eulogy for brandon teasley

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    Big Bad Brandon Teasley // 2.7.1977 6.1.2013

    Eulogies can be cancerous, and I've never written one. Not that I haven't been privy to my fair share ofdeath, but because I've rarely been able to offer the intimate truth of a person. Brandon Teasley was theclosest thing I ever had to a brother, and consequently my biggest fan. He read everything I ever wrote

    since I was 14, and amusingly enough my most popular work was his least favorite. It's not that hethought The Big Shiny Prison was a bad book, he only didn't like it because it wasn't all about me.

    Haha.

    He knew me as much as anyone could know me, and in a life of rejection, never once had adisparaging remark. He never stole from me, never talked smack, never asked for anything. He rarelyever borrowed any money, and never more then $15 and if he had no job then he would literally giveblood just to pay me back. Not because I ever needed the money back, but he believed in paying his

    debts and having as clean a slate with everyone that he could. He was just so good.

    In the beginning, due to Michigan world, we both came from a crude, violent worldview. I'm ashamedof some of what I once believed and professed, as was he, because both of us over time realized we

    were products of our environment. We both escaped Michigan, and though his lifeline in retrospect isbrief, he freed himself of a heartbreakingly lonely, depressed, solitudal & suicidal in Detroit and oneday threw everything in a bag, jumped in a car with some other Detroiters that had had enough, and

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    drove across country --- eventually making it to San Diego, California. He became a founding father ofthe legendary semi-squat The Villa Winona, which eventually became my home and which is attached

    to some of my happiest memories, even if the whole thing blew to smithereens by the end. I wroteabout it in the Prison book a lot, and I wrote about Brandon quite a bit.

    Those last 6 years of his life were of his happiest too, and I was pleased to find him meeting a girl for

    once that stayed. He had been with Casie for 2 years, and he sounded happy. Last month, the remnantsof my crew were finally evicted from The Villa Winona. Brandon was again pushed into the street, andfinally moved to the next step of moving in with his girlfriend. He had finally gotten SSI from the stateafter years of living off giving blood because no one would hire him (his legal background prevented it

    and that he was a little slow from severe brain damage did not help matters).

    Anyway, he and the girl were about to leave California and build a new life somewhere. Then onSaturday night, as he was sitting on the couch, he told them to call 911. He started having breathing

    problems, heart palpitations I guess. He got up to move to the couch closer to the door, took one step,the eyes went back in his head, he dropped to his knees wailed his forehead on the table on his waycrashing down and then just collapsed like a sack of bricks with his head bleeding all over the floor.

    The paramedics tried to revive him for long after he was gone. The coroner said it was over the secondhe dropped. He was dead before his head even hit that table. Age 36, and down he went from a heart

    attack brought on by asthmatic seizure. He always had asthma and bronchitis issues and had no moneyor insurance to properly deal with it. That he chain-smoked Reds and hoofed down constant bong-loads

    like Tommy Chong didn't help the situation.

    Brandon led an extremely troubled life, and I never knew how to help him. I couldn't, because thecourts destroyed him early on. He was one of many innocent men in America who were wrongfully

    placed on a sex offenders list, and was firmly one of the cursed underclass who are entrapped on thatrung of damned hierarchy examples for the rest of society to point the finger at and through fear of

    this extreme punishment/banishment is a checkmate of actions.

    See, Brandon was tagged with this rapist rubber stamp even though he was never convicted or wentto trial. The long story short is he had this skeezy girlfriend who got into an argument with him oneday, then she called the police while he was sitting on the couch watching TV. She told the cops shenever saw this man before, he broke into her house and raped her, then they took him into custody.

    Despite having at least 50 eyewitnesses saying they had been dating for 6 months, thing never went totrial. Brandon was terrified of going back to prison, because he spent 3 years in boys home for assault.The cops pushed some paper in front of him and said if you sign this you won't etc basically justsigning some freaked out plea deal without a lawyer, because he was often like a scared little kid. So

    they have him confess to this and then the girl drops all the charges. When Brandon's family got alawyer, they found out the girl had done this to 3 other guys in America!!

    He gets out and even though never convicted, he is forced into this sex offenders world. Probation forlife. Barred from every social services or city job. He's not allowed to attend college or receive loans.Banks will not mortgage a house. If he's caught working a job and didn't tell his employers they'll puthim in jail even though no one will hire him. He can't live within a few blocks of a school. They make

    him go door to door explain to every neighbor his illegal tag. It was a nightmare, and all he ever wantedto do was help people. All he wanted to do was become an EMT. He tried everything, and there was noway out. He eventually lived off selling his blood and plasma for 20 to 30 bucks a session. For 5 years

    in California, he lived off 100 dollars or less a month. And though he wanted it to all end, and wasalways drenched in suicidal impulses, he refused to let that happen because of the great compassion he

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    had for his friends. Nothing else mattered to him. He was one of the most loyal, sincere guys I'd everknown. And that's not from some nostalgic buttering up he was always that good.

    But he was seriously messed up in the head from what happened to him, and he was always scrambled.And yes, he could fly into extremely violent rages. Most of the people from his past abandoned him.And even if they were nice to him, they weren't interested in making his life their life. Nobody really

    wanted the guy around, because most of the people we grew up with were those same sort of yuppietrashbags you see in places like Chinatown Portland, talking smack on the smelly homeless people.We just didn't know it yet. In youth there is still a chance, but as we learned most were just their parentsall along. So Brandon then became my problem, and I wasn't about to abandon him. I'd lived with him

    off &on up until the beginning of 2008.

    Eventually,I had to go my own way. A lot of bad stuff went down and I could no longer live inCalifornia. He was disappointed, but I could only take it so far. That's why I don't feel all shaken up that entire year of 2007, as I was traveling around doing the Prison book we had our happy ending in

    California. We went from frostbitten Michigan to the golden shores of Ocean Beach. 2007 was theepilogue of The Cleveland Street Posse, like a master stroke frozen in time. But eventually I went on,and I stayed in touch. I saw him a handful of times since, but we stayed in touch, that usual Facebook

    bullshit we all do. So I'm fine to say there's no horrific regret. But thus he left the world, having healedhimself as much as he was able. He never truly found ultimate peace, but he got closer then most and

    had zero fear of death because he had died before and came back after 10 minutes. What he sawchanged him, changed everything...

    So rather then go off any further, I wanted to share some of my writings on Brandon both publishedand unpublished. Some of this is from The Big Shiny Prison, and some chunks of it are from the topsecret book. And yes, Brandon had read all this and he felt accurately portrayed. In fact he hugged me

    like Chewbacca coming after Han Solo. His tale was told, and that was enough to make so many ofthose inner demons go. And now you know, and knowing is half the battle... Ok, so the GI Joereference is lame, but Brandon overkilled that one like a m*therf*ker, so taste the poison y'all.

    Oh yeah, and Brandon, wherever you are Hulk Hogan's back. Hahahaha.

    Dr. Bartek; 6.3.2013

    (on behalf of Ryan Bartek, on behalf of Jack Cassady, at the behest of Il Propagandist)

    FROM TO LIVE & DIE ON ZUG ISLAND

    ***If Id never randomly showed up over Brandons to smoke pot in the summer of 99, then this

    whole scene would have been erased. See, Brandon was on bad terms with his parents because hecouldnt hold a job, sucked up a bunch of their money on psychiatric medication & court fees, and just

    sat around all day at the bottom of a bottomless depression.

    It wasnt really his fault, because he was nuts to begin with. He got molested as a kid, later

    developed bi-polar depression (schizoaffective), and spent a chunk of his teen years in Boys Home after

    an attempted murder charge. Brandon later lost nearly all cohesion due to the massive brain damage he

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    suffered after committing suicide in 97. He was hanging by a thread and went further down the spiral

    after doing a year in prison over a bogus rape charge

    But back to the near past, when Id got him kicked out. He was 23 at this point. Although Id

    been friends with him since he was 18, he could never come over my house because my mom was

    ultra-intrusive, obsessively checking all of my friends police records. She of course forbid me toassociate with him, which was laughable. He lived next door to Smitty, only three blocks from the

    Pardee house, so he was in consistent circulation.

    Brandon has remained the most loyal motherfucker in my entire history. Hes probably the only

    person I really trust. If they were water-boarding him at Guantanamo, he still wouldnt squeal. I could

    hand him a billion dollars, leave for a week, and when Id come back hed hand it right over, minus a

    few bucks hed use to buy a bag of Ranch Doritos & Mountain Dew (the ultimate combination)

    Brandon wasnt always the way he is now. Before dying he was just one of the good old boys.

    We used to smoke dope all the time and make goofy movies with Smittys Hi-8 camera. He was a brick

    wall -- if anyone even attempted to fuck with any of us they might as well have been going up against a

    full-scale riot. Jason Voorhees was his absolute hero.

    Anyway, back in 97 we were in Smittys garage getting stoned and Korns Daddy came on,

    which is a depressing number about child molestation. Brandon was exceedingly whiskey drunk and

    time-bombed. He started ranting about how he was dragged from the streets and raped by a black man

    in Detroit when he was 5. He nearly ripped the door from its hinges and ran off into the night, vowing

    to kill that nigger motherfucker.

    The cops eventually found him swinging punches at thin air, sobbing, not knowing what was

    happening. Hed get so lost in his terrors the current world would disappear. The empathetic officers

    brought him home without incident.

    The next day he downed three bottles of sleeping pills as well as all his anti-depressants. His

    parents found him going under and rushed him to the hospital where he was pronounced legally dead

    for 2 minutes. They revived him and he remained in a coma for a week. Once he snapped out of it he

    was the Brandon we know today different, Zen-infused, obsessed with witchcraft & Buddhist

    philosophy plus stricken by intense brontophobia

    Brandon began drawing pictures of God all the time.

    Of course, this wasnt Jesus or Virgin Mary or Allah or Vishnu, for hed witnessed divine

    symbolism. That whole tunnel of light ordeal occurred, but when he popped out the other end there was

    this massive triangular shape turning clockwise ever so slowly; all light and darkness sucked inside of

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    it in slow motion, counter clockwise. In the middle was this vacuum, drawing all energy within it.

    He was just floating towards it bodiless without the slightest trace of fear, remembering things

    that had occurred during his life. It was the most beautiful experience he ever felt. Without warning he

    was sucked back with the velocity of a reverse coaster; everything went black. Thats when he went

    into the coma What Brandon saw was the ancient Sumerian symbol ofThe AbyssNo one was really sure how to react to this new Brandon. We knew he wasnt lying because

    although he was kind of crazy and sometimes exaggerated stuff the way a little kid would, he always

    told the truth. And he was never so serious about anything in his life. He had no fear of death and

    welcomed it once his mission on this earth was complete, although he could never figure out what that

    mission was, and just went back to smoking pot all the time shortly thereafter

    So I got Brandon thrown out of his house because his mom caught us getting lit. I bought him a

    motel room in Prostitute Alley and he disappeared into thin air for a good month. I thought he was dead

    or in jail until I got a phone call, Brandon rambling on about this haunted house.

    He was staying with a former co-worker from this goofy Hawaiian themed restaurant, this long-

    haired Mexican guy with a dozen samurai swords on his bedroom wall. For cash Brandon was working

    as a bouncer at this shithole truck stop strip-hooker joint where there was no stage and all the dancers

    (walkers, really) had black eyes, track-marks & the sort of stretchmarks accompanying a four-year

    triplet shitting marathon.

    The second Irish and I pulled up to Brandon's new residence it was a dominant impression of

    pure evil; a massive three-story that was twice the size of any other house on the block, street bordering

    a clanging industrial plant.

    Before we even knock Brandon swings open the door and drags us upstairs and has us to stand

    in the corner of the hallway because well feel a demon presence pushing against our lungs. This

    random kid we're with does as instructed and grows pale. I do the same and it kind of feels like a weird

    sense of gravity -- like a lesser form of that Gravatron carnival ride.

    Downstairs it feels like a handful of people are in the living room with us. And thats not

    counting the guy in the basement doing the weird shit in the corner that he doesnt want anyone to

    know about, or the 3 children upstairs, or the cancer patient lady rocking back and forth in the corner,

    or the vicious residual late night B&E rape in the backroom, or the 7 year old girl in the ex-babys

    room, or even the violent, self-mutilating psychotic upstairs...

    Brandon goes on to tell us about everything -- the sightings, the videotapes. Says he first

    noticed it when he was looking into the corner of the living room one day and saw something that

    resembled heat coming off asphalt. The cokehead that lived upstairs had a Hi-8 camera with night

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    vision and they filmed the occurrence. When they watched the tape it looked like one of those floating

    head sketches from Cool World, like faces mutating into weird shapes, but purely heat-mist. Then the

    strange noises, misplaced items, opened cupboards

    The cokehead woke up to someone was knocking from inside his closet. He pulled his handgun

    and opened it up finding a man sitting Indian style on the floor. He started shouting at the intruder to sitright there as he called the cops, threatening to cap him. Guns drawn, the fuzz barged into his room but

    no one was there. They thought he was insane and refused to answer any of his recurring calls about the

    invisible people trying to break into his house, beating and tearing from inside the walls

    We came back the next day. Soon as we were about to knock on the door the porch light came

    on, the patio window flew open and we heard a stampede of individuals running around downstairs.

    The cokehead yelled at us from the upstairs window because no one was there. He was trying to sleep

    and was pissed we were making such a racket.

    We showed back up 2 days later. This time I knocked on the front door which had a window in

    the middle. You could see the stairs leading to the upper flat and a man run down them . I figured it was

    the cokehead and as I went to grab the doorknob it started turning from the inside. I clutched it and

    turned it all the way, slowly opening the door so I wouldnt hit him. He kept pulling it back as well but

    as I stepped in to say hello the door touched the wall. I quickly jerked it back and no one was there. I

    looked at Irish who was plenty terrified. We went into the front room where Brandon was confused

    because hed just locked the door...

    We intended to capture the beasties on film and conducted multiple tests to erupt the astral lineage.

    Music has a tendency to provoke them, especially deranged noise, so we played selections from

    Mortician, Bethlehem, NINs misunderstood masterpiece The Fragile. This had no effect. We beat on

    pots and pans, used New Testament scriptures as rolling papers, sarcastic black witchery

    We took a break to play Wrestlemania 2000 and I sat on the couch filming into the darkness

    with green night-vision. When I tilted the camera down I caught a shadow zip across the distance like a

    miniature Greyhound. I jerked my head over to catch it, as did Irish. I continued to film into the dining

    room, pointing towards the bathroom.

    On camera there was this Lite Brite face on the shower door, like those colored 80s pegs. I

    thought it was a reflection of the night vision but while stationary the glowing smile enlarged. Its eyes

    brightened, enlarged as green blocks. Then it just vanished. I kept filming. Across the open doorway,

    the entrance to the lavatory, and these vertical white lines started appearing, like slanted rods. They

    grew larger and more solid, like prison bars made of bone. They too had vanished instantly. When we

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    reviewed the tape the spectacle was captured

    Brandon mentioned couch cushions making patterns of their own in the fabric imprint. I had

    everyone get off the couch, set the tripod, and took a short recording. With night vision you could see

    the imprint of a childs hand. We turned off the camera and left the spot alone. 15 minutes later there

    were three long bone fingers. 20 minutes later it became a symbol, like the bone design from thatrancid Crow sequel

    And, of course, Brandon accidentally taped over the footage while recording a vodka-bred

    striptease in the living room The Mexican & cokehead abandoned ship, and when Cassum and I tried

    to move in the landlord refused to go for it. Brandon ended up running off with a stripper that somehow

    knew Onyx, soon landed on the Urban Priests couch where for the most part hes remained to this very

    day Moral of the Story: While marijuana might not be the dangerous gateway drug its reputed as, it

    sure does have a nasty reputation of taking you to some really weird places

    FROM THE BIG SHINY PRISON...

    MERRY X-MASChristmas day in San Diego. As for the inferno Id anticipated, the only one is that of the sun. InMichigan we are accustomed to a blanket of white, pine trees in the living room, perhaps a cracklingfireplace and roasting chestnuts. On this side of the earth it is 82 degrees, and we are cooking barbequewithout t-shirts in our shorts.

    It takes a long ride down El Cajon from Downtown before you reach the laughable ghetto ofSan Diego, where The Villa Winona sits in a predominantly black & Mexican neighborhood. Threeblocks away rests prostitute alley. Meth-heads stumble, g-thugs holler threats, tough guys confront eachother yet never is a punch thrown. They act the part, ramming heads with the wink of an eye.

    This expatriate colony is an Alamo-like last stand refusing to give into any conventional senseof reality. Eight of us in a house the size of a living room, and roaches crawling over everything. TheVilla Winona is the hub of a communal family, a handful of Michigan survivors which constitute anelite assortment of the criminally insane. So complex are the inter-personal dynamics they areimpossible to scribe at once

    Theyd all escaped from Michigan via one-way road trip. When the shuttle crashed they wentright to the streets, cutting their way through months of alleys, parks, and out-reach shelters. Fourmonths later, The Villa Winona was captured after their pot-dealer succumbed to AIDS. A mob of 19year old punk rockers cornered the confused 68 year old landlord with a wad of cash, and its flownever since without a hitch this mob of grifters obsessed with counterculture revolution. It is a volatilecolony absorbing random freaks from Southern California, enamored with piracy and intent on seriousmalarkey.

    This particular cast, this rogue gallery to be intimately acquainted, dear reader, is not aparticularly ripe plunge at this moment. Rather, let us assemble a gallery of faces spinning like aroulette, round n round in the frenetic blur Onyx, Lennon, Brandon, Skinner, Dr. Santiago Panda,Jo-Jo, Pork Chop, Corn Flake, Ryan The Ghostbuster, Matt Ratt & Chuck The Homey

    Onyx, The Urban Priest -- 35 and epic as a John Woo action sequence, is somewhere betweenthe hitcher from Texas Chainsaw, Dr. Jung & every renascence creep. His wife, a 56-year-oldschizophrenic ex-cult member has the gift of mutant savant astrology

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    Dr. Santiago, covered in tats, burning eyes, bleeding, always bleeding and picking scabs. Dr.Santiago, the lightning bolt of quasi-Zen purity, the 18 year old crust holy man eating raw fig leaves,ingurgitating the sun in meditation photosynthesis

    Lennon -- the scarecrow-bodied speed-freak, the Ferris Bueller of our commune. He is thespider-monkey Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, drudging SoCal ever since moving from Japan. Thin,nimble, bespeckled and utterly German, Lennon is notorious for throwing crust punk sewer shows, his

    small adept team dragging power generators into rat-infested darknessBrandon, 28, a old good ol boy from my hometown, stemming from the same public educationslaughterhouse. Orange bi-hawk, purple bags beneath his eyes, severe bi-polar depression and liferuined by a bogus sex offender charge. He refuses to work, hiding in that little corner surrounded bydressers like a fort, sleeping 14 hours a day. Brandon, who supports himself by giving blood twice aweek, veins starting to resemble a neurotic raw-dog slider. Brandon, who preaches endlessly the subjectof guerilla warfare, the supremacy of the illuminati, the coming attack of Atlantis

    Mr. Skinner, who sleeps in a coffin in the garage, is as obsessed with psychobilly as he is thearrival of the alien races that will one day -- if not moving in our midst already come to reclaim theearth when the Mayan calendar runs out of steam in 2012 Skinner, the self-piercing, self-tattooingwonder, buzzing away at the orange & blue flames up and down his arms. Skinner the maniac, bloodyand laughing in machismo aftermath, the giant Medieval tat across his shoulder blades earning its

    upkeepMr. Skinner plans to revitalize the SD punk scene via D.I.Y. venue in which Tuesday nights

    would be fight club, Wednesday $1 drinks, & all other eves pure catastrophic noise. If anyone gets outof hand or a fight breaks out, the house lights cut instantly. The spotlight explodes like the moon,beaming directly upon the venue bouncers who will in turn gleefully beat the shit out of each other. Notthe audience mind you, but themselves -- bloody and laughing-- just to view the faces of the crowd

    Midnight. Been drinking whiskey & smoking green kryptonite since 4pm. Every surface is loaded withemptied half-pints, beer cans & rum shots. I cannot distinguish which is mine so I claim sovereigntyover all, chugging the foamy remnants.

    Lennon has returned strange as ever, skinny and cartoonish, grinding & rolling in perpetualburnout. He slimes through the Villa Winona in his gelatin-tarantula form, face protected by a WorldWar II gas mask, and locks himself in the bathroom. Skinner sees the ploy, looks at us shifty eyed, andnonchalantly slides a ski-mask over his face. He throws on a large hoodie, oversized white Elvisglasses, and camo pants before brandishing a high-turbine semi-CO2 handgun. Skinner leaps out theback door, running circles around The Villa

    A rumpled slither of a human snake against the pull of the carpet catches our drift. Lennon iswriggling his way to the kitchen on his belly, mini-UZI in hand. Skinner busts through the back door ina surprise assassination attempt, projecting an armada of circular yellow bullets which ricochetthroughout the house. Skinner unloads into Lennons gas mask and lunges behind the kitchencounter Brandon jumps over the living room couch and slides on some goggles as the two reload. Hepops up like a mechanical whacking arcade gopher and starts firing away. I throw on my Korean Wargreatcoat, aviator glasses, red beret, and black bandana to shield my face. The four-man impromptuduel moves in slow motion, the graceful ballet of carnage consuming all

    FROM ZUG ISLAND... ***Onyx & Brandon demand I show up to the "con." Unlike comic

    conventions, this con is the adult only version where the largest assortment of basement dwelling losers

    coagulate their own reality -- Vikings, satanists, furries, blacksmiths, rennies, occultists & alchemists.

    They rent every room of a hotel for a three days explosion of dork debauchery

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    Onyx lives for this and has drank so much red whiskey he can barely stand. Either can Brandon,

    who has passed out a solid rock in the pool side area. Onyx still finds the ability to get naked and wrap

    a plastic bag around his genitals so he can go swimming. He terrifies so many by his slimness that the

    pool area is now totally empty.

    A Viking and I drink booze out of his horn and leave Onyx alone, who is obnoxiously nudgingBrandon trying to awake him. I tell Onyx that this is a terrible decision, because Brandon is insane

    when forced awake and incoherently starts swinging 5 minutes later I return from a party room and

    see Brandon kicking what I initially think is a duffelbag on the floor hard as he can with his GI boots,

    swearing in a violent rage but then I realize it's Onyx' head, and Onyx is limp & unconscious. I tackle

    Brandon who stumbles around, then, like a tranquilized elephant, sleepwalks back to unconsciousness

    beneath a poolside table.

    Onyx' face is destroyed & covered in welts, bleeding everywhere he isn't breathing. I begin to

    panic. I drag Brandon off the floor and try to get him to run before the police come. I lug him to my car

    with arm over my shoulder, trying to decide if a one way Greyhound somewhere anonymous might be

    his best bet to avoid a life sentence. I ran back inside the building, just to make sure. Onyx is now

    awake and blubbering not because of pain, but because he was blacked out drunk and his best friend

    was mad at him and he didn't understand why. We bolt anyway, and 5 hours later we get a call from the

    trailer. Onyx is fine and over it, even if horribly puffy.

    Within the week Aunt Tommy deflates like a balloon, leaving nothing behind but a stack ofX-Men

    comics, a collection of Barbies, and a vast collection of autobiographies penned by prominent

    American women. Brandon is finally at peace after finally securing his own bedroom for the first time

    in 3 years, playingPerfect Darkreligiously & ritualistically plotting Armageddon

    FROM THE BIG SHINY PRISONIt was 11pm when Mr. Skinner picked me up from work, arriving with sack of high-grade mushrooms.I was exhausted from too many pepperoni pies, stinking like grease and sweat -- no mood to go totallyapeshit. Some people just giggle and laugh. I mutate into Hyde, and the results can be disastrous. Noneof them know this, and they keep pushing me to cave in.

    Three bundles of laundry later theyre begging me to enter Toon Town. Fuck it, why not? Itsbeen over two years, and we appear to be somewhere safe. We are free from police intervention, surely.Besides, Ill just eat a few caps and stems -- just row my boat amidst less rapid streams

    **Two hours later, atop Mount Everest gone gangland murder field. Mr. Skinner, Pork Chop and I havebecome the Marx Brothers, tagging each other to switch places and dimensions. Hectic laughter as allparade enthusiasm for the rubber room

    Odin stares me down from the heavens above and Skinner is convinced war-painted Indians liveinside the tree trunks. He keeps babbling I KNOW TOO MUCH, that he is his own diversion.Somewhere down the hill there is an LSD dosed midget in a tiger cage, the sounds of roosters &

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    gunshots. Like Lord of the Flies we dance around first-time tripper Dan Dan The Mountain Man(ONE OF US, ONE OF US, ONE OF US!!!).

    Dans angry, sober girlfriend comes marching up the hill. Weve been thundering so loudlyweve woken the entire neighborhood. Apparently Brandon, who wed left in the backyard, has no ideawho or where he is. The family is totally freaked out because theyve never met him and hes just somestrange, drugged out man wandering their property with his hands on his head as if hes being arrested.

    He keeps repeating, IM DONE. IM DONE.We cant go back into the house because there is a baby down there, in which the concept of alarval being petrifies us. We know it has to be done, and rub patches of grass and dirt on each other forcamouflage. Babies aside, there is a far greater menace at hand an A.I. motion detector light placedon the barn of The Other People.

    We cool down Brandon with a glass of water and he stumbles back into the dirt, shroudinghimself in a purple sleeping bag like a psychedelic cocoon. Lennon has somehow rigged five ultra-violet security cameras throughout the house which broadcast on the screen of a stand-up karaokemachine in the tweaker tent

    Dan The Mountain Man gets into a fight with his girlfriend who wont hug him cause hestripping without her and charges off into the night. We never see him again and assume the police havecaptured him, that he might be being tortured at Guantanamo Bay. Hed sell me out if water-boarded,that rat bastard.Perhaps he already has

    I Zen meditate on the all-out raid coming any given second. All of us are in Jo-Jos room whereshe is hiding underneath her bedspread like a cave. Im clutching at pillows like life jackets because theroom is a sinking pirate ship. Warped classical music roars in my ears, the walls are bubbling.Houston, Houston where are you? Houston we have a problem

    the world of dreams is far more real than I will ever be, and I end up more in the distorted images

    than I exist in reality