Mortimer Ford

"Is Manfred here?"
The bartender breaks his hasty demeanor and gives me a queer look. "What for?"
"I want to give him something."

He points to the back. "Far corner."

Manfred's hard to miss with his tight aging beard and his denim cap. His attache case is more like a satchel. He keeps it close. I sit across from him.
"Do you remember me? You gave me this."
I pull out a 2001 Half Dollar and hold it between us.
"Yeah" he says, nodding his head slightly.

Manfred is the bastard son of Edmund Fitzgerald and Jaquelin Onassis. He spent twenty years in the secret service, served President Clinton and was forced into hiding by circumstances I regrettably have forgotten. When I first met him his belongings were spread out before him. Documents, KGB, FBI, foreign currency, passports, banknotes, badges, medals, night visions specs, exotic medications, cellular phones and the local favorite,... rolling tobacco, all out in front of him, pinned to his jacket, his hat, his belongings his words. He spoke quietly, causing you eventually to lean into his voice. He remained resigned and dignified, his operandi not to smother the truth with exaggeration but charm it to a sense of complacency. I liked him instantly.

"I got something for you." I hand him a 10 Ruble note.
He looks it over, smiles slightly, nods slightly and without question folds it into one of his many pockets.

I sometimes wonder how a man can be the offspring between a sunken barge and a national icon cursed with miscarriages, but the more I think about it, the more plausible it seems. If any man could prove such a lineage, Manfred would certainly fit the bill.

There are those times when you are so drunk that you can barely hold your head up without feeling queasy when the cold tile of the bathroom floor is more comfortable than the embrace of your own bed. You are not haunted with a burden of vomiting on your valuables or the tasks of even avoiding them. A place without challenge. Just a truce between you and your weakness. That is the magic of the bathroom penance. I'm going to lay there now. I turn 35 tomorrow.

I took this picture on the evening of Dec. 26th, 2006.

When I was young and I would return from a trip, I'd lay in bed at night thinking about Rufus. Rufus was a stuffed dog my parents gave me one Christmas. Its material was cropped short like a soft fleece and patched together in an intricate manner that resembled a beagle. It's eyes were halved marbles with ocher centers. Its expression somber. I adored that dog. I would replay highways in my head, highways fresh in my memory, that wasteland a few hundred feet behind our car and Rufus would be there, having slipped out of a window or ejected from the car by some fate I could never control, laying in the grass and the rushing winds of strangers, forgotten and long from home. I hugged him tighter until I fell asleep.

I imagined Atlanta as it was in my memories and crying at the sight of these old places. But this place leaves me in a stupor. Now I walk through a friend's house that is both surreal and familiar and empty. I feel I might cry but I'm afraid I would not be able to stop and more so what I would be crying about. It's probably better to let this out in a long permeating feeling of disquiet. I do disquiet well. I am happy to be back, but I am still clutching Rufus.

When I conceded to myself that I may have to go back to Atlanta, something funny happened. My brain began to prepare me for returning. I began to ruminate and grow more heartsick than ever about it. And the shitpile of denial that kept me wheeling through Asheville began to evaporate. My last reason for staying here spilt out with my beer, which she ragged up while I sat there looking like the world's biggest dumbass, one beer poorer and not a phone number to show for it. "Sorry", I say.

There's a possibility I can land a job this week. Not a bad one either, but I don't want it. I wan't my German Pub and I want fucking Kroger's. I wan't my QuickTrip and I don't ever want to see another Ingle's if I can do anything about it. I'm tired of socially active bumper stickers and I'm tired of the people. These people take themselves awfully seriously for folks who believe in astrology.

I have to give it to Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber. Joe the Plumber asked one of the only relevant questions during the entire McCampain. And Sarah Palin did indeed point out an important relevancy regarding intellectuals. Yes, some of us are elitists. Snobs if you will. I have ever been so eager and in practice to write off the country folk of this nation as bigoted, ignorant and unsophisticated, inbred, mouth breathing imbeciles, and to a certain aspect this is entirely true, but that conclusion is no lesser a sin than that Sasquatch strength crutch often wielded upon the aluminum siding of a trailer as the accusation of racism.

One of the things I will credit towards the so called rednecks of these hills, beyond their disdain of three syllable words, is that they people will never turn down an extended hand. I admire it, and in the wee hours of the morning I welcome that camaraderie into my friendly stupor. So I enjoy speaking to different people. People of all cultures, races and social branches. Part of it, I admit is my tendency to disprove my own bigotry, and part a sick curiosity and still another part is the charity betrothed upon the mentally retarded. Hey what, you say! You cynical imp! Your mixed messages are mixed and frothy of mixation. I challenge you, sir, to a dual of apathy! Well chew on this. While introspection is ever much the equalizer as an aging British operative with a .45 and a launching knife, audacity is the God of Comedy.

I have lost the point of this discussion. It lies somewhere in drunkenness, a beautiful place where logic and that second thing you make up to complete a cliche sentence are irrelevant in the face of a punchy laughability.

If you want the point, and I'm not sure there is one at this .... juncture, is that I have met country folk who appear backwards and retarded but who still refrain from the 'N' word and I have met the same who I have found myself in humor, entertaining out of aspect of camaraderie, who by their misfortune, have slipped between the cracks of a recognizable mental retardation full of smiles and softened signature and that of the genuine ignorant, who sadly are labeled as the latter because of their lack of childish mirth and wonder. As anyone can see when talking to them, they are not merely, or offhandedly suggested as retarded, but genuinely incompetent of reasoning. And yes, I now believe this is actually the result of inbreeding. All you mutts out there, you Heinze 57s. Be thankful of your promiscuous genes. Thank Lord Christ, Allah and that cross eyed dude that bags your groceries. Or not, because I can achieve in three hours what four generations of undiscriminating fuckage can inflict upon the world.

I started watching TV again. This was not a significant decision in any way but there was one in the hotel room so I watched it nightly. It made me rethink why I stopped watching it in the first place. Of course I was not naive enough to expect a cease of elimination challenges and one on none closet confessions of "say it to my face"land. One grievance (well two if you count that neverending bowflex commercial) I had forgotten about was the nearly constant repetition of Pharmaceutical ads. I guess there was a time when drugs were given a scientific name and passed on to the public despite their pronunciation. As their advertisement potential grew, companies began to recruit sharp shooting Ad specialists with half pregnant cocktail napkins. If you want to explore this metaphor any further, consider the offspring, these little hybrid words like Singulair, Celebrex and Naselcrom, which aren't clever at all if you try to figure out what the fuck a "Crom" is. (the God from Conan?)

There's one Ad that particularly bothers me. Some guy that looks like a tennis racquet salesman from 1981 strolls out of the everwhite. Whenever he drops the product name he taps his nose (ding). It bothers me in the way that Dr. Phil speaks and forces me to imagine how bad his breath smells. Aside from that, I'm surprised there are still houseshopping programs on TLC. Coming up next: A Suicide Story

On the plus side, I now have a crush on the Progressive Insurance girl.

In the past week I've seen three, what are sometimes referred to as varmints, stumbling around in the broad daylight. They closely resemble the animal from Groundhog Day. So I'm throwing out a groundhog watch or nationwide "ALERGENCY" for those of you who may be concerned with these events and that's all of you, because I've never seen a groundhog before in my life and now, well, it could be nothing.

I get a lot of weird ideas lately. A cigarette brand with the slogan - Burns slow when you're freezing your butt off

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A bad ass TV biker named CORE. Tristan Corey Gallager, the street romping hero with a murdered family and a chip on his shoulder that could kick your dad's ass. He rides through Texas towns looking for trouble to clean up. He's got a straight laced on the sidekick ex-cop known in those parts as Chocolate Thunder. He comes in handy at least once an episode when our protagonist needs a little tough love advice or a license plate pulled. This is the last time I'm doing this, Core. I must be a daaamnn fool.

Core has the grace and the good looks, where MoonDog has the big greasy muscle, a kind of Randall Tex Cobb lookin fella with a hog dirtier than his underdrawrs.

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I'm kind of guessing Randall Tex Cobb's headshot incorporates a dirt & grime theme. He might hand them to his agent with a coating of blood stains and grease. A kind of subtle, HIRE ME OR ELSE.

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Somewhere in Arizona there's probably a hot shot sheriff who denys any television or entertainment to his inmates. Instead he gives them bubble wrap. Walking through the cells with your eyes closed is akin to touring a Rice Krispies factory.

I haven't been much for words lately. I pass them out on resumes. One man laughed in my face. A woman said, "bless your heart". I'm not sure which response I liked better. People wave to one another here. From the winshields of their cars, from utop their horses and over their canes. The horses blink at you with obsidian lashes. The other day I waved at a dancing chicken. I may soon be that dancing chicken.

Apart from the accommodations, Asheville is every bit as beautiful as I imagined it.

My WiFi is threaded through dial-up. From my window, the drizzle meets the intersection as a steady hiss under the rumble of traffic. I'm lied out in a motel room that should have undergone renovations 30 years ago. Cedar paneling, faulty plumbing and a Zenith that likely witnessed the Kennedy assassination. The cobalt lens stares back, daring me twist its chapped polystyrene knob. I've promised myself not to do this until my expectations reach the promising agreement of an instantaneous explosion accompanied by the static screams of Lucile Ball. "We are locusts - I am Legion!"

The outside is done up in a hokey old west meets worlds largest ball of twine kind of feel. The balusters are dressed like tree trunks, and on closer inspection appear to be authentic. The parking lot is a looped driveway with a giant neon cowboy who is puffing on a cigarette and giving commuters the stink eye. The cowboy is barefoot. The nucleus of the parking lot is a swimming pool encircled by a flimsy reed fence. I half expect to see the corpse of Roy Rogers floating there with his pecker jammed in one of the jets.

When this milk expires, I'll be in North Carolina

It is very revealing to me that this post is difficult for me to write. Not in the way of sentimental obstacles that the phrase 'difficult for me to write' usually invokes and has been accepted to indicate. It may have something to do with all this freedom or that I can only grasp the ideal in summary. Or simply because there is so much I want to tell. It is also difficult to write because I have spilled cider on my keyboard and the dry air has jammed the keys together. Besides the annoying disfunction of the keys and the habit the cursor has of running away from me like a dog when the shift key gets cozy,  what also bothers me is the sound of snails masturbating when I type.

I cut the strings one Friday afternoon and all the apprehension dissolved like rain on the desert, like snot in the shower, like hamsters in a wood chipper. My lifeline is disconnected. I haven't any longer burdens of indecision. I quit my job when jobs are the next sliced fucking bread, but I feel like the first one off a sinking ship. For one reason, it will prove to be a commute problem as I move farther and farther away from the state of Georgia. There are four cities on the inexpensive side of Appalachia. Asheville, Charleston, Pittsburgh and Roanoke. I have my eye on all of them and the day after Thanksgiving, I may see them.

Online, I have found a site with a thousand films in the Russian language. It reminds me of when I was a child, young and  bereft of understanding about the world, how a scene would seem so unfamiliar to me and I would constantly be pressed to nag my mother again and again something to the effect of 'why the fuck did he just do that?'. As of now I am watching a movie about a young village girl who tried to  hang herself in the woods but was instead hit in the head by duck. She ran away with the duck and now some newly wed is waving his brides undergarments in the night and seems to be lamenting the consummation.

There is little that compares to the crisp light of the LED. When I was young, engaged in the business of untangling Christmas lights, I would usually be struck by the concentration of the lamps as they were bunched together, smelling of the attic and ceremoniously plugged into the outlet to test their integrity. It was a glowing heart. A handheld ember. This droplet I shaped from the twigs of a persistently nasty batch of Privet that grows in the back. The branches are green and easily woven through one another. You are looking at nothing more than branches and a string of lights. I am proud of it.




I have been collecting these as I run across them. As far as I am concerned, the stranger the fruit, the more Halloween. I will be carving them.

I've never been one to bite my nails. There was a moment long ago where I placed my thumbnail into my mouth and attempted that very exercise. I immediately discovered how vast my ignorance was regarding the baffling talent. It has always been the clippers for me. The polished chrome utensils engraved with Revlon or Avon or some other unmanly brand name that ended in 'on'. I have several times employed the service of scissors for this task and thought myself a Mountain Man for the achievement. I had once by accident nearly trimmed a nail with a 60 pound roll of barbwire though it was the wrong end of the nail and altogether a rather haphazardly executed direction. This latter experience had proven to me that I was indeed NOT a Mountain Man.

I don't have a schedule or any token words penned next to the full moons. How it happens is almost immediate as if suddenly by observation there is a pressure, an uneasiness about my fingernails. A lack of wind on my fingertips. I incessantly curl my fingers over the cuticles of my thumbs and pry the nails apart from the imaginary gum pressing beneath them. Each tap of the nail is amplified like a jackhammer, every scrape a distortion of their integrity and I feel the nails sweat until I get my hands on the tiny chrome alligators and hastily snip away at my fingers, sending the crescents down the sink.

When I grew up I had this friend who's house I rarely entered. It was dark and full of sharp corners and more importantly, it was forbidden. His folks were not a mentally deranged pair of recluses. But they were Christian and they were conservative and they did express a disdain for me when I wasn't around. I was a weird kid. This is where my prejudice against conservatives and religion began, but we all know that Republicans have always had a lousy PR department.

I've never been a fan of manners. Maybe I lacked them or maybe I took too much offense to having my hand slapped and I never felt an urge to appease those newly imposed expectations out of anything but fear and so I have a large grievance about the dictation of morals and a fucking hatred for those who dictate them.

This is obviously a big political year and it is without a doubt, in a climate such as this, inevitable to find oneself asking questions about their own politics. Having a tremendous resource at your fingertips such as the internet, a place where in mere minutes a person can learn every aspect about the reproductive cycle of a Gypsy Moth, should in all sincerity be enabling to the search of unbiased facts on a candidate. Sadly this is not so. And so the information I seek is deeply mired in bibles of rhetoric, misinformation, diversion, biased negation of facts, psychotic raving ad hominems and death threats. As if having two hundred years wasn't enough time to sort our shit out we seem eternally undecided as to which is the better party. This leads me to believe that the science of politics is not measured in facts but emotions. They are only argued as facts. And in this I see two main sentiments, the factions we know of today as democrat and republican.

General Observations of Democrat VS Republican

Most minorities are democrats
Most city people are democrats
Cat people are democrats
Hunters are republicans
Truck drivers are republicans
Vegetarians are democrats
Environmentalists are democrats
Artists are democrats
Military are republicans
Cops are republicans
NASCAR fans are republicans
Goths are democrats
Christians are republicans
Whiskey drinkers are republicans
Comedians are democrats
Celebrities are democrats


I guess the point of this list is, Is there a Wiccan gun-toting M.A.D.D. Mother out there? And equally important, Why not?


It appears to myself that I hold personal freedoms in higher regard than financial freedoms. I am more insulted by a woman who wants to outlaw abortion than a man who wants to put his fingers on my paycheck. My interest is in personal liberties, though both parties seek to remove some of these.


My political stance: Hypocrisies not excluded

I am pro gun
Pro abortion
Secular
Anti affirmative action
Pro death penalty

I believe when you take away a person's right to burn the American Flag that it burns anyway

That Christmas celebrations should not be removed from schools but the Commandments should be removed from the courthouse

A store owner should be able to sell alcohol past 2 AM.

A person should be able to ingest any drug they choose.

Corporations should be regulated

Anybody who questions your right to disagree with our government by calling you a traitor should have a living bald eagle inserted into their asshole

That people who use the argument "if you're not doing anything wrong, then you don't have anything to worry about" should choke on a turd that insults their masculinity

Politicians who pass religious and unconstitutional laws should be immediately fired... out of a cannon... that's attached to a submarine.
After it has been filled with acid and tossed into a volcano on fire.

They call it a gas shortage, or they call it panic and maybe they call it politics, but I would wager on all three. The gas stations have surrendered, thrown down their numbers and bore their blank white slates. And so we all go about our business but our business has gotten strange as if it might grind to a halt during two miscalculated glimpses. The buzz in the air is akin to before a thunderstorm. How it smells of water and electricity, sirens and a faint excuse for throwing television sets through glass. Not that I've ever sought the compulsion, but it's nice to have options.

I used to dream of a world without cars and broken concrete, the atrophy of cities and the clop clop clopping of horses, shitting on those white tar arrows and trimming at the grasses that grow where they shouldn't. I have a stupid mind.

More broadly the term Great Depression is being thrown around the wind and I guess these things don't bother me as much as they should, because I've been planning on packing and getting the fuck out of dodge. So I'm down to one excuse and maybe I need that final shove in the ass to get it all going and if you're not with me, what the fuck do I care. I'll be going north, maybe to Pittsburgh, maybe to Michigan or maybe halfway, and maybe they'll have different names when I get there, but I've always fancied the life of a drifter and my feet are getting oh so itchy.

I can tell things are getting dark outside. Each glance at the time is a new curseword out my mouth as with every recalculation of my energy. God, I hate to lose time. A hard kick to the trashcan and the room absorbs a cloud of dust and another half hour of my life disappears in the form of that shower I wasn't going to take. I throw a boxcutter to the wall which I immediately need, driving me to the humiliation of picking it up from a tiny wreckage. This is what defeats me. The Aesop like insults. Those well chosen and innocuous targets propelled into the Rube Goldberg of fuck-yous driving a callous and mocking escalation of consequences. The words from my mouth have lost coherence. They awkwardly shit on all the violence. "Fuck your shithead" And here all I wanted was a something loud and inconsequential. A rightful smack to the world around me, where I cannot drive a word taboo enough to flinch its damned eyes. A graceful glove to the face of fate for miring me in this overtime. That's all I ask. So it is Aesop himself, that Goddamned lecturer preaching from the safety of his perch, Aesop I am flogging with these worldly commodities, who won't give a second of satisfaction with not three of condescension.

Times like these I grasp an imaginary pipe in my hand. I see some imaginary assailant, one who tries to steal my life shrewdly in the loophole of some legal belittlement. Some sorry son of a bitch who puts a face to all these fables. All the misfortune in the world wiggling its dick through a hole the shape of this man and every angry word withheld for the sake of kindness comes raining down in a rod of lead. I scare myself sometimes. It's true. Because I know that lead pipes are real and men like the ones I've bludgeoned in my mind the same. And I sincerely hope that we never meet. You see, there's this place behind my eyeballs that when I play this scenario, it will momentarily jerk and squeeze sending my pupils slightly skyward. It's all about instant reversal. The film rereels and that rod comes rushing down in black and white, audacity knocked away from whomever is unlucky enough to play asshole with me, and in an instant of black blood that rivals the creation of the universe a mountain of understanding is pushed through the size of a dime. With the years spent building our lives it is unfair how easily it can tumble down like a cheap curtain. A bottlecap off the gameboard. And God help me, how would I stop? How would I stop when I realize that my life has disappeared in a cloud of dust and the cause of it lay right in front of me? How could you come back from being that fucking animal?

I have this fear that a confession will lead to manifestation. Call it a feeling. A prerequisite justification. Like how those Columbine kids tore a hole in the chain link fence and all these other bullied miscreants saw a way off the chessboard. So no sympathies for me here. I don't want honey in that hole.

You may have seen these.



This man.


This poor son of a bitch. This is a man battling Aesop. Those who cannot understand a frustration this violent will stand at a distance, leaving their masks at their desks, their faces drooping at the sides. I take particular notice of the hens and how they cluster together at the fringes of the spectacle. Noticeably distressed yet not fleeing. And why would they? This is good entertainment. Watch how the men search for sticks and as the scene escalates from courtesy to calamity, the order dissipates into tribe of primitives surrounding the fearsome dance of a Shaman.

He diverts his aggression for others in favor of destroying the inanimate. The supervisor is promptly struck with a keyboard but he is spared any additional harm by the office supplies. A man speaking right to God, the offender himself. Such a task cannot be done in grace I say, but at least this man possessed a large middle finger.





Exhibit B


If I were judging these men in a court of law, I would think the footage to favor the defense. This man is a lucky son of a bitch to have a human opponent. I would like to see this man set free and the victim incarcerated for underestimating the passive aggressive.

There's a storm raging inside my chest cavity. A Turkish traffic jam. Let's say a second serving of kebab has jackknifed the causeway spilling my insides with rice, pasta and large amounts of stupidity. I lay awake till 4 am like a python with one less pig in the vicinity summoning burps from my windpipe. There's little more pathetic than a contrived belch, people. String them together in the dark like a chorus of ineffectual little toads and you'd have something very funny if an observer could only keep their bloodlust in check.

TruSleep Uses Cadavers in Photos

Allegations of TruSleep, Inc., North America's largest mattress manufacturer, were blown wide open this week on follow up to claims of the mattress company's use of cadavers in their product photography. Attorney General Lance Whollen, made public statements announcing an investigation into TruSleep's practice, saying "We know that TruSleep has been using cadavers, what our investigation team is unwilling to release is exactly how many and for how long this has been occurring." Witnesses say the cadavers could number in the hundreds. Elliot Long, a former employee to TruSleep's marketing division, states that the practice has been ongoing for at least two years. The time when Elliot was first promoted to marketing and image department. Elliot was hired to make deliveries of mattress products to funeral homes with which TruSleep, Inc. had established accounts with.

from police statement taken on 8/6:

"The funeral parlors were said to use our twin foam insulating cushions to line their coffins. The first time I made a 'delivery' I was instructed to reverse into a garage and wait. A burly man in a pinstriped suit came up to my side of the van and instructed me to look forward. He told me they would be done unloading the vehicle shortly and then he called me a 'Fucking Sissy'. A 'fluff boy'. A fluff boy was an insider industry term. It meant somebody who was familiar with upholstery but had little experience with the viler nature of the business. At the time I thought nothing of it, because I was listening to Sheryl Crow."

"It's not as crazy idea as you'd think", says Larry Whitmeyer, CEO of SpanishPly, a well known competitor of TruSleep Mattress. "You want people to visualize your product and associate it with 'cozy'. Nothing portrays these essential qualities like a dead woman. Or a dead man. It's hard to fake, which is why a good sleep model has an elevated bottom line. The models are all union affiliated and don't come by cheap." If TruSleep had circumnavigated these obstacles they have done so slyly. Evidence of false contracts have recently come to light, the donation of a body would construed as voluntary given the fine print and easily hidden among the mysticism of US mattress law. Sources say that there were selective purchase contracts. Employees were instructed to supply these contracts to persons who had appeared to have a 'comfortable' feel to them. "Somebody you would want to snuggle with but looks like they might soon overdose on heavy barbiturates." , was what one employee Mike Lanther attested. "It was written on the back of the counter." These contracts accumulated in the thousands, giving TruSleep a selective queue from around the nation to choose from come an untimely death. This Thursday, authorities seized the contracts from the vault of NarcoFile, LLC, a subcontractor with a long relationship rumored with TruSleep, yet who's services remain questionable and broadly cloaked under the term 'finders service'.

I met a man today of much girth and excitement. His full-tilt pinball eyes explained to yours truly, that aside from ethanol, electricity, vegetable oil and cocaine, it was entirely possible to run your car on Hydrogen. Yes, like the Hindenburg. What he explained to me emphatically, was also that essentially, a person could dramatically increase their gas mileage exponentially (50%) by adding hydrogen into their fuel mixture. If he were dressed nicer, I would be convinced I was speaking to Billy Mayes.

In the parking lot, unseasonably cool weather moved about us. I have seen some funny things in this parking lot. Damaged cars, search and seizures, auto theft, internal bleeding, but none of these things would hint what mechanical snake-oil was holding me from my lunch. The man reached into the mess that pressed outward from his cab and yanked from the rummage, yanked, possibly the coolest thing I have seen in a years.

Before I could properly react, he thrust in my arms like a darling infant this eye-peeling contraption. What teetered in my hands seemed to be a small nuclear fission reactor sealed inside of a Mason Jar. Two hoses dangling from its rim. Bolts penetrated the sealant, thrusting downward inside a scaffolding of electrodes and wire. A core of lattice so carefully woven by this ramshackle man. It was architecture inside of a diamond, mesmerizing and spotless. Many times his meaty finger would forcefully bow down to the crystal Mecca, this Peeler of Eyes, Magnet of Fingernails. Then he whirled quickly fro and engaged the mighty steel springs of his hood, ushering forth rusty salutations of the levitating panel, and his finger directs me to a device like I hold in my hands, resting full with preserves and amber weal, bolted to his engine compartment, a cherished molar crowned with gold.

He tells me about baking soda, electrolyte and the splitting of the atom! The wondrous, astonishing, UNPHANTOMABLE miracle of machinery! The stupendous, exciting, clean burning marvel of the next millennium, Hydro Fuel! And God, am I sold. He cranks the ignition and I unshield my eyes to a concoction of bubbling alchemy and jerking hoses. His finger again grants me a tour of this Hindenburg. And about right then I couldn't give a shit about vehicle emissions and affordable mileage, cause though I might not of known it, I was gifted a glimpse straight into the silver lining.

The mad science tells me this. There may be delicate joys laced into tough times. If a petroleum crisis gobbles our confidence, we will at least be spared another suburban coach and afforded another dose of that old fashioned American ingenuity and hopefully some fucking purpose.