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anti-press ezine 2004 06 07
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< ANTI-PRESS EZINE #46 >
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"We're Positive About The Negative"
This E-dition filed 6/7/04 from NENYland, the northeastern corner of New
York State (i.e. the hinterlands). Our Precision Reality Center, located in
Plattsburgh The Dull, now features Bull Tracker 9000. More details at the
end of this e-dition.
(C) Copyright 2004 Anti-Press
* NENYland Reels From Dramatic Jump In Clog Theft *
It's shocking but true: clog theft has risen 100% in NENYland.
There's this high school student who likes to wear wooden shoes. Odd choice
for footwear but apparently he feels comfortable kicking around in his
crafted-in-Holland klomps. A while back he was attending a swim meet.
After the competition he was upset to discover that his clogs had been
stolen from the locker room.
Clog theft -- such a scrofulous crime is almost beyond words.
Was this the work of a splinter group? How wood we know? According to one
rumor, a plumber was called in during the investigation. After all, who
else is better qualified to find clogs?
After extended legwork, the detectives had tired dogs but the thieves were
finally treed. These crooks should be made to walk the plank -- or at least
be caned. This crime is against the grain of common decency. Obviously the
perps are morally out of step with society at large. Think of the expense:
the state police were called in to find those stolen clogs. Who's going to
foot the bill? Us, the taxpayers, that's who.
Crime has a way of branching out. Today clogs, tomorrow hogs. Farmers,
beware! It's one easy step from feet to meat. You can't toe the line with
crooks. Don't agree with this editorial? You think we're too serious, that
our writing is wooden, that we act like we have a stick up our backside?
Well, you're barking up the wrong tree, so there.
* APE Desperately Requests Financial $upport *
Dear Friend:
Don't you feel guilty for getting something for free, especially a product
of blood, sweat and tears? We need your support and we're not shy about
asking for it. Why?
Look at the Public Broadcasting System. As usual the local PBS teevee
stations have been pleading for money. They're not ashamed to even ask to
be remembered in your will.
A well-mannered, well-dressed spokesperson comes on the air and asks if you
could remember your Public BS station when planning the disbursement of your
inheritance. It almost smacks of a greedy relative who only calls you once
a year to make sure his name stays on the beneficiary list. He hates to
spend ten minutes chit-chatting with an old fart like you. If truth be
known, he wishes you would drop dead -- the sooner, the better, of course.
But that smiling, friendly PBS spokesperson -- he couldn't be like a greedy,
uncaring relative, could he? After all, he seems to be talking directly to
you, only to you, not to everyone else who is tuned in. He can't be a fraud
like that televangelist who also spoke directly to you when you were sitting
there one night, all alone, "enjoying" your retirement. The day had been
long. No one stopped by; not one phone call or a letter in the mail.
Another stretch of isolation was culminating in a moment of despair. But
then you found hope. The televangelist talked about doing God's work, how
he needed a "love gift" to help less fortunate ones. And he did help the
less fortunate -- like his own pooch, building an air-conditioned doghouse
with a chunk of money from your meager fixed income. But that's all in the
past. That crooked televangelist went to prison. Not everyone is bad.
Maybe you should take out your will, look it over, and see what you could
give to that nice man on PBS.ÊÊÊ
So remember everyone: list PBS in your will. Call today for details! After
you die, they might mention your name on the air once, maybe twice.
Embarrassingly morbid? Of course. But would you want your local public
teevee station to be driven to the point of grave-robbing under the cloak of
night? A televised personal pitch is so sophisticated, hiding the fact that
they're engaging in overt pre-grave grubbing.
And if you haven't shed your mortal coil yet, your public teevee station
will be more than happy to take some of your valuable stock off your hands,
Mr. Yuppie. Of course, you will still benefit from the tax write off from
such a charitable contribution. That way you play the market, take all the
chances, and let public teevee win.
Unlike PBS, APE is not able to act as a tax write-off. We are a for-profit
entity, ready to sell out for the right price. Until that opportunity
arises, we need you to dig deep and give until it hurts. Of course, due to
the particular nature of this endeavor, only hard cash in large bills will
be accepted. You got the money. After all, if you can read this on the
Web, then you must have the means to toss a few bucks our way.
Where else but here can you find journalistic perfection? The promos on
public teevee state: "If PBS doesn't do it, who will?" Well, wise up to the
fact that motto doesn't refer to providing so-called alternative
programming. The "it" means begging for money to foist the same kind of
crap you can find on cable teevee. After all, if you want to see an
in-depth documentary on harvesting bat guano, try "Animal Planet" or "The
Discovery Channel." But PBS states that unlike those channels it's
non-commercial. That's funny. What are those spots at the beginning and
end of each program? Sure look like ads to us.
We don't have ads. And, unlike PBS, we don't get one dime from the
government. It's a lot of hard work creating this zine. We feel like we're
working in a mental coal mine. That burns up a lot of energy. To write one
article means we have to eat sirloin steak three times a day. Man, do we
sweat out the protein.Ê
You've probably noticed how infrequently we produce an issue. Well, we need
the basic amenities of life like a Jacuzzi or a Porsche. After all, our
need for relaxation is much greater after suffering through the cerebral
birthing process of creating a new e-dition.
Don't sit there. Get up, grab a wad of unmarked twenties and fifties, and
shove it into a security envelope. Send it right to us here at the
Precision Reality Center.
After all, if PBS does it, we will, too -- in spades.
Sincerely,
A Friend In Need,
Anti-Press
* Periodical Perv Peeves Patron *
The story goes something like this:
A man was stroking something in the magazine section of the public library
-- and it wasn't his ego. A concerned citizen reported this disturbing act
to a library employee but the employee acted indifferent, telling the
citizen to report the matter to the police. The citizen filed a report and
hopefully this problem has been properly contained.
This incident upsets us to no end. We're at a loss for words.
Masturbation and magazines can go hand in hand -- but NOT at the public
library. The concerned citizen felt blown off by the indifferent library
employee. One shouldn't be jerked around when reporting a crime.
The lewd perpetrator should learn his lesson: no one has the right to
display his shortcomings in public. Let his weirdness hang out in the
privacy of his home, not at the library. If it happens again, the perp
should be hauled away by his short hairs and promptly booked.
We have to face the grim fact: lewd acts in the public library magazine
section have jumped 100% so far this year. This trend must be interrupted,
a sudden withdrawal. The long and the short of it: everyone has to follow
the straight and narrow.
Or, as they say in England, the situation will become a sticky wicket...
* Here's A Tip: Keep Your Paws In Your Pockets *
By Stan Spire
"That's NOT yours! Put that back -- NOW!"
The kid dropped the dollar bill as if it suddenly caught fire.
His mother acted confused. "What's wrong?"
Another afternoon at the Kubbyhole Kafe. I just stopped in to get a cup of
joe and I spotted them waiting at the counter. A mother and son, the kid a
chubby adolescent with a crewcut. Both of them were well-dressed; not
street people.
They seemed ordinary enough -- but I knew better. Two days ago someone had
pointed them out to me. I had been checking out the view from the Kafe's
front window, a sunny day outside for a change, and noticed a woman and a
kid looking in. For some reason they decided to keep strolling down the
sidewalk. Jake, one of the coffee slingers, was standing next to me. He
IDed the passersby. "Those two -- they're the ones that ripped off my
tips."
He explained that the kid was wearing a hoodie or sweatjacket with side
pockets. When Jake turned his back to make drinks for the mother and son,
the kid apparently grabbed some bills right from the tip bowl on the
counter. Jake -- who is scraping by on minimum wage -- quickly noticed that
someone had been at his tips. But he didn't see it happen. And as an
employee, he really couldn't say anything. You know -- the customer is
always right -- even if he's a thief.
When it was time to pay for the drinks, the mother said that she didn't have
enough money. Her sticky-fingered son reached into his side pocket and
pulled out a few dollar bills. "I've got money to pay for it, mom," he
said.
After they left with drinks paid for with his tips, Jake was irate, ready to
rip someone a new orifice. He was still angry when he told me about the
incident later. He said that when he was a kid, his mother caught him
swiping something at a store and she made sure he didn't do it again. Not
only did she make him put it back, she made him feel so ashamed that he
never stole anything else.
Apparently some mothers don't feel the same way.
As an employee, there was nothing that Jake could do. I knew how he felt.
I've worked in stores, serving the public and sometimes being screwed by the
public. Even if you catch someone red-handed, the guilty can turn the
situation around and threaten to sue you, trying to make the store look bad.
But I'm not a Kubbyhole Kafe employee; just a customer.
And, for whatever it's worth (not much, actually) I used to work summers as
a park ranger.
So I went into ranger mode when I spotted the mother and son ordering
drinks. I noticed they had come in when someone else besides Jake was on.
I slowly walked by the counter, behind the suspect pair. My ranger sense
was tingling. I glanced at the kid; he noticed my look. I could almost see
his left hand twitching, ready to make a quick grab at the tip bowl. He was
positioned directly in front of it. I stopped, as if hesitating, and then
began to walk back toward the front door. I glanced at the kid, eye contact
again, and turned my head as if I was leaving. But then I snapped my head
back, seeing his paw grabbing a bill from the top of the pile.
I turned around and let it rip verbally. Yelling in a park ranger voice is
like learning how to ride a bike -- you never forget how to do it.
"What's wrong?" asked the mother, acting -- and I do mean acting --
confused.
"He took money from that tip bowl," I roared, pointing at her precious
little off offspring. "I saw him! He's done it before. We don't tolerate
stuff like that at this place!"
The mother used her hand to look into the side pockets of her son's jacket
-- only the outside pockets. Why did she immediately check there? And only
there? Why didn't she have him turn out his pants pockets or look inside
his sweatjacket?
One would think mother bear would defend her cub, challenging me with "How
DARE you talk that way about my son?" Nope. All she did was to say, "Well,
there's no money on him."
"That's because," I said, "he threw it back in the tip bowl when I caught
him. I think I should call the police."
"Well," replied the mother, folding like a threadbare buck, "we don't have
to put up with this."
Then she and her accomplice left, probably to hit the other coffeehouse down
the street.
A couple of days later Jake came in and I told him what happened. He
thanked me.
But he was still a few dollars short on his tips for the week.
* Crime Pay$ For Public Teevee Station *
So, let's pretend you run a public teevee station and you're short of funds.
You can only ask your viewers so often to be remembered in their wills or
have them give you some of their stock as a tax write-off. Gotta find more
dough.
You can't cut any more from the staff; you're down to a skeleton crew as it
is. And you try to make the most of non-paid volunteers, getting students
to do the grunt work on your locally-produced productions. What to do?
What to do?
Hmmmm, look at this. A college student died from hazing at a fraternity
house in town. Well, we could make a documentary about the dangers of
hazing. But how to raise the money? Hmmmm, the judge will probably fine
the frat boys as part of their sentencing. Maybe we could tap into that
money and also have the regretful frat boys participate in our documentary
as part of their penance -- free of charge, of course.
You make a few phone calls, talk to a few people, make an arrangement.
Everyone in the fraternity is charged and each member pleads guilty. And
each one has to pay a lotta smackers for the production of the anti-hazing
documentary.
During pre-production you do some calculations on paper. Having the frat
boys "underwrite" the documentary will really pay off. The student crew
will help create the documentary as volunteers. And the frat boys will also
"volunteer" to be in it. Very little expense there. And since we're a
public teevee station, we tap into all sorts of grant money. Most of the
equipment is paid for. So, ten frat boys, each paying a cool thousand or
more -- we end up with a good chunk of change to play with. Of course, the
documentary won't cost that much to make, since most of it is done freebie.
That leaves a fair amount left over. And we could make a profit if we
market this video. Hmmmm, better not mention this the next time we're
begging for funds from our gullible viewers...
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NOTICE: Unless indicated otherwise, all articles by Anti-Press. Articles
submitted by others do not necessarily express or reflect the opinions or
beliefs of Anti-Press.
WHERE WE'RE AT: Anti-Press Ezine radiates from our Precision Reality Center.
We're presently entrapped in the alleged city of Plattsburgh, northeastern
New York State (NENYland), USA. ("Clog Theft Editorial: Fancy Verbal
Footwork Or Blockhead Humor?")
EMAIL: Antipress1@aol.com
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