StrangeLove

Or should it be apocalypi? Sounds grammatically goofy, but so do octopi, cacti, and radii when rendered in the plural form. Nothing to get hung up on at this point, though, as this is all very much after the promotional fact. Words should have been written and posted awhile ago now with regard to our jaunty stab at the old "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" concept, something that has been going on in illustrated circles since... shit, the late 14th century when Albrecht Dürer woodcut them into existence? And the rest is pop-culture history, including but not limited to the entire catalog of Metallica and most every poster that accompanied any of their million-billion concerts, one or two Anti-Hero series, and I'm just gonna go out on a gnarled limb and say at least one seasonal release per year from Creature since that company came back from the grave and ready to party in the early aughts. But enough about everyone else. Let's talk about us! Or me—me me me.

Okay, before we get into anything too serious here, I want to make one thing perfectly clear in my unusually obtuse manner: I'm not a debater. Don't get me wrong, I have opinions, lots and lots of them, many growing more and more unpopular by the day, but I just don't have it in me to go ten rounds in a knock-down-drag-out verbal sparring match. To do so requires a certain amount of extroverted flair for unwavering self-confidence and a rock hard belief system that would put the limestone monolith of Gibraltar to absolute shame—neither of which happen to reside in my cerebral wheelhouse let alone any of the nucleotide nooks and crannies of my DNA. But this isn't Psychology Today and I'm not Doctor-fucking-Phil. So, let's skip the hors d'oeuvres and get straight to the meat and potatoes of this latest word schmear.

Nick doesn't like my taste in music. I know this because he flat out told me so while sitting (and mostly sleeping in) shotgun as I drove us back down to Southern California from Santa Cruz following the 50th anniversary extravaganza hosted by NHS, circa 2023. Granted, it was a super long ass drive. He was also dealing with the mental and physical repercussions of a bizarre if not ridiculous shower mishap, and I'm sure I had on some random Spotify playlist that was algorithmically grabbing anything and everything that may have vaguely applied to the UK sounds of the Courteeners and the Vaccines. So, at some point, Nick grumpily told me he was over it and hijacked the bluetooth connection to play music he liked.

Does this sound familiar at all? If so, you were likely a devotee of Big Brother skateboard magazine, circa 1995-ish, when Mark Lewman approached us with the idea for a sporadic column entitled “Who Fucking Cares.” The idea, in a nutshell, was to talk about something grossly irrelevant that had no business being in a skateboard magazine. At all. Could be anything from tropical bird care and feeding to Scandinavian spa maintenance. Then again, this concept could have applied to most any articles printed in the magazine, contest and tour articles included. But, you'll notice, there is no question mark at the end of said title, because a query was never intended.

I'll admit I was tempted to use the AI prompt for this post, if only to see what bizarre, nonsensical copy it would scrape out of the ether. It's become a new guilty pleasure of mine on eBay, reading all the inane descriptions that have no real meaning or character whatsoever, but is that what lies ahead for our crumbling civilization? Is the long awaited decline of the west finally at hand? Was Skynet given way too much credit for the long, whistling note of a flatulent fart that we'll likely go out on? Whatever you may think or believe, it's safe to say that AI would not have introduced this latest Village Psychic video by Caleb Roepke, "Quit While You're Ahead," featuring our two amateur rippers, Ty Stigney and Jasper Steinbach, in any such manner as this and I'll happily go to my obsolete grave in that human knowledge.