A new story.

Chapter 1 

GREGORY drummed his fingers on the ancient oaken desk with the eldrich symbols carved around its borders. If he had a nose he would have scratched it, but he didn't so he didn't and that was that. 

WELL THEN, he intoned with all the subharmonic subtelty of a trunk full of tectonic plates colliding. His voice is a little boomy, if you hear what i'm laying down. I SUPPOSE MY PRESENCE WILL BE EXPECTED. IT WAS A LOVELY NAP WHILE IT LASTED. 

With that, GREGORY stood up and walked to the dimmest corner of the room. Raising his arm, slowly extending his bony finger, he traced an ancient looking rune in the air and watched as a swirling portal slowly opened in the fabric of space. When it had finally assumed the size and shape of a doorway, he slunk his head forward and plodded into the darkness. As soon as we start to pan away, however, we hear him clippity clop back and quickly grap a record off the shelf. 

MIGHT BE CHILLY IN THE BUNKER, I'LL JUST GRAB MY MORNING JACKET.... 

Chapter 2 

Sandra tsked a few times as she looked at her cards. 2-pair, Aces and Jacks after the flop. Winning wasn't her interest, reading people was her real game. Still, something told her she was needed elsewhere. "All in," she said and glanced around the table. 

"Too rich for my blood." 

"Bugger it." 

"I'm out." 

"I think you're bluffing," said the last man standing. 

"I do that occasionally," she replied."either way, though, this'll be my last hand. I've got matters to attend to." 

He squinted at her, she eyebrowed right back until he finally folded. "Go on, take the money and run," he sneered. 

"No, no, i don't need it where i'm going. Divvy it back up all fair like." 

"K, then. Since you're walkin', show us." 

"Normally i would, but not this time. Chemtrails over the Country Club, boys. Conspire amongst yourselves for an answer." And with that, she walked out the door and somehow right back into her office. She patted some of the dust off her shirt and jeans, then flopped back into the bean bag chair to wait for whatever nonsense Bottle got up to. 

Chapter 3 

He wasn't quite ready to admit it, but Skip was bored. He'd let the mental jukebox just repeat at random, miming and humming along to the flora and fauna who seemed strangely appreciative. He wasn't sure where that last batch of old Country songs had come from, but he knew the Tijuana Brass when he heard them. "I'm probably going to wake up in the bunker," he mused. "Not like i really have any control over it. I suppose i am bored, and i'm not exactly doing anything productive here. Whatever." 

Long story short, he woke back up in his office in the bunker, and became keenly aware of the keyboard keys pressing into his left cheek. 

"Welp, back to work i guess. Inbox looks like the Onceler chopped down all the truffula trees while i was out. Wonder what horrible surprise Bottle has in store for us this time." The top few pages on the stack looked especially terrifying, like they had been wadded up and in and out of the garbage can several times. There was also a weird uncomfortableness in his pocketular region. He tentatively leaned over, reached in, and removed the object. "Ha," he exclaimed. "No need to worry, this time around i have my Combat Rock." 

Chapter 4 

Hi, everybody! Call me Bottle. I'm a big fan of all sorts of intellectual pursuits, but mostly i like music. All sorts, but some more than others. It has been an interesting few weeks here in my brain cell, but i think we can just do a quick recap. I run an imaginary media empire called Bottle of Beef. For quite a long time i just published music nobody much liked and that was pretty great. Then i started reviewing albums in 2019, and went through a whole lot of hills and valleys. It got crazy out of hand, so i had to assemble a crack team of corporate functions to help me document the brain-melting quagmire of insanity that is America over the last few years. We published 4 books about it, but i'm really not that interested in selling them to you. I can't seem to stop, though, i just keep blathering on about anything. It was all going relatively fine until i did a whole week of my favorite genre, Industrial. Karma, though, is a real nasty piece of work, so the immediate next project became Country through virtually no fault of my own. That got way out of hand like i always do, so i had no choice but to rewake my bowling team. I think we're really gonna do it this time, set up a real store, fund some physical media, make music, review music, all sorts of crap. Still gotta unpile all the boulders blocking Compy from contributing, but my bones and my editor and my princess of personnel who does all the artwork are back bearing brand new audio rubber for the rotary box. We'll go real slow and try to avoid all the crazy, but we'll fail at that and go super crazy, so join us. I don't know where it will take us, but the ride will be scenic. Through the future facing who knows which direction we go. See you somewhere.

My Morning Jacket