======================================== *** THE INNER SWINE *** Volume 6, Issue 3, September, 2000 www.innerswine.com ======================================== "The world needs anger. The world often continues to allow evil because it isn't angry enough." - Bede Jarrett CONCEPT BY: Jeff Somers, Robert Gala, Ken West, Jeof Vita COVER ART BY: Jeof Vita EDITOR: Jeffrey Somers PUBLISHER In Absentia: Cassie Moore WEBMASTERS: Jeof Vita, Ken West, my own bad self ADVICE & FREE DRINKS: SWM desperately seeking Sugar Momma CORRECTEUR D'EPREUVES EXTRAORDINAIRE: Karen Accavallo STAFF DISSIDENT: Rob Gala OVERALL OFFICIAL COOL CHICK: Lauren Strutzel LEGAL COUNSEL: The Duchess OFFICIAL BOOK STORE: Bleecker Street Books, New York City, where you find the most interesting things, if you look. FRIENDS OF THE SWINE: The Duchess, whose limitless faith in me is startling, and who supports me no matter how dumb I am about some things; Elizabeth Augoustiniatos, who is getting married despite my best advice, and who deserves every happiness; Cassie Moore,who got married despite my best advice, and who still tolerates my blatant goof-offism at work; Jeof Vita, who, destined for better things, still graces our covers with his immense talent, getting only insincere suckups like this in return; Misty Quinn, whose friendship I still treasure; Ken West, as always, for his obscure mixture of technical savvy and absurd humor; Lauren Strutzel, for inviting me out to Colorado and for entertaining me while I was there; Rob Gala, for remembering my birthday, and once again making the empty promise to write something for me, much to my amusement; Alison Culshaw and Gena Sabin for also not forgetting my birthday; Kris Kane for friendly tech advice and for being a reliable web host; Karen Accavallo for, as usual, increasing the quality of this here zine with her sharp eye, and for continuing to outwardly loathe me while inwardly digging my action; RA and her adorable children Rachel and David, for tolerating my company and inspiring the least pompous four pages in this issue. ======================================== TABLE OF CONTENTS ======================================== EDITORIAL: "PIG IN SHIT #20: INNER SWINE AFTER DARK: NOUVEAU RICH SOMERS SKATING TOWARDS EARLY GRAVE" FORUM TRANSCRIPT: "ANGER: WHY RESIST?" FICTION: "WITHIN YOUR REACH" COMMENTARY: "MY RAGE DIARY" PIE-EYED SNIVELLING: "MACHISMO: IT'S NOT JUST FOR MEN ANYMORE!" VIRTUALLY ARTLESS COMIC: "MR. MUTE #6" COMMENTARY: "SMOKIN' BROKEN PENCILS AND BEATIN' UP KIDS: WHY I DON'T GIVE MONEY TO BEGGARS ANY MORE" COMMENTARY: "ZINE REBEL OR ZINE ELVIS (OR SOMETHING IN­BETWEEN)" COMMENTARY: "THROWING MY WEIGHT AROUND: HERE'S EVERYTHING I HATE, ENJOY!" COMMENTARY: "MY DAY AT THE MALL DEL MUERTE" COMMENTARY: "BELCHING REMINDERS OF MY MORTALITY: MY DAY WITH THE KIDS" FICTION: "MY ROTTENED HEART, AND ALL THE GRUBS WITHIN" ---------------------------------------- The Inner Swine Volume 6, Issue 3 (ISSN: 1527-7704). Magazine published March, June, September, and December by Oinking Sow, Inc. © 2000 by Jeff Somers. (There is no company, really) Individual subscription rates: $5.00 (cheap!) per year in U.S.; $6.00 (cheap!) per year foreign including Canada. Single Copy $2.00 (cheap!) but stop teasing me, you're never going to order a subscription, you heartless bastards. Free trades are absolutely entertained, send me something, and I will mail you treats. Checks payable to Jeff Somers, Editor. Address submissions and correspondence to Jeff Somers, The Inner Swine, 293 Griffith Street #9, Jersey City, NJ 07307, mreditor@innerswine.com. But let's face it, when was the last time we published anything not written by me or one of my cronies? Other people's pimply writing gives me hives. Still, all submissions or requests for Guidelines (there are no guidelines, though) must be accompanied by S.A.S.E. Misty Quinn (left) is briefly lifted out of her rage-fueled depressions when we receive SASEs in the mail, so do your part to bring some joy into her tortured life by mailing us something. SASE, of course, is secret Swine code for "worst issue ever." ======================================== WHAT THE FUCK'S BEEN GOIN' ON? ======================================== WORST ISSUE EVER: Once again, The Inner Swine refuses to bow to international pressure and continues to publish every three months. And what's been happening since we last graced your bathroom? As usual, not much. This is, amazingly, our 20th issue of TIS. Why is that amazing? Just ask anyone, I am a man who can barely dress himself, and yet I have managed 20 issues of this zine. In non-zine news, I had a birthday and lots of people bought me drinks, so there's a bit of blurriness here and there. I went to Colorado to visit Lauren "Body Shots" Strutzel and my brain swelled to twice its size, granting me superhuman powers for a few days. I worked as quickly as I could, but I couldn't assemble a worldwide criminal organization before my altitude-related brain swelling faded and I lost my powers. So you continue to live in a drab world not remade in my image. Sorry. I have become absolutely obsessed with finding a way to survive this wretched life without working for a living. Unfortunately, taking into consideration my various talents, resources, and experience, my main avenue towards this goal seems to be permanent physical damage and the disability checks which that would generate. While being the Embittered Alcoholic Cripple has a certain amount of appeal for me, I'm terrified that this would lead me to eventually resemble Larry Flynt, and I just couldn't stand losing my superstar good looks. I have, otherwise, attained a certain squalid stasis in my life, a routine, a rut. I work, I sleep, I carouse with friends. I got Fight Club on DVD and spent a few nights watching it, realizing that while he has his flaws, David Fincher is turning into one of my favorite filmmakers, and, embarrassingly, my Brad Pitt aversion has lessened to manageable levels. I still live in my beloved Jersey City, although it is showing disturbing signs of being gentrified as corporations rush across the river from Manhattan, eager to shed some of New York City's taxes and utilities costs. Slowly, those damned gated communities are being built, filled with clueless rich people who somehow believe there is a need for a fucking gate - which basically means they don't want people like me getting anywhere near them. And there has been baseball. Glorious baseball. I began my Rotisserie season in dead last, about 40 points out of first, which is a real feat considering that first place in all categories only adds up to 70 points. But I slowly clawed my way into 5th place, which is special simply for not being last. Soothed by the many baseball games I've gotten to watch both live and on TV, my summer has been a pleasant one. I've even been to several Newark Bears (independent league) games, mainly due to Jeof Vita's employment with them. Minor league ball at its bumbling best! As always, here is The Inner Swine, Volume 6, Issue 3, already in progress... ======================================== Everybody's talkin' at me... Here's what they're saying about ME: ======================================== Our old friend Dan Sills sent us this important announcement the other month: "Dear Editor: I recently undertook a survey of the magazines in my master bath. You may be happy to know that there are three issues of The New Republic, one issue of the New York Times magazine, and FOUR issues of Inner Swine gracing my can. I love that TIS has a small form factor and is made of low-quality, and thus high-friction, pulp paper, as these attributes help keep it from falling of the slick porcelain that is my throne. I also appreciate the lack of advertisement inserts in TIS, since inserts invariably fall out of magazines and land behind the toilet, and I hate reaching down there to pick them up, especially when they go anywhere near the toilet bowl brush. Keep up the good work." Dan remains our most important reader, for undisclosed reasons. We're only as big as Dan let's us be and don't forget it, ever. Vincent Voelz of Breakfast ($3 3621 153rd Lane NW, Andover, MN 55304-3020; http://www.winternet.com/~voelz/breakfast) sent us issue #2 of his wonderful zine, and reviewed us too! "Jeff Somers is an asshole. So why do I like his zine so much? Is it because of his endless capacity for self-promotion? Is it the fact that he can call for a counter-cultural revolution while simultaneously sitting on his ass watching TV? Is it his rich "Yugo-slobby-ian" heritage? Is it his hilarious and pointless interviews with his friends? Could it be his enjoyable short fiction? His hatred of consumer culture? Is it the fact that, while most zines print reviews of other people's zines, Jeff reprints reviews of his zine previously featured in other zines? Yup, Jeff Somers is an asshole. Don't buy his zine. Your money will only go toward building his world-wide Swine empire. You wouldn't want to live in such a world." We're really starting to dig the recursive, mirror-into-mirror aspect of our correspondence page, wherein we reprint reviews of TIS wherein our tendency to reprint reviews of TIS is a main feature. Like that old Charles Addams cartoon where the man is sitting in a chair with a mirror behind and in front, and the sixth or seventh reflection of him shows a monster, instead of a man. Vincent took his damned time coming out with Breakfast #2, but dammit, it was worth it. You might think the subject of breakfast is a limited one, but you'd be wrong! It's a great looking zine and it makes me hungry every time I read it. I heartily recommend every Pig out there go buy a copy, clip out our review, and add it to your Jeff Somers Shrine. Shrine inspections will continue to be random, detailed, and mandatory, so keep those shrines up-to-date, people! Karlos of Throwrug fame (POB 3155, Bellingham, WA 98227-3155) sent us an email with the subject line "God won't take the time to sort your ashes from mine" in which he writes: "And what concerns me is this: that there is, at the bottom of certain pages, a little Jeff 's head, and the Jeff 's head has a word balloon in which are the words 'JEFF SEZ' followed by what Jeff is saying. But: since the words 'JEFF SEZ' are in the word balloon, it would seem that the words 'JEFF SEZ' are, in fact, among the words that Jeff says. In other words, the implication is: when Jeff is speaking, in casual conversation or otherwise, whenever Jeff has something to say, he prefaces it with the words 'JEFF SEZ.' Actually, upon further consideration, this seems very likely. Perhaps my concern, then, was unwarranted. Thank you for clearing that up. P.S. Do you know who Sean Whalen is? He was in 'Twister' and 'The People Under the Stairs.' That's who I think you look like." OUR newest number one fan Greg Trainer sent us gobs of cash and a letter: "I recently received a copy of your September 1999 issue and I thought it was hilarious. I don't usually laugh out loud when reading but I laughed aloud several times in the course of reading...I love your zine and I feel like I am reading myself a lot of the time." Wow, that's weird...I usually don't make my Greg Trainer obsession that obvious. Guess I'll have to find someone new to stalk, study, and regurgitate onto these hallowed pages. We appreciate Greg's kind words and reward him by giving his name to our rabid, insatiable fans, who will now locate him and steal everything he owns for souvenirs. The infamous Cullen Carter from My Moon or More ($1, PO Box 773, Appleton, WI 54912-0773) sent us the delightful MMOM #5 along with a quick note: "As far as "the swine" goes ("the swine" is what hipsters use to refer to your zine), I'm glad you're sending me free copies because I'd hate to actually shell out money for that crap. Just kidding. I thought the article on your book deal was pretty interesting. Now that you're a "professional writer", does your shit still stink? I heard that the smell goes away once you turn pro? Is it true? I'd like to see a compilation zine of your short fiction; that's the part of TIS that I like the most. Keep up the good work." I think Cullen is a pretty good writer himself, so I take his compliment very seriously and appreciate it. As for his thought-provoking question, no one knows, because my solid waste is bought by an international pharmaceutical company and used to create some of the wonder drugs curing people across the world. I am contractually forbidden to smell it. Pick up a copy of MMOM #5 today! You won't regret it. Ken B. Miller of Shouting at the Postman (ASKalice art net PO Box 101, Newton, PA 18940-0101) sent us a nice email: "Zine Elvis, Just finished th' new Swine- great job! Uh, I couldn't help but notice a "satan" theme in this issue, not to mention the numerous graphic references to fellating satan. Are you trying to tell us something? Anyway, I loved the short story about satan and the grifter, and also the article about publishing the book. Great job, hombre! And maybe you can fire up some christians into protesting your satanic zine- now that would be some great publicity! Just a thought, Ken" We're very pleased that we are already being recognized as "Zine Elvis"! My jumpsuits are resplendent, although they are getting a bit gamy since I have expanded within them and I can't get out of them. Eventually I'll split them wide open, so as long as new supplies are available, all will be well. As for Ken's satanic accusations, I officially deny that I have had any dealings with Satan, but if any of you Christians wanna protest my zine, please feel free. By odd coincidence, I have boxes and boxes of "I SOLD MY SOUL TO THE INNER SWINE" T-Shirts sitting in my living room. ZINE ELVIS: Well, we finally were sent a copy of "New Philistine Extra" ($5/3issues, King Wenclas Promotions, PO Box 42077, Philadelphia, PA 19101) wherein we were mentioned twice by someone who obviously does not get the joke: "Some zinesters are so eager to sell out it's comical - like The Inner Swine, who brags about signing a book contract with a vanity press. Okay, he'll sell a few copies, might make a few (very few) bucks. So what? His book'll be lost in an avalanche. There he is, the wayward explorer, alone on the mountain; one sees him briefly amid the blowing snow - then he's gone, never to be heard from again. They'll dig him and his book up a thousand years from now, and wonder at the intrepid stupidity of the man." He also cryptically remarks (in a blurb about Robert Polito) "I take back everything I said about The Inner Swine. Next to Polito, he's a genius of clarity and intelligence", which hints that he's said previous bad things about me and my writing, although I haven't seen anything, or even heard rumor thereof. Aside from the obvious factual mistake - I didn't sign a vanity contract, although the publisher does do vanity publishing - New Philistine is probably right in that my book will be published and then forgotten. This doesn't really bother me, and I think I've said as much several times. As for the bragging, well, I apologize. But you all know me. I brag about waking up in the morning. I brag about just being me. New Philistine Extra bills itself as "an actual underground journal", and bully for them. I've never considered myself an underground anything, and to be honest I find people's accusations of sell-out and of abandoning the underground for tokens a little amusing. You can't abandon something you never were part of, kids. I just like to write, and anyone's opinion of how I go about it - well, they certainly are entitled to it. New Philistine Extra is interesting, though, even if I disagree with the basic premise and many of the opinions within. I'm glad I got my issue for free (only because I was mentioned in it) but you can certainly spend your $5 in worse ways, and probably already have, if you bought a subscription to my zine. A Reader's Guide to the Underground Press ($4 to PMB 2386, 537 Jones Street, San Francisco, CA 94102; www.undergroundpress.org) checked in with a review of issue 5(3) of TIS (a little late but hey baby, anything which mentions our zine by name is good): "The Swine is a hit or miss perzine. Some parts are hilarious reading, like a story about getting rejection letters from snooty literary magazines and a guide to restroom freaks. Other parts aren't as engaging and my eyes glazed over. There's enough good stuff that its worth reading, but with a little more quality control, this zine sure could be something. [Reviewed by Wred]" Sounds just like my parents when I was growing up, except you'd have to substitute the word "kid" for "zine" and "bladder" for "quality". ARGTTUP is a great publication, IMHO. They sometimes dig us, they sometimes think we're boring, but they're always interesting, and Doug Holland's occasionally cranky narratives are welcome. I like the new 8.5 X 11 trim too, babies. Go git yo'self some and write them nasty letters demanding they devote an entire special issue to TIS. Jøsh Saitz of Negative Capability ($3 to PO Box 225338, San Francisco, CA 94122; www.negcap.com) emerged from cryo-sleep to send us NC #3 and a note: "Here's NC3 for you to share with your fellow swine. I know you'll publish any letter so long as you're mentioned. So, here goes. Jeff lives in NJ, the garbage, I mean garden state. I live in California, the cereal state (because it's full of flakes, fruits and nuts). Feel free to review it and then send me naked pictures of your ex-girlfriend. I live for that shit." Silly Jøsh, I don't review other people's zines, because that might distract our loyal readers from me. Plus, every goddamn zine in the world reviews each other in a disturbingly incestuous group-grope, and I want nothing to do with it. However, since Jøsh went through the trouble of coming up with the above missive, I suppose it behooves me to say that Negative Capability #3 is, as usual, a great-looking and incredibly articulate zine, although only about half of the subject matter interested me. Half is a pretty good ratio, though, and certainly your mileage will vary. Send Jøsh three bills for the current issue and four for the next (though considering how long it took him to crank this mother out, who knows when #4 will grace our libraries?) Aiko Akers sent issue #5 (time flies!) of Cobweb Junction ($1.55 to POB 60774, Sacramento, CA 95860-0774; http://cobwebjunction.tsx.org) which contains a review of (gasp!) TIS: "Vol. 6 #2...So maybe it's not for everyone, but I think anyone with a sense of humor will enjoy this zine [this issue is] as always, very amusing. Read about Jeff selling out, Jeff getting published, Jeff drinking a lot, Jeff...well, you get the idea. Also included are Jeff's fiction and Mr. mute. Mr. Mute is my favorite. I just love that little guy. Really, it's all fun to read. I even bought a subscription, which I generally don't do because I have no money. So just send the 2 bucks and check it out. You just might like it." Amen, sister. Thank god someone appreciates Mr. Mute, dammit. I like CJ a lot, and Aiko is a fun writer. I especially enjoyed her article about "Cabaret" and her little drawing demonstrating how she doesn't dress all that weirdly. If fewer people bought their clothes at chain stores, the world would be a more stylish place, and there's nothing you can say to disabuse me of that belief. So there. Well, kids, that's it from our files this time around. Next time, I'm only printing letters that talk about me and include baked goods. Just FYI. ======================================== *** EDITORIAL *** Pig in Shit # 20 Inner Swine After Dark Nouveau Rich Somers Skating Towards Early Grave by Sherry-Ann Markie Reprinted from US Weekly, July 15th-29th issue. ======================================== JERSEY CITY, NJ-You might think a man well-known for his egocentrism would be an easy score for an interview, but from the time my Editors at US Weekly assigned me the task of tracking down Jeff Somers, founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Inner Swine, to the moment I actually got to see him there were six long months filled with legal battles, bizarre messages from Mr. Somers on my answering machine, and at least one frightening moment where I believe my life was directly threatened by people working on Mr. Somers' orders. It started out normally enough; I contacted Mr. Somers legal representative The Duchess and left a message requesting an interview. I was in turn contacted by Misty Quinn and informed that Mr. Somers (whom she referred to as 'The Shithead') would be more than happy to sit down with me for an interview, and that he would contact me directly with details. Then, some time passed. After a few weeks, I contacted Ms. Quinn and was met with nothing but voicemails and unreturned phone calls. After a month had gone by, my phone started ringing in the middle of the night, from an unlisted number. Whenever I answered, I was hung up on. About two months after my initial contact, I received a postcard from Mr. Somers, postmarked Bermuda and signed "AM ENJOYING THE INTERVIEW PLEASE BEAM MORE QUESTIONS DIRECTLY INTO MY BRAIN, LOVE, JEFF." As I was standing in my living room reading this, the phone rang. It was The Duchess, legal counsel to Mr. Somers. "Burn that," she advised grimly. "If you show it to anyone, we'll drown your cats." And then she hung up on me. The next week, two legal documents arrived from The Inner Swine Corporate Offices: the first was a Cease-And-Desist order compelling me to stop 'beaming telepathic questions directly to Jeff Somers' brain', and the second was a release form in anticipation of the interview. Completely perplexed, I signed the release and couriered it back to Oinking Sow, Inc, A Subsidiary of Microsoft. That night, and every night thereafter for about three weeks, Jeff Somers called me at odd hours. He always seemed out of breath. He ignored anything I said, and merely talked, on and on, long monologues which often made no sense. At the end of every call, The Duchess broke in on the line and advised me that the preceding was a private communication and I would be sued humorlessly if I repeated any of it, not to mention the horrible torture my cats would have to endure. Then, suddenly, the phone calls stopped. About five days after that, I awoke in the middle of the night to find about six men and women in skintight black catsuits around me in the bedroom, holding guns. They argued about killing me. One hissed that her orders had come from "The Big Pig himself" while another kept insisting that if they "whacked" a "civilian" without West's (TIS Security Chief Ken West, I assume) written authorization, they would all find themselves taking the dirt nap. "But The Big Pig told me personally." "Lauren, he probably got into the demerol again." the other whispered. "He says a lot of things." I watched in palpitating horror as they slipped out of my bedroom, silent. The next day, a courier arrived bearing a signed agreement to be interviewed, along with a list of restricted questions that I wouldn't be allowed to ask Mr. Somers. I signed wearily and then didn't hear anything for almost another month. In the end, I had to attend a party in order to get Mr. Somers' attention. Not just any party, but a party which, legend has it, has been going on uninterrupted for almost a year now, ever since Jeff Somers sold The Inner Swine and its corporate owner Oinking Sow, Inc. to Microsoft for a reported seventeen-plus billion dollars. Jeff then purchased a tract of land on the outskirts of Jersey City and spent heavenly amounts of money to build his "Pig Manor", a huge mansion, with 117 rooms and a staff of almost a hundred. Upon its completion in February of 2000, Mr. Somers announced a party and invited all manner of friends, family, politicians, and celebrities. The party has gone on uninterrupted since. At the gate, where the ornate iron grillwork depicts pigs cavorting around a stylized pair of letters ("JS", of course) I am frisked roughly and thoroughly by two hulking guards in black paramilitary uniforms. At first they insist they must confiscate and destroy my tape recorder, but upon my insistence that Mr. Somers himself gave me explicit permission to bring it inside, they appeal to their boss, Ken West, via radio. A few moments later Mr. West himself arrives driving a black jeep, wearing the same uniform. A .45 caliber semiautomatic rides on his hip and a well-chewed cigar rests comfortably in one corner of his mouth. The large black man steps out of the jeep and extends a hand to me. "Ms. Markie," he says in a pleasant baritone, "forgive my men. They're not trained to be polite." He shakes his head as we climb into the jeep. "I gave up a good job for this shit." he sighs. The drive to the actual manse take about five minutes, even at top speed, which sends us flying over bumps and into the air several times. Mr. West cackles rather insanely each time the jeep crashes back to the ground. At one point he looks over at me. "Someday I won't make it back, if God's good as they say!" At the front door, with the low throb of music from within, Mr. West wishes me luck and tears off in his jeep. I am frisked again, slightly more politely, by two women guarding the entrance, and then escorted inside, where I am met by Mr. Somers in the foyer. He is wearing pajamas and a silk smoking jacket. He's unshaven, and a little wild-eyed. He is wearing what appear to be red converse chucks without socks. He strides towards me with a hand out, and he's flushed, breathing hard, and you can feel his body heat like a wave of humidity when he's still a few feet away. I am instantly terrified. I look around in terror, trying to locate an exit, but am engulfed in a hug before inspiration strikes me. "Amy, so glad you could finally make it. I feel like we already know everything there is to know about each other." he whispers into my ear. He breaks away from me and takes my hand. "Come, let me show you around." We enter the ballroom, and if I wasn't being pushed gently along by Mr. Somers' hand on my back, I would have stopped cold to gawk. It's bedlam, with a healthy dose of ancient Rome. It was the world's largest disco, filled with people, many of them celebrities. I must confess that this reporter was shocked, for a moment, at the sheer size and spectacle of this neverending party. "We have supplies trucked in every day, and I've actually created a whole company to handle the waste products - you'd be amazed how much waste is generated!" Somers slurred, waving to seemingly nobody and everybody at once. He leaned in close. "Especially the celebrities. They're uniformly disgusting." I had prepared a list of questions, of course, and pulled them out to begin my interview. Somers sat me down in a sumptuous leather chair and sat across from me, looking around carefully to see who was nearby. Only a dazed Hugh Grant, looking glassy-eyed and nauseous, shared our little space, and he certainly didn't seem likely to remember anything. "Don't mind him. I doubt he'll make it through the evening." Somers said casually. "Please, ask your questions." US: Is it true that this party has been going on for almost a year now? JS: About eight months, if I recall correctly -which I may not, my last sober day having been a frightening Sunday some time ago when I got locked in a bathroom upstairs for a while. US: It looks like half of Hollywood is here, and most of them seem to be breaking one law or another. JS: (leaning forward) Do you know why I keep inviting the celebs? Because I hate them. They're wastes of my time and your time and skin in general. This is just the easiest way to get rid of them. I'm doing God's work. US: Uh, God's work? JS: Look, I'm not actually murdering anyone. I'm just letting these arrogant, self-involved, talentless little fucks commit pleasant, slow suicide. When a celebrity dies here, we then process the body into pate and serve it to the guests remaining alive. US: I don't understand... JS: Okay, listen. Let's take an example. See over there by Mount Cocaine? (Across the vast ballroom is a literal pile of white powder, about six or seven feet high. A large crowd of people is gathered around it, most mildly famous) US: You mean Jesse Camp? What was he, a DJ or something? JS: A VJ on MTV, actually, by virtue of winning a contest. Completely untalented, obnoxious, and full of himself enough to actually have released an album. Can you believe it! Yet somehow attention is paid to him, simply because he was on television. So, he's invited here. He's allowed to do whatever he wants, except leave. Oh, we don't exactly detain anybody. We just don't make the exits real obvious. Eventually, he'll choke on his own vomit, or OD on something, or slip and fall and crack his head open. Then my security and legal teams document the scene, and we'll all be eating Jesse Camp on crackers later! US: That's....horrible. JS: Not as horrible as the thought of another album from that guy. It's a public service, really. I mean, these people are not our talented celebrities. They're not the writers and directors, actors or singers with talent, who might leave behind something that makes their otherwise grotesque existences worth our attention. No, these are the idiots who are pretty much famous simply because they're famous. US: So you...murder them? JS: Murder? Absolutely not. These assholes are killing themselves every day. The problem is, in the outside world no one just lets them die. Inevitably, someone calls 911 and their lives are saved. They get a lot of press because of their close call and they publicly clean up their act, until the next time. Or, its covered up, and their publicists come up with insulting cover stories. Here, the only difference is, no one is going to call 911. If some asshole drinks himself into a coma, we leave him lying on the bathroom floor until the end comes. And then (whooping like an Indian) PATE CITY, BABY! (At this point a group of lingerie models giggled near us and had to be gently turned away by Mr. Somers' security staff) JS: Models. The more of them I manage to trap in here, the better the world is. US: Really? I find that a little surprising, coming from a male. JS: I'll ignore the obvious insult to my gender and explain that models are the absolute lowest of the low. Here are people who are famous, well-paid, and afforded respect simply because they adhere to a certain physical standard. Getting that level of attention simply for the random arrangement of your genes is evil, plain and simple. We encourage our models to go Bulimic here. We've had several starve to death already. US: So, basically, you just want all celebrities to die. JS: You're not paying attention. I don't have a problem with celebrity - I just believe in a celebrity of talent. If you do something special, or do something better than most people, or somehow, in some small way, improve the world - then by all means, get rich, be interviewed by Entertainment Tonight. I fully support that. But to stand around in someone elses underwear? For that you should get a quick kick in the ass and busfare home. That instead you get rich and famous is an imbalance in the universe, and it makes me very, very angry to contemplate. US: Isn't that arrogance of the worst sort, to think you're in charge of fixing everything? Isn't it the same sort of arrogance that spurred on people like Jim Jones and the Unabomber? JS: Hey, you're good! But the difference is, I've been given a sign by God. I was made a billionaire by Bill Gates. Neither of your examples were. Besides, if you think about it, all I'm doing is providing a venue for the Self Destruction that vapid celebrity breeds. These idiots are mostly morons. Pretty morons, but morons. They kill themselves by accident, you know? Suicide is one thing. It's tragic, its bewildering, its one of the great mysteries of our existence, the fact that someone could be so depressed that they'd stop their own consciousness. On purpose. But these assholes are barely conscious themselves. They die puking on my bathroom floors thinking, this can't happen, I'm famous! US: Don't they deserve a chance to grow, to learn, to earn their notoriety? JS: Nope. US: Nope? JS: Nope. Sorry. They have a chance every day. They blow it, they blow it. I'm just here to grind them up into a tasty meat paste and serve them to their eager replacements. Besides, that train of thought is part of the problem. The assumption that they must have some intrinsic value just because they're famous. We don't sit around waiting for our siblings or friends to suddenly deserve fame and fortune. But just because (his eyes roam the room) Britney Spears over there is rich and famous for singing songs other people wrote, and singing them badly, we're supposed to hold our breath for the next fifty years, waiting for her to 'deserve' her fame and fortune? I'm sorry, no. US: You're going to let Britney Spears die here? JS: Actually, she's a little brighter than expected, and persistent, too. I think some time soon she's going to make it out of here. We, um, might have a law suit on our hands. US: That would be a shame. JS: Sure, that's okay, you don't understand the deep anger that injustice inspires in me. But that's okay. You don't have to. Thanks to our recent sale to Microsoft, I have the means and the motivation to rid this world of useless famous people, and I will. US: And what would you say to the suggestion that perhaps you're one of these useless celebrities, now, Mr. Somers? JS: (smiling) Well, I'd say throw your own goddamn party. ======================================== *** FORUM TRANSCRIPT *** The Inner Swine Forums: Anger: Why Resist? Discussing Anger Management and the Universal Can of Whoopass Hosted by Jeff Somers ======================================== Recently, The Inner Swine's humble Editor, Jeff Somers, sent out an interoffice memo demanding that TIS staff plan, organize, and host a series of Community Forums designed to educate and empower our community. Ever the leader by example, Mr. Somers then developed our first Inner Swine Forum, presented here for your growth as a human being. ---------------------------------------- ANGER: Why Resist? Hosted by: Jeff Somers, Editor, The Inner Swine Forum Participants: KAREN ACCAVALLO TIS Staff Proofreader/Writer RUSSEL CROWE Monosyllabic Actor JEOF VITA TIS Staff Artist JOHN McENROE Former Tennis pro MUMM-RA The Ever Living JS: Welcome to The Inner Swine Forums Inaugural Presentation! Today we've gathered a panel of celebrity experts to discuss the most primitive of human emotions: anger. Specifically, we're going to probe the usefulness of anger, its pros and cons, and ultimately answer the nagging question is the fact that I am a bubbling cauldron of rage all the time really a bad thing? Let's take a moment to introduce our celebrity panel. First off, we have our very own Jeof Vita, TIS Staff Artist who creates our wonderful cover art every issue! JV: Fuck you! JS: Indeed. Then we have John McEnroe, sadly faded former Tennis champion who has struggled mightily to give his life meaning since his career ended some time ago. JM: Uh....good to be here. I think. Is there a phone? I need to call my Agent; I'm not sure this is where I'm supposed to be... JS: Sorry, no phones here. Think of this as a "zen" moment; by virtue of being here, this is where you were supposed to be all along. To your right, uh, um, well, while not strictly-speaking a 'celebrity' KA: Bite me, pencil-dick. JS: We have the lovely and talented Karen Accavallo, proofreader and occasional writer for The Inner Swine. And next KA: I have an announcement to make. JS: Uh, we don't really - KA: Don't make me twist your head off like a bottlecap! I would just like to tell the world that you're not very funny, and they should stop reading or listening to this immediately, before they waste more of their precious lives on your swill. Thank you. JS: Yes...I see. Ahem, to Karen's right we have film actor Russell Crowe. RC: What the hell's her problem, then? KA: Back off, pretty boy! I could snap you like old brittle newsprint! RC: ...I believe you, sister. JS: Uh, Mr. Crowe, I'm sorry, but there's no smoking in here. RC: JS: Okay! As long as that's settled. Will someone please get Mr. Crowe an ashtray! And finally, our final panel member is former television character Mumm Ra, the Ever Living. MR: Pleased to be here, Jeff. KA: Is that smell you, corpse-boy? MR: I am afraid so, miss. I have been decomposing for thousand of years, kept alive by black magic and a careful hoarding of my life-essence. It can't be helped. KA: Stay upwind then. JS: So, this is how we're going to work things today. The basic questions before us is whether anger is something that needs to be managed or controlled, or if perhaps it is a useful and natural component to our interactions. In other words, should we even bother trying to resist our tendency towards rage? Towards that end I'll give the group situations and you'll discuss for the benefit of our audience whether anger is an appropriate and healthy response or not. Are we ready to begin? JV: Fuck you. KA: Is lunch being served? RC: Or cocktails, mate? JS: All right then! Let's get started. Here's our first hypothetical situation KA: How's this for a hypothetical situation JS: Uh, now, Ms. Accavallo, I'm running this KA: Shush, monkey-boy. Here's a situation: I agree to be the proofreader of a dinky little zine. My name gets pasted on the masthead. But I never get to proofread any issues because the dingbat Editor has his head buried too far up his ass. So every issue is crammed full of mistakes and grammar-atrocities, and because my name is there on the masthead everyone thinks I'm an idiot. Question: should I be angry about that? Followup question: if so, am I justified in setting the Editor's car on fire? JS: That was you? RC: I think that's justified. 'E's makin you look like a proper moron, isn't 'e? I were you, dearie, e'd be lucky if I didn't pop 'im one in the nose. JS: Justified? She's prevented from proofing The Inner Swine so she's justified in blowing up my car? RC: I don't much care for your tone, mate. JM: Yeah, it seems extreme, but you are hurting her reputation. You can buy a new car. She might never get her rep back. JS: Jeof! Someone's got to be on my side! JV: Fuck you! MR: Gentlemen! I believe you have missed the point of this exercise! This scrawny mortal has asked not if her anger is justifiable, but rather does it serve a purpose? Does it accomplish anything? She has destroyed his vehicle, but does that remove the stain from her reputation? Has it improved, or worsened the situation, or left it unaffected? RC: For a corpse you're gettin' kinda uppity, ask me. MR: Speak in that tone to me again and I will turn you into a fine powder. JS: Uh, Mr. Ra is correct, though. Let's stick with this unfortunate example now that we're so far into it: Does anger further our purposes, or is it a waste of energy? Think of it this way... KA: Oh, lord. Wake me when he's done. JS: ...Our emotions are instinctual, we're born with them. Even little babies display anger, sadness, fear. They must have served a purpose in our evolution, in our survival. Fear, for example: we feel fear when we're threatened. Our adrenaline levels rise, we focus, our senses become finer. Fear is a very useful reaction to threats. Anger, then, must serve a similar purpose. RC: Sure, sure, I see where the little Git is goin' wit' this! When someone fucks wit' ya, you get pissed. Without it, you'd just slink along. So yeah, anger serves a frick'in' purpose, eh? It keeps you from getting pissed on. WHere the hell's the bar in this place? JS: Okay, so anger helps us defend our interests. Gives us an immediate reaction to conflict that maybe gets us through dangerous situations we might otherwise run from. But does it still serve a purpose? In this day and age, is anger something that serves us, or is it a primitive residue of our animalistic selves that is as much an impediment as it is a boon? RC: Boon? You talk like a queer, y'know that? MR: I think I can speak on this subject, Jeff. You see, for millennia I have relied on my simmering, ever-present rage to keep me alive. Why, if I ever lost my ability to hate every living thing around me, I'd most likely just get really really tired and die. KA: You know, maybe you're not so useless, Mr. Corpse. I too can feel the ancient rage of millennia coursing through my veins. How can I become immortal? JS: Karen, I can't really condone your using a TIS event to seek Eternal Servitude to the Dark Forces. KA: Yeah yeah, button it, small fry. I'm doing business. MR: Yes, that's good. I can feel your rage from here, like a small sun. JS: Uh, Since I seem to have lost control over this side of the room, I'll ask you, Mr. McEnroe: do you think your angry outbursts during tennis games advanced your cause? Or was it a primitive remnant that served no purpose? JM: Well, Jeff, the way I see it, if it scared some of those fucking assholes into calling one thing my way that normally they would have called against me, then it was all worth it, the bad press, the death threats, the migraines. JS: Interesting. If I may indulge in a bit of translation, I think you're saying that even primitive drives and emotions, if channeled intelligently, can be used to attain civilized goals. Like winning a tennis match. RC: Sure, mate, that what I been sayin', y'know? JS: You didn't say anything. You've been quite obviously peering down Karen's blouse. KA: It's okay. I asked him to. RC: Oy, she's a goer, that one! But anyrate, I was sayin', it's like when you're makin' a business deal, in there to sign the contracts. If you makes 'em a little afraid of you, flashes a temper, see, you get a better deal. There's a difference between bein' ruled by rage and rulin' by rage, get it? JS: You sure talk funny, Russ, but it underscores what I've always said: Celebrities are the best people in the world, and know everything. If we could just get you and Mel Gibson working on the cancer problem, it'd be solved in a few days. RC: Amen, brother. I guess you ain't such a bad sort, huh? JV: Oh yes he is. And fuck you. RC: Friend, I know you didn't say that to me. JV: Yeah, mate? (jumps to feet, tears off shirt) LET'S GET IT ON! JS: Oh! Watch the furniture! This set cost money! Well, I'll move over to this side of the stage, where Karen and Mr. Ra seem to be praying. John, do you have anything else to add to our forum? JM: Nah. I think the subject's been covered. I'm gonna get home before the two beefcake boys here decide they want to tear off my shirt and grunt and sweat with me. RC: That sounded like an un-savry accusation, mate. JV: (whispering) I think he called you a fag. RC: Right. Come on, ball-boy! JM: NOT THE FACE! JS: Karen, will you salvage this with a pithy closing comment? KA: Sure sure. You're right: anger might be a primitive, blind emotion in the dark cave of our subconscious, but it still serves a purpose if managed intelligently. Not that you would know. Now go away, I'm selling my soul for immortality. I think I shall call myself K-Ra, the Ever Shopping. MR: Not bad, my child. Now concentrate! Feel the evil! Can you smell it? KA: I thought that was Somers. MR: No, that's evil. Well....now that you mention it, evil isn't usually that strong. JS: Well, there you go folks. I'll just step off the stage here and put some distance between me and fracas going on up there. We all get angry, and we've been getting angry since the race was young, as opposed to new emotions only recently developed, like Happiness and Freakiness. The primitive emotion of anger can still be useful to us in the modern world if we filter it through our intellects, which is the difference between self-destructive rage and constructive use of verbal threats. So use your anger, folks, don't get used by it. Until next time, I'm Jeff Somers, and this has been an Inner Swine Forum. Holy - [sound of metal folding chair hitting Mr. Somers in back of head] ======================================== *** FICTION *** Within Your Reach by Jeff Somers ======================================== In the Literary Criticism section, dense with books, the two men moved diffidently through the narrow floor space. The place was crowded with books, on the shelves, piled up on the floors, books behind books. In the rear of the store far away from the front windows, there was an insulated, dusty sense of timelessness. Most of the books were very old, some rare. They whispered of wisdom, age, and decay. The men were loud, and shiny, and young. Hands in pockets, flush from a good lunch, they spoke at high volume, with forced cheer. Ruddy-faced and profane, they fingered books coyly with the ease of men who did not read. "C'mon -what's the big deal?" This in a loud stage-whisper from the larger man, who wore a painfully white shirt and a dour brown tie with tan pants and a worn brown sports jacket. He was a bluff, heavy young man with permanently flushed cheeks and entrenched smile lines around his eyes, which deepened strikingly whenever his expression changed at all. The other man picked up a thick leather-bound book of yellowed, gold-edged pages and frowned down at it, moving slowly down the aisle, seemingly engrossed in the cover. The title was The Girl Who Was Death, and he traced a finger along the embossed letters. He was pinker and taller, in a dark blue suit and a stylish yellow tie. His shoes shined expensively. His dark hair was cut close in an acceptable business style, and a grey shadow of beard had begun forming on his cheeks. His fingers, long and surprisingly deft, were stained yellow from cigarettes, of which he also smelled. "I could swear I've been in here before." he said, and then looked directly at the other man. "And blind dates make me nervous." he replied, placing the book on top of a random stack. "Besides, Tom, Andrea hates me. I don't think I trust her suggestion of date." Tom shook his head, stalking him down the dusty aisle. "She doesn't, Monk, she doesn't. Hate you, I mean. And it's not just her suggesting this girl. I am too." Monk turned a corner, moving backwards into World History. "You know her?" "I've met her." The taller man squinted, pausing by German History and opening a book with a Nazi swatstika on the cover. "How many times?" Tom smirked in exasperation. "Once. But!" He hurried to say, putting up his chubby hands, "She's gorgeous! That I can say with certainty." The book shut with a click. "Okay, we'll table her relative physical attractiveness for a later debate. That by itself isn't a good reason to have dinner with someone. She could be a complete psychopath." Tom's wide-open face broke into a grin. "Okay, smartass, what's the difference between this and talking to a pretty girl in a bar, who also might be a psychopath -we're tabling the discussion of your own relative mental state for another time." "Ah," Monk replied, putting up a cautionary finger in a regal gesture, "because I talk to her. Before committing to anything I get to examine the subject, test her out, have a preliminary vetting process. Sure, it doesn't guarantee anything, but it's better than just hopping in and seeing where the car goes." He smiled, winked, and turned around to stride purposefully for Literature, alpha by author. Tom stopped and threw his arms out. "It's just dinner!" he hissed. Smoking cigarettes on the city streets a few minutes later, the two men were engaged in negotiations. "We'll all meet somewhere. I'm not going to drive her around all night, just in case." Monk said briskly. The air was cool and bright, and the men breathed heavily as they walked quickly, shouldering their way through slower crowds. "What if you get along? You'd want to drive her home then." Monk waved his cigarette. "If I like her, Tom, there'll be a second date, right?" "All right." Tom conceded with a tolerant laugh. "We'll go someplace we can all just meet at." "What will the romance level be?" Tom frowned. "What do you mean?" Monk's face assumed innocent wonder. "Well, are we talking dressed-up, wine-soaked, candle-lit and string music? That's too awkward if we don't click, plus it's a huge amount of conversation to generate." Tom looked dubious with a cigarette dangling from his lower lip. "You'd rather we go to a hockey game, maybe." Monk laughed. "A hockey game by candle light, maybe." Tom nodded. "Okay -top tier chain restaurant and nonverbal entertainment like a movie, okay?" Monk flicked his cigarette away and exhaled white smoke into the cold air. "All right. Now we just need some Plan Bs." "Plan Bs." "Plans in case this girl and I don't get along at all and can't stand each other, and, more importantly, if we want to split off and be on our own." "That's rude." "That's sex." "That's arrogant." Monk shrugged. "That's me." He smiled. "I've got a feeling about it, what can I say?" Forcing oncoming hordes of people aside with cigarette smoke and fierce cheer, the negotiations continued until all conditions had been met, and Sean Monk agreed to have dinner with Tom, Andrea, and another girl, sight unseen. They shook on it, standing on a brisk city corner, about to part ways until later. "I don't know," Monk said, shaking his head. "You can't back out now, we've come too far." Tom said quickly. "What's the concern?" "I don't know. I just have a bad feeling about this." Tom turned away. "Fag." he called over his shoulder. Unamused, Monk just shook his head. Sean Monk sipped bourbon and looked her over with a critical eye. He felt as if he knew her face, and would have sworn he knew her, from somewhere. His date seemed strangely familiar. She was an icy blonde, tall, all in black. Sipping a martini, her blue eyes flicked to him, and a tremor ran through his body. "I know you." Monk said. She smiled. Her name was Anka. "No, I don't think so." "That's an old line, and ill-used." Tom said from across the table, next to Anka. "I told her you were witty, Sean, really sold it you know -don't let me down, old man." Sean smiled thinly, not feeling particularly witty. He managed another weak grin in Anka's direction, fled her icy stare for Tom's familiar mocking gaze, endured one cocked eyebrow and desperately moved on, seeking comfort in the cool regard of Andrea, who seemed genuinely surprised he was looking to her. "So, Andrea," he began lamely, unsure how his evening had come to this, searching desperately for something to say, anything to keep away from the blue eyes directly across from him. Anything. Even...Andrea. "So," he maintained eye contact, grimly. "Still hate me?" Tom guffawed, choking. He had, over the years, cataloged his girlfriend's facial expressions carefully, and he watched her shift from 'Polite Distaste #3' to 'Thousand Yard Stare #1' in a few seconds. Andrea blinked. "Excuse me, Sean, I don't hate you?" With a white-knuckled grip on the conversation, Sean stretched his grin as far as it would go. "Sure you do, Andrea. It's okay. I don't resent you for it. I don't even blame you. I've been a prick to you many, many times." Andrea was a still life, dark and pale, her curly brown hair pulled back from a sharp, angular face, softened only by a full, sensual mouth. Her cool gaze was steady as she lifted her wine glass and held it by her chest, leaning back in her chair. "When have you been a prick to me, Monk?" "Andy -" Tom began. 'Thousand Yard Stare #1' had shifted to 'Bloodlust #42', and it made him nervous. "No, Tommy," she said, her words glinting in the restaurant's soft light, her eyes still on Sean, "I think I have a right to know when someone's been a prick to me, don't I?" Tom stood up and drained his martini. "Not right now. Look," he circled around and urged Monk up by the shoulder; he rose up, stiff and jerky, looking confused. "We were out for drinks today," Tom said smoothly, pushing Monk away from the table, "Monkey here overdid it a little -we'll get him some air and he'll be okay. Honey, get me another drink?" Andrea nodded, sipping wine. Tom noted with relief that she seemed to collapsed into 'Burning Resentment #12', which would get his ass kicked later, but he felt he'd at least spared innocent bystanders. Sean allowed himself to be led away. Looking back, he saw that Anka was looking at him, smiling a slim, secretive smile. He turned away, lurching. "All right." Tom said, leaning against the sinks and lighting a cigarette. "What was that all about? The way you're going, we're going to see Andrea's Executioner face." Monk was breathing hard, wiping sweat from his brow. "Yeah? What's that one like?" Tom shook his head. "No one has lived to tell." The bathroom attendant, a short, bald man of full but presentable vintage wearing a curious red vest, cleared his throat. "Sir, I'm sorry, but there's no smoking in here." Tom reached into his left pocket and pulled a bill from it, pointing it towards the attendant without looking at it. "Give us a few minutes, friend." Monk shook his head and closed his eyes. He knew Tom, knew the man considered himself a professional tipper, and that his left pocket always held nothing but crisp, separately folded twenty-dollar bills to facilitate smooth tipping. "Very good, sir." the attendant said with no trace of emotion or approval. He turned gracefully and exited the bathroom. Sean pushed his hands into his pockets. "Well?" Tom asked with a flushed face and a smile. He waved his cigarette about. "I set you up with a girl who's ninety percent Norwegian, a killer bod, and who's screwed every man we've ever set her up with -provided a bottle of wine is in the equation-and you're picking a fight with Andy? Who could kick your soft white ass, I may as well add?" Monk straightened up. "I know, I know. It's weird, man -I looked at her and I felt...I don't know. But I suddenly didn't feel so good, is all. And every time I looked at her, I felt worse. So I had to start looking...anywhere but at her, if that makes any sense." Tom was already shaking his head. "No. It does not make sense. Pull yourself together, man -I know Anka's a little but out of your general league, but she's dumb as a post and, like I said, has a speech impediment involving the word 'no'. If not for yourself, man, do it for mankind." Monk looked at his friend in apparent confusion. "What? Tom, I'd swear, I look at her, and I'm about to lose my lunch. It's like...It's like I've seen her, somehow, and it's terrible." Tom scowled. "She's in every other underwear ad in the inserts, you probably saw her there. You just need more booze. And to stop taunting Andy, who can be Death on Two Legs if you push her too far, as you well know. Come on, dammit, I'll buy." Skin waxy and pulse pounding, Sean Monk sat like a man perched atop broken glass, guzzled booze, and stole glances at Anka every few moments, conspicuous and agitated. As hard as he tried to stare with grim tenacity at Tom, his eyes kept slipping to Anka. Eventually, he seemed to slump back in his seat and pour his drink into himself. Tom was telling a story and had moved Andrea into the facial expression he'd classified as 'Glacial Facial #12,' a glassy-eyed stare which seemed to be slowing her vital signs as she listened. Suddenly, Sean Monk slammed down his glass. "So, Anka, how do you know our man Thomas?" he said loudly. The other conversation stopped. Anka turned her eyes towards Tom, who shrugged his eyebrows to indicate his lack of control over the situation, and then back to Monk. "We know some of the same people. We met at a party." She said with a bland smile. Monk nodded, raising his empty tumbler and waggling it at the waiter across the room. "Naturally," he said with a wet, loose-lipped grin, "he's fucked you." "Oh, Jesus, Tommy," Andrea moaned, letting her head fall into her hands. "Can't you exert any control over him? For god's sake." Tom shrugged. "He's bombed." Anka was staring at Sean Monk with parted lips, one long finger tracing the rim of her wine glass. Her cheeks were flushed. She and Mike were staring at each other, steadily. "Are you?" she asked, raising one pale eyebrow. Monk was waving his glass around again. "What?" "Are you drunk?" He winked. "I can barely focus my eyes." The eyebrow went up. "Then," she said, dipping her finger into her wine and popping it into her mouth. "We need to get you home and sober you up." Monk's glassy eyes lingered for a moment, and then slipped to Tom's, which were alight with prurient delight. Tom winked. "Your place is nice." Sean Monk watched Anka move through his small, well-kept apartment. The world came to him in waves, undulating alcoholically, nauseating, but he could see Anka gliding through his rooms as if she were on wheels, touching pieces of the decor in a lingering, sensual way. He stood by his modest little bar, wondering with cockeyed inebriation if it was indeed possible to drink yourself sober. The expression on his face was amused, pleasant. "Now that we're alone," he asked sedately, "where have we met before?" "We haven't." She called out from his bedroom. "My, you have a very large head." Monk closed his eyes. He could see her, clearly, in his mind's eye. Backlit, eyes wide, mouth open in a frightening expression, although he couldn't figure out what the expression was. She was beautiful. He understood why he remembered her face, but still could not place the memory in any sort of context. It floated, tantalizing. He was holding himself up by leaning against his bar. Anka reappeared, hair down, an explosion of gold tresses around her, an aura. "Poor baby," Anka said with a laugh, examining him. She walked up to him, pulled his arms to her until she was holding him up. He leaned in, kissed her neck, and she laughed warmly. "I know I know you." he whispered. "I remember." She pushed him away, cupped his face with her hands, kissed him deeply on the mouth. "You can't, silly. Take me to your bed." "But I remember -" She pressed herself against him, one hand disappearing between them. "Sssshhhh....you don't....you don't...come with me." He nodded. "Yes...oh god, yes." She began back towards his bedroom, tugging him along, and he followed, weaving drunkenly. She pushed him down onto the bed and he bounced with a blandly cheerful expression on his face. "I remember -" She shook her head and pressed fingers against his lips. "No, you don't." He closed his eyes, smiling, and felt her climb onto the bed, straddling him. His hands found themselves on her hips. Suddenly, she stopped moving. Monk opened his eyes and froze. She was backlit, eyes wide, her mouth open in a frightening expression, which he now realized was a terrible smile. "I remember." he whispered. "No," she said, her terrible smile somehow, impossibly, widening, "not yet you don't." ======================================== *** COMMENTARY *** My Rage Diary by Jeff Somers ======================================== 'Rage' is one of those buzz-words that all the media news outfits are bandying about these days, using it as a suffix to create new syndromes with all the restraint of a drunken sailor in Times Square. According to some people, we now have "Road-rage", "Air-rage", "Parents-at-their-kids-sporting-events rage", and even "Walking rage." People in this country are apparently angrier than ever, and are ready and willing to tango with anyone that looks at them funny. It's almost as if this is some sort of Fight Club world. Being a highly influential Pop-Culture pontiff, I decided to look into this rage business. First, I thought I'd ask Karen Accavallo (Figure 1), our very own simmering pixie of anger, for some advice on this subject. The conversation did not go well: ME: Hello, Karen, I was wondering ­ KA: About what? About me? What about me? Who the hell gives you the right to talk about me behind my back? Yeah, I know about it, I know all about what you say about me with all those turds you hang around with. Did you think I wouldn't find out? Did you think you could keep it quiet? Oh no, buddy boy. I'm all over you like stink on shit. I know all about it. ME: Uh...actually, I wanted to ask you ­ KA: What? To write something for you, you selfish son of a bitch? That's all I get from you, lame demands for my time. I can't just whip something up for you, especially since you never appreciate my articles. Or maybe you want me to proofread your rag again, huh? Is that how you get your kicks? Asking me if I can proofread 60 pages in one day, and then blaming me when I can't do it? Oh, I know you don't say you blame me, but its there, it's there all right. I can see it. It's between the lines, isn't it? Bastard. ME: Well, no, I just wanted some info on your so-called 'Rage-Factor'. KA: Oh. It's been very low lately, thank you. Now please put your pants back on and leave. Blocked at every avenue of investigative journalism open to me, I realized I would once again have to place myself in danger and use myself as a subject in order to learn about rage. Now, as most of you are probably saying to yourselves right now, I do not seem like an angry person, and would seem to be the worst choice for a study in anger. However, I discovered within me a huge untapped boiling sea of anger, and I uncovered this dangerous level of white-hot life-despising anger through the simple application of the Accavallo Rage Factor (ARF). What is the ARF and how does it work? It's simple: a scale of 1 to 10 is used to indicate the amount of anger you're feeling at a given moment (Table 1): -------------------------------------------- RAGE FACTOR MEANING -------------------------------------------- 1 Dead, or at least suffering severe brain damage. Being set on fire wouldn't make you the least bit angry 2 Asleep 3 Asleep but having really bad dreams 4 Normal, no rage above the usual simmering frustration with everyone in the world who is dumber than you are, which is everyone 5 Slightly cranky 6 Staring at someone in an attempt to make them burst into flames solely through mental energy, but not pissed enough to get up and do something about it 7 Actively shouting at someone 8 Actively pounding your fist into someone's face 9 So angry the whole world is a reddened blur, of which you will have no memory later (also known as "The Berserker Line") 10 You've just exploded, taking a room or bus with you in a fiery cataclysm -------------------------------------------- Every situation you encounter gets a response from you which can be assigned an ARF number. Then, you can add up all your ARFs during a day, average them, and come up with your Daily Rage Factor (DRF). Karen Accavallo once confessed to me (after an evening spent inventing new cocktails made with only Chartreuse, Gin, and crayons) that her daily RF seldom sank below 6 and often spiked into 7.5 territory. I figured I could use the ARF to determine what my DRFwas, which would no doubt be educational. So, I chose a day during the week at random and kept an ARF journal, cataloging my RFs in response to various situations. The results were, to say the least, surprising. JEFF'S ACCAVALLO RAGE FACTOR JOURNAL Situation: Waking up at 8:15am for work. Rage Factor: 4 Comments: Despite the epic nature of my hangover and the fact that I (or someone else) have soiled my pants, I am admirably serene. Situation: Morning Routine Rage Factor: 4 Comments: So far so good. I dress, wash, and collect my possessions without experiencing anything more than the vague sense of bitter disappointment which is my constant companion. Situation: Catching bus Rage Factor: 7 Comments: My serenity is ruined when three people rudely push in front of my to get on the bus first. They then scramble around like mental patients, claiming seats. I am shocked to discover this has me making fists and muttering under my breath. Situation: Riding train to work Rage Factor: 5 Comments: Similar situation to bus ride, it's like watching a terrible scientific experiment. But I am now resigned to this, so my RF isn't too high. Situation: Riding train to work Rage Factor: 7.9 Comments: A lanky gentleman wearing the world's largest headphones stands in front of me, neglecting to remove his huge backpack, with which he proceeds to beat me about the face and neck every time the train changes speed or trajectory. I choose a good moment and pretend that I've lost my balance, pushing him roughly and almost knocking him down. His glare makes my heart sing. Situation: Exiting train station Rage Factor: 7 Comments: People seem to regard walking up stairs as something out of the lower levels of hell. Move it, damn you! Situation: Purchasing breakfast at coffee cart Rage Factor: 9 Comments: What?!?! No corn muffins?!?! I'm going to set your goddamn cart on fire, man. Situation: Getting in elevator to go to office Rage Factor: 3 Comments: Amazingly, letting the elevator doors shut in some stranger's face brings me peace. Situation: Sitting down at desk to discover there is no internet service today, and won't be until tomorrow. Rage Factor: 8 Comments: Thinking quickly, I explain to my boss that my computer had become infested with roaches, so I had no choice but to pound it repeatedly with my stapler. Grimly, I contemplate a day at work without internet pornography, and go to the bathroom to weep in private. Situation: Performing duties at work Rage Factor: 6 Comments: Knowing that a trained monkey could do my job in half the time does nothing to reduce my anger at having to work for a living. Is it wrong to want nothing more than a weekly grocery allowance, beer, and the Cartoon Channel? I don't think so. Situation: Lunch Rage Factor: 34 Comments: All I remember is thinking 'what the fuck do you mean, it doesn't come with bacon?' Situation: The Long, Dark Afternoon of the Soul Rage Factor: 1 Comments: I am numb. Nothing affects me. You could attach a car battery to my nipples and you wouldn't get any reaction out of me, bubba. When our internet connection is restored, I am only moderately cheered by the familiar sight of Britney Spears' breasts. Situation: Commuting home Rage Factor: 7 Comments: Sitting on the bus home, the people in front of me come to several simultaneous conclusions I would not, necessarily, agree with: one, that they are funny and intelligent people, two, that they are speaking at an acceptable level of volume, and three, that despite the stony silence surrounding them, they are the most entertaining things anyone else on the bus has ever encountered. I refrain from smacking them in the backs of their heads by sheer force of will, and the fact that I have to urinate badly and fear a physical confrontation would have unfortunate side effects. So, according to the ARF, my DRF is a whopping and unexpected 7.9, which means that I am pretty much always a paper-thin slice of irritation away from beating someone's head against a curb until they lose the ability to yell for help. This is useful information, and I will be trying to lower my DRF over the next few weeks, most probably through the liberal use of barbiturates. I encourage all of my readers to keep their own Rage Diary, and discover just how angry you are! What you do with that knowledge is up to you. I don't want to know. ======================================== *** PIE-EYED SNIVELLING *** Machismo: It's not Just for Men Anymore! Chicks are Angry Peoples by Jeff Somers ======================================== We're an angry world, this much is obvious. What isn't always so obvious is that the anger is a little more equally spread around these days. Used to be, anger was a Male thang. The stereotype is that men get angry, throw their weight around, break things, and then bailed out of jail by their gentle, suffering girlfriends. It's time someone blew the bull off that one: chicks are probably the angriest beings in the Universe. Of the 273 people I officially Fear (Jeff's Fear List can be purchased, with free updates in perpetuity, for $5), 265 are women. And I fear women much more than I fear any man. If a man is angry at me, he'll usually do one predictable thing: hit me, as often as he can. While this isn't exactly a good thing to deal with, it is comforting in its predictability. Women, on the other hand, are terrifying in their ability to nurture grudges, to scheme, and to overcome their relative physical smallness with ingenious revenge plots. A guy taking a swing at me is a concrete problem directly before me. A woman pissed off at me is like having the Mafia mark you for death: you spend the rest of your life wincing every time you start your car. And the thing is, the whole system by which society has thrived is breaking down, leaving the scrawnier men such as myself dangerously vulnerable. I mean of course the ancient sex roles, which, among other things, taught women to swallow their anger, to live in denial, to strive to be the nurturing goddesses men imagined they were. For centuries, this has helped men dominate women: from childhood, the sex roles were clearly defined. Boys got guns to play with, girls got dolls. Boys imagined war, girls held tea parties. Boys were encouraged to fight and to never cry, girls just the opposite. These days, however, the growing equality of the sexes is changing everything, and women are increasingly encouraged to behave similarly to men in order to prove their equality. For thousands of years, men have demonstrated dominance and superiority through anger and/or violence. Women are finding that in order to compete they have to get pissed off. For sensitive, artistic men such as myself, this is a frightening prospect. Not only are the rules we've lived by and been protected by for all these years going haywire, but we're at increasing risk of being beaten up by girls. Especially the girls I know, who are generally speaking the angriest women in the world. Now, some of them claim that I am the one who makes them so angry in the first place, but this is patently untrue. Untrue I say! I am a hug embracing the world, dammit, and people who get angry with me are obviously disturbed. However, The Inner Swine is devoted to the Truth, so I will let you, the faithful, constant reader to decide who's angry, and who's crazy, by giving you JEFF'S LIST OF WOMEN WHO SCARE HIM ON A REAL, PERSONAL LEVEL 1. Karen Accavallo. I have spent the last three years or so finding creative ways of avoiding Karen Accavallo, an ongoing process of phone messages, deliberately smeared calendar entries, misdirected obfuscation, and outright lies. I have on several occasions hid in my closet while an enraged Karen set fire to my desk or couch. I have spent weeks on end in cheap motels, changing rooms every night, staying under assumed names, sleeping with a cocked gun under my pillow, breaking into sweats whenever the phone rang. Such is my friendship with Karen Accavallo. 2. Misty Quinn. That Misty rarely remembers anything about her temper tantrums doesn't comfort the large number of businesses and individuals who have suffered on the wrong end of her ire. So often I have been sitting calmly with Misty somewhere, and suddenly some mysterious word or gesture sets her off; her skin turns green, her eyes roll up in her head, and she begins speaking in a deep, gravelly voice that echoes supernaturally. My only comfort is that I'm not Jeof Vita, so at least I don't fear coming home in the evening. 3. The Duchess. My gorgeous girlfriend/Legal Counsel has been diligently keeping me in line and re-educating me as to my place in this world relative to her since we first made out in her kitchen last year while our friends sat awkwardly in the nearby living room. HER: "We don't call it 'yelling at you', do we Jeff? What do we call it?" ME: (defeatedly) "'Things I ought to know by now.'" HER: "That's right. This hurts me more than it hurts you!" ME: "OWIE! Thank you ma'am may I have another!!" These days I have learned that the safest course of action is to feign attacks of brain swelling whenever The Duchess asks me a question. 4. Cassie Moore. Cassie is once again my boss and as such controls the ultimate source of my income. Therefore I watch her carefully for sudden moves and unpredictable personality shifts, of which there are many. To date I have been fired six times since Cassie return triumphantly to the company where I work. I just keep showing up the next day and acting like nothing happened, and so far so good. There are, of course, lots more, including some like Sinead O'Connor, Bijou Philips,or Lara Flynn Boyle who scare me for reasons other than potential physical attacks. Mentioned here are the women who could actually smack me down. Lara Flynn is scary-thin and my nightmares are full of her ghoulish visage, but its doubtful she'll show up at my place one night just to smack me. Misty, on the other hand, just might. Also there are women like Lauren L.J. Strutzel who now live so far away from me that I feel I can taunt them with impunity. They would still frighten me if I were to discover them crouched behind some plants in my living room, waiting to attack me, but thousands of miles have given me the illusion of safety, and thus they slip from my list. We live in a technological age, so the relative difference in size and strength that has protected men from women throughout history has been eroded away by machines. After all, the fact that you can bench press your girlfriend without breaking a sweat won't save you when she hits the gas in a late-model SUV, knocking you painfully to the ground and slamming it into reverse so she can slowly grind back over your bones. Let's face it, fellas, chicks are now our equals in potential anger damage. It's time to start being careful. ======================================== *** VIRTUALLY ARTLESS COMIC *** THE INNER SWINE presents IT'S MR. MUTE! Making the world silent for our children I FEAR ALL OF YOU. PLEASE SHUT UP NOW. ======================================== I hear everything you say, you prattling herd of freaks. Because you can't stop talking, because you have no sense of boundaries, or of privacy, I must hear all of your disappointingly banal conversation. In theaters, in restaurants, on the street, on buses - you just refuse to shut the fuck up, so I hear it all. Of course, I'm not as special as all that. I'm as predictable as the next person. The difference is, I keep my mouth shut. As the saying goes, better to keep silent and let people think you are a moron than to open it and remove all doubt. What mystifies me most about your incessant choice of subject matter for the world to overhear whether we want to or not, is how often religion rears its ugly head. The only thing that scares me more than a Believer is a Believer who feels compelled to explain himself to me. I was raised a Catholic. This means there are a few indisputable facts which can be assumed about me right off: a) I practice guilt the way other people practice their jumpshot, b) I stopped actively worshipping the moment I was allowed to. Catholics are infamous for abandoning the church the moment they're free to do so, and then crawling back when their advancing age and complex lives drive them to seek the comfort of faith. Of course, I also decided that the concept of a god was ludicrous and infantile and jumped into atheism with both feet, but that remains to be seen; atheism has to be a lifteime haul. One small prayer on my deathbed, and decades of true atheism are flushed down the toilet, forgotten and meaningless. Belief in a god or the practice of a religion is a personal matter and is one of the sacred cows of our society, and rightfully so. You should be able to practice whatever religion you wish, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. I believe that pretty fervently. I also believe that it should remain personal. As a card-carrying atheist, true faith scares the shit out of me: the shining light of belief in their beady little eyes makes me eye the exits carefully. It is my personal conviction that only crazy people really believe in god -or, better said, it is my conviction that only crazy people not only believe in god, but also believe that I should give a shit what they believe in. Whatever snakes you handle or goats you kill in the privacy of your own home, I don't care about. I have no public opinion on that. Whether you wander to a church once a week and sing hymmns or practice voodoo or whatever -I don't care, I don't want to know. As long as you keep your mouth shut too, then we're right as rain. I won't bore you with atheistic tirades, you won't frighten me with bible quotes, and we'll coexist peacefully. It isn't really your simpleminded faith that bothers me, its those amongst you who feel it is their duty to convert me, to argue with me, to inform me of the joys of being one of god's brownshirts. These people frighten me, because of their insane calm conviction, their smug and arrogant assumptions, and their ignorantly belligerent attitude. They are why I avoid people who drive cars with Jesus Loves You bumperstickers, who quote the bible, who have little plaster statues in their front yards. The arrogance implicit in the simple Jesus Loves You bumper sticker drives the available oxygen from the room and leaves me breathless: it invites everyone into their dim little christian world and demands that you recognize their faith. You can't ignore it. Atheists might be woefully misinformed, we might be on a one-way track to damnation and eternal suffering, but at least we're polite and smart. People who feel the need to share their religious beliefs with anyone else in the room are rude and stupid. Period. Of course, I was raised Catholic which means I was dipped in superstition at a young age, pickled in the brine of faith until nicely softheaded, and finally dried out and neatly pressed for my confirmation, when I made a break for it. I know how hard it is to resist the siren call of salvation, andI know it gets harder as we get older. That's why I have the overall rule that would solve everyone's problems if only you had the wit to see it: shut the fuck up. ======================================== *** COMMENTARY *** Smokin' Broken Pencils and Beatin' Up Kids Why I Don't Give Money to Beggars Anymore By Jeff Somers ======================================== "That's me on the beachside, combing the sand metal meter in my hand sporting a pocket full of change That's me on the street with a violin under my chin playing with a grin singing gibberish That's me on the back of the bus That's me in the cell That's me inside your head That's me inside your head." - NOFX, Linoleum I USED to be one of those pasty white people who'd always give spare change to bums. I'd do it with a cheerful piece of conversation, too; good morning, here ya go, think nothing of it my good man. And I'd accept their blessing with a warm feeling of having done a good turn...and a greasy feeling of having been conned. Let's face it, we all have Hollywood-glurge ideals that the homeless man we just gave 35 cents to will go to a diner and buy some soup, live one more day, and be located by his loving family, who will then get him the help he needs. But we're pretty sure, on the downside, that what pops is going to do is buy 35 cents worth of Prestone and go blind behind some 7-11 later. Over the years, that greasy feeling grew stronger and stronger, especially as my own financial reality hit home and I started to actually miss the fucking 35 cents, ridiculous as that may sound. Giving out my spare change started getting harder and harder to do, but not giving it was hard too, and not because of my conscience, which medical science has recently proven does not exist within me. No, it's hard not to give money to bums simply because they try to intimidate you, and largely succeed. They manage this through a few simple tricks that anybody can use in daily living to intimidate their fellow shaved house-apes: Surprise. If you jump out at someone and demand something, you deny them the time to consider and weigh the situation. So bums lurk around entrances and exits to places, spots where you don't see them until they step in front of you and demand money. Captivity. When the smiling, inarticulate bum holds the door of the ATM for you, what he's got is a captive audience. Everyone has to pass him to get in or out, and they will have to make a decision. Most people would prefer to just avoid them, so bums make sure they can't. Bums will accost you on the street, of course, but when they do they generally step right in front of you, so you have to make a decision: pay up, or step around them. Peer Pressure. This works in two ways. One, the bum will force you to identify with them as human beings, bring themselves up to an equal level in your eyes. They do this via politeness: they'll likely address you as sir, or friend, or miss. They'll wish you a good day. You're having a conversation with them, so it's hard to ignore them. Second, they're putting you on the spot in front of your fellow non-bum people, and your choice could be said to boil down to generous, caring human or heartless, greedy bastard. These techniques are not bum-specific; we all use them one way or another when we're pushing for what we want. Bums have that added advantage of the occasional brick-to-the-head attack reported in the papers, which makes you wonder if you're going to get brained unless you fork over some coin. So I must admit that for some time I was handing over money to people out of a tasty mixture of liberal-white-boy empathy, capitulation to peer-pressure, and the simple choice of easiest way out of a situation. But I was increasingly unhappy about it. Then, one day in traffic, I had an epiphany. In Jersey City there is a traffic circle where routes 1&9, 280, and several other roads converge. You end up sitting at a traffic light off of Kennedy Boulevard there for about a minute as the other roads get their turn. Two lanes of traffic, sitting for a minute - it's a favorite place for bums to work the cars. They start at the head of sitting traffic and just walk down the middle, holding a cup, sometimes a sign. I watched a tall, gangly black man work the cars while I sat there one morning, saw him make what looked like seventy-five cents in quarters from three cars, and I suddenly started to do some calculations. Follow me here: Let's say that over the course of eight hours, that traffic light has roughly eight cars sitting at it every two minutes (these numbers are just guesses, but I tried to be conservative). That's 240 cars an hour that the black guy would get to approach. Let's say he gets one car every light to give him an average of 25 cents. That's thirty cars an hour, times twenty five cents, which is $7.50 an hour, which is $60 over an eight hour day. That's above minimum-wage, friends, and none of it gets declared on taxes. Assuming this level of production, the bum is walking away with $300 a workweek, $1200 a month, $14,400 a year. Of course, there are a lot of assumptions there, and a lot of things not considered. Getting 30 cars an hour to fork over a quarter each isn't that easy, and working the light for eight hours, five days a week is hard work. Still, even if this guy is pulling in $30 a day, that's a lot more money than I had ever imagined. And sure, if he's homeless, and has no health care, even the measly fourteen grand a year isn't exactly making him rich and happy. But the very idea that it might all be a scam, that these people might be making the equivalent of about $20,000 before taxes, just blew me away. And what if it's more? What if I'm too conservative. What if this guys nets more money in a year than I do? I mean, for all the bad stuff about begging, if the money was that good its got some advantages: no taxes, flexible hours, no boss, the warm fuzzy feeling of conning the world out of something. It made me wonder if half the bums out there aren't grifters, and that thought alone made me revise my policy. So now, I don't give to most bums. I have rules concerning which bums get my money and which don't, and very rarely do any of them fulfill these requirements. Does that make me hardhearted? Maybe. But it also means that when I go to buy a fucking soda, I have change in my pockets. For that little convenience, the rest of humanity can go soak. THE INNER SWINE'S NEW RULES OF BEGGAR-SUBSIDY 1. Don't perform bullshit 'services'. I hate it when these guys try to dress up their begging by opening doors or wiping my windshield. I can open the fucking door myself, dammit, and the fact that you're attempting to create an obligation, you're attempting to make me owe you something. I resent that. 2. Don't be a teenager. There are a great many kids out there living a drop-out life, which I guess is fine for them. They usually try to finance their street living by begging. Call me a Republican, but fuck them. Flip some goddamn burgers. 3. Look desperate, for fuck's sake. I'd imagine that looking like a homeless person is the easiest thing in the world. So when people who look passably decent approach me for free cash, I have my doubts. If you're going to beg, at least wear your worst. 4. Don't tell me a story. Sometimes, even in this age of ATM cards, I suppose upstanding citizens actually find themselves having to beg for some money to get out of a scrape. Okay, fine, but don't give me your reasons for begging for money. The more words I hear, the more it starts to sound like a con, and the less I want to help you out. Just be honest: ask me for money. Granted, considering the rest of this article you might think there'd be slim chance of it, but there would be a chance, at least. 5. Don't get pushy. There's a slim line between "begging" and "mugging", and I will glad to teach you all about it. So easy, even a besotted street urchin can comprehend it. I believe that even beggars and homeless people are due the basic respect any human deserves. This respect does not mean that they can do whatever they wish while I clap my hands delightedly. I ignore thousands of people every day, and no one seems to care, but I dare to ignore a beggar on Christopher Street in New York, and I'm a heartless bastard. Well, maybe I am. But I'll be the heartless bastard who has enough change in his pocket to avoid getting a fistful of Susan B. Anthony dollars as change at the Post Office vending machine, bubba. And if you ever see me on a New York City streetcorner reciting TIS Ediorials with my hat out, don't worry, I'll understand if you decide not to fork over some spare change. I'll still kick your ass, but I'll understand. ======================================== *** COMMENTARY *** The Inner Swine's State-of-Zining Address ZINE REBEL OR ZINE ELVIS? Or Something In-Between? By Jeff Somers ======================================== First off, let me thank you for buying this zine and for reading this article. Out of all the articles in this zine, most of which are better, you're reading this one. And of all the other zines out there, you chose mine. Lord knows why. Every issue of this zine is pretty much the same as the last: I ruminate crankily about subjects I know little if anything about, make a few lame jokes, and spruce it all up with stolen fonts and clip art. But, you made some sort of effort to acquire this issue, and then you turned to this page and by God, you're still reading! So, thank you, anonymous reader. Friends, every now and then I am unfortunately compelled to pull my squinty, mushroom-pale face out of my cavernous (but wondrous!) ass and write about something other than myself. No! Wait! Really! I'm not kidding! Just keep reading, and I'll prove it. Today's subject is Zines, and the wacky personalities that feel compelled to produce them. More specifically, I wonder Why Do Good Zines Die? Sometimes z zine will come out and it's ambitious, or hilarious, or genius-in-general, and after two issues it disappears. Sometimes a zine will attain a certain level of fame, at least within the zine community, and then, without warning, it disappears. Because I do not shy away from the tough questions, I ask myself: why? Putting out a zine is never an easy thing, considering the effort, the expense, and the lack of support, so mere obstacles cannot be the sole answer. And zinesters tend to be the most arrogant people in the world, convinced that their genius deserves printing, so bad reviews or lackluster response can't be the sole reason either. After my usual lack of research or preparation, I've come to the conclusion that the main reason good zines die is success. It seems to me that above the other categories of zines (Review Zines, Punk Zines, etc) you can divide all the ziners out there into three basic categories: Shock Jocks, Movementeers, and plain old Aesthetics. Now, everyone is a beautiful individual snowflake and I can't fit every zine, or every zine publisher, into one of these categories. But I do believe that in general, we're all one of them. Maybe I'm wrong. But that's okay, I'm still filling some empty space in this issue, so it's all good, baby! As with everything in this weakly written rag, this is all idle speculation on my part, based solely on the issues of zines people have deigned to mail me for free and the ongoing posts in alt.zines, where I continue to hang around like that kid who graduated high school three years ago who still shows up at the football games, trying to pick up the cheerleaders. The Shock Jocks are those amongst our DIY brood who think they're the first people in the world who have dared to use cuss words and scatological humor. They tend to spend their time trying to, well, shock you. I tend to assume most of the purveyors of this sort of zine are teenagers, but that's not necessarily true. In this jaded day and age, of course, the moment any member of your audience detects an attempt to shock, they generally put up their blasé attitude and shrug, so its kind of a futile effort. This isn't to say that Shock Jocks can't or don't write well, or don't often produce really interesting or funny work. But their main goal is to jolt, is to be outrageous. They give their zines titles like I'd Anally Rape Your GrandMother for Pocket Change and write articles about the different types of shits they've taken. Then they mail the issues out and sit up at night waiting for someone to tell them how sick and twisted they are, so they can feel smarter than everyone else. Or so it seems to me. More frightening and usually less entertaining are the Movementeers, who believe that zines are part of some sort of underground revolution. These are the people who happily call you names when you add a UPC to your cover, or agree to be distroed at Tower Records. Their zines are not so much creative efforts as they are propaganda for whatever underground they perceive themselves to be a part of, and as such can be a little dry, and a little cranky, filled with endless railing against people like me who shrug in boredom whenever confronted by their manifestos. It can be difficult to tell from the outside that a zine is a Movementeer product; they have the same look and feel as any other zine. Certainly if you bought it in a book store, chances are it's not, since Movementeers would never sink so low as to be coopted by the System. If the title is too subtle, scan the TOC; Movementeer product tends to include at least one screed against a zinester who 'betrayed' the underground and DIY ethic either by 'selling out' to a distributor or by 'buying in' to the mainstream, usually by taking on paying writing jobs. If the zine in question includes articles like that, the chance that you've got Movementeer product is high, and you should put it down unless reading about how lame a sellout you are is somehow entertaining. Finally, there are Aesthetics, and I put myself into this group. We generally have no interest in shocking people, and we generally don't consider ourselves members of some underground movement or revolution. Oh, we might believe in the DIY spirit, we might detest corporate America and we might turn down more lucrative sponsorship deals before 9AM than you do all day, but that isn't why we're writing, bubba. We write because we like to write, and instead of sitting around waiting to be discovered by the clueless and disinterested literati of the world we're publishing ourselves and loving it. The main reason our zines exist is to get our writing in typeset form. The Aesthetics are usually much more concerned with creating new things than with preaching or selling issues or outraging their audience. We may or may not be ambitious about becoming the next David Foster Wallace, we may or may not have grandiose personal visions about where our zine activities are leading, but the main identifying feature is that we write. Our zines are predominantly filled with our material. Each issues is filled with stuff written specifically for that issue, not just leftover college Creative Writing 103 compositions and some random filler like half-assed reviews or pages and pages of clip-art montages rendered unreadable by the magic of Xerox. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Of course, there are those pesky Review Zines, which exist primarily to review other people's zines. I wouldn't put them in with the Movementeers, because most of them spend their pages reviewing zines, not wheezing on about their political views. They're obviously not Shock Jock product, although I guess there might be some Shock-Review zines out there, I just haven't seen any. Personally, I lump these in with the Aesthetics, because they do fill each issue with their own material. Possibly they deserve their own separate category, but as I am sure the international zine community is not waiting breathlessly for this article in order to make its recommendations to the U.N., I'll table that for a later page-eating filler article. Muhahahaha! So now that I've wasted our time with my own pet theory about zinesters, what was the point again? Mainly, I was musing about how often zines simply disappear, and this three-category theory evolved from there. Let's face it, almost as soon as a pasty middlebrow white boy like me hears about a famous, wickedly incisive zine, it's ceased publication, and its wunderkind author is thirty-four and working full time for Comedy Central, or something. Sure, some zines go on forever, but they are definitely the exceptions. Most zines flash into existence, burn brightly (or not-so-brightly, but I'm not naming names; I've got enough flame wars going on right now. I don't need one more) and then disappear, often before the third issue. Hell, often before the second issue. Of course, some of the reasons for this are easy: a lot of zinesters are teenagers, or college students, and their zines are products of that particular period in their lives: the angst, the drugs, the free time. Especially the free time. Times change, they move on to other things, and lots of factors conspire to strangle a zine: their co­conspirators are no longer down the block or down the hall, their mission in life changes (you can't really do a zine about how badly Harrison High School sucks when you're twenty-two years old and working full time at the Piggly Wiggly, after all), they very simply don't have as much time to sit around their room smoking pot and writing about how badly it all hurts. Sometimes, believe it or not, zines actually go big-time. Wired, after all, was once considered a zine. Arguments continue about Bust and a selection of other titles that now get as much magazine rack space as Playboy and accept advertising from Budweiser. I guess when you've got a circulation of 25,000 and you have to actually hire people to help you, it just ain't a zine any more. Some of it simply has to do with the why - which brings us back to our three categories, believe it or not. The motivation behind a zine can be elusive, ephemeral. It's a lot of work to put out something that half the people will be bored by and the other half largely scornful of, and holding onto your motivation can be difficult. The Shock Jocks lose a lot of steam, I think, when they realize that every dirty joke and inflammable statement they make has been made before, and everyone hits an age when being outrageous starts to lose its appeal, and being taken seriously starts to look good. Or so I've been told. I suspect that The Movementeers get just as easily disillusioned when they discover that so few people want to hear their spiel. Besides, their scorn for 95% of us usually means they don't try very hard to gain us as audience members, and we should probably be thankful for that. The Aesthetics probably get sick and tired of reading about how bad their writing is, or bummed that after five beautiful issues they still have only four people on their mailing lists who aren't blood relations or old friends. Certainly, failure kills zines. But I submit that success kills them much more often. I believe this because putting out a zine is in itself the act of pushing off the weighty ennui of the world. No one puts out a zine imagining that they will have millions of readers, get on TV, be wildly successful. You spend months working on the damned thing, and when you put it out, the most you get are a few enthusiastic responses, and a lot of static. After a while your friends get tired of pretending to care about it. Simply publishing the thing indicates that failure in all of its subtle forms doesn't scare you much. But consider the ingredients for a zine: you need unequal parts self-centeredness, free time, disposable income, and energy. Success of any kind eats that stuff up. This does not have to be artistic success, although that certainly counts. But it could just as well be career success, academic success. Working sixty hour weeks leaves little energy and time for putting out a zine. And if you do happen to get a writing career off the ground and get paid for articles, stories, books, well that can leave precious little time, energy, or desire left over for a photocopied zine with a circulation of 75. We're zinesters. We're used to failure, bubba. It's the success that creeps us out. Now, this is where I speculate on my own future. While I doubt that I am the Faulkner of my generation and am destined for greatness, or even income, as a writer, I do hope to be widely published and reprinted. Why? Certainly not so I can be a Media Whore like Tom Wolfe in his disturbingly white Pimp Wardrobe. Mainly because the more widely my works are distributed, the better my chances of being remembered after I die. It's that simple. I love to write, too, and if I had an income from writing and could quit my day job, I'd be able to do more writing, yippee! So I do strive for commercial publishing success. What happens if it comes? I've been publishing The Inner Swine for more than five years now, and this is issue number twenty. If I have a bestseller that gets made into a box office smash, will I stop publishing my zine? Honestly, I don't think so. I enjoy the freedom too much, I enjoy the ego-stroking. I enjoy forcing myself to come up with these sloppy little articles that are more fun than accurate or well-reasoned. And my Ego will never be satisfied with mere fame and fortune. Where else can I refer to myself as His Royal Highness Jeff Somers? That's right, nowhere. ======================================== *** THROWING MY WEIGHT AROUND Here's Everything I Hate, Enjoy! By Jeff Somers ======================================== Piggies, there comes a time in every man's life when the list of things that piss him off has grown larger than the list of things that give him pleasure. For me, that magical moment occurred on June 19th, 1978, when I was seven years old and Pedro down the street found out that neither of my parents smoked. He refused to sell me any more cigarettes from that day on, and The Bitterness was upon me. The Bitterness is a powerful force. You should never make light of The Bitterness; it can make you powerful, and terrible, but it can also cut your legs out from under you. Plain and simple: don't fuck with The Bitterness. Embrace it, let it guide you, but never try to purge it from your system. Trying to de-bitter yourself can only result in a doubling of your bitterness quotient, which can kill. Those of us blessed with The Bitterness can usually find each other in crowds without too much trouble: we're the ones sitting grimly in the back, making sarcastic comments about everyone around us, reveling in our lonely, smartassed hipsterism. We're also twice as likely as anyone else to get beat up, due to our weisenheimer attitudes and poor fighting ability. Once found, people with The Bitterness generally hang around with each other, because we're the only ones who appreciate our sardonically muttered asides and snarky pop culture references. It's sort of like being a Jedi Knight: we're Ennui Knights. We can sense each other, and some of us are stronger in The Bitterness than others. It's usually wise to give way to people more bitter than you. They'll eat you alive, man! In the secretive Manhattan office where Your Humble Editor lurks in his Secret Identity, stealing office supplies and committing acts of minor vandalism every time his bosses give him new tasks to accomplish, The Bitterness is so strong it is slowly developing sentience, becoming an individual being. My office is like the Degobah System of The Bitterness, and existing within it is our personal Yoda. I wouldn't want to name names, because just like the rest of us he needs his job, so we'll call our Yoda Bill. But his real name is Tim Reynolds, and as noted in previous issues of this magazine, he's Ubiquitous. The Ubiquitous Tim Reynolds likes to bait Your Humble Editor by bringing up various celebrity names and then gets his kicks watching me rant and froth about the useless wastes of skin, and then he suggests to me, over and over again with impressive single-minded perseverance, that I write an article about the celebrities I hate. After years of hearing this, I have finally decided that Tim may be onto something. Or maybe it's just that I've decided that this is going to be the Anger Issue and I need to fill a lot of blank pages, and then I think, if celebrities I hate would fill a few distracting pages, why not expand that into everything I hate, and fill lots more space with my rantings! Such is my genius. Still, a debt of gratitude is owed to The Ubiquitous Tim Reynolds, for without him this article would never have been written. Exactly how to define gratitude, however, I leave up to you, to be determined after you read what he hath inspired. I HATE... ...Eminem. Pigs, if you see this asshole crossing the street, hit the gas, close your eyes, and consider any innocent bystanders you mow down in the process of killing him justifiable homicide. This fucker gives all of us white folk a bad name, and should be prevented from farting out his terrible 'songs' and idiot-attitude. While I am sure the Dustbin of History is poised to sweep him away at any moment, that just isn't good enough for this prick. ...Catherine Zeta Jones. People who are mostly famous for having other celebrities' children just make me ill. I mean, when, exactly, did Ms. Jones do the cinematic work that makes her worthy of attention? Hmmmn...was it Zorro? The Haunting? Oooh, maybe it was Entrapment. No, after a few execrable movies wherein the only reason to watch was her impressive chest, she gets her claws into rapidly-declining Michael Douglas, gets a bun in the oven, and suddenly we're stuck with her forever. Puke. ...Cell phones. Now, lots of people I love and respect have cell phones. That's unfortunate, because I think cell phones are despicable pieces of technology that have eroded courtesy and promoted a condition I'll term Creeping Egocentric Assholism, which is a condition wherein the afflicted march around with their cell phone glued to their ear, confident that their conversation, and the disturbance it causes to everyone around them, is of sufficient import. It can't possibly wait! It must be held right here, right now, and the rest of us have to politely ignore the idiots. Fuck them.[1] ...people who don't have to work. Now, this might be a little unreasonable, since most of us have as a minor ambition the desire to not have to work. Even Your Humble Editor here wouldn't mind being able to leave the alarm clock off on a permanent basis. But, heck, it's just plain annoying to go outside at 11AM on a Monday and find all these people on the street, doing nothing, shopping. Whenever I go walking around SoHo in the afternoon and see all these funkafied people in their grungy clothes shopping the shoe stores on Spring Street, I just want the power to make them all burst into flame for one minute. One minute, and I'd make everything better. ...Forced upgrades. Ever wonder why we're already being asked to purchase the 3rd major O/S upgrade in 6 years from Microsoft? It ain't because they care about us, nubbins, it's because they're bleeding us dry in the process. Fuck the software and hardware corporations and their thieving, lying ways, convincing everyone that you have to have the latest release of everything or you're screwed. It just isn't true. As an example, I recently wheedled an old Digital HiNote laptop off my Brother, who'd been using it as a paperweight for some time. It's a 486 CPU with 20MB of RAM, a 160 Meg Hard Drive, with Windows 95 and a PCMCIA 28.8 modem. Guess what? I have everything I need installed on this sucker, and it runs like a top (once I solved some bad sectors on the hard drive). Sure, I can't play MPEG porn movies on it, or pirated MP3s, but who the fuck cares? I can produce this crappy zine and maintain my web site from it. I may never buy a new computer again. ...This comic strip. "Flight Deck" appeared in my local newspaper a few months ago, and has boggled my admittedly dim mind ever since. It is the single worst comic I have ever seen, and it ruins my comic experience every morning with its lame jokes, bad drawing, and numbingly pedestrian "insights" on everyday life. Now, I recognize that we live in a world where cruft like "The Family Circus" and "Herman" regurgitate the same seven lame jokes every week, but, I swear, in a just world, this guy would have his hands cut off. ...Realignment in Baseball. As anyone unlucky enough to have been pigeonholed by me in a bar about three hours into Happy Hour knows, I regard the sport of baseball as Man's Crowning Achievement; we have done all that can be done, and should just retire as a race and let the Greys admire our genius. Throughout history we baseball fans have endured a lot of terrible plagues: the designated hitter rule, astroturf, the Wild Card playoff berth, the 1980 Houston Astro team uniforms, Rock Rhoden as the ace of the 1987 New York Yankee pitchjng staff. But nothing compares to the pain and suffering being sown by Bud Selig and his Gang of Morons. They will ruin this game yet, and if you think I'm a useless, bitter man now, just wait until the National League has one more division than the American. ...Smartassed DJs. Ah, the state of modern American radio. Guess what? It Sucks! Not only do we have to deal with the ever-narrowing choices provided us by the Corporate Monoliths who own all the stations, resulting in a tasteless gruel serving as music, but we have to deal with the on-air "personalities" they hire to deliver the corporate suck. You'd think they'd hire charming, interesting people, but no; we get toothless wiseacres who drool pointless attitude and dumb sidekicks who can barebly speak their lips are so smeared with ass. Am I the only one who raises his fists and screams "shut the fuck up and play something NOT on TRL!!!"? Guess so. Thank goodness for the fine folks at Napster and Gnutella. Nine out of the last 10 good songs I heard was on my PC. ...Stoop Sitters. Perhaps you have some of these cretins on your block: people who spend their free time sitting on their front porches. And what do they do? They stare. They sit there and stare. They watch you come out of your house and drive away to do things. They watch you park the car and go back into your house. They watch you emerge with your bike and ride off. They're still there some time later when you return. Silent, unimaginative, seemingly always overweight, these idiots seem to believe that sitting on cracked lawn furniture and watching time grind by is preferable to, well, just about anything. People for whom mindlessly watching TV is too exhausting frankly frighten me witless. I mean, they don't even talk amongst themselves. They just sit...and stare (shudder). ...Models. Male or female, these mannequins just need to be teased ruthlessly, placed inside a burlap sack, and beaten up on a daily basis. I suppose if someone wanted to pay me lots of cash so I could stand around wearing free clothes, do lots of drugs, screw other vacuous celebrities, and do small meaningless roles in really bad movies, I suppose...well I guess I'd shoot myself in the head. And so should they. ...Assholes who think every zine in the world is a Punk Fanzine. Every other day I get an email or a letter from some nitwit with a junk flyer in it promoting some worthless punk band and asking me to contact them for review discs or interviews or whatever. This makes me very angry. While it's probably true that 50% of all the "zines" in the world are badly photocopied by 15-year-olds wearing Beatsteaks t-shirts, this sort of narrow-minded 'we're all part of a movement, brother' stumping tempts me to mail them dead rats back. Fuck 'em. ...Telemarketers. I don't particularly care what nazi-lite "just following orders" excuse you have, choosing to work as a telemarketer is a choice, a bad one, and one that makes you an evil little person. The litany of offenses against humanity is endless: disturbing us in our homes, pressuring other people for your own minute gain, the insincerity, the outright lies. Humanity as a whole hates you, it's a wonder you don't burst into flames at night from the concentrated hatred. ...WebTV and AOL. I don't know about you, but I think we've finally reached that Age of Man where someone needs to step up to the plate, seize total executive power worldwide, and divide us into Smart and Stupid. Hand out the color-coded jumpsuits and get on with our Logans Run future, you know? Because I know where the WebTV and AOL people are going to be: in the dull blue jumpsuits doing all our menial jobs. They flood the Internet with animated GIFs in their sig files, with HTML-bloated emails that take 45K of my inbox just to say two words, with javascript-embedded sigs that do all sorts of great things. They are overly fond of MIDI files set to autoplay and loop, they don't know how to do anything that doesn't involve a keyword, and if we could just make them go away I could get on with my porno downloading in peace. ...Clothing with advertising on it. If you're wearing a Tommy Hilfiger shirt right now, do me a favor and jump out a window. If you think a slogan on a T-shirt is a useful way to communicate your general opinions or politics, thenm plain and simple, you're an idiot. If you have to have a corporate logo on your clothing to feel "hip" then, plain and simple, you're an idiot. Now that I think about it, I think I like clothing with advertising on it; it's an easy way to tell all you idiots from everyone else. There, wasn't that fascinating? Always interesting to take a tour of my sadly narrow little mind, I'm sure. Feel free to send me notes including your own personal Hate Lists, and I will publish them in the nest issue of -that's right!- The Inner Swine! ---------------------------------------- [1]It is my obligation to CEASNA (the Creeping Egocentric Assholism Society of North America)to point out that Mr. Editor was spotted at Shea Stadium on Tuesday, 5/16 at 7 pm madly punching the buttons of the aforementioned "despicable piece of technology" in a desperate search for Mr. Jeof "I can't find my way out of a paper bag" Vita and Mr. Ken "I'll tell my two best friends to meet me in two different locations in two different states and see if we can all find each other" West (who as it turns out was trying to secretly scalp our season Mets tickets and had no intention of actually meeting us at Shea Stadium). I know this to be true about Sir Swine because it was my cell phone that was glued to his ear (who was heard to say several times that evening, "I am going to dial the phone numbers of everyone I know one more time!" and I know this to be true because I got the phone bill!). Apparently our beloved Editor is not so terribly opposed to cell phones when it suites his own greater good. "...only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core." - Hannah Arendt, "On Revolution" ---The Duchess, legal counsel, snake killer and Nordstrom's Personal Shopper. ED. NOTE: I'd fire her but she's too darn purty. It's all true. I am a hypocrite, which I think only adds to my charm. ======================================== *** My Day At the Mall Del Muerte By Jeff Somers ======================================== It all started with the cryptic e-mail message: "The apples are ready." IT was a message from Karen Accavallo, and while I am usually tempted to ignore Karen's emails as the ravings of an unbalanced woman who still claims that we are legally married in several states, there was something about the brevity of All we wanted this subject line that made me read further. It turned out that Karen was inviting me and the other members of The Inner Swine Inner Circle (TISIC) to go apple picking one day in October. Having nothing much else to do between reporting to my parole officer, I accepted the invite, as did the other members of TISIC. After all, the last thing you want is Karen holding a grudge against you. The chosen day dawned cold, grey, and raining, but we gamely drove out to Karen's abode to discuss other, saner plans. Somehow, those other, saner plans were forgotten quickly and we found ourselves, as if in some drug-related hallucination (I only knew it wasn't really a drug-related hallucination because there were no man-sized rats in smoking jackets; I always have man-sized rats in smoking jackets in my hallucinations, as the kind nurses in Smithers know so well), driving upstate to an orchard through a violent rain storm. It is obvious to Your Humble Editor here that most of the wasted time in this world is generated by committees, and this was no exception. After the questionable decision was made to go through with our original plan despite the cold hard reality pelting around us, an audible was called, the cars pulled over, and the plan was changed via committee decision to go to a local mega-sized mall, have lunch, and do Anything Else. Committees erupt whenever people aren't ballsy enough to just break from the herd, and we were a bunch of lowing cows that day, afraid to just bag a bad day and go home. Instead, we entered what may be the largest parking lot in the Universe. Cars were everywhere, and more coming in every second. The Mall is an enormous gravity well of wasted time as it is, and Mall parking lots are the Event Horizon of Time Suck - and we ended up driving around for 45 minutes in a futile search for an empty parking spot. In the end, we were a grim, silent group of friends who eventually drove home, an entire Sunday wasted. The Mall Del Muerte had convincingly kicked our ass - sucked us in with its immense consumer gravity, ground us into chuck, and spat us back out onto the highway, no better than before, just a few hours older. In all that time, I was able to think about a lot of things - my poor choice of friends, the threatening phone calls I'd been getting from various credit card companies, and, most notably, The Malling of America. I have nothing but respect for the intelligence of the average Swine reader (stress on the word "average") so I'm sure both of you are quite aware of the unsubtle corporate takeover of our America. This country was once a cornucopia of small shops and unique towns, Ma-and-Pa operations and quirky boutiques, or so I'm told; by the time Your Editor surprised the hell out of his parents all those years ago the Malling of America was already underway. What is the Malling of America, you ask? Simply put, it's the replacement with the varied and gloriously disorganized venues and voices in this fair land with monotonous and homogenous uber-services with deep corporate bank accounts behind them. When Meyer's Ice Cream Shop on Central Avenue in Jersey City closed a few years ago to be replaced by a Baskin Robbins, that was the Malling of America. Instead of regional flavor and a variety of choices, we have stores which are exactly the same from place to place, from city to city. Instead of quirky DJs and unknown records, we have the same radio formats repeated endlessly, plugging beer and lifestyle music produced by their corporate masters. Walking around just about any neighborhood in America today is pretty much like walking around one big open-air Mall: you have a Gap, a Sam Goody, a B. Dalton's, and a food court that includes at least one of the following: McDonald's, Ranch One, or Pizzeria Uno. Probably all three. The only question a Pig like me can ask the universe is: is this a bad thing or not? And the answer I keep coming back to, strangely, is: I'm not sure yet. While we have been trained, as Americans, to mourn the loss of choices and to equate options with freedom, I'm unconvinced that this Malling of America is necessarily a bad thing. From a style point of view, it sucks big scum on the pond of life, eh? From a quality of service/product point of view, however, I remain unconvinced. I hate the Mall, kids, I never go; but man oh man do I love CinnaBon. LOOK around your local business district, whether you live in some lily white suburb or even if you're some sort of strange Soho freak, and you can see it happening. In New York City, small bookstores are being trampled underfoot whilst behemoths like Barnes & Noble battle to dominate the area. Even the homey little restaurants which look small and family run are probably chain stores, these days; nothing disturbs me more than finding the same restaurant in a different neighborhood than the one I chowed in the night before. It's like being in Invasion of the Body Snatchers; you recognize the name and the place looks the same, but you know it's a different body. That sounds dire. Is it a plot? A conspiracy to rob us of choice, to force us to like cheap, bland gruel made in foreign countries and trucked over here in rusty barrels for mass consumption? No, it's the tireless and occult economic forces which have run the world since the beginning of time (with a little help from the Druids and the Masons, of course) working in concert with our own low-rent tastes, Pigs. Let's face it, Americans crave the familiar. We're the sort of people who travel to foreign countries and then eat McDonalds. We like the ease, anonymity and familiarity of huge corporate superstores, and we flock to them in-between complaining about the loss of those grubby, eccentric, and badly-lit small shops. Corporate America, always sniffing around the sump pump for more cash, is simply responding to our patterns. We like the big, bland stores. We all deny it, but I ask you: if not you, who is shopping at HMV or WalMart? Androids? No, my friend, it's us, and it always has been. If you really don't shop at any of these places, I only have one question: what are you, a communist? See, I don't think I can mourn the passing of the small, weird shop. While Some of them are very neat and very fun, many are hostile environments where the owner, embittered failed artist that they invariably are, lord it over us and act like they're too cool to sell us anything. Many of them make no effort to make shopping at their store a pleasant experience you would want to repeat. One thing I can say for corporate drones, the word pleasant is pretty much their middle names. Of course, many of you equate pleasantness with boredom, ennui, and the intolerable oppression of the masses. You're the same people who keep Yoko Ono in the public eye, and I despise you. Life is crappy enough as it is, is it wrong to want a little comfort in the shopping experience? Of course, there is the disturbing notion of allowing faceless corporate mutations to muscle in and take over the distribution decisions. Part of the real appeal of a small store was the eccentric stocking decisions they promised: the embittered failed artist buying the stock was like as not going to have a few things you never heard of, or possibly wanted to hear of. The point is, it was there, and possibly no where else. We all know that Barnes & Noble doesn't take any chances on its stock choices: fifteen million copies of The Bridges of Madison County does not a choice make. If we allow the UberStores to take over, we'll probably be dooming entire segments of the literati to muteness. Or will we? Like evolution, the freaks find a way. In this day and age of desktop publishing and internet distribution, I doubt anything approaching true censorship is possible, at least not without a radical and time-consuming court battle and several raucous sessions of Congress. That "alternative" press a place like B. Dalton's won't even acknowledge may disappear from bookshelves near you, but you can find it, I'd bet, and order the damned books through WWW.FREAKOUT.COM[1] or somesuch. Hell, half my nonpaying subscribers came to me facelessly from the Net. Of course, I would feel safer knowing that a few small stores were still hawking weird stuff, but you can't argue with numbers. Maybe you regard your fellow human beings as cows, lowing their boring way through the dim grey soup of their force-fed lives, like I do, but man oh man we love our bland corporate gruel....and since we love it, is it so wrong? You can't really argue with the steady tide of human nature; we shop at WalMart because we like it. The more we shop there, the less alternatives we have, but we don't care because we like shopping at WalMart. Get me? Every time you step inside one of these chains, you're nibbling away at the varied and interesting backbone of small, unique shops in this country. Think about that, and see if it changes your shopping habits. SO, the Mall Del Muerte almost killed me, and I didn't even get to breathe its conditioned air or eat at its cookie-cutter food court. I can tell you, within a 10% margin of error, what stores were there, despite not having gained admittance, and I take an odd, shameful amount of comfort in that fact, believe it or not. Someday, of course, it'll all be one huge company, www.gruel.com inc[2] ., selling us everything, and the concept of choice in a free market will be long-dead. And then you'll all look up from your grey protein supplements, tug woefully at your slave collars, and think about this article, and hate me. Which is...okay. -------------------------------------- [1] These days chances are every word or word comobo in the dictionary has been registered as a domain name. Sure enough, while proofreading I discovered that www.freakout.com did, indeed, exist. Don't bother going there. It's so disappointing, I cried. [2] This domain name is registered, but nothing is up yet. Disturbed that someone actually wanted to own such a domain, I did a WHOIS query and discovered that a mysterious bunch called The Myriad Agency (594 Broadway Suite 1003, New York, NY 10012) owned it, which in turn pointed to www.methodfive.com --which turns out to be a horrorshow of flash movies, javascript, and cascading style sheets. These bastards must be stopped! ======================================== *** Belching Reminders of My Mortality my day with the kids by Jeff Somers ======================================== PIGS, one thing I've known for most of my life: I don't mix with children very well, at least not since I was a child, and even then it was mostly tense moments. Children scare the hell out of me, and they can smell that fear. Just as cats and other mammals lacking higher reasoning powers will always flock to the one person in the room who can't stand cats, little kids will crowd around me, basking in the terror and panic they cause in me. Why terror and panic? Because you can't reason with kids. These are creatures who firmly believe in the tooth fairy and santa clause, or whatever boogums their culture buys into, and they're creatures who have yet to be disabused of the notion that screaming is a fine way to express yourself. On top of their inability to be calmed and soothed by facts and logic, there is the frightening fact that you really should avoid hitting them as much as possible. If I can't reason with you, and I can't slap you across the face, I really don't have any idea how to interact with you. So, generally, I avoid the little snoogums, which is best for both me and society in general. Recently, however, I had a chance to have lunch with my old and good friend RA, who has recently bred two little ones in the space of three years, which I have been politely ignoring. RA has always been a good influence on me, and I figured the least I could do was not bore her with my anti-breeding rants. Besides, so far her breeding experiments have been cute and moderately well-behaved, so there hasn't been any reason to sever all ties. Plus, I keep reminding myself that eventually the kids will be 18 and I can teach them to drink and smoke and read counter culture trash, which I look forward to. Now, for those of you not blessed with friends knee-deep in reproduction, there's one thing you can assume when I say I had lunch with RA: I also had lunch with her kids. While it is obvious to most that you can't leave kids under the age of, oh, thirty to fend for themselves, it is not often as obvious that small human beings must be carted everywhere their parents go. You can't just leave an eight-month old with the remote control and a jar of pureed peas and hope for the best, because, if nothing else, the Department of Child Welfare will be at your door the next day and the neighbors will talk. So when RA invited me to come over her house and visit, the chilluns were involved in the equation. Since I regard children as little more than belching reminders of my mortality, this added an ominous element to the day, but I figured as long as RA didn't expect me to breast feed or actually handle radioactive diapers, I was all for it. Life is all about new experiences, after all. Normally, I like new experiences to come in shot glasses, but variety is nice too, sometimes. I arrived at RAs house just as she pulled up in her car; we had to go collect her daughter from day-care so I hopped in with her. After about five minutes of pleasantries, she alluded to her baby son. Startled, I turned to discover little David staring at me intently from his safety seat in the back. Staring at me with a constipated look I have come, over the years, to recognize as the international Baby is Attempting to Think expression, in this case obviously rummaging through his small file of large male grown ups and trying to match me up. I made some faces at the little bugger but he just kept staring. I think if he'd been psychic I would have been in a lot of trouble. At the day-care place, RA blithely unstrapped David and handed him to me. Before I could remind her of how often I drop things, she was off to find her daughter, leaving me to bond with David. Since babies are limited beings with only three settings that I'm aware of (Quiet, Screaming, or Violently Ill) I was desperate to keep David happy until his mother returned. Happily for me, babies have such a limited range of experiences, almost anything will do -and in this case, the green and white "fifteen minute parking" signs in the lot w