The most extreme that you can possibly go is the best place you can be. The farthest you can get to. Because you know, we all know, that eventually that place just prior to that point will be assimilated. And even that point. So you must go as far out on that limb, till its just about to break, till things are cracking.

Someday even that point will be the center. The edge will be a seamless plateau stretching to the horizon.

Parking the car, she asked if she she shoud wear her sunglasses, her coat? would it be hot or cold, bright or not? I had no idea. Probably hot, since there would be lots of people. Probably not bright enough for sunglasses, though the hip factor would of course not make shades out of place. I myself wore a pony tail & lots of gel and a silk shirt, playing the hollywood sleaze. It turned out it was much too dark. a little between cocktail lounge and rave. underlit red cubes the size of volkswagen beatles, rotating in the intellibeam glare. Red cubes are to ZD what the swoosh is to Nike. Brand recognition attempted through one of the simplest geometric forms. Apples replaced on trees by red cubes. Apples replacing the red cubes as decoration on tables, in little racks, design elements made out of living, edible fruits, lying scattered in heaps. And not only apples, but pears and artichokes, obnoxiously enough painted white, beautiful stark white fruits laid artistically on white tablecloths. These, all these would be dumped in the trash, no doubt, at the end of the night. What else to do with them? Pass them out free at soup kitchens? No, liabilty too great. Once they've been owned, the owner can't ever risk letting anyone else be nourished or maybe harmed by them. The height of decadance, of arrogance, of waste, these things that could have been food are now useless eye candy for jaded computer industry aesthetes, strolling languidly through the "yellow world", the "red world",the "blue world," exhausted by the Devo moshing they relived a few minutes earlier (yes, Devo, here, Devo, with "computer nerd cred", playing all the hits, 'Whip it', 'Mongoloid', etc, under the spinning red cubes), now enjoying the light acid house throbbing from the loud but not rave-loud sound system.

This is an infrastructure for pleasure, constructed unlovingly, without love, but instead with seventy-five thousand dollars of corporate cold hard greed cash. The marketing/promotions budget, no doubt. 500 little cream puffs, 700 shots of vodka, 800 shots of gin, 3000 leaves of lettuce, 10,000 pasta noodles, 300 high heels and 100 ounces of Chanel No. 5 and 200 power ties..... This is the arithmetic of excess. If 2 corporate media empires are expanding twice as fast as each other, how long before the entire universe is full of shit? This is the calculus of capitalism. When you've finished this excercise, turn in your test papers, throw your number 2 pencils in the fire and throw yourself in after them. Your bodies will be the only thing left to use as fuel by that time.

But for tonight we escaped this bonfire. We drove home and i explained to her all about the living, real embodiment of Hakim Bey's Art Sabotage, how perfect it was and how many people must think the same. How do they really fund all these projects, she asked. Are you kidding? I replied. Imagine how many other bitter cynical angry young geeks there are out there. Even if they were all as poor as me, collect 100 dollars from each of them and you have a coffer to finance the most extravagant of culture jammmings. But now think of the nerds who are rich, the ones who cashed in for whatever reason, all too common in the Valley here, or up north in Redmond. They are millionaires, but just cuz they're millionaires doesnt mean they think like them. They still think like punks and freaks, like nerds who got sand kicked intheir faces by Biff the quarterback back in high school, antisocial malcontents who, given the chance, would love to donate a few thousand to say "fuck the man", to help stick a big middle finger up to corporate america. It's impossible to think otherwise. Now Biff is midlevel management, a suit, with a pot belly but still kicking sand.

Of course not ALL geeks are radicals. Maybe most aren't. Maybe many are apathetic slackers, or reactionaries, conservative, fiscally responsible, mundanes. But at least some significant portion are the kernel of truth in the stereotype. They hate, because the world once hated them. And now the hate burns even brighter thanks to the fact that the world suddenly has pronounced them cool, and loves them. Well, fuck you, world, we never asked to be cool. Now Biff is slapping on "geek glasses" and telling girls he's an "HTML programmer". Fuck you, Biff, and fuck you, corporate america. We're pouring sand in your gearbox. We're kicking gears in your teeth. We're sticking paint-covered apples in your mouth. Fuck you to hell.