#it coulda fed a family of five for two years

[zipzapzopzoop]

There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow

Chapter 20: There's a Starman, Waiting in the Sky

Wilbur followed the sound into the projection room - which would someday become Franny’s music room.

Right now, however, it bore blue curtains rather than red. There were star patterned carpets on the floor. There was no little stage, no little instruments, and of course, no frogs playing their snazzy frog jams. The center of the room held a long abandoned projector, pointed up at the ceiling, but turned off.

Wilbur glanced behind the curtain, but found nothing.

“Hello?”

The boy probably jumped a foot in the air when the projector suddenly powered up with a long worn motor.

Suddenly, the curtains were bathed in the sparkling lights of stars. Shooting stars dashed and constellations danced. A distant universe swirled slowly. Over crackling old speakers around the room, a narrator spoke broken tapes.

“Space. Little is known about s-s-s-such a pl- but what astronauts f- nothing short of astronomical..” 

Wilbur was shaken from his awed gaze when something was knocked over backstage.

“In the v-vastness of never ending space, some often speculate that-t we aren’t alone…”

He grabbed a wrench off the bottom of the cart, holding it up and scanning the room.

“Some fear something more…”

The door slammed shut behind Wilbur. He whirled around and bit down a shout.

“Invaders of earth. Enslavers of mankind… Ali-”

Wilbur backed into the projector. With a screech, he whirled around and slammed the wrench into the projector, sending it scattering to the floor and plunging the room into total darkness.

“Nephew!”

Wilbur screamed and began swinging blindly, but someone caught the wrench. He continued to yell until the light of a small device revealed his uncle there standing over him. “Woah, woah! Great moxie, but I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong target!”

Wilbur stopped fighting. “Uncle Art? How long have you been here?”

His uncle laughed and put away his phone. “Not long.”

“About your attack methods. Would you like some techniques? I’d be happy to teach you.”

“Wh… Yes please.”

-------

They’d been driving for 45 minutes, but had very little to show for it.

“Buster!” Tallulah called out the window again. She was beginning to lose hope. They’d driven down every which way, but couldn’t see the little dog anywhere. It was as if he fell off the face of the earth.

“Let’s head home. He’s clearly nowhere around here, and we can start fresh tomorrow,” Gaston spoke, uncharacteristically quiet. Tallulah nodded solemnly.

The stuntman turned to Grandpa Bud, who had been providing another set of eyes from the backseat.

Like the others, he was unusually quiet, although given the circumstances, it was understandable. 

“Wait,” Tallulah sat up. “What about the arrows?”

“What arrows?”

“There are arrows on buildings all around town. I think it’s Laszlo trying to show us something. Maybe he’s telling us where he is. Look there, see?” She pointed out the front window at a red arrow pointing down another path.

“Please. I’m worried about my brother. I haven’t been away from him this long before.”

Gaston stared at it a long moment.

Tallulah waited, starting to look worried.

He put the car in drive and turned on the headlights. “Let's go find that gremlin,” Gaston smiled. Tallulah cheered and hugged him, chuckling at Gaston’s nickname for her brother. Gaston laughed when Bud joined in on the hug as well.

Down the street, a car turned off its headlights and prepared to continue following them.

------

Check out the chapter on my Archive!

[frenchlangdon]

Late Night Louisiana Pt. 5

Summary: It’s late 19th century, Y/N moves to Louisiana to learn more about vampires. But what happens when she finds one likely creature of the night at Porterhollow Cemetery?

LNL Masterlist

Pairing: Vampire!bucky x reader

A/N: this is literally just dialogue so just letting ya know and I haven’t edited it yet but I will tomorrow and also tomorrow is my birthday!!! 7/17 😋 I’m turning 18 what the actual fuck. Love y’all so FUCKING MUCH hope you enjoy♥️😘

"So I want to know everything."

"Everything?" He said as he sipped some of his hot coffee. We sat in the very back of a dingy cafe, no one really came in here and if they did they minded their own business, acted as if you weren’t in the same room as them. Which is a benefit for us. 

"Everything." I confirmed.

"You're a nosey little thing, aren't ya?" He beamed.

"Yes sir. Now come on. We haven't got all day." I wave my hand, gesturing him to continue.

"Well, I was born and raised in Brooklyn—"

"New York?!" I exclaimed.

"Yes. Let me finish, we haven't got all day." He quipped. I narrowed my eyes as he smirked.

"I was born and raised in Brooklyn, yes, New York. My family moved down here because we got a letter stating my maternal grandma had grown ill. I was about seventeen when we moved. We originally moved to Strawberry, which is a few towns over.

She eventually passed a few months after we came down, we spent as much time with her as we could. After about two years I heard this place had a lot of job opportunities so I saved up some coin and moved here. I started as grocery boy, delivering groceries to folks houses, then I got bored and stared workin in a gun shop, I eventually got tired of that, too. My last job was... well... I became an outlaw."

My eyes widened, he was once an outlaw?

"A group of men and women came into town and set up their little camp in the woods, where your home is now. I went to visit them, welcome them to town and such, and before I knew it I was one of them. Helping them steal from casino ships, helping them rob banks. You know, things outlaws normally do.

Anyways what led me to the group of hydra was this family, the O’Driscoll family. They’d been feuding with the group I was with for so long, it seemed like they had bad blood from the beginning of time. They caught me and sold me to this family from Russia, the Hydra family.

It was a small family consisting of at least five, that’s all I saw, three men and two women. Two of them were witches, one being a man and another a woman. I was always hog tied and I always slept in a closet. They would brew up these potions and elixirs and force me to drink them. I was once turned into a wolf, but they made quickly made a reverse potion once they saw I could easily overpower them. Once I was back to normal they starved me, only gave me the potions and elixirs. After the whole wolf incident, my eyesight had improved, I could hear a little bit better than before, and my body temperature rose, I was never cold.

Until one day one of them threw in random ingredients and a few failed potions into their pot, mixed up real good and forced the liquid down my throat. I don’t remember much after that but I do remember feeling a burn flow through my veins. I passed out within seconds after drinking the black drink.”

This completely blew my mind. He was tortured, starved, and turned into a wolf for lands sake!

“I remember waking up in an alleyway and I felt this deep burn in the back of my throat and I was really thirsty, I thought my throat was just dry so I went to the pub and got a few drinks, it didn’t affect me at all. I felt no buzz and the thirst didn’t go away, it only intensified. I felt like I wanted to claw my throat open. It was like an addiction. I craved something and I couldn’t figure out what it was, exactly. I took a stroll around town, my whole face felt heated and the cold air felt so good against my skin. I felt like I was on fire. So I came across a pasture, at least a couple dozen cows and horses. Something inside me told me to get closer. So I did. I walked up to a cow and then I just snapped. I broke the neck and sucked it dry. I drank a few other cows and horses after that and by the time the morning came I found my self sitting against a tomb in Porterhollow Cemetery. Blood stained shirt, it was all over my body, all over my face. I felt full for the first time in a couple years. Hydra had me for, I wanna say two years, coulda been longer, I don’t know though. But I felt full and satisfied, and the burn in my throat had disappeared. It felt good.”

“When did you start to feed on humans?”

“I got tired of the taste of animal blood. It all tastes the same, because they all eat the same. People, they have different diets. A lot of people drink. The first time I fed off of a drunkard, it was amazing. I didn’t get a buzz, I got more of a high. It feels so damn good when you’re on a high. Have you ever done drugs before, Y/N?”

“No...”

“Well don’t. They’re not good for you. But I’ve done drugs when I was with the outlaws. Certain ones make you calm, they slow the world down, it’s like your surroundings are in slow motion. Your eyes, they move slow, even your brain. Everything is so peaceful, your heart even slows. That’s what gets me. Whenever I feed on drunk bastards, it affects me like drugs do. My heartbeat slows down, the world around me almost stops, everything around me is just peaceful and quiet. And I almost feel like myself again. To others the slow heartbeat scares them but to me it’s totally different, it’s comforting.” He smiled down at his coffee.

“So you do have a heartbeat...” he nodded.

“I’m still a man, you know. I’m still a person. I’ve just got a different diet and a few enhancements. There’s nothing that’s changed my emotions, I can still feel. I can feel happy, I can feel angry, I can feel love.”

[wrestlewriting]

Fall Back Down, Pt. 4 [Finn Balor]

Part One. Part Two. Part Three.

Author note: This is the story that just keeps happening even when I don’t think it will. So let’s just agree there will probably be a part five at some point and be done with it.

This is just all fluff. This story is basically my happy place at this point.

Remember to thank SPARKLEEEE CUPPPP ✨✨✨✨ for the help.

@thebadchic @running-ropes @chasingeverybreakingwave @thegenericluchadora @wrestlingnoob @alexahood21 @castielscamander @cosmicswimming @spine-buster @heelturn-timesten @crookedmoonsaultpunk @morgunsilver @wrasslin-rollins @imnobodiesbitch @morgancorbin @reigningambrollins @ryrybebe @bbmbabe @allhailthe-demonking @rebelfleur22 @alynevelludo2 @im-indestructible @heelstarla @sixdegreesofsamson @vixxyvampire @ihtscuddlesbeeetchx3 @valeonmars @pjanina13 @spot-of-bother @bolieve-that @theelitevillian @nickysmum1909 @ortonaholic

The rain was louder than you thought it would be. Maybe it was just you, but rain sounded different when it hit different surfaces. And as it hit the very top of the apartment building, and onto the concrete surrounding the empty pool that belonged to the complex, it felt like it was in surround sound.

You knew the storm would pass soon, maybe last a half hour more if you were lucky, but it was perfect for right now.

Even though it was 2 AM, the lights scattered among the buildings gave a soft glow in places. It was still fairly dark overall, only with spots of light.

It was peaceful. No one else in sight, out and about. Not that you expected anyone to be at this hour and in this weather, but there could always be someone like you who wanted to be out.

Things had been…a lot different lately.

Just a bit over three months ago, you’d had a decent understanding of your life. You’d suffered a big loss in your father’s death, but you were figuring it out. You were wrestling for NXT and training new ladies on the side. You had great friends and colleagues surrounding you. Best friends, a family, even.

And then Finn had kissed you.

That night in your apartment, it still felt as fresh as it had happened yesterday. Finn helping you decorate, having established a routine of seeing one another on weekends. An unspoken calmness and understanding between the two of you.

After that night…there had been many more kisses. There had been actual cliché dates, nights at restaurants and movies and mini golf. Finn had made sure to properly court you in his own way, making sure you understood with each date that he was serious.

The relationship between the two of you was building with each day. There was a strong foundation of friendship and a new strength in your intimacy. It helped that he was around Florida a lot, working through his injury. You’d gotten to really know each other, have time together. Come to care for and rely on each other.

You spent every day together in some capacity.

And then this weekend came, and Finn eagerly got to return to the ring, actually have a real match, at the house shows. When he had found out he’d be doing it, he had grabbed you and spun you around like a ragdoll out of his excitement.

You had been happy for him because you knew he was happy. He loved wrestling, it was what he did, and it was where he belonged. But the selfish part of you, that part of you was bitter that he was one step closer to being back on the road full time. And therefore one step closer to being away from you more often than not.

Everyone assumed he would have been at RAW tonight given his weekend in-ring return, but instead he’d had you take a picture of him with the TV remotes, teasing that he was at home.

His home, where you’d been spending a lot more time since the new year. Though, he’d been spending equal amounts at your place.

The sound of the sliding door behind you didn’t startle you. Somehow you’d known Finn would find his way out of bed and onto the balcony.

“Hey you.” His voice was quiet, still full of sleep. You glanced back over your shoulder, finding he had put on a t-shirt before coming out, as he’d only gone to bed in shorts. His hair was sticking up more at the front, mussed up in the back in its own way.

“Hey,” was your whispered response, watching as he shuffled his way onto the balcony. You were sitting in the chair in the corner, your legs crisscrossed under yourself. Finn dragged the other chair over, placing it next to yours. You watched him through all this, smiling softly when he less-than-slowly plopped down into the chair. “You coulda stayed in bed.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” he replied, leaning back, looking out over the balcony. “You’ve been out here a while, yea?”

“Not sure,” you shrugged, though he wasn’t looking at you. “Hour or so, I guess?”

“I heard you get up. Figured you’d come back not too long after. You usually do.”

You usually do.

The sentence stuck with you for some reason. Three months in, and he already had an idea of your routines, your habits, an understanding of who you were. To be fair, your friendship for long prior to a relationship fed into it, but your bedroom behaviors were definitely only a recent discovery.

“Why did ya come out here?”

“Rain is kind of…my thing,” you stated, shifting in your chair to bring your knees to your chest, resting your chin atop them. “When I was little, Kate and I would go outside and spin around in the showers. We’d sit together in the garage and watch the lightning.” A wistful smile was on your face as you tried to see as many of the droplets in the air as possible. “And whenever…whenever I’ve felt like I truly needed my dad, needed some sign that it would all be OK these last few months…it’s rained.”

“Did you need that tonight?”

“Maybe? Sort of, but not really. It’s always a nice reminder,” you mused, throwing him a look before turning your eyes back out over the balcony.

“That was…a vague and unhelpful response,” Finn pointed out. You had to give him credit for calling your bullshit.

You took in a deep breath, slowly letting it out.

Mind as well just let it all out now.

“I’m gonna stop wrestling.”

“WHAT?!” His reaction was immediate. Finn sat up straight in his chair, turning as much as he could towards you.

“Relax,” you instructed, your tone light, as you looked over towards him. “I was talking with Matt and Sara, and I think I’m gonna switch over to full-time trainer. And Hunter mentioned wanting me to come on the road some too, to work with the ladies on the main roster.”

Finn looked…still a bit panicked, to be honest. But the tension appeared to leave his body more as your words seemed to process in his mind.

“Are you…are you sure about this? I mean, I’ll support you, I will…. But, have you done everythin’ you’ve wanted to? Is there a reason you’re doin’ this?”

“Do you remember when we were at the zoo last summer?” He seemed confused at the topic change.

“A little, yea.”

“We were talking about the future, and I said that someday I would just know when I was OK to walk away from wrestling,” you remembered. “Finn, I’m OK to walk away now.”

“…we were talking about havin’ kids,” he seemed to suddenly remember.

“Technically, yes, we were. But that’s not…that’s not what now is. Please, don’t think I’m trying to plan some crazy ass future for you and me and us, that’s definitely not happening. I’m just…I’m good to stop this part of my life, and do something…more, different, that I still love. I want to feel useful, not lost in the shuffle.”

Finn’s gaze moved over you, apparently trying to assess your seriousness and honesty. You could understand why he was surprised; you had anticipated it. The few informal talks, and then more formal meetings, you’d had at NXT about this idea you hadn’t told him about. You hadn’t wanted to bring it up until you felt sure of it, felt you had a good idea of what you wanted to do. Looking down towards the concrete, you awaited his next question or statement or concern.

“What if…what if I want to plan for our future?”

Your eyes unintentionally widened as you heard his question, as your gaze cut back towards him. He was no longer watching you, his own eyes back out into the rain.

“I would say you’re sleep drunk and I don’t think you’re thinking right,” was your answer.

“I’m thinkin’ just fine, darlin’,” Finn countered, looking towards you, the picture of sincerity. “We’ve known each other a long time. This, us, this isn’t just accidental. This isn’t just for fun, at least not for me. There’s a…reason, we’ve ended up here, together. And I just…I want to know, we’re thinkin’ about the same things for the future. I’m not saying tomorrow, I’m not saying next year even. But I want to know, at least some day, these things are at least possible for us.”

Every part of your body felt frozen, and at the same time like it was vibrating.

How had a discussion about your career path turned into a discussion about the state of your relationship with Finn? Why did he have to remember that detail about kids from the conversation from the zoo? Your heart was beating irregularly as you took in his words, understanding he wasn’t just talking to talk.

“Anything is possible in the future,” you finally spoke. “Things can change at any moment. But right now, if I had a say in it, had any control… I don’t see myself without you.”

The smile was almost immediate on his face, if not a bit bashful as well.

It seemed a bit…intense to be having this conversation at only three months into this relationship. But Finn was right in saying you’d known each other for a long time, been good friends for months on months prior to becoming more. It wasn’t like you didn’t know he wanted to have kids someday, and he clearly knew you did too. You just hadn’t ever thought you’d be having the conversation with Finn about doing that with Finn.

But, it was nice to know you were at least both on the same trajectory for life, together.

“C’mon,” you stated, sliding off your chair, the rain having slowed significantly. “Let’s go back to bed.”

“When are ya gonna switch over to training?” Finn asked, still sitting as you stood before him.

“After Wrestlemania. Why?”

“Just wanna know how much longer I get to cheer on my girl.” You rolled your eyes at his words and the grin that accompanied them.

“Goober,” you declared. His smile only widened at that. Reaching out your hand, you waited for him to take it. He finally did, lacing your fingers together as he stood up. Except when you went to walk towards the door back inside, he didn’t move. You turned back to him, awaiting an explanation.

“You’re sure this is what ya wanna do?” Finn confirmed softly, his eyes searching yours as you stood a few inches apart.

“I’m sure,” you assured him.

“Alright,” was his response, before stepping closer in order to kiss you lightly. You stood up on your toes ever so much to meet him, sliding your arm around his waist.

You understood his hesitancy, uncertainty, over your decision. This was going to be a change for you, having been an active wrestler for so many years. And it was going to be another change for him, as he was working towards being back on the main roster, and being away from you.

The long hope of you ever joining him on the main roster was gone. Though, not entirely, as you had the opportunity to work backstage at least.

By the time you broke the kiss, and both finally headed back into the apartment, the rain had stopped.

[billnoncipher]

Fireworks at the Lake

(A story of mine on fanfiction.net that happens to fit the prompt “Fake Relationship” for Wendip Week)

Fireworks at the Lake

By William Easley

(July 4, 2014)

1

"Wendy," Manly Dan rumbled, "I want to talk to you."

Lounging on the sofa on the back porch of the Shack and nursing a Pitt Cola, Wendy glanced at her dad and immediately thought, Oh, shit! He had that you're-in-trouble look in his eye. But she forced a smile and said, "Sure, dad. Uh, you want another beer? I'll run and get you one—"

The Fourth of July barbecue was into its second phase, after the games had ended, before the sun sank low enough for people to head out to the lake for the fireworks. Manly Dan and the boys had showed up a little late, but he'd made up for that by eating five cheeseburgers, three barbecue sandwiches, a pound of fries, half of a ham, and a quart of coleslaw, along with four beers.

Now he climbed up onto the porch—it creaked—but then jerked his thumb at her and said, "Let's go somewhere more private."

They walked through the side yard and into the woods, just a few steps. The murmur and laughter of the ongoing Independence Day party at the Shack still came drifting on the sultry air. Wendy tried again: "If you want me to get you another beer, it won't take me a minute—"

He grabbed her arm before she could start toward the house. "Naw, I wanna know what you were doin' runnin' around kissin' every boy in sight."

"What?" she asked, blinking. "What gave you that idea? I haven't—"

Dan scowled down at her, making her feel about five years old. "You tellin' me you ain't kissed a boy?"

"When?"

"Today! When'd you think? You sayin' you ain't kissed no boys today?"

Wendy shook her head. "No, I'm not saying that—but it was just one, and it wasn't even—"

"Out in public?" Dan growled. He pounded one gloved hand against a small pine tree, which broke and fell over.

Wendy held up her hands. "Dad, please! Calm down, OK? Do you want to hear what happened? 'Cause I'll tell you if you'll just give me a chance!"

"Go ahead," Dan said. He snapped off the trunk of the pine tree he'd punched out—granted, it was only a young one, but it had been twelve feet tall already—and moodily broke the remainder of the trunk into smaller and smaller pieces.

With her gaze on the mutilated wood, Wendy said, "OK, I kissed Dipper Pines, right? Once, and on the cheek! And that was 'cause we'd just won the three-legged race!"

"Oh, just a little kid?" Dan asked, visibly relaxing. "Toby didn't say that. What is Dipper, nine?"

Wendy chuckled. "Little older than that, Dad. He's in high school now. But we won the race—"

"By how much?"

"I dunno. 'Bout fifteen, twenty feet ahead of second place. We were way out in front!"

Manly Dan actually laughed. "'Cause you dragged him along on the ground! You did, didn't you?"

"No. I didn't have to. Dipper's a pretty good runner, Dad. Don't you remember, him and me have been running together every morning?"

"Oh, yeah, trainin'. Didn't I hear he was a track star or something?"

"Yeah, down in California. State high-school JV champion in the hundred-meter sprint. We surprised everybody. Nate and Lee have won the three-legged race for the last two years, and we left them in the dust, man!"

Dan's face clouded. "But then you kissed him where people could see and all!"

"Dad," Wendy said, "I remember five or six years ago when in front of the whole crowd, you kissed Tyler Cutebiker at the Fourth of July games!"

"That was only 'cause we won the relay race!"

"Yeah, and you just won it 'cause you picked him up while he was still holdin' the baton and carried him and it both over the finish line! But you kissed him, and there was even a photo on the front page of the Gossiper!"

"That was different!"

"Well," Wendy said reasonably, "isn't this different?"

"No! This is the same!" Dan bellowed. "I was kissin' a teammate! You was kissin' a boy!"

"Who was my teammate!"

Dan blinked, processing that. "Oh, I kinda see what you're drivin' at. And you won by fifteen, twenty feet, huh?" Pride and anger warred in his face for possession.

"We whupped everybody," Wendy said with a grin, borrowing one of his words. "Just like you, Dad."

Pride seemed to win. Dan dusted all the splinters of the pine trunk off his hands. "Well. Glad you run such a good race, then. But I better not hear of that kinda behavior again."

"Stop talking to Tony Determined, then!"

"Toby."

"Whatever! Even if you call him Bodacious T, you can't believe everything he says. He's still a gossiper."

"He's on th' television! People on th' television don't tell lies."

"Dad!" Wendy said. "If you're going to believe people who love to tattletale instead of believing me—"

"Simmer down, baby girl. I believe you. For now. But don't you go kissin' on every boy you meet, you hear me? I don't trust your judgment. That guitar player, that Robbie Valentino, now—"

With a sigh, Wendy told him, "Robbie is old news, Dad. He's going with Tambry now."

"Yeah, I heard about them, too." He sounded angry.

"Well, they don't exactly hide it," Wendy said.

Dan sniffed and gave her a quizzical look. "Prob'ly shouldn't tell you this, might give you ideas. But you listen here." He dropped his voice to a confidential whisper: "Tambry's folks were goin' to a movie one night an' they got about fifteen minutes away from their house when Mrs. DiCicco realized she'd left her purse at home. So they drove back, and there set Robbie's car parked in the driveway. Her mom slipped inside quiet-like and caught them on the living room couch, and there wasn't no doubt about what they'd been up to, judging from what they weren't wearing."

Wendy felt her face getting hot. "Tambry never told me that," she admitted. "But you don't know the whole story, either, Dad. You'll hear the rest of it soon enough, so I might's well tell you. They're engaged, Robbie and Tambry. They're getting married as soon as they graduate next spring."

"Gives him no right to do what he done to her!" Manly Dan bellowed. "That coulda been you, baby girl! I don't want nobody tellin' me you have to get married 'cause of some boy doin' you like thataway!"

"Not gonna happen," Wendy assured him.

He grunted, and for a few seconds they were silent. Then he asked, "You goin' to the lake with us?"

"Nah, my boss offered me a ride out. Then he'll drop me off at our house after."

"Soos, you mean?"

"Sure. He's the manager."

"Not Stanley Pines?"

"No, Soos Alvarez. You know Soos, Dad. Married to Melody, they got the little boy?"

"And Dipper ain't goin' with you?"

She shrugged. "He and his sister will probably go over with Stanley and Stanford. Maybe they'll bring dates."

"They're too young for datin'!" Manly Dan said with great assurance.

"I think they're like sixty-seven or some deal," Wendy said.

Dan blinked. "Oh. I though you meant the little ones. Dipper an' what's-her-name."

"Mabel."

"Yeah, them."

"I don't know what plans they have," Wendy said. "I may run into them at the lake, or I may hook up with some of my friends there."

"Not Robbie Valentino! Nor Tambry DiCicco! They're bad influences!"

"OK, geeze, Dad, I may just hang with Mabel or something."

Dan sounded far from satisfied: "And I may check on you. Just to see who you're runnin' around with."

Which was pretty nearly exactly what Wendy figured. And dreaded.

2

Later that afternoon, up in the attic of the Shack, Dipper groaned, "Oh, man, I didn't know people were gonna make such a big deal out of one kiss! And it wasn't even—you know."

"No, it sure wasn't in our top ten, dude!" Wendy said with a grin.

She, Mabel, and Dipper were sitting on the floor of Dipper's room, away from the laughter and shouts and the sounds of eating out in the yard. "You got a top ten?" Mabel asked, her eyes wide. "Show me! Show me! Show me!"

"Nah," Wendy said. "We'd be a bad influence on you."

"I don't know about that," Dipper said. "Before now, I've heard suspicious sounds from around the corner and when I got there, I spotted Mabel and Teek in a clinch!"

Mabel wilted a little. "Won't happen today, though. Teek's not gonna be at the lake. His folks are driving over to Portland for the big waterfront fireworks show. He invited me, but after all the craziness that happened today with that dumb crystal ball, I gotta take a breather."

Wendy nudged her. "Well, Mabes, I told Dad I'd prob'ly hang with you at the lake, so there's that at least. If you even want to go, I mean."

"Yeah, I want to go! I love fireworks. Maybe we could go out on Soos's boat with him and Melody and Little Soos."

"Yeah," Wendy said.

"What's wrong?"

"Well . . . thing is," Wendy said, sounding moody, "I don't believe it's a real good idea for me an' Dipper to be seen together, even if we're in a group and chaperoned. Not with Dad on the warpath like he is right now. This summer I've already been in trouble with him because I was hangin' out at the Shack too much."

"I thought that had all blown over," Mabel said.

Wendy shrugged. "Kinda has. I worked out a way to make sure the wolves were all fed on time."

"You got wolves?" Mabel asked, her eyes bugging. "I've got pigs! Wolves and pigs—what's happening here? We totally have to get them together—"

"I don't think she means real wolves," Dipper said, his voice not sounding happy.

"No, dude, I meant my dad and brothers!" Wendy said.

"It's a metaphor," Dipper added.

Mabel tilted her head. "Like in poetry?"

Her brother sighed. "Yeah. Kinda."

Mabel turned to Wendy. "Oh, man—wait—your family's not werewolves, are they? 'Cause that would be so cool!"

"Not as far as I know," Wendy said, laughing. "Dad and the guys just eat like wolves. And smell like them too, most of the time. Anyhow, yeah, Dad ragged on me about not being home in time to clean and cook and all, but I worked out a schedule, and Dad agreed finally that I'm responsible enough now—Assistant Manager of the Shack an' all—so I deserve some free personal time. 'Cept he sneaks around and asks around about what I'm doin' and checks up on me!"

"Bummer," Mabel said. "Hey, Dip, what's wrong with you?"

Dipper had been leaning back against his bed, but he slumped forward now, arms wrapped around his bent knees, huddling as though gathered into himself. If he'd been wearing a sweater, he probably would have turtled into Sweater Town. "Aw, it's that I've been looking forward to seeing the fireworks with Wendy," he admitted. "Last year we saw them together, and it was special."

"First real kiss special," Wendy said.

"Ooohhh!" Mabel murmured. "That's why Dipper wrote on the Fourth of July in English class when we had to do a 'My Favorite Holiday' essay!"

"You did? That's sweet, dude," Wendy said, reaching out to rub Dipper's back.

He leaned against her. "Yeah, but—if we can't even see each other tonight. . . I mean, it's kind of an anniversary and all."

Mabel said, "Fear not, Broseph! The course of true love won't stumble over its own feet and fall over like a tree Manly Dan has chopped off at the roots! We'll come up with a plan!" She booped Dipper. "Now, those were metaphors!"

"You hate making plans," Dipper pointed out. "You make fun of Mom and me all the time because we always make plans!"

"Exceptions prove the rule! Let me think, let me think—hey, Brobro, can I chew on a thinking pen?"

"They're in the cup on the table," Dipper said. "Help yourself."

Mabel not only chewed on it meditatively, she gnawed it. Then she giggled. "Ink! Blaarrgggh!" She stuck out a purple tongue. "Okay, that helped. Maybe we can find a way to get you two together for your anniversary. But you're gonna owe me if I can pull it off."

"Sure, whatever," Wendy said.

"Better hear her out before we agree to anything," Dipper cautioned.

3

Manly Dan drove the boys to the lake as the sun was going down. Half the town was already there, and the other half were coming in. He wandered through the crowd—easy because he was a crowd on his own, and he towered above everybody else on the beach—and watched families spreading beach towels and tablecloths or setting up folding chairs for the big fireworks display.

The fireworks team had already set up out on Scuttlebutt Island, and this year they had put out a line of red-blinking buoys to keep boaters at a safe distance. The previous year one family had ventured a little too close, and a dud skyrocket had flopped down onto the deck of their cabin cruiser before exploding. It hadn't done serious damage or hurt anybody, but the four people aboard, dad and mom and two kids, had jumped into the lake and had to be fished out.

Meandering, Dan saw the McGuckets and spoke to them—Old Man McGucket, tidier than he'd been in the old days, was actually making sense for a change—and then he spotted Tats, recognizable by his head and chin tattoos, who asked him, "You workin' tomorrow?"

"Naw, layin' off after the holiday," Dan said. "Whatcha got?"

"All-night poker game, you want in. Do you?"

"Sure," Dan said.

"Awright. Back room of the Skull Fracture, eleven o'clock."

"Who else?" Dan asked.

"Blubs an' Durland, Stan Pines, Roadhog, Chains, Ghost Eyes, so far."

Dan laughed. "Well, we'll take a few bucks off of Blubs and Durland, anyhow! See you there. Want me to bring anything?"

"Snacks if you want. Got the beer covered."

"Good enough."

Dan said hello to Mayor Cutebiker, to Lazy Susan, and a few others. But he was looking for a tall redheaded girl, and he'd better not see her in with a bunch of guys. Or else.

Twilight started to come on and deepened into dusk, and then Dan heard a distant but familiar laugh. It came from the docks.

He walked through the crowd, then around past the ranger station. By the time he got there, the sky was darkening and the first stars were just visible. He saw two figures sitting really close together on the edge of one of the piers, their feet swinging.

They didn't look around as he went toward them, though for a man of Dan's size, there was no way to keep his big feet from clomping on the wood. He stopped behind the two. "Wendy."

She leaned on one arm and turned around. "Oh, hey, Dad."

"You behavin'?"

"Yeah. Me an' Mabel are just hangin' here 'cause it's a good dark place to see the fireworks from. Wanna join us?"

Now Dan recognized the girl sitting beside his daughter—the pink headband, the long brown hair cascading down her back, the sort of goofy grin. She was wearing a red T-shirt and shorts, and she waved at him. "Mavis," Dan said.

"Mabel," the girl corrected.

"Oh, yeah. Uh. So where's your brother?"

Mabel pointed out toward the lake. "Soos's boat."

"So why ain't you with them?"

She shrugged. "I get seasick."

"It's a lake."

"Lakesick. Blarrrggg!" She mimicked vomiting.

"Okay," Dan said. "You girls be careful an' don't fall off the dock!"

"It's like three feet deep down there," Wendy said. "But, yeah, we'll be careful."

"Might take the boys out in th' rowboat," Dan said. "Well—I'll be home late, Wendy. You make sure everything's locked up."

"Will do. Have a good time, Dad."

Dan turned and walked away through the gathering darkness.

"Wow."

Wendy laughed. "I know, right? You know what he's gonna do now. He's gonna take the boat out and hunt up Soos's boat and make sure Dipper's aboard."

"He sure doesn't trust you."

"Oh, I dunno. It's not that so much as it is that when Dad gets an idea in his head, it's stuck there." Wendy pointed. "Uh-huh, there he goes with the boys."

It was getting hard to see, but you could make out the rowboat heading out from the far side of the ranger station. The tall, bulky figure at the oars was definitely Manly Dan. And sure enough, he did head toward Soos's boat, which had been repaired since the Gobblewonker expedition—if by "repaired" you meant that Soos had acquired another second-hand boat and had put the steering wheel from his old one on it.

A single rocket streaked up from Scuttlebutt Island and exploded, signaling the beginning of the fireworks show. Then more joined it.

"There they go," Wendy said. "Come here."

It lasted maybe ten or fifteen seconds. When they pulled apart, Wendy murmured, "Mm. Wow! Tambry an' I used to practice kissing for when we'd start dating guys, but I never French-kissed a girl before. I think I like it!"

"Aw—"

Wendy reached out for a tight embrace. "Come here, Mabes. I want me some more of that!"

4

Dan pulled up alongside Soos's boat. "Hiya," he said.

On the boat, Stan Pines leaned on the rail and said, "Hiya, Dan. How's it hangin'?"

"Fine, fine. See ya at the game tonight."

"Oh, yeah. I'll be there."

"That, uh, that your nephew over there?"

"Huh? Yeah, Dipper, come an' say hi to Manly Dan."

The kid came to the rail. In the light from the exploding rockets, Dan saw it was Dipper Pines, all right—pine-tree hat, red shirt and blue vest, the whole nine yards. "You're gettin' tall," Dan said.

Dipper shrugged. "Never match you, sir," he said.

"Listen, I, uh, heard you an' Wendy done good in the games."

"Three-legged race."

"Yeah. Congratulations. You, uh, kissed her, didn't ya?"

"She kissed me. On the cheek!"

"Yeah, well—you gotta realize not to do that in public to girls. Ruin their reputation."

Stan laughed. "That's a good one, Dan! Hah! Ya don't have to worry about Dipper—he's still scared of girls! Right, Dip?"

The kid looked down at his feet. "Aw, Grunkle Stan!"

"Good seein' ya," Dan said.

He rowed for a better vantage point and relaxed to watch the fireworks.

He felt a lot better now. Wendy and Dipper Pines—what a laugh! Why the kid's voice hadn't even broken yet.

While his boys yelled with enthusiasm at the rockets and Roman candles and bursts of stars, Dan smiled gently, reminiscing. All those flashing lights reminded him pleasantly of the times in the woods when he'd misjudged and a limb or a whole tree had whopped him in the head.

Really took him back.

5

Wendy was giggling. "Come on, Mabel, kiss me again!"

"No way! Not until I take this off!" Dipper reached under the shirt and struggled with the sports bra until Wendy had him turn away so she could unhook it. He had to shrug out of the shirt sleeves to get the straps off, and then he pulled the wig off his head. "I felt so silly!"

"Good thing that Mabel had that." Wendy picked it up and stroked it as though it were some kind of long-haired animal. "Why'd she even buy a Mabel wig, anyhow?"

Dipper tugged his shirt back down. "For those school mornings when 'five more minutes' turns into half an hour in bed and she doesn't have time to get her hair ready. Think she looked enough like me?"

"Oh, yeah, man," Wendy said. "With her hair tucked down the back of her collar and your hat and clothes on—yeah, in this light she'd fool anybody."

Dipper sighed happily. "Well, at least we got our anniversary."

Wendy dropped the wig to the pier beside her and said wickedly, "It's not over yet, dude."

As if to underscore that, fireworks lit up the sky.

"Want to see what it's like kissing a boy this time?" Dipper said. "I've just popped a peppermint!"

She pulled him tight against her. "Oh, dude, I thought you'd never ask."

The End

[clubofinfo]

Expert: Stealing Life with the Big Bad Retail King — One-third of All Buying Transactions  Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls. Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing; ‘Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed. — Iago, Shakespeare’s Othello It’s more than disconcerting to hear the blathering now, September 2018, about Jeff Bezos. About Amazon dot com as richest company ever. To hear the fawning love of the rich guy, now, when we were predicting a slave master killing publishing, killing independence; news reports and tribute after tribute for this full-fledged Midas of tax cheating, our homegrown monopolist of the highest order, anti-American who gives a shit about main street America, a misanthropic fake news purveyor, a full-bore felonious PT Barnum and smoke and mirrors double shuffle guy who thinks of his tens upon tens of thousands of warehouse workers as spindles, interchangeable parts, and to hell with their precarity, their one nose-bleed from homelessness. This is a time of same sides of the coin of the realm: the conservative and the liberal, the War-Mongering Democratic Party drooling at the McCain fiasco and the Sycophantic Zio-Christo Republicans confused about who is going to own what while scampering away like rats into the alleys as the headlights of their narcissist-in-chief blowtorches the world. The most important characteristics of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) are grandiosity, seeking excessive admiration, and a lack of empathy. These identifying features can result in a negative impact on an individual’s interpersonal affairs and life general. In most cases, on the exterior, these patients act with an air of right and control, dismissing others, and frequently showcasing condescending or denigrating attitudes. Nevertheless, internally, these patients battle with strong feelings of low self esteem issues and inadequacy. Even though the typical NPD patient may achieve great achievements, ultimately their functioning in society can be affected as these characteristics interfere with both personal and professional relationships. A large part of this is as result of the NPD patient being incapable of receiving disapproval or rebuff of any kind, in addition to the fact that the NPD patient typically exhibits lack of empathy and overall disrespect for others.** ** Note that NPD runs through the DNA of these ministers like Jimmy Swaggart or Billy-Franklin Graham, through the family RNA of so-called royalty of the world, in the brain chemistry of the likes of a Henry Kissinger or Adolph Hitler, in the hypothalamus of fruit-salad bedecked generals and in the frontal cortex of all great and not-so-great thespians, from politicos to actors. Moreover, this Bezos, our great Albuquerque-born plumbing showroom huckster peddling absolutely all the stuff we do not need piled up in his fulfillment centers, represents those two sides of the same coin: powerful, libertarian, ruthless and spirit-less, driven to conquer/distribute/hawk all the stuff in any sort of catalog that exists out there to fulfill the needs and mostly not so necessary junk of obsolescence and consumer addiction. A cold anti-philanthropy multi-billionaire, whose net worth of $160.7 billion is headline news now as the TV clowns present the Top Five, Top Ten/Twenty diligently, Bezos is the top of the dung heap according to another rag with all the news unfit (for humanity) to print . . . . . . Who is the richest person in the world? While Forbes updates their list of the world’s billionaires in real time as markets fluctuate, the magazine also releases a more static list each year. The total net worth of these money-makers when the 2018 list was released in March was $7.67 trillion. Click through to see 2018’s top 20 richest billionaires on the planet. With his company — which epitomizes the heights of death star techie logic, next gen robotics, drones, massive crisscrossing of products through a digital satellite-fed network of Prime Time orders — Bezos has continually kicked out with the help of Seattle PD we protesters with one share of his shit stock at shareholder meetings protesting his sadism around refusing to air condition fulfillment centers while instead putting rent-an-ambulances outside the doors! Oh, this economic disruptor of small and large businesses, all part of that gift of unfettered homicidal capitalism a la retail conglomeration, is reviled, hated, but will be the big section in those econ books from many years to come. Bernie Sanders wants a special tax on this white shark-eyed Jeff Bezos? Funny follies of the political kind. Imagine, justifying all the tax evasion and felonies of the billionaires and millionaires and banks and hedge funders and the rest of the elites — that’s the cool truth of our state of misrepresentation in Washington. Never political cries of “tax them all for their externalities — all the damage capital and capitalists have done to the world.”  Major and minor municipalities and entire states fall over themselves with money dripping tongues out of their mouths while courting this company with so many freebies in the billions to get another load of office buildings or fulfillment centers or even another headquarters/campus or pod of fulfillment centers. At any cost. Walmartization of the world, or was it McDonaldization first, or Fordization, but now Amazonization of the culture outstrips anything up to this point in this country’s lunacy. You can get anything anytime anywhere for anyone from this five and dime on steroids. Or, The Details About the CIA’s Deal With Amazon: A $600 million computing cloud built by an outside company is a “radical departure” for the risk-averse intelligence community Just in Time Employment, 11th Hour appointments, Permanent Temp, a Precarity defined as the New Almost Slavery Gig gigs — Coulda Been HuffPost Slave Yet, on Democracy Now, again, in September 2018, we are led to believe we now have to be aghast about those fulfillment centers and those Americans being worked to the bone, worked down to the shredded screws in their hip replacement hardware, worked to confusion and exhaustion and then discarded for not working hard enough for this Master Blaster of the Retail Monopoly. Juan Gonzalez of DN tells us about these “cutting edge” stories from his Rutgers University Department of Journalism and Media Studies students working on this “breaking news,” while Juan laughs and smirks at the reality of “us” (not me) ordering everything on Amazon. Here, the DN reports: As Amazon Hits $1 Trillion in Value, Its Warehouse Workers Denounce “Slavery” Conditions Exposed: Undercover Reporter at Amazon Warehouse Found Abusive Conditions & No Bathroom Breaks Ahh, but we over at DV have been printing these stories for more than six years: * Punditry of Shit-Hole Thinking  * On-line Dildo Salesman Bezos is the News Fit to Print * Amazon.com Don’t Need No Stinking Climate Change Badge, No Stinking Corporate Transparency Crap * Books, Bountiful Ethics, Brave Buyers Nichole Gracely / May 21st, 2012 Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley (LV) is a distribution hub, and many fellow Amazon associates and Integrity Staffing Solutions temps had previously worked in other local warehouses. I have and I can say that they’re typically rough workplaces. At first glance, Amazon’s LV fulfillment center appears benign. Primary red, yellow, green and blue splashes of color brighten the place, and motivational posters and friendly educational signs that feature cute characters provide guidance. Hundreds, sometimes thousands of workers populate the warehouse at once, diligently taking direction from hand-held scanners or computers, and the place is enormous so it doesn’t appear cramped. Seriously, the place could house a small city. Physical strength is not a necessary qualification to perform any of their warehouse job functions, and management is ostensibly concerned with worker safety. Just about anyone could staff Amazon’s FC, especially since it only takes a couple of hours to train workers to perform any specific job function. It’s safe to say that anyone laboring in an Amazon FC has fallen into hard times, and many of my former coworkers’ resumes featured distinguished past titles, impressive demonstrations of manual skill and ability, and/or lofty educational attainment. Many never thought they’d wind up in a warehouse and so, yes, this was all foreign for many. Other workers who staffed other warehouses in the past didn’t know what to make of the place because there is something different about Amazon, something alien. “Chairman” Bezos once said that Amazon workers don’t need a union because we own the company. “Chairman” Bezos has zero tolerance for union activity and several Amazon unionization attempts were summarily squashed. After two years on the job an Amazon FC associate is entitled to eight shares of stock. If Amazon is trading at, say, $250 a share, that’s $2,000. Ownership? $250 per share is a generous projection. Seasoned investors are baffled by AMZN’s current overvaluation because of its unhealthy 188:1 (fluctuates, yet always unhealthy) price to earnings ratio, and they’re waiting for the bubble to burst. Nichole went on to write a piece in the Guardian: Amazon Seasonal Work  And the Guardian published another one, more than four years ago: Being homeless is better than working for Amazon Bread and Roses — 106 Years Ago, Back to Now: Strike Amazon, Strike US Correctional Institutions, Boycott I got this from a friend, Andy Piascik, a long-time activist and award-winning author whose most recent book is the novel In Motion. He can be reached at ###. In the end, in the face of the state militia, U.S. Marines, Pinkerton infiltrators and hundreds of local police, the strikers prevailed. They achieved a settlement close to their original demands, including significant pay raises and time-and-a-quarter for overtime, which previously had been paid at the straight hourly rate. Workers in Lowell and New Bedford struck successfully a short while later, and mill owners throughout New England soon granted significant pay raises rather than risk repeats of Lawrence. When the trials of Ettor, Giovannitti and a third defendant commenced in the fall, workers in Lawrence’s mills pulled a work stoppage to show that a miscarriage of justice would not be tolerated. The three were subsequently acquitted. More than a century ago and it’s rabbit-holed history . . . and what do we fight for in this country now? We have fear of unions, we embrace the gig economy/outsourcing on Kratom (called near slavery by socio-economists), and the unimaginable bullshit and shit jobs have generated aimlessness, screen addiction, be mean to thy neighbor mentality, cold hearts and Homo Retailipithecus. Bullshit jobs, as Graeber states: A world without teachers or dock-workers would soon be in trouble. But it’s not entirely clear how humanity would suffer were all private equity CEOs, lobbyists, PR researchers, actuaries, telemarketers, bailiffs or legal consultants to similarly vanish. Shit jobs tend to be blue collar and pay by the hour, whereas bullshit jobs tend to be white collar and salaried. We have become a civilization based on work—not even “productive work” but work as an end and meaning in itself. What is Labor Day or May Day now in a world of Marvel comics and infantilization of every intercourse we have with every sort of humanity? Do we care about solidarity? Do we know how to build communities? Do we see neighbors and people in and on the streets as equals, people, us? What is the value of work when it is drudgery, dog-eat-dog, king of the hill and top of the dung heap relationships? We have to go beyond now this simpleton way of seeing the world from the bifurcated Groucho Marx eyeglasses. This is a great time of upheaval, splintering, hot house planet, Sixth Mass Extinction, a world of capital making more capital off of war, resource theft, thievery of other nations’ and cultures’ futures. Jobs, Who Doesn’t Choose to Collapse, Hothouse Planet, People As I continually teach young people to think, you are what you eat, what you do, what you think, what your read, what you say, what you believe, what you aspire to, what you hope for, what you do or not do to be one with humanity. If your life is one of toil, what is inside the heart, and what do you do with those beliefs and philosophies while slogging away? Are you a believer in exceptionalism, Zionist or Christian superiority? Is the white shade of skin the defining element in your life? Do you have passions that are your own, or are they manufactured, designed, and cajoled by the money changers and propagandists?  The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too. This line was from a speech by Rose Schneiderman, Polish-born socialist and feminist and prominent labor union leaders in America. It’s a phrase embodying everything today we workers need to utilize as a galvanizing force upon our souls to break away from these people like Bezos and the entire master crafters of our pain, poverty and penury. When I say “our,” I mean the world’s collective pain in the form of billions of people, for whom Western Culture (sic) has set loose a wildfire of forced displacement, murder, resource extraction, war and disease of the mind and body. It was also a successful textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, during January–March 1912, which is pretty much universally referred to as the “Bread and Roses” strike. Pairing bread and roses not as counter-balances — fair wages and dignified conditions. Defining “the sometimes tedious struggles for marginal economic advances in the light of labor struggles as based on striving for dignity and respect,” as Robert J. S. Ross wrote in 2013. I imagine the Bezos types wanting every last penny from every last $2-a-day inhabitant on earth, and I imagine this fellow is as steely-hearted as any in an Upton Sinclair book — and note this first quote by Sinclair is for me about men and women working today, even though Sinclair was writing about a living livestock animal torn from life: One could not stand and watch very long without being philosophical, without beginning to deal in symbols and similes, and to hear the hog-squeal of the universe…. Each of them had an individuality of his own, a will of his own, a hope and a heart’s desire; each was full of self-confidence, of self-importance, and a sense of dignity. And trusting and strong in faith he had gone about his business, the while a black shadow hung over him, and a horrid Fate in his pathway. Now suddenly it had swooped upon him, and had seized him by the leg. Relentless, remorseless, all his protests, his screams were nothing to it. It did its cruel will with him, as if his wishes, his feelings, had simply no existence at all; it cut his throat and watched him gasp out his life. ― Upton Sinclair, The Jungle It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it. ― Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked Delusions  of Terra-Forming and Mickey Mouse Grabbing Adults’ Attention So what do we do with these Titans of idiocy, with their billions and their algorithms, with their broken telescopes peering into the black hole of humanity? What about the 150,000 chemicals in human cells created by the industrialists, those synergistic variant effects we have zero knowledge about, which have helped push our American society into a chronically ill species of over 50 percent of a population cycled through Western (Un-)Medicine. Children with autism or on the spectrum — count that as possibly 30 percent of all births by 2040. Diabetes 1 and 2, more than 15 percent or more of the population by 2040. According to Dr. Winchester: This is a really important concept that is difficult to teach the public, and when I say the public, I include my clinical colleagues. Still, atrazine is not the only human hormone-altering chemical in the environment. Dr. Winchester tested nearly 20 different chemicals and all demonstrated epigenetic effects, for example, all of the chemicals reduced fertility, even in the 3rd generation. Still, why do 150,000,000 Americans have chronic diseases? Researchers believe that every adult disease extant is linked to epigenetic origins. If confirmed over time with additional research, the study is a blockbuster that goes to the heart of public health and attendant government regulations. According to Dr. Winchester: This is a huge thing that is going to change how we understand the origin of disease. But a big part of that is that it will change our interpretation of what chemicals are safe. In medicine I can’t give a drug to somebody unless it has gone through a huge amount of testing. But all these chemicals haven’t gone through anything like that. We’ve been experimented on for the last 70 years, and there’s not one study on multi-generational effects. Environmental Working Group tested more than a dozen brands of oat-based foods to give Americans information about dietary exposures that government regulators are keeping secret. In April, internal emails obtained by the nonprofit US Right to Know revealed that the Food and Drug Administration has been testing food for glyphosate for two years and has found “a fair amount,” but the FDA has not released the findings. Ahh, the melting planet, the water cycle’s disrupted, the entire mess of planetary re-shifting is on a collision course with Homo Sapiens. Everyday I get more and more notifications from friends and thinkers about the impending collapses, the impending peak this and peak that (Peak Everything). Globalization makes it impossible for modern societies to collapse in isolation, as did Easter Island and the Greenland Norse in the past. Any society in turmoil today, no matter how remote … can cause trouble for prosperous societies on other continents and is also subject to their influence (whether helpful or destabilizing). For the first time in history, we face the risk of a global decline. But we also are the first to enjoy the opportunity of learning quickly from developments in societies anywhere else in the world today, and from what has unfolded in societies at any time in the past. That’s why I wrote this book.” ― Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed Feudal Factories of Propaganda and Propagating .001 Percenters — Water, Man, Water We trust ourselves, far more than our ancestors did… The root of our predicament lies in the simple fact that, though we remain a flawed and unstable species, plagued now as in the past by a thousand weaknesses, we have insisted on both unlimited freedom and unlimited power. It would now seem clear that, if we want to stop the devastation of the earth, the growing threats to our food, water, air, and fellow creatures, we must find some way to limit both. ― Donald Worster, Under Western Skies: Nature and History in the American West We are seeing this circling of the billionaires’ wagons (vultures circling the 7.8 billion marks, us), this Bezos and Musk lust for space, for some planetary gated-armed-Utopian community. These fellows and dames are something else, and the conjurers of news unfit to consume fall over them, recording and publishing story after story about their wisdom and foresight and shamanistic ways of predicting the future. Remember George W. Bush and his big ranch buy in Paraguay? That was 12 years ago, readers, yet, back to the future, with news (sic) report after news report (sic) keeps tracking the next billionaire economic ejaculation. W, and we thought he was only painting pets! The Chaco is a semiarid, sparsely populated area known — to the extent that it’s known at all — for its abundant wildlife, rapid deforestation, nothing in particular… and what lies beneath it… Our Real Wealth Trader and Outstanding Investments contributor Jody Chudley thinks he knows the true gen about the Bush land grab. Jody says he has a “secret” about the Bushes. And he adds, “It has to do with an investment idea that’s hardly on anyone’s radar.” The real reason Jody thinks Bush 43 and family snapped up nearly 300,000 acres in those semiarid, sparsely populated wastes of Paraguay? Water. That’s right, blue gold. Bush bought the rights to a veritable ocean of fresh, clear-as-glass, Grade A water. His land rests atop one of the largest freshwater aquifers in the world: Acuifero Guarani, by name. According to Jody, “Acuifero Guarani covers roughly 460,000 square miles under parts of Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina. It is estimated to contain about 8,900 cubic miles of water.” If you can’t quite imagine 8,900 miles of water, picture a pool nearly three times the size of California. That should give you a decent idea. A fair amount when you consider that 98% of this planet’s water is salt water. Of the other 2%, almost 87% of it is trapped within glaciers, hence inaccessible. Jody’s “trusty calculator” informs him that only 0.25% of the water on this cosmic ball is fresh (underground, or in rivers and lakes). Just a drop in the figurative bucket… Now, we knew this sort of stuff was going on with the elites, who look at us all as easy marks, broken money bags, the fat cows or broken pigs of their global stockades. What’s happened is this trickle-down lust-love-longing for these people who get plastered in the headlines as being grand and philanthropists, deserving of every cent and every billion made on the back of people, earth, cultures. Their trans-capital and monopolies  and viral presence like Google, Facebook, Walmart, and on and on sucks the revolution out of revolutionary, since we are now shackled to their ways of doing things. The goal of the capitalists is to harmonize their theft with our survival, whatever it takes to put five to a studio apartment (of course, sneaking the other four into the room in the dead of night), whatever it takes to just float through a gridlocked urban and suburban world. So, from Bush and Paraguay, to this Gawker Killer Thiel, we have enough evidence of their feudal ways, their slippery snake eyes methods of shitting on we underlings: Here is Robert Hunziker: Peter Thiel, the PayPal billionaire and renowned super-super-super libertarian and unapologetic Trumpster love-fester achieved New Zealand citizenship in only 12 days and bought not only his citizenship but a $13.8 M estate in Wanaka, a lakeside community. According to a phone interview with the former PM of New Zealand John Key, “If you’re the sort of person that says I’m going to have an alternative plan when Armageddon strikes, then you would pick the farthest location and the safest environment – and that equals New Zealand if you Google it… It’s known as the last bus stop on the planet before you hit Antarctica. I’ve had a lot of people say to me that they would like to own a property in New Zealand if the world goes to hell in a hand-basket. Hell in a hand-basket, from the former prime minister of New Zealand — 1935 Book, quote: If the average white New Zealander takes the Maori seriously as a human being, he is usually rather too ready to blame him for characteristics which more careful study will show not to be inherent at all but actually the result of the coming of the Europeans themselves, the extensive destruction of Maori life and the virtual dispossession of the Maori people. Little attempt is commonly made to understand the causes which produced, for a time at any rate (for they are passing) those Maori characteristics which have become almost proverbial amongst us. To put it frankly, we blame the Maori for becoming what we have made him. It is interesting to realise that similar circumstances of the contact of peoples have occurred before, and in view of the people referred to there is one instance which it seems particularly fitting that we should bear in mind. The instance comes down to us from the days when another great Empire, an ancient one, was civilizing native peoples. There is on record a letter from a wealthy Roman landowner to his agent in Britain telling him to ship no more British slaves “as they are so lazy and cannot be trusted to work.” Similar causes produce similar effects; we should be less ready with hasty judgment and hasty blame. There is a widespread belief, and it is one certainly cherished by the average white New Zealander, that no native people have ever been so fairly treated by Europeans as have the Maori people. As a matter of fact, if it is fully and frankly told, the story of the contact of Europeans with native peoples is much the same everywhere. What we have are so many varieties of what a leading anthropologist has recently termed “the tragic mess which invariably results from the impact of white upon aboriginal culture.” It is true that the Maori people have survived, but this, on careful analysis, proves to be very largely due to their own qualities and their own efforts rather than to any specially favourable mode of treatment. If we are honest there is little ground for pakeha self-congratulation. Ahh, the evidence of climate change (global warming–hot planet) was there in 1896 researched, formulated and discoursed by Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius (and then later, amateur G. S. Callendar ramified the greenhouse effect of burning fossil fuels, and then later, C. D. Keeling measured the rising CO2 levels tying that to the greenhouse hot house effect), but for which has been swept into confusion by those marketers and mad men. Imagine, average planetary temps going up from  2.5–11°F by 2100. Imagine that! The more civilizations evolve, the more energy dependent they become, so it’s possible that trillions of civilizations in the great continuum of space evolved, rose, fell and disappeared. If you develop an industrial civilization like ours, the route is going to be the same. You’re going to have a hard time not triggering climate change. For a civilization to destroy itself through nuclear war, it has to have certain emotional characteristics. You can imagine certain civilizations saying, ‘I’m not building those [nuclear weapons]. Those are crazy.’ But climate change, you can’t get away from. If you build a civilization, you’re using huge amounts of energy. The energy feeds back on the planet, and you’re going to push yourself into a kind of Anthropocene. It’s probably universal. —  Adam Frank, astrophysicist Interlude, Interglacial Periods, Working for the Homeless — Flailing at Windmills   Yeah, these big ideas I broach with homeless veterans and their attendant family members, and while the Gates-Kochs-Zuckerbergs-Bloombergs-Adelsons-et al have zero concern about us, the proles, the  detritus of their Capital, I believe working to change one life at a time — even if it’s a life riddled with evictions, felonies, relapses, epigenetic familial hell, PTSD, trauma, spiritlessness, physical decay — has meaning since in that process I have incredible interchanges with people who sort of want the same thing — paradigm shifts and de-industrialization and ecosocialism a la Marx 3.0. I try to find peace in writing, even these polemics at DV or LA Progressive; and in my own world of fiction-poetry-creative nonfiction, the windmills abound because of a rarefied culture of the M-F-A (masters in fine arts) elite — those gatekeepers of the small literary kind, or even the National Book Award kind. This country is not big on real outliers in anything tied to the arts, and I am one of those round pegs looking to splinter the quintessential square hole. Short story collection? Who the hell would read that? Well, try out a project of mine to get the stories —  thematically (sort of) threaded (sort of) to the “Vietnam experience” — as a hard copy from a small press, Cirque. You can read one of the stories, “Bloody Sheets,” here, starting on page 115. The collection, Wide Open Eyes: Surfacing from Vietnam, is a gathering of fiction, much of which has been published in literary journals. I have succumbed to a Go Fund Me “deal” to help balance-offset the costs of printing a book on paper with ink. I have no idea if a Go Fund Me will even take off. The first and only donation is from filmmaker Brian Lindstrom. Amazing, a struggling documentarian throwing in FIRST. But we are in a new normal of shitting on writers, expecting us to have our day and then our night jobs and then write-write-write for free. That is the question, really, who wants to spend their time reading short stories, outside the very narrow readership of Masters of Fine Arts aficionados who in many regards can be pedantic and puffery artists? Vietnam, no less, in a time of Tim Burns rotting the foundation of the war we committed, or the Obama administration’s scrubbing of the war in his effort to commemorate it (Obama gives killer Kissinger awards). Vietnam. One of my short journalist pieces for an old weekly I worked for in Spokane. How many died in Vietnam and Indochina? 3.8 million? Oh, that Nobel Cause (War) myth I run into daily at a homeless veterans shelter, that is was winnable and worthy. Killing farmers, man, in their rice paddies! Whew, only a Zionist could write that script. Read my short story collection for a different way to frame creativity and that time period, that narrative framing, that time in history that has defined and redefined the ugly wars of today. I am going to give this a shot in a time of blatant skepticism and group-think/act/do. Wide Open Eyes: Surfacing from Vietnam. Be part of the creative impetus. The energy. The publication of a short story collection. With that “ask” of the reader who then gives will receive another book of mine, Reimagining Sanity: Voices Beyond the Echo Chamber. In my view [Dan Kovalik], this Noble Cause myth may be the most powerful and enduring propaganda trick ever perpetrated. And, it works so well because the audience for the trick — the U.S. people — are such willing and eager participants in the charade. To explain the power of the Noble Cause myth, Marciano quotes from Harold Pinter’s 2005 Nobel Prize lecture.  I set forth a larger quote from the lecture than appears in the book because it is so profound: The United States supported and in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The horror the United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be forgiven. Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout these countries. Did they take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy. But you wouldn’t know it. It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis. John Steppling, my fellow writer who studies intersections of culture-mimesis-art-politics (My review of his book,  Aesthetic Resistence and Dis-interest. That Which Will Not Allow Itself to be Said, here at DV) discusses the MFA phenomenon, a true watering down and controlled form of check and balances fiction: So, the fact that The Rockefeller Foundation underwrote (and still underwrites) a good many MFA programs (and not just in literature, but in theatre and fine arts) is both relevant, and not. Or maybe a better way to address this is see The Rockefeller Foundation as symptom. I received a Rockefeller fellowship, which I hadn’t applied for. But, the very fact that creative writing programs boomed after WW2, and permeated the academic landscape is without question linked to the patronage of institutions like The Rockefeller Foundation (and the MacArthur Foundation, and…). And to deny that the tacit influence of these institutions is idiotic. Now, it’s also true that what John Crowe Ransom and Stegner and Burrows preached is correct. Or it’s correct up to a point. It is revealing that Melville was derided, because Melville wrote a lot of ideas, and additionally observed the ways those ideas and that knowledge existed in the world. But it is equally true that you do not observe those harpoons so closely, or closely in a particular way, that all you get is a harpoon description. And a so described harpoon that never participates in riots or social unrest, and whose production is unexamined and the harpoon company that distributes it is left blank…the better to describe the fluted morning dew that bifurcates my tabby cat’s shadow on the harpoon handle, and etc etc etc is only a individual’s sensory observation. The harpoon must be known, not just observed. The real point here is that what Iowa started, and many other University programs followed, was to narrow down the definition of “fiction”. Dante would not be considered fiction today. While there is a point in demanding a concrete description, and not a generality, the exclusive focus on the concrete meant that ideas were being eliminated in fiction. The world is not abstract… but that includes History and politics and tensions of daily life. Those offices in New York, or those bad marriages, are not separate from the Chinese Revolution, or U.S. Imperialism, or the blockade of Cuba or the present two million men and women in prison in the United States. ‘Greatness’, whatever that means, and I have no problem with that word, or the ideas behind it, is in discovering both what that connection is, and ..and this is important I believe…how our own personal emotional and psychic formation, and development are related to both Mao and our failed marriages (or, even the successful ones). The emphasis on observation, on brute description, however eclipsed ideas as a subject for fiction. You may not sit down to write ideas, per se, but you certainly have an idea of what a harpoon is. You have to know certain things, and, in fact, the best writing is that which tells you what you don’t know, not describes nicely what you already do know. And there is a tendency in young writers to generalize. So on the one hand it’s natural to emphasize the concrete, but the result, perhaps intentional, or partly so (given the Rockefeller project) was the elimination of ideas in prose, and the narrowing of the definition of what constituted “fiction” http://clubof.info/