Tim says: I’m really glad I didn’t put the energy into ordering a Nixon mask all the way out here. Especially if I do end up doing fuck all for Halloween.
J.D. says: Hey, you never know when a Nixon mask might come in handy around the house.
Tim says: The right guests might just come over.
J.D. says: “Hum, I really do want to fuck her, but I ALSO want to give her bone-chilling nightmares.”
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Posted in Writers Meeting
Word Count – 650
I really think you guys should sit this holiday out for like a decade or two.
Hold up, hear me out.
I am not prejudiced, I truly think gay people should have all the rights and privileges that straight people have. However, I think this is really a productive and efficient way for you guys to win a lot of the battles you’re currently fighting.
The first rule of war is to know your enemy, and your opposition to things like equal rights and civil unions stems from people with a highly irrational sense of tradition. These are people who don’t like letting new people enter their club because… well, because new people aren’t allowed in the club, so there. In many ways, it’s not that you want something that they already have, its that you want it without giving something up in return. It’s one of those “mommy, I broke my toy, could you break one of my little sisters toys to make it fair?” scenarios.
Straight people love halloween because it permits us the freedom to cross dress in public for one day a year and not be ridiculed. Quite frankly, we need this day a lot more than you do. That’s not to say I don’t think you all enjoy a good costume ball. Hell, who doesn’t? But you have to understand what this day means to people with bland, vanilla sexual habits. It’s the one day a year where a guy who masturbates to La Senza flyers can pretend he’s something better than what he is. It’s the day when women who have never experienced any sexual positions beyond missionary can cram their bodies into skin tight cat suits and still retain their dignity. In short, it’s the day when all the people who hate you pretend to be you.
If you take a bold stand and agree not to participate in halloween as a sign of solidarity, it will be seen in the eyes of the bigoted right as a decent compromise. You know, like how they let you have your own parade, but you’re not allowed to march in the St. Patrick’s Day parade? It’s not for any fundamental or religious reasons, they just don’t want you hogging all the parades.
In their eyes, you guys are greedy. For many of them, they think that since they are not having gay sex all year long that they have earned the right to be Batman for a day. The lives of straight people revolve around shame and penance. Halloween, a day devoted to horror, violence, paganism and sex, is their reward to themselves for being upright citizens. Once you get that, this all makes a lot more sense.
You have to understand that most straight people think that every day is halloween for you. You’re kind of like goths in their eyes, they don’t really see the need for you to dress up when you’re already dressed up the other 364 days of the year anyway. Yes, they are wrong to assume this, I know, but that’s not the point. Where you may think you have to fight fire with fire, in this situation, you actually need to fight stupid with humble.
If you sit out halloween until around 2025, in that time it will be likely you can negotiate your way into being allowed to marry, join the military, and adopt white children. Let them think they won this round while you scoop up all the important things right under their noses. Meanwhile, the homophobic opposition will still have a heightened sense of superiority, because they are allowed to go outside dressed as Captain Planet and you are not. Then, when you’ve got everything you want and the time is right, you can fight for your right to take part in the festivities again.
Besides, 80% of you only dress up like angels or butterflies anyway.
– J.D. Renaud
Posted in Open Letters
Word Count – 950
Anyone who’s first sentence of their wikipedia article describes them as a “psychedelics enthusiast” is salute worthy in our books.
On June 14th, 1991, Marshall Ledbetter Jr. broke into the Florida state capitol building in Tallahassee. He barricaded himself inside the office of Wayne Todd, the Sergeant At Arms of the Florida Senate. Once inside, he made a number of phone calls to the local police, explaining the situation, and demanding that “society wake up and stop being automaton clones of one another”. A standoff situation ensued, as police were unaware if Ledbetter was armed or had taken hostages.
When asked what his demands were, Ledbetter faxed a note detailing his demands to local rock radio station Gulf 104…
Notable inclusions on the list were…
– 1 Gumby’s 20 incher veggie pizza with extra jalapenos
– 1 case of Asahi Dry
– 1 carton of Lucky Strikes (filtered)
– 1 CNN news crew (within an hour)
– 666 Dunkin Donuts for my fine friends in the Tallahassee Police Department, Florida State University Police Department, and the Leon County Sheriff’s Office
– $100 worth of Chinese Food
As his demands were being processed and analyzed by police, snipers and SWAT team members formed a phalanx around the capitol building. While on the phone with the police, Ledbetter also demanded that he be put on the phone and allowed to speak with Timothy Leary, Lemmy Kilmister, Ice Cube, and Jello Biafra.
The standoff ended peacefully after several hours of negotiation between Ledbetter and local police. He calmly walked out of the building wearing nothing but a Jimi Hendrix t-shirt and his underwear, holding a bottle of Jack Daniels and smoking a cigar. He was arrested on B&E charges, and forced to undergo psychiatric counselling. There were no hostages in the building, and he was completely unarmed the entire time.
Marshall Ledbetter died in 2003, which is a shame, because the world has always had a dangerous shortage of people like him. Any jackass with dreadlocks and a heightened sense of moral turpitude can chain himself to a tree and talk about how the man is keeping him down, but Ledbetter was the kind of revolutionary that spoke to a way more universal pandemic. That being the horrible internal oppression that man foists upon himself, keeping him from being the glorious bastard he knows he very well could be. All of us have dreamed at one point or another of doing exactly what he did, but he has thus far been the only one crazy, brilliant, and stupid enough to do it.
Jello Biafra himself became a huge fan of the man, and was very humbled to hear that he was one of the four people Ledbetter demanded to speak to. While he never personally met Ledbetter, he was quoted as saying…
“I have spoken with him. He was lucky to get out of there alive. If it had happened now, I’m sure they would have just gone in there and blown the place up, or just done it in Waco-style. He was institutionalized, and now he’s back out again walking the straight and narrow. But he sends me some odd anecdotes in the mail now and then. He was somebody who had had enough of the injustice in our world and chose to do something about it in very colourful fashion. I’ve been a long time fan of creative crime. The best part about this one is, it made a statement, it was a work of art, and not a single person got hurt.”
Years went by after that incident in 1991, and Ledbetter was never able to fully explain why he did what he did or what his exact motivations were. All he knew was he was pissed off, thought society needed a swift kick in the ass, and wanted to bring some whimsy to the idea of political protesting. He got peoples attention, and did so without killing anyone or writing a horrible whiny acoustic Ani Difranco-esque protest song.
I would never dare call him a hippie, but if caring about the state of the world and doing something about it makes you one, then Marshall Ledbetter was the greatest hippie to walk the face of the earth. For his legacy of dynamic confusion and clever disobedience, we at The Placeholder salute Marshall Ledbetter. Climb The Highest Mountain, and Punch The Face Of God.
And now, for your listening pleasure, we present ‘The Ballad Of Marshall Ledbetter’, performed by Jello Biafra’s metal side project, Lard.
Download song from the Alternative Tentacles site.
lyrics:
Six-hundred, sixty-six Dunkin’ Donuts
A twenty inch veggie pizza from Gumby’s
Extra jalapenos on the side
And a case of Asahi DryI wish to speak with Timothy Leary
Lemmy, jello, and Ice Cube Too
Carton of Lucky’s with filters
And bring a CNN news crewTalahasse, Florida
Four AM, June 14, ’91
Capitol Building’s occupied
Broke the glass, walked right insideWouldn’t be advisable to enter
You don’t know the number of hostiles
Of if anyone’s got guns
Or if there’s hostagesI just want to speak my mind
More for you than just one sound biteMushroom Cop and Info Man have something to say
This whole world is disturbing me
I wanna cut a rap record each month
And mail my little pinkie to George BushAgh, agh
Where are my friends
Where are you
Where are you
I can’t believe it’s come to thisSharpshooters on surrounding roofs
Traffic blocked off by SWAT troops
Evacuate the people inside
Pretend we’re CNN, say Leary’s diedI just want to speak my mind
More for you than just one sound biteTwelve forty five, he emerged unharmed
J.D. in one hand, in the other, cigars
Hendrix t-shirt and his underwear on
Guess what, he never had no gunI only broadcast my freakout to the world
I was a prisoner for twenty two years
When I broke through that door, I was free
Not to mention pretty damn luckyNowadays, boy, you’d just get shot
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Posted in The Placeholder Salutes
Word Count – 575
To all of you, I’m truly sorry. I can’t blame this on any kind of mental problem or drug dependency, I just legitimately can not remember the names of… well, frankly anyone, most of the time.
Interestingly, I discovered this condition actually has a name, ‘jamais vu’. It is actually the exact opposite of déjà vu, in that I could hear your name over and over and over again, yet convince myself that I’ve never heard it before in my entire life.
Again, this is totally not your fault, but I feel like I owe it to you to explain my dilemma. I owe each and every one of you an apology, but am far too embarrassed to say so to your faces. Also, I do not know how to contact any of you, because I can’t remember your names. You see my problem. Instead, I have decided to address you here individually in this letter, using the nicknames I have created for you based on the vague bits of knowledge I have gleaned about you.
Sleepy McHeadWound – You spent the night on my couch once and had a large gash on your head. You have been over several times since then, and we have talked about many things beyond sleeping and head injuries. I do not recall any of these conversations, yet I am led to believe you think you are my friend. You are not. I’m sorry.
Lady Jim – You were a friend of a friend who reminded me of a guy I knew named Jim. I mentioned this to you, and you seemed confused and a tiny bit offended. You should consider it a compliment. I liked Jim. Now that I think about it, I should get in touch with him. As for you, I know absolutely nothing else about you. I’m sorry.
The Brick – You were a large man I used to work with who barely talked to me. I was pretty sure you hated me, but I never asked you, out of fear that you might hurt me. Nobody else at work seemed to know your name, either. Part of me today still wonders if you were actually an employee of the store, or just a large crazy man who stole a uniform and began lifting things and moving them around. Regardless, I’m sorry.
Cowboy Manchild – You were another former co-worker who always wore a cowboy hat. You were a prick, and I’m only sorry in theory.
Short Stack – A name I have given to at least two dozen people in the course of my life, many of whom were actually taller than me. To all of you, I’m sorry.
There are many more out there who deserve apologies, but most of whom I have not given proper nicknames to. There are many “Whosits” and “That guy’s” out there who are also entitled to their just dues, and to all of them I give my sincerest apologies, as well.
Now that I’ve got that out of the way, can everyone please promise to stop naming their children Matt or Sarah and at least try to be interesting in social situations when you meet me for the first time? Perhaps this ‘jamais vu’ bullshit has something to do with the fact that none of you have names, or stories that go along with said names, that are worth remembering. Help me out a little bit and work on that.
– J.D. Renaud
Comments Off on Dear People I Have Met Several Times In My Life Whose Names I Can Never Remember
Posted in Open Letters
Word Count – 900
Cunning Boy Detective Elli Pope stood stationary on the bridge, his tongue frozen to the steel railing overlooking the river. He brushed the snow from the top of his Crime Solving hat, a white bicycle helmet clipped beneath his nine year old chin, which dropped flaky snow onto his face. He grubbily brushed as much of the snow from his face as possible only to have it drift down his body, rub his bare legs and pile in the sweatpants around his ankles and out of his reach. He went over the events of the Mystery that lead him to be stuck in his Elaborate Death Trap, waiting for embarrassing rescue by one of the many cars that drove past, honking.
The day before, at lunchtime, he had made quite the splash in the cafeteria as he showed the most recent addition to his Crime Solving/Mystery Busting Kit, a small mobile phone that could call his mother in emergencies, to his grade school colleagues. He assured them that the pink was the only colour they had left at the store. Susan, a red-haired girl with pig-tails in the fifth grade sat next to Elli, he presumed mesmerized by his aptness and capabilities as a detective. She stared at his mobile and crossed her legs like a practiced woman twice her age.
“Elli, right?” she asked gingerly. The Cunning Boy Detective knew the score. A dame with a case to be settled. A mystery to be solved by the competent and frugal Detective. She leaned forward, catching his reflection of the cell phone. “Have you ever kissed a girl?”
Cunning Boy Detective Elli Pope was taken aback by the offer, but retained his poise as the other boys around the table made cooing sounds. “Why no, Madam. I have never had the pleasure of being tooled by a dame.”
“What?” Susan rubbed her nose her with open palm. “Do you want to or not?”
Cunning Boy Detective Elli Pope nodded vigorously.
“Good boy, meet me tomorrow by Veteran’s Bridge and we’ll get to the bottom of things.” Susan got up and smiled, flashing her braces. “Bring your pretty little toy.”
The next day, Cunning Boy Detective Elli Pope stood on the Veteran’s bridge, leaning against the steel handrail. He ran out of twigs and stick to throw at the frozen river and was bored of seeing snowballs crumple on the ice. A light snow drifted from the grey sky when Susan approached. He saw her approaching and did his best to look inconspicuous and bored by looking directly at her, his eyes wide in terror.
Susan stopped in front of Elli, wearing her elegant, adult style blouse and skirt with thermal tights, sweater and pea coat. She wore a beret, which she explained was a hat from France, a country that Elli had once coloured sea blue on a map. Susan, hair red as the fires of heck, spoke softly to Elli.
“Are you ready to solve the case?” she asked. Cunning Boy Detective Elli Pope played it cool by nodding furiously. She instructed Elli to lean forward, close his eyes, purse his lips and stick out his tongue. Elli complied, opening his mouth and sticking his tongue out as far as it could go. Susan nimbly caressed his face with her mittens and then violently shoved his face onto the steel railing. Cunning Boy Detective Elli Pope squealed and tried to pull his face from the railing, but his tongue froze immediately. He was stuck.
He began shouting and cursing as cruelly as he was aware possible. “Cootie eater!” He swore. “Smelly butt!” It was as harsh as the Cunning Boy Detective had ever been.
“I would never kiss someone as ugly as you.” Susan retorted, coldly. She strutted around Elli Pope’s swinging arms. She reached into his pocket, retrieved the mobile phone and smacked him with her mittens. She turned and began to walk away from the Cunning Boy Detective, but abruptly returned to him. Elli Pope was momentarily jubilant that she was not as cruel as he had imagined, and would certainly help free him from this Elaborate Death Trap.
“This is so you’ll remember me.” Susan, yanking his sweats and underwear down to his ankles and skipping home.
Cunning Boy Detective Elli Pope, tongue stuck to the rail, unable to reach his pants, mooned the occasionally passing cars. As fate had it, Cunning Boy Detective Elli Pope’s partner, Mother, drove past the bridge, stopped and rescued Elli Pope from the Elaborate Death Trap that Susan had left him in. She scolded him, wrapped him in blankets and made him sit in the back seat next to the groceries. Mother informed Elli that she would get his stolen mobile back, but would not return it to him until he showed some bloody responsibility.
And so Cunning Boy Detective Elli Pope, wrapped in blankets and lisping heavily, thought to his first foray into the combination of Love and Mystery and came to the necessary conclusion. Dames are no good for business, he thought. And Susan, like all dames, was a total smelly butt.
——
Tune in next time as Elli Pope is captured by Doctor NOOOOOIDON’TWANTTOGO and is tortured to decipher his Secret Allergy Weaknesses.
© Timothy Legion, 2009
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Posted in Elli Pope
Word Count – 270
Tim says: I wish I knew that the moon was going to get bombed earlier than the day it was bombed. I would have rocked that.
JD says: Yeah, I was really bummed that I did not get a chance to write any material on that.
Tim says: You can make all the jokes you want leading up to it, and then about 10-12 hours after it happens. After that, it’s done. Now we just have to wait for them to nuke Mars.
JD says: They won’t go that far right off the bat. The rule of sequels is you go bigger than the first, but you keep your core fan base by keeping it in the same locale. They will probably bomb the moon as part of a suicide mission next time, then nuke the moon, then nuke Mars, then rape the sun. In a giant rocket shaped like a cock with “FOR SCIENCE!” written on the side of it. In veins. In cursive.
Tim says: Right below that, “She was fucking asking for it. Look at that slutty fucking sun.”
JD says: “She goes away every night, then comes back at 6am like nothing was wrong. Listen bitch, I bombed the fucking moon, and all it does for me is control the tides. You don’t even want to think about what I’d do to you.”
Tim says: This is the portrait of a very abusive relationship.
JD says: Wow, earth is the abusive boyfriend of the galaxy.
Tim says: You always hurt the one you love. With nuclear weapons. While looking for water.
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Posted in Writers Meeting
Word Count – 600
In times of great uncertainty and confusion, we at The Placeholder often search for a voice of reason and clarity to show us the way. When that does not work, we turn to Mojo Nixon.
Mojo Nixon, for the unenlightened, is the devil. The good kind of devil. The one who drinks whiskey, blows shit up, and screams at odd intervals just to make sure you’re paying attention. A rockabilly madman with a penchant for saying all the wrong things at exactly the right times, Mojo made a name for himself in the 80s by penning a number of instant classics, such as ‘Elvis is Everywhere’, ‘Jesus At McDonalds’, and ‘Debbie Gibson is Pregnant With My Two-Headed Lovechild’. He’s still alive and kicking, cranking out new material and hosting his own political radio show, lovingly titled ‘Lyin’ Cocksuckers’. You can find more in depth write-ups on his sonic escapades and amazing adventures here and here, but today, we are going to focus on a very specific portion of Mojo lore, that being the short period in history when a guy like him was actually allowed to talk on national television.
As some people may recall, when MTV first started up it used to have musicians on it. In those days, they would put anyone on the air who took the time to make a video and pay the postage to send it to them. The one glaring omission, for a while there anyway, was our man Mojo. Distraught at being overlooked by the MTV bigwigs, he penned a little ditty about Martha Quinn, one of their many fresh faced bubbly VJs at the time, in hopes of getting their attention. Shockingly, ‘Stuffin’ Martha’s Muffin’ did indeed get their attention, and the network gave Mojo the opportunity to record a series of commercial ‘bumpers’ for the network. These commercials have thankfully found their way to youtube, and now belong to the ages.
Regardless of the nostalgia factor of remembering a time when MTV would actually roll the dice with what they put on the air every now and then, these videos serve as a reminder that passion and insanity are often just the same guy in a different shirt. From clip to clip, Mojo is like a hopped up preacher testifying to his own private religion. He is not yelling to get peoples attention, but because yelling feels good and is way more fun than just talking. Ranting about America, theme parks, revolution, alcohol, Elvis, and just about everything else, Mojo puts having no perspective into perspective. A glorious affirmation of not-give-a-fuckery that we could all aspire to. If the world is pissing you off, piss on the world. Such is the gospel of Mojo Nixon, and for that, we at The Placeholder salute him and these PSAs. Climb The Highest Mountain, and Punch The Face Of God.
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Posted in The Placeholder Salutes
Word Count – 1230
In 1974, after the pardoning of Richard Nixon, an unknown senate delegate proposed a proposition to strike any and all record of the Nixon presidency from public record. Furious anger at the mere proposal of the proposition led floor delegates to add nonsensical and irrational riders to the bill, rendering its passing impossible and irrelevant. For nearly four decades, Proposition Nixon has been the longest running inside joke on the senate floor, with new amendments being added to it to this day. When interviewed, all representatives thought to have contributed to its creation deny any knowledge of its existence, many claiming the pages leaked to the media are fraudulent at best and treasonous at worst.
These are those pages…
Click to enlarge
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Comments Off on Proposition Nixon – 004
Posted in Proposition Nixon
Word Cound – 150
JD says: There are no more spies, just mercenaries with reality shows. Dog the Bounty Hunter is what all government organizations will look like by 2020. Giant sunburnt men with mullets beating up meth addicts and calling it justice.
Tim says: Just wait for Dog the Bounty Hunter to be named UN Secretary General. He’ll get Myanmar in order with his wife and sweaty offspring. Give them all the tazers they can carry.
JD says: Larry the Cable Guy becomes ambassador to France.
Tim says: No! Do not put Larry the Cable Guy into a sentence where he becomes something! You just put it into the aether and someone could happen across the psychic residue and then Bam! It’s green light and I’m stuck on a plane with it.
JD says: Larry the Cable Guy in a white windowless room with only a chair in it. Somehow he’d find a way to call the chair a liberal faggot.
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Posted in Writers Meeting
Word Count – 340
JD says: Autopsy footage is strange to me. I don’t mind looking at it, in fact I find it interesting. But part of me feels like since I am in no way watching it for medical purposes that I am now “that guy”, and “that guy” is one step away from “that guy who masturbates to autopsy footage”. I guess we are all just one step away from that.
Tim says: Autopsies I can handle. Surgeries make me feel weird. Whenever they remove like a tumour or a large clot of something, and it just falls out on its own, I scream like it’s my Superbowl.
JD says: I don’t really have any issues with blood, but I really don’t like the weird white growth things that I know should not be there and that I can’t immediately define. So yeah, I guess I don’t like surgeries either. They usually don’t cut into healthy people in those.
Tim says: Nah. That’s usually the reason for the surgery. My Mom used to watch them to earn quiet time. She’d turn on the surgery channel because then none of us would be in the same room as her.
JD says: I just love that there is a “surgery channel”. Or was. It used to be TLC, I guess. Now all they have is shows about tattoo parlours and drug addicts.
Tim says: Their target market keeps changing
JD says: Fuck that, I say bring back the golden days the of gallbladder removal hour!
Tim says: Yeah, fuck the queasy sycophants hosting your porn industry/porn accidents reality tv docu-dramas. Society wants emergency animal surgery.
JD says: I won’t lie, if there actually was a ‘porn accident’ reality show, I’d watch that every week. I don’t even have a working tv right now, but I’d buy one, get basic cable, and work my schedule around it.
Tim says: “OH YEAH! OH YEAH! FUCK ME HARDER! OOOPS! OH GOD! OH GOD! THERE’S SO MUCH BLOOD!”
JD says: Replace “so” with “too” and you’ve got that about right.
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Posted in Writers Meeting
