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| Prologue | ||||||
| Let?s take a moment to acknowledge some "real" issues that plague modern man: famine, terrorism, Aids, four more years of Lurch, and even global warming. It's a troubling time to be alive. Certainly these issues deserve our heightened awareness, and they exist gratuitously in the world of 'zinedom. But I'm too fascinated with my own shit to lament on about vote this, or vote that, especially when there are other people addressing my concerns in a more eloquent manner. What hasn't already been said by the likes of Chomsky, Nietszche, and Jesus? | ||||||
| So if you're looking for political discourse, try Fox News (oh, I'm kidding). But if you're looking for a case study in self indulgence, look no further. | ||||||
| (Chanimal Planet also comes in 2-ply). | ||||||
| Table of contents | ||||||
| Imagine yourself the lead character in a movie. You are rolling down the highway in the middle of a moonlit winter night. This is the climax, the plot-resolution of the movie. There is nothing in your peripherals for thousand of miles except for flat, snow-covered prairie land. And you don't look into your rearview mirror, because you already know what it is that follows you. You step on the gas slightly, not knowing if you'll make it to the next town before your darkest nightmare unfolds. And your car jerks and sputters further into unknown territory. | ||||||
| There is a car behind you with its headlights turned off. | ||||||
| You know that this whole mess has something to do with all the clich� universal themes. In the rearview mirror is your failed relationships, your dead mother, your sexual proclivities. Behind you is your rejection, your disappointment, your self contempt, veiled by your ability to forge ahead. And ahead could be salvation, if only your car wasn't such a piece of shit. | ||||||
| The inevitable happens. The car behind you closes in, merges into the passing lane, and pulls along side of you. At one time you had many choices and different roads to turn to, but the opportunity for reconciliation has passed. With the oncoming vehicle?s headlights barreling right at you, you turn your head to finally to see who it is driving the car beside you. Like a scene out of a Kubrick film, the driver turns its head towards your direction, slowly and mechanically. A comforting dread melts into your extremities. | ||||||
| The driver is you, eyes rolled back inside of its head, and foaming at the mouth. | ||||||
| You unbuckle your safety-belt and rip the rearview mirror off of the windshield. Your teeth clench as you plunge your foot onto the pedal as far down as it will go and aim for the headlights ahead. Before impact, the car ahead turns off its headlights, allowing you to see who it is. You are also surprised to discover a car, headlights off, alongside of the car coming at you in your lane. | ||||||
| Before you are ejected from the vehicle, before your life expires, you recognize the face in the car ahead of you as your own- in old age. | ||||||
| This isn't one of those lame endings the protagonist discovers his split-personalities. This is a paradox that collapses the future and brings about personal apocalypse. It is also about personal responsibility and making things right. This is your movie, your ending. | ||||||