"ana! are you up? get up!"

"Mrbpht. Ah. Huh?"

"get up and turn on your television to channel 90! the most fucked-up thing in the world is on! me and the daves and seth are here and it's agreed that this is the most fucked-up thing in the world!"

"Yeah. That's very, that's just great, but I have no TV. My bro's got it so he can watch 'Carnival of Souls' again. So I'm going to sleep."

"NO! get dressed and come over and we'll make popcorn and oh jesus, this thing is, okay get dressed and i'll tell you what's going on, okay, so it's kinda like y'know that history of rock that was on PBS? well it's like a cross between that and WAX and some kinda crazy digital editing thing, so we start out in 1978 and jerry lee lewis is out in front of graceland fresh off setting another of his wives on fire and he's drinking some kinda thick green likker he says the aliens gave him and shooting out windows and yelling about how he's the real king of rock and roll and then instantly we're back in 1968 and looking at the corpse of paul mccartney and in the back you hear 'turn me on dead man' and there are all these quick flashes to two surgeons doing a lester bangs and eating the half-digested pills in elvis' corpse only there's three bullet wounds in his upper body and we follow the blood sluicing down the floor drain back to mccartney who we can't tell if he's really dead or if he's gonna hide out in africa like jim morrison but i'm getting ahead of myself-"

"Josef? I'm gonna put you on speaker-phone, okay?"

"-but then, oh yeah, that's fine, and so the three remaining beatles go off to consult the dali lami but paul's NOT REALLY DEAD, he opens his eyes and it's very, kinda like the end of salem's lot? and then so quick johnny ace is playing russian roulette and talking about the kings of the past, when they got to be so old they were sacrificed, jump cut to the end of the wicker man, as being symbolic of the health of the kingdom and how confusing it was if the king died before that because (and johnny's gun goes click) the fight for the crown would be filled with imitators (and johnny's gun goes click) but for any king it was better to burn out than to fade awa-(and johnny's gun goes-"

"Josef, I'm gonna make some coffee first, it'll only take a sec..."

"BOOM and we're back with jerry lee screaming about how it's a trade-off, he'd do it again, and a light comes on at graceland but we're back in '68 where sid barrett is beginning his eclipse and fall from pink floyd but here comes john lennon asking if he'd be innarested in writin' a couple tunes, and so the combination of yoko's uptown art influence and syd's psychedelia-as-regression-to-childhood, the white album becomes a meditation on john's mother's death while meanwhile out in the desert charles manson decides to go back into songwriting, lacking the proper catalysts for mass-murder, and flash back to '67 and dennis wilson (the only beach boy, we learn, who knew how to surf) brings up the idea of covering manson's 'home is where you're happy,' which they do, and back to '78 where manson's deep ecology and childlike lyrical ability bring him in closer circles with a young bruce springsteen, still showing his dylan roots and playing a no-nukes show attended by none other than...oh fuck! oh, they just shot lennon, only it wasn't waht'shisname, there's implications that an alien intelligence watching earth believes its governing bodies to be pop stars and have been interfering in things here in order to debilitate-"

"There's no such word, Josef-"

"yeah well that's irrelevant because here's paul, dressed in a walrus suit, the letters HEY JUDAS tatooed on his knuckles, fleeing the scene of the shooting and there was a quick flash of kurt cobain laying in an italian hospital with somebody, i can't tell who, whispering in his - IT'S DEAD LENNON! DEAD LENNON IS TALKING TO KURT COBAIN! and now there's a clip of daniel johnston talking about the beatles coming back after the apocalypse but nobody believes him and we're back at graceland, and somebody comes up behind jerry lee and whispers 'i'll make you famous' and jerry turns around and there's robert johnson and there's a hidden implication he sold his soul to the aliens back in the day and they open fire on each other and jump cut to dead elvis getting up off the toilet and jump cut to brian wilson, barricaded in his room just like his daddy used to do, a fat chunk of hash on the table and a shotgun across his lap, mumbling about how jesus will keep him safe from intruders and trespassers and there's a knock on the door and jump cut to janis joplin hitting jim morrison, only it doesn't exactly LOOK like morrison, but hitting him with a southern comfort bottle and calling him a fucking clone mutant and jump cut to the final beatles concert, 1971, where syd collapses in a saucerful of sickness and a massive riot ensues and jump cut to cobain singing 'gonna leave this region, they'll take me with them...' and then it gets real quiet, hey ana i think it's over so if you wanna go back to, no, it's a long shot of graceland, the light in the house goes off, and we can hear a voice inside saying 'c'mon sweetie, let momma in the bathroom, i know you're in there,' and the stars move in strange ways, and fade to black. well that certainly was different."

"Well fuck, then, how about you guys just meet me at Eat for some pancakes or something?"

"yeah, i'm down and seth's down and the daves are asleep. we'll see you in ten. and i hope you have some happy news."

And Ana smiled and turned away.