T.B DIGEST -- NOV. '94
Dave Polewka
.From: squ...@stimpy.us.itd.umich.edu (Melissa Litwicki)
.Subject: not home yet
.Date: Thu Nov 3 17:32:09 1994
i'm sitting perfectly still, thinking that anyone who even glances
briefly over can see me through the window. they can.
my reflection's moving, though; grimacing, bobbing up and down,
glinting in a decidedly non-flat way.
i'm not moving a goddamned muscle, either. still. i'm thinking about
what it would feel like to lift my arm.
The reflection, which is dark, expands suddenly in a toss of hair.
i didn't do that.
i'm still trying to stand up and trying to leave my chair, but the
cushion is welded to my ass and there's a big fucking cable locked
to the cushion and it goes through the floors of the building through
the concrete and through the earth to the center, where it ends.
just hanging there, all of that weight.
i just want to go home.
melissa
tired of this
--
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Melissa Litwicki "It's big, sharp teeth and claws versus
squ...@umich.edu a mind of questionable wit."
++--++--++--++--++--++--++--++--++--++--++--++--++--++--++--++--++--++--++
.From: r...@asuvax.eas.asu.edu (Starcap'n Ra)
.Subject: Re: Open Letter To talk.bizarre
.Date: Thu Nov 3 12:42:48 1994
and...@cml.rice.edu (Andrew Solberg) writes:
> On Fail To Suck Day, you shall post:
>
> * NO follow-ups
> * NO cross-posts
> * NO flames
> * YES original articles of great creativity, wit and elan.
This needs to be said: While as an
extemely GENERAL rule of thumb most
followups are boring, there nevertheless
have been many followups through the years
that, while technically followups since
the subject contains "Re:" and the text
contains perhaps one or two quoted lines,
are nevertheless for all intents and
purposes original articles, often being
pages in length.
The same can occasionally be said
of cross-posts, which are even more likely
to be worthless than followups on a
statistical basis.
I guess what I'm saying is that yes,
we want to solicit original (judged by
content rather than casual perusal of the
header) articles of great creativity, wit,
and elan, without resorting to "Four legs
good, two legs bad!" types of simplistic
categorizations that would call into
question our ability to even recognize
a creative and original article were it
to hit us in the head.
--Starcap'n Ra {ames,gatech,husc6,rutgers}!ncar!noao!asuvax!kennedy
{allegra,decvax,ihnp4,oddjob}--^
^---------------The Wrong Choice
internet: ken...@asuvax.eas.asu.edu
.From: pl...@uspto.gov (Paul Lord)
.Subject: Decadence 101
.Date: Thu Nov 3 19:11:04 1994
The invitation read:
"You are cordially invited to a Victorian Tea, to be held on the Rocks of
Georgetown this Sunday at 4:00. Appropriate attire is required, and
remember, 'Nothing succeeds like excess.'"
An acquaintance, normally leather-clad and rather fearsome, appears in his
frilliest finery, even down to the poofy-feather-in-wide-brimmed-hat, except
he's wearing Terminator style sunglasses. I'm about to make some snide
comment when he turns somewhat stiffly and says,
"Call me...RoBoFop. Come with me, or there could be...ruffles."
So I grab the dinner jacket and spats, fuss with my cravat for a few, hop
into a local wonder-grocer for some baklava and a halfway-decent bottle of
burgundy, and off we go.
Now, normally, the group of slackers I hang around with bring decadence
wherever they go. Lots of decadence. Humid, sweltering decadence with
full, wet lips. We outdid ourselves this time.
Down the NW side of the Key bridge there is this abandoned aqueduct, maybe
four stories off the water these days, with a rolling grassy area sunk
between two stone docks. "The Rocks." On these rocks we spread a dozen
oriental rugs, lit up candelabras, and sat oh-so-daintily in our Sunday best
gorging on wine, cheese, cakes, scones, you name it. It was HEAVENLY. I
might post GIFS. At one point, a horse-drawn canal barge filled with
tourists rolled by, and we gave our best "Room with a View" wave, all 4 of
us.
"They're probably asking the guide who we are, and she can't tell them."
"We should get the city to hire us to do this every day."
"Nah, not every day, but we could charge extra to appear on holidays."
"Yeah, that."
We ignored no trespassing signs, open beverage laws, traffic laws, public
decency laws, airplanes, common sense, and good judgment. I've never been
personally involved in a more satisfying territorial pissing contest. I'm
telling you, shave me, dress me up, gimme a top hat and ruffled sleeves, and
STAND ASIDE, world.
paul
--
"Why not. It worked for the Goths."
.From: pl...@uspto.gov (Paul Lord)
.Subject: directions
.Date: Thu Nov 3 19:14:52 1994
"I HATE driving in this twisted metropolis. NOW what?"
"Bear right."
"Bear always right. Bear have big claws."
[alarums]
paul
--
attribution dammit: Scott "That's MR. twisted pigfucker to you, boy!" Smith
original source, if other, is unknown
.From: boym...@BIX.com (boymozart on BIX)
.Subject: The Council Of Users
.Date: Fri Nov 4 00:29:25 1994
The elimination of Massive Cosmic Halo Objects through the
application of neutrino-biased anti-matter stimulation was the
furthest thing from my mind when I woke up this morning. Maybe
that's t to the bathroom instead.
The eggs were runny, the bacon was soggy, the toast was burnt,
and the cereal had expired three weeks ago. The fact that breakfast
came from the replicator didn't help matters.
Somebody was affecting the cyberenvironment by sending a bunch
of IRS Tax Codes through their line-printer--twice--so activity was
way down from the normal levels. The system adjusts the
cyberenvironment to reflect the amount of energy it detects in its
users, so it was snowing and I was freezing my virtual butt off on
the way to work.
Fortunately there was heat in the pyramid when I got there. It
was coming from the bonfires that the protesters were using to burn
me in effigy.
EDDA was waiting for me outside the picket lines when I got
there. He watched, dumb-founded, while swap- and temp-files were
deleted to generate the fires, which were a welcome relief from all
the freezing lag. I loosened my collar and smiled. "How's it
going?" I asked.
"We should'a never come back," EDDA explained.
"You're kidding, right? Look at the response we're getting!"
Some of the picketeers where the actual data-angels I see from
time to time, but most were automated constructs left to march
around forever, waving signs that read:
NEWBIE GO HOME!
KEEP OUR FROUPS STAGNANT!
And my personal fave:
GO THE FUCK AWAY!
Like that's ever worked.
"This is great!" I said. "We couldn't pay enough for that much
advertising."
EDDA sighed. "You got mail waiting for you on your desk."
"You get into the office today?"
"No, why?"
"How do you know I have mail on my desk?"
EDDA sighed again. "Because you haven't opened any of it in
three weeks."
I snapped my fingers. "That's how long my cereal has been
expired!"
Getting through the picket line was easy--I joined in. Other
picketeers were smiling and nodding encouragingly to me--until we
got around to the effigy people. The roasting versions of me were
considerably accurate. I managed to make it into the pyramid, but
not before I was hit by a sign that read DIE TASKFORCE SCUM!
In my line of work, neatness counts. After I cleaned off most
of the blood, I checked my mail. There were a couple e-notes from
some WELL-wishers; a few listserv snippets; and one huge file. I
left that until last, standing behind the blast-proof tau field and
waving my hand in thegeneral direction.
The room grew dark. Streamers of light shot from the file,
manifesting into a huge smiling face with a pipe stuck in its mouth.
I gagged at the shameful lack of originality. But then, as sparks
rose from the file and the opening number of "Stop The Insanity IV"
rose up in the background, the face spoke.
"YOU ARE HEREBY ORDERED TO APPEAR BEFORE THE ALMIGHTY COUNCIL
OF USERS!" it said. "UPON RECEIPT OF THIS MESSAGE, YOU WILL APPEAR
IN THE COUNCIL CHAMBER IMMEDIATELY, OR FACE THE CONSEQUENCES.
HAVE," it insisted, "A NICE DAY!"
Now I was depressed. The Council Of Users: the most pathetic,
prudish, whining, uncompromising group of underachieving committee
dropouts outside of an L.A. law firm. Shooting yourself in the
penis would be more fun than appearing before a group of people
whose soul purpose in life is to keep you from doing whatever the
hell you want on a computer system.
The file opened up some more, showing a guest-user account
connection. It was inevitable, so I stepped up to the file and
accessed my nice new account.
The walls of the Council Chamber--when I jacked in--were lined
with marble; the floor was covered with bright blue pieces of wax
paper. TSRs floated about the room, suffusing everything in their
pale light. Twenty-three people stood next to tall wing-backed
chairs flanking three tables which formed the shape of a U, and I
stood right between the prongs.
"This emergency session of the Council Of Users is now in
session. The Defendant will remain standing; Council members please
be seated," said the Council President, in a low dry nasal voice.
They all sat down and I stood there pretending to be uncomfortable.
The President was a short, greasy-haired, sweaty man with large
bug-out eyes like the dude that played Galron. He flopped down in
his seat and nearly disappeared beneath the table. He reached up to
shuffle some documents, and then turned his attention to me.
"Mr. Guest," he whined, "having been banned from the SuperNet
three years ago by the Administration, through the grace of his
holiness the Sysop,...."
"I dropped out of college and lost my student account," I
interrupted. "Get a life, for god's sake."
I heard twenty-three distinctive gasps, synchronized fairly
well, too. "But...but protests were filed...."
"One guy flamed me. Big fuckin' deal."
"Why are you here?"
"You're the ones that sent Man With Big Pipe."
"No, no!" Bug-eyes flustered. "Why have you come back to the
Net?"
"To make some fast money," I replied. "Is that all you wanted?"
Council persons started. President Bug-eyes babbled
and gavel.waved into silence. "Mr. Guest! The Council has several
concerns regarding your recent behavior! We wish to discuss your
activities with you to determine if you present a danger to the
net!"
"Yeah, there's a danger, all right," I said. "There's a danger
of the Net falling into a pile of its own horseshit, of the
degradation of the few net walkers remaining. With all the boring
crap that goes on in the real world, like wars and traffic-jams and
fat-free edible underwear, you can't count on even the really
POWERFUL mind-fuckers to maintain their presence! We need to pour
more into the Net, we need new people, even the ones that suck. The
horizons need to expand, or we'll choke on our own noise!"
"Down with the newbie heathen!" yelled a Council member.
"Flame the unrighteous, so that they may be SAVED!"
"Amen! Hallelujah!" cried some of the other members.
"May I respectfully remind the Users that YOU were once
newbies?" I asked smugly.
"Silence, Blasphemer!" that one Council member roared, pointing
a finger at me. "I was NEVER a newbie!"
Chaos broke out in the Chamber--you should've seen some of the
fractals. The President was gavel.waving again, but no one was
paying attention. A lot of the members seemed to be caught up in
some kind of fervor, but most were just standing in outrage and
yelling at each other. One guy looked at me, like he saw something
he recognized, or that he pitied me, I'm not sure which. He just
nodded his head, got up, and quietly left. It seemed like a good
idea to me.
I walk in the stupid cold cyberenvironment, shaking the snow
from my hair and pondering the thoughts that fill my head: what WAS
the reason for my return? Do I want to stay? Does Jackie Collins
REALLY use gamma-progesterone shampoo twice a week in order to
maintain her 10-men-per-day sex drive? I may never know the answer
to these questions; by the time I get to her, her hair's dry again.
____________________________________________________________________
Boy Mozart boym...@BIX.com no URL, deal with it.
.From: nma...@superior.carleton.ca (Nikolaus Maack)
.Subject: Drug Addict Skin Head Comic Book
.Date: Fri Nov 4 03:32:12 1994
Skeleton Joe was a drug addict skinhead, who often found himself
beating up blonde children for no reason. On one particularly cloudy
thursday, he was sitting in a playground, looking for blonde kids. He
did it subconsciously, unaware of why he was there. He thought he was
killing time but he was really looking for the perfect, cute, pudgy
blonde kid that he could kick the shit out of.
After an hour of searching, he finally spotted one. He leapt to his
feet, his massive frakenstein-like boots pounding the grass as he ran.
"Fockin' kid," he screamed, and came in his pants as he began smashing
the child's face and neck with his massive, booted feet.
A startled scream from a nearby mother. She starts running at
Skeleton Joe, her fists flying around her like planets in orbit around
her bright red sun-face. She smacks Skeleton Joe in the face, and he
falls back, startled.
"Crazy bitch," he hisses, crawling away as the woman tries to kick him
in the balls. He wears a steel jock strap. He knows his job.
Skeleton Joe goes to score drugs off a fourteen year old girl. She's
his pusher. He likes the irony of being her slave. She bosses him
around as he counts out fifteen dolla quarters. Skeleton Joe had
been begging downtown all day for this one hit of smack.
"You should really let your hair grow out," says the 14 year old
pusher, "you look like a fuckin' skinhead."
"I am a skinhead," Skeleton Joe says.
"Well, ya shouldn't be," the 14 year old says. She playfully slaps
Skeleton Joe's ass. "Black chick'd do ya good."
Skeleton Joe snorts, taking his paper bag of smack, and leaving the 14
year old pusher to push drugs on her fellow school kids.
He hears her yell as he leaves. She's yelling at some poor
unfortunate youthful junky: "This is a focking business, mate, no
freebies. Go rob yer maw or somethin'."
Skeleton Joe shoots up in an alley. He dreams of a day when he has a
lot of money and can buy a lot of smack all at once, and not have to
beg. If only he could get someone to buy his comic book concept.
It's too avant garde though, and no one likes it. It's about a
skinhead drug addict who is in love with his 14 year old pusher. They
have sex in the back of an abandoned van all the time, and Skeleton
Joe has spent days drawing intricate pictures of the two having sex.
Skeleton Joe fools himself. He doesn't know that he is his comic book
character. He doesn't know the 14 year old pusher in his comic is his
14 year old pusher in real life. He pretends the two aren't related
at all.
When he is stoned, he pulls out his sketchbook, and starts to draw yet
another scene of a skinhead fucking a 14 year old girl. He spends 15
minutes perfecting one solitary 14 year old nipple. He takes out a
coloured pencil and grabs a green one instead of a pink one by
accident. He doesn't notice he's drawn the nipple green for a few
seconds, but when he does, he becomes enraged.
"Fock! Fock!" he yells, licking his finger and trying to rub out the
green, but it only ruins the picture. He starts to realize he's never
going to get his comic book published and that soon he will die in a
back alley of an overdose. He wants to cry very much, but can't. He
shrugs, tears out the page, starts drawing another 14 year old pusher
getting fucked by another skinhead.
A rat behind a garbage can looks at Skeleton Joe and wonders what it
is like to be a human being.
Nik
-----
"Every breast you bake.
Every scab you break.
Every box you shake.
I'll be scratching you."
Sting, in hell.
.From: gn...@kauri.vuw.ac.nz (Nathan Torkington)
.Subject: n.b
.Date: Fri Nov 4 06:36:29 1994
I had an erection when I found out my Aunty Kath was dead. There is
no causal connection here --- my mother's phone call woke me at 8.30am
and as is my body's morning wont, I had a boner. It was an awkward
situation.
My Auny Kath was Irish, and as my Mad Irish Aunt she had a big role in
my childhood. She cooked pikelets and let me watch television after
school, before my father and mother could afford a TV of our own.
Most importantly of all, she shared her husband with me.
Uncle Arthur died of lung cancer when I was about 8, but before he
went he spent a lot of time with me. I'd come home from school, go
straight to Uncle Arthur and share the latest dirty jokes from the
playground with him. He let me play with his pocketknife and
sometimes I'd sit in his LaZboy chair when I watched TV and he'd lay
on the bench by the window and divide his time between his horse races
on the radio and watchng me.
This was in the house beside my grandparents. That house had a
basement/garage style room underneath, with a concrete floor and tools
and wood in the far corner, which Arthur and Cath would use for
playing indoor bowls. They'd roll a huge rug of green carpet over the
concrete, and open up the boxes of big black balls and sometimes I'd
get to roll the jack out before they started playing.
They had hydrangas growing all around the fences between their
property and the sheep paddock right beside them. I'd play hide and
seek, possibly with my cousins, I can't remember who with, and I'd
hide in the hydrangas and break off a branch and play with the white
fibre inside the stalks. I never wondered what it was, I just enjoyed
feeling it in my fingers and seeing it bend and flex.
Aunty Kath had a garden, which was separated from the main part of
their section by a small stream. You had to cross a small concrete
bridge to get to the garden, and although I can't remember a whole lot
the garden, I wish I'd crossed it a little more often. The grass was
always short and the flowers were always pretty there. I should have
hidden in the middle of her garden.
Their "bach" was a small one room cottage on the same section, between
the main road (which was a small rural backroad) and their house.
They had a pool table in it, which their relatives used to come around
and play pool on. It was always far better kept than the one in my
grandparents' place (which I grew up playing pool on) but I hardly
ever used it. I even remember they had one of the sticks with a cross
on the end, for getting the tricky shots. My grandparents' table
might have had one once, but it had always been missing when I was
growing up.
After my uncle died, and his ashes were scattered, my Aunt continued
to live there for a while. Finally she moved into an old folks' home
twenty minutes away, and sold the house to a couple who were new to
the area. They've changed things, and I haven't really been back
recently. It took a while to get used to taking the long way to my
grandparents' house --- I couldn't cut across my Aunt's section any
more.
Aunty Kath made friends, and after her back got so bad she couldn't
walk around much, her friends would come around for tea and
conversation. She was always a little batty, but she went downhill
towards the end. For over a year, her companion and closest friend
was always driving her places and doing things with her. After he
died suddenly, she was pretty much alone in the world and I think his
death took a toll on her.
The end was quite sudden, I hear, and after a few days in a nursing
home she made her peace and died. Towards the end, Mum said, she
could see Arthur and her friends, and was quite happy to die.
I'm not so happy that she died, and I often think about her. I didn't
go to see her as much as I should, being embarrassed at her infirmity
and battiness, and I never got a chance to really say how much I loved
and appreciated her.
I hope she's at peace, and that I never forget her influence and
generosity.
Nat
.From: mrc...@interlog.com (Mr. Clean)
.Subject: Re: The Scotologists (was Re: The Scatologists)
.Date: Fri Nov 4 11:15:28 1994
>>>Of course you have, now stop acting Irish!
>>
>>*plonk*
>>
>>Seo e' an rud is E'ireannach a de'anann me'.
>
>Sure. With or without anchovies ?
>
>"20 minutes or it's free"
With!
compliments of 2 for 1
___
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`--..____,,--'
--
------
Is Internet real estate virtual?
mrc...@gold.interlog.com
Net Art Inc.
.From: boym...@BIX.com (boymozart on BIX)
.Subject: The Jacket
.Date: Fri Nov 4 15:10:01 1994
It's a leather flight jacket. You're not supposed to wash it
or dry-clean it or polish it or anything. The older it looks, the
better it looks, and the more valuable it becomes. Of course, there
are several tears in the leather, and a couple of loose threads in
the lining. Overall it looks like somebody took it off and dropped
it from the airplane, but I suppose that's the effect it's supposed
to have, since it's a flight jacket.
Harvey was real interested the first time he saw it. "Where'd
you get it?" he asked, his eyes roaming over it.
I was wearing the jacket, and he was making me nervous. "I
dunno," I said, shrugging my shoulders. "I've always had it."
"Do you think I could borrow it for a while?" he asked. "I bet
if I show up one night wearing it, my wife'll...."
"Oh, no," I said, backing away. "I don't want your psycho wife
pawing over my jacket!"
"Well, OK, but lemme see it...." He grabbed a hold of a
shoulder strap and started tugging on it.
I slapped his hand away. He got angry, his face twisted. He
reached for me again. I punched him in the face, and his eyeball
popped out. He picked it up off the floor, wiped off the dirt, and
popped it back into the socket. The internal electronics spun the
ball around until it was adjusted properly, then he looked at me. I
pulled out my stunner right then and shot him point-blank, the ultra
sonic field knocking him off his feet. He rolled around the floor
for a few seconds, then lay still. Jeeze, all for a stupid leather
jacket.
I went home. The jacket went in the hall closet, and I went on
the sofa with a beer. The cable company'd cancelled the All-Sex
Channel, so I was left with 499 channels of wholesome family shows.
I switched off the 3V and fell asleep on the sofa.
Sometime during the night ninjas broke into my apartment and
stole the 3CR and my leather jacket. One of them wanted to kill me,
but they have a code of never killing a sleeping person. When he
woke me up, I distracted him by pouring the rest of the beer down
his pants. While his buddies were laughing at him and teasing him
about having "pissed himself," I yanked out his katana and shoved it
straight up his ass. The others left quickly, quietly, but
chuckling.
Harvey knows lots of ninja; he used to live in Hoboken. I went
to his house the next day to confront him, but his wife met me at
the door.
**What do you want, shithead?** said her voice in my mind. I
hate that.
"Where's Harvey?" I asked.
**None of your damn business. Go away** She started to close
the door. I shouldered my way in and went to the back of the house,
where Harvey's workroom is. The door was locked.
**Harvey! That asshole just broke in!** her mind cried.
**What should I do?**
Harvey mumbled something. His wife grabbed me, slammed me into
the wall, and handcuffed me. She dragged me up the stairs by my
hair, threw me into a room, ripped off my clothes, and tossed my
body into the family sensory-deprivation tank. She took my picture,
ran her nasty hand over my chest and belly, sighed, and slammed the
lid.
In a few minutes--or a few millenia, you know how it is in a
sensdep tank--I slipped from my body and floated away from the tank
in my astral form. My astral three-piece suit was feeling a little
tight, and I made a mental note to go to the Psychic Wearhouse next
time I was in Dallas and get George to fit me with a new one--maybe
grey this time.
Eventually I made my way into Harvey's workroom. His wife was
sitting on a stool watching him work. He was putting something onto
a radiation scanner--it was my leather jacket. He drew up some
tools from his workbench, hunched over the scanner, and went to
work.
I couldn't believe it. What was such the big deal with my
jacket? I noticed that Paula was watching me now. She smirked at
my ghostly form, and ran her hand along the inside of her leg.
Harvey paid no attention, wrapped up in his work. She lifted the
hand and extended her middle finger.
That was about it. Paula may be psychic, but at least she's
good at it, so I knew I couldn't affect her. Harvey, on the other
hand....
I left the room, hoping she'd turn her attention back to
Harvey. She didn't--she left the room and started walking up the
stairs to where I was being kept. That was even better.
I floated back into Harvey's workroom, took the psychic
equivalent of a deep breath, and dove into Harvey's mind.
He grunted. He knew I was there. I came in through Broca's
area in the central sulcus and fired off every neuroinhibitor I
could find so he wouldn't be able to open his big mouth and call out
for his wife. That just left her telepathy. If you've ever heard
the saying about the organ that men do most of the thinking with,
you should know it's incredibly accurate; the primary psychic
transmission center is controlled by the same area of the brain. So
my next stop was the somato-sensory cortex, where I shut that sucker
down, too.
When Paula came back into my workroom, she found me collapsed
on the floor. She picked me up and dragged me to a couch that I use
sometimes when I work late at night, and put me on it. She shook me
and send thoughts into my mind.
**Sweetie?** she thought. **Sweetie? Are you OK?**
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," I said. "That bastard tried to attack
me, but he left suddenly."
She smirked. I love it when she does that; her face crinkles
and her eyes light up and she's so cute. **I know. I turned on the
internal electrocution circuit in the sensdep tank. He's fried
salami by now.**
When Paula refers to OTHER people as salami, I get suspicious.
I looked at her and said, "What ELSE did you do?"
**Nothing!** she thought. A look of shock came over her face,
and she suddenly laughed out loud. **You're JEALOUS, aren't you?**
I smiled slowly. "Will you do something for me?"
**What?**
"Put the jacket on?"
**Over the robe?**
"No, take the robe OFF, first!" I grinned.
Paula chuckled. She got up, flounced over to the leather
jacket, slowly removed her robe, and put on the jacket. She sat
down on the stool and ran her fingers over her body, caressing her
beautiful pale nudity and rubbing herself and licking her lips.
**C'mon,** Paula thought, a deeper timbre in the mind-voice, **what
else do you want me to do?**
The stunner from my jacket was in my hand. It was on the
highest setting. I pointed it at her and shot her senseless. She
collapsed onto the floor, the jacket falling from her shoulders,
pinning her arms behind her. I reached down and touched her,
caressing her as well, enjoying the memories. Then I picked her up
and took her upstairs, placing her unconcious body next to my old
dead one. Then I closed the lid and turned on the internal
electrocution circuit.
The Turing Police were very helpful. They understood it had
been a crime of passion--hey, when you find your best friend and
your wife doing it in a sensdep tank, how else are you going to
react? The judge accepted my guilty plea and sentenced me to
several years of probation and psychiatric help. My doctor is quite
competent, and she's pretty and sensitive. I feel better already.
What was I talking about? Oh, yeah, the jacket.
____________________________________________________________________
Boy Mozart boym...@BIX.com no URL, deal with it.
.From: mmy...@mixcom.com (Mark Lippert)
.Subject: Found Art
.Date: Fri Nov 4 19:07:05 1994
I found this little gem in the window of a men's clothing store in downtown
Mwaukee. It had a few suits with hats propped up, so it looked like they
were floating above the suits. A hand lettered sign read:
THE INVINCIBLE MAN SHOPS HERE
Yes, the above IS spelled correctly.
Mark "Lon Chaney, Jr.?" Lippert
.From: al...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Dave Polewka)
.Subject: Re: non-bizarre question, was Re: Office Automaton
.Date: Fri Nov 4 20:02:20 1994
>Asks m:
>>>i mean, what are the men doing to work their ways
>>>through school?
1970
... Beer Taster -- Narragansett Brewery
... Typed school papers for frat brothers.
1971
... Dismantled small buildings in the alleyways of Boston
with frat brothers (JDS Destruction Co.)
1972
... Bouncer at the Naked "I" (college girls on stage nightly)
... Bettor -- Suffolk Downs Race Track
1973
... Member of Navy Seals Special Team -- 3rd Attempt to Find
the Bottom of the Charles River (unsuccessful)
1974
... Member of M.I.T. Research Team, ALICE Project
(Adiabatic Low-Intensity Capture Experiment)
--
=======================
"Endeavor to persevere"
=======================
.From: an...@camelot.canetoad.UUCP (Annie)
.Subject: Just thought you should know
.Date: Fri Nov 4 20:43:37 1994
Oh, I saw someone today with your face. With the hard lines and
the bitter sweep of hair. I saw the same soft turn of the head,
and I thought, this is your soulmate. I saw your soulmate today
on the train.
She's nothing like you, not the skin, not the religion, not what
she keeps in her top dresser drawer. But I saw her and she's you,
only miles and miles apart.
So I jumped up on a seat, grabbed a pole and swayed her way. Swung
right down next to that book she was reading, laid my palm on her
ear. I said, "I know what you *believe* in. I know what you need."
And I leaned right down by her ear, so like yours. And I whispered,
whispered, sang. And she nodded and she smiled, and the smile was
the same age as yours.
Yes, I saw your soulmate on the train today. I don't know where she
got off, and I know you'll never meet her, but I just thought you
should know.
Annie
.From: pa...@clydesdale.cs.odu.edu (d.)
.Subject: Last Affections
.Date: Fri Nov 4 22:25:16 1994
The final hug was central to the whole issue. Jack closed his eyes
and leaned far into it, holding her to him as tight as he could. He
sighed and breathed heavily against her neck before resting his head
on her shoulder, content to stay there until forced to part.
Ellen held him lightly, her hands barely touching his sides. Eyes
open, she considered the door for some time.
That wasn't the end of it, of course. Would've been much simpler if
that was all there was to it. The next day Ellen went through the
door and came back with her tool kit. Later she would say that no
tears were spilt at Jack's dismantling, but her rubber gloves had to
protect her from his sizzling circuits the entire time.
Jack eventually ended up on the floor of a closet up on the second
floor, in a room that sadness kept her out of.
d.
--
Truth, tears and tirades. pa...@cs.odu.edu
.From: tris...@pacifier.com (G.M. Deal)
.Subject: my trip to the dentist
.Date: Fri Nov 4 22:36:21 1994
i visited my dentist today!! i was very excited since i hadn't
seen him for 3 years. boy was i glad to finally come back! :)
the very first thing they did was bombard me with electromagnetic
radiation...5 times! then a nice lady stuck sharp objects in my mouth,
she said she was scraping the calculus off my teeth -- WOW neat!
sometimes she would spray cold liquid in my mouth and then suck it
out! she also used a whirring thing on me and stuck string between
my teeth.
when she was done another lady came in and showed me some wierd
pictures of my teeth. i only have two wisdom teeth! she said it is
very rare. i asked if i was a mutant but she i probably wasn't. oh
well, it's pretty neat anyway :). they want to pull my wisdom teeth out
so they can have them (i'll bet they're real valuable), but i won't let
them cause i'm a endangered species!
but it got even better later. dr. eric (he's my dentist :) came
and tried to find holes in my teeth. he didn't find any though --
the sneaky little buggerrers :). he took a picture of my teeth to
help him find the holes, but that didn't work either! the picture did
show a mysterious ring in my mouth though -- it was very baffling. i
said maybe i was abducted by extra-terrestrials but dr. eric didn't
think so. to bad, that woulda been cool! he asked me if he could
x-ray me some more...for FREE!!! wow! i'd come over everyday if i
got free x-rays! this time the ring wasn't there -- it had
DISAPPEARED! wierd, maybe dr. eric was wrong about the aliens.
after that i had to leave since there lots more people waiting to
see my dentist, the lucky stiffs!:)!! i gave the pretty lady at the
desk a whole bunch of $20's in exchange for a toothbrush and some rad
!CINNAMON! flavored floss. she told me i don't need to come back for
at least a year since i had such clean teeth. that made me very sad :(.
i can hardly wait for my next trip to the dentist!!!
gabriel
.From: jvo...@math.rutgers.edu (jeff vogel)
.Subject: Scorched Earth Party Position Paper: Artistic Violence
.Date: Fri Nov 4 23:37:57 1994
Hello, my friends and followers. Today, I am going to speak on
a topic near and dear to many of our hearts - violence in the many media
forms that permeate our lives, much as sticky slime pervades a slug.
Lately, great, booming cries has arisen in this land of ours for
labels to be placed on tapes, video games, guys in singles bars, etc.
marking them as more violent that the norm. This would be a very good thing.
Many has been the fruitless hours I have spent in the local Sam Goody trying
to find some nice tapes with songs about disembowlment of police officers
and women with self-esteems, by guys with names like Ice Dog and Hammer
Killer, only to end up with something not at all violent by someone with
a promising name like Yo-Yo Ma. And many has been the quarter I have wasted
on games where the enemies disappeared in modest puffs of flame, instead
of falling gently backwards, as their heart pulses in my hand.
My friends, this has to stop. Violence labels must be put onto
products as soon as possible. Otherwise, how will we know what to shop for?
Before a stimulating and enthralling TV show, there should be a
BIG, BOOMING voice, saying "The program you are about to watch has really
KICK ASS scenes of VISCERAL VIOLENCE, including this bit where a guy gets
HIS ASS RIPPED OFF!" In tape stores, there will be VILENCE (misspelling
intentional) sections, with a wide variety of mindless, jarring, unmelodic
musical entertainments. And occasionally, when you walk down the street,
someone will KICK THE CRAP OUT OF YOU FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER!
And anyone coming up with this namby-pamby Barney, Mr. Rogers,
My So-Called Life, Donahue shit with lots of love and peace and mutual
understanding of fellow human beings tripe will be beaten to death with
a lead pipe.
Scorched Earth Party -
"Beavis and Butthead are all around us. You look down on them.
But when they kick down your door bearing lead pipes and Scorched
Earth Party badges, you won't be laughing then, will you, smart
guy?"
- Jeff Vogel
Scorched Earth Party
(Support alt.politics.scorched-earth!)
.From: jvo...@math.rutgers.edu (jeff vogel)
.Subject: Re: E-mail oversea
.Date: Fri Nov 4 23:39:33 1994
Bobby_...@galaxy.com (Bobby Wilson) writes:
>How do I send a e-mail to France!!
Now go die, you wart.
- Jeff Vogel
Rutgers math
.From: clif...@netcom.com (Pope Clifton)
.Subject: How not to end a letter of commendation
.Date: Sat Nov 5 00:36:47 1994
...
First and foremost, I was especially grateful for the help of Xxxxxxx
Xxxxx. Xxxxxxx was consistently helpful and responsive to our questions,
from beginning to end. ...
... Xxxxxxx is a great asset
to your company, and I hope she is properly appreciated by others at XYZCo.
(Perhaps you could add this note to her file, to be sure it is remembered at
her next review.)
Www Wwwwwww and Yyyyyy Yyyyyyyyy were also both extremely helpful in our
initial contacts with XYZCo. Although I had few actual contacts with Zzzz
Zzzzzzz, it was clear that he too was trying his best to understand and
explain XYZCo policy to us.
Finally, as I have observed before, the technical staff at XYZCo have been
entirely professional. Rrrrrrrr Rrrrrrrr, Sssssss Sssssss, and Uuuuuu Uuuuuu
have all done excellent work at [woxing] up our [flurgle], and Vvvvvvv
Vvvvvvvvvvv has made a number of helpful technical contibutions to the
Iiiiiiii-iiiii mailing list. I am grateful to them all.
You and Qqqqqq, on the other hand, can just blow me.
Yours most sincerely,
-- Clifton
--
clif...@netcom.com Clifton Royston, Pope of the CotSG in Paradise
The Church of the SubGenius in Paradise is
the Sinn Fein of the Scorched Earth Party. -- Tom Fawcett
.From: Rich....@907.sunshine.com (Rich Veraa)
.Subject: Fafner
.Date: Thu Nov 3 11:35:38 1994
"The envelope, please."
Hrothgar's Lanes and Mead Hall had never been so quiet. The
bowlers had halted their games for the presentation and were so
still that all could hear the tearing paper as Hrothgar unveiled
the name of the Bowl Belle.
Fafner, dour and dreadful, watched the stage, unzipping his
bowling bag quietly and reaching in for his bowling ball. A fell
and awful odor teased his nose for a moment before he recognized
it -- the precise moment his hand dipped into a repulsive slimy
mess.
Hrothgar was saying, "The winner is..." but he was cut off by
Fafner's agonized roar.
"Hornstrumpot!" The deep bass rumble echoed in the
building, shaking pins and rattling pencils on the scoring desks.
"Who in fluting Farquard puked in my bowling bag?" He held his
hand aloft, showing the stinking mess to all who were intrepid
enough to look, but not many in that hall dared raise their eyes to
Fafner in his rage. His hair and beard were black and wild and
blue veins erupted like mountain ridges on his neck and temples.
His blood-red bowling shirt was marked with golden runes, and
thick ropes of hair stood stiff in his enraged flaring nostrils.
In dreadful ire, he strode to the stage still extending his
hand, gooey with congealed vomit, the bowling bag swinging from
his other hand, its gaping maw slimed with former food.
"Hornstrumpot!" he bellowed once more, seizing one of the
finalists by the decolletage and hauling her toward him with a
shriek of rending cloth. "I left it in your charge, wench."
Trembling and quailing, great round breasts overflowing the
torn bodice of her gown, Griselda wept and knelt to clutch his knees. "I'm
sorry, Fafner, sweetie. I was so nervous. I never been in
no beauty contest before."
Fafner pulled her to her feet. "You knocked up?"
"No, Fafner. I swear I ain't."
"You better not be." Fafner rubbed his hand on her torn
bodice, smearing the silk with green ex-broccoli. Then he
polished the bowling ball in her skirt, and finally he inverted
the bowling bag and pulled it over her head, rotating and
cleaning it with her hair as though she were a bottle brush.
"Are you quite through?" said Hrothgar, still clutching the
envelope.
"Oh, yeah. Sure," said Fafner.
Cheers,
Rich
.From: r...@asuvax.eas.asu.edu (Starcap'n Ra)
.Subject: Re: Why I despise my cow-orkers
.Date: Sat Nov 5 14:34:00 1994
grai...@blues.epas.utoronto.ca (Greg Grainger) writes:
> The joke du jour last week:
That would make it the joke de la
semaine, you fucking cretin.
[ Greg's racist joke deleted ]
> Bastards.
They told it at the watercooler; you
posted it to Usenet for all the world to
see. That either makes you very, very
stupid, or more likely, makes you very,
very much an asshole laboring under the
mistaken delusion that he is clever.
Stupid or asshole, either way, you
clearly don't belong here.
Get the FUCK out of talk.bizarre.
--Starcap'n Ra {ames,gatech,husc6,rutgers}!ncar!noao!asuvax!kennedy
.From: 96ba...@cua.edu
.Subject: ever have a bad day?
.Date: Sat Nov 5 18:57:22 1994
I had a _really_ bad day once. It started out ok, I guess. My living
space had been notcably shrinking on me for the past few months, but I was
warm, full, and happy (I was still sucking my thumb at the time). Then my
whole world was in an earthquake. Suddenly I started getting pushed out a door
to my little home that I hadn't even noticed was there. It seemed WAY too
small for me, but my head kind of collaped so I could fit through. That really
started to upset me. before i knew it, the top of my head was cold. Someone
really big grabbed the top of my head then, and started pulling me out into a
cold world that didn't hold me at all. My day was on a downward slide, and
ther was no sign of it getting better any time soon. Before I knew it, I was
being held upside-down by my ankle and someone smacked my ass. That not only
pissed me off, but it knocked all the warm liquid out of my lungs, letting them
fill with a lot of cold air. I couldn't handle it anymore, I started to cry.
Then, as if the world was happy at my pain, I hear all these cheers around me.
They seemed _so_ glad to hear me crying. That really hurt my feelings, So I
started to cry louder. I think thy got the idea, and they put me in someone's
arms. It wasn't quite like where I was, but it was the best thing since then,
so I stopped crying and took a nap.
Then, to top the day off, when I woke up, not only was I _not_ being
held anymore, but some guy was taking a knife to my dick. I wailed and cried,
but nobody seemed to care that this maniac was attacking my manhood. Talk
about your psychological scars. I haven't been the same since.
.From: wai...@freeport.uwasa.fi (Ronan Waide)
.Subject: Shopping expedition
.Date: Sun Nov 6 09:33:16 1994
I go inside and ask the guy behind the counter if he has any. He looks
around nervously.
``We don't sell that kind of stuff here, mister.''
I give him a glimpse of the money in my wallet. He licks his lips
nervously and reaches under the counter for a locked box, which he opens.
``What'll it be, litre? Half-litre?''
``Pint.'', I say, spitting out the word with a venom for all things metric.
I pay him, slip the carton into my jacket and leave the shop.
-*-
Two alleyways from home and this guy is suddenly in front of me, eyes
gleaming with talc, face drawn with desire for more, hand clutching a
plastic pint bottle that looks half-used already.
``Take out that milk real slow, mister... that's right, put it on the
pavement where I can see it.''
It begins to rain.
``Alright, now your wallet.''
I reach into my pocket for the wallet and pull it out.
``Open it.''
The snap fastener clicks as I flip off the leather strap that holds the
wallet closed. I slip my hand into the cash compartment, tearing a strip
off the sachet as I do so. The junkie doesn't notice. I glance upward
into the rain. It will have to do.
Quickly I whip out the sachet and shake it in his direction. As I had
hoped, the rain mingles with it as it hits him and it rehydrates. The
junkie drops to his knees screaming, then falls over on his face and
becomes silent.
Powdered milk. These guys never learn. I drop the sachet on his prone
body, reclaim my carton and walk the rest of the way home without incident.
Waider. With apologies to RICHH for the talc reference.
--
Ronan Waide, Motorola Ireland Ltd. Motorola doesn't know what I think.
Just another DSP... Flaky web access: http://mathds1.ul.ie:8000/index.html
.From: al...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Dave Polewka)
.Subject: Re: Precision at the gas station
.Date: Sun Nov 6 10:01:21 1994
klu...@netcom.com (Scott Dorsey) says:
>>The local squishy-mart/gas station has pumps
>>that display how much gas the lucky patron is
>>getting for his/her money down to the thousandth
>>of a gallon.
>
>They do this to give you a false sense of accuracy, so that you don't
>notice that you are being billed for 1.2 times as much gasoline as you
>actually got.
How much of your Soc. Sec. taxes are you going to actually
get back? How much of the money redistributed from your
pocket to someone elses is for a worthy cause and how much
is wasted? A fish rots from the head down.
--
=======================
"Endeavor to persevere"
=======================
.From: al...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Dave Polewka)
.Subject: Re: Squirrels...are EVIL.
.Date: Sun Nov 6 10:06:38 1994
cp...@kimbark.uchicago.edu (M. d'Nereverri) says:
>.....you'd be surprised how much loose change
>gets dropped in the Chicago area.
Yes, but how much was dropped 50, 100, 150, 200 years ago?
And where is it? I've got my detector and my pinpointer
and I'm rarin' to go. And don't say it's under tons of
concrete. I'm looking for the EXPOSED areas.
--
=======================
"Endeavor to persevere"
=======================
.From: al...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Dave Polewka)
.Subject: Re: Windows logo is 666's image of the beast
.Date: Sun Nov 6 10:14:15 1994
>>> ......-----
>>> ......|_|_| 3 rows of six black dots= 666 connected
>>> ......|_|_| to an image of a window.
>>>
> ..................-----
> ..................|_|_| 3 rows of six black dots= 666 co
> ..................|_|_| to an image of a window.
......................................-----
......................................|_|_| 3 rows of si
......................................|_|_| to an image
.From: m...@netcom.com (hidden variable)
.Subject: Re: non-bizarre question, was Re: Office Automaton
.Date: Sun Nov 6 16:32:38 1994
> mo...@elvis.vnet.net (not a cat) writes:
> i mean, what are the men doing to work their ways
> through school?
i worked in an animal laboratory
for a major pharmaceutical company
in bloomfield, new jersey for several
summers.
i'm sure this comes as a big surprise
to all of you.
mr x
experience to last a lifetime
.From: adw...@ultb.isc.rit.edu (A.D. Williams)
.Subject: ENGINEER 2000
.Date: Sat Nov 5 21:09:06 1994
Why I will never become an engineer:
I decided I wanted bookshelves. A structure to put books on, so people
who visit my house will peruse my collection of The Hardy Boys books.
This was the mother of all bookshelves. It was going to be made out of
maple. This wasn't going to be any prefab particle board crap. Oh no.
So I got my engineering pad from the days before I defected to computer
science. I sketched the bookshelf. I made very clever designs to solve
particular problems. I made big shelves for my high school yearbooks,
smaller spaced shelves for my paperbacks. There's even a circular
corner piece for star trek memorabilia. Heck, I've got a slide out
drawer so if I get one of those big dictionaries and I see a big word
I don't know in alt.stupid, I can amble down to it and look it up.
I felt empowered when I went to Builder's Square. I examined routers,
power saws, tape measures, and other penis extensions. I tried on tool
belts. I was a stud, a Real Man.
A sales associate asked me if I needed any help. Oh no, I don't need
any help. I knew what I was doing. Nevertheless, I showed the clerk my
Master Plan.
"Yeah, it's ok," said the clerk, "but how thick do you want the
shelves?"
I blinked and examined the drawing. I had specified length, but
neglected thickness. I had drawn a line representing each shelf,
but neglected to take to account the thickness of the shelf.
Each shelf had a thickness of one molecule.
Sobbing, I ran away, throwing my pathetic plans on the floor for
people to step on, and ran outside to the rain. I threw myself into
the dumpster and cried myself to sleep. I was sure the clerk told
all his clerk friends and they were all laughing at me.
But mabye they did have some Sinclair molecule chain, but I forgot
to ask.
Derrick
home disprovement
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Derrick Williams Rochester Institute of Technology | Insert snappy -
- adw...@ultb.isc.rit.edu Computer Science | quotation here -
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
.From: m...@tivoli.com (Mike McNally)
.Subject: Lunchtime
.Date: Mon Nov 7 11:36:30 1994
The waitress and I had a real good rapport; I could tell. When I'd
walked in and sat down, I'd looked at her in a way that said, "take
your time. I know you're busy. But when you get here with my menu and
hear my witty chit-chat you'll know it was worth it." She'd glanced
back and smiled in a way that said, "tip me."
I looked over the menu. Ideas, mostly; a few general questions and a
small set of axioms laid out as "house specials". Nothing too spicy.
I made a selection (don't remember what) and dropped my card in the
slot.
A man across the way was also alone. He was reading over some papers
and keying in some figures on a little black PDA. He'd stacked his
plates up in the corner of the table and thrown his napkin on top. He
wore a hat.
I gestured to my waitress and she hurried right over. She liked me. I
motioned for her to come closer, and she leaned down as I whispered,
"bring me that guy's head. I want to look at it up close." She winked
and giggled.
She swung the axe too easy the fist time, and it didn't come all the
way off. She giggled again. The plates fell on the floor as the guy
kicked at the table from underneath. His hat came off, and so did one
of his shoes. She gave it another whack and caught the head in her
free hand. Her arm was strong from carrying trays; the head was no
problem. She brought it over to me and then went back for the hat.
I couldn't tell what he was like. He had clear blue eyes and short
blond eyebrows. I couldn't tell what he was thinking; not much,
probably. I wonder whether I'd like my lunch as much as he'd liked
his.
My waitress came back with my lunch. "Can I take this?" she said,
pointing at the head. Or maybe she just meant the hat. "Sure, I was
just curious." She scooped it up, with the hat, and put down my lunch.
"Pay at the counter." I knew what she meant, and I winked.
.From: merde@
.Subject: Re: Retraction
.Date: Mon Nov 7 15:37:48 1994
In article <39gvun$j...@nic.scruz.net>,
Crisper Than Thou <cri...@armory.com> wrote:
>
>do a little less chemical indulging and pay more attention to things like the
>election coming up. And stop fooling around with silly nonsense. Let's all
>relinquish this idiocy and get back to maintaining the status quo, yes sir!
speaking of the election coming up, you know, i just
thought this would be a really great time for me to
complain about the newspaper strike.
see, there's an election tomorrow, in case it had escaped
anyone's notice, and the san francisco papers are on strike.
why have they chosen to go on strike during an election week,
you might ask? and you would be right to ask, because it's
a goddamn stupid thing to do. i'll tell you why, in case
you haven't heard.
the union is upset because the chronicle wants to streamline
its distribution by eliminating some youth routes and truck
drivers.
this, clearly, is FAR more important than any silly old
election. oh, yes. far more important than who becomes
governor of california. yes, yes, yes. and after all,
if the paper delivery youths and the truck drivers might
get laid off, why the fuck should anybody else in the entire
fucking metropolitan area be able to read the classifieds
and find a job? we ought to show our solidarity by
remaining unemployed. oh yes. you bet. actually.
but i'd like you all to know that the members of the
san francisco newspaper workers union have not left us
in the dark. oh, no. they have -- with, evidently,
their own money -- put out a free paper. an eight-page
free paper. eight whole pages, and in these pages, they
have imparted to us the really VITAL information, the
things we can't live without. such as, for instance,
a review of the new frankenstein movie. a couple of
opinion columns. and, of course, the rest of the paper
has been given over to articles and half-page ads in
which they blatantly endorse a straight democratic
ticket in the election. perhaps blatantly isn't the
right word. perhaps it's "egregiously."
(oh yeah, i forgot to mention, you can also get this
fabulous item via WWW or email. the sf newspaper
worker's union has an aol account, you see. all the
better to serve you with, my dear.)
i mean, not that i wasn't planning to vote a straight
democratic ticket anyway. i'm hardly stupid.
but, you know, in light of all this, i have to say that
my sympathy and faith in the integrity and moral strength
of Our Fearless Ps is, well, pretty much nonexistent.
m.
and don't ASK me how i feel about unions, anyway
--
skeleton rattle your mouldy leg
all men s lovers come to this
archy
.From: adw...@ultb.isc.rit.edu (A.D. Williams)
.Subject: HELL 2000
.Date: Mon Nov 7 22:25:11 1994
Stanford M. Pope was not a good man. He was a liar, a cheat, and he
abused his wife for thirty years. He was an alcoholic, and died from
liver failure at the age of 61.
Stanford woke up in a white tiled room. Gone was the hospital room
in which he faded in and out of consciousness. He felt pretty good.
"Damn!", he said, "I'm alive!"
Stanford looked around. He seemed to be in a restroom. After musing
on this for a while, he noticed he had to take a pee. How conveinient.
He got up, anded to pee in the urinal. Immediately, a commotion
burst through the restroom door, and a huge burly man dressed in
western clothing walked up to the neighboring urinal and also began to
whizz.
"Hoo wee, boy!" said the stranger, "Man, hadda go real bad!"
Stanford looked up, and smiled, "Yeah. Me too! Nothin' like a good
piss to relax and stuff!"
"No kidding!" said the man, "Say, how's it going there?"
"Not bad!" said Standford, who began to draw circles and zig zags with
his urine stream.
"Well, pardner, it's good to meetcha!" said the burly guy, who slapped
Stanford on the back, and finished, they both zipped up and washed their
hands.
"Gotta go!" said the man, and walked out the door.
Stanford wondered more about the place he was in. When he walked out
the door, there wasn't anything to see or do. It was just blank. The
restroom was the only place that felt comfortable to him. He never
seemed to get tired, hungry, or thirsty. He found a newspaper behind
the toilet, and always seemed to be fascinated with it. And best of all,
every time he got an urge to pee, he always had a witty and engaging
conversation with a fellow man of the world.
If this was hell, it wasn't a bad place to be.
* * * * * * *
Reggie Washington Jackson was a street thug from the day he was able to
walk. His mother abandoned him when he was three. He never knew who his
father was. He grew up, being passed from relative to relative, from
institution to institution, and finally to juvinile deliquency court.
When Reggie was out on the streets, he was with his gang, pushing dope.
One day, he wandered into a rival gang's territory, was ambushed and
killed.
Reggie Jackson woke up in a small apartment. Struggling out of the bed
he lay upon, he looked disbelieving at his chest. There were no bullet
holes there. He was still wearing his gangsta colors. He looked around
the room. A giant swastika on a flag decorated one side of the room.
Reggie never took a history class, but he knew that it wasn't a dope
symbol. He knew it from the grafitti in his 'hood.
Rising out of the bed, he opened a closet. Inside, he saw several Nazi
uniforms, neatly pressed and hanging. Out in the living room, a
painting of Hitler hung on the wall. The emblem of the eagle was a
common motif around the room.
"Fuck dis shit!" said Reggie, and walked out of the apartment and into
the street.
All around him, he saw his brothers and sisters. He saw blacks,
hispanics, and asians.
"What be down, man?" asked Reggie to a passer by.
"Not much. Wanna cig?"
Reggie took the cigarette and lit up with his new found friend. "Say,"
said Reggie, "I'm new on the block. What de colors around here?"
"Aw man," said the brother, "We don't do that shit around here. See,
we ain't got the Man to put us down. We do what we want, when we want,
no whitey ain't gonna have no say at all."
"You jacking me."
"It true, man. Hey lissen, I got this dope pal friend who owns that
burger joint across the street." he indicated a cafe', "I got some
mighty fine sisters waiting to meet me, and shure enough I told them
I'd bring a few of my friends, know what I mean?"
"Hey man," said Reggie, breaking to a broad grin, "you're on!"
If this was hell, it wasn't a bad place to be.
* * * * * * *
Special Operative Steve Hershey was psychotic. He was a wet boy for
the United States. Even his own commanding officers detested him.
His job was to go to the slimiest places on earth, and more often than
not, kill political enemies of the US government. Hershey took special
pride in his torturing methods, and many people died in his hands.
One day, Hershey stepped on a land mine and was blown to smithereens.
Hershey woke up on gravel. He looked up and saw the monkeybars braced
against the sky. Standing up, he shook off the gravel and found himself
in a playground. Squinting his eyes, he quickly scanned the vantage
point for snipers, purely out of habit. The he noticed the children
clustered around him.
"Awww, didja hurt yourself? Are you gonna cry? You're a crybaby!
Crybaby! Crybaby!" A small girl with missing front teeth and pigtails
taunted him.
"Get lost, jerk stain!" muttered Hershey as he picked up his M-16A
from the ground. He began to recon his surroundings, and get in touch
with HQ.
"Are you going to run home to mommy? Big crybaby's gonna run home to
mommy!" yelled a boy with a yellow shirt, who began to kick gravel on
Hershey's combat boots.
Hershey grimaced and pushed him aside, walking to the black top
basketball court. A group of older children noticed him and began
to amble toward him.
THUD! Hershey felt a fist hit his thigh. He looked down and saw a
rather largeish boy with the faint beginnings of a mustache stand
in front of him, arms crossed.
"Hey loser!" said the boy, "I told you never to come here ever again!"
Hershey stared at him.
"All right, that does it!" said the boy, and hit Hershey in the groin.
"Ooff!" grimaced Hershey. He straightened up, and the familiar rage
began to build up in him.
"You," said Hershey, "are PISSING ME OFF!"
With a deft flick of his wrist, Hershey pulled out his survival knife
and slit the big boy's throat. The boy fell down, gasping, as blood
splurted everywhere and bubbled as he gurgled.
"Get him!" shouted the other boys, "Let's dunk his head in the
toilet again!"
Hershey planted his size 12 foot against the chest of a waist high boy
and slammed him to the ground. He brought his rifle into bearing and
squeezed off a few rounds. The boy's head blew up like a bloody pumpkin.
"And that goes for all of you, too, you little shits!" snarled Hershey.
BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA
Bloody blossoms of death srouted on the bodies of all the children in
the playground. One by one, they fell, helpless against the loud crack
of the assualt rifle. When Hershey calmed down, the playground was
silent, save for the click...click...click... of his finger pressing
upon the trigger, gun chamber empty.
"Young man," said a voice besides him, "did I just see you mowing
down a school yard full of innocent children?"
Hershey jerked to attention. Before him was a short old woman, her hair
grey and silver. Her reading spectacles hung on a chain around her neck.
"Uh, yeah." said Hershey.
"Yes, what?" snapped the woman.
"YES, SIR!" snapped Hershey, a bit of spittle flying s lips.
"Well, young man, unless you want a cloud of flies, you'd better burn
the bodies and dispose of the remains!"
"SIR!" Shouted Hershey, "YES, SIR!"
"Well, don't stand there!" said the woman, "March!"
Hershey collected all the bodies, double time, and piled them in the
basketball court.
"And when you're done," said the grim old lady, "You're assigned to
hall monitor duty!"
Hershey had never been so happy.
If this was hell, it wasn't a bad place to be.
* * * * * * *
"WHO THE GODDAMN FUCK GOT THE GODDAMN FILE FOLDERS IN THE WRONG ORDER?"
screamed Satan to his minions. The scent of brimstone flamed from his
firey breath.
Everyone in the office scattered in the wake of his wrath. He glared
at his doleful workers, bended over their adding machines and manual
typewriters. Filing cabinets with the records of the damned streched
out to the horizon.
"WELL?" roared the Prince of Lies.
A small imp dropped a wad of carbon paper and squeaked, "I'm sorry,
Mr. Satan sir, I misplaced one of the folders and everything got in
the wrong order! Sorry!"
"WELL, SORRY THIS!" screamed Satan, who caused the imp to dissapear
in a cloud of flame. Under his glaring eye, everyone in the office
quickened their pace and bustled about their business.
Satan slammed the door to his office shut. Chuckling, he put his feet
up on his desk and lit a cigar with his fingertips.
If this was hell, it wasn't a bad place to be.
Derrick
wait until they install their first lan
.From: j...@wetware.com (james woodyatt)
.Subject: Political Analysis, by Dr. Strychnine
.Date: Tue Nov 8 00:34:10 1994
It's that time in the election cycle again-- and you know what that
means. The United States of America is about to embark on yet another
journey to the depths of human stupidity just as soon as the off-year
elections are history.
When the counting is d it's finally settled whether the
Republicans have successfully capitalized on widespread anger or the
Democrats have successfully induced enough fear, when we all know
who's going to be the next Speaker and who's going to be the next
Majority Leader-- *that* my friends is when the fun begins.
It's true. For the next two years, we can expect to witness the most
ineffectual bunch of good-for-nothing pinheads ever elected to serve
in the U.S. Congress dicking around mindlessly without a fucking clue
what to do. Against this background, the Presidential Election Season
will begin. And what should we expect? What good can possibly come
of such a twisted menagerie of monsters, madmen and mental midgets, I
ask -- what cause can there possibly be for optimism?
First, imagine if you will an alternate Universe wherein the
Republicans had even a single firing neuron between them all. Utterly
boggled aren't you? It's as unthinkable as an Islamic Revolution in
the Deep South under a revived Confederacy. What can we expect from
the Republicans? Newt Gingrich? The man is a pit bull. His jaws
have to completely close before they can open again. Bob Dole? He's
a fucking vampire. You can't elect a vampire as President -- it's in
the Constitution. No vampires. Look it up. Jack Kemp? He'll be
eaten alive by his own supporters in a blood-frenzy the moment he
fucks up and thinks for himself again. I'm pulling for a dark horse:
Ronald Reagan. Sure, he's got Alzheimers-- but the gipper is
well-loved. He could easily win and win big. Probably run Jimmy
Carter as his vice president, and he'd sweep all fifty. The Repubs
would never do the smart thing, though, so I'm getting ready for
massive disappointment.
Then there's the Democrats. My god. What a wretched lot of
blathering idiots and effete intellectual bulletheads. There isn't a
single one of them that could get elected to take out the trash. The
President has so far been best remembered for his performance on MTV,
the White House Staff is a crazed lot of toad-licking freaks whose
suits don't fit and couldn't run a campaign to save their lives. The
entire Congress, most of the Executive branch and a majority of
federal judges think he'd be much better off hawking convection ovens
on late night TV. The Democrats shouldn't even bother coming to the
'96 election. Cancel the goddamn convention. Just stay home and fuck
the mistress -- it'll all work out in the end.
Don't even mention the Perot factor to me. Might as well talk to me
about Linda Thompson's armed insurrection. About as likely, and would
do about as much good. Hell, the Ashtar Commaas a better chance
of winning the White House than does Perot.
All in all, there's a weird storm rising. You can smell it, can't
you? There's a twisted, fucked-up odor in the air and it smells like
insanity. The greatest nation on Earth convulsing on the floor like a
psychotic junkie whose just shot himself up with kerosene, we've got a
bloody big knife to our collective gut and we're about to eviscerate
ourselves, not in shame like the honorable Japanese would, but in a
delirious haze brought on by too much red meat, cigars and the Death
of the American Way. We deserve it. Ye gods have mercy on our
pitiful souls. We might need them again someday. Okay, maybe that's
being optimistic.
Save your voting stubs. They may be worth valuable prizes someday.
j h woodyatt j...@wetware.com
...lightly spiced with uranium hexafluoride...
.From: stu...@world.std.com (kevin w mcauley)
.Subject: not important.
.Date: Tue Nov 8 02:01:43 1994
paging dr. moe, dr. larry, dr. gooley.
beelzibub
ps;
i told you it was unimportant.
--
if men bled would tampons be free?
--- steven tyler
.From: stu...@world.std.com (kevin w mcauley)
.Subject: Re: nutshells
.Date: Tue Nov 8 02:25:19 1994
In article <CywqL...@hub.cs.jmu.edu>,
JOHN G DRUMMOND <STU_JG...@vax1.acs.jmu.edu> wrote:
>Once upon a time, a child was born. He threw up several times while growing
>older and then he died.
clap,clap,clap. encore! encore!
beelzibub iii i laffed, i cried, i shit my pants. two thumbs up your ass.
--
.From: hagg...@io.org (Dan Haggarty)
.Subject: Re: Answering Machine
.Date: Mon Nov 7 19:15:30 1994
In article <1994Nov6.2...@loreli.ftl.fl.us>,
James Evan Jacoby <gal...@loreli.ftl.fl.us> wrote:
>Hi! I'm looking for some good answering machine message ideas. [...]
You dialed the number, of Dan and Christine,
But we ain't here, so ya got the machine.
We could be in the shower, or out at a bar.
There's so many pthere's no tellin' where we are.
So leave us a message, when you hear the tone,
And we'll call ya back, when we get home.
<beep>
Dan, not bad for a white guy
--
Average behaviour produces average results. Nonconformity is thus
necessary (but no sufficient) if you want exceptional results.
.From: mjd...@access1.digex.net (Mike Dolak)
.Subject: Re: Letter to Robert Mehrabian, President of C.M.U., and William Arms, VP computing services
.Date: Tue Nov 8 05:15:08 1994
Andrew W. Beckwith (ab...@andrew.cmu.edu) wrote:
: Again, thank you for reading this. Please do not let the heat of
: emotions bulldoze you into knee jerk reactions!
: Andrew Beckwith
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sublime. Timeless. Profound.
/MJD
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike*Let em' eat broadband ISDN*Dolak ------------------ mjd...@digex.net
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
.From: gn...@kauri.vuw.ac.nz (Nathan Torkington)
.Subject: hmph
.Date: Tue Nov 8 05:52:26 1994
Tired, cross, seven minutes to midnight on the day before an early
meeting, reading the posts in talk.bizarre that my news program had
killed. The tongue of Usenet is firmly up my ass, while my balls lay
in its mouth.
Nat
.From: stu...@world.std.com (kevin w mcauley)
.Subject: Re: Some of you guys are good!
.Date: Wed Nov 9 02:40:54 1994
In article <39pag0$8...@ink3.ink.org>,
Chanute Public Library <chan...@ink.org> wrote:
>The witticism, the poetry, the deep thoughts.
>
>I truly am throughly impressed.
>
>The replies, the put downs, the dogging that goes on.
>
>Wonderful!
>
you slack-jawed, limp-wristed, earing wearing, nipple
piercing, non-rewinding-x-rated video watching, burger
flipping, AM-radio-listening,Zima shunning,jock-strap
wearing, church-going aetheist, of a gong show reject.
FUCK OFF!!!
beelzibub
ps;
but remember to logoff!
--
but 'rawjah', she wants my soapy, lathery penis.
.From: pl...@uspto.gov (Paul Lord)
.Subject: Re: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! KURT COBAIN IS DEAD!!!@@!
.Date: Thu Nov 10 16:19:40 1994
Gary Heston <ga...@sci34hub.sci.com> mars an otherwise commendable bit of
generational skirmishing with the following commentary:
>Why it is that suicidal idiots go out if their way to make
>messes is beyond me; cyanide is cheap, or chlorine gas can
>be easily generated from materials found in any grocery store.
Gary, Gary, Gary. Reading this, one might be moved to suppose that you've
never actually contemplated suicide, or that you are in some small way
misinformed about the general reasoning process behind the choice of method.
Chlorine inhalation causes the lungs to fill up with blood, drowning the
victim. Drowning is an unpleasant way to die, and takes roughly 10-15
minutes. Given that the chlorine gas will still be eating away at your
inner lung tissues, it would probably seem like much longer. Clearly, this
is a sub-optimal choice.
Cyanide, likewise, causes a period of violent convulsions, not unlike an
epileptic seizure. Also, there is a small but nonzero chance that someone
will discover you and manage to get your stomach pumped before you actually
expire. Let's face facts, the circulatory system is pretty efficient, but
your average suicidee is not going to inject cyanide, he's going to swallow
it. Hell, that leaves perhaps a whole half hour for someone to "rescue"
you. Only whiny, tortured art fags use cyanide, and then only to attract
attention to "their inner pain."
Guns are quick. For all we know, death is instantaneous. Guns are
difficult to foil, as Mr. Dwyer proved in a crowded room. Given that
suicide, with very few exceptions, is an act of weakness, guns will
probably continue to be the implement of choice.
Having said that, I must admit my surprise about something. The efforts of
our fellow t.bers in describing fictional situations where suicide was
involved have uniformly left a corpse, or pieces of one, or some other large
obvious mark. Much more interesting, to me at least, would be the example
of the snark hunter surprised by a boojum.
Which would YOU rather be, red chunky wallpaper or fodder for an upcoming
edition of "Unsolved Mysteries??"
Paul
--
"Is it really true that strychnine typically contains small traces of LSD?
I want to poison somebody but I wouldn't want them to die tripping."
-John C. Baez
.From: ran...@unagi.cis.upenn.edu (Ranjit Bhatnagar)
.Subject: faster!
.Date: Thu Nov 10 16:27:12 1994
I'm impatient. I press the button one hundred twenty
thousand times as the doors creep slowly closed. One
hundred eighty thousand. A Normal man is attempting to
block the doors! His hand, reaching between the doors!
That right hand, reaching between the doors! In less than a
hundredth of a second I move to block the doors! In less
than a thousandth of a second, I leap back between the
doors! In more than an eternity, the doors are closed. And
somehow he is in here with me. I jump! I smile. I press
the button two hundred ten, two hundred twenty thousand
times. As he opens his mouth to speak I pace the floor two
hundred fifty thousand times. Why didn't I recognize him?
The man from the center. As he opens his mouth to speak I
pace the floor three hundred twenty five thousand times. I
must think. He is opening his mouth to speak. I pace, and
I think. I think at a blinding speed, and he is a Normal
man, and as he is opening his mouth to speak I cannot think
of what to do! so I pace the floor one million five hundred
thousand times as he opens his mouth to speak and he says
nice day isn't it. I press the button two million one
hundred twenty five thousand times as he opens his mouth to
speak and he says are you alright. Does he know? I see the
light begin to glow behind the numeral 2 like a sunrise.
Why didn't I take the stairs? A disguise! Yes. In one ten
thousandth of a second I whip off my jeans and t-shirt and
open my bag and put on my business suit and horn-rimmed
glasses and when I drop my glasses I catch them before they
have fallen an inch and he picks them up and hands them to
me and he opens his mouth to speak and he opens his mouth to
speak and he says are you sure you're alright? I must get
out! I see the light begin to dim behind the numeral 2
like a sunset and I know like I know the sunset that I know
I will not reach 5. He opens his mouth to speak and as he opens
his mouth to speak I press EMERGENCY STOP two million four
hundred thousand times and as he opens his mouth to speak I
hear the first chime of the bell like the tolling of the
church bells and I hear the first seventy-eight chimes of the
bell like a church bell before the carriage stops and he is
opening his mouth to speak and he is saying do you need help?
And in the middle of a syllable I am wrenching the doors
open and in the middle of a word I am out the door, down the
stairs, to the street, to my home, to my hearth, and my head
is pounding, and I am lying on the floor, and he is above
me, and she is above me, and he is opening his mouth to
speak, and he is opening his mouth to say to her he banged
his head on the doors and fell down, and in a hundred, in a
thousand years, she is saying take him to the fifth floor,
patient services, room 511.
--
"Trespassers w" ran...@gradient.cis.upenn.edu
The surface of the water where they move swiftly about in curves.
http://oz.sas.upenn.edu/miscellany/lunch.html
.From: nma...@superior.carleton.ca (Nikolaus Maack)
.Subject: Green Demon Asshole
.Date: Thu Nov 10 23:12:59 1994
Her fingers slid into his rectum like they had so many times before.
Eventually, her entire hand was inside, and she was feeling around for
the baggie full of heroin. He grunted.
"Hurry up," he said, "I'm getting a hardon."
"It's stuck!" she said, and pulled on the baggie.
"Careful! You break that baggie, I'm dead!"
"I got it, it's just not coming out."
"Why the hell not?"
"Have you been eating glue or something?"
"Quit joking and yank it out, but slowly."
She twisted her fingers around, and pulled. It felt like something
was pulling it back inside. Eventually, carefully, slowly, she
brought it to the rectum, and was gently pulling it out. Meanwhile,
he'd started to jerk off, getting off on the slow tug of the baggie in
his bowels.
"Do you have to do that?" she muttered.
He only moaned in response.
When she pulled the baggie out, a tiny green figure with tiny green
arms stuck it's head out, snarled, and started pulling the baggie back
in. She screamed, and fell back on the dirty mattress. The creature
hissed, clutched the baggie in tiny claws, and disapeared with the
baggie, back into his bowels.
He came all over the mattress as she screamed again.
"Wh-what?" he half moaned.
"There's a tiny green demon in your asshole!" she yelled.
He turned around and looked at her.
"What the fuck are you talking about? Where's the baggie?"
"A tiny green demon pulled it back into your asshole," she whimpered.
He snorted. "Bullshit. Where's the baggie? Don't pull this crap on
me now, Fay."
Fay shook her head, tears running down her pale face. "I'm telling
you, I don't have the baggie... A tiny green creature... It..."
"Fay, you fucking bitch, you stupid fucking cunt..." He swallowed his
anger. "Ok. What are you on?"
"I'm not on anything!" she yelled. "Jeremy, I swear it, I'm as needy
as you."
"Maybe needier and you've stashed the baggie?" Jeremy said, his eyes
turning to slits.
"I know it's insane," Fay cried. "Ok? I know it! But there was a
green demon in your ass! I saw it! It hissed at me, grabbed the
baggie, and pulled it back in! I saw it, it happened... Or maybe I'm
just fucking losing my mind..."
She started to cry. Jeremy looked at her without sympathy. Fay
always manipulated with tears. He'd gotten used to it.
"Stop fucking crying," he whispered menacingly. "You know I don't
fall for that fucking shit, so shut off the fucking waterworks."
"It was green!" Fay yelled. "It looked like a little gargoyle!"
"So I got a green monster up my ass that wants our heroin?" he said.
He shifted on the bed. His sperm was sticking to his leg. He wiped it
off with disgust and flicked it off his fingers on to the dirty wood
floor.
"Look, I'll get a mirror and show you!" she said. "You hold the
mirror, and I'll try and pull the baggie out, and you'll see I'm not
crazy, or that I am!"
"Yeah," Jeremy snorted. "Right."
"Humour me, OK?" Fay half-screamed in hysteria.
"OK, OK, fuck," Jeremy growled. He got back on all fours.
Fay fumbled through her purse, looking for her make-up mirror. For a
sickening moment, she couldn't find it, but then there it was, way at
the bottom, of course.
"Here," she said, and pushed it into his hand.
Jeremy adjusted it so he could see his own asshole.
"OK," he said. "But don't move around a lot, or I'll miss it."
"OK," Fay whispered. Her hand had gotten dry, so she rubbed more KY
all over it, then slowly stuck her hand back in. Jeremy sighed in
pleasure. He couldn't help it. He loved having his ass fucked.
Fay nervously pushed in. She found the baggie again with her
fingertips. This time, she was sure she felt tiny green claws pulling
back on the baggie as she pulled it towards the opening. Jeremy's
hand shook as he held the mirror with one hand, and balanced his body
with the other.
"Hold the mirror steady," Fay whined.
"OK, OK," Jeremy sighed.
She slowly pulled the baggie out. The green demon poked its head out
and hissed. Fay saw it better this time. Its face was like a bat's,
with a pug nose and red eyes. Jeremy screamed "Holy fuck!" then
dropped the mirror and jumped to his feet. He kicked Fay as he leaped
up, but she managed to see the demon pull the baggie back inside.
"Holy fuck!" Jeremy screamed. He was shaking all over. He looked
about the room. He put his hand on his naked stomach. He looked at
Fay. He went to touch his asshole, then stopped himself.
"There's a..." Jeremy started. His face suddenly filled with rage.
He ran over to a milk crate lying across the room that he and Fay used
as a table.
"Jeremy, don't do anything! We've got to think about this! We have
to..."
"Fuck that!" Jeremy screamed. "I know what to do about this little
fucker!" Jeremy grabbed his handgun off the milk crate, bent over,
and shoved it up his asshole.
"Jeremy! Don't be insane! It will..."
BANG.
Jeremy fell on to the floor, blood spraying out of his asshole,
screaming in agony. There was a secondream coming from
his rectum. Jeremy lay on the floor writhing, trying to get control
of the pain.
"Get the baggie!" Jeremy yelled, grinding his teeth.
Fay stood stock still in shock. The recoil had thrown the gun across
the room. She looked at it lying in the corner, smoke coming from its
barrel.
"Fay!" Jeremy yelled. "FAY! Snap out of it and get the fucking
baggie."
Fay looked at the torn, bleeding asshole and threw up all over the
mattress. She wiped the puke off her face.
"Get the fucking baggie, Fay," Jeremy moaned. His face was all white.
His entire body was shaking.
"You... You don't look so good, Jeremy," Fay whispered.
"Of course I don't.... I..." Jeremy collapsed. His eyes rolled up.
His body shuddered, then was still.
Fay leapt to her feet. "Jeremy?" she squealed. He didn't answer.
She slowly walked towards the body. Was the thing inside him really
dead? She brought a shaking hand to Jeremy's throat. No pulse. She
looked at his bleeding asshole, and felt bile rise. She closed her
eyes, and slowly pushed her hand inside the torn hole. She felt
around with her fingers until somewhere deep inside, somewhere in his
guts, she found the baggie. It felt like it was unbroken. She slowly
drew it out. Something, the demon, was still holding on to it. She
could feel something dragging along. But the demon wasn't moving.
She pulled the baggie out, and the demon came out with it. One of its
tiny arms was gone. It was breathing quickly. It couldn't keep its
grasp on the bag, and it fell to the floor. It hissed once, feebly,
then closed its eyes. It died with a slight spasm.
Fay got out her shooting up equipment out of her purse. She sat
herself on the floor across the room from Jeremy's corpse and the
deead gargoyle thing. She hunted for a vein. She slid the needle in.
"Weird shit," she said as she pushed the plunger home.
Nik
------
"Killin' shrimp with a crowbar in a barbed wire canoe.
Frisky young colt seeks distempered tuna.
I mo go git me some o' your hot horse."
-Scraping Foetus Off The Wheel
.From: boym...@BIX.com (Boy Mozart)
.Subject: Republifunky
.Date: Fri Nov 11 02:09:27 1994
"I'm sorry sir, but there's nothing I can do. Your Anti-Social
quota has been exhausted for the week."
I slammed my hand on the counter and said "Damn!"
"I really wish you'd stop behaving this way, sir. You're going
to go into debt."
"Look, how can I have a quota on anger? How can I be
restricted to how apathetic I am to the human race? I have rights,
damn it!"
A large person wearing a brown uniform walked up behind me.
"Let's have none of that, sir," he said calmly, laying a hand on my
shoulder. "You're really not authorized for this type of behavior.
Come on, let me buy you a drink...."
I swung around and hit him as hard as I could. My hand
connected with cold hard syntheflesh, and he grinned. Stupid
cyborg.
His hand gripped me by the shoulder, the pressure increasing.
I thought he was going to rip my arm out. In a flash of insight, I
collapsed to the floor.
I heard a gasp from the counter clerk, and a cry from the dumb
security dude. "My goodness, sir, I certainly hope you're not
injured!" he said, trying to fill his Public Servant quota, I
figured. I made it harder by tripping him. His face slammed into
the counter, and his head drove straight through, sinking halfway
into the floor. While he was busy pulling it out, I ran out of the
building.
I raced across the street, making cars screech to a halt.
People leaned out of their cars, yelling "I certainly hope you are
not injured, sir!" Pathetic wimps, holding out on their Rage quotas
like they'd have something to be mad at this weekend. No one ever
seems to remember that the quotas aren't cumulative--every week you
start out with new emotions.
A Seeker Globe started following me, the siren wailing and a
computer's voice crying "Warning! You are in direct violation of
Section 10458 of the Sensitivity Statute! You are ordered to cease
and desist from any negative emotion immediately!"
"Fuck you, you worthless piece of scrap!" I yelled over my
shoulder.
"Violation of Paragraph Two, Line Seven, of Section 4324, use
of non-politically correct language towards a member of the
cybernetic community," said the Seeker Globe. "You will address me
as a mechanically-active sentient community guardian...."
I ducked around a corner into an alley. The mechanically-active
whatchamacallit flew straight into the nearest streetlight pole,
slicing through it and knocking it into the street. Two cars
collided with each other trying to avoid it. A woman got out of one
car and started bellowing at the other guy. I grinned. It felt so
good to hear some one bitch at another human being for no reason
whatsoever. I would have kissed her, but the Seeker Globe was
coming back.
I found an open door and went inside the building. Boxes were
stacked around the walls, forming hallways through which I sneaked,
trying to avoid the Globe. It had found the doorway and had
wandered inside, insisting that I come out and explore my feelings.
A particularly tall stack leaned precariously over me. I went
behind it and called out to the Globe. "I'm sorry," I said. "I've
been truly closed-minded about your caring attitude. Please come
over here, so that I can open up to you. I really desire to share
my space with you!"
The hum of the Seeker Globe's antigravs came closer, down the
very box hallway I had been walking down. When I figured it was
close enough, I shoved hard against the tower before me. It leaned,
it swayed, it fell down on the Seeker Globe.
"This is not conducive to a productive rela...beep...reset...
I see you are very active and expressive, and I hear what you're
trying to say...say...ay...."
"You suck," I told it, when I found its broken shell underneath
the box rubble. "You're worthless. You make me want to puke. I
think all the psychobabble you pour out is nothing more than a sick
attempt to compensate for your impotent actions!"
"You know," the Seeker Globe said, "you're a real asshole. God
it felt good to say that!"
It exploded. I was knocked across the length of the room, and
I guess I hit those boxes hard. I was unconcious for a while, and
the first thing I remember was the Turing Police digging through the
rubble.
"I have a power-challenged mechanically-active sentient
community guardian over here!" called one of them. The others
rushed to his side.
"I am really proud of how well you are handling this situation,
Charlie," said one of them. "I think you express yourself very well
in a delicate service-related activity such as this, and you are a
positive influence to our attitudes." The others nodded in
agreement. Charlie smiled and hugged the guy who complimented him.
"I'm sorry I violated your space," he told him, "this is an entirely
spontaneous reaction, and I felt I had to express how I felt about
your kind soliloquy."
You get the idea. While they were mentally butt-fucking each
other, I left.
I brushed ages of dust off my jacket as I trudged through the
streets, ignoring the smiles, the spontaneous displays of positive
reinforcement, the school children running around doing their self-
esteem homework. I was bitter, I was angry, and I really hated the
way everybody respected my space and said "I love you" all the time.
When I got to my apartment, I saw lots of police hanging around
smoking dope and explaining the really good TM session they had the
other night. One guy was explaining how his wife had been real
happy about the space he gave her, and how he was really sensitive
to her need to have four men come in every night and whip her until
she orgasmed.
"She even has sex with each of them," he announced proudly.
"Wow," said his friend. "Like, you are REALLY together!"
Most of them aren't like this. The cops, the businessmen--er,
people--the entire world population is generally mild and submissive
to the new order without being extreme. But there are some radicals
out there who feel treating other people with compassion and caring
isn't enough.
Murderers are placed in "Sensitivity Education Centers" and
told it's OK, their genetic makeup was skewed, take these drugs and
you'll be all right. People don't get married anymore; they all
agree to "share space" and do what feels right. Men no longer wear
condoms, since it was found to be discriminatory to force only one
sex to practice birth control; now everybody wears the full body
"Sens-O-Skin" virtual sex machines--and in some cases, practice safe
sex with a partner miles away.
The language has changed, too. There are a lot more adjectives
floating around. For some reason, there's less nouns and more
verbs. People used to eat, then they would dine, then they would
"meal". Now they "sustain". I don't get it.
That night I was stumbling around Colfax. I hadn't sustained
for hours, and I was feeling dizzy. There was a Vegan deli on a
corner, one that I hadn't seen before. They're all over now,
serving the best in non-lacto-ovoid-kosher. I had no where else to
go and precious little cash, so I went in.
A large group of women and men sat in a corner, whispering. I
barely noticed them as I sat down at the counter, but later I
discovered that they had stopped talking when I entered and were
watching me cautiously.
The deli dude, a young guy who obviously spent most of his
spare time at the gym--no TV allowance--walked behind the counter.
He took out a clean glass and filled it with water, placing it and
a napkin-rolled cutlery set down in front of me. Light glinted off
the nice clean metal, and he said, "What'll it be, pal?"
I don't know how I missed it. No one is called "pal" anymore,
it's male-dominative. Maybe my subconcious picked up on it, because
I made a big mistake.
"Corned beef on rye, extra mustard," I blurted, without
thinking. "Long pickle, and a Coke."
Coca-Cola stopped making regular Coke years ago--too much sugar
and caffeine. Everything else was cancer-causing.
The silence of the room finally broke through my thoughts. I
looked up, realizing what I had said, and looked around. Everyone
was smiling at me.
The counter guy brought out a 16-ounce bottle of Coke from who-
knows-where, and plunked it down in front of me. My eye
instinctively dropped down to where the recycle-symbol should have
been,I was shocked to find there wasn't any! There wasn't even
a "No Deposit, No Return" warning!
"Time to stop being correct," said Deli Man. "Time to make
mistakes. Time to blurt out something stupid. Time to be human."
That's when the Turing Police set off the tear gas and leveled
the building with Screamers, shredding the place and turning
everyone except me into piles of meatloaf. I was still wearing the
jacket, so I was protected.
They let me keep it. Personal items can bring positive
reinforcement in Debtor's Prison. Don't worry, I'll be out in a few
months, soon as I've finished readjusting to the current
environment. By the way, they're sending me to Brazil to work on
the new Rainforest Restoration Project.
Got any fucking matches, man?
____________________________________________________________________
Boy Mozart boym...@BIX.com no URL, deal with it.
.From: boym...@BIX.com (Boy Mozart)
.Subject: Lepiota Love
.Date: Sat Nov 12 02:35:24 1994
"I just don't want you to think I'm putting you off," she said.
If I put my hand on the CPU, I could feel it resonate from her voice
as she spoke. It sent a tiny thrill up my arm.
"That's OK," I said reassuringly. "I understand you're busy,
what with the biosphere you're working on, and the teaching, and
everything."
"Yeah, but can you wait?" I imagined her smiling as she said
this, even though I'd never seen her face. "Can you be patient?"
I looked at the screen, trying to look charming and glib for
her benefit--she wouldn't transmit a visual, but I did. "I can be
patient," I said.
There was a pause. I imagined more smiling, maybe a chill
going down HER spine, or a warm feeling in her chest. I wondered if
she might even look away from her screen, in a fit of shyness. I
could barely stand myself; I was aching.
"Call me tomorrow," she said.
I sat there for several minutes after we broke, longing for a
woman I'd never seen, whom I talked to for maybe five or ten minutes
a day, if at all. She was a cosmobiologist on one of the Reality
Satellites, building on the concept of independant agricultural
facilities so they wouldn't have to import all their food. It's a
difficult concept to develop--space farming? The scope of the
project was enormous: importing manufactured top soil from the
Asteroid mines; choosing seeds; trying to produce just the right
amount of artificial sunlight so the plants would photosynthesize.
And worse of all, trying to find the virtucreds to fund this
ridiculous undertaking--the Bank of Reality's terms, not mine.
I realized I'd gone off on a tangent from the important topic--
the Invisible Girlfriend. I smiled--yeah, I'll be patient. Long as
I _knew_ there was some kind of interest, I'd allow myself to be led
along. There might be others more readily available, but they were
all virtual constructs--beautiful, well-endowed, intelligence
enhanced. But not REAL. Not like her. I didn't even care what she
looked like anymore. If I still had these feelings even after she
finally revealed herself....
I jacked off (great pun!) and took out the interface plug,
dropping it onto the table. I grabbed my jacket and went outside.
We'd gotten a tip on an illegal mushroom farm 35 kilometers
south of the city. They were supposedly mass-producing the little
fungal umbrellas and smuggling them onto the Reality Satellites for
the enjoyment of the techno-elite. The Satellites are very
concerned about mass ratios when importing food; it has to be very
high quality, chock-full of vitamins and minerals and carbohydrates.
Mushrooms have virtually no nutritional value, and are very low in
calories--a one-pound sack has about 40--so they're null-priority on
a Satellite's list of necessities. As a consequence, they're
outlawed up there, so people grow them, smuggle them in, and get
very very rich.
The tip turned out to be right about the 'shroom farm. By the
time I got there I was looking a little ragged, a little squirrelly,
the perfect profile for a Mushroom Migrant Worker. The guards
looked at me warily, but the ranch foreman looked glad to see me,
especially since it was harvest time and the Sats are moving out of
perihelion.
I spent four days hacking at 'shrooms and stuffing them into
sacks. Four nights I sat with the other hands, eating mushroom
bread with mushroom gravy, drinking 'Shroom Chardonnay, getting high
on some of the good stuff. Little hints dropped and overheard led
me to believe I had a smuggling operation going on here. I was all
set to call in my report. And then they came, the scourge of the
entire industry, whether it's legal or not.
The Mushroom Poachers.
If there's any doubts about the legitimate transactions of
'shroom farmers, there's none at all about the Poachers. They swoop
down on all farms, shave off the crop with special Bulk 'Shroom
Slicers that resemble backwards Salad-Shooters(tm), then they take
off into the night, riding away on anti-grav sleds, yelling and
whooping and flinging toadstools at each other. They're more than
happy to smuggle 'shrooms, but usually their merchandise is somewhat
damaged. It's tight competition between farmers and Poachers.
Fortunately, it makes my job easier, because farmers who smuggle are
more likely to have resources to deal with Poachers.
I watched the heavy laser cannon rise up from the main house,
with a small boy sitting at the controls in the rear. He must've
been the farmer's son; a large German shepherd sat at the controls
next to him, panting and watching the Poachers. The kid turned out
to be pretty handy with the cannon--I saw Poachers come screaming
from the sky, sleds in flame, bursting onto the ground below.
A sled snuck up on them. Before I could call out a warning,
the Poacher had dropped a sonic grenade into the control booth. It
must have been primed several seconds before, because the flash and
explosion came almost as soon as the grenade hit the kid. The
cannon sank back into the farmhouse, crashing through the roof and
eliciting screams from inside.
The guards had all split. Some of the migrant farmhands came
running out of the bunkhouse armed with rifles and mortars. They
were setting up outside the main entrance to the farm, a cave
opening into a mountain. The Poachers were a great deal more
experienced than them; while they fired on and generally harrassed
the migrant workers, a small group of them appeared on top of the
mountain. They tossed more sonic grenades down the mountain, which
struck the rocky shale, detonating and sending rock slides
plummeting down on top of the migrant workers. They died pretty
quickly.
Maybe the Poachers weren't so smart--the rockslides had covered
the entrance to the farm. But they came up to it and tossed more
grenades, and they had their own opening pretty quick. Things were
coming to a head, and I had a duty to perform. Maybe these farmers
were smugglers, but they deserved _some_ protection from these
blood-thirsty maggots. I whipped out my neural phaser and went in.
The Poachers were off their sleds, for the most part. They saw
me coming and started aiming hand-lasers at me. I shot one of them
full in the face, and watched as he dropped his laser and collapsed
onto the ground, all involuntary muscle and nerve actions stopped.
Since that specific neuroactivity was affected, and none else, even
as the Poacher died involuntary actions like post-mortem defecation
failed to occur. Rare is the killer that cares whether the victim
shits himself when he dies, but it makes it easier for the coroner
to deal with them.
They didn't waste any time; they fired, point blank range. I
was knocked to the ground by the force of the blast, but my jacket
protected me, and I managed to keep my phaser. I sat up and shot a
couple more of them, then someone got smart and tossed me a primed
sonic grenade.
"That was cute," I sneered. I covered my face with my arms and
rolled away. The sonic grenade went off, knocking us all in several
directions, helping me more than them.
Again, the jacket protected me. I kept firing until every
single Poacher in range was dead. I heard the whine of anti-grav
engines in the distance, but I couldn't follow. I concerned myself
with cleaning up until my backup arrived to take over the scene.
The farmer and his family were dead. Most of the workers were
dead, and the ones that survived were released after a while. I
managed to kill seven Poachers, and while my supervisor was pissed
that none were alive for questioning, we did find several computer
uplinks on the sleds that gave us more clues, which we'll follow up
on eventually.
I called her the next night. It was my night off, and I'd
spent it showering and dressing myself up in my best clothes. The
jacket was in the closet--I wouldn't need it for her.
"You look great," she said. "What's the occasion?"
"You are," I smiled. Then I nearly blew the mood. "Do you
like mushrooms?"
"Mushrooms? No, not particularly. Why do you ask?"
It wasn't easy keeping the relief from my voice. "Oh, no
reason."
____________________________________________________________________
.From: boym...@BIX.com (Boy Mozart)
.Subject: Democratease
.Date: Sun Nov 13 19:33:25 1994
Running. My body desperately needed oxygen, but it refused to
fill my lungs. The night air was cold and hard, and the moon was
only a thin crescent. The lights from the dynachoppers and Cadillac
police cars made the empty street as bright as day.
They finally caught up with me. A cop car suddenly appeared in
front of me, siren blazing, lights flashing, and I slid and fell.
The cops were on top of me in a second, beating me with the clubs
and yelling at me.
"Get up!" they cried. "You're under arrest! Take it like a
man!"
"Hey, are we gonna get in trouble for this?" said a young
voice, probably a rookie on his first night.
They paused, and someone shined a flashlight in my face. "No,
it's OK, he's white."
A huge dark shape loomed over me. An arm reached down, a hand
holding a long black object with electricity arcing across one end.
He stuck it into my shoulder, rubbing it back and forth.
"What the fuck?" said the pig looming over me. "Leather's
supposed to be great for tazers! Isn't it?"
"Conducts 'lectricity," said another. "I dunno, mebbe you're
low on batteries? Should'a used rechargables."
The others started snickering. The big one rose and waved the
tazer menacingly at the other speaker. "I AM using rechargables,
you prick!" he snarled. "Cheaper'n regulars, thanks to the EPA."
The young voice spoke up. "What about that guy?"
They started kicking me. I shouldn't have spoken up and drawn
more attention to myself. I couldn't feel the pain, thanks to the
jacket. I smiled.
"Get the fuck up!" said BigPig. "Get up or I'll fucking shoot
you on the ground, asshole!"
"Resisting arrest! Resisting arrest!" they started chanting.
I'd had enough. I got up, and then I ran. The cops started
yelling and running after me. They needed to spend more time in the
gym, less money on donuts. They were gone in a few minutes.
I panted and heaved. I leaned against something in the
darkness, and it started squealing. "Warning," said a voice, which
came from inside. "This vehicle is protected by X Industries Car
Protection and Thief Annihilation Systems. Move away from the car
and raise your hands. You have five seconds to comply."
I moved away from the car. I kept moving until my five seconds
were up, and then dodged as the delta beam burned a hole in the
street.
The next day I was walking past a Public Television Station,
where several people were standing watching the news. The TV on top
of the pole blared about the new police action in Kuwait; about how
fifteen people had been electrocuted under the new Capital
Punishment Act because they'd been hooked on heroin; and the new
president of the National Rifle Association was being interviewed.
"Guns don't kill people!" he announced. "People WITH guns kill
people!" Cheers from the crowd. "We need to protect our Second
Amendment rights to bear semi-automatic rifles and Army Surplus
bazookas! We have a right to protect our homes and families from
all the bad guys!"
I walked away. I heard a loud BANG and ducked, but it turned
out to be a Pontiac Bonneville backfiring. Smoke and flame roared
from its tail as it sped past. It pulled up to a gas station, where
an attendant started pumping regular into its first tank.
The attendant leaned into the car. "Lessee, forty gallons,
that's 134 even."
The guy inside the car frowned. "Ain't that a little high?"
The attendant shrugged. "I dunno. Prices've gone up for some
reason. People're in here all the time, day 'n' night, buying gas.
It's like we're runnin' out, or somethin'."
Sirens. They were coming up the street. I ducked behind a
dumpster and waited for them to pass. It was a standard convoy this
time, only fourteen cars and three choppers. As soon as they
passed, I heard another convoy coming the other way. I ran down the
alley, but it was a dead end. There was a door that was open, so I
went in.
It was a kitchen. A man dressed in black turned around, and I
saw a square of white glinting from his collar.
"You'll have to go through the front, if you want dinner," he
informed me.
I shrugged. "How 'bout a hand?" I offered. "I'm a pretty
decent cook."
His eyes went wide. He reached down and pulled out a small
handgun from beneath the table. He pointed it at me. "That was
your first mistake, my son," he informed me. "No one's offered to
help for years. Get out before you make any more!"
I left in a hurry. When I got out of the alley, I noticed a
huge building across the street. It was some kind
complex. Some people were hurrying across the street. A man
sitting on the pavement held out his hands. "Spare change?" he
said.
"Bite me," offered one of the people. "Go get a job!" The
others laughed. The man on the sidewalk looked down, and I noticed
he didn't have any legs.
"Go ask the government for money," suggested another.
"They think I'm a welfare cheat," said the guy on the sidewalk.
"Hey, I'm a tax-payer!" the first guy continued. "I work hard
for MY money. When's the fucking government gonna help me?" They
all laughed, and walked away.
I crossed the street quietly. The man on the sidewalk ignored
me; I didn't have any cash, obviously. I turned the corner and saw
the people being beaten by the cops from one of the convoys.
"Past curfew! Past curfew!" they chanted.
"It's five o'clock in the afternoon!" shouted one of the
beaten.
I was running again. I was on another street. There was a
storefront with a huge window with bars on it, and a big sign that
said "DELI". I went in.
The guy behind the counter shot me in the chest. The jacket
protected me, but I got the message. I ran outside.
The convoy had finished with the would-be revelers, and were
cruising down the street. Suddenly the lights were flashing. I was
the only guy out there, I knew who they were flashing for. I took
off down the street.
A cop leaned out the window of his car, leveling a bazooka. A
chopper came down right in the middle of the street, and some guy
leaned out the side with a machine gun.
This was too obvious. I ducked. The guy with the MG started
firing at the approaching cop car. The bazooka shell flew over my
head and slammed into the chopper. The cop car swerved, drove right
by me--missing me by inches--and slammed into the burning chopper.
All the other cop cars came screeching to a halt.
A figure was standing in the conflagration that had appeared on
the street. It walked out, trailing flame, and came right up to me.
The cops were pouring out of cars, leveling weapons at us, but doing
little else. The figure came right up and stood next to me.
It WAS me. He had on the same jacket, the same beat-up
clothing. His hair was the same color, and just as untidy. He
looked at me for a moment, then looked at the cops.
"REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE, OR WE WILL OPEN FIRE," said a megaphone.
"I ain't discussin' my feelings with you!" cried the guy that
looked like me.
"I COULDN'T CARE LESS ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS!" the megaphone
replied.
"Oh, thank God," he said. "I don't think I could take any more
psychobabble."
"Who are you?" I asked.
"None of your fucking business!" he snarled. He looked me up
and down, with a disapproving look on his face. "What are you, some
kinda pinko-hippie shit? When was the last time you took a bath?
Don't you _have_ a job?"
"Look, friend, you smell just as bad as I do," I said.
He started to back away. "Shoot him!" he yelled. "He's the
law-breaker! He's the one, not me!"
"Fuck it!" cried a voice from one of the buildings. "Shoot 'em
both! Why the fuck do I pay taxes in the first place?"
They shot us. The force of impact blew us back, way back, over
the burning mess, onto the street behind it. We both got up, looked
at each other in surprise, then started running. We heard sirens in
the distance, but we didn't stop until we reached another alley,
where we hid in a dumpster.
"What is this place?" said my double. "Why am I here? Where's
the Globes? Where's the PC Instruction Depots on every street
corner?"
It occured to us both at the same time, I think, that my double
was from some place different. We sat in the dumpster for a long
time, and we talked about our lives. We didn't get any closer to
trusting each other, but we understood one another.
"Is that it?" he said. "Is it like two sides of a coin? Maybe
we're like matter and anti-matter, even. If I touch you, will I
explode?" He touched me. We didn't explode.
"There's more to it than that," I reassured him. "There's a
lot more than you or I will ever see. There are so many dimensions
to the whole thing, so many stereotypes to fit into. You and I are
only two manifestations; there must be millions of us, all over."
"Let me stay!" he said. "I _like_ not having to think about
what I say, and worrying about quotas and other people's feelings.
I wanna be who _I_ am, not what the government wants me to be!"
I shook my head. My refusal triggered the change. He started
to fade away, back where he came from. "That won't work either," I
told him. "You have to change what you don't like. I can't do it
for you."
He cried and made a grab for me, but he was mostly insubstantial
and passed through me. In a minute he was gone.
I spent the night in the dumpster. In the morning I went to a
YMCA and spent the last of my money on a nice hot shower. I smelled
OK when I went to the Employment Office. I got there bright and
early, before the lines started, and there was a job for me! It
pays $1.35 an hour, and I've been at it for two weeks. I took the
money I saved up and bought a pack of cigarettes.
Got any matches, man?
____________________________________________________________________
.From: al...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Dave Polewka)
.Subject: Re: DUMPSTER OF LOVE 2000
.Date: Wed Nov 16 18:01:19 1994
adw...@ultb.isc.rit.edu (A.D. Williams) says:
>
> I just filled a 18'x8'x3' dumpster with junk from the basement and
>attic. And it's not even big enough to contain all of it.
No. You *didn't*. PLEASE say you didn't.
All those old picture frames.
All those old magazines & newspapers from the 20s & 30s.
The old brass door hardware, the Atwater Kent radio,
the Victrola. No. The Depression glass. The dolls.
The postcards. The baseball equipment. Derrick, no!
Itemize, please.
--
.From: al...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Dave Polewka)
.Subject: Re: help me, i'm new to this
Pamela....@dartmouth.edu (Pamela Stevens) says:
>I'm a crazy girl who likes crazy fun. But I'm new to this Internews
>thing. Help me out! If this works, e-mail me and let's get to know
>eachother!!
I first read this as "But I'm new to this intercourse thing."
Schwiiiiiiinnnnnng!
.From: al...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Dave Polewka)
.Subject: Re: Ronald Reagan confesses: "I have Alzheimer's."
.Date: Wed Nov 16 18:10:47 1994
emrys@msghouse (Myrddhin Emrys) says:
>>I mean, no one has ever accused me of wishing Ronald Reagan
>>particularly well, but i wouldn't wish Alzheimer's on anybody.
>
> Call for Mr. Finerty! Paging Mr. Finerty!
Patrick Finerty
|'94.....................................
|Jan|Feb|Mar|Apr|May|Jun|Jul|Aug|Sep|Oct|
2 22 12 3
.From: goo...@netcom.com (Mark. Gooley)
.Subject: haiku in rage
.Date: Wed Nov 16 21:13:14 1994
Fuck you, you bastard
And also fuck the boat that
You came over on
Mark., all too many opportunities these days for muttering it under my breath
goo...@netcom.com
.From: ipg...@sail.uwaterloo.ca (Iain P. Grier)
.Subject: A JOKE!!!
.Date: Wed Nov 16 10:51:49 1994
So last weekend I stumbled out of the bar and hailed a cab. I got in and
asked the driver if he had room in the car for a pizza and a 12 pack of beer.
He said "sure."
So I puked all over the back seat.
.From: gm...@usgp1.ih.att.com (-Stewart,G.M.)
.Subject: Re: Bumper Stickers?
.Date: Wed Nov 16 13:08:27 1994
Dave Polewka <al...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu> wrote:
>>>But you don't bother to avoid pointless, smart-assed sarcasm.
>>
>>And your point is?
>
>Ian Randal Strock, President of Greater New York Mensa,
>asked for and received my bumper stickers.
>What's *your* problem?
Good Lord! THE Ian Randal Strock!? I guess I'm all wrong about
everything I've said!!
As much as I try to be rational, I have to admit a personal problem
in that I am disgusted by those that place so little value on
forethought that they think their audience has the responsibility
of making their case for them.
>=======================
>"Endeavor to persevere"
>=======================
Irony or overcompensation? Wishful thinking, I expect.
Pussy.
GMS
.From: al...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Dave Polewka)
.Subject: Re: Beria Revisited
.Date: Thu Nov 17 06:50:11 1994
IN SOC.HISTORY,
mitc...@clark.net (Mitch Leventhal) says:
>Some time ago there was a thread concerning Lavrenti Beria. I believe it was
>posted here and in soc.history.moderated. In any case, I thought this item
>would be of interest.
>
>--- Forwarded message follows ---
>From: C-...@clarinet.com (AP)
>Subject: Stalin Aid's Letters Published
>Keywords: Europe
>Date: Thu, 10 Nov 94 14:10:25 PST
>
> MOSCOW (AP) -- Begging for mercy after his arrest, Stalin
>henchman Lavrenti Beria cited as one of his great deeds the murder
>of thousands of Soviet who fled during World War II, letters
>published Thursday show.
> ``I only lived to make our country powerful and great,'' he
>said.
> The three letters were written in the days following Beria's
>June 26, 1953, arrest in the power struggle that followed the death
>three months earlier of dictator Josef Stalin.
> They show the once-dreaded head of the NKVD secret police -- the
>KGB's forerunner -- going from nervousness to sheer, abject panic.
> ``They want to shoot me without a trial,'' he wrote to Stalin's
>successors on the sixth day of his imprisonment in a military
>bunker in Moscow. ``I beg you to intervene at once, or it will be
>too late. Just telephone them.''
> Beria was tried about six months later on charges of being an
>``imperialist agent.'' He fell to his knees and pleaded for mercy
>at the trial.
> He was shot in December 1953.
> The letters, fraught with errors in grammar and spelling, were
>published Thursday in the weekly newspaper Literaturnaya Gazeta.
>The newspaper said it wanted to refute a recent claim by Beria's
>son that his father was summarily executed shortly after his
>arrest.
> In one of the most chilling episodes of his cold-blooded career,
>Beria had his agents shoot Red Army soldiers retreating under a
>crushing Nazi onslaught in 1941.
> ``I have always given all I could to my work,'' Beria reminded
>party leaders.
> ``I did the job of stopping retreating troops,'' he wrote, by
>having ``tens of thousands of fleeing soldiers'' shot.
> Beria was writing to men who had lived in mortal fear of Stalin
>-- and of the man who had his ear. Over and over, Beria tries to
>convince them he never meant them harm.
> ``I always saw you as an excellent Bolshevik and comrade, as I
>said before -- and as I told Comrade Stalin when I could,'' he wrote
>to Nikita Khrushchev, the man who ordered his arrest and would soon
>become leader of the Soviet Union.
> To another former comrade, he lamented the end of their
>friendship ``entirely through my own fault,'' but insisted that ``I
>have never done you any harm.''
> In another letter, Beria says ``I must be shown my place ... so
>that I remember it until the end of my life. But understand that I
>am a faithful son to our motherland, to Lenin's and Stalin's
>party.''
> Beria also apologizes for what he calls his ``rudeness and
>effrontery.''
> ``I have decided it was often was incorrect and unacceptable. It
>provoked tensions and was excessively sharp,'' he wrote.
> A man with a notorious taste for rape, torture and alcohol,
>Beria carried out some of Stalin's most terrifying commands,
>including the murder, imprisonment or exile of hundreds of
>thousands of people.
> ``Let me have a man for one night, and I'll have him confessing
>he's the king of England,'' he once bragged to Khrushchev.
--
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"Endeavor to persevere"
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