___________ __ _______ \__ ___/| |__ ____ \ \ ____ ____ | | | | \_/ __ \ / | \_/ __ \/ _ \ ______ | | | Y \ ___/ / | \ ___( <_> ) /_____/ |____| |___| /\___ > \____|__ /\___ >____/ \/ \/ \/ \/ _________ __ __ \_ ___ \ ____ _____ |__| _____/ |_ ___________ ____ / \ \/ / _ \ / \| |/ \ __\/ __ \_ __ \/ \ \ \___( <_> ) Y Y \ | | \ | \ ___/| | \/ | \ \______ /\____/|__|_| /__|___| /__| \___ >__| |___| / \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ .......... ......... ........ ....... ...... ..... .... ... .. . . . . . . . . .. ... .... ..... ...... ....... ........ ......... .......... t h e n e o - c o m i n t e r n e l e c t r o n i c m a g z i n e I n s t a l l m e n t N u m b e r 1 3 5 We Are the New International December 31st, 2000 Editor: BMC Writers: BMC d""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""b. ;P Featured in this installment .b $ $ $ Measuring Laura - BMC $ `q p' `nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn' EDITOR'S NOTE I'm going to skip my usual this-time-of-year cynicism and just say this: So so so so so so so so s os os so sos osss so so so so so sop so so so so This makes me wonder how they celebrated the New Year in 2000bce. Did they go out to the loudest place with the smokiest air and the drunkest and most- likely-sex-havingest people? It's entirely possible. But did they know it was New Year's time at all? At all? Think about that, because it's deep. Real deep. `Cause it's New Year's Eve. This is the greatest night ever. It's different from any other, and if you ask me why I will not be able to respond because it is not an intellectualization but a feelin. This is when it all happened. This is when time started. The first day that the world started was the first New Year. Ok, you caught me... I'm bullshitting. I have no idea. No idea at all. At all... (ed note - I'm crying) d""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""b. ;P MEASURING LAURA .b `q by BMC p' `nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn' Everybody wants to be somebody they're not, no matter what position they hold in life. From flamboyant street goblins, who fancy themselves poets, to company presidents, who look back on their high school rock and roll days, everybody dreams of something more. As human beings, we have been conditioned to want it all, but we can never have it all because that is just not the way the world works. Nothing ever turns out okay, no matter how hopeful you are and no matter how favourable the conditions seem. Nobody is ever completely happy and nobody ever gets what they want. I mean, imagine for a minute that you have stumbled into the perfect life. You don't have any worries, you love your work, you are in the perfect relationship, your bed is comfortable, and you get to sleep for nine hours every night. Wow, it seems like you would really like to live in this life, but guess what? I met a person who DID live this life, and you know what they told me? They said that life wasn't enough of a challenge and that they were in a constant state of boredom! In response, I punched her in the stomach, and then when she doubled over, I kneed her in the face. Yeah. Life wasn't so easy anymore, was it? But wouldn't you know it, she still wasn't content. To paraphrase what my homie Johnny Cocaine said in his classic ghetto anthem, "Dove Sick," ain't nobody satisfied in the 2-triple-0. It's all true. We all have the same deep-seeded desire. To be something else. Laura wanted to be something else, even though she was living a life that many children dream of. She was a Cirque de Soleil performer, and at acrobatics and contortion she was the best. She made lots of money, got to travel, and had thousands of fans worldwide. When the announcer said her name, the fans would cheer, and when she would squeeze herself into an orange crate, they would go wild with adulation. There was only one thing that Laura didn't have - Love - but she didn't want Love, so that was ok. Ahh ahh ahh! But, there WAS something else she did want and that was to be a Las Vegas cigarette girl from the 1920's. Every time she would enter a conversation with someone, she would find a way to bring it up. Even if a complete stranger would come up to her and say something unrelated like, "What would you like to be?" she would respond, "A Las Vegas cigarette girl from the 1920's!" Sometimes she would go for days saying nothing but that. She went to see the seamster (the male equivalent of a seamstress, which is the female equivalent of a tailor) who was in charge of designing her Cirque de Soleil costumes. He said, "So what can I do for you today?" to which she replied, "If you can't help me become a Las Vegas cigarette girl from the 1920's, then perhaps you could help me design a new costume!" He measured her for her new outfit until Laura had to leave for her evening show. The tailor wanted to be something else too. He wanted to be Laura. He had loved her since time immemorial, and every time she spoke, her voice sank deeper into him. After all, she was beautiful, and above that she was wonderfully kind and compassionate. She cared about little things. She didn't litter. She never used foul language. She loved animals. She kissed inanimate objects that she felt sorry for. "If only I were one of those inanimate objects," thought Roy (that was the seamster's name). Laura was a good person- no, she was amazing. She had legions of fans, and though she was only eighteen she had experienced more than... more than Roy had. He was thirty years old and had spent his entire life up to this point as a seamster. He knew there was nothing Laura could possibly see in him, so he gave up on it, deciding instead to gaze on her at every opportunity, leaching drops of beauty from her reflection to lighten his own soul. But he went even further than that. When Laura would come in to design her tight costumes with laces and frills and ruffles attached to them, Roy would draft the diagram, make measurements, select the material, and finally cut the pieces of fabric for the two outfits. Yes, outfits (plural). When Roy created a costume for Laura he would also make a second suit that was not Laura sized but, in fact, Roy sized. He was a loser (n. one who loses). On top of all of this, he had to live in an abandoned warehouse because he didn't have a real job. The only thing he did for a living was seamster, and Laura was his only customer. He liked it that way, though. His whole life was dedicated to serving her, and he couldn't have asked for anything more than that. Oh wait, he could ask for more than that. He wanted Laura to love him, but he knew it would never b real. The closest he could come to being with Laura was to watch her perform her spectacular circus act. He needed to get closer though, and he secretly accomplished this, although you wouldn't have been able to tell even if you were sitting right next to him. The truth is, under his regular clothes he wore a costume identical to Laura's, and as she performed, he would touch a tiny piece of the fabric and be transported to another state of consciousness where it was not the cloth but Laura who was wrapped around his naked body. I bet you think the rest of this story is going to be really perverted, but it's actually not. It's just a story about a bunch of stuff that happened, and one of the characters in the story happens to be a little bit weird. Well I guess both of the characters are weird. Now that I think of it, all of the characters in this story are going to be strange, even the ones I haven't introduced yet. The ghost of Millie, for instance, but you knew about that already. Anyway, the next day Laura came to visit her seamster again, and when Roy saw her he smiled and asked, "So how are you today?" Laura replied, "Very very good, actually. I just came up with a plan that will let me go back to 1920 so I can achieve my goal of being a 1920's cigarette girl!" Roy was very happy for her, and hoped she would take her seamster with her. "So how did you do it?" he asked. "Well I haven't DONE it yet, but I do have a plan in mind," answered Laura. "You see, I was down at the book store today, and I found this book, and I think it talks about time travel." She held up the paperback so Roy could see the amazing mechanical invention illustrated on the cover. "Ahh, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells," said Roy. He had heard of the book before. "Uhh, yes..." said Laura, "...anyway, I figure that if I read this book it will teach me how to build a time machine and then I can go back in time to the 1920's and then I can move to Las Vegas and I am sure they will hire me as a cigarette girl because I have been spending all of my spare time practicing for the last two years!" Laura did a few fancy 1920's cigarette girl moves and Roy was impressed. "Wow, that's great!" exclaimed Roy, but he became sad because once Laura left, his life would be completely worthless. "So when are you going to read it?" he asked. "Oh, I don't know," she sighed, "I haven't even learned how to read yet, so I have to send a letter away to correspondence school and then they can teach me how to read." Roy couldn't figure out how they would teach someone to read through correspondence, but he assumed that there was a way. "So did you send away for information yet?" he asked. "No," responded Laura, "but I wrote the letter this afternoon, and I was wondering if you could mail it for me." She handed the envelope to Roy and he looked it over. There were no real words on it, just a bunch of meaningless scribbles. He didn't want to hurt her feelings by telling her this, so instead he came up with a grand lie. "I'll tell you what," said Roy, "how about if I teach you how to read and then you won't have to wait to get a response from the correspondence school." Laura smiled. "Ok," she said, "when should we start?" Roy replied, "How about tonight at the abandoned warehouse at 136 Lewis Avenue?" "Sounds great to me," she agreed. When Laura got outside of the building she began to laugh. She knew that the letter was all scribbles and she knew that when Roy saw that he would feel sorry for her and offer to teach her how to read. What she didn't know, however, was that he was an obsessed fan and that when she met him at the abandoned warehouse that night she was going to be in for a terrifying surprise. When Laura got outside of the building, Roy started laughing. He knew that the only reason Laura wanted to learn how to read was so that she could build a time machine and leave him in the future forever, so he devised an evil plan. It was dishonest, it was wrong by any code of ethics, and it was unprofessional as a seamster, but he knew what must be done in order to keep Laura in his life forever. Eight o'clock rolled around, and Laura came up to Roy's front door. Just as she was about to knock, the door knocker turned into the face of Millie in a bizarre act of Charles Dickens plagiarism. "I am the ghost of Millie the giraffe," howled the ghost, "and I am here to warn you that only hell awaits you if you go through this door tonight." "Hey, look. It's a cute giraffe head," said Laura. "Hi, giraffe head." Millie's presence wasn't as frightening as a ghost's presence should be, so she made herself sound as spooky as she possibly could. She even added a huge echo this time. "Whoooooo! Beware, Laura the performer, for your end is near if you cross this threshold. You will face spirits, you will battle the souls of the damned, you will be challenged by death himself!" Laura shrugged and said, "Well I don't believe in ghosts, really." Millie got really mad and decided that this girl's life wasn't really worth saving for all of the annoyance it was causing her. She disappeared, and Laura was left by herself, knocking at the door, just knocking at that door... they say you can still hear her knocking to this day... ...but they are wrong. The knocking actually stopped right away, and Roy opened the door about five seconds after that. They said hello to each other, and Laura went inside. They sat down on a couple of crates that Roy used for chairs, and Roy pulled up a big crate to use as a table. Laura looked around. There were nothing but crates in the building. Oh, and the walls were plastered with pictures of her, but that was a cliche so she didn't pay much attention to it. She hated cliches. They sat in the dimly lit concrete-floored room for awhile, and Laura asked, "So when are we going to get to work?" Roy remained silent. If he avoided the question, he might not have to teach her how to read and she might not build the time machine. This was Plan A of his scheme. She asked again and this time she meant it, so Roy had to answer. The plan had failed. Now it was time to move to Plan B. Roy had thought this one through very carefully, and it was sure to work. When he taught Laura how to read, he would intentionally mix up all the words. He would say that the word "here" was pronounced "there," that "seven" was pronounced "eight" and that "up" was actually "down." He had made up a list of replacement words for the entire English language, and as long as he could remember them he would be fine. He got a book out of one of his crates. "Ok, let's go over this one," he said. "Ok, this word is 'the.' This word is 'hi.' This word is 'box.' This word is 'good.' This word is 'the.'" "Hey!" said Laura, "You said THAT word was 'the!'" He was caught in his lie. What would he do now? Try to come up with some clever excuse, or risk everything by telling that he loved her. He weighed the pros and cons as well as he could. Being clever was not Roy's forte. He tried to think of an excuse he could use if he did choose to attempt to cover his lies up with more lies. He could say that there are sixteen different ways to spell 'the' in the English language. He could say that it was just a mistake, and that he meant to say 'train.' Ahh, or he could do something outrageous. He could pretend to be having a stroke or something, and then he would have an excuse for not being able to make sense out of any of those words. Even if she called an ambulance they wouldn't take him to the hospital, because they lived in a place where there was no health care so they just let the poor people die. The problem with that, though, was that one of the paramedics might teach Laura to read while Roy was feigning unconsciousness! OK, well he could tell her that he didn't actually know how to read. No, that wouldn't work either, because she already knew he could read the measuring tape in order to design her outfits. Roy thought about it some more. "What else could I do?" he wondered. "I could tell her that I love her. I could tell her that I didn't want her to leave, so I made up a big plan to keep her near me forever. She might think that is sweet. She might tell me that she loves me too. But oh, what if that doesn't happen? I am extremely unstable, so I might end up going insane and murdering her or maybe I would break her legs and make her write stories for me like in that movie. No, that wouldn't be very good either. I love her the way she is, and I could never do anything to change her. I don't want to see her turn into something else because of my negative influence. I want her to be herself. I want her to be free and do what she wants. On the other hand, however, she wants to leave this time and leave me alone here, and I can't allow that to happen either. Oh the choices are so difficult. I don't know what to do. I want her to be free, and I want her to choose to stay with me. Isn't there any other way? Isn't there any other way that -Roy- she would... what the hell? -Roy this is Millie- What is going on? -I am a ghost and my consciousness is inside of your mind- I don't believe in ghosts! -you will Roy- I will what? Believe in ghosts? -tonight you will be challenged by an army of spirits- an army of spirits, huh? -stop repeating everything I say- Am I repeating everything you say? I didn't realize... -Enough! If you meet the challenge you will survive with everything but your testicles. If you fail, you will see Laura die before you- Ok, this is fucked up." Roy had been silent for about ten minutes at this point, and Laura was becoming very frightened. She had tried to talk to him, but he was in a nearly comatose state. She had even forgotten about the way he tried to trick her into learning the wrong way to read books. Suddenly Roy snapped out of it. "Oh my goodness," he said (he always tried to avoid foul language in front of her or he would have said "Oh my fuck"), "We've got to get out of here." Roy said this with false calmness, but also with seriousness and determination. He stood up quickly, and a vision of a giraffe appeared in front of him. "Are you... Millie?" he asked, unbelieving. "Yes!" howled the ghost-giraffe, "And there is no way to escape what I have said shall be reality." Roy looked down at his testicles and shuddered. He grabbed Laura's arm and ran to the door, but it was locked. He realized that Millie was speaking the truth. There had to be some way around the testicle thing, though. Roy and Laura turned around. Before them stood three ghosts who can only be described as scary looking. They were pale translucent white, and their forms were similar to flames. Incandescent? Yes, they were that, too. Roy turned out the lights for a second. Yep, he could still see them (so could Laura). He turned the lights back on. One of the ghosts lunged at Roy, but he did a quick side-step and punched the ghost in the stomach. The ghost got winded and collapsed on the floor. The second ghost rushed in as well, but Roy was waiting and met his spiritual foe with a kick in the sack. That ghost was out. The third ghost stood there waiting for Roy to make the first move. Roy stepped in and attempted to give the ghost a hip-toss, but the ghost surprised Roy by engulfing him like a cloud of steam. Roy's sinuses suddenly became very clear. He inhaled the ghost entirely, and his lungs filtered most of the ghost out of the air he breathed. He kept breathing the ghost in and out until it was really small, and then he put it in a matchbox and put the matchbox into his shirt pocket. "Well that was pretty easy, wasn't it?" Roy said just as a fourth ghost kicked him in the back of the head. Laura stepped toward the ghost and sprinkled some salt on it. It shriveled up and died. Stop for a second. I figure that ghosts would be way too scary if they were impossible to defeat, so just to let you know, I'm going to make all of these ghosts pretty easy to beat. That being said, I suppose you can just skip over the next couple of pages, because they are all going to be about stupid ghost fights and if you don't like ghost fights it is a waste of time. I mean, the ghost fights aren't even that important to the story or anything, but I think it will be fun to write them so I think you're going to have to humour me or something. Or something. You could get mad and stop reading the whole thing. You could even hate me for the rest of your life. Wow, it seems like the minuses are totally outweighing the plusses. Writing a couple more pages of ghost fights would probably be really stupid of me. Anyway, in traditional BMC emotion-over-reason thought processing pattern, I am going to indulge. Indulge. Yum. I want a sandwich. Laura wanted a sandwich too. A ghost sandwich, that is. She took two pieces of bread from her knapsack and spread a ghost on it like jelly. Yum. A ghost sandwich would prove to be a delicacy in Europe in the 22nd century. In an amazing use of literary techniques such as foreshadowing and dramatic irony, BMC made Roy do something very impressive. A ghost appeared in front of him (no big surprise at this point), and Roy pulled out a pair of scissors and some thread from his seamster emergency case. He laid the ghost out, cut him up into pieces, and proceeded to sew them together. "What is that?" asked Laura. "Why it is a dress for you to wear," replied Roy. "But," said Laura, "the material is transparent!" Roy smiled and winked at you, who were suddenly there as well. Laura put the dress on and they continued to battle the ghosts. Laura asked one of the ghosts if it would like to play a game of Uno with her. When the ghost admitted that it actually knew the rules of the game, Laura told it that it was a loser and thence it lost the battle against her. As Roy bowed his head in shame because he also knew the rules of Uno, a ghost flew up his ass without his awareness. "I've got gas pains," said Roy. "No you don't," replied Laura, "you just have a ghost up your ass." "Yes and no, Laura" retaliated Roy, "you see, I believe I've just had my tank filled with ethereal." The ghost groaned at that joke which obviously stunk. NOTE- These ghost fights keep getting more and more awesome. "So what's it like having a ghost up your ass anyway?" asked Laura. "Well," said Roy, "you know what it's like to have a dry coarse broom stuck up your ass?" "No!" replied Laura with shock. "Oh," said Roy, and he slumped his shoulders a bit as his face turned red with shame and embarrassment. If you haven't gotten the point yet, they fought many ghosts that night. They were in deadly combat with the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future, they battled casper and the headless horseman, umm... the holy spirit was there... they fought with Io the cloud, but she wasn't really a ghost so maybe they didn't. I can't think of any more ghosts, but if I could then they would have fought with them too. In fact, they did fight with a few ghosts that I can't remember right now, and just because I can't think of them doesn't mean that they didn't happen. They were really scary too and somewhat difficult for Laura and Roy to defeat. Also, in that process Roy ended up losing his testicles. It wasn't that bad actually. He couldn't tell the difference. It was like he was born without them or something for all of the trouble it caused him. And that's the story of how they defeated the ghosts. Oh wait, there were a few more things that happened in that part that I forgot about. First of all, Roy told Laura that he was in love with her, and guess what? She said she loved him too! Apparently, the only reason she was in Cirque de Soleil was so that she could keep getting costumes made by Roy. The art of seamstering fascinated her more than anything else. They ended up going back to her circus house where she had pictures of Roy hard at work. They were all over her walls. What a weird development for Roy, the thought that he could actually be an equal to this amazing girl. Apparently they liked some of the same kinds of music, too, and they were both vegetarians! Roy never told her about the duplicate costumes that he made for himself, but Laura had her suspicions. She thought it was cute though, and she was actually flattered more than anything. Oh, another thing that happened during all of those ghost battles was that Roy taught Laura how to read. She was a fast learner and he was a good teacher, so it only took about 10 minutes or so. During the next week, they read The Time Machine together (Roy was going to travel back to 1920 with her now), and guess what? They found out that you can't build a time machine, it's just a story. Now that Laura was with Roy, she realized that she didn't need to have everything she wanted in order to be (mostly) happy, but she still wanted to be a cigarette girl, so Roy made a very pretty cigarette girl costume for her. They went to Las Vegas in the year 2000 where she auditioned at every casino around to be a cigarette girl. They didn't have cigarette girls in the year 2000, but they did have an underground Russian roulette ring. They played Russian roulette for a few weeks, and after winning several times, they were very very wealthy and bought their own casino. They converted it into a nostalgia casino with a 1920's theme, and guess who got to be a cigarette girl there? Laura! After awhile she forgot that it was actually the year 2000 and all of her dreams came true. Roy's dreams came true, too. He got to travel the world to go to casino-owner conventions, and he also got to try skydiving one time! The moral of the story is that everything always works out ok, even if it doesn't seem like it is going to be at the time. Get it? The word "time" had a double meaning. That was supposed to be funny. The End. .d&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&b. ___________________________________________________ |THE COMINTERN IS AVAILIABLE ON THE FOLLOWING BBS'S | |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| | TWILIGHT ZONE (905) 432-7667 | | BRING ON THE NIGHT (306) 373-4218 | | CLUB PARADISE (306) 978-2542 | | THE GATEWAY THROUGH TIME (306) 373-9778 | |___________________________________________________| | Website at: http://members.home.com/comintern | | Email BMC at: thebmc@home.com | |___________________________________________________| .d&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&b. Copyright 2000 by The Neo-Comintern #135-12/31/00 All content is property of The Neo-Comintern. You may 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. Made in Canada.