I glanced behind me down the length of the North wall. Only a few hundred yards long, this wall delineated what amounted to a small peninsula of the Furd plant, which in actuality sprawled like a Lego amoeba across this section of Detroit. Halfway down the length of this wall was an emergency exit; a door which remained steadfastly closed. With a single look into the cart I had shepherded to this tiny frozen corner of this aging industrial mecca, I reassured myself that the goo-covered remains of my violently slaughtered and apparently robotic friend Chuck remained hidden beneath the pile of garbage I’d cleverly piled on top of him. Nestled within the trash, clearly visible, was the recently emptied and still steaming coffee urn which had been left behind by the millwrights in their haste to leave the vacant lot across the street.
    Peering around the corner at the rapidly emptying parking lot, I rubbed my hands together in front of me in a futile attempt to bring warmth and feeling back to my tired fingers. Once again I pressed my pelvis against the disabled end of the cart with its precious cargo and braced myself for the effort ahead.
    As I readied myself to move on, I confess I had mixed feelings about losing sight of this door, this one-way portal out of the factory. A factory within which, only minutes ago, I toiled away at my thankless job attaching “Do Not Attempt to Grow Merijuana in Glove Compartment” stickers to the dashboards of Furd Expulsion SUVs. And a door which, only moments ago, was slammed shut by my foreman and sudden nemesis, Bruce Cornsley.
    Part of my ambivalence towards that damned door was how it rendered mysterious the current whereabouts and intentions of Bruce and the grotesque miniature head growing out of his neck—his clown faced brother. Of course, if he were with me outside that door, I would have to fight him or flee, leaving Chuck behind. Chuck’s tongue, currently hidden beneath a knot of coffee-soaked Styrofoam cups, had topographically begged me to hide him, and I never was one to turn my back on a friend’s tongue…even if that friend had just confessed to being an android from the future.    Still pressing my pelvis against the disabled end of the cart, I gripped the frigid rolled steel edge, lifted up with a grunt and pushed the heavy thing around the corner towards the employee parking-lot.
    Waddling along, I repeatedly barked my thighs and shins against the cart. I bit my lip to hold in the expletives my autonomic system was trying to sneak past my vocal cords, and instead whined pitifully. I felt assaulted by my own frailty; my shoulders were burning from continuously holding the considerable weight off the ground, my fingers tingled furiously through their cold numbness and the frozen steel wall of the cart sucked every ounce of heat from my crotch–making me feel as if I might be passing through puberty backwards. The abuse I was now heaping on my legs was almost too much, and I despaired of ever reaching my little hatchback so many yards away.    I was doing my best to make my progress look nonchalont; I was just another worker pushing a cart full of trash through the employee parking lot.
    Yeah, right, I thought, just another worker, eyes bulging with effort, biting his lip, waddling intensely with his manhood pressed up against a steel cart–all during a hazmat emergency.
    Ten steps. Eleven. Twelve. I began to feel a little bit of hope. A car, on its way out of the lot, passed me by with the driver giving me nary a single glance. Thirteen.Another car passed, and this time the man behind the wheel did look at me, but quickly turned to watch where he was driving, an expression of worry writ across his face. Fourteen. I hazarded a look over my shoulder toward the factory.    This wall was much larger than the North wall with the emergency exit which I’d left behind. Crowned with stubby steel vents and smokestacks, it extended a full quarter mile to the South. Centered along its formidable length was a long row of glass doors, boxed in and separated from the parking lot by a tall fence pierced with numerous turnstiles. Those spinning gates counted us on the way in and out while a recorded message greeted us. I remembered that all this week the pleasant female voice had advised us to “Be Kind Workers, Not Blind Workers.”
    There had been protests, as several visually impaired workers were quick to point out that the blind might also be kind and the unkind not blind at all. After an hour of trying to compose a suitable call-and-response protest chant out of this seemingly rich material, the five or so blind workers settled on the phrase “My Eyes Don’t Cry No More!” which prompted a lively debate about the advisability of line dancing with a severe visual impairment. When an executive arrived on the scene and accused the lot of them of being unkind blind who shouldn’t mind, the blind indicated they certainly did find that they mind. A little used contractual proviso against Suessian conduct resulted in an immediate three day suspension of all parties involved. The next day we all found that the turnstiles’ recorded announcement blithely continued to blather on about being kind and not blind, but since none of us were blind, we didn’t really mind.
    But today the turnstiles were folded out, undoubtedly to allow the evacuating workers a quicker exit. Above the glass doors behind the fence a red flashing light strobed, and the siren I had heard earlier rose and fell, notifying us all about the supposed emergency inside.
    There were few workers still leaving the plant. Other than the emergency response volunteers, everyone is required to leave, go home, and await a phone call from the personnel office telling them when they might return to work. It had been at least fifteen or twenty minutes since the alarm had gone off, and I imagined that other than those still dawdling in the parking lot with me, the place was emptied.
    I realized I had stopped, let go of the cart, and had been hazily staring at the factory for awhile. Shaking my head clear, I resumed my strenuous penguin march toward my Furd Pinata. To my considerable relief, no one was paying much attention to me, and cars continued to stream past on their way out. I was making quite good progress, and was only fifty yards or so from my car when I noticed that two figures loitered nearby a pickup truck in the parking space adjoining my own.
    Crap. One of them had turned to curiously watch my approach. Looking at me from where she stood next to the cab of the truck with her too-tight jeans, slightly plump figure and long brown hair was Cindy.
    The other figure leaned against the passenger door of the small pickup, shifting nervously and drumming her skinny legs with her free hand. One look at the pile of cigarette butts surrounding her feet and the thin wisp of smoke drifting up from her occupied hand told me all I needed to know about the identity of the other woman.
    Gail’s Marlboro Man looked at me from the dashboard of her truck where she’d discarded her hard-hat. Her straw-like hair, mushrooming out in an impressive display of helmet-hair, partially obscured her face. Her practiced hand pushed the hair behind her ear while deftly maneuvering the red-hot tip of her cigarette so as to avoid setting herself on fire.
    Her good eye looked at me with obvious relief and concern while her wandering one seemed to look up at the sky above the factory.
     “Hey, Gail,” called out Cindy over her shoulder in a voice unnecessarily loud for the few feet separating the women, “Its Joe!” She took in my appearance and the cart. “You need some help, man?”
    Gail tossed the spent butt to the ground amidst the dozen or so others at her feet and stepped away from the truck towards me, stomping the cig out in passing.
    ”Shit, Joe, what the hell is going on?” she asked and, to my amazement and concern, she grabbed the far end of the cart and began pulling it, uncharacteristically attempting to help me. “Everything is so fucked up,” she began, “Everyone’s leaving, and I was going to leave like you said, but I saw your car, and then Cindy needed a ride, and, and..,” she then glanced down into the cart, “Holy shit, what the hell is this?”
    I looked down then as well, satisfying myself that what she was seeing was only the shocking sight of the broken coffee urn, and not the hidden Chuck parts hidden underneath. Good. Now we see if I was twice as smart as I feared I wasn’t.

    The absolute worst part about being me is these god-damn headaches.
    I posted about these things once before, if you are interested in some choice metaphors and similes.
    I am not going to finish part 14 this morning. I am recording nothing. I’m going to take a long shower and try to sleep this thing off.
    I do have a surprise for you, though. I’ve uploaded a new podcast, it’s

SpamDramatica II
 escape in the SafeTpod
    If you’d rather not do this whole fad-tastic subscription thing, you can download the MP3 directly from the SafeTpod (safetpod.blogspot.com).

I’ve uploaded a new SafeT’une. It is a bit on the simple side, and is relatively short. The latter is often considered an asset when considering a SafeT’une. It is an improvised piece which is intended to sound like the ‘melody’ behind a dour church hymn. Inspired by an extensive and almost certainly neophytic conversation about matters of religion at L>T’s blog, in a thread that has climbed beyond 70 comments*, I hope you indulge me.

Click HERE for My Hymn.

But WAIT! There’s MORE! (just like the title says!)

• Notice:I’ve recently redesigned SafeT’unes, and the music will automatically begin playing when you navigate to the aforementioned or any other specific song page. Adjust your volume accordingly!
  • The main SafeT’unes page, however, is polite and does not auto-play any music.
• What, were you looking for Closure? Part 13 was posted several days ago. Part 14 should be up by Saturday morning.
• SafeTpod is going strong, with 7 whole listeners! Give it a spin (click the SFT POD button in the sidebar). If you like it, tell your friends, especially the elderly and the infirm. I’ll be podcasting Spam Dramatica II tonight or tomorrow night, and Closure Part 3 sometime this weekend.
• SafeTinspector-on the move!

* several dozen are me prattling on about crap I’m not qualified to talk about

My continuing experiment with podcasting!

escape in the SafeTpod     If you’d rather not do this whole fad-tastic subscription thing, you can download the MP3 directly from the SafeTpod (safetpod.blogspot.com).

Closure Part 2, now on SafeTpod!

    Looking for the newest print version of Closure? Closure Part 13 was posted yesterday. Read it and find out how sexually exciting a coffee urn can be.

	I’m having mixed feelings. I mean nuts. Sorry, my mistake. I’m having mixed nuts.

    I made fists with my hands, knuckles creaking and numb from the cold rapidly penetrating my fingers. Steam puffed from my mouth and passed in front of my eyes, partially obscuring my view of the recently closed emergency exit. I stood there in the frozen pre-dawn darkness, nose running, and stared at that door, waiting to see if it would open again. I sneezed once. I wiped my nose. I sneezed again. Seconds rolled by, as did a shabby, rust-n’-primer colored delivery van sporting a jolly faced, cartoon sausage impaled on a knife. Encircling the happy little sausage were the words, “Eat Kowilski Sausages With Confidence! We’re Much Better Now!*”.
    The driver looked at me curiously over the edge of a spill-proof coffee mug as he drove past. I probably cut a strange figure; a man covered in sticky goo, standing in a vacant lot with nothing but a large coffee urn and a banged-up steel cart for companions. Chuck’s shattered body was, I hoped, too deep in his cart for the fellow to see. I nodded politely as he cruised by, and received the same courtesy in return.

    The van danced around the corner to the musical strains of his screeching, geriatrically progressive brakes and soon drove out of sight, leaving behind nothing but a greasy miasma of pungent, blue exhaust smoke. I turned my attention back to the door again, but it stubbornly refused to provide me with any further revelations; unless you consider stenciled letters spelling out, “NOT AN ENTRANCE,” as being revelatory. Either Bruce would emerge to threaten or he wouldn’t, but either way the time had come to get a move on.
    I looked into the parts cart where Chuck’s face and torso were almost completely hidden beneath his gruesomely independent pelvis and legs. Red, strawberry flavored Chuck-juice, rendered black in the stark blue light of the mercury vapor street lamps, coated almost everything. Lost in thought, I stopped to consider how I might get from this exposed, frozen lot to somewhere safer; I idly reached into the cart and shoved Chuck’s ass to the side so that I could once again look upon the lines of that face which had so greatly complicated my morning. I was surprised at how the bright red claret had developed into a cold, slightly tacky crust which cracked and gave way under the pressure of my touch. The image of a soft-serve ice cream cone, dipped in butterscotch on a hot summer day fled my mind as I once more beheld Chuck’s dead, staring eyes. His tongue was sticking out, just as I remembered.
    Hide me, buddy, text comprised entirely of swollen taste buds pleaded with me. I’m working on it, Chuck.
    I reached underneath the rapidly cooling coffee service and pulled out the trash bag left by the apprentice millwright. With a grunt of effort I impatiently tore the sack open and dumped the contents into the parts cart, effectively obscuring Chuck’s remains with used Styrofoam cups, cigarette ashes, wadded up napkins and, inexplicably, a cracked Hello Kitty soup-bowl. For good measure, I tossed the bag in as well.
    Lastly, I hesitated a moment, considering the sacrilege I was now contemplating, before tearing the lid off the top of the coffee urn. My heart raced with the anticipation of what I was about to do, and I grew excited in a slightly sexual manner as I performed the forbidden act of dumping the coffee onto the frigid earth. Steam billowed, the shocked final breath of the doomed beverage as it quickly turned into gravely, caffeinated mud. Briefly closing my eyes, I shivered once and, ignoring the swelling in my pants illicited by my sudden, starkly taboo action, I threw both the lid and the urn into the parts cart atop Chuck and the rest of the trash. A quick look around showed that my crime had gone unwitnessed.
    I grabbed the edge of my newly christened trash cart and commenced pushing it toward the East end of the factory and the employee parking lot. It was rough going at first; one of the wheels had become smashed when the cart crashed to the earth at the end of our mad dash from the emergency exit, and it now scraped painfully along, plowing a shallow trough in the dirt and gravel. Realizing that I was making precious little progress, I tried a new tactic.
    I positioned the cart so that the damaged caster was on the end closest to me, and I then hauled up on the edge of the cart with my finger tips, lifting the busted wheel from the ground and effectively removing it from the equation. In order to gain the necessary leverage to accomplish this feat, I had pressed my lower body right up against the cart; the cold of the steel soaked straight through my ruby encrusted pants and acted to quickly cancel out the involuntarily erection my breathless act of conspicuous consumption had brought on.
    Cold and flaccid, I duck-marched the cart Eastward then, and the contents shifted from side to side as we left the lonely coffee cart behind us amidst the obscenely polluted mud. The lid gently ticked repeatedly against the shiny urn, which continued to release trace amounts of steam into the dimness surrounding us. Sirens wailed in the distance and I gritted my teeth as my shoulders registered their annoyance at the strenuous endeavor of suspending the disabled corner of the damned cart above the ground. I couldn’t really feel my fingertips over the cold, but they came back alive just in time to send shots of pain up my arms as the cart jarringly stepped down the curb and began crossing the cracked concrete of the street once more. I stopping to rest several times along the way, and finally turned the cart around and pulled it up the curb on the factory side of the road, now more than half-way to the end of the North wall from where we began.
    A short trip across a filthy strip of frosty grass and I found myself continuing my exhausting waddle from the comparative smoothness of the sidewalk. What felt like an eternity of grunting, waddling effort passed, albeit an eternity filled with frequent stops to rub life into my burning shoulders and aching fingers, and I finally found myself at the North-East corner of the plant. With a sigh of relief I released the cart then, and peered around that corner into the employee parking lot.
    Brightly lit with towering mercury lamps, there were scattered crowds of workers amongst the cars, although many were climbing into their Furds and leaving. Even so, there was at least a hundred or so people remaining. I decided that waiting would be worse than making for my car and risking an interrogation by these, my curious and gossipy cohorts. As people drove off, I reasoned, some would undoubtedly turn this corner and drive down this street. I’d rather not be standing here suspiciously babysitting a cart full of garbage when that time came. I drew a deep and icy breath and hauled Chuck’s impromptu mobile sarcophagus around the corner and began the long march to my waiting Furd Pinata. I silently hoped I wouldn’t run into anyone too curious, but took refuge in the fact that in such a case I held the shocking remains of the coffee urn in reserve.

* Now with meat!

    Sam, Heather and I went to a carnival last week. Sam is too young and innocent to smell the creepy wafting off the carnies, and she had a blast on the kiddie rides. Click here to go see.

    You can still get Part 12 of Closure by clicking HERE. Part 13 is coming down the pike tomorrow. Also, there’s a podcast rattling around.

    In the meantime, two more bloggers I’ve recently encountered:

This is Jagd Kunst. He hasn’t any avatar, but a quick search on Google Images revealed this photo of him on a hunting trip. Jagd is pretty cool when he’s sober, and his wiring makes me clap and giggle. But when he goes drunk typing…well, check it out:     it not 90 oclock yet, me still beat her when she partners the messiah. I’ll find the big boosoomed girl standing by the wall not too closse to the furie.. yet to speak her un-not-lust-ful love for me I shall say _ “enuff dogs in this pound, purchase ur own” cheeper see, like sylvester…     I don’t know what you mean, man, but I’m glad you shared it with us.

This is L>T, or L. Tart. I’m completely unsure of her past, but her present is interesting. A quick question posted, and a huge conversation ensues.     I have a feeling i won’t get into blogging as much as before. I am trying to find a balance between computer time & real time. Instead of making blogging a hobby, I think I’ll just pop in once in a while & see whats going on. The best laid plans…

See you tomorrow, with Closure Part 13.

If you haven’t already subscribed to my PodCast, and you’re pod-curious, click on the pretty little icon:  escape in the SafeTpod
If you’d rather not do this whole fad-tastic subscription thing, you can download the MP3 directly from the SafeTpod (safetpod.blogspot.com).     Either way, I’d love to hear what you think of it. Is this a valuable thing to you? Do you want more? I’ll float a few more podcasts, either way; then I’ll re-evaluate it.

    Yesterday I posted my very first podcast, which was a reading of Closure Part 1. Today’s podcast is a dramatic reading of the most amazing Spam I’ve ever received. Yes, even better than Spur-M.

    Tomorrow I’ll be kissing the asses of Jagd Kunst and L>T, and Saturday should begin its life complete with a fine new Closure episode. (Yes, lucky number 13). Missed part 12? Click HERE.

    I also have a new SafeT’une to post, and I’ll probably befriend the injection molded, faux marble kitty cat holding the “Welcome, Friends” plackard outside my front door. With any luck he’s hiding a spare front door key under his cold, not-really-stone ass.

    Looking for Closure? Part 12 went up yesterday morning. Read it to learn why a man, a cart, and the dismembered body of his best friend crossed the road. The punchline is, unfortunately, a bit of a let-down.

    Check out my experimental Podcast: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SafeTpod
    Its rough, friends. I’ll see about polishing it… It is fed from a new blog, SafeTpod.blogspot.com

    In the meantime, a word from God:
    The universe shows an apparent order. That order is intrinsic to the system, not the cause of the system. After all, don’t soundwaves look organized on paper, even if the cause of the sound is random and without purpose?
    All it takes to make chaos seem patterned is a mirror, and your stupid brains provide mirrors aplenty. To presume a simple deific explanation is intellectually lazy, and your God is disappointed in your lack of imagination.
    Slide down the time string, little beads!

None of this is to say that there is no God; its just that one shouldn’t presume to subvert science, which is the celebration and exploration of creation, with attempts to prove the act of creation itself.
Oh, um. Read Closure, its good for your brain meats.