Once upon a
green day during a
mad season there were
4 non-blondes: Jane, Alice,
Björk and Siouxsie. These
funk junkies were
tragically hip. They loved to be
violent femmes and to
rage against the machine.
The girls had a
simple plan to have some fun. They rented one of the old
B-52's from the
Trust Company. It was outfitted with the new
American Hi-Fi system which really cranks out
the mighty mighty bosstones (and sounds so much better than the old
Rockers Hi-Fi system). Then, they hired some
stone temple pilots to take them on a
journey to the notorious
sound garden just outside of the ancient land of
Elastica.
In no
rush to get their destination the
gang of four asked their pilots,
the Thomspon Twins, Benjamin and
Fred, to take them shopping first.
"The
Metallica armored mall in Old
Boston is a popular spot and it's on the way." offered Benjamin.
"Coolio," said Alice. She liked Ben's
fatboy slim physique and his
shaggy hair. "You're a
prince," she said.
Alice's beauty had been
breaking Benjamin's concentration since he met her. She reminded him of an
Osaka Pop Star. "You're the
queen," he replied. Then he
felt embarrassed. "In fact, you're all
queens of the stone age. Don't you think,
Fred?"
"Right," said Fred. "A bunch of beautiful
bouncing souls you are." The girls laughed.
They landed at
Voxtrot airport next to mall.
"OK go shopping, girls," Benjamin told them. "We'll pick up some
fuel and meet you at
Jimmie's Chicken Shack."
"Uh uh,
Jimmy eat world!"
refused
Björk in an obvious state of fear.
"Excuse our friend," said Jane. "She dated a crazy
box car racer named Jimmy. He and his brothers were
angry Samoans and apparently
fine young cannibals."
"He had
bad brains," said Bjork quietly, "and he's
dead to me now. I always was a
monster magnet." With concern, the other girls watched her
muse. They knew she was an
outcast and had
suicidal tendencies.
"Smile, empty soul," Alice told her.
Jane continued. "Jimmy was
public enemy number one for an entire
burn season.
The police picked em up on a
warrant, and he now enjoys a nice
soft cell in
Mudvayne penitentiary."
"Reminds me of
my chemical romance," Siouxsie piped in. "He's in
rehab now, suffering from
the binges but we used to have fun
at the drive-in". She sighed, "Oh well, I knew it wouldn't
ever last.""
Benjamin found he couldn't
say anything.
Fred jumped in. "Uh, there's a pub called
Dropkick Murphy's. It's between the
Culture Club and
The Artificial Joy Club. There's a
black flag out front, can't miss it."
"Sweet," said Jane, "let's
jet, gang."
On
level 42 of the mall they found an edgy clothing store called
Static X. They were marveled by
the psychedelic furs,
the cardigans in every
living color of the
rainbow, and the elegant
cocktail slippers. Jane put on a
pink
foghat. "What do you think?" she asked.
Alice considered. "Well, I like the
purple hearts," she said, "but you can see
the clash between them and your eyes. Those
evans blue eyes." She smiled.
Jane took off the hat. "Yeah, well it's
stained anyway."
Next door was an adult shop called the
Incubus. "Well, not your average
smut peddlers," noted Jane lifting a bottle labeled
'midnight oil' and another
'orgy juice'.
"Nice names," laughed Siouxsie as she eyed
the sex pistols and various
armageddon dildos being displayed,
"'goldfinger',
'finger eleven',
'king missile',
'evil nine', and oh my favorite,
'snoop dogg'."
Next they visited a weapons shop named
Guns & Roses. An
armored saint stood right outside
the doors to
usher folks in and out. Inside, among the smell of
bullets and octane, they found rare items like a
molly hatchet, an
iron maiden, and a beautiful
velvet revolver.
"Geez," said Siouxsie, "these
L.A. guns are really overpriced."
"Hell yeah," agreed
Björk, "I can barely afford those
shiny toy guns, but this
slip knot is only going for a
fifty cent piece."
"Plus forty-four credits for the rope itself," said Alice noting
the unseen second price tag.
Jane added "And look at all
the kinks in it. We need to be more
pennywise, girls. It's not like we're some rich
riverboat gamblers."
"We're in
dire straits here, I'm afraid." said
Fred. "The
Iron Butterfly is grounded."
"We blew the
hyper
seal on the
Lacuna coil," Benjamin explained to the girls angrily with his head
submersed in the bowels of their rented craft. "If I had a
Tesla replacement, we'd be ok but I can't
run DMC pulses through
the tubes now. It'll
hinder the flow from the
alkaline trio cells."
Fred said, "Sorry, ladies, he's a pure
motorhead.
Ben folds five times the mechanical knowledge in his
pailhead than any of those
hybrid
propellerheads have in their
simple minds."
"And
Fred's fluent in
bionic jive," said Benjamin. Then to himself, "Damn
gravity kills, man. The
crossfade is all out of whack on the
Powerman 5000 unit. And it looks like the
AC/DC switch on the
EMF unit is fried. In, fact all
the used parts we bought from
Fugazi are toast.
The replacements are gonna take at least a day to arrive."
"What he's saying is without a
thousand foot crutch we'll sink like a
lead zeppelin before we got a mile. I can call
Starsailor and see if they can send out a
Space Hog."
"'30 seconds to Mars!'," blurted
Björk, repeating the company's slogan.
Alice said, "I'd rather rent a
Chevelle or some
Silversun pickups, but we're damn near broke now."
Fred was about to suggest they take a
train when Benjamin said, "Brother, by
default we at least owe them a ride. Call a
deathcab for cutie." He winked at Alice. "Our treat."
"Thanks,
big bad voodoo daddy," said Alice grinning.
"Well I'll be a
daft punk," said the cab driver. "Don't I know
you two
damn yankees? You're the brothers from
Snow Patrol, right? They used to call you the
Hawaii Mud Bombers. Last I heard you were flying for
the Postal Service."
"That was
ten years ago. We're strictly commercial now," said
Fred. "It's a
dark new day."
"I heard that. I'm
Harvey Danger from the
FlyLeaf Astrocab Company, license number
CKY-
MNM-
DMX at your service."
What an
airheard, thought Benjamin. He said, "Your fare are these
fun lovin' criminals. They'd like to avoid
Republica agents, so if you could
focus on remaining
visible from space only.. "
Harvey nodded knowingly, "That's
cool. And the gang can climb aboard." Harvey pressed
talk-talk on his radio mike while the girls boarded.
"Local H," said the cabbie, "this is
agent Orange. Going offline with a code
Seven Mary Three."
A voice blared from the radio, "This is
Eve 6! Listen
fall out boy, you have
authority zero for a code--"
Harvey cut in, "Fine call it a
Blink 182 if you want,
sugar. Or a simple
code seven, whatever..." He switched off the radio. "It's
all about Eve," he muttered to himself.
Benjamin added, "And
no effects that aren't necessary,
trick daddy."
"Fluff
killswitch, engage. Check," said Harvey. "Well, that's still a whopping
sum: forty-one thousand credits." Fred handed him a wad of
new edition credits, which Harvey counted quickly. "Hmmm, there's a lot of
dead kennedys here, but where're
the benjamins?
You be forty large short."
"We're with
Silver Tide Transport now," explained Fred. "Suppose you give us
three days grace."
"Sure," replied Harvey, "but it's an
unwritten law that it'll be
P.O.D, you dig?" Meaning payable on death. "Method Man runs the company now, and
the mercy killers under his employ ain't got
no mercy. It's a
bad company to owe money to, man. Don't want to end up
dead, boys."
"You aren't looking at
new kids on the block, Harvey. We've played
the game before." said Benjamin. "It's no
minor threat, I get that.. But right now,
in this moment, I just want the girls to go have
a day to remember."
"Hey, you've got this
badly drawn boy worked up into
a fine frenzy," said Harvey. "Don't worry, I know a great orbital
backstreet, boys."
In the garden, they visited
Qkumba Zoo because Siouxsie wanted to see the new
deaf leopard. "It may be deaf but there isn't a
faster pussycat alive. And I hear it's a pretty
kitty."
Among
the animals on display were oddities like a
white snake, some
stray cats,
a flock of seagulls, an exhibit of
pixies, a
great white
Steppen Wolf, and a large
papa roach with what looked like a
zebra head. There was even an
alien ant farm.
The girls checked out
the eagles,
the turtles, and
the monkeys swinging on
the vines in their cage; but went right past the
gorillas because of the
swollen members they were sporting.
"Oh no, look at
the black crows," said Siouxie excitedly. "They're
trapped in
the scorpions cage!"
"It's OK, they are immune to the
venom," explained Jane. "Although the
poison of that
Oleander shrub they're eating will kill them."
From the zoo they moved on to
Linkin Park and enjoyed themselves by
smashing pumpkins against
the Jesus & Mary Chain statues and defacing the mural of
Toad the Wet Sprocket.
Jane wandered off by the
Marcy Playground and came across some natives in a
hole having a feast. She hid behind a
bush and watched.
"Oingo boingo! What a
sublime spread," she said. From her
dog's eye view she could see
cranberries,
electric prunes,
virgin prunes,
corn, warm
soup dragons, some
angry salad,
meat loaf and
lamb of God,
sponge
cake,
pearl jam on
cracker,
black-eyed peas, some
limp biscuits, and a huge
blind melon. There were also
lemonheads and
sugarcubes from the
Matthew Sweet candy factory. But the best part of all were the
red hot chili peppers, which was
Jane's addiction. She loved to eat those
in excess. In fact, she liked everything she saw but the soda because
pop will eat itself.
"Iggy pop," she said in disgust.
"Love spit love," greeted one of the
village people as he came up behind her.
Jane stood.
"Love in reverse," she greeted in return.
"We are
a tribe called Quest and this is our
block party," informed the native. "I am
Hootie, and the blowfish is
delightful today, especially with a little
veruca salt and some
April wine. It is hand-prepared by our
spice girls."
"Oh,
nada surf for me thanks.
Fish gives me
the hives," Jane explained.
"Another fine choice is
the toadies in
green jelly sauce. It is the favorite of the
Wolfmother and is loaded with
vitamin C. But I suggest washing that down with some
Everclear and
tonic." He turned and threw several
sticks at a rare
Sheryl crow which was flying around the food.
Jane was tempted but then recalled
the string cheese incident back in
blue October; the
megadeath it brought to
the dwarves of the town
L7, and the
widespread panic that affected the entire planet of
Jurassic 5 . "I think I'll just have a
Fiona apple and some
ice tea. That is if you are willing to
share."
"Of course, it's
all you can eat," replied Hootie. "Then perhaps you will join me for some
vanilla ice
cream topped with a
Buck cherry."
Just then, the other
indigo girls called Jane over to the statue of
Our Lady Peace where they were gathered around a pile of
garbage. She excused herself and ran over to them.
"Oh,
hoobastank," she exclaimed, for the smell was
rancid.
Then she saw it. Among many broken
jars of clay in a large
puddle of mud, an ugly adult
rat sat upon a
candlebox. It was covered in
ash and wore an old air
filter as a
helmet. It appeared to be
counting crows that stood around him in
a perfect circle. "What an
enigma," said Siouxsie.
Suddenly, across the
oasis,
ten thousand maniacs came charging out of the Forest of
Screaming Trees and down
Cypress Hill. "Look!
butthole surfers!," exclaimed
Björk.
Jane frowned. "I don't think so.
They may be giants."
"Holy
Schleprock!" cried Siouxsie. "They're the
presidents of the United States of America!" And promptly screamed.
"The who?" said
Björk with fear in her voice.
"Oh
Primus," barked Alice, "will you all shut up? They're those idiotic
lost prophets from
the Church of
New Order".
Jane's stomach tightened, "Dear
Godsmack. I hear that's a really
bad religion."
"Yeah, that
motley crew is seriously
disturbed. Stay sharp, they have many
methods of mayhem."
The
parade of losers approached bearing torches,
stone roses, and
gin blossoms. They all had large mishaped
talking heads.
"Love equals death, " greeted the one with the most massive head.
"Love and rockets," answered Alice.
The leader continued, "My name is Todd Smith and I am the
Godhead, or high priest, at the
Temple of the Dog." A
sonic youth came to his side. "And this is my
prodigy son, Rem. That's spelled
R-e-m. But lately I've been calling him
Dinosaur Jr."
"The
kid rocks!" shouted the other men
in synch.
The girls just stared at
the Smiths, so Todd continued, "We and these other
magnificent bastards have come from
White Town, far beyond
Ned's Atomic Dustbin,
stabbing westward in search of
the cure for our
madness."
"Good Charlotte, you crossed that
biohazard? What, are you
third eye blind or something?" asked Alice.
"We have sought the legendary
magic dirt since the
days of the new," replied Todd. "The powers of this special
soil are said to end
Soul Coughing disease. But, alas, the mission has been a
failure. We found nothing but
seven dust factories run by
the Chemical brothers. Those
circle jerks are out there using
the crystal method to crank out
anthrax. We barely survived the
sense field that protects their largest plant in the land of
Darlahood."
"Didn't your
senses fail?" asked Siouxsie.
"Indeed, and
social distortion transmitters affected each of us with
eighteen visions."
"Sir, I don't think we can help you. If
you am I, I would try the
spin doctors," Jane advised Todd.
"What is your name, my
lucious Jackson?"
"The name's Jane,
Jane Jensen."
"Well, Jane," said Todd, "I'd like you to meet the head of my
drill team,
Geggy Tah." Todd made a hand gesture and an ugly
white zombie dressed in a
deep purple gown with
white stripes stepped forward. He carried the sacred
tool of a
ditch croaker.
"Marry me, Jane," moaned Geggy. Jane grimaced.
Todd smiled. "Geggy's one of the
gym class heroes from my high school. Oh and he's
type O negative; quite rare."
"You too?" Siouxsie asked Geggy.
"Yes." replied Geggy, a
gob of
saliva stuck to his
fu manchu mustache. "Jane, may I have a
kiss?"
Jane yelled, "What is this a sick joke?! I wouldn't
kiss this
regurgitator if I were pumped with
morphine, let alone marry him! Besides, he's
too short."
"Aha! Perhaps it's a
killing joke, my little
jewel!", interrupted Todd. "Listen up, for this is a
material issue! I claim you
meat puppets as the property of the
ministry! You will serve as our
gigolo aunts and provide
ecstasy and
porno for pyros. You will also be
the breeders for the
collective soul!"
"Soul asylum more like it," snapped Alice. "I can just imagine
the offspring: some serious
beastie boys,
no doubt." The girls laughed. "I'm afraid you got the wrong
goo goo dolls,
mister mister. Ain't no way we're gonna be your
bare naked ladies. Now buzz off, ya
weezer." The leader glared at her and removed the
Rollins band from around his huge head, causing
the wallflowers that had been tucked there to fall to the ground. This was obviously a
signal for instantly two members of
the cult, oddly dressed like
crash test dummies, advanced and in seconds had
Alice in chains.
"This one will become a
concrete blonde and sleep on
pavement." said the leader as he came
face to face. "In fact, you shall be my personal
audio slave and you will know
nirvana."
"Yeah, and the
dead can dance, pal," she replied struggling in her confines.
"Only
the grateful dead, my dear. Care to meet them?"
"Enough is enough!!" shrieked Siouxsie, snapping out of
depeche mode and jumping into
urge overkill. In a
blur, she grabbed a torch and
lit the
godflesh of Todd's face on fire. Quickly, she pulled a
fishbone from her hair and gouged the leader's
flaming lips.
"Beck-k-k!", sputtered Todd. "That was a
cheap trick, you
twisted sister! How dare you
rise against--" he paused to put out his face fire, "--
against me! This act shall be
avenged sevenfold!"
"Oh yeah? Take that,
Radiohead," screamed Jane, raking his eyes with their
nine inch nails.
"Woo hoo!
Girls against boys!" cried
Björk. "What should I do?"
"Just
strike anywhere!" yelled Alice.
Adrenaline pumping through her veins,
Björk planted a foot in the face of one of Alice's captors. "I
smash mouth!"
Jane poked an eye of the other captor with her
bad finger.
"Wham! That's gonna
sting."
Big head Todd and the monsters, fearful of such strong
foo fighters, made a mass
exodus as they shed
tears for fears.
"Duran! Duran! We're '
live, " cried
Björk, slurring from all the excitement.
"Yes, they ran and we're a-live," corrected Jane. "I have
faith; no more will they bother us.
Triumph is ours."
Alice, now free from her chains, jumped up on an old
silver chair. "I'll never be a
black-eyed blonde!"
"Jane's no
blondie," said
Björk.
"she wants revenge."
Jane said, "That was
extreme. Siouxsie
saves the day!"
"Yeah, we're not just an
army of anyone," said Alice. "From now on we'll be known as
Siouxsie and the Banshees!"
"Well, that's
better than 'Ezra'," said Siouxsie. The others laughed awkwardly.
"Hey, that was no
little feat! It's the
story of the year!" exclaimed Jane. "I just wish we had some
big audio dynamite so we could've blown that
sprung monkey and his crew to
smithereens!"
She glanced at her watch, "Heck, it's only
3:11, it hasn't even started
dropping daylight yet. Let's head into town and pick up some
cowboy junkies."
Full of
new found glory, the girls pranced off like members of a
teenage fan club as the now visible
Mazzy Star rose just above the
vertical horizon; completely unaware of the
MC nine-hundred foot Jesus watching over them.
The End