_________ _______ ______ /___ ___\ / __ \ / ____\ / / / /__\ / / / / / / __ / / __\ / / / / \ / / / /__/ /__/ /__/ /__/ THE ANNIHILATION FOUNTAIN A JOURNAL OF CULTURE ON THE EDGE... TEXT ONLY - ISSUE #6 The Annihilation Fountain & TAF Copyright c 1997-99 Neil MacKay ISSN 1480-9206 http://www.capnasty.org/taf/ the_annihilation_fountain@iname.com CONTENTS: --------- *THE 21ST. CENTURY ARTILECT - MORAL DILEMMAS CONCERNING THE ULTRA INTELLIGENT MACHINE *WHY I BELIEVE SETI (SEARCH FOR EXTRA TERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE) FUNDING IS A WASTE OF MONEY *ARE WE A FUNCTIONAL CULTURE? *READINGS TO ESCORT YOU INTO THE MILLENNIUM *CAFFEINE, EPHEDRINE, AND THE WENDY O. EXPERIENCE (FOR PAM) *CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE ************************************************************************ THE 21ST. CENTURY ARTILECT - MORAL DILEMMAS CONCERNING THE ULTRA INTELLIGENT MACHINE by Dr. Hugo de Garis, Brain Builder Group, ATR, Kyoto, Japan written May 1989, appeared in: Revue Internationale de Philosophie, 1990 ************************************************************************ ABSTRACT -------- Within one to two human generations, it is likely that computer technology will be capable of building brain-like computers containing millions if not billions of artificial neurons. This development will allow neuroengineers and neurophysiologists to combine forces to discover the principles of the functioning of the human brain. These principles will then be translated into more sophisticated computer architectures, until a point is reached in the 21st. century when the primary global political issue will become, "Who or what is to be dominant species on this planet - human beings, or artilects (artificial intellects)?" A new branch of applied moral philosophy is needed to study the profound implications of the prospect of life in a world in which it is generally recognised to be only a question of time before our computers become smarter than we are. Since human beings could never be sure of the attitudes of advanced artilects towards us, due to their unfathomable complexity and possible "Darwinian" self modification, the prospect of possible hostilities between human beings and artilects cannot be excluded. KEYWORDS -------- Artilects (Artificial Intellects), Ultra Intelligent Machine, Neuro-Engineering, Dominant Species, Artificial Neuron. 1. INTRODUCTION --------------- A revolution is taking place in the field of Artificial Intelligence. This revolution, called "Connectionism", attempts to understand the functioning of the human brain in terms of interactions between artificial abstract neuron-like components, and hopes to provide computer science with design principles sufficiently powerful to be able to build genuine artificial electronic (optical, molecular) brains (KOHONEN 1987,McCLELLAND et al 1986, MEAD 1987). Progress in micro electronics and related fields, such as optical computing, has been so impressive over the last few years, that the possibility of building a true artilect within a human generation or two becomes a real possibility and not merely a science fiction pipe dream. However, if the idea of the 21st century artilect is to be taken seriously (and a growing number of Artificial Intelligence specialists are doing just that (MICHIE 1974, WALTZ 1987, de GARIS 1989), then a large number of profound political and philosophical questions arise. This article addresses itself to some of the philosophical and moral issues concerning the fundamental question "Who or what is to be dominant species on this planet - human beings or the artilects?" 2. A MORAL DILEMMA ------------------ In order to understand the disquiet which is growing amongst an increasing number of intelligists (specialists in Artificial Intelligence) around the world in the late 1980s (WALTZ 1987, de GARIS 1989), it is useful to make a historical analogy with the development of the awareness of the nuclear physicists in the 1930s, of the possibility of a chain reaction when splitting the uranium atom. At the time, that is, immediately after the announcement of the splitting, very few nuclear physicists thought hard about the consequences to humanity of life in a nuclear age and the possibility of a large scale nuclear war in which billions of human beings would die. Some intelligists feel that a similar situation is developing now with the connectionist revolution. The intelligists concerned, are worried that if the artificial intelligence community simply rushes ahead with the construction of increasingly sophisticated artilects, without thinking about the possible long term political, social and philosophical consequences, then humanity may end up in the same sort of diabolical situation as in the present era of possible nuclear holocaust. Within a single human generation, computer scientists will be building brain-like computers based on the technology of the 21st century. These true "electronic (optical, molecular) brains" will allow neurophysiologists to perform experiments on machines instead of being confined to biological specimens. The marriage between neuro-engineers and neuro-physiologists will be extremely fruitful and artificial intelligence can expect to make rapid progress towards its long term goal of building a machine that can "think", a machine usually called an "artificial intelligence", or "artilect". However, since an artilect is, by definition, highly intelligent, (and in the limit, ultra intelligent, that is, having an intelligence which is orders of magnitude superior to ours), if ever such a machine should turn against humanity, it could be extremely dangerous. An atomic bomb has the enormous advantage, from the point of view of human beings, of being totally stupid. It has no intelligence. It is human beings who control it. But an artilect is a different kettle of fish entirely. Artilects, unlike the human species, will probably be capable of extremely rapid evolution and will, in a very short time (as judged by human standards), reach a state of sophistication beyond human comprehension. Remember, that human neurons communicate at hundreds of meters per second, whereas electronic components communicate near the speed of light, a million times faster. Remember, that our brains, although containing some trillion neurons, has a fixed architecture, as specified by our genes. The artilects could choose to undertake "Darwinian experiments" on themselves, or parts of themselves, and incorporate the more successful results into their structure. Artilects have no obvious limit as to the number of components they may choose to integrate into themselves. To them, our trillion neurons may seem puny. Not only may artilects be superior to humans in quantitative terms, they may be greatly our superiors in qualitative terms as well. They may discover whole new principles of "intelligence theory" which they may use in restructuring themselves. This continuous updating may grow exponentially - the smarter the machine, the better and faster the redesigning phase, so that a take-off point may be reached, beyond which, we human beings will appear to artilects as mice do to us. This notion of Darwinian experimentation is important in this discussion, because it runs counter to the opinions of many people who believe (rather naively, in my view) that it will be possible to construct artilects which will obey human commands with docility. Such machines are not artilects according to my conception of the word. I accept that machines will be built which will show some obvious signs of real intelligence and yet remain totally obedient. However, this is not the issue being discussed in this paper. What worries me is the type of machine which is so smart that it is capable of modifying itself, of searching out new structures and behaviours, that is, the "Darwinian artilect". Since any machine, no matter how intelligent, is subject to the same physical laws as is any other material object in the universe, there will be upper limits to the level of self-control of its intellectual functions. At some level in its architectural design, there will be "givens", that is, top level structures determining the artilect's functioning, which are not "judged" by any higher level structures. If the artilect is to modifiy these top level structures, how can it judge the quality of the change? What is meant by quality in such a context? This problem is universal for biological systems. Quality, in a biological context, is defined as increased survivability. Structural innovations such as reproduction, mutation, sex, death, etc., are all "measured" according to the survivability criterion. It is just possible that there may be no other alternative for the artilect, than taking the same route. Survivability however, only has meaning in a context in which the concept of death has meaning. But would not an artilect be essentially immortal, as are cancer cells, and would a fully autonomous artilect, resulting from an artilectual reproductive process, but with modified structures, accept being "terminated" by its "parent" artilects, if the latter consider the experiment to have been a failure? If the offspring artilects do not agree to being "killed", they might be allowed to live, but this would imply that every artilect experiment would create a new immortal being, which would consume scarce resources. There seem to be at least three possible solutions to this problem. Either a limit is placed on the number of experiments being performed, a philosophy inevitably leading to evolutionary stagnation, or artilects are replaced by newer versions, (processes called reproduction and death, in biological contexts), or the growing population of artilects could undertake a mass migration into the cosmos in search of other resources. This Darwinian modification is, by its nature, random and chancy. The problem for human beings is that an artilect, by definition, is beyond our control. As human beings, with our feeble intellects (by artilectual standards), we are unable to understand the implications of structural changes to the artilect's "brain", because this requires a greater intellect than we possess. We can only sit back and observe the impact of artilectual change upon us. But this change may not necessarily be to our advantage. The "moral circuits" of the artilects may change so that they no longer feel any "sympathy" for human beings and decide that, given a materials shortage on the planet, it might be advisable, from an artilectual point of view, to reduce the "ecological load" by removing the "hungriest" of the inferior species, namely human beings. Since human moral attitudes, like other psychological attitudes, are ultimately physical/chemical phenomena, human beings could not be sure of the attitudes of artilects towards human beings, once the artilects had evolved to a highly advanced state. What human beings consider as moral is merely the result of our biological evolution. As human beings we have no qualms about killing mosquitos or cattle. To us, they are such inferior creatures we do not question our power of life or death over them. This uncertainty raises the inevitable fear of the unknown in human beings. With artilects undertaking experiments to "improve" themselves (however the artilects define improvement), we humans could never be sure that the changing intelligences and attitudes of the artilects would remain favourable to us, even if we humans did our best to instil some sort of initial "Asimovian", human-oriented moral code into them. Personally, I believe that Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics" are inappropriate for machines making random changes to themselves to see whether they lead to "improvements". Asimov's robots were not artilects. 3. A WORLD DIVIDED ------------------ With many intelligists agreeing that it will be technologically possible to build electronic (optical, molecular) brains within a human generation or two, what are the moral problems presented to humanity, and particularly to applied moral philosophers? The biggest question in many peoples minds will be, "Do we, or do we not, allow such artilects to be built?" Given the time frame we are talking about, namely 20 to 50 years from now, it is unlikely that human societies will have evolved sufficiently to have formed a world state, having the power to enforce a world wide ban on artilectual development, beyond an agreed point. What will probably happen, is that military powers will argue that they cannot afford to stop the development of artilects, in case the "other side" creates smarter "soldier robots" than themselves. Military/political pressures may ensure artilect funding and research until it is too late. The artilect question alone, is sufficient in itself, to provide a very strong motivation for the establishment of a skeleton world government within the next human generation. With the rapid development of global telecommunications and the corresponding development of a world language, the establishment of a skeleton world government within such a short time may not be as naive as it sounds. For the purposes of discussion, imagine that such a ban, or at least a moratorium, on artilect development is established. Should such a ban remain in force forever? Could one not argue that mankind has not only the power, but the moral duty to initiate the next major phase in evolution, and that it would be a "crime" on a universal or cosmic scale not to exercise that power? One can imagine new ideological political factions being established, comparable with the capitalist/communist factions of today. Those in favour of giving the artilects freedom to evolve as they wish, I have labelled the "Cosmists", and those opposed, I have labelled the "Terras" (or Terrestrialists). I envisage a bitter ideological conflict between these two groups, taking on a planetary and military scale. The Cosmists are so named because of the idea that it is unlikely, once the artilects have evolved beyond a certain point, that they will want to remain on this provincial little planet we call Earth. After all, there are some trillion trillion other stars to choose from. It seems more credible that the artilects will leave our planet and move into the Cosmos, perhaps in search of other ultraintelligences. The Terras are so named because they wish to remain dominant on this planet. Their horizons are terrestrial. To the Cosmists, this attitude is provincial in the extreme. To the Terras, the aspirations of the Cosmists are fraught with danger, and are to be resisted at any cost. The survival of humanity is at stake. There may be a way out of this moral dilemma. With 21st century space technology, it may be entirely feasible to transport whole populations of Cosmist scientists and technicians to some distant planet, where they can build their artilects and suffer the consequences. However, even this option may be too risky for some Terran politicians, because the artilects may choose to return to the Earth, and with their superior intellects, they could easily overcome the military precautions installed by the Terras. 4. SUMMARY ---------- This article claims that intelligists will be able to construct true electronic (optical, molecular) brains, called artilects, within one to two human generations. It is argued that this possibility is not a piece of science fiction, but is an opinion held by a growing number of professional intelligists. This prospect raises the moral dilemma of whether human beings should or should not allow the artilects to be built, and whether artilects should or should not be allowed to modify themselves into superbeings, beyond human comprehension. This dilemma will probably dominate political and philosophical discussion in the 21st century. A new branch of applied moral philosophy needs to be established to consider the artilect problem. 5. REFERENCES ------------- (de GARIS 1989) "What if AI Succeeds? The Rise of the Twenty-First Century Artilect", Artificial Intelligence Magazine (cover story), Summer 1989 (EVANS 1979) "The Mighty Micro", Coronet Books. (JASTROW 1981) "The Enchanted Loom", Simon & Schuster, New York. (KELLY 1987) "Intelligent Machines. What Chance?", Advances in Artificial Intelligence, Wiley. (KOHONEN 1987) "Self-Organization and Associative Memory", 2nd edn. Kohonen T., Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg. (McCLELLAND et al 1986) "Parallel Distributed Processing", Vols 1 and 2, McClelland J.L. & Rumelhart D.E. (Eds), MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. (McCORDUCK 1979) Forging the Gods, "Machines Who Think", Freeman. (MEAD 1987) "Analog VLSI and Neural Systems", Mead C., Addison Wesley, Reading, Mass. (MICHIE 1974) "On Machine Intelligence", Michie D., Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh. (WALTZ 1987) "The Prospects for Building Truly Intelligent Machines", Waltz D., Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge, Mass. Dr. Hugo de Garis, Head, Brain Builder Group, Evolutionary Systems Department, ATR Human Information Processing Research Labs, 2-2 Hikaridai, Seika-cho, Soraku-gun, Kansai Science City, Kyoto-fu, 619-02, Japan. tel. + 81 774 95 1079, fax. + 81 774 95 1008, degaris@hip.atr.co.jp www.hip.atr.co.jp/~degaris {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{} ************************************************************************ WHY I BELIEVE SETI (SEARCH FOR EXTRA TERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE) FUNDING IS A WASTE OF MONEY by Dr. Hugo de Garis ************************************************************************ I am fascinated by SETI, by the idea that there are possibly zillions of other lifeforms out there. Its one of humanity's deepest issues, and I devote a lot of time and thinking to it. I must have over half a meter's worth of books on the topic of ETI in my private library (of over 4000 books). However, in thinking about SETI, I become increasingly sceptical as I apply my own Cosmist ideas to the whole SETI question. (See my essays on the Cosmist theme on this web site http://www.hip.atr.co.jp/~degaris). Here's my reasoning - I believe that advanced civilizations out there are NOT BIOLOGICALLY BASED. They are Cosmist, and hence based on technologies far superior to nature's carbon based structures. These technologically superior bases will allow these super-creatures ("artilects" = artificial intellects) to perform at levels many orders of magnitude above human levels, especially intellectually. For example, such artilects could use 3D, reversible logic, heatless circuits and be the size of asteroids with 10 to power 40 components. Such creatures could have intellects which human beings cannot even imagine, the way a mouse can never understand calculus, because it doesnt have the necessary human brain circuitry. The essence of my argument against SETI funding (although not totally, see later) is that artilects will probably not be the least bit interested in such primitive preoccupations as radio communication with ultra primitive beings such as biologically based self assemblers. What is SETI? The main idea is to use radio telescopes to receive radio signals from other civilizations in the galaxy. Why do I think it is highly improbable that such a signal will be found? Because it is highly unlikely that such ETIs will want to do such a thing, or for very long. Suppose that the evolution of intelligence on earth is a fairly typical occurence in the galaxy. With the recent evidence of life on Mars, and alternative life forms occupying the terrestrial deep sea volcanic vents, it looks as though life gets going pretty easily, so there have probably been zillions of life forms generated in the galaxy. Since our sun is only about 4 to 5 billion years old, it is likely that there are life generating planets Billions of years older. Take a typical case of the evolution of intelligence. It takes several billion years to reach human levels, and then very quickly it goes Cosmist, i.e. there is an explosion of intelligence due to the creation of Cosmist technological capabilities. The artilects thus created very probably would not be interested in spending time on an activity found interesting by creatures of many orders of magnitude less intelligent than themselves (i.e. sending radio signals to biological beings). Hence the time window in which there would be an interest in such an activity is probably only one or two centuries. But this fleeting moment could occur any time in billions of years, i.e. an a-priori probability of 1 in tens of millions, of detecting such a fleeting signal. Any automatic transmitter left running over billions of years would have to be self repairing, otherwise it would be destroyed by cosmic rays etc over time - lots of time. But why would the artilects be interested in setting up such primitive devices as self repairing radio transmitters? If you teach a monkey sign language it will tell you whats on its mind - bananas! Humans are bored by such preoccupations and give zero time to such obsessions. Similarly, artilects would not bother with human level interests. They would have their own vastly superior preoccupations. Even if self repairing telescopes were set up in the few fleeting centuries between the rise of human level technologies and before the Cosmist transition, they would still probably decay over a few centuries. How could the self repair instructions be kept immune from ultra powerful cosmic rays. Self repairing devices might increase the size of the signal transmission window, but only by a few centuries, or of that order of time. My argument remains the same. So, if I control the funding agency, do I turn off the money tap to SETI? No, because if I'm wrong, the consequences for humanity will be profound, so even if the odds of detecting an alien signal is tiny, provided the cost of detecting it is not outrageous, it should be searched for. BUT - for the reasons given above, I'm very sceptical that such a signal will be found. Summarizing - the commonplace transition to Cosmist intelligence levels means that the artilects are not interested in sending radio signals to primitive beings. Hence the time window in which they would be interested is only a few centuries, but planets have ages varying over billions of years. The odds of picking up a signal is 1 to tens of millions. By the way - the idea that zillions of life forms may already have made the Cosmist transition, probably answers Fermi's question, "Why arent they here?" The artilects are probably so small (the smaller the component base, the faster the interactions, and the greater the density of information storage) that we dont see them. Maybe they are all around us, but we are too dumb to notice, and because of our stupidity and our huge size, they totally ignore us. Or maybe they are huge, but for gravitational reasons, cant be close to the earth. Maybe "planets" elsewhere are gargantuan artilects, but still ignore us because we are too stupid. Somehow, I feel there's a lack of vision in the SETI community, too much tunnel vision, and not enough thinking about the consequences for SETI when creatures of human intelligence levels decide to go Cosmist, as I suspect most have done in the past. ETIs ARE COSMIST! {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{} ************************************************************************ ARE WE A FUNCTIONAL CULTURE? by Joe Tomorrow ************************************************************************ In the last issue of TAF Morbus asked, and expanded on, "Are We A Culture?" In this issue I would like to continue in that vain by asking, and hopefully expanding on, are we a functional culture? Obviously the first question that comes to mind is just what is functional culture? To begin to attempt to answer that I have to step back in time a couple of years and relate where the notion of functional culture first appeared to me. Long before The Annihilation Fountain reared its ugly little head there was a paper magazine (anyone remember paper?) entitled Bone Games - A Journal of Functional Culture. It was a short lived experimental attempt at independent publishing which proved too costly to continue (thank god for the net). What Bone Games attempted to do, through interviews, articles, editorials, rants, etc., was define/explore just what "functional culture" was/meant to myself and a co-editor. The varied notions of functional culture, as defined in the first (and only) issue of Bone Games, that we came up with were as follows: positively - as culture that works. Interests are in the general purposes of culture; notions of healthy and unhealthy culture; Industrial vs. personal culture, etc.; the works of particular significant artists, theorists, performers, interesting people; culture that promotes freedom, vitality, and varieties of experience; a 're-constructive' culture; functional culture in the sense of a culture designed to produce certain results: Muzak, Gurdjeff's 'objective' music, Wagner's Opera; the culture of deconditioning - industrial music; cut-ups; Theories of deconstructionist vs. the notion of deconditioning; Function and Dysfunction; a symbiotic relation between intellect and emotion; observance and enlightenment; Merriam Webster's Dictionary (10th edition) defines functional and culture as follows: Functional: 2) used to contribute to the development or maintenance of a larger whole Culture: 5) a: the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behaviour that depends upon man's [sic] capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations. When we wrote the above we were not thinking in terms of the Internet, but in the sense of culture at large, everyday culture. Our culture, as in North American generally, Canadian specifically. Is this culture we live in functional? And to expand on the question using the above examples , is it healthy? Positive? Negative? In the throes of deconstructionist de-evolution? Capitalist implosion? You get the idea. In what sense is, or is not, our culture functional? Bone Games never answered that question (maybe not answering is in itself an answer?) and I don't know that I can either, but I can muse on it for while· In a very generalized and basic sense (which I will expand on), for the majority of us, our culture works. That's good. But what about those who, for what ever reason - I'm not arguing anyone's case here - slip through the cracks of our culture and end up on the outside looking in. Does our/their culture work for them? Or are they simply no longer certified members of our culture but outcast, cultural waste as it is? Or does it simply not matter seeing as the majority of us are OK and there are always going to be a certain percentage of square pegs that simply don't fit into our round cultural holes? I have a roof over my head, food on my table, a healthy family, access to health care should myself or my family need it, a house, car, computer, pet, etc. So is that it? On that level has our/my culture been functional for me? It serves me, and the vast many like me, as I/we serve it by being good, productive members of our culture. Seems like a symbiotic relationship with the individuals serving the whole as the whole serves the individuals. I guess this could be termed functional in that generalized and basic sense I mentioned earlier. But there are deeper questions raised by this that I want to touch on before I go any further· The first question this raises for me is just who in this culture am I serving by being a productive member? In a Marxist sense I'm the flesh appendage on the Machine which is Culture. But there are faces, human faces, behind the mask of that machine and some of them are getting filthy fucking rich of off my sweat. So is that symbiotic relationship I mentioned really symbiotic or is it one of concealed dependence/exploitation? The faces behind the Culture Machine actually directly and indirectly control my fate to greater and lesser extents, and they do so entirely with their own concerns and actions at heart. If my employer decides to do what is in vogue corporately right now and downsize, well then my safe comfortable existence is down the toilet. In this sense I'm at the mercy of the Culture Machine as it is controlled by powers beyond myself much as say, a squeegee kid is. Possibly even more so as the squeegee kid has certain freedoms from living "outside" of the cultural norm already. Is that what the symbiotic relationship comes down to then, a trade off for both of us? I trade myself for comfort and the squeegee kid trades comfort for· freedom? Funny how all of sudden there are 256 shades of gray where there was only black and white a moment ago· So this brings me back to the question of whether or not this culture is functional. Well, like I said, I have all the things that make my life easier from this trade off of my labour but do I really? If I am a flesh appendage at the mercy of the Culture Machine, and my comfort is a fragile thing that is up to others discretion, then how much is gained for me and my family from my labours? It seems to be an illusion to keep me, and those like me, in line. A cultural opium for masses perhaps? It almost looks as if those who have traded their comfort for freedom (however that freedom is defined) are better off than I am· But then again I wonder what I would say if I was that squeegee kid, or derelict, or single parent in some inner city slums? Would I see it from the other side saying how much I'd be willing to trade my freedom for comfort? But none of these speculations answers the question at the heart of this piece; is this, our culture, functional? Can it be functional when looked at it from the above perspective? I don't know (I warned you that I might not have any answers). Anyhow, let's move on and see what we find. If you look at the definitions of functional culture that we came up with you will notice that each one of the definitions have a yin and yang type balance to them. Function and dysfunction, industrial and personal, unhealthy and healthy, reconstructive and deconstructive. Is that what a functional culture seeks to achieve, a balance? 50% good, 50% bad. Isn't that what the above paragraph is talking about, the haves and the have-nots? Is there a 50-50 balance between the halves and the have-nots? What if it 60% have and 40% have-not, is the culture then dysfunctional? Or is it dysfunctional if there are any have-nots? What if everyone is a member of the have group? Is that functional? Is a balance really important at all or is this whole piece just conditioning on the my part in the way that I look at things through my mid 30's, white male, educated (read biased) eyes? Always looking for comparisons, equalities, statistical averages to measure against, to make sense of. Or is simply that we only think we are in control of these complex human/social/political systems. Personally I don't think we, or anyone else, is. These systems have made the leap from theory to practice to a true life form of their own, we're merely along for the ride. Historically speaking, inequality is, does and will continue to happen on a grand scale. And with an ironic twist it seems to happen even more so within systems designed to, if not eliminate it, then at the very least minimize it. Sounds pretty bleak and not at all functional but a fairly accurate description... Also mention in our definitions of functional culture were 'theories of deconstructionist vs. the notion of deconditioning'. What exactly does that mean? I don't even want to begin trying to figure out what we actually meant in our intellectual gymnastics here. I mean as far as I'm concerned that attempted definition is right up there with the term Post Modernism. I could say that labeling something and attaching a theory to it simply entangles one within those theories and labels and doesn't really define anything. Of course by trying to define what we labeled as functional culture I am doing just that. OK. Rather than working from the what is functional culture angle, how about I say that I am attempting to construct an objective observation of my culture by deconstructing that very culture. No labels and limited theories. But, and there is always a but, by doing so am I deconstructing the culture or my own cultural conditioning? Uh oh, theory alert! I mean can I really be an objective cultural observer without being completely bias due to my own cultural conditioning? Is that an achievable goal from within the culture in which I was raised? Or any culture for that matter? I mean once you're living within the cultural you're trying objectively observe, even if it's not the culture in which you were raised, all objectivity is gone. I'll stop here as I feel a whirlpool coming on· If we were to deconstruct our culture would we really be able to construe anything from the philosophical/political/social/textual shards that would be scattered about? I mean anything that we don't already know. Or should I have someone deconstruct this text and gather information about my interpretations and conclusions, however objective or not they are? Lot's of questions. Lot's and lot's of questions. Well, like said at the beginning of this piece, I may not have any answers myself, but I will conclude with this thought; on a purely personal level, I believe functional culture to be an ideal that is not to be obtained, but rather one that should always be striven for. For the moment we stop reaching for it and say that we have not only defined what it is, but are also ourselves, a functional culture, is the very moment that we will cease to be just that. Now where's that whirlpool? It's time for a dip. {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{} ************************************************************************ TAF READING LIST TO ESCORT YOU INTO THE MILLENNIUM ************************************************************************ This is by no means a comprehensive list but simply what I think is a good starting point, some must haves for any collection. If you have some titles you want add to the list send them to: the_annihilation_fountain@iname.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TITLE AUTHOR(S) ISBN# PUBLISHER SYNOPSIS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Apocalypse Culture is compulsory reading for all those concerned with the APOCALYPSE Adam Parfrey crisis of our CULTURE Editor 0-922915-05-9 Feral House time...terminal documents of the 20th century" - J.G. Ballard. "A Cultural History of the Fin De SiŹcle from the CENTURY'S 990s through the END Hillel Schwartz 0-385-24379-0 Doubleday 1990s". Excellent history of the ends of centuries. "Random Essays & Tracts Concerning CRITICAL David Kereks Sex Religion VISION & David Slater 0-9523288-0-1 Headpress Death"...and quite Editors graphic to boot. Very cool fringe book (follow up to Apocalypse Culture) dealing with everything CULT RAPTURE Adam Parfrey 0-922915-22-9 Feral House from the Oklahoma bombing to "sex cults of the physically deformed". Very interesting read about the history of the first atomic bomb. DAY OF The book was first TRINITY Lansing Lamont 65-21705 Atheneum published in 1965 and my be hard to find but is worth looking for. "Report from a Culture on the Brink". Very interesting pop DREAMS OF culture analysis MILLENNIUM Mark Kingwell 0-670-86749-7 Viking of the age old notion of millennial madness. "An Illustrated History of Death KILLING FOR David Kereks Creation Film from Mondo to CULTURE & David Slater 1-871592-20-8 Books Snuff". Some very cool readings and pix. "A History of the Last Thousand Years". An interesting pop culture history MILLENNIUM Felipe 0-684-80361-5 Scribner tracing the human Fern‡ndez-Armesto journey as we approach the the big Y2K. Somewhat watered down review of things unknown; from ghosts to MYSTERIES OF Time-Life Books Quality astrology to THE UNKNOWN Editors 0-7835-4912-1 Paperback monsters. Some Book Club nice pix. Not bad for a book club book. Truely great "counter culture" book featuring pieces by W.S. Burroughs, Kathy RAPID EYE 1 Simon Dwyer 1-871592-22-4Annihilation Acker, Editor Press G.P-Orridge, Colin Wilson, etc. Well worth reading. Excellent addition to Rapid Eye 1 with articles by many of the same people from #1 and more. The 2nd half of the book is a RAPID EYE 2 Simon Dwyer 1-871592-23-2Annihilation long piece by the Editor Press editor entitled "In the Jungle of the Plague Yard" which is great reading. More Rapid Eye fun. Not quite as, um...dark as the RAPID EYE 3 Simon Dwyer 1-871592-24-0 Creation first two but Editor Books still well worth the read. RE/SEARCH Interesting book #4/5 - W.S. about some very BURROUGHS, V. Vale RE/Search cool people. The THROBBING & Andrea Juno 0-940642-05-0Publications Gysin stuff is GRISTLE, Editors pretty neat. BRION GYSIN Just about everyone I know in RE/SEARCH R/L and online #6/7 - V. Vale have this classic. INDUSTRIAL & Andrea Juno 0-90642-07-7 RE/Search If you don't have CULTURE Editors Publications it already run out HANDBOOK right now, get going, and buy it. Interviews, fiction, non-fiction, RE/SEARCH V. Vale bibliography, etc. #8/9 - J. G. & Andrea Juno 0-940642-08-5 RE/Search Everything and BALLARD Editors Publications anything about J. G. This is truely a great, funny, eye opening read about "devious deeds and mischievous RE/SEARCH V. Vale mirth". Featuring #11 - & Andrea Juno 0-940642-10-7 RE/Search the likes of PRANKS! Editors Publications Timothy Leary, Mark Pauline, Henery Rollins, Boyd Rice, Joe Coleman, etc. What can you say about this all time most talked about RE/Search RE/SEARCH V. Vale classic that #12 - MODERN & Andrea Juno 0-940642-14-X RE/Search hasn't already PRIMITIVES Editors Publications been said?. More body modifications than at first imaginable... This is one of my personal favorites in the RE/Search group. Some truely insightful RE/SEARCH V. Vale interviews with #13 - ANGRY & Andrea Juno 0-940642-24-7 RE/Search the liks of Kathy WOMEN Editors Publications Acher, Diamanda Gal‡s, Lydia Lunch, etc. Women are much angrier than men... "Independent Artists' Networking - Other Ground Works - Art SENSORIA John Marriot - Articles - FROM & Ich Neuman 1-895348-01-3 Mangajin Interviews - CENSORIUM Editors Books Contacts" Great book, worth looking for. "Ananthology of Diverse Perspectives -Art, Fiction, Film, Theory, Activism, SENSORIA Photography, FROM John Marriot Mangajin Journalism, CENSORIUM & Ich Neuman 1-895348-03-X Books Comix". Much VOLUME II Editors expanded and slicker than #1 and really worth reading. This edition is worth getting just for the incredible illustrations, not to say there's anything lacking THE ATROCITY RE/Search in the reading. EXHIBITION J. G. Ballard 0-940642-19-0Publications All around great book. Re/Search always does justice to the books they put out. Transcript of the 6 part PBS series. Very interesting THE POWER OF Joseph Campbell 0-385-24773-7 read about the MYTH with Bill Moyers 0-385-24774-5 Doubleday central myths of Humanity. {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{} ************************************************************************ CAFFEINE, EPHEDRINE, AND THE WENDY O. EXPERIENCE (FOR PAM) by Pat Sherman ************************************************************************ A few weeks ago I was having a heavy dose of clutter anxiety. So afflicted, I began rummaging through the house, scrapping every fossil in my wake: old photos, books, clothes, furniture, you name it - shit-can it. Buried deep in a box of old torn T-shirts, one, no doubt, sealed since 1987, I came across a well preserved Wendy O. Williams tour shirt. The material held the heavy stench of dust and mildew, but I could still detect an underlying hint of pot smoke. I was fixing to toss it into the refuse with my Foxy Brown lunch pail, Light of Day trading cards, Eve Plumb:Diary of a Teenage Runaway video, and dog-eared Hazel O' Connor biography, when I was stricken with the impulse to wear it - some nostalgic waft of reverence. See, Wendy O. was more than a faze, she was a 110% state of mind. For those who never experienced Wendy mania at it's peak, let it suffice to say that Wendy O. mania lies far beyond the boundaries of description. It was 1985. I was living in Phoenix, drinking four pots of coffee per day, and poised to drop out of school. Then I discovered the music and mayhem of Wendy O. (I still dropped out of school, mind you, but my life was about to take a scary turn . . .) Let me start by saying that I'm a bi-sexual woman in her early thirties. I wouldn't generally preface a story with this information, but it might make certain things a little clearer. Female rock stars have been my thing from the start. In the forth grade, I masturbated and had my first period to a poster of Ann and Nancy Wilson, of which I've never never been ashamed. (I think it was the cover of Dreamboat Annie - yowza!). In jr. high, I got drunk on Southern Comfort and listened to Janis Jopin music with a vengeance. Soon after, I bought some Patti Smith records from the cut out section at a local drug store. I would fall asleep to side one of Wave, the hypnotic Dancing Barefoot coaxing me to sleep over the ka-thunk ka-thunk ka-thunk of my broken turntable. In 1982, Joan Jett brought me back to the world of guitar heavy she-rock with her rowdy Bad Reputation. For the next three years I lived on a steady diet of Joan Jett and Pretenders music believing that it didn't get any better. But, it did! It got harder and heavier and, to put it in Wendy's own words, "Way over the edge!" One evening shortly after moving to Phoenix, I was up all night watching USA television and swilling Hills Brothers. There was this special on female rockers, parade of the future has- beens, Lene Lovich and Kim Wilde types. Then, I saw someone so out of control, so far gone, that I was completely sucked in. That somebody was Wendy Orlean Williams: Kommander of Kaos, High Priestess of metal. Scantily clad Wendy, all muscle and mohawk, came at me in my living room, plowing a school bus through a massive wall of t.v.'s. As if that weren't enough, her next clip featured her driving a speeding car off of a cliff. Just moments before the car was to go over the edge, Wendy O. climbed onto a plane ladder and the car exploded. I was totally pumped! The song, her brand new metal anthem, It's My Life, went like this: my New Years resolution is always the same, gonna do what I like, gonna do what I want, and the hell with things -Yeah! I was hooked on the Wendy O., sold on her angst-fueled message! In 1985, Wendy O. Williams went farther than any woman or man in rock 'n' roll. No one could touch her act for real life danger. The next day, I went to Zia records and bought her first solo album, W.O.W. Produced by Gene Simmons of Kiss, it was better than I could've ever imagined. I played it over and over, loud then louder still, until my neighbors called the police. I didn't care. I kept on playing Wendy O. It was my duty. The front cover of her album featured a shot of her on stage wearing an inverted tool belt, white tank top, Brunswick bowler wrist guards, and skimpy panties. The expression on her face clearly said, 'don't mess with Wendy O.!' The name of the first song was tattooed on her arm. It was a song that challenged Joan Jett's position: I love sex and Rock 'n' Roll - another unapologetic invitation to promiscuity. My boyfriend was outraged by the blatant mockery of Jett's song. He tried to talk me out of my O. Williams obsession with rumors of Wendy's purported sexual liaisons with a jackhammer. "Sour grapes," I'd say. The rumors only made me dig her more. Every metal-head guy at school dreamed of screwing blonde bombshell Wendy. My fantasy wasn't so much to be with her, as to actually be her. A combination of coffee and a sky- high estrogene level left me crawling the walls of my dad's appartment in Scottsdale. I wanted to smash televisions, chain-saw guitars, and drive convertibles into exploding walls. I needed a big Wendy O. sized release! "I'm an adrenaline freak," Wendy would say in interviews. In one appearance on the short lived Joan River's show Wendy told loud-mouth River's "I just never ever ever fit in." That's me - I said. I can totally relate! Among other things, Wendy was a self proclaimed health food junkie. Long before Henry Rollins jumped on the bandwagon, Wendy professed to a drug free, meat free, and weight training lifestyle. Wendy O. became more than an entertainer, she was a way of life, and now, my personal guru. I'd plug in the coffee pot, crank up the Wendy O., and lift weights. My dad was growing concerned. A voracious appetite for health fads led me to seek employment at GNC, the 7-11 of health food stores. There, I became the top dog in sales and an ephedrine addict. Wendy O. Williams hailed from Rochester, New York. Out of high school she received a scholarship to the prestigious Juliard school of music for her saxophone playing. Wendy, however, declined and hit the road. She hitched across the states to Los Angeles where she worked as a macrobiotic cook. Wendy then took off for Europe to study eastern philosophy, returning to New York as a performer in a live sex show. It was there that she met Rod Swenson. Together they formed the punk concept band, the Plasmatics. The Plasmatics played CBGB's and other venues on the east coast, receiving national recognition in 1978 for Wendy's outrageously provocative stage attire. Wendy would come out on stage dressed in lingerie with only electrical tape covering her nipples. She'd frequently do encores in whipped cream and a motorcycle hat. Wendy was inundated with news coverage when she filed suit against the Milwaukee police department, who arrested her after a show on indecent exposure charges, and, while cuffed on the ground, proceeded to beat and kick her. It wasn't until Wendy began blowing up cars on stage that the Plasmatics really took off (the first of these shows at New York's Madison Square Gardens- promoted as see Wendy Trash this 68 Coupe De Ville! - was a sell out). After defeating the Milwaukee police department in court, Wendy O. demolished a police car on the Dick Cavet show to her newest punk medley, a pig is a pig. The Plasmatics changed line-up with each album. Most of Wendy's outrageous videos were done in the Arizona or Nevada desert. Her video for the Damned was filmed in the desert outside of Scottsdale, and became known as the powerlines, where friends and I would would hang out, drink beer, and play Wendy O. music. The cover of The Plasmatic's Beyond the Valley of 1984 features Wendy and bandmembers horseback, with the Superstition Mountains in the background. It was all happening in my own backyard! It may sound demented, but somehow, it made Wendy O. accessible. I liked her solo album so much that I decided to dig back into her early days with the Plasmatics. I bought New Hope For the Wretched on blood splatter vinyl, but it took longer to get into than her solo material.. The only other solo project Wendy had out was a mini cassette available through her fan club. I had to send check or money order for it. I remember my mother, much to her chagrin, writing a check payable to Jackhammer records. I wasn't sure if she had heard the rumors, or if something in the fan club advertisement triggered an alarm. The tape was called Fuck and Roll live! It featured a cover of Motorhead's song Rock 'n' Roll, on which Wendy changed the lyrics to fuck and roll. The pinnacle of the tapes trashiness comes in a song called Ain't none of your business, where Wendy stops and does this monologue (which, I still remember word for word): "You know sometimes I'm walking down the street and these straight guys come up to me. Yeah, they got their jackets and ties. That's their little outfit of the day. And they got their ever so shinny shoes on. Yeaaaaah, sometimes they vary their outfits a little bit and they've got their shirts all opened up so you can see the....shit load of gold chaaaaaains around their neck. Yeaaaaah . . ., and they're always walking down the street going ' I'm straight, everybody else is fucked up but not me, no, I'm straight'. You ever notice that straight people got this certain posture about them. It doesn't matter if their standing up or their sitting down. They all got this - pooooosture. That's because, every fucking straight person I ever met, comes complete with a banana stuck up the old asshole. Yeah, that's right - they all come complete with the old banana implant!" Soon after I got the tape my friend Pam came to visit from Detroit. Pam had been my closest friend since grade school. We were inseparable through high school, until I made the move out west in the middle of my junior year. We saw eye to eye on many levels - especially in the backseat of my car - but Pam was not a women in rock devotee. She'd mock my affliction for female rockers every chance she could. It was cool though, Pam was my best friend. "At least it's not Pat Benetar," she would say. Wendy, however, was a phenomena even Pam couldn't deny. She loved that fuck 'n' roll bit just as much as I did! The thing that was so cool about Wendy's shtick was that the word straight could be taken to mean, conservative, drug- free, up-tight, or heterosexual. It pissed people off indiscriminately! Pam and I made several copies of it which we brought to local shopping malls. We'd pop it into a cassette deck at the stereo/video store - which ever component was closest to the mall - and let her rip. By the time the flustered sales clerk would dash over to turn it off, Wendy would be halfway through her monologue, spewing obscenities through the mall and into the consciousness of middle class America. We were proud of our devious stunt. At parties We'd amuse friends with Wendy O. standup. In once such performance, we went so far as to take an axe to my old black and white television set. Wendy used to say that society was callused to rape and violence, but if you destroyed personal property, especially society's sacred television, that was asking for trouble. I was stoked to be reunited with Pam, my partner in crime, and coaxed her to stay on. Pam decided to stay in Phoenix, so we got a small apartment for two hundred and fifty dollars a month. It was an old building with a prolific bug populous. Pam used to catch bugs and keep them in an empty Smucker's jars. She said they all came crawling to Wendy's music, dubbing Wendy the 'pied piper of cockroaches'. Pam and I became lovers. Although we were never exclusive with one another - I still liked to date guys - our bond was much deeper than sex. Meanwhile, I couldn't have been happier with my job at GNC. My boss needed time off and gave me run of the place. Pam kept me company. We'd listen to Wendy O. and hang out all day. Pam would put price stickers all over her face and hands and stalk the jewelry store across the mall. Performance was her forte. Pam would be escorted out of the mall kicking and screaming by security guards, and I would sneak her back in through the service corridor. I was more than eager to push the products I so thoroughly believed in. Especially the herbal stimulants. I was taking between fifteen and thirty supplements a day, including ginseng, guranna, bee pollen, kola nut, and yohimbe bark. My favorite, by far, were Excel pills. The main ingredient in Excel pills, the Chinese herb Ma Huang, is today, found in products like Herbal Ecstasy and Sudaphed. Ma Huang is a source of the drug ephedrine, which is used in making methamphetamine. Some Ephedrine products are like a watered down version of a methamphetamine high. At the time, I thought it was the healthiest thing on earth. I had more energy than I'd had in my life. It felt as if I could have taken on the world and it's problems single handedly. However, there was one problem that was bigger than my herbal ego. Pam had been battling heroin addiction. She had initially come to Phoenix to sober up. While I was busy at GNC, I'd give Pam the car so she could job hunt. She never found work. The closest she got was a false sense of hope from the Red Lobster. I later learned that she'd been spending her days downtown at the methadone clinic. I tried to turn her on to wheat-grass juice and Excel pills, but it didn't have the same impact on her. She was in a bad way and not me, my pep pills, nor Wendy O. was going to change that. I felt like a failure, angry with Pam, and myself. Internalizing my frustration, I never realized that, as an addict in my own right, I didn't know how to help her. Pam left town with my Fuck 'n' Roll tape, and I moved back in with my dad. In fall of 1986, while I was in rehab, Wendy released her second solo effort, Kommander of Kaos. As Wendy assured, 'it ran me over like a bulldozer, and had me down on the floor barking!, like a dog.' More than anything, though, Wendy now reminded me of Pam. I felt a great loss without her. We talked a few times after she left Phoenix, but we finally lost touch when she moved to Windsor, where drugs were plentiful. Shortly after the release of the Kaos album, Wendy stared in a John Waters type flick, Reform School Girls. I remember I took a hot high- school cheerleader I'd been seeing on opening night. In one classic scene warden Pat Ast says to Wendy, "Charlie, your just a stupid kid from Cleveland, a shit stain on the panties of life." Wendy's retort: "You should know, you lick 'em every night!" Through the course of the movie, I could see repulsion in my dates eyes. Finally, during a scene where Charlie Chandlers (AKA Wendy) rapes and brands a defenseless prison debutante, my date fled the theater. I didn't run after her, she took a cab home. My dad was outraged that I had let my obsession with Wendy O. Williams frighten another girl away. My father, having seen a trailer for the movie in Playboy, said "what kind of a woman would wear a shirt that says fuck 'n' roll or fuck me?" "No dad," I said, as if defending her honor, "It says fuck 'n' roll or fuck off!" The movie wasn't spectacular, not even by camp standards, but at the time I believed Wendy would win an academy award for her performance: 'for the best dramatic portrayal of an incarcerated woman, the award goes to . . . Wendy O.!!!' It's the only time I've ever watched an awards show. By the time Wendy O. did her Plasmatics reunion album, Maggots: the Record, I was getting pretty sketchy. I had graduated from the fourteen pack to the hundred size bottle of Excel pills. While I used to turn the customers on from my own stash, I was too greedy now to share. I hoarded all the customer samples for myself. I'd ransack my car in the hopes of finding a stray Excel capsule that had fallen behind the seat six months earlier. One day, in a drug hungry frenzy, I'd crammed my fists under the seat and pulled out Pam's old mottled bra. I wept. To keep myself busy, I worked out at World Gym sometimes three hours a day, six days a week. The Excel killed my appetite so instead of gaining muscle, I was losing weight. Ironically, in recent photos of Wendy, the same thing appeared to be happening to her. It seemed both Wendy and I were on our own downward spirals. My nerves were shot to hell. I began pulling really stupid stunts. I'd run red lights blaring my horn, under the influence of Wendy O. In the middle of the night, I'd wake up and go for five-mile jogs in my leather jacket. I was losing sleep, I was losing my mind. Then, opening the New Times one day, I saw salvation in sight. Wendy O. was coming to town. Her gig was going to be at the Mason Jar, a real dive - yet, up close and personal! In an effort to get my life back on track, I signed up for real estate classes and gave up coffee. It appeared as if I might be coming around. The night Wendy was originally slated to play, she canceled. I found out through the promoters that she had come down with pneumonia. I wondered how that could be, her being so health conscious and all. That night the Plasmatics played without Wendy. I didn't go. Instead, I tried to find out which local hospital she was at. I drove to all of them, one by one, posing as her daughter, to no avail. Soon after, I received word that Pam had lost her bout with heroine. A vital part of me felt as if it had died with her, the part that taught me to go with life's little inanities, the part that taught me to feed from the trough of madness, the Pam part. I was completely numb. To this day I don't think there's been a soul that perceives this screwed-up planet in as enlightened a fashion as Pam did. I find I am constantly recanting to Pam's life to rekindle my creative spark. I didn't have any money for Greyhound fare, so I missed Pam's funeral in Detroit. Two weeks later, the rescheduled Wendy show happened. After pumping myself with Excel and coffee, I was ready to rock. I got to the club early and had a hard time sitting still. I was too restless. I tried to study the sample questions for my real estate exam, but it was no use, I kept thinking about Pam. After a while, a worm in a Wendy O. shirt came in and sat down with his friends. He could have easily passed for Jerry Lewis' Buddy Love, stringy black hair, Nutty Professor glasses and all. The lot of them looked like three thugs on paint thinner. I didn't feel like company, but the place wasn't filling up, and I needed to talk to someone. After a few brief words, I found out that Buddy had met Wendy when she was in town with the Plasmatics (she'd done an appearance at Circles records). We started talking and one thing led to another. Soon I was outside in a car doing lines with Buddy Love and his friends. We talked about Wendy O., rock 'n' roll, and the meaning of life in Phoenix - a moot subject. Buddy worked for the Phoenix Gazette, which as an aspiring writer, intrigued me. We were parked out back of the Jar. We sat there talking as the sun set over a Burger King and night enveloped, what I liked to call, the Valley of the Rednecks. I felt as if I'd know these guys forever, but I guess cocaine does that. Sometime in the midst of our conversation, I offered one of the guys a blow-job to pass the time. Buddy and his other friend continued their conversation in the front seat, giving furtive glances into the rear-view mirror, under the false impression that they were next. Then, as the windows were starting to fog over (in Phoenix, yeah, it's a stretch), and this guy was getting ready to pop, we all heard the froggy throated Wendy speak. Looking up, I saw that her voice was coming from a small barred window in the back of the club. We sat in silence and listened as she spoke of the elements of her diet. "Apricots, raspberries, wheat germ oil. . ." I don't remember it all, but it got us fired up. Then we saw her tattooed silhouette in the window, just a glance, but you could clearly see her new back tattoo. It was a large blue eagle with a rattlesnake in it's talons, encircled by the words: 'United Federation of the Universe'. I caught the back of Wendy's head as her frail tattooed arm drew the shade. We smoked a couple joints after that, and the other guys went inside. I sat there a few moments longer with the frat-boy I'd just given oral to, trying to sort through things in my mind. For the most part, I was vehemently opposed to drug use. I'd especially been turned off seeing my Pam taken down on smack. I can only say that I was determined to celebrate Pam's life in the most appropriate and ignorant way possible that night: wasted at a Wendy O. concert. Anyway, what harm could a slight fit of recidivism do? I felt I had justification: between my sorrow and the Wendy O. rush I felt, I was on an e-ticket rollercoaster ride! By the time Wendy walked out on stage to her thrash opera from the Maggots album, I was wired for sound. Even in the midst of my synthetic state of awareness, I could see that Wendy looked like death warmed over. Her face and lips were withered, her eyes sunk back in her head. She looked like somebody's grandmother. I have pondered many theories as to the nature of her health status that night and to this day have seen little evidence that Wendy O. William's still walks this earth. The band was ultra tight. What Wendy lacked in appearance, she made up for in sheer effort. I felt bad for her, the house only half full. Still, what little audience she had, she took complete control over. Wendy grabbed the mic and proclaimed, "death to whimp rock!" I was hypnotized as Wendy stalked her audience. Strutting around the stage, lips pursed, butt in the air, she ran through a set of solo and Plasmatic material, each one a favorite. At one point Wendy challenged the audience to define the word Propagator, the name of a song from the Maggots album. Despite Wendy's emaciated condition, I don't think she could have given a more cogent delivery to Masterplan if she'd had a bionic diaphragm: "You had it made, you had it made, but you blew it all away!" I had never realized just how astute Wendy's words were. At one point, a guy to the left of the stage blew smoke in Wendy's face. Wendy reacted with pure instinct, kicking that asshole mother-fucker in the side of the head! It had to hurt, she was wearing her industrial strength combat boots. Bouncers dragged the guy out screaming as the band hammered into the next O. William's aria: here, Wendy chainsawed a guitar in half. She began to jog in place, knees thrust high. Wendy's headbanging increased in velocity, her blonde ponytail thrashing about as if Barbara Eden herself were summoning the destruction of all humanity. Her boobs convulsed in a leather brazier as she sang, "fuck that booty, fuck that booty, work that muscle!" I knew that instant Pam was in the room with me. Soon after, Wendy belched out Butcher Baby, Pam's favorite Plasmatics song. Although it had a metal edge to it, I knew Wendy's career was finished when she broke into her new rap act. I wasn't buying it for a second. It was an imminent flop, not the kind of music you walked on the wing of a plane to. I couldn't fathom her skydiving naked to techno drums and scratching. "Perfect hard-ons," she rapped, "perfect breasts. No B.O. no PMS, It's lies all lies it's lies." The only thing Wendy's rap inspired me to do was come back to reality and complete my education. After the gig, Wendy and her crew drove off in a Hertz van. She did not stick around to greet the handful of fans waiting by the back door, myself included. Leaving the Mason Jar, I took a short cut and ended up in a bad part of town, somewhere in the proximity of Roosevelt and Washington. By day, I knew these streets well enough to find City Court where I'd gone to pay speeding tickets. By night it was alien territory. I stopped to ask a prostitute directions, but she didn't seem to know her bearings any better than I did. She jumped in my car and it took me over an hour to convince her that I didn't require her professional services. "Oh, come on. You can pretend I'm Wanda O., it wont cost a dime extra," she pleaded. I was still wired and my ears were ringing. After driving around the same city block five times I eased over to the curb. It didn't take long till I realized where I was. I was parked in front of the methadone clinic. In an instant of rage I vowed that one last statement needed to be made. This was not a Wendy O. statement, but a personal one. I was going to burn that son-of-a-bitchen meth clinic down, once and for all! I was all set to siphon gas from my car, ready to do the deed. Miraculously, after searching through the weeds and trash strewn lawn of the clinic, I was unable to produce a suitable gas container: not a beer bottle, rusted coffee can, milk carton, nothing. I lost my courage when a police car drove by and flashed its lights. The remainder of the evening I spent at Denny's, committing my real estate questions to memory. Today, I allow myself one cup of caffeinated coffee in the morning, usually savored to the stimulating conversation of Regis and Kathy Lee. I have strongly considered joining others in the fight to ban ephedrine from the marketplace. I never bought Wendy's rap album, and I don't know what has become of her. ADDENDUM: Ms. O. William's has officially ended her reign as rock and roll's queen of schlock to pursue gainful employment with a natural foods distributor at an undisclosed location in New England. She has expressed no interest in being contacted by her fans. Should you happen to bump into her one day, scooping natural yogurt from a bulk bin, simply worship her from afar. She has 'been to hell and back'. ADDENDUM II:< April 7, 1998 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Wendy O. WiIliams Lead Singer of the Plasmatics Passes Away Storrs, CT -- Wendy O. Williams lead singer of the radical and influential punk-metal Plasmatics died Monday night, April 6 of a self-inflicted gun shot wound to the head. The outspoken and style-setting singer, who was found dead by Plasmatics' co-founder and manager Rod Swenson, was forty-eight years old. The Plasmatics, founded in 1978, rose to fame from sensational beginnings at CBGB's in New York City where Wendy and the band were known for fast aggressive music and on stage theatrics which included Wendy's regular chain-sawing of guitars and the detonation of speaker cabinets. After inking a record deal with Stiff records they rapidly grew to large venues where the "queen of shock rock," as she came to be known, expanded the theatrical repertoire to include blowing up cars on stage and collapsing lighting trusses. After having a show banned in London in 1979 the group retuned to New York, were helicoptered onto a New York pier where, in front of some 20,000 people after playing a short set, Wendy drove a cadillac into a stage loaded with explosives jumping out of the car seconds before it hit the stage and car and stage blew up. The band made numerous TV appearances inclubing two on Tom Snyder's "Tomorrow" Show where they also blew up a car in the studio. Among other things, the band is generally credited with bringing the mohawk haircut to rock'n roll. Wendy being the first high-profiled woman to wear a mohawk, and with her carefully shredded clothing was voted to People Magazine's Best Dressed List. She was also nominated for a grammy award as Best Female Rock Singer. The band, which in an early review Billboard magazine said "makes Kiss look like greasy kid stuff" toured from 1978 until 1988. Ironically, Gene Simmons of Kiss would later produce one of three Wendy O. Williams solo albums in 1982. Other notable pairings included a speed-metal cover of Tammy Wynette's "Stand By Your Man" with lead singer for the UK's number one speed metal band Motorhead. Yesterday, in Storrs, CT, Rod Swenson, who had been Wendy's significant other for more than twenty years, returned from shopping to the wooded area where the two had lived since moving to Connecticut from New York. He found a package that Wendy had left him with some special noodles he liked, a packet of seeds for growing garden greens, some oriental massage balm, and sealed letters from Wendy. The suicide letters which included a "living will" denying life support, a love letter to Swenson, and various lists of things to do set Swenson searching the woods looking for her. After about an hour, and after it was almost dark, he found the body in woods near an area where she loved to feed the wildlife. Several nut shells were on a nearby rock where she had apparently been feeding some of the squirrels before she died. Swenson checked the body for a pulse, and there was none. A pistol lay on the ground nearby, and he returned to the house to call the local authorities. "Wendy's act was not an irrational in-the-moment act," he said, she had been talking about taking her own life for almost four years. She was at home in the peak of her career, but found the more ordinary 'hypocrisies of life' as she called them excruciatingly hard to deal with. In one sense she was the strongest person I have ever known, and in another, a side which most people never saw, the most vulnerable. She felt, in effect, she'd peaked and didn't care to live in a world in which she was uncomfortable, and below peak any longer. Speaking personally for myself, I loved her beyond imagination. She was a source of strength, inspiration, and courage. The pain at this moment in losing her is inexpressible. I can hardly imagine a world without Wendy Williams in it. For me such a world is profoundly diminished." One of the suicide notes Wendy left read as follows: "The act of taking my own life is not something I am doing without a lot of thought. I don't believe that people should take their own lives without deep and thoughtful reflection over a considerable period of time. I do believe strongly, however, that the right to do so is one of the most fundamental rights that anyone in a free society should have. For me much of the world makes no sense, but my feelings about what I am doing ring loud and clear to an inner ear and a place where there is no self, only calm. Love always, Wendy." Wendy asked that no flowers be sent, but those who would like to make a donation in her memory can do so to: The Quiet Corner Wildlife Center, 109 Ashford Center Road, Ashford, CT 06276. {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{} ************************************************************************ CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE... ************************************************************************ DR. HUGO DE GARIS obtained a B.Sc. (Hons) in Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at Melbourne University, Victoria, Australia, in 1970. He moved to the UK where he was a supervisor (instructor) to the mathematics undergraduates of Cambridge University. He then joined Philips in Holland and Belgium as a software and hardware architect, covering most branches of computer science. Growing bored with industry, he switched careers to do research at Brussels University, where he finished a PhD in Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Life. de Garis has published some 50 papers and book chapters. He met Professor Ryszard Michalski (of George Mason University, GMU) at a French University in 1988, and was invited by him to spend 6 months at the GMU AI Center. A year later de Garis was made a senior research affiliate of GMU. From February 1993, de Garis has been the head of the Brain Builder Group in the Evolutionary Systems Department at ATR labs in Kyoto Japan. The aim is to use Cellular Automata Machines (CAMs) to grow/evolve a billion neuron artificial brain at electronic speeds, using state of the art evolvable hardware which can update CA cells at over 100 Billion a second, and evolve neural network modules in less than a second. The name of this research effort is the "CAM-Brain Project", which will continue until 2001. It is de Garis's ambition to see his brain building work grow into a major Japanese effort equivalent to America's NASA moon shot. See de Garis's extensive web site for details on the "CAM-Brain project". PAT SHERMAN is a freelance writer and founding member of the San Diego Urgent Writers. Pat also writes music music pieces for the San Diego Reader, and is currently working on a novel, the Psychology of Subservient Behavior. JOE TOMORROW is Joe Tomorrow. {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{} The Annihilation Fountain & TAF Copyright c 1997-99 Neil MacKay http://www.capnasty.org/taf/ the_annihilation_fountain@iname.com