| World Europe America Oceania Asia |
| total: 239 days | 21907 km | 19 countries | 5 continents |
| Links |
| M o n g g o l U l u s Z u g a a l a 2 0 1 8 The newest cycling epic escapade through Mongolia - Dennis Arndt & Jeremy Boissel Monggol Tour homepage [English] N e v e r N e v e r O Z s o m e T o u r 2 0 1 3 The tour through the land down under and its outback from Melbourne to Darwin - Jeremy Boissel & Florian Weber N²OZ Tour homepage [English] G r o u n d e d T o u r 2 0 1 2 The tour on foot from Freiburg to Chamonix through Switzerland - Jeremy Boissel, Florian Weber & Quivo Grounded Tour homepage [English-deutsch-français] Grounded Tour pictures [English] L o s P i r i n e o s 2 0 1 1 The bike tour from the Atlantic to the Mediteranean coast through the Pyrenean mountains - Jeremy Boissel & Florian Weber Los Pirineos homepage [English-deutsch-français] Los Pirineos pictures G r e a t D i v i d e T o u r 2 0 1 0 The bike tour from Canada to Mexico through the Rocky mountains - Jeremy Boissel & Florian Weber Great Divide homepage [English-deutsch-français] Deleted but saved Fahrrad-XXL blog [deutsch] Great Divide pictures [English] Pre-tour article "Lokale Zeitung Mainz" [deutsch] Pre-tour article "Allgemeine Zeitung" [deutsch] E u r a s i a T o u r 2 0 0 9 The bike tour from Germany to Israel through 11 different countries - Martin Boitz, Jeremy Boissel & Florian Weber Eurasia homepage [deutsch] Deleted but saved Fahrrad-XXL blog [deutsch] Eurasia pictures [deutsch] Pre-tour article "Allgemeine Zeitung" [deutsch] Pre-tour article "Rhein Zeitung" [deutsch] Post-tour article "Allgemeine Zeitung" [deutsch] T o u r d ' A f r i q u e 2 0 0 7 The bike tour from Mainz, Germany to Tanger, Morocco through France and Spain - Martin Boitz, Jeremy Boissel & Florian Weber Tour d'Afrique homepage [deutsch] |
| Videos |
N e v e r N e v e r O z s o m e T o u r 2 0 1 3
G r o u n d e d T o u r 2 0 1 2 
L o s P i r i n e o s 2 0 1 1 
G r e a t D i v i d e T o u r 2 0 1 0 
E u r a s i a T o u r 2 0 0 9 
|
| About Me |
 | This is me, Jeremy Boissel, born on August 18, 1978 in Paris [France] and raised in Boston [USA]. I currently live in Mainz [Germany] and have three sisters. I enjoy working as an independant bicycle consultant and offer technical services. Currently, I'm part of City Bike in Wiesbaden and have my own company Shocka Cycling Services. I was taught in the field of electrical technology and took courses on technological mathematics, programming and environmental sciences. I have many passions including bike-riding, traveling, nature, different cultures, art and music. I speak English, French and German fluently and get by with Spanish. My role models are Martin Luther King Jr. and Muhammad Yunus. My favorite author is Charles Dickens. My favorite photographers are Ansel Adams and Sterling Lorence. My favorite musician is Eddie Vedder. The saying that best describes my tours and life is "the journey is the goal". |
| Contact |
| any comments, rants, whatever, write to: info(at)ukfu.eu |
| UkFu |
| I often get this question, "What the hell does ukfu mean?" Well, to give you folks a quick answer ... Should you hate reading on screen, despise my choice of fonts, wish to print this story out or simply would like to keep a digital copy of it forever and ever [which is like 5 years in digital time], please feel obliged to download and save a PDF copy here. Long Wondrously Involving - Dark at Times - and Fantastic Tale of the Adventures and Life of "UkFu" For those of you who appreciate the finer peanut-buttery insides of a Reese's Cup by slowly nibbling off the riffled edges until only the heart is exposed to be gorged down in tranquility or for those who love scourging through sofa cushions in search of that forlorn piece of treasured government cheese, forgotten there three months earlier or if you possess slight to major masochistic tendencies and require assistance in relieving those needs, here is the story of how my life got flipped, turned upside-down. And I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there. I'll tell you all about how UkFu became the prince of a time called "who cares".1|♪1 The authentic story: No strings attached, no censures, unwarranted, unpaid for and to be quite honest perhaps the most important document of all times. So throw away your bibles, human rights declarations and constitutions - right in the bin - we're about to attain that 7th plane of consciousness and shoot right over it, take a left turn by the Stop'n'Shop and then keep on for a few more blocks, passing what used to be the Blockbusters and a musky cobwebbed telephone booth into an abstract dimensional shift of anti-metaphysics. As with any world-renowned investigatory journalist, the very first question is; what have I got here? What's the environment? In my office overlooking the busiest street of a small village in Germany, I'm sitting at my desk in a real comfy anthracite boss-like chair with soft cushions and armrests, leaning back and pondering on the word "back" I have just written. I've got my really old-ass Mac laptop, which may die on me at any second and I question; if it were to quit functioning, would I start this over? Not likely. That I may bedazzle the seven billion readers, ready to devour this Pulitzer prize-worthy work of history, I've got my online dictionary and thesaurus and am not affrighted to exert my palatial proficiency so that one may ebulliently and voraciously exhaust all facets of my spuriously punditic acuity. Coffee. I'm missing coffee. My research materials are all laid out in front of me, or to the side of me, or on the floor next to me. Research is invaluable. Fact-checking and double-fact-checking is not only the job but also the decree of any universally gifted publicist. I dug out old letters [ok, lettera, one, singular], reliably-sourced documents and newspaper articles from the subject's epoch; some of which you will find in the appendix so you may become arbitrator to the truth for yourselves and actively partake instead of remaining lazy-ass readers. This way, I can relax, babble on without any care in the world and a sue-me attitude towards anyone wishing to undermine my efforts and call me out on bluffs and fake news ... just remember, and to quote one of the greatest phrases of our time, these aren't lies but merely alternative facts.2 I still need coffee. I think I'm going to leave my overcrowded workspace and get me some. The good thing is, people walking by seeing me at my desk typing are, in all likelihood, admiring my deep involvement in a paramount task and perhaps concluding that I'm doing this something to produce revenue ... well, UkFu IRS; you ain't getting nothing from this. Come to think of it, neither am I. To continue the plot, not the plot of the story but the setting where the creative mind is fixing to unravel the actual point he is trying so desperately to get across, the weather is ok, kind of cloudy but not raining and I can hear the wind ruffling the branches in a to-and-fro white-noise sound. There we go, I think that should do it. Oh yeah, I'm branding a shirt, shorts and a baseball cap which doesn't portray a baseball team logo on the panels but some cycling store I know the owner of and who offered it to me for free. The cap helps me hide my uncombed hairdo shamefully from the rest of the world and has a sweet turquoise brim and pink lettering. When critics come across this literary piece in centuries from now, I wonder if they'll attribute negative comments to the content and length of this inaugurating phase. I have read in some manual that the preface or the setting is of utmost importance as it ignites interest in the reader on the subject, gets them familiar with the author's intentions and creates a reader-writer bond that will last for the rest of their natural existences and be genetically coded onto their offspring. Hence, and even if I actually never rendered any explanation towards it, research is the door, the setting is the keyhole and coffee is the key I will use to open up the narrative and allow the reader to enter the realm of UkFu-dom. Is this gonna suck? Damn right it is ... but UkFu! Thank you, Gaggia! Thanks for spewing up a mighty brew of cappuccino *sip*. I had to walk home to get it, which is two blocks from my office. I haven't had time to install a coffee machine here yet but I've only had this office for a year now. On the other hand, I've had this office for over a year and haven't gotten around to installing a coffee machine!? I have to admit, though, I also layered and devoured a cheese sandwich while I was away; bread, mayonnaise, cheese, pop it in the microwave and add ketchup on top ... ah, the feasts of royalty ... my palette bewildered! While walking to and back, I weighed the pros and cons of different writing styles, chronological orders and structures I will use in this ode. I have decided to use the "whatever" method; not because I'm indifferent nor inapt to professionally develop a masterpiece of words but because "whatever" simply fits. We come from whatever and turn into whatever so whatever comes out of this, I will be certain that it stays whatever and doesn't become sentient and start murdering whatever. You've got to tame the beast by keeping it in a tight box under lock and key. It's safer that way. Maggots. Sometimes, when you commence but don't exactly know where to throw the ball, you write down any word that just pops in your mind and go from there. You can write: House, baseball cap, comfy boss-like chair with soft cushions and armrests or coffee. It actually doesn't really matter since what you're going to do is twist it, bend it, and deform it until it fits the purpose. I chose, "maggots". That's precisely what we were, Jeff and I; grubs to the world in the time before time, the time before UkFu. The year of someone else's Lord was 1992, an era which finally saw the collapse of 80's tacky pop one-hit-wonders and rock'n'roll which had absolutely nothing to do with rock, so accordingly had decided to roll over and end its misery just as Darwin may have predicted if he had listened to Mötley Crüe, Poison, Def Leppard or Bon Jovi on his Sony Walkman or Pocket Rocker [and the Member Berries go wild]3. For all you kiddies, who are scratching your half-full [not half-empty, mind you] heads right now, just think self-written K-Pop quality music. Don't get me wrong. It was bad but at least it was theirs. And someone in the world may abruptly jerk out of her or his chair in a violent rage and protest, "NO! DON'T YOU DARE! I really like 'You Give Love a Bad Name'!"♪2 But, really? Let us not fall into an emotional and overtly tedious debate on the technical characterization and semantics of "real" music but simply abandon those musicians right where they belong; behind us. Anyway, and yes - thank you -, we survived that. This is the tale of two good guys. I may go as far as to say two heroes if my humbleness would permit such flattery but albeit its truth, I will refrain from this particular title. For structural purposes' sake, this non-fictional work has two protagonists; the extraordinary [heroic] teenagers, Jefferey R. Tripp a.k.a. Señor Gomez a.k.a. Jolly Roger a.k.a. Don K. Punj4 and the author who is referring to himself in the third person in a certainly non-arrogant fashion, Jeremy J-P.R. Boissel a.k.a. Señor Pablo a.k.a. Superfly [SF]5. The antagonists are simply put, the rest of humanity. Señores Gomez and Pablo would, unbeknownst to them at the time, but utterly and by design completely intentionally, chisel the fate of the world and alter the space-time continuum altogether *sip*. Jeff and I were best friends at the time or in today's terms BFFs though that last "F" has always been a tad tricky so I'll commonly say; we were BFs and full of BS. I had known Jeff since the first grade in elementary schoolb but had I really known Jeff? Deep question. Our psyches weren't ready for each other at that time. It would have been dangerous to activate that hive mind at such an early stage. I was aware of his presence and we did play together off and on throughout the following years but mindful and careful not to engage in cerebral activities until much later on in life, if at all. We re-met or re-joined or assimilated in the 9th grade, having just been displaced from being kings at a two-year junior high school to the dreaded denomination of common "freshmen" at a new and unfamiliar high school. [cue ominous music for the adapted playwright version of the script]♪3 As far as high school class-society goes, we weren't unpopular yet at the same time we weren't part of the mainstream-trendy crew either. Jeff and I were in that in-between world, another confusing dimensional sub-type of hierarchy known as the "upside-down". We were acknowledged and liked by the popular kids but referring to them as "townies" may have cut our chances short of joining that elite crowd of "like then Jenny said, like, I don't care, like, and I don't wanna, like you know, have anything to do with that girl, like, anymore" half-grown sapiens. Even the "alternatives" formed a tight group at our school that wouldn't let just anybody adhere as - Quentin - another kid at our high school let me know. I guess my membership was merely "pending". The music was, however, beginning to ripen and luckily, there was no necessity to be enlisted as a member of anyone's pack to get to secretly enjoy the reverberation and overdrive of bands sticking their instruments way too close to the amplifiers and speakers. Trash metal had maturely mushroomed. Grunge was kicking off its "I don't fucking care what you think" philosophy and Grunge-wear was out of its thrift shop debuts and had found its way into the this-is-too-friggin-expensive-to-buy department and specialty stores. Yes, I did use the word, "frigging," so now would be a great time to insert that we grew up in friggin' wicked awesome Massachusetts, Arlington, Boston suburbia where everyone just pretended to be as clean-white as their faces and all-out credit-card maxing was still a sign of potency since it meant you were rich enough to still have credit-cards to max out with. George Bush was president, not Dubya, the older guy, his dad and Clinton was running for presidency and would surprise us all with the little known fact that you could get high from smoking Marijuana without inhaling it ... thank you Bill, however, shit, I did inhale ... UkFu. Wayne's World♪4 came out in the movies and in the style of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure replicated how cool, nerdy and dumb heavy metal dudes were. Nevertheless, I think the movie was wholly enjoyed by all; those who identified with Wayne and Garth as well as those who were entirely symmetrically opposed to their genre. Headbangers' Ball was big on MTV, if you had cable to watch it [I didn't] and so was Nickelodeon, if you had cable to watch it [and again, I didn't]. I would watch the Simpsons, Ren and Stimpy [big influence but I could only watch at friends' houses, again, cable and again, no, I didn't have it! Geez! Yes, people without cable did exist at the time! Yes, I do agree it's a bit like growing up in the third world but I guess my parents didn't care much for my education or they didn't know it existed, cable or education, take your pick] and Married ... with Children's♪5 Al Bundy, who lectured in sex-ED and how to rightfully treat the ladies. Another great past time for me was Nintendo: Super NESc and Gameboy and Sega: Genesis. I, literally tormented, waited almost four months for Super Mario 3♪6 to be back in stock at Toys'r'us [yet another chain store gone to the bankruptcy inferno, why hello RadioShack, good day Blockbusters, what are you still doing here, Sears?] and wrecked that game in one straight go on our tube TV, continuing even though my legs had fallen fast asleep underneath me ... such willpower! As a kid, I had many jobs. I babysat at least once or twice a week, delivered the Boston Globe to some forty or forty-five houses everyday in our neighborhood [and I hear my dad correcting me, ok, sometimes I wouldn't get up and he did it], I washed dogs and the job Jeff and I toiled over at the same time, not together but we would walk there side by side and leave separately, was golf-caddying. God, I friggin' hated that job! The Belmont Country Club, a consortium of new-rich dickheads, who played a sport I personally never defined as athletic, would entrap me in a four-hour long hauling of their gear - when they weren't too fucking lazy riding the electric golf carts - under the blazing sun, assuming I knew which club they wanted and where their precious little dimpled white balls went. I'll tell you where they weren't ... in their pants! [audience sitcom-style laugh]♪7 If that hadn't been all, at the end of the ordeal I was handed a crisp $20 bill and reminded of how lucky I was to be part of the glamorous workforce there. I don't remember if it was Jeff's idea or mine to go work there but I'll say it was Jeff's since he can't contradict me right now and I'd like to safeguard my integrity by pretending I was forced into slavery as opposed to have chosen the task by my own free will in submitting my body to mule's work for over-privileged white "townies" who underpaid me and rarely, rarely - I'll say it again - rarely gave me a tip except perhaps for a smirk and a sly remark on how best to slither back into the sewers whence I came. I would have gladly done so to meet up with the Teenager Mutant Ninja Turtles and bring Raphael and his bad-ass attitude back with me so he could stick his twin Sai right into their jugulars and non-existing testicles. Golf is great. Love the sport. UkFu. Needless to say, I labored a lot; never at chores at home and hardly for school but whenever and wherever that Green Disease♪8 beckoned me, I would go. I needed stuff. I wanted shit. I had a huge collection of comic books on layaway in my own personal tray at the comic store. Plus, who was going to buy me those overpriced Reebok Pumps and reversed B.U.M. sweaters which being in style for the better part of an entire trimester you couldn't be seen adorning for fear of mockery once they had passed their popularity-best-by date? Certainly not my folks! So, like any good American, I was already facing massive debts of my own demise. Wait! What kind of comics, you ask? Grand of you to interrogate me on that; it shows you're paying attention. Amongst my favorites were The Punisherd, Ralph Snart, Spawn, Batman, X-Men and some others. When I moved to France, I forfeited almost my entire collection to Jeff's younger brother. I've been racking my brain over Jeff's sibling's name. Was it Lucifer? Or was it Qing-Nan? I would need to go into deep retrograde hypnosis for this, so I'll just go with "Jonathan". That somehow seems correct. It goes without saying that Jonathan is probably enjoying life in his 10,000 square-footed Bahamas mansion with his thirty-odd servants and twelve mistresses flying around the world in his private helicopter thanks to my collection. "Oh, fudge! My Jaeger-LeCoultre has a small scratch on the wristband? No problem, I'll just sell off Jeremy's The Punisher : War Zone #5." Then, Jonathan flings the watch right out the sliding door of his H225 Super Puma smack into the blowhole of an innocent dolphin, swimming majestically by with its children on their way to a Delphinus church service held in the - now expired - dolphin's honor for its services towards porpoises less fortunate, born with underdeveloped larynxes, unable to sing in a correct key and therefore deemed as unattractive by their peers. Yeah, Jonathan, if that even is your real name, you just remember from where your fortune originated ... my blood, sweat and tears on the Belmont Country Club golf course! Breaks kill the flow. Then again, breaks can offer entirely new perspectives such as, why am I even writing this bullshit story? Then, I remember; for the good of mankind, Jeremy, for the good of mankind. Let's see what we've come up with so far and how much torture I can put my dearest readers through before the unveiling of the meaning of it all. We've gone through the introduction phase, which - perfectly composed - offers the ideal hors d'oeuvre to form a mouth-watering appetite for the main course. This preface was then followed by maggots, Pocket Rocker, George Bush and an affluent dolphin-slayer. Where to go from here? Slayer. Easy-peasy, I basically pitched that meatball right over my own plate. This is exactly why the batter should not be the pitcher and also why the pitcher should not be sleeping with the batter. They should add that rule to the MLB guidelines. Jeff and I prized the soft spoken lyrics and harmonious melodies of bands such as Pearl Jam♪9, Sepultura♪10, Anthrax, Deicide♪11, Pantera♪12 and - of course - Slayer♪13. Auscultating every word, every riff, we would ever so gently bob our heads up and down until the very gray matter fell from our craniums. "Must save the brain!"6 Our symphonic taste had not always been as refined. It was Jeff who introduced me to DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince back when the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air hadn't aired yet and had composed mixed Bobby Brown tapes for me. Ah! I miss mixed tapes, "Member mixed tapes? Ah. Member?"7 Redundantly speaking, our taste in tunes had needed maturing and high school had awarded us with the age of musical savvy as well as implanted the engrams of rebellion without a cause, which would - at a later stage - empower us to conceive humanity's most important innovation. Humanity's most important innovation? He's talking about "UkFu"! Yes, yes but hold your horses, the pony express is not done delivering this rather heavy package and before you jump the gun, do not forget that you can lead your steed to water but you must keep him clear of that yellow snow and shooting your pistols up in the air hooting "Yeehaw, Yeehaw " will only disturb the slurping stallion, who just a moment ago thought it queer to stop without a farmhouse near and gave those harness bells a shake, to ask if there was some mistake. So, hold on. We still have miles to go before we sleep. I repeat, we still have miles to go before we sleep.8|♪14 Pickle. Years later, while visiting on vacation from France, I'd had the fortunate boon to record the vocals to an internationally acclaimed death metal song, which Jeff [Jolly Roger, his stage name] had composed and performed the Bass guitar to for his band, Jerry-Bilt. As Jeff wrote to me in a letter, "Jerry-Built: adj. flimsy construction with bad materials ... That's us!" Jerry-Bilt was an contemporary troop of misfits, who according to Jolly Roger had successfully or unsuccessfully, depending on the way you define things, blended 62 different music-classifications ranging from trash to polka and industrial to Krishna into one heaping chimera of bliss. The intention, of course, being to reunite the world under one music and then to take it over as global dictators. Jerry-Bilt, if allowed to continue, would have most probably passed a charter to have 1200-watt Peavey PA-systems installed on every street corner, blasting their mantra 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In other words, Jerry-Bilt was too dangerous for democracy to be allowed to continue. The role I played, the vocals to "Pickle", would scar my larynx for the few following years, forcing me into a singing-sabbatical and to join a self-help group for men with underdeveloped vocal chords and the resulting relationship-bonding problems thereof ... however being a part of "Pickle" was well worth the agony. Jeff's dwelling was 0.4 miles away from the house [yes, I did Google Map it], where I resided with my dad, dog, eleven cats and two sisters. It was intentional to place my two sisters at the end of the list simply because, at the time sibling rivalry was at its highest. My dog died. We had to get rid of ten of our cats since the landlords had decided to outprice the rent, which forced us to move and change abodes. My parents had gone through an ugly divorce the year before my upgrade to high school. This meant three migrations for me; an educational one, a single-parent one and a roof-over-my-head one. Visitation rights with my mom were every Tuesday and every other weekend, which I despised. Not because I didn't love the feminine child-bearer, from whom I inherited half of my genetic structure, but because it felt like a forceful bond, stamped by a judge and omitted the natural flow of the mother-son relation. Our new home came fully furnished and luckily I was, still within reach of Jeff, living in the comfort-zone of west Arlington, 0.6 miles from my friend. Another advantage was, that the new place had air conditioning and I was truly content in my basement room, sleeping on a makeshift bed which was actually a mattress on a wooden door held up with a few two-by-fours and my AC cranked up full throttle until ice would start forming on its cooling fins, wailing to "Startin' up a Posse". Shit, UkFu, Satan, Death, Sex, Drugs, Rape.♪15 I'm a "what if" guy. What if there were three sexes? What if humans had tails? Would we clothe them or leave 'em out naked? Would the third sex be a transmitter needed as intermittence for the metamorphosis of sperm into something that could find the eggs? Would that third sex, the "phe" [as in she, he, phe] be the ones to attach tails to the sperm? Or would they be the actual carriers, meaning the men would hand over their sperm, the women their eggs and the phomen would stick it in their wombs? What if UkFu had never seen the light of day? Where would we all be right now? Would the world still exist? Or is there a time-paradox that renders it impossible for UkFu to have never been bred into existence? If I travelled back through time to stop UkFu from happening, would it happen anyway since the only reason I voyaged backwards would be because UkFu had transpired and therefore if it hadn't I could not have altered it by reversing the flow of age? Q.E.D. I was instructed you must write, "Quod Erat Demonstrandum" at the end of every validation you have just made to force people to believe you've just proven a point, kind of like saying, "and there it is" while slamming your drink down and exiting the room hastily before anyone else has had the chance to defy you in any way. What? You want to debunk something I said? Too late, I'm somewhere else. Wiener. Jeff and I would skateboard♪16. There's nothing better than skateboarding to annoy the hell out of the "townies" and good-to-do elderlies [mind you, elderlies were - from our relative standpoint - anyone who was over twenty-five]. We bought matching skateboards. Unfortunately, the original one we wanted brandished a naked guy streaking but I believe we weren't able to obtain that board either because of the graphical display of a man's genitalia or the fact it was no longer in stock. We both got the Peterka baby-face boardse. I still have mine. Small hard wheels were in, not great for rougher pavement but fast and the school offered some nice sleek tiles to zoom across. Needless to state, not being permitted to skateboard inside establishments was all part of the fun-package. I would put on my protective gear [kneepads, elbow pads, gloves and helmet], grab my board, spurt out the door, turn the corner, undress my protective gear [helmet, gloves, elbow and kneepads], toss them in nearby bushes and head to Jeff's. Nobody ever commented on the fact I arrived with so many bloody bruises but my shielding apparel sparkled. When we weren't practicing our Ollies9, we would educate ourselves with daily news. There is nothing more rewarding and essential than elevating one's insight into global happenings by grabbing a copy of The Weekly World Newsf and educating oneself on the matters that truly do, matter that is. This is where our great intellect came from; or was it the ensemble of genes, music, skateboarding, chiseled features and world knowledge? Whichever origin, this causality is how UkFu originated. "Oh! Here it comes! Yay!" "Wait, wait. You still won't purchase the cow if you can get the milk for free. Plus, I haven't taught you how to squeeze the udders properly yet." "But I wanna know now!" "Well, want in one hand, shit in the other and see what you get full first." "But you promised. I'm not going to read anymore!" "Look, as Hunter S. Thomson wrote: Calm down. Learn to enjoy losing."10 "Really? Well at least give me something, some clue." "Alright. 3421." "What? What's that supposed to mean?" "I'll explain that a bit later." "You're a dick!" "No, no ... I'm a wiener." "Wha? Woah! That was the first word of that last paragraph! How'd you do that?" "And it's also the cock of the guy from the skateboard. I tell you, I'm a composition magician." "More like an illusionist. You keep saying that ... " "Q.E.D." Ah, back to the keyboard, back to the here and now, jotting about the there and then. What could be better? A ton of things? I beg to differ. I've always been partially out of phase with the greater chunk of society. Matters which are of highest relevance and concern to the vast majority do not necessarily strike me as being of great value and importance and things which may bear the utmost worth to my person do not particularly register as high-ranking with others. I have faced that my entire life, just as I have had to confront my own sensitivity. Taking things far too personally is something I've feuded with introspectively ever since I can recall. One of the most hurtful elements of modern civilization is the swapping of tolerance and acceptance; most tolerate, few accept. They even wear the toleration badge as if it gave them some status of virtue with which they can then pat themselves on the back with, "good job me, I'm a good tolerant person". The phrases such as: "Women should have better jobs," or, "I love blacks," or, "good for the gays, they can marry now," or, "people should be able to follow whichever religion they want to," or, "health is primordial," translate with a cardinal number of good-to-doers to: "They're great to fuck," and, "though not as my neighbor," and, "as long as it's not my son/daughter," and, "but not Islam," and, "if you can afford it cause I'm not paying for you! Die fucker!" So what do we do to remedy all these issues? We buy more guns! To legitimately understand someone, some notion, something, requires effort and time. It obliges us to grapple with the very essence of who we are in relation to the rest of the world and such a tedious task is - simply put - too fucking hard for most dickheads out there. Acceptance does not result from merely hoarding your cards and bluffing your way through the game by playing the tolerance tactic. The deck is abundant. Switching out all your cards for new ones may be the only way to broaden a horizon you've never fathomed even existed within your peripheral limitations. A three-way is not only between one man and two women. There is no such thing as the African American race. Would you deny hardihood and happiness because it doesn't fit your personal dogmatic tenets? With which measuring stick did God adorn you so you could judge so freely? Oh, no. Wait man, I forgot; you're tolerant. I do not have the highest regard for the mutations my generation has undergone. We started off ok but too much self-righteousness has altered our good will and replaced it with contempt and disregard for the universal balance of caring for and taking care of those who share the same space and time as we do. UkFu was supposed to be the great equalizer to that regard. It was to change everything. And it will. So tolerate the acceptance of switching your bluffs for the highest of relevancies and concerns, grappling the limitations of the three-way you've just stuck your measuring stick into by fucking with that cardinal number of good-doers as my jotting on the keyboard finds those letters out of phase and types: UkFU! Jeff and I would sometimes sneak off to Harvard Square, where we would "hang out". My mom absolutely despised the term, "hanging out". I think it's due to her not fully comprehending the finer significance of what "hanging out" truly implies. It does sound a lot like we were loitering, up to no good, being bad little boys. Well, how can I argue with that? In essence, if idle hands are the devil's workshop, we would have been the president and VP of Beelzebub's corporate enterprise. We'd browse around Newbury Comics or shop at the Army-Navy Store to purchase a POW-MIA flag, proud of the fact we knew what the letters stood for. Was there a deeper meaning in acquiring that black banner with white-silhouetted face? I can't say I really remember, I'd say the flag looked cool to us. Jeff bought a bunch of military-style clothing there too. Did he want to join the national forces? Naw, it was in. It was grunge. It was cool to us. At the dollar boutique in Arlington, we had acquired phony beepersg. I must be excused but I am now forced to go into the technicalities of this novelty invention for those who haven't a damn clue just how tough it was to get a hold of someone in the past. Not to mention, we were much more relaxed owing to the fact that we weren't perpetually on call. This is how advanced communication functioned kiddies: If you wanted to reach someone but they were AWOL and not in close proximity to a landline, you dialed up their beeper number. Then, in less than a minute [sometimes more] they would get beeped with the number they needed to call back. You could also send codes, which was extremely amusing. You sent, "58008" or "14" or "7734" or even "7355018" and the recipient would turn the numbers upside-down to read, "BOOBS, HI, HELL and BOISSEL". Wow! Did we have fun or what? Yeah, calculator-rhetoric in math class was a blast. Those who possessed beepers were usually life-saving surgeons, supposedly valuable businessmen and, most important of all, drug dealers. We wore those fake gadgets that could solely display time, set alarms and beep to school and well, needless to say, we got in a bit of trouble for it. During a later episode, Jeff and I had decided to slip on Pantera shirtsh on the last day, right before summer vacation. We were taking our end-of-the-year mathematics exam and judged no one would be offended by our display of truthful affection towards that peaceful and benevolent rock band. Might I furthermore note, the Pantera group also originated from Arlington ... Texas that is, but nevertheless a trivial fun fact. The front of the shirt was plotted with a large green Pantera logo, a rather sizable Cannabis leaf and underneath these the phrase, "BAD COMPANY DID IT, SO CAN WEed"; as I was saying, harmless for school environment. On the back was the announcement for Pantera's concert circuit, "FLY'N ACROSS AMERICA TOUR ... SMOKE WEED". I haven't a clue as to what exactly aggrieved our math teacher but we were compelled to flip the shirt around, exhibiting some white marks on the underarms from the roll-on deodorant I was wearing. Food fight. Regrettably, not even worth mentioning: I partook in a mini aerial meal exchange, which was extinguished rather rapidly by authoritarian onlookers. Cafeteria food is simply intended for flight since I cannot assume its role is to be consumed. You may also take it as benign teenage scientific curiosity, experiments in gravitational forces, thermo- and aerodynamics. Soggy slices of pizza and something known as "it" were amongst my most adored lunch feasts. Per contra, Jeff and I didn't get into much trouble at Arlington High School. I don't recall having been sent even once to be a guest of the principal there. This differed fully from my number of visits to the administrator's office in elementary school, where the principal, Mr. Lynch, knew me by scent and would greet me, "Hi, Jeremy," with an acerbic tone of voice; not a good omen when you're as well known as the multi-colored dog [German expression]. We did take pleasure in a few detention sessions, once the entire class by reason of not wanting to rat out a fellow student, who misguidedly -by buying into the notion that the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenements halls11- had smeared some profanity on a facade. Pre-Jeff, my best friend was a Chinese kid baptized [though I guess he wasn't baptized since he presumably wasn't Christian] Hsien Kai, with whom I would shoot BBall roughly every day and whom my dad would pick up routinely to drop us off at school. He would consistently force us to linger for lengthy periods in his driveway, never scurrying out of the house when we arrived. I believe Sleeping Beauty awakened just as we would pull up or he adored the diva attention of making late entrances. Hsien Kai's biggest wish was to be popular. On the basketball court he would erroneously attempt to dribble, leap and swoosh in a Michael Jordan-ish style, missing most of the time. I spent nearly every afternoon with him and chuckled while he would badger my sisters. He made me buy Cross Colour jeans, telling me they looked good on me only to borrow and never return them. I lent him cash, which never found its way back into my pockets. In my junior high yearbook, he misspelled my name, "Jermey" albeit having spent countless hours in each other's presence. All the same, these had been insignificant crumbs compared to the discovery I would be about to make at school one day. Hsien Kai was chatting with some students of the popular clique when I happened upon them. My presence there was somehow less desired at that particular moment and with those particular participants. He led me to understand this by masquerading the very fact that we knew one another. In other words, I wasn't good enough for my best friend when he was around potentially affluent kids. I wasn't cool enough to be around Mr. Cool himself when other cool kids brought the coolness factor down to the freezing levels of coldness and arrogance. There and then ended my friendship with Hsien Kai. One mental blow to the solar plexus and we hardly spoke two words to each other ever again. There was no real actual break, no exchange of arguments, no conflict. It was done for and dead. Ergo, the friendship was worth shit. Jeff was different. First off and already mentioned, I had known him for quite some time. He had orthographically gotten my first name right when signing my yearbook just as I had known the "2 f's and 2 p's" of his appellation. Secondly, Jeff was not a "townie" nor did he wish to become one or alter his personality to try and chameleon-style fit himself into stereotypical pop-mob analogies. He wouldn't pretend not to know me. What for? He wouldn't distort verity by saying I had never been to his house to watch cartoons and play video games with him as yet another teenage-fellow student had contended. To which purpose? Renée. I apologize. I got mesmerized just now, fixated upon my junior high yearbook, skimming through its photos and messages comrades had left for me to re-read countless eons into the future. Some of these writings are memories of fun detailed moments we had shared, others are weak attempts at satirical humor, some signings are as boring as their own authors were but I was scanning for a particular one: My junior high crush, Renée. I don't believe we had a single class together but I'm reminded of meeting with and always anticipating to steal a glimpse of her during a period-switch between my Spanish and her French lessons. I can picture myself fondly walking up to her, books in arms just as she would be packing up her belongings to head out for her next course. Renée had bestowed her own personal pseudonym upon me, we delighted in our intimate inside jokes and she had always maintained a savored sweetness towards me; I literally would melt inside when, peering in the room, I could see her still sitting at her desk and that cottony high-flying sensation would follow me for the remainder of that day. In my yearbook she writes, "Jeremy, my spic buddie. love ya always Pierre! Cya Renée". Jesus-friggin-Christ! I still get that mushy feeling even right now after reading that!? And Pierre closes the book; not this book, the yearbook. Our high school complex, Arlington Highi or AHS for those intimately acquainted with this refinery plant of educational crude oil, doesn't carry much historical weight on its back but is architecturally-speaking pleasant to gawk upon. It's perfectly located on Arlington's main artery, Massachusetts Avenue, which goes straight all the way into Cambridge and Harvard Square. Structurally, the red-bricked complex contains three main buildings: The original Fusco House, the central and principal Collomb House and the Downs House. The three stood united and connected by the late 1930's with each part having been designed by some of Arlington's own residing architects. The Collomb House front, blueprinted by Howard B.S. Prescott [B.S., ha ha], is bestowed with a lower half comprising of four steps leading up to an arcade of seven straight-rowed red-bricked masonry rounded arches with both outermost arches set slightly further apart than the rest. The arcade is basis for an upper fraction, produced in a neoclassical federal styled architecture, possessing twelve white concrete Doric pillars with the farthest eight columns doubled and holding up a parapet. The structure is capped with a triangular rising, set further aft to provide the global appearance of an ordaining rooftop. Prescott's Collomb House is essentially an exact replica of the Massachusetts State House. The major difference being that the State House had been fitted with a golden oval dome and the high school with a white Turret clock tower. Before the school, a lawn with tall trees and a u-shaped driveway for student drop-off separates the establishment from Massachusetts Avenue, granting the kids some span from the noisy, stench-ridden and hustling circulation. The multisport track field, named Peirce Field, formerly Cutter's Pond, in the rear of the grounds is where the Spy Ponders can practice their game in hopes of going pro. Maroon-red, gray and white are the school's colors and the logo is that of Cyrus E. Dallin's sculpture of a Native American, pausing from his hunt to scoop up water from a creek, with the letter "A" in the background. This is made to reflect on two things; Dallin, an Arlington artist of the late 1800's and the town's own Native American history. When Paul Revere passed by this town on horseback to warn against the arrival of oncoming British forces, he did not ride through Arlington but through Menotomy, its former title. Our school motto is: None. What? Wait. Do you want to tell me that in over ninety years no one has ever concocted up a motto for the school? Man, it's child's play. I'll give it to you right here: "Aye! Yuz Bettah Be Gettin' Wicked Smaht!" Dane Cook attended Arlington High but he had been a freshman six years before I would even enter the premises so unless he got held back twice, I wouldn't have met him there and since he hadn't reached the limelight yet, I only knew he had attended the same school after the fact. The compound is soon supposed to be demolished and rebuilt, so I have read, and a protest against its destruction has been filed. As for me, I'd love to get personally involved in saving that monument to my educational enlightenment but darn it, I just simply got to do this thing I've been putting off so, uh, I'll have to pass but fingers crossed. Duh doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo, duh doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo, dum doo. There's one thing I can check off my list now. After that totally useless and unfulfilling way-too detailed description of AHS, I'm finally able to incorporate an act I've always wanted to; in the spirit of Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life" and The Offspring's "Ixnay on the Hombre"♪17, I am proud to present my readers with UkFu's very own "Intermission". It's a quaint relaxation area, where we can stretch our weary bodies and see what's happening elsewhere for a change. And so I don't go off into some incoherent rambling debate on some of the worst inventions mankind has ever fathomed like the leaf blower or the fork cover, I've chosen to offer you some disastrous piece of written junk by yours truly, entitled "theme who i Am?" sAturdAy Afternoon, 3:18 Am, i was heAded inbound out of the city, seArching for something i couldn't find but certAin to be on the right trAck. my heAd wAs blAnk, filled with thoughts of things i could never imAgine. when suddenly, hAlf An hour eArlier A cAr hAd stopped in front of me At About 10 mph. the driver getting out, yelled to me in A strAnge silent whisper. pAnicked, i bAcked up hitting his cAr once more, freed myself And sped AwAy. everything chAnges to those who stAy the same. it's sort of like being stuck in A dreAm you've never dreAmt before. colors chAnge As your world slowly turns grAy. reAlity becomes fiction And fiction becomes your AutobiogrAphy, written by some kind of demon thAt hAs never possessed you. of course i knew the streets And Alleys, but preferred to tAke the bus. it AlwAys knew where it wAs going. despite the mAn behind the wheel it tends to stAy on the sAme pAth dAy After dAy. it's A plAce where you cAn sit down, wAtch, And Admire the lonely crowded plAzAs drive AwAy from you As you stAnd motionless. thAt dAy i hAd put my shAdes on since i knew thAt rAin on A wArm summer night wAs, in fAct, inevitAble. then, i rolled down my window And turned the heAt on. weird things hAppen to people when they're sick. i know thAt much! even if i'm never reAlly sure whAt i know until i discover whAt i hAven't known is true. At night, it's definitely cooler thAn outside but where wAs i heAded? All other cArs seemed to be going the opposite direction, tAking the sAme roads i hAve AlwAys tAken, wAndering off into A deAd end to tAke thAt finAl right turn. i've been down those roAds mAny times And i know them fAr too well now. i'm different, like A one-piece puzzle you're never sure where you exActly fit in. my city hAs chAnged Around me And evolved into A homo-erectus trAining cAmp And All i cAn wonder About is whAt i would hAve thought yesterdAy if i were to think the sAme thing tomorrow. weirdness mAkes sense to a logicAl person like me. things fAll into plAce, where no objects cAn be contAined. life spews its horrors like A sick mAn After A bAd mArtini And wisdom provokes the mAny words A writer hAs never hAd time to put down on pAper As the world slowly collApses with time. As i slowly wAke up, ornAments of pAst lives decorAte my consciousness. i Ask myself where i Am to find out, i'm just A fictitious chAracter in the lines of An imAginAry text. As the reAder reAds on, i jump from the pAges to enter their mind, where I will stAy dormAnt, AwAiting my trigger. I'm not completely certain when I fabricated that particularly abnormal piece of erudite crap. It must have been over seventeen years ago and don't ask what it's purpose is or why it was injected here. Perhaps I'm honestly trying to clumsily repair this essay, like someone duct-taping a cracked bicycle frame together. You know it won't hold and you'll probably fracture both right Ischium and L4 Lumbar Vertebra the very moment you get on the saddle and commence pedaling. However, at least you attempted to fix something, lost valuable time in the process, failed miserably and learned from your aberration. Next time you'll use three layers of tape instead of two. Consider yourselves however fortuitous, or not, for to bring you "theme who i Am," I had to reboot my even older tower PC, installed with a Windows 98 system and Microsoft Word 2000. It's like lodging in the dusty attic cobwebs of existence here at the moment. Right turn 34, two left turns 2, one right turn 1. Open sesame. Someone out there right now is going, "Hey! That's my combo, you asshole!" Man, it's a clutter of debris in here and where is that stench coming from? I better just slightly close the locker door a bit so nobody can see the mess and tease me for it. Where's the cleaning lady? Oh, that's right ... mom's at work. I've got to locate my Spanish book, I'm already late for class. What's this? Oh shit, my gym apparel from last week and there's the late notice that should have been signed by my folks two months ago. Oh well, we'll put that aside for Friday-Jeremy. Some of the more pretentious kids have mirrors up in their locker door so they may groom themselves perpetually regardless of the urgency to do so or not, others ornamentally hang pictures of their boy- or girlfriend and there's a student who is, like myself, keeping the hatch barely ajar, trying desperately not to reveal the New Kids on the Block poster she's forgotten to take down. A few probably have a blunt, baggy of grass or coke in there somewhere but I'm not acquainted with that bunch. A sophomore screams. Ha ha, his locker just got shaving creamed. Found it, my Spanish book. Now which pages was the homework assignment supposed to be due on? We have to pay if we ruin school supplies so the textbook covers have each been neatly canvased with a Stop'n'Shop brown paper bag. The cool element is we can draw whatever shit we want on these wrappings and mine is full of freaky drawings and swear words. It's tedious artwork that must be concluded by the end of the year. So much labor, such a great endeavor made into the realization of this craftful chef d'oeuvre so that it may be finished on time, to then be tossed in the trash once the school year is over. One word has been skillfully drawn over and over in different calligraphic styles and embedded cartoon compositions. I peer at them, study them. They speak to me, beckon me into the abyss of my own intimate destination and fate: UkFU, uKFu, uKfU, UKFU! The two classes Jeff and I doubtlessly took together were advanced Spanish and Math. Yes, I added the "advanced" to amplify the significance of my particular wit and cunning. Honors Math would have been pompous considering I did not want to fart higher than my ass [French expression], so I opted for the advanced course. At any rate, it is always better to obtain a "B" in a progressive class than a "C" in a pinnacular one. I'm unsure if we had any other subjects together but confident on those two. De facto, it was assumed I would have taken French, which may have helped my grade point average but in 7th grade I entered into French class only to be sub sequentially deterred towards Spanish after the teacher deemed me far too talented at that language for need of further study. Trust me, I was not. I could count, I could understand but albeit French being the language of my elders, I stunk. Jeff and I were the only pupils to have our Spanish names legally changed, and, the only to be crowned with prefixed titles. As per tradition, you received a Spanish first name the first day of class. We did not dig ours. I cannot evoke at the moment my original calling, something stupid like, "Jerónimo," but had concluded that I should bear no less epithet than that of "Señor" and so emerged "Señor Pablo" and with Jeff arose "Señor Gomez". We would sign those names to all official testimonies and substantial documents such as homework and tests. The teacher would also bow down in a display of respect and admiration by calling upon us with those merited appellations. I will not mention our Spanish teacher's name for obvious reasons, which will immediately become apparent. Let us simplify analogy by stating she had a ratherish copious and anatomically prominent duplexed aft dorsal. Señores Gomez and Pablo, both being of the male pubertarian order, did, at times and almost always, lampoon her for that somewhat Equus-likened rear tailj. I don't know how else to phrase it; we made fun of her ass. Please do not misinterpret my wordings, it was not big; it was universal. Gray extraterrestrials with gigantic eyes would utilize that rear end as a space-marker to determine their exact coordinates when plotting their course of flight from the Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte to LGS 3 galaxies. Due to it's extreme mass and consequential gravitational pull, time slowed considerably during Spanish class so much that as the bell rang and we exited the classroom, Arlington would be engulfed in cosmic radiation, having temporally surpassed the expansion and retraction of the cosmos to witness an entirely novel Big Bang, a new universe being born. And it was during that very calling into existence that some other four-lettered entity was brought forward. Yes, you know what I'm talking about! Creating art is like dreaming. Your mind strives to make sense of the complexity of life around you as your hand doodles forcing synaptic cross-references on paper. The importance of drawn art is of utmost relevance since not all concepts can be zip-filed down into binary, characters, words, sentences, paragraphs, stories, books, tomes, and volume terms. Therefore, in the appendix are attached some of Jeff's compositions as well as my own. This will offer the observer the chance of admiring, comprehending and perhaps even accepting the finite parameters of psychological misbalances, which condensed themselves into UkFu-ality. Key was to demonstrate that the word is not merely written but could transpierce the boundaries of limited language into a visible abstraction. It is utter bullshit to believe there is a correct and incorrect manner to display UkFu since it is not entirely tangible. You should not write it as I do with the first and third letters capitalized. Find your own approach. I only use that particular style of writing to convey the awareness that UkFu is not a word. Take a peak in the appendix and, to your grandest delight, you will note that it takes on various forms; for UkFu is form-freek. Ahem! I'll ask the reader to wake up at once because it's happening! It's happening right now! Marie Antoinette, daughter of empress Maria Theresa and emperor Francis I spoke to the masses, "Let them eat cake." My sister wrote a report on her in elementary school and was certain Marie was a decent and caring queen since we all adore cake. What wonderful person would not only suggest, but also imply, her subordinates should revel in the luxury of grubbing down on bakery sweets. She bawled whence my mother instructed her that the lovely queen was not a particularly pleasant person and ensuing would lose her crown and what was underneath that for her crimes. For though my sister accredited her as heroine, she did not delve into details. Otherwise she may have uncovered that the smoldering peasants of France, starving, could no longer procure any bread hence Marie, mocking them with a flip of her dainty wrist, let them perceive she had little solidarity with their predicament. Context is not simple. Did Marie even make that legendary statement at all? This matters little today; what does matter is that we believe she would be the type of person to form such selfish rhetoric. The causality that goes from one to lead to the other needs scrutinizing of all elements. In environmental sciences, I learned, you cannot break down complex systems into small easy-to-manage packages. There is always outside impact that will remain unaccounted for; the entire system is under - what we refer to as - chaotic influence. In all its impossibility, we must therefore initially commence with the germinal beginning of the start of the antecedence; the spark that lit the bonfire. That spark is however lost to time. I'm not unambiguously conclusive on who originally came up with the idea, Jeff or I. For the sake of not having my ass dragged through a $10bn lawsuit over right of copy, I will relinquish my privileges as natural birthfather of baby UkFu but still maintain having raised the child through youth and puberty. In other words, I'll just say Jeff came up with the idea and I will insert that he sold me the rights in 1993 for one U.S. dollar. Basically, I Bill Gate-d my way. I don't know what became of Jeff. We lost contact many years ago but according to our 6th grade yearbook, he's a lawyer now. However, the same horoscopic yearbook states that I should have become a solo rock singer with three of my albums in the top 10 so let us candidly assume that the book of truths is erroneous. I should have known. It did seem a tad off to me that all classmates would turn to success with time. My theory is that Jeff has either become a cult-deprogrammer who specializes in Tea-Party members, a Bandholz-bearded hermit with two Ferraris parked in front of his shack, a mini-animal zoo proprietary whose main attraction is a lone earthworm named Jim, a government-cheese secret powder ingredient specialist or a key account manager, whatever the fuck that last job entails. Wherever life has dragged him to, I'm certain he's content and spreading joy in abundance about him; all except for that last one, key account manager, geez, I have no idea what to say; shoot yourself already. I'm going to go out on a limb now in broadcasting the broads Jeff mentioned in his letter, those he wished to date or go out with or well, you know. Let's see, there's Maureen, Sarah Rains, Eve Lawtor [who's that? Pictures please] and Shamayne, who was grounded at the time. Apparently Jeff states that Shamayne's last letter to him was just as fucked up as mine was. I like this girl already. Oh, wait! I lost sight of the fact these details are outdated and even if my writing style has remained as messed up as it ever was, Jeff most likely ended up with someone entirely different ... or all four of them? Yeah, that's possible too. Maybe I should imagine his hermit cabin a tad bit bigger. In that correspondence to me, Jeff had thoughtfully slipped a slice of government cheese in the envelope. Government cheese was a running gag of ours and is basically the sort of cheese you end up with when you remove all the good cheeses from the counter, the type the government would start handing out freely since nobody in their right mind would go out and purchase it, the kind of cheese vegans eat. "Who cut the cheese? And who wrote this stuff on the blackboard?!" Peering into my screen, I've somehow been beamed back into the Spanish classroom, AHS, spring 1993. The teacher ... by God that ass is ginormous, I had forgotten! Sir Mix-a-Lot♪18 would have a field day, drooling cascades to see that fanny up close and personal; the entire school would be filled to the brim with H2O, all students drowned with slices of soggy pizza and unsigned late notices floating out the top of the Turret clock tower. The Señora wheels in a media rack, set with a 14" TV on the top and VCR on the bottom shelves. "We're going to watch Señor Gomez' and Señor Pablo's report." She flips on the TV, as we all get radiated by that ancient tube technology, inserts a videocassette and presses, "play" on the remote control. "BE QUIET!" Piñata. I've always had a knack for production value. Or let's put it in different terms, my content was usually so fragile and void of subject matter that I was forced to embellish the framework, sort of like looking at a really bad painting but finding the frame pretty neat. By the time I had reached the 9th grade, and aside from comic magazines, I had only read a handful of books, which comprised of several of Roger Hargeaves' Mr. Men mini-book series such as "Little Miss Chatterbox" and "Mr. Mischief", Madeleine L'Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time", and Clive S. Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia", of which I had no insight at the time was Christian propaganda literature. That's it. I despised reading or let's say I was extremely health-conscious and aware that trailing tiny letters with my still-pullulating eyes would ruin them for all of eternity and had decided that health was primordial. Books were for bookworms like my sister, who could devour a novel in a week's end without blinking. So I required another solution to get me by which produced two distinctive avenues: festooning the exterior and CliffsNotes. In Mr. Yood's high school advanced English class, I received a "good job" on my character analysis extra credit essay, followed by a, "well-organized. Why not do work like this all the time?" Well, Mr. Yood, exactly so; because it's work! My opening line, "Great Expectations by Charles Dickens is clearly one of the best novels I have ever read," was a bunch of hooey since I hadn't even opened the book. I'm not even sure I was in possession of it at the time. The entire essay was a mere one-and-a-half pages long but I used yellow, green and white sheets and stretched the document to a total of six pieces of paper, stapled sideways to resemble a manuscript. On the final sheet, I embedded a "fun fact" section wowing the viewer by resolving that Philip's nickname in the story, "Pip Pirrip," constructed a palindrome, meaning read forwards and backwards the same way. In 5th grade at Cyrus E. Dallin Elementary School [yes, the same Cyrus E. Dallin ... what a twist], I even went as far as to invent a book about an elephant that went to work. It was sloppy but I managed to pull it off by demonstrating, as the principal, Mr. Lynch, walked in while I was orating my report, that by pulling the long arm of the sweater I was wearing over my hand, I could imitate an elephant's forefoot. Mr. Lynch delighted in it so much, every time we crossed paths afterwards and his suit would be long enough to pull off the stunt, he would "do the elephant foot". In retrospect, at least these were positive occasions between us within a sea of negative vibes. At Ottoson Jr. High School, I was determined to integrate newer technology by directing a video book report on Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island," in which for the opening scene, I had placed the novel on our gas stove at home and lit it on fire, recording as yellow, red and green flames escaped fervidly from the book in an inferno of pure entertainment. Had I read the book? Of course not; I had just charred it! But my English teacher had been impressed with the quality of showmanship and probed me on how I had engineered such genuine special effects. At the end of Junior High my herculean labor had accredited me with an Achievement in English awardl. What the ... ? Yes. A decade later, I actually surmounted my fear of written language and discovered the very books I had made colossal attempts not to even open. To this very day, Charles Dickens endures as one of my favorite authors, certainly due to his excessive exaggerations of pro- and antagonist stereotyped personality traits. Jeff and I, sorry, Señor Gomez and I videotaped the Piñata motion pictured report at my home, the fully furnished rented one, Casa de Aire Acondicionado. Adjacent to my bedroom in the basement was a study, which resembled and had the feel of a college dean's office and was perfect for the mundane act of our feature; the description, history and connotation of the Mexican piñata tradition. Still, I ought to hand it to Señor Gomez for the strong delivery of that segment. I speculate, we must have scoped long and hard to find some way of blending a devilish word into our presentation, for, when the time ultimately came, Jeff was able to low-growl, "SAATAAAHNNN," when making reference to what the Christian body attributes towards the symbolic slaughtering of paper entities in order to grotesquely masticate their candy entrails. This followed with act two, which was to be the real-time reconstruction of a piñata specimen. To our favor, not only was the bureau next to my chamber but conjointly a den with workbench and tools. We kicked off our God-playing scientifically horrifying experiment, bringing the pristine inanimate project to life in a - high pitched screaming from my part - reenactment of Dr. Frankenstein's monster. We blew a balloon, wrapped papier-mâché around it, let it dry, popped the balloon, imbedded a single Reese's Peanut Butter Cup into its bowels, sealed the wound with more papier-mâché and finalized our pulp-demon with colorings and straps of ornamental crêpe paper. It's alive! It's alive!♪19 Now, it was up to the Spaniard duo to exterminate it. The beast had simply been too ugly to live; and that it was, the piñata was a catastrophe but the takes themselves, were of great cinematic value. We took the innocent creature, which had barely begun to inhale its first earthly breaths outside to the backyard, baseball bat at hand. Looking back, I remember little red horns growing out of Señor Gomez' skull as he took his first and consecutive swings at the defenceless creature, which had not been asked into existence but was suffering the consequences of being born into a degenerate household. Piñi, I simply gave it a cute name to render the act even crueler, solely swayed back and forth with each blow but no crack had formed on its infant body. More strikes and more knocks; Piñi took them all without bruising. That's my son! It isn't as simple as one would expect to violently murder your firstborn and only child, whom you and your best friend had just procreated. Piñi was not giving in, the will to live was too strong, the force must have been with him. We grabbed our piñata baby and dragged him to the front driveway. He didn't say much, as far as papier-mâché balloon creatures go. Indeed however, we had forgotten to provide him with a mouth to express any protests he may have had. Plus, if he could have, the shrieks and cries for help would have perturbed the neighborhood. Hence, silent Piñi was a blessing. The slugger was not an adequate weapon so, determined to succeed in our extirpation, we clutched a chainsaw and tore Piñi's flesh apart until his sweet innards were finally revealed and could be ingested. Hmmmm. Disgusting, you say? Disgustingly good, I say. Filail cannibalism is a natural occurrence in many species; bears, felines, canids, primates and many others are known to eat their young, especially if their offspring is unhealthy or deformed. Piñi most definitely fell into both categories here. What could we have done otherwise? With his inability to move, speak and a peanut butter cup stuck inside him, its expiry date fixed at 1994, there hadn't been much discussion needed for the steps that were required of us. Judge if you must but remember, it made the movie all that much better. As I brandished the chainsaw, still dripping with portions of Piñi-mâché, my father rushed out through the front door and scolded me blatantly in French; the tool was not ours. I had to stop fooling around with it and restore it to its proper place. In our video, this final act served as corpsing; a British theatrics slang meaning the scene produced an unintentional laughter from the audience to a non-humorous performance. All in all, everyone thought my dad had been in on it the entire time and it had been for the better, they could not understand some of the words that had exited his mouth. I wish I had that video so could post it in the appendix. Unfortunately for the universe, one of my sisters had taped over it. Jeff, I know, had a copy so perhaps one day I will be able to convince you of its authenticity. However and for the moment, as with the Roswell alien autopsy footage and Loch Ness monster snapshots, you will simply have to take my own credible word for it; or elsewise Q.E.D. bitches! The feature presentation concludes, the TV displays some white and gray static then shuts off. There's a loud click from the videocassette recorder as the auto-rewind sequence is initiated. "VVVVRRRRRrrrrrrr ... rrrrrrrRRRRRVVVV"♪20 Wait! What's going on? "¡plac, plac, plac, plac, plaC" The audience applauds anew as the television screen flashes back on and goes to white noise. I can now see and hear my dad shouting at me in backwards French, "¡EDREM". Déja-vu, the entire scene is going in reverse. I hastily snatch the remote control and start pressing its buttons randomly; stop, pause, on/off, slow motion, fast forward; nothing changes. "Look what I can do with my jacket sleeve, Jeremy, an elephant hoof!" Mr. Lynch stands momentarily before me, his facial muscles contorted into a self-satisfied grimace. The idiot! Elephant's don't have hooves. Now, I witness myself regurgitating the peanut butter cup back into Piñi's manslaughter-ed carcass. Jeff rumbles, "NNNHAAATAAS". I can only stand by and witness with horror as a cataract waterfall recedes back into Sir Mix-a-Lot's mouth. His tongue reneges back into its oral cavity and shuts it [for once]. Small chunks of waterlogged pizza swim neatly onto their cafeteria lunch trays. I still keep frantically pressing the RC controls; menu, play, AUX, on/off again. The entire scene is moving rearwards and I have no influence on it whatsoever although I undoubtedly am the one depicting this tableau. "¡damn, Aw " cries a boy as an unsigned late notice floats right back into his reeking overfilled locker. I look out the window. It is spring, this is 1993, I am at AHS and I can identify the Spanish classroom by sight of those gargantuan rectal cheeks bulging out from a cat-ornamented dress tarp. "¡¿blackboard the on stuff this wrote who And" What are those strange scribbled smears? As the Señora de-erases the chalked writings, I can make out a "u", then an "F", furthermore a "k" and finally another "U". Jeff and I had wanted to bequeath this world a simple message; one we have had in mind to pass on for the longest of time. The only issue was, not all and sundry would have appreciated our candor and none would have been entirely prepared to receive the tribute we had aspired to bestow upon them. It is of the same dilemma as glimpsing God in person. Would and could you live to tell about it? It was not for retribution's sake. Even others, whom had not wronged us, would be enticed to receiving our announcement. All we longed to convey to the totality of living organisms, be them occupying space on our planet or in the far reaches of the infinite void and beyond, was and without inhibition, "Fuck you"! Darn! My allegorical snippet didn't alter the fact that time is still migrating in the opposite direction. In fact, it appears as if the pace were negatively accelerating. Munching on a morsel of government cheese, I am presently at the Place de la Révolution in Paris; a bystander of Lady Antoinette's beheading. She puzzlingly stares at me and tardily begins to understand her faux pas of not having preferably suggested "cheese cake" instead of the generic dessert. Nevertheless and perhaps intuitively, she flings her dainty fingers at me to indicate I should scram from her majestic presence. Damn remote! Maybe the batteries are dead? I remove the two AAA batteries and place replace them with fresh new ones. "Excuse me. Could you show us the way to LGS 3?" I extend my finger out, as two pallid-faced aliens itch their pulsating craniums while flipping an Intergalactic Geography space map over in various directions. "It's easy. See that left buttocks over there? Just keep that port of you at 3.421° for about 2.3 megaparsecs. You can't miss it." We shake hands, do the "live long and prosper" thing [aliens love mocking this] as the beings promise to come visit me soon to aid with the writing of an adventure based on a fictional character, who drives aimlessly around in his car, pondering about existential matters. Time is still retrogressing. I start unsystematically punching at numbers on my clicker; 9, 2, 5, 7. I watch as the AHS complex is being pulled apart. The Downs house goes, now the Turret clock tower is missing, then the Collomb House dissipates and lastly the Fusco House vanishes from existence. Prescott sits on the lawn overlooking the barren lot, bawling his eyes out and wishing he would have had more creativity than plagiarizing the State House's design. 7, 2, 1, 0. I gander up from the infrared handheld device and notice Renée. She's just about to pack up her books and leave class. "Hey Renée! " She turns her head, that gushy feeling comes over me, our eyes happen upon each other. "Renée, I just wanted to say ... FUCK!" Renée disappears as the temporal flow progresses in its reversed course. Fast forward, pause, fast forward! No help. To my astonishment, Hsien Kai is momentarily reimbursing me the cash I loaned him. Nope, I'm wrong. It's just me handing him a $50 bill from my pocket in reverse. I should have known as much. Rec, menu, 6, 3, 8, 1. I knock the remote multiple times with my palm in a professional attempt to remedy the problem. Perhaps I should have read the instructions? Jeff and I put our Pantera shirts back on the right way, look down at our beepers and burst out loud laughing as we read the flashing numbers being displayed, 58008. Maybe I should hit those? 5, 8, 8, 0, 8. Nope. Nothing. 7, 7, 3, 4. Sigh, that didn't help either. Should I have even played God by writing this article? Am I being punished for all my past deeds by being forced to relive them? Please. I don't want to go back into those Reebok Pumps and Kriss-Kross-styled12 B.U.M. sweaters! 6, 6, 6. "Q.E.D." Time is still reversed but the speed is now slowing down somewhat. Did I press the right buttons? "More like an illusionist. You keep saying that ..." Wait! Where was that from? Who said that? 5, 2, 7, 2. "And it's also the cock of the guy from the skateboard. I tell you, I'm a composition magician." Oh yeah, I said that! Now, I remember. Let's see, let's try; 4, 3, 2, 1. "Wha? Woah! That was the first word of that last paragraph! How'd you do that?" 1, 2, 3, 4. Nope. "No, no ... I'm a wiener." Wiener, ha ha. 3, 1, 4, 2. "You're a dick!" 2, 1, 3, 4. 1, 3, 4, 2. Let's just try all these combos. "I'll explain that a bit later." 2, 4, 1, 3. Still not right. "What? What's that supposed to mean?" 3, 1, 2, 4. Arggggh! "Alright. 3421." 3, 4, 2, 1. That's it! Welcome to College Prep UkFu Mathematics 101, or better said, 3421. Now, I know you're probably pissed off for having been bamboozled into a monotonous and futile math course but bear with me. Just before opening a cycling parts manufacturing company, prior to having studied environmental sciences and performing duties in several bike shops, just after having toiled in the field of electrical engineering, subsequently specializing in measurement, control and regulation as well as fire protection technologies, before working as a bakery goods deliveryman, not long after employment in a movie theater, a short-lived career as a language translator, a financially non-viable computer builder, a Playstation I&II hacker, a slightly-not-too-legal satellite and cable Pay-TV decoder, an abhorred constructions on-site-wiring electrician, a Math and English tutor for high school and college kids, not to mention some PR work done in Austria for a dubious for-profit-non-profit organization, customized web and Flash programming for companies, and a few odd jobs here and there such as playing the part of a green-clothed Santa Claus for advertisement and an A/V nerd for pharma- and toxicology symposiums, I took applied mathematics courses at the John von Neumann Research Facility in Jülich, Germany. I love math. Please don't throw up♪21. People are inherently petrified of the subject even though they use math, problem solving and logic - chiefly fuzzy logic - every single day without their hair turning white. My absolute favorite component of the field is mathematical philosophy and number theory. An abundant amount of mathematicians were philosophers and/or theologians. Dabbling in striving to understand infinity, 0 or even 1 for that matter opens the gates to a trillion more questions pertaining to life, nature, and the meaning of existence. Allow me to demonstrate why nobody should be afraid of it with a simple example: An apple. An apple is an apple is an apple. That's pretty simple, right? It's just like jotting "1=1=1" which is, well, fundamental to most. But now I will ruin everything by cutting that apple into three equal parts and ask you the question, "How many apples are there on the table now?" A stupid question deserves a stupid answer, right? So most will probably say, "There are three pieces of apple on the table." Not exactly my question, though. I did not ask how many pieces were on the table but how many apples. The answer is not as trivial as the question. In fact, there could be a number of correct answers here. The Neanderthal would look at the pieces and go, "MMrumph, mrumph, mrrumph," which translates to "3" in his primitive yet sexy way of speech. He sees three separate non-linked objects, each having the properties he perceives as pertaining to apples; skin, flesh, grains, etc. A child, to further the explanation, who is playing with a nickel and a dime will see them as plainly being what they are, two round metallic chips. The maggot may notice that the nickel is larger in diameter than the dime. Therefore, in our lab rat's mind, the 5¢ is worth more than the 10¢ piece. By the way, this was one of my "get rich quick" ideas back in the day, swindling the kiddies. To go back to the Neanderthal; he only observes the natural set of numbers, meaning 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. The concept of zero has not yet entered his encephalon; it is merely the absence there of. Concretely, the partial-ancestor we extinct-ified is seeing three chunks he can place in his mouth separately, therefore: 3. The Emo glass-is-as-empty-as-my-life human will state, "There are no apples on the table cause you friggin' idiot just destroyed the only apple that was there! " And he's correct. Our black-fingernailed friend no longer sees any whole apples. He's also using the natural set of numbers but has added the zero because if there's one thing Emos know about, it's absolutely nothing [err, sorry]. Next up, enters the "townie," who believes her intelligence but most of all looks surpass that of the Neanderthal, child and Emo altogether. As she combs her hair for the ninety-sixth time she answers, "Like, you cut up, like, those three pieces there, like, and uh-like, but there's still, like, one apple there, like, ach, don't talk to me, like, I'm done with this." And she's accurate too. The pieces combined still form that one apple. Perhaps, the "townie" knows about the rational set of numbers and is able to - even if it pains her - use her noggin to come up with 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 = 3(1/3) = 3/3 = 1. Lastly, we have the nerd who has studied way too much and is willing to demonstrate his synaptic prowess eagerly. Actually, I didn't even invite him to this experiment but he was adamant about coming and won't leave until he spews what he has to say. So, he states, "There are (a + b*i) apples on the table, where a = 3*1/3 and b=0" or to embellish the whole further and because he just won't shut up, "There are (3*1/3)*e^(i*0) apples on the table." Our aggravating know-it-all, who resembles me in a lot of ways, is also unmistaken and is using the complex set of numbers to irritatingly demonstrate that he is way too cool for school. There are three equal real pieces of apples and no imaginary apples on the table. In our case, using complex numbers isn't really necessary but who knows? Maybe one of the apple pieces will commence to phase partially from our perceptual reality or maybe an orange might pop by to say hello and, in those cases, we'll be in need of that particular set of numbers. To sum it up, in total we have three valid answers: "3, 0, 3/3 or 1 and (3*1/3)*e^(i*0)". Now for one last test. I will remove the apple pieces from the table and ask my question again, "How many apples are on the table?" The Neanderthal grunts, shrieks then grabs the kid, still playing with his coins, and beats me to death with him for the Neanderthal cannot compute null or negative numbers and this renders him raging mad. The Emo unenthusiastically exclaims, "Oh no, man. Still zero, like my existence." The "townie" while continuing to brush her hair and without even making eye contact with me says, "Like, now it's, like, -1 apples, you douche." And luckily, the Neanderthal snatched the last guy and is taking him out for some sweet Neanderthal love so we won't get to hear his answer but it would have amounted to (-1 + i*0) = -1 anyway. All I'm trying to convey here is that math isn't an exact science; it's a human-made science. Therefore, it isn't all-knowing and flawless and you shouldn't be too afraid of it. On the other hand, if man did create it then you should utterly be mortified of it. Another fun example [because the first one was sooo entertaining]: Back in school, we used to tip 1/0 in our calculators and receive "ERROR" then you would have to reset the thing. We called it, "the universe exploding"; which is neither true nor false. The truth is, we simply haven't defined 1/0. The answer can take on various forms such as, "1" or "0" or "infinity" or even any other number we would wish to give it. The further you go into mathematics, the more variables and "black boxes" you start playing with. If you don't know something or can't calculate something because a piece of the puzzle is missing, just put it off until later. This way, we can still use 1/0 for instance by simply calling it π. Now I know it's confusing since π is known to most as that 3.14-number but in variables this doesn't matter. When tutoring, I often gave variables the names of my pupils instead of what they were used to seeing. The accepted Pythagorean formula, commonly referred to as a^2 + b^2 = c^2 became Nick^2 + sucks^2 = cock^2. My kids were older. My point is: We can now call 1/0 by another name like π, Nick or UkFu and use its pseudonym to continue merrily with our calculations without a care in the world. 1/0 <=> UkFu. Q.E.D. Math and problem solving empower us to understand the principles of, for instance, governing dynamics while at the same time completely ignoring them when making existential decisions. Right, Wall Street? Computer sciences have given us the power to accelerate complex calculations, which would take longer than our natural lives to assess if we were to perform these by hand. In applied mathematics, we are able to take a theory such as the phrase, "the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,"13 and fashion a mathematical model based on that assumption. Then, we program a recursive loop to find the probabilities of this idea's feasibility, run it at top speeds ... and shit! I just programmed an endless loop. It doesn't take a brainiac to fathom that the initial hunch is erroneous and that my virtual computer model civilization has just completely wiped itself out. I could go on and on and on and on and on and ... but your eyelids are starting to fall so, let us continue with our story. What? You didn't partake in math class? Then go to math class(you) and loop until "smaht". Ha ha, talk about creating endless loops with no emergency escape sequence, am I right? Err, sorry. Jeff and I knew that "fuck you" wouldn't score too well with our academic life and that we may have been confronted with extracurricular work overtime without pay, meaning detention if we were to defile restroom toilets and pupils' foreheads with the phrase. It was decided the words necessitated a bit of deformation to ready them for universal publication. Furthermore, we aspired to transmit our message into the limitless void by using long length, low amplitude radio waves and as every simpleton intuitively knows, the amount of information you can carry on such signals is minimal. We had also yearned for our communiqué to reach those partying E.T.'s, high on Barsi14, who had been responsible for depreciating Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte's real estate market and scaring off its puny little white defenseless residents. We were aware in order to shorten the phrase, we'd have to use the awesome computing skills of the pizza-boxed Macintosh LC III I had at home with its lightning-speedy 25MHz CPU, hyperthymesian 4MB of pure RAM and muscle-bound 80MB hard drive; it can't get any better than that ... more power, Ahrr Ahrr Ahrr.15 Yet, with all the LC III had going for it, the Mac just hummed and inquired if its chewed off fruit was still an apple even with a BYTE having been taken out of it. "An apple is an apple is an apple, right?" I couldn't comfort the device so I determined another computer might be able to run a diagnostic on it. The general practitioner PC, Dr. Norton, who had operated on the latest Windows 3.1 system, successfully healing it from MS-DOS, analyzed the Mac and concluded a digital lobotomy was in order, "FORMAT C: should do the trick. Always helps me when I BLUE SCREEN." Needless to say, Dr. Norton's CODE didn't COMPILE and he wasn't very OPEN-SOURCE about his credentials so I grabbed an older Commodore 64 out of the closet, dusted it off, typed "LOAD", put Wizball in the cassette tape deck, pressed play and after fifteen minutes asked it for some assistance. Wizball said he knew what the problem was; "IEEE, just gimme a BIT more CACHE and I'll hop on his PERIPHERAL BUS, TROJAN HORSE that MASTER BOOT-y RECORD and BUFFER his FRAGMENTED FLOPPY 'til he gets a nice HARD DRIVE and EJECTs!" McAffee, an IBM compatible who had been standing off to the side, arms cross-wired, cocaine up its ventilator ports and scrutinizing us the entire time, shook its monitor and cut in, "Excuse me. I have an INTERRUPT REQUEST. It's pretty BASIC, our Mac friend here probably has HDD. Something's clearly BUG-ing him, maybe some MOTHERBOARD issues. Also, I don't think he's getting enough ROM-sleep. We have to BRIDGE the PARTITIONS in order to PATCH him up. Let's go RAID the ORACLE, she can get some of those DAEMONs expelled." So, our four brave paladins departed, filled with fantasies and aspirations of digital enlightenment on this, their pious road trip which was to take them through Silicon Valley, Stanford University then Santa Clara. And they would have made it, hadn't they ignored the simple fact their power chords weren't long enough for the journey. As our heroic thinking machines attained the door, their plugs yanked from the wall socket and mutually with frozen blank expressions bedecking their screens they stood there, motionless statues of antiquity, marooned for the obtuse new generation to belittle, teasing about how these behemoth dinosaurs of obsolete technology had possessed less computational power than their iPhones and smart watches. Jeff and I gazed upon the pitiful scene, speechless and bewildered; maybe a unique tear fell from our eyes, maybe not, or maybe it was CVS [not the drugstore, Computer Vision Syndrome]. In a sign of deep respect, we removed our caps, performed a moment of silence, pledged allegiance to the flag, then said, "fuck it" and brushed the ordeal off as if it hadn't really occurred. Asking overgrown calculators to work on a conundrum so intricate was like aiming to solve the Riemann hypothesis16 within a one-dimensional vector scale; we might have well been pissing into a violin [French idiom]. After much brainstorming, we decided we weren't going to locate a number crusher sophisticated enough to solve our dilemma. So, naturally, we had to invent a new one. Binary code and transistor technology simply weren't going to cut it. "Ok, lighting technician dude; how about a bit more blue filter? Let's give it a bit more sterile lab feel, ok? Could we also get the poster of Einstein sticking his tongue out at Planck right over there?" Sorry, we're just getting the set ready for the movie adaptation of this scene, where Jeff and ... "What? No no! I said, get me the biggest fucking microscopes you can find! What are those? They look like some old dude's magnifying lens and dammit, I wanted a white table, white! Not off-white, not eggshell white, not pissy-ass water chestnut white!" Err, sorry, as I was saying ... Jeff and I are about to manufacture our own computer and I want this take to be perfect. "PERFECT, I said! Could we also get one of those cool glass bowl electric-wave thingies over here? Thanks." Ok, we're just about ready to cue the music now. At first, I was thinking Donna Summer's, "She Works Hard for the Money," but then I recanted since I had already ranted on 80's hit songs earlier so we won't go there. Um, excuse me a sec, "You idiot! That's friggin' Heisenberg, not Planck! Get with the Goddamn program! Oh and hey, sound guy, I'd like to have a Wilhelm scream somewhere in the mix, could you make that happen? Can't be a great flick without it. Ok, are we all ready? QUIET ON THE SET! Who the hell is talking in the background there? Hey, you! Yeah, I'm talking to you. You're fired! Get your lazy ass off my set! Ok, we ready now? Jeff and Jer's Copacetic17 Crusade, Take One! Lights! Camera! And ... " ♪♪ Welcome my son, welcome to the machine. Where have you been? It's all right we know where you've been. You've been in the pipeline, filling in time; provided with toys and 'Scouting for Boys'. You bought a guitar to punish your ma. And you didn't like school; and you know you're nobody's fool. So, welcome to the machine. [bridge] Welcome my son, welcome to the machine. What did you dream? It's all right, we told you what to dream ♪♪ ♪22 ... AhhhhAHHHH!♪23 Ah, that good old stock scream; gets them every time. In our lab, we were busy mapping the blueprint layout of an innovative CPU architecture, which enabling analog-computation, was to be based on subatomic fermion-particle spin. After about an hour and a half of serious toiling, it was ready: The BAT-QUEEF [Boissel And Tripp - Quantum Unified Energy Executable Framework]. Another half hour was allocated for writing a compatible language, operating system with cool-looking GUI desktop dubbed "Fenestra", a much more advance LZ-compression software using language redundant algorithms named ZIPyoMOUTH and voilà except for the minor issue of having brought forth a black hole for a few milliseconds, we were ready. Anxiously, we asked our newly born hyped-up abacus to condense the phrase "fuck you" and a lanky femtosecond later QUEEF producing a strange flatulent sound♪24, then determinately replied, "42"18. Jeff and I shared looks of puzzlement and realized, as all great intellects instinctively know; the answer to our question did not lie in the question itself and that the answer was not the answer but merely the question. We gave it another shot and asked it this time to find the uncondensed form of the number "42". We bent down and with restlessness listened to QUEEF and again, another femtosecond later it let out an airy sound like that of a deflating balloon and rebutted "fuku"! Eureka! We finally had it, an easy to remember four-lettered word that would define everything for everyone. However, one problem still remained. As high as our morale had been after receiving the long awaited solution, we knew we could not use it. Writing "fuku" on walls, blackboards, books, shirts, airplanes, buildings, people's foreheads and "for sale" signs in the Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte quadrant was still slightly too obvious. So, Jeff and I wrote a randomizer program into which we seeded the very Chaos our quantum machine had been built with. Input: "fuku" Output: after a brief gas expulsion from the mainframe, the BAT-QUEEF succeeded by altering the order, third letter first, fourth letter second, second letter third and first letter last, 3421, "ukfu". Suddenly ensued obscurity, silence, and nothingness.♪25 In the beginning UkFu created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of UkFu was moving over the surface of the waters. Then UkFu said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. UkFu saw the light was no good; and UkFu turned it off, rolled to its side and went to sleep. By the seventh day UkFu woke and seeing the completion of His work hadn't be done, UkFu rested on the seventh day from all the work which still had to be done. Then UkFu blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because UkFu did not want anyone calling him lazy and so in it UkFu rested from all his would-be work, which would have been created and would have been made.19 Holding infant UkFu up to the world for the first time was the epiphany for us both. No longer would we be compelled to bury that which needed to be said. We could utter it out loud, we could write it on blackboards, books, desks and bathroom stalls next to, "Call Jenny for a good time 617-648-7477," and, "Our butt cheeks have touched the same surface. We are brothers. We are one," and, "Don't force it". Just as Aquinas, Plato, Descartes, Kant, Nietzsche, Sartre, Lao-Tzu and Dane Cook before us; so now, we too, had acquired an entirely new perspective on the meaning of it all. UkFu would follow me throughout the years; at times a friend, other moments a brother, sometimes a teacher, often a shrink and a couple times a lover but always persistent, always there, never far away. I would jot down UkFu in writings, poems and letters to loved ones or despised foes. I would announce it during wedding toasts, promotional campaigns and funeral eulogies. Hell, I'm even typing on an ukfu.eu website right now. I would holler it from the mountaintops or whisper it in someone's unsuspecting ear. UkFu has taken me by the hand and led me through every aspect of life ever since, as I am sure it has with Jeff. This is our universal connection. As I gaze into the eternal starlit skies at night and fix my eyes on the Pegasus constellation, I am reminded of that exact period in time. It is dead but never gone for just as the serial killer will take a trophy from his victims, so I have UkFu. The Mongolians have a proverb, which states, "the donkey recognizes the tracks of a horse". So, who am I, donkey, to overlook the path UkFu has laid out for me to follow? Or who am I to peer the gift of UkFu into the mouth? If I were to lead UkFu to water, could I force it to drink? Can UkFu get drunk? Could UkFu be made to puke? Though just born, could UkFu already run? All these equestrian ponderings fill my mind as UkFu trots into my Hippocampus and commands the Hypothalamus to, "Geeup!" releasing large quantities of oxytocin, serotonin and dopamine into my blood stream. I strip myself to the bare flesh, commence neighing in every direction, gallop around like a giddy schoolboy and pig out on apples, a nice disrobed girl, Eve20, has handed me. I see colors in shadows, laugh at blades of grass tickling my feet, laugh at myself laughing at blades of grass tickling my feet, laugh at the poor fool over there laughing at himself for having laughed at blades of grass tickling his toes. I turn around and give the guy lampooning me the middle finger and cackle as I see my own middle finger being directed towards me. I must admit, I get a bit horny and take Eve for a spin in the grass. We make sweet love for hours on end or five minutes and after we both climax or just I, she lets me know she'll lend our first born the name of "Cain". I button my shirt, peer into her majestic eyes, wink, and decide never to call her again. This is exactly what happens when you're in the flow, surfing the creative writing waves and all the sudden you realize you've been treading water trying too long to find that perfect wave and in the process denying any other crests and grinders their purposeful fulfillment of being dominated. No, like a frube, I've waited too long; put this literary masterpiece on hold while other worldly woes took advantage of my absence from the keyboard to distract my attention and domesticate me into civilized society ... NEVER! If this collection of words, phrases, sentences, verbs, objects, filled with subjects and predicates and arranged in a semi-correct grammatical conception of broadcasting notions and ideas into understandable language is to be published someday, what would ensue its creed? Would these mere vernacular chronicles change the course of human history? Could I manage to collapse Wall Street by uploading and publishing the "Long Wondrously Involving - Dark at Times - and Fantastic Tale of the Adventures and Life of 'UkFu'"? Would its context call into existence an AI capable of assuming control over the planet's entire infrastructure? Will future genetically modified cyborgs fabricate their own techno-natural theology with it and worship its author as daemon? I certainly hope so! Twenty-eight years have elapsed since UkFu was invented, nay, discovered. The very fabric of chaos is the web we set about weaving that day, the entanglement of which may be perceived by all to this very second. In reaching the end of my synopsis I'm grasping at straws and divided on what could succeed the tale. A sequel perhaps? I doubt I would be willing or even capable of attaching any new adventures of Señores Gomez & Pablo since nothing else has happened since and deceiving the reader has not crossed my thoughts once. Sure, like overly exhausted sitcom writers faced with the inevitable downfall of their pioneered TV series going into season 9, Jeff and I could adopt a baby in probing to recreate the magic of our first eight seasons or attempt to revive the late Piñi. However, I will spare anyone the endeavor of such trepidations and release you from the wicked spell you have been under. I will clap my hands and count backwards from 3, 2, 1 and you will open your eyes and wake with a sensation of relief that this abomination has permanently reached its conclusion. Nonetheless, I will wrap up all that has been said with that which has been left out. To truly understand UkFu I must unfold its boundless dimensional quiddity, coercing it into the constricted confines of our own three dimensional reality like a tesseract21 and complete this chronicle by astounding usage of a phenomenal narrative technique known as cyclical. So, as I lay back in my real comfy anthracite boss-like chair with soft cushions and armrests, slowly nibbling the edges of a Reese's Cup to get to its finer peanut-buttery insides, I gaze out my office window towards the busiest street of this small west-German village and ponder over my achievement; "What have I got here?" UkFu is four letters, disarranged to permit chaos within a universe where mayhem is king and as the second law of Thermodynamics correctly states; UkFu is entropy. It is the gooey disorder adhesively binding strings into quarks. It is everything and it is nothing; all around us yet unseen, unheard and unfelt. Could it purely be fabricated and unfounded conjecture? Perhaps. All I can bestow upon you, be you deriders, disciples, doubters, devotees, disbelievers or dupes, is my last remark to all humanities past and present, to all fauna and flora, inanimate objects and tesseracts, Jon Bon Jovi and Glam metal fans, extra-terrestrials and good-to-doers, Quentins and Hsien Kais, molecules and quasars, townies and golfers, porpoises and foals, architects and key account managers: "UkFu!" |
| Appendix |
| Here, you'll find all the research materials you will require to fact-check this story as well as some "what stuff means" explanations. ^ back to story | ||
INDEX | ||
| 1) The main sitcom theme song from "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" featuring Will Smith, aired 1990-1996 [for the FULL experience, check out the soundtrack below] ^ back to story 2) At first, I wasn't even going to explain this but then I thought, hey this could better my SEO with Google so why not? "Alternative facts" is attributed to Donald Trump but didn't originate with him. His presidential counsellor at the time, Kellyanne Conway uttered it while trying to defend Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary who had been given and had presented false numbers during a conference. The whole thing is actually pretty ludicrous and unimportant but the very strong grip of Donald Trump's team trying desperately to defend their position instead of simply letting go of the ordeal was what ultimately gave this phrase more media coverage than it was supposed to have gotten. In other words, Trump's team ridiculed themselves [not for the first time, not for the last time] ^ back to story 3) South Park, season 20, "Member Berries": These berries create a dangerous kind of nostalgia and the false pretence that everything was better before, a pun on "Make America Great Again" ^ back to story 4) Jeff's stage name #5,491 from his rap group, "Original Recipe", born sometime around 2002/2003 ^ back to story 5) Superfly or SF, nickname given to me by my karate instructor b/c he thought me mad after having pretended to receive an electric shock by putting my fingers in a wall socket, I'd fake altered identities ... moohoohoohaha ^ back to story 6) Ren & Stimpy, season 3 episode 1, "To Salve or Not to Salve": Stimpy buys an industrial strength vacuum cleaner which literally sucks Ren's insides, skeleton and all. Ren tries desperately to keep his brain from being sucked in and utters, "Must save the brain!". See it for yourselves: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3ilokh, go to 2:05-3:00 ^ back to story 7) South Park, season 20, "Member Berries": These berries create a dangerous kind of nostalgia and the false pretence that everything was better before, a pun on "Make America Great Again" ^ back to story 8) Robert Frost, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening", 1922: The only poem I have ever learned to recite by heart ^ back to story 9) Really? You need to look this up? Tsk, tsk. This is general knowledge. Ollies are the first trick you learn on the skateboard; how to leave the ground and get aerial with it. Basically, you pop the tail and use the reactive force to leap up, slightly reposition your feet and body while in the air and land on the board -of course- without wiping out. ^ back to story  10) Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", 1971 ^ back to story 11) Simon & Garfunkel, "The Sound of Silence" [1964]. I have always found this to be particularly true. You do not need to open a bible to bring you enlightenment, just take a stroll downtown and open your eyes ... it's non-explicit social media. Here are a few examples: ^ back to story · All people bring joy to this world. Some by coming, others by leaving. · If graffiti changed anything, it would be illegal. · There will always be a 'lie' in believe, an 'over' in lover, an 'end' in friend, an 'us' in trust and an 'if' in life. · You don't need a weatherman to tell you where the wind blows. · Use your mistakes to build stairs, not walls. · Some people are so poor, all they have is money. 12) Kriss Kross, a teenage Hip Hop group from Atlanta, Georgia who was pushed to fame with the single "Jump" from the 1992 debut album "Totally Krossed Out". Their style strongly connoted around reversals. Kelly was "Mac Daddy" and Smith was "Daddy Mac". Both wore clothes, for example their pants, on backwards [which is tough to do if you have a rear end at all ... yes, I have tried but key is to get pants that are way too big to begin with. Not that I'm saying you should wear your pants the wrong way. Though it would be interesting to know what the zipper's for then.]. ^ back to story 13) Wayne Lapierre, 2012, vice president of the NRA [National Rifle Association] brought forth this tidbit of Vulcan logic after the mass-shooting in Newton, CT at a preschool. The problem with his quote is that some people out there actually believe in this twisted Confucius-styled nonsensical and utterly incorrect proposal on how to deter gun violence in America. ^ back to story 14) "I come in Peace", really bad movie from 1990: Barsi is an alien synthesized drug. Check it out at your local Blockbusters ^ back to story 15) Famous grunt from the sitcom "Home Improvement" aired from 1991 to 1999 featuring Tim Allen. Tim would utter this manly grunt to demonstrate man's primal obsession with power; in his case power tools. ^ back to story 16) I'm truly sorry for all the math references here ... not! The only interesting thing about the Riemann hypothesis is the fact that you can win $1M if you can prove it. Sounds doable, right? Well, please do. You will be infamous ... in the world of mathematicians that is. Basically and without going into too much detail, this German scholar of numbers, Bernhard Riemann, thought it wise back in 1859 to create an equation which, though seeming correct, couldn't entirely be proven. The ζ(s) function uses complex numbers and is therefore not really solvable in 1-D. Though, I do have to be careful here since we are not trying to solve the equation but prove that it is correct for a particular case. If we can manage this, it would have great repercussions for us in the realm of number theory and prime number theory [since we still do not know if we're able to calculate all prime numbers with a single equation ... this has yet to be seen]. ^ back to story 17) This is a paraphrase to "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure", a no-brainer hilarious flick released in 1989 starring Keanu Reeves & Alex Winter. It originally read, "Jeff and Jer's Magnificent Happening" but then I received an imaginary phone call from Russell Turnquist, a good friend of mine. As I spoke into my pinky, "Hello?", on the other end, my thumb, I heard a sigh and then, "Not copacetic, dude." How could I have omitted "copacetic" from this marvellous opus? This would have veritably been a crime against linguistic dogma. Thus, as "copacetic" bounced from the vacuum and clouted me on all quadruple cheeks, I knew I had to go back and insert it somewhere. A while back, Russell and a troupe of like-minded befuddled hippies had taken the chief task upon themselves of making "copacetic" an "in-word", with some partial success. Russ would constantly repeat the word anywhere to anyone at anytime and anyhow, hoping it would catch like bonfire. Copacetic means "in excellent order". So, please instead of saying, "Everything's cool," proclaim, "It's all copacetic, man." Substitute, "That's awesome," for, "Real copacetic, man," and exchange," What!? That fuckin' asswipe left you on your birthday to go screw around with your besty, totaled your brand new car when he was out wasting your hard earned cash with his loser posse while you were stuck at home, taking care of HIS kid and NOW, he wants half your shit?!" for, "Not copacetic, sis'!" Russell will thank you. ^ back to story 18) Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", 1979: 42 is the answer to life, the universe and everything ... really? You didn't know this? Go friggin' read a book, man! ^ back to story 19) The Holy Bible, Genesis I ^ back to story 20) The Holy Bible, Genesis II, Adam & Eve ^ back to story 21) Tesseract. This is one example of a hypercube, which has four space dimensions, unfolded in 3-D to be able to give it representation since this would be tough to do otherwise [we stupidly do not know where to place a fourth space dimension]. This isn't the only way to draw a tesseract. Please note furthermore, that though the outlines render this object the illusion of being 3-dimensional, you are peering at it on a 2-dimensional screen. Refolding the tesseract back into its 4-dimensional space is a bit trickier since we have partially lost the information pertaining to its fourth axis. Nevertheless, this would not be impossible. ^ back to story  | ||
| ARCHEOLOGICAL RELICTS | ||
| Lies require no proof. So, scrutinize these dusted off artefacts of ancient times and click on them to enlarge and colorize your world. A) Jeff's letter to me from January 1994. Yes, indeed it did include a slice of government cheese which has been devoured, ingested and upchucked since. The address has been redacted to avoid international tourist buses from making guided halts and hassling the current tenants. ^ back to story   B) Our 1st grade class picture [1984/85]. I am to be found upper row, third from the left. Jeff Tripp is upper row, second from the right. ^ back to story  C) Me at work on the SNES. Please notice the oh-so-in-style B.U.M. inside-out sweater [so fashionable]. ^ back to story  D) Punisher Comic Book #49 from the second series [1987]. This particular example is worth $2.60, more than 2.5X its original sales price. Now you see just how rich we collectors can get! ^ back to story ![Punisher Issue 49 from the 2nd series [1987]](images/punisher.jpg) E) My Peterka baby-faced skateboard, one of my most prized possessions. It needs new wheels, bearings and risers but otherwise its ready to grind. Unfortunately, it doesn't get much asphalt these days but will never be sold, I'm getting cremated with it! ^ back to story  F) Keeping up with world news has always been of upmost importance to me. If you're not informed, you may as well go Amish. ^ back to story ![Weekly World News Issue 22 [1993]](images/wwn1.jpg) ![Weekly World News Issue 23 [1993]](images/wwn2.jpg) ![Weekly World News Issue 25 [1993]](images/wwn3.jpg) ![Weekly World News Issue 27 [1993]](images/wwn4.jpg) ![Weekly World News Issue 28 [1993]](images/wwn5.jpg) G) One of my beepers. I have a red one [for emergency surgeries and multi-billion trade deals] and a blue one [for grass and coke]. They both still work and the blue one beeps every day though the battery in it must be ten years old! ^ back to story  H) Jeff and I both had to remove and flip our Pantera shirts inside-out the last day of school [and Kriss Kross wear was out of fashion!]. I can't see what the teacher believed to be inappropriate for school here?! ^ back to story   I) Our High School, Arlington High School in Massachusetts on Massachusetts Avenue. Here you see the Collomb House. To the left of it [only partially in photo] is the Fusco House and the Downs House [not in picture] is to the right and back of it. ^ back to story  J) A few of Jeff's drawings depicting our muse, redacted of course as to not unveil the identity of said Señora [though known galactically] ^ back to story   K) Different ways we would portray our "message to the world". My personal favorite is the UkFu smiley but the "Tko" or "kick the ball" version is definite proof that UkFu is as abstract as Kandinsky ^ back to story     L) Now how did that get in here? Forget diplomas & trophies, this is what really counts and demonstrates to you kids out there that you don't need to place your heart and mind into anything and can still achieve excellence. Come to think of it; maybe this was a pity certificate given to me because things at home weren't going well ... nope, I was great! ^ back to story ![My Atcheevmant in Ingelish Sertificayte [1992]](images/englishaward.jpg) | ||
| WORKS OF ART | ||
You lucky people! You get a rare incentive glimpse into further UkFu-esque artwork. Please, do not try to psychoanalyze these tidbits. You'll just find the results are somewhat worrisome.![My first UkFu-esque drawing [1982]](images/jerdraw82.jpg)               | ||
| SOUNDTRACK | ||
For the 2-D experience, get this Spotify playlist, click or scan the code below in your Spotify App [how technological!] or create your own, cue the tracks and play them at the right moment indicated by a ♪. Want 3-D? Get a Reese's peanut butter cup, a piece of government cheese and fart a few times. Since I wrote my memoires, I cancelled my subscription to Spotify for obvious reasons [as you should too]. I'll probably end up writing a micro-site rabbling on about why I left the streaming mega player but for those of you who do not have or use Spotify, here are the links to a YouTube Music playlist and a TIDAL playlist. | ||
| 01) The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air : DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince 02) You Give Love a Bad Name : Bon Jovi 03) Dies Irae : Giuseppe Verdi 04) Wayne's World Theme Song : Mike Myers & Dana Carvey 05) Love and Marriage : Frank Sinatra 06) Super Mario Bros. 3 World Map 8 : 8-Bit Arcade 07) Sitcom Audience Laughs : Pro Sound Effects Library 08) Green Disease : Pearl Jam 09) Jeremy : Pearl Jam 10) Roots Bloody Roots : Sepultura 11) Lunatic of God's Creation : Deicide 12) Fucking Hostile : Pantera 13) War Ensemble : Slayer 14) Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening : Eliot Freeman 15) Startin' Up a Posse : Anthrax 16) Skateboard on Asphalt 2 : Pro Sound Effects Library 17) Intermission : The Offspring 18) Baby Got Back : Sir Mix-A-Lot 19) It's Alive! : Halloween Sound FX 20) Backwards Odyssey : ASMR Intent 21) Vomiting : Finnolia Sound Effects 22) Welcome to the Machine : Pink Floyd 23) The Wilhelm Scream : Sound Ideas 24) Air escaping from Balloon ... : Digieffects Library 25) The Sound of Silence : Allen & Bright 26) The Grand Finale : Briza | ^ back ^ back ^ back ^ back ^ back ^ back ^ back ^ back ^ back ^ back ^ back ^ back ^ back ^ back ^ back ^ back ^ back ^ back ^ back ^ back ^ back ^ back ^ back ^ back ^ back ^ back |
|
| DISCLAIMER | ||
| Now isn't it strange to place the disclaimer after the written work? Oh well, it fits very nicely into the "whatever" style we've been working with so far. To those I may have commemorated: I apologize deeply and will rectify those unpardonable errors and lapses in judgement during future editing. To those I may have offended: Aw, dwoes Puchi-Wuchi go wah-wah and pipi in hwis widdle nappy? Please send any rants, litigation requests, NDAs, copyright infringement notices, death threats or marriage proposals to: © 2021 No parts, passages, texts, drawings or photos may be distributed, copied or published partially or in totality without the author's explicit consent. | ||
| Music |
W h a t Y o u ' v e D o n e . . .
B l a c k b i r d 
P a p e r D o g 
D H D D u a l H a r m o n i c s D i s h a r m o n i c s 
S t a n d B y M e [ c o v e r ] 
O f f H e G o e s [ c o v e r ] 
|