Astral Assassins

Rossignol’s curious, albeit simply titled book, the Origins of a World War, spoke in terms of secret treaties, drawn up between the Ambassadors from Plutonia and Desdinova the foreign minister. These treaties founded a secret science from the stars. Astronomy. The career of evil.

—Sandy Pearlman, Blue Öyster Cult’s Secret Treaties

To the endless soundtrack of Burzum’s Filosofem, Randy considered his fate. He’d been up all night reading conspiracy theories. Again. His latest was a scintillating thrift-store paperback entitled Satan’s Assassins. Its front and back covers touted its vast inner wealth: “Thoroughly documented! All fact! Earthshaking evidence for a bold new theory: that history’s most notorious slayers have been controlled by the Occult...the only book that dares to suggest that a power from beyond may be dictating the murders of our public figures... and offers history’s documents to prove it... by internationally known experts on the occult.”

Publication date: 1971. Dedication: “To Jay Garon, who cares.”

A quick Google search revealed that Jay Garon was—probably—the literary agent who would later become famous for being only guy in the universe who called the phone number at the top of an unsolicited manuscript by an aspiring novelist named John Grisham. After adaptations of Grisham’s bestselling legal thrillers—The Firm, The Client, The Pelican Brief—hit the bright lights and big titties of Hollywood, Garon would, according to his obituary in the Baltimore Sun, “regularly negotiate multimillion-dollar movie rights for books Mr. Grisham hadn’t written yet.”

It all made perfect sense. To Randy, anyway. And Randy was one of those people for whom the dots always connected, even when they didn’t. Satan’s Assassins asserted, basically, that Charles Manson, Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan, Ramón Mercader (Leon Trotsky’s assassin), Chuck Guiteau (President James Garfield’s assassin) and other similarly positioned villains and/or patsies were the automatic agents of Satan. Well, duh.  In Randy’s world, both public figures and anonymous everymen sold their souls to the devil on a regular basis. These transactions were in no way figurative or metaphorical. These people spoke, out loud, with Lucifer himself. Hasty, often desperate negotiations took place. Concessions were made. Deals were cut. It was a routine exchange, like buying a loaf of bread. And that’s exactly why nobody in a position to expose the phenomenon—journalists, the government, academics, NASA—gave it a second thought. In fact, most of them had probably sold their own souls long ago. It was a closed circuit, a never-ending wheel.

Fuck them anyway, Randy thought. I’m keeping my soul no matter how bad shit gets. Even when the 9000-pound cock-hammer drops. And by Randy’s watch, the 9000-pound cock-hammer was due to drop any second. This is 2012, after all. The Mayans knew what was up. None of their prophecies were in any way bullshit or the result of sunstroke or some delayed after-effect of whatever mysterious herbs they were ingesting. No way.

There was something else, of course. There was always something else. Randy considered himself something of a virtuoso in the field of astral projection. He had discovered this ability by accident sometime in the late ’90s, when he left his body while masturbating and was able to achieve an aerial view of his own jerk-off session.  He got so excited by this startling development that his dopamine receptors misfired and he lost his erection. But by that point he didn’t care.

Randy started jacking it three times a day. By his count, he successfully embarked on at least one psychic voyage every few months. As a result, he’d seen a few things. Like the signing of the Magna Carta. Like the moon landing (which took place on a soundstage in Newark, just as he suspected). Like his own grandfather being conceived in an outhouse in Nebraska. Randy was also pretty sure he’d spoken at length with Carlos Castaneda somewhere in the Fifth Dimension. Or at least his soul had talked at a shadow that vaguely resembled Castaneda’s profile. At one point, Randy felt he had projected himself into the day room at Pleasant Valley State Prison and smoked weed with Sirhan Sirhan.

It was all part of what Randy understood as a collective consciousness. A lattice of coincidence. Satan’s Assassins was just another brick in the wall between himself and those who couldn’t or wouldn’t comprehend. Which was totally fine. There was no doubt in Randy’s mind who would prevail—who would achieve total consciousness—and who would languish in the stale, dark corners of perception. His path was clear: Onwards, upwards, astrally and forever. Or at least until the cock-hammer drops.

This bullshit originally appeared in the June 2012 issue of Decibel magazine.

Memorandum

31 August 2011

Attn: All crew, the Rock Never, Ever, Ever Stops Tour. Ever.

1) Let’s get this out of the way right off the bat: Those shitbirds up front can go get fucked. The band does not care how much the douche lords from Merrill Lynch paid for their tickets. It does not give them the right to throw half-full $15 beers at the band. It does not give them license to whip those shitty plastic “Gold Circle” champagne glasses at the band. When did we start serving champagne to these entitled pricks, anyway? Charging them an extra three bills for a bottle of bottom-shelf Moët might seem like good business to the geniuses over in accounting, but it’s just not worth the aggravation. So let’s consider the plug officially pulled on that score.

2) The backstage meet-and-greets need to be scaled back. WAY back. There are only so many greasy teenagers, toothless speed freaks and flat-assed soccor moms the band can be expected to cozy up to each night. The band have remarked on numerous occasions about the staggering array of pendulous Midwestern titties they’ve been compelled to autograph over the course of the last few months. Meanwhile, the radio stations seem to be bringing in the tweakers en masse. Not sure if ROXX 106 up in Boston is out trolling for them in their notorious “Pahty Wicked Hahd” van or if meth heads just have an abundance of downtime to call 1-800 numbers for free concert tickets. Either way, we need to institute some sort of profiling scheme before we haul all these dimwits backstage. Jimmy, please call your boy over at the TSA and see if he has any tips vis-à-vis this issue. Make sure to stress that we’re not particularly concerned about “sand niggers.”

3) You are all no doubt aware of the recent rash of collapsing outdoor stages. Cheap Trick and Blue Öyster Cult had a close one up in Ottawa recently. And then there was the tragedy at the Indiana State Fair last month. Needless to say, the band is understandably concerned about being decapitated—or worse—by falling stage rigging. We’ve got that big outdoor gig/wet t-shirt contest/demolition derby lined up for next week in Omaha with FireHouse and Big Daddy Don Garlits. Under normal circumstances we’d cancel, but let’s face it: We’ve all got child support payments to make here. As of right now, the only bright ideas our esteemed crew chief has come up with involve crossed fingers, four-leaf clovers and scratch tickets. We need a viable structural solution, post-haste.

4) Keep this one on the DL, but it is officially time to give Joey D. his own dressing room. He’ll think he’s finally getting the prima donna treatment he “deserves,” but the rest of the band are sick of him two-fingering all the catering before they even arrive at the venue. On more than one occasion, the band has discovered Joey backstage scooping handfuls of potato salad or Beef Stroganoff onto his plate with his bare hands.  Not only have they expressed their dismay and disgust at this situation directly to Joey, they have also pointed out the serving spoons that are almost always right next to the food.  Though he is unaware of it as of right now, the Joey D. solo dressing room plan goes into effect for the Tacoma show. Your discretion is appreciated.

England prevails,

The Management.

You've Been Caught In A Laugh Riot

Heavy metal comedy audition # 117

I just wanna begin by saying that it’s an honor to be here tonight at the Comedy Sack in Dubuque, where so many heavy metal comedy giants have graced the stage before me. I mean, wow. To think that right now I’m standing in the exact same spot where Chris Holmes, “Philthy” Phil Taylor and the really angry mustache dude from Mortician once busted guts? Amazing. Sensational. I can feel their aura of superb comic timing all around me, enveloping me like the folds of a warm va-jay-jay after a couple of Bacardi Breezes, thus fulfilling the two-drink minimum here at the Comedy Sack.  Thank you very much for having me. I’m just … wow. Okay, okay, I can see you’re eager for me to get this party started. 

Okay, okay, so I forget how this one goes, but it starts with, “Four white guys walk into a bar…” and the punch line is “Metallica.” I know, I know: You’re thinking, “What about Robert Trujillo? Isn’t he…?” Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. But trust me, the joke is hilarious.  

Okay, Okay, here’s another one: That Norwegian black metal dude, you know, the chubby one, he comes up me and goes, “Are you gonna finish that?” But before I can even figure out what he’s talking about (it’s chocolate cake), I punch him right in the balls. We all got a huge fucking belly laugh out of that one. See what I did there? Belly laugh? No?  Fuuuuuck. Tough room, dude.

Okay, okay, okay. I can see you’re running out of patience here. What about that other black metal dude, the one with the assault record and the gay boyfriend? What?  Too soon? Too insensitive? I wasn’t gonna make a gay joke. Just a joke about, you know, butt sex.  I figure butt sex is hilarious no matter who’s doing it. I mean, right? 

Okay, okay, okay. So you’re one of those sensitive crust-punk types. You’ve got your homemade His Hero Is Gone patches sewn onto your fourth-hand Canadian military jacket, and I can see you’ve got Fido there on a rope. You’d probably get your panties in a bunch if I made a joke about showers or, like, soap. Especially dropping the soap in the shower. So I feel like my hands are tied here. Kinda like how you’ve got Fido on that rope. I feel like you’re jerking me around and giving me mange at the same time. 

Okay, okay. I didn’t mean that. I swear. I’m just nervous ‘cause I really want the gig, you know? Did you ever see that old SNL skit, the one with Chris Farley and Patrick Swayze, and they’re at Chippendales auditions? That’s how I feel right now—fat and sweaty and shirtless. Only I’m not dead like those guys are… oh, c’mon! Too soon again? Those dudes have been gone for years now, man! 

Okay, okay. You into grindcore?  Okay, what do you get when you cross a grindcore vocalist with, like, a pit bull?  Can you guess?  A pit bull that won’t shut up!  No? Seriously? Fuuuuck, dude. I mean, I know I’m not the next Rodney Dangerfield or anything, but this shit is gold. Okay, maybe not gold.  Oh, it’s like cobalt?  Comedy cobalt? That’s hilarious, dude.  Yeah, I mean, what do you need me for? Or anyone else for that matter?  You should do the whole show by yourself. Dick.

This bullshit originally appeared in the October 2011 issue of Decibel magazine. 

Like Ebony & Ivory (Only Much, Much Worse)

We thought the final nail had been driven into Metallica’s jewel-encrusted coffin a long time ago, but when they announced their forthcoming album collaboration with Lou Reed, it became clear that we’d need a bigger hammer. And a shitload of extra nails. Unfortunately, certain veteran thrashers have apparently caught the latest mental illness that Lars and the boys seem to be suffering from. It’s like syphilis in that it starts with an ill-advised coupling followed by a hasty exchange of fluids and ends in severe delusions, painful lesions, and sadness.

Slayer & Sade – (This Is) No Ordinary Reign

Emboldened by their successful collaboration with Ice T on the Judgment Night soundtrack, Kerry King and company up the ante by cutting an album with the ’80s R&B nightingale who purred America to sleep at night with ubiquitous hits like “Smooth Operator” and “The Sweetest Taboo.” The unholy deal was sealed when Tom Araya rang up the British-Nigerian songstress after hearing that she covered a Thin Lizzy song during one of her concerts earlier this year. As it turns out, Sade is a massive Slayer fan who thinks Seasons In The Abyss is the band’s finest hour. “I never understood why Reign In Blood is the one that everybody sweats,” she recently told Decibel. “I mean, ‘Dead Skin Mask’ is the fucking tits, am I wrong?”

Megadeth & Jackson Browne – So Far, So Good… Sew Buttons!

For once, MegaDave beats his old bandmates to the limp-wristed punch by finding someone even more lame to work with than Lou Reed. What started as a duet of “Running On Empty” –eventually discarded for the severely under-appreciated “Somebody’s Baby” from the Fast Times At Ridgemont High soundtrack—turned into a 78-minute full-length featuring a guest shot from Glenn Frey, 400 cases of red wine, and a long-lost piano track contributed by the estate of the late, great Warren Zevon. Suck on THAT, Lars!

Anthrax & Meat Loaf – Fistful Of Meatloaf

Though their work with Public Enemy on “Bring Tha Noize” resulted in one of the few rap-rock unions that doesn’t completely blow dead dogs for quarters, Anthrax never could leave well enough alone. Or pass up the opportunity to work with The Loaf, especially now that Scott Ian is having a kid with his daughter. (Meat Loaf’s daughter, that is—not his own daughter. That would be fucked up.) Unsurprisingly, the band’s collabo with the artist formerly known as Marvin Lee Aday on “Paradise By The Dashboard Light” is third-rate and tepid when compared to similarly bloated AOR hits covered by the rest of the Big Four. Plus, Joey Belladonna totally butchers all of Ellen Foley’s lines.

Testament & James Taylor – Live at Tanglewood (Bootleg)

Inspired and invigorated by one too many midnight viewings of Two-Lane Blacktop, Chuck Billy decided to find out just how boring a James Taylor concert could really be. The answer? Really, really fucking boring. And yet it didn’t stop him from getting shitfaced on wine spritzers and singing along to “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” with all the semi-retired investment bankers and their summer-cottage mistresses. Billy even braved the lactating throng of 60-year old dental hygienists to sneak backstage and meet Taylor in person. Their conversation—and impromptu renditions of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Taylor’s “Fire and Rain” and Testament’s “Return To Serenity”—were surreptitiously recorded by a member of Taylor’s road crew, who reportedly sold the mp3 files to “the Internet” for “big, big money.”

This bullshit originally appeared in the September 2011 issue of Decibel magazine.

Last In Line

May you live in interesting times

—Ancient Chinese curse

Laruss Trumbo pointed his binoculars out the window of his office on the 13^th floor and saw nothing but gray skies, empty streets, and fire. The first three plagues—blood, frogs and flies—had arrived according to schedule. He had been expecting the locusts since Thursday, but they had not materialized. He was not looking forward to the pestilence or the incurable boils. On top of this there was the slug problem: Giant, man-eating slugs.

He had been holed up in his office for nearly two weeks, living off of his personal stockpile of protein bars and the myriad foodstuffs he had managed to scavenge from the office cafeteria. As the massive carnivorous slugs trailed their hideous mucous across his beloved city, Trumbo read back issues of Everglades Enthusiast magazine and listened to Slayer’s Hell Awaits on repeat. He clung to the lingering hope that someone was still out there, and that that someone, whomever they might be, would rescue him before the incurable boils spread across his pasty flesh in hot carbuncles of purple, festering misery.

Laruss had not left his office since Monday, when in an attempt to make an end-run for the bathroom, he saw one of the slugs feeding on the inanimate corpse of his (former) co-worker Sawney Beane. Old Sawney’s eyeballs were rolled back in his head as if he were getting some perverse pleasure out of being slowly masticated by the gargantuan green mollusk while it secreted its viscid glaze all over what was left of his ruined forehead. Laruss couldn’t be sure if the slug had spotted him—or even if the repulsive creatures had eyes.

His last chance at freedom had come and gone when Lacey Underall had tried to pry open the revolving door for him just hours after the first plague struck. Somehow, she clambered over the heaving pile of co-workers clogging the building’s main entrance and made it outside. She stretched her thin arm back through the door in an attempt to hold a narrow opening for him, but the weight was too much. Her forearm snapped off below the elbow mere seconds before she was washed away in an ocean of blood.

Laruss felt in his pocket for Lacey’s Claddagh ring, which he had removed from her severed but still delicate hand. He remembered wistfully that the heart had been facing her fingertip. They had exchanged lingering glances in the elevator for months and even enjoyed a brief flirtation at the office Christmas party back in December. Of course, Laruss had never quite mustered up the courage to ask her out for a drink. And now… well, now it seemed like his window for relationship opportunities was closing fast. The inane prophecies of the sandwich-board crazies down on State Street had been shockingly accurate, right down to the self-aborting fetuses that now streaked the floors of St. Elizabeth’s maternity ward with a thick coat of gore.

It was Wednesday afternoon when the voice from the heating vent spoke to him. Laruss was stretched out on the floor, trying to sleep but really just sobbing softly to himself. At first, he thought he was hallucinating. His food reserves had become increasingly sparse, so he had been steeling himself for this phase of the starvation process. The voice began by whispering incoherently under its breath, punctuating each stream of gibberish with an exceptionally forceful “Look out!” Eventually, it addressed him directly.

“Trumboooooow,” the voice hissed. “Help us, Trumboooooow. You are the only one capable of making these adjustments.”

Laruss ignored the voice. There was no way this was actually happening to him in real life. Not like the blood and the flies and the… giant man-eating slugs. Okay, fine: “Leave me alone,” he ventured, covering his eyes with the crook of his arm. “Go away.”

“Don’t leave us here, Trumboooow. We need you.”

“No one needs me anymore,” Laruss sniffled. “Everybody’s dead.”

He turned to face the vent: “Who are you, anyway?”

“I think you know, Trumboooow.”

“No, I don’t,” he sighed, wiping away a tear. “I really don’t. Just tell me.”

“It’s Ronnie James.”

“Ronnie?”

Laruss yanked his trusty Leatherman out of his briefcase and unscrewed the grating from the wall. Once removed, he peered into infinite blackness. Slowly, he reached into the opening. “Hello? Ronnie?”

His arm followed, until it was in up to the shoulder. He grabbed fistfuls of stale air in every direction. “Ronnie?”

Laruss stuck his head through the opening, followed by the other arm. He couldn’t see an inch in front of his face. He heard a strange howling sound somewhere below him. And, like, a bass line. A very familiar bass line.

“Awww, look out!”

Laruss turned toward the sound and found himself upright in total darkness. He grasped for a handhold, but could find nothing. He wasn’t even sure if there was ground beneath his feet. “Ronnie?”

The white light that Laruss had suspected was coming finally came. It was small at first, but grew slowly as it approached. In it, he could make out a figure walking toward him, a small figure carrying what looked like a sword. Laruss reached into his pocket and felt for the Claddagh ring. It was still there. Calmly, he walked toward the light.

This bullshit originally appeared in the August 2011 issue of Decibel magazine.

Czech Out Time Is Now

In Brno, the streets run fluorescent yellow with last night’s drunken pee, those untold gallons of Red Bull & vodka hastily consumed and just as hastily evacuated, like God’s own water (40%abl) back when Noah built the Big Boat. By all indications, Brno is the Czech Republic’s version of a college town, and—according to the Internet and our trusty driver/tour manager/German translator Roland “I Make Zee Business Now” Bergner—the second-largest city in the country. Decibel is here because we’re rolling with Black Math Horseman on their triumphant 2010 US tour, rescheduled for 2011 due to last year’s Icelandic volcanothatcannotbenamed. Which makes it April 6, 2011, to be exact.

When we first pull up to the Melodka and eyeball the mural of cartoon hockey players on the façade and the gaggle of small children in actual hockey pads gunning down butts, Soviet style, out front, we’re convinced that the band would be playing a very large, very cold room with Plexiglass walls. As it turns out, the bottom floor of the Melodka is a hockey-themed diner, which is a phenomenon Decibel had never even contemplated in our wildest nightmares, much less encountered in real life. The upstairs bar/venue is separated from the diner by an excessively steep flight of stairs and a metal security gate that opens via electronic buzzer, pawnshop-style, by an especially bored-looking power-slag with magenta hair huffing roll-your-owns by the bar.

Outside, the poster for the show proclaims that Black Math Horseman play “in the style of Tool and Isis.” We all share a hearty group chuckle at that one, but Decibel secretly admires the promoter’s ability to do his job and be completely full of shit at the same time. Which pretty much sums up the dude’s entire work ethic when he turns up to greet us, all five-foot-nothing of him in a Baroness Blue Record t-shirt. But his English is way better than our Czech and he’s secured almost everything on the band’s rider, so his weasel-like nature goes largely ignored for the time being. He even pays BMH in advance, which turns out to be a tacit admission of just how totally fucking hammered and rip-roaring high he plans on getting later in the night.

Despite their absolutely terrible name, local openers Five Seconds To Leave turn out to be surprisingly awesome. And then Black Math play their finest show of the tour thus far while debuting the moody, apocalyptic visuals vocalist/bassist Sera Timms assembled for the band’s upcoming appearance at Roadburn. After the show, the promoter clinks his glass with a soup spoon and addresses the whole bar with a brief but triumphant speech in Czech that everyone seems to approve of. Later on, backstage and shitfaced, he tells Black Math they were better than when he saw Tool in Prague that one time.

And then the trouble starts.

At the beginning of the night, the promoter had handed Roland three sets of keys on pink plastic keychains, each to a room at a supposedly nearby hostel where the six of us—band, Decibel and Roland—were to stay that night. What he hadn’t done is told us how to get there. And by the time he finished slurring in two languages about how he could never listen to Tool again, he was in no shape to offer coherent directions to the Melodka’s bar, much less the hostel. So Roland does the natural thing and asks him to walk us there. But the promoter straight up refuses, says he’s too drunk and that it’s easy to get there, and that we just need to go up the block and take a right and a left and a right. Only he points left when he says right and points straight when he says left. By now it’s nearly 3AM and we’re out in front of the club. The promoter is surrounded by his boys, who are clearly wishing that the pesky Americans would piss off so they and their promoter friend can all keep pouring beers into their faces elsewhere. (As it turns out, some of the bars in Brno never close, ever.)

This is when Decibel decides to implement our time-honored behavior modification program in which we express—through nothing more than a calm tone of voice, the placing of hands firmly on the promoter’s slumped shoulders, and severely direct eye contact—that he really should walk us to the hostel, since we’re from out of town and all and he really wouldn’t want us to get lost and/or accosted by the local criminal element, would he? At which point our man finally relents, sloughing off into the Brno night with us while his shitty brosephs shout Czech epithets that none of us fail to understand.

So begins the long, brutally silent walk toward what we assume is the hostel. For a brief moment, it occurs to Decibel that our new friend might point us down a decidedly unfriendly alley in which we might be beaten, raped and relieved of our internal organs. But instead he leads us to a dingy hangover palace with no running water and a hooker bar on the bottom floor, the kind of steaming hot-sheet shit-hole that typically rents rooms in 15-minute blocks. And surprise, surprise: the keys he gave us actually work. We bed down fully clothed and armed to the teeth, humming “Sweet Chariot” until the Brno dawn finally consumes us.

This bullshit originally appeared in the July 2011 issue of Decibel magazine.

A Night At The Toolbox

Valdas Paskas was doing his usual Tuesday night thing down at the Toolbox in Pembroke Pines, watching the sailor boys dance and listening to Slayer. He sipped his cranberry-and-soda and contemplated the unnerving events of the past week: the mysterious hang-up calls from unlisted numbers; the unmarked Crown Vic idling across the street from his chalet at all hours; the sudden freezing of his money-market account at the credit union in Davie; the notion that, though he wasn’t getting any richer, he certainly didn’t seem to be getting any younger. Also, the general feeling of malaise and perpetual exhaustion that seemed to embrace him like the folds of a wet ham that was about to be nuked gray and served for dinner with a side of powered potatoes and a hot glass of Tang.

Yes, it was clear that the ex-wives were closing in on him.

Just the thought of them made Valdas push his cranberry-and-soda aside and think about ordering a vodka. He couldn’t even concentrate on the smooth adolescent lines of the gyrating daisy boys, so unpleasant was the notion that he might have to speak with one of the shrill sows he had once been married to. He desperately wanted to order a vodka. Just one shot to dull the fear, the shrieking, the feelings of helplessness. No, he would hold fast. He would remain strong. He would remember what his sponsor said: “You are attached to something in time and space. You are identifying with your body, your feelings, your thoughts, your thirst. Recite your mantra and the rest will all go by.”

Valdas’ sponsor had suggested the standard and ancient Buddhist mantra: Om mani padme hum. To recite it continuously, his sponsor said, would result in transcendence and ultimately enlightenment. Valdas had tried it, but the mantra didn’t work. He had devised his own mantra. Or rather, he had nicked it from Mike Tyson: Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. Granted, it was wordier and more awkward to recite than Om mani padme hum, but it also had more modern relevance, Valdas felt. The words themselves were wiser and more useful. Plus, they were in English—not Valdas’ native language, but certainly his second tongue. It was true, too: Everybody did have a plan until they got punched in the face.

Fifteen years ago, Valdas had had a plan: To get famous, get rich, and retire to Florida with his trusty Thai pool boys, Tonto, Zorro, and the Lone Ranger. He had even made it to South Beach and lived with all three of them in extramarital bliss for a brief and fleeting period. Then the money ran out. Or was stolen from him, rather, via unscrupulous and mean-spirited litigation instigated by the ex-wives. They just couldn’t stand to see him happy. Especially Zoya, with her leopard-print stretch pants, yippy little dog and never-ending chain of lipstick-stained Virginia Slims. She was the most vindictive of them all. She had turned the screws on Valdas—hard. It was the only way she knew how to do anything: Negotiation by hammer. When they had met as teenagers back in Lithuania, she was already the most formidable hog-trader in the entire countryside. Her enthusiasm for hostile bartering was one of the qualities that first attracted Valdas to her. That, and her unstoppable ass. But now her ability to back any opponent into a corner with a withering sneer and a few choice words was being used against him. She was probably banging the lawyer, too.

The more Valdas pondered it, the more his situation seemed hopeless. He knew what Sid would say. Sid, his faithful companion and personal trainer: Wise beyond his years, however old he was, and Valdas had never been quite sure of that. But he knew what his friend would say, and it would be this: “Reality is on the other side of the visible.” Easy for Sid to say, Valdas frowned. On the surface, it was just another mantra. But like Iron Mike’s surprisingly astute observation, it had merit. It was possible, wasn’t it, that Valdas had not considered all of the potential options in his recent dealings with Zoya and the other ex-wives? Indeed, what guarantee did he have that all the relevant facts and angles could be understood strictly through the five senses?

At that moment, the sultry grind of the dancing boys regained its fleshy allure. Valdas couldn’t be a full one hundred percent positive, but he could just about swear that the blond one had winked at him. Finally he ordered a vodka and swallowed it down with a smile. Tomorrow, he would call Zoya with the bad news.

This bullshit originally appeared in the June 2011 issue of Decibel magazine.