The NEXT THRILLING CHAPTER 10
– Revolution
The tenth chapter of The NEXT THRILLING CHAPTER offers not just a change of pace, but, in its second half, a kind of intermission. Time to step out and get yourself a candy bar or some popcorn. Not much point making excuses for it. The United States has had its Beer Hall Putsch, and the Future War Criminals of America are awaiting the opportunity to write their place in history, in the blood of others. This was just a stab at who some of them might be. Maybe I got some wrong, but there are plenty more to take their places.
It’s easy to look back and laugh. When the Yippies in Chicago proposed a pig—Pigasus—as Presidential candidate back in 1968, well... those were crazy times. It was satire. When they threatened to put LSD in the water supply, sure, it was a gag. Look how uptight all those buttoned-down conservatives got at the thought maybe they’d all get turned on and start loving everybody. Hey, pigs might fly. And when radicals called for the abolition of the state, open up the prisons, set my chickens freee, they were just howling for the Moon, right? Hoping maybe for just a little less knee-jerk repression, greater tolerance, some freedom of expression, liberty of conscience. All we wanted was for everybody not to be such an asshole, man.
Peace.
Well, the laugh’s on me. Wingers have turned the tables. They ran Trump in 2016—and he won. We tried to levitate the Pentagon back in ’67, and one or two of us actually got inside—but they invaded the capitol. Hey, Trump’s looking to run on dismantling the state in 2025, so nobody can control what goes in the water supply. And when one of his goons talks about building concentration camps, when another says they’ll snatch people on the street, throw kids in prison, it’ll be glorious—and then laughs because, you know, snowflake, you believed me...
Yeah, no, believe it or not, I see this guy laughing the same way and saying, you thought I was joking? These guys are the radicals, man. Anarchists—and not in a nice way.
I look back, what we wanted was a dream. It was never going to happen. But if there was any chance of it happening, you think we’d’ve held back at the last moment? Hell, no, we’d’ve gone over the edge. So that’s how I know these crazies’ll go over the edge if they get the chance, and take us all with them. Because: follow your dream, right?
So sure I’m jittery, man. But you know, f*** me if I can’t take a joke, because you know what it means. After all these years, it turns out I’m the conservative.