\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\The Hold////////////////////////////
Issue 3     August 30, 1998

Jesum Crow!! This issue is stuffed to the gills with useful, and some not so useful, informationa and works. I'd like you to help me welcome two newcomers to The Hold. The first is Hilary Kerner, a long-time acquaintance of mine, and an interesting poet, though she's never wanted her work published before. The other is Jaremy Crouse, and I'll let his column speak for itself. Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam.*

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Copyright 1998 by Shadow Wall Press. All Rights Reserved.
Published Wheneverwefeelikeit by Shadow Wall Press

[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[]

Contributors: Jaremy Crouse
Hilary Kerner
Ron Androla
Dolomite


BEDTIME STORY

Family Ties

     I light up a large, and most pungent, 30 cent Garcia y Vega, and the astonished looks this act breeds more than pays for the cigar. My family still thinks of me as 10 yrs. old, and, though I'm the legal age to buy tobacco, and have been doing so for years, the sight of their baby with a stogie is undoubtedly disturbing. Nevertheless, the novelty quickly fades and they come to their faculties again, going on with the weighty business of gorging and drinking.
     I've always enjoyed these reunions. Especially on my mother's side. I've felt a connection with those people that I find impossible to explain properly, but I much prefer their company to the relations on my father's side. Perhaps its that they make no pretense. They've always believed in the value of stating their opinions quickly and loudly, before the passion of the moment's feelings fade. Apparently believing thus, my great-uncle Jake bursts out in song with "It's the 4th of Julyyy." Then turns to my sister Mary and says, "You having a good time, Cynthia?", and without an instant of hesitation, asks me to fetch him a hamburger, Joe.
     I groan on getting up, feeling the age of my family through osmosis, and amble on over to the grill, where the other great-uncle of mine, Saul, anticipates my question and tosses a burger into the waiting bun in my hand. I deliver it to Jake, who by now is extolling the virtues of selling beanie-babies, quoting from the paper that he is the "Beanie King of New Castle", and ignoring the hamburger in my hand. Rather than let good food go to waste, I toss it in the garbage for the ants to feast upon.
*
     A welcome face enters my vision as Tad paces over, grabs my hand and asks, "Have we met?" He is a heavily muscled man of about 30, somewhere around 5'4", and has a perpetual good humor about him.
     "I don't think so. Dan."
     "Tad. So, what's been going on? Still a billionaire tycoon?"
     "Gave that up last week. Fashion model, now."
     Excellent. How tall are you ?"
     "About 5' 2."
     "Sounds about right, since I'm only 3' 11."
     We share a good laugh and he goes off to feed himself. I look up to see one of my great-aunts asking me to go play wiffle ball. As I can see Tad with a bat, I gladly accept, and skip merrily off .
     *
     "THERE'S NO WAY YOU WERE SAFE!!"
     "WHY DON'T YOU GO PUNCH YOUR OWN FOOT, YOU TURD!!"
     Such are the discussions I'm treated to while engaging in a friendly game of wiffle-ball with my three 11-13 year old cousins, one of their friends, and Tad. As they square off for mortal combat, I find myself trying with my utmost strength to suppress hysterical laughter, and walk over to mediate. Finding this impossible, we (Tad and I) agree that the game should end, confiscate the bat and ball, and head back to the pavilion.
     Man, that was tense. I was tense, were you?"
     "I could feel the tension coming off of you."
     "Really? I thought I was kind of tense."
     Arriving back at Food Central, we find that preparations are underway for a water balloon contest, so Tad quickly grabs three and lays siege to the three aforementioned cousins. I refrain, and instead strike up a conversation with my closest cousin's boyfriend. We walk down to watch the basketball game going on, he joins, and I walk back. I find Dale, sopping wet, and as mad as hell, and not going to take it any more.
     "Come on, dude. Let's play some soccer."
Taking a small, blue, half-inflated rubber ball, we position ourselves as close as reasonably possible to the festivities, so as to have the best chance to nail one of the family members with an errant shot. This, unfortunately, does not come to fruition, and I give up after I start breathing hard. Food and running don't mix, and I've learned this painfully.
*
     As I'm driving Melanie and her boyfriend Russel home, we use a rest stop to obtain some free coffee and use of the lavatorial facilities. As we're relaxing, Russel ventures, "You smoke?"
      "Yeah, cigars."
     "I mean chronic."
     "Oh, yeah, all the time."
     So we make plans to obtain said controlled substance as soon as we get back to Erie. I offer Mary, who's riding home with us, the chance to indulge, but she'd rather go home, which is perfectly alright as far as I'm concerned.
     We get back to Melanie's house and I pull the phone number out of my pocket and give a call. Within a half an hour, we meet at the high school and exchange one commodity for another. Within an hour, we are at the beach, smoking a blunt in plain view of the entire world.
     I can't tell you how awe-inspiring, a Lake Erie sunset is when intoxicated, but I'll try. It's like a glimpse of a reddish-orange vortex into a parallel dimension. Like a photograph in three dimensions. Just plain spiritual.
     At some point we wander back to the car, put the seats back, and just chill. Russel comes up with an idea for a movie, in which giant, killer mosquitoes attack a couple consummating their relationship on a beach, and takes Melanie to rehearse. This leaves me alone with my thoughts, which are many and varied by this point. One thing prevalent in my mind is that the reason one thing happens is that numerous others didn't. Say a bird crashes into a plate-glass window. Since it didn't see the window, it didn't fly up, down sideways or in any other way avoid the window, the only thing that could have happened was for said bird to terminate it's existence in a violent meeting with melted sand. Eventually, the beach patrol comes up to the car and tells us we can't park after dark, so we head to McDonalds, because Melanie and Russel are hungry. I've never gotten hungry when I'm high, so I just wait in the car after finding some insane program where a man with a killer voice is reading a story about something I wasn't paying attention to. I zone out, and Russel and Melanie go on a tour of the McD's parking lot. Surprisingly, this takes them a good half-hour. By the time they finish, it's time to go home, and so we do so.
     I collapse in my bed that night thinking how much I enjoy my family, and anticipating next year's reunion.

dave Dembinski

(Anyone who would like to send in a story is
welcome to, since Dave informs me that he's running out of old ones, and
too lazy to write any new.)


THE FORUM
Here's where the stuff you send me gets its due.

 
FUCK YOU

FUCK YOU ALL
ALL WHO SAY I'M NOTHING
SCREAMING IT UNTIL MY EARS BLEED
SHUT DOWN FROM SHEER ANNOYANCE
FUCK YOU ALL
ALL WHO THINK I'M USELESS
GET A JOB
GET A LIFE
GET A BOYFRIEND
GET SOME DECENT CLOTHES
GET HELP
I GROW VIOLENT AT EVERY NEXT HELPFULL SUGGESTION
SOON I MAY GET A GUN AND GET MYSELF SOME PEACE
FUCK YOU ALL
ALL WHO TELL ME TO CHANGE
YOU'RE SO PRETTY WHY DO YOU NEVER SMILE
BECAUSE YOU'RE A BITCH
BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE SMILE OF A MONGOLOID IDIOT AND EVEN LESS SENSE
WHY WOULD I WANT TO LOOK LIKE YOU?
BECAUSE GOOD PEOPLE DIE EVERY SECOND
THEIR UNFILLED DREAMS AND HOPES CUT DOWN EARLY
AND LIFTED BY GREEDY IMMORTAL HANDS
INTO THE SO CALLED PARADISE OF DEATH
FUCK YOU ALL
ALL WHO LAUGH AT ME BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
I WOULD LAUGH BACK IF I COULD BUT ALL I HAVE IS PITY
COME OUT FROM YOUR CLOSED DOORS AND LIVE A LITTLE
LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL AND SEEING IT SHOULD BE A GOAL
LEAVING NO TIME FOR PICKING APART THE CONFIDENCE OF OTHERS
FUCK YOU ALL
BECAUSE I KNOW THAT NO MATTER WHAT WORDS I REPLY IN MY HEAD
I HAVE NO COURAGE TO SAY THEM ALOUD

Hilary Kerner
Pandora315@aol.com


INTERVIEW WITH RON ANDROLA (PART 2)

Dave: Kerouac once said that it's necessary to be in a state of silent, meditative thought before good writing is possible. Do you agree, and have you found a certain frame of mind that is particularly conducive to creation?

Ron: no, i don't agree it's necessary to be in a state of silent meditative thought to write something worthwhile. i spent many years in absolute misery writing. the writer kurt nimmo insists one must be unhappy & on the edge of sanity to compose powerful work. i've found that to be most true in the past. anger fuels the blood. kerouac, it must be remembered, lived in a totally different time period in amerika, when silent meditative thought was more possible to the common man, especially during the 50's when bread cost a dime & amerikans felt peaceful in their amerikan dream. it shld be remembered he died drunk, worn-out, & cranky. his buddhist studies were of course honorable & helpful, but kerouac had an alcohol problem. he wrote THE SUBTERRANEANS in 3 days high off speed in mexico: silent & meditative? at the same time he was a great master of spontaneous stream-of-consciousness writing, which he seemed able to tap into at the drop of a hat (or a blast off a sax). he was also endowed with super-human memory ("mind like a steel-trap" on memory, which he sd qualified a good writer). no matter right or wrong, kerouac utilized & practiced his very muscular mind, & that's the thing, using one's brain as a muscle however one exercises thought & thinkings. building those inner brain muscles. mind work-out. well, kerouac had the opportunity to enjoy silent meditative thinkings, boxcar poems to buddha train-jumping west, holed in a room with burroughs in mexico, at the top of mountains. these are totally different days. try hitch-hiking from the east coast to the west coast. somebody'd kill you for yr shoes in chicago. yes, those innocent joyful days like described eloquently in VISIONS OF CODY, man they're forever gone from viable current reality. any frame of mind is conducive to writing, & then we have to remember things like "purpose", why write from that particular frame of mind? i do admit i think of myself sometimes of being in poetryland, in a poet-head frame of mind, & i'm not sure where that is but it's something akin to "hearing" lyrical melodies in the air, a stirring in all of the self. like, ok, TRUTH. i need truth. i need my true self, the real me, HERE. the lie, delusion, social brain-washing, they're much easier & comfortable places to be. few average amerikans wanta be where my poems are. i don't care. i find it more comfortable & because of the difficulties, easier to recognize & get into. there aren't many 3rd shift factory workers who are poets & writers. most poets & writers "up there" above the underground are associated with colleges & universities & the government. they shunned bukowski for decades, & some still do. read some of bukowski's early work when he was on skid-row getting into barfights in california. again, like kerouac, there's this eloquence of the language, a newness, life. he wasn't silent & meditative. he was smashed & bleeding & broke. instead of the focus on the amerikan dream, on those insulated college poems of drama, bukowski wrote from the underside, where he found art as ultimate truth, or vice versa. the poet is a mirror & mirrors are everywhere, everything is mirrorable with the tool of language. thank god or allah or buddha or anybody/anything. wallace stevens was a vice-president of some insurance firm. williams was a medical doctor. bukowski was a savage madman. writers come from everywhere. no exclusions. it doesn't matter but in that pinpoint mirror of intense fact & human voice.

Dave: Are you/have you ever considered yourself a mercenary? You know,freelance and all that? And what's your take on it?

Ron: mercenary? no, i don't think so. any poet worth anything does it freelance. i don't know how to live it another way. like i sd, colleges are insulated boxes of life. nobody really requires college except for those, & that's most everybody, who do it for a job. a poet's job ain't goddamn worth even a penny in amerika. going to college for one's art is fairly luxurious, so it takes a very strong will to keep focus. anybody cld "learn" on their own, at their own speed, without the goal of degrees. the power-boys of society have designed the world of education & life, so beware. remember one can live one's life in totally unique settings & scenes & dreams. amerika brain-washes its kids. very societal, self-serving, & horrible. but it's the reality of amerika!! naw, no mercenary vision here. i'm just a man with words, nothing more.

Dave: I've saved this question for the last because I've seen how reluctant many are to elucidate their beliefs. Is it a religion you subscribe to, a personal moral code, or some region in between?

Ron: a region between religion & a personal moral code? shit if i know. i don't know nothin'. i've sd this earlier, reality is what one believes reality to be, hence religions work, & also personal moral codes. at the end of ISLANDS IN THE STREAM (hemingway & george c. scott in film version) the main character slumps dying & his last words are this revelation of awe: "everything is true". all human, all life, all mind. per religions i find grace in bits of christianity, buddhism, & islam, plus the aztecs & indians & cavemen. plus atheism, agnosticism too! i suspect i'm inclined toward a zen view/regard of life on earth as experience. but i also dig the existentialists & surrealists & romantics. frost has this line: "beauty is momentary". i changed that to: "truth is momentary" in a poem i wrote a few years ago. i try to be open to change & changing my mind. some things stick thru it all, some don't. i don't know what this is, or what it means.


THE PADDED ROOM
!!!Warning: The writers of these columns have severe emotional difficulties. I can't control what they write. If I were to reprimand them, the consequences could include verbal abuse, exposing themselves for no apparent reason, and the sadistic mutilation of any small animals present. I know this from harsh experience. Poor Scruffy...

----------------------------------------------------------

DEAR JAREMY

Dear Jaremy,

I'm gay. What should I do?

Jimmy Giacoff
-------------

Hi Jimmy!

What the fuck are you thinking? Are you some kind of moron? Here's what you need to do. Smoke some kind, to free your mind, then try this simple home remedy. First, cut your ear off. Then, eat it. Now, put a trout-on-a-stick in place of your ear. What does this show us about the reproductive organs of the giant wombat?

Jaremy

-------------------

Questions for Jaremy? Send 'em to
VocabBoy@juno.com with "Jaremy" in the subject line.



RANTING

     According to politicians, drug abuse in this country is ludicrously out of control. No fucking way! Public schools are inches away from being rehab centers, but do the students care? No one knows, because they are too high to answer without drooling all over the fucking microphone when interviewed.

     It is easier to get weed than to get your prescription drugs now-a-days. Does any of this surprise me? No because Bill Clinton is our leader. This nation is led by a man that jogs to McDonalds. He jogs to fucking McDonalds! You know he does not jog back to the White House. He calls for the car to pick him up. Lazy bastard. Personally, I hate most drugs and would never use them. I am deathly afraid of needles, so no injections. I would never sniff something up my nose; I had a bad experience with Pixxy Stix. I felt like it was actually fizzling away my brain. I don't even smoke cigarettes, so why would I try to smoke something else. And weed is the least likely thing I would do. It makes you paranoid, it takes three to five times to work usually, and, apparently, it makes you one big fucking idiot. As for those of you waiting for me to start bashing alcohol and want me to say how addictive it can be and how it ruins your life, well go fuck yourself. Alcohol is as much a drug as caffeine.

     The laws surrounding this great product of human ingenuity are as sane as the Menendez brothers are. Listen to this: You have to be 21 to drink the product legally, but you can transport it, work with it, serve it, and own a bar filled with it at the age of 18. How fucked up is that! Hell, in Germany, if you can reach the bar and got the money, then all is good. America is just too full of politically correct bastards to be like other countries in the ways that the majority of its people wish it to be. Now, I am sure that some of you are irritated that I don't believe in the legality of drugs. Well, I am somewhat proud to say that, despite my personal feelings toward drugs, I believe that all drugs should be legalized. If you are stupid enough to inject something into your body when the guy next to you is foaming at the mouth and shaking while crying out some sort of gibberish about how he feels like the skin is melting off of his mouth, then you deserve to feel the same. If it was all legal, the government could legalize it and sell it in most supermarkets. Hell, they could even provide nutritional information on the packages. Imagine the number of supermodels that we could get off of cocaine and heroin. Just say that they are 300 calories a serving. Those supermodels would feel they need to throw up just reading the label.

     Now for my final say on this subject. No matter what you make illegal or try to ban, people are always going to try to do stuff to fuck themselves up. It is human nature. I could go on forever on human nature, but right now I am too fucked up on this glue I have been sniffing. Ahh, pretty colors!

Dolomite
Bkdolo10@aol.com


FROM VOCAB BOY, WITH LOVE

Haiku
=====
Old Asian man
confused off the bus
tries the doors, gone into the night

VocabBoy


GRAFFITI

I'd love it if some of you dear readers would comment on this zine. And, if you did, I'd put your letters right here, for all to read. Just send it to VocabBoy@juno.com, and put "letter" in the subject line.


THE TOWN SCREAMER
Something you want to tell the world? Buy a half hour on ABC. If there's anything that pertains to the writing community, though, this would be an appropriate place to put it.

------------------------------

From: Mike Hemmingson
AvantPop@aol.com
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS:

THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF SHORT EROTIC NOVELS

I will be co-editing, with Maxim Jakubowski in England, a 200,000 word anthology, The Mammoth Book of Short Erotic Novels, to be published in the Fall of 2000 by Robinson Publishing in the UK, and Carroll & Graf here in the States, trade paperback.
This book will be 30% reprint material (e.g., Spanking the Maid by Robert Coover, De Sade's Last Stand by William T. Vollmann) and 70% original. I'm looking for erotic fiction in the 15,000-35,000 word range, that gray area where novella meets the short novel.
I'd prefer contemporary settings, but I'm not adverse to historical, SF, mystery, horror, or any other genre with an erotic element. All sexual persuasions are welcome.
By erotic, I mean explicit sexual encounters and themes, but for various legal reasons (and queasy booksellers and distributors),topics such as sex with minors, animals, or family members are taboo. Not that I have anything against such subjects personally, but this *is* mass commercial publishing...
Deadline is July, 1999. The book may close sooner, given the fact that I'll only be able to include 10-15 short novels, and the book is already 1/3 full.
Payment is 20 pounds per thousand words (given the fluctuating exchange rate from pound to dollar, it comes out to be around three cents a word),payment on publication.
Submissions can either me emailed or snail-mailed. Email: Avantpop@aol.com in an attached file for Microsft Word or an RTF file. Snail mail: Michael Hemmingson, 722 Broadway Suite 3, San Diego, CA 92101 USA. Reporting time: 1 week to three months.

ALSO: I'm co-editing, with Larry McCaffrey, an anthology called AVANT-PORN, mostly likely for Masquerade Books. This will not be the same "avant-porn" book McCaffrey has been working on, if you know him, but something very different. I have not signed anything in stone yet with Masquerade, although they are hot on the idea, and they want to market the book as a reference to "new, innovative erotica for the 21st century" as well as target the academic market; and have the book used in university classes. It may be a bigger book than I originally approached them with. I'm looking at short fiction up to 7,000 words, with an emphasis on innovation ....something different than your usual erotic narrative. What that may be, I really can't say. Same submissions procedures above apply. You can either send to me now, or check with me at the end of September, when all negotiations with Masquerade should come to something solid. Submissions should be sent to me rather than McCaffrey, as Mac will be in Japan.

ALSO: I'm looking for material, fiction and journalism, for a project called The Mammoth Book of Sex, Drugs, & Rock'n'Roll. Robinson Publishing wants to do this book, but wants to see sample materials (I need a total of 30K words) first. If you have anything, or can point me in the right direction...

Other Mammoth Books in the zygote stages:
The Mammoth Book of Fetishes
The Mammoth Book of Spirituality

------------------------------

From: Richard Peabody
Sex & Chocolate Anthology

Stories only
Stories must examine sex in/with/for/about/because of chocolate. There must be sex and chocolate in every story. Deadline, Labor Day

------------------------------

From: Fiona Giles
5 Lee st.
Randwick, NSW, 2031, Australia

Jane For A Day
I am now inviting a # of male artists and writers to contribute work which addresses what you or your fictional character would do it you awoke to find yourself miraculously endowed with a vagina for a single day.
Fiction, poetry, essay, illustration, etc...
For this project, please keep in mind that your character has only one day in which to explore the life of a female. i am also giving preference to previously unpublished material. I will pay a single fee on publication of $500 for stories and essays (word limit of 3000). Apro-rata royalty will be paid on any reprints, plus 90% of any author serial rights.
Short, one-sentence or single paragraph answers are also welcome, although no fee will be paid for these.
Accompany submissions with a brief bio.
contact David Rosenthal at Simon and Schuster in New York with questions
Deadline October 31, 98


FIVE AND DIME
You can sell pretty much anything. Whether someone will buy it...

------------------------------

*I have a catapult. Give me all the money, or I will fling an enormous rock at your head.


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