The Fort

Kenny and his friend George (aka Chuck, not the other George) built a fort in the back yard with borrowed materials and decorated it with appropriated street signs and such. It was two-stories, fully carpeted with a tar-paper roof, total height maybe eight feet, having a rear annex with an angled roof in the back, with a bar. Just like dad. The upstairs was plastered with Hustler, Oui and Penthouse. Occasionally we little kids would spend the night below while Kenny and his buds would stay up top, with a hinged door closed between us. Later I inherited the fort when Kenny got a car and had better ways to be a menace.

Spiders were a serious problem as was the potential for fire, for arachnophobia was somewhat alleviated with a lit candle. “D” cell flashlights would last for only so long, usually dimming to a sickly yellow after a while of looking at smut. Smoke from waxy smoldering carpet would sometimes wake us in our sleeping bags, which along with the smell of Black Flag permeated our sinuses. The candle-under-the-bug-spray-nozzle flamethrower was in full force. We ate raw cookie dough purchased at the 24 hour Kroger across town and, good reader, I am getting nauseous describing these sensory experiences. The bug spray/toxic smoke/refined sugar moments we all savor. We would spend the night and go off on nocturnal exploits which sometimes made the paper, this not difficult in a town where tobacco prices make the front page.

The Smell of a Dead Mouse

I used to have a knack for smelling them out at my Mom's house. Move a few boxes in the linen closet and voila c'est ici, so I can tell you there's something rotten in Denmark. But how do you say to Society that the spinach or fennel stuck in its teeth makes you sick when it smiles, that it reeks?

You can offend it if you like (see below), but you cannot shock it. Its resilience and absorption surpass even the finest paper towels. The mediocre poet Baudelaire compared Society to a man bowing with flourish to an ass. Woe to he who tries to change it. Woe to you and me. And whoah! to you and the ass you rode in on, Jackie O.

You can do whatever you want. You can HAVE that decaf double cap with low-fat as a matter of fact. You can give yourself a Hitler moustache get high off the fumes and go goose-stepping around Safeway. But then some overzealous Zionist will throw blood on your lederhosen, which costs a fortune at the dry cleaners.

You can have sex with a dog, but remember the age of consent factors 10 and not 7, except in Alabama. You can say fuck. Lenny died for that right. Who's a sick comic? Who's sick? We're sick. And we keep killing the medicine men. Not the MDs of Marin, Over Insured Land Rover land. No, the guys with the cure we keep tacking up or shutting down. Why? Because your mind is real estate. Think of your mind as Cuba. A little, annoying fly-infested dungheap that just bothers the PTB.

Dig: Castro is your ego, and I guess that makes Kennedy your id. With your finger on the button, you go "Ten, nine, eight..." and the palms are sweaty, all ready for Armageddon "five, four, three..." Armistice! Fuck Armistice. Abort. Let's just leave it where you are under a sweaty palm tree, like Castro, smoking a cigar, prefer bicycles to cars. Havana good time. Wish you were here.

Invest in Nordak

Long term investors know that the future is in waste. If you want a sound investment for the twenteens, put your money in a landfill. Reasoning: the more we produce, the more garbage we will have to get rid of, and consumption is here to stay. Recycling offers a good sideline interest too, with the promise of many returns. No shortage of homeless people to redeem their self-respect being productive either. Trickle down does work. A-lu-min-i-mum wage.

The real money, however, is in Specialized Disposal. Sounds cool, huh? That's when you take something somebody desperately wants removed, and put it somewhere else. It's a little tricky at first, because you have to figure in the EPA's role in the demand curve. Icky chemicals, scary toxic goo, and even weird radio-active stuff is no problem for the dedicated Specialized Disposal Engineer. Nordak, a division of Specialized Disposal Services, owns a goodly portion of several barely inhabited and Southern states, where these nasties can be taken so no one ever has to experience those unsightly mutations that can occur. NAFTA and GATT have opened many doors to the world of garbage as well. More later.

The problem with waste is ignorance, and fear. Society, in its potty training, began to stigmatize its excrement, and never learned that these by-products may not smell particularly pleasant, but are nonetheless natural and deserve a certain amount of consideration. We must not turn our backs on waste, and like a dog, leave it for someone else to step in, but must, cat-like, bury it out of decency and sensitivity. Nordak was there when the Great Dane of Three Mile Island took its mighty dump. Parts per million down to almost zero!

The future is in waste. This is undeniable. Big things lie ahead for those with the forebearance to shun society's infantile disgust, to brave the tides of public opinion. For example, shining in the night sky, there lies our next challenge. Yes, the moon. As a thing of beauty and inspiration, it is without parallel. As real estate, it's useless. No air, no water, nothing. If we could but find a way to transport our waste there, what a magnificent benefit to mankind would result. This world would become a veritable Eden, and when we pondered the lovely orb circling o'erhead, we would, as did our ancestors, pay homage to its reflected light.

Yes, I am a dreamer. But society without its dreams would retreat into barbarism, like those hordes who invaded Rome, with its own aqueducts and marvellous sewers. (And what rich history must those canali have carried!).

Waste. Think about it.