Hivemind Times Issue #15

Welcome To The Hivemind Times!

What the hell is up with my loyal newsletter readers. Graydog here coming to you live from the orange room. Frankly I don’t know what's going on anymore, I’d like to formally apologize for last week's Cronk update and we have obviously tried to fire him since. This week we’ll try and keep it a little more PG but that usually doesn’t work around here.

Content updates: dropping a new unlimited today and then going into next week we will have a new main channel as well as the regularly scheduled cheap seats and ‘How did it age’. Some cool things coming down the pipeline to look forward to.

Love y'all - enjoy the read.

- Riley & Graydon

MOVIE REVIEW

In Anticipation of Gladiator Dos, I Watched Uno Last Night….

Boy what a bloated, pretty corny movie?

The charm it once held in my little beating heart seemed kind of sucked away on this last rewatch, and mind you I’ve probably seen this movie 15 times (I realize that's like two full days of my life). Maybe it’s on the heels of the colossal failure that was Napoleon, but there's more glaring holes in this movie that are no longer easily covered up by Ridley Scott's sheer scale of some scenes.

I do love a battle, and I do especially love how feeble and sniveling Joaquin Phoenix is as Commudus, but there are so many weird 60 fps scenes a la Saving Private Ryan final battle scene, and the dream/hallucination scenes specifically look terrible now with time passed. The movie remains kinda propped up by the Zimmer soundtrack and some really timely iconic melodramatic lines (“Have I not been merciful!!”, “Are you in danger of becoming a good man?”, “Smile for me now brother”).

I will never lose nostalgia for this movie as it did inspire me as a boy to become a Spanish general turned prisoner warrior. The north African scenes and some of the Roman city scapes remain really impressive even 20 some years later but the overall vibe is just a little off here and some of the effects choices are rather unforgivable. Overall it left me way less excited to go see the sequel and maybe I will just opt to illegally download it instead.

- Graydon

CRONK’S UPDATE

I’m back. I think. Hailed a hero. A miraculous adventure. They wrote these words about me when they found me deep in the jungle. Half alive with not even a thread to share. They don't know what I've done. They don't know the things I've seen.The mountain of bodies that I've created. I am the devil.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. They told me I was "lucky" to make it out, lucky to be alive. But what good is it when everything feels dead? The jungle was thick, suffocating, and I was there for years. The only thing real to me in this world was the sweat on my skin and the pounding of my heart, constantly waiting for something to tear me apart. Movie theaters, walks in the park, dinner with friends and punching in the clock. This paranoid “sickness” has followed me back home. I constantly find myself looking behind me seeing things in the dark scrambling to attack me and me reaching for my rifle. Except, it's not there. I’m not here. I AM THERE.

They pulled me out with a chopper. I remember the blades slicing through the air, the wind in my face. It was like waking up from a nightmare. Except, I didn’t wake up. They didn’t say much when they landed. Just soldiers in fatigues, faces as empty as mine, pulling me into the chopper. I didn’t even fight them. I didn’t care. They took me to a medical post in the Philippines. They gave me a bed, some pills, and a whole lot of questions. They asked me what happened, where I’d been, what I saw. I don’t think I ever really answered them. I just stared at the walls and listened to their voices echo like they were coming from a distance. They wanted details—how many were dead, who I fought, where I was. They thought I was hiding something. They wanted a hero’s story, but I didn’t have one. Just a long string of blood and fear. I couldn’t explain the pile of corpses of everything I killed. I couldn’t explain why I did it. I don’t think I understand it myself. Maybe I was supposed to feel something about it. Regret, guilt, something human. But all I felt was numb. 

It’s all a blur, but I know I didn’t leave them there by accident. I knew what I was doing. I stacked them. Heads on stakes, bodies piled up like firewood. A warning, maybe. Or just what happens when you’re too far gone to care anymore. I remember the smell, the rot. But I also remember the calm I felt, standing there, watching the vulture circle. It was the only peace I had.

Then, they brought me back here. Home. Atlantic City. But it doesn’t feel like home. Everything is too bright, too loud, too… alive. It’s like I’m looking through glass, watching a world that isn’t mine anymore. I can’t connect to anyone. I try, but I can’t. How do I explain to them that my heart is still stuck in that jungle, still buried under a mountain of dead bodies? How can I explain to someone who’s never seen what I’ve seen that I’m not whole anymore? And it’s like I’m a ghost. People talk to me about their jobs, their families, their stupid problems but it all sounds so far away. They don’t know. They don’t get it. They never will. I can’t talk to anyone, can’t feel anything. I look at people, and I see strangers. I hear their laughter, and I want to scream.

I tried to feel something. Tried to meet a woman, to make some kind of connection. But how can I? How do you tell someone that you don’t know if you're even alive anymore? How do you explain that when you close your eyes, it’s not her face you see, it’s the shadows of the jungle? The faces of men whose life you took. The smell of fresh blood. The endless hunger, the never ending fear.

I thought maybe I could get back to normal. But normal is just a word. I’m not normal. I’m lost. Some days, I wonder if it would be easier to just go back. Find some corner of the jungle where nothing but the trees can judge me. Maybe the jungle would take me back. Maybe it would be better there.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with all this noise in my head. All this weight. All this darkness.

Maybe there’s no way out.

Maybe…

- Cronk

RECIPES

Lasagna. Soup.

Yea, you heard me. I did it - I made lasagna soup.

This one was so dumb easy and truly outstanding. Fed about 10 people with no complaints and plenty of second and third bowl getters.

Tomatoes galore is the main theme here. I did half a can of paste, whole can of crushed, and two diced funky heirlooms. A whole red onion. Sadly I only had jar garlic but I threw about that whole thang in there. Chopped up a healthy bit of fresh parsley. A sneaky drop of cream. Obligatory salt pep and tablespoon of olive oil. Just throw whatever is “italian” on your spice shelf indiscriminately; Oregano, what have you.

Now I used a mix of veggie stock and beef stock, why? I don’t fucking know, it sounded good. Most recipes called for chicken but that didn’t make sense to me because lasagna isn’t chicken in my mind. I bought 2.5lbs of sausage from my deli guy, some good ones, and browned them up before chopping and plopping in the pot. Don’t short change yourself and settle for shitty ground beef or cheap sausage, a good meat will really shine at the end.

Let all that party for 3.5 hours then when you’re about thirty minutes away from eating, break up a bunch of lasagna noodles and throw them into the pot. They are gonna suck up a bunch of moisture so either have reserve stock or just keep adding water to keep it soupy. Lastly and most importantly get some ricotta and parmesan cheese to top and some fresh basil, them shits will take it over the edge.

Happy soup season my freaks, party on.

- Graydon

MERCH