The guiding principle of Six Ridiculous Questions is that life is filled with ridiculousness. And questions. That only by giving in to these truths may we hope to slip the surly bonds of reality and attain the higher consciousness we all crave. (Eh, not really, but it sounded good there for a minute.) It’s just. Who knows? The ridiculousness and question bits, I guess. Why six? Assonance, baby, assonance.
1. If you were a Martian, what sort of Martian would you be? Would you be good or evil? An emperor or a worker bee? Warrior? Scientist? Magician? Please base this on solid research such as Bugs Bunny cartoons and hundred-year-old movies with terrible special effects. Go.
My place in the Martian constellation of possibilities would be as a retro-futurist specializing in archiving lost opportunities on planet Earth that we are replicating on Mars, working for good of course. I’d be capable of a Bewitched-style wink-and-nod magic spell-dom as well as a laser-style freezing of evil that gathers energy in Tesla coil spiralizer leaps and jumps before winnowing to a withering, incisive, and exact point of impact. As an A-Détacher-meets-BLESS-clad combo of Miss Peregrine, Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison, and Rep. Barbara Jordan, my transporter shimmer would always be a perfectly soothing tone of the color spectrum, and I’d fade from every photo within 14 minutes.
2. Say you dwelt in the Transformers Expanded Universe, which is also known as “What Hell would be if Michael Bay were the Devil.” What would you transform from and into? What would your name be? Would you be good or evil? Assuming that El Diablo Bayo was willing to afford you some creative control, who would you choose to costar with in Hell, Shya LeBoeuf, Mark Wahlberg, or John Cena? Why?
Transformers are those car things, right? Can I change into a 1965 Plymouth Barracuda?
Rebarracuda.
Good, always. Evil is so banal.
I love tequila! I’d love a smooth shot of El Diablo Bayo, thank you.
Mark Wahlberg, I’d make him dance.
3. What do you think James Joyce would have to say about Lady Gaga? How about Beckett?
she wanna hold ’em like they do in texas plays fold ’em, let ’em, hit her, raise it baby stay with her (she love it) love game intuition play the cards with spades to start and after leopold’s been hooked she’ll play the one that’s on his heart oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh-oh-e-oh-oh-oh she’ll get him hot show him what she’s got oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh-oh-e-oh-oh-oh, she’ll get him hot, show him what she’s got can’t read her can’t read her no leopold can’t read her poker face (she’s got him like nobody) can’t read her can’t read her no he can’t read her poker face (she is gonna let nobody) p p p poker face, p p p poker face (muh muh muh muh) p p p poker face, p p poker face (muh muh muh muh) she wanna roll with him a hard pair they will be a little gambling is fun when she’s with him (she love it) russian roulette is not the same without a gun and baby when it’s love, if its not rough it isn’t fun, fun oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh-oh-e-oh-oh-oh she’ll get him hot, show him what she’s got oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh-oh-e-oh-oh-oh, she”ll get him hot, show him what she’s got can’t read her can’t read her no leopold can’t read her poker face (she’s got him like nobody) can’t read her can’t read her no he can’t read her poker face (she is gonna let nobody) p p p poker face, p p p poker face (muh muh muh muh) p p p poker face, p p p poker face (muh muh muh muh) she won’t tell him that she love him kiss or hug him ’cause she’s bluffing with her muffin she’s not lying she’s just stunning with her love glue gunnin’ just like a chick in the casino take your bank before she pay you out she promise this, promise this check this hand cause she’s marvelous can’t read her can’t read her no he can’t read her poker face (she’s got him like nobody) can’t read her can’t read her no he can’t read her poker face (she is gonna let nobody) can’t read her can’t read her no leopold can’t read her poker face (she’s got him like nobody) can’t read her can’t read her no he can’t read her poker face (she is gonna let nobody) can’t read her, can’t read her, no he can’t read her poker face (she’s got me like nobody) can’t read her can’t read her no he can’t read her poker face (she is gonna let nobody) p p p poker face, p p p poker face (muh muh muh muh) p p p poker face, p p p poker face (muh muh muh muh) p p p poker face, p p p poker face (muh muh muh muh) p p p poker face, p p p poker face (muh muh muh muh) p p p poker face, p p p poker face (muh muh muh muh) p p p poker face, p p p poker face (muh muh muh muh)
VLADIMIR:
She wanna hold ’em
ESTRAGON:
like they do
VLADIMIR:
in texas plays
ESTRAGON:
fold ’em
VLADIMIR:
let ’em hit her, raise it
ESTRAGON:
baby stay with her
VLADIMIR:
(she love it)
ESTRAGON:
love game intuition
VLADIMIR:
play the cards
ESTRAGON:
with spades to start
etc
4. Donald Trump: Please explain. I’m not looking for the usual socio-politico-econo-answer-o here, but rather the sort of explanation we’ll be able to feel good about. Meaning, complete bullshit, of course. Example: He is a product of an illuminati plot involving the splicing of human and reptile DNA, something along those lines. Please be creative and specific!
One upon a time a cabal of Meetasgans [a species first discovered sometime during the colonization of the sky, approximately 1900-1921; noted for their shifting shapes, limited concepts of parasitic wealth, and translucent papery skin; believed to have generated as a mutated colony shortly after the Big Bang] became envious of what they perceived as a more powerful state. They skulked, studied, and assumed a mantle of greasy corpulence. Frustrated with their inability to maintain their preferred shape for more than 21 hours, they devised a plan to forge a new host, which is how the Ruddetaraxacums came to be. This species proved to be apparently successful though consistently unstable, struggling with an embedded conflict between required relational functioning and the fact a Ruddetaraxacum is incapable of embracing any mode of being other than what serves a Ruddetaraxacum at each current moment. Unlike the main cluster of Meetasgans who believed they could propagate by apomixis, this strain aimed to reproduce via violence and constraint. They assumed that those who could bear fruit would be content with just making jelly, which proved to be their undoing. Though the last, most visual, and vocal Ruddetaraxacums gained enough power to damage the life support system of the planet, they proved fallible, and while the Meetasgans continue to aggressively fine-tune their axis of interface, now reaching six decades of shadowed resource based power building, unknown unknowns are surfacing and have high probability of impacting the core nutrition base of all Meetsagans.
5. It’s a broadly posited theory that cats meow as a way of communicating with humans. They are, purportedly, mimicking the sounds human babies make, having rightly deduced adult human caregivers as being willing to do just about anything to appease their squawking progeny. Given another million years of evolution, do you think cats will completely subjugate humanity? Discuss.
Absolutely. The only thing they lack is opposable digits. They should be able to make a few inroads over a million years.
6. Tell me all your thoughts on God.
she is all around and within and without you.
Rebecca Gates was the singer-guitarist of The Spinanes (Gates and drummer Scott Plouf). The Spinanes’ debut album, Manos, hit #1 on college radio in 1993 when it was released and has been reissued by Merge Records in honor of its twenty-fifth anniversary. In addition to other recording projects (both solo and with her backing band The Consortium), Gates has had a diverse career in the arts now including her (“original and fascinating” according to interviewer Kurt Baumeister) participation in Six Ridiculous Questions.
Kurt Baumeister has written for Salon, Electric Literature, Guernica, The Weeklings, Entropy, The Nervous Breakdown, The Rumpus, The Good Men Project, and others. His debut novel, a satirical thriller entitled Pax Americana, was published by Stalking Horse Press in 2017. He is currently at work on a novel, The Book of Loki, and a hybrid collection of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry entitled Superman, the Seven Gods of Death, and the Need for Clean, Romantic Poetry. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, or at www.kurtbaumeister.com.
Photo: Anne Greenwood
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