Epilogue: Rise of the Sandwich

No one ever bothered with pink pavement. Roads were always gray or black, and the lines on the road were white or yellow. Eggs and gravel stirring together in a bowl. Cigarette butts and expectorated wads of pale orange sugar-free chewing gum. The road is a track, touring your cart through vistas of brown, dead grass and looming billboards.

On a rainy day like this one was, the traffic lights were mirrored by the wet road. Somehow this made everything appear more futuristic than it actually was.

Instead of buying presents at Christmas, we had to boil our dog. One day the internet stopped working and FBI agents came into my house and killed my mother and father and said we would all be sold into child slavery. School started. The summertime was my favorite time, with the smell of freshly cut mow grass. I like to mow the grass. I like to mow the grass. I like to mow the grass. I like to mow the grass. I like to mow the heads off the grass and smell the freshly cut grass smell. I like to rub dandelions on my big, BIG sister's elbows and nose. I like to be next to my dog at sunset time instead of behind my dead cousins, Lucy, Thrimble and Toatis.

Chapter 10: Free Tarantulas!!!

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The purple moon, the goddess of tree leaves, green tea and peach trees. The vibration and the distances.
Look, here is a lake. It is late summer, late after noon. The lake is surrounded by trees and violet mountains. The sky is every color, the celestial milk leaks out into the black coffee. The Moon is in Taurus.
Why, here is a city. It is mid winter, mid night. The city is superimposed against the backdrop of a lake. The moon reflects in the puddles, and the street lights reflect on the wet pavement. Everything reflects everything else, in this glorious house of mirrors. It is cold.

Stop paying taxes. If you stopped paying taxes, you would have more money of your own. By paying taxes, you are supporting government programs that do not benefit you in any way at all. Like the mindless war in Iraq! Screw that! You don’t want to kill people, the government lies to you! The President of the United States is a terrible liar, and people who think this war serves any purpose are either complete morons, or greedy self-righteous power-hungry re pig licans. Screw them!

Stop driving your car. Use public transportation if you have to, or just walk. If you stop buying petroleum products, the cost for them will go way down, and the Bush family will lose money. Driving a car is stupid. Where the hell do you need to go that’s so important anyway? To work?? Stop going to work. Quit your job.

Quit your job, they don’t pay you enough to live on. Most people hate or dislike their jobs to some extent. But, they need money. No they don’t! Stop using money!!! Money is stupid, and there are creepy Freemasonic symbols all over it. Money is worthless, it’s a meaningless ritual. You don’t need money, you just need the things that money will buy. So instead of wasting your time working at a job to earn money that you just spend on gas anyway, why don’t you just stop using money? You should steal the things you need! Armed robbery!

Better yet, why don’t you borrow things and barter with your friends and neighbors? If people weren’t so selfish and greedy, everyone would have enough. Most of the wealth in this country belongs to 1% of the population. They don’t need all that stuff, and they’d better start giving some away. No one is so important that they need a private jet and seven houses.

In fact, stop living in houses! They isolate you from the rest of the world. We should all live in communes. And stop having babies, there are enough of them in the world already.

Ignore the government. No one has the right to make laws and start wars. Death to the ruling class! Without the people, we would have no country.

Burn down a shopping mall!!! We have too many of those. Blow up a gas station! Make sure you don’t hurt anyone during the process. Stop going to church! It’s a waste of your time, and real spiritual awakening can only take place if your mind is open to everything, not weighed down by cheesy belief systems and moral codes.
Ignore the police if they arrest you for something stupid, like protesting something you don’t like or smoking pot at McDonald’s. You should be able to smoke pot inside McDonalds whenever you want. Hell, they should give you marijuana when you go into Mcdonalds, but stop eating McDonalds too. You should be able to take as much acid as you want, also you should be able to smoke as much pot as you want and shrooms too. Don’t smoke crack, don’t do coke, and certainly don’t shoot up heroin. Stay away from pills, even advil. In general, pills are dangerous. Smoke marijuana for any ailment you might have, or drink green tea.

Stop smoking cigarettes, it’s bad for you. And try not to drink so much every weekend. Wash your hands after you go to the bathroom. And for heaven’s sakes don’t spray windex in your eyes! Stop eating crap food with tons of chemicals in them. Grow your own food, and stay away from grocery stores. Don’t join the military and go over to Iraq and start killing people. You’re a bad person if you kill people over stupid things like war.

And another thing, no one in Iraq had anything to do with September 11th, so leave them the hell alone! George W. Bush had more to do with 9-11 than anyone that has ever lived in Iraq ever.

Stop making such a huge deal out of Barack Obama. He’s not going to save you, so don’t get all riled up when he says ridiculous things at his rallies. Obama has his own ideology, and he wants to use your votes to get him to the top. He’s not going to save you, he’s only telling you what you want to hear. And stop voting, it’s a useless symbolic gesture. No one should be President anyway. No one should have any authority. Tell your boss to go straight to hell. Power inflates around the head, and leaders cannot lead you anywhere you couldn’t go by yourself. Teachers and seekers, not bosses and employees. Abuse of power is the single most dangerous thing in our society, period. I want a tree to be Dictator for life, and I want us all to listen to everything the tree has to say. From now on, only vegetables can tell us what to do. And the sun is a big star burning very brightly.

Stop thinking about what you need to do. Just do whatever it is you need to do. Pay attention to what is going on right now. You’re stuck at the bottom of a 40,000 mile gravity well, and you’re not going anywhere special. Try and understand that the world is something that is actually happening, and you’ll be suprised to discover you’re never going to be able to understand that one.

Don’t worry about anything, ever. Just be happy and live your life. Don’t hurt other people. And stop hating people.

Chapter 11: Phone Call From Grandad

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Around the time of the ice the broad side of the mountain stream. Selling plastic armchairs, pink, purple, pizza, brown, yellow death color, orange. Orangutans. You will be slapped in the head with a clipboard if you do not! Selfish frogs!

Washin dishes?

Chapter 13: Dense Prose For Custom Readers

On the whole, thought and action have a lot to do with it.
A myriad of systems interlocked in one all-inclusive organismachine-driven system. Pulleys and levers, meters and knobs, dials and buttons, lasers and holograms, plants and animals. Explosions, implosions, stasis. A static liver. Time without duration, and space without form.
Within and beyond the eternal system, the divine light of all minds, we see a window. The window allows visual and sensory access to all of creation, paradoxically this awareness is not seperate from the whole system itself. This loophole allows the One to believe it is Two, and is the mother of all duality.
Having never known the difference between One and Two, the Whole Being has only its own illusion to believe in. This illusion is human perception, and it is all we can ever know. The funny thing is, this perception is not indicated as being anything in particular. It is a given circumstance.
This Primary Illusion of Perception creates the condition whereby the Supreme Being may trick itself into believing that it is a separate ego; a tree, a rock, a body of water, a human, or a fish. The borders between this and that are simply non-existent. Can you really see where one begins and another ends?
All fits together as a puzzle, simply because it is not a puzzle at all. All is One, but this cannot be "realized" simply because it already is "real."
So there is no longer any problem. There never was, and I am a dreadful hoax.
___________
Onward! yells the deaf old duck
For rather winters ever plucked
from old yarn boxes, dust and torn
All withered leaves did rusty horn

Or saw great limbs from trees did make
For weather wonders, rainbow cake
We mixed our grill with fresh of face
That sizzles greasy smiley place

Because a water fountain spews
and luncheons served in all the pews
Did many basket weavers look
to burn destroy in fire, Book.
___________

Chapter 14: Yogurt Tastes Better Than Money, Human

A sweaty, wrinkled sock lies motionless on the floor of my disgusting bathroom. I got a 4 on the term test offered to incoming students. Stabbed with pens in the eye, ripped veins in the face of a human. Beautiful rainbow chocolate happy sexy bombs in Iraq. Digging shovels for sand sharks with ragged gravel.
The President of the United States has strong muscles and arms. He is tight and toned, tanned and in tip-top shape. He bent me over the desk in the Oval Office and Officially pounded my sad ass. He grabbed me by the ears and whispered through clenched teeth, "I will take away your virginity!!!!"
This is not an accusation, armored cops in black ski masks.
In the information age we can expect a lot of three-dimensional typos. Vacant lots full of damaged snakes and apricots.
Through the prism of my unclean mind, a family of squirrels live peacefully in my backyard while Rome is burning. I feel a slow motion scene in my head of George W. Bush driving a flaming chariot across deserts of happenstance, screaming righteous Biblical passages and flecks of spit. The mangled corpses of raped women and char-broiled babies paving the path for American Liberty and National Justice, all licensed by the FCC. Faith-based organizations bow at the very nudge of his knees.
A swarm of killer bees descends on a family in Rhodes Island. New York City stands tall against the firestorm of hatred.
Seattle leans towards the killer skies, and Dallas, Texas takes it easy with a cigarette in stride.
San Francisco wipes gays and Los Angeles pounds with the best of a thousand years. Slaming violet testicles upon a wall of angel fire. Destroying all that was lost from the Holocaust, an asteroid eraser with the sound of a million loons calling to Sirius.
Beating around the Bush, hitting old ladies in the head for 55 dollars. Is there our way or the highway? Is nothing lost? Does nickels aren't because whereabouts?
Verily I leant toward him, and whispered, "CHEESE!!!!!! YOU FUCKING JACKASS!!!!"
He blearily awoke with a start, and I smelled his foot. Disgusting. Lame brain, chicken turkey blowhard Rapheal Jesus pickles vagina omen O'Malley. Happy Virgin Mary. Happy Everything and a year. Goodbye to all tomorrows and hello to all of yesterday's todays. Suprise to Vanessa for her child is dying.
A basket of bagels was the gift I gave to a growing crowd of older men. Simply put, impressions are first and foremost. A purple welt on my face from being whipped with a chain of thorns.
Disgusting.

Chapter 15: Phoebe

Today we are going to examine one of the largest and silliest organizations in the world, The Christian Religion.
Christianity is a veritable labyrinth of exciting half-truths, meaningless proclamations, declarations and vague stories with little or no credibility. Like most religions, it holds onto some pretty wacky beliefs, but first and foremost, it says that the universe was created in seven days by a single male entity named "God."

According to the Bible, God rules the heavens and the Earth, and passes judgement on all people and things. When you die, God gets to decide whether you are to live with him in Heaven, or go to Hell and live with his arch-nemesis, "Satan." Satan is a really awful red person with a forked tail and horns. Hell is constantly on fire, and if you get sent there, you'll suffer in excruciating agony for the rest of eternity.

Conversely, God is like the nicest person ever, and Heaven is totally perfect in every way. Everyone wants to go to heaven and live with God.

God is also famous for sending his only son, Jesus, down to Earth to live as a human. Jesus was born of a complete virgin, on Christmas, and he spent most of his life on Earth saying some very interesting things and a lot of people followed him around. One time he turned water into wine. He also walked on water and did some cool stuff with loaves and fishes. But then everyone decided he was blasphemous and so they nailed him to a huge wooden cross and he died. Only he didn't actually die, because he rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven, as easily as you or I might ascend the rungs of a ladder.

Finally, Jesus opened the gates of Heaven and saved us all from our misdeeds, which was really cool of him. Some people are totally obsessed with Jesus because he is so chill. People wear crosses around their necks to show that they love Jesus, even though Jesus got nailed to a cross and died.

So, Christians are supposed to model their own lives after Jesus, because he was totally perfect (just like his dad, God). To help with this, Christianity has compiled a huge list of "sins," or things that God forbids you to do. Ten of the most basic sins are listed below:
1) Saying God's name in any context besides praising Him
2) Spending the Sabbath day doing anything besides praying
3) Practicing any religion other than Christianity
4) Telling your parents to screw off
5) Taking someone else's stuff
6) Wishing you had someone else's stuff
7) Wishing you had someone else's woman
8) Cheatin' on your wife or husband
9) Lyin'
10) Murderin'

There are also seven "deadly sins" that manifest themselves as character traits. They are: wrath, gluttony, sloth, envy, pride, greed and lust. Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman starred in a movie about these sins. As terrible as all these sins are, none of them compare to the biggest sin of all: "the Original Sin."

The Original Sin occured when Adam and Eve (the first people ever), ate fruit from a tree when God specfically told them not to. That made them realize they were naked and they felt ashamed. They screwed up really bad, and God was pissed off, so then everyone else had to be born with Original Sin right from the start, except for Jesus and his mom. So even if you're totally good, it doesn't matter because you're guilty of original sin! Thanks a lot, Adam and Eve (not!).

It can also be sinful to waste food or money, to have premarital sex, or to engage in any homosexual activities. But above all, the Lord's greatest commandment is that we "love one another." That's what Jesus said anyway.

So let us look at what we cannot do.

We can't worship nature like pagans or have orgies in the wilderness with nymphs and satyrs, that's right out. We can't engage in the sacramental worship of psychoactive compounds found in nature, like marijuana, DMT, psilocybin mushrooms or alcohol. And we certainly can't spend our lives naked and free, running around in the forest in perfect harmony with all other animals. Nudity is connected to the Original Sin, and we should dress in darkness so that we are not an occasion of sin to ourselves.

We cannot practice other religions, so that includes Hinduism, which holds that All is Brahman, and everything is connected. We can't explore Buddhism, which has a basic tenet of nothingness and a void within a void within another void. We can't explore Zen, with its system of non-system, its basic tenet being simply, "attention." Nor can we try Taoism, started by Lao Tzu, who declared that, "the way that can be trodden is not the true, undying Way." These religions are too weird and vague for any self-respecting Christian.

Certainly, a Christian has no business converting to Islam, with its five pillars and weird pilgrimages to Mecca; fasting for months, and the 40 virgins waiting for you in paradise.

But above all, a Christian shall not view Judaism as anything other than a quaint little tradition practiced by a bunch of well-meaning people that will all eventually burn in eternal Hell-fire.

I remember asking my first grade teacher at Catholic elementary school whether Jews went to heaven and she said, "Well I don't really know, but my guess would be....probably not."

And keep in mind that Christianity is 50% Jewish. Almost half of the Bible, the sacred book of the Christians, is just a reprinting of the Torah, the sacred book of the Jews.

Of course, there is no greater sin than homosexuality. This is because Man and Woman form a sacred bond blah blah that cannot be surpassed so on and so forth. And the Bible clearly states, "One man shall not be joined with another man--in his butt." (Ez Ch 4 11-32)

Then you read about all the weird child sodomy that goes on behind closed doors at your local Catholic church, and you wonder, do priests get a special pass? Why is it ok for a "holy man" to engage in butt sex with little boys, if it's not ok for Todd and Ralph to enjoy sweaty man love in the shower?

When word gets out that a priest is molesting children, several things happen. First, the Bishop yells at him, and spanks his holy bottom, and then tells him to go and be a priest in a different city where no one knows about him yet. But two full grown men will go to Hell forever if they so much as think about "colon-plunging" one another.

To be fair, I understand that the Catholic church is taking the child molestation thing a little more seriously now, and they have offered to pay the victims to keep quiet about their horrible experiences.

I forgot to mention, the sin department is a two-sided coin. You can repent for your sins, and God will forgive you. He has to. He's a big softie. That's what's so great about sinning and that's why there are so many cool sins you can commit. You can even do two sins at once, to create fun sin-combos! Adultery and murder anyone?

All you have to do is, after you commit a sin, go to "Confession" or 'Reconcilliation." You walk into a dimly lit room, kneel down before the priest (who probably groped you the day before, that sly old devil) and tell him all the sins you committed, and that you're sorry. Try to actually sound like you're sorry, and that you want to ask Jesus for some serious forgiveness.
Then, after the priest is done molesting you, he gives you some prayers to say, mumbles some words of his own and "absolves" you of your sins. After you say your prayers, your sins magically disappear! Even if you murder an entire family with a rusty pair of scissors, you can be forgiven by God!!! If only the American Court System worked the same way!!!

The only way you won't be forgiven is if you commit a Mortal Sin. In order for a sin to be considered "mortal," you cannot feel any remorse for what you've done, and it has to be a really bad sin (like rape, murder, mass genocide or homosexuality). You might be excommunicated from the church if you commit a mortal sin.

And if you get excommunicated from the church, you automatically go to Hell.

Have you accepted Jesus as your personal savior yet?

Chapter 16: Sixth Purple Bingus

It is infinitely easier to describe how you think things "ought to be." It is almost impossible to describe things "as they really are."

We humans almost never get to see things, as they are. We usually only see the world, as it seems to us.

If we could see things for what they really are, it would be a more profound experience than any personal experience we've ever had, any emotion we've ever felt, any religious belief we've ever held, or anything we could ever imagine.

"Things as they truly are," is such a loaded expression, and it suggests something obscure or religious, but we actually mean "things" as they ACTUALLY are, not how they seem, or appear to our perceptual apparatus. It sounds profound, because we are talking about the very nature of existence, but "the nature of existence" is the simplest thing of all. It's the one thing that cannot be explained simply because it doesn't have to be.

At best, people are able to catch glimpses of Actuality (aka. things as they truly are). This is not because Actuality is hard to find or understand; rather it is because the human mind has a tendency to over-complicate things. Actuality is of the utmost simplicity, and our detail-obsessed mind cannot step back and see the forest from the trees, so to speak.

It is to realize that we are truly part of an infinitely larger whole.

It is that we live on a planet that floats among the cosmos; an unfathomable region of energy and unknowable potential.

In this vast ocean of happenstance we find ourself. A small, confused organism. And we experience.

It's not hard to see. But it's even easier to ignore. Some people will be gifted with glimpses, and others may never see, but it will always and has always been available forever to everyone.