Capital of Nasty Electronic Magazine Volume V, Issue 6, AD MM Monday, May 15, 2000 ISSN 1482-0471 ------------------------------------------- I'm working on this damn impaired driving series at work and I had about a week to do it when most people get two months because it HAD to run before May 2-4 weekend. So I'm a little sleep deprived myself. I've interviewed a family who, six months ago, lost their only two children in a car accident, and another guy in prison who killed two people, and my editor keeps saying "we need more blood and guts! Description! Paint a picture! Talk about the severed limbs and the broken doll on the side of the road!" Like you're going to sit there with parents who lost their only children, who are crying in front of you, and say "so where were you bleeding from? Where did the blood spill? And by the way, were there any guts?" I swear, editors completely forget what it's like to be in the trenches. My news editor is a former sports reporter. --Sam ------------------------------------------- "A lot of people liked my site, except for Tripod. They felt that encouraging people to stick their phones in their ass was pornographic. When I suggested that they remove their heads from that exact location instead, my account disappeared." http://www7.ewebcity.com/gadreel/mcsiemens.html ------------------------------------------- 1. Editorial 2. The Artistes vs. The Nice Guys. 3. Not Just a Client 4. Ramblings of a Film Obsessed Retard 5. The Wired World ------------------------------------------- This week's Golden Testicle award: Blonde, blue eyed deity, seeking mortal woman. http://www.jesus.com ------------------------------------------- 1. Editorial By Leandro Asnaghi-Nicastro There are certain things in life you learn only through experience. Sticking your fingers over fire. Putting a fork into the electrical outlet. Waving your genitals covered in steak sauce in front of a rottweiler. But while these things we will all do once and carry them over for a lifetime, there are others, like crossing the USA by car, that scar us unconsciously in ways we can never imagine. Things I learned while driving across the United States of Generica: 1) If you are driving on any major Interstate between Georgia and Kentucky, two exits out of three have a Waffle House. 2) If you are driving on any major Interstate, the next most common thing to Waffle House is roadkill. 3) Shredded tires outnumber milestones by an average ratio of 10 to 1. 4) If you are in any American city, after 8 o'clock, and you see two people walking in the street wondering where everyone is and why the pubs are closed, these two individuals are Canadian. 5) When those two Canadians stop the one and only person they have encountered while wondering aimlessly in downtown for hours about the location of said pub or a coffee shop, they are greeted with a strange look of disbelief: "Coffee shops open? It's 8 o'clock!" 6) In the US, people that are rich, drive. People that are poor, take the bus (assuming this is one of those US cities where public transportation actually exists). If you ask for information from someone on the street after 8 o'clock, these people are poor. Warning: this does not mean they are unarmed. They probably can only afford a revolver-style weapon instead of a semi-automatic. 7) The moment you set foot in New York, about 6 individuals will know for sure you are not from there, try to swipe your bags, ask for change, bum a smoke off you, ask for change again, try to break your heart with a compassionate story about their dead grandmother and ask for change again. Always answer in French when in New York. Since nobody in Canada really speaks French, we've provided you with some patented samples: say things like "Je suis un petite poubelle" or "Je suis tres desole! Je suis un amateur de chevre!". While this means you are a tiny garbage can, or that you are very sorry, but you love goats, they will leave you alone muttering "bloody Canadians". 8) When on a Georgia's Interstate, signalling other traffic of your intention to change lane actually means "Please accelerate and prevent me from passing the slow vehicle in front of me". 9) When on a Georgia's Interstate, keeping a safe distance between you and the vehicle in front of you means "Please squeeze in between them and us, there is plenty of space!" to vehicles around you. 10) Anywhere south after Wisconsin, attempts to communicate in English are next to impossible. 11) When in Kentucky, if your flavour of music is anything but Country, and your vehicle happens to have no tape deck, you may as well throw the radio out of the car. 12) The concept of Elevator Music in a gas station anywhere in Kentucky is Country music. 13) The ability to drive and use signals when changing lanes is not a major requirement declared by the Department of Transportation of the US of G. 14) There are enough fingers on one hand to count the total number of public transportation vehicles seen in each city while crossing five states. 15) Amtrak's concept of "Fast, reliable and safe" transportation involves travelling at an average speed of 40 kilometres per hour. While this ensures safety and that even turtles have plenty of time to cross the tracks, it also means taking a total of two days to travel a distance normally covered in 12 hours by car when not speeding. 16) When on Interstate 90 from Wisconsin, you see the sign "Welcome to Pennsylvania" it actually means, "There are no more potholes. You can put the pop cans back into the cup holders". 17) Truck drivers are your friends: when they slow down, you slow down. Pigs are not far away. 18) It may be "Built in America" but at 90 miles an hour, deers are pretty damn sturdy even for a Buick. Crossing the border to the US can be a one minute dealing or a half an hour ordeal. Passing through Buffalo is not wise. Here the US Customs people are as nice as a board with nails and as easy to deal with as dog shit stuck in the grooves under your shoes. Cross by Niagara Falls if you can. You could be carrying nuclear weapons in the US at that point, they don't seem to care. However, if you happen to be unfortunate enough to go through Buffalo, remember to always lie and tell them what they want to hear: NSI: "Where are you going?" after checking documents. You: "New York!" (Atlanta) "How long are you going to stay there?" "Two weeks" (four days) "What is the purpose of your trip?" "Pleasure" (if you are a masochist) "How much money are you carrying with you?" "Five hundred dollars" (seven cents, 3 of which are American) "What are you bringing into the US?" "Nothing" (cuban cigars to smoke while driving) "How will you be getting back into Canada?" "By train" (driving a truck across 5 states) Never volunteer information. This is basically asking for trouble, and a possible cavity search. EVERYONE LOVES LUKE DE SADE Teresa Toth writes: Well, I think there is an overall theme for the past editions of CoN, and I think the term was "feminine juices?" *sounds like a Juicy Juice commercial....* What is all the hype about? Yes, women have juices, and yes sometimes it comes in quarts when we are aroused, but unless it tasted like blue cheese and has the consistency of my aunt's brown gravy, I don't think you have anything to complain about. Most of the time, our "juice" is clear and odourless, but some ppl have different chemistry and therefore it just might be chunky and chewy, who knows. If you don't like it, then don't go "south", but don't expect the girl to attend to your "north pole", if you get my drift. And listen fella's, who bloody cares if you can last for 2 days straight, let's face it, we don't care if you have stamina, just as long as you can pleasure us in other ways... ah cunnilingus, what a beautiful word... Samantha Craggs writes: > Ok, Mr. Grammar, first of all, this ain't fucking > school. If I wanted correct spelling and grammar, > I'd go back to school. So drop it already. > Besides that, I'm from a fucking third world country! > We're supposed to fuck up in English, aren't we? I just want to say something about this, and I don't want it to turn into a flame war. I just want to present an opposing opinion. No, this isn't fucking school, but you (and I mean "you" collectively, in a general sense) are writing something for CoN subscribers to read. I know this is a small circulation electronic zine rather than People or Reader's Digest, but I think if you're saying to anyone "Here, read this," you have something of a responsibility to at least do your best to use the correct spelling and grammar. This is just my opinion. It's Leandro's gig, and he might feel differently, and that's fine. First Luke makes what appears to be an apology because he's from a Third World Country, then admits he's too bored to use his spell checker. Luke, use your spell checker. ------------------------------------------- 2. The Artistes vs. The Nice Guys. By Samantha Craggs As the baby boomers die off and the population heads on a downward spiral, some women are going to end up alone with 20 cats simply because they can't distinguish between two very different types of men - the artistes and the nice guys. It's been going on since the beginning of time. I'm sure a lot of perfectly good boys next door were spurned by ancient women who couldn't get enough of that oh-so-deep-and-creative guy Socrates. In the 60s, I wonder how many kind and clean cut souls with shiny shoes were turned down in favour of the guy passing through town who had a Beatles haircut. Women constantly bemoan the fact that "there are just no nice guys left out there." They're wrong. There are lots of perfect gentlemen, but they inevitably lose the girl to the Johnny Depp lookalike in paint-splattered clothes who hates to wear shoes. We don't really want Beaver Cleaver. We want the one with the killer cheekbones, granite jawline and bedroom eyes who has slept with every other woman on the block. It's no secret that being creative scores points with women. Just ask any guy in a band. There will always be the element who become groupies around art gallerys, willing to cheat on their husbands and offer their bodies to any guy with a paintbrush in his hand. The artistes are generally good looking, pretentious and carry that subtle arrogance that the world would whither away if they weren't around to comment on it. I think it's their untamed nature that draws women to them. "Okay, so he's fucked half of my friends and told me straight out that he doesn't want a relationship, but I can change him," they think about a week before they are sitting in a pile of wadded-up Kleenex and begging advice from their friends on the phone. I make a plea to women everywhere, from Southeast Asia to the depths of Armpit, Ontario - stop the madness! Most women can think of a guy like this and most women want that guy. You will be better off, and so will your friends and family, if you kick him to the curb before he even sets foot on the sidewalk. The guy you've known since third grade wearing khakis and unripped clothing is always a better bet. Artistes make your life exciting. You can bask in the glory of their work. Simply walking into a room with them will make you beam with pride and make other women green with envy. They are usually excellent in bed because they are unconventional and they have razor sharp cheekbones and untamed hair. But men like this are usually self centred and not capable of giving you what you really need, which is stability, unconditional love and a little self worth. If you do end up with an artiste, it's never what you bargained for. You will end up with an unemployed musician who sits on your couch all day watching TV. Trust me. I know this. There are easy ways to spot artistes before they get deep enough into conversation to find out what you do for a living. 1. Any guy whose opening line is "I'd love to paint/photograph/write a poem about you." 2. Any guy that you meet at a party who is scanning the room while he's talking to you, claiming that he's "taking it all in." He's really looking for fresh meat. 3. Any guy who does not own a watch. This shows that he runs on his own time, and it's not likely that you're included in that. (There are exceptions to this rule. I don't own a watch that isn't broken.) 4. Any guy with rips in his clothes that are also accompanied by a ring on every finger. 5. Almost all musicians. I know there are going to be musicians e- mailing me now and telling me how wrong I am, and that they're reliable, good boyfriends who have never groped another woman while their girlfriend was off getting more beer. But musicians, on the whole, put their bands above all else, and if little groupies who make sparkly eyes at you in the front row of the birthday party you're playing at, who can blame you for that? Also, musicians almost always have what I like to call "musician arrogance." They compete with each other, and by their very nature, they seem to need constant reassurance that they're good at what they do. The less successful a musician is, the more this is true. A woman flirting with you = reassurance = you enjoying the woman flirting with you = unhappy and slightly pissed off girlfriend. 6. Any guy who talks about astrology in the first five minutes, or who tells you he's more interested in getting to know your soul. 7. Any guy who, when you ask him what he does, says "I'm a writer" when he actually works at Starbuck's and hasn't published a thing. [Uh oh! - Editor] I suppose I should say by now that this is meant to be tongue in cheek, but like anything tongue in cheek, there's merit to it. Women (or men, whichever floats your boat), this is some food for thought - not fantasy, but thought. ------ Samantha Craggs dates anyone who gives her a little attention. No, no, just kidding. Visit the web site: http://www.velvet.net/~samantha. ------------------------------------------- 3. Not Just a Client By Jason MacIsaac "I'm not only the president, I'm also a client." Sy Sperling, President of the Hair Club for Men first uttered those words as he held a picture of his old noggin. It looked like a cueball wrapped with a raccoon's tail. Now, thanks to his company, he has a full head of nylon--I mean, hair. Senior Sperling probably wasn't the first President to appear on TV flogging his own company's goods, but he is one of the most famous. There are dozens of them now. President's Choice has Dave promoting Memories of (insert place name here) brand (insert product here). Dave Thomas is by law required to appear in a Wendy's commercial every ten minutes of air time. And who could forget Victor Kayem, who liked his shaver so much he bought the company? Oh, how I so want to inflict violence on all of them. It might be my natural psychosis talking whenever I see President/CEO types appearing in their own propaganda, but oh boy do the voices in my head urging me to do unspeakable things with a Garden Weasel ever start to sound reasonable when they start opening their yaps. I hate advertising at the best of times. I hate corporations and their officer's attempts at having an "image" even more. Do people really fall for this stuff? Do they really believe that the greying, puffy bastard talks 'straight' with us, or pretends he's your pal or some loveable wacky guy who actually works behind the counter of his Borg cubes located through North America? Or has anything approaching a human heart? I bet some of them grind up the employees to make vittles for their 800 purebred yappie dogs. I hate the ones that try to act cute and loveable, when you just know they'd erase thousand jobs before a nice leisurely day of golf. Wendy's Dave Thomas tries this tactic. He comes on with a combination of the cuddly and a Steven Wrightish sad sack delivery. His directors do this is because like most of his kind, the man can't act. Listen to his voice, and you'll hear a 1st grader trying to tell his first knock-knock joke, only not as natural as that. It's pretty sad when a man has to work at deadpan. And what a hard worker he is! His commercials show him behind the counter of a Wendy's, serving food. Uh-huh. I'll bet he also works the late night drive-through shifts when someone calls in sick and helps clean the grease trap. If you don't know a grease trap is, you aren't qualified to discuss the concept of disgusting until you've been around one or worse, cleaned one (like lucky ol' me). Picture a well of grease trapped beneath the restaurant left to collect and rot for months. I'll bet disgruntled Wendy's employees fantasize about drowning cuddly, loveable Dave in their grease traps. 'Cause they are bastards. I actually know someone who knows one of those "I'm friendly on TV because I don't have your money yet or you don't work for me" president types, and he filled me in on the gory details. This particular boss guy had a dog that appeared with him in all his commercials, and was treated better than the staff. When the dog finally died, the employees all got together and threw a party. Some of these CEOs don't do a particularly good job of representing their company either. I thought Microsoft had finally figured out that they shouldn't let Bill Gates speak on their behalf, but I was mistaken. This is a man who came in third in a personality contest when his competition was a high school vice principal and a squirrel that had been lying squashed on the highway for a week. Ever hear him speak? Neither have I. This is because he doesn't really speak. He just mutters and stutters. During the anti-trust trial, Bill Gates gave videotaped testimony, not live. This is probably because any decent lawyer would make him tapdance to any tune they wanted if he showed up and had to work without a script. Ever seem him improvise? There's a famous .avi showing him at a Windows 98 demo watching one of his minions trying to install a new piece of hardware. Up popped the blue screen of death before a hall of journalists. Needless to say, anyone who is acquainted with Windows has spent time staring at this screen. After the laughter and cheers died down, wily Gates quipped in a voice like the freshly castrated to the effect of "I guess that why we're not shipping Windows 98 yet." Ok Billy, so what was Windows 95's excuse? Even with a script he's pretty impaired. Shortly after the anti-trust ruling Microsoft had him appear in a commercial trying to repair the company's image. In it, Gates states the much-used Microsoft line that the company has always done what it believes is the best thing for its clients and software, blah blah blah. Two problems here. First, Microsoft either can't or won't admit that this isn't the point. Microsoft has never been on trial for how good its products are (which is fortunate for them, because otherwise the creators of Outlook would be sentenced to sixty years without possibility of parole), but the circumstances under which they made and marketed them. The US Justice department says that they broke US laws trying to make and market them. Microsoft says "we have always done what's best for our clients." Ok, now picture this. A prosecutor accuses you of murdering somebody in a court of law. Your defense is "I have always done what's best for my clients." That's pretty damn arrogant. But more to the point of our discussion is Bill Gates, and how he represents his company. During that commercial where he denies Microsoft's plans for global domination, he got to the "always done what's best for our clients" part and a tiny little smile that looks anything but sincere plays across his lips. I can't picture out-takes of the commercial: Gates: We have always (snicker) done what's...hee hee hee...done what's....must keep straight face...DONE WHAT'S BEST FOR OUR CLIENTS! HAHA AHAHAHA! Why is it that only certain companies have their upper management boast about how they personally use their products anyway? Why don't you see the CEO of Ramses Condoms saying that he liked them so much he bought the company? Or the President of Depends adult diapers saying that he's not just the President, he's also a client? Perhaps they're just embarrassed. Or camera shy. It hardly matters. But it is worth pointing out that any CEO or President type has a vested interesting in your believing that they personally use their products. If you've ever worked in some kind of menial job, you know that even if this is true, it's utterly meaningless. The CEO was not around when that product was assembled. Now if the basic laborers use the products (and I don't mean the actors who play them on TV), then that means something. They know all the dirty secrets behind the production lines, so if they still use the product, you can bet it's safe. There's a kind of blindness to this though. In the world of advertising, it's CEOs saying "I eat at my own restaurant so you can too, and make my stock go up." In the restaurant itself, it's managers never wanting customers to see restaurant staff eating. This is backwards, because the server knows his meal is safe. Meanwhile, the CEO is probably eating the saliva of a vengeful cook. --- Jason MacIsaac liked the company so much he burned it to the ground. ------------------------------------------- 4. Ramblings of a Film Obsessed Retard with Jeff Wright I don't have anything substantial to say this issue. Do I ever? So I'm writing this for the sake of writing it. Not exactly the best reason to write, but what the fuck. Anyone in Europe seen The Idiots? If you haven't, I'd suggest you do. It's not available here in North America, but I got a PAL to NTSC copy, and really liked it. Again, Lars von Trier provides us with a terribly interesting film. I'd like to hear your thoughts on the film anyway. E-mail me at abu@pathcom.com. Also, if anyone can hook me up with (or point me towards) a copy of The Humiliated, the documentary on the making of the film, I'd be extremely grateful. I'm sure everyone's seen Gladiator by now, or at least most everyone who's going to. I liked it, but didn't think it rocked all kinds of ass like a lot of people seem to be saying. There was too much music, the CGI stuff was pretty bad, the romantic chemistry was non-existent, and the dreamy stuff stuck out like a sore thumb. That said, it is a really enjoyable action movie. I rewatched To Die For yesterday, and I had forgotten how incredibly funny it is. If you're looking for a really good black comedy, pick it up. How is it again, that Nicole Kidman wasn't nominated for an Oscar? This article is getting pretty pointless isn't it? Anyone see Timecode? It was an interesting experiment, but there was no substance to it at all. I was disappointed to say the least. There was one scene in it that I found incredibly pretentious. Though I'm sure it was an attempt to be clever, and self deprecating, I laughed through it steadily. The rest of the audience for some reason, didn't laugh unless a character was looking confused, or laughed. The fact that even with 4 different images, the majority of audiences still need to be told when something is funny. That was interesting and a little disturbing. Ah, writing this is getting boring. Just as boring as I'm sure your reading it is getting, or has already gotten. Peace out. Don't forget that today (yesterday by time you get this) was Mother's Day. If you didn't get your Mom anything, then you suck. --- Jeff's favourite summertime food is hot buttered porn on the cobb. ------------------------------------------- 5. The Wired World By Leandro Asnaghi-Nicastro When people find out I work in the web publishing industry, they show vivid interest. And it's strange, because it seems that everyone nowadays is doing webpages. On my way home I pass four companies that do exactly what I do: webpages. But I suppose it's a consequence of the Internet having become so popular (I miss the days in 94 when CoN had a total of 6 readers), and so hearing people on the bus you'd never think would have Internet access, use phrases like "I e-mailed that bitch but she still hasn't gotten back to me" while holding a kid and wearing the latest Chicago Bulls jacket, has become the norm. I digress. It's the wired world, everyone is on Yahoo!, thousands of people are masturbating in front of pictures of golden showers and listening to the latest Mp3 craze and while the Internet has never been a centre for useful information, it's impossible to determine who has got the dumbest site. But the stunning part of all this is the people that work behind the world of the Internet. The people that make things work, bring your connection, ensure that your e-mail is working fine and that the router is functional, and all those crazy people that work like bugs to dish out truckloads of YAWS (yet another website). And it's scary. It's scarier than having to deal with people with AOL, because with the people you have at work, you need to interact in order to get a finished product done at least three months after the deadline. And that, sometimes, can have a detrimental effect on your liver, making alcohol look like a healthy alternative. While in the rest of the real world one needs to be qualified to do things like working on planes, fixing cars, or building a bridge, qualifications are just fictitious in the e-world. I've worked as a systems administrator knowing nothing about networking. I've done my fair share of Flash, Director and similar, learning as I was going along. I installed phone cabling and DSL connections having no clue what the pretty coloured wires were for. But at least I put the effort into it all to learn. And I thought that was all over when I landed my latest job. When you work in new media you find yourself surrounded by really strange people. They all look the same. To the point that you can recognize from which department they belong to just by how they dress. Shaved head, Metallica t-shirts, piercing, strange colour combinations? They are in design. Well dressed, nicely done hair, always looking their best, latest shoes? They do flash or 3D or Director or anything that involves following a pre-determined design that needs to be put online and with no thinking of their own. Jeans, stubble, a pissed off look (mostly from trying to convince designers that what can be done in Photoshop can't always be done in HTML), sucking down coffee and cola like water and a cigarette always stuck in their mouth? Those are the programmers. Marketing and sales is the only group of people that you can't really fit anywhere. In marketing and sales they all look different, albeit they follow the "I did take a bath recently" standard, despite their constant smell, they all have their own acceptable style. The only dead-give-away is the fact that they smile. A lot. If you walked into an e-business and looked around, the only people you'd see smiling are the bastards from marketing and sales. They smile because they just got a contract to design an entire site, with flash, asp and all the bells and promised it in a week. The smile is also caused by the fact that they live in their own little world, using words like "synergy" or "page hits" when potential clients are shown the office, because, and as we all know, clients like to see things like the boardroom. So what do I do in here? I do writing. At least, that's what I was hired for. I was hired to spew out amusing sentences and provide that much needed entertaining content on the site I'm assigned to. But it hardly seems to work that way these days. But it turns out that I do just about everything, from design, to coding, to animation, and next on my list is to re-build a mail server someone "competent" totally fucked. I don't mind. I've worked so many jobs already, all paying disgustingly low amounts of money, that I can wire your DSL connection, set up your server, build your web page, and put content on it. Maybe I should just cover ALL the bases and show up naked for work. --- Yes, God did indeed have a weenis. ------------------------------------------- CoN would not be possible without the great help of Scriba Org. CoN: Jesus is coming. Everyone look busy. - Sam C. Capital of Nasty Electronic Magazine "media you can abuse" In memory of Father Ross "Padre" Legere Published every second Monday (or when we get around it) Disclaimer: unintentionally offensive Comments, queries and submissions are welcome http://www.capnasty.org ISSN 1482-0471 A bi-weekly electronic journal. Subscriptions available at no cost electronically. Available on Usenet newsgroups alt.zines and alt.ezines. This mailing is sent exclusively to those poor souls who chose to subscribe to the Capital of Nasty mailing list. Spread the word! If you have friends who would like to receive CoN, ask them to send email to join@capnasty.org. If you'd like to unsubscribe because such email aggravates your dead squirrel intolerance, simply send an empty message to leave@capnasty.org. Brought to you by C.C.C.P. (Collective Communist Computing Proletariat) Leandro Asnaghi-Nicastro Colin Barrett ZimID 708EC8D1 1994/09/14 EC B0 97 59 1D FE 7C 32 7E 04 2C 66 47 41 FB 7D