The Writing of Cultivores
It started as a dream. I was out on wasteland – surrounded by the cinders of capitalism. The world had gone to shit, though strangely, it was a better place. The sky was orange, always orange, when the “dark” fell it just went shitty blood orange – I liked it. I felt safe there, safe in the knowledge that the very worst of humankind – that great malignant dynasty known as Capitalism, had all but been wiped . . . or swiped, swiped through some cosmic EFTPOS machine by an angry red-headed bitch going by the pseudonym Mamma N. All of this had probably come out of all this talk of global warming and climate change and goddamn carbon taxes, personally, I am all for a climatology atrocity – bring it on, and that all-consuming notion was the basis for the rise of the CULTIVORE.
I’d never imagined a post-anything world where humanity became extinct, humanity will never become extinct, not unless the pet rock it’s living on implodes or explodes, but by then I figure, they’ll have colonised some other junk yard. So, they survive – a handful of technocrats and autocrats and bureaucrats, all bunkered down while above – the planet burns. But not all of it . . . some remains unscathed left basically intact, the lines stay open and the satellites keep on humming. In the years leading up to the “atrocity” the ruling dynasty known as the “Capitalists” have tried everything to survive: non-breeding treaties, eradication, extermination, cannibalism – when science and technology (the twin evils) are proven redundant (as well as useless), diseases are let loose. By the time the fire arrives, for those still standing, it’s a blessing – celebrated and heralded. People are strange . . . indeed.
So what to do after you’ve had your storm or atrocity – there is the rub. What would these survivors do? To my mind they’d incorporate, they’d set up an articles of association and they would cling to the past because they who control the past control the future. They have two “I’s”, idolatry and infrastructure – idolatry of the capitalists and their plastic culture and the infrastructure with which to propaganda it. All they need is people – which is kind of strange as people, or rather the amount of them, had ultimately been the Capitalists downfall. Humans however are creatures of habit – thus, it is no good simply surviving, one must survive and prosper, and to rule, a ruler requires subjects. So they did, but they bred workers, workers with no names, a genetically manufactured proletariat straight out of Orwell’s 1984 – I had that prophetic book, Burrough’s Naked lunch and The Wizard of Oz in my head . . . a trip not so much along a yellow brick road, but rather a blue brick one. Blue is their colour – I mean, they have no god as such because theology (the theologicals) had been destroyed (outlawed by the Capitalists as a bad investment near the end of their reign), those who’d unearthed the sacraments and testaments (the Nomads) had handed them over to the Corporation – which is what the new rulers had Christened themselves and their char-grilled citadel of Capital Investment.
Blue – because there is no blue sky – no sun, no god, just work and investment – and, a strange historical text that speaks in pop culture idioms – the idolatry of Capitalist 20th and 21st Century culture. This is what they’ve brought to the round table of the Next Generation – I got this idea from the death knell the dawning of the 21st Century has dealt innovation in art (not technology), I mean, I don’t know if anyone else is aware of it or not but since the turn of the century all that Hollywood has done is re-hash 1970s culture? It bothers me, so I used it as the Corporation’s mandate – “Nothing New Under The Sun”. But there isn’t a sun, right? So why not build one? Give the people something to aim for – the glorious day when the blue re-emerges and the sun can be seen again. So, they build a wall, paint it blue, stick a yellow ball on and the saying becomes “Nothing New Under The Wall Of The Sun.”
Blue is more precious than gold . . . and blue dominates the world of the Cultivores, blue as in blue eyes never lie, blue tooths and blueprints. Blue is the colour . . . why, I have no real idea, but as the book forged on, blue began to pre-dominate everything. All Corporation hierarchy have blue eyes, they have blue teeth (blue tooths), and they use blue prints – they are, in point of fact – True Blue Bluebloods. Then of course, as readers will discover, there came, the Chic Creatures.
Every new society needs its own object of adoration – something for the ordinary man in the street to aim for. And who wouldn’t want to be a Chic Creature? They are the beautiful ones, the ones above manual labour, any labour in point of fact, their job is to stroll, stroll around under parasols looking beautiful showing off their glorious tattoos – ruled by Chico Ink, the Chic Creatures rule Capital Investment in tandem with the Corporation and the mysterious Murray Brothers who do the “mining”.
Next, we need a fable – some kind of Sleepy Hollow ode to cudgel the masses with, beware! Fear factory – something faceless bureaucrats can pump out through their “Bulletin”. Thus, the fable – the rise of the theological spores, the ones that inseminate their believers with bogus ideologies and bankrupt faith – I worked on the notion that no matter how forward or backward looking any re-vamped human society is, it would still include the love/hate dogma called organised religion – and even while the Corporation cranks out organised apathy, they, like the rest of Cultivation, know that the faiths still exist somewhere. And they do, in a place called Mayflower – some other place beyond the Northern Line Limit – the very edge of Cultivation. The fable states that a “Straynger” will arrive in Cultivation (or as some call it a Duch), carrying the faiths – she will be aided and abetted by traitors in attempting to re-instil the faiths. A no-named man will become her guide through the lands of Cultivation . . . and this man will accompany the Duch out to the Gates of Philanthropy and pass her unharmed through such – back to her own kind. In doing so, this no-named one shall thus earn his title. So far so good . . . but of course nothing is every quite as straightforward as it seems – on paper (not that there is paper because that’s old technology).
Any “hero” would be suspect – and in The No-Named Man we find a vessel with integrity, after time in the service of the Corporation toiling on a loco in the pursuit of earning a title, our hero finds himself with a thirst for knowledge, and knowledge can only be acquired by those in the know. Spotting what he thinks is the mythical Duch in Last Exit, a shabby clubbing borough, the No Name starts off on a flight of fancy through Cultivation – lands full of odd characters hung up and strung out on the Math, Time Banditry and Pop Culturisms – lands where nothing is ideologically sound – lands where the strong rule by brute force and the weak succumb to mythology. The Duch, it turns out, is searching for the Drifter, a fugitive hunted by the Corporation for crimes against the state of affairs. Led more by his sense of intrigue than the fable, the No Name’s odyssey is a surreal journey through sub pop culture and biblical visions – one that will ultimately take him right to Gates of Philanthropy and the much-vaunted Wall of Sound where all human history is played to those in search of the truth.
Writing the journey – plotting the characters of Cultivation and their warped idealisms, took a lot of work – in the end I opted for an episodic story, one where the No Name meets (by chapter) a character who may or may not appear again the book as a whole – or who, may or may not even exist. The journey starts when the No Name hops into the Driver’s cab to hunt the Duch – and then finds himself naked in the Abbey National, the ministry of untrue truths run by the mysterious old crone known as The Sackcloth Whore. This ancient bearer of wisdoms and history tells the No Name that it’s become his sworn duty to accompany the Duch – she was has the Blue Tooth and the Protocols, and as she rightly tells him – “Time is a line they spins you boy, to keep you on the clock.” With his notion vindicated and seconded by a person of historical value, the No Name, with the assistance of the Weatherman (an insane climatological genius) crosses the Moon River and in the process null and voids his tenure with the Corporation (having allowed the Sackcloth Whore to remove his identifying number) and falls in with the Drifter, and, a Machine Girl.
Out on the Wastelands it’s Venture Capitalism at its finest. Quite how Machined Girls found their way into my speculative fiction curry I’ve no idea. I had this notion that RGs (Real Girls) had become a liability to a freshly-reformed patriarchal society, and subsequently that same society had invested heavily in Machine Girl technology with the Factory while vehemently denying they condoned it in any way whatsoever. But whatever, not only do they exist, but amazingly they’re both flourishing and rapidly adapting – picking up human emotions and organising themselves into gangs aligned to the Renegades, those who hold up the locos and seize Corporation assets. Naturally the Machine Girls would have sexually overt names – Machine Girl Fellatio (the original and best Machine Girl) as example.
The No Name, knowledge-hungry as he is, takes all of these perplexing developments in his stride – even the robust and very “hands-on” Bull Breaker with his flickering holograph twin and the vampish crude baroness the Plutonian Blonde who runs the gas franchise and designs Chemical Girls on the side . . . runs illegal cage matches and diddles the Corporation with oily hands and swishy gowns.
Then of course there’s the Toolman. He’s quite a guy – well, not so much a guy as a half metal guru with heavy hardware capabilities. Every decent civilisation needs a killing machine – and if that killing machine was a human serial killer who’d somehow walked right through the Climatology Atrocity unscathed, merrily slaying as he passed from one state to another, then mores the better. Captured by the Corporation, upgraded and turned loose as the ultimate state assassin, the Toolman’s exploits feature heavily in both the Corporation’s “word” and Bulletin. Used as a warning to any who might consider going off the clock, the Toolman’s reputation both precedes and follows him as he clunks one step at a time across the lands in search of victims. Armed with nail guns, power tools and the ability to use them, once the No Name realises the Toolman is on their scent things start to get a bit hairier than he’d envisioned . . . regardless of the fact the Machine Girl tells him that if it bleeds it can be killed . . . his main concern is what if it doesn’t bleed? Bleeding isn’t an issue as it turns out – not when the Machine Girl upjacks a compactor (a vehicle operated by a Moleskin that crushes all the crap laying everywhere – the remains of Capitalism) – and crushes the Toolman into a cube which then becomes a valuable asset – to the art collectors. Being off the meter is one thing, crushing a Corporation assassin is quite another.
CULTIVORES INTERESTING FACT: Many of the characters are caricatures of people I regularly hang out with!
Separated from the Drifter and the original Machine Girl by virtue of having to return to Capital Investment to find medicine on account of injuries sustained while fighting off the Toolman’s overly amorous advances, the No Name finds himself alone in the company of the Duch in the Cross, a day traders borough – where, they are picked up by the Scissor Sister, a crimper with a bizarre vernacular and an “imaginary” twin sister. This quaffing dolly with dangerous shears tells the No Name she’s on a mission from the Sackcloth Whore to protect all their vested interests. Sucked into a seedy tenement and then held hostage while the Scissor Sister merrily lops off the Duch’s ears, the No Name is forced, for the first time, to think for himself – and ends up dealing with the elusive and unlicensed Dr Zarkov in a bid to free himself and his “package” from the Sister’s clutches. Finally killing her with her own shears, he and the Duch (in drag) travel to the Ferry Terminal to see the Queen of the Stone Age – another withered crone with biblical intentions.
The Queen, curing the No Name’s wounds and absolving his sins, convinces the No Name that the faiths exist and to exist himself, he must conjoin with the Duch . . . and commune he does, more because he’d been raised to have good manners . . . but, a screw is a screw is a screw. No big deal . . . until you find out you’re the new messiah’s father. And then there’s the disturbing notion that the Queen and the Whore are . . .
The No Name will never see the Drifter and the original Machine Girl again – their paths and stories bifurcate at this stage . . . and the No Name, finding himself on a loco travelling across the salt flats to visit the Paperboy (a criminally insane bibliophile who dribbles shit), finds himself in the middle of a Renegade attack – the most audacious to date, the upjack of a whole loco and its passengers undertaken by the red-eyed and death-defying Leadbelly. Finding himself in the middle of the ensuing fire fight – killing two Brigade Guards in the process and thereby depriving Leadbelly of bargaining chips, the No Name is finally released on “bail”- minus his package. Wandering the flats confused he is picked up by a rogue Machine Girl going by the name of Pussy Galore (enter the true love interest). She air-bikes him through a surreal world of renegades, floodlit baseball, narcotics and fully lubricated and dilating metal vaginas until bewildered and astounded, he is finally dropped off on Porridge Island – home of the Paperboy. Wherein he watches (high) as the Paperboy assassinates his own secretary and then himself – the suicide setting off a fire – a fire that’s both illegal, and, showers the surrounding environment with burning manuscripts.
Striking out again with his mechanical pussy and the now pregnant carrier of the faiths, and having also acquired a hybrid “Dog Thing” the ill-equipped quartet are left with only one place to go to – the same place everyone goes when they’re fleeing Capital Investment – Urban Jungle – the vine-encrusted super city of the Capitalists. Urban Jungle however offers its own unique set of problems, not least of which are the battling-for-ultimate control overlords The Recluse, and the enigmatic Xellent the Pimp. The Recluse it is said was once high in the Corporation’s controlling echelons, until he turned traitor and struck out to discover the Jungle. The Pimp on the other hand is an egotistical maniac who runs the Ranch Houses, whore markets full of Plastic Reginas, Dandy Eunuchs and re-configured good girls gone bad.
The Drifter, having lost the original Machine Girl after her clock was wound back permanently by Captain Sensible – head of the time-making Venturists, also heads for the Jungle in the hope of again seeing Evangalista, the exiled ruler-in-waiting. No one gets lucky in a lawless asylum like the Jungle however – not when the Recluse is near death and close to settling all of his debts with the Mass rather than the Math – and not when the Libertine and his “Cut Ups” are also making a power play. After a shoot-out at the Pimp’s infamous House of Many Colours – the No Name, Pussy Galore and the Duch break on through to the other side . . . out toward the Gates.
There is a dogged resilience in the No Name’s character, no matter how much depravity, ludicrousness or sheer insanity he witnesses, he clings to the kernel of doing one job right no matter the cost, not that he even understands quite what the job or cost is. He does know though that he needs to be shot of his package, and that the only way he can ever be rid of her, is to return her to sender. What he finds at the Gates however – is the ultimate truth, the truth that everything is a lie and is preordained, that there is no future, only a glittering past . . . that culture rules, that all men are not created equal, that god is, quite literally, in the TV.
The No Name, the one so named in the fable, has ultimately, become the fable himself, because everything can be re-written continually and history is bunk. The Math never lies and time is a line they spin to keep you on the clock – but the worst thing, as he stands watching the American Terrorist scream across the sky high above en route to Capital Investment’s destiny . . . is that he might just have done what they wanted him to.
Cultivores Interesting Fact: The Corporation ID “cards” which introduce each episodic character carry a Corporation ID number – each number has a meaning to a popular culture fact or identity the character represents. Example: The Driver’s ID Number is taken from the number plate of the car James Dean crashed in. (=driving).
The world of the Cultivores is probably a far better one that that of their predecessors. Despite the fact they are all obviously insane . . . their idolatry and their attitude to life and death is one small step for mankind – the only question being, in which direction?
