On my recent trip back to PA, as I talked with old friends, they seemed to all mutually lament listening to the same songs over and over, because they’ve locked into to a particular sound that they like, and which has long past. Fortunately, there exists an internet, and my buddy Luc and I have made hobbies of personal archaeology; the fine science of mining your past to extrapolate where you will be. Along the way, we find new-old music, which is old, but new to us. Some of these bands saw success, and some not enough. If you know them, great! If not, there’s still a chance for you to explore without having the leave the comfort of your Comfort Zone.

10) Alias

In 1988, the broken remnants Heart found the survivors of Sheriff, and realizing that they needed each other, they performed the Fusion Dance, combining all of their powers and abilities in to one supergroup, Alias. To be honest, this was Luc’s suggestion, and not mine. I include it because his 80′s music knowledge has always exceeded my own, and I kneel to his skill. I need to familiarize myself with Alias, but I can see why he brought it up:

9) Shooting Star

You’ve probably never heard of Shooting Star, and there is literally no reason for that.

They recorded five albums and toured almost constantly for ten years; opening for ZZ Top, Cheap Trick, Jefferson Starship, REO Speedwagon, John “Cougar” Mellencamp, Kansas, Heart, Bryan Adams and motherfuckin’ Journey. Also, they were pretty cool dudes. I mean, look:

As in the words of Our God-Emperor,  ”Some will win, some will lose; some were born to sing the blues.” But what more could they do? After all they not transcendent master-men like Him, but only flesh and blood:

Well, there is one place for those mere mortal humans, who are born to make mistakes…

8) The Human League

The Human League laughed in the face of convertional wisdom, which stated that you needed proper instruments to make a hit songs, instead of a chintzy drum machine and an ass-ton of keyboards. Shows what they know…

Though they were big in the UK, their renown never crossed the pond. Still, they are the first purely electronic band to conquer the mainstream, which paved the way for entire movements in music. This is the primordial ooze that would eventually give rise to techno,  trance, and dubstep. However along another evolutionary path came…

7) Talk Talk

If you were British and had three or more identical friends, you had a band. It was that simple. There were literally hundreds of Brit sythpop all fighting to become the new Duran Duran, but most if not all fell short, and became Pet Shop Boys. That’s why to stand out and reiterate who they were, Talk Talk  made their title track, their debut album, and themselves all Talk Talk.

Despite the mnemonic, they were forgotten, which is a shame. They are best known for It’s My Life, but even then, that was only after it was covered by No Doubt.  Still, there was a time when it seems that any five blokes with some keyboards and a camcorder could become legit. Music is less democratic today, and that’s kind of sad, but that’s just how things are today.

6) Sarsen

Okay, so you haven’t truly missed out, because they’re still hungry. This is Luc’s band and everything he does has that special hint of 80′s-flavored awesome. Recall, this is the dude who rigged an Atari 2600 to run on a flat-panel TV, and then proceeded to beat E.T. in 4 minutes.
That is not a comical exaggeration.  There were witnesses.

As you can see, they have a very Iron Maiden-y sound. They’re playing live at The Crooked I on January 31, so climb into your passenger ICBM and get to the 814, post-haste.

5) Giant

Giant was another tragic failure-to-launch, having recorded two albums, and earned enough exposure to become branded as one-hit-wonders… but they have a number of impressive B-sides.

I just now realized that most of the people who will probably read the crap that I write have no concept of B-sides, since they grew up with CDs. Son of the bitch, now I’m depressed. Fortunately, I can always cheer myself up again with Giant.

4) Jesus H Christ and the Four Hornsmen of the Apocalypse

JHCat4HotA bills themselves as being “a New York-based, eight-piece rock/pop/punk/folk/metal/cabaret band.” They aren’t a novelty or comedy band per se, and it’s not that they aren’t serious about music, but they’ve carved a quirky-jokey nitch for themselves.

They’re on iTunes, show some love.

3) Vixen

Pay attention now, because this is how women are supposed to act:

Back in the day Vixen was immediately dismissed as an unoriginal and derivative knock-offs…but recall, the same was also said about Soundgarden.  However, that was because the music industry had yet to belt out so much awful crap. We didn’t know what bad really was, and because of this skewed perception, we were far too hard on Vixen. It turns out they were so talented that they could even make child prostitution sound good. No, seriously:

In addition, their drummer has a drum kit on her motorcycle. I don’t think those are legal in Pennsylvania, which makes them even cooler. Vixen channeled the often-forgotten convention of using little-used letters in your band name to sound more exotic and memorable. Vixen uses the most underused letters per capita since my buddy Bugsy Mac’s hair metal band, Wycked Lyxx.

2) Winter Rose

There was once a Canadian glam-metal band called Hope, and later Sebastian, to serve as a vehicle for their frontman, Sebastian Bach. However — he left his own band, named after him — to pursue more fruitful ventures. Distraught, they frantically searched for a new singer, and eventually found some guy named James LaBrie, actually, you might have heard of him, come to think of it. In 1989, they made one CD, and were promptly forgotten.

It was amazing.

It still is amazing, and it is the exemplar of the glam-metal genre.

1) Icehouse

Icehouse is prescription strength 80′s cheese, and it is not recommended for the staunchy, or bogus. If you can watch this video for 30 seconds without smiling, then you are a deplorable person who beats off to Ayn Rand. Please die. Please.

This is probably one one of the most awesome videos ever, simply due to Icehouse’s earth-shattering self-confidence. If you saw guys like these playing at a hotel barroom or swap meet, you’d feel ashamed for them. But no, not Icehouse. They don’t give a shit about you or what you think, since they are completely enthralled with that chick in the dress. Moxie, they have it, and they are loving their lives. Viewed through this lens, they are quite legit, with a quiet power that slowly begins to resonate within you:

The two of you ought to get acquainted.

Sorry for the quiet spell cats ‘n’ kittens. I’ve been grinding away at my novel for the past few months. Soon I’ll be a for-reals writer who gets paid in cash money.

Last spring, I was enjoying Labatt Blue responsibly, with my buddy Luc, when the conversation turned to one of our favorite topics: placing Darryl Hall and John Oates into odd situations. For example, scripting an entire buddy-cop film and tag-team wrestling career, all in one breathless stream-of-consciousness rant.

But that’s all over; it’s the end of era.

                “Hall was bitten by Oates in a Norwalk neighborhood, police say.   That’s Robert Oates, 48, charged with assault for allegedly attacking and then biting off a chunk of skin from above the eye of his neighbor, 40-year-old Scott Hall.”

Please take your time to read the article. It’s all 31 flavors of crazy.

“Bath salts are a hell of a drug….” said a mournful Luc.
“Oates never did like playing second fiddle to Hall,” said Mark, from across the aether.

Speculation is abound as to why this happened, “I guess Oates was like ‘I never really felt like I was actually ‘in the band.’” said Luc.

Well, for whatever reason now, Oates’ got a bad reputation. Hopefully, the prison system will be a good adult education; to help remedy his bad situation. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

I can understand why the fight went down the way it did. I mean, what was he supposed to do? Hall had no chance. Unlike Oates, he’s a family man — his bark is worse than his bite.

The police are just as confused about this as we are. Why, baffled investigators have brought in a team of outside consultants to gather more information pertaining to the developing case…

…the police wish to warn citizens that Oates is delusional…

…and though unarmed, is extremely dangerous.

Though known for their smarmy ballads, there was always was a darker side to those two, and evidence of a painful past:

I mean, dude — what the hell did she do?
How bad do you have to fuck up for Hall & Oates to write a song about what a horrible person you are?

Insanity gone mad.

Anymore I find myself and more of an existentialist and less Nietzschean. I’m not sure if that has something to do with aging, or if it’s just the natural progression of philosophy. I’m not sure it’s a change for the better, but I know that you can never get better without changing, because changing is directly implied by the word improve. Maybe the world has changed and I’ve just been unconsciously adapting to it.

I’ve been nursing an existential crisis for three weeks now; after finding myself in a new job, in new surroundings, with a new lifestyle, as part of a different social class. I found that I was a man without a without a mission, a man without goals, a man without convictions.

Recently, a new movement was proposed, which was given the title of Atheist+ (A+) which combines atheist with social justice advocacy, on a mission to fight “racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, classism, ageism, neurotypicalism, animal welfare, environmental issues, and various political issues (health care, crime, drug laws)”. It would be easier than it sounds, since I already align myself with most of these causes, clearly I must join this sub-movement, as I must do what is right. Such a campaign would validate me and give me meaning again, but… I don’t know…

Still, I immediately wanted to sign on to this. It just made sense, unlike Christian social justice, which was always a joke. Social justice exists to protect people from the Christians. The thought of combining atheism with social justice was a quick and easy answer to my existential woes, and my daydreams were filled with the thoughts of traveling around California, writing wrongs with my new best friend, an adamantine Trans-Am. I could finally live life the way I was meant to…

I mentally made a list of the minor changes I would have to make to fit this mold. One of which, was that I would have to re-write a previous entry where I referred to Yoko Ono as a “vorpal cunt.” Suddenly, I was presented with a dilemma. I either play nice and take back some mean things I said (about Yoko, of all people), or to leave them dishonestly represent myself as the sort of person who would not say those things.

I can’t do it. I can’t bring myself to not-hate Yoko Ono. After some though, I saw the real problem at hand. It’s a pre-packaged ideology, and if I was in the market for one of those, I would’ve just stayed Catholic. Furthermore, the scope was so broad that only the most virtuous can be admitted, with no mention of those who are mostly good; who support some causes but not others. The mostly virtuous are left without a definite status, like those bastards locked up in Gitmo. I don’t advocate all of the causes of the A+ agenda. I am not omni-virtuous, because I am not like the Christ — I am a mortal, fallible man, long doomed by fate to death. I can not live up to the A+ ideals because I am not ideal. I’m not completely good, but I am mostly good, will I be mostly praised for that, or will I be damned by the godless damned?

Of course, when you read farther, we see that once again any good that can ever exist in the world has been squashed at the hands of the crazy:

“There is a new atheism brewing, and it’s the rift we need, to cut free the dead weight so we can kick the C.H.U.D.’s back into the sewers and finally disown them, once and for all. I was already mulling a way to do this back in June when discussion in the comments on my post On Sexual Harassment generated an idea to start a blog series building a system of shared values that separates the light side of the force from the dark side within the atheism movement, so we could start marginalizing the evil in our midst, and grooming the next generation more consistently and clearly into a system of more enlightened humanist values.

Apparently the looks-good-on-paper A+ agenda is just an everything-or-nothing, ball-or-sword situation dipped in a hard candy shell of feel-good nonsense with the intention to create more safe spaces… but in the end, safety is always an illusion.

I don’t worry though, because I embrace the grim nature of human condition. One of things I hate most about human interaction is the lie that we tell out confused adolescents: “It gets better.” The high school clique is the fundamental basis for all human interaction. It doesn’t get better, but we can grow stronger.

Six years ago, I washed up on shores of the Island of Misfit Toys which is atheism after weeks, months, and years of frantic flailing in the vast Ocean of Derp, which encompasses the entirely of the post-apocalyptic Waterworld of religious thought. Now, a clique of all the popular kids are wanting to vote people off the island, acting as though there were no island left for islanders like me.

This is the same mistake that the RINO hunting Republicans; the leaner-meaner-more devout Catholic church; and the rich, and the clique pretty people sitting at the same lunch table make. Practicing exclusion won’t actually get rid of anyone. It never has. Even if Jambi granted Richard Carrier his wish and all the dead-weight C.H.U.D.s like myself were banished to the Phantom Zone, we still wouldn’t be gone from the atheist movement; no more so that filling all the chairs at the popular kid’s table removes everyone else from the cafeteria. Excluding people doesn’t make them go away; it just makes you not see them. In the time that the excluded are “gone”, they continue to work and grow without your notice. Left unchecked for long enough, the excluded kid will become amazingly competent, and those who continue to write them off do so at their own peril. For example, the marginalized metalhead I hung out with in high school went on to form Sarsen, which makes Dethklok look like the fuckin’ Archies. Holy shit dude, Sarsen makes the claims of Satanic ritual abuse look like your heartwarming memories of Don Bluth films. They’re playing a couple of shows soon, which is what the Maya were trying to warn us about.

___________________________________________

INTERMISSION

___________________________________________

I never understood why the term “popular” was used to describe the popular kids in my high school. They’re only well-recognized; the majority of people didn’t like them, since they went out of their way to exclude everyone. Meanwhile, the legion of C.H.U.D.s learned, loved, lived, and grew together, until in the end, we were all one big happy family, who wound up terrorizing the popular kids at lunch, in between our dramatic bouts of The Penis Game. Then there was a slow pan out, and the Outer Limits voiceover guy expressed the irony of the situation, before showing us scenes from the next episode of our lives.

From my observations of my 31 years trapped upon this earth, I’ve managed to discern that literally everyone who tells me to play nice is just trying to manipulate me to some end. That’s all that going on here; but that ain’t happenin’.  I, Ryan Coons, in accordance with the rubric for morality laid out by the A+ movement, would like to take this time to self-identify as a C.H.U.D.

Really, my blatant disregard for the general welfare and safety of children ought to get me permabanned from the A+ clique, but I don’t want to take any risks. I’m going balls firmly attached to the walls on this one.

Fully knowing that I will be called out as making a statement of general form “I have nothing against X, but uncomfortable statement about X,” I don’t think the term “transphobic” applies to me. When I was sauntering back from the bar last night, I wasn’t worried about being jumped by a gang of post-op transsexuals. In addition, I’m pretty sure I’m prepared to handle that situation; so I wouldn’t call it a phobia because I’m not living in fear. I just find transpersons to be Puck-like tricksters and I’ve just had it up to here with their kooky antics.

I suppose my relations with the trans community could best be expressed as a Dennis the Menace, comic written entirely by 4Chan.

“Yeah, I’ll open that thumbnail gallery,” I say to myself
“Surprise! PENIS!” the chimera-monster on the screen seems to voice.
Then I just sit there for a minute, shaking my fist at it.
“Oooo! You rapscallion, you!”

Surprise penis is the worst kind of penis, my friends. I can tell you this. It’s just slightly worse than oh-by-the-way penis. As in, I’m perusing OKC and I say

“Oh, she seems nice,” and I then I read on, and at the end mentions in passing, “Oh, by the way, penis.”

I’m not an evil man, I just hail from a simpler time, when only dudes had peeners. Now, I don’t know what to think. Up is down, and black is white. I don’t know any other way to react to these new situations other than some linear combination of aversion, screaming, unarmed combat, more screaming, crying, alcoholism, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

I’m sorry, but I see trans acceptance as a bullshit cause that’s not worth fighting for. South Park got it right; because South Park is smarter than all of us. Every dollar or minute of my time I devote to the trans cause is a dollar or minute I take away from some there charity that I deem worthy, like the ACLU, or the Sierra Club. I see no reason to support their cause.

At the end of the day, I didn’t join the atheist movement to help the trans community; I became an atheist because I hate YHVH. Also, as you read this, somewhere a child is being raped by a Catholic priest, most likely in one of their many tax-exempt magic castles — but that appears to be of secondary importance now. I don’t see how additional movements can be tacked together without it being creeping scope.

In addition, I can’t hop onto the whole animal welfare bandwagon either, because of my well-documented and completely irrational hatred of manatees. It’s a long story, but basically it’s the end result of a Manchurian Candidate-style brainwashing program based out of a Chuck E. Cheese. (Its Joe’s story really, if you want to hear it, you should hit him up.) Needless to say, when I travel I keep two outboard motors in my car, so in case if I run into a pack of manatees, I can just whip one of them out and go all Dead Alive on them:

The reason why I carry two is that one is steel, for general use, and the other one is a custom job a jeweler friend made out of silver, to protect myself from the dreaded were-manatees.

So why do I make these confessions? Why make a case against myself; why make the argument that I am a terrible person who deserves to be marginalized? It’s the same reason why I keep petitioning the local bishops to excommunicate me. It’s the same reason why I’ve looked into converting to both Mormonism and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, just so that I can perform excommunicatable acts the moment after they re-baptize me. If I utterly damn myself, apply the worst possible title that others can bestow on me, and wear it like a badge, those who judge lose their power over me. When you tell a priest that you want to go to hell, he can’t use the standard tricks anymore. He’s forced to let you live life on your own terms.

So if the A+ community is going to judge people based on their manifesto of values, then they need to pull the trigger now. I don’t belong; and I don’t want to belong to any group with the power to exclude. I’m not worried about losing my reputation, because I have no reputation to lose.

Given the choice to be hammer or anvil, I chose anvil.

I try to avoid celebrity news as much as possible, because I don’t really care about celebrities — and really why should I? Has a celebrity ever helped you move? Exactly. Fuck ‘em.

However, at the grocery store today, I couldn’t help but to notice a garbage tabloid going on about how Macaulay Culkin blows through $6,000 in heroin each month. My internal monologue immediate dismissed the claim: “Bullshit! Since when does Macaulay Culkin have $6,000?”

This is why you want to make sure that your kids don’t peak at 11.

The Summer Olympics has started again, and, once again, they’re are largely funded by corporate money from McDonald’s and Coca-Cola, the two companies who are most responsible or destroying athleticism in daily life.  However, it is not mere corn syrup and oily entrees that made America obese — it was team sports that did it.

Yeah, you heard me — team sports are what make people fat.

Have you played any team sports since leaving high school? –  and no, fast-pitch rec-league softball doesn’t count — that’s not a sport. We all know that’s just an excuse for married men to escape from their homes and participate in binge drinking. Even those who do go one to collegiate or professional sports will only do so for a short while, until age or younger talent phases them out.  The only difference between the collegiate/professional athlete and the amateur is that the professional will own the car dealership that they will both inevitably will wind up working at, while the other will just work there. The only people who truly keep achieve are those who make exercise or sport a continuous habit, or a way of life, like gym rats; or by involving themselves in activities where they compete against either themselves or some existing standard, like climbing, golfing, distance runners, and traditional martial artists.

I won’t be seeing much of this particular Olympiad, unfortunately. I don’t have cable, because I’ve given up on my culture, and I can’t view terrestrial broadcasts since I never got a converter box for the 13″ CRT television that I’ve been lugging around for the past ten years. I could get something new, yes — but I won’t buy any display device that’s not back-compatible with the NES. It simply makes no sense. Besides, even if I could see the broadcasts, and even though right now the world greatest contests of judo, fencing, boxing, weightlifting, swimming, gymnastics, track-and-field team handball, archery, and wrestling are going on, I still wouldn’t be able to see any of that — only long shots of Bob Costas  starting at me from a desk, talking on and on about the majesty and beauty of sport rather than letting me witness it for myself. Occasionally he’ll take breaks to show me some swimming or gymnastics, or beach volleyball, but only enough to to give himself enough fodder to fill the dead airtime, which could be used to show the goddamn Olympics.

It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t Bob Costas. Bob Costas is only a bottle of burbon and a series of debilitating strokes away from being Larry Merchant.

I’d love for Bob Costas to  stop in the middle of one of his monologues and perform a spontaneous and completely dead-serious spoken-word version of “Hurt.”

I’d pay any sum of money to see that, and I would prostitute myself out to help raise those funds. Even to ugly chicks. Yes, I know! It’s enough to make a man sift through the dirt in Aspen, CO for the faint particulates of the scattered ashes of Hunter Thomspson, to mix with the blood of Link to save sportswriting from itself. So much of sportswriting is reminiscing about the past; of has-beens talking about other has-beens, like old friends at the bar talking about their days in high school sports programs. The zeitgeist of the moment cannot be resurrected. This is why sportswriting fails. Since I’m a cliche nobody talking out of my ass, and it’s the summer Olympics, I’ll talk about Kerri Strug’s noble vault in the 1996 Olympics; much like how in the Winter Olympics people talk about the Miracle on Ice, relishing in the triumph over a country that has not existed in over twenty years.

I could go on about how on that night, sixteen years ago, I held the late Miss Gina Izabear, who t’was but nary a kitten, as my whole family sat as one, mesmerized, along with 285 million of our friends, cow-workers, and neighbors, as we all — as a nation — collectively peer-pressured a girl into going a jump spinning flirpity-flip onto a busted foot for our collective amusement. To have such power over a person, would be like a string of cliches. No one can describe it well, not you, or me, or Bob Costas or anyone. You had to be there, other wise you’re like a person who’s never flown before listening to a observational stand-up comedian. So just stop with the desk bits and air the games.

Also, I hope no one ever selectively breeds Bob Costas with Deliliah; It’d be like Species all over again.

From myself, and all of us here at SuperFunAdventureTime here in San Diego, saying “so long!”

—–

For extra fun, re-read this entire article with Bob Costas’ voice playing in your head.

For some reason, I was mistaken for an undercover policeman again tonight. I guess Hawaiian shirts send off some vibe like that, but at least no one was plotting to kill me because of it this time.

It was the summer of 2011, and we were all slowly drowning in our taint-sweat.

My research scientist gig was coming to a close, and due to a logistical error, my lease ended slightly prior to that, leaving me homeless. As a result, I spent 2-3 weeks living on Mike Brownstein’s couch, frantically applying for jobs and generally being that guy.

In the midst of my depression, my buddy Luc sends me a link.

“DUDE! YOU NEED TO SEE THIS!” he shouted, o’er Facebook messenger.

“Not now,” I told him, as I had to fill out forms that no one would ever read.

“Dude! This is Steve Perry-flying-Airwolf cool!”

I just sat there, my mouth agape.

“What’s wrong?” said Mike.

“It’s just… but… No! Luc would never take Steve Perry’s name in vain!

So, I clicked it:

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DID YOU FUCKING SEE THAT! HOLY SHIT LET’S WATCH THAT AGAIN!

That’s right. John. Fucking. Wetton. What was he doing before he started ASIA? He was in UK, and he was kicking ass; ’cause the dude’s only got the one setting. Armed with his bass, two emergency back-up basses, and the hair I ought to have, you can tell he’s someone genuine — and someone who is not to be crossed.

Check out that dare-I-say Neil Peart-worthy drum kit! …and that drummer looks like — no! It is! It is Terry Bozzio! Not only can he drum, he can drum… for everyone. His ex-wife, Korn, Dokken, fuckin’ Frank Zappa, and a bunch of random sh-tuf like Ricahrd Marx and some-a Duran Duran‘s side projects.

Oh, and the animé androgen in the pleather pants, enclosed in the Keyboard Command Center Playset? Eddie Jobson. He another Zappa alum who bro’d out with Yes and Jethro Tull for a while too. While Whetton and Bozzio blow my mind, Jobson fractal-blows my mind. Every portion of my mind is equally, and in parallel, blown; and while the whole thing rules, my favorite part happens… now:

He’s playing the keyboards, then, turns around — and BAM! More keyboards! Look at that! No, look. LOOK.

Dude, fuckin’ Depeche Mode didn’t have that many keyboards — and they were Depeche Mode! Oh — but there’s more! For he is also the Keeper of the Clear Acrylic Electric Violin of Virtue. According to legend, this was painstakingly injected molded by thirteen vestal virgins from oils extracted from the decaying bodies of the slain gods of our ancestors. Fear not, gentle reader! Such power can never cannot fall into the hands of evil men — for it is to be snatched from the clutches of the unworthy by the Chintzy Springy Phone Cord of Judgement. Also, it begins to catch fire around 2:10.

Needless to say, this immediately dispelled my depression. I listened to this video for no-joke — five hours, non-stop.  Needless to say, Mike started to get sick of it, but he couldn’t say anything, because of his diplomatic nature. Instead he tried to find something that could drown it out, but the shrill electronica could pierce through anything he could dig up. Empirically, Mike determined that the only thing that could drown me out was the low, bass driven rumblings of Devo’s “Mongoloid,” and looped that with his desk speakers pushed around-shoved around until they were spaced such that they drove his desk to resonance.

Good times, good times.

So, Zoë recently brought to my attention the fact that this exists:

Now I’m completely torn between two worlds. Part of me wants to give the creator a medal; and another part of me knows that we need to send them to The Village:

What do?

As I was heading into the city the other day, right in front of my building, there was a girl, about four years old, standing the middle of the street, tooting on a little plastic toy whistle as she directed traffic.

The important thing though, is that she was actually doing a pretty good job.

I COMMAND YOU TO RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE AND MAKE US LAUGH AGAIN.

Yeah, so I’m back, but the real question is, where did I go?

Truth be known, I hit a rough patch. I was out of work for eight months, and like many others of my generation, I had to move back home, where I spent my days filling out job applications and devising clever schemes to keep SallieMae from breaking my thumbs. I didn’t have a shred of hope, largely due to the fact that I am philosophically opposed to the concept of hope. It’s just faith re-branded, and I’m better off without it.  Besides, I had something much better than hope.

I had friends.

Whole legions of people, upon hearing of my plight, they immediately began pulling strings, turning over rocks, and crackin’ kneecaps to find leads. I had friends that I didn’t even know I had calling in favors. Remember the mean bastard who went around twisting everyone’s arms back in first grade? Yeah, he’s like, the nicest dude ever now. Bought me a drink; wanted a copy of my resume so he could show it to everyone at his company, because apparently vapor shielding affects the cooling of machine tool bits just as it does for fuel rods. Then he bought me another drink, and then all of my drinks. He bought a pizza later that night too… and he let me keep the leftovers. I know, I know. Here’s to you, Reformed Arm-Twister of Yore… you always knew right where to get us.

But now, 2,000 applications later, my luck has changed, and I’m no longer a charity case. Ironically, the first company I ever applied too, the one hell-bent on flying me out, only to give me the cold-shoulder, called me out of the blue after a full year of complete radio silence. Two weeks later, I had an offer.

So, now I find myself living in San Diego, where they stuff French fries into burritos, workin’ with face-melting lasers and slowly bangin’ away at my long-anticipated novel. I’ve decided to use my new-found freedom and security to entertain your asses, because that’s what you’ve want from me — and it always has been, hasn’t it? Well, I’m eager to do so.

I was told that I shouldn’t turn SuperFunAdventureTime! into a personal soapbox, and only stick to my well-polished and moderately absurd stories, but yeah, that’s not going to fuckin’ happen. Let’s be real kids, if I am to keep such stories coming, I’ll probably have to re-re-enroll in college, and that shit’s expensive, yo.

In the past I tried to post daily, but I felt that quality suffered — it just felt that it seemed rushed, which is bad. When I dreamt up this site, I intended to have a whole crew of people posting along side me, but life happened (as it tends to do) and that all went to pot. So here’s the deal. I’m willing to grant author privileges on this site to pretty much anyone who asks.

So, yeah. Thanks guys. I can’t promise that I won’t flake out from my blogging duties again, but I’ll try, damn it — and you can join me if you like. The bad times are over; now it’s SuperFunAdventureTime.