I have been listening to “SPINNING AWAY” from BRIAN ENO and JOHN CALE’S cool-ass pop masterpiece ‘WRONG WAY UP’ for uh . . . three hours now. Man.

(Thanks for reminding me about this album, Heather~)

I was sick all weekend. I slept on the couch and watched a bunch of movies. It was cold and I wore thermal underwear. It ruled.

Last night, feeling insane, I drove to Lake Merritt and bought a bottle of cough syrup and took a few swigs and then went to Grand Lake Theater and saw ‘Blade Runner 2049’ again. Just like last time, I experienced a godawful crowd. I had thought there would be no one there, but instead I sat in the row in front of a guy who whispered this to his justifiably bored girlfriend: “The original film is considered a cult classic in the sci-fi genre.” Give me a fuckin break, dude.

I have to mention that there was also a serial farter. He had his legs propped up near the front of the theater and he was machine-gun blasting out these gut-quaking farts during EVERY QUIET AND / OR EMOTIONAL SCENE. His friend also laughed or went “PFFFT!” or “C’MON!” every time he couldn’t suspend his disbelief and empathize with a fictional character on the huge screen in front of him.

Some time ago, never mind how long precisely, I saw ‘No Country For Old Men’ (whoops, guess now you know it was 10 years ago) in a Roppongi Hills movie theater in Tokyo. I had never seen a movie in Japan before. There were assigned seats and everyone quietly shuffled into the theater and sat down. They were silent the entire time. Everyone stayed and watched the credits. When the lights came on, they filed out with their garbage in their hands. We exited the theater and everyone used a trashcan to discard their popcorn buckets and beer cups and so on. I thought, “Holy hell dude!!!” I guess I have always remembered that day because I saw the world for what it could be (lol) if only it were beautiful (lol). Meanwhile, years later, on the other side of the Pacific, I am still surrounded by gurgling idiots with questionable pre-movie dinner choices!!!

ANYWAY: The movie ruled. ZAK “DELICIOUS” MCCUNE, my starbrother, had told me it was quote-unquote imperative I see it twice . . . and yeah! It sure is! I was gonna anyway. I’m glad I did.

Go see it! I was balls-deep in a cough syrup fever dream the whole time. ‘Blade Runner 2049’ is more or less a cough syrup fever dream. I was doubly disposed. I was melted plastic, dude. God was it great. I won’t advocate drinking cough syrup recreationally just to have yourself a good ol time in a movie theater . . . but maybe also I just did??

a sci-fi concept that i wish were real:

a company creates a clone of you, maybe sort of like a replicant from ‘blade runner’

the clone is a perfect replica . . . a replicant! (lol) with one important difference: any mental deficiencies / maladies you may have have been genetically cursed with would be wiped clean from their brains

namely: any tendencies towards suicidal ideation, self-destruction, substance abuse, and so on

you are then ethically euthanized by a trained staff, and the clone is set free to continue living your life with no interruption so as not to upset your loved ones

in other words: no one will ever know that you’re now a pile of ash somewhere

the clone will continue to age, and in its heart it will carry the secret knowledge of its existence, which is to live in place of you

which is no problem because it is you, more or less, and it will want to live and keep going, and so on

this life they have taken over will almost feel like a sacred duty to them

it will do what you could not do for yourself, which was to live without the burden of undeserved and incurable mental anguish

your memories will be theirs and they will feel just as real to them as they felt to you

the only difference is that their physical bodies were not actually present in the memories of your life, which is a trivial detail anyway, and will be to them as well

their body will identical to yours and have all of your idiosyncrasies, including scars and marks, and so on

they just won’t be insane is all

one day your clone will die with the secret still in them and no one will ever know the original you had perished surrounded by sympathetic nurses and doctors long before

ALPHA 60: “Is it not obvious that someone who customarily lives in a state of suffering requires a different sort of religion from a person habitually in a state of well-being?”

ALPHA 60: “What is the privilege of the dead?”

LEMMY CAUTION: “To die no more.”