by Damo Kandinsky
(excerpted from: PULL THE PIN: The KeroseneBomb Reader)
GET BLANKO!
BEEP…channels opening…StrangeCorp data retrieval operational…
“LA call for ya, Mr S…”
The humanoid-voiceprint avatar clean forgotten since last night’s debauches sidled up to Strangelove, all mincing electro-hum, high pitched whiney love-me-cos-I’m-deferential self abasement, but the recumbent demi/household god was/is in no mood for trifling. He flicks/flicked a switch and the robot’s sarcasm/camp-banter circuit went dead on him.
BS, Buffy, Buffy to his friends, Mr Strangelove to those who go in fear of the wrath of God in (at least) 3 persons…today is BLANKO. These nuisance-value websites haven’t yet been closed down…the BS channels of influence not yet fully tumescent. Not yet characteristically tumescent with throbbing BS activity, agents up and down the line, digital agitators, flesh ‘n’ blood agents, cack-handed office functionaries, power bimbos with stick-on political convictions, court officers, corrupt Media barons, Mr. Bigs, none of them yet awake to the potentiality of Blanko Is Evil propaganda. Websites bearing the (semi)divine image, telling it like it is, as they say. They say he’s evil. But they know NOTHING. His good is their death. But…nothing. They’re like flies and he’s like a wanton boy. Kandinsky likes a good semi-classical allusion early doors. He’s the fucking boss though innit? We humour or defer. Humour or defer. He’s a moron but when roused…
“OK, ready…” hums Mr S as he eases into semi-consciousness. Today he sports a bald look, one bulging/one squinting eye and massive soup strainer moustache. He warms up with a few preliminary “Doh”s and squints at the vid-phone screen, puffing and blowing in exasperation. He’s worked it (somehow – nobody knows how, which is a function of the genius of StrangeCorp generally) that every time anyone anywhere in the world says “Doh” credit deposits are made into StrangeCorp accounts straight from FOX, and of course Groening is at his wits end, but that’s another made up story…
“Agent BDSM guv…” says the image on the screen.
A pregnant pause looms, but somehow also kick starts and simultaneously anticipates the strange banter to come in a manner not readily susceptible of description.
“Well”? enquires Strangelove.
“Well…well, we’re waiting…I can’t hold these goddam hyeanas off any longer Mr S. We…” he corrects himself “…they are still waiting. We…I mean they, want product. New product. StrangeCorp stocks are plummeting BS…”
Strangelove/Blanko merely looks nonplussed, blows through his moustache a few more times and fixes Agent BDSM with a bulge-eyed stare.
“Er, what I mean is, your, er, grace…”
BS dismisses the blandishments with a wave of the hand
“…uh, what I mean, BS, is that sanguine though you may be about the state of StrangeCorp stocks, there are rumblings in the financial jungle!”
“Rumblings?”
Emboldened, Agent BDSM warms to his theme.
“Yes, rumblings! It may seem ludicrous to you, but we need product. Again. But…and I’ll tell you this for nothing mate…it’s got to be below 35,000 feet of film this time. That’s TOTAL length. Unedited. Get me? Somehow, your message must be condensed, de-tumesced…if you will…”
His tone softens appreciably as he leans into the camera, bumping his forehead as he does so.
“Listen Buffy, you know I’d only say this for your own good. I’m not trying to force you into anything. But you know, and I know, we all know, that not doing anything is like, well, you know the result in advance. Do something and the effects are, well, imponderable to say the least!”
And with that he sits back with the air of a man whose point has been well made.
And indeed it had been. Strangelove knew the wisdom of Agent BDSM. He knew that, even though StrangeCorp shares could never collapse entirely while he was still capable of MIndFUck Operations reality morphing (via subsidiary offshore holding Co RealityCorp Ents) the quality of the stock must never be allowed to depreciate appreciably. New product, he understood, was necessary for the continued maintenance of channels A B C and beyond…
New Product. Yes, why not? New Product out of his very own genes. New lines of discontinuance. New obfuscations. New HUMANS. New carefully covered tracks. Evil bastards in their prime halted in their tracks. New traditions of subservience, bullshit, obeisance and obfuscation to be nurtured.
Plus of course inaction almost always equaled De-Tumescence of the most distressing kind. Product is and was of course the be-all and end-all of existence. No point denying it. People need things to have, to touch, to dream…
Giving one last puff through his moustache, then, and fixing Agent BDSM with one last gimlet stare, he acquiesced…
“Agent BDSM, you’re a diamond…You done good my son…Hear me and hear me well. Your efforts will never go unrewarded while I breathe this fetid air. Are there any more like you at home Agent BDSM? Or did they break the mold when they made you? Your ingenuity in these matters will not go un-noticed while I still…[CLICK]…”
Agent BDSM was already gone. He had of course heard it all, and much verbiage of a similar nature, before.
Blanko sighed. The start of a good day’s work…and to reward himself he rolled over again, already Get Catered Michael Caine, nekkid with a shotgun(!) to all intents and purposes, and gave the boarding-house landlady, who for her part was wondering how on earth she’d ended up in this strange place, one of the best, most roistering seeings-to she’d experienced in many a long frustrated year…
Coming up for air, literal realities intervened…humming, straight from the enlarged, engorged brainpan of Strangelove. Fully channeled. All agents on standby…receiving. Direct download of spurious material…
DELEGATE!
“Bullet point this fucker would ya sweetie?”
Strangelove habitually disrespects employees but since they’ve all grown up in and beyond a universe in which this sort of disrespect is no longer regarded as a bad thing (ie: they don’t give a fuck themselves) they give as good as they get and given that Mr. S is a simpleton whose actual understanding of the channels of power he controls is attenuated to say the least, it doesn’t seem to matter to them. The power is always obtuse, impossible to actually discover. And that is his secret or one of them anyway…
DELEGATE!
We need…
· An impenetrable section. Full of abstruse imagery and lame-arsed pseudo- intellectual rambling. Something that will set indelible benchmarks of otiosity for the clinically tendentious and loathsome. This demographic should never be underestimated. It grows like a cancer. And we need to be ready to supply like with like, meeting this cancer in the body politic with a cancer of our own. A kick-ass cancer that brooks no backchat. This will take the form of impenetrable rambling of an intensely fatuous nature.
· A romantic interlude. Needless to say, for our purposes, “romantic” must perforce be an analogue of “pornographic”. I know for certain, Daisy, that in some influential circles, the only real romance left in the world is that of the pornographic. While I have personal issues with this outlook, I know it carries weight in certain bone-headed enclaves.
· An abstruse intellectual fugue. This must needs be composed of rhetorical elements purporting to explain ontological phenomena with reference to pop-cultural elements. I know it’s distasteful Daisy, but any book or film seriously intending to throw its intellectual weight around must of course touch these bases as delicately or as roughly as you like, according to taste. My personal preference (for what it’s worth – not much, as of course I exist merely to channel, to facilitate, to dream, to create, to babble, to expectorate, to haver, to prevaricate, to decipher, to alienate) is to take the rough with the smooth. With the emphasis firmly on the rough.
· A sex scene. This must, for obvious reasons, involve a multiplicity of rabbits. What’s that you say? It’s not obvious to you? My dear child, surely you know that rabbits are the most myth-laden creatures in the entire mytho-cultural realm. There barely exists a civilization in this or any dimension that I’m aware of that hasn’t seriously relied on rabbit iconography to bolster it’s sense of permanence or weightiness. Mythologically speaking, in other words, rabbits is where it’s at. But also clearly sex sells and by extension Key Moments in the narrative/continuum must be weighted with sex, freighted with rabbit imagery and sealed with a kiss.
Now, Daisy, I’m all shagged out. Come and give me one while I visualize. The visions must be unlocked. Agents must be placed on standby. Remind me, after you’ve sucked me dry, to memo Agent BDSM. Channels must be opened. And now, let us be GARLANDED with daisies. We enter the new world vision zone of Key Moments frozen in time/space. The ghosts are emerging…bottle the pure bliss…globules of love explode in image frenzy…3 Stooges…Marx Bros…Laurel ‘n’ Hardy…(later later)…Brando…Montgomery Shirtlifter…(earlier earlier)…Cagney white heat…no, too cack handed…Mae West…Adam West…(how’s that for a juxtaposition?)…Michael Angelo Caine…CAINE??? -30-
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