I'm apparently listening to blues on NPR right now and I know by writing this I am only avoiding writing something I am in the middle of.  Regardless, this is the second recording from the tape that I hardly ever use but feel self-guilted(yes, Firefox. Add to dictionary! Don't doubt me. For some reason you're not linked to dictionary.com or something.) into transcribing, despite how useless the content may be.  However, if you are reading this don't be afraid to enjoy the random human experience of another.

Click.
Classical music--lead by piano sounds that sound like Spring or a reflective period of one's time-- drapes the room in dim luminescence.  In retrospect, this tape reminds me of a fresh experience in what I normally consider a small, dirty apartment.  The piano rises in pitch, falls, rises, falls.  I feel like I am riding some strange plastic animal at a carnival, up and down some spinning pole on a spinning wheel. 

George: "... uhm, that Baptist guy. . ."

Hunter and Graham burst out laughing.
Hunter: "Jerry Falwell?"
George: "No! Um. . ."

Hunter: "Cuz he's dead.  Is it going to kill you if you don't get it?"
 
George laughs, Yes probably.

Graham: "Billy Graham," sure of it.

George: "...was the president, man. Not after--"
 
Hunter: "Pat Robertson!  No, he's still alive."  Someone probably glares.

George: "After Nixon, but [inaudible], was not Johnson. But, uh, Carter is who I'm thinkin' of.  But who was after Nixon? Was it Gerald Ford?"

Graham: "May I have a lighter?"

Hunter: "I think so."

George: ". . .but I think Carter was [inaudible]."

Graham: "Regan was, wasn't he?"

George: "Regan died," very matter of fact.

Graham: "Yeah!  Regan's dead."

...a lot of shit uninteresting even to me...

George: "FOX News did an entire day of Regan."

Graham: "I bet they did!"

Kim: "Yeeeeah," her words elongated to the very end of the h. 

Something about "that's when it should have been.  Fuck."  Unsure who says this, sounds like George or myself, Hunter.

Graham: "Old people like Ronald Regan."

George: "FOX news likes Ronald Regan."

Something about "white people."

Graham: "He was a good president, I think."

Cht cht cht cht cht cht cht. The tape makes a beat in the absence of voice for the piano to follow up and down, back and forth.

George: "Reganomics. . . what are R--"

Graham: "--yeah, they worked, didn't they?"

Hunter, almost offended: "No they didn't! They didn't work at alll!" 

George: "Say no!"

Hunter: "And, and, and yeah!  DARE?  DARE was terrible!"

George chuckles, says:  "It was like the highest drug usage rates," pause, "In American history."

Graham: "B'cuz people knew about drugs," cool and assertive.

And I guess there should be a volume III.  Because I don't feel like typing anything, anymore. 

 

 
 

Restructured to make a little more sense.  Still haven't gone chronological, though.  Everything that has been added in this iteration of the compendium has (new) next to it.  Six (new)'s under non-fiction and five (new)'s under other.  So, eleven entries worth putting on the revised compendium.  The last time I did one of these was about this time last year.  Not a good sign.

Non-fiction Stories(with no organization whatsoever):
(new)You're Creepy, Hunter - A girl tells me I am creepy.  I get even.

(new)Phoenix - I don't think I am supposed to write about something that is supposed to be anonymous.  Oh well.

(new)Strange Format - Saturday Show   -  Seriously the strangest format or lack thereof I have ever used.  Almost like a poem.  I've bad luck and things get out of hand.

(new)Graham's 21st Birthday - "No, dude, we're walking home.  It's like two blocks."

(new)Dead Cicada - A woman is assaulted while holding her child.  I intercede.

(new)A Warning - First Friday's in Richmond!

Salvia Gets Too Real - Fourth and worst trip on Salvia.

The Most Puke I Have Ever Seen - Imagine this next scene.  Try to visualize it with me.  My eyes open to the ceiling, my body shocked out of deep REM sleep.  My legs and waist are moist. . .

Drunk People - An interesting twist-- I'm not drunk in this story. For once in my life.

Black and Mild - I'll miss drinking with friends on top of the roof at my old apartment.  I will miss that Mediterranean market, with its natural soaps and cheap spices.  I will miss all those families who called the cops on me when I played music too loud on Monday nights.  Ahh

Hunter Takes it to the Limit, Throws Up Everywhere - In The Top Five Drunkest Nights

Pissing in Pools I & II - My double standard on people who pee in pools.

A Retelling of the First Time I Smoked

A Trip To Walmart - Seriously one of the best destinations while high.  Interesting, entertaining, sometimes a little creepy.

To Move My Body - When reality sinks in, when you think you've got nothing, you become psychic, telepathic, and shameless. This story has procession of Segways!

The Things I Remember - I somehow wake up at 2PM in my dorm, still drunk from the night before.  A rough bus ride does me in.

Hunter Blacks Out, Goes To Patient First, Blames Free Beer - Pretty self explanatory.

A Tucker Emulation, It Seems - The very first story I wrote.

Handcuffed, Robbed, and 6 O'clock Rush - Pretty self-explanatory.  Breakfast club.

Hunter Gets High, Driving Barely Ensues - I get high, and drive.  Sort of.

Lebanese: A "Nice Guy" Failure - Nine Guys, One Girl.  I get the girl and ride off into the sunset(upstairs), but turn out to be a "nice guy."

JMU, PART I - The first and, since, only time I have been breathalyzed.  There is no part II.  Part II would be better though, as it includes doing mushrooms, a starving French guy, five plus parties, nearly getting run over, really drunk chicks with australian accents, and BLOODHOUNDS.  But this story has none of that.

THE WEEKEND - A three day bender, with a decadent interlude of cheating debauchery.  All set to the soundtrack of the very trite Garden State. 

Bloody in '08 - A New Year story, complete with someone who attempts to smash a full, unopened champagne bottle over his head.

Perfect Night Ruined by Marriot, Morning -- This story is far too long to hold your attention.  Do not read it.

Short(or long) Stories(Fiction):

Saint Dympna - My favorite.

The Sink at Sunset - Guy has mobile home of a heart.  This is life at 20.

Shells - My drug induced interpretation of the scramble suits in A Scanner Darkly caused this short.  Later turned into a short fiction piece (for a class) called Mise en Place or The Writer.

Nine-Tenths is Nothing - Our children are here to replace us.  One man attempts to slow this process by proving he is better than them and protecting his wife from kid perverts. 

The Last Boat to the Disappearing - A seven vignette fiction piece about flaming zombies.  As much as I wish I had written them gay, they are actually on fire.

Story Starter Exercise - A brief story about a friend who got kicked up and did a lot of drugs while living in the woods.
 

Other:
(new)At The Edge of The Neighborhood - Vivid zombie dream.

(new)Shut Down or Reset - Up late? Two options.  Special bonus feature: scene from this year's Best Friends Day @ Hadad's

(new)A Haiku - About a day I spent at the river getting drunk with someone I didn't know.  She was taken and I fell and cut myself on a rock.  Then there is a sexual allegory at the end.  There, I ruined it.

(new)My First Near-Ticket on a Bicycle

(new)Autumn - The Greatest and Best Time of Year

Can Blood Cells Have Car Accidents? - Thoughts after the fire.

Janus - Girl cheats on me.  Girl dies in short story Sink at Sunset.

Transcribing the Knowledge of The Smoke, Part I  -- I test my voice recorder during a toking session.  Heavy on the dialogue.

Transcribing the Knowledge of The Smoke, Part II -- The better half of the overall recording experience.  A lot of in depth high conversation. 

Friend's Mom Finds Out About Hunter's Livejournal, Missiles Fly - Probably one of the more significant events in the history of my online writing.

Under a Hot Chicago Sun - I didn't even know my neighbors name.

H-D-P-E Does Not Spell "Hope"  -  Recycling is hopeful.  I am not.

It Is Only Hubris If I Fail - Childhood with a heavy dose of failure, sprinkled with Sloane Crosley.

Sick Dream D.A.N.C.E. - Dreams are fun.  Dreams about partying and religious fanatics that all have the same face... strange.  Sick dreams are most disturbing.

Rape, Tacos, and Love - I get raped, noticed for my writing at a party, have sex for the first time high, eat really good tacos, and listen in on a nasty girl shit.

Tainted Elephant Oil Prices Dowsed in Sickly-Sweat-Stained Dreams - More sick dreams, musings on family life and relationships.

Zombie Christ Day

Metal Shows - Are awesome.  Especially when you know the band.  Even if it's at a lame venue. 

Derelict Father, Are We the Cause of Our Suffering?

Shit's Run Its Course - I inherit a bike from a metal head who stole it from a crack head.

The Bear, The Bee, The Rhino - I connect with mother nature, understand things I never thought possible.

Night Luck - I have only gotten in trouble with the law when sober.  Sobriety really takes the spine out of me.

Condom Debacle - A young Hunter hides a partially used condom in duct-tape.

Jesus Freaks - I lament about my hatred for street-preachers.  This is a Facebook classic.

Bloody Knuckles - It wasn't a game that gave me these.

Diphenhydramine - The first time I ever tripped on a deliriant.

Bulgarians are Hardcore - Intoxicated 5 times the lethal limit, this Bulgarian gets hit by a car and sent to the hospital for minor head trauma.

A Little Funny and The Encroaching

Sunchips? - Do you know why they call them sunchips?

LIRICKES -  The funniest rap "lirickes" you'll read all week.

The Binary Universe and How Choice Works  -  With diagrams and shit.

Poems - A little too sing-songy.

Soundscape - High times.

The Nature of Souls and Soulmates - Got a decent response for this one.

Scanner Darkly and the Universe as a Vague Set of Prepositions

Demon Play, Demon Out - Your shoes are not an extension of anything that matters to your person.

Clocked Out - A New Year - 2007.  Some things get better, other things are mentioned less.

New - I miss writing.

  He swings it, round and round.  It forms a ring around his body, like that of Saturn's, but these aren't frozen space particles-- this is fiery hatred!  An absolute expression of the life and death of flame.  He swings two chains around his body. Flame trails from rods wrapped in lighter-fluid-drenched swaddle, hits and crawls along the uninhabitable asphalt.  In fashionable blue.  

I can feel the heat
from several feet.
His body must be
hot and sweaty. 

The ring secured around his finger snaps and he loses grip on the chain.  It hurdles, ball over chain right into my face and my beard bursts into flame!  I am now writhing on the cobble in front of Gallery 5 trying to extinguish my face. 

Okay, that last traumatic bit does not happen.  Just something I envision while spectating. 

Tonight is the first night I am able to go to a First Friday event on Broad in over a year.  For those of you not from Richmond or for those of you who have been epically lazy, First Fridays are a huge celebration held on Broad from about second or first to about Belvidere.  It's like seven block parties, all devoted to art galleries, bars, and live music.

 

I arrive alone and am drawn to Gull ( you really have to watch the videos of him play to get the idea ) who is playing on the sidewalk.  He is a masked musician named Nate who sings and plays guitar and drums all at once.  This is riveting but I must meet with my friends, so I do.  We watch Poi outside of Gallery 5 for half an hour.

I feel like this guy created it.  Or at least brought it to the forefront in Richmond.  Or at least was a main contributor to those who did.

His name is Evan Moses and this is an old ass picture of him that I creepily stole from facebook. He introduces me to poi three years ago, so I have seen poi a million times(maybe exaggerated).  It is only when this older chick dressed in all black comes to the center of the crowd with a hula hoop and some fire am I impressed.  She looks like Leslie Mann and becomes one with the hoop, which is on fire. It is sort of like this but set to trance, not porno groove.  And there is only one hula hoop.  But it's on fire!

I miss Andrea's lantern workshop, which sucks because I see like twenty people around 10:30(which is half an hour after the event is supposed to wind down/cease to exist) and they're totally awesome, albeit really cheap lanterns!

My group wanders back to Broad where Brandon and I end up singing with Gull.  This is his last song and he encourages people to join in.  He even repeats the seven syllable chanting part like ten times, just so we get it straight.  He looks to Brandon and I, the only two really participating and, through his skull-like mask with his totally distorted microphone, tells us to do it louder.  He raises his free hand(for the moment) at us.  We sing louder and he begins the drum part to accompany the pre-existing guitar.  More people join in.  Eventually, at least half of the 30-40 people there are involved.  The tune is stuck in my head for the rest of the night.  It is stuck now.

I eventually leave and ride home.  I blow through a stop sign and am stopped by the cops for the second time.  I mean, I see the car, looking all innocent in its idle darkness and say to myself, "Shit, I'm gonna get pulled."  Of course they let me off with a warning, it is two cute, younger rookie female cops.  I win.  Though one of them writes something on a pad of paper after ID-ing me.  Guess I better take this warning.  Be careful, right? 

"You got lights?"
"Yeah, I just turned them off to save batteries."  I stammer, "when you pulled me."

 

 
 

6/28/09

Ladies Night Last Night.

Ride home, exploding tire(not bridge),

have to walk with sore,

swollen,

 on-my-toe,

spider bite.

I call Graham, "Is anyone there," I foolishly pause and resume, "that ca-"

"There are a few people. 

Not many yet."

It's 8:50, and I say this:

"No.  Is anyone there

that can me a ride?"

"No man."

"Who is there?"

"Kim(who breaks her elbow and gets hydrocodone), Ben(the bouncer and unnecessay regreter).  Ladies Night is here!"

he says, barks the last line.

"Well my wheel just exploded on the Nickle Bridge like ten seconds ago."

"Shit"

"Yeah it was really loud.  All the air just evacuated at once in a single note-- Boohch!

Are you there? Hello? Goddamnit"

My

Phone

Is

Dead.

I march

from the

bridge and

someone, and

I don't know who,

but someone, with a

huge fucking [SUV], they

slow down, and throw  a full,

super-sized McDonald's cup

at me, and say, "FUCK YOU!"

This is Richmond, and I didn't

get hit.  But my fortune was off.

Way off.

I hope for a rescue team that I don't believe will arrive.  I get to the intersection of Boulevard and Cary, see a silhouette and squint. 
"George?" I question to myself out loud.  "George!"

I yell.

He rolls down the pedestrian acclivity on his Nishiki.

A car flies past him as he falters,

screams,

"FUCKIN' RED-

LIGHT!" punctuated with an index to the stop light.

Mr. Ramsey, it's good to see you. 

Are you the rescue team?

Heh, the one man unit.

I walk across the street with him, his working bike and my malfunction, as a car begins to turn, stops, accelerates. 

We halt to look past the reflective windshield but continue walking.

I tell George I am walking because

the electronic, 2D-white-man said it was okay.

 

We get to George's room on Floyd and he asks me "Do you want the road bike, or the girly bike?"  The girly bike?  I ask. 

The Mongoose, he says.

I ask him if it is the one that survived Graham's usage at Slaughterama, the one with the awesome breaks.  He confirms this and I stand in defense of this glorious piece of man-operated machinery, proclaming,
"That is not a girly bike.  That is God's bike"

 

I keep up with George, who rides as fast as he can on his very light, well maintained roadbike because, clearly, God's bike can keep up with anything if it wants to.  And it wants to.  So we stop at the Subway a block away from my house, where the show could be going on as George watches the bikes. 

 

As I order,

with the stomach rot(the kind accompanied by the taste of metal, priming for blood) from a poor, one meal in the morning / nibbling during work diet

(I fall asleep many nights with a hunger knot), I catch my breath.

The lanky slavic girl is mopping the floor.  I look at her in a way, with a feeling I am unfamiliar with. I cannot place pity or regret in any of my storage. I remember my one attempt to talk to her.  Swaying, chuckling, I ask her where she's from.  I noticed the accent, I tell her. 
"Uh-Russia," she says, leaving it at that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But I won't leave it.

I am fed but disapointed,

many of my friends did

not

show up.  (This is not to

say

that many people did

not

show.  There were

many.)

I am disapointed. 

No stomach

rot, but disapointed.

Disapointed

until Ladies

Night plays. 

They do a sound check, and we reinforce pre-existing sound-proofing.

I hammer nails through soft pillows. My skin bleeds salt water,

I breathe heavily,

and decide that I need a shower.

Especially "if".

But "if" never happens. 

Cole Sulivan, the lead singer from Ladies Night, does his accoustic bit.  Most of the 35 to 50 people are outside on the sidewalk or stoop.  Or street.  Most of the 35 to 50 people inside are on the opposite side of the room.  Loudly talking over the music!  After a song, I look at Cole and ask him,

"Hey man, do you want me to tell these people to shut the fuck up?"

He sighs, shakes his head, and says,
"If they're not into it, I'm not going to force them to listen."
I understand him and nod,

Alright.

He eventuallys says,
Let us

just go

ahead and

move on. 

The band sets up while I drink a beer outside with Ben, the doorman, who I will pay for being so.  Some day. 

I go inside and announce, my dirty beater shoes atop a recently cleaned coffee table, "Hey, whoa whoa, eey, alright!" Loud and tall, I silence the crowd, continue, "Ladies Night is going to play now, if you want to see them, go to the basement.  If not, that SUCKS!" 

I step down and a meager few laugh.

Ladies Night plays. 
I am no longer disapointed with my

night/

week/

year career/

life.

I dance and sweat.

I sing along and drink someone else's beer.  A contribution to me, the host.  And thank [insert univeral source] for the guy who gives it to me.  I cannot even remember his name, or the label on the bottle.  The bottle under pressure-- my lighter turned bottle opener

"pops the cork."

The cap hits the band's friend.

In the head.

The majority of people dancing live

@ 1100:
Adrian,

Graham,

myself.

Tyler and Kim dance.  Two girls dance in the corner. 

Tyler takes video with his blackberry-style Nokia.  I tell him to record the crowd singing with the band.  He doesn't and later tells me, "Yeah, it's almost like they're playing by themselves."

They play with a crowd, however.  Pales in comparison to the night I saw them for the first time, but it doesn't matter.

 

The band quits, despite cheers and "encores," whistling and claps. 

 

Everyone is outside as the next band(Sweet Jesus and the Good God Almighties) sets up.  Kim and Ben are talking. 

Kim tilts, says something loud and indistinct through the sultry summer airspace.  I turn to Cole, who is on the neighbor, Moreese's wider stoop.

"Hey man, sorry about earlier"

He says it's cool and that there is a show the next night at the Camel.  I tell him I am working.

Oh well,

"What's your last name?" I ask, "I'm gonna add you on Facebook so I can keep up with you guys' shows."

Before he finishes "Sullivan," we briefly glance to Ben, who is now carrying Kim on his shoulders.  Kim, drunk and stoned, loses

balance under a tree branch. 

Leaning forward, she falls,

Smack! Into uneven brick.

She lays there for minutes as

Ben crouches.  Others gather.

She lays flat,

quiet she lays.

This is a collection of things I have written that I think are at least half worth putting back up.  Since last I did one of these, I have added two short stories and maybe ten other forms of writing.  With 19 solid "Stories,"  7 short fiction pieces, and over 25 others, I would like to think that what I do for enjoyment is steadily becoming something I could do for money.  Years down the road, that is.  Enjoy.

STORIES(with no organization whatsoever):
Salvia Gets Too Real - Fourth and worst trip on Salvia.

The Most Puke I Have Ever Seen - Imagine this next scene.  Try to visualize it with me.  My eyes open to the ceiling, my body shocked out of deep REM sleep.  My legs and waist are moist. . .

Perfect Night Ruined by Marriot, Morning -- It turns out that drinking in the dorms is a bad plan.  But, for me, I have a great night, only to have it ruined by a morning hangover and the loss of my license. 

Hunter Takes it to the Limit, Throws Up Everywhere - In The Top Five Drunkest Nights

JMU, PART I - The first and, since, only time I have been breathalyzed.  There is no part II.  Part II would be better though, as it includes doing mushrooms, a starving French guy, five plus parties, nearly getting run over, really drunk chicks with australian accents, and BLOODHOUNDS.  But this story has none of that.

Pissing in Pools I & II - My double standard on people who pee in pools.

To Move My Body - When reality sinks in, when you think you've got nothing, you become psychic, telepathic, and shameless. This story has procession of Segways!

Hunter Blacks Out, Goes To Patient First, Blames Free Beer - Pretty self explanatory.

Drunk People - An interesting twist-- I'm not drunk in this story. For once in my life.

A Tucker Emulation, It Seems - The very first story I wrote.

The Things I Remember - I somehow wake up at 2PM in my dorm, still drunk from the night before.  A rough bus ride does me in.

Handcuffed, Robbed, and 6 O'clock Rush - Pretty self-explanatory.  Breakfast club.

Hunter Gets High, Driving Barely Ensues - I get high, and drive.  Sort of.

Lebanese: A "Nice Guy" Failure - Nine Guys, One Girl.  I get the girl and ride off into the sunset(upstairs), but turn out to be a "nice guy."

A Trip To Walmart - Seriously one of the best destinations while high.  Interesting, entertaining, sometimes a little creepy.

A Retelling of the First Time I Smoked

THE WEEKEND - A three day bender, with a decadent interlude of cheating debauchery.  All set to the soundtrack of the very trite Garden State. 

Rape, Tacos, and Love - I get raped, noticed for my writing at a party, have sex for the first time high, eat really good tacos, and listen in on a nasty girl shit.

Bloody in '08 - A New Year story, complete with someone who attempts to smash a full, unopened champagne bottle over his head.

Short(or long) Stories(Fiction):

Nine-Tenths is Nothing - Our children are here to replace us.  One man attempts to slow this process by proving he is better than them and protecting his wife from kid perverts. 

Saint Dympna - My favorite.

The Sink at Sunset - Guy has mobile home of a heart.  This is life at 20.

Shells - My drug induced interpretation of the scramble suits in A Scanner Darkly caused this short.  Later turned into a short fiction piece (for a class) called Mise en Place or The Writer.

The Last Boat to the Disappearing - A seven vignette fiction piece about flaming zombies.  As much as I wish I had written them gay, they are actually on fire.

Solipsism - A creation story.  A story with Robots and Gods and space battles.  A story with a twist.  A story that kind of sucks, but has novelty.

Story Starter Exercise - A brief story about a friend who got kicked up and did a lot of drugs while living in the woods.
 

Some others:

Can Blood Cells Have Car Accidents? - Thoughts after the fire.

Janus - Girl cheats on me.  Girl dies in short story Sink at Sunset.

Black and Mild - I'll miss drinking with friends on top of the roof at my old apartment.  I will miss that Mediterranean market, with its natural soaps and cheap spices.  I will miss all those families who called the cops on me when I played music too loud on Monday nights.  Ahh

Under a Hot Chicago Sun - I didn't even know my neighbors name.

H-D-P-E Does Not Spell "Hope"  -  Recycling is hopeful.  I am not.

It Is Only Hubris If I Fail - Childhood with a heavy dose of failure, sprinkled with Sloane Crosley.

Sick Dream D.A.N.C.E. - Dreams are fun.  Dreams about partying and religious fanatics that all have the same face... strange.  Sick dreams are most disturbing.

Tainted Elephant Oil Prices Dowsed in Sickly-Sweat-Stained Dreams - More sick dreams, musings on family life and relationships.

Zombie Christ Day

Metal Shows - Are awesome.  Especially when you know the band.  Even if it's at a lame venue. 

Derelict Father, Are We the Cause of Our Suffering?

Shit's Run Its Course - I inherit a bike from a metal head who stole it from a crack head.

The Bear, The Bee, The Rhino - I connect with mother nature, understand things I never thought possible.

Night Luck - I have only gotten in trouble with the law when sober.  Sobriety really takes the spine out of me.

Transcribing the Knowledge of The Smoke, Part I  -- I test my voice recorder during a toking session.  Heavy on the dialogue.

Transcribing the Knowledge of The Smoke, Part II -- The better half of the overall recording experience.  A lot of in depth high conversation. 

Friend's Mom Finds Out About Hunter's Livejournal, Missiles Fly - Probably one of the more significant events in the history of my online writing.

Jesus Freaks - I lament about my hatred for street-preachers.  This is a Facebook classic.

Bloody Knuckles - It wasn't a game that gave me these.

Diphenhydramine - The first time I ever tripped on a deliriant.

Bulgarians are Hardcore - Intoxicated 5 times the lethal limit, this Bulgarian gets hit by a car and sent to the hospital for minor head trauma.

A Little Funny and The Encroaching

Sunchips? - Do you know why they call them sunchips?

LIRICKES -  The funniest rap "lirickes" you'll read all week.

The Binary Universe and How Choice Works  -  With diagrams and shit.

Poems - A little too sing-songy.

Soundscape - High times.

The Nature of Souls and Soulmates - Got a decent response for this one.

Condom Debacle - A young Hunter hides a partially used condom in duct-tape.

Scanner Darkly and the Universe as a Vague Set of Prepositions

Demon Play, Demon Out - Your shoes are not an extension of anything that matters to your person.

Clocked Out - A New Year - 2007.  Some things get better, other things are mentioned less.

New - I miss writing.

This is the complete frame for the story I want to tell.  Thematically I am displeased with myself, but at least I got this out of my system.

FLAMBIES: Zombies Aflame.

"I just needed to get some fresh air.  Away from him.  He just never stops."
    "Yeeeah,"  says Samantha, elongating and trailing her words with a sigh.  "Can't we just have a conversation?"
    "Exactly. Enough staring into a computer screen, Jesus Christ."
The cold punctuates their words.  As they push the words through the air, so exits warm moisture.  It is the driest, coldest November for the region.  On the West Coast, this is especially prevalent as wildfires encroach ever so slowly from the southern tip of California, north and east.  It is on the news nearly every day, but neither of these individuals are aware of it.  Miles away, the all-consuming fire is of little consequence to them.  So, so far away. 

    "I should really get going," she says, annoyed at the presence of Jake, their mutual friend, who is on FACEBOOK, a company that poses to "connect you" and make you "closer" to your friends, when really they're selling something out of the back.  That something is your information.  When you list information about yourself, it is leased to the highest bidder.  Once that happens, FACEBOOK allows the advertisers to link ads to your login, specifically targeting you.  Jake is still on FACEBOOK, having his soul siphoned out, hours after they leave.
    "Alright, yeah, I've really got to get up early anyway," she adds. 
    Cabel and Samantha put their cigarettes out together, both having finished within exactly two minutes-- inhaling an entire cigarette, burned. 

Scuttling
    "So, you still haven't told me why we're here, Fisher. Or why I couldn't come the first time," Kristopher hisses through his pearly teeth.
    "Ampulex compressa," Dr. Fisher responds.
    "The wasp?"
    "The wasp."
    "What about it?"
    "It evolved in tandem with roaches-- developed a toxin that it injects into their brains.  Inducing the toxin makes the roaches follow a scent back to the wasp's nest, where it becomes an incubator for the wasp's eggs, who hatch and eventually utilize more roaches for procreation."
    "Well, we're not going to find any wasps in a dark cave."
    Dr. Fisher grins with crooked yellow teeth. He cuts at the skeleton of a Fuji with a rusty knife.
    "That's disgusting."  His friend and more formally apprentice, Kristopher, sits on a damp mound of granite.  Staring in concern for his mentor, not friend, he iterates his point, adding, "You're going to get lockjaw or something."
    Dr. Fisher uses the force of a thumb opposite the rusty, though sharp blade, sliding it toward him.  "You know nothing.  Apples are good for you, clean out your teeth.  And I'll be fine."
    Kristopher continues to stare, annoyed.  He sighs and looks up at the sky of rock.  A drop of water drips.  Drips right into his eye.  Putting up with moments of eternity, Kristopher reminds himself this is worth it.  Misery and his mind wander to gold watches and beautiful women. "You know, we should probably be doing work. You've been carving for thirty minutes."
    "Twenty-six, and what's your hurry?  I could cut this forever, given the right sharpness. You can always get smaller pieces, if you understand how.  We need to understand how to find what we're looking for.   And we'll find it when we find it."
    Kristopher begins a retort, but the air is knocked out of him, as the granite stump gives way to his weight.  Dr. Fisher rises cautiously.  His understanding of caves shaken, just not as much as Kristopher's. 
    "What the fuck?!"  Kristopher belches angrily from within a sunken rock formation.  "That is not supposed to fucking happen.  Is this one of your tests, one of your tricks... I am so sick--"
    "Wait!"  A scuttling noise echoes, and Dr. Fisher continues over discontented whispers from Kristopher, "Do you hear that?"  Kristopher's hands push down on the outer rim of his accidental rock fox-hole, and he pauses.
    "Yeah. I do.  What is it?" he whispers, calmly excited.
    "It's what we're looking for."
    Dr. Fisher turns his helmet-light to full and Kristopher is blinded.  He returns the favor, but Fisher is already creeping down to a nearby pool.  "In there," he says, pointing through a hole in the wall.
    "What about in there?"
    "You're climbing in there."
    Normally one for confrontation, Kristopher trades his grief for anticipated glory and fortune. He begins to move himself forward in the crawlspace to the pool.  He promptly sticks himself the wrong way, and can't move forward.
    "I'm stuck!" he yelps.  Frantically shifting his weight, he continues, "I think I can get out, but I can't go forward anymore"
    "Wait! What can you see?"
    Kristopher stops panicking and remembers the new car he needs.  "Just a wall."  He turns his head.  The light moves with him, panning the wall.  Outside of the hole, Dr. Fisher paces.  Bites his nails. 
    "Anything yet?" Fisher ponders aloud.  Before Kristopher responds, Fisher gets his answer.  Light beams outward from the hole, enveloping Kristopher and startling Fisher.  He shields his eyes and asks Kristopher if he can see it.
    "Yes," he breathes, "it's beautiful."  
   
Consumer
     Cabel's iPod boombox blankets the noisy television in the next room, blasting her favorite song.  The speakers, busted, screech during the higher pitches, while the Media makes hopeless attempts to educate Cabel.  From across the kitchen, she sees shocked eyes on gaping anchor-faces, and thinks little of it.  Shit happens every day.  Every day, shit happens. 
    Bing, microwave ravioli is done.  She reads the nutrition facts.   Fourteen grams of protein, Eight-point-one grams of sugar, and Two-thousand-nineteen milligrams of sodium.  Eighty-four percent, she reads and thinks, Oh well, it's been worse. 
     Years ago, when Cabel is fifteen, she fails a drug test for the last time.  Unable to tolerate it any longer, her mother kicks her out of the house, changes the locks, and nails the windows shut.  For the next week, Cabel lives in a neon-pink and yellow Fisher Price tent in the woods.  The forgotten woods between a new apartment complex and ancient rail-road tracks.  The sewer water leaks through to the creek, and she lives off of fast food.  Her friends tell her she looks pale and malnourished.  Three things go through her fifteen-year-old head:  1) Burning those effigies of my mom in the back yard with my friends, our little arms beating it with lead pipes and sticks,  seems retroactively justified.  2)Maybe I should quit smoking pot.  3) Maybe I should quit getting caught for smoking pot.

     She never quits.  She is high right now, in fact. 

    Her Crest-whitened teeth take their first bite of the faux-violi. If it's better than it was, it's best.  She lowers the volume on her boom box and catches the end of shocked words from a shocked mouth, "Our prayers are with the missing Dr. Bernard Fisher and all of those suffering in California."  Cabel straddles her couch, flipping her left leg over.  She carefully lands on the cushions, facing the television.  She thinks about Dr. Fisher missing and is, inexplicably,  unable to cry as the news fades to commercials.  Pushing her lack of empathy to the back of her mind, she turns the volume up.  Cars overpower cheetahs and horses, victorious, even, over Earth itself.  Medicine cures the minor and embarrassing--  backaches and heartburn, flatulence,  anxiety and confidence issues.  Lose weight, follow our god, monitor your neighbors.  Beware.   A cyclical tale of kindness shows last on the screen-- everyone seeing everyone else lend a hand, and everyone continuing the cycle, until it returns to the first person.  Some music accompanies it and then the logo of a large company fades in and it says, "We care about you."   Cabel begins to weep uncontrollably.
    The news returns, ending the commercials. The ads continue, with a voice conditioned to sell ideas. "Now we return to our story on why breastfeeding may be harmful to your child."

    Later that night, she rolls a spliff and smokes it out of her bedroom window, alone.  Off in the faded black, she hears a train and thinks of her father, who used to take her to chase and photograph trains when she was younger, back before he left her mother.  A wailing metal ghost groans, for it is inclined to keep going in one direction, forced to remain on a set path.  The conductor of the ghost pulls its vocal chord, and it lets out a smaller and smaller call.  And then, when she can no longer hear it any more, off in that dark distance, she tries to cry.  She tries so hard, because she feels that it means so much.  So much now that it's gone.  And it's gone.  
   
 Flambies
     John Goh  lies face down at the foot of the forest.  His skin, stripped from his body, oozes out from under his retardant yellow fatigues.   The hair on his body burns, emanating a bad smell, and no one but the trees, engulfed in cones of fire, claim witness.  John's mind painfully wanders to the edge of sense, and he passes out, dead and still burning. 
   
    Earlier, John tells his compatriots of Buddhist Monks who, protesting the Vietnam war, doused themselves in gasoline.  They lit matches and sat, lips sealed, burning.  Like that guy who loads his shotgun and goes down to the ashes of the twin towers and hops the fence, John says.  Wearing a sign that details why he is about to do what he is about to do, he positions the barrel against his throat and pulls the trigger, splattering himself on the grave that launched a war. 
    John and his group of firefighters get off of their transport vehicle and gear up.  They stand gazing into the perimeter of flame.  Dwarfing them, it gradually advances its will across the California soil, stretching upward to burn a hole in the sky.  Stretching to reunite with the gods of fire in the night sky.  Fighting this fire is a constant struggle, and there is no sleep for those who wish it halted. 

    It is a moonless night, one of the firefighters notes, and John thinks of how maybe it is just a sunless night.  Either way the moon is out there, imperturbably lording some bit of fate over the world, its oceans, its fish and its fishers.  Somewhere higher than John and the firefighters but lower than the moon, fire and gravity play fiend to the group, and a branch, incinerated,  snaps.  It careens, inexorably, as a spear on fire, through the skull of Todd Jennings.  He drops to his knees, his eyes bursting with blood.  He throws up and lands in it. 
   
    The firefighters stand, paralyzed.  John begins to move in to check the body, no longer Todd Jennings, when the body writhes and squirms, launching itself upward.  John falters backward and falls on his ass, as the firefighters, their feet made of concrete or lead, watch in horror as Jennings' body stops flailing and stares, eyeless, through them. 

    John scrambles for his radio. 
    "DISPATCH!  We've run into trouble, CHRIST!" is the understatement he manages before the body begins acting up again.

  The body, with its antenna of flame and face covered in burst over-easy eyes and sizzling blood, stands more erect and hisses.  Then screeches and yelps.
     "This is Dispatch, what's wrong Goh?"
    It clicks and clacks its jaw and rushes forward, rearing his right arm backward.  With an arc of his arm and a claw of a hand, the body effortlessly punctures the eyes of Cameron Dollio and rips down and outward.  John, thinking of the madness on Black Friday, the crowds rushing and violently pushing and breaking eachother to get the better deal first, is unable to respond to the radio.
     Dollio's lip comes with the hand as the body continues to tear.  The body reaches around and sputters blood into Dollio's ear before eviscerating it with its teeth.  Though wearing retardant gear, Dollio's body soon catches fire from the increasingly engulfed body attacking him.  Dollio's corpse crumples to the ground. 

    John gets up, stumbles, and begins to run, as do the four others remaining.   Two bodies chase and catch them with ease.  One down, and fire is spreading more quickly toward the road they took to get here.  The road where more firefighters, from the last shift, rest and recuperate.  Two down, this time three bodies mutilating one, setting it aflame.  Three down.  Four down.  John can see the road ahead where firetrucks and lights and tents with coffee and food wait idly.  He begins hyperventilating, and removes his mask.  Sputtering, he collapses.

The Elephant
    Snuggled tightly in a cocoon of Thomas Lee sheets and blankets, Samantha happily watches a movie at midnight.  The IKEA lights dimmed behind an IKEA shelf, she peers over blankets, her eyes fixed upon her wall-mounted 60" Sony Bravia.  She is watching George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead. 
    Outside her window, down the alley and in the next yard, a man swings open a gate and slams it shut.  Hearing this and terrified of the undead on the screen, Sam cuddles closer to a favorite Beanie Baby.  A Beanie Baby that was fifty dollars, and the one she wanted most for Christmas one year. Current Value: six dollars or "priceless memory."
    The man outside takes a moment to catch his breath and gather his thoughts.  He stares at the ground.  Through the cracks of the fence, and off the walls of the cobble-stone alleyway, orange light filters into his mind.  He runs through the yard and up a flight of wooden stairs, spinning around to look over the fence.  A wall of bodies, aflame, rush through the beginning of the alley way, arms flailing outward.  
    All this commotion has Sam up and out of her bed, staring out her window.  She sees the man ripping up wooden steps and throwing them into her yard.  Her condensed moisture words smash against the window, "Fucking lunatic."  Assuming it is one of the city's ill-minded street denizens, she exits her room, the movie paused with the hero pressing a pea-shooter to his temple. 

    On her back deck Sam, oblivious to the fires several yards down to her left, yells across to the man, "What the hell do you think you're doing?!"  Un-phased, the man readies a hose over the railing facing the yard, leaving it on full blast.  He begins banging on the door, but these people are out of town.  He smashes his hand through the door and unlocks it.  Baffled, Sam turns to go inside to get her cell phone to call the police.  As she does this, she immediately understands the nature of the man's behavior.  Standing there, in the cold night air, with the encroaching fire there in front of her, she is unable to move.  Something about the sight of fire, whether vast or small but especially of this magnitude,  renders a human transfixed.  In awe.

    An inhuman screech comes from across the yard.  Crashing through a window is the man, hands gripping the shoulders of a flaming person.  He falls on his back and yells out.  With built adrenaline, he heaves the person up and through the railings of the deck opposite of Samantha.  He picks the hose up and douses himself, putting out patches of flame.  Finally he notices her.  He begins to say something when the wall of flame reaches the back of their apartments. The man's gate busts open, several bodies falling through to the ground, which, covered in dry brush, catches immediately.  In seconds, ten bodies pour through the opening and more climb over the fence.  Scrambling to keep up with the larger bodies, children run with the pack, their flame flickering like a strobe light.  The man directs the hose to them.  Hearing the water sizzle, he realizes the amount of water he can utilize is fruitless and begins to run back into the apartment as bodies attempt to jump the gap in the stairs or climb the pillars of wood.  This sets the deck on fire. 

    Sam, seeing several flaming bodies jump her own fence, runs back inside.  She runs through the apartment, which seems enveloped in daylight.  Reaching her front door, she swings it open and heads downstairs.  Outside, Samantha witnesses a condensed demonstration of human nature. 
    On the street several friends are running for a car.  The foremost friend stretches out his arm and unlocks his car ten feet away.  This allows he and all but one of his friends to jump in the car.  The leave him, halted by a horde of flaming zoo animals.  A fiery elephant slaps the hood with a crimson trunk and the driver crashes through the windshield, his body sailing through the air and into the fire.  The driver catches flame, and runs for his car toward his friends who are fighting each other to exit the vehicle.   
    "Over here," someone yells on Samantha's side of the street.  The yeller, "Tom" perhaps, struggles with a handful of keys, searching for the right one.  The left-behind friend, maybe "Fred," runs across the street.  Eventually Tom gets it and they enter, not noticing her, and drive away. 
   
   The car takes a right turn past a CVS and 7-11 where the lights are off.  They prematurely disappear from sight when the man from the back deck steps in front of her, saying, "FOLLOW ME, WE NEED TO GET IN THE BASEMENT!" as loud as he can.  Samantha pees a little and passes out in the man's arms. 

    "Shit," he says.

Answers
    Samantha awakens, her face smushed against cold slate.  She pushes herself up and rubs her eyes.  Her stranger-savior rocks back and forth, hands on his knees.  She looks behind him, where the ancient iron doors are sealed.
      "You can't begin to imagine the drugs they pumped into these things.  Hunger amplification, high concentrations of melatonin, I don't know what they were trying to accomplish," Kristopher shakes words from his bruised head.  "No, I didn't think this would happen." 
    Samantha contorts her face, puzzled.  "Isn't that the stuff in your skin?"
    "No," he responds.  "Melatonin is in your brain.  Regulates your rhythm, uh," he pauses-- straining his eyes in the darkness of the basement.  He continues, "Sleep patterns, dreaming, belief in the supernatural even.  Might be linked to the God gene, I don't know.  Melatonin is triggered at night, in our brains.  I remember when I was a kid, I got frightened by the dancing stuffed animals on the shelf next to my bed-- kids have a hard time discerning between reality at night because of melatonin and the developmental level of their brain."

    Samantha pouts, remembering the flickering children.   She thinks of something--How can insects have melatonin?-- to ask him to keep him talking.  She is comforted by his knowledge.

    Kristopher begins again, knowing that telling her something about how it started will release him of the burden.  The longer winded he is about how it happened, the longer he can keep from thinking how it is happening.  "Nearly all life has it, regulates the circadian rhythm, you know, the physiological cycle of day and night, night and day.  They first discovered melatonin in insects back in the seventies--in the compound eyes of crickets. And when inducing more than was 'natural,'" he says, using facetious air-quotes with his fingers, "their night activity increased substantially."  He chuckles, "Eventually eliminating day-time activity.  Not the case, here, though.  Not completely."

    Samantha brews.  At this point, Kristopher has run out of things to say to her.  He doesn't feel he can communicate on her level, which, for him, is much lower than he is willing to venture.  Able only to see dim reflections off his eyes and protruding cliff-face of a nose, she wonders aloud, "Why in their eyes?  Is that the only way we can tell whether it is day or night?  Can't we feel the sunlight or lack thereof on our skin?"

    At this, Kristopher perks up, remembering the gruesomely bloody candle-wax face of a body, dripping gaps in the face, six inches from his own face.  "They don't have eyes, he says."
    They launch into a verbal foray.    
    "You said you found these in a cave, right?"
    "Right."
    "Was there any light down there?"
    "No, we had these heavy fucking helmets mounted with lights.  You know, like Hollywood."
    "You were in California,"  she smiles.
    "Yeah, not twenty miles from the edge of the wild-fires."
    The conversation dies with Samantha's last, sleepy thought, "Will they ever burn out?"

    Kristopher begins to fall asleep as fire sweeps through the city, conforming the minds of all willing beings.  His last thought is of the helicopter, bursting into flame--fading into the clouds. With Samantha asleep, he removes a translucent box from the inside of his coat.  Within the box, a white mantis-like creature is stretched by hexagonal distortions on the outside.  Kristopher shakes his head as the inside of the box ignites and extinguishes several times.    

Abednego
    Cabel peers across an empty ocean.  Antarctica is supposed to be here somewhere.  It would be hard to miss, but it is missing.  One day, the flaming bodies collectively decide to rush for the oceans.  Every survivor of the immortal flame that were the mysterious bodies, now stands alone, against a tide of change-- across the face of their planet, they must soon learn to survive.  No longer will they subsist. 
    Visible gusts of air exit her lungs, and her lips begin to crack and bleed.  She looks to her right, to her father who stands looking out into the blue oblivion with her.  Words have yet to jump his perfect ivory gap.  Puffs of air cannot be seen coming from his mouth.  Cabel does not notice.  She just leans against the wall of the deck and rubs her gloved hands together and against her body.  She cannot remember arriving on the boat.  Her last clear memory is of the man who head butts her in an attempt to force her aboard a helicopter.  It happened so fast, she thinks.

    "Abednego, goddamnit!  Abednego!"  Cabel shakes a chain-linked fence with meat-hook fingers.  A security camera watches the sidewalk where she shakes the fence.  It pans to the surrounded parking lot. "HEY, HEY, I'M RIGHT HERE!  YOU LET ME IN YOU PIECE OF SHIT!" 
     "Yelling at the camera won't get you inside."  Two rows of perfectly straight pearly teeth meet her teary-eyed gaze as she spins around.  A man faces her, unreadable behind huge bug-eyed reflective lenses.  Red eyes and a pouting mouth mirror her own.
   
    "My father is missing, and they need to let me in here.  Now."
    "I understand," say the pearly teeth. A hand extends for hers.  "My name is Kristopher Elijah and I work here."  They shake hands.  Before she can introduce herself, he continues.  "What has your father told you about Abednego?"  He smiles for an answer.
     "It's our code-word.  When I was little, he gave us a code-word, for safety. He said if I ever needed him, I could come to his lab, and if I said Abednego, the guards would have to let me in."
    "Drag you in, maybe.  Who did you say your father was?" he asks her.
    "I didn't.  I'm Cabel Fisher."
    At this, Kristopher's smile evaporates.
    "Follow me," he says.
    Kristopher approaches a box on the gate.  He retrieves a key from his pocket and uses it to open the box.  He removes his sunglasses and hunches forward to place his eyes in front of the box. 
    "These things destroy your vision." 
    The gate creaks sideways, dragging itself on rolling wheels.
"I probably shouldn't be telling you this, but you should know," Kristopher begins.  "I saw it.  I experienced it.  Everything I saw profoundly changed me."  He laughs, "And your father, him too.  But he actually has one.  Or maybe one has him."
     "What did you see?"  Confusion strikes Cabel blind to Kristopher's actions.  They enter completely black room.  Kristopher paces to the back wall and plucks something from a rack.  It clinks the keys in his pocket, sounds like glass.  They exit and keep walking.
    "Where are we going?" 
    "To the roof?"
    The building seems empty except for a few rooms they pass to the elevator.  In one, Cabel glimpses a man strapped to a bed, his muscle exposed to the air.  In another room a man is pulling organs out of a body and placing them on a table.  The body squirms but makes no sound she can hear through the door.  She throws up a little in her mouth and grabs Kristopher's arm. 
    "What is this place," she says muffled, her hand over her mouth. 
    "We just wanted to make money off of suffering.  That's the human way."  Before she can respond, he says they have reached the elevator.  He enters, but she does not.  "Do you want to see your father?"
    "Yes."  She enters.  The doors slide shut as a clicking and screeching noise bellows somewhere in the hallway.  The crashing sound of metal against stone is the last thing they hear before the doors shut.  They look at each other.
    Kristopher presses 5 and says, "I saw everything beautiful in this world.  Everything right.  I got this feeling, in the pit of my stomach, that we, as humans once had it right.  The oceans were crystal pools on the face of a green rock. Before Prometheus, before the first revolution, we were not separate from this world.  I was stuck in this tiny hole down in a deep cave with your father.  We were looking to make money off of this new species we had discovered.  Incredible evolutionary abilities.  We're not even sure how what it does is possible, but we've witnessed it.  And, there I am, seeing into myself, my father, his father, our kind.  All our sins replayed in an instant.  In that eerie mirror, where only the light in my mind exists, I am overwhelmed with the horror I witness.  Our world burns as our moon tosses itself, crashes into our surface, shattering.  Splintering.  I see the lives of each person, each ancestor, played out and destroyed.  I scream and tell your father to pull me out, but he has gone.  I don't know where.  A few days later, he shows up here--"
    "But?"
    The doors open to the fifth floor, which is essentially a hallway leading to a ladder.   
    "Your father is waiting for you on the roof" is the second to last thing he says to her, pointing to the ladder.  The last thing he says to her, after she comes scrambling down the ladder minutes later is, "You have to go," right before head butting her.

    On the boat, her father begins to speak, slowly.
    "The bonding trestle of heart and mind.  If only you could see as your Leviathan sees, perhaps you would would understand as I do.  As gods do.  Your fractious construction of lineage, your muddled perception.  Darkened shadow compressed to brilliant diamond threads, all for you, undeserved." 
    "Dad."
    No response.
    "Father."
    Nothing.
    "Abednego"
     Nothing.
    She rears back.  "I don't understand."
    "You're not meant to understand.  You never were.  You are a flashlight in the dark.  We are the dark."

So, when you're high you get strange perspective on things.  Here are some statements or thoughts that caught and fettered my attention tonight:

-The "magic number" is 19.  I'll have to see if it has any mathematical significance in the morning.  If not, that guy was just fucking with me when he said this. I was talking to this guy, who I cleverly deduced("Hey, you're wearing a stoner cap, do you smoke" "Yeah dude") was a stoner.  And I was like "You realize I effectively split our group into two groups of three?"
 "Yeah man, but wait 'till you see more complexy patterns.  Like, higher numbers.  And, remember this, the magic number?  It's nineteen"

-You can spare your life by giving homeless Dutch people your pack of cigarretes and lighter.  This is called a concession.  Or a trade for your life.

-The evolution of the dance.   It is attached to music, which, by virtue of evolving itself, advances dancing..  Think about it, dancing is tribalistic.  You can look at long past cultures to identify this.  The African continent and the Americas are huge contributors to the advancement of this sort of thing.  And, look at a lot of popular music.  It changes, and with it, the dances.  You see your parents' or grandparents' dancing style from their time, it is so radically different, and it is part of a constant evolution.

It is really funny to see a chick dancing to a style of music with a mismatched style of dancing. 

-Words have pretty narrow functions sometimes.  And then, some words just sound wrong when applied to certain things. Example: I overhear someone talking about a "Champions Honor League."  Champions?  Really?  When I think champions, I think swords, blood, colloseums.  Not your average 4.0 student with his stunted sense of style and smug and/or gloomy persona.  No, I think heroes.  Legends.  Champions.

Transcribing Knowledge Of The Smoke : PART I

So, recently I went home and had a good time smoking with one of my best friends ever--Jeff.  In my stories, for continuity, he is known as Horatio.  This entry revolves around the night we smoked, using quotes from the voice recorder.  I wish I could upload the audio, but we went with the cheap version.  In hindsight that was a bad idea.  There is no USB output and thus, I must transcribe it.  Here goes:

We sit in his car, something he has named the "Goldsmobile."  Guess it's color.  Slightly Stoopid plays in the background.

Talking about some guy named William, who is a compulsive liar.
A car passes us, I tell it to fuck itself, because I am the Doctor Doolittle of Cars:
Jeff: He's goin' to 7/11
Hunter: Ha, I love when people come out of Sheetz and go to 7/11. It's like, "Uhh, yeah, flashing lights and cool music isn't going to make me want to come to your store... I want shitty tacquitos."
Jeff: I do want shitty tacquitos!

Jeff: Man, I love the mirror system.
Hunter: Yeah, mirrors are kind of ingenious. 
Jeff: It's like, "We're gonna get a huge chunk of metal and have it fly down the road, and we're gonna put mirrors on it so you can see."
I then geek out at the prospect of video replacing mirrors. Jeff says we can discuss that after he takes his next hit off of the gravity.  We never do.  Instead, Jeff loads the gravity and realizes we have alcohol:
Jeff: This is crazy, but we do have vodka.
Hunter: Really?
Jeff: Yeah.
Hunter: Well, uh, cool.

A car passes and it looks like a cop, but isn't.  He takes a massive hit and sputters the smoke after a few seconds.  It rolls across the ceiling of the car.

Jeff: Ah, shit, that cannot be allowed to float around the car.
Hunter: Do you have Fabreeze?
Jeff: I have drive-breeze.
 
I laugh and tell him I love slamming words together.  This is why the German language kicks ass.  Compound words are key.  We talk about language briefly, and Jeff announces, several times, that he is "really high." He lists off his GB intake over the past couple of days.  He says he had one, then two the next day, and should now have three.  You can see how it becomes necessary to smoke more and more if you do it often.  That's why I love moderation.  We agree on three each, and I'm in for some high times, as I haven't smoked in months.

Jeff: Dude, I love being ambidexterous.
Hunter: ... I like having hands. Period.
Jeff: That's a good call, because not everyone has hands.
Hunter: Yeah, some things don't have hands. Some things have, like, tendrils.
Jeff: Well, no, like people.
Hunter: Yeah, and those people suck.
Jeff: Haha, I feel sorry for those people.
Hunter: Mmm, I don't. (pause) Actually, no, I'm a liar. I feel sorry for the stupidest shit.  I feel sorry for fat people, even if it's their own goddamn fault. There's this guy that sits in Larrick, the dining center next to my dorm, alone.  All the time.  He is definitely fuckin' obese.  This kid is not jokin' around with his fat.
Jeff: Hahaha, aww.
Hunter: I always feel compelled to sit with him but never do.

Jeff loses focus for a second.

Jeff: It's not caching, sooo, uh, I guess that means there's something in there.  But yeah, I saw the fattest dude in CVS today, and it was really sad because he was buying vaseline, which you know was for his bed sores--shit, not bed sores, but you know, like fat sores that you get from having too much fat--CHAFING!
I laugh for like 30 seconds.
Jeff: Yeah, I realize that was convoluted as shit, but I am high as shit.

Somehow we get on the subject of tattoos, probably because I go, "Dude, I was thinking about getting a tattoo." Jeff tells me that's pretty cool, but then I tell him, "I mean we're talking a really hack tattoo"  He goes blank and asks, "What?" in that monotone voice that indicates disappointment.

Hunter: A yin-yang.
Jeff: Don't do it.
Hunter: Dude, duality is fucking cool. I believe so strongly in duality.
Jeff: OH! That reminds me, I reread your... VOX thing... the entry that was deterministic in nature, and I was thinking, those comments were really good.
Hunter: Yeah, they were, I really appreciated them.  They were good. Wait, you read the actual VOX post right?
Jeff: Yeah.
Hunter: Okay, yeah, those were really good.  The one with the logical proofs I didn't quite understand.
Jeff: I didn't really get that one either. What I was impressed by was how logical these people are, though.  Like, when I read your arguement, I liked it, because it was good writing, but like, there was something wrong with it, but I couldn't put it into words, and these people were just like bam!
Hunter: Yeah, when I write I don't really think about what I'm doing, I just channel.
Jeff: No, I know what you mean.  I left a great story as one giant block of text for two weeks.  No paragraph breaks.
Hunter: Yeah, I remember that shit.

We segway to talking about the college experience, and Jeff asks me if the song playing is Glassjaw.  I tell him it is, and that I put it on the custom CD we are listening to simply because of the effects in the song.

Hunter: I love this effect.
Jeff: Dude, I have yet to play guitar high.
Hunter: Deeyew Deeyew deeyew.  You need a huge effects set-up.
Jeff: Dude, effects make or break music.  That's actually kinda why I like classic rock, because it's not the effects that make the music.
We begin to move out of the parkinglot we're in.
Hunter: Uh, where are we going?
Jeff: To air out the car.

Thinking he had forgotten about me, I point to the GB, then me, and back to the GB. He laughs and reassures me that we're going to stop in a second. I point out the voice recorder set up and tell him I like it.  He says he has forgotten about it. "Yeah, I-- I haven't," is my response.  I am not high enough at this point for a glowing red let at headlevel to just slip into the background. The real background, outside, is beautiful.  The trees are turning with the changing temperatures.  Fall has begun, and back home, twenty or so minutes from where I currently live, it is absolutely beautiful.  Jeff says, "See, that's what separates us from a soul-less, urban 1984 society."  I haven't read the book, but I know the gist of it, and he's right. 

I notice a huge Trailer Truck parked in the vacant lot.  We're surprised we didn't notice it before.
 
Jeff: Oh shit, dude, Mr. Krane did the craziest thing in Creative Writing today.
Hunter: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.  The biology teacher?

He tells me he teaches psychology now.  I am pissed, because when I was in highschool, psychology was forbidden on the premise that sex factored in to a human's thought process.   We continue driving and pass a car of young girls.  Jeff inflects out loud:
Jeff: Holy shit, do I know those girls?
He doesn't. We pull into our spot.
In a news anchor voice, I say, "Here we are, back at Smoke-Central-Station."  Jeff proceeds to slam his hand into the dashboard repeatedly.  This is the only form of laughing he can communicate.  I know this because there is a huge smile on a face gasping for air.
Hunter: I love that about high people. I can't deny my love for beating the shit out of something because it's funny.  Wooo (slam, slam, slam), thaaaat's hilarious.  It's like reverting to a lesser state.
Jeff: But I love reverting.
I reassure him that I do too.  I begin talking about the "allies" mentioned in Carlos Castaneda's The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, but he isn't listening.  The reason for this is he is attempting to pack the GB and it is requiring all of his mental focus.

Jeff: Hunter? I am entirely too high to pack GBs.
Hunter: But you're not too high to hold the GB for me--
Jeff: That's right.
Hunter: --because that's what I did for you.
Jeff: Haha, come here, GB, give me a hug.
Hunter: Man I can't see shit...
I get out my phone and use it as a light to pack by.
Jeff: Oh shit, we didn't use the crack lighter.  Oh, we've gotta raise some GBs with the crack lighter.

There's some silence between us, but Glassjaw is just now finishing up their song.  It's a good thing too, because the end of the song is not something to listen to high. It's caustic.

I go for my first hit, and Jeff whips out his "crack lighter."  I ask him as judicially as I can, "Is that the fuckin' crack lighter."  He lights it, and it is.  The flame ripples in waves towards the ceiling of the car.  It is nearly four inches of deadly blue and orange flame.
Hunter: Oh, NO WAY. No, I'm not using that shit.
Jeff: That's a fuckin' horrible idea, thank you.  Thank you for double checking that, we're in an apholstered car.

In the background a new song is playing.  "Parole Atale," by Meg.  Very moody music--in Italian.  I figured I'd test run the song high, but it flopped and turned out whinier than anyone would ever want to listen to high. 
Jeff: Is that phone-off-the-hook sound coming from the song?
Hunter: Yeah, you're fine.
Jeff:  I know, it's just fucking with my head.
Hunter: Hahaha, dude, does your cellphone have a hook to put on?
Jeff: Yeah, exactly.
Hunter: You are high.
Jeff: Exactly.
I take my first or second hit, and it is gargantuan. I never cough when smoking, but I almost heaved up a lung right there.  I was in for a good time.
Hunter: One second, fuckin' cotton mouth killer.
The car starts rolling.
Jeff: Oh my GOD, this car's still going!

DING DING DING.
The car is turned off and back on. I ask him to hold something while I chug some Pink Lemonade.  I offer him some, because it's a 2 liter, but he remembers I am sick.  We then talk about listening to the voice recorder high, and how we're not going to do that tonight.
Hunter: We're not going to listen to it tonight.
Jeff: Because we're really high.
Hunter: And that's scary.  Remember when we did that, uh--
Jeff: And never listened to it.
Hunter: No, no.  Do you remember listening to it high?  Because I remember that being scary.
Jeff: Oh yeah!
Hunter: Hearing myself on a device was scary.
Jeff: You realized the whole Native American, stealing of soul thing is true.
Hunter: Yeah, because it's true.
We laugh.
Jeff: I like that we acknowledge that.
Hunter: Yeah, it's true.  Your "soul" is stolen when you place it on a cold-- Like, no, seriously, what you are, your soul is everything that comprises you.  And if a machine can transcribe it and replicate it more efficiently than you can... it has captured a moment in your soul, in time of your soul--physically captured it.  Everything's physical.

Jeff: Yeah, that's true.  You just reminded me about the story I was going to tell about Mr. Krane.  He showed us this video with people wearing white shirts and people wearing black shirts, throwing basketballs. And you had to count the number of times the people in the white shirts passed the basketball.  So, the video's like twenty seconds long, he stopped it and goes, "Okay, raise your hand if you didn't see the gorrila."

Hunter: Isn't it crazy? Focus the mind on one thing and it ignores another.
Jeff: Yeah, and you rewatch it and there's just a guy in a gorilla suit on the screen like[Jeff dances].

I cough again, expelling more smoke into the car.  An Airbase song comes on--"Spin." 
More confidently than anything I've ever said in my life, I go, "This song I kept on the remix, because it's only two minutes long(whereas most are 8 or so), and it's a good Airbase song. So, I figured 'Why not?' Mix it up a little bit in your mind.  Like, those are two pretty good reasons."

We go back to discussing psychology, and I tell him how I love that there's a whole science behind how humans operate.  I say, "understanding the self is the only way to obtain any true sense of power."  He tells me if he doesn't become a teacher, he will be a psychologist.  Inevitably, we get around to talking about majors, and how they don't really matter.  At the time of the recording, I was seriously considering switching my major from Psychology to English, which I now realize would be a waste of my time.  Jeff gets pensive about college, explaining all the shit he has to apply for, all the essays he's writing.  Hell, I barely even tried to get into college.  It was more of the next, inexorable step for me.  I really respect the fact that he's trying, and I hope he gets in where he wants and then enjoys it.  Also, I hope he goes to a big party school and fits in... so I can come visit.

Jeff stops mid-breath at the sound of "Sacrifice," by The Expendables.
Hunter: No, yeah, no I had to keep this on the CD, this is a high classic. How could I forget this song?
Jeff: This song is just... YES, I get to listen to this high!
Hunter: In fact, we get to listen to this high, turned up.
Jeff: This is why being high in cars with sweet sound systems is awesome.  Have you been in one?
Hunter: Dude, the kids down the hall have speakers taller than this car.
Jeff: Oh, you totally told me. Such a sacrifice inside, ooo, oooooo.
Hunter(singing to the tune): Taxi cab goin' by. What if that was my ex girlfriend coming to kill us
We make shotgun and machine gun sounds for a few seconds.
Hunter: She's got like a tracking device in me.
Jeff: Is she really that crazy?
Hunter: Mmm, no, but that shit's funny.

We start talking about comedy.  Apparently my delivery of "No, but that shit's funny" spurs this thought in his head.  I'm sweet.  We talk about a comedy club I've mentioned, one that my friend Sean introduced me to.  He wants to go, and I tell him he should come sometime.

Hunter: Dude, you have no idea how high I am right now.
Jeff: A lot? Is the answer a lot?
Hunter: Do you remember planet Sieben?
Jeff:  Oh shit.
Hunter: That's how high I am.
Jeff:  You see, I realized that back when I had a place in my head, a planet that I went to... I got really high then.
I can't stop laughing.  I throw the GB out the window as we leave our spot.
Hunter: I'm making the executive decision up there on that dark road... after... all these fucking lights are gone... Like right here. 
The GB makes a hollow clunk as it roles and slows, stopping-- dead.
Jeff: Doo DOO DUKE!
Hunter: Hahahaha
Jeff: Dooka doo doo, dooka dooka doo doo.(he sings with the song, which is "40oz to Freedom", Sublime)
Hunter: Hahahahhaa, reality is sweet.  Wow, I feel like the car is going faster than me.
Jeff: The great part is, right now, your internal organs are moving at 30 miles per hour.
Hunter: Yup. Damn it's cold.
Jeff: I've learned to ignore it.
Hunter: Yeah, me too, but then a breeze of needles hits you in the face. And you're like, "Mm, that's cold."

I proceed to laugh my ass off at Jeff's driving ability:
Hunter: Hahahaha, as we creep, hahaha, ever so slightly, hahaha, up to the curb.  That was fucking classic man.  Vvrrrr, pulling into docking bay one.
We are in the Sheetz parkinglot eating cold pizza and he wants a drink.  He is going to go inside, but I feel too high to do so.  I will lose my shit in front of the officer on call and laugh at his shiny badge.  Jeff wants cottonmouth killer.  I suggest the alcohol in the back and he scowls at me. "Fuck that," is all he says.  He concedes, though, that beer and pizza would be amazing. 
Jeff: Have you ever had just like... two beers... instead of...twenty?

I tell him no. And then here it comes, Jeff's oration on life, and what it is to be a stoner:
Jeff: I realized why being a stoner is not acceptable.  You are not supposed to have this much fun.  Think about it, you can go out and do anything and it's fun if you're high.  And that's just not natural, you're not supposed to have that much fun.  You're supposed to get that much fun out of life.

I laugh in his face, but say he's somewhat right.
Jeff: Think about it, if you cannot get that kind of fun out of just living life, there's something wrong with you.
There's a slight pause as the bass picks up and Bud Gaugh lays down a tempo change.
Hunter: Or.  The chemicals in our brain are different.
Jeff: Exactly, but you shouldn't need to put chemicals in your body.
This goes on for awhile, but ultimately we make fun of stupid people, like this girl from my English class who tried to argue that sodium ions aren't what help cause thought.
Jeff: Oh, I love the comment from that girl--"SALT DOESN'T CONTROL OUR THOUGHT!"
Hunter: Yeah, somebody actually said that to me.

The periodic table is mentioned and we see blue lights flashing across the four lane road in front of us.  Someone just got pulled, which is a really strange thing to see when high.  I call cops "Enforcers" now, because of that.  That's what they are, but that's my high terminology for them, because I think it's best to have different words for the same meaning, so as to take yourself out of a conditioned mindset about things.  It helps expand your view.  Maybe that's bullshit, but it helps me see things differently.

.