Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Life at the Sentient Bean / Braking Ugly

Braking Ugly

Now knowing what was facing me I began to absent mindedly wiggle my teeth. They had all seemed to be  loosening up these days. I know I should be tracking down a dentist. But since the insurance companies have lost their strangle hold, all dentists and doctors now had to operate in the market place. No longer having their prices propped up artificially by the insurance racket, finding good dental and medical service was a real bidding war. There were a few years between the demise of insurance swindlers where the resources were pooled by the citizens of the U.S. which meant shareholders and CEO’s no longer got the excessive skim they once enjoyed. But when the Chinese took over they had no sense of humor about past digressions and enjoyed shoving our free market hyperbole quite literally down out throats. You now really got what you paid for. No ticky no washy as the darling Fang Fang Wu would say.

It was then that Mediatrix turned around as if remembering just where he had seen me. Last time I rode with Mediatrix I had him take Cyrus and me out to the airport. That was when Mediatrix had recognized Cyrus from his pictures. Cyrus Plush made his initial money by selling bottled water in Mediatrix’s country after their entire water table was ruined by fracking for natural gas. To make matters worse Cyrus’s company bottled the water just far enough away where the health effects on the population were minimized, but close enough where the shipping costs were not prohibitive to making a tidy profit.  Mediatrix’s countrymen paid the freight with the double whammy of washing down the genetically grown schmeat with flammable bottled water. The results weren’t pretty. As he turned his full grey eyes on me which blended perfectly with his grey pallor and hair it had the overall effect of a twilight shadow. He said,“So what sort of defective product are you and your associates foisting on consumers today?”

“No no no, ya got it all wrong sport” I exclaimed, “We're just helping a befuddled multitude believe they need these products so as to keep everyone gainfully employed. I get people to buy what my clients sell so’s they can afford to hire your services. We're all in to this together pal.”

“Right,” was all Mediatrix said as he turned to look back at the road. I know the collision avoidance system usually kept two items from occupying the same space, but I am old fashioned and feel better when the driver is looking at the road ahead so I was relieved doubly by his renewed attention to navigation.

Well we were pulling up on my destination and this building had a huge plaza all around it. Good way to avoid drive by bombing, but Mediatrix was always one for delivering the optimum of 21st century fashionable customer service so he drove across the huge plaza at an excessive rate of speed usually screeching to a halt millimeters in front of the hatches to the building. Hatches worked better to deter the compression from explosions. But today he missed so I was delivered directly into the lobby of my building.

As Mediatrix was nabbed by security I wandered to the lifts and went to work. I’ll catch him with the fare next time. It was time to run the footage through the concept corrector.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Life at the Sentient Bean / Mediatrix


Mediatrix



My favorite quality Mediatrx had was the fact that no matter how many times I rode with him, he always acted like it was our first time meeting. I was never sure if it was an act, or if it was from his early childhood diet of schmeat. Yep, the old beaker bacon. That was back when we first started growing our animal products, and we had to try them on someone. His country drew the short straw of that global lottery. It was a great idea. Eating flesh that had never, sweated, shat, or peed seemed like a good idea at the time. But when the side effects became apparent the Archetypes had to administer a forgetfulness pharmaceutical to spare the survivors the recollections of the disaster. Good things we cleared that up before that little snafu got to much publicity. So with the blessings of the Marquis De Bob, it was swept under the public rug, which was only shaken occasionally by a few of the politically embarrassed crackpots and conspiracy theorists which were quickly discredited by the ever present media. The poison will never out if if we refuse to know about it.

Even so Mediatrix was always plugged in and as a victim of exploitive experimentation he knew better than to believe most of the fear driving drivel. HIs cab was a rolling hot spot. Sure the world was covered by the ubiquitous G-10 network, but with the ludicrous encryption and sub networks Mediatrix’s cab was plugged into places even the Chinese couldn’t track you on the infernal net. So I used the time to check e-mail for any heads up that Bannister might have about the coming assignment. The world of commerce never slept. Only I did. When I wasn’t awake that is. But being awake was never the easy row to hoe. There was peace from time to time mostly when I pushed myself away from the treadmill and stopped thinking of more and bigger things to take care of the things I thought I had. That was no longer for me.

   But eating was always a pressing problem and since most these days did their tricks for food having long given up the illusion of carrot and stick. No longer were we fooled by the promise of a fine retirement funded from the life time of labor, The reality that those assets were quickly drained away by the privatize entitlement scams that sank in even to your the densest of the masses. We are all dumb money now.

   The e-mail came from Bannister and the news was not good. Cyrus Plush was coming to the session. Although I knew that turn of events would pad the hours considerably for my billing, it would be painful spending that much time in the room with Cyrus perched like a Budgie behind me fretting and a pacing only to stop occasionally to admire himself in the mirror and perhaps ordering in for more cuttlebones to sharpen his beak on. So will my next hours be.

But I do not enjoy it as much as I once had.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Life at the Sentient Bean / Bannister

Bannister


Well enough musing about Fang Fang. I had a meeting with Banister Crawler, a transplanted New York producer who came to this cow town to handle the alcohol and caffeine beverages account boondoggle.

With this caffeine laced beverage there was no more snorting illegal cocaine to stay awake while drinking. Now just drink alcohol and caffeine and all will be well. That is till the local constabulary had to start dealing with the ravages of walking drunk syndrome. Darn. Legal substances both. They could no longer supply the for profit prison system with cheap labor and felons that the prison profiteers payed kick backs for. Also they have yet to figure out a way to confiscate property for consuming caffeine with alcohol. So they had to lobby the Corp Boys to knock off this particular product category, which was being heavily promoted, in the hope they could get back to the good old days of arresting people for being wide awake drunk and breaking laws by the act of ingesting verboten substances. Since many corporations were heavily invested in the prison system, they needed to oblige. Sure the profits from caffeine laced vitzblitz were big, but when your IRA’s are in the market you had to play all eventualities, which ain’t easy. Prison was big business. Criminal justice was a perfect jobs program for the self righteous. So was the double dipping they could garner from the illegal drug trade it would revive.

So that meant I would be able to bill many more hours while we took a campaign meant to extoll the virtues of being the rizzed inebriated, to just extolling the tried and true virtues of getting lucky while geezed. Of course this would mean a re-shoot. But first we would rearrange the marbles we had ad infinitum. Of course this meant hours in a dark room and much hand wringing, but this came with the territory. Bannister was a good sort, though a WASP through and through. He knew Providence would always smile on him with hard work and knowing what to kiss and when. It would entail the obligatory haggling over the hours and billing, but a good time would be had by all. The lunches were good and numerous, though being somewhat reminiscent of the days of Roman Bread and Circuses. Only a little less bloody.  I might even get back into the black after the recent Fang Fang junket.

So I bade farewell to the Beard with the usual, “It’s a good day to die.” nonsense and emerged from the Sentient Bean refreshed and enlightened from the morning reverie. Hailed the first gypsy cab I saw. As I crumpled into the back seat and licked a twenty and pasted it on my forehead to show good faith the driver took off. We hurtled towards that impressive array of unrented airspace formerly known as downtown. It was only then that I found out I was in the cab owned by the one known as Mediatrix.

Need I say more.

Friday, June 8, 2012

Life at the Sentient Bean / Sally


Sally


“Hello Sally” I said feeling like I was being sized up. For what I did not know. Well Fang Fang strolled up to me in her dirty Golden jump suit which was about five sizes to big  clomping over in work boots that seemed just as huge for her tiny frame. Even under the outsized Labrador Retrieval unform her surprisingly well defined feminine keyster was apparent. She aimed her butt in my general direction and said, “Fulfill first part of contract before moving to second part round eye.”

Well it seemed like a good idea. What could a little playful slap and tickle hurt. So I wound up and swung but she deftly maneuvered out of the way and said, “Not so fast G.I.”  G.I. was how the new Chinese immigrant overlords referred to us natives and stood for, Globally Indentured. They had learned lessons of history from the colonialists well and were enjoying their new roles.

 “How do I know where you been. I find you hanging out in the alley. Could be you live here.” Fang Fang said with a sly smile.  Before I could reply she demanded, “You buy me coffee now.” The little one was all about control so while lust filled visions and carnal possibilities surfaced from the reptilian part of my brain courtesy of my D.N.A. any sense, good bad or indifferent, was swiftly snatched away. I agreed.

Meanwhile the traffic was still blocked in the alleyway by the garbage truck. But Golden Retrieval employees were fearless when it came to local ordinances and rules. Never mind the honking horns. Once the other drivers saw the little operator strolling into the coffee shop with me they meekly reversed course and found alternative routes. It was White Lotus land now, and  Fang Fang knew it..

As I gallantly gestured for the little lady to enter the Sentient Bean before me I slapped that delightful behind and said, “So what’ll ya have Sally.” She gave a giggle akin to a child’s and then menacingly mumbled something in her native tongue which I didn’t quite catch. But I sure caught it later.

As we tumbled into the back of the Sentient Bean the Beard chimed in when he saw Fang Fang, “Hallo Sally, did you make it through the “Of Human Bondage” chapter in Spinoza’s “Ethics” yet?”

“Who have time for that crap, I too busy trying to save the world through recycling” retorted the Fangster then added, “Most of it is junk you transplanted  Euro Trash bought on credit, and pitched when it no longer was shinney and new.”

Now, I have to ask myself why she spoke that way since I would eventually find that she was born and raised in Buffalo NY. Just passing for advantage maybe.

Fang Fang Wu was a mystery through and through.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Life at the Sentient Bean / Casino

Casino

The last time I saw Fang Fang Wu she was physically and verbally assaulting a slot machine. At four foot eleven you may think  the Fangster would be easy to trifle with. That would be a serious miscalculation. But ask any slot machine, or dealer, car or otherwise and they will turn pale at the mention of this little force of nature.  Once her cold black eyes caught you, caught you were. Well I had to try to wrestle her away from the machine, because management was moving in the forces to stop her from trying to rip the arm off of the one armed bandit, but she knew it was payday and she was there to collect.

At this point she had mounted the machine and seemed to be trying to hump a payoff out of the machine while gibbering in what she claimed was her native tongue. I could never confirm nor deny that fact. This gave security pause since the violence had turned into something the guests pay for as a floor show. Then those glinting black eyes turned to me. She just threw me a hundred dollar bill and screamed. “YOU PLAY THAT MACHINE NOW”, and pointed  to Cleopatra across the room. I found this strange because she had sold everything thing I had and we were living in my 1966 Pontiac Star Chief Executive. No reasoning with her now. She was a woman, and while in the grips of warfare with the slot machine Buddha of her desires, now  was not trifling time.

Instead I realized that enough was enough, and having some money for gas I decided  this would be my cue to move on. A hundred bucks was more cash than I had seen since the credit card crisis sunk  the major banks into the black hole of derivative divine divergence, or whatever excuse for dodging moral hazard they were using that day. Better put, you can’t get blood from a stone. We were all squatting by the side of the economic road rubbing rocks in our heads for entertainment since it was what we could afford now that no one could say the magic words “charge it.” Nobody was making anything, and nobody was getting paid to advise us what to do with our no longer liquid brokerage assets. We have been trickled upon and could no longer find anyone else to trickle on. Monetarily speaking we were fucked. White Lotus had become a reality, but not as anticipated in the nineteen fifties. As few things had.

But I should have known I was fucked when I first laid eyes on Fang Fang Wu. She was a driver for Golden Labrador Retrieval Waste and Recycle , and was thumping a dumpster into the hopper, humming Bang a Gong in the key of “O”, when she turned around and saw me smoking a cigarette at the back door of the “Sentient Bean”

She whistled through the gap in her front teeth and exclaimed in the unforgivable voice of hers,

 “Well slap my ass and call me Sally “

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Life at the Sentient Bean / Police


Police

  I entered the sadly paint encrusted door at the Sentient Bean which gave up the throwback tinkle of a bell. I was determined to choke down my first cup of joe for the day. The Beard served it up adding the usual dose of existential insolence I had grown to expect from Jeemarie Bingalangbang. But as one of his hero’s would so clearly respond, “Such things cannot be sufficiently despised,” so I tossed him the spondulix, grunted, snatched the brew, and retreated to my favorite hovel of the premises. I think back in the fifties the Sentient Bean had been one of those Armenian restaurants. Booths built into the wall with an onion dome frame and a decidedly casbah motif of lattice work in extended base relief. You never knew what was on this side of the wall but fortunately on the other side of the lattice.I know I did not want to know.

  Outside an undercover police car went squealing down the street. I have to wonder why after the name calling of the nineteen sixties they would design and operate their siren in such a way as to sound like the squealing of a pig as they race down the street. I guess even the authorities have a sense of humor. Like the words they left out on the side of their marked car doors that say “To Serve and Protect”. The missing words are To Serve those that have And Protect them from those that haven’t. As I saw  them skitter down the street I was relieved that they didnt squeal to a stop in front of this establishment. I was much to distracted to spend an hour obfuscating with them down at the station while I waited for my mouthpiece to make an appearance.

It may seem like idle paranoia, but since the naught twelve election of the wrong rominee we were quickly sold the full loss of all but the most obvious civil liberties. Even those only went to the highest bidder. But that is freedoms under the bridge now, Still you had to be aware that you could end up being detained indefinitely if you posed even an imaginary risk to the wrong connected corporation

The Bean had the usual crowd resplendent with the the glowering beard behind the counter. Jeemarie was of the long time disenfranchised, but he had held on the the viable, albeit anemic cash flow of The Sentient Bean. Like it’s name it was aware of it self without having a clue why. But it had become a comfortable habit for years and I liked it.

I settled down to the problem of the moment that was all consuming my caffeine charged monkey brain.

  “Where are you Fang Fang Wu?”