<=============================> < > < ANTI-PRESS EZINE #46 > < > <=============================> "We're Positive About The Negative" This E-dition filed 6/7/04 from NENYland, the northeastern corner of New York State (i.e. the hinterlands). Our Precision Reality Center, located in Plattsburgh The Dull, now features Bull Tracker 9000. More details at the end of this e-dition. (C) Copyright 2004 Anti-Press * NENYland Reels From Dramatic Jump In Clog Theft * It's shocking but true: clog theft has risen 100% in NENYland. There's this high school student who likes to wear wooden shoes. Odd choice for footwear but apparently he feels comfortable kicking around in his crafted-in-Holland klomps. A while back he was attending a swim meet. After the competition he was upset to discover that his clogs had been stolen from the locker room. Clog theft -- such a scrofulous crime is almost beyond words. Was this the work of a splinter group? How wood we know? According to one rumor, a plumber was called in during the investigation. After all, who else is better qualified to find clogs? After extended legwork, the detectives had tired dogs but the thieves were finally treed. These crooks should be made to walk the plank -- or at least be caned. This crime is against the grain of common decency. Obviously the perps are morally out of step with society at large. Think of the expense: the state police were called in to find those stolen clogs. Who's going to foot the bill? Us, the taxpayers, that's who. Crime has a way of branching out. Today clogs, tomorrow hogs. Farmers, beware! It's one easy step from feet to meat. You can't toe the line with crooks. Don't agree with this editorial? You think we're too serious, that our writing is wooden, that we act like we have a stick up our backside? Well, you're barking up the wrong tree, so there. * APE Desperately Requests Financial $upport * Dear Friend: Don't you feel guilty for getting something for free, especially a product of blood, sweat and tears? We need your support and we're not shy about asking for it. Why? Look at the Public Broadcasting System. As usual the local PBS teevee stations have been pleading for money. They're not ashamed to even ask to be remembered in your will. A well-mannered, well-dressed spokesperson comes on the air and asks if you could remember your Public BS station when planning the disbursement of your inheritance. It almost smacks of a greedy relative who only calls you once a year to make sure his name stays on the beneficiary list. He hates to spend ten minutes chit-chatting with an old fart like you. If truth be known, he wishes you would drop dead -- the sooner, the better, of course. But that smiling, friendly PBS spokesperson -- he couldn't be like a greedy, uncaring relative, could he? After all, he seems to be talking directly to you, only to you, not to everyone else who is tuned in. He can't be a fraud like that televangelist who also spoke directly to you when you were sitting there one night, all alone, "enjoying" your retirement. The day had been long. No one stopped by; not one phone call or a letter in the mail. Another stretch of isolation was culminating in a moment of despair. But then you found hope. The televangelist talked about doing God's work, how he needed a "love gift" to help less fortunate ones. And he did help the less fortunate -- like his own pooch, building an air-conditioned doghouse with a chunk of money from your meager fixed income. But that's all in the past. That crooked televangelist went to prison. Not everyone is bad. Maybe you should take out your will, look it over, and see what you could give to that nice man on PBS.ΚΚΚ So remember everyone: list PBS in your will. Call today for details! After you die, they might mention your name on the air once, maybe twice. Embarrassingly morbid? Of course. But would you want your local public teevee station to be driven to the point of grave-robbing under the cloak of night? A televised personal pitch is so sophisticated, hiding the fact that they're engaging in overt pre-grave grubbing. And if you haven't shed your mortal coil yet, your public teevee station will be more than happy to take some of your valuable stock off your hands, Mr. Yuppie. Of course, you will still benefit from the tax write off from such a charitable contribution. That way you play the market, take all the chances, and let public teevee win. Unlike PBS, APE is not able to act as a tax write-off. We are a for-profit entity, ready to sell out for the right price. Until that opportunity arises, we need you to dig deep and give until it hurts. Of course, due to the particular nature of this endeavor, only hard cash in large bills will be accepted. You got the money. After all, if you can read this on the Web, then you must have the means to toss a few bucks our way. Where else but here can you find journalistic perfection? The promos on public teevee state: "If PBS doesn't do it, who will?" Well, wise up to the fact that motto doesn't refer to providing so-called alternative programming. The "it" means begging for money to foist the same kind of crap you can find on cable teevee. After all, if you want to see an in-depth documentary on harvesting bat guano, try "Animal Planet" or "The Discovery Channel." But PBS states that unlike those channels it's non-commercial. That's funny. What are those spots at the beginning and end of each program? Sure look like ads to us. We don't have ads. And, unlike PBS, we don't get one dime from the government. It's a lot of hard work creating this zine. We feel like we're working in a mental coal mine. That burns up a lot of energy. To write one article means we have to eat sirloin steak three times a day. Man, do we sweat out the protein.Κ You've probably noticed how infrequently we produce an issue. Well, we need the basic amenities of life like a Jacuzzi or a Porsche. After all, our need for relaxation is much greater after suffering through the cerebral birthing process of creating a new e-dition. Don't sit there. Get up, grab a wad of unmarked twenties and fifties, and shove it into a security envelope. Send it right to us here at the Precision Reality Center. After all, if PBS does it, we will, too -- in spades. Sincerely, A Friend In Need, Anti-Press * Periodical Perv Peeves Patron * The story goes something like this: A man was stroking something in the magazine section of the public library -- and it wasn't his ego. A concerned citizen reported this disturbing act to a library employee but the employee acted indifferent, telling the citizen to report the matter to the police. The citizen filed a report and hopefully this problem has been properly contained. This incident upsets us to no end. We're at a loss for words. Masturbation and magazines can go hand in hand -- but NOT at the public library. The concerned citizen felt blown off by the indifferent library employee. One shouldn't be jerked around when reporting a crime. The lewd perpetrator should learn his lesson: no one has the right to display his shortcomings in public. Let his weirdness hang out in the privacy of his home, not at the library. If it happens again, the perp should be hauled away by his short hairs and promptly booked. We have to face the grim fact: lewd acts in the public library magazine section have jumped 100% so far this year. This trend must be interrupted, a sudden withdrawal. The long and the short of it: everyone has to follow the straight and narrow. Or, as they say in England, the situation will become a sticky wicket... * Here's A Tip: Keep Your Paws In Your Pockets * By Stan Spire "That's NOT yours! Put that back -- NOW!" The kid dropped the dollar bill as if it suddenly caught fire. His mother acted confused. "What's wrong?" Another afternoon at the Kubbyhole Kafe. I just stopped in to get a cup of joe and I spotted them waiting at the counter. A mother and son, the kid a chubby adolescent with a crewcut. Both of them were well-dressed; not street people. They seemed ordinary enough -- but I knew better. Two days ago someone had pointed them out to me. I had been checking out the view from the Kafe's front window, a sunny day outside for a change, and noticed a woman and a kid looking in. For some reason they decided to keep strolling down the sidewalk. Jake, one of the coffee slingers, was standing next to me. He IDed the passersby. "Those two -- they're the ones that ripped off my tips." He explained that the kid was wearing a hoodie or sweatjacket with side pockets. When Jake turned his back to make drinks for the mother and son, the kid apparently grabbed some bills right from the tip bowl on the counter. Jake -- who is scraping by on minimum wage -- quickly noticed that someone had been at his tips. But he didn't see it happen. And as an employee, he really couldn't say anything. You know -- the customer is always right -- even if he's a thief. When it was time to pay for the drinks, the mother said that she didn't have enough money. Her sticky-fingered son reached into his side pocket and pulled out a few dollar bills. "I've got money to pay for it, mom," he said. After they left with drinks paid for with his tips, Jake was irate, ready to rip someone a new orifice. He was still angry when he told me about the incident later. He said that when he was a kid, his mother caught him swiping something at a store and she made sure he didn't do it again. Not only did she make him put it back, she made him feel so ashamed that he never stole anything else. Apparently some mothers don't feel the same way. As an employee, there was nothing that Jake could do. I knew how he felt. I've worked in stores, serving the public and sometimes being screwed by the public. Even if you catch someone red-handed, the guilty can turn the situation around and threaten to sue you, trying to make the store look bad. But I'm not a Kubbyhole Kafe employee; just a customer. And, for whatever it's worth (not much, actually) I used to work summers as a park ranger. So I went into ranger mode when I spotted the mother and son ordering drinks. I noticed they had come in when someone else besides Jake was on. I slowly walked by the counter, behind the suspect pair. My ranger sense was tingling. I glanced at the kid; he noticed my look. I could almost see his left hand twitching, ready to make a quick grab at the tip bowl. He was positioned directly in front of it. I stopped, as if hesitating, and then began to walk back toward the front door. I glanced at the kid, eye contact again, and turned my head as if I was leaving. But then I snapped my head back, seeing his paw grabbing a bill from the top of the pile. I turned around and let it rip verbally. Yelling in a park ranger voice is like learning how to ride a bike -- you never forget how to do it. "What's wrong?" asked the mother, acting -- and I do mean acting -- confused. "He took money from that tip bowl," I roared, pointing at her precious little off offspring. "I saw him! He's done it before. We don't tolerate stuff like that at this place!" The mother used her hand to look into the side pockets of her son's jacket -- only the outside pockets. Why did she immediately check there? And only there? Why didn't she have him turn out his pants pockets or look inside his sweatjacket? One would think mother bear would defend her cub, challenging me with "How DARE you talk that way about my son?" Nope. All she did was to say, "Well, there's no money on him." "That's because," I said, "he threw it back in the tip bowl when I caught him. I think I should call the police." "Well," replied the mother, folding like a threadbare buck, "we don't have to put up with this." Then she and her accomplice left, probably to hit the other coffeehouse down the street. A couple of days later Jake came in and I told him what happened. He thanked me. But he was still a few dollars short on his tips for the week. * Crime Pay$ For Public Teevee Station * So, let's pretend you run a public teevee station and you're short of funds. You can only ask your viewers so often to be remembered in their wills or have them give you some of their stock as a tax write-off. Gotta find more dough. You can't cut any more from the staff; you're down to a skeleton crew as it is. And you try to make the most of non-paid volunteers, getting students to do the grunt work on your locally-produced productions. What to do? What to do? Hmmmm, look at this. A college student died from hazing at a fraternity house in town. Well, we could make a documentary about the dangers of hazing. But how to raise the money? Hmmmm, the judge will probably fine the frat boys as part of their sentencing. Maybe we could tap into that money and also have the regretful frat boys participate in our documentary as part of their penance -- free of charge, of course. You make a few phone calls, talk to a few people, make an arrangement. Everyone in the fraternity is charged and each member pleads guilty. And each one has to pay a lotta smackers for the production of the anti-hazing documentary. During pre-production you do some calculations on paper. Having the frat boys "underwrite" the documentary will really pay off. The student crew will help create the documentary as volunteers. And the frat boys will also "volunteer" to be in it. Very little expense there. And since we're a public teevee station, we tap into all sorts of grant money. Most of the equipment is paid for. So, ten frat boys, each paying a cool thousand or more -- we end up with a good chunk of change to play with. Of course, the documentary won't cost that much to make, since most of it is done freebie. That leaves a fair amount left over. And we could make a profit if we market this video. Hmmmm, better not mention this the next time we're begging for funds from our gullible viewers... ============================================================= NOTICE: Unless indicated otherwise, all articles by Anti-Press. Articles submitted by others do not necessarily express or reflect the opinions or beliefs of Anti-Press. WHERE WE'RE AT: Anti-Press Ezine radiates from our Precision Reality Center. We're presently entrapped in the alleged city of Plattsburgh, northeastern New York State (NENYland), USA. ("Clog Theft Editorial: Fancy Verbal Footwork Or Blockhead Humor?") EMAIL: Antipress1@aol.com NEW POLICY: WE DO NOT ACCEPT ANY UNSOLICITED ARTICLES. We will accept a letter of comment (LOC) on any topic raised in our ezine. **Maximum Length: 300 words.** Plain text format. If you don't want your email printed, please tell us. To avoid being deleted as spam: Put LOC in the subject heading. E-DITIONS ONLINE: Anti-Press Ezine and its sporadically published issues are available at: http://www.disobey.com/text/ Copyright 1998-2003 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 -50-