The Great Halloween Blackout of 2011

The specter of canceling Christmas is always there and not entirely unexpected given that blizzards historically happen in the winter months. Our gnawing subconscious fear of a bare bottomed Christmas tree on Christmas morning is exploited each season by an assortment of claymation TV specials involving a fat man in a red suit, talking animals, little men in tights and pointy ears, and dangerous, defective and deadly toys. But in the end, the relentless flow of crass commercialism sweeps them all away and we wake up on Christmas morning to piles of presents we don’t need, along with a handful of essentials, such as Brandeis blue boxer briefs and neon fuchsia nylons.

But those who reside in the Northeast USA are currently wallowing in a living hell, the Great Halloween Blackout of 2011, a perfect storm of curious and unusual circumstances. A mild autumn keeps the leaves on the trees longer than normal so an aberrant October blizzard can coat them with wet snow, the equivalent of cement shoes for conifers and angiosperms, and tear them apart limb by limb, taking down innocent power lines with them. Conspiracy theorists will point to Jack Frost, whose lowly status among natural villains galled his woody arse and inspired him to plan the “big one,” a frost so destructive that his name will forever after be uttered in the same windy breath as Old Man Winter; others will blame Barack Obama, because they can; still more will lay blame at the foot of the 97% of scientists who falsely prophesy about the golden calf of global warming. And then there are those who believe that God is punishing us for becoming so detached from the world which he created, a world which we have blasphemously replaced with satanic scientific instruments such as computer chips and flat screen technology. Without electricity, what good is that Blackberry or Flat Screen TV beyond being another flat surface to use for illicit purposes?? Constant reminders of our unnatural conditioning taunt us daily as we stumble through the literal and existential darkness. For your salvation, The Captain has compiled a list of common road blocks which serve to direct us back to our “natural” state. Enjoy!

So here it is! The Captain’s Road Map Out of Contemporary Darkness Into the Light of Our Natural Past

• Light switches. Despite being without power for 4 days, my hand still habitually reaches for the light switch when I enter a room when it should be reaching for a nice piece of flint and some dry kindling (This should not be confused with other habitual hand behaviors which are indeed quite natural).

• Flashlights. If Prometheus was punished for stealing fire from the gods by being chained to a rocky crag to have his innards picked at by buzzards, what reparation can we expect from our maker for harnessing light and sticking it neatly into a convenient hand held device with an on and off switch and numerous settings? These are the Devil’s firesticks and should be avoided at all costs upon pain of some divine sadistic castigation. Better to light a torch from your flint fire and risk burning down your house than incur God’s wrath.

• Radios. If you haven’t learned this already, you need to know that voices that don’t come out of human mouths are demon projections and not to be trusted. That is not actually the Governor talking on the radio but one of Satan’s minions. The radio is in truth the mouthpiece of Mephistopheles (also known by other names, such as Beelzebub, Lucifer, the Antichrist, and Rush Limbaugh). Smash it on the rocky crag before your soul is lost forever!

• Generators. If electricity is Heroin, then Generators are Methadone. Yes, they may momentarily stay the crash of your electricity detox, but in the end you will inevitably be cast upon the rocks of modernity by the false gods of Facebook and Twitter. The true tonic? Brace yourselves. A book. Light a candle (using flint), open a bottle of wine made from juicy natural fruits, and read. Before long you are on the road back to Eden!

• Blow Dryers. If God had meant for human hair to be dried unnaturally, he would have given women and metrosexuals a special motor in their windpipes. The introduction of the electric blow dryer has interrupted the natural thinning of the herd. The weak who otherwise would have perished of pneumonia after going out into the cold night air with wet hair now thrive and multiply and produce children born with split ends. Abominations!

So Believe The Captain when he says: Take your hand off that switch and place it where it naturally belongs!

Yours with bruised knees and sore shins but my mortal soul in tact,

The Captain