I just spent the last few minutes editing some “paid content” by changing the photographs. I am especially proud of the last one. I hope it mustard some laughs. Or groans. (Pun intended). Also, ED refers to “Electile Disfunction”. What were you thinking? FYI: that is a Banana Slicer.
I am sure many of you are watching in mock Horror and Schadenfreude the ongoing disaster that is BurningMan out in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. That actually isn’t that far from here, except economically. There are people who get there and spend the week frugally, either pooling resources with friends and traveling together,, to ones who volunteer to be on staff. I know one who collects the Glitter left behind by the Glitterati. I can’t imagine collecting glitter off the alkaline playa, especially in its current soggy state. Fortunately my friend stayed home with her two cute and clever kids this year. The Glitterati are escaping on foot and hitchhiking out of there, leaving everything behind for their paid staff members to clean up.
Conditions aren’t going to improve with the possibilities of another 3” of rain between now and Monday Morning, though some are reporting improvement Meanwhile folks are running out of drinking water. The porta-potties are full and overflowing (the pump trucks can’t get there). Foot traffic is the only traffic allowed. The only thing in abundance is the Techno Music and a few viruses that are having a much, much better time at BurningMan than the humans. There have even been fake rumors about Ebola. If they follow the national average, however,, about 2000 Boomers out of the 80,000 attending might have Covid. Meanwhile they are the breeding ground for the new Burner Variant.
My weekend started on a somewhat bad note with an unvaccinated Republican relative getting angry with me when I stood up for the Climate Protestors that caused the 10 mile traffic jam. Then she changed the topic to the 15 Minute Cities Conspiracy that governments from the UN down to your local library are forcing down everyones’ throats. I actually hadn’t heard this term but I really like the idea, frankly Its a drag to get in the car every time I want to see someone. Her sources included Paul Harvey and Rush Limbaugh. Now she is ranting about “that communist” Stacey Abrams and comparing her election loss to Trump’s in Georgia. All I wanted to do when I called was to invite her along for an impromptu farm tour and coast trip next weekend. But I guess we are not talking now. Apparently someone on FOX or some other channel brought up these topics as I have heard a few TikTok influencers commenting about them if they aren’t commenting on BurningMan.
Sigh and Whatever….
There is no question that the final BurningMan will be parodied in a blockbuster Hollywood Horror Movie. Chris Rock will have roughed out the screen play as he hitchhikes back home to safety. I sympathize with the person who kindly picked him and his entourage up, but made him ride in the back despite his Glitterati status. I wouldn’t want those muddy shoes covered in Wet Caliche in my truck cab as well. That mud is impossible to clean, even after it hardens!
There is no way the Bureau of Lazy Men will permit BurningMan next year. Or any year beyond. Perhaps the Forest Service? There are loads of burned out forests that is thematically related. But then they are actually trying to let nature take course and you can’t land a Lear Jet on a steep hillside, except unintentionally.
Speaking of Horror Movies, we recently watched one that was filmed in Mendocino California called Crabs that we fully enjoyed. Note: Limulus is not found on this coast. Mendocino and Fort Bragg are nothing like the relaxed and funky town in the movie. For one thing, its overrun by tourists. You can rent Crabs on Amazon.
This week we heard about a new horror movie about an attack on a sorority by killer Sloths. This begs the question: who can’t outrun a Sloth? BBC or someone is calling this one an apparent hidden masterpiece. Slotherhouse is arriving at theaters sometime soon.
I saved the best for the last! I am hoping that the Writers Strike or some other more likely cause doesn’t pull a plug on it. This low budget -like horror movie slash Art Film, called Pulmonata, features Banana Slugs on a Rampage. In this movie, animals which once crawled out of the oceans are attempting to do so again due to the warming waters. This has unintended consequences when the Nudibranchs mate with the Banana Slugs and produce carnivorous and toxic viable offspring. Their slime has neurotoxins that will kill you in minutes. The US Military has covered this up as they have weaponized these mollusks. Meanwhile
Dr. “T” (Dr. Terpetric Mooilinerina from Kiev) at the San Francisco Academy of Sciences discovers facts about these hybrids using their HOX genes and other DNA. She finds the same mutations in the whales who strand themselves en masse and discover that its not just the Nudies that are trying to walk back onto land. The whales themselves realize that they need to crawl back up onto land as well and re-evolve some legs, only to discover that their lungs collapse. They think “Well this didn’t work!” as they wait for the humans to come rescue them. This happens to all whales except for the tiny Vaquita Porpoise (1) in the northern Sea of Cortez. These haven’t been going extinct after all! Instead they have been hiding up in the hills living on Peyote and Saguaro. There are thousands of them up there. Dr. T discovers a possible antidote using the valuable Vaquita ambergris (smelly ear wax). But as this disaster becomes worse and widespread, the Military shuts her down, meaning that this situation will be endless and continuing like Covid and Long Covid. The movie ends ominously.
Hurry Up and Wait! Actually I lived part of the opening scene below and as you can guess, this idea is a typical brainstorm that occurs when I am in the manic part of my cyclothymia. In the movie version I will play Dr. T’s goofy assistant who does standup Invertebrate Imitations at the Fraught In Garbage Coffeehouse in Berkeley. His lips are tired from doing his signature Slug Imitation there for the last 35 years, making it harder and harder to play his Digeridoo.
PULMONATA
Scene 1 (synopsis)
The movie opens with a young and hormonal couple Cathy and Geoffrey who are “RetroCyclers”. They have rejected all the modern Spandex and Lycra, Shimano and Carbon Fiber aerodynamic bicycling world that is prevalent today, preferring to slog all over on the roads on antique JC Higgins 3-Speeds with Sturmey Archer hubs. All their gear is strapped on with a few bungie cords. In lieu of a popup tent, they use a blue tarp and a short length of rope. They use a smaller piece of blue tarp for ground cover. A thin blanket covers them.
They are on their way home from the Burnaby Folk Festival, having flashbacks of their time spent in their friends’ Barbara and Antonia’s Cedar Tree stump behind Burnaby University. They pull in at a State Park south of groovy Bellingham.
Like most nights when Cath’s “time is right”, they suddenly are woken up by their hormones to “do something about it”. Afterwards they are cold and sleep in a naked and somewhat sweaty embrace. Since they are camped at the State Park they have to wake up very early at first light to put their clothes on before any of the other car campers wake up and are scandalized by their sexy nakedness.
Geo rolls onto his back, only to feel something cold and wet right in his butt crack! “Did I just shit myself in my sleep?” he ponders to Cath. He reaches back and touches a pair of hormonal hermaphroditic slugs all covered in molluscan slime-cum. (This is where the part that I lived ends). Out of reflex, Geof tastes the slime on his fingers, and immediately goes into convulsions after feeling dizzy for a few cinematic seconds. Cath sniffs his hand, getting slimed in the process and starts convulsing soon after.
Later on in the movie the area is roped off as a crime scene. Similar fatalities are being noted all up and down the Pacific Coast. Its a long time before the authorities are convinced by Doctor T that the pulmonate mollusks are to blame, but by then it is too late!
Doing this as a book in the style of Tom Robbins or Christopher Moore might be better. But I want to see this on the Big Screen.
References:
(1)