Showing posts with label Sunglasses at Night. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sunglasses at Night. Show all posts

Friday, August 7, 2015

DotTeeVee: Sovereign Citizens Being Owned, Part 2

Previously, on Sovereign Citizens Being Owned we saw the Lower Alabama version of the Terminator killbot smash a car window, a dopehead get some rather tame voltage to the scrotal area and the world's most unlikeable truck driver turn a routine twenty second stop into a seemingly never ending lecture on how his misinterpretation of a naval treaty from 1761 means that questions from an officer don't need to be answered. Honestly, the only way it could have been better would have been with some Sheriff John Bunnell narration. "Here's a law-flaunting drug freak in a Big Rig! He honestly thinks that he's going to talk his way out of this by appealing to the Articles of the Confederation. The officer has seen enough. Now the window glass is almost as broken as his understanding of the legal system. A few high voltage shocks bring this dangerous animal under control. He'll continue his discourse on 18th century road laws...in JAIL!!!"

"His smart mouth just bought him a night's stay in the Green Bar Hotel!"

Our next resistor to the evil, all-powerful government, you know like in Divergent, proudly declares that's he's not listening to the lawful orders, which I'm sure will shut this down under some obscure hard-of-hearing defense that was briefly allowed for a few months by a treaty from 1744. In other words, check and mate. I can't even comprehend the tyranny you're talking at me, man. Far out. "It's called civil disobedience, have you ever heard of it?" explains our hero. Move over Gandhi. Why aren't you here, making life miserable for our police?

This question about civil disobedience and the knowledge of the concept is asked a few more times without satisfactory results and then the version of Thoreau our generation gets simply drives off. Wait, I thought he was going to get owned, what's up with this? As if in anticipation of my objections, the court records, complete with guilty pleas, are displayed while wacky music plays. We need to get the person who made this video directing various Hollywood reboots, this is incredible art.

9/15, never forget.

We're back to the trucker we met in part one. I guess the auteur that wove together this amazing compilation correctly assumed that there's only so much of this passive-aggressive piece of human goo we could take in one sitting. Now the officer is actually reading the relevant code directly from a piece of paper, his initial jovial goodwill long gone. The basic takeaway is that you're supposed to cooperate with law enforcement. But what about my freedoms? Talk about a bring-down. We get a final ultimatum that is met with "I am cooperating!" Well, that explains why we're wasting all this time going around in meaningless circles.

There's a jump edit and the same conversation is still going as if probably twenty minutes or so hadn't just elapsed. Long suffering doesn't even begin to describe the tool of the Orwellian system, while his victim just wants to "go down a road." He also isn't a fan of the intimidation that has occurred, as witnessed in cheerful smiles, polite questions and supreme professionalism in the face of the drivel he's been spouting. 

It's time to break the glass, but even now the jackboot wearer gives a countdown from three and when the countdown is over has some addition, fruitless discussion with the last, best hope for a free society. Finally the window gets smashed and the trucker gets showered with flying shards. "Shit." Yeah, it's almost like you could have somehow prevented this, but let's be real you're correct and the rest of the world needs to change.

They only warned me 37 times!
 
After all of that, the minority of one is dragged from the cab and arrested. This civilization thing, it's got to go.

Time to hear from a young lady, who wants yet another faceless system thug to remove his dark glasses so we can search vainly for any humanity in the eyes beneath. Predictably, the request is ignored and questions about comings and going receive non-answers. Back to discussing the cool shades, but they're not coming off because of the sunlight. Yeah, right. These nazis, they just make up anything.

We get some insincere thanks from the daughter of liberty, more debate over sunglasses and my feelings as a unique and special human being and then the officer wants to know why the motorist has been parked on the roadside for an extended period of time. Apparently she already told another oppressor. See, he wasn't wearing glass and thus earned the precious pearl that is a barely civil conversation.

To keep track of cars parked along a road.

After more useless, useless words the protector of the wealthy elite directs the driver to a nearby sign. In a funny bit we actually briefly see the No Parking sign, but our heroine instead thinks he's pointing to one mentioning a game refuge. This misunderstanding is promptly corrected. In a rare flip of the script the free woman asks the state trooper if there's a fire, but sadly "It doesn't matter." More feigned politeness and we manage to end one of these without breaking glass or delivering shocks. 

That last one was pretty boring and disappointing, but to make up for it we cut to a car chase worthy of World's Wildest Police Videos. Two high-speed scofflaws, putting innocent lives in danger, as a certain well-tanned sheriff might describe it. Heavy Australian accents describe how they "Just went through a breathalyzer" and are now fleeing the reprisal. Whether or not they were drinking from those massive beer cans or discussing if something was a knife or not remains unknown at this point.

Hi guys...drink beer!

We get a hearty "Here we go!" as the glory riders haul rear end, fleeing Mad Max and his 800 horsepower interceptor. A quick glance back reveals the forces of the decaying central authority are close by, trying to prevent this white line nightmare. This is followed by some exciting night driving footage and the calming tones of police sirens. Sadly the Nightrider is promptly surrounded by the authorities. Oh well, I'm sure they'll be willing to calmly discuss admiralty law for the next twenty minutes following that wild mid-speed chase.

Requests to open the door are met with a "No Mate!" Break out his window with a boomerang guys, come on.   

Mad Max 5: Am I Under Arrest?

Incredibly, we actually do get more conversation, featuring the usual "Am I free to go" requests as menacing government tools circle with batons at the ready. The smash and grab does occur however, and is described as "thuggery." I'd go so far as to maybe call it "hooliganism" myself.  

"Am I under arrest?"

"Yes."

Tune in next week at this time for the thrilling conclusion of Sovereign Citizens Being Owned, featuring a feckless momma's boy, a snide comment that is actually factually accurate and more requests to see the supervisor because law enforcement is like costumer service and that particular gambit always works. 


Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.   

Friday, May 9, 2014

Which Way Books #10: Invasion of the Black Slime

Last time out the original jewel quest ended in a French shake-down room. For those who keep asking, the shake-down room is where you get, well, shook down. I've decided to take a short break from Choose Your Own Adventure to try a Which Way Book. I actually have a pretty good recollection of this one from my childhood and have wanted to review it for awhile. Yes, I will try to be more industrious with finishing all the Choose Your Own Adventure books. Believe me, I really don't want to be writing a review of "Master of Kung Fu" or "Behind the Wheel" the day before I go before an Obamacare Elderly Death Panel, but I think this short digression is worth it.

Scheduled review date: May, 2071.

Which Way is actually not a cheap knock-off, but the direct lineal descendent from some of the first interactive books, along with Choose Your Own Adventure. It was published by Simon & Schuster (!), had a tie-in with Star Trek and produced numerous other spin-offs. This stuff was serious business back then. Interestingly, Edward Packard's Sugarcane Island, possibly the first book of this kind, was published in this series before being released as a Choose Your Own Adventure book. All right, I think that's enough history for now. You're here for the endless comedic references to Westworld and 1984, not for a detailed dissertation on a subject that no longer holds even the slightest relevance.

Enjoy your nightmares, kids.

This is another horror entry, which as I've noted many times, is the one genre that seems impossible to mess up, even for these books. Why the same generally serious tone, absence of odious "comic" relief, minimal far-left wing political ranting and adequate descriptive prose couldn't be applied to stories about the vast emptiness of space or the evils of rural America remains a mystery. For whatever reason "this must be scary": activates hidden reserves of non-sucking power in writers.

Well, unless that writer is Dean Koontz. 

I'm on a bicycle tour of what appears to be the Rocky Mountains, although a location is never specified. My ten day journey has taken me to the outskirts of a town called "Silverlode." Here I encounter another youth who serves as a plot device to launch the story, admirably fulfilling the expected "It's got a death curse!" warning while also offering up two alternative story lines. The summary is that weird things involving the titular slime are going down in the town. Two people were murdered and no one cared, we are told. Welcome to Detroit's sister city, I guess.

Mr. Plot Dump Jr. is instead going to his Uncle's house, which now serves as a modern version of the Deathtrap Dungeon, offering a Million dollars, which used to be a lot of money, to anyone that can survive its horrors. Yeah, that sounds a lot safer than the town. There's also a doctor who lost his son to a car accident and is probably trying to get all re-animator on that situation, so I could go check that out if people that casually kill each other and Crazy Uncle's House of Death aren't calling out to me.


I decide to go into town anyway, deciding that all this black slime talk is an exaggeration of what's probably a moderately serious incident, at worst. Yeah, there's probably some slime issues and maybe a few people have been body-snatched or whatever, but I came here to see small town America and it's going to happen. The insidious corruption of a small town is just going to have to wait until I take a bunch of selfies while standing in front of the giant rubber band ball and so on.

Everything seems normal enough. I hit a burger joint for some much needed fats and simple sugars and observe no strange behavior. Well, everyone is wearing sunglasses, but I chalk that up to some sort of fad. Yeah, remember that big tinted lenses trend that came and went? It certainly had no staying power. Everyone's into monocles now, or will be by the time you read this, areas of the U.S. that aren't on the coasts.

Keeping track of the visions in my eyes.

I hit the hotel and get some rest, reflecting on how much better this is than sleeping in a bag on the ground. Yes, I'm a child traveling alone, sleeping outdoors, staying in hotels...parenting was apparently a lot different back when "zero tolerance" wasn't a thing yet.

I decide to look around the town, slipping on some cool shades so I'll fit in better. Well, now I see why I'm allowed to travel alone at such a tender age. I'm a natural at fitting in and adapting to situations. Maybe next year South Sudan or the Ukraine. 

Visit beautiful Chernobyl! Also, everything you saw on the news is a lie. 

People watching ends when I literally become part of the mob, being told "it's time!" Good thing I've got that brilliant disguise. I'm hustled into the town hall just in time for the unveiling of something moving under a giant tarp. Yeah, this is not going to end well. What's in there is, of course, the Black Slime. It starts quivering and throwing out tentacles. "It's trying to tell us something!" declares the leader of the cult I managed to infiltrate via my careful attention to what's hot in the realm of eye covering.

Then I get splattered with a blast of dark muck, revealing me as an outsider and evil, evil non-believer. I'm given a choice to run or just sit there and let the crowd and sentient darkness have it's way with me. I run.

This reminds me of a quote Grandpa, for some reason. No, it's not "Son, if you're ever confronted by an alien horror that defies the generally accepted laws of biology and the insane human acolytes that worship it, hit the bricks." but is instead a pithy line about the need to "run like the dickens." Yup, that's an old person all right.

The regular cartoonist will be back next week, please stop sending in complaints.

This clever plan works, I wash the slime off, grab the bike and say goodbye to this town gone mad. Or do I? I'm given the option to try one of the other two plot lines. What is this, the Race Forever? How about "no."

You wouldn't know it from my run, but this book actually creates some pretty scary situations and has some disturbing illustrations that add to that mood. On the down side, it reads like three failed short stories shoe-horned into this format with mixed results. In the Uncle's house branch there's seventeen straight pages without a choice! Granted, these pages are packed with atmosphere and grotesque images, but it's not exactly interactive. This is this one's biggest failing, the limited agency. As far as bringing the bad dream petrol, it gets the job done easily.

  Sleep well, kids!

Check Out My Books!

Aaron Zehner is the author of "Posts from the Underground," now available in paperback and e-book. Read a free excerpt here.

His first novel The Foolchild Invention is also available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.