"Man, you gotta come over here quick," Raymond said. "You're never gonna believe who's over here."

"Look, Ray. The last time you did this I got stuck talking to Dana Plato for 45 minutes about 'Diff'rent Strokes' while you went off looking for pot," I said. "I mean, the girl propositioned me, for Christ's sake."

"Did you?"

"Man, I keep telling you I didn't. I think she expected some reimbursement, so I turned her down," I said. "But wouldn't it be cool to say you had sex with Dana Plato, though?"

When I arrived, Raymond greeted me at the door. "You should like this. I present to you, Mr. Alan Vega."

The guy looked like Alan Vega, but he also looked like a bum.

"How're you doin', Mr. Vega?" I inquired sarcastically.

"Can you hear it?" the man asked.

"Hear what?" I asked back.

"The thunder," he yelled. "The thunder is coming. It's coming, coming, coming. Woooo! Rain the acid, burn the thunder! Wooooo!"

"Holy shit!" I screamed. "It is Alan Vega!"

"Walk the Jesus! Walk the Jesus!" he yelled apocalyptically.

"Wow! You rule, man," I said. "Your old band Suicide pissed me off every time I listened to 'em. Power On To Zero Hour was crazy, man. Those beats and that psycho street corner rambling you did just can't be duplicated. You're my hero."

I was exaggerating a bit, but I meant what I said about his psycho street corner rambling. It really couldn't be duplicated, but Vega's been doing the same thing for 20 years without much evolution. No matter, though, here he was and I couldn't be anything but complimentary.

"Hey, we're thinking of forming a band," Raymond said to Vega. "Actually, not so much a band as an experiment in random sound transmissions. Would you like to lay down some vocals?"

"Gotta run, gotta blaze, gotta set the pig on fire and burn!" Vega said.

"Man, that sucks." Raymond said.

"Dumb motherfucker," I said to Raymond. "Alan just got done teaming up with those two Finnish guys from Panasonic, and they've been Vega fans forever and considered it a dream to work with him. They beat you to the punch."

"Feel it! Sweat it! Yeah!" Vega went on.

"It was good, too. I mean, those Panasonic guys are way into minimalism, so it was really sparse. Most of the time there are only these distorted loops that are made to sound as static as possible. It's a lot of rhythmic ambient stuff, but Alan lashes some razors through the beats with his ranting. Don't you, Alan?"

"Kwa kwa kwa! Feel it! It's rising rising rising. No fall, no thunder!"

"It's like he's reading my mind," I said to Raymond. "Those Finns know how to frame you, Alan. Their random transmissions are much darker than me and Ray here could ever put together."

"Knock out the lights, lights. Burn the thunder. Burn the thunder!"

"Dude, you always know the right words to say at the right time. Take it easy, Alan. Let's get out of here, Ray."

"Just a second, man. Hey, Alan, do you know where I can score some weed?"

-Shan Fowler