- --- -- ----- - - -- ---- - - ---- - - ----- -- - - - ---- - - ----- -- - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- + doomed to obscurity + issue eleven + june 9th, 1996 + $$$$$$$ $$$$$$$ssssssssssssss .s&$$$$P"""Q$$$$$$$$$$s. .s&""""""""$P"""Q$ $ $ $ ggggggggggg $ $ $ $ $..........$ $.....$ $.....$ $ $ $.....$ $..........$ $::::::::::$ $:::::$ $:::::$ $.........$ $:::::$ $::::::::::$ $||||||||||$ $|||||$ $|||||$ $:::::::::$ $|||||$ $||||||||||$ $iiiiiiiiii$ $iiiii$ $iiiii$ $|||||||||$ $iiiii$ $iiiiiiiiii$ $!!!!!!!!!!$ $!!!!!$ $!!!!!$ $iiiiiiiii$ $!!!!!$ $!!!!!!!!!!$ `9$$$$$$$$$$bsssd$$$$$$$ `9$$$$$bsssd$$$$$$$$$P' `9$$$$$bsssd$$$$$$$$$$P' + "i got a machine & i took over the world." - violent femmes + ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- - --- -- - ----- -- --- -- ---- -- -- -- --- -- - -- - --- - - -- -- - -- "i know you" by - shadow tao you know why i'm angry? 'cause i'm angry at you. i know you're sitting there, staring at the screen with ramen in your teeth. i know you're out there waiting for your ride. i know you're out there because there's nothing on tv. i know you're out there. you know, somewhere out there, there's a girl sitting down at the piano in five years, trying to bang out the beginning of 'moonlight sonata' and failing. i know that somewhere there's a boy, angry at his parents constant abuse. i know people hurt. people regret. i know you. you sure as hell ought to know i do. how long are you going to let them push you around? how long before you can scream? how long can you take it before you just _break_? nothing in the world can stop them. they're everywhere. your parents. your teachers. your boss. everyone assaults you from every direction, and all you can do is curl up and hope they go away. well. you're wrong. you _can_ do something. no, idiot. not 'vote'. can you show them your pain? can you finally rip your heart out and throw it on their table, still bloody and beating and _raw_? can you take all that rage and hurt and love and laughter and everything and just hurl it at the face of the world? we can. we do. we're your friend. we're your fear. we're all the little secrets that get pent up inside your head and just wait for you to break down. we're that light that keeps you from giving up. we're all the pent-up emotion of the world, spinning around in a billion shades of rage and laughter, heading for your heart. why aren't you doing something? why aren't you helping? you can't escape us, love. we're the only thing you know. we just _can't_ be ignored. +-----+ the shadow tao speaks! *cough* "hey tao! you get to be editor this issue, here you go!" e-yup. let's get down to brass tacks, shall we? this issue is just _teeming_ with comedy and fiction. but then again, every other dto was, too. well, let's say hi to some new faces and features of dto that are appearing in this glorious ish. hmm. oh! lots of new writers. yohan bawk, tmm, orestes .. all new. all glorious additions to the magnificent dto overlo .. er. corporation. yeah. ('cause we oppress every little 'zine with talent! everyone knows that!) anyway, this issue is certainly our "weirdest" issue to date. read with my blessings. ____ ___| |_ _ ___| | _______ ----------------------------- | | | | ----------------------------- ----------------------------- | | | | | | ----------------------------- | | | | | | doomed to obscurity eleven | | | | | | & all contents therein .. | | | | | | ----------------------------- | | | | | | ----------------------------- ----------------------------- |_____| |_____| ----------------------------- |___ _ 1 - i know you by - shadow tao 2 - doomed to obscurity eleven & all contents therein .. by - shadow tao 3 - "happy juice - condiments; chapter 3,014" by - murmur 4 - sick call by - yohan bawk 5 - demented grandpa tao stories: 'bible fun!' by - grandpa tao 6 - mirror by - orestes 7 - the inconsistencies of the time-space continuum .. by - the masked marauder 8 - thirty seconds at pratt & sheridan by - kojak 9 - the girlfriend by - sweeney erect 10 - the chaos theory; monday, july 18 by - eerie 9 - eggplant parmesan by - creed 15 - don't try to understand by - girlie17 12 - wish by - fake scorpion 11 - all it took was one miracle e-mail by - whisper 13 - present company excluded by - creed 14 - into every sunset a little acid rain must fall by - murmur 15 - dummercon update by - mogel 16 - deliverance by - shadow tao 17 - self-respect by - girlie17 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "happy juice - condiments; chapter 3,014" by - murmur (the happybear name, logo, and included references are copyrighted trademarks of shadow tao press, all rights reserved, all titles held by shadow tao, copyright 1996.) cuddle bear walked into the room. cuddle bear saw huggie bear and said "huggie bear! let's cuddle!" and they cuddled and huggied. then hunny bear walked in and cuddled and huggied and huneyed too! they were oh so happy bears! in walked kissy bear and they all kissyed too! oh, what a tremendous day this would be in bearville! then in walked squeezin bear and they squeezined too! days like this were frequent in bearopolis. in came slurpobear! all of the bears were cuddling and huggieing and huneying and kissieing and slurpoing! oh it was a tremendous day! then in came analrapist bear. analrapist bear anally raped the other bears. but they were oh so happy! then in came boltthrower bear, and boltthrower bear scorched the other bears with hot lightning. but nothing could keep them down! they were the happy bears! and hot lightning sure is happy! then in came testicular cancer bear, and, sadly, all the bears died. moral: i hear you're happy! let's fuck! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "sick call" by - yohan bawk i am on a sick call with my father. it is an overcast, grey and gloomy day in mid-autumn, somewhere around the time of halloween and its associated pagan silliness. this time the patient is a ninety-year-old man, slightly sick and confined to his bed but still coherent and in fairly good shape given his age. i am unfamiliar with both the family and the man in question but through necessity in the form of lack of an extra car, i follow my father to a two-story suburban house a few blocks away from the community center from which our church rents a room for our sunday service. i drive the few blocks in our dark grey - obsequiously renamed "opal grey," probably by the same kinds of people who use words like "teal" and "fuchsia" and are not employed by the crayola company - ford taurus and park in front of their skokie residence. the house is old but appealing in its own sort of way; it is a house, really, that i stereotypically associate with old age. the architecture is vaguely victorian, vaguely reminicient of old norman rockwell covers and grandmother cooking pie in the oven. i would really much rather stay in the car and listen to my simon and garfunkel but my father urges me to accompany him in, and of course i acquiesce. we knock on the door and it is opened by a fairly elderly woman who turns out to be the daughter of the patient we have come to visit. my father knows her well, but i have absolutely no idea who she is. however - just like many of my father's acquaintances - she of course knows me, has known me for some time, and uses the opportunity to comment on how well i've grown. we enter the house. it smells of herbal remedies - a distinctly chinese odor, in my experience. i leave my shoes at the door, as is customary in any asian household, and stand awkwardly on my navy socks in the center of the living room. the patient we have come to visit is lying on a medical bed with metal railings and electric controls placed next to the inside wall of the living room. although the room is well lit through a solitary window, dust and an unbearable sense of age make the room seem misty, small, and dingy, although it is none of these things. the woman who opened the door for us offers us tea, candy. we decline; my father has come for a different purpose. the man we have come to visit rises slowly from his bed and, balanced precariously on a four-legged walker, totters slowly over to an easy chair across from my father. my father begins to talk. he has an easy, hypnotic voice when he is speaking in his native cantonese, probably his greatest asset as a preacher. he begins to tell the grandfather we are visiting about the gospel, the gospel about which this over ninety-year-old man has perhaps vaguely heard of but never believed in. he begins by talking about life and how blessed the elderly are to have lived so long and to still be in decent health. i tune out and listen as if in a trance to the words flowing from my father. i have heard the gospel before. the only thing i am aware of else than the misty sunlight and my father's voice suddenly breaks into my consciousness like a machine gun: a loudly ticking clock. a clock on the mantle has been ticking the entire time and i abruptly notice its noise. my first thought is how utterly rude it is to put something so morbid next to the bed of a man who spends his days in bed, unable to walk or bathe without assistance, practically waiting to die. i immediately dismiss the thought, of course; obviously nothing bad was meant by whichever fool decided to install a clock there. i try to focus back to what my father is telling our host. my father is telling him about jesus and how through god's only son we can attain everlasting life. i try to listen further but nothing gets through now except the ticking of the clock, counting off the seconds with a noise that seems incredibly, unbelievably loud. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "demented grandpa tao stories: 'bible fun!'" by - grandpa tao ed. note: these wouldn't be nearly as funny if they weren't completely true. i was attending church one day, and something funny happened. well. not "ha ha" funny, cause that would be damn sick, but it definitely was out of the ordinary. this elderly widow was to do the children's story, (a section of the service where the children all go up to the front of the church and listen to a bible-related story.) but she had only recently lost her husband, and wasn't in the greatest of mental health. she got up and went to the front and began to speak: "once upon a time, there lived a farmer and his family. his son, a smart boy, had finally graduated from school and was ready to go to college. the family scrimped and saved every penny to send their son to school! finally, they had enough money, and the boy said goodbye, hugged his parents, and left. one day, the farmer decides that he should go see his boy in the Big City, so he packs up his cart (they were poor) and his ox and heads for the college. he slept under the stars, and ate food from his pack. he finally arrived, and upon seeing his son on the quad, yells out a greeting. the boy, embarrassed about having a dirty hick for a father, yells at him to go away, and to never come back. the father, brokenhearted, returns home. when the year was over, the boy returned home to find his father dead, a suicide due to a broken heart. "the moral of the story is, love your parents, or they'll DIE!#" well, that pretty much did it for the kids, as they sat there all teary eyed and wobbly. the same effect could have probably been achieved by having ed meese decapitate a rabbit and stick the remains in his buttocks. well, at least, for those kids it would have. they were crying and bawling, each more scared than the next. most of the parents were just sitting there, stunned that something like that could be said in church. i was laughing. i was a real bastard back then. well, my friends were laughing, too. yeah, just about everyone in our town is screwed in the head. oh well. it still doesn't beat the time matt mccarthy set his desk on fire, and decided to put it out with his own bodily fluids .. but that's another story. here's a quarter! don't tell your mom! grandpa tao's hometown funfact: "in my hometown, in shop, you can make a bookshelf, or a CROSSBOW. not many book lovers around these parts, no sir-ee .. " ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "mirror" by - orestes i look at myself as i often do and i see a rather comforting reflection. between the two panes of glass, sandwiched with an inch or two of air in the middle, i can see myself twice. no, not really twice, but rather, oh, different. i can be big head, small body, small body, big head, big arms, small head .. yeah, focusing my eyes, or my mind, whatever the trick is, i can remold this reflection. oh, this isn't a mirror, i hate mirrors. mirrors are of as much use to me as a twin, and if i had to live with a mirror and gaze in it every bloody morning, i'd plot to murder it too. shit! i do! well, i am a coward; my mirror, er, that mirror, will live. yeah, this isn't a mirror, it's a window, or rather, two of them. they make my eyes dark shadows and my hair a serious black. yeah, serious. i'm serious; this window reflects me from the inside out. how does that work again? big body, little head? big head, little body? i'm a late night guy and i see the insects here on the floor. i don't like them much, but they do clean the floors. i think i see a metaphor here. who hides in the walls and cleans the floor out of hunger? maybe i do. yes, and i'm happy now, happy because of HER. the night makes me happy and the metaphor doesn't bother me. yeah, i'm happy because of HER. happy because of her. earlier i felt more like one of these nefarious millipedes than i do now, as i eat this tasty cold pizza and look out at the night. the moon was out earlier, a pretty crescent, hopefully waxing, but i can't see it now. a pity, i suppose, because the only thing i could see out this window with these lights on is the moon, the pretty, glorious moon. +-----+ oh, i like times like these. when i watched television, i'd come out here, look out the window and see the night and myself, drinking darjeeling and thinking about this author or that, and that was a great time for me. i'd dare say that it was a sacred time, because there's a kind of peace that the night, the moon, bestows on me, and to be honest there's but one way to take this sort of thing, and that is with a great deal of reverence. i'm reverent now, reverent because of HER. yeah, reverent because of HER. reverent because of her. when i was younger, very young, i remember telling my mother that i felt content. it was a word i couldn't have been wielding for more than a couple years, but yet, it was almost magical in the depth of its utilization. i remember telling her how being content was so different from the other emotions i was familiar with, such as "happiness" and "sadness," that is, positive and negative anxiety respectively, and that it was very rare for me to be content. it's still rare for me to be content at the level that i was at then, and i still go through rough bouts of dueling positive and negative anxieties, but contentment is more common for me now than then. +-----+ i've turned out the lights now. oh, this is fun, to see the strange gray-scale landscape in the faint moonlight. looking outside at night and enjoying the natural beauty is an indulgence more rare for me than darjeeling tea; i love it that much more. i am a night guy, but there is something to be said about closing the night like a wax-sealed letter by retiring at the peak of its charm. fortunately, the hot tea, so reminiscent of the girl with whom the former hours of the night were spent, is gracious with my mind and doesn't conflict with sleep. a simple conformity since everything at night is gracious with me. the completion of the day doesn't bother me. in the knowledge that i have innumerable nights left to enjoy, and probably with a little less capacity to raise second thoughts, being impaired by a gentle fatigue, the fade doesn't disturb me. i'm content, because of this night and its day. yeah, i'm content because of HER. content because of her. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "the inconsistencies of the time-space continuum; empirically proven by irc" by - the masked marauder the fabric of time and space that is set forth by einstein's general relativity theorem is now ruptured, torn so to speak. the perpetrator in this case was that friendly service we all know and love, internet relay chat, commonly referred to by junkies like myself as irc. the most disturbing part of this amazing scientific discovery was that the discovery itself was sheer luck. just as penicillin was discovered by leaving a sandwich in the lab, like ramen was discovered by some italian fucking up his pasta recipe, like most of the really important breakthroughs of this millennia, it was purely innocent. but the implications are enormous. first a little introduction. i am sure that we are all experts on time travel. i know i am, i have watched 'back to the future' at least seventy three separate times, i know about the flux capacitor, i know about the five gigawatts it takes to fire up the magic delorean, i know how doc cut his head on the toilet, but learning this forbidden knowledge has shaken, indeed torn, the very fabric of the reality that i know and love, as i am sure it will do to yours. so here it is, this little tidbit of information changes everything i know and love about that little thing called reality. here's the premise i am judging under. according to the basic theorem of the time-space continuum, if time travel were to occur and i happened to "meet" my "other self" in a dark alley somewhere, i would in fact _meet_ that person. i would see the aged reflection of myself even though it hasn't happened yet. well, on irc, the rules are totally different. if you are so fortunate as to encounter a "lag" then you obviously are lame and should immediately be shot. well, you might also switch servers so that you escape that lag and resume your netsex without further interruption. well, if you were lagged enough on the first server and join a server with no lag, you usually see yourself blabbering about stuff you thought would be funny to say, but you are just five minutes too late, and everyone thinks that you are some dumb guy that took five minutes to think up some lame response. sometimes it doesn't work that way. like if you join the channel initially, on a lagged server, then change to an un-lagged server, you should see that initial join in a few minutes; but you don't. "oh god!@ damnation is upon us all!# praise jesus! amen!" that single fact disproves the time-space continuum theory. you are probably thinking "tmm, you are just some sarcastic angstful alterna-teen that doesn't know what you're talking about." a-ha, touche! i am in advanced placement physics *two*, so i at least have some clue as to what the hell i am talking about. anyways, this disturbance in my perception of what is and what should be led to a slippery-slope, a snowball perhaps of thought within my puny little brain. so i tried to justify the incident to fortify and maintain the time-space continuum theory that all reality rests upon. i postulate that one of two things occurred. either the whole little incident is a result of a bug or glitch in the programming of irc itself, or reality is thrown out the window. but i have been known to be wrong. or i could be just nothing at all. i'm probably not typing this, and if i am, it is probably just the result of a lagged server, and when the server i call reality rejoins, no one will see me! i will be alone with my maniacal musings!# shit. they're gonna put me in the jacket again. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "thirty seconds at pratt & sheridan" by - kojak the young man gently stepped on the brakes, not in any particular hurry. the car came to a stop, at the intersection of sheridan & pratt, in far-north chicago. the music on his tape faded out, signaling the end of side one. as he patiently waited for the light to turn, his tape to flip, and life to go on, he took a look out the window. he saw a multitude of things, a myriad of activities. close to the intersection was a police car, parked, with its lights on. there was a policeman sitting in the driver's seat, door open, writing on a clipboard. the flashing lights occasionally blinded the youth, and he wondered why there would be a police officer on this seemingly normal street corner. the policeman was middle-aged, with his hat pushed high up on his head, exposing a forehead that itself exposed a few years of hair loss. the officer was thinking as he wrote, occasionally pushing the eraser up against his chin. "i wonder when he's gonna get home," thought the young man, "he looks very tired. is there anyone that will be at home waiting for him? wait a second, is there anyone waiting at home for *me*?" scanning farther to the right, the youth spotted a fireman walking towards a large red fire engine, with a long wooden pole in his hand. he motioned to the police officer, but got no response. setting the pole against the fire truck, the fireman rubbed his hands together, signaling a break in his activities, and leaned up against the side of his vehicle. the uniformed man took in a deep breath, then leaned his head back against the truck and let it out in a big, collected sigh. "where is the fire?" pondered the young man, glancing upward. seeing nothing, he thought back to the time that he had to call the fire department, also a false alarm. he was eight at the time, and never once has he been more scared in his life. his oven was smoking incessantly, and he was the only one home. he shivered at the thought, and continued looking around. in the street, facing the young man, was one other car: a green volvo station wagon with a young woman driving, and a small child in the passenger seat. the woman and the child were having an animated conversation, for the young man could see a little pair of hands cutting through the air and making wild gestures. the woman was plain looking, the type of person you see one hundred times a day and never think about twice. the young man remembered driving through the city with his mother hundreds of times, sometimes with conversation - other times not. the scenery had always intrigued him, and sometimes he wouldn't speak at all, but rather watch. and learn. the young man's eyes followed a group of kids who had just crossed the street, and his eyes crossed paths with a hispanic family. three people, standing on the street corner waiting for the light to turn green. both the man and woman carrying several grocery bags, and the young child carrying the woman's purse. they waited patiently, their weight shifting from one foot to another, eyeing the group of kids nervously. they seemed very afraid of the gang of young men walking across the street - but why should they be? there's a policeman right across the street. still, there was the inkling of doubt in their minds about the situation. the young man wanted to look up at the sky, but his view was blocked by a billboard that told him, "crack is an addiction." this didn't appear to be a neighborhood that was drug-ridden, but what lies behind the facade of lovely brick houses, he didn't know. were the lovely brick houses in his neighborhood drug-ridden? the young man was from the suburbs, a nice one at that, where drugs are supposedly not present. but an inkling of doubt crept into *his* mind about the area he lived - why wouldn't drugs be prevalent there? he continued his upward scan, and when his eyes finally rested on the clear blue, he tookin a deep breath, holding it. suddenly, the music faded back in, bringing the young man back to life. he glanced down, and noticed the light turning green. he headed southward, wondering how such a small corner in such a small neighborhood could house such a vast world of activity. he wondered that if he went back, the same amount of activity would be going on. he wondered what it would be like to live there. all these thoughts crossed his mind, perhaps never to do so again .. but yet, he still had this indelible image in his head. it was an image of simplicity, indeed .. but the lives of these people were inherently more complex than the intersection let on to, and the young man found himself wanting to learn more about the scene. the scene that was vibrant, full of activity, and one he will never forget. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "the girlfriend" by - sweeney erect dear casey, i remember the first time we went out. i asked her out on a friday, but unfortunately she was busy washing her cat's hair. luckily i continued to call her every hour on the hour until she agreed to go out with me. she was so so beautiful and i was honoured. i wanted to go to lunch with her, but she insisted on a night date, romantic little pup that she was. we went to a movie and she insisted we sneak into the disused balcony. so mischievous! after five minutes or so she went off to get us some popcorn. i guess the line was really long because she didn't get back until the movie was almost over. then we left. she insisted on getting out of the car several blocks from where she lived. she's so shy! very cute. one day she got very sick so i stayed with her night and day. i couldn't seem to cheer her up, she just sat around moping, insisting that i could really leave any time i wanted. she's quite a little trooper, but i stayed on. i would make her chicken soup, which she would usually drink a little of, holding the rest of it in her mouth and spitting it at me. such a playful little thing. she didn't let me actually sleep in her apartment, i guess she was scared of me getting sick, so i camped out in her hall. the neighbors affectionately referred to the clump of blankets i laid on as my "nest". often they would come over and spit playfully on me. one day she began brandishing a gun demanding that i leave. i guess she really didn't want me getting sick. she has moved and changed her phone number, but i still feel very close to her. casey, would you play _wind beneath my wings_ and dedicate it to sandra, from roger. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "the chaos theory; monday, july 18" by - eerie at ten am i was back home. during all of the bus ride, i was dreading cynthia's anger. my relations with her weren't going too swell already, so i wasn't too sure what to expect for this time. then, i realized it was monday & she was at her job, therefore i wouldn't have to go through her anger before supper time. cynthia was working for some clothes boutique in the downtown. from that moment i considered as impossible the fact that annie would quit my thoughts. yesterday again i dreamt of her. she was by my side, again, so pretty & so fragile. & for the second time, i woke up alone, with dried sperm on my belly. like her sole presence would generate thousand infinite erotic dreams i could hardly remember. i got in the apartment & i dropped on the arm-chair, & mechanically turned on the tv set. there was nothing interesting - monday morning, can't expect too much - so i turned it off & searched the bookstand for a book that i could read & maybe even try to finish someday. there was cynthia's almost complete stephen king collection, which never really interested me, as well as some pocket books, comic books, nothing too intense. however, after searching a bit more, i found a john irving book, which i heard was pretty good. i then got back on the arm-chair & read the first paragraphs, with the interest of someone who has nothing better to do. at that very moment, the doorbell rang. "who the hell could it be?" i asked myself as i dropped my book on the small white three-legged table next to the chair, & i answered the door. it was melanie. - oh. what a surprise. - you seem almost happy to see me. - no, that's alright, come in, you were just disturbing me in the reading of a enormously entrancing novel, just at the moment where the plot was reaching its highest climax level, but it's okay. - oh. i'm sorry. - hey, i was kidding, i was reading the introduction about the author's biography. what are you doing here anyway? - i was near here. wanted to say hi, that's all. - strange will, but i won't discuss. she looked at me with a puzzled look & i told her to nevermind. - s'okay, i'm wandering. - ah, okay. so, you still have no job? - nope, sadly. well, actually i don't complain. leaves me some time to work on more important matter. - really? you're still writing? - yeah. - about what? - nothing excessively enthralling. some guy who decides one day he'll become a schizo. - oh, it looks positive. - you wouldn't imagine. - can i read it? - er, yeah, if you want to. it's in my room. i turned on the computer, entered the word processor & printed a copy of the first three chapters on my old dot matrix printer. she could read the whole thing as the words appeared on the paper. - "the chaos theory". looks like something kafka would do. - uh? yeah, true. never thought about that. she sat on the bed & read on the three chapters. it didn't take too long before she finished. meanwhile, though, she stopped & took a close look at me, asking: - hey, that's me, here, in the bus? - er. yeah, true. - wow! that happened like two days ago. i thought it was all fiction .. or is it? & here, cynthia .. shit. i forgot i kept the real people's names. - some people, like you, are in the novel, so i could locate the fictive events with more ease, that's all. - oh yeah. she kept on reading. - maybe the events are fictive, but god, the narrator looks just like you! - could i do otherwise? she smiled. - i'm sure .. what's her name? annie! yeah. i'm sure annie really exists & you fuck with her like a dog. i sighed & she let go. - well, i liked it anyway. - hmm. - but seriously, i don't believe you. i'm sure this story tells the exact truth. you aren't even amplifying situation or changing events. everything looks so exact! - believe what you want. i smiled. i laughed, actually. - anyway you're wrong. - okay. & she laughed too, a laughed i was used to hear a lot more a couple months ago, at a time when we saw each other almost every evening, going in the city, watching the girls pass by, 'cause well, it's probably the only discussing topic we ever agreed on. - well. i gotta go. i eat with joelle. - come back whenever. i watched her leave the apartment & laid down on the bed. i've always vaguely desired melanie, even if she & i were radically incompatible. she's been my "girlfriend" for two years. at first i was a blessing for her, because everyone though she was with me, & the rumours about her being a lesbian would low down. after a while, though, she decided she didn't give a fuck about what people say, & we sort of lost touch with each other. would i go back to my reading that i didn't even start? i was feeling tired, didn't really want to do anything. i was too awake to sleep. i didn't want to take a walk outside because it was still way too hot - oh my god, it's even hotter than yesterday - & also because i had nowhere to go to. i had the impression all i was doing these days was writing & ejaculating. after a moment of reflexion, i decided in favour of irving's book, read slowly, stopped only once to get something to eat. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "eggplant parmesan" by - creed lincoln elementary school was a school like any other. it had an average amount of students who had average parents and got average grades. but one particular student at lincoln elementary was anything but average. this student was jimmy. jimmy was an eggplant. jimmy had a hard time being an eggplant, but he dealt with it. when bullies approached him and called him "eggplant-head" or "stupid eggplant boy," jimmy would usually just smile and walk away. it was no big deal for him; he was used to getting pushed around. yes, it was a hard life, but jimmy sure did love being an eggplant. one day, as jimmy was strolling down the hall on the way to his next class, he was stopped by brian, the toughest bully in the whole school. "uh-oh," jimmy laughed, "i think the school genius wants my lunch money." "that's right, eggplant, fork it over." jimmy stood there and smiled at the enormous bully towering over him. "i can't, brian, i'm saving up to buy you a brain." brian fumed with anger. "listen, you snot-nosed eggplant punk - " jimmy interrupted and attacked again with another clever comeback: "i may be a snot-nosed eggplant punk, but at least i'm not a big dumb poopy-head like you!#" jimmy was on a roll. he had never been so proud of his quick thinking and expertise of argument. but for brian, this was the last straw. completely furious at the young eggplant's witty remarks, he rolled up his sleeves and beat jimmy into a mushy purple mess. "that'll teach him," he muttered as he spit on the bloody corpse and walked away solemnly. the next day at lunch, they served eggplant parmesan in the cafeteria. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "don't try to understand" by - girlie17 everything changes so quickly you never know what to expect i was finally experiencing happiness or something close to it why don't they try to hear me as i get my point across force me to go to extremes i hope i don't get lost radical change in behavior do they see me? probably not so what's the use in trying the battle - no point in being fought they tell me how i feel couldn't be more wrong if I tried to reach them it would probably take too long they'll never understand how i'm feeling; how i've felt they were the ones who gave me the cards that i've been dealt ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "wish" by - fake scorpion his face was without expression as he lay on his bed. his ceiling was clean as far as he could tell, for that was all he had been staring at for the past hour or so. the same song drifting from his stereo had done so over one-thousand times and he attempted to make it two-thousand by pressing the back arrow each time it ended. it was saturday. the girl he had promised to call was most likely sitting by her phone waiting for him. he was five minutes late, but he felt it was still too early. she could wait forever for all he cared. just imagining the look of anticipation on her face was making him sick. "my parents are out of town," would be one of her opening remarks after she answered his ring. "as if you haven't told me that one thousand times already," he would feel like saying, but he knew he wouldn't. he couldn't. her perfectly aligned teeth, the mole on her cheek, her perfectly trimmed eyebrows and nails, her clothes - she was a clone of a million clones. all of these images, they formed such a thick soup in his head. he began to feel sick to his stomach. he could feel it begin to reject what little food he had eaten during the day. he knew he didn't love her ; he knew she didn't love him. the thrill of dating an older guy was enough for her; it boosted her social class in the high-school caste system. what he really wanted to do was bash her skull in. he wanted her physically, of course, but when it was time to hold her and caress her skin while repeating the age-old script, he just wanted to do away with her. he would pull the lamp from the wall and hit her over and over again until her blonde hair had been dyed a bright red. she wanted to look a bit different - she wanted a change; she had told him so. perhaps then he would caress her skin. yes - the idea was turning him on now. he was smiling as he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. he would trace her lips with one of his fingers while running his other hand through her hair, bloodying his hand. the blood (how red it would be!) would be his motivation. he would press his face to her hair to smear the blood around the edges of his mouth so he would resemble the animal he wished he was. how scary he would be then! his smile dominated most of his pale face. he would leave her in his room and go out to eat afterwards. when he returned home, he would see that she was bored and wished to go home. "i'm no fun?" he would mutter, laughing hysterically at his own joke. he would be a gentleman and would place her in the passenger seat (very carefully) of his car, being courteous enough to strap the seat belt around her chest. he would drive her back to her home and drop her off in the middle of the gravel driveway so her parents wouldn't see her come in late. "dumb," he would mutter a mile down the road, remembering that her parents wouldn't be back until much later. she had told him so. seeing that he had much more time than before, he would return and pick her up (women don't weigh anything - she even complained of being fat!) and set her in the hammock stretched between two carolina pine-trees. he would even cover her with a blanket from the back of his car, but not before he had doused the blanket with gasoline. he would light a cigarette and throw it upon the blanket after he had smoked away about three minutes of his life. he would crash the car into a tree a few miles down the road, on purpose of course. he picked up the phone and dialed her number. she wouldn't be that mad; he was only ten minutes late. he asked her if she wanted to go to the movies. they made out in the back of the theater. afterwards he took her back home and went to bed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "all it took was one miracle e-mail" by - whisper date: thursday, may 9, 1996 1:38am electronic mail from: xcool msg#: 159131 to: whisper re: morality. yo man, you still can't explain why sexually a girl does not satisfy you, a guy does not satisfy me because i have never been with a MALE. you keep mentioning society, but nothing about morality. i'm very sure that in the back of you mind you know that what you do is not right, just like taking drugs you know it's not right, but you just do it because you are addicted, i'm not saying you are addicted to having sex with a man i'm just putting across a point. i knew if i asked you how long have you thought you were gay you are going to give me some answer like "since i was a baby" or "i was born like this" but no one is born anything, liking the idea of sleeping with men takes conditioning, like getting fed up with being rejected by a girls, to maybe just something like going to and all boys school. i'm not saying those are any of the cases for you but i think you are old enough to know the difference between having sex with a compatibly REPRODUCTIVE person and anything else, and that you a male having sex with a male is if nothing else a question of MORALITY. i'm not trying to teach you anything whatever you do is between you and your GOD. later, man. (r)eply, (e)rase, (f)orward, (c)opy, (b)acktrack, (p)revious, or (n)ext? +-----+ praise e-jesus!# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "present company excluded" by - creed what if stalin was an aardvark? what if castro was an iguana? what if hitler was a ferret? that would be really weird. you may ask, "how would that be weird?" well, i've never seen an iguana become the unruly tyrant of a small island. i've never known a ferret who was responsible for the deaths of over six million people. present company excluded, of course. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "into every sunset a little acid rain must fall" by - murmur "i am against stupidity." - reverberator now, don't we all often complain a lot about stupidity? sure we do. stupidity, sadly, is omnipresent in our society, and we are affected by the ramifications of it daily. sometimes stupidity takes its form in neglect, sometimes stupidity takes its form in such an outright blatant manner that we are given little choice but to bubble with rage. let's take a look at some examples of stupidity: * you go to the grocery store, looking to buy a case of dr. pepper. it's $6.69, and you're thinking, this sucks, but i want my dr. pepper. then as you're going to leave you see a big display that twelve-packs of dr. pepper are on sale for $2.89; for 24 cans, or the equivalent of a case, that's only $5.78, a full 91 cents less, almost four cents less a can. what the hell is up with that? * your little brother/cousin/lover is fiddling around with their boombox and suddenly blurts out, "damn it! how do you fast forward a tape@?" yes, there is a button clearly marked "FF". * the cure. * walking on the jefferson street walking bridge in rockford, illinois, and seeing the fine, fine work of a local graffitist: "slow down your going to fast." of course, there are many, MANY more examples of stupidity in our everyday lives! some, of course, are on more severe levels than others. for every "i am a jelly doughnut!" uttered there is some idiot so broke that instead of buying cigarettes he tries to inhale car fumes to get a buzz. for every milk commercial sponsored by the american dairy board there's bound to be a tv show whose script is written by the same man. for every candlebox song there's a collective soul song. so what is there to do in the face of such a terrible, terrible thing as mass stupidity? some people have chosen to remain ignorant or indifferent, often becoming part of the problem. these people include those who bought the rembrandts' _lp_ and operation rescue. operation rescue is a good example, too. did you know that you there with that delicious cherry lemonade snapple have merely added to the problem? snapple gives money to operation rescue, and by supporting snapple you are indirectly supporting operation rescue. but then again, so what? no average person can completely avoid the supporting of the stupid. quite frankly, to make a conscious streamlined effort to be completely pure, and thereby altering your life with some sort of misdirected intention in mind, is probably evidence of such anal retentiveness that you're stupider than anything you've set out to avoid. besides, no matter how good your intentions, you've already failed to avoid the stupidity! wanna know why, do you? look at yourself! you could be outside in the sunshine, or your own personal sunshining darkness, but no, you're sitting here reading this stupid piece! this is a very stupid piece, in fact. it's about stupidity, for christ's sake. what kind of idiotic topic is that? wait! maybe you're relaxing from a hard day of work or play. perhaps, for you, this text file is relaxation? bullshit! it's your own damn fault for being tired from a hard day of anything. the only way you can expect to truly avoid stupidity is by laying in a meadow filled with wild, poisonous berries that are killing off stupid birds, and soaking up some sunshine or your own personal sunshining darkness! you damn well better be sleeping ten hours a day, or you're fucking wasting away, too. i mean, getting some good sleep makes you feel good! so does that chocolate ice cream! lactose intolerant? nope! stupid! stupid as a fuzzy clam! this here paragraph was removed because it was rude. this here paragraph was also removed because it was rude. hey. why are you still reading this, stupid? hoping for redemption? think i might clear you from the stupid list? fat chance. i'm stupid just like you are! stupid! you know, i walked into the post office the other day and said hi, i would like to buy a book of stamps and the person behind the counter asked if i wanted bird stamps or flag stamps and i chose the flag stamps and she said okay and handed them to me and i paid for them and left and while i left i thought boy she was a stupid bitch. then i sat down and i turned on my tv set and i turned on mtv because i'm kind of stupid like that sometimes and the stone temple pilots were on and i looked at scott weiland and say boy is he stupid the stupid drug addict but i like his hair and then a sponge video came on and i prayed to my personal jesus and thanked him for not making me as stupid as sponge and he said shut up stupid so i said okay sorry personal jesus. i was feeling hungry so i went to burger king and ordered a whopper with just ketchup on it because mayonnaise is stupid and i got this burger with mayonnaise on it and i said hello i ordered this without mayonnaise and they said sorry and made me a new one and it had just ketchup and it tasted okay when i ate it and while i ate it i thought to myself i wonder if the fat chick behind the counter is more stupid than the manager or if the tall hispanic man making the hamburgers is really the stupidest one and then i remembered that lewis largent was a lot stupider than any of them and i laughed and almost choked on a french fry and boy i am stupid. boy, a lot of stupid stuff happens. it really kind of sucks that we have to put up with so much stupid stuff because hey i might be stupid but i am not as stupid as whoever that is in the corner that can not speak because he was born a retard. poor guy. i mean, i feel sorry for him, because people will tease him and everything, but it's not his fault. he was punished for something someone else did, quite possibly harry s truman. i don't make fun of him or the poor people with down's syndrome. it's really not their fault they were born with those disabilities, you know. i will make fun of many people, however, who deserve it. these people include those who donated large sums of money to the mondale campaign and anyone that buys old milwaukee. boy, this lead singer of the nixons is kind of ugly. luckily, i'm handsome besides being not at stupid as many. hey, i'm thirsty. +-----+ i had already ended this file, actually, and whilst playing a video game in our fabled dorm's fabled back lounge, in walked some random individual. i guess random is a poor word because i've seen him before, he lives here and all. but, anyhow, it's 4:30 in the morning on a sunday, and in walks this person, and he changes the channel, and i'm thinking, what the hell is he doing? and i'm paying more attention to the video game, but still i'm like, what the hell is he doing? and i notice he stops and first chance i get i'll take a glance at what he stopped at it but all i had to do was listen and realize hey, he changed the channel to the weather channel. he's watching the weather channel. then i finish my game and i'm trying to figure out what the hell he's doing and i open a pop and he's like four inches from the tv and this friendly weatherperson is telling us it's going to be cold and he starts swearing at the tv, fuck. fuck! and that continues for a little while and all in all is relatively amusing, i guess. my point is, he's also pretty fucking stupid. i'm not saying wanting to know the weather is stupid, but, all in all, this is a stupid person. he's ugly too. perhaps not as ugly as kenry kissinger, but i guarantee you he isn't getting the chicks kissinger did. well, then again, no one again ever will get the chicks kissinger did, except maybe keanu reeves, except i hear he's gay and even if he's not gay, he can't do shakespeare, which you would know if you saw the movie version of much ado about nothing starring kenneth branagh (sorry, kenneth, if i've butchered your name) and emma thompson, who's quite a beautiful woman, but getting back to the point, a stupid, ugly person changed the channel on me and caused me to miss the first half of that new video from rage against the machine, which i'll grant nobody else seems to like and most people will wonder about me for liking, but hell, i like it, and i was looking forward to seeing the video, because i like to bounce around this here lounge when no one else is here shouting RALLY ROUND THE FAMILY .. WITH A POCKET FULL OF SHELLS but still i'm digressing again that's an ugly and stupid person and i for some reason get the feeling he doesn't smell good. i'm not sure why this is but other people i know that look sort of like him, same build and height and hair, they all pretty much smell bad for no explainable reason, and they're all stupid and ugly. damned if i know why. i'm not so thirsty anymore, which is probably because i've almost finished my can of dr. pepper. woah, this commercial makes me want to go buy some schlitz malt liquor because it's a bunch of black people drinking schlitz malt liquor and they seem to be at some sort of picnic and they're dancing to music i don't understand that i don't think is very good and they seem to enjoy their schlitz malt liquor. but then i remember i don't like malt liquor or any sort of alcoholic beverage for that matter, except for dimetapp. i like dimetapp, but that's medicine and on second thought i'm not sure if there's really any alcohol in dimetapp or not, but i think there's dimetapp in vicks formula 44 and i think i like the cherry flavored vicks formula 44 too, but i don't like champagne, i just don't. whatever it all may mean, my thirst has been quenched by that can of dr. pepper. pastels. what the hell are up with pastels? i'll bet a stupid, stupid person invented pastels. either that or someone fully aware that he or she could take advantage of stupid people and make good money exploiting the stupid people, this part of the sentence removed for content. this part of this sentence also removed for content, but they never went for the pastel bit, no sir. pink jumpsuits? what the hell? you wouldn't catch me dead in a pink jump suit, mister. now, look. i'm reaching where i just shouldn't be reaching. this piece may have had comedic value at one point but now it's just pretty fuckin' stupid. oh well, stupid is as stupid does. damn it, that was stupid of me. this has gone on too far, hasn't it, now? let's wrap up with another list of things that are inherently stupid, to varying degrees: * the chevrolet corporation launched a massive marketing campaign in mexico, feeling that the mexicans comprised a large untapped market. unfortunately nobody bothered to consult their spanish-american dictionaries to discover that "no va" is spanish for "doesn't go"; chevrolet lost millions when the mexicans refused to buy the chevy nova. * the premise of "the net". the movie, stupid. * caffeine free mountain dew and diet caffeine free mountain dew. * the woman in this century 21 commercial. * that snapple mango flavor. god, that's terrible. don't drink it. * the average frat guy in central illinois. er, the average frat guy most anywhere. what the hell? hi, i like to get drunk and listen to the bodeans and alternative bands like dave matthews. wait, this is going to comprise most sorority chicks too. uhm. well, so be it. okay. * the cure. * whoever authorized the cancellation of "my so-called life", making the revolting piece of trash a cult phenomenon it didn't need to be, and authorizing mtv to suck even more by allowing it to fall mtv's way. * militant "i hate men" feminists. these fall into a special category of "ultra-stupids" because, as you may recall, all women are stupid. not to say all men aren't, of course. but, uhm, yeah. girls stupid@! wear dresses@! dresses stupid@! perms yuck!@ hate them soap operas@!#$ insert random pathetic slander here too@!#!$ BOY ARE GIRLS FUCKING STUPID. I GUESS THEY'RE JUST STUPID OR SOMETHING. * the gentiles. really. stupid gentiles. * this whitney houston video. hyper-stupid. power-stupidity ho! * art modell. wait, he's greedy. well, he's stupid too. so there. * maybe they're more insensitive than stupid, but whoever authorized moving "murder, she wrote" from sundays to thursdays, they're pretty darn stupid. * the minnesota vikings. * the cure. well, you get the idea, i think. you know, i think i'm thirsty again, damn it. or something. it's 5:30, maybe someone will come in and change the channel to the discovery channel and start ranting. he'll probably smell, too! oh, fuck, i think i'll stop now. really!@ somebody bring me some water, can't you see i'm burning alive? oh, hi, i'm melissa ethridge!@ i'm stupid too@! grrrkr#@! er. hi. uhm. BOY, LIMA BEANS SURE ARE STUPID! AND SO IS YOUR STATE REPRESENTATIVE AND YOUR COUNTY CORONER TOO! stupid they are. stupid, stupid. YOUR COUSIN IS SO STUPID HE GAVE ME A 1943 STEEL PENNY FOR A MEXICAN FIVE PESO PIECE BECAUSE I TOLD HIM FOREIGN CURRENCY IN HIS POCKET MADE HIM SPEAK BETTER ENGLISH. boy. well, uhm. THE CURE SURE ARE STUPID. oh, fuck. good thing i'm madly in love or i'd be drooling at this here garbage video. i might go to graduate school in wisconsin, you know. wait, that's unrelated. sigh. WORMS! FEED ME YOUR SLIMY CRAWLY WORMS! oh. aye, cap'n! i'm movin' her in! oops, we appear to have a man overboard. drat that buoy! stupid buoy! hmmm. yeah! STUPID BUOY. AND STUPID COAST GUARD TOO. STUPIDNOSES. hrm? sorry. BOLT THROWER! BOLT THROWER! ack. well. WALGREENS: THE PHARMACY AMERICA TRUSSES. uhm, bye. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "dummercon update" transcribed by - mogel the following article appeared in the _philadelphia city paper_, june 7th, 1996, page nine. +-----+ "_bbq with a byte_" finally a reason for those offbeat scribes of electronic 'zines to come out of their computer cubbyholes & congregate in the the outdoors. the dummercon 2 convention offers a little off-line fun for on-line enthusiasts. organizer mogel (just mogel) encourages participants to bring a laptop & their own picnic necessities. anyone from the 'zine community is welcome but he warns that they might feel out of place among the e-'ziners. his own publication, _doomed to obscurity_, features poems, prose, & rants from writers around the country. expect the usual picnic games & cuisine plus events tailored to offbeat tastes. goofy jokes will abound at the spontaneous 'zine writing contest (laptop required). the dumb stuff raffle celebrates kitsch such as michael jackson stickers & vanilla ice records that are too neat to throw away & too goofy to sell. last year's dummercon drew about twenty people, estimates mogel. so far, he's already gotten sixty inquiries for this one & figures about a hundred enthusiasts will attend. the came of this event is a play on the title of the national hacker convention, summercon. mogel won't comment on his own status as a hacker or give out his last name. if you want to get more info about the shindig, e-mail him at doomed@voicenet.com or you can just show up on sat., july 13th at fdr park, picnic area seven, between noon & six pm. have yourself a merry little rantfest. - neil gladstone ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "deliverance" by - shadow tao "the images are getting larger. the aliens are obviously creeping closer." - star trek: phaser fight (a _choose your own adventure_ book) the men and women made their way out onto the stage with a crafted apprehension, their instruments cradled in arm and held in hand. the orchestra was assembling on the stage, the movement of suits and dresses, the sounds of cautious and quieted tuning, all anticipatory to his glory. the world was his stage tonight; that stage aglow with life and awe. nothing better in the world. nothing. the sounds of the orchestra tuning soon overcame his controlled breathing, the hushed cacophony of a thousand tones rushing in and out. he was to be the spotlight tonight. he wouldn't solo, as the piece did not require it, but he would be placed away from the orchestra - due to his great skill and young age. everything made him excited. his first performance with the orchestra. his first billing. his acclaim as a new prodigy. the audience was quietly filling the seats, as hundreds of undistinguishable voices slowly formed waves of quiet chatter. the sound of the orchestra was still present, but it was a glitter with the tone of starhood. it was finally time. all the work. finally time to take his place among the stars in the sky. finally time for the respect that his genius required. demanded. the conductor jutted out onto the stage from the other wing, and an almost strangled silence fell. like a tree filled with raucous crows, the director had startled them; the noise of conversation had taken wing, the hall quickly filled with the echoes of interrupted silence. he carefully began his way to the soloist podium. a curt applause erupted from the left, sparking interest in the audience. polite applause. he'd have to show them a lot to earn their love. but that would just take his skill to do. and some time. he glanced over at the conductor, to nod his wait. a woman was walking across the stage, carrying a a a violin case? he had his, it was right what what could it possibly th-the woman finally approached his sight and and slowly opened the dark black velvet case. no it couldn't be. it just could _not_ be but it _was_. the warm orange glinted off the stage lights. the glory it was. too beautiful for words, cradled. in his dreams. a *stradivarius*. he would play his part in the eventofhislifeona *stradivarius*. he instantly swore that no one would escape the beauty of his genius. his gift would be seen, and it would be too much for the weak-minded fools to comprehend. he would save them with his beauty; deliver them with truth. DELIVER THEM. HE WOULD DELIVER THEM. his mind seared with zealous rage. he whipped his stare to the director; harshly showing his intent. he took the gentle beauty into his arms, tucking the ancient wood under his chin. the huge stone podium before him, he stared out into the expectant eyes of his followers. they would see beauty like they would never see again. the warm tremolo of the violins began behind him. the horn section came alive, sounding out the way of the lord. he positioned his bow. the cello entrance came and .. crystal was the tone of the violin. like a radiant messiah he stood there, leading the symphony; a brilliant light bowing out the word. the word of god. the strings grew stronger, angrier in their strokes. the clarinets began their counter voice as the this is the most beautiful thing i've ever done. timpani sounded out it's bounding hits. quieting, the orchestra passed through his sections' shining moment. the andante walk of the muted violas made the rhythm for his part. this is the most beautiful thing the world has ever seen. see their faces? that is the face of the saved. i am their leader. i am their guide. feed off my brilliance, mindless sheep. i will show you the way. the finale was approaching. the angry attack of the brass was met at first with only token notes from the strings. but the end was coming, and he had no intention of letting his gift be snuffed by the short-sightedness of the composer. with the savage beauty of a swinging blade, his voice cut through the "BEHOLD, FOR I AM CLAUDIUS!@" angry trumpets like vengeance upon the unknowing. "I AM CHRIST!@" instead of the deep and resounding minor finale "I AM FATHER, SON, AND SPIRIT!@" a single voice erupted, completing the perfect chord in an orgasmic wave of harmony. he had created the perfect end. the audience sat aghast at the incomprehensible beauty of "I .. AM THE MESSIAH! I AM GOD!#%" the stradivarius swung from behind him in a slow arc, creeping past his head in the slow motion of horror. seeming only to slow at the top, where the light from the stage glinted off the instrument like a brilliant salvation, the violin came down " .. GOD!#@#" from on high. propelled downward, it slammed into the marble podium, shattering and splintering the work of love into a million little pieces. for a second, the shattered wood just spun in the air; lucent and spinning in the radiance of a blinding sun. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "self-respect" by - girlie17 HEY THERE COME OVER HERE IS MY MESSAGE CLEAR? I'M NOT A SLUT BUT I WANNA FUCK SO BE NICE AND TREAT ME RIGHT AND MAYBE WE'LL HAVE FUN TONIGHT ____ ___| |_ _ ___| | _______ | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------- | | | | | | ----------------------------- ----------------------------- | | | | | | ----------------------------- | | | | | | | | | | | | |_____| |_____| |___ _ please direct all dto correspondence towards - doomed@voicenet.com the dto world wide waste homepage - http://wwti.iway.net/dto 'zineworld plug - http://www.pla-net.net/corp/zineworld/ to get on the dto mailing list - send mail to doomed@voicenet.com with the body of the message saying "subscribe dto". (c) copyright 1996 doomed to obscurity productions - all rights reserved. "delete your dogma & the rest will follow." - kt ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------