Life at the Sentient Bean

Randy

2011-05-11T22:05:00.000-05:00

“ You took her to a casino?” Suki shrieked.

“Have you ever tried to stop Fang Fang from doing anything?” I stated flatly.

“You American men don’t know how to handle your women.” she sneered in her inscrutable way.

“First, she was no longer my woman. Second Suki, you were born in Buffalo so don’t try to pull that ruse on me.”

With that Cyrus came preening into the room and said “Cleveland?”

He was clueless as ever.

“Iksnay on the uffalobay,” I signaled to her.

With that Cyrus pressed his beak near Suki, and began to sniff. “Ah my dear Suki, for a moment I thought you were Fangy pooh.”

“I’ll Fangy pooh you, you, you bird brain!” I was just able to redirect her lunge with a well placed waist grasp and redirection while Bannister ushered Cyrus onto the audionisomix room with a sense of urgency that was lost on Cyrus.

“Look, I know what you think about Cyrus, but I don’t think he has anything to do with Fang Fang’s disappearance. Come on lets go outside and tell me what you know.”

As we exited the elevator into the lobby, security eyed me suspiciously after my entrance with Mediatrix and his cab earlier, but the carnage was well on the way to repair.

Out in the fresh air of the plaza Suki looked at me and asked, “How can you still work with that man after what happened to Randy?”

Randy had been one of my closest friend and colleague for years, not to mention Suki and Fang Fang had grown very fond of him in the short time they knew him. It was he who introduced me to Cyrus back when they were producing sports specials years before the 2013 final melt down. It was then that Cyrus had stiffed me on a project after working me to the brink of hallucination and personal melt down. But I got off easy. It cost Randy his life.

Back then Cyrus had to focus his exploitation on those around him. However he was as ruthless then as he is today and he relied heavily on those around him. Randy was the one he relied on the most. Finally a few years ago after sleepless weeks of holding Cyrus’s claw and dealing with his clueless epiphanies, Randy made the air date, drove back to his secluded home in Indiana, and fell asleep in his driveway with a lit cigarette. After the drive and weeks of abuse Randy went out in a blaze. Other factors were cited by the authorities due to Randy’s character specialities, but knowing intimately what a few weeks of working with Cyrus in those days can do to a person, I have my suspicions.

This was in the days when Cyrus thought he needed to be involved intimately with his projects. Not that he was of any use then other than as a front man. But now his far flung fracking and other dubious enterprises have paid off thus achieving the scope and lucrative nature they now occupy. These days he only appears for the bows. So he drove his cart over the bones of the dead and now he does these projects for the joy he gets from fucking with the great unwashed masses collective heads.

While my quality time years before of working weeks on end for Cyrus with few if any hours of sleep, while Cyrus pursued his global exploitation by day and nightly offered supervisory indecision as he cluelessly threw me into hallucinations, mini stroke, and years of voluntary removal from the picking of pockets via the airwaves.

All I know is I was hovering in a white haze in Cyrus’s loft space high above the floor and no matter how many grease pencil marks, open and close re-edits, or ubiquitous blue, yellow, or red arrows I pressed, left me feeling like I was pulling my nose off my face stretching fibrous strands between the two parts of me yet still unable to accomplish a task I had performed millions of times in my sleep. I was only brought back to my senses by the parakeet voice squeaking, “You have been blathering incoherently.”

The trim had been tromped out of me. I was through, as I was with my marriage a few weeks previous to this ordeal. I am sure some chalked it all up to my character specialities as well. Fuck-em.

The only reason I worked with the son of a bitch back then was because Randy was out of the country and asked me to do so. Randy was doing me a favor while he was doing the International Sports extravaganza that was staged in those days to try and maintain goodwill amongst countries. But as the ratings fell and the animosity between the haves and have nots grew; not to mention the corporate and under the table government funding of those events dried up, it was then that those events went as it is said, by the way of the Greeks. I never watched them anyway.

If nothing else, the Chinese intractability and severe punishments for working people endless hours has kept the likes of Cyrus Plush in their gilded freedom of contract cage. These are not the Chinese of Mao. But they have their own priorities, and get their pound of flesh in their own way. Humans will be humans.

So it is a new world with new realities which call for all sorts of alignments. We have sharpened our spears and limited our frontiers. Cyrus has to put cash down on each project so I know I will get paid, and Fang Fang as well as Suki need my help.

“Look, let me go babysit the budgies up there and I’ll meet you at the Sentient Bean tonight around seven. We can talk. I’ll tell you what I know, you tell me what you know and we will go from there.” I smiled reassuringly at Suki and I thought I noticed a slight glimmer of hope in her eyes.

I went to hail a cab only to see Mediatrix’s cab, though somewhat worse for wear and tear, was the first in the line with his grey visage glowering at me through the windshield. Fortunately some self important suit pushed his way passed Suki and I and hopped into the Trixed out cab. I helpfully closed the door for the cheap suit and said “Enjoy the ride,” while I gave the Trixeter a wink.

“See, you don’t even fight for my cab you emasculated round eyes.” Suki snapped.

‘Believe me, that was not the cab you wanted.”

Fish on the Brain

2011-01-21T11:06:00.000-06:00

Fish on the Brain

Cyrus strutted in with those words. I swear he dressed and moved more and more like a parakeet everytime I saw him. Which was rather disconcerting considering he was a a very large and very rich man. But there he was in a powder blue suit, the whitest shirt I had seen in years, and a mottled grey bow tie. Perhaps his morphing into a bird had something to do with his fish fixation of late, but a clear theme had emerged with his work. At his side was Aurora Mora and it dawned on me where I had just seen that face and figure. The animators had used her to model our fishy temptress in the spot. Cyrus’s motivations and drives where generally as confused as the confused and obfuscated messages we were foisting on the public.

“You need to get Fang Fang back lads, she never would have let you stray as far from the fishy trail as you had in that last cut.” Cyrus whistled as he found the mirror in the room and he moved his head jerkily as he admired his beloved.

He was right of course. Having the Fangster shacked up with Cyrus was a great source of insider information. She would give us a heads up in the night after Cyrus had one of his brain storms. We would be well on the way before he even arrived at the suite. Fang Fang also would take great delight in describing Plush's mating rituals which often involved him brainstorming current campaign ideas while doing “unspeakable things to my person” as Fang would put it. She claimed to suffer through it, but the look in her eye belied the suffering point.

All I know is when she fled Cyrus and begged me to hide her she was not the same Fang Fang Wu from Buffalo that I had met in the alley behind the Sentient Bean. She had sharpened edges upon return. Sure she still portrayed the tough worldly smart aleck oriental female delight in public, but the softer private side of her had disappeared after Cyrus. The only glimpse was in her dreams and nightmares. Only then could I see the original little Wuster, but after waking up shivering she would collect herself and not ever let the inner little girl out to play anymore.

Bannister was talking budget with Aurora, because nobody talked dollars with Cyrus. Bannister had that producer middle man hat on now so I knew the rest of the day would be one of “How much will this cost?, What is taking so long? I’m not paying for that.” But that’s OK. We would make our dough by marking up the lunch order. Bread and circuses should have been Cyrus’s middle name.

Cyrus was done at the mirror, so he began to chirp about the ramifications of the research into the meme of fish. I knew my headache would get much worse as this little diatribe began.

“Fish lads. It goes back to the beginning, where we all began. We all are just chock full of former fish molecules. Damn it! The very core of our brain goes back to when we were all fish. Swimming and reproducing in that primordial soup. It is in our very core. We see these creatures fluttering around, and since we know they won’t eat us, or a least most of them won’t, all it does is engage our breeding instinct. Yes. Three responses. Either we want to eat them, fuck them, or if they stand in the way of our eating and fucking, eliminate them. In this film we are going for the big ol’ randy flounder response in us. Whether they know it or not, people watching this fish will feel invigorated, they will want energy. Energy provided by the caffeine in our illustrious beverage. The alcohol will tear down their inhibitions. Their public persona will become radiant, wide awake , and most uninhibited little beasts we can be. Shivery and shimmering with moist viscous exteriors, rubbing membrane against membrane coating each other with our own special brand of sputum. Thats what we are selling. Selling the sizzle, not the steak. Any knucklehead can drink whiskey with a cola back. We are selling the ultimate combo platter. Heaped high with promise of immersion into that great ecstacy. Now get on with it! Aurora!! Deep conference.”

Banister in his best cover your own ass moment asked again, “Cyrus, are you sure we don’t need to add a disclaimer mentioning the other ingredients in our product?”

“Tut tut my dear boy. That is so 20th century of you.”

With that Cyrus toddled towards the conference room with Aurora Mora in tow and shut the door.

“Chop chop, wicky wicky,” announced Bannister. “You heard the man”

As we worked only once did a disheveled and wobbly kneed Aurora exit the room to provide the lunch order. “Are you sure you don’t need Cyrus out here yet,” she asked hopefully. I shook my head. Aurora sighed and resignedly returned to the conference room.

Before lunch arrived we had a supprise visitor. It was non other than Suki Su Wu.

“Have any of you heard from Fang Fang,” she asked in a highly disconcerted tone as she scanned the room.

“Last I saw she was busy humping a slot machine.” I said with trepidation.

Suki looked disgusted and then cast her eye’s down in the oriental shame ploy I recognized from her sister. I knew when she would look up from that feint I was in big trouble.

Night of the Living Drunks

2010-12-31T15:34:00.001-06:00

Night of the Living Drunks

So Banister had blustered in and he unleashed his scroll of changes du jour. I was never quite sure why he printed these things out, they were in my e-mail, and especially why he printed them in scroll fashion. But it did give his entrances a certain flair, like returning from the mountain with the law. Thank goodness the stone printers were prohibitive on cost, otherwise these notes could become a serious weapon when the sessions went south. The first proclamation to come forth from the lips of Bannister Crawler were:

“First, the scene with the girl, white jumpsuit, parachute, and burro has to come right out. That time goes to more product shots.”

Some things never change.

“Who’s idea was that anyway” demanded Bannister.

Well the likely candidate was the original Art Director since she had been fired soon after this project began, though I miss her because I liked the way she thought, and Bannister was all over that suggestion.

“Good thinking” proclaimed Bannister. “let’s get cracking”

And this is where we went:

Dingy room with a large circular bar that dominated the space leaving only a narrow path behind the patrons seated at the bar. Perched at one corner on top of the bar was a show platform upon which was a slowly undulating forty year old stripper dancing on the mock up stage. Pondering the cesarian scar on the stripper are two young men in their very early twenties with generic bottles of Beer printed on the label. This is their first foray into the adult drinking world and it ain’t a pretty sight. The grizzled old men are either half asleep at the bar or arguing about some now meaningless point of political Kabuki theatre. That is except for the few with their tongues lolling out of toothless mouths while leering up at the performer. Our two initiates also seem focused on the tiny dancer but have been drinking all afternoon and are now moving into the heart of the night mostly befuddled while dealing with the conflicting emotions of MILF lust and Oedipus complexes long buried. Through the bar door swims a shimmering, undulating, and technicolour neon tropical fish with an extreme feminin form. Bright red quivering lips encircling a seductively round mouth, slender neck leading to soft shoulders and willowy arms tipped with delicate hands gesturing smoothly around an absurdly tiny waist which expands to a superbly shaped behind before resulting in the archetypical mermaid tail, topped with heaving luminescent breasts. As she slides around and between the two young men softly brushing faces with slender fingers, breasts against their arms and tail lightly flowing up their inner thighs the wofish has certainly drawn their attention away from the aging stripper who just moments ago had their undivided attention. Holding the large containers of caffeinated Pumps Beer in front of the heaving, glistening breasts the fish tart says to the lads, “Grab a hold of these and steer me like a cow.”

The lads are transported by the fish to a Eurotrash night club where there are hundreds of women their age, in the prime of their hard bodied youth, dancing with abandon. Huge Bacchanal on the order of the Matrix Reloaded rave. These two lads are happily pounding down the caffeine laced beer, and from the glowing faces of the women surrounding them you can tell it will be their night to remember. Fast montage into a frenzied and blur of images till we come abruptly to the the final scene with lads passed out on top of a aquarium with tropical fish lazily swimming about. One fish has a twinkle in it’s eye and winks at the two young men who look at each other and then at the camera and exclaim “Woof!”

Tag Line:

Pump Beer.

Looks like a fish, swims like a fish, steers like a cow.

I just looked at Bannister and he looked at me.

“Before you say it, yes we bought the rights to that tag line, and the client likes it.” was all Bannister had to say. We now had to make it happen.

With that Cyrus Plush rolled in with Auroa Mora on his arm followed but the rest of his entourage and announced “Yes ladies and gentlemen. The research shows it is all about the fish.”

My head hurt now.

Suite Fang Fang Wu

2010-10-08T12:04:00.000-05:00

As I arrived all was quiet in the suite. A large room with the numerous stations scattered about. One corner was for the graphic pukes with the 3D, 2D, and Holographic rendering power. They needed it now since much was no longer shot live, but they still needed to create many options for the endless game of “what if” that we play while shilling for the advancement of our clients market share. The Omnibus suite was often like a three ring circus, or gladiator arena, depending on the mood of the project. Then you had the audio stations where the engineers hunkered down and finely stroked the many layers of audio in their virtual reality helmets that simulated the surround of a perfectly tuned room. Of course final mix was still done in an open air room so all concerned could make snarky comments to each other even though the helmets would give a truer rendering of real world conditions. Then their were the numerous uplink channels and their operators who knew the ins and pouts off each distribution channel since even the Chinese couldn’t bring about a cohesive standardization. But that was good for all concerned because it kept more people busy trying to figure out how to deliver the message in an optimal stream.

But now there was just the whir of the fans and pumps for liquid cooled processors that were always working even when idle on our projects with every nanosecond of their adding machine power used somewhere, by somebody, for something when they were not adding things up for me. A world in the ether of the intervent needed more power all the time, just like we all have learned to need. More, more more. Ideally more of what we were about to tell you from this arena of desires. My clients were telling you what you want and not what their competitors were telling you wanted.

This suite also had the memories of the time Fang Fang was an apprentice here after I got her a job tossing this crap around rather than the crap she tossed around for the Labrador Retrieval Waste and Recycle.

It was an interesting, busy, and all around entertaining time for all. Clients loved the Fangster. After she worked with us for a while I really had to wonder what she was doing as a garbage gal, or shall we say waste removal specialist. Naw, the Chinese didn’t go in for that politicly correct nanny state bullshit we were regurgitating at the end of the last and the beginning of the new century. We were back to smoking, swearing, and being much more honest with each other. The ancient culture of China with it’s traditional roles actually helped all of us to stop sweating the small stuff. Of course even the enlightened can’t escape a primates natural distrust of the other. It is wired into our DNA. Only the millennium of stacked ideas and civilized cooperation, layer upon layer of “you shoulds” through the millennium masked it now. First to protect ourselves from the other, then to sell the other what we were selling made it worth our wile to get along with each other and thrive as a species. Fang Fang thrived in the post hell holes of shilling for international concerns like it was a long lost vocation. After all multi national corporations were people too. But the first time Cyrus Plush moonwalked into the room and perched in his usual place next to the mirror that changed. Fang Fang could smell money and immediately she began combining the efficiency of her role in the post suite with the oriental feminine charm no Xirong can ever completely ignore. The Wu’ster utilized skills from previous employment and stuck out her can. Cyrus nearly fell from his perch when his beak hawked out her form and for the first time completely ignored his own reflection for a moment or two.

I don’t even remember what project we were working on, they all blend into one another. Some sort of useless product that in essence made the buyer feel better than the monkey next store till the monkey down the street bought the newer better more expensive model. But as usual the message we were delivering had to be delivered in the most hypnotic, convoluted, and cleverly obfuscated package to worm it’s way into the psyche of even the most thick skulled consumer. No need to discriminate if the viewer could ever afford the doodad, we were motivating them to be productive enough to at least keep the landed gentry in the style to which they felt themselves entitled, never mind if the poor bastard chasing our floozied up carrot ever reached the promised reward. As long as they believed they had a chance we could soak up their hard earned shekels like a Sham Wow. Well on the day Cyrus and Fang Fang met I remember thinking which one of these two was the floozied up carrot on a stick and which was the donkey in hot pursuit.

On that day in the suite we finished up the project quickly with Cyrus’s object of distraction keeping his bird brain occupied elsewhere. Now what shinney object can I use to distract him with today while we deal with “The Night of the Walking Drunks” Campaign.

Just then Bannister burst in to the suite with the obligatory two questions.

“Are we done yet,”

“Whats for lunch.”

Let the games begin.

Braking Ugly

2010-08-31T22:38:00.000-05:00

Now knowing what was facing me I began to absent mindedly wiggle my teeth. They had all seemed to be loosing up these days. I know I should be tracking down a dentist. But since the insurance companies have lost their strangle hold and all dentists and doctors now had to operate in the market place no longer having their prices propped up artificially by the insurance racket finding good dental and medical service was a real bidding war. There were a few years between the demise of insurance where the resources were pooled by the citizens of the U.S. while shareholders and CEO’s no longer got the excessive skim they once enjoyed, but when the Chinese took over they had no sense of humor about past digressions and enjoyed shoving our free market hyperbole quite literally down out throats. You now really got what you paid for. No ticky no washy as the darling Fang Fang Wu would say.

It was then that Mediatrix turned around as if remembering just where he had seen me. Last time I rode with Meditrix I had him take Cyrus and I out to the airport when Meditrix had recognized Cyrus from his pictures. Cyrus Plush made his initial money by selling bottled water in Mediatrix’s country after their entire water table was ruined by fracking for natural gas. To make matters worse Cyrus’s company bottled the water just far enough where the health effects on the population were minimized, but close enough where the shipping costs were not prohibitive to making a tidy profit. Mediatrix’s countrymen paid the freight with the double whammy of washing down the genetically grown schmeat with flammable bottled water. The results weren’t pretty. As he turned his full grey eyes on me which blended perfectly with his grey pallor and hair it had the effect of a twilight shadow. He said,“So what sort of defective product are you and your associates foisting on consumers today?”

“No no no, ya got it all wrong sport” I exclaimed, “we're just helping a befuddled multitude believe they need these products so as to keep everyone gainfully employed. I get people to buy what my clients sell so’s they can afford to hire your services. We're all in to this together Paley.”.

“Right” was all Mediatrix said, as he turned to look back at the road. I know the collision avoidance system usually kept two items from occupying the same space, but I am old fashioned and feel better when th driver is looking at the road ahead so I was relieved doubly by his renewed attention to navigation.

Well we were pulling up on my destination and this building had a huge plaza all around it. Good way to avoid drive by bombing, but Mediatrix was always one for delivering the optimum of 21st century fashionable customer service so he drove across the huge plaza at an excessive rate of speed, usually screeching to a halt millimeters in front of the hatches to the building. Hatches worked better to deter the compression from explosions. But today he missed so I was delivered directly into the lobby of my building.

As Meditrix was nabbed by security I wandered to the lifts an went to work. I’ll catch him with the fare next time. It was time to run the footage through the concept corrector.

Mediatrix

2010-08-05T09:42:00.002-05:00

My favorite quality of Mediatrx wa the fact that no matter how many times I rode with him, he always acted like it was our first time meeting. I was never sure if it was an act , or if it was from his early childhood diet of schmeat. Yep, the old beaker bacon. That was back when we first started growing our animal products, and we had to try them on someone. His country drew the short straw of that global lottery. It was a great idea. Eating flesh that had never, sweated, shat, or peed seemed like a good idea at the time. But when the side effects became apparent the Archetypes had to administer a forgetfulness pharmaceutical to spare the survivors the recollections of the disaster. Good things we cleared that up before that little snafu got to much publicity. So with the blessings of the Marquis De Bob, it was swept under the public rug, which was only shaken occasionally by a few of the politically embarrassed crackpots and conspiracy theorists which were quickly discredited by the ever present media. The poison will never out if if we refuse to know about.

Yet even Mediatrix was always plugged in, though a victim of exploitive experimentation, but knew better than to believe most of the fear driving drivel. This cab was a rolling hot spot. Sure the world was covered by the ubiquitous G-10 network, but with the ludicrous encryption and sub networks Mediatrix’s cab was plugged into even the Chinese couldn’t track you on the infernal net. So I used the time to check e-mail for any heads up that Bannister might have about the coming assignment. The world of commerce never slept. Only I did. When I wasn’t awake that is. But being awake was never the easy row to hoe. There was peace from time to time, or rather when I pushed myself away from the treadmill, and stopped thinking of more and bigger things to take care of the things I thought I had. That was no longer for me.

But eating was always a pressing problem and since most these days did their tricks for food having long given up the illusion of carrot and stick. No longer were we fooled by the promise of a fine retirement funded from the life time of labor, The reality that those assets were quickly drained away by the privatize entitlement scams that sank in even to your the densest of the masses. We are all dumb money now.

The e-mail came from Bannister and the news was not good. Cyrus Plush was coming to the session. Although I knew that turn of events would pad the hours considerably for my billing, It would be painful spending that much time in the room with Cyrus perched like a Budgie behind me fretting and a pacing only to stop occasionally to admire himself in the mirror and perhaps ordering in for more cuttlebones to sharpen his beak on. So will my next hours be. But I do not enjoy it as much as I once had.

Banister Crawler

2009-12-19T12:17:00.002-06:00

Well enough musing about Fang Fang. I had a meeting with Banister Crawler, a transplanted New York producer who came to this cow town to handle the alcohol and caffeine beverages account boondoggle.

With this caffeine laced beverage there was no more snorting illegal cocaine to stay awake while drinking. Now just drink alcohol and caffeine and all will be well. That is till the local constabulary had to start dealing with the ravages of walking drunk syndrome. Darn. Legal substances both. They could no longer supply the for profit prison system with cheap labor and felons that the prison profiteers payed kick backs for. Also they have yet to figure out a way to confiscate property for consuming caffeine with alcohol. So they had to lobby the Corp Boys to knock off this particular product category, which was being heavily promoted, in the hope they could get back to the good old days of arresting people for being wide awake drunk and breaking laws by the act of ingesting verboten substances. Since many corporations were heavily invested in the prison system, they needed to oblige. Sure the profits from caffeine laced vitzblitz were big, but when your IRA’s are in the market you had to play all eventualities, which ain’t easy. Prison was big business. Criminal justice was a perfect jobs program for the self righteous. So was the double dipping they could garner from the illegal drug trade it would revive.

So that meant I would be able to bill many more hours while we took a campaign meant to extol the virtues of being the rizzed inebriated, to just extolling the tried and true virtues of getting lucky while geezed. Of course this would mean a reshoot. But first we would rearrange the marbles we had ad infinitum. Of course this meant hours in a dark room and much hand wringing, but this came with the territory. Bannister was a good sort, though a WASP through and through. He knew Providence would always smile on him with hard work and knowing what to kiss and when. It would entail the obligatory haggling over the hours and billing, but a good time would be had by all. The lunches were good and numerous,though being somewhat reminiscent of the days of Roman Bread and Circuses. Only little less bloody. I might even get back into the black after the recent Fang Fang junket.

So I bade farewell to the Beard with the usual “It’s a good day to die” nonsense and emerged from the Sentient Bean refreshed and enlightened from the morning reverie.Hailed the first gypsy cab I saw. I crumpled into the back seat and licked a twenty and pasted it on my forehead to show good faith. We hurtled towards that impressive array of unrented airspace formerly known as downtown. It was only then that I found out I was in the cab owned by the one known as Mediatrix.

Need I say more.

Sally

2009-11-12T12:07:00.002-06:00

“Hello Sally” I said feeling like I was being sized up, for what I did not know. Well Fang Fang strolled up to me in her dirty Golden jump suit which was about five sizes to big and clomped over in work boots that seemed so huge for her tiny frame and stuck out her surprisingly well defined feminine keyster, even under the out sized Labrador Retrieval uniform, and said “ Fulfill first part of contract, before moving to second part round eye”

Well it seemed like a good idea, and what could a little playful slap and tickle hurt. So as I wound up and swung, but she deftly maneuvered out of the way and said, “not so fast G.I.” G.I. was how the new Chinese immigrants referred to us natives and stood for, Globally Indentured. They had learned the lessons of history from the colonialists well, and were enjoying their new roles.

“How do I know where you been, find you hanging out in the alley, could be you live here” Fang Fang said with a sly smile. Before I could reply she demanded “You buy me coffee now”. The little one was all about control,, and the lust filled visions and possibilities from the reptilian part of my brain brought to me courtesy of my D.N.A. snatched any sense, good or bad, away. So I agreed.

Meanwhile the traffic was still blocked in the alleyway by the garbage truck, but Golden Retrieval employees were fearless when it came to our local ordinances and rules. Never mind the honking horns, once the other drivers saw the little operator strolling into the coffee shop with me, they meekly reversed course and found alternative routes. It was White Lotus land now, and Fang Fang knew it..

As I gallantly allowed the little lady to enter the Sentient Bean before me , I slapped that delightful behind and said “So what’ll you have Sally”. She gave a giggle akin to a child’s, and then menacingly mumbled something in her native tongue which I didn’t quite catch. But I sure caught it later.

We tumbled into the back door of the Sentient Bean, the Beard chimed in when he saw Fang Fang, “Hallo Sally, did you make it through the “Of Human Bondage” chapter in Spinoza’s “Ethics” yet?”

“Who have time for that crap, I too busy trying to save the world through recycling” retorted the Fangster, and added “ Most of it is junk you transplanted Euro Trash bought on credit, and pitched when it no longer was shinny and new.”

Now I have to ask myself why she spoke that way, since I would eventually find that she was born and raised in Buffalo NY. Just passing maybe

Fang Fang Wu was a mystery through and through.

Casino

2009-11-02T23:51:00.000-06:00

The last time I saw Fang Fang Wu she was physically and verbally assaulting a slot machine. At four foot eleven you may think the Fangster would be easy to trifle with. That would be a serious miscalculation. But ask any slot machine, or dealer, car or otherwise and they will turn pale at the mention of this little force of nature. Once her cold black eyes caught you, caught you were. Well I had to try to wrestle her away from the machine, because management was moving in the forces to stop her from trying to rip the arm off of the one armed bandit, but she knew it was payday and she was there to collect.

At this point she had mounted the machine and seemed to be try to hump a payoff out of the machine while gibbering in what she claimed was her native tongue. I could never confirm nor deny that fact. This gave security pause since the violence had turned into something the guests pay for as a floor show. Then those glinting black eyes turned to me. She just threw me a hundred dollar bill and screamed. “YOU PLAY THAT MACHINE NOW”, and pointed to Cleopatra across the room. I found this strange because she had sold everything thing I had and we were living in my 1966 Pontiac Star Chief Executive.. No reasoning with her now. She was a woman, and while in the grips of warfare with the slot machine Buddha of her desires, now was not trifling time.

Instead I realized that enough was enough, and having some money for gas I decided this would be my cue to move on. A hundred bucks was more cash than I had seen since the credit card crisis sunk the major banks into the black hole of derivative divine divergence, or whatever excuse for dodging moral hazard they were using that day. Better put, you can’t get blood from a stone. We were all squatting by the side of the economic road rubbing rocks in our heads for entertainment since it was what we could afford now that no one could say the magic words “charge it.” Nobody was making anything, and nobody was getting paid to advise us what to do with our no longer liquid brokerage assets. We have been trickled upon and could no longer find anyone else to trickle on. Monetarily speaking we were fucked. White Lotus had become a reality, but not as anticipated in the nineteen fifties. As few things had.

But I should have known I was fucked when I first laid eyes on Fang Fang Wu. She was a driver for Labrador Retrieval Waste and Recycle , and was thumping a dumpster into the hopper, humming Bang a Gong in the key of “O”, when she turned around and saw me smoking a cigarette at the back door of the “Sentient Bean”

She whistled through the gap in her front teeth and exclaimed in the unforgivable voice of hers,

“Well slap my ass and call me Sally “

Police

2009-10-13T23:07:00.000-05:00

Police

I entered the sadly paint encrusted door with the throwback tinkle of a bell to choke down my first cup of joe for the day at the Sentient Bean. The Beard that served it up also added the usual dose of existential insolence I had grown to expect from Jeemarie Bingalangbang. But as one of his hero’s would so clearly respond “such things cannot be sufficiently despised”, so I tossed him the spondulix, grunted, snatched the brew and retreated to my favorite hovel of the premises. I think at one time it had been one of those Armenian restaurants from the fifties, with booths built into the wall with an onion dome frame and a decidedly casbah motif lattice work. You never knew what was on this side of the walls but fortunately on the other side of the lattice. I didn’t want to know.

Outside an undercover police car went squealing down the street. I have to always wonder why after the name calling of the nineteen sixties they would design and operate their siren in such a way as to sound like squealing of a pig as they race down the street. Even the authorities have a sense of humor. Like the words they left out on the side of their marked car doors that say “To Serve and Protect” The missing words are To Serve those that have And Protect them from those that haven’t. As I saw them skitter down the street I was relieved that they didn't squeal to a stop in front of this establishment. I was much to distracted to spend an hour obfuscating with them down at the station while I waited for my mouthpiece to make an appearance.

So I could settle down to the problem of the moment that was all consuming in my little highly charged monkey brain.

“Where are you Fang Fang Wu”?