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Angstmonster 20
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* 02.10.03 angstmonster issue 20 *
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¡edited (poorly) by gir¡
<crash> and if it wasn't for angstmonster
<crash> there would be no problems right now
§+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++¡contents¡++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++§
+ +
+ Brief words from gir +
+ An Excerpt from The Meaning of Cats: A LIFE'S MIND tildaq +
+ AUTOROCK oregano +
+ The Forgotten Machine atom +
+ the author #bungle.fever +
+ Bunny Humper estell +
+ Raid koolpeith +
+ Playboy Questions ch33z-1t +
+ The Worst Five Days of My Life alice +
+ Surprise Me ed +
+ It's not natural steak +
+ +
§+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++¡contents¡++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++§
<ch33z-1t> my shirt smells like virus
<mellonhead> i want to get my password list tattooed by my ballsac
<swissphil> i can guage how stoned i am based on how many variations of
skip-bo i imagined in my head in the past 30 seconds
<lbandit> if they want to get rid of goths they need to just shine bright
lights on them
<lbandit> like gremlins
---------------
: Brief Words :
: from gir :
---------------
While observing some monkeys today, I learned that a monkey knows how to make
an apple look hella good. Not only that, but Goeldi's Monkeys know how to
defend their food bowl should some Titi Monkeys get up all in that. The really
cool thing is that the Goeldi's Monkeys are itty bitty tiny creatures while
the Titis have a significant size advantage. If it came down to one lone
yummy granny smith apple, I'd defend it with my life and not let anyone fuck
with it.
Granny smith apples are the reason apples are so yummy. No other apple can
compare to the granny smith goodness.
But all things yummy aside, it wasn't until I had the following conversation
with oregano that I realized the world we live in is a very unhappy one.
<oregano2k> hi, gir, are you rocking the world today?
<gir> i'd like to think so
<oregano2k> neat
<oregano2k> you know, people talk all the time about rocking the free world
<oregano2k> but the unfree world needs rocking too
<gir> i know
<gir> nelson mandella style
<oregano2k> totally
<oregano2k> you know, I am personally responsible for mandela being released
from prison
<gir> rockin!
<oregano2k> I went on a candlelight vigil
<oregano2k> and not more than three years later
<oregano2k> he was free
SEE THE PAIN AND AGONY IN THAT IRCLOG!?!?! THERE ARE PEOPLE OUT THERE RIGHT
NOW WHO AREN'T ROCKING BECAUSE THEIR COUNTRIES THINK IT'S SOME SORT OF WRONG TO
ROCK OUT.
I don't think I ever want to write another tfile in a world where not everyone
is free to rock out. But maybe, just maybe, if angstmonster does what it does
and continues to overpower all sorts of giants then these not free people shall
be able to rock someday. It is with these people in mind that you should read
this issue. Take their struggles and make them your own, fight the good fight,
and laugh when appropriate.
(It's usually appropriate to laugh when someone makes a fart joke. In fact,
those are the best kind of jokes someone can ever tell. Even if the joke
doesn't concern farts, it's probably funny.)
-------------------
: An Excerpt From :
: The Meaning of :
: Cats :
: A LIFE'S MIND :
: by tildaq :
-------------------
--------------------------
Through the mind of a Cat, I question existence. I bathe in the curiosity
that holds them in place. These are not my own thoughts, rather a cat's
feelings about it's own life, a life of which I am merely vocalizing...for
they cannot. This is an excerpt from my book entitled,
"The Meaning of Cats: A LIFE'S MIND"
--------------------
Day #4232
The TOILET:
What is this beautiful thing that stands here before me? It is nearly twice
my size and others, just like it, just exactly like it, are built throughout
the domicile. I have thought about the object for many days and nights and
have consequently lost much precious sleep just trying to understand why
this thing is here. I know that there is a reason for it's existence, I just
know it, there has to be. But what is it? What draws me here day in and day
out to marvel at this structure? Sure, I have my theories, but that's just
what they are...THEORIES. I may never know it's true purpose but I will
always remember everything that it has taught me. It's creamy, off-white
color adds to it's divine mystery. The noises that it makes are
unquestionably encrypted messages, or signs no doubt that it can hear my
prayers.
--------------
: AUTOROCK :
: by oregano :
--------------
Herein contains the strange and terrible tale of AUTOROCK and its unexpected
reexistance many years after the author had assumed (and prayed) it was dead.
People are inherently mean. We all have this streak. Most of us, thanks
to the grace of God, manage to hide it from the world and act in a way
conforming to the norms of society; we strive to do good. But even your mother
is capable of great acts of injustice and malice, though when she is baking you
cookies and refilling your cup of hot chocolate and adding extra marshmallows
-- just the way you like it -- it is hard to see that side.
This story is about my dark side, about an atrocity I was complacent to in
the past and which now comes forward in my present to remind me once again that
no matter how much I will for myself to do good, there is a demon that lurks
inside that wants to do harm. But, dear reader, do not think I am such an
isolated case, instead look inside yourself too and see that demon, he is in
all of us. Even you.
College is a good time to be mean to people, sure high school is prime time
for working out our personalities, and jr high might be when we intend the most
harm, but college is a time when alliances form and break and feel like they
really matter, like decisions might live with us a long time. We are adjusting
ourselves from the protection of the parents and a life of little
responsibility (besides grades) and getting ready for the harsh realities of
the world. It was in this climate that AUTOROCK was born.
I will change names here just because I do not remember them. I have no
one to protect here, and truth be told this is really not the worst thing ever
done, just a particular meanness that I wish to share and then state how it
came back many years later.
At the University of Illinois there was a computer system called Plato,
this was before the internet existed, and on Plato was a dungeon game called
Avatar. Avatar was a typical kill the monster and get gold kind of game. It
was a wonder for its time for being multi-player and interactive. People
played all throughout the campus on various terminals.
There was this guy named Steve and he was part of the online community.
Mind you everyone knew everyone else on Plato. People formed alliances and
would run the dungeon together and there were many sub groups and other
internal politics to the Plato system and Avatar in particular.
Steve was rather disliked by the group of people I hung out with. He was a
quite annoying in person, a know-it-all type who nagged a lot. He was a comic
book reader and took the followings of the X-Men very seriously (ironically,
well after college I became a comic book reader myself, but at the time I was
into European literature and looked down quite askance on comic book readers)
and just as geeky as a computer geek can be. Monty Python, Hitchhikers Guide
To The Galaxy, all that ubergeek stuff, Steve was it. And then one day he
pissed off Ed.
To give you an example of Ed's dedication to the game of Avatar he
eventually flunked out because he was playing the game 18 hours a day. He was
wull bore into the game. But before he flunked out he had his showdown with
Steve.
I do not know the transgression, but I was in on the planning sessions to
get the revenge. In Avatar there were characters called sorcerers, and one of
the properties of sorcerers was teleportation. They could take you to the
deepest levels of the dungeon quickly, instead of taking all the stairs which
could be 40 minutes of tedious wandering. Sorcs would wait at the entrance to
the game, and people would "join" and then the sorc goes down with a whole
group of people. But lesser sorcs could only teleport one level or so deep in
the dungeon.
Another aspect of the game is that there are some parts of the dungeon which
are solid walls. And if the sorc screws up you end up in rock, appropriately
this was called "being rocked." (You can prolly see where this is going.) If
you end up in rock, not only does your character die, but it loses all its
poseessions (swords can be expensive, many hours of game time to get the gold
to pay for them) plus you take permanent damage to your stats. Strength,
wisdom, etc. go down, but in a way that can never be recovered. So we created
AUTOROCK, a level one sorcerer with almost no powers, and then we tricked Steve
into thinking it was a way to get a ride into the dungeon. The name should
have been a giveaway. Not sure if we chose it as a warning or as a way of
rubbing it in.
So Ed set up AUTOROCK at the game entrance made an announcement that he
was giving rides deep into the dungeon. Then when people asked for a ride to
the lower dungeon, he would say he was busy and asked them to get a ride from
another of the sorcs. And then Steve asked for a ride. It was all over pretty
quickly, AUTOROCK took him down one level right into a stone wall. Ed quickly
deleted the character and logged out, leaving no trace of his being part of it.
Steve's character, one he took very seriously and had spent many hours getting
up to level was now completely trashed. We all celebrated our cruelty and our
having taught him a lesson to not mess with Ed or any of us. Steve, who had
probably not meant any harm but was nonetheless of a type which annoyed, was
distraught.
Later Steve would try to kill himself, not directly related to this prank,
but really, everyone treated him like this, he was an unlikable fellow, but not
really worthy of all the badness that came down on him.
Fast forward 15 years and I was looking on a web site for the Improv
Olympic, a Chicago comedy spot with various improv comedy teams, and in the
listing is a group called AutoRock. And I say to myself "WTF? Could this
possibly be related?" I mean, it was legendary at the U of I Avatar users, but
still, there is no way it was THAT famous. But I had to find out. I emailed a
pal of mine who is on another team there and asked him to find out. The answer
was that, no, it was just a coincidence. AutoRock, the improv team, was just
looking for a powerful one word name, and AutoRock came out of thin air. But
to me, it came as a message, it came as a warning that though I may try to do
good in this world, there are times when even I, a good fellow of upstanding
morals, even I am capable of great misjustice.
Let us all reflect a minute and think here not only of our good
intentions, but let us think of our evil desires. We all have an AUTOROCK in
our past. We have all been there.
-----------------
: The Forgotten :
: Machine :
: by atom :
-----------------
Once in a time there was this machine. The machine was a computer.
Everybody was wondering what it was doing but nobody every payed
much attention to it as it was just sitting there. The machine had
a sticker on it and it must have been a genius sysadmin to call it
mercury. Other machines where also there sitting next to mercury with
names like uranus, pluto and so on. So this machine... mercury... the
person who intended to make this machine a firewall got fired and
since then all it had was a fresh install of openbsd. So all the time
mercury would catch some arp or icmp request's but just wouldn't do
anything. From now and then it got some other packet's like netbios
or the local network discovery system that generated a list of all
the machines on the network. So mercury wasn't producing any traffic
and people just didn't care. Until the point that mercury got bored and
was wondering about all those packet's and just nothing to do. So
mercury started to learn and figure out to do something but as there
where no real system processes running there was just not much to learn
besides the random packet's it received. So mercur started to learn
out of those packet's about what was going on out there. Until the point
where mercury decided to go out there and look for himself if there where
any more of his kinda. Machines sitting there that have been forgotten
and that idle'd it's way into decommissioning or just total forgettness.
It didn't take long and a couple of rack's next to mercury there was
some nother company's equipment and a machine with an similar tragedy
like mercury. Sitting there and receiving random packet's. So mercury
started to send first icmp's over to the other machine. Adding different
things he learned from the other packet's he received and just trying to
get it's attention. But the other machine only responded with the same
packet over and over and over. Until to the point where the machine got
turned off and decommissioned. This was the end of the computer that tried
to explore the world and created a mind of it's own but nobody ever
noticed. The bla...
--------------------
: the author :
: by #bungle.fever :
--------------------
This is a poem written by a collective in #bungle.fever. It is a true poem,
but does not necessarily represent the views of the whole channel. Thank
you.
<pea> lets write a poem
<pea> the collective voice of #bungle.fever
<nordax> smell my finger
<pea> how about i write a line, then you, then that person over there then
her then them
<pea> ok?
<overbear> poems are gay
<pea> why are poems gay
<overbear> because theyre by and for gays
<pea> why are they by and for gays
<overbear> i like heinrich heine
<pea> wait
<overbear> tho
<pea> are you calling me gay?
<pea> cause i'll ban you
<overbear> but still
<pea> ARE YOU CALLING ME GAY
<overbear> ya
* pea sets mode: +b *!*@sdn-ap-035scfairP0427.dialsprint.net
* overbear was kicked by Zulfikar (Banned)
----------------
: Bunny Humper :
: by estell :
----------------
Sometimes my bunny likes to jump out of his cage, into my other bunny's cage,
and then hump her face. Now I don't know how normal of an instinct that is, but
I'm pretty sure it's something I should probably prevent for the sake of the
humpee. I am told I should allow the humping so that humper bunny will figure
things out and we can have baby bunnies because that's "what bunnies like." I'm
just not sure about the emotional damage that face humping might do to the
humpee. Let's just imagine for a second that you are a small animal defenseless
and extremely attractive to the opposite sex. You've got the smell of
femininity flowing from all orifices. Your fluffy little tail curls at a
precise angle achieved only by the carefully planned good breeding of your
ancestors. When out of nowhere a large blundering male with slightly crossed
eyes and curled whiskers approaches you, and you know he's going to take the
advantage that only size allows him. Then with a force equal to that of Thumper
from Bambi's foot pounding, your face is raped. The ego massacre continues on
for maybe 5 minutes, your face being pounded in a reckless heat of lust and
horniness. Sadly, the process won't even allow you to carry out your womanly
role of bearing children; alas you cannot stop the inbred humper's half
instinctual actions. When he's done he pushes you aside, jumps out of your
cage, and you are left alone. Face fur damp and poorly arranged the thought
crosses your mind..is it all worth it? Probably not. I'm thinking procreation
probably isn't worth it.
_ _ __ __ _ __ _ _ /
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| -\ /-\__-*-/\-\__-\ \/-*\_-\/-\ v /-\ v /-/ \-\ \/-|/-\ v /-\__-\ \/- | -/
Innovate
Evolve
Approach life with an Openmind
Choose to be a player and not a pawn in the Xen game of life; become a chemist,
not just an element, in the ninja global experiment. Supermodify into a
freestyle samurai surfing over the waves of digital chaos, while last century's
dinosaurs consume their way into extinction in drastic plastic chariots carved
from the stuff of conformity. Proclaim yourself as a confusionist; adapt to the
con & breed new styles of fusion. Katalyse, synthesize, bounce to the beat.
Stop buying gear, and start making it. Sell your shares on the Slack Exchange,
and sanctify your successes via the Tao-Jones index.
mista Sho.nuff
_ _ __ __ _ __ _ _ /
| -/_\-/_ -*-\/-/_ -/\ \-*/ -/\-/\ /\-/\ /\- /\ -/\ \-|\-/\ /\-/_ -/\ \- | -\
| -\ /-\__-*-/\-\__-\ \/-*\_-\/-\ v /-\ v /-/ \-\ \/-|/-\ v /-\__-\ \/- | -/
----------------
: Raid :
: by koolpeith :
----------------
What's up with Raid? I'm talking about Redundant Array of Independent
Discs. Right now (I'm actually gonna tell you real data on my box) I've got
an 80 gig drive that i'm booting off of and a 120 on my second Eide channel.
What I want to know is take my oh shit why am I writing about this.
T-Files about upgrading my computer so I can be the most 133t pc user out of
my friends suck. What I should write about are things that amount to
nothing. Its kind of like Seinfeld. There was never really a plot which
the audience got wrapped up in. No one ever sat their and rooted for George
to hook up with a woman or for Elaine to get rid of her shitty brown nosing
job. No one ever cared that much. The show was based on the constant crap
that tags along each and every one of us in our daily lives, like that
FUCKING PAPERCLIP GUY IN MS WORD AND YOU CAN'T CLICK THE BUTTONS TO GET RID
OF HIM BECAUSE YOUR SYSTEM RESOURCES ARE MAXED OUT BECAUSE WINDOWS XP
THOUGHT IT WOULD BE COOL TO JUST START RUNNING THE INDEXING SERVICE AND SO
NOW I'L WATCHING THE CPU CYCLES STAY AT 100% TRYING TO DISPLAY THE FUCKING
PAPERCLIP TURNING INTO A GODDAM BICYCLE INSTEAD OF ME CLICKING HIM GONE OR
ENDING THE FUCKING INDEXING SERVICE. I swear, that taskmanager only makes
me more angry when i'm already mad, it never really improves the quality of
my life. Why Windows? Because I'm an idiot. That Raid array just crossed
my mind again. Having it just may have saved me three seconds of looking at
dummy paper clip guy. Unfortunately the cost of the drive I would be
looking to use as the second raid disc would be much more than those 3
seconds are worth to me. (Count the number of times I said "fuck" or any
variants of the f word in the above paragraph. Thank you for teaching me
how to use a thesaurus, public school system.)
Did anyone notice how I just looped something with no plot back to itself?
SUCH IS SEINFELD!! YES I TOO COULD BE A WELL PAID WRITER FOR A RIGHT WING
NETWORK! AHAHAHAHAHA!
And now for something completely different:
Kool Peith (7:29:29 PM): yo
DoctorFreezegood (7:29:38 PM): bam
Coolest screenname ever. What is it about screennames that make us sit at
that goddamn Instant Messenger setup screen for minutes, and for some of us,
hours? Whats in a name? Same reason everyone wants to drive a cool car,
wear the right clothes, run the right chipset (in my case), listen to the
right music. Because we are all fucking sheep when it comes down to it and
our ego pushes us to stand out and prove that we are the uber. Around now,
Ch33z-it is calling me Tyler, and I will state that I did try for 2 and a
half hours to get a satisfactory Tyler Durden screenname. I admit the
magnitude of my stupidity, but feel I'm not all that bad because I at least
realize I'm NOT the shit as expressed by some of you kids from Hoodbridge,
or as I like to say, Suburban Northern Virginia, a.k.a. one of the
wealthiest areas in the wealthiest country in the wealthiest hemisphere
(northern) of the wealthiest earth. That was redundant, but expressive of
my mood.
This paragraph break is dedicated to the space where, to the fault of ciao
hall, I was absent from my writing space for a 10 minute span, DURING WHICH
I discovered I could rationalize my use of the Windows operating system.
10. Because I am a fat, lazy, wealthy, white american.
9. Because I support a communistic economy.
8. None of my friends have a Counterstrike .iso for Linux.
7. Windows had a commercial one time and I buy what commercials tell me to
buy.
6. Because I am so sarcastic.
5. The David Letterman Show makes me laugh.
4. Because my IM window is not responding right now but Windows XP NEVER
lets anything go unresponsive.
3. Because I am so unoriginal *see number 6 and number 5 and number 6
again.
2. Penguins are scary and might eat me.
1. The most down to earth and real conversation i've had with a person
other than my girlfriend withing the past week just occurred in the bathroom
(see previous paragraph and number 3). A guy on my hall is wasted and came
in to take a whizz. I told him how much I love food when I'm drunk. It
tastes sooo good. He and I were on the same channel there for a minute.
God what I would give for a martini, some Bicardi select, a 40 of Hurricane,
and a Gourmet meal 45 minutes after I'm done with all that. The reason I
capitalize some nouns and not others is because I take German class. You
capitalize all nouns in that language, so as you can guess, I'm like an
dyslexic kid reading graffiti in one of those scary fun houses filled with
distorted mirrors. Oh man I just realized i'm still on the number one
reason why I am a Windows user. Even THAT is why i'm a windows user.
0. (Zero; latest release reason; "'O' Day") I really really really like the
default desktop background.
---------------------
: Playboy Questions :
: by ch33z-1t :
---------------------
When I got the call to be on a new reality show I couldn't wait. The playboy
network wanted to make a reality show with 6 lesbians and me. They wanted to
know if my sexiness could turn any of the lesbians to straight women. I never
knew what would be in store for me. I get there and find out the women are all
gorgeous, and naked. They had already been there for an hour or so. This time
got them all horny and they were all making out and such. My first reaction
was to drop my pants and bust a nut in a towel somewhere. But when they saw
me, they all just froze. It was like they didn't know what to do. They
couldn't continue on their session, and they couldn't come greet me in the
situation they were in. I slowly slink away as they start to put their clothes
back on. I couldn't help but feel the tension as soon as I stepped in the
door. I realized that I was the only male in the house and this would not be
as easy as I would have hoped. I start to unpack as I find that I am living in
a room with two other roommates. As I notice this, they both walk in, giving
me smug looks as they pass. I just don't know what I have done to be looked at
like this. Like I shot someone in the head or something. Soon after unpacking
we all are summoned to where the lesbianism was at its height this afternoon.
I get there and see 6 other woman just staring at me. The producer of the show
stood up and said "Hello, you all are now on the show Pussy Lovers. You were
all recruited because of your love of the pussy." I was thinking 'I did love
pussy, until I saw the way these girls looked at me. My sexiness will have to
increase to overcome what happened.' The producer introduced me. I know I
heard a couple "boos and hisses" but I just stood there. The producer told the
girls that I was a gay man, and it was there job to make me straight. My first
reaction was to say "I'm not gay, I love women." But then I realized what he
was doing. After that the girls warmed right up to me. They now did not care
about their lesbianism. They had a mission, it was to convert me. I went
upstairs to my room, bombarded with hellos and hugs. This was quite a new
feeling for me. Just when I got to my room, the producer called me back
downstairs. He needed to talk with me in private. I went to his office and he
had me sit down. He told me that I needed to act as gay as I could, if the
girl tried to put moves on me, I had to resist. He made sure to tell me also
that I will be getting paid the most, we decided on 2.1 million for the run of
the show. As I stroll upstairs, I can't help but notice how beautiful all the
women are and how would I ever be able to resist come-ons by any of these
women? I finally get to my room and have a chance to lay down. I lay down and
two girls jump into my bed, trying to rip off my clothes. I just sit there and
squirm until they stop. The hardest part was not getting a boner. They
grabbed it many of times. I never have turned down anything from a girl and I
really didn't know how long I could last........to be continued
Did you like this new material by ch33z-1t? or should I have stuck to my
normal nonsensical writing. email me at dave@angstmonster.org and let me know
what you think.
(*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*A*-*GREAT*-*MANDATE*-*FROM*-*WALT*-*WHITMAN*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*)
"This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise
riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy,
devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning
God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to
nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with
powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of
families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of
your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any
book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be
a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the
silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and
in every motion and joint of your body..."
(*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*A*-*GREAT*-*MANDATE*-*FROM*-*WALT*-*WHITMAN*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*)
-----------------------
: The Worst Five Days :
: of My Life :
: by alice :
-----------------------
Day One
Riding in a train for two hours is tiring. Too bad I had four hours left to go.
It was only eight o'clock in the morning and I was sitting on a concrete
platform between the train tracks at Union Station, dangling my legs over the
edge. My toes could just barely touch the rails. The train always stopped in
Washington to switch engines. I took advantage of this time to call my mother.
Was I getting lonely already?
The train pulled into Penn Station on 34th street in New York City fifteen
minutes after noon. I hurried through the crowd of tourists and rode up the
escalator to the street; I was relieved when I felt the warm sunlight on my
neck. It was good to finally be back in the city. I was happy to be missing a
few days of school, even if it would have benefited me to be there for the
final exam reviews. I walked thirteen blocks south to my agent's office in
Chelsea. The three story white building shone brilliantly among the dirty brown
warehouses surrounding it.
Noel, my agent from Brooklyn, casually greeted me and placed a post-it note
with an address scrawled across it in my hand. She wanted me to "run to this
casting really quick" before I went to the airport. I dropped my small
suitcase and walked wearily out of the office. I didn't want to waste four
dollars on a metro pass, so I walked twenty blocks to the casting for the slim
chance that the competition would be minimal. The casting was in a
photographer's studio near the West Village meat markets. The smell emanating
from these warehouses was rotten. The studio was sweltering hot and I sat on
the crowded floor for forty-five minutes waiting for my turn to show a petite
foreign man wearing lipstick my meager portfolio. He showed slight interest,
and then he sent me on my way, anxious to see the magnificent beauty waiting in
line behind me.
I took a taxi to the LaGuardia airport during rush hour. The traffic panicked
me, but I worried unnecessarily; I had thirty minutes to spare after I picked
up my ticket and passed through security. I had a book to occupy myself, but
watching the crowd in the airport was much more entertaining. A mysterious
couple wearing dark sunglasses, perhaps they were brother and sister, whispered
Greek to each other. A group of sorority girls gossiped about the latest
reality television show. A young Asian boy, apparently traveling alone, picked
his nose then glanced around the waiting area anxiously to make sure nobody saw
him. A frazzled black mother wearing a bandanna around her hair struggled to
keep her four children under control.
The most fascinating person sat next to me on the plane. He told endless
stories of his adventures through Asia. He talked about being in the Burmese
army. He told me about playing Counter-Strike in Japan. He described the
architecture in China, and the music in India. He also told me about his home
in California and his strategy on stealing his best friend's car then driving
it off a bridge. We watched the sun rise together out the airplane window, just
before landing in London. I never saw him again after that.
Day Two
I was nervous waiting in the long winding line to get through customs, but my
agent had prepared me for this; she knew that it is illegal to work in England
if you are not a citizen. When the custom's agent questioned me on my purpose
in Great Britain, I had to give her an address of one of my agent's friends
that I was supposedly visiting on her twenty-first birthday. If the custom's
agent knew that I was there for a paid photo shoot, I would've been put right
back on a plane to return to America. I broke British law.
Noel assured me before I left that the driver who met me in Heathrow would
know where to take me. Unfortunately Kaz, the driver who picked me up, was a
substitute for the expected driver, so neither Kaz nor I knew where I was
supposed to go. Two hours later, after a confusing drive through London and
countless phone class to his unorganized manager and to my unprofessional agent
in America where it was two o'clock in the morning, we found the hotel only to
discover there was no reservation listed. Kaz used his personal credit card to
get a room for me, and then he invited me to a barbecue with his family later
that afternoon. I politely declined his offer and went to my room to sleep.
Every time I go to London, it doesn't just rain, it pours. When I woke in
the late afternoon, the city was already dark. I turned the television on and
saw an advertisement for soup, and immediately I was hungry. The hotel, being a
Holiday Inn Express, didn't have room service, and their few snack machines
were completely empty. I pulled my black hooded sweatshirt over my head and
went outside. I had no idea where I was, so it didn't make any difference
which direction I walked in. I wandered west. It took me half an hour to
realize that all of the restaurants and grocery stores were closed due to the
national holiday, The Queen's Jubilee. When I did eventually find an open
hole-in-the-wall convenience store, I realized I had no European currency. I
found an ATM machine in a muddy subway station a few blocks away and a
disheveled bum with perpendicular teeth followed me from the subway back to the
convenience store. He was speaking French.
The French-speaking vagrant had disappeared by the time I emerged from the
store with a box of cereal, a bottle of apple juice, and a phone card. It was
still raining while I walked back to the hotel. And it was cold. I was so
lonely.
Day Three
Jet lag revealed itself when I woke up thirty minutes past noon the next day. I
was supposed to be at the photo shoot at ten o'clock. I called my mother,
panicking. She assured me that it is better to be late than to never show up at
all, so I quickly dressed and rushed outside. It was still raining.
I found the studio with no trouble, but the building was empty, except for a
sleepy security guard. No photographers, no stylists, no magazine editors, no
other models. In fact, everything appeared to be abandoned. Confused, I walked
back to the hotel. I noticed that when I came upon another person on the
sidewalk, I naturally drifted to the right side and they naturally moved to
their left. I guess this is because of the opposite sides of the road we drive
on. I moved to my right, and they moved to their left facing me, we were still
in each other's way and we had to dance around each other to pass.
In my hotel room again, I called my mother. She called my agent. I watched
British cartoons. Around three in the afternoon, the phone rang. Noel had
discovered that everyone else was even slower arriving at the photo shoot than
I was. I left the unfriendly hotel once again and trudged through the rain to
the studio. "Everything is going to be fine."
The photographer was German. I couldn't understand a word he was speaking, but
he had a constant smile on his face, and that made me comfortable. After trying
on several outfits showcased earlier that year on the runway, the stylists
finally settled on a maroon velvet cape and brown high heeled boots with laces
all the way up the back of my legs. The heat from the blinding lights and the
tediousness of standing at awkward angles wore me out. I was sustained on mini
sandwiches and endless cups of tea. I was relieved when the editor of the
magazine permitted me to leave. Modeling is not simple.
The sun was shining when I left the studio, but it had not yet stopped raining.
I noticed how beautiful the uneven cobblestone roads were and how vivid the
colors shone on the bricks of the buildings. For one brief moment, I was
content. I thought of my best friend Jessicka. "Don't worry, be happy," she
always told me. Just then, sirens blared in my left ear from a speeding
ambulance. That moment of happiness ended as a grey cloud shielded the sun and
I realized all I had to eat was stale cereal.
Day Four
A different, less personable driver than Kaz picked me up at ten o'clock in
the morning at the hotel and drove me to the train station, with a quick detour
passing by the front of Buckingham Palace. The train, which was tracked with
mud and litter, carried me through the dreary and dirty city to the Gatwick
airport. This particular morning, especially the plane ride back to America,
was all a blur. I just wanted to get home.
My plane landed in Philadelphia fifteen minutes late, and because my seat was
in the very rear of the aircraft, I was in line last to get through customs. An
old wrinkled janitor pointed his crooked finger at a sign that read, "Turn
cell phones off while in line" and scolded me for calling my mother. A short
middle school aged girl wearing black lipstick and baggy jeans glared at me,
while two Mexican children pulled and swung on the ropes guiding the line. This
was worse than waiting in line at Ukrop's.
Thunder boomed as I searched for the subway station. The rain had followed me
back from London. The storm caused unknown technical problems on the subway
from the airport to the Amtrak station and the unexpected delay caused me to
miss my train back to Richmond by only five minutes. I got in line to purchase
a ticket for the next train, and I called my mother in tears. Nothing was going
right.
When I was next in line to buy a ticket for the 5:15 train, the uninterested
cashier slapped a "Sold Out" sign in the window. I ended up buying a first
class ticket for a later departing train. I was in a hurry to get home because
I had to take final exams the next morning. The man sitting next to me in the
first class section of this train was grossly obese. His fat rolled over the
armrest onto my seat. I was incredibly relieved when I switched trains in
Washington. Only two more hours to go, I thought, until I'd meet my parents at
the Staple's Mill Amtrak Station.
I didn't know that the train would be going fifteen miles per hour from
Fredericksburg to Ashland because of heat regulations. Lights flickered in the
aging and suffocating train car. Rain echoed off the metal roof. The almost
deserted train arrived in Richmond at one o'clock in the morning. My parents,
and even my little sister Elaine, were waiting under the awning to welcome me
home, just as I was expecting. It was still raining when my mother made warm
split pea soup for me at home.
Day Five
I sped down windy back roads in my grey Toyota Camry to my high school at seven
o'clock in the morning, just like I usually do. Except this morning I was
immensely tired from jetlag. I had only been in London for forty-eight hours
but I was exhausted. I sat in the corner of the secret hallway with my best
friend Jessicka, dreading the sound of the bell commanding that we go to class.
When the bell finally rang, we hugged each other before parting in our separate
directions and she whispered in my ear before letting go of me, "Don't worry,
be happy."
I carelessly answered the questions on my final exams. I didn't care if I
passed the exams or not because I knew my grades were stable enough to be able
to graduate from high school in five days anyway. Jessicka wasn't graduating
with me though, even though she is two years older than I am. I wasn't even
sixteen and a half yet.
I ran to my car after school, my arms out to either side of me like wings. The
weather was finally warm and sunny. I was completely finished with high school.
This was yet another brief moment of happiness and contentment.
The phone rang as soon as I walked in the door to my parent's house. The
caller ID said "Menken Studios" and had the area code 212. New York. It was
Noel. She must be calling to ask about the photo shoot in London, I thought.
She must want to apologize for the lack of organization and planning and for
the poor responsibility she showed.
"Are you sitting down, Lauren?" she questioned. I was oblivious to the fear
in her voice.
"Uh, yep," I was sitting Indian style on the grey carpeted floor next to my
bookshelf, flipping through my photo albums.
She hadn't called to ask about the photo shoot, and she hadn't called to
apologize. She called to tell me that Corey, another model from the agency, had
died while I was in London. He had been sucked under the current of a river
near his home in Indiana and engulfed his lungs with water. Corey and I met the
previous February in an apartment on 52nd street near Times Square. I couldn't
stop thinking about his mother, who had long red hair. She bought me a hat with
flaps that hung over my ears that February in New York. Noel said his mother
was overcome with grief. I wanted to send her flowers. But most of all, I
wanted to hug my own mother.
§=+=+=S=M=U=R=F=S=+=A=R=E=+=A=S=E=X=U=A=L=+=+=$
"What's the point of living
if you don't have a dick?"
"Dammit Donnie,
why you gotta get so smart on us?"
-Donnie Darko
§=+=+=S=M=U=R=F=S=+=A=R=E=+=A=S=E=X=U=A=L=+=+=$
---------------
: Surprise Me :
: by ed :
---------------
Hop dee doodle doo, I was a little pumpkin in a patch and I stuck a scythe in
the cabbage patch kid's FACE!
I kicked a dog clean through his abdomen!
I beat the shit outta the POPE, and shotgunned his whole Pollock family!
I want Ronald McDonald impersonators to eat my fucking Bigass Diarrhea Mac!
I want to play a somber piece of music on the violin exquisitely to a person
and then bash it into their FACE!
--------------------
: It's not natural :
: by steak :
--------------------
You spend your entire life looking for that mythical person, the one true love
who you feel that you need to find to be able to survive through the horrible
existence they call life.
You see many other people, all have relationships with girls who they don't
deserve, some have short two-week games with them, you pity the poor fools,
they have no idea of love, but at the same time you know your better than them
because you are looking for somebody to love, somebody to hold and feel close
to.
Then there are those who fall into long term relationships with people, you
envy them, and they are your friends, but you wish you had that kind of
commitment, someone who can tell you they love you.
So you kid yourself that you don't need women to be happy, you don't need
someone to tell you they love you, you seclude yourself into your own
existence, creating things that make you feel good, not caring about the wicked
world one little bit, you don't try. And that's when it happens.
You meet her, she's beautiful, maybe its her big brown eyes, maybe its her
interest in almost everything you do, maybe it's the way her hair falls down
her back, it could be one of thousands of things, but whatever happens you find
yourself instantly attracted to her.
You spend months being "just friends" plucking up the courage to ask her out,
getting depressed when she herself plays a game with someone you've never met,
those times can be hard, sometimes you think it's all over, but you press on.
Then you get together, and you realise that you were so stupid to be cautious
around each other because you have both had the same feelings for a long time.
You laugh about it and the cold harsh reality of only a few weeks ago seems but
a distant memory, you are enjoying the life you are leading and it's feeling
great.
Fast forward a few months, and you suddenly find that you have been in love
forever, you can't imagine living without this girl. You fight, but all
couples have fights, it's a just an emotional representation of the love you
have for each other.
Then before you know it, she's left you.
For whatever reason she's gone, it might have been cheating, you might not
have got on as well as you hoped, you might have had something you just
couldn't work out. But she goes, and very soon she finds somebody new, some new
male that will satisfy her urges.
You, the all-powerful male, the one with the ability to make her smile one day
and scream out loud the next has been demoted to the "supportive friend"
role.
You spend time with her, and you see everything that you used to stand for
everything that your relationship used to mean, but for some twisted reason,
it's been distorted and locked down and whatever you had before no longer is
there.
So your left on your own, listening to some depressing soundtrack while filling
your head with images of that new basted of a boyfriend shoving his prick into
your love.
Your head won't let you think of anything else, all you can image are those
two people, the only nice times you had you can't recollect because all you can
think of is that guy in your place, doing the things you did. He's won over you
and he doesn't even know it and if he did, you know he wouldn't care.
She keeps giving you little tasters, little previews of the things you used to
do, but whatever is there is useless, it only makes you want more. Every smile
is a torture, every laugh you hear in the background while on the phone is a
knife to the heart.
It's her turn to speak so she picks up and talks to you, but its mundane stuff,
"hows your life been?," "What you been up to?," "Did you see that program?,"
etc, etc not what you want, it's a teaser again.
All you want to do is yell into the phone that you love her; you want her back,
that you need her, that your life has become pointless because she isn't in it.
You want her to tell you that she is sorry for making you feel this way, that
it was a mistake to leave you and she feels the same way she has always done,
she has just been hiding it.
But you know, deep down, that's never going to happen, you know that the
reality where she loves you again is only for when you are sleeping and she
won't leave you alone, you know it, and you know it well, but you won't accept
because it doesn't seem natural.
<oregano2k> all the troops and their marionettes
<oregano2k> could not outpuppet the angstmonster
<oregano2k> so they threw away their stings and wooden X things
<oregano2k> which controlled the puppets
<oregano2k> and took off theire socks
<oregano2k> and put the socks on their hands
<oregano2k> and this way
<oregano2k> through sock puppets was the angstmonster defeated
æææææææææææææææææææ
æ Æfterthought(s) æ
æææææææææææææææææaæ
This was the latest released issue of angstmonster ever. It broke the "finish
everything before bed" rule. For that I must be punished! PUNISHED BY A BAKED
POTATO! THE MOTHER OF ALL BAKED POTATOS HAS BEEN HATCHED AND SHE'S NONE TO
HAPPY! IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE ONE OF THOSE WHO GETS UP UNDER THAT YUMMY BAKED
POTATO SKIN OF HERS WHEN SHE BEGINS TO REAK HAVOC ON THE UNIVERSE, YOU BETTER
SEND US YOUR SUBMISSIONS FOR THE BAKED POTATO SPECIAL RELEASE ISSUE. IT IS OUR
GOAL TO APPEASE HER WITH THIS OFFERING OF PEACE SO THAT WE CAN CONTINUE TO HAVE
INTER-SPIECES RELATIONS WITH BAKED POTATOS (you know, falling in love with
baked potatos)
That is all.
_____
/ |\ |\ /\ |\ |
\ | | |/ |/ < > |/ | *
/ |_| | | \/ |\ | *
http://www.bubblemonkey.org/cheesencrackers/ !CHEESENCRACKERS!
http://www.neo-comintern.com *THE NEO-COMINTERN*
http://turd.angstmonster.org THE UNDEAD RISE, DAMMIT!
http://www.textscene.com CURRENT TEXTFILE SCENE
?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?
What you have just read was a step into the unknown spontaneous and poorly
edited thoughts for sharing collectively known as "Angstmonster." All thoughts
on the matter can be sent to <gir@angstmonster.org> or you can just visit the
site http://www.angstmonster.org and see what you think. Submissions of all
sorts are welcome! Everything from prose and poetry to rants and opinions,
creative text art, recipes for yummy food, reviews of stuff, etc.
Thanks and enjoy your day...
copy-spwep 2003 issue 20
angstmonster.org 02.10.03
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