Ok. So, I'm- (peer into the mug... ok...) Ohh, alright. A-alright... I can see it now.
I... what? I'm being chased... I... I'm being run out of the set-settlement I've been staying in but-but why? Hmm, hmmm...They're shouting at me. Uh, throwing rocks, telling me...I've done things that I know I'd never do, that I've been, uh, s-stealing grain from the stockpiles, selling snake oils and false tonics to the local children, making m-mid-2000s pop culture reference-focused comedy! But they know me. They-they should know me, I would never. I...
Ok, now I've left the village. Uh, I'm living in a hole now, what was probably once someone's basement. Uh, there are pages pinned to the...walls connected with loose bits of string...clues. I'm trying to figure out who framed me...uh...my eyes are bloodshot, I can...barely...think, I haven't slept in days, not counting the blackouts.
Um... I can see myself slipping past the gate back into the village. Ba-um, revisiting all my old haunts, looking for any scrap of a lead... Alright, I- I've-I-I fight the urge to revisit my family's tent, to watch my husband sleep. I-I-I don't deserve that yet, not after...what I've become.
What does that mean...?
I-...I-I find a doll: a puppet in my likeness, a scar emblazened across its forehead, I-I-I-I-I don't know what to make of it, I-I don't know what it means.
I'm back in the hole...curled on the floor, clutching the doll to my chest, pulling clumps of brown... hair from my scalp. Brown hair. Straight, brown hair; not...mine...
I scrumble-I scramble across the [laugh]concrete floor over to a puddle of piss in the corner[laugh]. I gaze into my reflection: I- oh go-I-I'm gonna fucking murder you, Chris Dunne, oh god I underst[laugh]and now, It's so clea- [laugh]. It's so-It's [laugh]always been right in front of me- [laugh]
I g- I gaze into the pool and Neil Cicierega [laugh] gazes back.
It's-I-It's heartbreakingly o-obvious now[laughs],
[laughing throughout]
The music I make is so self-evidently s- I'm gonna fuckin' throw this mug at your head, Chris. The music I-[laugh] so-[laugh] self-evidently similar to Neil Cicierega's that we literally become the same person, and also always have been including now, currently. Any and all comparison to our bodies of work makes us sense to me, I no longer find them confusing. Both of us have listened to Oingo Boingo before, and [laugh]that mean's we're the same person-guy. You'd think that would make people compare me to Danny Elfman, but they don't because as we've established I am literally Neil Cicierega, and that's canon. [sigh]
I'm being chased. I'm being run out of the settlement I've been staying in... but why? They're shouting at me, throwing rocks, telling me I've done things that I know I'd never do; that I've been stealing grain from the stockpiles, selling snake oils and false tonics to the local children, making mid-2000s pop culture reference-focused comedy. But they know me...They should know me, I would never.