\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\The Hold////////////////////////////
Issue 7 October 10, 1998
Chapter 5 of Gainor Aikens is here, so read it and ...read it again. Dave Gitomer is starting a three-part series called Tales of Teenage Love. Dolomite is pissed about Halloween again. Caitlin Collins blew me away with two poems I had to publish. And one Scott Dragoo sent me a poem which i enjoyed, so it has found a home here in the beautiful, magical land we call...
*`-!THE HOLD!-`*
(note: twinkling music in background)
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Copyright 1998 by Shadow Wall Press. All Rights Reserved.
Published Wheneverwefeelikeit by Shadow Wall Press
Contributors:
Dave Gitomer
Scott C.Draggo
Caitlin Collins
Ron Androla
Columnists:
Dolomite
BEDTIME STORY
Chapter 5
A week on the road found him no less well fed, but quite a bit disheartened. Like every other sojourner since time immemorial, when the erection of adventure went without discovery release, he developed a severe case of the blues.
All those events couldn't have been coincidence. He didn't know how, but they couldn't. A little voice in his gut, or was it his cock? kept telling him he shouldn't, mustn't doubt that he was on the right trail. He was growing weary of this voice.
There was one sure way he knew to shut up such voices, and as he pushed open the door he reveled in the familiar scene before him. A horrible band on stage, the smell of fried...food? and the placing of the bar in the most easily accessible place. He was home again.
~*~
His third beer was making its way out of this world when he looked behind him and saw a strange little asian man at a table in the back. The man noticed him and promptly flipped him off, then went back to writing and talking to himself. Well, Gainor wasn't going to stand for this sort of impudence, and he got up and stalked over to show the man this. "Have a seat", the man said when he noticed Gainor standing over him threateningly.
Gainor complied. He looked at the man's papers strewn over the table, and noted the absence of any drinks. "Well?"
"Well what, jackass?"
"Why did you ask me to sit down?'
"I didn't ask."
"WHAT DO YOU WANT, DAMMIT!!?" He'd expected at least someone to turn around when he bellowed, but no one paid any attention.
"That. I'm working on my theories about emotions, and what makes certain emotions "good" or "bad". Why is anger considered wrong? Why isn't love thought of as perverse? That sort of thing."
"I...see...I'll just be over...there." eyeing the strange little man suspiciously.
"Sit down, you idiot. I want your help. I need someone to help me with an experiment in intimidation. As you can see, I'm not a very threatening personage. Though i pretended otherwise, you have quite a presence. See that drunk at the bar?"
"Which one?"
"The one slowly falling off the seat. Go over there and push him. Threaten to maim him in some way if he doesn't give you the money he owes."
He couldn't figure out why, but it seemed the most natural thing in the world to do exactly what the little man said to. So he did. And extracted 30 dollars.
"Now what?"
"What are you talking about?"
"The drunk at the bar. I got 30 bucks out of him."
"What the hell did you do that for?"
"YOU TOLD ME TO, GODAMMIT...i see. You're really good at pissing people off."
"Not people. Just you."
"So what are all these papers doing here."
"I'm putting together my thoughts for a book i'm doing. All those emotions people consider negative, hatred, rage, lust, etc..., are no more inherently wrong than love, kindness, and all those. What makes them wrong? Of course the answer is people. They don't LIKE being hated, or leered at, or slandered, so they say, 'it's WRONG to hate somebody. it's BAD to make cat calls. You’re SICK if you do these things and enjoy them."
Gainor sat for a long time staring at the wall, trying to digest what he'd been told, and deciding whether the man was right or not. He was still pondering when he heard "Last call." and was about to leave the man to his thoughts when he remembered that he hadn't hear his name.
"Whadda ya call yourself there, buddy?" He asked from the doorway
"I'm not your buddy. And some call me Yang."
~*~ chapter 5 of a story a la Dickens.
Gainor Aikens
THE FORUM
The place where all your small press email extremely local publishing dreams come true.
UNTITLED
a life of hell is life still
tortured you live
bless the infirmary you call living
for whether it is good or bad
we are here only momentarily
get what you can from what you have
learn from it
grow strong from it
take power from it and place it in your soul
for fuel to burn
death is nothingness
something must be taken
something must be learned
before we may enter the nothing
learning or not
we will become nothing
but learning and giving
learning and recording
learning and teaching
gives those next in line
the extra edge we had not
to gain preference in life
before the cycle is rejoined
and the next wave comes
without giving a bit
we are destined to go nowhere
but into the nothing
a legacy of something for the next to come
will lead the life of the future
to become better and holier
than the past
this is all we can hope
this is what it is worth
when our lives seem endless and horrid
we are hypocrites not to give on
before we die
but saints, unknown or not
if we help to raise the future
from the mistakes we thrive on daily
Scott Dragoo
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**gossip**
the whole neighborhood
is talking about
you and your
filthy writings...
says a friend
about me
...the entire family's
talking too they
say you're a wacko now
beings
this is the
only 'friend' I've
associated with
in the past
few years I
turn
blowing
a ring of smoke
to the air and
say
well when
they
stop talking about
me
I'll consider
myself
forgotten
Caitlain Collins - 10.08.98
**rainbow'd fog**
we lay naked
you and I
upside down
inside
wet dreams
here we go:
atop
cannabis clouds
all leafy veined-like puffs
elevated high
above
psychedelic starfish skeyes
twirling, swirling
tasty tiny tangerine
tits
glistening electric lightning
bolts
cotton-candied crotch
fingers tip-toeing
along
sequin’d prism'd balls
bouncin' ‘neath
chrome cock
rings
and things
and things
and wings gliding
into
glittery ganja gardened
head-banned goodies
sparkling fuck-like mist
gist
tumbling, rumblin'
spazzin'
my way
yer way
mouths swollen
with Satan's seeds
twinkle, sprinkle
little...
me and you
thunderin'
explodin'
magnetic lips
clamped
there o
baby, talk to me
let's
report
to Christ while
we're up
here.
Caitlain Collins - 10.03.98
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*blood stains the bottom of a burlap bag hanging from a branch in the woods*
Johnny Mason's brother Ed devours a big bowl of soggy sponge-like toast filled up with milky sugary coffee in a sloppy dog-like manner although he uses a large spoon. It's breakfast in the kitchen in the cellar of the Mason home. The house is built on the arc of a hill dropping down into the Conequennessing Creek. The old 3-story dwelling slants with the curve of the land like a fallen triangle, so the kitchen is in the cellar at ground-level.
It's a dirty house. Onions, skunk-cabbage, dog & dog shit, chickens, pigeons, fish-guts, & human stink odor the rooms.
Johnny calls Ed a fat pig. Ed grunts. If Johnny calls him a fat pig one too many times, he might jump from his chair & head-lock his little skinny brother. Their mother wld most certainly blame Ed, slap him like some mule, for beating up on Johnny. Ed burps a loud one. A few ants scamper from sugar granule to sugar granule across the table. Fat pig.
Johnny's my catcher on the Juniors. He's a fearless, though reckless, catcher. Sometimes it feels like I'm pitching at a rolling pillow, a jumpy chimpanzee, a leaping bullfrog. The blue chest-protector easily covers his young body, & the mask is so massive. But we have our signals. One is a fastball, a straight-ball. Two is a curve. Three is a drop. Four is a change-up. Five is a submarine curve. I throw a good submarine curve.
I pound into my glove. "C'mon, let's go practice outside."
Ed slurps up soupy slithery bread-crusts.
Johnny spins to a chair & grabs his mitt & an old ball. The field's below the Mason house thru some oak trees, some may-apple patches, & a stretch of swamp where salamanders surprise us with orange & red suddenness on slick shale. Frogs croak & locusts buzz loudly, a chicken-hawk circles over the old walnuts behind the left-field fence.
We kick dust along the third-base line.
*
My mother fixes us peanut butter & jelly sandwiches for lunch. We eat them on my picnic-table in the backyard. Both of us will make the Majors.
I think Johnny looks a little like Roberto Clemente. Clemente as a 12year old with a runny nose, dusty face, & milk-smile in the noon sun of summer. Baseball glove folded beside a paper-plate & drained glass of milk. Our hands reach for our gloves simultaneously, & we run thru yards for the top of the hill to throw the ball some more down at the field.
Just as the yards become woods we see the three White cabbage brother shuddled at the tree-line about double a homerun away. Other kids surface too. There's Regis & Packy, Burr, Tritt.
"They have something. They have something in that burlap bag," Johnnynotes.
"Yeah, let's go see."
As we approach them I hear cat-hissing & snarling. They've bagged a cat.
"The Filipi's cat! Did you see Donna Filipi eating her boogers in school? We hate the Filipi's. We got their stupid cat." Many voices speak at once.
Tony White cabbage is the oldest & ties the bag with a rope to a low branch, the terrified cat snarls & pushes all around the bottom of the burlap, the bag swings a growing pendulum weighted circle, & everybody picks up sticks & rocks & some of us punch with fists, & kick, & laugh.
ron androla
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FEATURE
Dave Gitomer
TALES OF TEENAGE LOVE
A POETIC TRILOGY
presenting part one:
YOUNG LOVERS
it was summer long ago,
when paisley was in,
Nixon was president,
and rock was alive.
where the:
grass grew high,
we were together,
you and i.
on a hillside,
such fiery ground,
I kissed your mouth,
you kissed mine.
we were in love,
once:
grass grew high,
we were together,
you and i.
we enraptured, and
caressed, lacking
knowledge of what to do.
when the:
grass grew high,
we were together,
you and i.
passions rose,
heated blood, your
eyes met mine, I knew
not what to expect.
how the:
grass grew high,
we were together,
you and i.
the weather threatened,
we exploded,
it thunderstormed,
I ran all the way home,
timeless memories live,
of a time the:
grass grew high,
we were together,
you and I
THE PADDED ROOM
How come there's only 49 stars on the flag in my office? I'll be dead in the cold, cold ground before i recognize Missouri.
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RANTING
Well, what the fuck are you staring at! Sorry, it's been one long week. Eight days is just too much. Thankfully, these seven days are almost done. Unfortunately, another seven are starting. If you missed the last Ranting, then you got some nerve showing up over here again. Since Halloween is about some drunken Christians running around "scaring away demons", all the while stealing and assaulting non-Christians and Christians alike. If this doesn't make any sense to you, then reread the last issue. If it still doesn't make any sense, fuck off. As I was saying before you interrupted me with your petty little whining for understanding, Halloween is an evil holiday that could only be the spawn of the perverted mind of someone called Innocent III. I mean, look at his name!
No good could come from that. Why didn't his parents just call him Lucifer or Beelzebub? Really, next thing you know, those damn Catholics are going to have a holiday about Jesus rising from the dead or something. Damn Catholics and their perversion. But I digress. Halloween is as sacred a holiday as the Fourth of June. Its just another candy splurge before Christmas and another excuse to dress up your children in ways that would otherwise get them beat up by high school pricks that can't eat stromboli. Now they get beat up and stolen from as well. Is this the world that the Christians dreamed of? Hell no! They dreamt of a world where they could go around and have their choice of little boys as though they were picking cherries. These guys make Michael Jackson look like the perfect babysitter. Damn Catholics. You know, Catholicism is basically a pagan religion that was screwed from the start. After all, they only picked two gods, and the one really isn't even a god. They tried to make up for it by saying that there was a third that was the son of the first, but that didn't fool anyone. How could it? Well, that's all for this issue.
As always, if you were at all offended by anything in this article, then fuck off and get a sense of humor dammit! Fucking stiffs! I bet you're Catholic too! Fuck off this chumpy right now! O hand buy F.Y.I.'s CD when it comes out shortly. It features me, under the pseudonym of Joe Shmoe Average, belting out a screaming rendition of the classic "Impotent".
Be back here soon, I will be tackling the subject of the relativity of the size of Clinton's cock when limp to the amount of silicone in Anna Nicole Smith's tits, or some other subject
Dolomite
FROM THE DESK OF DAVE
Pending an event of cataclysmic proportions, there will be no more space devoted to my spiritual life, if for no other reason than it's boring. There are other, far more pertinent things i can discuss. Such as the growing anti-Miracle Whip-and-cheese-sandwich consensus in this country.
After having spoken to at least three people, I've found that all of them have a problem with Miracle Whip and cheese as a combo in sandwich form. This leads me to the conclusion that roughly 99.9999% of the country is mentally ill. Of course there's a 97% margin of error. They mention that it would be much better with tomatoes and pickles and salami and such. I respond to these perverse suggestions with a scathing rebuke, planned far in advance, and designed to give an airtight defense, usually something like "So?" or, "That shows how much YOU know."
Now, for the dairily misinformed, here are the reasons, in no particular order, why everyone in the country is mistaken except me.
1. Miracle Whip contains no beef parts.
2. Cheese contains a negligible amount of beef parts.
3. The makers of Miracle Whip condone no activity that results in the manufacture of beef parts.
4. The makers of cheese systematically raise no cattle for the express purpose of manufacturing beef parts.
5. Miracle Whip is NOT made with rotten eggs, ala mayonnaise.
Perhaps you were expecting ten reasons. Well, don't you feel cheated? Blame Major League Baseball. Lousy playoffs.
Dave
GRAFFITI
I hate kittens too!!
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THE TOWN SCREAMER
And so, the cosmic ballet goes on
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UPCOMING ISSUE - Colonial Issue, in honor of Turkey Day. Now, I realize that the colonists had nothing to do with that particular holiday, but who thinks of Abe Lincoln when they're stuffing themselves and watching football? Comes out Thanksgiving Day.
