Waiting for the train, Gabe dropped a two-fifty piece into the Gazette machine as was his routine every third day. The worldwide Gazette Co. had been born of the lonely death of print some years ago. A global conglomerate of Chapter One’s, dripping readership from the overflow. He fingers down to the “Hybrid” box on the touch screen, double taps lightly. Next screen: any variation of customizable content. Disease, no. Sport, no. Politics, no. Local, yes. Op-Eds, no. Food & Drink, yes. Celebratism, no. Telefilm, no. Corporatism, no. Science/Environment, yes, so on.

The machine rattles just as the horn of the train sounds; it spits out a thick one-sheet, a personalized version of the daily news. He always thought they felt like pliable particle board, made of mashed recycled paper and packaging. Deep enough to fit in chips, microprocessors, and, in Gabe’s case, braille. He thumbed up the right side to the red button fitted with a small symbol and braille itself, popped it in. Each cell emerges directly from the text, tiny hills of translation whispering to every touch. He scans the headlines as he steps through the third sliding door: “New St. Louis Park Bar Offers Empiri-Vending.”

The snow is finally beginning to stick to the ground, small but steady flakes in a bitter November. Gabe is on his way to the local VA Medical Center for his weekly appointment. Part of him thinks he should just stop going. The best health care in the nation, the best overall benefits, somehow he didn’t care. Nothing they could give him would equal what was taken away. His lack of eyesight was just an inconvenience; the real handicap wormed up through the soil of his psychosis. The paralyzing visions of his time in the desert, for it was the only thing he’d see for the rest of his Earthly existence.

He’s chained to a folding chair in room with a single light bulb. Rag stuffed mouth, doused in thick black oil. A group of men collect around a mapped table with junkyard scraps and explosive chemicals in front of him. The hot Sun strikes his shins through a crumbling hole, soon shaded by a curious little boy peeking where he isn’t supposed to. Like every other time, he screams a muffled “NOO!!” A bearded man with six legs and mandibles, strapped with a bandoleer of poisonous centipedes, scuttles over and hoods Gabe’s head into darkness. He hears the burning clicks circling, ready to pounce. The explosion temporarily deafens him; he falls to his side still strapped to the chair greased in oil, burning to death without hearing or seeing a thing.

“Try one of these,” a disheveled crusty man across the aisle sputters between coughs. He’s got a crumpled up pharmacy bag stuffed between his legs. He reaches a trembling hand inside, dispenses two round pills. Half blue, half white. Gabe pieces together a face out of the coughs, the inflection, the tone. He undoubtedly hasn’t been shaven in months, Gabe pictures.

“Well go ahead. Are ya or ain’cha?” The tattered aging child of the Y spouts, with some misleading hostility. Jiggling the med in his salty hand, he catches a glimpse under Gabe’s contact tints, transparent milky eyes like a gas cloud lurking far far away, birthing fresh stars out of the dust. He twists and sits up, shaking his head.

“I’m sorry, man. I’m real sorry. Here, open up yer mitt.” Gabe presents his hand outward, assuring he took no offense at all. The pill lurches down Gabe’s throat. He thinks about it too: what it must look like dissolving in acid on a microscopic level, the way it transforms into electrical currents and sprints up to his frontal lobe, the blockage of specific neurons. Feels tinny, mechanical. The Stranger explains his condition… conditions, to Gabe. Not that it mattered. The Stranger, turns out, is also headed to the VA. He managed to wander out of the service into post-middle age unscathed. Physically, that is. His recurring dream changes details night to night, but the core stays the same. Unaltered, welded to the center of his mind, rusty and sharp: while driving an armored transport through Kabul, on direct orders not to swerve, he hits and runs over a little boy holding a deflated soccer ball. He and Gabe exchange uneasy pleasantries, which Gabe attributes to the drug. If Gabe only knew.

Towards the back of the car two men are getting into it. One at least, harassing another guy close by with cultural guilt and a head full of confrontation. Static blue vision maps the surroundings for Gabe, he squints his eyes until they close. Scrambled images scrubbed with white hiss and feedback. The harassed man grips a strap and pulls himself up, irritated. He powers up his inner earphones and walks to the front of the car, brushing past Gabe and whispering the lyrics to the Electronic music he’s listening to.

Sitting in the middle of the car, slouched under the elastic connector and a black sticker reading “DolDrums”, a teenage boy talks portable inhalants into his PCD. Buying not selling, in the snowflakes behind a nightclub off 7th. Gabe keys in. The boy is shrewed, but green. Still holding onto that piece of gunmetal he dug outta the dumpster in the back of his mind. Still reaching for those razor sharp spires in the sky, scaling an all glass building bare handedly, with that piece tucked into his pants. One day he’ll reach too far and it’ll go off. PKOW. The bullet will tear him open. Memory strains will eek out with the blood. He’ll lose his grip and fall to the pavement, spouting a red trail through the smog to a splashy death.

Next stop: VA Medical Station. Exit Right.

But Gabe doesn’t want that to happen…

-Sonny

I’m sitting down here in the basement.  Taking in the organs and beeps of a warm — HOT — fire.  About to tackle the World Cup in this old fucking soccer game called Goal.  Jamming to a variety of records, from POS to Blood on the Tracks and Prairie Cartel.  Brushing up to the cat… no, other way around.  Reviewing this flash-fiction piece I wrote last week, and title brain storming as I’d like to get the thing done.  I’m thinking I’ll probably elaborate on it w/ a second piece, tracking the Y-Generation military veteran to somewhere behind a club on 7th St. or Cedar Ave. or maybe Lake St.; he’s following a young man — a boy, really — to a deal involving something I’m calling “mobile-inhalants” (the drug of the future; and no, it isn’t a good thing).  This was partially influenced by the Eyedea & Abilities song “Smile” off By the Throat (one my absolute favorite songs of the year).  Mostly, though, by REAL LIFE.  I’m gonna go check out The Road tonight because I liked the book and I’m curious.  No way it makes as good of cinema as it did prose.  No way.  But hopefully it’s worth a one-time viewing.  I feel like I need to see Avatar just so I can legitimately talk shit about it.  I’m not a hater, I like lots of stuff.  Just not 3 hour video game commercials passed off as “the future of movies” wielding a less than elementary level take on American Imperialism.

-Sonny

[DISCLAIMER:  The following is a list of media I thoroughly enjoyed in this decade.  Not the "best" anything.]

[NOT including the following: super-hero movies, horror movies (such as zombies), Spielberg or Cameron movies.]

WALL*E was a movie that I only very recently saw.  And I’m a little bummed about that, as I would have liked to have seen it in the theater.  Charming, funny, sincere, conceptual, sublime.  This movie is almost perfect.  And there isn’t too many concepts, even on this list, that can stack up against “future Earth overrun with trash, human population floating through space, robots hired to clean but failed”.

PRIMER took me about 4 times to feel really really comfortable with it.  That’s probably normal.  The cool thing about the movie though, is not only does it demand re-watch-ability, it also encourages it.  Anyone who isn’t named Stephen Hawking should see this movie way more than once if they think they did, or might, enjoy it.  It only enhances the ideas by making them within grasp.  This is both the most realistic and fantastic time-travel film of all time.

CHILDREN OF MEN grabbed me by eyelids when I saw it in the theater and would not let go.  Another Earth shattering concept adapted from a novel by P.D. James.  But the real magic comes with Alfonso Cuarón’s stellar design, direction, editing, and execution.  Some of the uber-long shots were digitally cut together, that’s obvious, but goddamn if that long shot at the end of the movie isn’t one of the best of the 2000s (the beach shot in Atonement was amazing).

SERENITY was a pleasant surprise for me when I rented it some couple years ago because I never saw “Firefly”.  Yeah, I’d heard a ton about “Firefly”, but I wasn’t one of these Joss Whedon freaks.  The only thing I knew of his was Astonishing X-Men.  But you’ve got to give him credit.  He managed to bring back the space-cowboy/Han Solo type character, but into a universe so defined and so real it seemed like somewhere out there that space-cowboy and his ship actually existed.

DISTRICT 9 at first is a thought provoker, then it evolves into a whole hell of a lot of fun.  Sure, the third act is cheesy.  But it’s oh-my-shit geek awesome crazy with alien puke and piss, mech fights, alien weapons, and transpeciesism.  That being said, it still covers its ass by including some all too real ground by examining human treatment of alien life in the former apartheid laden country of South Africa.  It’s shocking how quickly the viewer starts to cheer for the alien character and his little one.

MOON was yet another movie from this year I’m including.  I liked this movie a whole lot more than District 9 and that probably tells one quite a bit about my personality, or tastes at least.  Kudos to Duncan Jones for using classic techniques like miniatures, original scores, and story/plot.  Limited CGI and a powerfully strong human element make this movie heart wrenching.  Oh, and Sam Rockwell gives the performance of a lifetime.

A SCANNER DARKLY was a very very faithful adaptation of an excellent Philip K. Dick book not too far away.  Trippy, organic visuals highlight excellent performances all around (even from Keanu, who still is just a titch flat).  Scramble suits, substance-D, advanced surveillance, in southern Cali.  I’d recommend reading the book — more indictments of our society, and how it may become this society — if you liked the film.  I choose this over Minority Report, for PK Dick flicks, cause I hate Cruise and Spielberg (and it’s more faithful).

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND blew my mind.  If this isn’t science fiction then I don’t know what is.  One of those “why didn’t I think of that!” premises and it’s pulled off wonderfully by the combination of Spike Jonze’s direction and Kaufman’s screen play.  Extra points for Tom Wilkinson, who’s one of my absolute favorite character actors.  When you finally reach the end, you realize that the same story’s just going to happen again.  And again and again.  It’s so circular.  I love it.

That be it!  I know I’m probably forgetting at least 5 movies that I loved.

-Sonny

The BBC released some crazy new space imagery from the Herschel Telescope today.  One image is of stars being born in the Aquila constellation.  Massive amounts of gas and dust compound together to created new stars far far away.  Another measures the properties and portions of stardust, calculating the chance of such new stars forming.  There’s also one of the Crux — or “southern cross” — constellation: long strands of matter spaced out with tiny beads known as star embryos.  An infrared image of the spiral galaxy known as M81 appears as well.  Apparently images such as that are used to determine if another galaxy nearby is sucking stars away with its own gravitational pull.  Again, THE LINK.

-Sonny

[DISCLAIMER:  The following is a list of media I thoroughly enjoyed in 2009.  Not the "best" anything.]

Single Issues

PLANETARY #27 for its pull the curtain over my eyes awesomeness, its ability to close out a remarkable new millennium series on a decisive high note, and its stellar artwork.

WALKING DEAD #66 for its use of the reader’s imagination, its willingness to paint all of its characters in a very neutral gray tone (figuratively and literally), its implied violence as oppose to portrayed violence, and its heart.

New Comics

SWEET TOOTH for its surreal vision of the post-apocalypse, and its multi-talented creator Jeff Lemire.

SUPERGOD for its grab at concluding one fucked up trilogy of books (first Black Summer, then No Hero), and its bomb made of scientists and officers hurtling into the surface of Jupiter.

CHEW for its amazingly original concept.

Story Arcs

Whatever Happened To The Caped Crusader, in DETECTIVE COMICS and BATMAN, for its complete dismantling of the Dark Knight’s cultural relevance for over 60 years, and its legendary creators each on top of their game.

The Gnawing, in SCALPED, for its layer by layer reveal type story telling, its anything can happen atmosphere, and its uncompromising portrayal of crime on a Reservation.

Dallas, in UMBRELLA ACADEMY, for its striking minimalistic (almost) art, and its re-imagining of one of the most studied and infamous historic American events of modern times.

Graphic Novels

ASTERIOS POLYP for its utterly insane density, and probably the best use of the medium this year.

STITCHES: A MEMOIR for its connection between writer, character, and reader, and its harrowing visual account of growing up under specific circumstances.

THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, CENTURY: 1910 for bringing the infamous series into the 20th century, its pop cultural references, and its ability to be both modern and ancient.

Mini-Series

INCOGNITO for its wonderful take on the notion of super-powers and mad scientists.

THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ for its inspiring art, its ability to stay true to source material while expanding upon it also, and its wistful, dream-like ambiance.

NO HERO for showing the reader that yes, sociopathic madmen do rule the world, but without them we’d gain freedom of choice in exchange for order and possibly our lives, and its ambiguity and deconstructionist nature.

Mainstream Superheroes

BATMAN & ROBIN for its experimentation of genres within an established series (mixing 50s psychedelic with gritty 80s and 70s sequences), and introduction of new villains (some good, some bad, at least it tried).

INVINCIBLE IRON MAN for taking a microscope to the inner-workings of Tony Stark, exposing his thought process down to the very core through plot devices, and running all over the world.

SECRET SIX for stepping into the examine-a-team-of-crazies role after Ellis left Thunderbolts, its perfect characterization of typically one dimensional characters, and its sheer brutality.

Concepts

THE UNWRITTEN for its meta-contextual-ism, its pop cultural references, and its historic references.

BAD DOG because it’s just a whole lot of fun.

PUNISHERMAX for somehow staying true to a previous writer’s vision, and its take on a classic character.

DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? for its printing of the entire original Philip K. Dick prose.

Webcomics

FREAKANGELS for putting something exciting in my mailbox every Friday, and its change in story direction by going back to the beginning.

TEAM MUMMY because its creator is a madman genius with a serious amount of talent.

GOBLINS for its completely reliable artwork, seemingly constant output, and staying true to itself.

Writers

ED BRUBAKER for coming back to Criminal, finishing both Daredevil and Incognito on high notes, bringing back Steve Rodgers and still experimenting with other projects.

WARREN ELLIS for getting a whole boat load of attention from the film industry, and juggling a million projects.

JASON AARON for capturing grit in anything he does.

PENCILERS

FRANK QUIETLY for steady and simplistic boom-boom action sequences, and his conciseness.

JH WILLIAMS, III for his amazing stretch of the medium, and splash pages to gawk at for days at a time.

SKOTTIE YOUNG for making sure dreams can still come true, and drawing with character.

INKERS

VAL STAPLES for accentuating the brilliance of Sean Phillips, and giving surrealism in small doses.

R. CRUMB for still inking his work, and tackling the Bible with balls.

DAVE STEWART for his ability to switch tone and time with the flick of a switch.

Am I missing anything?  OOHHH… COVERS.

Covers

-Sonny

I ’spose I’d better start thinking about compiling a group of my favorite albums of 2009.  I’m not even sure I really want to though.  I want to, but I don’t.  Like I’ve said before:  fuck RANKING music.  That’s such horse-shit.  Music shouldn’t be ranked like college basketball.  I think perhaps I’ll just list a bunch of albums and give a very short — I’m talkin’ like 4 or five words — description of why it’s getting mentioned.  I could do it with movies, books, comics, TV too.

Yeah, I’ll do that.  Until the end of the year.  Or until I’m dead.  Which ever happens first.

(What a pathetic excuse for an entry.  Post, whatever the fuck you’re calling it these days.  Stop.  Just STOP now.  Before I tear this place down with my silver hands inch by inch by 0 by 1.  I know you think you’re helping, but I despise everything you stand for.  Track the rest of ‘em.  Shatter the sky, rip a hole innit, climb inside)

-Sonny

BLACKROC is an awesome project.  If you dunno, it’s Black Keys + some legends and/or relative unknowns of Hip-Hop.  Mos Def, Rza, Raekwon, Jim Jones, ODB, Jim Jones, Pharaohe Monch, Q-Tip, fuckin’ NOE… Ludacris.  The album’s real good.  This is the cover:

Anyways, I’m really here because they’ve been hitting the late-night circuit a bit lately.  First it was a pretty cool performance — albeit slow tempo-wise — of the song “Ain’t Nothing Like You” with Mos Def and Jim James on Letterman.  But I had to post this one (as much as I hate Jimmy Fallon), only because… hey, it’s RZA.  Fuck’s sake.  So badass, Push play:

-Sonny

… Wow.  Obama’s more like George Bush than any of us would’ve imagined, eh?  Holy shit.  When he started referencing the “evil that exists” in the world in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, I thought for a minute he WAS W-Bush.  A really well read version.  I’m not gonna lie, it was great speech.  And I don’t get why the fist-pumping Conservatives hate the guy so much, he’s carrying the American-Imperialist torch with some balls, that’s for sure.  Fuck it, this ain’t a political WordPress page!  It’s a… a… it’s like a… thing… it’s, well I dunno what the hell it is.  Moving on.

… Matt Fraction’s Invincible Iron Man is one mainstream superhero comic worth reading.  Even if IGN supremely overrates the title — as per their usual prerogative — along with countless other Internet havens for Marvel lovers, it still is good comics.  Written cleverly, with a surprisingly small amount of action and heavy fisted fighting, drawn well, plotted carefully, all the while understanding the pure core essence of said mainstream superhero.  However, I do wish Fraction’s Tony Stark drank more.  Anyone seen that one-sheet of Mickey Rourke as Whiplash for Iron Man 2?  Whoooaaaaa.

… The head/founder of Blackwater International sounds a lot more like Tony Stark (speaking of) than Bruce Wayne.  I know they aren’t doing weapons manufacturing, but they’re pulling security.  Well, this week the founder — Eric Prince, I believe — was ousted as an asset to the CIA.  Apparently his private security firm had been working far too close with the US government in legal terms.  Blackwater has been under all kinds of scrutiny after several reports of corruptions of justice, brutality, and even the killing of civilians in Iraq.  That scrutiny led to this Prince mess.  I referenced Blackwater in a piece of speculative fiction I wrote months ago.  God help us if Blackwater ever gets contracts in US cities.  Fuck.  You know those people who think we should privatize everything??  Yeah, they’re knuckleheads.

… I’ll leave you with anything but a knucklehead’s cartoons.  One of them anyhow.  This guy’s name is Graham Annable (if it wasn’t for SuperPunch, I’d never know him).  He does lots of things, including making creepy animation shorts.  Here’s one for the holidays:

-Sonny

This story is really starting to make its rounds on the Internets.  A mysterious swirling light has appeared in the skies over Norway, and at first no one knew what exactly it was.  Apparently it was a missile test by the Russians that failed — not sure how exactly it “failed” — and the result was this magnificent, if not terrifying, spiral light in the sky.  BBC has a video report on the ordeal.  Mail Online World News has a pretty reasonable article on the story.  Witnesses have been quoting describing it: “like a big fireball that went around, with a great light around it… [and] … a shooting star that spun around and around.”  The pictures are the best part, though.  Swear on my life, these are undoctored.

-Sonny

DOOM. The Galaga record upstairs at First Ave. was NOT broken.  The crowd began to fill in and fill in and spill out.  Some bartender was kind of a dick.  Checked my coat, as did a lot of people.  Average age seemed to be 22(ish?).  Breezy and bitter outside.  The curtain dropped.  No openers, kind of a bummer.  I still remember freezing my ass off but not caring watching Gay Witch Abortion jam in a fucking white van out front.  The format: 3-4 collective songs, individual set, 3-4 collective songs, individual set, etc.  I liked it, actually.  They’ve been doing that type of thing for a while now.  Though, at the 3rd Blowout — I think — the self titled was just about to come out so there was A LOT of collective stuff.  The breaks just kept on coming, perfect if you’re a smoker.  I switched over from Red Stripe to standard Diesel.  Lots of laughs where we were at.  A beautiful woman named Aby Wolf came out and sang on more than one song.  We cheers’ed Lazerbeak, who seemed to be having the time of his life.  The “Prizefight” video didn’t work, which also seem to fuck up the rather large telescreen.  Piss.  Cecil Otter cracked a joke about his new slogan is “searching…” ala blue screen of death.  C. Otter played with a badass two piece — distorted bass and a drummer — along with a few samples and no DJ.  Made me want to shove people.  Two very memorable guys were having the time of their lives upfront, very into each and every song.  Twinkie Jiggles, of Heiruspecs (one of the founders, bass player, nice guy), played stand-up bass on Dessa’s set; so was the guitar player from Specs.  Some bartender was as nice as could be.  Mictlan seemed fucked up all night; his set was him all alone, with Paper Tiger and Lazerbeak backing him.  P.O.S. and Sims’ set were exactly what you’d expect: awesome and alotta fun.  The place was near riotous during the last collective songs.  I was called “morally broke”, in all straight-face seriousness, for budging into the coat line.  I told these guys, “look, if no one’s gonna do anything to me beyond heckle, I’m staying.  So start shoving me or shut the fuck up.”  I’m such an asshole sometimes.  Went to the after party.  Cecil Otter took off early; I don’t think Lazerbeak was there either.  Jimmy 2 Times and Plain Ole Bill were sweet.  All I remember was Jim pointing something out to Bill on his laptop as a joke.  Sure enough, next thing to get mixed in is Madonna’s (love how Wiki calls her an “entertainer” not “musician”) “Like a Prayer”.  More beer.  Lots of dancing and fun and partying.  Went up close and got a pick of the pair.  Smoke break.  Dessa felt all bad for stumbling and kicking a beer bottle into my shin.  She’s very polite.  Mictlan told me he “loves a whole lot of people.”  They did this big ass freestyle jam thing with about 10 people up on stage.  Some better than others, all pretty neat.  Shook POS’ hand a lot it felt like.  I didn’t see/talk to Sims at all.  And like that, it was done.  TREE.

-Sonny