BärteHansa — The Rising Menace

With the long decline of the BubbaCabal, “quality of life” issues indeed had improved in Classic City and nearby Heritageville. Their power and influence had ebbed to the point where in matters of business, media and daily life, the Cabal became all but impotent, much like Madron FC after last season.
  Unfortunately, in the resulting vacuum a loose, rag-tag assortment of former Easy Breathers, Nattering Nannies and Gray Ponytails coalesced into a formidable SWPL faction that, while perhaps ideologically opposite, rivals the former menace of BBACBL: BärteHansa. [BRTHNSA]
  Indeed, the BärteHansa threat may be greater than the BubbaCabal ever was — after all, BBACBL blatantly gave away their games of cupidity, unable to break free of the Pink Boy stereotypes in which they had cemented themselves. With BärteHansa on the other hand, the rot runs deep with Good Intentions paired with the taint of Kultural Kuru that they cast upon the community.
  The rise of BärteHansa has caused much chagrin for the Allied Pungeoning Front. Having their hands tied dealing with BBACBL mischief, they considered these upstarts benign before their ascendancy. (In hindsight, it is all too easy to point out that pungeoning requires eternal vigilance.)

What has BärteHansa been doing that could be so heinous?
  Well, BRTHNSA individuals’ activities have been noted over the years. While annoying, they were rarely toxic on a macro scale, so the APF’s Emotive Response System was infrequently utilised. Pungeoning was left up to individual citizens to deal with Ego Activists, Stupefacient Scenesters and other annoying anoetics.
  But Spent Histrionicians and Aging Fauxhemians often suffer from Role Strain, realising they’ve lost a mojo they never had. After achieving a black belt in Emo Tae-Bo, they tell themselves that it’s time to Do Something Important.
  And this is where things become alarming.
  The aforementioned Nannies and Ponytails, ever sycophantic to disaffected “youth,” jump at the opportunity. And our Tired Hipsters, ever enthralled with tales told of Radical Boomer Exploits, jump as well.

Ponytail, Meet Beard
  The result is like an open marriage made in Unitarian heaven: Do-gooder control freak fossiloids holding sway over a flock of failed artistes starving for purpose.
  BärteHansa elders hold rancid marxoid views that should trouble any free-thinker. But their skinny-jeans-clad foot soldiers, unable to form an original thought, use the stale tactics of the elders’ youth: street theater, occupation, and general attention-whoring — poor methods of persuasion, and ones very prone to backfire.
  It is this weakness the APF will seek to exploit. Stay tuned.

They’re building one downtown. Is that cause for alarm?

There was a time in the county when Joe Bloggs had a good idea and could open a business and if he did a good job of providing whatever goods or services in that business, he could succeed. It was part of the American dream.

Name one good reason
  No longer does it matter if you have a good idea, a good reputation, good prices or a good location.
The Allied Pungeoning Front wants to open a pungeonary. In the past it was the BubbaCabal who got their hackles up over the prospect of local pungeonaries. Today it’s BärteHansa who is circulating a petition around town trying to stop the APF from establishing one anywhere.
  Back in the day the excuse given for opposing this was that it would cramp the Cabal’s local robber baron “bidness” interests, though the argument had lost most of its bite when one found out that the Pink Boys contesting it had pungled innocent citizens themselves.
  Currently, why does BärteHansa think it okay to ban pungeoning in the face of an acceptable majority-sanctioned entity? Just because they think they have dibs on “quality of life” issues should they try to stifle justice being brought to the community?

They Don’t Want ‘No Stinkin’ Pungeonary’
  Look at the list of projects that BärteHansa has been opposed to: Such “nair-do-wells” as Eastside Pungeonary, the proposed Downtown Pungeonary, the Ghetto Prescriptionary, Bio-Mart on the Heritageville Road and an Orville psychological adjustment facility out near Furley Square Mall.
  BBACBL and Bad Gaijin had been mafioid splinter groups that harassed independent thinkers in their time. But look at the threats to the area’s psychological health that BärteHansa has recently been pushing: the new InfoToxin Dispensary on Barney Scholl’s Road, the Vibrancy Estates down by the Augean Lodge, and Megan’s Sustainable Cupcake Shoppe just to name a few.
  Instead of old BBACBL tactics like Pleboid Gutter Manoeuvers and windscreen smashing, we get innocent-sounding fronts like “People for a Better Classic City” who hijack public input sessions with Self-Centered Public Gushing against imagined corporate poodle-bobbers and other forms of Ego Activism.
  One could suppose that, if the public is sympathetic toward BRTHNSA’s incessant nannying, then we are all quite satisfied with their opportunism and the dystopic paratonic outcome: the dumbing-down of everything cultural, peanut-paying jobs and an imminent psychological wasteland.
  But we are not.
  The public is very much in favour of a downtown pungeonary, given the pressing mental underload of local bêtise arts.
  And the public is weary of the hijinks of BärteHansa’s wannabe radical epigones. Their “direct action” tactics most surely will backfire and the APF probably won’t have to get actively involved.

A Passive Solution?
  One guesses the whole situation could be summed up by something Johnny Gutts once said: “Why pungeon someone when they’re eventually gonna do it to themselves?”

BIRP to Hold Public Forum Addressing Baxter Street Woes

Heritageville’s Baxter Street is still struggling well into the twenty-first century, and the needs of the neighbourhood and its residents are seemingly insurmountable. Vacant lots, few shops and crap restaurants are predominant features of Baxter Street. But what can be done to improve life in this economically depressed area?
  In 2015 the Orville Corporation was commissioned to spearhead efforts to change the public’s negative perceptions of the Baxter Street corridor. The following year Orville infused venture, corporate, and municipal capital into both the townie/trust-fund market as well as upper-end franchise prospectors with a pungeonary, a CTS centre, a SetUp™ boutique, and an Ancestral Confrontation Lab, as well as a Tauntini’s franchise. Orville had been able to map out a desired blueprint for change but has had questionable success in implementing permanent improvements in the area.
  Focusing on youth was another aspect thought crucial. But civic engagement programmes such as a youth fútbol league had the deleterious effects of bringing hooliganism, gambling, and parental altercations to the neighbourhood. Not only that, but none of the league teams knew how to score, and tended to trade valuable players away to street gangs. So much for “engaging youth.”
  What about Urban Agriculture? The poppy garden and makeshift drug lab of Jared Gutts saw an end to that. The “Mr. H” containment dome debacle certainly did not help Baxter’s negative perceptions either.
  What about Vacant Lot Beautification? “No!” say the ego activists of BärteHansa. Boarded-up shacks and lots full of rubble are “historic,” you see. Don’t even get them started on non-functional railroad trestles.
  And so, we are all at an impasse between Orville’s creative (if imperfect) solutions, the paratonic paternalism of BärteHansa, and the thumb-sitting dotards of City Hall. Solutions?
  Well, John Q. Public, it’s your turn! Orville CEO Johnny Gutts is sponsoring a Public Input Session, where your two cents is welcome as part of a collaborative process with Orville, BärteHansa, Heritageville city commissioners, and the general public for developing the Baxter Image Rehabilitation Project (BIRP) 2022 Plan. Your input is vital to the existence of Baxter Street itself.
  The meeting will be held on Tuesday, August 31 at 1:00pm at
P-Bones Pungeonary, 1051 Baxter Street, Heritageville. Masks and refreshments will be provided.

“People Against Bad Things”

Every week a group of locals meet at Town Square to advocate for good things and oppose bad things.
  They call themselves “People Against Bad Things,” and, as a means of bringing awareness to citizens of Classic City, perform silent morality shows whilst sitting around holding signs.
  “Instead of breaking a sweat and doing something constructive, we’ve found that it’s easier to sit at traffic intersections and hold pithy placards with paralogical platitudes,” says participant Ruth Gopnick. “The vaguer the phrase, the better.”
  The local People Against Bad Things movement originated in Heritageville a few years back in response to the power vacuum created by the splintering of the BubbaCabal and the ascendancy of BärteHansa busybodies.
  Today, the movement continues though the ponytails grow grayer. The ostensible driving force behind these vigils are “bad things” but Armchair Psychologists just point at Nostalgioid Opiates as the unitarian elephant in the room.
  “I sit with these people to give a lot of positive inspiration and to do good and all that,” participant Ted Rant said. “It allows us to live on as people who are against negative things in the world.”
  However, not everyone has agreed with the People Against Bad Things. Gopnick said over the years, they have had numerous criticisms aimed towards them.
  “When we started out, people said we were too negative,” said Gopnick. “So we held signs saying ‘honk for good things,’ and we only got a few honks. I just don‘t think people are very interested in making noise in traffic when they already have things going so well.”
  “There’s just so much badness right now in the world, and when we sit here, we’re sitting against that badness and saying with silence that there is a more better [sic] way to be in the world,” Gopnick said.
  “Talk is cheap,” Gopnick whispered aside. “It’s even cheaper when it’s unsaid.”
  “People Against Bad Things” meets every Wednesday on Town Square in Classic City. Bring your own lawn chairs.

Jared Gutts Forms Busking Support Network

Jared Gutts, a man with more spare time since his “time-out” after the Baxter Street bio-contamination fiasco, has decided to come to the aid of his fellow “creative types” — buskers and street performers who face public criticism for simply pursuing their dreams.
  It all started with a brusque comment from a passer-by.
  “I was playin’ ‘We Built This City’ on guitar and this Suit pointed at my tip box and asked, ‘Is that money going towards music lessons?’ That was a really harsh thing to say, man.”
  The local culturati are known to fawn over all sorts of artists, but he says it’s all just lip service. “BärteHansa tastemakers prefer even the most talentless to get out there and make noise rather than get a real job. It’s all out of spite against The Man, even though they’ve been The Man for a long time, man.”
  Gutts gets to the point: “I want to help the talentless. I think I’m pretty qualified.”
  Gutts has started the Classic City Busking Support Network to help the talentless in their quest to garner and maintain attention. A clinic on guitar basics is one such service offered.
  “I can show them how to play an ‘E chord.’ You put your middle finger on the second string on the second fret, and then you put your third finger on the first string on the third fret — I mean, on the third string on the second fret... I think.”
  He also has helpful tips for percussion enthusiasts: “I got some bongos from the Potter’s Haus. I learned to keep time by playing along with Guitar Hero and ‘Athenian Idol’ on TV. It’s very geo-cultural.”
  Gutts’ last foray into local politics was a proposed ordinance that would require obese people to walk single file whilst using Classic City sidewalks. It failed to pass in a recent city commission meeting.
  Response to his Busking Support Network initiative has been positive and Gutts remains optimistic.
  “I remain optimistic,” he said cheerfully.
  Jared Gutts invites the marginally talented to come down to Town Square on Thursday afternoons to develop camaraderie and ‘skillz’ in growing as artists.
  “Bring your own instrument, or just bum one from a friend. It’ll be great!”

Eastside Pungeonary Grand Re-Opening

On Friday, March 20, the Eastside Pungeonary on Furley Shoals Road in Heritageville will hold its Grand Re-Opening.
  Owner Matel Peddhi will be on hand to greet customers and offer them such specialties as Cranial Punge and Poseur Evisceration as well as fresh-cooked corndogs and other popular treats.
  Mr Peddhi said he "wanted to introduce people to the best quality pungeoning in the area.” The facility has always maintained high standards and takes pride in their service.
  Peddhi admits some reluctance after some Ego Activists from BärteHansa made a stink in the local rag about sustainability, but is confident the public will be supportive. Tribal elders of Eastside Prefecture are committed and their Idol Access Division is available for site security assessments on deities.
  Other services offered by Eastside Pungeonary are Theory-Crutch Evultions, Prescriptive Dogma Cremations, as well as a Drive-Thru Truncheon option.
  Matel Peddhi and his wife, Bisbada Peddhi, have bought the facility from Johnny Gutts, who had been operating it since the 1990’s. After purchase, they decided to upgrade the building to current industry standards.
  Facility hours are typically from 6 a.m. until 10 p.m. Mrs. Peddhi is often at the store early preparing pungeoning routines, as Mr Peddhi runs the daytime shift at Peddhi’s Pizza just down the road. He will be available each evening for the daily Pungle Sesh.
  The Peddhi's love the Heritageville community and decided to invest and continue to serve their large loyal customer base.
  Other pungeonary franchises in the area remain available.

Acrophobes Fearing Solid Ground

Let’s state the bleeding obvious:
  The social bravado of BärteHansa stuffed shirts should not be confused for inquisitive risks of freefall borne of actual curiosity.
  Their Oproid Brave Stances tend to be ego validation devices for those who can’t hack it in the real world.
  They ramble about in the dank echo chambers of their underground network pretending to Shout Truth from a rooftop from which they’ll never ascend.
  Ground yourself or gravity will do it for you.

L’albinos affamé

Alone she was sitting at a small table by the window at The Gristle on a cool spring day in Stratum XVII. She took drags off a vanilla glucose durry in between bites of stale pound cake. Her rosy irises and downward chin painted her as distant and unreadable, and the brief cascade of whitish hair from under a silly blue beret was incongruous enough to invite ridicule.
  Which — this being The Gristle, in the town of Classic City — was ground zero for snide commentary from hipster and BärteHansa types. Such is the usual reaction when social anomalies show up on the radar of the Condescending Cool: Immediate Squamous Scene Rejectus.
  The woman was known to perform cringey acoustic folk songs at local venues, and this was added fire to the ridicule already heaped upon her.
  Okay, fair enough on that part. But her physical condition and being from Canadia were of course no choice she could possibly make herself, so the derision of others at those facts came off as immature cheap shots.
  As for the cringey folk music, there’s no shortage of it locally, and (as with many genres) the cringe factor is usually based on twee, self-serious, and oversensitive pretensions.
  None of which were apparent in the woman’s music, mien, or spirit. Just a quiet poignancy with muted earnestness, if anything.
  The woman continued to silently chew her cake at the lone table as the afternoon sun faded to a weak grey. Word has it that she soon thereafter made her way back north. Guess the local welcome wagon must’ve been a bit too much to handle.
  Creative cretins of Classic City: We know how much you care for the unconventional and downtrodden — as you relentlessly keep saying so — but is it too much to ask you to put aside your fashionable nihilism and jaded, low-T snark to afford a simple stranger their dignity?

KulturFilter 1.0

Défense Phylactique targets:

• The Taint of Kultural Kuru
• The ‘Good Intentions’ of BärteHansa
• EBB Contagion
• Gaijin Contagion

Why is Baxter such a joke?

Leonardo’s Deep Dish Pizza. Húnán’s Zhōnguó Delights. Mr. H’s Piano Bar & Aquarium Supply. Xiā Xiăo Chuán. Club Frederick. All became a laughing stock in the end. Even P-Bones, the Baxter Street pungeonary, had found that their current location had a depressing effect on what is normally a lucrative business.
  The elders of Classic City commissioned the Orville Corporation to spearhead an effort to change the public’s negative perceptions of the Baxter Street corridor. Orville’s Chief Culture Officer (CCO) and Thought Leader Johnny Gutts had several suggestions for improvement...
Whilst commercial sector Baxter already has one pungeonary, there’s no reason other pungeon-related enterprises can’t ‘put down stakes’ here, as zoning regs are observed.
  Gutts recommends venture, corporate, and municipal infusion of capital, accessible to both the townie/trust-fund hobbyist market as well as upper-end franchise prospectors. Local and franchise businesses have made strides in thawing out their chilly relations with one another over the past years.
  Coincidentally, the Orville Corporation themselves have many a subsidiary that would appeal to each demographic, such as their Culture Transition Services™ — sure to attract the big 20-30 start-up market. (Even the BärteHansa dons would nod approvingly... and unironically.) The older, more-monied demo might be more interested in a SetUp™ boutique, an Orville Ancestral Confrontation Lab, or perhaps a Tauntini’s franchise.
  If Classic City and Orville can both marshal their resources, reassure citizens, and rebuild Baxter’s good name, there’s no reason this won’t resonate and engage potential consumers.
  “Baxter is the future of Classic City,” says Johnny Gutts assuredly.
Stay tuned.

The Secret is Out: Orville’s Culture Transition Services™

Why do one-time “cutting edge” youth-oriented factions unexpectedly transition their aging lifestyle into (ostensibly) more mature, more age-appropriate levels of energy exertion in their interests and hobbies?

  For the last 20 years Orville’s Professional Services Division has been implementing their Culture Transition Services™ to help coordinate a delicate, seamless transition of young men and women’s “entire scene” towards a more productive future. Today’s twentysomethings cannot simply abandon their youth for responsibility without also abandoning social circles and self-identity, with the resultant freak-out leaving them empty and even more insecure. We can’t let scenesters trickle off without a note, one by one, month by month, leaving the Scene King without a kingdom.

  Orville’s CTS uses a specific matrix algorithm to analyse subjects’ psychological and socio-economic background to tailor a natural transitional “growth path” for each individual.  For example: The graceful transition of Southern Ohio Juggalos to a thriving bluegrass scene didn't happen ‘by chance.’ CTS experts analysed key players and came to the conclusion that Level 3B Proles would remain ‘within caste’ over a lifetime.

  This is where CTS professionals came in: They offered advice on tattoo updates, incorporating banjos and fiddles, gradual music venue showtime adjustments over 3-year period from 11pm gatherings to 4pm hoedowns, and a clever marketing strategy from Orville’s Energy Drink Division with new drink offering “JUGG-R-NAUT™,” which came with a free corncob pipe.

Pipes initially looked and acted as crack pipes, but over a 18-month time period were gradually changed to actual corncob pipes.  Though the scene remains in the same caste, they are now semi-productive bluegrass musicians, rather than sad, 45-year-old Juggalos hanging out in parking lots.

Other case studies:
• Riot Grrll scene in Spokane 5-year transition into weekly Saturday afternoon Quilting Party gatherings at local community center.
• ‘90’s Straight-Edge/Skate scene in Denton, TX transition to thriving co-ed softball league.
• Transitioning Classic City’s aging BärteHansa members suffering from Role Strain into a benign niche spiral that flatters their sense of narcissism whilst socially sequestering them from the rest of productive society.

These fantastic results don’t happen on their own. Orville’s CTS labs architect and engineer every step of the transformation. Where needed, Orville will introduce one or more SXAs (Scene-Xfer-Agent) into your community. These are trained, attractive actors that your friends will find to be highly influential, and will help you guide them into — and through — the scene metamorphosis. (Oh, and don’t worry, SXAs don’t hang around, their skills will be needed elsewhere... Usually a staged death is their exit, and you’ll be the hero who almost saved their life…)

  Orville’s Culture Transition Services™ kindly lends young people a firm but guiding hand to fulfill their socio-economic imperative. Young skeptics may scoff at their colleagues “selling out,” but look at the alternative: How pathetic are middle-aged folks who are left clinging to lost youth? Or worse yet, those who co-opt the culture of people their own kids’ age?  Surely these same skeptics would call shenanigans on this.

  When we consider the sociological problems of the growing number of middle-aged people still indulging in Xbox with their kids, cougar antics, walking around in khaki shorts and flip-flops, and ingesting Nostalgioid Opiates, both the usefulness and the need for Orville’s Culture Transition Services™ becomes clear.

“The Mind at War”

Orville Corporation CEO, thought leader, and armchair analyst Johnny Gutts sees the writing on the wall:

  “There’s aspersions in the air and treachery in the ’tubes and revilement on the road ahead. Your sanity and mental hygiene are under attack from all quarters. From the high level Powers That Be that divide and conquer to make dependent beggars... to the local cabals sniffing for exploitation... down to the low individuals no less cunning, gunning for scammage.
  “The plethora of psychological offensives come from across the spectrum -- from knaves down to their fools -- and from some even on The Spectrum itself. (“Spectrum is Green”? Definitely not, guys.)
  “Languid yet stubborn minds and their psychological necessity for an ‘Emmanuel Goldstein’ to focus their frustrations with what is ultimately self-unfulfillment -- and their obligatory public displays of impotent rage. Of course, every hurdle in life is viewed as an impediment put in place by The Man. They bait innocents into false debates not to persuade, but for the selfish purpose of validation abutment. So, don’t bother trying to be pragmatic with solutions for them. They’re just milking the opportunity to bitch. And not only are you forced to listen in person, they barrage you online, looking for social approval (via vanity metrics) for leveraged activities.
  “But! By all means don’t take things sitting down! Call out these Shoulder Chippers’ passive-aggressive mau-mauing as the twaddle it is and watch them crumble into a litany of Vapourous Meta-Excuses, betraying their Image-Constructs.
  “How did these ‘adults’ not ‘grow the F up’? Having shite parents who lack basic social propriety certainly didn’t help. ‘Can’t you just ignore them?’ you ask. Well, these are clowns you run into every day. The store clerk who can’t do arithmetic even with the till. Idiots operating machinery. And of course, people who block the travelator at the transit concourse.
  “And putting the Irritati in front of us aside, let us not forget the media environment that surrounds us. It’s in the air, on the walls, and on the telescreens! We are suffused with the scourge of InfoToxin peddlers, the recycled compost of Kultur Vultures, provocative ‘art’ that provokes yawns, and the steady dirge of
Lo-Valu™ media muckraking passing itself off as news.
  “Solutions? The Allied Pungeoning Front has long supported pungeoning activities and the Orville Corporation has long sanctioned the APF’s efforts supporting various pungeonaries and their franchises over the years, as well as Punge Expos. Orville has been offering assistance with cutting-edge tech of the time, available to both individuals and groups in their fight against BubbaCabal and BärteHansa, as well as against Easy Breathers and their ilk, drunken alumni, and hippie burnouts.
  “But what more could we do? What more could I, Johnny Gutts, do in this war of minds? I am giving you these tools to use yourself — no need to call the APF or local pungeonary, when vital information is at your fingertips!

  “Orville Publishing brings these great books to you! Presenting the first 14 volumes of ‘The Mind at War’ — now available to the general public.
  “They’re all here, in big handsome hardbacks with the look and feel of hand-tooled saddle leather. Or, get them in handy CD/DVD format to watch on your personal computing device.
  “I’ll send you ‘Vol. XIV: The Trajectory of Cultural Rot’ for a 10-day examination. If you’re not impressed just return it in ten days and pay nothing. If you decide to keep ‘The Trajectory of Cultural Rot’ you pay just $19.95 plus shipping & handling. Then, every month I’ll send you another lively volume from ‘The Mind at War’ library for a 10-day examination. Keep only the volumes you want. Cancel at any time.

  “If you care about freedom of thought and unfettered mental hygiene as much as I do, you’ll want every volume of ‘The Mind at War.’ Order today and receive an Allied Pungeoning Front tote bag FREE with your purchase. This offer ends soon so call right now!”