ANTI-PRESS EZINE #05 A February E-dition (C) Copyright 1999 Anti-Press REALITY CENTER TO RELOCATE We've stated in the past that this ezine is on a irregular publishing schedule. The schedule will become even more irregular as we face the fact that we have to find a new base of operations. Here in Plattsburgh, NY, there are those who have a home and there are those (like us) who can only rent a base of operations. We've never lived in a place we can call "home" since we've been on our own. We've been at the mercy of landlords with their own agendas. (Agenda example: Landlord wants to add an extension on their home. Nothing wrong with that. The Bank looks over the landlord's properties and says: "We can't give you a loan-- you're not charging enough rent!" So the landlord gets a roomier dwelling, The Bank makes money on its usury, and we tenants living on limited budgets get screwed.) So it's time to find another base, a hole in the wall where we can eat, sleep, and create without too many hassles. The American Dream of Owning Your Home: we're pragmatic, we gave up on that delusion long ago. We haven't moved in a few years and now we have to sort out all this stuff that accumulates when one settles in one spot for a duration. So until we're ensconced in our new base our mental state is going to be more distracted than ever. UNSOLICITED SUBMISSIONS FOR REVIEW NOT ENCOURAGED Before we found our voice here on the Net we were like any aspiring writer trying to be heard through mainstream outlets. We thought that successful authors would help us to break in. We had this image of a professional writer: an outgoing, fair-minded person who was always willing to help other new writers. Apparently we had watched too many movies and TV shows and also had read too many issues of publications like The Writer and The Writers Market. Outside of two or three exceptions, most professional writers whom we have contacted over the years were either pleasantly indifferent or just outright rude. We would attend a con (convention/conference), engage in some conversation with a particular writer, and asked if they would mind looking at a short example of our work at their convenience. This resulted in being told our work was a total waste of time or later on finding our manuscript and SASE thrown in a corner like a worthless turd. Now with our little bit of "success" here on the Net we find ourselves in the situation where others want some feedback from us. Look, even at this point, we're still figuring out what we're doing. We ain't professional. We've decided to be up front and not project the phony friendly image we've encountered with most so-called professionals. Hey, we don't mind helping others but at this point we're trying to keep our own stuff together. So please don't send us your latest ezine or other work and expect us to respond with a detailed review. We do reviews when we feel like it. We write this ezine when we feel like it. Generally, if we don't ask for it, we don't read it. No, this doesn't mean that we NEVER critique a work but it also doesn't mean that we ALWAYS review everything in our emailbox. Sounds self-centered? Well, what do you prefer: honest self-centeredness or phony friendliness disguising self-centeredness? If more writers we met were honest about this matter, we could have saved ourselves a lot of time, money and aggravation, especially with those overpriced cons. MICHAEL CRICHTON MEETS STAN LEE Remember The Andromeda Strain, book and movie, about an alien virus on the loose among us unsuspecting humans? Ever see the "origin story" of comic book hero Spider-Man, a teenager who gains great powers when bitten by a radioactive spider, man and spider combined? Just crazy SF stuff, nothing to do with real life, right? Wrong. A little bit of science fiction is coming to town according to some recent articles in the Local (news)Paper. Plattsburgh, NY has been scrambling to replace the income lost when the Air Force Base closed a few years ago. No proposal seems to be too bizarre for our desperate politicos-- even a spider- goat. The entity in charge of bringing life back to the dead real estate on the base is called PARC, an acronym for Plattsburghers Are Rustic Clowns or Politicians Are Really Crooks, whatever. Anyway, some biotech company up north in Canada wants to annoy nature and God by raising goats that have been genetically altered with a spider gene. (We assume it's a gene from a non-radioactive arachnid.) Such manmade freaks are supposed to produce milk that will help to create a "bio-steel" that will be used in the manufacture of lightweight body armor. Hey, if this is such an important breakthrough, then why not keep these mutant mammals up there in Quebec? We've got enough freaks, thank you. Around here inbreeding stagnates the gene pool. The Andromeda Strain dealt with a deadly virus plucked from outer space. Hey, with all this crazy DNA research, why bother looking for new germs Out There when we can create our own homegrown killer diseases, especially when mucking around with God's grand design for the noble goat? What baaahd consequences will result? HIV apparently leaped from monkey to man. What could leap from a arachnidly-altered goat? Imagine a spider-goat virus transmitted to a human through an accidentally-inhaled sneeze in a holding pen: "Did you notice Fred lately? Man, he's really looking strange, all those thick bristles on his face and those weird pointy bumps on his forehead. Jeezum Crow, he looks like a cross between Pan and a tarantula." Meanwhile Fred is trying to pull off his workshirt in the locker room but it's stuck, thanks to his mutated nipples lactating web fluid. And what if Spider-Man's co-creator, Stan Lee, hears about the spider-goat? Within months you could turn on your TV one afternoon and hear this cartoon theme song (as performed by the Ramones): "Spider-Goat, Spider-Goat-- bio-engineered Spider-Goat. Can it kill with its web? Take a look-- now you're dead! Hey there, there goes the Spider-Goat." Well, sorry, Stan. We beat everyone to the punch and we own the copyright and trademark for "Spider-Goat". Next Xmas Spider-Goat action figures will be flying off the shelf at the toy store (unless a Crichtonoid virus or an army of man-eating Arachnidan Capra kills us all off in the meantime). PLAN WILL STAMP OUT LACK OF CANADIAN TOURISTS In case you came in late, Plattsburgh is located in the northeastern corner of New York State, approximately one hour by car south of Montreal. Being a typical border town, P-burgh depends on tourists with disposable income that they freely dispose into local businesses: hotels, restaurants, shops, etc. But according to the local TeeVee Station our neighbors to the north are staying away in droves. And no wonder with the lousy exchange rate. The Loonie is worth around half of an American dollar. Even when the exchange rate is more favorable, our Northern Neighbors who visit here have to adjust to the color similarity of U.S. bills which are printed with the same shade of green. We've witness a tourist who confused an American one dollar bill with a ten. They're not accustomed to checking the numbers on a bill and are perplexed by the absence of a color scheme. Some wags say that they're not surprised that Canadian money isn't worth that much since it looks like Monopoly money anyway. Speaking of money and exchange rates, we read an article a while ago about the black market in U.S. food stamps, those colored-coded coupons that help poor people put some food on the table, distracting them from the viable option of rising up and killing The Man. Food stamps come in colors like blue for a five dollar coupon and green for a ten. There's a black market in exchanging food stamps for real money. Usually the coupons are traded at a rate of fifty per cent for cash, i.e. one dollar in stamps will get you fifty cents in real money, so that you can go out and buy drugs, guns, whathaveyou, to annoy The Man. Then it dawned on us. Let's make it really easy for our Northern Neighbors to visit here and spread around some dough. Set up exchange booths at the border and take in Canadian money for American food stamps. Hey, the Loonie is going for around half of American money, so let's make it official and set it at one rate: 50 per cent of U.S. food stamps. And since food stamps are color- coded, it'll be easy for Canadian tourists to notice the difference between a one and a ten. "But," you're thinking, "aren't food stamps only supposed to buy only FOOD?" Gee, haven't you heard all those horror stories propagated by Conservative Republicans about lowlifes buying beer and color TeeVees with food stamps? The black market is already there so let's just give up and let the stamps buy non-food items. Visitors from the north-- especially the French-speaking ones from Quebec-- get dirty looks from some clerks around here anyway. What difference does it make if a clerk glares at someone because he thinks he's a "welfare bum" or one of "dem frogs"? Everyone hates someone. (Isn't a beautiful world we live in?) TUBE BAMBOOZLES BOOB "What was the point?" An acquaintance was trying to figure out the meaning of an ad on TeeVee for a certain automobile company. We'll call him Biff; he's a regular TeeVee viewer. The first time Biff espied the ad he was somewhat puzzled. Maybe he wasn't paying attention. The ad was repeated and he paid more attention-- but he remained puzzled. This unsuspecting TeeVee viewer was trying to figure out the message, the gimmick, to sell the car. Biff told us in chronological detail, almost frame by frame, what events unfolded during the ad: A car travels along a city street. It's raining. Cut to shot of front seat, man driving, woman next to him, man and wife, boyfriend and girlfriend: yuppie couple. They sit in the car that the ad is supposed to be pushing. Woman puts compact disc into player, music starts, keeping beat with the windshield wipers flipping back and forth. But instead of touting the car's features via a voice-over, the ad shows the couple and the scenery passing by them. Street scenes: man sweeping with a push broom, someone twirling a yo-yo, men unloading a truck, images with a cryptic tint. Suddenly another vehicle cuts in front of the yuppie couple's car, throwing water all over the windshield. Wipers clear away the blinding splash. Then the male passenger says: "That was interesting." Camera pans up, car drives away, as a voice-over by a well-known actress utters the clever sales line. "Now what was all that about?" Biff asked. "What they were trying to say? How does that sell that car?" We smiled. The purpose of the ad, among all the other ads flashing by on the boob tube, was for the viewer to pay attention, to remember the ad. We explained to Biff that the ad had served its purpose. He had made sure to catch it when it was repeated. He remembered how it unfolded, detail by detail. And, more importantly, HE REMEMBERED THE NAME OF THE CAR COMPANY AND THE TAGLINE. Biff was chagrined. "Well, it's not a good ad. A good ad you get the first time around." Yes, we replied, but you're more apt to forget an easily-understood ad than one that worms its way into your long-term memory through repeated, attentive viewing. Biff went into denial. After all, HE couldn't be suckered by such an ad. Then Pavlov rang a bell and Biff drooled. FAT FACTOID REARS ITS UGLY LITTLE HEAD You only use ten per cent of your brain's mental capacity. Really. So was is one hundred per cent brain power? Who out there has master the full potential of their skull worm? After all, to know ten per cent of something, you need to know what one hundred per cent of it is, right? But people read or hear this factoid and repeat it without a second thought. There are facts and then there are fact-like statements. The other evening the well-dressed meat puppet/newsreader for the Local TeeVee News stated that one glass of whole milk has as much saturated fat as five strips of bacon. Today we saw an ad in the Local (news)Paper sponsored by "Healthy Heart Coalitions", urging us to switch to one per cent or less milk because of the "one glass whole milk equals five bacon strips" factoid. Really. How lean are those strips? How long, wide, and thick? What is the standard measurement for a "bacon strip"? Is this measurement on file with the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, DC? Also, how were these strips cooked? Throw them in a microwave on top of paper towels and the towels will suck up some of the grease. You can drain away the fat, leaving more of the meat. According to the newspaper ad even two per cent milk is equivalent to "three bacon strips". Well, before sounding the alarm, define your basic term: "strip". You're only using two per cent of your brain if you think we're blindly accepting any scientific-sounding statement that you throw our way. Readers: Don't clog your mental arteries with frivolous factoids. (This essay has been sponsored by the Healthy Mind Coalition.) ANTI-PRESS SHAMELESSLY PLUGS THEIR GENIUS The Annihilation Fountain will have a new edition up sometime in the first week of March. This Web Site is always worth a stop but we're proud to report that one of our essays will be featured this time around. To access this site, go to www.capnasty.org/taf/. (Or check out the text version at www.disobey.com/low/listings/annihilation_fountain.htm .) We don't have the money for a newer computer to build our own Web site. For us to be included in an edition of TAF is like breaking into a "slick" magazine. Thanks to Neil MacKay for allowing us to be more than "plain-text bums" on the Net. ANTI-PRESS EZINE PROVOKES UNFAVORABLE RESPONSES In previous issues we included a copyright statement that delineated the fact that if someone stole our intellectual property, we would kick their ass into a bloody pulp. We received a couple of emails that stated the same observation: "There's nothing good in your lousy ezine. Write something that's worth stealing." Our reply: Naw, we're going to keep writing crap so that you'll have nothing to rip-off. That way you'll be stuck with only your loud mouth and limp dick. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Submitted works must be ready for publication (edited and proofread). Word Limit: 1000 words. No sci-fi, poetry, sci-fi poetry, poetic sci-fi, etc. Do some research and read a couple of issues to find what we want. Submissions and readers' comments should be sent to Antipress1@aol.com. Anti-Press Ezine and its sporadically published issues are available at: http://www.disobey.com/text/ Copyright 1998-2000 Anti-Press Publication by Disobey. http://www.disobey.com/ TO SUBSCRIBE: majordomo@disobey.com BODY: Subscribe APE TO UNSUBSCRIBE: majordomo@disobey.com BODY: Unsubscribe APE ------------------------------------------------------------------------