I mean I guess the big news in Fort Hook this week was the Mayor* giving a press conference where she admitted/bragged that she has a different wife in each district (there are fifteen) and how that was her way of “celebrating the entire city.” But I’d rather tell you about what happened last night at Naga Square, where my favorite band The Lash put on an impromptu show.

What can I tell you about The Lash. Let’s see. The main thing to know is they’re sick as hell.

They were blazing through the hits and the crowd was eating up their sweet sound (i.e., the sound of a woolly mammoth belching an electrical storm). I personally was inspired to unveil my new dance move called the Hot Sloth which was not well received. Then, to make matters worse, lead singer Kit Kombat (vox/guitar/vibraslap) announced that they’d be “trying out some new material tonight.”

You could feel a cold wave of dismay radiate through the crowd.

The Lash didn’t care. The Lash is whatever. The Lash is all about following their vision wheresoever it takes them, and that’s what I love about them, although I much more love when they play the hits.

The drummer (I forget his name) (to be honest I only have eyes for Kit) counted it off and the band definitely looked like they were playing something heavy, but I couldn’t hear a thing. I thought maybe the amps had shorted out and I was about to offer some affordable technical advice (I’ve been known to replace a thermionic valve or two in my day, just sayin) when my chest caved in and my guts twisted into bowline knots.

Then I found myself sprawled out on the flagstones of the plaza, flat on my back, watching the stars smear into long icy trails. My bones vibrated into a kind of carbonated liqueur, and my bowels…you know what, this is the first issue of this newsletter, we don’t know each other too well yet, I’m going to go ahead and redact what happened with my bowels. I know in my heart we’ll become good friends very soon but let’s not rush things. All you need to know is that I woke up about half a mile away on the very edge of Phadis Pier with a gull perched on my forehead.

My brain reset and I relearned basic functions like seeing and thinking and distinguishing human faces from other shapes. Then I went to see Dr. Karl Manz (an unlicensed physician who hangs his shingle in a very sketchy part of town called the Crater). He’d already seen a dozen concert attendees this morning and surmised that The Lash had played some sort of infrasound tone that messed with everyone’s vestibular system. Evidently there was a pretty good riot/orgy while I was blacked out.

As I limped out of his office—high on pharmaceutical papaver—and into the bracing October dawn, I breathed in the salt air and thought: God DAMN The Lash are SICK as HELL.

*I should probably clarify that I’m talking about the False Mayor, the public-facing puppet of the Real Mayor fka The Fisherman. Maybe I’ll get into that whole deal in a future issue, if there’s interest.

This has been Chokemail. Dictated but not read by Fireland. Shipped from Chokeville.

The Hook Gets The Lash