"What is that smell?"

  A woman kept on talking, "He calls it tough love." 

  "My God." 

  "That's simply awful." 

  "Did they not clean up the kitchen?" 

  Another woman with a clothespin on her nose and dishwashing gloves scoured a cabinet.  

  A worldclass traveling couple stood in the little entryway.  That woman made a (i)that's stiff(i) face and the man said low and flat, "Elk musk".

 

"Let's put the super back in superficial!"

  "WHAT?!? ARE YOU NUTS?" 

  "Why are you yelling?" 

  "Spuds' band.  It's so (i)loud(i)." 

  "LOOK, YOU'RE A CUPCAKE MOM, NOT A HYPOCRITE OR A FAKE." 

  The band wound arms and instruments up into achieving fifth gear and suddenly stopped.  (i)OR A FAKE(i) hung in the air just as awkward as everything in flux. 

  "HEY! ARE YOU LOOKING AT MY WIFE?!?" 

  "I'M A GIRL JERK!" 

  People looked into their Solo cups. 

  "Where'd everybody go?" 

  "Girl shouldn't have a crew cut my ass." 

  "Keg ran out.  People went for six packs etcetera." 

  "Wait.  There's something wrong here." 

  "What do you mean Kay? Beer's gone, politicians are gone, and us girls are on our own.  Pretty typical." 

  "Yeah, but she said we're not fake." 

  One woman fluffed some curls near her ear.  "Ouch," said the short-haired girl. 

  "It's like there's no balance these days.  People are hot and cold all in like two minutes." 

  "Cocaine brain.  That's what a shrink I know calls it." 

  "And they don't want any input.  Leaves us out in the cold." 

  "I really don't know where all of this is going." 

  "That's why I'm bucking the system.  I'm going to vote for 'W'." 

  "Really?" 

  "He's actually the most sensible of all them all right now.  Stands up for his values and family, but doesn't ignore the cold hard truth that most of the world doesn't give two hoots about little young America." 

  "Sounding awfully patriotic." 

  "For what it's worth, (i)I am a patriot(i)." 

  "You don't always seem that way." 

  "Honey, a girl's got to get good at going with the flow and gettin' out of dodge." 

"Put it back in the box. And close the lid."

  The person did.  "Very cool logo, just saying." 

  "SCUD!" 

  It didn't explode but left quite an indent on a vehicle.  Like a smashing tree.  Only a tree isn't supposed to damage anything.  It's just supposed to be a tree. 

  Monies tossed into a pile on the floor of a room stripped of furniture.  "Next one'll blow." 

  "How did we get so callous people?" 

  "Everyone's in work mode." 

  "Is the gambling work?" 

  "I suppose it's a diversion." 

  "Watch out that window." 

  Closer and closer. 

  "Don't they know we're in here?" 

  "Probably why they are aiming here." 

  "Shouldn't we leave?" 

  "And go where?" 

"We're strongly advising you

  not to get off the plane at this time." Gen Xers told the waiting-in-the-wings Baby Boomers.  

  One woman gathered her strength, absorbed the weight of the moment as read through the feeling aboard the plane, and asked (i)why?(i) 

  The Gen Xers sat quiet at first. 

  Then one soldier asked another, "Why were they heiling you as Hitler?" 

  The man gathered his strength, considered the levers of flow hanging in the balance, and answered, "I did some cultural work (i)back home(i) in a different discipline." 

  "Are you a hater?" A voice asked as a hand reached up and shut off the seat light. 

  Another hand reached up and turned on a seat light.  "Did you switch political party this last time?" 

  "Who you?" Someone asked. 

  A throat clearing.  And someone saying, "I know I did.  Only because I didn't want to see any more homosexuals killed in the streets of America.  That's the only reason." 

  A hand reached up and shut off a seat light. 

  In the dark a voice said, "I'm sorry you saw that." 

"He's a hurter, not a hater." The quiet woman said

  of her brother.  "We're Belgium, not (i)this(i)." Eyes indicated the wall of people protecting people.  "We're not supposed to tell you we're Americans.  Let that one through," an outraged Jewish American woman told some Jewish men in uniform.  Shouts of (i)Heil Hitler(i) rattled the fragility of the air.  Feet stomping forward. 

  "Get UP!  GET UP!" 

"We want our party back! Fuch why won't

  this door open?" 

  "Down here!" 

  "Hold your fire." 

  The sizzling sound persisted. 

  "It's all that until," the man's face blanched.  "He's passing out." 

  "It's (i)not(i) all the Nazi Party, so get out there and dance, (i)live life(i)." 

  "But it's (i)authoritarian(i)?" 

  "Very much so, especially in this hemisphere." 

  "Better us in charge than them," a card waving American Republican indicated more dead people dressed in military clothes awaiting the Mysterious Death Train. 

"Why would anyone wear that shirt?"

  "It's traditional." 

  "Did you join their side?" 

  "(i)He said(i) it's traditional." 

  "It's ridiculous." Said the man in a business suit. 

  "Is associating a soldier with a National flag ridiculous?" 

  Arms chained to a briefcase.  Briefcase opened.  Monies doled out.  The paper "deal" on the table beside.  Budget-minders logging every bill. 

  "Did it come from Russia?" 

  "It came from the U.S." 

  Silence. 

  "But is it Petro dollars?" 

  Silence. 

  "The American journalists are free to go." 

  "But there's no plane." 

  "Poland is just up that way." 

  One man stared at the ruins of a school for a long time before picking up a bag of video equipment and heading back towards "the war". 

"After this we get superficial."

  "Because we must!" Someone growled.  Flasks were raised.  The last labels: CLASSIFIED were put onto folders to remain on a desk under a camera. 

  "To the corner." Correspondents quickly complied. 

  Battlefield commanders were silently ushered inside the hovel.  Everything expressed was done so in a coded "language" of prepped-to-a-tee.  No one had to blow cover in any way.  The conjoining of forces and operations like a circuit board of people functioning on command.  Hence a shroud of secrecy around (i)just how was this decision made(i).  Less argumentation, more centimeters of ground gained. 

  "It's hard on that one," a command support indicated a commander temporarily caught in the decks being shuffled together.  "Now we are together," became a necessary mantra. 

  "Men have lost their souls (i)out there(i), let's help them keep their minds." 

  "Where's the holy guy?" 

  "I fired him." 

  "Why?" 

  "That one didn't even know about forgiveness." 

  "Is that (i)a thing(i)?" 

  "Absolutely.  Come to my talk tonight." 

  "How DARE YOU!!!!" The PA in the ruined school shouted. 

  "My president signalled he wants a stop to it." 

  "Which part?" 

  "Let's have lunch.  If you can call a frozen hunk of whatever this is lunch." 

  "Is it true that some countries are choke points?" 

  "How 'bout a cocktail before we get in bed?" 

  The men killed a half a bottle of watered down vodka.  Seated around a cable table on crates.  Half shots, glasses slammed down on the first round.  "Some of those captured leaders, they f'd up on some other stuff." 

  Another pour of half shots. 

  "What stuff?" One of the men asked sniffing the liquor. 

  "Stuff you guys wouldn't know about I'm sure," one man said as he pulled the hunk of frozen meat from a small knapsack.  It was wrapped in a piece of heavy tarp.  "You stopped, you stopped where I tell you?" 

  "Oh yes.  Found the truck.  Found this supper." 

  "You said lunch." 

  "Lunch, supper, same thing most days." The man unrolled the frozen food.  Another man slugged down his shot and shivered.  Placed the glass down without slamming it.  Looked unquizacly into the distance.  "My horse." 

  "The meat?" 

  A slow, kind of nod.  "He died." 

  "Been frozen for a while?" 

  "Two winters." 

  The third man started snoring with his eyes open.  

  "We could melt it." The man made hand gestures explaining. 

  "No fire." 

  "Okay.  Let's soak some of it in this." He pulled an unopened brandy from the knapsack and folded the bag neatly.  Put it on the table.  "Let him sleep," the man thumbed at the snoring man and licked his lips.

To some extent, for war correspondence

  the era of postmodern warfare was summed up in two acts which almost happened concurrently. 

  Some people with personality and singed hair realized (i)still physically alive(i) in a dimly glowing field of static electricity and charred tree trunks.  The achievement was gaining a second or two on a communications linkage. 

  In the backleg theatre a limosene was blown to smithereens in a precision bombing.  Witnesses in a room far away confirmed, (i)no one touched anything(i).  

  The acts of defense and aggression happened even whilst the humanity (i)on it(i) took stands on moral ground and discipline.  That happening assymetrically and on scale was the immediate cause for alarm and what prompted several decades of compartmentalization amongst intellects even while popular culture did its own popular thing in the metanarrative. 

"Okay, let me see your second quarter." The woman behind

  the folding table said to a prospective client.  The man's hand instinctively reached towards his shirt pocket.  "Not sure she gave me any coins." 

  The crowd was filling in as Services in the area got over.  "Did you bring your returns? Not that I do those, but," she got up to orient on who was where and people standing around a video camera stirred as if an elephant was done mudbathing.  "Don't get up," she was told.  "Need something? I'll get it." 

  She sat back down.  A judge position in a courtroom.  

  "Honey.  Honey we need more neck pillows." The women watching a hidden monitor didn't notice their spouses leave. 

  One kid had a red ear, another a bloody nose.  "He threw it at me." 

  "I was trying to get his attention." A man kicked the Nerf like a field goal kick.  Put his hands on both boys shoulders.  "I want you to apologize to each other." 

  "Well, I can't do a sitcom here." 

  "Why not?" 

  A tired sigh.  "Look kid, it was nice meeting everyone, but," words lost to a straggling line of protestors debating what next to yell.

"This is not a game and she is not a piece of meat." The

  man had been thinking of this for almost two days.  Just this.  (i)Stuck in the craw(i), as they say.  

  "It's not time yet," had been the iron wall line given by administrators on both sides of the Seas.  And yet. 

  Soldiers were sent. 

  Diplomacy was a burning piece of paper in both the Eagle's beak and the devil snake's mouth. 

  And women sent out for store-bought food and water were promptly raped.  A businessman had his tie wrapped around his throat.  And the real-time entertainment virus was hacking itself through the internet door. 

  "Drift." 

  "Collateral." 

  "You guys sitting on your hands in a bunker." 

  "These guys have been beat up pretty badly." 

  "What are you telling me for? I am not a school marm." 

  "Because you'll need protection." 

  "This is a war.  There is no protection." He looked at the Go Team heading to the Front.  "Not really.  Not the way this is forming itself." 

  "Forming itself Sir?" 

  Peoples' minds swam with the existential questions.  (i)What are we doing here? What's the solid line between vengeance and defense? Who said?(i) 

  "Even the orders are vague." 

"A beautiful woman has slim choices."

  "I thought you said they were Republicans." 

  The gorgeous men were being measured for wedding tuxedos.  The children busied themselves with leftover board game misfits.  In and out of the grown up's world.  Taking turns inventing the game rules, parenting each other, hiding in imagination land.  "They seem more like thugs!" One declared. 

  "Gorillas in fancy clothes," another remarked of the men. 

  "HEY! GET ME A SODA." 

  The body had big holes in it. 

  The men who'd gotten pinned down at workplaces and the Milk Barn considered it.  At first there wasn't much commenting which is what talking about a dead body really is -- commenting. 

  "Oh finally! A (i)real(i) journalist." 

  "It was a cadaver." 

  "Why are you so out of breath?" 

  The woman lit a cigarette.  "Trains are down again.  I walked from Oyster Bay." 

  A taller kid stepped from behind a trench coat covered ladder.  "Din't know there was a train from such a place (i)mother(i)." 

  "Palease, that was two weeks ago!  Look at all these othah bodies we found since then," the punk girl put down the paintbrush and headed towards the garage. 

"What is this?"

  The woman in the correct-size high heels was leaving a trail of indents in the pine needle covered soil.  Other women were working quietly--gathering, fishing, cleaning.  The high-heeled "modern" woman looked alarmed. 

  "You can come in here as far as the picnic table." 

  "Don't worry.  It's not satanic.  Not klannish.  Not even tribal." 

  "What is it?" 

  "Some of us are learning from the Native Americans how we take care of our men!" 

  A look of aghast.  "After all you've seen of (i)them(i) and their, their (i)ways(i)." 

  The Native American women had frozen in place.  "I like their ways." 

  "Not them!  (i)THEM(i)," she waved a manicured hand at the world-at-large. 

  "She a manhater?" Asked a black Native American person. 

  "She's the one who wants a husband so badly she's trying every which way to be an (i)ideal(i) woman." A look of flabbergasted at being talked about in front of strangers.  "A (i)good husband(i)." 

  In Cherokee someone said, "That's the tramp."  Someone else picked up a smooth flat matada.  "You better move.  And speak in English."  The person said, "That's the tramp." And moved as the corn grounding rock was plopped into place near the campfire.  The high-heeled woman's head sunk low into her fleece jacket.  Tears dripped. 

  "Probably fake." Someone said. 

  "Not for you to say that," someone else chided. 

  "I can say what I want." 

  "Not at the expense of (i)relations(i)." 

  A tissue was taken out from a sweater sleeve and proffered.  It was taken. 

  Sniffles.  A nose blow.  "It's not just about finding a better man out there, but, but," the woman broke down into crying. 

  "Maybe I should go find your bestie." 

  The crying woman shook her head (i)noooooooo(i). The other women went back to work preparing. 

"Buncha hot heads."

  "That's why they sent (i)you(i)?" 

  The man decided not to take his briefcase off the side-by-side.  A discussion of work-to-date on a legal issue with a major institution would have to wait.  "Actually," he deliberately chose his wording so as not to exclude anyone, "Some guy's or girl's scientific audio equipment charted an earthquake in this area." 

  "Really?  Is that what happened last night?" 

  The hungover people went about nursing themselves back to the land of the living.  "You tell me." 

  "An awful lot of noise." 

  "That's what we are to you.  (i)Our generation(i)." 

  "I'm sensing (i)tensions(i)." 

  Grumbles.  

  "Anyone want to start?" 

  Sighs.  And an "I thought we were on our own." 

  "TRAMP!" A late waker walked up to one of the young women and declared.  People literally ran and took defensive positions as if there might be a throw down.  Some stood behind each woman, others formed a spectacle ring.  People also bickered amongst themselves and pitched out words of support like (i)You tell her(i) and (i)stand your ground(i).  The noise. 

  This frenzy lasted for about four minutes and then everyone mostly just walked away. 

  "It's (i)not(i) going to be (i)you(i)!" Someone hollered. 

"Because you can't control this." Largely

  fell on deaf ears since the people being told that had trained every cell of themselves to be in control.  One after another individual journalism-type presented images of public gatherings. 

  "Are those machine guns?" The person representing some "media" that had been sent dramatically gestured (i)silence(i).  A freelancer ran finger through the air over a series of shots and tried to (i)read(i) theme.  Bigger and bigger crowds, fires in the streets, various leaders seeming smaller and smaller at various podiums. 

  "Hold the dog," a woman plopped the small dog on her husband's lap.  She pulled a private phone from a pants pocket.  "Pull my people," she told someone on the phone. 

"My battered woman's syndrome kicked up."

  "Understood." 

  "Guys, (i)look at this(i)." 

  People gathered around a tiny round table. 

  "What are they?" 

  "Fake newspapers." 

  The plane plunged through migrating birds. 

  "Like propaganda?" 

  "Must be." 

  "Like," the Latin teacher gently chided the popular buzzword, "The hijackers found reading material on a flight and used it to ply trade." 

  "Honey, we can't believe in the news right now," a man had called his wife and relayed.  He didn't flip the phone shut as various professors explained (i)what's what(i).

"You know I guess we should

  agree upon some standards about the thing." 

  Everyone just looked at the man.  Put in place as part of a team build design.  Not familiar with the field of work.  Had never even set foot on an Academic "campus". 

  "Where do you want these?" Asked a person with a five foot stack of rounded up books on a hand truck.  This was the first of eleven stacks hauled silently into the abyss of "meeting". 

  The man's portfolio laid open on the table.  A stock resumè on one side and a thin, blank spotted and  highlighted resumè on the other.  One woman started to leave the room. 

  "Where are you going? You can't leave." 

  "And why is that?" 

  "Because I said so." 

  "The restroom." 

  "Me too." Another person said and got up from the table and pushed the first woman out the door. 

  One by one the stacks of books were sorted into (i)knowns(i) and (i)unknowns(i); (i)canon(i) and (i)alternative(i).  The man at the head of the table was replaced again and again by others caught in the uncomfortable process. 

  Before being released from the room each person was required to choose a book that (i)may be questionable material for an educational environment(i).  The man chose (i)How To Build A Bomb(i).  The student assigned to help the man with a first draft of resumè chose one with the word (i)anarchy(i) in black on a black colored spine.  The word had been yellow or white and marker-colored over. 

  While most people held tongues in the darkening hallway some hissed (i)traitors(i). 

It was a long, long walk.

  We'd been cleaning up the camping gear and found a cooler with urine-y black liquid inside.  In the pool of darkness was floating a heart.  Not the kind we draw to make someone smile, but an organ!  

  Another jetplane flew in so low it shook the ladies teacups in the saucers.  "Oh my." 

  "That was close." 

  "Is it (i)really(i) a war?" 

  "A proper war?" 

  "Time will tell." 

  "Nothing really (i)proper(i) about war.  Look what it does to people." Eyes indicated the corner of the clubhouse.  Stacks and stacks of newspapers.  Totally messy hair bulging a hightower of newspaper into an unorderly thing. 

  "Should I go to her?" A girl child asked but the question evaporated into the heavily settling air.

"How can we have a team if there's chaos?"

  The fate of the entire summer hung in the balance. 

  "I think we should vote on it," said the kid holding a roomful of stuffed animals hostage. 

  "I'll think about it," the stubborn mother closed the door.  Turned off the TV with its terribly dark violent "politics". 

"Because you are a radical." She pursed her lips.

  "How do you figure that?!?" 

  "STAND OVER THERE." 

  "To the corner?" 

  The corner was filling up.  Someone put a thesis in front of his face and yelled out, "Is this not a University?" 

  Others wandering around in the hallways ducked into the classroom.  The tall woman and some other people murmured about each one before declaring things like (i)liberal(i), (i)standard Republican(i), (i)religious(i), (i)Academic(i).  The thesis asked, "Are we not all Academic?" 

  A low moaned (i)noooooo(i) had some gasp and the corner suddenly seemed more like a stall of nervous horses.  "This campus has been invaded," said a slightly taller moaner.  "By who? The Beatles?" A man with thick yellow glasses asked.  "Are the Red Coats coming?" Someone else asked.  Some of the moaners (i)tsk'd(i) and some said (i)sho nuff, sho nuff(i).  Someone looking female but with a very deep voice remarked, (i)Sho nuff, my sources saw peoples with GUNS(i).  A medium-sized woman dressed in a smart suit shoo'd that one all the way to a desk.  "Trying to make me the sitting duck I see." 

  "Your parfoom stink." 

  "What are we going to do in the dark?" 

  "We are definitely going to turn the lights on." 

  "Yes, you blind people need to see the light." 

  "Ow!  She just poked me with a pen!" 

  "That book you cited in your 

  "I didn't give a lecture 

  "(i)talk, is not in the canon." 

  "That makes me radical?" 

  "To some." 

  "What (i)is(i) in the cannon?" 

  A SECURITY-vested man craned his neck as he stealthed past the door, then reappeared with a handgun aimed at the floor. 

  "That doesn't make me anymore comfortable about those things," someone said.

"God bless you as alloo achtbar; got it." The

man made the notation in a thickening binder on cross-cultural studies.  Dozens of young men and women had que'd themselves to report symbols and meanings.  Children in various states of dressed for the day weren't (i)playing(i). 

  "Looks like we're not going to Trick or Treating," sad kids slumped into the chairs around the dining table. 

  "Big surprise," said an oldest girl rolling her eyes. 

  It wasn't long watching raindrops on the window before the garage door could be heard. 

  "Oh! You guys are home already," said a mom with a Snickers in her mouth.  Other moms mumbled at the sudden halt in the doorway, stifling cuss words at bags of candy dropped. 

  "A little more diplomacy boys."  The man fell back into a wall.  A woman went to wipe the blood dripping from a split lip and the man wearily snatched the towel.  Another man grabbed a bottle of aspirin and a glass of water from a silver serving tray held stiffly by a butler. 

  Almost in slow motion the cultural variety of young men and women fought.  The losers were dragged off the mock tarmac.  Thrown in a pile as recorders fell behind on writing details and photographers numbered numbers.  "It'll all be archived," said a man chomping on half a cigar.  He waved a (i)sigh-yo-nara suckers(i) to the newly minted in a golf cart jitney headed for "a real meal". 

  "Missing teeth." 

  "Probably drop kicked.  Go ask that one." 

  A scrappy young person leaned against a tree by one foot propping him or her alert looking.  Rubbed bruised knuckles while a tiny young woman dug through a tool box.  "Looking for?" Tall boots beside her expecting an answer made her shake harder than a tremble.  She closed the lid and slunk backward. 

  "Ten more to go!" Someone hollered near a whitewashed school bus. 

  "Why are the beatings so bad?" 

  A punk-haired manboy sighed and made a sarcastic girly dimple gesture on his own face.  "Because I'm stupid." 

  An Officer stepped forward.  "If (i)they(i) hadn'tah (i)infiltrated(i) our barracks, none of this wouldah happened." 

"Voodoo shmoodoo is what

  the wasp man said," told a kid who'd been to all the groups drinking church soda.  "Either way Father, we'd like you to come Bless our home."  The priest nodded absently even as he observed the bucket of ground up seashells and baubly beads.  "Of course," he said. 

 

"HE'S MESSYOHGINNY!"

  Startled.  "HE IS NOT!" 

  Silenced.  "And he's headed back into the war." 

  A moaning cry. 

  "And stop sneaking around spying on us or I'll..." 

  "You what?" 

  "I'll think of something." 

  "LADIES.  TITS UP, CHINS OUT." The hot yoga instructor who'd been hanging with some military moms stood in front of the nature walkers and ordered.  Some of the older women giggled.  One commented, "I haven't thought about either of those and me in the same sentence (i)in years(i).  I like her!" 

  "GO HOME YOU little," the man's lips scrunched and gnarled "(i)communist(i)."  Somebody gasped.  Somebody else started quietly humming, (i)getting to know you, getting to know all about you(i).  "Shouldah kept my wanker in my pants," the man mumbled.  Then called out to the woman slowly walking away, "Wait.  I need those," he pointed at her chest.  His hand motioned (i)give them to me(i).  "Those?" The woman looked at the binoculars on a strap around her neck.  "Yes.  (i)MINE(i)." 

  Even the woman found a place to lay quiet in the Forest.  A vehicle pulling two logs on a trailer nearing covered the minute sounds of rousing.  Another woman reported what seen in the field glasses.  "He is (i)all(i) man.  When I look at him I can see him at every age all rolled into this perfect present man." 

  "Give me those!  What is he (i)doing(i)?" 

  Another man peeked.  "Taking a pileak." 

(i)These colors don't run(i) vied with

  the word (i)LOVE(i) on a tie-dye tee-shirt.  Person gone.  Groups of people frozen in place as Crime Scene Investigation factually recorded every square inch of a large grid. 

  "What's the competing sound?" Asked a world famous Audiologist. 

  "That's (i)drama(i) to us," said an English-speaking scientist.  Fingers ran through lists and lists of words in many languages and in characters.  Somehow "sound" and drama matched up in a popular-speak legacy.

  "Competing sound is a golf game crowd spontaneously saying, (i)eeeeeww(i)." 

  "Why?" 

  "A brother and sister living together, not anything weird." 

  A Detective slammed an open palm on a sawhorse.  "I'M THE ONE ASKING THE QUESTIONS HERE!" 

  "Yes m'am." Someone managed. 

  Back Overseas there was progress (i)towards(i) peace.  But "agreements" had to be reached; political parties had to be political and not one with "militia" which is in many places different than National military; and some baseline on war/crimes had to be stormed towards in (i)legal processes(i).  

  Some countries staged photo ops of citizens making a difference by voting.  Crowds were powerless as cameras were ordered (i)off(i) and peoples' fingers were cut off.  People were dragged around by head hair.  People were denied medical aid.  People were slammed and piled into institutional places. 

  "I can't testify." Someone relayed what was said since everyone was in a contraption of "I'll shoot." Loved ones were snatched as soft targets.  People drank themselves to numb just to calm the shakes. 

  "When you say (i)global(i), what do you mean exactly?" Minds ticked off mental lists of what could be said and what couldn't to save some of humanity. 

Puttings things back into Pandora's box

  As we'd done on Broadway in a maelstrom of popular meets Academic, the civilian journalists slipped network jackets and helped create buffer zones.  In New York it had been a literal red velvet rope.  And the crushes could overwhelm.  Around the world in a 24/7 news cycle anyone, anywhere might be caught off guard. 

  "Blushing" would not be the word for the colors people turned in confrontations and interventions so wiley not even a PR bandaid could keep the White House from reacting. 

  "You ACCUSED ME OF SELLING STATE SECRETS!!!!!" To a (i)just want to know why(i) someone got bowled over in a crowd.  "Have your lawyer call ours," a man or woman could be heard saying nine times out of ten.

Somewhere around mile 317 of 728 we

  took to madlibbing each others' sentences.  "There's real 

  "Stylish." 

  "And you're not it." 

  Moods and personalities centering on the seesaw of real life.  Song charts dissected with a carpenter pencil and the lines of analysis.  Questions shredding song writing as if songs were potatos.  "Let's turn this into Latkah and call it a day," the third person influenced the dynamic. 

  "Do you guys ever have fun?" A tall guy in a crusher hat asked outside a restaurant as the sunset turned objects into silouhettes of themselves.  Nobody answered. 

  "You have the beer.  I'll drive next." 

  "It's just so mechanical." 

  "The actual score?" 

  "Everything really." 

  "Some people are going Indie." 

  "What's that?" 

  "Evolving, emerging, liminal, hard to pin down genre-wise." 

  "Broker than broke?" 

  "Probably." 

  Snoring.  "Honey you haven't touched your food." 

  "Is that person fucked up?" 

  "Asleep." 

  "Can't sleep here.  See the sign." 

  "Okay.  Can we have a To Go box please."