Tag Archives: Keith B.^*+$&

Options 8 and 8A

“Why are we stopping here, Keith?” asked Jim, concerned with time as usual.

“I don’t know I don’t know,” answered his riding mate, his maths buddy. “I just feel… a choice needs to be made here. Juncture.” He indicates the map of Satori to their left.

“No,” returns Jim A. Brown emphatically. “We *need* to keep going up Route 8 to Golden City so that you can get back to your daughter in time for at least a late breakfast. It’s already almost light. Wasn’t my idea to go on this joy ride.” But it was totally his idea. His and the Unholy Trinity as a whole. The Scarlet Triangle — the A.Team. Keith B. needed to be thrown under a bus. But since none ran this route, a sports car would have to do. A cursed car.

Still Keith didn’t budge. “Listen,” urged Jim B., intuitively sensing some sort of outside energy influencing current affairs. “We’re about halfway there. Let me drive the rest of the way. You just take a rest. Think of some more maths while you’re relaxing.” Like the theorems connecting Golden City to Golden Sink, dufus, Jim B. thought to himself. We need your brains one last time!

“You don’t drive fast enough,” replies Keith. “Your hair won’t be all spiked up like mine if you bothered to take off your cap.”

We will notice here a similar thing happened to another character’s hair earlier in our story, and for the same reason : a screeching and spinning car. Perhaps a type of Porsche as well, but probably not the same one since the earlier vehicle was painted red. We’re talking about one Craighead Phillips, who just happens to be Keith’s future son-in-law. If he lives long enough to get any further into the future than this weekend. I’d give it 1/2 and 1/2 at this point. Jenny may not even have a father when she meets Craighead a number of years down the road and then elopes to Nautilus for a quickie wedding after an unplanned pregnancy. Preston Weston, the first of three children for her. Jenny becomes Your Mama for real. But we must get back to the Fork of Bill. For that is what it’ll be known as for future generations, whatever happens next.

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back in Cassandra City, then…

“Well here it is. Little Jimmy. The bastard.”

“Over here,” beckoned Keith B. “Wrong car again.”

“Oh.”

“Let’s take a spin!”

“Where to?”

“You know where.”

“The end,” Jim B. mutters to himself while walking toward it, resigned to his fate.

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The Donut Hole

“We’re nearing the end, Jim B., but we have no end. We’re doomed! I’m going to pray for one.”

“Not so fast my fellow B. There’s the car. Fast.”

The person in the back pondered whether to order another box of donuts.

Keith B. unfolded his hands and looked outside. “Little Jimmy? Bought on a whim?”

“No, the other Porsche. The throw-in.”

“Penny 1.01? That old clunker?”

“Maybe the first, then. Whassitsname again?”

“Jimmy.”

“Like the sausage?” which made Keith B. think about something else.

“Um… different than the sausage.”

“I wonder if they have sausage here?” asked sweets weary Jim B.

“Donuts, 12 more donuts!” the yellow man shouts from in back.

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The B.’s

Buster Damm dared to take off a tiny bit of time from studying and scouting to bring our old friend Duncan Avocado into the picture. They sat in the same VHC City diner, at the same table even where the original agreement was made. Duncan still wore the Pot-D heart-within-skeleton-hands pendant. Buster still knew where he was at any moment. “Sooo. Here we are, Duncan.”

“We are,” spoke Duncan plainly. He didn’t hesitate this time; he’d been around the cell block too many times in the meantime. “Whatever it is: yes.”

“Great!” Buster immediately spat in his hand and leaned forwards across the table. 5 minutes till sunrise…

—–

Duncan A. awoke in a captive position, but then stood up. No chains this time. Relief! He wipes his forehead of perspiration and looks around. Pipes. This must be Pipersville Buster talked about. He moves to the table on the far side of the room.

African-American nudie pic, he ruminates. Jim A.’s heartthrob, he understands, the thing that held *him* captive. What happened to her? he wonders, then turns. One way to find out. He ascends the stairs out of there and tries the door: unlocked. Still not a captive.

He opens the door. Music.

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perspective 01

Cassandra City was certainly big enough. Difficult to take a long range picture of, though. Too much of the infrastructure not rezzing in properly with that draw.

Jenny attempts to draw parallels with ancient Crabwoo. “2 sims, not 1,” she utters to escort Todd A. another night, because their act had been so successful that they were extended for 2 more weeks. 2 weeks! Jenny would have plenty of time now to explore the burg. “Crabwoo was larger spacially,” she continued. “But perhaps not psychically.”

Todd A. was getting the sinking feeling that developing Cassandra City was just Pipersville heated over. Where’s the equivalent to the room? he wondered. Where’s the missing laundromat, record store, bakery? It all seemed overly ambitious. And, as we all know, Our Second Lyfe has definite limitations. Lag is always an issue in such crowded spots. And it’s just going to get worse as the city fills out more. Perhaps smaller Pipersville had it right, Todd thinks another time. Build around a lagless, forbidden void (Sink X). Crabwoo too in a way, since the 6 protected sims of the Blue Feather Sea laid just to the northeast. Waterless sink vs. filled sink: which was better? It was a debate that underpinned all life, all activity on the continent, really. This is where TILE comes from.

Jim A., of course, scrutinized the large Seraph nightclub at some length. Soon Pipersville’s Jim Club would be no more. He knew he couldn’t compete. And his house band was leaving soon — he could feel it in his bones. “Might as well rent the building out when I return,” he spoke to Keith B. after another successful gig here. Sweat was pouring off his body. What fun! The circle within the circle certainly did the trick. Keith commended daughter Jenny on the idea again and again. Until the end.

And Jim and Keith were doing maths together. Keep that in mind as we continue our story.

What about the others? Tillie and Tealy had finally arrived in town after circumnavigating the big lake just to the east of Cassandra City. In fact, that’s what most of the local yokels called it, simply enough: Big Lake. One of the problems with that appellation is that Northerners applied the same to their Blue Feather Sea sometimes.

Which brings us to another issue I wanted to talk about: the division between North and South on the continent, how it all got started. We turn back to the handy “Second Life Tourist Blog” entry on Satori/Maebaleia:

http://thesecondlifetourist.blogspot.com/2016/09/know-mainland-satori.html

To get an historical perspective: In 2007, when this continent was constructed, the media was full of articles about Second Life. It was less than a year since Ansche Chung’s picture had been on the cover of Business Week, and there were many residents wanting land. According to the old forums, the Lindens were auctioning off multiple sims at a time, and some went for very high sums….

It was not until late in the next year that the roads in Satori (Route 8, 8A, 8B, 8C, and the Old Wagon Road) were completed. Because some of the sims that were in the right-of-ways had been sold, many roads have dead ends and are connected by false tunnels with teleports, or billboards with teleports. The map kiosks along the road are a big help.

Bottom line: Roads were split between North and South on the continent because of bad planning. You can see the gaps on this continent map I provided before: Route 8b (blue) was suppose to connect to Route 8c (yellow), and so on.

Only the eastern part of Route 8 ran the entire length of the continent north to south. Not by accident, the most heavily bombed highway of the brief yet intense Maebaleia/Satori Civil War. They couldn’t even agree on a continental name. And, I think, this is where Real Life Bluefield also comes into play…

(to be continued)

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more

“We made it Brother Amos,” spoke Gabby, who had barely stopped talking during their whole trip down from Toppsity. “*Twin* brother Amos,” he declared. “Fellow Gemini; no doubting of that. Now all we have to do is find non-twin and non-Gemini Brother Keith B. and save him from The Shallows.”

“Where he’ll be murdered,” clarifies Brother Amos from his own bike.

“Killed at the very least,” supplied Gabby Truth, who always tells. “Hills. Of Bill. Keep him out.”

“Keep him out,” echoes Amos, almost as excited as Gabby about finally arriving in half empty or half full (take your pick) Cassandra City. It was not the destination they had planned for their escape. Not atall. Golden Sink… or even further north, had always been tops on the list. Maybe the Lake District. But something told them to turn left (south) instead of right (north) when leaving their cursed home village via Route 8.

“The 4 colored clown and her monochromatic opposum must be here,” Gabby spoke, half in a scrying trance; not unusual. “Soon at the very least.”

“Okay.”

The brothers got off their bikes and locked them up with the rest already on the rack. Jim’s and Todd’s. Jenny and Keith had come by bus. Tillie and Tealy were walking. Cindy A., perhaps the last to arrive but also perhaps the first, came or comes by plane. Wealthier than the rest she is. Later: the poorest of them all, sometimes not even being able to afford to walk. One or perhaps even two more by boat. Identity or identities yet to be determined. Maybe the Bishop and his center-no-more King. Let’s see, who else? Craighead Phillips seems trapped walking around another half empty, half full (again, take your pick) Bluefield city in West Virginia, Real Life, USA, so he may not be a candidate. Besides, he may not even be born yet, since we’re in the past, before Jenny became Your Mama (for example). Tracy Austin appears similarly stuck around the Blue Feather Sea, another BLUEF (since the variant name is Bluefeather, pronounced BLU-fe-ter by some). But, again, it perhaps doesn’t matter since she may also not be born. Think that about covers it. Oh, I guess I should explain more about the Man About Time/Marcus Fox Smart/Professor Suckaluck triangle. But I might not have time tonight. Have to get to Tillie and Tealy!

—–

“What are you doing?” Tillie questioned her fellow, colorful travel mate.

“Calisthenics. What does it look like?”

Tillie faces the yawning gap again. “Yes,” she agreed, pondering doing some stretches herself. “Looks like we have a longer journey than anticipated.”

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privacy

The 3rd night, Jim  (A.) Brown came down from Pipersville to hear his home duo. Owner of Jim’s Club of course, the one everybody dug in Pipersville. Well,  he got an earful; realized he couldn’t hold on to them and they would outgrow the bounds of his small venue. “Soon enough you’ll be playing places like the Seraph Club on the opposite side of town,” he declared to Keith afterwards at the bar, who was still wiping his forehead from the excitement. Jenny had gone shopping for trinkets up in Chinatown.

“Yeah, maybe,” Keith agreed, nodding. “I don’t know, I don’t know. Something’s just — *entered* me all of a sudden. He looks back at the drum kit and the circle within the circle. “I feel like (he turns back to Jim), that I’m in a different place now.”

“I would advise you to remember The Room — where you come from.”

“I mean, ahem, that’s kind of what I’m doing.” He swigs his drink again. Martini. Dry as a sinkhole.

“What about the maths? What about the theorems we worked on? You know that Sink X can’t actually be a sink. None of the Maebaleia depressions are. We’ve *proved* it.”

“Shush,” he motioned with his mouth and hands. “Keep it down.” He looked around to see if anyone else from Pipersville was in the room with them by chance. No one spotted. Todd A., who also came down this fateful night, was escorting Jenny around. But that was their plan all along: to leave Brown and Bower together for a while for a man to man talk. Because Jim and Todd knew what was going on before they arrived. The Brown-Bower experiments hadn’t even existed before this.

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repatriation

“So it was actually the very next night the drums changed over. To the celebrated circle within a circle.”

“Yes,” states Biff Carter, still drinking and explaining at the bar. “They were celebrity spotting in that small park outside the Seraph Club on the other side of town, the *uptown* area, when Jenny noticed the poster.”

—–

“Hey dad. You’re more into British stuff than American, aren’t you? More Union Jack than Stars and Stripes?”

“Sure, baby. If we were in Real Life.”

She pointed above her father. “What about *that* for a logo, then?”

—–

“And, as you can hear, there’s improvement even in the drumming tonight. The symbol actually makes the man in this case. He’s entered his ascent. And, sadly, this trajectory would eventually cross his equally ascending daughter’s at the Room.”

“Back to the Room, then.”

“Sure, baby. I mean — just sure.”

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two three

“So they began playing together, even touring together away from Pipersville, the home base. Daughter and father; Jenny and Keith they were called in the days. Well, Keith never changed his name. Jenny, of course, became Your Mama.”

“Of course,” I replied to Detective Biff Carter. Because he was an officer of the law no more. Not since Oakley. But who am I? Just an observer for now. Call me Smart. Like a Fox. Clever, even. Back to Biff…

“I was here when they played their first gig away from home. Sitting right at this bar listening in. Oh that woman, that *girl* at the time, could sing. And Keith. Well, he was adequate on drums. Never guess he’d eventually become a member of a major rock band, let’s say. And, as you can see, he’s still got the star on the drums; hadn’t got rid of that yet.”

I peered over at the illusion on the Cassandra City stage. Keith B., bank employee of Pipersville whose boss recently told him to keep daughter Jenny out of that room at all cost. So he went into the garage, found the drum kit buried under a heap of old moss. Pulled it out, dusted it off. Practiced. Here we are.

Biff Carter stared over at me. “I’m glad I found the Man About Time, even if it didn’t turn out the way I expected.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. I decided to test my new catchphrase. “There’s a Sucka born every half century.”

“Overlap,” he replied, nodding. “Good idea. Train the replacement.”

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past 03

“Before you go, Keith, a word about your daughter.”

“Jenny?” Keith laughs nervously. “What’s she been up to *now*, hee?”

“Nothing that she hasn’t been up to the past 3 months. Listen. Just keep her out of your room, okay? That’s *your* room. She shouldn’t have the keys.”

“She doesn’t,” Keith defended himself. “She just knows the code. She found out somehow.”

“The code is just between *us*, Keith.”

“I know, I know. She just… found out. I don’t know how. Maybe Jim.”

“Tell her that there’s spooks down there,” Todd A. then requested. “Tell her, heck, tell her the truth and that you use to, well, you know…”

“I know.” Keith B. knew that Todd A. was joking with this.

“Change the locks. Change the code.”

“We can’t do that,” Keith deadpanned back. “You know we can’t do that.”

“There’s one other option.” Todd A. leaned back. “You say… she has a beautiful singing voice.”

“Yeah. So?”

“Let’s hit her on the head with a reality pipe. We, the *bank*, will give you a home in the middle of just completed Sandpiper Court.”

Keith shook his head then put his hands on his hips, indignant. “*Really*? You know that’s out of the Fantasy Zone. How will we dream?”

“That’s the price. It’s either that in (the bank’s) estimation. Or the truth about the room. Your truth.”

Keith exhaled loudly, then laughed nervously again, shifting his feet in place. After a pause he threw up his hands. “*Okay*.”

“Great,” exuded Todd A. “And you can keep your job at the bank. It’s too good of a cover.”

(to be continued?)

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