A“I find that a dose of LSD,” Dr. Evil said, “can really chill you out. You’ll learn a lot about yourself if you confront your anima. Yep. You can really defang that noumena. Mhm.”
“You said LSD had nothing to do with our mission,” Dick Land said. “Riiight. That’s true. Well, still we have to bond, don’t we?” “It makes sense to me.” Dick gave everyone a single tab of acid. “I need a second,” Dr. Evil said. “My tolerance for this stuff is so frickin’ high. I’m practically immune because of what the Dutch did to me.” “What’s that?” Steven Sexhalf said, leaning forward with greedy eyes. “The Dutch frickin’ MK Ultra’d me.” “That’s interesting, say more on that,” Bathroom Fuller said. “How about no!” Dr. Evil yelled. He took his second tab of acid and put both doses on his tongue. “Alright, I don’t want to hear a frickin’ peep out of any of you until we start tripping.” “Right, so that the trip–“ “Zip it!” Dr. Evil said. Forty-five minutes passed. “Oh man. I’m starting to see interesting shapes,” he said. “What do you see?” Dick asked. “I see a spiral.” “I see it too,” Dick said. “It’s memetic.” “It’s the sixties,” Dr. Evil said. He started shaking in fear. “That spiral is the sixties! Get it away from me!” Dr. Evil swatted the air with his hands and in the process hit Steven in the face. “It’s okay, Dougie,” Dick said. He put his hand on Dr. Evil’s crossed hands. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.” “Why the frickin’ hell should I listen to you!” Dr. Evil asked. “You know how to beat it.” The two looked at each other calmly. Dr. Evil saw Dick’s features for the first time, for the first time paid attention to the way that he looked. Dick was a stocky man with black hair. His face was thin, his eyes green. He looked like an old movie star, a man who’d star in a picture show about a singing cowboy. Dr. Evil saw and orange bloom around his head. There were flowers which sprouted like roses and folded out into the shapes of lotuses. Dick melted into these flowers, became one of these flowers. “You know how to beat it, Dougie. Don’t you?” “I don’t know anymore,” Dougie said. “I don’t know if I can. It’s been sixty years. I’m an old fart.” He noticed then that he was crying. “Oh. That’s weird. I’m crying. I never cry.” “You cried in Austinpussy,” Steven said. “What’s that?” “In that movie. I saw you cry.” “That was Kevin Spacey. That wasn’t even me.” “Oh,” Steven said. He looked at him confused. “I could have sworn you were in a movie.” Dr. Evil saw himself as a shadow. The sun rose before him, and he grew longer, stretched himself back on the cracked rocks of the world. When he opened his eyes, he saw a man standing above him. Their feet were touching, so that the soles of Dr. Evil’s feet touched the back of this man’s shins. “Who are you?” Dougie yelled. The man turned around. It was Kevin Spacey. “It’s just a bad trip,” Dick said. His voice came from a burning bush nearby. “Nothing to worry about, Dougie, it’s all gonna be okay.” “Oh, man,” Anna said. She started flicking her wrists up and down. “This is freaking me the fuck out.” “Calm down,” Dick said. “I’m so frickin’ agitated,” Dr. Evil said. “I feel like a frickin’ mole. Yeah, that’s right, I’m a mole. I’m digging through tunnels but I’m still so frickin’ blind.” “The earth is a tunnel. We speak of being in the earth as if the earth is something you can be inside while outside,” Steven said. “I’m inside of it now,” Dougie said. “What do you see?” Dick asked. “I’m seeing bones, bones going twenty or thirty feet down.” “The fossil record was important for understanding consciousness in early psychological research. Maybe you’re going deeper into your own mind, into your subconscious.” “Why’s it look so dusty? Oh gosh, I’m so old.” “The subconscious was there before you were,” Dick said. “What do you see, Dougie?” “I see dirt. I see triangles that fold to lines. There’s a geometrical inconsistency here. I see Scott. Oh God, I see Scott. But he’s just a young boy. He’s a young boy when I wasn’t there for him. Oh, Scott!” Dr. Evil stood up and reached his arms out. “Hug me. A hug! That’s all I want, Scott. One frickin’ hug! I want your love, my boy. That’s all I ever wanted. My son, my son Scott Evil. But I wasn’t there for him. I was in a frickin’ cryogenic tube. I wasn’t there for him when he needed me. When he was a boy.” “All kids deserve a racial birthright,” Dick said. Dr. Evil didn’t hear him. He was in a world of his own. He saw nothing but dirt and darkness as he walked about. He was no longer a mole, now he was a worm. All he could do was eat dirt and shit dirt out. “My son, my son. Where are you?” Dr. Evil started walking around the room with his eyes closed. He cried so hard he started to cough. He slammed into walls with his arms out like a mummy. Finally, he collapsed on the floor. “Where are you, Scott? Where are you?”
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Austin pulled his rented Subaru Hatchback into a parking lot near the front of the Holland Prison for Perverts. It was a circular building, domed on the top, strangely looking quite fluffy and inviting. The rust-colored walls had graffiti all over: “Faggaol”, “Gyno genangenis”, other puns implying the prisoners were gay. Austin didn’t seem to notice any of these. He got out of his car and went in.
The middle-aged lady at the front desk, protected by a thick, impenetrable looking screen of plexiglass, flipped through a magazine titled “Windmill Men”. Speakers on either side of the window connected directly to a small microphone on her desk. She continued to browse this magazine even after Austin had stood in front of the window for some time, never looking up. Austin cleared his throat. The woman continued to flip through pages leisurely. “Ahem?” Austin said. The woman adjusted her glasses and licked her fingers to turn another page. “Excuse me miss?” The woman chuckled and flipped to another page. Austin knocked on the glass. The woman stopped for a moment and tore a page out of the magazine. “Fraulein?” Austin said, leaning into the glass and tapping on it. The woman attached tape to the page she cut out and hung it up on the wall without looking. Austin sighed and looked around for someone else to help him. “Oh, hallo,” the woman boomed, leaning into her microphone. Austin cupped his ears. “Can you hear me okay?” “Yes!” Austin said. “Alright, I’ll turn it up,” she said. Her voice got much louder, and Austin could feel her breath inside of his chest. “What are you here for?” “I’m here to see Goldmember!” He plugged his ears with his index fingers. “Ya, I’ll getcha in.” The speakers turned off with an audible click. Austin leaned in to see what her magazine looked like: there was a man who was a windmill, vane atop his head, hub on his nose, his arms sharpened into rotors; his penis drooped down and, amazingly, managed to crush grain, his penis a kind of sawing thing which rubbed along the top of a gear that ground it up. “Head right through that door, it’s the last cell on the right,” the speakers boomed, startling Austin and causing him to drop a glass of milk. A set of double doors down the gray hall slowly opened. Austin shambled down the hallway, seeing to his left a big room behind a window which was labeled “murderers”. Inside of it were buff shirtless men, all screaming at each other. One punched another hard, and neither flinched. A little farther into the hallway was another window labeled “perverts”. There were skinny pantsless men, all standing with their penises on display, smiling, faces turned down, some breathing on others’ necks. There was a window labeled “jaywalkers”, wherein a wide assortment of people from different demographics sat down on the ground looking upset. At the end of the hall was a room titled “Evil Masterminds”, where Goldmember sat, wearing his iconic(?) gold bathrobe. “Austin?” he said through a small hole in the glass. His terrible face and white beard shone with sweat, teeth grimacing through perched lips. “Come in!” Austin opened the door and entered into a small visitation area, a bench and a phone to talk to Goldmember through. Goldmember sat down–into the chair’s back, like Uncle Joey– in the chair on the other side. They picked up their respective handheld phones to speak through the glass. “You remember my wife, Foxxy Cleopatra?” Austin asked, twiddling his thumbs. He looked down in shame. “Of course, yes,” Goldmember said. “Your ex-wife was my girl before she was yours, ya.” “Don’t you ever say her name again...” Austin muttered. “I didn’t say it once.” “I suppose so, yeah,” Austin, quite giddy looking. He got very sober. “She died recently. Of radiation from your tractor beam.” “This makes sense,” Goldmember said, putting his other leg behind his head. “I have stage-six tumors all over my body. I am riddled with cancers of all kinds. The electrocution I endured was a minor pain compared to my eventual and inevitable fate.” “I don’t believe you,” Austin said, scrunching his face up and wiggling it around a little bit. Goldmember pulled down his pantleg, shin still to his ear, and displayed a large, bulging mole, hairs growing out of it. Austin made a horrified face, one of disgust, pity, and arousal. “That’s awful, baby.” “I know,” Goldmember said. “But I am not afraid of death, unlike you.” “I’m not afraid of death!” Austin yelled, slamming his fist onto the glass that separated them. “Why so mad, Austin?” “I’m not mad, I’m randy, baby, and the one true love of my life has been killed by a madman. How am I supposed to get my rocks off?” “Incredibly shallow. I love gold,” Goldmember said, looking to the camera, “fuck it and everything, and yet I have a healthier attitude about it than you. When my gold was taken away, I yearned as a dog does for its departed master, and I await the day when I am broken out of prison and can reunite with my bullion. I respect my gold, take care of it, polish it. It seems you saw your wife as little more than sexual object.” “I don’t see my dead wife as little more than sexual object!” Austin yelled, standing up and picking up the chair and dropping it repeatedly. “Alright. This is all an internal thing, Austin. Let it out if you need, but don’t take it out on me. I had other matters I wished to discuss.” “Other matters, baby, whatever do you mean? I got us together for this shindig,” Austin, elbowing the glass suggestively. “I’ve been waiting for you to come bury the hatchet,” Goldmember said, looking off to the sides of the room with a prissy facial expression. “Now, listen closely. Your fader hasn’t been honest with you.” “My father?” “Your fader,” Goldmember confirmed. “Now, do you remember the Scottish fellow who used to work with Dr. Evil?” “Scottish fellow…” Austin said, rubbing his chin. “No, I don’t think I do.” “Really?” “No…” Austin looked truly perplexed. “The big guy?” Goldmember said. “Big guy… Nope, not ringing a bell.” “He used to be a great big fat guy, but then he slimmed down. His name? Was Fat Bastard.” “Fat Bastard?” Austin said excitedly. “Oh, yeah, baby, I know him! I just thought he was Japanese!” Goldmember gave Austin a disgruntled look and put his legs back down to the ground. “Ask your fader about Fat Bastard.” “Why?” “Just do it. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Goldmember removed from his pocket that day’s special Sunday edition of The New York Times, displaying the front page story to Austin, headline: AUSTIN POWERS RACIST? “Oh, come on, no, baby, no!” “This should come as no surprise,” Goldmember read, “as Austin has a history of tokenizing and diminishing the identities of people of color in his clubs. Japanese twins Fuk Yu and Fuk Mi, who frequented Austin’s Electric Shagadelic Pussycat Swingers Club say that ‘Austin was always making fun of our names. Not just us, but the other girls too, who I won’t name for fear of their safety. It wasn’t okay then and it isn’t okay now, but no one ever said anything.” “Hey, it wasn’t a racial thing, baby!” Austin said, defensive. “I’m always making fun of everyone’s names!” “I don’t know, you know,” Goldmember said. “I’m Dutch and I can see how this is problematic. Can you give me some examples?” “Felicity Shagwell, baby,” Austin said. “I said somethin’ like: I bet you can! Alotta Fagina: I said somethin’ like: I bet you have that! Or, how about Ivana Humpalot. I said somethin’ like: I bet you do!” “I’m not sure. Those all seem to be ethnic names. I can see a kind of issue there. ‘Ivana’, that wouldn’t sound like ‘I wanna’ at all in the Russian language, so to place some sexuality on it is a bit rude to her, don’t you think?” “No, baby, it’s just funny,” Austin insisted. “It’s a joke! I make sex jokes all the time, it’s my thing, yeah, baby, yeah!” “This is a changing world, Austin. It wouldn’t hurt you to be a bit less sexual, especially towards women. And to be less racially sexual. It’s strange.” “No, no, baby. You don’t understand. It’s just my culture. It’s just swinger culture! It’s just swinging, baby.” “Whatever helps you sleep at night,” Goldmember said. “Your culture, your heritage, your birthright, it all gets very toxic. When the way you perform your culture harms people, you must renounce it or die like a dog.” “Come on baby, a little love never hurt nobody!” “I’m not so sure it was ever love,” Goldmember said. “I look upon my past with shame. That’s the privilege I have with these cancerous tumors and my confinement; the privilege to think about the things I would have done differently. The truth is that I should have been celibate. I never felt anything anyways, because of my golden, key-shaped penis. Why did I ever even have sex with all these rollerskating vixens? Because I felt I needed to or I wouldn’t be a man. It was wrong. It hurt me, and it hurt the girls. Now begone.” Austin thought of his licensed Swedish penis pump. Doctor Evil cracked open a door. “Hello?” he said. “Anyone here?” He peered through the threshold and saw an almost empty lecture hall, no one lecturing, just a small group of people sitting in the front of the audience. Five of them. They all looked very happy to see him, beckoning him in with big gestures.
At the front was Dick Land, just as the Cambridge website had shown him; scruffy, bespectacled, hair turned up into the air. His face was angular but soft. He wore a hand-knit checkered sweater-vest. “Dr. Evil!” He exalted. The class all started to clap, some cheering out loud. A boy in the front with curly hair stood and started flipping his arms around in circles. “Alright,” Dr. Evil said, “quiet down. Quiet down. Enough.” The class calmed down gradually, settling back into their chairs. “We’ve been waiting for you,” a blonde woman said. “We have so many questions.” “Well, I’m more than prepared to answer them,” Dr. Evil lied. “Let’s start with introductions,” Dick Land offered. “Everyone’s name?” “My name is Write Angler,” a strange gray-haired man said. He was much older than the other students. “But everyone calls me k-pop.” “I’m Stephen Sexhalf,” a gay-looking pervert said. “Raymond Brassiere,” a strange angry freak said. “I go by Bathroom Fuller,” an ugly weirdo said. “And I’m Anna Creamhand,” the blonde lesbian said. “And we’re,” Dick Land cued. “Scru,” all said in unison. “Riiiight,” Dr. Evil said. “So what do you have to ask me exactly?” “Classic, the ‘riiight’ thing,” Write said. “My parents actually named me after you, after your ‘riiight’ thing. They loved it when you said that while trying to trap the necks of seagulls with non-degradable plastics in the sixties.” “Way ahead of your time with that one,” Bathroom Fuller said. “One of the first questions we have is about the idea of cultural Mojo as it relates to Modesty,” Dick Land said. “So, Anna was saying your statement about how Modesty does not... Anna?” “Modesty,” Anna said, flipping to the relevant passage in her copy of Dr. Evil’s My Life as Brother and Nemesis, “does not mean an eradication of polygamy, homosexuality, or sodomy. So the question was does this mean Modesty does not mean eradication of desire?” “Huh, interesting,” Dr. Evil said, scanning his mind for something that would pass for intelligent. “Well it depends on what you desire?” “Does it...” Raymond said. “Dick’s of the opinion that all desire is the same,” Bathroom offered. “That’s right,” Dick Land said. “Desire is the attempt to have something which is not. Anything that ‘is not’ is the same.” “Riiight,” Dr. Evil said. “But sometimes, you can, create? Something new? You ever tried that out?” “What do you mean?” Stephen asked, deeply confused look on his face. “Years ago I wanted sharks with laser beams in my evil lair. That did not exist? Right? And yet they do now.” “That’s exactly what I was positing,” Anna said. “Desire which can create or be actualized is not, um, to use a Muslim term, ‘haram’. But desire which wants for something unattainable is against Modesty.” “You know what, yes,” Dr. Evil said. “You put it well. Sometimes it’s hard to get all of the words on the page, you know.” “So where does MDMA fit into this?” k-pop asked. “What’s that?” Dr. Evil said, leaning forward. “Molly?” k-pop asked, turning his head down and writing something in his notes. “I don’t know her,” Dr. Evil said, looking around the room for assurance. “Ecstacy?” k-pop asked. “Haven’t felt that in years.” “The bean?” “What, Chicago?” “No, um. Disco Biscuit?” “You can look but you can’t touch.” “E!” “I cancelled my cable subscription years ago.” “Lover’s Speed?” “I can’t go so fast, my dick doesn’t work.” “Doctor,” Dick Land interjected. “You needn’t be so flippant with us. We love your work. Since you stopped doing global terror there has been no one challenging capitalist hegemony. Other than Osama Bin Laden. And so for that, we respect you. We just want to know where everything fits in and what comes next.” “What comes next? Like, what do you mean? I’m not getting back into the evil business anytime soon. Trump fired me.” “No, no,” Dick said. “With the world.” “The world? Well, what do you think?” “Armed insurgencies. The most feral people taking what they can. People dead in the streets. Anarchy, but not the good kind. Racial discrimination at a new high. The capitalist class escaping to Mars. Water wars. And then, the death of humanity through global warming.” “Sounds like my kind of party,” Dr. Evil said, doing his evil laugh. After a few long chortles, the rest of the group laughed alongside him, all in one rapturous build up, except for Write Angler, who looked very concerned. “What, why aren’t you laughing?” “I don’t think that’s cool at all,” Write said. “I think what’s cool is acid. And drugs. Techno music? I just can’t get behind death.” Dick pulled out a semi-automatic rifle and shot Write Angler fifteen or sixteen times in the chest, making him stagger back and somersault over the chairs behind him. “Not hyper enough.” “Dick, you’re my new Number Two. Anna, you’re a lesbian?” “Yes, I am,” Anna said. “You’re Frau,” Dr. Evil said, counting with his fingers, “that guy was the guy I used to have with the fez.” Write staggered up and limped a little to the side, prompting Raymond to walk over and stab him in the stomach several times, quick little jabs. “See,” Dr. Evil said, “that’s basically the same thing the fez guy did.” Write fell over again, and Raymond returned to the group. “Who am I?” he asked with a wanton neediness. “I’m not sure, I think I’ll have to use process of elimination here. None of you are particularly ethnic...” “I’m actually Irish,” Stephen Sexhalf said. “Riiight, well, you’re the Lucky Charms guy, so I’d recommend you get some of those right away. Which means, Bathroom, you’re probably Fat Bastard, and Raymond you’re Random Task. But the two are interchangeable in some ways, so we’ll have to see how it goes.” Write started crawling away and Bathroom Fuller removed a sawed-off shotgun and shot him in the head twice. “Oof!” Write said, bleeding profusely, a bit of brain sticking out. He continued crawling. Bathroom slowly reloaded and shot him again twice. “Thank you, Bathroom, for that you get a merit,” Dr. Evil said. “Now that we’ve got all of that sorted out,” Dick said, putting on a pair of glasses and removing from his pocket a red moleskin notebook. “What’s our first order of business, Dr. Evil?” “We’re gonna take back...” he trailed off to look at Write, who was again moving across the floor, his limbs twitching. Stephen started to remove a bazooka that was in his backpack, but Dr. Evil extended his hand to stop him. “This is a common phenomenon. The most cowardly member of any crime organization is always immortal. Just let him leave, it’s not a big deal.” “Alright,” Stephen said, holstering the rocket launcher. “Now, anyways,” Dr. Evil continued, “we’re going to...” Write groaned. “Just ignore it. Turn the other cheek, guys. Now, our plan here is simple. We will create a–“ Dr. Evil air-quotes, “”Study”, which measures “intellectual quotient”. This “study” will target certain scapegoat groups in the first-world. Then, while the American workers are distracted, we will sweep in and control them through the use of “bourgeoise financial institutions”. Because the people are distracted by some kind of distant ringing, and large groups will turn away from their interests in wide arcs, I call this plan... “The Bell Curve”.” A horn section blared. “Dr. Evil,” Dick Land said. “This has already been done.” “What?” “Everything about that has been done. In the eighties.” “Oh,” Dr. Evil said. “Hm. Well how about this: We will leak “emails” from top “establishment politicians”, including the “emails” of party leadership. Then, we point out normal “emails” which seem incongruous with the “seriousness” of being an “establishment politician”, and posit that these emails contain a secret “code” implicating “establishment politicians” as Satanic pedophiles. Because people will stick to this like cheese to a pizza, and the political nature of this scandal, we will call this plan...” “Pizzagate,” Anna said. “Already been done.” “Oh,” Dr. Evil said, disappointed. Quickly his expression changed to joy– eureka. He bounced a little, excited. “Well how about we steal some nuclear warheads and threaten to blow up the world?” “I’m not so sure,” Steven Sexhalf said. “I admire your individualism, but I would like to cause some lasting social change.” “I was hoping for that too,” Dick Land said. Write, by this point, was crawling just by his feet, and Dick looked-on with some perverted pity. “Alright, what do you suppose?” Dr. Evil asked, a bit fed up. “You know, honestly, I had another idea, but I was going for the rule of threes and figured the nuclear thing would be the last one. I was thinking of trying to get the liberal-left to rally behind a French nationalist cartoon magazine.” “That’s an over-simplified look at what happened,” Bathroom Fuller said. “I was thinking radical asymmetrical warfare tactics,” Anna offered. “we could bomb several places in a city at once, creating mass, city-wide panic. Then, the law enforcement’s response is spread thin and no one can stop us as we kill as many people as possible for the glory of our fringe, reactionary movement.” The room was silent for a moment. “Didn’t that happen like five years ago?” Dr. Evil asked. “In Paris?” “It has happened many times,” Dick said, tapping his temple as he thought. “I believe that this has happened almost forty or fifty times a year since 1980.” “Really!” Stephen said with admiration. “Yes, yes,” Dick said. “The main group these days is a group of radical Mexican anti-globalists called the Mexican Operational Organization of Bombers, MOOB for short. I’m not sure their motivations, but they are brutal.” “Are they involved with the Zapatistas?” Anna asked. “I believe they splintered-off, yes, but in tactics they have more in common with groups like the LTTE and the Indian Mujahedeen, and nowadays they don’t do much in Mexico at all.” “Do you think we could,” Dr. Evil threw these next words out of his mouth as if he were playing ring-toss, “hook-up... with these guys? Hang out?” “I don’t see why not,” Dick said. “I’m sure their numbers are somewhere on EBSCOhost, let’s just check it out, right?” Dr. Evil smiled with relief. He felt like he belonged again. “Austin Powers today,” Wolf Blitzer was saying, Breaking News banner and everything. “The former spy was seen marching alongside French nationalists waving banners reading ‘Death to Immigrants’. The group is known as ‘The League of Proud Racists’, and reportedly, they believe all who do not have the... French phenotype? Should be expelled from France. This comes after a long public absence for Austin. Joining us is Scott Evil,” Wolf’s face panning over to one half of the screen, “Austin’s nephew and the son of his former nemesis. Scott?”
“Hey, Wolf, thanks for having me.” Scott was bald now. He maintained his early-2000s pop-punk style, but it looked quite a lot sadder on the frame of an older man. His suspicious, dead eyes were surrounded by purple tinted liner. Behind him was the sleek gray background typical of the Evil brand. “Scott, you have had some history with Austin?” Wolf asked. “Oh, yeah, for sure. When I was a teenager, you know, I was always sort of having to deal with the dynamic my dad and him had. That did change though after my grandpa came back, yeah, um, so and then it was smooth sailing.” “Would you describe Austin as... a racist?” “Uh, like... Yeah, you know. Basically. Few years ago it was a little shocking, he said some stuff about the Dutch and stuff, so.” “Interesting,” Wolf looking at some papers. “I never thought it’d get this bad, really. He was always a little conservative, you know, which is fine, but never like this.” “A lot of people are going to be shocked, you know, Austin was this figure in the sixties, uh, for a lot of people the idea that he’s a racist is strange.” “I mean, I get that. But people really do change. I saw this shift happen, like. As it went on my dad really became the liberal one, and Austin just sunk down into conservative stuff. To be fair, this could be his alternate self, which is about ten minutes in the past from him. I don’t know where that guy went.” Austin shut the TV off. “Blast it!” He shouted. He had been up just about ten minutes and suddenly he was racist. He slunk off his bed and shuffled over to his kitchen, from which large portraits of the Union Jack were noticeably missing, which to Austin implied some sort of anti-British motivation behind the ransacking of his apartment. He poured a few tablespoons of olive oil into a small pan and cracked an egg in; The English method... His nimble hands threw bread into a toaster, and on another pan, he heated up some kidney beans. Any reader who knows about an English breakfast knows what he’s up to. He splashed the excess olive oil onto the top of the egg, trying to cook the white as much as possible. “Oh yeah, looking good baby,” Austin said to himself. The oil popped and a sizeable amount splashed out onto Austin’s bare chest. “Oh no, baby!” Austin said. The oil was scalding. He felt a pain unlike anything he had ever felt. He screamed so loud that people on the street could hear him. His dick-and-balls chest hair was dripping with oil, and was smoking. The toast popped out, and he leaned over to pick it up, somewhat implausibly draping over it in an attempt to see inside of the toaster. His chest hair caught fire. “Ah!” Austin screamed, flinging the bread neatly onto a nearby plate as he started hopping around and screaming. “No, no!” He said. The oil on the egg popped again, and splashed right onto his crotch, immediately combusting. He smacked his penis with a towel. As this proved to be unsuccessful, he started smacking his penis with his hands, chest hair still on fire. He calmly poured the beans onto the toast and started frantically hitting his penis with the frying pan. Finally, the pubic flame extinguished. He then performed stop, drop, and roll. Leaping up, he smiled, relieved, and dumped the egg next to his beans and toast. He was blissfully unaware of the newly made swastika of hair on his chest. Austin started eating his beans on toast and egg, punctuating each swallow of the sticky brown substance caked onto the bread with many repeated vivacious swoops down. He was eating so fast that he had to exhale loudly with every bite, and it didn’t help that he was fairly old. He felt anxious. He had to go back to Holland to see Goldmember. It really frightened him, but he felt he had to. Goldmember needed to hear it. 9/1/2020 0 Comments Austin Powers 4 - License to Shag: Chapter 3 - Dr. Evil Gets a Call from Dick Land/The 2005 Evil/Cohn ManifestoDr. Evil still lived his life punctuated by stringed instruments. Compared to the largely empty hyperrealist spaces he had occupied some twenty years ago, his home now was a rathole. There were piles of trash stacked up to the ceiling. His walls were gray, like the walls of yesteryears, but lacked any of those old walls’ sense of industrial and aesthetic impracticality. He had no boardroom, no shark aquarium, no volcanic basement. He only had four walls, a roof, and a green screen to Skype onto Jimmy Fallon with.
The phone rang. A novelty dial-up landline phone sitting on his kitchen counter that he hadn’t heard rung in a few years. He stumbled up from his DX Racer gaming chair to pick it up. “Hello?” Dr. Evil said sarcastically. “Hello,” the voice on the other end said. It was a deep voice with the kind of northern English accent that made you feel pity. “Are you Doctor Dougie Evil?” “I prefer to be called just Dr. Evil,” Dr. Evil said. “Oh, alright, for sure, Dr. Evil. I’m calling because I’m a tenured professor at the philosophy department of Cambridge University and we’re currently doing a class on the Evil/Cohn Revolutionary Model.” “Riiight.” “I was wondering if you could come speak on your 2005 book ‘My Life As A Brother and Nemesis’?” His book was the most important turning point in his life. In about 2005 he contacted an autobiographer named Dr. Mindy Cohn, who had written in depth about Austin and Dr. Evil in the past, commissioning her to co-author a memoir alongside him. She obliged, and what was created was one of the most experimental pieces on the nature of sexuality and society that has ever been written. It took off in many social circles off the beaten path. Here is an excerpt from the book: “When one inspects the nature of the phallic object one finds virility and strength, otherwise exemplified as the fluid ‘mojo’. The media no doubt assumed my want to communicate this virility when my infamous rocket flew over the heads of the entire Western hemisphere. But this was never my intention. It was a poorly designed mistake. What desire should I have to expose myself to the world? This kind of constant reference to the phallic object is exactly what diminishes its power. Austin Powers, my brother and former enemy, is a perfect example of someone who seeks, for whatever reason, be it in good or bad faith, to create a world in which the phallic object is every day. We see this all around us, do we not? “The Swinging 60s”, “free-love”? These movements, while surely good intentioned, had to die out. “The Big Boy I orbited Earth in for many years is what I feel my true self must be, and just the same what I seek to prevent the world from becoming. A vacuous but almost permanent symbol of innocence. An externalization and abstraction of the production of what makes your very existence. The obscene dream sold when you see the small man holding a burger is this: ‘Eat and be full.’ There is no mention of sex, no mention of the birth of cows and the grinding of their meat. Only the product. This is an important concept to my theory. I call this “Product without Ingredients”, after the Deleuzian Body without Organs, but do not be confused by its name. The Body with Organs is exactly what the Product without Ingredients conceals; they are opposite concepts. There is no wild, unadulterated and uncivilized spirit of mojo since our culture downloaded the Product without Ingredients meme. “What I sought to offer, in my constant assaults on the United Nations and United States Government, was a view of a plan for revolution which cannot function. You cannot simply threaten to blow up the world, you cannot simply kill everyone who disagrees with you. My plans are the application of Product without Ingredient thinking to revolutionary matters. “You may think: ‘Dr. Evil, did Austin not advocate for a peaceful revolution?’ I say: Throw me a frickin’ bone here. If my actions offer a view of Product without Ingredient thinking applied to failure, Austin provides a view of its widespread success for leeches. Austin, who until being frozen past the dissolution of the USSR very much sympathized with Socialist and Communist countries and attitudes, has for the past seven years never sought to interrogate the way that his former worldview has dissolved. He believes that his judiciary status as the world’s “International Man of Mystery” is a righteous and non-political one. This is why I speak of the Product without Ingredients. When you assume all individual products under capitalism build toward enormous societal products, say the IMF or the WTO, you learn that this product’s interdependency gives its ingredients and vice versa. There is really no product, only vertical chains of ingredients. What is iceberg lettuce if not a part of a hamburger? What is Fergie if not a member of the Black Eyed Peas? And simultaneously: what is a burger without lettuce? What is the Black Eyed Peas without Fergie? “Worse yet if you foolishly believe you are not a product or an ingredient, but a Deleuzian Body without Organs, as Austin does. There is no Body without Organs in our modern capitalist society, and the proof is Austin’s domesticity after arriving here and acclimating himself with our customs. An individual escape from this system is impossible. My lairs are recreations of things which have never once existed. Austin is the same. “This Product without Ingredients perspective displays why a show of force against concepts as ill-defined as monogamy or governmental coalitions do not accomplish any real revolutionary change. A moon laser does not work to cause any collapse of existing structures. At the same time, neither does Austin Powers’ cultivation of his personal mojo. “Do you see how Gaddafi’s recent attempt to establish an African monetary fund subverts this thinking? I applaud his revolutionary ideal of a competing system which vies for power while still structured within the rigged and broken neocolonialist model. It may prove to provide for the entire continent of Africa following its overthrow of the supposedly civilized West which colonized, abandoned, and still exploits it. The recent privatization of Libya’s oil further proves this. A revolutionary of the 20th century might say that this is reformism. But what exactly would happen if the people of Libya revolted, simply stormed the gates of their parliament and killed Gaddafi? Would they have prepared a robust and empowering, but simple enough alternative which could be followed through in the face of the guns of global capital? “I should clarify: although they are ideal for Africa’s economic situation, Gaddafi’s solutions cannot be earnestly followed through with around the world. In the West, where wealth is ever present and always out of reach, the worship of popular culture and technology blinds our judgement. We have long-since lost our cultural mojo. Most men these days do not even know that mojo is a real, physical substance. They think it is an abstracted metaphor for some antiquated sexual expression when it is really the very thing which allows for cultural advancement. “No doubt you have noticed I am a simple man. Every time I attempt a heist or blackmail, I do the exact same thing. This is an essential part of my worldview. The dominant ideology of the world is that complexity offers us greater and greater things. This is flawed, but we cannot deny that without our incredibly complex gadgets such as CCTV cameras and time machines we would be worse off. Where we fail is with the fetishization of these objects. These objects have become, in absence of any meaningful phallic or vaginal symbol, the new fixation of our libidinal energy. This is the core of my hyperrealist aesthetic: a physical externalization of an ideal Modesty. The constant maintenance of modesty in society likewise maintains our phallic objects as the healthy objects of our desires. Each object in my lair is only observed when it is to be used. This is Modesty. “Many people would interpret this as a want to end the sexual aspects of swinging culture. No. Modesty does not mean the end of mojo, which is the very thing it protects, nor does Modesty mean an eradication of polygamy, homosexuality, or sodomy. It means that you zip it. Shh! Zip it. Zippy. YKK on your... Zip it! Zip me baby one more time..? “We have already lost the culture war, which no one else in the world was ever even fighting. I have no hope for a society which has casted Kevin Spacey in a film adaptation of what is ostensibly my least revolutionary and most compromised of evil schemes. In fact, I see the commodification of my struggle as a final signal to the world from the elite: ‘We have lost our ability to refute even a man with a plan as ridiculously simple and implausible as Dr. Evil’s. We must legitimize our version of his ideals into our culture or die.’ My constant urge to be hip has long-since destroyed my reliability as a political leader. I have no mojo. I have the opposite of mojo. My success in the media is my greatest source of hope for those who do. “Ask yourself this: If I have been minutes away from destroying the world four or five times with such rudimentary and simple plans, what is to stop any group of people from throwing out the old regimes and installing a new system? The only acceptable answer is that there is no attempt to download a new system beforehand. Developing societies like China and Mexico, who have technology but have still maintained their native traditions and can recover from their colonized economic systems, will inherit the frickin’ Earth.” Dr. Evil did not write this book. He neither had anything to do with it nor did he ever end up reading it, but he was living off of its royalty checks, so what did it matter. He did one short interview with the ghostwriter, who bounced some words off of him and wrote down a few of his speech patterns, then the entire thing was out of his head completely. “Oh, yeah, for sure,” Dr. Evil said. “I can come speak on it. Yah.” “Great,” the professor said, smiling like an ape on the other side of the phone. “Wow! And do you happen to know where Cohn is? We were hoping we could get her to give a lecture as well.” “Hm. Cohn...” Dr. Evil thought for a moment. He scrunched his forehead up with some feigned compassion. “I think I might have fired her.” “Fired her?” “Yes. Out of a cannon? Muahahahaha. Muahahahaha. Muahahahaha.” 9/1/2020 0 Comments Austin Powers 4 - License to Shag: Chapter 2 - Austin in Jail/Opening Parade SequenceVanessa. What about Vanessa did Basil have to bring up? Austin couldn’t help but feel his life was cyclical. He married Vanessa, decided to settle down, and found that she was nothing but a perfect facsimile of his sexual desire created by his nefarious brother Dr. Evil. And Foxxy, while she stuck around a while, ended up being the same. No- not the same- but the loss made it feel that way. As if his wife of 19-50 years depending on how you count it was just another failure. The wife he loved, the wife he took care of every day for fifteen years, a blip on the map.
Austin was booked with a gruff man in a wifebeater. He was bald and had a split lip. The cell was small, with only one cot and one toilet, which was filled with disgusting, chunky brown shit. There was no sink either, and so Austin had a terrible time imagining which poor soul still might have shit residue on their hands. They were packed-in tight. Outside of the cell was a dark, murky hallway which looked to extend forever into darkness. The only light in the basement was coming from upstairs, through a crack in the door. There was a familiar cold to every surface, and the air carried it from floor to ceiling, metal bars to shitty cot. “What are you in for?” Austin asked, trying to fit in, but he was a bit too disheartened to do his usual overeager thing. “Shoplifting,” he said in an English accent. “Well you’re English, baby, aren’t you?” “That’s right, mate, and that’s why I’m in this shithole. I was stealing some toothpaste.” He smiled and exposed rotten, horrid teeth, yellowed with many lines of plaque. “I tell you, I’m never comin’ back here once Brexit goes through.” “Oh, yeah?” “Aye. I say France for the French, England for the English, yeah?” “Yeah, yeah,” Austin said. He held his finger up to his face: “Wait a tick... Isn’t that... right-wing, baby?” “Aye,” the thief said. “I’m with the English National Front.” “No, that’s not groovy,” Austin said. “You can’t just have a thrombo at anyone you please!” He laughed nervously. “Aye. I’m glad you agree. We’re being absolutely overrun.” “No, no baby, that’s not what I’m saying at all—” “Erm, a monsieur named, I.M. Adulf?” A guard said, coming in with a clipboard and a key. “That’s me, then,” the man said. He stood and the jailer opened the door to let him out. “You should join us next time you’re in London, mate. Love to have you.” The guard took him away. “No, no, baby,” the criminal already up and away a set of stairs, “I’m the International Man of Mystery!” The guard came back, holding the clipboard and the key. “Austin Danger?” “No, no,” Austin said. “Danger is my middle name.” “Oh,” the guard said. “So where is Austin Danger? I must find him.” “No, that is me,” Austin said with a sigh. “I see. I am glad I found you.” The guard opened the cell door and came in, punching Austin in the face and kicking him in the stomach. “That’s not very shagadelic!” Austin yelled. He stood up to defend himself. The guard kicked him in the dick and balls. Austin crossed his eyes, holding his crotch and slowly sinking onto his knees. The guard grabbed him by the eyes and attempted to gouge them out, and Austin let out a pained shriek. He got his hands on the guard’s wrist and wrenched the man’s hands away from his face. Austin punched the guard in the crotch, who in a similar fashion to Austin grabbed his crotch, went cross-eyed, and sunk to the ground. Austin punched the guard in the face a few times before the guard managed to again punch Austin in the crotch. Austin fell to the ground, eyes crossed, hands on crotch, and the man started pirouetting, hitting Austin in the face with his keys every rotation. Austin punched the guard in the crotch again and he sunk to the ground, hands on crotch, eyes crossed, and they went on in this fashion, gradually escalating and de-escalating the ridiculousness of their follow-up attacks over the course of several minutes, until finally Austin slammed the entire toilet over this man’s head, sending shit showering down his neck, cascading onto his body and covering him in sticky, brown diarrhea. “Who sent you?” Austin asked aggressively. “I’ll never tell,” the guard said, getting shit in his mouth as he said it. “Never! I’ll never tell.” “Who sent you!” Austin shouted. “Alright, alright, I’ll tell you...” the guard said. “Ricardo... de la Cojones...” Austin looked around, expecting some kind of poison dart or silenced gunshot, but this murky basement jail seemed as if it would not be assailed. “Well, I have no idea who that is,” Austin said, dissatisfied. “I am alive only because,” the guard said, getting more shit in his mouth, “I will soon be dead anyways. He will kill me—" Austin punched him in the face once more to dispatch him, and then simply walked out of the jail. In the reception area of the police station above, a strange looking detective told him his court date: September 20th. His signature ruffled, pirate-like suit was stained by blood and feces. When he got to the street, the heat made him smell much, much worse. The sound of distant trombones filled the air as Austin walked down Downtown Paris, sauntering around with a strange kind of creeping posture, pointing to women on his left and right. A full brass section blared, and he jumped in the air, doing soy-face for a frozen moment. He danced down the street before stopping at the Arc de Triumph to do the twist, one of his favorite dances. Some people were filming him on their smartphones. It was TikTok. He did a dance where he pointed in both directions back and forth quickly and then walked out of the plaza towards the Eiffel Tower. Arriving at the Eiffel Tower, Austin started talking to a homeless man, the music turning down slightly. “Hey, man, can I photograph you?” “You smell like shit,” the man said. “Get out of my sight.” “Oh, behave,” Austin said. He started to dance as the music came back at full volume. He flossed. He did the Backpack Kid flossing dance for like twenty full seconds. When the music started building to a crescendo, he was leading a small protest with a kind of parade-like vibe. Large banners behind him read “MORT AUX IMMIGRANTS”. He did a full pirouette as the music reached its end. Austin stood frozen, breathing heavily in a flamboyant pose. “Wait a tick...” He turned to see the people behind him. There was a group of maybe thirty skinheads, some bearing swastika tattoos, all marching down the street. Anger in their eyes, shouting hate and spitting up pure bacterium. “Oh, no baby!” Austin ducked into an alleyway and hoped no one thought he was involved with the skinheads. He felt so tired. He hadn’t slept in a few days, since his wife died, and the events of these days were scaring him. He headed back to the flat he and Foxxy had lived in for many years after they sold his club in London. Something was wrong right when he opened the door. All of the prints of his head in neon had been torn off the walls, and Foxxy’s prints were disfigured, the eyes cut out and red paint dripping from her neck. The floor was covered in turds, human, dog, and rabbit alike. Austin laid down face first on the bed and cried himself to sleep. 9/1/2020 0 Comments Austin Powers 4 - License to Shag: The Novelization - Prologue: Austin and Basil Drink WineThere was heat in the air. Tension. Humidity. You could taste wine drifting through the Parisian street, the groovy atmosphere of drunkenness emanating from a New Wave café, accommodating, trying its hardest.
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