MiSTed - "Five Facets of a Myth" (w/short "Rent Strike 2000") (1/1)
Bill Livingston
cannot see) intently]
CROW: Look at that - up to $2000 already! I knew this was a great idea!
Laserjet 6E Printer, here I come! Printer?!? HAH!! I'm gonna buy
Hewlitt Packard - lock, stock and toner cartridge!
[Mike enters, carrying a videotape]
MIKE: Hey Crow, what's going on?
CROW: I'm making money hand over fist, that's what!
MIKE: That's nice. You seen Servo anywhere?
[Servo zips in]
TOM: You rang?
MIKE: Yeah. We need to talk. [holds up tape for Tom to see]
TOM: *sigh* We *did* ask you not to leave it in the VCR when you were
done, didn't we?
MIKE: Yes, and we *did* agree to check first, didn't we? You got your
"WWF Smackdown" all over my "Sports Night"!
CROW: Don't sweat it, Tommy - I'll cover it!
TOM: Really?!?
CROW: You betcha! By the time I'm done, I'll be buying and selling runty
little companies like Sony and Boeing, so a little thing like
a videotape is gonna be chump change!
TOM: Hey, thanks!
MIKE: Yeah, that's really nice of you, Crow.
CROW: No prob. Oh, by the way Mike, I need for you to be in the OR next
Tuesday morning so I can remove your kidney.
MIKE: Tuesday? Okay, I'll be th- [long pause] Did you just say you
wanted my *kidney*?!
CROW: Yep. Well - only if the check clears.
MIKE: The CHECK?!? Crow - tell me you're not doing what I think you're
doing!
CROW: Wait, [chuckling] do you think I'm selling your organs over the
internet?
MIKE: Well - that's what it sound like.
CROW: Oh it is to laugh, Nelson! [pause] Of *course* I am!
MIKE: WHAT?!?!
TOM: Really? What kind of market you gettin'?
CROW: Surprisingly good.
MIKE: Let me see that - [he and Tom come around to look at the screen]
You sold one of my kidneys to a guy named "StinkyPoo99" for
$11,000?!?
CROW: Relax, Mike - it's just one.
MIKE: I know, but -
CROW: Got a much better price for the other one - twenty-five large from
"Torgster", heh heh heh!
MIKE: [reading, stunned] $30,000 apiece for lungs - $4000 for my big
toe - $12,500 for my spleen - Vertebrae, $75 each! Incredible.
CROW: I know - I didn't think those would haul more than $40 a pop.
MIKE: [crossly] So your plan is to just sell me off in bits and pieces
to the highest bidder?
TOM: C'mon, Mike, I need a little discretionary income! Ever since I
maxed out your Diners' Club and Optima, I haven't had a thin dime!
TOM: Y'gotta admit, Mike, he's showing initiative!
MIKE: But this is just - just *wrong*!
CROW: Fine, go ahead, be judgmental!
TOM: What've you got written by each one - "MST3KPROP"?
CROW: Oh, that's code - it means "Mike's Sweetbreads - Terrific! 3000
pieces! Proprietary". That's so buyers can tell if someone tries
selling them any of those *fake* Mike bits.
TOM: Pretty sweet arrangement.
MIKE: And what's this other list over here?
CROW: That's my list of future ite- NO, DON'T READ THAT!!!
MIKE: "Bubble Globe". "Barrel Torso". "Vestigial Arms (Two)".
"Hoverskirt"!
TOM: Hah! Who in their right minds would buy a... hover... skirt...
Heeeeeeeeeeey!!!!!
[Both glare angrily at Crow]
CROW: [Defensive] What?!? *What*?!? Sheesh! You guys act like
there's something wrong with selling off pieces of your friends
for fun and profit! I mean - WHAT?!?!?
[Lights flash]
MIKE: We *will* discuss this - count on it! But let's see what the
Terrible Trio needs first.
CROW: You two just don't *want* me to be happy!
[CASTLE FORRESTER - Pearl and Bobo are watering what looks to be a
series of potted plants]
PEARL: Ah, Nelsaurus. You've caught us in the middle of our gardening.
BOBO: Oops, looks like this one's got aphids.
PEARL Well, you know what to do!
BOBO: Right! [begins picking the aphids off and eating them]
[SOL - Tom & Crow are in the background, glaring at each other]
MIKE: Gee, Pearl, no Venus Flytraps?
CROW: Cretin!
TOM: Jerkwad!
[CF]
PEARL: Hah! No thanks! I've seen that "Little Shop" thing! No
Audrey II's for me, thanks! Sorry, Michael, you're a bit early,
and I'm afraid. I really haven't had time to select a good
experiment for you, but I can -
[Observer enters, wearing an "Assimilate This!" T-shirt under his robe
and a baseball cap. And a smaller baseball cap on his brain. He's also
carrying a squirt bottle labeled "Brain Juice".]
OBSERVER: Well, I'm off, Pearl. Have a good time, um, doing whatever
it is you're doing.
PEARL: Hey, hold on there, Pasty! Where do you think you're going?
OBSERVER: Oh, "Toy Story 2" is playing over at the Oblongataplex 20.
I thought I'd go check it out.
PEARL: Well think again, Brainiac! I've got a little chore for you.
[picks up a box of videotapes] Here, these are potential experiments
for our orbiting lab rats. I need you to review them.
OBSERVER: [setting down his brain & Brain Juice to take the box] Good
heavens, Pearl, there are dozens of tapes here!
PEARL: Yep! Lots of nice, juicy stuff - "Cape Canaveral Monsters",
"Space Truckers", "Project: Metalbeast", "The Last Days of
"Planet Earth", "Yor", even advance copies of "Deep Blue Sea" and
"Supernova"! Those spacebound clowns won't know what hit 'em!
OBSERVER: Um, Pearl, this *is* my day off, you know.
PEARL: Not any more. Now get cracking!
OBSERVER: But -
PEARL: I'm prepared to revoke Oreo privileges!
OBSERVER: *sigh* Very *well*, Pearl! Honestly... [Brainy picks up his
Brain and puts it on top of the box, leaving the Brain Juice behind]
PEARL: Boy, you let a guy take off one day a year, and he gets all
snooty and stuff!
BOBO: [approaches with plant in hand] Okay, Lawgiver, this plant's 100%
aphid-free!
PEARL: Oh, very good, Booboo. But you can't be too careful so [tosses
plant over he shoulder, where it lands with a *crash*]
BOBO: My nasturtiums!
PEARL: Ah, they're a dime a dozen. Now why don't you water the survivors.
[Bobo looks around, spots the Brain Juice and ambles off with it]
PEARL: Anywho, Mikey-Bo, I've got a couple of small rant type things
to tide you over until Brain Guy finishes. A short piece about
the evils of progress called "Five Facets of a Myth". But first,
an even shorter piece called "Rent Strike 2000", which is ominously
goofy - or goofily ominous. Whatever. Savor the pain.
[SoL]
CROW: Okay, fine, I've canceled all the auctions, and I've refunded
all the checks, and my dreams of that little villa in the Alps
are shattered. Does that satisfy the obscene need you two have
to *hurt me*?!?
TOM: Not even close, pal!
[Lights flash]
MIKE: Save it for later, fellas!
ALL: WE GOT RANT SIGN!!!!!!!!
[Chaos, doors, etc.]
[6] {5} (4) <3> |2| O
[All enter]
CROW: All I wanted was some extra scratch!
MIKE: Maybe you could try selling Home Interior.
>From: sal....@prodigy.net[SMTP:sal....@prodigy.net]
MIKE: [singing] My gal Sal...
CROW: SAL 9000? What, is this HAL's little sister?
TOM: [HAL] I'm afraid you can't date my sister, Dave.
>Reply To: sal....@prodigy.net
>Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 1999 8:09 AM
>To: sal....@prodigy.net
TOM: So Sal is sending this to - herself?
CROW: She's a lonely lonely girl.
>Subject: Rent Strike 2000: A Millennial Jubilee
>
MIKE: Featuring Peter Jennings!
>This is a one-time public service announcement.
CROW: Veterans over 65 cannot be turned down for this offer!
> There is no need to reply.
>
TOM: Yeah, but it's kind of our shtick.
>RENT STRIKE 2000: A MILLENNIAL JUBILEE
>
MIKE: As previously indicated.
TOM: Oooh, she's finally getting her own series!
CROW: With Wolverine guest starring in the first 50 issues.
>SAL - 9/9/99
>
MIKE: Even the Sons of the American Legion said "nein!", but it did no
good.
>On January 1st, 2000 -- with or without computer failures --
TOM: Oh, I'll take mine "without".
> the people of
>Earth reset the global financial clock to the year 1900.
CROW: That's right, so throw away those Sacagawea dollars and dig out
those Indian Head pennies!
> Exercising their
>natural rights, conscientious citizens pay appropriately deflated tribute
>to land speculators, private banks and transnational corporations. The
>debt economy crumbles and the peace economy is born.
>
MIKE: But first, the latest news on what Madonna's up to!
>1/1/00 - Citizens everywhere redirect their inflated rental payments and
>war taxes to community investments of their choice.
CROW: 1/2/00 - Citizens everywhere are homeless and up on tax evasion
charges!
> Farmers, teachers and
>firefighters receive respectful compensation.
TOM: That and a buck buys them a cup of coffee.
> Arms dealers, drug pushers
>and speculators take a permanent vacation.
MIKE: Suddenly, Cabo San Lucas and the Riviera are Earth's "Crime Alley".
> No longer do Earth's resources
>feed the industries of death, addiction and deception.
>
CROW: Boy, too bad for Hollywood, huh?
>1/1/00 - The disrupted flow of rent and mortgage receipts bleeds the
>machinery of greed. The global banking complex awakens to the will of
>ordinary people.
MIKE: Then FirstAmStateConHugeCoTrustLoanCorp hits the snooze button,
rolls over and goes back to sleep.
> A century of speculation -- a millennium of theft --
MIKE: A decade of borrowing $20 from your brother-in-law!
CROW: A year of dot-com advertising!
TOM: The night Chicago died!
>comes to a sudden stop. Barter and local currencies -- based on genuine
>value -- replace the leveraged pyramid of debt known as "U.S. dollars".
CROW: Tired of those old, worn-out US Dollars? Send them to Crow T. Robot,
The Satellite of Love, 35603!
>People everywhere remember the basic truth: Time is money. Money is time.
>
MIKE: Thus proving Einstein's theory, $=mc squared.
>1/1/00 - The dissolution of bubble money cripples the onslaught of mergers
>and acquisitions.
TOM: Bubble money?
MIKE: Free inside specially marked packs of Topps trading cards.
> The trend toward global corporate monopoly is reversed
>by a wave of local cooperative spin-offs.
TOM: Stuff like "Laverne and Shirley", "The Jeffersons", "Frasier"...
> Workplace democracies replace
>corporate dictatorships.
>
CROW: And the era of the clueless, pointy-haired boss is replaced by a
committee of apathetic Wallys and Dilberts.
>1/1/00 - Municipal democracies awaken to the task at hand: universal land
>reform and economic truth.
MIKE: Crime? Drugs? No time for that - let's start working on land reform!
> Everyone inherits a home, healthy food and
>education.
TOM: Son, this box of Tofu was my grandpa's. It's yours now.
> All that's made by nature is honored and shared.
CROW: Thus voiding the warranty. Sorry.
> The Earth
>and our communities are returned to the provenance of natural law and
>mutual respect.
>
TOM: Which lasts as long as it takes Highland to beat Lawndale 11-2 at
soccer, and then the riots start all over again.
>1/1/00 - Earthlings rediscover a forgotten truth:
MIKE: The Vogons are here to build the Spaceway.
> Ignorant men neglect
>their natural rights, and without their rights cannot perform their duties.
CROW: In which event, the first runner-up takes their place.
>Land is the prime ingredient of wealth. It is a universal inheritance from
>nature.
TOM: Yeah, sure, *everybody* gets land, but who gets the AT&T Preferred?
> By natural law, we are all wealthy and serve no one but the
>Creator.
>
CROW: BBI?
MIKE: You know, if you don't stop picking at the fourth wall, it'll
never get better.
>Rent Strike 2000 begins on January 1st and ends with a culture of common
>sense.
>
TOM: Or when people get tired of street life and want to move back into
their apartments. Whichever.
>Resources:
>
>Community Currency -
MIKE: "E Pluribus Suburbs".
> http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/cc
CROW: The Ratliff Radicals?
TOM: *There's* a scary thought!
>Land Reform - http://www.henrygeorge.org/rem0.htm
TOM: The continental shelves need an intervention, and Henry George is the
man for the job!
>The Origin of Money - http://cinetopia.net/cosmiccosting.html
>
CROW: The origin of money is at http://www.bep.treas.gov/ and
http://www.usmint.gov/, actually.
TOM: Maybe they can explain why "counterfeit-resistant" has to mean
"butt-ugly".
>A New Conservatism - http://preservenet.com
>Merger Monopoly - http://www.citizen.org/CMEP/Mergers/didyouknow.html
MIKE: Hmmmm - "Take a Ride on the Reading - then buy it out!"
>Workplace Democracy - http://www.mondragon.mcc.es/ingles/mcc.html
>
>Liberation - http://www.landreform.org/reading0.htm
>Direct Action - http://www.nonviolence.org/issues/action.htm
>Essential Information - http://essential.org
>
TOM: Don't put diesel fuel in a gasoline engine. You don't tug on
Superman's cape. Neither a borrower nor a lender be. Never
roller-skate in a...
MIKE: What're you doing?
TOM: Dispensing essential information.
>Corporate Power vs. Democracy -
CROW: This Saturday on Pay-Per-View!
> http://poclad.org/articles/articles.html
>Global Eco-Village Network - http://www.gaia.org/whatisecovillage.html
>Greens - http://www.gp.org/platform_index.htm
>
CROW: The far-left political party that contains all your essential
vitamins and minerals.
>Community Land Trusts - http://www.schumachersociety.org/frameset_land.html
CROW: The *Joel* Schumacher Society?!?!
ALL: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>Gross Universe Cash Heist -
TOM: [police dispatcher] Calling all cars, calling all cars, First Universe
Bank has just been robbed! Be on the look out for "Pretty-Boy"
Zorplax!
> http://209.196.135.250/grunchofgiants2.html
>Who's the WTO? - http://www.globalizethis.org
MIKE: More importantly, Who's the Man?
CROW: And Who's Your Daddy?
TOM: And Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
MIKE: I'm more afraid of this next piece.
>FIVE FACETS OF A MYTH
>
MIKE: Hercules, the legendary jeweler!
>I can remember vividly sitting at the dinner table arguing with my father
>about progress,
TOM: Maybe it's just me, but this already sounds suspiciously like Captain
Picard's life story.
> using upon him all the experience and wisdom I had gathered
>at the age of fifteen.
CROW: [Dad] Progress bites.
MIKE: [15-year old] No way, man! Progress totally rulez!
> "Of course we live in an era of progress," I said,
>"just look at cars --
TOM: [15-yr. old] Look! They progress, see?!?
> how clumsy and unreliable and slow they were in the
>old days, how sleek and efficient and speedy they are now."
>
MIKE: They're *much* better extensions of our manhood these days!
>He raised an eyebrow, just a little.
CROW: [Spock] Highly illogical, Captain.
> "And what has been the result of
>having all these wonderful new sleek and efficient and speedy cars?" he
>asked.
CROW: You can get to work faster.
MIKE: Better gas mileage.
TOM: Plus, they're real babe magnets!
> I was taken aback. I searched for a way to answer.
>
CROW: I was going to make my presentation in mime, but settled on
sending a strongly worded telegram.
>He went on. "How many people die each year as a result of these speedy
>cars, how many are maimed and crippled?
TOM: Counting NASCAR?
> What is life like for the people
>who produce them, on those famous assembly lines,
MIKE: You mean the unionized ones where even the custodian makes twenty
bucks an hour?
> the same routinized job
>hour after hour, day after day,
CROW: Yeah, why don't they go out and do something exciting and useful,
like make horse-drawn buggies or something?!?
> like Chaplin's film?
TOM: Silent and speeded-up.
> How many fields and
>forests and even towns and villages have been paved over so that these cars
>can get to all the places they want to get to -- and park there?
MIKE: Not nearly enough - especially on Friday nights!
> Where does
>all the gasoline come from,
TOM: All the dinosaurs died, and they got buried under lots and lots of
dead trees, and then after a gazillion years, they all turned into
dinosaur juice, and then Exxon came and sucked them up and put
them on big ships run by boozehounds and spilled them all over
Alaska!
CROW: Well, that beats my "When a mommy Chevron loves a daddy Chevron"
answer.
> what cost,
ALL: Buck and half a gallon.
> and what happens when we burn
>it and exhaust it?"
>
CROW: To answer that, we take you to Fred Astaire, on the beach - live! Or,
er, not.
>Before I could stammer out a response --
ALL: Ba-ba-I-You-See-They-It-We-Ju-Ju-Ititititit...
> thankfully -- he went on to tell
>me about an article written on the subject of progress, a concept I had
>never really thought of, by one of his Cornell colleagues, the historian
>Carl Becker, a man I had never heard of, in the Encyclopedia of Social
>Sciences, a resource I had never come across.
CROW: Then I tried shutting up, an idea I never again considered.
TOM: Okay, I dare *anyone* to diagram that sentence!
> Read it, he said.
>
MIKE: [Author] But then I'd forgotten what we were talking about, so I
jumped in my car and went out and recklessly caused some progress.
>I'm afraid it was another fifteen years before I did,
CROW: [Author] Hey, I had a backlog of very important "New Mutants" issues
to get through! Ya gotta have priorities!
> though in the
>meantime I came to learn the wisdom of my father's skepticism as the modern
>world repeatedly threw up
ALL: EWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!
MIKE: The modern world should see a doctor about that.
TOM: Maybe the modern world just got hold of some bad clams.
> other examples of invention and advancement --
>television, electric carving knife, microwave oven, nuclear power --
MIKE: The electric carving knife - cornerstone of civilization!
> that
>showed the same problematic nature of progress, taken in the round and
>negatives factored in, as did the automobile.
>
TOM: Yeah, remember when that electric carving knife accident they had
at Chernobyl?
>When I finally got to Becker's masterful essay,
CROW: About why being a cranky doctor sucks, but Terry Farrell's hot
anyway.
> in the course of a
>wholesale re-examination of modernity, it took no scholarly armament of his
>to convince me of the peculiar historical provenance of the concept of
>progress and its status not as an inevitability, a force as given as
>gravity as my youthful self imagined, but as a cultural construct invented
>for all practical purposes in the Renaissance and advancing the propaganda
>of capitalism.
>
MIKE: And the dangers of run-on compound sentences have never been more
graphically displayed.
>It was nothing more than a serviceable myth,
CROW: Remember, have your Greek Pantheon serviced only by a licensed
Olympian dealer.
> a deeply held unexamined
>construct -- like all useful cultural myths -- that promoted the idea of
>regular and eternal improvement of the human condition,
TOM: Fiends!!!
> largely through the
>exploitation of nature and the acquisition of material goods.
>
CROW: Look out! Things are getting things!
>Of course by now it is no longer such an arcane perception.
TOM: Despite the use of bats' wings and pentagrams.
> Many fifteen-
>year-olds today, seeing clearly the perils with which modern technology has
>accompanied its progress, some of which threaten the very continuance of
>the human species, have already worked out for themselves what's wrong with
>the myth.
>
MIKE: Namely, that it won't score them any chick action.
>It is hard to learn that forests are being cut down at the rate of 56
>million acres a year, that desertification threatens 8 billion acres of
>land worldwide,
CROW: That's horrible! All those land certificates, gone!
MIKE: Not "decertification" - "desertification"!
TOM: Can't find the right word? Just make up your own.
> that all of the world's seventeen major fisheries are in
>decline and stand a decade away from virtual exhaustion,
TOM: Thanks to the evils of progress, the world groans under a fishocracy!
> that 26 million
>tons of topsoil is lost to erosion and pollution every year,
CROW: Then shouldn't we all be standing on Zanzibar or something by now?
> and believe
>that this world's economic system, whose functioning exacts this price, is
>headed in the right direction and that direction should be labeled
>"progress".
>
Tom: That or "south-southeast".
>* * *
>
>E.E. Cummings
MIKE: Who left his lowercases at home and went formal today...
> once called progress a "comfortable disease" of modern
>"manunkind,"
TOM: [Author] And one day I hope to cure all the world's manuns.
> and so it has been for some. But at any time since the triumph
>of capitalism
MIKE: 1990?
> only a minority of the world's population could be said to be
>really living in comfort, and that comfort, continuously threatened, is
>achieved at considerable expense.
>
CROW: Just wait until the prime drops a point, then refinance.
>Today of the approximately 6 billion people in the world, it is estimated
>that at least a billion live in abject poverty, lives cruel, empty, and
>mercifully short.
MIKE: But enough about Milwaukee.
> Another 2 billion eke out life on a bare subsistence
>level, usually sustained only by one or another starch,
CROW: They're poor, but they have sharp, rigid creases.
> the majority
>without potable drinking water or sanitary toilets. More than 2 million
>more live at the bottom edges of the money economy but with incomes less
>than $5,000 a year and no property or savings, no net worth to pass on to
>their children.
>
>That leaves less than a billion people
TOM: Actually, that leaves about 2.8 billion, if my math's right.
MIKE: Hush. You're blowing his world view here.
> who even come close to struggling
>for lives of comfort, with jobs and salaries of some regularity, and a
>quite small minority at the top of that scale who could really be said to
>have achieved comfortable lives; in the world, some 350 people can be
>considered (U.S. dollar) billionaires
TOM: But almost everyone is an Italian Lira Billionaire!
> (with slightly more than 3 million ),
>millionaires and their total net worth is estimated to exceed that of 45
>per cent of the world's population.
>
CROW: But that number is rising rapidly thanks to the generous philanthropy
of Regis Philbin.
>This is progress? A disease such a small number can catch? And with such
>inequity, such imbalance?
>
CROW: Life sucks, kid. Wear a helmet.
MIKE: Hey, that's not very nice, Crow!
CROW: Oh sure, blame the messenger.
>In the U.S., the most materially advanced nation in the world and long the
>most ardent champion of the notion of progress, some 40 million people live
>below the official poverty line and another 20 million or so below the line
>adjusted for real costs; 6 million or so are unemployed, more than 30
>million said to be too discouraged to look for work, and 45 million are in
>"disposable" jobs, temporary and part-time, without benefits or security.
>
CROW: So his big complaint is that half the people make less than the
median income.
TOM: You too can have fun with statistics.
>The top 5 percent of the population owns about two-thirds of the total
>wealth; 60 percent own no tangible assets or are in debt;
MIKE: We hid the 150 million poor people because we knew Japan was
coming over to visit.
> in terms of
>income, the top 20 percent earn half the total income, the bottom 20
>percent less than 4 percent of it.
>
TOM: And the middle 60 percent earn the remaining, um, 76 percent?
>All this hardly suggests the sort of material comfort progress is assumed
>to have provided.
CROW: He's not making a very effective argument, is he?
MIKE: It's what happens when you fall asleep in debate class.
> Certainly many in the U.S. and throughout the industrial
>world live at levels of wealth undreamed of in ages past, able to call
>forth hundreds of servant-equivalents at the flip of a switch or turn of a
>key,
TOM: This is coming uncomfortable close to being a Quonster post.
> and probably a third of this "first world" population could be said to
>have lives of a certain amount of ease and convenience.
>
CROW: Another example of the evils of progress!
>Yet it is a statistical fact
TOM: An uncited statistical fact, but a statistical fact.
> that it is just this segment that most acutely
>suffers from the true "comfortable disease," what I would call affluenza:
>heart disease, stress, overwork, family dysfunction, alcoholism,
>insecurity, anomie, psychosis, loneliness, impotence, alienation,
>consumerism, and coldness of heart.
>
CROW: Yes, but less than 5% of Progress users report these side-effects.
>* * *
>
>Leopold Kohr,
TOM: Tap the Rockies!
> the Austrian economist whose seminal work, The Breakdown of
>Nations, is an essential tool for understanding the failures of political
>progress in the last half-millennium, often used to close his lectures with
>this analogy:
>
MIKE: [Forest Gump] Lahf is lahk a box o' choklits...
>Suppose we are on a progress-train, he said, running full speed ahead in
>the approved manner, fueled by the rapacious growth and resource depletion
>and cheered on by highly rewarded economists.
CROW: Now another progress train leaves Chicago, heading east at 90 mph...
> We then discover that
>we are headed for a precipitous fall to a certain disaster just a few miles
>ahead when the tracks end at an uncrossable gulf?
>
TOM: In that case, sell the rights to Fox.
MIKE: "World's Wildest Metaphorical Disasters", coming up right after
"That 70's Show"!
>Do we take advice of the economists to put more fuel into the engines so
>that we go at an ever-faster rate, presumable hoping that we build up a
>head of steam so powerful that it can land us safely on the other side of
>the gulf;
CROW: If Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock are driving your progress train,
you got a pretty good shot.
> or do we reach for the brakes and come to a screeching if
>somewhat tumble-around halt as quickly as possible?
>
CROW: Not without anti-lock brakes and airbags, we don't!
MIKE: Hmph! Consumerist!
>Progress is the myth that assures us that full-speed-ahead is never wrong.
>Ecology is the discipline that teaches us that it is disaster.
>
TOM: And dadaism is what tells us that progress is yam pudding eyebrow
for flaxen nubbin beagle.
>* * *
>
>Before the altar of progress, attended by its dutiful acolytes of science
>and technology,
MIKE: And with electronics leading the choir...
> modern industrial society has presented an increasing
>abundance of sacrifices from the natural world, imitating on a much grander
>and more devastating scale the religious rites of earlier empires built
>upon similar conceits about the domination of nature.
CROW: Welcome to Aztechnologies, Inc.
> Now, it seems, we are
>prepared to offer up even the very biosphere itself.
>
CROW: I'd sacrifice Pauly Shore and a random Baldwin brother for progress.
TOM: Heck, I'd sacrifice them for a half-way decent pastrami on rye.
>No one knows how resilient the biosphere, how much damage it is able to
>absorb before it stops functioning -- or at least functioning well enough
>to keep the human species alive.
TOM: Well, who needs them, anyway?
CROW: Yeah, what a bunch of pathetic losers!
MIKE: Awfully smug since *someone* changed your oil filters, aren't we?
> But in recent years some very respectable
>and authoritative voices
MIKE: [author] Which I've been hearing in my head.
> have suggested that, if we continue the relentless
>rush of progress that is so stressing the earth on which it depends, we x
>rush reach that point in the quite near future.
>
CROW: The not-too-distant future?
TOM: How do you x rush something, anyway?
>The Worldwatch Institute (http://www.worldwatch.org),
TOM: [announcer] World Watch - it takes a licking and keeps on ticking!
> which issues annual
>accountings of such things,
CROW: Also known as busybody.com.
> has warned that there is not one life-support
>system on which the biosphere depends for its existence -- healthy air,
>water, soil, temperature, and the like -- that is not now severely
>threatened and in fact getting worse, decade by decade.
>
TOM: The temperature is being used up?
MIKE: I think he means global warming, Tom.
TOM: Weren't they clamoring about a new ice age a few years ago?
MIKE: Yeah, well, we started saving up heat to avoid it, and it just kinda
got a little out of hand.
>
>Not long ago a gathering of elite environmental scientists and activists in
>Morelia, Mexico, published a declaration warning of "environmental
>destruction" and expressing unanimous concern "that life on our planet is
>in grave danger."
>
CROW: They then went on to blame it on "thousands of monkeys riding giant
pink elephants". They'd had a bit much tequila.
>And recently the U.S. Union of Concerned Scientists (http://www.ucsusa.org)
TOM: o/` Ucsusa moi, mon cherie, make way for my baby and me! o/`
>in a statement endorsed by more than a hundred Nobel laureates and 1,600
>members of national academies of science all over the world,
MIKE: Plus a guy in a funny hat named "Phil".
> proclaimed a
>"World Scientists' Warning to Humanity" stating that the present rates of
>environmental assault and population increase cannot continue without "vast
>human misery"
CROW: So won't you contribute some misery - for the children?
> and a planet so "irretrievably mutilated" that "it will be
>unable to sustain life in the manner that we know."
>
MIKE: Ah, Earth's just hiding its assets to beat Venus's palimony suit!
>The high-tech global economy will not listen; cannot listen.
TOM: The economy is sticking its fingers in its ears and going "LALALALA!!"
> It continues
>apace its expansion and exploitation. Thanks to it, human beings annually
>use up some 40% of all the net photosynthetic energy available to the
>planet Earth,
MIKE: We're wearing out the sun?
> though we are but a single species of comparatively
>insignificant numbers.
>
CROW: Yeah, *Mike*! Did you hear that, *Mike*?
TOM: You're a rather insignificant species, aren't you, *Mike*?
MIKE: So how do you think *you* two would fare with this guy?
>Thanks to it, the world economy has grown by more than five times over in
>the last 50 years and is continuing at a dizzying pace to use up the
>world's resources, create unabating pollution and waste, and increase the
>enormous inequalities within and between all nations of the world.
>
TOM: Well, all nations are equal.
MIKE: Yeah, but some are more equal than others.
>* * *
>
CROW: Leonard Maltin gives ecofanatacism three stars!
>Suppose an Objective Observer were to measure the success of Progress --
TOM: I think Brain Guy has better things to do with his time.
>that is to say, the capital-P myth
MIKE: "Pmyth" - must be a silent "P".
> that ever since the Enlightenment has
>nurtured and guided and presided over that happy marriage of science and
>capitalism that has produced modern industrial civilization.
>
BOTS: Science and Capitalism, sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G! Wooo!
>Has it been, on the whole, better or worse for the human species?
MIKE: Well, I think...
> Other
>species?
TOM: You have to consider...
> Has it brought humans more happiness than there was before?
CROW: I don't know if...
> More
>justice?
TOM: It...
> More equality?
CROW: They...
> More efficiency?
MIKE: We...
> And if its ends have proven to be
>more benign than not, what of its means?
CROW: What about slowing down a little, motormouth?
> At what price have its benefits
>been won?
MIKE: Oh, I know that one. $49.95 a month, plus shipping and handling.
> And are they sustainable?
>
TOM: Is this gonna be on the finals?
>The Objective Observer would have to conclude that the record is mixed, at
>best.
CROW: Oh, you heard Madonna's latest album too, huh?
> On the plus side, there is no denying that material prosperity has
>increased for about a sixth of the world's humans, for some beyond the most
>avaricious dreams of kings and potentates of the past.
TOM: Wow. I guess there really *is* something to this on-line trading
thing!
> The world has
>developed systems of transportation and communication that allow people,
>goods, and information to be exchanged on a scale and at a swiftness never
>before possible.
MIKE: Federal Express saves the planet!
> And for maybe a third of these humans longevity has been
>increased, along with a general improvement in health and sanitation that
>has allowed the expansion of human numbers by about tenfold in the last
>three centuries.
>
CROW: The expansion of human numbers?
MIKE: Yeah. "Eight" and "Nine" weren't invented until 1777.
TOM: Boy, just in time, too.
>On the minus side, the costs have been considerable.
CROW: Yeah, they always sock you for the labor.
TOM: That's why it's more cost-effective to just buy the progress direct
and then install it yourself.
> The impact upon the
>earth's species and systems to provide prosperity for a billion people has
>been, as we have seen, devastatingly destructive --
MIKE: Boy, destroy *one* little ecosystem, and they never let you forget!
> only one additional
>measure of which is the fact that it has meant the permanent extinction of
>perhaps 500,000 species this century alone.
TOM: And another 700,000 were temporarily made extinct until new parts
arrived from the warehouse.
> The impact upon the remaining
>five-sixths of the human species has been likewise destructive,
CROW: Well, except for the being permanently extinct part.
> as most of
>them have seen their societies colonized or displaced, their economies
>wrenched and shattered, and their environments transformed for the worse in
>the course of it, driving them into an existence of deprivation and misery
>that is almost certainly worse than they ever knew, however difficult their
>times past, before the advent of industrial society.
>
MIKE: Back before commas and sentence fragments were invented.
>And even the billion whose living standards use up what is effectively 100
>percent of the world's available resources each year to maintain, and who
>might be therefore assumed to be happy as a result, do not in fact seem to
>be so.
CROW: That's because even with 100% of the Earth's resources at their
disposal, they *still* can't get the Game Show Network!
> No social indices in any advanced society suggest that people are
>more content than they were a generation ago,
MIKE: Well, except for asking gramps - he'll *tell* you tough it was back
in the old days.
> various surveys indicate that
>the "misery quotient" in most countries has increased,
CROW: [brightly] Hi! I'm from the Misery Polling Corporation, and I'd like
to ask you a few questions. Would you say that you were extremely
miserable, highly miserable, very miserable, unbelievably miserable,
or just plain miserable?
> and considerable
>real-world evidence
TOM: Your honor, the defense would like to enter as Exhibit A this smelly,
irritating guy named "Puck".
> (such as rising rates of mental illness, drugs, crime,
>divorce, and depression) argues that the results of material enrichment
>have not included much individual happiness.
>
MIKE: Turns out drugs, divorce and crime were all invented in 1968.
>Indeed, on a larger scale, almost all that Progress was supposed to achieve
>has failed to come about,
TOM: Yeah, where's my flying car and personal jet pack?
> despite the immense amount of money and
>technology devoted to its cause. Virtually all of the dreams that have
>adorned it over the years,
CROW: Like the one about the flying, and the one about being back in high
school and not being able to find the room where the test is, and the
one where you're naked in the middle of a Yanni concert?
MIKE: [pause] At a *Yanni* concert?
CROW: Yaah! Quit bringing that up, Nelson!
MIKE: But I didn't - d'oh, never mind!
> particularly in its most robust stages in the
>late 19th century and in the past twenty years of computerdom, have
>dissipated as utopian fancies --
MIKE: Balderdash!
CROW: Folderol!
TOM: Poppycock!
> those that have not, like nuclear power,
>chemical agriculture, manifest destiny, and the welfare state, turned into
>nightmares.
>
TOM: And the electric carving knife, too - don't forget that.
>Progress has not, even in this most progressive nation, eliminated poverty
>(numbers of poor have increased and real income has declined for 25 years),
CROW: In fact, no one can afford anything anymore - ever!
>or drudgery
TOM: Sadly, *nothing* can cure internet gossip-mongering!
> (hours of employment have increased, as has work within the
>home, for both sexes),
CROW: Okay, so real income has declined.
MIKE: Yeah.
CROW: But people are working more and more.
TOM: Uh-huh.
CROW: And the wage floor, along with minimum wages, keeps rising.
MIKE: Right.
CROW: Okay. Just checking.
> or ignorance
TOM: But coincidentally, bliss is also on the rise.
> (literacy rates have declined for fifty
>years, test scores have declined), or disease (hospitalization, illness,
>and death rates have all increased since 1980).
>
MIKE: Progress gave me a cold!
>It seems quite simple: beyond prosperity and longevity, and those limited
>to a minority, and each with seriously damaging environmental consequences,
>progress does not have a great deal going for it.
CROW: Yep, except for the fact that we're living longer and enjoying it
more, progress really stinks!
TOM: Yeah, let's all go back to living in the dirt and dying at 30!
*Those* were the good ol' days!
> For its adherents, of
>course, it is probably true that it doesn't have to; because it is
>sufficient that wealth is meritorious and affluence desirable and longer
>life positive.
TOM: Remind me one more time - *which* side is he on?
MIKE: He's just being considerate and making the case against himself, too.
> The terms of the game for them are simple: material
>betterment for as many as possible, as fast as possible, and nothing else,
CROW: But there is a 15-yard penalty for facemasking.
>certainly not considerations of personal morality or social cohesion
TOM: Elmer's Cultural Glue - for strong social cohesion!
> or
>spiritual depth or participatory government, seems much to matter.
>
MIKE: Sorry, you can have health care and a car *or* Nirvana, but both.
>But the Objective Observer is not so narrow,
CROW: Yeah, Brainy *has* put on a little weight.
> and is able to see how deep
>and deadly are the shortcomings of such a view.
TOM: Well, he could if we hadn't hidden his bifocals.
> The Objective Observer
>could only conclude that since the fruits of Progress are so meager,
MIKE: ...that mixing them with a little orange Jell-O might help.
> the
>price by which they have been won is far to high,
CROW: From far to high, from high to far,
I don't like progress, Sam-I-Are.
> in social, economic,
>political, and environmental terms, and that neither societies nor
>ecosystems of the world will be able to bear the cost for more than a few
>decades longer, if they have not already been damaged beyond redemption.
>
MIKE: The dangers of credit card abuse, ladies and gentlemen.
>* * *
>
>Herbert Read,
CROW: Read, Herbert, read.
> the British philosopher and critic, once wrote that "only a
>people serving an apprenticeship to nature can be trusted with machines."
TOM: Have you had your apprenticeship with nature, Mike?
MIKE: No, but I once belonged to the Junior Chamber of Natural
AntiCommerce.
TOM: Well-l-l-l - I guess that's close enough.
>It is a profound insight, and he underscored it by adding that "only such
>people will so contrive and control those machines that their products are
>an enhancement of biological needs, and not a denial of them."
>
MIKE: You hear that? You're supposed to *enhance* my biology, *not*
auction it off to the highest bidder!
CROW: Give me a break, Nelson! I already apologized!
>An apprenticeship to nature --
CROW: To "Naughty By Nature".
ALL: Hip hop hooraaaay, hooooh, haaay, hoooh...
> now there's a myth a stable and durable
>society could live by.
>
MIKE: Because, after all, a myth ith ath good ath a mile.
BOTS: D'OH!!!
>Kirkpatrick Sale
>
TOM: All Kirkpatricks are now up to 70% off!
>* * *
>
CROW: Hey, we never did find out what the five facets of a myth are.
MIKE: That would be let's see - progress, um, the objective observer...
TOM: Electric Carving knives...
MIKE: Raucous progress-train rides...
TOM: And run-on sentence fragments.
CROW: Okay, then. As long as we know.
>Resources:
>
>http://adbusters.org/campaigns/economic/links.html
TOM: Who ya gonna call? ADBUS-
CROW: Please, don't.
>http://bfi.org
>http://commoncause.org/publications/aug99/083099.htm
>
>http://earth.jsc.nasa.gov
MIKE: Hi! I'm Earth, and this is my website. Click here for my resume.
Click here for a picture of my dog, Mr. Scraps. Click here to see
my HOT CAMERON DIAZ PICTURE SITE!
>http://essential.org
>http://freespeech.org/cinetopia/rentstrike.html
>
CROW: Hey, this whole thing is one big circularity!
TOM: Made by mixing http://blues.org and http://yellows.org
>http://ic.org
>http://indy4.fdl.cc.mn.us/~isk/maps/usmapindex.html
>
>http://ithacahours.org
MIKE: As sands through the Ithaca Hourglass, so are the days of our lives.
>http://poclad.org/articles/articles.html
>http://preservenet.com
>
CROW: Mmmmmmm, fresh plum preserves, available online.
>http://rmi.org/faq/index.html
>http://www.bestweb.net/~jfiliss/factsmyth.htm
>http://www.cc.columbia.edu/~gm84/gibtable.html
>
TOM: Do you really *need* a special table for your gibs?
CROW: Martha Stewart has one, and that's good enough for me.
>http://www.chelseagreen.com/WhoOwns
MIKE: I don't think the First Daughter would approve of having her name
bandied about thusly.
CROW: She'll never know - she's too busy snogging with Wesley Crusher.
TOM: Gee, thanks, Crow - and I'd just finally gotten my appetite back!
>http://www.citizen.org/CMEP/Mergers/didyouknow.html
>http://www.citizen.org/congress
>
>http://www.citizen.org/pctrade/gattwto/gatthome.html
>http://www.communitycurrency.org
MIKE: [Minnewegian] Oh, ya, that Mrs. Sunderson, she's printing her
own twenties and fifties at home now, ya know.
>http://www.gaia.org
>
>http://www.gn.apc.org/resurgence
>http://www.gp.org/platform_index.htm
>http://www.henrygeorge.org
>
TOM: http://www.billybob.org
CROW: http://www.tylerjustin.org
MIKE: http://www.charlesphilliparthurgeorge.org
>http://www.landreform.org/reading0.htm
>http://www.lightlink.com/hours/ithacahours
TOM: Lightlink - as annoying as the other links, but only one calorie!
>http://www.mondragon.mcc.es/ingles/mcc.html
>
>http://www.nonviolence.org/issues/action.htm
MIKE: Now do you agree to a philosophy of non-violence, or do we have to
rough ya up some more?!?
>http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/BasicCtC.html
>http://www.schumachersociety.org/frameset_land.html
>
CROW: Dedicated to ruining the Batman franchise since 1995!
>http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97mar/jeffer/jeffer.htm
>http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99aug/9908genx.htm
>http://www.tradewatch.org
>
CROW: Mike, I'll give you this Seiko for that Timex.
MIKE: We'll talk.
>http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/index.html
>http://www.worldwatch.org/links/sow99i.html
>http://209.196.135.250/grunchofgiants2.html
TOM: Hohoho, Grunched Giants!
>
>
>
>
CROW: Is it just me, or did anyone else note the fact that this guy
used the internet to rail against the evils of progress and the
modern society?
MIKE: Boy, and Alanis thinks *she's* ironic!
TOM: Let's scram outta here, fellas.
[All leave]
O |2| <3> (4) {5} [6]
[SOL - Bridge. Crow is back in front of the computer]
CROW: Yeah, baby! *This* is gonna be easy money!
[Mike enters]
[Mike enters, carrying a videotape]
MIKE: Hey Crow, what's going on?
CROW: I'm making money hand over fist, that's what!
MIKE: That's nice. You seen Serv- uh, waitasecond!
CROW: What?
MIKE: Correct me if I'm wrong, Crow, but didn't we just have that big
long talk about selling me in bits and pieces?
CROW: Huh? Oh, ha! Nonono, Mike, I'm beyond that sort of thing, now!
MIKE: Oh. Well, good then. [pause] So, uh, just how are you making all
this extra money?
CROW: I'm writing my memoirs of the big Rent Strike.
MIKE: Oh, well that's much be- excuse me?
CROW: Let me quote for you. "It was a wild and crazy time to be alive.
Suddenly, the global financial clock reset to 1900 as people began
exercising their natural rights."
MIKE: Ummmm...
CROW: Not bad, huh? "Bubble money suddenly underwent dissolution, but I
thoughtfully stepped in and replaced it with my own local currency,
the famous 'Crowbucks'. This led to land reform and economic truth
out the wazoo."
MIKE: Listen, Crow...
CROW: Wait wait wait, this is the best part here: "As arms dealers
and drug pushers took their permanent vacations, I, Crow T. Robot,
personally made sure everyone inherited some healthy food, thereby
ensuring a culture of common sense." Let's see those hacks Grisham
and Rowling and Chopra top *that*!
MIKE: But Crow - none of that actually happened.
CROW: It didn't?
MIKE: Of course not! There was no big rent strike last January 1st. It
was all dull and boring and business as usual - after the hangovers
wore off, that is. And you slept through most of January 1st after
staying up to watch "Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve".
[Long Pause]
CROW: You just can't stand to see me happy, can you, Nelson?
MIKE: It's not...
CROW: Every time I start to do something that might *potentially* bring
me some fulfillment, not to mention just a little spending
money, you have to waltz in here like some non-CGI Godzilla
and trample all over my dreams!
MIKE: I think you may be...
CROW: *What did I ever do to you?!?*
MIKE: Okay, fine, I'm sorry, go ahead and write your book.
CROW: Nonono, it just wouldn't be the same! [sobbing] Thanks a *lot*, ya
big goon!!
MIKE: *sigh* Look, will it help if I let you read the thing this time?
CROW: *sniffle* A little, yeah.
MIKE: Then go on ahead.
CROW: 'Kay. *ahem* To join the MiSTing Authors Dibs List, send an e-mail
to majo...@neylonpc.engin.umich.edu with the message "subscribe
dibslist [<your name>]" in the message body. Read the FAQ, don't
work blue, and support progress today.
MIKE: There, see? Now, don't you feel a whole lot...
CROW: Waitasecond! [pause] That's IT!!! Mike, I'm so brilliant, you
could kiss me!
MIKE: I could?
CROW: Don't even try! That'll be my new book! "Progress, Shmogress! An
Account of How I Exposed Farrah Fawcett to a Math, by Crow T. Robot!"
MIKE: [starts to say something, then just shrugs] Well, um, good luck.
Oh, hey, *have* you seen Servo around? He's taped his "Farscape" over
my "West Wing"!
CROW: He said something about making himself a ham sammich.
MIKE: Okay, I'll - [pauses] Hey, do you hear something?
CROW: Yeah, some kind of - of buzzing.
[Servo runs (well, hovers quickly) in]
TOM: AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!
MIKE: Tom, what's wrong?
TOM: Run for your lives, guys, it's out of control!
CROW: *What's* outta control?!?
TOM: The electric carving knife!
MIKE: You're running from an electric carving kn- [suddenly a horrendous
roar fills the air] LOOK OUT!!!
ALL: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!
[All exit quickly stage left, followed by a levitating Huusqvarna chain
saw, painted to look like a carving knife]
[CF - Pearl is in the main hall, next to yet another infernal contraption]
PEARL: Typical, Nelson. I guess *some* of us can handle progress just
a little bit better than some of the rest of us. But never mind
that now. *This* is the device that will make my dreams come true!
Hello, global domination! [She prepares to pull the lever when...]
BOBO: [OS] Hey Lawgiver?
PEARL: Cop a hike! I'm about to take over the world!
BOBO: [OS] I'm dreadfully sorry, Lawgiver, but there are some folks here
to see you.
PEARL: Gee, Bobo, can you be a little *less* specific?
BOBO: [OS] [pause] No, I don't think so.
PEARL: For the love of - *Who is it?*
BOBO: [OS] Um, well...
[Bobo comes into view, trailed by a couple of plant people played by
Patrick & Bridget in green leotards, green wigs & green facepaint, all
festooned with plastic ivy and leaves, etc.]
BOBO: It's kind of hard to explain. I was just watering the plants
[obliviously holds up the "Brain Juice" container] and suddenly -
poof! There they were!
PEARL: The *hell*?!? Who are you guys?
PLANTMAN: I am Chris Anthemum. This is Petunia.
PEARL: Uh-huh. Look, Salad People or - whatever you are, I don't
mean to be rude - no, actually, I *do* mean it! It's getting
late, and I got a planet to conquer, so scram!
PETUNIA: Sorry, we can't. We are here to enlighten you.
PEARL: Enlighten? What does *that* mean.
CHRIS: It means that you cannot use this - whatever it is. [He picks
up the contraption and walks off with it]
PEARL: HEY!!! I need that to rule the world and stuff with!
PETUNIA: There'll be plenty of time for that later. Right now, though,
it's time for you to start serving your apprenticeship with nature.
PEARL: What?!?
PETUNIA: Now don't worry, we'll start you off slow. You'll be working
with this big old elm tree, learning how to photosynthesize.
CHRIS: [re-enters] Hey, what about the big hairy one?
PETUNIA: Oh, he's fine. We was the one that groomed all the aphids right
off of cousin Natasha. Right before that *sniff* tragic tossed pot
accident.
CHRIS: Oh, okay then. Well, let's go.
[The two plant people each grab one of Pearl's arms and march her off]
PEARL: Wait a minute, wait a minute, you can't - BOBO!!!
BOBO: So long, Lawgiver! We'll wait for you before taking over the planet.
PEARL: [OS] BOBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
BOBO: Don't worry, Lawgiver, I'll watch the castle real good.
[Observer re-enters, looking a bit haggard]
OBSERVER: My goodness, Pearl, that was certainly some of the most wretched
cinema I've ever - Pearl? Bobo, where's Pearl?
BOBO: Oh, she went off to live with the trees.
OBSERVER: Oh? When do you expect her back.
BOBO: Actually - it's hard to say.
OBSERVER: Oh, and I just finished scanning most of those movies she gave
me. I still haven't seen the one about the glass jungle, but it
certainly can't be any worse than the others. Mike and his robots
are certainly in for a buttload of pain!
BOBO: Oh. [pause] So, uh, what do you want to do until she gets back?
OBSERVER: Well-l-l-l - if we hurry, we can still catch the 5:00 showing of
"Toy Story 2".
BOBO: Oh, I love cartoons! Then can we go see "Iron Giant" at the Dollar
theater?
OBSERVER: You're on!
[The two of them walk off, and we fade out]
BOBO: [VO] Then can we rent "The Pokemon Movie"?
OBSERVER: [VO] Don't push it!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
"RENT STRIKE 2000" BY: "SAL9000"
"FIVE FACETS OF A MYTH" BY: "Kirkpatrick Sale"
MiSTING BY: "Bill Livingston"
MiSTING DIBS LIST MAINTAINED BY: Michael "Doc" Neylon
LOTION BY: Jergen's
JUST PASSING BY: Daaaayeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh!
GIVE ME YOUR HEART MAKE IT REAL: Or else forget about it.
SPECIAL GUEST STARS: Patrick Brantseg as Chris Anthemum and Bridget Jones
as Petunia.
THANKS: to MiSTies, MuSTies, RATMMer's, the late Charles Schulz, and
everyone who didn't watch "Who Wants to Marry a Multi Millionaire?"
"Mystery Science Theater 3000" trademark of and (c) Best Brains, Inc.
All rights reserved. Terrorizing Malta since 1988.
Use of copyrighted and trademarked material is for entertainment purposes
only; no infringement on the original copyrights or trademarks held by
others is intended or should be inferred.
No personal insults to author(s), character(s), or situation(s) are or
should be implied. All characters in this work are fictional, and any
resemblance to actual people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
At least that's what it says on this little card here.
NOOOOOOOOOOOO Springs! *cuckoo*
Keep circulating the posts.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>1/1/00 - Earthlings rediscover a forgotten truth:
#######################################################
bi...@Traveller.COM http:\\www.hsv.tis.net\~bill
He that is of a merry heart hath
a continual feast - Prov. 15:15b
Thomas Cox
oh wait, you need
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R
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S
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E
> > By natural law, we are all wealthy and serve no one but the
> >Creator.
> >
>
> CROW: BBI?
> MIKE: You know, if you don't stop picking at the fourth wall, it'll
> never get better.
LOL
> > Many fifteen-
> >year-olds today, seeing clearly the perils with which modern technology has
> >accompanied its progress, some of which threaten the very continuance of
> >the human species, have already worked out for themselves what's wrong with
> >the myth.
> >
>
> MIKE: Namely, that it won't score them any chick action.
Right on!
--
Thomas Cox
MSTie #83019
http://dunx1.irt.drexel.edu/~tc46/index.html Personal Website
http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/Meadows/7280/ Sabattis Website
When Heinz ketchup leaves the bottle, it travels at a rate of 25
miles per year.
Go with God. (my car's full...)
I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence.
There's one called brightness, but it doesn't work.