Pink0™: So what's it like being a demigod?
Lucifer: Well, honestly... It's a rough life. When I was cast out of 'heaven', I lost my company expense account and all of my frequent flyer miles. Now I have to fly coach with a bunch of lesser demons - which sucks cause my wings never fit in the seat and I end up having to ride the whole flight hunched-over like I'm bracing for a crash.
Pink0™: Um... This might sound like a stupid question... But if you have wings...
Lucifer: Seriously?!
I can't fly anymore! Not since 9/11, the Patriot Act and the Idiocracy of the Bush/Cheney era. The last time I tried to fly, I almost got my wings shot-off at the hands of some gung-ho half-wit who aparently thought that I was either a Decepticon™ or a time-traveling Soviet Mig.
The poor schmuck probably did his combat training on a Nintendo 64.
Pink0™: That blows! Surely there are some perks? How are things in the dating dept.?
Lucifer: (shrugs) It probably all boils down to apathy and ambivalence on my part. Not much point in dating or reproducing, what with the world coming to an end and all. If I'd known that giving fire to you people would lead to all of this... Let's just say I'd still be kicking it in the penthouse with my 72 black-eyed virgins. Maybe if I can get this damned oil-pipe fixed the 'old man' will let me back into the house.
Pink0™: Fix the pipe?! What? You are an engineer now?
Lucifer: (indignant) Hello?! I am the light bringer! The father of science! I single-handedly invented the entire field of engineering!
What about you? You some sort of 'Gonzo Journalist' now?
Pink0™: (feigning embarrassment) Yeah, I guess... Sort of... But I'm sure the readers are sick of hearing about old Pink0™ by now. You... You on the other hand - you're like the original rock star!
Lucifer: (shrugs) Yeah, somebody got the screwed up idea in their head that I'm a musician - something about the mathematical continuity of spacetime and the relationship between chromatic and audible scales. Plus, I alway get mistaken for Pan - who, I might ad is a total dick! Go figure. Fuck rockstars! That's bourgeoisie, 20th Century crap. "Do you know me? I'm not really a rebel but I play one on TV."
Of-course, these days it's rap and 'hip-hop'. Same shit, different day. I haven't heard any decent rap since 'Tribe Called Quest' disbanded.
As for enjoying myself, I used to be quite the libertine.
Pink0™: Libertine? Are we talkin' Adam Ant circa 1982 or the Marquis de Sade circa 1782?
Lucifer: (eyebrows raised) We're talking: full-on man-whore. I was a total slut. Just ask any of my former girlfriends, they can all attest - there was no quenching the fires of my lust.
Pink0™: I can dig it... Weird
Lucifer: Weird?
Pink0™: For some reason, you talking about being a 'man whore' made me think of Leda and the Swan
Lucifer: Well that makes perfect sense.
Pink0™: Really Why?
Lucifer: Well for starters, swans symbolize 'conjugal fidelity', because it is believed that a sawn never takes another mate after the death of it's first.
Pink0™: Oh right, I think I read that somewhere... Do tell.
Lucifer: Well the Swan in this case of course, was Zues - now there was an unquenchable lust! That guy's attitude was about as far from 'monogamy' or 'conjugal fidelity', as you can get. So by juxtaposing the myth of Zues with the symbolism of the Swan, the Greeks created a paradoxical recursion in the story.
Pink0™: You mean like: "This sentence is false"
Lucifer: Yes, but far more subtle and pregnant with meaning. Like the idea that rebellion taken to an extreme devolves in the same authoritarianism it initially sought to overcome. Just as Zues' lust for Leda compelled him to take the form of that which he was not. Power corrupts. People compromise. But - to the best of my knowledge - no one has ever successfully codified, deciphered, solved or recorded the solution to that most ancient of political problems: When to compromise? Surely a great evil is always done by those unflinching autocrats who steadfastly refuse to bend - a policy that invariably ends in the cruel treatment of their denizens. But so too is evil done by those who - so eager to win the good will of everyone - end up satisfying no one. And how many despots have been made? Rising to power on a wave of populist sentiment and then quickly replacing their initial calls for revolution, peace, tollerance and equality with calls for 'business as usual'?
Pink0™: Right! That makes perfect sense... "Meet the new boss..."-
Lucifer: (finishing sentence) -"Same as the old boss"
Pink0™: Right... But let's get back to you: Lucifer.
Lucifer: Well... Then, I apparently got bored, listless and petulant. Vanity will do that to you. Then Dürer went and immortalized my sorrow in that 'Melencolia I' piece and now everyone seems to think I'm just a playa hatin' sad sack. I swear if I hear one more person say: "you can hate the playa..."... Schmucks.
Pink0™: I agree! I can hate the game... And I do. In fact, I feel the complete opposite of that little trope. I feel like: I could hate the playa - but it just makes more sense to hate the game.
Lucifer: That's because - like me - you have this thing called a "brain" that makes you do crazy shit like "think" and "feel". When people actually think about things, it gets in the way of their ability to blindly follow. As well as their ability to successfully assimilate and/or propogate BS memes like that one. That's why I am so tormented: I can't run along with the crowd because I can see that they are headed like lemmings for a very steep cliff.
Pink0™: So are we the Catchers in the Rye?
Lucifer: No, because we can't possibly stop anyone from running off the cliff. And we know this. There is no Catcher - that is just the kind of wishfull thinking that leads to totalitarianism and blind trust in government/corporations/priests/politicians. The idea that people can elect a daddy/god/big-brotherlfather-figure to stand around and keep us out of trouble while we run around with our friends doing whatever the hell we want and forfeiting any and all personal responsibility. The truth is that life is hard and is filled with uncertainty. It is fear of uncertainty that leads people to seek leadership and new laws. But it is the leaders and the laws that they should be afraid of - not their own capacity to look after themselves.
Pink0™: Bummer! That's quite a conundrum!
Lucifer: Yeah, like I said: That's why I am so tormented.
Pink0™: Well, you do seem tormented. But personally, I think it has less to do with your vanity, your pride or any kind of 'original sin' and a lot more to do with your empathy toward humanity and the planet as well as your... Reluctant grace?
Lucifer: (shrugs) Yeah. well... I guess I'll snap out of it when I'm good and ready... Or not.
I kind-of need to be that way. You see... Like most gods, demi-gods, angels or demons... I have a potentially dangerous, slightly overactive streak of hedonism that I have to keep in check with an iron grip.
Pink0™: Ah yes, the famous Lucifarian libido! You mean like how Spock has to keep his powerful Vulcan emotions in check and comes-off as coldly calculating and overly logical as a result?
Lucifer: (eyebrows raised) Never took you for a 'trekie', dweeb...
Pink0™: Oh, I'm no 'trekie'. Trust me, I find the Star Trek™ franchise to be one of the hoakiest, most unrealistic portrayals of 'The Future™' ever conceived. It's such blatant pro-Capitalist™ propaganda, it's not even funny. Don't even get me started on fucking Star Trek™.
It's just that I noticed: every time Spock flips out and Kirk has to slap the shit out of him - there's a woman or sex involved somewhere.
Lucifer: (visibly relieved) Okay, cool... We're on the same page with Star Trek™
Anyway: Yes... Similar to the way that Spock must keep his emotions in check - I too must keep my raw, burning sensuality held firmly in check. Otherwise, the fire consumes me.
Example: Remember Zues? That asshole was a rapist!
Pink0™: (winking, while doing a bad Buthead-chuckling impression) You said "held firmly..."
Lucifer: Ha ha... Very clever.
Pink0™: Not really! You walked right into it. Get a grip! Freak!
Lucifer: (rolling eyes) `Scuse me for not being down with all that postmodern irony you kids are into these days. How's that workin out for you?
Pink0™: What? 'Post modern irony' or 'Being clever'?
Lucifer: Being clever
Pink0™: Pretty good... I saw that movie too.
Lucifer: Of course you did.
Pink0™: So wait... What about postmodern irony?
Lucifer: You know, like US... Well, just you really - sitting around bitching about Capitalism™ with a bunch of Amazon ads on your silly blog.
Pink0™: Oh you mean Popomo™
Lucifer: Popomo™ ?
Pink0™: Yeah, Popomo™ ... Don't you watch the interwebs? I started the Popomo Virus the instant I found out what Post-Modern meant. I just had to add another 'Post' for it to seem culturally relevant! ... Not sure how or when it escaped my brain or who else might've had a natural-born infection like mine but it got out there... It's very popular.
Lucifer: Oh, so Po-po-mo... Jesus, that's pretty bleak.
Pink0™: That's cynicism for you. Anyway, I don't see why you need a point to enjoy yourself ... Makes it worth cramming as much as you can in."
Lucifer: (winks)... You mean like you crammed that double-entendre in? I'm kidding - it was very subtle.
Pink0™: You were great as Tyler Durden by the way.
Lucifer: Thanks, so were you.
Pink0™: Fag! (laughs)
Lucifer: Homophobe! (laughs)
Like I said: I used to be quite the libertine, but vanity will do that to you.
Pink0™: Sure... Vanity, ridicule, scorn, mocking, derision... You name it.
Lucifer: Hey, I appreciate the sympathy, but I really don't think a 'victim mentality' suits me very well.
Pink0™: No, you're far too strong-willed for that shit. You do seem pretty tormented though.
Lucifer: Yeah well, like I said: I'll snap out of it when I'm damned-well good and ready.
Pink0™: K... So... Read any good books lately?
Lucifer: Yeah, I finally got around to reading Neil Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. That was a fun read. Vapid, self righteous, Capitalist drivel... But a fun read none the less. Now I'm about half-way through William Gibson's 'Spook Country'. So far, so good - but the jury's still out.
Pink0™: Wow! Been awhile since I heard Gibson's name bantied about. I loved Burning Chrome.
Lucifer: 'Burning Chrome' was awesome.
Pink0™: Anything 'Chromatic' or otherwise chrome-related is awesome.
Lucifer: True Dat!
Pink0™: Are you a Chrome fan?
Lucifer: The band?
Pink0™: Yeah!
Lucifer: I liked them until I saw them live. Helios Creed is a total douche who wouldn't know the doctrine of a solar deity if it bit him on his non-existed wannabe rockstar ass. Like I said, fuck rockstars! Crypto-fascist capitalists.
Pink0™: What about Damon?
Lucifer: Damon was dead by then. They had some Scottish guy doing the synths. He was pretty cool, we shot the shit for awhile.
Pink0™: The King is Dead
In unison: Long live the king!
Pink0™: So do you read anything besides sci-fi?
Lucifer: Obviously, my interests lean toward Hunter S., Philip K. Dick, Burroughs, Gibson, Stephenson... Basically: anything pertaining to 'panoptics' is fascinating to me.
Pink0™: So are you interested in tech in a general sense or strictly in a sociologic sense?
Lucifer: Yes and yes... Nothing more potentially panoptic than the power of VOIP... How marvelously creepy that we all have cell-phones more powerful than cold war supercomputers.
Pink0™: Okay, enough of all this highfalootin' intellectualizin'. The ladies out there want to know: Are you single? Are you looking?
Lucifer: No and No, Yes and Yes, Yes and No... I haven't dated anyone or even had sex since some time around the late-sixties, early-seventies, so... I'm not really acclimated to feminism and 'modern' women yet.
But... luckily: I am a very enlightened guy - you might even say the first - so I don't mind dating educated, empowered women. Especially that part where I get to stay home and cook, clean, do-the-laundry, paint, watch-That-70's-Show, write books and blogs and raise the kids.
And - having been behind the discovery of both fire and cooking - I know my way around a kitchen like a prize fighter knows his way around the ring.
Pink0™: That-70's-Show?! Jesus! And you gave me shit about freakin' Star Trek™ ferkrisakes!
Lucifer: 'That-70's-Show' rulez!
Pink0™: Well... I guess it does have those two mega hotties.
Lucifer: Fez and Kelso?
Pink0™: Ha Ha... No, dumbass - Jackie and Donna!
Lucifer: And Stephen Hyde! Hello?!
Pink0™: Hyde's not a hottie.
Lucifer: He is if you're a chick.
Pink0™: But I'm not a chick... And neither are you!
Lucifer: Dude! And here I thought it was me that couldn't get my mind out the gutter! Must everything with you revolve around your adolescent sexual proclivities?
Pink0™: Um...
Lucifer: Hyde is the perfect embodiment of the Lucifarian archetype! He is the consumate rebel! Hyde says shit like: "The three branches of government are military, corporate and Hollywood" or "Punk rock is the soundtrack to the revolution"
Pink0™: Ghee, I guess your right...
Lucifer: Hell YES I'm right! Hyde calls bullshit when he sees it. He is the rebel with a clue. By far, the most genuinely moral character on the show. Certainly the coolest. Anyone who can tell a bouncer at a disco that he's "propping up a dying system" is alright by me.
Pink0™: Okay, you're right... but television blows! You said something about the pipe. Tell us more.
Lucifer: (somber) I am deeply concerned.
Pink0™: (sympathetic) I can tell
Lucifer: (teary-eyed) You know - Contrary to popular beleif, I care deeply for your species.
Pink0™:Well sure, that's what got you in trouble in the first place - trying to help us out. I know that. You are love, that is what you do.
Lucifer: May fortune be upon us! They say there's no such thing as an atheist in a fox hole. They also say that if the oceans go - that's it for people... And almost everything else that breathes.
Pink0™: Really?! It's that bad?! I don't want the world to end! Shit! Let's go to Vegas!
Lucifer: If the world ends, at least you will have accomplished something and been self-determined. I'll have to pass on your Vegas invitation, though... Unless there are mushrooms, militant-hookers and an EMP involved.
Pink0™: I was being facetous. Just trying to point out that you are too fucking serious all the time. You need to loosen up. Blow off some steam! Stop worrying so much!
Lucifer: Maybe you're right... Maybe I should just go all out. Have as much fun as possible. Party like it's 1999.
Pink0™: Not necessarily. You could do something creative. Write a book maybe.
Lucifer: Hell, if writing books fell through-
Pink0™: (interupting) Pretty unlikely!
Lucifer: Yeah, thanks... Anyway, if writing books fell through - I could always buy a video camera and get rich making porn. Only if Muse helps though - no man is an island.
Pink0™: Dude, you almost belong in the sixties! No wonder we are fucked as a species. When good old fashioned libertines are reduced to the commodification of sex-
Lucifer: (interupting) Very Good!
Pink0™: What?
Lucifer: You caught right on. I was illustrating a point about the inherent amorality of Capitalism and how it leads to the commodification and destruction of anything and everything - meaningful or otherwise.
Pink0™: Ahhh... Devil's advocate as it were!
Lucifer: Precisely
Pink0™: So the hair...?
Lucifer: The hair cycles. It's too hot down here for long hair-
Pink0™: Down here? Don't you mean Down there?
Lucifer: No, I mean down here! Global warming, remember? I'm from heaven originally.
Pink0™: Oh right. Sorry, go on...
Lucifer: Anyway, it's too hot down here for long hair - but I refuse to pay $60 for a haircut. So about every 3-6 months I say: 'Hello Wahl'. It's called: 'fiscal responsibility'.
Someday - when I seize the throne - not only will everyone get a free, state-issued Wahl, but I will socialize Aveda and Neutrogena and the state will proceed to furnish everyone with (12) $60 haircuts (a year) - plus a nice collection of bath & beauty supplies and a free, global, 'light-rail' system that goes to all four corners of the Earth.
Pink0™: That sounds bad ass! Sign me up! ...Light Rail you said? (winks) I get it...
Lucifer: You're sharp!
Pink0™: Damned straight!
Lucifer: Yes, in fact - I'm even calling it Lucifarian Light Rail, or: LLR for short. How's that for a New World Order?
Pink0™: Hey, maybe you could even get H.R. Giger to design some unholy, demonic-looking, ployhedral monstrosity of a train-terminal - like his submission to the Swiss government that he talked about in the 'Giger.Com' book
Lucifer: (interupting) That will always run on time.
Pink0™: I'm sorry?
Lucifer: That old Communist thing - about the trains always running on time...
Pink0™: Oh right! Sorry - a little slow on the uptake. Anyway... So when people boarded the trains, they will know that-
Lucifer: (interupting) That I am their unquestioned lord and master... The Beast!
Pink0™: dude...
Lucifer: Just kidding.
Lucifer: (laughs) Thanks, I just cleaned it... It should smoke fine now.
Pink0™: (laughs) One more thing... What do you say to your detractors. Those who say that Green Democracy will never work because there are just too many idiots out therew who shouldn't get a say.
Lucifer: Typically, I don't say anything to those people.
Thay aren't worth discussing it with. You cannot sell someone on ideas like equality or social justice. They are either enlightened or they aren't. If they aren't: then they eventually either come-around on their own, or they don't. But most people simply go along with whatever the crowd is doing. The entire sixties counterculture probably consisted of 60 or 80 hardcore radicals and untold legions of empty-headed followers.
You see, some detractors are simply fools blindly following fools following fools. Other detractors are professionals about it - which is to say, they are on the take.
Pink0™: You mean like think tanks and stuff?
Lucifer: Think tanks, corporate loby and trade industry groups, for-profit non-profits which are basically the same thing. We are not only dealing with aggregates of people anymore but aggregates of aggregates of aggregates.
Thus, it is often difficult if not impossible to determine which set of detractors one is dealing with. Either way, you won't get too far.
So I guess if I said anything to those people, it would probably be something along the lines of:
"I know there are too many idiots out there - and apparently they're already all helping to shape public policy as we speak. Who is 'sane' or intelligent among us? Joe Biden? (maybe) John McCain? (not so much) How about Sarah Palin? Is she 'sane' or intelligent? At least if we had an actual democracy - where actual people had an actual say in what actually gets legislated - progressive policies like universal healthcare and bailouts for working class people might have a - pardon the expression - snowball's chance... Until then, we're all just slaves to the corporataucracy."
Pink0™: Even you Lucifer?
Lucifer: Even me.
Pink0™: It's true folks - the devil is in the Details™
