could endanger the country."

"I just love that look on their face when we snatch them off the street! I get tingly all over - like a prison rapist."

"The idiots deserve it for trusting us. Never give a sucker an even break. Damn, it's great to be an American. We can actually make things better by fucking people!"

*******

Nothing more fun than persecuting
others for your own behavior!

The President sucked his index finger, getting one last taste of the yummy Cheetos dust from his lazy afternoon snack. He was in an urgent state.

"Damn, those things are tasty! Wonder what's in them?"

"You don't want to know, sir. American corporations and all that."

"Right, right. What's that you're handing me there? I have a pressing golf date."

"It's today's kill list, sir!"

"Oh, goody!"

"You're supposed to act reluctant, sir. Only Republicans are allowed to show enjoyment."

"Oh, right, thanks. Must keep our morality! Well, let's see who's a dirty-dog-traitor enemy-of-the-state today!"

Terrible Mother: Refuses to endorse mandatory military service, thereby aiding and abetting the enemy. Questions war.

Honest Businessman: Terrorizing workers by placing environment above jobs. Undercutting the economic system by paying a living wage.

Homeless Heretic: Failing to worship the almighty dollar. Failing to be happy in a perfect society. Lifestyle is heretic comment of capitalistic religion.

7-11 Muslim: Selling extremist Slurpees. Working near gasoline supply and controlling it. Actively stirring anger by coercing citizens to "upsize".

NSA Leaker: Secretly hates America while pretending to protect it. Abuse of power for personal motives and agenda.

"Outstanding list! Haven't gotten a mom before."

"Your blindly trusted security director who cannot be questioned without raising questions of patriotism thought it time to up the ante, let the American people know that even the most innocuous seeming among us can be an agent of evil. A rallying cry for ratting out everyone, so to speak."

"Oh, brilliant. The paranoia factor will go through the roof. They'll come screaming to us, begging for help."

"The businessman is a good fit because it appeases your anti-corporate base while at the same time appeasing your opponents who hate anyone not acting out of greed."

"My base is a pain in the ass! Rest assured, I bet they still complain. Outrageous!"

"The homeless man reinforces the idea that the less affluent one is the more corrupt and worthless one is, selling out the system in a heartbeat."

"I've never trusted a homeless man! Fuckers don't vote anyway. Where's the responsibility? Good riddance."

"The 7-11 guy is a multi-faceted pick showing it's not just mosques where these guys hang out but ordinary everyday places as well. Also, latest polls show people are sick of being asked to upsize and want revenge."

"Perfect! I'm in the revenge business. Also, make sure he has a real Muslim-y name that's hard to pronounce. That'll make people even more suspicious. Ha, that last one here could be us!"

"Got that covered. In order to show we're keeping our own house in order and not showing favoritism we're going to loudly expose a mole in our security apparatus to build confidence in not only our competence but integrity."

"Can never have too much integrity! Be thinking up some ways we can get some more. Great job! What's the name of the person who came up with this again?"

"Josef Stalin."

"A true American hero!"

*******

This is how we plan to fix the world. Seriously.

The woman kept pleading her case right up until the end of the pointed rifles of justice. "But I have three sons in the military. How can you possibly charge me with not supporting military service?"

"A perfect cover for a traitor! Thought we wouldn't notice, didn't you? Die bitch!"

The businessman faced his final few moments in unrelenting rage. "I voted for that man! I gave him money and helped him passed laws that didn't reform in the name of reform. I sold my soul for that bastard!"

"Should have thought of that before you put a phony in office."

The homeless man's only commentary was to unzip his pants and urinate. This outraged the guards who shot him even before the command to fire.

The manic Muslim pled his case. "But I am good capitalist! I kiss American dollars every night! I love your dog-eat-dog ways. Please, let me live and I promise to prey upon the naïve, weak and gullible."

"That's our job, asshole."

The framed NSA leaker should have known better. "You know it's not true, why are you doing this? I'm one of you!"

"It's a matter of national security. Truth has nothing to do with it. We have to make people feel safe even if they aren't. We're lying for the greater good, dummy."

*******

Don't worry. Winter rules, Mr. President.

A happy, beaming President relaxed with his shoes on the Oval Office desk. "This is hilarious! Just been reading a few blogs here."

"The blogosphere is on fire, sir. Some can barely contain their outrage."

"I see that! Been busting a gut laughing. All this finger wagging at me. Who do they think they are? Did anyone actually figure out the truth?"

"A couple of professional leftists did. But your supporters are duly muddying the waters that they can't possibly know all the facts and trust should be given without reservation."

"Thank God for fear and sycophancy!"

"Indeed, sir. Their illusion of power is nothing compared to our actual power. As long as they fear themselves we need have no fear regardless of the truth."

"The truth? To hell with the truth! The truth is for losers and we're the winners - that's been voted on. So let it be voted, so let it be dreamed true!"

Blight Of The World, Rain On Me, War Is The Answer

Name no price

A missile from paradise

It can't stay here any more

I've targeted high and low

I've bombed from shore, to shore, to shore

If there's a short cut I'd have found it

But there is no easy way around it

Blight of the world, rain on me

War is the answer

Rain on us all

Let us bleed

War is the answer

We know why

Someday they all must die

Make all homeless boys and girls

And they are never heard

Keep such a lonely, lonely, lonely world

People turn your heads

And walk on by

Tell me hell is worth just another try
 

Blight of the world, rain on me

War is the answer

Rain on us all

Let us bleed

War is the answer

Tell me, why be alive

On just a dying planet?

(Why take Love's chances)

Ask the man in your hate

For the answer:
 

And when you feel afraid

(Bomb one another)

When you've lost your way

(Bomb one another)

And when you're all alone

(Bomb one another)

And when you're far from home

(Bomb one another)

And when you're down and out

(Bomb one another)

And when your hopes run out

(Bomb one another)

And when you need a friend

(Bomb one another)

And when you're near the end

(Bomb)

(We've got to bomb)

(We've got to bomb one another)
 

Blight of the world, rain on me

War is the answer

Rain on us all

Let us bleed

War is the answer

Blight of the world, rain on me

War is the answer

Rain on us all

Let us bleed

War is the cancer...

Parallelisms: Lennon Through The Looking Glass

Motoring Accident

LONDON (1969) A garage lorry overturned Thursday July 1 in a one vehicle accident, killing the driver and only occupant John Winston Lennon, a mechanic's helper at Pete's Lorry Shop. Authorities could find no direct cause for the fatal mishap but one officer speculated a rock band's rooftop concert going on at that time may have been a distraction. Mr. Lennon was an employee of the garage who owned the lorry. He is survived by his aunt Mimi Smith in Liverpool.

*****

Let me take you down
Cause I'm going to
Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields forever!

For the first time, Lennon's co-workers got a full peek inside his work locker. Lennon was an "odd bird", secretive yet prone to rumoured streaking. His hurried, private scribblings put his insecure colleagues on edge as they anxiously ripped through his private papers. After reading aloud the above stanza they were more confused than ever.

"Wot kind of rot is that? Not a strawberry patch 'round here for miles."

"More of that Hippie crap! He was always into that Hippie crap!"

"See him talkin' 'bout "nothin' is real"? That boy was a dreamer."

"Right that! And five will get ya ten he was a-dreamin' when he crashed."

"Think ya onto somethin' there, mate. Him and all that fag hair never had no business here."

"His auntie is friends with boss Pete or no way he gets on."

"Well, when ya thinks about it something like this was bound to happen. He hated every minute with a spanner in his hand. If it's not all the way I'm sayin' it's a least halfway suicide if you askin' me."

"No one's askin ya! You talk like that around his auntie and she'll have your head on a platter. A proper queen she is. She protected him with her life."

"Don't go bitin' my head off over him bein' a miserable sot. Wasn't nothin' to do with me. Was something missing in that boy. He took a wrong turn somewheres."

"Look, here's some more notes, like some sorta journal."

Yoko came back to town to put on another show. I haven't stopped thinking about her for three years and it's doing me in being apart. I need her but I have to be somebody first before I can make it with her. But how can I ever be somebody without her?? Whole thing is driving me out of my mind! Is she the One for me or am I just imagining things again?

Mimi says I'm dreaming me life away. I know she's wrong but I can't prove it. Here lately things been going black in me head. I'm thinking there's no point being alive without Yoko. She's says she's never had conversations like she's had with me. She has no idea how deep my wellspring of feelings is for her! But I've no way forward.

Better go now. That prick Brantley is watching me. Think he's going to cry if I keep writing.

"He got one thing right: youse a prick, Brantley!"

"Ha, ha! Go fook yourself. He's the dead one."

"What kind of name is Yoko? Sounds like a witch's name."

"It's Swedish, ya moron!"

"So he had the hots for some hot blonde Swede, eh? Looks like he couldn't close the deal!"

"I'm thinking he was a impotent. You could never talk to him, he'd bite your head right off and he always knew just where to push. No satisfaction, that's what I was thinkin'."

"Take away a man's pecker and nothin' he does means nothin' after that."

"Shit, maybe he did kill himself."

"Fook him for calling me a prick!"

Another discovery was made when an overflow of scrap paper fell onto the floor. But what first appeared as scrap turned out to be something entirely different.

"Blimey, look at all that. What he keeping' all them scraps for?"

"They's torn up lotto tickets. He didn't want anyone knowin' he was buyin' them. I'd see him hide 'em away all the time. Wouldn't even throw 'em in the trash in case somebody saw."

"That's right. He told me once if he ever got rich he'd become a famous artist, that he'd finally have the time."

"He was just a bum. I talked to Pete about him one time and he told me the boy just went from job to job never puttin' down no roots, never learnin' nothin', never bein' responsible. Sittin' around writing that Strawberry Field crap was his idea of being responsible. Wot a loon!"

"At least he tried to do the right thing and learn a proper trade here and become somebodies. Maybe that's why he got hired on so he could impress that Yoko chick."

"Bah! His auntie forced him on, saying she'd cut him off if he didn't make something of himself. Been a loser his whole life. Heard her tell he shoplifted as a kid, always smartin' off to his betters, never any good. Been me I'd have kicked him out of the house long time ago!"

"Parents nowadays have lost all their sense! They don't realize best thing for a boy like that is to cut him off totally or he'll never learn."

"Army would have put him straight, give him direction. We need to go back to forced service for all these unruly kids. Biggest mistake ever getting rid of that."

"That'd take care of that fag hair! Take him a year or five to get all that back!"

"Look, here's the final entry in this journal."

It's all pointless this charade. Write, don't write, what fucking difference does it make? I get high imagining me success and the wonderful words that drive me out of bed across the universe. But it never amounts to a fucking thing. I have this magic feeling but nowhere to go. I'm thinking it's always going to be like this. Who am I? What am I supposed to be? What am I supposed to do?

Part of me still suspects when they read all me stuff after I die I'll be famous like Van Gogh. But I'm also thinking if they can't hear me say them in proper tune it won't matter because they can't hear what I hear. I missed this whole decade of blossoming. I can see now how wrong it was to let Mimi guilt me out of my guitar. "Got to feel sorry for the world." Bullshit!

I can't go on feeling two foot small. I'm so tired I haven't slept a wink. Everyone but Billy is a complete asshole here. Everybody's got something hide (me too). The weight just keeps getting heavier and I see no way out. Can't live with me dreams, can't live without them. If God doesn't understand that then fuck him too. I just need some love. All I need is love but love is impossible to get.

"Hey, there! I said that to him! I told him nowhere to go with a magic feeling. Course, I'd never said it if I hadn't met him."

[Epilogue: As was custom the daily trash was burned in a large metal barrel out back. Much to Aunt Mimi's later fury, John's papers turned to ashes, dust to dust.]

John Lennon was a brilliant songwriter, but not much of a driver: He didn't get his license until he was 24, and ended his time behind the wheel with a scary mishap that ended with a trip to the hospital for himself, his son Julian, Yoko Ono and her daughter Kyoko.

The incident occurred on July 1, 1969, while Lennon and Ono were vacationing in the Scottish Highlands. Although he'd reportedly spent very little time driving since getting his license in early 1965, Lennon felt confident enough to try and navigate the region's narrow roads in his Austin Maxi hatchback – at least until he lost control of the vehicle and wound up in a ditch.

Interview With "Bored" Oklahoma Thrill Killers

Woodward and Bernstein got nothin' in this boy

Sometimes it pays to be a blogger at Open Salon. After all, who else could browbeat their way in to interview the perpetrators of a sensational murder reported around the world? Naturally there was resistance at first, but after flashing my carefully crafted press badge from bbd and name dropping OS the doors literally flew open for me. Take that, Drudge Report!

The story in a nutshell is three teens were "bored with gun" and decided to off some guy jogging by. The victim was from Australia so there was some whining from the Outback but it got the usual American shrug here. A lazy Tuesday afternoon going nowhere with nothing in sight, got to liven it up somehow! A local moralist on the scene claimed when he gets bored he "goes to the movies". How did these kids go wrong with a shining example such as that to guide them??

The three filed into the room cocky as all get out but were duly awed after I informed them of my doing 12 years dead time at hard labor. Prison is for pansies. Try a homeless shelter for real hell. These boys wanted no part of that - smart move, kid.

I went right to the heart of the matter:

ME: C'mon guys, what's up with the gang banging business?

THEM: Life is shit, man! Take it or leave it.

ME: It's shit for everybody. That guy you see driving the big black Escalade has got someone on his back just like everybody else. Nobody gets a free ride.

THEM: We was feeling left out, not gettin' our share. Can't let life pass you by.

ME: Gonna live it up in prison, eh?

THEM: When ya already dead don't matter what you do. Peeps know our names now. That what counts.

ME: Most people would say you had your whole life ahead of you.

THEM: Most people is dicks! They just wanna knock on your head every chance they get. Live it like they says or get knocked down. We ain't standin' for that.

ME: You showed them! Gotta live your dreams!

THEM: Exactly!

ME: But you got frustrated and shot your wad. Do you think society should have done more for you?

THEM: Society is about power. Money power, war power, gun power. Either you the man or you the bitch. We ain't bitches.

ME: You haven't met your cell mates yet. But most people say the world doesn't owe you anything.

THEM: Bet that dude's family done wished the world had paid us up! [Fist bumps and laughs]

ME: Point taken. Is that why you did a "little dance" when you got booked?

THEM: Hells yeah! We made the world pay and now everyone knows it. No one can take that away from us. Time to give back a little of what they handin' out.

ME: Have you really been so put upon?

THEM: Fuckin' A. Why do you think the USA is out shooting people all over the world? Peeps is fed up and lookin' to pop somebody's ass! Idiots out there want to believe that's making them safe then, hell, we just made the world safe for boredom.

ME: What's really eating at you guys?

THEM [Snarling]: Fuck you. You ever been a nobody? You ever look on the TV and wonder what the fuck that asshole is doin' there? Why is that motherfucker makin' out when he got a big bag of nothin'? This ain't no country.

ME: Ever have a broom shoved up your ass and told all your good for is sweeping with it?

THEM: How'd that make you feel?

ME: Like I wanted to shoot somebody.

THEM: Then why didn't ya??

ME: Not enough bullets to kill all of 'em.

THEM: So you see: no way out.

ME: So there's nothing to believe in?

THEM: Nothing but your Glock and a stash of cash! [Fist bumps]

ME: Your President said: "There is an extra measure of evil in an act of violence that cuts a young life short." So clearly he believes there's something more.

THEM [laughing]: You're a funny guy! That dude the biggest thrill killer of us all only he don't know it. We do.

ME: You guys are celebrities but there's really not a huge outcry over your thrill kill. Why do you think that is?

THEM: They know somewhere deep in their head they ain't any better than us. They all killers! What can they say? Where you been, man? They get you with the lead or they get you with the dollar but they gonna get you!

ME: But you can't go around just shooting people willy-nilly!

THEM: Shit, peeps get fucked up random every day, don't matter who they are if they's a little guy. That's the law of the land and we here to enforce it!

ME: But this was outrageous killing for no reason.

THEM: We had our reasons just like they say they got theirs. And anyways, it not like we did somethin' really awful like dance half naked at the VMA getting people really riled up! [Laughter]

ME: Would you have still shot the guy if you could put your dick in Miley Cyrus?

THEM [Pause]: Probably not...life sure is shit when you can't never have nothing you want.

ME: OK, I got just one final question for ya. I'm no defender of the system. Capitalism is the mafia with a pen, the people who are supposed to be protecting us are selling us out with a smile (Hi, Mr. President!) and that the vast majority of people suffering have no say or voice in what is going on. I get all that and I wish those people straight into hell. But, really, did you have to kill the guy?

THEM [For the first time the room got serious. Someone was actually listening. No one had listened to them before. And no one for damn sure wanted to listen to them now. What ugly truths might these boys reveal? Nope, time to shut them up for good in the name of "justice" - all so that the machinery of the greater injustice can march forward.

After a long look in my eyes]: It had to come out. It had to. Wasn't no keeping it in.

ME: I understand. [I got up from the chair and headed out]

THEM: Hey, man! Don't think you getting out of it. It coming out of everyone. We ain't the only killers. No time for holdin' back. The day is coming. Tell them, the day is coming!