I Tried Boomer Advice, Here's What Happened

Jobless, homeless, maidenless, whichever way you cut it, Millennials are less than the generation that spawned them. It seems every day the financial precarity of younger generations are headline news, with calls for people to stop eating avocados or having Netflix. As someone who doesn’t eat fruit or watch made-for-TV movies, these vices were never mine to abandon and yet somehow I am still, relatively, poor. Luckily for those of us struggling in the socioeconomic disaster zone of the early 21^st century, we have older generations to dish out advice in the comments section of said news articles. The advice of Baby Boomers is often laughable, out of touch, ignorant, myopic, archaic, irrelevant and useless – but what if I actually followed it?

Recruiting Baby Boomers to assist with the social experiment was easy. Most of them had their whole lives subsidised by their children, and now spent their empty retirements sat around the house getting scammed on Facebook. I put an advert in the local paper and had two recruits join me, Teddy-Jo and Gretchen, who I bundled into the back of a van to watch monitors showing a feed from a camera I’d hidden in my glasses. I also wore an ear-piece so their advice could be relayed to me in real-time. After explaining the fictional predicament I was in – I was unemployed, lived with my parents and was single – they were more than happy to help.

The first bit of advice was getting a job. They suggested I wear a suit and go door to door with my CV to hand it to managers, so there I was with a stack of freshly printed vitae’s ready to get employed! After going to a few businesses in Downtown L.A., it turned out people didn’t accept CVs, even if they had jobs available. Instead, it seemed you had to go on the company website and fill in an application form.

“Keep trying, son, you can’t give up at the first hurdle. I remember when I was just out of college, it took me nearly two days of door knocking until I got a job.” Teddy-Jo says in one ear.

“What was the job?”

“Oh, they needed some animators for Disney, I said I could draw so they let me in.” he says.

“Maybe we can head to Disney and try that out?” I said. And so we did. Turns out that didn’t work either. The only place that even looked at my CV was a burrito place near an overpass.

“You got any cooking experience?” says the owner.

“I cook at home, all sorts of food. Burgers, hotdogs.”

“Say burritos.” Gretchen whispers in the ear-piece.

“Burritos too.”

“Okay, come by tomorrow morning, I’ll give you a trial shift. Let’s see how it goes.” the owner says, hitting a vape and going back to cutting onions.

“Shake his hand dammit.” Teddy-Jo says. I go to shake it but the owner thinks I’m going to dap him, so we end up awkwardly bending our arms and I head back to the van.

“See, I told ya.”

“You did so well dear.”

“Thanks. How will working at the burrito place help with my student debt though? Or utilise my qualifications in Cybersecurity?”

“Don’t worry about that. You just need to work hard here, who knows, in a few years you might even be able to open your own place.” Teddy-Jo says.

“Ah…I don’t really want to run a burrito place though. I don’t know anything about the restaurant business. I kinda spent a lot of time and money on my college degree.” I say. Gretchen tuts.

“Its that kind of attitude that means your generation is still living at home.”

“What did you do again?” I ask her.

“I was a stay at home mom, brought up two boys, now I’m a proud grandma.” She says, smiling.

“So, your husband brought in enough money to pay for the whole family? Do you think I can do that on sixteen bucks an hour?”

“I don’t see why not. My Carl was only on ten dollars an hour, we could still afford everything.” She says. Teddy-Jo nods in agreement so I also nod. It seemed reasonable that what somebody had experienced forty years ago would still be exactly the same now.

The day after I turn up at burrito place, work for a few hours and the owner takes me to one side.

“You’re too slow. I don’t think you’re a good fit for the kitchen.”

“I just want to do a good job.” I say, repeating the advice in my ear-piece.

“Look, I’ll pay you forty for the morning. And I don’t even have to do that.” The owner says, digging through his wallet and handing me a bunch of small bills. I go back to the van.

“Looks like I’m not cut out for the restaurant business.”

“Don’t worry sport, you tried, you just have to get back into the saddle and keep trying.”

“I remember when Carl got fired from his job at the paint factory, it took him nearly a month to find somewhere else.”

“How about we look for houses next?” I say.

I show the Boomers the sorts of houses I wanted to live in, though even quite a small house seemed to be a million dollars. If I was to put a down payment of 10%, I’d need $100,000, which would take me at least 150 weeks of working whilst spending money on nothing else.

“That’s the problem with your generation, you want the best there is straight away.”

“Yeah, you need to get yourself a starter home. Something you can do up and sell.”

“I mean, there’s not that much in California that seems affordable.”

“You’ll just have to move out of the state. What about Nevada? Arizona?”

“I helped my son buy his first home up in Oregon, it was only $350,000. Now he rents property out to people all up and down the coast.” Gretchen says. We look at Nevada and Arizona, though it still didn’t look very affordable. It seemed there were some houses in rural Alabama, but when I pointed out there probably wouldn’t be many jobs I was qualified for as well as not knowing anybody, it might be tricky building a new life out in rural Alabama. The two Boomers shake their heads.

“Men a lot younger than you went to fight in WW2 for this country. You think they thought it was too tricky?”

“But that generation was before yours. America has lost every single war since.”

“You saying we lost in Iraq? Afghanistan?” says Teddy-Jo. I nod.

“Well, yeah. The biggest military in the world invaded the Middle-East then got mogged by a few roadside bombs. And then when veterans came home they often live in poverty and get hooked on fentanyl to help with injuries they received whilst serving. Don’t you think that’s kind of sick?” I say. The Boomers are apoplectic with fury, so angry that they can’t form sentences, shouting at me that I didn’t know. I wave at them.

“Look, lets agree to disagree.” I say.

“That’s the problem with your generation, you don’t know shit about the real world, too busy sitting around deciding on your pronouns rather than trying to hold down a job and start a family.” Teddy-Jo says.

“Yeah, it’s almost as if the generation that raised us and had all the power totally failed lol. Are you guys sure you aren’t paedophiles, because it seems you’ve fucked the kids.” I say.

“You can’t blame us, dear. Your life is what you make it.” Gretchen says, patting me on the head.

“I’m not blaming you, you’re just too oblivious to understand what’s happening. All your lives you’ve been comfortable. Why would you try to change the system when it suits you so well? It’s not even a thing of who is at fault, as nobody is really. If I had lived your life I would have done the exact same thing, as you would in mine.”

“Now look here sonny, you can bet your bottom dollar that if I was your age I’d have invented Amazon and would be a billionaire by now. Because I know about hard work.”

“I don’t think so, as you’re clueless enough to think that being rich is about working hard. Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk got where they are because their parents gave them tens of thousands of dollars. I don’t even want to argue with you. There’s no such thing as Baby Boomers or Millenials or Gen Alpha or whatever, it’s all just made up bullshit, labelling successive generations is just a way for a journalist to fart out another article about avocados. Who gives a fuck?”

“You do! You invited us here to give you advice! Which, you’re welcome for by the way.”

“Oh yeah. You can go home now.” I say, getting my phone out and taking selfies. From the corner of my eye, I watch the two old Americans walk away, leaving me to stew in my own juices.

Later that day, I wondered about future generations. Would one day they complain about Millennials for all the things we accused Baby Boomers of? Or were we actually a lot cooler? There was a certain privilege attached to when you were born, with children in the far future never being able to walk into a store and buy a slab of beef, or know what a tree looks like, or not pay a subscription fee to megacorporations for cybernetic lung modifications, but that was just the way it is. Thinking about the poor souls of Future Earth, it made me glad for what our generation did have. Sure, we might not have property, or families, or careers, or education, or healthcare, or community, or hope. But we did have fidget spinners and disposable vapes. 

And though the coddled oldsters who constantly vote against the interests of their grandchildren and buy up property they don't need and fritter away pension funds on meaningless luxury goods, maybe it was time we put our differences to one side and joined forces to fight the true evil of this Earth. We must destroy Mr. Beast.

Empty Nest Syndrome And The Eggs Of Memory

John, Sue and Bob entered the living room, turned on a side light.

“I can’t believe our baby is gone.” Sue said, her face streaked with tears. John embraced her.

“Yup, she’s grown up, that’s for sure.” Bob said, taking a step toward Sue then back again.

“Don’t worry. Thanksgiving will be here before you know it. We can talk to her on MS Teams.” Said John, stopping his embrace and shaking Bob's hand.

“Still don’t mean we won’t miss her.” Bob said, turning away.

“Yes, yes. It’s sad, very sad.”

“I suppose this also means we aren’t going to be seeing as much as you Bob.” Sue said, dabbing her face with a tissue.

“I always appreciated you letting me come in here when I come to pick up Scarlett. I knew it wouldn’t be forever.” Bob said, looking down at his socks.

“How about a toast then? To successful parenting? Shall we raise a glass to Scarlett going off to college?” John said, going towards the drinks cabinet.

“I was going to be heading home.” Bob said, looking over at the three glasses.

“Stay for a drink, Bob. He’s right, we should be celebrating our daughter moving on.”

“So long as that isn’t an imposition.”

“No, not at all Bob. You’re invited. Gin?” John said, holding up a blue bottle.

“You know, me and Sue used to celebrate with Wild Turkey, didn’t we Sue? You got any Wild Turkey there my guy?” Bob said, walking over.

“We drink Old Forester now.” Sue said.

“Three Old Foresters coming right up.”

“To Scarlett!”

“To Scarlett!” said the others. Bob downed his whisky in one gulp.

“Come on, we’re celebrating, right?” The others obliged and John poured another triplet.

“Shall we take a seat?” John said. The three of them sat on an L-shaped sofa, with Sue sat between John and Bob.

“Will her flight have taken off yet?”

“Not yet. Say, Bob, how’s that new girlfriend you got?” said John.

“Oh, we aren’t really going out.”

“Yeah? That’s a shame. Scarlett was just saying the other day how happy you seemed.”

“John, shut up.”

“Sorry babe, I just think Bob here needs a break. Like I got a break when we met.”

“Yeah, weren’t you like addicted to phone games?” Bob said, taking a drink.

“It was online gambling Bob, you know that.”

“Yeah, and Sue rescued me. She saw me for who I really was. She allowed me to bloom.”

John kisses Sue on the shoulder, looks at her, uses his hand to tilt her chin up so that they can read each others eyes. They kiss. Bob watches, sipping the whisky, turning away. Sue’s hand reaches across the sofa to touch his. Her index finger traces his hand, squeezing the muscle by his thumb. Their hands interlink. She stops kissing John, they look at each other before Sue turns, kissing her ex-husband on the lips. At first Bob doesn’t respond, stunned at what was happening, trying to process it. He then closed his eyes and started to kiss her back. John reaches over and started to undo the top few buttons on Sue’s top, pulling it up. For a moment the clothes were pulled up over her head so only her mouth was free. She felt lips against hers, whilst familiar hands stroked her body. When she could see again, she lay back on the couch as the men removed their shirts.

“Are we doing this?” Bob said, loosening his belt. Sue kissed John, he unclasped her bra, threw it on the floor. She felt two sets of hands on her, stroking her body, the taste of alcohol caught on her breath, between her lover and her ex-husband. John unzipped his jeans, she reached in and pulled out his dick. Sue looked up at Bob, watching his expression as she started jerking John off. Her other hand reached up to Bob, running a hand up his thigh, pausing, going further up and squashing his flaccid penis through his trousers.

“Are you not into this?” she asked, keeping eye contact.

“H-Hell yeah I am.” he said. Then Bob bent down and started sucking John’s dick.

“Whoa!” shouted John, backing away.

“Bob, what are you doing?!” Sue said. Bob wiped his lips.

“I thought we were having a threesome.”

“Yeah, we were about to.”

“I thought…I thought we all fucked each other.”

“No, no, no you both fuck me! That’s the idea!” said Sue, getting up to look for her bra.

“I can’t believe you sucked my cock man.”

“I didn’t know! I thought that’s what happened.”

“Do you…have anything you want to tell me?” Sue said, sitting back down.

“No! Nothing happened. Don’t tell anyone about this. Don’t tell Scarlett.”

“Why would we tell our daughter about this?”

“I don’t know. I think I’m going to leave.” Bob said. I cough. The three of them look over to me.

“You want me to drive?” I say.

“Who the fuck is this?” shouts Sue.

“That’s the guy we hired to film Scarlett’s trip to college.” John says, tucking himself away.

“Yeah, I think Bob’s had too much to drink. I’ll drive him home, get out of your hair.”

“You saying you recorded this?” says Bob, pacing toward me.

“No, no, not the whole thing, just bits. Different angles. Bloopers.”

“You’re meant to be on that plane with Scarlett!”

“Ah, no. Nope. Long way to go. I wasn’t going all the way to Denver. I thought it’d be more interesting to film her parents. I was right, wasn’t I?”

“Get the fuck outta here!” shouts Bob, throwing a cushion at me.

“We should call 9-1-1.” John says, trying to find his phone.

“Look, I’m going to leave. But before I go, I think you need to hear what I have to say. So how about you sit your stupid ass down and listen?”

“Can I get a burger?” Bob says.

“Yeah, grab us all a burger from the kitchen. John, pour me a glass of that Old Forester over there. Sue, can you put some music on? Listening to all of this in the silence has been ridiculous.”

“Alexa, play Katy Perry.”

“We aren’t listening to fucking Katy Perry, okay? Alexa, play Michael Nyman.” I say, taking the glass of whisky from John. Bob comes in with a plate of microwaved cheeseburgers.

“Okay, let me lay it out for you. Bob, you need to let the past go. You can’t keep turning up to your ex-wife’s house, especially now Scarlett’s gone. Sue, you need to cut that guy out of your life and move on. And yes, I’m talking about John. John, how can I put it? You’re not a likeable person. I get the impression you’re glad to see Scarlett leave and have this house to yourself, you bum. I’m surprised Sue is with a guy like you.”

“ha…I mean, what? Who is this guy?”

“You hired me to record your stepdaughter’s big move to college.”

“So what the fuck are you doing here?”

“Like I said, I’m surprised Sue is going out with you. Sue. Listen to me, you need to sell this dump and move to Florida. Scarlett can come visit you, you can hit the beach together, get tanned up. What do you say?”

“You need to leave.” Sue says, drinking the whisky. I shrug.

“Before I go, I gotta say one thing. You guys should be nicer to Bob. As far as I’m concerned, he’s a goddamn hero.” I say, leaving.

It was an ambiguous situation, one where nothing was said yet things were understood, albeit incorrectly. Incidents liked this played across all of the United States, with dad's walking into the kitchen of restaurants or an emoji taken the wrong way, friendships and affairs ending with the swipe of a finger. And these fingers were attached to yellow bellied cowards, balking at the simple joys of miniature illustrations to accompany words. Let us be fair to those that break the social protocol, as well as fair to those who strictly police it. Let's be fair to ourselves, as I'm sure each person is able to remember their own share of buffoonery years after it happened, playing on the mind as a sort of internal BDSM, though what some people are also calling a code. This code gave sense to life, helping to anchor those with a dark passenger to the world of the present, keeping us tethered to those around us through the worship of a totally subjective pain. 

"My house is that way." Bob says. I turn to him, forgetting he was there. We're driving in the Hyundai at high speed, slipping in and out of automated traffic like oil.

"We aren't heading to your house just yet Bobby boy. You mind if I call you Bobby?" I say, turning back to the road. In my shirt pocket I awkwardly dig around for something, my elbow keeps banging on the roof.

"Sure."

"We're going to hit the club. And you'll get the opportunity to be reborn." 

"Just don't tell anyone what happened earlier man, I can't believe I did that."

"Bobby, fucking relax will you? It's actually the chad move to suck a dick, shows you're comfortable in yourself, you get shit done, comprendez? I want to show you your potential. You'll rise like a fucking phoenix Bobby! Come on!"

"Fuck yeah! Let's go!" He says, clenching his fists. I throw him a bag of cocaine.

"Have a go on that, fucker. Tonight we party like rock stars!" I say, grinning at him. He snorts some coke and starts howling like a wolf.

 

Its 2am and we're at the rave dancing topless, lit by blue light, red light, blue light. Someone hands me a beer.

"Bobby, how you feel?" I yell over the music. Happy Hardcore is playing so loudly all voices are eaten up by the sound system. Bob is on a cocktail of alcohol, cocaine, 2C-B and peyote. I slap a few nicotine patches on his back for good measure, then go outside. I'd forgotten I was in L.A., surprised for a moment, almost panicking that I needed to escape, then regain my composure. The smoking area outside the warehouse rave had the illusion of calm, and so I acted normal, lit a cigarette, stood next to some people talking and nodding, smiling. Me and Bob had had a great night, we hit a few clubs, VIP style, before going to a casino, got turned away, ended up watching a street fight down by Venice Beach, met some cybergoths, now we were here. Bob runs out of the fire exit, looking from left to right like a cartoon character. His big black eyes finally recognise me and he runs over.

"I just smoked crack."

"Cool. You want a cigarette?" I say, offering him the pack. He takes one, smoking it energetically, telling me about how proud he was of his daughter going to college. I kept nodding, but my mind was elsewhere.

If we are haunted by our memories, yet we are our formed by our memories, are we nothing more than phantoms?

I clapped Bob on the shoulder.

"I'm going, do you want to stay or leave?"

"Ah man, are you sure, just stay for another hour or so. You ever smoked crack?"

"Nah it's cool man, I need to go. Had a good night. Look after yourself Bobby." I say. He embraces me as the uber pulls up. I wave at him through the window, then stare over the drivers shoulder as we go through the California night and all of the lights seem to bleed a rainbow storm over all and everything. 

 

The sun was coming up. For the last few hours I had been trying to edit Scarlett's last day at home, though the footage I had shot was heavily edited with special effects and I had saved over the original files, now trying to undo the artifice with inverted manipulations, whilst attempting to revert the clips back into chronological order rather than the mess I had created. I drink a cup of Valerian tea and reflect on the evening I had. As I had been editing the footage for so long, it had almost completely replaced my actual memory of the events and so I was utterly confused what was going on. I realised I had left Bob at a rave by himself, suddenly worried that he was dead, then I relaxed, laughing at my anxiety. If Bob had shown me anything tonight, it was his versatility. You could drop him into the core of Chernobyl and he'd live like Crusoe. I bet he was curled up in bed with a smile on his lips and would wake up feeling like a newly born man. All he needed was a good night. I looked back at the footage I was editing. Fuck it. Send it. I emailed it to Sue, slapped my laptop close and went to lie on the motel bed, looking at the beams of sunlight on the ceiling. Now I was lying still I realised I was still hallucinating from the drugs earlier, and I felt good.

Visit To Nelson Atkins Museum Of Art

I get to the state line between Missouri and Kansas, driving forward and reversing, repeating to myself.

“I guess we’re not in fucking Kansas anymore.”, with each repetition making it funnier. I keep doing funny voices, warping it to the point it stops making sense. This was a way I would recover from traumatic situations, playing them out again and again, twisting them, implanting false memories, melting the neuroplasticity of my brain to the point I wasn’t sure the memory was real or not. A cop car pulls up behind me, so I get out of the car at the same time as them. They pull a gun.

“Get back in your vehicle.”

“I guess we’re not in fucking Kansas anymore!” I say in a high-pitched Humphrey Bogart accent. “Play it again Stan!”

“Get back in your vehicle or I’ll shoot!” the cop screams at me.

“You’re going to sentence me to death for getting out of a car? My Hyundai?” I say, putting my hands in the air and waving at the traffic speeding past. I wonder if I’m going to be on one of those traffic cop shows. I ball my fists up, sticking both middle fingers up.

“On the count of 3! Uh…”

“One?”

“Yep, one! Uh…”

“Do you know where you are?”

“Sure, this is Kansas.”

“And I’m in Missouri. You got no jurisdiction here, knucklehead.” I say, pointing to a huge sign next to me that says ‘Welcome To Missouri’. The cop rubs at his head with the gun still in his hand.

“Dag-nabit.” Says the cop, walking back to his car.

“Hey cop!” I call after him. He turns around. I have tied a custard pie to a balloon that slowly drifts towards him. He starts shaking his head, getting clumsy with his gun.

“I need backup! I need backup, now!” he yells into his radio. The pie slowly approaches him as he jiggles the car door, realising he has locked himself out. Hand into pocket, fumbling the keys out, they drop on the floor. Down in the dirt, scrabbling, grit beneath fingernails, up again, stabbing and scratching the keys around the lock, body filled with adrenaline, mouth dry, temples wet with sweat that runs into his eye. He finally finds the right key, looks up, just in time for the custard pie to hit him in the face. Immediately he tries to pull it off, instead pushing it harder into his face, the cream filling his nose and mouth. He can’t scream. He struggles, feet lifting off the ground, the balloon carrying him away like a spider in the wind. I watch as the cop drifts across the interstate, the uplift from the cars below makes him go higher and higher.

“I guess we’re not in fucking Kansas anymore!” I yell up at him, laughing as I get back into the Hyundai Sonata and head for Kansas City, Missouri.

The Nelson Atkins Museum of Art was just next to the World’s Largest Shuttlecock, offering arts and culture to the denizens of Kansas City since 1933. The collection spanned 5,000 years of cultural history from around the world, including everything from Ancient Egyptian death artifacts to contemporary sculpture by Donald Judd and Anish Kapoor. The windows of the gallery give a view of the Donald J. Hall Sculpture Park, containing a mix of figurative and abstract sculptures placed between the trees and lawns of the museum’s footprint down to Brush Creek. As I walk the corridors, the curatorial decisions create strange juxtapositions in my mind. There is Baroque art across the hall from Modernism. There are Chinese ceramics next door to American landscape paintings. At the Rozzelle Court Restaurant, located on the first floor, you can grab some Homemade Mac & Cheese for $8.95 and still be chewing on it as you look at ‘Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness’ by Caravaggio, listening to someone sat nearby on Duolingo, the little beeping noise adding to the overall effect of uncanniness of my visit. It was the cultural equivalent of an All You Can Eat international buffet, with plates piled high with bagels, curry, lasagna and ice cream. 

I began to sprint through the galleries, filming the walls with my phone, the footage a blurry mess dubbed with heavy breathing that I would never watch all the way through. Invigilators and gallery staff would chase after me, security guards would leap from the edge of doorways, try to block my path.

“You need to slow down!” they would say, as I pushed past families and old couples and teenagers. I grabbed a bronze statue of Shiva from 13^th century India, holding it aloft as I continued to sprint around the gallery. I loved consuming content. I needed to speedrun every cultural experience. I would read the synopsis of books by ChatGPT because it was more efficient than wasting time reading. Imagine being an author and spending all that time writing a whole book when you could just write a synopsis. Imagine being an artist spending hours, days, years, creating a masterpiece, when I would spend less than five seconds looking at it on my phone. Were these guys stupid?

I find myself breaking free from the confines of the gallery, still holding onto the Shiva statue, tossing it into the backseat of my Hyundai Sonata, tyres screeching as I left the car park, driving through Kansas City with Acidcore pumping out of my car stereo at maximum volume, I mount the sidewalk, speed through a park, I’m huffing nitrous straight out of the canister, my mouth is cold and my eyes are bright red. Now I’m in an industrial area, passing factories and warehouses, beneath the I70, screeching to a stop where the Missouri and Kansas rivers meet. I sit on the hood of my car, hitting the vape, trying to come down from the intense cultural experience I had tried to force feed my brain.

I needed an antidote. Something to relax me. I tried looking at the map on my phone for something, though the screen was shattered and pieces of glass rubbed beneath my fingertips. I was turning back on myself. I was heading East. I needed to correct my course before I ended up back at New York. I hit the vape, though was just hitting the coil, the taste of lead painted my inner cheeks. I spit onto the floor and it is black.

Organ Gorgon

I am riding in the back of a taxi with my assistant, Penny Naknamura. She's wearing a torn One Direction tee, orange zebra print spandex pants with a boot on one foot and a high heel on the other. I point at her feet.
"What's the deal with that then?"
"Asymmetries in babe, didn't you know?"
"I know everything, just not all the time. Doesn't it make you stand funny?"
"It's fash, saw it in New York last week. And New York last week is London next week, comprendez?"
"Yeah sure, looks stupid to me. How we doing for time?"
"We're ten minutes late." she says, taking her ipad out of her bag and looking at some nonsense site. It's what I have an assistant for, to check all the blossoming fat that is growing on the world wide web. I start to get a bit nostalgic for the glory days of the late nineties when my phone goes off. I pick up.
"Where are you?!"
"Relax, almost there."
"You're an hour and ten minutes late?"
"So? We're already late, stop worrying about it. Here, talk to my assistant." I say, handing my phone away. I've lost my train of thought. The taxi stops at some traffic lights and I get out, leaving Penny and the taxi driver shouting at me from the black cab. I pretend to have one of my episodes, though to be honest I feel much happier outside. I step in between the cars and make my way down the road, popping into a cafe, past the counter and kitchen and out into an alley, much to the chagrin of the staff there. The alley seems a lot more quieter though. I walk over to a bin and begin to practise my yoga.

I wake up a few hours later, I must have dozed off after finishing my asanas. I wonder if my assistant made it to the fashion show. Or was it a film premiere. It didn't matter. I had been pretending to be a journalist for GQ for the last few weeks and had found it all quite dull. They hadn't been interested in my stories about the snake infestation at a nearby orphanage or the series of grave robberies taking place in Yorkshire. It had all been style, surface, a thin veneer of lies masquerading as something of worth. I now felt foolish about getting all those tattoos, but still, 'yolo'. I walk out of the alley and back onto the street. This was where the action was, this was where the juice was at. I felt as though I could somehow read minds as I stared at people making their way up and down. Maybe that woman was trying to juggle a career and children whilst going through a rough divorce. Maybe that man was addicted to heroin. Maybe that group of teenagers were planning on murdering me. Variety is the spice of life, but what exactly is being spiced? They keep meat in the ceiling. I walk back around the corner and back into the cafe I had entered earlier, although this time the staff are shouting at me and blocking my way. I go back out onto the street and start to walk again, as if I am lost. I am lost in fact. I'm unsure of which city I'm in. I start shouting for help and for somebody to save me, but everyone walks past as if I smell of piss. I do this for a while then start walking again, but not before rooting through a bin to find a newspaper to stuff down the front of my trousers. I have always been hyper-sensitive to touch and the scratching and folding of the newspaper against my skin causes me a great deal of uncomfort. Somebody shouts my name and I look through the faces. It is my assistant.
"Where've you been?"
"I saw one of my friends I haven't seen for ages, I owed them some money."
"You missed the show. I took some notes for you, but you'll have to write the rest up yourself." she says.
"Thanks Penny. I love you." I say. I wince.
"What?"
"I said I love you by accident, on account of you resembling my departed wife."
"You're a widow?"
"It's widower. And yes. At least, I think so. She went missing a few weeks ago and I'm assuming she has died. Though now I come to think about it...maybe you're her?" I shout, pulling at her wig.
"Get off me!" she screams. It isn't a wig. And she's not my wife. I start to cry and run away again, ashamed of myself. How will I finish this story for GQ now?

It's several hours later and I'm frantically trying to guess what happened earlier. A film premiere? A fashion show? Maybe an art opening. I decide to mix them all together and have written about a film about art with models that are holograms or something. So far I have three thousand words and a few diagrams. I stuff it all in an envelope and post it off, not really giving a shit. I have some other stuff in the pipeline anyway, probably. I scratch at the tattoo of a monkey on my neck, wondering if it has become infected. I probably shouldn't have been climbing in and out of those graves in Yorkshire after all. I go to a petrol station to buy some flowers for Penny as an apology, then post those off as well. With all that done I decide to call it a day and head off towards a nightclub, ready to dance the night away and get powerfully drunk. Maybe I'm not cut out for a career as a journalist, at least in such an upmarket magazine. Better off to follow my own path. Maybe I could be like Hunter S. Thompson or something? I laugh at myself. How ridiculous and pathetic. The sudden urge to stab myself in the neck with my belt overwhelms me and it takes every ounce of willpower not to end my life right there on the pavement.
"Are you coming in mate?" says the bouncer. I look over and nod.
"I am."

Home-made 3D Microscope

Here is a design for a three dimensional stereoscopic microscope I have just invented. Many people, including scientists, think that bacteria and such only exists in two dimensions when in fact there are at least three. By attaching a microscope at a ninety degree angle and having a cube slide rather than a flat one, viewers can see microscopic objects in three dimensions! Amateur scientists can now see the smiling faces of tape worm as they move in the x, y, z directions we are all accustomed to. To not have a 3D microscope is similar to trying to study sea creatures by looking at them from above. This breakthrough will increase scientific output by a factor of four.

Candy Crush Sage

Bucharest. The word summons up for me images of the subtropics, boulevards, gardens, markets. There seemed to me to be an element of light danger, cold war paranoia mixed with film noir, that I couldn't help but feel slightly on my toes as I left the airport. Eighty minutes later I was at the headquarters of one of the fastest growing online gaming companies this side of the millenium. I wait at the reception for a while and look at several large oil paintings mounted on each wall. They are abstract, red on red, and I can't help but get up to examine one more closely. My field of view is entirely submersed into the painting, though a tap on the shoulder jolts me out of my fugue.
"Riccardo Zacconi will see you now." says the receptionist. I nod solemnly and make my way towards the stairs, wondering exactly how I got to be at the headquarters of king.com in the first place.

I entered the office of Zacconi and see a short, strong man sitting on a stool by a large desk up against a small window. He turns as I enter and gestures that I should sit, which I do quite happily. I watch him work for a while, he seems to be playing a game on a flat computer. The bleeps and bloops punctuate the dreamy soundtrack from time to time, as does the odd word in Romanian I can't recognize yet feel they are uttered in anger. He is of course playing Candy Crush Saga, the flagship game from king.com. With more than four billion users playing the game worldwide and more each day, Candy Crush Saga is taking both the digital and physical world by storm. Zacconi finishes the game and shakes his head before coming over to sit on the floor by me. We both introduce ourselves formally and I begin the interview.

"So, tell me a bit about yourself, about the company." I say. Zacconi glances back to the flat computer at his desk and his face twitches.
"My name is Riccardo Zacconi, I am the lead designer of digital games at king.com. We started here ten years ago, as midasgames, now we're one of the biggest suppliers of games on the market. Forget this call of duty or halo. Does your sister play that? Can a child play that? No. We design games for everyone." he says.
"And so you think that is why Candy Crush has been so successful?"
"Of course. It doesn't need any explanation, it's simple. It is the occam's razor of entertainment."
"Could you tell me about Candy Crush? How it came to be? Where it's going?" I say, leaning forward slightly. Zacconi rubs at a scar on his cheek before placing a delicate hand on my shoe.
"It came to me in a dream. At least, I think it was a dream. American candies, falling, exploding, fitting into place. Patterns of colour. When I woke I had already been doing the preliminary coding for the thing in my sleep, scrawled in pen on my wife's back." he says quietly.
"But what's the concept behind it?" I say. I knew what the game was about. Players moved pieces around in order to create rows that would make pieces disappear in order for more pieces to fall from the top. This in itself was nothing new, though it was the combination of aesthetics, sound, tactics and luck that had made the game successful. Not to mention the social media aspect of requesting extra lives or 'tickets' in order to progress in the game. 24% of all facebook activity over the last few months had been people sending lives back and forth over Candy Crush.
"The concept? Ah. Follow me please." says Zacconi, getting up. I offer him a hand to steady himself but he refuses, as is the way of lead designers.



We are now walking through a dimly lit office, the only light emanates from the CRT monitors stationed in each cubicle. There might be three or four hundred people on this floor, I know that the building is about forty stories high.
"What most people forget is that the game is called Candy Crush Saga. Emphasis on the saga aspect. Consider Beowulf, Sturlunga, Volsunga and so on. Perhaps the more contemporary would be Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, you see? But what these things have in common besides thematic similarities such as epic journeys or good and evil, is that they take time to fully digest. It is the time aspect that allows people to become attached to the characters and the world to such an extent it creates a kind of third place, between fact and fiction, you see?" he says. I nod, knowing exactly what he means. Elvis Presley, the JFK assassination, television soaps, the concept of family, biker culture and so on. On the surface each of these seemed to be more of a hobby than anything else, yet often these would become the subject of fanaticism.
"So what you're saying is that computer games are the next form of communication? Like books or film. And you see Candy Crush Saga as being a great work in this artform?"
"Precisely. The last thirty years of gaming has been shit. Candy Crush Saga is changing the world. You don't need realistic models, artificial intelligence or physics. It's all about the plot, the story, the human element. And what is more human than struggle? The underlying plot of the game is that of a journey, though one of pacifism. The average person can identify more with Ghandi than they can Jack the Ripper." he says. We have stopped walking and have arrived at a balcony overlooking Bucharest. The sun has begun to set, though the air is still warm.
"Can they though? Maybe part of the reason that things like murder have such a prevalence in our culture is that we, as human animals, enjoy that kind of thing?" I say. Zacconi turns to me. Maybe I see a tear in his eye, though he seems to reabsorb it.
"Just because that's the way it is doesn't mean we can't make steps to change it, you see? Candy Crush Saga is the first step in the complete pacification of world culture through computer games. We have started a trend in this type of gaming that will advance for decades, long after this company has been bought out. It is Vegetarianism. It is Buddhism. It is Marxism. It will change the world." he says. My phone beeps. One of my friends has requested that I send them a train ticket so that they can reach lemonade lake, and I oblige without thinking. Maybe Zacconi is right. He is crafting a subconscious mode of thinking through social gaming that appeals to everyone, no matter the creed or the colour, gender or age. I wonder what the world could be like if Zacconi had more sinister intentions, promoting illegal or immoral activities. Though as I turn from the Romanian sunset and look upon the visage of Zacconi I see a man with a pure heart, his expression set into that of a man gazing into the potential of tomorrow, a world he could have a hand in forging through Candy Crush Saga.