*`!THE HOLD!`*
Issue 11 November 13, 1998
Here's the deal. I've sent you all two versions of The Hold this time round. One is the normal, text-only version. The other is something i call the Illuminated Hold. Basically, different fonts, a sound bite or two, and a few pictures. Also, it's a Word for Windows document, so it's easy to save if you want to. So what i need from ALL of you is to tell me which version you'd prefer. Otherwise, i'll keep sending em both.
Now, I want to apologize for pissing so many of my dear readers off. I made a sarcastic remark about a 'real-life poet' that wasn't taken as such, and so many were offended. Please, harbor no ill-will toward the poet in question, if you must, despise me. He did nothing but submit some poetry and give me a bio.
You'll notice that i've done away with The Padded Room, instead inserting the columnist's articles throughout the mag. And Joshman's column is really in here this time. When i listed him under the columnists last issue, that was a typo.
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Copyright 1998 by Shadow Wall Press. All Rights Reserved.
Published Wheneverwefeelikeit by Shadow Wall Press
Contributors:
Scott Holstad
Cait Collins
Dave Gitomer
Donna Hill
Columnists:
Dolomite
Joshman
Cait Collins
Editor: Daev
RANTING
Sweet baby Jesus! Ladies, when a man says that you would look good in a thong bikini, take as a compliment. Please don't spray mace in his face, kick him in the balls, and run away screaming "pervert" at the top of your lungs. It just isn't socially acceptable and it really hurts the guy. Now for those of you wondering what the fuck the above was about, well don't bother. It happened so fast that I don't even remember. But that's the last time I sneak up on some college girl looking at herself naked in a mirror in JC Penny's dressing room. Take it as a fucking compliment dammit!
Now what is socially acceptable, you may ask? Well for starters, saying thank you is a long-time socially accepted phrase when confronted with a compliment. Another is waving when you see someone that you know. You know who you people are dammit! Now I am going to tell a little story to all you antisocial, backwards, redneck, skin-headed fuckers that can't eat Stromboli. It will either help you become more tolerable to the people that know you, or make an even more obvious bastard out of you than was ever thought of before. Okay, here is the story: First there was nothing. Then, in about a week, this entity called God created the world and almost all the creatures that inhabit this bluish orb. He was happy at his accomplishment. Then He created man. He realized he really screwed up here, so he followed up with the creation of woman. This made matters worse. So He said to them, "Get the fuck out of My garden now! "The couple of idiots gave him an undesirable gesture of their gratitude for their creation. So God leaves for a couple centuries out of the anger that that gesture caused him.
He comes back and these "humans" had infested the planet like the mighty cockroaches in their dirty pants. How do you think they got the name cockroaches? Anyways, he sends his son down to try to teach these asshole show to act in the society that they created, mostly because the son had crashed the heavenly car recently into a star and created a black hole. What do the people do? They hang the poor guy onto a crucifix. Three days later, he comes back and says that everyone is going to be judged in Heaven and sent to Hell for eternal damnation. This causes the ignorant pissants to laugh at him. He then says that a great beast will someday come with the number 999 on its head. Unfortunately the only person in the crowd that knew numbers was assylexic, that is he reads everything upside down. This event is supposed to happen in only a little over a year!
If this story doesn't ring a bell, go to the nearest church and hang yourself you worthless bastard! It is the fucking Bible, or at least the Catholic version. It's all about how you are supposed to act. But I remind you, do not take all of it literally. After all, sex out of marriage, masturbation, and sometimes murder can be useful aspects of ones daily life.
So remember, next time you see a sweaty man looking at you undressing while you hear a thumping noise coming from behind the room's wall about three feet below his face, just quickly dress, leave the room, and say thank you for the compliment. Is that so much?
Dolomite
THE FORUM
get a grip
all the big mags
want nature shit
like that means
something
like most of us
can relate to it
goddamn profs
(i can say that
cause i was one)
sitting in their
fucking ivory
towers haven't
lived a goddamn
day in their life
and they're
writing away
at their nature
poetry - shit
they see in their
fenced in back
yards.
you want nature
man?
ok,
how about the glossy
black lab hit by the
Ford Explorer in front
of me, auto stopping,
can't see, backs up
over dog
lying its intestines
hanging out onto the
road
or
bundle of kittens
bundled up by neighbor
thrown into river
mother cat clawing
frantically at leg
or
maybe those cute
little lily white
baby seals turned
all scarlet and pretty
by the bastards
wading into the
group clubbing
them to death
perhaps
even
the drunk on the
bench rolled by a band
of banditos
and
let's not even get into
rain forests
defoliation
the ozone layer
big business
university stock portfolios
and
let's not go for the
living death on the streets
the homeless
the AIDs victims
the animals dying
while assholes live
frankly
you nature pukes make
me sick to my stomach
and my personal wish
is for a bullet to the
temple of
each
and
every
one of you
Scott Holstad
all the time, questions
when they look at me
and ask
how could you
i want to tell them
how fucking easy it is
you just need a little
sickness in the head
and an i don't give
a shit attitude
when you despise yourself
and everyone else in the
world, you just give up,
say fuck it, and pray
the fuckers will
accidentally press
the big bomb buttons
Scott Holstad
------------------------------
**ta do with pubic hairs**
a discussion developed in
a chat room today about
how someone almost
puked when they saw
pubic hairs lying in their
bathroom sink and
it led on as to how
when one gets to
mid-age or so,
the pubic hairs start
to turn gray.
now I,
consider myself
reasonably worldly and
all that
never knew this,
I swear to christ.
so I listen,
mouth, eyes
hung open behind
a monitor and
I type out a laugh
every so often and
they go on to say
how gray pubic
hairs are not kinky
any longer and stick
straight out and
fuckin' panic sets in and
I vow to me never to reveal my
age again to anyone but
then what good is that
when everyone already
knows I'm around mid-
age and assumes your pubic
hairs are going to turn gray -
or are already -
everyone except me
knows this.
I made some
flimflam excuse
left the chat, shut down,
grabbed a hand mirror
off the bureau, got
naked from the waist
down and fell back into
the middle of the bed.
I spread wide open
hand mirror
in between
neck bent forward
and I push aside and
shove and probe through
pubic hairs
with my fingers
crazily searching one by
one for lighter hairs
or any sticking
straight out.
I didn't find any
yet…
I drop back fast with
a sigh of relief…
for now
I'm thinking it's only
a matter of time
then what?
fuck!
can I dye my hair
there?
I know, I can shave!
then I begin
hysteria over again with
myself:
"o my god, o my
god, o my fuckin'
christ!"
I took the Lord's name
in vain
because of gray pubic
hairs
'o god' with-
out an orgasm! holy shit!
and
I begin to wonder and
doubt myself again
did I miss any? and
I check again…
and again I check...
and again...
cait collins 11.03.98
**glamour in the night**
10 'til last night
3 miles from everywhere
lives of lust
filled stenched buildings
partying on
each other's
private parts…
alley rats feasted
on moldy potato skins
from bags
an old lady
left behind
while searching
for a
shopping cart
to push the rest
of her life
around in…
long-haired, no-haired
freaks
slung kaleidoscopes from their eyes
as siren screaming cars sped by
while they puffed away
their 'I don't care' attitude
with what's left of a brain they once had…
one stubble-faced old man
the world forgot
jacked-off merrily
as he crossed 5th and Vine
toward a new
cardboard home
he found along the banks
of the Delaware…
a bullet-proof rose
lay
wilted over a curb's edge
waiting to be sniffed by
the street cleaner's whore…
cement images
alone in the night
chant with rot
of our nation's
achievements…
self-righteous wannabe's
wander about shopping for
an easy brain to change…
buxom bastards clad in heels
thumbed their noses to anatomy
in vain…
yeah, right
pity the plastic people
of the day
who sport their snotty nostrils
to the air
climaxing over
their self worth
while shoving it
up our asses…
everyone else have a happy life!
©cait collins 5.24.98
------------------------------------
HANG OVER BLUES
another morning, another day
memory fogs blanket cloudy
terrain. events of dubious imagery
plunder warped realities. not sure
or truly positive of anything
fictions circle fats as throbbing
headaches torment and nullify
weakened brain wrenching stomach
pains, puking turns to gracious
relief. go to find wallet what do I
have left? where is the beer?
where are my smokes? street honking
cars scorch eardrums. puke again
need a drink. traffic squeal distorts
my ears. the honks the horns
the thorns. ice pick sirens blast
I gag again and stumble and stumble.
morning cursed morning or is it
evening blessed evening? idea of
more beer cajoles whispers and
craves. rationality irrationality
where are my smokes? whisky
or vodka breath on fire but beer
cools the sweats. hangover kiss
where is the old misses? better
not find her. a beer in the long
run a beer does no harm but
whiskey always follows the beer
and then where am I this cursed morn?
is this the eternal dawn? or just
a preview of another evening.
if I can only find my wallet and
assess...
ANOTHER BEER
whiskey mouth, hangover kiss
the torment versus libation.
another beer and another beer
then a shot of vodka. it would
fix things up. the circle within
the cycle. revolving earth
revolving porcelain. puke always
flows down in gravity and often
misses the toilet. light another
smoke to kill the taste. puff
it smart. swig the morning brew
and dance with the devil's
brew once again. does it
ever end? or really ever start?
I look skyward through
the window and pray for
rain.
Dave Gitomer
------------------------------
God of...
lust
would but
join in our fair share
were He
unshackled
chains of projected judgment
stocks of false condemnation
bars of surreal imprisonment
slammed shut by should-be-damned
Christian Reich
(my share of judgment)
God of lust
encompassing love
approving in freedom of wellness
teaching our children that
speaking out is not crime
sex is not shame
same sex not unnatural
that morality is sagacity
ethics the positive contrast
weeping for our Matthews
come and gone
fearing our Russian roulettes of despair
delighting in consenting thighs
drenched in passion
angering in sheer manipulation
of His very name
God of lust
truth
I can relate
to
Eternal Timing
Trapped in an hour glass or is
it a three minute egg timer not
knowing which is less trivial or
more pertinent though both are
transparently concealing all within
not knowing which end is up
which end to adore the other to
deplore madly with tears and
fiery, the channel with a mountain
of crystal life beads to live by
to struggle with climbing never
truly succeeding reaching the
top victoriously relishing in smug
fulfillment, one step forward two
steps back sliding creating more
work the greater challenge to
accomplish whatever height stolen
moments of success we can manage
or to be stable flat on the ground
with the upside channel raining those
same pellets of life drizzle biting
currents of blood sweat and tears
not knowing where to hide, take cover
to go within for privacy because after
all the walls are glass revealing
pounding sands of emotion, attempting
to shield with arms over head eyes
and ears not wished for, mute from
the pain until enough has fallen so
the mountainous trek to a fallacy of
well being, a grain of self worth
momentary achievement begins upward
again until the world tips the hour glass
again dumping on us once more.
Donna Hill
I'M DUMBER THAN I LOOK
Hey. Well, due to the lack of motivation, ideas, and memory, I've been away for a while. But now I'm back.....with a vengeance! I know I usually write about being dumb (namely myself), or about Dolomite being a fat, bad driver, but I've decided to do something different this month.....so bear with me. My band play at the State Street Tavern last night. It was the first time in a while that we've played out. I didn't realize how much i missed playing a show until last night. The jaded kids, the "too punk" punk rockers, the girls on drugs, the drunk old men in "Mighty Mighty Boss Tones" shirts, all of it. Not only did I miss that, but I missed the desperation of the music. The need to be seen, heard, and understood...even if it is just a dumb little song I wrote about how much I love Kelly Kapowski. Not that I'm saying music should be taken too seriously. "Serious" and "music" should never be in the same sentence, even though playing music, or some form of art, is one of the most serious things a person can do. It was good to see the kids again, to hangout with them and share stories. I missed the subtle things too, like the goofy handshakes, TJ pinching Jeff's butt while we play, everyone joining us onstage to sing along to the closing song. We didn't get paid last night, but that's not what it's about, anyway. It's about being fast, loud, and crazy. It's about having fun. It's about rocking out, whether you're playing for ten people, or ten thousand people. Ahhh.....it's good to be back.. Well, that's all I've got to say this month. Watch out for Dolomite, he's a big dumb teddy bear, isn't he? later. -Joshman-Recommended listening this month: STRONGARM "Advent of a Miracle", SCREECHINGWEASEL "My Brain Hurts", THE MR. T EXPERIENCE "Love is Dead", THE INSYDERZ "Fight of My Life", P.O.D. "Brown".
BEDTIME STORY
Now, I present for your edification and enjoyment, part 1 of Charles Dickens' classic christmas story, A Christmas Carol. Since I've taken the time to type it, the least you could do is take the time to read it.
Daev
A
Christmas Carol
In Prose
Being A Ghost Story
of Christmas
Charles Dickens
I have endeavored in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.Their faithful Friend and Servant
C.D.
December, 1843
Stage I
MARLEY'S GHOST
Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner.
Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to.
Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnized it with an undoubted bargain.
The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot--say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance--literally to astonish his son's weak mind.
Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names. It was all the same to him.
Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.
External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often "came down" handsomely, and Scrooge never did.
Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, "My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?" No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, "No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!"
But what did Scrooge care! It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call "nuts" to Scrooge.
Once upon a time--of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve--old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal: and he could hear people in the court outside, go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already--it had not been light all day--and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.
The door of Scrooge's counting house was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of strong imagination, he failed.
"A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.
"Bah!" said Scrooge, "Humbug!"
He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.
"Christmas a humbug, uncle!" said Scrooge's nephew. "You don't mean that, I am sure?"
"I do," said Scrooge. "Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough."
"Come then," returned the nephew gaily. "What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You're rich enough."
Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, "Bah!" again; and followed it up with "Humbug."
"Don't be cross, uncle!" said the nephew.
"What else can I be," returned the uncle, "when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon Merry Christmas! What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing books and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!"
"Uncle!" pleaded the nephew.
"Nephew!" returned the uncle, sternly, "keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine."
"Keep it!" repeated Scrooge's nephew. "But you don't keep it."
"Let me leave it alone, then,: said Scrooge. "Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!"
"There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say," returned the nephew. "Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round-apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that-as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"
The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded. Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark forever.
"Let me hear another sound from you," said Scrooge, "and you'll keep your Christmas by losing your situation! You're quite a powerful speaker, sir," he added, turning to his nephew. "I wonder you don't go into Parliament."
"Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us tomorrow." Scrooge said that he would see him-yes indeed he did. He went the whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him in that extremity first.
"But why?" cried Scrooge's nephew. "Why?"
"Why did you get married?" said Scrooge.
"Because I fell in love."
"Because you fell in love!" growled Scrooge, as if that were the only thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas. "Good afternoon!"
"Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming now?"
"Good afternoon," said Scrooge.
"I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot we be friends?"
"Good afternoon," said Scrooge.
"I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never had any quarrel, to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas humour to the last. So a Merry Christmas uncle!"
"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.
"And A Happy New Year!"
"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.
His nephew left the room without an angry word, notwithstanding. He stopped at the outer door to bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who, cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge; for he returned them cordially.
"There's another fellow," muttered Scrooge; who overheard him: "my clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas. I'll retire to Bedlam."
This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had let two other people in. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off, in Scrooge's office. They had books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him.
"Scrooge and Marley's, I believe," said one of the gentlemen, referring to his list. "Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?"
"Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years," Scrooge replied. "He died seven years ago, this very night."
"We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving partner," said the gentleman, presenting his credentials.
The Rest of This Issue - lost