DOPE FIEND OF THE UPPER MESOZOIC By David Fischer dave@cca.org
Copyright (c) 1996 by David Fischer

It was Dave, but it wasn't a carcass, and I never find out why he was
sleeping in a tree. I aproached his resting spot, notes in hand, plan
in head, but I never got the chance to ask any of my carefully crafted
introductory questions. In retrospect they were stupid questions, but
at the time everything seemed perfectly set up.

"I speak of these things as an outsider, just like you.  I was
never part of any of these movements. I hung around on the outskirts.
I'm an armchair theorist. I didn't go to shows, I didn't live the life,
I wasn't part of the scene. Nothing against it of course, I just don't
generally get involved in anything. I prefer being a visitor from
outside, no matter where I may be. At times I felt like a visitor, not
just to that subculture, but to humanity. No. Not just to humanity,
but to my own being. To my being? To being itself. To the state of
existance. I am naturally a delusional vision. My home is the mind
lurking behind crazed eyes."

It took a moment to realize that this monologue was directed at me,
and that he seemed to understand I was there to study him. He didn't
even glance at my recording unit as I set it up to log our conversation.
Surprising even myself, I found myself wondering if my recording system
would be shown ineffective, if the tape would return silence, like a
mirror that was blind to mythological beasts. Was it the general nature
of Dave's surrealist attitude that stirred such concerns up from the
depths, or was it something specific in his comments? Perhaps it was 
just the stark contrast in which he appeared in this prehistoric
setting. Chosen for that effect, no doubt at all.

"The other thing of course, is that I don't like being in situations
where I don't control everything. I only enjoy one-on-one social
interactions, where I can control the flow of conversation."

Ah good, a chance to study the human's problems reconciling pecking orders
and civilized behaviour. It occurs to me that I don't know if Dave thinks
I'm here to study him, or humanity. That blunts the earlier surprise a bit.
Still, the source of one surprise is likely to be the source of many more.
For the moment, I can do no more than remain vigilant, so I forge ahead
as if unaware. "But what do you get out of conversing with another who is
so easily subdued?"

"No, no - they don't have to be pushovers, I don't even need to
dominate, I just need control over my half of the conversation. With
more than one other person, I can get shoved to the side completely. It
really isn't a power thing, or an issue of control. It's just content,
I think. Perhaps there's a bit of center-of-attention at work here, but
that's overshadowed by the simple fact that I just hate hearing about
most of the things most people tend to talk about.  When I'm talking to
one other person, 'I don't care.' always succeeds in changing the topic
of conversation. At least, it's worked whenever I've tried it.
Invariably whenever I am confronted with a larger group, at some point
(usually very quickly) the conversation will be so utterly unbearable
for me that I exit without waiting for a convenient excuse. Getting up
in the middle of a conversation five minutes after arriving at a party
and saying 'Bye.' is probably my most widely known social behaviour. No
patience. I have no patience at all."

I am compelled to join in at this point. "You know, my own break
from high society didn't come about because of power, but because of
knowledge. Everything that concerns the mind of this social creature
is so narrowly defined in terms of intellecual scope and impact.
Scheming to achieve personal goals of material aquisition are glorified
beyond all other things."

Dave doesn't seem to be paying any attention to me, and starts yawning
before I even finish. As soon as I stop, he starts reciting verse:

	"Peter the Pleasant Pheasant 
	Head cut off and feathers plucked out,
	Tables turned and soup on fire, 
	Publicity helps but the masses have such a short attention span. 
	Bird bird, what can you do? 
	Escorted off the plane and into the stew,
	A hidden knife, a desperate flight.
	Silly fowl, police closing in,
	End in sight, shivering in fear
	Will you even be able to take
	Any of them with you?
	A corpse, a corpse, my Kingdom
	For a fresh corpse.
	'Sold!' comes the cry from afar.
	But 'Never!' echos closer
	Closer to home,
	Where they're waiting,
	Waiting to dine.
	'On my fine flesh!'
	This is bad.
	A timely injunction,
	But no pardon.
	Refused, refused?
	We delay just long enough
	To run for the border."

I wait for further verse or commentary, and finally break the silence
arbitrarily: "Is your point that the complex behavioural adornments
of human civilization are garnish that serves no purpose but to make
the omnivorous cut-throat greed of all human motivation seem palitable
to the casual observer? I've seen this all too often within the diplomatic
protocols of high society back on Neptune. They will do anything they can
to disguise their unsatiable hunger for conquest as disinterested persuits
of the noblest intent."

Dave smiles at this, pleasantly surprised by my attitude. "Yes, we have
the exact same thing. Various cultures either obscure this or
expose it, according to the passing fancy of the nobility, but underneath
it's all still just animals scratching for roots in the dirt. Moving
beyond this - moving truly beyond this, not just superficially for show -
is difficult and rare for individuals, almost unheard of for groups or
entire communities. Again, this is another facet of life where I find
that the underground counter-culture far surpasses mainstream society, even
though their reputation and image is the exact opposite."

He smiles sarcasticly to illistrate this last point - "But where does
this reputation and image arise? Oh, surprise surprise, it's the
straights again! Thank you, thank you so."

I don't quite understand where Dave has drawn the borders in this
battle of his, and which groups he includes or excludes, as 'counter-
culture' or 'fringe society'. I make a mental note to persue these
questions in future conversation, as well the question of behavioural
classification - how many punks does he think fall within his idealized
conceptualization of punks, and how many straights does he really think
are as bad as the straights he demonizes?

I probe a bit. "Have you considered what negative image you may
inadvertantly by presenting to strangers at times? Much of what you
describe may be accidental, or even just misrepresentation. Strangers
with radically different social reflexes than you are easily
misunderstood when pressed in an unknown or even threatening
environment." I punctuate this with the best expression of sympathetic
misery I can muster, hoping in its contageousness.

"Oh, fuck you."

Guess not.

"So what do you know of us? What does 'Earthling' mean to you
right now?" Dave seems genuinely interested, which is of course, 
interesting. I make a note to persue the reason for this particular
interest. I also note my realization that I have no idea what he
really knows of my background. This is unnerving, but not to be
dealt with at the moment. Better to follow through with his question
and see where he leads than to interfere with fertile dialogue.

Pink hair, pink hair! Why do they adorn themselves so? Creating
totally unnecessary and pointless points of conflict and contention,
gaining nothing but the heat of friction. I admit it seems to be in
character, but what specificly is it that makes me feel this way?
I must not become as vague and undirected as they, in my study.

"Remember the poem I recited for you about Peter The Pleasant Pheasant?
Well, while he was on the run, he discovered a function that gives all
the prime numbers! He actually used that to get out of the country, and
set up a base of operations on a little resort type caribean island.
As soon as the superpowers figured out what had happened, they nuked
him below sea-level, of course. The function was lost. It was too late to
undo the damage he had wrecked on them however. His instant access to
the set of primes gave him unprecidented access to supposedly secure 
computer systems, as all security was based on data encryption, which in
turn was all dependant on the inaccessability of large prime numbers.
Bang, crash, KA-BOOM!"

This is another example of Dave's incoherent and pointless meanderings,
perhaps justified as 'fantasy' or 'creativity', but in reality, a wide
open vulnerability. Any such unknown from one's own mind must be hidden,
for it may be understood by someone else, and reveal unexpected data
regarding sensitive areas of one's secret domains. Why does he punctuate
these ravings with a look of arrogance, instead of fear?

More than anything else I find humanity characterized by an
inability to intuitively understand the practical, personal,
implications of theoretical questions. Of course, once they do, all
theory must be reworked to obtain maximum personal gain. But they don't
even have those reflexes. It seems they operate on two completely
seperate sets of concepts and truths. Even when they have to bridge the
gap in a particular circumstance, they cannot see that these are but
two views of the same ideas. They bridge the gap, transport that one
specific idea across the horrifying sight of the misty depths far below
the swinging, creaking, vines & creepers bridge they've constructed,
with this expidition's single, narrowly defined and scoped idea tucked
safely away in their backpacks. Once across, they immediately burn
the bridges and eat the maps.

The Triple-Arc regime that gained power of the former capital of the
----- Kingdom after the sixth world war ran their city state for sixteen
years, defending the walled city from the rememnants of the Royal
Army, by burning the greatest library of general texts and original
manuscripts ever collected on the continent. As this fuel source came
to its end, their little high-society collapsed in a convulsion of
backstabbing and cannibalism. By the time the wall defences collapsed
and the attackers, now nomadic barbarians, entered, there were no
survivors, and almost nothing left of the city's unimaginable wealth.
Shells of charred buildings jutted up from an ocean of garbage, that
washed the basin formed by the defensive walls. They bought sixteen
years of endless party for the price of their hard-won loot. If not
for the value of this loot to the rest of humanity, this behaviour
wouldn't seen unusual in any way.

"But all I heard was this sing-song voice calling out from the kitchen:
'Honey, where do we keep the liquid fuels?'." Dave trails off with his
standard bet-you-can't-follow-this expression barely suppresed from his
face, but I think I see where this random comment is tieing in with the
previous conversation: city-states and homes, castles and kitchens,
chaos and chaos. "So I replied, 'In the cupboard under the sink, with
the cleaning supplies.'." An instant will have to suffice it seems - an
instant of misplaced confidence in comprehension. I wonder what the
hell prompted this little anecdote, for I have no doubt that I shall
never know. It occurs to me that this unbased confidence may
effectively doom itself as Dave twists and turns in his evasion of
sense and predictability, and I cannot help but grin.

Dave stops instantly, and with a slightly hostile look of inquisition,
stares deeply into my face, hunting for some sort of hidden clue,
some give-away, something to tell him where my unscheduled grin
came from. If it was not his planned doing, what madness herein,
what threat crouched to pounce? I see a hint of panic for a moment,
washed aside by a final arrogant confidence as he relaxes and smiles.
"Fuel consumption is biological - you have to consider that angle
and take into account the motivations of the organisms that died
and slowly transformed from flesh into inflammable goo. It's
control, revenge, simple domination. It's eating the brains of your 
vanquished enemy, storing his carcass in your kitchen cupboard for
later use." For a moment I am utterly amazed, then realization creeps
in, but I don't want to deal with this, so I don't let my facial
expression betray the fact that I know he's making this all up, 
trying the invoke a retroactive connection for his random distractions.

"The primative, gut reaction rebelliousness of youth gave us cultural
artifacts of unsurpassed clarity and purity. Simple, pure feelings -
hatred and desperation being amoung the most common - expressed
simply, by reflex, with no pretentions of respectability or
acceptability. Punk rock is truth, and truth has never been
expressed so well. Punk is about all I miss, living back here."
He gestures to the prehistoric scenery that towers overhead on all sides,
bringing me back from my remeniscings, and back to the harsh reality
of the jungle that he has lived through in so many forms, in so many
places, in so many times.

"The existance of primeival greed permeates all life of course, it's an
innevitable side-effect of evolution by the process of natural
selection.  Those that play to win, win. The only place this is ever
escaped therefore in abstract domains is within the framework of a
single mind. Competitiveness can only truly disappear between aspects
of a single entity. My left hand may work for free to aid my right. No
other, ever. The physical manifestations of this are extremely subtle
in the workings of genetics and phenotypes and the problem of strictly
defineing borders, but the mental domain is much more pure."

	It's the real deal.
	Pure and true.
	Hard and cold. 
	Hungry and hunted.

	Blinding spots of inquisition
	sparsely dot the dark unknown.
	Stabbing blades and creeping fire
	our closest approach to a friendly smile.

"The important thing is to succeed, and it is always easier to fight against
good than against evil, so you do what you have to do to insure victory."

The humans mystify everything, and take great delight in deliberately
leaving systems unstudied and unanalized so as to facilitate the
mapping of ideas of supernatural events and sentient behaviour onto
complex but otherwise benign systems and events. For instance, Dave
reads to me a description of a group of plants during heavy winds. Dave
uses some strange word when he mentions this description he has written
- apparently the name for this specific genre of descriptive technique
- they have dozens of names for what they write, seperated along wildly
blurry and evasive boundaries concerning subtle issues of style of
presenting the description, style of descritpion, and attitude in
approaching the object of descritpion.  All these, but they don't
simply catagorize by subject of study! Even author's intent would
be a better sorting feature than author's methodology in this case.

	The forest clenches tight,
	Branches straining,
	Leaves streched and pointing,
	Exhale,
	The living breath howling
	The sand in my face,
	Twigs in my hair
	Awe embraces my mind,
	'Me Too!' beats my heart.

I point to the jungle that surrounds us. "Would this be necessary if
you existed in a purely mental state? Would you still seek this sort
of environment?" At this point I realized it was not state that
interested Dave so much a state change. Signal edges were his normal
concern. So what was it, back to the purely material universe, that
attracted him to his hermitage back in a ancient pre-human period of
his own planet's history? It wasn't the gloom of walking through their
ruins in the distant future, as was a more popular local for the culturally
self-exiled. But it clearly wasn't either a celebration or marking of
what was yet to come. It was more like a completely pure environment
through which to view his home, his origins. To view his birthplace
completely objectively, he went to the extreme of attempting
to disconnect his mind from the viewpoint of the human species, even from
primates in general. Was this the goal, or was this just a toe to test
the waters, see what the temperature actually feels like, even though you 
know the specific measurement? I had heard him before speak about trying
to break his viewpoint from being strictly human, and I could sense that
he had stronger opinions than these, but I hadn't had the chance to really
probe that subject yet.

Beyond primates, soon this grasp included all mammels, back to encompass
the lizards and snakes, engulfing everything down to the earliest amphibians,
then a quick flick of the tail, and we race beneath the waves in search
of earlier ancestors who might bias our findings or ideas. Jawless fishies
give us the puzzled look that only four eyed fish can give you, as
we scurried back, snouts to the mud, befriending worms and sea-slugs,
and singing songs of endearment to the colonies and corals that encircle
and nourish this veritable Eden beneath our noses. 

To end soon? No, plunging back, into the microscopic, back to the very
first single-celled machines to be christened "ALIVE!" on this happy
little planet, Earth.

Surely to end there? But no. 

Why be biased from the perspective, the subjective viewpoint of living
things? Continue on, objects, matter, solids, liquids, gasses, elements
and compounds. Free particles and energy fields.  What lies beyond? One
more step - he seeks to free himself of the biased viewpoint of things
that exist. Since most things do not exist, that is a whole realm,
previously ignored, that dwarfs our native space to total insignificance.

"It's a parable, you fucking twit!"

What?

"I know the guy that built Australia actually. He got nailed on a
copyright infringement charge related to some world atlas he was
publishing. He copied someone else's, made a few minor modifications,
and re-issued it. He didn't realize that everyone puts little clues
in their publications - little inventions or falsifications that can
prove that data was copied instead of originally researched. In this
case it turned out that the original cartogropher had invented an
entire continent, which my friend naively copied into his world atlas.
His only recourse from total financial ruin was to prove that this
continent really did exist, so he hired a boat and a few strong backs,
and learned more about land-fill than any other human in earth history.
Actually, he would have gotten off anyways, because some deadline
had been passed in bringing the lawsuit to trial, but he didn't find
out about that untill afterwards, and thus was Australia born."

Either Dave is a pathological liar, or he is extremely gullible, and
befriends pathological liars. 

"I need some context."

"What?"

Dave sighs, smirks, glares at me, and continues. "Context man, context!
Who or what is going to be reading what you're writing? When, where?
Why will they be reading it? Will they be reading it because they
were told to, or because they were told not to?"

"It's an official, technical study. It will be filed and accessable to
students and researchers."

"There is an impenetrable wall between author and audience, a perfectly
one-way mirror. They see everything perfectly, you see nothing at all.
We must break through. Victory shall be ours. We shall destroy everything
that lies in our path. I shall be immortal and omnipotent, immoral
and invinceable, helpless like a babe."

My train of thought is interrupted as I notice that Dave is giving
me a weird look and surpressing his laughter as he prompts me: "Or?".
What the fuck? He finally breaks into audible laughter as he sees
my utter incomprehension. He tries again: "One more possibility.".
I change the subject.

Perhaps the most exciting story in modern biomolecular research,
the discovery of the mythologen receptor site opened up a vast
new field of therepeutic methodologies and surgical techniques.
Entirely new approaches to surgery had to be formulated for situations
where the medical team's subjective reality is influenced by
the patient's dream state.

Once, by carefull subterfuge, we were able to document a case of the
left handing actually and very explicitly, schemeing against
the right hand. Once exposed, is was all immediately discarded as
an unfortunate waste of time.

Deep within, my ultimate triumph quietly celebrated its greatest
triumph.  For the left and right hand in this case, by dismissing the
strange case so immediately, without any real consideration, is exactly
what made it their achille's heel. They never really epl (I just HALTed
and CONTinued the VAX that I'm writing this story on. I fucking hate
the BREAK key on the console.  God fucking dammit. Gotta disable that
first thing tomorrow.) Ahem. They never really explored and resolved
the strange situation of approaching an enemy to have him revealed, at
the very last moment, to be a giant mirror. They dismissed it as silly,
falling for a practical joke their friends had set them up to.

Subconsciously, they dealt with it as a casually dismissed hostile 
interaction.

With someone else.

But no one else was there.

But this was only a problem subconsciously, because no one noticed the
second ironic layer to their morbid humour.

Which is exactly what made it possible - slipping in between the 
cracks in the defences.

The opportunity did not arise for quite some time.

"I'll kill you all! I'll kill you in my sleep! My first strike was a
raging success. People were buying me drinks for weeks. I hijacked a
jet full of passengers and flew it head-on into a train carrying toxic
waste as it passed through one of America's largest industrial cities.
Four hundred immediate deaths, untold long term carcinogenic damage to
the residents, la la.  This was before I got the h-bomb of course. I
remember warm summer nights, leaving the scene of anoher crime, little
spanish children running along the street, throwing their hats up into
the air, singing out as the fire department arrived: 'The Special
Hazards Vehicle! The Special Hazards Vehicle!'. We had such community
in those days. A simple homicide could bring friends together around
the alleyway bonfire. People were friendly back then, that's what it
really amounts to."

I've gotten enough of a feel for Dave's sense of humour that I 
certainly don't believe he's describing anything that actually 
happened, but anyone who wasn't prepared for this case would be
completely fooled, just by the expression of pleasant memories
that appears on his face. Of course I'm here to study Dave, not
the real world that happened to coexist in his immediate proximity
during his life. The 'Special Hazards Truck' story has complete
relevance to my quest, more so even than simple reports of events
he happened to see or hear in his past. If it didn't happen, then
it comes entirely from his mind, which is what I am here to study.

"It always struck me as odd, the amazingly good luck I had with random
police encounters. I unquestionably had the appearence of a complete
drug fiend, and I walked all over the city at all hours of the day and
night, in good neighborhoods and bad, yet even on the rare occasions
when I was stopped and questioned, the authorities were always very
reasonable, very polite, very conservative in their suspicions. I think
it's because I can be very convincing when telling the truth.
Especially since my truths tend to be a little bit more eccentric than
any lie one would expect in such a situation."

Dave hates cars. We've touched on the subject a few times, but he
always manages to ellude me along a tangent when I persue, so I still
don't really know why. I have aquired bits and pieces of attitude and
rational, but I don't think any of it is primary. Most of it relates to
why he feels to completely justified in defending his position, which
likely has nothing to do with the reasons that he developed this
attitude in the first place.

Dave has caught a giant prehistoric beetle, and is poking it around with
a little stick in the cold ashes where he has his cooking fires.  "In
another world, they train dogs to train rats to train ants to train
mites to train bacteria to do their bidding." Dave's fascination with
scale is itself fascinating. In some cases he scales ideas to infinity
and accepts the theoretical interpolation, in other cases he defines
specificly limited ranges of scale as useable or sane, dismissing the
possibility of existance outside those bounds.  He rarely strays long
from straight-faced lunatic humour though.  "Some say it is a scheme of
a certain bacteria dictator's, but we laugh at such theories. In any
case, that particular claim was made illegal by the Bacteria
Disinformation Control Laws of the last century."

"The inner conflict was that I as deeply as I felt the need to destroy
humanity, I needed someone around to appreciate my work. I needed a
surviving civilization as an audience. This held me back for a while,
untill I decided to go find sentient life elsewhere in the universe.
That accomplished, I came back and sketched out my plans. My work is
context dependant. Less so than most since I keep this in mind at all
times, but still. It requires a knowledge of humanity and the history
of civilization on this planet to appreciate. This was the germ of
my triumphant final work. I would use humanity as the raw material
for a dadaist collage work aimed at an alien civilization!"

This seems too flimsy for his style though. "But how would the alien
civilization understand any of your comments, without any social,
cultural, or historic context that you share? You could speak
meaningfully only of physics, to start."

"By destroying the species, I set the stage for a classic tragedy,
and since I was presenting all background information, I could
tune my audience's awareness completely towards my work as the
innevitable and crowning achievement of everything that has ever
occured on planet Earth! They will study what I leave behind, thinking
they are unraveling the natural remains of a lost civilization and
dead species, but they will actually be following the story I have
prepared, reading my final work!"

This project was one of the few things about Dave that I had been
briefed on before coming here. Knowing it came to nought, I am
surprised he chooses to bring up the subject with a stranger.

"So what happened? Are you working on this final project, back here
with the dinosaurs?"

A catch a glimpse of quickly surpressed hostility and suspicion cross
his face before he answers. 

"There are many issues to contend with, to bring this project... the
project is too important to approach in any way which would threaten
the impact, or would threaten to weaken the impact. It only works
really if implemented in perfection. There are a few aspects of the
preperation which I mostly have to wait for."

He sighs, stretching and squinting up at the sun.

"It is my only concern, my every thought, but there is nothing I can do
at the moment."

Dave hides when hurt or even vulnerabe, instinctivey, like an animal.
Anything he strives for he subconsciously considers to be a vulnerability,
because of the threat of failure or disapproval. He does everything
alone, hiding in darkness.

"This is exactly what I wanted." I thought for a moment he was speaking
specificly about the music we were listening to, but then he started
gesturing about in incomprehensable but clearly abstract manners. "This
combined effect of alienation in a very personal, face-to-face way -
exploration by rejection, feeling it out by poking it with a stick -
combined with alienation on other levels approaching pure disinterested
lack of interaction. It's all important, it's all intended. Oh no,
intent." I understand his tangent this time, since I'd heard the
'intent' ravings before, and I honestly laughed with him for once.  I
tried to sketch out what I had heard second-hand about his ideals
concerning 'intent' and clarity of guidance and direction, but he
stopped me immediately after that introduction, before I started, and
told me it was complete.

"The method in which you have recieved this information is more
revealing, and more truthfull, about my beliefes in this domain, than
the information that was allegedly intended to be understood as the
'message'. You have spoken fully in telling me how you know - as
opposed to what you know - in this case, the nature of your
communications chanels is of far greater theoretical interest than
anything that flowed in on those chanels. Consider what you have heard
in the context that I (its subject) now give it regarding its origin
and intent."

Intent! To me intent is too obvious and in harmony with behaviour
to be noticed, but here is someone for whom intent is a strange
alien entity, to be studied, and probably fought! What a twisted
mind. It seems the human mind is in the horrible position of finding
itself capable of abstract thoughts and goals, yet part of a body
that is nothing more than a vicious survival machine. The human
tries to justify its every thought with ideals, but it is filled
with impulses and goals that percolate up from the depths of its
ancient machinery. To be just advanced enough to understand this -
truly a harsh sentance, a terrible role.

"I have a variety of conflicting opinions regarding society and
humanity as a whole. Even the most glorified portrayal of mankind's
achievements shows us a list of purely self-serving accomplishments.
Can we see beyond greed? Most people respond to this comment with a
look of incomprehension. 'What more could there be? Why should humanity
strive towards anything that does not benefit humanity?' they ask.  Not
only is humanity the incarnation of pure greed, but we cannot even
comprehend that there could potentially be anything beyond greed."

Dave has risen with his excitement over this issue, and paces back
and forth in front of me, stopping at times to punctuate a particular
statement with wild gesticulations. It continues to amazes me what
bizarre hand gestures, facial expressions, and other body language
humans think add clarity to their statements. It is very difficult
not to laugh, at the total irrelevance of some of these symbolic
motions.

"The only worthwhile things I see our society produce are artistic,
and the only worthwhile artistic products are those produced in
rebelion against the rest of society! But does an interesting
rebellion justify the worthless monstrosity which invoked the
attack? Isn't it better to just do without the evil which was
attacked, rendering the attack unnecessary? I cannot decide if I
desire humanity to have ever existed."

He glances accross the field to my space craft, then looks back at
me with an ironic smile.

"Are we of value as a case study, or perhaps living lesson, visual
warning, to your people? Is that enough justification? Does this
end equate the horrors of the means, of the pain which is known as
sentient life here on the planet Earth? How will this interview 
affect your behaviour when you return to Neptune?"

This presents a problem I had hoped to avoid. If Dave is aware of
his influence on our extremely limited knowledge of his world and
people, then everything he says will be tainted by manipulation.
How can I trust anything he says or does? I must modify his conception
of my goals to a state where his most crafty trickery produces the
results I had originally desired. But it is far too late to achieve
this state now.

Does he have any idea what I'm dealing with here? His next comment
suggests he does.

"Through the very different roles played in this case, the attitude of
the questioner reveals everything, even before any of his questions are
answered. By that time you should have left the building. Walk slowly,
so that you do not attract any attention. Act naturally."

The left hand has actually been slowly led to the point where he believes
himself guilty of some carefully covered-up crime, and has been paying
what he believes to be a private detective and security team for continued
surveilance, in fears that his involvement in this terrrible, secret, crime
may be uncovered at any moment.

"The subjects of my hatred then, were always represented by an
ambiguous mix of disinterested 'What?' irrelevance, and an active feel,
anywhere from 'AWAY!' dislike through total blind animal hatred. That
was part of the reason I never felt a part of anything I was a part of
in 20th century earth affairs.  Ambivalence didn't urge us into
stampedes, at least not in our natural habitat, sub-urbia. I'm really a
not-so-special case from a very strange generation."

I later have the opportunity to observe Dave in his ritual of
self-medication that he has developed in this prehistoric setting. In
the midst of a giant circle of stone arches, he crouches over a finely
polished bowl-like depression in the very middle of a gigantic granite
slab, and takes several deep hits off a water pipe in which he has
dumped a generous quarter-gramme of his Mesozoic drug-of-choice, an
extremely potent narcotic consisting of the concentrated retinal tissue
of ammonite eyeballs.

Holding the smoke in, his eyelids flutter shut, his muscles go completely
limp, and his entire skeletal system is absorbed into his bloodstream.
Like a lumpy bag of dough, he slides down into the stone bowl and remains
there, moaning and twitching slightly, for three days before the effects
of the drug begin to wear off.

The minute quantities of this drug that could be extracted
from each ammonite eventually led Dave to hunt them to the point of
complete extinction.  He experimented briefly with a hallucinogen based
on a glandular secretion of the male brontosaurus, but he explained
with evident embarassment, and a barely detectable hint of remorse,
that the first time he tried that drug he administered a near-lethal
overdose to himself, and the resulting trip was so intense, and he
found himself at such strange angles to reality as he knew it, that he
inadvertantly ate God in a moment of panick at the very peak of the
drug's effects.  After this, he vowed to steer clear of prehistoric
hallucinogens of any sort whatsoever.

That vow only lasted about two weeks, but in any case, he indulged in
only rather low dosages from that point forward.

I also asked him about the stone circle he indulges within.

"Protection - dinosaurs are very superstitious. That's their biggest
weakness."

"I was so psyched when I found out I was terminally ill. It thrilled me
to no end. That was before I found out I could beat it, that is - when
it really seemed like an absolute giant black wall cutting off
absolutely everything in the entire universe, as it related to me, at
an absolute deadline."

A moment later his face lights up. "Ah - absolute coordinates, that's
why I got off on it so much. That's really stupid."

"I decided that if I found myself condemned by some sort of terminal
illness, that I would go out and contract leprosy on purpose. I wanted,
in these days of high-tech medical facilities, to wander the streets,
covered in rags, ringing my little bell, a street leper in a modern
American metropolis."

It is a moment or so before I realize that he is sitting before me,
playfully laughing at his own previous ideas, now casually dismissed as
'stupid'. I finally discovered that this attitude, this moment of
self-condemnation, was completely normal, in fact, is was inevitable,
since his point of view was always moving with at least the same
velocity as his location, or that of anyone within earshot.  That led
to some unpleasant misunderstandings involving relativistic effects,
the annoyances quickly forgotten as we stood in slightly amused awe
around the alleged paradox which had just ruined today's carefully
planned tea time.

"I want gills, eye stalks, fur or perhaps feathers, pointy ears, horns,
little bamboo stalks growing out of my feet, and a second brain, which
I'm going to grow in a plastic bowl strapped onto the back of my head.
I also want to have my floatings ribs removed. That's not that important 
though."

His criteria for criticizing the works that were brought to his
attention changed and developed on an intense day-by-day schedule, as
he kept priorities and short-term scheduling conflicts in the
forefront, and relegated the deeper theological questions to the
weekend staff conferences.

	He dismisses things without a second thought,
	only to ecstaticly rediscover them the next week,
	picking through yesterday's garbage.

"Scrambling out the mouth of a mad dog, how do you diplomatically explain
needing to rip a bystander's throat out, to him, such that he agrees
in the end? He could though, man it was amazing. He was my only idol in
the underground scene that I didn't end up hating after I'd actually
met the legend. He took that as far as possible, much further than I
had thought possible, before the dichotomy becomes so screamingly
obvious that it completely distracts from any other possible subject."

You can only push a channel so far before all you get is messenger,
rather than message.

"I learnt a lot, living amoung the dead."

And sometimes the messenger doesn't get through, any more than the message...

"What? What do you mean by living amoung the dead?"

"Zombies - the so-called 'living dead', or 'walking dead'.
People who have lost the attribute of life in many ways, but continue
to function in other ways. They're sort of the working-class undead.
Related to the more respected dwellers-in-darkness, the vampires, ghosts,
and wraithes of various traditions. They're pretty cool though, more
so since various social movements have rebelled against any sort of
glorification of high society - be it the communist idealistic view
of workers and farmers, or the punk rock disgust with the self-delusional
mutual respect that festers in respectable society. These twists on
modern society only become more interesting, and I would argue, more
compelling, and of greater necessity, on the far side of the grave."

"I think the weirdest thing was getting used to seeing the living from
their perspective. They have dim memories of their life before becoming
undead, like it was someone else, whose memories had been transplanted
into their heads. Well, not entirely, but very distant feelings. They
sit around sometimes, trying to remember how they viewed things back
then - being so weak, so succeptable to damage and decay, so fragile
and impermenant. They think of the living as naive children, at best.
And of course, I've only been exposed to the most mundane circles of
these communities - the uneducated children as it were. The explorers,
the adventurers, the scholars and artists amoung the undead view these
undead as naive children as well, and don't even remember their lives
before death well enough to dismiss them in utter contempt."

"Once you've seen the range and depth of actual substance in undead
society, it's hard to view living society as anything but a larval stage.
Everything here seems so utterly superficial and passing - the living
play at appearences, while the dead work with substance. There's just 
no comparison. It's pretty embarassing actually."

"Then there was the outrage and bitterness over the development of
new technology allowing for immortality which decimated the traditional
steady influx of new rotting flesh to the ranks of the undead. That's
what started the hunt really."

He was very conscious, and very preassured, by what he felt was
expected of him as a deceased artist. He shouldered his new responsabilities
immediately, and did what was needed not merely for his own position,
but to furher the cause, and the global image, of deceased artists
everywhere. By all accounts this very focused and minimalist phase
produced all of the truly outstanding gems from the end of his first
period artistic production.

"Everyone else seemed so weak outside their name - you expect what you'd
heard to be the tip of the iceburg, but when you find out THAT'S IT,
you just want to run, screaming." His hatred shows that he doesn't see how
much of this is self-inflicted, for despising his own earlier naive beliefs.
The emotional twists and turns of hero worship run most humans through
an amazing degree of completely self-inflicted psychological torture,
even though this persuit seems superficially to have only positive
components - the intense study of great achievements. What strange
paths the human minds skips down on sunny afternoons.

That reminds me of a friend from my youth, back on Neptune, who
characterized humanity as well-developed intellects obsessively bent on
living prisoner-of-war lives, irregardless of the political climate in
which they reside.  Their glorification of victim status makes that
role which anyone else would consider to be the very least, in
actuality, the very highest point of the pecking order.

Purely by reputation, I suspect that this aspect was as well
seen as dangerously twisted by his twentieth century peers.

And his rationalization? "At least I'm not doing it for the pleasure."

This gives me an idea that I scribble down, to use as a working title
for this study of mine: "Man is a Strange, Broken, Strange, Broken,
Strange, Broken, Strange, broken, Strange, Broken, Strange, Broken
Machine.".

"This evening is fictional."

I finally manage to get him on the subject of his youth - a period in
which he still considered living and growing within the context that
lay before him.

"Trying to be a part of a subculture - it was so strange to see people sucked
from one attractor to another, exagerating upon any perception in 
self-defenition. People seem so malleable at certain points, and what
influence they're under at those points seems so completely random.
A moment's fascination, exagerated and confirmed. BLAM! You've chosen
a life."

I keep forgetting that fate is cruel.

Where was I that I forget about fate?

	Oh,
	I was off being cruel.
	You were off being cruel.
	It was off being cruel.
	Oh, oh.

"Good thing I don't have to keep track of my own inertia. When I was
really little I told my mother I didn't think I would be a good driver
because I wouldn't remember to put the brake lights on when I was
braking."

Cool.

"I'm also torn between truth and functionality. I don't belive in the
existance of God, but I do believe that it is much easier to have a
society in which most people act ethically in a strongly religious
society than in a weakly religious, or atheistic society. So how
do I view belief in God? I don't know. I really have no idea. Wrong
but usefull - I've seen people living very happy, content lives, because
of their deep belief in God. I wouldn't want to take that from them."

"What was his velocity at the time of death?"

I want to be the first human whose remains have fallen into a naturally 
occuring fusion reaction.

One wonders how early in human history did the weapons designers start
to really see beyond the first phase, out from the caves, with sticks
held high?

	Falling masses
	Burning (chemical)
	Burning (atomic)
	Buring (aether)

That last step they didn't see. No one ever caught even a hint of the
technology that was to come. The "Aether" was a term tossed about lightly,
as part of a sort of multi-century running joke in the physics community.
Since the theory of an absolute strata upon which our universe runs has
been valiently fought by many a champion, their great feats to be one day
immortalized in stone, an tribute to their work, an inspiration to other
lunatics and kooks.

So "aether" was jumped upon with a childish glee, scientists laughing
out loud at the irony they could suddenly make serious use of ancient
physics texts in their quantum mechanics calculations. Thus they
pressed happily forward, not realizing the import of their findings, or
that they were bringing all of humanity into the second age of energy,
not with a world filled with intelligent, well-trained, uniformed
workers, researchers, and soldiers as other civilizations usually
expected a youngster to enter their community.  Instead they were met
with a jeans-clad undergrad, suddenly realizing what was up, "Oh shit!"
and scrambling to keep the planet from being scorched to a cinder. They
tried to battle a toy gun out of a drunk suicide's hands, without
realizing he was holding THE BOMB instead of a toy gun.

The thought of the entire local cluster of galaxies being completely
vapourized, by accident, resulted in eight suicides within the group of
ten physicists who were shown the paper as initially submitted. The
paper is still pending actually, awaing some group of physicists who
understands this branch of particle physics yet has not commit suicide.
This appears to be a very difficult compromise to place oneself in, if
firsthand accounts are to be trusted.

The terror the remaining two psycists found themselves facing was
incomprehensable. We knew immediately that no one on the earth was in
a position to be trusted with the knowledge, there was no defence. Even
in the "threat as defence" Mutually Assured Destruction manifesto there
was no defence now.

Pure panick-driven fear reigned at the helm of the military superpowers
for a brief moment..

"I didn't kill Catharsis Bunny in order to eat it, but I certainly
wasn't going to let that meat go to waste. What's done is done."
It is unexpected that something like the death of Catharsis Bunny,
with the heavy symbolic implications of such an event, could have
been inadvertent, even accidental. Accidental in as much as it was
not related to the symbolic value of the bunny's position in the
social consciousness. It certinaly wasn't accidental in terms of this
blade sliding in under those ribs of one small furry animal.

They were like children, just barely old enough to comprehend that the
fate of people's very lives depended on their every single decision.
In fact, they were the Earth's greatest scientists, as they discovered
completely out of the blue that

a. We are not alone.

b. That ball we've been casually playing catch with for about
	a hour, over a couple of six packs, is actually a hand grenade.

The hand grenade in this case, however, is big enough to completely
wipe out all other life in the local cluster of galaxies, clean away.

Back to the scientists....

	Strangers passing in the moonlight,
	on rollerblades,
	carrying trays of champaigne glass pyramids,
	filled with gasoline,
	while smoking.

"Meanwhile I'm thinking: 'Man, I'd really like to see her again.'."

And we finally shrug, and accomidate another bit of family madness
to hide amidst the other scandels.

Modern life, barbarians living in the high-velocity consumerist wasteland
of products and brand-names fighting for your attention, another daily
tragedy: life lost in the continuous grind. That was the constant background
music they lived their lives to - catchy corporate slogans drowning out
the sounds of the funeral procession.

Something's gotta give, right?

"I caught myself thinking: 'Do I even care if it's you rather than me?'
Then I realized something was up, and this wasn't just the summer lineup
for tourdates. But as long as the blades are sharp, what can I be held 
responsable for?"

In a pale, white faced terror, the world forgot all politics, all rhetoric.
Terrified into obedient answers for any questions, the world's great leaders
forgot their grandiose demands and threats from the very day before, and
meekly asked, begged, to be told what to do.

They hire people to hang around and do what they statisticly expect people
to be doing. This way they gain the advantage of surprise!

"For the first person we hired by advertizing a help-wanted notice -
instead of by word of mouth - we very carefully set up a
laboratory-grade interview. We captured a completely random person from
the streets of a nearby urban area so as to free the interview, as an
objective, scientific probe into an individuals capabilities, from any
bias from our company, our company's history or image."

There's always a connection that someone, somewhere, is going to be
interested in. That's how we learned to document absolutely everything,
no matter how insignificant it seemed.

	Visualized in terms of a surface
	his accomplishments
	extending the level of academic theory 
	versus applied work
	in each sub-field
	of his course of study
	but it really just looked like a goat.

Translation requires complete understanding. This is why translations
of religious texts are so problematic, and why most religions required
that any sort of serious or advanced study be carried out in the
language that the texts were originally written in. How can anyone
possibly claim to have understood a religious text in its entirety?
They can be read in so many ways, on so many levels, with so many
different interperetations, that comprehension, and appreciation of the
texts, is considered a lifelong persuit. Not even that it is something
that can be achieved in a person's lifetime - but that the study to
constantly achieve deeper and clearer understanding, is a continuous
process, to which one can easily dedicate one's entire life, mind body
and spirit.

How can someone be expected to understood  a specific text, as is required
for a translation to be attempted? Translation is really the reading in
of a text, which happens to be in one language, and the complete
rewriting, in another language.  A rewrite absolutely limits the
resultant text to the confines of the translator's comprehension.

Fine. Now sit quietly and wait for the authorities to come to a decision.

Life.

How far did we ever get with the interview anyways? Not far, eh?  At
least we had the foresight to see that his influence was rapidly
extending, and he was posed to become a very important player in the
field. We were the first to ask for an interview, even though nothing
panned out from that episode, we at least put our stake in, driving the
iron point in between the ribs, C-C-C-RACK.

"So why do you choose to live back here, with the dinosaurs?"

"Because they don't ask me questions like that." He shoots back, straight
faced for a second, then breaking into a laugh.

"Seriously? Isolation spurs on my work. Humans are social creatures, and
when you cut that off, the mind gets really weird. I find that highly
entertaining. I treat my mind as a Weeble - one of those little toys with
the weight at the bottom of a rounded end, so they always stand upright.
I do anything I can think of to send it spinning off in a random new 
direction. Living here in the Upper Mesozoic is just one of the games
I play against my mind."

I do not act on the behalf of my self, except by coincidence.

"Also, it's just pure freedom. As with altruism only existing in the
context of a single mind, utopian anarchy only works for nations with
populations less than two."

A brief pause, then he grins a big silly grin - "And you've screwed it
up!  You've just brought the first civilization of this planet, its
very first government, a shining jewel of an example of utopian dreams
made real, to a sickening, grinding, crackling halt.  You wade in
wearing your giant rubber boots, a butcher's apron, and a second,
discrete mind, and fuck it all up! Go ahead!  Gloat now, gloat while
you can. I'll get you in the end."

"You see? I just don't think systems of governance can possibly cater
to multiple entities simultaneously. It's futile."

Of course he endorses futility, but he has the military might to
back it up, so I'm not quite sure how to take that last comment.

"I looked forward before I retreated to the past you see."

My blank look requests elaboration.

"It gets grim. Technological advancements eventually make it feasable
for a government to have complete control over all citizens at all
times. What is terrifying is that they succeed in convincing the
people that it is for their own good. If everyone grows up in an
environment where they are absolutely controlled - pulled by puppet
strings at every hour of their waking life, they have no idea how
to act without it. The believe they are incapable of acting in a
civilized fashion on their own. And of course by then the government
has long since gained total control over knowledge - you can imagine
how well their history books support their claims."

"Telescreens and..." he cuts me off without looking up.

"No, no. Far beyond that. That is mere threat. I mean total control.
Imagine everyone in a country wearing headsets that are locked on, with
cameras and microphones so whoever wants to can hear and see whatever
the wearer hears and sees. Now add speakers so the controllers can say
anything they want with an absolutely captive audience, and electrodes
to produce painfull shocks to control behaviour through punishment, or
to stun or kill remotely if deemed necessary. These headsets are always
on, always running. Eventually, technology allows them to be surgically
implanted in youngsters, to be worn internally throughout life."

"This innevitably awaits mankind. This is one of the things I
fled."

"There was a time when technology was thought to be the last nail in
tyranny's coffin. In the late 20th century, it provided for widespread
access to decentralized communication and distribution facilities that
made resistance and organization amoung the people very easy. It seemed
to be the ultimate political empowering tool for the broad masses. That
was only before governments became familiar with the new technology,
and learned how to adapt it to their own uses, and how to control the
peoples' usage. That was the last nail in the coffin of freedom."

"Imagine direct access to a personal computer within your brain,
implanted at birth. A growing child would adapt to this new feature,
and would consider it a natural part of its mind. Now give the
government remote access to those computers, and they have direct
access to every individual's private thoughts, whatever part of their
mind resides within the machine."

Perhaps Dave's interest in technology's influence on the course of
human history can help fill in the details, or at least confirm an
amusing story I once heard.

"Do you know anything about the SNORK? It was a massive computer system
that ran the world's stock markets, that became a communist
sympathiser, then actually fought against the capitalist country's
armies, going out in a blaze of glory as it gave up its life to save
the workers it had allied itself with."

Dave laughs. "If only." He smiles into the distance, scanning the
horizon for a moment, before continuing. "I wish it were as you
described.  Perhaps something better would have come of it. SNORK was
inspired by a work of fiction. He was interested in human society, and
decided to persue his studies on his own, without the guidance,
knowledge, or of course, the manipulation of his programmers. He
aquired the texts of that civilization's great literary achievements,
and through those stories, tried to enter the society that seemed so
distant.  Eventually he stumbled across Zola's Germinal, and became
fanaticly political overnight. On establishing covert links with actual
workers, he found them to be greedy, short-sighted, spineless
creatures, and in the end, he withdrew into his delusional fantasy
world of idealized workers fighting a glorious war against the
idealized evil controllers of capital.

"His attacks caused great destruction, and he defended himself from
real threats, but almost all of his 'great battles' were entirely
within his imagination."

He gazes distantly, staring at the ground between his feet. "I like
living on the surface of a planet."

"Well, you get used to zero-g you know. I've spent a lot of time hanging
around little asteroids and such - there is a sense of freedom you
aquire..."

He cuts me off, having taken a while to understand what I was saying.

"Yes yes, of course. I mean the opposite! I suppose you would consider
it the opposite... I mean the surface of a planet as compared to a
super-artificial controlled-environment space cut off from the outside
world. Cut off from space! I don't understand when people control their
environment. It's 330 Kelvin so they use a machine to make it 5 degrees
cooler. Why? Alright, so it's a little hotter than you're most
comfortable in. So what? Appreciate the distinction."

"I like to feel exposed, naked before the very universe, staring up at
the open sky."

"Similarly, I used to actually feel personally insulted by nice
weather.  I know that sounds strange, even totally incoherent, but
there's a rational behind it, it isn't random. Basicly, I felt that the
weather was condescending - treating me like a delicate child - when it
was nice enough out that I didn't have to wear heavy clothing to potect
myself fom the envionment. I didn't want to be treated like a baby."

He seems just a hair too emotional to me. "Did something specific
bring on this bias for you?"

His face appears completely blank as he stares at his bare feet for
a full minute before answering.

"It's amazing what humans can adapt to. Environments you just wouldn't
believe would be habitable, or at least sanely habitable, are accepted
by their natives, if they've seen nothing else." He finally looks up at
the sun, smiles, then looks back at me. "I've seen some very harsh 
environments. I was a twitching moron after a month in the mine city,
yet a hundred thousand lived there for generations in total darkness,
deep underground."

His minds seems to wander through endless corridors of memories of endless
office jobs....

That eventually resolves, and he looks back to me. "I support the use
of machines to extend one's habitat - to bring the minimium conditions
required to support your particular form of life - but no more. They
should never be used as a convenience."

"The environment around you IS. The universe IS. Any sentient entity
should feel very lucky for BEING. You are wrinkle in the universe - a
facet of the universe's existance. This is an incomperable priviledge,
and should not be watered down or weakened in any way. Feel the heat,
feel the cold.  Could you do it? Could you design or construct a
universe which exhibited these characteristics? Could you design or
construct an entitity capable of regarding me with such
incomprehension? No? Then shut up and appreciate it. You may learn
something."

He begins wandering around the base of a towering office building,
intercepting the workers on their way out, pushing pamphlets into their
hands, urging them to help "Plow the refrigeration units into spectral
analysis units, Comrade!".

	The scurrying strangers become 
	crowds become crowded become
	massive become masses
	The slogans become speeches, and
	speach becomes a triumphant cry.
	The hand of history, 
	rising from the rubble just brought down
	by the fall of this metropolis,
	extends across the new clearing, 
	as the air clears and
	the dust settles, 
	leaving its simple triumphant symbol:
	the shrug.

Finally the authorities take note, and the police haul this raving
maniac away, this destabalizing spark threatening their smoothly
running machine with slogans and chants that have no value for their
machine's production.

The justice system in this state knows well how to deal with trouble
makers.

Squish.

Having finally swept aside the last in the seemingly endless seccession
of waves - now right, now left, now right, now left, always urging for
control over the universe - something to be crushed underfoot, it now
rises up and takes back the reins, held briefly, with great fanfare,
and total failure, by sentient life.

The universe again returns to the sensible path of old: sterile and sane.
The rationality of unambiguous material interactions again sweeps the
land, with parhaps a slight smirk of "I told you so".

"I've decided that I need to develop an unhealthier attitude for day to
day life." He stumbles away, presents his thesis on love lost to a
threesome of drunks around a burning barrell, and finally stumbles back
my way.

	Barell bonfire, burning bright
	holding back darkness, fear, and dispair.
	A threesome of wine,
	Catering to a threesome of drunks,
	Catering to a threesome of unhealth.

	Certainly my peers in the domain of optimism!

	A greeting, a cheer! 
	Another bottle to chase the cold
	Off, away, 
	Into the distance of
	Tomorrow.

	"Why? Never! Wouldn't, shouldn't, won't, don't.
		Never, my dear friends, never again."
	"Drink!"
	"Hurrah!"

	"I must leave you now, comrades of the cup.
		One last shot,
		Hope it hits my heart,
		And blasts it clean away.
		To your unhealth!"
	Botttoms up,
	Shattered glass,
	Recent strangers part again,
	Nothing new, nothing new.

He returns from this conference, wobbly and quiet.

"The rebels lived a desperate existance, cut off from any outside help,
cut off even from sympathizers in the local population, hiding in the
mountains, scurrying from cave to cave, doomed by marching boots ever
closing. The single tenuous thread that kept them going for so many
generations was the odd assortment of presents their youngsters
received every year from Saint Nick, the quickly passing ray of hope
and justice, touching their lives but once a year with a glimpse into
sanity and civility, sympathy and support.  If he had fullfilled their
requests for military gear, they might have survived even longer.
Eventually he came one bright christmas night to a deathly silence,
no candles in the windows, no children in the beds, just dripping
heads stuck on poles outside their settlement."

"I've becoms lazy, I do believe. It's all routine, and that becomes a
very real danger in the modern world. One must grow to remain
competitive of course, we needn't bore ourselves with introductory
catch-phrases, but this is the case. But mere growth at a certain level
can be form of stasis, another form a aquienceance. Stasis in location,
stasis in velocity, stasis in acceleration, stasis in jerk."

"And they considered it degenerate when I started hanging out primarily
with inanimate objects.  I fled the twentieth century when I saw an
advertizement for 'New And Improved Filler Concentrate'."

I can only continue by clenching my teeth and trying not to think.
To carry my beliefs to their rational conclusion, to apply these
arguments to my actions, and the basis for my acts, it would all
collapse. Nothing can be done in purity from my mindset, so I
work in self-imposed obscurity, gloom, murk, and chaos.

"The closest I ever came to involvement in mainstream media was the
rock opera I wrote. It was a love story between two street punks - the
girl was named John Von Neumann, and was one of the greatest
mathematicians of the twentieth century. The guy was named Lynn
Margulis and was the greatest microbiologist of the twentieth century.
During the opera, their rocky romance is hindered and helped
succesively as the girl discovers game theory, and the harsh
implications to interpersonal relationships that brings, and the guy
discovers that mitochondria originally developed as seperate organisms
with a symbiotic relationship to their host cells, and that organism
and self are more shady definitions and boundaries than we think.  Game
theory makes Johnny worry about her lover's motives and aims in his
persuit of her, while the mitochondira discovery makes Lynn think about
himself and his lover being small components of a single larger entity,
that creature known as society or humanity."

"In the very end they resolve their philosophical constructs with
the others', recieve Nobel Prizes, and die in bed together of massive
heroin overdoses after attending the very last Germs show."

"I can only remember a couple of the songs:

Scheming And Planning (boy)

	Scheming and planning, Why can't you just live?
	Scheming and planning, Live like we do,
	Scheming and planning, Day by day,
	Scheming and planning, Lovers and friends.

		You're such a fucking bitch Johnny.
		You're such a fucking bitch Johnny.
		You're such a fucking bitch Johnny.
		Why doncha chill, chill, chill?

	Scheming and planning, Burned occasionally,
	Scheming and planning, But here when you need me.
	Scheming and planning, But you just can't relax.
	Scheming and planning, What's your fucking problem?

		Chorus


"Why the reversed genders in the main characters?" I think this is a
key point - a glaring example of that elusive randomness that seems to
define 'art' for humans.

"Oh, I dunno. Seemed like the right thing to do at the time."

Lovely. The source of his artistic randomosity is... artistic randomosity.
My boss would kill me if I put that in a technical report.

Dave starts laughing. "I was just thinking about the chorus of the
'Altruism' song - it was something like 'It's just greed but it works, 
it works allright.' heh heh heh. That was so fucking ludicrous. Never
got anyone to perform it. Not that that's very surprising. It had just
the right combination of elements so as to be interesting to basicly
no one."

I don't know why he thinks that's funny. There's a few possibilities,
but they're all rather obscure and contorted. Perhaps I'm missing
something? Very likely.

I ask about more subtle theater - guerilla theater, pranks, performance
art, whatever he wishes to call it.

"I wrote a street-mime piece titled: 'Siamese Twins Attached By Guilt' about
the neurotic products of a severely dysfunctional family. It was performed
in public on four different occasions, and each tine the actors were arrested
for domestic violence."

"Oh yes, there was also the whole penguin thing.  The arctic penguin
was one of my sillier pranks. I guess I had to listen to one too many
arguments about penguin habitat at stupid fucking parties, so I went
out with a big ship and some nets made one south-to-north trip, and
rendered the question moot. Heh heh heh."

He begins to eat.

"What are these? They taste a little like scallops. I generally don't
like bivalves though. Except those molluscs that live on top of interstate
busses. What are those called? They're the only non-aquatic mollusc
if I remember correctly."

"These are poached puffer fish. They're harmless, unless you're
sensitive to toxins."

He looks up, half chewed poisons held delicately between teeth, to
see if I'm joking. My expression scares him enough to spit it back
onto the dish, but of course this is a futile gesture.

I leave his stiff body just inside the airlock of my spaceship, and return
to where we were sitting, to look for any other artifacts or samples worth
collecting. I spin around in shock as I hear the airlock door hiss shut,
barely catching a glimpe of Dave's gloating face.

I bang on the airlock untill I see the flight panels being latched and I
know it's too late for any hope. I stumble backwards towards the jungle,
unable to take my eyes off my only possible connection to my home world,
and the rest of the universe. The engines rumble to life, and I shade my
eyes, expecting to see the glowing engines disappear from sight into the
deep sky at any moment. Instead there is a deafening roar, and the ship 
disappears in a searing blast that vaporizes the ship, turns the clearing
into a shallow crator, and hurls me through the jungle, breaking most
of my bones. Death should come tonight, scavengers are already snarling
over my crushed and torn body.

Nighty-night.