HEY HEY, intrepid readers! If you’ve been readin’ the ZINE, you might’ve read that I went on a BIG ADVENTURE across the US-of-A. You may have also read that I’d post a FULL BLOG about my trip, well, I realize that there’s so much to write about that I’ll have to SERIALIZE THAT JAWN! Here we GO!

CHAPTER 0: Super TeckHead Kart: Just got done with the ZINE run for Issue #9 - “Tokenado”. I thought it was fitting to release it on 4/20 ‘cause well, it was drug themed! I had to capitalize on the counterculture! We are a ZINE after all! I don’t think I’ve ever told you all just how I do a ZINE run. I print ‘em out the night before, then, Cassetta-’n’-I fold ‘em while listenin’ to records or watchin’ a flick. Then, when the sun rises and the time is just right, I STRIKE! I call up my buddy Virgil and the two of us drive to Spiral Groove Records and Arcade Legacy, droppin’ off the goods! We like to go cratediggin’ and gamin’ so it always ends up takin’ most of the day. Well, somethin’ seemed off about Virgil the day we dropped off Issue #9. Usually Virgil’s ready to nerd out on a whim, ramblin’ about some obscure record or kooky videogame, much like me. We’re kindred spirits that way, but that day, he was quiet. After a timid game-sesh at Arcade Legacy, Virgil takes me off the road into a secluded forest. I tell him, “Hey now! You know I’m a married man! Didn’t know you swung that way! Not that there’s anythin’ wrong with that.” Virgil said “What the devil are you talking about? I just wanted to talk about the zine. I have an important business proposition.” Lookin’ back, I felt kinda bad for jumpin’ to conclusions like that, he always gets kinda nervous around ladies… Anywho, Virgil looks deep into my eyes and says, “I am unsure if I can drive you around like this anymore. As of recently, I have been unable to afford petrol for my car. I’ve been working on affixing my car with an electric system so I will never have to worry about paying for petrol, drastically increasing my disposable outcome.” I go, “...OK, well, how am I gonna get to the joints if I can’t ride with you? You know the buses ‘round here don’t like undead cyborgs and the cabbies have a sick obsession with tryin’ to dismantle me!” Virgil pauses, gets real quiet, looks me dead on with his yellow eyes and simply states “I want to build you your own vehicle.” YOWZA! Don’t know why he had to beat around the BUSH like that but I was ELATED! I’ve always wanted to go anyway, way I choose! Fast-forward to the next day and Virgil-’n’-I’re tourin’ all the junkyards in the general Milford area, lookin’ for parts, until we realized we’d have to pay for it. Ya see, Virgil always got his parts by usin’ a lil’ loophole where he’d pickup a part and then “accidentally drop” it over the fence. Recently, the junkyard guys’ve been gettin’ a little suspicious of Virgil. Well, I’m surgarcoatin’ that, just the other day Cougar Jensen, the head honcho at Jensen’s Junk and Lightly-Used Auto, came at Virgil with a DOUBLE-BARREL SHOTGUN! My buddy almost got FRAG’D DooM-STYLE!! Anywho, we didn’t have much green between us, most of my green was tied up in pre-orders at the Plastic Pit Media Store, the same store I live behind. We could only afford a go-kart frame, a mower-motor, and a school desk with the words “KOЯN SUX” carved into it. Not sure how I feel about that statement. Anywho, after a long night of weldin’ while listenin’ to all of Chemlab’s discography, Virgil-’n’-I finally got it done! We ended up christenin’ it the “ECLECTOLA”! Featurin’ a prototype half-’n’-half “Electro-Petrol” engine, grippy wheels, no-skip CD player, and an alloy-reinforced milk-crate for storage! It was everythin’ an undead cyborg could ask for!

CHAPTER 1: Karnage in Kentucky: I was SUPER excited to finally have my own set-a wheels! How excited you ask? Well… a little TOO excited. The next mornin’, I hit the road! I feel like a big-ole IDIOT now not informin’ anyone of my impromptu vacation, but at the time, it felt cool as all hell. Milford ain’t too far from the border to Kentucky, so I managed to get there pretty quick! Let me tell ya, Virgil is a MONDO GENIUS! Usually most go-karts only go about 25 miles, but this jawn somehow goes 75 MILES MAX! No wonder Virgil’s always beatin’ away suspicious men in suits! I had no plan of where to head to, so I just kept drivin’ through Kentucky. Eventually, I ended up in the farmin’ town of Berry, Kentucky. That was where I got my first refill-o-gas, at this run-down gas station called the “Ezy Stop”. I was about to walk into the joint to ask for some gas when I realized, I HAD NO MONEY! I started to panic when I saw some bum-lookin’ fella suckin’ gas outta someone’s car. He sure looked like a gas-suckin’ machine too! Like he was born with the propensity to SUCK GAS! I saw he had a few jerry cans full already so I snuck up behind him and “borrowed” one. He didn’t seem to notice. He was a big fella too, wore an ‘ol russian-style ushanka and a tattered bathrobe. Anywho, I got back on the ECLECTOLA and whizzed on though the backroads! I ended up in this little podunk neighborhood that looked like it was run by some group of bad punks, and when I say bad punks, I don’t mean the good kinda bad. These punks weren’t too far off from the kind of punks that make Jello Biafra’s blood boil, if ya catch my drift. I tried to zip on through but it was too late, one of ‘em saw me and called for his buddies. Next thing I knew, I was speedin’ down a windy country road tailed by the crustiest punks around, shootin’ and throwin’ molotovs at me. I think they saw me AND my car and wanted to turn me into scrap to sell! They eventually caught me on a road in an open field, runnin’ the ECLECTOLA into a ditch. They surrounded me, the head punk… CUT MY PINKY OFF WITH A MACHETE! The light was gettin’ dim for ‘ol TeckHead… but just then, like in a movie, all those punks suddenly lost their damn heads! Standing amongst the leather-’n’-viscera was this tall black fella, wearin’ a black trenchcoat and a small white afro. He brandished a gnarly katana too! I was so caught up in the hysteria of it all that I shut down for a bit. Ya see, the thing with my half-brain-half-hard-drive is that sometimes the two fight. Flesh Vs. Wire, y’know? Sometimes I’ll go all limp and all I’ll see is amorphous visions of MP4s ‘n hear corrupted riffage in some far-off corner of my virtual cranium. I don’t mean to get all Shakespeare-ical on ya, but i’m just tellin’ it like it is. Anywho, I woke up in his strange savior’s house on his couch. His little bungalow was well-decorated with some beautiful paintin’s-’n’-pottery from an ancient era. In the air, I heard a little bit-’o’-Beethoven I think, it’s all a bit fuzzy t’me. He was sittin’ across from me, sippin’ some tea or somethin’. He said “You’re welcome, I’m Gerald Goldberg, assassin.” He flicked his arm and a business card skimmed across the table. It was bone white, with raised black text sayin’ “Gerald Millard Goldberg, Cleaner”. I took the card ‘n got a better look at this fella. He was wearin’ dark round sunglasses indoors and had a sharp white goatee to go along with his white ‘fro, he didn’t look old though. I was wowed beyond all belief! I’d been lookin’ for someone of his occupation for a LONG TIME! You may not believe this, but bein’ an undead cybernetic DJ-Zinester can draw some real enemies. I told him my name-’n’-predicament and he smirked a bit. He started talkin’ about those punks, and how’d they’d been in cahoots with the Bosnian mafia smugglin’ drugs or unmarked guns or somethin’. He says to me, “I’ve been waiting for a hit on them for months. They paid off nearly everyone in the area to keep their mouths shut about them. They never left their manor for anything. There’s something about you that they considered… a priority. Now looking at you, I can see why. You’re a freak!” I just chuckled, nobody’s seen an undead cyborg like me before. Hey, anythin’ for a little crime-stoppin’ I guess. I thanked ‘ol Gerry G. profusely for the life-savin’, got back in my ECLECTOLA, which somehow didn’t get TOO dinged-up, and went along my merry way across the USA!

CHAPTER 2: Field of Fever Dreams: This is where things got BOOOORRRIIIINNG! I rolled on through the roads of America for a WHOLE DAY and I couldn’t find a cool place to save my life! I only grazed the tip of Illinois (get your mind outta the gutter!) and went through the lower half of Missouri. All I found were rinky-dink flea markets with more vendors in the general area than there were teeth! That statement’s not as impressive as you think. All I found were crappy videogames that not even the NERD would go for and waterlogged records of BOB DYLAN! YEUCK! I kept on truckin’ through Missouri, only stoppin’ for gas usin’ the money I’d find on the side of the road. Yeah, for some reason I kept findin’ unmarked bags of cash slightly hidden in the woods by the highway. I dunno who kept leavin’ ‘em there, but it’s sure helpful for a fella like me with no income! After a long, tirin’ day of drivin’-’n’-doin’ NOTHIN’, I found myself in an abandoned campground somewhere in Kansas. I kindled a fire ‘n fired up my GameBoy and played some TETRIS ATTACK! I was in the middle of one-a the best games I’ve had in a LONG time, when all of a sudden… I shut down again! This time, however, was a bit off. I awoke in this half-lucid state, lying sprawled on the Kansas soil lookin’ upside-down across an empty field. All I could hear was corrupted MP3s and warblin’ static. It felt like hours, but the night sky stayed stagnant, the stars weren’t even flickerin’! In the midst of this brain-drive malfunction, I saw a familiar feminine figure in the distance just standin’ there. I tried to yell, but obviously nothin’ happened. The shadow flickered, lookin’ like me for a second, before vanishin’ altogether. It was then I awoke to a beautiful Kansas afternoon! I overslept! I rolled to my side and saw that someone STOLE MY DAMN GAMEBOY!!! My campfire had also been suspiciously pissed on too! I frantically looked around for answers when I saw boot marks in the dirt! Without any hesitation, I jumped into the ECLECTOLA and followed the FEET! I drove for a few more hours, still in the middle-a podunk nowhere, when I heard AND felt a strange funky rumblin’. I stomped on the breaks just as I was about to drive into a dust cloud. It was in the cloud where I heard this deep rumblin’. Dirt gums up my cybernetics (remember, I'm no six-million-dollar-man!), so I took an empty jug from the ELCECTOLA’s milkcrate and threw it into the cloud. I got real lucky cause the rumblin’ got replaced with a thick, Australian “OW! WHAT THE WANK?!” The dust settled, and what did I see? A short, stocky Aussie wearin’ a brown camo jacket, greasy tanktop, cargo shorts, tattered workboots, a receded hairline, short beard, oh! And a HUGE bullhorn mounted on his back connected to a thick, chunky BASS! There he stood, blood trickling from his shiny forehead from the hail-mary moonshine-holder that leapt from my now pinky-less left hand. He turned to me, with a primal scowl, and said “Mate, you just made a fatal gaffe”. I barely had any time to think, because then with one swift motion, I found myself airborne and flat on my dull metal tuchus from his SUB-BASS BLAST! It must’ve knocked me out, ‘cause I dreamt that Cassetta found me layin’ there in the Kansas dirt and proceeded to kiss me like it was goin’ outta style. Heh-heh, just as it was gettin’ good, I woke up again! This time… ALL MY STUFF WAS GONE! That damn Aussie robbed the ECLECTOLA’s milkcrate! I had a whole can-a gas and my beautiful GUITBASS in there! The bastard left a note sayin’ “Thanx 4 the gudyz, m8’ - Earthtone Hoover”. Earthtone Hoover, so that was his name… I swore to find that illiterate sonufagun and get back my Guitbass if it was the last thing I did! I had this totally sick riff that I was workin’ on! It looked like he wrote the note on the back of a map with... COLORADO CIRCLED! That IDIOT! I know where he's goin'! I hopped in my ECLCETOLA and hightailed it for ColorAHdo!

CHAPTER 3: TeckHead Gets High: I spent another day just drivin’, but this time with a real VENGEANCE! The stakes were high, my friends. My precious GameBoy n’ Guitbass hung in the balance knowin’ they were now in the possession of EARTHTONE HOOVER! I was still kickin’ myself over how he made quick work-a me. It was all uphill from here, literally! Most of my drivin’ that day was uphill! No one ever told me Colorado was so high up! I just kept gettin’ higher ‘n higher until I reached the town of Fairplay, by then I was gettin’ a lil’ dizzy from the high altitude. The light was gettin’ low ‘n I was runnin low on gas and action. It’d been too long since I played a videogame or heard some good rock music and it was takin’ its toll on my brain-drive. I pulled over in an alley at what must’ve been midnight. The town was quiet except for a faint thumpin’ in a nearby bar. It sounded an awful lot like… EARTHTONE HOOVER! I couldn’t believe it! I ran over to the bar, it was run-down and it looked like there were some farmin’ tools in a box outside next to the motorcycles for some reason. I knew they’d freak if they saw a ghoul like me, so I snuck around the back and hopped into the VENTS. I learned from playin’ Metal Gear Solid that the VENTS are the place to go! I saw through the grates some real rough stuff. ‘Ol Earthtone was thumbin’ away at his greasy Gibson EB-0 while some punks were playin’ those tried-n-true three chords. Looked like somethin’ straight outta-a biker flick… well, it WAS a biker bar after all. I saw, off to the side, a shelf with videogames and a well-worn Area 51 arcade cabinet! Finally! Some ACTION! I’ll admit, I started TWEAKIN’ a little… oh… a little TOO MUCH! I yelped and totally gave away my position! The punkin’ stopped, the bar went cold… and then… I heard that thick Aussie twang reverberate through the beer hall. “You followed me here, didn’t you? WANKAH!” Next thing I knew, I was layin’ in a pile-o-vent-scrap, upside down! I was knocked down; down, but not out! I got back on my feet only to find myself face-to-face with Earthtone and his goons. I tried to go in with a killer left hook, but of course, Earthtone bass-blasted me through the tavern wall onto the empty city streets. Just then, I heard a clock tower ring out… and everything went black. I don’t know what to tell ya, but when I came to, those punks were all over the place. Limbs a-strewn everywhere, heads rollin’, viscera EVERYWHERE. Earthtone Hoover lay there as if he was the crown jewel of the carnage I somehow created. I ran over and saw he had been K.O.’ed like none other before, with a huge gash across his chest, like Sagat. I looked down and saw I had a bloodied scythe in my hands, as if I’d for one minute become the grim reaper. Half of me was terrified, the other half said “heh-heh, cool.” I ran back inside, snatched up some videogames alongside my Gutbass 'n GameBoy which was conveniently-stored in a box on the stage, and hopped back into the ECLECTOLA and got the HELL outta there. I just feel bad for whoever has to clean that up…

CHAPTER 4: Desert Sessions There I was, back on the road again. Now, I’ve seen some gory stuff in my time, but seein’ the supposed reign-o-terror I did at that biker bar in Colorado made me feel a little sick for once. It’s one thing when you see it behind a screen, it’s a whole different BEAST when it's right in front-a ya. Anywho, I kept on drivin’; eventually my mind cleared ‘n I was back to my ‘ol ECLECTIC self. I rode along, stoppin’ at slightly-better flea markets n’ Videogame stores along the way, spendin’ more of that money that I keep findin’ in suspicious duffel bags slightly tucked away in the woods off the highway. Funny thing about those ‘ol duffels, when I was crusin’ along the highway, I saw that same gas-suckin’ fella from Kentucky. Except this time, he was droppin’ off a duffel! That ushanka-clad weirdo’s been my banker this whole time! Without thinkin’, I stomped on my breaks and walked up to the guy! I thanked him dearly with a handshake ‘n told him ‘bout how helpful all the dosh’s been. In a matter-o-milliseconds, he was towerin’ over me with an iron grip on my bowtie and a nasty 1911 all up in my SUBMANDIBULAR! He started yellin’ at me in this THICK Balkan accent, sayin’ “WHO ARE YOU?!” and “WHO SENT YOU?!” I was scared SENSELESS! I panicked, grabbed his head by the Ushanka-flaps, and slammed his nose right into my metallic knee! It was all so sudden! He swore in some foreign language and while he was on his way down, shot two bullets in the air. He hit his head on a sharp desert rock ‘n went limp! Damn, I might be gettin’ a knack for combat. I looted his bathrobe like a videogame character, didn't find much, just some bullets and a half-eaten tin-o-tangerine sours. I hopped back into the ECLECTOLA ‘n got back to CRUISIN’. While I was drivin’ along, I started thinkin’ about home, the dumpster, and everyone I’d left behind in a FLASH. For once in my cybernetic life, I started to feel a pang of guilt. How could I’ve been given this awesome gift of a go-kart that can go MILES without havin’ to get gas… DOH CRAP!!! Just then, the ECLECTOLA RAN OUTTA GAS! I couldn’t believe my luck! Just when I was startin’ to have an epiphany, my damn kart has to go and RUIN IT! So there I was, stranded in the desert in the middle-a NOWHERE! I had no choice but to push the sucker along. It felt like hours pushin’ the dead ECLECTOLA alone on those desert roads. Now the heat usually doesn’t get to ‘ol TeckHead, ya see, my cybernetics and my state of being undead means I don’t really need to drink water or eat food. I don’t suffer from dehydration or starvation or… masturbation. I just live; it’s strange, really. Not even Virgil can't quite figure out how I keep on truckin’ the way I do, and he’s the SMARTEST dude I know! I guess it’s my optimism and drive to keep things ECLECTIC that keep me young at heart! Even though I’m not old! At least… I think! The only thing I need to worry about with my body is repairs, that’s where Virgil comes in. I met Virgil a long time ago when I was goin’ through a bit of a SKATER phase. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater was all the rage ‘n I wanted a piece-o-the-pie… you can probably guess how that turned out. To make a long story short, Virgil found me dyin’ outside the Sonic drive-thru ‘n fixed me up good as new! We’ve been buddies ever since. Lookin’ at all the desert scenery while sloggin’ through the desert reminded me of the first time I met my stalwart skull-buddy, Odbal. That kook, I found him on the side-o-the-road on I-75 once when I was hitchhikin’ my way to Trader’s World a LONG-ASS time ago. I saw this roadie case marked “Germallius Bodewell’s Zirconium Circus”. Thinkin’ it was some extreme metal band’s equipment, I got SUPER STOKED! I cracked open the case only to get blasted in the face with cheap cigar smoke! Sittin’ there amongst a pile-o-bones was good ‘ol Odbal! He started yellin’ at me, askin’ “MY RECORDS?! WHERE’S MY DEEEEMENTED RECORDS?!” I told him to cool his jets ‘n said “You’re talkin’ to the biggest media manic in all of Milford! Come with me!” Ever since then, we’ve been the best pair-a dead guys the world’s ever seen! I was in a haze-of-reminiscence, thinkin’ about all my friends back home ‘n how I missed ‘em. I started to feel that guilt again, now that there was no rumble of the ECLECTOLA to drown it out. It was a real dick move on my part to abandon everyone back in Milford; Odbal, Virgil, my lovely Cassetta who was probably throwin’ out my stuff as I was epihpanizin’. I wanted to go back ‘n make things right, but there was some kinda force keepin’ me on the road. No matter how much I wanted to quit this quest, I couldn’t. Hopefully soon, somethin’ would click, like a videogame, ‘n I’ll finally be able to go back home. I heard some loud bangin’ behind me, which didn’t spook me for once. I looked behind ‘n saw a speed limit sign with two fresh bullet holes punctured straight through it.

CHAPTER 5: Seasonal Visions After what felt like a LONG-ASS night-a haulin’ ASS through the desert, I finally found a GAS STATION! I excitedly sauntered on up to the register ‘n whupped my WAD on the counter. I asked all sweetly for some gas but the fella just looked at me ‘n FAINTED! Why does this always happen to me?! Oh right, undead cyborg… almost forgot. I put the cash in the till ‘n opened the pump for that unfortunate incapacitated clerk ‘n FINALLY got some gas back in the ECLECTOLA! But just then, since people just love SHOWIN’ UP, these two BRIGHT chartreuse muscle cars come TEARIN’ down the road, driftin’ right up to my spot at the station! I was absolutely DISAPPOINTED at the eyesores I saw steppin’ outta those EYESORES-a cars! I kid you not, two bleach-blond BOZOZ clad in chartreuse wife-beaters ‘n eye-searin’ black-n-chartreuse striped baggy pants! They looked me up-n-down ‘n said IN UNISON: “Look at that ugly thing! Let’s give him the CHARTREUSE SHOVE!” as they BOTH pulled out these sawed-off, smoothbore SHOTGUNS! Just then, the brother-on-the-left’s head ‘SPLODED! Splatterin’ blood-n-brain matter all over the other! I booked it to the ECLECTOLA as I looked over ‘n saw the clerk with the LONGEST revolver I had ever seen! I heard all kinds-a gunfire as I PEELED outta that gas-hole, I coulda sworn I saw that poor clerk get DOMED, too. Poor bastard… ANYWHO, I kept on drivin’ for what felt like HOURS! I kept thinkin’ ‘bout all the carnage that had happened in the past few days, some of it my fault? What the hell even HAPPENED in Colorado?! JEEZUS! I was freakin’ out! I felt like I was gonna EXPLODE myself until I rolled into a small town ‘n came across a VIDEOGAME STORE! Whew, a place that MIGHT give me the time-a-day! I walked on in ‘n started lookin’ around, hopin’ to take my mind off-a the CRAP I’d seen. I found some good stuff ‘n went up to the counter. The clerk looked at me with her tired-lookin’ brown eyes ‘n said, “You seem to be facing a world of trouble.” I looked at her ‘n told her that she didn’t know the half of it. She just looked at me ‘n CHUCKLED! But what she said next still lingers in my brain-drive today, along with the rest of this story. She said, “You’ve come from far away, narrowly avoided death countless times in your ill-conceived journey, and caused so much death along the way. Some may say you are death incarnate, but you are not entirely to blame. Perhaps you should have been more careful. Soon, you will have to face your troubles head-on. Your total is $15.37.” Woah. I forked over the cash ‘n said, “How’d you do that?!” “It’s that time of the month for me.” I see.