Techno-flyover..

[Nazz]

On the radio he heard a guy say there’s a global depression and world war every eighty years or so. Odd thing to say. But the radio guy rattled off cycles of bust and organized disaster like breathing. His notes were organized well. And of course it's all endlessly replayed on cable, quite unoriginal, but it sells like hell if you win a big one along the way, and you might get to use the latest toys. He'll get 'em with cousin Techno, maybe even smite evil from satellites or something, like reverse revisionist Westerns on Reagan’s silver screen guise, sight for sore eyes, avuncular one.

But that's not really what he had to say. You must have faith. Faith that star beams are inexhaustible, that it will always be morning somewhere past the farthest mile marker. Faith in your chosen spear and shield, in space, in gravity, mass, trajectory, momentum. The idea of earth orbit is odd-- breathless feel of space, yet still on a tether.

We take Techno’s hand in matri-money. If only we'd use our powers for good. That satellite business is vaguely troubling; they take pictures. He can see those gone deserts on-screen, the places he went where he didn’t want to be seen. Now he can zoom to every mountain and corrugation, but they seemed more reassuring when he didn’t know exactly how many occurred between here and there, when they were more than just bumps bent slightly northeast on some Techno-jigsaw. It's probably just him.

Entering radio silence now. He'll probably slingshot around and come out the other side, but it will be dark for a while, before the moon changes his mind. He needs to rest.

[Nazz]

It was better when he didn’t know, when he was a machine unaware of his sins of routine and incongruent health. They say he fits a pattern, a machine who inexplicably breaks midway through his proud haul and runs around like drunken teen rebellion until more things start breaking. Classic.

It was better when he didn’t know how many were gutted on the altar of courage and empire, tossed onto tundra and left for dead. It was better when he didn’t realize how many were firebombed in the name of justice, or how many tons of orange cancer dropped on people tired of being rescued. It was better when he simply got up and went about his daily business. There was no need to start running around.

He had something known as elevated consciousness, like the others, but he also had the suburbs on closed-circuit teevee like the others, so it seemed a wash, though things can change quickly. He loathes the baggage of the past and slides right back into the middle of it.

Earth to people: You can’t just sell off everything for profit. Exhibit A: World War Two. Seriously, you mean that wasn’t enough warning? Jesus you people are thick. You are all instant gods and goddesses, but even they had to work things out at some point. No shame in it, really. So he stands at the end of the world like endless drunken street corners, pondering, though he really should get a job. Okay so he has one already but it’s fading. No shame in it, really. Earth to money lust: your job is rape, and it’s working. No shame in it really, as long as everything gets more efficient.

[Nazz]

So he’s freaking out. He does that. Seriously though, to move the cursor over several mountain ranges just like that-- that seems wrong. Some things you just sense are wrong, like seventy- two SUVs on every Elm Street. He had a bad feeling about that too. The sun peeked out but he had a growl in his step. He is fairly angry at nothing in particular, and he gets like that. It’s all fair, and he tends to lose the thread sometimes.

He listens to the big earth music, so he says. It used to be enough to leave your street, see the world, see worlds behind worlds, get out of the city, but the city follows him around, flashing a new trick irresistible. He always hated Vegas for that but loved the big earth music around it. Hard music. There’s not much left except to see if you have an echo. The big earth has an echo. He tried the big earth, made peace with the power lines, thin towers crackling, and concluded he might need to reinvent the blues, maybe subvert them like everyone else.

[sooZen]

okay, I just sat while mtmynd read this aloud to me, all of it and damn was it ever just great, not just good but great. I am in awe somewhere over the event horizon...

[stilltrucking]

Exhibit A: World War Two. Seriously, you mean that wasn’t enough warning?

World War Two? Oh my god. There was another world war? I must have missed that one. I been so busy trying to learn a lesson from first one. So what I have learned so far? Santayana was right. Those who can remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

This variation on the "remember the past" theme appeared in Santayana's "Reasons and Places I": A man's memory may almost become the art of continually varying and misrepresenting his past, according to his interests in the present."

"Those who misquote George Santayana are condemned to paraphrase him."

[stilltrucking]

I am a freaking because I have no memory prior to 1940,

Sorry for the ramble.

[Nazz]

Things happen quickly, gotta keep up. Lineage is unmistakeable, a lesser-known striation. It is what it is. His father was born to kill Communists because they wanted to enslave us; thus his father entered into a life of expected servitude. Now the son is tapped to fight jumpy shadows on a wall, or maybe the machine throwing shadows, who knows? Maybe he's ready to go to war after all.

[the mingo]

Walula! I read all this not being hungry but after you made the big hole i just had to have some Comanche pie! So I was able to step across. God bless it all, Nazz, your all the gin joints in the world with Ingrid Bergman stepping into them simultaneously wing guns on full auto. I think I'll just retire versus pretending. What a morning!

[Nazz]

Thanks Soozen, Truckin' y el mingo! go go go! I appreciate the infusion! Just riffin' and wailin'. I guess when he said he needed to rest-- he lied. But really he does.

Ok, maybe now.

[Nazz]

Ok so how did they know I drove far into the desert on my week off? How did they know I was trying to ignore the world when it would have none of that? How did they know I wasn't particularly interested in satellite photographs pointed back at us? The world is cutting edge and boring. It's all the same advances and wars and mansions over and over. It's a wonder the spirits haven't overrun this place by now, so many lost to utter nonsense. I love technology, my mortal enemy. And politics is just a half-cooked stew somewhere. I sleep somewhere on the earth tonight. It may show up on a screen tomorrow.