The Propoganda Machine

I wrote this story several years ago- just out of high school and very paranoid. It first appeared in the paper-based forerunner to this web site, Little Cube Journals.

I ate the cookies because they were hot, drinking the punch because it was cold. But I didn’t enjoy a minute of either. It was like swallowing a load of treason. Treason is sour and I hate sour things…

Through high school, I was most always enrolled in a study period or two. This altogether defeated “homework” and “taking advantage of free education”. With all the extra time I had, I was invariably left to carve things into tables and chairs. One day as I was talking with my friend Robby (he was just as educationally inclined as me) I chipped an odd elliptical shape into a library desk. Although Robby had been balancing on the back legs of his chair for a new Tuesday record of 2 minutes, he took a moment to remark the carving kind of looked like a hot dog. I switched to an easier medium, recreated the original shape with a pencil and paper, then added wheels, a cockpit, and a huge face on its side. My creation was soon christened as “The Markley: One Big Ass Hot Dog Monster Truck” .

Since I’m sure that makes no sense to most everyone, let me explain. The greatest English teacher I ever had was a man who called himself Mr. Markley. He taught me the ins and outs of creative writing and, more importantly, never told me to rewrite my Shakespeare final just because it was called “Green Eggs and Hamlet” and didn’t have any critical merit. Perhaps it was reasons like this he actually taught Driver’s Ed. most of the day. Who knows? I still respected him. When I overheard him, however, tell someone that I was “one of the greatest writers Red Mountain High School had ever produced,” I realized I’d fooled a gentle, innocent man and was ashamed. I figured there was no better way to atone than allow his face the privilege of being mounted on a big ass monster truck shaped like a hot dog.

Though the drawing of a truck is a surprisingly insignificant part of this story, it did promptly inspire a poem, which me and Robby called, “Ode to Markley.” It is excerpted here:

“…Across the district he rides, king of the rally,
King of the dog, selling his dreams and wieners.
The relish is on the house, and the mustard is free…”

Keep in mind Mr. Markley was a vegetarian for all we knew. Still, we were quite pleased with ourselves and treated each other to some ice cream at lunch.

One month later, the flyers for Mind’s Eye 1994 began popping up around campus. The student body became very atwitter about a new “journal showcasing the best writing, art, and photography of our high school.” This seemed like the perfect opportunity for us to submit out poem. We would finally be popular! “Wait,” Robby said, “We might finally be popular, but isn’t this a sell out? What about what we believe in?”

I was confused. He was responding in the past to a statement I just made in the present, four lines ago! Plus he wasn’t the kind to complain about things like artistic integrity or morality. It turned out he just didn’t want to take part in something so closely involved with school. I understood but convinced him otherwise – poems were our ticket to a “sweet senior rep’”. He eventually agreed, then suggested we actually author several more in an attempt to increase our odds of getting accepted. I concurred. If only I knew then what I think I know now.

We stayed up late one Friday night and composed over twenty sonnets. Among the subjects tackled: the decomposition of the American dream, bigotry, hatred, the environment, and this kid we liked to make fun of named Fred DiSano. We were sure they were all shoe-ins for a coveted Mind’s Eye slot. Here is one of my favorites:

YOUR NECK
I really like your neck.
It helps you move your head.
Up and down, back and around,
“Snap!” You’re paralyzed buddy!
Who’s the bully now?!

A hard rain fell the day our rejections came. All but one of our pieces received a little pink slip saying, “Try again next year.” This made perfect sense seeing as how I’d be wasting my time somewhere other than high school by then. The worst thing was that the one poem they did accept was titled “Man Trapped In Closet”. The implication of the entire school reading a poem with that title written by two males was, for some reason, lost on both of us at the time. Years later we realized our naive verse about a guy locked in a closet by a clown might have been the reason we had such a hard time finding girlfriends.

Anyway, I let the whole thing slide for awhile. Perhaps the accepted entries to Mind’s Eye were just exemplary instances of creative genius. You can imagine my surprise when it was published and revealed itself to be a complete load. Let’s just say there was a poem that ended with the author thanking Queensryche for “teaching me how to rage.” Our poems included no reference to any heavy metal bands, plus were better than most of the other stuff included. I smelled a rat.

After thinking about it even more, I was convinced the whole thing was a conspiracy, a concentrated effort by the administration to suppress free thought and individuality. I had no proof, of course, but the theory appealed to the part of me that also listened to Rage Against the Machine. I started an investigation. It turned out the woman behind Mind’s Eye 1994, the grand majestrix, was none other than Mrs. Baach – aGerman!

With this in hand, I went to see the principal. This was unthinkable. I was being censored! What always happened to the other guy (i.e., 2 Live Crew) was happening to me! I was sure that this sort of thing was not what was supposed to be taught in school. By the time I finally got to see him I was mad as hell and wasn’t going to take it anymore – unless I had to.

“Principal,” I said, “Do you know what’s going on here? Are you keeping tabs on your staff? Are you aware that your student body is being violated?” He remained calm and did so as I continued with my story. When I was finished he asked my what my names was. I told him it was Fred DiSano to avoid any disciplinary actions down the line. He proceeded with a lecture the theme of which seemed to center around my ignorance. I barely heard him because the phrase “You can’t handle the truth!” was recoiling in my head. The name plate on his desk read Mr. Kohl… another German!

That night I stared up at the stars reflecting. If I could be silenced in the confines of my own school, what would the real world be like? What business does the word censorship have in a “free” country? Would pornography ever be banned? If so, where would I have to go to get it? How much would it cost? I was really scared for the first time in my life.

The next week, Mind’s Eye was throwing a party for all those lucky enough to be part of the collaboration. Technically, Robby and I could have attended because of the “Closet” poem. The only logical course of action , however, was for us to hold a protest rally outside their fascist celebration. The pickets signs we made, or at least thought about making, were very incendiary. “Join the Propaganda Machine? Never!” and “Mind’s Eye? Blind Lie!”

When we got there and prepared to make those signs for some circle marc
hing, I was already very hungry. The refreshments inside looked even more appetizing than usual…

Eventually, I gave up, went inside, and ate. Perhaps I was a traitor to the cause, but my stomach thanked me later.

A Letter From Nathan

To whom it may concern,

I recently stayed at your establishment, the Moore Hotel, for three nights. I chose it because it was right next to the Moore Theatre, and I was going to see a couple of concerts there- Gillian Welch and Jim James. Maybe you’ve heard of them? I doubt it, since their fans tend to wear cool shirts, and that was not in evidence where any of your desk clerks were concerned.

Regardless, I don’t really care what kind of music you guys like, even if it includes that new album by Ben Folds and William Shatner (yikes!). But I really wish you would have told me when I made reservations that you didn’t have any heat. Even this oversight wouldn’t have been so bad if my bathroom window wasn’t broken. Every time I had to use the restroom in the middle of the night, it felt like I was stepping outside. In Arizona (where I’m from), I actually do this regularly and enjoy the stars. But in Seattle (where I was visiting), it felt like my feet, hands, and genitals were going to freeze immediately.

Another complaint – I requested a wake up call at 6 am on my last morning there. I was awakened at 9 am by my friend frantically knocking at my door screaming, “You’re going to miss your flight!”. All I could think was, “But I have to keep my genitals warm!” before I completely woke and realized she was right. In explaining the lack of a phone call, the desk clerk informed me that “my phone must not be working”. No shit?

I fully expected to miss my flight since my driver’s license has a faded picture and I’m usually forced to go through the full security screening with all the Koreans and people with a European name. Fortunately, the person who checked my boarding pass and ID was fairly incompetent and waved me through with less than 5 minutes to spare. I don’t think the woman sitting next to me on the flight appreciated it, though. By her facial expression, she was either extremely displeased with her complimentary scone or could tell I didn’t have time to shower.

Because of your convenient location, affordable prices, and the fact I could see the TV while taking a shower, I will definitely stay with you again if I ever return to Seattle. Still, I just had to share with you my negative experience in hopes that you will fix the goddamn window in room 600.

Sincerely,

Nathan Fuller

Hello Nathan,

I am very sorry for the experience you had at The Moore. It was & never is our intention for our guests to have an unpleasant stay. We did experience our heating system going down on Monday Oct 4th. I apologize for not having mentioned that fact when you checked in.

As far as the window is concerned…. you are right… you paid for a room that should have had unbroken windows.

I would need to look into the telephone problem but as long as it was programed it always rings the room. So either the clerk did not program it or it ran but did not get ansewered. Either way there was an issue.

So…. to make the situation “right” I can credit your acct the amount you paid for the room, or I can comp your next
stay up to 2 days (not room 600) plus I will throw in 2 tics (row H….dead center)..(provided it is a reserved show)
to any up coming Moore Theatre show. (with the exception of anything Disney produces).

Sincerely,

Mike

3 Days From Yesterday

Once I saw The Day After Tomorrow over two months ago, my first order of business was to forget everything about it, and with any luck, that I had ever even seen it. This happens a lot when a movie’s credits begin to roll and I realize that videotaping myself banging my head in a toilet seat for an hour and a half would have been more productive, as it would leave me with video footage more interesting than the film. (This always happens when the credits begin “Directed by Roland Emmerich”. He was, of course, partially responsible for Matthew Broderick’s Godzilla among other things.)

Yet, reviewing a film now I barely remember is probably one of the least desirable positions to be in as a columnist. The only one worse is not having seen the movie at all, but that hasn’t stopped me before. The two things I do recall from Tomorrow are the storms that freeze people instantaneously and the devil wolves (pictured left). Hey, that actually sounds pretty good. Combine those with the fact the video game based on the movie apparently requires the player to shimmy through a sewer to avoid floating mushrooms (pictured right), and you have, what I believe, a fantastic combination that should prevent any movie from totally sucking: immobilizing ice storms, hell hounds, and magical toadstools. In fact, I had to wonder if my initial negative impressions were completely off base and I should rent the movie again. Instead, I just read some other reviews so I could kind of justufy writing my own.

It seems that the plot revolves around a global eco-disaster that kills half the world’s population, yet solely focuses on the journey of one workaholic dad to rescue his son. Judging by the narrative contrivances frequently mentioned by near every critic, concentrating the story on several of the stupidest and oblivious humans alive at the expense of the billions who deserved to live but were killed by monster tornados was not a smart choice. Other phrases repeatedly thrown about by professional critics were “monumentally inept”, “thick and stupid”, “dumb and flat”, and “exceptionally stupid.” I could find no mention at all of magical toadstools, leaving me to conclude the video game makers took some artistic license in the big screen-to-gameboy adaptation.

On a scale of environmental tragedy, where hurricanes are a 1 and melted polar caps are a 10, I would probably give The Day After Tomorrow the rating of an oil spill if I really remembered it, the numerical equivalent of a 2.

A Smuggler’s End

Growing up, one of the most exciting things I could do was smuggle food into a theater. This was not because I grew up in a small town like Tussville, Alabama or Mooreland, Indiana. It was because I was small and I did not know until much later that the main party spot for my high school was in the desert less than a mile from my house. Not that it would’ve mattered. The challenge of hiding an oversized carton of strawberry milk in my pockets while buying a ticket for Lethal Weapon 3 was too much to resist.

Over the years, I upped the ante and in a crowning moment, eventually snuck in a medium pizza, the box crammed down my pants like and overstuffed suitcase. I became so proficient I thought about creating a web site just to catalog all the things I’d smuggled into a movie theater. Then I found a another site for someone called the Amazing Ty who “smuggles” things larger than I’ve ever even tried and in places that look a lot more painful than my baggy pockets. I figured it was kind of pointless.

I even played with the idea of strapping a TV tray to my back. I recognized, soon, that would be much better as a Seinfeld episode. I wrote the script featuring George’s quest to enjoy a full course meal while watching Rochelle, Rochelle. Unfortunately, NBC never replied when I e-mailed it to them, which I don’t understand because it was much better than every other “fan fiction” I’ve read on the ‘net, most all of them featuring Elaine having sex with Newman and Peterman at the same time.

After all these years, though, I have this bad feeling that somewhere along the line movie theaters actually started allowing people to bring in food. I think I may have even seen deliveries from surrounding restaurants. But I don’t ask. I’d rather play the game. Because for every bowl of Cream of Potato soup I spill down my leg, there is the triumphant feeling I get when people sitting around me wonder aloud why they smell hot, teriyaki chicken.

Boston Eagles

The Practice was one of the worst shows in all of television history, right behind Joey and One Tree Hill. Of the 15,023 episodes that aired, 9 were somewhat enjoyable. These were the last 9 because James Spader was on them. He was so good, in fact, they rolled his character over into a new a series, Boston Legal. Unfortunately, it seems the only reason he was so good on The Practice was because he finished filming the episodes before the network could even think about firing him, so his performance had a wonderful “fuck this” je ne sais quoi de chi.

On the outlandish Boston Legal, however, he has the look of a dog paid to be beaten too much by ABC. Combine that with the similar glazed look of William Shatner, and you’ve got a disaster waiting to happened. Or more precisely, a disaster that’s already happened. If nothing else, you know the show is horrible because of the way it uses funky music to signify something quirky just happened the same way a sitcom uses a canned laughter to indicate a joke that was supposed to be funny just occurred.

As you may have already guessed, the reason I called this review “Boston Eagles” is because it rhymed with the shows title, and if the Philadelphia Eagles magically turned into a basketball team and the entire franchise was traded to Boston and Terrell Owens became the best power forward in Boston since Raef LaFrenz, that whole scenario would be more believable than anything that will ever happen on Boston Legal.

On scale if insults to Boston, where the Big Dig is a 1 and Bill Buckner is a 10, Boston Legal rates a city native Barbara Walters, the numerical equivalent of a 3.4.

Costume Theory

I have never been a huge fan of Halloween. I think this goes back to childhood, when my mother would make me trade all my candy for a new G.I. Joe toy she’d bought a day earlier. Apparently, she was more worried about cavities than the elaborate war fantasies I spent most of my days enacting with action figures and matches. I still care about Halloween, though. And over the years, it seems the holiday has sold out like all the others. Christmas, for example, is supposed to be about goodwill (or something) but now it’s really just about presents. Halloween used to be about scaring the shit out of small children, but now it’s all about spending money on costumes and beer.Unfortunately, the corporate takeover of holidays are like a lot of other things out of our control: rainy days, rush hour traffic, and the complete destruction of Earth’s environment – you just have to go with the flow. So I’ve tried to maintain my enthusiasm as long as possible for dressing up and getting drunk by simply creating some of the best costumes ever.

For a long time I simply tucked my shirt in, wore a baseball cap, and went as Troy the College Fuck. Several years ago, though, I amped up the action and buddied up with a friend… Space Pirates. You don’t have to spend lots of money on a costume for it to be a success- a used garbage man’s uniform, a sew-on moon badge, and an eye patch should be enough. Optionally, a speech, and in some cases a pirate’s hat, will always make any good get-up better. In this case, since we were both Space Pirates, we would recite the following every chance afforded, alternating lines:

I am Nebulius,
And I am Quasar,
And we’re going galactic,
So Lock up the moon colonists’ daughter!

Wearing the same costume two years in a row is frowned upon by many, but recycling half of a costume is both inspired and frugal. The next year, I wore the same blue uniform but replaced the buccaneer’s trimmings with a baseball glove… I was a Spaceball Player. I also cooked up another speech dealing with my league record 585 homeruns, “there’s not much gravity in spaceball after all”. By the end of the night, though, I was wishing I had someone to play catch with, and I had learned a valuable lesson.

It is always wiser to dress up as a pair with someone else, especially when dealing with an exceptionally clever costume. For one, it makes the jealous jeering much easier to take. So the next year, I teamed with another friend. Dressing up as a cultural icon is fairly mundane, but combining two popular figures from different worlds, or at least different movies, is a sure-fire triumph. When one of those movies is Star Wars, you can’t lose. When the other movie is Wayne’s Wolrd, you’ve got Garth Vader and Garth Maul. I did learn another lesson, which is that Halloween is more enjoyable without a mask that restricts breathing and sight. Still, I was apparently having a very good time before I passed out.

One year later, I paired up again to fulfill a long-standing dream of going to a bar with my pants around my ankles. We went as Pumpkin Fuckers. The entire night is documented in pictures here. The general reaction to the prosthetics and pumpkins strapped to our waist was one we were actually used to- women laughing at us from a distance. The few who were brave enough to laugh at us in close proximity while handling our fake cocks seemed amused though, and they continued to laugh while walking away after we asked them to come home with us and make pumpkin pie.

A year After that, I took the easy way out and went as Bronco Jesus. Since I had long hair at the time and resembled our Holy Christ anyway, I just wore a Denver Broncos cap and drew a cross on a white t-shirt with the letters “WWBJD?” written underneath. What Would Bronco Jesus Do?

This year, I have to admit, my belief in Halloween was waning more than ever. Even the “costume and beer” version of Halloween was losing it’s charm – I thought about forgetting about the first part of that equation all together. One night, my costume was hoping someone else showed up with a costume I could share. This actually worked – a complete stranger arrived with a painting of two “beach bods” with holes where the heads should have been. I told the woman I would be “using one of those holes” (she luckily didn’t misunderstand me), and she was too polite to say no. Another night, I dressed as Luke from the Gilmore Girls. This is the triple threat of costumes- equal parts gayness (an admission to watching Gilmore Girls), laziness (just a backwards hat and flannel shirt), and lameness (Luke’s a chef on a poorly rated TV show).

As fate would have it, my faith in the holiday was somewhat restored when I went to a haunted house later that evening. Outside, there was a boy in the dirt, absolutely bawling. His mother grabbed his arm and began pulling him in despite his shrieks that he was scared. “You’re going in there if I have to drag you the whole way!” she announced. For many people in line, I imagine this was the scariest thing they had seen the entire night- borderline child abuse! To me, it was one lady making a courageous stand against all that is wrong with Halloween. This was one lady still holding onto the belief this is a holiday that, if you’re under 25 and haven’t wet your pets by midnight, really isn’t much of a holiday at all.