Sweet Madness in the Songs we Scream
There's no great trick to insanity, no real mystery to unravel. You needn't ask questions of the wind or plumb the depths of hell.
There are many difficult things in this life but going insane isn't one of them. It's so damn easy that frankly I'm surprised more people don't do it.
You wanna know the trick? You wanna know the basic truth? Well, you came to the right place. Here's insanity in a nutshell (tee hee)--here's the fundamental aspect of madness that underlies all others.
Are you ready for it? Stop reading now if you aren't.
...
Okay then... here's the fundamental aspect of madness that underlies all others:
Everything, and I do mean everything, sprouts tentacles and grows a fangy clown face if you stare at it long enough.
Toasters: check. Laptops: check. Bus drivers: check. The Revlon Girl on the billboard: check. The list goes on and on--concentrically and then back in again.
So, soon as you see it happen--scream. And don't stop until the fangy clown face tentacle monster is dead, killed by your mighty screams, and/or the men with caps give you a magical jacket made of space age polymer fibers designed exclusively for the purpose of shielding the wearer from fangy clown face tentacle monsters.
Name your jacket immediately. It can't protect you for very long if it doesn't have a name. Whatever you do though, don't use vowels. Vowels are how the fangy clown face tentacle monster latches onto your insides. If you utter a vowel when you talk to your magical jacket then the beast is gonna tear you apart and lap up your lung blood with a bacteria tongue of festering doom.
Which is no fun, by the way. It's just really no fun at all.
I recommend you name your magical jacket: "Gggrrgffttsk." Although you can’t go wrong with: "Pllfflrrgghh" either. "Ssgrrfflkmnhrrgy" is risky… you know, 'cause of the whole "and sometimes Y" thing.
(Everything moves if you watch it long enough. And eventually becomes a fangy clown face tentacle monster. And some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by fangy clown face tentacle monsters.)
posted by Latigo Flint @ 11:36 PM
115 comments
115 Comments:
Sometimes they aren't fangs. Sometimes they are chicklets.
klvgrdfb, says the word verification. Is that a good name?
Could it also be argued that reading this blog entry is just as easier method to insanity? As grasping the underlying truth has turned my higher brain functions to jelly, and not the wobbly, edibnle, kids birthday party jelly. The 'cold slimy tentacles that are attached to fangy clown face' kind of jelly.
Oh. Dear. God.
They're everywhere....
- Toledo
What about the Cute Starbucks Barista? Does she, too, turn into a fangy, tentacled, clowny-face? Or rather, does she, as in my dreams, grin maniacally, her eyes bulging... before her face splits in half and the maggots and black rats start to pour out of her, like air from a balloon.
@~ATD
My jacket has been named Zzzbrkskl, in memory of you. Thanks for the heads-up.
Lalala I don't see any tenta-clowns. All I see is visions of gunslingers riding into sunsets.
Being strange forces, madness doesn't live too far away.
In fact, I sometimes get madness's mail. That means that I get to see that sometimes madness gets Madness's mail by mistake (Madness actually does live in a house in the middle of the street) and I can't help but find amusement in the juxtaposition of ska-kid fan letters and hand-written-in-crayon pleas for sanity.
I'm just going to come right out and ask you: Do you smoke the ganja?
Corollary: Do you own a Mac?
I don't even know what to say about that.
This is a case where saying that you are haunted by something is not sexy. In fact, I can assure you that almost no women will be wooed if you tell them you are haunted by fangy clown face tentacle monsters.
(Unless they like the Insane Clown Posse. But I even a mental patient can do better than that).
We love you Mr. Latigo, hang in there! I'll try to smuggle some churros into the asylum for you. Churros are like currency on the inside, you know.
Insanity isn't hard. You're correct about that. Mr. Scoop will tell you that I begin to hallucinate and have paranoid delusions about "being watched" in Dunkin' Donuts at 6 o'clock in the morning after the application of enough Jamesons and Sam Adams. It hurts to go back to sanity the next day, although that might just have been the hangover.
Donde estas, LF? Tengo miedo.
Yo tambien, Latty!
Alright. Joke's over. Where are you, LF?
Relax, LBB. I'm sure that Latigo Flint, the generous, wholesome fella he is, wants only to give time enough for all of us who read his blog to respond appropriately that he may miss none of us in his eventual culminating reply.
@~ATD
I'm pretty sure he has druken himself to death finally.
I think it's those raccoons finally getting revenge. Well either that or a were-otter...
Or he's just on holiday like regular folks...
Has the dreaded run-in with Kid Relish finally happened and found Latigo Flint was second fastest gun-slinger????
Oh my God. Latigo's dreams have come true! I think he's either dead or in the hospital, having been out-drawn by some flame-haired Irish girl!
!~ATD
This can't be. This just can't be.
Naw, it can't be.
I like to think you're on a pony - let's call him Smudge - somewhere wild and high in lonely lands. I like to think you're being a Dolphin Whisperer no matter how unlikely that would seem given the high, lonely lands thing.
Miss you, Flinters.
Remember everyone...
Gunslingers don't die, they just fade away.
Except in the majority of cases, where gunslingers not only die, but die quite horrifically.
Toasters might turn into tentacled clown monsters, but The Toasters don't. They just keep laying down the 3rd-wave ska like nobody's business.
Oh, and the toasters from BSG just kill you.
As for Madness, I prefer to stay One Step Beyond.
Where o where are you?
Okay...
Haha, real funny, you got us LF...
You can come back and give us you witty remarks on all of our comments.
LF?...
Please...
He's out there, writing up a real doozy for us, I'm sure of it! When he comes back and posts his latest masterpiece, it's going to blow our minds across the pavement. Trust me. He's probably right now, sitting there, thinking: "I must answer their comments in the trademarked charming and witty fashion of Latigo Flint." But no, he resists temptation, and with a grimace like that of his mortal soul being torn from his chest, he stolidly resumes work on his epic masterpiece about the Civil War.
I just know he is!
@~ATD
He's even funnier when he doesn't say anything!!!!
It'll pass, lovely mad one.
Dang. I sure do miss you Latigo.
Admittedly it’s been a while since I last visited LF but never in a billion years did I imagine he might have moved on … Fact is, it’s only been a short while and chances are he’s just been too busy to post. That’s what I think has happened here. I think LF has landed a big writing assignment, a screenplay with Leo and Jack, or a new comedy series or a book deal. I don’t want to go to the place that finds him sitting in a pool of his own bodily fluids on some cold poured-concrete floor in a room with bad 80’s discos music piped through the intercom and minimum wage attendants who come back to the dorms in the dead of night to diddle with the inmates/patients. I choose not to believe that his last post was indeed his “last” and that he was grasping frantically at the last rice noodle tentacle of reality as he slipped surely and truly into lunacy.
Dear Latigo, do return to your adoring fans. Every morning and every evening I stop by, hoping you have once more graced the world with your words, but you aren't here.
Where have you gone, Latigo? Please come home.
Take BerlinBound's words to heart, everyone! I am sure that Latigo Flint will be back to ring in the new year for us, with plenty of sad, yet funny stories!
!~ATD
Have yourself a merry little one, darlin'.
Merry Christmas to you, Sam, Problem Child Bride, and all of my fellow Latigo-Flint-fans. And to you too, Latigo, wherever you are!
!~ATD
I was haunted by a long-haired hippy dwarf when I was little, but I never considered insanity. He'd sit in my doorway and smile with a big blue lollipop. Not sure if I was dreaming, but he was there.
I miss you. And I worry, even though I despise people who worry about others. I think it will be a greater loss than an single life is why I worry. Not for any sentimental reason.
?
:(
Sweet Latigo please return!
I don't want to have to face a world that has lost it's last true cowboy and wandering poet!
That life just isn't worth living and we might as well page the commies to fire off the nukes right now!
Come back to us Latigo!
It's like a pilgrimage now, coming here and checking for you, Latty. And it is one I shall carry on.
Dude, estoy con Helga. Sin embargo, si usted está en Shangri-shangri-la del hondero del arma, espero sea todo que usted quisiera que fuera. Cáiganos un mensaje y sepámoslo es todo aceptable si usted tiene un minuto.
I think every one of your fans is stopping by to see if you're back.
Please return and put us out of our misery...
I'm sure he's just on an extended winter vacation...
I hope! ;(
Please come back soon, Latigo!
@~ATD
We at 12 Crumble Ave mourn you latty-baby. Drink has lost its appeal, mindless violence seems pointless and even the cute Starbucks Baristas fail to inspire even the slightest hint of manic self-humiliation.
Return to us before this world becomes normal again and the mystery fades once again from view...
Need...LF... out of meds and can't bring myself to leave the apartment, he's been away so very long.
Where the fuck are you Latigo???
are you ever coming back?
Maybe... maybe this is a test!
He's waiting until we get to 100 comments before he returns...
Maybe?
Like the clapping children?
I'm taking no chances. Here's 49.
Mine makes it half-way there!
!~ATD
Goddammit, Latigo... thanks to my move and my drunkenly ill-advised confidence in wireless network technology, my usual computer has been down, so I can't post to my Web site. However, I have stolen technology from my workplace and ridden a neighbor's unsecured, probably child porn-ridden wireless (yet working) connection to ask - nay, plead with you: get back on the wire, my friend. I need to know you're okay.
Otherwise, a random Starbucks barista dies EVERY... GODDAMNED... DAY until I hear your voice... as far as you know. That's the only way I know to ease your pain, chief. And considering I live in Boston, and you live in L.A., well... that a lot of probably innocent blood on a gunslinger's hands.
Give us a quick online "I'm okay," like that little bastard who just got rescued after four years. Otherwise, I'm gonna assume that kid is you, and weep that a dysfunctional child made me weep over the sound of madness.
P.S. If I don't get that ten bucks I lent you back, the eastern seaboard will burn.
Yeah, I've been drinking. What's your point?
Okay,
Mr. Scoop
Where ever you are, Latigo Flint, I hope you are well and happy.
Miss you.
If we don't see some kinda dust kicking up from the trail soon, Latty, I'm going to be forced to call the National Center for Missing Gunslingers hotline.
Hell, I may even get Dwight Yoakam himself involved. We both know he's got a heart as big as Texas, trampled and scarred though it may be.
Thought I might be able to alarm you out of hiding with my bloodcurdling BOO! All I'm doing is terrifying myself it seems. No matter.
We do miss you here but take your time. Life is more important. We'll still be here when you get back, gov'nor.
All good wishes to you, Flinty.
Latigo?
(tigo?)
(o?)
(o?)
Man, I go away for a couple of months and Latigo does too. It just seems wrong. I was looking forward to spending a really long time combing through archives.
I hope you're ok, Latigo, and that this signals some great success that's keepin' ya busy.
Damnit, Latigo. This is one trailhand that sure misses hearing the tragic tales of a certain time-displaced gunslinger over the warmth of a crackling Internet campfire.
@~ATD
I shot Latigo Flint in a Starbucks, just to watch him die.
Actually, it was to create a diversion, allowing me to grab a free coffee off the bar and a cute female barista that Latigo had been staring at for hours.
Damn you, darthmoridin!
And for such fleeting pleasures, too.
You awful man! I should've suspected you from the start, what with a name that began with "Darth"!
!~ATD
Hmm, did he pay you to kill him so he would become instantly mega-famous like most artists do?
Maybe he's pulling a Tupac stunt.
He's not dead!
Don't say that!
He's just been arrested!
After violating one of his many restraining orders!
He's learning to sew up the shiv-holes in the prison-issue jumpsuits for his new close friend Moose!
Tupac IS dead!
!~ATD
Latigo-
If you are dead, you shall be missed. Should you have been slain dishonorably, my blade shall cry your vengeance.
Your writings were more deeper and more profound than anything else this century has produced. Like you, they were timeless and unchanging.
Godspeed, gunslinger.
They were duelin,
Latigo and Relish
High or low, it was the same
Easy money and faithless women
Red-eye whiskey for the pain
Go down, Latigo, it must be God's will,
Two brothers lyin' dead in Coffeyville
Two voices call to you from where they stood
Lay down your law books now
They're no damn good
Better keep on movin,
Latigo and Relish
Til' your shadow sets you free
If you're fast, and if you're lucky
You will never see that hangin tree
(plagiarized and slightly changed from "Doolin-Dalton" -- Browne/Frey/Henley/Souther)
Well.... this sucks ass.
No matter the hand that fate has dealt you, Latty, good or bad, I will never be able to jump on a trampoline without giggling and smiling like a schoolgirl.
I mean, like a big manly schoolgirl.
D-Damn you, Latigo Flint! I saw you post a comment on my blog! You're not dead after all!
ATD
NICE ONE to go out with, Latty! you... are awesome.
Latigo,
We have a candle burning for you.
We also put little action figures of Han Solo and Greedo next to it. Han always shoots first.
We hope it'll help you find your way back to the interwub.
We miss you.
Dear Readers,
Latigo Flint, committed suicide he shot himself in the face and pray for his soul. He must have been going through a lot of inner pain regarding various issues in his life. He entertained many of you with his postings. He tried to make sense out of all of the ups and downs that befall us humans. He did this through his writings (postings) what ever caused him to cut his own life short (suicide) for many of us it will never be known. Pray for the soul of Latigo Flint may he rest in peace.
No way. What a terrible thing to say! Don't say that!
Who are you to say, anyway, 'reader'?
!~ATD
ATD,
REST IN PEACE LATIGO FLINT
It is really true Latigo Flint committed suicide it is, the reason why he has not been posting on his blog. He use to hang out in West Los Angeles and this was part of the inspiration for many of his writings. I am not joking Latigo Flint committed suicide by shooting himself in the face with a gun. This is not a joke it really happened. I would never joke like this ATD, it is a sad thing to see someone joke this way.
The suicide of Latigo flint (read it)
http://cobb.typepad.com/cobb/2007/03/the_suicide_of_.html
Latigo Flint, you will be sorely missed.
Respect.
So where does one go?
it's not a joke. i feel the same pain as all the fans, but i don't know that the man behind latigo flint is actually dead. it was a metaphor people.
Dang, man.
Have we given up friends and neighbors?
Is this the end of the trail?
How many cowboys does it take to hold a dream?
Dream on ... this is adieu for me.
I'm still holding a candle for Latigo... wherever he is... :-(
Nah... Latigo's not dead.
There was NO VOICEOVER.
When a coyboy gunslinger dies, the voice of Sam Elliott comes down from the heavens with a pithy, closure-bringing voiceover.
And there was none.
Now, LF may well be stuck some place (the Amazon?) and unable to get to an internet cafe. THAT I could believe.
Urgent news from the Latigo-front! Reputable (read: other bloggers) sources indicate that the author of this beloved blog is alive and well. I quote:
"UPDATE: I CAN CONFIRM THAT THE AUTHOR OF LATIGO FLINT IS ALIVE AND WELL."
Simply click my name to verify the authenticity of this article. Our friend "Cobb" has provided us with this news.
So! Let the pleading, whinging, and whining recommence!
RIP Latigo Flint
You were too wize, too noble and too fast a draw for this world.
A gentleman - if there ever was man who deserved the title it was you.
I'm still sticking to the 100 comments plan, just to put off having to think that you're not coming back to us...
I second that plan.
@~ATD
Wow... 7 months later I keep coming here just to read the occasional woeful post (and to review a tale or two).
C'mon people! We need to get to 100 comments or Latigo won't come back!
!~ATD
I am totally with you! I just think it would be cheating if I threw in a solid 15 comments in a row so I've been pacing myself so the process is organic.
Tag!
You rock my world, Princess. Welcome to the "Let's Bring Latigo Back With 100 Comments" club.
Hugs for all comers!
!~ATD
Latigo -
I need a man who knows how to pull and swap a barrel and a firing pin from a .45 revolver in ten minutes or before the Boston police get here, whichever comes first.
Please post or email me soonest.
Okay,
Mr. Scoop
Latigo-San --
Become my gunslinger-sensei. Teach me to slap leather and shuck iron. Teach me the ways of the gun.
-- Yours,
ATD
In a world that lacks romance and chivalry the last beauty we had was that of a cowboy willing to nut another man in the face for barring true love's path to a Starbucks barista, and to gun him down like a dog for pretending to be a strip mall security guard...
I remember Latigo Flint...
Ay, sai Paranoid Princess. I do remember Latigo Flint -- aye, I remember true when he did dance the commala last Reap atop yon mall of shopping. Naked.
T'were a trig man indeed who could do such. And he shall be remembered, do ya say thankee-sai, Man Jesus.
!~ATD
Ah Latigo, how we mourn your blog, it's barren wasteland a reminder of the society you so yeared to be a part of, but by fate were cruelly separated by a mere century or so. May this comment add to the others in aiding you on your adventures until you return.
The thing I remember about Flint is the use of the word 'Tremblybonk'
I like that word, and now I try to use it conversation - all thanks to Lateral Flintstone
Come back to us, Latigo Flint! Come back, for your father's sake!
Idea: He's time traveling. His new name is Latigo Flintstone.
*badoom-pssh*
!~ATD
I was reading something in some book just the other day. The word "pistols" appeared. Immediately, my brain supplied the words "hand-tooled elkhide holsters" to go with.
::coyotes howl in the distance::
I also miss Kid Relish. And those lonely, tormented souls whose paths never crossed yours, Latigo, but whose stories you passed on down to us around the campfire of Blogger.com.
Their voices may yet speak again, you know.
@~ATD
Well, we've tried all the other approaches so now I'm suggesting we use anger. Angry anger.
Latigo Flint, if you don't get your backside back to Blogsville flipping darn tootin' soon already, then I'm going to have to start using reprehensible language. Don't make me get all reprehensible on you dude. It's ugly.
She'll do it man!
She ain't bluffin!
There'll be so much effin and blindin that sailors will blush and cover their ears and even kids from public schools will sit back in wonder and say "Hey, that's a bit much!"
And a plague will be unleashed across the blogosphere and you will have made a gentle lady use swears and the world will weep!
So you d*mn well get your backside to where you have been told to!
You better believe it, Latigo my man. They don't call her "Problem Child Bride" for no reason, you know.
@~ATD
100!
Ok, Latigo. You can come out now.
Please?
Pretty please?
Oh poo. It looks like the fabled 100th reply was not mine to make.
... further poo from seeing that Latigo has not, in fact, magically come back at 100 replies.
Amanda, I have a theory. Would you like to hear it? Here goes: perhaps we are missing a zero, and Latigo wants us to go to 1000.
The only question is -- do we have the guts?
?~ATD
I feel the pain of you all, Latigo has left us. But fear not he is well.
Is he happy?? Well I guess that just depends on how you look at it. The bum who staggers through an alley way screaming profanity at lamp posts is in his own way happy. So in his own way, perhaps Flint has found a happy place. We will all miss Flint, but in his Blog pages, he leaves us all a great legacy of wisdom. Study the pages, re-read his stories, live as Latigo Flint would have wanted us all to live and he will never die. And the next time you come face to face with a dreaded trampoline, or face off with a hot Starbucks Barista, you just might hear the greased lightning sound of a mysterious man behind you clearing leather so fast that he gets the drop on his own shadow by seconds.
Ride Fast Latigo. Ride hard. May you find that sunset you are looking for.
I have invented a happy delusion:
Maybe Latigo Flint has stopped posting because he married the Starbucks barista. I can imagine -- the first kiss that they share, brazenly courting disaster and embarrassment -- while the sky cries cold, sweet rain gently upon their loving shoulders.
That is a beautiful delusion, ATD, I likes it.
There is also the possibility that Kid Relish has Latigo locked in a basement and is feeding him 'substances' whose nature he won't disclose whilst he has Single White Femaled Latigo's life.
Latigo has grown a lush beard he calls Kevin within whom he's hiding a shard of plastic which he is carefully honing to a wicked edge to effect a daring escape.
This may take some time...
Paranoid princess, that is also a possibility, though it be a far darker and sadder one. I bet that Kid Relish is even out there seducing the Starbucks Barista, and he has a little radio receiver placed in the basement so that Latigo can hear the sounds of his one and only friend brazenly having his way with the object of Latigo's lusts and passions.
It's almost enough to make a man like me weep, girl-like.
@~ATD
Ey no entendi ni mierda... Que poemas mas mierda. Son poemas? Creo. Mira cuando lei el primero poema me dieron ganas de cagar, con el segundo cage otra vez, ya con el tercer de plano me solte en diarrea....
Bueno como se que no entendes... De plano sos buen cagatintas.
Salu
This is goodnight and Adios LF.
Ah God, but I miss you.
*A silhouette of a woman stops at the place where a panicked gunslinger once mistook a squirrel for a man sneaking up on him and blasted it to mince meat. She lays a single red rose and a cup of Starbucks coffee and weeps for the lone gunslinger who has mosied off into the sunset*
Aye, you shall be missed, Gunslinger. Long days and pleasant nights.
@~ATD
111; and it is symmetric across multiple axes.
While posting an insanity plea is a great way to end a blog, I do wish you'd post something.
Make a new blog. Have Latigo appear as a guest star.
Something. :)
Anything.....
*whimper*
'Tis foolish, I know, but still I post these words: I still miss ya, Latty.
Happy Holidays, Latigo Flint!
I miss you.
I really miss this....
Wish you'd come back, sir.
Things haven't been as strange without you.
LF, wasssuuuup!!!! If you are still reading your comments, know that I still think about you from time to time and still read your old posts for a chuckle. You'll never believe what's happened since I left my reluctant-hipster life and moved to SF: I got married and had TWINS! Girls! They are three months old now. They will watch and read Westerns. As it turns out, Louis L'Amour was a friend of my husband's grandparents, and his widow hooks our family up with books from time to time. Hope you're loving cowboy heaven, or wherever the jumpin-rawhide-jehosefat-hell place it was you went.
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