{"id":1382,"date":"2011-09-27T03:10:45","date_gmt":"2011-09-27T01:10:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.somethingwicked.co.za\/?p=1382"},"modified":"2011-08-30T15:57:20","modified_gmt":"2011-08-30T13:57:20","slug":"the-day-the-earth-shat-eggrolls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/2011\/09\/27\/the-day-the-earth-shat-eggrolls\/","title":{"rendered":"The Day The Earth Shat Eggrolls"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Sykes’s Sixth Sense of Humour
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From Issue 13 (Sept 2011)<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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People of Earth, I have a warning for you all.<\/p>\n

Usually, the Sixth Sense of Humour articles are quite lightweight, frivolous and sometimes even witty and funny, but this issue\u2019s column comes in the form of a deadly serious warning that only a fool would ignore.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about 2012. Specifically, December 21st, 2012.<\/p>\n

Some people would like to think they know what\u2019s going to happen when that ominous date rolls around; some may choose not to speculate, and (like I used to) just adopt a \u2018wait and see\u2019 attitude. But I now know<\/em> what\u2019s going to happen on December 21st, 2012, and it ain\u2019t gonna be pretty.<\/p>\n

How do I know? Well, mainly because last week I ate some egg foo yung that I found at the back of Joe\u2019s fridge. Afterwards, I wandered outside, walked awhile, and fell into a fitful sleep. When I awoke days later, naked and alone in a Kloof Street doorway on a rainy Sunday morning, I started to recall the dream I\u2019d had, brought on by the miraculous chemical reaction of the fermenting Chinese food still living in my stomach. Except it hadn\u2019t been a dream.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d had a vision.<\/p>\n

An extremely large ship is headed for Earth, and the unthinkable distance between its planet and ours is being slowly worn away as the months clock off inexorably towards December 21st, 2012 \u2013 their arrival date.<\/p>\n

But why are they coming? Well, I\u2019ve got good news and bad news.<\/p>\n

The good news is that their mission is, for now, one of peace. I know that they set off with only the best intentions, namely to share with us their scientific knowledge, to bring to the nations of Earth a message of galactic harmony, and to invite us to join the Galactic Federation of Worlds. All well and good.<\/p>\n

The bad news is that they\u2019re going to see our movies before they arrive.<\/p>\n

My vision revealed that their ultra-advanced ship is able to intercept from Earth any transmission signal it likes, including TV signals, and that the entire crew (don\u2019t ask me what the visiting race is called, because I couldn\u2019t think of a good name<\/del> the vision didn\u2019t show me this) is using this technology to do a lot of cramming on the subject of Earth in preparation for their visit, and part of that cramming involves studying our entertainment media. By and large, much of it is going to be considered harmless. But I tell you, we\u2019re all going to die in a rain of fire from the sky!!! I know this because I watch a lot of sci-fi movies. And the general message that these movies send out is that if you\u2019re not from here and you visit Earth, vast oceans of virtually impenetrable human ignorance await you. Even if your mission is one of peace, exploration or discovery, you\u2019re still in for a shitty, shitty time. Expect xenophobia, relentless pursuit, being shot at, imprisonment, undignified poking, prodding and general scrutiny, dissection, and treatment normally reserved for microbes in a Petrie dish.<\/p>\n

How do you think an alien race would react to movies like 1951\u2019s The Day the Earth Stood Still<\/strong>? I mean, Klaatu steps off the ship, basically says,\u201cI bring you peace\u2026\u201d and pow, someone pops a cap in his extraterrestrial ass.<\/p>\n

And what about Starman<\/strong>, or District 9<\/strong>? Yes\u2026 yes. Are you starting to understand the problem now? Can you deny that any of the visitors in those movies got anything other than a big old \u2018fuck you\u2019 from the people of Earth?<\/p>\n

Take E.T., for instance. It doesn\u2019t matter that he got away in the end, if only by the skin of his teeth (did he even have<\/em> teeth?); if I were the commander of the ship on its way here, and saw the shit E.T. had to wade through first, I\u2019d immediately find any and all \u2018Peaceful-Aliens-Coming-to-Earth\u2019 movies to get a better idea of what to expect once the ship has touched down. The more I\u2019d watch, the more I\u2019d realise that any non-terrestrial species unlucky enough to find themselves on our backwater planet, whether they land in Washington D.C. or Shitsplash, Tennessee, is going to be hunted down by the authorities like a fox in Dorset.<\/p>\n

Now, do you really think that they\u2019re going to land on Earth with the same good-natured intentions with which they set out, or will their plans change drastically en route? Again, if it were me in the commander\u2019s seat, I\u2019d get all my men together and say something like: \u201cLook fellas, I know that we were supposed to get to Earth and share our amazing scientific knowledge with all the nations\u2019 leaders, and mate with the gorgeous Earth women, and take a contingent of humans back to our planet (whatever it\u2019s called), but these transmissions I\u2019ve been studying over the last few spligmoks*<\/a> have caused me to completely reconsider the mission, and now I must tell you that our directive has changed. We are no longer ambassadors, we are warriors. All fifty thousand of you will arm yourselves with full battle hardware – including the new head-melting bombs we\u2019ve been dying to try out \u2013 and once we arrive on Earth, I\u2019ll declare the entire planet\u2026 oh, I don\u2019t know, an official hazard or something, according to the so-and-so declaration of the whatsisface counsel of Planet X, yadda yadda yadda\u2026 and then we proceed to eliminate every last human being, starting with their leaders, right down to the bottom-dwelling movie producers, until Earth poses no more threat to visitors. Actually, having seen some of Earth\u2019s nature programmes, I think it\u2019d be a great idea to turn the whole planet into a human-free botanical garden, so it serves a useful purpose in the galaxy. Now get cracking, men \u2013 we arrive in six grebtars, and I don\u2019t think everyone\u2019s had their flu jabs yet\u2026 we wouldn\u2019t want to catch anything nasty on Earth while we\u2019re busy wiping out the dominant species, now would we?\u201d<\/p>\n

Dear readers, let me stress again that this is not a joke, or meant to be taken as anything other than the most serious of warnings. December 2012 is coming. Aliens are coming. But my vision was only of a possible<\/em> future. There\u2019s still time to save ourselves. We just need to start making movies where friendly aliens are welcomed to Earth with open arms and treated like fucking royalty, otherwise we\u2019ll have no-one to blame but ourselves when the head-melting bombs begin to fall.<\/p>\n

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*<\/a> One spligmok is equal to about four-and-a-half grebtars, or as long as it takes for a mouse to learn the lyrics to Smells Like Teen Spirit.<\/p>\n

Image from The Day The Earth Stood Still \u00a9 Twentieth Century Fox<\/em><\/p>\n

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Mark Sykes<\/a><\/h2>\n

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What can be said about Mark Sykes<\/strong>?<\/p>\n

Film actor, world traveller, model, novel writer, piano and violin player, ballroom dancer, deep-sea diver \u2013 he is none of these things.<\/p>\n

Actual achievements include the odd play or musical, avoiding death by starvation through singing to people around London, and completing all three Halo<\/strong> games on \u2018legendary\u2019 level.<\/p>\n

Literary influences include Philip Pullman, Carl Hiaasen and Iain M. Banks.\u00a0 Favourite activities include vacuuming, buying stationery, applying sun lotion to total strangers, catoptromancy, going to Paris to see his brother, getting lost in Derbyshire, and trying hard to tell the truth at all.<\/p>\n

After being Something Wicked\u2019s<\/em> \u201cMan In London\u201d he now lives in Cape Town and is enjoying the sun.<\/p>\n

[hana-code-insert name=’ArticleBlockClose’ \/]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Mark Sykes
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People of Earth, I have a warning for you, we\u2019re all going to die in a rain of fire from the sky!!! I know this because I watch a lot of sci-fi movies. And the general message that these movies send out is that if you\u2019re not from here and you visit Earth, vast oceans of virtually impenetrable human ignorance await you. Even if your mission is one of peace, exploration or discovery, you\u2019re still in for a shitty, shitty time. <\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nFrom Issue 13 (Sept 2011)<\/span><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
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