Capitali$m $uck$
Chapter Three
Read Chapter Two Here:
Paths
[CLICK] [KA-CLICK]
[EXCITED, EXASPERATED] Hello. My name is Bryan Gahagan. I am the voice on this tape. Today is September 2, 2021. It’s nine……it’s early.
I’m crashing….Crashing from withdrawal. Need drugs now. But I’ve had a revelation, an epiphany. A bright light in the brain. You know, a thing. I have to share. Holy fucking Christ on a bouncing dildo, sweet space Jesus…I’m in an alternate timeline. Duh, right?
I’m still me. I’m just me in a better world. That is all.
[FADING] No one in the world ever gets what they want,
And that is beautiful.
Everybody dies frustrated and sad,
And that is beautiful.
[CLICK]
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[CLICK] [KA-CLICK}
Hello. My name is Tessa Tillman. I am the voice on this tape. Today is August 30, 2026. It is 8 am. Today is or would have been Bryan Gahagan’s 60th birthday. And now is as a good a time as any for you to hear my voice.
I am the editor of this project and part of the story. Or part of me is part of this story. I believe we all connected through an invisible force throughout all worlds and throughout all timelines. Finding the path of those connections is our purpose. I now believe we are all on a journey, consciously or unconsciously, to merge all of the different versions of ourselves. Take the fractured parts and make them whole. The threads of time and the threads of self are inextricably interwoven like a knit sweater.
In this version of myself, I am a political activist, a culture jammer, and an artist. My husband George is now a construction worker after his pawn shop went under before the pandemic.
You might know me, well, you shouldn’t, but I’m outing myself here. From 2017 through 2023, I was the Fartenberry Bandit. I put over 3,000 googly eyes on Congressman Jeff Fortenberry’s campaign signs. Never caught, I had a team of 35 that helped me including a UNL professor, a state senator and one of his own aides. I think I helped to make him lose in 2024. I’m also behind a number of other culture jamming projects, most of which are ongoing and I may divulge them later.
In the other timeline, me and my husband ran Capitali$m $uck$ or so I learned.
In May of 2022, Bryan Gahagan came to me with an incredible story — he was from a different ‘Darkbright’ timeline as he called it, one where capitalism has run amuck and Rand Paul was president. I’ve had most of my friends say he was crazy, a liar or a fraud. Or all three. But I chose to believe him.
I don’t know how much to tell you now. The artist in me says, ‘create mystery.’ Let the listener figure it all out. At this point, I haven’t untangled all the details and twists of time and maybe, you, the listener may have more insight than me.
But the American in me, the documentarian, the truth teller in me wants to lay it all out for you. Keep it simple, stupid. I may even erase this whole section from the book like I have other parts. This is my first time creating a book, much less entrusted with some one else’s material. Admittedly, I’m lost in the sea of options.
But for now, let’s explain how I came into this information of an alternate timeline and what I have to work with and what my plans are.
Early in May of 2022, a wild-eyed, crazy-bearded, one-footed man named Bryan Gahagan showed up at my door. He was holding a cassette tape he said would change my life. I didn’t let him in. Slammed the door in my face. Almost called the cops. Weirdo. A day later, a cassette was taped to the windshield of my car. I didn’t listen to it for days, until in a fit of curiosity and weakness, I bought a cassette player at Goodwill and listened to something that couldn’t be a fake, but if it was real, it was also impossible.
It was me on the tape, talking to this Gahagan guy. I don’t know how. There were details about my past that very few knew and even speech patterns and phrasing that couldn’t be faked. Or more tellingly, why would it be faked?
I’d never met him. But what we were talking about made even less sense. A store, a revolution, how to take down the rich and powerful from the inside. The woman on the tape, me, was in a word, ‘badass.’ Almost immediately, a wash of purpose overcame me. I wanted to join her strange revolution. Maybe create my own. I felt like my current culture jamming was child’s play, that I was only a Twitter warrior, a Facebook fake. A bigger calling must surely lay ahead.
Over the next few weeks, Gahagan played me other tapes. More tapes of me. Tapes of my husband George. Tapes of people I’d never met who were involved in some kind of effort to what seemed like both bolstering and tearing down capitalism. Soaking the poor to burn the rich. It was pointillism from an inch away, impossible to get the big picture. And Gahagan talked so fast, so manic, about so many weird occurrences, he could only be crazy.
All-in-All, Gahagan played me about half of his 42 cassette tapes. He said I wasn’t ready for the remaining tapes. He wanted to write a book, speculative non-fiction called Capitalism Sucks. He told me in the alternative timeline, he’d already written the book which focused on the store, Capitali$m $uck$, and George and I’s ‘epic’ love story. But that book was gone and as he said many times, “We’re always rewriting history, especially our own. And with each telling, facts fade, but the truth emerges.”
As an artist, my mission is to uncover truth, with or without facts.
Gahagan always contacted me or just showed up at my door. No texts, e-mails or paper trails. I had George in the room a few times just to verify Bryan wasn’t just an elaborate hallucination of mine. But the talky Bryan always preferred speaking to me and was oddly quiet around George.
Then in late 2022, Bryan Gahagan stopped showing up. After a month, I went looking for him, but I couldn’t find him. He was off the grid, gone. The only Bryan that existed was the one, the boring one, from before 2016. Or the fake one online.
After a year, I forgot about the whole weird episode. That’s just how life is. Googly Eyes don’t just apply themselves you know. Life goes on.
Then about six months ago, February 2, 2026. A bag of tapes showed up at my door. Over a hundred and fifty cassette tapes. All with different dates on them, going back to 2016. I don’t know if Bryan even dropped them off. I did listen to them in order. They stop on February first, 2026. So, I know Bryan was alive until then. Or at least I think so. Listening to all the tapes, I did figure out where he lived, but the place was empty by late February.
This book is an attempt to make sense of these tapes. It’s an attempt to absorb the more fearless parts of myself into myself. And it’s an attempt to reach a kind of truth. Facts be damned.
I also hope to get the journals and tapes from the alternate timeline, but haven’t figured that out yet. I have ideas. If you see journal entries in this book, I guess I figured it out.
Did I leave enough mystery? Did I give too much away? I hope not.
[CLICK]
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[CLICK] [KA-CLICK]
Hello. My name is Bryan Gahagan. I am one of the voices on this tape. Today is April 23, 2019. It is 10:30 am.
Hello. My name is Robert ‘Deadtooth’ Williamson. I am one of the voices on this tape.
Hi, Rob.
Hi, Bryan, done any good drugs lately? [Laughs]
Yea, Tooth, all of them. We’re recording. Tell the people what you do at Capitali$m $uck$…
My official title is Barker, Head Barker.
What’s That?
I get bodies in the store. I stand on the corner, pass out flyers and talk….Preach. I preach, man, preach!
How would you describe Capitali$m $uck$?
Legally, on paper, it’s a store and a job creator. In reality, it’s a travesty. It’s an abomination. It’s a social experiment. It’s obscene and absolutely necessary. It’s a mirror. It’s an art project. It’s a heist and an equalizer. It’s a dystopian fantasy land. Mostly, it’s cash, cold hard cash moving between entities. A carousel of the crude and crass.
Oh.
We imagine the thing you don’t want to do and then ask you to do it…for money. And when the rich come along for the ride, it gets strange.
How did you get involved with Capitali$m $uck$?
Remember in 2017 the local story about a ‘golden-throated’ homeless man?
No.
That was me. I was living in a field by the interstate. Hadn’t had a job in months, they all wanted references and an address. I was using heroin to cope with my dissociative disorder and it wasn’t working. Days were a blur. I’d clean up and lose time, sometimes days or weeks at a time.
And then one day, a cleanly-dressed white woman showed up with a pair of scissors and offered to cut my hair for free. O-kaaaay, I thought, but it changed my life. Right there next to I80. She said it was part of her mission work. When she heard my voice, she said I should be on the radio. Next day, a TV crew was there and when the story ran the next day, a local Christian station offered me a job. I’m not Christian, not anything really. I mean, my parents, both hardcore Pentecostals, cut me off, kicked me out a long time ago for being a junkie. But the job was fine, it wasn’t rocket science, but the daily ‘Speaking in Tongues’ staff meetings took some getting used to. I saved up 500 dollars for a car. The car became my home when Sinclair bought the Christian radio station and turned it into a right-wing talk. And I lost my job. No one wanted a ‘golden-voiced’ man living in his car, clean or not.
I met George selling stuff at his old pawn shop in late 2017. He told me about the idea for Capitali$m $uck$ and we worked up some scripts and I was the voice of CS on day one. I finally have a place to live and while I don’t have health insurance, I’ve finally figured out an effective LSD micro-dosing strategy. Life is good.
Do you believe in Capitalism?
Aw, hell no. Fuck, man.
Fuck yea. Ok, let’s hear you do your thing…This is what people want…
Ok, it’s part old-fashioned tent revival, part Zig Zigler shit, part gibberish and part cut-up like a some Libertarian William S. Burrough.
[CLEARS THROAT]
Ladies and Gentleman! Consumers and comsumerettes! Little ATM’s! Do you want to be free! I said, do you want to be free! I said, do you want to be free! We all want to be free! Free from worry! Free from pressure! Free from thought! Free from pain! Well, I’ve got five little letters that will set you free. Count ’Em off with me. Count it off! M-O-N-E-Y. That’s right, baby, straight up cold hard cash. God’s own lubricant for any situation. The passport outta this life of shallow squalor, of hunger and of wanton needs into one consisting of pure desire. M-O-N-E-Y! You need it, we got it, come get it! Say it with me M-O-N-E-Y!
But people ask me, they say, Deadtooth, how do I get M-O-N-E-Y? My job, if I have one, it pays shit. I don’t have a rich Uncle. My VisaMaster is maxed out. Digital currency is a mess — one day with Spamcoin, I can buy a Caddie, the next I can’t afford a lollipop. I need cash now! To-day! And this is where The Tooth is here to save you…
Say it with me:
Capitali$m $uck$ (Fuck Yea!)
Capitali$m $uck$ (Fuck Yea!)
Capitali$m $uck$ (Fuck Yea!)
Let’s take a minute and thank capitalism for all she has given us. Capitalism gave us the private internet, tailored to you. Capitalism gave us eye-scanners in every screen, designed to sell us our desires before we even know what our desires are. Capitalism gave us drugs in all flavors. Capitalism keeps us well-armed. Capitalism gave us fabulous yachts, lear jets and golden toilets. Capitalism gave us the highest quality, VR porn. Capitalism brought parents and children together allowing each to work side by side all day. Capitalism gave us dignity. Capitalism gave us the true concept of a hard day’s work. Capitalism is, in a word, life.
And without capitalism, America would be rudderless without the true guidance of wealth and billionaires. There are no billionaires under communism. There are no billionaires under Dem-O-Cratic Socialism. Only capitalism lets you through hard work, a little luck and exploitation, become a BIL-LION-AIRE. That’s with a B. Which means ‘Bitch, you best leave me alone!’
The sky’s the limit. What are you willing to do to become rich beyond your wildest dreams? Capitali$m $uck$ helps you find the limits for the desire, all for the love of money. Capitalism is worth. No other system, religion or ideology can determine your worth with concrete absoluteness like Capitalism. A man with ten dollars is worth ten times more than the lowly man with one dollar. Simple math. Come into Capitali$m $uck$ and visit our Value Added section to find out your up-to-the minute worth. And for a small charge, discover what your worth potential could be. You could be worth billions.
Wealth is for the one who wants it. Paradise if you can earn it. What will you do for paradise? Do you have what it takes to be worth something?
Only you can get what you want. Only you can get what you need. You are the sum of your purchases. Your purchases define you and tell the world, ‘I Am worthy’. The without are the invisible in this world. The without are without worth. Need a gun? Earn it, buy it, be it. Need food? Earn it, buy it, be it. Need drugs? Earn it, buy it, be it. Need sex? Earn it, buy it, be it. Need love? Earn it, buy it, be it. Need a happy life, a comfortable life? Earn it, buy it, be it?
Have you every purchased a product that didn’t work or didn’t fit your aesthetic? That’s on you. Poor purchase indicate an unfulfilled life. A lesser quality person. One without purpose. A good purchase is a life fulfilled. The free market will make you free. The invisible hand will guide you, solve all your problems. Worship at the alter of what you have and what you will have. Only billionaires go to the moon. Only billionaires are truly happy. Only billionaires are worthy of love. Don’t you want to be worthy of love? You’re just a contract away from riches. So get that warm body into…
Capitali$m $uck$ (Fuck Yea!)
Capitali$m $uck$ (Fuck Yea!)
Capitali$m $uck$ (Fuck Yea!)
We take everyone and only pay in cash. Capitali$m $uck$, have a monied day!
[Pause]
Ladies and Gentlemen! Consumers and consumerettes! Little ATMs! ……
Okay, Okay.
Aw, to hell with the rich, to hell with poverty, let’s get drunk on cheap wine.
[CLICK]
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[CLICK][KA-LICK]
Hi, my name is Tessa Tillman. I am the voice on this tape. Today is September Third, 2026. A quick note, I tried to find Robert ‘Deadtooth’ Williamson in this timeline. Then I remembered, I went to his march in October of 2017. He died in police custody of malnutrition after jailed for loitering. It was barely in the papers and no one was prosecuted. There was no video.
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