Thirst
Introduction
Introduction
I’ve got a new set of rules to make Monopoly more realistic, and in my opinion, more fun, since equality is a farce and sometimes laughter is the best medicine. Either that or an apple. Or both, yet not taken combined, lest you go the way of inhaling the makings of cider into your lungs and end up with a nasty case of home-fermented apple-jack liquor.
Not that I’ve ever gotten hammered off the stuff, or have lived with the hangoverous consequences. So- now that we’ve agreed that nothing is fair except death, and at the moment no-one has any Kool-Aid for the party, so if we’re going to play a board game which essentially judges how you’re going to fare at life, let’s look around and agree to be honest for a minute about how we’re not all starting off with the same poker hand.
Life would be boring if we were, and the cheats would be known and many, but we’re not all equal when the starting gun goes off. Some of us already have PTSD and the gunshot sends us sprawling under the nearest table, adrenaline pumping, tunnel vision on killing and living, not necessarily in that order, but most definitely engaging in the first if it promotes the latter.
Some of us are autistic and didn’t get the memo about there even being an obstacle course; we showed up wearing the wrong shoes and carrying fantasy paperback books and a bag-full of fruit-chews.
Some of us have had other, older siblings run life’s course ahead of us, and sometimes they do a great job communicating back how to best set up for and navigate the race, while others set records so high and low that the following family pretends to be distant relatives if only in hope of a cleaner slate.
Monopoly is so exciting because, since we’re all starting with an even resource book, the end of the game is as determined by intelligent decisions as it is by chance. It rewards the risk-taker yet deals out consequences like badges of merit. It demands planning while offering once-in-a-lifetime opportunities at random, it provides a comedy commerce until the cutthroat conclusion. But that beginning itself, where everyone gets to pick their trinket, and then an equal count out of money, and shuffling, and rolling to see who goes first… No. New rules.
1: Everyone fights for which trinket they want. (this isn’t a new rule, but it’s not one that anyone is going to entertain thoughts of changing, since for some, this is the only point of playing the game- hence it’s inclusion here.
2: Everyone picks one Chance Card, one Community Chest Card, and one Residential Property Card.
3: Everyone rolls a die once. Any who roll a 6 also get to pick a railroad or utility card. (anything that can be owned other than a residential.
4: Everyone puts one house and their trinket in front of the residential property that they drew.
5: Everyone collects the value of all owned properties (the drawn residential as well as any RR or utility card) as more cash that they put in their bank.
6: Starting with the person whose residential property is worth more (in a tie, the closest property owner on the upcoming side of Go), all players flip (and play, if required) their Community Chest cards.
6: In the same order, everyone flips (and plays, if required) their Chance cards.
7: In the same order, REGULAR MONOPOLY RULES continue on until the end of the game.
(POST FIRST PLAYING OF THE GAME NOTE- If any of you have any love for The Streets, you’ll increase your bail by $25 each time you go to jail. First time, $50. 2nd time, $75. 3rd, $100. Once you’re in the system they treat you like you belong in the system and the system’s price of freedom keeps increasing.) (Or maybe you’ve never been in trouble, so disregard this entire note.)
I have no idea if the logic of the above steps makes sense, or if maybe 6 and 6 should get switched? For reals though, I just noticed that I’d included #6 twice in my count when I looked up to see which order of play numbers Chance and Community Chest came under.
But anyway, that’s the template for a realistic starting of the game. Life is not equal. Only thing that is equal at all is death, and as a people we’re doing everything we can to either race to embrace or flee in fear from that reality.
I was once in the cafeteria of a girlfriend’s college and while waiting in line I overheard two women talking, one complaining about her father. “He’s such an asshole!” she said. “He took away the Mercedes and is making me drive the BMW.” This is when I drove a 15 year old Pathfinder with a $500 paint job, tinted windows, and illegal exhaust.
My girlfriend drove a Ford Escape GT, or something like that. I believe the GT stood for “You’re soon going to lose all gears except the lowest and slowest and then have to drive hundreds of miles home with everything shaking and smoking.” You know what isn’t fun? Coming off Prozac.
I felt like absolute shit yesterday and this morning, and I’ve realized it was due to my negligent care of mental health medications. I’d been taking 40mg a day, and told my doc that now that I’m on myclo-life, I wanted to try a more unmedicated life.
I haven’t told her about my plans to grow my own opium as a replacement for pharmaceutical valium, or my interest in a woodworking lathe. Some things are pertinent, others not so much. So I talked to her about quitting cold and she said I should taper down, so she gave me a script for 30 10’s. This way I can taper incrementally as I wanted.
I told my therapist about all this, and although he’s completely on board with mushrooms being optimal over chemically created medications, he was a bit more concerned about my cavalier “I’m just gonna stop” approach. He said that I should go 2 weeks- or until I felt normal- whichever was *longer* between steps down. So that’s at least two weeks at 30mg, then another 2 weeks (at least) at 20, continue through 10, and then…
So anyway, I took 30mg the first night, and then on the 2nd night I decided to skip my dose, so’s to create a bit of a need in the dark places, which the soothing of could be accomplished by hopefully a mere 20, and thus, with a mere bit a discomfort, I could halve my dose in 2 days. Mind, there’s no fucking reason for this.
I could continue taking them for months if I wanted. This… just… is what my inner is feeling for me to do. So yesterday, after going to the gym and having a great workout, I got home and felt an inch off death. I did no writing at all. I ate no mushrooms. I rented a movie- that I can’t remember- and crawled into bed with my dog.
Who promptly took offense at the computer and left the bed for her chair. Fine. You’re the one that’s dying. I’m gonna miss you, but we both know there’s not room enough for two in that chair.
Anywhoo, I pass out, sleep the night away with more anxiety nightmares about tests and being late for assignments and then I segue into it’s Christmas Eve and I haven’t wrapped any of the presents I got for my wife… I had shit sleep with shit dreams, and when I woke up my head was killing me and my entire body hurt.
I’ve been sitting here under a humidifier for the past four hours hoping my sinuses will calm down and quit clenching. I’m feeling the cooling mist flow down my scalp, face, and neck, and it feels calming, like the last moments from a lack of oxygen, if I close my eyes I can imagine I’m floating along a water current, occasionally buffeted by the swirls of a passing eddy.
(12/14/2022)
Ok. Not sure where that ended up. Don’t really remember. But I’m going to bust this out and then see if I can learn to operate a propane heater without blowing myself up. I know what most of us are wondering, and the answer is- the mushrooms I took today before the gym were much stronger than anticipated and I spent the first half of the day tripping.
So, no, probably not going to be taking any more tonight. As I write that though, the urge does appear. Never say never, ‘cause if you do you’ll want to. I’m writing this on a new couch, which is pretty exciting and not exactly as comfortable for writing as I’d hoped. It’s IKEA, which, you know… NOT a good place to take mushrooms.
Or maybe it was a great place to take them. I can’t quite tell. But we got a nice couch, and some ginger-snap cookies that really hit the spot. Ginger is a strange food. Is it a food? A spice? I mean, it’s more of a spice than, say, corn. It’s a root, I think?
But then again, both peanuts and potatoes grow underground too… as do carrots… yet… tomatoes are fruit… I’ve got an interesting game plan for this evening, which involves maybe eating a couple more mushrooms, and drinking a honey-pot of coffee, and tearing through a review- and then getting all the camping stuff ready (including that new stove, which I have to figure out how to work, then re-package and wrap for Christmassing) so we can go out on Winter Van Tour 2022.
Baked Alaska is getting new shoes and a new stance. 2 inch wheel spacers, big beefy tires… As my wife loves repeating to me; “BEEFCAKE!!”. We’ve got a wedding Friday and then we’re taking off to go to the Christmas Valley Sand Dunes, and the Alvord Lake and then swinging by our secret Butte-spot for the third night. Should be some good wheeling, some good sleeping…
I read something about meteor showers, too, which will be amazing. So- pretty stoked. Got a plan that contains nothing but proven 110% proof fun and the better part of a week to do it in. Thirst: “The addict Hulda is arrested and accused of murdering her brother. After she is let go because of insufficient evidence, she meets Hjörtur, a thousand-year-old gay vampire. Together they fight a cult while being investigated by a rouge detective.”
Well… So… I mean… Yeah. See, the actual POSTER of the movie has a different tagline, which is “The New & Most Bad-Ass Gay Vampire Zombie Splatter Movie you’ll ever see. Ever.” And now, that… I mean… THAT is a description to see! Or… Read! Behold, even, if you have the time and the lighting is good. I like the part about fighting a cult. That sounds fun. But, see, THEY say it’s a zombie movie, even if… Amazon doesn’t mention them at all.
Ok. It’s later. Not much later, but late enough that I’ve already deviated wildly from plans. I’ve just wrapped all my wife’s Christmas gifts in the same wrapping paper. I used up the entire roll. And I’m kinda waiting for one of the presents to catch of fire or explode or something. The propane heater. I wrapped it with a full tank of fuel loaded in it. I already regret this decision.
I’m probably going to have “I’m late to hand in a school assignment and I can’t force myself to get around to turning it in and everything is exploding due to negligence” nightmares. Again. I’m also not sure how to write from this couch. That’s before I’ve set up the other laptop, too- space is at a premium, and my back and shoulders are already writing haikus about my demise.
Review Notes
Review Notes
A bath?
A lie?
Something isn’t right here.
Are they hooking up?
I do believe so!
Yes.
No. Oh, no. So much red.
And a penis! That was a penis!
A very red…
“Yes, he told me I should put tape over my asshole and leave it there overnight…” and then it ends something about maybe there’s a creature stuck in the tape…
“Some sort of hard narcotic… like… weed.”
Definitely having trouble typing on this couch.
I want gum. I do not want a cigarette.
I also don’t want to be interrogated.
Especially from this dick.
Although… she… she’s a bit crazy, I think.
Holy shit! Fucking jumped. Cheap. Effective. Awake. Very.
“I’ve also got this rash.”
Wow. No one wants to be her friend.
Two old dudes beating the crap out the vampire penis ripper.
I like his gold teeth though.
Wow. He just ripped his head in half.
So much red. So much red.
So much red crotch.
He… used his vampire superspeed (which is fun to watch on a couple of mushrooms) to stick the ripped off dicks in the cops’ mouths. I… I didn’t need that. Is this entire movie going to be penis?
She is COVERED in red.
Static… bad dreams…
Satan himself if on the prowl.
Wow. Trippy. Way trippy.
More penis.
More trippy. Way trippy.
Lots more penis. Lots more penis.
Watching a person have an angry phone call in a foreign language isn’t exactly thrilling.
A dark Harry Potter cloud flying around… Like, spectrographs or something on the prowl.
I want a hot dog.
Oh, shit. No, I’m good. I’m good.
I’m not sure I’d take a hot-dog being hand-fed from a vampire.
I’m gonna puke.
I didn’t need to see that.
Crazy Jesus lady…
A woman… has arrived. And is speaking English.
Wah? We’re in a graphic novel now…
A really bad one. With antlers.
What the fuck??
“It’s like Mom is back alive with us. But she has antlers.”
The cop is married to the Jesus Lady. Unhappily, it seems.
Crazy map time?
This woman is batshit.
We’re into gay gas-station chariots of fire self-stroking territory here. It’s not warranted. Or all that… comfortable.
The cross just flipped over…
A boring kitchen conversation.
The cop in the alley. Finds a penis.
The vampire… lives in his car? A crappy station wagon? And, I mean, I love wagons.
Dude looks like Gollum.
I’m having trouble caring. It’s all a bit much. And the language sounds like an orangutang speaking German.
I feel like they were going for a Hot Fuzz vibe here and it’s a swing and a miss.
Have they never seen a gun before?
“Pervert.” Uh? What? I’m so confused.
Fun with shoplifting.
Failing at shoplifting.
What the fuck?
Zombie in the back seat!
Two hot-dogs in the same bun? GENIUS!! I’m… I’m in awe. I cannot WAIT to go to 7-11 and get me some!! I’ve never thought of this. I’m so hungry.
I like the idiot cops, but…
Gollum got some stranger tied up…
That’s quite a zombie neck bite. Nothing vampire about that.
“Will he be alright?”
“Which one? Your brother or the boy?”
“The boy!”
“No. But I hope your brother will be fine.”
Whoops! Brother pulled a runner.
Or, a staggerer.
I like mom’s style. Washing pills down with Vodka.
I don’t give a shit about this stupid church shit.
I wouldn’t dare threaten my mother with a power drill.
That was the DUMBEST use of a power tool I’ve ever seen.
“At lunch, I was planning to have some salted cod. But instead I had a sausage and a milkshake. Actually, I had multiple sausages.”
Zombie son!
The zombie is eating his mom with a knife and fork while she just lay there?
“Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker.” Yeah. They just went Bruce on us.
Are we supposed to take those “special effects” seriously? They sure are… special.
Ding dong, the witch is dead.
This dude makes Tor Johnson look graceful.
Some sort of ritual. Blah blah blah.
Fuck that chair! I need to make it over to that other chair!
I am counting down the minutes before this ends. Please.
And… he turned into a vampire.
Vampire raging against the firs!
And… she just got grabbed by the crazy Jesus Lady and the cop vampire.
This is the worst news bulletin I’ve ever seen.
Meanwhile, at the local gay bar. The know everything plot-related. Just ask.
Another severed penis.
“I can’t do this. I don’t understand what is happening.” See, that sums up the whole movie in one sad sob of a statement.
Powerdrill in the eye.
Ripped the face off that one!
Whole shit-ton of monologuing.
Wow. I didn’t see that coming, though.
OR that.
I mean, I assumed the movie would end. I hoped. But… I had no idea HOW.
————End Transmission——————–
Plot Autopsy
Plot Autopsy
- We meet a vampire who is very enthusiastic about ripping penises off with his teeth
- There’s this woman, and an obese cop is being a dick to her.
- And then she tries to help penis-man and ends up stabbing another man in the crotch 47 times.
- A bunch of church shit and the dead brother is a slow vampire.
- The plot is sort of like having your face rubbed with big slab of fish. Unenjoyable.
- It’s fucking awkward to watch a morbidly obese man try (and fail) to cross his arms in satisfaction of a job well done. Just sorta penguin-flippers them back and forth in front of the barrel.
Zombie Description
Zombie Description
Bait and switch. No real zombies. Vampires. They totally lied. They totally fucking lied. And the vampires? Really just interested in you if they can rip your dick off. If not, you’re not of interest to them.
Where the money went
Where the money went
Fake dicks and red. And into hiring the weirdest looking actor this side of… shit. They need to cast that dude when they remake Beetlejuice. That’s a match made in funny-language heaven. The other cast though? I mean, they did fine, but in a word- ponderous. Watching that dude move made me feel like getting up and going for a jog. Or rather, a yog. But still- how much travel you think you’re going to get with the 47th ripped off dick that you wave in front of the camera?
Best Weapon
Best Weapon
The weaponized stupidity of religion. They made us watch and watch and watch and it was so fucking boring!
That was new!
That was new!
The title hasn’t even run and I’ve already been shocked- the vampire guy bit the other guy’s penis off. Like, shrubs and berries and twigs and danglies… Aside from gay porn, which… look- When you run an adult store, you have to see a lot of stuff. Some of it you have to watch. Some of it you smell, too, and there’s a whole lot that you hear. But, I have seen many, many penises. Ok. Story time. The adult store I ran had a video-arcade in the back; the little closets with sticky chair and a tv with 100 channels of porn playing 3 minutes for a dollar? Someone working at the store has to change out the videos every week or so. And sometimes that person is a mid-80’s ex biker hippie who doesn’t give a shit about anything other than getting high and playing golf with his wife on Nintendo. So he doesn’t really look that hard or pay that much attention or try more than the minimal effort, but he’s a really cool cat to hang out with. These machines, the video banks, they’re arranged so the first 50 or so channels are regular porn, and then there’s 25 or so of gay, and then there’s a hodge-podge of niche interest, such as transexuals and midgets and German people. When you’re a really stoned not giving a shit old man, sometimes you accidently put movies from a series called “Tranny Surprise” into the straight porn section. And boy oh boy, does the manager of the store get yelled at when men realize they haven’t been masturbating to video of women. I think that happened twice in the couple of years I ran the place. Another thing that I’ve never seen before is a belt-lighter. That’s pretty cool.
Can I get a hand?
Can I get a hand?
There’s a lot of close-ups of the VAMPIRE ripping people apart, but there’s no real emphasis on either hands or zombie-mythos. Primarily because this is a liar vampire movie.
Overall Recommendation
Recommendation?
Imagine watching Forest Gump. Except, every conversation is in some foreign language that is harsh on the ears and the actors are being paid by the minute, not the line, so they are really slow with everything they say and do. Now make every cut-scene a hallucinogenic red-fest with the only common denominator being severed penises getting waved at the camera by a strange Gollum looking little man, often covered in red and going “ARRRGH!!”. What more do you need to know? That there’s no actual zombies in it, no matter what the digital poster says? That all the side plots are painful to watch? That I was begging for it to end by the half way mark? I do feel like there’s artistic merit to this somewhere, in some strange, fucked up way that I can’t understand and I’m not going to do the self-diagnostic work to figure it out, either. But that doesn’t make it all that fun of a movie to experience. It’s often grating, and it really doesn’t show humans or vampires or Norway (whatever) in a good light. You want to watch vampires from a place where they speak in sledgehammers and hockey pucks? Go watch Let The Right One In. Or Let Me In. Whichever one is the original. And then, when you’re done and bored and thinking of watching this, watch the American copy. Just… don’t watch this. Unless you really want to see a strange little man ripping dicks off with his teeth and going “ARRRGH!!” really loud. Repeatedly.