My brother and I, as voracious pop culture shovelers of the vintage, have earned enough of "the long view" to realize that the best of genre fiction-- say, science fiction/fantasy/horror-- truly transcend the label and tap into something else. "2001: A Spacey Odyssey" and "Slaughterhouse 5" were practically transhumanist meditations on "being" and "becoming" while a movie like "Alien", though certainly good for what it was-- came across more as "a haunted house in space" instead of something ultimately true to what science fiction is really all about.

But 'lo! There where always be a difference between Ray Bradbury and "The Salt Vampires from Planet-X" with the cheesiest pulp covers that you could ever imagine.

Such is the resemblance of the kind of junky hair metal bands advertised next to the same tier of slush-- genre-type video games in comic books or "Archie Digests" that we were so fond of reading. It was the ultimate thing that dorky kids from the ages of 8-14 would patronize. . . . . while comparative "products of quality" skipped out for classier venues. . . . . the joke being that customers paid to be pandered to by advertiser-supported magazines.

The ultimate travesty of this was "Nintendo Power", the ole' party organ of the Redmond, Washington-based company that ran a continuous montage of "jammed-in-your-face" crack cocaine corporate marketing that kids actually paid to have delivered to their doorstep. I bugged my Mom into buying me a copy at the mall because I thought it would offer me helpful tips on my favorite games. Sure, it did that-- to a limited extent-- but mostly seemed geared to promoting new titles constantly coming out, so kids like me would get all excited and tug on their mothers' sleeves at the mall all over again. At the time, I thought they were just being "helpful" and swell to kids like me with their slick, explosive, full-color spreads. . . . .

The unofficial magazine mascot was Howard Phillips, incidentally-- the name of a slick Republican operative. Even if they weren't the same man, the character who appeared in a "Nintendo Power" jersey in the sweepstakes offer looked like a sly, used-car salesman even by the more wholesome years of the late '80s when society was not in quite such an advanced stage of decay.

My unsuspecting McGovernik parents, still stranded in 1973, could barely conceive to the depth that humanity's crevices could sink and find a base of attack in which to ensnare their children. And if perhaps they did, they might have paid far more attention to what fell in our hands and taught us the rudiments of media literacy to which even they were ignorant. . . . .

And it's not as if the good folks at Nintendo didn't know what was going on. They knew exactly what they were doing, when they released the kiddie video game exploitation flick "The Wizard" in 1989. A 9 year-old boy, with the help of his 13 year old brother & perky 7th grade girlfriend, hitch-hike across the country to take part in a national video game tournament. Adults were bungling and stupid, not understanding THE IMPORTANCE at stake of following your own child-like dreams. Left on the cutting room floor was the part when they were pressed into the white slave trade!

Starring was Jenny Lewis, who later went on to become the heavy-lidded, moping singer of a poopy alt-rock group whose guitarist briefly went out with Winona like so much morbid, stick-wristed love-making until she came to her senses and hopefully started noticing this St. Louis-based enterprise. (??????????????????)

So far Winona's parents still haven't responded to my formal marriage proposal. A warrior, a conqueror riding in on a white steed to take their daughter's hand.

What an entrance.

I think of snorting camels, braying donkeys, a pitiful wheeze of sand in the desert. You had Uday and Quday Hussein, Saddam's sons, killed in a shoot-out with U.S. Marines and displayed like sawdust-stuffed props like the corpses of UFO Martians on a military installation.

Beforehand, they had a strange allegiance to "Star Wars".

The boys had seen "The Empire Strikes Back" in their father's gold-bedecked movie-house in 1980 as search-lights flew across the sky in a very faded, analog moment.

Yes, the teenagers had been so inspired that they started their own crack palace guard unit modeled after "The Stormtroopers" and commissioned art with plaster fists gripping "light sabers" in the Iraqi Museum of Art & Culture like the very worst of bejeweled excess that oil money could buy. When Saddam declared "victory" over Iran in 1988 he even had the state band strike up a Middle Eastern version of "The Imperial March" like the tin-pot fascist he was.

One wonders what my fate will be, so occupied with "Conan the Barbarian" and its pondering upon "The Riddle of Steel". Probably tortured in the basement of the local FBI branch office downtown, if I don't ""turn it down a notch".

For all my posturing, sometimes I wonder if I don't come across like the kid with the tuba in this underground/unofficial "Far Side" cartoon by Gary Larson that was never published in "The Daily Square":

You create "a bubble of belief" around yourself like any actor or shaman or rock musician and with a little bit of luck, you develop a following. To the extent that people like to gather around whacked-out stuff. . . . . well, hell. Even I don't top Philip K. Dick. His story defies description, yet he seems to get more acceptance than I do. His legions are so spacey-eyed and humorless and "gone-to-the-world" they refer to themselves as "Dick-heads".

And I'm just a "Winonaholic". who sells his "panther-piss" as some kind of wisdom, swirled around in a bathtub with a stick like fentanayl or windowsill LSD with a neo-fascist taint. If you can see anything about me, I broke the mold. Ergot on rye, that is.

L.S.D. . . . . L.et's S.it D.own. . . . .and sing the praises of the neat female who inspired all of this--

Now at last, I fall silent. . . . .

(Just kidding. . . . .)

("A Change of Heart" by Saxophone Dude)

*******************

"You want a-nuther song? Well I ain't plain' one mutherfuckin' note until someone comes up here and puts sum money in my god-damned tip-jar! You know I only came here for one purpose. . . . . to take yor fuckin' cash! Why, I could make more profit puttin' out my meth-head neighbor's asshole and ringin' a bell, hollerin' 'Man for sale! Man for sale!'

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

(Rheeee of Crickets)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

("I heard that, Missy!")