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Doomed to Obscurity Issue 26
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)- doomed to obscurity e'zine issue number 26 - released january 15, 1998 -(
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"Opium Man? What the Hell Is Wrong with Me?"
by -- Quarex
Hello, Sir or Madam, as the case may be! My name is Quarex, and I am
here to tell you about the 26th issue of Doomed to Obscurity. I understand
your concern, since you have absolutely no fucking idea who I am, as I am
not at all associated with your usual DTO salesperson. In fact, I just got
this job today, on a freak accident with my resume! I assure you, in no
time, you will get to know me just as well as the president of our fine
corporation.
Now, let me get back to the matter at hand. I am selling these fine
leather jackets. What? Oh, no, this is pudding. I am selling this fine
pudding! Do you understand this metaphor yet, Sir or Madam, as the case may
be? No? Here, let me show you the kinds of puddings we have.
This first pudding is a real doozy. What flavor is it? I thought
you would never ask! New, yummy, "Letters to the editor!" This particular
flavor also includes a dash of flavor hand-picked by a few of your regular
DTO salespeople, as well as a splash of my personal favorite flavor!
I see you are more interested in these larger puddings I have set up
near this rock formation. Well, let me show you a thing or two! Here we
have the always-delicious flavor, "Honeysuckle!" Actually, now that I think
about it, this flavor would probably not make any sense to you. Let us move
on.
Oho, here is a tasty treat! "Flying Teapot!" The only pudding with
real metal in the mix! I am sure you will agree that this new flavor
provides insight on some very tasty puddings yet to come!
Yes, I understand, I am not showing you all of the puddings here, but
I am on a tight schedule, Sir or Madam. I assure you they are all equally
good!
Ah, a wonderful new flavor, home-grown in our Ohio laboratories! No
no, I assure you, pudding is always made in a laboratory. Just investigate
this flavor! Mmm, "Japan my Ass!" A hint of mahogany with all the glory of
a proud nation!
Huzzah! A flavor to tempt nearly all who dare come near it! A taste
for all seasons, a dinner... "We enjoy it." Could you hand me that garden
hose, please? Gracias.
Think you have tasted all that my kind can produce? Check out this
little number, the glorious "The Lowdown on Ease & Serenity with a Woman at
a River." Our marketing people debating shortening the name, indeed, but we
decided that it would lose its charm.
Speaking of Annie, you should try our "Chaos Theory" flavor. It has
lots of wholesome goodness thrown right into the mix, and goes down smooth,
like a yummy pudding should.
One last flavor I simply must show you, on special request of the big
guy, Mr. President, He-Who-Sees, My Rejuvenator, Scarbourough Fair,
Alexander the Great. Our new fun-pak has a great collection of flavors,
collectively referred to as "Mom Never Learned How to Swim." This pudding
will clear up all the things you wondered about the individual flavors
featured in the package, complete with PUDDING LINER NOTES from the flavors'
creator!
Sorry Sir or Madam, I have to run. Keep in mind all the flavors I
have shown to you this month, you never know when I may find myself in the
position of pudding salesman again.
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doomed to obscurity #26 | | | | | | and all contents therein...
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TABLE OF CONTENTS:
1. "Opium Man? What the Hell is Wrong with Me?" -- by Quarex
2. DTO #26 and all contents therein...
3. Letters to the Editor
EDITORIALS:
4. "RGB Owns You: Copyright Laws Make Art a Hazardous Pastime" -- by Eerie
HUMOR:
5. "Sequels to look for in 1998" -- by The CMW Kids
6. "Honeysuckle -- Condiments; Chapter 80" -- by Murmur
7. "A Simmons Carol" -- by Sweeney Erect
8. "Flying Teapot" -- by Ashtray Heart
FICTION:
9. "Japan My Ass" -- by Puck
10. "We Enjoy It" -- by Sweeney Erect
11. "The Lowdown on Ease & Serenity with a Woman at a River" by D. McDaniel
12. "A Living Hell" -- by Squinky
13. "The Chaos Theory; Tuesday, July 26th" -- by Eerie
14. "Mom Never Learned How to Swim" -- by Mooer
15. "One Nation Under" -- by Eerie
)- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(
- LETTERS TO THE EDITOR -
)- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(
Date: Fri, 05 Dec 1997 15:50:43
From: Deanna Robison <drobison@TTIADMIN.TAMU.EDU>
To: mogel@dto.net
Subject: 'zines
hey. Please don't take me for a complete idiot, but I've heard very little
about 'zines. I was screwing around on the computer and I came upon "Doomed
to Obscurity". I live in College Station and attend Texas A&M Univ. I don't
get much exposure to "underground" magazines here. You wrote something about
terrible poetry and an abundance of essays in 'zines. I don't understand
this; how could any self-respecting writer allow their work to be published
when it's not polished, and why would people read it. Do you have anything
else written on this subject? An instructor of mine told me to look into
'zines if I was interested in having a few pieces of prose published. What
do you think about this? Like I said, I really don't know much about
'zines -- I would appreciate a reply if you have the time. Oh, by the way...
I'm no cowgirl. Thanks.
[ Eerie's note: I suppose an easy answer would be that being deliberately
"free" entities, most e-zines go through periods where they'd just accept
anything to fill some space. Though, the truth is more complex: e-zines
can also be seen as "writer's playgrounds" or just places to try new
things. Therefore the people who are into such publications are often
interested in their work-in-progress feel, and the fact that some of what
they release isn't completely polished is mostly deemed spontaneous rather
than careless. ]
---
Date: Tue, 3 Dec 2097 23:25:20
From: MHq <madhq@tin.it>
To: murmur@dto.net
Subject: Hi!
Hey there.
I got yer e-address on the Obloid Sphere and i'm bothering ya just to tell
that I've read yer story "The Most Elite BBS In The World." I found it funny
and sad at the same time. Funny 'coz it actually was the most elite BBS, sad
'coz it says something about the end of the scene... or at least this is my
interpretation.
That's all. But I've 1 question, though. You should have been in the scene
too, but I've never heard about Murmur (ya could say, never heard about Mad
Harlequin, ok, ok...) but I'd like to know whether this has always been yer
handle or if u're using another one.
Ok, don't have other 'nuff stupid questions at the moment. As far as me is
concerned, I used to run a board in Italy, (da usual 0-dayz warez based BBS)
and it got pretty good after a couple of hard years work (especially when I
started distributing /X). Then I sold everything during the so-called
Italian Crackdown (read it as risk of cops in yer home!).
L8r!
-MHq
[ Editor's note: Since this article is rather old, here's a bit of history.
Murmur's _The Most Elite BBS in The World_, published in DTO #2, created
a massive backlash. Apparently after reading the text file, hundreds of
software pirates began flinging their arms up in the air, screaming
"my warez days are over!" and coincidentally, an equal number of
completely inane e'zines began appearing all over the world. Surprisingly
enough, many of them looked like DTO. ]
---
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 1997 00:29:29
From: "Christopher J. Buzachero" <Christopher.J.Buzachero@samford.edu>
To: murmur@dto.net
Subject: Re: "Racism: From Class to Classroom"
Hey Phil, it's been awhile.
I logged onto the DTO page for the first time in months (it looks awesome)
and immediately noticed the race thread that has obviously been going on.
I've been reading quite a bit lately on race and gender issues, and after
reading the response by "Katie" I immediately read your article.
First off, I thought it was a good article. The fact that a poll showed
that nine out of ten Blacks don't earmark racism as a major problem in their
everyday lives surprised me quite a lot. Obviously enough to provoke a
response.
After exhaustingly devouring Cornell West, bell hooks, Mumia Abu-Jamal
(etc), and seeing Louis Farrakhan speak in Selma, Alabama, the notion of
racism as a virulent scourge that permeated all of society seemed to be a
truism to me. Going to a small, conservative, Christian college in Alabama
has offered me personal exposure to overtly racist policies and beliefs on a
large scale.
It seems almost an absolute to me that racism is one of the biggest
challenges facing America; where, by all counts, race relations among its
constituents is at a very bad state. In fact, I just finished my Race and
Ethnic Relations class by writing an essay comparing the dual racial systems
of Brazil and the United States. In the essay I had to explain how, after
developing along strikingly similar lines, Brazil and the United States'
respective states of race relations have taken such a divergent path.
Anyway, in all of my readings, in my listening to the politically active rap
music from 1988 to 1992 (Public Enemy, KRS One, Ice Cube, etc), I had
concluded that racism, discrimination, and prejudice affected minorities in
almost all aspects of daily life.
I've deduced, basically, that the elite, white, power "structure" has
perpetuated its own dominance using racist policies and social norms. The
motivations behind these acts are its own existence -- the desire to
maintain their power and to keep outside threats from gaining that power.
I think that two of the main "tools" this ruling elite utilizes in
perpetuating its own power are economics and social norms.
Social norms are obvious; they are individual mindsets that are created by
many outside influences: parents, the media, the government, "society" or
any other buzzword institution. These norms have been proven to be
susceptible to change -- the progress since the early 1950s proves this.
The economics problem, however, is structural, and should certainly be
addressed with as much, if not more, fervor as racist social norms.
Economic policy, be it taxes, urban geographical distribution, or the
"nature" of capitalism itself, seems to be one of the main ways in which
racism is perpetuated and minorities are kept hamstrung. I could go into
excruciating detail but because of time constraints and attention-span
constraints (I _just_ wrote all of this down for my Race final, it
seems... :) I won't. The situation as it stands today is a disproportionate
amount of minorities stuck in poor, inner-city, urban areas. Without
monetary power, educational actualization is a utopic dream. I agree with
you wholeheartedly that education is absolutely necessary for the battle
against racism to continue effectively. I'll address that more thoroughly
in a bit. Because of the economic stagnation facing many Blacks today,
crime is an answer to the problem of paying the rent and defining identity.
Clearly, the economic situation for most of Black America is a bleak one,
and has many malign implications. These implications serve as problems in
and of themselves, which I would argue are the "problems" that those
surveyed take precedence over "racism".
My thoughts on that statistic tell me that nine out of ten Black youths are
educationally uninformed about the racism that keeps them at the bottom of
the social and class ladder(s).
Obviously, racism exists in an extreme form. The fact that it has improved
is nice, but it shouldn't halt or even slow current movements against this
social evil. Journalists like Mumia Abu-Jamal lucidly articulate differing
manifestations of racism within society and their effects on the lives of
minorities. Clearly, he isn't lying.
Nevertheless, the statistic also points to an unfortunate pattern emerging
in the race discussion itself. Academic discourse on race seems to be a
floodgate of dialogue. On an ivory tower-esque level, racism is being
documented and debated on a widespread level. But that statistic alone
indicates that it is being almost limited to this academic level. The
individuals who are being visibly hurt most by racism don't even realize
it -- because they are not informed.
History provides a little light on this blight, the leadership of academics
like Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X, Huey Newton, the Black Panthers, and
many others demonstrate how intellectuals can inform their communities and
work successfully for change. But there is one key characteristic common to
all of these leaders that, in my mind, needs to be highlighted. These
leaders reached out to their communities, they did not settle for battling
racism on solely an academic level or restrict their voices to that context.
This is something that I feel needs to be done more, those informed have the
responsibility to inform others.
This empowerment doesn't have to occur through better education in schools,
better teachers, or "Robin Hood" tax policies designed to boost inner-city
school funding. It is easily catalyzed by simple involvement in social
groups featuring members of this "uninformed" community.
This is getting a bit long, but that's basically what I think. I agree
completely with your article, I just wanted to share what direction of
thought it led me in. Thanks for listening.
- Chris (tMM)
Oh yeah, one question, in that article, what were the problems that took
precedence over racism?
)- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(
- EDITORIALS -
)- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(
"RGB Owns You: Copyright Laws Make Art a Hazardous Pastime"
by -- Eerie
So "artist" rhymes with "cease & desist..." Mattel, Inc. recently
got its lawyers to browse the web looking for any art installments featuring
America's own, the doll everyone has to know. Barbie. The battlefield of
choice? Why, copyright infringement, of course!
Who cares if most of these artists aren't making a dime with these
installments! The corporate gods have spoken: "enough profit-making from
our commercial icon! Enough illegally milking the sacred cash cow!"
Is Mattel really worried about its corporate image? It's unlikely,
due to these web artists' limited influence. Apart from the marginal crowd
of hip avant-garde kids, the only others viewing these sites will be those
who hear the news & want to know what all this Barbie-stuff fuss is about.
Still, isn't bad publicity good publicity? This may be true in the
case of corporate giants (& this would be the reasoning behind Mattel's
legal action). However, it's easy to be biased against an
individually-owned web site a corporation told you to hate -- ultimately,
most "netizens" will end up forgiving the big ones as the latter feed an
unknowing audience with more false assumptions. It's this simple: once you
have the money, you can buy your public.
But, wait, art on the web is not really in danger, is it? It _has_
coverage, right? I mean, take a quick look at HotWired's take on hypertext
as a medium: the RGB gallery. They host art for the dilettante & the
branch to stumble upon & say: "Ohhh... how deliciously shocking! How
gently disturbing!"
Though, guess what: RGB will never host an installment as brilliant
as Mark Napier's "Distorted Barbie," which has just recently been censored
by Mattel's action where actual paintings of Barbie once stood, yet all
you'll see now is a distortion job; well executed, but still distortion.
We'll suppose that Napier is just too hardcore for the fluorescent world of
HotWired -- but that's beyond the point. The point is that RGB claims to be
about art, first & foremost.
After all, no matter how soft, contrived & redundant, RGB does go
further than, say, "Tommy's World of Backgrounds." The whole site design
speaks of an "underground" ethic, a "hip" stance on things, an eye for the
"new".
Though, beneath this attitude they try to pass as genuine, there is
a lie. A deep, deep lie.
Not long ago, David Opp, perpetrator of the mecca of backwardism, a
site reverse-psychologically known as "Superbad", went directly for the meat
when asked to do an installment for RGB: he simply ripped almost every byte
off of another site -- jodi.org. Now, you can go & mimic an all-time
classic if you want, but jodi.org, no matter how brilliant, doesn't exactly
make the cover of Yahoo Internet Life. So, as we speak, Mr. Opp gets
credibility for an act of blatant plagiarism, accepted because it was made
on Wired grounds.
Are those the aesthetics of Wired Magazine? We do know from looking
at their print publication that getting an ISDN transplant doesn't help when
it comes to aesthetics, but still -- is that all there is?
Art on the web is currently attacked from everywhere: the C.D.A.
almost made all art depicting nudity pornographic; the recent amendments to
the copyright laws makes it almost impossible to create if not from
complete scratch, just as most of contemporary art is about rewording this
era's trademarks & symbols to get the true meaning out of them.
And in the midst of this silent battle, if we're lucky, HotWired
might give a report on the casualties with their Internet-related news,
right next to some more exciting news about Mr. Gates' latest court battle.
Bad publicity is good publicity, right?
"Oh, here's something else the web can give me for free, let's gobble
it up no matter how unfit for consumption..."
Of course, it's still possible to publish your own art on the web:
pay your local provider for some web space, pray the server doesn't crash
too often, & mostly, come with a great deal of naivety; it may take a long
while before a hundred souls wander to your site. To get the hits, you must
buy yourself some hype. That means a lot of money. To get that money, you
need a lot of good friends. By good friends, I mean this: Mattel & Wired
are good friends, whether they know it or not. The reason is they just
won't get in each other's way, & that's usually what it's all about in
this business-ridden world.
So, when thinking about freedom on the Internet, ask yourself a
question: is it really about the absence of constraints, or just the mere
possibility of swallowing all this unneeded data these liars
oh-so-generously give out? It costs to give out for free. Soon enough
artists will be exhausted, & the web will be just as controlled as your T.V.
Not just with laws, but with money.
Distorted Barbie -- http://www.users.interport.net/~napier/barbie/
Superbad -- http://www.superbad.com
RGB gallery -- http://www.hotwired.com/rgb/
)- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(
- HUMOR -
)- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(
"Sequels to Look for in 1998"
by -- The CMW Kids
ID5
---
Those Zany aliens are back, and this time all their
technologically-advanced friends tag along! The laughs never end in this
sci-fi thriller!
Will Smith stars as an ex-Marine cab driver in New York City who lost
both his career and wife as a result of post-war depression. But that
didn't stop Smith from belting out hysterical lines like, "Yo, man, wassup
with dis shit, yo know? Like, welcome to Earth. You know?" that will
quickly become as cult classic as Homer Simpson's "Doh!"
There's more! Here's a sneak preview of the alien boss this time
around, ZyZZy (Marlon Brando), explaining to a cadet the importance of being
earnest.
"Zyzzy, xggflls ereooZzz ytmsaJJj! ! ! adreiQQ!"
"The horror, the horror! STELLA!!!!!!!! asagsjsshshhhhhh"
Most likely to win Brando his 3rd Oscar for being the most annoying
man to work with in the movie industry, ID5 is expected out in July of 1998.
Spiceworld 2
------------
Even before _Spiceworld_ is released, the production of _Spiceworld
2_ has already begun. In this flick, designed to portray the more serious
side of The Spice Girls, we learn about Scary Spice's epic battle with
cervical cancer, Young Spice's problems with age discrimination, Loopy
Spice's rape at an early age and the lifelong orgy that has since ensued,
and Guatemalan Spice's distaste for apricots. This movie will also have
rare footage from inside the Spice Girls' dressing rooms:
Scary Spice: Damn, nigga, what the hell am I gonna wear?
Old Spice: Math is hard! Girl power!
Vaginal Spice: Tonight, I've got an angle -- let's go out on stage
and look like mindless whores!
Old Spice: Let's go to the mall and look for cute boys!
Expect _Spiceworld2_ in early April of 1998.
The Star Wars Prequel
---------------------
In George Lucas' prequel to The _Star Wars_ Trilogy, Leonardo
DiCaprio plays a young annikan skywalker who finds himself thrust into the
bowels of life. He soon meets a girl and ends up goin' for a little warp
spin with her. During this mysical cruise, the star carrier they are aboard
hits a meteor that cuts into the ship's hull. A vacuum soon sucks out the
interior of the ship, and the passengers frantically rush outside before the
star carrier sinks into space. Only 700 of the initial 2100 passengers
survive, for the depths of space are really cold and all the yuppies have
taken all the space pods before the third class passengers could get to
them. Oh, and he has some kid along the way and becomes a Jedi or
something. Expect The _Star Wars_ Prequel in December of 1998.
Marilyn Manson: From Superfreak to Antichrist Superstar
-------------------------------------------------------
This rockumentary, brought to the big screen by director Stanley
Kubrick, will involve following the band Marilyn Manson around to all their
tour dates and their satanic rituals. See never-before-seen-and-lived
footage from the house of Mister Manson. Rumor has it he's really into
Azure. Although this isn't really a sequel, it's expected out in Februrary
of 1998.
Still Chasing Amy
-----------------
Soon-to-be another smash hit from Kevin Smith, creator of _Clerks_,
_Mallrats_, and of course _Chasing Amy_, this movie is still about Chasing
Amy. Amy (Bridgett Fonda) is a world-class runner, but because she's a
lesbian she has a hard time getting into the Olympics. Luckily, she
befriends a liberal-leaning corporation and they are willing to support her
fight -- but is she willing to whore herself out to the man and do idiotic
commercials just so she can run around a track wearing little clothing? See
for yourself when _Still Chasing Amy_ hits theatres in April 1998.
The English Patient 2
---------------------
Up for 13 Academy awards before it is even released, this movie tells
the tale of a man who falls in love with a woman, but leaves her in a cave
to die and then crashes his plane after it is shot down. Actually, nothing
in the plot chances from the first movie and all the footage is the same,
but the first movie won so many awards they thought re-releasing it and
calling it a sequel couldn't be that bad of an idea. _The English Patient
2_ is expected out March 1st.
Addicted to More Love
---------------------
Matthew Broderick and Meg Ryan play delightfully angstful characters
in this true-to-life movie where they just can't get enough of that kooky
love! From last movie, Broderick's and Ryan's characters decide to pretend
nothing ever happened between them, and so just start stalking their
ex-boyfriend and girlfriend again. The wackyness soon ensues as they set up
a pinhole telescope and bug the ex's apartment to spy on them. _Addicted to
More Love_ is expected out early in January 1998.
Home Alone 4
------------
The holiday comedy continues as The Olson Twins fight off black
panthers in order to protect their white suburban household. The robber,
"niggs", is played by Denzel Washington. _Home Alone 4_ is due out in
December of 1998. Directed by Spike Lee.
The Crucible Bites
------------------
Possibly in her best role ever, Wynona Ryder plays Abigail Williams,
a lonely young girl who has a fascination with married men and generation X
"stuff". Ethan Hawke plays John Proctor, married to Elizabeth Proctor (Neve
Campbell), and Abigail's lover. A great story of modern relationships and
hanging, _The Crucible Bites_ is due out in August 1998.
Street Fighter 3
----------------
Yeah, there was no _Street Fighter 2_, but that was just to throw
all the fans off. In this sequel, since the late Raul Julia can't add any
semblance of acting to a clearly horrible cast in absurd conditions, the
entire movie takes place in a video arcade where Guile (Jean-Claude Van
Damme) kicks some young punk ass so he can play the _Addams Family_ pinball
game unobstructed. Also stars Dom DeLuise and Milton Berle's hat. Expect
to see Street Fighter 3 in June 1998.
Alien: The Musical
------------------
For those who just can't get enough of Sigourney Weaver in her role
as Ripley, the bad-ass alien-bustin' bitch, now a fifth movie in the series
arrives to satiate the mindless drones. This one, however, features
interactive singing and dancing, for this time around Ripley discovers that
the evil aliens actually know how to get down! The numbers performed will
be a collaborative writing effort of Sean "Puffy" Combs and famed vocalist
Diamanda Galas. Also stars Burt Reynolds as a stupid android. _Alien: The
Musical_ hits theatres in November 1998.
The Chipmunks on Ice
--------------------
These three supersonic rodents are back, this time bringing you a
triple-axle laced ice capade. Witness Frosty Alvin, Skatin' Simon, and
Slick Theodore fly through spins, loops, and bounds as they sing classics
like "All I want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth," and "Have a Holly
Jolly Kwanzaa" and "Ice, Ice, Baby!" Bring your earmuffs, or else go deaf
in November 1998!
White Men Can't Hack
--------------------
After a serious leg injury, Billy (Woody Harrelson) has to hang his
basketball shoes up - and so he embraces the Information Superhighway! Soon
he's in a hacking battle with a bunch of wacky Laotians - and the laughs
never stop! Also stars Jeremy Irons, since Laotian is one nationality he's
never portrayed before. Expect to see White Men Can't Hack in July 1998!
The Wrath of Grapes
-------------------
Based loosely on Steinbeck's classic, _The Wrath of Grapes_ is an
almost scintillating modernization. One hundred years after the
disappearance of Tom Joad, the United States is once again in crisis. Khan
Kord (Jaleel White) and his family are forced out of their New Hampshire
home, which has been taken over by the evil Bunch of Rogue Butchers. Khan
is faced with the dilemma of fighting for what is right for mankind or
saving his family. Khan will need the guidance of a sagacious old Maryland
Terrapin football coach (Craig T. Nelson) and a destitute Buddhist named
Jesus Christ (Wayne Newton). Also stars all of the Culkin kids. Expect to
see _The Wrath of Grapes_ in theatres just in time for Christmas 1998!
The Sixth Element
-----------------
Life's not so "perfect" anymore for Leilu (Milla Jovovich). After
marrying Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis), she gives birth to the "sixth"
element, a half-human retarded boy named Elmo (Neil Patrick Harris). The
ultimate fighting machine quickly becomes the ultimate whining machine, not
knowing how else to deal with her aching back, sore nipples, and decreased
sex drive. Korben takes to the bottle, and eventually moves in with his
mistress, a much less perfect creature with a much more pronounced pair of
tits. Check it out in May 1998!
Romy and Michelle's Second High School Reunion
----------------------------------------------
Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino reprise their roles as Romy and Michelle
in this sequel to the runaway hit original film. It's ten years later, and
their graduating class is having yet another reunion. Romy and Michelle try
to impress their old high school chums by claiming to have invented
"photosynthesis", a complicated system through which plants produce their
own food from sunlight. Their charade is exposed as Romy explains their
invention to her old biology teacher, but Romy and Michelle recapture the
hearts of their classmates by teaching them a great new dance called "The
Twist". Hits theatres in February 1998!
)- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(
"Honeysuckle -- Condiments; Chapter 80"
by -- Murmur
soaring through the air, you are in control. your lance is shiny
like mark murphy's bald head. you will not be beaten. you advance! you
flap! you scream bloody murder! here he is. he is blue. no! he will not
defeat you today. another! this one is brown! he tastes your wrath. can
anybody stop you? never, you declare! but, lark. the pterodactyl! you
can't defeat the pterodactyl! it cannot happen! but, lo! you insert your
mighty lance into the beast's mouth! it is paralyzed! it blinks! it
blinks! it blinks! and on your television set is ralph nader, and you have
broken the law, and now it is time to send your rosey ass to the slammer,
and you have no say in the matter, and you have no lance, and you have no
wings to flap, and no eggs to collect for 1000 points, and you are going to
spend the rest of your life in this miserable dark cell and you can only
hope to die in the fiery lava, you worthless piece of shit. your brother is
here and he is burning all of your atari 2600 games! and eating them! he
isn't really your brother! he's really the shorter guy from milli vanilli,
wearing a skirt made of tampons. you don't know why this is, so you write a
song. and the song sucks, you piece of shit. die die die. draft cola.
oh, yes. you want a draft cola. you killed the pterodactyl. now you get
to play another lame, worthless level. joust, joust, joust. aren't you
proud of your life? ralph is. kiss ralph. he is the troll. i am the
trool. moo moo moo moog. oh man, it all sucks so fucking much. i have
done everything wrong. forgive me, please, commissioner. please. i would
be much happier. if you forgave me. for killing the pterodactyl who tried
to kill me and die die die like the die die die six! if i get a five it's a
large straight, baby, a large strait separating two land masses. like
magellan. he was a land mass, ooh baby. why do we celebrate a dead guy?
yeah. flumphf. i guess i'm supposed to take everything to the capital,
where the men in coats await. i think i'll pass for now. maybe next time.
moral: YOU MUST MEET THE DISCORDIAN AT THE RIVER AND GET THE COW.
)- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(
"A Simmons Carol"
by -- Sweeney Erect
The two greatest sources of evil throughout history have almost
certainly been mob sentiment and women. Some very strong men have been able
to overcome one or the other of these guiles and have thus established
themselves as heroes. The ability to overcome *both* these bedazzling pits
of ruin is probably what demarcates men from gods. Enter, Julian Simmons.
Christmas was approaching. Snow was falling, what remained of the
yuppies were spending beyond their means, poor children were starving and
pining away for gifts provided by not for profit organizations hitting up
the more affluent for tax deductible donations -- in short, all the factors
that made an American Christmas an American Christmas were aligned.
Julian Simmons was reclining on his couch with an attractive woman,
not in itself an unusual event. The conversation they were having, however,
*was* a wonder to behold.
"I have to go out of town for awhile" she said.
"Oh, I'll miss you terribly. When will you be back?"
"I'll be back on Christmas Eve, maybe we can have dinner then."
"Absolutely... I'll make reservations at Chez Hubris."
"My god, on such short notice you can get in at Hubris?"
"Eh," said Julian modestly, "I have a few connections there."
They kissed lightly. "You know," Julian began, "you have really
helped me to see the error of my old life. I mean, universal love for all
of my fellow humans is so liberating."
"Don't forget the non-humans."
"Oh yes, how could I be so silly. The animals, too."
"And the plants?"
Julian smiled. "Yes, the plants, too. I love all that exists."
The past week had been a new experience for Julian. Jen had truly
swept him off his feet, changed his paradigm of thought. He was now buying
into concepts such as universal love, charity and brotherhood. He found
himself wanting to spend the rest of his life with her.
His doorbell rang. There was a man collecting money to give to kids
in the inner city to make their Christmas merrier.
"The same kids who would as soon shoot me as look at me?" said
Julian.
"Well, er, if they had Christmas presents maybe they wouldn't be
so jaded."
Jen squeezed Julian's hand. "Makes sense to me," he said. And he
made a large donation via his Gold Card. He briefly reflected the amount
he had used his Gold Card to buy things for people who weren't him in the
past week, and then pushed the selfish thoughts from his mind.
That night, after Jen left, Julian sat around moping and longing for
her. It was then that he heard chains rattle behind him. He turned around,
and there stood a spectral apparition of his old friend Aleister Kidridge.
"Jooooolian....." said the ghost.
"Aleister, why are you here? And why are you a ghost? you're not
dead."
"Well yes... you see I do a little consulting and some light sales
work for the Prince of Darkness in my spare time -- part of an agreement we
have. And when I work for him, I become a spectre."
"You work for Satan?"
"Well, somebody had to get me through the junk bond crisis in '88."
"Ahhh.... I always wondered how you didn't get indicted. Anyway,
what are you doing here?"
"Julian, you must mend your ways before it is too late."
"Mend what ways? I love everybody, give money to charity, don't eat
meat excessively, recycle and haven't pissed in anything other than a toilet
in six days. I am one of the best human beings alive."
"Julian, you're a fucking pansy now. Snap out of it man... this
bitch is ruining you."
Julian sighed. "But universal love is so liberating... far better
than being an asshole. You ought to try it."
"I am here to show you the error of your ways."
"Oh lord, what are you going to do? Take me through my past and show
me all the times before I became so jaded how I was taken advantage of?"
"The thought didn't even cross my mind."
"Then you are going to show me the stories of other men who have been
'brought down' by women? Beginning with Trump and ending with Marv Albert?"
"Nope."
"Then what?"
"I am going to show you exactly how you look when you are with Jen.
Watch your television screen."
For the next half an hour Julian saw himself and Jen on the screen,
doing every disgustingly cute thing they had done together -- when it got to
the part where they rubbed noses and Julian told her she was "soft and
yummy" (and clearly meant it) he screamed "No more!!!! Go away!!!!!"
"Joooolian... I will leave you now. Your fate is in your hands."
"Are we still on for racquetball tomorrow?"
"Sure thing, chief."
A few days later Julian and Jen are dining at Chez Hubris. She has
had foie gras, Beef Wellington and Baked Alaska. He has had escargot, filet
mignon and a yummy custard pie. He looks into her eyes and says, "Well,
it's been fun. I'll see ya around." He gets up and walks off -- for a
moment she is too baffled to do anything. Then she realizes he has left her
with the bill and she gets up to run after him -- however he is already out
the door. The head waiter, a surprisingly strong little man, grabs her as
Chez Hubris is not fond of people who skip out without payment. She
explains that she has no cash on her and her credit card is maxed out, and
he begins taking her to task for being a dead beat in front of the entire
restaurant. She bursts into tears.
Meanwhile, Julian walks down the street with a song in his heart.
He calls his credit card company via cell phone to inform them that a man
has stolen his card and any out of the ordinary expenditures of late should
be cancelled as completely as possible, and the woman on the line mentions
they had been holding on to rather a large donation to a charity which
seemed quite unlike his normal pattern of spending.
There is a pretty young woman ringing a bell and begging for money
for the Salvation Army. "Can't you reach into your pocket and give us a
little something, sir?" She looks imploringly at him.
"Oh, I've got quite a big something for you," he says, "but it isn't
in my pocket."
A few minutes later they are heading off together toward Julian's
apartment. On the way out he reaches into the pot of donations and pulls
out a twenty. "For a taxi," he explains to her with a wink.
And that is how Julian Simmons fought off both the Christmas spirit
and the guiles of a woman to remain the epitome of a modern hero -- perhaps
even a God of some sort. Or at least the best we've got.
)- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(
"Flying Teapot"
by -- Ashtray Heart
FOSTERING TURPITUDE: A secular guide to pluralistic sexual morality for the
millennium.
Excerpts from this work in process are provided for under the
provisions of the Nonexistent Fair Use Act of 1997 and have been fully
registered with the Taliban. Future rights to redeem this work for Green
Stamps reside with the author. Cash value; 1/100 of a cent.
UPDATED AND CORRECTED IN THIS EDITION:
* The estate of William S. Burroughs, in association with Nike, Inc.,
revoked our right to display an excerpt of "Naked Lunch" as "an example of
the kind of antisocial filth which causes our youth to skateboard after
dark." An excerpt from Garrison Keillor's latest novel, _Wobegon Boy_,
has been substituted.
* A photograph of a plantain being used to model the proper technique for
putting on a condom was improperly labelled as "a banana." We regret the
error.
* Due to a typographical error, "masturbation" was erroneously described as
"fish paste."
* Following a preliminary legal injunction, language referring to Andrea
Dworkin as a "neo-puritanical psychotic bitch" has been changed to
describe her instead as a "harridan." We have it on good authority that
Ms. Dworkin believes "harridan" is a type of fish paste.
* The chapter on "Post-Modern Sexuality" was discovered to have been
plagiarized in its entirety from an issue of the comic book "Magnus: Robot
Fighter" (original 1960's run). We are holding David Foster Wallace's
bandanna prisoner until a usable revision appears.
* A new chapter, "Cybersex," has been added, authored by Martin Rimm.
* All references to shellfish have been suspended indefinitely.
* The section on "hand-jobs" (last revision 1954) apparently made frequent
use of the word "nigger." That chapter has been removed upon ascertaining
that nobody bothers with "hand-jobs" anymore.
---
MASTURBATION: NOT JUST FOR TEENAGERS AND AUTHORS!
Quick quiz: What do the following people have in common?
1) Vice President Al Gore
2) Garrison Keillor
3) Donna Rice
4) Your Mother
That's right! They all masturbate! While masturbation is typically
associated with sexually frustrated teenagers like Andrew Kissel and
world-famous authors like Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., nearly everybody
masturbates -- even sanctimonious and condescending hypocrites who lobbied
to get Dr. Jocelyn Elders fired (1)!
However, as you can see from these pictures (2) (ed. note -- pictures
not included in online version -- thank God!), they go about it in
surprisingly different ways. Vice President Al Gore peels away a layer of
space-age plastics that generally renders his crotch as smooth and hairless
as a Ken doll's. Garrison Keillor looks at naked pictures of small boys.
Donna Rice sticks a carrot into her vulva. And the less said about your
mother the better.
1 -- Notable exceptions are some of the elder United States
senators, such as Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC), who can no longer
"get it up." Sen. Helms is also noted for his unusually small
penis.
2 -- Special thanks to our friend Vinnie for obtaining these
photographs.
---
END EXCERPT:
Special Bonus! While I was looking through my files, I discovered a
fragment of the legendary "TRIAL OF DOLEMITE" saga. This was authored by
Bill Lynch (elsantodelsol@hotmail.com), and would make an excellent addition
to your files. Please excuse any dodgy syntax; Bill's dyslexic.
Once again the camera fades into the courtroom of Shannon Fullun, but
this time Probe Ultra and Dolemite are in orange jumpsuits and handcuffs.
Conspicuous by his absence is The Hamburger Pimp, who fought his way out
last time.
Judge: Right now I am issuing the warrant for the Hamburger Pimp, may this
be a lesson to you two, you can't run from the law. And I am
offering the maximum bond, $20,000! Any takers?
Man from crowd: Just one, madam. I, Lord Chumsly, the last of the great
white hunters, will apprehend this ruffian. I have been all
around the earth and hunted everything, everything but the
Black Urban Drug-user. I will not do this for profit but
sport. [ Produces a trumpet from his coat. ] Release the
hounds. [ Blows the horn. ] The hunt is on!
Judge: Yes, well, moving on, Mr. Ultra, I believe you have the floor.
Probe: Yes Ma'am, I'd like to call El Santo to the stand.
[ Just then, salsa music comes on from nowhere, throngs of Hispanic
couples begin dancing and cheering. El Santo is decked out in a silver cape
as well as his usual ring attire. The Judge calls for order. ]
Bailiff: Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth, so help you God?
El Santo: Viva La Rassa!
Bailiff: Excuse me?
Probe: El Santo only speaks Konnan, your Honor, I'll serve as translator.
Judge: It is against my better judgment, but OK.
Probe: Mr. El Santo, what is your relation to Mr. Moore?
El Santo: Shikate Puntos, Rey Misterio Jr. I fucked your sister.
Probe: He said a friend.
Judge: No, I heard him say he fucked someone's sister.
El Santo: Viva Larrasa, el loco pierro, grande sesta, loco ocho.
Judge: What did he say?
Probe: I have no clue. El Santo, I have a question for you. What would you
say about a man who raises the dead?
El Santo: Vampiro!
Probe: And what would you do if you found this person?
El Santo: Viva La Rassa! I'd fuck his mother, then I'd cut of his arms, and
shove it up his ass.
Probe: And what would you do if I told you the Stoners were doing just that?
El Santo: Cabrones! [ With that, El Santo jumps to his feet and runs out
the door. ]
Probe: No further questions.
Judge: Due to the fact that El Santo cannot be cross examined and what has
just transpired makes no sense, the last few lines of the record
should be disregarded.
Probe: I call Dolemite to the stand.
[ Dolemite is sworn in and takes the stand. ]
Probe: Mr. Moore, what were you doing on the night of the 14th of this
month?
Dolomite: I was pimpin' my hoes.
Judge: Mr. Moore, are you aware you have just confessed to a more serious
crime?
Probe: But you got no evidence.
Judge: There is the small matter of the tape.
Dolemite: In that case I was making a movie.
Judge: Very well. Jurors, you may leave.
Dolemite: Where the fuck they going?
Judge: Home, Dolemite, you have just confessed to the crime you are charged
with and since you did not cut a deal, I sentence you to 18 months in
Attica. Rusty, take them away.
Dolemite: What the fuck happened to "Vote for me I'll set you free," huh
motherfucker? It can't end like this, no, noooooooooooo! 18
months without sex!
Judge: There is always gay sex, I'll set you up with one of those prison
bitches.
Dolemite: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
[ Fades to black. ]
)- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(
- FICTION -
)- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(
"Japan My Ass"
by -- Puck
I know this guy Radish who always teaches me Russian card games. He
knows tons of them. They're all pretty similar to Go Fish. Or at least
they all pretty much turn into Go Fish. He gets real frustrated with me
because I'm such a slow learner so he keeps changing the rules until I
understand.
Anyway, I found out from another friend of mine that Radish has never
even been to Russia. He just made all of those games up. Even the names.
But how would I know, right? Like I know Russian?
There are four types of people in this world. Number ones, those
who've been to Japan and speak Japanese. Number twos, those who've been to
Japan and don't speak Japanese. Number threes, those who've never been to
Japan, but speak Japanese, and number fours, those who've never been to
Japan and don't speak Japanese. I'm a number four. I've lived in Evanston,
Illinois, all my life, and I've never had a reason to learn Japanese. I
doubt I could if I wanted to, anyway. I'm a slow learner. But I already
told you that. Right. So anyway, Radish was the guy who told me the thing
about the four types of people, too. Radish says he's a number one, but now
I think he's full of shit after what I heard about him and Russia. Japan my
ass.
So Radish and I were walking down the Davis street alley fishing
aluminum cans out of the dumpsters behind all of the shops around two in the
morning when suddenly this Asian guy lunges at us with a knife and tells us
to give him all of our money. Radish starts reasoning with the guy, and I
just shut my mouth because the last thing I want is any trouble. A good
part of being slow is that you don't have to talk much and because of that
you can keep relatively safe on the streets.
"What, are you stupid? We're out here picking cans out of dumpsters.
You think we've got money?"
"Say something in Japanese to the guy, Radish," I say, thinking I
found a way out. Radish just gives me this real mean stare. Meanwhile the
Asian guy is getting all pissed off and he starts shouting. Radish pulls a
gun out of his pocket, and before I know it, bang. He shoots him right
between the eyes. Which blows me the fuck away, right? Because the last
thing I'm expecting is to see Radish shoot this guy in the middle of the
alley. We probably could have gotten the guy to leave us alone. I doubt he
even knew how to use that knife. But Damn. Radish just blows this guy
away, doesn't give him a chance to try.
I just stand there all dumb for a while. I keep waiting for words to
pop into my head, but the only thing that I can think of are these song
lyrics by King Missile. "Love is not ugly, like rats in a puddle of vomit."
I have no clue why those pop into my head, unless you count the puddle of
blood laying a few feet in front of me. This is the first time I'm watching
actual blood flow from someone's actual brain, so I'm a little dumbfounded.
I'm just standing there, staring at this dead Asian guy whose corpse is
staring right at Radish's crazy ass.
"Radish, what the fuck?" I finally say.
"Run," is all he says.
And then about a minute later, "NOW." So I do. I run down the alley
and back to my sister's apartment. The whole time I'm wondering what Radish
is gonna do. He lives on the streets, and he's pretty recognizable. If
anyone saw him, he's bound to get taken in. I'm pretty sure there aren't
very many other blue-haired homeless people walking around the streets of
Evanston.
I knock on my sister's door. After a few minutes, she finally
answers. She'd been sleeping, I can tell because her hair is all matted
down on one side. She's wearing her blue bathrobe, but that doesn't mean
much because that's all she ever wears. She only leaves the house to go
shopping.
"You were sleeping?"
"Yeah, they took my phone line down. You need to stay here tonight?"
"If it's O.K. I can't be on the streets tonight. They took your
phone line down? When?"
"Last night. It sucked. I was right in the middle of a call. It
was a good one, too. A fetish one. The guy wanted me to speak Japanese to
him."
My sister's a number three. When she was eleven, she used to
smoke pot with the landlord of our apartment. He was from Japan, and taught
her Japanese when they were stoned. "It's real easy to learn languages when
you're stoned," she told me once. She was always way smarter than me.
"So where's your blue-haired friend?"
"I don't know. I hope he found a way to get off the streets. We got
into some trouble tonight."
"What kind of trouble?"
"Got any food? I'm starving." I start filing through her cabinets,
but all I can find are a few dirty dishes and a box of Rice Krispies.
"I'm going back to bed. Tomorrow I'm going to Ameritech to see if I
can get my line back on. You can sleep on the floor in the living room."
She tightens her robe and walks back into her bedroom. My sister and I
usually look out for each other. When she was eighteen and I was twelve, my
parents just up and left the apartment, leaving me in her care.
Unfortunately, they also left her with the rent, which she couldn't pay.
About a year later, we moved out onto the streets. That's when I met
Radish. He knew a guy who could set my sister up in a tiny shitty apartment
for taking phone sex calls. I told her to go for it, I would fend for
myself. Once in a while I'll go spend a night over on her floor, when I
don't feel like sleeping on a bench, but I usually keep to myself. She
tries slipping me a few bucks every time I stay over there, but I always
leave the money on her bed before I take off.
So anyway, I fall asleep on her floor, and when I wake up, at about
noon, she's already gone. She never put shades on her windows, so my eyes
sting like hell from all of the light pouring in. I use her bathroom, leave
a note on her kitchen table, and walk outside. Just because I'm curious, I
walk back to the alley behind Davis Street to see if there's a body or what.
I'm a slow learner, but that doesn't mean my curiosity isn't hot. I try to
walk by all casual and stuff. I finally get to the spot and there's nothing
there. No blood, no body, no chalk line, no cops. As if it never happened.
I shake it off and decide to pretend that it didn't. Walking the streets, I
keep asking around, but nobody's seen or heard from Radish.
When my parents left, my life took a turn for the better. My sister
and I had the shit beat out of us on a daily basis. I'm pretty sure my
sister got the worst of it. My dad was a sick fucker. They left because
they were tired of worrying about us. They were tired of spending money on
our food, tired of dealing with school stuff. I had come back from school
that day and found my sister singing in the living room. She never told me
what they said when they left. Her right eye was bruised and she was
limping on her left foot, but I'll be damned if she wasn't smiling. Smiling
like I've never seen her smile before. And she was singing so loud. It was
like she had gone mad. That day was the last day I ever went to school.
So now my mind's set on Radish. The two people who gave birth to me
up and disappeared twelve years ago, and not once have I given any thought
as to where they might be. But a pathological liar with blue hair who's
been missing for a day is driving my mind absolutely mad. And it's not like
Radish is even the greatest friend in the world. He only hangs around me
because I'm dumb and I make him feel smart. But he's crazy sometimes. I'm
banned from any public library that's in walking distance from my sister's
apartment because of the crazy shit he'll pull when I'm with him.
Anyway I'm walking down Central street, now, and a car drives by, and
I swear to god I hear the words "Love is not ugly, like rats in a puddle of
vomit" coming out of its radio.
And then I start to wonder about this Asian guy's family. Whether
maybe his parents are sick fucks like mine were, and that maybe it's a good
thing Radish relieved him of his brain matter. I don't know. I'm not a
smart guy. My mind wasn't built to contemplate stuff like this. I've got
three-fifty in the pocket of my jeans that I made last week chalking the
sidewalk. That's one thing I do when I'm real hard up for cash. I go over
to my sister's and get my chalks and take them downtown and draw pictures on
the sidewalks. I guess that's the one thing God made me any good at,
because people keep throwing dollars and change at me for doing it. I made
twenty-seven dollars in three hours last week, just drawing a picture of
John Wayne from memory. I bought some food with some of it, kept
three-fifty, and left the rest at my Sister's place. I take my three-fifty
over to Gigio's to buy a slice of pizza. I figure the owner will cheer me
up. He's got this crazy complex that always makes me laugh. Radish told me
about it. See, you know how it is when someone's talking to you and they've
got a piece of spinach or something stuck in their teeth, and after a while
you don't even hear what they're saying anymore because they look so stupid?
Well supposedly this guy was on the receiving end of that one time when he
was a kid, and ever since he's been obsessed with keeping his teeth totally
clean. He'll spend like an hour each morning, an hour after lunch, and an
hour after dinner scrubbing his teeth. As a failsafe, he always clenches
his lips together real tightly when he talks so it always looks like he's
doing a ventriloquist act.
"Hey, Gerbil, how's it going?" He calls to me from behind the
counter.
"Lemme get a slice of cheese, ok?" I smile at him real big. "You
seen Radish lately?"
"Your little blue-haired friend? Yeh, I seen him in here about a
week ago. He was with you."
"Have you seen him since yesterday?" He hands me my pizza on a
greasy paper plate and I hand him two bucks.
"Nope." I stand in front of him for a few minutes, waiting for the
pizza to cool.
"Hey, Frank, have you ever been to Japan?"
"Nope. Can't say that I have."
"Speak Japanese?"
"Nope. Why?"
"Just wondering." Frank's a number four, like me. I could tell.
Hanging out with Radish has given me this acute perception. I can always
tell what kind of person someone is. That's why I'm pretty sure that Radish
is bullshitting when he calls himself a one. But shit.
"Hey Gerbil, when are you going to get your ass off the streets and
get a real job? A smart kid like you should be able to make something of
himself."
"I'm not so smart, Frank. I just am what I am."
"Gerbil, Gerbil, Gerbil. You've been told that you were an idiot for
so long you're starting to believe it. There's nothing dumb about you, kid,
except for the fact that you won't get a job." Frank gives me that speech
every time I come in here, and every time I have to tell him how my head
starts to hurt when I think too hard, and about how my breathing gets heavy,
but I'm tired of telling him the same story every time so I take my pizza
and leave.
Three weeks go by and I still hear nothing about Radish. I'm
collecting cans back in the Davis Street alley again, I figure if nothing's
gone down after this long, there's no reason not to. I pass a
forty-year-old man on a pay phone, an obvious number one.
"Can you talk dirty to me in Japanese?" I hear him say into the
phone. I figure my sister got her phone line back up, and I sort of smile
for her. I haven't seen her since the night Radish disappeared, so I start
heading towards her apartment. She answers her door in the bathrobe.
"So you're back in business?"
"Yeah, how'd you know?"
"I pick things up. I'm pretty observant when I want to be."
"Jeez, Gerbil, I've been hoping you would show up. A postcard came
for you. It got here a week ago." She walks into the kitchen to grab the
postcard off of the counter.
"Hey. I've been kind of thinking about stuff. Can you teach me some
of that Japanese?"
"No. It'd be a pain in the ass."
"Oh come on. I want to be a number three," I say. She just looks
down at me and sneers.
"Shut up with that stuff. You pick up the weirdest shit from your
friends on the street. Gerbil, you're an idiot. Stop buying these useless,
ridiculous things Radish tells you. If you're gonna be a number three, be a
number three with a fucking job, Gerbil." Her business line rings, and she
presses the postcard into my hand. "Get out of here and do something
useful."
So I walk out of her apartment and back on to the street and start
thinking about the look she was giving me and I start to think that maybe
King Missile was wrong, that maybe Love is ugly. And then I start thinking
that maybe Radish is all wrong. Maybe there are more than four people.
Maybe there are number fours who are loved, and number fours who aren't
loved. That would make one more group. Fives. And maybe numbers one, two,
and three can be divided in the same way. That would make eight groups
total. And then my head starts to hurt thinking about all of these groups,
and I start to think about god, and which group he'd be in, and I start
wondering what would happen if you were in a plane flying over Japan, does
that mean you've been to Japan? Or what about a boat, floating in a lake in
Japan? My head really starts getting sore. My breathing gets heavy, and
I'm standing there, and I finally realize I'm in one of my episodes, and
there are like five people standing there just watching me pant and shake
and spaz out. And I start screaming and fling myself against a building and
fall to the floor where I crawl up in a ball. My breathing slows down. I
stop twitching. The people go on their way.
I remember the postcard, and I un-crumple it. It's from Radish. The
postmark is from Osaka, Japan, and half of it is written in what I guess are
Japanese letters. The other half is in English, and it's in parentheses.
It says, "You can hear the trees singing when the voices stop." It's signed
Radish in big green letters, and he gives no return address. I read it
again, slowly, to see if I missed anything. I read it a third time. I tear
it up and throw it on the ground. It makes no sense. Radish makes
absolutely zero sense. I don't understand the guy, I'll never understand
the guy. And I'll never hear the trees singing, because the voices never
stop, they just keep on talking about this and that and ultimately nothing
at all.
)- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(
"we enjoy it"
by -- sweeney erect
penelope v. syed and jennifer peeterman did not, technically, murder
bert rust. in fact, if they were to blame for his death at all (and a case
could be made that they were) it was not entirely their fault. it was the
environment in which they grew up. the two girls were over privileged, two
more stupid rich girls.
penny and jenny were college freshman, pretty and between boyfriends.
they were into female bonding, often speculating as to whether people
thought they were lesbians. the possibility that people seldom thought of
them at all never occurred to them.
one night they decided to go out to the country and smoke some weed.
now some activities need to be undertaken with a healthy dose of ennui.
going to the bathroom is one such activity (my dad used to say "never trust
a man who is openly enthusiastic over his excretory functions."), and
getting high in the country is another. it is best done with an attitude of
"there is nothing to do. let's go out to the country and get high on cheap
weed. again." followed by a resolution to "get the hell out of here,
someplace where there is something to do".
jenny and penny, however, treated it as an adventure. they treated
buying the pot as an adventure (and penny got the dealer's phone number).
they treated driving out to the woods as an adventure. packing the bowl, an
adventure. but they never got round to getting high...
it was about midnight and they were just ready to begin when they
heard cows making agonized sounds. they ran to a nearby field, expecting to
see local high school boys trying to tip the cows (some of their rural
acquaintances at school had told them these things happened). instead, they
found aliens mutilating the cows.
the aliens were small, greenish, with huge heads and big eyes. they
were ripping the cows asunder using laser guns. "my god, like, why are you
doing that?" said jenny. penny was throwing up.
one of the aliens looked up and said "we enjoy it."
it was something in the way his eyes gleamed when he said it,
something in the way he smiled, that touched the girls. they had been in
and out of many many beds that year, and had never experienced anything so
profoundly sexual as seeing that alien be that happy doing what he felt.
the two of them drove back to town and got a room at a nice hotel,
turned up MTV really loudly and danced around. the simplicity of the alien
seemed contagious as they felt truly liberated, dancing into an ecstatic
trance, finally ending up out in the hallway.
and so in the hallway of the renaissance west bertrand rust iii, a
brilliant stock broker by way of choate and princeton and the wharton
school, came upon jenny peeterman dancing in a trance with a do not disturb
sign hanging from her ear. "what the hell are you doing?!"
"dude, i'm doing what i want," she said with such a simple smile it
was contagious. and so bert rust found himself skipping down a street
singing songs from into the woods as loud as he could, happy as a clam, free
at last.
a failed musical actor begging for change on a corner heard him and
snapped, beating bert to death and taking his rolex and money. and the
beggar was happy too, then.
and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well forever
and ever. amen.
)- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(
"The Lowdown on Ease and Serenity with a Woman at a River"
by -- D. McDaniel
Image: It is Annie and we are at the river. Actually, high above the
river and hunkered on a boulder amid scattered underbrush. From our
pinnacle it is an easy jump to the water, maybe 30 or 40 feet out over the
course of a 100-foot fall. Simple physics, child's play. I figure I can
make the leap and achieve splashdown in 2 to 3 seconds tops, but the
question of survival must be considered; and then there is the instant stone
cold reality of knifing down into the water, curl and kick off the bottom
and break back to the surface, alive and jubilant, and realizing that the
beer is in the ice chest in the car, up the mountain and through the woods,
2 to 3 hours tops.
I am a child of the Texas hill country and cliff-diving was a staple,
a standard brand issue normal occurrence of life that no one really
questioned at the time. You were young and you were male and you dove off
of cliffs. My heart was full of daring in those days, and it was a simple,
innocent daring that required no explanations, no logic. It was rash and
totally uncalled for and it was completely valid just the same. Pondering
back from my sage thirties, it is easy to categorize, to analyze and form
theories, to expound on the basic premise of teenage mutant ninja cliff
diving. There is the thrill, of course, and the sense of athletic
achievement, but this does not adequately explain the necessity to perform
in public (one does not dive off of cliffs in private, you see).
It boils down to a neat mathematical function, believe it or not, of
penile rigidity, or in layman's terms, the old Hard Dick Theory. I dove
from cliffs because there was the promise of yet another erection in my
cutoffs and there were nubile females in the general vicinity. Just the
thought of someone with a vagina watching me hurtling through the air with a
stiff weenie was sufficient impetus, and it sent me scuttling back up the
rocks time after time. Virile sex-maddened young studs will do the most
outlandish and idiotic things in the name of snatch... but this is a weird
tang and I must converge, pull the team back around or risk a breakaway.
Let me see now... ah yes, Annie and I on the rock, and I am playing
with the idea of a bull macho leap down to the river. But only playing with
the idea, and that is sufficient. The act is already complete in my mind
and requires no action. Fifteen years ago I would have done the deed in an
instant, beating my chest and bellowing like an elk in rut and ogling
Annie's crotch all the way down, but time and a semblance of wisdom have
prevailed. I can ogle Annie's crotch at leisure, the beer is close at hand,
and we can forego the possibility of creating some kind of mangled 911
situation on the river bank. But this is still not the point... I keep
backing up and aiming, and invariably I fly off on some unexpected and
perverse angle. Excuse me for a moment (cliff dive, snatch, erection,
crotch, cliff dive, snatch, erection, crotch...). There, I feel much
better. The head is clear and I can grapple mano a mano with The Point.
The point, the point, yes... the elusive point, and here I go.
The point is that I'm with Annie, crotch and all, in a broken
wilderness high above a river, and I am able to concentrate, to dwell, as it
were, on the intellectual ramifications here; the dynamics of interpersonal
relationships and other assorted new-age muck. The primal urges for beer
and pussy are momentarily at peace (both items seem to be in reasonably
close proximity), and the mind is free to engage in some higher functioning;
some blatant frontal lobe activity, and the first thing that jumps out at
me, while in this highly enlightened and receptive level of consciousness,
is the incredible sense of ease and serenity beaming off of Annie.
Big deal, you say, and under normal circumstances, it really is not
that odd to catch someone being serene and at ease. Harder than it used to
be, perhaps, but still fairly common in some circles. But, just as a mental
exercise, let us round up all the people we come into contact with on a
daily basis who can still mf some weird outback boondocks. I'm willing to
bet heavily that the fragile "ease and serenity" quotient would take a
severe geometrically regressive beating when confronted by the sudden
brutish appearance of the "wilderness" factor.
And I'm taking a long and tortured path in pursuit of a point, but I
can't really see any shortcuts from here, and, in my opinion, the point, if
it exists at all, is worthy of a small dose of belaborment. The whole
concept of mankind in general, from the first crude hand-held rock to the
latest innovations in Tupperware, has been one of conquest over Nature.
There are a few scattered peoples throughout history that attempted a
symbiotic relationship with the planet, but these are the foolish exception,
and we all know that the naive bastards hit the extinction trail early on.
They were the Maintainers and they were no match for the Takers and the
Stompers. They were routed in quick and easy fashion because all they
wanted to do was maintain; they had no desire to take or stomp.
Being a man means beating Nature into submission for your own
comfort. We are victims of a not-so-divine God-complex, and we rip the soil
up in great handfuls and we fashion the mud in our own image and on the
seventh day we kick back with pizza, beer and the NFL and call it good.
For the vast majority of us, ease and serenity depends on how well we
can craft our environment, our personal domain. There is an ant-like
quality to our toil, and we spend a large part of our lifetime erecting
barriers between ourselves and Nature, filling the fortress with creature
comforts and taking care to avoid the elements; and in this manner a fragile
sense of ease and serenity can be established, but it is entirely dependent
on how well we patrol the castle walls. Which is not in itself a bad thing,
and I'm sure most people will take ease and serenity any way it comes and
not worry about the required up-keep.
But the downside is that ease and serenity of this brand is not
portable. It rests uneasily on a web of there's-no-way-in-hell-we-can-
dismantle-the-damn-thing-and-haul-it-with-us-into-the-jungle. Even if it
were possible, it would be a monumental investment of time, effort and
money, and most people who do achieve some wispy sense of ease and serenity
are perfectly content to avoid the jungle and not take the risk of
collapsing a familiar and relatively stable old structure.
And this is beginning to sound like an ethereal rant;
caffeine-induced hogwash, philosophical masturbation; and maybe it is, but
the next time you're out in some virgin landscape (and I don't mean the
souvenir shop or the hike and bike trail or even the picnic area), try a
little covert sociological people-watching. To an intent observer the
effects are immediately noticeable; a variety of symptoms will manifest
themselves right before your eyes, and some very strange transformations
will take place.
The average homo-sapien who mistakenly lands himself in an
unexpectedly primitive setting will instantly recoil from the evidence of
eons; overt signs of massive upheaval and fantastic movement, inconceivable
power within infinite space. He will shrink back within himself, skulking
like a kicked dog, in a vain attempt to avoid the weight of his awe,
enveloped in a catatonic horror, paralytic rabbit terror... and then after a
while the parasympathetic nervous system will gear back up--the heart will
return to an even, regular rhythm and the breathing will come a bit easier,
and he will either run screaming or begin construction, taking and stomping
in the fine tradition of our pioneer forefathers.
Of course, everyone has a comfort zone and they are all different.
On one end is the junior executive who gets nervous at the thought of an
unsupervised philodendron in the apartment; tends to avoid the atrium at
work and is not entirely comfortable with the realization that his garden
salad might have been grown in actual dirt. Animal life to him is something
best confined to zoos and discos, and the downtown bank building is just
about all there who sucks breakfast right off the vine (or straight from the
vein, for that matter), gets cramped at the sight of an airplane and doesn't
mind the occasional varmint sleeping over as long as it stays out of the
sugar stash.
And in the middle is the former Boy Scout who drags the family out
once or twice a year to "rough it". They arrive at their designated camping
spot; Mom and the kids wait in the station wagon while Dad leaps out bravely
to hose the general area with a high-powered insect repellent. The rest of
the clan then emerges and sets about flailing down any random free-standing
plant life. Pop up the camper and plug that baby in so we can nuke the
shish kabobs, etc... and I have an almost irresistible yen to keep hammering
on these folks, but it is just a little too easy and, every now and then,
just a little too close to home.
The roundabout point to this whole jabbering rampage is that Annie
was genuinely serene and at ease on a rock high above a river in a broken
wilderness amid scattered underbrush, and I think that the actual import of
her gracely state would have just slipped by had I not expounded, and
therefore I claim that the rant was justified. At precisely the moment when
most people hit shrivel mode, she opened up like an orchid and embraced the
naked Creation and I was present and in the right frame of mind and I got to
witness the ancient rite of communion between Life and the Life Force and it
was high and mighty like no sniveling church-bound communion could ever hope
to be and my presence had no real bearing at all. Annie had reached out and
become one with The Land, and even the slim outside chance of some freak
(who, incidentally, had the car keys) taking a suicide plunge in the general
direction of the water didn't matter. So I popped a beer and snuck another
furtive peek at her crotch.
)- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(
"A Living Hell"
by -- Squinky
To see the cross was to know God. It glittered so. Jokanaan
brandished the cross almost as a weapon. The shining crucifix made only of
wood: a legend in his town. Jokanaan was himself a legend and everyone knew
him as the holy man. His shrill voice screaming out the Epistles of Paul
ran through the streets and alleyways like cats prowling for something to
eat.
Not even the harlequin would repent. And to know the harlequin was
to know the most capricious and foolhardy of men -- prithee, nuncle, a man
who would join a passing parade even if he could never return back to the
home for which he had worked the past ten years in the most disgusting and
degrading positions: rolling on the ground, smelling like a burnt fish,
screaming out senseless phrases, and making an ass of himself. But the
harlequin, he looked at Jokanaan, he listened, and he turned his nose up and
walked off with a dignity possessed by no one else of his social status.
Never before in the harlequin's entire life, a good thirty years, could a
single instant with that dignity have been found. To say it would never
surface again in the harlequin's life would not be saying anything of much
import as the harlequin died six hours later.
The plague. It filled the town like a fog, but one invisible in the
air yet visible in the faces of the dead, blackened and charred by the heat
of their internal temperatures and bathing in the pools of their own
liquefied insides. The dead became piles of dog shit: noticed only to be
avoided. The bodies smelled much worse than dog shit. The particular smell
of rotting blood, so sweet and immediately afterwards so disgusting, was the
absolute worst. Even the smell of watermelon juice left to ripen in the
sun, so perfectly sweet in the first millisecond and then so desperately
sickening and mind wrenching, only gives a light shadow of the blood stench.
The villagers, who quickly grew accustomed to such sights and smells, became
proficient at avoiding direct eye contact with the dead and dying.
"Girl," Jokanaan spoke in his grave voice to a young woman, maybe
seventeen, one of the last ones to actually listen, "faith is the cure. You
know the plague besets you as do all around you; I can see the dark circles
around your eyes. Such nice eyes, pretty brown eyes, shame to watch them
liquefy and boil all over your screaming face. That's your face, and that's
your fate. All you've got to do, all you have to do, is believe. Faith
will keep you alive.
"Look at me! I'm the only one left who the plague hasn't caught."
This is true. Jokanaan would never catch the plague. He had faith. "I
have faith in God! Look at the cross. See it burn so brightly that you
must avert your eyes? It burns... it burns like this because of my faith.
The cross is not made of gold, the cross is not made of any metal. The
cross is made of base wood. It burns because it is a reflection of the
inner faith. This is what keeps me alive. Accept him, accept faith, and
the plague will leave your temple, leave you to exist, leave you screaming
beaming alive to life."
The girl looked at the cross. As she stared deeply into the cross it
seemed almost a matrix of reality, a point in which everything she ever had
been and ever would achieve blurred together into one gelatinous mass. Her
life became clear with the brightness and she saw the purest truth in the
words of Jokanaan, she saw that she too, if only she had faith, would be
able to live through the plague. And finally, she saw the righteousness of
God, and how pure and divine he was. Christ crucified at Golgotha burned in
her skull and at that very moment of his passing, "Eli, Eli, lama
sabachthani?", she glimpsed her sins being washed away by this sacrificial
lamb who loved her more than she could conceive of loving anything. He
loved her more deeply than any woman had ever been loved before. She was
not simply one of the masses, on of the billions of the gestalt that he
loved as a group entity, but an individual whose existence painfully
resonated in his skull. No one had ever died for her before. She doubted
whether any would again. Could any man ever die for any woman as he had
died for her? She doubted whether any would again.
A shattered noise, the voice of a man, ripped her away from the
burning crucifix. "Ah, and what have we here? Little rider of god,
Jokanaan comes to save the soul of the prettiest girl in town." Yuen Li
looked Radiance up and down, examining every possible facet of her feminine
composure, and added, "Well, the prettiest living girl. There was one who
used to live in the house next to me. I can not think of anything as
astonishing to look upon as her. Even your cross, Prophet, grew a little
dimmer near her. I spoke to her not once, but I watched her almost every
day go down to the river and pick flowers. She loved violets the most. I
tried picking some to put on her grave but they withered all when she died.
"The plague caught her. I stood outside her window at night and
listened to her dying coughs. As soon as I saw those treacherous circles
around her eyes, blacker than sable night, I began a nightly vigil outside
her bedroom. I couldn't bear to look at her, so I crouched beneath the
window and listened to the plague eat through her like a gigantic worm.
"On the night she died, this girl gathered up her last strength to
try and look at the river she loved one last time. I heard her dragging her
burning flesh through the room. It sounded like the dull thumps of lead on
the back of a man's skull. Each step a universe of indivisible agony. As
the steps grew closer, so did the gurgling. Almost like boiling water. I
realized that all within her then was coming to the surface. And she lifted
the shade of the window I crouched beneath, I silent as silence itself, and
died. She caught, I hope, I hope she did, a glimpse of the river, and
expired. And that's where I caught the plague. She slumped over the open
window and expunged her insides on me. I looked up and saw her eyes ooze
into my own. The blackness rained down on me. And I began to die.
"So look on at me and my dying hulk, mad prophet, and feel the
greatest concern and worry about the status of my eternal salvation and my
mortal body. Rise above the mortal hate that we've shared for each other
for the past twenty years and show us all your immortal blessedness with
Christly concern and blinding love. Your pigfaced religion is worthless to
me without her. What good is life if there is nothing to celebrate? And
you, Girl-o'-the-Plague, listen deeply to him because surely a man so
distinguished and loved by his God who gives him gifts of illuminated
trinkets and false histrionics can not be wrong."
Yuen Li left the Prophet and the Girl standing in the town square.
He stumbled off, coughing the rattle of the plague, and went to his home
where he rested and waited for the death coming. Jokanaan looked at the
girl and watched her, and wondered if she was moved by the story of Yuen Li
or by his cross, which he observed her looking at with a deeper interest
than anyone had, since the plague descended on the town. The spark of
reflection in her eyes, Jokanaan knew himself capable of saving her. Until
the damned idiot Yuen Li stumbled into the scene and upset the entire
delicate balance of salvation and eternal life.
The girl looked up at Jokanaan with raccoon eyes, and slowly said
with almost perfect enunciation, "Prophet, dearest of men to God, I do
believe. I believe in God and I believe that he died for my sins and rose
again on the third day just as I may rise out of sin and ascend, like him
into the heavens, into redemption."
Relief filled Jokanaan in all the places made empty by constant
rejection and scorn -- Taunted, cursed, spit at, hated, he was, and all this
malice carved him up like an apple leaving huge empty sections of blank
emotion and constant consternation.
Jokanaan considered the girl the very last one. He saw how close he
came, and the idea that the blasphemous prattle of Yuen Li might have
disturbed the balanced scales of salvation hurt him. And so, relief rushed
in like gallons of flowing water -- cold to the touch, but refreshing on
some deeper and baser level than he cared to reflect upon.
"Girl, it's good to hear you. The rest of the town is stupid and
foolish and without faith. That's what damns them to eternal hell even
though they see so much faith giving evidence of Him around us. But not
you, no, you're the different one. God loves those who move away from mass
opinion into his arms."
"That's where you're so wrong, Prophet. And that's why you'll never
save any of them, myself included." His heart sank so low the earth's
molten core engulfed it with a belch. "The towns-people are a thousand
times more intelligent than you. You're an old moron blindly suckling at
the biggest teat shoved in his face."
"Consider what you're saying, Girl. You're being just another damned
fool. Look where not repenting got your entire family. One foot in the
grave, one foot away from joining mommy and daddy in eternal liquefaction,
and you're trying to deny the truth that you saw in the cross. I saw you
see it. I saw you see it."
"Oh, Prophet, oh. I saw it and I do not try to deny it. It would be
so easy for me to accept God and love him for the death he died. Oh, I saw
him die for me, and for me alone, just as he died for you alone, and
everyone else alone. A real sacrifice on the personal level, I saw it. And
oh, how easy it would be to love him. How easy.
"But I refuse. Let him rot in his Heaven as I rot here on my earth.
Let all the blackest of dooms creep into heaven, hiding by assuming a
celestial air and luminescence, because there are no shadows in Heaven, and
let them slowly make their way up the back of his throne, till they finally
slide their fingers around his neck and throttle him like my mother used to
throttle chickens. Let him choke and die.
"The towns-people aren't stupid; you are. No one with any thoughts
would love a God who tries to extort love from them by threatening them with
their own doom. No one would love a God who kills everything that means
something and leaves life barren. Only you. Only the biggest idiot alive.
And now, Prophet, if you don't mind, I'm going to go off and die a horrible
death, but at least my death will be without supplicating indignities, which
is something you will never ever be able to say about your eternal life.
Adieu."
They all died.
Jokanaan lived on. The plague could not catch him because he
possessed faith in God and faith makes for life everlasting. Still,
surrounded by the shallow passageway death carved through the town and life,
the blood flowed. The last trickle of a once great river. They say the
deserts were once watery paradises. If that's true, then Jokanaan felt like
the last puddle that's managed to keep itself while being assuaged on all
sides by the sand that just seems endless. Not an oasis, but a puddle.
A hundred miles from anything human, Jokanaan slowly walked through
the town. Loneliness grew in him with the passage of time. After a few
days he needed desperately something to take his mind off it, and so he
began to indulge his curiosities.
He entered buildings that he always looked at from the outside but
had never been permitted entrance. He walked into the houses of people who
had never liked him or God, even before the plague. He went in the bedrooms
and secret closets of friends who retained a few meager grains of privacy
from their acquaintances. Seeing these rooms, he slowly mused on how he
knew them a little better now than he did while they actually lived.
The morbidity of such thoughts and insupressable stifling air in all
of the houses reminded him of visiting ancient ruins of early Christian
churches while in his youth. The young Jokanaan walked among the stone
structures which had lost their roofs centuries before his birth and was
attacked by feelings of uselessness. He saw in the stone structures
something more permanent and greater than any individual could ever achieve.
He recognized his life would never produce anything so permanent and so
easily understood.
The churches were not the product of those who designed or physically
built them, either. No human being could ever achieve the permanence of the
structures. They could not be attributed to any sole individual nor to any
group of individuals following a sole plan. Rather, something about their
very essence, the idea of thousands of people annually gather within the
half-destroyed walls and follow the same routine they and their predecessors
had carved out of the very rocks that made up the church, established
the permanence. The permanence was a flavor constructed by the bakeries of
thousands of penitent souls, thousands of bored souls who came out of duty,
thousands of souls who came out of fear, thousands of souls who came why
they knew not. The permanence made the taste of his own existence so
desperately bitter and worthless. The realization that someday the great
permanence of the churches would be forced to give into the attacks of time
and weather only exacerbated the foul taste his life brought to him.
This same feeling now came to him as he wandered in and out of the
rooms of his enemies, friends, and little known neighbors. Each room was
carved by rituals and worships of its occupants. The permanence was not
felt, because the rooms were still too young to have been engulfed in
permanence. Rather, Jokanaan felt the interruption of the permanence, a
terrifying sensation that made it all the worse. To feel the permanence was
one agony entirely, but to feel the interruption of the permanence while
possessing the knowledge of what the permanence might have been was hell.
It was then that Jokanaan realized he was in Hell. A cold shiver
went up and down his body, but the knowledge brought empowerment. Because
Hell was not a place without windows. He could see clearly the Heaven
awaiting him if he only kept faith in the Lord God and the resurrection.
The faith eternal that brought life eternal, and Jokanaan walked down the
street before him waiting with anticipation for the coming of that eternal
life and the end of his mortal sorrows. Eternal life reigned supreme and
existed now and existed in the future, but which was the concept and which
the reality? The current existence or the future one? But Jokanaan wasn't
thinking of that, rather, he walked down the street thinking of his one true
love and watching the absence of vultures circling overhead.
)- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(
"The Chaos Theory; Tuesday, July 26th"
by -- Eerie
Your clever mind might be thinking by now: damn, this guy is such an
asshole, he's had sex with two girls since his girlfriend died 5 days ago.
Maybe you'd be right. I don't know. During the funeral, her girl friends
probably spent hours commiserating with Cynthia. Her parents most likely
swore like you never hear a suburban adult swear about the fact that I
wasn't there. "It's called lacking respect." How strange, I never quite
understood why the dead had to be respected. I'm okay with the living. But
the dead aren't, they stopped existing! What good is all this ceremonial
bore in their honor? I wrote my testament when I woke up around 4 in the
afternoon before even dressing up. I mentioned I didn't want no exposition
of the corpse, no ceremony. Outside it was raining.
"Annie?"
She was in the kitchen, wearing only her usual blue t-shirt, busy
with putting a prepared "homestyle" quiche she had bought in a grocery
store. We had agreed on a rotation for things related to food: today it was
her, tomorrow it'll be me.
"I have a tricky question for you."
"Shoot."
"I'm writing my testament."
"Whoah. For any particular reason?"
"The fact that I might die someday. I'll be incinerated, & I want
you to get the ashes. You never know."
"That's fine."
"Really? Fine, then. I'll write: I want to be incinerated & the
ashes should be sent to Annie... What's your last name anyway?"
"It's not Annie."
"It's not Annie?"
"I was christened Mary."
"You changed your name?!"
"Not officially. That's still my name. Though I hate it."
"Oh yeah?"
She looked at the timer on the oven.
"You have ten minutes to finish with your morbid plans."
"That doesn't tell me what name I should write on here."
"Oh. Write P.O. Box 783. It's my personal mailbox."
I then finished my text:
I want to be incinerated, & the ashes should be sent to P.O. Box 783,
city, zip code, etc. etc. & I repeat, no (underscored) manifestation, no
communion, nothing. To me this is the only way you can ever keep your
so-called respect for the dead. Any infraction to this rule would be
considered as nothing but an insult.
I signed, then I read it again, proud. I closed the notebook &
walked to the kitchen where Annie was, sitting on a chair, lost in her
thoughts.
)- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(
"mom never learned how to swim"
by -- mooer
"ma'am, could you step (over the shoulder to your degenerative past)
to the left please?"
holly valentine stepped aside, letting the wheelchair go by. the
leopard-skin straitjacket that she wore certainly made her feel like a
tourist. she was shown around quickly by dr. michael smichel and then she
lurked around as a coordinated seizure would.
"today is the day where i am crazy. must act crazy. be crazy. i am
crazy." actress mode was easy to holly; she was a natural -- blonde.
things flowed mellifluously through her. as a young girl, she had always
practiced dissimulated conversation. she gazed impassively at the pidgin
television in her family's living room, behaving like her reflection would.
broken, no proficient bones of her own.
the smell of brain ointments clouded her nose. the stench was
heartless, nothing ardent or mortal about it. these people; them, they
sweated medication. how could they lust after such azoic cures when all
they needed was a reduction of context?
"oh, well, no matter. i've got some characterization to canvass."
she looked around the hospital with pinched eyes, allowing herself to
gulp the decor. the gift was hers, it took her only a condensed period of
time to master new environments: her genius was adjustment.
step-by-token-step, she canonized herself into the worn shoes of some of
"them".
the first patient holly met was mark. sometimes, when things are
confusing, explanation tends to be even more unsettling. thus was the case
in mark's life. he hated his name, "mark". _hey, blemish!_
the torrid rupture of mark's sanity began when he began to write. he
was totally unaware that no one spoke his language. his impact was in his
lucid confusion, his Desire to express his soul. bah, isn't that what
everyone wants? this world's currency is attention and mark is a very poor
man. holly saw that mark's soul was parenthetically mute. (she tasted
yellow).
in the meantime, ruby had peeked her head in. she always had
something to say. like a child with candy, holly was ushered to ruby's
theatre. holly could see that sometimes, most often, ruby felt out of
place. in place, she was a running context, a person of consequence;
someone to be soft and squishy. she had dreams of nightmares being taught
where a clitoris and g-spot are -- from a person she hated for no particular
reason except this person was an argument in a body. a constant withering
of her chained, tethered life. somehow, she managed to be as irritating as
a dull, throbbing paper cut. (ambiguity oxidates to copper.)
holly was quite taken with ruby but she knew that she had to move on.
tabitha was in the next cell. tabitha was the youngest patient in the
hospital. a dysfunctional family and disfigured reasoning had landed her on
what she considered to be a planet of glowing inner warmth. an odd affinity
to strawberry sorbet was her poison. of course, she knew that strawberry
sorbet was fat free. no padding, not a single encouragement, no excess, not
a single figure to point at -- be him either fallen or standing. at that
point in her life, she had just come to leave her fissured family, shivering
at the fact that she now had more control over her life than ever before.
her dad smoked but he could never master it. but now, her fire was control,
burning and melting sorbet like it was candy melting in a shiny, golden
sun-revolving pot. (white was the consummated truth in this conned-text).
on the hospital speakers, holly heard the faint whimpers of the song
"cry baby cry". the undertone slept in the understated Beatles' song. her
straitjacket tugged at her insides, it was rather tight.
"that's my favorite song too!" peeped mattheweasel, reading her mind.
"argh, how annoying-oh-yeah?! (midnight blue is MY favorite color!)"
"oh, shut up."
and that's how she bumped into mattheweasel. in his room, the
television was on. mattheweasel watched townies often because he absolutely
adored the girl that later became dharma. and that's where the wittiest
line in the whole entire pie came from. the television stunted holly, she
felt inert. _she stood six-o-six by 2 which equaled twelve-twelve slices.
6 x 2: six stories by mind and body. she wanted the beating to stop -- the
incessant naughty, knotty hurt._ (underwater blue halted her into another
blinking snowy hum).
Diseased Impaired Flashback -- science class. the teacher that never
took off his lab coat, finally does. and where is his rage? a capon? no,
somewhere in those pants lies a candle. dad has one of those, too.
evil twins leapt in a single bound from hexed window to hexed window.
(that's two windows, mind and body). and yes, those twins had never, ever
written a piece of fiction up to that point. the saint, origin: south, had
these ultimately blue eyes that touched her breasts all the time and she
loved this boy because he was hobbes. and now he was tickling her ass and
placing his cold, furtive hands on her tummy and making her drip sweet dank.
("orange cloud raining in my head").
holly whipped her functions back in two shapes and faked her ugly
cerebral orgasm. (this was not written to be a piece of cruci-fiction).
"good grief, i can't stay here any longer, i'm breathing in too many
of _their_ ointments."
and then came showtime:
"there was a time in my life when i felt that there was nothing left
to give. life hadn't been so well for my family, coming from the planet
mercury made earth seem like a cold, fair-shining world. however warm and
cozy it had been on merc, as we so affectionately referred to it, my
lovers had chosen to make a family in the depths of earth's live-r. my
lovers were two, one male and the other female. they had chosen to love
more and produced two others and me, lovers total five in all. but the one
lover, the one that was given the responsibility of steering the ship was
insecure in his abilities to provide enough love. he battered not only the
little lovers, he also tore down the membrane that held together the bubble
of mechanization, the other primary lover. so she was helpless in her
fascination with the pain, because that was all that she could do in her
pre-chained price tag world. he, the beater, was the thumb on the hand.
many nights, he would fuck sheep and hopefully find money in risky
situations, i wouldn't be so surprised if he had another lover with another
lover. godfuck, he was dirty. if he had only listened. if he had only
listened to the weeps of his children, the love of his wife. the pain in
our hands. i suppose that i could hate him. but i would never want to be a
misogynist. of course, i know that means the hatred of women, i just
happened to inherit most of his genes, dummy."
_and holly managed to pickle that into one solid crazy breath._
---
footnote: "i don't have much to say about tabula rousseau, it's the
most straightforward that you can slither out of me. other
than, maybe the title was a little cryptic. tabula rosa is
the concept that people are born a Clean Slate. rousseau
was a person, i dare not call him a philosopher, that
believed that society is evil."
just wanted to leave you with a minty taste on your tongue.
)- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -(
"one nation under"
by -- eerie
"dance, dance, dance, dance,
dance to the radio"
-- joy division
they said they were going to be back soon & locked the doors to
minimize radioactivity as much as possible. they left mrs. fenton & mrs.
grant to take care of us & said pray for us, we'll be back soon they
repeated. we all had bleak stares, we were white from sickness. toby, dana
& audrey had died.
the place was deserted, it was a business place we assumed from the
countless desks, papers they seemed pretty damned useless now... a few
stores : gift shop bookstore & mostly a convenience store which is why they
left us here, there was going to be an unlimited amount of potato chips &
soda for our survival. what luck. i'm kevin, i'm writing this because no
one else will, a week ago we heard a big bang & according to whoever i heard
we were lucky to be in the basement & that we had adults who knew what to do
in such a case we rushed to somewhere quote unquote safe. for days hearing
the noise of conduits, pipe & tubes until the point where it becomes
melodic, becoming friends with the ambient horror. we all knew we were the
only survivors from our school, it was obvious now that most of our friends
had died instantly, & that is what most of the horror came from, & we also
figured our families were all ashes by now. mrs. fenton was frail & sick
all the time, i wouldn't know how much she threw up in the basement, just
like some other kids too actually, the air always smelled of vomit & shit &
piss. during this week, i'm saying week because that's what i think it is,
i tried to keep up with the time even though there was no view of the
outside, just a lot of dark & closed doors leading to instant death mrs.
grant kept saying, DON'T OPEN THAT FUCKING DOOR, DID YOU HEAR ME? during
that week like i said me & some guys were always hanging out together in our
corner of the basement, people knew they couldn't get there, it was our
private place, there'd been a couple fights i can remember of, like this
time chris kept screaming at donald telling him to stop fucking crying
fucking baby, he beat him up good, & we were all very entertained, even mrs.
grant couldn't really stop us.
chris was the loudmouth anyway, he would tell the pretty girls what
the fuck, we survived this, now there's no reason for us not to fuck, & he
lead the way for us guys to get some pussy. you might want to know this :
it was decided that since her boyfriend was most likely dead tina & i would
be quote unquote dating. that word is ridiculous considering the
circumstances though. basically dating in the basement meant keeping each
other warm, fucking in the face of the kids & mrs. fenton & mrs. grant who
was the only one to ever dare telling us to stop, in which case we'd more or
less laugh in her face, like she could tell us what to do now. the sex we
got, for most of us the first we ever had it brought us a halo of power, no
one would ever fuck with us. some other kids not our friends started trying
but then mrs. grant would tell them to stop it & they'd chicken out.
mrs. fenton was sitting in her corner too, with shy girls all around
her, that was the weeping corner we christened it. & most of the time mrs.
grant was around there too, trying to bring her back to her senses always
unsuccessfully. she was the only one sane enough it seemed. on the first
day when it became apparent we'd have to stay there for a while, we were
still quite scared & silent at the time, i went with her & mike & toby to
the vending machines in the teacher's room which by luck was in the
basement, grabbed chairs slammed them against the machine to make it spit
candy, eventually we could bring back a backpackfull of 3 musketeers mr.
goodbars crunchies coffee crisps caramilks snickers etc. etc. mrs. grant had
tried to call someone using the phone in the teacher's room but no answer,
not even a busy signal, not even a god damned tone.
she also said we should make provision of as much water as we can in
the bathroom's sinks because with time it might get infected if it's not
infected already. i also stole 3 ballpoint pens & paper which i used mostly
to draw until i started writing this which is 2 days ago. i'm trying to
make this chronological but my memories are crippled, like i'm just
remembering this time when this kid, i think jonathan, walked out of the
room seemingly unaware of whatever the fuck was going on, like he was going
to his class or something... even though we'd made fun of him afterwards i'm
thinking : who can blame him? it was hard to behave normally, i think there
wasn't a second where someone wasn't crying somewhere in the basement.
on the last days in there i was mostly just with tina touching her as
much & deep as i could, out of boredom? oh, i don't know. more like out of
lacking affection, gay as it sounds. one day she said : you're so wanting
it, kevin, you're so wanting me. i wanted her. what else did i have? dom
was often mocking me about it.
dom was another guy in our gang, only he wasn't too much into fucking
girls, he said they were too stupid & immature... well, he fucked dana. i
remember this because as a coincidence dana died 2 days after, i don't know
what of. she did look pretty damned sick. mrs. grant brought her little
corpse somewhere else in the basement she wouldn't tell where. afterwards
it was toby's turn. it was then we figured it could happen to all of us,
surviving the first strike wasn't all, we still had to make it to wherever
else there is left. what was left of the city, of the world, anyway?
audrey was the third & last to die in the school's basement after several
days of puking & shitting candy bars into diarrhea. we were almost glad she
died.
when a kid died mrs. grant made us pray for them, & even though chris
was saying this is all bullshit, who cares, though i did pray trying to even
mean it because at that point there was nothing more clever to do. save our
souls...
---
chris by the end was not as loud as he was in the first days, he was
just staying in place screaming every once in a while SHUT UP, because that
was really all there was to say.
nobody was expecting anything when the rescuers had come, all dressed
in weird suits. they brought us quickly in a truck outside & we're here
now. supposedly this was one of the last safe places around. it has an
emergency generator they said. there was light.
after checking out the new place the first day we had found that it
hosted a radio station : wxrt a contemporary adult music radio station.
there was a little light in the rooms but the machines didn't seem to be
working. we had a gang meeting & it was decided that we were going to ask
charlie, he was a geek but that was okay because he knew about electronics,
he bragged about it pretty often... chris, pete (a friend of chris', damn
this kid was hyperactive as hell, we'd see him run all the time for no
reason from room to room, wrestle with other kids, etc. especially now that
there was room to move...) & i went to see him & asked him if he could fix
it for us. miraculously he could. most of the machines could be plugged on
the generator. we decided to let charlie in our gang.
thus was founded radio holocaust : unknowingly to mrs. grant & mrs.
fenton who was spending all of her time on the floor with the same girls all
the time, all weeping whining, chris hosted the first show. i didn't think
it was going to make it to the airwaves but it was fun nonetheless. a lot
of screaming on the mic & making our own music with a guitar hanging there
probably used for unplugged sessions, & banging on anything we could bang
on.
an extract from chris hosting the show : "WELCOME TO RADIO
HOLOCAUST... BABY THIS IS THE END OF THE WORLD, & AREN'T YOU PROUD? IF
YOU'RE LIKE US YOU'RE STUCK IN YOUR BASEMENT RIGHT NOW LISTENING TO MY SEXY
SEXY VOICE... BABY BABY YOU KNOW YOU WANT ME... so we're here chilling out
in this building, you're listening to wxrt, contemporary adult music MY ASS!
we're taking over your fucking lite-headed radio station, buttfuck! NO
MORE... my parents listened to that shit, now for all i know they're dead...
are there any kids out there? any clever kids, mutant kids ready for the
day after? YO, THE TIME IS NOW!" (all : screaming in the room, till our
lungs break.)
dom was giving him amused looks, though he knew the deal. we had to
scare them, now. then chris was calling him gay & dom said look who's
talking...
the station had become our hangout, that's where we were eating
sleeping & fucking, at last away from the other kids, & even though mrs.
grant knew very well what we were doing she'd leave us alone, i suppose she
figured whatever havoc we could wreak wouldn't matter much at this point.
it was also in the station i started writing five days ago i think... if
you're reading this then it made it somewhere...
tina tells me i shouldn't bother. i told her this :
i don't know if we'll make it outside. i don't know if ANY of us will
survive. right now i can't even think, in a year i'll be there, blah blah
blah... right now if time stopped, the only thing we can be certain of is
that right now we're living & tomorrow we have no clue, no clue.
she said right, why do you bother then? i said i don't know. chris
does say i'm too fucking optimistic for my own good. keep screaming on the
airwaves, chris. maybe we ARE making it somewhere.
in the convenience store there were some lighters, we stole the box &
started burning any piece of plastic we could find & inhale, breathe it in
till we got dizzy.
one day mrs. grant went for a quest for food on the first floor &
above & chris decided today we were going to fuck mrs. fenton. especially
now with all the rumors that she was a dyke & we knew very well whatever the
fuck she was doing with all these girls around... when we got there she was
looking weaker than ever, the girls ran away trying to find mrs. grant, we
caught two of them... dom grabbed the prettiest one, lifted her skirt &...
& chris with his knife was threatening to kill mrs. fenton if she didn't get
undressed... we enjoyed the sight of our teacher getting naked in tears.
we enjoyed the sight of chris getting inside, then pete, john the one who
talked all the time some senseless drivel, charlie the geek...
when i fucked with tina later on it was strange to look at her face &
see her react. mrs. fenton didn't. she just let us do it.
"YO THIS IS RADIO HOLOCAUST... my, these old crap vinyls rock some
ass when they're played at 78 don't they! charlie was freestyling over this
last one. if i were you i'd be fucking thankful for being alive, this shit
ain't something you'll hear everyday, fucker. this is the music of AFTER.
are you kids out there? what the fuck are you doing inside? outside's
where it's at, baby...
"but it's comfortable inside with our rotten food & our sick faces!
like it could be any worse outside, you know? but god damn it's
frightening, all this uncertainty... especially now, after getting so much
shit thrown on us, we're waiting for a messiah or something, god's voice to
tell us whatever the fuck to do... well, mind you, GOD DOESN'T GIVE A SHIT!
(woohoos from the studio) ALL HE DOES IS SIT ON HIS FAT ASS & WATCH & LAUGH!
yeah, we're fucking laughable... like ANYTHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN if we
don't DO IT.
"so move your god damned BUTT. this time it's true that nobody is
gonna do it for you."
screams in the studio... we filled the god damned airwaves, they were
full of us...
"THIS IS THE FINAL PLAN. SO WHAT IF THEY SAY IT'S RADIOACTIVE?
WE'RE ALL LEFT TO OURSELVES ANYWAY. WE NEED TO GO OUT. WE NEED TO KNOW IF
WE'RE UP FOR LIVING OR DYING. DO YOU HAVE BALLS? ARE YOU REALLY WISHING TO
STAY INSIDE FOR THE REST OF YOUR PATHETIC LIVES?
"SO WHAT IF YOU DIE WHEN YOU'RE OUT? SO WHAT, IT'S GONNA BE BETTER
THAN JUST BEING SO FUCKING SICK IN THIS HELLHOLE... IS ANYBODY HEARING THIS?
GO OUT! I'M GOING OUT! I'M GOING OUT!"
somehow when he said that we didn't quite believe it, but afterwards
that's what was decided. charlie was the first one to agree. dom followed
even though he was still very skeptical. he said : whatever happens...
mrs. grant hadn't found much to eat in the building. we knew we were going
to die in here. we had been forgotten by the rescue teams. so what, i
said. i'm ready. tina said : okay, i'm ready, too. sniffing burnt
plastic...
---
this classic, short, crudely written story, deemed by literary critic
geoffrey chapman as "quite possibly the most accurate & moving account we
can possibly find of post-meltdown life," was to be copied, either by hand
or press, & shared among the survivors of the december 1987 disaster. its
contents weren't edited for the purpose of historical accuracy, although for
more readability spelling & grammar have been fixed, & quotation marks have
been added in order to mark the "radio holocaust" speeches.
we assume that this story is, in fact, autobiographical : according
to various accounts, "radio holocaust" actually did broadcast to a limited
yet faithful audience in the boston area, as mentioned in the story. its
influence was enough to incite a few hundreds of children & teenagers to
leave their shelters & pillage the city stores & houses for survival during
the first days of january, 1988. it is estimated that about half of them
managed to make it through ambient radioactivity, thus defeating even the
most optimistic scientific estimates.
although his identity remains unknown, "kevin" is nonetheless a
writer as influential to the victims of this tragedy as franz kafka was in
eastern europe with classics like the trial & the castle. his literary
influence is not to be denied either, as we can determine a direct stylistic
correlation between kevin & the likes of bernard gail, jennifer trenton, &
of course mary dunlop, whose novel autistic airwaves won the first
post-meltdown pulitzer in 1989.
s$
$$ $s .d""b.
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