More Than True, A journal of. Published under the auspices of the HiSky* Trust, founded 1957 to promote disorder. (*Hiss-Key)
HiSky Trust Review2008. Amsterdam. I enter an empty bar. It is the dead of winter. It is cold and the streets are deserted. As is the bar. Deserted but for the barkeep. A British man standing behind the counter looking stoic. Early Iron Maiden plays featuring the first singer, Paul Di’Anno.
“My boyfriend left me last night and took all my records. All but Iron Maiden. The early Maiden. With the best singer. Paul Di’Anno. But it’s all right. I can listen to Paul Di’Anno the rest of my life.”
Stiff upper lip.
A night out with the clown is not all it’s cracked up to be.
The clown strolls down the sidewalk his balloon hanging behind him, half inflated, like a dog being taken for a walk. What slim string holds a balloon to its master? It is convention. To a balloon being half inflated is to hang dejected. Not up. Not down. Just there. Any dreams the balloon once had have long since popped. Where do balloons go when they sail away aimlessly skyward? To salvation? Or are they ultimately eaten by the sun? I cannot tell you. Because if you look too long at the balloon it means you’re taking your eyes off the clown. The balloon is a diversionary tactic employed by clowns throughout the known world. The oldest trick in the book. When you develop a tingling excitement regarding the advertisement “balloon tricks,” you have already been ensnared in the trap.
Balloons contain thoughts. Exclamations. Hopes and dreams. Each balloon, each balloon filled by a clown, is filled with thoughts, exclamations, hopes, and dreams. Every balloon a repository of such. Filled by a clown.
From where? From where?
These things encased in artificial skin. Divided from the real world by a colorful but transparent wall. Turning the outside world into a fun house mirror of horrors, every day and accute. Of one color. I have one viewpoint. The result of one vantage point. The result of a definite imprisonment at the awkward hands of a clown.
The clown sneaks up behind you and delivers a tentative touch. You feel deflated. There is laughter, not yours.
”But I don’t think I need to be reprogrammed,” said the robot.”That is exactly the kind of thing we all say when we need reprogrammed,” said the robot doctor.
”That does not compute,” said the robot.
”Hey, who’s the robot doctor here?” said the robot doctor. Then she laughed. Kind of a tinny mechanical laugh. Just a whiff of robotic condescension. The product of millions of dollars worth of research, that laugh. Let us be clear – it is not meant to reassure.
”The president is a wonderful magician,” said Mitch McConnell.
”How so?” said Paul Ryan.
”When he saws a lady in half he actually saws a lady in half.” As he said this Mitch McConnell smiled in that creepy way Mitch McConnell smiles.
”I’d love to see that!” said Paul Ryan. Because he is also an immoral creep.
Hark, dear friends, a terrible fate
America ran down the sewer grate
Beavers shouted “damn!” But it was too late
They were attending a party at 10,000 a plate
“What to do?” said the otter to its mate
“Why I otter…” was the reply-but it was too late
The Dragon said, “We’ll consolidate!”
“We can own this parched landscape if we concoctitrate!”
“If anyone tries to stop us we’ll denunciate!”
“Berate. Sublimate. Keep both eyes on Homeplate. Trust in me and I will make this land again great!”
“The first thing we’ll do is seal up those drains.
So we can keep all the water when it rains.”
And the creatures sang the dragon’s refrains
And they praised his renowned business brains
So they sealed up those drains
And muddied those plains
And reminded that only a traitor complains
About the mixture of clean water with sewer drains
And how drinking sewage causes stomach pains
But complaints, the dragon, he disdains
For it is his golden reign.
Let it rain golden showers.
Let it rain. Let it rain.
I question all the proposed laws against burning or desecrating the flag. That’s bad for business; ergo it is un-American. Think of it: every flag burned is product moved. Flag burning should be encouraged. That’s good business.
Otherwise flags would have to be manufactured to wear out sooner. Or the design would have to change seasonally to encourage sales. Only a traitor waves last years flag. Displaying an old flag from the back of your pickup truck? Prepare to be pulled over and ticketed. It’s all about your safety. Security.
You’re either with us or against us. Remember, America is about shopping and turning in (on) your neighbor.
The media tells me about many things I need to buy. It seems my old toothbrush is not doing an adequate and hygienic job. There have been technological breakthroughs in the field of personal hygiene and I am being left behind. How can anyone love me; I live in the filthy world of yesterday.
Still, there is the hope of stability. We do not hope for peace, as the starry-eyed utopians, but stability—the utopia of the hard-hearted realist. War. It’s good for the economy they say; it sells American flags. They’re made in China, but still, business is business.
There has been much talk of terrorism in the last decades. I want to say this clearly so it will be well understood: Terrorism is peachy. Otherwise we would not have funded it. It’s stimulating the economy.
This country was built on terrorism. It was not for nothing our founding fathers stole and destroyed tea. It was so that we, their heirs, would be free to steal and destroy tea. Do not let anyone tell you it is not your right to steal and destroy tea! Our boys in uniform fought and died to insure that right. The stores are filled with tea. Go out and do your duty citizen! Anyone who tries to stop you is a traitor.
One principal of private property (the foundation of the Free Market) is that you have the right to slash your own tires.
They’re yours. You paid for them. How dare someone prevent you from slashing your own tires!
Friend, I will fight for your right to slash your own tires—just as I will fight for your right to burn your own flag. Remember, burning flags is good for the economy. Stimulates flag sales. Anyone who tells you otherwise is anti-business and anti-American. They are traitors.
You can either be pro-business or anti-flag burning. Logic dictates you cannot be both. Those who cannot choose are wishy-washy liberals. Which is just another word for traitor. Stand in the middle of the road long enough, buddy, and I will run you down.
I say defend your rights: Slash a tire today!
If you do not use your rights you will surely lose them. I understand you may not want to slash the tires on the car you drive to work. You shouldn’t let that stop you. Let me suggest that you slash the tires of city police or state patrol vehicles.
Do you not pay taxes? Are those not, in fact, your vehicles?
How could any politician argue otherwise? Do they not all promise to “slash government?” You are just doing your part to help. You are a patriot and you are defending your rights—as well as the rights of all Americans. Anyone who disagrees is a traitor.
Those tires are yours to give and yours to take away. If they don’t want you to slash them, perhaps they should have business pay for them instead. The businesses write the laws in this country, so they might as well write some checks for the upkeep of their government. They already give money to the politicians and parties, why not to the government? Why should they expect us to pick up the tab?
The business of government is the business of business. That is why businessmen run and control the business of government.
We hold this truth to be self evident: that the business of government shall never perish from the earth. To secure this truth, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the businesses governed. Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of business to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
The Pepsi generation is ready for a fight.
Will we leave the field scattered with paper cups and bottle-caps with “Sorry, not a winner” imprinted under them?
We may have no choice.
Whenever terrible things happen the intelligentsia inform you the age of humor has ended. Because they don’t want you to have anything.
Will there be funny jokes during the suffering? Yes, there will be funny jokes during the suffering. But the laughter will be desperate.
This country used to have slaves. But the word was distasteful. So we replaced it with other words more socially acceptable.
Under the new regime poets shall be stripped of their words and forced to communicate via color wheel.
Why is there so much disaffection in the USA? Because people there have been trying to buy happiness for too long, and it isn’t working.
People always say “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” But they never say the reverse, “if it’s broke, fix it!”
You can’t buy happiness. Happiness is given away in exchange for personal data used for advertising.
After the terrible election fiasco, the USA is finally getting back to normal with another mass school shooting.
I have the best nightmares. They are the stuff other nightmares are made of. No one can defeat my nightmares. My nightmares are winners.
“All groups are inherently exclusionary or will inevitably become exclusionary.” I read that on a men’s room wall when I was 19.
Sometimes I am informed how lucky I am to be a man. Other times I am informed I am not a man. It’s a controversial definition.
Honestly, when I was in kindergarten, first day, I couldn’t figure out which bathroom to use. But I got it eventually. Now I just go anywhere.
A sales circular says these are the final days. Apocalypse news filters through in store displays. Everyone pays in different ways.
”Only in America!” As Yakoff Smirnoff would say, would the phrase “water is life” be controversial.
It’s been a long emotional journey. But I’m ready to eat pancakes again. I just can’t afford them.
I awake. I think of breakfast. I post on Facebook about breakfast, and get a warm response. Yet no breakfast occurs. I become concerned that there are rats in the walls. My walls. Rats. There is an alternative explanation which seems too cut and dry. This is a world where rats in the walls are as plausible as any other explanation. I would be disappointed were there no rats in the walls. My walls. Those rats! It is not something I could accept. It is a good opening line for breakfast. “I have rats in my walls.”
Are these American rats, these rats in the wall? Are they outsiders looking to ingress or insiders looking to egress? Do they want my food? My breakfast? I punch a hole in the wall and cold air ingresses. The chill of the night invades the inner sanctum. I dance a dance of bitter cold. I shout out sanctimoniously. Rats have put a hole through my abode! Rats! Rats in the walls!
David Raffin
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