Saturday, March 8, 2008

Carlos

Carlos was a world rewnowned paranormal researcher and leading occult investigator. Like most men of esoteric expertise, Carlos eventually found himself wondering what he would have to do to profit from his bizarre skill sets. Though some may attribute such thinking to greed, I would urge my reader to consider that decling government funds in recent years have left the field of paranormal research in a steady state of decline.

Utilizing a connect he had with a distant cousin, Carlos pitched an idea to CW network execs about a talk show that interviewed all non-human humanoids living among everyday people. He proposed that that show would uncover the cyborg hide, or the undead heart, and reveal that beneath these grotesque layers of monstrosity, laid an undeniable humanity.

CW loved the idea, however chose to market the show in a slightly different light. Market analysts told them that fears sells better then empathy, and so they released a prolific advertising campaign which consisted of magazine and television promos of an elderly man suspciously glancing through his curtains to watch the inhuman silouhette staring back at him from behind his neighbors curtains, accompanied by the ominous tagline "Do You Know What Your Neighbor Really Is?"

Carlos, initially angered over the matter, quicly rationalized that he would use the show to contradict everything the ad's suggested, and bring to light the truth and innocence of these misunderstood creatures.

The show opened disasterously. Immediatly following the fricasse the CW partnered with the ruthless digital detective agency Pinkerton 2.0 to hunt down and destroy every remaining copy of the original broadcast. During this time period, several outspoken bloggers who had seen the written openly about the broadcast disapeared; no official comment has ever been made to their whereabouts. And so eventually, all record and memory of the fabled broadcast vanished into obscurity. Or so we thought.

But once a man travels to the far reaches of the internet, he uncovers things that simply weren't mean to be uncovered.

So it is with great personal risk that I bring to you today the infamous Pilot taping of Carlos. I urge my viewers; watch with caution. The footage you are about to see carries with it a great burden; to bear witness to its existence is to make yourself a target of the CW.

But sometimes the truth is worth such consequences.




Tuesday, March 4, 2008

The M. Night Shamylan Chronicles: Part I

Part One: Simple Men; Simple Plans

Sanjay was above all else, a simple man.

If anything is to be stressed before we begin our tale it is this.

It is just that he somehow found himself unintentionally tangled in a un-navigable and sticky web of complexity and circumstance. Nothing more; nothing less.

Common wisdom asserts that we can best understand a person by understanding their likes and desires.

I offer a contrary opinion. To truly understand a person one must understand fully their hatreds and dislikes. Happiness and complacency are easier faked than orgasms. But displeasure and rage—the bitter boiling of blood, the vicarious sound of crooked, keratin filled fingernails streaking across a dusty chalkboard that echo through our minds—cannot be hidden. They are the nonverbals of our soul.

So even though we might deduce with some certainty that Bob was charitable because he volunteered at the local SPCA; or that he was nerdy because of his zest for comic books, these offer little insight into the motivations behind his miraculous adventure. To understand this we must, as I have so insightfully proposed, turn to his more “negative emotions.”

Sanjay disliked left turn traffic lights that responded sporadically. Sanjay disliked committees. Even more than these he disliked the tendency of crushed ice to clump into a massive block of frigid particles, clinging precariously to the bottom of the cup, waiting for its sweet release at the precise moment when the unsuspecting drinker tips the glass too far to reach that final drop of liquid.

But among all these lesser dislikes and pet peeves, there was one thing he hated. It was this very thing that shaped not only Sanjay himself, but also the story I tell you today. This soul wrenching, mind raping, hatred was none other than M. Night Shamylan.

He did not hate the man himself. In fact, they actually met once long ago when they were both younger men. Had they had the chance to spend a little more time together they might have even become friends and learned that they shared a great deal in common. So it was not the man he hated, it was his work.

M. Night tormented his audience the way dog owners torment their pets with a game of fetch; the poor canine bastards, bound by some ancient and unavoidable genetic predisposition to follow the stick blindly unto the ends of the earth.

Sanjay despised M. Night’s ego-maniacal insertion of himself into every movie as if to say, look upon me minions, it is I, M. Night, creator of this masterpiece.

He despised the way irrelevant plot lines were introduced only to confuse and sway the viewer from solving the surprise ending.

He despised the way producers must wax their floors each year in the mass accumulation of saliva that gushes from their mouths when they learn of the next Shamylan Blockbuster.

But most of all he despised M. Night because of a broken heart. For that one magical night in 1998, M. Night took him dancing, and showered him in gold and diamonds. They walked beneath infinite expanses of universe, and made love atop equally infinite expanses of cool, summer’s sand. And then when Sanjay awoke the next morning, M. Night was gone.

Oh how the Sixth Sense had dazzled him. He sat tense upon the edge of his seat, leaning so far forward that gravity itself had to bend its previously unflinching laws just to hold him upright. It unfolded like the perfect mystery. On that musky, summer’s eve he was not Sanjay Vindalu; he was R. M. Chesterson, private detective extraordinaire, spending late nights at the County library piecing together the mystery on rusty slides of microfilm.

His infatuation was such that it eventually led him to form the now debunked Northeast Regional M. Night Shamylan Video Store Clerk’s Appreciation and Promotion Club of Loyal and Devoted Enthusiasts, or N. R. M. N. S. V. S. C. A. P. C. L. D. E, as it was sometimes called.

And so in the years that followed the Sixth Sense, Sanjay rightfully expected gold, and was instead showered in coal.

In one of his proudest and most popular blog entries, Sanjay summarized the evolution of M. Night Shamylan’s later films:

Unbreakable. Sure, the film is Unbreakable, unless of course you consider the millions of shattered hopes and expectations it left its wake. Those were quite breakable indeed.
Signs. Oh Yes, I should have seen the “Signs of decline” littered all throughout M. Nights previous endeavor.

The Village. Aptly named for the maximum municipal capacity of people who globally enjoyed the movie.

Lady in the Water. A title that both described the film and the Philadelphia Inquirer’s headline the following morning when Mary Beth McCintyre drowned herself in the fountain at Love Park after enduring 7 minutes of the movie.

He saw in these movies the centuries of torturers who traded their racks and iron maidens for cellulite spools and 8 inch zoom lenses.

They made him feel like a fish caught in the sea of mystery and suspense. And oh how M. Night loved to dangle his silver, streamlined, frilly lure in front of him. And even though in the dark recesses of his subconscious a voice always told him not to bite upon the flash of silver that danced through the sea, compulsion never failed to win out in the end. And when the jagged hook snared his upper lip, he was forced to endure the ride, departing each incident with little more than a sore lip and two hours given to the grave.

In another blog entry, he would later compare the experience of watching M. Night Shamylan’s movies to a night of masturbation; a great deal of effort for mere seconds of payoff.

My readers may ask me, why didn’t Sanjay just boycott the movies and refuse to see them anymore? I had hoped Sanjay’s metaphor of masturbation had cleared that up, but just in case I’ll make it explicitly clear. Just like masturbation, no matter how pointless it seems, no matter how much we may regret it in the end, no matter how many times we promise ourselves we’re never going to do it again, when the loins want some fun, the fly comes undone.

So perhaps it is no surprise that several days before the unveiling of M. Night’s newest project, The Happening, he approached his friend, and former co-chair of N. R. M. N. S. V. S. C. A. P. C. L. D. E, about his radical new idea of how to never again suffer through M. Night’s movies.

He confessed to Milo that he had spent the last few weeks developing a time travel device that would enable him to fast forward through M. Night’s slow and tortuous plot development, allowing him instead to instantaneously see the twist ending, which is collectively agreed to be the only section of M. Night’s movies that is worth a damn.

The device, he explained, suspended its user in a timeless sphere that hovers somewhere in the fourth dimension. Within the sphere time passes in an instant if it passes at all. While outside time passes as normal, and the time traveler is able to wake up at a later period in time, unfazed and unaware that time has passed at all.

My readers might be asking themselves, how does a man like Sanjay, a 32 year old video store clerk who’s greatest accomplishment in life is a scale model of Will Smith punching the alien from Independence Day built entirely from blue Legos, surpass minds as vast as Einstein’s to become the first person to discover time travel.

The answer is quite simple.

As you’ll no doubt remember, Sanjay is above all else a simple man. It is this that guides his fate, as well as the destiny of our story, and it is this that ultimately gives him the prime advantage in the development of time travel.

Time, despite how frequently we attempt to muddy its waters, is a remarkably simple concept. Thus, it requires a remarkably simple mind, with an even more remarkably simple approach to successfully navigate its many dimensions.

Complex men of intellect will therefore develop complicated theories and intricate machines. Their actions will be borne of convoluted intentions, and their agendas will ultimately be riddled with complexities. Time, as one might infer, is not a fan of such vast complexity, and will always counter the development of any method of time travel which approaches the concept with any sort of complexity.

So in the end, all Sanjay had to do was harness his disdain for M. Night, brainstorm a solution, watch a few episodes of McGuvyer, journey to the salvage yard, and several hours later he discovered time travel.


Milo agreed to accompany Sanjay on the time machine’s inaugural journey, if only to laugh and humiliate Sanjay upon what he believed would be the machine’s inevitable failure. Time travel, Milo, would attempt to impart again and again upon Sanjay, is simply not possible from gluing a switchboard, a burnt out computer chip, and the motor of an old blender together inside a cardboard box with Elmer’s glue.

So together they braved the line, taking any opportunity available to poke fun at the devout fans who still believed in the second coming of the Sixth Sense.

They approached the concession stand and Milo bought a large tub of popcorn bathing in butter, while Sanjay refused to buy anything, reminding Milo that he would have no time for snacks where he was going.

And as finally filed into their seats and the lights dimmed as the credits began to inch their way onto the panoramic screen, Sanjay gave Milo one final wink, closed his eyes, and initiated the device.

Instantly he opened his eyes and stared anxiously at the screen only to find that he was looking once again at the opening credits.

What a piece of shit, he thought to himself, discarding his device among the remnants of fallen popcorn kernels. He quickly realized that Milo had been right all along, and that perhaps next time he should use Rubber Cement instead.

And as he turned his head to the right to inform Milo of his failure, he was surprised to see that Milo had been replaced by a wrinkly old gentlemen, several decades his senior, who cowered in the upper right corner of his seat, turgid with fear, staring at Milo as if he had just appeared from the Ether.

In fact, that is precisely what had happened. The poor old man had been enjoying his own buttery tub of popcorn, and when he had turned left to smile and hold the hand of his grandson he saw instead a large, greasy, Indian man crushing the poor boy’s fragile, eight year old bone structure.

I feel compelled to mention that the greatest paradox inherent in time travel is in its development. As I mentioned earlier, only the simplest of minds can create it. But it is the simplest of minds who will also undoubtedly overlook the simplest factors and fail to understand the basic scientific principles necessary in perfecting the process.

There are some in the field of Time Space Continuum Mathematics who argue that this is in fact Time’s great solution for eliminating paradoxes within time travel. By ensuring that only simple minds can create time travel, Time ensures that it will only be stumbled upon by those who are too stupid to make it work..

And so while Sanjay delighted in the brief instant he spent hovering beyond the Earth in his time-neural, fourth dimensional bubble, he forgot the fact that the Earth would continue to turn on its normal 24 hour schedule, spinning at an impressive 800 MPH below. And so, two hours later, it just so happened that the geographic location from which he originally transported was longer be the corresponding geographic location in time which he reemerged.

Instead, he resurfaced two hours West, in a small Midwestern town named Dunville; although he somehow miraculously reappeared inside another movie theatre that happened to be showing the very same movie he had attempted to avert two hours and 1,600 miles earlier.
Rather than cause any more damage to the young boy’s rib cage, the old man’s heart, or his own ego, Sanjay slipped out the emergency exit to walk the unfamiliar streets of his newfound location in search of a Greyhound bus station.

The walk was a walk we’ve all taken before. It is the walk we must face when the truth of our reality becomes apparently clear, and we realize that some battles simply cannot be won. With each step he acclimated himself to the disheartening truth that if he wanted to see M. Nights twist endings in theatres, he would forever be forced to endure the films in their entirety.
As he neared the bright fluorescent light which bathed the pavement of the Greyhound station, he heard a barely audible whisper from an adjacent alleyway which seemed to say “Need some time?”

Curiosity guided his head and he peeked into the narrow alley way only to see an averaged size man leaning at a 60 degree angle against the brick wall. He looked normal enough, despite the fact that he was cloaked in the blackest outfit Sanjay had ever witnessed. It seemed to swallow all the light in a 20 foot radius, and even had an effect on the bright beams that shone above the buildings from the bus station.

Sanjay approached with understandable caution and the shady figure of darkness repeated himself.

“Look for some time,” he said, stretching the final syllable out to echo around the contours of the alley.

Sanjay, confused and still distraught over his failed experiment decided to inquire further into what exactly the man mean by time. Most likely he was some black market clock salesman. Though Sanjay clung to hope that just maybe he was selling some Thyme, which would indeed go very nicely with the stew Sanjay planned to cook later to cheer himself up.

“Time,” the man repeated softer. “The Great Journey. The 4D. Miss Scary Plane. The Relevancy Factor. The STC my friend. Time Travel.”

“You mean to tell me,” Sanjay replied skeptically, “that you are peddling bootlegged time travel in the back alley of a small Midwestern town?”

“Stranger things have happened,” the man replied, shrugging his burly, black shoulders, though the lack of confidence in voice clearly indicated that even he couldn’t believe that statement.
“How do I know this is not a hoax,” Sanjay inquired.

“You’ll just have to trust me the same way you trusted Marty Coopersmith to sell you an official early release copy of Cloverfield instead of some cheap bootleg, Sanjay,” he answered, checking over each shoulder for whatever authorities might police against illegal time dealing.

Sanjay squinted his eyes and bored into to darkness of the figure before him. He logically concluded that no man could possibly know such personal information unless they had previously traveled to this exact moment in time to decipher the precise information necessary to clinch the sale.

And so perhaps it was the curious name drop; or perhaps it is because in the end a bootleg time travel device turned out to be much cheaper than a bus ticket back to Philadelphia. But Sanjay decided to make a deal.

“So where will you be going Sanjay, forward or backward,” the man said opening his coat to reveal a colorful assortment of trinkets and strange, mechanical devices, which all seemed to buzz at a deep and unsettling frequency.

His instincts told him to say forward, but he caught his tongue at the last second. Why continue to go forward when there would always be another movie theatre just beyond the horizon? Why should he continue to fight petty battles with time, trying to outrun this beast that couldn’t be outrun? Why not just go back to the beginning, and rig the race in his favor.

He would travel backward through the mysteries of time on a miraculous journey to the curry swept bazaars of 1970’s Pondicherry, India. He would hunt down M. Night’s father. And on the night before M. Night was to be conceived, he would bind the man to a chair, strand him in an alleyway, and forever avert the ill-fated conception.

He picked his smiling head up to meet the vacuous stare of the mysterious stranger. Extending his hand outward he said, “I’ll take on order of the past please.”

“Oh, and make it to go.”

To Be Continued

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

The Matrix and the Media

A strange thought occurred to me while re-watching the Matrix for the umpteenth time today. Its all good for Morpheus, Neo, Trinity, the Agents, and Smith to go cavorting about the world, wreaking havoc, and leaving chaos in their wake because, lets face it, the world isn’t real.

So at the end of the night (if they survive) they can comfortably tuck themselves into their Zionist beds, or binary programming sleeping chambers or the equivalent and not worry about the impact they may have had upon “the false reality.”

But what about the billions to which the Matrix is reality who are forced to live in the wake of cataclysmic car crashes, impossible breaches of physical law, and a manical doppelganger bent on world destruction. Truth, as Morpheus so adequately puts it, can only be inferred to the point of our senses abilities. And in this regard that Matrix is their only reality.

So I found myself wondering how their news outlets would report the horror they saw all around them. What would be the headlines? The timeline?

Of course we could argue that the machines would reprogram everything so no one could experience each horrible event. But lets assume, just for one second, that even above the confines of their own programming, the machines believe in one thing absolutely—freedom of the press

“High Profile Breakout Leaves 30 Dead: Morpheus Involvement Questioned” The City Herald, May 1999.

A breakout from a high security government facility today left upwards of 30 people dead, with countless more injured and an estimated $500,000 in property damages. Inside sources say the Federal building in downtown New City was infiltrated by a male and female terrorist in an attempt to rescue a prisoner. Government officials have yet to confirm, but sources indicate the prisoner may have been elusive internet terrorist Morpheus.

The terrorist duo killed over 30 highly trained security guards before piloting a stolen Black Hawk helicopter into the 89th floor of the building. The helicopter destroyed several floors of the building and hospitalized numerous office workers. All buildings within 5 city blocks remain closed until city officials can determine whether the building structure will remain supported.

Jeffery Garrison, a security guard who survived the break in, told CNN that the terrorists “moved like Marionettes under the puppettering of a twisted and evil God. A complete perversion of physical law.” Mr. Garrison was later taken into questioning by government officials. Police commissioner Jaffe has put the city on alert, advising the citizens to be on the lookout for these skilled and highly dangerous terrorists.

“Doppelgangers Stole My Husband,” Super Mega World Supermarket Enquirer, January 2000

Elma Marie Black told SMWSE Thursday that doppelganger aliens from the planet Matrix have transformed her husband into one of their kind. She told reporters that she and her husband were enjoying a walk in the City Park at dark, when a thin man with a deep voice approached them in a brown tweed suit and dark sunglasses. Her husband stepped in front to defend her, but the mysterious alien thrust his fist inside her husband’s chest and filled him with a silvery reflective liquid that she described as “metal come alive.” She gasped in horror as she saw her husband morph into an exact replica of the humanoid alien. When asked if the doppelganger said anything to her she responded, “it is inevitable.”

Ms. Black is currently being treated for severe mental exhaustion at St. John’s Medical Center. She is also being charged by officials with the disappearance and potential murder of her husband.

“Study Finds Local Increases in Déjà vu; Study Finds Local Increases in Deja vu,” Daily Entertainment Section, May 2000

Feeling like you’ve had a lot of Déjà vu Lately? You may not be alone. A recent study conducted by the City University has found that in the past 4 months, City inhabitants have experienced 3 times the regular level of Déjà vu. “Its so weird,” one subject was quoted as saying. “I mean everybody feels Déjà vu at one point in their life, its like karmic reincarnation or something. But lately I feel like it happens on a daily level. I’m just glad I’m not the only one.” Test Results and Description of Experiment on Page 2B.

“911 Calls Abuzz with Reports of Mysterious Doppelganger,” The City Herald, June 2000.

Reports are issuing from all over the city of a “doppelganger” dressed in a brown blazer and black sunglasses who injects unsuspecting people with a copy of himself. Numerous reports bearing similarity to these claims were dismissed at earlier dates; however, due to the high influx of 911 calls, city officials have decided to stage a full investigation into the culprit. More developments will follow.

“Highway to Hell: “Automobiles” and “Conventions of Reality” Left Smashed in Wake,” The City Herald, July 2000

Three separate incidences along route 101 today left numerous people dead and miles of highway in ruin.

The first case involved a car chase that spilled over from the Winslow Overpass. Two Cadillac’s fired at one another across several miles of highway, leaving several dead and a 10 car pile up in their wake.

Later, in a horribly miscalculated attempt at vigilante justice, a police officer in a brown tweed suit was reported jumping from his cruiser onto a nearby Saturn, crushing the automobile and precipitating another devastating pile up. Police chiefs have not returned any comment concerning the officer’s identity or whereabouts.

Several miles up the road, eyewitnesses report that a Caucasian woman and Korean male leapt from another overpass onto a semi-truck and proceeded to steal a Ninja motorcycle. The woman then turned the motorcycle around and drove against traffic, causing several more accidents before she disappeared. Police are still looking for her whereabouts.

Several more miles up the road, two males were spotted standing atop of another semi. They were later joined by a Caucasian male who began fighting with one of them. One eyewitness describes the fighting as a mix between “aerobics” and “everything they teach you isn’t possible in physics class.”

For unknown reasons, a truck half a mile ahead suddenly pulled a u-turn and drove head first into the truck that carried the men on top. Eyewitness accounts say truck that carried the men didn’t try to divert its course, and appeared intent on colliding with the other truck. The explosion destroyed over 200 yards of highway and killed upwards of 50 people. Route 101 has been temporarily closed for investigation and all traffic is being re-routed through route 89.

Police are currently investigating the possibility of a connection between the three incidences. Police commissioner Jaffe had this to say. “My rational mind cannot believe that six unrelated individuals randomly decided to create mayhem and destruction within 10 miles of one another with no aggregate agenda. We will discover the culprits, and they will be brought to justice.”

“Physics Defiled,” Special Reports Bulletin, ABA News, July 2004

Just hours after a horrific accident left 20 miles worth of destruction on route 101, a large Federal building known colloquially as the Midnight Tower, exploded tonight sometime after midnight. The explosion was of cataclysmic proportions. The blast somehow created a back-draft unlike anything ever witnessed outside of nuclear technology. A powerful wind tunnel was ejected from the building, and continued linearly with impeccable speed, creating a vortex in its wake that sucked up any automobiles, person, or loose object, and emitted powerful shockwaves that leveled all buildings in its path.

Estimates place the number dead in the thousands, and destruction to downtown is beyond belief. But even more puzzling then the destruction left in its wake, is the phenomenon itself. Scientists from all over the City and beyond are hard at work to determine the mysterious cause of the blast and the back-draft that followed.

The Mayor is expected to make a press release shortly.

The incident comes in the wake of an even more harrowing problem. It has now been confirmed that some kind of organism or machine is cloning itself from the bodies of human beings. Once cloned, these highly dangerous doppelgangers become obedient minions to the Alpha subject—a creature calling itself Smith.

Government officials believe there may be some connection between the explosion and the “Smith Organism,” citing potential involvement of terrorist forces from China, North Korea, or Al Qaeda. White house officials and pentagon staff are meeting currently to discuss the problem.

The president has issued a state of emergency and advised civilians to remain in their homes and barricade their doors. If you cannot get to your room, we advise you seek shelter. Your local news station will now broadcast a list of local shelters as we continue our coverage of these mysterious events.

“The End?” Emergency Broadcast Report, Daniel Nelson.

The life of a reporter is a difficult one. People have forgotten in our world of corporate buyouts and in your face streaming media, that a reporter is not a mindless automaton but a human being. Perhaps our greatest curse is that to serve our country and uphold the values of the Fourth Estate, we must sheath our own opinions and biases for the sake of total objectivity.

So now, in what is surely one of the Earth’s last remaining broadcasts, this reporter is faced with an ethical dilemma. In the absence of any governing structure, and facing an unprecedented and apocalyptic danger, do I still remain true to my charge of objectivity? Or do I use these final remaining minutes to express the feelings long quarantined in my head.

To answer, I propose a question. Is there really a difference anymore? Objectivity is a reflection of reality. It is defined by what we can see, smell, taste, hear, and feel. We react immediately to these senses, letting them process no deeper into our psyche then what’s necessary to deliver them to the public.

But what happens when what we see and feel is what we’ve always been taught isn’t real? What happens when what we see all around cannot be explained by any science, logic, or reason? But only by our own beliefs and interpretations?

The Apocalypse, whatever that means to you, has arrived. And he is wearing sunglasses. At first, we could rest assured in the belief that this “thing” was nothing more than a high-tech weapon from enemy insurgents, and that our government would deal with it swiftly. Now, reports from our suspected enemies, China, North Korea, and Al Quadea, confirm that they too are engaged in battle with this mysterious doppelganger.

And then the more harrowing detail. Other enemies, Venezuela and the Congo, have issued no confirmation. In fact they have issued no reply at all. And we fear the worst. Plunged irrevocably into a sea of this “Smith.”

How do you kill a thing that cannot be killed? How do you kill a thing that only adds to its army for subtraction it inflicts upon you? Perhaps this is God’s cosmic sense of irony, that we were all born into this world as one and we shall leave it as such.

And now in the late hours of our specie’s twilight, when the very fabric our existence peels back to reveal the horrific, I find myself sitting alone, my colleagues all gone, broadcasting to an audience who may very well already be dead. And I am overcome with the strange desire to have Smith assimilate me. I long to taste the silvery liquid as it trickles down my throat and consumes my body until I awake as him.

Why? Despair? Perhaps. Forfeit? Perhaps as well. But when it all buckles down I believe the reason is this. I just want to feel something new. I want the horror to stop, the tears to ceases, and the shaking to abide. I want to put down the microphone and smash the radio and scream, TAKE ME SMITH, TAKE ME.

But alas, the curse of the newsman is that I shall not. I cannot, while the possibility still remains that some of you are out there, alone, confused, frightened longing for one last connection before the long, and silent repose.