tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27516273282016138242024-03-04T21:31:20.796-08:00THE ORAKULOIDthe Confessions, Critiques, and Conjurations
of JASON SQUAMATA
(writer, performer, reporter, etc.)Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16694737987342301986noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2751627328201613824.post-33206272080406122912012-09-13T10:55:00.003-07:002012-09-13T10:57:57.659-07:00MORE HUNGRY GHOSTS TAKING SHAPE IN MY SOUNDCLOUD<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://soundcloud.com/jason-squamata" target="_blank">FOLLOW THE JASON SQUAMATA SOUNDCLOUD.</a></div>
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<a href="http://soundcloud.com/jason-squamata" target="_blank">FRESH SPOKEN WORD SPLENDOR.</a></div>
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<a href="http://soundcloud.com/jason-squamata" target="_blank">WORDS AND VOICE BY JASON SQUAMATA.</a></div>
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<a href="http://soundcloud.com/jason-squamata" target="_blank">ART BY ANDREW Mc KENZIE</a></div>
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<a href="http://soundcloud.com/jason-squamata" target="_blank">MUSIC BY ESOTRONICA & SIR RICHARD WENTWORTH.</a></div>
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<a href="http://soundcloud.com/jason-squamata" target="_blank">CLICK ANYWHERE TO LISTEN.</a></div>
<a href="http://soundcloud.com/jason-squamata" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmMLfKrxywyuk9T4GClLrPGODOi7v10ypXSxx9h94bsTluhIxgoL5SKuqyg0P0QHXIclmsFzYW-NCwq4B3TfOujdwFTtGpvvP5YOCcJbOl8OPXD7xDgEI0IRaCtzBJBsNrvFT6DZKwneYT/s640/3-SLIDE-2.jpg" width="518" /></a><br />
<a href="http://soundcloud.com/jason-squamata" target="_blank"></a>IMAGE: "3 SLIDE" by Andrew Mc Kenzie, from HYPNOZINE by Squamata/Mc Kenzie...<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmMLfKrxywyuk9T4GClLrPGODOi7v10ypXSxx9h94bsTluhIxgoL5SKuqyg0P0QHXIclmsFzYW-NCwq4B3TfOujdwFTtGpvvP5YOCcJbOl8OPXD7xDgEI0IRaCtzBJBsNrvFT6DZKwneYT/s1600/3-SLIDE-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16694737987342301986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2751627328201613824.post-40304710236336717242012-09-06T10:16:00.001-07:002012-09-06T10:21:53.985-07:00DECISION 2012! WHO WILL ROCK THE COMPLEX?!...THE GENERATION GASH! Episode Two<br />
THE ORAKULOID proudly presents<br />
<br />
AMERIKAN ZER0!: "THE GENERATION GASH!"<br />
Episode TWO of an illustrated Action Freak-Out<br />
Scripted by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/jason.squamata" target="_blank">JASON SQUAMATA</a><br />
Illustrated by<a href="http://www.theweststreetheritage.com/Home.html" target="_blank"> ANDREW Mc KENZIE</a><br />
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(<a href="http://orakuloid.blogspot.com/2012/09/election-fever-as-fresh-and-ferocious.html" target="_blank">previously in AMERIKAN ZER0!)</a><br />
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currently...<br />
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AMERIKAN ZER0! #1: “THE GENERATION GASH!” (cont'd)</div>
<div>
script by Jason Squamata</div>
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PAGE FOUR:</div>
<div>
A high school fantasia. Bubbles of hope and longing. High fashion ads. Beautiful young people, making the scene. Blown kisses. Grim confrontations. The grounds and halls of Kakodelphia West High School. So many tomorrows. Repeating shots of the boys advancing on the school, late for class. Bells ringing. Locker doors slamming. Libraries and gymnasiums. Perhaps a bubble of stillness as the boys have entered the school, sulking at the threshold of their great adventure. Putting on their sunglasses. A pause before the slaughter.</div>
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CAPTION:</div>
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SKYE IS A JUNIOR. SHE WANTS TO BE A PAINTER. SHE'S TAKEN DRUGS TWICE. HER FAVORITE COLOR IS SILVER. SHE LIKES THE SOUND OF BREAKING GLASS.</div>
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CAPTION:</div>
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TRAN IS A FRESHMAN. HE LIKES SOFT JAZZ MUSIC AND MATH. HE SPIT AT A POLICEMAN ONCE. HE HATES HIS BIG SISTER. HIS UNCLE LIVES IN VIETNAM.</div>
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CAPTION:</div>
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CRYSTAL IS A SENIOR. CRYSTAL IS "POPULAR". GENUINELY SWEET AND LOVED BY ALL. MAYBE SHE WANTS TO BE A LAWYER. MAYBE BROADCASTING. SHE'S NOT SURE. SHE HAD AN ABORTION, ONCE, BUT NOBODY KNOWS.</div>
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CAPTION:</div>
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BRADLEY IS A SOPHOMORE. HE HAS A NATURAL TALENT FOR FOOTBALL, BUT HE DOESN'T CARE MUCH FOR THE FOOTBALL CROWD. HE'S INTERESTED IN BUDDHISM. HE LIKES INDIAN FOOD. HE LIKES TO DANCE. HIS FATHER COMMITTED SUICIDE.</div>
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AMERIKAN ZER0! #1...script by Jason Squamata...Page 8</div>
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CAPTION:</div>
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KENNY IS A FRESHMAN. YVONNE IS A SENIOR. MANDY IS A SENIOR. THADDEUS IS A JUNIOR. DOROTHY IS A TEACHER. MITCH IS A SECURITY GUARD. MOCHA IS A SOPHOMORE. ETCETERA. ETCETRA. ETCETERA.</div>
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and then the bullets start flying, shredding through flesh, taking every character to pieces as he goes. he has no mercy. he's a brutal motherfucker. he cannot be reasoned with, questioned, defeated or obstructed. he's a monster you might have dreamt about back in the day. twisted sideways through a space that none of these soldiers will remember. who's whisper is that? they're wondering which bullet is should save for you. who can i put this bullet in? who wants it?</div>
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there are seven potential victims in this room at this very moment. so these agents will get deployed without any kind of executive clearance. there were only as many bullets as we needed. these people woiuld have been killed no matter what the circumstances.</div>
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CUT TO the inside of the Institute. The lightning strikes inside </div>
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CAPTION:</div>
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JOE AND DAMIAN ARE ANGELS OF DEATH, SAVORING THE PAUSE BEFORE THEIR APOCALYPSE.</div>
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CAPTION:</div>
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NOW.</div>
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PAGE FIVE (splash page):</div>
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Teenage wasteland. Apocalyptic bloodbath. Columbine the fashion shoot. High School Musical splinters into High School Massacre. Screaming homecoming queens. Exposed midriffs and juicy couture splattered with blood. Jocks sobbing and pissing themselves as they're disembowelled by bullets. Joe and Damian getting into it, grinning and laughing, Angels of Death in camo chic. Paying special attention to the teachers. Murdering favorite and nemesis alike. The captions will tell how many points for each kill and any special powers they get from “easter eggs”.</div>
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CAPTION:</div>
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BANG! HATED GYM TEACHER. 200 POINTS!</div>
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CAPTION:</div>
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BANG! GIRL WHO LAUGHED WHEN YOU ASKED HER OUT. 500 POINTS!</div>
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CAPTION: </div>
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BANG! BANG! BANG! ALL THE PRETTY PEOPLE AND ALL THE LONELIES ALIKE, SCREAMING, BLOODY, AND SUDDENLY DEAD IN A BLITZKRIEG OF BLOOD AND JUDGEMENT.</div>
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CAPTION:</div>
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IT'S LIKE YOU WERE BORN TO DO THIS.</div>
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CAPTION:</div>
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IT'S LIKE YOU FOUND YOUR FUNCTION.</div>
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CAPTION:</div>
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AND DAMIAN, SUCH A VICIOUS KILLER. YOU TRAINED HIM WELL.</div>
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CAPTION: </div>
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THE TWO OF YOU, BORN TO KILL AND KILL AND DIE!</div>
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CAPTION:</div>
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HIGH SCHOOL BLOODBATH. 10,000 POINTS!</div>
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PAGE SIX (six panels):</div>
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PANEL ONE:</div>
<div>
In the aftermath, Joe and Damian in the library. Bodies squirming and mewling and bleeding on the floor. Maybe fleeing students visible in the hallway. The killers don't care anymore. </div>
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The calm after the storm. </div>
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MEGAPHONE VOICE FROM OUTSIDE:</div>
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WE ARE THE POLICE! WE HAVE THE SCHOOL SURROUNDED! MORE VIOLENCE WOULD BE FUTILE! DROP YOUR WEAPONS AND COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEADS!</div>
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CAPTION:</div>
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YOU’RE SO COLD AND LETHAL, LIKE ADAM ZER0 HIMSELF.</div>
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AND THAT’S THE POINT OF IT ALL</div>
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UNLESS YOU ARE JOE NUTHING AND YOU’VE JUST GONE CRAZY.</div>
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PANEL TWO:</div>
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Damian is coming down off the adrenalin rush, starting to feel the creeping tendrils of reality, and he’s looking to Joe for leadership, to keep the dream alive</div>
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. </div>
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DAMIAN:</div>
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NOW WHAT? </div>
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PANEL THREE:</div>
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Joe shoots him point blank in the face. </div>
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JOE:</div>
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MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. </div>
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PANEL FOUR:</div>
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Men in MK0 combat suits (like SWAT team/Delta Force gear but more fetishy, emblazoned with the ZER0! brand, an iconic Amerikan five-pointed star with a “0” in it) pour into the room, dragging in a gurgling retard clone of Joe, wearing the same clothes he's wearing. </div>
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CAPTION:</div>
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NOW YOU REMEMBER. THE CLEANERS ALWAYS BRING A BRAIN-DEAD CLONE OF WHOEVER YOU’RE PRETENDING TO BE. THEY MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE A SUICIDE.</div>
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PANEL FIVE:</div>
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They take Damian's gun and shoot the clone.</div>
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JOE (to Damian’s corpse):</div>
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YOU WERE A GOOD SOLDIER.</div>
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PANEL SIX:</div>
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Men in black suits with secret service headsets escort joe out the back door of the school, flanked by soldiers, to a 1961 Lincoln presidential limousine, the car JFK was killed in, motor running, the driver dressed in special forces combat gear. </div>
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MAN IN BLACK:</div>
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FLAWLESS OPERATION, ZER0. DR. GREENBAUM WILL BE SO PROUD OF YOU.</div>
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PAGE SEVEN:</div>
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PANEL ONE:</div>
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Joe Nuthing staring out the window of the car with a steely adult intensity. He's a little disoriented, seeing the ruins he always leaves in his wake when it's time to slough another skin.</div>
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MAN IN BLACK: </div>
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WE’LL HAVE YOU BACK AT THE INSTITUTE BEFORE YOU KNOW IT, AGENT ZER0. SAY GOOD-BYE TO ANOTHER EXPIRED LIFE.</div>
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JOE:</div>
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I GUESS. WHATEVER. GAME OVER.</div>
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PANEL TWO:</div>
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The car is racing away from the school in its state of siege. A couple of cops make as if to leap into their squad car and give chase, but a Delta Force type trains his gun on them and says </div>
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SOLDIER:</div>
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NEVER MIND THAT CAR. IT’S OVER. GET YOUR ASSES IN THERE AND HELP US CLEAN UP.</div>
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CAPTION:</div>
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A MOMENT OF TENSE “WHO’S THE ALPHA DOG?” GAMESHOW MUSIC.</div>
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PANEL THREE:</div>
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Then they go towards the school with the other cops and the paramedics. Doing as they're told. Screaming, blood-splattered students and teachers.</div>
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CAPTION:</div>
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THEN ALL IS RIGHT WITH THE WORLD.</div>
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PANEL FOUR:</div>
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Big bubble of the limo driving towards the Tavistok Institute for Applied Societry. Adam Zer0, relieved of his Joe Nuthing cover identity, on his way to a hardcore debriefing session. Another bloody victory for the secret policeman.</div>
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CAPTION:</div>
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AND IT’S LIKE IT NEVER HAPPENED.</div>
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CAPTION:</div>
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IT’S LIKE IT NEVER HAPPENED...AGAIN.</div>
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PAGE EIGHT:</div>
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Laid out like the brochure for an exclusive spa, but it's not just the body that's being altered and de-toxified, it's the psyche and the soul. </div>
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PANEL ONE:</div>
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In the lush modern lobby of the institute, the secret service men are checking him in. A nurse and a doctor might be standing at attention, passing paperwork. Like the scene in “A Clockwork Orange” where Alex is being conducted from the prison to the private hospital where he receives the Ludovico Treatment. The presidential limo might be visible through the glass doors, idling outside. Joe looks spaced-out and sulky at the same time.</div>
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CAPTION:</div>
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ARE YOU THE KIND OF MAN WHO SEES LIFE AS A SERIES OF ACHIEVABLE OBJECTIVES?</div>
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CAPTION:</div>
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ARE YOU FEELING FRAZZLED BY THAT AWKWARD TIME BETWEEN MISSIONS?</div>
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PANEL TWO:</div>
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Then he's flanked by a smiling doctor and a smiling nurse in an elevator descending to sub-basement 33. Joe has the grim insolence of someone about to die, refusing to give his killers the satisfaction of seeing his fear. There's blood on his t-shirt and on his cheek. It could belong to anyone.</div>
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CAPTION:</div>
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PEEL OFF THAT OBSOLETE COVER IDENTITY AND GET UNBORN...THEN BORN AGAIN.</div>
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CAPTION:</div>
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...AT THE TRAVISTOK INSTITUTE FOR APPLIED SOCIETRY.</div>
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PANEL THREE:</div>
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Then he's in a decompression where doctors in suits and lab jackets (all wearing surgical masks) run tests and clutch clipboards, like they're giving him a physical. He's been scissored free of his clothing. In their background, perhaps the oval portal to the sloughing room is visible.</div>
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CAPTION:</div>
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REMEMBER: YOU ARE NOT WHO YOU ARE.</div>
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CAPTION:</div>
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EXPERIENCE HARDCORE TRANQUILITY!</div>
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CAPTION:</div>
<div>
IN THE DECOMPRESSION PANTRY.</div>
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PANEL FOUR:</div>
<div>
Then he's standing, dazed with his arms held aloft, in the sloughing room, bathed in a sickly green light. Technicians in star-spangled hazmat suits are peeling off his skin grafts with special instruments, loosening tissue corsets, peeling a star-shaped, flesh-toned decal from his forehead to reveal a barcode, shaving him and spraying him with strange vapors.</div>
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CAPTION:</div>
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IN THE SLOUGHING CHAMBER.</div>
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PANEL FIVE:</div>
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Then he's naked and blank and thinner and taller than he was, walking down a long oval corridor that leads to an absolutely white room. Technicians in hazmat suits are at the threshold, waving, beaming like their child is receiving his diploma. </div>
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CAPTION:</div>
<div>
IN THE CLEAN ROOM.</div>
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CAPTION:</div>
<div>
FROM NUTHING TO ZER0 IN THIRTY-THREE MINUTES.</div>
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<br /></div>
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CAPTION:</div>
<div>
THE INSTITUTE...BECAUSE SOMETIMES A SOMEBODY NEEDS TO BE NOBODY.<br />
<br />
...<br />
TO BE CONTINUED...</div>
</div>
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<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16694737987342301986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2751627328201613824.post-28166084893210989432012-09-03T14:50:00.001-07:002012-09-03T14:59:13.282-07:00ELECTION FEVER!: AS FRESH AND FEROCIOUS AS TODAY'S SHRIEKING HEADLINES!!!THE ORAKULOID proudly presents<br />
<br />
<b>AMERIKAN ZER0!: "THE GENERATION GASH!"</b><br />
Episode One of an illustrated Action Freak-Out<br />
Scripted by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/jason.squamata" target="_blank">JASON SQUAMATA</a><br />
Illustrated by <a href="http://www.theweststreetheritage.com/Home.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">ANDREW Mc KENZIE</a><br />
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...<br />
AMERIKAN ZER0! #1: “THE GENERATION GASH!”<br />
script by Jason Squamata<br />
<br />
FRONTISPIECE:<br />
"I pledge obedience to the brand<br />
of the United Syndicates of Amerikorps<br />
and to the conglomerate for which it stands:<br />
One enterprise, under surveillance<br />
omnipotent and invisible<br />
with security and commerce for all."<br />
<br />
PAGE ONE (splash page):<br />
A splashy advertizement, like an evocative movie poster or an advert for a video game, advertising the life of Adam Zer0, perhaps patterned on those "Army of One" military ads, pastiched or psychedelicized into an "Army of Zero" ad. The narration is in the second person, inviting the player (or reader) into total immersion. There are images of Adam Zer0 layered over one another, at various scales.<br />
-Adam Zer0 shaved and bald and blank before a circular static-filled fisheye tv screen, in a completely blank room. <br />
-Adam Zer0 in Steve McQueen “Bullitt” mode: a lean, mean piece of work, cleaning his guns.<br />
-Adam Zer0 engaged in a feverish tantric kung-fu battle with Kali-Ma Kaligula, the femme fatale/lunatic supervillain of his mythos. an image that splices absolute elegance and absolute brutality.<br />
AMERIKAN ZER0! #1...script by Jason Squamata...Page 2<br />
<br />
CAPTION:<br />
YOU ARE NOT WHO YOU ARE.<br />
<br />
CAPTION:<br />
FOCUS YOUR UNWAVERING GAZE ON THE SPIRALLING HYPNO-DISC. LISTEN TO THE HISS OF BLACK STATIC, A DEAD FREQUENCY BETWEEN IDENTITIES. BREATHE THE STINK OF GUNPOWDER AND LEATHER AND CYANIDE. TASTE ALIEN SWEAT AND THE STEAMING MEAT OF YOUR ENEMIES. FEEL THE LATEX FLEX OF A SKIN MADE FOR KILLING.<br />
<br />
CAPTION:<br />
YOU ARE NOT WHO YOU ARE.<br />
<br />
CAPTION:<br />
YOU ARE THE SECRET POLICEMAN. YOU ARE WHOEVER YOU NEED TO BE TO KEEP THE PEACE. YOU KEEP THE PEACE...WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE.<br />
<br />
CAPTION:<br />
YOU ARE ADAM ZER0. YOU ARE EVERYONE AND NO-ONE. YOU ARE DEEP UNDER COVER.<br />
<br />
CAPTION:<br />
AND EVERYTHING IS UNDER CONTROL.<br />
<br />
TITLES:<br />
ADAM ZER0!... THE GENERATION GASH!<br />
<br />
PAGE TWO (splash page):<br />
Diorama of ritualized teen angst. centering on Joe Nuthing, an emotionally empty and alienated seventeen year old high school student. Listening to demonic glitchy nightmare muzik. Casually watching gruesome action movies. Playing ultraviolent Adam Zer0 video games. His only friend is another misfit named Damian. They spend their free time popping Ritalin, learning the way of the ninja, and reading “Guns'n'Ammo” magazines like other kids read comics or playboys. The narration is still in the second person, inviting you into the life of Joe Nuthing, a ticking teenage timebomb waiting to go off on every living thing it sees. Like a CGI setup for the Columbine video game. Maybe the scene is suffused with LABRATZ merchandise. LABRATZ is a cartoon screwed-up kids get obsessed with. It’s set in a laboratory. The experimental rat characters are identically blank and miserable, except for one. In every episode, one rat rouses the rabble and brings the lab to the brink of revolution, with a career path modeled on a modern dictator. Hitler or Stalin or Dick Cheney or Idi Amin. Then the fluorescent bulbs come on like a sickly flickering sun and the scientist enters, grabs the rat in question, shoots it full of ome brain-melting chemical, and leaves the rats in a disappointed, dreamless stupor. The LABRATZ Empire is comparable to Disney. Their themepark is called LABRATZ AMERIKA. All of Joe’s fashions and toys should be based on LABRATZ.<br />
<br />
CAPTION:<br />
MAYBE YOU'RE AN ALIENATED, RITALIN-FRIED HIGH SCHOOL KID NAMED JOE NUTHING, TRAPPED IN A WORLD YOU NEVER MADE.<br />
<br />
CAPTION:<br />
YOU BARELY KNOW YOUR PARENTS. YOU BARELY REMEMBER YOUR EARLY CHILDHOOD AND ALL THEIR OLD PHOTOGRAPHS OF YOU LOOK LIKE THEY WERE FAKED.<br />
AMERIKAN ZER0! #1...script by Jason Squamata...Page 4<br />
<br />
CAPTION:<br />
YOUR ONLY JOY LIES IN DREAMS OF APOCALYPSE, FANTASIES OF EPIC CARNAGE, TAKING REVENGE ON A WORLD THAT WON'T LISTEN.<br />
<br />
CAPTION:<br />
YOU LISTEN TO DEMONIC MISANTHROPIC GLITCH-HOP MUZIK. YOU STUDY GUNS WITH YOUR ONLY FRIEND DAMIAN. YOU PLAY ULTRAVIOLENT ADAM ZER0 VIDEO<br />
GAMES. JUST TO FEEL. JUST TO FEEL...SOMETHING.<br />
<br />
CAPTION:<br />
YOU FLIP THROUGH THE YEARBOOK AND IMAGINE THE CORPSE OF EVERY AWKWARD PORTRAIT. YOU RECEIVE REPORTS ON THEIR THOUGHTCRIMES THROUGH ADVERTS, RANDOM CONVERSATIONS, AND SLICES OF STATIC.<br />
<br />
CAPTION:<br />
YOU'RE WAITING FOR TODAY TO BE THE DAY. MAYBE YOUR NAME IS JOE NUTHING. MAYBE JOE NUTHING IS READY TO DIE.<br />
<br />
<br />
PAGE THREE (splash page):<br />
Damian comes over in the morning, like he always does, so they can walk to school together and maybe not get beat up or egged by passing cool kids. Joe is eating a bowl of Labratz Glo-in-the-dark Rit-a-Bitz. There's a gun on the table. His supine mother's legs might be visible through the doorway. She’s bleeding to death on the kitchen floor. There are four big camo dufflebags (full of guns and ammo) by the front door. Damian is confused. Joe says "today's the day". He hands the uzi to Damian. "santa came. everything we talked about. it's all coming true." Damian is confused, but intoxicated by the weight of the gun in his hand. It's like a dream he's having. He's afraid to ask questions. He might wake up. They stare at each other with something like love. "It's on" they say in unison. Joe grabs the lunch his dead mother packed for him. They grab the dufflebags. They're going to school.<br />
<br />
CAPTION:<br />
THIS DAY IS A SCHOOLDAY LIKE ANY OTHER, ALMOST. YOU WAIT FOR DAMIAN AND THEN HE GETS HERE AND THEN YOU WALK TO SCHOOL.<br />
<br />
CAPTION:<br />
BUT THERE'S SOMETHING DIFFERENT ABOUT TODAY. FIRST, THAT SPECIAL DELIVERY. THEN, THE WAY MOM JUST WOULDN'T STOP. UNTIL SHE DID.<br />
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CAPTION:<br />
NOW, DAMIAN, LIKE ALWAYS. BUT IT'S DIFFERENT. NOT THE NAUSEA OF IMPENDING HELL. INSTEAD THE BUTTERFLIES OF IMPENDING ADVENTURE.<br />
<br />
DAMIAN:<br />
JOE. WHAT'S UP?<br />
AMERIKAN ZER0! #1...script by Jason Squamata...Page 6<br />
<br />
JOE:<br />
what's UP? TODAY. TODAY'S THE DAY, SOLDIER.<br />
<br />
JOE:<br />
EVERYTHING WE TALKED ABOUT. SANTA CAME. IT'S ALL COMING TRUE.<br />
<br />
JOE AND DAMIAN:<br />
it's ON.<br />
<br />
JOE:<br />
LET'S GO TO SCHOOL.<br />
<br />
...To Be Continued...<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16694737987342301986noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2751627328201613824.post-32628233842608080592012-09-02T09:53:00.002-07:002012-09-04T10:14:20.308-07:00GOING SOFT: A Confession ...from Jason Squamata (first performed at The Soft Show, Portand, OR...8/8/12)I’ll be honest with you.<br />
Softness is not exactly my fortee, writing-wise.<br />
On a personal level, I guess I’m kind (if not always gentle) and I’m so accommodating, in general, that I’m almost a liquid.<br />
But on the page, I like it rough.<br />
I write pulp stories about Devil-worshipping rocket scientists who use ritual orgies and evil yoga to end the world as we know it; psychoprogrammed CIA serial killers and insatiable celebutantes who mutate into sentient corporations when the moon inside is full.<br />
I can’t tell a soft story to save my life.<br />
But I can tell you a soft truth, maybe.<br />
I will tell you about a genuine moment of softness that did, in fact, save my life.<br />
It was about a year ago...<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
For the first time ever, I had been dumped.<br />
After an electric first three weeks and then four years of slow estrangement, I was dumped by my girlfriend and forced by circumstance to remain in the same apartment complex with her for a few months thereafter. <br />
It was only a matter of time, really.<br />
But she made the call, and my liquid sense of self was suddenly frozen solid and shattered into a thousand black fragments.<br />
I was drunk for 30 days, almost without interruption.<br />
I had tormented, incoherent conversations with my teddy bear.<br />
I became addicted to the music...of Kanye West.<br />
I needed to invoke the essence of someone who loved themselves with that much passion and devotion. My heroes were megalomaniacs and supervillains. Kanye and Lex Luthor and Walter White were spirit guides in a dream academy of ambient paranoia and toxic spite. <br />
One night, fearlessly, off my head by five, a cartoon by seven, I hit the karaoke bar, head full of "Ye". A party in progress. Colleagues and lovely strangers. But I didn’t give a damn. About anything. I coerced one of the village beauties into duetting with me on “Gold Digger”. I was almost not the opposite of happy. And before I knew it, an adorable, shimmering little woman was buying me drinks. She said she admired my dance stylings. <br />
I hadn’t gone mad. I hadn’t thought about the ex all day and this girl actually liked me. <br />
What would Kanye do? I asked her to go out with me. <br />
She seemed to be charmed and said she would say yes, but she wasn’t “available”. At all. She explained that she found my dancing beautiful because I was obviously in so much pain and I was dancing all that pain into spasmodic sweat and steam. <br />
Someone had seen me very clearly at my most broken, and found that me attractive. She wasn’t available, but I gave her my card. <br />
“Trust me”, I said, “These things can go south when you least expect it. If it does, call me.” I was suddenly a charming older man, dammit. I was beyond Kanye. I was Steve Mc Fucking Queen. She wasn’t available, but she insisted that I kiss her. And I did. <br />
Bittersweet fireworks. Explosions don’t have much future in them. It burned through a few layers of my bullshit. The party was over. I went back to my life.<br />
Back to my empty room and the novel and the spirit-shredding loneliness.<br />
The speakers throbbed with defensive testosterone. I was reading brutal crime fiction and neurotic erotica. My writing was coming on in bursts that had more cruelty than beauty in them, and therefore fell flat. However turgid the subject matter, the rhapsody is an act of love, and I’d never felt more loveless. The work had been my great solace and salvation through every struggle I’d ever known. <br />
But my own inner symphonies were shrinking from my touch.<br />
Then she started calling me. The girl from the karaoke bar. She lived with a boyfriend. They’d grown to hate each other, and they had a child. <br />
She wasn’t available, but she wanted me. At a few different bars with her closest friends, where our flirtations were shameless. At a movie theatre, where things got weird in the dark while super-monkeys set the world on fire. And then, just as the weirdness of our connection reached a fever pitch, I made a half-assed attempt to pull the plug. I knew she was lonely like me, and not thinking rationally. <br />
Our sudden hunger for each other was palpable and already getting out of control, and there was a child, and it was confusing. <br />
I suggested that we walk away from whatever this thing was. <br />
It hurt to do that, but it was the hardcore thing to do. I was on the verge of becoming helpless again. I couldn’t let that happen.<br />
But she invited me to meet her at the Looking Glass Hotel. <br />
The rough parts of me resisted the urge. <br />
I caught the quickest bus.<br />
At that hotel, the rooms are named after songs composed by the bands who have stayed there. Our room was called “will you ever return?”<br />
She was waiting, with a bottle of absinthe and a lot of nervous energy and a coin her grandmother had given her. She was thrilled that I was there and surprised that she was there and she wasn’t making sense and she needed me to have the coin so I’d know that there was someone out there who would think and wonder about me all the time, all the days and nights of her life. <br />
Her boyfriend was at home, baby-sitting their son. <br />
The whole scene was fraught with so many layers of story, so many genres in play at the same time. <br />
The against all odds romance was singing operatically in our bubbling bloodstreams. <br />
There was the mystery play aspect, wherein the damaged neophyte is coaxed by the possessed initiatrix into the mysteries of a new love. Complete with magic coins and poetry scrawled on the walls and green fairies in a bottle that conduct a lover beyond all caution. <br />
There was the noir aspect, an irresistible affair unfolding between two half-mad burn victims while a man I don’t know is jilted as I was jilted.<br />
But I felt no guilt. <br />
Instead I felt a strange compassion and forgiveness towards my ex and the man she left me for. <br />
The girl melted into me, and my tongue took in the sketchy totality of who she was and what she wanted. I tasted a possible future where she was separated from the boyfriend and I lived with her and I was helping her raise her son.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I could also taste the true future of what would begin here, the secret meetings and her break-up and my needs and her reservations and the narcotic chemistry between us that would change everything and nonetheless lead nowhere. <br />
We felt our future and our lack thereof. <br />
And we took all these dreams to bed anyway, accepting all the pain to come as just so many bleeding loopholes in a contract it would save our lives to sign.<br />
Her strangely beautiful stretch-marks mapped paths on which she had not known me and future paths on which she would know me just a little.<br />
I’ve never felt such instant synchronization with someone’s spirit and skin, that first time. Inside her, I felt an interface with soft spectral circuitries, like an origami jungle unfolding slowly in a fishbowl. My battered, loosely screwed armor was falling away from me in clattering heaps as sex became something else entirely.<br />
Despite her baggage and the ties that bind her, despite how broken I was and how wrong we were around the edges, her need was my need and in its fulfillment I felt the genuine straight-up physical sensation of my heart chakra opening, like a dust-encrusted lotus. I could feel its petals shake the dust loose. <br />
The world was not a jagged black glacier in that moment. I loved her and myself and all our obvious beauty and all our obvious pain and all the hidden things that we would dimly see and never speak of until after we were over. <br />
We wept as we spliced and laughed as we exploded. Like lunatics.<br />
You’d think such affinities would be the foundation of something that cannot die. And maybe moments and fusions like that live on in how they shape us. But I woke up to her crying, not from pleasure but from guilt and from missing her little boy. We checked out a day ahead of schedule, and the pace was set for a baffling three or four months. <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Three or four months without my armor.<br />
I was weeping over the deaths of insects and acts of obviously artificial violence in terrible movies. There were moments of sweetness, here and there. She left the boyfriend, moved into a series of new homes with her son. I met him a few times. We played with teddy bears and trucks. I think we connected. <br />
But she wasn’t ever sure of things. Knowing her better, I realize it wasn’t in her nature to be sure of things, and it was foolish for me to change my nature (or plan to) in service to a future that only me and the teddy bears really believed in. <br />
There was a window in time through which I would have climbed, like Santa, or maybe like a burglar dressed like Santa. I would have endured any duty, taken on any burden, just to have that perfect chemistry and that space of fearless vulnerability in my life. The tragedy is that our built-in expiration date may have given the bliss some of its urgency, some of its splendor. After one crossed wire too many, we let it go. <br />
It was much more mutual than my last catastrophe, but I still felt bereft. <br />
I reached for the Kanye vibe (808s and Heartbreaks), but that soft explosion had ruined all things hardcore. Not on the page or in terms of my aesthetic obsessions and appetites. But in my heart, which I have since kept open, at the risk of it breaking again and again and again. <br />
People I barely know tell me all their secrets. <br />
I see the glory and the pain in people with a kind of emotional X-ray vision. <br />
I find myself unable to hate ANYONE. <br />
I do still approach anything that even looks like romance with a certain trepidation. But it’s not because love is hard. <br />
I hesitate because love is SOFT. <br />
It’s not a pyramid.<br />
It’s not an achievement.<br />
It’s a liquid. <br />
It’s an ocean. <br />
And now that I’ve adjusted somewhat to the tenderness of its temperature, if/when my tentacles extend again to touch another lifeform, I want to brave those waves and whirlpools with someone who knows how to swim. <br />
I can keep it way cray on the page like never before these days, because in the star where my heart was, I’m keeping it soft.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16694737987342301986noreply@blogger.com2