It’s a dark autumn night at Kenmore Lanes. We’re rolling at lane 28, talking about the madhouse that our country seems to be becoming.  “One of these days, I’m gonna get seriously injured by an animal. In my mind, it’s gonna be a lion or a tiger.” Jimbo is crouched, demonstrating his official US Postal…

Classic Lanes is about to close. It’s almost midnight and things are getting weird.  A woman is screaming. Repeating the phrase: “I work hard for my motherfuckin’ money.”  “I work hard for my motherfuckin’ money.”  It’s a patron, and something in her has snapped. A critical connection now unhinged. A live wire. Slithering, whipping, crackling…

The air is pungent with formaldehyde and pumpkin spice candles. There is something deeply wrong about this place. This building is enormous, but I can feel it closing in. I can hear the hidden gears of this evil machine slowly tick, pressing its walls towards me. I’m like Luke Skywalker in the Death Star’s trash…

“Your inlaws are not a retirement plan.”- Billboard, I-190 North I’m in a wasteland, driving to a destination already destroyed.  Niagara Falls’ present is America’s future: a place half-full of mutant junkies squatting in burnt-out mansions. The Munsters without a laugh track. Warlocks, vampires, and oddly preserved blondes driving boosted 2002 Chevy Trailblazers with garbage…

“I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but I wanna have my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames.” – Jim Morrison  North Tonawanda is a charming timewarp wasteland. An ornate den in the polluted and odorous soils of the Rust Belt, home to creatures only found in 21st-century post-industrial terrain. Mutants likely conceived…

A little shrub, deadly, in the night’s shade. Pale upright trumpet bells bloom, glowing in the moon’s cool light. An acrid smell reveals a wound, where a thorny pod was torn away. Johnny, a teenager, carries it to a campsite with friends. Open now, he looks at the seeds. Little grains of ancient lore he’ll…

There is one customer here.  A middle-aged, potbellied Hispanic man is sitting in a black pay-per-use massage chair. He’s crying, holding his cell phone inches from his face. His case is one of those floppy leather wallet hybrids. It looks like he’s tearfully examining a pumpernickel sandwich. The loud tin of its speaker reveals the…

“Everything popular is wrong.”- Oscar Wilde This place is a giant brown refrigerator and it’s butts-to-nuts crowded. All I need is some coffee and a bar of soap. This should only take about 3 hours.   Everyone is confused. International students and elderly whites are crashing carts and getting lost. There’s a rumor that someone died…

I’m at an exclusive county club watching the performance of a high-tech Eastern European clown.  She’s dressed like a neon tulip and dancing in front of a strobing 20,000-dollar pile of Best Buy Credit Card debt. She’s making all kinds of bubbles: shapes and varieties not yet described by science. An audience of toddlers is…