Uncle Empire

Tony's been on hiatus, but he's back. Some super sweet, super romantic love music, as only Tony can bring it.

Q'65 - Get Out My Life Woman

Tom Martin always sat in the last row of seats, near the exit, at city council votes. He was rarely called upon to contribute a meaningful opinion, even though he was often the only one with his hand raised. When he missed a Tuesday night session regarding the installation of speed bumps—or so everyone present believed—and then a Thursday night follow-up, where tensions reached a peak over the proper shade of yellow for the proposed bumps, little was thought of his perceived absence.

“Canary’ll make the town look soft on speeders,” Harvey Dobson argued that Thursday. And everyone agreed Neon sent all the wrong signals. When the council turned to the townspeople for an opinion, nary a hand was seen. (Of course Tom was in the last row, as usual, ready with an opinion.) But it was decided: School Bus Yellow.

As rumors swirled about Tom’s sudden disappearance, an uneasy feeling settled over the small town of Under Ridge. Mayor Dinkins liked to say, at locally sponsored barbecues and at the stroke of midnight at New Year’s celebrations, that this was not a town where unusual things happen. In fact, that had been his most recent campaign slogan for reelection: “Dinkins: He makes the unusual unusual.”

So as this unusual feeling elbowed its way into the minds of the usually fair-minded and forgiving citizens of Under Ridge, Mayor Dinkins began to feel a political pinch. Sharon Mowatt, the op-ed columnist for the Under Ridge Reporter, posted a series of scathing blogs about the mayor on her personal website, Understanding Under Ridge, in a space that was normally reserved for interviews with the elementary school P.E. teacher about which local youngsters were showing athletic promise.

Not used to the harsh light of political scrutiny, Mayor Dinkins, after consultation with political and spiritual advisors, launched a full-scale search for the missing man—and, in a speech announcing the search, emphasized the importance of investigating all instances of unusualness, because “that’s what good mayors do.”

Search committees were formed and deployed, hounds were released, and Tom’s own mother was flown in from out of state. She stood in the town square, demanding that Tom come out this instant, young man.

City councilwoman Babette Marcus was an opportunist, as all politicians are. And as more and more of the town’s resources were funneled into the ongoing—and as Ms. Marcus liked to say, pointless—search for Tom Martin, she attracted a modest following, a core of young and Catholic voters. They were adamantly pro-life, though Ms. Marcus believed such decisions should be made at the state level. With just over a year until the next mayoral vote, it was not inconceivable that this upstart crusader would throw her name into the ring.

The councilwoman, a stout softball of a woman, headed a movement to end the search for Tom Martin post haste. “Valuable town funds are being flushed by a reactionary mayor,” she, with her signature underbite, told the news stations, “a man who would rather cover his own fault-ridden tracks than admit he couldn’t protect his most vulnerable citizens. And where are our speed bumps?” Simultaneously, she launched a milk carton campaign in which she intercepted the milk man each morning and pasted the faces of local schoolchildren—who were (as of yet) unmissing—on the backs of families’ 2%, with an ominous message scrawled in a faux blood font: “Who’s Next?” The cartons were said to hit especially close to home.

(To read on, scroll down the page...)

The town started frothing. Citizens posed for news cameras and gave jittery quotes about how the town used to feel safe, about the unfounded rumor that a curfew was taking effect, and also weighed in on whether or not they were satisfied with the shade of yellow chosen for the speed bumps—it was a mixed bag.

Mayor Dinkins was caught in the crossfire of these competing civic conversations. If he gave up the search, as so many seemed to want, then he would be accused of allowing citizens to disappear willy nilly. If he did not, then he would be wasting town funds. And what about the speed bumps? Babette Marcus had managed to work the townspeople into a frenzy, and there seemed little he could do, as he hid behind the hedges of the Mayor’s Mansion, terrified his own daughter may appear on that morning’s milk carton.

It took another week but the search was abandoned, Tom Martin was presumed dead—possibly eaten—by the authorities, and a cold shudder, like early winter, seeped through the town.

It was not winter, though. Far from it, in fact. July had just hatched and that meant farmer’s market season in Under Ridge. On a particularly splendid Wednesday, Councilwoman Marcus prepared to announce her candidacy for mayor at the outdoor market set up on the lawn adjacent the community center. A stage was assembled alongside the tomato stand and homemade banners circulated throughout the crowd when Tom Martin showed up, alone, looking to buy some produce. He couldn’t understand what the fuss was about—though to be honest, he didn’t mind the attention.

Market-goers were curious to hear Tom’s story and formed an oval in the space around him, crowding up to within a few inches. “Give him some room,” came a voice. It was Ms. Marcus from the stage. Seeing the intense interest she had created in this man, she recognized the possible role he could fill in her mayoral run. He could speak at town meetings of how, when he was lost and frightened and the search for him had been abandoned, no one seemed to care—no one, that is, except a brave young councilwoman with an underbite. He would be her mascot, her lucky charm, her ticket to Washington! She brought him onto the stage to immense applause.

Tom stood next to the makeshift lectern, where Ms. Marcus gave him a lengthy introduction in which she spoke solely of herself. Once the applause died down Tom stepped to the microphone and, with his canvas shopping bag still slung over his shoulder, began to speak. The hushed crowd lurched forward to make out his words, but it was difficult. He seemed to have brought his indoor voice outside. According to those in attendance, Tom said something about having never left Under Ridge. That he was actually at the meeting regarding the shade of yellow for the speed bumps, and that he preferred Lemon Yellow. Plus, he said, his mom had been staying in the extra bedroom at his apartment. At least that’s what he seemed to say.

Truth is, it was hard to stay focused on Tom’s story. He had a scratchy, uninspiring cadence, certainly no gifts for public speaking, and really, he just wasn’t so interesting. The gathered crowd began to thin out as he spoke, returning their attention to the shopping booths at the farmer’s market. When Tom finally finished saying his piece, Ms. Marcus was the only one who clapped. She clapped continuously, uproariously, disproportionately. She may have even whistled.

Ms. Marcus returned then to her prepared speech, though now she competed over the friendly murmur of vendors and shoppers exchanging greenbacks and green beans across temporary stands. As expected, she declared her candidacy for mayor.

There was no write-up about Tom Martin’s sudden reappearance in the paper the next morning, and only a brief mention of Ms. Marcus’ young candidacy. Later that week, Sharon Mowatt released a comprehensive preview for the upcoming dodgeball season on her blog. By month’s end, the speed bumps were installed, and most everyone agreed the shade of yellow had been wisely chosen. All the while Councilwoman Marcus pressed on in her campaign, trumpeting the same cause that weeks earlier had violently shaken the small town’s sense of self. But now, as she pinned her political ambitions to a man more compelling in absentia than in person, town politics went on as usual.

Tom Martin could not have been happier.

-RK

I woke up too late to go to work and put on all the denim I could find. I was going to need it. Then I walked around the apartment, which was far nicer than I deserved – having walls and heat and a refrigerator with an automatic icemaker – looking for a six shooter or some other sort of weapon. I'd keep it on the desk in the off chance that someone tried to sneak up on me and break my neck before I got to wherever it was I was going. Where I wasn't even sure. Probably a long, rambling road to some highway tourist trap, where they want your last ten dollars for a coonskin cap, and you give it to them and lay down underneath a plastic horse, hoping someone will feed it a quarter.

Last night, I went to hear the blues. Beers were taxed. A bad tip on two of them showed what kind of peasant I was to the initially pretty bartender. Everyone else in there was from far away and they moved in weird jerks, clapping polka rhythms that just didn't fit. Deer people from fjords saying things like "that is quite certain."

I left and gave one last look to the bartender to thank her for trying to make me feel impotent. She looked at me with a face like a sick lemon. She didn't care about me, and I didn't care. All the moths in my wallet couldn't get her what she needed, but she didn't know what that was anyway. Loveless, bloodless. She probably fucked like a snow bank.

Outside the pavement was cold and black, slick with ice. Snow blew like bees and wet sand. I walked around the park that was lit up like a military compound, trying to salvage something that was unsalvageable, and then took the train home.

The next morning, I woke up and put on all the denim I could find.

I knew a guy once who waited for years in the wings, in the folds of the curtains, and in the backs of photographs, patiently waiting with a screw turning darker inside of him. He'd say you can't make things happen, you gotta let them happen. He's still waiting, turning darker and colder and older, a bullet rusted in the muzzle.
-BF

By Joel Dovev

First off, as my landlord, I want to say that you are a very, very sweet old woman and I can tell you always mean well. I don't mind that the only words you speak in English are "nice day" and your son's name, "Thomas." I think it's cute, and you always have a huge smile on your face. With that said, there are a few things I would like to address.

First off, there's a little game you play every night at exactly 11:15 p.m. Now I am not sure what the official title of this game is but I have started to call it "Furniture Tetris." Considering the fact that your living room is directly above our bedroom, I have often feared that your three-ton grand piano, which you apparently own, will fall directly on my wife and me as we are watching the bonus features of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Now you keep a very clean apartment building, and I give kudos to you for that. But the eerie children's shoe, that could easily be one-hundred years old, you use as a makeshift door stopper in the laundry room is just the creepiest fucking thing in the world. Seriously, I imagine that that child was horribly maimed in a washing machine accident and haunts our building late at night, coughing up phlegm. Oh wait, that's just you. Now once is OK. Twice is still fine. But after an hour and a half of you hocking loogies, I want to shave my head and put it in an elephant's ass—as they are very quiet creatures and I imagine their rectal cavities follow suit.

However, you are a slave to consistency, and I can always count on the fact that, when I am literally about to fall asleep, you and your son will get into the loudest argument possible.

Every time.

Without fail.

I like to call it the "Rumble in the Jungle." And by "Jungle," I mean the hallway. And by "Rumble," I mean yell at each other in Cantonese.

Still, I would like to humbly thank you for over charging our rent and not letting us park in the completely empty, totally unused, three-car garage.

Sincerely,
Joel D., Apt. 1


P.S. I know my wife has long hair, and ironically so do you, but you don't need to point it out every time we see one another. Just FYI.

By Joe Dillingham

The Ferret—he insisted on being called The Ferret, having eschewed the name his mother, that fucking bitch, gave him—dug through the garbage can at the Union Square McDonald's looking for Monopoly pieces on discarded French fry cartons and Big Mac wrappers to complete his collection and win the money-car-trip-thing that was the grand prize. In his pocket he had three of the four railroads, a Baltic thing, some Pennsylvanias, maybe a Lightworks, and a Broadway. The piece he really needed was Park Place, but the chances of that happening were slim at best. He knew that. He'd accepted it. Yet his dream burned brighter than ever.

At a table on the side of the restaurant, two girls too high to keep their eyes open spoke in some meandering gobbledygook that might've been English and involved a lot of open mouth staring and repetition of the phrase, "Totally, I know, ohmigawd." Somewhere below the surface of his perception, he recognized that they were talking about some performance of something that the little one had meant to go to but had missed and the taller one with the big teeth and excruciatingly poor diction was assuring her that it was, like, totally fine, I know, ohmigawd. He imagined finding a particularly ripe piece of trash and throwing it at them, but was unable to find the bravery to make it real.

Throughout his life, people had made fun of The Ferret's particularly feminine and dainty wrists, hands, and legs, but he'd fucking show those cunts when he found the other half of the holy Broadway/Park Place dichotomy. They would never know what he would do with the winnings. He might buy himself an island, or learn to fly jets, or become a secret agent, or have his brain implanted into a robot killing machine. It didn't matter because those stupid stoned bitches would never know what goddamn happened to the Ferret when he won the big prize because he was so mysterious. Mysterious. That was how the motherfucking Ferret ran his business.

Deep beneath the remains of a Shamrock Shake the Ferret felt the unmistakable tab of an unpulled game piece waiting for him to reveal its Milton Bradley magic beneath. He managed to get three of his slender lady fingers around the French fry carton on which the piece was affixed, and gave a gentle tug. His arm was buried deep inside the overstuffed trash bin, as if he were birthing the golden calf of Babylon. But nothing moved. His dainty hand came out of the garbage with only a soggy piece of cardboard to show for his effort. "Fuck!" he yelled, eliciting the stares of employees and other customers. "What the fuck are you guys looking at?" he offered in retort to the people now staring at him. "This is McDonald's. Stop staring." Most people decided that he was probably more trouble than was worth their time, so they turned back to their fried chicken and soy paste giblets and imitation potato strands.

He walked over to the table where the two stoned girls were drooling and sat down. "Don't mind me. I'm busy," he told them. They both spent an un-insignificant amount of energy trying to wrap their brains around the fact that this man with his arms covered in putrid fast food had just sat down at their table. Unable to comprehend anything this out of the ordinary, their brains played the best trick they knew and erased The Ferret from reality.

The Ferret pulled a pile of game pieces from his overcoat and then fished the tattered paper board from his back pants pocket. He spilled the pieces across the table and pushed the girls' food out of his way. They did not seem to notice, and, if they had, they could not muster the focus to care. Like a brook, they babbled on.

He turned his attention to the French fry carton on their table. "You girls are clearly too fucked up to know what's about to happen, but let me tell you anyway," he said. "Right now I am going to pull this little tab and on the other side of this lightly laminated little piece of paper there is going to be a fucking Park Place piece and it's going to have a little blue bar and I am going to combine it with this piece"—he held out the Broadway for their edification—"and I am going to win whatever the big prize is. I have been looking all over the city for this piece and it's here. I know it. I know it. You girls, you girls are going to be able to say that you saw the world change. You are going to be able to say that you saw me, The Ferret, the motherfucking FERRET, change the world. You are going to tell your grandchildren and the men you sleep with and the boys and girls and women and men and janitors and teachers and bartenders and firemen and policemen and actors and televisions and walls and rooms and the sky that you saw the world change in this McDonald's at this fucking moment. Seriously. Right now."

He pulled off the game piece and turned it over. It was Broadway.

Silent for a few seconds longer than he should have been, The Ferret broke down and sobbed, sobbed like a little girl. He put his head on the table and his tears flowed and washed the loose game pieces onto the floor. The taller girl turned toward him and reached out her hand and touched his hair.

"Does your hair always just stick up like this? It's so weird. Ohmigawd."

By Lev Winters

Jack stood in front of the mirror and his mind raced. It was late—or early, depending on your view. He replayed the evening's events, which already felt like a lifetime ago, through a reel-to-reel player in his mind's eye, desperate to discover where he had gone wrong.

He had picked her up on time, held open his car's passenger door, and even complimented the shade of her eye shadow. At the restaurant he was both witty and attentive, with an air of unassuming confidence. Yet when the date came to its natural conclusion, on the terrace outside of her building, he was refused even a modest kiss.

Jack's thoughts wandered to the gray hairs he had plucked from his scalp that morning—maybe he had missed others. And there was, of course, the small incident at dinner. Jack had requested no onions on his salmon, since he was allergic, and when the dish arrived, with onions, Jack grew somewhat dissatisfied. Perhaps the girl foresaw a future with this man and his uneven temper and was repelled. After all, a man must always keep his cool.

A prisoner of self-awareness, Jack brushed his hand through his hair, ready to resign himself to bed, when a final thought hit him like a revelation: It was none of those things!

He realized then, at this late and lonely hour, that this woman rejected his advances not on account of his blundering ways, but simply because she was repulsed by his hideous facial deformities, the ones he suffered as a child, when he was mauled by an alley cat, and his parents had been too poor to care.

Relieved that things were out of his control, Jack went soundly to sleep.

Pete Rock and CL. Premier and Guru. Eric B. and Rakim. It's ambitious to put Murs & 9th Wonder in the same stratosphere of dynamic duos, but it's not entirely absurd either. Murs' bravado-soaked lyrics sit beautifully on top of 9th's sonic backdrops, and the result is some of the finest hip-hop in years. Murs 3:16 got it started, Murray's Revenge followed suit. And Sweet Lord is more of the same. Enjoy.

Tracklist
01. The Intro
02. Are You Ready?
03. Nina Ross
04. Free
05. And I Love It
06. Pusshhhhhh
07. It’s For Real
08. Marry Me
09. Love the Way
10. Murs Inatra

Download

By John Johnson

I was sitting alone at Applebee's the other night, drinking shirley temples and thinking about a dead horse, looking for a cure for a broken heart. The place was empty, except for a bartender combing her wig, when I kid you not, none other than Dick Cheney walks in. Six shooters and spurs clicking across the floor. A couple of mummy fingers sticking out of the band of his twenty-gallon hat. He loosens his belt and sits down at the bar, looking like the emperor from Star Wars, only handsomer. He rubs some gun powder into his gums and lets out a hoot.

"Gimme a Valvoline and bat blood," he says. "And stir it with a bayonet."

He looks over at me and winks.

"What do you call that?" I ask him.

"Breakfast" he says, wiping his hands on a baby seal skin. I went back to thinking about my horse.

Danny Powell, through his documentary series, Keeping the Lights On, is working to create a community for artists, aspiring artists, and pretty much anyone who digs art by showcasing the day-to-day grinds of artists whose 9 to 5 is anything but art. Powell believes that individuals need to take personal responsibility in buttressing the arts. “Look at how the government treats arts organizations and public broadcasting entities that rely in large part on governmental funding to sustain themselves,” Powell points out. And it’s true; we here at Uncle are still waiting for our first governmental space buck. So check out the series—it’s got more culture than Van Gogh’s good ear—and always support your local artists.


A clip from Keeping The Lights On: Joy Drury Cox

Submitted by Sophie Miller

Dear X,
It was such a treat to see you last month. After X, I made a quick trip to X to buy an old vespa (I wanted a winter project). X is grand and still searsucker weather.
Hope to see you soon, with love,
X

Dear X,
Spent the other weekend in X on a scooter-buying trip. Rode back to X on the bus with a vespa in the back - it was wild. Driving through X with a scooter in the taxi...wild. Sailing, summer fun in X.
Hope you're well.
Cheers, X

Stay within the waves.

Rasa - Within The Sound

By Jonathan Raye, Ph.D.

At the mere age of 21, Dr. Raye has done more than most people can accomplish in a lifetime. He has invented the device upon which all astronauts, cosmonauts, taikonauts, and spationauts depend—namely, the spacesuit.

Through mighty effort I have managed to devise what may be the greatest invention of our age (excluding sliced bread). It is the most illustrious container of that most prized of things: life. And with a capacity to protect and simultaneously empower its wearer under the harshest of conditions—the vacuum of space and the absence of heat—it has been hailed as a second skin, equal to nature's design in both function and genius.

The fate of the body in outer space without a spacesuit is unpleasant. This has been confirmed by a number of experiments on rats and several Golden Retrievers. Bubbles form in the blood, arising from ruptured lungs. The film of water overlaying your eyes and mouth boils off. And liquids in the soft tissues evaporate, prompting limbs to swell to twice their natural size.

What was notable to me at the beginning of the space race, though, and especially at the initiation of spacesuit development in 1953, was that these symptoms are not inevitable.

One day, while muttering over some stubborn equations in my lab at MIT, President Eisenhower strode through the door and said, "Johnny, old boy, I've got a new challenge for you, as I see the Manhattan Project was not enough."

"Indeed, I figured out most of that nuclear stuff in my sleep."

"Well, it so happens that the U.S. is embarking on another secret mission—that is, we aim to put a man in space, and moreover, have him orbit the earth, and moreover, have him come back to earth with the two of his family jewels still in marketable condition. And we need you to design a suit that will protect a man when he emerges into the vacuum of space."

Two days hence, a naked mole rat was outfitted with aluminum foil and inserted into a vacuum jar. Four days hence, a guinea pig was covered with a mixture of rubber cement and aluminum foil and inserted into a vacuum jar. (His survival was misleading.) Nevertheless, the shortcomings of the suit were corrected, and in short order the suit illustrated in Figure 2-1 was developed.

Picture now the moment of truth, when Alexey Leonov exited his spaceship, the first human being to do so, and vaulted headlong into the emptiness of space. It was 18 March 1965, 8:34 a.m. After 12 minutes he returned to his spaceship, the Voskhod 2. Later, he returned to the Ural Mountains of Berezniki, a trip which, ironically, was more perilous than the space walk he had just completed.

You may exasperatingly point out that a flaw exists in my logic, that Alexey Leonov was a citizen of the Soviet Union, his body the property of a Soviet Fatherland, and therefore I could not possibly have provided the means by which he performed mankind's first extra vehicular activity. But you are incorrect. I am an American, and therefore a capitalist, and I secretly sold my spacesuit technology to the Soviets.

Here's how I made my discovery: Three slide rules and a 1,000-page textbook were strewn across my desk when I called out to my assistant, "Darling, bring over my distilled mineral spirits!" Which is how I called my vodka at the time. In seconds she was at my side, and while waiting on me to finish my drink, an ember from her cigarette wafted to my arm and burned it. The significance struck me immediately: A spacesuit would need a Micrometeroid Protection System. And thus, MPS was incorporated into the early Navy Mark V spacesuit.

Many such features can be credited to my powers of foresight, like the OPS Actuator, the Primary Life Support System, and the Pressure Stabilization Mechanism. Still, the battle ahead was not merely uphill; it was 90 degrees. After innumerable conferences with NASA, the space agency rejected outright my invention, claiming that such a device was superfluous and therefore unfit for use. A pen manufacturer that had succeeded in making its product write upside down, however, was awarded a $3 million contract.

In the face of such shortsightedness, I made a proposal to the administrators of the space agency. I said, "The survival of a man in space is a function of the availability of resources upon which he depends. As you know, a man depends, on average, on 0.3 grams of oxygen per breath. Now consider that in a space vacuum the number of grams per breath is zero."

There was scoffing in the room, so I continued: "If you think man can hold his breath, and also his wits, for the length of time required for extra vehicular activity, I defy you to put a monkey in space, without the protection of my space suit, and have him come back to earth with the two of his family jewels still in marketable condition." The authorities took up my challenge with a grunt.

Shortly thereafter, Albert, a rhesus monkey of pure American stock, was sent up into orbit sans suit. His limbs expanded precipitously, his heart imploded, and bubbles of nitrogen ravaged his brain—all that remained upon his return to earth was a sizzling carcass. Not content to admit that they had been in the wrong, NASA catapulted Albert II into space. He was met with the same fate. This applied to Alberts III, IV, and V. At this point, feeling a piercing guilt, I reminded NASA that a spacesuit might resolve the issue.

Albert VI received a custom tailored spacesuit, and you will not be surprised to hear, that he returned to earth unscathed. Though NASA never acknowledged their folly, they did recognize my genius, and thereafter commissioned me to produce several thousand human-sized models.

To my satisfaction, on 3 June 1965, 3:16 p.m., Edward White of San Antonio, Texas, took off in a Titan 2 rocket, wearing the G4C, the latest and most sophisticated model in my spacesuit line. Some four hours later, he entered the realm of the stars, ecstatic at keeping such noble company. Little did he know, it was the most lethal company one could keep: micrometeroids would pierce his suit if not for the Micrometeroid Protection System; cold would freeze his skin if not for the Temperature Regulator Device; and cosmic radiation would kill his cells if not for the Aluminized Mylar Coating. Yet in spite of the constant danger, Murphy's Law could find nothing to go wrong, so nothing did. Edward White returned to earth unscathed and became an instant hero.

Later, over a dinner of dauradé à la canoise in the White House, Mr. White leaned over to me and said, "You know, Dr. Raye, it's a great suit you've designed, but it has one flaw that I know all too well—when nature calls, there's no way a man can answer." I shook my head in disappointment and replied, "Mr. White, since when was comfort the mother of invention?"

* Everything in this article, with the exception of Jon Raye's specific involvement, is true.

More from the Hombres. They only did one album, and it has absolute diamonds all over it. "Let It Out" made the cut for Shipment One. And we gave you "Gloria" a few weeks back. And now, "This Little Girl"

The Hombres - This Little Girl

Monday got Garfield. Don't let it get you.

Keith Mansfield - Big Shot

That rat don't give a fuck. Enjoy your weekend.

Wanted to give Hi-Lo a minute to breathe. That thing deserves some shine. Highly suggest you check it.

But back to the Tony grind. Some insanely wonderful reggae soul from Barbados. Been holding it back for a minute, but it's Friday, so we should probably party.

Wendy Alleyne - Hey Mr. Blues

Millions of international readers of Uncle magazine and UncleEmpire.com have already been introduced to the musical stylings of the LA-based one man band, Kissed Her Little Sister. But, if you hungry jackals have already checked him out on MySpace and still crave more carcass for your earholes, we recommend the first installation of the Hi-Lo mixtapes, designed by Jef for Uncle. Call Ted, get in your time traveling phone booth, and tune in to this musical voyage that blends a wide array of artists and genres in one clean flow.

Uncle Presents... The Hi-Lo Mixtapes (Number One)

Tracklist (in the words of Kissed Her Little Sister)