00450201 (stone’s throw away from something)
“Shoot man, you don’t know *nothing* about Doggtown, choom. Buy something from a poor ol’ peddler of junk and I’ll tell you all the places to go, not to go. Mainly the latter because there’re so many of *those* around, huh.”
“What’s with all the flamingos around here?”
“Don’t get me started (!). Flamingos been around since before the beginning. Killed all the birds within a 10 miles radius of town because of that a-vi-ar-y flu, you know. No flamingos around any more. They’re ghosts. Heck, *I’m* a ghost. Anyway…”
This is Ronald. He mentioned business being down because the whole town is chasing after a VIP named Roslyn (sp?) whose plane crashed nearby. The flamingo perpetually behind his head is colored pink, which is close to lavender. Another thing we are close to, then, is Twin Peaks. Only a reference to Northern Exposure in some way remains to seal the deal. I’ll keep looking.
00450202
Just enjoying a drink beside some pretty fluttering butterflies at Pan Estates Regional Center while waiting for my ordered money to be deposited into my account so I can pay my rent for the week. Yeah, I still have my Aisle of Palms virtual village set up in Mugunghwa over on the Jeogeot continent. Can’t quite seem to let go of it. Next decision date is 12/16/24 — next Monday. Maybe I should start saving my builds over there earlier so the decision will come easier. Because I have to derezz the place. Don’t I? I think I do. The Baker Family of (Our Second Lyfe) avatars is already spending the money I’ll save. Well, Wheeler is spending the money. More expensive furnishings in her new, basically free house in lower upper left right central Nautilus. “Let’s hope it stays longer this time,” were the last words I’ve heard from her about it. Edward D. is over there too. They bought some kind of crazy bookshelf, he said to me the last time I checked in with him as well. Tends to deform their bodies with its built-in crazy animations like martial arts, zombies, and drunkenness, he said, so they might have to send it back. Said they also bought a barrel of fairly expensive wine from somewhere called Touisant, but I knew this was a lie. Wine, yes. Barrel, yes. But not from that place with the Witcher. Not really.
Well the money shows up online but not in my in game account. Looks like I’ll have to log out and then back in to get the cash. Goodbye for now!
00450203 (doing The Flamingo)
Art is sort of a decentralized, collective thing. Like, art is kind of a conversation with all the artists that have ever lived before you. You know, like it’s like you’re really just sort of its — it’s not like anyone’s reinventing the wheel here. Like, you’re kind of just taking, you know, thousands of years of art and, like, running it through your own little algorithm and then, like, making your interpretation of it.
“Pyramid. Know anything about it?”
“Ground floor’s open to everyone, choom. Called The Heavy Hearts Club — more to that name than meets the eye, huh — never thought about it like that.” He shakes his head, then refocuses. “But those top floors: only VIPs, the gold plated ones, huh. The ones gifted – by – the – Goooodds. And sitting at the very top like a huge glinting eye… well, um *hum*. What, child of mine, do you know about the *Suun*?”
“I– dunno, choom. Tell me about it.” I glanced at the flamingo behind his head again, knew we were entering some deeper waters. Those long legs might come in handy after all.
“I mean, *huh*. Are you a true *believer*? Or are you just a pretender, a wannabe worshipper with his religious mofo diapers still on and sh-tting those mere *mortal* bricks. Not the yellow ones, the golden eggs. You have to sh-t the golden eggs to be the chosen. Otherwise, you’re a wor*shitter*, ha. See what I just did there? Okay, okay,” he admits. “Not my best one. But you better believe the other parts are true. There is a shining eye at the top, choom. A shining — eyyyyye. You look into it, you better damn well be one of those chosen ones, hmph. Or else,” and he extends two fingers and pokes at his own eyes to demonstrate. “He takes your *two* to make his *ONE*, *huh* — you know what I’m saying?”
I figured I’d gotten enough out of *this* one, obviously also blinded by his own ambition. Top notch runner in his day, he explained before, only to have his body reject the new cybernetics. Another casualty of Fiona’s School for the Gifted and the Damned, as he put it. Just like that Linda boxer across the way he also told me a story about. Typhoon Ronald indeed. Living inside a past glory, old memories drowning out the present. He can’t even see what’s right behind him.
“Welp,” I said, taking one last look at the neon pink flamingo then turning toward the pyramid. “Guess it’s time to head over and see for myself.”
“Gold – plated – *sh-t*,” he ended, shaking his head again and laughing and waving me off.
Start with the ground floor, yeah. Have conversations with everyone while working my way to the top. Become a little algorithmic of all that’s ever been. Gold plated.
(to be continued)
00450204
I parked on pink which matched the color of my Villefort Alvarado 570 De Luxe Convertible — appropriate. Lizzy’s own even larger and more expensive gold plated wheels to match her body was already there, blocking off the parking lot as, in turn, I just blocked her in. As if she owned the place. And perhaps she does. Let’s listen in…
“So. Are you suppose to be Tin or Lead now, Lizzy? I always forget.” Sarcasm. Bitter. Evelyn hates Lizzy, Tin or not. She hates this bar too. She hates everything but that’s beside the point. Lizzy is the focus of that hate right now. Lizzy and (her?) Lizzies. Let’s continue to listen in…
“I’m going to answer that with a riddle, Evelyn. Ready? What’s blue and bitter and a hard pill to swallow whatever?”
“Jeez,” says thoughtful Evelyn, game for a game. “Let me see, Iiii–”
“It’s YOU. You hate everything. I just happen to be the focus of that hate right now.” Just as I thought. And I forgot that Tin is silver-ish not gold now. She’d changed with her last album about alchemy, “Coleman County Corners” or something. Country? (origin). Let’s go with France. 1/2 of the songs are set in such. There’s a really interesting one about the Eiffel Tower and how gold statuettes of the famous monument were mixed up with the ordinary lead ones by 2 thieves attempting to corner a market, but that’s another story involving Lavender. Best to leave Lavender out of it for now. Let’s stick to pink. Back to the action…
Well, they’re slapping each other now in a kind of continuous way. Both are getting a bit red cheeked already. This may not end well, may end with one of them, perhaps both of them dropping to the ground. Should I step in? I decide to step in.
“*Ladies*,” I tried to calm, walking toward them. “Ladies ladies *ladies*.” *Smack* *smack*. I was down on the ground with a double to the face, ears bloodied on both sides. I drain the blood out of at least my left ear to try to continue hearing what’s going on.
“*Right* here. *Right* now,” Lizzy was saying now about a duel, slapping ceased for the moment with my downfall. Oh dear, this was getting worse instead of better. “*10* paces. Live grenades.” Live grenades? I think with my aching head. Surely she jests. “Make it bombs, atomic bombs,” Evelyn upped the ante. “World extermination if you lose, world extermination if I lose.” Where in hell was this going?
(to be continued)
00450205
I came here looking for a ring.
—–
“Well? Answer it.”
“Hallo?”
“So you’re a man,” he answered on the other end of the line. Brusk; kind of hoarse. “Nomad?” he followed.
“Corpo.”
“Aw sh-t. I was hoping you’d be a Nomad.”
“Well I’m not. So what can I do you for.”
“*You*. You do for *me*.”
“Okay. Think that’s what I said. But, what’re you asking?”
“I need to find… The Flaringo.”
“Ringo?”
“Close enough (*click*).”
*Brinngg bringg*. Just like that. Another call coming in.
“Well?” said Jonny again by my side.
Then this when I answered: “It’s me again. Just want to let you know it was Jonny all along.” Same affected voice, pheh. Ventriloquist. What a clown!
“So when is my actual contact suppose to call, huh?” I say exasperatedly.
“Not until tomorrow,” he said in his normal voice now, hand lowered. “In the excitement of a new town you forgot what day it was. I was just playing along. Using my, ahem, peculiar talents.”
I sighed deeply, understanding we’d have to stay one more night in that hovel of a room at the top of the pyramid Ronald recommended.
“So let’s grab some lunch. You’re buying.”
“Right Jonny, right,” I replied while walking away from the phone with him, my hallucinatory other half now.
Lemon Lime Apple Blueberry would have to wait.
00450206
He said to meet him at the Andrew Johnson Basketball Courts and that they had to talk about the worst president of our country ever. I thought I knew who he was referencing because of the courts’ name and all but the answer surprised me. Roslyn (sp?) Carter. Carter? No, Meyers. Got my presidents and their wives confused. Like thinking Roslyn C. was married to former president Ronald R. instead of her own man. Lavender got in my way. “Tailor,” he said about the president. Are we sure we’re not talking about the first guy I was thinking of? I thought. “(Tailor… ) *made* for the job,” he then finished his sentence, interrupted for a cough. Had a chance to smoke out here in the great outdoors, taking advantage of it. “Tailor… *made*?” I parroted, then waited for his reaction. He was coughing again. Between hacks, he managed to admit that he hadn’t smoked any cigs since last Thursday’s Tuesday and that it had been a long stretch of inside work since then. Nonstop. “Just like I use to smoke nonstop on my old job as an outdoor patrolman,” he wheezed. Then he squeezed out, “We have to get to Meyers,” which I took as: this has to be the focus of our conversation now. But he couldn’t stop coughing after this. Clearly we couldn’t talk here. He gave me an address for later.
00450207
Who is the hatted giant on the edge of the Badlands screaming his lungs out when summoned by a certain succession of loudly whistled notes?
Does he also have a burning crotch like our similarly screaming Burning Man 02 seen earlier in this here photo-novel? Or in danger of self combustion like BM 01 from that same post back there? Or does he just not like the tune? Maybe the mystery lies in it instead. Maybe, if we were also a giant trapped on the edge of a cyperpunk distopia, we would also not appreciate the whincily high pitched tune imposed on us; would be painful to our ears. Is it Barry Manilow like for this poor fellow in Hell from the 80s British comedy series “The Young Ones”?
Just random thoughts. Could be wrong on everything, including even the appearance of the giant in the first place. Might be just one of those desert mirages. Could be photoshopped. Could be a real giant but in a different, “edge” location, maybe even up in the real world as opposed to the virtual one down here (Hell too?). We’ll see if he figures into these here photo-novels ever again. Only then might we be sure.
00450208
“Seems like you’re off the cigs now,” I said as he got in the car. Which just reminded him of his habit.
“We’re still technically outside in here,” he said. “Mind if I light up?” and he did so before I could give him permission, which I was still debating about. I didn’t want this meeting to go like the last one. I needed answers. He puffed out, coughed, took a drag, puffed out, coughed some more. The meeting was over in 5. He managed to scribble down another address and throw it through the open window as he was leaving, almost doubled over by that time.
—–
It was the address to Meyers’ room further up into the bowels of the town, as it turned out, where she was imprisoned by a certain set of others. Let’s call them Jimmy and Nancy. He met me at the door, said he was tired of monkeying around and that we had to get to the heart of the problem. We were inside again so he couldn’t partake of his chief vice, which freed up his hands. But freeing Meyers was the main thing here, whose VIP plane crashed into this here Doggtown, scourge of Nightsity, day before yesterday’s yesterday, which drew me in in an unwitting way, being the veteraned, for-hire gunslinger I was. Once this was done and his responsibilities as a crack NUSA officer were over with the rescue, he said we could talk again, maybe take in a game at Andrew Johnson’s. He’d bet on me winning since he’d likely be out of breath again. Was this a date? Or just friendly banter to relax me before an armed confrontation? Turns out it was both.
“Knock on the door,” he commanded, becoming dead serious again. “Just do it.”
“Open up in there!” I said while knocking. Lucky for us, they were waiting for pizza. But Lemon knew this since he was playing the delivery person.
“*Here’s* your box,” he barked when the door opened, pointing his Pariah Tier 5+ Iconic Tech Pistol at Jimmy’s head, “and your face is about to be the pizza if you don’t fess up to what’s going on here. Where’s Roslyn… Bozo?,” he crowed, backing the wirey dude 1/2way across the room toward the far window.
Then Nancy appeared around the corner, saying to put our tools away like we were children playing with toys. I recognized her from her many photos and TV appearances. Nancy was Roslyn! Should’ve known with a name like that. And a Northern Exposure to this room too (!).
(to be continued)
00450209 (beginning)
“Welp. We’re here Jack. But I don’t see any signs of Princess Pinky Gumm.”
“Me neither,” answers the talking, upright dog, famous in almost all circles of children and most adult ones now along with his travelling partner. “But I suuure could use some of that candy inside there, he he.” And he proceeds to stretch out from his standing position to lick the big lollipop on the shop’s top, then complains that it needs more sugar. *Lots* more sugar.
“Ho ho,” laughs Fink his teenage human companion, supposedly the last of his kind. But we know better. “Get this, Jack. It’s a lollipop on top of a shop. So a lollishop, hu hu.”
“Or a lolli shop pop top where I hop to satisfy my chop.”
“Eh,” judges Fink. “I like mine better.”
“Me too,” Jack quickly agrees and then stretches out even more and swallows the whole shop in one huge gulp. “Yup, there’s candy inside! And, stand back, here comes the rest!”
—–
“Hey! Thanks a lot buddy!”
“Oh. Sorry, jeez,” says the now returned to normal sized Jack. “Forgot the powers of the BLEEEHH when I’m big, ha ha.”
“He he,” goes Fink, who’s quite all right despite being apparently crushed.
“But I saved the best for last.” And Jack produced the remaining half of the shop’s candy from beneath his tongue and extended it toward his human bro.
(to be continued)
00450210 (end)
“Warning warning. Destructive couple on the way from the west south north east central.”
Gotta get that internal compass fixed sometime, thinks Princess Pinky Gumm. But she knew it really didn’t matter. Here. “Okay, great candy sentry!” she shouts up. ” You continue to keep watch on the, er, *castle* while I try to meet them 1/2way!”
“No meeting those hell bent on destruction 1/2way,” booms down the sentry. “I sense… the death of candy. Split in two.” And here candy sentry splits himself in two for a brief moment to illustrate his point.
Princess Pinky didn’t explain that by 1/2 way she meant space not negotiating tactics. Candy sentry was rather simple that way. Fixed on things in a pretty one dimensional manner. But the death of candy? What was going on here?
00450211 (middle)
“I’m going to have to land here and refuel at this halfway point buddy, in that I’m going to have to eat something! Sugar’s great but the energy runs out quick! Hey?!” he says, not hearing anything from the rear. “You all right back there?! Still with me I hope,” he said more under his breath, remembering the loop-de-loop they had to do to get away from the Vortex Monsters at Mt. Granny on the eastern side of the continent, this Nautilus that also was part of a hypercube of some dimension, some dimension indeed. But the hypercube shape was also the way Princess Pinky Gumm knew where they were all along. Just travel in any direction to 1/2way where you want to be and there you are.
“Yeah. I’m still here.” Fink was a little dizzy but otherwise fine from the adventure so far. “Warm and cozy curled up inside your big doggy belly, ho ho.”
“Yeah, but it’s time to let you go. HUUU WAAAAA!”
“Another really gross moment, Jack! YUCK,” says Fink, now expelled behind the plane and watching Jack shrink back to his regular size and shape before him. He shakes himself dry of the intestinal juice — he *hopes* it’s just intestinal juice — and stands up.
Perfect timing, because just then Princess Pinky Gumm arrives in her gummmobile — er, gummobile. Pink in color obviously, like herself. “Fink, Jack! So it’s *you*.”
“Yeah,” says Jack nonchalantly. “I guess we’ve returned or something.”
“*10* years, fellows. 10… YEARS. Where on God’s pink Earth have you been?”
“Umm,” says Fink, scratching his head.
“Err,” says Jack, scratching somewhere else.
(to be continued)
00450212
“I came into the small town on the Jeogeot continent as a plane, soon to be a dog again. I could pick up on my driver’s thoughts since we were, you know, kind of one and all flying in. Her name was Rose. Or Emily. Both at once somehow.” His brain hurt again. Princess Pinky Gumm and Fink and he had been at it for one hour. The grilling, the grilling! The ol’ dog can’t take much more, I sense.
“You said 5 years, Jack. You said you’d been with her for 5 years. That accounts for *1/2* of what we need. We’ll get to you, Fink, soon.” Here she points to the teenage human sitting beside the orange, human child sized dog in her castle in the center of everything.
“Yeah, she bought me on a lark then. Or so her thoughts told me. I personally don’t remember it, huh. Soon as I entered the town.”
“She jumped out the plane when landing.”
“Yeah, *I* landed that plane safely. Not her.”
“Right, okay, but you separated from her. What happened next?”
“Well, Fink walks up. Just out of the blue. Didn’t you Fink? What had it been? 5 years?”
Aha! thinks the princess, hearing that amount of time again. “I guess,” answers the teenage human about the same, trying to remember. Hard. Wasn’t quite working yet. Good Jack went first, he thinks. He scratches his head again.
“Yeah, Fink was with me, by my side just like old times. Then we spotted the Candy Shoppe on the edge of town. Figured you might be within. Since it was, I don’t know, candy or filled with candy and you’re the ruler of candy and all. I guess.”
“Sooo, where does the castle fit in?”
“*Your* castle?” speaks up Fink, looking straight at her.
*My* castle? thinks the princess, staring straight back. Jack’s time to scratch again.
(to be continued)
00450213
Unexpectant, tree-house topping Fern was apparently consumed by the pink, the candy, massing up from below.
Flying mastermind Constance looks down at all the chaos, topped herself by a beanie of the 4 sacred colors looking very much like our Badlands and Tibetian umbrellas from earlier posts of this here photo-novel. Has she harnessed their vast combined powers for evil instead of good? Mighty good guess.
Similarly green, jumpjacking Fern in the basement of our new Nautilus “castle” digs emphasizes that she’s not *this* Fern and that she’s fine, then starts to have second thoughts as 9 turns into 10 as the exercising continues. Think about what could happen when she gets to 45!
00450214
Princess Pinky Gumm had turned her grilling attention now to Fink. “So when did you first meet Fern?” she asked, knowing this was the current crux of the problem. They were still in the basement of her, ahem, castle. She didn’t like to call it a dungeon, although she knew these 2 couldn’t leave until she got some satisfactory answers, banana guards posted at the back front side and side doors. She understood about the 5 and 5 times to make 10 — that added up. She needed to know about the other, the double.
“It was across the sprawling body of Susan,” he explained. “I just looked over the top and there he was. Like me! Except, er, he was a square, and I was a circle.”
“Faces,” clarified Jack for deeply pondering Fink.
“Yeah. And green of course. He came from the grassy sword I found early. That sword combined with my ordinary one to make…” He stopped. He couldn’t continue any longer. The transference had not been complete.
(to be continued)
00450215 (beginning)
“So let’s start with the doppelganger, the green one.”
“Fern.”
“Welll.”
—–
“We first have to get to rhythm and pitch. Opposites. Remove pitch and you still have rhythm. Remove rhythm and you still have pitch. Keyboards (which I play) are pitch. Drums (which he plays) are rhythm.”
“Okay. Good start.”
“These are the musical differences, stark right up front. But then dig just a little deeper and you have similarities within these differences. The Kinks represented the first bonding point, before Bowie.”
“Right.”
“And we liked the same albums by The Kinks. Unlike the guy who worked for Norwegian.”
“Yes, he liked ‘Arthur’ and ‘Muswell Hillbillies.’ You liked ‘Village Green Preservation Society’ and ‘Lola Vs. Powerman’. These albums all line up 4 in a row from ’68 to ’71 (their ‘golden years’, along with ‘Face to Face’ from ’67), subtract the ’70 soundtrack ‘Percy,’ which was considered a more minor work.”
“Right. And my doppelganger also liked ‘Village’ and ‘Lola’. And he expressed difficulty getting into ‘Arthur’ without my prompting. *I* had difficulty getting into ‘Arthur.’ And as I recall we both really dug ‘Village.’ Hard to say they made a better album, although I perhaps like some of the individual songs more on ‘Lola’ than any on ‘Village.’ ‘Village’ is, in a way, a perfect rock album. Better than ‘Sgt. Pepper’s’ I would venture.”
“Yes, so that was kind of an original link. Now you must ask: why? Why the mutual attraction to The Kinks and even the same albums, unlike that dude who worked for Norwegian?”
“The guy who worked for Norwegian represented a contrast. To instead show the similarities between my doppelganger and myself, and how it could be different. We *speak* very easily.”
“Yes, so we have a foothold. Now move to Bowie (and others).”
(to be continued)
00450216 (end (430 (words)))
“This would have probably been Fall 2015, or maybe even back to Spring 2015. But probably Fall 2015. Or even Winter 2015, or at least before the death of Bowie in Jan. 2016. This started several things. It, in a way, started the photo-novels themselves. Bowie *came* to Our Second Life and its Collagesity for a visit on his way to other destinations. This happened right after his death. He flirted with Baker Blinker, even propositioned her to go with him to the stars and leave Collagesity. This would have, of course, null and voided her relationship with Karoz Blogger (occurring just afterwards), so crucial not only to photo-novel 01 but all the photo-novels to come. They may *not* have come, you see.”
“I see.”
“Your double played a part in this. You synchronize further over the death of Bowie and the release of his last album, ‘Black Star’. Playing it right after Bowie’s death, you were amazed at its depth, how good the music was. You’d only known Bowie through his singles before this. Thus the can was opened to explore his oeuvre in a much more thorough way, which you did over the next several years. And your double went right along with you in a way, reliving his own appreciation of the Thin White Duke. After ‘Black Star’, you then moved to ‘The Next Day’, his previous album. As you told your double, there’s not a weak song on the album, which he agreed with. You also gave him a copy of ‘Black Star’ which he didn’t have. More synchronization. You were kind of moving as one. Or at least so you thought.”
“I thought?”
“Even at the start, you were not as synchronized as you thought at the time. You were a damaged soul by then. Your double represented a light in relative darkness, someone you connected to. You, in a way, in a strong way maybe, needed him more than he needed you. He had enough friends. Maybe he had *too* many friends, too many connections. You didn’t have enough, he had too many. And he had ambitions in the library, desired to be a major player there, which finally worked out for him by the time of your retirement in 3/1/22. The date is significant. It represents a place you separate from the double, are born *away* from him and back into your own sphere. You are on your own after that, just in terms of male friends. You thought you could continue that friendship beyond the library. But a wall was built at 3/1. (Photo-novel) 31 — remember that.”
“I will.”
(to be continued)
Sunklands 