David L Gordon Presents

The Kid Episode III: Fezzes and Tears The Kid had been hired to perform his act for a Shriner's convention he showed up a little late...as usual. The hall is a low-ceilinged box, fluorescent lights buzzing like insects trapped in jars. A banner droops across the stage, “WELCOME SHRINERS!” The punchbowl at the center of the room glows faintly, as if it knows something the men in fezzes do not. The Shriners sit in rows of folding chairs, their fezzes tilted at odd angles, their faces flushed from the spiked punch. Their laughter is volcanic, rolling, uncontrollable, echoing off the linoleum floor. One man clutches his belly as if he’s giving birth to joy. Another tries to crawl under his chair, convinced it’s a submarine. Onstage, The Kid grips the microphone like it’s a lifeline. His jokes about traffic lights and rent land with explosive force, each punchline detonating in the crowd. The Kid opened with a joke about traffic lights. "They’re just mood rings for cars," he said. The Shriners howled. They slapped their knees, their fezzes tilted back, their laughter ricocheted off the walls like machine-gun fire in a cartoon war. He’s exhilarated, but also unnerved, this is too much laughter, too loud, too long. The Kid thought, “Well, this is going better than usual”. He told another joke about the absurdity of paying rent to live on a planet you were born on. The Shriners erupted again, some of them falling out of their chairs, one man trying to crawl into the punchbowl to baptize himself in hilarity. But then The Kid, feeling bold, decided to talk about his old Irish grandmother. She was a woman who boiled potatoes until they surrendered, who believed in saints and curses, who once told him that laughter was proof the devil had lost another round. The Shriners stopped laughing. Their faces melted into puddles of sorrow. One by one, they began to cry. Not polite tears, but great sobs, like children who had just realized their parents were mortal. The Kid froze. He looked at them, these men in fezzes, bawling like widows at a funeral. He wondered if he had killed comedy, or if comedy had killed them. And the Shriners applauded through their tears, because in their LSD haze, they thought he was their grandmother, risen from the grave to tell them one last joke. The Jesuit priest, watching from the shadows, smiled. He believed he had performed a miracle: turning a comedy show into a mass by spiking the punch with acid. The Kid cleared his throat. "Well," he said, "I guess that’s my time." The Kid didn’t drink the punch. He was too nervous, too focused on remembering the order of his jokes. But as the Shriners roared and wept in their fezzes, something strange began to happen. The laughter was so loud it seemed to vibrate inside his skull. The sobbing was so raw it seemed to leak into his bloodstream. He felt his pulse sync with theirs, as if the room itself had become a single organism and he was plugged into its circulatory system. Colours sharpened. The banner above the stage began to shimmer like stained glass. The microphone in his hand pulsed like a living thing. He thought he could hear his grandmother’s voice, not in memory but in stereo, echoing from every corner of the hall. The Kid realized he was high. Not from the punch, but from proximity. A contact high, delivered through laughter and tears, through the collective hallucination of men in fezzes who believed they were attending a comedy show but had stumbled into a séance. He grinned, though it felt less like joy and more like surrender. He was no longer telling jokes. He was channelling something larger, something absurd and holy. He was the priest, the prophet, the clown, and the grandson all at once. And the Shriners, in their LSD haze, saw him exactly that way.

Let's declare a truce. Just cut me loose, like an old caboose. Here's the proof. I'll tell you the truth just as soon as you cut me loose. It's what I choose that you cut me loose. Open the sluices and let go our juices when we let loose tonight

It comes when you least expect it

Be organic, Don't panic, and stay tuned to radiogordo.net

A warning from future self...The journey begins and ends in a single moment of awareness

Remember what Uncle Billy said, "Say Nuthin' to nobody". It's what you got to do when people are passing by you. Watch what they do but never tell what you do. So say nuthin' to nobody every day it's true. Think of rule Six Nine Seven when people are talkin, and they ask what do you do, keep walkin'. Don't tell 'em nuthin and just keep on struttin. Sayin' nuthin' to nobody is what we always do. It's true. It's what we do

The monitor hummed like a shrine, phosphorescent light spilling across the desk. My finger hovered over the key that would connect me—finally—to the great lattice of information. That was when the door opened without sound, and I saw myself, older, eyes hollowed by decades of sleepless vigilance. He spoke with the urgency of a prophet who had seen too much: “Do not enter. The Internet is no longer wires and screens. It has become mind. It has become hunger.”

Pay heed to what the old man says

You know we got 'em

Dig your pits smack in the middle The center of the fruit slick and little High tech beginnings get higher so quick Fling it! sling it! let that groove stick Seeds in my hand tech in my mind From the earth to the sky we rise and we grind Don’t you skip it just flip it take time to rewind In the concrete jungle the treasure we find Dig your pits dig deep! Dig 'em deep Catch that rhythm feel the heat Higher and higher feel the beat Sling it fling it don't skip it complete Roots in the soil dreams in the sky Start from the bottom now we aim high Code in our veins we decipher the lie From the core to the stars we defy Pits of potential tech gets so needy From the ground to the net the future ain’t greedy Scope that horizon no time to be sleepy Hold that center fruit don’t get too speedy Dig your pits dig deep! Dig 'em deep Catch that rhythm feel the heat Higher and higher feel the beat Sling it! fling it! don't skip it complete Beepers buzzin', street light flickers mean, Dealers in the alley, click-track fiends. Schemers plot, shadows whisper secrets, Two-bit redeemers, promises keepin' sleek. Grimy pavements, dreams pushed in the dust, Hustlers trade stories, where no one you can trust. Digging pits, deep within the asphalt, Center of the fruit, where truth takes a halt. Beeper people, signals in the storm, Waiting for that call, hustlin' till the morn. Schemes and dreams, life ain't always clean, In this shadow dance, where hope's a smokescreen. Corner shop gossip, deals done in code, Underneath the moonlight, where the games unfold. Blood, sweat, gasoline—every breath a ghost, Chasin' paper trails, through these haunted coasts. Ringers beepin' madness, chaos night divine, Schemers tryna climb, while pushers blur the line. Dreams on layaway, destiny on loan, Two-bit redeemers, reaping seeds they've sown. Beeper people, signals in the storm, Catch that rhythm feel the heat Higher and higher feel the beat Sling it fling it don't skip it complete Roots in the soil dreams in the sky Start from the bottom now we aim high Code in our veins we decipher the lie From the core to the stars we defy Pits of potential tech gets so needy From the ground to the net the future ain’t greedy Scope that horizon no time to be sleepy Hold that center fruit don’t get too speedy Dig your pits dig deep! Dig 'em deep Catch that rhythm feel the heat Higher and higher feel the beat Sling it! fling it! don't skip it complete Waiting for that call, hustlin' till the morn. Schemes and dreams, life ain't always clean, In this shadow dance, where hope's a smokescreen.