Gary Panter blog

Leave a message for the manager or employees of Taco Bell:

You guys work hard. We, the taco eating public thank you!

I see you back there, slipping around on skims of pre-grated cheese, packets of exploded hot sauce, scattered bits of extra-crispy taco shells and scraps of iceberg lettuce. It can't be easy taking orders from the window while making a chicken bacon snack wrap. I can't chew gum and walk straight, so I can only vaguely imagine the fog one must enter; what psychic challenge it must be, trying to order ones senses while taking the order by earpiece, given all the contradictory sensorial input; running back and forth from the colorful branded zones of Baskin-Robbins/Pizza Hut/Taco Bell/Dunkin Donuts—how many colors and smells can you intake per minute? You have to be as canny as a bartender, mixing subtle ratios of matter and flavor bits, into tasty Manhattans of 100% cheesefood, microwaved ground fried beef, frosty sour cream, gloopy russian dressing and so forth, soft or crispy? Each item a routine ( like mixing a martini) a skillful turn of the wrist—a torque, an obstacle course. Your white blouse a little too small for your generous bosoms. I feel for you. All of you. You all. Not just all of you. All of you all. Friendly feelings of humanity. Sensual feelings of thriving earthly animal humanity, chugging along, doing our thing, each one up to his or her eyeballs in it. In the toil of being alive, earning a crust, making a chicken quesadilla or eating a chicken quesadiila: the best thing you guys offer. Not in flavor, though the flavor is fine, but, excellently, in the not-giving-me-a-big-fat-fajita-style-stomachache from eating a beef and bean burrito supreme with two taco supremes, for example, followed by a couple odd Boston cream pies washed inland by a chill Chocolate Blast, which, though wonderful, often revisits my personal scene later in the hour.

Anyhow thanks and best wishes. The public couldn't survive a minute without your reasonable and even counsel, your skillful ladling of deep humanity and subtle manifestations of psychiatric wisdom—like when that guy, yesterday, with his little bitty daughter. He the silent monster and she the harping seal pup endlessly trying to provoke him into action with questions questions questions and him resoluting refusing to acknowledge her existence. It was a titanic battle of wills on the food court. Them on one side of the counter, facing you, you facing them. Him looming overhead, she pecking his ankles. It was your first day, and your English was not so good, getting to know a new system and a complicated piece of machinery with the clear plastic germ guard encased register thingy and you struggling with those handi-wrap sanitary disposable gloves which had dribbled some viscous liquid off your fingers onto the shielded keypad; sheilded yet made slipperly by the bean juice, or red drink, or donut icing or peperoni squishins or chocolate sauce—heck, it had to be something.

Lurch wanted it special and he wanted it with out delay—a customized burrito or two, no sour cream no cheese no lettuce just chicken and beans and he didn't want 'no' or 'what?' or your predictable confusion. Frankenstein with a menacing Blue Tooth hanging out his ear. His tot, a deer tick, looking to draw blood in the toe-hills if she could.

"Daddy, what did that man want? Why is the money in the car? You should stop smoking. Mommy wants a beer and cheese combo. And a Fresca. It's not your turn yet. She's only trying to do her job, Daddy. They're out of napkins. I want two straws. No, I wanted 3 tacos, Daddy. Where's our cinnamon sticks? Can we get a donut?" She, very cute, yammering on and on, him obviously wanting to throw her in the Gowanus as soon as they got outside, but for now imitating a prehistoric monolith.

"Open the register and put in my ten and give me four bucks back is all you need to do. Do it!" he said to you out of the mouth of the wide hollow log that was him.

You looked back with alarm and wide innocent eyes. You backed off. That was psychological wisdom! I felt for you, but you'll get the hang of it. Plus, your prison tats are very elaborate and scary. It'll be a cinch!

Shackletina

I had just crossed a donkey with a barn owl, when I noticed the hour was late. All around the shack, the grasshoppers, crickets, katydids, grand-daddy longlegs, night-crawlers and all the many grubworms that had boiled generously, even languorously, against the windows all day and night, for three days and nights, now, had finally subsided—a waned chitinous cabin-wide tide begone.

It would be safe to say that it would be safe to go outside, soon, and take the sap buckets off the heady dutchweed stalks. The sap, extracted from the drippy thick pulpy reedy tubules by boring, insertion, plumbing and pumping, has lots of uses and advantages over lard or margarine, down this way, as a general and friendly lubricant. Things will go round and round, if you let them.

Generally speaking, you can bring the whole carriage to a hard hopping halt or you can grease those shocks, gears, u-joints, suspensions, load-bearing wheels and axles and so on, and go on ahead, put your back into it, and load the heavy iron cage onto the donkey cart. However, once the donkey cart is bearing a large iron cage with shacklettes on the barn donkey owl, darn it! Who will pull the wagon?

Who will pull it? I'll give you five bucks to help me pull this donkey tram to the nearest Roman circus, AND, AND! I split the profits with you: two for me, one for you. Hey! I developed it. I developed it! There would be no barn donkey owl, down yonder smelling up the place, to even proffer, if, if it wasn't for my invention and long and hard and endless and unremittingly relentless years of limbering up for the kill. Now it's dead. Who will cart it to the mill to be ground into pixie dust? I can't do it alone. Well, if I have to, I will, but I can't. Plus, I can't grind it around here. I would if I could. I really need to take it out to the grinder to grind it and pulverize it and pat it into pattycakes for limited consumption by discriminating parties of various cast. The grinder must be agrinding. That's all there is to it. It's a foregone conclusion. Fact, not fate. I don't make up the rules. I follow them.

Went into the CITY to deliver my 'Omega the Unknown' cover to Marvel. For some reason I thought it was on Fifth Ave at 17th, but it was 37th. When things like this happen I tend to take the long walk and look at the city, which I did.

Lots of sights. Smart people, dumb people, pretty people, ugly people, freezing hotdog and sausage vendors, smokers hanging out in clumps outside buildings like cranes and jackals by watering holes, Yellow cabs nowadays with designy flowers on the hood running red lights, polite drivers deferring to pedestrians, pedestrians abusing the privilege, giant hairy ugly dwarf smoking a stogie 'blocking the box' with his Hummer2, the Empire State Building from underneath where you can't see it as happens to ants passing by Paul Bunyan's foot, guys trying in vain to collar passersby to discuss global warming, hip hop dudes in million dollar leather jackets with full congo jungles scenes embroidered thereupon on their way back to the ghetto, crazy faddists in those skeleton body hoodies which when zipped up become grim reaper burkas, normal looking girls with babies they were crazy enough to have by these calaveras, fucking idiots on cel phones not minding personal space. The reds, the grays, the blues of NYC in winter. The beautiful fresh cold air gridded with contrails.

At Marvel they directed me around the corner to some vaguer hole in the wall they called 'the mezzanine'. Mezzanine? It was a door through a janitorial area. There was a locked glass door at the end of the corridor with a card entry slot. There on the floor, by the door, was a pile of packages, but also some thrown-out pizza boxes in the same pile. I knocked politely about 3 times then banged the shit out of it until the irate kid who was supposed to be manning that station appeared, yelling at me that I could've thrown it on the discarded pizza boxes and I told him no thanks. Is this any way to run a Death star?

THE FUTURE IS NOW

Haven't seen you for ages, Gary.

No pissing around now, you need to enlarge your cock.

Think you're a mack daddy? Think again, you ain't hittin it with that twinky you call a dick.

Make her buckle and moan all night when you split that pussy wide open.

Are you going to pass up an opportunity to get a humungous penis? really?

Look down to see a strong meaty cock hanging that you can be proud of.

Keep her in the mood when you hang out your new whopper.

Stretch her ass wide open with your new dick size.

It's no good thinking your dick's big when it aint.

Drop a cum load on her today, they seriously love it!

If you want more out of life, then make ya dick bigger.

Your dick will be best of all!

Your dick will be record-breaker!

Howdy partner, Gary

Bad news buddy, you got a small dickie!

Congratulations Gary, You've just won the award or the WORLD'S SMALLEST DICK!!!

My Platform

1. If the government needs more information on the citizenry, it must stop pursuing goals of enforcing morality regarding so-called victimless crimes. Less privacy must be balanced with more personal freedom.

2. However, no jumping on subway trains screaming about Jesus.

3. Take the annual 22 billion dollars for the war on drugs and divide it between public education and drug treatment on-demand programs. The seizure of property and funds by police is a corrupting process. The war on drugs is lost.

4. Properly protect, arm, educate and pay the police and military so they are not tempted to invent pretexts for seizure or take bribes.

5. No draft. People in the military should be there because they are good at fighting or managing fighters and be highly paid and skilled. Then the army should be used as a last resort. If the army is really needed, a shitload of sneaky guys go in first, crawling on their bellies with knives in their teeth-—10,000 ninja spies.

6. Legalize the growing of weeds and their industrial and psychic uses.

7. Strengthen cultural discouragement of heroin, cigarettes, speed and cocaine use. And angel dust and poppers.

8. Universal free medical and dental care. If we can spend 6.4 billion a month to fuck up Iraq, we should be able to fix everybody's teeth.

9. Small, one time, business loans to the impoverished.

10. Phase out nuke and coal and oil burning energy.

11. Replace with wind, water, solar, and geothermal and bio-mass energy systems.

12. Fight opponents of whistling, kite flying, music making, dancing, and dirty jokes.

13. Re-separate church and state. Un-fund government programs for religion. Don't tax OR fund religion.

14. Culturally mock religions that think they are the only ones god loves. Faith is not a certainty. Uncertainty, and the humility uncertainty promotes, are important parts of a spiritual path. Un-promote the idea of a god who needs constant groveling and hosannas.

15. Stop bashing atheists. They are only being logical. There might be something out there, but there might not and they don't need to care about it. Let them be, for god's sake!

16. Inspect all incoming or flight bound packages and containers. Hire paranoid cartoonists to invent nasty terrorist scenarios to be considered preventatively.

17. Advance human assistance and mobility by robots.

18. Advance robotic material sorting for purposes of recycling.

19. No parole from prison without job training and literacy, which the state must provide.

20. Amnesty for all victimless crimes. Too many people in jail in this country.

21. Prisoners must be protected from each other and guards.

22. Educate and pay prison guards fairly.

23. Repair transport infrastructure.

24. Life for repeat child abusers. No candy.

25. Institute National Flag Burning Day. The value of human life over symbolic cloth should be established. The prayers for the souls of soldiers to be carried to heaven on burning flags.

26. Clean water and air are good things.

27. Gangsta Rap is questionable, but needs to be tolerated, because if you try to wipe something out, it fights to survive with renewed determination, even if it's stupid and lame.

28. Lower human population and increase frog, lizard and turtle populations. Snakes are on their own.

29. National day without computers, burgers and TV to be called National Brain Clarity Day.

The Dutiful Cheese

The cheese had come to enjoy lying on the trap; the cool, steel, plate supporting the weight of the cheese; the V-shaped hole that allowed the lower back of the cheese to sink right in; the considerable expanse of blond wood, providing a luxurious and practical base for the apparatus. To the cheese, it was a private space. Quiet time, lying here in the dark, under the sink with the smell of potatoes and onions, detergents, and drain cleaner— an enclosing fragrant atmosphere. A sensual orchestra of smell conducted in the blackness.

It had been so noisy at the cheese factory: everyone bustling in and out; light refracting in sweeping, blinding shards; the thump and whine of compressors and conveyor belts; rattling chaindrives and clanging metal rollers; the splat and fart of extruded cheese food. People talking, talking, talking: so many at once a cheese could not comprehend one individual thread. The slicing, the folding, the shunting—it was all too much.

Much nicer here. An occasional creak in the floor. A metal container of bug spray nearby, resonating, periodically, to the vibrations of a remote motor. If no mouse came forth, it was no sweat off the cheese's back. He had willingly stepped to the fore, as cheeses and unrelated peanut butter spreads had been doing for a century. Funny, cheese and peanut butter had so little in common. Only their application to sandwiches and rat traps partnered them at all. Well, there was suet. The cheese felt no kinship to peanut butter. Two completely different tribes in his view. Which admittedly, was limited to the interior sight of imagination here under the sink, where a scurrying was heard, momentarily.

FINALLY READ:

Against the Day - Pyncheon

The Recognitions- Gaddis

A Frolic of His Own - Gaddis

Blood Meridian - McCarthy

900 Grandmothers - Lafferty

Will In the World - Greenblatt

Stone Junction - Dodge

The Secret Agent - Conrad

The Man Who Was Thursaday - Chesterton

Gunman's Reckoning - Brand

Underworld - DeLillo

Ambush at Junction Rock - MacLeod

Utopia Parkway - Soloman