Punk rock dating chapters 1-8

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Olde Country Pork and Rice

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2 Cups of Rice

3 Skinless, Boneless chicken breast (also known as Pork, in the olde country)

2 cans (14.5 oz each) diced tomatoes and liquid

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Spray a large casserole dish with non-stick spray.

Arrange chicken pieces in order of median household income per year.

Cover and place head in oven.

Cook from 20 to 45 hours or until chicken is thoroughly satisfied.


Tasty tip: Garnish with lime wedges, sweet onions and a bride's bitter tears.


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There are certain things man was never meant to know:

1. The day and manner of his own death
2. The face of God
3. The origins of the Universe
4. The Skipper's real name...

Unfortunately, I know all of these things...

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Punk rock dating. Chapter 1: I don’t know where to start…

How I became Orion: Disco Ambassador to the United Nations:

My name is Orion.

I was born in a slimy corner of 1958. The spare change of my youth spent in the slow, slow South: Tire swings, cupcake Earth, sick lemonade, rolls of moist green carpet...Bloated summers devoted to Flannery O' Conner paperbacks...

A recently published medical study has proven that Flannery O' Connor is, scientifically speaking, the greatest of the southern writers. Doctors have found that patients who read "The Violent Bear it Away" were 67% more at peace than readers who read William Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury" and almost 98% more well-adjusted than test patient's who were given a placebo novel. This evidence was conclusive enough for me.

Of all the southern writers, I was the worst... I didn't know "Thomas Wolf" from "Teen Wolf Too..."

The proudest moment of my life was the day the House of LIBRA appointed me Disco Ambassador to the United Nations... I can still recall my coronation...

"Congratulations, young man," said the Commissioner. "You are the sixth lizard to be appointed to this position..And the best I'm sure..."

My Five Reptilian Predecessors were largely passionless Northerners whose idea of recreational reading consisted, mainly, of instruction manuals, cookbooks and other such unimaginative fare. Their regional genetics simply prohibited them from appreciating the feverish dramas of Tennessee Williams or the muscular poetry of Clement Allsworth.

Yet here I stood, a southern gennulman whose warm whiskied heart might not be hardy enough to withstand these unforgiving East Coast winters.

At first appearance, the Commissioner was your standard loud, stout, foul-mouthed Yankee, but after getting to know him I could clearly see him standing on the front steps of Berkeley Plantation in a white suit, thumbs deep in his lapel..

"Y'know, Orion...I've always had this pesky feeling that I don't belong here...Like I should be somewhere else..."

"We've all had this feeling," I reassured him.

"Yes, but have you ever had this feeling that prostitutes are the only one's who truly understand you?"

...That day I hung my head in shame. For I knew exactly of the feeling of which he spoke.



See the excite-y answer to all life's nagging questions tomorrow in part 2 where werewolves wear horse costumes and we describe the south in lusty detail..

Chapter. 2: too low for the office...

The coded codex:

Manhattan 1979:

I pulled up to Studio 54 in Car 54. Where was I? Disoriented. Disillusioned: This wasn't the place I had once loved. Allegations of tax fraud? Relaxed dress codes? This was too much.

When people ask me what the dying days of the discotheque were really like, I often point them to an especially evocative novel by Clement Allsworth entitled, "The Disco Dustbowl."

However, I often warn prospective readers that the book is notoriously difficult on first read since it's written in a code that once cracked reveals the name of the only woman Clement ever loved.

Hidden meaning. This is where most artists get it wrong.

You see, if Clement had been more direct and simply printed the girl's name in the book; the letters M-A-R-I-E in the typeface used for the book (Constantia) would form a mystic sigil so each time someone cracked the novel's spine Marie would swoon...

Clement's greatest literary achievement occurred when he did, finally, decide to set aside the literary devices he had hidden behind for so many years, and just simply laid out all of life's answers in a simple tome called "Breed."

But, why go on? After all, I'm not Clement's biographer, or at least I wouldn't be for a few more years...

I was focused on the job at hand, bringing down the base chemists who were responsible for the death of a lifestyle. In the alley behind Studio 54, I was all trembling fingers on hungry triggers. Outfoxed, hiding behind boxes. But, in truth, there was no hiding from the psychic werewolves of SCORPIO...

The House of SCORPIO had always prided itself on the superiority of its psychic warfare. Me, I was almost entirely deficient in the telepathic arts. In fact, I wouldn't even have my first psychic premonition until the fat half of 1985...

But here in 1979, I could hear the werewolves closing in for the kill.

The wolves who looked at death and saw dollar signs. The cowards that built the bombs and watched the ensuing genocides at home on their widescreen TVs. The Ushers at the Autopsy Slideshow. The unimaginative blokes who put perfectly meaningful "Beatles" songs into adult diaper commercials.

"Beware these men of no integrity," the Commissioner, warned me during my LIBRA training, "For these are the men who construct societies and nail yer wife when yer not lookin'!"

I jumped at the chance to be the one to euthanize these dogs...

I had one shot at this! I sprang from my hiding place....

SCORPIO ammunition buzzed harmlessly past my head...Sure, these SCORPIO wolves might have been psychic aces but they were piss-poor shots...I watched them fall one after the other while my .357 magnum blazed off shot after shot after shot....

Hollow-points shredded thick lupine hides... Cold, empty Manhattan night filled with cracking
revolvers...Death rattles...Dog howls...When the smoke cleared and the gutters had clotted with blood and dead leaves, I was the only one standing...

...Or so I thought.

In the distance I could smell the sulfurous stench of a newly struck match and the thick ammonia stink of an el cheapo cigar.

The Commissioner slowly sauntered toward me, his face a shattered tombstone, "Orion..." he said, "They're asking you to resign."

"Who?" I who-ed.

The answer would haunt me for the remainder of my days....


Join us tomorrow for Orion's pulse-pounding tea-party with none other than the flesh-eating ghost of Mark Twain!



Chapter 3: The Tropic of Pineapples...

Drawings of Clocks:

Starlite Cafe 1980:

The Quiche Lorraine had just arrived. As I sat across from Clement Allsworth he explained to me his theory on writing....

"Anyone can do it...You just have to cut yourself off from the endless distractions we're bombarded with everyday...Television...Radio...Reproductive urges...Once you have absolute silence you can finally hear it..."

"Hear what?" I asked.

"The voice of God...All a writer's gotta do is shut up and dictate..."

This was the most articulate anyone had ever heard Clement speak. He had obviously given this subject a lot of thought.

"Interesting," I said. "So you just set aside a couple of hours each day and let the Good Lord do the work for you?"

Clement violently shook the ketchup bottle, "Yea...But you gotta be careful...A few hours a day makes you an artist...a few days a week will make you a clergyman...but keep at it for a few years and you end up a monk..."

I poured a packet of artificial sweetener into my instant coffee.

"Hmmm...Nobody needs that..."

My favorite writing of Clement (outside of the towering "Breed") was a simple, violent haiku:

"I struggle to hold

the Tiger in a headlock,

all my tendon's snap..."

The appeal of this particular piece (and of all haiku's, I believe) lied in the inherent struggle of wanting to say more but having to boil the entire sensation of battling the tiger into 17 syllables. Clement would endlessly count and recount the syllables on his fingers, restructuring the sentence into every possible configuration, just to find a way to fit the word "fierce" into the poem.

Finally after 30 years he did it! Behold! It was a perfectly balanced haiku and felt spiritually complete, until a fellow colleague pointed out that "fierce" was actually one syllable and not two.

"Fear us," argued Clement.

"Feers," his friend corrected.

I mostly agreed with Clement's theory, however, I've found that drowning out the static is a two way street... On one hand, God's whispers can give us divine inspiration which can inspire great works of art. On the other hand, when all is truly silent the voice of God often reminds us, in no uncertain terms, that one day the hours do finally run out...

Luckily, there is now a wide array of medication available to fall silent the ringing voice of God.

This is why the purest and most honest form of art is drawing clocks. No amount of medicine can kill a drawing of a clock. Science hasn't gotten us that far yet.

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

Enter Dr. Coorgan, the man of Psychic medicine: The only other occupant of the Tropic of Pineapples:

"Theez decadent modern writing you zo admire...Ptui!" he raved, "Life eez not measured in paragraphs! Eet eez neither een present nor past tense! Ptui! Ptui! Ptui!" He vigorously wiped his ass with a first edition of "Breed."

I disagreed. After he finished wiping his ass I could feel the paragraph shift...



Ah, the plotlessness thickens in tomorrow's installment as Clement Allsworth appears on the Today show and explains "improvisational literature" with Matt Lauer and the lack of "common sense" in today's world finally tears a rift in time and space.



Chapter 4: I finally say your name (insert name here)...

O, Buffalo:

Ever since I viewed my own death, I've slept in a coffin...stirring my coffee...breaking it in.

In my mind I have visited my dying day a million times...

This is what it looks like:

1986: I chaperone my daughter's first dance, I stand proud as she left-right-lefts with some roast-beef-faced small-town foot-ball star...

The soothing sax-soaked strains of Richard Marx swell in the background...

Death taps me on the shoulder, skull-faced, his tiara matches the mirror ball perfectly...

"May I have this dance?" asks the Reaper.

...ah, "Endless Summer Nights."

Now, I understand that song didn't come out until 1987, but In 1985 I decided to time-slide forward into the year '87 and pick up a copy. I felt on that inevitable day when Death would hold my waist and sway, we both deserved a good laugh.

Death knew as well as I did that no summer night is endless.

Not even for Richard Marx.

The summer night ends for all of us. Eventually, we are each dragged, kicking and screaming, into the autumn of our lives... Which, in turn, always gives way to the eternal winter...

...but I don't mean to bring you readers down…

Here’s a joke someone told me a long time ago:

So Jack says to Joe, “Hey, my old lady’s been driving me crazy ever since she saw this ad on TV…”

“What ad would that be, Jack?" asked Joe.

“I dunno, Jack... Something about donuts,” replied Jack.

“Why did you just call me ‘Jack,' Jack?" asked Joe.

“Oh Thhbbbppptttt…I made a mistake!" said Jack.

Sorry, I’m not very good at telling jokes.

“Orion, why are you telling me all this?"asked the Commissioner.

I had no easy answer, just the long complicated one I usually roll out from time to time..



Come back tomorrow to discover what horrors await us in the tenement of hightop fades and faded dreams...


Punk rock dating: Chapter 5: Breeding essentials...

The Good Book gets better:

Clement Allsworth was pretty confident that at some point he had discovered the secret of life.

He had always harbored a deep passion for unobtainable things. He loved the chase and always felt a deep disappointment in the catch.

Like many existential types he once grappled with the question, "Why are we here?" He agonized about it day and night and wrote many essays, novels, poems and letters on the subject.

Then one day he woke up and found out that he no longer cared.

How could this be?

After spending many years and several wives thinking about it, the only possible answer he could come up with was that at some point he had figured it out! He had obtained the answer, and now was simply bored with life. Disappointed. Ho-hum.

Like the Rolls-Royce he had once lusted for, once he was finally able to buy it he no longer wanted it. Clement parked it in the garage and never drove it again.

After the car, his affections turned to flight: there was nothing he wanted more than his own personal airplane. A few bestselling books later and he had his own 1976 Beech Baron B58.

He flew the Beech Baron once and discovered that flight was too much work: overly technical, too many rules. Soaring high above the Earth wasn't quite as liberating as he had imagined. He flew it once, landed it on the roof of his house where it is parked to this day.

After the plane, his next obsession was the secret of life; He spent the aforementioned time on that and one day he realized his new obsession was Marie...

But wait a second, why did the secret of life no longer matter?

When he thought about it he had that same empty feeling as when he looked at the plane parked on his house.

Huh.

But which one of his theoretical answers was the accurate one? After all he threw about so many.
It was then he decided his next work was going to be dedicated to pinpointing the answer.

Clement did the usual extensive research: re-reading the theories of the classic philosophers, contemplating nature, tossing and turning in bed..

A total of 5 years had passed since his last major work, "Confederate Drive," had hit the bookshelves. After much anticipation, on May 16th, 1989 (3 years after my death), Clement sat down to pen his latest masterwork...

He knew this was going to be the longest, most laborious work of his career and made all the preparations to spend the next 10 years indoors. Cans of pork ‘n’ beans, spare candles, 30 kegs of beer...but imagine his surprise when the entire book was finished in five minutes!

The cover of "Breed" had a photo of a vagina.

Page one: chapter one: Why are we here? Breed.

Page two: chapter two: What's it all about? Breed.

The book went on like this for some 500 pages. The back cover had a photo of a tombstone. He momentarily thought he should throw something in there about eating and sleeping and making the world a better place but he felt that would be redundant. All of that stuff was already implied in the word "breed."

The odd thing was Clement never reproduced. He was able to obtain every girl that he ever fancied and once he got them he was no longer interested. He never touched a single one. The only girl he ever truly loved and wanted to start a family with was Marie. And Marie owned too many Melissa Etheridge albums, and watched "The 'L' Word " one too many times.

She was gay as a loon.

...a very gay loon.

The only means of obtaining her were completely supernatural! And he blew that by not printing her actual name in the complex word labyrinths and arcane literary puzzles of "The Disco Dustbowl."

Her elusive nature actually made her the perfect companion for Clement. Marie was the only thing he still felt passionate about on the day of his death (April 8th, 2025).




Join us tomorrow when we look at the stars: See...************...pretty stars....



Chapter 6: Orion's Future Memoirs....

"Yea, but who ELSE are we?"

If you casually glance at my tombstone you'd get the impression that I died young, but that is actually not the truth. My tombstone lists my consecutive years on Earth up to that point in time (1958-1986), but it doesn't take into account the 3 months I spent in the summer of 1987, the one day I spent in 1863 (to view Lincoln read they Gettysburg address, my lone journey to the past...I'm more of a futurist), and the 30 years I spent in the future (2070-2100).

In the year 2100, I had seen first-hand, the horrors SCORPIO had created..

The H.O.T Bomb...a psychic weapon that transmits "Mind Death" into its victims, instantaneously killing all brain function in a radius that includes 3/4th of Earth...Destroying civilization as we know it...

The plan was simple: travel a hundred years in the future, spend eight years in college and earn a ph.D in Engineering physics to become a leading expert in 22nd Century psychic weaponry, and then go back in time and work with the scientists of the 1970's to develop a top secret counter-weapon to stop the dreaded H.O.T. bomb...

But it wasn't quite as easy as it sounded...

Initially I was able to stay focused on the job at hand but the distractions became increasingly innumerable. Even though it was against LIBRA code, I found myself falling in love and starting a family.

Once LIBRA funds ran out, I started working minimum wage jobs to support my family... Eventually school just didn't seem like a priority or even a possibility.

Before I knew it 30 years had passed, and the end was nigh...

I can still vividly remember the moment...

January 8th, 2100:

There I was...watching "The Fall Guy" when the H.O.T bomb detonated and destroyed the dinner I had so lovingly laid out for my wife and daughter..

Behold! The H.O.T bomb! Destroyer of Dinners!

I grind my false teeth and set the time-slide back to my departure point of 1979 and always looked back...



Read tomorrow's installment to read the true-to-life cinder-fella story of Unca Bill$, the world's first soul-less accelerated-particle-physicist-rapper



Punk rock dating chapter: 7: What I really think about you...

The Nexus Whores:

Clement Allsworth wrote novels that were stunningly poetic. Forests of balanced detail, rhythms like a mother's heart: Hymn-like calm in the passages where he sensuously summoned the holy glow of love eternal but also capable of clangorous cacophony when visiting the skull scattered landscapes of our modern inhumanity.

However as a Person, he was as unpoetic as a man could be. Speaking in grunts, shuddering half-sentences, and hoary clichés...

Los Angeles, 1993:

"Hello, Welcome to 'Book Talk...' This is your host, Raymond Newbury. Our guest tonight is esteemed novelist Clement Allsworth, author of the best-selling book 'Chemical Engine.' Good, Afternoon, Mr. Allsworth..."

"Uhhh...Hello..." Clement was sweating profusely. His Polyester leisure suit was the worrisome shade of a very sick liver...

Raymond got down to business, "Now Mr. Allsworth...In your new book you tackle the complex field of quantum mechanics and its fascinating juxtaposition with primal human emotion...Now, how did you become interested in quantum theory? Was it something you studied prior to writing the book or...?"

"Hmmm...Quantum theory? I'm not sure..." Clement tugged at his rayon neckerchief and its vertiginous paisley swirl, "I mean...I watch 'Quantum Leap' pretty regularly so I know a lot about that...but..."

"Ha-ha," the Host chuckled, demonstrating his phoniest laugh. "But seriously. Based on your writing you seem like a pretty bright guy...Now, what were your acedemic days like? I mean, what is your alma mater?"

"Ummm...I am an alumni of Hamburger University..."

"Hamburger University? Now, I'm not familiar with that school...Is that an East Coast college or...? "

"Yea...They have 'em on the East coast... I'm sure they have them here, too...I believe it's a prerequisite if you're gonna work at McDonalds..."

The audience exploded with derisive laughter.

"Now, Mr. Allsworth..." Raymond smiled. "Please assure the audience that you're only joking..."

"Joking?"

"Yes. I'm certain that you must have obtained a diploma from a higher institution than a burger joint..."

Clement shrugged his shoulders, "If I have, nobody's told me about it..."

His shocking lack of eloquence made him look like a complete illiterate fraud. Once the Literary community caught wind of the interview there were loud whispers that Clement's novels must have been ghost written. This allegation was completely untrue, for God is not technically a ghost.

What most people didn't understand was that Clement's life was largely lived inside of his head.

When Docteur Coorgan finally got around to reading his mind he was stunned by it's blinding iridescence. He ate his earlier words about the man's "crude" novels with an especially french-y bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.

Clement's love interest (who wasn't interested), Marie Lansing, was a master social manipulator. She had a shrewd, calculating mind that always seemed ten steps ahead of everybody else. She made sure everyone admired her yet didn't want anyone to get too close.

Like Clement, she was a writer. Her big breakthrough was a fake blog where she assumed the role of a character named Julie Hales. Marie wrote an imaginary life for Julie that was so real, most people assumed she really existed.

The fake posts were anthologized in print and called "Finnegan's Blog." The book drew the unanimous praise of critics everywhere. Soon Marie had a very lucrative book deal... None of this really surprised Marie. She had already figured that this was going to happen and simply bided her time until it did.

Her next work was another fictional biography called "Pieces of Christine."

The novel was a coming-of-age story featuring a relatable teenage girl. It proved to be another immediate success. The sentimental sops who read it felt like every page was a mirror, reflecting their very souls.

"This is a book about me," thought 100 million readers.

Pretty soon Marie was face to face swapping sisterly truths with Oprah.

This was where Clement first saw her...

...Marie, not Oprah.

Even though they shared the same profession, Marie was everything Clement was not. Self-confident, satisfied in her work, Marie had an eloquent answer to every mundane question. No one ever accused Clement of any of these traits.

Unrequited love was good for Clement's work at first, he churned out poems and novels so dizzying drunk with love they'd put butterflies in Ol' Iron Joe Stalin's stainless steel stomach.

After it was pointed out that Marie was his muse, she quickly wrote a scathing review in "Book Review Monthly"about Clement's latest love letter, a warm novel entitled"Portland Memories."


"Mr. Allsworth's latest work is a romantic sham. The book does go to great (and often overwrought) lengths to fool us into thinking something of note actually occurs, nonetheless, 'Portland Memories' ultimately fails to convince. The modern reader demands more than the flowery poetry and the vacuous pathos that Clement offers here..."


After he read her review he became so afraid to write, in fear of displeasing Marie, that "Portland Memories" would be the last thing he ever wrote. Not counting "Why, oh why?" which he scrawled in permanent marker on every surface he came in contact with.

Oh, and as a side note, it turns out there was a girl named Julie Hales, whose life did pretty much follow the path laid out in "Finnegan's Blog." But Julie was so busy letting an Ouija board plot out every aspect of her life she never really found out about it. When people told her they loved her blog she assumed they were talking about her real blog, which was kinda dull. Not nearly as compelling as Marie's. But we'll get to that story another time...



Join us tomorrow as we take a deeper look at the maps of television and the lighter side of celebrity sidewinds...




Chapter 8: Strawberry Forever....

The Sudden Nostalgia for Freedom:

January 1st, 2009:

The Starlite Cafe:

"I don't know..." said Julie Hales (the real one), topping off the abyss that was the customer's bottomless cup of coffee.."I feel paralyzed by choice..."

"MMMM-hmmm," the customer nodded, disinterested.

"If you think about it, every split-second there's an infinite amount of possibilities...I mean, with those kinds of numbers how do I know for sure the choices I'm making are the right ones?!"

The customer squirmed uncomfortably. He only wanted a cup of joe...maybe a donut. It was too early in the day for existential dilemmas.

"I just don't feel that during the course of my 21 years on Earth that I've received enough information to make well-informed decisions..."

"Maybe you could get some advice..." the man offered. "Everyday I read the paper and there's a column where folks ask 'Abby' how to solve their problems..."

"Yea," Julie countered, "But I need 'Abby' to be there for me all the time!"

The customer and "Abby" were unwilling to take on this responsibility. Everybody else had lives of their own (however sad and meaningless those lives might have been), so one day Julie decided to turn to someone who literally had no life...

She bought an Ouija board at the local Wal-Mart and consulted the spirits about every last detail: What to wear, who to talk to, what to say when she did talk, what to buy at the grocery store, etc.

Julie found this was the most liberating decision she had ever made. The spirit she often spoke to was none other than the ghost of Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge.

Marie made the fictional character of Julie a lesbian because Marie, herself, was a lesbian and sometimes a creation can't help but resemble it's creator. The real life Julie was a lesbian because that's what the spirits told her, Marie was a lesbian because that's how God made her and I'm a lizard because that's what my parent's made me.

January 18th 2009:

Princess Mary had perfectly laid out the day for Julie.

Make toast for breakfast at 8:15 a.m.

Take the toast out the toaster at 8:20 a.m..

Butter it at 8:21 a.m.

Sit on the third chair counter-clockwise from the head of the table and eat the toast from 8:22-8:25.

Put on shoes and leave the house for work.

Take first step on the sidewalk to work at precisely 8:28 a.m.

But on her way out the door something on the television caught her attention. It was a television show she used to watch as a kid called "Strawberry Forever".

It took her back and made her remember carefree Saturday mornings spent wide-eyed in front of a television. Her loutish father yelling "TURN DOWN THAT GODDAMN TV!!!" didn't even bother her. She would then go outside and pretend she was Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge or some other silly make-believe game for the rest of the afternoon. She hardly ever played with the other kids or had any real friends. They didn't matter to her. When she was young she believed everyone else was just scenery in her Saturday morning cartoon.

Julie had forgotten this sensation existed. She was so shaken by the memories that corny old show brought back, she couldn't look away no matter how hard she tried...

Unknowingly, Julie had momentarily chosen free will...

This didn't really sink in until she was thirty minutes late to work...



Join us tomorrow to hear Unca Bill$ thesis on slamming 40's and smashing atoms.