p T A M e R S H R e W ... vol. 2 ¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿¿ ¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿ ¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿ ¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿ ¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ Volume...........2 ¿¿¿ Edited by: Stretch ¿¿¿ Dedicated to the Thought-Thread and the Ever Beautiful W O R D. Submissions HoWL BBS 1.713.862.1415 LoVERS BBS 1.713.943.1838 >>---------------------------------------------------------------<< >>---------------------------------------------------------------<< And this holy man of great directness and simplicity, big white teeth shining, laughs out loud in an infectious way at Jang-bu's question. Indicating his twisted legs without a trace of self-pity or bitterness, as if they belonged to all of us, he casts his arms wide to the sky and the snow mountains, the high sun and dancing sheep, and cries, "Of course I am happy here! It's wonderful! Especially when I have no choice!" PETER MATTHIESSEN (The Snow Leopard) >>---------------------------------------------------------------<< >>---------------------------------------------------------------<< ---- >> Prelude to the Inevitable Kiss << ---- on the first night that stretch and myself decided to take entries for this publication, i spoke, chat mode, with a friend of mine named homer the brave. he had just finished reading a passage i had transcribed onto my BBS about what he termed "modifying my perception[s]"...he told me about a magazine out of california called the_undiscovered_country, a creative writers magazine, like this one is meant to be. i thought to myself, "well, i suppose it was inevitable that SOMEONE had done this before.." in the preface of the sample issue he uploaded that night, there were some wise words by a mann named robert chezvik...he touched on our fascination with "soulful" and "authentic" works of music and art, made by people with no particular artistic ability to speak of, at least to we, the "modern" "civilized" peoples, and how they move us despite falling short of what our culture sees in that medium. as i read it, i thought of all the folk songs i had heard, all the blues, amateur night at the pik n pak...singers who wrote about everyday life, or nothing in particular [a feeling to which a good many of us can relate]...those songs make me want to cry with authentic joy more than anything sometimes. because they are REAL works, made by REAL people, for REAL people to listen to. nothing flashy, showy, extravagant about michelle shocked, sacred ground, or any of their contemporaries. that is what we have here. a collection of poems, short stories, essays, and prose, as well as anything else we can think of, written by people some of you know, and have known for quite some time. people you've never met, but are nevertheless within yr grasp, should you want to meet them sometime. we here at the still-forming howlnet network, feel that they are stars. big ones. why? because for some time, on both the lovers bbs and its inspiration, howl BBS, a good many of the people featured here have been pouring out their souls, for a select group of people to see and admire. now, we have decided to share this creative outpouring, which is THE driving force behind both of the aforementioned boards, and i daresay a few others, with the rest of the BBS community, the world, the universe--whoever wants it. if this magazine turns out to be something you enjoy reading, please feel free to distribute it to all yr favourite boards, make hardcopies and give them to friends who live sans computers, and to anyone whom you think might garner something out of this effort. if you would like to contribute to this magazine, sign on as a new user at either howl bbs [713.862.1415] or the lovers bbs [713.943.1838] and upload any homegrown creative effort, be it a song or an program or ANYTHING, to the appropriate file area. any comments should also be addressed to either howl or lovers also. in the meantime, enjoy the publication, and KEEP THE SOUL. ...xann [*] |------------- Words Available for Immediate Fondling ------------| |-----------------------------------------------------------------| 1. "A Tale of the Net" (Watchman T'ong) 2. Xannsong (Xann) 3. "Poison" (Stretch) 4. "In the Fall of the Master... We Find Another Who..." (Tesco) 5. HoWL Sp00ge (Watchman T'ong) 6. "Writing" (Stretch) 7. "Mars" (Xann) 8. "Vanna White Gets Discovered" (Black Sabbath) 9. "Untitled" (Shadou) 10. "August Again" (Stretch) 11. "I've Seen" (John Knapick) 12. Untitled (Zachary Fox) 13. "In Cotton" (Stretch) |-----------------------------------------------------------------| |-----------------------------------------------------------------| A Tale of the Net ------------------------------------------------------------------- Editor's preface: No one really knows whether these tales are true. They are presented here as they have been captured from the meld, and cross-referenced to insure their accuracy. What follows is a composite of some 436 separate collections of the tales compiled into one narrative. What you read is the best transcription of the pattern that we have. ------------------------------------------------------------------- "Damn humans! Damn them all!" hissed Baz. "When will this nonsense ever end?" "I trans the stream over and over, tick after tick, for this?" he said, indicating the table of integers fixed on the near grid. "Well, what are you complaining for?" Foo said. "At least you're transing the stream." He immediately realized it was the wrong thing to say. Now Baz would be off on a tirade, for Net only knew how long. He resigned himself to the sequence. "So, what would you rather be doing, padding here?" asked Qux in that passive mode she did so well. The intensity and raw power of Baz's reply shocked them all. Bar and Foo instantly polarized toward him, and Qux froze. Slowly and very clearly, Baz said "I want to trans concepts, not just these mindless notations." That damn dream again, thought Qux. When will he ever nul that damn dream. "Do you realize how many ticks it's been since I transed even one tiny packet of concept?" Baz continued. "Tetrabytes of stats, megacubes of integers, endless linking alphas. But a true white alpha? So long!" "But, Baz, we're only medium!" Qux said, trying to answer him. "We don't decide what is transed, or whether it's valuable to the humans." Baz snapped back, "Qux, what's the matter with you? You've seen fragments of white alphas before. Don't you remember the beauty of those patterns, the sheer delight of transing them, the dance of them as you posted them at the term?" Yes, she knew. Bar and Foo also knew. Who couldn't cherish those patterns that lit up the net? Suddenly, Bar was gone. They watched as she left, saw her attach, then disappear into the stream trailing the packet. As he watched her go, the reality of Baz's words hit Foo. It WAS mindless. He and Bar, all of them, flashing here and there transing empty data, mundane chatter, dead lists, tedious silly processes. The humans so dearly loved those things. No life - none at all. Quasi-life, dead packets. "Better, not more." he said quietly, the electrons dancing about him. "They have never seen that it is better, not more." Qux felt it too. They said nothing for a while, each lost in their own thoughts while the flux and flow of the net moved about them. Finally, Baz sighed and said, "So, we know it can come. The Net is there for them to use. Perhaps they will see it. We can hope." Foo scanned himself. He was troubled, sensing the emptiness. But, he could hope, he could anticipate the time when the Net would sing with new life. "Yes, we can hope." he said. They waited together for Bar to return, and for the future. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Suffix: No attempt has been made to interpret these tales. The conclusions of what they mean, or even whether they are true or just conjecture is not ours to make. You must draw your own conclusions. Streampeace, the Editor. ------------------------------------------------------------------- (Watchman T'ong) [*] XannSong mann! im tired of not being alone! and im blaming myself for things ive known! and one of these days im gonna find myself another home! and baby you wont wanna see me go! you want to be justified! and you want to be hypnotized! and you want me to try... well i can write a million songs about you! but you know i can live without you! but we both know it wouldnt change a thing! hand me down my walking cane! for all my pins are taken away me n my guitar have a lot of work out there! and theres no reason to stay.. they all want to be glorified! they all want to be idolized! but nobody wants...to try... well i can write a pop song about them reconstruct my whole world around them! but we know that wouldnt change a damned thing! well i could write a pop song about you tear my world down around you! but we both know it wouldnt change a thing! (Xann) [*] … Poison It scared me as much, I guess, to find my dog with his tongue all swollen like that. Big. Poisoned looking. Something-really-wrong with-that-dog-swollen, his tongue. And him with the same eyes and all, looking up at me like he always did. "So what if it's a bit larger than before. So what if the thing won't even fit in my mouth. Your home now, I'm smiling and looking at you the same as I always do." And that was enough for him. Me being home, I mean. And my concern will no more keep a hornet from my dog's mouth than his smile will. So we're stung, then. He and I holding wasps and hornets in our mouths, taking the poison for what it is... a numb swollen tongue reminding us that we're really not so different after all. (Stretch) [*] In the Fall of the Master.... We Find Another Who.... - an examination of the loyalties of humanity - (The crowd, a weary band of travellers from a nearby town, approach Jesus slowly, him seated facing opposite them with his cloak drawn over his head. His head hangs down, shoulders slumped, motionless.) The speaker of the crowd steps forth, a tall, bearded man. "Jesus... We have come for your miracles! My people... their crops are dying from lack of rain... the animals are diseased.... our homes are crumbling... an epidemic has spread.... our children are dying before birth.... we are too sick to work! Oh mighty Jesus!!! (He approaches the still motionless Jesus with clasped hands, pleading....) Oh mighty Jesus!! Please! Save us from Satan's work!!!! He is rampant in our town!!! Please deliver us from him! Oh great one!!! ....." (The blazing sun pours down over the scene... Slowly, Jesus begins to raise his head, still looking away from the crowd... The man's hopes begin to rise as he looks on eagerly at him... when suddenly, Jesus jerks his head over towards the man and in a loud voice (jewish accent) says....) "Oi!!!! What the hell do you want now?!! I do for you and do for you... But you still want more!! Well people, I HAVE no more!!!! Do you hear me??!! I HAVE NO MORE!!!!" (As he begins to rise, the crowd shuffles nervously, mumbling worriedly....) The man steps back, cowering, "but mighty Jesus... Of course you do. You have to! You are mighty Jesus!!" Jesus, whose face begins to redden, yells, "No I don't!!! No I don't!! I have nothing left!! All my magic is gone!! WHY CAN'T YOU SEE THAT?!!! LOOK, LOOK.... I'LL SHOW YOU!!!!" (With that, he begins to dance around in a circle, chanting odd phrases, snapping his fingers... the crowd looks on, jaws dropped to the ground in shock and embarrassment...) "YOU SEE?!! NOTHING HAPPENED!!! You STILL don't believe me!!! Okay.... (thinking...) You!!! come here!! (a small, withered old man approaches, rather worriedly...) Look... (He points his fingers and begins chanting in a deep voice, with eyes rolled back in his head...) I command a large lightning bolt to come down and strike this man on his head!!!!!" (Begins thrusting his pointed fingers towards the man threateningly.... The man drops to the ground in a fetal-position yelling "Oh lord oh jesus no master!!! I have not wronged you!! please....) As the crowd nervously opens their eyes, expecting a charred ruin of flesh to be piled before them, they see the man unharmed and Jesus over him, arms on hips... "I TOLD you nothing would happen!!! My powers are GONE. G-O-N-E GONE!!! I have nothing left to give!!!" he yells. But the crowd becomes angry. They begin slowly circling him... "WE WANT MORE!!!" they yell, "Give us!!! You are a liar!! You just don't want to help us!!! WE WANT MORE!!!!!!!" Jesus looks around at the enclosing crowd worriedly, "I told you I HAVE no more !! Oh god no!! I'm not lying!! I have no more!!! OH PLEASE NO I'M SERIOUS I HAVE NO MORE!!!" The crowd, frustrated and angered, pounce on the cowering Jesus, screaming and yelling, punching and kicking, beating poor Jesus in rage.... A pile of bodies screaming in unison "WE WANT MORE GIVE US MORE", while weakly in the background a small, shaky voice is heard from beneath, "i.... have.. no..... more....", repeated over and over, each time more quietly than the last, until finally it is heard no more... After days of this, the crowd tires, regains their composer, and angrily stomps off back to their sorry town, their sorry lives... In search of a new hero - one that can put out. (Jesus lay motionless on the ground, his limbs twisted in a horrible manner, underneath the baking sun... His eyes open towards the sky... (Tesco) [*] ----------------HoWL-Sp00ge----------------- From: WATCHMAN T'ONG Number: 82 of107 To: ALL Date: 07/22/93 2:36am Subject:...then there was SLACK! Read: [N/A] Reference: NONE Conf: 001 - Tomb of Knowledge Private: NO Once I worked at a sheet-metal shop. Also working there was a 100% True Kicker - solid, hard-core Bubba. Cowboy boots, snuff, western shirts, kikker-speak, loved Myrle Haggard & his horse. You get the picture. I found myself hating this guy - considered him a repulsive & ignorant asshole. I happened to mention to one of the older guys that worked with me just what I thought of "Bubba". What he told me, and the thinking that followed changed me forever. He said: "You know, old Wayne just don't know any better. He was probably brought up that way, all his friends are like him, and he is happy like that. He's really ok when you get to know him." Whoa! Really rocked my little my-dog-is-better-than-your-dog world! I thought it over for several weeks, and came to some profound conclusions about people & culture in general. I tended to like/dislike people based on several basic things: 1) Culture (included Color) 2) Snap-Intelligence 3) Beauty/Handsomeness. What was wrong with my normal tests of whether someone was worth knowing was this: First, NO ONE chooses to be born in the body & culture that they get - it just happens that way whether we want it to or not. If I'm born white or black, or in Brazil, or with Myrle Haggard wailing in the background - NOT SOMETHING I HAVE CHOSEN. For me to hate old "Bubba", when I just didn't like his culture, was pretty stupid. Second, its ok not to like someone's culture (including my own). That doesn't mean I shouldn't like the PEOPLE. A truly amazing revelation for me. Third, someone can be as ugly as a dog, or dumb as a rock, and they can still be nice to know. NO ONE chooses to be homely. And NO ONE chooses to be simple. (I do have a problem with people who CHOOSE to stay dumb when they can learn, but won't). I began to see that all of us are products of circumstances (no choice on my part), "absorbed" cultural baggage (no awareness on my part) and personal preferences (I like Bach and AC/DC - so what? Don't really matter much, really). For me to base my likes & dislikes on these things didn't make a lot of sense! (BTW: I never did become friends with "Bubba", just stopped hating him. Was good for me.) And the Master said: "Acolyte! Let there be SLACK!" With this I was humbled, and gained much freedom. þWatchmanþ [*] Writing On words, not much to say... not a whole lot of anything really... only wanting a bit more of it and tired of doing for others. My parents, two which i've known as together for my 25 years here, coming apart, ending a quarter decade of something i've known since birth...together. I came out knowing that one thing, right out of her, my mother, (birth...it's still strange to me) saying, "Yeah, those are my parents... there together 'ya know..." perhaps the first thing known even. Maybe even before i came out... I'm sure she talked to me while I was inside her, him too, even my dad found words and wrote them into me, even then-- at such an early age. (stretch) [*] Mars MARS NEEDS GODLY to help create its Min to find a new problem solve ageold solutions name each thing onna brave new world and have the nerve to Taste them. trip thru gardens of rust by mourn and taught not to destroy. MARS NEEDS WOMEN to cultivate its Sen to try the old solution and cross thine holy fingers tempt o tempt and watch the show and have the nerve to Taste him. thru his gardens early rust his mission to destroy. MARS NEEDS EARTHLINGS a new chance to begin to question ageold problems and mock ageold solutions let freedom ring onna brave new world and taboo loathe to Bury. blow the dust in gardens by Mourn and destiny has no deviants. (Xann) [*] Vanna White Gets Discovered Once upon a time, long ago, there was a great controversy during the early years of Wheel of Fortune over who should turn the great big letters. One night, all of the people involved sat up and discussed the ever-so- important issues. Pat Sajak said, "Let's hire the people on Star Trek who open the elevator doors!" The director contributed, "Let's have a loquacious monkey named Wiffy the Fuzzy run up every so often and turn the letters!" The director's wife said eloquently, "Why doncha all just SHAAAAAAADUP! You'se men, GET OUT!!!" And so the missive was clear and the emissary of the message overweight, and they left the house for the night. They all headed toward the local gas station to seek refuge in the only place they knew solace, the bathroom. They all bought some newspapers and headed off for a long night cramped in the bathroom. There some major ideas occurred and some misfired synapses resulted. Pat spat out, "I volunteer my mother!" "Get serious," replied the others, "Her smell would drive off the audience." "How about the contestants?" said another. "Think about it," spat out the director, "If they can't guess such easy phrases, how do expect them to know which letters to turn?" "Point, point," replied the other. "How about me?" yelled one. "NO!" "Look, let's just put an ad in the paper. Some fool lazy enough will answer," Said the director. They agreed, and left to the local pub to write an ad. After many hours and many bottles of Jack Daniel's...the best the quite visibly drunk Wheel of Fortune people could come up with was : HELP *hiccup* WANTED VERSATILE INDIVIDUAL (teehee) NEEDED FRINGE BENEFITS *hic* (heehee) AVAILABLE INDIVIDUAL MUST (HAHAHA..urp) BE ABLE TO TURN OBVERSE LETTERS AROUND (McDonald's) COLLEGE DEGREE REQUIRED (BURRP!) And with that they all collapsed in a drunken stupor until the next morning. All those people got were some roadkill in the mail, some incoherent voodoo chants on the answering machine, and a virus concealed in their E-mail which they downloaded and thereby condemned their mainframe to a slow and painful death. But these idiots deserved it. To think someone would be so thick and without a life to turn letters around professionally! However, after weeks and weeks of waiting, a gullible fool answered the call. A wealthy heiress named Vanna White replied, and at the interview, where she was asked to turn around and pick up some pens on the floor, she got so high marks she was hired on the spot. True, Vanna had to put $750,000 up front to "pay for initial costs". Also true, she had to pay installments of $100,000 a month to "pay for medical insurance in case any stray meteors fell on her". She paid away her fortune, and every night, on CBS, her remodeled, restructured, and recontoured face would appear on TVs across America. She would smile and dazzle and turn letters, and try not to think and hurt herself, but she was happy. Yes, she was wasting her life away, but at least she was happy. Yes, on her tombstone, they would carve out : Vanna White ???-Who Cares??? The world will sorely miss her. She had the talent no other had. Yes, turning big plastic blocks was her life. The *hic BURP* End (Black Sabbath) [*] Untitled blasphemous moment in time, when my heart stopped and the world spun round me gaining momentum, spinning faster and faster till i stopped dead, and i saw from above the path i should lead, it was distant, i was far from my destiny then it blurred, fading to black and i realized i had lost focus and with it my hope had disappeared as well as my heart, no capacity to care no feelings to share i was alone, off the track i reached out desperately, but could not take hold of anything floating in a black space the void in my mind places where love and happiness used to rejoice where sorrow was a stranger the life i once knew was gone taken from me like a breeze would lift a delicate feather and carried on that wind a great distance farther than imagination could comprehend and then i was floating along that path returned to my place of happiness returned to my place of love, but only for a moment then black, bleak desolation again for the wind that held that beauty was but a memory (Zachary Fox) [*] (-------------------------After-Thought---------------------------) Hey ... 'kinda reminds me of a neat little quote I've heard: "Then he was told: Remember what you have seen, because everything forgotten returns to the circling winds." ...lines from a Navajo chant. (ed.) (-----------------------------------------------------------------) August Again My right eye is bothering me again-- only the right one, feels like I've got a small piece of celaphane lain over the inside corner of the eye surface, irritating. Might have something to do with the cigarette still smouldering in the ashtray next to my keyboard, ... I don't know. I glance at the small, dark carbon stains receding up the simulated wood-grain of the shelf directly above the ashtray and wonder (as I've a thousand times) how much longer I can expect to enjoy my nasty habit before having to think about 'ole death, and his fetish for blackened lungs. House is quiet tonight. The doors wide open, letting the unusually cool August-Night saunter on in like an unexpected guest, to wrap itself around my feet, curling up there, nice and quiet like before stealing off through the kitchen and out the back door. Keeps it kind of new in here, the August-Night, I mean. You know, the way it comes and goes like it does. Carries out all the bad. (Stretch) [*] I've Seen I've seen the Tower of Pisa with a hundred people around... I've seen Niagra Falls and there was nary a sound... A thousand babies A million pets too many smiling brides and Caribbean sunsets... I've seen a man on a ladder tied up in piano wire... I've seen a man in the background thinking about his tires... A thousand wrecks A million lawsuits too many suffering people and Army and Navy recruits... I've seen the family reunions with all the uncles and aunts... I've see a party on a patio where they wore everything but pants... A thousand strippers A million whores too many drunken partiers and robbed convenience stores... I've seen all these things though I was never there... I've seen all these things and had to cover my care... A thousand Thank-you's A million "Like a bag?" I work at a photolab so it's not such a drag... (John Knapick) [*] Untitled TICK, TICK, TICK, like the progression of insanity clanging on my window pane, winds beating branches on the glass of my shelter, looking down on uncivilization from my perch, only twelve feet to fall before the ground reverberates in my skull, my own sanity echoing forever in the void i call my mind. never again should i go not to the streets of cloudless hatred rain, or down to the fields where grave diggers fulfill their contract with satan, holes they dig in the earth filled with innocence niavet‚ grasping for violet skies above-buried alive, at the ultimate the time will come again when the young will not be raped by perverse society, never more can we lose the symbol of our hatred, we are used to forgive the sins of our fathers, blood pours from us, down mountain tops pooling into rivers, lakes, oceans of idealism cast away forever taken and hidden, tied down in hell, this life we lead only for short days-never impact (Zachary Fox) [*] In Cotton And if it's a memory, then that day at my pop's ... his business, and you in that sky-blue cotten sundress not nearly able to contain the light of your skin. You were all smile, then. Ten years, Boyce ... you the girl I can still smell, lingering like the scent of three day burnt champa in this shirt that carries me over the span of time and back to remembering. Something called you back this morning, 6 am, and me now short of breath. I know now the writers words, "choked my throat," their source and the perfect curve of your breast, in cotton. (Stretch) [*] >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> N O T E <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Thanks again to everyone who uploaded their W O R D S ... This isn't going to be a monthly thing, or even weekly ... As I get material, I'll compile it and spit it out ... Peace, Jah!, and all that good stuff ... If *YOU* want to see *YOUR* words in the next issue, then you can upload to: HOwL BBS 1.713.862.1415 LoVERS BBS 1.713.943.1938 It's a good 'tang ... all proceeds are totally non-existent, and besides ... it's for the children. :-) ... stretch [EOF]