After his recent release from prison for the murder of Mayhem frontman Euronymous, Varg Vikernes seemed to be saying all the right things.  He was going to retire to a quiet life where he would write music for his band Burzum and work patiently in his garden on his prized daffodils.  He had become a devout reader of Nicholas Sparks novels, particularly “The Notebook” which he called “the most bittersweet, poignant tale of young love he had ever encountered”.  He had bought a farm just north of Trondheim where he planned to work with sick goats and even open a petting zoo for young children. People had thought that the bizarre, horrifying saga of Varg was finally coming to a quiet end.   They were wrong.

Last Wednesday, Varg sent a letter to the Sandefjord Daily Examiner, claiming that since his release in March 2009 he has been secretly working on a weather control device that could “rain the fury of the gods upon our world.”  The device, which he referred to as Odin’s Hammer, is capable of creating tornadoes and hurricanes, along with other types of obscure and bizarre weather events.  As a show of its strength, on Thursday Varg claimed to have caused the freak blizzard that covered Riyadh, Saudi Arabia with 12 inches of snow.  He also claimed responsibility for the freak frog storm that interrupted Saturday’s football match between Manchester United and Liverpool.  “I’ve shown you I can make frogs fall from the sky,” said Varg in a letter released on Sunday, “you will bow down before me…..YOUR BLACK METAL GOD.”

Interpol has been tracking Varg since the first message made it to the newspapers.  Several sources claim that he has slipped out of Norway and hidden in North Korea under the protection of the slightly bloated leader of that nation, Kim Jong Un.  Another source claims that Varg had originally offered to sell the device to Iran for 100 million dollars, but decided against it when he learned that Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad preferred more mainstream black metal bands like Dimmu Borgir.

Varg claims he will not use Odin’s Hammer if several demands are immediately met.  The list of demands range from the slightly bizarre to the unbelievably ridiculous.  First of all, he wants a fleet of 200 World War 2 Sherman Tanks at his disposal at all times.  He has asked that Wednesday be renamed Heimdall, in honor of the Norse God whose horn will announce the end of the world.  He demanded a worldwide ban on the use of ukuleles.  Finally, he asked for the ruins of the Roman Coliseum to be filled with 500,000 pounds of gluten-free cupcakes.  Authorities are confused by Varg’s request and some believe that it is possible that these requests might, in fact, be signs of mental illness.

In America, one of the targets for potential attack named by Varg in his last letter, responses were mixed.  Several prominent politicians called for an immediate program creating billions of dollars in subsidies to corporations that create gluten free cupcakes.  However, some politicians, like Presidential candidate Newt Gingirch were not impressed with Varg’s threats.  “We all know that it is impossible for human actions to affect the weather.  That’s just preposterous,” said Gingrich in Friday’s interview on The Sean Hannity Show.

Rick Santorum has been on the offensive lately, but his target has not been Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney or even President Barack Obama.  For the past week, Santorum has been using his campaign to take aim at an issue he feels to be the single most dangerous force in America today: Satanism in heavy metal.   “If you listen to the radio today, many of these brand new, so-called heavy metal music bands like Black Sabbath, Venom, The WASP and Iron Maiden use satanic imagery to corrupt the minds of young people,” announced Santorum at a 10,000 dollar a plate sock-hop in Valdosta, Georgia on Thursday.

Santorum’s popularity in the polls has grown substantially since he began speaking out against metal and its assault on traditional values.   He has spent much of the past week in the Midwest encouraging young people to stay away from metal artists and listen to performers like Michael W. Smith and Pat Boone.  In a recent Gallup Poll, 87 percent of Republican voters think that the biggest problem in America today is “the demented bloodlust of teenagers caused entirely by heavy metal music.”

In the past, Santorum has accused heavy metal of being the cause of some of the worst crimes in American history including the attempt on the life of Ronald Reagan in 1981, 9/11 and the passage of Obama’s Health Care Bill.  He stepped up his rhetoric in a speech on Wednesday when he implied that heavy metal is the cause of many forms of mental illness as well as lactose intolerance.

It’s probably not a coincidence that since he began his crusade against metal that his poll numbers have been surging upwards.  Picking out a small and unique group, singling them out as “other” and using them to frighten the masses is a proud tradition in American politics.  However, many commentators believe that his call for metal internment camps goes too far.  Santorum has openly advocated the forced re-education of metalheads.  They would be forced to endure 30 days of non-stop “values based” music that promotes the American way of life as well as the free market.  In order to leave, they will have to sing the chorus to at least one Celine Dion song.

In response to Santorum’s metal onslaught, Mitt Romney officially denounced his earlier position of “tolerance towards all fans of extreme music”.  This, in spite of the fact that GWAR played his inauguration as governor of Massachusetts back in 2003.  But things have changed since 2003 and embracing heavy metal music is about as popular selling baby organs on Ebay or clubbing seals.  Romney will need to begin pretending to be something else if he plans on facing Obama in the general election in November.

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Dear Reader,

I’d like to take this opportunity to set the record straight.  The firing of Bill Ward from Black Sabbath was my decision and my decision alone.  You all are creations that exist only in my mind.  Bill Ward and Black Sabbath are mere hallucinations that I invented.  I have been alone here on earth since those terrible months back in 2004.  I invented all of you. None of what you know to be reality is actually real.

People have taken his firing as an opportunity to smear the impeccable character of Sharon Osbourne.  Sharon is a warm and wonderful woman.  When I created her, it was based on a memory of a loving Sunday School teacher I had as a child.  Blame me, the creator of this sick and twisted world for the firing of Bill.  She doesn’t deserve your scorn.

Honestly, I was bored.  I’m really running out of things to do here on earth since the plague wiped out the rest of the human race.  I spend most of my days scrounging for food, but when I need entertainment, I make up ridiculous stories about “your world” in my mind.  I’m so good at it that you, my illusions, have begun to think you are real and that the fantasies I create for you are the truth.  I sit here for hours in my cave making up things like President Obama or the taste of new kinds of orange sodas or LeBron James or designs for Nike running shoes as I await my death and the end of the human race.

Please understand that I have big plans for Bill.  There is a scenario I am working on know where Bill is forced to fight off a swarm of three-headed dragons that emerge from behind the sun next year.  His firing might give him the time he needs to prepare to save your fictitious little universe.

Sharon and Ozzy are to be treated well.  One or two more bad words about them from any of you and I’ll think you away completely. It will be as if you never were.  You may awaken in an endless maze with minotaurs in it or you may not awaken at all.  No one will even have a memory of you.  Am I clear?

Anyway, please make a point to go out and support one of the greatest metal bands ever on this year’s reunion tour.  You won’t be sorry you went!

Thanks,

Keith Spillett

(as partially formulated by psychologist and poet RD Laing in his book “Knots”)

They are playing a game about Bill Ward.

They are playing at not playing a game about Bill Ward.

If I show them I see they are,

I shall break the rules and they will tell me I’m not metal.

I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game.

They are not having fun playing the Bill Ward game.

I can’t have fun if they don’t.

If I get them to have fun when playing the Bill Ward game, then I can have fun with them.

Getting them to have fun, is not fun. It is hard work.

I might get fun out of finding out why they’re not.

I’m not supposed to get fun out of working out why

they’re not.

But there is even some fun in pretending to them I’m not

having fun finding out why they ’re not.

Sharon comes along and says: let’s have fun, but without Bill.

But having fun is a waste of time, because it doesn’t

help to figure out why they’re not having fun.

How dare you have fun when Ozzy died on the Cross

For You!

Was He having fun?

Is Sharon having fun?

Is this fun?

Is it fun that Bill Ward is not having fun?

Is it fun that we are having fun about Sharon not having fun?

Is Ozzy having fun not having fun because Sharon is not having fun making Bill Ward not have fun?

Where are we anymore?

Tyranny:  Are you or have you ever been a member of the communist party?

Sarah:  I flirted with the idea in college when I was a sociology major for a bit. I decided against it. Too much reading involved.

Tyranny:  Awesome. The Chinese commies have great hats. When did you first fall in love with music?

Sarah:  I have a love/hate relationship with hats. I think they look lovely on other people. As for music, that’s a bit hard to pinpoint. When I was younger, my mother would talk to me about The Beatles, Elvis and some Michael Jackson was mixed in there. When we moved from New York to Egypt, the transition was logical since most black and white movies from there had musical numbers. If not people playing instruments or singing, they had people belly dancing. A lot of times they had all the above.

But I would say that my obsession came about when I missed the chance to learn piano a bit more due to relocating so much. When we came back to the US, I discovered music that had meaningful lyrics. It started to serve a different purpose. and then I discovered Jack Off Jill via my friend Aleia. It kicked off from there for me.

Tyranny:  You’ve developed your love for music into a fledgling media empire. You have a blog, a record label and several additional unique musical ventures. How did the label, Domestic Genocide, get started?

Sarah:  It originally came about as a suggestion from Trevor Antonides from darknessofmystery. I had originally intended to interview him for Blood or Love, my webzine, but gradually we became friends. He really liked the name, which was the name of my blog, and the label was something that he was really interested in for his own project. I jumped on it because at that time, through review writing, I’ve come to know some amazing musicians that would benefit greatly from this project.

It just grew from there. We kept it quiet in the beginning with only a chosen few, mainly friends we were going to sign before we both met in person to iron out the details.

Tyranny:  Beautiful. It seems like you have a ton of bands on the label. Who is on the roster?

Sarah:  We have Qafas (Bahrain), Coldnight (Columbia), Evil Lucifera (Italy), WelicoRuss(Russia), Eulen (Syria), Hate Filed (Egypt) and a few other prospective bands that I can’t share with you yet.

Some have been in consideration since the beginning but the only thing holding us back is the lack of actual content to release. A few I am pretty excited about so I can’t wait to make those announcements when the time comes!

Tyranny:  Who is your first release going to be?

Our first physical release will be Hate Field. He is priority right now due to time constraints.

Sarah:  Should be out on the 29th of this month.

Tyranny:  Tell me a bit about his music.

Sarah:  It’s an interesting mix of metal and traditional Egyptian music. He uses the maqam scale (Arabic music scale) a lot with electric guitars. That’s one of the highlights for me and he also uses tabla for some parts. The theme is a very personal one to him so it’s truly a reflective project.

A broken heart and other personal issues come together with an attempt at industrial metal. That’s how I see the project.

Tyranny:  What formats are you looking to release the music in?

Sarah:  We start out with digital, as you know, and then print them out on CD usually.  Vinyl if they want it or if we can cut it with our budget.

We don’t do tape because people simply don’t have the equipment necessary to listen to cassette tapes anymore.

Tyranny:  8-track?

Sarah:  I considered that. Luckily, Trevor waited until I was sober to take any of my ramblings seriously.  We were at a wedding in Michigan and let’s just say that home-brewed beer is awesome.

Tyranny:  Many a strange plan has been concocted over home-brewed beer. I’m pretty sure there is a direct link between home-brew and the American Revolution.  Would you consider signing the idiots…I mean talented gentleman…who did that Newt Gingrich rap song?

Sarah:  Sure. Digital release only and anonymously via iTunes or Amazon.

We have a name to uphold after-all!

Tyranny:  I think Domestic Genocide is a perfect name for anything Gingrich related.

Sarah:  “Gingrich” sounds so medieval. Maybe if we tinkered with the music a bit.

Tyranny:  Who is coming out after Hate Field?

Sarah:  After Hate Field, it will most likely be WelicoRuss or Coldnight. I know the digipack for WelicoRuss is about done so that’s something for their fans to look forward to. We have it up for pre-order on our webstore.

Tyranny:  Outstanding. The label seems to have a great line into some of the up and coming music scenes around the world. Where is the next Seattle?

Sarah:  Either Egypt or the United Arab Emirates… or Russia.  It’s a toss-up.

Tyranny:  Why do you figure?

Sarah:  Egypt and the UAE are both fairly liberal as far as music and shows are concerned. I know they have had to face people not liking them, but unlike in other countries over there, they won’t go to jail for it. The music scenes there have had time to expand, grow, and serve as a home for musicians from other countries in the region. Though, with what’s going on with the Brotherhood and Salafis slobbering over Egypt that is going to change quickly.  I say Russia as an afterthought because I’ve been noticing some pretty good music coming out of there. Most people don’t know enough about the music scene there.

Tyranny:  Do you think it’s possible to have Cannibal Corpse jailed in Egypt? I mean, for fun.

Sarah:  Don’t get my hopes up. But, between you, the readers, and me wait a few months and then send them over for a gig. Should be interesting!

Tyranny:  I’m in. Then again, people start to get taken seriously when they do time. Like Varg, for example. That dude would be schlepping gyros in South Philly if he hadn’t stabbed somebody.

Sarah:  It’s interesting that that didn’t seem to work for Leviathan too well.

Tyranny:  Good point! You are the creator of the phenomenal music blog “Blood or Love”. You do a whole mess of amazing interviews on there. How would you describe your style as an interviewer?

Sarah:  Thank you! Well, I think “thorough” is my style. I try to get the most I can from someone in one question as humanly possible. It’s also a challenge sometimes asking original questions especially when you don’t know your subject too well. Other times, it’s a challenge when you’re sending out the standard questions in an email or private message on Facebook. Don’t get me wrong. That can yield good results, but it’s kind of stale.  I developed a love for the “conversational” style from Alfi Hayati and John Stepp’s interviews.

Tyranny:  What do you find most interesting about humans?

Sarah:  How almost everything, even negative emotions, stem from the broad spectrum of emotions that we loosely label as “love.”

Tyranny:  Is there a definable “love”?

Sarah:  I think that the one thing that all forms of “love” have in common is the incentive for self-sacrifice. It’s the one thing that is capable of making us discard our instinct for self-preservation.

Tyranny:  Best I’ve ever seen that answered.  Do you see music as a critical component to the survival of the human race?

Sarah:  Most certainly. Music is art and art is one of the most profound forms of communication that we have as a species. Sometimes, words alone can’t translate what we want to convey and sometimes language can actually be the barrier preventing communication. Culture, religion, society. All that can separate us. A lot of times it does. Art is universal. It keeps emotions like empathy alive.  You don’t need to understand the lyrics to a song to feel the emotion coming from the singer or the music itself.

Tyranny:  What song do you have the strongest emotional connection to?

Sarah:  Piano instrumental of Silent Night. It’s the first song I taught myself to play on piano and I think the melody is very beautiful. The song reminds me of childhood. It brings back memories I would have forgotten without it.

Sarah Looking Deeply Amused By Life

Tyranny:  All right, I give you a name; you give me a quick response. Ready?

Sarah:  Ready!

Tyranny:  Mitt Romney

Sarah:  Ugh.

Tyranny:  John F. Kennedy

Sarah:  Car. Gunshot.

Tyranny:  Sylvester Stallone

Sarah:  Impressive sneer.

Tyranny:  Malcolm X

Sarah:  Islam.

Tyranny:  Ronnie James Dio

Sarah:  Metal horns.

Tyranny:  Yul Brenner

Sarah:  Exotic.

Tyranny:  Would you rather kill a cow or a chicken?

Sarah:  Chicken. Cows are harder to kill. Once, a whole bunch my father bought in Egypt ran away from the butcher and was roaming the streets. I was walking to the butcher wondering why they were walking around unsupervised. Doesn’t happen too often.

Tyranny:  You saw donkeys in Egypt. What was that like?

Sarah:  It was all right when they went along with what their owners wanted of them. Otherwise, they’re very loud and annoying at the crack of dawn. Even more so than roosters.

Tyranny:  You. Desert Island. One album. What you got?

Sarah:  Dax Riggs, Say Goodnight to the World

Tyranny:  If you could leave the beloved reader with one idea, one mental image, one thought, what would it be?

Sarah:  Floating within a nebula and witnessing the slow birth of stars.

Hipster Terrorist During The Attack On The Ship

In an event that has raised international tensions between hipsters and metalheads, a crew of bearded, shaggy hipsters attempted to set hijack the 70,000 tons of metal tour boat last Friday.  They were beaten severely by many of the passengers and apprehended by police at the end of the cruise.  The Hipster Terrorists demanded an immediate end to “songs with cookie monster vocals” and “more songs that talk about what it’s like to feel left out.”  After about 20 minutes of this, enraged metalheads, led by Tankard vocalist Andreas Geremia, stormed the terrorists, taking their weapons and curb stomping four of them.

Hipster Terrorist leader Sheik Jasper Thelonius Monk claimed, through a mouth full of broken teeth, that this was the beginning of a series of “ironic terrorist attacks”.  The attack, meant to be homage to the Achille Lauro hijacking in the 1980s, failed almost immediately when the metalheads realized that the hipsters were scrawny and weak.  “Between the 15 of them, they had to weigh one member of Crowbar,” said Annihilator singer Jeff Waters, who beat several hipsters bloody with his Epiphone Annihilation-V Flying V guitar.

The Hipsters had planned to hold the ship hostage until the cruise directors agreed to allow the Cobra Starship to play a 12-hour concert on the main deck.  They also demanded the ship be taken to “some country where the art of Banksy and Spin Magazine are taken more seriously.”  They implored their hostages to stop being sucked into the madness of consumer capitalism and shop at Urban Outfitters.  The terrorists, who all had high powered AK-47 assault rifles and copies of recent books by Chuck Klosterman, were taken without a shot being fired.

Hipster terrorism is on the rise in America over the last few months.  Other, less notable attacks, included holding MTV executives hostage until they played an hour straight of Vampire Weekend videos and forcing Venom to play an entire concert with out of tune instruments.  However, CIA officials are not concerned.  Veteran CIA agent John Nash stated in a recent interview that the “hipster terrorist phenomena will not last long.  Once they realize other people are doing it, they’ll stop immediately and start hating terrorism.  They’re not all that hard to figure out.”

Metalheads Celebrate Vanquishing The Hipster Terrorists To The Music of Death Angel

Still, this attack could cause a major problem between rival hipster and metalhead factions.  Metal Secretary of Defense and Manowar bassist Joey DeMaio believes that there is war on the horizon and that The Army of True Metal will be victorious.  “If you want to know what the future looks like,” said DeMaio in a press conference this morning, “imagine a boot stepping on a hipsters face over and over again while me and the boys play “The Gods Made Heavy Metal”.

Thomas G Warrior and The Boys After Wolfing Down Some Potato Kugel and Manischewitz

In this year’s most talked about metal reunion, the original members of the metal legends Celtic Frost returned to the stage to help celebrate the passage into manhood of young Shlomo Needlebaum.  The Needlebaums have been lifelong fans of the band and Sol Needlebaum, Shlomo’s father and owner of Honest Sol’s Linoleum Flooring with 40 locations throughout the Midwest, knew that this was the perfect opportunity to bring the band back together.  “Morbid Tales has been a constant part of Shlomo’s life since he was a little baby.  We played Dethroned Emperor at his bris and he’s been in love with them ever since,” proclaimed Sol outside of the Moshe Dayan Memorial Temple in Mayfield Heights, Ohio.

At first, Thomas Gabriel Warrior (or Fischer, as most adults like to call him) was dead set against the idea.  However, the chance to help a fan like Shlomo start the exciting journey into adult life along with a check for 50,000 dollars helped Warrior change his tune.  Warrior’s love of the traditions of Judaism were also a major influence on his decision.  “I have always had a special place in my heart for the Jewish people and particularly their traditions,” said Warrior decked out in corpse paint and a yarmulke before he strode on stage, “I often think of the great quote by the German poet Berthold Auerbach who said ‘Judaism lives not in an abstract creed, but in its institutions’.  UGH!”

Celtic Frost opened The Bar Mitzvah Concert at Epstein’s Deli and Reception Hall on Saturday night with their classic song The Usurper.  Then, they launched into two altered versions of classic songs in honor of the evening.  Into Crypts Oy Vay sent the crowd of 200 into a frenzy and Bacon (For The Wicked) caused the floor to rumble with the charging fury of pure metal metalness.  The highlight of the night was when Warrior was lifted onto a chair during the hora (which the Rabbi Jacob Greenblatt referred to jokingly as “The Circle of Tyrants” dance) and carried around the restaurant while singing “Inner Sanctum”.

The night was not without incident.  Bassist Martin Ain, confused and annoyed by the challah that was being thrown at the band, fired Franco Sesa’s drumstick at 12-year-old Annie Blechman.  The stick slammed into her forehead, sending her to Mt. Sinai Medical Center for overnight evaluation.  Ain was briefly detained by police after the event but was released on his own recognizance pending investigation.

All things considered, the evening was a major success.  The band sounded crisp in spite of its four-year layoff.  Warrior, who has made millions of dollars over the past few years in the fortune cookie message writing business, is seriously considering putting that project on hold and going back on the road with the band.  Celtic Frost has already confirmed that they might be playing a full Bar Mitzvah World Tour in the fall with stops in Israel, Poland and Miami Beach.

“Beware of the hobby that eats.”  -Benjamin Franklin

The modern world can easily be a paradise for the highly committed and deeply disturbed among us.  A person can amuse themselves endlessly with useless acts of rebellion meant to add luster to the dreary, humdrum, day-to-day flatness of life.  Abbie Hoffman once figured out how to obtain a free buffalo from the Department of Interior.  He was a bit more creative than I am.  Having become sick of ending up with piles and piles of junk mail I set my sights on turning this annoyance into an affirmation of the uniquely twisted nature of today’s world.

It all started at Kroger on a rainy Friday afternoon many Octobers ago.  Kroger is a supermarket chain that exists down here in Atlanta, Georgia so that people have a place to go if Publix is too crowded or closed.  I had recently been forcibly removed from the place for getting into a shouting match with three employees over my belief that they were intentionally overcharging me for the 35 boxes of store brand pudding I was trying to purchase.  I was in the mood for mischief, but not the type that would again lead me to being tossed onto the ground and called a “pudding hoarder” by an overzealous store security guard.

At Kroger, you can get a card that, in exchange for surrendering loads of personal information, can help the cagier shoppers among us to save lots of money through special discounts.  Of course, once your information is in their hands who knows where it ends up.  They can sell it to anyone they want.  They can give it to the KGB for all you know.  For fun, I decided that if they were going to get someone’s name, it ought to be The Boston Strangler’s.  So, now when I look in my mailbox and some company is trying to send me coupons for, say, diapers, those coupons are addressed to Mr. Albert DeSalvo.  Kroger and the other litany of corporate octopi that spend thousands of dollars to figure out whether I might buy more or less than 100 dollars worth of Kleenex per year are actually trying to appeal to a maniac who terrified the people of Boston for months on end.  Cracks me up every time.

My fake criminal spree continued at CVS the next day where I signed up for their consumer rewards program as Dr. Jack Kevorkian.  This has led to a series of bizarre exchanges including the

CVS Customer Service Agent:  Do you have a CVS card?

Me:  Sure.  Here it is.

Agent:  (swiping card) You saved $3.52 on those cans of formaldehyde Dr. Kevorkian.

Me:  Thanks!

Agent:  Hey.  You are not the famous Dr. Jack Kevorkian are you?

Me:  No.  That’s my brother.

Agent:  Your parents named you both Jack. 

Me:  Yes.  And we are both doctors. 

Agent:   Oh.

If you were to ravage my mailbox, you’d see a regular who’s who list of famed murderers.  Target knows me as Ted Bundy, Hobby Lobby calls me Ed Gein, Iams Dog Food thinks I’m David Berkowitz and The Omaha Steak Company sends their annual Steak of the Month mailing to a connoisseur named Jeff Dahmer.  It’s really rather a strange feeling to see pictures of smiling, deeply contented people in a Macy’s catalogue that has just been sent to Richard “The Night Stalker” Ramirez.

Why does this make me laugh?  I’m not sure. It’s childish, insensitive and really asinine.  Murder is certainly not funny, particularly the sheer perversity of the acts committed by my alter-mail-egos (except, of course, Kevorkian, who really doesn’t belong in this group of sickos).   Maybe it’s a way of trying to make sense of the perpetual flow of slickly produced come-ons that follow me around where ever I look.  Maybe it’s an indicator of my inability to see understand the nature of true horror.  Maybe I just need another hobby.  It’s hard to say.

(Middle-aged woman with red hair walks on the elevator.  I am pacing back and forth.  My facial muscles are twitching.  I begin saying “Vermont” over and over in a loud voice for no particular reason)

Me:  Vermont….vermontvermontvermont…..VERMONT!!!!

Woman:  (frightened)  Sir, are you okay?

Me:  No.  No.  I’m not okay.  I’m NOT okay.  I’m not OKAY ALRIGHT!!!!

You know why?  Do you?  Moneyball.  That’s the problem.  Moneyball.  I stayed up all night watching that film.  Over and over.  I read the book.  I mean, I loved the book.  It fueled my deep and undying passion for baseball stats.  It was fascinating.  VERMONT!  I mean, Michael Lewis is a heck of a writer.  But….THE MOVIE!!!!   Ehhhhh!!!!  Vermont!

Woman:  (staring straight ahead in utter terror)  The….movie?

Me:  It’s absurd.  Absurd!  They turned the thing into a Merchant-Ivory picture!  All the edge of a five-year-old butter knife.  All the dullness of Out of Africa with the “fight the system”, Occupy Someplace message that Americans love.  Mr. Smith Goes To Oakland.  Blah blah blah.  Of course, the big climax is the film is the main character turning down a whale’s colon full of money for “the love of the game”.  If there was ever a part of me that didn’t want so see Hollywood attacked by human eating vultures it died in that moment.  VERMONT!!!!!!

Woman:  Buh…

Me:  Good lord!  How many shots of that stupid “Awwww shucks”, wax-lipped expression on Brad Pitt’s stupid face can one man handle?  Who wants to watch this guy do a 2-hour impression of the offensive line coach at Auburn?  And the fat kid?  What’s his deal!!?!!  If I was Paul DePodesta I’d rather them got Anthony Perkins to play me.  They even put hipsters in baseball movies now for godsakes.  VERMONT!!!!!!  And his daughter?!?  Good lord!  They put her in the movie twice for the sole purpose of playing that god-awful song.  TWICE!!!  Awful!  Those noises she makes.  She sounds like a porpoise giving birth…

Woman:  (reaching into her purse for either a whistle or pepper spray)  Sir, please…….

Me:  Look!  You asked me what I thought about the film!  I hated it.  Vermont!  If you watched the film you’d think the A’s only had Scott Hatteberg, Chad Bradford and David Justice.  They had Zito!  Mulder!  Hudson!  Dye!  Tejada!  Harang!  Ramon Hernandez!  Not a one of those guys were Moneyballers.  And their division sucked!  Those were also factors….don’t you think??????

Woman:  Uhmmmm….

Me:  You’d think Billy Beane had a blind second baseman and 9 year old playing catcher.  You’d think Billy Beane climbed Mount Mariah and talked the good lord out of making Abraham sacrifice his son.  You’d think he cured smallpox by dialing a few numbers into his computer.  VER—–MONT!!!!!

Woman:  Sir!

Me:  And another thing, what did Art Howe ever do to become the worst movie villain since Jack Nicholson put on face paint?  Sure, he wasn’t exactly a great manager, but watching this film you’d think he had Frank Menechino’s liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.  He’s an American League manager!  Of course, he’s cold and disinterested!  You would be too if you had to watch 162 games a year without even getting to call one double switch.  Let’s face it, it’s the most mind-numbing job this side of being Underwear Inspector Number 8 at the Hanes Factory.

Woman:  (angrily)  Are you finished?

Me:  Am I finished?!?  Am I finished?!?  VermontvermontVERMONT!  You know what stings the worst.  The reviews!  Reading reviewer after reviewer practically break their collective arms trying to heap praise on this piece of garbage because the director “gets out of the way and let’s the film tell it’s story.”  According to most of the Gatekeepers of Good Taste, the best thing an American director can aspire to be is irrelevant.  Where are the 12-minute tracking shots?  Where is the juxtaposition between Billy Beane and a Chicago Slaughterhouse in the 1890s?  No homage to Eisenstein’s Odessa Step Sequence? Only two films get made in Hollywood anymore, the one about the likeable but eccentric character triumphing over some overblown problem or the one about the co-ed trapped in an elevator who can only survive by gnawing off her own leg.  America used to stand for something!  Is this really the best we can do? VERMONT!!!!

(Elevator Dings)

Woman:  (finally looking at me with a deeply concerned expression)This is my floor.  I’m going to go now.

Me:  Thanks for listening.

Woman:  You bet.

 “Death is not the worst that can happen to men.” -Plato

There aren’t many things that scare me.  I’ve been around a time or two and have seen some awful things.  Sure, I’m afraid of death, just like everyone else.  But, I think I’ve made my peace with it.  There are things far worse than death out there.  When I wake up in the middle of the night, in a cold sweat, filled with pure panic, it’s not death that’s staring back at me.  It is something far more hideous.  It is the number four.

You’ve seen a thousand fours in your life.  They are everywhere.  Four noble truths, four great elements, four horseman of the apocalypse, four letter words, the number four Bobby Orr, the list goes on and on.  What they are used for is not important. It is what those fours ARE that is lurking behind every door, just behind the shadows, just out of reach.  It is what those fours ARE that is haunting me.  No matter how hard I try I cannot escape.

Because, you see, there are plenty of uses for the number four, but there is only truly one four.  It is indivisible, it is unstoppable, it is perfect, it is irreducible and it is after me.  I try to tell people what’s going on, but they don’t believe me.  I explained my predicament friend the other day about my problem and he laughed.  He drew the number four on a piece of paper and ripped it up.  “Now you’re safe,” he chuckled.

Wrong.  Wrong.  Wrong.  Fool!  He doesn’t understand.  It’s not some absurd, half-witted drawing of the number four that strikes fear into my heart.  I’m not scared of what can be done with four; I am utterly terrified of what it is. The perfect platonic form of four.  Four in all its grotesque fourness.  The ideal four.  The world is filled with four imitators, trying to fake fournesss, trying to be useful, trying to help us count all of the pointless presences around us.  But, I have SEEN four.  The real one.  The root of all fourness.  And, worse, it knows I have seen it.

Oh platonic four, if I could take back that one time my eyes shot open in the middle of the night and I saw you hovering above my bed, I would.  Everything was fine before that night.  I wandered through this odd fantasy world of illusion that we call life with full belief in the forms that surrounded me.  Then, I saw you and was forever changed.  I had seen a lifetime of fours, but never any as perfect as this one.  In that moment, I understood all other fours to be impostors.  They did not have your straightness, they did not have your smoothness, they could not measure up.

What my eyes witnessed forever corrupted my being.  At first, I looked for the perfect four everywhere.  I needed to see it once more.  I needed to know it and be connected with its truth.  I wanted to be by its side.  I wanted it to show me that there was more to this life than incompleteness and wandering.  I longed for one more fleeting glimpse of its timeless perfection.

A horrible thing began to dawn on me.  What if I wasn’t meant to see it?  What if my accidental encounter had doomed me?  What if the perfect four was looking for me with the same fury that I searched for it?  All at once, I knew.  I began to sense its presence everywhere I went.  It was stalking me.  Waiting for me to let my guard down.  Hunting me.

I was at the supermarket looking at the oranges and suddenly; I saw it out of the corner of my eye.  It was hiding behind the walnuts and almonds.  Waiting to consume me whole.  It sensed my glance and began to move towards me.  I dropped my grocery basket and ran out of the store screaming.  I didn’t stop until I got to my car.  Which was the right key?   There it was dashing across the parking lot like a rabid dog.  No one saw it but me.  It raced towards me.  Finally, I pushed the key into the lock, got in the car and sped away.

I have been hiding from it ever since.  Held up in a dingy motel room passing my final hours.  I have this lingering sense that it knows where I am and is toying with me.  Enjoying my suffering.  Laughing at me.  I went through a day or two thinking I could destroy it.  I repeated 3 plus 1 equals 5 for hours on end.  I figured if I denied the truth of its inevitability I could make it go away.  However, my mind is no match for the perfection of its form.  A mere string of thoughts could not slow its terrible, astonishing inertia for even a second.

I prepared for my final showdown with four.  I would wait for it.  I would catch it by surprise and break it into a million pieces.  I would hit it with a hammer.  Shoot it with a gun.  Cut it up with a chainsaw.  Melt it with a blowtorch.  Something.  Anything.

All resistance is absurd.  I know this.  Four is indestructible.  It has no parts.  It is endless and deathless.  It wasn’t created and cannot be destroyed.  It was here before we were and will be here forever after.  If I dropped a million nuclear bombs on the world the number four sustain as much as a dent.   It is beyond law, beyond meaning, beyond understanding.  Unstoppable.

I feel its presence getting closer now.  Through the trees.  Into the parking lot.  Past the couple putting luggage in their trunk.  Up the back stairs.  Past the ice machine.  Outside the door.  Inside the door.  Across the room from me.  Next to me.  Inside of me. Finally….