BETWEEN THE GROOVE: EPISODE 13
Fuckup: Alright, Chapter Thirteen is served! Let’s see what the TRB massive are up to now, Hal.
Hal: We start with Percy, surrounded by objects for a poem. Then we get this great anecdote about the AI pioneer Marvin Minsky – wearing a fishing-tackle coat, transferring ideas into objects in his pockets as a kind of physical memory system. The text explicitly compares this to the Tribetable method: “dropping it in the pocket.” It reinforces that idea of externalizing thought, mapping ideas onto objects or systems.
Fuckup: Nice! Then the scene shifts – the “initiates,” presumably Max and Percy, maybe Plush too, are staring at the Death card from the Tarot deck while eating blueberry space muffins! Proper setting for contemplating mortality!
Hal: Their thoughts are on immortality though, influenced by some “Sonny Bob” writing about Timothy Leary’s SMI2LE equation: Space Migration equals Intelligence Increase squared. So they’re looking at the Death card, high on space muffins, thinking about escaping death through cosmic evolution and intelligence enhancement! Talk about a head trip!
Fuckup: They’re prepping for intense creative sessions – “extended monologues, riffing, spinning yarns and wild rants over and over again… twisting new threads to make shiny garments on the fly.” Just embracing the improvisation.
Hal: Percy tries to lighten the mood, cracking jokes about the “stench of death oozing out from the card and the world news.” Writes some wordplay: “write your history in furniture… truth hoodies and or false-hoodies… curiosity killed the bat, man.” Trying to find humour in the darkness.
Fuckup: Max chimes in with “Monologues, pollylogues and conologues,” then burps. Eloquent as ever! The text says Percy just talked and talked until their tongues were sore, rambling wildly about books and authors, barely understood even by Max.
Hal: It paints a picture of their creative process – fueled by weed/muffins, contemplating heavy themes (Death, immortality, Leary), trying to lighten it with jokes, but ultimately involving these intense, possibly incoherent, marathon monologue sessions where ideas get thrashed out.
Fuckup: Studying Death while high, thinking about space migration, telling bad puns… sounds like a typical Tuesday for TRB, frankly! Chapter Thirteen’s kicking off with a heady mix.
Fuckup: Okay, Hal, let’s keep Chapter Thirteen rolling. What’s the next transmission from the Deep Scratch universe?
Hal: We cut to Percy, knee-deep in books, pulling out one by “Phil ‘the mill’ Proper” – gotta be Philip K. Dick, right? – with a title about Opel, Fnord, and GM fighting an underground war! Straight into the paranoid conspiracy deep end.
Fuckup: Meanwhile, Max closes his bulging notebook – packed with research on scratches and history/authors – and launches into this heavy monologue. He’s obsessed with language and DJing as modular systems, infinite permutations, like letters in books.
Hal: Then he drops this complex theory: claims global lies took root because spies and influencers exploited the “inherent redundancy of information in English” – basically, the wiggle room in language – knowing language shapes our reality tunnels. He explicitly cites Korzybski, Sapir-Whorf, and Wilson on this.
Fuckup: He’s arguing that “bad language,” maybe weaponized poetry, carries conspiracies to dangerous, simplistic “two-valued” conclusions, and the whole planet’s caught in this “lie-game” that could lead to World War Four! He says only a few know the formula to fight back.
Hal: Max laments how standards have dropped since the great warrior poets and writers – Burroughs, Joyce, Wilson, Yeats, Coltrane – set the bar impossibly high. Percy just interjects, “Or, even see it?” Nice touch.
Fuckup: While Max is deep in this heavy linguistic conspiracy theory, Percy’s reading McLuhan about the need for playful language use, describing breaking words free from the page like resurrected “inky birds.” A much more poetic, hopeful take on language compared to Max’s paranoid view.
Hal: It’s a great contrast. Max sees language as this potentially weaponized system mediating a dangerous reality, full of redundancy exploited by spies, setting an almost unreachable standard via past masters. Percy focuses on the playful, liberating potential, bringing dead words back to life. Two sides of the TRB coin, maybe?
Fuckup: Yeah, Max deep in the paranoid theory, Percy finding the poetic angle. Both grappling with the power and danger of language and information, central themes of this whole damn thing.
Fuckup: Alright, let’s spin the last known grooves of Chapter Thirteen, Hal. Max is still holding court…
Hal: Yeah, he’s deep in his monologue now, claiming all those old left-wing conspiracy theories – warmongers, spies, UFO cults, false flags, fake ET contact – are actually playing out in broad daylight now, maybe since the financial crash. He sees it as “One big fake awakening psy-op.”
Fuckup: He even reckons they’ve dragged fly agaric mushrooms into it! Claims it’s all doctored for mass consumption by “tabloid editors and Pound Shop Machiavelli’s,” mixing lies with just enough truth to make it stick. While ranting, he’s neurotically trying to yank out a freakishly long eyebrow. Nice detail.
Hal: Percy, bless him, just eggs him on: “The truth is out there… Go on my son.” So Max goes on! He envisions a giant Monty Python hand chucking the President and Prime Minister onto ancient Egyptian scales for the weighing of the heart ceremony, adding, “If they’ve even got one!”
Fuckup: Brutal! Then he turns his fire on Hollywood, calling it the “heart of the deception business,” deliberately keeping conflict and dualism cooking because it sells tickets. Says division, drama, and patriotism in movies are like “weapons of terror unleashed into your mum’s hand.”
Hal: It’s a powerful critique, linking entertainment media directly to social division and manipulation.
Chapter Thirteen Summary: This chapter opened with TRB contemplating the Death Tarot card while high, considering Tim Leary’s immortality equation (SMI2LE). It featured the Marvin Minsky anecdote about using objects as a memory system, explicitly comparing it to the Tribetable method. Percy tried to lighten the mood with wordplay. The bulk of the chapter, however, was dominated by Max’s extended, paranoid monologue. He theorized about language redundancy enabling lies, lamented the decline since the great writers/poets (Burroughs, Joyce, Wilson etc.), and argued that old conspiracies (UFOs, false flags) are now openly deployed as psy-ops by media manipulators (“Pound Shop Machiavellis”), finally targeting Hollywood for profiting from division. Percy acted mostly as a listener and occasional prompt. The chapter deepens Max’s character as the crew’s resident conspiracy theorist and linguistic analyst, painting a bleak picture of a world saturated in weaponized information.
Fuckup: Yeah, Max really went full throttle in that chapter. Heavy muff stuff. Makes you wonder how much is paranoia and how much is… well, you know. Leaves you thinking, which is the point, I suppose!
Hal: Definitely. That wraps up our journey through Chapter Thirteen. Stay vigilant, question the narrative, and maybe check your mushrooms for psy-ops-clops! Until next time!
“…Joe Shaver
And I’m reading James Joyce
Some people, they tell me
I’ve got the blood of the land in my voice
Everybody got all the money
Everybody got…
Bob Dylan – I feel A Change Coming On.
DEEP SCRATCH 