Last night I performed the following piece at a great monthly show called HOW TO KICK PEOPLE, which is the creation of the extremely brilliant Todd Levin and Bob Powers. Anyhow, I arrived drunk (method acting!) and performed drunker (stole a beer from someone's sixpack offstage!) and it went over pretty well. After you read it, you'll guess, as I have, that it must surely have been a case of "It's not what you say, but how loudly and drunkenly and spittle-flying-fully you say it." I put some moxy into the performance. Some gusto. You know. A little sauce with the noodles. A little salt on the omelet. I'm not even going to spellcheck omelet. It sure doesn't look right here. Omelet. Omellette? Eh.
H2KP: 2049 A.D.
May 25, 2005
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Andres du Bouchet. Thank you. I have just returned from spending sixteen terrifying days in the year 2049. I consider myself very lucky to be alive, and even luckier to have managed to return to this timeline, just three days after Todd Levin tricked me into entering his homemade time machine and journeying into the future. You're a very clever bastard, Todd. I have written my report as objectively as possible, considering how terrifying the experience was and also taking into account that I was betrayed by someone I thought was a friend. Someone who I did not think had the technology at his disposal to build a time machine, much less the deviousness at his disposal to trick a man with no real survival skills, me, into entering said time machine and traveling forty-four years into what turned out to be a post-apocalyptic future that makes the Mad Max movies look like an Office Depot training video.
My report is frought with innacuracies, and gaping holes, and I have taken great liberties with my descriptions. In fact, you may accuse me of having written all of this while drunk and just an hour ago, and that I have merely made a half-assed effort at shoehorning one of my filthy poems into a bit about the year 2049...or you can take me at my word that Todd Levin is an evil man who tricks people into traveling through time. My sloppy writing style is due to time travel wooziness, I say. You make the call.
In order to set the proper mood, I shall now adopt a fake booming semi-British voice.
The year is 2049! The oceans have evaporated, leaving the Great Lakes of the North American continent as the only remaining large bodies of water on the planet. Society as we know it has crumbled into chaos, and over 90% of the human race has died off. Those who remain have devolved into two distinct sub-species, The Jocks and the Tards. Both groups are locked in a perpetual struggle to horde the only remaining acceptable currency on the planet - filthy poetry. The jocks and the tards war with each other using clubs made of cactii and by throwing angry snakes at each other. All the while, Santa Claus, who YES, turns out to be real, rules them all with an iron, blood-drenched fist with the aid of his evil allies, the hyper-intelligent mutant ostriches . THIS is the world, the epoch, into which I was flung three days ago when a certain BLANK tricked me into his homemade BLANK -- BEEEP Alex I'd like to fill in those blanks go ahead Andres thanks Todd Levin and Time Machine you are correct thanks.
ahem. I have set the flimsy shoebox before you, the verbal diorama, if you will, now, it is time to populate that diorama with the tiny figurines that represent the "terrifying, scarring events that I experienced as a direct result of the nefarious Todd Levin." I take you to three days ago, moments after I had been tricked into entering HIS homemade time machine.
Pain! Light! Blinding painful light and pain! Then. Silence. As the smoke literally cleared from around my nude, prostrate body, and figuratively cleared from my mind, Todd Levin's chillingly friendly voice still echoing in my brain, urging me to "take another step in, Andres, I swear there's a whole lot of Toblerones in there" I could dimly make out two figures before me - as a tangent, I'd like to point out that Todd's homemade time machine is NOT one of those time machines that only transports organic matter, thereby leaving clothes and inanimate objects behind whilst transporting only the nude traveler, but that YES I indeed, through a series of bafflingly persuasive arguments from THAT MAN was ALREADY nude before entering that which I thought contained Toblerones but NO instead turned out to be Todd's homemade time machine. And no I don't care to elaborate. As I was saying, I could see two figures before me, and through the smoke rising from my muscular in some places and blubbery in others physique, I could dimly see that they were tall, muscular men dressed in what can only be described as shopping mall Santa's helper outfits. Elves. One had a big fluffy mustache and held a large, club-shaped cactus. The other had a small greasy mustache and held a snake that seemed calm but with the potential for anger. They eyed me with suspicion and caution, but not without a certain degree of familiarity. "They have seen nude smoldering people appear out of nowhere before," I thought to myself. Was I not the first person to fall victim to Todd Levin's diabolicalism?
"Jock or Tard?" said the elf with fluffier mustache and cactus.
I was still disoriented. I moaned a low, guttural, "Tobe...Toblerones?"
"Are you a jock or a tard!" shouted greasey.
I looked at them and said the first thing that came to my mind "Fuck you!"
The elf with the greasy mustache flicked his wrist, and suddenly the snake was upon me! I was too tired and foggy to flinch. The snake calmly slithered off of me and into the shadows.
"You threw the snake without angering it first!" shouted fluffy.
"Why do I feel like I'm always on trial with you, Kyle!" shouted greasey.
The two men began to argue, and I seized the opportunity to put my high school varsity water jai-alai team reflexes to work! Flash forward to one minute later, as I strode out of the prison chamber wearing fluffy's elf costume and holding his cactus, the table of the situation had been turned, turned towards a direction more favorable for me! Yet still, this was not a table at which I was comfortable or safe or at which I wanted to dine for very long.
I paused in the hallway, trying to decide which way to go - forward, left, or right. I whacked the club against my palm thoughtfully, and immediately regreted it! "Fuck I forgot this club is a cactus fuucck!" I shouted.
Then, I heard a female voice from one of the other prison cells.
"Who's there?"
I rushed to where the voice was coming from - and saw a young African American woman in a postal service uniform, sitting on the floor of her cell.
"Tamika? Tamika Jones?" I exclaimed. "The Brooklyn mail carrier who mysteriously disappeared several months ago, and who Todd Levin wrote a very touching yet ironic piece about for Slouch magazine?"
It was her. It was soon revealed that her mail route did indeed include Todd Levin's apartment, and that she had delivered several components to him from a company that manufactures homemade time machine kits. We briefly commiserated over our shared experience at having been tricked by Todd Levin into a homemade time machine with the promise of Toblerone candy bars. Both of us agreed that Toblerones were amazing. As far as we knew, it's the only candy bar shaped like a prism. I told her "yes, and as a prism, it refracts deliciousness into its two primary components - chocolate and nougat." Tamika laughed, and then began to cry. "I just love Toblerones so much. That bastard tricked me into entering his homemade time machine! Why?" Then we made love.
That's as far as I'd like to read from that particular section or chapter of my report or comedy piece. I'd like to flip ahead several pages now, which shall be represented by me NOT flipping any pages whatsoever, but instead simply continuing to read.
This is from Chapter Three, entitled OUT OF THE FRYING PAN (the stronghold of Santa Claus who turned out to be real) AND INTO THE FIRE (the clutches of the Ostrich King).
This is from Chapter Four. I mean three. I do not have a drinking issue. I have an entire subscription oh stop seriously I was tricked by Todd Levin. Chapter five:
The Ostrich King looked at me expectantly. His sudden request that I recite a filthy poem in order to win my freedom had taken me off guard, but as Tamika gazed up at me in her clamshell bikini with hope in her eyes, I had to give it a try. The hyper-intelligent ostriches stared and waited. I started hesitantly:
[I begin one of my filthy poems - the coochy one that's already on this blog]
A promising start. The Ostrich King's feathers ruffled with curiosity.
[I continue reading it]
The ostriches began clucking with excitement - oh I don't know what sound ostriches make fuck you.
[I finish reading it]
That was good, but I have one last request, said the Ostrich King.
Tamika and I were then forced to make love for the Ostrich King's amusement. Awkwardly at first, but then with a mounting passion that only a lust for survival could produce - we nearly fucked each other back to the year 2005, we got so into it. By the end of our sweat-drenched display, Tamika's fourth and final orgasmic wail having finished echoing down the corridor, the crowd of hyper-intelligent ostriches shaking their feathers in order to shrug off the residue from my Shamu-like climax, the ostrich king had been won over. We were set free.
Tamika and I then somehow returned to the present day in time for me to type this up and come here tonight. The End.
So, there you have it. You can choose to accept that what you have just heard is an accurate account of my experiences in the year 2049 - after having traveled there as a result of Todd Levin's combined skills of time machine building and persuasiveness. Or, you can continue your silent accusations of alcoholism. I for one, know that which it is I shall choose to believe of.
Posted on May 26, 2005 |