************************************************************************* * __ __ * * _____ ____ ____ ______/ |_____ ____ ___ ______/ |___________ * * \__ \/ \ / __ \/ ___\ __\ \ _ \/ \/ ___\ __/__ \_ __ \ * * / __ \_ | \ /_/ >\__ \| | Y Y \<_> ) | \__ \| |\ ___/| | \/ * * (____ /_| /___ /____ >|__|__|_| /___/__| /___ >|__| \__ \|__| * * \/ \/____/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ * * 9.23.02 angstmonster issue 9 * ************************************************************************* ¡edited (poorly) by gir¡ So, back to Fanta... -Kozar §+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++¡contents¡+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++§ + + + Brief Words from gir + + Pathetic Attempts At Belonging oregano + + Where Do I Begin? gir + + Memory Puss tildaq + + A Teaser... kozar + + Some Values nullnet + + tfile(tfile()); gir + + Submission from koolpeith + + Smoking is Cool! mr. jay + + Tfile2 ch33z-1t + + Women Incarcerated sixxy + + Beatbox Meets the Devil gir + + /gir tildaq + + In the Mood Like Jazz gir * + + §+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++¡contents¡+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++§ --------------- : Brief Words : : From gir : --------------- I think this time I'll keep it brief for real. (I had planned to make this the longest piece again after oregano pointed it out to me because I could go on pretending it was funny.) Instead, here's a snip of irc logs. i would tell my college fast food story but it would depress me too much actually! hey, an idea! I will write it us for angstmonster since it is an angsty story word though true hahah i want to hear it nyar: you'll just have to read it ;) oregano: you don't have to write angsty stuff, that's just a name homofags yeah, nyar, talk to me editor i can't read :( well, my parachute story was not angsty yeah i don't think there is much angst in angstmonster good thing it's a free product hehe otherwise people would claim bait and switch or, nyar, he can claim that the Angst Monster ate all the angst and left the sweetness behnd i suppose that would likely be waht a narc would do afterall! gur shrugs I am going to start a zine called "In the wake of the angstmonster" all about coping the day after the angst monster visited it will be extremely low energy ooh, this is fun but I know a bit tedious one sentece then I will drop this line of argument there is no life after angstmonster! But, here's oregano's story! --------------------- : Pathetic Attempts : : At Belonging : : by oregano : --------------------- What makes this so pathetic is the pointed willfulness of my attempt and my putting close to zero time thinking about why or anything of that nature. I was looking for a routine and a place to belong and be recognized and I tried to make it happen with totally no success. It was such a failure that to this day I wince, and soon you will too, reader. There was a hot dog joint less than a block off Green Street in Champaign. This is the town of the University of Illinois, and I was in college and this was pretty much the middle of town. Let me note that I grew up frequenting hot dog places, though never as a "regular" but my family would go from time to time instead of mom having to cook. And growing up I always was a bit jealous of those kids my age (or worse, those a little older and cooler) who would say hello to the owner and the owner knew just what they wanted. But here now I was in college and I thought, "Hey, I will eat at this hot dog place a few times a week and I will be one of the hipsters that everyone knows there." Cheers was a big TV show at the time, that had some effect on me. Now I already had access to lunch at the nearby cafeteria, so this belonging thing was extra willful; I could just walk two blocks to get a free lunch. Anyway, everyday there was a special at this hot dog stand and Tuesday was bratwurst meal special. There is an added significance to this in that it was kind of cool to like bratwursts. They were a relatively newish thing to popular America. I decided that Tuesday would be my day. I might come other times but Tuesdays would be my time for bratwurst special. Soon enough I would be laughing and chatting with the owner and talking Illinois football and making a cross-cultural friend (I think the owner was Hindi when I first walked by). But things did not work out according to my grand dreams. I went there and got the bratwurst special and the guy behind the counter was not the sage Hindu owner I had spied the week before, but rather a college student who was apathetic about working there and went through the motions and served me my meal with no comments or small talk. The food was pretty crappy, it is hard to ruin a bratwurst, but there was way too much bun and it was thus dry, even with the grease spilling out of the casing. Plus the fries were too thick. These were just bleh and horsy. I did not give up. I went back the next week and there was yet another college student filled with apathy working in a place that was not full even at lunchtime. I dutifully ordered the bratwurst special and it again there was no chatter between me and the server. The food still sucked. I went back a third time and it was no different, except the different face behind the counter. I gave up and never went back. My foray at trying to better my life through connectedness at a hot dog place ended in failure and misery and sadness. The end. -------------- : Where Do I : : Begin? : : by gir : -------------- In a fit of thoughts after having watched two hours worth of The Maxx, I find myself in the family room of my house waiting for the tape to rewind (it just finished) and in front of the trusty laptop, a gift from a friend, my bastard of an underwood for the modern day lackey of the surreal and confused. After the two hour encounter with The Maxx (only interupted by a couple of potty breaks and two cups of tea) I've got a lot to say, a lot to consider. A million and a half reflections to make, all the while considering my original intentions about what to write about. I've spent the last couple of days wanting to do nothing more than write. When I try to read it's only in short bursts of attention span, like a high powered hecka cool science fiction machine gun; there's a lot of intensity behind the few rounds I squeeze off before the chamber is empty. In that excited state of "Yee haw, I'm going to shoot holes in an alien" I fall short and still leave a hive and a half worth of aliens, a bookshelf worth of books I've bought and meant to read. And no matter how big the stack of books I have gets, I find myself still seeking more to read, something else, because now I'm in a mood for something else. The aliens weren't as vicious a hunt as I originally had thought. There's something more out there... And the book I'm looking for is the one that explains "out there" the best. Out of all the theories and ideas, mindless dribble of books that nobody really reads, I'm still stuck looking for a book that explains everything. But it's not just books, it's not a simple answer to be found in one volume of a single medium that's existed long since before all the others... There's art, there's motion picture, still frames of the hero that sleeps casually down the hall from you. Every moment of intensity isn't made of pixels but of the thousand words it takes to describe the look on his face, the feel of the moment of him that is caught in time. Frozen moments. Preserved in all the feeling that we'd expect them to be. There's something to be said about the people who are skilled enough to see that feeling, something more can be said about those who have big enough balls to capture the moment and succeed every time. Those two, I find myself surrounded by them. I find myself on the verge of tears again. By the end of the two hours, I was experiencing the kind of internal equivalent to an intense moment to be captured by a skillful artist. One of those frozen moments that still boggles the world that's spent endless resources on trying to understand the mind and all of its beautiful machinery, starry dynamos and borrowed phrases of yesterdays gods, they still remain preserved in their own right. It is following in the footsteps of these that those of us wandering the mind's eye find hope. In appreciation of the creations that came before we did, in appreciation of the creations that swell up around us, in appreciation of the creations we will inspire and claim responsibility for, we as creators are linked to one another collectively. Forget the medium. We are surrounded by ourselves in different shape and form, a little bit of all of us is to be found in each other. This sense of familiarity is what we seek when we look for in friends, lovers, someone to spend our lifetimes with, someone to share a drink with at the end of the night. The reason we reach out unknowingly and cautiously to the world around us, to who we feel are strangers is because the whole time we are broadcasting signals to one another, all sorts of messages to the world. We make ourselves available in this fashion because we fear direct contact with one another sometimes. It's a stupid habit we have, to fear one another, but for some reason it's the most comfortable form of living we have. And I find myself hung up on that point: we broadcast ourselves to the world only because it's too much of a risk to reach out directly, to choose individual nodes to connect to, that just won't do. All these concerns of a collective and yet, the problem is being unable to reach out to the individual? Does that make any sense? Rather than be the one to reach out to a node, we are waiting for a node we made contact with to come to us and even if that initial contact makes us "pissing in our pants" scared, when it's over and done with we feel a lot better. How many times have we heard someone say "I just wonder if anyone feels the same way about things. Sometimes I feel like the only one." It's the perfect example of a very direct beacon we'll send out when we are seeking response. This is not a "cry for help." Instead of an attempt at becoming the center of attention, it is a want for communication, for contact, for response. When we can reach passed our want for attention and realize our need for multiple way communication, things will get better. It's been touched on before. When a person has a listener (and not a spectator) in their presence, things become different. When the scale between person A and person B become smaller and smaller, communication and understanding become more successful and this is why there is a need for revolt against spectators. The idea that it's ok to sit idle and let the world pass you by as it bounces off of cathode rays tubing won't be enough much longer. (It never was a good idea in the first place) There's much to be done in this world and rumors that someday the means to do it may not be available to us anymore. So while we've got the chances and abilities to do what we want, we should to it. Broadcasting your ideas blindly to the world has become really easy but so has seeking out direct connections. (The difference is that a chance to connect with any given node around you has been around long before the ease of broadcast. It's just that we forgot about it, paid the price, and now have to relearn the ability.) So do what you do. Let the leaping soul stomp out your great passion of idleness. The rest of the world is curious about what you have to say. --------------- : Memory Puss : : by tildaq : --------------- Pimples. Have you ever had a pimple? A big nasty red one with white stuff in the middle (double stuffed oreos). The white stuff is pieces of your memory being excreted through your face. As you age, you have less and less need for certain memories like, when you die and your mind can't fit into your brain. Memory Puss. Lyrics to songs are usually the first to go in a type-1a.a case. Scientist are still not sure why lyrics to songs would be the first to find their way down the angularian vessel to the recently discovered greisicle pores, which hold the bacteria that collects in your feet throughout the course of the day. Some believe that lyrics are the only memories that do not need a specific line of words, rather a feeling. Memory feelings are just one instance, one tiny part of your life that can easily be stored inside the capituary synapses, in short they take up much less space inside your brain than long lines of code. "Bar code-de-code" Bar code-de-code, or bcc, is the method that I have created to read the "memory puss" and hopefully restore these memories to their rightful owner through a system I call pulsation. I am using the latest technology in barcode reading systems, the K-3001 Mini-Bar. As you know, the K-3001 is the smallest barcode reader to date and works its magic into a pin-point accurate lens that is no larger than your average ball-point pen. I discovered a way to convert the barcode's original software to read human DNA. After I transfer the exact line of DNA to my computer (and fuck with it, if it need be!) I can regenerate the code into the brain through pulsation. I designed a machine that emits |slightly modified| microwaves which can penetrate the cranium. This frequency will contain the information that was collected. Opposition. There are numerous political activists who oppose this idea. Their argument is that the "earth needs those memories to keep celestial balance, the memory puss has since before our time been powering/fueling earth." This is all bullshit. These spiritual nut cases have no idea what they even mean. They lie. They lie. They lie. Altered state of past. I have completely reconstructed my past. As should you. As should you. As should you. You. You. Me. Me. I. Me. I can't believe how much more at peace I am with myself. I had the perfect life, I know nothing else but perfect. But when something goes wrong I have to change it later on I put it in a song And watch the memories fall Only when something goes wrong We all watch the memories fall We all give the memories full. we all have the something... or other. bye for now --------------- : A Teaser... : : by kozar : --------------- Ah, it warms my heart to see so many promising young calves here tonight, gathered around the tree of eternity to hear this old moose reminisce. Most of you know me well, but for the travelers here tonight: I am Kozar, seer of the snowy plains and veteran of the last, great war. I know that I seem a sad old beast to you now, but I was once a great warrior who led our people in the most painful and destructive war our race has ever known. You are here because I cannot forget the things I saw thirty winters ago. You are here because you must not forget. I remember when the great generals of the north gathered here to plan our last desperate defense against the encroaching humans and their metal beasts. We were all so young then, pulled together by need, hope, courage and love. We stood in this snow, steam rising from our nostrils, our ragged fur blowing in the cold wind. We were children and fools, yes, but also leaders, visionaries, fathers, sons, and warriors. This, my calves, is our story... This is the chronicle of the great war. --------------- : Some Values : : by nullnet : --------------- i may seem like i hate things in other people, but i actually cant stand them in myself- they do nothing for me. they negatively compel me. i don't like overtly describing myself. i like communication, which i believe requires some amount of "context-swapping" protocol, some sort of endeavour on both parties to figure out where the other person is coming from. Converting my nerve impulses which mean "green" into something that your nerve impulses will interpret as "green" requires shared idioms, context. I do not dislike when people describe themselves, it does however remind me of why it is painful and unfulfilling to describe myself in a similar way. Introspection helps me out a lot, but that seems to come out more and more in actual dialogue which resembles psychoanalysis at times. I have a lot of confidence in the power of verbal dialogue to communicate- it makes me cautious of artforms where a "final product" is expected. Recording songs, writing pieces, sculpting things.. paying attention to an individual work instead of a life- a "body of work" and the network it exists in, is very unfulfilling for me. I do not dislike when people favor single enigmatic pieces instead of constant communication, I respect that other motivations exist. My reaction is mostly to communicate my alternate viewpoint. I prefer receiving aesthetic expression that is created or communicated by people that I know, my friends and enemies. These creative vectors are orthogonal to the roles these people play in my life, the mutual interactions that I model and savor. Cooking, music, painting, words.. in themselves I enjoy them a lot, but as components of a person who i interact with, they become divine puzzle pieces, extra-dimensional axes that enrich my understanding of my community and the seemingly autonomous entities that create it. I respect people who do not value community, or whose ideas of community are dictated by forces that are negatively compelling in myself (fear, capitalism, hatred, etc). The communications that are necessarily bound by these values are no less valid than mine. Community to me means a somewhat-consistent web of response to my communicative incursions into the world. This plays a large part in my definition of intimacy- something that is gained through mutual sharing of perceptions (not necessarily complementary). Example thoughts include: "I know him well enough to know that I shouldn't talk about things he is sensitive about even though I disagree with the idea of negative sensitivity." "I know how she will react to this, even though I disagree entirely with her reaction and personally will find it inappropriate or misguided as compared to my mind's model of this situation." Thoughts that indicate a community i am less fulfilled in include: "This person is famous or rich, I would like to know them and associate them with my life." "This person punishes other people, I hope they know me and allow me to share their joy of punishing other people." Being known and modeled is a wonderful feeling, but it often involves sharing value judgments. I dont believe that any one value is more legitimate than any other in the realm of communication or other peoples' lives. Values are internal to the self and modified by the community in which the self exists. We experience the world ourselves and correlate our perceptions with our own minds. There will always be tools of coercion deployed by other minds, designed to modify our own social metaphors which have been created by previous coercions. The only "defense" against this, for me, is to realize that no one model or idea is more valid than any other. Coercion itself is a metaphor that can be mutated. Determining and communicating these values in myself is a fun pastime. Pointing out the invalidity of others' values is merely a tool- you let your own values dictate to what ends you are using this tool. This is why I like hacking so much. It is a finite state machine that allows me to model interactions and be interacted with- and the illegitimacy of authority is built into the whole structure (just as i believe this anarchy is built into existence itself). My mind rewards me with seratonin when I model things and overthrow illegitimacy within my own head and its models of other heads. I like learning about different ways to communicate, different nuances to be understood, different degrees of skill that it takes to communicate along different vectors. I like learning about how people interact in my immediate community and enjoy interpreting interactions from up close and afar. Living is fantastic, rewarding, and infinite. ------------------- : tfile(tfile()); : : by gir : ------------------- If I could choose a night to write a thousand tfiles it would be tonight. The only reason I chose the quantity of "a thousand" was because I've always enjoyed the correlation between a picture and a thousand words. I wonder if anyone has ever sat down in front of their favorite painting and written a thousand words about it. It seems like doing this would be a really fun exercise of creative writing or perhaps an assignment for a high school art class. "I want you to go home tonight and find a picture, it can be any picture you want. It doesn't have to be something that you like or that speaks to you in any real way, just find a picture and then write a thousand words about it. It does not have to be an essay, just a thousand words. Those of you who are more daring are welcome to write the same word a thousand times and hand it in. It is completely up to you. This is your art and it does not have to be justified in any way to me or to anyone else. My only request is that you use exactly one thousand words to describe one picture. If you feel the need to write more than this, find another picture to write about. Just do not exceed or fall short of that limit. You have two weeks to complete the assignment. Good luck and have fun." And while I was thinking up the closest thing to teacher dialog as I could get, I thought about all these different exceptions a teacher could bring up in describing this to her art students but then I realized that a good art teacher would exclude the exceptions to see if any of the students would use them. Perhaps a teacher wouldn't allow for the same word over and over again, but this is art class. The idea of the same brush stroke over and over to create a picture crossed my mind but of course the teacher said it because she wanted to exclude the easiest way to do something by allowing it. She wanted to weed out real creativity by providing the most creative thing someone could do, didn't she? I'm still debating myself what kind of teacher this is, if she's one I would have taken art with (although I never was in art in high school) or if even in my imagination I can not render a flawed teacher who somehow remains real enough for me to believe that she might actually exist. Even if the assignment itself is one that wouldn't exist, I can still create a character who is very believable and is just saying something unrreal. For some reason that's ok to me. -------------- : Submission : : from : : koolpeith : -------------- I have been doing a lot of reading for my two (2) government classes this semester, and through my studies I have realized something very scary but not too surprising: the last time in history a country acted the way the U.S. is under the Bush administration was during the Third Reich in Germany. George W. Bush is manipulating the public into hating a common (alleged) foe, and in the meantime enjoying a high approval rating because of this. He is also manipulating the publics approval by dragging his objectives further and further away from the original "War on Terror" against Afghanistan. How can you explain his jump from retaliating against the bombings to assassinating Saddam Hussein, who by the way, we have heard nothing about in the media until just now? It's sad to see the news networks hop onto this bandwagon and go along with Bush's uneducated claims. I am surprised no one else is wearing the "Not My President" shirts. Right now, all I can tell you to do is to write your congressman, or even protest at the White House. Tell our leaders: "Please don't start World War III." I do have a passport and places to stay across the ocean in the event that monkey of a president we have does go into Iraq and try and get a higher approval rating by finishing what his Daddy was trying to do. Not many people know this, but during the inaugural parade when he was sworn into office, the Black Panthers had been known to be in D.C. to visit George W. Bush. Sadly, the "public" parade was not open to the public. Protesters sprawled for 2-3 blocks around the parade route in all directions, but only a handful were let into the area where the big Dubb-ya could see or be seen. The only people allowed to have the "privilege" do see him seemed to all be Texan; wealthy white couples constructed of a generic white man in a suit and a white woman with a mink coat and too much make-up. The more I experience this country first hand, the less I think of it. --------------------- : Smoking is Cool! : : by mr. jay : --------------------- It's 3am on a Saturday night, and I'm staring down a pack of Camel Menthol Lights. There was a time when every story started and ended with the slow haze of a lit cigarette, but times have changed, and so have I. Still, any time I see that fucking "Can anyone tell us why smoking is cool?" commercial, I want to scream. So here you go, this is why smoking is cool: Smoking is the ultimate act of pleasing self destruction. It is hedonism in a small stick, takes only a few moments, and fills the blood with sweet, sweet chemicals. More importantly, smoking is a symbol. There is a reason that every fringe, revolutionary figure wearing a trenchcoat and a smirk is puffing on a cigarette. In that small, daily act of self-mutilation we are telling you to take your ridiculous, picturesque view of the world and shove it because we know it's bullshit. We know the world is pain, and every morning when we take those first delicious drags that wake up our brains, we know that pain can be sweet too. In this fucked up world, that's the best lesson you can ever learn. So take your declarations of war and your lame slogans and shove them where the marketing dollar don't shine. Smoking is not the intellectual equivalent of playing catch with rattlesnakes, and I seriously resent the implication that only a moron smokes. Only a moron would accept your bullshit at face value. Sure, smoking kills you slowly, but so does a McCheeseburger for lunch every day. So do the preservatives in your fruit. Smokes give you cancer. That's true. News flash: so does the sun. When you start wearing protective sunscreen every time you go outside or even sit next to a window, THEN you can preach to me about smoking, you righteous fucks. The real reason smoking is picked on while beer rules the airwaves is this: beer and McCheeseburgers make you fat, docile, and easily ruled. Smoking does none of these things, and is associated with every nasty counterculture ever known. Harley riders, beatniks, hippies, goths, musicians; they all puff away. You hate that. Once upon a time the Advertising Machine decided smoking was cool, and now it's backfired in a serious way, becoming a staple in the diet of all the people you hate. So why is smoking cool? Because it pisses you off. (Paid for by the "fuck off you stupid fucking liberals" ad campaign.) --------------- : Tfile2 : : by ch33z-1t : --------------- /\ being a canadian angstmonster you have to act differently / \ than the american ones. for instance the only kind of dance / \ you can do is tap. so i spend most of my nights and some of / \ my days tap dancing. it controls me. i have tapped since i /__ __\ had no angst. i was just a monster. then i saw what the _(_o_)--(_o_)_ world could be like without tapdancing. i visited america. / \ there is no tap dancing there. i became filled with angst \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ and hatred for those americans, you know what i mean, eh? what kind of country could survive without tap dancing? /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ not a very good one i will tell you that. ok but back to \______________/ the subject of me. i realized that tap dancing was my / \ calling in life and i had to to it any way i could. so i /\______VV______/\ got a job tap dancing at a hotel for special guests. little H_______MM_______H did i know this job my be my last one. the amazing terrence \ ^^ / and phillip came in one night and i had to perform for them \______________/ on the way up to their tenth floor suite. and they made me / / \ \ do a dance that was known to bring demon spirits into the \ \ / / bodies of the performer and all those around them. but they \ \ / / insisted. so to keep my job i did it. this caused a total """" """" failure of the elevator. then it caused them to repeatedly (art by gir) fart on me. after the farting stint was over, they made me do the dance again. this time making the elevator plummet to the first floor. once this started happening i tried to stop but i couldn't. something was making me do that dance. we start to fall faster and faster until... to be continued. Preview of next one: NOTHING!!! ---------------------- : Women Incarcerated : : by sixxy : ---------------------- gir asked me to write something for angstmonster.org, and since it was a simple request i figured i could fulfill it. some of you might know of the circumstances which brought me to the lovely virginia beach correctional facility just a few weeks ago, for those who don't, it just sucks to be you. ok, well actually thats for another days ramblings. for a woman like myself, entering a place like jail didn't phase me, not in the way i anticipated. i expected to go in, do my time, dread it but go home unscathed and without the memories i feel i will always cherish. most people see me as a tough bitch with a fruity but soft interior, hrm perhaps chewy. walking through unknown doors brought uncertainty to my heart but i chocked it up and swallowed my pill. actually, that was the hardest part, and yes this suprised me. just think about it, you get a bed (a one inch mattress) to sleep on either on the floor or a cot, 3 square meals (starting at 4am for breakfast, lunch at 10:30am, then dinner @4pm), one white towel, one small face towel, and a rather sad small piece of soap that i normally would never consider touching, and oh yeah the rather unfashionable orange jumpsuit (orange is not my color). keep in mind, i arrived promptly @4pm, was placed into a holding cell only to wait for over 10 hours before i was placed into what incarcerated people call, population. by that time it was already 2am and my first thought was sleep. i will call the first person who spoke to me, kelo. she spoke comforting words to me, 'don't start crying now, you will be ok. i got curious and asked, 'why do you say that?'. kelo stated: 'because in the norm, a woman such as yourself (i didn't know i was a certain type) usually breaks down in a place such as this'. i laughed so hard, i almost pee'd. that started a beautiful friendship, 'on the inside.' the days i spent inside, spin around in my head as i smile. you see, there is nothing to do but watch television and argue with other inmates or make friends. fights start from the stupidest things. and the nights are for more interesting adventures. on the normal side of things, most of the women were ugly, uneducated, nasty creatures but once you got past their exteriors they were mainly misconstrued women caught in various illegal acts such as myself. i did however, meet some women who got busted for fighting and worked at hooters. mental thought, mmmmm would have seriously considered taking one to bed to share with someone. most of our evenings most of these lesbians spent cell hopping. one of the cell mates i had the pleasure of watching turned our space into the love shack, thats when i learned i could direct, since i was not about to join in their normal evening festivities. yes, the virginia beach e-block and most of the cell blocks were filled with just about 80% women who were lesbians. the mentality was, different. you might have a man outside, a marriage, a boyfriend, a lover but inside you can have an unfeathered sexual encounter with a female and never have to worry about your life outside. no, to clarify fact from fiction, i did not participate. didn't i say before that i was the director? so yeah, aside from the other screwed up events that took place for me inside, i did just that, directed. a lady had to keep herself amused. not that i was never approached, i was but sorry 3 weeks does not turn into someone i can't respect. the mentality of, 'that don't matter in here', since your partner is outside, did not phase me. this is just a peek of the events that took place. you will have to keep guessing the rest. so as far as misadventures goes, keep one thing in mind if you ever end up being asked if you want to attend a party at some far distant place like virginia beach, bloody hell say NO! *just rambling thoughts from sixxy* ----------------- : Beatbox meets : : the Devil : : by gir : ----------------- In the middle of another sleepless night Beatbox found himself on a long stretch of unfamiliar road walking, bouncing to the step that echoed in his head. "Nnnnnt, Nnnnnt. Nnnnnt, Nnn-nnn. Nnnnnt, Nnnnnt. Nnnnnt, Nnn-nnn. Nnnnnt, Nnnnnt. Nnnnnt, Nnn-nnn. Nnnnnt, Nnnnnt. Nnnnnt, Nnn-nnn." The soulful history of the surrounding grounds bled out and began to follow along with the beat that Beatbox felt trembling inside of him. As with dreams, his waking memories consisted of music, a beat, the most vivid thing to any moment was the bounce of the sound. Invisible jazzmen of the ages descended from the sky and smiled upon their friend Beatbox, up late on another one of his walks. The jazzmen liked Beatbox because he was the perfect percussionist and his notion of dynamics in the beat of life were just what these fellows enjoyed to play with. "Let's keep it in a minor key tonight boys. Everything should be played with a heavy lucidness that wraps around Beatboxes groove, a warming blanket to muffle his anguish." These jazzmen were of the variety who took care of Beatbox. Unlike some of the musicians who encountered Beatbox on his various travels, this group had made sure that every sound they produced befriended the feelings of Beatbox. It was rare to meat musicians of such a caliber but these were a rare sort, from the other side of the cat house doors. The leader, who spoke out in order most of the time, like Beatbox the best. The beats the boy was famous for followed his dangling fingers over keys while being chased just as often. He felt that Beatbox could hear his piano loudest of all the invisible instruments and it was this tune that played on that Beatbox was guided out of sleepless nights and into bed. But tonight would be different. Tonight the world around Beatbox would change forever, as he was nearing an intersection that the Devil did frequent. Knowing this, the jazzmen did their best to keep Beatbox as far away from the intersection as they could, but it was no use. The sounds that played inside his head were calling Beatbox to this play, the unanswered cry of a poet inside of Beatbox, these cries begging to be let out. "Beatbox," a deep voice of evil crooned slyly, "I know that there are things in the world you desire that you don't yet possess. Tell me which of these things I may give to you." "Ptpt. Ptpt. Ptpt. Ptpt Ptpt Ptpt Ptpt." "Do I frighten you Beatbox? Are you scared?" Beatbox went to answer the Devil as he'd answer anyone else but instead of a beat something else slid across his lips, a strange vibration that rhymed like all the commoners along the road... Beatbox was flowing... "Scared? Fool, I don't dare deal with you, because I already knew you'd be here sloppy and all worn out, selling all your clout on the back of a tired ride you've road into town, the all around special package that's just enough fact based material to cellar me up in a trap of yours and oh lord, the downpour, the downpour of regret that stutters like so many of my brothers who've fell to your grasps. Long reaching, promising all sorts of teachings for nearly nothing, but Imma toughin' it out." Abruptly his flow ended in a shock as the devil smiled at the deed. "So you're not interested? Nothing? At all?" "No Sir, but I appreciate the offer." Suddenly Beatbox's life was changed. All the ability he possessed was now an extension of something else, a force that'd intimidated him all of his life. Beatbox had given up his soul, the thing that made him Beatbox, in exchange for spoken word. Excited and scared all at once, Beatbox did not know what would become of him but that didn't stop his travels along the roads. Because of his recent encounter the traveling went straight through the day and into tomorrow's nightfall. And on the following night, when Beatbox was found walking along the side of a road, he heard no music. For the first night that he could remember, the world around him was a very silent one, except for the sound of a distant weeping. All the jazzmen had gotten up and moved on, except for the piano player who tonight had no beats to chase after his fingers, only the sound of his own tears and the echoing thoughts of rhyme in Beatbox's head. ------------- : /gir : : by tildaq : ------------- I'd like shoot some mad characters at my boys over at /dev! I payed them a visit the other day and found myself surrounded by an aura of cool-contraband fun type shit. I have a buddy, /gir I have a pal, /gir Tilda gonna mutha fuckin' Type it out loud Bitch! Free TV, cake, guitars, and everything green... If /dev was a (fill in the blank) I'd (fill in the blank) (and you can fill in the blank) --------------- : In The Mood : : Like Jazz : : by gir : --------------- Tumbling between the feeling of hunger and the feeling of knowing your thoughts could be expreed in so many opening way, you realize that different titles result in different outcomes. The feel of a Choose Your Own Adventure book makes you smile because it means that it is possible to transcend the confused notions that you have about how to start or finish anything that you might wish to take into you as a development and project that will gain you nothing more than satisfaction in lulling yourself to sleep with a relief and a smile, the sort of things that are evoked by differences among us. Just like the lack of coherency experience on a day to day basis, the chance of the rest of your thought remaining in the same tense may dwindle. (That doesn't mean it won't remain survive, there's just less hope.) Of course that never stopped you from taking on the challenge, because that's all this is after all. A challenge that remains greater in your mind than is actually is but again, what's telling you otherwise? The fact that you remain hungry is just another sign that sleeping would be the most advised answer. But you continually decide to argue against it for right now because there is work to be done. And despite your attitude toward work you struggle on. (Even though attitude wasn't the word you were looking for, these types of things never do offer all the possibilities one might present given the situation.) That's how much a personal adventure means to someone though. Even though you remain dissatisfied with the word attitude, the fact that properly recalling the instant memories of disgruntled youth still brings a smile to your face. Relieved that this has been achieved successfully, your goal is to now fall asleep in what will always remain the most comfortable bed you have ever slept in. Congratulations, you've finished the adventure successfully. æææææææææææææææææææ æ Æfterthought(s) æ æææææææææææææææææææ This is the part of the show where I meet and greet everyone and give a thanks for playing. So all the people who submitted stuff, you rock! All the people who are reading this, you rock too! Meow. ?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿ What you have just read was a step into the unknown spontaneous and poorly edited thoughts for sharing collectively known as "Angstmonster." All thoughts on the matter can be sent to or you can just visit the site http://www.angstmonster.org and see what you think. (But I won't promise any content to anyone.) Submissions of all sorts are welcome! Everything from prose and poetry to rants and opinions, creative text art, recipes for yummy food, reviews of stuff, etc. Thanks and enjoy your day... copyright 2002 issue 9 angstmonster.org 9.23.02 Feel free to redistribute this document, although no fee can be charged and the content must not be altered or modified in any way. Unauthorized use of any part of this document is prohibited. All rights reserved. (and stuff)