ANTI-PRESS EZINE #21 "We're Positive About The Negative" A March E-dition (C) Copyright 2001 Anti-Press All Rights Reserved THIS E-DITION'S LINE-UP: I - WHAT ROUGH BEAST SLOUCHES TOWARDS ANTI-PRESS? II - HIGH-SOUNDING EDITORIALS IMPLY HIGH STATE III - SISYPHUS ROLLS SNOWBALL UPHILL IV - Guest Essayist VIKI REED: "NA NA LAND" V - GHOST WRITERS (Email from *You* out there.) ============================================================= WHAT ROUGH BEAST SLOUCHES TOWARDS ANTI-PRESS? By Anti-Press There's a monster outside our window. It's a hulking mass, seven feet tall, five feet wide, its bulk preventing any possible escape from the Precision Reality Center. The monster is almost pressing against the glass; we can just hear its deep breathing, its low Yeti growls. With one lurch it could come crashing through, nailing us at our desk. But we continue to ignore it, typing on our computer. It drifted into the courtyard during the nor'easter. In NENYland the worst storms are in March. Nature says: _You may think Spring is closer but I slow down time even more, making each day more of a struggle. You must fight more than ever. Even a simple walk around town will be a hardship._ The monster outside our window keeps staring down at us, its eyeless face devoid of warmth. When the sun does come out, the monster blocks most of the life-giving light. But in the end the sun will win: this abominable creature will die. We look up from our computer and middle-finger salute the monster. * * * HIGH-SOUNDING EDITORIALS IMPLY HIGH STATE By Anti-Press We suspect that someone has been slipping LSD into the water cooler at The (news)Paper. How else can you explain some of the editorials that have appeared in Plattsburgh's main source of journalism? For example, a recent editorial ranted on about tax-cheats, vilifying self-employed workers like child care providers who under-report or fail to report income altogether. Obviously this ill-considered dreck was written by someone comfortably ensconced in the middle class. There's a lot of self-employed workers out there who can't afford taxes, who aren't living on an average of 30 thou a year plus benefits being a newspaper editor. These disadvantaged workers don't have health insurance and the only way they can afford a doctor is to skirt around the government, working part-time under the table. The editorial states that tax cheats are also cheating themselves because when they retire their Social Security benefits will be based on what they earned on the books. Of course, that might mean something if (A) said cheater lives long enough to reach retirement which might be raised to age 95 by the government to "save" SS; and (B) the government doesn't piss away all the SS money with some psychotic Republican scheme like letting a beneficiary gamble-- oops, we mean "invest"-- his benefits in the volatile stock market. If there's going to be a crackdown on tax-dodgers, the let's skip over the penny ante transgressors and go after the big time guys. Some of the biggest crooks are government and business leaders. If you're worried about millions of dollars being lost, then take a look at Marc Rich and his ilk who "work" The System. And we find it interesting that The Paper is so concerned about "cheating". Years later we're still waiting for the promised follow-up story by The Paper about an accusation made by one of its ex-employees. A former deliveryman stated his supervisor told him to falsify records so that it appeared that he, the deliveryman, was working less than the actual total hours. The scam, claimed the accuser, involved the use of someone else's Social Security number. This alleged time-card scheme came to light first on the local TeeVee Station, thus forcing The Paper to run its own story, a gloss-over apparently written under the supervision of a lawyer. The Paper claims that it never hides the truth from the public, even if it involves one of their own screwing up. Then why didn't The Paper report the accusation involving one of its supervisors until after the TeeVee news item? If the accusation was true, then it's obvious The Paper can make a rule and then allow itself to cheat on it. A clear-cut case of "Do As We Say, Not As We Do" was a recent editorial about property-owners who refuse to shovel snow from the sidewalks adjacent to their properties. According to city law, a property owner must take care of his section of the public sidewalk. The Paper demanded that the law be enforced, almost advocating jack-booted thugs breaking down doors and dragging scofflaws outside at gunpoint to clean off the sidewalks. Now The Paper just a great job of keeping the sidewalk in front of its establishment clear of snow. Of course, the front is its public side. But if you want to use the sidewalk behind The Paper's property, forget it. Six days later after a major snowstorm and the rear sidewalk is still blocked, two feet deep with the white stuff. Then again, hypocrisy is nothing new with conservatives or conservative publications. In the past The Paper has ranted against raising minimum wage. Gee, if minimum wage was higher-- you know, at a level where someone could have enough money to *live* on-- then maybe there would be less tax cheats and more people paying taxes. Why work an extra job under the table if you have enough money coming in with one job? And you don't need to drop acid to figure that out. * * * SISYPHUS ROLLS SNOWBALL UPHILL By Anti-Press Here in NENYland we've been lucky over the last few years with relatively mild winters. Apparently it was the work of El Nino, La Nina, or El Diablo. Whatever caused it, we wish the mildness would came back and ameliorate this season of depression, disease, and deep snow drifts. Living in The City That Don't Werk is bad enough when the weather is fine. During the summer you only have to struggle with the usual stupidity that dominates the operation of this overgrown podunk. Last year during the warm weather The City decided to promote pedestrian safety. They painted special markings on certain crosswalks to make drivers aware that a pedestrian had the right of way. But there was no enforcement and as usual it's safer to jay-walk in the middle of the street, i.e. it gives you more time to jump out of the way before you're hit by a speeding yahoo. Anyway, most of the zebra stripes have worn away, faded from view, like other great plans once trumpeted by the City. Now most of the sidewalks are trashed by snow and ice. People have been writing to The Paper to complain. And no wonder. If it's dangerous trying to use a crosswalk, imagine the fun when you have to walk in the street because the sidewalk is impassable. It's like open season on pedestrians. But it's all part of the great cycle. The snow will melt, the anger will fade, and then after mud season pedestrians will have a new-old problem to vex them, the dangerous crosswalks. The City will sound grand, saying it will deal with the problem, but nothing will be done. Before you know it, it's winter again, and the sidewalks are crap. The City will promise to do something (but nothing is done), then the snow will melt... A similar cycle extincted the dinosaurs. * * * TEEVEE REVIEW-- THIS WEEK'S RECOMMENDATION: "NA NA LAND" By Viki Reed Don't waste valuable Na Na Time. Stop what you're doing and take a look at "Na Na Land". It's adorable, it's precious, it's hilarious, it seems inspired by drug-use, it's one of those shows that a three month old and a 34 year old like myself can enjoy equally. Na Na Land is a tiny little show that's produced for Nickelodeon, specifically airing during the "Nick Jr." schedule-mornings. I can't tell you when "Na Na Land" is on, either the time or the day. It's one of many short series programming fillers that close the gap between your kid's favorite cartoon and their next favorite one. The theory is if you're watching something during Nick Jr. hours, and the show you're watching ends at 20 after the hour or ten minutes before the next one, you will be 80% more likely to catch "Na Na Land". If another short from another series comes on, you still have four more days in the week, and a few hours that same day to look for children's shows that end at odd time increments. Is it worth it? Yes. In fact, have your VCR and a fresh tape dedicated to this hunt for Na Na. It is the ONLY short series filler program on Nick Jr.'s schedule that's worth watching. It should be a new show. Unfortunately Nick Jr. does nothing to promote Na Na Land on its website and no reference to its production could be otherwise culled from the net. Na Na is a little girl who lives in Na Na Land-- but there are definitely metaphorical overtones that leave you realizing that Na Na Land is a place of mind, too. The show consists of two tiny, sweet, big-eyed puppets. You can see the tiny stilts that the puppeteers use to crudely but cutely move their arms and props, but it doesn't matter in Na Na Land. Na Na wears a little jumper dress. Her face is little more than a stuffed finger-puppet with a simple flat muppet mouth, wide and smiling. She has big dark dot eyes and a scrap of yarn pig-tail toupee. Despite this bare bones limitations of expression and detail, Na Na's range of emotion is extraordinary. Her vocabulary is a series of whispers and babble that erupt in symbolic baby talk and key words that merely make whatever she's doing about 8 billion times more adorable. Sometimes you can barely hear her sweet breathy voice-- you only hear what you need to in Na Na's world. That goes for her puppy, Spencer, too. Her puppy yelps, flutters, and yaps. He is always panting, which excites the squeezable little pair all the more. He's a cute little spotted brown dog with floppy ears that are made of such stiff fabric that they are always suspended in obtuse positions. Na Na needs only to gasp a few loving, "Spenthsah?s" and you're melting in your underwear with love for the world. Na Na and Spencer just have one focus every episode. Once they blew bubbles and saw a butterfly. I don't know how many times Na Na said, "Ook! Spenthah! A buttahfie! A buttahfie!", all I could do was look at the little butterfly on a stick bobbing and floating around Na Na and Spencer, who spend every show in Na Na's backyard. You can see the back of the house, a wooden fence, grass, flowers, a tree, and whatever other props tell the tale that day. The weather is always perfect and sunny. Everything is clean even though they're outside. Another show featured Na Na trying to get Spencer to take a bubble-bath. One of my personal favorites was when Na Na was feeding kibble to Spencer and they found a caterpillar hiding in the kibble. First they spent 45 seconds in awe of the "cattapiwah in the kibbooh", then Na Na delicately lifted it out and freed it, whereupon it did a little happy caterpillar wiggle on its stick. Then Na Na rejoiced as Spencer burrowed his little head into the kibble, eating away and spilling the kibble everywhere. "Spenthsah's eetin da kibbooh!" took us out of the episode that day along with the theme song, which is unforgettable in the way that say that an twenty year old "Hot Wheels" commercial does, "Na Na Land Na Na Land Na Na Na, Na Na Na Na. Na Na Land Na Na Land Naaaaa Naaaaaa Laaaaaaand!" Since each episode is so short (probably less than four minutes), it takes a lot of Na Na spotting to build up a tape worthy of a Na Na Festival. But if you make the effort to collect Na Na's, you can be guaranteed a therapeutic, trip into childhood, as well as the most drugged night you've ever spent in your early twenties. And when I say drug-induced, it's because straight or buzzed, this show just can't be what it is and it can't be right that you would be happy to watch Na Na and Spencer hug for forty minutes, let alone four. It's like a lava lamp with a really cute face and you can't walk away until it's turned off. Will you have flashbacks while watching it? No, but you will have flashbacks of Na Na in your every day life, and that is worth the price of sitting by the TV all morning with a cued tape in the VCR and one eye on the clock. That is to say, I don't think modern psychotherapy has a problem with it yet. ===== EDITOR'S NOTE: As far as we know there is no direct connection with Na Na Land and NENYland-- but we could be wrong. * * * GHOST WRITERS "Receiving email is like channeling messages from ghosts in the machine." -- Anti-Press 2001 In response to our article in APE #20 about a recent demonstration in downtown Plattsburgh dissing the inaugeration of George W. Shrub, streeteditions wrote: < Gentlefolk, Ah, for the days/daze of revolution when the P'burgh pigs had to use SWAT armor for the first time in their bored lives (borrowed it from then Dannemora [Prison]). That was 60's/70's sort of shit though. Don't remember the exact details, but it was in 1969-70 when we blockaded the Federal Bldg on corner of Margaret/Brinkerhoff for a few days while folk from the Union Hotel brought out drinks, pipes, etc. through the nights and day with P'burgh city Police in SWAT gear from Dannemora and Federal marshalls on the front from 8-5 only. WIRY [radio] even interviewed me back then and had to censor the tapes if I remember sort of. The SWAT gear had NYS DoC [Dept. of Corrections] shields on them.> APE replies: *If you're going to beat up hippies, use the best... Is this a great country or wot?* === Mitch Shrader writes: Anti-Press replies: *Huh?* ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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. 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