And Now... The First Annual Floggers!!!

FADE IN

We look out across a vast auditorium All of the seats are empty, but the voices of a ROARING CROWD are being piped in through overhead speakers.

A lousy VEGAS-STYLE BAND bleats away in the orchestra pit, whilst a disoriented CHARLIE SHEEN weaves onto the monstrously art-deco type gold-flecked stage. From outta the glaring lights, falling paper streamers and profuse amounts of confetti, he glares w/ bleary eyes—at the camera. And also at you.

CHARLIE: Good evening, ladies & gentlemen. And might I say that you all look so very refined and dignified in your gowns & suits. (Esp. you fellas who’re wearing gowns. Mmm mmm… I sure would like a piece of every 1 a ya!)

I’ve been asked to deal w/ a few preliminaries before we begin the first annual ForceBlog™ Awards Presentation Ceremony…

The “crowd” HOOTS N’ JEERS.

CHARLIE fakes a genial smile, but the ugliness in his eyes never wavers.

CHARLIE: Aww, don’t boo like that… I promise ya, we’ll get to the good stuff in just a sec… The newly reformed for about the 50^th time Guns n’ Roses are back stage waiting to entertain you w/ their brand new polka arrangements!

He waits for laughter, but even the canned audience greets his remarks w/ stony silence. He glares some more, weaving around a bit.

CHARLIE: First of all, I’ve been asked (by Steve Forceman himself!!!) to apologize for recent delays of technical, logistical and spiritual natures. Of late, chaos has ruled these parts, but, as we speak, that wild beast is being hogtied and things oughta be runnin’ ship-shape like, w/ Swedish cuckoo clock-like precision before ya know it.

(Hey! You! Heckler! Shut the fuck up before I come down there n’ core ya a new asshole. Do you know who I am?????

I’ll grant ya, the above paragraph sounds pretty outta character for me, pale, bestubbled, thoroughly drug-addled Charlie Sheen, but ya gotta understand, I didn’t write my own copy. I’m just readin’ the teleprompter up here. But with pizzazz.

So just you watch it, fucker!)

Second, being as the Floggers™ are determined solely by audience voting, we would, of course like to thank all of you for your participation! (Except for that asshole in the fourth row… You just watch yerself fucker!)

Third, the cutoff date for nominees was in late May, which means that anything from the Michael Barrett entry—that little pussy—will not be eligible for this program, but’ll have to wait to the next time around—if and when there is a next time.

Finally, and don’t ask me why I’m saying this, as I assure you I am real and not part of some website where hypertext links could be provided. (This is all too fucking weird. I need a drink.) But apparently we’ll link to each of these the first time they come up, but in an attempt not to annoy you or me, we’ll otherwise leave ‘em be…

And now, w/o further ado, let’s get down n’ dirty n’ start w/ those awards!!!

In the category of Longest Entry, the winner is the monolithic "A World of Good" at 5007 words. (It may surprise you to know that “The Tragical Blistery Tour” was not even close to being the longest entry. It just felt that way.) On the downside, the embarrassingly earnest "Cage Match: Peter Cottontail vs. Ema Saiko!!!" of July 07/04 was generally agreed to be a good entry but overlong to the point of losing 97.6569% of its projected audience. (3134 words.)

The winner of the Shortest Entry award is “srgtse.” (Unless you wanna count only the non-audio part of May 24/04's untitled post. Doing so would create a tie.)

Not counting the title, it’s a 0 word post!!! So until the management can come up w/ some way to achieve a negative word count, (the idea of which raises shuddersome quantum physics laden associations,) it's pretty well guaranteed to keep its title!

At this juncture, he leans over and PUKES into the orchestra pit, which is, mercifully, unoccupied. He then reels back to center stage and burps.

I think we all know what the winner of the Best Prepositional Phrase award is! I think we all know the winner here: “about him,” which was taken from “The Enduring Shtick.” The voting was unanimous, a real landslide! The judges woulda started checking the ballot boxes for stuffery had it not occurred to them that prepositional phrases are most likely incapable of reaching a ballot box, much less stuffing one, and like who the hell would do it on their behalf???

My 8th grade English teacher was the kinda autocratic asshole who not only made us diagram endless bunches of sentences but also would reprimand you by making you write out lists of prepositions. The number of repetitions was determined by how bad you fucked up—and this was highly subjective as the old fruit once forced me to write alla the prepositions out 500 times because the guy next to me was talking during class!

I hadda beat the shit outta him, and then 'cuz they were afraid to face me fair n' square like men, ('tho I 'twas only 12 years old,) my dad and my talentless brother Emilio (when was the last time you saw him in a movie, huh?) threw a butterfly net over me and poked me repeatedly with cattle prods till I calmed down n' shut up so they could take me home from school and discipline me by throwing a 1 lb. bagga Valium down my throat and washing it down w/ a fifth of lighter fluid 'cuz that's the way uh-huh uh-huh I liked it! (And still do like it, 'tho now I need a 5 lb. bag a Librium washed down w/ gallon jug of napalm, but then I'm older n' bigger so that's only to be expected, right?)

Anyway, my 8th grade English teacher was all into prepositional phrases, obviously. I even bet he fucked 'em. Yep. Fucked a phrase. That's what I bet. 'Tho my shrink has told me on numerous occasions that that is not only physically impossible, but kinda a pathologically weird notion. We're gonna work on it next time I'm in rehab, which'll prob. be pretty qwik, 'cuz I think I had too much to dream last night. And smoke. And shoot. And ingest.

But anyway, even my 8th grade English teacher wouldn't stuff a ballot box for a prepositional phrase, because—and I think we can all agree on this one—that would be stupid.)

Hey, fuck you! I'm not readin' the copy 'cuz it's duller than Denise Richards intellect! (And I oughta know! Believe me! No matter how hot a chick is, it gets lame having to explain to her every night that the sun'll come back up tomorrow, that it hasn't disappeared forever, so she needn't cry like a hyena... I know—the expression is "laff like a hyena"—but I'm guessing it sounds pretty much the same and after this is over I'm gonna prove it by climbing the wall of some zoo and going straight to the hyena habitat and kicking one of those ugly curs right in his grapes. And if that doesn't make him cry, I'll make him watch the last 20 minutes or so of Wall Street. That always makes me cry like a—well forget it.)

Hey wait! Don’t you pull the plug on me, you asshole Forceman! I’ll kill you!

The lights slowly FADE, but Sheen continues to vent his dark, dark rage until Cubs catcher MICHAEL BARRETT, currently on the DL so he can receive scrotal surgery, charges him. Barrett tries to beat the shit out of Sheen, who kicks Barrett in his deflated grapes, but suddenly they look into each other’s smoldering eyes, tear off their clothes, attach razor blades to their dicksand start FUCKING! Blood goes a’spurtin’ all ove the place.

FLYING MONKEYS, just like the ones in WIZARD OF OZ glide outta the shadows and CRAP on the 2 lovebirds. The crowd breaks into a ROAR, which then FADES to nothing, along with the lights.

Ah shit! I was hoping Barrett would shut that fuck up by kicking the crap outta him, but apparently he lost his edge when he lost his foreskin. But I guess things worked out this way too. At least we can go on w/o further interruptions from that Sheen asshole. I mean, 2 pages over one prepositional phrase? Fuck!

OK, we’re just about outta time, so I’ll just motor through the rest of these. Here goes…

Best Adaptation of a Title - "Journey: Departure," which is taken from the band and album of the same names, respectively. Honorable mention goes to "The Enduring Shtick," which rips off the Flannery O’Connor story, "The Enduring Chill."

Best Original Title – “Grazin’ in the Meadow.” Honorable mention goes to the deeply avant-garde “srgtse.”

The Lewis Carroll Award for Best Original Word – “srgtse,” the word/entry that came closest to sweeping the language categories.

The Noah Webster Prize for Best Pre-Existing Word – From the entry “I Saw God and/Or the Reputation,” “cackleberry” wins the day. (Man, there are a lotta weird fuckin’ words out there!)

Best Prepositional Phrase – I think we all know the winner here: “about him,” which was taken from “The Enduring Shtick.”

The Elizabeth Elmore Award for the Most Awkwardest Moment &/or Most Incomprehensible Sentence or Phrase Appearing in an Entry That Was Written by Me (Steve Forceman, P.I., the Author) for and Entry That Was in this Blog – There were many candidates here, and I’m not sure the winner, from, “The Enduring Shtick,” is the worst. It is damn bad ‘tho: “As Gaines rotates the artists to see where they best fit, Ghastly illustrates his hand at a horror story or two.” Obviously that illustrating hand is a big part of the problem. (Graham Ingels? M.C. Escher? Whassa difference?)

Here’s another just plain lousy one from the same entry: “His vision that elevated the often-simple stories he illustrated to the level of a pervasive myth—a universal vision of his culture’s obsessions & fears that, nevertheless, bore his unique, personal stamp.” Uh. Right.

Most Troubling Moment of Anger – The entire entry “You Just Might Be a Macrocosmos.” A tad excessive & maybe bordering on psychotic. Therapy, buddy. Therapy! Special mention must go to the White Stripes reference found in “Out w/ the Old, In w/ the Older, & Older.” I don’t really even have anything against the White Stripes, in particular.

Most Arousing Moment – Clearly the paean to Elizabeth Elmore found in “I Saw God &/or The Reputation must take the cake. (Sighhhhhhhh… Elizabeth…) Still, that bit of necrophilliac bestiality, appearing in “(The Point of Diminishing Returns,” which features yr. old pal the Roadkill Raccoon deserves an honorable mention. Take a bow, Roadie! You’ve come a long way, baby.

Most Boring Entry – You’d think it would be one of those I-am-not-dead-I-will-update-soon would win here, but the Velvet Underground vivisection, “The Tragical Blistery Tour” surprises us again. This time w/ an actual win.

Drunkest Entry- New Year’s Eve just seems to bring out the dipsomaniacal misanthropy n’ self pity in me: “Out w/ the Old…” is the winner, and the runner-up is “Bad Rubbish.” Always good to feel yr. best! Or something.

Most Coked-out Moment – Aside from overt references to the stuff—e.g. moments in “Diminishing Returns” and “Grazin’ in the Meadow,” but I’m sure there are others—I apparently write under the influence of the stuff. I mean, how else can you explain the rambling anecdotes w/in anecdotes setup that prevails in this blog? As its title suggests, the nadir of alla this, and the award winner is “Fear n’ Loathing n’ Hunger in Las Vegas: A Tale of 2 Dawbers.” (To anyone who wants to point to the William Katt biz found in “Ice Capades” and “My Super-Speed 16,” I would remind you that the upper in question there came in pill form!)

Best Moment that Seems to've Been Induced by Hallucinogenic Drugs – Again w/ the drugs. I mean, how else can you explain the human hieroglyphic n’ cuneiform biz found in “Grazin’ in the Meadow?” (Actually ‘tho my 2 friends really are like that. I just exaggerated a bit. But you’re the one’s who voted, so there we are.)

Most Laughably Pompous Moment- There are so many of them that it’s hard to keep track! The voting was so widely split that there was no clear winner. But in “A World of Good,” I helpfully labeled a moment of pompous windbaggery: “If, as a simple fan, I could tell Liz one thing, I would express my honest regret that she’s steering her ship this way, because I think it’s dangerously close to scuttling itself on some reef of mediocrity. (Not like that last metaphor, which was so laughably pompous and muddled that I had to leave it in. )” (‘Course you never would’ve found that in that overlong entry if I wasn’t mentioning it now.) I declare it to be the de facto winner!

The Ovid Prize for Transformation of a Human Being into an Object – This shit really does come up a great deal. Not sure what it means, but in terms of the award… Survey says… the Shellie Long’s metamorphosis into a piece of paper, as portrayed in “Ice Capades!” (The Silly Putty/smothering bit was yet another bit of viciousness against a celebrity. Talk about issues!)

Best Oral Sex- It might’ve been in bad taste, but in terms of oral sex is it not ever so? I’m speaking, of course, of my blowing of a Hassidic rabbi, as portrayed in “Diminishing Returns,” an entry that is quickly emerging as the Entry to Beat. The runner-up is my run-in w/ Princess Lintguard, which appeared in “Bad Rubbish.”

Best Sodomy- Wow! Here’s another instance of their being too many entries to even count! Still, the voting was less split in this case, w/ 2 nominees standing out in particular. The winner was Harold Washington’s Star Trek fantasy in “Full Frontal Stupidity.” The Roadie the Raccoon’s show stopping appearance in “Diminishing Returns” earns another honorable mention nod here as well.

Best Scatology- Oddly there just hasn’t been a lotta that hereabouts. I apologize for this oversight and promise to increase the excremental yield of future entries! I’m so ashamed! Still, the winner is the study of my friend P’s battle w/diarrhea, as portrayed in “The Enduring Shtick.”

Best Necromancy- The walking dead have been a very important part of this chronicle, I’m sure you would agree. (Me and my Italian zombie movies…) So I’m glad to honor the cadaver who best represented members of his decaying group: JIMMY STEWART! Harold Washington comes in as a distant second, which has led to tears and ugly scenes, I can tell ya! (Both bodies showed up in “Full Frontal Stupidity,” BTW.)

Best Necrophilia AND Best Bestiality- Would you believe that Roadie the Raccoon scored both of these as well? The guy’s unstoppable! Better quit bowin’ roadie! Yr. exposed spine is looking a little worse for wear!

Best Homage – You all sure dug “Diminishing Returns,” didn’t you? Its Belmondo tribute is an easy winner, ‘tho both the Graham Ingels eulogy found in “The Enduring Shtick” and the gratitude expressed to Ema Saiko both deserve a nod.

Best Guest Star – Surprisingly, the winner of this award is not Roadie the Raccoon. (Mostly ‘cuz I got bored and cheated him outta winning. I mean, fuck, what’d he do? Fuck alla ya or just buy you gifts or what?) Nope, the winner is that soulful pigeon from “Cage Match.” Not surprisingly, the winner was not Harold Washington—despite his embarrassing attempts at ballot-box stuffing. Poor Harold, that boring fucker. Always a bridesmaid and never a bride. I’ll leave him w/ what little dignity he still possesses and move to…

The Phantom Zone Prize for Best Villain – This one goes to that poetry-poppin' maintenance man Titus. (Recently defrocked, I might add, as bldg. super. He's still livin' here 'tho and will apparently be working part time on the heating and cooling system. Why that remains so important to him when he's willing to let everything else go I do not know. The real question is, does he suck or does he blow? Meanwhile the Number 2 spot (huhuhuh “Number 2”) goes to that asshole Peter Cottontail for his titular appearance (hahaha! “Tit!”) in “Cage Match…” (And BTW, the entry was written well before I saw Donnie Darko.

And finally, the Big Ones:

Best Line - I wasn't sure what was gonna win this one. I wasn't even sure it should be in here. And finally, I'm not sure about the winner, which comes from "A Tale of 2 Dawbers" - and I quote: "Did Steve-O think he could conjure up his reader's expectations of the devil and then expect him/her not to be pissed off when he gives 'em some immediately bitchslappable Walkin' Dude? (I walk a lot. What's so scary about that?)" I think the part in parentheses is supposed to be the good part, according to the voters. I guess.

This bit from "Macrocosmos" also netted some votes - re: Nicholas Cage & Jeff Foxworthy, uh, co-roasting a show together: "There goes Jeff! There goes Nick! There's yr. circular ecosystem."

Worst Overall Entry – And it’s our first tie! “I Am a Lameass” and “I Am Still a Lameass” share the prize—‘tho personally I found ‘em pretty engaging & feel that people are cutting some of the other ones too much slack. Whatever. No accounting for taste.

And…drum roll please…

The winner of the Best Overall Entry award is "(The Point of) Diminishing Returns. Honorable mention goes to "Cage Match: Peter Cottontail vs. Ema Saiko!!!" Hardly surprising at this point, is it? And remember—that’s what the voters said. Me? I liked “srgtse” the best.

Whew! Glad that’s outta the way! Bet you are too! (Even if you are imaginary.) Before I letcha go for another 2 years, a final word or 2:

"Couldn't sleep last night. Bad stomach. Wicked thunderstorm. Existential angst."

With that somewhat whiny opening, and the sensitive consideration of Puppet Master: The Legacy that followed, this chronicle hit the ground runnin'. And it's been runnin' ever since. (Albeit very irregularly).

The year was 2004. Hairstyles, popular entertainments and modes of dress were all different. (I'm sure we're all hidin' photos of ourselves clad in low-ridin' midriff-bearin' jeans from our grandkids. Disrespectful little snots! Just wait'll they have children of their own!)

A contentious presidential election loomed before us (How did I vote in that one? Well, I wrote in my cat for prez. and my dog for vice-prez., if you must know. I figured they had about as much chance of winning as The Really Rottens have of ever sweeping the Laff-a-Lympics. But with a few million more votes our ticket might've secured matching funds for 2008. You apathetic bastards. Think what your votes could've meant!) Yep. It was a different world.

And It's a Dreary World Gentlemen has changed with the times. I'm sure you would agree that it's grown and developed into something beautiful and wondrous—like a humble caterpillar in its chrysalis.

And there can only be further wonders on the horizon. Like maybe an entry that compares and contrasts the semiotics of belly button lint, the cultural significance of the lesbian vampires found in Hammer horror films and what they might mean to today's GLBT community. (I prefer a plain old BLT myself. Hyuh hu hyuk hyuk! Hilarious!)

Here's to 2 and 1/2 more years! I hope you'll make some of the journey with me. I promise to do my share of the driving and to kick in some money for gas. See ya soon! (Really—I mean it... soon...)

Bloggy Mountin' Breakdown, Part 2

Ya know, you gotta love the internet. That vast galaxy of humanity, marked by speckled patterns of light--sometimes brilliant, sometimes faint. These constellations are made not of stars, but rather of myriad expressions of life. Our collected wisdom, drawn from millennia of thought, passion, courage and folly. Our feelings. Our experiences. Our desire to connect with one another. Oh yeah, and our porn. Musn't forget that.

Wow! There's a lotta porn out there! In't there?! Y'know what I mean. You look at it too. Don't know why I'm even bothering to ask. It is inspiring and comforting to know that if you wanna watch, say, for example, old people fuckin or bein' fucked, you have available to you in this fantastic, heretofore unimaginable age more porn than you can shake your stick at.

Somewhere out there was a living, electric euphoria. Except for that when I hit all my old fave websites, I hadda problem.


See, my computer's about a year old. The processor was still fairly adequate, but the amount of memory I had available to me was a little lacking, 'least, in terms of highly sophisticated artistic media like internet porn. Mind you, I'm not saying I couldn't see anything at all. It's just, when a video keeps freezing and moving ahead a few choppy steps before freezing again, it becomes difficult to really settle in and appreciate the subtle shifting of liver spots and wrinkles. Just when you're starting to feel titillated, you find yerself stuck looking at some blurry freeze frame.

I'm sure you can imagine how frustrating this situation was for me. There I was at the threshold, ready to re-enter the world of living, breathing, feeling creatures such as yerself. I was ready to slough off my feeling of terminal burnout as though 'twere moltin' season n' I was a big ol' crawlin' kingsnake. But I couldn't do it becuzza my goddamn computer!!!!!!! How absurd is that????

Don't even get me started on Big Bizness's commitment to the principle of built-in obsolescence!!! I'm from Flint, Michigan!!! Still, you can't fight city hall, nor esp. the home computin' industry. I couldn't afford a new machine, so I was gonna have to trundle over to the Apple store on Mich. Ave. & buy me a stick o' RAM. (As one might’ve sought a stick o’ butter from his/her grocer inna good ol’ days.)


I hate walking up Mich. Ave. Nike Town and Nieman Marcus & all that other hackshit gets really pretty old really pretty fast if you live here. Plus I've never been much of a shopper in the first place, and the whole idea of shopping as entertainment gives me the creeps, which I'm sure is atavistic, paranoid and or superior, depending on how you look at it, but it's the way I feel. I know, who am I to judge someone else's empty materialism when my own is so undeniably present? But it all seems so dehumanizing to me somehow. Esp. down there where you're part of this hundred-headed mass—toe to toe & shoulder to shoulder w/ alla the tourists. Including yourself. Everyone’s a tourist along the Magnificent Mile, even the Chicagoans.

So. I arrived at the Apple Store, which is done all up in slick whites and silvers and glass. 'Tis 'tho you were frolicking around the surface of a gargantuan Apple issued mouse. The double doors—glass w/ shiny silver handles, natch, and embedded in a solid glass storefront that stretches for half a city block. (Upon which cavort those shadowy iPod-humpin' specters we've all come to be really bored and annoyed with.)

You walk into a wide open square room, which is bleepin' n' bloopin' n' mosta all piping an ear-rending selection of the hippest music to be conglomersumated. (I must be hip! They were playin’ Ladytron once!) In the middle of the room, an enormous set of stairs ascends to the 2nd floor. So these stairs, right, are formed of translucent glass strips, which not only makes 'em eye-poppingly spectacular, but leads to some pretty goddamn funny scenes in which various customers succumb to vertigo and go bouncin' back down toward the first floor--one chunk of glass at a time. Alla which lead me to think that the Apple Store must have liability insurance that is hewn from stone, like the 10 Commandments.

I cannot begin to list the many other peculiarities of this place. (E.g., given the innumerable display areas, the place feels a lot more like a convention center trade show than it does like a store.) For the most part, it's a tourist attraction--a place where all the outta town rubes can go to gawk at lotsa techno-fetishistic snake oil whilst the minions of latter day Barnum Steve Jobs make clear to them how cool alla it is and how they (the rubes like me) gotta have it. Like Niketown.


Another one of the Apple store’s peculiarities is the Genius Bar™. I mentioned the Geniuses themselves above. You are maybe, (very astutely, I might add,) picturing a place where everyone knows these poor souls’ names & is always glad they came, and at which they seek dipsomaniacal oblivion due to the fact that they hafta work in such a godawful place being assaulted by the understandably irate and/or deeply confused owners of various iPods, PowerBooks & C.

But no. The nominal area is shaped like a bar, down to the stools that begirdle it. The customers park themselves here, while behind the bar, one finds not yr. friendly neighborhood tavern keeper, but rather these poor Genius slobs. (Sadly underpaid, I was to discover.)

And while I did feel sorry for them, I felt even sorrier for myself—as usual. It’s a rotten system, and it served me badly: When you show up, you gotta sign in—at a handy Powerbook, of course. And then after a wait that, in my experience ranged from about 20 min. to 2 hours, depending on customer volume, the time of day, the number of Geniuses at hand, possibly, the weather or economic trends or a butterfly flappin' its wings upon the downy-haired nose of Lindsey Lohan, and certainly upon the alignment of the stars vis-vis the Great Old Ones and other affiliated dark gods n' spirits n' demons.

The Genius who services you ranges in general eptitude from dewy -eyed greenhorn to hoary (and perhaps whory, hyuk hyuk) grandam at play w/ his or her wispy beard. (Shot through w/ tendrils of yellow--like ivory, or well-worn boxer shorts. Where's my goddamn video camera and Vaseline? But then this hankerin' after withered flesh is what got me into this sitch inna 1st place, am I right???)

What’s more, your attendant Genius's attitude ranges from two-year-old-pissy to beatific saintly. And that there is just dumb luck, I think. ('Tho 1 should never downplay larger Lovecraftian or Lohaninan influences.)


I gotta give it to the Apple Store!!! I know I've been hard (haha) on 'em—and all just becuz they thoroughly busted my balls when my $2k machine melted down. But they embody ethnic diversity like Little League World Series. I met Geniuses of all races, classes, creeds and colors. (Well, I'm not sure about classes and creeds, and you can be pretty sure none of 'em were white supremacists—nor rich.) Oh yeah, of various apparent sexualities too. I saw head scarves n' dredlocks n' tattoos n' braids n' goatees n' various examples of body piercing.

One thing I did not see 'tho was anyone over the apparent age of 29, which, whilst it might keep the 60s counter cultural ideal of trusting no one over 30 alive, is a situation that also kinda qualifies all that open mindedness in hiring shit.

Cuz when I spoke of the Genius’s epitude or lack thereof, please understand that I was not speaking of their actual age. Even with the ever-widening technological gulf between youth and experience, I find it hard to believe that there is no one out there who is available and competent enuff to man (or woman) the Genius bar. Nope. I just think that a pre-op transsexual of Mayan descent who practices druidism and has a cleft palate is way more hip n' interesting than some 51 year old white gentile agnostic guy named Bert who is geek enuff to know what a kernel panic is (and therefore also geek enuff to still live over his mom's garage). That's what I think. I mean, when was the last time you saw an iPod-hawkin' silhouette that looked like, if you turned the lights on, it might've been cast by Michael McDonald?


And y'know what??? I know alla this because I prob. met every single Genius at the cockknocking Apple store on Mich. Ave. Twice!

And y'know why??? Chicken thigh! No really cuz everytime I left the store—including the first Genius-free visit I’d made when I bought the RAM, I’d go home, and insteada my computer surging forth like it had a Tiger in its tank, (haha sorry--now that's clever,) it would putter like a toy train with a bad transformer. And it would be like, slower than ever and keep crashing, and after a while, the disk wouldn't even, uh, mount.


When things are really hopeless for your Macintosh computer, a rather funerary black n' gray message (not at all like the silver and white and translucent stuff that coats its flesh) flashes on the screen which sez something along the lines of: "You must restart yr. computer. A critical something other has something somethinged, etc. HAHAHAHAHA! You paid a lotta money for this thing & now yer fuckt!!!" Or something like that. I may not have the words exactly right.

I later learned that this less than subtle panic signal was a manifestation of something called a "kernel panic." (As mentioned above.) At first I thought it was "Colonel Panic," a sinister feller, whom I paradoxically pictured as a Capt. Crunchesque cartoon figure, complete w/ handlebar mustache, knee high jackboots and Luftwaffe helmet. (My imagination being obviously circumscribed by all those Hogan's Hero's episodes I ingested as a child. And a teen. And an adult. In reality, he’d prob. look like smelly old novelist Gunther Grass dressed up in military drag.) But obviously it's spelled like one of those fragments of popcorn you eat, unless they didn't pop right. (Which is always a real pisser, isn't it?)

And maybe that's appropriate phrasing, cuz as I understand it, yr. computer's operating system is apparently exploding like Jiffy Pop in a blast furnace.



Anyway, to make a long story short again... I do not recall how many times I went to the Apple store, was relieved of my computer for a few days so that it might be inspected and theoretically repaired, only to be greeted by that asswipe Cnl. Panic. Then after many, many weeks, the sadists at top of the Apple store chain deigned to give me a new machine. And then only becuz it was determined that my old one was utterly irreparable and, fortunately, still under warranty. The good news is they gave me the new MacBook Pro, which is an update and maybe a slight upgrade of my Power Book. The bad news is that a year was shaved off my Apple Care protection thingy, endless hours were lost, work was set back and worst of all, my blog updates were put on hold!!! Oh the horror! Oh the humanity!

The last time I took it in, they assured me that I’d hear from them once they’d looked the thing over. By this time it appeared that both the RAM slots and the processor had been fucked up since Day 1 and that my machine had been performing significantly below par w/o my knowledge. (I had no idea what I was missing.) After several replacements ‘tho, the parts still didn’t work and so they decided it’d be cheaper and easier to just replace the fucking thing.


Not, BTW, that I woulda known, Apple was gonna replace my fucking computer. I hadda call the store to find that out. Since this whole thing started, I’d had to call them more than once, so I knew that a robotic operator would answer my call and tell me it was transferring me to the “next available Apple representative.”

“Apple representative.” Kinda a weird way to put things, being as I was just calling my local store, right? Ha! Well get this brilliant trick: Everytime I called, some squeaky clean youngster w/ a prim Canadian accent—sounding so cute that I just wanted to pinch their cherubic little Maple leaf cheeks. I pictured ingenuous virginal glee club members. (When the person on the other end of the phone was prob. just a hairy-moled 50-year-old American voice actor name Frieda or Gus. Which would mean that Apple actually does hire older people after all! Whatta bastard I’ve been…)

So friendly. So eager to please. No matter how enraged I was, I just never could bring myself to yell at ‘em.

And here’s the funny part: These fey little teddy bears apparently operate outta some conglomerated telemarketing hell that is decidedly not on Michigan Avenue. What’s more, they don’t even have immediate access to information about your repair. Nope. Anytime you have a specific question, they very politely ask you if you’d mind waiting on hold whilst they confer with the technician who is repairing your machine. On Michigan Avenue.

You’re never allowed to speak to this fucker. One lil’ Canuck tole me he didn’t even have the equipment necessary to connect us. He was so sincere that I didn’t even question how an enormous corporation like Apple couldn’t even supply him with the hardware needed to make a freakin’ conference call!

So you can see how it’s a great system, designed by a real genius—and I ain’t talkin’ ‘bout Val Kilmer…

And I know what you’re thinking. You would’ve cursed ‘em up n’ down like a truck driver mainlining human adrenaline. They would’ve dribbled away from the phone in a liquescent pool of flesh n’ tears. Bullshit! Email me after you’ve performed such a feat of prickishness and then we’ll talk…


Anyway, in the end they replaced my computer w/ a slightly better one, as I said. I have almost undone the damage that this meltdown caused. (I lost at least one good missing persons deal in this shit.) I have not yet had a chance to restore all my pornographic bookmarks, and so I am still aching for some creased geriatric skin here, but that anticipation will just make the eventual release that much sweeter.


To anyone reading this, I hope everything is OK where you are. I've had at least one or two pains in the ass while all this is going on that I may or may not get around to writing about. I'm sure you've had your own pains as well.

Next come the Floggers(tm) a.k.a. the Forceman Blog Awards, celebrating two years (now actually pushing 2 1/2, but who's counting?) of well, um, something or other. Memories? Mammaries? Ida know. Sorry for the delays on that one--aside from the technological issues already mentioned, I've had to count and recount the votes, because Harold Washington insists that he must've won Best Guest Star even though it looks like maintenance guy Titus won by a long shot. Whatever. As in every other such situation in life, you voted. Or you didn't. Either way we've gotta live w/ the results. And we'll see what those are next time.


See ya!


(P.S. I have not forgotten about Hawaii/Thing-Fish I even have some stuff on paper—well, in my hard drive anyway—but it’s a damn mess and prob. incomprehensible to anyone but me. But it’ll be up pretty quick here. Really.)