Whereever you go, there you are Meanwhile I’ll be on the back patio Daydrinking with the commissar — We’ll reason our way thru the madness of existence — the plot’s confused, life’s bad theater Of course it is, welcome to the future Welcome to the future -- What’s it mean, where’s it end, why’s Everyone so cruel? I swear to God I’ll slap you You say one more word about grad school — Welcome to the future welcome to the future I’d prefer not to welcome to the future welcome to the future I’d prefer not to rather sit in this bar daydrinking with the commissar The Commissar and I Have almost solved the riddle of history By means of mania and whiskey trickery — We’ve found, I think, the only question that matters: To be or not to be a goddamn asshole — Anthony Scaramucci was my favorite character What a wonderful thing to be, a moral authority WAIT Keep you’re rationality and kindess Away from me, You goddamn insane, completely demented Moral authority — At some point we have to solve the problem of tyranny Tyranny of the people, of the state, Of your dogshit personality — The Commissar leans back, takes a drink, and says — Welcome to the future welcome to the future I’d prefer not to welcome to the future I’d prefer not to rather sit in this bar daydrinking with the commissar The commissar’s like smoke / gray eyes / gray coat He declares the future’s doomed You must find your own sense of pride Change your ways; your thoughts — Your life’s propaganda for suicide, There has to be something I can do Some reason to continue — What future’s there / for the body politic? Beyond the stupidest appetites, The ravings of a lunatic? What’s the future like? The Commissar lifted his glass and said Nothing but mass disaster, mass panic — Is that why we’re sitting in the bar? (wasting our lives?) He nodded — yes yes, you beautiful idiot — Now you’re getting it — Welcome to the future — I’d prefer not to rather sit in this bar daydrinking with the commissar Piece together Madness of Existence Daydrinking with the Commissar

Serves us right to suffer, Though I can’t remember what for Anymore — Another Valentine’s Day At the Chinese place, that yearning confusion That thing we never say What is it about the end of things You’re never sad for the thing itself Just for the thought of time passing You can get your sexy roleplaying costumes From Goodwill, You can drain you glass, balanced half in the rain On the windowsill — Why doesn’t one of us just Run off to the bar for a while The way a hubcap fans with rust The preferred romantic style We were walking along The tundra of Lake Calhoun We were in love, some 4 degree, Goddamn February afternoon If we’re each alone long enough We’ll have time to convince ourselves That we each have to be alone It’s that stone-hearted conclusion We both can’t live without No shouting, no crying Just each of us aware we’d be no one If we even for a moment stopped lying — I don’t think you wanted To be anybody’s bride I wouldn’t be much of a groom It’d be better if each of us could marry Our precious teenage sense of doom —

If you’re gonna end the world do it with style, grace I love her but she loves apocalypse I love the queen of terrorists When we lie together, middle of the night I know I’m not alone Only thing between us is her Armalite. I love it when she wears her ammo belt, balaclava, And I love the way she never says goodbye She just says — “Do svedaniya!” She just says do svedaniya… She's not good bad, she's evil I know it's wrong but I can't help myself I only wanna dance with the queen of terrorists. What’s so bad about bad guys Life’d be pretty fucking boring otherwise But it’s easy for me - nuclear war, rising seas Stabbings, shootings, bad reviews — things’re only really bad when they happen to you I don’t know why she’s so mean But i love the terror queen do like she does — an apocalypse do what she does - it’s all in the wrist She’s not good-bad, she’s evil Know it’s wrong but i can’t help myself

When I was sixteen I used to sit on my parents’ roof Drinking from a water bottle of Scotch, wine, vodka, vermouth — Mixed, stolen from dad’s liquor cabinet It tasted like paint thinner — But I loved it. I didnt know What it meant to be low Till 5 days at the hospital 5 days on an Aberdeen detox ward I don’t believe, no I don’t suppose that I’ll put back on my clothes I aim to ruin this house party Even if it means the death of me it’s the utter shit you go through that what makes you who you are I’m just looking for a place in the country, in the rain A field of low low graves to lay down in I didnt know What it meant to be low Till 5 days at the hospital 5 days on an Aberdeen detox ward

Janice the Junior Sales Exec / sits in the ladies’ bathroom stall Fashioning a shiv / from a razor and a nail-file — It was fine if she was gonna die — But she’d at least get to cut the guy — Another office shooter, kid with the gun — some snot-nosed office drone shit While she listened for the shots in the hall She thought why not: lit one last cigarette, Just enough time to gloomily reflect Before some kid busts in, shoots you on the fucking toilet — She drank from her secret work flask A bit of courage, .80 proof rum — she smoked And sipped, thought back over her life, Thought it was mostly fuckin dumb. As dumb as some dumb son of a bitch Who walks into an office / looking to shoot someone — Well, you don’t know who you’re dealing with -- JANICE THE JUNIOR SALES EXEC / DOESN’T FEAR DEATH JANICE THE JUNIOR SALES EXEC / DOESN’T FEAR YOUR PITIFUL DEATH. Look back over your life, wonder what it was all for, A few themes emerge: mostly bored, mostly tired, mostly poor — Funny how even this / Janice finds mostly boring, Prospect of immanent death, well — means nothing. Seems to her just as boring, As living — she doesn’t fear death, goddammit, she’s Janice the Junior Sales Exec. What was all this for, well maybe she just doesn’t care, She just wants to take the sons of bitches out with her, Bitch-ass slack-jawed chuck mouth office shooter, Fuck him and fuck her and fuck all of them — (world’s better off if he shoots the boss, but) — Fuck this place and everyone in it, fuck all the lies they told, the utter bullshit they feed you every day — fuck their culture, art, history, fuck this rotten city, fuck your fucking money, (and fuck you too, buddy) And fuck this dumbass bucktoothed shitstained country Free to work your life away, staring at beige walls Free to die from easily treatable disease, Free to lie to yourself about it all, free to lie about anything you please, Free to scramble for every shred you get, Free to get shot in the fucking office toilet — Janice the Junior Sales Exec Doesn't fear your little fuckin death.

Murphy was an underground man / lived beneath the city streets Every day’s cold and gray / every day just repeats — Slinking from the cops, hitting up University Ave pawn shops — With Will he sold stolen lawnmowers, cellphones, and leaf blowers. It’s the way life’s nothing but a habit Methamphetamine / death on credit — last stand of the deadend corner kid scheme — Then one day / your wretched life is gonna change. Will was just a guy he got high with, but they called each other brother Over pipe smoke, weed, and vodka; Everybody knows a brother’s as replaceable as an umbrella — Will showed up with a wad of bills, they’d get a big score, sell the rest of it, but If you hold those bills too long / you’ll get ink-stained fingertips — Murphy swore later: no idea they were counterfeit Though by then he’d swear anything / to get out of the basement — Either way they scored big from a doe-eyed guy (looked like a character from anime) So another day in a high gray haze / Driving back and forth through Minneapolis None of your old friends talk to you anymore Your mom and dad too / a junkie thief, a liar / everybody finally knows the truth about you Always make sure you know the man you scam / you must know the man, understand — And run run run — They got a call, unknown number, Some guy looking to buy, meet at this address, 10 PM — The moment you come down, it’s nothing but regret, so You must become smoke, ceaselessly forget — Some abandoned house in the forest Didn’t seem legit but they were too high to notice — But the man and all his friends / are waiting for you/ the men who look like wolves Dragged them inside, beat them, stripped off all their clothes — Murphy swears he’s innocent / no clue about the fake payment, Trying to explain it like swearing to the impassive face of God What crime did you commit? Can’t remember now, but there has to be some reason for how bad things’ve gotten. Bloody Murphy dressed again / the man says he’s paid his debt, but his friend, Will, his brother Has to stay — no one’s innocent and nothing’s free — but the man only needed One To make it right, said on a whim Will’s guilty — The look in his eyes, right before Murphy shut the door The look in his eyes — before the wolves howled around his brother — Murphy shut the door, left him there — Sunrise drive home, bruised and bloody, had a funny thought: how he hated all these things How he still didn’t want to die — better you than me. Better you than me. That’s what he read in the Fargo sunrise — So Murphy never saw Will again / his brother / bud, whatever, friend — Went looking for him once, right out of treatment — But he never saw him alive again Just the word regret, emptiness / no one’s ever innocent ONE DAY YOUR WRETCHED LIFE IS GONNA CHANGE

SING IT YOURSELVES Fuck the politically minded, here's something I want to say About the state of the nation, the way they treat us today At school they give you shit, drop you in a pit You try, you try, you try to get out, but you can't because they've fucked you about Then you're a prime example of how they must not be This is just a sample, what they've done to you and me Do they owe us a living? Course they do, course they do Owe us a living? Course they do, course they do Owe us a living? Course they fucking do They don't want me anymore, threw it on the floor Used to call me sweet thing, I'm nobody's plaything And now that I am different, love to bust my head You'd love to see me cop out, love to see me dead Do they owe us a living? Course they do, course they do Owe us a living? Course they do, course they do Owe us a living? Course they fucking do The living that is owed to me, I'm never going to get Buggered this whole world up, up to their necks in debt. Give you a lobotomy for something you ain't done Make you the epitome of everything that's wrong Do they owe us a living? Course they do, course they do Owe us a living? Course they do, course they do Owe us a living? Course they fucking do Don't take any notice of what the public thinks So much on the TV, just don't want to think. Used you as a target, they want to sell advice When you don't want to hear it, say you're full of vice Do they owe us a living? Course they do, course they do Owe us a living? Course they do, course they do Owe us a living? Course they fucking do

Give us wine and cigarettes Caviar and rum Give us speed and crystal Give us opium most of all, my son Give us delirium — It’s better to lose your mind Better still to’ve never been Best of all: snuff out the lives of others Add to the host / of oblivion My son my son Let’s have delirium Delirium Nothing more beautiful Than absolute oblivion My son my son Scorch your soul away In the furnace of delirium Surely you alone know the truth of yourself That unique aspect in the way you proclaim: This is who I am! Perfect distillation of your soul Captured in artful black and white For the gods of Instagram Join us swinging from the chandelier Countless bodies become one Free from sadness, free from fear — My son my son Let’s have delirium Delirium Nothing more beautiful Than absolute oblivion My son my son Scorch your soul away In the furnace of delirium A person’s just an incoherent sum of appetites Best to lose yourself among them Atomize your soul Among the champagne lights — This insanity you speak this theater of free will I’ve met thousands just like you all alike who swore to be absolute “rugged individuals” Me I’m not unique Not an individual at all I’m one among a chorus another voice that’ll paralyze you In the supermarket ice cream aisle Go ahead and make your choice My son my son Let’s have delirium Delirium Nothing more beautiful Than absolute oblivion My son my son Scorch your soul away In the furnace of delirium

To break down in tears, on line at the deli Why, that sounds like absolute heaven to me And to pass out on a park bench, in Union Square It’s positively revolutionary — Oh think of everything we shared, The laughter, love, the tender tears — Perhaps some day we’ll meet again — Wait, sorry — I meant to text a different person — The people who love me most Aren’t always the same as / the people I most miss This is - a metaphor This is all a metaphor for sadness Trust me You’ll need a lot of metaphors for sadness in this goddamn business And I sincerely apologize — New phone, who dis? Tell everyone, let all the people know, Of my courage, my endless quest To prove once and for all That my pain and sadness is the best — Perhaps you simply misunderstand / this despair of mine Better spend all day in just your underwear / drinking from a box of wine. The best way to rhyme with pain Follow it with “pouring rain”; Then you can claim / you are always standing in it This is a metaphor — Trust me: you will need many metaphors for sadness In this (goddamn) business —

Ghosts of an endless army Are stuck in the mud 100 miles from Berlin They’ve come to bury a city and build a wasteland the ghosts within this army are all romantic fools they’ve pledged to end all history But they never finished high school But from the snow and ash the sundering they’ll leave behind What world’s born from the lash? Will it be - forgive me- kind? (FUCK YOUR SCENE, KIDS!) I don’t care I think let the ghosts bury history It’s for us to follow in the echo to lose ourselves in the corpse of ideology But, forgive me, I still think The only good nazi is a dead nazi We’re on our way to Berlin, boys Why do i get the feeling We’ve been here before the same terrible joke repeated endlessly History as parody — forgive me 100 Miles to Berlin Every thing has been said before Including that it must be said again Where’s the Red Army when you need em? How can you build a better world without destruction - the need for fertilizer to fuel the fires of creation — we are ground beneath the boot of insufferable nerds - no more need, or use, for words to live on in passive aggression children’s toys and spit the only heroes are fictional and always dressed in tights It’s the same terrible joke Repeated endlessly History as parody, well Forgive me (I’m a bit old fashioned) I still think The only good nazi is a dead nazi 100 miles to Berlin And yet we’ll never make it Cursed to argue endlessly Every thing has been said before Including that it must be said again You must choose either Suicide or war Eternal boredom or glorious extinction Where’s the Red Army When you need them?

Another doomed hospital romance Without drugs How’s anyone expected to keep it in their pants? But it’s a good thing, I think That they’ve figured out there’s nothing to figure out, nothing to learn from the self-destructing, useless shit of it all there are no epiphanies, just 2 dirtbags in love in the mental hospital — (2 dirtbags in love again) Flirting in the cafeteria, Making eyes in CBT - She can’t wait to kiss him After they learn about Healthy coping strategies Everybody knows this won’t end well But what do those people know about love or anything else? What do they know about falling in love in the mental hospital? Kissing in the snow Beneath the winter-blue Wisconsin moon Kissing on the smoking patio — now you finally know that things are truly empty now you finally know there’s no such thing as an epiphany She wanted to be like the others in group therapy Who screamed and cried recounting their mad histories, but who lived and died/ love, family, suicide, to live a good long time — All seemed absurd to her (all seemed so absurd) don’t know if they ever really knew each other don’t know what that’d mean Maybe it serves them right to suffer Maybe you’re only at your best / at your most obscene It’s always the real world you have to return to Always the real world waiting for you Riots in the streets, cities collapse into the sea Sporadic electricity - But what the fuck does the end of everything mean to you and me? Weren’t we both resolved to die Resolved to want and gain nothing From our empty little lives? Even the love between them more like a parody the way they became desperate for each other even this — no epiphany Kissing in the snow Beneath the winter-blue Wisconsin moon Kissing on the smoking patio — now you finally know that things are truly empty now you finally know there’s no such thing as an epiphany But take courage: if things weren’t quite so empty you’d never hear the end of all these goddamned epiphanies What’s so bad about Eternal damnation? It can’t be worse Than being broke again I suppose one day you might Regret it all — But not today, no kissing in the snow on the smoking patio eternity in the mental hospital It’s so strange to find — someone who stays It’s so strange so find someone who stays So strange how once you find them You’re so desperate to throw it away the fact that you’re lonely doesn’t count as an epiphany though I suppose that realization might be a bit of a contradiction there is no end of it, they told each other when they parted there’s no end like there’s no epiphanies no decent realization for the madness of this place no place at all, no hope of grace No need for grace at all Just years on, some dim memory, but No epiphanies — Kissing in the snow Beneath the winter-blue Wisconsin moon Kissing on the smoking patio — now you finally know that things are truly empty now you finally know there’s no such thing as an epiphany Watching the snow fall over the ruins of Chicago Soot, rusted train-tracks neon lights all almost the sign I’m waiting for some word in the snowfall something reminds me of falling in love in the hospital… They’re waiting for a new world As I sit and drink and watch the snow fall over the ruins of Chicago