# zone 2 tripping to party today's holovmail arrived with a lousy hi-rez low orbital satellite image of the three separate bus routes swanson's got to take thin tall empty faced moss stained northern houses slide past as though on an airport people mover mike lives there / there's jill's place / hey look gene's pad must remember to give them orloff's message wait there's mikes house again we're in a strange loop we could do with a large chips and curry sauce quote: tomorrow we'll probably bring about deconstruction of your tiny artificial world this will no doubt be due to messing around with complicated and dangerous intradimensional black teleportation tech the kind borrowed from ancient near-future alien anthropologists currently residing down on level d82 of bsz hypercorporation's secrete underground research bass tomorrow we may or may not also sing in paradise above the smoking ruins of your virtualized mega cities but tonight tonight tonight we'd like to think of one person a loner a fellow researcher without name or country - someone we respect because they've little in common with others no not those soulless turgid bunch of plastic biosynth arts mothers over at arch hypercorporate rivals loftleader industries that person is so we remotely imagine our elf this damp social evening we shall meditate upon the 'near-future retro 80s' even with these mad lads there's always some unspoken assumption - some unspoken certain level of seriousness or depth which must never be crossed we hardly ever talk about 'personal stuff' which is horse pucky but still even when we infrequently do there's such air of intense unnecessary privacy and fragile introspection / reverence as though whispering about andor around certain unmentionable matters inside the steeped angular neo mayan walls of a hyperfuturistic bioelectronic retro-80's videocult of / from the 'near-future now' then like a single cheap chrome-plated minute after all the serious stuff has been aired to a singular listener there's such a sense of outpouring relief we can only follow it up by talking total hairy black orc cobblers for the rest of the faded western high-desert evening as though what was said before was so foul by dint of its seriousness and personal nature it must be immediately neutralised and made safe and nice the vapid utterlessness of our shallowness feels akin to the meniscus a on tall sophisticated drink held by some drastically skinny rich bird in bar shaped like dead nun's lido heck of way to lie / live / liff but we'll do it every time chemical autosax with a blind mechanical shark so there's old swanny singing on the bus singing every researcher crazy for a sharp dressed geek crawling up the north face of a silent hill on the time dusty outskirts of a neon clad town on another happening yet predictably alienated saturday evening currently sporting the least sweaty clothes they own as some fool has forgotten to take ir washing out of the drum thankfully some thankfully nameless turgid business studies munt dumped ir washing on the filthy floor next to the machine thanks mate you froofy cow-lick haired slime surface - wait next your next biocomputational washday cycle one may find several permanent ink cartridges squeezed into ir soap dispenser tray (according to henry such hardcore punk shenanigans are a classic oldskool wizzard wheeze on campus) now strolling up the road to johnathan santiago's place they see several saggy balloons tied to the handle of the front door students out here look bored but are no doubt waiting for the first opportunity to get stuck into heavy discursive student social-monkey intercourse swanson: hi this jonathan santiago's party some ikea couple stares at them like they're to drop off the pizza: 'er yes' they say (as in like who exactly invited whatever it is you are) swanson ignoring the smug tone replies: goodie gumdrops the front door opens and a large amerikan dude with bright beige hair says hi yall come on in so the evening starts to unfold with tedious predictability akin to generic 80's daytime usa television drama in short everyone's here warm safe and polite and zero decent music gets played all evening a mere hour in and swanson feels like lightly crippling this skinny muscle free air-breather from france to ir immediate left dancing like ir dad to the fetid lukewarm uk university student audio stench of abba the joke's over friendo liking abba was never funny or clever you utter 'skeleton warrior' enough says swanson finally pushing past this weak researcher taking off ir twelve inch abba vomit they casually luzz it in a corner they stick on some best of lice instead enjoying another suburban family mourning lucky for the head feeder they don't say squat about the welcome change (even though the father of the drummer in the band was a fully ideologically paid company man or something) huh the lice - apt name for a band who's lead would get angry when accused of cultural appropriation feeling as if they're somehow an authentic reggae musician from another mother pffft yeah right oh pale talent challenged solo album crooner whizz right off back to 'lite' town skinny student researchers in appealing outfits hug sofas and talk about shopping nibbling tiny dabs of thai lemon and peanut chicken curry with organic seemingly fair trade basmati rice outside swanson starts chatting to the yank with beige hair who immediately proceeds to inform them about the entire mainstream underground culture history of northern kalifornia how they once used to quote 'romp with zappa's daughter' for two years swanson finds this researcher and ir particularly style of big science ok as they're generous with the hex sticks apparently this comes from once being barman in a famous strip joint or so they say meanwhile the rare intelligent beauty continues to systematically ignore swanson all evening at some point they see swanson and smiles awkwardly as though in a rush to the bog yo what's up with the sudden freeze cruella - you're one who invited us here yet the beauty ends up spending almost the evening chatting to some student stick insect about kulture a few hours pass and swanson eventually gets up saunters over and stands right next to the stick the stick refuses to acknowledge swanson's attempt to get a word in edgeways swanson in turn starts to stare right through ir pointy head thousand vietnam yard style this stare suggests they immediately stop yapping and move aside as swanson would quietly and unceremoniously enjoy twisting that empty bottlecap skull right off ir o2-molecule wasting pencil neck without raising ir existential pressure one bit you hateful pointless little nerk we stare right through top of ir block shaped head but they don't notice at all while the rare beauty sees we're steaming inside but merely keeps on smiling in fact the stick actively ignores the laser hot broody stare boring right into side of ir bony idiot bonce mistakenly feeling we won't start something repo-intense here and now among ir polite starched pink myfacefake friends (odd thing apparently when someone tried riding home that evening after the party they discovered ir nice new push bike now looked like a heavily armored lab mech had stomped it into a postmodem metallic art-pretzel; oh what a mysterious materialist tragedy) the rare beauty meanwhile stands basking in the attention wasting everyone's time - pretending to be taking extreme interest in this watery little student digit you however are desperate for the chance to talk to simply hang out you then try acting cool whatever that means but all you want to do is spirit the both of you away from all this lukewarm social mediocrity you stroll off and proceed to get rapidly woozy on 'lite' beer eventually staggering out into the garden where it's quiet thankfully you can no longer hear 'summer of 69' you'd long stopped caring that adams sings 'me and my baby / 69' along with the party goers you end up at the beauty's house which was the original plan you all sleep in various spare rooms of ir vast rented student accommodation cube in the center of town you start to watch 'until the end of the white world' on holographic widescreen but fall asleep come morning you quickly grab a large data dump and a shower before everyone else for breakfast the rare beauty feeds you all hot buttered toast and hot black coffee some smoke ir last hex cigarette from crumpled packets and the stink and the bitter coffee twists and churns your stomach you then all go swimming at the local leisure center hypercomplex an existential daymare it turns out a 'quick blue existential survey' of the daily poverty of your alienated existence another one of ir endless friends gives you a lift up to the complex which feels located deep in the wellness industry mountains you don't even remember bringing your swimming trunks but a pal hands you a bag with your swim stuff in it you get changed in a neon toxic orange cubicle you try pumping up both your arms and duck by performing static tension exercises you feel ontologically disorientated by how surreal this day's already becoming yet lack the skills necessary to describe it in a way that truly engages the myth of the modem researcher everyone you arrived with manages a small polite belly guffaw as they watch you walk out after ten minutes of getting lost in the leisure complex maze humiliation is often nature's way of telling your idiot space ape ego to chill - and sometimes it's chance to suggest inhuman space-ape nature to get collectively neck humped on the end of a rusty mothering 40k style emperor chainslaw your teeth grind with impotent frustration knowing those smug munts have it all so easy - thinking 'if only there were some way to bring them down by several sudden violet unexpected pegs' for now though you laugh along with rest of these damp cardboard universe tourists (wouldn't want to ruin the party mood now eh we mean they paid lot for these tickets) ir beige titanic worldview // republic of bob