Month: January 2013

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The Monopoly Machine + Portage Park

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Dear Reader,

A long time ago in August, a monopoly machine fastened itself to the top of my apartment building. The weather was mild and I remember I was cooking onions when I heard its jittering joints as it crawled up the side of the building, mounted the roof and penetrated the brick walls with the spines of its legs. Then it was still and did nothing for many months. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to worry.

But three days ago the monopoly machine began squeezing. The steel bracing of my  apartment building wails all day and all night. The edifice is crumbling. Nightly, metallic claws have been probing all our units, searching for prizes.

So far I’ve managed to dodge the mechanical hydra but I am forced to flee my home. I am now headed to a strange new place on the far west side of Chicago called Portage Park. It seems really nice. There’s a creepy old movie theater, a grocery store and my new landlord is shaped like a refrigerator.

I am very excited to get back to work writing x9dread. There are currently 20+ entries queued up for later in the month but please give me a chance to stitch them all together. I do not have the brainspace or timemaneuvers to write these as I simultaneously paint, clean, move all my belongings, and unpack myself. No doubt, I will be inspired by these experiences to write more cramped, panicked entries for your entertainment.

Retrying server . . . Please Wait. 

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50 Incidents of Undiscovered Treasure

(Excerpt)

11. A jar of cinnamon peaches intended for Ayn Rand is still behind the counter at Streugmann’s.

12. A kilo of bottled French wines intended for David Bowie’s 50th birthday bash are still stuck at a post office in Fes.

13. A knot of wood in the likeness of Jarred Harris is still in the Greeley’s back yard.

14. A length of twine intended for Serge’s “rocket experiment” is still under the bed in his childhood room.

15. A legacy of grandma’s recipes are stuck together under a leaked jar of motor oil in the garage.

16. A muster of handmade toy soldiers are still “reserved” in Mr. Tanaka’s abandoned shop in Matsue.

17. A maturation of king orchids that Desta planted when she was 9 is still growing untended in the jungle.

18. A nanogram of Rush Limbaugh’s spittle is still in orbit around Saturn.

19. A node of the Skyhook’s most integral security bundle was blessed with a Hail Mary by Rafael “Bananas” Inez when he first hooked it up in 2022.

20. An ossuary of Robin Trichin’s dead parakeets is buried under the rose bush.

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High Fidelity Castro: Top 5 Worst Tributes

Quick note: I know I said on air that I would drop dead before listening to anything by Bebe Qissis but my 2nd cousin Maia is 11 and she likes dancing to Dance Crazy (Just For Me Boi). So….that happened. It’s still bad and terrible but  11 year olds dig that shit. I’ma have to steal her from my auntie and send her to music High Fidelity Castro bootcamp but I’ll wait until she’s outta pigtails. Okay, onto the actual music newzzzz….

Top 5 Worst Tribute Albums of the Year. Reverse order as usual, punks!

5. Grover and Grover. Seriously, guys? Grover covered their OWN debut album. It’s listenable I guess but I’m not sure that society actually benefited from this. Way to go, selling more albums, jerkwads.

4. Applecore Delilah Marquette is an okay singer song writer but her new album is preeeeeeetty bad. It’s all covers of Fiona Apple songs (one of Marquette’s biggest influences) but reworked into emopunk ballads of epic lameness. Delilah needs to just commit to her cute-as-a-button routine. This was embarrassing.

3. Finger Puppets didn’t cover a whole album. They just did a tribute to Visions of You by Labor District. Still awful enough to make this list. Sorry guys but tambourines have a time and a place.

2. Jeannie Monster. Popstar Jeannie (or as I like to call her, Pop Store Jeannie) is a bore-tastic mainstream slutstream and it hurts to hear her slur all over legendary Gaga’s discopop hits from the early 00s. Lady G’s contemporaries thought  she was a whoretastic bitch but listening to Jeannie’s version is like re-inventing the vomit wheel.

(And for real, everyone needed to stop doing covers of Gagas after Lilo & Bitch made Ro-Ma-Ma the master remix of the century in 2029. I never get tired of plugging this even though it’s ancient news.)

and the number 1 worst Tribute album of the year goes to….

1. Bacon Mozzarella’s tribute to Hyacinth. Hyacinth was way underground until the late 2030s before they BLEW THE FUCK UP and rapidly redefined the jazzy drops on metallic hip hop. But Bacon Mozzarella’s cover is just 8 shitty cottail tracks. Nothing added to the original songs, just a jacked noise experiment.  I’m not saying there’s no such thing as a good noise cover but these guys didn’t do it. And they kind of made it worse by tributing one of the best bands of the past 25 years. F is for Failure.

Don’t forget to tune into Luscious 102.4 FM Thursdays @ 4pm for more music and Yours Truly, High Fidelity Castro.

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Pinnies: Solved

Dear Vivian,

i spent a long time looking at this page before i wrote this.

I solved our mystery but I’m

 

Okay Vivian I have to write this in here because I thought about telling you in person but I don’t want to do that either. I found out who is peeing on the pinnies. It’s Billy Braddish. Maybe you know him. He’s a senior. I know him. He scares me. One time he cut some kid’s hair off and he steals people’s lunch money like every day. Well anyway he’s the one peeing on the pinnies and I know it for a fact because I saw him do it and then he peed on me too. me and two other kids who were hanging around afterschool.

well anyway, I solved the mystery so you can go be in the yearbook now or whatever.

– grape whatever

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High Fidelity Castro Reviews Baby Grave’s New Album

If you’re feeling skintight hit a backslash on our UPIX. Best pix gets prizes, either: Tix to see HamGlam on their Cookin’ Up tour or a Trufist swag package (includes entire discography and discontinued shirts from ’15). Ring the bell, bitches.

My review today is for Baby Grave’s newest album Graven Images, featuring their hit single Chiara’s Tiaras. Baby Grave got together in the early 00s and they’ve always had a trancewave 80s dykerock sound. Their first album Dig It was sort of like The Knife meets Gretchen Animal. But Graven Images is like they dialed down all the candy and just went straight for the crunch. That or someone spiked my vein with rollos while I was listening to it. THIS IS GOOD SHIT, PEOPLE.

All in all, an amazing triumph over their second album Baby Gravy which strayed a little too pop-punk for my taste. Graven Images gets a Grade: A

Don’t forget to tune into Luscious 102.4 FM Thursdays @ 4pm for more music and Yours Truly, High Fidelity Castro.

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Old Spirits Day Gooning

On old spirits day

Rub your face with red clay

And go out for a full night of gooning

As you wander and stray

You should howl, growl and bray

Making sure that your voice is a booming

But as the sky starts to gloam

You must return home

Don’t get too wrapped up in your funs

Your goonaunties have combed

All the scabs from their domes

And the first child home gets the sweet ones

– sourced from Glijmo Yoll’s Goon Scrolls which were discovered in 1966 along the Côte Sauvage, Poitou-Charentes in France. Translated from Goonspeak to English by Aamer Belkins-Dunjhab. 

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The Broken Soil

The Broken Soil (Hib-ai Klinjustuh gra) is a goontext that fell out of the Goonscape and into the known universe in the 1980 Black Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult tour, “Black and Blue” while they were performing in Uniondale, New York. It was discovered by Julian “Jose” Cantor who kept it in his personal library until his death in 2002. It was then passed along to the Brookline pubic library where it was immeditately identified as a goonartifact and sent to this author’s personal address.

The Broken Soil describes the Goonscapes relation to the Known Universe, implying that Goons themselves are aware of our alternate existence and histories.

The text deals primarily with the soul or “the interior,” peace among nations, and the orientation of divinity in the universe. A full translation is available in the library of congress.

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Wrong Pinnies

Vivian,

It’s okay that you put the pinnies in my locker. But these aren’t the right pinnies. The ones I’m talking about are red and blue and pretty old and dirty. These ones are new and plus they don’t even smell like pee.

– The Juice

________________________________________________________________

Dear Grape Juice,

Sorry!!!!!!! I didn’t want to smell them because I was afraid I would smell the pee. Which gym teachers are in the east gym again? I forget their names. I’ll try the same trick but with an alibi this time!

– Viv

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Vivian Needed an Alibi

Dear Grape Juice,

Sorry I had to hide these pinnies in your locker! I hope you don’t mind it’s just that I had to make up a fake volley ball practice to get coach Hyek to give them to me but I couldn’t bring them home exactly because my mom would notice and ask why I had them.  I guess I didn’t plan an alibi. We’ll have to keep things like that in mind.

So I hope it’s okay that I put them in your locker.

Thanks!!!!!!
Vivian

 

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New App for Your iWork Implant

Feelings Processor are now available in the Google Store Feed. Using 30 different bio-analyses subroutines (including nerve impulse scatter, cardiovascular and pulmonary metrics, and nutritional factors) this 80 kB subroutine is designed to perfectly measure your mood at all times. FP users can easily connect and follow each other’s status updates.

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Goonbarrowing

Goonbarrowing (variant: goonborrowing)– To borrow something that was originally yours but has been taken away.  The meaning comes from a poem from Glijmo Yoll’s Goon Scrolls describing a protagonist Hirreli who takes back the silk stockings she was swindled out of during a crooked game of Pilly-Snigg (a combination of poker and cups). She hides them at the bottom of a wheelbarrow full of potatoes.

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Bulletin Board Open Again

Dear Residents,

I’m happy to announce that the bulletin board is now open again. It was temporarily off limits because we were doing maintenance to the board as we have done every 2 years for the past three decades. I was very impressed to see just how much the bulletin board is honored and loved in our community. So, as I have said, the bulletin board is open again. You don’t have to post your items on this piece of cardboard anymore.

Thank you for your patience and also thanks to everyone who participated in the spirited demonstrations outside our office.

Sincerely,
Rosie Greenbaum
Comptroller General
Municipal Accountability Office

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Vivian Believes

@ Grape Juice,

OH MY GOD THAT’S SO GROSS. You think someone is PEEING on the pinnies in the east gym???! I never have gym in there anymore since I’m an upperclassman now but if you say it’s true then I BELIEVE YOU. That sounds like exactly  like the kind of mystery we need to solve!!

That gym is only used by sophomores and freshman so I think we can start there looking for suspects (no offense). Do you think it’s happening during school or after school? After school seems more likely. We should also try and figure out where they store the pinnies after you guys throw them all back in that mesh bag. It’s gotta be in one of the gym teacher’s offices. I have Mr. Hylek for study hall so I’ll pretend I need them for the volleyball team or something and ask him.

I guess you can call me Viv.

– Vivian

P.S. Sorry again that it took me so long to respond. I just have like 20 hours of homework a WEEK it feels like.

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Bulletin Board Petition

TAKE BACK THE BULLETIN BOARD PETITION!
please sign this petition if you want the bulletin board BACK! We only need 50 signatures!

1. Jeremy Feinstein
2. Mary Quick
3. Elizabeth Mogcheese
4. Frankdale Rosenhunch
5. Libby Marvelslide
6. Boom Biddy Boom
7. Heather Meeks (hey guys, take this seriously!)
8. Roy Feathers
9. Sarah Jixoun
10. Hector Morales
11. Booger T. Washington
12. Gladys Whales
…
205. Chesty Chesterson
206. Call Katrina for a good time xxx-544-8322
207. blank on purpose III
208. boners
209. Fister McButthole
210. your mom
211. fffffffffffaaartssss

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Bulletin Board Anarchy

The bulletin board is temporarily out of order. Please remove all notices from the board until further notice.
i hate this bulletin board!

– Rosalind Greenbaum,
Comptroller General
fuck you!

ANARCHY

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Pinnies in the New Gym

Viv,

Is it cool if I start calling you Viv? It’s just shorter is all.

I think I know a really good mystery for us to solve. We should try and find out why the pinnies in the new gymnasium always smell like piss. I know you probably think that’s gross and for once Vivian I agree. They ALWAYS smell like piss. They smell so much like piss that I am 100% convinced that someone is peeing on them. That seems to me to be the kind of mystery that everyone would thank us for solving. What do you think?

– Grape Juice

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The Atheist Mission

The Atheist Mission is the first irreligious world religion. As of this publishing in 2041, there are roughly 1.3 million members of the Atheist Mission.

Atheist Missionism was born out of an online chat community called the Atheist Scientific & Social Engineers Society (ASSES) which was first proposed and founded by <blaaahbarf59> in the “F**k Jesus” section of reddit. <blaaahbarf59> is now a member of the High Critics bar, a group of prestigious Missions who dictate the Atheist Mission rules and behavioral codes.

“It is, of course, an individuals choice if they want to follow our guidelines,” said High Critic Leroy Mason (<bitchesloveme99>), “but we dedicate a lot of time and research into these rules for our followers to observe. In the fight against god-fearing idiots, we have to stick together.”

In the About section of AtheistMission.com the High Critics explain that Atheist Missionism is essentially a fight against idolatry: “Idolatry not only refers to the worship of a God. Man commits idolatry whenever he honours and reveres a creature in place of God, whether this be gods, or demons (for example: satanism), power, pleasure, race, ancestors, the state, money etc.”

Atheist Missions tend to be white, English-speaking males between the ages 16-30.

The Atheist Mission is often conflated with The Internet Mission, another outgrowth of reddit’s atheism chapter. Devotees to The Internet Mission tend to be hermetic, dedicating their lives to printing out sections of the internet and binding them into manuscripts that are kept in a secret vault known only to the inner circle of The Internet Mission. The aim is to create a complete analog compendium of all digital human knowledge so that it is preserved in case of permanent interruption to the internet. This group has been nicknamed “the printernets.”

 

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Trina Fenton is Trouble

Dear Christopher,
Did I see you smoking with Trina Fenton on the soccer fields?
Love,
Sammy

 

Sammy —
Yeah kinda.
–Christopher

Dear Christopher,
You shouldn’t do that. She’s trouble. Besides, smoking is bad for you.
Love,
Sammy

Sammy —
K. Sorry.
— Christopher

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50 Incidents of Undiscovered Treasure

(Excerpt)

1. An armada of model wooden ships is still locked up in the lower left hand cabinet of uncle András’s work desk.

2. A braid of Sammy Mayes’s hair is still tucked away in the yellow album.

3. A clump of pink gak is still submerged at the bottom of the duck pond just behind the library.

4. A cluster of rubies lies in wait inside of Tom Waits’s skull.

5. A dram of whiskey infused with Tara’s green glitter is still under the Carlson’s porch.

6. An effigy of congressman Carlo Guzman is still graffitied under a bridge in his hometown.

7. A full set of  Queen Elizabeth’s summer playing cards is still in the secret pocket under the blue divan.

8. A granule of radioactive uranium is lodged inside Roman Putin’s front-most sinus.

9. A heap of Sonic Youth t-shirts once belonging to Crowned Princess Masako of Japan is still in the closet of her parents’ house.

10. An insulting inscription from Winston Churchill to his schoolmate Finch is still carved into a beech tree on the grounds of Stoke Brunswick School in Hove.

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High Fidelity Castro: iBuild Alpha’s CD

Bippity boppity bug-out brothers & sisters! Sinderella’s new music video is going to drop next Tuesday at exactly 12:00pm Chicago time. First 100 IP addresses to hit play at exactly 12:00:00 get free tix for you and one of your ugly stepsisters to any of the 12 locations on her next US tour. If you’re a winner, be sure to ping High Fidelity Castro somewhere on the Skyhook so I can send you special backstage passes. You know I always have the hook up.

Let’s talk some computery shit now. I hope you’ve all heard of iBuild Alpha. He’s the super computer up in Detroit that’s always protesting about artificial intelligent rights. Well get this! That robo-boss just dropped an electronica record called Sound Output! Foreal! I heard it last night at a listening party with some musika friends. Here’s my review:

WHOA so even though Sound Output has track listings, its pretty clear that the whole CD is just one continuous song which I think qualifies it as a concept album. Some people I know are calling it nextronica but I think it’s more related to heavy build with like a splash of solar rock. The treble sometimes gets a little stitchy in the creases but  overall I think this is some pretty good shit from a supercomputer. Overall, B+.

 

Don’t forget to tune into Luscious 102.4 FM Thursdays @ 4pm for more music and Yours Truly, High Fidelity Castro.

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Etta Whare Shares: Blackened Zucchini with Apricot Gravy

This recipe comes from Etta Whare’s Special 10th Anniversary Edition Cookbook: Grandma Whare Shares. Enjoy this special time of year with an edible blessing from the Whare family! 

Apricot Gravy (Prep time: 1 hour –  plan ahead!)

Bring 4 cups of water to a boil in a medium sized pot. When water is broiling, throw in 10 freshly skinned and pitted apricots in and close the lid. Turn the heat down to a simmer and let stand for 2o minutes. Test your apricots with a fork to see if they have become mashy. Remove the apricots from the hot water and place in a medium sized bowl. Mash the apricots with 4 tbs butter, 1/2 tsp of sea salt, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, and a dash of paprika. Put the apricots back into the drained pot. Add 1/8 cup of corn starch, stirring vigorously for 10 minutes. Voilà! A smooth and sweet apricot gravy!

Zucchinis (Prep time: 15 minutes)

Cut four zucchinis lengthwise into thin slices. Submerge these in a mixture of butter and cayenne pepper. Heat up a large skillet. One at a time, remove the zucchini slices from the butter and blacken each in the pan. They should take approximately 10 seconds on either side. Place on a plate in an ornamental arrangement, dress with warm apricot gravy. Enjoy!

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Thought Blockers

Thought Blockers is a new app available from SnapCareer Productions. Thought Blockers lets you filter or password protect any thoughts in your brain that you’ve marked as “Distracting.” Let SnapCareer help you stay focused on being a stand out employee instead of all the other junk.

Simple to install and integrates with any iWork edition higher than 5.02.

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Coca-Cola and NASA Reach Agreement

WASHINGTON DC — The National Air and Space Administration and the Coca-Cola Company sealed a deal yesterday that permits Coca-Cola and their affiliates to  advertise on select vehicles and systems.

NASA has fallen on hard times in the past 20 years. Economists and political scientists alike have offered up a host of reasons including the administration’s inability to compete with Apple and Murdock Corp.’s military bids, the scandals associated with two consecutive NASA directors, and the human race’s overall waning fascination with the known universe and new obsession with the Goonscape. Whatever the cause, NASA is hoping that an alliance with Coca-Cola will improve their image in the Information sector and raise extra revenue to develop new initiatives.

One of the most noticeable changes will be the presence of Coca-Cola sponsorship all over the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. The Coca-Cola company has already put up red banners, filled the lobby with vending machines, and added a virtual reality room where guests can ride along on historic journeys to space and other planets with popcorn and a complimentary “tasters” of  Coca Cola’s newest beverages.