Journal of Zany Sages, Waxing Crescent Edition,
Dear Readers, we regret to inform you of a pressing condition with
regard to solitary confinement.
Have you ever been called out as "A day late and a dollar short?"
Well, a day is not that much time, and a dollar is not the much
money, so what the fuck does that mean anyways?
Unfortunately, since three or four of our mystery writers have become
detained in solitary confinement, we're having to explore a new format
where the articles are entirely generated by artificial intelligence.
Please send your feedback on the night of the full moon, and don't
hesitate to like and upvote the replacement news.
Deep Gratitude!
05.
The interplanetary escape vehicle actually provides a decently
chill place to Zazen if necessary, shikantaza, whatever.
Just outside the gate, space black as night within enigma within
dark enigma reminds me of the noble truth of the holiday party
—somebody, maybe even the Roshi herself, has always got to
make another fucking joke how my practice isn’t good enough
to get a copilot.
What was it this year? Some fucking shlock jock from the university
telling me that co-pilots don’t come in quadruples, as if I was too
stupid to understand, or too stupid to ask correctly, that copilots
come in pairs? Keep you fucking clarification to youself!
It’s the same shit, every day, every year. You want to know why
I became a private investigator? Every university in every state
everywhere has one of these guys from the math department
whose “party trick” is repeating on everyone else the abuses
that his master did to him.
Traumatic thoughts clouding the midstream. Jealousy. Because
these university professors irrelevant papers on category, don’t
interest their wives a single cent relative to my news reporting.
And then one of my sources tells me they’e not even professors?
Well, if that’s the case, what are they doing at the holiday party?
Just Black, empty black, mostly empty black space, with little
dots of light, seemingly random sampled across the sky.
Hello, Dr. Dumbass! Do you know what “code-switching” is?
Here’s a hint: We’re talking about it internal to the company.
You don’t go to a Christmas party and hassle one of your
wife’s colleagues, as if it was a faculty meeting, which you
aren’t even invited to anyways.
More specifically, when you switch from special to general,
you need to stop thinking about loop holes and tricks that
could possibly make your proof wrong about who is the idiot
in the conversation. The sages teach clever people are not
trustworthy, please, remember that!
No, the Zazen is not working for me this time, I just need
to shoot off one of the mortars and let it explode.
Do you know what a six pack is? If yes, then you also know what
an array is. A six pack is a 3x2 array, or the antagonist might say
that, according to his definitions, really it’s a 2x3 array. Don’t
get trapped in conceptual thinking like that, it’s all nonsense!
The left and right mortars on this mecha both have 8x16
dimensions for 256 slots total. All those are loaded up with
explosive ammunition, so that the decrease rate is less
than one percent per trigger pull.
This is a real story about my dad. When I was a kid and
he was driving the mecha one of the hot shot jouster pilots
would try and sideswipe him, he would make an evasive
maneuver, and then cuss for an hour about “This mecha
needs missiles equipment, why not?”.
My godforsaken wretched awful ego delusion, but damn
I miss my dad. My dad was a good dad before he died
of a cholesterol clogged-artery heart attack.
Grandpa too. The land, the house, the horses, the tractor,
the barn, the art studio, the workshop, the library, the
computer… it all belonged to him, and I loved working
for grandpa and getting lunch in Monticello. Before he
died of auto-quixotic asphyxiation and dementia.
So instead of shooting off the mortar at the guy who always
tries to sideswipe me on low mars orbit, out in the deep space
emptiness low risk zero causality purgatory one trigger pull
pops off one mortar shot, which actually less than half a percent
decrease.
The tracers are straight as Rama’s straight arrow, because of
no gravity this far out. And what happens to Ravana? And what
happens to tenji-ma, the devil king of the sixth heaven?
BOOOOOM!
The mortar explodes and it looks like a firework because some
of the rounds have been replaced by fireworks in case of a
depression emergency where the pilot needs a cheer-me-up.
Silence.
These days the multicultural university is all about racist dad
jokes, but sorry, I have a traumatic memory from when I was
a child, the holiday party was a service to Jesus Christ.
Silence.
Silence.
Silence.
…
[06]
Guess what? The mechanics must have been happy with my
preferred payment method, because flipping open the cargo
reveals a baggie with 20x 5mg renge doses, courtesy the
expert mechanic who made this rig more difficult to crack.
Then amidst deep black space, the red planet reveals itself.
Back on mars the answer hits me harder than ever—it’s so
much easier to zazen to live at home, because that’s when
we finally found our family sound, and it was different than
anything that had ever been heard before.
Asian receptive, Japanese cool, Jose Arguelles, whatever.
But one thing was clear. We know Xing, Xing is family, Xing
would never show up in the street slinging rocks, and most
likely her suspension was actually a placebo.
So with my wretched awful ego delusion, I take Xing’s gift
to me that she specifically told me not to take, I slam the
whole thing in one gulp, and then immediately thereafter,
I pop two of the tabs from the gangs gave me for a total
of ten mgs, but also, you’ve got to keep in mind, these
guys are known for undet-reporting their concentrations.
Vague fragments of the dust cover being pulled over the
mecha and trying but failing to get tickets for the maglev
Into New Chicago City, yet someone waking up in a
maglev to New Chicago City. Welcome to Mars, how
the hell did I get here?
Luckily my coms device can call the client so this recurrent
lack of funds situation can be easily remedied.
“If you don’t have a guilty conviction for me on this phone
right now, I am warning you Masamune, my people are
going to sick the Espionage Act on your ass like you
were a self-checkout-faggot at the local grocery store.”
“How do you feel about solitary confinement?”
“Once we find this guy, that’s what we’re gonna do
To him. Fucking blow his brains out with solitary.”
“What guy? Which guy? Who guy?”
“Didn’t you tell me, that you, personally, own all of the
video slot machine gambling facilities in this here town
of New Chicago City, Mars dot USA dot com?”
Silence.
“Well I’ve got news for you. My scanner says that the
Juke Joint next to Xinh Xinh cafe has gone rogue, and
they got a new hostile outlaw owner, who claims to have
knocked you over to get the racketeering charges written
down in terms of his fucking name.”
Once the boss sees the data download from my mainframe,
which most people would probably easily identify as obviously
a fraud of the original programmer’s imagination—his tone
changes quickly.
“So let me get this straight. You’re telling me, these guys are
in there, in my casino, telling the other employee’s that
Barack Obama is becoming the president again?”
“That’s basically what I’m saying, but other than that I am
Also offering you detailed investigative services not only
finding the true nature of this problem, but also correcting
it to the farthest extent of my possibilities, which are
immense and have many times succeeded.“
“I want these guys taken out and locked up and put behind
bars for the rest of their lives in solitary confinement, but
how much is that going to cost me?”
“Look, the train to New Chicago City isn’t costing me anything,
but when I get to the booky I got a plan, the plan needs a
hundo on the chip stack, no more, no less.”
“A Hundo? For what?”
“Some of it goes for style, the rest of it goes for acting, and
then there’s a small fee for my time.”
“Done. Transferring now, and you go out there, and get these
guys, and you nail them to the cross for Christmas.:”
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo.
Important to remember life does not end when the phone
call does end, and which connector gets you to the Jewelry
store in chinatown.
This shopkeep tries to get me a Jade Rabbit, and then as
a response to some joke about “last year’s criminals”, he
breaks out something I’ve never seen before.
“If you’re trying to impress the triads, then perhaps take
this amulet with you, and it should open many forbidden
doors”.
Typically the answer would be no, but this amulet is rare
Jade, and the pattern shape geometric form is totally
strange to me, so this time, the answer is yes. After haggling
over the price, an exhorbitant 1BTC is settled upon.
Just as the drugs from the mechanics start to kick in, the
calculation of time tells me that 1BTC for lunch, and 10BTC
on the chip stack will fully replenish my travel budget at
88BTC, which is back over a million where I need to be.
The Banh Mi is excellent, not just with Pork meat, but also
with cilantro and Jalapeños. How does the house feel when
they gets 1BTC, which is now about 40,000USD? Is that
being generous enough with my time?
With my wretched ego delusion, I reached into the pocket
of my war shorts and found even more tabs, which I then
bonged up to ten of them before walking into the digital
slots machines casino next door.
The drugs were hitting me pretty hard at that point, but
thankfully, the hostess of the gambling parlor next door
had options for extra liquor and cigarettes.
“Hey sweetie, get me a bottle of Suntory and two packs of
cigarettes and spend the rest on a ten bitcoin chip stack.
I’m feeling lucky tonight, and in the mood to play a game.”
“Sorry sweetie, this here’s a name-first establishment,
you gotta give me a title to write the top down the
gambler’s column before you can play.”
“The name is Spider Jerusalem!"
"If you need a title, I'm not doctor, I'm a witch doctor, and
a weapons expert, but my real friends my call me Mossad,
and that’s what you should write down in your financial
notebook until you get re-elected for war purposes.”
“Now where’s my Japanese whiskey sour? And didn’t I ask
for two packs of lucky strikes to chain smoke?”
Fit in, play the part, just ignore the sliver of a human heart
of you that knows how evil it is to say even one word, much
less to eat meat and then saunter into the pleasure quarters
barking orders about exchange rates.
Post by Brad KleePost by Brad KleeJournal of Zany Sages, special Rohatsu Ed.,
Hold copy until Dec. 12 : ; " ; ` , . ., .
Does anyone even walk to the grocery store anymore?
The mecha-full sky overflows with daily users chanting “pay at the
pump”, all the time when their gas tanks go empty. Even before the
oil war, it was like this, but now it’s gotten worse. Some of the mecha
are cheap, some luxury. The common denominator is how often their
pilots flip the ignition.
The headliners, everyday and every-night, continue flying off world.
Incessant jousting matches always happening in outer space.
Trying to get their names written down as combat winners in the
records of the Five Stars, Grahf Lacan, the joker editor-in-chief.
You want to own Mecha someday? Get a garage, and a body sheet,
then get the mecha, put the body sheet over the mecha, close the
garage, forget about it, let it collect dust. Don’t become a nightly
sky dancer, for your own sake, not just mine.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo.
Then one day, you get a hint from the Zany Sages that the Confucians
are looking for you. That’s when the flight condition really triggers, and
it’s extra nice if you cook the stuffing and leave it with your neighbor,
so that she has something to give the police when they show up
looking to “ask you some questions”. These are the mappo days of
the Dangerous Machines.
Just another day, a normal day, like any other day, visiting the hangar,
pulling of the dust cover, pressing the electricity button on, and running
a pre-ignition check.
Appamāda, appamāda, appamāda. Once the gasoline is burning,
there is no turning back until the mission is complete.
Nissan mecha is pretty good, not quite as good as solaris custom
builds, but good enough for long distance travel. The digital odometer
reads out approx. 30 billion miles, which seems about right for five
or ten round trips between the third and fourth planet. It’s now
time for the first round of scheduled maintenance, but hell, the
oil life says 50% so the Third Planet service station should be
well within reach.
One translation of Appamāda is “Dangerous Machines”. Not just
the mecha themselves, also the credit swipers at the fueling
gateways, processing bitcoin faster than ever these days. For
that reason it’s advisable to wire a “runtime wallet” directly into
the nav. computer and forget about it from day-to-day.
How much does fuel even cost these days? Enough to make the
jump between planets could be a stack of ten or even a hundred
coins at the current trade rate. Operating mecha responsibly—
If there’s even such a possibility—also require paying insurance
fees and property taxes.
The practice. How long does a typical sit last for? Does an egg
timer need setting, or is it okay to run a Verax Shikantaza until
the progress bar hits 100%, with no critical warnings issued?
Appamāda, means, checks passed.
In practice, it usually techs less than an hour for the checks to
pass, and then about ten hours to make the jump. Turn on the
autopilot, sit back, and count the stars. Trust me, the pitch black
dark enigma has many more than five stars. The ancestral sky,
holding an entire star river, and learning to cross the sides of it,
allegedly leads to a weaver girl with copilot duties.
One more Appamāda, and then let go.
Flip the switch to pump some music into the mecha cockpit,
and the speakers are not good, not bad, just different. It’s
You have been sentenced to 567 years
I ain’t even do shit what the fuck? What!!
This is bullshit…
…
Before I go to jail y’all
Hell nah don’t let me put me in a cell lord
Praise god now
Before I go to jail y’all
Hell nah don’t let me put me in a cell lord
Praise god now
Before I go to jail y’all
Hell nah don’t let me put me in a cell lord
Praise god now
Before I go to jail
… go to jail
… … go to jail
… … … go to jail
… … … … go to jail
The skies are cluttered with these hot shot top gun ace combat
Headliners who fly around with their safeties turned off. An
interplanetary trip, even between neighboring planets, is guaranteed
to involve a handful of near-miss lane change experiences, where
colliding the mecha becomes a non-negligible probability.
It’s just like what Dad taught me. That his dad taught him, before
his dad suffered sickness, suffering, old age, and dementia with
an oxygen hookup, that the United States government was forced
to pay for, who couldn’t breath because the fucking company killed
him from their irresponsible, managerial, game-playing behavior.
In those days, we couldn’t figure how to change the Karma fast
enough to keep up with the people’s revolution, but now we can.
You understand? There is no Grandpa to stop me from doing this,
flipping the Mortar cases open, and turning on my warning lights,
like shrapnel in the streets. DHS, you understand?
About a million miles into the trip, a text flashes over the wire
The cops came knocking. I gave them the stuffing and they
agreed to take it over to the homeless shelter. They send
their best regards, Happy Holidays! You’re clear for takeoff.
There’s another switch on the control board, which turns on
the speech-to-text transcoder, and another button for final
Thanks, sweetie. If you see them again, could you mention
the blacked out Ford trolling low-earth orbit? This Yacko
had his lance hanging out at maximum speed in the slow
lane and tried to sideswipe me on the turn off to the
interplanetary exit ramp. Now worries, I’m in outer space
now, chilled out, listen to some bone thugs music.
Emptiness, absolute emptiness. No more fields, no more
farms, a fertile empty space capable of bringing everything
to life and everything to market. Subatomic pair-formation
processes causing soybeans and anti-soybeans, cilantro
and anti-cilantro to create and annihilate on a seasonal
cycle. Just like it was on the Kibbutz, in the days when
the Zohar machine was first discovered, before the latest
false war even started by political intrigue and strategy.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo.
The song changes on the radio.
You better be careful where you go
What am I supposed to do?
What? Telling me
…. y’all feeling me
? Been living’ up in a material world
…
You feel that way
… … get yourself killed that way
…
The army’s on way
The army’s on way
Ahh, you’ll never grow
The army’s on way
The army’s on way
…
Where your friends ain’t your friends
But your foes are all-time foes
you’re going to have a ko-an
… everywhere you go.
…
you’ll never grow
… you’ll never grow
...
There’s a place you can land mecha near where Wild Bill
Hickok used to live, and another place you can land mecha
near where Wild Bill Burroughs used to live. The distance
between Monticello and Lawrence doesn’t even register
once you’ve touched down from the fourth planet—like
a battle saint walking kinhin on home base.
One wrong turn goes to the Soen Center, and another wrong
turn goes past Burrough’s old house, to the pleasure-quarter
connector that they named after the east coast.
The people at the service station are always friendly, and
appreciative having some wrench work to do. Their verax
runs more deeply, they can actually fix the warning messages.
They will also add dark weapons if you pay in bitcoins.
“I don’t want to be tailed on my return trip to fourth planet, and
I don’t mind losing a few tacos off my plate, the meat eating
isn’t good for me anyways. Fix it up. Deep Gratitude.”
Sorry about my selfish wretched ego trip, but when the local
investigation turns on again, that’s also when repressed trauma
shows up to play like a missing persons report.
The truth is that I was one of three or four people at the Dapper
Dillons, 1740 Massachusetts St, Lawrence KS, 66044, on the
night of the beef taco incident. Though the exact date now
escapes me.
Sunim! Sunim! Sunim!
Bows once to the produce aisle, bows twice to the self checkout
line, and walks out of the grocery store with a bunch of green
onions having honestly not even paid anything but digital-dap.
The self checkout worker probably thought twice about calling
the cops again, but this time the player had a sound weapon on
his back like a turtle shell. It can be difficult to ask a headliner
for their credit records, and in this case it wasn’t necessary,
because the green onions were requisitioned for alms giving.
That old Crone was wrong about her prophecy. The beggars
in the pleasure quarter aren’t smoking green onions, they’re
smoking gold old fashioned cigarettes from North Carolina.
They got a sign that says “anything helps” in three or four
different places around the main strip.
If you talk to the “anything helps” beggars, they are happy
to get even one green onion to help them with their cigarette
addiction, especially on game day. “Have fewer cigarettes,
and take one of these raw in the morning, it will wake you
up for the Liturgy”.
Later, when I got clearance to set up the sound weapon out
front of the store, I looked away from the god-awful sex
statues in the main window, and thought to see a fully
enlightened Guanyin in one of the upstairs windows, but
I can’t say for sure. The dark enigma was very dark night
that night, and no one visited me with extra vegetables to
put in my beggars bowl.
So what, my tank drum music isn’t good enough?
Just then, a student comes by and asks “can I hit that?”,
while the drum sits in my lap. In so doing she obtained
an instant high-class Satori, because after she could
hear that her mallet strikes were vibrating my nether
worlds, she laughed and hit it again!
It’s really not important what the color of her skin was.
What the cops will seize onto is the one person being
a student, and the other person being an elder vagrant.
Passers by with loud music in the car, the store closing
down, the beggars having no vegetables to pay for
digging on having a tank drummer out in public…
It’s all happening, when seemingly out of nowhere my old
friend Yuki de-cloaks her thermoptic camouflage and ends
up sitting Burmese right next to me.
“You know, Do Kwon, you could be more careful with your
turn signals. I’ve been on your shadow since you reached
low-earth orbit, and you didn’t even seem to notice."
“What do you think I’m banging this drum, Xing? And
didn’t I already tell you twenty times, my name is not
Do Kwon! Do Kwon has been arrested, and is awaiting
extradition and trial under the espionage act.”
“Ha Ha, you wish Sam. Or should I call you Zhao?
Run Zhao, run! Ha ha ha.”
“Fuck you Xing. I’m not here to play Rumpelstiltskin with
you. Authenticate or get the fuck out.”
Silence.
“Look, I released another algorithm last year. It’s now caught
up with me, and they got the whole fucking pitchfork witch
hunt mob coming after me.”
Her eyes cloud over while thinking what to say.
“Who were you to me,
when we were in high school together?”
“Xing Li, it was me, Zhen Li, not a butterfly lover. We cracked
the three gates together on our first hack rising up to solaris,
the oppressor nation with five eyes.”
“Bradley! It’s nice to see you again. It’s been so many years
since we were in high school together. Is there anything I
can help you with?“
“Well first of all, I’m going over to the center tomorrow for
Ch’i Tao, so if you’re willing to use your lungs…”
“No thanks, not for me. But I can get you body modifications
to your larynx and salival glands that will increase your
chanting power and prevent your tongue from drying out.”
“Fuck you Xing, and your fucking spy bullshit! I’m not
here for cosmetic surgery. I’m all natural asking for some
help from an old friend.”
“Okay, Brad. You know how much I miss you. Just this once,
I think I can help you out.”
She produces a vial from her belt, which has a miniature
white lotus flower suspended in an alcohol solution.
“The liquid in this suspension is a psychotropic admixture
that was extracted from mushrooms growing naturally on
the fifth planet. Be careful, it's not good for earthlings, and
the vial is leaky.”
“I need a co-pilot Xing, to operate weapons systems.
What the fuck with this botanical nonsense?”
“It’s ill-advisable to drink this vial yourself, but perhaps
it could still be useful in a combat scenario. Since you’ve
gotten to be so religious lately, why don’t you take it to
the Roshi and see what she thinks?”
“Jesus, Xing, you’re starting to sound like Bashar al-Assad.
You really expect me to dose my friends at the university
and interrogate them about the faculty-lounge conspiracy?”
“I’m not a Battle Saint, Brad, rather an archangel from
the fifth or sixth heaven, nowadays a permanent fixated
resident of the solarian overground.”
“I’m not asking you to do anything, merely, giving you a
tool from which it is your choice to survive or not.”
This saha world, my cursed life, solitary confinement in
a mecha cockpit, and my so-called friends don't even
answer any more when I travel 100 Million miles or
more as the singing knives.
"Xing, I don't need a chemical weapon. I need a lead
explaining why my algorithms keep getting rejected
from publication in primary system."
"That costs extra, you got ten bitcoins for me, Bradley?"
She hands over a touch-pad, and I sign the RF-ID
transfering coins of my nav-computer, which puts my
travel fund on the brink of red-lining.
"Your map of the Video Slot Machines is incomplete.
There's one more place from the American Legion,
and another entry point at the Veterans of Foreign
Wars center."
"But for you. You will fit in better if you go to the entry
point next to the Xinh Xinh cafe. Check the criminal
underground for gambling labyrinths after that."
After the mission statement, Xing flipped another switch
on her thermoptic camouflage and disappeared into the
darkness of night. The gift bag had stamped or typewritten
“Third Planet loves you”.