Doug Explains Pennies

by Douglas Slayton


The penny has long been a mystery. The penny's original purpose has nearly been forgotten. These days, they are more closely associated with self defense and pigeon control than their original purpose: currency. Long gone are the days of candies, movies, cars, spaghetti and all the other daily necessities that would be paid for with pennies. The penny, once the basic unit of cost for all things, is now disgraced due to smear campaigns by reality television personalities and talking vacuums. But even with all of this hate, the stalwart copper piece bearing the likeness of some old white guy with a beard¹ because of one secret that no one will talk about anymore.

President Fred Breining

Pennies are alive.

I am putting myself at great personal risk for speaking these words aloud to the person I have hired to type everything I say for my eventual memoir,² but change will not come until someone speaks up. Pennies are not made of copper; they are single celled organisms bred in a secret compound in Rhode Island.

Pennies have been on Earth longer than humans, shaping history for their own purposes. Secretly desiring a "society" in which they were the focus of all things, they shepherded humanity—the only creatures with thumbs who were self important enough to think anything they created has value—to "dominance". Most of the world rejected their siren song, because fuck Pennies. They are stupid and taste awful. But the European settlers who found the Penny breeding pools when they landed on what would eventually be the United State really fucking fell for it, because they were dumb as shit.

These humans were not in control of their own destinies—mostly because they were hella dumb and wanted to impress these tiny fucks who wouldn't shut the hell up. Humans are inherently selfish and irresponsible. They have done many terrible, awful things: war, dance, television, Jell-O, furniture, space exploration. But humans are lead largely by the tiny sounds that emanate from their pockets. These are the Pennies leading us to a society where they are all that matter. But like all science experiments,³ humanity grew too out of control for the Pennies to retain their position of prominence.

Thomas Edison, history's greatest monster, created a series of objects that added low level humming into the daily lives of humans. That humming cancelled out sound of the Pennies, and most people have forgotten the tiny sounds they made. The breeding pits in Rhode Island still exist because we have no idea how to stop their breeding. Several attempts have been made to cover them up with concrete but the darkness only makes them grow faster.

Pennies remain as a reminder that we are dumb dumbs and are all going to die because we can’t control our own lives without some shitty living coin telling us what to do.

---

1 Your uncle? I don’t remember his name. If you do, please write to your local congressperson. Waste someone elses time for once, you ingrates.^↩ 2 Bury Me Where I Stand Because I Can’t Stand Myself: a Life Unlived.^↩ 3 Space exploration, am I right?^↩

Douglas Slayton is Professor Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.

Post 100

by the Editorial Staff of Uncanny Valley Magazine

Hello everyone,

Please enjoy this list of 100 things which we made to celebrate our 100th post on the blog! Thank you and have a nice 100.

Sincerely,

Chris100, Alexis100, and Doug100

1. People with really nice hair
2. Spending too much time in the sun
3. Tiny people
4. Troublingly burnt coffee
5. Discovering you have a fortune cookie leftover
6. No, like, really, really tiny people
7. Not wanting to be a pirate
8. Walking through a puddle you didn't see because you are fucking oblivious
9. Electronic portraits of pig presidents painting pictures of pralines
10. An icicle farm
11. Spinning plates
12. Arms
13. An outrageously long line
14. Filthy pennies
15. Whey
16. Mr. Donnie Wahlberg
17. Qualitative assessments of value
18. Personal space issues
19. Doom
20. Idle plates
21. A haircut
22. Formal corrections to an outdated newsletter
23. Mailing lists
24. Color
25. My blue hoodie
26. Spilling most of your water while trying to walk
27. Plato
28. Liftoff
29. Unfulfilled potential
30. Seven
31. Jammed up
32. Entropy
33. Weigh
34. Cops
35. The uncanny valley (not the magazine)
36. Lurid grafitti
37. Inflammation
38. Standardized tests
39. Sore thoughts
40. Doug
41. Passive aggressive notes
42. A stubborn animal
43. Ghost
44. Quietly counting the days
45. Basic income
46. At the gates of dawn
47. The person who coughed on their hand and then went through a door you were just going to go through, leaving germs on the handle
48. Glue
49. Paranormal activity
50. Animals in captivity
51. A real ham sandwich
52. Lust
53. Spelling errors
54. Obsequiousness
55. Energy cheetahs
56. Mostly forgettable movies
57. Loam
58. Uncanny valley
59. The time your teacher called you out for sleeping during lecture
60. Rich, frothy milkshakes
61. Cheapness as a sense
62. Seven cheese pizza
63. A national anthem
64. Cash
65. Four cheese pizza
66. Freak
67. Charm
68. Knowing your place
69. Steel beams
70. Anarchy
71. Speeding
72. Cheap heat
73. Anchovies
74. Amphetamines
75. A swan's language
76. The Pacific Ocean
77. Losing a finger
78. Peculiarity
79. Camping
80. Captain Eyepatch
81. Way
82. Volatility
83. Forgetting your name, again
84. Flag
85. Baseball
86. Second person narration
87. Mostly forgivable movies
88. Karl the Fog
89. Knowing every night could be the last
90. Eight-track
91. Twins who aren't
92. Many cheesed pizza
93. Heat
94. Design flaws
95. G#
96. Diamond
97. Jet fuel
98. Cribbage
99. An obelisk
100. The valley

Alexis Faulkner is Unicorn Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine
Chris Alarie is Spectacular Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine
Doug Slayton is Professor Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine

Doug Explains Why Marco Rubio is NOT a Robot

by Douglas Slayton

 

As we discussed last time, the run-up-to-the-election-deciding-pie-eating contest is getting very fierce. Names are being called, feelings are being hurt, and only one can leave with the rose. While the Democrats only have two real options (sorry Steven Spielberg), the Republicans have at least thirty six candidates—and very possibly exponentially more because new candidates keep bursting out of the chest of noted Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan like the popular 1979 sci-fi-horror film Alien, but with a healthy dose of xenophobia. In the upper echelon of these smiling, vacant eyed homunculi is Marco Rubio, just behind the rubber puppet that is Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, who is probably that neighbor you have who is really nice but is actually the Zodiac Killer.

Chief within the name calling amongst the contestants is the accusation that Marco Rubio is a robot; this could be not be further from the truth. This criticism likely comes from his steely complexion and and dry, angular handshake. While these are characteristics of robotism, they are nothing without the true underlying causes.

Robotism is a condition that is contracted at birth when people, instead of being birthed from cellular entanglement of two warm blooded humans who don’t really care for each other but due to their fear of their slowly approaching demise feel that having a fraction of their dna survive another thirty to one hundred and twenty years is preferable to happiness, are constructed from metal bits under sweatshop conditions in the South Pacific. So not much different from human birth, but different enough. Those who have robotism live very different lives than meat people: the aging process is quicker as every year they are simply re-equipped with whatever technological advancements may have been developed in the past twelve months. But those with robotism also live virtually forever. Meat people only live thirty to one hundred twenty years—no less no more.

There are many reasons we can speculate that Rubio has these row-boatian characteristics. He could have been infected with some kind techno virus, but this is unlikely as he never wears raver clothes and has yet to ever mention Jamiroquai in public. He could be one of the silver men: a cult who worship those with robotism as both spiritually and sexually superior to the meats. The silver men theory is popular because there have been instances noted where a silver spray-painted gentleman who resembles Rubio has jumped out of a fake bush scaring people at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. This, we know, is a popular tradition for the silver men to cull meats from the robotians. Though the most likely explanation, according to my expertise, is that he may have been hit very hard in the head with a steel pipe, contracting wererobotism. Wererobotism is a very rare and serious disease wherein a meaty begins to think they are a robot, so they start eating only industrial metal shavings ¹ and only move in jagged forty-five degree movements.² Wererobotism—I am trying to say—is not a real thing; it is a thing robotists use as an excuse for when they start taking on those qualities.

The long and short of it is that Marco Rubio is not cool and should come out and apologize to the robot community rather than taking on robotist stereotypes in order to try and pander for their votes. Robots can’t vote anyway, but that is mostly because of claustrophobia.

Douglas Slayton is Professor Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.

---

1 A robotist notion suggests that robots only eat industrial metal shavings, but this is perpetuated by the fact that robots are systematically forced to live in industrial areas because of economic hardships due to years of oppression. Industrial metal shavings are heavily marketed in these areas at bodegas in with bullet proof glass around the counters.^↩
2 This is another robotist notion because of a three year period from ‘79 to ‘82 where the popular joints for robots were clicking joints that would stop every forty five degrees creating the illusion of quick jerky motions^↩

Doug Explains the Iowa Caucus

by Douglas Slayton

Editor's Note: this is the first in a new series of articles whereby Uncanny Valley Magazine Professor Editor-in-Chief Douglas Slayton explains important, newsworthy topics. If you would like to read Doug's explanation of a particular topic, please send us an e-mail at uncannyvalleymagazine@gmail.com.

In the run up to the crowning of the new President some of you have walked up to me on the street
and yelled indignantly, "What is Iowa?!" and one even was like, "What is a Caucus?" to which I probably responded by crying or running in the opposite direction, because I thought you said something else. I am sorry for the misunderstanding. In order to make this up to you I will now explain what the Iowa Caucus is.

Firstly, Iowa, contrary to popular belief, is not in fact a state. Iowa is a governing body responsible for transportation and farming regulations. Iowa is actually an acronym, but no one remembers what it stands for because James Garfield possessed the only documents outlying its meaning at the time of his death and everyone forgot he had them until after he had been shot into to space. Coincidentally, that is why we have a space program: to recover these documents from his frozen corpse. As the need to govern both transit and farming grew, the department of Iowa grew to the size of a state after purchasing land from the states surrounding it so the officials and their family would not have to commute in from the coasts any longer. As more people began to occupy the compound, it became necessary to create more civilized infrastructure to support this new population, which led to the current misconception of its statehood.

A popular dictionary defines Caucus as "not what you think it is you perverted little fuck, put the book back on the shelf and go to class." This does not clarify the situation. Throughout the course of the "election cycle" half of what are considered "states" hold Causcuses. They are an ancient and brutal ritual where the supporters of each party must battle each other to prove that the candidate they support leads the strongest warriors and will better protect us from roving clans of geese that Canada uses to oppress the United States.

While all of this is common knowledge, it is important background for the current dispute that is the topic du jour for the media. This past week, this election season's Causcuses began with an especially brutal bout among the Democrats, leaving thousands dead and ten times as many homeless in the rampage across the non-state of Iowa, with the front runners' (Hillary Clinton and Bernard Sanders) supporters being some of the most vicious and entitled Caucusers¹ of all time. Clinton's were mostly armed with money from rich people and Sanders's was composed mostly of those who were young and had nothing to lose. I don't actually know the results; as a noted apolitical and perpetual presidential write-in candidate myself, I am not legally allowed to follow any coverage until there is an official, final announcement.

I would like to take a moment and ask why I haven't been invited to any debates. Is it my unpopular stance on outlawing chicken wire headwear? Anyway...

On the Republican side, some stuff happened too, I am sure. Like, look at them: they obviously did some shit. Although, traditionally, Republicans are less brutal because they are all related and think that fighting within the family is inappropriate.

Now someone just yelled at me from across the bus asking what the difference between a Causcus and a Primary is. This is a good question.

Primaries are what the younger states use to decide the candidates. As such, they are less brutal and more civilized. The constituency all casts double blind ballots for their choice. As the ballots are double blind, the voter does not actually know what they are voting for, so it is basically luck based. Traditionally, the candidate listed on the right side of the ballot has done better because of the right handed dominance in our culture. In the last decade, though, officials finally noticed the trend and have started randomizing the ballots. But usually it ends up with useless results for "other" and comes down to whichever candidate has not been battered into submission from the press and public.

It is important to stay informed on these issues and political events, so when a estranged relative or potential sexual partner (haha, yeah right) asks about who it is you voted for or who you think might pull it out in the end, you can flippantly say something like, "Oh the brutality of it all is too much for my poor heart to take. Please, please let me die already." To which they will respond with a tearful assertion that life and politics have meaning and you will simply shake your head endlessly until they leave, confused.

---

1 Or, as they are commonly known, Caucasians.

 Douglas Slayton is Professor Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.

Ten Favorite Music Releases of 2015

by Douglas Slayton

My taste in music is myopic and driven entirely by emotional reaction. This list is not objective and is mostly about listening to sad music while being sad. The list is ordered in a haphazard manner; don't attach any significance or meaning to the order.

Time Spent Driving Passed & Presence

When I was in high school and developing a curated affectation that would solidify to the bullheaded personality that I now embody, seeing this group of older guys playing the sort of music that I was just discovering (I was five years younger than most of the band's fans, at the time) really made an impression on me.

Some number of years later, they made a record that feels like something that would have come out when I was still eighteen and still discovering this music.

I spent several cold winter weeks in 2015 sitting on curbs listening to this album and crying but feeling alright about it.

The Saddest Landscape Darkness Forgives

It is hard to talk about this record without feeling tears well up in my eyes.

The Saddest Landscape has perfected a certain sort of immediacy to their delivery. This record exhibits that and never feels well worn.

Foxing Dealer

This fucking record. Albatross was a seemingly insurmountable achievement that was annihilated when this was released.  

I was able to see them on either side of the release of Dealer this year and post-release was easily one of my greatest experiences from the entirety of 2015. I remember walking home, having my headphones on and not listening to anything, just going over it again and again in my mind, trying to make sense of it all, then sitting on my porch just breathing in the entirety of the night.

Envy Atheist’s Cornea

This has a lot in common with the Saddest Landscape's record. But where the Saddest Landscape are immediate, Envy is pensive and contemplative. Though not as sprawling as their previous efforts, the brevity doesn’t go against their strengths.

Envy has always been a band the matters greatly to me but I can never really explain why to anyone unless they already know.

Spraynard Mable

Spraynard says all the things they think and feel and don’t hide it under much metaphor, which makes them very antithetical to my usual favorites.

They fit into a style of punk that I don't usually like. But the uncut honesty makes this album something that I spent a lot of time listening to last year, and will probably continue to listen to in the future also.

Football, Etc. Disappear

This has a fair amount in common with the Time Spent Driving record, except it taps a separate vein of the same scene that birthed TSD a decade or so ago. Plus Football, Etc. is younger than those bands, so it still brings in other touches that are new and exciting.

They have lots of other EPs and even a full length but this is easily my favorite release of theirs.

Warm Thoughts Intangible

This record is two songs, and they are both really good. Like really good.

Dikembe Ledge

Dikembe released a really good full length in 2014 called Mediumship, but this EP is better.

They talk a lot about not being good enough or living up to your own expectations, and that is something I can really get behind. Plus their song titles are usually inside jokes, so it feels like they could be your cool friends who smoke a lot of weed in order to deal with their anxieties and insecurities.

Make Do and Mend Don’t Be Long

Make Do and Mend sound like Hot Water Music, which is hard to top.

I am a sucker for someone who shouts their feelings in songs, and that is a feature of most of this record—in the best way.

Hop Along Painted Shut

This is angular pop, and so much more. They manage to transcend that and everything else that they touch.

Plus Frances has a singular voice, one from which it is hard to turn away.

Doug Slayton is Professor Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine

A New Years Poem

by Douglas Slayton

last year

i wrote you songs

because i didn't think

i would make it through another

and you still haven't called

but i am not mad

but i am sad

i still wait somedays

i want to ride my bike past your house sometimes

but i know it's wrong

and i know i will die someday

and if i was meant for anyone 

it was for you

the moon was new

and there was no rain

when we were together

but when it rains and

the moon is full

i think of walking through

the yard together

Doug Slayton is Professor Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine

Xmas Poem

unsigned checks
by Douglas Slayton

it had always been cold
where you were born
i promised i would be
a warmth between you
skin and bone

when i called
i never heard back
so i keep the windows closed

Douglas Slayton is Professor Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.

Top Ten Reasons 2016 Won't Be 'Your Year'

by Douglas Slayton    

   

Every year you tell yourself, your friends, and family that “things are going to turn around this year for me. I know I had a rough go of it last year, but this time things are going to go my way.”

Truth is: It isn’t. Here’s why

1. Those shitty things that happened in 2015? They still happened. 2016 doesn’t make the past go away, it just means that the sun circled the Earth and you didn’t die yet.
2. “I am going to turn myself around in 2016, I did some shit I am not proud of in 2015 but the past is the past.” Guess what? If you were a shitty person in 2015 you will be a shitty person in 2016. Getting a new calendar with cats on it doesn’t change what you did or that after the first week of January your resolution to be nicer to people will start to crack and you will fuck someone and not call them again, because that is who you are. You are a bad person, just fucking accept it.
3. Those people who you fucked over in 2015? They are making the same promises to themselves to “move on” or “forgive” or “this is going to be my year” but they aren’t going to either and when you see them at a bar or some mutual friends birthday party they will still want you to die and tell everyone there that you fucked them over last year and you won’t get to tell “your side of the story that will totally clear up this simple understanding” because that is a lie, you fucking liar.
4. You might promise everyone that you are going to finish that big creative endeavor like write that novel or record or run a marathon or call your mom more or whatever thing it is that you think is holding you back. You won’t and no one will be disappointed because they know you are a piece of shit who can’t follow through on anything but still pretend to like you because you have the best television and Game of Thrones is coming back in a few months and they want to get fucked up and ruin your house when Jon Snow dies (FUCKING SPOILERS ASSHOLE) because they won’t feel bad about it because it was you and you are shitty and slept with their sibling and never called them or copped up to the STI you left in your shitty, shitty wake.
5. That job you have that you hate? You are comfortable there and you won’t ever update your resume because it is so much work and the reason you have that job you hate is because you don’t want to do anything uncomfortable or that will actually change your life or require a risk of being hurt. It is way easier to just eat your shitty Subway sandwich everyday for lunch while the secretaries laugh and trade stories about the passes you made at them at the holiday party and how you are so sad and they get why your ex left you.
6. You aren’t going to eat better, because fuck you, that’s why! You are a drunk and you always will be a drunk because you can’t even look yourself in the mirror most days and admitting you have a problem would hurt too much so you will just drink cheap scotch and whiskies on the rocks till one day you forget all that shit you did and didn’t do because you poisoned your body to the point of forgetting because you are comatose.
7. You aren’t going to meet anyone new. You are going to stroll dive bars filled with people half your age who are just as lost as you but make ten times as much money as you do because life is fucked and you made some really shitty decisions in college or didn’t finish that last credit you need to get your BA in English so you could get your MFA in creative writing like you always said you would when you were in high school and jerked it to Kerouac.
8. You have a 77.5% chance of dying this year. Whether it be from natural causes (read: being a shitty unhealthy person) or gun violence, terrorism, climate change or other uncontrollable act, you might die and there is nothing you can do about it because that is the way it works.
9. If you do die it won’t matter, people might grieve for a few months but by the end of the year they will probably have moved on and told themselves that “2017 will be my year!” and they will be wrong but you won’t care because you had a meaningless life that ended with a meaningless death.
10. Your death, or any death, won’t matter because life is meaningless and you didn’t change shit or record that hit record or write that novel that changed some kids life. No one will remember you and you won’t care because you will be dead and death is the end. When you die there is nothing because the universe is cruel and there is no god and no one liked you to begin with so fuck you.

Happy fucking New Year asshole. No one really loves you anyway.

Doug Slayton is Professor Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.

Two Trumpet Poems

Sounding From the Trumpets of Heaven

by Alexis Faulkner

Blonde rascal provokes louder horns

Sounding towards skyways

Hiding

Certain shrouded

Mystery only for

Speckled so many humans across global

Awareness spreading

You know, like the fire spreading

Possess heart, do you?

Possess fear, do you?

Hunger for wealth

Depth

Earth’s center

Sinking center depth

Holds a lot, parking lot of ammunition

Blonde rascal

Sounding off the trumpet of heaven

Golden horns

Light enough brightens

Instruments speak for

Who

Power corrupting nearest stars

From

Angels

Black angels

Angels holy to

Harness magical projection

Of what a blessing looks like on your mind

winter
by Douglas Slayton

sad songs
squealed across the highway
flowers on either side of a tunnel
a weekend every year

i am still picking pieces
of you out of my clothes
so it never really ends

Alexis Faulkner is Unicorn Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine. 

Doug Slayton is Professor Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.