Effin' Epic, Steve. Well done!
On 3/30/21 11:25 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
> Dave, Glen, et (gun-toting) alia -
>
>> When I bought the pistol, 1969, I could get armor piercing, black talon,
>> heavy grain, light grain, different gauge shot shells, flares, and a grenade
>> launcher (bullet with screw in top that took a rod to which the grenade was
>> attached). Best friend at the time was a genius savant in electronics (3M
>> fellow while still an undergraduate) and full-bore survivalist. We had a lot
>> of fun together. He was the "researcher" that wired up a modular computer
>> the psych department received sans manual, and I was the "lab rat" in my
>> first LSD experiments. You produce some interesting brain waves when on
>> meditation and on LSD.
> And this was during your SDS/Weathermen years, right? At least nobody died
> (as you tell it).
>
> And even more fascinating if you are fondling your .357 whilst on your LSD
> trip, jacked in to a jacked up TRS-80's? /The heft, the grip, the caress of
> the cold metal! / How does that translate when inhibitions and conventions
> about reality are lifted? Maybe complement that with a WWI Trench Knife or
> a Katana in the other hand! Surely there are some such studies out there of
> how the brain lights up when you have the capability to "end" one or many
> people at the twitch of the wrist or an index finger? And does it matter if
> it's loaded with snake-shot, mercury-filled hollow point, armor piercing, or
> a grenade (or one of each)? Do some light up our sense of importance,
> power, domination more than others?
>
> And how about them Rods from God (nod to Marcus). Does any one check the
> payloads on SpaceX's Falcon Heavy launches? I think a full complement of
> Gods Rods comes in at the standard 6-shooter revolver cylinder load of
> tungsten telephone poles. If you can't use them to excise Pence and those
> traitorous lawmakers from "the People's House", maybe take out Putin in his
> summer house, or Epstiens island, or Khomanie or XiXhing or little Rocket
> Man and his sister, or ... how *must* it feel to be Zeus or Thor hisself?
> Oh the problems we could solve with enough ballistic dominance! Just think
> how fast we could have cleared the Ever Given clog in the Suez? <bwah ha
> ha!> <ha haaaa...>... <ha!>.
>
> Some of my lucid-dreaming as a pre-teen included carrying a fully automatic
> weapon of some kind (my father's era Tommy Gun, or the contemporary M16 ?)
> I didn't watch many movies and no TV but somehow I knew the image/swagger of
> having a firestick in my hand that in principle could eliminate all foes just
> by waving it in their direction with the trigger held tight.
> Unsurprisingly, the subjects of my attempted elimination were "deserving* of
> such, because in fact they weren't just out to get *me* but to "get"
> innocent people and *I* was the only thing standing between the two. Where
> did I get *that* image? I was the proverbial "good guy with a gun"... what
> an archetype for my developing young male psyche! Taken straight from the
> engraving on the barrel of Glen's own obje't d' desire is the phrase "The
> Judge". Yes, it is compelling to be judge, jury and executioner! After all
> we *individuals* know best right from wrong and Ayn Rant(sic) tole us that it
> was our public
> duty to pursue our private interests to their fullest... and what greater
> proof of that is the willingness to take someone else's life with a flick of
> a wrist and twitch of a finger, for our idiosyncratic sense of greater-good!
> I wonder what our last two mass murderers were fixing up? Getting rid of
> those little exotic women he felt to be his temptation? Getting back at the
> bullies from high school that *might* have been in the supermarket (or
> school playground, or theater or ???) that day?
>
> Of course, true to form (in such dreams), the more important a willful act
> was, the more ineffectual my ability to respond. Most of us know how ff'ing
> hard it is to *run* in a dream, but in this case, that ineffectuality was
> extended to the bullets in the rifle... they were definitely "ultra-light
> grain loads" and in fact the harder I squinched my eyes or ground my teeth,
> or thrust the weapon toward the target, the more lame the trajectory until
> the bullets were barely able to make it out of the barrel! I vaguely
> remember in those dreams (paradoxically) having the fear that I would
> actually *hit something* with my limp waterhose of lead. As I tried in vain
> to raise my aim enough for the pathetic stream of tracers (yes, somehow I
> knew about tracer rounds) to reach my targets, I had to ask myself the
> question "are these truly my enemies, and is complete annihilation by lead
> (and tracers) raining down from the sky (consider my trajectories) the best
> answer. It was
> usually at this point in my dream that I began to exert my will a little more
> effectually and quit picking at *that* Gordian Knot. I think by then my
> enemies were usually bored enough with watching my pathetic attempts to "hose
> them out of existence" that they had quit whatever Snidely Whiplash activity
> they had been gesturing toward and I probably woke up out of my own boredom
> with the whole scene. I don't think kids who play MMORPG FPS (massive
> multiplayer online role playing game first-person-shooters) have the same
> dreams I did... maybe if I'd had more encouragement in my hero-wannabe-ism I
> would have become a gun nut myself?
>
> I should probably be telling all this to my therapist, not this crowd...
> though i think while her code of ethics requires her to keep it all to
> herself (unless I or someone else is in imminent danger from my ideations and
> intentions)... and here, this just goes into the archives for all to read
> (including my neighbors who probably already know I'm a danger to their
> god-guts-n-glory 2nd amendment rights). They are probably scared to death
> that I'm going to back my antique dump truck through the front wall of their
> house and hook a logging chain to their gun safe and yank it out of the wimpy
> little lead anchor-bolts holding it down to their 4" floor-slab... come the
> apocalypse (only) of course. <sidebar> Apocalypse rules: Might really DOES
> make Right! Maybe if they hadn't seen me welding steel plates over the
> doors and windows of the truck cab, they wouldn't have thought of that?
> Paranoia provides such a glorious endorphin rush! /If only I had some cold
> hard steel
> to fondle as I contemplate all the horrible things in the world that "a good
> guy with a gun" can fix up/ with just a little exertion of will... and what
> better scenario than a world run amok where *everything* is an opportunity to
> "do good" (by some twisted logic).
>
> The saying goes: "You don't see any motorcycles parked in front of a
> therapists office". I suspect you don't see many Diesel Duallies belching
> black smoke and sporting TruckNutz or NRA stickers either. I suspect an
> inflated sense of power over others might be just the antidote to the
> existential angst and ennui those without the big-iron feel? Maybe this is
> the answer to Marcus reflection on whether Rupublicans are happier than
> Democrats? Go sit astride a 100 horsepower Iron Horse or in the cab of a
> 400HP coal-rolling pickemup (don't forget the TruckNutz!) and fondle the grip
> and finger the trigger of some of your good friends standing against the wall
> of the closet (or tucked between the mattress and box springs of your bed).
> THAT will help relieve any self-doubt/self-loathing you might have!
>
> Just pay it forward, you don't need to own it... belch that exhaust, rip
> that sound out those 'murrican made cored out mufflers on your 'murrican made
> iron horse, wave those ('murrican made) weapons of war, spray some lead...
> see, don't you feel better now? Save that $100 and buy a round of drinks at
> the roadhouse for you buddies in patinated leather or denim but hold back
> enough to buy a dozen rounds for your best friend tucked down your pants like
> a phallic symbol. He doesn't want to be left with an empty chamber.
>
> Yup, I could probably go on forever... thank Goddess I sublimated my
> red-blooded 'murrican love for hot lead into the hot lead of type, long since
> gone virtual/digital <fingers clattering on my keyboard, ratta tat tat!>.
> Spraying my words indiscriminately over the crowd... fortunately they are
> easier to duck (or catch in your teeth and spit back as some here do so
> adeptly)... hitting <delete> is like my choosing to wake from lucid dreams
> when they got too boring or inane in spite of my best efforts to steer them
> right! Beware the rain of lead and tracers from an ineffectual keyboard
> jockey!
>
> ramble, mumble, grumble, bramble,
>
> - Steve
>
> <disclosure> I own my Grandfather's WWI-issue .45 (but no ammo, armor
> piercing or otherwise), a Diesel pickup (sans NRA sticker and Truck Nutz and
> programmed chip to belch smoke), and have owned a round dozen motorcycles
> (all rice burners) in my life... oh yeah... a couple-a 1940's typewriters
> and full set of brass linotype slugs for making (literally) hot lead type
> on-demand ( forget which type-face, I've never put them in a hot-lead lino to
> test them out). I don't own any tungsten rods in orbit.
--
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