Æ*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*Æ * __ __ * + _____ ____ ____ ______/ |_____ ____ ___ ______/ |___________ + * \__ \/ \ / __ \/ ___\ __\ \ _ \/ \/ ___\ __/__ \_ __ \ * + / __ \_ | \ /_/ >\__ \| | Y Y \<_> ) | \__ \| |\ ___/| | \/ + * (____ /_| /___ /____ >|__|__|_| /___/__| /___ >|__| \__ \|__| * + \/ \/____/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ + * 11.04.02 angstmonster issue 12 * Æ*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*Æ ¡edited (poorly) by gir¡ ghostbusters is to ectoplasm what wargames was to hacking. ectoplasm was underground, til ghostbusters spoiled it and brought it to the masses. §+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++¡contents¡+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++§ + + + Brief Words from gir + + Purple Lactose Indifferences brian + + Your Shezzy, My Nezzy ch33z-1t + + Plastic Astronaut Adventures gir + + Oregano Writes Some Rather Staid Filler + + Fun Thing To Do: Night-Time Mountain Biking koolpeith + + Plinko At The Ant Races estell + + Dumbarton St gir + + + §+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++¡contents¡+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++§ --------------- : Brief Words : : From gir : --------------- Sometimes I feel really lazy. It's about 10 minutes after 1 am on the Sunday/Monday border and I have a little bit left to do before you, the reader, are reading this, the text. (That's some really messed up grammar and comma stylings right there but for the moment I'm all right with it. It's not so much laziness as it is bugging everyone I know to write something for me. I thought it'd be really cool to go in alone and have a bunch of little stories for everyone to read but then I noticed my prose as of late is really sappy. (For a long time, my prose has generally been sappy.) So like I said, I'm glad that people decided to write stuff for this issue even though it was because of me bugging them last minute. As always I'm appreciative that all the crazy contributers care enough to take part in angstmonster. (But that's how it goes, every other issue, I'm waxing ecstatic about how great it is to have an ezine and how cool it is to get emails from people saying they like what I do, etc etc.) Oh well. Earlier in the week, I had the idea to turn my little editor's introduction into a full out rant about creativity and all these limitations that are being placed on creativity in today's society. There's a lot of underlying creativity too but even then, how often do you feel that when someone uses the word "creativity" in their new slogan that they really mean it? It shouldn't be some prolific advancement in thought when people begin to realize that an imagination isn't something reserved for artists. Rather, those who create (almost all of us) need our imaginations to fuel our lives. It's not escapism to daydream, and there's nothing wrong with an overly creative English student. Dancing along the ridges of a given ruleset, our imaginations lead us to those answers we may not consider at first. And rather than go on with poor leads into my original intentions I'll go on with the power of imagination! But to keep thing short in the interest of laziness, one of the neater things I've found with my imagination and creative bounds are that the more restrictions I have, the more potent a picture my imagination will paint. It reminds me of an argument one of the DJ's my dad works with made one time, that music videos took away from the pictures one made up to go along with the song. (In a rational mind, that's just the artist giving you more art to play with, there's still a lot of imagination involved in connecting the song to the visual interpretation.) Or the old adage of "leaving something to the imagination" when concerning sexuality and pornography. A less is more attitude can be very powerful when thrown against the walls of infinite expanse that is the imagination. And to further appease the gods of less is more, I'll sputter off my final couple of lines and edit everything up and send it to the "press." (I owe this whole idea to the fact that many of the totally gnar angstmonster writers tend to keep their submissions a lot shorter than my long winded rants and that in reading over them I get so many neat ideas about their thoughts, that aren't suggested or said out right. Whether done intentionally or not, it always makes for a more interesting read.) ------------------ : Purple Lactose : : Indifferences : : by brian : ------------------ as i write this text file, i am smoking a Rosebud cigarette, direct import from Germany, made by Joh. Wilh. Von Eicken and distributed by Phillip & King Inter- national, Inc. the inside reads: ROSEBUD ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Each ROSEBUD produces a mild, summery fragrance like a blossoming flower. The harmonious balance of gently tangy pipe tobacco enriched with real rose petals gives ROSEBUD a cool, refreshing flavor. Every puff is a very special smoking experience. and when i take a step back and really ask myself what i'm doing, my only answer is a seven minute drawl of silence, the soft sound of words spreading across the computer monitor. you can carve a Siddhartha into your grave and claim complete fame, but most of you are out there, eastern buddha in the superstores. wear the pins and help FREE TIBET! it's noble. laugh while you can and who said that? the dalai lama? who's that again? what is so wrong with cigarettes? they give you lung cancer, cat, they kill ya, man. "yeah? so does life. i have other concerns, ace, and now will you please let me be?" "let it go, man, let it go. i am not here." and when your conscience has got you down, you smother it in psychoactives and dreams. but inhale. watch, like this . . . eyes closed, heavily hung to your face, focusing on your parched lips and gentle hands, fingers softly suppressing a filtered friend in paper, and then as the climax of the song reaches it's third repeated all magnificent chorus, you hold the smoke for those few seconds . . . . . . finally everything doesn't matter and no one is watching. "did you say you wanted to see me?" he asked, sitting cross-legged on his throne (or shall i say "thorne"), grinning compassionately. "oh, it's just you." "just me? your only immortality?" the devil always had a funny way of ex- pressing things. "laugh while you can, my boy. it will slowly die as you work to your ultimate demise." and then he vanished. the devil, he really always has to be the center of attention. but i ignored him, took a last drag of the cigarette, and squashed it in the table beside me, forgetting what i was thinking about just seven sweet minutes ago. 0=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=RANDOM=<=>=QUOTE<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=0 "If you are quiet and inconspicuous, others will not be able to figure you out." -Mei Yaochen in The Art of War 0=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=RANDOM=<=>=QUOTE<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=<=>=0 ---------------- : Your Shezzy, : : My Nezzy : : by ch33z-1t : ---------------- my name is oreo and i have no friends. i sit in my room and think of devilish plans to kill the ones who think i love them. no one knows who i am nor does anyone care. when i walk outside my home i feel like an outsider. no one likes me. the ones who say they do, play around with my emotions. i have only one i truly love. she shall remain unnamed. this is not about that. i have deep seeded emotions that no one will understand. the people who i am friends with will never truly understand me. i know of no one who will. but her. she will understand me forever. i just want to go around and do my little thing. making shitty and music and listening to good music. making shitty movies and watching the good ones. and this is my story. it all started 8 years ago when i was in whatever grade i was in then. i was rejected by the one girl who i confide so much in. i told her how i felt and she threw it in my face. i sat on my bed crying for many days. no one came to comfort me. why??? because of my hideous figure. i sat alone, pissing and shitting myself. living in my own filth. i became insane. i started talking to myself and everything. i developed many people that will never be seen by anyone but me. these were to be my friends. they would never hurt me. they would never reject my feelings. i went back to school acting like nothing had happened. this pissed the girl off even more. she came up to me and tried to kiss me. i did what any respectable third grader would do. i farted on her. let me tell you this was a stinky fucking fart i had to wipe my ass after it. well she walked around smelling like my shit for a day. she then called my house and told my mother that i farted on her. my mother than told me to go there and apologize to her. so i went there and took a shit on her fathers car and came back. her father then called my house. he told my mother what i had done. she then came to me and i told her to shove it up her ass, and then i farted on her. i left my house and found i had no where to go. i found myself sleeping in gutters and increasing my insanity. i started using coke at the tender age of 12. i drank like 40 cans a day. boy did that shit taste good. i continued on this tradition until i found pot. pot stickers that is. there is this real nice bakery on the 132nd block of beard and factory that make damn good pot stickers. i think they lace then with something like chocolate and then they call then chocolate chip cookies. but i know they are pot stickers. --------------------- : Plastic Astronaut : : Adventures : : by gir : --------------------- °°°°° °°°°°°° o o °___o___° '|' /|\ °°°°| °°° °°°°° ^ ° ^ ° ° ^ ° °°°°°°° ° ° °°°°°°° °___o___° ! ? ? ? ? ! °°°°° ! °°°°|°°°° o o o o o/ \o o/ \o o/ \o ° ^ ° /öööööö\ '|' '|- '|' -|' '| |' '| |' '| |' °°°°°°° !SQUISH! ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ °°°°° \öööööö/ °___o___° o o ° | ° /|\ '|' ^ ° ^ ° ^ ! "Hey goof! o o --' o ARF! --' o This is a '|' '|' \---/ '|' \---/ '|' silent xo--< >--ox ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ comic!" "Meow? NO, Meow is not o --' o MEOW? --' o a silent sound! If you meow --' '|' \---/ '|' \---/ '|' want to meow then you (*sad*) \---/ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ can't be in this strip!" ^ ^ "Don't whimper about it. "Then it's agreed. o Spacemen don't whimper, meow --' o No more noise for '|' thus guests in their \---/ '|' the rest of the strip ^ comics won't either, ok?" ^ ^ ^ starting now!" "Ok, so silent o --' o --' o --' o ASCII comics The --' '|' \---/ '|' \---/ '|' \---/ '|' aren't as fun... (meow) \---/ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ FUCK YOU BUDDAY!" End ^ ^ ----------------------- : Oregano Writes Some : : Rather Staid Filler : ----------------------- Here is the problem, I do not particularly like Rome or the Roman Empire but I like the Latin language. I do not know much Latin, in fact about a year ago I tried to learn it and failed after four months. Now a four month run on a language that one is not forced to learn in school is pretty good, but I cannot read it or write it and so it goes. Rome the city of today is fine, I am not anti that kind of Rome. I would have a good time there; I am sure walking amongs all the churches and fountains would be fun. But ancient Rome just leaves me a little cold. It seems to me a rather rigid uncaring unfun place to be. All the talk of empire and duty and honor. Blech, that is like gym-teacher talk in junior high. Not my cuppa tea. But I have a fondness for languages, and Latin being the mother tongue to all the languages I wish to learn, it is a bit important to learn it if I am going to get a deeper appreciation of Spanish and French; not to mention English. I think English comes from Latin somehow, but I can never remember the details. Okay, I do remember the details, but I didn't want to seem too smarty pants, but just my wanting to learn Latin on my own pretty much makes my smartypantsness self obviant. I thought I had a point to this, thank goodness gir is not too particular about what he prints in the angstmonster. Next time, for sure, I'll have something more interesting. The end. -------------------- : Fun Thing To Do: : : Night-Time : : Mountain Biking : : by koolpeith : -------------------- Assuming you enjoy the rather primitive feeling of adrenaline rush, I suggest you try cycling through your local single-track mountain bike trail after the usual sun-lit hours. Some friends from work and I went to do this last night, nearly ending up getting us all locked up. Driving over 75 all the way up to Germantown Maryland was not what hitting it off with my car, which was carrying my fat ass along with two friends, three bikes, and a keg. Keep in mind that my Peith-mobile is a 1981 Volvo station wagon; not the most powerful four-wheeled vehicle on the road these days. Following a speeding dark green pickup in I-270 ain't the easiest thing to do, its even your so fatigued from drinking the night before that you could really care less what the little white lines on both sides of your car mean. I was out of it. I'm talkin about the state of mind when three people are having a conversation about YOU right in front of you. You know they're talkin about you, you want to know what's being said, and then you realize you don't want to fucking hear. I feel it's worse than drinking in the way that being fired is worse than being laid off. OH WAIT. I just remembered whats worse. When you forget to change into your skin-tight, body heat-grasping lycra pants (yeah, they look like Peter Pan)...thats pretty bad. My naked ass in a 36 degree utility farm road. The very image of intelligence. After my private parts were nice and crispy cold like a Milky Way bar out of the freezer, we were nabbed by the Po Po. Nah, just the local deputy ranger. "I'm Officer Yankee." No way, your fucking name is Yankee; you've gotta be so pissed off that your being a dick and not telling us your name. "You fellas here to ride?" Um...yessir. "You know that the park is off limits at night. I know you know this." I didn't think you could use that word twice in a short sentence. Through his thorough, intelligent, search, he failed to find the freakin KEG OF BEER amongs our cars. There were just a few things we brought. Ourselves, our cars, our bikes, one or two duffle bags, and A SHINY STEEL FREAKIN KEG. The rest of the story is hilarious, but I don't feel like writing it. I would much rather talk about the irony of the internet. A bunch of geniuses can cater to a bunch of idiots by writing code, scripting java, copy-paste, install.exe, e.t.c.! Those who have the skills to use a computer work in cubicles in front of the dim barren glow of a computer moniter. They fight carpal tunnels syndrome to push a button which displays a representation of zeroes and ones on that same death foreshadowing monitor. Why is it that the only software releases that have advertisements are for dummy operating systems and America On-Line? Wait a sec...I benefit from computer programmers and don't really think about it until now. Ever. ----------------- : Plinko At The : : Ant Races : : by estell : ----------------- Sitting in the dark trees of a long lost thought Plinko has decided to remain anonymous and watch the ant race from afar... .. . . . . . .. . . .. . .. . .. . . . .. . Much to Plinko's dismay '.' is in the lead and Plinko is about to lose all of her invested brain tissue, meaning she'd have less chance of winning next time due to her newly achieved dumbing down. She cursed her audacity and prepared for the inevitable. Suddenly '.' won and Plinko found herself plummeting into the dim world of daft thought and primitive drawing. But ataly, the joy of idiocy is the inability to recognize your own stupidity. 0=<=>=<=>=AN=<=>=<=>=OREGANO=<=>=<=>=<=>=MOMENT=<=>=<=>=0 I was thinking of spending some quality time with my dying grandma in the hospital, but if the Simpsons is new, screw that. I can see her anytime. 0=<=>=<=>=AN=<=>=<=>=OREGANO=<=>=<=>=<=>=MOMENT=<=>=<=>=0 ----------------- : Dumbarton St. : : by gir : ----------------- As he walks passed the sign, he notices for the first time the words "Dumb Art On" and makes a note that perhaps he should look for apartment space above an empty storefront, also available for rent. Clouds of imagination draw out above him and he sees a gallery, a cafe, a place for people like him, "Dumb Art On Dumbarton St." Something that people will come to visit on the weekend afternoons when everyone heads into the city for culture. He decides to tell his girlfriend the idea over dinner. She likes the idea so much, that she asks him if he'll go apartment hunting with her the following day. She wanted to start her own gallery and live above it and at his suggestion, she was thrilled. "Leia, I know you're not good with roommates. I'm surprised your cats don't want to move out. It was just a joke. Don't feel that you have to follow me along on the whim." She smiles at Steven's approach. What on the surface seems like good manners is really a ploy, a begging, kicking and screaming, in hopes that she'd agree so much with the idea that she wouldn't mind supporting it financially when he could not. "But this isn't about the money, it's about your art Steven. Since I've known you, I've loved everything you've ever made. I really believe in you. If it means you starve for that love, then I'll join you." Leia wasn't really sure if she meant that. Her lip was quivering as she spoke the words. While most people would assume she was on the verge of happy tears, she was really worried that falling in love with an artist would be the end of the comfortable life she lived. It's a really frightening thought and Steven knew it. "Don't worry. I'll get a second job, even if it's a shit job. Ramen will not be a dish served in our new place." He knew getting a second job would mean less time to work on his art. But he also knew that he needed Leia by his side more than anything in the world. She was a lot more financially stable than him and she was the only one that really believed in him anymore. Risking all of his art for her is something Steven would do in a heartbeat. It never occurred to him that given the opportunity that things would turn out any different. "Do you want another Coke?" The waiter interrupts Steven's train of thought. His name was Sam. He'd watched Steven bring Leia to this place since the beginning. It was Steven's favorite place to eat. But he wasn't liked by the staff that much. There was just something off about him. He was a good tipper, treated everyone better than most of the other customers but for some reason he came off as a real jackass. "Please." No matter where he went, people found it funny that Steven drank so much Coke. It's a drink, it's good, and I like it, he thought. But rather than flip out on the waiter, he just smiled and nodded when the waiter took the drink away. "I've still never understood why you drink so much Coke." Leia didn't like Coke as much as Steven. She thought it was stupid that he drank so much of it. And she knew she wasn't the only one who thought that way. But she wasn't without her faults, so she just smiled and appreciated the fact that Steven was there with her, in his favorite restaurant, (which happened to be her favorite restaurant too) She never told Steven how much she enjoyed the food here, she always wanted to make him feel special by getting to choose where they go. It could've been anywhere, some slimy hole in the wall and the food would be just a little better because Steven had taken her. For what it was worth, she was pretty hung up on Steven, despite their occasional fights, their occasional financial problems. And regardless of the outcome of tonight or tomorrow or the day after that, she was in love with him. The sort of love that makes a sappy ending like this well worth it. æææææææææææææææææææ æ Æfterthought(s) æ æææææææææææææææææææ If life were like a vacuum, (editor's note: vacuum is such a funny word. it has two "u"'s in it. That rocks beyond amusement at 3 am.) I'd make friends with all the dust bunnies and we'd party non stop. As messy as I am, as many dust bunnies I've spawned, they'd owe me a fiefdom of dust bunny land or something. Then I could wage wars against terrorism and other obnoxious things with my army of sneetches, angstmonsters, and dusty bunnies. After a quick and successful win against all things that nobody likes, we'd have a really cool party. Of course the whole "things that nobody likes" is a subjective idea, but if you have an army of sneetches and dust bunnies fighting for your cause you're not going to fuck with them. Just don't forget, we run with the sneetches and the dust bunnies y0h. So while you're at it, don't plan on fucking with us anytime soon. That said, it's been fun, thanks once again to the last minute write up and all the good stuff that everyone provided me with. Rock on, all over the place! ?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿ 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 12 angstmonster.org 11.04.02 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)