ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oo oo oo FREEDOM issue issue #3 oo oo oo oo October 1991 oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo TTTTTTTTTT HH HH EEEEEE oo oo TT HH HH EE oo oo TT HHHHHH EEEE oo oo TT HH HH EE oo oo TT HH HH EEEEEE oo oo oo oo oo oo UU UU N N PPPPPP L AAAAAA SSSSS TTTTTT II CCCCCC oo oo UU UU NN N PP P L A A SS TT II CC oo oo UU UU N N N PPPPPP L AAAAAA SSSSS TT II CC oo oo UUUUUU N NN PP L A A SS TT II CC oo oo UUUUUU N N PP LLLLL A A SSSSS TT II CCCCCC oo oo oo oo oo oo N N EEEEEE W W SSSSS oo oo NN N EE W W SS oo oo N N N EEEE W W W SSSSS oo oo N N N EE W W W SS oo oo N NN EEEEEE WWWWWWW SSSSS oo oo oo oo ....... the unplastic news ........ oo oo oo oo america's active global peace press-------->> oo oo oo oo FrEeDoM iSsUe oo oo oo oo FREEDOM ISSUE freedom issue oo oo oo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ______________________________________________________________________________ "A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought." - D. Sayers ______________________________________________________________________________ "when I am old I would like to have a wife and to children a boy and a girl and a big house and to dogs and freedom" Moagi 8 Years Old From Soweto, South Africa Sent from Africa by our friend Linda Jacobson ()()()()()()()()()(()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()() Freedom is an open door on holiday. ()()()()()()()()()(()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()() "Democracy is cancerous, and bureaus are its cancer. A bureau takes root anywhere in the state, turns malignant like the Narcotic Bureau, and grows and grows, always reproducing more of its own kind, until it chokes the host if not controlled or excised. Bureaus cannot live without a host, being true parasitic organisms. (A cooperative on the other hand CAN live without the state. That is the road to follow. The building up of independent units to meet the needs of people who participate in the functioning of the unit. A bureau operates on the opposite principle of inventing needs to justify the existence.) Bureaucracy is wrong as cancer, a turning away from the human evolutionary direction of infinite potentials and differentiation and independent spontaneous action, to the complete parasitism of a virus." William S. Burroughs NAKED LUNCH Grove Press, 1959 ****************************************************************************** The Postwar Blues Well I have got the idealism hangover blues Cause when I try to stop the war I loose. I went to the demonstration And I gave my big oration, But I could've stayed in bed and took a snooze. Now they have dropped a lot of bombs on old Baghdad, And made a lot of people dead, and sad. The laser bombs kept falling And the carnage was appalling. Now folks 'round here all tell me that they're glad. rev etc ****************************************************************************** "I don't take many photos. I wasn't sure why until last night when I remembered my box. There is a box, of the sort that most people keep old photos in, in a closet in Arizona. The box is filled with bits of useless crap. Contents include the obligatory pieces of string and a broken 45 record, some jingle bells on two safety pins, a couple of dog- eared play scripts, and other things not quite so identifiable. Each of the objects in that box of crap signifies something or someone that had a profound effect on me in one way or another. They are scraps of my life. I don't take many photos." Jenny Jacobs @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Freedom is ten of something big and five of something small. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ "You ain't been in this house ten seconds and already you starting something." "Takes two, Big Mamma." "Well, don't let your mouth start nothing that your ass can't stand. When you gonna get married? You need to have some babies. It'll settle you." "I don't want to make somebody else. I want to make myself." Toni Morrison SULA A Plume Book, 1973 @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ "Free your mind and your ass will follow. The Kingdom of Heaven is within." Funkadelic from the album "Free Your Mind and..." +_0(8&*(8&65$32123#$%^&**7^%$#4%65^&&***(((0)(867654$##@!#@$4#233233445454$$$ "I looked up the word politics in the dictionary and it's really a combination of two words -- poly, which means many, and tic, which means blood suckers." Jay Leno +_0(8&*(8&65$32123#$%^&**7^%$#4%65^&&***(((0)(867654$##@!#@$4#233233445454$$$ Freedom is an odor which slips in through your ear. ============================================================================= "Ideas in Modern Russia are machine-cut blocks coming in solid colors; the nuance is outlawed, the interval walled up, the curve grossly stepped." Vladimir Nabokov ============================================================================= "The Demos staff [Demos' RELCOM (RELiable COMmunication)] had learned of the coup around 6 AM on the 19th, and immediately began sending political information to the Soviet Union and the outside world. By 12:30 PM, Moscow time, I was reading a news release from the independent Soviet news agency Interfax. Although outlawed by the junta, news from Interfax, the Radio Moscow World Service, the Russian Information Agency, Northwest Information Agency (Leningrad), and Baltfax was disseminated by RELCOM throughout the coup attempt." "If these dogs win, for certain they'll throw us in prison -- we distributed the proclamation from Yeltsin and the Moscow and Leningrad Soviets throughout the entire Soviet Union, together with the communiques from Interfax...Greetings from the underground." excerpts from an electronic article by: Larry Press entitled: A Computer Network for Democracy & Development ============================================================================= The following are excerpts from correspondence between Igor Shulz in Kaliningrad & Todd Tibbetts in Wallingford during the months of august and september, 1991. Igor, Tell me about the coup. We get filtered info here. -- tt Todd, If today you could ask any Russian, "What do you think about IT." 9 out of ten will guess that "IT" means the coup attempt. It was a great eruption actually. On the 19th of August, as usual, I turned on the radio. (Radio "Liberty" financed by US Congress) And then, in silence, my wife and her father and myself heard ten minutes of news. Oh! Mama Mia! The great stupid country. The great stupid people! Once more! Vengry 1956, Hruchev 1964, Praha 1968, Afganistan 1978, and...now, once more. Poor old foolish Gorbathev. I said, "Piggs!" My wife said, "Piggs!" Her father said, "Fucked piggs!" He is a pretty old man. My daughter of 7-months said nothing. I say, "May you find at least one good thing about the SYSTEM in which people are not willing to be lucky, rich and happy, but are willing to stay alive." -- Igor Igor, How did the Idiocy of "The Persian Gulf War" look through your eyes? Plus, we hear stories of the SU consumers having a tough time getting goods for survival. How are you doing? Stop by Connecticut sometime and I'll get us a pizza. -- tt Todd, About "Persian Gulf War": It isn't most bloody war. Besides, it's too dangerous to permit a barbarian to have free actions. War is awful, but endless attempts to persuade made WW2 possible. You must keep in mind that the level of humanity in SU have been fallen constantly. In the morning I saw in shop the battle for a milk packets. It's terrible. People become very wicked. My family spent 600-700r for food in one month only. (50-60% of people have year income of 2000-5000r) I can not imagine how they live on this money. My year income is 12,000r. I have not a phone, car, motorcycle... but I have two bicycles. I have TV set, which I bought 3 years ago for 685r. (now it costs 4000r) Only two of my friends have a VCR (8000-12000r) A second-hand car costs 20,000-150,000r. Flat (2-3 rooms) is cost 100,000. You may see, that you not soon will have possibility to treat me by a pizza. -- Igor Igor, So, what does the SU really think of Americans? -- tt Todd, Ten years ago this is what we believed: Poor blacks are die off due to hungry and illness. Most peoples are living under bridges in cardboard box homes. And same time kapitalist piggs...and so on. Brrr! It's impossible to be living so. Now: Each American -is slim, slender, sunburned; -has car for himself, for wife, for babies and little car for his dog (of course each year cars change) -has his own home. It isn't big - of 10-15 rooms, plus two toilet rooms and two bathrooms (for male and female) -are living on credit (with delayed payment) -has in his home:2-3 phone, 2-3 TV sets, VCR, computer, audio set -has shares of South Africa mines -has dinner in McDonald. He have supper with his woman in restaurant on the Broadway. -has rest month on the Havay islands (or, in bad case, on Californy beaches) -is feeling disregard of everything from abroad (US is excellent of all) -drinks often, a few, and never get drunk -nobody was hearing that American's are reading a book -loves American president, American hymn and American flag -- Igor ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ "If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war." A senior Pentagon official, quoted in The New Republic, on why U.S. military censors refused to release video footage of Iraqi soldiers being sliced in half by helicopter cannon fire. -- Newsweek ============================================================================== Freedom is a salty crunch on tuesday. ============================================================================== " 'Yes master, yes master,' she answered softly, dropping her eyes. But as soon as she was out of the room she began to sing: 'The white cockroach she marry The white cockroach she marry The white cockroach she buy young man The white cockroach she marry.' " Jean Rhys Wide Sargasso Sea 1966 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ "You are free and that is why you are lost." Franz Kafka ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Some Suess trivia from Alison Chaiken : The idea of "green eggs and ham" comes from the all-green breakfast served to freshmen at Dartmouth College, where Theodore Suess Geisel was a student. Green milk, green oatmeal, green oj, green eggs, green ham... |?|\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\|?| SHORT FICTION ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TENSE #2 by Todd Tibbetts B E G I N N I N G ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ On the left side of Court Street a painter (a computer artist) cut his finger nails with a Ginsu knife, hacking the nails too short, painfully short, as self punishment for not taking his art seriously enough. His name was Anthony, but most of his women friends called him The Sperm King. ----+---- On the right side of Court Street, Glaslow Construction pounded away, erecting a thirteen story mammoth high-rise. The construction project serves as a backdrop to our story of Court Street. Louie Splatt was foreman of said project, although he was about as far from a leader as a taxi driver's growl is from Pavoratti. And, speaking of Pavarotti, he is who was playing on Louie's stereo box up at the far unfinished skeleton-like corner of the thirteenth floor; he is who was playing when Louie saw her...or, IT, floating there. Yes, Pavarati was jamming when Louie saw that shimmering form in the air. But that is for the middle of our story and for this, the beginning part of the story, all a reader need know is: As the computer painter Anthony "The Sperm King" Fleckstein cut at his fingers with the Ginsu, Louie Splatt was complaining about his wife again. "That bitch packed me chopped liver again!" He yelled this to his friend and coworker, Sal. Sal strained his ears to hear over the Saws-all and welding moan as it crunched up through the temporary plywood floors from the 12th level below. "Doesn't she know I hate this shit?" With that Louie stood, crossed to the open edge of the structure and gazed blankly down at Court Street below. He heard the grinding of the Saws-all eating through a chunky metal strip. He thought of how hard the metal must be and he thought further of how hard the saw must be in order to cut that metal. He gave the chopped liver sandwich a squeeze. He thought of his wife and how she complained nightly about their lack of sex. She did not understand that there were too many T.V. channels and too little time. A strange quick grinding noise shot up from the floor below and the saw sounds stopped suddenly. "I hate this shit," Louie screamed as he threw the chopped liver sandwich overhand at the street below. It waved and summersalted, careening toward the earth and peeling apart. Louie stared at the sandwich's slow motion plummet and when he sniffed air through his gaping hairy nostrils he thought he smelled the thickness of a weird summer storm approaching. Louie grabbed a sledge hammer and trudged back to work. Later in the day he would hear the news that Old One-Eyed Hector had sawed his pinky off with the Saws-all that morning on the 12th floor. M I D D L E ^^^^^^^^^^^ The day was Tuesday and Anthony huffed up the 13 flights to his studio. The elevator had been out-of-order due to some monday night disturbance involving an escaped zoo leopard and an Australian nun suffering a nervous breakdown. Anthony did not quite get the entire story, he only half listened to the doorman while staring blankly at the set of steps he would have to climb. At his studio door he puffed slightly, pulling his keys from deep in his pocket. He pondered while unlocking his door. The morning was shaping up to be a strange one. It began at Pierre's Breakfast Taco Emporium when Anthony had received $37.50 in change after giving the new cashier a mere two dollar bill. Then, just before he entered his studio building, he stepped firmly on the remains of a chopped liver sandwich. At that moment he remembered what his old uncle "Zebra" Donald had once told him: "Kid, if you don't give respect to woman, you will be the chopped liver of the world." Two weeks after he said that, "Zebra" Donald joined a Kiwi fruit cult and moved to Borneo. Anthony always took anything "Zebra" Donald said with a whole shaker of salt...but, at times, even maniacs saw the truth, or the outline of truth. The knob turned and Anthony was in. He gawked at the piles of half-finished artwork and he sighed. Then he sighed a second time. ----+---- Across Court Street, morning coffee freshly gulped, Louie set to work alone, listening to Pavoratti. His two co-workers had called in sick, both having contracted bocholism from a bad strain of canned eggplant. So Louie was recording measurements by himself. Louie later straddled a thin 4x8 plank during his morning cigarette break. Under a layer of city smell and through the cigarette cloud he caught the scent of feminine perfume. Louie turned into the breeze and spied a shimmering figure, a wild figure flying in a tease on air above his building. This thing was female, her form gliding around the edge of the thirteenth floor, circling and dipping. Louie sprang to his feet and twisted, arms outstretched, spinning, eyes clasped on the swirling magic body in the sky. He was drop jawed. Her breasts received his stares through the streaming white diaphanous gown clinging closely at her chest and legs. Her limo black hair wisps rose, fell and twisted but never tangled. This She-Thing levitated and, though her face was nearly translucent, it radiated contentment. "Wow, look at those tits," Louie sighed. He watched how thin material clung at her nipples. To him this vision seemed like a centerfold without a staple. Strangely, at no point did he wonder who or what she might be. He only traced the contours of her front with his pupils and drooled slightly. ----+---- On the left side of the street, the computer artist Anthony was pushing his mouse. On his three-foot screen, colors were not shaping up like he knew they could. He sprang back rolling in his chair; turning and standing. HE SAW HER. His face and hands pressed up to the glass. He saw calm. He smelled serenity. He scanned his view to see if anyone else was catching this action. "Wow, look at those eyes," Anthony gasped. Her eyes, even from across Court Street, shone as slick black marbles...as if her pupils had dilated to fill the entire eye, they shone blacker than her black black hair. He felt the thing knew he was watching her, but the vividness of her awareness did not seem awkward or out-of-place. He was involved with attempting to smell her through the glass and posed no questions. After wisking to a spot thirteen stories above the center of Court Street, she seemed to rest...hanging calmly on an air pillow. Suddenly she rose in a shot toward the sky, beyond the sky, toward something unseen and high. That moment was when the power clicked off. The entire city was without electricity for nine hours. ----+---- Louie reached at the sky, straining to see the pornographic figure in the breeze. He passed out in a dead sleep on the plywood floor, a cinder block as a pillow. ----+---- Anthony saw the shining figure disappear in a cloud. He turned to see that the street lights below had ceased to flash and traffic was building into a confused mass. His lights were out. His clocks had stopped. But, his computer still chugged with power. The last thought he had before passing out was that he didn't have an emergency generator for his computer so how could... ++++-++++ Anthony and Louie simultainously experienced their first wet dreams in over five years on that mysterious tuesday afternoon on Court Street. And on that afternoon came a fresh rain which washed against the buildings with a patter like spiders in tennis shoes. E N D ^^^^^ On Wednesday morning, the sky was clearing, but still dull. The previous day Louie had woke from a dream, confused and panting in the new rain. At home on Tuesday night, he fought with his wife, slapped her and went to sleep as usual. In his bed Louie convinced himself that what he "saw" that morning must have been a combination LSD flashback/overtired wishful dream, occuring within the wierd electro-magnetic pre-storm fury. He forced himself into a black, tuneless, dreamless sleep as fast as he could. Louie was the kind of person who wanted to die soon without having to do it himself. ----+---- Across the street that Wednesday morning, Anthony was working feverishly on a series of portraits. He had worked through the night without stopping or eating or going to the bathroom. Once he'd woke up on the floor in front of the window on Tuesday afternoon with damp pants, he was possessed by this passionate desire to create. Anthony was positive he had been visited by a kind of muse, a muse whose outward appearance was strictly feminine, a muse who left dripping trails of mystical orgasm. Late Wednesday afternoon, Anthony began to slow up. He sat panting and dizzy in front of the monitor and jumped when someone touched his shoulder lightly. He spun to see his friend Angela standing near him. He had not heard her enter, he was involved, but when he saw her he reached out to hold her. He squeezed her thick torso from a sitting position, his ear against her small breasts. He looked up at her face and saw her dimples. At first she was nervous because he was panting, but she smiled when he calmed down and unbuttoned her shirt. They did not speak, they only fell to the floor and laid between loving and screwing. They touched and stroked each other alive and then they both fainted simultainously in each other's arms. ----+---- On the right side of the street, Louie was fuming. He had called his wife during lunch to complain about what she had packed him. His wife told him she was leaving to go live with her Aunt Grable in Tennesse where she planned to study molecular biology. This had enraged Louie. He paced and pounded on the thirteenth floor, screaming obscenities and nonsense. How dare that woman seek a life of her own, he thought. How dare she fly away. Then Louie's foot caught on a brick and sent him toppling. As he flew silently over the edge of the structure, he screamed, "Eat Me You biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii..." He landed thirteen floors below, his head splitting in four pieces atop a USA Today paper box. Needless to say, he died. What Anthony and Louie saw that tuesday afternoon, what they saw shimmering in the cool air, may have been an angel or a muse or a flashback or nothing at all. Or maybe there is some truth to the ghost legend of Mrs. Applehammar, who died 13 years before in a bizarre umbrella duel with a fully-dressed happy-faced clown. Whatever it was, there lives a little birdie who will testify that on a cloudy wednesday afternoon on Court Street, there trickled a giggle in the breeze, a feminine giggle which smelled like rain. That giggle scoughed at the old fallen man and smiled at the young man embraced in an after-love lock on the left side of the street. I know this because that little birdie told me. tt 91 ______________________________________________________________________________ "The only man who is really free is the one who can turn down an invitation to dinner without giving any excuse." Jules Renard !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "Now you are free. The knowledge that my father was not there ever, any more, that he was not simply hidden by walls and steel grilles; this disembowling childish dolour that left me standing in the middle of them all needing to whimper, howl, while I could say nothing, tell nobody: suddenly it was something else. Now you are free. I was afraid of it: a kind of discovery that makes one go deadcold and wary. What does one do with such knowledge?" Nadine Gordimer Burger's Daughter Penguin Books, 1979 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Freedom is a joint rolled in toilet paper. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "I don't give a shit what happens. I want you to stonewall it, let them plead the Fifth Amendment, coverup or anything else, if it'll save the plan." Richard Nixon Oval Office Tapes ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? T O P T E N R O C K A L B U M S OF ALL TIME compiled by Thalonious Platypus (The Unplastic News on-the-spot reporter) "This list pays homage to those who broke free of societal expectations, to those who found freedom in their own individual form of expression, to those who realized a dream of appearing on MTV (the ultimate freedom.)" Thalonious Platypus Tangier, 1991 format: Band Name "Album Name" (Label) 10. Fistfull of Footcorns "Calling Dr. Scholl" (Reebock Records) 9. Granola Anachronism "i hope the sixties never end" (Full Purple Helmet Records) 8. Dreary Pelican "Flaubert's Moustache" (Pepsi Inc.) 7. Duck Tails -N- Arch Supports "Dr. Cactus, roam in and borrow my tojam eggnog" (Platypi Disk) 6. Miriam and the Pop-Top Bastards "The Public is on Acid" (Leary Records) 5. Naked With Felix "My Friend's Name is Emery, But We Call Him Jim" (Quale Ltd.) 4. The Littlest Buddha "The Goths, The Visigoths and More" (best of) (Liposuction International) 3. Shakespearean Eskimo "Bite My Daddy's Laundry" (Taming of My Shoe Inc.) 2. The Insertion Ladybug Quartet Live with Petchuli Guru "Living Happy Buttcakes at Weird Monster High School" (Tie-Dye Inc.) 1. Anal Flapjack "nuclear hemorrhoid" (soundtrack) (Viscous Vinyl) Thaloneous would like to thank the following sources: Rolling Stone Magazine MTV Madonna Inc. Spin Magazine Bop Magazine People Magazine Coca-Cola Co. ============================================================================== Freedom is a ten mile fence next to a two foot lake. ============================================================================== "When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other." Eric Hoffer OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOO OOO OOO S T A Y T U N E D..... OOO OOO OOO OOO Next Months Issue: OOO OOO OOO OOO ---> the unplastic news field trip II OOO OOO OOO OOO ---> Continuing Story #2 OOO OOO OOO OOO ---> Quotes OOO OOO OOO OOO ---> Letters from the Net OOO OOO OOO OOO OOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOO OOO OOO OOO the unplastic news OOO P A S S OOO OOO OOO OOO OOO tibbetts@hsi.hsi.com OOO T H I S OOO OOO Connecticut, U.S.A. OOO OOO OOO OOO O N OOO OOO OOO OOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO "Oh, God! Send an A-bomb on our heads!"